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This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
UN humanitarian coordinator alarmed at deteriorating conditions in besieged Syrian towns
Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 5 July 2016 Cite as UN News Service, UN humanitarian coordinator alarmed at deteriorating conditions in besieged Syrian towns, 5 July 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/577cc98940c.html [accessed 27 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
5 July 2016 - The United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Syria has expressed alarm over reports of deteriorating humanitarian conditions and urgent medical evacuation needs in the towns of Madaya, Foah, Zabadani and Kefraya, where more than 62,000 people are besieged.
In a statement, Yacoub El Hillo, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria, called for the parties to the "Four Towns Agreement" to allow for immediate and unconditional access for humanitarian actors.
"While parties to the agreement had committed to ensure humanitarian assistance to civilians trapped in the Four Towns, we have not been able to do so since April," said Mr. El Hillo.
"We all remember too well the disturbing images of starving children in Madaya earlier this year, many of whom have died even after aid was finally allowed in. We are calling on all parties involved to ensure this doesn't happen again. Immediate and unconditional humanitarian deliveries to the four towns must take place now," he added.
Despite approval granted in May and June by the Syrian Government for the UN and humanitarian partners to provide assistance to besieged civilians in the four towns, access has not been possible because of tension among parties to the agreement, aerial bombardment in Idleb, and shelling on Foah and Kefraya, the Humanitarian Coordinator said.
Yesterday, the Government of Syria authorized "yet again" the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the four towns under the July plan, allowing the UN and partners a "unique opportunity" to reach besieged people with aid during the upcoming holy days of Eid al-Fitr, Mr. El Hillo said.
The Humanitarian Coordinator emphasized that the UN is equally concerned over the delays in conducting urgent medical evacuations from the four towns.
"Our teams stand ready to proceed with the medical evacuation of the sick and wounded. We ask the parties to let us help the most vulnerable, and put an end to the tit-for-tat approach of the agreement that does not allow for emergency life-saving responses when urgently needed," he said.
Across Syria, about 5.5 million people are in need in hard-to-reach and besieged areas with limited access to basic life-saving assistance and protection. Of that number, close to 600,000 are in 18 besieged areas including the four towns.
"The United Nations is once again calling for the immediate lifting of all sieges of civilians in Syria. Using besiegement that results in starvation as a method of warfare is a crime under International Humanitarian Law," Mr. El Hillo emphasized.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, a follow-up convoy to besieged East Harasta went ahead with food, medicines and other essentials for 10,000 people. This area was last reached by a UN inter-agency convoy on 18 May, the office of the spokesperson for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted in a statement briefing.
UN rights office condemns killing of Kenyan human rights lawyer
Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 5 July 2016 Cite as UN News Service, UN rights office condemns killing of Kenyan human rights lawyer, 5 July 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/577cca2340c.html [accessed 27 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
5 July 2016 - The United Nations human rights office today condemned the killing of Kenyan human rights lawyer Willie Kimani, his client Josphat Mwenda, and their taxi driver, Joseph Muiruri, on 23 June, in a context of persistent allegations of extrajudicial killings by police forces.
"It is imperative to throw full light on what happened and to establish all responsibilities related to these atrocious murders," said Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in a bi-weekly press briefing in Geneva.
Calling on the Kenyan authorities to strengthen efforts towards accountability, the spokesperson said the authorities should also take urgent measures to prevent extrajudicial executions and police brutality and other serious violations.
"These are steps the Kenya authorities have committed to, including in last year's Universal Periodic Review, and they are essential if trust is to be restored before elections take place next year. We also call on the authorities to ensure a safe and enabling environment in which civil society can operate freely and without fear," Mr. Colville said.
According to reports, the three men disappeared after Mr. Kimani and Mr. Mwenda attended court in Mavoko, some 30 kilometres east of Nairobi, in a case involving an officer from the Administration Police.
Mr. Mwenda had been shot and injured by the police officer in April 2015, and then charged with fictitious crimes, the spokesperson said. Willie Kimani, who had been working with a non-governmental organization, International Justice Mission, had been assisting Mr. Mwenda with his case. Mr. Mwenda had reportedly been receiving intimidation and threats in the run-up to the hearing.
The two men and their driver were allegedly briefly detained inside a container in a police compound before being executed. On 30 June, their bodies, which reportedly showed signs of torture, were found in a river to the north-east of Nairobi, Mr. Colville said.
"Kenya's Attorney General has stated that no effort will be spared to identify those responsible for the killings, and the Inspector General of Police announced that a thorough investigation would be conducted," the spokesperson said, adding that three police officers have been arrested so far.
A "welcome development" was the pledge by the Attorney General that the Prevention of Torture bill would be presented in Parliament within 28 days, Mr. Colville said.
According to some non-governmental sources, as many as 53 people may have been summarily executed by police forces between January and April 2016. The Kenya National Human Rights Commission also documented 25 cases of extrajudicial killings and 81 cases of "enforced disappearances" by police and other security agencies in the context of the counter terrorism operations between 2013 and 2015.
Saudi Arabia: UN condemns bomb attacks in three cities, including near mosque in Medina
Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 5 July 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Saudi Arabia: UN condemns bomb attacks in three cities, including near mosque in Medina, 5 July 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/577ccaa840b.html [accessed 27 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
5 July 2016 - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned yesterday's terrorist attacks in the cities of Jeddah, Qatif and Medina in Saudi Arabia.
"These crimes are all the more despicable as they were carried out as residents were preparing for Eid al-Fitr celebrations to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan," the Secretary-General said in a statement issued today by his spokesperson's office.
Two security officers were wounded in the city of Jeddah shortly after midnight in Monday's first bombing attack, according to reports. The second attack took place outside a Shia mosque in the city of Qatif, while four security officers were reportedly killed and five others were injured in another attack near the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina.
Expressing his deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and to the Government and people of Saudi Arabia, the Secretary-General said he hoped that those responsible for the crimes will be identified and brought to justice.
"He stresses the need to intensify regional and international efforts to prevent and combat terrorism," the statement said. Mr. Ban also wished a speedy recovery to those injured.
Also today, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, deplored the attack in Medina.
"This is one of the holiest sites in Islam, and for such an attack to take place there, during Ramadan, can be considered a direct attack on Muslims all across the world," said Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in a press briefing note.
"The significance of this attack cannot simply be measured in terms of the four policemen who were reported to have been killed, and the physical damage. It is an attack on the religion itself," the spokesperson added.
UN and partners warn of growing poverty for Syrian refugees
Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 5 July 2016 Cite as UN News Service, UN and partners warn of growing poverty for Syrian refugees, 5 July 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/577ccaca40d.html [accessed 27 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
5 July 2016 - While significant progress has been made in providing assistance, the number of Syrian refugees living in poverty continues to rise in host countries in the region and access to basic services remains a critical challenge, a new United Nations report warned today.
The mid-year report of the 2016 Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan, released by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and more than 200 international and national actors, examines progress this year in helping refugees and host communities in Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Egypt.
With the Syria conflict entering its sixth year, host governments and communities continue to bear a heavy political, economic, social and security burden. Public institutions are under extreme pressure to deliver basic services to an increasingly large number of vulnerable people, testing the limits of existing infrastructure.
The report finds that with the generous support of donors, partners in the Plan have in 2016 delivered cash assistance to 102,853 households, food to 2,035,767 individuals, 1,090,795 primary health care consultations, shelter assistance to 25,148 households and other forms of emergency assistance to refugees and host populations. Support was provided to 5,603 people to find employment.
A key aim of the Plan is to invest in national services and systems in the host countries, which are under increased strain, and partners report that almost 200 education and health facilities were supported.
There was also promising news in the livelihoods sector, with work permits issued by Jordan to Syrians and a new regulation allowing Syrian refugee access to employment in Turkey. These positive initiatives, supported at February's London Conference on Syria, need to be matched by the international community with continuing generous funding and responsibility sharing.
Refugees living under the poverty line
Despite this progress, the report warns of growing poverty. It says that in Lebanon, the average debt held by refugee households has increased over the first quarter of 2016 and the number of people living below the poverty line has risen to 70 per cent compared to 50 per cent in 2014.
In Jordan, 90 per cent of registered Syrian refugees in urban areas are below the national poverty line, while over 67 per cent of families are living in debt. In Egypt, some 62,000 refugees are living in poverty.
The report notes that 30 per cent or $1.38 million, of the $4.55 billion sought by UN agencies, inter-governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) under the Plan, had been received as of 31 May.
UN rights chief deplores terrorist attack in Baghdad; calls on Iraqi authorities to protect civilians
Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 5 July 2016 Cite as UN News Service, UN rights chief deplores terrorist attack in Baghdad; calls on Iraqi authorities to protect civilians, 5 July 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/577ccb264b.html [accessed 27 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
5 July 2016 - The United Nations human rights chief today deplored the terrorist bombing in Baghdad on Sunday that reportedly killed more than 150 people, calling on Iraqi authorities to do more to protect civilians as well as halt uncontrolled militias from continuing to take revenge on civilians fleeing towns recaptured from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh).
I utterly condemn this latest horrendous ISIL atrocity, targeting innocent civilians who were celebrating Ramadan in the heart of Baghdad, said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein in a news release issued by his Office (OHCHR). Along with other recent abominations associated with ISIL in Dhaka, Istanbul and Orlando, the sheer unrestrained viciousness of these people defies belief.
The High Commissioner warned, however, that acts of revenge and hasty, injudicious policy decisions in reaction to such attacks are simply helping ISIL carry out its strategy to divide societies and promote hatred.
Emphasizing that ISIL needs to be defeated, and defeated soon, Mr. Zeid stressed that in trying to defeat them, the international community must be careful not to react to their provocations in the way ISIL predicts and wants the community to react.
We need not just to be stronger than they are, but cleverer than they are. And in this we are failing badly, not just in Iraq but in a variety of responses all over the world, enabling them to tap into resentments about heavy-handed or unlawful responses to recruit more followers, create more fanatics and suicide bombers, he said.
The High Commissioner said that following the loss of Ramadi and Fallujah, with Mosul likely to be the next big battleground, he fears there will be more of such atrocities by ISIL, as they seek to make Iraq implode once more.
The way we react, in Iraq and elsewhere, will in many ways decide whether ISIL benefits from its indiscriminate acts of mass murder, or is ultimately destroyed by them, the UN human rights chief said.
Mr. Zeid also urged the Iraqi authorities to take immediate action to locate and free more than 600 men and boys reportedly abducted by a militia group involved in the recapture of Fallujah from ISIL in June.
On 1 June, according to various witnesses interviewed in Iraq, approximately 8,000 civilians, including some 1,500 men and boys over the age of 14, left their village in Saqlawiyah, near Fallujah, the High Commissioner said. Nearly all belonged to the Albo Akash clan of the al Mahamda Tribe. In the distance they saw what appeared to be a line of government forces, who hailed them with loudspeakers, saying the villagers had nothing to fear from them. However, once they reached the line, witnesses said that hidden behind the Iraqi flags they saw the flags of a militia called Kataaib Hezbollah.
The militia fighters immediately separated the men and teenage boys from the women and children, who were transferred to government-run camps for displaced people near Amiryat al Fallujah. On 5 June, the males were separated into two groups one consisting of 605 men and boys, and the other of around 900, and the fate of the larger group is currently unknown, the High Commissioner said.
Noted that this appears to be the worst but far from the first such incident involving unofficial militias fighting alongside government forces against ISIL, the UN human rights chief urged the Government of Iraq to take serious action to prevent further occurrences, including bringing those responsible to account.
These crimes are not only abhorrent, Mr. Zeid said, they are also wholly counterproductive. They give ISIL a propaganda victory, and push people into their arms. They increase the likelihood of a renewed cycle of full-throttle sectarian violence.
People who escape from ISIL should be treated with sympathy and respect, not tortured and killed simply on the basis of their gender and where they had the misfortune to be living when ISIL arrived, he added.
This disastrous toll is attributable in part to flawed or non-existent protective mechanisms but above all to the alarming level violence, corruption and impunity in most of the region's countries a region that is now one of the world's most dangerous for media personnel.
As in 2015, Mexico continues to register the biggest death toll, with nine journalists murdered in the first half of 2016. It is followed by Guatemala with five, Honduras with three, Brazil with two and Venezuela and El Salvador with one.
None of these countries is officially at war, but each of them suffers from a significant degree of structural violence linked to ubiquitous armed groups that include Mexico's cartels and Central America's "maras."
The motive of most of these deaths is still unknown*. When the police investigate them, the investigations soon get bogged down and are obstructed by corrupt officials. Impunity is, more than ever, at the centre of a vicious circle of violence against media personnel and journalism's chronic depreciation.
The circumstances of these murders are usually very similar. The victims are often radio hosts or local correspondents based in regions far from major cities who cover crime, corruption or sensitive social issues. They are gunned down by "sicarios" (hit-men) near their home or workplace and in some cases they had been warned in advance about their reporting.
If there is any room for doubt, the police and judicial authorities quickly rule out any connection between the murder and the victim's work as a journalist. They often try to cast doubt on the quality of the victim's journalism and even go so far as to suggest that the victim was linked to local criminal groups.
"The toll of murders of journalists in Latin America in the first six months suggests that 2016 will be a terrible year for the region," said Emmanuel Colombie, the head of RSF's Latin America desk.
"The spiralling violence, especially in Mexico and Central America, is transforming Latin America into one of the world's most dangerous regions for media personnel. When you add the countless attacks, abductions, enforced disappearances, threats and cases of judicial harassment, you end up with a climate of terror in which journalists are clearly no longer at home. It is high time the region's leaders did their duty and undertook to do everything possible to end this deadly spiral."
The Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression that was adopted by the Organization of American States (OAS) says: "The murder, kidnapping, intimidation of and/or threats to social communicators, as well as the material destruction of communications media violate the fundamental rights of individuals and strongly restrict freedom of expression. It is the duty of the state to prevent and investigate such occurrences, to punish their perpetrators and to ensure that victims receive due compensation."
Many OAS member states seem to have forgotten these principles because they do not treat the protection of journalists as a priority. Only two Latin American countries, Colombia and Mexico, have created national mechanisms for protecting journalists and in both countries the mechanisms fail to serve their purpose because they are cruelly denied adequate financial and human resources and autonomy vis-a-vis the political class.
As a result of strong pressure from civil society and journalists' associations, a mechanism is in the process of being created and implemented in Guatemala. In response to the almost total impunity for crimes against journalists in Honduras, RSF is calling for the creation of an independent investigative body with trained and qualified personnel that is able to clearly establish the links between the murders of journalists and their work and to make its findings public.
The 2016 toll as of 1 July:
Mexico, 149th in RSF's 2016 press freedom index: 9 victims
- Marcos Hernandez Bautista, 38, killed on 21 January 2016, Oaxaca state.
Media: Noticias, Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca.
- Reinel Martinez Cerqueda, 43, killed on 22 January 2016, Oaxaca state.
Media: El Manantial community radio.
- Anabel Flores Salazar, 32, killed on 9 February 2016, Veracruz state.
Media: El Sol de Orizaba.
- Moises Dagdug Lutzow, 65, killed on 20 February 2016, Tabasco state.
Media: head of the VX media group.
- Francisco Pacheco Beltran, 55, killed on 25 April 2016, Guerrero state.
Media: El Sol de Acapulco.
- Manuel Santiago Torres Gonzalez, 48, killed on 14 May 2016, Veracruz state.
Media: Noticias MT website, TV Azteca.
- Elidio Ramos Zarate, 44, killed on 19 June 2016, Oaxaca state.
Media: El Sur.
- Zamira Esther Bautista, 44, killed on 20 June 2016, Tamaulipas state.
Media: freelancer, El Mercurio and La Verdad.
- Salvador Garcia Olmos, 31, killed on 29 June 2016, Oaxaca state.
Media: Radio Tuun Nuu Savi.
Guatemala, 121st in RSF's 2016 press freedom index: 5 victims
- Mario Roberto Salazar, 32, killed on 17 March 2016, Jutiapa department.
Media: head of Radio Estereo Azucar.
- Wiston Leonardo Cano Tunchez, 41, killed on 8 April 2016, Escuintla department.
Media: Radio La Jefa presenter.
- Diego Salomon Esteban Gaspar, 22, killed on 30 April 2016, Quiche department.
Media: Radio Sembrador.
- Victor Hugo Valdez Cardona, 65, killed on 7 June 2016, Chiquimula department.
Media: Chiquimula Vision presenter.
- Alvaro Alfredo Aceituno Lopez, 65, killed on 25 June 2016, Quetzaltenango department.
Media: director of Estereo Ilusion.
Honduras, 137th in RSF's 2016 press freedom index: 3 victims
- Marlon David Martinez Caballero, 27, killed on 7 February 2016, Cortes department.
Media: Radio TopMusic presenter.
- Dorian Hernandez, 27, killed on 16 June 2016, Lempira department.
Media: freelance photographer, former producer for GRT Channel 31.
- Elmer Cruz, 30, killed on 19 June 2016, Yoro department.
Media: music programme presenter for local TV channel.
Brazil, 104th in RSF's 2016 press freedom index: 2 victims
- Joao Valdecir de Borba, 51, killed on 10 March 2016, Parana state.
Media: Radio Difusora AM presenter.
- Manoel Messias Pereira, 46, killed on 9 April 2016, Maranhao state.
Media: Sediverte.com blogger.
Venezuela, 139th in RSF's 2016 press freedom index: 1 victim
- Ricardo Duran Trujillo, 45, killed on 19 January 2016, Caracas.
Media: government press officer (Distrito Capital)
El Salvador, 58th in RSF's 2016 press freedom index: 1 victim
- Nicolas Humberto Garcia, 23, killed on 10 March 2016, Ahuachapan department.
Media: presenter on Radio Expressa, Voces al Aire.
*Note: RSF has not been able to include all of these murders in its official figures, used for its Barometer and the World Press Freedom Index, because of the absence of sufficiently clear information about the local investigation and therefore about the link between the murder and the victim's journalistic work.
His Excellency Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov
President of the Republic of Turkmenistan
c/o H.E. Meret Orazov, Ambassador
Embassy of the Republic of Turkmenistan in the U.S.
2207 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20008
Dear President Berdimuhamedov,
July 7, 2016 marks one year since Saparmamed Nepeskuliev, a freelance journalist who contributed to RFE/RL's Turkmen Service and Alternative Turkmenistan News, has been in custody. For much of that time he has been in incommunicado detention. We the undersigned, are writing to call for an end to his wrongful imprisonment and urge his prompt release.
Prior to his disappearance, Mr. Nepeskuliev reported on economic development, infrastructure, social services, and education in Turkmenistan's western regions with the aim of informing citizens about challenges facing their communities and of helping them to improve their lives. He went missing in Avaza on July 7, 2015 and, after three weeks, on July 28, his family learned that he was being detained in a prison in Akdash. On August 31, 2015, in closed proceedings, Mr. Nepeskuliev was convicted on fabricated charges of narcotics possession and sentenced to three years in prison by a Turkmenbashi city court.
In light of concerns expressed by the UN Human Rights Committee about conditions in detention in Turkmenistan and the risk of ill-treatment including torture (See the Human Rights Committee, CCPR/C/TKM/CO/1, para. 9), we fear for Mr. Nepeskuliev's health and safety. We have not been able to obtain any information about Mr. Nepeskuliev's welfare since September 2015. Our concern for Mr. Nepeskuliev is intensified by our recollection of the fate of Ogulsapar
Muradova, an RFE/RL contributor who died in a Turkmen prison under suspicious circumstances in September 2006.
Mr. Nepeskuliev's case has been reviewed by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which in December 2015 designated his detention "arbitrary" because he "has been held incommunicado with no access to a legal representative; he was deprived of his right to legal assistance of his own choosing" and he "has been deprived of liberty for having peacefully exercised his right to freedom of expression as guaranteed by article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights." The Working Group called for his release and that he be compensated.
Numerous rights groups and NGOs have protested Mr. Nepeskuliev's detention, and called on EU officials to raise his case during the recent EU-Turkmenistan Human Rights Dialogue in May.
As representatives of our respective organizations and leaders of the international NGO community, Mr. President, we are committed to promoting and protecting the same international conventions and standards guaranteeing international law and human rights that Turkmenistan has pledged to uphold. Mr. Nepeskuliev's conviction on trumped-up charges and his incommunicado detention are violations of his rights as guaranteed by Turkmenistan's constitution and its commitments under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Turkmenistan is a party. We call for his immediate release.
Sincerely,
Thomas Burr, President, National Press Club
Ivar Dale, Senior Adviser, Norwegian Helsinki Committee
Matthew Fischer-Daly, Coordinator, Cotton Campaign
Judy Gearhart, Executive Director, International Labor Rights Forum
Delphine Halgand, U.S. Director, Reporters Without Borders
Robert Herman, PhD, Vice President for International Programs, Freedom House
Ryota Jonen, Director, World Movement for Democracy
Thomas Kent, President, RFE/RL, Inc.
Denis Krivosheev, Deputy Director (Research), Europe and Central Asia Regional Office, Amnesty International
Ruslan Myatiev, Editor, Alternative Turkmenistan News
Nina Ognianova, Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator, Committee to Protect Journalists
Kate Watters, Executive Director, Crude Accountability
Title Report on the mission to the People's Republic of Bangladesh
Publication Date June 2015
Country Bangladesh
Related Document(s) Rapport de mission au Bangladesh du 2 au 14 avril 2015
Cite as France: Office francais de protection des refugies et apatrides (OFPRA), Report on the mission to the People's Republic of Bangladesh, June 2015, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/577ccdf44.html [accessed 27 October 2022]
Comments Mission organised by the French Office for Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) with the participation of the National Court of Asylum (CNDA) : from 2 to 14 April 2015
AU: Activists Challenge Attacks on ICC
Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 6 July 2016 Cite as Human Rights Watch, AU: Activists Challenge Attacks on ICC, 6 July 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/577ccffe4.html [accessed 27 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
Activists from across Africa clarify misconceptions about the International Criminal Court (ICC) and highlight the need for African governments to support the court in a video released today by 21 African and international nongovernmental organizations.
In January 2016, the African Union (AU) gave its Open-Ended Committee of African Ministers on the ICC a mandate to develop a "comprehensive strategy" on the ICC, including considering the withdrawal of African member countries from the court. The committee met in April and agreed on three conditions that needed to be met by the ICC in order for the AU to agree not to call on African countries to withdraw from the court. These include a demand for immunity from ICC prosecution for sitting heads of state and other senior government officials which is contrary to a fundamental principle of the court.
Activists from across Africa highlight the need for African governments to support the International Criminal Court in a video by 21 African and international nongovernmental organizations.
It is not clear if the AU will consider any of the open-ended committee's assessments and recommendations at its upcoming summit in Kigali, Rwanda, from July 10 to 18.
The video features 12 African activists who raise concerns about AU actions toward the ICC.
"The reasons why we supported the establishment of a permanent court as Africa have not changed," says Stella Ndirangu of the International Commission of Jurists-Kenya. "The only thing that has changed is that now leaders are being held to account."
"To say that the ICC is targeting Africa, I think, is a misrepresentation of the situation," says Angela Mudukuti of the Southern Africa Litigation Centre. "It's more Africans making use of the court they helped to create."
"The big clash [these days] is over African leaders, the powerful few, who really want impunity for themselves, versus the vast majority, in fact all of the victims of Africa's continent, who want justice every day," says Ibrahim Tommy of the Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law-Sierra Leone.
To say that the ICC is targeting Africa, I think, is a misrepresentation of the situation. It's more Africans making use of the court they helped to create.
"Governments of the world must support [the] ICC to give justice to victims in Africa," says Chino Obiagwu of the Legal Defence and Assistance Project of Nigeria.
Six out of the nine African situations under ICC investigation came about as a result of requests or grants of jurisdictions by African governments Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Uganda, and the Central African Republic twice. Two other investigations in Africa, the Darfur region of Sudan and Libya, were referred to the court by the United Nations Security Council. In Kenya, the ICC prosecutor received the authorization of an ICC pretrial chamber to open investigations after Kenya repeatedly failed to investigate the 2007-08 post-election violence domestically.
In January, the ICC prosecutor opened the court's first investigation outside Africa, into Georgia, and is conducting several preliminary examinations of situations outside Africa including in Afghanistan, Colombia, Palestine, and alleged crimes attributed to the armed forces of the United Kingdom deployed in Iraq.
The recommendations from the open-ended committee are the latest development in a backlash against the ICC from some African leaders, which has focused on claims that the ICC is "unfairly targeting Africa." The backlash first intensified following the ICC's 2009 arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan for serious crimes committed in Darfur.
While blanket immunity for sitting heads of state is available in some domestic jurisdictions, it has never been available before international criminal courts dealing with grave crimes.
The AU, in 2015, adopted a protocol to give its continental court authority to prosecute grave crimes, but also, in a controversial provision, grants immunity for sitting heads of states and other senior government officials. That protocol will need 15 ratifications before coming into force, but has yet to be ratified by any country.
The video is endorsed by the following organizations that are part of an informal group that works to promote support for justice for grave crimes in Africa and beyond:
Africa Center for International Law and Accountability (Ghana)
African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (Uganda)
Africa Legal Aid
Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law (Sierra Leone)
Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (Malawi)
Children Education Society (Tanzania)
Club des Amis du Droit du Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo)
Coalition for the International Criminal Court (Burundi)
Coalition for the International Criminal Court (Global)
DefendDefenders East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project
Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l'Homme
Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (Uganda)
Human Rights Watch
International Commission of Jurists (Kenya)
Kenya Human Rights Commission
Kenyans for Peace with Truth and Justice
Legal Defense and Assistance Project (Nigeria)
Nigerian Coalition for the International Criminal Court
Reseau Justice Et Developpement (Togo)
Southern Africa Litigation Centre
Southern Africa Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (Zambia)
Copyright notice: Copyright, Human Rights Watch
China: UN Chief Should Stress Rights Erosion
Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 5 July 2016 Cite as Human Rights Watch, China: UN Chief Should Stress Rights Erosion, 5 July 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/577cd0854.html [accessed 27 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon should publicly press China's leaders to end their crackdown on activists and independent groups, Human Rights Watch today said in a letter to the secretary-general. Ban will visit China from July 6 to 10, 2016.
Ban's visit takes place during a period of significant erosion in the human rights situation in China, including the adoption of draconian laws on national security and foreign nongovernmental organization management, the failure to hold the state security apparatus accountable for torture and other abuses, and the imprisonment of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo. Ban's visit coincides with the first anniversary of a major crackdown on human rights lawyers and activists, 24 of whom remained arbitrarily detained.
Human Rights Watch urged Ban to reverse his practice of ignoring or downplaying human rights issues on visits to China or in discussions with senior officials. Ban should press for more access to China for UN human rights experts, an end to the harassment of activists from China who try to make use of UN human rights mechanisms, and to discuss the UN's "Human Rights Up Front" agenda, Human Rights Watch said.
"Only by speaking out publicly can Ban take the case for human rights directly to the Chinese people, who are the major driver of change," Roth said. "Private diplomacy alone has repeatedly failed. In his final months as secretary-general, Ban should call out Chinese leaders for China's downward spiral on human rights."
Copyright notice: Copyright, Human Rights Watch
Afghanistan: NATO Should Strengthen Civilian Protection
Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 6 July 2016 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Afghanistan: NATO Should Strengthen Civilian Protection, 6 July 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/577cd0c01.html [accessed 27 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member countries should endorse concrete measures to improve the protection of civilians in the conflict in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to government leaders. The NATO Summit in Warsaw, Poland on July 8 and 9, 2016, will discuss military and other support for the Afghan government as the Taliban and Afghan government forces claim an ever-increasing number of civilian lives.
NATO should press the Afghan government to curtail abuses by its security forces, including the military's misuse of schools, attacks on healthcare facilities, and recruitment of children. NATO should also appoint a high-level envoy on protection of civilians to provide expert analysis and advice.
"The Warsaw Summit is a crucial opportunity for NATO to commit to a more robust role in reducing Afghan civilian casualties," said Brad Adams, Asia director. "Despite NATO's reduced military presence and redefined support mission, the alliance is well situated to make good on its pledges to help protect civilians."
Over the last decade, millions of Afghan women, men, and children have experienced significant progress in access to health care and education. However, these important but fragile gains are at serious risk. Though the Taliban and other insurgent groups have been responsible for the vast majority of attacks that have caused significant civilian casualties, Afghan government forces are increasingly putting civilians in harm's way by occupying schools, raiding medical facilities, and recruiting children, while committing these and other abuses with impunity.
These actions imperil the very development goals Afghanistan's donors and NATO have long pledged to uphold. They undermine the legitimacy of the Afghan government, and fuel support for the insurgents.
A key area in which NATO can make a difference is with respect to the Afghan security forces' occupation of schools. As security throughout Afghanistan has deteriorated in the past 18 months, schools throughout the country have come under threat, not only from Taliban forces but also from the very Afghan security forces that are mandated to protect them.
The forces use schools many constructed by foreign donors and often the only concrete-reinforced buildings in smaller villages as their military bases during offensives into Taliban-held areas. Human Rights Watch has documented the extensive military use of schools in contested areas of Baghlan province, and the practice is on the rise in other conflict-affected areas of Afghanistan. All too often, the schools become battlegrounds as the Taliban counter-attack government positions, leaving the buildings damaged or in ruins and denying children an education until they can be rebuilt, if ever.
This misuse of schools by Afghan security forces has had a devastating effect on the right to education, affecting tens of thousands of children at all educational levels, as well as teachers and administrators. Because families are especially unlikely to allow girls to attend school if the school is being used by soldiers or is believed to be at risk of attack, this misuse of schools disproportionately harms girls' access to education.
Healthcare facilities have also been at risk. Both insurgent forces and the Afghan security forces have been responsible for these abuses. In 2015 the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan observed an increase in the number of conflict-related raids and other attacks on hospitals and clinics, as well as assaults on health personnel by all parties, including searches by Afghan Special Forces supported by international military forces. In February Afghan forces raided a clinic in Wardak province and summarily executed two patients and a child caregiver.
Both Taliban and government-backed forces use child soldiers, and cases of child recruitment more than doubled in 2015 compared with the previous year, according to a recent UN report. In a February 2016 report, Human Rights Watch documented a significant increase in child recruitment in the northeast by the Taliban, but pro-government forces are also responsible for exploiting children.
"NATO is uniquely placed to improve protection for Afghan civilians due to its high-level engagement with those in a position to stop abuses, including the very officials who are personally responsible for abuses," Adams said. "NATO should deliver on its pledges and produce concrete measures to help protect Afghan civilians from armed conflict."
Copyright notice: Copyright, Human Rights Watch
Title Israel's Compliance with the Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Alternative Report to the Fifth Periodic Report of Israel : Ill-treatment and Torture of Palestinian Children in Israeli Military Detention and Use of Excessive Force by Israeli Forces
Publisher World Organisation Against Torture
Publication Date 27 March 2016
Country Israel
Cite as World Organisation Against Torture, Israel's Compliance with the Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Alternative Report to the Fifth Periodic Report of Israel : Ill-treatment and Torture of Palestinian Children in Israeli Military Detention and Use of Excessive Force by Israeli Forces, 27 March 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/577cd6634.html [accessed 27 October 2022]
Comments Joint report with Defense for Children International Palestine. 57th Session of the Committee Against Torture (CAT) : 18 April 13 May 2016
After a prominent women's rights defender was sentenced to a further year in prison, we the undersigned international human rights and feminist organisations call on the Bahraini government to stop sentencing women human rights defenders to jail in violation of their right to free expression, and instead to follow through on international commitments to empower women.
On 22 June 2016 , Ghada Jamsheer, a writer, blogger and journalist who is President of the Womens Petition Committee (WPC), was sentenced on appeal to one year in prison by the Second High Criminal Court for four cases related to her tweets about corruption at King Hamad hospital.
Jamsheer has 12 charges against her related to this case and has already been sentenced to seven months in prison on three other related charges, in addition to one year in prison (suspended) on trumped up charges of "assaulting a police officer" while in custody [1].
She was also fined 10,000 dinars (approx. USD$26,500) for alleged defamation of the management of the hospital, headed by a member of the ruling family. Jamsheer was first arrested on 15 September 2014, and jailed for three months. She is now at risk of arrest at any time.
Jamsheer spent her birthday, 26 June, wondering if she would be arrested. "They want to jail me on my birthday, just like Zainab Al-Khawaja, to send a firm message," said Jamsheer. That message is that criticism of the royal family won't be tolerated.
Zainab Al-Khawaja was sentenced to a year in prison on her birthday on 21 October 2015, for tearing up a photo of the King, among other sentences totalling over three years. Following her release from prison in early June, she left the country to avoid further time in prison. (See: http://www.gc4hr.org/news/view/1276)
Her sister, Maryam Al-Khawaja, Co-Director OF the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), was also sentenced to a year in prison on trumped up charges of "assaulting" a police woman while in custody in September 2014 while trying to enter Bahrain. She shares a birthday with Jamsheer, as well as the threat of prison on these baseless charges if she returns to Bahrain.
In June 2016, UN Women accepted money from the Bahrain royal family to launch the HRH Princess Sabeeka Bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa Global Award for Women Empowerment, despite the fact that Bahrain remains in breach of its international human rights obligations. Women like Ghada Jamsheer, Zainab Al-Khawaja and Maryam Al-Khawaja should be empowered to speak freely and carry out their human rights activities unfettered, instead of jailing them when they speak up about injustice and corruption.
As such, and in recognition of the leadership she provides to women's rights activists from around the world from her long history of work in favour of women's rights and equality, we wish to nominate Ghada Jamsheer to be the first recipient of the Global Award for Women's Empowerment.
In addition, we reiterate our concern about the ongoing targeting of human rights defenders in Bahrain and call on the government of Bahrain to:
1. Overturn the sentences against Ghada Jamsheer and keep her free from prison;
2. Overturn the sentences against Maryam and Zainab Al-Khawaja;
3. Allow human rights defenders to carry out their work without fear of reprisals, and empower them to exercise their right to freedom of expression; and
4. Release all human rights defenders immediately and ensure their protection from any judicial harassment and persecution in relation to their human rights activities.
Belarus: new UN resolution highlights the country's appalling human rights situation
Publisher International Federation for Human Rights Publication Date 1 July 2016 Cite as International Federation for Human Rights, Belarus: new UN resolution highlights the country's appalling human rights situation, 1 July 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/577cd7b84.html [accessed 27 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
The United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council reminded the international community of the appalling situation in Belarus today by adopting a resolution that raises a wide range of human rights violations committed in the country. By renewing the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur the only watchdog the international community has to follow developments in Belarus the Council highlighted the need to continue monitoring the behavior of the Belarusian government.
Todays resolution was adopted with a large margin: while 15 states supported it, only 9 voted against, which shows widely-shared concerns with regard to the human rights situation in Belarus. [1] The resolution mentions a series of grave human rights violations for which the Belarusian government is responsible, including torture, enforced disappearances, forced labour, violations of freedoms of the media, expression and association, the arbitrary detention and harassment of human rights defenders, political opponents and journalists, and impunity for human rights violations and abuses. It also deplores the governments lack of cooperation with UN and regional human rights mechanisms.
The Human Rights Council is the main UN body for the promotion and protection of human rights. It has the ability to appoint independent experts ("Special Rapporteurs") in charge of monitoring and reporting on the situation of human rights in countries. The Human Rights Council is made up of 47 states, which serve for a three-year term. Belarus has been on the Councils agenda since the violent repression of protests related to the 2010 presidential election.
Background:
To reveal the extent and gravity of the human rights violations that continue to be committed in Belarus and to call on Human Rights Council members to support the renewal of the Special Rapporteurs mandate, in May 2016 FIDH launched a campaign entitled "Belarus: a dictatorship at the gates of the European Union": www.fidh.org/en/region/europe-central-asia/belarus/act4belarus/en
Watch the campaign video at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc9kBar82Qo
On its website, Act4Belarus also published 9 interviews of Belarusian activists who have witnessed a great deal, including: Alena Tonkacheva (Chairman of the Board of the Legal Transformation Center), Andrei Bastunets (Belarusian Association of Journalists), Raisa Mikhailouskaya (Belarusian Documentation Center), Valiantsin Stefanovic (Human Rights Center "Viasna"), Natalya Mankouskaya (Human Rights Center Identity), Inna Kulei (Solidarnost). All highlight preocuppying situations and rights that are systematically flouted: freedoms of the media and of expression, freedom of association, LGBTI rights, the right to life and the death penalty, political prisoners, etc.
Terrorist attack in Bangladesh: the government must respond with justice and rule of law
Publisher International Federation for Human Rights Publication Date 4 July 2016 Cite as International Federation for Human Rights, Terrorist attack in Bangladesh: the government must respond with justice and rule of law, 4 July 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/577cdb924.html [accessed 27 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
FIDH strongly condemns the terrorist attack that took place in a cafe in Dhaka's Gulshan District on Friday 1 July, killing 20 people. FIDH expresses its sincere solidarity with the victims, the survivors and their families and with all those who have suffered the consequences of terrorist violence across the world.
FIDH reiterates that the Bangladeshi government must ensure the safety of all of its citizens and residents of Bangladesh, and must do so in accordance with human rights and international law. The authorities must develop effective strategies to counter the rise of religious militancy, and to promote respect and non-discrimination. The government must protect the right of free peaceful expression, stop denying the presence of global terrorist networks in Bangladesh, and refrain from extreme "security measures" in violation of due process rights. In addition, the authorities must thoroughly investigate the increasing violence allegedly committed by religious extremists in the country, notably the latest attack on 1 July, with an aim to bring the perpetrators to justice through impartial and transparent judicial processes.
Sadly, no such investigations nor judicial proceedings have taken place for the numerous attacks against activists and religious minorities in the past year. Instead, under the guise of "preventing the emergence of militancy" in Bangladesh, the Bangladesh security forces executed a wave of mass arrests two weeks ago that resulted in the detention of over 15,500 people in just seven days. However, only a small fraction of those arrested two weeks ago were suspected 'militants', and there were many reports of regular civilians being detained without a warrant and forced to pay bribes in exchange for their release. In addition, members of the political opposition and human rights activists are currently in prison or constantly threatened for speaking out against violations or being critical of the regime. The government has also recently put forth increasingly restrictive laws in the name of national security that severely restrict fundamental freedoms and target human rights defenders and dissenting voices.
The fight against terrorism and security concerns cannot be used as a pretext for violating people's most basic rights. The increasing violence in Bangladesh will not be addressed by such sweeping "security measures". The mass detention of people with no warrant and total disregard for due process will only exacerbate the climate of impunity felt throughout the country, which has led to the proliferation of violence and terrorist attacks.
FIDH therefore reiterates its call for independent and transparent investigations into the violent murders, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and terrorist threats that have and continue to take place in Bangladesh, regardless of the background and political or religious affiliation of the perpetrators. Addressing impunity, with respect for due process and fundamental rights, is the only way to counter the social and political violence and re-establish a sense of rule of law in Bangladesh.
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (a partnership of FIDH and OMCT), and the Working Group of Monitoring Human Rights in Angola (GTMDH) welcome the decision of the Supreme Court to order the provisional release of the 17 rights activists jailed for participating in a book club meeting in June 2015, where one of the works under discussion was a book about non-violent resistance to repressive regimes. The organisations also welcome the recent decision of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) recognising the arbitrary nature of their detention. FIDH, OMCT, AJPD and OSISA-ANGOLA had filed a communication to the WGAD on their behalf on September 23, 2015.
On June 29, 2016, the Supreme Court of Angola eventually ordered the conditional release of 17 young activists, three months after they were jailed for rebellion and a year after their arbitrary arrest [1].
Some of the youths have spent 12 months in detention. Sixteen were released but remain subjected to Term of Residential Identity. The seventeenth, Mr. Manuel Chivonde Baptista Nito Alves, is serving a six-month prison term for "contempt of court".
Their release is provisional, pending the outcome of the appellate judicial proceedings. On March 28, 2016, the Luanda Provincial Tribunal sentenced the 16 pro-democracy activists to jail terms ranging from two years and three months to eight years and six months for the alleged crimes of "preparatory acts of rebellion" (Article 21 of the Criminal Code) and "association of criminals" (Article 263), among other charges [2].
"While we welcome the long-awaited release of sixteen of the young rights activists, we strongly deplore the judicial harassment which led to this arbitrary detention for more than a year", our organisations said today.
On the same day that the Angola Supreme Court issued its order, the WGAD released its Opinion concerning the detention of 14 of the young rights activists [3].
The WGAD considered that "these individuals were arrested and detained because of the exercise of their freedom of assembly, opinion and expression" in violation of Articles 19 and 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Articles 19 and 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). It also stated that their right to a fair trial had not been respected to the extent that their deprivation of liberty was arbitrary. The Working group finally concluded that as an adequate remedy for their arbitrary detention, the Angola authorities should immediately release the activists still in detention, compensate them and put an end to all unlawful criminal proceedings against them.
"We welcome the Opinion of the WGAD, to which our organisations submitted a communication on this case. Now the Angola authorities must implement the WGAD decision and drop all charges against the 17 activists and more generally stop the harassment of all human right defenders in the country", concluded our organisations.
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders was created in 1997 by FIDH and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT). The objective of this programme is to intervene to prevent or remedy situations of repression against human rights defenders.
The Working Group on Human Rights Monitoring in Angola (GTMDH) is a network that brings together 18 civil society organizations with nationwide coverage. The members include: ACC, AJPD, AJUDECA, ANGOLA 2000, FORDU, MBAKITA, MOSAIKO, NCC, OMUNGA, OSISA-ANGOLA, PMA, RNP+Angola, SCARJOV, SOS HABITAT.
Reading, math scores down in 1st test since COVID. How Indiana did.
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WEDNESDAY
Guns & Hoses blood drive
The Guns & Hoses Rodney Holder Memorial Blood Drive will be open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. at both the Meek Blood Center, 1150 N. 18th St., and at the Bloodmobile at KRBC/KTAB Studio, 4510 S. 14th St. For more information, call 3250-670-2799.
'George Washington: Providence'
A showing of the locally produced documentary "George Washington: Providence" will begin at 7 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre, 352 Cypress St. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students, seniors, military and children.
Other ...
Overeaters Anonymous, 8 a.m., Hinds Square Building, Room 112, 100 Chestnut St.
Blood drive, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Abilene Regional Medical Center, 6250 Highway 83/84.
Abilene Cactus Lions Club, 11:45 a.m., Cotton Patch Cafe, 3302 S. Clack St.
Abilene Wednesday Rotary Club, noon, Abilene Country Club, 4039 S. Treadaway Blvd. $12 for lunch. Jo Ann Wilson, 325-677-6815.
Kiwanis Club of Abilene, noon, Abilene Country Club, 4039 S. Treadaway Blvd.
Clearly Speaking Toastmasters Club, noon, Westgate Church of Christ, 402 S. Pioneer Drive. 325-795-5570.
Diabetes Support Group, 2-3 p.m., Stonewall County Library.
Free swim class for people with multiple sclerosis, 5:30 p.m., YMCA, 3250 State St.
Veterans Peer Support Group, 6 p.m., 765 Orange St. 325-670-4818.
Mid-week Al-Anon Family Group, 6-7 p.m., Open Door Building, 3157 Russell Ave. 325-698-4995.
Advanced square dancing, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Wagon Wheel.
Al-Anon, 7 p.m., First United Methodist Church, 1501 N. Broadway, Ballinger. 817-689-2810 or 325-977-1007.
DivorceCare support group, 7 p.m., Hillcrest Church of Christ, 650 E. Ambler Ave. 325-691-4200.
THURSDAY
Ranch gathering
COMANCHE The Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association will conduct a ranch gathering at 6 p.m. at Rathbone Hall. Information on law enforcement and legislative issues will be presented, and a complimentary beef dinner will be served. Free admission. To RSVP, contact 800-242-7820, ext. 192, or rsvp@tscra.org.
'George Washington: Providence'
A showing of the locally produced documentary "George Washington: Providence" will begin at 7 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre, 352 Cypress St. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students, seniors, military and children.
'Red, White and Tuna'
A production of "Red, White and Tuna" will be presented at 7:30 p.m. at Abilene Community Theatre, 809 Barrow St. Admission is $15 for adults and $12 for students, seniors and military. For tickets, call 325-673-6271.
Other ...
Abilene Garden Club, 10 a.m., 300 Westwood Drive.
Chronic Pain and Depression Group, 11 a.m. to noon, Mental Health Association of Abilene, 333 Orange St., 325-673-2300.
Abilene Founder Lions Club, 11:30 a.m., Al's Mesquite Grill, 4801 Buffalo Gap Road.
Kiwanis Club of Greater Abilene, noon, Beehive Restaurant, 442 Cedar St. 325-695-0092.
Mental Illness Open Support Group, 1-2 p.m., Mental Health Association of Abilene, 333 Orange St. 325-673-2300.
Blood drive, 1-6 p.m., First Baptist Church, Albany.
Abilene 42 Club, 6 p.m., Rose Park Activity Center.
PEP (People Enjoying People) Club, 6 p.m., Wylie Baptist Church, 6097 Buffalo Gap Road 325-692-4909.
Teen Recovery Group, 6-7 p.m., Mission Abilene, 3001 N. Third St.
Free certified nurturing parent class (all ages), 6-8 p.m., Mission Church, North Third and Mockingbird streets. 325-672-9398.
Take Off Pounds Sensibly, 6:30 p.m. Brook Hollow Christian Church. Weigh-in begins at 5:30 p.m. 325-665-5052.
Free swim class for people with multiple sclerosis, 6:30 p.m., YMCA, 3250 State St.
Gamblers Anonymous, 6:30 p.m., Unity Spiritual Living Center, 2842 Barrow St. 325-338-2575.
West Texas Genealogical Society, 6:30 p.m., Rose Park Senior Activity Center.
Round dancing, 7 p.m., Wagon Wheel. 325-829-1517.
Tea Party Patriots of Eastland County, 7 p.m., Myrtle Wilks Community Center, Cisco.
South Pioneer Al-Anon Group, 8 p.m., 3157 Russell Ave.
Unity Group of Alcoholics Anonymous, 8 p.m., Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest, 602 Meander St.
Hendrick Hospice Care sponsors a "Gone But Not Lost" support group the second Thursday of each month for any bereaved parent who has lost a child of any age. Information: 325-677-8516 or 1-800-622-8516.
FRIDAY
'Red, White and Tuna'
A production of "Red, White and Tuna" will be presented at 7:30 p.m. at Abilene Community Theatre, 809 Barrow St. Admission is $15 for adults and $12 for students, seniors and military. For tickets, call 325-673-6271.
'Mrs. Miniver'
As part of the Paramount Film Series, "Mrs. Miniver" will be shown at 7:30 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre, 352 Cypress St. Film historian Robert Holladay will give a lecture on the film at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $6 for adults and $5 for students, seniors, military and children. For more information, visit paramount-abilene.org.
Other ...
Abilene Chinese Corner, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Abilene Christian University library. lld09a@acu.edu.
Disabled American Veterans and Auxiliary, 6 p.m., 2555 Grape St. 325-793-9699 or 325-480-6175.
Mid-City Al-Anon, 7 p.m., First Christian Church. 325-670-4304.
SATURDAY
Zoo anniversary celebration
The Abilene Zoo will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a music festival from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Abilene Community Band, Key City Brass and others will be featured. Admission is $7 for adults, $6 for seniors, 10 cents for children ages 3-12 and free for children 2 and younger.
Movie at the library
A showing of a recent PG-rated animated movie will begin at 10:45 a.m. at the South Branch of the Abilene Public Library, 1401 S. Danville Drive. Popcorn and drinks will be provided. Free admission.
Chautauqua
BUFFALO GAP The Chautauqua Learning Series will continue with a presentation by Heather Reed on "How to Take Care of Your Family Heirlooms" from 11 a.m. to noon at Buffalo Gap Historic Village, 133 N. William St. Admission is free.
'Mrs. Miniver'
As part of the Paramount Film Series, "Mrs. Miniver" will be shown at 2 and 7:30 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre, 352 Cypress St. Tickets are $6 for adults and $5 for students, seniors, military and children. For more information, visit paramount-abilene.org.
'Red, White and Tuna'
A production of "Red, White and Tuna" will be presented at 7:30 p.m. at Abilene Community Theatre, 809 Barrow St. Admission is $15 for adults and $12 for students, seniors and military. For tickets, call 325-673-6271.
Square dance
TYE The Key City Squares will sponsor a square dance at 8 p.m. at the Wagon Wheel in Tye.
Other ...
Overeaters Anonymous, 10 a.m., Shades of Hope, 402A Mulberry St., Buffalo Gap. 800-588-4673.
Abilene Society of Model Railroaders, 10 a.m. to noon, 2043 N. Second St.
Abilene Creative Arts Club, 1:30-3:30 p.m., Buffalo Gap Historic Village, Rode Gallery. 325-514-0665.
Aglow International, 6 p.m., The Crossover, South First and Poplar streets. 325-829-8826.
DEAR ABBY: Five years into our marriage, my wife and I took a girlfriend, 'Sonya.' I fell madly in love with her. Unfortunately, my relationship with my wife cooled because she changed as a person. We ended up divorcing.
I'm still in love with Sonya, but obviously nothing will ever come of it. I'm her confidant and best friend, and she tells me all about her dating life.
I'm having trouble dealing with it, but I don't think I could handle not seeing her face light up when she speaks about her new girlfriend. My love for Sonya runs to my core it's one for the ages. I don't want to lose her as my best friend, but I don't know how to manage the pain of my unrequited love. Please help me.
Demolished
in Connecticut
DEAR DEMOLISHED: Your love for Sonya may run to the core, but it isn't returned. If she's in love with another woman, your chances of winding up with her are somewhere between slim and none. That's why you must now decide if a bleeding heart is a condition you really want to live with. My advice is to look for someone who can love you back.
DEAR ABBY: My lady friend and I have been living in the same apartment building for a year. It is a retirement community, and we each have our own apartment. (We are both in our 90s.) We are Roman Catholic and attend church services at least twice a week.
My problem is, I want her to sleep with me in the same bed, but without having sex. She says sleeping together is wrong. I said as long as we don't have sex, we are not committing a sin. I talked to a priest about this and he agreed with me. What do you think?
Nonagenarian
DEAR NONAGENARIAN: If your priest blesses it, who am I to argue?
DEAR ABBY: All my life, I've put my belt on from left to right. I never really questioned why. Just reckoned it had something to do with me being right-handed.
Recently, an old acquaintance told me I have been doing it wrong. According to him, only women do it from the left. Men belt up right-to-left.
Abby, who's right? Is there a correct way to wear a belt? Is it a gender thing, a comfort thing or does it even matter?
Not Too Big
For My Britches
DEAR NOT TOO BIG: Most men insert their belts from left to right, and most women do it from right to left. However, unless you are a member of the military and must adhere to a strict dress code, you have the right to buckle your belt whichever way you wish.
Write Dear Abby at www.dearabby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.
If I had the twisted songwriting talents of 'Weird Al' Yankovic, I could turn the song 'Summer Nights' from the play 'Grease' into a tribute to fresh produce.
'Summer produce had me a blast, oh yeah
Summer produce happened so fast.'
It could be the theme song for my regular visits to the local farmers markets.
The Abilene Farmers Market is open 7 a.m. to noon Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at the Frontier Texas! overflow parking lot at North First and Mesquite streets. Seasonal produce also is available at the Wylie Farmers Market, open 9 to 11 a.m. Wednesdays at the Early Childhood Center on Antilley Road just east of Buffalo Gap Road.
Both markets also carry breads, jams, jellies, beef, pork, eggs, soaps and other handmade goods.
This time of year, I especially look forward to buying sweet corn just hours from the field. We roast a large batch to enjoy for several meals and freeze some to use in the fall and winter.
The following recipe for Roasted Corn Salad is a great idea for leftover corn. The salad pairs well with smoked brisket or pulled pork. Or, try it as a condiment on fish or shredded pork tacos.
The original recipe is in 'Texas Home Cooking' (1993) by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison. My changes include removing the tomatoes and chipotles, using instead only the adobo sauce that comes with the chipotles. Chipotles or roasted jalapenos have a strong flavor, and I feared they would overpower and overheat the dish. I also added pimentos, black pepper and some sugar because it needed a little sweetness to round out the other flavors.
How ever you like fresh corn, enjoy it while you can because it like summer love is fleeting.
'It turned colder, so the market ends
Gotta return to the grocery store bins.'
ROASTED CORN SALAD
Ingredients
5 ears corn on the cob, roasted
2 celery ribs, diced fine
2 tablespoons pimentos, diced
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, minced
2 tablespoons sweet onion, minced
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 teaspoon adobo sauce from canned chipotle chilies (or more or less to taste)
Juice from 1/2 a lime
1/4 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste
Optional: 1 tablespoon sugar
Directions
1. Remove the kernels from the ears of corn and place in a medium bowl.
2. To the corn add the celery, pimento, cilantro and onion.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, adobo sauce, lime juice, salt and pepper. Add dressing to corn mixture and taste. If needed, add sugar.
4. Chill for several hours. Before serving, taste and adjust seasonings.
SUMMER LOVE FOR CRANBERRIES
Shortly after discovering a bag of whole cranberries in my freezer from last Christmas season, I saw a recipe for Cranberry Tea in the 2003 reprint of the 1976 'The Dallas Junior League Cookbook.'
The drink was made with the juice of boiled, strained cranberries sweetened with water and spiced with orange juice, lemon juice and a cinnamon stick.
I thought that sounded good if the weather was in the 30s. Then I wondered if the cranberry juice would pair well with brewed black tea.
After some experimenting, the answer is yes. I prefer a 50-50 blend of cranberry juice to tea. My husband preferred two parts tea to one part cranberry. Either way, it is a nice, zippy way to brighten a glass of iced tea on a hot summer day.
CRANBERRY TEA
Ingredients
1 (12-ounce) bag whole cranberries
1 quart (32 ounces) water
2/3 to 1 cup sugar
3 to 6 cups (24 to 48 ounces) brewed tea
Directions
1. In a medium saucepan, boil cranberries in water until berries pop, about 4 to 5 minutes. Strain the juice and discard the cranberry pulp.
2. Return juice to saucepan and add 2/3 cup sugar. Cook over medium-high heat until sugar dissolves and liquid cooks down a little. You should have a little over 3 cups when well blended.
3. Add equal parts cranberry juice and tea to a pitcher and let cool. Taste and add more tea if too tart and/or more sugar, depending on preference. Serve over ice.
Share your own old recipes or food-related historical recollections by emailing Laura Gutschke at lgutschke@gmail.com.
By Staff Report
Mayor Pro-Tem Anthony Williams and Chad Mitchell, lead pastor of Mission Abilene, will address the city on violent crime Wednesday afternoon and announce the placement of a possible memorial site for victims of violent crime.
"As Mayor Pro-Tem I feel like it is my responsibility to address one of the largest issues that our city is facing right now," said Williams in a news release issued Wednesday morning. "As a part of the Stop the Violence movement we are going to implement the ACT initiative by 'Accepting' responsibility for the current state of crime in our city, 'Collaborate' with the community and come up with solutions, and finally we will 'Take' action to help heal the wounds that violent crime has caused."
Mitchell will specifically address the construction of a "Forevermore Memorial" park to honor first responders and those whom have lost their lives due to violent crime.
"Our desire is to create a memorial that will serve as a way to educate future generations of the tragedy that violence causes," said Mitchell. "This will be a permanent declaration that violence will not be tolerated in the city of Abilene."
Williams and Mitchell would also like for citizens to join them in showing their support for the Abilene Police Department.
"I have the highest level of confidence in the work that Police Chief Stan Standridge and the APD are doing to keep our city safe on a daily basis," said Williams. "But the responsibility doesn't stop with them. It is up to our citizens you and me to ACT."
The announcement will begin at 1:30 p.m. on the Mission Abilene Campus, 3001 N. 3rd St., and will focus on raising awareness, promoting prevention, intervention and protection from violence. Citizens are encouraged to attend to stand up and be a part of the solution.
By Brian Bethel of the Abilene Reporter News
The city of Abilene is still working with state and federal agencies regarding a species of endangered shiners and water discharge into the Brazos River, said Tommy O'Brien, executive director of water utilities, in an email.
The problem is related to construction designed to bring water from Possum Kingdom Lake to the community in times of drought.
"It is anticipated that, over the next several weeks, all issues will be resolved and a permit will be issued," O'Brien said.
In 2014, the city of Abilene began construction on a distribution pipeline and raw water treatment facility to begin using raw water from Possum Kingdom Lake, according to the city's website.
The city will have the option to withdraw water from Possum Kingdom during times of significant drought and deliver it to a raw water roughing facility in Breckenridge.
The roughing facility will significantly reduce total dissolved solids and salt content of the raw water, which then can be sent to Abilene through an existing raw water delivery system from Hubbard Creek Reservoir.
In May 2015, the project's contractor was asked to relocate work on the pipeline going to the Brazos River to other sections because of the presence of endangered minnows.
Concern was with the water discharged from the pipeline, not the pipeline itself.
City officials said in the fall that a permit application was in place through the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, with Texas Parks & Wildlife advising. The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also are involved.
Rodney Taylor, the city's director of water utilities, in October described the process as "slow."
"We think that we're getting close, but until we sit down in the same room and hash it out, we really don't know where we stand," Taylor said.
On Tuesday, O'Brien said work on the project had been delayed because of recent rains, not because of the permit.
"We will establish a timetable to have work completed once we have resolved all issues and the permit is issued," he said.
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Personnel including firefighters and smoke jumpers continued on Tuesday to fight wildland fires southwest of Ennis in the Gravelly Mountains.
The 46-acre Pole and Fine fires about 15 miles from Ennis had not been contained as of noon Tuesday, according to a Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest press release. Seventy-nine personnel are currently on scene.
A partial closure of Forest Service Road 290 from the intersection of FS Road 292 south to Warm Springs Road and FS Road 290 is in place.
The fires, caused by lightning on Thursday, are burning within a mile of each other in standing dead and downed timber. Firefighters are battling the fire as it moves from the timber stands into meadows to minimize exposure to snags.
Personnel are attempting to secure the whitebark pine stand adjacent to the Pole fire. Structure and private property assessments are ongoing with the Pine fire.
Visit http://inciweb.nwcg.gov for more information on this fire and other fires across the state.
As Cambodian opposition politicians on Wednesday marked the anniversary of a bloody 1997 coup that led to Prime Minister Hun Sens complete control of the country, political analysts and nongovernmental organizations warned that Cambodia could return to those dark days if Western nations cut off financial aid over ongoing abuses by Hun Sens government.
The Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) and the Khmer National United Party (KNU) marked the coup detat that erupted after tensions between the two governing parties at the time broke into factional fighting between supporters of Prince Norodom Ranariddhs FUNCINPEC and backers of Prime Minister Hun Sen and the Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP).
The tensions flowed from the 1993 election, in which FUNCINPEC won but was forced to share power with Hun Sen, who had been installed by Vietnam a decade earlier and refused to cede power after the U.N-administered vote.
It is unclear how many people died in the coup, with estimates running from dozens to hundreds, but the clash decisively ended the power-sharing arrangement between the two men, leaving Hun Sen firmly in control. Now 63, he is one of the worlds longest-serving autocrats.
The echoes of the coup can still be found in Cambodias current political situation that has seen Hun Sen throw opponents in jail, an opposition party leader Sam Rainsy flee into exile, and Cambodia National Rescue Party acting leader Kem Sokha hole up in the party headquarters to avoid arrest.
Appearing in public for only the second time since government forces attempted to arrest him, Kem Sokha reaffirmed CNRP commitment to nonviolence.
The opposition party remains committed to upholding nonviolent principles, he said. We will not lead the country to an event similar to the July 5-6 coup detat.
CPP spokesperson Sok Eysan said that the ruling party did not commemorate or organize any ceremony like the other parties did because it maintains its claim that Prince Norodom Ranariddh was attempting to lead Khmer Rouge forces into Phnom Penh in 1997.
We are grateful to those who have sacrificed their lives, but this [event] should be forgotten because it was not a good experience, he said.
Foreign aid concerns
While Kem Sokha was pledging nonviolence, NGO executives and political analysts expressed concern that democracy and the rule of law in Cambodia will take a step backward if the government turns down international aid money. Hun Sen has dismissed criticism from Western aid donors, including the United States, over his heavy-handed treatment of opponents.
Am Sam Ath, an official with the Cambodian rights group LICADHO, told RFAs Khmer Service that funding from the West is important and necessary for Cambodias social development.
Do not forget that Cambodia is a multiparty democratic country and a member of the U.N., he said. Cambodia has signed and endorsed all treaties and conventions on human rights to ensure the strengthening of democracy in Cambodia. If many donor countries cut their funding, Cambodia may face a crisis and the democratic process in Cambodia will continue to decline.
Both the European Union and the U.S. Congress have expressed concern about the political situation in Cambodia, tying aid to the country to an end to the crisis.
Last week the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a proposal in the State Department funding legislation that cuts off U.S. aide unless the secretary of state certifies that the government of Cambodia has ceased violence and harassment against civil society in Cambodia, including the political opposition.
Earlier in June the EU approved a resolution calling for the release of four employees of the human rights organization ADHOC and a National Election Committee member who were jailed on bribery or accessory charges after being accused of attempting to keep an alleged mistress of Kem Sokha quiet.
An arrest warrant has also been issued for a U.N. worker in connection with the case.
Go with the flow
A CPP spokesperson acknowledged in remarks to RFA that foreign cuts will affect the democratic process in the country, but he said its domestic NGOs that will pay for it.
We will go with the flow. The Cambodian people are used to suffering in stages, Sok Eysan said. Wanted or not, it would affect some, but I think that it would affect more gravely the majority of NGOs and civil society groups that receive the funding. More than $70 million in aid is mostly given to the NGOs.
Chan Vibol, a political science and governance professor, said the government should pay attention to funding from the West, because it has helped Cambodia develop by strengthening democracy and good governance inside the country.
For the economic domain, if the funding is cut, it will lead to the cessation of economic and trade operations with the superpower countries, he said.
Reported by Monitroth Morm and Chandara Yang. Translated by Yanny Hin. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.
Motorists try to move a van engulfed by floodwater following heavy rain in Wuhan, central's China's Hubei province, July 5, 2016.
Huge rainstorms in China's Yangtze river basin have left more than 120 people are dead and more than 40 missing, with more than a million forced out of their homes by widespread flooding, state media reported.
The official Xinhua news agency estimated that more than 38 billion yuan (U.S. $5 billion) worth of damage has been done, as the region is battered by particularly heavy summer rains.
Officials have warned that a strong El Nino effect this year will increase the risk of flooding in the Yangtze and Huai river basins, recalling the 1998 Yangtze flood disaster that left more than 4,000 people dead.
"There are huge downpours every day," a resident of Qingshan district in the central Yangtze conurbation of Wuhan told RFA. "Here in Qingshan, all the land around is underwater, and the flooding is even worse further out in the suburbs."
She said the mass transit railway has been forced to stop running.
"The water is ankle deep here, but it's much deeper in other areas," the resident said. "It said on the news that there was a backflow [up a tributary or canal] from the Yangtze, where waters levels are very high, and the water had nowhere else to go."
Red flood alert
Hu Guohong, a resident of a district of Wuhan next to the Yangtze river said the city is now on red flood alert, with widespread disruption to traffic.
"There was water everywhere this morning when I went out to my car, and everything was blocked up, so there was nowhere for it to go," Hu said. "There is flooding everywhere."
He said the water had reached around a meter in depth in some areas, and higher in others, to judge from photos posted to social media.
"[We haven't left our home in] three days now, and there's no public transportation anyway," Hu said.
Photos posted to social media showed rescue crews battling fast-flowing floodwaters to rescue residents, and houses only half visible under broad expanses of muddy water.
Hu said drinking water in the city is now starting to look muddy in color, suggesting floodwaters may have contaminated supplies.
Hu said Premier Li Keqiang's visit to "direct disaster operations" was unlikely to make much difference.
"What can they do? It's already happened," he said. "It's pointless just to tinker around on the edges now; they should have done it properly beforehand."
A Chinese worker wipes away sweat as he prepares to evacuate pigs from a flooded pig farm in Shucheng county, Liu'an city, east China's Anhui province, July 4, 2016. ImagineChina Government should take responsibility
Xu Chuntang, a resident of Wuhan's Qiaokou district, said she also believes the government is responsible.
"They should take responsibility, because we have floods every year, and what are they doing to prevent it?" she said.
"They should take it more seriously; they don't take enough responsibility," Xu said.
An official who answered the phone at the Wuhan municipal government offices said the waters had receded slightly on Wednesday.
"The water is a bit lower today, and [public transportation] should gradually return to normal now," the official said.
"Most primary and secondary schools are already on vacation, and the kindergartens have shut down [because of the floods]," he said.
Meanwhile, severe flooding has also left much of the eastern province of Anhui under water, according to residents and social media users.
Activist Qian Jin, who lives in Anhui's Bengbu city, said water levels on the nearby Huaihe river are currently very high, with flooding in Xuancheng and Huangshan.
"It's pretty serious over there, and a lot of towns and villages are completely underwater," Qian said. "It is a pretty big disaster, and the TV is singing the praises of the troops who have gone to help."
"But there aren't very many reports about the aftermath of the disaster, nor about how many people have been drowned," he said.
Reported by Wong Lok-to for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Hong Kong's government said on Wednesday that there is currently "no legal way" to send back outspoken bookseller Lam Wing-kei to Chinese police as requested, amid widespread anger over his detention for selling "banned books" to mainland Chinese customers.
The city's Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok spoke to reporters after a meeting with ruling Chinese Communist Party officials in Beijing following a public outcry over the detention of Lam and four of his colleagues at the now-closed Causeway Bay Books store.
"There is no legal arrangement for the transfer of a person to the mainland authorities, and the Hong Kong government will handle all cases in accordance with the law of Hong Kong," Lai said.
Hong Kong currently has no formal extradition arrangements in place with mainland China, which has pledged to respect the city's status as a separate legal jurisdiction following its 1997 return to Chinese rule.
Hong Kong police met with Lam for two-and-a-half hours on Wednesday, taking fresh statements from him.
But while they offered him protection, they have also brushed aside Lam's repeated claims that he is being followed by Chinese state security agents operating within Hong Kong's borders.
"Mr. Lam's account of events is different from our findings," deputy police commissioner Wong Chi-hung told reporters.
But he added: "We will contact Mr. Lam and assess the risk he is facing, if any. Suitable measures will be provided to counter those so-called risks."
Little protection offered
Lam had previously hit out at the Hong Kong authorities for doing little to protect him, amid widespread concerns that the city's legal system is now being undermined by Chinese law enforcement.
"They made a verbal promise to me that they would protect me ... but we didn't go into the details," Lam told government broadcaster RTHK. "They are following me from a distance, not close up, but I think it's enough that there is someone watching me."
He said he is considering leaving Hong Kong to live elsewhere.
He had earlier told the city's Ming Pao newspaper: "Police have not offered any protection to me ... I used to enjoy freedom from fear in Hong Kong, but now its lost."
Wong said police hadn't offered Lam protection because a car he said was following him turned out to have been hired by a media organization, and an investigation of his claims had yielded "nothing unusual."
Lam's case has prompted Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying to review the existing notification mechanism between law enforcement agencies in Hong Kong and mainland China.
Police in China's eastern city of Ningbo on Tuesday called on Lam, whose explosive revelations of eight months in Chinese detention rocked his native Hong Kong, to return to the mainland to cooperate with an investigation.
The Ningbo Public Security Bureau said in a statement that Lam, 61, had violated bail laws in speaking about his detention and would face "criminal compulsory measures in accordance with the law" if he failed to return.
Broken promises
A media commentator who asked to remain anonymous said the Chinese authorities had "blatantly trampled" their own promises of "one country, two systems" on which Hong Kong's handover from British colonial rule was based.
"At the very least, the authorities in Ningbo should go through the Hong Kong judicial authorities, not directly issue threats against a resident of Hong Kong," the commentator said.
"Hong Kong is a separate jurisdiction and enforces its own laws, so mainland China has no business using such a threatening tone ... They are doing it deliberately to scare Hong Kong people, and to create an atmosphere of fear."
Outspoken billionaire and Hong Kong media magnate Chen Ping, who was assaulted in 2013 by unidentified men, said such tactics were a "total breach" of promises made in a 1984 Sino-British treaty and the city's mini-constitution, the Basic Law.
"They are in breach of one country, two systems, which they signed," Chen said. "How do we even deal with this? I'm not even sure what to call it."
"I have no words to describe it. I don't even see how this is in [China's] interest," he said.
"If they pay no heed to one country, two systems; to international law; or to their own promises ... then the outcome doesn't bear thinking about," Chen said.
Kidnapped, held in cell
Lam has said he was effectively kidnapped after crossing Hong Kong's border into the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, blindfolded, and taken to faraway Ningbo, where he was held in a cell without access to a lawyer for eight months.
His return and subsequent press conference sparked a protest of some 6,000 people to Beijing's representative office in Hong Kong last month.
Lam's colleagues Lee Bo, a British passport holder, Lui Por, and Cheung Chi-ping were detained by mainland authorities and then returned to Hong Kong without commenting on their detention.
The U.K. government has said Lee Bo was "involuntarily removed" from Hong Kong, raising concerns over China's compliance with the terms of the city's 1997 handover. His departure was never recorded by border officials.
A fifth colleague, Swedish national Gui Minhai, was abducted from Thailand and gave a confession on Chinese state television, but has yet to emerge from what his family say is an illegal detention at an unknown location.
The booksellers were accused of shipping gossipy books about China's political elite to customers in mainland China, where they are banned. However, the sale of the books broke no laws in Hong Kong.
Reported by Lam Kwok-lap for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Kim Jong Un in photo taken on June 30, 2016 and released on July 02, 2016 by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency.
The United States stepped up efforts to isolate North Korea on Wednesday, imposing sanctions on leader Kim Jong Un and 10 other senior officials for human rights abuses.
Wednesdays move by the U.S. Treasury Department marks the first time that Kim, hereditary ruler of North Korea since his father died in 2011, has been sanctioned personally, and the first time sanctions have been imposed on North Korea officials for human rights abuses.
"Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor, and torture," Adam Szubin, acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement.
The blacklist also covers officials at the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of People's Security, agencies which run North Koreas vast system of political prison camps, labor camps and related interrogation centers that the United States and rights experts say house some 120,000 political prisoners.
North Korean propaganda agencies are also covered by the sanctions, which freeze property designated individuals have within U.S. jurisdiction and ban U.S. citizens from doing business with them.
Through most of the long history of the international communitys engagement with North Korea, the horrific human rights abuses committed by the regime have been known but not necessarily been central to how we have engaged, said a senior Obama administration official.
And the Obama Administration, over the last several years, has been working very hard to change that, the official told reporters on a conference call after the sanctions were announced.
Activists have long pushed Washington to make human rights a stronger focus of U.S. diplomatic efforts with North Korea, which for two decades have largely focused on military threats, particularly Pyongyangs expanding nuclear weapons and missile programs.
Kim held responsible
The rollout of the blacklist, which was accompanied by a damning State Department report on North Korean human rights abuses, was mandated by the North Korea Sanctions Act of 2016, passed by the U.S. Congress earlier this year.
The Obama administration official said the sanctions list represents probably the most comprehensive effort that any government in the world has undertaken to name the specific officials responsible for the worst aspects of the North Korean regimes repression below the obvious level of the supreme leader.
Kim joins such other heads of state on Treasury blacklist as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
We have made the judgment that he is, rather plainly, ultimately responsible for the actions of his regime, including its repressive policies towards its own people, said the administration official.
We have identified mid-level officials responsible for the operation of the prison camp system, for the hunting down of North Korean defectors overseas, and the punishment of those who seek to escape the country, as well as those responsible for maintaining the system of propaganda and censorship in North Korea, the official added.
The blacklist includes Choe Pu Il, the minister of people's security; Choe Chang Pong, the director of the ministry's investigations bureau; Cho Il U at the Reconnaissance General Bureau, believed to run overseas espionage operations; and O Chong Kuk, thought to manage North Korea's infiltration operations into South Korea.
Ripple effect predicted
The blacklist, months if not years in the making, drew on the work of national governments, international organizations, civil society groups and defectors from North Korea.
U.S. officials also cited the 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry report, which compiled exhaustive evidence of widespread abuses in North Korea including murder, starvation, torture, and other crimesmany of these committed in the countrys remote prison camps.
"This action is welcome and important. It is also long overdue," Joshua Stanton, who maintains the influential North Korea blog One Free Korea, told RFA.
"Freezing the assets of the morbidly obese tyrant who rules over a nation of stunted, malnourished children is the first step in holding him accountable for crimes against humanity. But for this tough new policy to work, it must be followed by a relentless pursuit of Kim Jong Un's hidden assets and a global diplomatic campaign to isolate and ostracize him," he added.
It was not immediately clear what immediate effect the new sanctions would have on North Korean officials, who seldom leave their isolated country.
The U.S. official acknowledged that the move aims to send a message that might give officials pause in the future.
We have no illusions that this is going to bring some sort of dramatic change in and of itself to North Korea, but simply lifting the anonymity of these functionaries may make them think twice from time to time when they consider a particular act of cruelty or repression, said the official.
A second Obama official said Wednesdays move focusing on human rights abuses adds 16 North Korean officials to the total of 161 individuals and entities from that country already sanctioned for proliferation, counterfeiting and other illicit activities.
The impact of todays action not only cuts them off from the U.S. financial system and would freeze any assets in the United States, but it has a worldwide ripple effect, the official told reporters on the conference call.
A group of land owners who lost their land stage a protest as they wait to meet Aung San Suu Kyi outside her residence in Yangon, April 5, 2014.
Farmers in south-central Myanmars Bago region began a protest on Wednesday demanding that the army return more than 4,000 acres of land it confiscated from them 25 years ago.
Nearly 30 farmers from Pyinbongyi village told RFAs Myanmar Service that they decided to stage a protest after hearing that the new government is returning some confiscated land to farmers in other areas of the country.
At that time [when the acres were confiscated], the army said it needed to expand its battalion headquarters and was bringing in more troops to the region, and the farmers moved out because they were afraid of the military, said Nyein Tin, a woman who was participating in the protest.
But later, the farmers discovered that the army had leased their land to other farmers to cultivate at a cost of about 500,000 kyats (U.S. $430) per acre, she said.
In a related development, the Shan state government said on Tuesday that it would return more than 40,000 acres of land confiscated by the Myanmar military to residents next week, an official said.
The army already had abandoned more than 40,000 acres of unused land in 2015 during the previous governments tenure, but most of the farmers have not yet received the land, said Soe Nyunt Lwin, Shan state minister for planning and finance.
So we are looking at the matter together with the Land Records Department and trying to make sure the original rightful owners get their land back as soon as possible, he said.
The minister also said the military will return more land to its original owners in the near future.
Long list of appeals
Former landowners in other parts of the country have long appealed to government leaders to return property seized decades ago under Myanmars previous military junta which ruled the country for 50 years.
RFAs Myanmar Service reported in May that Myanmars government would return 2,500 acres of confiscated land to farmers in Tant-Se township in the countrys northwestern Sagaing region, more than 35 years after it was taken.
The Burma Socialist Programme Party, formed by the regime led by military commander Ne Win that seized power in 1962, confiscated nearly 4,000 acres of the townships land in Shwebo district for a government farm project named Wet Toe in 1980.
Myanmars parliament has been inundated with thousands of new complaints about the seizure of farmland, but can start working on them only after the Central Review Committee on Confiscated Farm Lands and Other Lands sets up policies and guidelines to handle land disputes, the online journal The Irrawaddy reported Wednesday, citing committee chairman Ba Myo Thein.
The committee puts pressure on relevant government ministries to return appropriated land or compensate the rightful owners, the report said.
Ba Myo Thein told The Irrawaddy in late April that most of the reported land confiscations had occurred in Mandalay region and Karen state, purportedly to develop infrastructure and industrial zones, according to the complaints received.
Last week, the national-level land dispute committee returned more than 6,000 acres of land taken during the past decades to its owners in Maubin township in Ayeyarwady region, The Irrawaddy reported.
Reported by Zarni Htun and Thiri Min Zin for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Nepalese police on Wednesday dispersed a crowd of several hundred Tibetans who had gathered to celebrate the 81st birthday of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, despite assurances given the day before that the event would be allowed to proceed.
Tibetan refugee representative Kalsang Dondrub and 23 other Tibetans were briefly taken into custody by police who swarmed the Songtsen High School in the capital Kathmandu, RFAs Tibetan Service reported from the scene.
Police also pulled down large portraits of the Dalai Lama that had been placed in positions of honor on a stage in the schools courtyard, scattering banners, flowers, and other offerings that had been arranged at the site, RFA reported.
Speaking to a reporter, several Tibetans attending the event voiced distress at the crackdown, saying the planned event had been religious rather than political in nature.
Nepalese authorities have frequently suppressed Tibetan refugees political activities in the past, one participant said. Today, we were trying to hold a religious celebration, and now they are stopping us from doing this, too.
With no country of our own, we often face crises like this, he said.
The police must have been very desperate not to allow us to honor the Dalai Lama, who is so well known and respected throughout the world, another man said.
Pressure from China
One community leader named Lhalung said that by ordering the raid, authorities had gone back on their word that the celebration could be held.
The Tibetan representative and other welfare officers sought permission from Nepalese authorities to hold the event, and permission was granted yesterday, Lhalung said.
But today, they changed their minds and stopped us. This could be a result of pressure from China," he said.
Tibetan refugees living in Nepal are under constant pressure to avoid asserting their national identity as their host country moves closer to its powerful northern neighbor China, analysts say.
An estimated 20,000 Tibetans now live in Nepal, though accurate numbers are hard to come by.
Many arrived in Nepal following a failed 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in which thousands fled south across the Himalayas.
Nepal authorities seem now to be more interested in placating Beijing than in upholding Nepals own laws on peaceful assembly, association, and expression, Sophie Richardson, China Director for New York-based Human Rights Watch told RFA.
While Nepal has offered Tibetans some protections, it has also frequently invoked vague and inconsistent justifications to silence peaceful protest and discriminate against Tibetans, Richardson said.
Any restrictions must be based on law, and not on Chinese political sensitivities.
Reported by Dawa Dolma and Kunsang Tenzin for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English with additional reporting by Richard Finney.
BREST, Belarus -- Every day, the train between the Belarusian city of Brest and the Polish border town of Terespol is packed. A train that usually comprises three or four cars now has eight.
You have to see it to believe it, says 32-year-old Magomed Kadyrov. I dont know whom to trust, whom to talk to. Border officials dont listen to us. There are a lot of us trying to get across. The other day, there were more than 700 people. The train from Brest to the border is now seven or eight cars long. Completely packed. Now there are more and more of us here.
There are at least 1,000 citizens of the Russian North Caucasus republic of Chechnya currently in Brest hoping to get asylum in the European Union. Those who agreed to speak with RFE/RL say the latest spike in would-be refugees is a result of the oppressive and often violent tactics of officials serving under Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
There are no laws for our officials, said one Chechen man in Brest who asked not to be named. They only know the methods of bandits. And it is getting worse. People are very intimidated. Thats why the number of refugees has increased.
Second Chechen War
Since the beginning of the second Chechen war in 2004, more than 70,000 Russian citizens have applied for asylum in Poland, according to the Polish Office for Foreigners. Most of the applicants come from Russias volatile North Caucasus. Although official figures for this year are not available, the last spike came in 2013, when nearly 13,000 Russian citizens filed applications.
Magomed Kadyrov -- hes no relation to the Chechen leader -- made the fateful decision to uproot his large family in April. He says he was abducted from his home in Chechnyas Terkyist region and held for 10 days by gunmen who beat him in a bid to get information about a distant relative who is a militant in the guerrilla war against the Chechen authorities.
After he was able to get away, Kadyrov sold everything he had and fled with his wife, Zainar, and six children to Brest. As is the case with most of the Chechens in Brest, Kadyrov knows there is no road back for his family.
Time and again the refugees board the train for Poland, most often merely to be turned away at the border and sent back.
Today there were some who were making their 22nd attempt, said Zainar Kadyrova when RFE/RL first spoke with her earlier this month. Others were making their 10th.
But staying in Brest is a difficult option.
In Chechnya, we sold our house and our car, one woman who asked not to be named told RFE/RL. There is nothing left. Now the money is running out and who knows what will come next. Every day we pay 25 euros for accommodation in Brest. And we have to eat. We have enough money for another three or four days. I dont know what well do next. Im afraid to even think about it.
Taking Advantage
In addition, a local cottage industry of fleecing the refugees has also cropped up, Kadyrov says.
Something new is happening that wasnt going on before, he says. Some sort of lawyers are going around taking money from people with promises to help get [them] across the Polish border.
They are cheating people, Kadyrova adds, saying they are conducting some sort of negotiations with the border officials. They just take the money and then they disappear.
Some of the refugees also mention their fear of the long arm of Chechnyas ruling strongman.
Honestly, I am afraid here, one man, who was waiting at the Brest station with his wife and two children, told RFE/RL. Kadyrovs men can be in Brest and even abroad. I cant say that I feel safe either here or in Poland.
He said that in Chechnya, officials came to him three times a week to demand tribute.
Ramzan Kadyrov has ruled Chechnya since shortly after the assassination of his father, Chechen President Akhmed Kadyrov, in 2004. He has been widely criticized by international and Russian rights monitors for gross human-rights violations, including abductions, torture, and extrajudicial killings. Officials in his government have been tied to the assassinations of Kadyrovs political opponents and critical journalists and rights advocates.
Kadyrov is poised to run for a third term as head of the Chechen government in September after receiving the support of Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this year.
According to the Russian rights monitor Memorial, 24 people were abducted in Chechnya in the last three months of last year.* Most of them were released after being intimidated or abused.
In April, historians Rizvan Ibragimov and Abubakar Dedieu were abducted for several days. After their release, they appeared on state television and apologized for their research into the 1944 deportation of Chechens by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin -- a tragedy whose commemoration Kadyrov has banned.
Around the same time, noted Chechen bard Hussein Betelgeriyev was abducted by unknown gunmen. For two weeks he was held and brutally beaten. He believes he was being punished for critical comments on social media and for refusing to attend a government-organized rally to mark the adoption of Chechnyas constitution.
On June 28, Magomed Kadyrov and his family finally succeeded in making the crossing into Poland. They were granted the status of a tolerated stay in the country while officials consider their asylum application -- a process they are told will likely take about one year.
They have been sent to one of Polands 11 reception centers for migrants.
But there are no guarantees. Refugees in Kadyrovs position are often rejected and expelled, and concern about migrants is rising in Poland as in the rest of Europe.
* CORRECTION: Memorial recorded 24 abductions in Chechnya in the last quarter of 2015, not the "first quarter of this year" as originally stated. We regret the error.
RFE/RL North Caucasus Service correspondent Ljoma Tsjabajev and RFE/RL senior correspondent Robert Coalson contributed to this report.
Representatives of the Joint International Criminal Investigation Team have arrived in Moscow to discuss their probe into the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine two years ago.
Team spokesman Wim de Bruin told TASS on July 5 that the delegation of investigators, prosecutors, and police will stay in Moscow for two days to discuss the downing of the Boeing 777, which investigators have said was shot down by a Russian-made Buk missile, killing all 298 people on board.
He did not disclose who he would meet with and said he would not make any statements on the Moscow visit. Interfax reported that the team would meet with representatives from Russia's defense sector.
The investigative team includes experts from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Ukraine and is led by the Dutch National Prosecutor's Office. Their main task is to establish who is to blame for the crash.
Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax
Ukrainian troops are holding out against attacks near two towns in the eastern Donbas region, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reported on October 26, saying the front line has not significantly changed.
Zelenskiy said the fiercest battles were taking place near Avdiyivka and Bakhmut.
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"This is where the craziness of the Russian command is most evident. Day after day, for months, they are driving people to their deaths there, concentrating the highest level of artillery strikes," he said in his nightly address.
Russian forces have repeatedly tried to seize Bakhmut, which sits on a main road leading to the cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. British intelligence has said Moscow may see the capture of Bakhmut as a prerequisite for advancing to the two cities -- the most significant Ukrainian-controlled parts of the Donetsk region.
Russian-installed authorities in Shakhtarsk, east of the city of Donetsk, said Ukrainian shelling had set ablaze fuel tanks at the town's railway station.
The reports could not be independently verified.
Zelenskiy did not provide an update on the situation in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, which has been the scene of recent movements on both sides.
"Generally, we are strengthening our positions all over the front line, reducing the invaders' capabilities, destroying their logistics, and preparing good news for Ukraine," he said.
Russia, meanwhile, repeated the unfounded claim that Ukraine plans to set off a dirty bomb.
This time it was Russian President Vladimir Putin who made the accusation, speaking in remarks carried by Russian TV.
Putin said Ukraine plans to use a so-called dirty bomb as a provocation. It was the first time the Russian president made the unsubstantiated allegation, which his officials have been repeating since the weekend.
Putin made the remarks as he monitored drills of Russias strategic nuclear forces.
"Under the leadership of...Vladimir Putin, a training session was held with ground, sea, and air strategic deterrence forces during which practical launches of ballistic and cruise missiles took place," the Kremlin said in a statement.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin that the exercise simulated a massive nuclear strike retaliating for a nuclear attack on Russia.
The United States said Russia provided advance notice of the annual drills, which are taking place as NATO carries out its own annual nuclear exercises.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called Russias unsubstantiated statements about the use of a dirty bomb "absurd."
The NATO allies reject this blatantly false accusation, and Russia must not use false pretexts to escalate the war further, Stoltenberg told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Ukraine and its Western allies have denied the claims and contend that Russia might itself try to detonate a dirty bomb, a weapons that would use the explosion of a conventional warhead to spread radioactive, biological, or chemical materials over an area.
Shoigu on October 26 called his counterparts from India and China to share Moscows concern about possible Ukrainian provocations involving a dirty bomb, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on October 26 that Russia would "vigorously" continue to make the case to the international community that it believed Ukraine intended to detonate a "dirty bomb" with radioactive contaminants.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the United States has communicated directly and very clearly to the Russians the consequences of such an attack.
Blinken, speaking at an event sponsored by the U.S. news outlet Bloomberg, did not specify when the Russians were informed or who did it.
Blinken repeated that the United States is "very closely" following Russias comments about the use of nuclear weapons but "does not see any reason to change its nuclear position."
Russia's statement that Ukraine is considering the possibility of using a dirty bomb is "another fabrication and is the height of irresponsibility on the part of a nuclear state," Blinken said.
He noted that Russia has a history of accusing others of doing something they themselves have done or are about to do. He also said the United States was in direct communication with the Russians about their attempts to use the false claim as a pretext for any escalation.
Moscow over the weekend claimed Ukraine was preparing to use a so-called dirty bomb on its own territory, drawing immediate dismissal from the United States and other countries that have backed Ukraine.
Kyiv and its allies suspect Russia might have made the claim to set up a "false flag" attack in which it would use a dirty bomb itself but would blame the attack on Ukraine and use it to justify the use of conventional nuclear weapons by Moscow.
"Let me just say Russia would be making an incredibly serious mistake were it to use a tactical nuclear weapon." U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters on October 25 . "I cannot guarantee you that it is a false flag operation yet. We dont know. But it would be a serious mistake."
Shoigu presented no evidence for the claim when he spoke on October 23 with his counterparts from several NATO countries, including Britain, France, and the United States, who dismissed the claim after the series of calls.
WATCH: Speaking to Current Time in Riga on October 22, Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks said Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot change the course of war in Ukraine by dropping nuclear bombs.
Moscow took its accusations against Ukraine to the UN Security Council on October 25, and the country's UN ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, said afterward that Russia was "satisfied because we raised the awareness."
Speaking to reporters, he added: "I don't mind people saying that Russia is crying wolf if this doesn't happen because this is a terrible, terrible disaster that threatens potentially the whole of the Earth."
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said earlier on October 25 that it was preparing to send inspectors to two Ukrainian sites in the coming days in reaction to Ukraine's request for an inspection following Russia's claims.
Enerhoatom, Ukraines nuclear energy operator, issued a statement on October 24 voicing its concern that Russias statements may indicate that Russia is preparing an act of nuclear terrorism.
Russian troops have occupied Ukraines Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, since March. It is still run by Ukrainian engineers though Russia claimed after its illegal annexation of the Zaporizhzhya region that it is on Russian territory.
Enerhoatom said that Russian forces have carried out unauthorized, secret construction work over the last week at the plant in the area of the spent nuclear fuel storage facility.
Russian officers controlling the area wont give access to Ukrainian staff or monitors from the IAEA that would allow them to see what they are doing, the operator said.
Enerhoatom added that it assumes the Russians are preparing a terrorist act using nuclear materials and radioactive waste stored at the plant.
With reporting by AFP, dpa, BBC, and Reuters
Ukrainians have increasingly woken up to the sound of suicide drones as Russia turns to Iranian-made imports to destroy civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. Now they may have another deadly Iranian weapon to worry about -- ballistic missiles.
Cheap but effective, Shahed-136 and Shahed-131 "kamikaze" drones have already made a deadly impact in Ukraine.
If U.S. intelligence assessments pan out, Russia will soon be able to supplement its use of Iranian suicide drones and its own cruise and ballistic missiles with powerful short-range Iranian Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar ballistic missiles.
Coming as the Kremlin is reportedly struggling to maintain its depleted stockpile of aerial weapons as it ramps up strikes, the missiles would potentially boost Russia's ability to continue its costly air campaign.
Jeremy Binnie, a Middle East defense specialist at the global intelligence company Janes, said having more missiles gives Russia the ability to sustain the bombardment against Ukraine."
Going Ballistic
The Fateh-110, which was unveiled in 2001 and has a stated range of 300 to 500 kilometers, was developed from a heavy artillery rocket dating from the 1980s. To increase the weapon's accuracy, the Fateh-110 was given a guidance system and movable fins that allow it to be steered as it approaches its target.
The Zolfaghar, which debuted in 2016 and also has guidance capabilities, comes from the same family as the Fateh-110 but boasts a much longer range due to its use of a lighter carbon-fiber airframe and a smaller warhead.
Binnie said the Zolfaghar's use against the Islamic State (IS) extremist group in eastern Syria confirmed that the missile was capable of reaching at least 650 kilometers, which he said is "a statement of how much the Iranian tactical missile program has really advanced over the years."
Iran's claim that the Zolfaghar can travel even farther -- up to 700 kilometers -- would put the western Ukrainian city of Lviv within range of strikes launched from Russian territory, while the more powerful Fateh-110 could potentially hit the city from Belarus, which has served as a staging ground for Russian attacks.
While there has been no indication that Russia plans to purchase launching systems from Iran, Binnie suggests that the Russian military could pair the missiles with existing equipment because the Iranian launchers were adapted from a Soviet-era system.
"It might be possible for the Russians to quickly adapt some old equipment they have lying around into launch systems," Binnie said.
The Iranian military, he added, fitted the Soviet system to trucks, allowing for mobility and concealment.
"Those civilian trucks can be covered over to make it hard to spot that they're actually missile launchers," Binnie said.
'Lawnmowers' And 'Mopeds'
Iranian military drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have been homing in on targets across Ukraine since late August, according to the United States.
The buzzing sound of the Iranian Shahed-136 and Shahed-131 drones, built with off-the-shelf components, have earned them derisive monikers such as "lawnmowers" and "mopeds." But the slow-moving, low-flying drones, which are maneuvered to crash into their target, have proven themselves capable of hitting their mark both in terms of military effectiveness and cost.
It is capable of extracting or delivering attrition and damage when launched, but it costs little compared to other UAVs that Russia has in its own arsenal," said Samuel Bendett of the Virginia-based Center for Naval Analyses (CNA).
Ukraine alleges Russia has ordered 2,400 of the Iranian suicide drones, and its military has claimed to have shot them down in great numbers, often using conventional anti-aircraft guns or even small-arms fire. But their ability to be launched in bunches of five -- often from the cover of civilian trucks -- improves their chances of reaching their target.
"The Ukrainians are stopping most of these, but the whole point of these drones is that they fly in a large mass," Bendett said. "The air defense does not always catch all of them. All it takes is for several or even one to make it through."
The estimated range of the Shahed-136 varies, but Iran says it is capable of traveling 2,500 kilometers. The slightly smaller and older Shahed-131, which has been used by Huthi rebels in Yemen to attack Saudi targets in the Arabian Peninsula, has been estimated to have a range of 900 kilometers, according to tests conducted by the Ukrainian military.
Ukraine's Defense Ministry has published multiple images of downed Shahed-136 drones in recent weeks, and the Ukrainian National Guard on October 19 claimed to have shot down a Shahed-131.
Ukraine has also claimed to have shot down a more advanced Iranian combat UAV, the Mojer-6 drone capable of carrying out both reconnaissance missions and aerial strikes within a range of 200 kilometers. There have also been reports of Russian interest in obtaining Irans Shahed-129 and Shahed-191 combat drones.
"When launched from any territory that Russia controls or is allied with -- anywhere from the south, from the Donbas, from Belarus -- they're able to strike a lot of Ukrainian targets," Bendett said.
In addition to the U.S. intelligence assessment that Russia will soon boost its arsenal with Iranian ballistic missiles, as first reported by The Washington Post on October 16, the White House on October 20 said that Iranians are now "directly engaged on the ground" in Moscows war against Ukraine after sending "a relatively small number" of personnel from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to assist Russian forces in using the Iranian drones.
Iran has denied sending combat drones to Russia, and Moscow has rejected claims that it is using Iranian UAVs.
Images of downed Iranian drones appear to show that they have been rebranded to look Russian-made, experts say, with the markings in Cyrillic naming them as the Geran-1 (the Shahed-131) and Geran-2 (the Shahed-136).
Observers are widely skeptical of Russia's denials, noting that the drones are essentially identical right down to the font of the serial numbers. Even Russian Defense Ministry experts have unwittingly admitted that the suicide drones are Iranian.
But the rebranding of the drones to make them appear to be Russian has opened the possibility that Moscow could, if it is not already doing so, seek to manufacture or assemble the Iranian drones on its own territory.
Sustaining A Campaign
The new aerial weaponry fits well with the Russian military's renewed focus on striking military and civilian targets far from the front lines in southern and eastern Ukraine. The air assault has ratcheted up following the October 8 appointment of Colonel General Sergei Surovikin, a former Aerospace Forces commander, to lead the Russian war effort.
Just days after Surovikin's appointment, Russia launched the biggest air strikes since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine in February. Moscow said the drone and missile strikes, which targeted civilian areas and infrastructure in cities throughout Ukraine, were in response to a bomb blast that damaged a key bridge linking Russia to the occupied Crimean Peninsula.
While the Kremlin has accused Ukraine's intelligence services of carrying out the "terrorist" attack on the Crimea Bridge, Ukraine has denied responsibility.
Since the initial air assault in response to the bridge blast, Russia has continued to pound Ukrainian infrastructure, often targeting power plants in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said is a deliberate effort to wear down the Ukrainian people by denying them heat and electricity as winter approaches.
"Civilian infrastructure is obviously the new layer in this war. The Ukrainian economy is now the target, the Ukrainian population is now the target," Bendett said.
Hard To Stop
The hypersonic speed and high trajectory of Iran's Fateh-110s and Zolfaghars, should they arrive, would be extremely difficult for Kyiv to counter without a network of high-tech and costly antimissile batteries it currently does not possess.
Ukraine has repeatedly requested more advanced missile-defense systems from the West, and in the face of the threat of the delivery of Iranian ballistic missiles reportedly sent an official request to Israel this week for components of its "Iron Dome" system.
While the United States has said that it is seeking to expedite the process of sending two U.S. air defense systems known as NASAMS, Washington has appeared reluctant to provide more advanced Patriot missile systems.
Janes' defense expert Binnie is skeptical that the delivery of the Patriot system, which has proven to be successful in shooting down ballistic missiles, is realistic for Ukraine.
"It's eye wateringly expensive and it's probably not really practical because each [missile] battery only covers one city," he said. "You would never get enough batteries to get the coverage you would want. You just wouldn't be able to find them, produce them, and train enough Ukrainians."
Osama bin Laden may be dead but if the July 4 bombings in Saudi Arabia demonstrate anything to a global audience forcibly becoming, if not numbed, then wearily resigned to the horrors of jihadist violence, its that his playbook is still in full effect -- albeit with some major alterations.
On July 4, in what were clearly coordinated strikes, three suicide attacks targeted the Saudi cities of Jeddah, Qatif and, most stunningly of all, Islams second holiest city, Medina, the burial place of the Prophet Mohammed.
In Jeddah, a Pakistani expatriate targeted the U.S. consulate, injuring two security officers in the process. A Shia mosque was targeted in Qatif. In Medina, it was a security office near the Prophets Mosque. Four guards were killed.
Both the timing of the attacks and choice of targets are vital to understanding their nature. So far, no group has claimed responsibility for them but indicators suggest that they are almost certainly the work of the terrorist group which calls itself Islamic State (IS).
The attacks took place during the end of Islams holy month of Ramadan, which, according to Nicholas Heras, a Middle East researcher and the Bacevich fellow at the Center for a New American Security, fit into the timetable of the would-be Caliphate's ongoing Ramadan campaign. Islamic State, he told RFE/RL over e-mail, has declared the month of Ramadan as a time of bleeding [for] what it views to be infidels and enemies -- Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Yet more instructive is the choice of targets -- and it is here that bin Ladens legacy can most clearly be seen. Bin Laden, a Saudi national himself, always denied the legitimacy of the House of Saud, which rules the kingdom, as the rightful custodian of Islams two holiest sites for the entire global Muslim community, or Ummah -- Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed, and Medina. ISs overriding goal is to establish an Islamic caliphate as far across the world as possible; central to this goal -- in fact, almost an absolute necessity -- would be to take control of Islams holiest territory.
In the words of Heras: ISIS [Islamic State] would be sending a blunt message to the Saudi state, delivering a shot across the bow directed at the Al-Saud monarchy: we are coming for you.
The Pillars That Prop Up Saudi Arabia
Two primary pillars hold up the Saudi monarchy: The first is the legitimacy it derives from being the custodian of Islams two holiest places. But it is a contested legitimacy. The Al-Saud tribe took what became Saudi Arabia by force in 1932. It has no real religious credentials and has only survived since by allowing its clerics to promote a severe brand of Wahhabi Islam across the kingdom in return for which the royal family receives much-needed religious backing. The combination of this backing and the custodianship of Mecca and Medina enhances the kingdoms influence across the Muslim world accordingly. Not for nothing is the House of Saud called "The Sunni Lion.
And here is where the attack in Medina comes in. Its a risky move for IS to say the least. An attack on Mohammeds resting place was always likely to enrage the Islamic world. Saudi Arabia's highest religious body has condemned the attacks unequivocally. Meanwhile, the hashtag #PrayForMedina has been retweeted across the Muslim world.
But the perpetrators were careful. They didnt attack the Medina mosque itself, just a security office near it; an attack which can be read as being designed to call into question the Saudis monarchys claim to be competent protectors of the two holy sites. The attack, then, targeted the Saudi states security apparatus, not the Prophet.
The second pillar of the House of Saud is U.S. support (irretrievably entangled with the oil riches that financially prop up the kingdom). An IS attack on the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah (which is also Saudi Arabias most cosmopolitan city) is a clear strike against its ultimate ideological Western foe, and coming as it did on July 4, U.S. Independence Day, has an inescapable and morbid symbolism that is plain for all to see.
But it is the attack on the Shia mosque in Qatif that has perhaps the most dangerous regional consequences. The Middle East is already in the throes of a battle between Sunni and Shia, approaching almost genocidal proportions in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. For the Sunni Islamic State terrorist group, the apostate Shia are almost worse than the infidel West.
This attack is designed to do two things. First, as Heras told RFE/RL, IS clearly intended to send a signal to the Shia of Saudi Arabia that they are infidels that should go out from the holiest lands of Islam. The second is to create more divisions between Saudi Arabias persecuted Shia minority and the government, yet one more way of destabilizing the country. The fact that Qatif -- and the majority of the countrys Shia population -- is located in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province, where the center of the Saudi state-controlled oil industry resides, only further serves to compound the problem for Riyadh.
Beyond Saudi Arabia, Shia militias that are now battling IS in Iraq and Syria -- many of which are backed by Iran -- are unlikely to take the attack on the mosque well, to say the least. Brutal reprisals against local Sunni populations in both those countries -- always a distinct possibility if not often a near certainty -- are now likely to increase. In Fallujah, there is already evidence that this retaliation is under way. As history has shown, many Sunnis on the receiving end of such brutality have, with no one else to protect them, joined the ranks of Islamic State.
The planning, the execution (although imperfect), and, most critically, the apparent intended effects of these attacks indicate Islamic State is to blame. The bombings were as cunning as they were designed to be brutal, and their goal, like bin Ladens, was to send a message to the Middle Easts premier Sunni state. This time, however, the stakes are higher. Islamic State seeks not just to overthrow the Saudi royal family but to conquer the state itself.
Welcome to Jihad 2.0.
David Patrikarakos is a contributing editor at the Daily Beast and the author of Nuclear Iran: The Birth Of An Atomic State. He is working on a book on social media and war.
A seven-year public inquiry ordered by the British government into the circumstances and "lessons" of the 2003 invasion of Iraq has concluded that the country's leadership went to war "before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted" and based on flawed intelligence and "wholly inadequate" planning.
The move also undermined the UN Security Council's authority because it failed to get council majority support for military action, the so-called Chilcot Inquiry found.
The 2.6 million-word "report for publication" casts a harsh light on former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, who joined the U.S.-led invasion to unseat Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein warning of a "real and present danger" of "terrorist groups [coming] in possession of WMD," a reference to weapons of mass destruction.
The committee concluded that Blair had confided to U.S. President George W. Bush eight months before the invasion that "I will be with you, whatever" and took the United Kingdom into the conflict despite no imminent threat from Iraq.
Outgoing Conservative British Prime Minister David Cameron responded to the Chilcot Inquiry report by saying that those who voted for military action at the time should share the blame, and he called for a two-day debate next week in the House of Commons. He also said that military success is not guaranteed in such ventures even if policy makers get "the process" right.
The inquiry, named after former civil servant John Chilcot, who led the probe, heard from 150 witnesses and analyzed 150,000 documents.
Presenting the conclusions in London on July 6, Chilcot said "the U.K. chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort." He added that the Blair government's evaluation of the threat from Hussein's weapons projected "certainty that was not justified."
It is an unwelcome spotlight for Blair, who left power in 2007 and last year publicly apologized "for some of the mistakes in planning and, certainly, our mistake in our understanding of what would happen once you removed the regime." But the 63-year-old former face of "New Labour" in Britain added that he "find[s] it hard to apologize for removing Saddam" Hussein.
Chilcot said that the legal basis for British military action in Iraq was "far from satisfactory."
Blair responded to the report's findings by saying he acted in Iraq "in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country."
He added that he accepts "full responsibility for any mistakes without exception or excuse."
Blair also expressed "profound regret" at the loss of life and paid tribute to the U.K.'s armed forces.
The Iraq war remains a divisive political topic in the United Kingdom and in many of the dozens of other countries that participated -- overtly or covertly -- in the U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq in March 2003.
The dissemination of the report on July 6 attracted antiwar demonstrators -- some of whom are clamoring for Blair to be tried for alleged war crimes -- to the London convention center near Parliament where Chilcot was presenting the findings.
Relatives of some of the 179 U.K. service personnel who died in the 2003 Iraq war also gathered in London to hear the committee's conclusions.
The UN's unanimously approved Resolution 1441 in 2002 gave the Iraqi leader "a final opportunity" to declare all weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and disarm or possibly face "serious consequences," a phrase that many interpreted as a green light for military action.
Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, AFP, and BBC
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has welcomed Washingtons decision to slow down U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
In a statement released on July 7, Ghani highlighted the important role of the United States as a strong and reliable partner, especially in the war against terrorism.
U.S. President Barack Obama has announced that the United States will keep 8,400 troops in Afghanistan through the end of his administration early next year, slowing the planned drawdown of the American military presence in the country.
Announcing the decision from the White House on July 6, Obama said the security situation in Afghanistan was "precarious."
He said the Taliban remains a "threat" in the country and that Afghan government security forces are still not as strong as they need to be.
Obama had previously planned to drop troop levels from the current 9,800 to 5,500 troops by the end of 2016, but Washington has been forced to wrestle with its exit strategy as Afghan forces continue to struggle against a resurgent Taliban.
According to recent UN estimates, the extremist group currently controls more territory in Afghanistan than at any time since the U.S.-led invasion of the country in 2001.
"It is in our national security interest -- especially after all the blood and treasure we've invested in Afghanistan over the years -- that we give our Afghan partners the very best opportunity to succeed," Obama said while standing next to top U.S. military leaders.
The decision will leave the planned troop levels in place until Obama's successor takes office in January 2017.
"The decision I'm making today ensures that my successor has a solid foundation for progress in Afghanistan, as well as the flexibility to address the threat of terrorism as it evolves," he said.
Obama, who came to the White House in 2009 pledging wind down the nation's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, said the role of American forces in Afghanistan would remain the same -- advising and training Afghan security forces and backing counterterrorism operations against the Taliban and other armed groups.
"We are no longer engaged in a major ground war in Afghanistan," he said.
Obama's announcement follows a call last month from a group of former U.S. ambassadors and commanders in Afghanistan to "freeze" the current troop level at 9,800 through the end of his presidency.
"l firmly believe the decision I'm announcing is the right thing to do," the president said.
"The United States has maintained a steadfast commitment to our Afghan partners, and President Obama's decision today is firmly in keeping with that enduring commitment," Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in a statement.
Based on reporting by Reuters, AFP, and AP
In many ways, Warsaw will be a sequel to Wales.
Two years ago, NATO was in emergency mode. Today it is planning for a long and tense conflict.
Two years ago, the Atlantic alliance went back to basics, refocusing on its core mission of defending its members. Today it is methodically putting the pieces in place to contain and deter an increasingly revanchist Russia.
The last time NATO heads of state gathered, in Newport, Wales, back in September 2014, the annexation of Crimea and the conflict in eastern Ukraine were only months old, and Russia's aggressive stance toward the West was just taking shape.
"Hybrid war" was still a fresh term that everybody was scrambling to understand.
If Wales 2014 was about an immediate response to a crisis, the alliance's summit this week in Warsaw will be about building the stable and sturdy security architecture for a long-term standoff with Moscow.
Decisions made in the Polish capital on July 8-9, alliance officials say, will resonate for decades to come.
"It will be a sign of the new times, when we will redefine Western security to deal more appropriately with the sea-change we have witnessed in this realm," Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said in a speech in May.
The summit is also unfolding in the shadow of "Brexit," in the emotionally charged environment following the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union.
So what should we expect in Warsaw?
The Eastern Front
Deterring Russia and reassuring the NATO's frontline states that border it will, of course, be the dominant theme at the summit.
"Transatlantic leaders must confront a jarring reality: the peace, security, and democratic stability of Europe can no longer be taken for granted," former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns and former NATO commander James Jones wrote in a recent report for the Atlantic Council.
Two years ago in Wales, NATO decided to set up new military facilities in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania, and established a new rapid-response force that could assist endangered members within two days.
In Warsaw, the alliance is expected to further reinforce its eastern flank with four combat battalions of up to 1,000 soldiers each in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.
The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada have agreed to command one battalion each.
The U.S.-led battalion is likely to deploy to Poland, probably in or near the Suwalki Gap, a roughly 100-kilometer stretch of the Polish-Lithuanian border wedged between Belarus and Russia's Kaliningrad region.
Military planners fear that in the event of a conflict, Russia could capture the gap, effectively cutting off the Baltics from the rest of the alliance.
The German-led battalion is expected to deploy to Lithuania, the British-led one to Estonia, and the fourth to Latvia.
Washington has also agreed to station a heavy brigade of 3,500 U.S. troops that will work in both the Baltic region and in Bulgaria and Romania, where a key base is being expanded for U.S. use as a training center.
Additionally, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in June that the alliance will consider an offer from Romania to host and command a multinational brigade of between 3,000 and 5,000 troops that would coordinate training and also play a deterrent role.
"These are not war-fighting formations," Mark Galeotti, a senior research fellow at the Czech Institute of International Relations, said on The Power Vertical Podcast.
"A thousand troops here or there, no matter how good they may be and no matter how well-equipped, are not going to turn the tide in the case of an apocalyptic war with Russia. They are political markers. They say: 'if you want to go into these countries you are not just going to be killing Estonians and Latvians, but Americans and Germans.' This is very significant."
Northern Exposure
But what if deterrence fails?
Due to the geography of Northern Europe, military analysts say the Baltic states are vulnerable to a determined Russian advance even with significant NATO troops on the ground.
A recent war game by the RAND Corporation concluded that NATO would need seven brigades, including three with heavy armor, "adequately supported by air power...and other enablers on the ground" in order "to prevent the rapid overrun of the Baltic states."
But even that would not be "sufficient to mount a sustained defense of the region or to achieve NATO's ultimate end state of restoring its members' territorial integrity."
And this, analysts say, is one of the reasons NATO is increasingly looking to two nonmembers, Finland and Sweden, as increasingly close partners and allies.
"Without Finnish and Swedish help, NATO will be hard-pressed to defend the Baltic states against a determined Russian attack," Edward Lucas, author of The New Cold War, wrote recently.
And with Finland and Sweden on NATO's side, the equation changes substantially.
Neither of the two historically neutral countries are ready to join the alliance yet, but support for that is on the rise in both, particularly in Sweden. Both also commissioned studies this year to explore the effects of membership.
Sweden and Finland are clearly moving closer to NATO, a trend that will likely be very visible in Warsaw.
In May, Sweden's parliament approved a host-nation support agreement with NATO, allowing the alliance to more easily operate on Swedish territory during training or in the event of a conflict or other crisis.
This summer, Swedish and Finnish foreign and defense ministers participated in meetings in Brussels with their 28 NATO counterparts, the first time such a format was used.
Alliance officials say the formula, known as "28 plus two," is likely to be continued in the future.
Southern Discomfort
Russia's annexation of Crimea and its militarization of the peninsula is also forcing NATO to look south, with a renewed focus on the Black Sea, which Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said risks becoming a "Russian lake."
"By invading Ukraine and annexing Crimea, Russian President Vladimir Putin has transformed the security situation in the Black Sea," Stephen Blank, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, wrote recently.
In an effort to push back, Romania plans to offer a proposal in Warsaw calling for a permanent multinational naval patrol in the Black Sea.
Speaking at a press conference in June, Stoltenberg said the issue will be "on the table" at the summit due to the "substantial Russian buildup in Crimea."
But creating a so-called NATO Black Sea fleet is proving controversial.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov has made it clear that his country is opposed to, and would not participate in, such an initiative.
At a press conference in June, Borisov said such a move would "turn the Black Sea into a territory of war" and that he "wants to see cruising yachts, and tourists, rather than warships."
Bulgaria's opposition means the issue will probably be one of the most hotly debated issues in Warsaw.
The Cyber-Battlefield
NATO will also be turning its attention to cyberwarfare in Warsaw, alliance officials say, continuing a trend that began in Wales.
"At our previous summit, we made clear that cyberdefense is part of NATOs core task of collective defense, and confirmed that international law applies in cyberspace," a senior NATO official said.
"At Warsaw, we will take another step ahead: recognizing cyberspace as an operational domain, in addition to air, sea, and land."
Classifying cyberspace as a domain, the official added, will enable NATO to better manage its resources and integrate cyberdefense into its exercises, training, and responses to crises.
A French television network, a German steelmaker, the Polish stock market, the White House, the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. State Department, and The New York Times are among those who have been on the receiving end of Russian cyberattacks in recent years.
Additionally, NATO is also expected to formally approve a "comprehensive assistance package" for Ukraine that was approved in June.
Enlargement, however, appears to be off the table for the foreseeable future, with the exception of Montenegro, which signed as "accession protocol" with NATO in May, will participate in the Warsaw summit as an observer, and is expected to join the alliance some time next year.
On the eve of the summit, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Georgia and Ukraine to reassure those two countries that the alliance's door remains open.
"The official NATO 'open doors policy' for alliance enlargement remains in place but it is difficult to see how potential candidates such as Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine can move forward," John McColl, a former deputy NATO commander, wrote recently.
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A 34-year-old pimp who ran a prostitution ring that traveled from Texas to Florida, Baltimore and Henrico County was found guilty Wednesday on two counts of receiving money from sex trafficking.
Edwin Guyton of Richmond, entered an Alford plea, acknowledging that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict him but not admitting guilt, before Henrico County Circuit Court Judge Gary A. Hicks found him guilty. He is set to be sentenced Sept. 18.
Jabari Nkosi Whittington, 20, of Houston, was also found guilty of aiding prostitution, a misdemeanor, in back-to-back hearings. He pleaded no contest, and was sentenced to a year in jail with half of that time suspended.
Whittington was a pimp-in-training and enamored with the lifestyle, according to Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Michael Feinmel, who summarized the testimony that two women who worked for Guyton would have given had the cases gone to trial. But Feinmel said Whittington was more of an errand boy.
Both women, who are from Texas, traveled to Miami and then up the East Coast to Baltimore with Guyton and Whittington. They first visited Henrico County in March when police set up a date with one of the women who had been listed on a website frequently used for prostitution.
When police knocked on the womans hotel room door, Guyton, who was staying next door, answered. He was then arrested, as well as the woman.
Five days later, Whittington and the second woman were arrested when they returned to the county from Baltimore to collect Guytons belongings.
Guytons attorney, Steve Mutnick, asked the judges to forego the preparation of a pre-sentencing report and proceed with sentencing on Wednesday.
Feinmel objected, saying the court should weigh Guytons lengthy criminal record as he held up a stack of charges and convictions that he estimated was a centimeter thick.
Two officials at Maggie L. Walker Governors School are asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the father of a student punished after sending an email to a university accusing a fellow student of cheating.
Jeffrey W. McGee, Maggie Walkers director, and Philip B. Tharp, the assistant director, said in court papers that they were within their rights to punish the student for bullying because he violated the schools code of conduct.
The two officials are asking a judge to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Michael Brown on behalf of his son, saying the school in Richmond has defined bullying to include a single instance of making false statements about another person.
Brown wants the school to expunge any reference to bullying or punishment from his sons record. Hes also asking for nominal damages and attorneys fees.
McGee and Tharp argue in their filing that the suit should be dismissed, in part, because they had a rational basis for their decision and did not violate Browns sons right to due process.
They argue that Brown fails to demonstrate egregious conduct which constitutes an abuse of power that shocks the conscience.
Indeed, they write in court papers, it is (Browns sons) own conduct in sending an admittedly false email about another student to the (university) that is egregious and shocking.
Brown said Tuesday that he was aware of the filing and that his attorneys were reviewing it. He said he was not in a position to discuss the legal points of the argument but did not understand the position the school is taking in the lawsuit.
I have no faith in any information that has come from that school or those attorneys because I have experienced directly how they have handled this, and I am suspect of everything they tell me, he said.
Browns attorney, Stephen C. Piepgrass, said in an email Tuesday that the plan is to file a detailed answer to the motion soon.
For now, we will simply say that the pleading filed by the defendants contains substantial inaccuracies, he said. We will continue to pursue this matter with full vigor.
The suit stems from an email Browns son sent to a universitys admissions office in February stating that a fellow student had been admitted into your prestigious university under falsified pretense.
Browns son claimed in the email that Maggie Walker officials had deleted numerous accounts of honor code violations, to include instances of cheating on tests from the other students school records.
The university forwarded the email to Maggie Walker officials.
McGee and Tharp say in the motion for dismissal, which was filed Thursday, that after speaking to the student and his parents about the matter, it was determined that Browns son violated the schools code because his email contained false statements about the other student.
As punishment for bullying, Browns son was made to perform six hours of work detail at the school and to write a statement about what he learned from the experience.
Browns lawsuit does say that Browns son misunderstood the details of the other students record but that the email to the university was not materially false.
In an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch last month, Brown said he never disagreed that there was (some deserved punishment) because the email didnt have 100 percent fact.
In his lawsuit, Brown claims that McGee revealed to him and his son that the student the email referenced had only been caught and convicted of cheating once. If true, that could be a violation of Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law that protects the privacy of student education records.
The motion filed by the Maggie Walker officials does not address the issue of the other students academic or disciplinary record.
Stacy Haney, the attorney representing McGee and Tharp, said in an email Tuesday that defendants do not get to address accusations when they file a motion to dismiss.
So we have not yet had the opportunity to respond to the allegations that are not accurate, she said in the email.
In any event, Dr. McGee did not disclose the other students record to (the son) or his father. He did tell (the son) and his father that (the sons) email was false.
Brown said in the June interview that he has no issue with his son contacting the university to report the behavior of another student even though it was based on hearsay. (The alleged cheating and administrators alleged cover-up was a rumor going around Maggie Walker at the time.)
He reiterated that sentiment Tuesday.
A federal judge has denied Gloucester County School Boards request to hold off on a preliminary injunction allowing a transgender student to use the boys restroom.
U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar ruled Wednesday that the injunction will stay in place as the school district continues to appeal the decision to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and, if that appeal fails, to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Doumar wrote that based on a prior appeals court ruling and evidence submitted by declaration in this case, the preliminary injunction was warranted.
There are no grounds for a stay, he wrote.
Gavin Grimm sued the school district last year for the right to use the boys restroom after the School Board enacted a policy limiting bathroom use to the one corresponding with a persons biological sex rather than the gender with which one identifies. Grimm was born female but identifies as male.
The policy allows for unisex bathrooms.
The ACLU, which is defending Grimm, has argued that forcing him to use the girls bathroom is a violation of Title IX and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
In September, Doumar ruled against Grimms request for a preliminary injunction, but that decision was overturned by the appeal court in Richmond. Doumar issued the injunction late last month, clearing the way for Grimm to start using the boys restroom when school resumes.
A former Altavista police chief was convicted Wednesday on 15 felony charges that resulted from a months-long Virginia State Police investigation last year.
Kenneth Walsh, 51, of Hurt, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of forging public documents as part of a plea agreement in Campbell County Circuit Court.
He entered Alford pleas -- maintaining his innocence while acknowledging prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him -- on 11 counts of forging public documents, one count of embezzlement and two counts of obtaining drugs by fraud.
Walsh was ordered to pay $6,800 in restitution. A sentencing hearing was set for 3 p.m. Oct. 5.
In a summary of evidence that would have been presented in Walsh's July 20 jury trial, Bedford County Commonwealth's Attorney Wes Nance, special prosecutor in the case, said the charges stem from money Walsh took from the police department's drug fund in 2014.
Nance said witnesses would have testified Walsh used the money to purchase prescription pills not for drug investigations but for his own personal use.
Walsh ordered an employee to falsify receipts that said the department paid confidential informants for drugs, including one informant who was incarcerated at the time of the alleged drug deal, Nance said.
Walsh retired from the department in May 2015 after being on paid administrative leave for several months during the investigation. He was indicted twice on a total of 20 felonies earlier this year.
In exchange for the plea deal, Nance agreed to drop the remaining five charges against Walsh.
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DECATUR A serial thief from Decatur who is also accused of verbally threatening and physically battering a 3-year-old boy is now lodged in jail facing multiple charges.
In the battery case, sworn police statements say Jack A. Miller, 33, was inside the Sprint store at 245 E. Ash Avenue in Decatur on June 22 where employees heard him threaten the boy. Jack told him several times that he was going to cut his tongue out of his mouth," the statements allege. They also claim he told the crying child he would blister his buttocks by hitting him with a belt.
He was then seen to take the child outside to the parking lot where he wanted him to urinate, which the boy could not do. The statements say Miller then marched him back inside the store and, as they entered, hit him in the back of the head so hard the boy was knocked off his feet and propelled 18 inches across the floor.
Police, who say the alleged violence was captured on surveillance cameras, later arrested Miller and booked him on charges of aggravated battery to a child under 13 and domestic battery.
The charges relating to the alleged thefts date to May 24 when it's claimed Miller went on a more than $4,000 spending spree in little more than an hour with two stolen debit cards. Police say Miller obtained the cards from a stolen wallet that had been taken from a theft victim by the victim's ex-wife. It's alleged the former husband allowed her into his home around midnight May 23 and later noticed the wallet was gone. He told police the woman knew the cards' PIN numbers.
Miller's alleged spending spree began at 1:46 a.m May 24 and involved 14 purchases of electronic goods and other supplies for amounts up to $950. The ex-wife allegedly told police she was with Miller when he made the purchases but claimed she didn't know how he had obtained the debit cards.
Miller, who is facing identity theft and retail theft charges, also is accused of walking out of the Forsyth Menards store on June 10 with a cordless nail gun valued at $400 which he made no attempt to pay for.
Miller remained held without bond in the Macon County Jail on Tuesday night.
When Mohamed Bailor Jalloh walked into the Blue Ridge Arsenal gun store and indoor target range in Chantilly, Virginia, on Friday to purchase a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle, his every move was being monitored by the FBI.
Jalloh, 26, spent about 10 minutes in the shop before attempting to buy the assault weapon, but he was told that he did not have the required three forms of identification to make the purchase, said Earl Curtis, the stores owner. Jalloh told employees that he would return.
As soon as he walked out the door, the FBI came in, Curtis said in an interview Tuesday. Jalloh came back the next day and bought a different assault rifle for about $1,200, Curtis said. The store following the FBIs instructions rendered it inoperable before Jalloh left.
Jalloh, a former member of the Virginia National Guard, was arrested Sunday and accused in federal court of plotting a domestic terrorist attack on behalf of the Islamic State, authorities announced Tuesday.
Prosecutors said Jalloh had told someone close to him that he wanted to carry out an attack in the style of Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people in a 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. He told that person he thinks about conducting an attack all the time, and was close to doing so at one point, according to an affidavit filed in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. In addition to the assault weapon, he had recently purchased a 9 mm Glock handgun.
Authorities did not say in court papers whether Jalloh had identified a specific target or when he planned to carry out his alleged plot.
Hasan, sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013, grew up in Arlington and spent his teen years in the Roanoke Valley.
Federal authorities said in the affidavit that in late March, Jalloh made his first contact with a confidential source who was working with a now-deceased overseas co-conspirator who was a member of the Islamic State. The overseas co-conspirator encouraged the source to have an in-person meeting with Jalloh, the documents state, and when they did meet on April 9, the FBI was watching.
At that meeting, Jalloh praised Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, who killed five U.S. service members in Chattanooga, Tennessee, last year, the documents said.
According to court documents, Jalloh told the confidential source that he made a six-month visit to Africa last year and met with Islamic State members in Nigeria. Jalloh also told the source that he was interested in traveling to Libya to join the group there.
Jalloh purchased a Glock handgun in February but was unsuccessful in trying to buy an assault rifle in Charlotte last month, according to the documents.
Although Jalloh is quoted in court documents as saying he wanted to launch an attack, he also expresses some hesitation.
I really want to, but I dont want to give my word and not fulfill it, he told the source in April.
He also asked about providing money or weapons in the event that he could not carry out the attack himself, according to the documents. Authorities say that in May, he made a cash transfer of $500 to an FBI agent he believed was a member of the Islamic State.
Jalloh, a native of Sierra Leone, is a U.S. citizen. He was taken into custody by FBI special agents while driving outside his Sterling, Virginia, neighborhood Sunday morning, according to the FBI.
Jalloh served as a specialist in the Virginia National Guard from April 2009 to April 2015. He was a combat engineer in the 276th Engineer Battalion, 91st Troop Command. The battalion deployed overseas during Jallohs tenure, but there are no records showing that he deployed with the battalion, said Virginia National Guard spokesman A.A. Cotton Puryear.
Jallo quit the National Guard after listening to the lectures of deceased radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, according to the affidavit.
Awlakis rhetoric has been linked to several terrorist attacks and plots even after he was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011. Hasan developed a relationship with the cleric after hearing him lecture at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Northern Virginia. Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people in a nightclub in Orlando last month, had also watched videos of Awlaki.
Jalloh appeared briefly in court Tuesday. He spoke softly, saying only, Yes, sir when asked whether he had agreed to a delay in his detention hearing.
Defense attorney Ashraf Nubani said he could not comment on the case at this time. In court, he said, We dont expect bond to be granted in this case but he deserves a fair chance.
Virginia has won a $165 million federal grant to unlock what it calls the Atlantic Gateway to speed passenger rail, freight trains and highway vehicles through one of the most congested corridors on the East Coast.
The FASTLANE grant will combine with $565 million in private investment by Transurban and CSX Transportation, as well as $710 million in state transportation funds, to carry out some of the biggest projects on the states transportation wish list in a package worth $1.4 billion.
Those improvements include:
a new Interstate 95 bridge crossing of the Rappahannock River;
extension of Interstate 395 express lanes about 7 miles north to the Potomac River and I-95 express lanes about 10 miles south toward Fredericksburg;
construction of 14 miles of new track along the CSX rail corridor crossing the Potomac River, as well as deed to the states 60 miles of abandoned railroad track from Petersburg to North Carolina for high-speed passenger rail service;
expansion of mass transit options, including 1,000 new parking spaces for commuters along I-95 and I-395 in Northern Virginia.
Its spectacular! said House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, who worked with the administration of Gov. Terry McAuliffe, local and regional officials, and industry to make it happen.
McAuliffe touted an estimated $500 million in planned rail improvements from CSX and the state six-year plan as the largest rail investment in the history of the commonwealth, with benefits in all modes of transportation.
Transportation leaders came to the table with one clear goal: improve travel in the most heavily traveled corridor in the Southeast by investing in road and rail improvements to move people and commerce efficiently, not only through Virginia, but also from Florida to New York, the governor said in a statement announcing the grant under the federal FAST Act signed in December.
Separately, the government awarded a $90 million FASTLANE grant for a $250 million project to rebuild the approaches to Arlington Memorial Bridge, a critical commuter artery built 84 years ago between Virginia and the District of Columbia.
This significant federal investment will go a long way toward ensuring that Memorial Bridge remains open, which is welcome news for the regions commuters, said a joint statement by Virginia Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, members of the states congressional delegation from Northern Virginia, and D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton.
Virginia Secretary of Transportation Aubrey Layne Jr. said the Atlantic Gateway will boost the Port of Virginia, where the state has committed $350 million to increase capacity at Norfolk International Terminal, by expanding rail service in Virginia at Long Bridge on the Potomac and accommodating trains double-stacked with shipping containers on CSX routes in and out of D.C.
The project also will help expand Amtrak and commuter rail service across the Potomac and give Virginia control of the former CSX S-Line abandoned more than 30 years ago from Petersburg through Southside to the North Carolina line, which the governor called key for future Southeast High Speed Rail.
This is a home run, Layne said. This is how we believe federal, private and state money should be used they should be leveraging one another.
The key was negotiations during the past two years with CSX, based in Jacksonville, Florida, and Transurban, based in Australia, to invest in critical rail and highway improvements, respectively. It is a good example of public-private partnership, Howell said.
Howells House district stands in the middle of the gateway, with the fast-growing Fredericksburg suburbs lying just south of where the I-95 toll express lanes end now and standing to gain from expanding the Virginia Railway Express commuter service to and from Washington.
It should be a tremendous help up here, Howell said. From a highway standpoint, commuter rail ... higher speed rail, Im very pleased.
Transurban has been the states partner in building the 29-mile express lane network on I-95 and Interstate 495 in Northern Virginia. The federal grant will allow construction of 17 miles of express lanes to begin next year, McAuliffe said.
Transit improvements include expansion of commuter and truck parking along the I-95 corridor; expanded bus and Virginia Railway Express service; construction of pavement to eventually allow use of driverless cars; and improved technology to respond to traffic incidents and provide travel information to drivers.
Layne said tolls collected on the express lanes will remain in the corridor to pay for future transit and other measures to reduce congestion.
Barbara Anne (St. Pierre) Cook, 92, of Roanoke County, Va., died on Friday, July 1, 2016.She was born in Brockton, Mass., and attended Brockton High School. Barbara worked at the Boston Ship Yard as a welder during World War II. She married the late Robert H. Cook, also a native of Brockton, in that city, in 1946.After marriage they lived in State College, Pa., for four years while her husband attended The Pennsylvania State University, and she worked there. They lived in Avon, Mass., where they raised two sons. After her husband's retirement they lived in Frisco, Clayton, and Eden, N.C., before moving to Roanoke County, Va., in 1996 to join their eldest son.Barbara served as a Den Mother while her sons were Cub Scouts. She was involved in church activities wherever she lived and was always attentive to the news and activities of her community. During the last decade of her life she was a member of, and involved in the activities of, the First Church of the Brethren in Roanoke City.She is survived by son, Dale of Roanoke County, Va.; son, David and daughter-in-law, Sandra (nee Beelen) of Naperville, Ill.; granddaughter, Grace (Cook) Fields and her husband, Greg Fields; great-grandchildren, Wesley and Eliza Fields of Irmo, S.C.; brother-in-law, Edward Rudis of Stoughton, Mass.; niece, Deborah Rudis of Juneau, Alaska; and nephew, Mark Rudis of Seattle, Wash.A Memorial Service will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, July 8, 2016, at the First Church of the Brethren, 2001 Carroll Ave., NW, Roanoke City. Interment will occur at a later date in the family burial plot in Brockton, Mass.The family suggests that donations be made in Mrs. Cook's memory to the First Church of the Brethren in Roanoke City, Va. Arrangements by Oakey's South Chapel, 540-989-3131. Online condolences may be made at www.oakeys.com.
Trump met with Pence and his family over the weekend and apparently Pence left a good impression.
Trump tweeted on Monday that he was "very impressed" by the Indiana governor, who at one time had his own presidential ambitions. In addition to his time as governor, Pence served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 12 years.
Trump, who values loyalty, doesn't know Pence as well as some of the other candidates under consideration.
But Pence, who was once a favorite of social conservatives, has also seen his standing slide in the wake of criticism over his handling of the state's "religious freedom" law, which critics feared would allow discrimination against gays and lesbians. After repeatedly defending it, Pence eventually signed a new version of the bill with additional protections that left both sides dissatisfied.
Crime-catchers from around the world have gathered in The Hague to increase international cooperation in what is described as the first global law enforcement forum on the illicit diamond trade.
Europol, the European Law Enforcement Agency based in the Dutch capital, is hosting the three-day conference that started Tuesday last week. The event brings together senior law enforcement and customs officials, regulatory bodies, anti-money laundering experts and private sector experts with a stake in combating the illicit trade and trafficking.
This forum is a crucial step forward in our mission to disrupt the criminal activity that touches not just the U.S. but the entire world, said Stephen Richardson, assistant director for the criminal investigative division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
The congress will provide a platform for sharing information and networking, the FBI said. It will also help build law enforcement partnerships that will lead to the identification, dismantling and disruption of criminal networks associated with the illicit trade in diamonds.
James Bow
Through funding made available under the Moving Ontario Forward plan, Ontario plans to expand GO Transit rail service on the Stouffville corridor as part of GO Regional Express Rail (RER).
Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario issued a request for qualifications (RFQ) for interested parties to design and build the infrastructure that is needed to support expanded GO rail service on the Stouffville Corridor that includes infrastructure upgrades at three GO Stations.
This procurement shows our commitment to implement much needed rapid transit infrastructure in the GTHA. Rapid transit expansion is all about giving people more transit options and making it as easy as possible for people to choose transit first. This is proof of our governments plan in action. We are committed to providing accessible, modern transit infrastructure that will manage congestion, reduce commute times, create jobs and improve the quality of life for Ontarians, said Steven Del Duca, minister of Transportation.
Milliken Station will receive new and relocated platforms with canopy enclosure, tunnels, elevators, Steeles Avenue pedestrian connection, Steeles Avenue crossing improvements and customer amenities; Agincourt Station will see a new second track, new and relocated platforms with canopy enclosure, tunnels, elevators, customer waiting areas, building relocation and customer amenities and Unionville Station would see a new second track and turning track, new and relocated platforms with canopy enclosure, tunnels, elevators, parking expansion and customer amenities.
GO RER is one way Ontario is providing faster, more frequent and more convenient transit service across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA). GO RER also involves the introduction of electrification of core segments of the GO Transit network (including the Stouffville Corridor) by 2024. The program will also help manage congestion, connect people to jobs and minimize greenhouse gas pollution by reducing car trips and improve travel times.
The RFQ is the first step in the procurement process to select a team to deliver the project. Teams who qualify will be invited to respond to a request for proposals later this summer. GO RER will provide faster and more frequent GO rail service across the region, with electrification of core segments of the network. Weekly trips across the entire GO rail network are expected to grow from about 1,500 to nearly 6,000 over 10 years. The investments in station upgrades and grade separation will support future electrification of the Stouffville GO corridor from Union Station to Lincolnville.
These station improvements will enable us to provide two-way, all-day service to residents living in Scarborough and Markham and builds on the recent approval received to add new GO stations to our existing network, commented Bruce McCuaig
president and chief executive officer, Metrolinx.
Hong Kong will on Wednesday see June results for the manufacturing PMI from Nikkei, highlighting a light day for Asia-Pacific economic activity.
The manufacturing PMI came in with a score of 47.2 in May.
Finally, the in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia are closed on Wednesday for Eid-ul-Fitr; Singapore is back on Thursday, while Indonesia is off for the week. Malaysia returns on Friday.
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Continuing its efforts to improve the quality of data service for mobile users, telecom regulator TRAI has launched an application to help consumers check real time mobile internet speed on their handsets.
The Myspeed App gives TRAI real time data from customers and shows the mobile data speed of each operator in a given area on a real-time basis. The speed test app is available on both iOS and Android platforms.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India will use the data collected from subscribers to fix new quality of service (QoS) norms for which the process will start within a month.
"We will start the consultation process soon to fix the quality of service benchmark for wireless data. Through the application, we will get real-time data from customers. This will be put on TRAI Analytics Portal," TRAI Chairman R S Sharma said in New Delhi.
In 2014, TRAI had issued norms under which it asked telecom operators to indicate minimum download speed that can be provided to consumers. However telecom operators have complained that 'law of physics' does not guarantee minimum speed that they can provide to consumers.
In the consultation paper, TRAI would look at the average data speed that telcos would have to offer to consumers.
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The euro, the pound and commodity currencies such as the Australian, the New Zealand and the Canadian dollars weakened against their major counterparts in the Asian session on Wednesday, as investors fled risky assets and commodity prices fell amid renewed Brexit fears.
Worries about the economic and financial fallout of Britain leaving the European Union have gripped financial again. On Tuesday, three U.K. property funds halted redemptions, citing the need to raise cash before returning money to investors.
Crude oil for August delivery are currently down $0.25 at $46.35 a barrel amid speculation markets are oversupplied during a time of significant economic uncertainty.
Nigeria's oil industry recovered partially from militant attacks and Iran and Gulf members are boosting supplies, leading to oversupply concerns. Meanwhile, traders await the release of API crude stockpiles report due later in the day.
Tuesday, the euro and the pound fell against their major rivals.
Among the commodity currencies, the Australian dollar showed mixed trading against its major rivals. While the Australian dollar rose against the U.S. dollar and the euro, it fell against the yen.
Meanwhile the New Zealand and the Canadian dollars fell against U.S. dollar, the yen and the euro.
In the Asian trading, the euro fell to nearly a 2-week low of 111.04 against the yen, from yesterday's closing value of 112.65. The euro may test support near the 109.00 region.
Against the Swiss franc and the U.S. dollar, the euro dropped to an 8-day low of 1.0794 and a 6-day low of 1.1036 from yesterday's closing quotes of 1.0819 and 1.1076, respectively. If the euro extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 1.06 against the franc and 1.08 against the greenback.
The pound fell to a 31-year low of 1.2791 against the U.S. dollar, from yesterday's closing value of 1.3022. The pound may test support near the 1.26 area.
Against the Swiss franc, the yen and the euro, the pound dropped to nearly a 5-year low of 1.2511, nearly a 4-year low of 128.62 and nearly a 3-year low of 0.8626 from yesterday's closing quotes of 1.2715, 132.42 and 0.8505, respectively. If the pound extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 1.24 against the franc, 127.00 against the yen and 0.87 against the euro.
The Australian dollar fell to a 9-day low of 74.55 against the yen and a 6-day low of 0.7408 against the U.S. dollar, from yesterday's closing quotes of 75.89 and 0.7461, respectively. If the aussie extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 72.00 against the yen and 0.72 against the greenback.
Against the euro and the Canadian dollar, the aussie edged down to 1.4902 and 0.9659 from yesterday's closing quotes of 1.4840 and 0.9682, respectively. The Australian dollar is likely to find support at 1.52 against the euro and 0.94 against the loonie.
The NZ dollar fell to an 8-day low of 71.25 against the yen, from yesterday's closing value of 72.75. On the downside, 96.00 is seen as the next support level for the kiwi.
Against the U.S. dollar, the euro and the Australian dollar, the kiwi edged down to 6-day lows of 0.7079, 1.5599 and 1.0475 from yesterday's closing quotes of 0.7153, 1.5479 and 1.0428, respectively. If the kiwi extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 0.68 against the greenback, 1.59 against the euro and 1.08 against the aussie.
The Canadian dollar fell to nearly a 2-week low of 77.11 against the yen and an 8-day low of 1.3048 against the U.S. dollar, from yesterday's closing quotes of 78.35 and 1.2978, respectively. If the loonie extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 75.00 against the yen and 1.32 against the greenback.
Against the euro, the loonie edged down to 1.4407 from yesterday's closing value of 1.4374. The loonie may test support near the 1.47 region.
Meanwhile, safe haven currencies such as the U.S. dollar and the yen rose against their major counterparts.
The U.S. dollar rose to a 6-day high of 0.9784 against the Swiss franc, from yesterday's closing value of 0.9765. The greenback is likely to find resistance around the 0.99 area.
The yen rose to nearly a 2-week high of 100.58 against the U.S. dollar, from yesterday's closing value of 101.71. On the upside, 98.00 is seen as the next resistance level for the yen.
Looking ahead, German factory orders for May is due to be released in the pre-European session at 2:00 am ET.
Markit is slated to release Germany's construction PMI data for June later in the day.
At 3:30 am ET, Reserve Bank of Australia Assistant Governor Guy Debelle is expected to speak about the FX Code of Conduct at a Thomson Reuters event in Sydney.
Around the same time, Bank of Spain Governor Luis Linde will deliver a speech titled "Stability premise for recovery," organized by the College of Civil Engineering, Channels and Ports, the Roads Foundation and the Menendez Pelayo International University in Madrid.
Half-an-hour later, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi along with other ECB board members will deliver opening remarks at the 8th ECB Statistics Conference, in Frankfurt.
In the New York session, Canada and U.S. trade balance for May, final U.S. services PMI for June and U.S. ISM non-manufacturing PMI for June are slated for release.
At 8:00 am ET, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley will meet with Binghamton University researchers and Southern Tier Regional Economic Development Council members to discuss economic development projects and tours the BU Innovate Technologies Complex in Vestal, New York.
At 9:00 am ET, Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo is expected to speak about financial regulation and monetary policy at the Wall Street Journal Breakfast Conversation in Washington DC, via satellite.
At 2:00 pm ET, U.S. Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee will publish the minutes of its June policy meeting.
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Business News
Construction company Carillion Plc. (CLLN.L) Wednesday said is continues to expect first-half performance to be led by revenue and margin growth in support services. Overall, the company remains on track to make further progress in 2016.
In its trading update, the company noted that the support services segment is moving towards two thirds of the Group's total underlying operating profit.
The total first-half revenue is expected to increase and offset the effect on first-half profit of a slight reduction in underlying operating margin. As previously indicated, the quantum of equity sales in Public Private Partnership projects was lower than in the first half of 2015 and the one-off contribution to profit from the reorganisation of Middle East labour facilities in the first half of 2015 was not repeated in 2016.
Looking ahead, the company continues to expect full-year performance to be led by revenue and margin growth in support services, with Public Private Partnership projects, Middle East construction services and construction services excluding the Middle East also performing in line with expectations.
Therefore, with revenue visibility for the full year of 97 percent and a strong pipeline of further contract opportunities, the Group remains on track to make further progress in 2016.
Regarding the UK referendum, Carillion said it has no significant operations in Mainland Europe and prior to the referendum it undertook extensive work to assess the possible impact on of a vote to leave and we have put in place robust plans to manage this outcome.
Separately, Carillion said it was awarded support services contracts worth up to 600 million pounds. Total new first-half orders and probable orders are now worth 2.5 billion pounds.
Carillion said its market leading business in Oman, Carillion Alawi, has signed a 4.5-year contract extension for Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) to continue the provision of integrated facilities management services at twelve locations across Oman, worth 240 million pounds.
Carillion has also been awarded two contracts by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive to deliver maintenance services for its housing stock, worth up to 366 million pounds over a period of up to 10 years.
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Business News
Dear Dr. Roach: I am 61, and I ride a bike and paddle a kayak, although not as often as I should. I also weigh more than I should. I come from a family with a long history of heart problems, and recently was diagnosed with mild diastolic dysfunction. What exactly does this mean? Can it have anything to do with the fact that I am almost always tired? What does this mean, long term, for my general health?
S.C.
A: There are two phases to the cardiac cycle: systole and diastole. In systole, the chamber is contracting; in diastole, the chamber is filling.
Heart failure used to be thought of as primarily a condition of systolic problems, that the left ventricle is unable to pump out all the blood the body needs. However, we are increasingly realizing that some people can have perfectly normal systolic function but still have symptoms of heart failure, especially fatigue and shortness of breath and especially on exertion. This is now referred to as heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF, pronounced "heff-peff"), which sounds like what you may be experiencing.
Diastolic dysfunction can come from high blood pressure, sleep apnea, weighing too much, kidney disease and from rare causes, like amyloid (a condition of abnormal protein deposition).
People with this condition do have an increased risk of death from heart disease, although it is not as bad as the more well-known heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. Treatment is careful control of any underlying issues (especially blood pressure), and often includes other medications, such as spironolactone. This is a situation where it is worthwhile to find an experienced provider, often a cardiologist.
Metal plates
Dear Dr. Roach: I had surgery for a fracture and had metal plates put in to stabilize the bones. I am wondering about metal detectors at airports.
C.M.
A: Metal detectors at airports are quite sensitive, and people with large amounts of metal, such as an artificial joint or large metal plates, may set off the alarm. In a recent survey, less than half of people with metal implants are detected, and most of those who are said they are not significantly inconvenienced by the process. Having a TSA card or postoperative clearance letter from your surgeon can reduce the risk of problems, but the airport security personnel are used to seeing these now.
CoQ10 deficiency
Dear Dr. Roach: I am an 89-year-old male who has been taking simvastatin for years to control high cholesterol. Except for the side effect of muscle pain, it is working.
It is my understanding that taking statins long term can create a deficiency of CoQ10. My family physician, as well as my cardiologist, says not to worry about it and that CoQ10 supplements do not help. Is there any way to measure a possible deficiency in CoQ10, and does taking supplements help?
A.D.M.
A: CoQ10, a vitamin-like substance, can indeed be depleted by metabolism of most statin drugs, including simvastatin. Most of the published evidence has failed to show a benefit from CoQ10, in doses from 120 mg to 600 mg daily, in divided doses. Despite this, I have had some people with muscle pain on statins try CoQ10 supplements, sometimes with success. This may all be placebo response, but CoQ10 is safe, relatively inexpensive and might be worth a trial. I don't recommend it as a preventive agent. CoQ10 levels are not generally available.
Two statins, fluvastatin and pravastatin, are metabolized differently, and they are less likely to cause muscle aches than the others.
* * *
Many letters ask about cervical cancer and Pap smears. The booklet on those two topics explains both. Readers can order a copy by writing: Dr. Roach Book No. 1102, 628 Virginia Dr., Orlando, FL 32803. Enclose a check or money order (no cash) for $4.75 with the recipient's printed name and address. Please allow four weeks for delivery.
Data-storage company EMC Corp. (EMC) said that independent proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis has recommended that the company's shareholders vote in favor of the proposal to approve the merger agreement among Denali Holding Inc., Dell Inc., Universal Acquisition Co., and EMC.
Glass Lewis also recommended that EMC shareholders vote "for" the other two proposals described in EMC's proxy statement relating to the company's special meeting of shareholders to be held on July 19, 2016. Glass Lewis has prefaced its conclusion that the proposed transaction is in the best interests of EMC shareholders.
"The proposed consideration represents what is, in our view, an attractive premium to the unaffected closing price of EMC shares and appears generally reasonable in numerous analyses presented by the independent financial advisors, including relative to peer trading multiples, premiums paid and discounted cash flows including stock based compensation expense," Glass Lewis said.
Joe Tucci, Chairman and CEO of EMC said, "We are very pleased that Glass Lewis is recommending EMC shareholders vote 'FOR' the proposed merger with Dell. I firmly believe, as does EMC's Board of Directors, that the coming together of EMC and Dell is the best strategic option for all stakeholders."
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Business News
Prestage Foods of Iowa LLC said it will build a $240 million pork processing plant in Wright County, Iowa. The company had earlier planned to build the pork plant in Mason City, but the plan was rejected by the Mason City Council in May.
According to the company, construction of the plant in Wright County is slated to begin in the fall of 2016, pending finalization of county and state approvals, with completion and first-shift operations beginning in mid-2018.
The plant, which will initially operate in one shift, will create more than new 900 full-time jobs and have a total capital investment of more than $240 million.
Ron Prestage, DVM, on behalf of the Prestage family said, "Iowa is the nation's leading pork producing state and currently produces more pigs than it can process. This plant will keep the value from processing pigs in this state."
Prestage Foods noted that the plant will bring a $43 million boost to the overall income in Wright County and will also offer economic benefits to the surrounding counties.
The lowest-paid workers at the plant will begin at more than $37,000 per year plus full benefits, while average wages at the plant are expected to be more than $47,000.
Bryce Davis, Wright County Economic Development Director said, "Agriculture is important to this county and to our state and we welcome the more than 900 new jobs and $240 million investment in this area."
Prestage Farms, a family-owned and operated , has been raising pigs in Iowa for more than a decade and is now located in 30 Iowa counties.
The company said it plans to buy 40 percent of the hogs for the plant from independent farmers, creating a new market option for those farmers.
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Business News
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., revealed Tuesday evening that FBI Director James Comey will be called to testify before Congress following his decision to recommend no criminal charges be filed against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server while Secretary of State.
In an interview with Megyn Kelly of Fox News, Ryan questioned the conclusion reached by Comey in light of the case the FBI Director laid out regarding Clinton's mishandling of classified information.
"What really just mystifies me is the case he makes and then the conclusion he draws, and what bothers me about this is the Clintons really are living above the law," Ryan said. "They're being held by a different set of standardsthat is clearly what this looks like."
He added, "This is why we're going to have hearings, and this is why I think Comey should give us all the publicly available information to see how and why they reached these conclusions."
Ryan indicated Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Government and Oversight Committee, will call Comey to testify and noted the House Judiciary Committee has also sent the FBI chief a number of questions.
The House Speaker also suggested that the Director of National Intelligence should block Clinton's access to classified information.
In a statement on Tuesday, Comey described Clinton as careless in her use of a private email server but said he is not recommending criminal charges against the likely Democratic presidential nominee.
Comey noted that the Justice Department will make the final decision but said the FBI determined no charges are appropriate.
"In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts," Comey said.
"To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences," he added. "To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now."
Comey said the investigation determined that 110 e-mails sent or received on Clinton's server contained classified information.
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Political News
President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that the U.S. military will keep a higher number of troops in Afghanistan than previously planned.
In remarks from the White House, Obama revealed that the U.S. will maintain approximately 8,400 troops in Afghanistan through the end of his administration.
Obama had previously called for the number of troops in the country to be drawn down from 9,800 to 5,500 by the end of this year.
The president said the decision was based on a recommendation from U.S. General John Nicholson, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford.
Obama stressed that U.S. troops will remain focused on two narrow missions to train and advise Afghan forces and to support counterterrorist operations against the remnants of al-Qaida and other terrorists.
"The narrow missions assigned to our forces will not changethey'll remain focused on supporting Afghan forces and going after terrorists," Obama said. "But maintaining our forces at this specific levelbased on our assessment of the security conditions and the strength of Afghan forceswill allow us to continue to provide tailored support to help Afghan forces continue to improve."
"From coalition bases in Jalalabad and Kandahar, we'll be able to continue supporting Afghan forces on the ground and in the air," he added. "And we continue supporting critical counterterrorism operations."
Obama said the decision will also send a message to the Taliban that the only way to end the conflict and achieve a full drawdown of foreign forces is through a lasting political settlement.
The president highlighted recent successes by Afghan forces against the Taliban but acknowledged that the security situation in the country remains precarious.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., said he welcomes Obama's decision to reverse his previous plan to drawdown U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
"While I believe conditions on the ground warranted retaining the current force level, the decision to retain 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan into next year is certainly preferable to cutting those forces by nearly half," McCain said.
He added, "That said, when the President himself describes the security situation in Afghanistan as 'precarious,' it is difficult to discern any strategic rationale for withdrawing 1,400 U.S. troops by the end of the year."
The White House noted that Obama has brought home approximately 90 percent of U.S. troops from Afghanistan since taking office in 2009.
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Political News
Indias top selling sedan, Maruti Suzuki Dzire has been updated with a plethora of cosmetic enhancements and new features
Available in the price range of Rs 5.89 lakh to Rs 8.80 lakh, Dzire facelift also gets a new petrol engine. Already commanding a market share of more than 55 percent and over 20 lakh in lifetime sales, Dzire will aim to build upon its glorious legacy in its new avatar.
2020 Dzire facelift comes with premium single aperture grille, uniquely designed LED projector headlamps with DRLs, dual-tone alloys, auto-fold ORVMs with turn indicators and edgy tail lamps. Talking about interiors, one of the key highlights is classic wood finish dashboard.
Other key features include premium fabric seats, leather wrapped steering wheel, rear AC vents, and rear armrest with cup holder. New Dzire offers enhanced convenience features such as such as smart keyless entry, remote keyless entry system, steering mounted controls, and engine start / stop button.
New Maruti DZIRE TVC Video
To make new Dzire relevant to evolving customer needs, Maruti has introduced a number of technology upgrades. The 17.78cm touchscreen Smartplay Studio System comes with hands-free calling, navigation, and radio. Users can access a range of vital information about the car and get alerts as well.
The Smartplay system can be accessed via an app, enabling users to remotely control various functions of their car. Instrument cluster comprises a 10.67 cm coloured multi-information display that shows a wide variety of information such as average fuel efficiency, vehicle alerts, and power & torque.
Dzire facelift gets advanced K Series Dualjet 1.2-litre, BS6 compliant engine that is capable of delivering max power of 90 ps @ 6,000 rpm and max torque of 113 Nm @ 4400 rpm. The engine has higher compression ratio and is equipped with advanced features such as piston cooling jet for reducing friction and improving engine efficiency. Engine is mated to either a 5-speed manual or 5-speed AMT unit. While the manual variant delivers 23.26 Km/L, AMT variants fuel efficiency stands at 24.12 Km/L.
Improving safety for users is new Dzires Heartect platform, which is built using advanced and high tensile steel. Owing to its smooth continuous design, the Heartect platform provided better stability and control. It has superior impact absorption capabilities, which ensures better protection in case of a collision.
Other key benefits of Heartect platform include higher power to weight ratio and improved body stiffness. New Dzires safety package also includes dual airbags, ABS with EBD and brake assist, ESP with hill hold assist, reverse parking sensors and camera, anti-theft security system, and engine immobilizer.
WINONA, MinnesotaEvel Knievel must be shaking his head.
The first indication was the 911 call placed to Winona County dispatch over the weekend, which cut out just after the voice at the other end whimpered, It hurts ...
A second call followed shortly, with a location and talk of jumping a rock pile with a motor vehicle, Winona County Sheriff Ron Ganrude said Tuesday.
Deputies, emergency responders, and the Mayo 1 helicopter were dispatched to a location on County Road 37 between Altura and Elba, where the first indication that something had gone wrong were the empty beer cans strewn around the property, Ganrude said.
There was also a heavily damaged, spray-painted 1994 Chevy pickup some distance from a pair of 10-foot-tall dirt ramps built on either side of a small construction trailer.
Inside the truck was a 21-year-old Altura man. I hurt all over, he told responders.
The driver, a 25-year-old Rollingstone man who deputies said smelled of alcohol, was uninjured, Ganrude said. A third man, 23, from Dover, complained of a sore back but did not require medical attention.
According to the driver, the three all wore seatbelts and helmets as they lined the truck up with the ramps, accelerated to about 50 mph, and launched themselves and the truck off the ramp and over the trailer but also over the second ramp, which led to a nose-first hard landing on level ground, Ganrude said.
The Winona County Attorneys Office is considering charges in the case, but none have been formally filed, so the names of the men have not been released.
Paul Manafort, Donald Trumps campaign manager, had a message to deliver.
Hillary Clinton is the epitome of the establishment; shes been in power for 25 years, he informed Chuck Todd on NBCs Meet the Press last Sunday.
When Trump, Manafort added, says hes going to bring real change to the country, voters believe him unlike Mrs. Clinton, who has been saying that for 25 years and in those 25 years, the only changes that have happened have made peoples lives worse.
But then, at the tail end of the interview, Manafort slipped when discussing evangelical Christians support for Trump. In my 40 years in politics, I have never seen such a broad-based base of support within that community for one candidate.
Forty years in politics? But its Clintons 25 years that make her the establishment?
If that werent enough, Manafort was giving the interview from the Hamptons playground of the eastern elite.
This is the hypocrisy at the heart of the Trump campaign, now under Manaforts undisputed control. Manaforts inspiration, which Trump has embraced, is to portray Clinton as the embodiment of the establishment. But Manafort (not unlike Trump) has been the voice of the wealthy and the well-connected for four decades, building a fortune by making common cause with the worlds most avaricious.
Among Manaforts boasts: representing kleptocrats Ferdinand Marcos, Mobutu Sese Seko and Kenyas Daniel arap Moi, defending Saudi Arabias interests against Israels and Pakistans against Indias, and making the case for a Nigerian dictator, a Lebanese arms dealer and various and sundry Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs. He successfully lobbied to arm a Maoist rebel in Angola, needlessly extending fighting that killed thousands.
Its Manaforts right to represent dictators and thugs and regimes that torture. He has, for decades, helped autocrats who battle human rights and democracy. But now this man, who made his fortune helping the rich and powerful get more so, is setting up a general-election campaign that portrays Trump as a man of the people and Clinton as the captive of special interests.
Manafort has been widely credited with this weeks speech by Trump laying out his general-election theme: that Clinton is the defender of the big-money interests and the rigged economy.
Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and even theft. She ran the State Department like her own personal hedge fund, doing favors for oppressive regimes, Trump argued. Hillary Clinton wants to bring in people who believe women should be enslaved and gays put to death. . . . Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency of the United States.
And the man who led Trump to deliver such accusations? Heres what my Post colleagues Steven Mufson and Tom Hamburger reported in April:
In one case, Manafort tried unsuccessfully to build a luxury high-rise in Manhattan with money from a billionaire backer of a Ukrainian president whom he had advised.
In another deal, real estate records show that Manafort took out and later repaid a $250,000 loan from a Middle Eastern arms dealer at the center of a French inquiry into whether kickbacks were paid ....
And in another business venture, a Russian aluminum magnate has accused Manafort in a Cayman Islands court of taking nearly $19 million intended for investments, then failing to account for the funds.
Manafort has been a paragon of the Washington Republican establishment for two generations, working on Gerald Fords re-election in 1976 before helping Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole. He started two lobbying firms, and he has used his contacts in attempts to enrich himself. His lobbying firm recruited veterans of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, then lobbied for $43 million in subsidies for a housing project, while holding an option to buy a stake in the project.
Manafort is steeped in the racial politics Trump has exploited. As Franklin Foer writes for Slate, Manafort ran Reagans Southern operation in 1980; the candidate kicked off his general-election campaign outside Philadelphia, Miss., scene of the murder of civil rights activists in 1964. Manafort later became a business partner of Lee Atwater, who gained fame for Bushs Willie Horton campaign in 1988.
Introduced to Trump by Roy Cohn, lawyer to Joe McCarthy, Manafort helped Trump fight Indian casinos by alleging that the Native Americans had a crime problem; Trump and his associates paid a $250,000 fine after secretly funding advertisements besmirching the Indians.
Now Trump is engaged in a general-election campaign to portray Clinton as the candidate of the establishment. Thats fair enough: She has been atop the countrys elite for a quarter-century. But the man leading this effort spent a much longer career benefiting the wealthy and powerful, including Trump, at the expense of the poor and weak. Thats rich.
Millennial Moms Review: 2022 Acura MDX is pretty close to the perfect family car
I dont know if perfect is attainable, especially considering weve got the world of options when it comes to modern vehicles. Were spoiled and, as such, we have very specific needs and wants. Driving-wise, the 2022 Acura MDX is one of my favourite ...
By SA Commercial Prop News
Appointed new Chairman of Redefine Properties International: Greg Clarke
JSE- and London Stock Exchange-listed Redefine Properties International announces that after the retirement of Philippe de Nicolay, Greg Clarke is appointed chairman of the diversified income focused property firm.
Further to the announcement on 5 October 2011, Redefine International, the diversified income focused property company, is pleased to confirm the appointment of Greg Clarke as Chairman of the Company with effect from 1 December 2011, following the retirement of Philippe de Nicolay.
Clarke says: "It is a great privilege to be joining Redefine International at this exciting time in the Company's development. I look forward to offering my experience in international real estate and business management to support the Company in its ongoing strategy to deliver and enhance shareholder value.
On behalf of the rest of the Board I would like to thank Philippe for his dedication and leadership and wish him well for the future."
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An effort to allow Illinois voters decide how the state's legislative districts are drawn has moved a step forward, with a Chicago judge weighing oral arguments made last week.
We hope Cook County Circuit Court Judge Diane Larsen makes the right decision when she issues a written opinion on July 21.
This will be the second time for the Independent Map Amendment coalition to shoot for a ballot position, this time on the November ballot. Voters would be asked whether they support an independent, bipartisan commission determining the state's legislative districts every 10 years, rather than the current practice of letting the political party in power draw the outlines for the state's 118 House districts and 59 Senate districts.
After the year we've just had, and the battles last week that produced only a stopgap budget, voters should have this extra opportunity to live in a state where political boundaries are not decided by people whose jobs are determined by a darkened oval.
In 2014, the same coalition made the same pitch, but it didn't follow rules outlined in the state constitution. This time, the Illinois State Board of Elections has said the proposal does meet those rules; the judge makes the final decision. The state election board then would have to certify the question for ballot placement.
The coalition's commission, with the first one appointed in 2021, would involve the auditor general, bipartisan leaders from the state House and Senate, a random drawing and, if necessary, members of the Illinois Supreme Court, according to The Associated Press.
"After seeing 60 percent of state legislative races go uncontested in November 2014 because of slanted maps drawn to discourage competition and protect incumbents, voters want to fix a rigged system," Dennis FitzSimons, chairman of Independent Maps, told the Lee Statehouse Bureau in November.
As it stands now, the current maps are essentially drawn by incumbent lawmakers, allowing them to choose their own voters by placing their district boundaries in favorable areas to ensure re-election, or the election of someone from a particular party.
At that time, 82 of 137 races for seats in the House and Senate were uncontested. Groups supporting the effort include the Illinois Farm Bureau, AARP Illinois, Common Cause Illinois, the Latino Policy Forum and the Illinois League of Women Voters.
We're on the list, too. Illinois has been mired in dirty politics for decades and de facto approval of a winner-take-all approach to map-making only would continue the current mess.
Although the commission would not start its work until 2021, approval of the idea should the judge give it will go a long way toward Illinois residents feeling better about the state in which they live.
If Dajuan Harris Jr. is underrated, its not by those at Kansas
Hawk Zone
Grasp Gods Glory is the theme of the Voice of Christ Full Gospel Church (V.O.C.F.G.C.) Conference this week. Held at the E.F.K.S. hall at Sogi, hundreds of members of the V.O.C.F.G.C. from the United States of America, Hawaii, American Samoa, Australia and New Zealand are gathering in the country for the conference.
General Secretary of the Church, Ps. Peter Lilomaiava said it has been amazing to see many believers rise up to grasp Gods glory after two-days of the one-week conference.
Its all part of lifting Gods people especially members of our church from afar and near into the next level of their faith, he said.
Its part of knowing and seeking God for His restoration because where Jesus is, miracles arewhere Jesus is, life is there.
For this year, were inviting Apostle, Doctor Christian Harfouche and his team from America to be our guest speaker.
Apostle, Doctor Christian is a modern day apostle and prophet.
Having Doctor Harfouche is a great opportunity to all members of V.O.C.F.G.C.; he has invested over years in training a generation of supernatural believers through the living Word and the activity of the Holy Spirit. Learning more about the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives everyday is also part of this conference with Apostle Harfouche.
Its a blessing to have him with us. Apostle Harfouche is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and teacher, and father to millions of believers.
Apostle Harfouches miracles and prophetic has impacted many believers and they have reached millions with the power of God through wonderful mercy, miracles and music. Hope that the same anointing will happen to our end as well through the leading of the Holy Spirit. The conference will end on Friday.
From Cabinet - The Head of State, His Highness Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Efi endorsed the appointment of Fepuleai Atilla Ropati as the President of the Land and Titles Court on the advice from Cabinet.
The appointment will officially commence on 1 August 2016.
Fepuleai is a lawyer by profession and has served in government for many years, including his recent post as Clerk of the Legislative Assembly for the last three Parliamentary terms.
Fepuleai had also worked as Corporate Manager for the Samoa Ports Authority, an Associate for the Petaia Law Chambers and was previously an Assistant Registrar for the Land and Titles Court.
Fepuleai holds a BA, LLB, PDLP degrees from the University of the South Pacific, the University of New England and the University of Tasmania.
Fepuleai hails from the villages of Saleaula, Safotulafai, Iva, Salelavalu and Fasitoouta.
He is married and they have three children.
Dear Editor,
Re: Same old, same old
I agree with you 100% Mataafa Keni Lesa. The big unions only pay lip service to Pacific rugby they don't really care.
But we know the world knows, and they know. And as a Samoan that gives me bragging rights down at my local, which is a Welsh Bar lol.
And even if there's one Samoan or Pacific islander playing I make it my mission to let the whole bar know about it, and I promise you I've had a many heated sessions down there.
So yes they may pay us lip service but that can't stop us from giving them a fat lip in the ego department. Love the article.
Jetz M
When it comes to a proper meal, most people will agree that without a solid piece of meat on the plate, it might lack something in terms of completeness.
Samoa is not different in this issue. Even more important are the regulations and techniques that go along with a healthy, sustainable and animal-friendly processing of meat in the country.
Within the context of a Livestock meat Expo hosted by the World Bank-funded Samoa Agriculture Competitiveness Enhancement Project (S.A.C.E.P.), the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries gave an overview on the situation of the countrys meat production and consumption. The event also included several presentations on optimal living conditions for all the different kinds of livestock in particular.
Our goal for todays exhibition is to share some of the key results that have been achieved to date with scientific support, livestock farmers, and other participants in the meat supply chain, said Fonoiava Sealiitu Sesega, C.E.O. of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.
These results and especially the recent developments in the meat sector were presented by Mr Tony Aiolupo, the current Principal Research Development Officer of Animal Protection and Health Division (A.P.H.D.) and former Senior Meat Inspector for the Ministry. As Aiolupo was able to point out, the supply chaining of meat [in Samoa] is now heading to the future.
Broken down on every single consumer of meat in Samoa, this results in a much higher demand for meat today as it could be measured back in 1961. Back then, a single person in Samoa was usually eating 28.4 kilograms of meat a year, while nowadays, this consumer behaviour has more than tripled, with a meat consumption of approximately 103 kilograms per person each year. This high increase in consumption certainly would mean a profit for the local meat economy. But there is a problem with that.
In his overview on the meat supply chain, Tony Aiolupo explained that 89 % of the total meat supply is imported. Out of this supply, 79 % are made out of chicken. Only 11 % of the meat in Samoa is produced by local farms including meat made of cattle, beef or pork.
As Aiolupo stated, the issue [with locally produced meat] is that it is produced under unregulated conditions. In comparison to that, the majority of meat sold in Samoa is, as explained before imported and therefore in compliance with the meat import regulations, [which secure that] the animals are slaughtered properly under hygienic conditions and are put through the regulated cooling conditions and [are] prepared and shipped over to the country.
In total, Samoas meat supply adds up to a total of 80 million Tala, of which only 11 % benefit the local economy.
To tackle this problem, the Ministry and S.A.C.E.P. introduced several solution approaches, which are supposed to kick-start Samoas own meat production under appropriate regulations.
One of these solutions was presented by a man who is in the know about pig farming: Simon Cole from Fiji. Having been a farmer for more than 25 years, Mr Cole has experienced many different ways to properly nourish and breed pigs of all kinds.
When it comes to the situation of pig farming in Samoa, Cole, who has been working as a technical assistant in S.A.C.E.P., shared a pretty clear opinion: What we are looking forward to do is to try and improve the efficiency of the local farmers. If they want to break in the commercial market more, then they have to become more competitive [] and achieve a better quality. And quality is an emotive word here because Samoans like their [] pig with back fat. Quality in the European sense of the word is very different from the one found here.
"The reason why we came together here today is to develop a pig product that can come into [the commercial] market and competes directly with imports, which we can do, Cole told Samoa Observer.
To give an idea on the development of such a competitive kind of meat, Simon Cole spoke out about the right nutrition for pigs in his presentation.
The answer, we believe, is cassava. Every farmer who is growing pigs should also grow some cassava, the farmer from Fiji explained. According to Cole, the woody shrub that is originally native to South America, makes an excellent and even cost-effective food for pigs.
He also stated that the nutrition for young piglets must be done in a different way than it is for mature pigs, because when it comes to food, piglets are not much different from humans.
For a human baby, the first thing you do is to feed them milk and the second thing is to boil their first hard food to death and then mash it to pieces, simply because the baby cannot digest large parts of the food. Its the same with piglets. The coconut or cassava you feed them must be grated.
Simon Cole also shared his idea of a professionally but homemade built abattoir for pigs. Presenting a precise construction plan, he said: If you want to sell your pigs to a hotel or a supermarket, you are going to have to improve your game when it comes to the slaughtering process of the animals.
But the Livestock meat expo was not all about pigs for its visitors. A small exhibition in front of the hotels conference room informed interested visitors about different techniques and production developments in livestock at different stalls guided by the staff of the ministrys divisions.
These included for instance a scale to weigh any kind of livestock in a short amount of time. The livestock division of the ministry also presented its Mobile Slaughter Unit outside of the facility. This vehicle is used to provide a safe and hygienic way to slaughter livestock quickly on location.
With the machinery that is built onto the truck, the cattle can be put up and slaughtered. After the process, theres also a sink built in to guarantee everything is proceeding according to the appropriate standards, Faasoa Sensieu of the livestock division explained.
The mobile abattoir is used by the division since three months ago and is primarily used to provide a better way of slaughtering for farmers who do not have the needed requirements for the process.
All ideas and developments shared at the expo mostly concern one specific group of businesses: the local farms of Samoa.
That is why the second day of the exhibition will address the farmers tomorrow, to ensure that Samoas local economy can profit from the newest achievements in the meat supply chain.
Most stories about people who have properties stolen from them have a sad ending.
Well this one is slightly different.
Franciscka Bilger and Thomas Calvet can finally enjoy their holiday in Samoa, after a nightmare introduction to Samoa where they were robbed on their first night.
Ms. Bilger is 25-years-old and is from Germany while 27-year-old Thomas Calvet is from France.
The pair arrived in Samoa last Friday, and on that same night, they went out with some local friends they made and had a few drinks at the Marina.
We went there with some local people and we had a good time, Ms. Bilger said.
But it was maybe around 10:30pm that I noticed my bag was stolen. My handbag was under our feet, we were guarding it and it was just next to us.
My iPhone 6 plus was inside it, Fuji XT10 camera with an extra lens, my passport, two credit cards, Ray Ban sunglasses and $130tala cash. We went outside to see if we could see anyone with the bag but we couldnt find it.
The pair said the fun ended at that very moment, and they were worried.
We then went to the Police office and made a police report. But they told us that they (police) will go to the Bar and check the security footages.
The next day, we went back to the Bar and had a look at the security footages ourselves and we saw that the person who took my bag was caught on camera. But the people at the Bar had no idea of who the guy was and no one recognized him.
We went back to Police and they told us to wait until Monday because they told me to go to the Immigration office to get papers so that I will be able to travel to New Zealand, without a passport.
Ms. Bilger said they went to the German Consulate in Samoa, and from there, they contacted the German Embassy in New Zealand for help.
Because I am currently staying in New Zealand on a working holiday visa and I am going back there, she said. And they said I need to make a new provisory passport and the problem is, its going to take longer for papers to be fixed than the date of our flight back to New Zealand which is on the 11th of July and that is next Monday.
We didnt want to proceed with the papers, because if we do that, we will have to cancel my passport (the one that was stolen) in order to make a temporary passport. So we thought that the best for us to do is to find who took the bag and ask for my passport back, thats the most important thing for me.
So Ms. Bilger and Mr. Calvet went back to the Bar to see if they had found any leads but the employees told them that the Police never came to them to ask for footages.
So we went to the radio station to tell our story and to see if anyone knows of anything regarding the bag that was stolen. Because I really wanted to get my passport back, to me, thats the most important thing.
Its a really difficult situation for us because he (Thomas) has to catch a plane back in Auckland to go back home on the 17th of this month, and we cant be stuck here.
The pair went back to the Police station on Tuesday after the radio announcement, and while they were at the Police station, someone called them saying that he had the passport and the credit cards.
The guy who rang us said that he found the passport and the credit cards around the area where the seawalls are.
But because he had poor English, he had to hand it to the policeman who was there to talk to him and he spoke to him in Samoan.
Police were asking him a lot of questions, like where he was, and his name and everything, and think that was too much might have scared him off. We assumed he got scared and he hung up, and weve been trying to get a hold of him ever since then, but his phone had been unreachable since then.
"The police told us to go to the area where the person said he was, and we drove there with the police and they asked everyone around that area to see if they know of this guy, but no one had a clue of who he was.
We then went to the Tourism centre and we lodged a complaint there as well. So the people at the tourism building called up Digicel to see if they could trace the owner of the mobile phone who called us and said he knew who had the passport and credit cards.
Still, there was no luck. They were told that the number was not registered.
We went back to Police but they told us that they will find out who the owner of the number is but it will take about two weeks to track it down.
Mr. Calvet said that all they wanted was to get Ms. Bilgers passport back.
We wanted to come to Samoa for a holiday, compared to Fiji and the Cook Islands, we chose Samoa because it will be more authentic. We thought it was a good place to relax and rejuvenate, said Mr. Calvet.
We were looking forward to coming here in Samoa, and we were enjoying our first day here and we had a good time at the Bar with some locals before the incident happened. It was just sad and unfortunate that it happened to our holiday.
However, minutes after the interview with the Samoa Observer Newspaper yesterday, Mr. Calvet called to say that they just received a call from Radio Polynesia saying that someone had dropped off the passport to their office.
It was good news, and we can finally enjoy our remaining days in Samoa, said Mr. Calvet. The people at the Radio Station did not tell us who dropped off the passport and credit cards, but thats fine with us, at least we got the most important thing back and that is our passport.
They were only able to get back two credit cards and Ms. Bilgers passport yesterday.
They are now in Savaii, hoping to take back better memories when they return home.
A Catholic priest at Vailoa Palauli in Savaii has left the village in the wake of an alleged sex scandal there where he was caught sleeping with a Year 13 student.
The incident was confirmed by the Villages mayor, Mataafa Esau Pesaleli, who told the Samoa Observer the incident has left the village in a state of shock.
What I can tell you is that priest has already left our village, about three weeks now, Mataafa said.
We had our fono after the priest left our village. Our people reported to us (Village Council) that they caught him several times sleeping with the young girl.
According to Mataafa, a more senior church leader immediately removed the priest from Vailoa before the matter could be discussed by the Village Council.
From what Ive been told, a senior priest from Safotulafai took him. Someone must have told him and he acted immediately.
I think he reported the matter to their main Office in Apia where I understand he will be dealt with.
Contacted for a comment yesterday, the Spokesperson for the Catholic Church, Father Fereti said they have no comment to make. He also refused to confirm or deny the allegations.
It was not possible to get a comment from the girl's family.
But Mayor Mataafa said the Village Council has penalised the family of the young girl involved, as per village protocol.
The girls family was punished following our meeting. The idea of the punishment is to send out a warning to other families in the village that this sort of thing is not accepted.
The Mayor did not say what punishment was handed out but he confirmed that the girls family accepted and have provided it.
We are extremely disturbed by this matter and we hope that this will be the last of this sort of incident.
"We dont condone such behavior from anyone.
Mataafa added they have left the priest alone to the Church and the Police to deal with.
The priest and his duties is the responsibility of the church and from our point of view, I hope they do the right thing, he said.
He is a young priest and everyone makes mistakes and they fail. But as a village, we are responsible for what happens in the village and we need to make decisions to deter people and ensure these mistakes are not repeated.
The Mayor said that the priest had only served in their village for six months.
Were not so sure about the church and what their decision is about the priest hes young, he said.
I think the church is dealing with the priest so I have nothing much to say about him.
Wal-Mart will now let you pay with its phone app at all 4,600 stores nationwide.
The effort is part of Wal-Mart's strategy to make shopping easier and faster, while learning more about consumer behavior.
With Wal-Mart Pay, the cashier scans a QR code on the phone screen to charge a credit, debit or Wal-Mart gift card linked with the account. It differs from Apple, Samsung and Android Pay, which involves tapping your phone next to a payment machine with a wireless technology called NFC.
In December, Wal-Mart said it would develop its own digital wallet rather than honor existing systems from Apple and others, though Wal-Mart said it isn't ruling out third-party wallets in the future.
Retailers have been pushing their own systems in part because they retain control. Daniel Eckert, senior vice president of services at Wal-Mart U.S., says data from the app will be used to improve the shopping experience. One way, he said, would be to use past shopping behavior to build a personalized shopping list. The customer could then delete or add items. He said such features would be done only with a customer's permission.
Wal-Mart joined other retailers in backing CurrentC, a system that was also based on scanning codes rather than NFC. But the beta test of the system faltered as Apple Pay became more popular. The consortium last week suspended its launch indefinitely, saying it plans to focus on other aspects of its business.
Apple Pay, in particular, has been credited with boosting interest in mobile payments, though many consumers still use traditional plastic cards because it's not difficult to pull one out. Although the number of stores accepting NFC payments has grown, it's still relatively low, and the stores with the right equipment still need cashiers familiar with it.
Wal-Mart says no payment information is stored on users' phones or at registers. Rather, card information is stored on Wal-Mart servers. By contrast, Apple, Samsung and Android Pay use alternative card numbers for added security, so if hackers break into a merchant's system, they wouldn't be able to go on a buying spree. Wal-Mart uses regular card numbers, but it insists it keeps the information secure.
Wal-Mart Pay is built into Wal-Mart's app, which has 20 million active users. The Bentonville, Arkansas, company finished upgrading stores in 25 states last week to complete the national rollout. Eckert said 88 percent of Walmart Pay transactions are from repeat users.
-AP
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Deerfield Beach, FL -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/06/2016 -- Zion Research has published a new report titled "Cement Market for Residential, Commercial, Infrastructure and Other Applications: Saudi Arabia Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis and Forecast, 2014 2020" According to the report, Saudi arabia region demand for cement was valued at USD 3.90 billion in 2014 and is expected to reach USD 5.27 billion in 2020, growing at a CAGR of slightly above 5.1% between 2014 and 2020. In terms of volume, the cement market in the Saudi Arabia stood at 61,000 kilo tons in 2014.
Cement is a one of the key binding material used in construction industry. Cements acts as a binding agent for mortar, concrete, non-specialty grouts and stucco, etc. Cement is manufactured from raw materials such as limestone, sand and clay. These kinds of raw materials are widely available in Saudi Arabia. Additionally, cheap and widely available petroleum fuel has been resulted into cost effective manufacturing of cement in the region. Various physical and chemical properties of cement such as high durability, high dependability, cost-effectiveness and versatility are favorable for construction applications.
Browse the full "Cement Market for Residential, Commercial, Infrastructure and Other Applications: Saudi Arabia Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis and Forecast 2014 2020" report at http://www.marketresearchstore.com/report/cement-market-for-residential-commercial-infrastructure-and-other-35998
Key factors driving the demand for cement market in Saudi Arabia is increasing the construction activity in different segments such as commercial, residential, industrial and infrastructure. Rapidly growing population has been resulted into growing demand for residential & commercial buildings as well as infrastructure. Residential application market for cement in Saudi Arabia is expected to witness strong growth during the forecast period. Infrastructure is one of the largest segment, which accounted for around 50% share of the total market in 2014. Infrastructure refers to the construction that includes roads, bridges, canals and dams. The increasing number of airports and road construction projects are anticipated to boost the cement market in Saudi Arabia. Commercial application is the second largest application segment of the market in 2014, which include construction of walls, floors, exterior walkways and pavements of commercial buildings.
The cement market was dominated by Central region of Saudi Arabia, which accounted for slightly above 32% share of the Saudi Arabia market in 2014. Saudi Arabia was followed by the Western, Eastern, Southern and northern regions respectively. Cement market in central region is also expected to witness rapid growth as compared to other regions. Over the past few years, there has been an increase in construction activities in the Saudi Arabia, especially in the eastern and central provinces. Various cities in the Kingdom have initiated infrastructure projects, thereby fuelling demand for cement. Strong economic growth in the Saudi Arabia is expected to fuel growth of the cement market in various cities of the Saudi Arabia.
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The manufacturing companies of cement have a significant impact on the value chain through a higher degree of vertical integration. These companies manufacture raw materials as well as the final product. Some of the key players operating in the Saudi Arabia cement market include Saudi Cement Company, Riyadh Cement Company, Yamama Cement Company, and Najran Cement Company. This report segments the global market as follows:
Saudi Arabia Cement Market: Application Segment Analysis
Residential
Commercial
Infrastructure
Others (including cement bricks and farm construction)
Saudi Arabia Cement Market: Regional Segment Analysis
Central
Eastern
Northern
Southern
Western
About Zion Research
Zion Research is a market intelligence company providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. Zion Research experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants uses proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.
Each Zion Research syndicated research report covers a different sector such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food and beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports strive to serve the overall research requirement of clients.
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Quakertown, PA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/06/2016 -- This July, America celebrates 240 years of independence. Every year, millions of Americans travel across town, across the state or even across the country to spend time with friends and family as they partake in the festivities of July 4th. Here in Southeastern PA, it's one of the best times to find a deal on the vehicle that will take families where they need to go, and Quakertown Mitsubishi will be one of the best places to find those deals.
When it comes to used cars in Quakertown, the dealership is one of the best options. With hundreds of vehicles in their inventory, there's something at Quakertown Mitsubishi for everyone. The dealership makes it easy for current drivers to trade-up to a new vehicle with free appraisal online, so they can receive an estimate of their trade in value.
In June, Quakertown Mitsubishi is running its Dads and Grads sales event, offering special pricing and lease terms on some of their most in demand vehicles including the Outlander, Outlander Sport and Lancer. Qualified buyers can get behind the wheel of select Mitsubishi models with 0% APR for up to 84 months.
Interested buyers with bad credit don't have to miss out on the great selection of cars for sale in Quakertown, PA, with the dealership's buy-here-pay-here program. The special financing program means that buyers with previous bad experiences can rebuild their credit without breaking the bank, and still drive off in one of Quakertown Mitsubishi's vehicles.
To learn more about Quakertown Mitsubishi, their inventory or their special financing, interested parties are encouraged to visit the website at http://www.quakertownmitsubishi.com/.
About Quakertown Mitsubishi
Quakertown Mitsubishi is a high-quality brand vehicle dealership that also conducts automotive repairs in Pennsylvania. Owning up to their motto "Our business is YOU!" the dealership is dedicated to serving the residents of Perkasie, Emmaus, Allentown and Bethlehem. Excellent customer service includes sales personnel who assist with financing options and technician experts who conduct vehicle services such as maintenance and collision. The dealership accepts Mitsubishi automobile trade-ins and sells pre-owned cars.
For more information about Mitsubishi vehicles, please visit their website at http://www.quakertownmitsubishi.com
New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/06/2016 -- With the increasing usage of the social networks, chat, conferencing on the web, instant messaging and various other means of communications that are being used by the businesses, the E-mails are the most formal communication form and have remained the most prevalent form of business environment. Cloud business E-mail is an effective business email service that allows access, storage, sending and receiving of emails without the use of hardware or complex software. The global cloud business email market is growing at a good pace holding the fact that the number of small and medium sized businesses are increasing.
Cloud-based business e-mails are getting greater importance and are seeing tremendous growth year after year. Most of the providers of these services provide more than just the mails and collaboration facility that includes Unified Communications, extra storage, Social Networking, File Sync and Share and instant messaging. The email services at first were targeted only to smaller organizations of limited funds, but now cloud email is seeing strong acceptance with businesses of all sizes across globe which is raising the global cloud business e-mail market.
The developing industry of cloud computing has largely affected the global cloud business email market. A lot of small business technology needs are being taken care of by the cloud computing which is growing the cloud adoptions now a days.
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Cloud Business Email Market: Drivers & Restraints
The increasing focus of the business on the cost and succeeding diversion to the agile solutions has raised the market of cloud computing at an increasing rate which has led to the global cloud business email market penetration. The most inducing factor for the growing cloud business email market is ease of access, rapidity, and collaboration. Increasing SOHOs (Small Offices/Home Offices) and SMBs (Small and Medium Businesses) may be a driving force for the global cloud business email market. The demographic structure of the global cloud email market has shifted recently that is inducing more and more mid-sized and large organisations that are migrating to this cloud email services which is raising global cloud business email market.
Apart from the countless benefits of the cloud based business emails there are some major whys and wherefores that the consumers can restrict them from using it. The major restraint in the global cloud business email market implies to be the data security problems when compared to the commonly used hardware and software systems for managing data. Personal data such as addresses, banking details, photographs and telephone numbers are examples of information that can approve somebody's individuality and is quite often confined in an email. Increasing cyber-attacks, insider threats, government intrusions, and lack of standardization of the cloud computing may pose a threat to this well growing market.
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Cloud Business Email Market: Segmentation
On the basis of product/service type, the global cloud business email market is segmented as Cloud Business Email Providers and Hosted Microsoft Business Partners.
On the basis of application type, the global cloud business email market is segmented as Dedicated Cloud Business Email and Multi-Tenant Cloud Business Email
Cloud Business Email Market: Region-wise Outlook
The global cloud business email market is expected to register a favourable growth for the forecast period, 2015?2025. North America (United States) is expected to be the largest regional market with reference to the global cloud business email market. Europe is projected to be the second largest market followed by Asia-Pacific and ROW. Asia-Pacific is projected to endure its control on the global cloud business email market in terms of growth rate. The key countries in the mentioned region are likely to be India and China as an outcome of the increasing pace of progresses in the enterprise sector and also the need for more efficient solutions into the IT services. Japan also contributes to the global cloud business email market remarkably.
Full Report Analysis@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/cloud-business-email-market
Cloud Business Email Market: Key Players
Some of the key market participants in global cloud business email market are Apptix, Google, AppRiver, NaviSite , Intermedia, Microsoft, , Rackspace, SherWeb, GoDaddy, and SilverSky
Langhorne, PA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/06/2016 -- FINE Cabinetry Kitchen & Bath Co. is a company committed to designing and remodeling beautiful kitchens and bathrooms. They have a large selection of cabinetry, custom and semi-custom, available in different wood species and finishes, and many other products to fit their client's lifestyle and budget. For those who want quality bathroom remodeling services in Bucks County, PA, and other local areas, they can look to FINE Cabinetry Kitchen & Bath Co. This company also designs kitchens in Bucks County for property owners who either want a makeover or an entirely new kitchen.
FINE Cabinetry Kitchen & Bath Co. would like customers to rely on them to turn their dream kitchen vision into a reality. The team of experts at this Bucks County kitchen designer learn about their client's goals and expectations before beginning the project by sending a designer to the home for a free evaluation of the family's needs and educating them on their different options. They also invite clients back to their showroom. It boasts 26 beautiful displays and presents the customer with ideas for their own kitchen. Then, the company takes those unique tastes and applies them to the kitchen that they're designing.
This company offers more than 60 years of collective experience in the field. Their punctual and professional staff takes pride in their work and will answer any and all questions the customer may have. This "Best of Bucks" award-winning company provides their clients with the highest quality designer cabinetry at competitive prices and even eco-friendly cabinet choices.
To learn more about their design and remodeling services, contact FINE Cabinetry Kitchen & Bath Co. at 215-392-4584 or visit their website at http://www.finecabinetryllc.com/.
About FINE Cabinetry Kitchen & Bath Co.
With over 60 years of cabinetry design and remodeling experience, FINE Cabinetry Kitchen & Bath Co. has been offering the finest cabinetry designs and solutions to the people of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. They also offer a complimentary in-home design service with their very qualified and talented design professionals.
For more details, visit http://www.finecabinetryllc.com/.
Deerfield Beach, FL -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/06/2016 -- The report offers an in-depth study of the "Global Hand Pump Market". The report, titled Hand Pump , projects the growth rate of the Hand Pump Market during the forecast period. Providing a brief overview Hand Pump market, the report estimates the size and valuation of the Hand Pump industry in the coming years. The report on Hand Pump industry states the key drivers and restraints affecting the growth of the Hand Pump market.
Major Manufacturers Analysis of Hand Pump :-(with Company Profile, Product Picture and Specifications, Sales )- Gorman-Rupp, Zep, National Spencer, ATD Tools, Goat Throat Pumps, Action Pump, Tuthill, Pump International, Graco, Macnaught, Jessberger, Kyoritsu kiko, GROVHAC, AMBICA MACHINE TOOLS, Great Plains Industries, Vestil Manufacturing, Pro Chem, Toyo Machinery&Metal, Groz Engineering Tools, Jaan-Huei Industrial, New Zealand Pump, Xylem, ENERPAC, ITH, SCHAAF, Ralston Instruments, BRAND, Werner Weitner, Gardner Bender, Shanghai Bosheng Pumps, Shanghai Yangguang Pump, Shanghai Shangqiu Pump.
The report also points out the latest trends in the Worldwide Hand Pump market and the various opportunities for the Hand Pump market to grow in the near future. The report takes help of various analytical tools to predict the Hand Pump market growth of the market during the forecast period.
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Neuchatel, Switzerland -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/06/2016 -- Those businesses that belong to Neuchatel and that are on the look-out for graphic design and website design services may be interested in the news that Mars Rouge, a graphic design agency that has been been founded by Julien Di Giusto, a French native, near Basel, will now be catering to their needs also.
Mars Rouge points out that branding is very important for any type of business and so, companies should not ignore this aspect.
They further point out that there is a huge difference between a logo that has been specifically customized for a company and one that is bought online on a website. They are aware of the best practices as far as branding and web designing are concerned and so, can convey the message of their clients to their target audience through their creative designing solutions for which they will first take the preferences of their clients. In short, regardless of whether their clients need a logo, poster or a web design, they will ensure to provide the best end-result, assures Mars Rouge.
Why businesses should entrust graphic and website designing tasks to them?
The foremost reason, according to Mars Rouge, is clients in Neuchatel can save time and money by entrusting these tasks to them. The company assures its clients that they will deliver the designs within the agreed deadline. Being professional graphic designers, they will come out with designs within one-fourth of the time taken by an amateur. Apart from saving money for their clients through the time saved, they will adopt the most cost effective ways for designing the marketing materials so clients can save on printing costs as well, adds Mars Rouge.
Secondly, clients in Neuchatel can be certain of having a consistent branding so they can get the results they desire to achieve. This means the logo or the website they design for their clients will help them stand out from their competitors, says Mars Rouge. The company assertively points out that most of the people remember businesses based on their marketing materials and since these business-clients will get a distinctive brand from them, they can have an enhanced reputation that will place them at a higher plank than their competitors.
Mars Rouge further says they will help their clients in Neuchatel have consistency in branding. They will incorporate all their preferences and ideas in their marketing materials so they will achieve the goals they have set. Apart from helping in branding and web designing, they will cater to the cross-media visual communication needs of their clients also. Lastly, Mars Rouge assures that they will work within the budget of their clients and come up with a design their clients can be proud of.
About Mars Rouge
Mars Rouge, a graphic design agency, that has been founded by Julien Di Giusto, a French native, near Basel, will now be catering to the needs of those businesses that belong to Neuchatel and that are on the look-out for graphic design and website design services also. The company ensures to deliver their branding and website designing solutions on time. They adopt the most effective ways so they can stick to the budget of their clients. Further, they discuss and find out the preferences and ideas of their clients and incorporate them in their solutions so the clients can achieve the goals they have set.
For Media Contact:
www.marsrouge.ch
A delegation representing the Armenian branch of the International Police Association (IPA) will leave for San Francisco on July 15 to take part in a conference on human rights and basic freedoms organized by the U.S. branch of the IPA.
The delegation is going at the invitation of U.S. IPA President Calvin Chow.
Grisha Sargsyan, president of Armenias IPA, will head the delegation.
The International Police Association is an independent body made up of members of the police service, whether on active duty or retired, and without distinction as to rank, sex, race, colour, language or religion. Its purpose is to create bonds of friendship and to promote international co-operation.
A team of researchers from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, has uncovered a chemical trail that suggests prebiotic conditions may exist on the surface of Saturns largest moon, Titan.
Titan is a carbon-rich, oxygen-poor world with a wide range of organic compounds, atmospheric energy sources, and liquid hydrocarbon seas.
It is the only planetary body in the Solar System, except our planet, where rainfall and seasonally flowing liquids erode the landscape.
Whereas the surface pressure is similar to that of Earth, the temperature is extremely low and the dominant liquids are methane and ethane.
This makes Titan a test case for exploring the environmental limits of prebiotic chemistry and addressing the question of whether life can develop without water.
To grasp the blueprint of early planetary life, we must think outside of green-blue, Earth-based biology, said team member Dr. Martin Rahm, from Cornells Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.
We are used to our own conditions here on Earth. Our scientific experience is at room temperature and ambient conditions.
Titan is a completely different beast, he said.
When sunlight hits Titans exotic atmosphere, the reaction produces hydrogen cyanide (HCN), an organic chemical that can react with itself or with other molecules forming long chains, or polymers, one of which is called polyimine.
Polyimine is flexible, which helps mobility under very cold conditions, and it can absorb the Suns energy and become a possible catalyst for life.
Polyimine can exist as different structures, and they may be able to accomplish remarkable things at low temperatures, especially under Titans conditions, said Dr. Rahm, first author of a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week.
We need to continue to examine this, to understand how the chemistry evolves over time. We see this as a preparation for further exploration.
If future observations could show there is prebiotic chemistry in a place like Titan, it would be a major breakthrough.
This paper is indicating that prerequisites for processes leading to a different kind of life could exist on Titan, but this only the first step.
_____
Martin Rahm et al. Polymorphism and electronic structure of polyimine and its potential significance for prebiotic chemistry on Titan. PNAS, published online July 5, 2016; doi: 10.1073/pnas.1606634113
[JAKARTA] Forest fires in Indonesia last year released 11.3 million tonnes of carbon per day, researchers have found. This figure exceeds the daily rate of 8.9 million tonnes of carbon emissions from the whole of the European Union, the study says.
The 2015 fires were the worst since 1997, when a strong El Nino also fanned widespread fires, says the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Fire is widely used in South-East Asia to clear vegetation and maintain land for the growing of crops, the paper explains. Last year, fires were exacerbated by extended drought associated with El Nino, releasing 857 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from September to October 2015, the authors say. This represents 97 per cent of the countrys annual carbon emissions.
We are ready for the worst case this year even though it is unlikely that the same catastrophe will happen again. Sugarin, Climatic and Meteorological Agency
Study co-author Martin Wooster, an earth observation scientist at Kings College London in the United Kingdom, says the data produced from the study were based on satellite observation and on-site measurement of the air in Palangkaraya, the capital city of Central Kalimantan province, which experienced the countrys thickest smog during last years fires.
There have been some isolated studies before where people artificially set fires in the lab to try to understand the chemical characteristics of peatland fire smoke in Indonesia, Wooster explains. But this study is the first of its kind: no one had done this for natural fires, and especially not on the kind of extreme fires seen in 2015.
Wooster believes the study is more than enough to prod the Indonesian government to take serious steps in fighting forest fires, which have a severe impact on human lives.
Every year, the global atmospheric CO 2 concentration is rising, and in 2015 it rose more than any other year since measurements began, he says, adding that governments in South-East Asia are very aware of the impact on air quality in the region.
Wooster notes the particulates in the atmosphere in some parts of Indonesia reached more than five times the hazardous levels, reducing visibility to a few hundred metres in places.
Sugarin, head of the Climatic and Meteorological Agency station in Riau, Sumatra, admits that the Indonesian government is now more serious in tackling the issue.
He says Riau province is now in a state of emergency alert for peatland fires, with 15 hotspots under watch. This means the central government is ready to send helicopters for water bombings.
We are ready for the worst case this year even though it is unlikely that the same catastrophe will happen again, says Sugarin. This year, the El Nino phenomenon will not return and the dry season will not bring such severe drought, he adds.
This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets South-East Asia & Pacific desk.
In 2010, Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano produced an ash cloud that wreaked havoc and stopped air traffic across Europe for several days. The lava meeting the ice created and explosive reaction which pumped vast amounts of ash into the atmosphere.
The Eyjafjallajokull volcano stranded thousands of people in 2010 and NASA knows how t... https://t.co/p0Pvb518NO pic.twitter.com/KEexcWswBT Tech Insider (@techinsider) May 13, 2016
Ice and lava, when put together, create an explosive combination, but there are also "pillow lavas" which pile up in blobs on the sea floor. Why there are different reactions to ice and fire is the question, but if this were "Game of Thrones," it may just be as explosive.
Pop culture reference aside, scientists from the University at Buffalo in New York State are studying the reactions by cooking their own batch of lava and adding water to it. The Guardian noted that the team used a high-powered furnace, and aimed to create 35 liters of lava by heating basaltic rock at 1,300 degrees Celsius over a period of four hours.
Upon doing so, they trickle the lava to a narrow pipe and inject water to it to see what happens.
In a statement, lead scientist Ingo Sonder explained the need for the experiment, saying that "The eruption at Eyjafjallajokull was more explosive due to the presence of water. Events like that don't happen often, but there is a threat of a big impact when they do. As geologists, we want to understand the conditions that generate explosions - how much water do you need? How much time?"
Experiments regarding lava reactions have been done repeatedly in different circumstances -- this is not new. But as to why ice can react in different ways with the molten rock -- that is a question scientists are still trying to find the answer to.
In a new foray into the health sector, Google is teaming up with the British government's healthcare system to test out its artificial intelligence machine DeepMind in the fight to prevent eye diseases and blindness.
With doctors' misdiagnosing eye illness 10 to 20 percent of the time, Google's DeepMind could help increase diagnostic accuracy and efficiency. The AI could scan millions of records and learn from them in order to quickly diagnose two types of eye diseases: diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration.
DeepMind co-founder and head of DeepMind Health Mufasta Suleyman said that the goal is for the AI to understand eye scans in order to try and predict that patients that are at risk to an eye disease.
The deal was between DeepMind, Google's subsidiary company, and Moorfields Eye Hospital in London.
"With sight loss predicted to double by the year 2050, it is vital we explore the use of cutting-edge technology to prevent eye disease," according to Moorfield Hospital's National Institute for Health Research's Biomedical Research Centre in Ophthalmology Director Peng Tee Khaw.
There are over 100 million suffering from Age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy with diabetes as the leading cause of blindness from the working population. 98 percent of severe visual loss can be prevented with early detection and treatment of the diseases.
DeepMind will publish the results, algorithms and methodologies in peer-reviewed journals so that other research would be able to benefit from the project.
The only concern for some will be similar to its previous partnership with Royal Free NHS Trust, when it gave DeepMind non-consensual access to personal medical information of 1.6 million patients in hospitals across London.
Google answered that the data is necessary for the AI to learn as it was not possible for them to only get a list of patients with kidney diseases. They assured the patients that data will not be linked to or associated with the accounts, products and services of Google as the company operates independently from its parent company.
DeepMind's recent achievement was in beating a Go board game champion three times in a row after analyzing millions of Go games and playing against itself another million times.
The Alaska Volcano Observatory had been keeping a close eye on Pavlof Volcano, one of the most active ones in the state. Increased seismic activity and steam emissions have been observed over the past week, leading observatory officials to raise the alert level.
Alaska's Mount Pavlof Volcano Expected to Erupt for the Third Time by the End of the Year https://t.co/9I5RU4nbIq pic.twitter.com/l30NgTMoQW Nature World News (@NatureWorldNews) July 4, 2016
According to the observatory, there have been over 40 recorded eruptions of the Pavlof - the last one was recorded just may of this year. Two months before that, ash plumes rose over 40,000 feet above sea level, cancelling thousands of flights as safety precaution.
There are high chances that the eruptive volcano will blow its top again with little to no warning, however, according to the Northern California News, geophysicist David Schneider noted that its current activity is still considered normal late last week.
Circumstances changed since then and scientists believe that an alert level is necessary. Schneider said, "Pavlof can erupt without very much in the way of precursory activities. It's very easy for the magma to arise in the volcano and make it out. So even subtle signs of unrest we think it is prudent to increase our alert level."
Thus, the Observatory increased the alert level from "normal" to "advisory" as of Friday. This early precaution is also in part of the fact that only about 600 miles southwest, lies the city of Anchorage on the Alaska Peninsula. The AVO also raised the alert level from green to yellow.
Research geologist Robert McGimsey explained the alert, saying, "What that means is the volcano has moved from its normal non-eruptive activity to a level unrest, where it could erupt." According to News Max, the volcano already sent ash 6,500 yards above sea level, endangering tens and thousands of passengers who fly by the area every day.
Then again, the volcano could be at a standstill and do nothing, either. Still, people living around the area should be careful - the volcano is "highly likely" to erupt by the end of the year.
NASA study reveals that even though the temperature rises in the Southern Ocean, the Antarctic ice has been increasing since the 1970s. The NASA experts are now investigating why the sea ice around the Antarctic was increasing despite the global warming. On the other hand, the ocean ice in the North Pole is receding each year.
NASA spokesman said that that the geology of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean are responsible why the sea ice surrounding Antarctica has been increasing slightly, in contrast to the drastic loss of sea ice happening in the Arctic Ocean, as noted by Express.
Son Nghiem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California and team from NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) used the satellite radar, land form and bathymetry data and sea surface temperature to study the physical processes and properties affecting Antarctic sea ice.
Nghiem explained that their study delivers strong evidence that the behavior of Antarctic sea ice is totally consistent with the geophysical characteristics found in the southern polar region, which vary sharply from those present in the Arctic. The researchers discovered that Antarctic sea ice cover is dominated by first-year, new seasonal sea ice. Each year, the sea ice reaches its maximum extent around the frozen continent in September and retreats to about 17 percent of that area in February.
Mr. Nghiem and his team analyzed radar 1999 to 2009 data from NASA QuikScat satellite to monitor the paths of Antarctic sea ice movements and map its various types. Their analyses showed that as the sea ice forms and builds up early in the sea ice growth season, it gets shoved offshore and northward by winds. This creates a protective shield of older, thicker ice that circulates around the continent.
According to the team, the persistent winds, which flow downslope off the continent and are fashioned by Antarctica's topography, heap ice up against the massive ice shield, enhancing its thickness. The band of ice, which differentiates in width from roughly 62 to 620 miles, encapsulates and protects younger, thinner ice in the icepack behind it from being reduced by winds and waves.
The researchers further explained that as the sea ice cover enlarges and ice drifts away from the continent, areas of open water form behind it on the sea surface, producing "ice factories" conducive to rapid sea ice growth.
Meanwhile, another study, which was printed in the journal Nature Geoscience unravel this mystery of the Antarctic sea ice expanding despite the global warming. The new study was led by researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), according to Science Daily.
The researchers discovered that the increasing Antarctic sea ice can be explained by a natural climate fluctuation. It showed that the negative phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO), which is described by cooler than average sea surface temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific, has shaped favorable conditions for additional Antarctic sea ice growth since 2000.
In the new study, they found that the IPO changes phase from positive to negative or vice versa. When the IPO changes to a negative phase, the sea surface temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific become cooler than the average when measured over a decade or two. These sea surface temperatures drive large-scale changes to the winds that spread all the way down to Antarctica. The winds that are generated on the western flank of this system blow the sea ice northward, away from Antarctica, helping to enlarge the extent of sea ice coverage.
We know that tumors can affect animals too, but it seems that the illness had been on earth since before humans were born - in fact, tumors may have grown in animals before they did on humans.
An international team made an incredible discovery on a primitive duck-billed dinosaur called the hadrosaur: it was said to have the first ever facial tumor in a fossil. The growth was found on a jaw of the 69-million-year-old species found in the Valley of the Dinosaurs in the Hateg County Dinosaurs Geopark in Transylvania, western Romania.
Mirror UK noted that while tumors have been found in humans and mammals, and even some modern reptiles, it has never been seen in fossils of animals before. Kate Acheson, a PhD student at the University of Southampton, spoke about the discovery, saying that it is "the first ever described in the fossil record and the first to be thoroughly documented in a dwarf dinosaur."
She also added that the presence of such deformity so early in their evolution provided evidence that duck-billed dinosaurs were actually more prone to tumors than others. Scans taken off the fossil showed that the dinosaur may have suffered from a condition called "ameloblastoma," which is tumorous and benign, but non-cancerous.
Dr. Bruce Rothschild from the Northeast Ohio Medical University and a worldwide expert in the study of ancient diseases told The Daily Mail that the discovery of the ameloblastoma in a duck-billed dinosaur is evidence that humans have more in common with the primitive animals than previously thought, adding that "We get the same neoplasias [growths]."
While it is unlikely that the tumor caused the dinosaur any pain other than a sore jaw, researchers can tell from its size that the animal died before it reached adulthood, and there could be a possibility that the ameloblastoma may have contributed to its death, although that remains to be seen.
FLORENCE, S.C. Hotel Florence can add another feather to its cap.
During Choice Hotels Internationals 62nd annual convention held in May in Las Vegas, Hotel Florence was named the winner of the Ascend Hotel Collection brands 2016 Hotel of the Year.
Located at 126 W. Evans St., the 49-room hotel which also houses Victors Bistro opened in May 2013. An expansion that was unveiled at the end of 2015 saw the addition of 16 rooms, a new 2,000-square-foot fitness room and a community room used by the hotel and the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce. The Spa at Hotel Florence serves hotel guests as well as the general public.
Under the banner of Springbridge Development, the 64-room hotel is part of the portfolio of Raines Hospitality, which operates five hotels in Florence, one apiece in Cayce and Mt. Pleasant, and is on the verge of an announcement regarding another downtown hotel.
With its distinctive charm, Hotel Florence truly captures the essence of the Ascend Hotel Collection, Janis Cannon, senior vice president of upscale brands for Choice Hotels, said in a press advisory issued Tuesday. The property exemplifies the attributes of the Ascend Hotel Collection not only through its unique urban elegance, but service excellence as well.
Cannon said that since it joined the membership collection in 2013, Hotel Florence has helped strengthen the appeal of the Ascend Hotel Collection while serving as an anchor for the revitalization of historic downtown Florence.
We are proud to support Hotel Florence as it continues to flourish and are so pleased to recognize them with this prestigious Hotel of the Year award, she said in the advisory.
Winners are selected by the Choice Hotels Owners Council and given to properties that demonstrate lodging excellence and offer guest experiences that set the industry standard; nominees are all ranked at the top of hotels within their brand, the advisory states.
Raines Hospitality President Grey Raines, who partnered with Chris Scott and Jay Ham under Springbridge Development for Hotel Florence and several other projects, was also honored as the 2016 Developer of the Year award from Choice Hotels International in the Ascend Collection tier of brands category during the May convention.
The developer of the year recognizes the best developers in the Choice Hotels system and one winner is named for each tier of core brands.
We are so honored to receive these awards, Raines said. Our hardworking team is committed to serving guests and providing them with a memorable experience. The Ascend Hotel Collection has been essential to our success by giving us a worldwide platform with powerful resources. These include access to more than 26 million loyalty members through the Choice Privileges program and the latest advancements in lodging technology, all while allowing us to stay true to who we are innkeepers who love to share Southern warmth and hospitality.
FLORENCE, S.C. -- Hot weather deserves a Polar Punch.
You dont have to be a chemistry major like Pelicans SnoBalls proprietor Brian McPherson to know that sweltering summer days often require a refreshing respite.
Yesterday we did 137 SnoBalls in an hour, McPherson said Friday afternoon.
And it doesnt hurt to have a brightly colored building with umbrella-shaded picnic tables.
We were getting a haircut and he saw the colors, Shonda Knotts of Timmonsville said on Friday, referring to her oldest son Raleigh, 4, who was joined by little brother Graham, 2.
Jennie Conway stopped by the South Cashua Drive business Friday with her son Griffin, who went with the Polar Punch flavor for their inaugural visit.
Mmmmm, said the 3-year-old.
McPherson, a 35-year-old native Florentine, graduated from West Florence High School in 1999 before earning a degree in chemistry from the College of Charleston and working as a program supervisor for Palmetto Behavioral Health.
About three years ago, during a visit to Columbia to see his brother Alex, they stopped at a Pelicans SnoBalls there following a trip to Riverbanks Zoo. Alex had mentioned that he drove by it on his way to work and figured the tiny spot would never make it.
Next thing you know, theres a line around the building, Brian said. At the time I didnt think about it, but three years later, here we are.
The here part of that has a bit of history.
B.J. McPherson Jr., Brians father, can remember when his father, B.J. McPherson Sr., bought the property in 1962.
He and I built this building in 1963, said the elder McPherson. We used to have gas pumps and sell fuel oil and candy. Gas wasnt but 31 cents for a gallon of regular.
As the auto body shop behind the gas station earned more money, it was rented out over the years to various businesses, B.J. McPherson Jr. said.
Then these two knuckleheads called me up and I said, Im losing my rent, he said, laughing, referring to his sons.
Since opening on May 10, theyve watched a steady clientele build up as a strictly family environment has attracted plenty of customers, he said.
And its hard to miss the blue and pink color scheme that wouldnt be out of place in the West Indies.
People just love it. It pops, he said. Everyone driving by can see it.
For those who stop in on a regular basis, theres the option of purchasing Pelican bucks -- $20 gets you 25.
Shalonda Rosado stopped by Friday, got herself a Butterfly Kiss and was on her way.
I had to upgrade the size this time cause its so good, said the Florence resident, who guesses she stops by a couple times a week.
You try one thing and you like it and you keep getting the same thing over and over again, she said.
FLORENCE, S.C. A group of teachers from Thailand got a taste of American life as they visited Francis Marion University for a three-week course on project-based learning.
Out of the hundreds from Nakhonsawan Rajabhat University who applied, just eight were selected to make the voyage.
In addition to sightseeing across the state, each of the eight teachers spent time choosing a topic of interest, developing a question and creating a project to solve a problem. The project will be taken back to Thailand to be worked on by their students in the coming semester.
Several forces swiftly converged to make the course possible for the teachers. The first was the recent push for project-based learning in South Carolina.
Then came FMUs connection to Thailand through Sompong Kraikit, a semi-retired Florence physician and advocate for education in Thailand. A longtime friend of FMU, Kraikit hails from Nakhon Sawan, the same province as the Thai teachers.
"I think every country has the same goal - to get people better education so they can survive and take care of their family and their country," Kraikit said.
English is not well-spoken by many Thai people, he said. But Kraikit feels encouraging English might lead to economic progress for his home country. This is why he continues the push for education and helped facilitate the partnership with FMU.
"My feeling is if Thai students can learn English better, know English better, they'll have more chance to get involved in the world economy," he said.
The final piece of the puzzle came together when the Thai teachers and administrators expressed an interest in learning new methods of active learning, as opposed to the lecture-based classes that currently dominate universities in Thailand.
A course in project-based learning seemed to most closely align with the Thai teachers request, said Tracy Holcombe, assistant dean of education at FMU.
Yesterday we had a conversation, another colleague and I (it) doesnt matter where in the world you come from. Good teaching is just good teaching. And you see that reflected in the need for our local teachers to have this (a project-based learning course), as well as international teachers, Holcombe said.
What is project-based learning?
Project-based learning is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period to investigate and respond to a question, problem or challenge, according to the Buck Institute for Education.
Thats where Polly Haselden, an associate professor of English at Francis Marion University, took a course in project-based learning.
She served as the course instructor for the Thai teachers and sees project-based learning as a method of empowerment.
I see students taking ownership and identifying community needs and issues that need to be addressed, Haselden said.
For the Thai teachers, project-based learning is a way to encourage confidence in students and to break free from the confines of a lecture-based class.
Because for Thai students, they are quite shy. They do not like to speak out in front of classroom, and so we try new ways to encourage them to participate, said Sutinee Jamutai, a Thai teacher who goes by Sue. This is quite new for us.
Each of the projects correlated with the class the teacher will be instructing next semester.
Sues project, for example, focuses on translation. She served as the translator on the trip though most spoke excellent English and will be teaching a course in translation in the fall.
The teachers developed the projects for most of their time in class. As the course wrapped up, the projects were mapped out and displayed on the walls of the classroom for critique. Ultimately, each teacher presented a project to the Latta Rotary Club. This served as practice for their return to Thailand, where the projects will be presented to the university administration.
Culture shock
The group spent much of their three weeks in the classroom. In fact, Haselden said, the students were so enthusiastic that class often went over the allotted four hours.
But despite the hard work, there was still a little time for play.
They spent a day in Charleston and visited the Statehouse in Columbia. They also visited South of the Border, a trip described by all as weird.
For many of the Thai teachers, America was different than expected. A lot of the shock centered on food.
Suthima Krittanawat, called Mo, remembers being told that she should not eat food in America with her hands.
So imagine her confusion when a plate of fried chicken was placed in front of her on the table.
I am so impressed I can use my hands with fried chicken, Mo said.
In Thailand, it is customary to have a spoon and a fork at a place setting.
We were so excited to have a knife and a fork, Mo added, laughing.
While in Florence, the group of eight enjoyed barbecue, flash-fried corn, sweet tea and other Southern staples. But they also cooked for their professors and made time for a stop at the Thai House, a South Dargan Street restaurant.
FLORENCE, S.C. -- Pee Dee residents have a new outdoor recreation option in Florence thanks to the work done by Grafton Keefe as part of his Eagle Scout service project.
Working with Chuck Pope and the City of Florence Grafton organized scouts and parents to clear the channel and build portage stairs at Cashua, according to a release issued by Tim Fisher with First Presbyterian Church's Scouting ministry.
"During normal creek levels the trip can be made with no portages. The City of Florence has built ramps to help launch your boat at both Palmetto Street and Jeffries Creek Park," Fisher wrote in the release.
"The scouts are inviting anyone with a kayak or canoe to join them on Saturday morning July 16 to explore this hidden treasure. The trip takes about an hour and you will have a chance to see hawks, turtles and two river otters as you paddle the beautiful tree covered Jeffries Creek," Fisher wrote.
For those who want to take the trip but don't have access to a canoe or kayak, Fisher said Naturally Outdoors would rent them a kayak for $35 or a canoe for $45 -- both rentals including paddles and life jackets.
Parking for the excursions, the first at 9 a.m. and the second at 10:30 a.m. is available at Naturally Outdoors and First Presbyterian Scout Troop 477 will provide a shuttle for those needing transportation from Jeffries Creek Park back to their car at Naturally Outdoors.
HARTSVILLE, S.C. -- Emmanuel Christian School will begin this fall with an expanded dual enrollment program forged with Florence-Darlington Technical College.
For the coming year, the Christian day school, which has about 380 students enrolled, will offer dual enrollment classes to qualifying students in grades 9-12.
According to Head of School Shane Ridgeway, with courses offered through Florence-Darlington Technical College, freshmen and sophomores can advance through high school and enter college as sophomores and possibly juniors.
We have dabbled in it (dual enrollment) for years, he said. I was very familiar with the program with the school I came from.
Ridgeway has been at Emmanuel for two years.
Twenty percent of Emmanuel students already enter college now as sophomores, he said.
Approximately 40 students, grades 9-12, have applied to take courses through the dual enrollment program for the coming school year.
Until now, mainly seniors were offered dual enrollment courses at Emmanuel, Ridgeway said.
Students who have a good educational background and who fulfill the unit requirements for high school can apply to take the classes. The students must apply to Florence-Darlington Tech.
The number one question I get outside of the cost is 'Do you think my child can do this?' Ridgeway said.
With parents already paying for their child to attend school, Ridgeway said, they want to know home much more they are going to have to pay for tuition.
Some students do well with a push, Ridgeway said. I find that most of our kids meet the challenge.
Courses offered to upperclassmen include English 101, 102, 201 and 205 and Math 110 and 111 (algebra and trigonometry).
Ridgeway said freshmen and sophomores will be able to take elective courses, such as art appreciation, theater, music appreciation, sociology and geography.
He said a grade of C or better will transfer to most colleges.
Most courses are offered online or at Emmanuel, Ridgeway said.
Teachers here can help with course loads, he added.
This is one of the programs that are going to help us get to the next level," he said. "It puts us above the curve and able to compete more aggressively for scholarships.
Ridgeway said the focus at Emmanuel Christian School is on excellence.
This dual program is just one way students can excel, he said.
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Christopher Kimball, founder of America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Illustrated, comes to Madison on a "Culinary Mystery" tour on Sept. 28. His new food project, Milk Street Kitchen, will include a magazine, a TV show and more.
Seaman Guard Ohio, are among 35 crew onboard the vessel who will be detained in India for 1,000 days on 7 July, and earlier in 2016 were jailed for five years.
The Missions to Seafarers and families of the six British men under detention will lobby parliament in the Boothroyd Room in Portcullis House from 10am to 11.30am tomorrow. A petition signed 350,000 people will also be handed to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street.
Yet again we are bringing to the attention of all, the fact that men tasked with protecting seafarers from pirate attack are themselves under attack, said Revd Canon Ken Peters, director of justice and public affairs for The Mission to Seafarers who will be speaking at the lobby.
The unwarranted detention of the crew of the MV Seaman Guard Ohio, in India, because of their possession of armaments used to defend against criminal violence, has dragged on for 1,000 days. There is still no end in sight for the judicial process which has been subjected to adjournment after adjournment, delay after delay. Whilst pirates roam free, the crew and guards are held in prison. This really is the wrong way round.
Lisa Dunn sister of one of the detained men Nick Dunn said: Never would any of us have ever imagined back in 2013 that we would still be living through this very real nightmare in 2016.
My brother and his 34 colleagues are currently locked away in a prison after being handed a five year sentence in January, having to exist in the most horrific of conditions when there is overwhelming evidence proving their innocence.
This is what I am fighting for and this is what I will continue to fight for until they are all back home safely with their families. I will not give up the fight for justice and their freedom.
According to a fascinating report over at New Scientist, the quiet death of a monkey in China is reviving an enduring debate in science: Do animals grieve their dead?
As Natalia Reagan explores in today's DNews report, there's no consensus answer to the question among biologists -- but anecdotal evidence abounds. The recent incident in China was documented by James Anderson of Kyoto University in Japan, who was monitoring a group of snub-nosed monkeys in the Zhouzhi National Nature Reserve.
According to Anderson's published report, a female from the group took suddenly ill, then fell from a tree and died. The female's partner, the group's alpha male, remained with the body for five minutes, touching and pulling at her hand, before returning to the main group. After researchers buried the female, the alpha male and rest of the group returned to the spot where she died and sat for several minutes.
The report is the latest of several recent studies in which animals animals appear to engage in grieving and mourning behavior, suggesting that humans aren't the only species to experience bereavement.
RELATED: Modern Mourning: New Ways We Honor Our Dead
In another study from Cameroon's Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, a group of chimps were seen gathering around an older female who had recently died. The chimps behavior suggested that the animals were "paying their respects" as a group, observers say.
Chimpanzee mothers who have lost their infants have been observed carrying their dead offspring for days or even weeks, trying to revive them. This suggests the animals are capable of understanding or processing death, researchers say. This kind of behavior is mostly commonly observers in primates, including gorillas, macaques and baboons.
But other species have been reported to mourn their dead, as well. The group of birds known as corvids -- crows, ravens, magpies and rooks -- have been observed holding improvised "funerals" for deceased relatives. Possible death rituals have also been observed among dolphins, elephants and domestic cats.
There are essentially two schools of thought on the matter. Some scientists contend that animals do not feel grief or empathy, and that ascribing such feelings to them is simple anthropomorphization. Others say that it's "species-centric" to assume that only humans can have these traits. In any case, you can click on over to the New Scientist story for some empirically sad photos and videos.
-- Glenn McDonald
Learn More:
BBC: Death Rituals In The Animal Kingdom
Wired: What Death Means To Primates
The Wildlife News: Do Corvids Gather For Funerals?
With each passing year the Discovery Channel's celebration of all things chondrichthyan has become interwoven more and more with the conservation of our cartilaginous fishes: sharks, skates, rays and chimeras.
And with good reason. This amazing class of fishes, which includes as many as 1,250 species, have swum in the oceans of our planet for more than 400 million years.
Yet they are disappearing. Overfishing to supply global markets for meat, oil, leather, fins, curios and other products has eliminated many shark and ray species from portions of their range. Demand for shark fin soup a Chinese delicacy has had an especially devastating impact on shark populations in recent history, but is now being matched by global demand for shark meat.
RELATED: Shark Q&A: Are Bull Sharks Especially Aggressive?
We need to address this crisis now before this globally important group of animals vanishes from our seas. That is why members of the marine conservation community cheered the introduction recently of the Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act of 2016, sponsored in the U.S. Senate by Sens. Corey Booker (D-NJ) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and in the House by U.S. Reps. Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (I- Northern Mariana Islands) and Ed Royce (R-CA).
Legislation is sorely needed to reduce the United States' contribution to the collapse of shark and ray populations around the world.
A recent analysis of sharks and rays conservation status by the International Union for the Conservation (IUCN) Shark Specialist Group found that close to a quarter of chondrichthyan species are likely threatened with extinction. Nevertheless, inadequate regulation of fisheries at both the national and international levels continues to represent a great threat to sharks and rays.
RELATED: Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Bans Shark Fin Cargo
This is of particular concern due to the late maturity and generally long gestation periods of these fish. For instance, gracefully gliding manta rays -- with wingspans seven meters long -- give birth to only one live pup every two to three years. This makes sharks and rays especially vulnerable to overfishing and slow to recover.
The Global Sharks and Rays Initiative (GSRI) has identified 40 priority countries based on shark and ray landings by volume. Top exporters include Argentina, Indonesia, Spain, New Zealand and the USA, among others.
Some currently manage shark and ray fishing and promote fisheries reform. Others lack the capacity or resist fishing limits due to opposition from the commercial sector.
WATCH VIDEO: "Great White Sharks Are More Important Than You Think"
Photo: A goat relaxes at the Buttercups Sanctuary for Goats, United Kingdom. Credit: Christian Nawroth Goats have surprisingly just been added to the very short list of animals that are known to communicate in very direct and complex ways with humans.
The other two animals, dogs and horses, are often raised as companions to humans, so the goat findings -- reported in the journal Royal Society Biology Letters -- mark the first time that an animal raised primarily for food has evolved such an intense and meaningful connection with our species.
RELATED: Brooklyn Park's New Staff Members Are Goats
"Goats are very social animals," the lead author of the study, Christian Nawroth, told Discovery News. "Being social definitely seems to be a prerequisite to interacting with other species."
That factor alone could help explain why cats tend to fail the basic test that dogs, horses and goats passed with ease. By necessity, wild cats evolved a more solitary lifestyle. While some individual cats do seem to connect well with their owners, the ability is not as widespread.
Nawroth and colleagues Jemma Brett and Alan McElligott, from Queen Mary University of London's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, conducted their research at Buttercups Sanctuary for Goats in the U.K., with funding provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and Farm Sanctuary's "The Someone Project."
RELATED: The Man Who Turned Himself Into a Goat
The researchers created an "unsolvable problem" task by placing a tasty treat under a plastic box with the lid sealed shut. The goats could therefore see the food, but could never get at it.
As the 34 goats, a mix of male and female, individually approached the box, most looked right into the eyes of a nearby human, as if hoping to obtain some guidance. They also adjusted their behavior to match the gaze and position of the human. From a scientific standpoint, this meant the goats were exhibiting referential and intentional communication with the humans.
Sgt. Cristian Pensado peers through a copse of scrub pine and brambles at a clearing ahead. He's leading a platoon of 50 U.S. soldiers creeping through an Estonian woodland about 90 miles from the border with Russia. "Our mission is to conduct recon, secure a foothold, and prepare for a counterattack," says Pensado, a 26-year old from Greeley, Colo. "Tactically, it's difficult because you want to go into the woods but (much) of this country is marshy and swampy. It doesn't matter kind of vehicle you got, it's going to get stuck." Pensado is one of 150 U.S. soldiers from the Army's 2nd Cavalry Regiment based in Germany but on a three-month rotation at the Tapa Training Area, a base in north central Estonia. As part of the recent military exercises called "Sabre Strike" that brought 10,000 NATO soldiers to the three Baltic States, Pensado and his squad practiced against an unknown enemy. RELATED: 10 Signs You're in a Cold War During "Sabre Strike," U.S. and NATO forces practiced live fire of weapons, tanks and even landed several A-10 Warthog aircraft on an Estonian highway, a war zone contingency that hasn't happened since the Cold War of the 1980s. The war games concluded just before this week's NATO summit in Warsaw where member nations will approve a boost in permanent troops in the three Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and Poland. The United States, Britain, Germany and a multi-nation force will contribute about 1,000 soldiers each. It's the biggest build-up since the Cold War, and it means more American soldiers like Pensado will be training for a possible attack from Russia. "We let the Estonians worry about it," Pensado said about the possibility of a real-life confrontation with the neighbor to the east. "We don't come in here with a mindset to start a war or speculate what Russia may or may not do. We are just here to train." While few observers expect such an attack anytime soon, the volume on Russia's saber-rattling has jumped up a few notches in the past year. Russian jets buzzed U.S. warships sailing in international water in the Baltic Sea in February. Russian special forces kidnapped an Estonian police agent investigating cross-border smuggling and held him for a year until September 2015. Russian hackers were blamed for the shutdown of Lithuania's parliament website in April as well as strange malfunction of Sweden's air traffic control system in May. Some American soldiers stationed in the Baltics have even been cyber-stalked on social media by Russian intelligence agents, according to a British military analyst, as well as having their communications jammed. WATCH VIDEO: Are We On The Brink Of A New Cold War?
Some of this is just Russia being Russia. But military and intelligence analysts in Washington and Europe say that the increased in tensions here is part of a overall game of sorts to test NATO's response. With up to 4,000 troops stationed in the Baltic corridor beginning in early 2017 -- those tensions and harassment will likely increase. The Baltic States have long had troubles with Russia since gaining their independence in the early 1990s after a 50-year Soviet occupation. But today, much of Western Europe is paying attention to signs of aggression, according to Kier Giles, associate fellow at Chatham House, a London-based security think tank. "The Baltics have been cast as troublemakers in the EU," Giles said. "They are still getting to used to the fact that everyone now is agreeing with them. They are appreciating that they don't have to point out the security challenges." RELATED: Declassified: Military's Secret Cold War Space Project If Russia did make a move, it wouldn't take long to swallow its former satellites. A 2016 study by the Rand Corporation estimates it would take Russian forces as little as 36 hours to capture the Estonian capital of Tallinn, or a bit longer for Latvia's capital Riga. Russia has stationed 22 infantry battalions on its northeast border from Estonia to Poland, while NATO fields 12. But NATO doesn't have any tanks or armored vehicles except for the single U.S. Stryker brigade with its eight-wheeled vehicles. The war games run by Rand analysts didn't go so well for the West. "By and large, NATO's infantry found themselves unable even to retreat successfully and were destroyed in place," the report stated. It's not just weapons that make up Russia's arsenal. They are also pretty good at both spying and cyberwarfare, according to Estonian officials. "Russia has increased its capabilities of espionage," said Martin Arpo, deputy director of the Estonian Internal Security Service (known by its Estonian name, Kapo), which has nabbed eight Russian agents since 2008. "It was continuing before 2014 and has continued to grow after that. After we caught some Russian spies, it's obvious that Russia is desperate to find new spies here." In 2007, Estonia's government websites were hit by a massive denial of service attack from groups affiliated with the Kremlin. Since then, Estonia has beefed up security by becoming more diverse about where and how it stores information, and partnering with private industry to monitor and identify attacks. RELATED: World War III? Cyber, Economic Battles Take Over "We see constant mapping or our networks and limited attacks to see our vulnerabilities," said Taimar Peterkop, director general of Estonia's Information System Authority, which safeguards the nation's computer security. " Peterkop says his biggest worry is the possibility of attacks on Estonia's critical infrastructure such as water, power or other utilities. That's what happened in Ukraine in December 2015, when cyberattacks shut down three electrical substations and turned out the lights for 225,000 people for several hours. U.S. officials investigating the Ukraine cyberevent were careful not to blame Russia officially, but Peterkop says the source is not hard to figure out. "The only country we have to worry about is Russia," he said. Back in the woods at the Tapa base, Capt. Don Duong, of Huntington Beach, Calif., says the Estonian terrain poses is own challenges for both defenders, and any potential invader. The only armor in Estonia is this U.S. Stryker brigade.
Press Release
July 6, 2016 Drilon files SSL 2016 to raise state workers pay Senate President Franklin M. Drilon filed a bill that introduces a 27 percent average increase in the salary of about 1.53 million state workers over a period of three years. Senate Bill No. 13 or the Salary Standardization Law IV, which Drilon filed recently, seeks to introduce reforms in the government's compensation system to make it competetive with the private sector, and to boost the employees' morale and productivity. "The compensation for all civilian government personnel shall be competitive with those in the private sector doing comparable work in order to attract, retain and motivate a corps of effective, efficient, professional, committed and competent civil servants," Drilon said. Drilon's bill mandates a three-year compensation increase for the national government's 1.53 million civilian and military and uniformed personnel. The bill aslo provides for a mid-year month pay bonus equivalent to a one month's basic salary and an enhanced performance-based bonus equivalent to 1 to 2 months' basic salary. "This piece of legislation seeks to increase the base pay of covered employees on the average by 27%, while the 14th month pay will further raise basic pay by 8%," Drilon said. If passed into law, the first tranche of the adjustment under the SSL 2016 will take effect on January 1, 2017, with the subsequent tranche to begin in January 1, 2018, and the final tranche slated for January 1, 2019. Drilon said that the new compensation level for all salary grades will be required to be at least 70% of the market in order to attract and retain competent and committed personnel This means that under the bill, a public nurse with the rank of Nurse II or salary grade 15 with a monthly salary of P27,565 will receive P33, 279 per month after the last tranche of the bill is implemented by 2019. Similarly, employees receiving the smallest minimum basic salary--Salary Grade 1--will see their monthly wages rise from P9,000 to P11,068 a month. They, along with other government workers, will be entitled to a mid-year bonus, which will be given not earlier than May of each year, and a performance-based bonus. The bill will also ensure that there will be no more "salary overlaps" to recognize differences in duties and responsibilities. It will also strengthen the link between pay and performance especially for those in the higher salary grades, Drilon underscored. "The structure of the adjustment should temper the cost of benefits (i.e. GSIS premiums and PhilHealth contributions) and allow for higher take home pay, especially for those in the lower salary grades," he concluded.
Press Release
July 6, 2016 EJERCITO WANTS SPECIAL POWERS FOR DUTERTE TO ADDRESS LAND AND AIR TRAFFIC, MODERNIZE RAILWAY SYSTEM Senator JV Ejercito wants to reform the country's transportation sector by initially granting President Rodrigo Duterte special powers for two years through the Transportation Crisis Act of 2016, a measure which shall enable the president to prescribe urgent measures necessary to address the worsening land and air traffic, to develop a modernized and integrated railway system, and to improve air transportation system and infrastructure. Sen. Ejercito, a longtime modern transport and railway advocate, explained that this Presidential special powers shall include the utilization of necessary government resources, and exercising or employment of executive actions and measures to address the transportation and traffic crisis. "To aid President Duterte in addressing the transportation and traffic crisis, I suggest that he designate and appoint a Transport Manager. This person may concurrently be the Secretary of the Department of Transportation or his designated representative," the solon today said. He proposed that the Transport Manager should be given the power to override the Metro Manila Development Authority, Metro Manila Council, LGU Traffic, and related ordinances, permits, and licenses, among others. "The transport manager, however, should also periodically coordinate with LGU executives and their officials, and the private sector on the traffic execution and transport plans, programs, and measures. He should also enlist and deputize the traffic enforcement units of MMDA, LGUs, Highway Patrol Group of the PNP, and other agencies." In the long run, Ejercito noted that the Transportation Crisis Act will reform the country's transportation sector through a comprehensive roadmap which shall reform national public transportation into an efficient, sustainable, safe, clean and integrated air, land, and sea mass transportation system. "I am also looking into creating a Single Traffic Violation Ticketing System to be implemented by all traffic enforcement units nationwide, and for the Official Development Assistance (ODA) to be our preferred source of funds for all related projects. The end goal also is to provide a modern integrated transportation system that is affordable, efficient, safe and accessible to all," he said. Citing urgency in addressing the transportation problem, Ejercito sought for this measure to take effect immediately upon its passage into law.
Press Release
July 6, 2016 Lacson bill exempts farmers from paying irrigation service fees Good news for farmers: They may no longer have to pay for irrigation fees as the government will shoulder the costs, once a bill filed by Sen. Panfilo M. Lacson is passed into law. Lacson's Senate Bill 43, dubbed the "Free Irrigation Services Act," is one of his legislative priorities in the 17th Congress, and seeks to help many farmers still recovering from droughts caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon. "Irrigation is a very basic governmental function that can very easily be shouldered by the State. It does not have to be passed on to farmers. Considering that it is a key factor in increasing agricultural productivity, having the State subsidize it will go a long way in ensuring adequate food supply and the early recovery of the principal means of livelihood of people in disaster-hit and poverty-stricken areas. Thus, it is the intention of this bill to revoke the ISF (Irrigation Service Fees) and to make irrigation services free for all farmers," he said. "The State shall provide the necessary subsidies to farmers and irrigators associations and cooperatives to ensure the effective and grassroots-based management of irrigation systems, the funding of which shall likewise be included in the annual General Appropriations Act," he added. Under Republic Act 3601, the NIA can collect from users of irrigation systems "to finance the continuous operation of the system and to reimburse within a certain period not less than 25 years the cost of construction thereof." The NIA's ISF covers those who use its national systems. Lacson noted ISFs were abolished by then President Joseph Estrada when he delivered his first State of the Nation Address in 1998, but were reinstated when NIA sought the adoption of a socialized irrigation fee system. Yet, the ISFs are occasionally suspended, particularly in times of calamities when it was unreasonable to impose additional fees on farmers. The proposed act effectively repeals: - Section 2(c) of Republic Act 3601 - Section 1(b) of Presidential Decree 552 - Section 1(b) of Presidential Decree 1702 On the other hand, funds for the continuity of the necessary construction, repair and maintenance of irrigation systems administered by the National Irrigation Administration shall be included in the annual GAA.
Press Release
July 6, 2016 Lacson bill to punish prison guards who allow contraband for inmates Sen. Panfilo M. Lacson has filed a bill seeking to finally stop the disturbing scenario of inmates at the New Bilibid Prison continuing to enjoy perks ranging from cash to drugs to gadgets and even fighting cocks and exotic pets. Lacson lamented the continued enjoyment by inmates of such perks has given Philippine corrections authorities' image a black eye. His Senate Bill 46 proposes penalties for prison guards and officials who allow such items into the penitentiary. "A stiff penalty is required in this circumstance in order to instill fear and be an effective deterrence to those contemplating of doing this crime in the future. More importantly, the said penalty applies as well to government officials or employees who cooperate or co-opt with the inmate or other private persons involved therein," he said. Penalties in the bill cover private individuals and prison officials who allow the bringing in of items such as firearms, ammunition, alcoholic drinks, money, electronics and communication devices - including signal jammers - to inmates. The bill requires people visiting detainees in any prison facility to accomplish a registration form and present valid IDs such as a passport, driver's license or voter's ID. They must also declare what items they are bringing to the inmate. Failure to comply with registration may mean imprisonment of one to five days, or a fine of P1,000. Visitors who try to bring in firearms or ammunition to an inmate face imprisonment of 20 to 40 years and a fine of P10 million. Attempts to bring in other contraband may mean an imprisonment of six to 12 years and a fine of P1 million. Those who try to assist in smuggling firearms or ammunition may face imprisonment of 12 to 20 years and a fine of P5 million. Inmates who attempt to make, possess or obtain a firearm or ammunition may face imprisonment from 20 to 40 years, and a fine of P10 million. This penalty is separate from the sentence the inmates are already serving. If the offender is a public official or employee, he or she faces perpetual disqualification from holding public office and the forfeiture of all retirement benefits and leave credits.
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White flowers adorned the steps of UC Berkeleys Sproul Hall as hundreds stood silent in the summer gloom on Tuesday to honor the life of Tarishi Jain, a UC Berkeley student slain in last weeks terrorist attack in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Jain, 18, was just starting an internship for the summer, working on e-commerce growth at Eastern Bank Limited in Dhaka, when armed militants stormed a popular restaurant Friday and killed her and 19 other people who were inside.
Outrage and sadness following the attack have been widespread around the world but at the campus vigil, the grief displayed was deeply personal.
Waves of resolve and anguish settled over the friends, faculty and community members while they spoke of how Jain, a native of India, had left a deep impression on many in her short time on campus.
I woke up to the news Saturday morning. Friday night, I sent Tarishi a message because I knew she was in Dhaka and I wanted to check in with her. My message never delivered, Jains friend Nuha Khalfay told the crowd. A strong, passionate, kind, smart young lady was taken from us far too soon in an inhuman act that never should have happened.
Jain attended the American International School in Dhaka before coming to UC Berkeley.
She was someone who had witnessed the effects of poverty and inequality and told friends that she wanted to do something meaningful about it, Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said. She was someone who was driven to go back to Bangladesh and help improve conditions in the country.
A sophomore, Jain was an intended economics major and an involved member of many campus clubs, including the International Students of Berkeley. Speech after speech, though, focused not on her extracurricular involvement but on the depth and strength of her character.
She was the first person I truly connected with at this school, said UC Berkeley student Anisha Chemmachel. Thank you for kicking my butt every time I drifted off into my own world and forgot to text back. ... Thank you for listening to me cry and scream about how sometimes it felt like it was me against the world, and reminding me that it was me and you against the world, because you would never leave my side.
Many students called Jain a sister, friend and inspiration.
Mackenzie Monroe, who lived on the same freshman-year dormitory floor as Jain, remembered teaching her how to do laundry for the first time in their buildings shared laundry room.
We talked about seeing the world in between our silly and ridiculous dance parties, Monroe said.
Aaliyah Parker, also Jains friend from the dorms, recalled her positive attitude even while recovering from knee ligament surgery. Parker said the pair used to talk about the big Indian wedding Jain would one day have. Through tears, Parker expressed disbelief that that day would never come.
One moment I am tagging Tarishi in a Buzzfeed post on Facebook, and the next I am Googling her name and seeing articles about her death, Parker said.
Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.
Tina Jabeen, a representative from the Bangladeshi community, urged Bangladesh to act against terrorism and called for the Berkeley community to move forward without fear. She also spoke to honor Abinta Kabir and Faraaz Hossain, students at Emory University in Georgia and friends of Jains who were killed in the attack. Hossain refused to leave his friends side and was killed as a result.
Shivani Narang, a UC Berkeley student and Jains friend, expressed horror at the sheer number of extremist attacks around the world in recent weeks.
After the Orlando vigil, I never thought wed be here, Narang said. And yet here we are again, in the month of Pride and Ramadan, mourning.
Jay Sananvatananot, also a UC Berkeley student and friend of Jains, urged the crowd to remember the words of Sheryl Sandberg, Facebooks chief operating officer who spoke to Berkeleys graduating class in May.
She said that she had learned about the depths of sadness and the brutality of loss, but she also learned that when life sucks you under, you can kick against the bottom, break the surface and breathe again.
Libby Rainey is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: lrainey@sfchronicle.com
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Apple wants to make it signing up as an organ donor as easy as tapping on an iPhone app.
The Cupertino tech giant said Tuesday that iPhone users will be able to register as organ, eye and tissue donors from the Health app, which comes pre-installed on the phones. The new feature will be available this fall with the release of its updated software, iOS 10.
Its a simple process that takes just a few seconds, said Jeff Williams, Apples chief operating officer, in a statement.
Most people who register as an organ donor (in the event that they die suddenly) do so through their state Department of Motor Vehicles when they apply for their drivers license. A tiny pink donor circle on the California license indicates the drivers decision, but the information is also accessible by the various state donor registries. People can also register directly online.
Apple has partnered with a national registry managed by Donate Life America, an alliance of the 58 state-level donor registries. The national registry will store all registrations sent from iPhone users.
By working with the Apple app, were making it easier for people to find out about organ, eye and tissue donation and quickly register, said said David Fleming, Donate Life Americas president and CEO, in a statement. This is a huge step forward that will ultimately help save lives.
More than 120,000 Americans are currently waiting for a lifesaving transplant, with a new person being added every 10 minutes, according to Donate Life America, which manages the national registry.
While Donate Life estimates half of all American adults are registered as organ donors, thousands die waiting for an organ each year. Thats partly because of the 1 percent of Americans who die each year, only 1 percent are eligible to donate due to the manner or death of lack of viability of the organs, said Hilary Czarda, the groups spokeswoman and data coordinator.
Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who suffered from a rare form of pancreatic cancer, traveled to Tennessee in 2009 for a liver transplant because of the shorter wait times in the state compared with California. (Organ donation is typically handled regionally, or by state.) Jobs was able to work for about a year and a half after the transplant, but died in 2011.
Apple is among a growing number of large tech companies using their social media power to expand organ donation awareness and registrations.
Facebook in 2012 added a feature that allowed users to disclose their donor status. In addition to increasing awareness, the feature leads users to links where they can register as a donor. Research has shown Facebooks tool has increased registrations.
In April, Donate Life America teamed up with Instagram for a Give Me a Heart campaign that featured people needing heart transplants. Instagram followers could sign up directly through a heart icon.
Social (media) in general has increased (registrations) because youre bringing the donation opportunity to them in a way thats easy for them to take action, said Czarda, adding that the campaign is especially effective among young people.
People have to be 18 to sign up as an organ donor, but they can register their intent online starting at the age of 15. The document isnt binding, but it makes their wishes known.
The United Network for Organ Sharing, which holds the federal government contract to manage donor and recipient information and match organs with people awaiting transplants nationwide, supports all efforts to help people receive lifesaving donations.
Anything that helps people to declare their intentions to donate is a positive step in addressing the critical need for organ donation, said Dr. David Klassen, chief medical officer of the group, in a statement.
Victoria Colliver is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vcolliver@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @vcolliver
If you are going to mount a portrait exhibit of the terminally ill, Grace Cathedral, with its Gothic stone architecture and brilliant stained glass, is the place to do it.
Right, Before I Die, the latest exhibit to open in the church sanctuary among the pews, is the work of Los Angeles photographer Andrew George, who chose the Episcopal landmark atop Nob Hill for its U.S. premiere. It features the faces staring out, listless, in pain, or happy and at peace. The exhibit, which runs through Aug. 10, comes to the Bay Area from the Musea Brugge in Belgium, where it drew 70,000 viewers.
I wanted to make a project about wisdom, a topic we dont pay too much attention to now, says George, 45, while in San Francisco to hang the show. These 20 individuals are enlightened in that they have all come up with their own recipe for what makes life meaningful.
The enlightenment is in the faces but also in wall text that accompanies each image. As part of his project, George came up with a list of 37 questions to ask each subject but first he had to find them.
Operating out of his studio in West Los Angeles, George, who is mostly a still-life photographer, went out searching for people still showing life, but not by much. He pitched his project to hospitals and hospices all over town and was rejected by all but one, Providence Holy Cross in Mission Hills, part of Los Angeles in the heart of the San Fernando Valley.
George set up his medium-format Hasselblad at the bedsides of patients who had volunteered to be photographed. He worked only with available light, which is always fluorescent and too bright. It was my intention to try to photograph the souls of these people, he says, I would spend three to five hours with each subject, and it was a privilege. They told me things they had not told anyone.
Some of these things came as the result of his list of questions, things like What gives you joy? and Do you have any regrets? These interviews were videotaped and transcribed. The answers, but not the questions, form the wall text.
The comments are often spiritual, though not necessarily religious. As one subject, Rene, put it, If anything, I try to keep religion at the minimum but I believe in God most definitely.
The ages of the subjects ranged from early 30s to late 90s, and they all knew that Providence Holy Cross was the end of the road. Of the 20 subjects photographed between 2012 and 2014, all but one has since died.
For them the project was closure, George says. A way to make sense of the multiple threads in their life.
Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com Instagram: @sfchronicle_art
Right, Before I Die: 8 a.m.-6 p.m. daily. Through Aug. 10. Free; an accompanying book is available at the Grace Cathedral bookstore for $65. Grace Cathedral, 1100 California St., S.F. (415) 749-6300. www.gracecathedral.org
Craigslist
An Antioch Craigslist ad is offering a reward for information leading to the return of the service dog of a Iraq War combat veteran.
Leo, a 4-year-old golden retriever-chow mix, disappeared on the evening of July 3 while being cared for by friends on Lower Sherman Island near Antioch. He may have run off due to the sound of fireworks explosions.
Jaballa Matar was a leading dissident in Libya under the reign of Moammar Khadafy. He was kidnapped by Libyan forces for his political actions in 1990 and put in a notoriously brutal prison. After Khadafy was ousted and killed in 2011, Matars son Hisham, a novelist who had been living in exile, returned to Libya to try to discover his fathers fate. He spoke to other dissidents, absorbed Libyas mixed atmosphere of promise and danger, and mourned for his lost father. His new memoir, The Return, is his account of the experience.
In her New York Times review of the book, Michiko Kakutani said Matar wrote with both a novelists eye for physical and emotional detail and a reporters tactile sense of place and time.
The prose is precise, economical, chiseled; the narrative elliptical, almost musical, cutting back and forth in time.
In a recent email interview, Matar discussed what he had learned after returning to Libya, his feelings about his fathers political activism, his own dealings with Khadafys son and more. Below are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Q: At what time did you come to believe that your father was no longer alive? Before or after you returned to Libya?
A: I used to believe that it was not possible to lose someone I loved without sensing it somehow, without feeling something shift. But its not true. People can die, sometimes the closest people to us, without us noticing a thing. In my case, because the evidence remains inconclusive, my acceptance of my fathers passing has come upon me as cunningly as a slowly fading line that was there and suddenly is not. After the fall of Khadafy, when all political prisoners were released and my father was not among them, it became inescapable.
Q: As a child, did you fear or resent your fathers work in opposition to Khadafys regime?
A: I wanted to protect him. I was always alive to the dangers he was putting himself in, even when I couldnt quite conceive of the true gravity of the situation. One of the ways this expressed itself, particularly in my mid-teens, was through our vigorous and at times heated debates. My argument was that the best way to achieve the social and political changes he desired was through education and culture; he agreed but believed that a prerequisite to this would have to be the overthrow of the dictatorship. In several variations we turned in circles over this, neither side ever giving in.
Q: What do you think your father would have made of your journey back to Libya and your inquiries into his fate?
A: My failure to cure myself of Libya would have amused and perhaps even comforted him; my search for him would have not. He wanted me, above all things, to be free and happy.
Q: The two novels youve written deal with themes drawn from your life and your fathers life. What did writing a memoir allow you to address that the novels didnt?
A: Ive never been particularly interested in genre distinctions. They seem to me more useful to a librarian than to a writer. Each book Ive written has a different attitude and sensibility and therefore has demanded, technically and intellectually and emotionally, different things. One of the distinct qualities of this book, and why it challenged and gave me so much pleasure, was its ability to handle different things at once. I used to be a keen rider. Sometimes I could sense what a horse liked or preferred to do. This book had a wide repertoire: It liked to gallop cross-country at dawn, climb rocks and wade through rivers all day, and canter at dusk along the avenues. So notwithstanding its difficult subject, the book was a thrilling challenge to write.
Q: You spoke to former prisoners, including your own uncle, as part of your research. What was the most surprising thing you learned from them?
A: I learned something about the power of stories and how, through them, we can travel through time and share, at least in our imaginations, former aspects of ourselves. Most of all, I learned that we can endure great suffering and survive, mostly intact yet altered.
Q: You had a remarkable back and forth with Seif al-Islam, Khadafys son, who dangled the idea of giving you the truth about your father but ended up providing no answers. Do you regret your dealings with him?
A: I regret how hard it was, but not my actions. I learned a lot from it, about myself and about how power functions. But it was the hardest thing I ever had to do.
Q: You write that given everything that has happened, the natural alignment of the heart remains towards the light. Does your heart feel lighter?
A: What I was referring to was not so much a cathartic outcome but rather a tendency of being and how the direction where there seems to be the least resistance is towards creation, joy and effortless curiosity.
Q: Youve taught courses on the literature of exile, and you drew on that knowledge in writing this memoir. What do you consider the greatest examples of the genre?
A: I lean to the less obvious ones, where being out of place is not bluntly stated, perhaps because what has always interested me in the theme of exile and estrangement is its potential for universal resonance. Some examples might be: Salvatore Sattas The Day of Judgment, where a man in old age visits the island where he grew up; Tayeb Salihs Season of Migration to the North, where the native, having lived far away in London for many years, moves back to his village in the Sudan; and Good Morning, Midnight, by the formidably delicate Jean Rhys. All are, in a way, about the complications involved in returning home.
Q: In one of his letters to your family from prison, your father wrote: My forehead does not know how to bow. Would you say the same thing about yourself?
A: I would rather not be tested.
Verizon is hiking prices on its cell phone plans, though the new rates come with changes that might actually save you money.
If you do nothing, your prices wont automatically go up. But new benefits announced Wednesday including better options when traveling in Canada and Mexico require you to switch to the new rates, which start Thursday.
While people still make plenty of calls, plain old data much of it for streaming video and playing games is emerging as the most important part of smatphone plans. Verizons changes reflect that. Even if youre happy with your current plan, its still a good time to review it.
Prices are going up $5 to $10 a month, but youll get more data. The cost per gigabyte is going down.
Under Verizons old plan, individuals paid $50 a month for 1 gigabyte of cellular data. Starting Thursday, the base plan will offer 2 gigabytes for $55. A family of four sharing 12 gigabytes previously paid $160; now, the same family will pay $170 for 16 gigabytes. Prices dont include the phone.
If your data needs fell somewhere between two offerings, you had to bump up to the higher plan. Now that each offering is getting more data, the lower plan might meet your needs. Lets say you need 2 gigabytes a month. Before, you had to pay $65 for 3 gigabytes and let 1 gigabyte go to waste. Now you can buy the 2 gigabyte plan for $55.
If you were already using up most of your 3 gigabytes, you can stick with the old plan for $65 rather than pay the increase. Any future changes will subject you to the new prices unless, that is, youre on a plan introduced before last year, such as More Everything. Those older plans will still let you change your data levels.
When comparing plans among carriers, estimate how much data you use with and without data-hungry streaming video. T-Mobile, for instance, exempts many leading video services and music from data quotas, so you wont need to buy as much. But it only offers that free streaming at DVD quality (lower than high definition) and for plans that include at least 3 gigabytes.
Verizon makes a similar exemption for its own video service, go90. But leading services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon will still count against your limit.
If you exceed your data limit, Sprint and T-Mobile wont charge you extra, but will slow your data speed to a crawl until the next billing period. Youll be able to check email and post a Facebook status, but forget streaming video. Verizon is also introducing this slower option, which it counterintuitively calls Safety Mode. Its free for plans with at least 16 gigabytes of data. Otherwise, you pay $5 a month per account for the safety of not getting charged even more for going over.
What if you dont use all your data? For plans of 3 gigabytes or more, T-Mobile lets you roll over up to 20 gigabytes of unused data for up to a year. Verizon, like AT&T , now also lets you roll over data. But its a use-it-or-lose-it proposition. The rollover data disappears after a month if you dont use it and to do that, you have to run through your monthly data allotment first.
Sound complicated? As carriers try to match each other on price and benefits, they still need to maximize revenue and increasingly thats through higher data buckets and other fees.
You can use your U.S. data allotment while roaming in Mexico and Canada. Theres no extra charge if youre on a Verizon plan with at least 16 gigabytes. Otherwise, you pay $2 per day per line.
AT&T offers a similar benefit for Mexico, though only for plans with at least 15 gigabytes, while all of T-Mobiles standard plans include it for both Canada and Mexico. With Sprint, you get up to 1 gigabyte of high-speed data when traveling in Canada, Mexico and much of Latin America.
Sprint and T-Mobile also offer free roaming in other countries, but at slower data speeds.
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Are these the last days for Mr. Bings? Rumors are swirling around San Francisco that the beloved dive bar, located on the cusp of North Beach and Chinatown, has been sold and may be closing soon. According to the pending liquor license, the new owners are Peter and Jacqueline Cooper, who also own Irelands 32, an Irish bar in the Richmond. At press time, Chronicle inquiries about the bars future have gone unanswered.
State Debate: Time for Wisconsin Hospital Association to get off sidelines on Medicaid, columnist Bill Kaplan writes
A divided federal appeals court upheld a Bay Area business executives convictions Tuesday for defrauding his former employer by getting onetime co-workers to download confidential information that he used to start his own firm.
David Nosal, former regional manager of Korn/Ferry International in Redwood City, a prominent executive search firm, was convicted by a federal jury in 2013 of six felony charges, including computer fraud, theft of trade secrets and conspiracy.
He was sentenced to a year in prison, fined $60,000 and ordered to reimburse Korn/Ferry $828,000 for its costs in assisting the investigation, including nearly $600,000 in attorneys fees.
Nosal left Korn/Ferry in 2004 after being passed over for promotion, and took two co-workers with him.
Prosecutors said those two got a third employee, Nosals former executive assistant, to provide her computer password, which they used to obtain customer lists and other information from a company database that Nosal used in his new business, Nosal Partners.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco narrowed the charges against Nosal in a 2012 ruling dismissing accusations that he had exceeded his authorized access to the company computer system with intent to defraud, a law that the court said applied only to hackers. But the court ruled 2-1 Tuesday that Nosal was properly convicted of using his former colleagues to access the database without authorization for fraudulent purposes.
Nosal did not merely exceed the access he once had to Korn/Ferrys database, but tapped into a system he had been forbidden to enter since he left the company, Judge Margaret McKeown said in the majority opinion.
Nosal and his co-conspirators acted without authorization when they used the log-in credentials of a current employee to gain access to computer data owned by the former employer, said McKeown, joined by Chief Judge Sidney Thomas.
While upholding the convictions, they said the nearly $600,000 in attorneys fees seemed excessive and told the trial judge, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, to decide whether some of it paid for work that was also being done by prosecutors.
The dissenting judge, Stephen Reinhardt, said Nosals conduct was unscrupulous but did not amount to computer fraud. He said the former executive and his cohorts had merely persuaded their former co-worker to share her password, the same type of innocuous conduct engaged in by ordinary citizens for example a husband who shared his bank account password with his wife to help her pay a bill.
Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
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A tense 3-hour standoff between police and an armed, belligerent, bare-chested man ended late Wednesday afternoon on a Tenderloin street corner after San Francisco officers fired a barrage of flash grenades and whisked the suspect away in an ambulance.
The bizarre incident tied up traffic for hours and brought the area around McAllister and Jones streets to a standstill.
This person was threatening to do harm to (himself) and made several statements to the effect that he wanted to die and he wanted the police to take his life, said San Francisco Police Chief Toney Chaplin.
Chaplin said prolonging the standoff allowed police to protect the sanctity of life and avoid a fatal shooting.
We wouldve stayed out here until tomorrow, he said. The bottom line is, we were able to resolve it because we had enough time.
Mayor Ed Lee issued a statement after the standoff, thanking police officers for using restraint and lauding Chaplins efforts.
I want to praise Acting Police Chief Toney Chaplin for his leadership during the tense negotiations with this armed man, Lee said. In direct communication with me all afternoon, he continually showed the judgement and prudence that resulted in a non-violent outcome.
The handling of the situation today is a reflection of the emphasis that we put on de-escalation training in recent months. We are making critical investments to rebuild trust with our communities and are changing how our police officers handle conflicts on our City streets.
The incident began around 2:15 p.m., when officers confronted a man who was acting strangely.
Officer Grace Gatpandan, a police spokeswoman, said officers asked the man to show his hands, believing he might be armed. When the man refused the request, officers fired beanbag rounds at him.
The man lay facedown on the ground in front of the renovated Hibernia Bank building and refused officers demands to cooperate. At one point, a beanbag struck the suspect but had little effect on him.
A woman who identified herself to police as a cousin of the suspect arrived and attempted to talk him into surrendering. A small crowd gathered, some shouting taunts at officers.
Late in the afternoon, officers fired about a dozen flash grenades at the suspect. The loud, bright projectiles seemed to disorient him, and officers were able to rush in and take him into custody. The suspect did, in fact, possess a handgun, which had remained in his pocket throughout most of the incident.
Chaplin said the man brandished the gun at one point during the standoff.
The suspect was being evaluated by mental health workers and being treated for non-life-threatening injuries, apparently caused by the impact of the grenades.
As they tried to defuse the situation, authorities told people to avoid the area of Market and Seventh streets, just a few blocks from the Civic Center.
Were going to exhaust every possibility to take this person into custody without anyone being harmed, Gatpandan said.
Police did not identify the suspect, but a relative said that he was known to frequent the area, and was known for being intoxicated and stubborn.
Chaplin said that under his leadership situations with possibly armed suspects are being treated differently than they were in the past. Previous situations where the department had come under fire all tended to end quickly, he said.
By lengthening the standoff, Chaplin said, officers had more time to opt for a peaceful resolution.
Time allows people to calm down, think about what theyre doing and maybe have second thoughts about making themselves a target for the Police Department, he said. Time is our friend. The longer we delay these situations, the better they end.
Chronicle staff writers Kimberly Veklerov and Steve Rubenstein contributed to this report.
Jenna Lyons and Peter Fimrite are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com, pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jennajourno @pfimrite
This article originally appeared on KQED
The burgeoning field of Virtual Reality or VR as it is commonly known is a vehicle for telling stories through 360-degree visuals and sound that put you right in the middle of the action, be it at a crowded Syrian refugee camp, or inside the body of an 85-year-old with a bad hip and cataracts. Because of VR's immersive properties, some people describe the medium as "the ultimate empathy machine." But can it make people care about something as fraught and multi-faceted as homelessness?
A study in progress at Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab explores that question, and I strapped on an Oculus Rift headset (one of the most popular devices people currently use to experience VR) to look for an answer.
A new way of understanding homelessness
The study, called Empathy at Scale, puts participants in a variety of scenes designed to help them imagine the experience of being homeless themselves.
Unlike VR that uses 360-degree video, this dramatization looks like a low-fi video game, so it's hard to mistake it for reality. Even so, my brain responded to the immersive environment to some extent as if I did perceive it as real. When a cop pulled up and trained a flashlight into the car, I physically flinched.
"There are people who come into our lab and say 'I knew that was fake the whole time,'" says Empathy at Scale project manager Elise Ogle. "But for some people, your brain just can't determine the difference between real life and this powerful visual stimuli that we're showing you."
The 22 bus line story
As part of their research for the project, the creators of Empathy at Scale incorporated local stories about homelessness. One they found particularly affecting was Hotel 22, a short documentary by a Stanford student filmmaker about Valley Transportation Authority bus line 22, which runs all night between Palo Alto and San Jose. The line is nicknamed "Hotel 22," because it's popular with homeless people looking for a safe alternative to sleeping on the streets.
The bus, it turns out, is an ideal virtual reality setting for delivering a variety of stories that show how complex the problem of homelessness is. As the bus travels down the street in the VR world, I click on each passenger, and hear a recording of Ogle telling me how they got on the bus.
In the back, a man sits with a boy of about 10. "This is a father, Ray, and his son, named Ethan," Ogle says in a flat, emotionally neutral tone. "Ethan's mother suffered from a chronic illness and recently passed away. Left with the hospital bills, Ray is in debt. They're on a family shelter waiting list. So until free spaces become available, they sleep on the bus at night."
Empathy is uncomfortable
Jamil Zaki, an assistant professor of psychology at Stanford's Social Neuroscience Lab, helped the VR team design its study, and he says we often go out of our way to avoid feeling empathy. "People are incredibly efficient at cutting the world up into us and them," Zaki says. "And when they do so, they're also incredibly efficient at cutting off whoever's on the other side of that boundary. Even when people acknowledge that someone who's different from them experiences pain and suffering, they often find ways to blame that individual. They say 'Well, that person's having a bad time, but it's because of the choices that they made. I would never been in that position.'"
But wearing a VR headset that engages your ears, eyes and even peripheral vision, makes it hard to shut out the pain of the people or avatars in front of you. "Once you understand the world as someone else sees it, and inhabit their inner life, you're on the hook!" Zaki says. "You now, in essence, have a responsibility to care for that person, and maybe invest in their well-being."
As University of Southern California VR researcher Nonny de la Pena explained in a recent TED talk, the VR scenario may also force people to confront strong emotions like panic when events occur that they feel powerless to stop. (Even though, physically, you could just take your headset off.)
Testing the technology
The Stanford researchers are looking for a diverse pool of around 1,000 people to test Empathy at Scale before the end of this year. So they've set up a mobile testing unit at places like the Tech Museum in San Jose.
Jhansi Raju, an ophthalmologist from Chicago, tried out the technology while visiting the Tech Museum with her family recently. She found the Hotel 22 sequence most affecting. "It showed the human side of homelessness," Raju says. "Everyone's story was so different."
Raju was especially moved by the story of Ray and his son Ethan. "For me, having a child and imagining how you could live on a bus with a kid, that was very moving and very sad to see," Rajus says.
The study tests the level of empathy a user feels after experiencing the VR narratives by asking various questions after he or she goes through the various scenes. It also offers her the option to donate the $10 gift card she got for participating in the study to a local charity. Raju agrees to donate. "I feel like I'm a pretty aware person, in terms of social issues like that," Raju says. "But going through this process really makes you experience the feelings and the emotions of it."
This article originally appeared on KQED
WASHINGTON The Justice Departments investigation into Hillary Clintons email setup has been formally closed without any criminal charges, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Wednesday.
The decision had been expected and was largely a formality given FBI Director James Comeys recommendation a day earlier against any prosecution. Even before Comeys public statement, Lynch had said she intended to accept the recommendations of the FBI director and of her career prosecutors.
Even so, it officially closes out an FBI investigation that had dogged Clinton for the last year and proved a major distraction on the campaign trail as she emerged as the Democratic presidential front-runner.
Lynch said she met with Comey and prosecutors Wednesday and agreed that the investigation, which looked into the potential mishandling of classified information, should be concluded.
I received and accepted their unanimous recommendation that the thorough, year-long investigation be closed and that no charges be brought against any individuals within the scope of the investigation, Lynch said in a statement.
Comey, in an unusually detailed and public accounting of the investigation Tuesday, said that no reasonable prosecutor would pursue a criminal case and that he was advising the Justice Department against bringing any charges.
But he also rebuked Clinton, who relied exclusively on a private email server as secretary of state, and her aides for being extremely careless with their handling of classified information.
The Justice Departments decision seemed likely to inflame Republican anger, with Capitol Hill lawmakers like Speaker Paul Ryan pressing for answers about how Clinton could have avoided prosecution given Comeys stinging characterization of her email setup.
Comey was scheduled to face questions about the decision in an appearance Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Lynch is scheduled for an oversight hearing next week.
FBI agents spent the last year investigating the matter following a referral from the intelligence communitys inspector general. As part of that investigation, investigators pored through tens of thousands of State Department emails and interviewed Clinton aides and Clinton herself.
WASHINGTON House Democrats and Republicans seem just as destined for an election-season clash over guns as they did before a Democratic sit-in on the chambers floor ushered in lawmakers July 4 recess two weeks ago.
Nearly a month after the Orlando mass-shooting catapulted the issue back onto the nations radar, the two parties were meeting separately Wednesday to map strategy.
Republicans have incorporated some gun curbs into a broader bill aimed at addressing domestic terrorism that the House has planned to debate this week, though their plans seemed less certain late Tuesday. Democrats are insisting on amendments tightening gun restrictions far further, which House Speaker Paul Ryan seemed to nix Tuesday, and each party says the others proposals are defective.
Two sides meet
Ryan, R-Wis., met Tuesday evening with two leaders of the sit-in, Reps. John Lewis of Georgia and John Larson of Connecticut. The Democrats said Ryan listened respectfully and mentioned his partys concerns about protecting gun owners rights, but made no promise to allow votes on the Democrats proposals.
Asked what Democrats would do if they are denied votes, Lewis, the civil rights hero, wasnt specific but said: There will be action. We will not be silent.
Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said the two parties have different views on how to achieve a shared goal of preventing gun deaths, especially over protecting gun owners rights. She said the next steps on antiterror legislation will be discussed and determined by the majority in the coming days.
That seemed less assured than earlier comments from Ryan that the House would vote on the GOP legislation this week. Late Tuesday, Republicans were working to line up GOP support for their own measure, with some having questions about the bills procedural protections for gun owners and other concerns.
Pressure to act
Despite the uncertainty, GOP leaders hopes of staging a vote on their proposal underscored the pressure theyve felt since the June 12 mass shooting in Orlando that left 49 victims dead. Since the 2012 slaying of school children in Newtown, Conn., Republicans have not brought any legislation broadly restricting guns to the House floor.
The House met tranquilly Tuesday for its first session since Democrats near 26-hour sit-in, which seemed to energize Democratic lawmakers and their gun-control allies. Dozens of Democrats delivered speeches championing firearms restrictions, but there were no disturbances.
Republicans, backed by the National Rifle Association, seem intent on preventing any limitations on the constitutional right to bear arms, which they say the Democratic measures would impose. They also said they were investigating Democrats behavior during the sit-in, including whether they intimidated House aides and damaged furniture.
Gerald Herbert/Associated Press
BATON ROUGE, La. The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation Wednesday into the fatal shooting of a black man by the Baton Rouge police that was captured on video, as city and state leaders appealed to a city roiled by the killing to remain calm.
Two white officers were arresting Alton Sterling, 37, early Tuesday, and had him pinned to the ground outside the Triple S convenience store when at least one of them shot him. There were indications that Sterling might have had a gun, but officials refused to say definitively whether he was armed.
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Under San Francisco's Financial District lie the bones of dozens of tall ships, most who discharged their gold-crazed passengers only to die of neglect at their moorings.
The city was barely a town when gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in 1848. By the summer of 1850, there were an estimated 500 ships in Yerba Buena Cove. Many of them had been abandoned by their crews, who joined the throngs hoping to get rich.
Some rotted at the docks and sank. Others became floating warehouses. Still others were converted to stores, saloons and hotels to service the influx of gold prospectors. One had a second life as an insane asylum. Many never set sail again.
As the ships collapsed, their timbers were mixed with dirt, rubble, ballast stones and whatever residents could find to create land where there was once water. Gradually the cove was filled in, and the abandoned vessels became a permanent part of the infrastructure.
Here are a few noteworthy ones:
Get some grog at the Arkansas
The Arkansas, a three-masted ship, sailed into the bay in 1849 only to be blown aground on Alcatraz by a storm. It was towed to the beach at what is now Pacific Avenue and Battery Street, where it served as a rooming house and then a hotel built on top of the vessel after the masts and top decks were dismantled. Now it lives on as the Old Ship Saloon in the Jackson Square neighborhood.
General Harrison's fate
For 150 years, the General Harrison slept under the streets of San Francisco, only to be rediscovered during a construction project in 2001. The three-masted ship built in 1840 in Newburyport, Mass., had a rough life after it sailed around Cape Horn and arrived at Yerba Buena Cove. Its gold fever-stricken passengers and crew immediately abandoned the ship, leaving it unattended and exposed to the elements.
The General was moored at Battery Street along what was then the Clay Street wharf. It never returned to sea, instead serving as a "fine and commodious" storage ship a floating warehouse. But the first Great Fire, on May 3-4, 1851, burned it to the water line. After being salvaged for copper and other fittings, it was laid to rest, buried in mud and debris.
The best-preserved ship
In the 1850s, an entrepreneur named Charles Hare saw opportunity in the mad rush for the gold fields he started a salvage yard to dismantle ships abandoned by their sailors in what is now the South of Market neighborhood. The last ship he was working on was found in 2005 by a construction crew 15 to 20 feet below street level at a site near Spear and Folsom streets.
The ship was the Boston whaler Candace, which was forced to take refuge in San Francisco after colliding with ice and springing leaks in the Arctic. Her exhausted crew, fed up with chasing cetacean blubber across the Pacific, had not been paid their back wages.
The damage the Candace sustained was too severe the vessel was sold for scrap and ended up in Hare's salvage yard, which employed only Chinese workers. Fortunately, it was buried before it could be totally broken down.
Rooms available at the Niantic
The Niantic, a merchant barque converted to sperm whaler, was one of the first ships to bring "forty-niners" to San Francisco. Upon arrival, its 244 passengers headed immediately for the gold fields, accompanied by deserting crew members. Without a crew to sail her, the Niantic was floated at high tide into the shallows near what is now the intersection of Clay and Sansome streets. Run aground, she became one of the many storage ships in the growing city, then a store and an office building.
An entrance was cut into her oaken hull with the inscription, "Rest for the weary and storage for trunks."
The fire of 1851 destroyed all but the 120-foot-long hull, which later became the foundation for the Niantic Hotel.
The burned-out remains of the Niantic were rediscovered during the 1978 construction of Mark Twain Plaza Complex next to the Transamerica Pyramid. A portion of Niantic's hull and rudder now reside in the San Francisco Maritime Museum.
The story of Shadowless Sam
Beneath Davis Street between Washington and Jackson lies the Alida. Robert O'Brien, a columnist who worked at the San Francisco Chronicle between 1939 and 1952, wrote that the Alida was associated with the tall tale of the human freak Shadowless Sam.
As the story goes, a huckster named Matt Morgan sailed on the Alida with Shadowless Sam, whom Morgan billed as the world's thinnest man, weighing only 50 pounds. Supposedly Sam was so thin, he failed to cast shadow even on the brightest days. Morgan was eager to set up his own sideshow with Sam, and make a fortune on the California rubes.
One day, however, as the Alida rounded Cape Horn, Sam disappeared. It seemed he was carried away by a gust or simply wasted away, as a search of the ship failed to turn up his wispy frame. Morgan was distraught to lose his friend and meal ticket.
But upon the Alida's arrival in San Francisco, as the crew was unloading the hold, what should they find but Shadowless himself, hidden behind cracker barrels and surrounded by empty meat tins. He had been gorging himself for months, popping his clothes at the seams.
"It was the crew's conservative estimate that Shadowless Sam now weighed 250 pounds," O'Brien wrote.
Morgan flew into a rage over Sam's now portly profile. But poor Sam just said he was so hungry he couldn't stand it anymore.
The wannabe freak show entrepreneur threw a blanket over his friend and marched him ashore. Then he walked out of Sam's life forever.
According to the waterfront old-timers, O'Brien wrote, the last anyone heard of Shadowless, he was working for a circus in Nevada, "eating five squares a day and making a fortune for his managers."
The name on marquee? "Man Mountain Sam the Fattest Human on Earth."
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GOLD RUSH VESSELS BEACHED, SCUTTLED AND BROKEN UP: 1. Niantic: Storeship and general office, later hotel saloon. 2. General Harrison: Storeship. 3. Apollo: Storeship, boardinghouse and saloon.4. Georgian: Storeship. 5. A brig: Storeship, name unknown.6. Euphemia: Prison and "receptacle for the insane." 7. Thomas Bennett: Storeship, grocery store. 8. Fame: Storeship.9. Francis Ann: Storeship. 10. Louisa: Storeship. Formerly yacht of king of the Hawaiian Islands. 11. Balance: Storeship. Built of teak and 92 years old when she arrived in San Francisco. Other records show her as being on Davis, near Jackson, and also as being buried under Balance Street between Jackson and Gold. 12. Callao: Storeship. Other records show her at the corner of Mission and Beale. 13. Byron: Storeship.14. Alida: Storeship. 15. Panama: Storeship. Later Seaman's Bethel. Also referred to as the Methodist Church.16. Cordova: Storeship. Water ship.17. Globe: Storeship. Other records place her on Davis between Oregon and Jackson.18. Garnet: Storeship.19. Elizabeth: Storeship and general office; later owned by Collector Customs and used for bonded warehouse for Port. 20. Rome (or Roma): Russian ship. used as a coal ship.21. Hardie: Storeship. 22. Noble: Storeship. 23. Elmira: Storeship. 24. Bethel: Storeship. Other records place her at corner of Pacific and Drumm.25. Inez: Storeship. Former whaler.26. Almandralina: Storeship. 27. Arkansas: Commonly referred to as the "Old Ship." Tavern. A hotel later built over her. Other records place her on north side of Pacific between Battery and Front, and at the corner of Battery and Pacific28. A brig: Name unknown. The Bay Hotel built over her. Other records place her near southeast corner of Battery and Green. 29. Fortuna: Hotel. 30. Philip Hone: Storeship.31. Ricardo: Storeship. Later boarding house. 32. Brilliant: Storeship and boarding house.33. Magnolia: Storeship and boarding house.34. Palmyra: Storeship.35. Henry Lee: Storeship. "...lay for a long time on the site now (1882) occupied by Selby's store."36. Autumn: Storeship. 37. Stieglitz: Storeship "on the south side of Washington Street." 38. Salem: Storeship "lay for several years on California Street." Broken up at Rincon Point. 39. Trescott: Storeship. 40. Tecumseh: Storeship. 41. Othello: "...used as a storeship on Steuart Street." 42. Galen: Storeship "moored on Market Street in the center of six water lots."
Russ Feingold greets people gathered for a round table discussion on rural issues held June 24 at Sassy Cow Creamery in Columbus. Feingold, a Democrat, is running for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Republican Ron Johnson. PHOTO BY AMANDA LUTEY/DAILY CITIZEN
While some sparkling wine leans more toward the contemplative than the whimsical, ideally it all finds its way to some degree into the Fun circle of the bubbly Venn Diagram.
Nobody yearns for a nice, festive glass of sparkling wine at a wake. But think of all the other places and events that we find it appropriate to pop open a bottle and get our noses tickled.
Most often, for those of us who live a lifestyle that falls somewhere between Formula 1/superyacht and NASCAR/bass boat, sparkling wine is reserved for what we call special occasions. I cant understand why this is true except that a lot of sparkling wine is kind of pricey, especially the stuff that comes from the place where it all began, Champagne.
I would love to see sparkling wine kicking off many more occasions, making the ones that we dont outright label as special, special nonetheless by virtue of bubble presence.
One way to get your sparkle on more often is to embrace prosecco, the affordable effervescent wine from northeastern Italy. It is light, accessible, refreshing and often so inexpensive that you could go around collecting the change buried under your seat cushions and almost have enough for a bottle. Plus, you basically just cleaned your entire house so pop open a bottle and celebrate!
Prosecco is like Champagne in that it comes from a legally protected place, most of which is near Venice in the larger Veneto region (but also in neighboring Friuli-Venezia Giulia). The wine is made predominantly of a white grape variety that has been called glera since 2009 and was called prosecco before that. The grapes name change was meant to protect the areas unique, established regional brand, assuring that only winemakers within the prosecco zone could label their wines prosecco.
One reason the wine is so affordable is that it is made via the cost-efficient tank method, known as Charmat, and not via the pricier traditional method that involves secondary fermentation in bottles. Charmat takes care of the bubbles all at once in a large, pressurized tank. Thus, tank method.
Prosecco can give off aromas and flavors of citrus, pear, apple, peach and honey, with varying degrees of bubble intensity. It works well as an aperitif and is very food-friendly, a good companion to everything from light appetizers and fried anything to sushi and semi-spicy Asian fare. It is especially good with outside air and views of tree-lined vacation lakes, or twinkling cityscapes. Make sure it is well-chilled, and you cant go wrong.
Prosecco also lends the bubbles to a few wine cocktails. One is the bellini, a Venetian concoction that combines prosecco and peach juice. The legendary Harrys Bar is where that one came to life. The Aperol spritz contains prosecco, the bitter liqueur and a splash of soda, garnished with an orange slice and sometimes a pimento-stuffed olive.
There are surely many other prosecco-friendly cocktails, and one of them is the brunch classic mimosa. Orange juice and bubbles. Why spend $50 on sparkling wine when you can spend $15, especially when youre drowning it in O.J.?
Most prosecco is nonvintage, and the best of it comes from the Conegliano-Valdobbiadene D.O.C.G. region, the extra G guaranteeing the highest quality of the wine. Below are some prosecco wines from a recent tasting, listed in ascending order by price. All are prosecco D.O.C. wines, unless noted as D.O.C.G., which also allows the wine to carry the Prosecco Superiore designation. Most of them are made of 100 percent glera, and each one lands in the neighborhood of a moderate 11 percent alcohol, which means you can have an extra glass and still be able to say Conegliano-Valdobbiadene 10 times fast.
Recommended wines
Tiamo Prosecco. Soft and creamy with a gentle fizz that carries waves of apple and honey, this extra dry prosecco was made from certified organic grapes grown both in and around the town of Valdobbiadene. $15
Martini & Rossi Prosecco. Pear and tiny whiffs of anise give way to a pleasant minerality in this extra dry refresher with aggressive bubbles to wake up your mouth and scrub your palate clean after every bite. $15
The White Knight Prosecco Brut. This one starts with floral, powdered sugar candy aromas and proceeds to a clean citrusy finish, with lively, persistent bubbles. Certainly good with food but fun to drink on its own, too. $15
Zardetto Prosecco Brut. Floral and peachy, this wine ups the sweetness and alcohol (11.5 percent) just a touch but sill finishes crisply. Its bubbles are more frothy than individually zingy, resulting in a creamy mouthfeel. $16
Zonin Prosecco Grey. Part of the White/Grey/Black Dress Code series from Zonin, this one comes in an opaque silvery bottle, delivering minerality, salinity, spice and bright fruitiness from its inclusion of 13 percent pinot grigio. $17
Carpene Malvolti 1868 Extra Dry. A hint of smoke and minerality lead to layers of toast and lemon in this complex Conegliano-Valdobbiadene D.O.C.G. sparkler. This wine is worth every coin you find in the sofa, and many more. $19
2014 Adriano Adami Col Credas Brut Rive di Farra di Soligo. Adami Col Credas are the words to remember when you are shopping for this single-vineyard Conegliano-Valdobbiadene D.O.C.G. wine, which starts with flowers and apples, and ends with fresh lemons. $22
2014 Bisol Crede Brut. From the Conegliano-Valdobbiadene D.O.C.G., this is another vintage prosecco, but it says so only in the fine print. Expect pear and bread aromas to lead to apple flavors, with a soft mouthfeel and a crisp, citrus finish. $25
There's some good news wafting through the air for potheads.
The same compounds in marijuana that make you get high may protect you from Alzheimer's.
The San Diegobased Salk Institute released a new study revealing that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other compounds removed toxins associated with the disease known as amyloid beta from lab-grown human neurons.
"Although other studies have offered evidence that cannabinoids might be neuroprotective against the symptoms of Alzheimer's, we believe our study is the first to demonstrate that cannabinoids affect both inflammation and amyloid beta accumulation in nerve cells," Salk Professor David Schubert, the senior author of the paper, said in statement.
As the U.S. population increases and people live longer, the number of people with Alzheimer's is soaring. More than 5 million Americans are affected and that number is expected to triple over the next 50 years. Past research has found that amyloid beta accumulates within the nerve cells of the brain before the appearance of Alzheimer's. When the amyloid clump together, they are thought to form the plaque deposits that progress the disease.
In the study published in the June 2016 Aging and Mechanisms of Disease journal, the researchers revealed a relationship between high levels of amyloid beta and cellular inflammation and higher rates of neuron death. When cells grown in the lab were exposed to THC, the amyloid beta protein levels decreased and as a result the cells didn't become inflamed and survived.
Antonio Currais, a post-doctoral student who assisted Schubert with the study, described the discovery in more scientific terms: "Inflammation within the brain is a major component of the damage associated with Alzheimer's disease, but it has always been assumed that this response was coming from immune-like cells in the brain, not the nerve cells themselves. When we were able to identify the molecular basis of the inflammatory response to amyloid beta, it became clear that THC-like compounds that the nerve cells make themselves may be involved in protecting the cells from dying."
It's important to note that Schubert and his team conducted the study through exploratory models in a lab and clinical trials are the next step.
Editor's note, since this article first appeared on KQED, the ordinance has passed out of committee and cleared the first of two City Council readings, according to District 4 officials. It will be heard one more time before potential adoption.
Oakland officials are considering an ordinance that would allow the city to fine pregnancy centers that claim to offer abortion services, but do not.
Officials say some anti-abortion groups' internet advertising and mass transit billboards are misleading, and intended to lure pregnant women in for counseling against abortion.
"We believe women who need care should not be lied to," said Annie Campbell Washington, vice mayor of Oakland and a proponent of the ordinance.
Oakland officials are particularly concerned about search advertising. For example, typing "abortion services" into a Google or Yahoo search engine can bring up links to nearby crisis pregnancy centers that do not offer abortion.
These pregnancy centers buy the search ads for terms like "abortion" or "pregnancy test" so links for their clinics will appear on users' screens when they enter searches for those terms. Their websites often say they offer "abortion information" or "counseling for women seeking abortion."
Oakland officials want to prohibit them from doing this. Fines would range from $50 to $500 per violation.
"When a woman is misled into believing that a clinic offers services that it does not in fact offer, she loses time crucial to her decision-making process," Washington says.
Washington says delays in care can mean women may have to get a more invasive, more expensive procedure, or may lose her right to terminate the pregnancy at all, because too much time has passed and her pregnancy is too far along to lawfully terminate.
"We want to send a clear message that false advertising is not acceptable in the city of Oakland," she said.
Up until a few months ago, if iPhone users asked Siri to locate a nearby abortion clinic, the voice assistant would return a list of adoption agencies.
Apple, which is responsible for Siri search results, said it was aware of the glitch right after Siri debuted in 2011, but it was not fixed until January, 2016. The company told Tech Crunch that it has been "updating its search results over time."
Crisis pregnancy centers say the marketing and counseling they do is not false advertising. It's free speech. They say this kind of ordinance is an attack on their first amendment rights.
"Using search terms to make women aware of your ministry and the services you provide, with regards to pregnancy alternatives, is very legitimate and would be foolhardy not to be utilized," said Brad Dacus, an attorney with the Pacific Justice Institute, a nonprofit law firm that defends religious freedom.
Staff at crisis pregnancy centers do not lie, he said, adding, it's "insulting to women" to assume they don't have the ability to ask questions before making an appointment to make sure the services they want are available.
"It's also very presumptive to believe that those who use search terms such as 'abortion' are presumably seeking just an abortion," he said. "They may also be open, and possibly yearning, for other options."
Some crisis pregnancy centers challenged a similar false advertising law in San Francisco, which took effect in late 2011. Last year, a district judge upheld the law, saying false and misleading commercial speech is not protected by the First Amendment.
The Oakland ordinance builds on a new statewide law that was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last fall, the Reproductive FACT Act. It requires crisis pregnancy centers to notify their clients if they are not medically licensed.
In addition, clinics that are medically licensed are required to post a notice in their waiting room or let patients know when they check in for an appointment that there is financial assistance available for family planning services and abortion. They must also provide the phone number for the local county health department.
The Pacific Justice Institute has filed one of several lawsuits challenging the state law. It is currently under review by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Dacus says if the law is upheld, his group will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The state law did not cover issues of false advertising.
This article originally appeared on KQED.
Dane County is on the hook for nearly $11,000 in legal fees and County Executive Joe Parisi is without a determination after a judge threw out his lawsuit against the local towns association over who gets the tax levy if its members withdraw from shared zoning authority under a controversial new law.
Parisis office submitted the lawsuit in March, alleging that the Dane County Towns Association incorrectly communicated to its members that a portion of the countys tax levy used for zoning could be shifted to towns.
The lawsuit was officially dismissed in a June 29 decision because it was filed without prior consent from the County Board. Supervisors rejected a resolution authorizing the lawsuit 18-16 at their May 5 meeting.
In his decision, Dane County Circuit Judge John Markson questioned why the lawsuit was filed without board approval in the first place and ordered the county to pay $10,757.50 to cover the Dane County Towns Associations legal expenses.
We think this issue is clear, said Mark Hazelbaker, attorney for the towns association. The broader question is if you have to get a determination (on taxes), how do you do it? We believe the answer is to ask the Department of Revenue.
Allocation of tax revenue is the latest flash point in an ongoing dispute between the county and towns association over changes to local zoning administration.
Under Wisconsin law, cities and villages control decisions on rezoning farmland for residential or commercial construction, but most towns share the authority with county officials.
Sympathizing with claims that Dane County zoning is controlled by people opposed to significant development in rural areas, Republicans passed and signed a bill in February that allows towns to opt out of the arrangement with counties only in counties with populations exceeding 485,000. Milwaukee County, the only county besides Dane above that threshold, does not have any towns.
Dane Countys Planning and Development Department budget for 2016 includes $3.4 million in expenses, paid for with about $2.5 million from taxes and $857,145 in program-specific revenues such as permit fees. The towns association places the departments annual zoning expenses around $900,000, but the county executives office contends the figure is closer to $1.2 million because of the interconnected work in zoning and planning.
The opt-out window doesnt open until January, so its unclear how much revenue the county stands to lose, but many officials, including Parisi and County Board Chairwoman Sharon Corrigan, have refuted the towns associations claim that the levy is transferable because the county is required to provide zoning services to towns that dont opt out.
Parisi sought a court determination on tax implications of the new law ahead of the 2017 budgeting process, but said in a statement Tuesday that the county still reserves the right to any remedy, including legal, to stop what we believe is a poorly thought out land use policy that threatens our quality of life, natural resources, and agricultural economy.
Parisis handling of the lawsuit left numerous supervisors irritated Tuesday to be footing the towns associations legal bill.
It was an Uh-oh, we missed something. It was just dumb, said Sup. Dennis OLoughlin, 20th District, who agrees with Parisi that the county is entitled to the full tax levy but voted against resorting to a lawsuit. The County Board had never heard of it, or not until we read about it in the newspaper. Well, thats a problem and now its costing us.
Sup. Tim Kiefer, 25th District, said Parisi should have asked the state Department of Revenue for guidance before taking the matter to court.
Going to court and suing the towns association should be the last step, not the first step. I think this was premature and I think it really damaged relationships, Kiefer said. I think the county executive drove us into a cul-de-sac and now we need to back out of it.
Parisi spokeswoman Stephanie Miller said the countys corporation council met with and collaborated with County Board leadership on the lawsuit before it was filed.
Corrigan said she did not hear from corporation counsel about the lawsuit until the day it was being filed, and she advised against filing before a board vote.
[Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect a correction. The last sentence originally misstated County Board Chairwoman Sharon Corrigan's position on filing a lawsuit before a board vote.]
Proving once again that the arrogance of humans knows no bounds, a fawn was euthanized when a group of people thought they were helping it by removing it from the mountains and taking it to a nearby Humane Society.
Baby deer like this one are often hidden by their mothers when they go looking for food. But unfortunately for this resting fawn in the Colorado mountains by Durango, it was found by a group of people who felt compelled to "rescue" it.
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A fire in a home sparked by a fatal vehicle crash in San Francisco's Sea Cliff neighborhood Wednesday afternoon is under control, according to fire officials.
Fire department spokesman Jonathan Baxter said there was one fatality after a vehicle drove into a house at 182 32nd Ave.
A tweet from the city's firefighters union, San Francisco Fire Fighters Local 798, initially reported the incident at 1:42 p.m.
The crash caused the house to catch fire. The fire was reported under control at 2:24 p.m., Baxter said.
A Janesville man driving out of control in a neighborhood Tuesday afternoon crashed his car at least six times before getting arrested for alleged drunken driving.
Truman Worachek, 25, was taken to Mercy Hospital following his final crash into a tree in the 2100 block of Mole Avenue, Janesville police said.
He was taken to the hospital for a blood sample and for treatment of facial injuries suffered in the crash into the tree.
Nobody else was injured in the other crashes.
"Officers responded to the West Side after getting multiple reports of a vehicle driving erratically in the area," said Sgt. Dean Sukus. "Citizens pointed out a silver Cadillac which struck a tree."
Witnesses told police Worachek was driving at a high rate of speed and out of control, allegedly hitting at least three parked vehicles, a stop sign and a garage before hitting the tree.
"Everything struck was unoccupied and no one but Worachek was injured," Sukus said.
Worachek was tentatively charged with drunken driving, second offense, operating after revocation, reckless driving and four counts of hit and run.
A man suspected of robbing a Lodi bank in June has turned himself in to police.
Jeffrey Zetzman II, 37, of Lodi, turned himself in to law enforcement officers in Minnesota on Sunday, Lodi police said.
"He is currently awaiting the extradition process to Wisconsin from Hennepin County, Minnesota," police said.
Zetzman allegedly robbed Associated Bank in Lodi on June 23.
Police said Zetzman was seen by Madison police on East Washington Avenue early in the morning on June 24, but he fled from the officer. An arrest warrant was issued that day.
Court records show Zetzman pleaded guilty in Dane County to charges of theft, credit fraud and forgery in February, and was sentenced to probation on all three counts in April.
He also pleaded guilty in Dane County to a charge of theft in 2013 and was sentenced to probation, court records show.
Madison police have named the officer who fatally shot a man they say was aggressively advancing with a pitchfork at a Near East Side home last week, but the department is still waiting to release the names of the officers involved in the forceful arrest of a young black woman last month.
The department on Wednesday said Officer Hector Rivera has been placed on paid leave while the state Division of Criminal Investigation investigates the shooting that killed Michael William Schumacher, 41, of Fitchburg.
Rivera joined the department in 2013 and was most recently assigned to the Central District. He worked as an officer for UW-Madison Police from 2008 until he was hired by the city.
It was unclear Wednesday whether Rivera has ever been the subject of disciplinary actions or has been involved in other incidents that involved use of force.
Sgt. Erik Fuhremann of the departments Professional Standards & Internal Affairs division did not return calls Wednesday. Police Chief Mike Koval said Wednesday evening that he has the power to request employee records, but does not have access to the room where those records are kept.
But even without seeing Riveras employee records, Koval was skeptical there was anything of note contained in them.
In terms of significant events involving force, I cant recall any in the two years Ive been chief, he said.
UW police spokesman Marc Lovicott did not return a call seeking comment on Riveras tenure with his department.
The fatal shooting occurred shortly after 9 p.m. June 30, when a neighbor called 911 to report that a man, later identified as Schumacher, was chest-deep in Lake Monona and acting oddly, seemingly talking to himself and slapping the water.
Police said a witness observed Schumacher break a window of a nearby home by throwing a rock. The residents of the home also called 911 and fled the house after they heard Schumacher smashing items inside.
Rivera was first officer to respond to the home at 1303 Morrison St. and waited for backup to arrive. Schumacher approached the doorway from inside the house with a four-pronged pitchfork, Koval said, ignored multiple orders to stop and continued aggressing toward Rivera.
Schumacher has struggled with mental illness for much of his adult life.
State law requires that officer-involved shootings be investigated by an outside agency. DCI is conducting the investigation that will be the basis for determining whether Riveras use of deadly force was lawful.
Madison police are also conducting an internal review of whether Rivera followed department policies and procedures.
Office
rs in Laird arrest
still unnamed
Two other Madison police officers remain on paid leave as the Dane County Sheriffs Office continues its investigation into the forceful arrest of 18-year-old Genele Laird on June 21.
Laird, who reportedly threatened an employee with a knife inside the East Towne Mall food court, was arrested by officers who used knee strikes and a punch to the abdomen and eventually a Taser after she resisted being taken into custody.
Video of Lairds arrest went viral online, prompting accusations that the officers used excessive force.
In the immediate aftermath of the arrest, Koval declined to name the officers, citing death threats against them called in to the 911 center or posted on social media.
On Wednesday, Koval said the officers would not be named until the Sheriffs Office concludes its review and District Attorney Ismael Ozanne decides whether the force used was excessive.
They enjoy a different relationship with respect to the law, Koval said, comparing the case to Riveras. In the Laird incident, the district attorney said at the press conference that the officers should be treated with a higher degree of confidentiality because they are statutorily victims.
Koval said a decision on whether the force used was excessive could come as early as next week, at which point his department would release the names of the officers.
Greg Jones, president of the Dane County NAACP, said he still wants the names of the officers released expeditiously but said he was sensitive to the departments reasons for withholding their names.
My position would be to understand that theres a lot of information that we dont know, Jones said. There had been at least some information that there could have been threats. Im not aware of any and I dont know if theyre true, so I want to respect that.
My position would be that as soon as practicable all information ought to be released, including names.
Ald. David Ahrens, 15th District, said releasing the names of the officers involved in the Laird arrest now would cause more agitation and division within the community.
I think the issue of who did it ... becomes something that creates a lot of heat but not a lot of light, Ahrens said, adding that a rational examination of Lairds arrest is needed.
If everybody who we think has done something thats misconduct is told to be fired, resign or whatever it is, organizations just cant function like that. We need something thats just much more basic and systemic.
State Journal reporter Logan Wroge contributed to this report.
A Kimberly man was charged Wednesday with first-degree reckless endangerment after police said he took his 1-year-old daughter into a busy Cottage Grove street early Sunday and would not relinquish her, telling police he would die before he got out of the road.
Win Thor, 36, was also charged with obstructing police and disorderly conduct.
According to a criminal complaint, Thor, who had been drinking, took the girl into the middle of Main Street in Cottage Grove about 12:15 a.m. Sunday, and at one point set her down on the dividing stripe and covered her body with his.
Cottage Grove police ordered the road closed.
The complaint states:
Thor told the officers that they wanted to beat him, which the officers denied.
Thor said I would die before getting out of the road as the deputies asked.
When police tried to physically take the girl from him, Thor held her more tightly, with his arm around her neck.
He also refused to give the girl to her mother, telling deputies, shoot me, shoot me.
After seeing the girl struggling and upset, and afraid the girl would be injured by Thors arm on her neck, a Dane County sheriffs deputy struck Thor in the face with his fist, giving police a chance to grab the girl away from Thor.
Thor appeared in court Wednesday where he was released on a signature bond and ordered not to have contact with the girl without another adult present.
A Madison man was charged Wednesday with raping a 13-year-old girl in 2014, resulting in a pregnancy and the birth of the girls son, according to court documents.
A criminal complaint and an arrest warrant were filed Wednesday against Darren T. Lanagan Jr., 23, who was charged with sexual assault of a child under 16.
According to the complaint, the girl told police that in September or October 2014, Lanagan pulled her into an apartment in the 1100 block of Morraine View Drive where he raped her. Later, she discovered she was pregnant, according to the complaint.
The girl did not report the sexual assault to her mother until December, after a DNA test that was part of a paternity case in court showed that her boyfriend was not the father of her son, the complaint states.
In January, police took a DNA sample from Lanagan, who said then that he didnt know the girl. In February, the test revealed that Lanagan is the father of the girls son, according to the complaint.
Lanagan then told police that he knew the girl and admitted that they had sex twice.
He claimed that the girl was a willing participant, the complaint states.
A Bagley man was killed early Saturday morning when his car left a Grant County highway and struck two trees.
Erasmo Gonzalez, 28, died at the scene of the crash, which was reported at about 4:10 a.m. on Ready Hollow Road near Gifford Lane in the town of Wyalusing, the Sheriff's Office said.
The Sheriff's Office investigation showed Gonzalez was southbound on Ready Hollow Road when he left the road on a curve, the car going down an embankment before becoming airborne, with the roof the car hitting two trees before coming to rest on its wheels.
The crash remains under investigation.
FBI Director James Comey was right to assert that no reasonable prosecutor would press criminal charges against Hillary Clinton. No reasonable prosecutor, former federal prosecutor William Otis, now a Georgetown University law professor, told me, wants to try a criminal case with the potential to tilt a national election.
Comeys remarks were damning. He noted it is a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way. He asserted there was no clear evidence Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information. (But then, attorney Clinton was not going to stipulate any intent to flout the law.) Some of the 30,000 emails Clinton turned over to the State Department had been classified and should not have been handled in an unclassified system. He disclosed that Clinton did not hand over several thousand work-related emails. The FBI found no evidence that Clintons email account was hacked, but it is unlikely the FBI would find direct evidence. And Clinton sent work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries, hence it is possible hostile actors got into Clintons account.
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Is Donald Trump a secret tyrant fanboy?
Those attending a campaign rally of the Republican presidential nominee earlier this month in Raleigh, N.C., might have gotten that impression.
"Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? ... But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good," Trump told supporters. "They didn't read 'em the rights, they didn't talk. They were a terrorist, it was over."
The only problem with that assertion is that it's not true. Saddam didn't hunt down terrorists; in fact, he purportedly offered rewards to the families of suicide bombers. He did however gas his own people some 5,000 Iraqi Kurdish men, women and children.
Trump has previously said the world would be "100 percent better" if strongmen like Saddam and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi were still in power, a gaffe that seemingly would torpedo most presidential campaigns, but barely registered with the Trump faithful.
Of course, Trump doesn't admit to actually approving of most dictators, but he does seem to admire some of their methods, talents and way with words.
In the slideshow are a few that have impressed him.
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WASHINGTON The FBIs finding that Hillary Clinton was extremely careless but broke no laws in using a personal email server as secretary of state amplifies the presumptive Democratic nominees biggest political vulnerabilities but will likely do little harm to her chances of capturing the presidency, political experts say.
At the end of the day, I dont think it is going to have an effect on the ultimate outcome of the election, said Doug Elmets, a former Reagan administration official, now a public affairs consultant in Sacramento. I think she will win, largely because of who shes running against.
UC Berkeley political scientist Eric Schickler called Clinton tremendously fortunate that Donald Trump is her opponent.
If Republicans had nominated John Kasich or someone like that, she would be already in a tough race and this would make it even tougher, Schickler said, referring to the Ohio governor who unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination this year.
FBI directors statement
In a nearly 16-minute televised statement Tuesday, FBI Director James Comey announced that the agency would not recommend criminal charges against Clinton for her use of an unsecured home server to handle classified emails as secretary of state. But at the same time, he rebuked her and her colleagues in the State Department for being extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.
While the investigation produced no direct evidence of hacking by hostile actors, Comey said it is possible that hackers gained access to Clintons private email account for several reasons.
Clintons use of personal email for business was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent, Comey said. She used the email extensively while abroad, including sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries, he said. And, Comey added, Clinton regularly corresponded with other officials whose private email accounts Comey said had been hacked by hostile actors.
But, he said, there was no evidence that Clinton intentionally transmitted or willfully mishandled classified information. Our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.
The FBIs conclusions were sent to the Justice Department, which is expected to follow the agencys recommendation not to prosecute.
The Clinton campaign expressed relief at the outcome.
As the secretary has long said, it was a mistake to use her personal email and she would not do it again, said campaign spokesman, Brian Fallon. We are glad that this matter is now resolved.
But it was clear the issue would not go away. Almost immediately after Comeys announcement, the campaign arm for GOP senators moved to take advantage of a public perception that the presidential candidate is untrustworthy. It looks like the Clintons will get away with breaking the rules again, the National Republican Senatorial Committee wrote in a fundraising letter.
Polls consistently show Clintons greatest vulnerability is voter perceptions of her lack honesty and trustworthiness. A June 29 Quinnipiac University poll showed voters found Trump more trustworthy by 45 to 37 percent.
Trump reacts to report
Trump, who has exploited this weakness by branding her Crooked Hillary, issued a statement accusing Clinton of lying for maintaining she did not handle classified information on her private email. He noted the FBI found more than 100 classified emails, including eight labeled top secret, on unsecured servers.
The FBIs finding that the emails might have been hacked means that, our adversaries almost certainly have a blackmail file on Hillary Clinton, and this fact alone disqualifies her from service, he said.
Perceptions of Clintons dishonesty date back to her husband Bills first-term Whitewater controversy surrounding the couples real-estate investments in Arkansas. Various investigations cleared the Clintons of wrongdoing.
The House GOP investigations of the terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, wrapped up just last week, producing no evidence of wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton. However, they did reveal that Clinton used a private email server for official business.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, who withdrew from his race to become House speaker last fall after he divulged on national television that the Benghazi investigation helped drive down Clintons poll numbers, issued a statement Tuesday saying Clintons fundamental lack of judgment and wanton disregard for protecting and keeping information confidential raises continued questions about the exposure of our nations diplomatic and national security secrets.
UC Berkeley political scientist Sean Gailmard said the FBIs finding that a regular employee would probably face some kind of administrative sanction for handling classified documents the way Clinton did underlines perceptions that the Clintons play by separate rules.
She struggles with this issue of credibility, sincerity and general honesty, Gailmard said. At the same time, people have gotten used to there being a permanent investigation of the Clintons because they have been going on for so many decades now.
Feinstein defends Clinton
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee who has defended Clinton before in her handling of her emails, emphasized Comeys announcement that no reasonable prosecutor would pursue a case against Clinton.
The efforts by Republicans over the past year to malign Secretary Clinton have been nothing short of shameful, Feinstein said in a statement. The email review process was repeatedly distorted by Republicans for political gain with little care for the facts.
Feinstein called for reforming the classification system, which she said is confusing and imprecise and plagued by rampant overclassification.
Carolyn Lochhead is The San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carolynlochhead
Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press
GAZIANTEP, Turkey Along the border near the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep, a wall of giant concrete blocks is going up as Turkey tries to seal off a region that for years was a jihadist highway through which thousands of extremist fighters flowed to join the Islamic State group in neighboring Syria.
Turkey has always denied permitting the movement of Islamic State militants into Syria and insists it has been doing its best to stop the transit, even before construction on the massive wall began late last year.
KIGALI, Rwanda Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday toured a memorial for victims of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda during the first visit by a sitting Israeli prime minister to sub-Saharan Africa in three decades.
Netanyahu laid a wreath at the mass graves honoring the more than 800,000 victims of the genocide perpetrated by Hutu extremists against the Tutsi ethnic group and moderate Hutus.
We are deeply moved by this memorial to the victims of one of historys greatest crimes and reminded of the haunting similarities to the genocide of our own people, he and his wife, Sara, wrote in the visitors book.
Netanyahu, who is pursuing closer security and other ties with African nations, has already been to Uganda and Kenya this week and was moving on to Ethiopia later Wednesday.
In exchange for its expertise in security and other fields, Israel wants African states to support it at the United Nations, where the Palestinians were recognized as a non-member observer state in 2012.
Israel played a prominent role in assisting newly independent African countries in the 1960s, but those relations crumbled in the 1970s, when Arab countries, promising aid, pressured African nations to limit or cut ties with Israel.
African states were also opposed to Israels close ties to South Africas apartheid government.
Netanyahu said African states must join forces against a new form of terrorism that threatens all countries. I think we see eye to eye on the nature of this problem, and I think Africa and Israel overwhelmingly see eye to eye on this, he said.
TBILISI, Georgia The United States and Georgia agreed Wednesday to boost their military cooperation in a signal of Americas commitment to Georgias defense and a not-so-subtle message to Russia ahead of this weeks NATO summit.
Secretary of State John Kerry, on the first leg a two-day visit to the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine before joining President Obama at the NATO meeting in Poland, signed the new security cooperation agreement with Georgian Prime Minister Georgy Kvirikashvili. The signing came after talks in Tbilisi that also covered economic, education and judicial and electoral reform issues ahead of parliamentary elections set for October.
JOHANNESBURG Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee sprinter who rose to worldwide fame for overcoming his disability to compete in the 2012 Olympic Games, was sentenced Wednesday to six years in prison for murdering his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, inside his home in 2013.
Pistorius, 29, was taken to a prison to start serving his sentence. He will have to serve half of his term before being eligible for parole.
Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa of the High Court in Pretoria cited mitigating factors in handing out a sentence that was shorter than the 15-year minimum requested by prosecutors.
Pistorius, the judge said, had shown remorse in trying, repeatedly and unsuccessfully, to apologize in person to the victims parents.
In handing out the six-year sentence, Masipa surprised many legal experts who had predicted that a term of at least 10 years would split the difference between guidelines that call for at least 15 years in prison for murder but allow for a reduction based on other considerations.
Among other mitigating factors, the judge said she considered the circumstances of the shooting and Pistorius disability.
She noted that Pistorius was a first-time offender who had shown himself to be a good candidate for rehabilitation. I am of the view that a long-term imprisonment will not serve justice, Masipa said.
The judge added: Hes a fallen hero who has lost his career and is ruined financially. The worst is that having taken the life of a fellow human being in the manner that he did, he cannot be at peace.
Gareth Newham, a criminal justice researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, said that it was not unusual for a judge to consider mitigating factors in deviating from sentencing guidelines. But the six-year sentence, he said, would most likely anger a public that has come to regard Pistorius much less sympathetically.
ROME Pope Francis met on Wednesday with the parents of a U.S. college student whose body was found in Rome's Tiber river this week, after apparently either being pushed or tumbling into the murky waters less than 24 hours after arriving in Italy for summer classes.
A brief Holy See statement said Francis expressed to Beau Solomon's parents "feelings of deepest sympathy and compassion, and his closeness in prayer to the Lord for the young man who died so tragically." The pope held the unscheduled, private encounter shortly before holding an audience with French pilgrims in a Vatican auditorium.
The mother, Jodi Solomon, appeared to be crying as her husband, Nick, put an arm around her while Francis tried to comfort the couple. Francis raised his hand in blessing.
Solomon's roommate has told school officials he last saw him early Friday at a pub popular with U.S. students in the Trastevere neighborhood of cafes, bars and restaurants near the Tiber.
The 19-year-old Solomon, who had just completed his first year of study at University of Wisconsin-Madison, had arrived in the Italian capital on Thursday for study at John Cabot University, a four-year, English-language institution not far from the pub.
Initial autopsy findings indicated there was water in the young man's lungs, meaning Solomon would have been alive when he ended up in the water, the Italian news agency ANSA said.
Police on Tuesday detained a homeless Italian, Massimo Galioto, 40, whom they described as being "seriously suspected of murder aggravated by futile motives."
Solomon's body was found on Monday a few kilometers (miles) downriver from Trastevere.
A female companion of the Italian, who lived in an improvised camp set up along the Tiber's banks and near the base of one of the river's bridges, said the American accidentally fell into the water after a fight with Galioto, whom she calls "Max."
Solomon "attacked him, Max just defended himself," Alessia Pennachioli told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday near the couple's tent. "From the fight, he accidentally fell into the river."
Pennachioli said she did not see the fight but police had shown her footage from a security camera, placed near a building on the street level on the other side of the river. "I was in the tent, sleeping" when the fight happened, she said.
Judging from the video images, Pannachioli said, it was clear that Solomon arrived from the Sisto Bridge, a pedestrian crossing over the Tiber where staircases lead to the bank where the homeless couple have their tent. She added that her companion was outside after cooking a meal when the American arrived.
In an interview a day earlier, with Italian RAI state TV, Pennachioli said Solomon had been robbed by two Moroccan men, and that after he descended from the bridge to one of the Tiber's banks, he was "agitated, and had a fight" with Galioto. "It ended badly," she said on RAI.
Solomon "pushed, Max pushed back. He pushed a second time. Max pushed again," Pennachioli told RAI. Solomon was "drunk and tumbled over" into the water, she said.
Although most of the river winds through the city placidly during summer, just downstream where the alleged scuffle took place is a small rapid, and concrete and rocks line much of the Tiber's banks.
Solomon's credit cards were used on Friday in Milan, and police are investigating whether other, still unidentified people had robbed him.
LONDON Britains decision to go to war in Iraq was a failure born of flawed intelligence, lack of foresight and wholly inadequate planning, an official inquiry concluded Wednesday in a report seven years in the making.
Retired civil servant John Chilcot, who oversaw the inquiry, said the United Kingdom chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort.
The 2.6-million-word report is an exhaustive verdict on a divisive conflict that by the time British combat forces left in 2009 had killed 179 British troops, almost 4,500 American personnel and more than 100,000 Iraqis.
It continues to divide Britain and overshadows the legacy of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair. As Chilcot introduced his report at a London conference center on Wednesday, dozens of antiwar protesters with placards reading Bliar rallied outside.
For families of British troops who died in the conflict, the long litany of mistakes by Blair and others provides some vindication of their struggle to hold the wars planners to account.
But it did not declare the conflict illegal, which might have opened the way for Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes.
Chilcot refrained from saying whether the 2003 invasion was legal and didnt accuse Blair of deliberately misleading the public or Parliament. But he said that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for (British) military action were far from satisfactory.
For Iraqis, it was little comfort. They continue to live with violence, including a massive weekend bombing in Baghdad claimed by the Islamic State group that killed more than 175 people.
Since 2003 until now, our country has been a scene of destruction, killing, massacres, explosions and sectarianism, Baghdad resident Ali al-Saraji said.
He said that Blair destroyed our country and should be prosecuted as a war criminal.
An emotional Blair told a news conference that going to war in Iraq was the hardest, most momentous, most agonizing decision I took in my 10 years as British prime minister.
He said that I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know, or can believe, for all the things that went wrong. But, he added: I took this decision because I believed that it was the right thing to do.
Chilcot said the people of Iraq have suffered greatly because of a military intervention which went badly wrong.
The report said Blairs government presented an assessment of the threat posed by Saddam Husseins weapons with certainty that was not justified. The inquiry also found military planning for the war and its aftermath were not up to the task.
Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Joel Boyd has received an offer that, as they say, he couldn't refuse, and he will leave the district for the private sector by the end of the summer. He announced his departure Tuesday for what he calls a "compelling and unique opportunity" to work as senior vice president of BrightBytes, a San Francisco-based research organization that analyzes and synthesizes the sea of overwhelming and even at times unintelligible school performance data and research.
Pointing to a card from his late brother's desk that hangs in his office (alongside his Harvard credentials) and reads, "You can't hit if you don't swing," Boyd says, "I tell people all the time, 'I might strike out, but I'm going to go down swinging. I'm not going to go down looking.' And what we're talking about here is if we can hit a home run in supporting all schools across America to do great work for kids. That's the home run. So I'm going to keep swinging for it.
"I spent the last 15 years feeling as though I'm doing some pretty good work at a school level as a principal, now at the district level as a superintendent. Now there's an opportunity to support multiple districts in multiple states across the country."
Boyd often touts the district's position as the fastest-improving in the state, citing an increased graduation rate and improved performance on standardized assessments since his arrival in 2012. He's also overseen the opening of the Mandela International Magnet School, an International Baccalaureate program, and Engage Santa Fe, for people between the age of 16 and 22 who have been out of school for six months or more who want to complete a high school diploma. Boyd has gone so far as to serve as principal of that school, which serves about 100 students.
"Engage is going strong. Engage is going to be here," he says. The next superintendent will have to decide whether to mirror Boyd's self-described foolish undertaking in serving as principal of that school in addition to his duties as superintendent.
"Dr. Boyd has moved the district forward in a very positive direction, and we are thankful for the leadership and vision he provided over the past four years," Board of Education President Susan Duncan said in a statement. She credited his reform efforts for setting the district on course to complete its five-year strategic plan.
"The success of the district has now been trending upward for several years, so the trends in student achievement are that nowthey're trends. They're not anomalies," Boyd says.
Transitioning now, rather than amid next year's elections for new board of education members, may provide the district with more stability in preserving some of its recent achievements, Boyd argues.
At least twice before, Boyd has considered leaving the district. When he withdrew his candidacy from Nashville's school district earlier this year, he declared the City Different home and said he intended to stay until the end of his contract, which is set to expire June 30, 2017. He tells SFR this opportunity to join a rapidly growing, new company that could potentially affect students across the US just didn't seem like one likely to be repeated and so couldn't be turned down.
The board will hold a special meeting on July 8 to accept Boyd's resignation and possibly hire an interim superintendent. Boyd has set a tentative start date with BrightBytes for mid-August.
His tenure has been met with some accolades and some bristling responses. In the same month he was charged with creating an atmosphere that fueled low employee morale, according a survey conducted by NEA-Santa Fe that saw 200 responses, Mayor Javier Gonzales, Think New Mexico and members of the school board nominated him for New Mexico Superintendent of the Year.
Santa Fe Reporter
When the Public Service Company of New Mexico gave The Nature Conservancy the emptied basins where two city dams once held a frontier towns supply of water, the gifts quality posed a mystery: Just how much could be made of a bare stretch of earth with a bathtub ring thats still visible, decades later, as a line where the pinons stop growing?
"These pond ecosystems have been almost completely removed from the desert Southwest," says Terry Sullivan, state director of The Nature Conservancy. "It's pretty easy to remove these features, and it's almost impossible to recreate them."
The conservancy started with a little water and a goal of restoring the historic route of the river, and everything else came to it, he says, including beaver families that, by anyone's best guess, migrated downriver to build dams and create stepped ponds ringed in cattails that are topped on summer mornings with red-winged blackbirds. Deer, osprey, a reintroduced northern leopard frog, and even mountain lions and bobcats have also arrived, all of them clustering around this rare beacon of water in the Southwestern landscape.
"If you have the water and you have the seeds, a whole suite of plants and animals will start to come," Sullivan says.
Releases from the city reservoirs have helped restore a pond ecosystem. (Elizabeth Miller)
The microclimate shifted from a baked and sunny expanse to a bosque and wetlands with a shady, meandering path past mushrooms, the summer snow of cottonwood seeds, orange mallow, milkvetch and penstemon.
And all of it is fed by a trickle of a river that runs over the top of a series of stones stacked next to a diversion gate. Close the gate, and the water backs up, flowing into the preserve instead of downstream to the acequia system. Leave it open, and the preserve runs dry. Which is what happened in May this year, when a third lock appeared among the two already on the gate, which belonged to the city and The Nature Conservancy. Robert Findling, director of land protection and stewardship for the conservancy, spotted the lock and called the city to ask about it, but he never got a call back. So two weeks later, he hiked up with bolt cutters and removed it.
"Thus began the Milagro beaver pond war," Sullivan jokes.
It turned out, the third lock belonged to the city, installed over suspicions that someone was changing the gate to channel more water into the preserve. But that had never been communicated to the conservancy, Sullivan says. When it was cut, the city assumed the conservancy had become adversarial and responded by bringing in a dump truck and sandbags and completely blocking the flow-over dam to the preserve, cutting off its water supply.
It's not unusual to go without water for a few days this time of year, Sullivan says, but after a while, they started to panic and assumed, having heard nothing else, that the city was trying to cut off water to the preserve. Then someoneboth parties say they have no idea whoresponded to the presence of the sandbags by moving them to block the city's outtake, cutting off water to downstream acequias and the river in an act of "vandalism." Someone also appears to have used a shovel to widen the channel to the preserve.
All of this unfolded over May and early June. It was June 23 by the time the city's governing body held a legal session to discuss a course of action in private, and June 28 before the mayor, city attorney and Sullivan met to sort out what at that point had blossomed into a massive chain of miscommunications.
"It wasn't until I sat down with Javier Gonzales and Kelley Brennan and she showed us pictures and I emphasized to the city that we hadn't done thatthat was the big 'Aha!' moment," Sullivan says. "We realized, OK, this is ridiculous. We've made a mountain out of a beaver dam."
Had they all made the three-quarter-mile hike from the parking lot to the little dam, the pool behind which is barely knee-deep, to take a look at what was happening and talk, the trouble might have stopped there, Sullivan says. Instead, they weathered an ugly series of finger-pointing over water theft and deprivation, lawsuit saber-rattling and closed-door meetings that only served to heighten concerns that the city was cutting off water to the preserve.
To analyze the situation and receive direction from the governing body took more than six weeks, which city spokesperson Matt Ross called "pretty speedy and efficient."
"We are confident and pleased that both parties are ready to put this issue behind us and forge a true partnership around a collaborative vision, not just for this section of the river but for the entire corridor," Ross wrote in a press release. "This was a problem that arose primarily from communication breakdowns following acts of vandalism committed by unknown persons at a flow gate. It led to unfortunate accusations of water theft on one side and of a desire to cut off all water flow into the preserve on the other, accusations that were unfounded and only served to escalate an unnecessary conflict."
When asked by the mayor to summarize the content of an executive session discussion of the issue during the June 29 City Council meeting, City Attorney Kelley Brennan characterized the conversation with The Nature Conservancy as "very cordial."
"We had agreement on most of, actually I'd say on all the points, and agreed to work on any agreements that we needed to make any lack of clarity clear," she said. The parties planned to meet again in the next week.
The events prompted Councilor Joe Maestas to suggest City Manager Brian Snyder establish or reiterate the need for voicemail etiquette, including messages that clarify if someone will be out of the office, and refer the public to a second option who may be available in absence of the person initially dialed. Snyder replied that he already stresses that practice with city employees.
"It's sort of unfortunate, because it really just came down to miscommunication," Sullivan says. "But it puts the preserve on the top of everyone's mind."
Now there's a concern that the preserve will see almost too much attention.
There's not a parking space left in the lot that serves the preserve and a portion of the Dale Ball trail system by 10 am on a Friday morning, though hikers disappear rapidly into willows that have grown to above head-height. Clusters of children from the Randall Davey Audubon Center and Sanctuary day camp (more than 4,000 students visited the preserve last year) vanish among the sagebrush, howling to find one another again.
"One of the big challenges we're facing is that the preserve doesn't get loved to death, and the vandalism is one sign of that," Sullivan says.
Part of the solution could be to create similar ecosystems downriver, so people throughout the city have a little piece of water and shade close to their homes. The conservancy wants to roll the attention from this controversy into enthusiasm for making that vision a reality.
Ross echoes that interest on behalf of the city: "There's a broad collaborative vision there about how we can work together with The Nature Conservancy as partners to move that forwardthe health of the entire river corridor, not just this one section of the upper river."
In the years since the Living River Ordinance was passed in 2012, the city has already seen its river revived. Before the ordinance, which calls for releasing 1,000 acre-feet of water into the river on wet or normal years, the riverbed was a veritable junkyard.
"It was a spot, and still is in places, where people threw their debris. There was sort of an 'It's just a ditch' attitude to it," says Andy Otto, executive director of the Santa Fe Watershed Association, which campaigned for the ordinance. Water in the riverbed, he says, has fueled care and concern over the resource.
"People will own it if they can see it," Otto says.
He watched this dispute between the city and the conservancy with some trepidation.
"Our concerns were that the Living River Ordinance was not brought into this, or somehow relegated to a minor roll," he says. "The Living River Ordinance of February 29, 2012, is a very valid document and can help guide us on this, so that's what we'd like to see, as well as a full open discussion in public."
But parts of the document are "not as detailed as they could be," he concedes, and that includes specifying allocations to the preserve and to the acequias.
The ordinance is a good start, Sullivan says, but it may not do enough to restore the river in a "string of pearls" approach, with a few linked ecosystems like those found at the preserve. That's primarily because it's not stocked with enough money for the kind of infrastructure and water rights purchasing likely required.
It certainly hasn't been enough to reconnect the Santa Fe River with the Rio Grande. Though how much water would be required to achieve that isn't yet known, by some estimates, it would require two or three times the annual allotment now of 1,000 acre-feet.
Santa Fe Reporter
For all the contemporary forms of art Santa Fe has to offer, theres a decisive lack when it comes to dance. Valiantly filling that hole is Ground Series, an effort spearheaded by Sarah Ashkin and Micaela Gardner. They perform their next project, Dancing in a Hard Place, in the gallery of the Center for Contemporary Arts, with the sculptural works of Ellen Babcock and Cannupa Hanska Luger comprising the set.
Dancing in a Hard Place reflects on the devastation of climate change. Ashkin and Gardner began by congregating the dancers and collectively piecing together a document with quotes by poets, scientists and authors, all centered on environmentalism. From there, the group split up and created several individual and small-group vignettes based on the collection of quotes. Ashkin and Gardner then stitched the piece into a congruent whole that leads audience members on a contemplative ride through the relationships among landscape and home and self.
Ashkin is a dancer, choreographer and faculty member at the New Mexico School for the Arts. She co-founded Ground Series in 2012 in Oakland, California, at the Temescal Arts Center, with Brittany Delany, who still performs with the group and who has been rehearsing for the current project via Skype. When Ashkin moved back to her native Santa Fe, she met Gardner, also a dancer and choreographer, who had co-directed the Temescal Arts Center for 10 years. They found in each other a similar aesthetic and approach to dance-making.
Their first collaborative project was Federal Dances in 2014. Presented at Federal Park, over 200 people came to watch each performance. "The work was about colonialism in New Mexican history through a modern dance lens," Ashkin recounts. "That was a really inspiring start."
Last summer's creation, 123, cemented Ground Series as a local dance collective. Due to the necessity of working around several dancers' schedules, the group created one solo, two duets and three trios. The model worked so well Ashkin and Gardner applied the approach to Dancing in a Hard Place.
"We started by collecting quotations, environmental writings and statistics, and we doled those out and made small dances in groups based on the writings," Ashkin says. "Then we came back together and sewed it into a cohesive hour-long show. The piece explores nostalgia for landscapes that no longer exist, as well as what our bodies might need to become in order to continue existing among dwindling resources."
The dancersBrittany Delany, Adam McKinney, Ehren Kee Natay, Andrew Primm, Sophia Rog, Paolo Speirn and Spencer Toll, as well as Ashkin and Gardnerdraw from different backgrounds. McKinney, for instance, currently heads the dance department at the New Mexico School for the Arts and had a prior career dancing for several notable companies, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Bejart Ballet Lausanne and Alonzo King LINES Ballet. McKinney says the choreographers have "crafted an exceptional vision for dance-making in taking their time to create work that is evocative and connected to community."
Primm, another member of the collective, is a local musician, theater director and videographer. He contacted Gardner about participating in Ground Series and can now add "dancer" to his resume. "That Micaela and Sarah offered me the opportunity to be part of this dance has changed my entire routine; in addition to our rehearsals, in the last six months I have begun to study ballet and exercise in a local gym," Primm explains.
The dancers' experiences also range in background; some come from classical training, while others have studied improvisational modalities. Rog, for instance, has ample experience in contact improvisation, while Toll draws on his familiarity with gaga, a form developed by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin.
"Coming back to New Mexico from California, I wasn't sure where I might find dancers," Gardner recalls. "Adam McKinney was my first meaningful dance connection here in Santa Fe. Through him, I met Sarah Ashkin. It's grown into a homemade effort."
"Dancing in a Hard Place is a conversation with folks who are hurting and worried."
Dancing in a Hard Place also marks an important turning point in Ground Series. Ashkin is departing for the University of Roehampton in London this fall to complete a master's degree in dance, politics and sociology. McKinney is likewise departing to Fort Worth, Texas, to take on a tenure-track position in the dance department at Texas Christian University.
"I see Ground Series as having a future. The people we've been able to connect with are really amazing collaborators. Even though Adam and I aren't going to be in Santa Fe, I'm not worried about us not making dance together again. Micaela plans to keep the snowball rolling, and we're going to keep making a piece a year," says Ashkin.
McKinney adds, "I will absolutely stay connected to Ground Series and plan to continue to perform with the collective, because I believe the work affects the world in new and positive ways."
As for Dancing in a Hard Place, Ashkin and Gardner want audiences to take away the idea that art based on critical issues like climate change are an important contribution to how we collectively face those challenges. "When you read the news, you realize we're in trouble," Gardner reflects. "Dancing in a Hard Place is a conversation with folks who are hurting and worried. But I want people to leave feeling there's hope."
Dancing in a Hard Place
7:30 pm Friday July 8
2 pm and 7:30 pm Saturday July 9
2 pm Sunday July 10
$20-$25
Center for Contemporary Arts
1050 Old Pecos Trail
982-1338
Santa Fe Reporter
Something about knitting graffiti generates a joyful energy. When it shows up on stop-sign poles and narrow trees, or as a scarf on the prairie dog of the St. Francis sculpture in front of City Hall, passersby know that someoneand likely a woman who learned the skill from another womannot only took the time to work the yarn into a piece, but then carried it to the spot and stealthily secured it with a final row of stitches. Her subversion is a gift. Unlike paint that can mar with its permanence, these colorful strands of fiber seldom last one more twirl around the sun. They are like blooms on the cholla. Appreciate them between the spines of the rest of the scene. Know they will fade.
Watching Icelandic yarn graffiti artist and sheep rancher Tinna Porudottir Porvaldsdottir release the vibrant knitted objects into the world is so calming and profound that I found myself getting a little misty-eyed. Was I really feeling this way in the middle of a documentary about yarn?
The simple answer is yes.
The short-running Yarn follows four takes on the topic, and each is surprising and delightfully outside-the-box. Adding another layer are sparse bits of narration from Barbara Kingsolver. The writer, known for her foray into hyper-local eating with Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: A Year of Food Life and novels like The Poisonwood Bible, which put complex female characters at the center, has written a piece of prose about knitting. The lines that you hear from Where It Begins include her creation story (of sorts): "Everything starts, of course, with the sheep and the grass. Beneath her greening scalp the earth frets and dreams, and knits herself wordless."
And it's that wordless thing, that feeling of making and sharing, that's so powerful.
Porvaldsdottir's sharing happens, too, as she delicately decorates glass buoys and sends them afloat into the ocean. She strolls the streets of Barcelona and Havana, sometimes withdrawing a small hammer from her roomy purse and using her lips to hold extra nails while she works.
Polish artist Olek crochets full body suits, and then follows four models around the city (and in lava flows and forests) to photograph their interactions with people and the environmentthe faceless, skinless beings embodied in a thicker, softer skin of repeating loops and clashing shades of orange and yellow and blue. Before that, she covers four railroad cars completely in crochet work and then helps make a mermaid swim with marine animals in Hawaii. When the camera cuts to her hands, they're literally moving fast enough to blur.
The observation and reverence for the rhythmic nature of these artforms from new director Una Lorenzen serves to naturally knot together the work. And even though that sentence was contrived, the arc of story in the film does not feel that way. Lorenzen seems to capture the essence of how her subjects connect to their art and how they see it as that and not simply craft, clothing or kitsch.
Children who climb and bounce on a swaying knitted play structure make fiber sculptor Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam contagiously happy as she explains how she transitioned from art that hung untouched to art meant to serve a deep human need. The inclusion of a profile of the co-ed Cirkus Cirkor's show with yarn as a theme adds enough masculine energy to the storylines to keep the balance. And balance they do, on tiny tightropes, all the while relating that the meaning of the act, the meaning of life, is in the striving, the changing.
Yarn
Directed by Una Lorenzen
Jean Cocteau Cinema
NR,
76 min.
Santa Fe Reporter
Evidence Presented in Griego Case
Prosecutors at a
presented former state Sen. Phil Griego as a sophisticated politician who knew what he was doing when he ushered through the sale of a piece of land he later made a profit on. State District Judge Brett Loveless heard from four witnessesincluding this reporterto determine if Griego should stand trial on 10 political corruption charges.
Boyd Leaving Santa Fe Schools
After being considered for top jobs in Dallas and Nashville, Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent
Hes accepted a job with a San Francisco-based educational software company.
Food Assistance Delays Impact New Mexicans' Lives
Ahead of another day of hearings in federal court in Las Cruces today, KUNMs Marisa Demarco reports on how the delays processing
in New Mexico have impacted some New Mexicans lives.
Bosque del Apache Fire Continues to Burn
The 700-acre wildfire burning in the Bosque del Apache is
this morning. KRQE reports no structures are threatened:
Officials Consider Water Delivery Alternatives
Tribal officials in northwestern New Mexico are talking to federal officials about conducting a study to develop irrigation contingency plans
like last years Gold King Mine dump into the Animas River.
Bale Set to Film in New Mexico
Actor Christian Bale is coming to New Mexico to work on director Scott Coopers new film
a big budget production featuring Santa Fe actor Wes Studi. The states film office estimates that about 350 New Mexico crew members will be hired for the project, along with local actors.
Bear Sightings Increase
The actors need to
while theyre shooting the film in Los Alamos County. Officials there report an increase in bear sightings, according to KOB.
Paying Tribute
We missed this over the Fourth of July holiday, but the Los Angeles Times profiled
who paid tribute to his seamstress grandmother at her funeral by wearing a black veil and dress.
Santa Fe Reporter
The Ministry of Health is still pursuing the government's social bonds pilots, claiming to have learnt a number lessons after the Wise Group withdrew from what would have been the first programme funded with such an instrument.
Hamilton-based Wise Group, a charitable organisation seeking to enhance the wellbeing of people and communities, withdrew from negotiations with the ministry over a potential social bond to fund a pilot delivering employment services to people with mental illnesses. The ministry kicked off talks with Wise and its financial arranger, ANZ Bank New Zealand, last year after the 2015 budget set aside $28.8 million for social bond programmes, "but at this late stage, they have advised they are not able to proceed with the contract," ministry chief strategy and policy officer Hamiora Bowkett said in an emailed statement.
"That is not unexpected in a process like this and the work to progress the social bond continues," Bowkett said. "One of the goals of the pilot was to develop and grow knowledge in the market on outcome-based contracting and establish a toolkit of templates and lessons learnt, which are being applied to subsequent bond pilots. This has been achieved."
A social bond allows the introduction of new, private money into social programmes without increasing public debt and without the need to decrease existing spending, with investors paid based on the level of social value achieved. But they bring "significant public policy and economic difficulties", such as evaluating the success of the contract and potential for a low rate of return with high risk, according to a 2011 report by Ross Philipson Consulting for the Department of Internal Affairs.
Institutional investors have indicated an interest in social bonds in theory, though have been more cautious about backing them given their relative infancy as a tool to offer investors incentives to achieve better social outcomes.
Bowkett said the ministry is still committed to social bonds to offer employment support for people with mental health problems and is "looking at a range of options". The ministry is also pursuing other pilots. Its website says work on a second social bond topic began earlier this year, but it won't disclose details.
Labour Party health spokeswoman Annette King today called the social bonds programme a failure, while the Nurses Organisation's mental health arm said those services need to be "funded properly by the government".
King said $1.6 million has been spent on social bonds to date and a further $360,000 has been set aside for the coming year without much to show for it.
However, a similar format has been adopted without government involvement by the Eat My Lunch service, using PledgeMe's peer-to-peer lending platform to sell 'Lunch Bonds'. Eat My Lunch is a for-profit business where a customer buys one lunch, and another is delivered to a child in need. The company wants to raise $500,000 through the peer-to-peer lunch bonds, where an investor can receive 6 percent annual return for five years. Nine days are left to run on the campaign, and $250,000 has been raised so far.
Wise communications manager Elizabeth Woods confirmed the charity had withdrawn from social bonds, but said it couldn't comment further and was redirecting all media enquiries to the ministry at its request.
The Wise Trust received $71 million from government grants and contracts in the year ended June 30, 2015, making up the bulk of its $74.9 million of annual revenue. It generated a surplus of $791,000 in the year, financial statements filed with the Charities Commission show. The charity spent $22,000 on advisory services for advice on integrated social service provision in 2015.
BusinessDesk.co.nz
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Rishworth Aviation, which supplies pilots, engineers and other staff to the airline industry, has been sold to Empresaria Group, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market, for US$10 million.
The Auckland-based company lists Norwegian, Korea Air and Vietnam Airlines among its clients and has a regional office in Sweden. Empresaria is buying 82.6% of Rishworth, with the remaining stock in the hands of senior managers.
Rishworth's vendor is the private equity company, Pencarrow, which was established in 1993. Pencarrow assisted a management buy-out of Rishworth in December 2005. It's website states that Rishworth is the final investment of a $75 million fund that was established in June 2005. All the other five companies that were purchased as part of the fund have since been sold.
In a statement to the London Stock Exchange, Empresaria said that in the year ended March 31, Rishworth had unaudited revenue of NZ$138 million, fee income of NZ$8.9 million and earnings before interest and taxation of NZ$3.65 million.
The 17.4% shareholding owned by company executives is expected to be held for between three and four years and can then be voluntarily offered for sale to Empresaria over a minimum of another two years.
Empresaria chief executive Joost Kreulen told investors "we are focused on building a business that is diversified from both a sector and geographic perspective, has leading brands with sector expertise and improves our operational mix and temporary/contract bias. The investment in Rishworth directly fits this strategy."
Empresaria operates in 19 countries including New Zealand, Australia, Europe, the UK, Japan, Chile and the Middle East through a range of different brands.
It is an expensive time for a British company to buy overseas. The pound hit a thirty year low against the US dollar overnight and is at a three-year low against the New Zealand dollar following a public vote to leave the European Union.
Empresaria's shares fell 4.5% to close at 73.5 pence yesterday.
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Laurel Herich, the 81-year-old Lake Geneva woman reported missing after not arriving home Monday night, has been found safe in Delavan.
The Lake Geneva Police Department cancelled the silver alert at 6 p.m. Tuesday for Herich, who was last seen early Tuesday morning at a gas station in Washington County when she asked for directions, according to the Wisconsin Crime Alert Network.
Herich left her daughter's home in Lily Lake in Kenosha County, heading to her home in Walworth County about 10 minutes away.
"At about 5 a.m. Tuesday she stopped to ask for directions at a gas station in Washington County, but she had no reason to be in Washington County, so it would appear that she was lost," the report said.
The liquidator of Postie Plus' former owner reached a $550,000 settlement with the failed retailer's former logistics supplier, leaving creditor Bank of New Zealand facing a shortfall of more than $5 million.
In the final liquidators' report for Retva Ltd, the remaining shell of Postie Plus Group, PwC's David Bridgman said a "full and final" settlement was concluded in April 2016, ending proceedings brought by the retailer's secured creditor. BNZ had funded the initial legal proceedings against the third party supplier, but would have needed third party litigation funding to pursue the claim further.
"The liquidators explored funding options and took this, and a number of other factors, into account in reaching the settlement, including consideration of the merits of the claim, the time and cost of taking the matter to a full court trial and the risks associated with ongoing litigation," Bridgman said in his report.
BNZ was owed $6 million at the time of liquidation and received $298,000 as a distribution, implying it was still owed about $5.7 million. The liquidators' fees and disbursements totalled $166,000, while legal fees were $65,000.
Postie Plus appointed PwC's Bridgman and Colin McCloy as voluntary administrators in June 2014 after losing the support of its lenders when it failed to recapitalise the business. It had been hit by supply chain disruptions in 2012 and 2013 when it outsourced its distribution centre to Kuehne + Nagel, while shifting its headquarters to Auckland. Kuehne + Nagel was never formally named as the party being pursued in the courts.
The retail business was sold as a going concern to South Africa's Pepkor for $7.1 million which more than halved BNZ's outstanding loan of $13.7 million and repaid other preferential creditors. After that, liquidators were appointed in September 2014.
PwC's Bridgman said the shortfall to BNZ as the secured creditor meant unsecured creditors owed $6.7 million were also left out of pocket.
The liquidators have requested the company be removed from the register.
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Three women from Vernon County have been arrested on multiple drug charges, all stemming from a suspicious vehicle being stopped in the village of La Farge.
The women are Misty Smith, 35, of Viola, Ashley Fish, 28, of rural La Farge and Jessica Grossell, 30, also of rural La Farge.
The Sheriff's Office said the investigation started on June 30 at about 11:30 p.m. when a deputy saw a suspicious vehicle in La Farge and stopped it to talk to the driver.
The driver was Misty Smith, and after more questioning, her car was searched, with methamphetamine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia allegedly found in the car.
She was arrested and tentatively charged with operating under the influence of a restricted controlled substance and possession of methamphetamine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
The investigation also turned up the name Ashley Fish, so a search warrant was obtained to search her residence.
Fish and Grossell were found at the rural La Farge residence early in the morning on July 1, with officers finding drugs and related items in the house.
Fish was tentatively charged with possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver and possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, while Grossell was tentatively charged with possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
Study abroad programs such as the one UW-Madison student Beau Solomon had arrived in Rome to attend before he was killed over the weekend dont disclose to parents or prospective students how often their participants are injured or die, according to an advocate for greater oversight of the programs.
UW-Madison officials, meanwhile, say they have long been working to ensure that students studying abroad more than 2,200 in a recent year are safe through orientation programs and a new position to coordinate safety and security efforts.
Solomon, who graduated from River Valley High School in Spring Green, was found dead Monday in the Tiber River, days after his roommate in a program at John Cabot University in Rome said he disappeared during a night out early Friday morning. Italian police have arrested a suspect in Solomons death.
Solomon was one of about two-dozen UW-Madison students enrolled in a summer study abroad program managed by John Cabot University, UW officials said Tuesday.
Founded in 1972, the school is an independent, four-year American liberal arts university in Rome that offers classes to English-speaking students from around the world.
Two other American college students taking part in programs at John Cabot University have died in the past three years; both students were killed in falls, according to WISN-TV and the Chicago Tribune. In one of those cases, the student also may have been robbed, the Tribune reported. A third student died from natural causes in 2008, according to The State in Columbia, South Carolina.
Because it operates abroad, John Cabot University says it is not bound by federal laws that require other American colleges to collect and report statistics on campus crime.
Sheryl Hill, founder and executive director of the travel safety group Depart Smart, has pushed to improve student education on how to stay safe abroad, and lobbied for legislation to require that programs such as John Cabot University make public data on how frequently participants are injured, hospitalized or killed.
Study abroad is awesome but there is no standardized education that helps you identify and mitigate risk, and there is no transparent reporting about what happens to Americans when they are on (foreign) soil, Hill said.
On Tuesday, UW-Madison Vice Provost Guido Podesta, who leads the campus international division, said the university takes numerous steps to ensure that our programs operate in safe environments, and recently hired a new international safety and security director.
UW-Madisons description of the John Cabot University summer program says students take part in an orientation before leaving for Rome.
There is more attention and resources being given to safety and security issues for UW-Madison students going abroad than at any time in the past, Podesta said in a statement.
Three Democratic candidates vying to replace state Rep. Robb Kahl will speak at a candidate forum later this month in McFarland.
Jimmy Anderson, Julia Arata-Fratta and Tony Hartmann have all been confirmed to attend the 47th District forum, hosted July 14 by Active McFarland and United Fitchburg. The forum will run from 7-8:30 p.m. at the McFarland Municipal Center, 5915 Milwaukee St.
Arata-Fratta, a supervisor at Wegner CPAs and former president of the Latino Chamber of Commerce of Dane County, Hartmann, a green energy entrepreneur, and Anderson, founder of a nonprofit that helps victims of drunken driving, will respond to several predetermined questions before taking questions from the public.
Kahl, D-Monona, announced he would retire from the Assembly after two terms.
The 47th District includes parts of Fitchburg, Madison, Monona, McFarland, Cottage Grove and the town of Dunn.
BENGALURU: After months of delay, Apple Inc may soon enter the Indian market with its debutant single-brand retail stores. This latest move from the iPhone, iPad, and Mac maker came after the Indian government recently overhauled its local sourcing norms; as compiled by the Business Insider Indian Bureau and Economic Times.
Previously, Apple had knocked on the doors of Indian government several times, appealing to open their single-brand retail stores in the country. In the wake of recent tweaks made by the government in its regulations, foreign players with the state of the art technology will be exempted from the mandatory local sourcing norms in the single brand retail sector for up to three years. The policy is in the public domain for anyone to access. However, a call has been made to the company. Apple now has to inform us if they want to enter India under the new norms," a senior government official informed. As per the sources, Apple that is looking substantially to acquire a share of the smartphone segment does not have to submit a new application.
After the completion of the three-year exemption period, the foreign players will be given a five-year period to comply with the 30 percent mandatory domestic sourcing. This move from the government is potentially to create job opportunities and promote growth in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). After the completion of the five-year period, the foreign players will have to comply with the norm on an annual basis.
In the year 2012, the government had allowed 100 percent of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in single brand retail. In the year 2015-2016 the country grew from about 30 percent to 40 billion in FDI.
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BANGALORE: Who can ever forget Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi! It was the bomb in the mid 2000s. Daughters, mothers, sisters, and even fathers and brothers used to watch and cry like a baby with Tulsi Virani. 14 years later, Tulsi Virani a.k.a Smriti Irani gave a tough fight to INC president Rahul Gandhi in the general elections, and was rewarded for her efforts. On 26 May 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appointed her as the Minister of Human Resource Development in his cabinet. It has been two years since then, and madam Irani has made some good and many bad decisions. Though she wooed us all with her theatrics in Parliament! Favoritism towards Vishram Jamdar to appoint him as the Chairman of VNIT-Nagpur, misrepresenting her educational qualifications, and asking IITs to teach Sanskrit, were a few controversies that surrounded her! But were these the reason that she was sacked as the HRD minister?
Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, and Goa, these are the states where general elections would be held in 2017. Interestingly, a trio of a non-Yadav backward, a non-Jatav Dalit and a Brahmin minister has been hand-picked by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Uttar Pradesh. Along with Modi, UP now have 16 ministers in keeping with the 71 MPs that the BJP got from the state in the 2014 parliamentary polls. So this is a mere balancing act for poll-bound UP? The Smriti Irani exit elevates the question even further! From the day she has been HRD minister, she has been surrounded with nothing but controversy. The way she handled the Rohith Vemula, and Kanahaiya Kumar case made BJPs image deplete somewhat in the eyes of Indian youth. So, was the decision taken just to deny opposition to use it as a leverage in the elections to come? Or is there something big waiting for Smriti Irani? Rajdeep Sardesai tweeted @smritiirani vs Priyanka in UP would be great!! So will BJP cast her as the CM candidate in UP? Mere speculations, up till now! But who knows! The way 16 ministers has been kept with the 71 MPs that the BJP got from the state in the 2014 parliamentary polls, it can be said that everything that happened in the cabinet reshuffle does have a hidden motive! Only time will tell!
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The 2016 presidential race is so far down in the dumps that it counted as good news Tuesday when a leading candidate found out shes likely not going to get charged with a crime.
Hooray for Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, her leading opponent was still blaming the media (surprise!) for publicizing the blatant anti-Semitism behind a message he sent out on social media over the weekend.
Good job, Republican Donald Trump.
Finally, a former president looked like a politically blundering naif late last week when he abruptly met with the U.S. official ultimately in charge of an investigation into his wifes potentially criminal case.
Welcome back to the 24-hour news cycle, Democrat Bill Clinton.
America deserves better than these kinds of questionable behaviors by the two presumptive presidential nominees and a guy who once sat in the White House.
And yet, these events will change little in the 2016 race.
Hillary Clinton is guilty of questionable behavior and hiding the full truth from the American people during the federal governments investigation of her use of a personal email server to handle classified information. But she didnt do enough wrong to merit being charged with a crime, FBI Director James Comey said.
Thats the right call, and Clintons supporters will breathe a sigh of relief. However, Republicans and Trump will continue to seize on her bad judgment and the low level of trust many Americans have in Clinton.
But bad judgment could be Trumps middle name, based on the monthslong string of mean-spirited, often off-based attacks hes directed at his GOP opponents and, now, Hillary Clinton.
His use of a tweet that featured a six-pointed star on top of cash and the words most corrupt candidate ever about Clinton was essentially lifted from anti-Semitic sources.
Trump lamely claimed his message showed a sheriffs star. Oh, really? So he was implying that sheriffs are corrupt? Or maybe that sheriffs support Clinton? What utter nonsense for another guy mistrusted by many Americans.
Democrats will rightfully pound away on this embarrassing behavior by Trump, though this incident will not shake the faith of his true believers.
Finally, Bill Clinton briefly brought all sides together in condemning him for his short meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch at the Phoenix airport. Clintons actions were unseemly and stupid, given that Lynchs office oversees the FBI.
Voters still have to endure four more months of this dispiriting campaign before they select the next president. Maybe the last few days will represent the low point of this summer.
But probably not.
For two years in a row, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has made headlines for all the wrong reasons. After the debacle of putting forth only white nominees for Oscar consideration in the acting categories, prompting a brutal Twitter hashtag #OscarSoWhite, the academy has taken major steps to diversify its membership.
Last week, the academy announced that it had invited 683 new members to join the voting group that determines Oscar nominees. The racial and gender breakdown of the new members shows how serious it is about addressing its demographic imbalances 46 percent of them are women and 41 percent are people of color. Assuming everyone invited accepts the invitation, the percentage of female members will rise to 27 percent and minorities will rise to 11 percent. The goal of the academy is to double its percentage of diverse voters by 2020.
Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the first African-American president in the academys history, has made increasing diversity of members her associations top priority. Under her tenure, the academy has been more aggressive about inviting high-profile actors, directors and producers who were not members into the fold. ...
Hollywood players as acclaimed as actor Idris Elba, Eva Mendes, Michelle Rodriguez, Creed director Ryan Coogler and John Boyega and Oscar Isaac of Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be eligible to nominate and vote for next years slate.
For reasons that have to do with archaic rules about who gets to vote, the academy has been resistant to the social trends that make televisions Emmy Awards and Broadways Tony Awards far more diverse. Even with Isaacs aggressive outreach, there are systemic problems within the movie-making business itself that cant be addressed solely by who votes for the Oscars. If the studios dont hire talented actors and directors of all backgrounds to work, then academy members cant vote for them.
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The bill would require airlines to refund checked bag fees to passengers whose luggage is lost or is delayed 12 hours or more for domestic flights or 15 hours or more for overseas flights. It also requires airlines to generally ensure that children 13 years of age or under are seated adjacent to an adult or older child traveling with them.
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Chief Minister Andrew Barr and New Zealand Prime Minister John Key will lobby for travel between the two nations to be treated as a "domestic-like experience", a move that would greatly benefit Canberra tourists and public servants travelling to the capital across the ditch.
Mr Barr also discussed recent changes at Air New Zealand, which recently sold its majority stake in Virgin Australia, and whether they could help the airline establish routes to Canberra.
ACT Chief minister Andrew Barr and New Zealand Prime Minister John Key meet in Wellington.
The meeting with Mr Key, for whom Mr Barr has been mistaken in the past, took place in the prime minister's office at New Zealand's parliament in Wellington, lasting about 30 minutes.
Members of Canberra's Islamic community have broken their fast after the holy month of Ramadan.
After fasting from sunrise to sunset for 30 days, Canberrans celebrated Eid al-Fitr with prayer and a smorgasbord of delicious food on Wednesday.
A girl shows the henna pattern on a hand while celebrating Eid at the Ahmadiyya Muslim prayer centre in Fyshwick. Credit:Jay Cronan
At the Australian Ahmadiyya Muslim Association's new prayer centre in Fyshwick, Eid was a burst of colour and excitement.
Little girls wore intricately beaded saris and showed off their henna-patterned hands, while slabs of orange jalebi were laid out on the table.
Wellington is positioning itself as a new weekender destination for Canberra tourists ahead of direct three-hour flights between the two capitals in September.
The New Zealand capital is also planning to use the newfound interconnectedness to grow its international student population, and boost its tech and start-up sectors.
Canberra is Wellington's second biggest market, after New Zealand, in terms of short-haul flights.
Direct flights between Canberra, Wellington and Singapore, dubbed the "Capital Express" route, are set to start from September 21.
A return ticket is expected to cost from $469, and the route will vastly cut the flight time between the trans-Tasman capitals. The flight to Wellington will take roughly three hours and 15 minutes, and the return trip will take three hours and 45 minutes.
CBD has to admit, we have been selling digital media paparazzi app Newzulu short.
Don't worry about its financial troubles, the penny-dreadful share price, or the fact that its founder digital wunderkind Alex Hartman is now walking away from the business.
Newzulu has finally received the celebrity endorsement it needs to really take off thank you Pauline Hanson.
One Nation's comeback kid hailed Newzulu as the tool needed to defeat her foes in traditional media who use her as a "punching bag by encouraging news stories from so-called "citizen journalists".
Corporate tax cuts for medium and big business? Forget it. Reform of Medicare? Dream on. It looks like Malcolm Turnbull is about to celebrate the ultimate Clayton's political victory. He gets the title but Bill Shorten gets de facto control.
Election gurus are now feeling sufficiently safe to dip their toes into the certainty pool and predict Turnbull will take the prime minister mantle, but already he is making noises that those unpopular policies that lost him a healthy majority are in doubt.
He no longer has a mandate to touch Medicare, thus any reform is frozen.
And while the Coalition has not formally admitted it, the chances of getting a tax cut for business other than very small enterprises are next to zero.
Members of one of Melbourne's most volatile clubs, the Celtic Club, are poised to vote this Thursday on a deal to sell their Queen Street digs for $26.5 million.
The value of the Celtic Club's Queen Street premises, a 140-year-old three-storey hotel, has more than doubled since the last offer was received in 2013.
The Celtic Club on the corner of Queen and La Trobe streets in the CBD. Credit:Vince Caligiuri
That deal was abandoned amid great controversy and there is plenty raging this time too.
The club's rules require that 75 per cent of voters not 75 per cent of the 900-plus members must be in favour of the offer, which was negotiated by agents CBRE, if the deal is to proceed.
Industrial property is in the spotlight with Quatius Logistics signing a new lease over a substantial Frasers Property-owned office and warehouse complex at Eastern Creek in Sydney's west.
The lease comes amid market speculation that the US giant Blackstone has finalised a much-anticipated deal to acquire a $640 million portfolio of industrial properties from Goodman Group. No parties would comment.
Quatius Logistics has signed a new lease over a substantial office and warehouse complex at Eastern Creek.
The majority of the assets are in Victoria, with some in Queensland and South Australia.
JP Morgan also recently raised $250 million through the sale of asset to AMP Capital, while Altis Property sold warehouses to the Singaporean Mapletree investment fund for $85 million.
London: Marek Filipiak, a 32-year-old delivery manager at Royal Mail, moved to London from Poland 13 years ago to study and stayed on to take advantage of the UK's booming labor market. After the country's vote to leave the European Union, he's thinking about going back earlier than planned.
It's not just the uncertainty over the terms the UK might impose on EU workers that worries him, or even a spate of xenophobic incidents that followed the June 23 referendum. A more important factor: the 8.2 per cent drop in the British pound against the Polish zloty, which makes it harder for Filipiak to pay his mortgage on an apartment in Poland.
"It's a disaster," he said. "If the pound dramatically drops, I might consider going back home early and try my luck in Poland."
Against a backdrop of weak demand, the underwriters to Virgin Australia's $852 million raising may be forced to cover a large slice of the issue its shares were trading below its rights issue price as it kicked off the raising on Wednesday.
Virgin has also brought forward planned restructuring charges, which will now total as much as $450 million in fiscal 2016 alone, and the investor wariness was reflected in its shares closing at 20.5 on Wednesday, below the 21 issue price.
A struggling Virgin is yet to make inroads into Qantas' market dominance. Credit:Bloomberg
Virgin is seeking to raise the funds via an onerous one-for-one rights issue as it continues to cut costs to tide it through a difficult patch while it waits for its international arm as well as Tiger Air to turn profitable next year. In the June quarter, Virgin cut capacity by 5.1 per cent because of soft demand, which has prompted it to bring forward write-offs planned over the next three years.
In the past three years alone, Virgin has lost more than $500 million, hurt initially by the strong oil price, although a resurgent Qantas has ensured it hasn't reaped any uplift from the oil price decline. Most of the write-offs it is bringing forward are charges flagged last month for the three years to fiscal 2019.
TAFE NSW paid more than $90,000 for a consultant's report that promoted a private college network that was raided by the Australian Federal Police for alleged fraud.
Boston Consulting Group has repeatedly told Fairfax Media the report was completed in 2015, well before the police raids were conducted on Australian Careers Network on April 12 to 13 this year.
NSW Skills Minister John Barilaro has emphasised that TAFE commissioned the report. Credit:Louise Kennerley
But TAFE NSW has now confirmed the report was completed this year.
Documents obtained by Fairfax Media reveal the contract for the consultants' report was signed by TAFE on April 12 this year and by Boston Consulting Group the following day, on April 13.
Spare a thought for a young Asian Australian kid in Hurstville this week. Amid all of the federal election drama, Senator-elect Pauline Hanson has used her newly minted pedestal to announce to the country that her and her family are "swarming" the community and upsetting the "locals".
When Pauline Hanson was merely a contestant on Dancing With The Stars, her views carried the weight of an eccentric aunt at Christmas lunch. She made everyone uncomfortable, but was easily ignored.
Now she's back in the political arena, Hanson's hurtful missives must be met with a sustained challenge from across the political spectrum. Failing to expose her lies will mean that for some they become facts. We all have a responsibility to speak up.
The results are down to the wire. It is highly likely that we will, again, be left with a hung Parliament, and then a minority government.
I agree with Mark Kenny: a minority LNP government would need to move to the centre, policy wise, to govern effectively for the people of Australia ("Malcolm's only mandate is for the middle way", July 5). I'm afraid, however, that various factors make an adjustment of this kind impossible.
SMH LETTERS DINKUS
If the Liberal-National Party were to form a minority government, it would mean valuable governing time would be wasted on internal problems. The people of Australia would be at the mercy of a party torn apart by its differences, with a resentful (perhaps vengeful) ex-prime minister on the backbench (or in Cabinet).
We have been there before, and experience suggests it will not end well. It would also mean being governed by a party without clearly explained policies (a three-word slogan is not a policy).
Until 2003 we only had one, with New Zealand. We preferred to cut tariffs unilaterally and argue for global free trade rather than play favourites. In the 13 years since then we've added, or are adding, 13. Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison rebadging their agreements with Japan, Korea and China as "export agreements". Credit:Andrew Meares After the first new-style agreement with Singapore in 2003 our exports climbed much as before while imports (goods and services) surged. After the 2005 free trade agreement with the United States, both imports and exports continued on the trend lines set previously with imports climbing faster than exports, as they did for Chile and Malaysia and as they will for China, Japan and Korea. Which isn't to say imports aren't welcome. Increased imports lift our standard of living. And while they can lead to the closure of old Australian industries, such as the car industry, they can boost new ones by ensuring the supply of cheap inputs. Senator Nick Xenophon.
But that isn't an argument for our never-ending pipeline of trade deals. We could get the same cheap imports more quickly by cutting all of our tariffs to zero. Seriously. We could do away with much of our mammoth self-perpetuating trade negotiating bureaucracy and trade more simply. The Treasurer himself provided an unintentional window into how complex these trade agreements have become when during the campaign he lauded "export trade deals that generate some 19,000 new export opportunities". In every case for which we have clear evidence, our trade agreements seem to have boosted imports more than exports. What were these 19,000 new export opportunities, I asked one of his staff. The number refers to the count of specific line items in the China, Korea and Japan free trade agreements. That's how complicated they've made trade. A huge chunk of the traders surveyed by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry don't use them.
"In my experience, they have been a waste of time, particularly Thailand. The paperwork to qualify was so onerous it wasn't worth the effort," says one member. "I know we have one with the US and I know there is one now with Japan and Korea. Is that correct?" says another. Using the agreements costs more than time. In order to get low-tariff entry into a market such as the United States, an Australian company has to comply with "rules of origin", which means it needs to ensure that no more than a certain percentage of its inputs is sourced from countries outside of Australia and the United States, sending up costs. In 2010 the Productivity Commission found these extra costs amounted to as much as 8 per cent per shipment. Where exporters attempt to apply with the rules, they shrink trade. One of the few studies of the impact of the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement found it shrank both nations trade with the rest of the world. That agreement had 980 rules of origin. One of our latest, with Korea, has 5205. The Trans-Pacific Partnership has even more. And because the agreements are not always consistent with each other, the "noodle bowl" of overlapping requirements makes attempting to trade using the new agreements harder still.
It seems to be a post-election taboo to answer the question, "who did you vote for", let alone to ask the question in the first place. So for what its worth here's my answer. As a lefty (Vote Compass confirms my coordinates somewhere right of the Greens and left of Labor) my first preference for the House of Representatives in the federal electorate of Higgins went to the Greens. This was largely due to Higgins being touted, pre-polling, as a potential upset for the Liberals. It turned out to be a safe seat. I've had time to reflect on this and I regret my vote. Not the sentiment driving my decisions, but the potential ramifications. Firstly, my disinterest in the election was largely caused by my lack of buy-in to the central issues. Not to mention the seemingly dull similarity between the two major parties and their leading, white, male and frankly downright sensible leaders: Turnbull and Shorten. Brexit and Trump were simply more interesting. But I feel I've let our system down. I care about politics in this country, and I didn't pay attention. The first murmurs of this future regret came on the eve of the election when The Age publicly backed the Coalition.
Australian Greens Leader Senator Di Natale with the Greens Candidate for Higgins, Jason Ball. Credit:Daniel Pockett They reasoned that the Shorten campaign, strong as it had become, did not merit the unseating of a first-term government. Most importantly, we needed more time to see if Malcolm Turnbull could deliver on his progressive promise. He needed the majority support of the electorate to do it in order, to unshackle him from a divided party. I read The Age's editorial not so much as a vote for the future of the nation but for the future of the Liberal Party. We often accuse the media and government of pandering to short-term news and electoral cycles and I feel the electorate has become the guilty party. We've cut off our noses to spite our faces. By undermining the Turnbull government we've provided ammunition for the right wing to claim vindication. They can now argue that it was wrong to depose Abbott in the first place and that Turnbull, after all, was just an ambitious, populist usurper. Abbott was right all along! I can just hear the rattle of the revisionist typewriters going to work. Turnbull didn't need to transform the nation, he needed to do something more vital; save the Liberal Party from its own heavy-fisted fringe. To deny the party the chance to rediscover and reinstate its own conservative brand of progressive government in this moment is to hand it back to the re-enfranchised far right, and in so doing we may just witness an even uglier government emerging from the ashes. By failing to shore up a Liberal victory, we've killed the one chance the party had to explore its less polarising, more progressive side while simultaneously demonstrating that conservative politics can be a great and worthwhile force. I contributed to that stuff-up. Sorry, Australia, I was sleepwalking with the Brexiters. Cue Abbott's return and an even uglier future government to come.
These stars, Adrien Brody and Salma Hayek, play Isaac and Farnez Amin, a wealthy Jewish couple from Tehran. Though seemingly apolitical, they're identified as potential enemies of the state: Isaac is arrested, leading to repetitive scenes where he's tortured, while Farnez and their children wait desperately for his release.
As I write, cinephiles around the world are mourning the death of the great Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami , few of whose films were ever released in Australia. Under such circumstances, it's harder than ever to have much tolerance for the woefully titled Septembers of Shiraz, a wildly inauthentic American melodrama about the 1979 Iranian revolution, shot in Bulgaria by the Australian director Wayne Blair (The Sapphires) with Hollywood stars in the lead roles.
Politically speaking, Blair and screenwriter Hanna Weg (adapting a novel by Dalia Sofer) have to walk a tricky line. They're understandably negative about the revolution, which led directly to Iran's current hardline Islamic regime yet they acknowledge that the previous rule of the shah left much to be desired as well.
Brody (Isaac) is arrested and tortured.
This leaves the film with no real dramatic centre: Isaac and Farnez are portrayed as complacent yet innocent, caught up in these events as they might be in a natural disaster.
The most interesting character is the Amins' maid Habibeh, forcefully played by Shohreh Aghdashloo, a veteran Iranian actress who worked with Kiarostami before relocating to America. Torn between her residual loyalty to her employers and the revolutionary fervour of her son (Navid Navid), Habibeh has a genuine conflict to face. But this is inevitably sidelined in favour of conventional suspense sequences as the Amins try to make their escape.
American actor Matt LeBlanc is firming as the most likely candidate to lead the next season of the BBC's embattled motoring series Top Gear.
Production is expected to resume on the new season of the show in September, so internal pressure is mounting within the BBC for a firm plan to take the show forward.
LeBlanc, along with British radio host Chris Evans, was among a group of six new hosts who fronted the rebooted series, which was launched by the BBC in May.
In an internal review, the national broadcaster found that an episode called Wi-Fried an investigation into the health risks of mobile devices breached its own editorial standards. The ABC will now apologise to viewers and suspend reporter Maryanne Demasi from on-air assignments. Already, it has pulled the episode from its website and iView platforms. It will also review the entire direction and strategy of the show. It's not the first time Maryanne Demasi has breached ABC editorial policies, after her 2013 report on cholesterol medications, known as statins, had to be pulled. Credit:Screenshot This comes after another report by Demasi about medications known as statins was found to have violated editorial standards, and was yanked from ABC's online platforms. Meanwhile, a report about anti-depressants by Demasi never made it to air: it was canned after concerns were raised inside the ABC, according to Media Watch. To be clear, the problem is not in investigating statins, anti-depressants or mobile radiation. The problem is in including quotes like this, from Frank Clegg, a safe technology advocate and former president of Microsoft in Canada. What's going on here? Catalyst presents a graph without labelling its X or Y axes. Credit:Screenshot
"My industry is on a campaign to bury the science and to confuse the message," Clegg claims, likening this to the way cigarette companies once operated. "I believe my industry is using that same model, in obfuscating the science, hiring scientists to cast doubt on the science, confusing government, and causing government to be constipated and not passing the legislation they need to pass." Dr Devra Davis with Catalyst reporter Maryanne Demasi in the episode Wi-Fried, since removed from online platforms by the ABC. Credit:Screenshot This is explosive stuff. A former Microsoft bigwig, blowing the whistle! But where's his proof? If Clegg supplied smoking gun documents, I didn't see them on Catalyst. You can't just "believe" such things on national television without solid evidence. What we did get is Clegg's claim that "China, Italy, Switzerland and Russia have [mobile radiation] standards that are 100 times safer than Canada's standards and that's the same as Australia's standards."
A graph appeared, with its X axis and Y axis unlabelled. What was this meant to illustrate, precisely? Unfortunately, this vague approach typifies the entire episode. Six people were interviewed, telling us that radiation from mobile phones and wi-fi devices may be dangerous. Only one Dr Ken Karipidis from ARPANSA, Australia's radiation protection agency articulated the weight of scientific research: the evidence suggests there is little risk. He explained as much to Demasi, who responded with this dumb query: "So ARPANSA's not actually saying that these devices are safe?" This is an unfair question. If Demasi doesn't know that, she should.
Unless you strap human subjects to a chair and blast them with potentially carcinogenic levels of radiation (something an ethics committee might frown upon), you can't give a definitive answer. "We can only provide advice on the assessment of evidence," Karipidis rightly responded. "We do not provide guarantees of safety. I don't think a scientist can do that." Cut to Clegg what are this guy's qualifications, by the way? who says: "My concern is nobody can say that it's safe. All [that] my industry, and all government agencies say is, 'There is no proof of harm.' And to my mind, that's not the same as saying it's safe." No, it's not. But it is needless fearmongering. I can find you some highly-credentialled people or self-appointed lobby group heads who claim that vaccines create autism, humans don't cause climate change, or that non-organic berries make you ill.
But why would I? The point isn't just to "present a different view" or "challenge the science" for the sake of it. Often, it's not even enough to "present both sides". This is how fringe climate denialists end up hogging half a newspaper article when the CSIRO publishes concerning new research about global warming. It's a journalist's lazy attempt to look "balanced". If mobile devices are as potentially dangerous as Demasi's subjects suggest, the program failed to prosecute its case. What we got were unsubstantiated assertions of corporate conspiracy. Unchallenged and since disputed claims it is too early for the effects of mobile radiation to appear in the general population. Many of the allegations of radiation risk were not put to Karipidis, at least not on camera. Nor to any other scientist representing the mainstream view these devices are generally safe. Why not?
The Liberals look like they could heave over the finish line and secure the 76 seats they need to govern in majority. Antony Green has ruled out Labor governing in its own right and says while it's possible the Coalition will form majority, a hung parliament is still most likely. [ Antony Green/ABC ] Turnbull is flying to Queensland to meet potential kingmaker Bob Katter. [ ABC]
Labor has lost the Victorian seat of Chisholm, which former Speaker Anna Burke held. Something to keep in mind. There's been a lot of praise for Labor's stunning success and excellent campaign, and rightly so, but there will be questions over the CFA debacle and how much of a drag it proved to be on Labor's vote in Victoria.
The Liberals have also held onto Bruce Bilson's seat of Dunkley which has been threatening to go Labor for several elections, and the Queensland seat of Flynn has also moved from a Labor gain to Coalition hold. [ABC]
2. Recriminations and fallout...
Liberal Senator for the ACT, Zed Seselja and Minister for Health, Sussan Ley. Photo Jay Cronan Credit:Jay Cronan
Sussan Ley could be moved aside from the Health Portfolio for failing to counter Labor's Mediscare campaign and conservatives Zed Seselja and Michael Sukkar promoted. [Phil Coorey/AFR] Turnbull needs to find a "first-rate Health Minister" (ie. not Ley) and fast." [Michelle Grattan/The Conversation]
As valuations flounder for Silicon Valley startups once worth billions of dollars, investor interest is on the rise for startups with both financial and social benefits, such as healthcare software for poor communities or low cost solar panels for homes.
So-called "impact investing" rose to $15.2 billion globally last year from $14.3 billion in 2014, according to a recent report by the Global Impact Investing Network. The figure includes several types of investment, from funds to foundations, which intend to generate social and financial returns.
Millions of people lack access to safe water. They are seen as the next boom market for smartphones. Credit:Edwina Pickles
The group expects a 16 per cent rise in 2016. The change reflects investor concern with current valuations of more mainstream technology startups, a desire to help by some investors and a broadening definition of "social-good". There is also growing sentiment that the rise of mobile technology will allow for profitable startups in parts of the world relatively untouched by Silicon Valley.
Earlier this year Union Square Ventures Partner Fred Wilson called the developing world "the next whitespace" for venture capital, pointing to 2.5 billion people poised to adopt smartphones.
Obese preschoolers are two to three times more likely to end up sick and in hospital than other children their age, a new Australian study says.
Obese children also accounted for health costs that were 60 per cent higher than other children their age, said the study, which was published in the journal Obesity on Wednesday.
Preschoolers who are obese are two to three times more likely to end up in hospital than children who are a healthy weight or overweight, a study by Sydney University has found. Credit:iStock
About one-quarter of Australian children aged two to five are overweight and one in 20 is obese.
The study, by the University of Sydney's School of Public Health, is the first to show the higher direct healthcare costs of obesity in preschool-aged children compared with those of healthy weight.
A man will face court charged with murder after another man was stabbed to death outside a home in Sydney's west at the weekend.
Emergency services were called to Meadow Road in Schofields at 11.30pm on Saturday, where they found a 48-year-old with "a number" of stab wounds, police said.
He was rushed to Westmead Hospital in a critical condition, but died shortly afterwards.
Local police and officers from the Homicide Squad began to investigate the man's death, forming Strike Force Woodbell.
The head of the largest Muslim association in the country has given a blistering speech to his community, attacking both sides of politics and the media for fostering the rise of far-right groups and Islamophobia in the recent election.
In front of politicians, police commanders and thousands of Muslims, Samier Dandan, head of the Lebanese Muslim Association, gave a 10-minute speech outside Lakemba Mosque in Sydney on Wednesday morning during celebrations to mark the end of Ramadan.
He attacked the rise of Islamophobic discourse in public and "a number of divisive and toxic policies" for exacerbating negativity towards Australian Muslims .
A combination of trams running on Sydney's new $2.1 billion light rail line and buses will boost public transport capacity from the eastern suburbs of Randwick and Kensington by up to 30 per cent during morning peak hours, the state government says.
The number of passengers the government expects the 12-kilometre line to carry once it opens in 2019 has come under attack from opponents of the project. They argue the removal of buses from existing routes will lead to a significant fall in public transport capacity to Sydney's south east.
However, Transport for NSW forecasts the combined tram and bus network will boost city-bound capacity by more than 10 per cent from Kensington, and 30 per cent from Randwick, during the morning travel peak.
It also predicts a doubling in morning capacity in the other direction from the CBD to the University of NSW and hospitals in Randwick.
High-rise towers built near new train stations in Sydney's inner suburbs as part of the $20 billion-plus metro train line could pose a risk to the safety of planes flying low overhead, Sydney Airport has warned.
The advice is outlined in one of dozens of submissions made public in response to the environmental impact statement for the second stage of the new metro line from Chatswood to Sydenham via Sydney's CBD.
With construction due to intensify late next year, the City of Sydney has urged the government to build another station on the line between Waterloo and Sydenham in order to service fast-growing populations at Erskineville and St Peters.
The council is pushing for the additional station to be built under Mitchell Road or McEvoy Street in the city's inner south. It has warned that the level of demand for rail services will only increase due to residential developments in the area.
Dogs could be banned from some south-east Queensland suburbs in a bid to protect at-risk koalas.
A brains-trust of koala experts - University of Queensland's Associate Professor Jonathan Rhodes, Central Queensland's Dr Alistair Melzer and Dreamworld's Al Mucci - comprise a panel to advise on last-ditch efforts to stop koala extinction in Redlands, Pine Rivers and other areas, following a directive from Environment Minister Steven Miles on Monday.
Dogs could be banned from some south-east Queensland suburbs in a bid to protect at-risk koalas.
Panel chairman Associate Professor Rhodes said it was clear policies to "protect habitat" by themselves simply did not work.
"There could be things like that, or it could be active management of the threat from the dogs, if they are domestic dogs or wild dogs. And the threats and their responses to those threats are quite different," he said.
The two men voluntarily climbed down a ladder set up by prison officers about 9.30am.
The men, carrying a bed-sheet sign saying "Suboxone program" were reportedly asking to speak to the well-known journalist after being on the roof for about 24 hours.
TV presenter Tracy Grimshaw has dashed the hopes of two prisoners who had climbed on the roof of a Queensland jail calling for the introduction of a drug addiction program.
Ms Grimshaw said she'd had no contact from any of the authorities involved and would not have spoken to the pair regardless.
"I would say that these guys have got on a roof and they want to make some noise and they pulled my name out of a hat because they figure it will help them make some noise," she told The Today Show.
"I have been a journalist for a long, long time and I have covered these sorts of stories and the last thing negotiators give people who climb on roofs and demand things is what they're demanding."
A Queensland Corrective Services spokesperson said there was no threat to the safety of staff or prisoners and the two prisoners had remained peaceful.
The incident will be referred to the Corrective Services Investigation Unit.
A Melbourne mother who allegedly murdered three of her children by driving into a lake is expected to make a bid for bail.
Akon Guode is charged with murdering her one-year-old son Bol and twins Hanger and her brother Madit, four, who drowned when her car crashed into Lake Gladman on April 8 last year.
The 37-year-old is also charged with attempting to murder her six-year-old daughter Alual, who survived after being pulled from the water in Wyndham Vale.
Ms Guode's pre-trial hearing was adjourned on Wednesday, because a witness is overseas.
Police allege the boy and his friends chased four victims in Newport in the early hours of Sunday morning (from Mason Street into Laurie Street) before assaulting them and stealing their phones and wallets.
He will front the children's court charged with the theft of a motor car, three counts of armed robbery, one count of attempted armed robbery and intentionally causing serious injury.
A 17 year-old boy from West Melbourne has been charged with a weekend rampage through Melbourne's western suburbs.
One of the victims, a 19-year-old from Williamstown, was taken to hospital suffering significant injuries that required surgery.
A few hours later at 4.45am, police were called to Williamstown Road and Somerville Road in Yarraville, where it is believed the same group of offenders tried unsuccessfully to smash their way into a convenience store.
By 4.55am they had made their way to a service station and allegedly threatened the attendant, stealing cash and cigarettes.
But it all came to an end on Tuesday when police nabbed a gang of five, three males and two females, at a Reservoir petrol station in an allegedly stolen Nissan skyline.They were all released and are expected to be charged on summons with the theft of a motor car.
The 17-year-old boy (who is alleged to be part of the group) was arrested the same day after the execution of four warrants, three in Reservoir and one in West Melbourne.
Charges against a Mandurah teacher accused of child sex offences have been dropped in Perth Magistrates Court.
The woman, who cannot be named, faced court on Wednesday.
The woman leaving an earlier court appearance. Credit:Richard Polden
She had been charged with six counts of sexual penetration of a child over 16 under her authority and four counts of indecently dealing with a child over 16 under her authority.
It is understood the teacher resigned from a private school in Mandurah after allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a student.
One of Perth's most prominent addresses in Perth's CBD has been sold for $87 million to Chinese investors.
The Australian Financial Review said the building on 167 St George's Terrace was sold by the WA Insurance Commission to Zone Q Investments as part of a large portfolio divestment.
The Insurance Westralia Plaza on 167 St George's Terrace in the heart of Perth's business district. Credit:Daniel Carson
Zone Q is behind a range of residential development projects in Perth, including its Pinnacle project in South Perth opposite Perth zoo.
More recently, Zone Q has embarked on a second apartment project on the corner of Aberdeen and Beaufort streets in Northbridge.
The global mood increasingly feels like one of atavism, of retreat into narrower identities of nation, politics or sect, with Britain voting to leave the European Union and many Americans supporting the nativist presidential campaign of Donald Trump. People gather for a memorial ceremony at the Ataturk Airport attack victims in Istanbul. Credit:AP The violence feeds a growing impulse among many in the West to fear Muslims and Arabs, which has already prompted a political crisis over immigration that, in turn, has buttressed extremists' goals. Europe is convulsing over a movement to reject refugees from Syria and Iraq, who are themselves fleeing violence by jihadis and their own governments. It is in Syria and Iraq that the Islamic State has established its so-called caliphate, ruling overwhelmingly Muslim populations with the threat of gruesome violence. The group has killed Muslims in those countries by the thousands, by far the largest share of its victims. People gather to pray at the scene of a massive truck bomb attack in Karada neighbourhood, Baghdad, Iraq. Credit:AP
When Islamic State militants mowed down cafe-goers in Paris in November, people across the world adorned public landmarks and their private Facebook pages with the French flag ??? not just in Europe and the United States, but also, with an empathy born of experience, in Syria and Iraq. But over the past week, Facebook activated its Safety Check feature, which allows people in the vicinity of a disaster to mark themselves safe, only after the attack on the Istanbul airport. Bangladeshis light candles as they pay tribute to those killed in the attack at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka. Credit:AP The flags of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Bangladesh have not been widely projected on landmarks or adopted as profile pictures. (Photographs on social media showed that in Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of Europe's two majority-Muslim countries, the Turkish flag was beamed onto a bridge in Mostar, the scene of sectarian killings in the 1990s.) Some wonder if part of the reason is that three of those flags bear Islamic symbols or slogans. "More deaths in Iraq in the last week than Paris and Orlando combined but nobody is changing their profile pics, building colours, etc.," Kareem Rahaman wrote on Twitter.
Iraqis mourn for their dead and prepare for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr under the pall of one the worst bombings in 13 years of war. Credit:AP There are some understandable reasons for the differing reactions. People typically identify more closely with places and cultures that are familiar to them. With Iraq, there is also a degree of fatigue, and a feeling that a bombing there is less surprising than one in Europe. Deadly attacks have been a constant in Iraq after years of US occupation, followed by a sectarian war in which Sunni and Shiite militias slaughtered civilians of the opposite sect. Still, while terrorist attacks in Europe may feel more surprising to the West - though they have become all too common there, too - that does not explain the relative indifference to attacks in Istanbul, Saudi Arabia or Bangladesh. People light candles at the scene of the massive car bomb attack in Iraq. Credit:AP "That's what happens in Iraq," Sajad Jiyad, a researcher in Iraq who rushed to the scene of the Baghdad bombing and found that one of his friends had died there, wrote on his own blog. "Deaths become just statistics, and the frequency of attacks means the shock doesn't register as it would elsewhere, or that you have enough time to feel sad or grieve."
In the Muslim world, the partly sectarian nature of conflicts shades people's reactions, producing a kind of internal sympathy gap. People from one sect or political group often discount or excuse casualties from another. In Iraq, the Islamic State took root within an insurgency against the country's Shiite-led government, and Shiite militias fighting it have been accused of brutality as well. In Syria, it is just one menace; many more Syrians have been killed by the government's attacks on areas held by Sunni insurgents, including rebel groups opposed to the Islamic State. Jiyad added that the Islamic State was "hoping to incite a reaction and a spiral into endless violence," and that Iraqis played into that when they mourned more for their own sect than for others. In the West, though, there is a tendency in certain quarters, legitimised by some politicians, to conflate extremist Islamist militants with the Muslim societies that are often their primary victims, or to dismiss Muslim countries as inherently violent. "Either Iraqi blood is too cheap or murder is normalised," Sayed Saleh Qazwini, an Islamic educator in Michigan, wrote on Twitter.
In Paris, a rainbow flag hangs on the Hotel de Ville, memorialising the 49 people gunned down at a gay nightclub in Orlando last month. But in a corner shop on Monday, the woman who served me had no such sympathy for the Middle East. When she asked where I lived, and I told her Beirut, she exclaimed about the violence in the region. Unable to quickly explain that there is a lot more than just violence happening there, I said, "Yes, there are a lot of problems; what can one do?" "Exterminer les islamistes," she said grimly. Exterminate: a strong word. Islamists: a broad category of people. Kilo, who spent years in the prisons of the Syrian government and opposes both it and the Islamic State, said his life in Paris had changed since November. Speaking Arabic is now suspect. He sees fear in French people's eyes when they see Syrians. "I'm afraid, too," he said. "Someone could blow himself up anytime."
28 July, 2002 Blair writes to Bush assuring he would be with him "whatever", but said UN authority would be needed for a military coalition, as well as a shift in global public opinion
April 2002 Blair meets Bush in Texas, proposing UN ultimatum for Iraq to readmit weapons inspectors
Early 2002 UK's Joint Intelligence Committee concludes Saddam Hussein could not be removed without an invasion
September 2001 British Prime Minister Tony Blair urges US President George Bush not to take hasty action on Iraq
Tony Blair and George Bush in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington in 2006. Credit:AP
24 September, 2002 Blair details the threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to the House of Commons, using evidence from what would become known as the "dodgy dossier" on WMDs
8 November, 2002 UN Security Council adopts Resolution 1441 giving Iraq a final opportunity to disarm or face "serious consequences"
November 2002 Weapons inspectors return to Iraq
December 2002 Bush decides inspections will not achieve the desired result, and there would be military action
"The tactics chosen by Mr Blair were to emphasise the threat which Iraq might pose, rather than a more balanced consideration of both Iraq's capabilities and intent; and to offer the UK's support for President Bush in an effort to influence his decisions on how to proceed. Sir John Chilcot presents his report at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London. Credit:AP "Mr Blair, who recognised the significance of the post-conflict stage, did not press president Bush for definite assurances about US plans, did not consider or seek advice on whether the absence of a satisfactory plan called for reassessment of the terms of the UK's engagement and did not make agreement on such a plan a condition of UK participation in military action." Blair responded that he had taken the decision to go to war "in good faith", that he still believed it was better to remove Saddam, and that he did not see that action as the cause of terrorism today, in the Middle East or elsewhere. Rose Gentle's son Fusilier Gordon Gentle was killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb in 2004. Credit:AP
"The intelligence assessments made at the time of going to war turned out to be wrong. The aftermath turned out to be more hostile, protracted and bloody than ever we imagined," the former prime minister, looking gaunt and strained, told reporters. "For all of this, I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you will ever know." Protesters hold a banner outside the London home of Tony Blair. Credit:AP In 2009 Sir John was commissioned by then-prime minister Gordon Brown to investigate whether it was right and necessary to invade Iraq in March 2003. At the time it was estimated the enquiry would take a year. The final report runs to 12 thick volumes and contains 2.6 million words. Even the "executive summary" is 145 pages long.
Royal Irish Rangers move towards Iraq in the Kuwaiti desert. Credit:AP The enquiry heard from more than 100 witnesses including Mr Blair twice and it researched declassified Cabinet papers, intelligence assessments of Iraq's weapons capability and private correspondence between Mr Blair and Mr Bush. All those criticised in its findings were given an opportunity to respond before the report was finished. A British trooper falls after being hit by a rock in Basra in 2006. Credit:AP "The UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted," Sir John said after the report's publication on Wednesday. "Military action at that time was not a last resort."
His enquiry looked into the UK intelligence about Iraq's WMDs (weapons of mass destruction), which had been presented in a government report that was later dubbed the "dodgy dossier". The long-awaited Chilcot report. Credit:Getty Images The report concluded there was no evidence that intelligence was improperly included in the dossier or that No 10 improperly influenced the text. However Sir John said: "the judgments about the severity of the threat posed by Iraq's WMDs were presented with a certainty that was not justified." Former British prime minister Tony Blair in London on July 5, 2016. Credit:Getty Images
It was reasonable for the government to be concerned about the fusion of proliferation and terrorism but there was no basis in the Joint Intelligence Committee assessments to suggest that Iraq itself represented such a threat, the report said. "At no stage was the proposition that Iraq might no longer have chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or programs identified and examined. A declassified handwritten letter sent by Tony Blair to George W. Bush. Credit:Getty Images "Intelligence and assessments were used to prepare material to be used to support government statements in a way which conveyed certainty without acknowledging the limitations of the intelligence. "At the time of the parliamentary vote of 18 March 2003, diplomatic options had not been exhausted. The point had not been reached where military action was the last resort."
The report found: "the widespread perception that the September 2002 dossier overstated the firmness of the evidence about Iraq's capabilities and intentions in order to influence opinion and 'make the case' for action to disarm Iraq has produced a damaging legacy, including undermining trust and confidence in government statements, particularly those which rely on intelligence which cannot be independently verified". Sir John singled out for criticism Mr Blair's statement to parliament on 24 September 2002, in which he presented "evidence" of the threat from Iraq's WMDs, and another in March 2003 in which he said terrorists with WMDs and the threat from Saddam Hussein's arsenal posed a real and present danger to British citizens. Sir John said the government's policy on Iraq "was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged and they should have been". Britain had accepted a US-set timetable for military action despite failing to secure a resolution from the UN Security Council that Iraq had failed to comply with weapons inspection obligations, Sir John said. "Without evidence of major new Iraqi violations or reports from the inspectors that Iraq was failing to co-operate most members of the Security Council could not be convinced that peaceful options to disarm Iraq had been exhausted and that military action was therefore justified.
"In the absence of a majority in support of military action, we consider that the UK was, in fact, undermining the Security Council's authority." Sir John said there had been no substantive discussion of the military options until the eve of war. The UK's relationship with the US was a determining factor in the government's decisions over Iraq, the report said. "The US administration committed itself to a timetable for military action which did not align with, and eventually overrode, the timetable and processes for (weapons) inspections in Iraq on these and other important points, including the planning for the post-conflict period the UK government decided that it was right or necessary to defer to its close ally and senior partner. "However a decision not to oppose does not have to be translated into unqualified support. Had the UK stood by its differing position on Iraq the Inquiry does not consider this would have led to a fundamental or lasting change in the UK's relationship with the US.
"This is a matter of judgement and one on which Mr Blair, bearing the responsibility of leadership, took a different view." Sir John did not say whether the invasion was legal, saying that question could "be resolved by an internationally recognised court". Mr Blair had claimed Iraq had breached its international obligations but "the precise basis on which Mr Blair made that decision is not clear", Sir John said. Blair said the report should exonerate him from accusations of lying, which have been made by relatives of some of the 179 British soldiers who died in the conflict. "The report should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit," he said in a statement.
POINTE BLANCHE:--- Representatives from Port St. Maarten attended recently the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA) PAMAC meeting in New Orleans, which was a success for the destination.
More than 150 attendees, including FCCA Platinum Members-key cruise tourism stakeholders-and over 30 high-ranking executives from the FCCAs 19 Member Lines, gathered in New Orleans for the FCCA Platinum Associate Membership Advisory Council (PAMAC) Conference.
The three-day event that took place from June 22-24 featured a series of meetings, workshops and networking events to discuss industry trends and standards and develop relationships and mutual benefits for the cruise lines and members' companies and destinations.
Port St. Maarten was represented by Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mark Mingo and Government Relations Liaison Bertrand Peters.
Attendance of PAMAC allowed us to inform and update the FCCA and Cruise Executives about current developments in Sint Maarten especially after the FCCA visit to the country back in May where they met with the parliamentary permanent committee for Tourism and Economic Affairs and with representatives of the then soon to be established St. Maarten Economic Cruise Association (SECA).
I was able to say that SECA is now a legal entity which already has hit the ground running when it had its first official board meeting onboard the Oasis of the Seas on June 14 to discuss the challenges facing the cruise sector and to set up a plan of action to address them. A day earlier, the notarial deed was signed at Faride Eloisa Elixie Tjon Civil Law Notary. The FCCA and Cruise Executives were very pleased to hear about this and commended Port St. Maarten for its continued pro-activeness and seriousness when it comes to the countrys cruise sector.
We had discussions with the cruise industrys most influential decision makers. We want to foster mutual growth and that is the main goal of the FCCA as was pointed out by its President Michele Paige. It was an opportunity to network and better understand each other especially when we look at the different developments. The cruise industry is never stagnant. Its innovative, and we have to be there to grow and improve, CEO Mark Mingo said.
Cruise executives gave some presentations of their own to promote mutual benefits with the Platinum Members. Andy Stuart, president and Chief Operations Officer, Norwegian Cruise Line, discussed cruise line destination development; Christine Duffy, president, Carnival Cruise Line, presented 'Carnival and New Orleans: Beyond Business'; and Giora Israel, SVP, Global Port & Destination Development Group, Carnival Corp. & plc, spoke on the opportunities and challenges connected to Cuba's opening.
The PAMAC event is one of many that the FCCA coordinates for its Platinum Members and Member Lines to stay at the forefront of information about both the industry and destinations while finding ways to maximize the benefits for all.
The FCCA is a not-for-profit trade organization composed of 19 Member Lines operating over 100 vessels in Floridian, Caribbean and Latin American waters. Created in 1972, the FCCAs mandate is to provide a forum for discussion on tourism development, ports, safety, security, and other cruise industry issue and to develop bilateral relationships with destinations private and public sectors.
By fostering an understanding of the cruise industry and its operating practices, the FCCA works with governments, ports and private sector representatives to maximize cruise passenger, crew and cruise line spending, as well as enhance the destination experience and increase the amount of cruise passengers returning as stay-over visitors.
PHILIPSBURG:--- Prime Minister William Marlin made clear on Wednesday during the Council of Ministers press briefing that his government does not have any plans to postpone the September 26th parliamentary elections, even though the Kingdom Council and the Council of Advice on St. Maarten did not support the changes made in the Electoral Reform. He said both councils felt that the changes will affect the free mandate given to Members of Parliament.
Marlin said its a pity that both advisory bodies both locally and the Netherlands are holding on to principles at the founding of the Kingdom. Marlin said even though St. Maarten is part of the Kingdom its been over 60 years since the former Netherlands Antilles and now countries within the Kingdom have their own parliamentary democracy. He said that it is not normal that the Kingdom would say that there are four countries within the Kingdom but when convenient to them there is equality and when it is not convenient they would say that these are separate countries.
Marlin said even Saba, Statia and Bonaire are now fighting for equality. He said there is need to solve this particular problem which is applicable to St. Maarten because one can hold an election today and by the following day a person that was elected on the slate of any political party could jump ship and form government with other political parties.
Marlin said in response to the advices he received from both councils he drafted a proposal to amend article 33 of the countrys constitution which would state that the Prime Minister needs to have support from one or more political parties to form a government. However, Marlin said that while the amendment is ready the Parliament of St. Maarten is currently on recess and this matter could only be handled in August when Parliament resumes, he said that the only thing they are striving to do is to regulate something that have been plaguing the island that existed for years.
He gave an example that when there is a formation of any government, the Governor who represents the King does not meet with all members of parliament, instead he meets with the leaders of the political parties and after that a formateur is appointed who in turn selects the Ministers based on the political accord signed by the various political parties that forms the government. He made clear the only that is done by the governor is the oath taking ceremony that is done by the Governor on behalf of the King.
Government Building not yet completed --- Marlin deadline through the door.
Prime Minister William Marlin announced on Wednesday that his deadline he placed on the completion of the government administration building on Pond Island has now passed and the building is yet to be completed. The Prime Minister said that technically Ministers could move in the building but it is not fully completed. However, the contractors are working rigorously towards the completion of the building which would be before the end of the year. He said the building already has water and electricity, air-conditioning and the elevators are in working condition. He said they have waited for 8 years and to move into an incomplete building does not make much sense.
He said they recently signed a contract with TELEM for fiber optic cabling and they are also signing another contract with another company (UTS) for a back-up system.
Marlin said that tiles had to be ordered for the walkway which would should arrive on island sometime this week. He said the parking garage is not yet in place but there is parking in front of the building. He said the entire cabling had to be redone because both electrical and data cabling were placed in the same track and since all of this was done over 8 years ago some of it deteriorated.
Roadside contracts yet to be signed.
The Prime Minister also announced that some 37 persons submitted bids for the cleaning of the roadsides and trenches but of that amount 12 of them did not meet the requirements, therefore they were disqualified.
He said the evaluation committee and the Secretary General of VROMI are busy working on an advice which has to pass through the Council of Ministers before the contracts could be signed off. Marlin called on the people to be a little bit more patient because those contracts will soon be awarded and the persons that got the contracts will not need heavy equipment to begin working.
The Prime Minister said the intention to separate the roadside cleaning contracts from the garbage collection contracts was to create more jobs and give business people from each district the opportunity to work in their own community.
For the first time, the United States has sanctioned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for human rights abuses. among 23 individuals and entities cited for their role in serious human rights violations, hunting down defectors or censorship in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
The United States sanctioned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un today for human rights abuses "without parallel in the Modern world."
The Treasury Dept. added Kim and 10 other North Korean individuals and five entities, to the U.S. sanctions list. The "Marshall" as he is called in North Korea, is among 23 individuals and entities cited for their role in serious human rights violations, hunting down defectors or censorship in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"Human rights abuses in the DPRK are among the worst in the world," U.S. Department of State spokesman John Kirby said in a statement today. "The government continues to commit extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrest and detention, forced labor and torture. Many of these abuses are committed in the political prison camps, where an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 individuals are detained, including children and family members of the accused."
It is the very first time the US has sanctioned Kim personally.
The department added that this is part of "the most comprehensive U.S. government effort to date" to identify and sanction North Korea's leaders responsible for the widespread abuses - which they hope will "send a signal to all government officials who might be responsible for human rights abuses."
The sanctions, which target property and other assets under U.S. jurisdiction, follow a 2014 report by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea, which details a harrowing system of extrajudicial killings, forced labor camps and torture under Kim's rule.
North Korea's human rights record is among the worst in the world and has been globally condemned - especially by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the European Union and the United Nations. The country has spent decades near or at the top of virtually all measures of state repression. Indeed, most international human rights organizations consider North Korea to have no contemporary parallel with respect to violations of liberty.
The General Assembly of the United Nations has since 2003 annually adopted a resolution condemning the country's human rights record. The latest resolution of December 19, 2011, passed by a vote of 12316 with 51 abstentions, urged the government in Pyongyang to end its "systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights", which included public executions and arbitrary detentions. North Korea rejected the resolution, saying it was politically motivated and based upon untrue fabrications. In February 2014, a UN special commission published a detailed, 400-page account based on first-hand testimonies documenting "unspeakable atrocities" committed in the country.
The U.S. action comes at a time when the North Korean government is pushing ahead with its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs, despite the threat of international sanctions. Just days after the reclusive country test-launched two medium-range ballistic missiles last month, the top North Korean official for U.S. relations told The Associated Press that Washington can expect more nuclear tests and missile launches as long as it tries to force his government's collapse through a policy of pressure and punishment.
"It's the United States that caused this issue," Han Song Ryol, the director-general of the department of U.S. affairs at North Korea's Foreign Ministry, told AP in his first interview with an American news organization since assuming the post three years ago. "They have to stop their military threats, sanctions and economic pressure. Without doing so, it's like they are telling us to reconcile while they are putting a gun to our forehead."
Human rights in North Korea are severely limited. Despite numerous rights being enshrined in the country's constitution, in practice, there is no right to free speech, and the only radio, television, music and news providers that are deemed legal are those operated by the government.
For the first time, the United States has sanctioned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un
Based on defectors' testimonies, an estimated 150,000200,000 prisoners are incarcerated in various prison camps, including camps that are dedicated to political crimes, and are subject to forced labor, physical abuse and execution.[citation needed]
The North Korean government makes it very difficult for foreigners to enter the country for purposes other than tourism and it strictly monitors their activities when they do. Aid workers are subject to considerable scrutiny and are excluded from places and regions the government does not wish them to enter. Since citizens cannot freely leave the country, it is mainly from stories of refugees and defectors that the nation's human rights record has been constructed. The government's position, expressed through the Korean Central News Agency, is that international criticism of its human rights record is a pretext for overthrowing its Juche-based socialist system, while the abuses of its critics go unpunished.
Clouds will increase over the north, with a slight chance of a shower or thunderstorm near the Oregon State line late today into early Wednesday
Clouds will increase over the north, with a slight chance of a shower or thunderstorm near the Oregon State line late today into early Wednesday
7/05/16: More than 5,200 firefighters are battling 14 wildfires throughout California. A low pressure trough over the West Coast will deepen through early Wednesday then move east. Clouds will increase over the north, with a slight chance of a shower or thunderstorm near the Oregon State line late today into early Wednesday. A weak high pressure ridge will follow, but the next trough will approach the region by late Thursday.
This trough will produce about the same results as the current one, a cooling trend with more clouds and increasing southwest to northwest winds. Temperatures will be near normal today In Southern California, a calm weather pattern is expected this week as a pair of weak troughs stay over the Pacific Northwest. The troughs will maintain a dry southwesterly flow with onshore flows. Westerly afternoon winds of 15 to 25 mph with gusts to 40 mph will surface across the mountain ridges and desert passes through this weekend.
In California, wildfires aren't a question of if, but only a question of when. If you choose to live near a natural area of the state, you are at risk for wildfires and it's your responsibility to prepare yourself, your family, and your home. Being prepared includes a wildfire action plan, along with an emergency supply kit for you, your family and your pets. For detailed information, go to ReadyForWildfire.org.
Fires of Interest:
**CAL FIRE Incidents**
Frame Fire, Fresno County, NEW
Hwy 198 and Frame Ln, 14 miles west of Coalinga
145 acres grass, brush, 25% contained
1 structure destroyed
Broken Fire, Madera County,NEW
Hwy 41 and Hummingbird Ln, One mile east of Coarsegold
103 acres grass, oak woodland, 80% contained
All threats mitigated
Curry Fire, Fresno County
Curry Mountain and Hwy 198, 7 miles southwest of Coalinga
2,944 acres grass, brush, 95% contained
Deer Fire, Kern County
Hwy 223 and Deertrail Rd., 6 miles east of Arvin
1,785 acres grass, brush, 80% contained
All Evacuations lifted
Appaloosa Fire, Calaveras County
Appaloosa Rd. and Pinto Dr., 5 miles southwest of Angels Camp
310 acres grass, brush, 75% contained
**Unified Command Incidents**
Trailhead Fire, Placer and El Dorado Counties
Near Todd Valley, Foresthill
5,565 acres brush and slash, 50% contained
All mandatory evacuations have been lifted
Minimal fire activity overnight
Erskine Fire, Kern County
Lake Isabella area
Unified Command: Kern County Fire, USFS and Bureau of Land Management
48,019 acres, 95% Contained
Sherpa Fire, Santa Barbara County
West of Goleta
Unified Command: USFS and Santa Barbara County Fire
7,474 acres, 96% Contained
San Gabriel Complex, Los Angeles County
North of Duarte and Azusa
Unified Command: USFS & LA County Fire
5,399 acres, 96% contained
Two separate fires: Fish Fire (4,253 acres/96%) and Reservoir Fire (1,146 acres/96%)
**Federal Incidents**
Mile Post 21.68 Fire, Humboldt County,
1mile south of Weitchpec, North of Hoopa
40 acres brush, timber, 20% contained
Continued commitment of CAL FIRE ground resources
Pine, Ventura County
San Guillermo Mountain, 6 miles Southwest of Stauffer, Federal DPA, FRA
1,814 acres brush, timber, 15% contained
NASA Image of California fires
Marina Fire, Mono County
Near Lee Vining
US Forest Service - Inyo National Forest
654 acres, 95% contained
CAL FIRE ground resources assisting
Pony Fire, Siskiyou County
15 miles southwest of Happy Camp
US Forest Service - Klamath National Forest
2,858 acres, 90% contained
Joni Ernst and Iowa Governor Mike Pence
Joni Kay Ernst is an American politician who is the junior United States Senator from Iowa, elected in the November 2014 election, defeating Democrat Bruce Braley. She previously served as a Republican member of the Iowa Senate from 2011 to 2014 and was also a lieutenant colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard prior to retiring
There was no rest for the weary during the Independence Day holiday on Monday, Donald Trump seems to have named three Republican politicians as his possible vice-presidential pick at the party's national convention in Cleveland later this month.
"The only people who are not interested in being the V.P. pick are the people who have not been asked!!" Tweeted Trump.
Nominated were first-term Iowa senator Joni Ernst, the first-term Arkansas senator Tom Cotton like Ernst a military veteran and the governor of Indiana, Mike Pence. Trump spent time with Pence and his family on Sunday and was due to meet Ernst in New Jersey on Monday. "Spent time with Indiana Governor Mike Pence and family yesterday. Very impressed, great people!" tweeted Mr. Trump.
Ernst was endorsed by the Tea Party and won her Senate seat in 2014, running an infamous ad featuring a boast of growing up "castrating hogs on an Iowa farm" and the promise that once in Washington she would "know how to cut pork", thus making "big spenders ... squeal". In 2015, she delivered the Republican response to Barack Obama's State of the Union address. "I look forward to meeting @joniernst today in New Jersey. She has done a great job as Senator of Iowa!" Trump tweeted.
George Will, in resigning from the Republican party over the Trump nomination, was asked to respond to a Trump tweet denigrating Will. "Trump enjoys a significant advantage over me, because any though he has can be expressed in less than 140 characters," said the columnist.
Thomas Bryant "Tom" Cotton is an American politician who is the junior United States Senator from Arkansas. A member of the Republican Party, Cotton has served in the Senate since January 3, 2015.
Thomas Bryant "Tom" Cotton is an American politician who is the junior United States Senator from Arkansas. A member of the Republican Party, Cotton has served in the Senate since January 3, 2015
Michael Richard "Mike" Pence (born June 7, 1959) is an American politician and attorney who is currently serving as the 50th Governor of Indiana, taking office in 2013. A member of the Republican Party, he previously represented Indiana's 6th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013 and served as Chairman of the House Republican Conference from 2009 to 2011.
Pence was mentioned as a possible candidate for President of the United States in 2008 and 2012. In September 2010, Pence was the top choice for president in a straw poll conducted by the Value Voters Summit.
Meanwhile, Trump's latest controversy involved decorating a photo of Hillary in a Star of David (that's a six pointed star), with language in the star talking about how money had corrupted her. "Dishonest media is trying their absolute best to depict a star in a tweet as the Star of David rather than a Sheriff's Star, or plain star!" tweeted the presumptive Republican nominee.
Franklin D. Roosevelt's flagship for trip to Tehran to meet Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin in 1943
Volunteer shows a visitor how to hold a hundred-pound bag of gunpowder . The USS Iowa boasts special quarters created for Franklin D. Roosevelt for his trip to Tehran to meet with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin in 1943
Battleships, once thought to be the ultimate weapon, are now a relic of the past. For a chance to visit this past - and enjoy 360-degree breeze-swept views of Los Angeles Harbor, the USS Iowa at Berth 87, is a great place to go.
A self-guided tour takes one in and out of sailors' quarters, mess halls and up and down ladders leading to almost all levels of the ship's significant superstructure and winding around the impressive armaments. It's easy to get distracted by views of yachts sailing in and out of the channel and the work of the giant cranes unloading ships from China.
The USS Iowa, Battleship 61, was constructed beginning in 1939 and completed in 1942. She's the only battleship of her class to have served in the Atlantic during World War II. Her biggest claim to fame is possibly the special quarters created for Franklin D. Roosevelt for his trip to Tehran to meet with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin in 1943. A bathtub - the only one in the entire navy - was installed in his quarters as well as an elevator to transport him between decks. Roosevelt had suffered polio and was paralyzed from the waist down.
Upon her transfer to the Pacific Fleet in 1944, the Iowa participated in shelling of beachheads in the Marshall Islands and was present at the surrender of Japan in Tokyo Bay. After some service during the Korean War, the Iowa was mothballed until 1984, with Ronald Reagan sought to beef up the navy's fleet. Following a tragic accident in 1989 in which 47 sailors were killed by a mysterious explosion in her No. 2 gun turret, the Iowa was decommissioned for the final time.
Alyssa Ganezer View of the famous 16-inch guns on the foredeck, USS Iowa Battleship, Long Beach.
In other words, there's a lot to see here, especially if you're at all interested in World War II, the navy, or armaments.
Parking is easy, right next to the ship in her permanent home. A ramp onto the ship shifts in steepness according to the tide, but they'll get you onboard if you're in a wheelchair, no matter the time of the month or day. Prices are discounted for military, seniors, and children. They're not cheap, but this tub receives no government money and relies entirely on admission and donations.
Often, you run into a few of the tens of thousands of men who served aboard the USS Iowa during her more than 50 year tour of duty. Some of them are volunteer docents. Talking to them is in itself, worth the drive to Long Beach.
For more information, visit http://www.pacificbattleship.com/
Masabi Launches Mobile Ticketing With New Yorks MTA
NEW YORK, NY (Marketwired) 07/05/16 , the global leader in mobile ticketing and fare collection for transit, today announced that their mobile ticketing technology is now live with New Yorks MTA. Using Masabis JustRide mobile ticketing platform, riders on Metro North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road will be able to experience a faster and more convenient way to purchase tickets and travel using their smartphones as an all-in-one ticket vending machine and ticket. The railroads riders are now set free from cash and the hassle of waiting in line at a vending machine.
From today, passengers on MNRs Hudson Line and LIRRs Port Washington Lines will be able to use their smartphones to buy and display tickets to travel using the . Over the next few months more lines will be made available with full rollout completed by the end of the summer. Riders will be able to purchase tickets for both immediate and future travel through their smartphones and tablets.
Masabi will also provide its JustRide Inspect validation application which allows tickets to be scanned using standard smartphones. The validation software is in use with 11 transport agencies around the world. In keeping with Masabis philosophy of helping reduce the cost of fare collection, it allows tickets to be inspected at a fraction of the cost of using traditional options. Masabi is the pioneer in transport mobile ticketing and innovative fare collection technology, with active deployments in a growing roster of major cities around the world that already includes Los Angeles, Boston, New Orleans, Athens, and London.
Around the world more and more major cities are turning to JustRide to improve the public transit experience. The introduction of mobile ticketing at New York MTA will be the largest deployment of its kind and we are delighted to have been selected to partner with the MTA, said Brian Zanghi, CEO of Masabi. This is a landmark project that will change the way riders travel in the New York region, with passengers able to buy tickets anywhere, at any time, with a few taps.
, a recent investor in Masabi, commented: Masabi is a company at the forefront of smart city innovation, simplifying peoples access to mass-transit and facilitating sustainable urban growth, said Hany Fam, MasterCard Enterprise Partnerships. We are delighted to be working with and supporting Masabi as they deploy their technology on some of the worlds busiest commuter rail services.
:
June 30: MTA eTix available on LIRR Port Washington Branch & Metro-North Hudson Line
Week of July 25: MTA eTix becomes available on Metro-North Harlem Line
Week August 22: Full system wide implementation of MTA eTix, as the app becomes available on the rest of LIRR and Metro-Norths New Haven Line
Riders can learn more and access links to download the app on the MTAs website at:
Masabi is the global leader in mobile ticketing and fare collection for transportation. We deliver transit ticketing solutions that delight passengers and reduce costs for agencies and operators. Masabis JustRide is a scalable mobile ticketing and fare management platform. Masabi works in partnership with more than twenty-five leading transit agencies and operators in the US, UK, and Europe, including; the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), Keolis, Virgin Trains, Abellio, Thames Clippers, New Orleans RTA, Metrolink in Los Angeles, Transport for Athens, and New Yorks MTA.
Sofia Kathryn Coon
Scratch Marketing & Media
US: 617-945-0708
Richard Howson
Temono PR
UK: 07833693862
Chris Dempsey
Masabi
US: 617-797-8788
Noble Iron Announces Departure of CFO
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA (Marketwired) 07/05/16 Noble Iron Inc. (Noble Iron) (TSX VENTURE: NIR) announced that effective July 5th, 2016 Suzy Taherian will be stepping down from the position of CFO and will be leaving the company due to personal reasons. On an interim basis, Nabil Kassam, Chairman & CEO, will assume the companys CFO duties, supported by Noble Irons finance team. We thank Suzy for her service and contribution to Noble Iron, commented Mr. Kassam. He continued, We wish Suzy all the best in her future endeavors. The company will commence a search process and will add any resources required to assist the companys team during the transition. Ms. Taherian continues to be a strong supporter of Noble Iron and will be available to assist the company with any transition matters following July 5th.
More information about the Company can be found at and at
About Noble Iron Inc. (TSX VENTURE: NIR)
Noble Iron Inc. is a technology company that offers on-demand construction equipment, and software applications to equipment owners and users to manage their equipments lifecycle. The company operates in equipment rental, equipment sales, and software for construction and industrial equipment users and owners.
Noble Iron Inc.s equipment rental and dealership operations do business under the name, Noble Iron, and currently serve customers in California and Texas. Noble Iron offers construction and industrial equipment and accessories for rent and for sale, and is an exclusive distributor of LiuGong Construction Machinery equipment and Allied Construction Products in Southeast Texas.
Noble Iron Inc.s software segment operates under the name, Texada Software. Texada offers cloud or client-based software applications for equipment rental companies, equipment dealerships, construction companies, general contractors, and any construction or industrial equipment user, including mechanics, and logistics and service technicians. Texada Softwares applications manage the entire equipment lifecycle, including equipment purchasing; rental & sales transactions; inventory location, utilization, maintenance and depreciation tracking; used equipment sales and disposals analysis; and inventory replenishment analysis. Texadas software applications include, SRM (Systematic Rental Management), FleetLogic, Insight and Gateway.
Noble Iron Inc. can be reached at 1-832-767-4424, or at .
This news release may contain forward-looking statements which reflect the Companys current expectations regarding future events. The forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as seek, anticipate, plan, estimate, expect, intend and statements that an event or result may, will, should, could or might occur or be achieved and other similar expressions. These forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainties, including the difficulty in predicting acceptance of and demands for new products, the impact of the products and pricing strategies of competitors, delays in developing and launching new products, fluctuations in operating results and other risks, any of which could cause results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from the results discussed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Many risks are inherent in the industries in which the Company participates; others are more specific to the Company. The Companys ongoing quarterly filings should be consulted for additional information on risks and uncertainties relating to these forward-looking statements. Investors should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Management assumes no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, further events or otherwise.
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Contacts:
Noble Iron Inc.
Holly Cravey
t: (832) 767.4424
e:
Noble Iron Inc.
Nabil Kassam
t: (650) 766-9177
e:
Vogogo Inc. Announces Update on Strategic Alternatives Process and Sale of Certain Assets
CALGARY, ALBERTA and LONDON, ENGLAND (Marketwired) 07/05/16 Vogogo Inc. (Vogogo or the Corporation) (TSX VENTURE: VGO) wishes to provide the following update on its strategic alternatives process originally disclosed on May 25, 2016 (the Process). The Process has been conducted by a special committee (the Special Committee) of the independent members of the board of directors of Vogogo (the Board) and is intended to examine alternatives to enhance shareholder value, including a sale of all or a portion of the existing business, as well as various financing and recapitalization alternatives. A number of alternatives have been explored and the Board has concluded that shareholder value would best be enhanced by selling Vogogos risk platform and shutting down its payment processing business. There will be residual assets that the Special Committee intends to monetize, notably the Electronic Money Institution (EMI) authorization granted by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the United Kingdom.
As a result of the foregoing, Vogogo has completed the disposition of certain assets (the Sale Transaction) to an arms length private risk management and consulting services company (the Purchaser). The Sale Transaction involves the disposition of the Corporations risk platform known as the Vogogo Risk and Rules Engine. The Sale Transaction will result in the Corporation no longer pursuing its strategy to sell its stand-alone risk services as part of its business offering. The Sale Transaction involves the Purchaser acquiring the above described assets and all associated liabilities therewith on an as is, where is basis for nominal consideration. As part of the Sale Transaction, certain third parties affiliated with the Purchaser have agreed to terminate their rights to certain post-closing payments of up to $3 million, which were payable in cash or common shares of the Corporation, in the sole discretion of the Corporation, upon the Corporation achieving certain performance thresholds set out in the original agreement wherein the Corporation acquired the assets that are subject to the Sale Transaction.
Additionally, the Company has commenced the process of notifying third parties, and also all of the Corporations employees, that it will be shutting down its payment processing business. The shutting down of the payment processing business is intended to occur in an orderly manner over the next several weeks. The Corporations Chief Financial Officer, Tom Wenz, will cease full-time employment at the end of July 2016 and is expected to continue for a period on a part-time basis to assist with the Process. The Board wishes to thank all of the Corporations employees for their professionalism and efforts in connection with the Process.
The Special Committee intends to continue the Process in order to identify and evaluate strategic alternatives available to the Company and that have the potential to be highly accretive for Vogogos shareholders.
While the Special Committee is continuing the Process, there can be no assurance that this Process will result in any transaction. There is no set timetable with respect to the Special Committees review, and the Corporation does not expect to make further public comment regarding these matters until the Special Committee approves a specific action or otherwise concludes its review.
About Vogogo
Vogogo Inc. has provided payment processing and related transaction risk services. The Company has developed software that administers multiple electronic payment types including card payments, pre-authorized debit, direct deposit, peer-to-peer and online banking payments for the US, UK and Canadian markets. The head office is located at 400, 320 23rd Avenue SW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, T2S 0J2. The registered office is located at Torys LLP, 4600, 525 8th Avenue SW, Calgary, Alberta.
READER ADVISORY
Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.
None of the information contained on, or connected to, Vogogos website is incorporated by reference herein.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements. All information, other than information regarding historic fact that addresses activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future is forward-looking information. Forward-looking information contained in this news release includes, but is not limited to the timing for the shutting down of its payment processing business and its ability to identify any strategic alternative that could increase shareholder value. The words will, anticipate, believe, estimate, expect, intent, may, project, should, and similar expressions are intended to be among the statements that identify forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements are founded on the basis of expectations and assumptions made by Vogogo. Readers are cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of such information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of Vogogo. Vogogo does not have any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements except as expressly required by applicable securities laws. See Vogogos Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2015 and its Managements Discussion and Analysis for the three-month period ended March 31, 2016 for a detailed discussion of risk factors.
Contacts:
Vogogo Inc.
Tom Wenz
Chief Financial Officer
403-648-9292
KiteDesk Announces Expanded Data Marketplace Partners With InsideView
TAMPA, FL and SAN FRANCISCO, CA (Marketwired) 07/06/16 KiteDesk, leaders in the category, today announced a significant expansion of KiteDesk FIND, highlighted by the addition of InsideView data as part of a new partnership agreement. KiteDesk FIND users also benefit from a dramatically increased base data tier of 300 records per month, per seat and data integrity additions to the software.
KiteDesk FIND now offers four data providers for constantly updated information at the Company and People level, with InsideView data now added to the core bundle.
Data that helps you close deals contact, company info, business intelligence are important to our customers, said Jack Kennedy, KiteDesk Co-Founder and VP, Products. Our partnership agreement with InsideView underscores this commitment.
KiteDesk FIND is unique in the ability to enable sales teams to easily build lead lists on the fly, then work those leads in a seamless manner with accurate data.
Youll continue to see KiteDesk FIND as a leading source of data, as a single dashboard for sales prospectors conducting research on the targeted accounts they need to sell into on a daily basis. There is such a strong foundation for sales teams to have the right data at the right time, easily accessible from research to revenues.
is widely regarded as a best-of-breed provider in the sales intelligence industry, having been recognized as a Sales Intelligence product leader on the G2 Crowd Grid.
We power the worlds business conversations, said Tracy Eiler, InsideView CMO. InsideView provides accurate, real-time customer intelligence directly within top platforms like KiteDesk FIND. Were excited to partner with KiteDesk to make their customers sales workflows work better.
KiteDesk FIND debuts a number of features to make control over data much easier. Chief among these features is the ability of KiteDesk customers to flag data as inaccurate.
Any data tagged as incorrect we will resolve immediately as a credit back to the customer account, said Kennedy. We built the data marketplace inside our product with the idea that the data integrity of the entire solution was paramount. We stand by our promise to deliver results.
KiteDesk FIND is providing quick-sort by column headers, page numbers for long searches or by specific data provider. There is also now a data preview in searches, prior to adding to a Prospect List or exporting to CSV. Each feature is designed to enable users to manipulate data to their purposes fast, with greater control.
All features covered here are available immediately. Visit to or free for 14 days.
KiteDesk provides smart sales prospecting software for growth organizations. As the first lead generation system to combine an on-demand lead list creation via Web App and Chrome Extension, we help salespeople dramatically decrease the amount of time spent generating qualified meetings.
KiteDesk is a venture-backed, privately-held company headquartered in Tampa, with offices throughout the United States. To learn more, please visit or connect with us on , or .
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The family of a Frome biker who died on Friday have spoken of the "big personality" who could always make people laugh, and how they are coping after the tragic crash which left two young children without a father.
Stuart Lange, 38, died after his motorcycle was involved in a collision with a car in Clink Road at around 7.45pm, on Friday, July 1.
Father to Sophie, 9, and Charlie 2, Mr Lange was well known in the town and worked at the family business, TL Vehicle Servicing and Repair Centre on Grove Lane.
His family also spoke of their gratitude to all those in the community who have offered support during this difficult time.
Stuart's brother, Alan, said: "He was always helping people and we can't believe the huge community reaction there has been to offer support to us.
"There's never been a bad word said about Stuart, he was always the practical joker, although I don't think people would want to hear the exact details of his jokes.
"I just want to thank everybody for all their support. I never knew Stuart knew so many people."
His mother, Virginia Lange, 66, and his brothers Alan, 40, and Richard Lange, 33, all worked with Stuart at the family business. They took over from their father Edward Lange, who died of a heart attack in 2005.
The family said they will always remember Stuart as the life and soul of the servicing centre and that he was always joking around with everybody.
Richard said he was trying to keep busy in the wake of his brother's death but echoed Alan's sentiments that Stuart was always joking around in the servicing centre.
Richard said: "He was always the clown, always usually up to something. There's this one video of Stuart guiding a car into place in a jokey manner that always makes me laugh.
"The reaction from the community has been absolutely brilliant and it has really helped us through this time. We wouldn't have coped nearly as well if it wasn't for all this support. My phone hasn't stopped buzzing and I'd just like to say a big thank you to everybody for helping us during this time."
Speaking of Stuart's funeral, Richard said he was hoping to make it so a large number of people rode to the venue on motorcycles while wearing orange.
He said: "Orange was Stuart's colour and we're thinking of putting orange over our biker kit and we've got special orange stickers to put on the bikes too.
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Speaking of Stuart's funeral, Richard said he was hoping to make it so a large number of people rode to the venue on motorcycles while wearing orange.
He said: "Orange was Stuart's colour and we're thinking of putting orange over our biker kit and we've got special orange stickers to put on the bikes too.
It's been very strange here without him. He used to do all the bike work here and it just feels a bit empty now. He cheered everyone up around here."
Stuart was actively involved in a number of charitable activities. Perhaps most notable was his organisation of a charity motorcycle ride in memory of April Jones, who was murdered in 2012.
Stuart's mother Virginia said the support from the community at this time had been essential in helping the family cope with the situation.
She said: "Stuart used to spend every weekend with his children. I'm amazed at how well Sophie is coping during this time but I do worry for when she comes over to mine without Stuart on Sunday.
"He has always been into motorbikes. He first started riding one when he worked at Pizza Connection as a boy around 23 years ago. His most recent bike was a ZX10R.
"He lived life to the full and he was everybody's friend. It's been very tough to deal with but the support we have received has really helped us through."
Mr Lange's bike was believed to have hit a Volvo car pulling out of a farm gateway.
The Volvo was travelling from Frome towards the Beckington by-pass when it pulled to the nearside and reversed into a nearby field entrance.
As it pulled back into the road it collided with Mr Lange's motorcycle which was travelling towards Beckington.
Mr Lange suffered serious injuries. He was treated but died at the scene about 8.30pm.
Floral tributes have also been left at the scene by friends, many expressing their sorrow at the loss of a big personality, with the ability to make people smile.
One bouquet bears a note from Ella, saying "I will never forget you and how you could turn my frown upside down."
Another says: "Keep them smiling up there, just like you did for us down here."
Top government national security experts, including the directors of the FBI and National Intelligence, have testified that effectively screening Syrian refugees is virtually impossible. ISIS has also said that they intend to infiltrate terrorists into the United States posing as refugees.
A table provided by the Refugee Processing Center lists the number of Syrian refugees placed in Illinois from FY 2014 through April 20, 2016:
Recently, the Immigration Reform Law Institute filed a FOIA request about how Syrian refugees were settling among the states. The statistics showed Illinois had taken in 236, the fifth highest location among the top 10 most open-arm states.
"None of these dire warnings have deterred the Obama administration, which has vowed to resettle at least 10,000 Syrians in the current fiscal year and has slashed the vetting process from the usual 18-24 months to just three," the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR) commented.
Obviously Americans everywhere should be concerned about the administration's reckless disregard for the warnings of its own top security officials and a terrorist network that has already demonstrated its determination and ability to strike the West.
But FAIR wanted to find out where in the U.S. Syrian refugees are being settled.
The Obama administration has been less than forthcoming with this information, so the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) filed a FOIA request on behalf of FAIR. They found that between FY 2014 and FY 2016 (through April 20), the top resettlement states for Syrian refugees were:
Michigan: 367
California: 364
Texas: 284
Pennsylvania: 263
Illinois: 236
Arizona: 215
Florida: 184
Ohio: 134
North Carolina: 125
New Jersey: 120
"While the numbers of refugees may not seem large, they are merely the tip of the iceberg. The administration is rapidly accelerating the pace during its final year in office," FAIR said. "The vast majority of refugees do not pose a security threat, but it doesn't take a lot of terrorists to inflict a lot of damage. It took only 19 people to slaughter some 3,000 innocent people on 9/11. In recent months, small cells (or even so-called lone wolves) have perpetrated deadly attacks in the U.S., Europe, Africa and the Middle East."
They are prominent in the US, UK, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. And, of course, Canada now has four Sikh cabinet ministers when even India has none.
Say hello to the overseas Sikhs and Punjabis, one of the largest ethnic groups of Indian diaspora. There are villages and towns in Punjab, especially in the Doaba region, where almost every family has a few members living abroad.
The overseas Sikh and Punjabi community invests in their home state through philanthropic and business ventures and also in real estate. Social ties through marriages and festivals are also magnets for the overseas Punjabis, with large numbers of them travelling to their native state during the winter vacations in DecemberJanuary. Hardly a surprise then that a huge political event, such as the state election early next year, is generating a lot of interest in the community overseas, reports the Economic Times.
Captain Amarinder Singh, president of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee and former chief minister, chose to kick off his election campaign from the US. Seen as the main opposition face against the Shiromani Akali DalBJP government, Amarinder, along with 2530 Congress colleagues, including MLAs, former MLAs and district presidents, embarked on a 20day trip to the US and Canada in April.
While the US leg of the tour went off as planned, the team was forced to cancel their political rallies in Canada because of a rule that prevents foreign governments and individuals from conducting election campaigns in the country.
Amarinder, or Captain as he is known, found overseas Punjabis well apprised of the upcoming elections.
"They are more informed about the current problems in Punjab than many local people. From New York to Chicago to Los Angeles, they came to my meetings in full force; the few disruptive elements who tried to shout proKhalistan slogans in some places did not have any impact at all," he said. The Khalistan movement, which gained traction in the 1970s and '80s, sought to create a separate country in the
Punjab region.
Amarinder, though, is concerned about his trip to Canada being called off. "Canada is a democracy and we have raised the issue with
them about our right to be invited by different organisations to address meetings.
While I hope I will be able to travel to Canada before the Punjab elections, the issue of some elected Indianorigin representatives in the Canadian government being sympathetic towards the cause of extremist Khalistani groups should be addressed by the Indian government," he added.
Amarinder believes that the NRI and PIO constituency is already actively campaigning through phone calls and social media platforms.
Between him and his wife Preneet Kaur, who was MoS for external affairs in the Manmohan Singh government, the Singhs hope to travel to all the major diaspora hubs the UK, Europe, New Zealand and Australia to interact with the Punjabis overseas.
While there were unconfirmed reports that the Indian government had formally taken up with the Canadian government the issue of an alleged Khalistani training camp in British Columbia, Amarinder's concerns have found echoes among Indians in Canada. "While there is no support among the electorate in Punjab for any Khalistan separatist movement, there are pockets of support among the Punjabi
diaspora in the UK, US, Canada and Australia," says Ujjal Dosanjh, an IndianCanadian politician and former premier of the state of British
Columbia.
"The recent controversy around Amarinder's visit to Canada is linked to these elements and should be addressed by the Indian government through diplomatic channels with Canada and other governments."
Jasbir Singh Khangura is an entrepreneur and Congressman who gave up his British citizenship and returned to India in 2006 to contest the state elections from Qila Raipur constituency in 2007.
Khangura believes that Punjabis in the major NRI hubs keenly follow political events and trends in Punjab "and only express a passing interest in the affairs of their host country". "NRI Punjabis want better governance in Punjab. They also want better protection of their interests when it comes to land, property, false FIRs and general litigation," Khangura, who was an MLA between 2007 and 2012, told ET
Magazine.
He now intends to contest the upcoming elections as a Congress candidate. Khangura, however, doesn't see proKhalistan groups having any influence on the election.
"The Punjabis abroad have genuine grievances about the events of the 1980s and '90s. Many migrated during that dark period," he said.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which had won four seats from Punjab in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and is seen as a strong contender in the state elections, too is betting big on overseas support. "Outside India, there are many Little Punjabs around the world in places such as Edmonton, Melbourne, London and Fresno. The people there are all linked to India and many of them are breadwinners for their families back in villages in Punjab," says Bhagwant Mann, AAP MP from Sangrur.
AAP supporters have started campaigning in the UK and Canada to garner support and raise funds; Mann hopes that around 50,000 volunteers from across the world will come to Punjab before the elections to boost the AAP campaign.
"We are reaching out to a large number of people who migrated from the belt of Jalandhar,Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur and Phagwara and asking them to work with us when they come to Punjab for ChristmasNew Year holidays. We don't want their dollars but we want their support."
Mann adds that the AAP had got plenty of support from overseas during the Lok Sabha elections.
The Shiromani Akali Dal, or SAD, the party that runs the government in Punjab with its alliance partner BJP, is reaching out to the overseas Punjabi constituency in a big way through social media. "We are engaging with Punjabis overseas and various community organisations of the diaspora through our social media channels, which have a big outreach, rather than focusing on excursions," Naresh Gujral, SAD MP from Punjab in the Rajya Sabha told ET Magazine in an exclusive interview. He added that the party was also banking on the personal popularity of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal among the overseas community to garner support.
California based Harinder Singh, founder of a cultural and religious organisation called Free Akal Takht, points out that all the three major party representatives have already visited the US, Canada and the UK and are involved in fundraising and other activities at prominent gurdwaras.
Preet Pal Singh Chandhoke, an entrepreneur and investor who recently moved back to Ludhiana from Canada, believes that many Punjabis of Indian origin will be visiting the state in the runup to the poll. "Social media has brought Punjab closer to its diaspora, with many community organisations engaging with its members globally in a big way. For younger, second and third generation Punjabis and
Sikhs, issues like Khalistan don't have any meaning; instead they are attracted to the AAP which, they feel, is bringing a fresh perspective to the state politics." The BJP also has a big support base overseas, which may help the SADBJP combine, adds Chandhoke, whose startup 01 Synergy provides software support to the district revenue department of Ludhiana.
While the Punjabi diaspora has been voicing concerns about issues such as drug addiction, farmer suicides and corruption, different sections of the community are likely to get engaged in diff
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate will be voting on an immigration measure called "Kate's Law" in memory of Kate Steinle's death a year ago allegedly at the hands of an immigrant that had been deported six times.
Illinois' U.S. Senator Mark Kirk was the only Republican to join the Democrats in opposing an effort to requiring states and localities to enforce federal immigration law once before.Will Mark Kirk once again be the only Republican to support sanctuary cities?
Wednesday, the Federation for American Immigration Reform issued a call for Illinoisans to contact Senators Kirk and Durbin before the vote.
Debut author and photographer Peter Johal says his Anandpur Chronicles: Volume 1 (published by Trafford Publishing) initially started as a photographic project. His journeys to India in 2003, and again in 2005, were so spiritual in nature and inspiring that he wanted to share them. His fascination with Sikhism led him to write the first in a series of books about this unique religion.
Johal notes that Sikhism and the Sikh population has been diluted with other religions. Sikhism is unique. Religion, culture and more have features that are shared with none. Equality and humanity are some of these features that separate this particular faith and protecting these beliefs have had turbulent times in history. Anandpur was an integral part of this protection of beliefs.
Anandpur Chronicles: Volume 1 is the story of the ninth and tenth teachers of Sikhism, with the events that occurred with them, mostly in Anandpur. These historical events led to a transformation in the culture and identity of the Sikh population.
While in India, Peter Johal picked up historical books of Sikhism. After numerous months of studying Sikh history, Johal went back for more sociological studies, trying to find a way to uniquely describe Sikh plight, history and identity. It all came together when he dug deeper into symbolism.
For more information, visit trafford.com.
Hospitals feeling surge of RSV locally and across state
Post-pandemic easing of isolation are fueling rise in the respiratory RSV illnesses in children in the South Bend area.
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The Soyuz MS-01 spacecraft on the launchpad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, July 4, 2016. Three crewmembers will make a two-day trip to the International Space Station in the upgraded vehicle.
Two astronauts and one cosmonaut will begin a two-day journey to the International Space Station tonight (July 6), rather than the more common 6-hour trip.
The three crewmembers are set to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 9:36 p.m. EDT (0136 GMT on July 7). During the two-day flight to the station, the space travelers will test a variety of upgraded systems on the Soyuz MS-01 spacecraft, which has a little more interior living space than a large van.
Two-day trips to the International Space Station were the norm until 2013, when the Russian space agency implemented a new technique to get crewmembers to the station in just 6 hours.
NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin will orbit Earth 34 times before docking to the station at 12:12 a.m. EDT (0412 GMT) on Saturday, July 9. The crewmembers are scheduled to stay on the station for about four months, returning in October, according to NASA.
During their two days in orbit, the three crewmembers will test out a number of upgrades to the Soyuz spacecraft, NASA officials said in a statement. Those upgrades include "a new digital video transmitter and encoder to send engineering video of the ship's approach to the station for docking, a new relay telemetry capability along with an upgraded Kurs automated rendezvous antenna and an improved satellite navigation system to better calculate the Soyuz's position in space." The spacecraft is now also equipped with upgraded thrusters, additional micrometeoroid debris shielding, redundant electrical motors on the docking probe and additional photovoltaic cells on the spacecraft's solar arrays, the statement said. The upgraded systems have already been tested sans crew.
The first Soyuz crewmembers to make the expedited journey to the station were aboard Expedition 35, in November 2013. A NASA representative told Space.com that during training, Soyuz crewmembers prepare for extended stays in the Russian space vehicle, and there have been previous instances in which a Soyuz crew has had to stay longer than expected inside the vehicle.
Editor's Note: This article previously stated that the launch was on June 6, but it is actually July 6.
Follow Calla Cofield @callacofield.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
With a photo of Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, peering over her shoulder, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins poses for a picture at the cosmonaut training center in Russia.
When Kate Rubins was born in 1978, only one woman had flown in space.
Now, 38 years later, Rubins is on the verge of becoming the 60th woman to leave the planet. Scheduled to launch on a Russian spacecraft at 9:36 p.m. EDT tonight (July 6; 0136 GMT July 7), Rubins will spend the next four months conducting science on the International Space Station.
"There's never been a time when I was a kid that I couldn't remember wanting to be an astronaut. It was always the standard 'little kid' answer when I was four, five, six, eight, 12 years old. I wanted to be an astronaut, a biologist and a geologist," said Rubins. [Record-Breaking Women in Spaceflight History]
A microbiologist with a doctorate in cancer biology, Rubins will be the first researcher to sequence DNA in space. She was selected to become a NASA astronaut in 2009.
On the space station, she will serve as a flight engineer for the Expedition 48 and 49 crews. Rubins will be the 224th person to enter the orbital laboratory, and the 34th woman aboard.
She was four years old when a third woman and the first American female astronaut lifted off for space.
"I think everybody who was born and grew up around my era could say Sally Ride was one of their heroes," Rubins said in a pre-flight interview with the International Women Air and Space Museum in Cleveland. "I think that is pretty universal, whether you are a little girl or a little boy."
NASA astronauts Kate Rubins and Peggy Whitson pose for a photo with St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow as a backdrop. (Image credit: NASA/Stephanie Stoll)
In the time between Ride's historic first flight in 1983 and Rubins heading to space, women from France, India, Italy, South Korea, Canada, China, Japan and United Kingdom have flown in space. Russia, which sent the first woman to fly in space, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova in 1963, has launched just three other Russian women to date.
Rubins' backup for her Soyuz MS-01 mission is astronaut Peggy Whitson, who in 2002 became the 38th woman in space. Now a veteran of two long-duration stays on board the station, Whitson will break the record for the most time spent in space by any American, male or female, during a third visit to the orbiting outpost beginning this November.
"We have been sharing a lot of stories lately to try to make sure she has everything I know," said Whitson of Rubins in a NASA interview. "[It] isn't necessarily the whole story, but I am trying to give her as much insight and information as I can."
"The one I thing I know for sure is that she is going to love it on board [the] station and she is going to love doing all the science," Whitson said.
The 60th person, man or woman, to fly into space was the 12th man on the moon, Harrison Schmitt (or his Apollo 17 crewmate Ron Evans, depending on the count). When Rubins and her two crewmates, cosmonaut Anatoli Ivanishin and JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, launch, there will be a total of 546 humans who have entered orbit, all but 60 of them men.
Not that Rubins is counting.
"I do not keep track if a female is doing this or a male is doing that, and my colleagues really don't [either]," Rubins told collectSPACE.com. "I think that's really a testament to where we are right now."
"There were amazing female pioneers but the way we train and fly at NASA and with the international partners, there isn't a delta [difference] between our training. So it is not something that is on your radar screen," she said.
"I think it is important for kids who are going into science and engineering to have role models. You want them to have somebody that they can say, 'This is where I want to be, this is where I want to get to,'" Rubins stated. "[But] I think that is a good thing that this is where we are that it is absolutely routine that you have an international crew and that you have males and females and that's a given. I think that is a good place to be."
[Editor's Note: This article previously stated that two women had flown to space by the time Kate Rubins was born; in fact, there had only been one.]
See a list of the first 60 woman in space, from Valentina Tereshkova to Kate Rubins, at collectSPACE.
Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2016 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.
This image illustrates how supermassive black holes at the center of galaxy clusters could heat intergalactic gas, preventing it from cooling and forming stars. The black hole inflates bubbles (dark areas) of ultrahot, ionized gas, called plasma. The bubbles, which reach tens of thousands of light-years into space, drag gas (blue clouds) from the cluster center, which explains the long streaks of gas, or filaments, seen in optical images. In the outer regions, the bubbles cause turbulence, which heats the gas. The hot gas emits bright X-rays detected by X-ray satellites.
Like a confectioner trying to reach the right consistency in a sweet concoction, a supermassive black hole is vigorously stirring the gas within a collection of galaxies to keep star formation at a minimum. The new finding, revealed by the doomed spacecraft Hitomi, may help solve the question of why so few stars form within collections of hundreds or thousands of galaxies.
Hitomi measured the motion of gas in the center of the the Perseus galaxy cluster with unprecedented precision, as much as 50 times better than previous instruments, said Andrew Fabian, a professor of astronomy at the University of Cambridge in England. The black hole, by stirring the gas, keeps the material from cooling down and forming new stars.
Without that mixing activity from the black hole, "the central galaxy would be much brighter and have a much higher stellar mass," Fabian told Space.com by email. Fabian is chairperson of part of Hitomi's science working group, an international collaboration headed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). That group published the results of the only science completed by the HItomi spacecraft before it disintegrated in orbit last April. [Images: Black Holes of the Universe]
"We already knew that supermassive black holes, which are found at the center of all galaxy clusters and are tens of billions of times more massive than the sun, could play a major role in keeping the gas from cooling by somehow injecting energy into it," Norbert Werner, a research associate at Stanford University in California who analyzed data from Hitomi, said in a statement. "Now we understand this mechanism better and see that there is just the right amount of stirring motion to produce enough heat."
A massive spoon
Galaxy clusters are made up of anywhere from 50 to thousands of galaxies. Hot gas reaching tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit makes up about 15 percent of a cluster, causing it to shine brightly in the X-ray spectrum. Studying the gas helps astronomers make estimates of how massive the cluster is, but these estimates can change based on how quickly the gas is stirred, a process that can also affect the birth of stars.
Other instruments have studied the Perseus cluster, the brightest X-ray cluster in the sky, and one of the most massive. These glimpses revealed enormous bubbles of gas thousands of light-years wide, spat out by the supermassive black hole at the center of the cluster.
For the first time, Hitomi was able to link the movement of the gas to the bubbles. As they rise from the black hole, the bubbles drag gas from the center of the cluster, stirring it up and heating it. Because the gas can't cool, it is unable to form new stars. (Visible-light images reveal streaks of colder gas pulled away from the galactic center).
"Although the motions heat the gas at the center of the Perseus cluster, their speed is only about 100 miles [160 kilometers] per second, which is surprisingly slow considering how disturbed the region looks in X-ray images," Hitomi's co-principal investigator Roger Blandford, a physics professor at Stanford University and a professor of astrophysics and particle physics at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
While understanding how the gas moves can affect estimates of mass in the cluster, Blandford said the new measurements haven't led to significant changes in previous mass calculations.
Unfortunately, Hitomi was able to study the Perseus cluster only briefly before the satellite was lost.
Due to the spacecraft failure, "We are not able to make these measurements in other clusters and galaxies and so understand better how the feedback process operates," Fabian said.
The research, along with an accompanying perspective piece, was published online today (July 6) in the journal Nature (opens in new tab).
A combined image of the (background) Chandra X-ray image of the core of the Perseus cluster with Hitomi's X-ray image outlined in yellow. The X-ray spectrum shows helium-like iron on the left and hydrogen-like iron on the right, with its narrow lines mapping the speed of the hot gas. (Image credit: Hitomi Collaboration/JAXA, NASA, ESA, SRON, CSA)
'A new chapter'
Launched in February 2016, Hitomi carried an X-ray detector that was designed to spot objects 10 to 100 times fainter than those visible to previous spacecraft, according to JAXA. By probing high-energy objects such as black holes, galaxy clusters and supernova remnants from space, Hitomi was able to observe in X-ray and gamma-ray wavelengths that can't make it through Earth's atmosphere.
But after a little more than a month in space, a glitch resulted in Hitomi spinning wildly out of control. The high-speed rotation caused several pieces of the satellite to snap off, permanently disabling the spacecraft. As many as 11 fragments were detected flying through space. By the end of April, JAXA ended its efforts to reconnect to the spacecraft, well before the end of what was supposed to be a three-year mission.
Despite its early destruction, Hitomi managed to perform significant science. In its first week after launch, the spacecraft spent three days observing the Perseus cluster, making a total of four observations. Hitomi began its fateful position change before the craft had completed all of the studies that researchers had intended it to make.
"Eventually, it would have mapped much of the cluster over a total of a month or more, and much longer on many other clusters," Fabian said.
He told Space.com that only a handful of other sources were observed for calibration purposes, and these would be "much less interesting scientifically."
"Being able to measure gas motions is a major advance in understanding the dynamic behavior of galaxy clusters and its ties to cosmic evolution," study co-author Irina Zhuravleva of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, said in the same statement from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. "Although the Hitomi mission ended tragically after a very short period of time, it's fair to say that it has opened a new chapter in X-ray astronomy."
Follow Nola Taylor Redd on Twitter @NolaTRedd or Google+. Follow us at @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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For the most part, the movements that tend to profit from these voters are authoritarian, xenophobic and nationalist in nature. The kind of people open to Trump, Brexit or Le Pen are often less educated, older people who come from rural or former industrial regions.
This says a lot about a world in which fortunes are being accrued like none other seen before, but which not all are profiting from. "The advantages of globalization do not apply equally to all classes of society," says American political scientist William Galston of the Brookings Institution. "They haven't sufficiently reached the middle and working classes."
Since 1999, the average annual salary of a US family has fallen by around $5,000 to $53,657 in 2014. Economists have even come up with a harsh term to describe the phenomenon: financial impotence. The American Dream promises that everyone has the opportunity to become prosperous -- but, unfortunately, it no longer applies to many. At the other end of the spectrum, 400 Americans possess as much wealth as two-thirds of the rest of society.
A poll published last week found that 71 percent of Americans believe the economic system is "rigged" in favor of certain groups. It's a term that socialist candidate Bernie Sanders used during his campaign and it was then coopted by Trump. When the presumptive Republican Party presidential candidate stated in Pennsylvania the week before last that trade ties with Asia had led to the loss of 68,900 jobs, his comments were met with bellicose approval.
Wiping Out the Middle Class?
In a speech before thousands of supporters last Tuesday, Trump said: "The wave of globalization has wiped out our middle class." It's a sentence that could just as easily have come out of the mouths of Bernie Sanders, Marine Le Pen or many Brexit voters.
Trump has broken with the Republican Party on several core issues. He rants against free trade agreements like NAFTA in North America, the TPP agreement between the US and Asia, that has not yet gone into effect and the TTIP deal between American and the European Union, which is currently being negotiated. These agreements ease access to foreign markets for corporations, but many workers also blame them for the loss of industrial jobs.
The acceptance of China into the World Trade Organization at the end of 2001 "opened the floodgates for imports of all types," says Brookings researcher Galston. Globalization has created wealth, but it has also transformed the world.
Post-industrial societies have risen out of the former Western industrial societies and their factories are now located in China, Malaysia and Taiwan. Workers are no longer manning assembly lines in Manchester and Detroit, but in Kuala Lumpur and Wuhan.
The consequence of this structural change has been that the West now needs workers with new qualifications and no longer the skilled workers who formed the backbone of the Western economies for decades. College graduates and programmers are needed -- people who are mobile, networked and cosmopolitan. In Britain, such people voted overwhelmingly to remain a part of the EU.
The result is that dividing lines in today's political debates are often no longer based on worldviews, but instead run between modernization's winners and losers. The world is divided between those who profit from the barrier-free world and those who believe that world has left them behind.
The Brexit movement succeeded in reaching the heart of disillusioned England. The referendum on future EU membership exposed the conflict between the wealthy center in London and the less prosperous English periphery, between the capital of money and the deindustrialized hinterlands. The working class feels it has been robbed of its purpose. Its jobs are disappearing.
'A Howl of Rage Against Exclusion'
In France, meanwhile, Front National has for years been the country's biggest workers' party by far. It too plays to the desire for a France of the past -- a country with fewer immigrants and a state controlled economy. Under the label of "intelligent protectionism," the party peddles the illusion that the country's economy can return to the glory days of the 1960s.
Marine Le Pen is fond of speaking of those who have been "forgotten;" they are her constituents. Front National has long performed strongest in the former industrial centers in the north and in the structurally weak south. Increasingly, though, the lower-middle class has also felt threatened, making it vulnerable to the populists as well.
In his 2010 book "Fractures francaises," French social geographer Christophe Guilluy wrote that Front National is gaining most voters in so-called periurban areas. These once rural areas, located outside of major cities, are often struggling with urban problems today. They've also lost the most economically.
Guilluy writes that the ruling political classes "still haven't understood that ideological and cultural divides have long separated them from the simpler classes." The "overwhelming majority of French may be convinced of the necessity of building social housing," he writes, but given that they are largely inhabited by immigrants, they nevertheless oppose their construction.
In absolute contrast to educated elites, angry voters in all countries feel threatened by immigrants competing for the remaining jobs. In the United States, the white lower class views itself as threatened by Hispanic immigrants, whereas the well-educated often welcome immigration because it contributes in terms of economic growth, demographics and a society's cultural richness.
A Failure to Find Appropriate Responses to Globalization
The feeling of having been forgotten by the political system is one that dominates among angry voters in all countries -- regardless which government is currently at the helm. "In recent years, it didn't matter in Western democracies if it was a center-left or center-right government in office," says Brookings researcher Galston. "They have all failed to provide an appropriate response to the effects of globalization."
Leftist British journalist George Monbiot wrote in the Guardian that the Brexit vote was "the eruption of an internal wound inflicted over many years by an economic oligarchy on the poor and the forgotten." He described it as a "howl of rage against exclusion, alienation and remote authority. That's why the slogan 'take back control' resonated. If the left can't work with this, what are we here for?"
Writing in his New York Times column a few days after the Brexit vote, conservative David Brooks noted, "When people feel their world is vanishing, they are easy prey for fact-free magical thinking and demagogues who blame immigrants." He added that "the elites pushed too hard, and now history is moving in the opposite direction. The less educated masses have a different conception of the future, a vision that is more closed, collective, protective and segmented."
Even American columnist Thomas Friedman, generally a champion of globalization, has come to a similar conclusion . "People are feeling deeply anxious about something," he writes. "We have globalized trade and manufacturing, and we have introduced robots and artificial intelligence systems." But this has also left a lot of people "dizzy and dislocated."
Scorn and Radicalization
And because our political system has yet to find any solutions to these problems, particularly to the fears of the less well educated, many are responding with scorn for the elite and with radicalization. This provides a tremendous opportunity for movements that, in the past, never would have stood a chance of even sniffing power, much less influencing politics through elections and referendums as we are now seeing.
Sociologist Michel Wieviorka, 69, a well-known French thinker, just published a book in which he dares to traverse an altogether new terrain to him: that of political fiction.
"Le seisme," or The Earthquake, begins on Monday, May 8, 2017, the evening before Marine Le Pen, the chair of Front National, is elected as French president after receiving 51.8 percent of the vote in a run-off against Francois Hollande. Wieviorka imagines Le Pen standing on Place de la Concorde in Paris with longtime Front National supporter Brigitte Bardot at her side. The newly elected president is cheered by the people.
It's Wieviorka's hope that the fictitious scenario played out in his book won't come true in real life. It is alarming though, he says, that the Brexit vote in the UK has lent his thought experiment a frightening degree of legitimacy.
Wieviorka himself recently admitted that he no longer votes because there are no longer any political parties he trusts. It's not something one would necessarily expect from a well-known sociologist. Wieviorka long described himself as a "friend of the left," but now he says: "The French left is dead" and that the crisis within the left has accelerated the downfall of the French political system.
Fear of Decline
Many French are infuriated, and the loss of trust between the people and their political leaders has never been as great as it is today. Those who society has left behind have the greatest potential for anger and, as such, also represent the most significant voter potential for the French populists, of whom Marine Le Pen is only the best known. The French politician has succeeded in coopting and taking ownership of the key issues held dearest by the left.
Le Pen has outfitted her party with an anti-liberal economic program that calls for greater protectionism and rejects free trade. She curses the elite, wants to put a stop to immigration and also seeks to give French people priority on the labor market. Under its charismatic leader, the party has become the third-strongest political force in the country and has also succeeded in breaking a two-party system that had prevailed for decades.
Fears of downfall, or at least of creeping decline, Wieviorka says, also pertain to the middle class. "We know that our children are not going to have better lives than we did," he says. On the contrary, parents these days often find themselves having to provide support for their grown-up children by subsidizing their lean wages or helping them buy a home.
In addition to the economic crisis, France -- along with many other European countries -- is also facing an identity crisis. French society is deeply divided and the republican ideal, that glue which used to hold the nation together, has lost its power to reconcile. "In France, there is no society left today -- all that remains is a state," says Wieviorka.
In Britain many people are unable to see how the country can find its way back to its lost greatness. In the US, there are fears that the superpower's importance is diminishing. It is a deep seated fear of decline that can also be found in many continental European countries.
Ultimately, the radicalization of many people is the response to a feeling that politics no longer provides answers to the most pressing issues. The situation is exacerbated in many countries in Europe by the impression that there are hardly any ideological differences between established political parties any more and that they represent the same ideas. That there is little choice left in politics, partly because of the common European currency, which is forcing all euro-zone countries to implement austerity measures and reforms.
The Left's Struggle
It is the left that has suffered the most under this radicalization in the Western world. Whether in France, the US or Britain, it is quarreling over the question of how best to react to globalization. Part of this is attributable to the fact that the left-leaning electorate is divided into two opposing camps: the classic workers constituency and the urbane, well-educated and liberal milieu that counts among globalization's winners. This conflict is currently fracturing Britain's Labour Party and has long been wreaking havoc within the French Socialist Party.
Hillary Clinton is experiencing similar troubles in the United States. It was her husband Bill who once signed the NAFTA into law. She's a Democrat who is also viewed as a representative of the establishment. These days, though, there's no label in the West that is as odious as "establishment." That partially explains why Clinton was faced with an internal party insurgency by anti-establishment socialist candidate Bernie Sanders. Now she will also have to prevail over anti-establishment candidate Trump.
Clinton herself now says she is opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement. As a candidate, she too is seeking to court the angry voters, while at the same time appealing to reason. If Trump weren't as assailable as a candidate, Clinton's prospects would likely look dim.
And yet she suffers under the same difficulty that all politicians face when forced to run against populists: Angry voters don't defect to the populists because they find the details of their platforms to be persuasive -- they flock to a Marine Le Pen or a Donald Trump because they see those candidates more convincingly expressing their own anger. They are not bothered by the risk that an end of free trade or a withdrawal from the EU will lead to a further deterioration of their own situation -- or they don't believe it. They see themselves as underprivileged already.
The wall that Trump wants to build along the border to Mexico won't solve any concrete problems, but it would provide a powerful symbol. It's not dissimilar to Brexit voters who didn't necessarily desire to leave the EU, but wanted to send the message: "Hey, we are here. Take us seriously. Do something for us. We have had enough of you."
It's possible that the era of the angry voter has only just begun.
By Julia Amalia Heyer, Gordon Repinski, Mathieu von Rohr, Christoph Scheuermann and Holger Stark
Bir Lehlou (liberated territories), July 06, 2016 (SPS) - President of the Republic, Secretary General of the Frente Polisario Mr. Jatri Aduh on Tuesday sent a message of congratulation to the President of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, Mr. Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz, on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr.
In a cable obtained by SPS, Saharawi President expressed, on behalf of the people and government of the Saharawi Republic (SADR), his heartfelt congratulations and best wishes for his Mauritanian counterpart, and through him to the people of Mauritania as a whole.
President Jatri Aduh expressed appreciation and gratitude for the very good relations of brotherhood already binding the two brotherly countries and peoples, adding these relations stems from deep-rooted ties, including religion, history, culture and neighborhood.
He also reiterated SADRs firm resolve to consolidate and strengthen relations in a way that serves the interests of the Saharawi and Mauritanian peoples as to realize the aspirations of the peoples of the region to live in an atmosphere of peace and stability. SPS
125/090/TRA
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STAMFORD A lot on the site of a planned big-box home improvement store on the West Side sold last week for $14.5 million, paving the way for construction on the project to start next year.
West Side Development Partners II LLC acquired the vacant lot from Cytec Industries, a maker of chemical and material technologies with an adjacent research lab at 1937 West Main St. The deal follows a sale six years ago when West Side Development Partners LLC acquired Cytecs building for $11 million. Both of the West Side Development groups comprise affiliates of the real-estate firms Steven Wise Associates and Spinnaker Real Estate Partners.
This acquisition is a very important step toward realizing the goal of a home improvement center, said Steven Wise, a principal in the West Side Development groups.
The developers are targeting a second-quarter 2017 start to the construction of an approximately 125,000-square-foot building, as well as a garden center, according to Wise. The new store is scheduled to open in the spring of 2018, Wise said.
Stamfords zoning board approved the project last year.
Wise declined to say which home improvement store the West Side Development groups planned to bring to West Main Street.
A decade ago, The Home Depot proposed a store at the site. Neighbors challenged the redevelopment because they said it would overburden the surrounding roads with more traffic.
Home Depot sued Cytec in 2009 for breach of contract, after attempting to acquire the West Main Street property for the proposed store.
A message left with The Home Depot inquiring whether the company was still interested in a store in Stamford was not immediately returned. The closest Home Depot stores to Stamford are in Norwalk and Port Chester, N.Y.
The planned redevelopment at 1937 West Main St. has been tied to proposed road improvements in the neighborhood. West Side Development Partners has agreed to upgrades that include re-aligning the driveway to the Cytec property on West Main Street with Harvard Avenue, replacing traffic signals and adding new crosswalks and sidewalks at the intersection.
The developers have also said that they would contribute significant funds toward improvements that the city has planned for the intersection of West Main Street and West Avenue. That work would widen West Avenue to create left-hand turn lanes there.
The reworking of the West Avenue-West Main Street intersection, as well as that of the Harvard Avenue-West Main Street intersection, is really going to be of major benefit to the city, Wise said.
About 100 Cytec employees work at the companys Stamford lab, according to David Klucsik, a spokesman for Solvay, Cytecs parent company.
This new sale has no impact on our ongoing operations in Stamford, Klucsik said.
Includes previous reporting by Alexander Soule and Keila Torres Ocasio.
pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; twitter: @paulschott
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GREENWICH Former Fox News Channel anchor Gretchen Carlson, a Greenwich resident, sued network chief executive Roger Ailes on Wednesday, claiming she was fired after she refused his sexual advances.
Carlson, the former host of a daytime show at Fox, alleged Ailes had retaliated against her because of complaints she had made about discrimination and harassment. The 11-year Fox employee was anchoring a 2 p.m. show when she said she was fired on June 23 at the end of her contract.
In a book tour that Carlson initiated in Greenwich last year for her memoir Getting Real, she spoke of the difficulties she had faced as a mother and a news professional. Carlson also wrote an essay last year at the time of her book launch that recounted the instances in which she had faced sexual harassment.
According to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Superior Court in New Jerseys Bergen County, Carlson stated her firing came nine months after Ailes told her during a meeting that you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago. Ailes has a residence in northern New Jersey.
Fox News representatives did not immediately return requests for comment on the lawsuit Wednesday.
The broadcaster alleges in the lawsuit that Ailes, who is 76, ogled her, repeatedly commented about her legs, urged her to wear clothes that enhanced her figure and told her she was sexy but too much hard work.
Carlson said she was fired as a host of the morning show Fox & Friends in 2013, and her pay reduced with the transfer to a daytime slot, because she had complained about sexual harassment.
She said that one of her Fox & Friends co-hosts, Steve Doocy, had created a hostile work environment by regularly treating her in a sexist and condescending way. She said that when Ailes heard of her complaints, he called her a man hater who needed to learn to get along with the boys.
Carlson said that Ailes punished her by cutting back on political interviews that she conducted and ending a regular appearance she made on Bill OReillys prime-time program, generally Foxs highest-rated show.
Carlson expressed her thanks for supportive messages she had been receiving. Thank you everyone, for your outpouring of support, she wrote on her social media accounts.
Speaking at the First Presbyterian Church last year, Carlson told the audience about the Bible verses that she keeps in her day book, and she encouraged audience members to pass on the value of giving to their children. She shared the stage with her friend and fellow Greenwich resident, Kathie Lee Gifford.
Carlson regularly takes part in community and charity events in town. She won recognition from the YWCA of Greenwich last year
Carlson, a Minnesota native, won the Miss America Pageant in 1989.
The lawsuit asks for an unspecified amount of payment for damages.
Staff writer Robert Marchant contributed to this report.
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STAMFORD Five seniors from Westhill and Stamford high schools didnt know what to think when they found out their summer internships were with a company called Comradity.
Westhills Jake Dardis admitted he Googled it.
Turns out Comradity is a co-working company. Its purpose is to attract corporate creatives who are starting up new ventures. One of the companys most notable members is former Pitney Bowes CEO Mike Critelli, who is building his own film production company.
I had never heard of a workplace like this before, Dardis said.
He and the other interns were assigned to Comradity through the citys youth employment program, which places 100 juniors and seniors in professional summer internships.
In its second full year of operation, Comradity occupies a sprawling office above Harbor Points Dinosaur BBQ.
Stamford Highs Abigail Bushell said she and her fellow interns have started working on Comraditys marketing campaign, but eventually they will get a chance to work with Critellis From the Rough Productions and 11 other member companies.
Jim Kern, a Comradity co-founder, said hes eager for the interns to work with as many member companies as possible. They include start-ups, law firms and marketing agencies.
These are an impressive group of kids. Theyre energetic and chomping at the bit, Kern said.
He took part in the program to tap into the future of the workforce, Kern said.
Not just a check
Asli Foster of Westhill said she applied for the Youth Employment Program because she wanted more than a paycheck from her summer job.
I do plan on going into business and (working at Comradity) is more hands-on and close to what I hope to be doing with the rest of my life, Foster said.
Some interns hope the summer will help them shape their career goals.
I think were getting something here that a lot of our peers are not getting elsewhere, Bushell said. Its hard to get an opportunity in an office like this unless you are a college student.
Westhill intern Charles Teeters said he hopes the internship will help him zero in on a college major. Hes already worked at a production company in New York and thinks hes interested in a creative field, but he hasnt ruled out a business career, Teeters said.
For me this internship is really helping me decide what I want to start with in college, he said. I dont want to have to change my major three times and waste all of that money.
Starting networks
Besides valuable experience, the interns hope to begin building professional networks.
The Kerns have created this so the companies here can have a creative community that works together, said William Evans of Westhill. Networking is one of my big goals for this summer.
Foster said she is eager to absorb knowledge from the start-up companies at Comradity.
I want to work with start-ups to see what they did wrong and learn what you should and shouldnt do, she said. Its great to be networking with these start-ups at an early stage, and in the future Ill be able to call them and say, Hey, remember me?
Dardis, who is set on a career in journalism, said he hopes to get a feel for how professionals work.
Im hoping to talk to and connect with all of the businesses here and see what they like and dislike about the business world, he said.
Comradity is focused on shaping its interns into marketable employees, whether they decide to pursue a college degree or not, Kern said.
If we can get them to work with as many firms as possible, they will leave with a diverse portfolio of experience, he said. We want them to see how much the business world has to offer.
nora.naughton@scni.com; twitter.com/noranaughton
We are now officially in summer, but we want to remind readers of a recent shocking crime, a mention of which I did not see in your paper.
We harken back to the recent Groundhog Day, when the official Connecticut Groundhog, a lady known as Chuckles VIII, predicted no more winter. Sadly, shortly thereafter, a snowstorm dropped about half a foot of snow up in the northern part of the state.
Quick to react, the alert Sheriffs Department of Suffield arrested the young lady for fraud, and posted details of her arrest and a sad (and adorable) mug shot on their Facebook page. The mug shot is still viewable on the net.
Chuckles VIII was, fortunately, pardoned, and it was suggested that donations to a local childrens museum might help make some amends for her misbehavior.
Since then, I have told her tale to people on an almost daily basis. The reactions have been:
Youre not serious!
We have a state groundhog?
Dont they have regular crimes in Suffield?
You must be serious because no one could make that up!
Did they release her from her shackles?
Is she now on the lam?
Do you think she might now be in disguise, maybe in a blond wig, and heading to another state?
One gentleman, whose entire body shook with laughter when he heard the story, may interview her about her trauma, if they should meet. We have alerted friends who have moved out of the state about the rising underground crime rate.
We wish the young lady all the best.
E. Hanoian is a Stamford resident.
STAMFORD A Baltimore woman was extradited to Connecticut and charged Tuesday with stealing nearly $7,000 from a Stamford-based direct marketing companys payroll account.
Chardonique Norwood, 24, was charged with 12 counts of conspiracy at second-degree computer crimes, conspiracy at second-degree forgery and conspiracy to commit sixth-degree larceny.
The arrest comes from a complaint made to police in September by a manager employed by PTM Consultants who noticed thousands of dollars missing from debit cards issued to the companys independent contractors, according to Norwoods seven-page arrest affidavit.
The manager explained that beginning in August 2015, several independent contractors selling items in the energy industry such as solar panels began reporting unauthorized transactions on the cards. By the time she talked to police, 21 complaints had been made.
The accounts in question involved only those contractors being paid by the Rapid! PayCard brand debit card, and the consultants had access to a master account accessible by computer.
When the manager talked to the Rapid! debit card representative, she learned that the security password for the program still had a default password, that could easily be compromised, the affidavit said.
Stamford property crimes investigators traced one of the thefts by obtaining video footage of a woman who withdrew more than $700 from a Rapid! account at a Rite Aid store in New Haven and wired the money to Baltimore via Western Union. Police identified the woman as Tamara Hill, a former PTM employee who worked in the New Haven office.
Hill told police that Norwood masterminded the scam, which involved 12 wire transfers totaling $6,999, the affidavit said. Police also found out that Norwood worked for PTM in Baltimore before being transferred to the New Haven office, where the payroll frauds originated, the affidavit said.
A warrant was obtained for Norwoods arrest, and police traveled to Baltimore, where she was being held over a domestic incident.
She was brought to Stamford on Monday and is being held in lieu of a $75,000 court appearance bond.
Hill was also charged by police for the one wire transfer.
jnickerson@scni.com;
B ritain used to have a civil service of which it could be proud, and even today it has a much better one than it and its politicians deserve.
But for how much longer? Reports this week say it has been so diminished by Government cuts it may have to employ outside consultants to help it cope with the challenge of negotiating a new deal with the European Union. That is a sign of a service approaching breaking point.
David Cameron and George Osborne and their successors are reaping what they have sown. Since 2010, Conservative ministers who really should have known better have seldom missed an opportunity to be publicly contemptuous of the professionalism of Whitehall officials. When Government policies unravelled, it was the civil servants fault for not being sufficiently business savvy and professional, and not knowing how to manage change.
It was never that the proposals for the reform of the NHS, education or welfare reform, or any half-baked manifesto promise, were inadequately thought through, self-contradictory and could never work in the real world.
As disaster followed disaster in the granting of rail franchises, the border-controls saga, the efficiency drive at HMRC and botched privatisations, it was civil servants who were hung out to dry while their political bosses faded into the background. When Government wanted an easy headline, it saw nothing wrong in appointing businessmen it admired to shake things up and expose the public sector to some state-of-the-art business thinking. Sir Philip Green is now better-known for cutting loose BHS and its pensioners and being grilled by a Parliamentary committee but it was not always thus.
In 2010, Cameron and Osborne were huge admirers of the retailer so much so that one of their first acts after getting to Downing Street was to appoint the BHS boss to tell the civil service how to improve its buying and procurement. How they smirked when, launching his report that autumn, Sir Philip told the world he had never seen such waste, and senior people in Whitehall would not last five minutes in his business.
But in many ways more demoralising was the relentless pursuit of efficiency. Almost every Osborne Budget imposed cuts in Whitehall numbers and a multi-year pay freeze while doing little or nothing to cut the burden of work. The result is that there are now fewer people in Whitehall than there have been for a generation, and those who are there earn significantly less than their contemporaries in the private sector who, for the most part, shoulder significantly less responsibility. It is a tribute to the quality of leadership within the profession that morale has stayed so high considering the pressure, the frequent criticism and the off-stage denigration.
But attrition rates are high. People can move in and out between public and private sector much more easily today than they could in the past, so more turnover is to be expected. But it is much higher than it should be, with younger members in particular leaving because they cant afford to stay. When, a few years ago, the Treasury created a 20-strong hit squad to monitor spending and assist cost-cutting in other departments, the initiative descended into farce because fewer than half the team were still in post a year later.
One of the dangerous by-products is a Government machine without a memory. When the financial crisis broke in 2008, only two or three people out of the several hundred in the Treasury had been there in the early Nineties and could therefore remember what they did in the previous recession and crisis. It is not much better today. With the exception of a handful of mandarins such as Tom Scholar now running the Treasury there are surprisingly few left who worked through the 2008 crisis. Even John Kingman has decamped to Legal & General. There is a real danger that experienced cool heads will be thin on the ground if or should that be when? we have another financial crisis.
All this leads to an interesting mismatch between what senior and retired civil servants say and what young civil servants plan to do. The old guard, and particularly the recently retired who are allowed to speak freely on TV, assure us the civil service will deliver whatever the Government wants on Brexit, because that is its job.
The younger members of that same civil service London-based, well-educated, ambitious and aspirational take a different view, even if they know better than to say so out loud and in public. In large numbers, they are hugely depressed by the referendum result and have no desire to serve on the Brexit team developing and implementing policies with which they fundamentally disagree. They are not going to volunteer for such roles, and a spate of resignations is likely if they are told that they have to. It is not just the public who are bewildered and disgusted by the behaviour of the political class.
The shortage of skilled trade negotiators that civil service chief Sir Jeremy Haywood is reported to be concerned about is only the tip of a very large iceberg. Whole areas of activity, such as monopolies and mergers policy, are somehow going to have to be re-staffed if primary responsibility for them comes back from Brussels. This is at a time when the civil service has been hollowed out, its age profile is a mess and it does not have the people to take on the additional responsibilities coming its way.
Brexit teams will no doubt be found from somewhere but only at the cost of denuding other departments that are already struggling to cope. Short of spending vast sums on recruitment and retention and bringing in legions of outside consultants, it is hard to see how the civil service can deliver what is routinely expected of it. The additional costs of gearing up for Brexit promise to be huge but it should at least stop wrangling about how the money we will no longer send to the EU is likely to be spent.
A llo! Allo! Paris has wasted no time flaunting its Gallic charms at British businesses worried about the potential effects of Brexit.
A letter has arrived on the desk of 4000 British executives from Valerie Pecresse, head of the Paris regional government, in which she tells them: The Paris region offers an unparalleled quality of life. We urge British business to think about whats next, move on and come to Europe, Pecresse said. Lets not be naive: this is a competition and others also want these jobs.
Frankfurt and Paris have already begun lobbying hard to wrest back control of the multi-billion-dollar euro-clearing industry from London. Paris believes that as many as 30,000 financial services jobs are up for grabs when the UK leaves the EU.
Pecresse told Bloomberg: Were the only truly global city seeking this business. Frankfurt doesnt have our depth, Dublin is on Europes periphery.
She also urged French president Francois Hollande to drop plans to impose a so-called Tobin tax on financial transactions to make the country more attractive to outside investors.
S hares in the buy it, improve it, sell it turnaround group Melrose surged more than 30% today after it announced its latest takeover to massive acclaim from investors.
It is buying US heating, air-conditioning and controls maker Nortek for $1.44 billion (1.1 billion) and a further $1.36 billion of debt giving a total value of $2.8 billion. The all-cash deal will be funded through a 1.65 billion rights issue.
Chief executive Simon Peckham admitted that the deal was 10% more expensive today than it would have been a week ago before the vote for Brexit.
You pays your money and takes your choice on what Brexit will mean, he said. We are buying a business which has 93% of its revenues in North America and has a product in 80% of US homes.
Peckham also praised the City for supporting the deal at a time of uncertainty.
We started to let investors know about it on an insider basis last Friday and they were all for it, he said.
That is a great tribute to the City that it is ready to invest in a UK business which is going overseas to make money for over here.
Melrose has a blue-chip list of institutional investors with Artemis, Fidelity, Threadneedle, Old Mutual and Legal & General the top five.
Many of them have followed the management, most of whom came from the Nineties conglomerate Wassall.
Since Melrose listed on the Alternative Investment Market in 2003 with a value of 13 million, its has created and handed back to shareholders 2.8 billion of value.
It had been looking for its next deal for almost a year having sold US metering business Elster, which it bought for 1.2 billion in 2012, to Honeywell for 3.3 billion last year.
Peckham said the deal had been fully hedged at just under $1.30 to the pound but admitted: Ive looked at the exchange rate more in the past 48 hours than in the rest of my life.
The rights issue of 12 new shares at 95p for every existing one is fully underwritten by Investec, JPMorgan Cazenove and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The existing shares jumped 132.25p to 542p.
" A significant section of Western opinion is not only ready to believe that the West is as bad as [Saddams] Baathist Iraq; it actively wants that to be so In a world governed by moral relativism we must put ourselves on the same plane as a dictator. Our errors must be considered as worthy, if not more deserving, of condemnation as his.
So wrote Michael Gove 10 years ago in his book Celsius 7/7. Much has changed in the intervening decade. For a start, Gove has broken free of his role as David Camerons chief intellectual lieutenant, and is now standing in the contest to become Prime Minister himself. Yet his observation about moral relativism and Iraq is no less relevant today, as Sir John Chilcots report is finally published, than it was in 2006, the first year of Camerons party leadership.
It would be an exaggeration to say that the precise content of the Chilcot report is irrelevant. But the forces ranged against Tony Blair have been waiting for this day since before Sir Johns inquiry was commissioned in 2009, and planning their actions more or less irrespective of his findings.
Jeremy Corbyn, who was chair of Stop the War before he became Labour leader, has longed for the opportunity to call for Blair to be indicted for war crimes though there is little jurisprudential basis for such a demand. Meanwhile, a group of MPs led by Alex Salmond insists that the former Prime Minister should be impeached an archaic device last used in 1806. As Salmond has put it, there has to be a judicial or political reckoning.
Why is the loathing of Blair so intense? The Left has never forgiven him for winning three successive elections, and for the ideological steps that were necessary for him to do so. It is also psychologically easier to loathe a lone politician to make him the pinata than to address the often frightening questions posed by post-9/11 conflict generally and the Iraq War specifically.
Join the dots and you will see that there is a direct link between the war and the Brexit vote. The controversies surrounding the dossiers, the death of Dr David Kelly, the faulty intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction, and the failure to plan adequately for Iraqs fate after Saddams future all have served to compound public contempt for the political class.
Other factors have played their part in what Alastair Campbell called this huge stuff about trust: Tory sleaze, Labour spin, the financial crash and the parliamentary expenses scandal. But Iraq was the most significant milestone, the main event. It prefigured the breach between political elite and electorate that finally ruptured in the EU referendum, 13 years after the fall of Saddam. Though not commissioned as such, Sir Johns immense survey is also the first section of the road map to the Brexit vote.
In this swamp of vilification the geopolitical context of the Iraq conflict has been almost completely forgotten. The discussions between Blair and President Bush in 2002-3 that led to the war took place as the world still reeled from 9/11. In his new biography of Bush, the distinguished American historian, Jean Edward Smith, describes the September 11 attacks extraordinarily as tragic, but scarcely catastrophic.
How quickly disaster fades in collective memory, especially when it is opportune for it to do so (Smith judges Americas interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq as disastrous wars of aggression). Suffice to say that 9/11 seemed catastrophic enough at the time. The orthodox approach to regimes such as Saddams of containment, persuasion and sanctions was no longer adequate. The world now faced an interlocked triple threat rogue states, WMD, fundamentalist terrorism that could not be ignored. In the wake of 9/11, it was no longer obvious that Saddam (and others like him) should be given the benefit of the doubt, or granted as much time as he liked to satisfy the weapons inspectors regarding his deadly arsenal.
As you hear the sticks battering the pinata today and in the days ahead before you swing a stick yourself recall the efforts to which Blair went to internationalise the war. Without his influence over Bush, the US would have almost certainly ignored the United Nations as it forged its plans to remove Saddam.
It was Blair who persuaded Bush to renew the Middle-East peace process even as his troops sweltered in Kuwait, waiting for their Commander-in-Chiefs order. It was Blair who (unnecessarily but as a sign of good faith) suspended the royal prerogative power to declare war and gave the Commons the power of veto over British involvement in the campaign. Odd behaviour, you might agree, for a Prime Minister alleged to be interested only in protecting his position as First Poodle in the White House.
It will take many hours to read Sir Johns magnum opus, and there will be much to learn from his findings. But those who already hate Blair will not have their opinions shifted by an inch.
This is not only unjust. It is a form of collective self-laceration, and a triumph for selective amnesia, typical of our age in which opinion swings hectically from adoration to loathing remember when Blair had an approval rating of 93 per cent? It meshes with the disdain for metropolitan politics, elites and experts that Vote Leave exploited so effectively.
In truth, the failures of the liberation of Iraq reflect the infancy of the doctrine of pre-emptive war and the difficulty in persuading Western publics to support long-term military commitment to territories where humanitarian intervention is not enough and nation-building (or rebuilding) is necessary, perhaps for decades.
These dilemmas are at the heart of 21st- century geopolitics and they will not disappear, however often Blair is forced into the metaphoric dock. Those who hate him are entitled to their opinion, lopsided as it is. But dont imagine for a moment that they are achieving anything other than to scratch an ignoble itch.
T here's something freakish about watching the Conservative Party regenerate. Last week it was thrashing and hissing like a diseased Alien, spraying venomous gore over the country after a disastrous attempt to placate what Ken Clarke refers to as a mindless, tiny band of lunatics (its own members). Within a few days it had hacked out the tumours, cauterised the wounds and fed fresh spawn into the amniotic sac of a leadership contest.
Already, the least promising larvae have been re-ingested. In the time it takes Jeremy Corbyn to organise a shadow cabinet meeting, theyll be down to two. And faster than you can say sovereignty!, the 150,000-strong brood will have decided which safe pair of hands it wants to clean up the social, economic, constitutional and diplomatic mess it has pointlessly created.
And heres a fresh mutation. With Michael Gove still infectious, it seems likely that the run-off will feature two women. In the Remain corner is Theresa May, whose main claim to lead the country is that shes an actual grown-up. Shes been softening the anti-human rights vibe she has channelled as Home Secretary and has reassured urban progressives that she owns an Ottolenghi cookbook.
And in the Leave corner is Andrea Leadsom, who once worked in the City, dont you know? Boris Johnson feels Leadsom could bring unity to the party not Britain, then? while Tim Loughton feels our girl has displayed balls in a mans world. Another MP caught the mood when he said: Its time for Mummy!
Tory leadership candidates and their odds
Is it, though? Well, a female leader sorry, Prime Minister would at least look like a fresh start. This country has had enough of malicious male egos, to paraphrase the worst of them, and theres a matriarchal yearning that seems specific to the Tory brood (going back to Margaret, Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria, nanny perhaps)
Even for the non-Tory theres something appealing about a British female joining Hillary Clinton and Angela Merkel on the world stage, cleaning up all the male mess. The Germans call it the Femokratie.
But while two women in a run-off seems like the sort of thing youd expect from a grown-up democracy, the everyday sexism is not. Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom may both be women but they have quite different views! went one BBC report. Well, duh. Allison Pearson, Telegraph columnist and Leadsom cheerleader, felt the need to tweet: Time that a mother took charge. (May, as the Sunday papers reminded us, has no children.) Has anyone advanced Goves case by referring to his abilities as a father?
If were going to be equal-opportunities about this, surely the salient fact about Leadsom isnt that shes a mother. Its that shes an idiot. Her first act when she arrived at the Department of Energy and Climate Change was to ask whether climate change was a thing. She has argued for the abolition of parental rights, the censorship of sex education materials, tweeted that Britain is overrun by foreigners, allegedly benefited from offshore funds and was widely mocked at the Treasury. To vote for her because she has something of the Iron Lady in her demeanour is deeply patronising.
The salient point about May is not that shes a woman or a bloody difficult one but that shes socially conservative, bloody-minded about Brexit and, as the cards have fallen, the only acceptable face of a party that puts its own interests before those of the country again and again.
Welsh keep the red flag flying
Tonight's Euro 2016 semi-final between Wales and Portugal is billed as a battle of two superstars: Gareth Bale versus Cristiano Ronaldo. But if there is an overriding theme emerging from the competition (which, as ever, only flickered into life once England had departed) its the triumph of the team over the individual. Its a post-Leicester City tournament. Iceland vanquished England through superior organisation, motivation and a surer sense of collective identity. Northern Ireland and Hungary had similar triumphs. And contrast Bales commitment to his team with Ronaldos apparent insistence that the team commit to him (Portugal have reached this stage without winning a match in normal time).
Supporting Wales isnt just proxy-patriotism for an Englishman; its the choice of all good socialists.
Make sure the young can still study in Europe
Now that Brexit panic has cooled into measured fury, I suppose we may as well get started with the business that will preoccupy us for the next 10 to 15 years. (Fortunately, the pristine state of the public finances and widespread contentment among doctors, nurses, teachers and care workers means theres a lot of spare capacity within the system.)
As we know, young people voted overwhelmingly to remain within the EU. It would be cruel to take away their right to study abroad often much cheaper than it is in Britain and the Italian Prime Minister,
Matteo Renzi, has argued for all British students to be offered passports to study in mainland Europe. As Sigmar Gabriel, the German Vice-Chancellor, echoed: They knew better than the snobs of the British elite that it was about their future. Well, quite.
British universities, meanwhile, will be among those hardest hit by Brexit. There are 125,000 students from the EU in higher education in Britain, and our institutions receive over 836 million in grants and funding according to Universities UK. A reciprocal arrangement and special protections should be a priority.
Aherne had a unique quality
The best thing any song, film, painting or performance can do is to change how you see the world. It happens less dramatically as you get older. But I remember Caroline Ahernes The Royle Family doing that when I watched the first episode as a teenager in September 1998.
It was one of the funniest things Id seen but I also recall finding a sort of bleak teenage solace in its cosy nothings; for all its smallness, it expanded the world a little bit. Its sad to think of someone as generous with her intelligence as Aherne meeting such a lonely end. When we complain about the need for more working-class voices on TV (or black, Asian or LGBT, or just basically non-posh voices) this is what were missing.
S am Leith provides a neat analysis of the EU referendum situation and makes a persuasive argument against our divorce being messy [Comment, July 4]. But while he accepts that there is some ground to think things might go differently with a second referendum, he concludes that it will not and cannot ever happen because the very substantial number of people who voted Leave would take to the streets with pitchforks and it would be hard to blame them.
As a Remain voter I feel that the referendum won on a slim majority with a mediocre turnout was stolen by poisonous lies and absurd promises that have already been ditched. Should I be out with my pitchfork or should I continue my peaceful campaigning against this outcome, something that thousands of voters have done since June 24 without a hint of violence?
We cannot simply ignore the result of June 23 that would be dangerous. But warning against looking for a democratic route out of the madness doesnt offer much of a contrast to the situation we are already in: one that will worsen as Britains economy shrinks, leaving communities worse off and the country ever more inward-looking.
Alistair King
The Governments democratic responsibility must be to protect the people of the country from themselves, not to succumb to mob rule. More so when those in question were at best ill-informed and victims of lies and deception.
Even given these points, the majority for Leave was so slim, and then only among the modest proportion that voted, that it can hardly be considered justification for the Government to send the UK down this path of economic calamity, with the break-up that will surely follow. This is not democratic.
It is time for the Government to show the leadership that is so often talked about and begin pushing for a better future for all inside the EU not the chaos that awaits us outside of it.
Geoff Saunders
I am a 30-year-old Hungarian and I have been living and working in the UK for the past eight years. I have always had a job since I arrived and have never claimed any benefits, and have paid my taxes. But since the Brexit vote there is an uncertainty about my future in this country.
Britons say they want their country back. To me, this means that I am no longer welcome here and I will have to leave. This is fine with me but what about the money I have paid in taxes to help with the future of the UK? What would happen to my daughter, who is a British citizen as she was born in London? Would some people deem her to be not British enough?
This is a sad case but I feel there is no choice but for me to leave the UK as soon as possible.
David Gadjos
Will Chilcot provide closure for relatives?
It is a relief for the families of those killed in the Iraq War that Sir John Chilcots report has finally been published in all its 2.6 million words. It is unlikely to add very much to our or the families understanding of the events that led to the Iraq war or the war itself but many relatives of the 179 Britons killed in the conflict have expressed their dismay at how the investigation has been handled several families of British soldiers killed in the war even chose to boycott the publication.
The importance of the Chilcot report is that its publication will reopen the debate on the Iraq War and former prime minister Tony Blairs role in it. He argues that the situation in the Middle East would be worse if there hadnt been an invasion but there is enough information in the public domain to suggest that the war was illegal and that it did catastrophic damage to Middle Eastern and global stability.
What most people always wanted from Chilcot is an admission that the Iraq War was disastrous and wrong, and that those who took us into it did so knowing this.
Chris Nineham, national officer, Stop the War Coalition
MPs should not be facing intimidation
The continuing reports of protests and threats aimed at MPs and their offices are concerning, particularly in the wake of the murder of Jo Cox. There is no place for intimidation and threats of violence in our ongoing political debate or anywhere in a democratic society.
It is not right that activists and MPs staff have been subjected to aggressive behaviour and phone calls. Constituency staff provide support to constituents and should not be afraid to carry out their work. We are proud of the democratic traditions of the Labour Party and the tolerance we have always embraced but we condemn any use of threats or physical violence and will not work with those who do.
Virendra Sharma, MP for Ealing Southall, Andy Slaughter, MP for Hammersmith, and eight other Labour MPs
Credit Corbyn for remaining calm
It is often said that the test of a good leader is how well they react in a crisis. David Cameron and Nigel Farage quit as leaders of their respective parties after Brexit, while Roy Hodgson resigned as England manager after a disastrous performance at Euro 2016. But against this trend, Jeremy Corbyn has remained resolute and firm as leader of the Labour Party.
While he is not as grand a statesman as other great leaders such as Winston Churchill, he has been calm despite facing unprecedented turbulence and should be commended.
Chris Roche
Our business rates are still too high
While I applaud your leader columns backing reform of business rates [Comment, July 1 and July 4], I fear they will fall on deaf ears. Even after three reviews the Government has eschewed radical change.
I agree that the burden is too high, but instead of the Chancellors post-Brexit promise of further corporation tax cuts, he should reduce business rates which are payable regardless of trading performance. They are a deterrent to inward investment and a cut would deliver more benefits immediately.
Jerry Schurder, head of business rates, Geraldeve
At the end of a haute couture week laden with diamond encrusted gowns designed for the most conspicuous of consumers, John Gallianos latest Artisanal collection for Maison Margiela offered a point of extreme difference.
Certainly there was little - the splendour of a catwalk housed within Pariss Hotel des Invalides aside - that Thorstein Veblen could find ostentatious in the Gibraltar born designers latest couture spectacle.
A far cry from the puffy tulle gowns and the eye-watering five figure cocktail gowns which have enticed the nouveau riche to start shopping from their front row seats during this weeks high fashion festivities, this was a show which placed craft not cash at the top of its agenda - and rags - albeit thoughtfully sourced ones - which served as its beating heart.
In keeping with the Maison Margiela philosophy for refashioning fabrics and items into creative masterpieces, Galliano looked to create his own spirited fantasy.
Thierry Chesnot/Getty
Transporting guests into a topsy turvy world in which biker jackets served as cuffs on sleeves and Scottish tweed suiting allowed a second life through canny drapery and the addition of shattered plastic embellishment, Galliano offered a love letter to that which is beautifully bizarre.
On notes issued to those in attendance ahead of the show - reclusive Galliano remained behind the scenes today - the notions of innocence and protection were cited among the designers inspirations.
True to this, a stunning sheer gown detailed with blood red embroidery emphasized the idea of fragility. But it was the outerwear in this collection that served as its most poignant addition with coats and anoraks transformed into walking works of art.
Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty
Military coats, flipped upside down and draped across the backs of gowns, swaddled models sporting neon face paint and abstract jewellery.
One parachute dress, created from a windbreak and presented alongside a pair of thigh high wellington boots, further harnessed the idea that this was a collection with which Galliano looked to offer protection from the elements.
An array of millinery - everything from plastic headscarves to caps with supersized peaks was on offer here - also suggested Gallino had been thinking about using fashion as a shield.
Thierry Chesnot/Getty
The idea of fashion as a barrier between the fantastical and reality is becoming common ground for Galliano who has been sheltered by Maison Margiela since arriving at the house in 2014.
The designer, who came to the Belgian founded creative hotbed following his breakdown and a very public sacking at the hands of Christian Dior, has benefited both creatively and personally from the anonymity Maison Margiela offers its designers.
Financial reports suggest that it is a relationship thats proving mutually beneficial. Sales at the house - owned by Renzo Rosso who owns denim brand Diesel - are up 30% and plans for expansion in the pipeline.
Perhaps diamonds are no longer a girls best friend.
W hile many will be marking Eid with family gatherings or small-scale celebrations in restaurants with friends, there are a also a handful larger-scale Eid celebrations taking place in the capital.
All of the below are free to enter and there is no ticket required.
Trafalgar Square
When: 12pm to 6pm, Saturday July 9
Mayor Sadiq Khan will host Londons official celebrations this year. The event will feature stalls selling foods from around the world, live music and childrens activities including face-painting, henna and storytelling.
Read more about this event
Goodmayes Park, Ilford
When: Until 9.30pm, July 6
Run by charity organisation 1Eid, this event features a funfair, a petting zoo and a firework finale.
Read more about this event
Rectory Park, Ealing
When: Until 9pm, July 6
Also run by charity organisation 1Eid, this event features a funfair, and Eid souk and a petting zoo.
Read more about this event
Eid 2016 - all you need to know
Stockwood Park, Luton
When: Until 9pm, July 6
This vast event north of London has seen over 400,000 muslims celebrate Eid together in recent years.
Read more about this event
Sadiq Khan's Eid message.mp4
Brent Cross
When: 9am to 5pm, Saturday July 16
Eid celebrations take place a little later than most at this north London shopping centre. It will include fables enacted by a theatre group, face painting, henna artists and a number of craft activities designed to encourage children to think about their community.
Read more about this event
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W hen she applied to co-host Channel 4s investigative programme, Food: What Goes in Your Basket in 2010, chef Ravinder Bhogal says she became convinced they would end up hiring some tough man. I told them that if they hired me theyd get to film a girl crying at pigs in films exploring conditions in the pork industry, she says. So they thought, Oooh, well get her crying on camera. But I never did. Its a masterclass in how to get a job in television.
Bhogal started out as a freelance fashion journalist. She won a competition to find Britains new Fanny Cradock on Gordon Ramsays The F Word in 2007 and then published Cook in Boots, an eclectic collection of lick-the-page-pretty dishes, from crispy squid to Oreo cheesecake. Yet its only now, after a series of supper clubs, that the 35-year-old is ready to open her own restaurant, Jikoni in Marylebone.
There was no plan behind Bhogals success, it just happened. It was a surprise, the whole book thing happening, the whole TV thing, she says. Id never planned to be a TV presenter, the offers just came my way. She had to rein in her swearing, saying that Gordon Ramsay was surprised that I swear as much as he does.
Bhogal is made for the screen, rocking up to our photoshoot clad not in chefs whites but a thigh-split evening gown and leopard-print stilettos that Theresa May would kill for. Whats that saying? she grins, give a woman the right pair of shoes and shell...?
Rule the world? I suggest.
Exactly!
Jikoni is the culmination of a lifes work, albeit a stressful one. Im a cook! Now Im being asked, What direction would you like the extraction fan, where should the waste pipe go? I dont bloody know!
Its also a tribute to her father, who died in 2011. My dad was a businessman. When I was a fashion journalist, he didnt get it. When I started cooking, he kept saying, You should go into business, open a restaurant very Indian.
He fell ill just before her first pop-up. Soon after his death Bhogal created a tribute supper-club menu 19 courses showcasing all his favourite food.
If her father inspired the restaurant, it is her grandfather that Marylebone has to thank for Bhogals love of cooking. As a girl she was forced to spend her time cooking and sewing while her male cousins climbed mango trees (it was like an Austen novel). It wasnt until her grandfather bought her a tiny stove and showed her how to cook bread rolls on it that she caught the cooking bug. They would come out as all this blackened dough, and my grandfather would eat them and say they were the most delicious thing in the world.
My fiance does cook but Im such a control freak, I end up chasing him round the kitchen with tongs
Jikoni is Swahili for kitchen Bhogal was born in Kenya but the menu is global. I am East African, North Indian, British, she explains. That means prawn toast with quail scotch eggs, a currified shepherds pie, and her take on the American junk food Sloppy Joe. While the original is a mush of disintegrating hamburger, Bhogals is made with lush, marinated Herdwick mutton, served on a buttery brioche bun. She declares it perfect hangover food and those stumbling out of nearby Chiltern Firehouse will doubtless be clawing at the door for the weekend brunch.
Go global: Bhogals Spanish influenced scorched Padron peppers in a tangy sauce / Francesca McCoy
Despite the despair that Brexit has instilled in a restaurant industry overwhelmingly staffed by migrants from the EU and beyond, Bhogal is trying to steer clear of the fallout. I am not a politician, just a cook, she shrugs. The dust has yet to settle for us to truly understand what will be.
Still, she predicts that the worst affected will be large establishments with huge, predominantly migrant workforces. A small 50-cover restaurant such as Jikoni will hopefully escape the swing of Brexits scythe.
A stellar review from her old pal Jay Rayner, with whom she co-hosted Food: What Goes in Your Basket, would help. She calls him mouth on legs.
30 must-try dishes in London restaurants 1 /41 30 must-try dishes in London restaurants Bone marrow on toast with parsley salad at St John Not only has this dish kicked off countless wonderful meals over the course of St Johns 25 years, but it also gets credit for putting British cooking back on the global culinary map. Roasted bone marrow, coaxed out onto toast, cut perfectly with salad of parsley, shallots and capers. A nose-to-tail revolution, and utterly divine. Whole turbot at Brat Tomos Parrys talents with a turbot first came to feverish acclaim at Mayfair restaurant Kitty Fishers, but they are now the star attraction at his Michelin-starred solo spot. This whole fish grilled Basque-style, over hot coals and in a specially designed cage softens as if it has melted, and is basted at the table in an emulsion made with its own juices. Benjamin McMahon Marinara at 50 Kalo di Ciro Salvo Superlatives should be used in moderation but heck it, this might just be Londons best pizza. This under-the-radar London iteration of a Naples pizzeria serves an unrivalled marinara: just tomato sauce, oil, garlic and oregano. No need for any more with a sauce this good and a base so fine and perfectly charred, you can stop mourning your cancelled Italian holiday at first bite. Luciano Furia Clay pot baked pork and crab glass noodles at Kiln When we say Kiln is one of the hottest spots in town, we mean it hang over the counter at the Thai barbecue and youre not far out of range for the odd flame. Baking in the heart of the swirling heat is this must order: shimmering glass noodles, coated with a silky sauce enriched with fatty slicks of Tamworth pork belly and improbably unctuous crab meat. Lamb chops, Melabes Perhaps because its quietly tucked in among its unassuming neighbours down on the wrong end of High Street Kensington, Melabes is often overlooked by Londons food lovers. An unwarranted shame, as this partly Middle Eastern, partly Mediterranean set-up is really very good; it is somewhere to pick and choose from bits and pieces, and put a meal together yourself. The lamb chops, which come all smokey and burnished from the grill, are perfect; pink as a Vegas sign inside, but the fat all soft and dripping and delicious. A must, whatever the order. Steak tartare imperial at Bob Bob Ricard Theres Press For Champagne buttons, lobster in your mac and cheese and anything that stays still long enough gets gilded there is no point in going small at Bob Bob Ricard. Steak tartare is a luxurious pick at the best of times, but the Imperial upgrade here comes with a dollop of caviar even without the finishing touch, the tartare itself is one of the best in the capital. Bacon naan at Dishoom Londoners spent decades believing bacon in a bap with some ketchup (or brown sauce, but lets not have that argument now) couldnt be beaten and then Dishoom came along. This breakfast sandwich fills a fresh naan with bacon, a slathering of cream cheese, a luxurious tomato and chilli chutney, coriander and an oozing fried egg if you feel so inclined. Hangover be gone. Cacio e pepe at Padella Five years ago, you would have thought anyone queuing for pasta in London to have lost their minds this dish changed that. The starlet of Padellas much coveted is this plate of pici hand-rolled fat worms of eggless pasta with a mirror-shine sauce of parmesan cheese and pasta. Simple but unrivalled and itll set you back just 6. Jamon croquetas at Barrafina A dish like this should be elusive it is far too easy to eat seven portions of croquetas in a single sitting, which is why we presume Barrafina makes you queue. Very sensible. As the crunchy coating gives way to the oozing centre, enriched with the flavour of Spanish jamon (the best ham in the business), were already planning our next visit. Biang biang noodles at Xi'an Biang Biang Noodles There are oodles of noodles in the capital, but Guirong Weis triumphant take is one of the finest. First finding followers at her north London restaurant Xian Impression (soon to reopen for dine-in, but not yet), the dish of has inspired a whole spin-off restaurant in Spitalfields. Thick, hand-pulled, chewy noodles soak up all the spice and zing of the special sauce they swim in very special indeed. Souffle Suissesse, Le Gavroche Le Gavroche the street urchin is perhaps not for everyone. It is a Mayfair time machine, a reminder of how things were done once upon a time. Fortunately, it happens that how things were once done was very well indeed, and lunch or supper here is a masterclass in traditional French luxury (and often, happily, includes very large glasses of wine). Staff make the place, anyone who has been gently teased by the twins pretending to be each other will know. A tendency towards the old ways does mean the cooking offers little in the way of evolution or revolution, but new, after all, isnt always better. Michel Roux Jrs cheese souffle, baked on double cream, stuns, so overwhelmingly tasty, utter decadence that clings to the taste buds. Buttermilk Jamaican Jerk Chicken, Around the Cluck / 12:51 James Cochran found his signature dish early on, but its good it should stay with him for the rest of his career. While he has chops, and can do more beyond, theres something special in the way he works with his chicken; hotly spiced, gorgeously crispy, beautifully soft on the inside. A long-standing favourite and, though 12:51 cant operate as it did before, there are tables at his new project Around the Cluck, which is operating out of the same site. Breakfast at Hawksmoor Guildhall Your Full English is not full in comparison to the Hawksmoor breakfast at the steak connoisseurs Guildhall restaurant. The mind-boggling two-person spread swaps bacon rashers for an entire smoked chop, serves its bubble and squeak with short rib, puts trotter meat into its baked beans, and adds grilled bone marrow to all the usual trimmings. Cauliflower shawarma at Berber & Q Its not often that the main event at a barbecue restaurant is the veg, but Berber & Q have achieved just that. The cauliflower shawarma here is cooked on their flaming grill until softened and charred, before being doused liberally in tahini, pomegranate molasses, coriander, pomegranate seeds and a scattering of dried rose petals. BBQ Butter Chicken Wings at Brigadiers Brigadiers is a bold, boisterous sort of place: a labyrinthine City dining room, packed to the rafters with beer and Indian food that is indisputably gutsy. But arguably its finest moment comes in one of its smallest packages these chicken wings may be diminutive, but are mightily spiced, deftly charred and dripping with ghee-fuelled succulence. Beef brisket bun at Smokestak David Carters Shoreditch restaurant occupies itself by giving the entirety of Kansas City a run for its money on a daily basis. The star turn at this lauded barbecue restaurant is its beef brisket bun the meat is soft and juicy, riddled with its fats in the centre, while charred and treacle-like on the outside, paired perfectly with pickled chillies. To remember it is to salivate, we assure you. Snails, LEscargot LEscargot is one of Sohos old aristocrats and in its grand, beret red dining room there is always a mischievous sense of fun perhaps because it is still such a smart, suited, chandeliered place, and people are often drinking themselves rather silly. The clue to good eating is in the name; the snails come still clinging to their shells and submerged in their butter and parsley sauce. Dive in; you will emerge stinking gloriously of garlic. It wont matter a jot; roll on the red wine and settle in for a long, comforting night. Confit potatoes at Quality Chop House Yes, there are some high quality chops on offer at this 150-year-old Clerkenwell restaurant but blimey, leave room for the chips. Fine slices of potato are stacked into architecturally sound wedges, and confited until shatteringly crispy on the outside and devastatingly soft in the centre. They have been much imitated in recent years, but never bettered. Smoked eel sandwich at Quo Vadis Jeremy Lee cooks many things to a legendary level at Quo Vadis his pies could so easily have also made this list but he gets the nod here for his unrivalled take on the fancy sandwich. Smoked eel, horseradish cream and Dijon mustard, served with red onion pickle a combination so popular Lee says he nearly ran out of eel on post-lockdown reopening. Classic bao at Bao London has buns in abundance, but we still bow down to the fluffy superiority of Bao. The Taiwanese restaurant has become a cross-town favourite, thanks to its pleasingly pert rice buns (they are genuinely very pert, no crassness intended) and carefully considered fillings. The classic order comes filled with braised pork, fermented veg, coriander and a dusting of peanut powder. Carol Sachs Potato and roe, Core by Clare Smyth Clare Smyth has a knack that must infuriate other chefs; she is able to take the simplest of ingredients say, a single carrot and a smattering of lamb mince do something devilish with it and charge rather a lot for it; so good are the results, though, that few mind. Smyths sorcery is perhaps best witnessed with her signature, the potato and roe. It is simply a potato on a plate in a little sauce, but then it is also perhaps the best potato dish in the world; it has this wonderful salty richness, a certain seaside intenseness. It is glorious; so too is the smoked chicken that tends to come as an amuse bouche. Youll be treated here. Omelette Arnold Bennett Dont worry, no Arnolds were harmed in the making of this dish. Alongside impeccable service and an arguably perfect dining room, you could add another highlight to your breakfast at The Wolseley by ordering this creamy, haddock-filled dish, named for the writer who inspired its creation while staying at the Savoy. Fish pie, J Sheekey Long an actors favourite, J Sheekeys glamour has never lost its lustre. Its kept its regulars and charmed newcomers with a menu that plays the greatest hits of fine dining favourites. Seafood is Sheekeys thing; simply done sole is beautiful here, crab comes three ways, brill brushed in butter has a meatiness thats beyond satisfying. The fish pie is famous though, and rightly so; beneath the flaking pastry is a sea of cream, mustard and white wine, in it bobbing cod, haddock and salmon. It is simple but never fails; it does on its own for lunch, but is a failsafe at supper, too. John Carey The Ari Gold at Patty & Bun Theres a cheeseburger on every high street in the capital but not all of them are created equal. Patty & Bun has got the classic combination down to a tee with its curiously named Ari Gold burger: a fat, 35-day aged patty is served medium rare, and topped with gooey American cheese, smokey house mayo and tangy pickled red onions. Xiao long bao at Din Tai Fung Few dishes in the capital have been known to cause queues of four hours. Thats exactly what the world-famous xiao long bao dumplings did when top Taiwanese restaurant group Din Tai Fung first opened in Covent Garden. An intricately folded out layer (made by chefs trained for at least 18 months) gives way to succulent meat and a broth you could take on by the bowlful. Pig's trotter, the French House Upstairs in the Soho local, Neil Borthwick is quietly running one of the areas best kitchens. He orders in particularly good oysters, does brilliant things with brill and with his pigs trotter, has a dish that is rich and fatty, but with a beautiful salty cut that makes it madly moreish. The menu tends to change often upstairs in the French, but have this if its on. That little dining room is somewhere to go in early for lunch and stay until late, eventually spilling down into the pub below, to drink pints they do pints now, not just halfs all while merrily reliving the joys upstairs. Peter Clark Dover sole with crab butter at Bentley's Oyster Bar and Grill There are so many delights at Bentleys, its tricky to pick a single one. This could so easily have been a plate of rigorously sourced oysters, the fish pie, the decadent Royal seafood platter (pictured). It is however, the Dover sole that wins. A sublime piece of fish always, expertly cooked without fail choose it either filleted with beautiful crab butter, or grilled and whole for a simple pleasure. Over in the City, Corrigan does similarly brilliant things with lobster at Daffodil Mulligan. Ragu, Lina Stores Sohos Lina Stores the pasta bar, not the longstanding Italian deli it comes from is the sort of restaurant one longs for; small, fun, friendly, not too pricey. They do small plates of near perfect pasta; their ragu, whether lamb or veal, is a gem. A good ragu is hard to find too often theres too little meat, or meat not cooked for long enough but here, they spend the time over it, cooking slowly, carefully. No restaurant can compare with a Nonna, but Lina gets gratifyingly close. Porterhouse steak, the Guinea Grill London is not short of steakhouses, but the Guinea does not number among them. A pub a proper one it is tucked down a Mayfair sidestreet, away from everything and yet still perpetually busy. Besides the small bar is a dining room that looks much as it must have done when the likes of Sinatra was in (or Bette Midler, or Kylie, or Regan, or, or, or), where theyve served prime Aberdeen Angus cooked on a smoking hot grill. The Guinea is all about having a good time pints, red wine, brandies, the lot but they cook beautifully, and their handling of a good piece of beef is second to none. Puree de pommes de terre, Le Comptoir Robuchon The late Joel Robuchon may have been the most decorated chef of his and perhaps any other era, but his signature stayed humble mashed potato. Until youve had it, it is hard to believe it could be quite so good; mash, after all, is mash. No matter the scepticism, it will always surprise; it is almost silly that so little could taste of so much. A side, it will match almost everything on the menu; of which, the lamb with aubergine on the menu of classics is extraordinarily good.
Father, grandfather, Rayner, Ramsay: Bhogals career seems dominated by male influences. But its the women in her life whose encouragement she values the most. Repeatedly she praises the wonderful female figures shes cooked with, from the incredibly generous woman in Nablus who perfected her rice cooking and the stone-deaf lady who made the best pickles in Kenya, to Londons brilliant women in white, such as The Modern Pantrys Anna Hansen and Barrafinas Nieves Barragan.
This sense of female culinary achievement means Bhogal doesnt share the typical lament about a lack of female chefs: I dont think having women running restaurants or in kitchens is that unusual anymore.
And when it comes to allowing her fiance in the kitchen (she is opening Jikoni in September and getting married in January, to a man who is also in the industry), its Bhogal who wears the razor-sharp heels. He does cook but Im such a control freak, I end up chasing him round the kitchen with a pair of tongs.
For more information, visit jikonilondon.com
@franklymccoy
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1 . On Thursday, crispy roast duck leg, visiting David and Mary-Alice, happily back for the summer from Berkeley.
2. On Saturday,with neighbours Tom and Alba, to Tarshish, the palatial new top-floor restaurant in Wood Green with amazing views, assiduous service and an ambitious, fusiony menu (Wagyu steak!), opened by the owners of Gokyuzu. But perhaps straight Turkish cant be beaten?
3. On Sunday evening, watching France dispatch Iceland in the Euros (I support France), some fantastic brown shrimps in the shell, from the Norfolk fishmonger in Islington Farmers Market. With a glass of Macon, of course.
4. For Monday lunch, a margherita at Pizza Pilgrims in Dean Street, as a reference, before seeing horrorfest The Neon Demon. Pretty good but I did feel uncomfortably indigested at just about the point the eyeball is regurgitated.
5. For supper on Monday, fried plaice fillets from the same Islington stall it is the sweetest fish, mysteriously, isnt it? with softened sorrel. Better at home, just as Rowley says.
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A n ethical chicken restaurant from Brighton is launching a six-month pop-up in Islington, where it will hope to convert diners to the joys of crispy chicken feet with the help of a couple of MasterChef finalists.
Philip Ilic, who launched H.en in Brighton in 2014, is bringing the concept to Upper Street this month, and has enlisted MasterChef finalists Jack Layer and Billy Wright to help devise new London-exclusive dishes for the menu. These will include crispy chicken feet, which all guests will be given on-the-house on arrival.
The beak to feet menu will also include grilled chicken by the quarter or half, wings coated in hot sauce, and the H.en Burger which can be made with either pulled, fried or grilled chicken along with chicken skin mayo, charred gem lettuce, tomato and pickled cucumber.
All of the restaurants chicken will come from Caldecott Farm in Worcestershire, where they live a high-welfare, additive free and completely traceable life. This is part of what Ilic believes sets the restaurant aside and makes it a competitive offer in an already chicken-dense London market.
Just add chicken skin mayo: The burger at H.en
He says: There are lots of chicken restaurants across the UK at the moment but we believe that H.en leads the way in terms of both the quality of chicken we serve and our transparent, ethical approach to sourcing poultry and all our ingredients. We are looking forward to bringing our H.en classics to London together with some exciting new dishes especially for the capital.
Sides at the Upper Street restaurant will include sweet potato fries, corn on the cob, sauerkraut and a slaw salad, while a short list of craft beers and a small selection of wines will be joined by a few signature cocktails including the Holy Hops, blending cachaca, mint, lime, agave and West Coast Citrus IPA.
The restaurant will be decked out in wood, with booth seating, while a feature wall will give local artists space to exhibit work. It launches on July 21 at 154-155 Upper Street.
Visit henrestaurant.com.
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A ndrew Lloyd Webber has called on the Government to support arts education after he gave 1.4 million to London schools to pay for musical instruments and lessons for youngsters.
Lord Lloyd-Webber, a Tory peer, gave the money to secure the future of the Music In Secondary Schools Trust, part of the Andrew Lloyd Webber Programme, for another four years. The scheme was set up in 2013 and provides free music education in eight schools.
His donation was matched by the Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust. Lord Lloyd-Webber said: The arts, and music in particular, are proven to empower young people with skills needed for a successful future.
Im delighted my foundations grant means nearly 4,000 children will receive free instruments and music tuition. I only wish government would join in to make it four million.
Family-friendly musicals 1 /5 Family-friendly musicals Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane There's little need to explain how brilliant virtually anything Roald Dahl-related is, but in case you're unfamiliar, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory sees the impoverished Charlie Bucket win a trip to a world-famous chocolate factory, run by the eccentric Willy Wonka, alongside a host of rotten, ungrateful children. Featuring sweets, Oompa-Loompas and an army of squirrels, the show boasts music by Marc Shaiman and Academy Award-winning direction by Sam Mendes.
Buy tickets Johan Persson Matilda, Cambridge Theatre Matilda is that exceptionally bright young girl who discovers she has some rather special powers. Once mistress of her magic, she goes about teaching her idle parents and beastly schoolmistress Miss Trunchbull some very important lessons, and in doing so, changes her destiny. It comes highly recommended, having won 13 Best Musical Awards since it opened in 2010, five star reviews across the world, as well as a record breaking seven Olivier Awards.
Buy tickets The Lion King, Lyceum Theatre Based on the beloved 1994 Disney film of the same name, The Lion King musical debuted on the stage in the States in 1997, and has wowed audiences across the globe ever since. With its astounding costumes, mesmerising puppets and spectaular tunes by Sir Elton John and Tim Rice, the heartfelt story of Simba the lion cub's journey to adulthood continues to amaze and awe. Not one to be missed.
Buy tickets Wicked, Apollo Victoria It seems a bit unfair that Dorothy should hold the monopoly on the reputation of the Wicked Witch of the West - at least, that's what Gregory Maguire thought. And so he took it upon himself to tell her side of the story in his 1995 novel, 'Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West'. Now a hit musical, Wicked tells the story of two friends who met at sorcery university - the popular blonde Zelda and the lesser understood green girl, Elphaba. When the witches cross paths with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, they take very different paths. Now the ninth longest running show in the West End, this show is perfect for youngsters who like magic, have a penchant for sorcery, love a whole lotta rainbows and want to be wowed by vocal pyrotechnics.
Buy tickets The Witches, Rose Theatre Kingston The darkest of Dahls imagination crawled onto the page when he wrote The Witches, and this stage adaption promises the same deliciously grizzly experience. It stays faithful to the story of how one boy and his grandmother work together to destroy children-hating Witches. It is frightening, heartwarming, joyous, playful and has a wonderful score which twists the tension up and up and up. No risk of anyone being bored.
Buy tickets
Among the projects success stories are flautist Deronne White, 18, who first picked up an instrument at Highbury Grove School and is off to the Royal College of Music in September.
The Department for Education said 460 million had been spent between 2012 and 2016 to give pupils more access to music and culture, adding: This year alone we are spending 75 million on music hubs so children can learn music, play instruments or sing in ensembles.
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T here is no such thing as Italian food' - and it amounts to much more than pizza and pasta.
Each region of this flavoursome country has its own distinct gastronomy that locals are wildly proud of.
Italians are famously passionate about food, but they are also patient too. In 1986 the Slow Food Movement was founded by Carlo Petrini, who stepped into the limelight after campaigning against McDonalds opening near the Spanish Steps in Rome.
The aim of the movement was to protect and promote local foods, traditional gastronomy and sustainable food production - values are second nature to Italians.
Foodies, Italy is the perfect holiday destination for you where youll soon appreciate the variety of each region: from cuttlefish risotto in Venice, to the meaty Black Bulls Heart tomato on the Neopolitan Riviera.
Click through our gallery above to see how you can eat your way through Italy.
Research by Kuoni
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A n ex-boxer cut off a lawyers penis using secateurs in a bizarre and cruel attack before flushing them down the toilet.
Ikki Kotsugai, 25, admitted removing the Tokyo attorneys genitals after finding out the man had been sleeping with his wife, local media reported.
Prosecutors told Tokyo District Court: The victim has lost his reproductive function, which is a serious health concern, and received mental distress.
Its a ruthless crime that was bizarre and cruel.
The Tokyo Reporter said Kotsugai and his wife met the 42-year-old at his legal offices on August 13 last year.
Kotsugai started punching the man in the face and, as he lay on the ground, unzipped his trousers and carried out the mutilation with 20cm secateurs. He then flushed the organ down a communal toilet.
The paper reported he carried out the attack after his 25-year-old wife, an employee at the law firm, falsely claimed she had been pressured into sex by the lawyer.
According the paper, he told the court: In reflecting, I have deep regret.
Starting now, I would like to get on with a new life.
Kotsugai , now a law student, was sentenced to four years and six months yesterday by presiding judge Kazunori Karei.
P olice are returning to a north London street a week after a woman was found lifeless before she died in hospital hours later.
Scotland Yard said investigators would be visiting Malden Road in Camden tonight where Vicky Walton was discovered unconscious last Wednesday.
Medics were called to an address in the street at 10.42pm and rushed the 32-year-old to hospital where she died the next morning at 10.15am.
A murder investigation was launched after a post-mortem examination gave an inconclusive cause of death with further tests ordered.
Detectives said they wish to speak to anyone who saw or spoke to Ms Walton from Monday, June 27 and added the address she was discovered at was not her home.
A 76-year-old man and a 34-year-old woman were arrested on suspicion of murder and have been bailed until a date in August.
Detective Chief Inspector Gary Holmes, said: "This evening marks one-week since the London Ambulance Service were called to Malden Road, Camden where Vicky was found unconscious. This was not her home address.
"I am directly appealing for anyone who may have any information about Vicky's death to please contact us. I am particularly interested in anyone who saw or spoke to Vicky at any point from Monday, 27 June.
"We retain an open mind at this stage of the investigation but our primary aim is to establish how Vicky came to lose her life and identify her movements in the days leading up to this point."
Anyone with information should call police on 020 8345 1570 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111
A tiler accused of raping and murdering a 17-year-old girl in her own home 34 years ago said they actually started a secret affair after smiling at each other across her fathers shoe shop, the Old Bailey heard.
James Warnock, 56, is accused of brutally raping and then strangling Yiannoulla Yianni when she was home alone preparing a leg of lamb for the family dinner.
However, he said they had consensual sex on a string of occasions during a secret affair that summer, and he had no idea she had been murdered because he stopped visiting the area at the time she died.
Warnock, giving evidence, said he was working on a tiling job close to Yiannoullas fathers business, Nick's Shoe Shop in South Hampstead, when they struck up a friendship in summer 1982.
I had gone in to ask for some repairs to my boots. She was in the shop. I just sort of smiled, I didn't say anything, he said.
I think she just smiled back as far as I remember.
He said they bumped into each other at another shop and had a joke, then he invited the teenager out for a drink.
She didn't want to because she didn't drink. I suggested it didn't have to be an alcoholic drink in a pub, just get some drinks and go somewhere and have a drink, he said.
Warnock, who was 22 at the time and had married the previous year, said he and Yiannoulla would meet randomly and go for walks.
I used to be round about there and if I saw her, she would see me and we would make our way and go and have a drink and that, he said.
We would have a walk along the road, chat and that. There was a bench inside some flats and we would chat - it was just idle chit chat.
He said after a few weeks they both decided to go to her family home in Belsize Road, Hampstead for sex.
We both realised we both wanted to take it further, he told the jury.
We couldnt meet at my place so we decided to go back to her house. I didnt ask her, she said we could.
It was only certain times and we had to be fairly quick.
Warnock said they went to a bedroom he believed was Yiannoullas, and after kissing and cuddling they would partially undress themselves and have sex.
It was nice, it wasnt really vigorous we didnt go mad. It was over very quickly, very gentle, it was nice, he told the court.
Warnock said sometimes the encounter would last just ten minutes and he would not take off his Doc Marten boots in case they were caught and had to make a quick getaway.
There wasn't any messing around, he added, admitting the sex was always unprotected but he said Yiannoulla did not mind.
Asked by his barrister, George Carter-Stephenson QC whether he had raped and murdered the school, Warnock replied: No, definitely not and insisted she had willingly had sex with him during their liaisons.
Detectives investigating Yiannoullas murder, on August 13, 1982, failed to get a breakthrough until December last year when Warnock gave a DNA sample matching semen found at the scene of the killing.
The schoolgirl was brought up in a strict Greek Orthodox household, and was not allowed out with a chaperone, the court has heard.
Friends and relatives have given evidence during the trial to say they were unaware of Yiannoulla having a boyfriend, and she had never mentioned having sex with anyone.
Her body was discovered half-naked by her parents on their bed, when they returned home from the shoe shop.
Warnock said his tiling job in the Hampstead area ended in August 1982 and he went to work elsewhere in London, not hearing about the murder.
He said he had returned to the shoe shop once but saw no sign of the teenager.
Warnock, of Harrington Street, Kings Cross, denies rape and murder. The trial continues.
A n eight-year-old boy, who died after fluid built up in his brain, could have lived if an optometrist had "done her job properly", a court has heard.
The conduct of locum optometrist Honey Rose, 35, fell so far below the standards expected that it was "criminal", prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC said.
Rose, of High Street North, East Ham, is on trial for gross negligence manslaughter.
Vincent Barker, known as Vinnie, died on July 13, 2012 - around five months after he had a routine eye test at Boots the Opticians in Upper Brook Street in Ipswich, Suffolk.
The little boy died just hours after he was sick in school and his mother was called to collect him.
He was brought home but deteriorated during the afternoon and emergency services were called that night.
Paramedics and an emergency team tried to resuscitate Vinnie but he was formally pronounced dead at Ipswich Hospital.
Mr Rees told Ipswich Crown Court: "The prosecution allege that Vinnie's death was preventable and would have been prevented had the defendant, Ms Rose, done her job properly."
Jurors heard post-mortem examinations showed the cause of Vinnie's death was hydrocephalus - a build-up of fluid on the brain which led to an increase in pressure within his skull and, ultimately, his collapse and death.
The court heard that at the time of Vinnie's examination on February 15 2012, there were "obvious abnormalities" in both of his eyes.
The jury heard photographs taken by another member of staff of the back of his eyes shortly before he was examined by Rose suggested he had bilateral papilloedema - the optic disc at the back of each eye was swollen because of the raised pressure within his skull.
The prosecution told the court that the abnormalities "would have been obvious to any competent optometrist who had examined them", and should have led to him being "urgently referred for further investigation" because of swollen optic discs signifying the patient may be suffering from papilloedema, "a life-threatening condition".
The prosecutor told the jury that Rose's failure to detect the swelling of Vinnie's optic discs was a "significant contributory factor" to his death, as the evidence showed that Vinnie's hydrocephalus would have been identified and successfully treated by a neurosurgeon, had he been referred.
The jury heard that Rose was interviewed under caution in March 2013 and was shown Vinnie's retinal images from the day of the 2012 eye test.
However, she said they were not the ones she had seen that day because they showed a "completely pathological problem" which would have caused her to make an emergency referral.
The court heard Rose said it looked like the findings she recorded that day related to 2011 images of Vinnie's eyes, and she suggested she had been shown those on the day of the test instead of the 2012 images.
The jury heard that Rose said in a police interview that she qualified as an optometrist in India in 2005, the same year she came to the UK.
Mr Rees said she told the officers that in 2007 she did an optometry course at City University, and told them that she passed her exams and registered as an optometrist with the General Optical Council in July 2010.
Rose said she worked as a self-employed locum for companies such as Specsavers and Boots as and when they required, jurors heard.
Rose denies the charge against her and the trial continues.
A man has been jailed for launching a brutal assault on a fellow passenger after the pair stepped off a bus in north London.
Devonte Brown, 19, of Dover Road, Enfield was travelling on a Route 4 bus to Lever Street, EC1 on August 26 last year.
As he disembarked, at about 4.15pm, he barged past 43-year-old man, who was also travelling on the bus.
The victim looked at Brown, who subjected him to a tirade of verbal abuse.
The two men had started walking in the same direction when Brown turned around and hit his victim in the face with a buckled rucksack.
The victim went to hospital with bruising to his face, and was treated for a cut close to his eye.
Brown was caught after CCTV footage from the bus was examined, and he was identified by officers.
He was arrested on November 13 last year and charged with offence of actual bodily harm the next month.
He appeared at Wood Green Crown Court on Monday, where he was sentenced to six months imprisonment for actual bodily harm.
He was sentenced to a further 18 months imprisonment for a separate offence of grievous bodily harm, committed on 10 June, 2015 in Hornsey Road, N7.
He was also ordered to pay a victim surcharge of 120.
Brown had pleaded guilty to the offences a week before his trial was due to start on Monday, 27 June.
Detective Constable Annie Garrard, from the Met's Roads and Transport Policing Command, said: "This was a nasty assault by a violent man. This sentence shows the seriousness with which the courts take this type of offence.
"We will continue working with our partners at British Transport Police and TfL to ensure we tackle this type of behaviour on our transport network."
A driver inflicted horrendous life-changing injuries when she ploughed into three American students who were on a short study trip in London.
Toma Bruziene, 34, careered onto a pavement and hurtled into the three women with such impact that they were thrown about six metres.
One of the women suffered life-threatening injuries and it was a miracle that all three survived after the late-night crash in Kings Cross, police said.
The women, all aged 20, were visiting London for a term last summer, but their trip turned into a nightmare of hospital stays, numerous medical appointments and immobility after the smash.
Jailed: Toma Bruziene / Metropolitan Police
They were walking back to their student halls in York Way after a night out in London when they were struck, at about 4am on Saturday, August 29.
Police said one of the women suffered a serious head injury and another fractured her neck.
All three suffered numerous other fractures and cuts.
Bruziene, who had been drinking, fled the scene before abandoning the Toyota Avensis she was driving in a private car park.
A taxi driver chased her after witnessing the crash in which she uprooted a small tree and attempted to detain her.
She got away before handing herself in the next morning.
Bruziene, of John Walsh Tower, Leytonstone, was this week jailed for three years and four months.
She admitted three counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and failing to stop at the scene of a crash.
The victims' legal team said in a statement: The reckless behaviour of the defendant has had a devastating impact upon three young students but also upon the driver's own family. No-one involved in this tragic incident has been left unscathed.
They have all now returned to the United States to continue their education but there is no doubt that the semester in London was a far cry from that which it had been intended to be. They were unable to enjoy the experience of living in London and all that it has to offer and instead their experience was one of in-patient hospital stays, numerous medical appointments and immobility."
Detective Sergeant Chris Osborne, of the Met's Serious Collision Investigation Unit, said: "This was an appalling incident for everyone concerned. It was a miracle all three women survived, although they suffered horrendous life-changing injuries. To make matters worse, she then failed to stop and tried to conceal her car.
"The actions of the taxi driver in following her and attempting to detain her were rightly commended by the judge. We wish all three girls well in their on-going recovery."
H ealth Secretary Jeremy Hunt has revealed the Government will impose a contract on junior doctors across England.
In a Commons statement to MPs, Mr Hunt said it had been a difficult decision but the NHS needed certainty in the wake of the Brexit vote.
It comes after junior doctors and medical students rejected a contract brokered between the British Medical Association (BMA) and the Government in May as 58 per cent voted against the deal.
On Tuesday, the head of the BMA junior doctors committee Dr Johann Malawana quit after members rejected the latest contract deal. Around 37,000 medics turned out to vote, some 68 per cent of those eligible.
Today Mr Hunt said: "In May, the Government and NHS Employers reached an historic agreement with the BMA on a new contract for junior doctors after three years of negotiations and several days of damaging strike action.
"Unfortunately because of the vote we are now left in a no-man's land that, if it continues, can only damage the NHS.
"An elected government whose main aim is to improve the safety and quality of care for patients has come up against a union which has stirred up anger amongst its own members it is now unable to pacify.
"I was not a fan of the tactics used by the BMA but to its credit their leader Dr Malawana did in the end negotiate a deal and work hard to get support for it. Now he has resigned it is not clear that there is anyone able to deliver the support of BMA members for any negotiated settlement.
"Protracted uncertainty at precisely the time we grapple with the enormous consequences of leaving the EU can only be damaging for those working in the NHS and the patients who depend on it."
Mr Hunt said the contract agreed between the Government and the BMA in May will be phased in from October.
Under the proposed deal, Saturdays and Sundays would attract premium pay if doctors - the vast majority of whom are expected to - work seven or more weekends in a year.
Doctors would receive a percentage of their annual salary for working these weekends - ranging from 3 per cent for working one weekend in seven to up to 10 per cent if they work one weekend in two.
Medics who work any night shift will result in their pay enhanced by 37 per cent for all the hours worked
The deal also set out payment for doctors who are on call, and agreed a basic pay rise of between 10 and 11 per cent.
Mr Hunt added: "This is a difficult decision to make. Many people will call for me to return to negotiations with the BMA and to them I would like to say this: we have been talking or trying to talk for well over three years.
"There is no consensus around a new contract and after yesterday's vote it is not clear that any further discussions could create one."
A patient lay dead for more than four hours at an understaffed London A&E department before being found by staff.
The patients body was lying in the unit at North Middlesex University Hospital for up to four-and-a-half hours according to inspectors, because of a failure to carry out hourly checks.
The shocking oversight emerged in a damning report by the Care Quality Commission.
Inspectors have rated the Edmonton hospitals A&E department as inadequate, the lowest score possible.
They also ruled that other care at the hospital requires improvement.
The CQC found there were not enough doctors to meet demand in A&E, while staff were worried about patient safety because of the competency of middle-grade doctors.
They were often left in charge overnight with no consultant presence after 11pm.
There were 22 serious incidents at the unit in the past year, many of which were due to delayed or suboptimal care.
The hospital has said it is extremely sorry for the state of the A&E department.
Sir Mike Richards, CQC chief inspector of hospitals, said: "When we inspected we found that patients were waiting for a long time to be seen, without being assessed by a doctor in the first place.
"It is worrying that we found that there were not enough experienced doctors on call to deal with demand. We have strongly encouraged the trust to engage with other organisations across the local health and social care system to resolve this challenging issue.
The controversial closure of the A&E unit at Chase Farm hospital has previously been blamed for heaping pressure on North Middlesex.
It is one of the busiest A&Es in London with about 500 patients a day.
North Middlesex University Hospital medical director Dr Cathy Cale said: "We are extremely sorry for the current problems in A&E and for the long waiting times for some patients.
"We are committed to getting back to the standards that we and our patients expect and, working with our health partners, are taking all the necessary steps to address the concerns raised, particularly the shortage of doctors which lies at the heart of it."
Y oung Londoners who have unprotected sex are fuelling a rise in infections including a 15 per cent increase in gonorrhoea, figures showed today.
More than a third of the 118,774 sexually transmitted infections reported in the capital last year were in those aged 15 to 24, according to Public Health England.
It warned of a sharp rise in gonorrhoea, with men who have sex with men responsible for more than 70 per cent of new cases.
The figures revealed that London bucked the national fall in infections with a two per cent annual increase, although experts said the three per cent nationwide reduction in cases was due to a cut in testing.
People living in the capital were responsible for one in four of all STIs and almost half of all gonorrhoea diagnoses in England. Of the 20 boroughs with the highest STI rates, 18 were in London, headed by Lambeth, Kensington and Chelsea and Southwark.
Chlamydia remains the most commonly diagnosed new STI in London (47,291 cases, representing 40 per cent of all STIs), but there were also considerable numbers of cases of genital warts and genital herpes reported.
Dr Yvonne Doyle, London regional director for Public Health England, said: Worsening sexual health is one of the biggest public health concerns facing London and it is very worrying to see another year where STIs have increased in the capital.
Todays figures show that too many people in London are continuing to have unsafe sex and put themselves at unnecessary risk.
Rates of infection among young people are still increasing. We need to continue to engage with them and drive home the messages about safe sex, including using condoms, regularly being tested and avoiding overlapping sexual relationships, all of which will reduce the risk of STIs.
Men who have gay or bisexual relationships are advised to undergo HIV and STI tests at least once a year, or every three months if having unprotected sex with new or casual partners.
Genevieve Edwards, of sexual health organisation Marie Stopes UK, said the reduction in screening was a wholly preventable own-goal that was likely to increase treatment costs.
She added: These statistics should set alarm bells ringing about the availability of sexual health services for young people and men who have sex with men.
When a drop in chlamydia diagnosis is due to a lack of testing rather than falling incidence, we risk losing all the ground gained by years of investment in the chlamydia screening programme.
Natika Halil, chief executive of the Family Planning Association, said: We are concerned by the increase in gonorrhoea and syphilis, particularly among men who have sex with men, and also with the considerable variation between different areas.
There is a strong link between poorer sexual health one sign of which is in higher rates of STI diagnoses and higher levels of deprivation.
S outh Londoners have condemned a council decision to remove street bins because too much rubbish was being left near them.
The bins in Moyser Road, Wandsworth, were taken away earlier this year to deter fly-tipping. But residents say it has simply resulted in more waste being dumped in the street.
Jane Green told the South London Press: Surely the answer is to deal with the fly-tipping rather than encourage littering!
Bins have also vanished in Tooting Bec Road and outside Ravenstone School in Balham.
A Wandsworth council spokeswoman said some bins had become magnets for fly-tippers, adding: We have removed some of those that are regularly abused in this way.
A businessman had taken cocaine and was three times the drink-drive limit when he fell 40 feet to his death from a Clapham mansion block, an inquest heard.
Company owner Patrick Burns, 28, plunged from the fire escape balcony at his home in the early hours of Saturday June 6 last year after a night out partying with a friend.
He was found by a neighbour in a small courtyard behind Cavendish Mansions, Hazelbourne Road, where he lived in a 600,000 flat with friends.
Yesterday Southwark Coroner Dr Julian Morris returned a verdict of accidental death contributed to by drinking alcohol and taking cocaine.
A report by police Inspector Miles Lawrie said Mr Burns and his friend had consumed a large amount of alcohol and cocaine through the night.
The pair shared a cab home at the end of the night and Mr Burns wandered off while his friend bought a kebab, the court heard.
The friend who Mr Burns knew from his home city of Oxford searched for Mr Burns in the area but could not find him so returned to the flat to sleep.
Inspector Lawrie said: One reported hearing a loud bang and other residents report hearing a loud bang at about 4am.
His flatmate got up to see what had made the noise and found the rear door to the fire escape was open.
Mr Burns body was found the following afternoon lying face down in the courtyard at the rear of the flats.
Ambulance crews attended, but Mr Burns was pronounced dead at the scene.
Inspector Lawrie said it was possible Mr Burns had gone out to the fire escape to get some fresh air and slipped while sitting on a railing.
He ruled out any third party involvement or foul play and said: I believe he died as a result of an accidental fall from the fire escape. This incident appears to be a tragic accident.
Mr Burns - known as Paddy to friends and family - ran his own heating and ventilation company ACRM Services and was originally from Oxford.
He was a former student at the College of North West London.
His father, Dominic Burns, paid tribute to his son and said: He was warm and kind and had worked hard to set up his own business. I am so proud of him. He was very fit and healthy person and enjoyed life to the full.
His former partner Kate Richards added: He was outgoing and warm and enjoyed going out with his friends. He was extremely ambitious and hard working.
A post mortem gave the medical cause of death as severe head injuries.
Dr Morris said: My conclusion is this was an accidental death, contributed to by the intake of alcohol and cocaine.
Samaritans provides confidential support to anyone feeling down and depressed or struggling to cope. Volunteers can be contacted round the clock by phone on 116 123, or you can e-mail jo@samaritans.org.
P rotesters marched in central London today as Sir John Chilcot's report into Britain's invasion of Iraq was made public.
Anti-war demonstrators gathered outside in Westminster outside the Queen Elizabeth Centre, where the Iraq Inquiry's report is due to be presented this morning.
Protesters held placards branding Tony Blair "Bliar" and accusing him of being a war criminal.
Outside the former Prime Minister's London home, campaigners held a banner proclaiming: "Blair must face war crimes trial."
Sir John Chilcot was this morning presenting his key findings before the full release of his 2.6 million word report.
The Inquiry into the Iraq War in 2013, which toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, began seven years ago.
Chilcot Protest - In pictures 1 /18 Chilcot Protest - In pictures Protesters wearing Tony Blair and George Bush masks outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, where the Chilcot Inquiry was published Jeremy Selwyn Protesters waving placards outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre Matt Dunham/AP Protesters focused on Tony Blair's role in the Iraq War Jeremy Selwyn An Iraqi woman waves a 2004-2008 version of the Iraq national flag as she stands with demonstrators Jeremy Selwyn Demonstrators dressed as Tony Blair and George Bush Jr Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images Protesters call for Tony Blair to be impeached Jeremy Selwyn Anti-war demonstrators in Westminster Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images Dozens of anti-war protesters gathered in Westminster Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images An Iraqi woman outside QEII Centre Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images Protesters focused their anger on former Prime Minister Tony Blair Peter Nicholls/Reuters Demonstrators before the release of the John Chilcot report Jeremy Selwyn The inquiry ruled that the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein failed in all its key objectives Jeremy Selwyn The report found the war was based on flawed intelligence about weapons of mass destruction Gareth Fuller/PA The report was damning about the actions of Tony Blair, and the failure of his Cabinet and Whitehall to challenge his assumptions and decisions Paul Hackett/Reuters
The former Whitehall mandarin has said from the outset he would not rule on whether the invasion in 2003 was legal in terms of international law, pledging to provide a "full and insightful" account of the decision-making process.
But that is unlikely to quell the clamour for some form of legal action against the former prime minister if - as many expect - he is strongly criticised by Sir John and his inquiry panel.
T he Duchess of Cambridge has arrived for a night at the museum wearing a cream off-the-shoulder dress.
The Duchess is joining guests from the arts and culture sector at the Natural History Museum for the Art Fund Museum of the Year Award.
She made the short journey to the South Kensington museum from Kensington Palace, the Cambridges' London home.
Kate paired the mesh-panelled dress by Barbara Casasola with strappy sandals and a sparkly clutch bag.
Glamorous: the Duchess of Cambridge arrives to present the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2016 prize / AP Photo/Matt Dunham
The Duchess, who is patron of the Natural History Museum, was greeted on her arrival by the NHM's director Sir Michael Dixon, and Dr Stephen Deuchar, director of the Art Fund.
A 100,000 award, the largest museum prize in the world, is given annually to one outstanding museum which has shown exceptional imagination, innovation and achievement.
Among the artists in attendance are Cornelia Parker, Antony Gormley and Grayson Perry, who arrived in a sequinned purple, yellow and orange dress with flared sleeves, which he said was designed by Claire Cooper, one of his students at Central Saint Martins.
Colourful: Grayson Perry arrives at the Natural History Museum / Richard Young/REX
Kate spoke to representatives from the five museums shortlisted for this year's prize.
Nicky Wilson, of Jupiter Artland, West Lothian, said she was delighted to meet the Duchess, who told her Prince George has enjoyed a number of visits to the museum.
Ms Wilson said: "She said he comes here quite often. He loves the 3D sculptures."
The toddler, who will celebrate his third birthday later this month, has been spotted at the museum previously, admiring the dinosaurs on display.
The famous Diplodocus dinosaur, Dippy, forms the striking centrepiece for guests at the event, as they dine in Hintze Hall at tables set around the skeleton, which is illuminated in red.
The other four organisations on the shortlist for 2016 are: Arnolfini, Bristol; Bethlem Museum of the Mind, London; Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London; and the York Art Gallery, Yorkshire.
A person has been killed after they were struck by a train at a north London Tube station.
Emergency services including police, ambulance crews and a London's air ambulance were called to Turnpike Lane station shortly after 7pm.
A Transport for London spokesman confirmed a person was found dead at the scene.
The Standard has approached the British Transport Police for further details.
Police in Haringey tweeted: "Please bare with us while we assist BTP & @LDNairamb with an incident at #TurnpikeLane."
Tube passengers on the Piccadilly line face major disruption as a result.
Services have been suspended between Kings Cross and Cockfosters with severe delays on the rest of the line.
This page is being updated.
M ayor of London Sadiq Khan has released a personal message to Muslims in London and around the world celebrating Eid today.
Wishing everyone a wonderful Eid, Mr Khan said that he was proud to have had the opportunity to bring together communities across the capital.
Many Muslims in the UK celebrate Eid as the end of the month-long fast of Ramadan.
Mr Khan was joined by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mervis at Lambeth Palace to break their fast on June 28.
Mr Khan said: "London's greatest strength is our diversity and the way we don't just tolerate, but respect and celebrate our different traditions and backgrounds.
"Now more than ever, it is important that we come together and stand against anyone who wants to divide us."
A teenager was stabbed in front of horrified onlookers in west London.
The victim, in his late teens, was knifed after an argument broke out between two men on Uxbridge Road in Shepherds Bush around 8.30pm last night.
Witness James Buchanan told the Standard he was sat with friends when he saw the scuffle break out before the man was stabbed in his side.
The 32-year-old told the Standard: I was sitting in the pub having a couple of beers with friends when a guy went past on a bike.
He got into a bit of a scuffle with the guy and he stabbed him in the side, it was shocking.
There were quite a lot of people around and it was in broad daylight, these kids just dont care."
Mr Buchanan added that after recent stabbings in the area, he was not surprised that an incident like this had happened.
The attack comes days after 17-year-old Fola Orebiyi was stabbed to death as he tried to flee a gang of youths on bikes on nearby Portobello Road.
Mr Buchanan added: Its happened several times in the last few weeks and in West Kensington before that, its just terrible.
People are afraid to go out of the house now because of groups hanging around on street corners.
It could have happened to anyone and the fact that people are carrying knives means any dispute like that, they can just stab you.
A Met Police spokeswoman said they did not know if there was a link between the two stabbings.
She added: We were called at 8.30pm to reports of a stabbing on Uxbridge Road.
A man in his late teens was taken to hospital with non life-threatening injuries. There have been no arrests and enquiries are continuing.
S tudents who refused to pay their rents for almost half a year in a protest over spiralling costs have won a 1 million pledge from London university chiefs to make accommodation more affordable.
The 1,000 striking students at University College London withheld rents for their rooms in halls as a protest against rent rises faced by those studying in the capital.
UCL has now agreed an 850,000 fund to help individuals struggling to pay their rent, and a further 150,000 is being earmarked to freeze and subsidise some rents across the board.
The students launched the UCL Cut the Rent Campaign and withheld their payments for five months, forcing the universitys management to the negotiating table. A typical room on the universitys Camden or Euston campuses is 174 a week, including shared bathroom and kitchen facilities.
Rent campaigner Pearl Ahrens, 19, who studies politics and East European History, said: This victory marks a shift in power back toward the student.
In recent years, students have been forced into protest to defend their status and the rent strike has proven how students can proactively organise and mobilise to get their voice heard and to hold previously unaccountable university management to account.
The students who withheld their rent will be expected to meet those missing payments as part of the deal, the university has said.
Rex Knight, UCL Vice Provost, said: We welcome this outcome, which has come about as a result of positive negotiations between UCL, UCLU and UCL-CTR campaign. From the outset we have appreciated that affordability is a big issue for our students, and a challenge for a university based in the heart of central London.
The new bursaries we have announced will make a significant difference to all students in greatest need, and will help ensure that UCL remains an institution open to all.
But Angus OBrien, student unions halls accommodation representative, said the fight was not won. He added: It is unlikely that concerns regarding access to education at UCL, as well as across London and beyond, will be entirely addressed in the short-term. The announcement is a welcome step forward in ensuring higher education becomes more accessible to students from all backgrounds.
T ony Blair sent an affectionate handwritten letter to George Bush in praise of a "brilliant" speech to the UN in the lead up to the Iraq War.
The note was made public this morning as part of a cache of documents released with Sir John Chilcot's damning inquiry into the conflict.
The prime minister wrote that the US president's address to the UN General Assembly would help them "get the job done".
Mr Blair penned the note after Mr Bush had set out the case for war in the speech on September 12 2002, about six months before the invasion in March 2003.
He wrote: "Dear George, it was a brilliant speech.
"It puts us on exactly the right strategy to get the job done.
"The reception has been very positive with everyone now challenged to come up to the mark. Well done.
"Yours ever, Tony."
Chilcot inquiry: Timeline of events
The note's tone gives an indication of the warm personal relationship between the leaders, which is seen to have played a crucial role in the lead up to the war.
Mr Bush had told the UN that Saddam posed a "grave and gathering danger" and called on the UN act.
He warned that the first time the world would become certain that the dictator had of nuclear weapons could be when "he uses one".
T ony Blairs grandiose ambitions for war and his growing panic as it all went wrong are laid bare in an extraordinary series of private notes to George Bush.
Thirty newly revealed memos disclose that he accused European leaders of behaving stupidly by refusing to side with the United States.
He told the president in July 2002: This is the moment when you can define international politics for the next generation: the true post-cold war world order.
Our ambition is big: to construct a global agenda around which we can unite the world; rather than dividing it into rival centres of power.
The British leader heaped praise on Mr Bushs insight but warned that a ludicrous and distorted view of the US is clouding the enormous attraction of the fundamental goal.
A handwritten note from Tony Blair praising George Bush's 'brilliant' speech / Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
He wrote in July 2002: In the past weeks I have had conversations with intelligent Europeans which has vividly illustrated this for me.
Mr Blair explained one compared the US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld with Osama bin Laden and another wanted a closer relationship with Russia rather than the US.
In other words, rational people are behaving very stupidly, he complained.
In the same note, Mr Blair stated: Although Iraqs WMD [weapons of mass destruction] is the immediate justification for action, ridding Iraq of Saddam is the real prize.
'I'll be with you whatever': A key line from the memos from Blair to Bush (Iraq Inquiry/PA ) / Iraq Inquiry/PA
One note from the PM to the president was handwritten, showing the intimacy Mr Blair was seeking to establish with the powerful US leader.
He heaped praise on Mr Bush for a brilliant speech that would force people to come up to the mark.
The memo, dated 12 September, 2002, after a UN General Assembly address, said: Dear George, It was a brilliant speech. It puts us in exactly the right strategy to get the job done. The reception has been very positive with everyone now challenged to come up to the mark. Well done.
Yours ever, Tony
The day after 9/11 Mr Blair said stopping the spread of WMD will require action that some will baulk at. But we are better to act now and explain and justify our actions than let the day be put off until some further, perhaps even worse catastrophe occurs.
On October 11 2001 he wrote of a real willingness in the Middle East to get Saddam out, showing that Bush was already pressing for regime change.
But he warned: If we hit Iraq now, we would lose the entire Arab world, Russia, probably half the EU... I am sure we can devise a strategy for Saddam deliverable at a later date.
Mr Blair said that a dedicated tightly knit propaganda unit was required.
Chilcot report: Blair's note to Bush
In December Mr Blair talked about softening up public opinion by working with UN inspectors.
On July 28 2002 he wrote: I will be with you, whatever. But this is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties. The planning on this and the strategy are the toughest yet. This is not Kosovo. This is not Afghanistan. It is not even the Gulf War.
On February 19 2003, weeks before war, Mr Blair wrote a lengthy note suggesting a second UN resolution as an ultimatum to Saddam.
In June, after the invasion, he admitted the dangers of post-war chaos. The task is absolutely awesome and Im not at all sure were geared for it. This is worse than rebuilding a country from scratch. My sense is: were going to get there but not quickly enough. And if it falls apart, everything falls apart in the region.
On June 5 his worries were plain when he wrote: By this time next year, it better be going right, not wrong. For us and for the world!
With the failure to find WMD, Blair wrote on February 1, 2004: If we have to accept that some of the Iraq intelligence was wrong, we will do so. But let us not either a) lurch to the opposite extreme and start pretending Iraq had nothing; or b) let any intelligence inaccuracy move us off confronting the WMD issue.
After visiting Baghdad he said: I left Iraq, on balance, more optimistic not less...The Government obviously has a clear sense of mission...
But he warned that the nature of the insurgency is changing...hence Basra becoming a problem.
In 2006, desperate for a success before he left office, Mr Blair, wrote: This is the time to go for it; to take risks. To strive and fail is so much better than not striving. But actually, I think it could just succeed and in doing so give us the strong finish we both want.
He added: The stalemate has to end . This is the time to cash in all of our chips here.
B ackers of Tory leadership hopeful Andrea Leadsom today accused rivals of dirty tricks aimed at shutting their candidate out of the contest.
They warned that grassroots members and the wider public would not forgive the party if the leadership result was seen as a stitch-up.
It comes as Ms Leadsom faced a wave of attacks over her experience and views, as well as pressure over her pledge to review the 55 billion HS2 high-speed rail scheme.
The result of the first ballot of MPs last night saw Home Secretary Theresa May take 165 votes, with Ms Leadsom a distant second on 66 and Michael Gove on 48. It eliminated former defence secretary Liam Fox who got 16 votes while Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb withdrew after getting 34 and backed Mrs May as the only candidate who could unite our party and form a cohesive and strong government.
TODO: define component type apester
But Leadsom supporters claim a deal is being done to lend some of Ms Mays backers to Mr Gove to inflate his total and keep their candidate from reaching the final two who will be put to a vote of the members.
Tory leadership candidates and their odds
One Leadsom backer told the Standard: Theres no doubt about dirty tricks. Weve seen the conversations between people on Goves team and Mays team going on around the place.
Frontrunner: Theresa May won most votes and received support from two leadership rivals in the opening round of the contest / Will Oliver/EPA
Ms Mays camp said there were no deals, while Mr Goves spokesman Dominic Raab said the claims were desperate stuff. Another Leadsom backer, Tim Loughton, said: The membership will feel cheated if they are not given a genuine choice.
Armed Forces Minister Penny Mordaunt, also supporting Ms Leadsom, said the public would not forgive the Conservatives for failing to put forward the best candidates.
She added: I would say to all my colleagues...if you are voting for a candidate who you do not think is the best person to lead this country, you are doing something wrong.
She went on to claim that allegations about Ms Leadsoms career in financial services had been exaggerated and are totally bogus.
Leadsom supporters previously claimed her career had seen her running big teams and managing investments worth billions of pounds.
But former colleague Robert Stephens today claimed that in her ten years at Perpetual/Invesco Perpetual she did not manage any teams, large or small, and she certainly did not manage any funds.
Energy Minister Ms Leadsom has also faced accusations she flipped her position on Brexit to win support among the Tory membership and scrutiny of her previously expressed views on homosexuality.
Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin today defended HS2 as the most important infrastructure project of this generation.
T he father of a soldier killed while serving in the Iraq War has called for Tony Blair to face trial in the wake of the Chilcot Report.
Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley, 28, from 1 (UK) Armoured Division HQ & Signal Regiment, died in a road accident in Iraq in March 2003.
Peter Brierley, 65, said his son had believed he was protecting the country's security before he died, but had he survived he would have joined families and veterans at the release of the long-awaited Iraq Inquiry report on Wednesday.
Mr Brierley said the next step for the families and campaigners was to seek legal action.
He told the Press Association: "I've done this for 13 years - my son died 13 years ago - and I would like Tony Blair to be taken to court, to stand in court.
"I have said all along if they put him in court, he stands in the dock and they hear all the evidence and the judge says not guilty, that is a verdict that I couldn't agree with.
"I just can't see that he's not guilty - but it's one that I would have to accept. I've argued so long that that's what needs to happen.
"That would be closure because I've always said I'm looking forward to the day when I can stop doing this, I can go home, I can put the television on, get my cup of tea, sit back and say to my wife - that's it, I've done all I can."
Mr Brierley, of Batley, West Yorkshire, was among families who had a private meeting with Jeremy Corbyn and heard his public apology on behalf of the Labour Party.
He said: "It's something I would have expected from Jeremy - he's always been anti-war.
"For him to be able to stand up there and give us that apology - it means more than if the right bloke had done it.
"He is under fire, he did not have to do that."
Mr Brierley said it was right that Mr Corbyn did not attack Mr Blair in his speech, adding: "That is not what he was there for. He was talking about the Chilcot Report and what happened in Iraq and he did not mention legalities and he didn't mention people who did wrong."
He said he did not see Mr Blair's two-hour press conference, in which the former prime minister expressed "sorrow, regret and apology" over his role, but challenged him to a face-to-face meeting to explain his decision-making.
"I'm quite happy to stand in front of him and let him debate it with me," he said.
Mr Brierley once publicly humiliated Mr Blair by refusing to shake his hand at a 2009 memorial service for soldiers killed in Iraq, saying: "I'm not shaking your hand, you've got blood on it."
Additional reporting by the Press Association.
F ormer US president George W Bush has backed the arguments of Tony Blair in the face of heavy criticism over their decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
Mr Bush insisted the world is better off without despotic Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in power and said "there was no stronger ally" than Britain when Mr Blair was prime minister.
Mr Blair was severely criticised by Sir John Chilcot's inquiry into the Iraq War, with his closeness to Mr Bush and his July 2002 assurance that he would back the US commander in chief "whatever" coming under particular scrutiny.
However, the ex-president admitted he had not read the report, which spans 13 volumes.
Mr Bush's communications director, Freddy Ford, told BBC News: "President Bush is hosting wounded warriors at his ranch today and has not had the chance to read the Chilcot Report.
"Despite the intelligence failures and other mistakes he has acknowledged previously, President Bush continues to believe the whole world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power.
"He is deeply grateful for the service and sacrifice of American and coalition forces in the war on terror. And there was no stronger ally than the United Kingdom under the leadership of Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"President Bush believes we must now find the unity and resolve to stay on the offensive and defeat radical extremism wherever it exists."
T ony Blair pledged to George W Bush "I will be with you whatever" seven months before receiving legal backing for the Iraq invasion.
In previously confidential memos released as part of the Chilcot report, the former Prime Minister gave astonishing assurances about how to deal with Saddam Hussein.
In the documents, marked Secret Personal, Mr Blair argued that toppling the Iraqi dictator was "the right thing to do" and that the crucial issue was "not when, but how".
The memo - dated July 28, 2002 - is among 29 letters and notes sent by Mr Blair to Mr Bush between 2001 and 2007 to be released by the inquiry.
'With you whatever': the astonishing memo was revealed in the Chilcot report
Mr Blair wrote to the former US President: I will be with you whatever. But this is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties. The planning on this and the strategy are the toughest yet. This is not Kosovo. This is not Afghanistan. It is not even the Gulf War.
In a statement issued today, Mr Blair insisted there was no secret commitment to go to war.
Mission: Tony Blair with George W Bush in Maryland in 2001 / Getty
The memo to Mr Bush sees the Prime Minister set out a strategy for presenting Saddam with an ultimatum demanding he admitted United Nations weapons inspectors back into Iraq in the expectation that he would "screw up", providing a cause for war.
Mr Blair frankly admitted that he could not be sure of support in Britain for his plan - even among members of his own government - while public opinion elsewhere in the world was likely to be strongly opposed.
Chilcot report: Blair's note to Bush
"If we win quickly, everyone will be our friend. If we don't and they haven't been bound in beforehand, recriminations will start fast," he wrote.
He went on: "And - and here is my real point - public opinion is public opinion. And opinion in the US is quite simply on a different planet from opinion here in Europe or in the Arab world.
"In Britain right now I couldn't be sure of support from Parliament, Party, public or even some of the Cabinet. And this is Britain. In Europe generally, people just don't have the same sense of urgency post 9/11 as people in the US."
Mr Blair acknowledged that there would be "reluctance" in the US about taking the issue to the UN Security Council, but insisted it was the best way to provide them with a legitimate case for military action.
"We don't want to be mucked around by Saddam over this, and the danger is he drags us into negotiation. But we need, as with Afghanistan and the ultimatum to the Taliban, to encapsulate our casus belli in some defining way," he wrote.
"This is certainly the simplest. We could, in October, state that he must let the inspectors back in unconditionally and do so now, i.e. set a 7-day deadline.
"There would be no negotiation. There would be no new talks with (UN Secretary General Kofi) Annan. It would be take it or leave it.
Allegiance: Blair with President George Bush at Camp David
"I know there will be reluctance on this. But it would neutralise opposition around the UN issue. If he did say yes, we continue the build-up and we send teams over and the moment he obstructs, we say: he's back to his games.
"That's it. In any event, he would probably screw it up and not meet the deadline, and if he came forward after the deadline, we would just refuse to deal."
The prime minister emphasised the importance of presenting the evidence about Saddam's supposed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as well as trying to establish a link with al Qaida in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York the previous year - although none was ever found.
Chilcot Protest - In pictures 1 /18 Chilcot Protest - In pictures Protesters wearing Tony Blair and George Bush masks outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, where the Chilcot Inquiry was published Jeremy Selwyn Protesters waving placards outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre Matt Dunham/AP Protesters focused on Tony Blair's role in the Iraq War Jeremy Selwyn An Iraqi woman waves a 2004-2008 version of the Iraq national flag as she stands with demonstrators Jeremy Selwyn Demonstrators dressed as Tony Blair and George Bush Jr Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images Protesters call for Tony Blair to be impeached Jeremy Selwyn Anti-war demonstrators in Westminster Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images Dozens of anti-war protesters gathered in Westminster Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images An Iraqi woman outside QEII Centre Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images Protesters focused their anger on former Prime Minister Tony Blair Peter Nicholls/Reuters Demonstrators before the release of the John Chilcot report Jeremy Selwyn The inquiry ruled that the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein failed in all its key objectives Jeremy Selwyn The report found the war was based on flawed intelligence about weapons of mass destruction Gareth Fuller/PA The report was damning about the actions of Tony Blair, and the failure of his Cabinet and Whitehall to challenge his assumptions and decisions Paul Hackett/Reuters
"If we recapitulate all the WMD evidence; add his attempts to secure nuclear capability; and, as seems possible, add on Al Qaida link, it will be hugely persuasive over here," he wrote.
He also stressed the need for renewed "focus and effort" in Afghanistan, which British and US troops had invaded the previous year, ahead of any operation against Iraq.
"We need this to be going right, not wrong. It is our one act of regime change so far, so it better be a good advertisement," he said.
Mr Blair went on: "I would be happy to try to put all this together.... But it needs a huge commitment in time and energy. So it's only really worth doing if we are all on the same page."
He concluded: "On timing, we could start up after the (summer) break. A strike date could be Jan/Feb next year. But the crucial issue is not when, but how."
M I6 was led to believe that Saddam Hussein was continuing to produce weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by a false agent who based his reports on Hollywood blockbuster The Rock, the Chilcot Inquiry has revealed.
In September 2002, MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove said the agency had acquired information from a new source revealing that Iraq was stepping up production of chemical and biological warfare (CBW) agents.
The source claimed senior staff were working seven days a week while the regime was concentrating a lot of effort on the production of anthrax.
Chlorine gas was being also said to be being produced at a separate facility.
It was also believed that families of the senior scientists involved had been effectively made hostage to discourage them from deserting or leaking details to the US/UK coalition against Saddam.
Sir Richard told the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), Sir John Scarlett, that they were "on the edge of (a) significant intel breakthrough" which could be the "key to unlock" Iraq's CBW programme.
Although the information was not included in the Government's dossier on Iraqi WMD published a few days later, amid fears Saddam would starting locking up scientists, it was said to have underpinned "key judgments" in the report.
Legal Basis for Military Action "Far From Satisfactory" - Chilcot
In a rare move, Tony Blair was also personally briefed by Sir Richard on the new intelligence less than two weeks before he made his Commons statement on the dossier.
A second report later that month based on the same source claimed that VX, sarin and soman nerve agents were being produced at a facility at Al-Yarmuk where they were loaded into containers of various sorts including "linked hollow glass spheres".
However, questions were soon being raised about the new agent's claims when it was noticed that his description bore a striking resemblance to a scene from the movie The Rock, starring Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery.
"It was pointed out that glass containers were not typically used in chemical munitions, and that a popular movie (The Rock) had inaccurately depicted nerve agents being carried in glass beads or spheres," the Chilcot report stated.
By February 2003 - a month before the invasion of Iraq - MI6 concluded that their source had been lying "over a period of time" but failed to inform No 10 "or others", even though Mr Blair had been briefed on his intelligence.
The inquiry found that right up to the eve of the invasion Sir John Scarlett was continuing to advise the prime minister that Iraq had the CBW with the means to deliver them and the capacity to produce more.
The report strongly criticised the failure to reassess the JIC assessment that Saddam had managed to retain a covert CBW capability after the 1991 Gulf War, even after the UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix was unable to find them.
"At no stage was the hypothesis that Iraq might no longer have chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or programmes identified and examined by either the JIC or the policy community," it said.
"Intelligence and assessments made by the JIC about Iraq's capabilities and intent continued to be used to prepare briefing material to support government statements in a way which conveyed certainty without acknowledging the limitations of the intelligence."
Additional reporting by the Press Association.
M ichael Gove has been challenged over an alleged plot to block Andrea Leadsom in the Conservative party leadership contest.
The shock twist came as Mr Gove was confronted at an election hustings about a text apparently sent from his campaign team to Theresa May supporters.
The message allegedly urged them to vote tactically to block Ms Leadsom from reaching the final two on the ballot ahead of tomorrows second round of voting.
Pro-May MPs said the text, which he said was sent by an ally of Mr Gove, warned unless action was taken Ms Leadsom could propel to the leadership in a similar fashion to Iain Duncan Smith in 2001.
One MP said the message stated: "I would be really grateful if you would treat this in strict confidence.
"You are my friend, I respect the fact that you want Theresa May to be the Prime Minister. It is overwhelmingly likely that she will be, and if she does I will sleep easily at night.
"But I am seriously frightened about the risk of allowing Andrea Leadsom onto the membership ballot.
"What if Theresa stumbles? Are we really confident that the membership won't vote for a fresh face who shares their attitudes about much of modern life, like they did with IDS?
"I am not asking you to respond unless you positively want to have a chat, but I hope that you will reflect on this carefully.
"Michael doesn't mind spending two months taking a good thrashing from Theresa if that is what it takes to put the party's interest and the national interest, surely we must all work together to stop AL?"
The MP said the text was signed by an X, representing a kiss.
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Mr Gove was challenged about the alleged message and responded with a giggle.
An MP said: He didn't disown it, because so many MPs have received it, it is quite difficult to disown it".
However, another MP who is backing the Justice Secretary, said he handled the situation well.
Mrs May emerged as the clear favourite following the opening round of voting on Tuesday.
The Home Secretary secured the support of 165 MPs and the backing of rivals Liam Fox and Stephen Crabb after they were eliminated and withdrew from the race.
Additional reporting by Press Association
S adiq Khan was involved in awkward exchanges in City Hall today as he was grilled over his decision to sell the Metropolitan Polices controversial water cannon.
The London Mayor was accused of repeating himself as he was asked what conversations he had with Scotland Yard chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe before he announced he was selling the devices.
The question was put to Mr Khan by Conservative Assembly Member Gareth Bacon who spoke to the Met commissioner moments before.
Sir Bernard said he supported the use of water cannon when he was addressed but said it was clear the Mayor did not share his view.
When Mr Khan was first asked the question, he began his answer by saying Home Secretary Theresa May agreed with his position.
Police commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe supports water cannons
Mr Bacon attempted to interrupt him but the Mayor continued to set out his reasoning and then went on to discuss the issue of how the cannons were purchased.
The detraction led Mr Bacon to interject: Mr Mayor I hate to interrupt you because it makes me sound like I'm being rude but I didn't ask you about procurement and I didn't ask you about the Home Secretary's views.
He then repeated the question to which Mr Khan eventually said he could not remember speaking to the commissioner before the start of an awkward exchange in the chamber.
Mr Khan said: I cant remember years ago when I made my position known about the use of water cannon in the great city of London.
To which Mr Bacon replied: So you didnt have any conversations with the commissioner before you decided to decommission and sell them?
Mr Khan said: I cant remember years ago when I made my position known about the use of water cannon in the great city of London.
Mr Bacon asked again: So you didnt is the answer?
The Mayor started to respond with another similarly worded answer before Mr Bacon interjected: Ok youve said that three times and Ive asked you the question four times.
On Friday, Mr Khan said he will sell the Mets controversial water cannon and use the money for youth services, adding it beggars belief that City Hall was paying to store the devices.
His predecessor Boris Johnson approved the purchase of three second hand water cannon from Germany for more than 200,000 two years ago.
Scotland Yard chiefs had said after the London riots that they wanted the policing tools at their disposal in the event of a future emergency.
T he first two caravans from an aid convoy organised by Londoners, partly in memory of MP Jo Cox, have arrived at a refugee camp in Calais.
The caravans were renovated and covered in artwork including a Yorkshire rose tribute to the Labour MP by Walthamstow community activists after a crowdfunding campaign.
The first Wilcumstowe Wagon was donated to Almas, who is seven months pregnant, and her partner Yousef yesterday, while the second is expected to become home to a group of unaccompanied young boys. A third is expected to arrive next week, and enough money has been raised for two more.
The caravans were sent stocked with donations of bedding, food, toiletries and blankets made by Walthamstow knitwear designer Debbie Bliss, which were labelled: Every stitch and square knitted with love for you.
New homes: the Yorkshire rose was painted on one caravan as a tribute to Jo Cox (Roger Cuthbert) / Penny Dampier
Katrina Kieffer-Wells, of organisers Side by Side: Humanitarian Aid To Refugees, said: There are 6,000 refugees in Calais, 500 of them are unaccompanied children. About six weeks ago, there was a huge fire in the camp that wiped out about 250 shelters. So their occupants are now back in tents. Because French authorities are not allowing more building materials back in the camp, the caravans are all the more vital.
Campaigner: Jo Cox championed the rights of Syrians / Yui Mok/PA
Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy, who was a friend of Ms Cox, named the caravans Wilcumstowe Wagons because Walthamstows name meant Welcome-stow. The caravans were painted by artists Frankie Strand and Elno. Ms Cox, 41, who was killed in Birstall, in her Batley and Spen constituency, campaigned for people fleeing war and persecution and Ms Creasy said: We are a community which prides itself on stepping up in times of need to support others.
Our Wilcumstowe Wagon project was a joint effort with people across the community all helping fund, renovate and stock caravans for the refugees in Calais as well as supply our local food bank. I was also honoured the volunteers did this in memory of Jo Cox, who I know would have loved seeing the beautiful caravans now helping refugees, as well as shared our support for our neighbours.
I am proud to be part of a special part of London that knows our diversity is a strength for us all and shows through projects like this that, even in these difficult times, post the Brexit vote, we will not allow others to break our community spirit.@MsLChops
For more details, visit facebook.com/SidebySiderefugees
T he families of soldiers killed in Iraq today said Tony Blair should be put in the dock and lashed out at equipment failures that contributed to the deaths of British troops.
Lance Corporal James Cartwright, 21, from Battersea, south London was killed in Basra after a Warrior armoured vehicle he was driving crashed in Basra in June 2007.
His father, Gerald, slammed the Chilcot inquiry for wasting millions and years without declaring if the war was illegal and said he would not be satisfied until Mr Blair and his cohorts were brought to book.
Mr Cartwright said: Maybe if Tony Blair had been arrested or some people in high places had been brought to book then it would have been worth the millions and the years wasted on this inquiry.
Relatives of military personnel killed during the Iraq War talk at a news conference after listening to Sir John Chilcot present The Iraq Inquiry Report ( Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images) / Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Maybe if that money had been given to the soldiers then some of them may have been around now. My son wrote to me from Iraq saying he had to buy his own boots. He said compared to the Americans they looked like second class soldiers. They were good soldiers but they were under-equipped.
Tony Blair didnt give a toss about the plight of Iraqi families. I want him to take responsibility. He should be locked in a room with photographs of the 179 boys and girls killed out there and made to look at them for six months.
My son would be 30 now. Id have a house full of grandkids now. Instead Ive got nothing now. Even the compensation money we got from the government has gone.
Relatives slammed the Chilcot report as a waste of money / Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Reg Keys son, Lance Corporal Thomas Keys, was killed by a mob in Majar al-Kabir in 2003 just days before his 21st birthday.
Mr Keys, who stood against Mr Blair in the 2005 General Election as an anti-war candidate, attacked Mr Blair for going to war on a lie and said he would support legal action against the former prime minister.
Iraqi at Chilcot protest asks: 'What have we waited for?'
He said: I can only conclude that unfortunately and sadly my son died in vain. These young men died in vain this is a launchpad to bring those to account if that is a viable option. We have evidence to go forward with. I think Mr Blair was deliberately misleading.
Mr Keys added: Tony Blair knew that it was a lie he knew he was massaging the (intelligence reports). He changed it form ifs but and maybes to up and running now.
At a press conference after the publication of the report, Matthew Jury, a lawyer acting for some of the bereaved families said they were keeping all options open with regard to further legal action.
He said: The families have waited a long time they have acted with patience courage and dignity.
Relatives said they were angry at how their loved ones were treated by the government.
Roger Bacons son, Major Matthew Bacon, from south London died when a roadside bomb exploded, hitting the vehicle he was travelling in, near Basra in 2005.
He said: Never again must so many mistakes be allowed to sacrifice British lives and lead to the destruction of a country for no positive end.
Chilcot inquiry: Timeline of events
We were proud when our husbands, sons and daughters signed up to serve our country. But we cannot be proud of the way our government has treated them.
We must use this report to make sure that all parts of the Iraq War fiasco are never repeated again. Neither in a theatre of war, nor in the theatre of Whitehall.
We call on the British Government immediately to follow up Sir Johns findings to ensure that the political process by which our country decides to go to war is never again twisted and confused with no liability for such actions.
T he Cabinet should have been made aware of uncertainties about whether the invasion of Iraq was lawful, the official inquiry concluded today.
The report told in detail how the then-Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, amended his position on the legality of war in the run-up to the conflict.
It also revealed how his conclusion that military action was lawful rested on Tony Blairs view that Saddam Hussein was in breach of United Nations resolution 1441 on Iraqs alleged weapons of mass destruction.
The inquiry did not express a view on whether the invasion was lawful. But chairman Sir John Chilcot said: We have, however, concluded that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action were far from satisfactory.
Lord Goldsmith was told in December 2002 by senior No 10 officials that when he was asked for his legal advice on the possible invasion that it would be helpful if he discussed a draft with Mr Blair in the first instance.
He was also asked by Mr Blair and his chief-of-staff Jonathan Powell, up until March 7, 2003, that his views on the legal effect of UN resolution 1441 should be tightly held and not shared with ministerial colleagues without No 10s permission, according to the report.
Chilcot inquiry: Timeline of events
Following Downing Street instructions, when he delivered draft advice in January 2003 he did not provide a copy to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw or Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon.
At a later meeting with No 10 officials in February, he said a reasonable case could be made that resolution 1441 was capable of reviving the authorisation to use force in an earlier UN resolution if it could be shown that Saddam had failed to take the final opportunity to comply with obligations to disarm.
He delivered his formal advice on March 7 which stated that the safer route would be to seek a second UN resolution.
He also warned the Prime Minister that to argue that resolution 1441 was enough for a legal case for war would only be sustainable if there were strong factual grounds to show Iraq had not taken the final opportunity.
Key to this, he added, would be the views of UN inspectors who had so far concluded there were no smoking gun that Saddam had WMDs.
On March 13, the Attorney General came to a better view that there was a lawful basis for the use of force without a further resolution, which was being blocked by other UN Security Council members.
But in a letter the following day from Lord Goldsmiths office to No 10, Mr Blair was told that an essential ingredient of the legal basis was that the Prime Minister himself should be satisfied that Iraq was in breach of resolution 1441.
Downing Street responded to say this was the Prime Ministers unequivocal view, although the inquiry emphasised that the letter was in terms that can only be described as perfunctory.
The Chilcot inquiry concluded: In accordance with that advice, it was Mr Blair who decided that, so far as the UK was concerned, Iraq was and remained in breach of resolution 1441.
No formal record was made of that decision and the precise grounds on which it was made remain unclear. On March 17, 2003, the Cabinet was provided with the Governments legal position, but not the basis or conflicting arguments for the conclusion that Saddam had failed to take the final opportunity to disarm. There was little appetite to question Lord Goldsmith about his advice, and no substantive discussion of the legal issues was recorded, says the report.
It added that Cabinet was not misled and rejected former International Development Secretary Clare Shorts claim of a side deal. But, given the gravity of the decision being made to go to war, Cabinet should have been made aware of the legal uncertainties.
A defiant Tony Blair today said he made the right decision to invade Iraq despite the damning verdict of the Chilcot Report.
The former Prime Minister looked close to tears as he took full responsibility for any mistakes in Iraq, but he maintained a strident defence over the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
And he said he could not only look the families [of the dead British personnel] but the nation in the eye and say I did not mislead this country.
Looking shaken and aged, Mr Blairs voice quavered and almost cracked and he blinked continually.
I take full responsibility for any mistakes without exception or excuse, he said, speaking in central London behind tight security.
TODO: define component type brightcove
But mounting a detailed defence of his motives and actions, he insisted: I can look not only the families but the nation in the eye and say I did not mislead the country.
What I cannot do and will not do is to say I believe that we took the wrong decision.
I made the decision in good faith on the information I had at the time and I believe that it is better that we made that decision.
I acknowledge all the problems I acknowledge the mistakes and accept responsibility for them.
Chilcot inquiry: Timeline of events
What I cannot do and will not do is to say I believe that we took the wrong decision.
There were no lies, no deceit, no deception. But there was a decision, a controversial decision.
He said he felt the grief and suffering of the families but went on: I had to decide are more people going to suffer, are more people going to die, if we leave this brutal dictator in place. Thats the decision.
His lengthy statement was devoted almost entirely to defending his decision to go to war alongside the US, but it accepted some criticisms of the way the government took it.
Among the regrets, he should have presented a full options paper to the Cabinet, a failing highlighted by the Chilcot report.
Mr Blair stressed the official legal advice was that the war was legal, but he said: I accept in retrospect it would have been better to provide the full legal advice to Cabinet.
However, Mr Blair continued to defend his actions strongly, saying the world was a better place without Saddam Hussein.
Most of his statement was devoted to restating the case for the war.
The world is a better place without Saddam Hussein
We cannot take decisions with the benefit of hindsight but we can and should learn the lessons, he said.
The decisions I have made I have carried with me for 13 years and will do for the rest of my days.
He said there was not a day of my life when I do not relive and rethink what happened.
I ask that fair-minded people at least consider the following: If we had ... pulled back our forces we would have found it almost impossible to reassemble those forces in that number.
He said sanctions would have eroded swiftly and Saddam would have been strengthened immensely.
Sir John Chilcot presents his report into the Iraq war / Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Mr Blair said non-intervention in nearby Syria had ultimately cost even more lives. He speculated that if Saddam had stayed in power, Iraq would have gone through an Arab Spring and collapsed in crisis anyway.
It shows that in the uncertain world we live in, all decisions have consequences, he said.
The former PM told the press conference he acted with the heaviest of hearts but a decision had to be taken.
It was mine to take as Prime Minister. I took it, I take responsibility for it.
He said: I did it because I thought it was right and because I thought the human cost of inaction and leaving Saddam in power would be greater for us and the world in the longer term.
I only ask with humility that the British people accept that I took this decision because I believed it was the right thing to do based on the information that I had and the threat that I perceived.
He appealed to people to falsify my motives or believe conspiracy theories.
He stressed that Sir John Chilcots report had exposed no falsification or improper use of intelligence, no deception of his Cabinet and no secret commitment to go to war.
However, he went on, I accept the report makes serious criticisms of the way decisions were taken. And again I accept full responsibility.
Mr Blair said he did not agree with all of Sir Johns criticisms, and much of his statement focused on recalling the atmosphere after 9/11, the worst terrorist act in history.
Iraqs dictator led the only regime in the world that had used chemical weapons, he pointed out, and every country regarded him as a threat.
He never made any secret promise to George Bush to go to war, and had argued strongly to get the United Nations to endorse any action.
Eventually, he said, it was a question of backing the United States or losing the chance to act.
President Bush made it clear he was going to act; the British government under my leadership made clear it would be part of that action.
Responding to Chilcots criticism that the war was not a last resort, Mr Blair said the impasse at the UN and the need to commit or withdraw troops forced the decision.
It was the last moment of decision for us, as the report accepts. By then the US was going to war with us or without us.
In the end he had a profound obligation as leader of the country to decide.
[The British military] are people of enormous dedication and courage. The country should be very proud of them
I took this decision with the heaviest of hearts, he said. His duty, he said, was to make a decision without shying away, to discharge that responsibility and not to duck it.
He said he felt the cost of leaving Saddam in power would be greater than the cost of removing him.
Mr Blair paid tribute to the courage and professionalism of the Armed Forces. They are people of enormous dedication and courage. The country should be very proud of them.
He said the intelligence about weapons of mass destruction was wrong with hindsight but he acted on what was believed at the time.
Injured soldier on Iraq War
But he challenged people to stand in his shoes and say how they would have responded, knowing that the dictator had used chemical weapons on his own people.
Saddam in my view was going to remain a threat for as long as he remained in power, he said.
Key findings of the 2.6 million word report condemnded Mr Blairs actions and the failure of his Cabinet and Whitehall to challenge his assumptions and decisions.
Sir John Chilcot's report found:
There was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein, despite Downing Streets misleading claims that the dictator had chemical and biological weapons ready to use in 45 minutes.
Judgments about the threat posed by the supposed WMD were presented with a certainty that was not justified and the intelligence community would have known this.
Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated. Sir John said: The planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam were wholly inadequate.
War was not required to prevent Saddam obtaining WMD. We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted, said the inquiry. Military action was not a last resort.
Distraught relatives of British troops who died in the Iraq war at the Chilcot report today / Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
The Ministry of Defence was slow to respond to the threat posed to British troops from bombs during the chaotic occupation. Delays in providing armoured vehicles should not have been tolerated.
Iraq marked an extraordinary failure of the Blair government to do its job properly. Intelligence chiefs allowed false claims to be published. Senior figures such as Gordon Brown and John Prescott, as well as Robin Cook who resigned in protest could not provide the element of challenge required from the Cabinet because they were not included in decisions.
It was humiliating for Britain and its military forces that the ill-planned aftermath led to prisoners being released in return for terrorists promising to stop targeting troops in Basra.
Instead of upholding the will of the United Nations Security Council, as argued by Mr Blair, the invasion served in undermining the Security Councils authority.
The argument that the war was lawful depended on an assurance Mr Blair gave to the Attorney General, within 24 hours of being asked, that Iraq was guilty of further material breaches of its obligations to the UN. But Sir John found that the precise basis on which Mr Blair made that decision is not clear.
Cabinet ministers were kept in the dark about the legal uncertainties over whether the war was lawful.
Sir John spoke of the deep anguish of the families of British citizens who died as a result of the conflict and the many more who were injured.
In Iraq, there were 189,000 deaths caused directly by the war. An estimated 600,000 Iraqis died from other hardships, such as disease, in the chaos that followed.
T hese are the key figures involved in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in the hunt for Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
Tony Blair
Age: 63
Then: Prime Minister
Key role: Blairs vow to stand shoulder to shoulder with America after 9/11 guided him to support President George W Bushs military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. His key role before the 2003 invasion of Iraq was to advance the case at home and internationally for toppling Saddam Hussein, advancing the belief that Iraq possessed and was developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as a legal and moral basis.
Tony Blair: took Britain into a failed war in 2003 / Daniel Leal-Olivias/AFP/Getty Images
Now: His premiership foundered after the war, weakened by bitter splits and fatally damaged by inquiries into the failure to find evidence of WMD. He left office in 2007 and became a UN special envoy to the Middle East, while simultaneously launching a business providing strategic advice to leaders, including to dictators in the Middle East. He is reportedly worth 60 million.
Jack Straw
Age: 69
Then: Foreign Secretary
Key role: A lynchpin in Tony Blairs Cabinet during the run-up, Straw fully supported regime change in Iraq and drew on years of experience as a political fixer to persuade reluctant MPs to back the decision to invade. He used his training as a barrister to make the case at the United Nations and in Europe that force was justified.
Now: He stood down as MP for Blackburn in 2015 and was widely expected to a seat in the House of Lords after being cleared by an inquiry into cash for access allegations.
Jack Straw: persuaded MPs to back the war / Oli Scarff/Getty Images
Geoff Hoon
Age: 62
Then: Defence Secretary
Key role: As the Cabinet minister responsible for the equipping and deployment of UK forces from 1999 to 2005, Hoon was closely involved in decisions during the build-up to war after 9/11 to the bloody aftermath of the invasion. Loyal to Blair, he backed military action in Iraq despite having sent a note to No 10 in 2002 that argued Iran was actually a greater threat to Britain.
Now: He stood down as an MP in 2010 after a failed coup against Gordon Brown. He is now a managing director of business at helicopter-maker AgustaWestland a firm which landed a 1.7 billion contract when he was Defence Secretary.
Geoff Hoon was tasked with the equipment and deployment of UK forces in Iraq / Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
Alastair Campbell
Age: 59
Then: Director of Strategy and Communications, 10 Downing Street
Key role: Blairs infamous spin doctor masterminded the release of the 45-minute Dossier in September 2002, highlighting a claim that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes of a decision to do so. The document was heavily criticised when no such weapons were found to exist. BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan claimed scientist David Kelly blamed Campbell for pressure in Whitehall to sex-up the dossier.
Now: Campbell resigned in 2003 after the suicide of David Kelly and exhausting battles with the BBC and other broadcasters over the reporting of the war. He now works for a PR firm as a consultant and has published very detailed memoirs and some fiction.
Spin doctor Alistair Campbell masterminded the '45-minute Dossier' / Matthew Fearn/PA Wire
John Scarlett
Age: 67
Then: Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee
Key role: A career spy who was once expelled from Moscow, Scarlett took ownership of the 45-minute dossier as head of the Whitehall body that oversees intelligence and security work. He denied being pressured to firm up the evidence of WMD, but the quality and presentation of intelligence was criticised at inquiries.
Now: In 2004 Scarlett was appointed head of MI6 despite the controversies, crowning his career. He left the service in 2009 and has advised a string of companies including PricewaterhouseCooper, Morgan Stanley and Statoil.
John Scarlett was appointed head of MI6 in 2004 / Hugo Philpott/Reuters
Lord [Peter] Goldsmith
Age: 66
Then: Attorney General
Key role: He was critical to Blairs invasion plans as the man who advised the Cabinet at the 11th hour that war would be legal. Only weeks earlier he had been recommending that Britain and America should seek a fresh UN resolution to approve the action, describing this as the safer option. But he changed his mind and issued a memo on March 7, 2003 that said the use of force was lawful because Iraq had violated a ceasefire agreement from 1991.
Now: He is head of European Litigation at the US law firm Debevoise & Plimpton and a senior partner at the firm.
Clare Short
Age: 70
Then: International Development Secretary
Key role: Tony Blair talked the left-winger out of resigning by saying she would be vital to rebuilding Iraq and saving lives. She quit anyway in May 2003 in protest at the lack of planning for reconstruction and later said she felt she had been deceived. Many military and diplomatic figures have criticised the department for inadequate action when Iraq was reeling.
Now: Her failure to resign before the war left Short a weakened and sorrowful figure. She left the Commons in 2007 saying she felt ashamed of Blairs government.
Clare Short was another senior Labour figure to quit over the war in Iraq / Carl De Souza/AFP/Getty
Robin Cook
Died in 2005
Then: Leader of the Commons
Key role: The left-winger emerged as the Cabinets leading opponent of military action in early 2003 and he personally quizzed intelligence chiefs over their claims. On March 17, he resigned from the Cabinet, saying: I cant accept collective responsibility for the decision to commit Britain now to military action in Iraq without international agreement or domestic support. He received a standing ovation.
Now: As a backbencher Cook became the leading forensic critic of the invasion and was set for a glorious Cabinet return under Gordon Browns leadership. However, in August 2005 he suffered a severe heart attack while walking in Scotland and died, leaving the world mourning a principled figure.
T ony Blair drove Britain to a disastrous and unnecessary war in Iraq, ignoring clear warnings and with wholly inadequate planning for the bloody consequences, the Chilcot inquiry concluded today.
British troops died because of intolerable delays in getting them protective gear when Iraq collapsed into civil war and the military campaign ended a long way from success.
In a devastating series of verdicts, the inquiry ruled that the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein failed in all its key objectives.
It was based on flawed intelligence about weapons of mass destruction and it backfired by exposing British interests to even greater security dangers.
Chilcot: "The UK chose to invade before peaceful options had been exhausted"
After an inquiry lasting seven years, the 2.6 million-word report by Sir John Chilcot and his team was damning about Mr Blairs actions and the failure of his Cabinet and Whitehall to challenge his assumptions and decisions.
Sir John published the report today at a press conference attended by the families of some of the 179 British military personnel who died.
He told them: We have sought to set out the Governments actions on Iraq fully and impartially. The evidence is there for all to see. It is an account of an intervention which went badly wrong, with consequences to this day.
In Iraq, there were 189,000 deaths caused directly by the war. An estimated 600,000 Iraqis died from other hardships, such as disease, in the chaos that followed.
The key findings of the five-member inquiry team were:
There was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein, despite Downing Streets misleading claims that the dictator had chemical and biological weapons ready to use in 45 minutes.
Judgments about the threat posed by the supposed WMD were presented with a certainty that was not justified and the intelligence community would have known this.
Mission: Tony Blair with George W Bush in Maryland in 2001 / Getty
Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated. Sir John said: The planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam were wholly inadequate.
War was not required to prevent Saddam obtaining WMD. We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted, said the inquiry. Military action was not a last resort.
The Ministry of Defence was slow to respond to the threat posed to British troops from bombs during the chaotic occupation. Delays in providing armoured vehicles should not have been tolerated.
Anti war protesters gather in Westminster / Getty
Iraq marked an extraordinary failure of the Blair government to do its job properly. Intelligence chiefs allowed false claims to be published. Senior figures such as Gordon Brown and John Prescott, as well as Robin Cook who resigned in protest could not provide the element of challenge required from the Cabinet because they were not included in decisions.
It was humiliating for Britain and its military forces that the ill-planned aftermath led to prisoners being released in return for terrorists promising to stop targeting troops in Basra.
Instead of upholding the will of the United Nations Security Council, as argued by Mr Blair, the invasion served in undermining the Security Councils authority.
The argument that the war was lawful depended on an assurance Mr Blair gave to the Attorney General, within 24 hours of being asked, that Iraq was guilty of further material breaches of its obligations to the UN. But Sir John found that the precise basis on which Mr Blair made that decision is not clear.
Cabinet ministers were kept in the dark about the legal uncertainties over whether the war was lawful.
Timeline of Britain's 2003 invasion of Iraq 2001 September: Twin Tower terror attacks on US. 2002 April: Tony Blair signals willingness to back regime change in Iraq when he meets George W Bush at his Texas ranch but said the issue should go to the United Nations first, Iraq Inquiry told. September: Bush tells UN that Iraq poses grave and gathering danger. Blair publishes first dossier on Iraqs alleged weapons of mass destruction later widely discredited which claimed Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons in 45 minutes. November: UN weapons inspectors return to Iraq, backed by UN resolution 1441 threatening serious consequences if Iraq is found in material breach of its terms. 2003 January: UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix tells Security Council no smoking guns of WMDs found in Iraq. February: No 10 publishes the dodgy dossier on Iraqs structures of concealment, deception and intimidation. Part of it was copied from a 12-year-old thesis by a US student. March: Parliament backs military action in Iraq. Commons Leader Robin Cook had already resigned. Attorney General Lord Goldsmith concluded invasion was lawful but later admitted he had amended his advice in the run-up to war. March: US-led invasion topples dictator Saddam Hussein. May: Bush announces from deck of USS Abraham Lincoln, under a banner reading mission accomplished, that major combat operations in Iraq have ended. Coalition disbands Iraqi army and bans tens of thousands of Baath Party members from public posts. The changes were later blamed for fuelling violence. August: Car bomb in Najaf kills 125 including Shia leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim. An early post-invasion sectarian attack of the sort that will ravage the country for years. December: Saddam Hussein captured hiding in his hometown of Tikrit. 2004 January: Hutton Report into death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly clears No 10 of sexing up the first Iraq dossier, as alleged on the BBC. The Corporations chairman Gavyn Davies and director general Greg Dyke resign. April: Shocking photos emerge of abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US troops at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. June: US transfers back sovereignty to interim government. July: Butler Report finds key intelligence used to justify Iraq invasion had now been shown to be unreliable. MI6 did not sufficiently check sources and 2002 dossier should not have included the claim that Iraq could use WMDs within 45 minutes without further explanation. 2005 December: Iraqis vote for a new government. 2006 December: Saddam executed for crimes against humanity. 2007 January: US announces a troop surge to boost security in Iraq. Civilian death toll put at more than 34,000 in 2006. 2009 April: UK combat operations end in Iraq. The British military death toll from the six-year Operation Telic had risen to 179. June: Gordon Brown announces the Iraq Inquiry, chaired by Sir John Chilcot. 2013 March: One estimate put the civilian death toll in Iraq since 2003 at up to 134,000. 2014 June: Islamic State militants sweep into Iraq from Syria and seize large swathes of the country. 2016 July: The Iraq Inquiry report is finally published.
Chilcot inquiry: Timeline of events
Sir John spoke of the deep anguish of the families of British citizens who died as a result of the conflict and the many more who were injured.
He drew a pointed contrast between the professionalism of Britains troops who showed great courage in the face of considerable risks and fought a successful military campaign which resulted in Saddam being toppled from power in less than a month and the catastrophically poor planning by the Blair government for what happened next.
He said the decision to go to war was of the utmost gravity but revealed that, in a memo on July 28, 2002, Mr Blair promised President George W Bush: I will be with you whatever. Despite Mr Blairs arguments that war was needed to keep Britain safe from Iraqi threats of WMD, it could have been avoided all along. The strategy of containment could have been adapted and continued for some time, said Sir John.
The report, the fourth major inquiry into the Iraq tragedy, is by far the most comprehensive account yet of what happened and what went wrong.
Sir John said he had made no attempt to rule on whether it was legal or illegal, saying: That could, of course, only be resolved by a properly constituted and internationally recognised court.
Setting out the build-up to war in the greatest detail yet, Sir John said Mr Blair warned President Bush against hasty action on Iraq after the September 11 attacks in 2001.
But by December of that year, Mr Blairs policy had shifted towards regime change. The following April 2002, when the two leaders met at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas, there had been a profound change in the UKs thinking even though its stated policy was still to contain Saddam by sanctions. Contingency planning for an invasion was under way.
Chilcot report: Key points from the Iraq inquiry in 90 seconds
In 2003, Mr Blair embarked on the invasion without the approval of the UN. Sir John said: In the absence of a majority in support of military action, we consider that the UK was, in fact, undermining the Security Councils authority.
There was an ingrained belief in the UK intelligence agencies that Iraq had secretly hoarded chemical and biological weapons, but the evidence was flawed. The report strongly criticised the Joint Intelligence Committee, headed by Sir John Scarlett, for allowing the case for war to be presented by Mr Blair more strongly than the few facts deserved. The judgments were presented with a certainty that was not justified, said Sir John.
In fact, the JIC had already judged that if sanctions were maintained Iraq could not develop a nuclear weapon, and that long-range missiles were years away from Saddams grasp.
A wave of terrorism in the Middle East and western Europe was "fuelled" by Tony Blair's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, Jeremy Corbyn said today in a scathing attack in response to the Chilcot report.
Mr Corbyn told the Commons the conflict was a "catastrophe" and labelled it an "act of military aggression launched on a false pretext".
His comments came after Sir John Chilcot presented the findings of his seven-year inquiry into the 2003 Iraq War, which concluded the conflict was unnecessary in a damning verdict.
Responding in the House of Commons, Mr Corbyn said: "The conflict fostered a lethal sectarianism, as the report indicates, that turned into a civil war.
"Instead of protecting security at home or abroad, the war fuelled and spread terrorism across the region."
He said the latest terror attack in Baghdad, claimed by Islamic State, had been carried out by a "group whose origins lie in the aftermath of the invasion".
Mr Corbyn added US and UK forces had imposed a "colonial-style occupation" on the "most volatile region in the world", triggering disastrous consequences.
He stopped short of apologising on the behalf of the Labour Party for the war but said: "Frankly it was an act of military aggression launched on a false pretext, as the inquiry accepts, and has long been regarded as illegal by the overwhelming weight of international legal opinion."
And he added the war had led to a "fundamental breakdown of trust in politics and the institutions of government".
Mr Corbyn was speaking the House of Commons after Prime Minister David Cameron outlined his response to the report.
Mr Cameron said: "This is a difficult day for all the families.
"They have waited far too long and our first thoughts must be with them."
He added: "Taking this country to war should only be a last resort and when all other options have been exhausted."
He also said sending troops onto the battlefield without appropriate equipment must "never happen again".
He added: "We should not conclude that intervention is always wrong.
"There are unquestionably times when it's right."
In a sign of the continued divisions within his party over Iraq and his leadership, Mr Corbyn was heckled by his own MPs as he gave his response to the Chilcot Report.
The Labour leader, who highlighted the anti-war protests including the massive march in London in February 2003, said the evidence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was "flimsy and confected".
The September 2002 dossier, which warned of weapons that could be made ready in 45 minutes, was "the only most notorious of many deceptions".
Mr Corbyn said the Chilcot Report highlighted a "litany of failures" in planning for the aftermath of the war.
D onald Trump has praised former Iraqi president Saddam Husseins ruthlessness, telling supporters he killed terrorists so good.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was speaking in North Carolina when he discussed the former Iraqi leader.
The billionaire tycoon said: Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good.
Mr Trump added: They didnt read em the rights ... They were a terrorist, it was over.
He has previously said the world would be 100% better if dictators like Hussein and Libyas Muammar Gaddafi were still in power.
Ruthless dictator: Saddam Hussein / Getty
Before the US-led invasion in 2003, Iraq was listed by the US as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Jake Sullivan, policy adviser for Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, said Mr Trumps praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds.
Donald Trump's most controversial comments
Mr Trump also attacked his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton over her use of private email while secretary of state, saying it put the entire country in danger, after the FBI decided not to recommend criminal charges against her.
E uropean Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has slammed Brexiteers Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson for an alleged lack of patriotism.
In a speech to MEPs, Mr Juncker accused Mr Johnson and Mr Farage of deserting the country when things got difficult after the EU referendum.
Mr Farage announced his resignation as UKIP leader on Monday, stating that he wanted his life back after achieving his political ambition.
And Mr Johnson unexpectedly ruled himself out as a candidate to be Britains next prime minister last week after being knifed by former ally Michael Gove.
Not a patriot: Juncker accuses Boris Johnson of resigning when things got difficult / Stefan Rousseau/PA
Mr Juncker said: All I can do is note that the bright Brexit heroes of yesterday are the sad heroes of today.
Those who contributed to the situation in the UK have resigned: Johnson, Farage and others, they are retro-nationalists, they are not patriots.
Patriots dont resign when things get difficult, they stay.
Mr Juncker and Mr Farage clashed in European Parliament last week, with the European Commission president asking Mr Farage Why are you here?
In response, Mr Farage delivered a speech to European Parliament accusing the union of failing ordinary people and urging the UK to start exit procedures.
Nigel Farage makes insulting speech to EU Parliament
Mr Juncker also repeated his desire for the UK to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to activate their release from the EU.
He said: I could understand that the Remain camp needs weeks to reflect, but I dont understand that the Brexit camp needs months before knowing what to do.
I would have thought they would have a plan. Instead of developing a plan they are leaving the boat.
C helsea Manning, the former US soldier serving a 35 year sentence for leaking classified documents, has been rushed hospital amid reports she attempted to take her own life.
US media have reported the whistleblower, who is being held at a prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, was taken to hospital on Tuesday morning.
CNN said it was understood Manning had tried to take her own life but the report has yet to be verified.
Chase Strangio, Manning's attorney from the American Civil Liberties Union, told CNN: "I am still trying to figure out what is happening.
"I have unfortunately not been contacted by Leavenworth and have no additional information."
In August 2013, Manning was imprisoned for 35 years after being convicted of leaking classified documents to Wikileaks.
The ex US private, formerly known as Bradley Manning, asked to be recognised as a woman in 2013.
Liberty Counsel Files Motion to Dismiss SMUG Case
SPRINGFIELD, Mass., July 6, 2016 / Standard Newswire / -- Liberty Counsel filed a motion for summary judgment in a lawsuit filed by Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) against Pastor Scott Lively, in which SMUG seeks to silence and impose significant financial penalties against Lively for speech about homosexuality in Uganda. The motion contains 198 pages of facts and legal argument.
In the suit, SMUG alleges that Lively committed "crimes against humanity" in violation of "international law"akin to genocide and war crimesby simply sharing his biblical views on homosexuality during three visits to Uganda in 2002 and 2009. The suit makes the sensational claim that Lively's visits were part of a "conspiracy" to "persecute" the LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex) population of Uganda. SMUG alleged Lively orchestrated rampant "discrimination" and even violence against the LGBTI community, leading to the death of SMUG leader David Kato.
Four years, 100 hours of depositions, and 40,000 pages of documents later, SMUG failed to produce a shred of evidence of any conspiracy or persecution by Lively. The evidence shows that Lively, in a country where homosexuality has been illegal for decades, urged treatment of LGBTI people with respect and dignity, and the liberalization of Uganda's laws against homosexuality, even as he spoke in favor of biblical sexual morality and against the LGBTI political agenda. SMUG also admitted it knew all along that its leader, Kato, was murdered by a homosexual prostitute whom Kato refused to pay, and admitted that it was wrong to suggest otherwise in its lawsuit.
The lawsuit is based upon the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), but the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that this law cannot be used to sue U.S. citizens alleging violation of international or foreign law. Neither Ugandan nor U.S. law provide a cause of action for SMUG, so SMUG is trying to create new precedent to punish speech. Following the Supreme Court opinion on the ATS, court after court dismissed pending suits in a wide variety of cases, but the federal court hearing the SMUG case refused to dismiss.
"The suit is an attempt to silence Pastor Scott Lively because of his speech about homosexuality and pornography. The implications of this suit are frightening because SMUG is trying to punish a U.S. citizen for constitutionally protected speech under some vague and undefined international law," said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. "From the beginning this case had no merit, but we have had to spend four years and countless hours defending an innocent pastor against a lawsuit designed only to intimidate. This case is a direct assault on the supremacy of the United States Constitution," said Staver.
Liberty Counsel is an international nonprofit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics.
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Wednesday, 06 July 2016 09:52:30 (GMT+3) | Shanghai
On July 5, China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) stated that Dominica announced its preliminary decision to impose temporary antidumping (AD) duty of 31 percent on hot rolled strip imports from China as of July 11 to November 11 this year.
The products in question fall under Dominican Customs Tariff Statistics Position Numbers 72131000, 72132090, 72141000, 72142000, 72143000, 72149100 and 72149900.
Wednesday, 06 July 2016 23:54:01 (GMT+3) | San Diego
Essar Steel Minnesota, owned by Essar Global in Mumbai, stands to lose its lucrative Minnesota mineral leases on the Iron Range after missing a July 1 deadline to repay the state $66 million in infrastructure costs related to the companys now stalled $1.8 billion taconite project in Nashwauk.
Essar has requested an extension and the Governor of Minnesota is closely engaged in negotiations.
Without the mineral leases, Essar could be forced into bankruptcy.
Wednesday, 06 July 2016 23:28:20 (GMT+3) | Sao Paulo
Nippon Steel (NSSMC), a major shareholder at Brazil flats producer Usiminas, admitted on Tuesday during an event in Sao Paulo that the steelmakers assets could be split in order to solve a two-year fight between NSSMC and Ternium, which is also a controlling shareholder at the company.According to Yoichi Furuta, chief executive at NSSMC in Brazil , the split is a possibility but negotiations havent started.The executive admitted it would make most sense for Nippon to assume the Ipatinga mill located in the city of same name in the state of Minas Gerais, while Ternium could take the Cubatao mill in the city of same name in the state of Sao Paulo, confirming reports by SteelOrbis, which anticipated the move earlier this year.Furuta also said Usiminas could dismiss more workers, following a recent massive layoff at the Cubatao mill.Furuta said NSSMC believes in the potential of Brazil and has no intentions to leave the country. He also said NSSMC could even buy the Ternium shares, reinforcing Nippons commitment in Usiminas.NSSMC reiterated this week that the nomination of Sergio Leite as the Usiminas CEO was violation of the companys shareholders agreement.
Wednesday, 06 July 2016 18:34:40 (GMT+3) | San Diego
In response to a question during a summit in Ottawa on the anti-free-trade sentiment exemplified by Trump, Obama acknowledged the shortcomings of trade agreements, but he argued that reverting to tariffs and a possible trade war was the wrong way to improve the situation.
He also asserted that the US steel industry is producing as much steel as it ever was, but with one tenth the workforce.
Data from the American Iron and Steel Institute pegged the all-time employment high at 650,000 employees in 1953. More recent data from the institute, for 2015, shows that the steel industry directly employs about 142,000 people in the United States, which is closer to one in five jobs left.
A spokesperson from the White House admitted that the President was mistaken in his calculations.
Xuanhua Steel wins tender to supply Shenzhen Metro
Wednesday, 06 July 2016 09:47:22 (GMT+3) | Shanghai
Hebei Province-based Chinese steelmaker Xuanhua Iron and Steel Co. (Xuanhua Steel), a subsidiary of major Chinese steel producer Hebei Iron and Steel Group Co. (Hebei Steel Group), has announced that it has won a tender to supply rebar for Shenzhen Metro. Accordingly, Xuanhua Steel will supply a total of 20,000 mt of 14-25 HRB400E for Line 10 and 6102 segment of Line 6 in Shenzhen Metro.
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JEFFERSON CITY As he prepares to head overseas to the United Kingdom and Switzerland, Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon defended his international travels Wednesday, saying such trips are vital in the economy we live in right now.
The lame-duck governor has gone on more than a dozen trade missions during his two terms in office, including visits to China, Brazil and Korea. In 2016 alone, hes touched down in Columbia and Peru, Panama, Israel and Cuba.
I dont go anywhere, especially in foreign areas, if I dont see incredibly positive opportunities for us, Nixon said.
Successes he cited include selling Missouri rice to Cuba, encouraging foreign companies to open or expand North American headquarters in Missouri and facilitating trade agreements in South America.
Nixon added that while the state is involved in ongoing projects throughout the world all the time, he travels when he thinks his influence can help seal a deal.
Im looking at the projects weve got out there, the opportunities weve got out there, and (if) that reaches a critical mass that I think that a governors trip can have an impact, then I say yes, he explained.
The Hawthorn Foundation, a nonprofit funded by large corporate sponsors like Ameren and Edward Jones, foots the bill for these trips for the governor and his wife. Taxpayers cover the costs of accompanying police or representatives from state agencies.
Also on Wednesday, Nixon stressed the importance of following up on the contacts we made with Boeing Co. officials at the Farnborough International Airshow in the United Kingdom, an item on the itinerary during his upcoming trip to Europe. In 2015, Boeing opened a massive plant in St. Louis County.
CLAYTON St. Louis County officials say local initiatives are making incremental headway toward slowing a heroin epidemic that is continuing to take a toll on the region, state and nation.
Seventeen lives have been saved since March, when the county started equipping police and emergency vehicles with the fast-acting opioid antidote Narcan.
Police Chief Jon Belmar said county officers were unable to respond in time to rescue three overdose victims during the same time period.
As it moves to stop overdoses from one source, the county is grappling with an uptick in fatalities from another narcotic fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that led to the death in April of the rock star Prince.
Belmar said the county had experienced 12 fentanyl-related deaths so far this year, up from five in 2015.
County Executive Steve Stenger meanwhile said Wednesday that he was encouraged by expanding participation in the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program enacted by the county in March.
The program, the first in the state, establishes a database to allow pharmacists to flag customers who have procured prescription opioids at other locations. The monitoring program is intended to deter pill shopping by addicts who feed a habit by filling multiple prescriptions.
St. Louis has since joined forces with the county in adopting the program.
Stenger said he had met with Jackson County Executive Frank White Jr. about adopting a monitoring program in Kansas City. Talks are also underway with St. Charles County.
St. Louis County took the initiative on the program because a single Missouri lawmaker Sen. Rob Schaaf, R-St. Joseph has repeatedly thwarted attempts to install the program at the state level.
Schaaf, a physician, contends that monitoring raises personal privacy issues. The upshot of his opposition is that Missouri, alone among the 50 states, lacks a database to alert doctors and pharmacists about prescription painkiller abuse.
Its not the Legislature that has a problem with it, Stenger said. Its not even the majority of the Legislature that has a problem with it. Its one person. Regardless, were moving forward.
Belmar said there was no evidence that heroin users, armed with the knowledge that police and emergency vehicles carry Narcan, were taking unnecessary risks.
Its an imprecise safety valve, the police chief said. Youre taking a big gamble by taking a dose of heroin because someone may eventually show up with Narcan to bring you back.
Can we be assured that the plant will not pollute our land or water supply so that we are not discovering something decades later like so many areas in Missouri?
LONDON MARKET OPEN: Shell's $4 billion share buyback gives FTSE list
Thursday, October 27, 2022 - 09:12
Shell shares rose at the London open on Thursday, after announcing a share buyback, boosting the FTSE 100 index into positive territory, despite a decline for mining shares and investor trepidation ahead of a European Central Bank policy announcement.
The Frankfurt-based central bank reveals its interest rate decision at 1315 BST, which will be followed by a press conference from the bank's president, Christine Lagarde. After the ECB, the Federal Reserve will make a rate decision next week Wednesday and the Bank of England a day after its US counterpart.
Setting the tone, and having given European stocks a boost on Wednesday afternoon, the Bank of Canada raised rates by a smaller-than-expected 50 basis points. The smaller hike gave hope that central banks are ready to ease off on monetary policy tightening.
The FTSE 100 index was up 15.47 points, or 0.2%, at 7,071.54. However, the mid-cap FTSE 250 was down 45.72 points, or 0.3%, at 7,071.54, and the AIM All-Share was down 2.47 points at 807.20.
The Cboe UK 100 was up 0.3% at 706.52, the Cboe UK 250 flat at 15,498.56, and the Cboe Small Companies was up 0.1% at 12,399.36
In European equities on Thursday, the CAC 40 in Paris was down 0.5%, while the DAX 40 in Frankfurt was 0.4% lower.
As the ECB takes centre stage, the bank's policy-makers continue to deal with sky-high inflation and surging energy costs, which will likely see the central bank carry out its third successive interest-rate hike - this one likely to be 75 basis points or more.
Analysts are all but convinced the bank will up rates by another 75 basis points, but some say there is room for a full percentage point raise - 100 basis points.
The euro traded at $1.0061 early Thursday, steady on $1.0064 late Wednesday.
The pound was, just barely, holding above $1.16 on Thursday morning. Sterling was quoted at $1.1601, down from $1.1612 at the London equities close on Wednesday.
In London, oil producer Shell added 3.4%.
Shell announced net profit totalling $6.7 billion in the third quarter, after oil prices surged, improving from a loss after tax of $447 million in the same period last year.
Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said: "We are delivering robust results at a time of ongoing volatility in global energy markets. We continue to strengthen Shell's portfolio through disciplined investment and transform the company for a low-carbon future. At the same time we are working closely with governments and customers to address their short and long-term energy needs."
Flush with cash, Shell said it will buy back $4 billion of its shares.
The latest profit was however far less compared with its second-quarter net income totalling $18 billion. Shell alerted the market on the comparison earlier this month, blaming the drop on a slump in refining margins.
Although oil and gas prices have surged from a year ago following the invasion of Ukraine by major energy producer Russia, hydrocarbon values are cooling as the northern hemisphere experiences mild temperatures and countries shore up supplies.
Shell last month announced that van Beurden will step down as CEO at the end of the year, as the energy major looks to reinvent itself under renewables boss Wael Sawan.
Peer BP advanced 2.3%.
Brent oil was trading at $93.39 a barrel, soft from $93.93 late Wednesday.
Lloyds Banking gave back 1.9%.
The lender said its third quarter was "robust", thanking its income growth, balance sheet "momentum" and "resilient" customer focus.
In three months to September 30, pretax profit slumped 26% to 1.51 billion from 2.03 billion.
The bank set aside 668 million in the quarter as underlying credit impairments to handle the fallout from increased bad loans, reversing from the 119 million gain recorded the year prior.
Net income was up 13% to 4.59 billion from 4.08 billion, as underlying net interest income rose 19% to 3.39 billion from 2.85 billion, but other income was down 4% to 1.28 billion from 1.34 billion.
Aiding its income growth, Lloyds's banking net interest margin improved to 2.98% from 2.55%. Looking at 2022 as a whole, the bank said its NIM will top 2.90%.
Shore Capital said the Lloyds pretax profit of 1.51 billion missed market consensus of 1.84 billion.
"Guidance sees full year NIM upgraded which is broadly offset by a downgrade to the impairment ratio, although capital generation is now expected to be better than previously expected," said analyst Gary Greenwood.
"While the strengthening of provisions is prudent given the deterioration in the economic outlook, and observed asset quality remains strong, we think the market may be spooked by the miss to expectations and downgraded guidance in this respect."
Anglo American shed 2.3%. The miner's copper and platinum metals production fell by 6% in the third quarter, with iron production down 5% as Anglo lamented a "challenging operating environment".
Copper production was down to 147,000 tonnes, while platinum slipped to 1.05 million ounces. iron was down to 16.1 million tonnes.
By contrast, output of steelmaking coal increased by 28% to 5.5 million tonnes.
"As we move through the final quarter, we are focused on maintaining this operational momentum to deliver our full year guidance," Anglo said. "The continued safe ramp-up of our steelmaking coal operations, as well as further performance improvements at our iron ore businesses, are priorities to set the platform for delivery into next year."
Mining peers Rio Tinto 1.7% and Antofagasta 1.1% lost.
It was a mixed close for stocks in the US on Wednesday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq taking a hit from disappointing tech earnings. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up slightly, and the S&P 500 index closed down 0.7%, but the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.0%.
Facebook-owner Meta Platforms lost 20% in after-hours trade in New York after the release of its earnings. The stock already had lost 5.6% in the regular session on Wednesday, amid share tumbles for peers Alphabet and Microsoft, closing down 9.1% and 7.7%, respectively. The pair also had disappointed with the quarterly results, released late Tuesday.
Meta, reported, for the three months that ended September 30, its revenue fell 4% to $27.71 billion from $29.01 billion a year before. Income from operations dropped 46% to $5.66 billion versus $10.42 billion. Net income was $4.40 billion, down 52% versus $9.19 billion.
Investors will now be keenly anticipating figures from Amazon and Apple after the closing bell in New York on Thursday.
In Asia on Thursday, stock markets were mixed.
The Shanghai Composite closed down 0.6% but the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong advanced 0.8%. The Japanese Nikkei 225 index ended down 0.3%. The S&P/ASX 200 stock index in Sydney closed up 0.5%.
Against the yen, the dollar was quoted at JP145.71, down from JP146.50.
Gold was quoted at $1,661.60 an ounce early Thursday, lower from $1,665.70 on Wednesday evening in London.
Aside for the ECB, the economic calendar also has a US gross domestic product reading at 1330 BST.
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Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (NYSE: AJG) announced it has acquired an 85% interest in Brim AB (Brim), located in Stockholm, Sweden. Brim's annualized revenues total approximately $11 million. Other terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Founded in 2001, Brim is a specialty insurance and reinsurance broker that provides commercial property/casualty, credit/political risk and affinity insurance products and services to its Scandinavian and international clients. Its credit and political risk practice provides financing support for major infrastructure projects while its construction practice supports residential and commercial building development. Rikard Oijermark, Fredrik Enderlein and their associates will continue to operate from their current location under the ultimate direction of Grahame Chilton, head of Gallagher's international brokerage operations based in London.
"Brim's operations are highly regarded and well respected in the International insurance market. For many years, we have had a successful correspondent trading relationship with Brim, during which time we developed strong working relationships with their team," said J. Patrick Gallagher, Jr., Chairman, President and CEO. "Taking this next step allows us to partner with an outstanding group that has extensive experience in their particular markets, adds their expertise to the long list of capabilities we will be able to offer our international customers, and broadens our Scandinavian presence. We are extremely pleased to welcome Rikard, Freddy and their colleagues to our growing Gallagher family of professionals."
BWX Technologies (NYSE: BWXT) disclosed the following on Tuesday:
Item 8.01 Other Events
On June 30, 2016, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled in favor of BWX Technologies, Inc. and certain of its current and former subsidiaries (the BWXT Parties) in the case entitled AREVA NP, INC. f/k/a Framatome ANP, Inc. v. The Babcock & Wilcox Company, et. al. The BWXT Parties had appealed an adverse trial verdict of $16.1 million delivered in December 2014 in a case alleging that the BWXT Parties owed royalties on certain commercial nuclear contracts performed since 2004. In its ruling, the Virginia Supreme Court reversed the trial verdict in full and dismissed all claims against the BWXT Parties in the case. The plaintiff can elect to file a notice of petition for rehearing within 10 days from the ruling date. If no such notice is filed, or if the petition is rejected by the Virginia Supreme Court, the June 30, 2016 ruling would be the final disposition of the case.
For additional information on this matter, see Note 5 to our condensed consolidated financial statements in the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ending March 31, 2016 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
TORONTO & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Hudsons Bay Company (HBC) today announced that Bonnie Brooks, Vice Chair, HBC will retire on December 31, 2016. Brookss retirement culminates an illustrious 40-year career in fashion retail and marketing, including more than eight years at HBC. From 2008-2012 she was the first female CEO and President of Hudsons Bay during the transformation of the banner in Canada.
It has been a privilege to work with the team at Hudsons Bay Company, a true Company of Adventurers. We have seen tremendous change since I joined the Company, and I am incredibly proud of what we accomplished together. I look forward to watching the continued success of HBC, stated Brooks.
Brookss career included 12 years at Holt Renfrew where she led the retailers merchandising and marketing functions, followed by 11 years in Hong Kong and the reinvention of the Lane Crawford department stores in Asia. In 2008, Brooks returned to Canada to join HBC as CEO and President of Hudsons Bay, later becoming President of the Department Store Group in 2012 with the integration of Lord & Taylor. Publicly and professionally recognized for her many roles in fashion retail, she was the Parsons School of Design Honouree in 2013 in NYC and was awarded the Ivey Business Leader of the Year in Canada in 2014.
"Bonnie has been a very strong leader who, from day one, was integral to the reinvention of Hudsons Bay, stated Richard Baker, Governor and Executive Chairman, HBC. We are extremely grateful for her contributions to the company and wish her well in her retirement.
About Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company is one of the fastest-growing department store retailers in the world, based on its successful formula of driving the performance of high quality stores and their all-channel offerings, unlocking the value of real estate holdings and growing through acquisitions. Founded in 1670, HBC is the oldest company in North America. HBC's portfolio today includes ten banners, in formats ranging from luxury to better department stores to off price fashion shopping destinations, with more than 460 stores and 66,000 employees around the world. In North America, HBC's leading banners include Hudson's Bay, Lord & Taylor, Saks Fifth Avenue, Gilt, and Saks OFF 5TH, along with Find @ Lord & Taylor and Home Outfitters. In Europe, its banners include GALERIA Kaufhof, the largest department store group in Germany, Belgium's only department store group Galeria INNO, as well as Sportarena. HBC has significant investments in real estate joint ventures. It has partnered with Simon Property Group Inc. in the HBS Global Properties Joint Venture, which owns properties in the United States and Germany. In Canada, it has partnered with RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust in the RioCan-HBC Joint Venture.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706006404/en/
Hudsons Bay Company
Tiffany Bourre
Director, External Communications
905-595-7184
[email protected]
Source: Hudsons Bay Company
VANCOUVER, CANADA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Medgold Resources Corp. (TSX VENTURE: MED) (the "Company" or "Medgold") is pleased to announce that it has received formal approval for the proposed diamond drilling program at the Limarinho Zone at the Boticas Gold Project.
Medgold is planning a 2,500m diamond drilling program, expected to commence in mid-July, targeting a gold-bearing sheeted orogenic vein system. Energold Drilling Corp. have been selected as drill contractors to complete the initial drilling program using man-portable drill rigs.
Dan James, President of Medgold, said: "We are very pleased to have received formal approval of the Centerra-funded drill program at the Limarinho Zone. With the permit in hand, we can now start a detailed evaluation of the main prospect, Limarinho. Our aims are to confirm the historical drill intercepts and to define a mineral resource over the area. In February last year, the Portuguese government classified Boticas as a Project of Strategic National Interest, which highlights the importance of the project to Portugal."
The exploration work at the Boticas Gold Project is fully-funded by our joint venture partner, Centerra Gold Inc. The JV with Centerra started in December 2015, and since that time, Medgold has undertaken grid-soil sampling over Limarinho and the wider region, and has completed a number of phases of channel-chip sampling.
The Boticas-Chaves Gold Project
The Boticas-Chaves Gold Project is comprised of two exploration licences covering a total area of approximately 600 sq km located in the north of Portugal close to the Spanish border. The principal prospect at Boticas is the Limarinho zone.
In the 1980s and 2000s COGEMA and then Kernow Resources, respectively, completed over 3,000m of diamond drilling at Limarinho. The drilling cut broad zones of low-grade gold mineralization (approx. 1 g/t Au), and also multiple mineralized corridors of higher grade (2-3 g/t Au) that are continuous over significant strike lengths.
Medgold recently completed a re-evaluation of the historical drilling data, applying strict compositing criteria of a 0.2 g/t Au cut-off and a maximum of 3m internal dilution. The re-calculated drill intersections are summarized below 1:
-- PFR17: 15.60m @ 3.25 g/t Au from 70.95m -- KL04: 38.40m @ 1.96 g/t Au from 19.30m -- KL04: 9.00m @ 3.59 g/t Au from 143.30m -- KL03: 15.80m @ 2.14 g/t Au from 9.85m -- PFR3: 29.60m @ 1.88 g/t Au from 28.20m -- PFR10: 56.60m @ 1.33 g/t Au from 72.80m -- PFR11: 25.50m @ 1.62 g/t Au from 51.10m
1These are historical data provided for information purposes, and a Qualified Person has not completed the work necessary to verify these results.
The mineralized corridors trend east-northeast, while the veins within them trend northeast. The mineralization is structurally controlled and developed within a large deformational zone which coincides with the surface soil geochemistry, outlining a northeast-elongate area of approximately 4km by 2km. This anomaly covers both Limarinho and Limarinho South, both of which are located in the centre of the deformation zone
About Centerra Gold and the Joint Venture
Centerra is a Canadian-based gold mining company focused on operating, developing, exploring and acquiring gold properties primarily in Asia, North America and other markets worldwide. Centerra is the largest Western-based gold producer in Central Asia. Centerra's shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) under the symbol CG. The Company is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Centerra has the exclusive right to earn a 51% interest in the Valongo Belt properties (namely: Lagares, Castelo de Paiva and Valongo licences) and the Boticas-Chaves Project by incurring expenditures on the properties totaling US$3.0 million over three years. Once Centerra has acquired the initial 51% interest in the properties, it may acquire a further 19% (for a total 70% interest) by incurring an additional US$3.0 million on exploration within two years.
Qualified Person
David Clark, PGeo, consulting geologist to the Company, is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 -- Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Mr. Clark has reviewed and approved the disclosure of technical information contained in this news release.
About Medgold
Medgold is a European-focused, TSX-V listed exploration and development company targeting gold properties in northwest Iberia and the under-explored gold provinces of southern Europe. Run by a highly experienced management team with a successful track record of building value in resource companies, Medgold is aiming to become a leading European gold company.
Additional information on Medgold can be found on the Company's website at www.medgoldresources.com and by reviewing the Company's page on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD
Daniel P. James, President & Director
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Forward-looking statements
Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. All statements included herein, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and include, without limitation, statements about the proposed drill program on the Boticas Gold Project. Often, but not always, these forward looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "estimate", "estimates", "estimated", "potential", "open", "future", "assumed", "projected", "used", "detailed", "has been", "gain", "upgraded", "offset", "limited", "contained", "reflecting", "containing", "remaining", "to be", "periodically", or statements that events, "could" or "should" occur or be achieved and similar expressions, including negative variations.
Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Such uncertainties and factors include, among others, whether the proposed drill program on the Boticas Gold Project will proceed as planned; changes in general economic conditions and financial markets; the Company or any joint venture partner not having the financial ability to meet its exploration and development goals; risks associated with the results of exploration and development activities, estimation of mineral resources and the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits; unanticipated costs and expenses; and such other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's quarterly and annual filings with securities regulators and available under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended.
Forward-looking statements contained herein are based on the assumptions, beliefs, expectations and opinions of management, including but not limited to: that the proposed drill program on the Boticas Gold Project will proceed as planned; that the Company's stated goals and planned exploration and development activities will be achieved; that there will be no material adverse change affecting the Company or its properties; and such other assumptions as set out herein. Forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, except as required by law. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.
Contacts: President Dan James (UK) [email protected] +44 7972 579188
Source: Medgold Resources Corp.
LAKE FOREST, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Packaging Corporation of America (NYSE: PKG) will hold a conference call on Thursday, July 21, 2016 at 10:00 a.m. (Eastern Time) to discuss second quarter 2016 results. The second quarter earnings results will be released after the market closes on Wednesday, July 20, 2016.
For access to the conference call on July 21st, please dial (855) 730-0288 (U.S. and Canada) or (832) 412-2295 (International) by 9:45 a.m. (Eastern Time). The conference call leader will be Mark Kowlzan.
A replay of the call will also be available from 1:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) on July 21, 2016 until 11:59 p.m. (Eastern Time) on August 4, 2016. To access the recording, please dial (855) 859-2056 (U.S. and Canada) or (404) 537-3406 (International). The passcode is 55069110.
This call will also be webcast and can be accessed at PCAs website at www.packagingcorp.com.
PCA is the fourth largest producer of containerboard and corrugated packaging products in the United States and the third largest producer of uncoated freesheet paper in North America. PCA operates eight mills and 90 corrugated products plants and related facilities.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706006402/en/
Packaging Corporation of America
Barbara Sessions
INVESTOR RELATIONS: (877) 454-2509
PCA Web Site: www.packagingcorp.com
Source: Packaging Corporation of America
INDIANAPOLIS, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- While many of us are recovering from a long weekend celebrating our nation's independence, one warrior is returning to work after giving part of himself to save a life. Andrew Coughlan gives of himself every day in his job at Wounded Warrior Project (WWP). He helps wounded veterans and their families in their healing process. Recently, though, he went even further, donating his kidney to a fellow Army veteran in need.
Andrew volunteered to give his kidney to Russell Broughton after seeing a post on social media. Russell said he turned to Facebook as a last-ditch effort. Doctors diagnosed Russell with Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) in 2013. Mayo Clinic describes FSGS as the development of scar tissue on parts of the kidneys. Those scars impair functionality, causing less blood to be filtered.
When Russell first learned his diagnosis, he worried about spending the rest of his life hooked up to machines. His treatment started with those machines for dialysis they do the work of his kidneys, processing unwanted water and waste out of his blood. It worked at first, and even helped Russell lose weight.
"I felt like a million bucks," Russell said. "I lost 30 pounds in three days because of how much fluid was in my body."
After just two months, his dialysis increased to three days a week and more than four hours a day. Even then, the effectiveness of the treatment waned.
"After treatment, you are exhausted, deal with headaches, and are just beat down," Russell said. "After the first year, I just wasn't the husband and father I once was."
That is when Russell decided to seek help on social media.
"I posted my diagnosis on Facebook. I felt this was the best way to find a donor so I could be the man I once was."
The move was a tough one for Russell.
"Like many infantrymen and warriors, pride is huge. I never wanted pity or sympathy. I needed off dialysis. My marriage was struggling; I had no other alternative."
Help did come but from an unlikely source.
"Andrew and I served together in Iraq, but we were in separate platoons and never interacted that much."
"As soon as I saw the Facebook post, I decided to help if I could," Andrew said. "I wasn't even sure I would be a match or be eligible to donate, but I would never know if I didn't make a phone call."
Andrew quietly called to check, and within a couple of weeks, he learned he was a match.
"I had to talk to my wife, Ashley, about this," Andrew said. "She knows I would help anybody, but I knew she would have her worries and questions."
"When he told me he was a match, I was so grateful and could not believe this was becoming a possibility," Russell said.
More than just a possibility, Russell and Andrew underwent surgery in late May, two years after Russell first started dialysis. Russell's body accepted the new kidney and immediately put the organ to work. He is on the mend, and is able to live life without being hooked to machines. Andrew returned to work, still sore from surgery, but ready to continue giving back to warriors.
About Wounded Warrior ProjectThe mission of Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) is to honor and empower Wounded Warriors. WWP's purpose is to raise awareness and to enlist the public's aid for the needs of injured service members, to help injured servicemen and women aid and assist each other, and to provide unique, direct programs and services to meet their needs. WWP is a national, nonpartisan organization headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. To get involved and learn more, visit https://goo.gl/QYbvpg.
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160706/386582
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160706/386583
To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/social-media-post-leads-to-life-saving-surgery-for-veteran-300294651.html
SOURCE Wounded Warrior Project
(Reuters) - A Baltimore man pleaded guilty on Wednesday to puncturing a fire hose at a burning pharmacy during rioting last year, federal authorities said.
Gregory Butler Jr., 22, admitted to obstructing firefighters battling a blaze at a CVS Health Corp pharmacy in April 2015, the office of the U.S. Attorney in Baltimore said in a statement.
The drugstore was set afire during unrest after the funeral of Freddie Gray, a black man who died from an injury suffered in police custody. His death heightened a U.S. debate on police treatment of minorities.
Butler said he had twice punctured the hose with a knife, the statement said. The incident was caught on video and the burning pharmacy became a symbol of unrest in the largely African-American city.
Butler faces up to five years in prison.
(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Frances Kerry)
By Katy Migiro
NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Mass killings, rape, torture, abductions and forced cannibalism have led to an increase in mental illness in South Sudan, with patients routinely housed in prisons due to an "almost total" absence of mental health care, a rights group said on Wednesday.
There are only two practicing psychiatrists for South Sudan's 11 million people, Amnesty International said in a report ahead of the country's fifth anniversary of independence on July 9.
"My mind is not good," the report quoted one man, Phillip, as saying as he described being forced to eat the flesh of dead men rounded up and shot in a security forces building in the capital, Juba, when conflict broke out in December 2013.
"They found me, tied my arms behind my back and forced me at gunpoint to drink blood and eat flesh ... At night when I sleep, those who were killed come back in my nightmares."
More than 10,000 people have been killed and two million displaced since fighting erupted between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar.
Clashes have continued even though warring factions signed a peace deal in August, with 200,000 people still sheltering in United Nations military bases across the country.
There are no official statistics on mental health in the country. But the director of the department of mental health told Amnesty that the number of patients with mental health problems has risen since 2013.
Most of the 82 inmates categorized as mentally ill in Juba Central Prison in May did not have a criminal file, the report said.
The majority of displaced people surveyed in a U.N. base in the northern town of Malakal exhibited symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a 2015 study found.
PTSD is a severely debilitating condition in which patients re-experience horrific traumas from the past in forms of intrusive memories, flashbacks and nightmares.
"I HATE MYSELF"
Lual, another man quoted in the report, said he felt suicidal after security officers forced him to disembowel corpses in detention in Juba in 2014.
"Whenever they would kill people, we would be taken to dissect the stomachs of those who were killed, so they could be thrown into the river and wouldn't float," he was quoted as saying.
"I dream that I am still in jail. I am haunted by the cutting of the stomachs ... I hate myself."
Of the 161 displaced people interviewed by Amnesty, several knew of others who had attempted or committed suicide.
One mother in a displaced camp, Nyayang, whose soldier husband had disappeared, used to beat her children and tried to kill herself three times by drinking poison, the report said.
She eventually disappeared, leaving her children behind.
Poor mental health can contribute to violent behavior in the home, community and nationally, experts say.
Many interviewees said they could not eat or sleep and felt angry, anxious or irritable. They also struggled to concentrate or remember things, making it difficult to carry out every day tasks like cooking.
"Doing more to address mental health needs is not only essential for individuals' wellbeing, it is also critical for South Sudanese to effectively rebuild their communities and country," Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International's regional director, said in a statement.
Healthcare services in South Sudan have been predominantly funded by charities since independence in 2011.
Humanitarians have received just over one quarter of the $1.29 billion requested for 2016, the United Nations says.
Hunger is at its highest level since the conflict began, with up to 4.8 million people facing severe food shortages in coming months, the U.N. says.
Many people have been uprooted by fighting multiple times, most recently in the northwestern town of Wau on June 24, when tens of thousands were forced to flee and 43 killed.
(Reporting by Katy Migiro; Editing by Katie Nguyen.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, womens rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories.)
People hold signs calling for the release of imprisoned wikileaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning while marching in a gay pride parade in San Francisco, California June 28, 2015. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage/File Photo
(Reuters) - U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning, imprisoned for handing over classified files to pro-transparency site WikiLeaks, was hospitalized, her attorney said on Wednesday, after media reports that Manning had attempted to commit suicide.
The Army confirmed Manning, 28, who was born male but identifies as a woman, had been released back into custody from the hospital, American Civil Liberties Union attorney Chase Strangio said. Manning's medical condition was not released.
Manning was taken to a hospital near the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, early on Tuesday, U.S. Army spokesman Colonel Patrick Seiber said.
CNN, citing Seiber and an unnamed official, reported that she was taken to a hospital after an apparent attempt to take her own life.
"Reports of Chelsea's suicide attempt are unconfirmed," Strangio wrote on Twitter. "We just know that she was taken to the hospital and are trying to learn more."
Seiber said that officials continue to monitor the inmate's condition.
Attempts to reach the military correctional facility where Manning is imprisoned were not successful.
One of Manning's attorneys, Nancy Hollander, said in a statement on Wednesday that she was outraged over the release of her client's confidential medical information to the news media. Hollander also said the Army failed to connect Manning with her lawyers for a planned phone call on Tuesday, and the earliest Army officials could accommodate a call was Friday morning.
"We call on the Army to immediately connect Chelsea Manning to her lawyers and friends who care deeply about her well-being and are profoundly distressed by the complete lack of official communication about Chelsea's current situation," Hollander said.
Manning, a former intelligence analyst in Iraq, is serving a 35-year sentence after a 2013 military court conviction of providing more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to WikiLeaks. It was the biggest breach of classified materials in U.S. history.
Among the files that Manning turned over to WikiLeaks in 2010 was a gunsight video of a U.S. Apache helicopter firing at suspected Iraqi insurgents in 2007. A dozen people were killed, including two Reuters news staff.
Manning in May appealed to an Army court to overturn her court-martial conviction.
Manning's lawyers contend she was held in unlawful pretrial detention for almost a year and that she was excessively charged so she would be exposed to undue punishment. They also argue that the trial judge considered evidence that was not related to the offenses.
(Reporting by Laila Kearney in New York and Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Bernard Orr)
1. Name and Address of Reporting Person * Linville John E (Last) (First) (Middle) ONE NORTH SECOND ST P O BOX 160 (Street) HARTSVILLE SC 29551-0160 (City) (State) (Zip)
2. Issuer Name and Ticker or Trading Symbol
SONOCO PRODUCTS CO [ SON ]
UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM 8-K
CURRENT REPORT
Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of
the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
Date of Report (Date of earliest event reported): June 29, 2016
KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
Delaware 001-35798 77-0557236 (State or other Jurisdiction of
Incorporation) (Commission File No.) (IRS Employer Identification No.)
1000 Marina Boulevard, Suite 250
Brisbane, CA 94005-1878
(Address of principal executive offices, including zip code)
(650) 243-3100
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Check the appropriate box below if the Form 8-K filing is intended to simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation of the registrant under any of the following provisions (see General Instruction A.2):
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As previously disclosed, on December 29, 2015, KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (the Company) filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 of Title 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (the Bankruptcy Code). The filing was made in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (the Bankruptcy Court) (Case No. 15-12628 (LSS)). In addition, as previously disclosed, on June 16, 2016, the Bankruptcy Court entered an order (the Confirmation Order) confirming the Companys Second Amended Plan of Reorganization, dated May 9, 2016 (as amended, the Plan). A copy of the Confirmation Order, with the Plan and certain Plan modifications annexed thereto, was filed as Exhibit 2.1 to the Companys Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on June 22, 2016.
On June 30, 2016 (the Effective Date), the Plan became effective and the Company emerged from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. In connection with such emergence, the Company consummated the transactions and other items described below. All capitalized terms used herein but not otherwise defined in this Current Report on Form 8-K have the meaning set forth in the Plan.
Item 1.01 Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement
Savant Transaction
On the Effective Date, as authorized by the Plan and the Confirmation Order, the Company and Savant Neglected Diseases, LLC (Savant) entered into an Agreement for the Manufacture, Development and Commercialization of Benznidazole for Human Use (the MDC Agreement), pursuant to which the Company has acquired certain worldwide rights relating to benznidazole (the Compound). The MDC Agreement consummates the transactions contemplated by the binding letter of intent (LOI), entered into by the Company and Savant on February 29, 2016, as previously disclosed in a Current Report on Form 8-K filed with the SEC on March 4, 2016 (the Savant Transaction).
Under the terms of the MDC Agreement, the Company has acquired certain regulatory and non-intellectual property assets relating to the Compound and any product containing the Compound (the Product) and an exclusive license of certain intellectual property assets related to the Product. Savant will retain the right to use the licensed intellectual property for veterinary uses. The MDC Agreement provides that the Company and Savant will jointly conduct research and development activities with respect to the Product, while the Company will be solely responsible for commercializing the Product. The Company will fund the development program for the Product and will reimburse Savant for its development program costs.
As required by the MDC Agreement, on the Effective Date, the Company made payments to Savant totaling $2,687,500, consisting of the remaining portion of the Initial Payment less Deposit in the amount of $2,500,000, an initial monthly Joint Development Program Cost payment of $87,500, and reimbursement of Savants legal fees capped at $100,000. The MDC Agreement provides for regulatory and other milestone payments of up to $21 million and certain other contingent payments. Additionally, the Company will pay Savant royalties on any net sales of the Product, which royalty would increase if a priority review voucher is granted subsequent to regulatory approval of the Product. The MDC Agreement also provides that Savant is entitled to a portion of the amount the Company receives upon the sale, if any, of a priority review voucher regarding the Product.
The MDC Agreement also contains customary provisions for termination by either party in the event of a breach by the other party, subject to a cure period, or bankruptcy of the other party. The Company and Savant may also terminate the MDC Agreement upon 90 days prior written notice to the other party, though certain rights and obligations would survive that termination. Additionally, Savant may terminate the MDC Agreement immediately if Martin Shkreli is appointed as an agent, employee, consultant, officer or director of the Company.
In addition, on the Effective Date the Company and Savant also entered into a Security Agreement (the Security Agreement), pursuant to which the Company granted Savant a continuing senior security interest in the assets and rights acquired by the Company pursuant to the MDC Agreement and certain future assets developed from those acquired assets.
On the Effective Date the Company also issued to Savant a five year warrant (the Warrant) to purchase 200,000 shares of the Companys common stock, par value $0.001 per share (the Common Stock) at an exercise price of $2.25 per share, subject to adjustment. The Warrant is exercisable for 25% of the shares immediately and exercisable for the remaining shares upon reaching certain milestones related to regulatory approval of the Product. In addition, pursuant to the MDC Agreement, the Company has granted Savant certain piggyback registration rights for the shares issuable under the Warrant.
Securities Purchase Agreement
As previously disclosed, on April 1, 2016, the Company entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement (the SPA) with Black Horse Capital Master Fund Ltd. (BHCMF), Black Horse Capital LP (BHC), Cheval Holdings, Ltd. (Cheval) and Nomis Bay LTD (Nomis and, together with BHCMF, BHC and Cheval, the Original Purchasers), which provides for exit financing to the Company under the terms set forth therein (the SPA Transaction). Nomis subsequently assigned twenty percent (20%) of its interest in the shares of Common Stock to be distributed to Nomis under the SPA to Cortleigh Limited (Cortleigh and, collectively with the Original Purchasers, the Purchasers). A copy of the SPA was filed as Exhibit 10.7 to the Companys Form 8-K filed with the SEC on April 7, 2016. On the Effective Date, the SPA Transaction was consummated in accordance with the Plan and the terms of the SPA. As a result, the Company issued to the Purchasers an aggregate of 7,147,035 shares of Common Stock for an aggregate purchase price of $11,000,000. Pursuant to the SPA, the Company has agreed to file and seek to have declared effective a registration statement registering the resale of the shares acquired by the Purchasers pursuant to the SPA.
Governance Agreement
On the Effective Date, the Company and Martin Shkreli entered into a Corporate Governance Agreement (the Governance Agreement), which provides for certain terms and conditions regarding the acquisition, disposition, holding and voting of securities of the Company by Mr. Shkreli. The Governance Agreement applies to all Common Stock owned by Mr. Shkreli or affiliates he controls.
Under the terms of the Governance Agreement, for 180 days following the Effective Date, Mr. Shkreli may not sell his shares at a price per share that is less than the greater of (x) $2.50 and (y) a 10% discount to the prior two week volume-weighted average price (the Market Discount Price). In addition, for 180 days following the 61st day after the Effective Date, the Company will have a right to purchase any or all of Mr. Shkrelis shares at a purchase price per share equal to the Market Discount Price. For a limited time, the Company will also have a right of first refusal to purchase shares that Mr. Shkreli proposes to sell. Mr. Shkreli is also prohibited from transferring any shares to his affiliates or associates unless such transferee agrees to be subject to the terms of the Governance Agreement. Transfers of shares by Mr. Shkreli not made in compliance with the Governance Agreement will be null and void.
Under the terms of the Governance Agreement, Mr. Shkreli will not have any right to nominate directors to the board of directors of the Company (the Board) and agrees in connection with any shareholder vote to vote his shares in proportion to the votes of the Companys public stockholders. The Governance Agreement also prohibits Mr. Shkreli or his affiliates for a period of 24 months after the date of the Governance Agreement, from, among other things:
Purchasing any stock or assets of the Company;
Participating in any proposal for any merger, tender offer or other business combination, or similar extraordinary transaction involving the Company or any of its subsidiaries;
Seeking to control or influence the management, the Companys Board or the policies of the Company; or
Submitting any proposal to be considered by the stockholders of the Company.
In addition, any material transaction between Mr. Shkreli or his associates and the Company, or relating to the Governance Agreement, cannot be taken without the prior approval of the Companys Board.
The Governance Agreement provides for a mutual release between the Company and Mr. Shkreli of all claims and liabilities existing as of the date of execution.
The foregoing description of the Governance Agreement does not purport to be complete and is qualified in its entirety by reference to the Governance Agreement filed as Exhibit 10.1 hereto and incorporated herein by reference.
Item 1.02 Termination of a Material Definitive Agreement
Also as previously disclosed, on April 1, 2016 the Company entered into a Debtor in Possession Credit and Security Agreement (the Credit Agreement) and related agreements with BHCMF, BHC, Cheval and Nomis (collectively, the DIP Lenders). Copies of the Credit Agreement and related agreements and documents were filed as Exhibits 10.1 through 10.6 to the Companys Form 8-K filed with the SEC on April 7, 2016. As disclosed previously, the Companys debt obligations under the Credit Agreement upon the occurrence of the Maturity Date were subject to repayment to the DIP Lenders in the form of the issuance of Common Stock of the Company, as reorganized pursuant to the confirmed and effective Plan. The Maturity Date was deemed to occur simultaneously with the Effective Date and, accordingly, on June 30, 2016, 2,350,480 shares of Common Stock were issued to the DIP Lenders in repayment of the Companys debt obligations under the Credit Agreement.
Item 2.03 Creation of a Direct Financial Obligation or an Obligation under an Off-Balance Sheet Arrangement of a Registrant.
In accordance with the Plan, on the Effective Date, the Company became obligated to issue promissory notes (the Notes) in the estimated aggregate principal amount of approximately $1.7 million to $1.8 million to certain holders of allowed general unsecured claims in the Companys bankruptcy proceedings. The Notes are unsecured, bear interest at a rate of 10% per annum and mature on the third anniversary of the Effective Date.
Item 3.02 Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities.
Bankruptcy Plan Issuances
On the Effective Date, in accordance with the terms of the Plan, the Company issued shares of Common Stock in satisfaction of certain claims or interests in the Company as follows:
The Company issued 2,350,480 shares to the DIP Lenders in satisfaction of amounts owed by the Company under the DIP Credit Agreement.
The Company became obligated to issue 327,608 shares to the plaintiffs in the litigation related to the Companys 2015 private financing transaction in accordance with the Settlement Stipulation, which was previously disclosed in a Current Report on Form 8-K filed with the SEC on May 11, 2016.
The Company reserved for issuance 300,000 shares to the plaintiffs in class action litigation related to the events surrounding the Companys former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
The Company became obligated to issue 3,750 shares to Marek Biestek in satisfaction of claims by Mr. Biestek against the Company.
The Company became obligated to issue promissory notes in an estimated aggregate principal amount of $1.7 to $1.8 million to certain claimants in accordance with the Plan.
In addition, on the Effective Date, the Company reserved for issuance shares of Common Stock in connection with certain other claims and interests as set forth in the Plan in an amount as yet to be determined.
SPA
As disclosed in Item 1.01 herein, on the Effective Date, the Company issued an aggregate of 7,147,035 shares of Common Stock pursuant to the SPA.
Savant Warrant
The information set forth above in Item 1.01 of this Form 8-K with respect to the Warrant issued to Savant in connection with the MDC Agreement is incorporated herein by reference.
Board Compensation
As previously disclosed, on May 24, 2016, the Board approved a one-time equity award (the Equity Award) to each of Cameron Durrant, Ronald Barliant and David Moradi. On the Effective Date, in accordance with the Plan, the Company became obligated to issue an aggregate 323,155 shares of Common Stock under the Equity Award.
The foregoing shares of Common Stock were issued pursuant to an exemption from registration under Section 1145 of the Bankruptcy Code, Section 4(a)(2) of the Securities Act of 1933, and/or Regulation D promulgated thereunder.
Item 5.02 Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers.
Departure of Director
On June 29, 2016, David Moradi resigned from the Board, effective immediately prior to the date of effectiveness of the Companys emergence from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. Accordingly, Mr. Moradis resignation became effective on June 29, 2016. Mr. Moradis resignation was not due to any disagreement with the Company.
Addition of New Directors
On the Effective Date, in accordance with the Plan, Dr. Durrant, current Chief Executive Officer of the Company, as joint designee of BHCMF, BHC and Cheval (the "Black Horse Entities") and Nomis, continued as a director, Mr. Barliant, current member of the Board, continued as a director as the designee of the Black Horse Entities, Dale Chappell became a director as a designee of Nomis, and Timothy Morris and Ezra Friedberg became directors as joint designees of the Black Horse Entities and Nomis (Messrs. Chappell, Friedberg and Morris, together, the New Directors). Committee appointments at the time of the appointment of the New Directors had yet to be determined.
Other than as disclosed herein, there are no arrangements or understandings between any of the New Directors and any other persons pursuant to which any such director was selected as a director and there are no other material plans, contracts or arrangements (whether or not written) with the Company to which any of the New Directors is a party. Mr. Chappell serves as a director of each of Cheval and BHCMF and the managing member of the general partner of BHC. Other than as disclosed herein, there are no relationships or related transactions between the New Directors and the Company that would be required to be reported under Item 404(a) of Regulation S-K.
Item 5.03 Amendments to Articles of Incorporation or Bylaws; Change in Fiscal Year.
In accordance with the Plan, on the Effective Date, the Companys amended and restated certificate of incorporation (the Charter) became effective in accordance with the Plan. The only change to the Charter was the insertion of a provision prohibiting the Company from issuing non-voting securities, as required by Section 1123(a)(6) of the Bankruptcy Code.
The foregoing description of the Charter does not purport to be a complete statement of the provisions thereof. Such description is qualified in its entirety by reference to the Charter, a copy of which is included as Exhibit 3.1 to this Form 8-K and is incorporated herein by reference thereto.
Item 9.01. Financial Statements and Exhibits. (d) Exhibit 3.1 Exhibit Description Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, Inc. 10.1 Corporate Governance Agreement, dated as of June 29, 2016, between KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Martin Shkreli
SIGNATURES
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly authorized.
KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, Inc. By: /s/ Cameron Durrant Name: Cameron Durrant
Title: Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Dated: July 6, 2016
Exhibit 3.1
AMENDED AND RESTATED CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION OF
KALOBIOS PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.
a Delaware corporation
KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (the Corporation), a corporation organized and existing under and by virtue of the provisions of the Delaware General Corporation Law (the DGCL),
DOES HEREBY CERTIFY:
FIRST: That the name of this corporation is KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and that this corporation was originally incorporated pursuant to the DGCL on September 19, 2001 under the name Horizon Biotechnologies, Inc.
SECOND: The Corporation filed the Debtors Second Amended Plan of Reorganization under chapter 11 of title 11 of the United States Code (the Code) on May 9, 2016.
THIRD: Provision for the filing of this Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation without the need for Board of Directors or stockholder approval is contained in a decree or order of a court or judge having jurisdiction over a proceeding under the Code.
FOURTH: Pursuant to the provisions of Sections 242(a), 245 and 303 of the DGCL, the undersigned Corporation does hereby certify that the text of this Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation is hereby amended and restated to read as follows:
ARTICLE I
The name of the corporation is KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (the Corporation).
ARTICLE II
The address of the registered office of this corporation in the State of Delaware is 3500 South DuPont Highway, in the City of Dover, County of Kent, State of Delaware, 19901. The name of its registered agent at such address is Incorporating Services, Ltd.
ARTICLE III
The nature of the business or purposes to be conducted or promoted is to engage in any lawful act or activity for which corporations may be organized under the DGCL.
ARTICLE IV
The Corporation is authorized to issue one class of stock to be designated common stock (Common Stock). The number of shares of Common Stock authorized to be issued is Eighty Five Million (85,000,000), par value $0.001 per share. Notwithstanding any other provisions contained herein to the contrary, the Corporation shall not issue nonvoting equity securities for so long as and to the extent prohibited by Section 1123(a)(6) of the Code (11 U.S.C. 1123(a)(6). The prohibition on issuance of nonvoting equity securities is included in this Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation in compliance with Section 1123(a)(6) of the Code (11 U.S.C. 1123(a)(6)).
Each outstanding share of Common Stock shall entitle the holder thereof to one vote on each matter properly submitted to the stockholders of the Corporation for their vote.
ARTICLE V
The following provisions are inserted for the management of the business and the conduct of the affairs of the Corporation and for further definition, limitation and regulation of the powers of the Corporation and of its directors and stockholders:
A. The business and affairs of the Corporation shall be managed by or under the direction of the Board of Directors. In addition to the powers and authority expressly conferred upon them by statute or by this Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation or the Bylaws of the Corporation, the directors are hereby empowered to exercise all such powers and do all such acts and things as may be exercised or done by the Corporation.
B. The directors of the Corporation need not be elected by written ballot unless the Bylaws so provide.
C. Unless the Corporation consents in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the Court of Chancery in the State of Delaware shall be the sole and exclusive forum for (i) any derivative action or proceeding brought on behalf of the Corporation, (ii) any action asserting a claim of breach of fiduciary duty owed by any director, officer or other employee of the Corporation to the Corporation or the Corporations stockholders, (iii) any action asserting a claim arising pursuant to any provision of the DGCL or the Corporations certificate of incorporation or bylaws or (iv) any action asserting a claim governed by the internal affairs doctrine., except for, as to each of (i) through (iv) above, any claim as to which the Court of Chancery determines that there is an indispensable party not subject to the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery (and the indispensable party does not consent to the personal jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery within ten days following such determination), which is vested in the exclusive jurisdiction of a court or forum other than the Court of Chancery, or for which the Court of Chancery does not have subject matter jurisdiction. If any provision or provisions of this Article V.C. shall be held to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable as applied to any person or entity or circumstance for any reason whatsoever, then, to the fullest extent permitted by law, the validity, legality and enforceability of such provisions in any other circumstance and of the remaining provisions of this Article V.C (including, without limitation, each portion of any sentence of this Article V.C containing any such provision held to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable that is not itself held to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable) and the application of such provision to other persons or entities and circumstances shall not in any way be affected or impaired thereby.
ARTICLE VI
A. Newly created directorships resulting from any increase in the authorized number of directors or any vacancies in the Board of Directors resulting from death, resignation, retirement, disqualification, removal from office or other cause shall, unless otherwise provided by law or by resolution of the Board of Directors, be filled only by a majority vote of the directors then in office, though less than a quorum (and not by stockholders), and directors so chosen shall hold office for a term expiring at the annual meeting of stockholders at which the term of office for which they hold expires or until such directors successor shall have been duly elected and qualified. No decrease in the authorized number of directors shall shorten the term of any incumbent director.
B. Advance notice of stockholder nominations for the election of directors and of business to be brought by stockholders before any meeting of the stockholders of the Corporation shall be given in the manner provided in the Bylaws of the Corporation.
ARTICLE VII
A director of the Corporation shall not be personally liable to the Corporation or its stockholders for monetary damages for breach of fiduciary duty as a director, except for liability (i) for any breach of the directors duty of loyalty to the Corporation or its stockholders, (ii) for acts or omissions not in good faith or which involve intentional misconduct or a knowing violation of law, (iii) under Section 174 of the DGCL, or (iv) for any transaction from which the director derived any improper personal benefit. If the DGCL is amended after approval by the stockholders of this Article VII to authorize corporate action further eliminating or limiting the personal liability of directors, then the liability of a director of the Corporation shall be eliminated or limited to the fullest extent permitted by the DGCL as so amended.
Any repeal or modification of the foregoing provisions of this Article VII by the stockholders of the Corporation shall not adversely affect any right or protection of a director of the Corporation existing at the time of, or increase the liability of any director of the Corporation with respect to any acts or omissions of such director occurring prior to, such repeal or modification.
ARTICLE VIII
The Board of Directors is expressly authorized to adopt, amend or repeal any or all of the Bylaws of the Corporation. Any adoption, amendment or repeal of the Bylaws of the Corporation by the Board of Directors shall require the approval of a majority of the total number of authorized directors whether or not there exist any vacancies in previously authorized directorships.
In Witness Whereof, the undersigned has duly executed this Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation.
KALOBIOS PHARMACEUTICALS, INC. By: /s/ Cameron Durrant Name: Cameron Durrant
Title: Chief Executive Officer & Chairman
Exhibit 10.1
Corporate Governance agreement
This Corporate Governance Agreement (this Agreement) is entered into on June 29, 2016, between KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a Delaware corporation (the Company), and Martin Shkreli (the Stockholder).
WHEREAS, on December 29, 2015 (the Petition Date), the Company filed a voluntary petition in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (the Bankruptcy Court) for relief under chapter 11 of title 11 of the United States Code (the Bankruptcy Code), case number 15-12628 (LSS) (the Bankruptcy Case);
WHEREAS, the Stockholder filed a proof of claim against the Company in the Bankruptcy Case, which the Company and the Stockholder agreed to settle pursuant to that certain Settlement Stipulation, made and entered into on June 14, 2016, by and between the Company and the Stockholder (the Settlement Stipulation), which Settlement Stipulation was submitted to and approved by the Bankruptcy Court on June 15, 2016 by that certain Interim Order Pursuant To 11 U.S.C. 105(A), 363 And 502 And Fed. R. Bankr. P. 9019 Approving Settlement Stipulation By And Between (I) The Debtor, And (II) Martin Shkreli, docket item 568 in the Bankruptcy Case, and on June 24, 2016 by that certain Final Order Pursuant To 11 U.S.C. 105(a), 363 And 502 And Fed. R. Bankr. P. 9019 Approving Settlement Stipulation By And Between (I) The Debtor, And (II) Martin Shkreli, docket item 611 in the Bankruptcy Case, which permit, among other provisions, the entry into this Agreement;
WHEREAS, on June 16, 2016, the Bankruptcy Court entered the Findings Of Fact, Conclusions Of Law, And Order Confirming Second Amended Chapter 11 Plan Of Reorganization Of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, Inc., docket item 581 in the Bankruptcy Case (the Confirmation Order, as further defined below);
WHEREAS, the parties entering into this Agreement is a condition to the effectiveness of the Plan of Reorganization (as defined below);
WHEREAS, it is contemplated that, pursuant to and immediately following the effectiveness of the Plan of Reorganization, the Stockholder together with his Affiliates and Associates (as such terms are defined below) will own Beneficially (as defined below) or of record approximately 1,913,206 of the outstanding shares of the Companys capital stock; and
WHEREAS, the Company and the Stockholder desire to establish in this Agreement certain terms and conditions concerning the acquisition, disposition, holding and voting of securities of the Company by the Stockholder, and related provisions concerning the Stockholders relationship with the Company;
NOW, THEREFORE, in consideration of the mutual agreements and promises made in this Agreement by the parties, and other good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which the parties hereby acknowledge, the parties hereto agree as follows:
Section 1. Effectiveness of Agreement . This Agreement shall be effective upon the effectiveness of the Plan of Reorganization (as defined below).
Section 2. Certain Definitions.
For purposes of this Agreement, the following terms shall have the following meanings:
Affiliate has the meaning set forth in Rule 12b-2 under the Exchange Act.
Associate has the meaning set forth in Rule 12b-2 under the Exchange Act.
Beneficial Ownership or similar terms shall have the meaning set forth in Rule 13d-3 under the Exchange Act.
Board means the Board of Directors of the Company and any duly authorized committee thereof.
Confirmation Order means the order confirming the Plan of Reorganization entered at docket item 581 in the Bankruptcy Case.
Controlled Affiliate means a person that directly, or indirectly through one or more intermediaries, is controlled by the Stockholder.
E*Trade Account means the individual brokerage account at E*Trade Securities LLC, 34 Exchange Place, 501 Plaza 2, Jersey City, New Jersey 07311, ending in the digits 02588, which is the subject of the Restraining Order.
Effective Date means the sixty-first (61st) day following the effective date of the Plan of Reorganization.
Exchange Act means the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and the rules and regulations promulgated thereunder.
Person means any individual, partnership, joint venture, limited liability company, estate, association, corporation, trust, unincorporated organization or other entity of any kind or nature.
Plan of Reorganization means the Debtors Plan of Reorganization, dated April 7, 2016 and as amended from time to time, submitted by the Company in the Bankruptcy Case and as confirmed by the Bankruptcy Court by the Confirmation Order.
Repurchase Right means the right, but not an obligation, of the Company, or its permitted transferees or assigns, to purchase from time to time from the Stockholder some or all of the Shares on the terms and conditions specified in the Call Notice.
Restraining Order means that certain Restraining Order, dated January 7, 2016, filed in United States v. Martin Shkreli, 15 Cr. 637 (KRM), as amended or modified from time to time in accordance with applicable law.
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Right of First Refusal means the right, but not an obligation, of the Company, or its permitted transferees or assigns, to purchase from the Stockholder some or all of the Shares that the Stockholder may propose to sell in a Permitted Sale at the same price and on the same terms and conditions as those offered to the Proposed Purchaser and stated in the Sale Notice.
Shares means, as of any time from and after the date of this Agreement, all shares of capital stock of the Company then owned Beneficially or of record by the Stockholder or his Controlled Affiliates.
Securities Act means the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and the rules and regulations promulgated thereunder.
VWAP means, for the 14 day period, the price determined by the first of the following clauses that applies: (a) if the security in question is then listed or quoted on a national securities exchange for trading, the volume weighted average price of such security for the preceding 14 day period on such national securities exchange as reported by Bloomberg, L.P.; (b) the volume weighted average price of such security for the preceding 14 day period in the over-the-counter market on the electronic bulletin board for such security as reported by Bloomberg, L.P.; (c) if no dollar volume weighted average price for the preceding 14 days is reported for such security by Bloomberg, L.P. for such date, then the average of the highest closing bid price and the lowest closing ask price of any of the market makers of such security as reported in the pink sheets by Pink Sheets LLC; and (d) if the 14-day VWAP cannot be calculated for the security in question on a particular date on any of the foregoing bases, the fair market value of the security in question on such date as determined in good faith by a financial adviser chosen by the Board that is reasonably acceptable to the Stockholder (whose approval of such financial advisor shall not be unreasonably withheld or delayed).
Section 3. Shares Covered . The provisions of this Agreement will apply to all of the Shares; provided, however, that, subject to the Stockholders obligations under Section 5 , if any provision of this Agreement is determined to be in conflict with any provision of the Restraining Order, then the terms of the Restraining Order will apply with respect to any Shares held in the E*Trade Account. For avoidance of doubt, but again subject to the Stockholders obligations under Section 5 , if any Shares are held in the E*Trade Account, then no provision of this Agreement is in any way intended to violate, conflict with, or otherwise infringe upon the terms of the Restraining Order.
Section 4. Company Repurchase Rights .
4.1 Scope of Provision . Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Agreement, the provisions of this Section 4 (with the exception of Section 4.5 ) are subject to the Stockholders obligations to participate in Sale Transactions in accordance with Section 9 .
4.2 60-Day Period Rights . During the sixty (60) day period from and after the effective date of the Plan of Reorganization until the Effective Date (the 60-Day Period), the Stockholder shall not transfer any of his Shares unless such transfer is at a price per Share not less than the Market Discount Price (as defined below).
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4.3 Initial Period Rights .
(a) Company Repurchase Right . Subject to the terms of this Section 4.3(a) , the Stockholder hereby unconditionally and irrevocably grants to the Company a Repurchase Right to purchase any or all of the Shares for a period of 120 days following the Effective Date (the Initial Period) at a purchase price per Share equal to the greater of (a) $2.50 (the Minimum Purchase Price) and (b) a 10% discount to the VWAP per Share during the fourteen (14) day period immediately prior to the date of the Call Notice (as defined below) (the Market Discount Price) (any such purchase, a Repurchase). The Company (or its permitted transferee or assign exercising the Repurchase Right) shall provide written notice to the Stockholder of its intent to exercise the Repurchase Right (such notice, the Call Notice). The Call Notice shall specify the number of Shares to be Repurchased, the purchase price thereof, if applicable, the calculation of the VWAP per Share for the fourteen (14) day period immediately prior to the date of the Call Notice. The closing of the Repurchase shall take place, and all payments from the Company (or its permitted transferee or assign) shall have been delivered to the Stockholder, on the fourteenth (14th) day following the date of delivery (determined in accordance with Section 13.1 hereof) of the Call Notice (such date of delivery of the Call Notice, the Call Notice Delivery Date and the period between the Call Notice Delivery Date and the closing, the Funding Period), unless the Company (or its permitted transferee or assign) and the Stockholder agree to an earlier closing date. At or before the closing, the Stockholder shall deliver or cause to be delivered to the Company (or its permitted transferee or assign) a stock certificate or certificates, properly endorsed for transfer, representing the Shares being Repurchased (or, in the case of any Shares that are not represented by certificates, such documentation as is necessary to effect such transfer).
(b) Permitted Sales . Subject to the terms of this Section 4.3(b) and Section 4.3(c) , during the Initial Period the Stockholder may sell from time to time any or all of his Shares (subject to compliance by the Stockholder with applicable securities laws) to any Person other than an Affiliate or Associate of the Stockholder at a price per Share that is equal to or greater than the Market Discount Price (any such sale, a Permitted Sale); provided, however, that (a) no Permitted Sale may occur during a Funding Period and (b) the Stockholder shall provide written notice to the Company of his intent to effect a Permitted Sale (a Sale Notice) not less than thirty days prior to the consummation of such Permitted Sale (it being understood and agreed that the Permitted Sale may close prior to the end of such thirty day period if the Company does not timely exercise its Right of First Refusal pursuant to Section 4.3(c) ). The Sale Notice shall specify the material terms and conditions (including price and form of consideration) of the proposed Permitted Sale, the identity of the purchaser or purchasers in the proposed Permitted Sale (the Proposed Purchaser), and the intended date of consummation of the proposed Permitted Sale.
(c) Company Right of First Refusal . The Stockholder hereby unconditionally and irrevocably grants to the Company a Right of First Refusal to purchase any and all Shares the Stockholder proposes to sell in a Permitted Sale during the Initial Period (any such purchase, a ROFR Purchase). To exercise its Right of First Refusal, the Company (or its permitted transferee or assign) must deliver an irrevocable written notice to the Stockholder within ten days (including Saturdays and Sundays, but excluding days on which banking institutions in the State of New York are authorized or obligated by law or executive order to close) after the date of delivery of the Sale Notice (determined in accordance with Section 13.1 hereof) (such date of delivery of the Sale Notice, the Sale Notice Delivery Date). The closing of the Permitted Sale or ROFR Purchase, as applicable, shall take place, and all payments from the Proposed Purchaser or the Company (or its permitted transferee or assign), as applicable, shall have been delivered to the Stockholder, by the later of (a) the date specified in the Sale Notice and (b) fifteen (15) business days after the Sale Notice Delivery Date, and any proposed Permitted Sale for which the Company did not exercise its Right of First Refusal and that is not consummated by such date shall require a new Sale Notice and again be subject to the Companys Right of First Refusal in accordance with this Section 4.3(c) . At or before the closing of a ROFR Purchase, the Stockholder shall deliver or cause to be delivered to the Company (or its permitted transferee or assign) a stock certificate or certificates, properly endorsed for transfer, representing the Shares being purchased (or, in the case of any Shares that are not represented by certificates, such documentation as is necessary to effect such transfer).
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4.4 Second Period Rights . The Stockholder hereby unconditionally and irrevocably grants to the Company a Repurchase Right to purchase any or all of the Shares for a period of sixty (60) days following the expiration of the Initial Period (the Second Period) and otherwise on the same terms and conditions as the Repurchase Right in effect during the Initial Period granted pursuant to Section 4.3(a) . During the Second Period, the Stockholder may sell from time to time any or all of his Shares (subject to compliance by the Stockholder with applicable securities laws), provided however, that if the Company provides the Shareholder with a Call Notice before Shareholder notifies the Company of his intent to sell Shares, the Shareholder shall not dispose of any Shares subject to the Call Notice between delivery of the Call Notice and expiration of the Funding Period.
4.5 Shares Transferred to Affiliates or Associates . Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this Agreement:
(a) the Stockholder hereby represents and warrants that, as of the date of this Agreement, (i) all of the Shares are owned Beneficially and of record only by the Stockholder, (ii) no Controlled Affiliate owns Beneficially or of record any capital stock of the Company, and (iii) to the best of the Stockholders knowledge after reasonable inquiry, no other Affiliate or Associate of the Stockholder owns Beneficially or of record any capital stock of the Company; and
(b) the Stockholder shall not transfer any Shares to any of his Affiliates or Associates unless, in addition to complying with any other applicable provision of this Agreement and with applicable securities laws, as a condition precedent to the Companys recognizing such transfer, each such transferee (an Affiliated Transferee) shall agree in writing to be subject to each of the terms of this Agreement as an additional Stockholder party by executing and delivering an Adoption Agreement substantially in the form attached hereto as Exhibit A . Upon the execution and delivery of an Adoption Agreement by an Affiliated Transferee, such Affiliated Transferee shall be deemed to be a Stockholder for all purposes under this Agreement.
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4.6 Effect of Failure to Comply . Any transfer of Shares not made in compliance with the requirements of this Agreement shall be null and void, shall not be recorded on the books of the Company or its transfer agent and shall not be recognized by the Company. The Stockholder agrees that, to ensure compliance with the transfer restrictions referred to in this Agreement, the Company may issue appropriate stop transfer instructions to its transfer agent, if any, and that, if the Company transfers its own securities, it may make appropriate notations to the same effect in its own records. If the Stockholder becomes obligated to sell any Shares to the Company or any of its permitted transferees or assigns under this Agreement and fails to deliver such Shares in accordance with the terms of this Agreement, the Company or such permitted transferee or assign may, at its option, in addition to all other remedies it may have, send to the Stockholder the purchase price for such Shares as is herein specified and transfer to the name of the Company or such permitted transferee or assign (or request that the Company effect such transfer in the name of such permitted transferee or assign) on the Companys books the certificate or certificates representing the Shares to be sold (or, in the case of any Shares that are not represented by certificates, make such other notations on the Companys books as shall be necessary to effect such transfer). The Stockholder and the Company acknowledge and agree that any breach of this Agreement would result in substantial harm to the Company and/or the Stockholder for which monetary damages alone could not adequately compensate. Therefore, the Stockholder and the Company unconditionally and irrevocably agree that the Company and the Stockholder shall be entitled to seek protective orders, injunctive relief and other remedies available at law or in equity (including, without limitation, seeking specific performance or the rescission of purchases, sales and other transfers of Sales not made in strict compliance with this Agreement).
4.7 Legends . The Stockholder and the Company shall take all necessary action such that each stock certificate evidencing Shares shall bear a legend indicating that such Shares are subject to the terms of this Agreement. If any Shares are not represented by certificates, the foregoing legend shall instead be included on any book-entry confirmation or notification to the registered holder of such Shares.
Section 5. Approvals . At any time and from time to time that the Company determines it to be advisable, the Stockholder shall use commercially reasonable efforts to obtain the consent of any and all requisite governmental authorities and E*Trade Securities LLC, and the Stockholder shall cooperate with the Company in seeking any such consent, in connection with the parties entering into and performing their respective obligations under this Agreement.
Section 6. Quorum & Voting Restrictions .
6.1 Quorum . At every meeting of the stockholders of the Company called, and at every adjournment or postponement thereof, and on every action by consent in lieu of such a meeting, the Stockholder shall take all necessary action to cause the Shares to be present thereat for purposes of establishing a quorum.
6.2 Proportionate Vote Requirement . With respect to each matter submitted for the approval of stockholders of the Company and each nominee submitted for election as a director of the Company (whether at an annual or special meeting of stockholders of the Company or pursuant to an action by consent in lieu of such a meeting), the Stockholder shall vote (or cause to be voted) each Share in a manner that is proportionate to the manner in which all shares of capital stock of the Company (other than the Shares) are voted with respect to such matters and nominees, such that, for any matter or nominee, the Shares shall reflect voting results with respect to shares voted for, shares voted against, shares abstained and shares withheld proportionate to such aggregate voting results for shares of capital stock of the Company that are not owned Beneficially or of record by the Stockholder and that are voted at the meeting (in person or by proxy) or by written consent on the matter or nominee (the Proportionate Vote Requirement). For avoidance of doubt, the parties acknowledge that broker non-votes and shares not present at a meeting are not shares voted on the matter or nominee within the meaning of the foregoing sentence, and voting results with respect to broker non-votes and shares not present at the meeting shall be disregarded in determining the Stockholders voting obligations pursuant to the Proportionate Vote Requirement in respect of any matter or nominee described above.
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6.3 Record Owners . To the extent the Stockholder is not the record owner of any Shares, the Stockholder shall use his best efforts to cause the record owner and any nominees of the record owner of such Shares to comply with all of the provisions of this Agreement in respect of such Shares.
6.4 Proxy . The Stockholder hereby irrevocably appoints as his proxy and attorney-in-fact the present and future officers of the Company, and each of them, with full power of substitution and resubstitution, from the date hereof until the termination of this Agreement, to vote the Shares in accordance with the Proportionate Vote Requirement and to sign or execute on behalf of the Stockholder any ballot, proxy, consent, certificate or other document relating to the Company that the law permits or requires in a manner consistent with the Proportionate Vote Requirement. This proxy is coupled with an interest and is intended to secure the voting agreements provided for in this Agreement and shall be irrevocable, and the Stockholder will take such commercially reasonable further action or execute such other instruments as may be necessary to effectuate the intent of this proxy and hereby revokes any proxy previously granted by him with respect to the Shares.
Section 7. Board Composition . The parties hereby acknowledge and agree that (a) the Stockholder will not have any right to nominate directors for election to the Board, whether in accordance with any advance notice provisions in the Companys bylaws or otherwise, and (b) in connection with all director elections and any proposals for the removal of directors, the Stockholder will vote and cause to be voted the Shares in accordance with the Proportionate Vote Requirement.
Section 8. Standstill . The Stockholder agrees that, for a period of twenty-four (24) months from and after the date of this Agreement, neither he nor any of his Controlled Affiliates will, and he and his Controlled Affiliates will not cause or encourage any other Person to, without the prior written approval of the Board, in any manner, directly or indirectly:
(a) purchase or acquire record or Beneficial Ownership of any securities, derivative instruments with respect to any securities, property or assets of the Company or any of its subsidiaries, other than as the result of any stock split, stock dividend, reverse stock split or similar transaction;
(b) effect, seek, offer or propose (whether publicly or otherwise) to effect, or cause or participate in, or in any way assist any other Person to effect, seek, offer or propose (whether publicly or otherwise) to effect or participate in, any merger, consolidation, tender or exchange offer, sale or purchase of assets or securities or other business combination, restructuring, recapitalization, liquidation, dissolution or similar extraordinary transaction involving the Company or any of its subsidiaries;
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(c) solicit or become a participant in any solicitation of proxies (as such terms are defined in Regulation 14A under the Exchange Act) from any holder of capital stock of the Company in connection with any vote on any matter (whether or not relating to the election or removal of directors), or agree or announce an intention to vote with any Person undertaking a solicitation, other than in response to the Boards solicitation of proxies and in compliance with the Proportionate Vote Requirement;
(d) form or join in or in any way participate in any group (as defined in the Exchange Act or the rules promulgated thereunder) with respect to any securities of the Company;
(e) make any public announcement with respect to, or submit an unsolicited proposal for or offer of (with or without condition), any transaction involving the Company;
(f) otherwise act, alone or in concert with others, to seek to control or influence the management, Board, or policies of the Company;
(g) submit any proposal to be considered by the stockholders of the Company, including pursuant to any advance notice provisions in the Companys bylaws;
(h) take any action that might force the Company to make a public announcement regarding any of the types of matters set forth in the preceding clauses (a)(g); or
(i) enter into any discussions, arrangements, understandings or agreements (whether written or oral) with any other Person with respect to any of the matters set forth in the preceding clauses (a)(g).
The Stockholder also agrees not to request that the Company or any of its directors, officers, employees or agents, directly or indirectly, amend or waive any provision of this Section 8 (including this sentence). Any acquisition or purchase of securities of the Company not made in compliance with the requirements of this Section 8 shall be null and void, and the Stockholder agrees to transfer all such securities to the Company for the aggregate nominal amount of $1.00 for all such securities.
Section 9. Sale Transactions . Subject to the terms of the Restraining Order, if the Board determines that a self-tender or exchange offer or similar transaction (a Sale Transaction) is in the best interests of the public stockholders of the Company, the Stockholder agrees (a) to sell (or to cause the record holder of any Shares to sell) all of the Shares pursuant to and in accordance with the terms of such Sale Transaction so long as the terms of such Sale Transaction comply with price terms set forth in Section 4.3(a) and (b) to execute and deliver (or to cause the record holder of any Shares to execute and deliver) all related documentation and to take (or cause the record holder of any Shares to take) such other action in his (or such record holders) capacity as a stockholder of the Company as shall reasonably be necessary to carry out the terms and provisions of this Section 9 , including without limitation executing and delivering instruments of conveyance and transfer, consents, waivers, governmental filings, stock certificates duly endorsed for transfer and any similar or related documents. In relation to any such Sale Transaction, Shareholder shall not be required to give any representations or warranties other than that he is the beneficial owner of the Shares. Shareholder shall have no indemnification obligations in relation to any such Sale Transaction.
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Section 10. Interested Transactions . Subject to Section 4 and Section 9 , the parties agree that any material transaction between the Stockholder (or any of his Affiliates and Associates) and the Company, or relating to this Agreement, including without limitation any amendment, modification or waiver of any provision of this Agreement, shall not be taken without the prior approval thereof by the Board.
Section 11. Stockholder Acknowledgements & Agreements . The Stockholder hereby acknowledges and agrees as follows:
11.1 Big Boy Representation . The Stockholder understands and acknowledges that the Company is in possession of information about the Company and its securities (which may include material non-public information) that may or may not be material or superior to information available to the Stockholder, and the Stockholder has specifically requested that it not be provided with any such information. The Stockholder acknowledges that, in the event the Stockholder sells the Shares to the Company pursuant to any Repurchase, ROFR Repurchase, or Sale Transaction, it is doing so without any reliance on the Company. The Stockholder and the Company understand and acknowledge that neither party would enter into this Agreement in the absence of the representations and warranties set forth in this paragraph, and that these representations and warranties are a fundamental inducement to the parties in entering into this Agreement. The Stockholder hereby waives any claim, or potential claim, it has or may have against the Company relating to the Companys possession of material non-public information.
11.1 Separate Counsel Representation . The Stockholder has independently participated in the negotiation of this Agreement and has been represented by separate counsel. In connection with the Stockholders entry into this Agreement, neither the Company nor its counsel is advising the Stockholder on any aspects of law, including without limitation compliance with Sections 13 and 16 under the Exchange Act or Section 5 of the Securities Act and the exemptions thereunder.
Section 12. Mutual General Releases .
12.1 Releases by the Company . Except for the obligations set forth in this Agreement, the Company, on behalf of itself, its bankruptcy estate, and any subsequently appointed trustee or bankruptcy estate representative, and its present, former and future principals, agents, officers, directors, employees, successors, assigns, attorneys, insurers, affiliates and subsidiaries, hereby waives, releases and discharges the Stockholder from any and all demands, claims, liabilities, damages, actions, causes of action, fines, penalties, expenses, costs and fees whatsoever existing as of the date hereof, whether now known or unknown, matured or not matured, asserted or not asserted, prior to the Petition Date or during the Bankruptcy Case and specifically including any and all claims or causes of action under Chapter 5 of the Bankruptcy Code.
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12.2 Releases by the Stockholder . Except for the obligations set forth in this Agreement, the Stockholder, on behalf of himself and his present, former and future agents, successors, assigns, attorneys, insurers, affiliates and subsidiaries, hereby waives, releases and discharges the Company, the Companys bankruptcy estate, and the Companys present, former and future principals, agents, successors, assigns, attorneys, affiliates and subsidiaries, from any and all demands, claims, liabilities, damages, actions, causes of action, fines, penalties, expenses, costs and fees whatsoever existing as of the date hereof, whether now known or unknown, matured or not matured, asserted or not asserted, prior to the Petition Date or during the Bankruptcy Case. For the avoidance of doubt, the Company covenants that it shall not assert, and shall not cause or encourage any other Person to assert, that the release of the Stockholders claims pursuant to this Section 12.2 impairs in any way the Stockholders rights to coverage under any D&O Insurance Policies (as defined in the Plan of Reorganization) or other insurance policies in which the Company has an interest under which coverage may be available to the Stockholder in the event an action has been or may be commenced against the Stockholder relating to his connection with the Company.
Section 13. Miscellaneous .
13.1 Notices . All notices and other communications given or made pursuant to this Agreement shall be in writing and shall be deemed effectively given upon the earlier of actual receipt or (a) personal delivery to the party to be notified, (b) when sent, if sent by electronic mail or facsimile during normal business hours of the recipient, and if not sent during normal business hours, then on the recipients next business day, (c) five (5) days after having been sent by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, postage prepaid, or (d) one (1) business day after the business day of deposit with a nationally recognized overnight courier, freight prepaid, specifying next business day delivery, with written verification of receipt. All communications shall be sent,
if to the Stockholder, to:
Martin Shkreli
245 East 40th Street, 18H
New York, NY 10016
with a copy to:
Scott L. Vernick, Esq.
Fox Rothschild LLP
2000 Market Street, 20th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103-3222
Fax: (215) 299-2150
Email: [email protected]
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if to the Company, to:
KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
1000 Marina Boulevard, #250
Brisbane, CA 94005-1878
Attn: Dr. Cameron Durrant
Fax: (650) 243-3260
Email: [email protected]
with a copy to:
Peter A. Ivanick, Esq.
Hogan Lovells US LLP
875 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Fax: (212) 918-3100
Email: [email protected]
or such address as such party may hereafter specify for the purpose of notice to the parties hereto.
13.2 Entire Agreement . This Agreement constitutes the full and entire understanding and agreement between the parties with respect to the subject matter hereof, and supersedes all prior and contemporaneous agreements, understanding, negotiations and discussions, whether oral or written, of the parties, and there are no warranties, representations agreements between the parties in connection with the subject matter hereof except as set forth or referred to herein.
13.3 Amendments; Waiver . This Agreement may be amended or terminated and the observance of any term hereof may be waived (either generally or in a particular instance and either retroactively or prospectively) only by a written instrument executed by the Company and the Stockholder. Any amendment, termination, or waiver effected in accordance with this Section 13.3 shall be binding on each party and all of such partys successors and permitted assigns, whether or not any such party, successor or assignee entered into or approved such amendment, termination or waiver. No waiver of any of the provisions of this Agreement shall constitute a waiver of any other provisions (whether or not similar), nor shall such waiver constitute a continuing waiver unless otherwise expressly provided. No failure or delay by any party in exercising any right, power or privilege hereunder shall operate as a waiver thereof nor shall any single or partial exercise thereof preclude any other or future exercise thereof of the exercise of any other right, power or privilege. The rights and remedies herein provided shall be cumulative and not exclusive of any rights or remedies provided by law.
13.4 Successors and Assigns . The terms and conditions of this Agreement shall inure to the benefit of and be binding upon the respective successors and assigns of the parties. Nothing in this Agreement, express or implied, is intended to confer upon any party other than the parties hereto or their respective successors and assigns any rights, remedies, obligations, or liabilities under or by reason of this Agreement, except as expressly provided in this Agreement.
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13.5 Governing Law; Jurisdiction; Selection of Forum . This Agreement shall be governed by, and construed and enforced in accordance with, the laws of the State of Delaware without regard to its conflict of laws rules. Each party to this Agreement hereby irrevocably and unconditionally (a) agrees that any action or proceeding arising out of or in connection with this Agreement shall be brought only in the Delaware Court of Chancery (or, if such court does not have jurisdiction, the Superior Court of the State of Delaware or the United States District Court for the District of Delaware) (the Delaware Court), and not in any other state or federal court in the United States of America or any court in any other country, (b) consents to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Delaware Court for purposes of any action or proceeding arising out of or in connection with this Agreement, (c) consents to service of process in accordance with Section 13.1 with the same legal force and validity as if served upon such party personally within the State of Delaware or in such other manner as may be permitted by applicable law, (d) waives any objection to the laying of venue of any such action or proceeding in the Delaware Court and (e) waives, and agrees not to plead or to make, any claim that any such action or proceeding brought in the Delaware Court has been brought in an improper or inconvenient forum.
13.6 Counterparts . This Agreement may be executed in two (2) or more counterparts, each of which shall be deemed an original, but all of which together shall constitute one and the same instrument.
13.7 Specific Performance . The Company and the Stockholder acknowledge and agree that the parties respective remedies at law for a breach or threatened breach of any of the provisions of this Agreement would be inadequate and, in recognition of that fact, agree that, in the event of a breach or threatened breach by the Company or the Stockholder of the provisions of this Agreement, in addition to any remedy at law, the Stockholder and the Company, respectively, without posting any bond, shall be entitled to obtain equitable relief in the form of specific performance, a temporary restraining order, a temporary or permanent injunction or any other equitable remedy which may then be available.
13.8 Titles and Subtitles . The section titles and subtitles used in this Agreement are used for convenience only and are not to be considered in construing or interpreting this Agreement.
13.9 Severability . The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision hereof shall in no way affect the validity or enforceability of any other provision.
[Signature Page Follows]
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IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the undersigned, intending to be legally bound, have executed this Agreement as of the date first written above.
KALOBIOS PHARMACEUTICALS, INC. By: /s/ Cameron Durrant Name: Cameron Durrant
Title: Chief Executive Officer and Chairman
MARTIN SHKRELI /s/ Martin Shkreli
[Signature Page to Corporate Governance Agreement]
EXHIBIT A
ADOPTION AGREEMENT
This Adoption Agreement is executed on [], 20[], by the undersigned (the Holder) pursuant to the terms of that Corporate Governance Agreement, dated as of June [ ], 2016, between the Company and the Stockholder (as it may be amended from time to time, the Agreement). Capitalized terms used but not defined in this Adoption Agreement shall have the respective meanings ascribed to such terms in the Agreement.
By execution of this Adoption Agreement, the Holder hereby agrees as follows:
1. The Holder acknowledges and agrees that shares of capital stock of the Company are being transferred to the Holder (such shares, the Transferred Shares) in accordance with Section 3.5 of the Agreement and that, after such transfer, the Holder shall be considered a Stockholder for all purposes of the Agreement;
2. The Holder hereby agrees that the Transferred Shares, and any other shares of capital stock or other securities of the Company required by the Agreement to be bound thereby, shall be bound by and subject to the terms of the Agreement;
3. The Holder hereby adopts the Agreement with the same force and effect as if the Holder were originally a party thereto; and
4. Any notice required or permitted by the Agreement shall be given to the Holder at the address, facsimile number and email address listed below the Holders signature hereto.
UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Washington, D.C. 20549 FORM 8-K CURRENT REPORT Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 Date of Report (Date of earliest event reported): July 5, 2016 Rouse Properties, Inc. (Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter) Delaware
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation) 1-35287
(Commission File Number) 90-0750824
(IRS Employer
Identification No.) 1114 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 2800
New York, New York
(Address of principal executive offices) 10036
(Zip Code) Registrants telephone number, including area code: (212) 608-5108 (Former name or former address, if changed since last report.) Check the appropriate box below if the Form 8-K filing is intended to simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation of the registrant under any of the following provisions: o Written communications pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act (17 CFR 230.425) o Soliciting material pursuant to Rule 14a-12 under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14a-12) o Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 14d-2(b) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14d-2(b)) o Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 13e-4(c) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.13e-4(c))
Introductory Note On July 6, 2016 (the Effective Time ), Rouse Properties, Inc. (the Company ) completed the previously announced merger (the Merger ) of BSREP II Retail Holdings Corp. ( Acquisition Sub ), a Delaware corporation and a wholly owned subsidiary of BSREP II Retail Pooling LLC, a Delaware limited liability company ( Parent ) and an affiliate of Brookfield Asset Management Inc. ( Brookfield ), with and into the Company, whereby the Company became a wholly owned subsidiary of Parent. The Merger was effected pursuant to an Agreement and Plan of Merger (the Merger Agreement ), dated February 25, 2016, by and among the Company, Parent, Acquisition Sub, and solely for the purposes stated therein, Brookfield Strategic Real Estate Partners II-A L.P., Brookfield Strategic Real Estate Partners II-A (ER) L.P., Brookfield Strategic Real Estate Partners II-B L.P., Brookfield Strategic Real Estate Partners II-C L.P., Brookfield Strategic Real Estate Partners II-C (ER) L.P., and Brookfield Strategic Real Estate Partners II BPY Borrower L.P. (collectively, the Guarantors ). Item 2.01. Completion of Acquisition or Disposition of Assets. The information set forth in the Introductory Note and Items 3.03, 5.01, and 5.02 is incorporated herein by reference. At the Effective Time, each outstanding share of the Companys common stock, par value $0.01 per share (the Company Common Stock ), was converted into the right to receive $18.25 in cash, other than (i) the shares held at the Effective Time by the Exchange Parties (as defined below) and their respective affiliates (including Brookfield), Parent, Acquisition Sub, the Guarantors and Brookfield Property Partners L.P.), or by the Company and its subsidiaries and (ii) shares held by stockholders who properly demanded and perfected appraisal rights under Delaware law. Each stock option outstanding immediately prior to the Effective Time became vested in full and was cancelled and converted into the right to receive cash (without interest) in an amount equal to the number of shares of Company Common Stock subject to such option multiplied by the difference between $18.25 and the per share exercise price of such option. Also, each share of Company Common Stock that was subject to vesting or forfeiture conditions that remained outstanding immediately prior to the Effective Time ( Company Restricted Stock ) was cancelled and converted into the right to receive $18.25 in cash per share of Company Restricted Stock, without interest thereon. Also, in connection with the Merger, on July 5, 2016, the Company and the stockholders of the Company that are affiliated with Brookfield that in the aggregate held prior to the Merger approximately 33.5% of the outstanding Company Common Stock (the Exchange Parties ), completed the previously announced exchange whereby the Company exchanged the Company Common Stock held by the Exchange Parties prior to the Merger into shares of Series I Preferred Stock of the Company, par value $0.01 per share, pursuant to the Series I Preferred Stock Exchange Agreement dated February 25, 2016 by and among the Company and the Exchange Parties (the Exchange Agreement ). Item 3.01. Notice of Delisting or Failure to Satisfy a Continued Listing Rule or Standard; Transfer of Listing. The information set forth in the Introductory Note and Item 2.01 is incorporated herein by reference. On July 6, 2016, in connection with the completion of the Merger, the Company notified The New York Stock Exchange (the NYSE ) of the completion of the Merger, and requested that trading in the Company Common Stock be suspended and that the Company Common Stock be withdrawn from listing on the NYSE. The Company also requested that the NYSE file a delisting application on Form 25 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC ) to report the delisting of the Company Common Stock from the NYSE. The Company Common Stock will be delisted on July 18, 2016. The Company intends to file with the SEC a certification and notice of termination on Form 15 with respect 2
to the Company Common Stock, requesting that the Company Common Stock be deregistered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the Exchange Act ), and that the reporting obligations of the Company with respect to the Company Common Stock under Sections 13 and 15(d) of the Exchange Act be suspended. Item 3.03. Material Modification to Rights of Security Holders. The information set forth in the Introductory Note and Items 2.01 and 3.01 is incorporated herein by reference. In connection with the Merger and at the Effective Time, holders of Company Common Stock immediately prior to such time ceased to have any rights as stockholders in the Company (other than their right to receive the merger consideration pursuant to the Merger Agreement or perfect their appraisal rights, if applicable). Item 5.01. Changes in Control of Registrant. The information set forth in the Introductory Note and Item 2.01 is incorporated herein by reference. In connection with the Merger and at the Effective Time, a change of control of the Company occurred and the Company became a wholly owned subsidiary of Parent. Item 5.02. Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers. The information set forth in the Introductory Note and Item 2.01 is incorporated herein by reference. Pursuant to the terms of the Merger Agreement, at the Effective Time, Brian Kingston, who was the sole director of Acquisition Sub immediately prior to the Effective Time, continues as the sole director of the Company. There were no disagreements between the directors of the Company immediately prior to the Effective Time and any of our officers. As previously reported, in connection with the Merger and at the Effective Time, Mr. Andrew Silberfein resigned as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company and as a member of the Companys Board of Directors (including as a member of the Investment Committee). In addition, in connection with the Merger and at the Effective Time, Mr. John Wain resigned from his position as the Companys Chief Financial Officer. The termination of Mr. Silberfeins and Mr. Wains employment was without cause, which entitles each of them to receive certain severance benefits as set forth in the employment agreement or offer letter, as applicable. Item 5.03. Amendments to Articles of Incorporation or Bylaws; Change in Fiscal Year. At the closing of the Merger, the certificate of incorporation of the Company, as in effect immediately prior to the Effective Time, was amended in accordance with applicable law. A copy of the amended and restated certificate of incorporation of the Company is attached hereto as Exhibits 3.1 and incorporated herein by reference. Also at the closing of the Merger, the bylaws of Acquisition Sub, as in effect immediately prior to the Effective Time, became the bylaws of the Company. A copy of the bylaws of the Company is attached hereto as Exhibits 3.2 and incorporated herein by reference. Item 8.01. Other Events. On July 6, 2016, the Company issued a press release announcing the closing of the Merger. The press release is filed as Exhibit 99.1 to this Current Report on Form 8-K and is incorporated by reference into this Item 8.01. 3
Item 9.01. Financial Statements and Exhibits. (d) Exhibits Exhibit
Number Description 3.1 Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation of the Company. 3.2 Bylaws of the Company. 99.1 Press Release, dated July 6, 2016. 4
SIGNATURE Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized. Dated: July 6, 2016 ROUSE PROPERTIES, INC. By: /s/ Susan Elman Name: Susan Elman Title: Executive Vice President and General Counsel 5
Exhibit Index Exhibit
Number Description 3.1 Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation of the Company. 3.2 Bylaws of the Company. 99.1 Press Release, dated July 6, 2016. 6
Exhibit 3.1 AMENDED AND RESTATED CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION OF ROUSE PROPERTIES, INC. FIRST : The name of the corporation is: Rouse Properties, Inc. SECOND : The address of the Corporations registered office in the State of Delaware is 2711 Centerville Road, Suite 400, in the City of Wilmington, County of New Castle, Zip Code 19808. The name of its registered agent at such address is Corporation Service Company. THIRD : The purpose of the Corporation is to engage in any lawful act or activity for which corporations may be organized under the General Corporation Law of Delaware. FOURTH : The total number of shares of all classes of capital stock that the Corporation is authorized to issue is 212,000 shares, consisting of two classes of stock designated as Common Stock and Preferred Stock , respectively. The total number of shares of Common Stock that the Corporation is authorized to issue is 2,000 shares, par value $0.01 per share. The total number of shares of Preferred Stock that the Corporation is authorized to issue is 210,000 shares, of which 200,000 shares, par value $0.01 per share, shall be designated Series I Preferred Stock . A statement of the designations and powers, privileges and rights, and the qualifications, limitations or restrictions thereof in respect of the Common Stock and Preferred Stock of the Corporation is as follows:
A. Common Stock . 1. Ranking . The voting, dividend and liquidation rights of the holders of the Common Stock are subject to, and qualified by, such rights of the holders of the Preferred Stock of any series as may be designated by the Board of Directors of the Corporation (the Board ) upon any issuance of Preferred Stock of any series. 2. Voting . Except as otherwise provided by law or by the resolution or resolutions providing for the issue of any series of Preferred Stock with voting rights attached thereto, the holders of outstanding shares of Common Stock shall have the exclusive right to vote for the election of directors and for all other purposes. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation (as the same may be further amended and/or restated from time to time, including the terms of any Preferred Stock Designation (as defined below), this Certificate of Incorporation ) to the contrary, except as otherwise required by law, the holders of Common Stock shall not be entitled to vote on any amendment to this Certificate of Incorporation (including any Preferred Stock Designation) that relates solely to the terms of one or more outstanding series of Preferred Stock if the holders of such affected series are entitled, either separately or together as a class with the holders of one or more other series of Preferred Stock, to vote thereon pursuant to this Certificate of Incorporation (including any Preferred Stock Designation) or the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware (the DGCL ). On each matter on which they are entitled to vote, the holders of the outstanding shares of Common Stock shall be entitled to one (1) vote for each share of Common Stock held by such stockholder. There shall be no cumulative voting. 3. Dividends . Subject to the rights of the holders of Preferred Stock, holders of shares of Common Stock shall be entitled to receive such dividends and other distributions in cash, stock or property of the Corporation when, as and if declared thereon by the Board from time to time out of assets or funds of the Corporation legally available therefor. 4. Liquidation . Subject to the rights of the holders of Preferred Stock, holders of shares of Common Stock shall be entitled to share in any remaining assets and funds of the Corporation available for distribution to stockholders ratably in proportion to the total number of shares of Common Stock then issued and outstanding in the event of any liquidation, dissolution
or winding up of the affairs of the Corporation, whether voluntary or involuntary. A liquidation, dissolution or winding up of the affairs of the Corporation, as such terms are used in this clause (A)(4), shall not be deemed to be occasioned by, or to include, any consolidation or merger of the Corporation with or into any other person or a sale, lease, exchange or conveyance of all or a part of its assets. B. Serial Preferred Stock . Subject to approval by holders of shares of any class or series of Preferred Stock to the extent such approval is required by its terms, the Board is hereby expressly authorized, subject to limitations prescribed by law, by resolution or resolutions and by filing a certificate pursuant to the applicable law of the DGCL (a Preferred Stock Designation ), to provide, out of the unissued shares of Preferred Stock, for series of Preferred Stock, in addition to the Series I Preferred Stock, and to establish from time to time the number of shares to be included in each such series, and to fix the designation, powers, preferences and rights of the shares of each such series and the qualifications, limitations or restrictions thereof. The designation, powers, preferences and relative, participating, optional and other special rights of each such series of Preferred Stock, and the qualifications, limitations and restrictions thereof, if any, may differ from those of any and all other series at any time outstanding. The authority of the Board with respect to each such series of Preferred Stock shall include, but not be limited to, the determination of the following: 1. The number of shares constituting that series and the distinctive designation of that series; 2. The rate of dividend, and whether (and if so, on what terms and conditions) dividends shall be cumulative (and if so, whether unpaid dividends shall compound or accrue) or shall be payable in preference or in any other relation to the dividends payable on any other class or classes of stock or any other series of the Preferred Stock; 3. Whether that series shall have voting rights in addition to the voting rights provided by law and, if so, the terms and extent of such voting rights; 4. Whether the shares must or may be redeemed and, if so, the terms and conditions of such redemption (including, without limitation, the dates upon or after which they
must or may be redeemed and the price or prices at which they must or may be redeemed, which price or prices may be different in different circumstances or at different redemption dates); 5. Whether the shares shall be issued with the privilege of conversion or exchange and, if so, the terms and conditions of such conversion or exchange (including without limitation the price or prices or the rate or rates of conversion or exchange or any terms for adjustment thereof); 6. The amounts, if any, payable under the shares thereof in the event of the liquidation of the Corporation in preference of shares of any other class or series and whether the shares shall be entitled to participate generally in distributions in the Common Stock under such circumstances; 7. Sinking fund provisions, if any, for the redemption or purchase of the shares (the term sinking fund being understood to include any similar fund, however designated); and 8. Any other relative rights, preferences, limitations and powers of that series. C. Series I Preferred Stock . 1. Designation and Number . A series of preferred stock, designated the Series I Preferred Stock, is hereby established. The number of shares of Series I Preferred Stock hereby authorized shall be two hundred thousand (200,000). 2. Ranking . The Series I Preferred Stock shall, with respect to dividend rights and rights upon voluntary or involuntary liquidation, dissolution or winding up of the Corporation, rank: i. senior to all classes or series of the Common Stock and all classes or series of capital stock of the Corporation now or hereafter authorized, issued or outstanding expressly designated as ranking junior to the Series I Preferred Stock as to dividend rights and rights upon voluntary or involuntary liquidation, dissolution or winding up of the Corporation; ii. on parity with any class or series of capital stock of the Corporation expressly designated as ranking on parity with the Series I Preferred Stock as to
dividend rights and rights upon voluntary or involuntary liquidation, dissolution or winding up of the Corporation; and iii. junior to any class or series of capital stock of the Corporation expressly designated as ranking senior to the Series I Preferred Stock as to dividend rights and rights upon voluntary or involuntary liquidation, dissolution or winding up of the Corporation. The term capital stock does not include convertible or exchangeable debt securities, which will rank senior to the Series I Preferred Stock prior to conversion or exchange. The Series I Preferred Stock will also rank junior in right of payment to the Corporations other existing and future debt obligations. 3. Dividends and Distributions . i. Subject to the preferential rights of the holders of any class or series of capital stock of the Corporation ranking senior to the Series I Preferred Stock as to dividends, the holders of shares of the Series I Preferred Stock shall be entitled to receive, when, as and if declared by the Board (or a duly authorized committee thereof), out of funds legally available for the payment of dividends, cumulative preferential cash dividends at the rate of 6% per annum of the $1825.00 liquidation preference per share of the Series I Preferred Stock (equivalent to a fixed annual amount of $109.50 per share of the Series I Preferred Stock). Such dividends shall accrue on each share of Series I Preferred Stock and be cumulative from, and including, (i) with respect to the first dividend payment, the first date on which any share of Series I Preferred Stock is issued (the Original Issue Date ) and (ii) with respect to all subsequent dividend payments, the day immediately following the date of the last daily distribution accrual that has been paid in full in accordance with Section 3(v), and shall be payable semi-annually in arrears on each Dividend Payment Date (as defined below), commencing on January 15, 2017; provided, however, that if any Dividend Payment Date falls on a date other than a Business Day, then the dividend which would otherwise have been payable on such Dividend Payment Date shall be paid on the first Business Day immediately following such Dividend Payment Date. The amount of any dividend payable on the Series I Preferred Stock for any Dividend Period (as defined below) shall be computed on the basis of a 360-day year consisting of twelve 30-day months. Dividends will be payable to holders of record as they
appear in the stockholder records of the Corporation at the close of business on the applicable Dividend Record Date (as defined below). Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary contained herein, each outstanding share of Series I Preferred Stock shall be entitled to receive a dividend with respect to any Dividend Record Date equal to the dividend paid with respect to each other share of Series I Preferred Stock that is outstanding on such date. Dividend Record Date shall mean the date designated by the Board as the record date for the payment of dividends that is not more than 35 or fewer than 10 days prior to the applicable Dividend Payment Date. Dividend Payment Date shall mean the fifteenth day of each January and July, commencing on January 15, 2017. Dividend Period shall mean the period commencing on, but excluding, a Dividend Payment Date to and including, the next Dividend Payment Date (other than the initial Dividend Period, which shall commence on and include the Original Issue Date and end on, and include, January 15, 2017). The term Business Day shall mean any day, other than a Saturday or Sunday, that is neither a legal holiday nor a day on which banking institutions in New York City are authorized or required by law, regulation or executive order to close. ii. Notwithstanding anything contained herein to the contrary, dividends on the Series I Preferred Stock shall accrue whether or not the Corporation has earnings, whether or not there are funds legally available for the payment of such dividends, and whether or not such dividends are declared. Accrued but unpaid dividends on the Series I Preferred Stock will accumulate as of the Dividend Payment Date on which they first become payable. iii. Except as provided in Section 3(iv) below, from and after January 1, 2017 no dividends shall be declared and paid or declared and set apart for payment, and no other distribution of cash or other property may be declared and made, directly or indirectly, on or with respect to, any shares of Common Stock or shares of any other class or series of capital stock of the Corporation ranking, as to dividends, on parity with or junior to the Series I Preferred Stock (other than a dividend paid in shares of Common Stock or in shares of any other class or series of capital stock ranking junior to the Series I Preferred Stock as to dividends and upon liquidation) for any period, nor shall any shares of Common Stock or any other shares of any other class or series of capital stock of the Corporation ranking, as to dividends or upon
liquidation, on parity with or junior to the Series I Preferred Stock be redeemed, purchased or otherwise acquired for any consideration, nor shall any funds be paid or made available for a sinking fund for the redemption of such shares, and no other distribution of cash or other property may be made, directly or indirectly, on or with respect thereto by the Corporation (except by conversion into or exchange for other shares of any class or series of capital stock of the Corporation ranking junior to the Series I Preferred Stock as to dividends and upon liquidation, by redemption, purchase or acquisition of shares of any class or series of capital stock made for the purposes of and in compliance with requirements of an employee incentive, benefit or share purchase plan of the Corporation or any subsidiary, or by other acquisition of shares made pursuant to the provisions hereof and the purchase or acquisition of shares of any other class or series of capital stock of the Corporation ranking on parity with the Series I Preferred Stock as to payment of dividends and upon liquidation pursuant to a purchase or exchange offer made on the same terms to holders of all outstanding shares of Series I Preferred Stock), unless full cumulative dividends on the Series I Preferred Stock for all past Dividend Periods that have ended shall have been or contemporaneously are (i) declared and paid in cash or (ii) declared and a sum sufficient for the payment thereof in cash is designated for such payment. iv. When dividends are not paid in full (and a sum sufficient for such full payment is not so set apart) on the Series I Preferred Stock and the shares of any other class or series of capital stock ranking, as to dividends, on parity with the Series I Preferred Stock, all dividends declared upon the Series I Preferred Stock and each such other class or series of capital stock ranking, as to dividends, on parity with the Series I Preferred Stock shall be declared pro rata so that the amount of dividends declared per share of Series I Preferred Stock and such other class or series of capital stock shall in all cases bear to each other the same ratio that accrued dividends per share on the Series I Preferred Stock and such other class or series of capital stock (which shall not include any accrual in respect of unpaid dividends on such other class or series of capital stock for prior dividend periods if such other class or series of capital stock does not have a cumulative dividend) bear to each other. No interest, or sum of money in lieu of interest, shall be payable in respect of any dividend payment or payments on the Series I Preferred Stock which may be in arrears.
v. Holders of shares of Series I Preferred Stock shall not be entitled to any dividend, whether payable in cash, property or shares of stock, other than as expressly provided herein. Any dividend payment made on the Series I Preferred Stock shall first be credited against the earliest accrued but unpaid dividends due with respect to such shares which remain payable. 4. Liquidation Preference . Upon any voluntary or involuntary liquidation, dissolution or winding up of the Corporation, before any distribution or payment shall be made to holders of shares of Common Stock or any other class or series of capital stock of the Corporation ranking, as to rights upon any voluntary or involuntary liquidation, dissolution or winding up of the Corporation, junior to the Series I Preferred Stock, the holders of shares of Series I Preferred Stock shall be entitled to be paid out of the assets of the Corporation legally available for distribution to its stockholders, after payment of or provision for the debts and other liabilities of the Corporation, a liquidation preference of $1825.00 per share, plus an amount equal to any accrued and unpaid dividends (whether or not declared) up to, but excluding, the date of payment. In the event that, upon such voluntary or involuntary liquidation, dissolution or winding up, the available assets of the Corporation are insufficient to pay the full amount of the liquidating distributions on all outstanding shares of Series I Preferred Stock and the corresponding amounts payable on all shares of other classes or series of capital stock of the Corporation ranking, as to liquidation rights, on parity with the Series I Preferred Stock in the distribution of assets, then the holders of the Series I Preferred Stock and the holders of shares of each such other class or series of shares of capital stock ranking, as to rights upon any voluntary or involuntary liquidation, dissolution or winding up, on parity with the Series I Preferred Stock shall share ratably in any such distribution of assets in proportion to the full liquidating distributions to which they would otherwise be respectively entitled. Written notice of any such voluntary or involuntary liquidation, dissolution or winding up of the Corporation, stating the payment date or dates when, and the place or places where, the amounts distributable in such circumstances shall be payable, shall be given by first class mail, postage pre-paid, not fewer than 30 days or more than 60 days prior to the payment date stated therein, to each record holder of shares of Series I Preferred Stock at the respective addresses of such holders as the same shall appear on the stock transfer records of the Corporation. After payment of the full amount of the liquidating distributions to which they are entitled, the holders of Series I Preferred Stock will
have no right or claim to any of the remaining assets of the Corporation. For purposes of liquidation rights, the consolidation or merger of the Corporation with or into any other Corporation, trust or entity, or the voluntary sale, lease, transfer or conveyance of all or substantially all of the property or business of the Corporation, shall not be deemed to constitute a liquidation, dissolution or winding up of the Corporation. 5. No Voting Rights . Holders of the Series I Preferred Stock shall not have any voting rights, except as required by applicable law. 6. Conversion . The shares of Series I Preferred Stock shall not be convertible into or exchangeable for any other property or securities of the Corporation or any other entity. 7. Record Holders . The Corporation and its transfer agent may deem and treat the record holder of any Series I Preferred Stock as the true and lawful owner thereof for all purposes, and neither the Corporation nor its transfer agent shall be affected by any notice to the contrary. 8. No Maturity or Sinking Fund . The Series I Preferred Stock has no maturity date, and no sinking fund has been established for the retirement or redemption of Series I Preferred Stock. 9. Exclusion of Other Rights . The Series I Preferred Stock shall not have any preferences or other rights, voting powers, restrictions, limitations as to dividends or other distributions, qualifications or terms or conditions of redemption other than expressly set forth herein. 10. No Preemptive Rights . No holder of shares of Series I Preferred Stock of the Corporation shall be entitled to, as such holder, any preemptive right to purchase or subscribe for or acquire any additional shares of capital stock of the Corporation or any other security of the Corporation convertible into or carrying a right to subscribe to or acquire shares of capital stock of the Corporation.
FIFTH : In furtherance and not in limitation of the powers conferred by the laws of the State of Delaware, the board of directors of the Corporation is expressly authorized to adopt, amend, or repeal the bylaws of the Corporation. SIXTH : Elections of directors need not be by written ballot unless the bylaws of the Corporation shall otherwise provide. SEVENTH : A director of the Corporation shall not be personally liable to the Corporation or its stockholders for monetary damages for breach of fiduciary duty as a director, except for liability (i) for any breach of the directors duty of loyalty to the Corporation or its stockholders, (ii) for acts or omissions not in good faith or which involve intentional misconduct or a knowing violation of law, (iii) under Section 174 of the General Corporation Law of Delaware or (iv) for any transaction from which the director derived an improper personal benefit. If the General Corporation Law of Delaware is amended to authorize corporate action further eliminating or limiting the personal liability of directors, then the liability of a director of the Corporation shall be eliminated or limited to the fullest extent permitted by the General Corporation Law of Delaware, as so amended. The Corporation shall, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, indemnify and advance expenses to each director and officer of the Corporation. The Corporation may indemnify and advance expenses to each employee and agent of the Corporation, and any other person whom the Corporation is authorized to indemnify under the provisions of the General Corporation Law of Delaware, as provided in the bylaws of the Corporation. Any repeal or modification of this Article SEVENTH shall not adversely affect any right or protection of a director, officer, or other agent of the Corporation existing at the time of, or increase the liability of any director, officer or other agent of the Corporation with respect to any acts or omissions of such director, officer or other agent occurring prior to, such amendment, repeal or modification. EIGHTH : The Corporation reserves the right to amend, alter, change, or repeal any provision contained in this Certificate of Incorporation, in the manner now or hereafter prescribed by statute, and all rights conferred herein are granted subject to this reservation.
Exhibit 3.2 BYLAWS OF ROUSE PROPERTIES, INC. Effective as of July 6, 2016 ARTICLE I Offices SECTION 1. Registered Office . The registered office of the Corporation within the State of Delaware shall be c/o Corporation Service Company, 2711 Centerville Road, Suite 400, Wilmington, Delaware, 19808, USA. SECTION 2. Other Offices . The Corporation may also have an office or offices other than said registered office at such place or places, either within or without the State of Delaware, as the Board of Directors shall from time to time determine or the business of the Corporation may require. ARTICLE II Stockholders SECTION 1. Annual Meeting . An annual meeting of the stockholders, for the election of directors to succeed those whose terms expire and for the transaction of such other business as may properly come before the meeting, shall be held at such place, on such date, and at such time as the Board of Directors shall each year fix, which date shall be within thirteen (13) months of the last annual meeting of stockholders or, if no such meeting has been held, the date of incorporation. SECTION 2. Special Meetings . Special meetings of the stockholders, for any purpose or purposes prescribed in the notice of the meeting, may be called by the Board of Directors or the chief executive officer and shall be held at such place, on such date, and at such time as they or he or she shall fix. SECTION 3. Notice of Meetings . Notice of the place, if any, date, and time of all meetings of the stockholders and the means of remote communications, if any, by which stockholders and proxyholders may be deemed to be present in person and vote at such meeting, shall be given, not less than ten (10) nor more than sixty (60) days before the date on which the meeting is to be held, to each stockholder entitled to vote at such meeting, except as otherwise provided herein or required by law (meaning, here and hereinafter, as required from time to time by the Delaware General Corporation Law or the Certificate of Incorporation of the Corporation).
When a meeting is adjourned to another time or place, notice need not be given of communications, if any, by which stockholders and proxyholders may be deemed to be present in person and vote at such adjourned meeting are announced at the meeting at which the adjournment is taken; provided, however, that if the date of any adjourned meeting is more than thirty (30) days after the date for which the meeting was originally noticed, or if a new record date is fixed for the adjourned meeting, notice of the place, if any, date, and time of the adjourned meeting and the means of remote communications, if any, by which stockholders and proxyholders may be deemed to be present in person and vote at such adjourned meeting, shall be given in conformity herewith. At any adjourned meeting, any business may be transacted which might have been transacted at the original meeting. SECTION 4. Quorum . At any meeting of the stockholders, the holders of a majority of all of the shares of the stock entitled to vote at the meeting, present in person or by proxy, shall constitute a quorum for all purposes, unless or except to the extent that the presence of a larger number may be required by law. Where a separate vote by a class or classes or series is required, a majority of the shares of such class or classes or series present in person or represented by proxy shall constitute a quorum entitled to take action with respect to that vote on that matter. If a quorum shall fail to attend any meeting, the chairman of the meeting or the holders of a majority of the shares of stock entitled to vote who are present, in person or by proxy, may adjourn the meeting to another place, if any, date, or time. SECTION 5. Organization . Such person as the Board of Directors may have designated or, in the absence of such a person, the Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation or, in his or her absence, such person as may be chosen by the holders of a majority of the shares entitled to vote who are present, in person or by proxy, shall call to order any meeting of the stockholders and act as chairman of the meeting. In the absence of the Secretary of the Corporation, the secretary of the meeting shall be such person as the chairman of the meeting appoints. SECTION 6. Conduct of Business . The chairman of any meeting of stockholders shall determine the order of business and the procedure at the meeting, including such regulation of the manner of voting and the conduct of discussion as seem to him or her in order. The date and time of the opening and closing of the polls for each matter upon which the stockholders will vote at the meeting shall be announced at the meeting. SECTION 7. Proxies and Voting . At any meeting of the stockholders, every stockholder entitled to vote may vote in person or by proxy authorized by an instrument in writing or by a transmission permitted by law filed in accordance with the procedure established for the meeting. Any copy, facsimile telecommunication or other reliable reproduction of the writing or transmission created pursuant to this paragraph may be substituted or used in lieu of the original writing or transmission for any and all purposes for which the original writing or transmission could be used, provided that such copy, facsimile telecommunication or other reproduction shall be a complete reproduction of the entire original writing or transmission. The Corporation may, and to the extent required by law, shall, in advance of any meeting of stockholders, appoint one or more inspectors to act at the meeting and make a written report thereof. The Corporation may designate one or more alternate inspectors to replace any 2
inspector who fails to act. If no inspector or alternate is able to act at a meeting of stockholders, the person presiding at the meeting may, and to the extent required by law, shall, appoint one or more inspectors to act at the meeting. Each inspector, before entering upon the discharge of his or her duties, shall take and sign an oath faithfully to execute the duties of inspector with strict impartiality and according to the best of his or her ability. Every vote taken by ballots shall be counted by an inspector or inspectors appointed by the chairman of the meeting. All elections shall be determined by a plurality of the votes cast, and except as otherwise required by law, all other matters shall be determined by a majority of the votes cast affirmatively or negatively. SECTION 8. Stock List . A complete list of stockholders entitled to vote at any meeting of stockholders, arranged in alphabetical order for each class of stock and showing the address of each such stockholder and the number of shares registered in his or her name, shall be open to the examination of any such stockholder for a period of at least ten (10) days prior to the meeting in the manner provided by law. The stock list shall also be open to the examination of any stockholder during the whole time of the meeting as provided by law. This list shall presumptively determine the identity of the stockholders entitled to vote at the meeting and the number of shares held by each of them. SECTION 9. Consent of Stockholders in Lieu of Meeting . Any action required to be taken at any annual or special meeting of stockholders of the Corporation, or any action which may be taken at any annual or special meeting of the stockholders, may be taken without a meeting, without prior notice and without a vote, if a consent or consents in writing, setting forth the action so taken, shall be signed by the holders of outstanding stock having not less than the minimum number of votes that would be necessary to authorize or take such action at a meeting at which all shares entitled to vote thereon were present and voted and shall be delivered to the Corporation by delivery to its registered office in Delaware, its principal place of business, or an officer or agent of the Corporation having custody of the book in which proceedings of meetings of stockholders are recorded. Delivery made to the Corporations registered office shall be made by hand or by certified or registered mail, return receipt requested. Every written consent shall bear the date of signature of each stockholder who signs the consent and no written consent shall be effective to take the corporate action referred to therein unless, within sixty (60) days of the date the earliest dated consent is delivered to the Corporation, a written consent or consents signed by a sufficient number of holders to take action are delivered to the Corporation in the manner prescribed in the first paragraph of this Section. A telegram, cablegram or other electronic transmission consenting to an action to be taken and transmitted by a stockholder or proxyholder, or by a person or persons authorized to act for a stockholder or proxyholder, shall be deemed to be written, signed and dated for the purposes of this Section to the extent permitted by law. Any such consent shall be delivered in accordance with Section 228(d)(1) of the Delaware General Corporation Law. Any copy, facsimile or other reliable reproduction of a consent in writing may be substituted or used in lieu of the original writing for any and all purposes for which the original 3
writing could be used, provided that such copy, facsimile or other reproduction shall be a complete reproduction of the entire original writing. ARTICLE III Board of Directors SECTION 1. Number and Term of Office . The number of directors constituting the initial Board of Directors shall be one. Thereafter, the number of directors may be fixed, from time to time, by the affirmative vote of a majority of the entire Board of Directors or by action of the stockholders of the Corporation. Any decrease in the number of directors shall be effective at the time of the next succeeding annual meeting of stockholders unless there shall be vacancies in the Board of Directors, in which case such decrease may become effective at any time prior to the next succeeding annual meeting to the extent of the number of such vacancies. Directors need not be stockholders. Except as otherwise provided by statute or these Bylaws, the directors (other than members of the initial Board of Directors) shall be elected at the annual meeting of stockholders. Each director shall hold office until his successor shall have been elected and qualified, or until his death, or until he shall have resigned, or have been removed, as hereinafter provided in these Bylaws. SECTION 2. Removal . Any director may be removed, either with or without cause, at any time, by the holders of a majority of the voting power of the issued and outstanding capital stock of the Corporation entitled to vote at an election of directors. SECTION 3. Resignation . Any director of the Corporation may resign at any time by giving written notice of his resignation to the Corporation. Any such resignation shall take effect at the time specified therein or, if the time when it shall become effective shall not be specified therein, immediately upon its receipt. Unless otherwise specified therein, the acceptance of such resignation shall not be necessary to make it effective. SECTION 4. Vacancies . Any vacancy in the Board of Directors, whether arising from death, resignation, removal (with or without cause), an increase in the number of directors or any other cause, may be filled by the vote of a majority of the directors then in office, though less than a quorum, or by the sole remaining director or by the stockholders at the next annual meeting thereof or at a special meeting thereof. Each director so elected shall hold office until his successor shall have been elected and qualified. SECTION 5. Regular Meetings . Regular meetings of the Board of times as shall have been established by the Board of Directors and publicized among all directors. A notice of each regular meeting shall not be required. SECTION 6. Special Meetings . Special meetings of the Board of Directors may be called by one-third (1/3) of the directors then in office (rounded up to the nearest whole number) or by the Chief Executive Officer and shall be held at such place, on such date, and at such time as they or he or she shall fix. Notice of the place, date, and time of each such special meeting shall be given to each director by whom it is not waived by mailing written notice not less than five (5) days before the meeting or by telegraphing or telexing or by facsimile or electronic 4
transmission of the same not less than twenty-four (24) hours before the meeting. Unless otherwise indicated in the notice thereof, any and all business may be transacted at a special meeting. SECTION 7. Quorum . At any meeting of the Board of Directors, a majority of the total number of the whole Board of Directors shall constitute a quorum for all purposes. If a quorum shall fail to attend any meeting, a majority of those present may adjourn the meeting to another place, date, or time, without further notice or waiver thereof. SECTION 8. Participation in Meetings By Conference Telephone . Members of the Board of Directors, or of any committee thereof, may participate in a meeting of such Board of Directors or committee by means of conference telephone or other communications equipment by means of which all persons participating in the meeting can hear each other and such participation shall constitute presence in person at such meeting. SECTION 9. Conduct of Business . At any meeting of the Board of Directors, business shall be transacted in such order and manner as the Board of Directors may from time to time determine, and all matters shall be determined by the vote of a majority of the directors present, except as otherwise provided herein or required by law. Action may be taken by the Board of Directors without a meeting if all members thereof consent thereto in writing or by electronic transmission, and the writing or writings or electronic transmission or transmissions are filed with the minutes of proceedings of the Board of Directors. Such filing shall be in paper form if the minutes are maintained in paper form and shall be in electronic form if the minutes are maintained in electronic form. SECTION 10. Compensation of Directors . Directors, as such, may receive, pursuant to resolution of the Board of Directors, fixed fees and other compensation for their services as directors, including, without limitation, their services as members of committees of the Board of Directors. ARTICLE IV Committees SECTION 1. Committees of the Board of Directors . The Board of Directors may from time to time designate committees of the Board of Directors, with such lawfully delegable powers and duties as it thereby confers, to serve at the pleasure of the Board of Directors and shall, for those committees and any others provided for herein, elect a director or directors to serve as the member or members, designating, if it desires, other directors as alternate members who may replace any absent or disqualified member at any meeting of the committee. In the absence or disqualification of any member of any committee and any alternate member in his or her place, the member or members of the committee present at the meeting and not disqualified from voting, whether or not he or she or they constitute a quorum, may by unanimous vote appoint another member of the Board of Directors to act at the meeting in the place of the absent or disqualified member. 5
SECTION 2. Conduct of Business . Each committee may determine the procedural rules for meeting and conducting its business and shall act in accordance therewith, except as otherwise provided herein or required by law. Adequate provision shall be made for notice to members of all meetings; one-third (1/3) of the members shall constitute a quorum unless the committee shall consist of one (1) or two (2) members, in which event one (1) member shall constitute a quorum; and all matters shall be determined by a majority vote of the members present. Action may be taken by any committee without a meeting if all members thereof consent thereto in writing or by electronic transmission, and the writing or writings or electronic transmission or transmissions are filed with the minutes of the proceedings of such committee. Such filing shall be in paper form if the minutes are maintained in paper form and shall be in electronic form if the minutes are maintained in electronic form. ARTICLE V Officers SECTION 1. Generally . The officers of the Corporation shall consist of one or more Chief Executive Officers (who, if there is more than one, shall be referred to as Co-Chief Executive Officers), a Treasurer, a Secretary (who, if there is more than one, shall be referred to as Co-Secretaries), and such other officers, including, without limitation, a Chief Executive Officer and one or more Vice Presidents (including Executive Vice Presidents or Senior Vice Presidents), Assistant Vice Presidents, Assistant Treasurers and Assistant Secretaries, as the Board of Directors may determine. Officers shall be elected by the Board of Directors, which shall consider that subject at its first meeting after every annual meeting of stockholders. Each officer shall hold office until his or her successor is elected and qualified or until his or her earlier resignation or removal. Any number of offices may be held by the same person. SECTION 2. Chief Executive Officers . The Chief Executive Officers shall, subject to the direction of the Board of Directors, each have general supervision and control of the Corporations business and any action that would typically be taken by a Chief Executive Officer may be taken by any Co-Chief Executive Officer. If there is no Chairman of the Board or Vice Chairman of the Board, a Chief Executive Officer shall preside, when present, at all meetings of stockholders and the Board of Directors. The Chief Executive Officers shall have such other powers and shall perform such duties as the Board of Directors may from time to time designate. SECTION 3. Vice Presidents and Assistant Vice Presidents . Any Vice President (including any Executive Vice President or Senior Vice President) and any Assistant Vice President shall have such powers and shall perform such duties as the Board of Directors may from time to time designate. SECTION 4. Treasurer and Assistant Treasurers . The Treasurer shall, subject to the direction of the Board of Directors, have general charge of the financial affairs of the Corporation and shall cause to be kept accurate books of account. The Treasurer shall have custody of all funds, securities, and valuable documents of the Corporation, except as the Board of Directors may otherwise provide. The Treasurer shall have such other powers and shall perform such duties as the Board of Directors may from time to time designate. Any Assistant 6
Treasurer shall have such powers and perform such duties as the Board of Directors may from time to time designate. SECTION 5. Secretary and Assistant Secretaries . The Secretary shall record the proceedings of all meetings of the stockholders and the Board of Directors (including committees of the Board of Directors) in books kept for that purpose. In the absence of the Secretary from any such meeting an Assistant Secretary, or if such person is absent, a temporary secretary chosen at the meeting, shall record the proceedings thereof. The Secretary shall have charge of the stock ledger (which may, however, be kept by any transfer or other agent of the Corporation) and shall have such other duties and powers as may be designated from time to time by the Board of Directors. Any Assistant Secretary shall have such powers and perform such duties as the Board of Directors may from time to time designate. SECTION 6. Delegation of Authority . The Board of Directors may from time to time delegate the powers or duties of any officer to any other officers or agents, notwithstanding any provision hereof. SECTION 7. Removal . Any officer of the Corporation may be removed at any time, with or without cause, by the Board of Directors. SECTION 8. Action with Respect to Securities of Other Corporations . Unless otherwise directed by the Board of Directors, the Chief Executive Officer or any officer of the Corporation authorized by the Chief Executive Officer shall have power to vote and otherwise act on behalf of the Corporation, in person or by proxy, at any meeting of stockholders of or with respect to any action of stockholders of any other corporation in which this Corporation may hold securities and otherwise to exercise any and all rights and powers which this Corporation may possess by reason of its ownership of securities in such other corporation. ARTICLE VI Stock SECTION 1. Certificates of Stock . Each holder of stock represented by certificates shall be entitled to a certificate signed by, or in the name of the Corporation by, the Chief Executive Officer or a Vice President, and by the Secretary or an Assistant Secretary, or the Treasurer or an Assistant Treasurer, certifying the number of shares owned by him or her. Any or all of the signatures on the certificate may be by facsimile. SECTION 2. Transfers of Stock . Transfers of stock shall be made only upon the transfer books of the Corporation kept at an office of the Corporation or by transfer agents designated to transfer shares of the stock of the Corporation. Except where a certificate is issued in accordance with Section 4 of Article VI of these Bylaws, an outstanding certificate, if one has been issued, for the number of shares involved shall be surrendered for cancellation before a new certificate, if any, is issued therefor. SECTION 3. Record Date . In order that the Corporation may determine the stockholders entitled to notice of or to vote at any meeting of stockholders, or to receive payment of any dividend or other distribution or allotment of any rights or to exercise any rights in respect 7
of any change, conversion or exchange of stock or for the purpose of any other lawful action, the Board of Directors may fix a record date, which record date shall not precede the date on which the resolution fixing the record date is adopted and which record date shall not be more than sixty (60) nor less than ten (10) days before the date of any meeting of stockholders, nor more than sixty (60) days prior to the time for such other action as hereinbefore described; provided, however, that if no record date is fixed by the Board of Directors, the record date for determining stockholders entitled to notice of or to vote at a meeting of stockholders shall be at the close of business on the day next preceding the day on which notice is given or, if notice is waived, at the close of business on the day next preceding the day on which the meeting is held, and, for determining stockholders entitled to receive payment of any dividend or other distribution or allotment of rights or to exercise any rights of change, conversion or exchange of stock or for any other purpose, the record date shall be at the close of business on the day on which the Board of Directors adopts a resolution relating thereto. A determination of stockholders of record entitled to notice of or to vote at a meeting of stockholders shall apply to any adjournment of the meeting; provided, however, that the Board of Directors may fix a new record date for the adjourned meeting. In order that the Corporation may determine the stockholders entitled to consent to corporate action without a meeting, (including by telegram, cablegram or other electronic transmission as permitted by law), the Board of Directors may fix a record date, which shall not precede the date upon which the resolution fixing the record date is adopted by the Board of Directors, and which record date shall be not more than ten (10) days after the date upon which the resolution fixing the record date is adopted. If no record date has been fixed by the Board of Directors and no prior action by the Board of Directors is required by the Delaware General Corporation Law, the record date shall be the first date on which a consent setting forth the action taken or proposed to be taken is delivered to the Corporation in the manner prescribed by Article II, Section 9 hereof. If no record date has been fixed by the Board of Directors and prior action by the Board of Directors is required by the Delaware General Corporation Law with respect to the proposed action by consent of the stockholders without a meeting, the record date for determining stockholders entitled to consent to corporate action without a meeting shall be at the close of business on the day on which the Board of Directors adopts the resolution taking such prior action. SECTION 4. Lost, Stolen or Destroyed Certificates . In the event of the loss, theft or destruction of any certificate of stock, another may be issued in its place pursuant to such regulations as the Board of Directors may establish concerning proof of such loss, theft or destruction and concerning the giving of a satisfactory bond or bonds of indemnity. SECTION 5. Regulations . The issue, transfer, conversion and registration of certificates of stock shall be governed by such other regulations as the Board of Directors may establish. 8
ARTICLE VII Notices SECTION 1. Notices . If mailed, notice to stockholders shall be deemed given when deposited in the mail, postage prepaid, directed to the stockholder at such stockholders address as it appears on the records of the Corporation. Without limiting the manner by which notice otherwise may be given effectively to stockholders, any notice to stockholders may be given by electronic transmission in the manner provided in Section 232 of the Delaware General Corporation Law. SECTION 2. Waivers . A written waiver of any notice, signed by a stockholder or director, or waiver by electronic transmission by such person, whether given before or after the time of the event for which notice is to be given, shall be deemed equivalent to the notice required to be given to such person. Neither the business nor the purpose of any meeting need be specified in such a waiver. ARTICLE VIII Miscellaneous SECTION 1. Facsimile Signatures . In addition to the provisions for use of facsimile signatures elsewhere specifically authorized in these Bylaws, facsimile signatures of any officer or officers of the Corporation may be used whenever and as authorized by the Board of Directors or a committee thereof. SECTION 2. Corporate Seal . The Board of Directors may provide a suitable seal, containing the name of the Corporation, which seal shall be in the charge of the Secretary. If and when so directed by the Board of Directors or a committee thereof, duplicates of the seal may be kept and used by the Treasurer or by an Assistant Secretary or Assistant Treasurer. SECTION 3. Reliance upon Books, Reports and Records . Each director, the Corporation shall, in the performance of his or her duties, be fully protected in relying in good faith upon the books of account or other records of the Corporation and upon such information, opinions, reports or statements presented to the Corporation by any of its officers or employees, or committees of the Board of Directors so designated, or by any other person as to matters which such director or committee member reasonably believes are within such other persons professional or expert competence and who has been selected with reasonable care by or on behalf of the Corporation. SECTION 4. Fiscal Year . The fiscal year of the Corporation shall be as fixed by the Board of Directors. SECTION 5. Time Periods . In applying any provision of these Bylaws which requires that an act be done or not be done a specified number of days prior to an event or that an act be done during a period of a specified number of days prior to an event, calendar days shall be used, the day of the doing of the act shall be excluded, and the day of the event shall be included. 9
ARTICLE IX Indemnification of Directors and Officers SECTION 1. Right to Indemnification . Each person who was or is made a party or is threatened to be made a party to or is otherwise involved in any action, suit or proceeding, including, without limitation, the investigation, preparation, prosecution, defense, settlement, arbitration and appeal of, and the giving of testimony, whether civil, criminal, administrative or investigative (hereinafter a proceeding), by reason of the fact that he or she is or was a director or an officer of the Corporation or is or was serving at the request of the Corporation as a director, officer, or trustee of another corporation or of a partnership, joint venture, trust or other enterprise, including service with respect to an employee benefit plan (hereinafter an indemnitee), whether the basis of such proceeding is alleged action in an official capacity as a director, officer or trustee, or in any other capacity while serving as a director, officer or trustee, shall be indemnified and held harmless by the Corporation to the fullest extent permitted by Delaware law, as the same exists or may hereafter be amended (but, in the case of any such amendment, only to the extent that such amendment permits the Corporation to provide broader indemnification rights than such law permitted the Corporation to provide prior to such amendment), against all expense, liability and loss (including, without limitation, court costs, attorneys fees, witness fees, judgments, fines, ERISA excise taxes or penalties and amounts paid in settlement) reasonably incurred or suffered by such indemnitee in connection therewith; provided, however, that, except as provided in Section 3 of this ARTICLE IX with respect to proceedings to enforce rights to indemnification, the Corporation shall indemnify any such indemnitee in connection with a proceeding (or part thereof) initiated by such indemnitee only if such proceeding (or part thereof) was authorized by the Board of Directors of the Corporation. SECTION 2. Right to Advancement of Expenses . In addition to the right have the right to be paid by the Corporation the expenses (including attorneys fees) incurred in defending any such proceeding in advance of its final disposition (hereinafter an advancement of expenses); provided, however, that, if the Delaware General Corporation Law requires, an advancement of expenses incurred by an indemnitee in his or her capacity as a director or officer (and not in any other capacity in which service was or is rendered by such indemnitee, including, without limitation, service to an employee benefit plan) shall be made only upon delivery to the Corporation of an undertaking (hereinafter an undertaking), by or on behalf of such indemnitee, to repay all amounts so advanced if it shall ultimately be determined by final judicial decision from which there is no further right to appeal (hereinafter a final adjudication) that such indemnitee is not entitled to be indemnified for such expenses under this Section 2 or otherwise. SECTION 3. Right of Indemnitee to Bring Suit . If a claim under Section 1 or 2 of this ARTICLE IX is not paid in full by the Corporation within sixty (60) days after a written claim has been received by the Corporation, except in the case of a claim for an advancement of expenses, in which case the applicable period shall be twenty (20) days, the indemnitee may at any time thereafter bring suit against the Corporation to recover the unpaid amount of the claim. If successful in whole or in part in any such suit, or in a suit brought by the Corporation to recover an advancement of expenses pursuant to the terms of an undertaking, the indemnitee shall be entitled to be paid also the expense of prosecuting or defending such suit. In (i) any suit 10
brought by the indemnitee to enforce a right to indemnification hereunder (but not in a suit brought by the indemnitee to enforce a right to an advancement of expenses) it shall be a defense that, and (ii) in any suit brought by the Corporation to recover an advancement of expenses pursuant to the terms of an undertaking, the Corporation shall be entitled to recover such expenses upon a final adjudication that, the indemnitee has not met any applicable standard for indemnification set forth in the Delaware General Corporation Law. Neither the failure of the Corporation (including its directors who are not parties to such action, a committee of such directors, independent legal counsel, or its stockholders) to have made a determination prior to the commencement of such suit that indemnification of the indemnitee is proper in the circumstances because the indemnitee has met the applicable standard of conduct set forth in the Delaware General Corporation Law, nor an actual determination by the Corporation (including its directors who are not parties to such action, a committee of such directors, independent legal counsel, or its stockholders) that the indemnitee has not met such applicable standard of conduct, shall create a presumption that the indemnitee has not met the applicable standard of conduct or, in the case of such a suit brought by the indemnitee, be a defense to such suit. In any suit brought by the indemnitee to enforce a right to indemnification or to an advancement of expenses hereunder, or brought by the Corporation to recover an advancement of expenses pursuant to the terms of an undertaking, the burden of proving that the indemnitee is not entitled to be indemnified, or to such advancement of expenses, under this ARTICLE IX or otherwise shall be on the Corporation. SECTION 4. Non-Exclusivity of Rights . The rights to indemnification and to the advancement of expenses conferred in this ARTICLE IX shall not be exclusive of any other right which any person may have or hereafter acquire under any statute, the Corporations Certificate of Incorporation, Bylaws, agreement, vote of stockholders or disinterested directors or otherwise. The Corporation is specifically authorized to enter into individual contracts with any or all of its directors, officers, employees or agents respecting indemnification and advances, to the fullest extent not prohibited by the Delaware General Corporation Law or any other applicable law. SECTION 5. Insurance . The Corporation may maintain insurance, at its expense, to protect itself and any director, officer, employee or agent of the Corporation or another corporation, partnership, joint venture, trust or other enterprise against any expense, liability or loss, whether or not the Corporation would have the power to indemnify such person against such expense, liability or loss under the Delaware General Corporation Law. SECTION 6. Indemnification of Employees and Agents of the Corporation . The Corporation may, to the extent authorized from time to time by the Board of Directors, grant rights to indemnification and to the advancement of expenses to any employee or agent of the Corporation to the fullest extent of the provisions of this Article with respect to the indemnification and advancement of expenses of directors and officers of the Corporation. SECTION 7. Nature of Rights . The rights conferred upon indemnitees in this ARTICLE IX shall be contract rights and such rights shall continue as to an indemnitee who has ceased to be a director, officer or trustee and shall inure to the benefit of the indemnitees heirs, executors and administrators. Any amendment, alteration or repeal of this ARTICLE IX that adversely affects any right of an indemnitee or its successors shall be prospective only and shall not limit or eliminate any such right with respect to any proceeding involving any occurrence or 11
alleged occurrence of any action or omission to act that took place prior to such amendment, alteration or repeal. SECTION 8. Saving Clause . If this ARTICLE IX or any portion hereof shall be invalidated on any ground by any court of competent jurisdiction, then the Corporation shall nevertheless indemnify each director and officer to the full extent not prohibited by any applicable portion of this ARTICLE IX that shall not have been invalidated, or by any other applicable law. If this ARTICLE IX shall be invalid due to the application of the indemnification provisions of another jurisdiction, then the Corporation shall indemnify each director and officer to the full extent under applicable law. ARTICLE X Amendments These Bylaws may be amended or repealed by the Board of Directors at any meeting or by the stockholders at any meeting. 12
We've got a lot to be proud of as New Zealanders, so it's important to celebrate the things that make us unique on the world stage.
We have our beautiful scenery, native flora and fauna, and a rugby team that hardly ever loses. But there's one cultural aspect that we possess right here that you can't find anywhere else.
The Maori language is an essential part of who we are, whether you can fully fluent or can barely say 'kia ora'. Chances are you come across it on a daily basis or grew up in a town with a Te Reo place name.
Looking around any city you'll see it on signs and other official documents, as it should be as an official language of this country.
As someone who identifies as Maori, I feel more than a wee bit embarrassed about the fact that I have little knowledge of how to speak or read it myself. It's not because I wasn't given the opportunities, it simply wasn't on my radar growing up.
However, since I was a kid there has been a definite shift in attitudes to get pronunciation right - you can hear it on the news and through other official channels. Of course, many people have grown up hearing the incorrect pronunciation of these places, so it's only natural for them to keep on with that habit
Getting it right is really important. Language is the most effective way of preserving a culture, so getting it right now means children can grow up learning the place names you'll never find anywhere else. There's an Auckland in England, a Hamilton in Canada, but you won't find a Whanganui or Taupo anywhere else in the world.
Te Reo is a wonderful introductory language for children as well, as the phonetic structure is relatively easy to learn. This interest in bilingualism will go a long way to furthering their development in language; you only need to look to Europe to see how widespread that skill is. Most educated Europeans are well versed in another language, often English, so the habit of learning another tongue aids them in their travels.
As well as in school, there are many Maori language courses in most communities for people of all ages. It's a great way to come together and be a part of New Zealand's own unique culture and cross paths with other members of your community that you might otherwise never meet.
It also means you can confidently represent the unique Maori culture we have wherever you go, whether it's the other side of the world or just down to the dairy.
Where to go to learn Te Reo Maori
* Download posters, matching cards & colouring pages of food and supermarket items in Maori from the SuperValue and FreshChoice websites.
* Ask on Neighbourly.co.nz for others to learn the language with or for info on community classes
* Tune in to language learning show Toku Reo on Maori Television (or watch online!)
* Visit the Maori Language Commission website
* Head to http://www.maorilanguage.net/ - we love their 50 words every New Zealander should know
* The Maori Language Dictionary: http://maoridictionary.co.nz/
* Check out the National Library of New Zealand Services for Schools website for more!
The vigil in Mission Bay remembered those lost in the weekend's suicide truck bombing in Baghdad.
About 1000 people gathered in Auckland to remember the victims of the deadliest single attack in Baghdad in years.
A suicide truck bomb blasted through the Karrada neighbourhood's busy shopping district over the weekend, killing 245 people and wounding nearly 200.
Members of Auckland's Iraqi community chanted songs, shared stories and lit candles for the dead in the vigil centred around the fountain at Mission Bay on Wednesday evening.
SUPPLIED About 1000 people gathered at the fountain in Auckland's Mission Bay.
Event co-organiser Khaled Alzawada said he hoped to see New Zealand stand behind victims of all terrorist attacks regardless of their ethnicity, religion or culture.
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He said there should be no bias and people should not be selective in their support for victims of terrorism.
KHALID AL-MOUSILY/REUTERS The blast killed 245 people and wounded nearly 200.
"The vigil is to commemorate the victims of Iraq, proving that us Kiwis will condemn any acts of violence on humanity regardless of race, religion, or culture differences.
"What we need to understand here is that these acts of violence are cowardly ... and used to divide us," Alzawada said.
"Every Iraqi in or outside the region all have one common intention and that is - to live in peace."
Iraqis of all backgrounds were united against Islamic State and people of Islamic, Christian and other faiths would be present at the vigil, he said.
Among the crowd, self prescribed Iraqi-Kiwi Mohammed Al-Mukhtar said it was a beautiful turnout.
"We all stand here in solidarity to pay our respects our sisters and brothers who lost their lives in this in ongoing war.
"This is a representation of the 28,000 Iraqi Kiwis living in New Zealand and we're unified in denouncing this act of terror and at the root of it all, we're here to say Iraqi blood is worth more than oil."
The Sky Tower was also lit in the main colours of the Iraqi flag - red, white and black - on Wednesday night.
SkyCity Auckland acting general manager Matt Ballesty said it was a sign of support for the Iraqi community which had been "deeply impacted" by the bombing.
"This is a small way that we can express our love and solidarity for this community.
"The Sky Tower can never reflect all the disasters or all the tragedy in the world, nor all the celebrations. But we do our best to help mark key moments in time that the public wish to show their support for and we are pleased to be lighting it this evening whilst the vigil is taking place."
The vigil began at the Mission Bay fountain at 7.30pm.
Donations were being collected for the Red Cross Iraq Crisis Appeal.
How do you rate the call of the kiwi?
Central Wellington residents could soon be waking up to the shriek of kiwi.
Mayoral candidate Justin Lester has pledged to bring the national bird back to the capital's reserves, including Polhill reserve, which borders the suburbs of Highbury, Aro Valley and Brooklyn.
Fellow mayoral candidate Jo Coughlan has also revealed plans to make the Town Belt pest-free within a decade if she ends up wearing the mayoral robes after October's election.
PETER DRURY/FAIRFAX NZ Wellington mayoral candidates are talking about bringing kiwi back to live in central Wellington.
Lester said he saw no issues with introducing nocturnal kiwi which have a call akin to a high-pitched whistle or deep throaty cry in suburbia.
"I would love to be woken up by the sound of the kiwi. If that is the worst problem we have got, I think we are doing pretty well."
Lester said that, if elected, he would put plans in place to make Wellington a pest-free city that could be home to the brown kiwi within seven years.
KRIS DANDO/FAIRFAX NZ Mayoral candidate Justin Lester reckons kiwi could survive in central Wellington reserves.
He insisted it would not lead to restrictions on pet ownership.
Nearby residents would be asked to be "responsible" owners, and keep dogs on leads, or cats inside overnight, he said.
The Zealandia sanctuary in the suburb of Karori currently has kiwi inside its predator-proof fences, but there are no kiwi elsewhere in central Wellington.
CAMERON BURNELL/FAIRFAX NZ Jo Coughlan also wants to make Wellington pest-free.
Lester saw no need to predator-proof the areas where the initial introduction of kiwi would be, pointing out places such as Polhill Gully and Makara Peak already had sophisticated trapping programmes, creating a "virtual fence".
While some minimal council resources and money would be needed, he did not see the cost being large.
The Department of Conservation says brown kiwi have a "national vulnerable" threat status with a nationwide population of 25,000.
Halo Project spokesman Geoff Simmons said pests had already been brought under control in Polhill Reserve, where saddleback birds were living successfully, so Lester's plan was achievable.
Coughlan said that, if elected, she would work with DOC, the regional council, and other organisations to implement a pest eradication programme, involving trapping, with a view to making the Town Belt pest-free within a decade of launch.
"Rats, stoats, possums and feral cats would be key targets," she said. "It's time for these destructive pests to go."
WHAT THE CANDIDATES THINK:
Celia Wade-Brown: Says introducing kiwi is a nice idea, but they would be doomed to an untimely death unless dogs were excluded from wider urban areas than currently suggested.
Keith Johnson: Unsure if kiwi were suited to the central city, but likes the idea of them there. Believes making Wellington pest-free is possible, but a barrier would be needed along SH1.
Nick Leggett: Open to any idea, no matter how left-field, if it brings new energy to the city, but says the capital's residents are more interested in getting the basics right, not gimmicky promises.
Nicola Young: Says Lester's kiwi plan is a is a "bird-brained idea" and shows he is out of touch with Wellingtonians' big concerns, like "rocketing" rates bills. "First he wanted pandas, now it's kiwi; will moa be next?"
The man had a history of abusing his partner.
A man has been disqualified from driving after an "outrageous and unnecessary" police chase in Marlborough, where he was the one pursuing the patrol car.
The man, who cannot be named, got in his car and chased police along a state highway for about 40 kilometres before being stopped on April 14.
A summary of facts said the man verbally abused officers after they told him he was not allowed to drive.
The officers tried to explain the suspension notice and its consequences but the man continued to verbally abuse them, telling them to leave the property.
The man got close enough to one officer that saliva hit the officer in the face as he was yelled at.
One officer pulled out pepper spray and told the man to back away, but he continued to advance on police and threatened to kill them.
"You have five seconds before I get my truck and run you over," the man said.
Police decided to leave and wait for back-up to arrive.
They drove towards Blenheim, and stopped on the side of the road a few kilometres away from the man's house to make notes and contact their supervisor.
They noticed the man's car driving towards them at speed, braking heavily and stopping beside the patrol car.
He got out and walked around the front of the police car, still shouting abuse. He had taken off his shirt.
The officers drove around him and continued along the road, calling for back-up.
The man caught up with them, flashed his lights and tried to overtake them.
The officers were concerned about his intentions and accelerated to 120kmh, flashing their lights, with the man close behind them.
The man overtook the patrol car and braked heavily on the centre line.
The patrol car swerved onto the other side of the road and onto the shingle verge to avoid crashing.
They carried on towards Blenheim with the man still in pursuit, until he was stopped near Centre Valley Rd.
In explanation, the man said he just wanted to speak to the officers.
His lawyer Nick McKessar said the man claimed the suspension was a mistake and the pursuit would not have happened if the mistake had not been made.
The New Zealand Transport Agency required a medical certificate to renew Class 2 to Class 5 licences for heavy vehicles.
The agency had not yet conceded the licence suspension was in error, McKessar said, but lifting the man's interim name suppression would forever link the charges to him even if he was found fit to drive.
Judge David Ruth said the chase was "outrageous and unnecessary".
The man had a history of charges such as refusing to give details to police, which suggested he had an "anti-authoritarian perspective", Judge Ruth said.
He was convicted and fined $300 for threatening behaviour, $400 for dangerous driving, and disqualified from driving for six months, which was backdated to the date he was served with the licence suspension.
He was granted final name suppression.
This story has been updated from the original version.
Russell John Tully claimed he wasn't fit to stand trial, but was sentenced to a minimum of 27 years.
The Ministry of Social Development did not assess the risk to staff from shooter Russell Tully, despite staff concerns about his behaviour before the day of the murders.
Former police officer, now investigator with Corporate Risks Ltd, Russell Joseph looked at the fatal shooting in the Ashburton Work and Income office and reviewed other reports.
"There was no process in place despite concerns of staff. MSD did not put anything in place to assess the risk to staff from Tully," he told a Judge Jan-Marie Doogue in Wellington District Court on Wednesday.
DAVID WHITE/FAIRFAX NZ Safety expert Roger Kahler believes bulletproof glass in Work and Income offices might deter a gunman.
Joseph said Tully carrying a gun was irrelevant as the office did not cater to any level of security threat.
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"It had no level of security in place."
DEAN KOZANIC/FAIRFAX NZ The sentencing of Russell John Tully in the Christchurch High Court.
The Ministry of Social Development pleaded guilty to a charge of failing to keep their staff safe, but is disputing that the open-plan design of their offices should have been altered.
Tully was found guilty of the murders of Susan Leigh Cleveland and Peggy Turuhira Noble and attempted murder of Kim Elizabeth Adams, receiving life imprisonment with a minimum of 27 years. He is appealing his convictions and sentence.
Tully entered the Ashburton office at 9.51am on September 1, 2014, and fired at Noble, who was on the reception desk, killing her almost instantly.
He then fired at Adams as she fled to a back room. She told the jury of feeling a "swish go past my face really close".
He found Lindy Curtis hiding under a desk with a client, and fired at her. As he fired, she lifted her leg and was hit in the thigh.
Tully then moved to the back of the building where he saw another of his specific targets, Cleveland. She was the staff member he was most dissatisfied with. He shot her three times, killing her.
Joseph said a controlled entry, with or without bulletproof glass, would have given time for the alarm to be raised and staff to get to safety.
He criticised a security report from 2012 he said was flawed because MSD had already indicated they would not look at changing their open-plan office design.
MSD had a trusting relationship with clients and wanted a layout that encouraged workflow and that clients could access the service to help them to become independent.
Joseph said he strongly disagreed with that philosophy.
"It places the needs of the client ahead of the security of their staff. A properly-designed workplace does not inhibit workflow or inhibit collaboration, instead it fosters interaction with staff."
He said he noted that since the shooting MSD have moved to controlled entry now and as far as he was aware it had not impacted on their ability to do their job.
Work and Income offices needed bulletproof glass between their clients and staff, an international safety expert told the court.
Roger Kahler from Australian company InterSafe, which looks at risks and reports on accidents, has been explaining a report he wrote about how the open plan layout played a part in Tully's shooting spree.
Lawyer for the ministry Brent Stanaway read out part of a statement from chief executive Brendan Boyle that said the ministry considered the open-plan office was an effective design to manage the risks of violent clients given the high volume of business.
But Kahler disagreed.
"I don't think it's the appropriate decision to have total, free unrestricted access to the office."
Stanaway then asked what the likelihood was of people being killed in this situation by a lone gunman.
Kahler said it was very low for any Work and Income office in New Zealand.
To Worksafe prosecutor Dale La Hood, Kahler said bulletproof glass could have a deterrent effect.
The hearing is expected to take a week.
In all, police restrained $1.7 million worth of assets in the bust.
A Wellington builder could face life behind bars after police netted a $1.7 million bounty in a methamphetamine sting.
The man, 42, was granted interim name suppression when he appeared before Judge Bill Hastings in the Wellington District Court this morning facing representative charges relating to the possession and supply of the Class A drug earlier this year.
The maximum penalty is life in prison.
Police have restrained about $1.7 million in houses, vehicles and bank accounts after arresting the man early on Thursday morning.
The National Organised Crime Group detectives' work has exposed what they say is a methamphetamine supply ring in the capital.
Detective Senior Sergeant Nick Pritchard said police entered his property in central Wellington at 6:30am.
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A woman had already appeared in court last month charged with three representative charges of supplying methamphetamine, one charge of possession of the drug for for supply, as well as cannabis supply charges.
"The two offenders are linked in a methamphetamine supply network throughout the Wellington area," Pritchard said.
"Today's arrest is the result of detailed work to identify these methamphetamine dealers. It's a great success and a message to drug criminals that police won't tolerate them making money out of drug users and harming the community.
"It is possible to get free of this drug, and get you and your families' lives back on track."
The police asset recovery unit restrained more than $1 million of property belonging to the suspect on Thursday, police said.
Restraining assets mean they are frozen while the suspects face charges and can be forfeited by them if it's proven or admitted they are sourced from drugs money, then they are seized for the Crown's coffers upon a conviction.
The assets restrained included two houses, two vehicles and bank accounts totalling $105,000 allegedly gained through drug crime.
They also restrained a house belonging to the woman who was charged last month.
Judge Hastings granted the man bail under strict conditions that included banning him from leaving NZ, ordered him not to transfer cash into overseas accounts or sell assets without permission, and to reside at a Wellington address.
He was also ordered not to contact his co-accused.
Police did not oppose bail or interim name suppression, granted as the man's family were yet to be notified.
The judge ordered the man to reappear in court later this month.
Otatara resident Brent Fraser with his bogged lawn mower which the council refused to tow out.
Twice Brent Fraser's lawnmower got stuck in the boggy grass berm and twice the council towed him out.
The third time they didn't.
"[They] said 'no, we're not going to tow you again, you've got stuck twice before'," Fraser said.
Invercargill City Council chief executive Richard King's response: "A bit of common sense goes a long way."
Berms are property of the council, and Brent Fraser, of Otatara, works to keep the one in front of his property tidy.
The former TVNZ reporter's berm had a drainage problem, which Fraser said council staff planned to fix last year but never did.
"It started flooding and the water wasn't dissipating at all."
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After he got stuck the third time and was refused help, Fraser said to staff: "Well actually, it's your property and this has caused my mower to get bogged."
King said Fraser appeared to be the only resident on the street with the drainage issue.
The council would have a look at the drainage, which was "relatively new" as it was established in 1995.
King suggested since this was the third time Fraser had become stuck, perhaps the mower was not suitable.
"A bit of common sense goes a long way. Driving through the boggy berms, you've got to be careful."
King said he suggested Fraser buy a weed-eater or push-mower.
Fraser said King called him on Tuesday morning and said he should buy a new mower.
Fraser disagreed with King's suggestion he buy a weed-eater or a push-mower. The $17,000 mower he owned was the best money could buy, he said.
King's suggestion "felt like bullying tactics", he said.
"I thought 'my god, what kind of council is this'. I mean it's not a dictatorship," Fraser said.
Fraser said he had to leave the mower on the berm outside his property overnight because he could not move it.
He called his insurance provider because he feared it could be stolen.
Fraser's neighbour helped him to move the mower the next day.
* Comments on this story are now closed.
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July 3, 1963, is a date which will go down in New Zealand aviation infamy it was the day New Zealands worst internal civil aviation accident took place. Its also a day that appears to have slipped by with only a handful of people observing it.
Grayson Ottaway contacted SunLive, Sunday night to mention the anniversary of the fateful day, when 23 passengers and crew lost their lives after National Airways Flight 441 - a Dakota DC-3 (ZK-AYZ) - slammed into the Kaimai Range near Gordon.
Te reo Maori should become compulsory in New Zealand, says Maori broadcaster Willie Jackson.
His comment comes after statistics show the proportion of Maori able to hold an everyday conversation in te reo Maori has decreased over the last 17 years.
Mike Bush has been reappointed as the Commissioner of Police, Police says Minister Judith Collins today.
She says Mike is a highly respected leader who has achieved a lot during his term as Police Commissioner and she is pleased he will continue leading the men and women who work to keep the communities safe.
His focus will be on modernising the police workforce, and building a more open and inclusive culture to deliver a world class police force that better reflects the communities they serve.
Mike has been a police officer since 1978. He has previously been the Deputy Commissioner Operations and the District Commander for Counties Manukau.
From 2003 to 2007, Mike was the New Zealand Police South East Asia Liaison Officer, based in Bangkok, where he was the first New Zealand official to reach devastated Phuket after the 2004 Asian tsunami. He was awarded the MNZM for his achievements in this operation.
He was initially appointed for three years on April 3, 2014. He has been re-appointed for a further three years from the end of his current term. Mikes appointment as Police Commissioner now expires on April 2, 2020.
The Police Commissioner is appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, under the Policing Act 2008. The reappointment process has been run by the State Services Commission with oversight from the Minister of Police.
Source: Judith Collins office.
This Saturday will see one person $40 million richer after the prize pool jackpotted again last night.
Powerball was at $34 million for Wednesday nights draw but now rolls over to $40 million after no one won it.
Corrections Minister Judith Collins will discuss issues of common interest with her Australian counterparts in Wellington this week.
Ms Collins will attend the Corrective Services Ministers Conference, which is being hosted by New Zealand on July 7-8.
The Conference brings together all Australian state, territory, and New Zealand ministers responsible for correctional services.
"These meetings will be a valuable opportunity to focus on corrections issues faced by governments on both sides of the Tasman and discuss developments in the management of offenders," says Judith.
As Ministers, we represent some of the worlds leading corrections systems. Each of us is committed to maintaining public safety and holding offenders to account, while providing opportunities for offenders to turn their lives around. In these objectives we face common challenges, and share common opportunities.
An issue of particular importance to New Zealand is the management of offenders returning from Australia. At last years conference, a memorandum of cooperation was signed by ministers to support effective information sharing, and jurisdictions continue to work closely together to manage and support these offenders.
Source: Office of Judith Collins.
Volunteers for the SVE in Malaga. :: NURIA FAZ
Volunteers from all over Europe that have have taken part in the European Voluntary Service (EVS) met with the Instituto Andaluz de la Juventud last week in Malaga. For 20 years, the EVS has enabled over 100,000 young people, aged 18 to 30, to live in another country providing their service in a non-profit organisation.
One of the volunteers, Victor Serrato, had a life-changing experience volunteering with the programme. Serrato was in Brno (Czech Republic) in 2007, and his experience had such an impact on his life that he continued working with the EVS and has returned to the country several times. Now, he works as a coordinator for one of the organisations (Iniciativa Internacional Joven) in charge of promoting awareness about the volunteering projects in order to get people interested in the EVS.
After volunteering for 12 months on a project helping the disabled, Serrato was immersed in Czech culture: The difference between this project and those run for Erasmus students is the contact made between the volunteers and the local community, and living alongside one another. I dont know of any Erasmus student who has come back speaking Czech, but I learnt it in three months.
Despite the novelty of EVS, Serrato is saddened by the lack of marketing for the volunteer programme. Everyone knows about au pairing and Erasmus years abroad, but not this programme. It is not as popular even though it contributes the most, Serrato explains. Although the other programmes receive a lot of money and publicity, the EVS is also there to help people.
Andalusian culture
Sedar Ocaksonmez, who is from Istanbul (Turkey), is one of the 24 volunteers currently working in Malaga. Ocaksonmez, who arrived in October and now speaks Spanish with an Andalusian accent, wants to remain in the city. He chose Malaga due to its location and the Andalusian culture. I like to hang out with people from Malaga in order to understand everything a bit better, Ocaksonmez notes. For him, the best thing about these volunteering programmes is the opportunity to get to know and visit new places, even without any money.
At 30 years old, Ilaria Cangiulli from Tarento (Italy), is at the upper age limit for volunteers working for the EVS. She is part of a rehabilitation project that works with prisoners. She decided to come to Malaga because she liked the concept of volunteering. Hiking, language exchanges and workshops are some of the many things that Cangiulli is involved in.
David Forte, who is also from Italy, designs projects for an association called Arrabal, which all three volunteers participate in. He arrived in Malaga for the first time last March. The climate and people are some of the best things about the city, he says. However, the problem is how quickly the Spaniards talk. But, for him, getting to know people from other countries is the best.
The EVS provides housing, helps out with travel costs between Spain and the volunteers home countries, and a budget of 300 euros each month. Now, it belongs to an array of European programmes in the EUs Erasmus+.
This is our monthly message from Charmaine Arbouin at the British Consulate in Malaga. Charmaine is the Consul for Andalucia and the Canary Islands. Her team help thousands of British nationals in distress every year
Gay pride in Torremolinos. :: A. COLEMAN Contact the British consulate Email: spain.consulate@fco.gov.uk Telephone enquiries: 952352300
Hate crimes related to sexual orientation or gender identity accounted for 40% of the 1,285 hate crimes reported to Spanish police in 2014, according to statistics collected by the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). If you are the victim of such a crime, the police and the British Consulate can help you.
Indeed, the Spanish National Police stress that if you are the victim of crime as a result of your sexual orientation or gender identity, you have the right to report this.
Hate crime can consist of physical, verbal or sexual abuse, or abusive messages received via your social media accounts. If it happens to you, call 091 (National Police) or visit your local police station to make a report. ALternatively, you can download the Alertcops app, which allows you to contact the police online.
We can help as well. If youre the victim of any crime, the British Consulate can provide you with confidential advice to:
- Understand local police and legal procedures
- Find an English-speaking lawyer or translator
- Find medical treatment or an English-speaking doctor
- Contact your relatives and friends to let them know something has happened to you
- Find organisations that might be able to help you.
It is worth remembering that, despite the number of incidents reported to the police, Spain welcomes diversity. It currently ranks sixth in Europe for respect of human rights and equality, according to the Europe Region of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA-Europe). Spain is also ranked the most gay-friendly country in the world, according to a poll by the Pew Research Centre. And although Spain was the one of the first countries in the world to officially approve same-sex marriage in 2005, records show that a same-sex marriage took place between two men in a Galician church as far back as 1061.
If you want to know more, the Foreign Office has travel advice specifically for LGBTI people at www.gov.uk/guidance/lesbian-gay-bisexual-and-transgender-foreign-travel-advice.
080404 Supplier_5 mjg.JPG
Auburn police have asked the public to check their wallets for counterfeit money following the arrest of two men on charges of passing counterfeit bills in the area. Numerous fake $20 bills and three fake $100 bills were passed at the Auburn Wal-Mart.
(Mike Greenlar|mgreenlar@syracuse.com)
Auburn, N.Y. -Auburn police are encouraging residents to check their $10s, $20s, $50s and $100 bills after the arrest of two men on charges of passing counterfeit money.
Police are looking for a third suspect in the case and they say it's highly likely fake currency is circulating around the community.
Fake $100 bills with the same serial number as the ones in Auburn were also found on counterfeit bills in New York City, Philadelphia, Rochester and Syracuse, said Det. Bryant Bergenstock.
The bills do not contain the security strip, he said. "They're not the worst (counterfeit) I've seen," the detective said.
Sometimes businesses get busy and don't have the time to check to make sure bills aren't counterfeit, Bergenstock said. "It gets sucked into the system," he said.
The fake bills have been around Auburn at least since April 4. That's when a suspect at an apartment complex on Grant Avenue near Wal-Mart paid a local pizza delivery driver with a fake $100 bill.
Moments later the delivery driver identified the bill as being counterfeit and called police. But the suspect had already fled.
The next day police were called to the Wal-Mart on Grant Avenue to investigate the passing of numerous fake $20 bills and three counterfeit $100 bills between April 1 and April 4.
Police said they identified three suspects during their investigation, two of whom appeared to be working together.
One suspect, Mathew Danforth, 26, of 131 E. Genesee St., was brought in for an interview during the investigation but declined to cooperate, police said.
Mathew Danforth
A second suspect, Nathan Nolan, 39, a transient, agreed to an interview at the station and admitted his involvement in the scheme, police said. Police have not identified the third suspect who they believe passed counterfeit $20 bills.
Nolan turned himself into police on June 14. He was charged with felony first-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument and fifth-degree conspiracy, a misdemeanor. Nolan was arraigned in Auburn City Court and released.
Nathan Nolan
Police executed an arrest warrant on Tuesday for Danforth. He was charged with two counts of felony first-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument and two counts of felony first-degree falsifying business records. He was also charged with two counts of petit larceny and one count of fifth-degree conspiracy, all are misdemeanors. Danforth faces an additional count of petit larceny relating to a separate larceny from Wal-Mart. He was arraigned and sent to the Cayuga County Jail.
Based on the investigation so far, police said there is a highly likelihood that additional counterfeit $100 bills may still be circulating within the city. Police ask that businesses, financial institutions, and consumers inspect any $10, $20, $50, or $100 bills that may seem suspicious.
The Secret Service web site has information detecting counterfeit money.
The investigation is still ongoing and further charges are possible. If you have any information regarding this investigation please contact the Auburn Police Department, Detective Bureau, Det. Bergenstock (315) 258-9880. Callers may remain anonymous.
Ryan Lawrence booking photo
Syracuse, NY -- Shortly after being caught in Baldwinsville, Baby Maddox's father claimed that he gave his 21-month-old daughter to "Chris and Tyler," an apparently fictitious couple who fled to Bolivia.
That's according to testimony this morning from police who took Ryan Lawrence, 24, into custody Feb. 22, two days after they say he killed Maddox by beating her with a bat, burning her remains and dumping them in Onondaga Creek.
Lawrence maintained that he arranged a meeting with "Chris and Tyler," who he met awhile ago at the Syracuse Real Food Co-op near Westcott Street, police testified. He handed off the baby, who was out of the country, he claimed, according to testimony.
For hours the night of Feb. 22, Lawrence stuck to that story as police frantically questioned him, hoping that Maddox was still alive.
"I wanted that baby. I wanted that baby right now," Detective Scott Clarke testified, explaining his aggressive interrogation of Lawrence that night.
The suspect's clothes smelled like campfire, and Clarke said he worried about the child's safety if her dad needed a fire to stay warm in the February chill.
Lawrence first made the claim about "Chris and Tyler" after being caught in Baldwinsville wearing a disguise. In earlier testimony, village police described how Lawrence first called himself "Rlo Rivers," before admitting who he was.
Lawrence was read his Miranda warnings in the back of a village police car, then transferred to Syracuse police custody, police said.
On the way to police headquarters in Syracuse, Lawrence maintained the story about handing the baby off, Clarke and Detective Thomas Skardinski testified.
In a videotaped interrogation, Lawrence kept making up stories, they testified, despite two major problems with his account:
Lawrence claimed to have set up a meeting with Chris and Tyler by phone. But Lawrence's phone records, pulled after Maddox went missing, contained no unusual numbers, Clarke testified.
Lawrence claimed Chris and Tyler had watched Maddox grow up on the Facebook page of the baby's mother, Morgan. But her page was private and the couple was not listed as friends, Clarke testified.
The fact officers were investigating a missing person plays an important role in the legal nuances of the case.
County Court Judge Anthony Aloi called today's hearing to determine how much of Lawrence's admissions to police can be used against him at trial.
Defense lawyer Michael Vavonese is attempting to suppress whatever he can of Lawrence's admissions to police.
He focused on the fact that Lawrence's father had hired an attorney to represent his son that night. The interrogation should have stopped once lawyer Scott Brenneck entered the picture, Vavonese argued.
That's a crucial point because Lawrence apparently later admitted what he did and led authorities to his daughter's body in Onondaga Creek near Destiny USA.
It will complicate the prosecution's case at Baby Maddox's murder trial if Lawrence's later admissions are suppressed. There are exceptions to the Miranda warnings: if authorities believe there's a threat to public safety or an emergency.
The officers, and prosecutor Jeremy Cali, sought to show that Lawrence turned down help from the lawyer. But even if the interrogation should have been stopped under normal circumstances, they argued that officers had a justifiable reason to keep questioning him to try to save Maddox's life.
Vavonese tried to show that the officers suspected that Maddox was dead, negating the rationale to question Lawrence without the lawyer.
Aloi will eventually decide what will be admissible at trial. That decision will likely come a few weeks after today's hearing.
Much of the questioning today bogged down in a case of "who said what when." Clarke testified that he knew Lawrence's father had hired a lawyer, but when a lawyer called police headquarters later, Clarke didn't know it was the same person.
At one point, Clarke asked Lawrence if he wanted to be represented by lawyer Scott Brenneck. Lawrence says: "No...but did my family get him?"
Clarke testified that he answered truthfully "I don't know" at that point. But later, detective Skardinski acknowledged in his police report that Brenneck was the lawyer hired by Lawrence's father.
Vavonese chastised Clarke for not writing a report himself about what happened that night, leading to a testy exchange.
Shouldn't Clarke's work in such an important investigation be put into a separate report? Vavonese asked. Clarke noted that there's a video of the interrogation and added that not every detail could be put into a report.
"Neither is what I had for dinner that night," Clarke noted from the witness stand.
"What did you have for dinner that night?" Vavonese fired back.
"Pizza, with pepperoni," Clarke responded.
"The night before?" Vavonese asked.
"Enough of that, Mr. Vavonese!" Judge Aloi cut in. The questioning continued normally.
Testimony continues this afternoon. Check back to Syracuse.com for updates.
James Griffin 7.6.16 croppe.JPG
James Griffin outside federal court in Syracuse today after lawyers gave opening statements in his trial over charges of defrauding investors out of $1.6 million.
(John O'Brien | jobrien@syracuse.com)
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A Cazenovia businessman defrauded investors out of nearly $2 million through phony claims of high returns, then spent much of the money on himself and his companies, a federal prosecutor said today.
James Griffin's jury trial began in federal court over 23 counts of fraud and money-laundering. He's accused of running two fraud schemes -- that he bilked $1.6 million from investors in one, and that he defrauded other investors out of $370,000 in the other.
Griffin, 71, induced people to invest between $60,000 and $500,000 through his company, 54 Freedom Inc., for the purchase of charitable gift annuities starting in 2009, Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Broton told jurors in his opening statement.
Through the company's web site, a promotional video and telemarketers, Griffin told potential investors that the annuities would be issued by an A-rated major insurance carrier that would provide guaranteed lifetime income for them, Broton said.
Griffin had the investors fill out application forms for real insurance companies as a ploy to get them to invest, but never sent the applications to the companies, Broton said.
The investors got the promised monthly returns for a while, but by the summer of 2012 the payments began to slow, he said. By January 2013, the investors were receiving little or nothing, he said.
"The annuities were never underwritten by any insurance carrier," Broton said. "The guaranteed lifetime income evaporated within two years."
Griffin used the investors' money to pay the debts of his multiple companies, to pay other investors and to furnish his own lifestyle, Broton said.
When that scheme dried up, Griffin started a new one, Broton said. Griffin persuaded people to withdraw money from their tax-sheltered retirement accounts so he could roll the money over to new retirement accounts with a higher return, Broton said.
Griffin told the investors that he would pay any taxes and penalties for withdrawing money from their retirement accounts early, Broton said.
Griffin told investors he'd roll their money over through a legitimate company, and had them fill out that company's forms, Broton said. But the investors' money never went to that company, he said.
"None of that was true," the prosecutor said. "None of the money generated a return. None was ever rolled over from one account to another."
With rare exceptions, Griffin did not pay his victims' taxes and penalties for withdrawing early, Broton said.
Griffin spent that $370,000 on his companies and himself, the prosecutor said.
Griffin's lawyer, David Herkala, told jurors Griffin never intended to defraud anyone. Herkala cited the fact that people invested their money in Griffin's products through brokers who didn't work for Griffin's companies.
With the charitable gift annuities, 30 percent of someone's investment was used as a tax-deductible charitable contribution, and 70 percent was used to buy an annuity, he said.
"My client created an investment product," Herkala said. "The brokers sold the product. He did not sell to the investors."
Griffin was depending on the brokers to provide accurate information to potential investors, Herkala said.
The investors were paid through 2013, when the company's finances hit a downturn, Herkala said.
"The company and my client stand behind these investments," he said.
Herkala told jurors he'd get into what happened with the tax-sheltered retirement accounts during the trial.
"That was an investment, not a guarantee," he said.
In addition to the criminal charges, the Securities and Exchange Commission has sued Griffin, accusing him of defrauding investors out of $8 million.
Contact John O'Brien anytime | email | Twitter | 315-470-2187
SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Caitlyn Brooks hired a law firm that settled her claim with an insurance company over a car crash 11 years ago.
But she never saw a lawyer.
The law firm was Alexander & Catalano, the one with the pervasive TV ads showing lawyers Peter Catalano and James Alexander in foolish situations. In one, they're dressed as old west gunslingers. In another, they order a pack of dogs to sit.
Caitlin Brooks
They call themselves "The Heavy Hitters."
The ads appear to be working. Alexander said in an affidavit that the firm received 42,000 calls from potential clients over five years - or 8,400 calls a year. That's 32 calls a day.
Brooks was one of the callers in 2006. Ten years later, she's suing the firm and Catalano for legal malpractice.
Her new lawyers contend Alexander & Catalano's high volume of calls has led to practices that have hurt people who respond to their ads, including the use of non-lawyers to settle claims without ever filing a lawsuit.
Brooks' lawsuit accuses the firm of allowing Catalano's non-attorney brother Paul to practice law without a license. Under state law, a non-lawyer who practices law can be charged with a misdemeanor.
The suit claims the firm used deceptive business practices and engaged in false advertising with its promise of a free consultation.
Brooks, 28, said she assumed Paul Catalano was a licensed attorney and that he'd filed a lawsuit on her behalf over injuries she suffered in a 2005 car accident.
She'd talked to Paul Catalano frequently about the case and about his efforts to negotiate a settlement with the other driver's insurance company. She'd undergone brain surgery that a doctor said was necessary because of symptoms caused by the crash, according to court records.
Even the insurance company for the other driver assumed Paul Catalano was a lawyer, according to the company's records.
Brooks didn't realize until 2008 that Paul Catalano was only a case manager and not a lawyer at Alexander & Catalano.
Brooks claims Paul passed himself off as a lawyer and coerced her into settling her claim for $15,000.
The insurance company, Brooks learned later, had reserved a settlement for up to $100,000.
Peter Catalano, who is a lawyer, admitted in a deposition that neither he nor any lawyer in his firm ever met with Brooks. He said he spoke to her on the phone "a few times."
Brooks said she didn't speak to a lawyer when she responded to the firm's ad for a free consultation. She spoke with a receptionist, then an investigator who came to her home and signed a retainer agreement, she said.
Peter Catalano said it used to be a common practice for non-attorneys at his firm to sign retainer agreements with clients, but that that's no longer true.
He testified that he frequently talked with his brother about Brooks' case. Peter Catalano said he was scheduled to meet with her twice, but that she canceled both times.
Peter Catalano testified that Brooks seemed confused about what was happening with her case. Brooks' lawyer, Michelle Rudderow, asked him in a deposition whether any lawyer from his firm had ever met with her, given that apparent confusion.
"No, but I spoke to her at length," Peter testified. "An attorney tried to meet with her twice."
Brooks denies canceling any appointments, and denies ever speaking with Peter Catalano. She said that in her three years with Alexander & Catalano as her lawyers, she only spoke with Paul, the receptionist and the investigator.
Lawyers for Alexander & Catalano argued that the ads never promised the consultation would be with a lawyer. Brooks' lawyer took issue with that claim.
"It is respectfully submitted that a legal advertisement advertising legal services must provide a consultation with an actual person licensed to practice law," Rudderow wrote in court papers.
Alexander & Catalano's computer program for keeping track of employees' time lists only Paul Catalano as having been in contact with Brooks, according to court documents.
Brooks sometimes referred to Paul as an attorney in her conversations with him, he testified in a deposition. He would tell her he was a case manager, he testified.
"As anyone who has ever referred to me as an attorney, I immediately correct them - case manager," Paul Catalano testified.
Paul Catalano bragged to her about the cases he'd settled and that he'd made thousands of dollars, Brooks testified.
Brooks said she always assumed a case manager was also an attorney.
"When I met with Paul I thought that he was my lawyer," Brooks testified in a deposition. "I never met with anybody else. I never talked to anybody else."
A former lawyer at Alexander & Catalano testified in a deposition that case managers commonly handled claim negotiations.
Notes from MetLife officials, who were negotiating Brooks' claim with Paul Catalano, show they also thought he was a lawyer.
"Plaintiff's attorney is Paul Catalano," the MetLife notes said. The 64 pages of notes refer to Paul as Brooks' lawyer eight more times.
The notes don't mention Peter Catalano until January 2015, after Brooks filed her legal malpractice lawsuit against him. Peter called then to ask MetLife what their notes showed about who had contacted them from his firm.
Brooks, a dental technician, declined to comment through her new lawyers at the firm of Williams & Rudderow.
Her new lawyers, Rudderow and S. Robert Williams, also would not comment.
Neither Peter nor Paul Catalano responded to requests for an interview.
Another former client of Alexander & Catalano told Syracuse.com that he also never spoke to a lawyer. Craig Woodward said he'd spoken repeatedly with two men who he thought were lawyers.
"I assumed they were lawyers because I was hiring a law firm to take care of my case," said Woodward, who wanted a lawyer to sue on his behalf over a back injury he suffered in a 2011 car accident.
Alexander & Catalano never filed a lawsuit on Woodward's behalf, he said. Now he can't sue because the statute of limitations has expired, he said. He still needs the surgery, he said.
"I heard their ads all the time," Woodward said. After the firm dropped his case, he heard that the two men he'd been talking to weren't lawyers, Woodward said.
"They showed themselves to me as if they were lawyers," he said. "When you hire a lawyer you think you're talking to a lawyer."
Alexander & Catalano partner's letter: Lawsuit over non-lawyers 'has no merit'
Contact John O'Brien anytime | email | Twitter | 315-470-2187
Ryan Lawrence booking photo
Syracuse, NY -- Ryan Lawrence apparently steered authorities to his daughter Maddox's body, tied to a cinderblock, at the bottom of Onondaga Creek near Destiny USA.
Lawrence, 24, admitted to authorities that he killed his 21-month-old daughter and dumped her body in the creek Feb. 20, according to court paperwork. And after talking to Lawrence, authorities went to a hidden spot near the popular Tinker Falls, where he's accused of killing his daughter with a bat and burning her remains before returning to Syracuse.
But were Lawrence's admissions to police legally obtained?
That will be the subject of a hearing Wednesday morning before County Court Judge Anthony Aloi. It's a routine hearing in criminal cases that takes unusual importance given the horrific nature of the crime.
At the heart of these hearings is often the need for Miranda warnings (You have the right to remain silent, etc.). But there are certain exceptions to the requirement, such as cases in which someone is in danger or police are responding to emergencies.
Were the warnings given? Did the police have reason to question him without the warnings?
Those questions will likely be answered during Wednesday's hearing.
The impact of the hearing remains to be seen. Ryan Lawrence's lawyer, Michael Vavonese, has been exploring defenses that do not assert actual innocence, such as probing Lawrence's mental health at the time. But Lawrence remains presumed innocent, so it's unclear what would happen if Lawrence's admissions were suppressed.
The prosecution is expected to call witnesses Wednesday to testify about Lawrence's interrogation. Lawrence can also call witnesses on his own behalf, though he is not required to.
Lawrence is facing a first-degree murder charge in his daughter's death. He could face life in prison without chance of parole if convicted. Lawrence remains in jail with no bail.
phillips.jpg
Everson Director & CEO, Elizabeth Dunbar; Everson Trustee, Paul Phillips; and Sharon Sullivan.
(Chris Molloy)
Adelaide Alsop Robineau, "Scarab Vase (The Apotheosis of the Toiler)," porcelain, 1910.
Syracuse's Everson Museum of Art, which holds one of the largest ceramics collections in the country, is about to get a big boost in the form of a new gallery to highlight its ceramic gems including the famous "Scarab Vase," by Adelaide Alsop Robineau.
On June 16, the Museum held its annual Summer Picnic on the Everson Community Plaza with nearly 400 guests in attendance. A sunny evening filled with honors and awards was made even brighter when Elizabeth Dunbar, Everson Director & CEO, announced a matching gift campaign to support the relocation of the Museum's famous ceramics collection. This campaign is being generously funded by long-time Everson Trustee Paul Phillips and his wife Sharon Sullivan. The pair offered to pledge up to $50,000 in this dollar-to-dollar matching campaign.
"The Everson's collection of ceramics is world-renowned and should be experienced in a setting that highlights its uniqueness and reflects its importance within the Museum's holdings," said Phillips. "We have long believed these hidden gems needed to be brought back to public attention, and we want our gift to encourage others to also support this project."
The Everson has long been an advocate and champion of ceramic artists. Since acquiring its first ceramics works by Adelaide Alsop Robineau in 1916, the Everson (then called the Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts) has played a pivotal role in shifting the perception of ceramics from craft to a fine art medium. The Museum now holds a ceramics collection boasting over 5,000 pieces ranging in date from 1000 CE to the present and including works from the ancient Americans of the Southwest to cutting-edge examples by contemporary artists.
Toby Buonagurio, "Horse Headed Robot No. 10," earthenware, 1981. Gift of Mr. Sidney Wolgin; 27th Ceramic National, 1987.
The expansiveness of the collection has grown year by year, largely due to the Ceramic National exhibitions. Established in 1932 and running intermittently until 2000, the Ceramic Nationals invited American ceramic artists from all over the country to submit their works to a juried exhibition at the Everson. The Museum frequently acquired works accepted into the exhibitions, which has led to the Everson holding one of the largest and most significant collections of American ceramics in the nation. "Our Ceramic National exhibitions remain important historical records of the field over time, and helped position the Everson as one of the foremost repositories of the medium," said Dunbar. "The new flexible gallery space will enable us to drastically enrich the public experience of our diverse holdings through changing thematic exhibitions and more in-depth interpretation." Dunbar envisions a gallery with regularly changing shows, curated by Everson staff as well as guest curators to create meaningful contexts for viewing the artworks.
The location of the new ceramics gallery was designed to be an exhibition space, as shown here in 1988. More recently, the area has been know as the "Art Zone," and interactive area for children and families.
In addition to serving a functional purpose, this relocation also holds a significant historical importance. The Everson building was designed by world-renowned American architect I.M. Pei. Completed in 1968, the Everson was his first museum design--Pei later designed many others, including the Johnson Museum in Ithaca, The National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the 1993 addition to the Louvre in Paris. Meant to be seen as a large sculptural object placed amongst the forms of a modern city, Pei purposefully designed each detail of the Everson, inside and out, to be experienced from multiple viewpoints. The new ceramics gallery will return the lower level of the Museum back to Pei's original design, occupying an area that was specifically intended to feature exhibitions. For the last few decades, the space has served as an education facility for children and family programs. Dunbar expressed excitement about returning the room to its intended purpose.
The ceramics gallery redesign is part of a larger effort to make the Everson's collection more accessible to Museum patrons. A new education center is also being constructed, and the introduction of the new ceramics gallery will coincide with an ambitious initiative to present much of the Everson's ceramics collection online.
The Everson Board of Trustees has already collectively pledged more than $22,900 to the campaign. The Museum now seeks help from the public to help fund the rest of the project. Interested donors can visit everson.org/donate to make a donation.
Thousands of Phish Phans will converge upon Central New York this weekend, but have no fear, there is plenty of live music to go around. Here are 13 of the many ways to enjoy the warm, summer weekend.
Vans Warped Tour:
New Found Glory, Sum 41 and Less Than Jake are among more than 65 bands performing at the Warped Tour's first-ever stop in Syracuse.
Where: New York State Fairgrounds (Gray Lot), 581 State Fair Blvd., Syracuse, N.Y., 13209.
When: Thursday, July 7. Doors open at 11 a.m.
How much: Tickets are $41.50 and are available online or at the box office.
St. Elias Middle Eastern Cultural Festival
The popular food and music festival, now in its 87th year, has expanded to four days, giving guests even more chances to feast on falafel, kebabs, tabouli, shawarma and many other Middle Eastern delicacies. See the full menu online at www.syracusemideastfest.com.
Where: St. Elias Antiochian Orthodox Church at 4988 Onondaga Rd., Syracuse (Rt. 173 at Howlett Hill Road).
When: Thursday, July 7, from 4 to 10 p.m.; Friday, July 8, from 4 to 10 p.m.; Saturday, July 9, from noon to 10 p.m. and Sunday, July 10, from noon to 6 p.m.
How much: Free admission and parking. Bring money for food, drink and crafts.
Block Party
Syracuse rockers The Action! take the stage at this week's installment of Coleman's Authentic Irish Pub's summer concert series.
Where: Coleman's Authentic Irish Pub, 100 S. Lowell Ave., Syracuse, N.Y., 13204.
When: Thursday, July 7, at 6 p.m.
How much: Free admission. Bring money for drinks and food.
The Avett Brothers
The folksy band, led by brothers Seth and Scott Avett, are returning to Syracuse for the first time since 2009. Can't catch them at the Landmark Theatre? They're playing at the Chautauqua Amphitheater in Western New York on Friday.
Where: Landmark Theatre, 362 S. Salina St., Syracuse, N.Y., 13202.
When: Thursday, July 7, at 8 p.m. Doors open at 7 p.m.
How much? Tickets range from $53 to $73 and are available online or at the box office.
Skaneateles Antique and Artisans Show and Sale
Now in its 57th year, the annual craft and antique sale is the perfect place to find unique jewelry, furniture and collectables. Visit their website for a $1 off coupon.
Where: Austin Arena, 1 E. Austin St., Skaneateles, N.Y., 13152
When: Friday, July 8, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday, July 9, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
How much: Antique show and sale is $7 ($6 with coupon) for one day; $8 for both. Admission to the artisan and craft show is free.
New York State Blues Festival:
Butch Trucks and the Freight Train Band, Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds and Sonny Landreth are among the more than a dozen performers scheduled to play during the two-day free festival in downtown Syracuse.
Where: Clinton Square, Syracuse, N.Y., 13202.
When: Friday, July 8 and Saturday, July 9. Concerts start at 3 p.m. on Friday and noon on Saturday.
How much: Free admission.
Village of East Syracuse Ice Cream Social
In honor of the annual event's 40th anniversary, all the food and drink at this year's Village of East Syracuse Ice Cream Social is under $1. There will be a bounce house, pony rides, a dunk tank, petting zoo and lots of games to entertain the children. Local acoustic rock band The Noisy Boys will be on hand to get the party going.
Where: Ellis Field Park, 500 McCool Ave., East Syracuse, N.Y., 13057
When: Friday, July 8, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.
How much: Free admission. Bring money for food, drink.
The Temptations
It's not just your imagination. The soulful Motown stars and Rock and Roll Hall of Famers are bringing their classic R&B sound to the Turning Stone Resort & Casino Showroom this weekend.
Where: Turning Stone Resort and Casino, 5218 Patrick Road, Verona, N.Y., 13478
When: Friday, July 8, at 8 p.m.
How much: Tickets range from $19 to $29 and are available online or at the box office.
Stronger Together: A Fundraiser Performance for the Pulse Staff
Atonement Lutheran Church, located in Syracuse's Valley neighborhood, will host a benefit concert to help the employees of Pulse nightclub in Orlando who were displaced following the June 12 tragedy.
Where: Atonement Lutheran Church, 116 W. Glen Ave., Syracuse, N.Y., 13205.
When: Friday, July 8, at 8 p.m.
How much: $10 suggested donation. Donations can also be made at www.pulseorlandoclub.com
6th Annual Salt City Walk for Epilepsy
Take a pet- and family-friendly walk through Long Branch Park and enjoy the warm weather all for a good cause. In 2015, more than 300 people took part in the walk.
Where: Long Branch Park, 380 Long Branch Road, Geddes, N.Y., 13209
When: Saturday, July 9. Registration and check-in starts at 8:30 a.m. Walk starts at 9 a.m.
How much: $5 per person, or $15 for a family of three or more.
Disturbed and Breaking Benjamin
So far, the Lakeview Amphitheater has largely been dominated by country music and classic rock-and-roll. That's about to change when heavy metal stars Disturbed and Breaking Benjamin, along with openers Alter Bridge and Saint Asonia, come to town.
Where: Lakeview Amphitheater, 490 Restoration Way, Syracuse, N.Y., 13209.
When: Saturday, July 9, at 6:30 p.m.
How much: Tickets range from $29.95 to $79.95 and are available online or at the box office.
GemWorld 50
Check out beautiful gems, stones, minerals, jewelry and more at GemWorld, now in its 50th year. In addition to the 50 vendors and children's activities, there will be hourly door prizes and the grand prize: A one-ounce gold nugget, currently valued at more than $1,350.
Where: SRC Arena and Events Center, Onondaga Community College, 4585 W. Seneca Turnpike, Onondaga, N.Y., 13215.
When: Saturday, July 9, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, July 10, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
How much: $7 admission good for both days. Visit the Gem & Mineral Society of Syracuse's website for a $1 off coupon.
Phish
Come for the
Syracuse native Jon Fishman
and his bandmates' signature meandering jam band sound, stay for the band's crazy legion of diehard Phish-heads.
Where:
Lakeview Amphitheater, 490 Restoration Way, Syracuse, N.Y., 13209.
When:
Sunday, July 10, at 7:30 p.m.
How much:
Tickets range from $45 to $65 and are
available online
or at the box office.
Contact Jacob Pucci: Email | Twitter | 315-766-6747
Amelie Anstett (front right) dancing on stage at the Justin Bieber concert June 29 in Jacksonville. (PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY ROMINA COLOMBO-ANSTETT)
SHARE Framed presentation of the email informing Amelie Anstett she was chosen to dance on stage with Justin Bieber in Jacksonville. (PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY ROMINA COLOMBO-ANSTETT) View from the back of Amelie Anstett (second from the left) dancing on stage with other selected #PurposeTourChildren dancers at the Justin Bieber concert June 29 in Jacksonville. (PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY ROMINA COLOMBO-ANSTETT)
By Amanda Hicks of TCPalm
STUART She was motivated by the idea of performing live, but the chance to be on a concert stage next to a pop star was an added bonus.
Out of thousands of submissions, Amelie Anstett, 12, of Palm City was one of four dancers chosen to perform June 29 in Jacksonville alongside Justin Bieber during his Purpose Tour.
Amelie entered Bieber's #PurposeTourChildren contest for young performers ages 9 to 15 by submitting a video of herself dancing to the required choreography as well as showing off some free style moves.
Amelie missed the March 7 deadline but decided to send a video anyway. As weeks and then months passed by, she assumed that was the end of it.
When her mom read the email saying she was chosen to dance at Bieber's show, Anstett responded with, "You're so mean, that's not funny!"
It wasn't until her mom started crying that she realized it wasn't a joke.
"I'm still pinching myself," Amelie said, "I still can't believe it happened."
Toward the end of last month's Jacksonville concert, Amelie and three other dancers ages 10 to 12 performed alongside Bieber and his usual dancers.
"He was so friendly and humble," she said of Bieber, "His dancers were too. They were just normal."
While she was in the V.I.P. room, Amelie met a girl named Jolie, who was attending the concert because of the Make A Wish Foundation, and had been waiting over a year to meet Bieber. Amelie said she and the other contest winners taught Jolie the dance choreography they would be performing.
Amelie said she was happy to have made friends with the others and wasn't nervous to perform because she was having too much fun.
"We're so proud of her and impressed," said Amelie's mother, Romina Colombo-Anstett , choking back tears. "I'm impressed with all of the kids who danced at the concert."
Amelie dances 15 to 20 hours a week, doing hip hop, ballet, point, tap and more. She has been taking classes at the Dance Academy of Stuart since she was 7 years old. She also recently started at a more competitive dance studio in West Palm Beach called Sean's Dance Factory, whose instructor also is the choreographer for the Miami Heat dance team. This will require Amelie to audition to participate in productions.
Amelie said she hopes to be a famous dancer one day. Her next performance will be in "Big Bang" at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach on July 23.
If you can't see this video, click here
TUESDAY'S SPECIAL EVENTS
Bankruptcy and Fair Debt Collections Know Your Rights: Clinics on Bankruptcy and Fair Debt Collections. 6 p.m. July 5, Aug. 1, Sept. 6, Oct. 4, Nov. 7, Dec. 5. Port St. Lucie Civic Center, 9221 S.E. Civic Center Place, Port St. Lucie. Register: 772-466-4766; www.FRLS.org.
TUESDAY'S RECURRING EVENTS
ARTS/CRAFTS
Alizarin Crimson Art Studio: Over 30 years of Fine Art Instruction Painting Classes-All Levels. 9:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Cedar Pointe Plaza, 2611 S.E. Ocean Blvd., Stuart. All ages. 772-287-7030; Alizarincrimsonstudio.net. Professional Teaching Staff: Georgia Abood, Kate Wood & Jennifer Pollack.
All Ages Oil Painting: Individually tailored oil painting classes with Kate Wood. Join anytime. 4:30-6:30 p.m. Alizarin Crimson Studio, 2611 E. Ocean Blvd., Stuart. All ages. $25. Register: 772-287-0835; katewoodartist@comcast.net.
Art Classes: Learning to paint for beginners or improve existing skills. 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m./1-4:30 p.m. Kane Center, Salerno Road, Stuart. Adults. $25/$20 members. Register: 772-221-7640; brendaleigh737@gmail.com.
Painting Class: For Beginner Students. 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Kane Center, 900 S.E. Salerno Road, Stuart. Ages: 50+. $20/$25. 772-223-7800; www.kanecenter.org.
Painting Class: For Experienced Students. 1-4:30 p.m. Kane Center, 900 S.E. Salerno Road, Stuart. Ages: 50+. $20/$25. 772-223-7800; www.kanecenter.org.
Peggy's Art Studio: Enjoy 3 hours of uninterrupted painting. Noon-3 p.m. MCP&R Log Cabin Senior Center, Langford Park, 2369 N.E. Dixie Highway, Jensen Beach. Multigenerational. $3. 772-334-2926; zcarter@martin.fl.us.
Children/TEENS
Family Story Time: 10 a.m. Ages: 0-12 months. Hoke Library, 1150 N.W. Jack Williams Way, Jensen Beach. 772-463-2870; library.martin.fl.us.
Family Story Time: 11 a.m. Ages: 1-4 years-old. Hoke Library, 1150 N.W. Jack Williams Way, Jensen Beach. 772-463-2870; library.martin.fl.us.
Family Story Time: Weekly story time designed for families. 10-10:30 a.m. Robert Morgade Library, 5851 S.E. Community Drive, Stuart. Ages: 0-3 years and up with parent. 772-463-3245; library.martin.fl.us.
'Music & Movement': Parent/child classes designed to enhance child's growth and development. Ages: 19-26 months. 9-10 a.m. Florida Arts & Dance Studio, 938 S.E. Central Parkway, Stuart. 772-288-4150.
'Music & Movement': Parent/child classes designed to enhance child's growth and development. Ages: 27-60 months. 10:15-11:15 a.m. Florida Arts & Dance Studio, 938 S.E. Central Parkway, Stuart. 772-288-4150.
'Music & Movement': Parent/child classes designed to enhance child's growth and development. Ages: 3-11 months. Noon-1 p.m. Florida Arts & Dance Studio, 938 S.E. Central Parkway, Stuart. 772-288-4150.
'Music & Movement': Parent/child classes designed to enhance child's growth and development. Ages: 12-18 months. 1:15-2:15 p.m. Florida Arts & Dance Studio, 938 S.E. Central Parkway, Stuart. 772-288-4150.
Preschool FUNdamentals: 10:30-11:30 a.m. Peter and Julie Cummings Library, 2551 S.W. Matheson Ave., Palm City. Ages: 3-5 years. 772-288-2551; library.martin.fl.us.
DANCE
Adult Summer Dance Camp: Classes and Social Parties for Ballroom, Latin, Swing, Country Dance. 4-10 p.m. Jensen Beach Ballroom, 881 Jensen Beach Blvd., Jensen Beach. Ages: 18+. $100 to $300 per month per person. Register: 609-356-2973; gloriana@jensenbeachballroom.com.
Ballroom Dance Class/New Season: 6:30 p.m. 2369 N.E. Dixie Highway, Jensen Beach. Ages: 16+. $9 pp. per class. Register: 772-529-3325; sdancer516@aol.com.
Dance Classes: Ballroom, Latin, Swing, Country and Club group and private classes. 1-9 p.m. Jensen Beach Ballroom, 881 N.E. Jensen Beach Blvd., Jensen Beach. Discounts available. Register: 609-356-2973; www.JensenBeachBallroom.com.
Group Dance Lessons: Ballroom, Latin, Swing, Country. 6 p.m. Jensen Beach Ballroom, 881 N.E. Jensen Beach Blvd., Jensen Beach. $10 per person. 609-356-2973; jensenbeachballroom.com.
EXERCISE/HEALTH
Basic Yoga for Inner Peace: One hour basic yoga poses and half-hour of guided meditation. 10-11:30 a.m. Unity of Stuart, 211 S.E. Central Parkway, Stuart. Adults. $10. Register: 772-214-0892; www.unityofstuart.org.
Gentle Chair Yoga: Gentle Chair Yoga. 11 a.m.-noon. Kane Center, 900 S.E. Salerno Road, Stuart. Ages: 55+. $8/$10. 772-223-7800; www.kanecenter.org.
Gentle Yoga: 1-2 p.m. Kane Center, 900 S.E. Salerno Road, Stuart. Ages: 50+. $8/$10. 772-223-7800; www.kanecenter.org.
Hip Pop Fitness: Dance your way to fitness. River Walk Center, 600 N. Indian River Drive, Fort Pierce. 6:30 p.m. Ages: 18+. 772-224-4506; chrystalismoments16@gmail.com.
Zumba Gold: 5:306:30 p.m. Kane Center, 900 S.E. Salerno Road, Stuart. Ages: 50+. $4/$6. 772-223-7800; www.kanecenter.org.
OTHER
Carpro Autospa Night Car Show: 6-8 p.m., weather permitting. Lowe's Stuart, 3620 S.E. U.S. 1, Stuart. 772-285-3320.
Piano Instruction: Beginners to concert level. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. Shirley Heifetz, Jensen Beach. Ages: 8+. Registration: 772-934-6812.
Toastmasters: Join us for lunch and experience what Toastmasters is about. 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Palm City Presbyterian Church, large room in back, 2700 Martin Highway, Palm City. Ages: 18+. palmcityorators@gmail.com.
WEDNESDAY'S SPECIAL EVENTS
WEDNESDAY'S RECURRING EVENTS
ARTS/CRAFTS
Alizarin Crimson Art Studio: Over 30 years of Fine Art Instruction Painting Classes-All Levels. 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Cedar Pointe Plaza, 2611 S.E. Ocean Blvd., Stuart. All ages. 772-287-7030; Alizarincrimsonstudio.net. Professional Teaching Staff: Georgia Abood, Kate Wood & Jennifer Pollack.
Imaginative Drawing Class: 4:30-7:30 p.m. The Artists Nook, 43 S.E. Kindred St., Stuart. Ages: 15+. $30-$360. paradigm_shiftin@mac.com.
Rendering in Mixed Media: Learn to Draw colorfully with more than just a pencil. 7:30-10:30 p.m. The Artists Nook, 43 S.E. Kindred St., Stuart. Ages: 16+. $30-$360. paradigm_shiftin@mac.com.
Watercolor Classes: 9 a.m.-noon. Hobe Sound Fine Arts League, Winn-Dixie Plaza, Bridge Road, Hobe Sound. Register: $20. 772-341-9332.
CHILDREN/TEENS
Family Story Time: 10:30 a.m. Ages 1-3 years. Peter and Julie Cummings Library, 2551 S.W. Matheson Ave, Palm City. 772-288-2551; library.martin.fl.us.
Family Story Time: 11:30 a.m. Ages: 0-12 months. Peter and Julie Cummings Library, 2551 S.W. Matheson Ave, Palm City. 772-288-2551; library.martin.fl.us.
CLUBS
Marine Corps League: Meeting for qualified U.S. Marines, Navy F.M.F.-Corpsmen & F.M.F.-Chaplains. 7 p.m. Stuart-Jensen Elks Lodge No. 1870, 1001 S. Kanner Highway, Stuart. Ages: 17+. Fee/dues after joining. 800-979-9096; info@martinmcl1045.org.
DANCE
Adult Summer Dance Camp: Classes and Social Parties for Ballroom, Latin, Swing, Country Dance. 4-10 p.m. Jensen Beach Ballroom, 881 Jensen Beach Blvd., Jensen Beach. Ages: 18+. $100 to $300 per month per person. Register: 609-356-2973; gloriana@jensenbeachballroom.com.
Ballroom Dancing: 4-5 p.m. Kane Center, 900 S.E. Salerno Road, Stuart. Ages: 50+. $8/$10. 772-223-7800; www.kanecenter.org.
Dance Classes: Ballroom, Latin, Swing, Country and Club group and private classes. 1-9 p.m. Jensen Beach Ballroom, 881 N.E. Jensen Beach Blvd., Jensen Beach. Discounts available. Register: 609-356-2973; www.JensenBeachBallroom.com.
Dancing and Karoke: Music and Dancing at the Elks with Permanent Affair, open membership night. 6-10 p.m. Stuart-Jensen Elks Lodge 1870, 1001 S. Kanner Highway, Stuart. Ages: 21. 772-287-0277; elks1870@bellsouth.net.
Group Dance Lessons: Ballroom, Latin, Swing, Country. 6 p.m. Jensen Beach Ballroom, 881 N.E. Jensen Beach Blvd., Jensen Beach. $10 per person. 609-356-2973; jensenbeachballroom.com.
EXERCISE/health
Aerobic Sitting Exercises: 9-10 a.m. MCP& R Log Cabin Senior Center, Langford Park, 2369 N.E. Dixie Highway, Jensen Beach. Ages: 50+. $2. 772-334-2926; zcarter@martin.fl.us.
Yoga: For caregivers, family, cancer survivors hosted by How Big is Your Brave. 6-7 p.m. 2026 S.E. Ocean Blvd., Stuart. Reservation: www.howbigisyourbrave.org/programs.
Zumba Gold: 9-10 a.m. Kane Center, 900 S.E. Salerno Road, Stuart. Ages: 50+. $4/$6. 772-223-7800; www.kanecenter.org.
OTHER
Citizenship Class: Free citizenship application assistance and preparation for the citizenship test. 6-8 p.m. Robert Morgade Library, 5851 S.E. Community Drive, Stuart. 772-463-3245; library.martin.fl.us.
Life Skills Discussion Group: Have you got something you would like to discuss? 1-3 p.m. MCP&R Log Cabin Senior Center at Langford Park, 2369 N.E. Dixie Highway, Jensen Beach. Multigenerational. $2. 772-334-2926; zcarter@martin.fl.us.
Marine Corps League Monthly Meeting: U.S. Marines, Navy F.M.F. Corpsmen & F.M.F. Chaplains. 7 p.m. sharp! Stuart-Jensen Elk's Lodge #1870, 1001 S. Kanner Highway, Stuart. 772-919-8800; jjwilsonmcl1045@gmail.com.
Piano Instruction: Beginners to concert level. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. Shirley Heifetz, Jensen Beach. Ages: 8+. Registration: 772-934-6812.
LOOKING AHEAD
Sea Turtle Walks: Learn about these endangered reptiles and experience a female Loggerhead Sea Turtle lay eggs. $5. Nighttime walks. July 7, 8, 14, 15, 21, 22. Reservations: 772-546-2067; www.hobesoundnaturecenter.com.
A Matter of Balance, Fall prevention Training: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. July 7, 8. The Kane Center, 900 S.E. Salerno Road, Stuart. Register: 561-684-5885; www.YourADRC.org.
Required Minimum Distribution Workshop: Michael Burleigh, financial expert will speak. 2-3 p.m. July 7. Hoke Library, 1150 Jack Williams Way, Jensen Beach. Adult. Reservation: 888-710-1002; www.peakcapital.fixedincomecounsel.com.
Dog Adoption Showcase: Meet & greet dogs in need of loving homes. 11 a.m.-2 p.m. July 9. PetSupermarket, 2595 S.E. U.S. 1, Stuart. 772-332-4008; nalasrescue.org; kbest772@yahoo.com.
Tech-focused Idea Lab: Grand Opening. 2:30 p.m. July 9. Elisabeth Lahti Library, 15200 S.W. Adams Ave. Indiantown. 772-221-4651.
Let's Get Crafty: Coloring for adults, use your own materials or ours. 3 p.m. July 11, 25. Robert Morgade Library, 5851 S.E. Community Drive, Stuart. 772-463-3245; www.library.martin.fl.us.
Drum Corps International: Competition. 7:30 p.m. July 11. Jupiter High School, 500 Military Trail, Jupiter.
Stop the Financial Insanity Course: Michael Burleigh, financial expert will teach the course. 6-7:30 p.m. July 12, 19, 26. Indian River State College, Wolf High-tech Center, 2400 Salerno Road, Building C, Room C102, Stuart. Reservation: 888-710-1002; www.peakcapital.fixedincomecounsel.com.
The Bahamas-Country of 700 Islands: The history, geography, culture and food of the Bahamas. 6 p.m. July 13. Robert Morgade Library, 5851 S.E. Community Drive, Stuart. 772-463-3245; library@martin.fl.us.
Candidate Forum: 'Meet and Greet' breakfast will feature candidates for Constitutional Officers and School Board. 8-9:30 a.m. July 14. Miles Grant Country Club, 5101 S.E. Miles Grant Road, Stuart. $12 per person, includes breakfast. RSVP required: www.hobesound.org.
Danforth Creek Bridge Repair Project FDOT Open House: Project personnel will be on hand to discuss the project. 4:30-6:30 p.m. July 14. Stuart/Martin County Chamber of Commerce, 1650 S. Kanner Highway, Stuart. 772-359-5118; kdempsey@corradino.com.
Handmaking a Surfboard: Discussion and demonstration about making a surfboard. 6-8 p.m. July 14. Elliott Museum, 825 N.E. Ocean Blvd., Stuart. $14. RSVP: 772-225-1961; www.elliottmuseum.org.
Genealogy Summer at the Library: Four-event genealogy program run by three local organizations. 6-7:30 p.m. July 14. Cummings Library, Palm City, 2551 S.W. Matheson Ave., Palm City. Adult. 772-248-2551; rnagro@martin.fl.us.
Religious Workshop: 8 a.m.-12:15 p.m. July 16. Children's Services Council of Martin County, 101 S.E. Central Parkway, Stuart. $50. 772-217-8941; rbrandt@rdrtraining.com.
Luau Night: Dance Social with Ballroom, Latin, Swing and Country music. 7-10 p.m. July 22. Jensen Beach Ballroom, 881 N.E. Jensen Beach Blvd., Jensen Beach. $12 per person. 609-356-2973; gloriana@jensenbeachballroom.com.
Candidate Forum: Mix & Mingle with Congressional and State Representative Candidates. 5:30-7 p.m. July 27. Location TBA. $10 per person, includes 2 drink tickets and light hors d'oeuvres. RSVP required: www.hobesound.org.
AUGUST
Great Back Pack Give Away: Free fully stocked back packs for children K-8. 8-11 a.m. Aug. 6. St. Luke's Episcopal Church, 5150 S.E. Railway Ave. Cove Road A1A, Port Salerno.
Back-to-School Bash: Noon-4 p.m. Aug. 6. Treasure Coast Square, 3174 N.W. U.S. 1, Jensen Beach.
Biologist Beach Walk: Public insight into LMC's research department. 6:45-8:30 a.m. Aug. 8.-Sept. 30. Loggerhead Marinelife Center, 14200 U.S. 1 Juno Beach. Ages: 8+. $12. Ticket: 561-627-8280; www.marinelife.org/beachwalk.
The Vero Beach High School Philharmonic Orchestra has an invitation to represent Florida in the 2017 American Celebration of Music in Austria. (FILE PHOTO)
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By Janet Begley, Special to Treasure Coast Newspapers
VERO BEACH Members of the Vero Beach High School Philharmonic Orchestra may need to learn a few German words before they perform next spring in Austria.
The musicians received an invitation to represent Florida in the 2017 American Celebration of Music from May 25 to June 3 in Salzburg, Vienna and Innsbruck.
The orchestra was chosen after the group was seen at a performance in New York City last year. The trip is being coordinated by Music Celebrations International in Tempe, Arizona.
This annual concert series was established in 1996 to commemorate Austria's Millennium, according to the Music Celebrations International website. The festival incorporates the concerts into various special musical celebrations taking place in Austria. Music and dance groups are featured in a variety of performing venues, from historic cathedrals and concert halls to palaces, spa resorts, and historic outdoor settings.
Vero Beach High School Orchestra Director Matt Stott said students already have begun raising money for the trip, including a Summer Sounds concert on June 18 at the First Presbyterian Church. During the next year, orchestra members will have more concerts and fundraising events to raise money for the trip.
"Our students are grateful for the support of the local community, donors and patrons who believe in the investment of today's youth," Stott said. "The trip will help provide our students with an experience beyond their wildest dreams, representing our community and state, performing in the very place so much of the music we study was created."
To kick off the fundraising, the Cultural Council of Indian River County board of directors has pledged $2,500 toward the students' trip.
"We are so proud of Matt Stott and his orchestra," said Barbara Hoffman, executive director of the Cultural Council. "We are delighted to be giving students the opportunity to experience arts and culture at its highest level."
Stott told the Cultural Council by email he and the orchestra are pleased with their support for the international tour.
"This is an incredible boost and it is very exciting to know that the heart of our arts community is behind us as we embark on this momentous opportunity," Stott said.
TO MAKE A DONATION
The Vero Beach High School Orchestra program includes 150 musicians. The orchestra is consistently assessed as one of Florida's finest student ensembles. Outside of Florida, the orchestra has performed in New York, Chicago, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and in the National Orchestra Festival, in Kansas City, Missouri.
For more information about the upcoming trip or to donate, contact Matt Stott at 772-564-5458 or by email at matthew.stott@indianriverschools.org.
Algae pollution at Central Marine Stuart as seen from Rio Nature Park in Stuart on Sunday, July 3, 2016. (HOBIE HILER/SPECIAL TO TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS)
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By Tyler Treadway of TCPalm
STUART Martin County is doubling up on efforts to test algae in and around the St. Lucie River for toxins.
The county contracted with Coastal Eco-Group Inc. of Deerfield Beach to collect algae samples Tuesday morning at five sites that already have been tested by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, said Deborah L. Drum, county ecosystem restoration manager.
The samples will be sent to the University of North Carolina and the University of New York at Syracuse to test for toxicity with results expected in about two days.
The county project isn't second-guessing the DEP's work, said county Coastal Engineer Kathy Fitzpatrick. "It's just that we're looking for third-party confirmation of what DEP is finding. Our tests could confirm that we're seeing the same thing. Or if we get different results, it doesn't necessarily mean one set is wrong. It could show how dynamic the algae situation can be; that toxin levels can change quickly."
The county will spend from $1,500 to $1,600 for the sampling and testing, Fitzpatrick said.
The county will be paying for the extra testing, said Administrator Taryn Kryzda, but could get federal funding if President Barack Obama declares a federal emergency because of the algae blooms.
The County Commissioners has requested Gov. Rick Scott ask the president to declare a federal emergency, said Kryzda, "but we haven't heard anything on that."
Toxins in blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria, can cause nausea and vomiting if ingested, and rash or hay fever symptoms if touched or inhaled, according to the Florida Department of Health. Drinking water with the toxins can cause long-term liver disease. Some research indicates a link between long-term inhalation of toxic fumes from blue-green with neurological ailments such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's diseases.
A resolution approved by the commissioners Tuesday asks the state Department of Health to coordinate air-quality testing "where mats of algae have accumulated and have the potential to become inhaled and/or aerosolized, which could have serious health implications.
The county also is looking for local contractors to test the air around algae blooms for possible airborne toxins, Drum said.
Meanwhile, the county is getting other state and federal help with algae sampling:
Staff and volunteers at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission office in Tequesta have added sites outside the St. Lucie Inlet and near Bathtub Reef Beach to its list of weekly ocean water samples. The samples are tested for toxins at the DEP lab in Tallahassee.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency regional office in Atlanta has offered to help the DEP collect water samples from algal-bloom affected areas.
BEEN THERE, FOUND THAT
The five sites where a Martin County-hired contractor took algae samples Tuesday already have been tested by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Here are the sites, the dates the DEP sampled at them and what the state lab found at each:
Sandsprit Park: In the lower river near Port Salerno, June 27, hazardous level of toxins
North River Shores: Along the North Fork of the St. Lucie; June 27; no toxins*
Palm City Bridge: In the South Fork, June 20, low level of toxins
Central Marine: In the north shore of the river, June 29, hazardous level of toxins
Bathtub Reef Beach: On oceanfront of southern Hutchinson Island, June 27 no toxins
*The DEP sampled algae slightly farther up the North Fork at Club Med.
WHO TO CALL
855-305-3903: To report possible blue-green algae blooms to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection
800-222-1222: To report algae-related illness to the Florida Poison Control Center
772-320-3112: For Martin County beach closings due to algae
Learn more about the health of your waterways:
Algae pollution at Central Marine Stuart as seen from Rio Nature Park in Stuart Sunday. To see more photos, go to TCPalm.com (HOBIE HILER/ SPECIAL TO TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS)
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By Isadora Rangel of TCPalm
Gov. Rick Scott said Wednesday he will push for more money next year to get rid of septic tanks along the Indian River Lagoon.
Scott's plan would add more money to a 50-50 matching state grant program with counties and municipalities to get properties voluntarily off septic and help governments build wastewater systems to curb pollution entering waterways. The money will be part of his 2017-18 proposed state budget and needs legislative approval.
Lagoon advocates welcomed the additional funding, but said the real issue plaguing local waterways are Lake Okeechobee discharges. They called for the Legislature to allocate money to buy land to move lake water south to solve the algae blooms that have spread in the St. Lucie River, Indian River Lagoon and periodically on Atlantic beaches in recent weeks.
Scott's office said it had no details on how much money he wants to funnel into the septic grant or whether he wants to fund other types of projects to help the lagoon and Caloosahatchee River, both impacted by discharges. Scott is working with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the South Florida Water Management District on details, a news release said.
Reducing discharges
Although septic tanks have been found to contribute to lagoon pollution, the recent algae blooms are largely caused by algae entering the St. Lucie River from the lake. Freshwater from the lake lowers the salinity in the normally brackish estuary, which allows algae to grow; and nutrients in the lake water feed the bloom.
Incoming Florida Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, is working on a proposal he plans to present to the Legislature next year to reduce discharges by moving lake water south into the Everglades. He praised the governor's efforts, but said he doesn't want that to take the focus away from buying land needed for his plan.
Scott publicly has been non-committal on the land purchase. Negron said he's talked to Scott on "numerous occasions" about the need to store more water south of the lake, and added, "I think (Scott) wants to do what's right for our community."
Everglades Foundation CEO Eric Eikenberg said he's "been encouraged" after meeting with the governor to pitch the idea. The Miami-based foundation is one of the groups leading the push to buy land and hopes Scott will add money for the land buy in his proposed budget, Eikenberg said.
Off septic
Governments across the Treasure Coast have been switching people from septic systems to sewer.
A study commissioned by Martin County found septic systems are one of the major contributors to lagoon pollution in the area. The county has connected about 2,000 homes and commercial properties to sewer lines in the past 20 years and still has 16,000 to go, of which 10,500 have been identified as having an impact on rivers, said Utilities Director John Polley. The county, which got $1.5 million for conversions from the state this year, has ongoing projects to convert approximately 2,500 properties in North River Shores, Golden Gate and Palm City.
St. Lucie County is in the design stage for the removal of 580 septic systems, including 340 directly on the Indian River Lagoon, on North Hutchinson Island, spokesman Erick Gill said. The county asked for state money this year but didn't get it and used its reserves to pay for the design, he said, and that cost might be passed onto homeowners who benefit from the switch in the future, he said.
Indian River County anticipates connecting 55 homes in west Wabasso by late 2017 and will lay out sewer lines for 47 vacant parcels in the area, said Utilities Director Vincent Burke. A project funded partially by the St. Johns River Water Management District will convert 61 commercial properties in north Sebastian along U.S. 1 near the lagoon. The county wants to connect homes in that area to sewer as well, and is looking to do a study into the areas where septic systems represent the most risk for the lagoon.
Vero Beach installed sewer lines along 610 properties and has connected 49 homes so far. The city's goal is to switch 1,500 properties and will send letters in the fall to homeowners on the barrier island. They will have a year to voluntarily get on sewer lines for a discounted price of $5,600 to $7,100 instead of the normal cost of cost $8,900 to $10,400, said Water and Sewer Director Rob Bolton.
Stuart City Hall (left) and neighboring Spoto's Oyster Bar face the St. Lucie River along the Riverwalk in downtown Stuart. (XAVIER MASCARENAS/TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS)
SHARE Chance Smith (center), 5, tries to get the attention of Elizabeth Salvino's dog, Bear, behind Stuart City Hall on Southwest Flagler Avenue, facing the Riverwalk. Chance's father, Roger Alec Smith, of Port St. Lucie, said he tries to take his family to the area regularly. "I love the scenery, it's very serene," he said. (XAVIER MASCARENAS/TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS) Stuart is considering replacing City Hall and nearby city-owned businesses with new development. (Contributed rendering by Lucido & Associates) Stuart is considering replacing City Hall and nearby city-owned businesses with new development. (Contributed rendering by Lucido & Associates)
By Lidia Dinkova of TCPalm
STUART The city is taking a hard look at replacing City Hall and nearby city-owned buildings with a park and a new development, such as a hotel. But details including costs and where city operations would relocate remain to be hammered out.
By October the city hopes to have more details, including a cost for the park, and be ready to ask developers what they want to build on the site.
The city wants a public waterfront park and a development with a parking garage to replace Spoto's Oyster Bar, City Hall, its parking lots and the City Hall Annex, adjacent to City Hall.
The city has for a while wanted to open more of the waterfront to the public, but plans took a hit during the recent recession, City Manager Paul Nicoletti said.
To replace City Hall, the city and Martin County School District have considered a joint administration complex.
One option for those offices is School District-owned property roughly between Ocean and Martin Luther King Jr. boulevards, and Georgia and High School avenues, but planning is preliminary and no decision has been made.
Spoto's Oyster Bar just north of City Hall in a city-owned building at 131 S.W. Flagler Ave. also might have to relocate. Its lease with the city says it is to open in a hotel built on the site, owner John Spoto said.
Not only does the city want to open up waterfront land, it wants to create more public parking.
Aside from a garage near City Hall, the city is looking into building two other garages.
The parking shortage has "stifled redevelopment," Commissioner Troy McDonald told the commission last week.
One garage could be on land roughly bordered by Southwest Akron Avenue, Third Street, South Dixie Highway and California Avenue. Another could be on the south side of Southeast Osceola Street, where the city already owns a parking lot.
A garage on Osceola Street in 2010 was estimated to cost nearly $4 million, excluding purchase of any additional private property.
McDonald has suggested four ways to pay for the two parking garages: with property-tax money; with Community Redevelopment Agency money; creating a downtown parking district, which might assess businesses benefiting from the extra parking; and opting out of leasing space from Florida East Coast Railway.
The city leases 10 parcels from Florida East Coast Railway for more than 100 spaces, said city spokesman Ben Hogarth. This year, the city is paying $25,000.
"Why not take that money that we are spending on that and put it for a garage?" McDonald asked.
Whether the city builds garages at one, two or three of the sites is unknown.
"The reality is it may be a combination of both" plans, McDonald said.
Northpoint Ventures LLC already wants to build a hotel on nearby city-owned land across the St. Lucie River, between the railroad and Northwest Dixie Highway.
Developer Julian Mandody said he's unconcerned about competition from a new hotel on the south side of the river.
"I think they are more concerned about me being competition to that (City Hall) site," he said, "than I am (concerned) about them being competition to me."
STUART PARKING: BY THE NUMBERS
1,300: Approximate number of spots the city owns and provides in downtown
More than 100: Spots the city provides on land leased from Florida East Coast Railway
400: Spots the city is considering creating in two garages
Unknown: Number of spots in a possible private garage at the current City Hall site
Fort Pierce Police Chief Diane Hobley-Burney listens as Mark Hadden (foreground), of Fort Pierce, speaks to the Fort Pierce City Commission during a special meeting on May 4 at Fort Pierce City Hall regarding the fatal officer-involved shooting of Demarcus Semer. (FILE PHOTO)
By Keona Gardner of TCPalm
FORT PIERCE City Manager Nick Mimms placed Police Chief Diane Hobley-Burney on paid administrative leave until further notice on Tuesday, days after the City Commission was told that she had ordered criminal investigations into Commissioner Reggie Sessions and city critic Rick Reed.
Hobley-Burney was just beginning her second year as police chief. Deputy Chief Kenny Norris will be interim chief until further notice, according to a city news release.
Fort Pierce Police Special Investigator Borthland Murray on July 1 emailed the City Commission, claiming Hobley-Burney mismanaged the Police Department, misused her official position, selectively enforced rules and mishandled the department's accreditation.
Murray, who directly reports to the chief, said Hobley-Burney ordered him to investigate Sessions and Reed, both of whom pushed for the city to ask the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the April 23 police-involved fatal shooting of Demarcus Semer.
"I was directed by the chief of police to gather any and all information on the citizen (Reed) and Commissioner Sessions to seek criminal charges," Murray wrote.
"This directive was further galvanized by Deputy Chief (Frank) Amandro when he directed and stated to me to make sure it's something tangible." The city would not comment if whether any disciplinary action was taken against Amandro.
Sessions, who last year supported Hobley-Burney when the city recruited her to be new chief, said he wants the city's Human Resources Department to investigate.
"If any of this is remotely true, then we have a very serious problem," Sessions said before Tuesday's City Commission meeting. "I took an oath as their government official to speak up and speak out for my constituents. I spoke out for the people based on what the people wanted. This whole thing is just tragic."
No one at the City Commission meeting addressed the police chief's administrative leave.
City officials said they are conducting an internal investigation in the Human Resources Department.
In the email, Murray also claimed Hobley-Burney attempted to intimidate Reed when she took two high-ranking police officers to his restaurant during a community meeting in late April. At the meeting, residents expressed their frustration over the lack of answers from the city regarding the Semer shooting investigation.
Reed expressed anger about being investigated.
"This is not a police state," Reed said. "Citizens have the right to question our government."
Reed said he reported the incident to Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Inside the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, where Orlando shooter Omar Mateen prayed as early as Friday. (NICOLE RODRIGUEZ/TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS)
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By Nicole Wiesenthal of TCPalm
FORT PIERCE The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations has dropped its public records request for information on the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office after Sheriff Ken Mascara and Chief Deputy Garry Wilson met for about an hour with the imam of the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce and community members on Saturday.
The meeting bridged communication between the Sheriff's Office and the Islamic Center, and gave community members an opportunity to voice their concerns and a way for Mascara to show that the safety of the citizens mattered to him, said Wilfredo Ruiz, communications director of CAIR Florida and a mosque spokesman.
"It really was a game-changer," Ruiz said. "I believe that this is a good solution, a good finale to the ordeal, and the things that happened needed to happen."
Early Saturday, a worshipper was assaulted outside the Islamic Center, and Ruiz said members of the Muslim community were impressed by how quickly the Sheriff's Office responded.
Ruiz said they were also impressed that the Sheriff's detectives quickly investigated whether the incident was a hate crime. After talking, the sheriff established a direct line that mosque members could use to reach them and placed more deputies around the mosque.
"It's a different game," Ruiz said, "and it's with the actions, with the presence we're seeing from the office, an open line with the sheriff."
CAIR Florida had requested information about of all Sheriff's Office details for the past three months, but because the sheriff sat down with them for an hour and talked, Ruiz said, they felt it had just been a misunderstanding.
"We had a better understanding that there were resources lacking," he said, "and we had not communicated in an effective way. But now when we have direct lines of communications, it's so different. It creates a safer environment for the worshippers."
"It looked like an open sewer pit. It looked like a septic tank," said Sen. Marco Rubio (center right) after visiting the residence of Bob Mark, of Stuart, on July 1 along state Sen. Joe Negron (center left) and others during his visit to the Treasure Coast to examine the algae pollution in the St. Lucie River. Afterwards, Rubio spoke to the media and elected officials and business representatives at Central Marine in Stuart. (JEREMIAH WILSON/TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS)
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By Marco Rubio
Following my visit to the Treasure Coast on Friday to see the algae disaster firsthand, many Floridians are rightfully asking: What are our leaders doing to solve this problem that is damaging their businesses, their local economies and the value of their properties?
Since some in the media haven't fully answered that question, I will attempt to catch your readers up on my progress and efforts in Washington, many of which have been done in partnership with Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Florida).
I have been confronting problems caused by the discharges from Lake Okeechobee for years now. In addition to tours of the affected areas, numerous meetings and conference calls with local leaders and stakeholders, and constant contact between my staff and all relevant state and federal government entities, I have also taken effective legislative action.
Last time I visited the affected coastal communities, one of the top priorities was the deauthorization of the Ten Mile Creek Reservoir and Stormwater Treatment Area. I passed that deauthorization into law in December of last year.
The second priority was the Central Everglades Planning Project, which would divert some of the discharges away from the coastlines and into the Everglades. For my first four years in the Senate, this was being held up by the dysfunction of the Senate Democratic majority and the administration's failure to produce a required report on time. Once in the majority, I was able to work with Senator Jim Inhofe a key senator whose committee was the traffic cop for this legislation and who was not initially inclined to support it educated him on the importance of the project, and it is now included in a major piece of legislation in the Senate that has passed through a key committee and awaits a full Senate vote.
None of these solutions alone are satisfactory. That's why I'm going to continue fighting on other priorities. We will work to get the Army Corps of Engineers to stop, or at least slow, these harmful flows. Should Florida's governor formally request a federal disaster declaration, I will support this action and encourage the president to approve. This would allow the full breadth of federal aid to become available to affected communities and businesses.
We are urging the appropriate health care agencies to assess the long-term health risks of these algae blooms. Finally, I will continue to push to get the Senate's water bill, which now contains authorization for the Central Everglades Planning Project, across the finish line.
This is a grave problem our state is facing, especially the people living on the Treasure Coast, for whom the algae is damaging their communities and livelihoods.
This disaster transcends political bickering, yet it also highlights exactly why Washington is so frustrating. While the Central Everglades Planning Project is hopefully nearing passage, we cannot and will not stop there. I will work with anyone and everyone I can to restore our coastal communities and local economies to their full beauty and strength.
Marco Rubio is a U.S. Senator from Florida who is running for re-election.
Vero Beach's Downtown Friday on June 24 had something for everyone. There was the usual live music and food trucks but this one had a special guest, Tony Young, president of the Veteran's Council of Indian River County was there to salute some of our local veterans in honor of the 4th of July holiday.
'Elaine Jones, executive director of Main Street Vero Beach had called me a few weeks ago and said they wanted to do something special at the downtown festival for the upcoming holiday,' Young said. 'So we had six veterans from each branch come forward as well the #1038 color guard to show the spirit of the red, white and blue. It was a great evening.'
And also a family affair for Young, since his daughter Jessica Merchant was in town from Maryland visiting. She sells apparel as a side job.
'It's a company based out of California called LuLaRoe. they are relatively new,' Merchant said. 'They are known for their 'buttery' leggings. Since my dad was going to be here, I thought I might as well get a booth.'
Locals and out-of-towners stood for the Pledge of Allegiance, and applauded each and every veteran as the sun began to set in the western sky.
'I really love downtown Friday and everyone just hanging out and having a great time,' said former executive director of The Heritage Center Suzy Feeney. 'There is so much happening and more to come.' But she said it was too soon to give away her next big plan.
To find out more about Main Street Vero Beach or to volunteer, visit www.mainstreetverobeach.org or call (772) 643-6782.
Press-Journal, July 5, 1956
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Compiled By Cindy Schwarz
90 YEARS AGO: 1926
County nurse
INDIAN RIVER COUNTYRecommended as "being exceptionally well qualified," Miss Lelia Bunkley sent a telegram to County Superintendent Riggs accepting the position of county nurse for Indian River County. Miss Bunkley, of Marion, N.C., was recommended by Dr. Laurie Jean Reid, state supervisor of nurses. Bunkley will receive a monthly salary of $150 and the county federation of women's clubs will furnish a car and its upkeep.
80 YEARS AGO: 1936
Community Fourth
VERO BEACHThe community 4th of July celebration at Pocahontas Park is taking shape. A parade will start the day's events at 9:30 a.m. Parade formation is as follows: Grand Marshal, police escort, city officials, Vero Beach school band, decorated bicycles, organizations, children in grotesque costumes, a German band, Boy Scouts, a Scottish band, floats and decorated automobiles.
70 YEARS AGO: 1946
Sheetrock installed
WABASSORev. and Mrs. G. S. Owen of Grace Methodist Church are having sheetrock installed in the parsonage in all rooms, on the walls and the ceiling, as well as painting the sheetrock. New electric light fixtures will also be installed.
60 YEARS AGO: 1956
Oil refinery opposed
INDIAN RIVER COUNTYEstablishing an oil refinery in Fort Pierce has stiff opposition. A campaign opposing the refinery has launched, including areas in St. Lucie, Indian River and Martin counties. Petitions are circulating from Salerno in Martin County to Melbourne in Brevard County trying to stop the refinery's proposed construction.
50 YEARS AGO: 1966
Hiring women
VERO BEACHMrs. Ada Kaiser was hired at Vero Beach Post Office in February. Her working hours depend upon the amount of mail to be sorted. Mrs. Kaiser is the fourth woman presently working at the local post office including: Mrs. Camille (Andrew) Catalano, who is both clerk and carrier; and two part-time substitutes, Mrs. Ella (Gordon) Williams Sr. and Mrs. Beatrice (Frank) Rogel Jr. who are carriers for Rural Route 1 and Rural Route 2.
30 YEARS AGO: 1986
Dropout rates increase
INDIAN RIVER COUNTYLocal officials say that new state education reforms coupled with student assessment tests have increased the number of high school dropouts at an alarming rate.
Both Indian River County School Superintendent James Burns and Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Dr. Ronald Hudson point out that these are the reasons why students "are probably not seeing themselves as successful in academics or socially."
So they drop out of school. Programs to encourage potential dropouts to stay in school have been implemented the last two to three years.
10 YEARS AGO: 2006
Big dud
VERO BEACHThis year's city fireworks display was short on sizzle and pop, according to city Recreation Director Rob Slezak who estimates that between 20,000 to 40,000 "The grand finale wasn't impressive," said Slezak. Pennsylvania-based Zambelli Fireworks International Corp. created the local event. City officials contacted the company and were given compensation choices including a discount for next year's extravaganza.
Beloved children's book characters Clifford the Big Red Dog and Geronimo Stilton are taking a special road trip this summer.
The pair will cover 10,000 miles in a 35-foot RV. They will be making 25 appearances in bookstores, schools and libraries during their coast-to-coast trek.
The Vero Beach Book Center was one of four pit stops that Scholastic's Summer Reading Road Trip made in Florida.
More than 300 children, with parents and grandparents in tow, lined up at the Book Center to meet authors, illustrators and the iconic book characters.
Scholastic is hosting these miniature reading festivals across the country, for children 12 and under, to help boost literacy.
Attendees enjoyed games, giveaways, having their photos taken, making crafts and cooling off with treats from Rita's Italian Ice.
Florida authors J.J. Howard, Mike Maihack, Sandra Markle, Lisa McCourt and Walter Wick were also on hand to chat with the young readers and sign autographs. They shared insight into their journeys as writers, a few trade secrets and some hints about upcoming books.
Many of the moms and dads at the Summer Road Trip event had spent the lazy days of summer at the Vero Beach Book Center as children, too.
This Vero institution has been providing readers with quality literature since 1975 when owners Tom and Linda Leonard opened the store. Well known as one of the top bookstores in the state, the Book Center has no trouble attracting bestselling authors.
'It's all about getting out that all important message of reading, a lifelong activity that starts at an early age,' says Cynthia Callander, the Book Center's director of marketing and publicity. 'This is all about having fun and the power of stories.'
To keep the fun 'rolling,' join the Summer Reading Challenge, a free online program that has tallied more than a billion reading minutes by children since 2009. Kids can log their minutes and earn rewards through Sept. 8.
This year's theme encourages children to become reading superheroes. To find out how to log reading minutes, earn rewards and unlock stories from featured authors, go to Scholastic.com and 'become a Reading Superhero.'
Follow the Scholastic Road Trip RV, visit SummerRoadTrip.scholastic.com
To find out what's going on at the Vero Beach Book Center, visit VeroBeachBookCenter.com or call 772-569-2050.
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Google last week revealed the official name of its next mobile operating system: Android Nougat. The OS previously went only by Android N, and Google invited the blogosphere to fill in the blanks.
The choice sparked some derision, particularly among those who had preferred Nutella.
What is nougat anyway? asked John Jackson, a research VP at IDC. Its like the nog in eggnog; it doesnt exactly stand alone.
That said, Nougat is consistent with Googles pattern of choosing generic sweets as Android names, while Nutella isnt, he told LinuxInsider.
Nougat sounds like a name a clueless celebrity couple would give their poor kid who would suffer with it through grade school, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. As a typical product name, I think it would suck.
That said, The only thing everyone will agree on when it comes to a new name is that the person who came up with it is an idiot, he told LinuxInsider.
We actually received millions of submissions around the world, said Google spokesperson Joshua Cruz.
Android Nougat was one of the most popular nonbranded suggested names, he told LinuxInsider.
Whats in a Name?
Names are important, and the ones that stick no pun intended are the best, observed Mike Jude, a program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan .
Once a name achieves market recognition, it then becomes a valuable commodity in its own right and can be used to sell other things associated with it, he told LinuxInsider.
A name is what you define a product with, Enderle said. However, a name for an operating system version is relatively trivial. You just want to make sure the name doesnt translate into something unfortunate in another language.
For example, Braniff Airlines 1987 slogan about its jets all-leather seats was fly in leather. This translated into en cuero in Spanish, which sounded like en cueros, meaning naked. Another branding gaffe occurred when Clairol offered a curling iron in Germany named Mist Stick mist is German slang for manure.
What Nougat Offers
With Android Nougat, Google has focused on performance, productivity and security, Cruz said.
This latest preview of the OS its fourth gives devs an early look at whats coming in the next version of our software, he added. It gives the Android team time to gather and incorporate feedback, and it helps our manufacturing partners as well.
It includes the final SDK and set of APIs for Android Nougat.
Theres always a lot to like down in the weeds, and this release is certainly no exception, IDCs Jackson said. Google has done some very progressive thigs with security a multilayered topic that has dogged Android forever with some, but not all, the justification attributed.
Another plus point is performance improvements with fixes to Dalvik, though whether end users truly notice is questionable, he said.
The latest release lets developers write straight to the GPU via the Vulcan API, which Jackson finds interesting, but exactly how this gets exposed and, therefore used, is not quite clear yet. Still, its certainly notable that theyre turning the keys to the metal right over to devs.
Whats No. 1?
The most important feature is that Googles moving to standardize virtual reality support, Jackson said. This is critical to growing the ecosystem; it will also be unwelcome but predictable news for the likes of Samsung and HCT, with their own blue ocean aspirations in this space.
However, security is the most important feature, according to Enderle, as companies and agencies are getting very uncomfortable with the number of cellphones that have been compromised.
Final Release Issues
The final version of Android Nougat reportedly is scheduled for sometime in Q3, but Frosts Jude is skeptical.
Id say Q3 is optimistic, he said. Theyre still working out the bugs, and vendors need time to test-drive the system and make sure its compatible with their devices.
Still, if Google can make Android Nougat available for new devices released during the upcoming holiday season, suggested Jude, they are golden.
More than 85 million Android devices worldwide have been taken over by the Yingmob, a group of China-based cybercriminals who created the HummingBad malware, according to a Check Point report released last week.
HummingBad establishes a persistent rootkit on Android devices, generates fraudulent ad revenue, and installs additional fraudulent apps.
If it fails to establish a rootkit, it effectively carpet bombs the target devices with poisoned apps.
HummingBad has been generating revenue of US$300,000 a month, according to Check Point.
The malware runs along with legitimate ad campaigns that Yingmob has produced for its legitimate ad analytics business.
Weve long been aware of this evolving family of malware, and were constantly improving our systems that detect it, a Google spokesperson said in a statement provided to TechNewsWorld by company rep Aaron Stein. We actively block installations of infected apps to keep users and their information safe.
HummingBads Victim Count
About 25 percent of the roughly 200 apps on the control panel of Umeng a tracking and analytics service HummingBads creators use are malicious, Check Point said. An estimated 10 million people have been using those malicious apps.
China and India have the highest number of victims 1.6 million and 1.3 million, respectively. The Philippines comes in third with 520,000. The United States is eighth, with 286,000 victims.
KitKat runs on 50 percent of the affected devices, Jelly Bean on 40 percent, Lollipop on 7 percent, Ice Cream Sandwich on 2 percent, and Marshmallow on 1 percent, according to Check Point.
How HummingBad Works
HummingBad uses a sophisticated, multistage attack chain with two main components.
The first component, SSP, uses a rootkit that exploits multiple vulnerabilities to try to root the target device.
SSP injects a library into the Google Play process using ptrace, Check Point said, which lets HummingBad imitate clicks on install/buy/accept buttons inside Google Play.
If rooting fails, the second component, CAP, installs fraudulent apps using elaborate techniques. It decrypts module_encrypt.jar from its assets when it launches on a device, then dynamically loads code containing the main malware functionality. Next it decrypts and runs a native daemon binary, among other things.
Regardless of whether the rooting succeeds, HummingBad downloads as many fraudulent apps to the target device as possible a blend of several malicious components, many of them variations with the same functionality.
HummingBad Risk
HummingBad is very hard to identify, very difficult to get rid of, and massively invasive, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.
Alphabet has had a very poor reputation with regard to security, and it will be watched closely to see how quickly and permanently it can mitigate this exploit, he told TechNewsWorld.
If done too poorly or slowly, it could quickly turn Android into an unacceptable risk for the entire industry.
HummingBad could stymie Googles plans to embed Android more deeply into the auto industry, Enderle noted. Google has effectively built a car infotainment system into Nougat, the latest version of Android, he pointed out, and HummingBad could easily have adverse implications with regard to driver safety.
Apple and Donate Life America on Tuesday announced a partnership to offer an organ donation app when the new iOS 10 update becomes available this fall. iPhone users will be able to register for the program with a couple taps of a button.
Theyll be able to sign up to make organ, eye or tissue donations, automatically entering their information in the National Donate Life Registry, which is managed by Donate Life America.
The program can help speed organ donations to about 120,000 people currently waiting for some form of organ or tissue transplant, according to the companies.
There currently are more than 29,000 people a year receiving transplants, but one person dies every hour however waiting for an organ to become available. The hope is that this electronic registry will help connect more potential donors with patients who desperately need to find a match.
Obviously, weve got a very big gap between the number of transplants were doing annually and the number of transplants we need, said David Fleming, CEO of Donate Life America.
Health Data
Apples Health app keeps a users key health and fitness data in a single place. It includes a medical ID that provides critical information such as allergies, medications, blood type and next-of-kin notifications to first responders.
A preview of iOS 10 is currently available to iOS Developer Program members. A public beta will be available to users starting at the end of the month. The iOS 10 upgrade will be available as a free upgrade later this fall.
Donate Life America has been involved in organ donation since 2006, and has promoted efforts to reduce waiting times for organ donations by matching patients with people willing to make organ, eye or tissue samples available.
The vast majority of the public 95 percent support efforts to register for organ donation, Donate Life Americas Fleming told TechNewsWorld, but only 52 percent are currently registered as organ donors.
A combination of factors play into the gap between the willingness to offer organ transplants and the actual execution of the strategy, he said.
Some of it is just good old human procrastination, said Fleming. Of course, I think theres a little bit of an element of fear.
Facebook Push
Donate Life America several years ago launched an initiative with Facebook to make it easier to sign up for organ transplants. The Facebook program allowed users to check their organ donation status on the Facebook timeline.
Fleming said that initiative caused an initial spike in donations, but after a while those numbers
using mobile came back down to earth.
At the time, the national registry did not exist, he noted. Its 2015 launch marked a real turning point for efforts to match potential donors with patients. The national registry allows users to register for organ donations on various mobile platforms.
Another advantage of the iPhone program is that registering through the app will allow the users request to remain in force across state lines, according to Apple.
The organ donation app is Apples latest move to broaden the reach of its healthcare apps, which represent a growing market for mobile providers.
The company earlier this year launched CareKit and ResearchKit, which allow iOS developers to create different forms of medical apps to help doctors and patients communicate, and to help diagnose a number of different medical conditions, including Parkinsons, cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
Volkswagen on Tuesday announced that it has reached an agreement to settle claims arising from the emissions scandal that has plagued the company since its discovery two years ago.
The company has agreed to set up a US$10 billion funding pool to buy back or terminate leases of diesel vehicles sold in the United States. Volkswagen had used software to cheat on emissions tests in labs for its turbocharged direct injection diesel engines.
Planned Pollution
The vehicles emitted up to 40 times more nitrogen oxides in real-world driving than the company registered in lab tests using the deceptive software. Volkswagen had put the software in about 11 million cars worldwide, of which about 500,000 were in the United States.
The vehicles in question were from the model years 2009 through 2015.
Volkswagen also agreed to establish a $2.7 billion environmental remediation fund, and to invest $2 billion to promote adoption of zero-emissions cars in the U.S.
The Department of Justice, the State of California, the Federal Trade Commission and certain private plaintiffs have agreed to the deal, which also must be approved by Judge Charles Breyer of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Actions Against VW
The DoJ early this year filed suit against Volkswagen and associated companies over the emissions scandal, and the FTC in March filed its complaint in federal court.
German prosecutors earlier this month began investigating former VW employees, including former CEO Martin Winterkorn, over allegations of fraud and market manipulation in relation to the emissions scandal.
Other countries regulators also are examining VW closely.
The companys next course of action is to tackle the international problem, said Praveen Chandrasekar, a research manager at Frost & Sullivan.
VW is rumored to have set aside almost 16 billion euros (US$18.2) for the scandal at the worldwide level, he told the E-Commerce Times.
Crime and Punishment
A penalty should be large enough so that not only doesnt the offending firm repeat its crime, but also no other firm even thinks of doing something like this, commented Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.
The emissions scandal was brought to light by pure chance, which means the government wants to use fear as its primary method for compliance, he told the E-Commerce Times.
The scandal showcases the importance of governance and internal audit to catch things like this, Enderle suggested. This is a huge reminder that strong compliance and internal audit programs can literally save companies billions.
In an effort to see how single-celled organisms respond to being in life-or-death situations against multicellular organisms, scientists from University College Southeast Norway and the Institute of Micro and Nano System Technology created a tiny (it measures less than a millimeter in diameter) Pac-Man maze that served as the battle grounds.
The single-celled organisms, called euglena and ciliates, act as Pac-Man while the larger multicellular species, known as rotifers, play the role of the ghosts. Filmmaker Andy Bartley was brought in to help capture the "game" in all its glory.
The video unfortunately isn't in English and the subtitles aren't all that helpful but it's neat to watch nevertheless. If only science had been this fun when I was in school...
Found is a TechSpot feature where we share clever, funny or otherwise interesting stuff from around the web.
Last week, it was reported that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had launched a "preliminary investigation" into an accident involving a Tesla Model S that resulted in the death of Joshua Brown.
The vehicle was traveling in autopilot mode at the time of the crash, which took place in Florida on May 7. Tesla waited nine days before informing the NHTSA, but the incident didn't become public knowledge until news of the agency's investigation surfaced.
On Monday, Fortune published an article noting that Tesla and Elon Musk sold $2 billion worth of Tesla stock just 11 days after the accident, all without releasing any information about the crash. The publication argues that, as the autopilot was involved, the incident was "material" enough to warrant informing shareholders.
"To put things baldly, Tesla and Musk did not disclose the very material fact that a man had died while using an auto-pilot technology that Tesla had marketed vigorously as safe and important to its customers," wrote Carol J. Loomis.
Musk hit back at the claims, sending an email to Loomis that stated: "Please, take 5 mins and do the bloody math before you write an article that misleads the public." The CEO went on to claim that Tesla's autopilot feature could save hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide if it were available to everyone.
"Indeed, if anyone bothered to do the math (obviously, you did not) they would realize that of the over 1M auto deaths per year worldwide, approximately half a million people would have been saved if the Tesla autopilot was universally available."
Never one to shy away from letting his feelings known, Musk responded to a Tweet from Fortune editor Alan Murray.
@alansmurray If you care about auto deaths as material to stock prices, why no articles about 1M+/year deaths from other auto companies? --- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 5, 2016
When asked why the company didn't disclose the incident ahead of the share sale, Tesla gave the following statement to Reuters.
Tesla does not find it necessary, nor does any automaker, to share the details of every accident that occur in a Tesla vehicle. More than a million people die globally every year in car accidents, but automakers do not disclose each of these accidents to investors, let alone before those investigations are complete and without regard to what the results of those investigations end up being.
Musk also pointed out that, while tragic, the death is the first known fatality to occur while the autopilot was engaged, even though drivers have covered a total of 130 million miles while using the feature.
Verizon on Wednesday announced that it'll soon be increasing the cost of its wireless data plans by as much as $10 per month. The price hike includes at least 30 percent more data per month as well as a couple of other perks exclusive to higher-tier subscribers.
Beginning July 7 (tomorrow), Verizon's smallest data plan, dubbed "S," will include 2GB of high-speed data at a price of $35, a $5 increase. It's "M" plan for $50 will now feature 4GB of data while the "L" bundle affords 8GB for $70. The top tier "XL" and "XXL" plans will offer 16GB and 24GB of data for $90 and $100, respectively.
Verizon simplified its rate plans last summer, adopting a S-XXL structure like you'd find on clothing.
Also new for Verizon is Carryover Data, a feature that rolls over unused data from one month to the next. Like AT&T's Rollover Data offering, rolled data will expire at the end of the month it was rolled to versus something like T-Mobile's plan where rolled over data lasts up to a year.
Verizon is also introducing Safety Mode which kicks in whenever you've used up your monthly data allotment. Safety Mode data is slow - limited to 128kbps - and comes with a $5 fee each month it is used. If you're on the XL or XXL plans, however, Safety Mode is complementary. If you prefer high-speed data outside of your plan, it'll cost you $15 per GB.
Another perk with the two high-end tiers is unlimited calling to Canada and Mexico plus talk, text and data usage while traveling in those countries. Those on lower-tier plans will have to pay $5 a month for calling to those countries and $2 a day while traveling north and south of the border.
Last but not least, the nation's largest wireless provider has updated its My Verizon mobile app which provides access to data plans, monthly statements, Verizon's online store, on-demand support and more.
The new data plans will be available to both new and existing customers. Those who prefer to stick with their current data plan can opt to be grandfathered in.
Google's DeepMind and the UK's National Health Service (NHS) have recently teamed up to help doctors detect early signs of eye diseases.
DeepMind, Google's AI division based in the United Kingdom, will put machine learning to work in order to analyze more than than 1 million anonymous eye scans. This will provide the researchers with algorithms able to detect subtle early warning signs that physicians might miss during their diagnosis.
This is not the first time that DeepMind worked together with the NHS. However, it is the first time when the partnership will tap into the potential of artificial intelligence.
DeepMind should highlight two eye conditions, namely diabetic retinopathy and wet age-related macular degeneration. The former is considered by many as the leading cause of blindness around the globe.
"There's so much at stake, particularly with diabetic retinopathy," says Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder of DeepMind.
He goes on to add that the risk of going blind is 25 times higher for persons with diabetes. He also notes that early detection of the issue could lead to preventing 98 percent of cases from taking place.
The partnership between DeepMind and the Moorfields Eye Hospital (MEH) started as Pearse Keane, a consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields, saw the potential of using machine learning for image recognition.
Keane thought that the company's machine-learning skills would come in handy in the analysis of eye scans, known as Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) images.
He praised the openness and responsiveness of Suleyman, who agreed to jump in on the research project.
Moorfields is set to offer anonymous OCT data, which means that the project will be less controversial than the previous one. In a previous project dubbed Streams, DeepMind cooperated with the Royal Free Hospital, which put the full care history of some 1.6 million patients on the table for AI analysis.
At the time, some chastised Google for bypassing the standard authorization to handle personal data information. Regardless, both the Royal Free Hospital and DeepMind swore that their agreement was within legal boundaries. One of the results of the project, the Streams app, is still undergoing testing.
In referring to the eye scans from Moorfields, Google affirms that the data is delivered in such a way that nobody can "identify any individual patients" from the data.
The scans are also considered historic, which means that although the findings of the research will contribute to better care in the future, the current care patients are receiving will remain as it is.
The leader of Moorfields' ophthalmology research center, Peng Tee Khaw, explains that the surging number of precise retinal scans will make the whole difference.
"These scans are incredibly detailed, more detailed than any other scan of the body we do: we can see at the cellular level," Peng Tee Khaw notes.
When doctors have to handle such a huge amount of data on their own, time becomes a luxury commodity. Deep learning should come in handy to filter and categorize the scans, saving precious time.
"In many cases, once sight is lost it cannot be restored, so earlier detection that leads to rapid treatment will be hugely beneficial," notes Clara Eaglen, the eye health campaigns manager for the Royal National Institute of Blind People.
2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The Cyberspace Administration of China is taking another step toward censoring and controlling the media, now threatening to crack down on news outlets that spread their reports through social media.
In this day and age, social media has come to play an important part in our daily lives, whether it serves as a venue to communicate with people, watch entertaining content, get the latest news or something else.
The Chinese government, however, is keen on keeping news outlets from posting reports using information on social media and those who don't obey will be punished. The government says the crackdown aims to stop false news from spreading over social media.
While that sounds reasonable, many see this move as yet another way for the Chinese government to censor what it doesn't like and to control public opinion.
As The New York Times reports, the subjects of the targeted news reports have some things in common, such as the poor quality of living conditions, the decaying moral standards in northeastern China villages and the arson on a bus in the Hunan Province capital of Changsha. At a glance, these reports seem to portray the ugly side of China, which the government would not wish to promote.
In a statement, the Cyberspace Administration of China highlighted that websites are "strictly forbidden" from spreading news reports without specifying the source or, even worse, falsifying the sources. It's also forbidden to create news based on hearsay, or distort the facts based on conjecture and imagination.
The government is poised to continue its crackdown and punish more websites and news outlets that report unverified content found online, on various platforms such as social media, and peg it as news. The Cyberspace Administration says it already punished a number of Chinese websites, but did not offer any details regarding what exactly that punishment entails.
Moreover, the South China Morning Post reports that online news outlets may only report news found on social media if they get approval from the government first.
Censorship is far from being a new thing in China, but it seems to be gaining new dimensions with this new crackdown on news outlets. Chinese users have long been trying to bypass the government's censorship on the internet through various means such as VPNs or tools such as the Tor browser, mainly to access social media platforms and various online services offered by Google sites.
2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Facebook was once the social media platform for teens and young adults until parents and older family members came barging in. But the thing about social media is there is always some new and cooler platform that millennials can go to in order to be able to express themselves among their peers without judgement.
It has been Snapchat that has provided an escape from the older crowd for teens and millennials, but as it continues to become more and more popular, older adults are now joining in on all the fun. Thanks, filters.
According to a report from the market research firm comScore, the disappearing photo and video app is "rapidly growing" in users who are more than 35 years old.
The findings reveal that 14 percent of Snapchat users are ages 35 and older, which is up 2 percent from this demographic from three years ago.
Older millennials ages 25 to 34 years old on the platform has also increased by 5 percent from three years ago to now make up 38 percent of users.
(Photo : Gage Skidmore | Flickr) U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky recording a message for Snapchat.
The data suggest that Snapchat has come a long way since its launch five years ago, and especially from 2013 when it was seen simply as a platform for young people to send racy photos.
This should come to no surprise since we have seen this trend with Facebook in the past. The world's largest social network started as a platform for college students and now just about everyone in a user's family has an account from grandma all the way down to her grandchildren.
Even though teens and millennials and just about everyone of all ages continue to use platform, it has been Snapchat that has stolen the spotlight among the younger crowd.
And just because there are more older adults using Snapchat doesn't meant that young people have started to flock away. The amount of 18- to 24-year-olds using the app is about 69 percent, a 24 percent increase from 2013 to present.
Now that older adults upgraded to smartphones and finally learned how to use them, it appears they aren't shying away from checking out other social media platforms just like Facebook. With user's moms on Snapchat, many might assume young teens and millennials will stop sharing their lives via Snaps, but Snapchat probably won't lose its cool factor at least not at first.
No matter what age a new user is, the first thing most commonly heard from them about joining the app is that they still don't really know how to use it yet. And the learning curve might be harder for the older crowd to grasp. However, once the user is familiar with how Snapchat works, chances are even adults will get addicted. That's because of features like the Lenses that change every day and the Stories stream of content that allow the user to follow a specific user through a 24-hour frame of time.
While these features are luring in the older crowd, the younger crowd doesn't have to quit the app because they can choose to show their photo and video Snaps to everyone but their older family members. And because these messages self-destruct, they don't have to worry about their parents finding a racy photo or somehow finding a paper trail of where they really were and what they really did with friends. There is also no way to publicly message or "like" posts, which continues to make sharing more private.
There are about 150 million people who use Snapchat each day. With those impressive numbers, it was only a matter a time before the older generations jumped on board. At least young users don't have to worry about deleting their accounts just yet.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Photos: Roman Drits, Barn Images | Flickr
Gage Skidmore | Flickr
2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The space for video chat and messaging apps is becoming more and more crowded by the day, and Microsoft is fighting to keep Skype relevant in the battlefield.
The company has just unveiled a new service called Skype Meetings, a web-based version of the app specifically targeting small businesses and open to any device with a browser, camera, speaker and microphone.
On Skype Meetings, the host simply has to send participants a personalized link to join in. During the first 60 days of use, the free service lets up to 10 people log in for each video conference. After that, no more than three users will be allowed at the same time.
Skype Meetings As Free Service For Small Businesses
The service features PowerPoint integration, the laser pointer and whiteboard functionality, and screensharing, which are some of the most popular presentation tools on Skype for Business. Being a free service, however, Skype Meetings is just a pared down version of the original product for paying enterprise customers.
The free platform thus offers a glimpse into the full range of productivity tools offered by Skype for Business.
Skype Meetings, as a sample-sized offering, is designed to get small businesses to sign up for either Skype for Business or Office 365, which also includes Skype. For one, Skype for Business allows up to 250 participants to join a meeting.
"If you have an Office 365 business subscription that includes Skype for Business, then you already have richer online meetings capabilities," says Andrew Sinclair, general manager for Skype for Business.
Skype Faces Stiff Competition
Getting more people to sign up for Skype for Business is crucial to Microsoft, especially with the way rivals have been polishing up their own platforms as a productivity hub.
Google Hangouts, for instance, allows for easy screensharing and, soon, webcasting on its free chat service. This streamlines communication between users, without their ever having to log out of Google's suite of tools, from Gmail to Hangouts to Cast.
Team collaboration tool Slack is also spiffying up its texting app by including voice calls. The feature is available on both mobile and desktop versions; premium users also enjoy a group call feature that allows up to 15 people to join a conference.
Of course, there's also a whole slew of other messaging apps, such as Facebook Messenger, WeChat and Line, crowding the market.
Skype Now Allows Sending Of Files While Recipient Is Offline
Aside from the launch of Skype Meetings, Microsoft has also introduced a new feature that lets users send files even while the recipient is offline.
The latest version of the Skype app can be used to upload docs, images and videos of up to 300 MB for other users who are offline. Skype users previously had to wait until the recipient was online to be able to post files.
Small businesses with an official business email address can sign up for Skype Meetings at www.skype.com/meetings:
2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Controversial site Ashley Madison is trying to reinvent itself after the massive scandal last year, but it's still facing probes from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
For those unfamiliar with the whole Ashley Madison madness, here's the deal. Ashley Madison is a website dedicated to adultery, facilitating extramarital affairs for tens of millions of people. The site aimed to serve as a safe haven for those looking for discreet hookups, but it wasn't that safe after all.
The site got hacked last summer and its parent company, Avid Media Life, received an ultimatum: either shut down the adultery site or have user account information dumped online for everyone to see. The site continued to operate, so the hackers exposed sensitive information linked to more than 30 million accounts.
That information contained users' login credentials, email addresses, phone numbers, credit card details, as well as more intimate details such as their fetishes, sexual preferences and fantasies.
Needless to mention, the data dump had a huge impact and resulted in countless broken marriages, class-action lawsuits, tarnished reputations and so on.
One year later, Ashley Madison is now looking to reinvent itself and Avid Media Life is pushing for a "total repositioning of all its brands." While the Ashley Madison name will remain unchanged, the site will widen its scope beyond extramarital affairs and operate as an open dating hub.
"A year ago, Avid Life Media was silenced by a devastating, criminal hack that affected our company and some of our members," says Rob Segal, Avid Media Life's newly appointed CEO. "The company is truly sorry for how people's lives and relationships may have been affected by the criminal theft of personal information. That's why we're charting a new course and making some big changes."
The CEO adds that his company has been making heavier investments in security and privacy safeguards and it will continue to do so. At the same time, the company is adding "new, secure and discreet payment options."
The company now wants to offer the "world's most open-minded dating community" and ensures that female bots, known as fembots, are no longer being used and will not be part of the experience. Fembots were nixed in 2014 in North America and in 2015 internationally.
Rebuilding Ashley Madison after the massive scandal from last year is no easy task, but the company says it's poised to make hefty investments in technology, consider acquisitions, partnerships, new ventures and a total rebranding.
If the site's previous slogan was "Life is short, have an affair," now it's moving to include everyone: "Single, attached, looking to explore, or just curious."
As for the FTC probe, the company made no comment on what exactly the FTC is looking into. Segal says he doesn't know what the FTC is focusing on, but Avid Media Life has been cooperating with government regulators since August 2015.
2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Tesla has informed regulators about the fatal crash, which involved an Autopilot-driven Model S, nine days after the accident.
The company affirms that the delay in communication is far from unusual. In fact, the carmaker drove a massive stock sale 11 days after the fatality occurred, noting that the federal investigation had not reached its end when the transaction happened.
The automaker was notified "shortly" after the accident that took the life of Joshua Brown, the driver of the Autopilot driven Model S, happened.
Fortune has published an article questioning the timing between the deadly accident and the stock sale. The report said that 11 days after the crash happened, a three-part stock sale worth more than $2 billion took place, without Tesla Motors saying a word about the crash. The distribution of the stocks was two parts Tesla and one part Elon Musk, the company's helm.
"Tesla and Musk did not disclose the very material fact that a man had died while using an auto-pilot technology," Fortune said.
Musk has answered Fortune in an email, wherein he explains that the crash was irrelevant to the value of Tesla as a company. He went on to add that, statistically speaking, drivers of traditional cars are in a much higher fatality danger when compared to Tesla drivers.
"[A]pproximately half a million people would have been saved if the Tesla autopilot was universally available," Musk points out. He also urged reporters to take a look at the numbers before writing possible misleading articles.
Tesla notes in a recent statement that it reported the incident to the government by May 16.
Reuters has questioned Tesla on the delay, to which the company replied that no automaker shares the detail of each accident with the regulators. Tesla also underlined that the investigation was underway until the end of May, making any statements it could have made premature, at best.
The unfortunate event happened on a freeway in Florida, where Brown's 2015 Tesla Model S autopilot failed to recognize a white tractor trailer in bright day conditions, causing the it to crash into as the latter turned at an intersection. Brown's car went under the trailer and had its roof ripped off.
In the public disclosure of the case that happened on June 30, the company sent its condolences to Brown's family.
"The customer who died in this crash had a loving family and we are beyond saddened by their loss," Tesla writes. The company acknowledges that Brown "was a friend to Tesla" and a strong member of the electric vehicle community. The company mentions that Brown "spent his life focused on innovation," a thing that Tesla puts amid its highest missions.
At the end of the statement, Tesla sent out its "deepest sympathies to his family and friends." It is unknown whether or not Brown's family will take Tesla to court because of the accident.
On another subject, Tesla has seen better days, as the company recently announced that it missed its delivery and production goals for the second consecutive quarter.
2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
WTF! Huawei Uses DSLR Photo To Promote New Phone | TechTree.com
Advertisements often hide more than they reveal. And, this is precisely what Chinese phone maker Huawei did and got roasted by the ever-vigilant community on the social media.
Huawei shot an advertisement for its upcoming two-lens P9 handset with a 12-megapixel camera that seemed to suggest that the Leica lens could produce DSLR-quality images. The image posted along with this article came from the advertisement that was circulated by the company over Google Plus.
The social media post from Huawei that accompanied this image said: We managed to catch a beautiful sunrise with Deliciously Ella. The #HuaweiP9s dual Leica cameras makes taking photos in low light conditions like this a pleasure. Reinvent smartphone photograph and share your sunrise pictures with us.
However, it did not take long for experts to figure out that the image was actually shot with a full-fledged DSLR boasting some superior quality lens. Since Google Plus uploads include the EXIF data for each image, it wasnt too tough to figure out the hardware used to capture the image.
The picture was shot on a Canon 5D MK.III with the EF70-200 f/2.8L IS II USM lens, says an article published on AppleInsider.com (Read it here). Once this data went viral, red-faced Huawei officials removed the picture and shared a statement instead.
It has recently been highlighted that an image posted to our social channels was not shot on the Huawei P9. The photo, which was professionally taken while filming a Huawei P9 advert, was shared to inspire our community. We recognize though that we should have been clearer with the captions for this image. It was never our intention to mislead. We apologize for this and we have removed the image, is how Huawei has now responded, making it appear that it was all a routine mix-up and never with any malicious intend to misrepresent facts.
Of course, we leave it to the readers to figure out what they make of Huaweis campaign that misfired.
Readers may recall that this isnt the first time that marketing misadventures such as this have happened. Nokia had used some simulated images to display their PureView cameras, especially the Lumia 920. (Read the update from PetaPixel.com on this incident).
While the users in general had some fun at the expense of Huawei and the perception of Chinese brands dipped a millimeter more, the real victim might be Leica, the official partners of the Chinese brand. For, their digital cameras arent all that bad. So, why did it have to be a picture shot by a Canon?
TAGS: Huawei P9, Nokia Lumia 920, DSLR Lens, Canon
The main focus of digital transformation is the digitalisation of the companys value proposal, redesigning processes and, above all, their business models. It also implies thinking about the product or service in terms of the user, the digital perimeter we build, while seeking user loyalty in every interaction. This is a transformation that involves new models of power and a change that requires, above all, the evolution of the culture of organizations and people.
The digital technologies we work on may either be driving new business directly related to the new skills they bring, or they may generate transformations in poorly digital value proposals, but that have the potential to scale or diversify. In other cases, efficiency in value creation processes (transformations, integrations, etc.) is improved while generating efficacy through the analysis of data. Value extraction from the data is another of the goals behind this transformation, generating proprietary value proposals power models (defensive) and external ones (disintermediation). Lastly, the challenge of resilience and trust in digital infrastructures must be highlighted, reducing the risk in transformation processes that generate long-term dependencies on digital technologies.
The average monthly sales for Ciaz remained at more than 5,000 units in the first five months of 2016.
The model is currently priced between Rs 7.53 lakh and Rs 9.94 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).
By India Today Web Desk: Maruti Suzuki India said its mid-sized sedan, Ciaz, has crossed the one lakh cumulative sales mark in the domestic market in June, nearly two years after its launch.
Launched in October 2014, Ciaz sold a total of 1,00,272 units till June 2016, Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) said in a statement.
ALSO READ: Maruti Suzuki to ramp up Vitara Brezza production to 10,000 units from July
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R S Kalsi, MSI Executive Director, Marketing and Sales said, "Today, Ciaz is the largest-selling sedan in the A3+ segment. It has enabled us to achieve a market share of 40 per cent in the premium sedan segment."
MSI said the average monthly sales for Ciaz remained at more than 5,000 units in the first five months of 2016.
ALSO READ: Maruti Suzuki resumes production, aims to clear backlog of deliveries shortly
Use of technological innovations like SHVS (hybrid) has made it even more attractive, Kalsi added.
Ciaz is available in options of petrol and diesel SHVS, which gives a fuel economy of 28.09 km per litre, the company added.
The model is currently priced between Rs 7.53 lakh and Rs 9.94 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).
ALSO READ: 2017 Maruti-Suzuki Swift image leaked
Ciaz is also exported to Africa, South America, Central America, Middle-East, ASEAN and SAARC countries. The cumulative exports till end of June 2016 were over 18,000 units.
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A 40 anos de Malvinas
"Revisar el pasado es pensar el futuro". La frase de la presidenta de Telam, Bernarda Llorente, resume el espiritu del documental coproducido entre la agencia de noticias y el canal publico de TV sobre la cobertura que los medios de comunicacion hicieron del conflicto, plagada de censura y mentiras. Una autocritica necesaria para mirar hacia adelante en un (ya viejo) contexto de fake news y negocio informativo.
In the state of Miranda, the municipalities of Zamora and Sucre have been affected by the rains, said the authorities. | Read More
Second list for JEE Mains expected to be out today at 5 pm, students to report at respective colleges on or before July 9.
By India Today Web Desk: The Joint Seat Allocation Authority will release the second list of seat allotment today at 5 pm. The previous list was released on June 30, 2016.
Candidates can check the list on its official website . Students who get shortlisted must report to the respective colleges with the required certificates from July 7 to July 9.
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Information on JEE this year:
Name of the organisation: Joint Seat Allocation Authority
Name of the exam : JEE mains
Category- 2nd seat allotment
Result Declaration- July 6, 2016, 5 pm
Steps to check result:
Visit the official website
Click on 'JEE Mains 2nd Round Allotment', on home page
Enter required details provided fields
Click on submit button
Enter required details provided fields
Mock seat allotment order will be displayed on the screen
Download/ take a printout for further reference.
What is JoSAA?
The authority has been set up by the Ministry of Human Resources Development 2016
The purpose is to regulate joint seat allocation for admissions to 92 institutes for the academic year 2016-2017
The 92 institutes are inclusive of 22 IITs, ISM, 31 NITs, 20 IIITs and 18 other government funded technical institutes
The JoSAA this year conducted the joint entrance exam.
Read: More fake universities in China than India: Read to know more
Read: DU teachers stop admission boycott over concerns about students' future
Click here for more updates from India Today Education.
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By PTI: New Delhi, Jul 6 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi today left for a four-nation tour of African countries aimed at enhancing ties with that continent, particularly in the economic sphere and people-to-people contacts.
Modi will begin his five-day tour with Mozambique and then travel to South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.
Focus of the visit will be on deepening cooperation in areas of hydrocarbons, maritime security, trade and investment, agriculture and food.
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"My Africa tour, aimed at enhancing ties between India & Africa will begin from Mozambique in a brief but key visit," he tweeted ahead of his departure.
"My programmes in South Africa will span across Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban & Pietermaritzburg," he added.
"In Tanzania I will hold talks with President Dr. John Magufuli, meet Solar Mamas and interact with Indian community," Modi added.
With regard to his visit to Kenya in the last leg of his visit, he tweeted, "Talks with President @UKenyatta, deliberations on economic & people-to-people ties will be focus of my Kenya visit."
Giving details in Facebook posts, the Prime Minister said the aim of his visit to Mozambique is to increase cooperation and boost cultural linkages.
"I will meet President Filipe Nyusi and hold extensive talks with him," he said.
Other programmes include a meeting with Veronica Macamo, the President of the National Assembly and a visit to the S&T Park, Maluana, where he will interact with students. He will also interact with the Indian community briefly.
Tomorrow evening, Modi will travel to Pretoria in South Africa, a country he described as an "important strategic partner, with whom our ties are historical and deep-rooted."
He said, "History is witness to how Mahatma Gandhis stay in South Africa impacted him and the history of the world. He went to South Africa as a lawyer seeking work and returned to India as a strong voice for humanitarian values, who would go on to shape the history of humankind." "I will have the honour to visit Phoenix Settlement and Pietermaritzburg Station, two places very closely associated with Mahatma Gandhis stay in South Africa.
"A visit to South Africa is incomplete without remembering the beloved Madiba (Nelson Mandela). I will also be honoured to visit the Constitutional Hill and Nelson Mandela Foundation where I would pay my tributes to an icon of human history, who made his country and the world a much better place," he said.
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During his South Africa visit, he will meet President Jacob Zuma as also Cyril Ramaphosa, the Deputy President. "In an effort to boost our economic ties, I will speak at the India-South Africa business meet," he said.
On July 10, he will be in Tanzania for a "brief but crucial visit" to give an impetus to ties with Tanzania, a valued friend in Africa, Modi said.
Modi will then visit Kenya on the evening of July 10. "India-Kenya ties have stood the test of time. Both our nations have had very strong people-to-people ties and both nations have successfully fought colonialism in the previous century," the Prime Minister said. PTI AKK SUA
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Vietnams property market has been sluggish for years due to a huge supply surplus, but experts have pointed to signs of the market warming up this year, especially with the Trans-Pacific trade deal TPP coming into effect soon.
A survey by market research and consultancy firm CBRE showed that around 10,114 apartments of 26 projects were sold in Ho Chi Minh City in the third quarter, up three times from the same period last year.
Savills Vietnam, another market research firm, reported that 17 projects including 13 new ones launched 9,550 apartments in the third quarter, up 4 percent from the second quarter and 107 percent year-on-year.
First Home Premium Binh Duong uses designs that help save space.
As the market regained its momentum, big investors have also started to launch various promotions.
N.H.O Binh Duong, for example, has introduced three competitive sale policies for its First Home Premium Binh Duong project in the namesake province neighboring Ho Chi Minh City.
Customers only need to pay 18 percent of the price to become a home owner. If they borrow money from VPBank to buy the house, the developer will cover interest payments for them until the project is completed.
Those who do not take this financial support optionwill receive a discount of up to 18 percent of the apartments value.
For customers who buy apartments for investment, the project is also a promising one as the developer has pledged to help them rent out the units for at least 6 percent of the contract value a year in two years. These customers will also receive an interior design package worth VND150 million.
Modern home
First Home Premium Binh Duong on Binh Duong Boulevard has won public attention for its prime location, which is 20 minutes from Ho Chi Minh downtown and less than five minutes from Aeon Mall, Lotte Mart, Columbia Asia international hospital, Singapore International School, and a cineplex of the countrys biggest chain CGV.
Economists said that in the near future, the project will be perfect choice for young customers, not only for its location, but also because it gives them a chance to own a nice home that carries South Korean design and is equipped with many modern facilities including its own shopping mall, kindergarten, walking paths, a gymnasium and a swimming pool.
Customers check the model of the First Home Premium Binh Duong project.
The project in May won an award for the commercial apartment development category at the Asia Pacific Property Awards of the International Property Awards.
It has also received a certificate of Excellence of Design for Greater Efficiencies (EDGE) for housing development. EDGE certification is a prestigious international recognition given by the International Finance Corporation, a World Bank member, to green housing projects.
The apartment markets in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City showed positive signs in the second quarter, property consultancy company Savills Vietnam has said.
In the capital city, the total primary apartment stock was 17,370 units, up 7 percent over the first quarter and 29 percent year-on-year. There were approximately 6,000 deals, an increase of 30 percent over the same period last year.
In Ho Chi Minh City, 19 new projects and fresh supply from an existing project added more than 8,700 units for an increase of 15 percent over the first quarter. There was strong absorption across all segments, with over 6,900 sales, up 34 percent year-on-year.
According to Savills, from the third quarter this year to 2018, over 35,000 units are expected to enter the market in the southern metropolis. Some developers have begun making strategic movements toward denser populated districts in the west of the city.
The Sanofi logo is seen at the company's Sanofi Pasteur headquarters in Lyon, France, October 26, 2015. Photo: Reuters/Robert Pratta
French drugmaker Sanofi said on Wednesday it had struck a research and development deal with the U.S. Army to speed up the development of a vaccine against the mosquito-borne Zika virus.
Sanofi is the only major drugmaker working on a vaccine against Zika, which has been linked to birth defects and neurological disorders, although more than a dozen smaller biotech firms and other groups are also active in the field.
The tie-up with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) in the United States gives Sanofi access to a promising new vaccine, made from inactivated virus, that has already produced impressive results in mice.
The vaccine is one of the furthest advanced in development and could be ready for testing on humans in October.
Sanofi said the WRAIR, a biomedical research facility administered by the U.S. Department of Defense, would transfer virus vaccine technology to Sanofi Pasteur, the company's vaccines division.
The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will conduct the Phase I trials during the technology transfer and then Sanofi will be in charge of clinical and regulatory development.
Global health officials are racing to better understand the Zika virus, which has caused a major outbreak that began in Brazil last year and has spread to many countries in the Americas.
The World Health Organization has said there is strong scientific consensus that Zika is a cause of the birth defect microcephaly, or small heads in babies, as well as Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disorder.
A single dose of the WRAIR's experimental vaccine was shown to give 100 percent protection in mice against the Zika virus, according to a study published in Nature last week, boosting hopes that it will also work in humans.
Sanofi is developing another Zika vaccine based on its own know-how in battling established mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue, Japanese encephalitis and yellow fever.
However, that vaccine will take longer to develop and Sanofi said earlier this year it did not expect to start clinical trials on its in-house Zika candidate until 2017.
John Shiver, vice-president for R&D at Sanofi Pasteur, said it therefore made sense to use outside partnerships to accelerate progress.
"We're looking at this from both a short- and long-term perspective, collaborating to get into the clinic quicker to provide a vaccine in response to the current emergency, and adapting our own technology to ensure production capacity of a vaccine for years to come," he said.
Sanofi Pasteur has a big factory in Lyon capable of producing 100 million doses a year of its four-strain dengue shot, which could be adapted if needed to make even more doses of a single-strain Zika product.
Vietnamese police and customs officers on Saturday seized six suitcases containing 180 kg of alleged elephant tusks and ivory products at Hanoi's Noi Bai Airport.
The suitcase owners were three people from Angola, the authorities said but did not reveal their nationality.
They had boarded a Vietnam Airlines flight from Angola to Hanoi, with transit at Malaysia, the authorities said.
According to Nguyen Van Hoan, head of Noi Bai airports customs department, the suspected smugglers claimed they had been hired by an individual in Angola to transport the goods into Vietnam.
The case is under investigation.
Vietnam has banned trade in ivory since 1992.
Prosecutors Monday filed charges against three Russian nationals who allegedly used fake credit cards to withdraw nearly VND300 million (US$13,500) last year.
Aleksei Troian, 32, Viacheslav Kotets, 43, Yury Bondarenko, 29, were charged with misappropriation of property using digital devices, and could get up to 15 years' imprisonment, according to Cong Ly, a news website belonging to the Supreme Court.
Troian was also charged with trying to escape from jail, the report quoted the Khanh Hoa Province prosecutor's office as saying.
According to the indictment, Troian was arrested on October 27 last year while withdrawing money using a fake card at an ATM in the central resort town of Nha Trang. Kotets and Bondarenko were arrested later.
Investigators found the three men had arrived in Vietnam in October last year on tourist visas.
They had used fake cards to withdraw nearly VND250 million from BIDV Bank and Techcombank ATMs in Nha Trang between October 24 and 27 and more than VND44 million from ATMs in Ho Chi Minh City a few days earlier.
In the trio's hotel rooms, the police found 278 credit cards, VND247 million in dong, a large amount of cash in other currencies, a card reader and a laptop computer.
While in detention in Nha Trang, Troian attempted to escape by using a plastic stick and spoon and two toothbrushes to dig a hole in his cell wall last February.
He managed to get out of his cell but was caught before he could break out of the detention center.
Family members and relatives at the joint funeral of five children who drowned in Bac Giang Province on July 4, 2016. Photo credit: Bao Bac Giang
Five 12-year-old children, including three girls, drowned in a small lake in Bac Giang Province in northern Vietnam Monday, authorities said.
They were identified as Nguyen Van Minh, Nguyen Van Thanh, Pham Hong Ngat, Nguyen Thi Tuoi and Pham Thi Oanh.
According to the authorities, six children were herding water buffaloes near the lake in Hung Dao village when two of them decided to take a bath at around 5 p.m.
When the two fell into the lake and could not swim, three others jumped in to try and save them, but they drowned too.
The other child ran back to the village to call for help, but by the time people reached the lake it was too late.
An average of nine children drown every day in Vietnam while swimming is not adequately taught in schools.
A file photo shows ivory products seized in Hanoi on July 2, 2016. Photo credit: An Ninh Thu Do
The Hanoi police are investigating an ivory smuggling ring after seizing a large amount of ivory products that had been sent from the city to Mong Cai town on the China border.
The seizure was made July 2 when they pulled over a taxi on National Highway 1B in Hanois Thuong Tin District, the police said Tuesday.
They found a large number of ivory necklaces, bracelets and other items in three cartons.
The cabbie, Hoang Van Tai, 30, told them that an unidentified person in Ha Nam Province had hired him to transport the consignment to Hanois My Dinh Bus Station for sending to Quang Ninh Province.
The police said the case could involve a major wildlife smuggling ring.
By PTI: role
Hyderabad, July 6 (PTI) University of Hyderabads Joint Action Committee (JAC) has alleged the bust of dalit icon B R Ambedkar was "removed" from the shopping complex area in the varsity at the behest of Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao Podile, a claim denied by the administration today.
Yesterday, a group of students and teachers of the varsity, also known as Hyderabad Central University (HCU), held a protest on the campus over the issue and decided to lodge a police complaint in this regard.
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"The Deans Committee recommended removal of tents and structures, named Velivada besides the bust of Ambedkar from the shopping complex on the campus. These structures reflected the struggle for self respect...removal of bust of B R Ambedkar is insult to Dalits," said D Prashant who has been leading the JACs protest over the suicide of dalit Ph.D scholar Rohith Vemula in January.
He alleged the bust was removed "at the behest of" UoH Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao Podile "in nexus with other accused against whom a police case was registered in the wake of Vemulas death".
Categorically denying any role in the matter by administration, UoH Pro Vice-Chancellor Vipin Srivastava today said, "the University has not issued any orders ? written or oral ? for the removal of Dr B R Ambedkars bust from the shopping complex area in the University campus.
"While the students told media, and also the security officer (on Monday afternoon) that the bust in question was removed, allegedly at the behest of the varsity administration, on the intervening night of Sunday and Monday, (i.e. July 3 and July 4) they did not even mention this, let alone protest about it, in their meeting with the newly-joined Registrar on July 4," Srivastava stated in a release.
The Pro VC stated that as soon as the students reported the matter to Security Officer on July 4, he checked with two security guards, who were on duty in shopping complex on the night of July 3, and was informed that the bust was there for sure around 6 AM of July 4 when their shift got over.
Srivastava further said, "if the university receives any complaint, efforts will be made to get the complete details in this incident through an appropriate inquiry".
Vemulas suicide on January 17 had sparked massive protests in the varsity as well as outside resulting in a fierce political slugfest, with a string of political parties and dalit organisations siding with students and accusing the BJP and varsity administration of being anti-dalit.
After Vemulas death, students had set up tents and installed a Rohith Smaraka Stupa at the shopping complex.
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UoH has been witnessing sporadic protests since the dalit scholars death demanding Podiles dismissal. PTI VVK NSK RG BAS
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A Vietnamese woman has been rescued from a brothel in Dubai after a group of criminals kept her there against her will and forced her into sex work, an official from the Vietnamese embassy in the United Arab Emirates told news website VnExpress on Tuesday.
Nguyen Thanh Quang, the first secretary of the Vietnamese embassy in the UAE said it is working with local police to bring the woman home.
The embassy was informed by some Vietnamese in the country on June 26 that the woman, known as Nguyen, was being detained, beaten and forced into prostitution by a group of Vietnamese criminals.
The embassy then sought help from local police.
The police raided the brothel and arrested 11 people, including four Vietnamese men.
After being rescued, Nguyen told the police she was lured to travel to Dubai for a week by an acquaintance named Linh.
After she arrived in Dubai on a tourist visa, the Vietnamese criminals detained her, took her passport and forced her to do sex work in an apartment.
The embassy said there has recently been an increase in the number of Vietnamese women who forced into prostitution in Dubai. Most of the other victims were promised well-paid jobs.
After they arrived in Dubai, they were forced to into prostitution, according to the embassy.
Nguyen Thi Van, 48, at a police station with her two other accomplices on July 4, 2016. Photo: Nguyen Long/Thanh Nien
Police in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau have arrested a woman for allegedly running illegal gambling operations at her house and making dozens of millions of dong in profits every day.
Nguyen Thi Van, 48, was caught red-handed at her home in Long Dien District Monday afternoon with 20 people gambling there, the police said.
Around VND210 million (nearly US$10,000) in cash was seized, investigators said, adding that the players staked more than VND10 million per game.
Van admitted the gambling, involving only people she knew, had been going on for months.
Police also detained a 41-year old woman, who worked for Van as a lookout and a 34-year old man who worked as a croupier.
All the gamblers are out on bail, the police said, adding the investigation was continuing.
You wake up in the middle of the night or stop your vehicle just to check a new text. It turns out to be a spam message.
That frustration can end now, thanks to the new Anti Spam solution by Vietnams top telecommunications firm Viettel, which has been celebrated recently at the IT World Awards 2016 in the US.
A customs officer at Da Nang International Airport has been reassigned pending an internal investigation after a woman posted a complaint on Facebook accusing him of soliciting bribes.
The Vietnamese woman, a university teacher, said in the Facebook post on Tuesday that she arrived in Da Nang the previous night from the United States, and the officer found six bottles of supplements in her luggage.
He said the bottles were subjected to taxes but she could simply give him some money for a drink, according to the post.
She gave him a VND200,000 bill and the officer asked for another bill for his colleague.
Pham Duy Nhat, director of the customs department at the airport told Thanh Nien Wednesday that the officer, who is not identified, has been removed from the luggage check unit.
He said he will look into security footage before imposing necessary punishment.
A Chinese tour guide is leading a group of tourists in Da Nang City in central Vietnam. Photo: An Dy
The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) has called on Da Nang authorities to check the operations of all travel agents and expel illegal Chinese tour guides following accusations that they distorted Vietnamese history while showing tourists around.
They could also face a ban on entering Vietnam ever again.
The city tourism department has to report on the action taken by July 20, the agency said.
Last week, Da Nang authorities said they would verify accusations that some 60 Chinese tour guides are operating illegally and providing incorrect information about Vietnam to tourists.
In videos provided by many local guides, Chinese tour guides could be seen operating illegally and using yuan instead of dong.
One of them reportedly took a group of Chinese tourists to the Linh Ung Pagoda and said Vietnam used to be part of China 14 centuries ago before gaining independence, and is still dependent on China.
One guide, who asked to remain unnamed, said many of the Chinese even describe Da Nangs beaches as part of Chinas seas.
Official statistics show an increase in the number of Chinese tourists visiting Vietnam, with over 1.2 million coming so far this year, a 48 percent year-on-year increase.
A law enforcement body in China has warned Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee that he could face harsher legal action for violating his bail conditions after he was allowed to return to Hong Kong in June, a Hong Kong newspaper reported.
A statement issued by the Ningbo Public Security Bureau said Lam had broken his bail terms by failing to return to the mainland for further investigation after an initial eight months in detention, Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper reported.
Lam was one of five booksellers whose disappearances over the past year have been linked to the Causeway Bay Books store that had specialized in publishing and selling gossipy books about China's leaders, including President Xi Jinping.
The Ningbo Public Security Bureau said unspecified criminal enforcement measures would be triggered by his failure to return.
The bureau did not respond immediately for comment, and Lam could not be reached.
The South China Morning Post reported that Chinese authorities had released a video of Lam during his time in detention. In a video link on the newspaper's website, Lam could be seen eating, being given a haircut and making comments.
On his return to Hong Kong last month, Lam said Lee Bo, who went missing from Hong Kong in late December, had been abducted, and said "cross-border enforcement actions" by mainland Chinese authorities in Hong Kong were "not acceptable".
Lam said he was arrested last October in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen and blindfolded and taken to the eastern city of Ningbo, where he was kept in a small room by himself and repeatedly interrogated about the selling of books banned on the mainland.
The disappearances have prompted fears that mainland Chinese authorities may be using tactics that erode the "one country, two systems" formula under which Hong Kong has been governed since its return to China from British rule in 1997.
Public security minister Guo Shengkun met a Hong Kong delegation in Beijing on Tuesday to discuss the detainee notification system between the two police forces, which needs to be "modified and improved", the ministry said.
The delegation was also briefed on Lam's case, Xinhua news agency added, without elaborating.
Hong Kong enjoys far wider personal freedoms and protections than exist on the mainland. No formal extradition treaty exists between the two jurisdictions.
Lam pulled out of a protest march in Hong Kong on July 1, citing concerns for his personal safety after he noticed several people following him in recent days.
Hong Kong police said after meeting Lam on Monday there was no evidence his personal safety was at risk. They advised him to call for police assistance if needed, a police statement said.
FBI Director James Comey delivers a speech at the Master of Science in Foreign Service CyberProject's sixth annual conference at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., U.S. April 26, 2016. Photo: Reuters/Carlos Barria The FBI recommended on Tuesday that no criminal charges be filed over Hillary Clinton's use of private email servers while she was secretary of state, but rebuked the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate for "extremely careless" handling of classified information.
While FBI Director James Comey's announcement lifted a cloud of uncertainty that had loomed over Clinton's White House campaign, his strong criticism of her judgment ignited a new attack on her over the email issue by Donald Trump, her likely Republican opponent in the Nov. 8 election.
Comey's comments are likely to reinforce what polls show are widespread public concerns about Clinton's honesty and trustworthiness. Republicans have pointed to the controversy as evidence that she considered herself above the law.
In a lengthy statement on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's conclusions from its yearlong investigation, Comey directly contradicted statements Clinton has made while defending her use of the private email setup.
He said, for example, that the FBI found at least 110 emails that contained classified information when they were sent, although Clinton has repeatedly said she never sent or received classified information on her private servers.
"Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of the classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," Comey said.
But he said the FBI concluded "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring charges. "Although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case," Comey told reporters in Washington.
His recommendation will likely stand. The country's top prosecutor, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, said on Friday she would accept the recommendations of career prosecutors and the FBI director on whether to charge Clinton for mishandling emails.
'She lied!'
Clinton's campaign was anxious to move on after Comey's announcement, saying in a statement it was pleased with the FBI decision.
"As the secretary has long said, it was a mistake to use her personal email, and she would not do it again. We are glad that this matter is now resolved," spokesman Brian Fallon said.
He did not respond to questions about Comey's rebuttal of the main arguments Clinton has offered in defense of her use of private email.
At a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday night, Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, said the controversy should disqualify Clinton from being president and that her email system may well have been hacked by U.S. enemies.
"Our enemies may have a blackmail file on crooked Hillary and this alone means that she should not be allowed to serve as president of the United States," Trump said. "We now know that she lied to the country when she said that she did not send classified information on her server. She lied!"
Following Comey's late-morning remarks, Clinton became one of the top trending topics on Twitter, with about 671,000 tweets posted by 4 p.m. (2000 GMT). The overall sentiment was more negative than positive, with about two negative tweets for every positive one, according to social media analytics firm Zoomph.
The FBI director's announcement came hours before Clinton's first campaign appearance with President Barack Obama, in Charlotte, North Carolina, where neither Obama nor Clinton mentioned the email probe. It also came less than three weeks before the Democratic National Convention at which Clinton is to be nominated as the party's candidate for the November election.
No 'intentional misconduct'
The FBI has been investigating whether Clinton broke the law as result of personal email servers kept in her Chappaqua, New York, home while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. One question is whether she mishandled classified information on the servers.
As the investigation wound up, Clinton underwent a voluntary 3-1/2-hour interview with the FBI on Saturday in Washington.
Comey said the FBI did not find that Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate the law, and that there was no "intentional misconduct" by her lawyers who sorted her emails.
Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks to supporters during her California primary night rally held in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S., June 7, 2016. Photo: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton
He said her staff should have known Clinton's private email was an improper place for classified information, but added there was no evidence anyone had hacked Clinton's communications.
Comey said, however, that "hostile actors" gained access to email accounts of people with whom Clinton corresponded regularly. He also said she used email extensively while traveling "in territory of sophisticated adversaries."
Experts routinely advise U.S. government officials not to bring important digital information to countries with a track record of aggressive cyber activity. Clinton traveled to more than 100 countries during her four years as top U.S. diplomat, including trips to China and Russia, considered among the most sophisticated U.S. cyber adversaries.
The FBI found 110 emails in 52 email chains that contained information that was classified at the time the messages were sent, Comey said. Eight of those chains contained "top-secret" information, the highest level of government classification for material that could harm national security.
A further 36 email chains contained "secret" information, and eight "confidential" information, he said. Agents also found three classified emails among the thousands Clinton never returned to the State Department.
Comey said there were no previous cases that supported filing criminal charges against Clinton. Other cases had involved intentional mishandling of information, he said, and there was no evidence Clinton knew she was violating the law.
Last year, the FBI recommended that former CIA Director David Petraeus be charged with a felony for his mishandling of classified information with his biographer, with whom he was having an affair.
In that case, however, the FBI had evidence that Petraeus knew the information was highly classified. Petraeus eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information.
Republican lawmakers have called for an independent investigation of Clinton, saying they do not trust the Justice Department to handle the inquiry with impartiality.
Republican criticism of the process heated up after Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, met privately with Lynch in Phoenix last week. Lynch, who was appointed by Obama, said later she regretted the meeting and that she and the former president did not discuss the investigation.
House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest- ranking elected U.S. Republican, said Comey's announcement "defies explanation."
Britain's finance minister George Osborne said at the weekend he would seek to slash corporation tax to under 15% over fears of a corporate exodus following the June 23 referendum to leave the EU
The European Union's top economic official on Tuesday criticised a British proposal to slash corporate tax to less than 15 percent following the nation's vote to abandon the bloc.
Britain's finance minister George Osborne said at the weekend he would seek to slash corporation tax to under 15 percent over fears of a corporate exodus following the June 23 referendum to leave the European Union.
The 28-nation EU gave a frosty reception to the plan, however, saying it would raise the threat of a competitive series of corporate tax cuts as countries try to lure firms to their shores.
"Going to 15 percent does not seem to me to be a good initiative," the EU's economic affairs commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, told French radio station Radio Classique.
EU Commissioner of Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs Pierre Moscovici gives a statement, with Greek Finance Minister, during an Eurogroup meeting in Luxembourg on June 16, 2016.
"We should not enter into exacerbated fiscal competition between ourselves, or fiscal dumping," Moscovici said in the first public reaction by the bloc to Osborne's proposal.
The British finance minister revealed his plan in an interview with the Financial Times published on Sunday evening. The Treasury confirmed the comments to AFP.
Prior to the Brexit vote, British tax rates on corporate profits were already set to be cut from 20 percent to 19 next year and to 17 percent in 2020.
But the new target, which has no timetable, would give Britain the lowest rates of any major economy, and put it closer to the 12.5 percent rate in EU member Ireland.
"We must focus on the horizon and the journey ahead and make the most of the hand we've been dealt," Osborne told the Financial Times.
At least one showed ACT senator and former chief minister Katy Gallagher and Shane Rattenbury signing a power-sharing arrangement in 2012 to deliver the tram, urging voters to punish them at the polling booth.
The Liberal party used pictures of the ACT government's tram project on signs, direct mail-outs and advertisements during the last week of the campaign to sway voters for Senator Zed Seselja.
ACT opposition leader Jeremy Hanson will insist money spent on anti-light rail advertisement during the federal election campaign be excluded from the ACT spending cap.
But spending on ACT election messaging is capped at $40,000 per candidate, which means major parties can spend up to $1 million should they field 25 candidates in October.
On Tuesday, ACT Electoral Commissioner Phillip Green said the money spent on some but not all of the federal campaign would be considered as material designed to sway voters in the upcoming ACT election.
"Clearly light rail is an ACT election issue and Mr Rattenbury is an ACT MLA and a member of the government, so that puts those advertisements within our purview," he said.
Mr Hanson and Canberra Liberals campaign manager Simeon Duncan have argued light rail became a federal election issue once Greens senate candidate Christina Hobbs proposed a further investment of $400 million.
"We would argue strongly, very strongly, that if the ACT senator wants to campaign on what is a federal issue after The Greens clearly made it one, he is entitled to do that," he said.
Highway to the wilderness, Scandi style
Anja Loughhead has a new solo show opening this week at ANCA Gallery, based on a month spent travelling throughout regional Finland. It's satirical, to boot: "Examining the archetypes of Finnish culture, Anja Loughhead utilises drawing, assemblage and video performance to navigate familial narratives and to deconstruct romanticised views of the Scandinavian landscape," says the gallery. "A body of work that straddles a line somewhere between pilgrim and tourist, Highway to the Wilderness presents a feverish attempt of an individual's desire for cultural assimilation." Highway to the Wilderness, by Anja Loughhead, opens July 13 at ANCA Gallery, 1 Rosevear Place, Dickson, and runs until July 31.
Tiff Brown's prize-winning work, Still life series #5, found branch with juggling pins, can be seen at two shows this year.
Taciturn and Shaping Canvases
Two new shows are now showing at Canberra Contemporary Art Space. In Manuka, Natalie Azzopardi is showing Taciturn, "An exploration of storytelling, narrative, and the vehicles we use to tell them. Focused on memories real, borrowed and fictional, and the line we draw between truth and fiction." And in the City gallery, Sanne Koelmij demonstrates his fondness for making oddly shaped canvases: "I enjoy playing with this relationship between illusion, through gestural mark making, and representation, via the inclusion of physical materials. Rather than my paintings being full of gestures, the painting itself is a gesture." Taciturn, by Natalie Azzopardi, is showing at CCAS, 19 Furneaux Street, Manuka, until July 17. Shaping Canvases is showing at CCAS City, Corner of London Circuit and Hobart Place in Canberra City Framing, until August 13.
By PTI: Washington, Jul 6 (PTI) Argentine Tango dance may significantly improve balance and reduce the risk of falls among cancer patients post treatment, a new study has claimed.
Up to 70 per cent of patients treated with chemotherapy experience peripheral neuropathy as a side effect of cancer treatment, researchers said.
The condition can cause loss of sensation in the hands, fingers, feet and toes. One in 3 patients still experience this problem six months post treatment, they said.
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Long-term neuropathy in the feet and toes can be especially problematic because it affects a persons balance and gait.
This puts them in an elevated fall risk when they are engaging in daily life activities.
"Thats a big deal because many more people are surviving cancer. Dealing with the issues that impact a persons quality of life after cancer is extremely important," said Lise Worthen-Chaudhari from The Ohio State University in the US.
"As a dancer, I study the art of movement and as a biomechanist and rehabilitation scientist I study the math and the science of movement.
"We thought that it would be a powerful combination to put all those together to try to help cancer survivors," she said.
To evaluate the effect of Argentine Tango practice on the biomechanical predictors of fall risk among cancer survivors, Worthen-Chaudhari and Mimi Lamantia from Pelotonia, a Non-Profit Organisation in Columbus, US designed a dance intervention course that involved 20 sessions of adapted Argentine Tango.
Patients participated in one hour sessions twice a week for 10 weeks.
Researchers measured patients standing postural sway (eyes closed) with a computer-aided force platform at the beginning of the dance intervention series and at completion of the 10-weeks of instruction. Patients were also asked to report satisfaction with the intervention.
"Weve shown that Argentine Tango has measurable effects on balance - but our patients report really enjoying dance as therapy," said Lamantia, who taught the Argentine Tango to a class of about 30 cancer survivors for this study.
"It is a fun, social way to do the necessary work and our initial data shows it has some positive impact for restoring balance," said Lamantia.
"We show that after just five weeks of Argentine tango, medial and lateral sway decreased by 56 per cent indicating that this is a promising balance intervention for cancer survivors experiencing impaired balance post treatment," she said. PTI SAR SAR
--- ENDS ---
Brisbane Lions captain Tom Rockliff is disappointed at speculation about his future, saying he won't be leaving the AFL club.
The star midfielder last month revealed contract talks between himself and the club had stalled, with the Lions unwilling to accept a reported five-year, $800,000 per season contract proposal from his management.
The Victorian has recently been linked with St Kilda, but he has poured cold water on speculation of a move.
"I'm contracted until 2017. I'm captain of the footy club. I've been here since 2009," Rockliff told RSN radio on Wednesday.
Perth is a step closer to losing one of its most unwelcome icons after the Peppermint Grove Council announced a tender this week to demolish the derelict mansion owned by controversial Indian businessman Pankaj Oswal, dubbed Taj Mahal-on the-Swan.
The council's cause received a boost last week when a Federal Court decision struck out mortgages on the "two very valuable residential properties" owned by Oswal and his wife Radhika.
The Oswals' unfinished property in Perth's exclusive Peppermint Grove. Credit:Jonathan Barrett
The court found that Radhika attempted to defraud her creditors by giving a Dubai company, controlled by her brother, Raghau Gupta, mortgages over the properties worth $US45 million ($60.7 million).
"Mrs Oswal's intent when granting the mortgage was to defraud her creditors," said Judge John Gilmour of the transaction with Mercury Services. The company was based in the same Dubai building which the Oswals called home.
The Muir Family's successful buy back of the Good Guys joint venture stores could drag on the performance of Australia's third largest appliance and electronics chain as it weighs the relative merits of a public listing versus a trade sale.
Retail analysts suggest the transition to a fully corporate-owned retail network represents a risk to earnings as the management team installs new store managers to replace outgoing owners.
One analyst said there was also some uncertainty over how many former joint-venture owners would stay on as store managers, which had the potential to draw out this transition period.
He said the joint venture owners had run the stores as their own businesses and then with the buy-out they had been given a lump sum of money and in some cases swapped the title of owner for a manager role.
A big question for state Liberal and Labor strategists picking through the bloody entrails of the federal election campaign is what the result will mean for the 2018 Victorian poll.
The answer to that, of course, depends on the outcome.
Illustration: Joe Benke
You probably won't hear anyone on the Labor side talking about this publicly, but the best scenario for Daniel Andrews from a pragmatic standpoint would probably be a minority Turnbull government.
Why? Because it is a recipe for chaos. Turnbull will not only need to manage hostility from within his own party, he will be forced to deal with an unruly Senate.
I think that William Wordsworth knew the half of it. He told us that his heart leapt up when he beheld a rainbow in the sky. Fair enough. But I have noticed that my heart has leapt up sometimes when I have looked down and beheld the doormat, and on it a letter addressed in a familiar hand. If anyone could introduce the word doormat into a poem, Wordsworth could. It's just that, as far as I know, he never did. Move over email, Siri, handwritten letters are making a comeback. Credit:Michael Clayton Jones Yet the writing-on-an-envelope sensation is surely as familiar to us all as any number of rainbows, or daffodils, if it comes to that. The sensation is, however, getting rarer. Most of the post is junk, or brown-enveloped and unwelcome, or sent by email. This is where an English company called Inkpact sniffed an opportunity. It writes letters for people. I don't mean that it sucks a pencil and comes up with well-turned phrases. No, it physically writes a letter in fountain pen and ink on nice paper and pops it in the post. After a period of Royal Mail gestation, that envelope will bounce by one corner on the coconut-matting beneath the addressee's letterbox. Hey presto! A rainbow-style heart leaper. Except I think Inkpact has got it all wrong.
Obviously the recipient won't recognise the writing. That's the first problem. Isn't it a bit creepy to get a letter in a stranger's hand expressing the thoughts of someone who wants to get through your letterbox? In any case, handwritten letters from busy people only acquire value from the time that the busy person has invested in writing, just for you. There's a very funny incident in the second volume of Charles Moore's biography of Margaret Thatcher in which she writes to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia by hand. When the king first received one of these letters, he was surprised. "Does the lady not have someone to type her letters for her?" he asked. It had to be explained to him that in British culture, a handwritten letter was a mark of personal attention. These things come and go. The other day I saw on Twitter, which many regard as a plaything of Beelzebub, something rather sweet. It was a photo of a letter written to the great 12th-century philosopher Moses Maimonides by his sister Miriam. The ink script is as clear now as when it landed on the doormat of the Maimonides household in Egypt, if they had doormats in Egypt then. Yet it was not written by Miriam's own hand, but by someone called Jacob the cantor. A bit of singing, a bit of scribing, he had a portfolio of skills. Today the only opportunity most of us have to dictate is to Siri, the intermittently intelligent computer program which books restaurant tables for people and answers back in a voice of chosen sex and accent. By contrast, Inkpact, the letter-writing people, head in the opposite direction. Instead of new technology they embrace the old. I'm with them there. There's nothing I like more than knapping a bit of flint into an arrowhead. Unfortunately, for an extra 1 ($A1.74), they will seal your letter with sealing-wax.
School holidays are upon us in Melbourne. Parents are tugging rugged-up, rosy-cheeked kids into cinemas and play centres, setting up play dates and organising sleepovers. Family-friendly, city activities are on too. The ice slide near Crown Casino is good fun. And the ice-skating rink in Fed Square is always popular.
It's a winter wonderland out there, picture perfect. Around every corner is a photo opportunity, and, of course, the camera phones catch every one. The family photos, the quick-pics, the selfies; it's all happening. And where do all of these photos end up? In your newsfeed, of course.
Suddenly, tons of kids I don't know are smiling back at me from my computer screen. Some are children of people I'm friends with on Facebook, but some are just photos of random children I don't know at all.
I'm no innocent. I'm a contributor as well. Like most parents, I, too, am chasing after my daughter's childhood with my iPhone. Its camera roll is 95 per cent full of photos of her. And yes, I post some of those photos on Facebook, though not publicly. Not usually.
Among the first things Brenda Niall read about the novelist Martin Boyd, one of her early biographical subjects, was that in 1928 he had been the inaugural winner of the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal for his novel The Montforts. It was published under the pseudonym Martin Mills because Boyd had based the book on his mother's family. Winning the medal revealed his real identity.
That was two years before Niall was born. Now she has followed in Boyd's footsteps by winning in her own name the medal, Australia's oldest literary award, for her biography of Daniel Mannix, the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne from 1917 until 1963. Mannix has also been shortlisted for the National Biography Award.
Brenda Niall has been awarded the Australian Literacy Gold Medal for her biography of Archbishop Mannix. Credit:Justin McManus
Niall has written biographies of Georgiana McCrae, Judy Cassab, Father William Hackett, Mary and Elizabeth Durack, and the Boyd family. She finds the genre's appeal in its location between fiction and history. "I'm not a historian," she says. "I like the puzzle of biography and in a way I probably like having to make sense of certain things to understand people and times," she says.
But that doesn't mean she comes up with all the answers. "Definitive biography, I think, is nonsense; to think you have it all sewn up. People are not as simple as that. Unless there's some mystery and the mystery will always remain, I think, it isn't human."
It is impossible to mourn the death on Saturday of Michael Cimino without confronting the loss of what he and his New Hollywood ilk represented: an audacious, ecstatic, sensuous, deranged and ultimately staggering vision of what the movies could be, and a willingness to pursue that vision utterly without compromise.
It was a costly vision, to be sure by which I mean more than just the well-documented financial fiasco of Heaven's Gate, the ravaged and ravishing 1980 western that broke United Artists, hastened the death of a '70s auteur renaissance and dealt Cimino's career a blow from which it never recovered. Coming on the heels of his critical and commercial success with the Oscar-winning The Deer Hunter (1978), Heaven's Gate remains, for many, the definitive Hollywood cautionary tale of filmmaker hubris run amok (as compellingly detailed in the tell-all book Final Cut by Steven Bach, a former UA executive who was involved with the production).
Kris Kristofferson and Isabelle Huppert in Heaven's Gate
Three decades after being critically eviscerated, yanked from theatres and largely kept out of public view, Cimino's epic of community and class warfare may yet experience the happy ending that eludes its characters as they lurch across the frontier terrain of 1890s Johnson County, Wyoming. No shortage of critics and cinephiles have reclaimed the picture as a misunderstood masterpiece, many of them arguing on the strength of a beautiful Criterion Collection restoration, supervised by Cimino, that began playing festivals and repertory houses in 2013.
To experience Heaven's Gate anew and it is, indeed, a thing to be experienced, with an open eye and an even more open ear (some of the dialogue remains famously muddled) is to gape at its magnificence and also sense the price that the director paid for his perfectionism. Cimino was clearly bleeding more than just his budget dry. You can still feel his heart pouring out on screen in every dust-swept frame of Vilmos Zsigmond's cinematography, in stunning outdoor shots in which Cimino seems to have choreographed the very movement of the sun and the clouds. And you can feel it too in a drama poised on a knife's edge between grandeur and arrogance, and in performances (from Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, John Hurt, Jeff Bridges and Isabelle Huppert) that, however striking, struggle to cohere under the force of the director's unyielding gaze.
This superior sequel to Mystery Road brings back the laconic Aboriginal police detective hero Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen), this time investigating a disappearance in a remote Queensland mining town. Pedersen's performance in the earlier film was stone-faced to a fault, but life hasn't been kind to Swan over the last few years: his hair has lengthened, his once neatly-trimmed beard is ragged and greying at the edges.
Ivan Sen is one of the most interesting younger talents in Australian cinema, but also one of the most erratic. His 2013 detective story Mystery Road was an ambitious misfire, making awkward use of genre convention as if striving to win over the audience that bypassed Toomelah, a frightening portrait of a New South Wales Aboriginal community that remains his best feature to date.
Slouching and squinting, rolling one cigarette after another, he has the air of a man who's long ceased active involvement in life. But appearances deceive: more vividly than before, Swan embodies an archetype out of a Western, the mysterious stranger who sets about cleaning up a society where corruption holds sway.
Aaron Pedersen (left) and David Gulpilil in outback thriller Goldstone, Ivan Sen's follow-up to Mystery Road. Credit:Transmission
Indeed, Goldstone the town makes Dungatar, in last year's The Dressmaker, look like an attractive holiday destination. It's hardly a town at all, just a collection of demountables and shacks, filmed by Sen in wide shots that emphasise their isolation in the landscape.
It's a setting Australians will recognise from the movies if not from direct experience and like The Dressmaker, the film is so packed with familiar faces it becomes an echo chamber, as if Sen were holding a dialogue with many precursors at once. Jacki Weaver essentially reprises her crime matriarch role in Animal Kingdom as the town mayor, who wears bright red lipstick, bakes apple pies and delivers thinly-veiled threats with a motherly simper.
The great Indigenous actor David Gulpilil turns up all too briefly as a tribal elder, with Tom E. Lewis from The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith as a more pragmatic representative of the same community. David Wenham is the hard-nosed mine overseer, with sun-baked skin and wire-rimmed glasses that (intentionally or not) make him look like Jimmie Blacksmith director Fred Schepisi.
Matt Damon found it hard to get in shape at the age of 45 for his fourth outing as rogue CIA agent Jason Bourne.
It's understandable considering he was just 31 when he first played the character in 2002's The Bourne Identity, and nine years have passed since his last outing in The Bourne Ultimatum.
"It was different coming back at 45 years old. You might not have felt the nine years but I definitely did getting ready for it," Damon told AAP in Sydney on Monday.
"I was young when I started these things and I'm a lot older now."
The only way to bring the material up to date would be through outright revisionist parody, of the kind employed by Gore Verbinski in his sorely underrated 2013 film The Lone Ranger. David Yates' The Legend of Tarzan goes down this path to a certain point. The film's Tarzan, played by Alexander Skarsgard, doesn't even like the name: officially he's John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, having returned to England to claim his ancestral title and lands.
There are characters who lend themselves to reimagining, but Edgar Rice Burroughs' tale of a white man who "goes native" is unavoidably a colonialist myth. You can't do Tarzan these days and pretend innocence, any more than you can stage an "innocent" battle between cowboys and Indians.
Reluctantly, though, he heads back to Africa, teaming with US envoy George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson, playing a Civil War veteran for the second time this year) to battle slavery in the Belgian Congo. The ensuing adventure gives him a chance to get back in touch with his roots, Yates filling in his life story in brief flashbacks.
Alexander Skarsgard and Samuel L. Jackson dash through the jungle. Credit:Jonathan Olley
There were possibilities in this set-up, but the film takes its tone from the glum Skarsgard, who has the bulky torso but not the spirit. With his close-set eyes and long jaw, he can look disconcertingly like his father Stellan Skarsgard, who has found a niche embodying bourgeois repression. He's practically Tarzan as Hamlet: there's no exuberance in the performance, even when he's back in the jungle swinging from tree to tree.
He doesn't even seem to get much of a thrill from being married to Margot Robbie who in another context would be perfect casting for Jane, with her fast, insolent comic timing and look of pampered mischief. Putting this modern beauty in period clothes is a joke in itself; you can feel the character itching to get out of them. But she never does, and it's hard to see her staying interested for long in Skarsgard's broody Tarzan, chiselled abs or no.
Yates and his writers address this by keeping the couple apart for most of the story. Tarzan pushes through the jungle with Williams, who offers modern-sounding asides that might as well be delivered direct to camera. Meanwhile Jane is stuck on a riverboat with a scheming Belgian played by Christoph Waltz, who makes no effort to disguise his boredom.
Fox News channel presenter Gretchen Carlson has filed a lawsuit against the network's chairman, Roger Ailes, alleging the 76-year-old executive fired her for refusing his sexual advances.
In the suit, filed in New Jersey Superior Court, Carlson alleges Ailes deliberately sabotaged her career because she "refused his sexual advances and complained about severe and pervasive sexual harassment."
The suit claims the pair met to discuss the discriminatory treatment to which she was subjected, but that Ailes said they ought to have had "a sexual relationship a long time ago ... sometimes problems are easier to solve that way."
Carlson is a well known news presenter in the US, who formerly hosted the Fox & Friends panel program but more recently has hosted an afternoon segment on the Rupert Murdoch-owned 24-hour news channel.
The family of Hae Min Lee, the victim in the 1999 murder case that came to worldwide prominence through the hit podcast Serial, has reacted with disappointment and frustration to the news convicted killer Adnan Syed has been granted a retrial.
A Maryland judge last week ordered a new trial for Syed, however Lee's family said they remained convinced of his guilt.
"We do not speak as often or as loudly as those who support Adnan Syed, but we care just as much about this case," the family said in a statement released by the office of the Maryland attorney general. "We continue to grieve. We continue to believe justice was done when Syed was convicted of killing Hae."
Many viewers would have agreed with compere Leigh Sales, who noted that "nothing I have heard you say yet gives me any insight into what you think the Coalition has done wrong".
As the Foreign Minister explained it on the ABC's 7.30, the Coalition's "positive campaign" was resonating with voters until Labor flicked the switch to negative, scared voters witless and changed the course of the election.
So much for Malcolm's mea culpa . Listen to Scott Morrison and Julie Bishop and the explanation for the Coalition's disastrous election result is all down to Labor telling a lie about flogging Medicare and the gullible voters falling for it.
Bishop's response was to suggest the Coalition would have done better if it had been more negative. "We didn't attack Bill Shorten and the unions in a way that we could have. We didn't expose their record on border protection as we could have." Really?
Frontbenchers Julie Bishop and Scott Morrison are doing Malcolm Turnbull no favours in their postmortems of the 8-week campaign. Credit:Andrew Meares
Then we had the Treasurer, telling the AM program the Coalition was "by far and away the preferred alternative" on economic management, but suffered because voters were swayed by Labor's "outrageous lie" on Medicare.
"That has to hang around the neck of the Leader of the Opposition as a mark of complete dishonour in the way he conducted himself in this campaign," Morrison declared.
The first problem with this analysis was articulated by Turnbull on Tuesday. The claim that the Coalition intended to privatise Medicare was "exposed in the media as a falsehood, was condemned in the media as a falsehood, was unable to be defended by the Leader of the Labor Party when he was called on to do so".
There has long been "chatter" in conservative circles that Senator Bernardi would break away from the Liberals, but many believe he flirts with the idea strategically to gain leverage in the party room. But sources have confirmed to Fairfax Media that Senator Bernardi is having arms-length discussions with famous "preference whisperer" Glenn Druery about how such a "fourth force" might work. Conservatives say such a party would need its "own Nigel Farage" the recently resigned, charismatic leader of the United Kingdom Independence party. Former Liberal MP Ross Cameron has also been approached to be the figurehead of a broad-based conservative movement, which would be a right-wing equivalent to the Greens, catering to voters who believe the post-Tony Abbott Liberal party has become too centrist. Mr Druery denied having spoken to Senator Bernardi but did not deny talking to his associates.
Mr Druery said he believed a conservative party would "likely pick up one Senate spot in every state" at a federal election. "They would likely win some lower house seats too but they would have to be very, very clever about their election strategy." He said such a break-away party could form a place within the Coalition, like the National Party and the Liberal National Party in Queensland. The discussions represent a huge political problem for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who faces an insurrection from his party's right wing while uncertainty continues over whether he will be able to form government in his own right. In NSW, the right-wing micro-parties collectively picked up about 14 per cent of the upper house vote in the election. In Queensland, the right-wing micro-party vote was hovering around 18 per cent on Wednesday.
In Senator Bernardi's home state of South Australia, the right-wing micro-party vote was around nine per cent. There are many within the conservative movement believe there should be one single right-wing party to cater to this constituency, the same voters who turned their backs on the Liberal party under Prime Minister Turnbull. "You're seeing a whole bunch of conservative votes splinter off into other parties," Senator Bernardi said on Wednesday. "I want to make sure that people who have a conservative disposition are adequately represented in the public square." The talks come amid bitter recriminations about the campaign strategy of the Turnbull team, particularly from his home state.
Former Liberal MP and party member Mr Cameron would not comment on reports he has been approached as a possible "conservative party" leader. But he said it was "completely natural that conservatives who feel abandoned have got to figure out where they live". "The refusal of the Liberal party of NSW to reform its pre-selection process has left many feeling a small cabal of lobbyists who have privatised the Liberal party are running it for their commercial benefit, with no interest whatsoever in the merit principle," he said. Mr Cameron said there was "no product differentiation" between Liberal and Labor on key issues including climate change, gay marriage, industrial relations and budget repair. "We also all equally disparage and insult [Pauline] Hanson. So the Liberal Party got smashed because we had no money. The [policy] menu did not attract any kind of voluntary investment."
Pauline Hanson has launched a spray at the media ahead of her return to Federal Parliament, complaining of bias against her and warning she will bypass traditional newspapers and TV networks in favour of "citizen journalism".
Ms Hanson, whose One Nation party is on track to claim two but possibly as many as four Senate seats, warned in a video posted on her Facebook page that she would not give interviews unless the media stopped treating her as "a punching bag".
"So what I'm saying [is]: get your act together. I could be in Parliament for up to six years. I wouldn't mind a working relationship with you, but if you're not going to give me a fair go, don't come knocking on my door, because you ain't going to get an interview out of me."
Liberal backbencher and former SAS soldier Andrew Hastie has become the latest internal critic of the Coalition's campaign strategy, arguing it was disconnected from regular people and singling out pollster Mark Textor for his attitude.
Speaking to local newspaper the Mandurah Mail, Mr Hastie backed the call for a Liberal party room meeting - amid conservative fears that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will sell them out to deal with crossbenchers - saying his "voice has to be heard".
"I can't speak for Mark Textor, but I'd love to ask him if he's ever been to Canning and spoken to one of my electors because certainly there was a disconnect between the campaign nationally and what I did on the ground and I essentially ran my own show," the WA MP said.
"Good luck to them.. a $7.50 key. We are wasting all the courts' time, this is the whole reason I am standing for politics, you stand up for your right to go against the establishment, the grain and the wood and you get penalised for it.
"Out of all the enquiries I made, that was through legal as well, I don't even know if it will attract a sentence, I mean one would have to have a look at $7.50 and if that gets a sentence.
"I would be disappointed if I had to go to prison for 12 months over a $7.50 key, so I'm hoping that doesn't have to happen."
He went on to say he confronted officials who came to repossess the car, claiming they "turned up with the wrong paperwork" and "failed to identify themselves".
He said he turned off the tow truck but denies taking the key.
By PTI: Dhaka, Jul 6 (PTI) A Bangladeshi court today ordered police to submit their investigation report by August 24 in last weeks gruesome attack on a cafe here in which 22 people including foreigners were killed.
Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Rani Chakrabarty gave the order to the investigation officer of the case.
Gulshan police initiated the case under the Anti-Terrorism Act naming six and several unidentified others on Monday midnight.
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According to police, five terrorists, identified and killed by army commandos in their bid to rescue the hostages after a 12-hour-long stand-off, were among the six named, bdnews24 reported.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal yesterday confirmed that five of the persons killed in the "Operation Thunderbolt" are militants.
Islamist gunmen stormed a popular restaurant in Dhakas diplomatic enclave late on Friday and killed 22 people, most of them foreigners from Italy, Japan, India and the US in an attack claimed by the Islamic State terror group. PTI CPS AKJ CPS
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Certainly in real estate, properties south of Bell Street are marketed as such, and they cost significantly more on account of proximity to Northcote, Brunswick, Brunswick East and Thornbury, more public transport and more bike tracks. Dr Elizabeth Taylor from the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT says south of Bell Street should take the New York style acronym of SOBS. Certainly some of the house prices for cramped blocks SOBS are enough to make an inner-urban educated cyclist weep.
"If a property is north of Bell Street the real estate agents will say it is 'not far' from Bell Street," Dr Taylor says. "People who buy to the south can tend to have status in mind."
And they love The Greens. We now have the proof. According to the party's state director Larissa Brown there are several reasons for the huge green vote south of the great divide.
Most of the party's 600 volunteers in Batman - The Green Army - live in Brunswick, Thornbury and Northcote.
The Green Army started its campaign of doorknocking for this election in the south, and moved north.
The party had identified growing clusters of potential Greens voters in the more densely populated SOBS.
Ms Brown said despite the stark divide shown on the map the Greens still had big swings to them in almost all polling booths north of Bell Street, especially in Reservoir, where party strategists have learned that Greens voters have moved in but only if their house is close to public transport or creeks. "So we would expect any other booths in the north near creeks and trains to keep climbing for us. We will probably doorknock harder in those places in the future."
Federal election results 2016: Malcolm Turnbull to form government as vote count continues
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Labor may have claimed victory over the Liberal National Party's Wyatt Roy on Sunday, but Australia's youngest-ever federal parliamentarian has refused to give up on holding the Queensland seat of Longman.
As counting continued to have the 26-year-old trailing Labor's Susan Lamb on Wednesday, Mr Roy said he held out hope for an unlikely victory thanks to as-yet uncounted postal votes.
"While it looks like a tough fight, on the very early postal votes we're looking at about 58 per cent of the vote, which will make it an incredibly tight race," he said.
After years of speculation, the Middle East will get its own edition of Vogue, publisher Conde Nast announced on Tuesday.
Vogue Arabia will launch as a website in October, before a print edition is introduced next year.
Princess Deena Aljuhani Abdulaziz operates two boutiques in Saudi Arabia. Credit:Getty
The magazine will be edited by Saudi princess Deena Aljuhani Abdulaziz, who operates two boutiques in Saudi Arabia.
"The Arab world consists of 350 million people, and they never had a Vogue," she told the Financial Times. "The time has come, and it has been a long time coming."
Clients of a Sydney woman operating as a cosmetic practitioner have been urged to see their GP for blood tests after they were potentially exposed to blood-borne viruses.
Public Health officers said they raided an apartment at 14/239 Great North Road in Five Dock where they found injectable drugs not approved for use in Australia and evidence of poor infection control.
Ms Pu Liu, also known as Mabel Liu, had been performing cosmetic surgeries and treatments at the apartment, despite not being registered as a medical practitioner in Australia, NSW Health said on Wednesday.
It is illegal for a non-registered practitioner to undertake these procedures.
A former intelligence officer has been denied full access to his records because it would threaten national security.
The man was employed by the Defence Department as a security clearance expert and claimed he was bullied and intimidated by officers after raising concerns about allegedly unethical processes.
Concerns over sensitive information meant a former Defence Department worker was unsuccessful in seeking access to documents relating to him. Credit:Tanya Lake
He held a top secret positive vetting clearance until he was placed on extended medical leave in 2010 with a review of his clearance ordered after concerns it had become inappropriate.
Court documents show the review was cancelled once he was transferred to a new role within the department, which saw his clearance automatically downgraded.
Neil Jordan likes to get inside an animal's mind when he's working to save a species. Take lions, for example.
"Lions are ambush predators; they rely on stealth and the element of surprise in order to bring down their prey," he said. "As soon as they lose that element of surprise, as soon as the prey sees them, they abandon their hunt."
Painted eyes on the back of a cow could deter predation by lions. Credit:Ben Yexley/ UNSW
That is why he and fellow researchers are going to Botswana to paint eyes on cows' rumps. They hope it will prove a low-cost way to protect livestock from lions, and lions from being killed by farmers in retaliation.
One of the main threats to lions in Africa is conflict with farmers, who shoot or poison them to stop them preying on livestock. In the 1990s there were more than 100,000 African lions. There could now be as few as 23,000 adults and they are listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
There is "absolutely no way" Sydney man Hamdi Alqudsi thought he was recruiting men for a humanitarian mission after asking a fighter in Syria to be their "commander", a court has heard.
In his closing address on Wednesday, Crown prosecutor David Staehli, SC, told the jury that when Mr Alqudsi spoke of jihad in intercepted phone conversations "he's not talking about noble things...he's talking about jihad in terms of fighting for the cause of Allah".
Hamdi Alqudsi pouts in an image sent to two foreign fighters during a Skype call.
"The mujahideen are not charity workers, they are not going [to Syria] to help orphan children ... they are going there to kill or be killed," Mr Staehli said.
Mr Alqudsi, 42, is on trial in the NSW Supreme Court accused of recruiting seven Australian men to fight in Syria between June and November 2013.
Police have named a man they say caused "three hours of anarchy" throughout south-east Queensland on Tuesday after the theft of a car in New South Wales led to a wild chase.
The man, identified by police as Wade Lawrence Jackson, allegedly stole a Lexus in NSW before crossing the border at Warwick and making his way to the rural town of Fassifern, where he stole another vehicle.
Police helicopter vision appears to show the man threatening another before taking his keys and driving off. Credit:Queensland Police Service
From there he began heading towards Goodna, nearly causing a number of head-on collisions, before abandoning that vehicle which then rolled into a property at Mansfield, causing damage.
Police said he then left the scene on foot before approaching a man on Lorinya Street and stealing his car, a blue Hyundai Getz with the number plates 667 GKO.
Though she lived to tell her story, not all of us can be this lucky. If you think passing out after a few drinks is "normal", this is for you.
By India Today Web Desk: Twenty-one-year-old Hanna Lottritz is an average youngster. She enjoys the company of friends, being around family and a drink or two every now and then. But it's only recently that she's decided to limit her drinking to "a drink or two". Till last year, she was like most of us--going binge drinking with friends over the weekends or on special occasions, nursing a hangover the next morning, and making no big deal of it.
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July 2015, however, changed all of that for Hanna, when after a night of binge drinking with friends, she found herself in the hospital, waking up after 24 hours of alcohol-induced coma.
Detailing the night on her blog, Hanna writes, "At the concert I had two beers. Many of the people I was with had been drinking throughout the day and were already feeling good. I hadn't started drinking until a little after dinner and I felt a little behind... I am a competitive person by nature and this group was mostly guys who (for some reason) I promised I could outdrink. Around 11:30pm, one of my guy friends and I were seeing who could take the longest chug from a bottle of Black Velvet Whiskey."
And that's where the problem started for Hanna. Without realising, she had fed her system much more alcohol than it could take--according to her blog, Hanna's blood-alcohol concentration was five times more than the permissible limit.
"Apparently after I chugged from the bottle, I chugged a solo cup full of "Black Velvet Whiskey." Immediately after this I told my friends I felt fine, and about five minutes later I collapsed. I wasn't breathing. My friends picked me up and started carrying me to the medical tent. From there I was intubated and taken to Renown hospital in Reno, Nevada via care flight. Meanwhile, the police showed up at my house to tell my parents to meet me at the hospital," wrote Hanna.
Waking up from the come, however, was only the beginning of the horror that awaited her.
"I was in critical condition, suffering from acute respiratory failure and acute alcohol intoxication. My blood alcohol concentration was .41 when I arrived at the hospital, five times over the legal limit. The doctors thought I was brain dead because I was completely unresponsive. My pupils were sluggishly reactive, I had no corneal reflex and I wasn't responding to verbal or painful stimuli. I finally woke up about 24 hours after I arrived at the hospital. I had a tube down my throat and my hands were restrained so I couldn't pull it out. I was unable to talk with the tube down my throat, making it hard to tell my parents and the nurses that it was extremely uncomfortable..."
Hanna woke up in the hospital, with no memory of the night she went binge drinking. Picture courtesy: hlottritz.wordpress.com Hanna woke up in the hospital, with no memory of the night she went binge drinking. Picture courtesy: hlottritz.wordpress.com
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The blog further mentions that according to the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention, binge drinking is defined as five or more drinks on one occasion for men, and four or more drinks on one occasion for women. Heavy drinking is defined as 15 or more drinks per week for men, and eight or more drinks per week for women. The CDC also says, "Very high levels of alcohol in the body can shutdown critical areas of the brain that control breathing, heart rate, and body temperature, resulting in death."
Still need another reason to think about every drink you pour yourself every weekend?
You can read Hanna Lottritz's full blog here .
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Cranbourne-Pakenham line commuters have been spared the pain of replacement bus services, with giant cranes set to install massive sections of elevated track while trains travel as usual underneath.
The cranes, weighing 230 tonnes each, will begin work near Murrumbeena station next month for what the government describes as an engineering first for Victoria.
The Murrumbeena and Carnegie station car parks will be closed from August until 2018, when the project is due for completion.
Five elevated stations will be built on the controversial "sky rail" section of the Cranbourne-Pakenham line.
Did yesterday seem wetter than usual?
It turns out it was. Tuesday was officially the wettest day of the year so far in Melbourne.
A crane fell down a gully in the Dandenongs because of the rainy weather and wet roads on Wednesday Credit:Kevin Jones
Weather bureau data shows 22.6 millimetres of rain fell in the city in the 24 hours to 9am on Wednesday, beating the previous wettest day by one millimetre.
The previous wettest day was April 22, when there was 21.6 millimetres of rainfall in Melbourne.
Thought you'd had enough rain? Wait, there's more to come for Melbourne, with major flooding continuing to cause havoc in several parts of the state.
Bureau of Meteorology Senior forecaster Dean Stewart said almost 5 millimetres of rain fell in the city on Thursday and light showers would continue this evening.
But Thursday was not as wet as Tuesday, which was officially the wettest day of the year so far in Melbourne.
Weather bureau data showed 22.6 millimetres of rain fell in the city in the 24 hours to 9am for Tuesday, beating the previous wettest day by one millimetre.
It is Melbourne's sixth-busiest railway station, used by 28,000 passengers a day, a figure that has almost trebled in just six years.
Yet despite that extraordinary surge in patronage, South Yarra station has been all but ignored for the past 17 years, documents show, even though authorities knew it was struggling to cope with the growing crowds.
Since 1999, the full extent of investment in upgrading South Yarra station has been a refurbishment of its toilets, the addition of stainless steel platform benches and a cordless microphone system for staff, a freedom-of-information request has revealed.
The "South Yarra ticket barrier project", an expansion of the station foyer to "improve passenger flow", was proposed in mid-2011, the documents show, but did not proceed despite a Metro recommendation to Public Transport Victoria that it be "fast-tracked".
In a pokey evidence room at the offices of Melbourne's Metropolitan Fire Brigade, you'll find a museum of deceptively dangerous electrical appliances.
Stacked in black evidence boxes and pushed into corners are singed versions of ordinary household items. There is a notable collection of oil heaters in varying scorched states the chief suspects in a number of fires.
While we may enjoy a trusted relationship with our electrical gadgets and machines, the experience of fire investigators suggests we should not be so nonchalant about the dangers they pose.
In Melbourne last year there were more than 450 house fires caused by faulty electrical appliances, heaters, laptops and other portable devices, including mobile phones left charging and unattended.
The state government has been accused of abandoning small businesses as more subcontractors complain about not being paid for work on government projects.
Many subcontractors on the government's multi-billion dollar Elizabeth Quay development on the Swan River have not been paid by CPB Contractors and ordered not to complain publicly if they wanted payment.
Colin Barnett has been quick to open major WA projects like Elizabeth Quay but payments to subcontractors who worked on them have been slow to materialise. Credit:Stefan Gosatti
The claims add to a growing list of government and private projects, including the new children's hospital and airport expansion, marred by subcontractor complaints that they're not being paid.
Doubts have been raised about the government's checks on the financial health of the companies it awards tenders to.
A man has died in a suspected hit-and-run crash as he tried to flag down cars for help after he got bogged on the side of a road in Cullacabardee.
Police spokesman Samuel Dinnison said about 9pm on Wednesday the man's light metallic blue Holden HZ tray back ute was parked on the side of Beechboro Road North. It's believed the man had pulled over and got stuck in soft sand.
The man's ute got bogged in soft sand on the side of the road. Credit:WA Police
The driver, a 47-year-old man, was found by police officers nearby with serious injuries which were consistent with being struck by a car.
Police provided first aid until a St John ambulance arrived but any attempts to revive the man failed and he died at the scene.
The funeral of veteran ABC broadcaster Eoin Cameron has concluded at St Mary's Cathedral, Victoria Square, where hundreds of mourners turned up to pay their respects.
Cameron, who retired from hosting the station's Breakfast program in March, died of a heart attack while in Albany visiting family late on June 23.
Paris: A Belgian judge has sentenced 15 people for their involvement in a terrorist plot that was thwarted in early 2015 but was a harbinger of the deadly attacks later that year in Paris.
The aborted plot's chief architect is believed to have been Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian operative for the Islamic State. Abaaoud travelled to the group's bases in Syria and was the on-the-ground coordinator of the November 13 attacks in and around Paris, which killed 130 people.
The plot that was halted in Verviers, a French-speaking city in southern Belgium, was the first in a series of terrorist operations that Abaaoud was believed to have planned but that never happened. By the time of the attacks in Paris, he had learnt from his mistakes. Abaaoud was killed in a shootout in St Denis, France, five days after those attacks.
In all of Chilcot's 12 volumes that comprise 2.6 million words, just a few hundred words in Blair's "I will be with you, whatever" letter to Bush are as self-incriminating as they are revealing. Written in July 2002, the missive reveals that Blair was not as green as he was cabbage-looking. At the same time, that mawkish opening line reveals a man more smitten by power and the lure of a yes-man role at Washington's table than at any European confab, where French and German opposition to the invasion might have challenged Blair's misplaced certainties. Then-Prime Minister John Howard greets then-US President George W Bush in his Sydney office in 2007. Credit:Andrew Meares Incredibly, in putting pen to paper, Blair was able to identify all that could go wrong "Suppose it got militarily trickysuppose Iraq suffered unexpected civilian casualties suppose the Arab Street finally erupted suppose the Iraqis feel ambivalent about being invaded and real Iraqis decide to offer resistance suppose that any difficulties are magnified and seized on by hostile international opinion. The possibility of unintended consequences will persist through and beyond the military phase." The one misplaced "suppose" in Blair's letter was this: "suppose Saddam let off WMD."
A US tank unit passes one of the many fallen statues of former Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in 2003. Credit:Kate Geraghty Blair further reveals his limited understanding of the region, with his cocky assertion that "[Saddam's] departure would free up the region" how's that working for you, Tony? And then there's that reference to "real" Iraqis accidental, surely? What did Blair mean as opposed to the flaky flaks like the late discredited Ahmed Chalabi, whom the Americans thought they could parachute in to run the place? Protesters hold up a banner reading 'Blair must face war crimes trial' outside the London home of former British prime minister Tony Blair on July 6. Credit:Getty Images The truth is that this trio wanted to invade Iraq because they thought it would be easy.
Blair's oft-stated defence that it was impossible to predict the post-invasion chaos in Iraq gets short shrift in Chilcot's withering judgment "we do not agree that hindsight is required the risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability, and al-Qaeda activity in Iraq, were each explicitly identified before the invasion. Blair, worldly and all as he is, seemingly is unaware that all that he has said over the years is archived. The war: Iraqis pass by a British tank as they flee Basra in 2003. Credit:AP So how does he square his insistence this week that Saddam's removal is not the cause of today's terrorism in the Middle East and beyond; with his assessment, volunteered in a CNN interview last year, that the invasion helped give rise to the so-called Islamic State, a terrorist movement that is the current iteration of the Sunni resistance that rose against US-led forces in Iraq in 2003? In riveting detail, Chilcot describes how Blair overestimated any influence he might have had on Bush and his abject failure to restrain the president. Chilcot's subtext is clear the only way to achieve that, might have been to have kept Bush at arm's length and for the British leader to have publicly taken his own people into his confidence publicly, more so than he shared his private confidences with Bush.
Detail of a declassified handwritten letter sent from Blair to Bush. Credit:Getty Images At the time, Blair's critics denounced him as "Washington's poodle" Chilcot seemingly agrees, citing lessons for Britain, including "all aspects" of military intervention "need to be calculated, debated and challenged with the utmost rigor;" and once made, decisions "need to be implemented fully". Suggesting it would have been more heroic for Blair to disagree with Bush, Chilcot dryly observes that history reveals the genuine strength of the US-British relationship and the absence of any need for "unconditional support where our interests or judgments differ." Giving Blair a history lesson, Chilcot points out that the UK had differed with the US on Suez, Vietnam, the Falklands, Grenada, Bosnia, the Arab/Israel crisis and Northern Ireland all with no lasting impact on the partnership. Enumerating all the actions that Blair ought to have taken, Chilcot stopped short of an accusation that as prime minister, Blair had no balls. Couching his real meaning more delicately, he says that Britain took "false comfort" in the strength of the trans-Atlantic relationship, but found itself ignored repeatedly and did little or nothing about it.
Despite all Blair's fawning, Bush treated him with contempt London was given no role in the Coalition Provisional Authority, which initially ran post-invasion Iraq; and its request that Washington sign a memorandum of understanding on how the occupation was to be conducted was fobbed off. Chilcot reveals too, the shallowness and fearfulness that underpinned Blair's diplomacy, with a statement of the obvious "The opposition of France and Germany to the war in Iraq does not appear to have had a lasting impact on the relationships of those countries with the US, despite the bitterness at the time." Defenders of the Iraq invasion invoke all kinds of justifications and some have a certain logic. But here's the thing if those justifications were the benchmark for must-do, morally or humanitarian-based interventions around the globe, we could be invading a different country each month. Chilcot make the point that were that the rationale to be applied, the assessment at the time of British intelligence was that Iran, North Korea and Libya were greater threats than Iraq, in terms of the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The truth is that this trio wanted to invade Iraq because they thought it would be easy. It was never a sensible response to the Afghanistan-based al-Qaeda's attacks on New York and Washington, but they figured it would teach the rest of an uppity world a lesson on the extent of American power instead we were shown the limits of American power.
Chilcot's report resonates hugely today as the world grapples with the inordinate terror threat of the so-called Islamic State, the report is a reminder that it was the invasion of Iraq that spawned IS; and as Americans consider their vote in the upcoming presidential election, Chilcot's chilling analysis might move some to consider if they can vote for Hillary Clinton, who so enthusiastically backed the absurd Bush-Blair adventure in Mesopotamia. And outrage upon outrage, while the British have had the good sense to investigate and, hopefully, to learn from their mistakes; Americans will have none of that loser-ish introspection. They invest an unrelenting investigative effort into the Hillary Clinton emails and the Benghazi debacle, in which just four Americans died, but they leave untouched, their two wars of invasion in which, cheered on and abetted by Tony Blair and John Howard, two populations swapped the chaos and injustice they knew to be their lot in life for an alternate chaos and injustice that was all the more shocking because, the buccaneers had promised dignity, prosperity and democracy. But in Iraq alone, where there is quibbling on any precise figure, the average of seven scientific and/or body-count tallies of the dead in the wake of the invasion, is more than 382,000. The region and the world are at the mercy of a terrorist movement that for ghoulishness attempts to outstrip al-Qaeda, whose 9/11 attacks begat the invasion of Iraq. Thousands of US and other coalition soldiers died in combat in Iraq but no Australians. I've often wondered if an understanding was reached with the Americans in return for Canberra's early commitment to the invasion, Australian forces would be kept out of harm's way as they were for much of the conflict by being tucked away, deep in Iraq's southwest.
By Siraj Qureshi: Following the removal of Union MoS for HRD Ramshankar Katheria from the Modi cabinet and no new inclusions from the Braj region, the land of Lord Krishna has lost representation in the cabinet of Krishna devotee Modi.
In 2014, this region had voted with an open heart for Modi, with the BJP winning the majority of parliamentary seats here, Modi rewarded the voters by including Ram Shankar Katheria in his cabinet as a junior minister. But merely 2 years later, Katheria is out of the cabinet and no new local representative was chosen to replace him despite several MPs having strong claim to a cabinet post in the region.
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There are 7 parliamentary seats in the Braj region and out of these, 5 went in BJP's kitty, while two went to the Samajwadi Party. Hema Malini won from Mathura, Ramshankar Katheria and Babulal won from Agra and Fatehpur Sikri respectively, Kalyan Singh's son Rajvir Singh from Etah and Rajesh Diwakar won from Hathras. There were extensive speculations on whom Modi will choose out of the remaining 4 MPs to replace Katheria, but the speculations fell flat as Modi skipped the entire region.
UP ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS
Social activist Deep Sharma said that this cabinet expansion was totally orchestrated keeping the UP assembly elections in sight. The way BJP is focusing on various caste equations through this expansion, Rajvir Singh's selection to the cabinet was being seen highly likely, both due to his father's stature in the BJP and his strong hold over the Lodhi community in the region. Kalyan Singh is also considered the 'favourite son' of RSS following the demolition of the Babri Mosque, however, the RSS was promoting the name of Hathras MP Rajesh Diwakar. Also, actress and Mathura MP Hema Malini's stake was being considered very strong.
Agra Tourist Welfare Chamber Secretary Vishal Sharma said that the Braj region has a very important place on the tourism map of India and as a minister in the Union cabinet, Prof. Katheria was instrumental in raising the demands of this region at the national level. He also assisted the local industry leaders in directly placing their suggestions on the tables of various concerned ministers in the cabinet. However, none of the projects that Katheria had been working on were completed and he was unceremoniously removed from the cabinet. This has indeed come as a shock to many in the region.
He said that although appointing and removing ministers from the cabinet is the Prime Minister's prerogative, but it is true that by removing the only minister from this region, PM Modi has done grave injustice to the Braj region.
Ruckus in Parliament over minister Ram Shankar Katheria's hate speech
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The Swedish police said on Tuesday that they were investigating reports that dozens of young women and girls were sexually assaulted at two music festivals in Sweden last weekend.
Police said there had been five reports of rape and 12 reports of sexual molestation at the Bravalla Festival in Norrkoping, about 160 kilometres south-west of Stockholm, while 32 sexual assaults had been reported at Putte i Parken, a music festival in Karlstad, about 300 kilometres west of Stockholm.
Girls and women at the festival in Karlstad said they had been groped by boys and men, Inspector Leif Nystrom of the Karlstad Police Department said in a phone interview. Most were under 18 years old, and three of the girls were under the age of 15.
"These were reports of women being touched in unwanted places, such as on their breasts and on their bottoms and inside their underwear," he said.
ATLANTA, July 6, 2016 -- The smart fortwo is rolling into Atlanta this weekend to show city dwellers how to make their commute a 'smart' one. At Lenox Mall on Saturday, July 9th and Sunday July 10th from 10 a.m 6 p.m., participants will have the chance to experience how the smart fortwo can help them defeat Atlanta traffic once and for all.
This summer, a selection of smart fortwo coupes will road trip across the U.S., stopping in a different city every weekend to allow residents to take the fortwo coupe for a spin. Test drives will take place in well-known city shopping malls or other high-traffic urban locations, where drivers who complete the test drive will earn a complimentary $20 gift card.
Home to the smart U.S. headquarters, Atlanta has a special place in the smart fortwo's heartbetter known as a 3-cylinder turbocharged engine. Since smart USA and Mercedes-Benz, USA relocated to Atlanta in 2015, smart has expertly navigated up and down Peachtree and all roads in between, ensuring it is the perfect city car for Atlanta drivers.
The smart fortwo offers an extensive suite of driver assistance systems including forward collision warning to help prevent rear-end collisions, Crosswind Assist to keep the vehicle in its lane in poor weather conditions and Lane Keeping Assist to better navigate traffic jams in city streets.
The all-new smart fortwo coupe was redesigned from the ground up to provide ultimate urban mobility and self-expression. With a length of just 8.8 feet and a turning circle of 22.8 feet, the smart fortwo sets new benchmarks in maneuverabilityperfect for urban driving.
For increased comfort and convenience, the smart fortwo includes the exclusive cross connect app, standard Bluetooth audio streaming and hands-free calling, a multifunction steering wheel, cruise control, automatic climate control and 3.5" color display and alarm.
As an extension of the Mercedes-Benz product portfolio, the smart fortwo offers personalization, convenience, safety, efficiency and affordabilitythe 2016 smart fortwo coupe starts at $14,650.
Take a break from frustrating three-point turns in your SUV and take smart for a 360-degree spin this weekend. Learn more about the smart Roadshow and where it's stopping next by visiting www.smartusa.com/2016-smart-roadshow.
About smart
smart, a part of the Mercedes-Benz, USA portfolio, is headquartered in Atlanta. The smart line consists of fortwo models in coupe, cabrio and electric. All smart models sold in the U.S. are covered by a four-year, 50,000-mile new vehicle limited warranty.
Classified as ultra-low emissions vehicles by the State of California Air Resources Board, smart models are 8.8 feet long and just over 5 feet tall by 5 feet wide. Despite their microcar exterior dimensions, smart vehicles are surprisingly roomy inside and have a full array of technological and safety features including the patented tridion safety cell, and eight airbags in the coupe and six airbags in the cabriolet, which is designed to protect occupants in the event of a collision. All smart vehicles, designed to be 85% recyclable and over 95% reclaimable, are produced in the environmentally oriented "smartville" factory in Hambach, France.
FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif., July 6, 2016 -- Hyundai Hope On Wheels (HHOW) and Hyundai dealers will award 18 hospitals with a $50,000 Hyundai Impact Grant for pediatric cancer research to help end childhood cancer. The Impact Grant supports the programmatic needs of pediatric oncology. The grant may also be used to support direct patient assistance programs, such as enrichment programs, play room/teen center equipment, family on-site support, educational initiatives, or other efforts to improve care and cure for kids fighting cancer.
In addition to the Impact Grant winner, Hope On Wheels will soon announce the winners of its Hyundai Scholar and Young Investigator Grants. This year alone, HHOW will award more than $13 million in new pediatric cancer grants. Since 1998, the program has funded $115 million in research to Children's Oncology Group (COG) member institutions nationwide. The program also creates awareness about the importance of the disease, which is the leading cause of death by disease in children in the United States (source).
The Impact Grant will be presented during handprint ceremonies that will take place at each awarded hospital between July August. During the ceremony, HHOW will commemorate local-area children affected by cancer. The kids will be invited to place their handprints on a white 2016 Hyundai Tucson to commemorate their fight against the disease.
Attendees at the various ceremonies will include HHOW's two national youth ambassadors and pediatric cancer survivors, Hannah Adams and Ryan Darby, who will deliver a message of hope to children's cancer hospitals. Hannah was five years old when she was diagnosed with a Stage 3 Wilms tumor that enveloped her kidney. Since her recovery, she has pursued her love of dancing and singing to help uplift and encourage other children and families through their fight. Twelve-year-old Ryan was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia six years ago, and since his recovery, he has shared his story and words of encouragement with children and families across the country. Watch Hannah and Ryan's story at www.HyundaiHopeOnWheels.org
"Our mission at Hyundai Hope On Wheels is clear: End Childhood Cancer," said Scott Stark, Chairman, Hyundai Hope On Wheels Board of Directors. "By funding transformational research through our Impact Grants and celebrating the lives of the brave young cancer fighters at our handprint ceremonies, we move closer to our dream of a day without cancer. This is a fight you can count on us to be in until no child ever has to hear the words: you have cancer."
HYUNDAI HOPE ON WHEELS
Hyundai Hope On Wheels is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that is committed to finding a cure for childhood cancer. Launched in 1998, Hyundai Hope On Wheels provides grants to eligible institutions nationwide that are pursuing life-saving research and innovative treatments for the disease. HHOW is one of the largest nonprofit funders of pediatric cancer research in the country, and primary funding for Hyundai Hope On Wheels comes from Hyundai Motor America and its more than 830 U.S. dealers. Since it's inception, Hyundai Hope On Wheels has awarded more than $115 million towards childhood cancer research in pursuit of a cure.
To learn more about Hyundai Hope On Wheels, please visit www.HyundaiHopeOnWheels.org or follow us on social media at www.facebook.com/HyundaiHopeOnWheels, www.twitter.com/hopeonwheels, and www.youtube.com/hopeonwheels.
HYUNDAI MOTOR AMERICA
Hyundai Motor America, headquartered in Fountain Valley, Calif., is a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Co. of Korea. Hyundai vehicles are distributed throughout the United States by Hyundai Motor America and are sold and serviced through more than 830 dealerships nationwide.
Mazda Launches Redesigned MazdaUSA.com
Content Bonus: Mazda Specs, Comparisons, Expert Unbiased Reviews and Prices 1997-Present Mazda Research and Buyers Guide
IRVINE, Calif. (July 6, 2016) In an effort to align with Mazdas move to the near-premium landscape and better engage with customers throughout the car buying, and owning, process, Mazda North American Operations has launched a redesigned website. The new site, which can be found at MazdaUSA.com, will better meet the needs of customers, improving the customer experience when researching vehicles for their car buying decision.
As customer shopping behavior changes, Mazda customers of today are changing as well, said Russell Wager, vice president of marketing for Mazda North American Operations. While our customers continue to trend toward being slightly older than before, those buyers are more affluent and more tech savvy, making it imperative for us to meet them where they are.
To address the needs of the Mazda customers of today, the new site was developed to feature an intuitive, user-friendly platform with enhanced shopping tools and seamless navigation. A 2014 McKinsey report[1] notes that the average buyer visits just 1.6 auto dealerships during the car-purchasing process and that one-third of customers would consider buying a car online. This data shows a vast change in customer shopping behavior and a stronger reliance on online research during the purchase process, providing an opportunity to develop a site that better addresses this change in consumer behavior.
To achieve this, Mazda focused on developing the platform with more relevant upfront content and by providing links that are easily accessible and prominent. With less clicks to access the shopping tools, Mazda shoppers can more easily build and price a vehicle, while checking on local inventory, and for the first time they are able to do all of this on their mobile device. Current owners also benefit from the redesign, with an easily-accessible owners section that features helpful reference materials on the brand and the vehicles they own.
Just as Mazda has created a unified look of their entire vehicle line up, through KODO - Soul of Motion design language, Mazda is now working to create a unified look for the entire brand engaging their customers in a unified way across all interfaces. The newly designed website is another important step in the evolution of the Mazda brand.
The new site was developed and designed with the help of Mazdas creative partner WPPs Garage Team Mazda, along with global digital agency Mirum.
Mazda North American Operations is headquartered in Irvine, California, and oversees the sales, marketing, parts and customer service support of Mazda vehicles in the United States and Mexico through nearly 700 dealers. Operations in Mexico are managed by Mazda Motor de Mexico in Mexico City. .
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[1] McKinsey&Company. (2014). Innovating automotive retail. Retrieved from http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/innovating-automotive-retail
2016 Dodge Charger SXT Review By Steve Purdy +VIDEO
BONUS CONTENT: Dodge Charger Reviews 2006-2016
2016 DODGE CHARGER SXT
Review by Steve Purdy
The Auto Channel
Michigan Bureau
Here is something rare: a rear-wheel drive, full-size sedan with a good measure of retro-cool, an efficient powertrain and decent price the 2016 Dodge Charger SXT. The one we have this week is remarkably red (they call it TorRed), which probably accounts for a stop by the Roscommon County cops who graciously did not give me a ticket even though I certainly was driving at a slightly extra-legal speed on their nice county two-lane.
While the Charger has experienced upgrades over the years, particularly in 2011 and 2015, it is essentially the car it was when cloned off the Chrysler 300 platform a decade ago. Prior to that 2006 reincarnation of the nameplate Dodge Chargers go back to the mid 1960s as concept cars, compact cars and a full-size coupe. This current 6th-generation Charger comes in many trim levels with multiple powertrains from the basic SE with V6 and 8-speed automatic to the thundering Hellcat with a 707-hp V8 and six-speed manual transmission. All-wheel drive is available only on V6 cars. Our test car is the V6 powered SXT, second-from-the-bottom trim level.
This Charger has a character like no other. Exterior styling started out with strong, 3-box, retro design elements that have been modernized with each update but it maintains that classic muscle-car formula. The front view has become less boxy and vertical with new LED DRLs, narrower grille and more sculpted details. Our tester has the optional 20-inch black wheels shod with tires wide enough for a race car providing an even more high-performance look. Side and rear views have evolved as well with sculpted side panels and full-width bright LED taillights along with chrome dual exhaust outlets.
Style and design inside remain unpretentious and little changed, with instrument cluster and controls simple and easily managed. The big news here is the newest iteration of the mulit-function touch screen for audio, climate, navigation, apps, vehicle settings and lots more. Large icons and reasonably intuitive navigation make it easier than most to do what needs to be done. I rank this among the best Ive used recently and, I am one who has little patience for unnecessary complexity.
Front seats are generous and comfortable with good lateral support and enough adjustment to accommodate most any human form. The one-piece dash panel seems out of date and of less-than-impressive quality but everything fits well and looks decent. The Dodge interior designers eschew trendy details but in this car that is OK. The interior design also adds to the retro theme of the car. Rear seats will easily fit three average size people and seatbacks fold for better cargo access.
Our affection for the Charger comes partly from the charming and efficient powertrain. This Pentastar 3.6-liter, naturally aspirated V6 makes 292 horsepower and 260 pound-feet of torque. It feels as strong as a small V8 with a sound equally as impressive. Kudos go to the acoustic engineers at Chrysler for squeezing such a nice rumble out of this V6. The 8-speed automatic transmission is a ZF unit manufactured in Germany. The EPA/DOT estimates we should get around 31-mpg on the highway, 19 in the city and 23 combined using regular fuel. We easily managed nearly 26 mpg in our mixed driving environment this week biased mostly to highway use. On one of our 250-mile freeway drives I reset the trip computer and realized 27.8 mpg. With the 18.5-gallong fuel tank we have an over 400-mile cruising range.
This Charger SXT Blacktop starts at $29,995. The Blacktop Appearance Package includes a variety of interior and exterior cosmetic features including cool 20-inch polished and painted aluminum wheels. Our review car came with a variety of options including: leather seating, HID projector beam headlights, heated and ventilated power front seats, heated second row seats, heated steering wheel, navigation package, sport suspension, Beats premium speakers, paddle shifters and a track package with performance tires, 3.07 rear axle ratio and some other performance stuff. All this results in a bottom line on the sticker of $36,765.
The FCA new car warranty covers the whole car for 3 years or 36,000 miles and the powertrain for 5 years or 60,000 miles.
In terms of driving dynamics, we find the Charger competent, agile and entertaining. In spite of its full-size it is not a bit cumbersome. Quick steering, firm but compliant suspension and the earlier-described efficient powertrain combine for a driving experience that will please most buyers, and particularly those who enjoy the nuances of rear-wheel drive. The quiet cabin and simple, ergonomically well-designed controls make a jaunt to the grocery store or to grandmas house two states away a pleasant prospect. If you get rambunctious and put your foot in it, winding it to red line using the paddle shifters on the steering wheel, you can get a shot of adrenalin even with this V6. Remember, we have nearly 300 horsepower to motivate this 3,900-pound sedan.
Dodges brand identity has evolved nicely into a space where performance dominates. Dodge design language follows that thread as well. As one who is old enough to appreciate the heritage of Charger and as one who appreciates both the grunt and the trend-bucking simplicity I would have this on my shopping list.
Steve Purdy, Shunpiker Productions, All Rights Reserved
By PTI: New Delhi, Jul 5 (PTI) Congress today dubbed as a "vote- garnering exercise" the Union Cabinet expansion with an eye on poll-bound states and said Prime Minister Narendra Modis "tall claim" of minimum government, maximum governance has been reduced to another "gimmick". After the dropping of five ministers, todays expansion effected by Modi took the total strength of his Council of Ministers to 78, just keeping it under the constitution limit of 15 per cent of the total strength of the legislature. Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala told reporters that with a "top heavy" Cabinet Modis "tall claim" of minimum government, maximum governance has been reduced to another gimmick. The much-publicised Cabinet expansion has proved to be "much ado about nothing", Surjewala said, adding the exercise reflects "devaluation ofgovernment and deficit of talent and experience in BJP". "Sole aim of expansion is a vote garnering exercise looking at election going States and a panic reaction against declining political graph of BJP in UP, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat."
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"It has nothing to do with improving lives of 125 crore Indians or providing a government dedicated to the cause of solving their problems," he said.
"Team Modi has become a collection of courtiers, sycophants, non-performers and hate mongers," he added. Surjewala also wondered what will now happen to Subramanian Swamy, "the Finance Minister in waiting". The controversial BJP MP, a known detractor of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, does not figure in the exercise.
Coming down hard on the Prime Minister, he said an important facet of Cabinet expansion is that the "incompetent and non-performing" ministers have not been punished or dropped nor has any reward been given to the talent.
"This reflects a bankruptcy of vision and futuristic thinking," he said.
He claimed that another clear message is the protection given to hate mongers and those propagating the agenda of division and deception.
"Had this not been true, PM would have taken action against ministers like Smriti Irani, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Gen V K Singh, Giriraj Singh, Sanjiv Baliyan, Mahesh Sharma and half a dozen others. Obviously, all these ministers are acting with complete knowledge and complicity of the Prime Minister," he claimed.
Faulting the prime minister for "completely ignoring" the NDA allies, he said the entire exercise has been rendered to cosmetic changes aimed at propagating Modi as a larger than life figure.
"It is about I, Me, Myself. Even otherwise, in the autocratic Modi regime, ministers and Cabinet are the fall guys with every publicity driven achievements going to the account of Modi," he added. PTI SPG ZMN GSN GSN
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The hot debate is whether cancer could be caused by bad luck: It was believed in the 1980s, says Dr Mukherjee, that finding and eliminating environmental carcinogens (such as tobacco) that are known to cause cancer, could help eliminate cancer. However, the cause for many cancers cannot be pinned down to carcinogens, in which case, scientists are arguing that it could be purely a case of bad luck. "Our cells are dividing all the time and some mistakes in these divisions could cause cancers, which means it's just bad luck or fate." The jury, however, is still divided.
The next generation could live till the age of 120: "This generation has already crossed the 100 year barrier and the next can live up to 120. That would require cellular regenerative therapy because the brains, the blood, the bones, all give way, so you could replace those parts. And now with digital power you could download memory, so in essence, longevity of life can easily go up and I foresee in some rarefied countries, people living to 120."
As a species, we're very young and very similar: "We're about 200,000 years old, which is very young, it's just a blip. And species are always evolving. Our ancestry is thus very young and humans are much more similar to each other than we think. If you trace back our lineage, you'll find that 40,000 generations ago, all of us had a single mother. She is the Mitochondrial Eve (not the religious Eve). This does not mean she was the only woman, she coexisted with other women but is our common ancestor. And she is of sub-Saharan African origin."
You can sequence an embryo's genome: Before an embryo is planted into a woman's womb (via IVF), the genome can be sequenced, which means you can actually remove/add a gene. In other words, it's like rewriting the code of a human being. "This has already been tried in a clinical trial in China on 77 human embryos (none of which were actually carried to term since it was purely a trial, but it has been tried."
50 Cent knows a thing or nine about cheating death. As the story goes, in early 2000, the then-unknown rappers track Ghetto Quran leaked online. In it, he touched on the history of Kenneth Supreme McGriff and his Supreme Team, a crack-dealing organization based out of 50s neighborhoodSouth Jamaica, Queens. This reportedly led to the blacklisting of 50 by many of the major music studios and, according to an affidavit from a special agent assigned to the U.S. Treasury Department, may be linked to the events of April 24, 2000, when a gunman approached 50 and shot him nine times at close range with a 9mm pistol in front of his grandmothers house. The man formerly known as Curtis Jackson, of course, survived, went on to make (and lose) millions, and is now executive producing and co-starring in a gritty TV series based in part on his own experiences in the drug game.
When we last left Starzs hit series Power, 50s villainous drug-trafficker Kanan was left for dead, lit ablaze by the shows antihero, Ghost (Omari Hardwick). But he didnt die, because if history has taught us anything, it is that you can kill anyoneexcept 50 Cent.
As the fire starts and you see him walking away, hes not taking into account the sprinkler system. And as he leaves, hes hurt bad, 50 Cent says of Kanan, referring to his newly disfigured character as Two-Face.
Kanan served as a mentor to Ghost, but, after serving a lengthy prison stint, has become fraught with jealousy over how pupil has become masterand far surpassed him. 50 likens the relationship between Kanan and Ghost on the show to the real-life imbroglio thats ensnared Birdman and Lil Wayne.
It is like that, he says. Strangely enough, when you pick those two [Birdman and Lil Wayne], when people perceive you as a father-son relationship, and when people come in under someone, in the street they say, Thats my son. Thats my little man. Theyll use the terminology son in Queens.
He pauses, choosing his words carefully. You see this all the time: Theres people out there who will fight with the ones who love them instead of fighting with their true enemies.
While 50s sold more than 30 million albums, and his sixth studio LP, Street King Immortal, is due out Aug. 18, he views his experience working on Power as particularly rewarding, given how jaded hes become with the rap world over the course of his 16-year rhyming career.
Its restarting the creative energy, he says. After a while, with music, you get conditioned for it. So its like, with the same production wed have a different hit record with similar tones. With that production, you might write a different concept, but itll be the same hit. Youll hear artists whove been around for a while go, You got one. Thats the way I felt about the All the Way Up record with Fat Joethats a hit, he got one. Once you know how to make em, you can make em.
As far as hit records go, 50 also has plenty of thoughts about Bobby Shmurdas Hot Nigga, the first debut track to raise as much hell on the streets of New York as Ghetto Quran.
Bobby had a great record. That song is a great record, offers 50. This is what happens now, since records are available for people to play with online. When I made a record for the first time, I wasnt ready to make more hit records. With the first record I stumbled over that was good, the next 10 werent. A lot of times when an artist receives an opportunity too fast, like Desiigner and I got broads in Atlanta, you havent heard another song yet. You see what Im sayin? So you get a No. 1 record and you think, well, how do I do this again?
I mention how Shmurdas been locked away since Dec. 17, 2014, on charges of conspiracy to commit murder, weapons possession, and reckless endangermentand has yet to stand trial. He reportedly rejected an 8-year plea deal and faces 25 years in prison. Fourteen other alleged members of his GS9 crew were also arrested on a total of 69 counts, including murder, attempted murder, assault, attempted assault, and drug-dealing. When Shmurda and his alleged associates were arrested, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton alleged that GS9 was in fact a dangerous gang whose name stood for G-Stone Crips, adding, This gang gloated about murder, shooting and drug-dealing in YouTube videos and viral dance moves.
The viral dance Bratton is referring to is the Shmoney Dance from Hot Nigga, whose lyrics go:
Like I talk to Shyste when I shot niggas / Like you seen em twirl then he drop, nigga / And we keep them 9 millis on my block, nigga / And Monte keep it on him, he done dropped niggas / And Trigger he be wilding, he some hot nigga / Tones known to get busy with them Glocks, nigga / Try to run down and you can catch a shot, nigga.
They were under investigation. Whats the accident? Was the song an accident? asks 50. He didnt write the song with the intention of it being a hit record. He wrote it for his neighborhood. Lloyd Banks used that production for Jackpot, and when Bobbys writing a record like that, he didnt have a record deal. He was writing it for his people. When you get hot in the inner city, youre hot in a 10-block radius. Your friends say, Yo, my man is nice! That starts to happen, and then it evolves into something else.
You know what the crazy thing is? When you get charged with some real serious shit, the craziest thing is when you cant see how serious the situation is, he adds. Because that is give me a body, give me a homicide before you hand me a conspiracy charge. You cant beat conspiracy. John Gotti, The Teflon Don, took out bodies and it wasnt a problem. He was walking around in nice $2,000 suits and shoes and shit like that. But when you put him in a conspiracy case, he washed up. That means you knew and you were aware of it, but theyre not even saying how much you actively were involved, but you knew and were aware of it. The song itself confirms conspiracy.
(Shmurda told The New York Times in an interview from prison that his lyrics were fabricated because thats whats selling nowadays.)
Unlike 50 and Bobby, most rappers these days dont have solid hood credentials. Take 50s sometime rival, Rick Ross, who raps about drug-dealing and is named after Freeway Rick Ross, yet used to work as a correctional officer in Florida. The ultimate example of buying into a hip-hop persona, though, is probably Tupac Shakurthe romantic, charismatic poetry student who morphed into the greatest gangsta rapper of all-time.
He almost never stopped playing Bishop after Juice, you know what Im saying? 50 says of Pac. Its when that thug life energy came out and started to evolve into a persona. Hes way better than people saw him as. Hes way better. Thats an art student right there and thuggin is his theme. He was so much more advanced than anyone will ever know.
By PTI: Amritsar, Jul 6 (PTI) A day after AAP tendered an apology for equating the partys Youth Manifesto for Punjab polls with religious books, police have registered a case against AAP leader Ashish Khetan for allegedly hurting the religious sentiments.
A case under IPC section 295 A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) was registered against Khetan at Civil Lines police station in Amritsar last night.
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The case was registered on the complaint filed by Karnail Singh Peer Mohammad, President of All India Sikh Students Federation (AISSF) yesterday, Commissioner of Police (Amritsar) Amar Singh Chahal said today.
According to the complaint, the AAP leader had hurt the religious sentiments of people by equating the Youth Manifesto with Guru Granth Sahib and other religious books while launching it in Amritsar, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (City II) Gaurav Garg said.
The complainant alleged that by using the image of Golden Temple on the cover page of the manifesto with the partys election symbol of broom superimposed on it, sentiments of people had been hurt.
Police said they were investigating the matter.
Yesterday, after facing criticism, AAP tendered an apology, saying it did not intend to "undermine any section of the society".
Khetan in Khanna said the party never "intended to undermine any section, community or any individual".
Earlier, Khetan had said the manifesto was "the Bible, Gita and Guru Granth Sahib" for him.
Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal had also attacked AAP, saying its act amounted to "desecration" of the holy book and sought an apology from AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal. PTI CHS VJ RCJ SC RCJ
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Warfare and diplomacy are intrinsically linked, except when it comes to the Obama administrations policy on Syria. While a negotiated settlement remains the only viable pathway out of the Syrian crisis, currently existing facts on the ground do not in any way allow for a meaningful process, let alone a solution. As things stand, there is no reason for Bashar al-Assad to view a political process as anything less than a game in which to taunt and kill his adversaries, while compelling his allies to double-down in defense of his regime.
Nevertheless, the principal benefactor of Assads survival is not Assad, nor Russia, Iran, Hezbollah or even ISISit is Al-Qaeda. Having spent the past five years embedding itself within broader revolutionary forces and strategically choosing to limit and very slowly reveal its extremist face, Al-Qaedas Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra is reaping the rewards of our failures to solve the Syrian crisis. According to sources close to the group, al-Nusra has accepted more than 3,000 Syrians from Idlib and southern Aleppo into its ranks since February alone. That is an extraordinary rate of recruitment from within a territory roughly the size of Connecticut.
It is desperately unfortunate and painfully ironic that for increasing numbers of Syrians, Al-Qaeda appears to have been a more loyal protector of their lives than the United States. Civilian protection is therefore key, and widespread perceptions of the moral bankruptcy of U.S. policy on Syria in this regard has unquestionably and directly stimulated Al-Qaedas growth. Even our fight against ISIS has provided an opening for Al-Qaeda, which exploits the fact that most of our chosen anti-ISIS partners maintain an ambiguous relationship to the Assad regime and an open one with Russia. Our fight against the scourge of ISIS is indeed securing us consistent gains, but these are tactical gains fought in such a way as to produce long-term secondary sources of instability that Al-Qaeda will chiefly exploit.
Enough is enough. It is not sufficient to wait for a new administration in 2017. Events are unfolding too quickly and ISIS is far from the only issue needing urgent resolution. Based on its current trajectory, the conflict in Syria will almost certainly continue and indeed worsen, lasting for a decade or more. Extremists on all sides will benefit the most, meaning we will face an Afghanistan on steroids, on Europes borders. ISIS may be defeated territorially in the near-term, but it will live to fight another day. Al-Qaeda meanwhile may come to represent a terrorist actor far more intelligent, more deeply rooted and offensively capable than anything we have faced until now.
While it remains feasible to defeat ISIS in Syria independently from attempts to solve the countrys broader crisis, Al-Qaedas fate is intrinsically linked to the conflicts outcome and how it ends. Moreover, unlike ISIS, undermining and ultimately defeating Al-Qaeda in Syria cannot and should not be done primarily through military means. Russia has consistently pushed for a bilateral campaign against Jabhat al-Nusra alongside the U.S. Air Force and though this is still some way off from being realized, it is being actively considered by President Obama. Far from being helpful, this is precisely the wrong thing to do. Jabhat al-Nusras entire modus operandi has been designed to insure itself and ultimately benefit from just such a scenario.
At the end of the day, Al-Qaeda has increasingly thrived in Syria due in part to two realities: consistent conflict, instability and the regimes unchallenged mass killing of civilians; and an insufficiently supported mainstream, moderate civil, political and armed opposition. If and when reversed, these two factors could come to represent Al-Qaedas greatest and likely crippling vulnerabilities.
To challenge the first reality, the U.S. has an opportunity to grasp back some credibility by prioritizing a determined and if necessary, aggressive protection of civilians. Whether through the creation of limited safe or no-bombing zones along border areas, or through the use of punitive strikes to punish the bombing of civilian, humanitarian or medical facilities, the U.S. must demonstrate a willingness to draw more discernibly upon its might to punish war crimes. An escalatory menu of softer optionsexpanded sanctions, naval interdictions in the Mediterranean, or challenging Syrias role within the UN General Assemblycould be considered prior to military action, although these take time, which we do not necessarily have.
While military action does indeed carry with it risks, pre-warning Moscow of such plans would minimize any chance of counter-escalation, while realistically, Russia has absolutely no interest in, nor a capacity for entering into a war with America. It is long past time to call Vladimir Putins bluff. After all, beyond its aggressive military actions in Syria, Russias biggest investment has arguably been in exploiting its bilateral relationship with the U.S. in an attempt to acquire an outward appearance as a constructive partner in solving Syria. Russia will not be shooting down American jets or cruise missiles anytime soon, especially if our targets are non-critical regime infrastructure.
Consequently, by using civilian protection as a mechanism for limited and targeted aerial intervention, the U.S. would simultaneously contribute towards saving human lives; de-escalating the most deadly aspect of Syrias conflict and providing a more stable environment in which the moderate civil opposition could thrive. Most importantly, the Assad regime will lose its principal source of escalation, while its backers will face less reason to stand so aggressively by his side. Paired with hard diplomacy, such conditions would be at least more potentially favorable to lead towards meaningful negotiations. In September 2013, merely the threat of limited punitive U.S. strikes sparked a temporary collapse of regime confidence in Damascus, as dozens of figures fled to Beirut with their families. It is by no means unthinkable that a similar situation could be replicated.
To challenge the second reality, the U.S. must acknowledge that while the vetted opposition is far from perfect, they remain the best and only viable option on the table for securing a mainstream Sunni Arab role in Syrias future and undermining Al-Qaedas pseudo-revolutionary narrative. There are currently at least 50 such vetted opposition factions across Syria, who have received assistance through the CIAs covert Timber Sycamore program since late-2012. Such assistance has only ever been enough for each faction to sustain a role within Syrias complex conflict dynamics. That it has never been sufficient enough to produce genuine moderate opposition dominance is exactly what has allowed Al-Qaeda to step in so strongly. To continue our current policy of providing just-enough support to the vetted moderate opposition means nothing short of indirectly enabling Al-Qaedas continued growth.
This must change. While weaker than some conservative Islamists, all 50 vetted opposition factions remain deeply rooted within the exact Syrian communities we need most to reject extremist alternatives. Using external force to combat Al-Qaeda will feed the jihadist groups existing narrative, as occurred in late-2014 when U.S. strikes against its forces were quickly labelled by the opposition as counter-revolutionary for they served only to weaken opposition lines against the regime. Allowing Assad and his external backers to take the fight to Al-Qaeda would likely have even worse mobilizing effects. The only solution is local and the mainstream, moderate opposition is the only game in town. But the only feasible scenario in which such forces can and would take on their long-time military ally of convenience is if we appeared more assertively on-side in challenging the Assad regimes continued brutality and obduracy in the face of an internationally-backed political process.
Al-Qaeda is not a problem that can be merely contained in Syria. At its current rate of growth, it could feasibly command close to 20,000 fighters by the time a new President steps into the Oval Office. Moreover, the establishment of an Islamic Emirate in northwestern Syria is now very much on the cards. Its creation will bring the initiation of complex and centralized foreign attack planning, from Europes doorstep. Letting Syria burn itself out while trying to contain its consequences is not only a fantastical policy, but an astonishingly dangerous one.
If you fucking move, I swear to God!
It has been mere hours since Alton Sterling was tackled and shot dead by two police officers. As the East Baton Rouge parish medical examiners office completes its work, we as a larger society have already begun to make our own decisions about how he lived and why he died.
We will do that without knowing much of anything about him, other than that he was a 37-year-old father of five, a black man selling bootleg CDs to earn a few dollars. Ultimately, what one believes about what happened last night outside of a convenience mart in a rundown section of Louisianas capital city, depends largely on who we are and the America we have encountered. Race and class are unfortunate, yet inextricable factorsfor us, for the police and for the dead man.
The incident, captured on cell phone video, comes amid a national conversation about police violence in non-white communities. Each year in the U.S., there are over a thousand deadly shootings by police officers. African Americans make up a disproportionate and overwhelming majority of the dead. We are disproportionately stopped, subjected to search and arrestdisportionately the victims of police violence.
If we dare question that level of violence, we are immediately accused of playing the race card. If we dare point to the statistics or call for transparent investigations, we are accused of failing to police morality in our own communities. When we weep and shout the names of our dead, we caution that the victim was no angel.
He shouldve complied, theyll say. As if Sterling did not. As if Eric Garner did not, as if John Crawford III or 12-year-old Tamir Rice ever had a chance to.
Police officers allege that their department-issued body cameras fell from their uniforms during the altercation and did not record the incident. It is thanks to a bystanders video taken from inside of a car that there is little question about what unfolded Tuesday night in Baton Rouge.
Sterling was standing alone, his arms outstretched at his sides, when a Baton Rouge police officer rushed and tackled him to the ground. A second quickly joined and, moments later, Sterling lay bleeding to death from multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back.
He did not fight. He made no threats. He is dead and his young children are fatherless.
The store owner, Abdullah Muflahi, said he had known the CD man for six years and allowed him to sell his wares in front of the store. They told him not to move, Muflahi said, according to CNN. He was asking them what he did wrong.
As Sterling stood in the darkness with his arms outstretched at his sides, Muflahi said he saw an officer slam him onto the hood of a car. Both officers attempted to pin him to the ground. Sterling stumbled, but did not fight back.
If you fucking move, I swear to God, one cop was heard saying. One of the officers yelled gun. And then, according to Muflahi, there were four to six shots. As Sterling lay dying, an officer reached into Sterlings pocket and pulled out a gun.
But, Sterling never drew his weapon. He never pointed the gun at the officers.
Kimberly Lang, who knew Sterling, said she purchased CDs from time to time. And he did not have a reputation for violence. According to an Associated Press report, Lang contended that If Sterling did have a gun on him, it was probably because he feared being robbed while peddling his CDs late at night not because he was interested in threatening anyone.
If he's out here at 12:30 at night selling CDs, he ain't rich, Lang said. He's hustling. Getting money. Aint nothing wrong with hustling.
It should be noted that Louisiana is an open carry state, just like Ohio where Rice and Crawford were killed. Possession of a firearm without a permit is permissible under state law, by anyone who is at least 17 years of age legally able to possess a firearm under state and federal law.
Shortly after the shooting a crowd of protestors, said to number in the hundreds, gathered outside the Triple S Food Mart in Baton Rouge.
We may not be from where Trayvon and Freddie Gray are from, but we bleed the same color, one woman told the Times-Picayune. Now theyve touched our city.
The officers involved deserve a serious, independent review of the incident. What they dont deserve is the benefit of the doubt or blanket exoneration simply because they were wearing a badge. They deserve the justice it appears that they could not find it in themselves to afford to Sterling.
Injustice is injustice, no matter who it touches, no matter who the person police killed had been in the years, weeks or moments before injustice slayed them.
If Sterlings civil liberties do not remain intact, neither do ours.
Its a job that Sen. Bob Corker never really wanted.
Anyone who had spoken with the Tennessee Republican in recent weeks noticed the distaste with which he viewed various scandal-oriented questions regarding Donald Trump. On Wednesday, he told the press he had withdrawn his name from consideration as the businessmans running mate, something The Daily Beast has confirmed.
There are people far more suited for being a candidate for vice president, and I think Im far more suited for other types of things, Corker told The Washington Post. Its a highly political job, and thats not who I am.
Being Trumps running mate was a poor fit from the start. Corker is a technocratic, policy-oriented lawmaker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and an even-handed Republican who didnt have a knee-jerk instinct to attack Democrats for the mere purpose of scoring political points.
The contrast between Trump and Corker was especially obvious following the businessmans comments about a Hispanic-American judge. Trump had suggested that a judge, born in Indiana, could not be fair to him in a legal case due to his Mexican heritage.
When asked about it the next day, the former Tennessee mayor stood there, appalled.
The last five or six days have been very negative, Corker said in early June.
He then urged his partys presidential nominee to move into a very different place
But the Trump scandal factory continued to churn out products: every time Corker was asked about the latest news, he looked a little more dejected. He had played down veep speculation before, even as he met with Trump at Trump Tower in May.
On Wednesday, the press-friendly lawmaker was nowhere to be seen during the weekly lunches that Republican senators typically meet for in the Capitolan oddity for a man who normally makes himself available to speak at length about foreign policy or ongoing political topics.
It might have had something to do with his trip the day before when Corker accompanied Trump from New York City to Raleigh, N.C.. His presence fueled speculation he may be considering a place on the ticketdespite dozens of serious minded Republicans foreign policy experts had refused to endorse Trump.
On Tuesday night, it seemed like Corker finally understood why.Corker stepped on the stage to introduce Trump at a raucous rally in Raleigh. He stood there long enough to hear Donald Trump praise a tyrant.
[Saddam Hussein] killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didnt read them the rights. They didnt talk. They were terrorists. Over Trump said.
And Corker is a serious person: as a Republican who had a less hawkish vision of U.S. foreign policy, he had played a central role in many of the ongoing national security debates of our times. From his post as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and before that, the top-ranking Republican on the committee in the minority, Corker had serious input on anti-ISIS strategy, the Iran nuclear deal, and the Authorization for the Use of Military Force.
The next day, Corker called The Washington Post. He was out.
The Daily Shows Trevor Noah may have dedicated the opening of his show to Hillary Clintons rough day on the campaign trail, but he saved his harshest critique for Donald Trumps social media catastrophe from this past holiday weekend.
Yes, the Republican nominee did tweet an image labeling his opponent the most corrupt candidate ever that was created by a Nazi-sympathizing supporter and featured a conspicuous and obliquely anti-Semitic Star of David graphic.
Its as if someone told Trump hes not allowed to be misogynistic anymore so he was like, Fine, I guess Ill call her a Jew, Noah said, adding that while some might let an incident like this blow over, Trump likes to turn gaffes into gaffe-itunities.
Noah also mocked the way Trumps campaign manager-turned-CNN booster Corey Lewandowski, who who literally signed away his right to say anything bad about his former boss, defended the image on TV Sunday morning. Whereas Lewandowski accused the mainstream media of reading into the image, Noah said it was akin to asking Draco Malfoy to give his honest opinion of Voldemort.
I dont think Trump hates Jewish people, but I know some of his supporters do, in addition to black people, Muslims, Mexicans, you know, most people, Noah said before laying out some of the candidates most racist retweets. While Noah admitted that you can get away with a couple of racist tweets, he added, At some point youre just racist.
You may be trying to dog whistle to a certain group of your people, but you understand your message is getting through to all of us, the host continued. Its a normal whistle and racist as shit.
President Obama announced Wednesday yet another delay in his plan to wind down the war in Afghanistan, saying 8,400 troops would remain there for a list of enemies that has grown from al Qaeda to the Taliban and now to the so-called Islamic State.
But many in the Pentagon are concerned that the presidents new plan isnt much of a strategy at all. Its just a holding action, to hopefully keep a lid on Afghanistan until after the election.
There is no desire to end the war in Afghanistan. There is a desire to keep it off the front pages and make it a problem for the next administration, as one Pentagon official explained to The Daily Beast.
The U.S. had planned to keep 5,500 troops through the end of the year. At first glance, the change in number may not have seemed particularly significant; the president added only 2,400 troops to the number of forces that will be in Afghanistan by the end of his presidency. But the fact the U.S. had to slow down its withdrawal from its longest war ever was a major acknowledgement by the administration that the U.S. has yet to train local forces that can successfully stop a burgeoning Taliban and the jihadists protected by them. In other words, the cornerstone of the American effort in Afghanistan was still shaky, a decade and a half into the war.
This is a political number, not the number of troops to win, a second defense official said.
Where the Obama administration once named al Qaeda as the top threat in Afghanistan, on Wednesday, it added ISIS and the Taliban as reasons for the change in troop numbers. In the last year, the Taliban has expanded its grip on that countrys urban centers and successfully taken back territory in parts of southern Afghanistan.
The 8,400 figure appeared to be a compromise, of sorts. On the one hand, there were those in the administration who feared that Afghan security forces have proven themselves incapable of fending off the Taliban on their own. On the other: an Obama pledge to move the U.S out of the war altogether.
At the newly proposed troop levels, the U.S. military is neither leading the fight to stabilize Afghanistan nor far enough away to help stop a potential Taliban resurgence. For many in the Pentagon, it was yet another risky withdrawal plancalendar based, not conditions based. ]The Taliban surged its attacks on Afghan forces after the Obama administration promised, in the past, to drawdown from Afghanistan.
As of last month, there were 9,300 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The president insisted the troops had limited objectiveseven as they faced a longer list of enemies.
U.S. forces are now focused on two narrow missions: training and advising Afghan forces, and supporting counterterrorist operations against the remnants of al Qaeda as well as other terrorist groups, including ISIL, the president said, using the governments preferred acronym for the terror group.
Army Gen. John W. Nicholson, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, recommended the figure, according to an administration official who briefed reporters in a conference call on the condition of anonymity. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said that he, as well as top military leaders, endorsed the troop number.
U.S. troops currently advise, and at times are side by side, their Afghan counterparts in the fight against the Taliban. In January, Army Sgt. Matthew McClintock died while fighting alongside Afghan forces against the Taliban in the southern part of the country.
The Taliban has expanded north as well, into areas it never controlled, like the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, where, last fall, U.S. troops mistakenly killed scores at Doctors with Borders Hospital. Among the reasons for the mistake listed in a U.S. military report on the attack was that its forces suddenly found themselves confronting Taliban in an area they did not know well. Kunduz is no longer under Taliban control.
About a third of U.S. troops there currently are engaged in counter terrorism operations; the additional forces are likely to be added to that effort, a U.S. official explained to The Daily Beast.
In other words: more troops could be now involved in fighting, despite U.S. claims that its forces are not in active combat in Afghanistan.
Just three years ago, when the U.S. had planned to keep 9,800 troops there by this time, Obama made little mention of the Taliban in a major policy speech at the war in Afghanistan. The enemy he said was al Qaeda that had affiliates expanding around the world.
In Afghanistan, we will complete our transition to Afghan responsibility for that countrys security. Our troops will come home. Our combat mission will come to an end. And we will work with the Afghan government to train security forces, and sustain a counterterrorism force, which ensures that al Qaeda can never again establish a safe haven to launch attacks against us or our allies, Obama sai in his 2013 speech before National Defense University.
On Wednesday, the president said the Taliban remains a threat And he acknowledged that the Afghan security forces had struggled to push back them back.
Even before the announcement, the U.S. appeared increasingly focused on the Taliban. Last month, the U.S. military expanded its strike authorization to include the Taliban, not just al Qaeda, and Nicholson already has approved several such strikes in support of Afghan forces.
In addition to Taliban forces moving into more urban areas, ISIS has sought to establish its foothold in southeast Afghanistan. All the while, a fractured leadership governs Afghanistan.
The new troop figure was the result of lot of lessons learned from the last two fighting seasons, a second administration official on the call with reporters explained.
But the term fighting season is itself a bit of an anachronism, according to military officials. In the last two years, as U.S. forces withdrew, there no longer is a single team for heavy combat. Fighting in Afghanistan now is an all year event, an unintended consequence of the ongoing U.S. effort.
With so much ink spilled on the prospects of a Trump presidency, far less attention is being devoted to the more likely scenario of a Hillary Clinton presidency. When there has been sustained speculation, its typically been either biographical or ideological: how would her storied professional and personal life, or her sometimes unclear political beliefs, shape her behavior in office?
At least as important to understanding any presidency, however, is determining where that chief executive resides within larger cycles of history and politics. Such a perspective strongly suggests that a Clinton presidency would be one of articulation and would bear most similarity to those of Harry Truman (1945-53), Lyndon Johnson (1963-69), and George H. W. Bush (1989-1993).
The term articulation comes from the four-part typology (also including reconstruction, disjunction, and preemption) created by political scientist Stephen Skowronek in his now-classic 1997 book The Politics Presidents Make. Skowronek argues that a key to locating presidents in political time is to determine whether they are opposed to, or aligned with, the prevailing political paradigms of their time, and then to assess whether those structures and ideologies remain resilient or have grown vulnerable to challenge.
Many of the presidents now considered to be great were those who were opposed to existing political paradigms at a time when those paradigms had become vulnerable, and who went on to carry out a reconstruction of politics and government. Both FDR and his New Deal Coalition, beginning in 1932, and Ronald Reagan and his Republican revolution, starting in 1980, fit this mold by successfully defining and then enacting a bold departure from the then-existing system.
Since FDR and Reagan are the quintessential reconstructing presidents of the 20th century, their immediate predecessors are doomed to seem weak and ineffectual by comparison. This is due not so much a failure of effort or ability, necessarily, but to the near-impossibility of sustaining paradigms that had become vulnerable to challenge. Herbert Hoovers defense of traditional laissez-faire Republican policies seemed hopelessly inadequate in the aftermath of the Depression. Jimmy Carters attempts to govern as an old-school Democrat contributed to a malaise-ridden restlessness for new approaches. Both of these much-maligned presidents fall into Skowroneks unenviable category of being a disjunction between tired old thinking and radical new ideas.
Presidents who run directly against the partisan and political tenor of their times are in the riskiest of the four categories. Such presidents include Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, who both faced Congressional majorities of the opposition party and, consequently, fierce resistance, sustained scandal, and processes of impeachment. Presidents practicing the tentative politics of preemption often leave a policy legacy at odds with their partys priorities, such as Nixons expansion of affirmative action and environmental protection programs, or Clintons enactment of right-leaning policies on welfare reform and crime.
By contrast, presidents who aligned with, rather than ran against, the currents of their times engaged in articulationthe careful expansion and fine-tuning of paradigms already put in place by their predecessors. Among Democrats, these include the programs of Trumans Fair Deal and Johnsons Great Society, both of which were explicit extensions of the New Deal. Among Republicans, George H.W. Bush essentially campaigned to win a third term for Reagan, and thereby perpetuate and protect his conservative legacy.
Arguing that Hillary Clinton would be a president of articulation requires some significant assumptions about where the last two presidents fit in the cycles of political history. Still, it hardly seems difficult to view the presidency of George W. Bush as an implosion of the Reagan revolution. (The Trump candidacy, of course, further reinforces the notion that the Republican establishment has collapsed.) If Bush 43 represented a disjunction like that of Hoover or Carter, then we would logically expect his successor to be a reconstructing president like FDR or Reagan. While many might disagree, and the final verdict is still out, it may well be that the slow-and-steady, cumulative impact of the Obama presidency may be achieving the transformational quality that Obama himself set as a benchmark in 2008.
It is notoriously difficult, and sometimes even a fools errand, to apply historical frameworks to contemporaneous events. Still, a number of parallels with Hillary Clinton and other articulating presidents are easy enough to see.
Truman, Johnson, and Bush 41 had all been vice presidents; two of them (Johnson in 1960 and Bush in 1980) had run against, and lost to, the charismatic presidents who made them VPs.
All three were widely viewed as lacking the polish, eloquence, and vision of the presidents who preceded and to varying degrees overshadowed them. Indeed, Truman seemed all-too-human in the wake of the towering FDR, and more of a faithful servant of the New Deal rather than a bold leader in his own right. For better or worse, much of Johnsons tenure was largely defined by the tragedy of John F. Kennedys assassination and by his unfinished New Frontier domestic agenda and also his tentative forays into Vietnam. Bush 41 eschewed the vision thing and positioned himself as the caretaker of the newly established conservative regime.
All three also found it challenging to secure their own clear-cut political identities and had serious problems with reelection. None of the three served two full terms.
Granted, Hillary Clinton was never a vice president, but she was the top Cabinet official for the president who defeated her in the party primaries. And she is also indelibly associated with the presidential term of an earlier Democratic president, so much so that the former first lady and secretary of state has repeatedly felt compelled to state that she is not running for her husbands, or for Obamas, third term. Clintons calling card, then, is deep experience within and knowledge of the existing system, and a dogged dedication to defending it. Her main claim to being a pathbreaker relates to her gender.
Compared to Obamas cool, or to Bernie Sanderss heat, Clinton strikes many as lukewarm and technocratic. Even one of her most resonant descriptions of herself is wonky: a progressive who likes to get things done. Her major policy prescriptions include the fine-tuning of the Affordable Care Act; the incremental reform of education, criminal justice, and environmental policy; and the safeguarding of existing American interests around the globe. On issue after issue, Clinton suggests few innovations or new directions, but rather a perpetuationan articulationof the best of policies, priorities, and paradigms that are already mostly in place.
And yet Being a president of articulation is by no means synonymous with having an inconsequential presidency. Truman desegregated the armed forces, and Johnson pushed through the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. FDR may have led the nation through World War II but it was Truman who won the ensuing peace through his decisions in the early Cold War. Reagan helped force the collapse of the Eastern bloc, which Bush 41 brought through to a victorious conclusion. Truman expanded Social Security, Johnson launched Medicare and Medicaid, and Bush 41 championed the Americans with Disabilities Act. Among them, they issued more than 300 vetoes, appointed nearly 100 Cabinet-level officials, and nominated eight justices who collectively have served for more than a century on the Supreme Court.
So for those voters already inclined to approve of the Obama years, the idea of a successor focused on articulation is not a second-best choice but rather a first-rate match with a particular moment in political time. For those who criticize the Obama years from the left, Clinton will bring about no political revolutionsbut she will at least protect the incremental center-left policy advances of the past eight years. But the stakes are highest for those who oppose Obama from the right. For them, a Hillary Clinton presidency would mark not just the loss of a battle, but of, perhaps, the whole war.
Raymond A. Smith, Ph.D., a senior fellow with the Progressive Policy Institute, teaches political science at Columbia and NYU and is author of Importing Democracy: Ideas from Around the World to Reform and Revitalize American Politics and Government.
ROME Last year when aid agencies in Italy shared the grim news that as many as 10,000 migrants and refugees, many under the age of 18, had disappeared without a trace, most people assumed they had just escaped to other parts of Europe.
Now, it would seem, we know what really happened to some of them.
Atta Wehabrebi, an Eritrean human trafficker who is the first migrant turncoat in the Italian court system, and who is now part of Italys witness protection program, told investigators that migrants and refugees who cant afford to pay their traffickers are consistently sold for their organs to an Egyptian crime ring for 15,000 to cover their travel costs. Over the weekend, 38 mostly Eritrean and Ethiopians were arrested in connection with the illicit activity. Of those, 23 are in custody and 15 remain at large.
The migrants and refugees, many of whom are women and children, are generally sacrificed in the harvesting process, especially when multiple organs are taken from the same victim, according to police reports citing Wehabrebi published in the Italian press. Wehabrebi says some cash-strapped migrants are given an opportunity to sell their organs in exchange for their trafficking transport costs, but the majority are either taken back to Egypt or killed in Italy. The harvested organs are then sold on a lucrative black market to wealthy Europeans and Russians, Wehabrebi told prosecutors in Sicily.
The trade in illegal organ transplants is on the rise across the world, aimed at meeting demand from wealthy people who dont want to wait on long lists for available donors, according to the Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking. Organs which are commonly traded are kidneys, liver, and the like, the organization says. Any organ which can be removed and used could be the subject of such illegal trade.
The victim donors bodies are then dumped at sea or buried in deep ditches in Sicily, according to Wehabrebi. The Egyptians have all the equipment to harvest the organs, he said, according to police reports made public after the arrests this weekend. They even transport the organs in special insulated bags.
In April, the bodies of nine Somalis washed up on the beaches of Alexandria, with their bodies cut open and vital organs missing.
Wehabrebi began cooperating with investigators shortly after his arrest in 2014. In a plea arrangement, he was sentenced to five years in prison for his part in a deadly shipwreck that killed more than 300 people off the coast of Lampedusa that year. He said that he cooperated because of the guilt and anguish he had suffered seeing many of his fellow countrymen and women perish at sea.
Wehabrebis leads have led to a number of discoveries, including an illegal hawala payment system that was run out of a small five-and-dime perfume shop near Romes Termini station with connections to agents in Dubai and Israel. Investigators set up hidden cameras in the shop and were able to uncover the intricate financial system for traffickers.
On Wednesdays and Saturdays, agents from Ethiopia apparently would deliver massive sums of dollars and euros that had been received illegally. In a manner typical of this ancient informal means of transferring, or laundering, money, those payments were logged in a simple appointment book kept among the bottles of cheap shampoo and toothpaste.
The cash represented payments by various refugees and migrants who had escaped the official reception centers, according to Renato Cortese, the lead investigator on the Sicilian investigative team that led the sting operation.
Most refugees and migrants pay all or part of their sea travel in cash in North Africa, but are required to pay the rest for further travel into Europe when they arrive in Italy.
A similar shop was found in Palermo, Sicily, where migrants often gather to find work in the black market agriculture and illegal drug sectors.
Officers in Rome confiscated 526,000 and $25,000 dollars in cash along with the log book from the Rome store.
Wehabrebi says that refugees and migrants whose families failed to pay the debts back in Africa or across Europe were sought out for their organs and never seen again.
The shop owner and his wife were among those arrested over the weekend.
Wehabrebi also told investigators that the deaths that make the headlines are only a small part of those who die at sea. Eight out of 10 families in Eritrea have lost someone on the journey, he told police, according to press reports.
More than 230,000 people have arrived in Europe by sea in 2016 so far, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. Nearly 3,000 people are known to have died trying to make the journey. If Wehabrebis confessions are true, the death toll could be many times higher.
Jailers in Oklahoma crushed an inmates throat so hard that paramedics couldnt insert a life-saving tube after five attempts, according to medical records obtained by The Daily Beast.
A state medical examiner found the bone supporting Darius Robinsons tongue was broken and the surrounding muscles were hemorrhaging from manual compression of the neck, as a result of the chokehold used on him inside the Caddo County Jail on April 4. Robinson, a 41-year-old father of seven, died of asphyxiation in what the medical examiner ruled was a homicide.
Robinsons final minutes alive were so torturous that the medical examiner found a blood vessel had exploded in his left eye.
The neck injury was so severe that Caddo County paramedics LaRoyce Fanning and Ryan Warren could not insert a tube less than a half-inch wide down Robinsons throat to help him breathe. Fanning and Warren tried five times to use the endotracheal tube with no success.
It was only then that they realized Robinsons airway had been crushed, because the jailers did not tell them about the chokehold, according to the paramedics report.
The silence suggests consciousness of wrongdoing, Robinson family attorney Spencer Bryan told The Daily Beast.
If you believed you were justified in using the chokehold, you would have told the paramedics about it, he said. The fact that you wouldnt disclose what you did to a first responder its beyond conscionable.
Jailers Bryan David Porter, Michael Allen Smith, and Vicki Lyn Richardson told paramedics that Robinson was suffering from DTs, or delirium tremens, the symptoms of alcohol and drug withdrawal. (A toxicology report found no drugs or alcohol in his system.) These symptoms were supposedly so severe that they required the jailers to pepper spray and choke Robinson into submission after he allegedly charged them.
Robinson then began to convulse and foam at the mouth, according to the autopsy report. Despite clear evidence Robinson was undergoing a medical emergency, jailers placed him in handcuffs and took turns holding [Robinson] down as they waited for EMS to arrive, according to paramedics.
After a sternal rub to evaluate his consciousness, the jailers laid Robinson face down on a towel, according to medical reports.
A sternal rub is something you do if you get your bell rung, Bryan said. If youre having an airway problem, its not going to do anything.
Even if the paramedics had known about the chokehold, they reported Robinson had no pulse when they arrived.
Hes dead, Bryan said. Hes got nothing.
Fanning and Warren didnt give up though, switching to a balloon-like device that opens up crushed airways.
It may not have made a difference, if the jailers had told Fanning and Warren about the chokehold, but [the officers] dont know that while theyre standing there, Bryan said.
The jailers have said nothing publicly. A security consultant representing one of the officers asked The Daily Beast last week to cease contacting them.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation is looking into Robinsons death, and Caddo County District Attorney Jason Hicks told Bryan he will not take the case to a grand jury until the OSBI probe is complete.
Hicks also told Bryan he will not release video of the incident, even to Robinsons family. None of the jailers have been charged, at least one has hired a lawyer, and it is not know whether they remain employed at the jail because the Caddo County Sheriffs Office did not return calls for comment. Hickss office did not respond to questions either.
The family plans to sue in the coming weeks, Bryan said.
Robinson was arrested on April 1 on a warrant for failing to pay child support. After being booked into the jail, Caddo County Undersheriff Spencer Davis claimed Robinson began acting erratically.
Not only had Robinson been threatening a cellmate, prompting his removal to a cell of his own, Davis said, he was eating ants off the floor and pages from a Bible. When jailers entered the cell in an attempt to calm Robinson, he charged them, Davis said.
Then came the pepper spray and the fatal chokehold.
The entire violent episode was caught on tape, but Hicks refuses to release the video.
The only way well know more than we do now is with the tape, Bryan said.
It was likely an investigator with the medical examiners office that discovered the use of the chokehold, Bryan said, and the medical reports provided to The Daily Beast by Robinsons family clearly show that that crucial information was not relayed to the two men trying to save his life.
The violent manner of Robinsons death is only known because of the autopsy report: Caddo County has refused to release any information about the case, citing its interpretation of the states open records laws. But it was the tenacity of Robinsons brother, Ancio, that forced open a case that may have been shielded from the public eye, a death that grabbed the attention of Black Lawyers for Justice and, eventually, Bryan.
The day after his brother died, Ancio took a red eye from his home in California to tiny Anadarko, Oklahoma, where the jail is located. Once inside the facility, Ancio found himself face to face with Undersheriff Davis.
He leaned back in his chair, pushed his cowboy hat back on his head and just told me Sometimes these things happen here, Ancio told The Daily Beast last week.
For now, all of the information about Robinsons death has come from parties that had nothing to do with it. The medical examiner broke open the case when its investigators discovered the chokehold; Ancio obtained more information when, as is his right as a family member, he secured the medical reports that give a timeline of the futile life-saving efforts undertaken by paramedics that day.
From the authorities, Darius Robinsons death is enveloped by the same silence the jailers chose when they watched him die as a result of their own actions.
In my head, I picture (the officers) standing around as the paramedics are struggling to get an airway into him, knowing that they choked him out, Bryan said. Again, its beyond conscionable.
LONDON On the 28th of July, 2002, Tony Blair sent a Note on Iraq to President George W. Bush. It began: I will be with you, whatever. And with those six words, the British Prime Minister sealed his fate, committed his country to a disastrous war, and ultimately wrote the phrase that will endure on his political headstone.
On Wednesday that epitaph was confirmed by the publication of the official report into Britains involvement in Iraq. Chaired by Sir John Chilcot, a veteran civil servant, the report is utterly damning, all the more so for being written with the dry understatement in which Whitehall specializes.
The case for war in Iraq was made with a certainty which was not justified, based in large part upon flawed intelligence, and on assessments that were not challenged and should have been.
Overall, the circumstances in which it was decided there was a legal basis for military action were far from satisfactory.
The planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam Hussein were wholly inadequate, and the scale of the U.K.s effort in post-war Iraq never matched the scale of the challenge.
Chilcot concludes, in what may now become a euphemism for catastrophic failures, that the U.K. military role in Iraq ended a very long way from success.
No part of the case for toppling Saddam survives Chilcot intact.
The reports 145-page executive summary shreds Tony Blairs reputation to such an extent that reassembling it now seems an impossibleeven pointlesstask.
The evidence for the war was, to a very large degree, fixed around the desire to go to war in the first place. As Sir John observes, the U.K. chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort.
In some respects, little of this is now a surprise. The case for toppling Iraq has been so thoroughly discredited in recent years that few people now care to remember that opinion polls in early 2003 found that most British voters supported the invasion. Nonetheless, the official imprimatur of the Chilcot report gives its findings substantially greater weight than previous assessments of Britains involvement in the war.
As far as Blair was concerned, September 11, 2001, changed everything. Risks previously thought containable were no longer so easily tolerated.
On the September 12, the day after the World Trade Center fell, Blair wrote a now declassified memo to Bush in which he asked: What is the next stage of this evil? What of their [i.e. terrorists] capacity to get hold of biological, chemical or other WMD? We know that there are countries and individuals trading in WMD and/or trying to acquire them. We need a range of sanctions and pressures to stop this.
Some of this, he added, will require action that some will baulk at. But we are better to act now and explain and justify our actions than let the day be put off until some further, perhaps even worse catastrophe occurs. And I believe this is a real possibility.
At that moment, at least as far as the U.K. was concerned, Iraq was not an immediate priority but the seeds of the decision to go to war against Saddam Hussein were sown that day nonetheless.
By July the following year Blair accepted that: Getting rid of Saddam is the right thing to do. He is a potential threat. He could be contained. But containment, as we found with Al Qaida, is always risky. His departure would free up the region. And his regime is probably, with the possible exception of North Korea, the most brutal and inhumane in the world.
Yes, Blair acknowledged, the planning on this and the strategy are the toughest yet. This is not Kosovo. This is not Afghanistan. It is not even the Gulf War. But it had to be done and Blair was with the American president, whatever. This die was cast.
Chilcot concludes that, Blair overestimated his ability to influence U.S. decisions on Iraq.
Offering Bush, in effect, a guarantee that Britain would stand with him was a dereliction of Blairs duty to uphold the British national interest. The relationship with the U.S. does not require unconditional support.
Yet that observation also lays bare another unavoidable truth: British opposition to the American adventure in Mesopotamia would not, in the end, have done much to prevent it from going ahead.
Even so, by March 2003 when it became clear that thered be no second UN Security Council resolution authorizing military force, The U.K. was, in fact, undermining the Security Councils authority.
In the absence of that second resolution, the U.K. governments chief lawyer revised his previous suggestion that a second resolution would be required to give the government watertight legal authority for war.
The attorney general asked the prime minister to confirm that Iraq had committed further material breaches of past Security Council resolutions. Blair duly did so, leaving Chilcot to observe drily that, The precise basis on which Blair made that decision is not clear.
In London, unlike Washington, the case for war was not advanced on the need for regime change. Attention focused instead on Saddams WMD capabilities. The intelligence services judgments on that question were presented to parliament with a certainty that was not justified.
As Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary who resigned from Blairs cabinet in protest at the war, warned in March 2003: Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the termnamely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target.
Cook also highlighted the contradiction at the heart of the case for military action: We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat.
The report also highlights a breakdown in cabinet government. Blair ran the war operation as though he was a president, not a prime minister. The U.K. cabinet did not discuss the military options or their implications.
Instead there was an assumption that there would be a well-executed U.S.-led and UN-authorised operation in a relatively benign security environment.
This, to put it mildly, did not prove the case.
Chilcot said Wednesday that Mr. Blair told the inquiry that the difficulties encountered in Iraq after the invasion could not have been known in advance. We do not agree that hindsight is required.
On the contrary, The risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability, and al Qaida activity in Iraq, were each explicitly identified before the invasion. Moreover, Ministers were aware of the inadequacy of U.S. plans.
Disaster loomed.
Having broken Iraq, the occupying coalition forces now owned it. But the scale of the U.K. effort in post-conflict Iraq never matched the scale of the challenge. Whitehall departments and their ministers failed to put their collective weight behind the task.
If much attention has hitherto been preoccupied with the case for and run-up to the war, the bulk of Chilcots report examines the sorry history of the failure of the post-war occupation. In a devastating judgment, Chilcot concludes that, In practice, the U.K.s most consistent strategic objective in relation to Iraq was to reduce the level of its deployed forces.
In those circumstances, defeat begins to seem inevitable. The British army was, functionally speaking, defeated in the field in Basra, reduced to making squalid deals with the leaders of Iraqi militias to preserve even a fig-leaf of normality and peace in the city. This, Chilcot argues, was humiliating.
Hence the understatement of the year, that The U.K. military role in Iraq ended a very long way from success.
Undaunted, Blair insisted on Wednesday that the report, while cataloguing the mistakes made, exonerated him from charges he lied to parliament and to the British people. But this official verdict on his record on the biggest issue of all, the one that would define his time in office, is as withering as it is damning, as grim as it is exhaustive.
The cost of Blairs folly, as measured in blood and treasure, was astonishing. This was a war of choice in which almost all the choices taken were made on the back of shoddy intelligence, wishful thinking, and a determined attempt to avoid looking reality in the face.
It leaves Blairs reputation in ruins and, more gravely, will be rememberedeven by those who initially supported the waras a grievous stain on Britains post-WWII record.
The announcement of the NASA spacecraft Junos ascent to Jupiter has many wondering whats coming next for the recently defunded government space agency.
Despite NASA administrator Charles Boldens insistence in 2011 that American leadership in space [would] continue for at least the next half-century because we have laid the foundation for successand failure is not an option, Congress slashed the budget for the space agency by more than $250 million last year, threatening the future of astrophysical and climate research.
But efforts to explore the final frontier have continued. Hope for the future of space research was renewed Monday, when NASA announced Junos successful entry into Jupiters orbit. Executing a tricky maneuver to slip into the gas giants orbit after a five-year journey and 1.8 billion miles, Juno was met with applause from ground control and excitement on social media. Its official: Im in orbit at #Jupiter, @NASAJuno tweeted at 9:50 p.m. on July 4.
So whats next for NASA?
As movies like Christopher Nolans 2014 Interstellar show, one of science fictions favorite proposed solutions to Earths future uninhabitability is finding a life-sustaining planet outside our solar system. The K2 Missions are a new string of planned space campaigns aimed at observing stars to find exoplanets and potential Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars.
As of June 20 , the K2 have discovered the youngest fully formed exoplanet ever detected. Erik Petigura of the California Institute of Technology writes in Nature that the young exoplanet will help us better understand how planets form, as well as the processes that led to the formation of Earth. Further expeditions are already planned through November 2017, with the hopes of discovering more exoplanets.
On Oct. 8, 2015, NASA released the next steps in its plans for a manned mission to Mars. According to the official proposal , upcoming fieldwork and experimentation will focus on three major objectives: increasing capacity for long duration missions; validating capabilities required for astronauts to live in deep space; and, finally, enabling human missions to low-Mars orbit, Martian moons, or other locations in the vicinity of Mars. The ultimate goal, according to administrator Charles Bolden, is to send American astronauts to the surface of Mars, and NASA is aligning all of [its] work in support of this goal.
The spacecraft Orion has been designed as the exploration vehicle for the historic mission to the Red Planet. According to NASA, the ship will launch on the most powerful rocket in the world and fly farther than any spacecraft built for humans has ever flown. Orion will stay in space longer than any ship for astronauts has done without docking to a space station and return home faster and hotter than ever before. Next steps toward Mars-bound spacecraft capable of sustaining human life include tests of NASAs new heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), and Orions capacity for deep-space travel.
New Horizons , launched back in 2006, completed a flyby of Pluto nearly a year ago and is now moving on to explore new Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs), including 2014 MU69, a small KBO that orbits close to a billion miles beyond Pluto. The ongoing mission of New Horizons is to further understanding of worlds at the edge of our solar system by making the first reconnaissance of the dwarf planet Pluto and by venturing deeper into the distant, mysterious Kuiper Belta relic of solar system formation. New Horizons will help NASA scientists answer basic questions about KBOs, such as their interior makeup, geology, surface properties, and atmospheres, as well as solving mysteries of solar system formation and guiding further exploration of the icy bodies on the outskirts of our solar system.
The International Space Stations mission will also continue. Expedition 48/49 will launch July 6, and tours have been planned through October of the coming year. The newest research efforts aboard the station have two key focal points: astronaut health and self-sufficiency of the ISS. NASAs most recent Space to Ground Report , posted on July 1, highlighted efforts to 3-D print viable tools and ship parts in zero gravity. Recent coupons or samples manufactured on the ISS have allowed for tests of the composition of printed material when used in space, with researchers on the ground printing duplicate coupons to compare to those in space. The capacity to print parts on board not only would reduce the time needed to replace broken tools or ship components but also would eliminate the need to ship spare parts on spaceships, significantly reducing costs.
Another critical ongoing research initiative focuses on the health of astronauts while aboard the ISS and other spacecraft, which will prove essential for enabling longer duration trips, such as those to Mars. According to NASA senior researcher and microbiologist Kasthuri Venkateswaran, the combination of microgravity and radiation can diminish the effectiveness of the immune system and make innocuous microorganisms potentially harmful. By studying sealed capsules of fungi and bacteria collected aboard the ISS, Venkateswaran told NASAs website he is hoping to understand how to protect astronauts from disease while aboardpreventing microbial contamination of spacecrafts from compromising the search for life on other planets.
A major focus of NASA over the past decade or so has been using data and models to solve global challenges , such as food security, freshwater availability, and natural disaster forecasting. One such effort is a recent partnership between NASA scientists and authorities in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, aimed at aiding in disaster preparedness. The collaboration supports innovative efforts to better understand, anticipate, and monitor natural hazards, including drought, flooding, and landslides, using NASAs satellite systems and, it is hoped, will improve disaster response in and around the 2016 Olympic host city.
By Akshaya Nath: Animal rights activists were outraged and called for toughening animal cruelty laws after two medical students accused of tossing a dog off from the roof of a tall building were granted bail within minutes of their arrest.
The video showing the act of violence went viral on social media on Tuesday.
MEDICAL STUDENTS SURRENDER, GRANTED BAIL
Gautham Sudarshan and Ashish Paul, who turned themselves in, were produced before a local court in Sriperumbudur, which released them on bail.
The 1960 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act provides for a maximum fine of Rs 50 to first-time offenders. A defendant may be ordered to pay up to Rs 100 or sent to jail for three months or both if convicted again under the same law.
DOG FOUND BUT HURT
Activist Shravan Krishnan, who found the injured dog named her Bhadra. Shravan described the 1960 legislation as outdated and demanded stronger animal cruelty laws. He also called for their expulsion from medical training.
"The two accused should not even be allowed to practice medicine. If they can be so cruel towards an animal, what will they do to the general public?" he wondered.
Chairman of the Madha Medical College Dr S Peter remarked, "We never imagined that they will be released so soon." He said the two students had been suspended and a three-member college committee had been appointed within the college to investigate their case.
DOG BEING TREATED IN A HOSPITAL
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The dog is being treated at a hospital in Chennai
"She was really scared and in (a state of) shock," said Krishnan, explaining the moment when he found the injured dog.
"She was extremely timid and was wagging her tale throughout. We identified her by her colour and also from the black spot on her tail (visible in the online video)," he said.
According to doctors, Bhadra had suffered two fractures on her leg, but was coping well to the treatment.
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HBOs new eight-part miniseries The Night Of tells the story of one supremely unlucky young man who ends up on trial for a murder he almost certainly did not commit. We know this because, as viewers, we are right there with Nasir Khan played by the soon-to-be superstar Riz Ahmed for every moment in the unlikely series of events that leaves a girl he met just hours earlier dead in her own bed.
This knowledge of what happened on the night of the murder is what sets the fictional show apart from the documentary-style series with which it otherwise has a great deal in common. Over the past few years, the podcast Serial, along with HBOs The Jinx and Netflixs Making a Murderer, have each captivated the nation by examining real-life murder cases in which an enormous amount of doubt is cast on the guilt or innocence of the accused.
In both Serial and Making a Murderer, we follow the story of men who have been convicted of crimes that, we begin to believe, they could not possibly have committed. In The Jinx, we examine the life of a man who appears to have killed several different people and continues to gets away with it. But in each of those cases, we simply dont know the truth.
By contrast, because The Night Of is a fictional story based on the 2008 British series Criminal Justice we get to be there with the alleged killer at the scene of the crime. The picture we are given by co-creators Steven Zaillian, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Schindlers List, and Richard Price, an acclaimed novelist who wrote for The Wire, is so much richer and fuller than what amounts to guesswork in those documentaries.
The influence of David Simons The Wire, still the best piece of popular culture about the criminal justice system ever created, is all over The Night Of. J.D. Williams, who played Bodie, makes an early, crucial appearance as a unreliable witness and Michael K. Williams, best known as President Obamas favorite gay hitman Omar Little, is a major presence as Nasirs menacing prison protector. But more importantly, Price helps infuse this show with the same considered, thoughtful approach to storytelling that Simon instilled in The Wire.
Just as we saw every angle of Baltimores inner-city life through the eyes of gang members, police officers, school children, politicians and more on The Wire, here we experience the central murder case not only from the defendants point of view, but also through his helplessly desperate Pakistani parents (Peyman Moaadi and Poorna Jagannathan), his disheveled but dedicated attorney (an idiosyncratic John Turturro), the meticulous detective in charge of the case (Bill Camp, brilliantly understated) and others.
As Nasir is first arrested, practically by accident, for the murder and is subsequently placed in a holding cell, brought to a terrifying Rikers Island and then ultimately to trial, The Night Of emphasizes the many unfair and often arbitrary forces at work in a fundamentally broken system. Glenne Headly, portraying a high-end lawyer who offers to defend Nasir pro bono for wholly selfish reasons, at one point remarks that holding the college-educated defendant with no prior record at Rikers as he awaits trial is akin to turning him into the criminal the state already believes him to be.
Over the course of the seven episodes provided to press, that dire prediction is essentially borne out. Ahmed, who many viewers will recognize as Jake Gyllenhaals reluctant accomplice from the excellent Nightcrawler, gradually becomes less innocent as the series progresses. It is mostly out of necessity in a prison environment full of imminent danger Orange Is the New Black, this is not. But we can see that at least a small part of him enjoys leaving his purity behind, just as he did on a smaller scale in the moments leading up to the crime that would forever change his life.
In addition to Ahmed, Turturro makes a big impact as attorney John Stone, a part that was originally going to be played by James Gandolfini, who helped shepherd the project to HBO close to a decade ago. After Gandolfinis untimely death, it was rumored that Robert De Niro would use the series to make his television debut. Either of those actors would no doubt have been exceptional in the role, but Turturro, who spends most of the series suffering through a gnarly skin condition on his feet, makes it his own.
Elsewhere throughout the show are subtler performances from a murderers row (pun intended) of character actors. Theres Veeps Kevin Dunn, popping up in just one scene as another frustrated bureaucrat on the police force who wakes up in the middle of the night to deal with the fallout of the high-profile crime. Theres television vet Ben Shenkman as a desk sergeant, who has no patience for those who dont understand his specific brand of precinct lingo. And Paul Sparks (novelist Tom Yates on House of Cards) as the victims eerily unmoved and suspicious step-father.
The Sri Lankan actress Amara Karan, who made her film debut in Wes Andersons The Darjeeling Limited, is incredibly affecting as a young lawyer who first joins the case as nothing more than a Southeast Asian prop to appease Nasirs parents, but soon becomes a vital member of his defense team. Like Law & Order, which covers some of the same territory in a far more simplistic fashion and gets a jokey mention late in the series, The Night Of is a treasure trove of working New York actors who lend an important veracity to the proceedings.
But through it all, it is Ahmed who carries The Night Of. The transformation that his character makes as a result of the ordeal hes put through is not only aesthetic, but also affects the way he walks, speaks and thinks about the world around him. The British actor is poised to have a year not unlike what Irelands Domhnall Gleeson experienced in 2015 when he appeared in Ex Machina, Brooklyn, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Revenant.
Following his turn in The Night Of, Ahmed will star opposite Matt Damon in Jason Bourne this summer and as one of the fresh-faced leads of the Star Wars spin-off Rogue One this fall. Hes come a long way from his role as a bumbling terrorist wannabe in the 2010 comedy Four Lions.
Listeners and viewers who became obsessed with Serials Adnan Syed, The Jinxs Robert Durst and Making a Murderers Steven Avery may have felt like they intimately knew the motivations and inner-workings of these men. But Ahmeds performance allows this sense of empathy to go much deeper.
We may not know exactly what happened, even after seven episodes, but we know this man. And we know, regardless of how the jury rules, just how badly the criminal justice has already failed him.
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By PTI: New Delhi, Jul 6 (PTI) Over 230 CISF commandos have been deployed to secure two large thermal power plants in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh facing "perceptible threats".
Officials said the Home Ministry has cleared deployment of the Central Industrial Security Force personnel at NTPCs Sikka Thermal Power Station near Jamnagar in Gujarat and BHELs Gadarwara Super Thermal Power Project in Madhya Pradeshs Narsinghpur district.
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"Over 230 commandos of CISF were recently deployed at the two power stations. The security cover was given in the view of perceptible security threats to these large facilities. The facilities are part of the energy and power sector of the country.
"A threat analysis survey was conducted at the two facilities by central security agencies early this year after which a CISF cover was recommended," they said.
The CISF contingents protecting the two power units will be armed with sophisticated assault weapons and vehicle-borne quick reaction teams.
Power and energy installations are a priority sector for the government when it comes to providing a security cover by the highly-trained paramilitary force tasked primarily with securing major civil airports and facilities in the aerospace and nuclear arena, the officials said.
CISF also secures eight large facilities in the private sector, including Reliances Jamnagar-based refinery and information technology giant Infosys campuses in Bengaluru, Mysore and Pune. PTI NES GVS SC GVS
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First DCIS labels appear on Johnnie Walker Red
Diageo has announced Johnnie Walker as its first global brand to provide consumers around the world with on-pack alcohol content and nutritional information per typical serve. From early autumn, the new labels for bottles of Johnnie Walker Red Label, the best-selling Scotch Whisky around the world, go into production and will then be shipped to dozens of markets globally. By the end of the year, up to 30 million bottles of Johnnie Walker Red Label with on-pack alcohol content and nutritional information per typical serve will be on the shelves, helping consumers understand whats in their glass. Every year around 115 million bottles of Johnnie Walker Red Label are typically produced and shipped around the world.
The labels conform to the new Diageo Consumer Information Standards (DCIS) which come into force tomorrow and will apply to all Diageo brands. Diageo developed the DCIS based on research of more than 1,500 consumers around the world, including people from North America, Great Britain, Mexico and Spain. The new label designs reflect the way consumers want to receive and can understand information on alcohol content. Those surveyed said that when too much information (especially small text) is placed on the label it can be confusing and they may ignore it all. Less information, clearly presented was a consistent request across all markets. The research also found that, of all the information that could be included, their preference was for alcohol information (standard drink size, ABV, how many units), calories per serve, sugar content, allergens and brand facts, such as how a product is made and quality assurances.
Using this research, Diageo is committing to provide labelling across all its brands that is consistent in layout, so people know where to look for information on every pack, and uses icons which are significantly easier to understand than words, all of which tested well in focus groups. In order to share best practice for providing information in a way that is easy for consumers to understand, Diageo is posting a public version of the DCIS here.
Ivan Menezes, chief executive, Diageo says: We believe people should have the best possible information to make informed choices about what they drink: this includes alcohol content and nutritional information per typical serve. Johnnie Walker is one of our largest global brands, which means these new labels will arm millions of people around the world with clear information about whats in their glass and in a way they can understand at a glance.
From next month, cans and bottles of Irelands number one ale, Smithwicks, will also hit the shelves with updated labels, and from early next year, Guinness Draught cans sold in the Republic of Ireland will also be updated to carry alcohol content and nutritional information per serve. Between them, Smithwicks and Guinness account for 39% of Irelands beer market.
Updates to Johnnie Walker Black Label, Double Black, Gold Label Reserve, Platinum and Green Label are also planned for the first half of 2017.
Carolyn Panzer, director of Alcohol in Society, Diageo, says: The new scheme is simple, clear and attractive and most importantly, its based on what consumers want. There is no beverage of moderation, only a practice of moderation, and that is why we are committed to providing information on alcohol per serving, which enables people to compare the amount of alcohol in different kinds of drinks from beer to bourbon at a glance. Current labelling on most alcoholic beverages does not reflect how people consume alcohol and therefore does not allow consumers to understand how much alcohol is in their favourite drink or what is in their glass.
This announcement forms part of Diageos strategy to deliver its commitment to providing alcohol content and nutritional information per typical serve through Diageos responsible drinking website DRINKiQ.com (www.DRINKiQ.com) and/or on-pack in a majority of Diageos markets subject to local regulatory approval, as soon as practicable. In the first move to fulfil this commitment, the first shipment of Crown Royal labelled with macronutrient and calorie information was released in the US in October 2015.
6 July 2016 - Felicity Murray The Drinks Report, editor
Alok Kumar Shukla of Kanpur, who duped several investors on the pretext of providing them bonus against their existing insurance policies etc, has been arrested by the Crime Branch.
By Nitin Jain: Crime Branch has arrested alleged cheater Alok Kumar Shukla of Kanpur who is involved in nine cases of cheating in Hyderabad and Delhi. Accused has duped several investors on the pretext of providing them bonus against their existing insurance policies etc. One of his associates Gyaneshwar of Delhi was arrested earlier by Crime Branch, Delhi.
WEB OF DECEIT
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In order to lure and cheat innocent investors Alok Shukla and Gyaneshwar with other associates open companies with various names M/s Indian Solutions, M/s Indian Value Card, M/s Unique Solutions and M/s Unique Ambitions Pvt. Ltd.
Gyaneshwar procured data of insurance policy holders and contacted them through telecallers working under M/s Unique Ambitions Pvt. Ltd., having its office at 54-Rama Road, Moti Nagar, Industrial Area, Delhi and used to collect cheques of cheated money at the offices of M/s Indian Solutions and M/s Indian Value Card at Jankipuram, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. The cash was later withdrawn at Delhi by Gyaneshwar and Alok.
MODUS OPERANDI
They used to call the potential clients whom they had sold the insurance policies. They used to lure these clients, stating that they became entitled to a bonus declared by RBI on their policy and to receive the bonus they had to pay certain amount of money as processing fee. Once the client paid the initial amount of Rs. 25,000/-, they would call them again and again to deposit more money as to process quickly. The demand did not stop until the client stopped paying.
In the present case of Mr. An and Kumar Gyanchandani, who is a resident of Paschim Vihar, this cheat duped him to the tune of Rs 23 lakhs by using the same modus operandi. A case in this regard was registered in PS Paschim Vihar, which is now being investigated by Crime Branch. Three accounts have been identified, which are being scrutinized and the persons, who are working at call centre are yet to be verified.
In the same manner, this group has duped several persons in Hyderabad and other places in the country for several lakhs of rupees and these cases are being investigated by the Hyderabad Police and Crime Branch, Delhi.
JACK OF ALL TRADES
Accused Alok is a resident of Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. He is a school dropout and studied up to 6th standard. Thereafter, he started working as a delivery boy in Kanpur, UP. He then started a mobile repairing shop in his house but in order to earn more money he also started running a committee within his nearby area. Thereafter, he came to Delhi and started doing a job with different real estate companies in Chilla Village, Delhi.
Later, he came in contact with Shahnawaz Ahmed, Gyaneshwar, Rahul etc., who worked as insurance brokers under the garb of running several companies viz, M/s Indian Solutions, M/s Indian Value Card, M/s Unique Solutions and M/s Unique Ambitions Pvt. Ltd. in order to cheat the investors made lucrative premiums offers on their existing insurance policies.
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ALSO READ: Inter-state child trafficking racket busted, 5 girls rescued
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By now, everyone's aware that Donald Trump wandered off message Tuesday night and told an audience in Raleigh, North Carolina, that Saddam Hussein, for all his sins, "killed terrorists."
"He did that so good," the presumed GOP presidential nominee said. "They didn't read them the rights. They didn't talk. They were terrorists. It was over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism. You want to be a terrorist, you go to Iraq. It's like Harvard, OK? So sad."
There were spasms of outrage, from Hillary Clinton's campaign ("Donald Trump's praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds") to the perpetually disappointed-to-hear-this House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Hussein "was one of the 20th century's most evil people"). And in outrage mode, it was easy to ignore something Clinton spokesman Jake Sullivan said in his reaction. Trump didn't just praise Hussein. He "yet again lauded" him. Trump had used this language many, many times, with plenty of cameras pointed at him.
It all seemed curious to David Martosko, the Daily Mail reporter who has covered Trump more closely than almost anyone in this campaign year:
"Remarkable part about the Saddam thing isn't what Trump said. He's said it before. It's how media jumped on this when Hillary needed it," Martosko tweeted.
Defining "the media" so broadly rarely makes sense. It made sense Tuesday night. Trump's insistence that Hussein should have remained in power to "kill terrorists" is actually one of his most consistent lines. It clashes completely with the Washington consensus but taps into voter anger at how the Iraq War, sold as a quick-and-easy crusade against evil, destabilized the Middle East and allowed groups such as the Islamic State to form and grow.
Trump began saying this at his campaign rallies last summer. (As Buzzfeed's Andrew Kaczynski has reported, there is no record of him saying it before the 2003 invasion.) Reporters followed up; Trump repeated himself. In an October 2015 interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, long before votes were cast, Trump reiterated his view that the world was better off with Hussein in power -- and using brutal peacekeeping tactics.
"Iraq used to be: No terrorism," Trump said. "He would kill the terrorists immediately. Now it's Harvard for terrorism."
Trump said this in many of the rallies that cable news played live throughout that season. If anyone missed it, he repeated it in an interview with CBS News' John Dickerson, as part of the run-up to South Carolina's primary debate.
Trump's victory in that state - and the humiliating, campaign-ending defeat of Jeb Bush - happened with the "Saddam killed terrorists" argument pretty well hashed out. Pundits who expected voters to rediscover their ardor for the Bush family - pundits including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, R-S.C. - instead watched some of the state's most veteran-heavy communities break for Trump.
So what was different Tuesday night? Clinton's campaign said it was different. In Politico, we learn that Trump's Hussein praise "finally caught up with him" because "Hillary Clinton's campaign tore into his latest comments." NBC News notes that Trump said this at a rally with Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., which could lead to a clash and some awkward questions; otherwise, the only new thing is that "Hillary Clinton's campaign seized the opportunity to once more paint Trump as unfit for office."
And so on. The story is not that Trump argued that the United States would be better off if a dictator had been allowed to stay in power in Iraq; the story is that things are different now, because the presumptive Democratic nominee is whacking him for saying it.
The timing of the Clinton campaign's attack was telling, for two reasons. First, and most obviously, whaling on Trump gave the campaign a chance to pivot on a day when the director of the FBI held an unusual and damaging news conference saying that the Democratic candidate, whom most voters consider untrustworthy, had behaved recklessly with classified email. The media went along with this by noting the irony, and remarking that Trump stepped on what could have been a good news cycle.
Second, Trump said all of this just hours before the long-awaited release of findings from a inquiry into the United Kingdom's role in invading Iraq. The Chilcot Report has found more of what war and national security reporters found after 2003 -- that George W. Bush and Tony Blair were raring to invade Iraq before a real case was made for doing so. The report is particularly damning for Blair, who just six years after leaving office is a pariah, his own Labour Party led by a member of its far left who had opposed all of Blair's "modernizing" policies and opposed the war.
The point is that Trump has been saying, for quite some time, that the United States should not have gone to war in Iraq, and that it should side with dictators as long as they "kill terrorists." The Republican primary electorate endorsed that view. Clinton, as a senator and then as secretary of state, took another view, and backed the use of American power to remove both Hussein and Libya's Moammar Gaddafi. There's video of Clinton gleefully saying "We came, we saw, he died" upon learning that Gaddafi had been torn apart by his own people. This has never been treated like a gaffe; but Trump's "Saddam killed terrorists" riff suddenly is.
By consistently covering Trump's argument over time, and by following up on it, media outlets did their job to inform voters. That was why Tuesday night's collective Captain Renault moment was so strange, and so demonstrative of why many media consumers are skeptical of what they're hearing. Instead of a debate on the facts -- should Hussein have been removed? Did he "kill terrorists," in a contradiction of what Americans were told before the war? -- there was manufactured outrage, straight from a rival campaign.
The United States already has become a 'banana republic'
We hoped we could trust: President Barack Obama to be a uniter instead of a divider, Congress to end "pay for play," the Veterans Administration to take care of our vets, the IRS to treat conservatives fairly, Homeland Security to protect our borders, the Department of Education to fix our schools, the State Department to protect classified documents, and the Supreme Court to base rulings on the Constitution. Now we learn we can't even trust the FBI. All men may be equal, but a few women, such as Hillary and her female aides, are much more equal than others.
Who in government can we trust? We are already a banana republic.
W.R. KLEMM
Bryan
Why not ask all immigrants if they plan to be violent
In perilous and fearful times when some threats are all too real, it is especially important not to lose one's grip on reason, a grip tenuous in the best of times for many.
Case in point: According to a recent poll reported in The Eagle, 76 percent of Texas Republicans favor banning non-U.S. Muslims from entering the country. That pesky "separation of church and state" thing aside, you have to wonder how many respondents gave a moment's thought to how such a ban might be accomplished.
As the term "Muslim" merely specifies an adherent to a religion and not, by contrast, a racial or ethnic group identifiable by appearance, border monitors presumably would have to rely on asking an immigrant if he or she is a Muslim, then further rely on an honest answer.
And if anyone believes such an approach effective, why not just ask all immigrants, Muslim or otherwise, if they intend to perpetrate violence?
TOM KISKE
College Station
How to make Congress more representative of the people
It is we, the electorate, who are to blame for the sad state of affairs in which this country finds itself.
We hold the entire Congress in contempt. When asked what we think of Congress as a whole, more than 90 percent of us think that our representatives are a bunch of self-serving scoundrels. Yet when asked what we think of our own senators and representatives the majority of us will say how great they are. Consequently, we the voters continue to vote the same bums in again and again, It's crazy. It's doing the same thing, exactly the same way, over and over again, and expecting a different outcome.
I don't believe that the Founding Fathers ever envisioned, or intended, that being a senator or representative was to be a profession. I believe they expected honorable citizens to serve for the betterment of the country for a period of time and then move on.
I challenge the entire congressional body to prove me wrong by accomplishing the following:
Employ self-imposed term limits (two seems like a good number)
Adhere to the same laws they impose on the electorate.
Agree to be paid on a government General Schedule pay scale as all other government employees are required to be.
Use the same health care as the general populace.
Do not raise, use, or keep any re-election funds following their second election.
Be subject to the same retirement system all other government employees are required to use.
I know, as does everyone else, that the self-serving Congress is not going to do any of these things on their own. Our only hope is that American citizens will wake up and realize that their individual representative or senator is part of the problem and vote to restore the integrity of Congress as it was intended by the Founding Fathers.
For the 1 percent or 2 percent of Congress who do not fall into the above, I apologize.
JERRY LOVE
Bryan
While police have recovered two mobile phones, they have also found the messages sent to the women.
A 31-year-old man was arrested today for sending obscene and vulgar messages to more than 1,500 girls across Delhi and NCR region.
Mohammad Khalid, a resident of Ballimaran area in Delhi, was arrested after a woman from Ashok Vihar filed a complaint, stating that she received indecent messages from two different numbers.
USED DIFFERENT SIM CARDS
Following the complaint, Delhi Police zeroed in on the accused on the basis of surveillance in Sadar Bazaar area, from where Khalid reportedly purchased three different SIM cards (8376016283, 7827639789 and 7289913347) to send the messages.
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While police have recovered two mobile phones, they have also found the messages sent to the women. Police said that the accused never used the phones for his personal use. Nearly 2,000 contact numbers of women were also recovered from the phones.
"He would randomly dial any number. If the caller turned out to be a female, he would save the number and later check out her WhatsApp profile picture. He would then send obscene clips to them. The accused has been sending such texts to women for the last one year," Vijay Singh, DCP (northwest), said.
"He also threatened to upload their mobile numbers and pictures on social media sites. Despite being warned several times, the accused continued sending vulgar content. He was sure he would not be caught since he obtained the SIM cards on the basis of fake ids," Singh added.
CASE REGISTERED
Preliminary probe revealed that Khalid obtained the SIM cards after producing three different identity cards, which later turned out to be fake.
A case has been registered under sections 354A, 506, 354D, 509, 420, 468, 471 of the Indian Penal Code.
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Here are 10 ways new President Duterte plans to change the Philippines during his six years as president:
1. Duterte has said he must take extreme measures to stop the Philippines becoming a narco-state. Security forces will be given shoot-to-kill orders. Bounties will be paid for killing drug dealers. Ordinary citizens will also be encouraged to kill suspects. The death penalty will be restored, by hanging.
2. Duterte, who rails against "Imperial Manila", intends to change the centralised government to a federal system in which newly created states would have a large degree of autonomy. They would also be able to keep most of their revenues. Doing so will require rewriting the constitution.
3. Duterte insists he can end decades-old Muslim and communist rebellions, which have claimed tens of thousands of lives. Peace talks with the communists are set to start this month. He expects federalism will appease Muslim rebels, who want autonomy.
4. Duterte wants to slow the Philippines' fast-growing population, which recently surged past 100 million. He says families should aim for a maximum of three children. Duterte wants government agencies to supply the poor with free condoms and birth control pills. A 2012 law allowing for that has not been fully implemented, partly due to opposition from the powerful Catholic church.
5. Duterte describes himself as a "socialist", and has vowed to change an economic model that has created one of Asia's biggest rich-poor divides. Roughly one quarter of the population live below the poverty line. He says federalism is one key to this. But he also plans to continue with the successful macro-economic policies of his predecessor, Benigno Aquino.
6. Duterte plans to roll out a nationwide curfew on children being on the streets alone late at night. He also wants to ban alcohol being served in public past midnight, and stop people from singing karaoke - a national passion - in public late at night.
7. Duterte has promised to rid government agencies, police and the military of deep-rooted corruption. But aside from general statements, such as corrupt officials should "retire or die", he has not explained how he would fix one of the Philippines' most intractable problems.
8. Duterte intends to allow late dictator Ferdinand Marcos to be buried at a cemetery for national heroes, saying this will help end decades of social division over the issue. But human rights victims say this will help whitewash the dictator's crimes.
9. Duterte is in favour of changing the constitution to lift restrictive foreign investment laws. Duterte told telcos to improve one of the region's slowest Internet connections or face competition from foreign players. But he is opposed to foreign ownership of land.
10. After relations with China plummeted during Aquino's term over a South China Sea territorial dispute, Duterte has said he wants "friendly" ties with Beijing. Aquino refused to hold direct negotiations with China over the maritime dispute, but Duterte is open to one-on-one talks. He is also courting Chinese investment in infrastructure.
"Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? ... But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good," Trump told a campaign rally Tuesday night in Raleigh, North Carolina
By AP: Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who frequently criticizes U.S. foreign policy under President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has praised former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's ruthlessness.
TERRORIST KILLER
"Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? ... But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good," Trump told a campaign rally Tuesday night in Raleigh, North Carolina. "They didn't read 'em the rights, they didn't talk. They were a terrorist, it was over."
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Trump has previously said the world would be "100 percent better" if dictators like Hussein and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi were still in power. Prior to the U.S. invasion, Iraq was listed by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Jake Sullivan, a Clinton senior policy adviser, said Trump's "praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds."
Sullivan said such comments "demonstrate how dangerous he would be as Commander-in-Chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks."
TRUMP AN ISOLATIONIST?
Trump's foreign policy pronouncements have proved controversial, even within the Republican Party. He has said the United States is too fully engaged around the world and has questioned the role of NATO and said the United States has been taken advantage of by nations benefiting from its security cooperation and troop presence. Some critics within the GOP have said his policies suggest an isolationist stance in an increasingly dangerous world.
Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, partners among Republican congressional critics of Obama administration foreign policy, carried out a fact-check on Trump's national security statements earlier this year at a Capitol Hill hearing.
REPUBLICAN OPPOSITION TO TRUMP
On April 19, when the Army general selected to lead U.S. forces in South Korea testified before the committee, McCain seized the opportunity to undermine Trump's suggestion that the U.S. withdraw its forces from the South because Seoul isn't paying enough to cover the cost of the American military presence.
"Isn't it the fact that it costs us less to have troops stationed in Korea than in the United States, given the contribution the Republic of Korea makes?" McCain asked Gen. Vincent Brooks.
Yes, Brooks said, telling McCain the South Koreans pay half, or $808 million annually, of the U.S. presence there.
Two days later, Trump's claim that NATO is irrelevant and ill-suited to fight terrorism came under the microscope. As president, Trump has said he would force member nations to increase their contributions, even if that risked breaking up the 28-country alliance.
In early March, more than 70 conservative national experts, including former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, wrote in an open letter that they have disagreed with one another on a variety of issues but are united in their opposition to a Trump presidency. Chertoff served in President George W. Bush's administration.
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ALSO READ:
Donal Trump urges Muslims to 'turn people in'
Iraq war was not last resort: UK inquiry
--- ENDS ---
On the evening of July 1, the life of Gloria Capitan, a staunch anti-coal advocate, who led community in opposing a coal storage plant project near their neighborhood in Mariveles, Bataan in the Philippines came violent end.
She was the president of Samahan ng Nagkakaisang Mamamayan ng Lucanin, a community-based organization that resisted the construction of a coal plant and open storage facility by Sea Front Shipyard Services Incorporated which is owned by Limay Bulk and Handling Terminal,
At 57 years old she was very active in the fight against coal, and even led her village last year in a series of mass actions and petitions calling for a permanent closure of the coal storage facility, a Facebook post paying her tribute said.
For a living she ran a small karaoke cantina the very place where her life was cut short last July 1, when she was approached at shot in the neck by motorcycle riding gunmen, while her 8 year-old grandson suffered a minor injury from a stray bullet on his arm.
If this is a message to silence other anti-coal activist like her, then they are mistaken, said Val De Guzman, a campaigner for the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice, a national movement consisting of national networks/alliances and local organizations representing basic sectors, grassroots communities in the Philippines
Because on the ground where Ate Glos body fell, where the blood from her body flows more anti-coal activists will sprout. Instead of silencing us, it will only strengthen our convictions, that the evil menace of coal must end. And we will persevere in this fight and see to it that our children and the children of our children will be free from it.
Gloria Capitans murder was the latest death in one of the world's deadliest nations for environmental activists.
Greenpeace condemned the killing, saying it was yet another example of environmental defenders being murdered for standing up to powerful interests.
The Philippines is the second most dangerous country in the world for environment activists, with 33 killed last year, Global Witness said in a report last month.
Critics have long said that the country suffers from a "culture of impunity," where powerful figures believe they can kill opponents and critics without fear of being punished.
"[Capitan's death] seems to be really related to her work in opposing the coal storage facility in Mariveles and the expansion of coal-fired power plants in Bataan," said Reuben Muni, a climate and energy campaigner with the Philippines branch of Greenpeace.
As of 2014, coal accounted for at least 31 percent of the Philippines' power supply, according to the government's energy department.
This proportion is likely to grow as more coal-fired power plants are built to cope with the surging demand for power.
In 2015, at least 185 environmentalists and indigenous activists were murdered in 16 countries around the world, according to a new report from Global Witness, a British environmental and corruption watchdog. This number represents a 60 percent increase in murders from 2014 and is the highest number since the non-profit organization began tracking the statistic in 2002. The actual number of environmentalist and activist deaths in 2015 is likely even higher since some killings go unreported, according to the report.
Across the world industry is pushing ever deeper into new territory, driven by consumer demand for products like timber, minerals and palm oil, the authors write. Increasingly communities that take a stand are finding themselves in the firing line of companies private security, state forces and a thriving market for contract killers. Governments must urgently intervene to stop this spiraling violence.
In fact, Mindanao, the southernmost island in the Philippines, alone saw the murder of 25 of the 33 activists killed in that country, including a paramilitary group's public executions of the teacher Emerito Samarca, as well as Dionel Campos and Aurelio Sinzo, leaders of the indigenous Lumad people. The activists opposed large-scale mining projects in the region that aim to capitalize on the countrys massive gold, copper, nickel and coal reserves.
Brazil, however, tops Global Witness' 2015 list with 50 murders. The violence comes from ranchers, plantation owners and illegal loggers coming into conflict with environmental activists and indigenous people when they encroach on their territory.
Plans for the Henderson County jail expansion. (Twitter photo by Beth Smith)
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By Beth Smith of The Gleaner
The Henderson County Detention Center is inching its way closer to the construction of a new kitchen.
On Tuesday, the Henderson Fiscal Court approved sending draft plans for a proposed jail expansion to the Department of Corrections and the state Department of Housing, Building and Construction in Frankfort for approval.
At the heart of the expansion, according to Jailer Ron Herrington, is the need for a new kitchen.
In past discussions with the fiscal court, Herrington said the kitchen, roughly 836 square feet, has struggled to keep up with the inmate population which has tripled since the detention center opened its doors in 1996.
The proposed kitchen would be around 2,866 square feet.
During Tuesday's meeting, Herrington and Jay Smith, an architect with the firm Fosse and Associates, presented magistrates with preliminary plans for the jail's kitchen expansion and other possible renovations, including a larger multipurpose room, dorm area renovations and locker room upgrades.
The kitchen expansion by itself is estimated around $1.4 million. The project cost for all proposed renovations is estimated at $1.7 million.
"As you look at this design, we took the approach not only to have a kitchen to be able to make approximately 2,100 meals a day, but also adding a multipurpose room to support our Substance Abuse Program and our Good News Jail Ministry both of which are competing for (space)," Herrington said.
"When SAP started roughly 18 months ago, we had 50 beds. In the past nine months, we've been awarded more bed space, and we're up to 110 (participants) a day. The revenue (for SAP) per day is $40 per inmate. The proposed dorm expansion, would give us the latitude to move into that room with more beds and would therefore bring in more revenue," he said.
"I wanted you all to look at the options," Herrington said. "But at this point, I'd like this approved to be sent to Frankfort. It will likely be 60 to 90 days before we get approval from both sides. That gives the finance committee, as well as the fiscal court, time to come up with options for financing. Once it comes back and the financing is finalized, we can put it out for (construction) bids."
Magistrate Butch Puttman asked Herrington if there was any reason to believe that DOC officials in Frankfort wouldn't approve the expansion drafts?
"I think they will support us 100 percent," Herrington said. "They've been on us several years now that our kitchen wasn't capable of handling the amount of inmates we have. This is being proactive."
"In the jail business, if you do nothing, you lose. This is very important for our longevity," he said.
Magistrate George Warren commended Herrington for thinking ahead regarding other possible renovations.
"I love the idea of while we would be doing the renovations on the kitchen, we go ahead and look at the other alternates. Because since you already have the people there, I think it would be less intrusive for you all than to have them come back six months to a year later and try to do the alternates when you can do them all at one time," he said.
"We've spent a lot of time looking at options that would move us forward," Herrington said. "We've been looking at revenue, while at the same time, providing a safe, secure facility and providing quality meals for the amount of inmates we have."
Magistrate Charles Alexander had one question: "How are we going to finance this thing?"
"That's something we're going to discuss during the next 60 to 90 days," said Henderson County Judge-executive Brad Schneider.
"OK," Alexander said. "I'm just wondering about all of that."
At the end of the discussion, the panel unanimously approved sending the jail's draft expansion plans to officials in Frankfort.
Security concerns emerge after Columbus Junction school vandalism
A student alleged to have vandalized Columbus' secondary school reportedly was inside the building for two hours, raising security concerns.
It is all over for Kate Hudson and Matt Bellamy. The actress and the Muse frontman had been together for four
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Here's all you need to know about Dr Zakir Naik, the preacher who is said to have "inspired" the terrorists who stormed Dhaka's cafe last week.
By India Today Web Desk: Dr Zakir Naik found himself in the eye of the storm after reports surfaced that at least two of the Dhaka attackers were "inspired by his preaching about Islam."
Rohan Imtiaz, one of the suspected attackers of the terror attack carried out in Holey Artisan Bakery cafe, is said to have posted a message on Facebook quoting Naik prior to the attack.
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In this light, Minister of State Kiren Rijiju said, "We have to have evidence to produce before court for arresting him." NIA added, "There may be many who follow such a preacher, but that cannot make a case against such a person."
Here's all you need to know about him:
Who is Dr Zakir Naik?
Dr Zakir Naik is a Mumbai-based Islamic preacher and televangelist, and the founder of the Islamic Research Foundation. He also heads a "comparative religion" channel called Peace TV.
A trained medical doctor, the 50-year-old Islamic cleric has made it to the headlines plenty of times earlier with several controversies regarding his teachings.
With his speeches and teachings, Naik has garnered over 14 million followers on Facebook and around 200 million viewers of Peace TV, which runs in Urdu, Bengali, Chinese and other languages.
Naik is a self-proclaimed follower of the late South African preacher Ahmed Deedat. Walking in Deedat's footsteps, Naik gave his speeches in English and used technology to reach out to his followers.
The many controversies
During a meet at the University of Melbourne in 2004, while arguing that Islam is the only religion that offered women true equality, Naik had said the more "revealing Western dress" women wear, the more susceptible they become is to rape.
In 2010, UK Home Secretary Theresa revoked his visa and banned Naik from entry the United Kingdom and Canada, after he was scheduled to speak in London and Sheffield.
Naik has openly spoken against the theory of evolution, calling it to be "only a hypothesis, and an unproven conjecture at best."
Speaking on apostasy, Naik's had said "there is no death penalty for apostates in Islam, until the apostate starts to preach against Islamic teachings; then he can be put to death."
Regarding other religions, Naik argued: "how can we allow this (building of churches or temples in an Islamic state) when their religion is wrong and when their worshiping is wrong?"
In 2012, the Indian government banned the Peace TV channel from airing in the country. The New York Times also reported that the Mumbai police had barred Naik from holding conferences on the grounds that "he stirred controversy."
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One of Naik's most controversial remarks was when he said he "would not criticise Osama bin Laden." He said, "If bin Laden is fighting enemies of Islam, I am for him...if he is terrorizing America - the terrorist, biggest terrorist - I am with him."
Then, he went on to say: "Every Muslim should be a terrorist. The thing is that if he is terrorizing the terrorist, he is following Islam. Whether he is or not, I don't know, but you as Muslims know that, without checking up, laying allegations is also wrong."
In his defence, Naik later said, "I tell the Muslims that every Muslim should be a terrorist.... What is the meaning of the word terrorist? Terrorist by definition means a person who terrorises. So in this context every Muslim should be a terrorist to each and every anti-social element."
Speaking on 9/11, Naik said on Peace TV in July 2008: "it is a blatant, open secret that this attack on the Twin Towers was done by George Bush himself." He confidently stated that "even a fool will know" that the 9/11 attacks were "an inside job."
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Naik is also said to be in support of the idea of Muslims having the right to sex with their female slaves.
Speaking on Dhaka attackers being 'inspired by him'
In his interview to The Indian Express, Naik condemned the ISIS. "By using the name Islamic State, we are condemning Islam...They are the anti-Islamic state of Iraq and Syria that has killed innocent foreigners. The name is given by enemies of Islam."
Regarding the perpetrators of the Dhaka terror attack being inspired by his teachings, Naik said he was not shocked that they knew him.
"The largest percentage of my Facebook followers are from Bangladesh. 90 per cent of Bangladeshis would know me, including senior politicians, philanthropists, common men, students and more. 50 per cent would be my fans. Am I shocked that the attackers knew me? No."
"Such a person would be a hardcore fan of Prophet Muhammad. Does that mean Prophet Muhammad told him to kill people?" Naik asked, adding that the Quran explicitly states that when a person kills another, of any religion, "it is as though he has killed the whole of humanity".
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However, he clarified he does not "endorse their methods," adding that, "Such a person would be a hardcore fan of Prophet Muhammad. Does that mean Prophet Muhammad told him to kill people?"
Naik also declared that when a person kills someone, "it is as though he has killed the whole of humanity".
His other fans
Sources say the chief of Hyderabad module of ISIS, Ibrahim Yazdhani, was deeply influenced by Naik, having watched his speeches on a local television channel.
Afghan-American Najibulla Zazi, the terror suspect accused of conspiring to bomb the New York subway in 2009, was also said to be a fan of Naik's teachings.
Another of his followers were Dr Kafeel Ahmed, who attacked the Glasgow airport in 2007, and the 7/11 serial train blasts accused Rahil Sheikh.
Read more:
ISIS head of Hyderabad module was deeply influenced by Zakir Naik
Shiv Sena demands ban on Islamic preacher Zakir Naik
In pictures: How Bangladesh tackled ISIS terror attack on Dhaka's famous cafe
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No matter the position or industry that youre involved with, writing has become a requirement for almost each and every one of us. Whether its a text, social media update, blog post, or email, we rely on written messages to communicate with each other.
While it may not seem like a major concern, making even the smallest of mistakes when composing these written messages can have a major impact on our careers since poor writing skills can give colleagues and customers the impression that were not really educated or skilled enough to do our jobs properly.
Out of all forms of communication, email deserves special mention since its the preferred communication channel. In fact, Marketingsherpa discovered that an astounding 72% of customers prefer communication with companies through email.
Because email is such a powerful communication tool, it can have serious implications for your career if you dont use proper grammar.
Creates a lasting impression.
Its no secret that first impressions are important. So, what kind of impression would you get if you received an email from a job applicant or client that was riddled with spelling and grammatical errors? In most cases, you probably would have serious doubts about whether or not you were going to work with this person or take the individual all that seriously.
In fact, in a study of 1700 online dating sites, 43 percent of users considered bad grammar decidedly unattractive and 35 percent thought good grammar was appealing. In another study conducted by psychologists Jane Vignovic and Lori Foster Thompson that focused solely on electronic communication, writers of the message were found to "be less conscientious, intelligent and trustworthy when the message contained many grammatical errors."
Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixIt, writes that, If you think a semicolon is a regular colon with an identity crisis, I will not hire you. If you scatter commas into a sentence with all the discrimination of a shotgun, you might make it to the foyer before we politely escort you from the building.
Wiens, like many other executives, places a high value on grammar because if youre sending out an email with errors, its a reflection on your entire organization. If you cant take the time to spell check an email, then how can customers or clients be sure that this organization can deliver quality products or services?
Related: 8 Writing Strategies for People Who Say They Can't Write
Sends the wrong message.
Do you think your employer will take your pitch, suggestion, or proposal into consideration when your emails are full of unjustifiable mistakes like not knowing the difference between there and their? Such mistakes can hamper your ability to make a case for yourself since your boss or colleagues may constantly be second-guessing your work.
"Even worse, including the wrong email grammar can completely change your intended message," says John Rampton in his content marketing guide. "For example, if you email your boss that you have a 'cleaver idea,' what do you think their response will be? Unless youre in the hatchet making industry, that message wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. But your boss could sure have fun rubbing the error in your face for a week or two."
Related: 4 Apps That Can Make You a Better Writer
Leads to more mistakes.
There was an interesting study conducted at the University Michigan where it was found that spelling errors made while filling out the forms for peer-to-peer loan requests at LendingTree.com made an impact on the likelihood of funding. In most cases these errors lead to an unhappy outcome.
"Ive found that people who make fewer mistakes on a grammar test also make fewer mistakes when they are doing something completely unrelated to writing like stocking shelves or labeling parts writes Wiens. For example, programmers who pay attention to how they construct written language also tend to pay a lot more attention to how they code.
In other words, those who make fewer errors in their emails are more detail-oriented, which means that theyll make fewer mistakes with their overall responsibilities.
Related: The World's Best Marketing Tool: Writing a Book
Can cost you thousands of dollars.
Theres an infamous story of how one little punctuation error cost NASA $80 million. When launching the Mariner 1 in 1962, the omission of the hyphen, part of a code that set trajectory speed led to an explosion.
While you probably wont be in a situation that could cost you that much money, improper email grammar could cost you thousands of dollars. If you were to send out an email blast to your customers detailing an upcoming sale, do you believe that theyll find you credible if the email is full of mistakes?
How to avoid spelling errors.
Email grammar is an area that shouldnt be overlooked. It showcases your professionalism and increases your trustworthiness - which can help you get hired, attract new clients, and ensures that your message is clearly delivered to customers and colleagues.
To help prevent you from making common mistakes, here are some pointers that you can use the next time youre sending out an email.
Dont rely just on spell check. Spell checking software and tools have come a long way since the early days. And while they are beneficial, spell checking software isnt 100 percent foolproof. Reread the email before you hit send. If theres an extremely important email, ask someone else, like a colleague, to review the email. Theyll often spot any errors that you may have overlooked.
Read it out loud. If you dont have a second pair of eyes, read the email out loud. Its a common proofreading technique that can help you pick up any errors like misused words, misspelled words or run on sentences.
Take a break. Instead of quickly punching send on your email, step away and revisit it. This could be anytime from one-minute later to the next morning after the initial composition. Rereading the email with a fresh set of eyes can help you notice any mistakes.
Keep it professional. Sometimes quick and casual emails are effective. The problem is that if you move too quickly youll be more inclined to make errors or mistakes. Even though this will take more time, always keep your emails professional by using full sentences, proper capitalization, punctuation, and professional language like neutral pronouns. Dont forget to include a salutation and signature as well.
Dont use excessive punctuation marks or all caps. Emails containing exclamation marks and all caps come across as unprofessional and aggressive. If the message is that important then mark it as high priority.
Look for one mistake at a time. When proofreading your emails you dont have to look for all potential errors at once. Instead, look for one mistake at a time. For example, the first time you reread an email you might look for any spelling mistakes, followed by grammar, punctuation, and fact checking, if applicable.
Related:
Bad Email Grammar Ain't Good for Getting You a Job or a Date
'I Feel Like' Is the Newest Controversial Phrase You Should Avoid
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NORWALK Police were searching Wednesday afternoon for a man who robbed a Chase Bank branch at 50 Washington St. in South Norwalk.
Police, including two K-9 units, could be seen searching extensively along Water Street from the SoNo Square parking lot to the Stroffolino Bridge. Thats the area the robber was last seen by a security guard who chased him several blocks.
The robbery occurred at 3:56 p.m., said Lt. Terrence Blake, a police spokesman. He said detectives and the Crime Scene unit were investigating, and processing the scene.
Blake said no weapon was shown and no one was injured.
Pablo Rincon, 28, of Stamford, said he was working his post in the lobby of 50 Washington when the robber fled the scene.
The guy comes running out the bank. The first teller comes out saying to stop. The second teller comes out saying, He robbed me! Rincon said. At that point, I started to chase him.
Rincon pursued the man who he described as white, short and wearing a white shirt and blue jeans under the railroad bridge, to the right, then down Haviland Street.
He kept looking back at me, Rincon said. He knew I was chasing him.
The two didnt say anything to each other during the chase. Rincon shed his blazer as he ran in the 90-plus-degree heat, then lost sight of him at the corner of Water Street.
Is college worth it? Forbes set out to find the colleges and universities where enrollment is, indeed, worth the cost.
To answer this question, Forbes partnered with the Center for College Affordability and Productivity to gather data and came up with this formula:Quality, based on the 2015 Forbes Best Colleges list (35%) + drop-out risk (15%) + graduation time (15%) + alumni salaries (25%) + alumni skills (10%) / gross tuition and fees.
The results yielded a list of 300 schools ranked from best to worst in terms of value. Check out where Connecticut schools landed on the list and how they compare to the top 10 nationally, and visit Forbes for the full list and more information.
The Eidgah will have a separate dedicated enclosure for women to offer their prayers.
Here's some good news for Muslim women.
For the first time, the Aishbagh Eidgah in Lucknow has opened doors for women to offer namaz.
ALLOWED, BUT IN A SEPARATE ENCLOSURE
The Eidgah will have a separate dedicated enclosure for women to offer their prayers.
The Imam of the Eidgah, Maulana Khalid Rasheed Farani Mahli, said that a separate enclosure exclusively for women namazis was being put in place in Taiyab Hall of Eidgah for the Eid-ul-Fitr namaz to be held on Thursday morning.
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The enclosure will accommodate nearly 500 women, and arrangements will be made if more numbers turn up.
WOMEN'S ENTRY TO RELIGIOUS PLACES HAS BEEN MAKING HEADLINES
This move comes at a time when India has witnessed numerous controversies regarding the entry of women to places of worship.
Women being denied entry to Sabarimala in Kerela, Shani temple in Maharashtra and Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai infuriated many with women taking to streets to protest against this discrimination.
10 places where women are banned in India
MOVE PROGRESSIVE, BUT..
Zakia Soman, co-founder of Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA)- an organisation which filed a petition in the Bombay High Court against restrictions on women entering Haji Ali Dargah- termed the move as "very progressive" but with a caveat.
While speaking to India Today, she said that she welcomed the move as there were very few mosques in the country which allowed women to offer prayers.
"It is ironic because the Quran nowhere states that women should be barred from entering mosques or offering prayers," she said, adding that the ban on women entry was another way of exercising control by men.
"Even the petition we filed in the High Court was not just about allowing women into Haji Ali; it addressed a larger question. How can women be denied their right to religious worship," she asked.
Zakia was, however, irritated with the separate enclosure being made.
"Why don't they hand over the control of mosques to women and make separate enclosures for men? If women are comfortable with praying in the same space as men, then let them be. Those who wish to worship separately can do so in the enclosure, but why make it binding?" she questioned.
She did not buy the "segregation argument". "It is not just differentiation, it is discrimination".
Rapes will increase if women enter Shani temple, says Shankaracharya Swaroopanand
Shabnam Hasmi, a women rights activist and founder of ANHAD, was a bit skeptical.
"No doubt it is a progressive move and women who wish to go and worship would hail this. All spaces, whether religious or public, should be available to women," she said.
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"But personally, I think Muslim women have other serious issues than getting an entry into a mosque which need to be addressed. I am not sure but perhaps we are diverting from those issues."
Zakia Soman, however, believed that there were obviously other issues, but that did not mean "we don't fight the issue".
Also Read:
Muslims celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr in Kerala
Six injured in stone pelting by protesters after Eid prayers
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Devon LeAnn (Schulz) Hamner, 65, of Grand Island, beloved wife, mother, grandmother, heartfelt Christian, mentor, and teacher extraordinaire, departed this life for her heavenly home on Monday, July 4, 2016, after a spirited yearlong battle against cancer.
To honor Devons wishes, cremation was chosen. Visitation will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday at All Faiths Funeral Home.
Services will be at 10:30 a.m. on Friday at the First Presbyterian Church. The Rev. Caroline Price-Gibson will officiate.
Devon was born May 21, 1951, in Akron, Iowa, to Earl and Sanna (Haase) Schulz. She grew up surrounded by love on the family farm near Elk Point, S.D., and graduated from Elk Point High School in 1969. Knowing in her heart that she was born to be a kindergarten teacher, she attended Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D., graduating in 1973. She earned her Masters degree from Doane College in Crete, Neb., in 1993.
On July 14, 1973, she married Charles Hamner. The couple made their home in Grand Island, where Devon had the best job in the world, teaching for 38 years at West Lawn Elementary School. She retired in 2011.
Survivors include her beloved husband of 43 years, Chuck; two sons and daughters-in-law, Nathan and Emily of Snohomish, Wash., and Jonathan and Valeria of Grand Island; a daughter, Kristin of Piedra Blanca de Bonao, Dominican Republic; and five grandchildren, Katherine and Jonah Hamner, Nicolas Toledo Hamner, Sofia and Selva Hamner de Paula.
Also left to cherish her memory are a brother and sister-in-law, Brad and Terry Schulz of Omaha; four aunts, Wilda Abraham and Mary Arlene Schulz of Elk Point, and Wilma Haase and Rose Haase of Sioux City, Iowa; an uncle, Ray Schulz of Vermillion, S.D.; a niece and two nephews; cousins galore; a wide circle of wonderful friends; and a host of erstwhile students, nearly all of whom know in their hearts that I was Mrs. Hamners favorite.
She was preceded in death by her parents and grandparents, four aunts and five uncles.
A voracious reader herself, Devons greatest pleasure was introducing others particularly her children and grandchildren to the skills of reading and the joy of books. As a kindergarten teacher, she sent hundreds of 1,000 book kids off to first grade, ensuring their success and love of reading throughout their school careers and beyond. She was a contracted writer for the National Council of Teachers of English Read-Write-Think website, crafting model lessons to be published for use by other teachers worldwide. Her last crowning achievement was reading and recording on CDs scores of her favorite kid-lit books for each grandchild to treasure.
Devons grandchildren will also remember her for Nanas projects. She never failed to have something fun and educational to work on whenever they were together especially baking gingerbread boys and girls who always ran away and had to be found.
Devon was an active lifelong member of the International Reading Associations Central Nebraska chapter, the Grand Island Education Association, the Nebraska State Education Association, and the National Education Association, attending five national conventions over the years. She was an involved member of First Presbyterian Church, serving as a Sunday School and Bible School teacher, Stephen Ministry leader, deacon, elder, and the first ever female President of the Corporation. Her special joy was participating in her Bible study groups.
In retirement, she drew great satisfaction from service as a volunteer and board member of the Presbyterian Preschool. In 2013 and again in 2014, she received the American Red Cross Preparedness Award for making Whale Tales (water safety) and Scrubby Bear (hand washing) presentations in dozens of area classrooms.
Socially, Devon enjoyed membership in the Grand Island Area Retired School Personnel, NSEA-R, the Platte Valley Retired Education Association and PEO.
She enjoyed traveling, corresponding with her far-flung friends, baking and sharing her faith with her loyal Christian friends, who heartened and sustained her through her final illness. Devons lifelong goal was to celebrate the blessings of each day, honoring each as a gift from God.
Memorials are suggested to the Foundation of Peace or First Presbyterian Church.
Words of comfort and kindness may be left for the family at www.giallfaiths.com
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville alumnus Chesley Waddell will be among the honorees when the St. Louis Business Journals 30-Under-30 are formally introduced on July 14 at a reception at the Palladium St. Louis.
The St. Louis Business Journals 30 Under 30 Awards recognize 30 young professionals who are leaders throughout a variety of industries. The magazine points toward these individuals as the region's next generation of high-level decision makers. The Business Journal July 8 issue will highlight their respective achievements.
Its truly an honor to be recognized for this award, said Waddell, who earned a bachelors of mass communications from SIUEs College of Arts and Sciences in 2012 and followed with a masters of public administration in 2014. Its also awesome to see so many other young people in leadership roles making strides in their industries.
Waddell began working in radio at age 16 as talent for Radio Disney in St. Louis. That motivated her to pursue a career in mass communications.
After graduating from SIUE in spring 2014, Waddell joined Cumulus Media in Melbourne, Florida. She spent just over a year as promotions director and on-air talent. She also joined the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) to develop her knowledge of the industry.
In January 2016, Waddell accepted the promotions director position with Radio One (Hot 104.1 and Old School 95.5) in St. Louis. I work with a group of awesome people and have a dynamic team, she said. We create lots of fun promotions and put on a number of events including Super Jam.
The day-to-day variances of radio are intriguing to Waddell, because most days provide something new and exciting. Event planning is a passion of mine, she said. Watching the pieces come together to make a successful event or promotion is truly fulfilling It feels great to know that our listeners and clients are happy with the job that my team has done.
So far, learning the St. Louis/Metro East market has been the most challenging part of my job, she admitted. Even for the short time I was working in Florida, the St. Louis market has changed. Ive been working on getting to know the venues and local businesses.
At this stage of her young career, Waddell isnt looking too far ahead. I enjoy working in media, especially radio, and would love to continue to grow in the industry to see where it takes me next! she said.
Waddell pointed to her SIUE experience as a launching pad for her success. I was constantly encouraged by my professors and faculty to continue in the media industry, she said. SIUE provided great opportunities to develop my leadership skills with my participation in the Student Leadership Development Program and a graduate assistantship with Campus Activities Board. I also grew and learned more about the media industry as host of SIUEs Global Village.
A cafe opened Tuesday on the first floor of the Madison County Administration Building.
For food offerings think nacho bar, cranberry nut salad, hummus and pretzels, and grab n go sandwich wraps like turkey and swiss.
Challenge Unlimited, a non-profit that provides work-related opportunities to people with disabilities, is overseeing the new A Quick Bite cafe.
Its open to the public though its main clients will likely be county employees looking to grab a breakfast item before work or dash in for a quick lunch at a relatively cheap price.
Past restaurant attempts there have been less than successful.
Over the years more than a half dozen managers have tried to make a go of it.
For a host of reasons, things never panned out.
One was Fionas Family Restaurant. In 2011, the owners opened The Courthouse Cafe at the Administration Building site. They offered what was in some ways similar to the menu at the restaurant they had been operating across the street on North Main. It never turned a profit.
Fionas replaced the Snackery, which closed after a 15-month run. The tiny cafe lacked the buying power of larger restaurants, and when the price of foods such as lettuce shot up, it close down.
But A Quick Bite may well prove to be different, at least according to several people who spoke to the Intelligencer. They site the fact that the space has been vacant for months, which put county and courthouse staffs in the mood for something more substantial than vending machines.
They have somewhere to go to grab a quick bite, said Trish Holmes, with the Riverbend Growth Association.
I think everyone who works in the courthouse and the Administration Building are going to be happy.
Overseeing the operations as the site manager for A Quick Bite is Lisa Sumpter.
The cafe is situated past the revolving doors at the main entrance to the Administration Building, near the Information Desk. In recent days, some county employees have been ducking in to sneak a look at the new place, and Sumpter says that without exception their message has been positive. Im very encouraged, she says. Weve gotten a lot of positive feedback.
While the menu contains some cold-weather menu items like chili and a baked potato bar, its overall feel is summery.
When the cold weather approaches, Sumpter hopes to add cheeseburgers, hot ham and cheese, and other items.
Meanwhile even grab and go sandwiches and wraps should work well, she said.
And past surveys at the Administration Building and the Madison County Courthouse show that employees are looking for healthy food choices and quick service. Part of the problem previous owners had was that they tried to cook everything to order, Sumpter says. If you only have 30 minutes for your lunch break and you have to stand there and wait for everybodys lunch along the way, that eats up your 30 minutes.
Angel Wagner is the lead cook. When not working at A Quick Bite, she will be out at SIUE working on a masters degree in social work. She landed the lead cook job following an internship at Challenge Unlimited. She will be working at the cafe with two other Challenge Unlimited employees, Brian and Ben.
Challenge Unlimited will not have to pay rent or utilities for the first year, according to terms of the contract.
Janet Gentry, an Employment Facilitator for Challenge Unlimited, said that projects such as A Quick Bite, and others, are intended to enable individuals with disabilities a way to become integrated into the community and to enable them to achieve their highest level of independence.
On Aug. 30, former chiropractor Bridget Brasfield will be sentenced in federal court for healthcare fraud and money laundering, charges to which she pleaded guilty last month.
But the potential 20-year prison sentence she faces - the maximum allowed under the guidelines for her situation - is just one of several problems the Edwardsville woman faces.
The most recent is a breach of contract lawsuit filed in Madison County Circuit Court by Idaho-based Healthy Habit Medical Business Consultants.
In it, HHMBC maintains that Brasfield had signed a contract with them in which she agreed to pay $1,000 in exchange for a license that allowed her to sell their Advanced Medical Weight Loss product only at Physical Medicine Clinic of Granite City.
Instead, the suit maintains that Brasfield repeatedly sold the weight loss formula at an unapproved clinic at 11 Junction Drive in Glen Carbon. It claims she signed the contract on June 17, 2014, and was using the product and the program at the unapproved clinic, without HHMBCs consent, for more than a year.
HHMBC claims that several times they have demanded payment, though the defendants allegedly have denied use of Plaintiffs product at the Glen Carbon location.
The suit, filed by Edwardsville attorney Deborah Hawkins, seeks more than $50,000 in compensatory damages.
Brasfield worked as a chiropractor in Granite City for at least a decade, according to court records.
During her plea hearing on the federal criminal charges, Brasfield admitted to submitting approximately $500,000 in false and fraudulent bills to various health care benefit plans, according the U.S. Attorney'S Office.
She allegedly made the submissions to Medicaid, Medicare, Tricare, Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, and Coventry Insurance.
Those submissions claimed that a medical doctor had provided services to her patients at her office when in fact the doctor was out of the country when those services were claimed to have been provided.
The violations occurred between January of 2011 and January of 2014.
Two years ago, Brasfield Chiropractic LLC declared bankruptcy in federal court, and earlier this spring Brasfield declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The criminal investigation was conducted by the Southern Illinois Health Care Fraud Task Force with active investigations by several federal departments.
Two Edwardsville residents have been charged with alleged unlawful use of a credit card.
Rodrigues M. Cosey, 38, and Christina J. Metz, 39, were charged by the Madison County States Attorney on June 27 with the Class 4 felony.
Cosey and Metz allegedly purchased items from Circle K gas station that were valued at less than $300 with a First Cloverleaf Bank debit card that didnt belong to them.
A wallet was stolen in Wood River and used here in Edwardsville. The victim went to the Wood River Police Department and filed a complaint his wallet was stolen. He was then notified that his card had been used in Edwardsville, and he came to us to file a report. We then began an investigation, Lt. Charlie Kohlberg said.
Rodriguez and Metz are both in custody.
Bond was set at $20,000 for each individual.
Candace D. Yancey, 31, of Florissant, was charged by the Madison County States Attorney with one count of criminal damage to property owner over $300. Its a Class 4 felony.
According to court documents, Yancey is alleged to have damaged a 1997 Honda Accord that didnt belong to her. The damages were in excess of $300.
Charges were filed on June 23.
Yancey was not in custody as last week.
Bond is set at $25,000.
Steven A. Hayden, 26, with an unknown residence, was charged by the Madison County States Attorney on June 15 with one count of theft over $500. Its a Class 3 felony.
Hayden is alleged to have taken possession of a concrete mixer that didnt belong to him on Jan. 21.
Bond is set for $25,000 for Hayden, who was not in custody as of last week.
Shawn M. Fulton, 28, of Wood River, was charged by the Madison County States Attorney with one count of retail theft over $300 on June 15.
According to court documents, Fulton is alleged to have taken over $300 worth of electronics from the Edwardsville Target, located at 2350 Troy Road, on June 8.
Fulton was not in custody as of last week.
A resolution authorizing the Timberlake Village Planned Unit Development was approved during the Administrative and Community Services Committee meeting Thursday night.
City Planner Scott Hanson briefed the committee on the ordinance.
In a nutshell, this site is formerly known as the JRG PUD, was adopted in 2006, and under the old PUD ordinance, you had to have at least 4 acres that you couldnt subdivide. Under the new ordinance, you can subdivide it. When they came forward to ask for subdivision, we told them you have to go through the new ordinance and adopt it. We also asked them to as identically as possible mirror the 2006 plan and thats what theyve achieved, Hanson said.
Timberlake Village is located right off of 157.
Hanson said with the PUD in place, Timberlake Village will have some significant improvements.
New fence, better access to the site for pedestrian connection, some other minor things. But, that being said, virtually its identical to the 2006 PUD. But, it will allow for the U.S. Bank site and the remaining three and a half acres to be divided. Both partials will still be part of the PUD and all parties will be responsible for adhering to the PUD, Hanson said. The PUD reflects the landscape requirements of the 2006 plan, which went above and beyond at that time, beyond the landscape ordinance requirements. The current standard, if you are immediately adjacent to residential, it would require a 6-foot berm, landscaping, or fence. It adheres to that.
The staff and the plan commissioner recommended approval. The motion passed with all in favor.
In other business, a TBY variance request for 144 West St. will be carried on to the next ACS meeting when a developer will be present.
Alderman Tom Butts said progress is being made at the site.
You can now see the concrete, you can now see the driveway, you can see the wall and you can see what they have there and what their plan is to finish it, if anything, Butts said.
Further, an ordinance vacating and dedicating an easement at 1115 Georgia St. was also approved.
An ordinance ascertaining the prevailing rate of wages for Public Works in the city of Edwardsville was discussed as well, requesting a suspension of rules and passage on the first reading for compliance with the states requirements. This was also approved.
The next Administrative and Community Services meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, July 14, at City Hall.
By PTI: Coimbatore, Jul 6 (PTI) Central Intelligence agencies and Tamil Nadu police have taken into custody the wife and some family members of a suspected ISIS terrorist who was arrested in West Bengal, police said.
Mosiruddin alias Mosi alias Majnu was arrested by NIA from Viswabharati Fast Passenger train at Burdwan station yesterday.
Based on his statement that his family was running provision stores in Tirupur for the last six years, the sleuths visited the stores and their residence, police said.
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After seizing six sim cards, a laptop and two election ID cards, the officials took Mosiruddins wife, their two children and two others into custody for questioning last night, they said.
During a joint interrogation by Crime Investigation Department, National Investigation Agency and Intelligence Bureau, Mosiruddin had yesterday admitted to having links with top ISIS leaders and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh through e-mails, social networking sites and mobile.
A sharp weapon and an airgun were seized from Mosiruddin after he was arrested by Burdwan railway police and the West Bengal police from Viswabharati Fast Passenger train following specific inputs from the NIA. PTI NVM RC AAR
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Glen Carbon Trustees awarded a $60,423 contract to Stutz Excavating Inc. for sidewalk work on Meridian and Glen Crossing Road.
The project will bring sidewalk ramps compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Stutz will improve 24 curb ramps from the intersections of Kingsbrooke Boulevard and Glen Crossing Road to the intersection of Magnolia Drive and Meridian Road.
Work will be done at Oakridge Estates Drive, Michelle Drive, Forest Ridge Court, Old Glen Crossing Road, South Meridian Road and Somerset Drive.
Village Administrator Jamie Bowden said the village had budgeted the money for the project and the village has received grants for the project.
We received a $15,000 sustainability grant from Madison County for this project, he said. We will receive a reimbursement from the county on completion of the project."
The scope of the project involves the removal and replacement of the non-compliant ADA sidewalk ramps.
The County Board awarded the grant to the village in May and is part of the Environmental Grant Program. The grant program is funded using money generated by tipping fees at county landfills.
The county awarded $163,835 to cities, villages and park districts. Glen Carbon received the maximum, $15,000 grant.
Stutz was the lowest bid for the 2016 ADA Sidewalk Ramp Improvement project.
In other business, board members approved the purchase of $27,717.41 worth of computer upgrades to the email system at the village.
In a memo to the trustees, Bowden stated that the current system causes problems.
Over the last few years we are constantly having issues with our email server software, the memo stated. This translates to losses in productivity and we feel that transferring over to a Microsoft Exchange Server would be the best tool to utilize for the best productivity and service."
The money will be used for the server license from DDW-G and a service agreement with Acropolis Technology Group for setup.
Bowdens memo listed several benefits of the new system including:
A legal hold option that allows for all emails to be copied on the server even when the user attempts to permanently delete an email. This will help with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and retention of documents.
The village can create email groups with ease to assist with mailing committee/commission emails.
Ease of access on a widely supported format that can integrate with other software if needed.
Better reliability and fewer log in issues.
Board members voted unanimously to appoint Jerry Zacheis to the Glen Carbon Police Commission for a term that expires in April of 2019.
Mayor Rob Jackstadt said Zacheis is the right person for the job.
Zacheis has served on commission for the past two years. He has worked for the Illinois State Police for the past 14 years and currently serves in the State Police Crime Scene Investigation unit.
The board of trustees approved Zacheis unanimously.
The appointment of Carson Maricle to the Glen Carbon Zoning Board of Appeals was not voted on after Trustee Jorja Dickemann made a motion to lay over the decision.
The board unanimously approved the lay over motion.
The appointment will be addressed at the next board meeting.
Erika Axtell and Maria Arzuagas, members of the Edwardsville High School Color Guard, are two of just 30 flag performers from across the U.S. that were chosen to perform in the Macys Great American Marching Band (MGAMB) during the 90th Annual Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade on Nov. 24 in New York City.
Axtell and Arzuagas, who will be juniors at EHS in the fall, have been part of the EHS Color Guard since they were freshmen. They explained that they learned about the opportunity to audition as a flag performer in the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade after an older EHS Color Guard member participated in the parade a few years ago. One of our friends, Amy, was in it. Whenever she came back, she was so excited about it. And after hearing all the cool stories and after hearing about her experience, we decided to do it together, Axtell said about she and Arzuagas auditioning.
Amy said it was like a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and you still keep in touch with the people that you meet there. And you meet a lot of people from around the country, Arzuagas added.
The young ladies each submitted a video and were notified about a month ago that both had been selected to perform. Marcus Kwasa, a member of the EHS Drumline, also recently learned that he too has been selected to perform with the MGAMB.
The MGAMB was formed in 2006 and since that time over 2,800 students from across the U.S. have had the opportunity to perform in the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade as part of the MGAMB. Arzuagas, Axtell and Kwasa will participate in this prestigious band that has over 250 musicians and is complemented by approximately 40 flag performers and dancers.
The students will travel to New York City on Nov. 19. And we spend that entire week practicing, Arzuagas explained.
The days leading up to Thursday and the parade are jam packed with rehearsals, uniform fittings, group meals and sight-seeing in New York City. Both young women were especially looking forward to touring New York City since neither have been before. Im super excited, Axtell said.
Yeah, were really excited to go, Arzuagas noted.
I know we get to see a Broadway show which I am extremely excited about seeing, and then we get to go to the 9/11 museum, Axtell added.
The ladies big day begins extra early on Nov. 24 - at 1 a.m. - for make-up and hair, and then a special group breakfast takes place at 5:30 a.m. before lining up for the parade.
When the band steps off from Central Park and makes its way through the 2.65 mile route, it will be cheered on by over 3 million live spectators. When it arrives at Macys Herald Square for its national performance, more than 50 million TV viewers will be watching the live NBC broadcast.
The cost for flag performers to participate in the MGAMB is about $1,700 each which includes accommodations, meals and sight-seeing but not transportation. Therefore, the students are having fundraisers to help earn money for their trips.
Teaspoons Cafe, located at 2125 on Route 157 in Edwardsville, is donating a portion of its proceeds to the ladies from its sales on July 16, Aug. 20, Sept. 11 and Oct. 16, and Culvers, at 6724 Old Troy Road in Edwardsville, is also hosting a fundraising night for the ladies on July 25 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Both Axtell and Arzuagas will be working at Culvers on July 25 to assist the Culvers staff in serving guests.
In addition, Axtell and Arzuagas have posted a Go Fund Me page at www.gofundme.com/28uagtw to help raise money for their trip.
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Linkedin Prima Wirayani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, July 6, 2016
State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Minister Rini Soemarno displayed a more feminine appearance on Idul Fitri, exchanging her simple black-and-white blouse and trousers for a stylish kebaya.
The minister welcomed guests for an open house party at her private residence in Kuningan, South Jakarta, on Wednesday in a light brown kebaya top and jarit (long cloth), complete with a scarf of the same shade.
Her usual flat black shoes retired for the day as she wore golden slippers.
The outfit was custom-made for Idul Fitri, along with the outfits for other members of her family.
Rinis hair also received special treatment. It was arranged to a sanggul (traditional bun) on the day, a change from her usual ponytail.
"Ibu Rini puts her make up on by herself, but her hairdo was done by a hairdresser," Teddy Poernama, the SOE Ministrys public relations official, told The Jakarta Post.
This year's open house is the first one held by Rini after assuming office in October 2014. She spent last year's Idul Fitri visiting her grandchild in Japan.
"Ibu prepared the open house for two weeks ago with the assistance of her children," Teddy said. (tas)
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Linkedin Qraved (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, July 7, 2016
The capital city is indeed home to many culinary delights. From Padang restaurants to the sweet taste of Jogjakarta's gudeg, you can easily find any dish from the archipelago in Jakarta.
But for those looking for authentic cuisine from the city itself, soto Betawi is certainly worth a mention. Consisting of beef, fried potato and tomato cooked in coconut milk broth, the dish is deliciously different from other types of soto (aromatic chicken soup) in Indonesia. Soto Betawi has a slightly creamy taste, which makes it perfect for lunch on rainy days.
Here are some interesting facts you should know about soto Betawi.
The origin of soto Betawi
Obviously, the name soto Betawi came from its location, Jakarta. But it's believed that a long time ago, a soto seller called Lie Boen Po introduced the name "soto Betawi" for one of his soto types and popularized it. Unfortunately, Lie Boen Po's soto cart doesn't exist anymore so it's impossible to pay him a visit.
(Read also: The legendary eateries you must visit in Blok M)
Soto Betawi's nutrition facts
Not a lot of people consider eating soto Betawi healthy, especially because it contains coconut milk broth. This information might be useful for you.
Energy = 135 kkal
Protein = 2,5 gr
Fat = 8,8 gr
Carbohydrate = 11,5 gr
Calcium = 222 mg
Phosphor = 72 mg
Zinc = 1,9 mg
Vitamin A = 21 IU
Vitamin B1 = 0,04 mg
Vitamin C = 0 mg
Data provided by the Health Ministry.
Soto Betawi usually consists of a rich broth made from coconut milk, to which beef, fried potato and tomato is added. (Shutterstock/-)
Offal is vital in soto Betawi
There are different ways to enjoy soto Betawi, among them is soto Betawi with offal or just the meat, which is the most popular way people choose to order. You might not know this, but offal is actually an important part of soto Betawi. Besides being its trademark, offal also adds color to the dish to make it more diverse. So soto Betawi is not just about meat.
Coconut milk vs regular milk
Everybody knows that coconut milk broth is an important part of soto Betawi. But people also know that coconut milk is not so healthy. Nowadays, some soto Betawi restaurants have decided to replace coconut milk with regular milk. You won't notice the difference until you actually taste it. Regular milk adds a touch of smooth texture to soto Betawi. It's a great alternative if you're a healthy food enthusiast. (kes)
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
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Linkedin Hans David Tampubolon (The Jakarta Post) Mon, July 4 2016
(Courtesy of Henry Manampiring)
One of the most well-known accounts in the Indonesian twitterverse is @Newsplatter, which belongs to public relations practitioner and writer Henry Manampiring.
People often mistake Henrys account as a news portal account due to its name, but once they follow it, they will find Henrys pleasant and playful personality fills their timelines.
With around 93,000 followers, Henry also loves to engage his followers with some just-for-fun personal projects that are based on his professional proficiencies as a public relations practitioner.
One example was his 2010 national survey for Indonesian singles that unraveled the many reasons young Indonesians opted to remain single.
In the last couple of years, Henry has expanded his reach to writing. He has written and published a couple of self-improvement books and his latest book is The Alpha Girls Guide, in which he interviews a number of well-known career women who share their tips on how to become an alpha female.
To write books, Henry said he needed to read a lot to expand his horizons and creativity.
The more topics I read, the more I can find new ideas to write about, Henry said. I believe creativity is not necessarily creating something new. Sometimes its just connecting the dots in a new way.
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, July 4 2016
The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has demanded more involvement from the central government in addressing a surge in cases of intolerance across the country.
Komnas HAM chairman Imdadun Rahmat said recently that President Joko Jokowi Widodos administration had to be firm with local administrations in upholding religious freedom, as the latter were often part of the problem.
Currently, the central government only makes promises to local administrations, Imdadun said at the launch of the commissions report on religious freedom at his office in Jakarta.
The report shows that the number of complaints regarding violations of religious freedom has risen over the past three years. In 2014, Komnas HAM recorded 74 complaints, while 89 complaints of alleged violations of religious freedom were filed last year.
As of May, the number of complaints was 34. It is very likely that the number will increase until the end of this year, said Jayadi Damanik, Komnas HAM coordinator of religious freedom.
Local administrations were often the main actors in the violations reported in the first five months of this year, according to the report. Of the 34 complaints, 18 were attributed to local administrations. Mass organizations were the main non-state actors, with six complaints attributed to them.
The report also reveals that the highest number of complaints were related to bans on the building of places of worship, with 11 in total. This was followed by eight complaints related to Jamaah Ahmadiyah Indonesia (JAI) being prohibited from worshipping and two incidents of demolitions of places of worship.
This has made them reluctant to protect minority groups from threats made by their neighbors or local intolerant groups. The Home Ministry and the Religious Affairs Ministry could disseminate those regulations so that local administrations have a good understanding of how to protect their citizens in terms of religious freedom, said Imdadun.
Jayadi said that the commission had received a complaint from the Pentecostal Church in Indonesia (GPdI) Sumedang, West Java, on June 3 that the local administration was still refusing to grant a permit for them to build a church.
The churchs parishioners have had to pray in a variety of places since 2012. We also found that a number of subdistrict officials did not give the church access to obtain the permit, Jayadi said.
On March 22, The commission also received complaints by JAI members in Subang, West Java, following a ban on them worshiping by an non-defined group.
The Subang district chief also demanded they cease the development of their mosque, Jayadi said.
Imdadun said there were no legal tools that provided directives on how to mitigate these two problems. The central government has to create a road map to repatriate both the Ahmadiyah and Shiite refugees back to their hometowns.
Although, Jayadi applauded two local leaders in West Java who had tried to uphold religious freedom in their respective regions: Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil and Purwakarta Regent Dedi Jayadi. (mos)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, July 4 2016
JAKARTA: Police arrested a man on Saturday in connection with the death of a domestic worker, identified as Jeni Nurjanah, in the Belleza Apartments in Permata Hijau, South Jakarta.
South Jakarta Police chief Sr. Comr. Tubagus Ade Hidayat said the suspect, identified as Ferdianto, 23, was arrested in Ciamis, West Java.
The suspect is a security officer at the apartment, Hidayat said as quoted by tribunnews.com on Sunday.
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, July 4 2016
With Idul Fitri only a few days away, people in the capital have started packing their bags to return to their hometowns in a long-standing tradition locally known as mudik.
The Jakarta Transportation Agency predicted more than 6 million people will leave the capital for their hometowns this year using various modes of transportation. Nationwide, the Transportation Ministry predicted around 26 million people will return to their hometowns.
Many are opting to travel on motorbike to keep expenses low. Unfortunately, however, road accidents during Idul Fitri are still dominated by motorbikes.
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Linkedin Syamsul Huda M. Suhari (The Jakarta Post) Gorontalo Mon, July 4 2016
Blessed nights: A child lights up oil lamps during the Tumbilotohe celebration at Buladu field in Gorontalo on Friday night. The celebration marks the last nights of Ramadhan, which Muslims believe are among the blessed nights of the year. (JP/Syamsul Huda M.Suhari)
Gorontalo is home to an interesting tradition in the final days of the fasting month of Ramadhan. Tens of thousands of oil lamps are lighted and displayed on the terraces of homes and mosques, yards and among rice fields.
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Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, July 4 2016
Seemingly disturbed by public scrutiny of the corrupt deeds of its officials, the Supreme Court has been telling the public that it has taken many laudable steps to improve its image.
Supreme Court chief justice Hatta Ali said that as part of these efforts, the court had in the last five months dismissed dozens of staffers implicated in graft cases being investigated by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
We fired those involved in corruption cases even before the KPK had officially laid charges against them, Hatta said.
The countrys highest judicial institution is currently in the spotlight as a number of its officials have been implicated in graft cases. The cases, in which court staff members are mostly accused of receiving money to influence verdicts, have increased the publics doubt about internal reform at the court.
A recent high-profile case is that of Central Jakarta District Court registrar Edy Nasution, who was arrested on April 20 on suspicions he accepted a bribe to influence a case review of a civil dispute involving Malaysia-based pay TV operator Astro and PT First Media, a member of influential business conglomerate Lippo Group.
The case dragged in Supreme Court secretary Nurhadi after KPK investigators confiscated a large amount of what it claims is dirty money from his house and office, as the Supreme Court has the final say on any case review.
Following the case, Hatta said the court immediately fired two Central Jakarta District Court officials, Irdiansyah and Sarwo Edy, for allegedly helping Edy commit the crime.
However, the Supreme Court has yet to dismiss Nurhadi.
Another case is one that implicates Andri Tristianto Sutrisna, chief of the subdirectorate of appeals and special civil case second reviews at the Supreme Court. He was implicated in the graft case due to a delay in extending an appeal request for a verdict in a corruption case surrounding the development of a port in West Nusa Tenggara in 2007 and 2008.
Hatta said the Supreme had fired not only Andri, but also Kosidah, an official at the subdirectorate of special crimes overseeing corruption cases.
Hatta went on to say that reform had been ongoing since 2010 and the Supreme Court already had the blueprint for guidelines until 2035, including shorter deadlines for case settlement, from the previous three months to 30 days, and online publication of verdicts via the Supreme Courts official website.
However, it may not be enough to satisfy the public as even the Association of Deans of Indonesian Law Schools (APPTHI) comprising the deans of more than 180 private law schools across the country came to President Joko Jokowi Widodo ask him to let them take part in the internal reform by examining numerous Supreme Court rulings.
The academic examination would cover a number of Supreme Court rulings that have binding legal status and would aim to scrutinize, for instance, whether the rulings applied the correct legal doctrine, or whether the decisions are appropriate.
The Judicial Commission, the external judicial supervisory body, objects to APPTHIs idea, saying that it should be the responsibility of the Commission.
It wont be effective to establish a new team, moreover, we will need a new regulation as well, Judicial Commission chairman Aidul Fitriciada Azhari said.
House of Representatives Speaker Ade Komarudin expressed the same objection. According to him, the demand is only a reflection of a power struggle in the legal fraternity. People may disagree with the Supreme Courts verdicts. But they are still protected by the Constitution. And the institution is also protected by the Constitution, Ade said.
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RJD supremo Lalu Prasad was speaking on the occasion of Foundation day celebration of the party.
By Press Trust of India: RJD supremo Lalu Prasad today appealed Yaduvanshis - his castemen - to give two litres of milk to their Muslim brothers in their locality on the occasion of Eid.
"They (Yaduvanshis) should greet their Muslim brothers on Eid and have Sewai on the occasion," the Yadav leader said.
He was speaking on the occasion of Foundation day celebration of the party.
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Prasad said the party needs to intensify the movement for publication of caste census.
"We will start movement for publication for caste census. The party will chalk out the programme to carry out the movement," he said.
Prasad exhorted his party leaders and workers to use social media tool such as Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp in order to counter Oppositions "false claims" against the party. PTI AR SUS TIR
--- ENDS ---
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Bandung Wed, July 6, 2016
Around 700 convicts have been released from prison early following the remission of their sentences on the occasion of Idul Fitri.
Full remission has been granted to 700 Muslim inmates for this years Idul Fitri festivity, Law and Human Rights Ministry spokesman M. Akbar Hadiprabowo was quoted as saying by the Antara news agency on Wednesday.
He added that 63,170 Muslim inmates nationwide had had their sentences reduced.
Last year, the government granted remission to 54,434 inmates for Idul Fitri. Ministry data show that, as of July 2, the countrys 477 penitentiaries accommodated 198,911 inmates.
Meanwhile, at the Sukamiskin penitentiary in Bandung, West Java, former top politicians from the Democratic Party serving sentences for various graft convictions were seen performing mass prayers. Among them were Anas Urbaningrum, Andi Mallarangeng, Muhammad Nazaruddin, Sutan Batoegana and Patrice Rio Capella. Only Nazaruddin received a 15-day Idul Fitri remission from the government for this Idul Fitri. (dmr)
Arya Dipa contributed to this story from Bandung, West Java.
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Linkedin Rod McGuirk (Associated Press) Canberra Wed, July 6, 2016
Australia's conservative government remained hopeful on Wednesday of clinging to power after weekend elections turned too close to call. But the opposition leader warned that even if the government musters a majority, it will emerge a divided administration without a mandate for its agenda.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull hopes to know this week whether his Liberal Party-led coalition will achieve a 76-seat majority in the House of Representatives where it had controlled 90 seats.
Bill Shorten, who leads the center-left Labor Party, said on Wednesday that if Turnbull clung to power, he would still have to deal with the most conservative lawmakers in his party who are angry that Turnbull, a moderate, had ousted his predecessor Tony Abbott in an internal leadership ballot less than a year ago.
Turnbull would also have to deal with a more fragmented Senate, which would include One Nation party founder Pauline Hanson, a conservative firebrand denounced by major parties who opposes Muslim and Asian immigration as well as free trade. With no party holding a majority in the Senate, the next government might have to do deals with Hanson and other crossbenchers to get contentious legislation passed.
"If Mr. Turnbull does scrape home, his problems have only just begun," Shorten told reporters. "In the House of Representatives, he'll be hostage to Mr. Abbott and the right wing of the Liberal Party and in the Senate, he'll be hostage to Sen. Hanson ... and other right wing senators."
As of Wednesday, Australian Broadcasting Corp. election analysts considered among the most reliable were predicting that the coalition had 70 seats, Labor 67 and the minor parties and independents were leading in five seats in the House of Representatives. Another eight seats were in doubt. Chief analyst Antony Green said a coalition majority government remained a possibility and that Labor would win fewer seats.
The Australian Electoral Commission put the coalition ahead in 72 seats, Labor in 70 and the minor parties and independents were leading in five seats. Another three seats were in doubt. Mail-in and absentee votes that were being counted days after the weekend poll are favoring the conservatives.
At least 70 percent of votes by Wednesday had been counted in districts where the results were closest.
Abbott, who remains a Liberal lawmaker, said that a majority coalition government "does look more and more likely."
If the government falls short of a majority, Governor General Peter Cosgrove will give Turnbull the first chance to form a minority government with the support of one or more crossbench lawmakers.
If Turnbull can't, then Shorten will be given a chance to form a minority government. If neither side can form a government, then another election will be held.
Turnbull has taken responsibility for the campaign strategy leading into the election that was widely expected to return his government with a reduced but comfortable majority.
"We need to listen very carefully to the concerns the Australian people have expressed at this election," Turnbull wrote on Twitter Wednesday.
Australian Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers rejected criticisms in the media about the pace at which his agency was counting the votes to resolve the uncertainty. Rogers said in statement the rare double dissolution election conducted under new voting rules was "the largest, most complex election in Australia's history."
The makeup of the Senate will likely take a month to calculate, the agency said.
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Linkedin Jill Lawless (Associated Press) London Wed, July 6, 2016
The official inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq War is releasing its findings Wednesday, more than seven years after hearings began and 13 years on from the 2003 US-led invasion.
Retired civil servant John Chilcot is due to publish his 2.6-million-word report on a divisive conflict that by the time British combat forces left in 2009 had killed 179 British troops, almost 4,500 American personnel and more than 100,000 Iraqis.
Iraq descended into sectarian strife after the occupiers dismantled Saddam Hussein's government and military apparatus, unleashing chaos that helped give rise to the Islamic State group.
The war has overshadowed the legacy of Britain's then-leader, Prime Minister Tony Blair. His government has been accused of exaggerating intelligence about Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction in order to build support for invasion.
Blair who declined to comment on the report before publication has always said his government did not invent or distort intelligence.
Senior politicians, diplomats, intelligence officials and military officers are prepared for criticism over the invasion and its aftermath.
Chilcot said Tuesday that he'd "made very clear right at the start of the inquiry that if we came across decisions or behavior which deserved criticism then we wouldn't shy away from making it."
"And indeed, there have been more than a few instances where we are bound to do that," he said.
Chilcot's inquiry held public hearings between 2009 and 2011, taking evidence from more than 150 witnesses and analyzing 150,000 documents.
Its report has been repeatedly delayed, in part by wrangling over the inclusion of classified material, including conversations between Blair and US President George W. Bush. Some of Blair's pre-war letters to the president are expected to be published by Chilcot.
Anti-war activists and relatives of some dead British troops hope the report will find the conflict illegal, opening the way for Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes.
"That man has been the puppet master, and it's about time that we came along and we cut his strings," said Sarah O'Connor, whose brother, Sgt. Bob O'Connor, died in a plane crash in Iraq in 2005.
Chilcot has stressed that his inquiry is not a court of law, and the International Criminal Court has said that the "decision by the UK to go to war in Iraq falls outside the court's jurisdiction."
Chilcot said he wanted the report to be "a really reliable account of all that happened that really matters" over Iraq, with lessons for the future.
Peter Brierley, whose son Lance Cpl. Shaun Brierley was killed in 2003, said he hoped the report "comes somewhere close to what I expect, which is to say that Tony Blair did go to war illegally."
"Scrape away the whitewash and I feel the truth will be actually there," he said.
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Associated Press Writer Jonathan Shenfield contributed to this story.
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Linkedin Prima Wirayani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, July 6, 2016
National flag carrier Garuda Indonesia attributes shorter queues at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport during the annual Idul Fitri exodus to its online check-in service.
"More than 50 percent of the passengers use our web and mobile check-in services, resulting in smooth queues at Cengkareng," Arif said, referring to the airport in Tangerang, Banten.
Arif made the comments after attending an Idul Fitri celebration at the house of State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Minister Rini Soemarno in Kuningan, South Jakarta, on Wednesday.
The carrier has increased its capacity by 23 percent, equal to 32,000 additional seats, to meet rising demand during 10 days before and after Idul Fitri.
Garuda Indonesia normally has a monthly capacity of 700,000 seats.
The airline has added 120 domestic flights and 112 international flights for the Idul Fitri holiday period.
"Several members of our board of directors will visit big cities, such as Yogyakarta, Semarang [in Central Java] and Surabaya [in East Java] to supervise the return flow after Idul Fitri," Arif said, adding that the visits were aimed at ensuring smooth services for passengers. (tas)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, July 6, 2016
On the heels of the suicide bombing against police headquarters in Surakarta on the eve of Idul Fitri, prayers held across the country passed peacefully on Wednesday morning amid heightened security.
The festive mood of the takbiran (eve of Idul Fitri celebrations), enlivened by convoys of residents throughout the archipelago on Tuesday evening, was not dampened by the attack earlier in the day, which left the attacker as the sole casualty.
President Joko Jokowi Widodo performed the morning prayer along with thousands of Muslims at the Padang Grand Mosque in West Sumatra.
The National Police confirmed earlier that President Jokowi was scheduled to celebrate Idul Fitri with his family in Surakarta after his working visit to Padang, suggesting that the bomb attack did not change the Presidents plans.
The government had decided on Monday that Syawal 1, which marks the first day of Idul Fitri, would fall on July 6.
Meanwhile, Vice President Jusuf Kalla and his wife, Mufidah Jusuf Kalla, attended Idul Fitri prayers at the Istiqlal Mosque in Central Jakarta, along with around 150,000 Muslims. (dmr)
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Linkedin Lori Hinnant, Maya Alleruzzo and Balint Szlanko (Associated Presss) Khanke, Iraq Wed, July 6, 2016
The advertisement on the Telegram app is as chilling as it is incongruous: A girl for sale is "Virgin. Beautiful. 12 years old.... Her price has reached $12,500 and she will be sold soon."
The posting in Arabic appeared on an encrypted conversation along with ads for kittens, weapons and tactical gear. It was shared with The Associated Press by an activist with the minority Yazidi community, whose women and children are being held as sex slaves by the extremists.
While the Islamic State group is losing territory in its self-styled caliphate, it is tightening its grip on the estimated 3,000 women and girls held as sex slaves. In a fusion of ancient barbaric practices and modern technology, IS sells the women like chattel on smart phone apps and shares databases that contain their photographs and the names of their "owners" to prevent their escape through IS checkpoints. The fighters are assassinating smugglers who rescue the captives, just as funds to buy the women out of slavery are drying up.
The thousands of Yazidi women and children were taken prisoner in August 2014, when IS fighters overran their villages in northern Iraq with the aim to eliminate the Kurdish-speaking minority because of its ancient faith. Since then, Arab and Kurdish smugglers managed to free an average of 134 people a month. But by May, an IS crackdown reduced those numbers to just 39 in the last six weeks, according to figures provided by the Kurdistan regional government.
Mirza Danai, founder of the German-Iraqi aid organization Luftbrucke Irak, said in the last two or three months, escape has become more difficult and dangerous.
"They register every slave, every person under their owner, and therefore if she escapes, every Daesh control or checkpoint, or security force - they know that this girl ... has escaped from this owner," he said, using the Arabic acronym for the group.
US State Department spokesman John Kirby told the AP that the US continues "to be appalled by credible reports that Daesh is trafficking in human beings, and sex slavery in particular."
"This depravity not only speaks to the degree to which Daesh cheapens life and repudiates the Islamic faith, it also strengthens our resolve to defeat them," he said.
The AP has obtained a batch of 48 head shots of the captives, smuggled out of the IS-controlled region by an escapee, which people familiar with them say are similar to those in the extremists' slave database and the smartphone apps.
Lamiya Aji Bashar tried to flee four times before finally escaping in March, racing to government-controlled territory with Islamic State group fighters in pursuit. A land mine exploded, killing her companions, 8-year-old Almas and Katherine, 20. She never learned their last names.
The explosion left Lamiya blind in her right eye, her face scarred by melted skin. Saved by the man who smuggled her out, she counts herself among the lucky.
"I managed in the end, thanks to God, I managed to get away from those infidels," the 18-year-told the AP from a bed at her uncle's home in the northern Iraqi town of Baadre. "Even if I had lost both eyes, it would have been worth it, because I have survived them."
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The Sunni extremists view the Yazidis as barely human. The Yazidi faith combines elements of Islam, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, an ancient Persian religion. Their pre-war population in Iraq was estimated around 500,000. Their number today is unknown.
Nadia Mourad, an escapee, has appeared before the US Congress and the European Parliament to appeal for international help.
"Daesh is proud of what it's done to the Yazidis," she said to Parliament. "They are being used has human shields. They are not allowed to escape or flee. Probably they will be assassinated. Where is the world in all this? Where is humanity?"
IS relies on encrypted apps to sell the women and girls, according to an activist is documenting the transactions and asked not to be named for fear of his safety.
The activist showed AP the negotiations for the captives in encrypted conversations as they were occurring in real time.
The postings appear primarily on Telegram and on Facebook and WhatsApp to a lesser degree, he said.
Both Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Telegram use end-to-end encryption to protect users' privacy. Both have said they consider protecting private conversations and data paramount, and that they themselves cannot access users' content.
"Telegram is extremely popular in the Middle East, among other regions," said Telegram spokesman Markus Ra. "This, unfortunately, includes the more marginal elements and the broadest law-abiding masses alike." He added the company is committed to prevent abuse of the service and that it routinely removes public channels used by IS.
In addition to the posting for the 12-year-old in a group with hundreds of members, the AP viewed an ad on WhatsApp for a mother with a 3-year-old and a 7-month old baby, with a price of $3,700. "She wants her owner to sell her," read the posting, followed by a photo.
"We have zero tolerance for this type of behavior and disable accounts when provided with evidence of activity that violates our terms. We encourage people to use our reporting tools if they encounter this type of behavior," said Matt Steinfeld, a spokesman for WhatsApp.
Like the Bible, some passages of the Quran implicitly condone slavery, which was widespread when the holy book emerged. It also allows men to have sex with both their wives and "those they possess with their right hands," taken by interpreters to refer to female slaves.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, most Muslim scholars backed the banning of slavery, citing Quranic verses that say freeing them is a blessing. Some hard-liners, however, continued to insist that under Shariah sex slavery must be permitted, though the Islamic State group is the first in the modern era to bring it into organized practice.
In the images obtained by AP, many of the women and girls are dressed in finery, some in heavy makeup. All look directly at the camera, standing in front of overstuffed chairs or brocade curtains in what resembles a shabby hotel ballroom. Some are barely out of elementary school. Not one looks older than 30.
One of them is Nazdar Murat, who was about 16 when she was abducted two years ago one of more than two dozen young women taken away by the extremists in a single day in August 2014. Her father and uncles were among about 40 people killed when IS took over the Sinjar area, the heart of the Yazidi homeland.
Inside an immaculately kept tent in a displaced persons camp outside the northern Iraqi town of Dahuk, Nazdar's mother said her daughter managed to call once, six months ago.
"We spoke for a few seconds. She said she was in Mosul," said Murat, referring to Iraq's second-largest city. "Every time someone comes back, we ask them what happened to her and no one recognizes her. Some people told me she committed suicide."
The family keeps the file of missing Yazidis on a mobile phone. They show it to those who have escaped the caliphate, to find out if anyone has seen her, and to other families looking for a thread of hope they'll see their own missing relatives again.
The odds of rescue, however, grow slimmer by the day. The smuggling networks that have freed the captives are being targeted by IS leaders, who are fighting to keep the Yazidis at nearly any cost, said Andrew Slater of the non-profit group Yazda, which helps document crimes against the community and organizes refuge for those who have fled.
Kurdistan's regional government had been reimbursing impoverished Yazidi families who paid up to $15,000 in fees to smugglers to rescue their relatives, or the ransoms demanded by individual fighters to give up the captives. But the Kurdish regional government no longer has the funds. For the past year, Kurdistan has been mired in an economic crisis brought on by the collapse of oil prices, a dispute with Iraq's central government over revenues, and the fallout from the war against the Islamic State.
Even when IS retreats from towns like Ramadi or Fallujah, the missing girls are nowhere to be found.
"Rescues are slowing. They're going to stop. People are running out of money, I have dozens of families who are tens of thousands of dollars in debt," Slater said. "There are still thousands of women and kids in captivity but it's getting harder and harder to get them out."
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Lamiya was abducted from the village of Kocho, near the town of Sinjar, in the summer of 2014. Her parents are presumed dead. Somewhere, she said, her 9-year-old sister Mayada remains captive. One photo she managed to send to the family shows the little girl standing in front of an IS flag.
Five other sisters all managed to escape and later were relocated to Germany. A younger brother, kept for months in an IS training camp in Mosul, also slipped away and is now staying with other relatives in Dahuk, a city in the Iraqi Kurdish region.
Sitting very still and speaking in a monotone, Lamiya recounted her captivity, describing how she was passed from one IS follower to another, all of whom beat and violated her. She was determined to escape.
She said her first "owner" was an Iraqi IS commander who went by the name Abu Mansour in the city of Raqqa, the de-facto IS capital deep in Syria. He brutalized her, often keeping her handcuffed.
She tried to run away twice but was caught, beaten and raped repeatedly. After a month, she said, she was sold to another IS extremist in Mosul. After she spent two months with him, she was sold again, this time to an IS bomb-maker who Lamiya said forced her to help him make suicide vests and car bombs.
"I tried to escape from him," she said. "And he captured me, too, and he beat me."
When the bomb-maker grew bored with her, she was handed over to an IS doctor in Hawija, a small IS-controlled Iraqi town. She said the doctor, who was the IS head of the town hospital, also abused her.
From there, after more than a year, she managed to contact her relatives in secret.
Her uncle said the family paid local smugglers $800 to arrange Lamiya's escape. She will be reunited with her siblings in Germany, but despite everything, her heart remains in Iraq.
"We had a nice house with a big farm ... I was going to school," she said. "It was beautiful."
___
Salar Salim in Khanke, Lee Keath in Cairo and Desmond Butler in Washington contributed to this report.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, July 6, 2016
Istiqlal Mosque grand imam Nasaruddin Umar has urged Muslim families to help build a Quranic generation, likening the institution of the family to childrens first madrasah (Islamic school).
In a sermon delivered at the mosque after Idul Fitri prayers on Wednesday, Nasaruddin said a Quranic generation that was strong and competitive yet still held onto the good values of the Quran was essential for the betterment of the nation.
"Preparing a generation of greater integrity and living under the shadow of the Quran is a necessity. So this is the time for us to prepare them," Nasaruddin said, adding that formal school and society also played an important role in shaping such a generation.
Security forces predicted that the Idul Fitri prayer at the biggest mosque in the country in Central Jakarta was attended by about 150,000 people.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla and his wife, Mufidah Jusuf Kalla, were among the congregation. (Vny)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, July 6, 2016
The Jakarta administration plans to increase public participation in the citys efforts to prevent terror attacks on the heels of the recent suicide bombing in Surakarta.
Jakarta Deputy Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat said on Wednesday that the administration would maximize the role of the Early Awareness Society Forum (FKDM) to detect suspicious behavior in the city.
"FKDM is like an intelligence body for the administration. We've obtained a lot of information from it so we will strengthen the role of the body," Djarot said.
The deputy governor said he had talked about the plan with representatives from the Indonesian Military and the Regional Leadership Communication Forum (Forkopinda) on Tuesday evening.
"We are coordinating with Forkopinda to ensure the city's security because we assume that there are some people linked to the [Surakarta] suicide bomber who want to enter the capital," he said at his official residence in East Kuningan, South Jakarta. (ary)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, July 6, 2016
While retailers in the capital are involved in a war of discounts during the Jakarta Great Sale that runs from June 3 to July 17, some Jakarta residents opt for cheaper secondhand clothes sold at several places throughout the capital.
After an hour browsing for a good secondhand shirt at Senen Market in Central Jakarta, student Iqbal Alfiandi, 19, finally found what he was looking for: a Uniqlo-branded short-sleeve plaid shirt in good condition for only Rp35,000 (US$2).
This shirt is a good deal. Aside from this, I also got a Levis denim jacket for only Rp 120,000 here few weeks ago, Iqbal happily said on Tuesday, a day before Idul Fitri, or locally known as Lebaran.
While holding a plastic bag of clothes, Iqbal said he would browse for other shirts at the market to equip himself with some new clothes for Lebaran.
A brand-new Uniqlo shirt at its retail store is priced at around Rp 199,000 to Rp 349,000, while a Levis denim jacket can reach beyond Rp 1 million at the company's official store.
Even though many online and offline retailers have offered big discounts of up to 80 percent since last month, Iqbal is committed to his low-end lifestyle, knowing that he can bag more stylish clothes at secondhand markets around the city.
At Senen Market, a seller said the number of people buying secondhand clothes had been growing continuously since the first day of Ramadhan. It reaches its peak at the end of June, the seller said.
One seller, Dwi Prasetyo, 33 said the number of clothes sold in his tent nearly doubled compared to regular days.
On regular days usually there are around 40 to 50 purchases. Since the first day of the fasting month, however, I can sell up to 90 clothes daily, Dwi, who originated from Padang, West Sumatra, said.
Dwi charges a price of Rp 20,000 to Rp 70,000 for a shirt, Rp 40,000 to Rp 150,000 for pants and jeans, and Rp 80,000 to Rp 250,000 for a jacket or parka.
While serving customers at his temporary stall roofed with blue tarpaulin, he said the pricing factor depended on brand and the condition of the items.
Aside from centralized secondhand sellers such as in Pasar Senen, stand-alone secondhand stores also popped up in other parts of the city including at the Rawa Belong intersection in West Jakarta.
The owner, Hadi, 62 reaffirmed that during Ramadhan, more and more customers came to the small space he rents for a living.
When The Jakarta Post visited the store, Hadi was negotiating the price of a pair of jeans with customers. It is cheap enough, Rp 70,000, he said, the price then agreed to by both parties.
Hadi went on to say that after getting a bale of secondhand clothes from an importer in Cakung, North Jakarta, he always washed them before selling them to make them look brand-new.
Maybe that is why my store is always full of customers, he confidently said.
One customer, Kusmarno, 40 said he preferred to shop in secondhand stores instead of shopping malls as he could bargain over the price.
If we browse thoroughly, we can find a good item with a really cheap price, he said. (adt/iwa)
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Linkedin Grace D. Amianti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, July 6, 2016
State-owned toll road operator Jasa Marga plans to waive toll fees at its Cikarang Utama gate in West Java to prepare for heavy traffic congestion after the Idul Fitri holidays.
The publicly-listed company has been instructed by Public Works and Public Housing Minister Basuki Hadimuljono to provide complimentary access if it finds traffic congestion stretching up to 3 kilometers, said Jasa Marga president director Adityawarman on Wednesday.
"The [Public Works and Public Housing] minister has instructed us that drivers are exempted from paying toll fees if they are stuck in a heavy traffic."
According to Jasa Margas observation, heavy congestion occurs every year post-Idul Fitri at the Cikarang Utama toll gate, which is the last payment point on the Jakarta-Cikampek toll road.
The complimentary service will be provided this weekend, during which Jasa Marga expects to see the highest peak of the returning flow. However, the service may be extended if the company finds traffic congestion persisting in the following week.
Adityawarman said he had conveyed the instruction to State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Minister Rini Soemarno when he attended an open house at Rinis private residence in Kuningan, South Jakarta.
As reported before, the massive exodus pre-Idul Fitri resulted in traffic jams stretching more than 20 kilometers on a toll road heading to Brebes, Central Java. The jam forced travelers to find alternative routes to get to their destinations. (tas)
By PTI: Ahmedabad, Jul 5 (PTI) Three sons of Janata Dal (United) MLA Chhotu Vasava were among eight persons sentenced today by a court to three years in jail for attacking a local Congress leader.
Additional sessions judge M H Patel at Ankleshwar suspended the ruling to enable the accused to file appeal in the Gujarat High Court, and granted bail to all of them, except Kishor Vasava, one of the sons of the MLA from Jhagadia in Bharuch district.
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The other two sons of the MLA sentenced are Mahesh and Dileep. Mahesh Vasava is a former JD(U) MLA from Dediapada.
All eight accused were found guilty under section 325 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt) of the IPC, but the charge of attempt to murder was quashed.
According to the local Congress leader Balu Vasava, the accused assaulted him in January 2009 claiming that he was coming in the way of Chhotu Vasavas work in the region.
Chhotu Vasava, a tribal leader, is the lone MLA of his party in Gujarat. PTI KA PD KRK ZMN BAS
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, July 6, 2016
President Joko Jokowi Widodo arrived in Surakarta in Central Java on Wednesday evening, a day after a suicide bomber hit the citys police headquarters, Antara reported.
Jokowi will spend the Idul Fitri holiday in the city, where he was mayor for seven years, before holding an open house event in Yogyakarta on Saturday. The President is expected to return to Jakarta on Saturday night.
Jokowi has called on people to remain calm after Tuesday's attack and not to be afraid of terror.
Jokowi began his political career in Surakarta where he was mayor from 2005 to 2012. While widely known for its cultural heritage as an historic city, Surakarta is also known as a hotbed for extremist organizations inspired by Salafi-Jihadism.
The Ngruki Islamic school, which was co-founded by Indonesian jihadi ideologue Abu Bakar Baasyir, is located in Surakarta.
The National Police said they would boost security in Surakarta though they also said that the President was not a primary target of terrorists. (ary)
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Linkedin Ayomi Amindoni (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, July 6, 2016
Vice President Jusuf Kalla hosted an open house event to celebrate the first day of Idul Fitri at the Vice Presidential Palace on Wednesday, where he received ministers, ambassadors, heads of state institutions, businesspeople and members of the public.
Numerous top politicians, such as Golkar Party chairman Setya Novanto and the partys secretary-general, Idrus Marham, were seen at the event, as well as businesspeople Erwin Aksa, Chaerul Tanjung and Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) chairman Rosan Roslani.
After attending an Idul Fitri mass prayer at the Istiqlal Mosque in Central Jakarta, Kalla and his family rushed to the Vice Presidential Palace, which was promptly opened for the guests at 10 a.m. During the event, Kalla was accompanied by his wife Mufidah Kalla, along with family members and relatives.
The event was divided into two sessions, the first of which was devoted to ambassadors, ministers and heads of state institutions, while the second was open to the public.
Meanwhile, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo celebrated the first day of Idul Fitri in Padang, West Sumatra, following his tradition to spend the holiday outside the capital city of Jakarta. After attending the Eid mass prayer at the West Sumatra Grand Mosque, Jokowi and his entourage headed to his hometown of Surakarta in Central Java. (iik)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, July 6, 2016
Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara hosted an open house event to celebrate the first day of Idul Fitri at his official residence on Wednesday.
The event was held at the Widya Chandra ministerial housing complex in South Jakarta. Rudiantara arrived at 2 p.m. after visiting former president Megawati Sukarnoputri at her house in Menteng, Central Jakarta.
Wearing a red batik with yellow floral motifs, Rudiantara welcomed guests, mostly family members and the ministrys high-ranking officials.
The ministrys secretary-general Farida Dwi Cahyarini, director general for public information and communications Niken Widiastuti and director for telecommunications Benyamin Sura were among the guests.
"It's very hot outside," Rudiantara told his guests.
Some 30 minutes later, other guests arrived, including Belgian Ambassador to Indonesia Patrick Herman, legislator Tantowi Yahya, former Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu and actress and television presenter Olga Lydia.
Rudiantara served his guests with traditional Asian and Indonesian dishes, including kebab, dim sum, empal gentong (beef served from a clay barrel) and steamed dumplings.
"The food was prepared by a catering company. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to be involved in the preparation for the meal," Rudiantara told reporters. (mos/vps) (tas)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, July 6, 2016
Muslims were reminded during Idul Fitri prayers on Wednesday to always pursue peace in life and to condemn any form of terrorism.
Muhammadiyah leadership board member Yunahar Ilyas said during a sermon at Al-Azhar Mosque in South Jakarta that Islam never approved of violence committed in the name of religion.
"Currently, we often feel insecure and without peace. The truth is, Islam tells us about peace on earth and also in heaven [...] We need to prove to the world that our religion loves peace," Yunahar told the congregation, referring to recent terrorist attacks in several countries.
Thousands of Muslim enjoyed peaceful Idul Fitri prayers at the Al-Azhar Mosque and across Jakarta. At Istiqlal Mosque in Central Jakarta, the congregation performed prayers under the guard of some 240 police personnel.
Dita Adinda, 26, from Serpong in Tangerang, Banten, said she was happy about the peaceful prayer at the mosque.
"I am hoping for a more peaceful year ahead, so that we could celebrate the day of victory [Idul Fitri] with more happiness," she said.
She added that before entering the mosque, she had been scanned and her belongings X-rayed at the entrance. (Cal/Vny)
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Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, July 6, 2016
State-owned pawn shop PT Pegadaian reported a 5 percent annual increase in outstanding financing in the first half of the year as people pawned gold to meet various needs for Idul Fitri.
Pegadaian president director Riswinandi, who goes by one name only, said its outstanding financing portfolio stood at Rp 33.6 trillion (US$2.55 billion) in the January to June period, higher than the Rp 32 trillion recorded in the same period of last year.
"More and more people pawned gold for cash, especially in April to June, before Idul Fitri for various celebration needs, he told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of an open house at the private residence of State Enterprise Minister Rini Soemarno on Wednesday.
However, people already paid off their financing a week before Idul Fitri using their holiday bonus [THR]. They usually come to Pegadaian again in August."
Pegadaian predicts that people will be more attracted to pawning gold due to its attractive price, especially after the results of the UK referendum made global markets more volatile.
Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that gold climbed as much as 1.1 percent to $1,371.39 an ounce, the highest level since March 2014.
Separately, Tedy Badrujaman, president director of major gold miner Aneka Tambang (Antam), said it expected to see the gold selling spree continue this month as people sought profits from the high price to finance their needs. (tas)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, July 6, 2016
Houses left empty during the Idul Fitri holiday period are a big concern for their owners, as the unoccupied properties make an easy target for thieves.
To prevent such crime, many house owners in Greater Jakarta employ people to guard their home while they are out of town for several days.
Hafsah Hannan, a mother of two living in Palmerah in West Jakarta, said she was planning to go to Bogor in West Java for three days after Idul Fitri this year. She had asked an acquaintance of hers to watch over her house.
I usually ask Joko, a friend of my husbands who lives nearby, to guard my house when we leave for a long trip. He often sleeps at my house at night just to make sure that it is safe from theft, Hafsah said in Palmerah on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, for Merry Wati, 42, leaving her house empty for several days during the Idul Fitri holiday means she needs to report to the security officers of her housing complex in Pamulang, Tangerang.
Every time my family and I go to our hometown in West Sumatra for Idul Fitri, I entrust the house to the security guards of our housing complex, Merry told The Jakarta Post recently, adding that she would stay in Bukittinggi, West Sumatra, for about two weeks over Idul Fitri this year.
Jakarta Police have geared up for increased crime, including theft on empty houses and terrorist attacks, during the holy month of Ramadhan and Idul Fitri in Jakarta, the capital city of the country with the largest Muslim population, by deploying hundreds of officers to tighten security.
Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Awi Setiono said Tuesday via phone that the police had registered people leaving their houses empty during the Idul Fitri holidays and would increase the number of personnel in areas where many houses were left vacant.
Meanwhile, Nurdiansyah, a security guard at a residential complex of some 43 homes in Palmerah, told the Post that he and his two partners had also tightened security at unoccupied houses by checking on the properties every two hours.
We are more alert when families entrust their empty houses to be guarded by us, so we conduct regular inspections on every house left empty, Nurdiansyah said, adding that almost half of the house owners in the residence complex had left their homes for the holidays this year. (vny/dmr)
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Linkedin Prima Wirayani and Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, July 6, 2016
State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) Minister Rini Soemarno has held an open house event to celebrate the first day of Idul Fitri at her private residence in Kuningan, South Jakarta.
Guests, most of them executives from state-owned enterprises, were seen visiting the house at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. The event was arranged in two phases, with the first, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., intended for executives of non-banking state firms and the second, from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m., for executives of state-owned banks.
Despite that arrangement, Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) president director Achmad Baiquni and Bank Tabungan Negara (BTN) president director Maryono were seen attending the first phase of the event.
Also among the attendees were oil and gas giant Pertamina president director Dwi Soetjipto and marketing director Ahmad Bambang, national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia president director Arif Wibowo, and mining company Antam president director Tedy Badrujaman.
"Please come inside," Rini greeted the guests waiting in a large white tent set up in front of her house after she returned from an open house event at the Vice Presidential Palace in Central Jakarta.
Rinis guests were served roasted lamb, orange leaf rice, sushi and tori katsu. (tas)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, July 6, 2016
National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti said the suicide bomber who had blown himself up at a Surakarta police station was the only suspect so far in the attack that allegedly targeted police personnel gathered for a morning briefing.
"He [Nur Rohman, 30] is probably the only suspect, as he produced the explosive device himself, Badrodin was quoted as saying by tribunnews.com on Wednesday.
Badrodin said Nur Rohman might have made the bomb in December or January, given the devices similarity with those seized by police last year.
According to Badrodin, Nur Rohman is a member of the Jamaah Anshar Khilafah Daulah Nusantara terrorist network. He managed to slip away from police raids in Bekasi in December last year.
However, a source at the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) said Nur had been a member of a homegrown Islamic State cell led by Arief Hidayatullah, alias Abu Musab. Arief was detained by police in December last year for allegedly plotting a New Year's Eve attack. (dmr)
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Linkedin Grace D. Amianti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, July 6, 2016
The government is looking to resume discussions on a planned financial holding firm after the end of the Idul Fitri holidays.
We have set up a team for the process and we will discuss the technical details after Idul Fitri. We will decide what the next step will be, Gatot Trihargo, the deputy for financial services at the State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Ministry, said on Wednesday.
The team consists of executives and technical officers from the four state banks, namely Bank Mandiri, Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) and Bank Tabungan Negara (BTN).
In addition to the four lenders, the holding company will consist of state financial firm Permodalan Nasional Madani and state pawn shop Pegadaian as well.
The executives must report to the ministry on whether or not several aspects within the process will affect their business plans.
We will also continue our discussions with the Financial Services Authority [OJK] after Idul Fitri as we need to conduct more intense discussions, particularly in terms of regulations, he said.
The ministry announced in April the appointment of state investment company Danareksa as a future financial holding firm and assigned state investment firm Bahana Pembinaan Usaha Indonesia (BPUI) as the consultant.
The holding firm is part of a long-term transformation program for state-owned enterprises to become a superholding company that will resemble Malaysian sovereign investment fund Khazanah Nasional.
In the meantime, Gatot said the ministry would continue integrating state-run banks ATM networks and electronic data capture (EDC) machines.
The ministry considers IT system integration as a major prerequisite for the establishment of the holding company. (tas)
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Linkedin Ayomi Amindoni (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, July 6, 2016
A revision to the 2003 Terrorism Law should be prioritized to improve the countrys ability to prevent terror attacks, a minister has said.
"The incident in Solo yesterday makes us realize again that the threat of terrorism is real," Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly told reporters on the sidelines of an Idul Fitri celebration at the Vice Presidential Palace on Wednesday.
A suicide bomber linked to the Islamic State (IS) movement hit a police headquarters in the city of Surakarta, also known as Solo, in Central Java, on the eve of Idul Fitri. The bombing attack, which injured one police officer, is believed to be part of global terror attacks coordinated or inspired by IS during Ramadan.
It's a global phenomenon, [it also happened] in Turkey, Afghanistan, our country, Pakistan, and it continues," the minister said.
The government has proposed a draft revision of the 2003 Terrorism Law following a terror attack in Jakarta earlier this year. In the revision, the government will expand the definition of terrorism. The draft bill was included as a priority bill for the 2016 National Legislation Program (Prolegnas), and currently the House of Representatives is still formulating problem inventory list. (ary)
"The United States and India are signing agreements against Pakistan and there has been a preparation of a big war", Hafiz Saeed said.
"The United States and India are signing agreements against Pakistan and there has been a preparation of a big war", Hafiz Saeed said.
By India Today Web Desk: Even on an occasion like Eid, Jamat-ud-Dawa chief and Mumbai attack mastermind Hafeez Saeed spewed venom against India and the United States.
The Lashkar-e-Taiba today addressed a large gathering at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, where he said that international players are conspiring against Pakistan's nuclear programme.
"The United States and India are signing agreements against Pakistan and there has been a preparation of a big war", he said, alleging "drones are parked at Indian airports and our rulers are engaged in a fight with opposition."
WHAT DID HAFIZ SAEED SAY Saeed also talked about the Pakistan's relation with Saudi Arabia. "It is a blessing in disguise that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are getting distanced from America. This will lay foundation of the Islamic Union which is the need of the hour for the Islamic world," he said. Condemning the terror attack in Saudi Arabia, Saeed alleged that "foreign hands" were destabilising the Muslim world. Saeed has been leading the Eid prayers in Lahore for many years. He has addressed anti-India rallies on many occasions. India has often asked Pakistan to bring Seed to justice for 2008 Mumbai attacks. However, Islamabad says it has no proof against the JuD chief.
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The Essex Street Market has a new look, thanks in part to a colorful mural recently created on the outside of the 1940-era building by artist Gera Lozano. But theres also a lot happening inside the historic market, which has struggled in recent years to attract enough regular customers. In the past month, Anne Saxelby, head of the vendor association, updated members of Community Board 3 on efforts to revive the facility. We have details on that today, as well as a status report from the citys Economic Development Corp. (EDC), which operates the market.
In the past couple of years, Saxelby has been a vocal critic of the citys management of the facility. She raised concerns about lackluster marketing efforts, but also the lack of a clear management plan to operate the new, expanded Essex Street Market that will anchor the Essex Crossing development project.
But in her appearance before the community board, Saxelby said, Were happy to say that EDC did respond to the concerns, outsourcing marketing to the Lower East Side Partnership, hiring a vendor coordinator and facilitating several high profile public events. We have better attendance, better communication with all the vendors, more vendor buy-in and better participation in all of our events, said Saxelby. She added, In the last 90 days, we have accomplished more than I saw accomplished at the market in terms of marketing in promotion in the last 10 years.
While explaining that the EDC has been very responsive and cooperative, Saxelby said she remains concerned about the future. In the past, the vendor association has called on the city to hire a locally-based not-for-profit organization to take over management of the new market, which is scheduled to open in about two years. We did and do want to see a road map towards alternative management, she said. We requested that of EDC and they still have not been able to commit to any kind of alternative management plan.
Following the meeting, we contacted officials with the Economic Development Corp. Last fall, they indicated that a consultant, Ted Spitzer of Market Ventures, had been hired to make recommendations about the best management structure for the new market, but that no decisions had been made by the city. Anthony Hogrebe, senior vice president for public affairs, told us in the past week:
we are currently working to finalize a detailed plan for the new market that takes into consideration the operational changes of the new facility. (The Essex Street Market) is an important City asset and we want to be thoughtful about our plans for the space, and to ensure that we have full input from the vendors and other key stakeholders before making final decisions. We expect to be able to share more specifics in the coming months.
EDC officials, along with Spitzer and members of the Essex Crossing development team, have met repeatedly with existing vendors about their spaces in the new facility. Saxelby said merchants are generally upbeat with that process. The new market will be about twice the size of the current facility, meaning there will be many new vendors. We asked whether the city had started the recruitment process.
Hogrebe explained, We have so far been primarily focused on thoroughly engaging current vendors to plan for their new stalls and the move to the new facility. But he added that a recruitment plan is being developed and that with the help of Market Ventures the city has done a lot of groundwork to identify key elements to a successful market, including the right vendor mix.
Finally, Hogrebe said city officials are encouraged by recent developments at the market, including the addition of new vendors such as Osaka Grub. Its definitely a good sign, he said, that people are excited and investing in the future of our market.
In her community board appearance, Saxelby pointed out that the EDC has been recruiting for a new position, a vice president and executive director of markets. According to the job listing, the new executive will be responsible for policy development, growth strategies, and operational oversight of the Citys public retail markets including Essex Street Market, Arthur Avenue Market, Moore Street Market and La Marqueta. Saxelby said theres concern about the city lumping the Essex Street Market in with other properties EDC manages. While we understand that this is a portfolio thats difficult for them, economically and otherwise, for them to manage, we just want to continue pushing them to be forward-looking, she said.
Ranveer Singh, who turns 31 today, has thanked his fans in the most adorable way possible.
By India Today Web Desk: Birthday boy Ranveer Singh is unlike any other actor- off screen as well as on screen. And he never ceases to surprise his fans in the quirkiest and most interesting ways. And on his 31st birthday, as soon as his fans started pouring wishes and love, Ranveer thanked them in the most adorable way possible.
ALSO READ: Is Arjun Kapoor planning something for Ranveer Singh's birthday?
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ALSO READ: Ranveer and Deepika's PDA in this video will give you major relationship goals
Ranveer, who made his Bollywood debut in 2010 with Band Baaja Baaraat, has come a long way in the last six years. If his stellar performances have won the hearts of critics, his energy off screen has melt the hearts of innumerable fans. Within a short span, the Gunday actor has earned huge popularity.
And on his birthday, the Befikre actor took to social media to thank his fans for the immense love and support. He wrote, Reading all your messages. Thank you everyone!!!! I can't handle it ya."
Reading all your messages
Thank you everyone!!!!
I can't handle it ya ?? pic.twitter.com/d8VFM8MN6p Ranveer Singh (@RanveerOfficial) July 5, 2016
On the work front, Ranveer has recently wrapped up the shooting of Aditya Chopra's Befikre in Paris. Ranveer will romance Vani Kapoor in the film. The film is set to hit the screens on December 9.
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Hollywood superstar Sylvester Stallone, best known for his performances in the Rocky series, the Rambo franchise, and The Expendables films turned 70 today.
By India Today Web Desk: Hollywood actor-director and global superstar Sylvester Stallone turned 70 today (July 6) and he is reportedly celebrating his birthday in southern France.
According to a report in The Daily Mail, the Rocky Balboa star reached Nice airport on Tuesday (July 5) afternoon along with his family. Accompanying him were his wife Jennifer Flavin, and his daughters Sophia, Scarlet and Sistene.
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Sylvester, nicknamed Sly Stallone, has become a household name over the years thanks to the popularity and success of his Rocky, Rambo and The Expendables franchises.
ALSO READ: When Muhammad Ali took a dig at Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa
Sylvester Stallone in a still from Rocky (1976)
The Rocky franchise, spread over four decades (the first film Rocky was released in 1976 while the last, Creed II, is slated for a 2017 release), stars Stallone as boxer Rocky Balboa. While in the first film, Balboa is a young, small-time boxer who battles all the odds to become world heavyweight champion, in the last film Creed, Balboa is old and has put boxing behind him but still, he trains the son of Apollo Creed, the man he beat to become champion in the first film.
Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo in First Blood III
The Rambo franchise is an action-adventure film series based on the exploits of lethal U.S ex-special forces soldier whose services are frequently required by the American government to covertly fight for American interests in places such as Vietnam and Afghanistan. While the first film, First Blood, released in 1982 starred Rambo as a troubled US war veteran who gets in trouble with the city police upon returning home, the films following First Blood become more action-oriented than the character drama that First Blood attempts to be.
Apart from gaining international fame by playing Rocky and Rambo, Stallone has starred in multiple action films which have moderately successful such as Cobra (1986), Demolition Man (1993) and Assassins (1995). The three-time-Oscar-nominated actor also ventured into acting in serious dramas like Cop Land (1997) co-starring Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta and comedies like Oscar (1991). While his performances were appreciated in these films, they did not leave a mark commercially.
However, Stallone came back into his own with his 80s style testosterone-filled old school action when he wrote and directed The Expendables in 2010 starring popular action stars, both old and new, such as Jason Staham and Mickey Rourke. Stallone soon developed it into a franchise which spawned two more films. All three films were global blockbusters.
Sylvester Stallone and Jason Staham in a still from The Expendables II Sylvester Stallone and Jason Staham in a still from The Expendables II
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Stallone's upcoming projects include the animated comedy film Animal Crackers and reportedly, Guardians of the Galaxy 2.
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Sir John Chilcot has unveiled his report into the Iraq war.
Ministers from Prime Minister Tony Blair downwards, Whitehall mandarins and senior army officers all came in for criticism in Sir Johns seven-year inquiry into the conflict.
(Charlotte Pamment/PA)
Here are 17 key points from the 2.6 million-word report:
1. The UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted and military action at that time was not a last resort.
2. Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat at the time of the invasion.
(David Wilcock/PA)
3. No support for Blair critics claim that he agreed a deal signed in blood to topple Saddam Hussein with US president George W Bush in April 2002.
4. But in July 2002 Blair wrote to Bush: I will be with you whatever.
5. The UKs decision to act despite no second UN resolution backing military action in March 2003 had the effect of undermining the Security Councils authority.
6. Attorney General Lord Goldsmiths decision that there was a legal basis for UK involvement in invasion was taken in a way which was far from satisfactory.
(Dan Kitwood/PA)
7. Prime Minister Tony Blairs September 2002 Commons statement and dossier on Iraqs weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), made judgements that were presented with a certainty that was not justified.
8. The Labour Governments policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments that should have been challenged.
9. The consequences of the invasion were under-estimated, and planning and preparation for after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein were wholly inadequate.
(Dan Kitwood/PA)
10. The Governments war preparations failed to take into account the magnitude of the task of stabilising, administering and reconstructing Iraq.
11. Problems that arose following the invasion, including internal fighting, Iranian influences, regional instability and al Qaeda activity, were flagged as risks before the invasion.
12. Whitehall mandarins and departmental ministers failed to put their collective weight behind the task of stabilising British parts of post-war Iraq.
(Dan Kitwood/PA)
13. The Ministry of Defence was slow to respond to threat of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) to troops.
14. Delays in providing better-protected patrol vehicles should not have been tolerated.
15. It was humiliating that by 2007 British troops in Basra had to use prisoner exchanges to get militias to stop targeting them.
16. Tony Blair overestimated his ability to influence US decisions on Iraq.
17. The US/UK special relationship has proved strong enough to bear the weight of honest disagreement and does not require unconditional support where our interests or judgements differ.
The UK government failed to achieve its stated objectives" in its invasion of Iraq, Sir John Chilcot has concluded.
The UK also chose to invade Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted.
In his statement to coincide the publication of his long-awaited report, Chilcot said that judgements on the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were presented with a certainty that was not justified" by then Prime Minister Tony Blair.
He added that Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated. The planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam Hussein were wholly inadequate.
The lack of preperation "continued to have an effect after the invasion", he said.
He said that the Joint Intelligence Committee "should have made clear to Mr Blair that the assessed intelligence had not established 'beyond doubt' either that Iraq had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons or that efforts to develop nuclear weapons continued."
Chilcot said that the legal basis for UK military action were far from satisfactory."
He has however praised the military action taken itself, calling its toppling of Saddam Hussein "successful" and saying that the UK armed forces deserve respect.
He pointed out that, aside from the 200+ British citizens killed as a result of the conflict, at least 150,000 Iraqis were also killed and more than a million displaced by July 2009: "The people of Iraq have suffered greatly."
Chilcot concluded that, although there may have been a basis for intervention in Iraq at some point, there was
'No imminent threat from Saddam Hussein'
in 2003.
protest An anti-waris taking place outside the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre in Westminster, where the statement was made.
The inquiry was set up in 2009 by Gordon Brown to investigate the 2003 invasion of Iraq and its aftermath.
It is being published in full this morning.
More to follow.
1. Mr Bush is probably one of the most quoted presidents, but not for the reasons you might expect. Lets just say, the former president has definitely had a few blunders in his career.
When discussing the rising terror threat to the US, Bush stated: Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we; hopefully this was just a slip of the tongue and the POTUS wasnt really plotting against his own country.
2. President Bush has not held back when admitting he wasnt the perfect student, and showed a keen interest in the education of children in America.
While running for President, Bush famously stated: Childrens do learn; and in 2001: You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test Inspirational. Reading is clearly important to Bush, who once claimed that one of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures. Hes not wrong.
3. In 2006, while attending the G8 summit in Germany alongside other world leaders, Bush expressed his more caring side towards Germanys Chancellor Angela Merkel.
In the middle of an assumingly important meeting, the then president clearly felt that Merkel was in need of some form of stress relief. Moseying over to the German leader, Bush proceeded to massage her shoulders and neck. Merkel, taken aback by the absurdity of the situation, immediately tensed up and backed away. Bush would then casually stroll off and be faced with sexual harassment accusations.
4. President Bush was no stranger to a deer-caught-in-headlights look. At a 2005 press conference in Beijing that he was evidently unhappy holding, the POTUS cut the questioning short and attempted to make a quick exit.
What shouldve been a simple easy exit proved difficult as Bush headed to a set of double doors, pulled at them a bit too many times before realising they were locked. The former president then flashed the cameras his signature doe-eyed look before being escorted out by one of his aides.
5. Early 2008 saw President Bush visit Africa. While in Liberia, with his tour coming to an end, he encountered some people who actually seemed happy to see him!
What followed was Bush expressing this appreciation of him through an awkward, cringe worthy, bongo playing dance, which screamed racial insensitivity.
6. Bush shocked and creeped out women across the country in 2004 while campaigning for a second term.
Discussing health reform, Bush informed a crowd that frivolous lawsuits were the cause of too many good docs [...] getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs arent able to practice their love with women all across this country.
Thats just wrong.
7. Bush still managed to entertain us even after his clumsy run as President ended in 2009.
After years of stress and hard work, the former POTUS was looking for something to help let off steam and he found this outlet in painting.
And not just any painting Bush showed a particular interest in painting pictures of himself in the shower and in the bath and he didnt let us down. These pictures are so strange but so amazing, they just capture the magically special mind of George W. Bush.
8. Up there as one of the most famous Bushisms was a speech the President made in 2002 while addressing a Nashville crowd telling them: There's an old saying in Tennessee I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee that says, fool me once, shame on shame on you. Fool me you can't get fooled again.
The whole excruciating ordeal was captured on tape and almost 15 years later, its still hard watch.
Sorry George...
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By PTI: New Delhi, Jul 5 (PTI) Hungary today came out in support of Indias bid to become member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), saying its participation at the atomic trading club will further strengthen nuclear non-proliferation and make global nuclear commerce more secure.
The issue figured during External Affairs Minister Sushma Swarajs wide-ranging talks with her Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjarto during which both sides agreed to deepen ties in range of areas including trade, information technology and education.
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"Both Ministers agreed that Indias participation in the NSG will further strengthen nuclear non-proliferation and make global nuclear commerce more secure," a joint statement issued after the talks said.
It said Swaraj thanked Hungary for its support for Indias membership in the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and its bid to enter the NSG, adding both ministers underlined their shared interest in strengthening global non- proliferation objectives.
In their talks, the two sides exchanged views on global issues such as reform of the United Nations and to combat challenge of terrorism and climate change.
"The two Ministers condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, which constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security.
"They reaffirmed that any act of terrorism is criminal and unjustifiable regardless of its motivations, whenever and by whoever committed. In this context they called for an early adoption by the UNGA of the draft Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism," the statement said.
Both the sides also underlined the need for extending cooperation in areas of trade and investment, science and technology, defence, culture and tourism.
The two ministers also discussed the prospects of free trade agreement between India and European Union in the wake of Britains decision to exit the EU.
The talks for the FTA have been held up since May 2013 as both the sides are yet to bridge substantial gaps on crucial issues. Both ministers reaffirmed the need to restart negotiations aimed at a balanced India-EU FTA.
"Both Ministers affirmed the urgent need for a comprehensive reform of the United Nations Security Council, including its expansion in both the permanent and non-permanent categories, so as to make it more effective, efficient and representative of the contemporary geopolitical realities," said the statement. PTI MPB ZMN
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By PTI: New Delhi, July 5 (PTI) India today thanked Hungary for supporting its bid to get membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and helping it get entry at the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) even as the two countries held talks on stepping up engagement in diverse sectors.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Hungarys Foreign and Trade Minister Peter Szijjarto deliberated on bilateral ties and agreed that there was scope to widen cooperation in areas of trade, information technology and education.
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Official sources said Swaraj thanked Hungary for its support to Indias membership of MTCR and NSG.
The two ministers also discussed the prospects of free trade agreement between India and European Union in the wake of Britains decision to exit the EU.
The talks for the FTA have been held up since May 2013 as both the sides are yet to bridge substantial gaps on crucial issues.
The two ministers also discussed multilateral issues including reform of the UNSC and the election of the new Secretary General of the UN. Hungary supports India as a permanent member in a reformed UNSC.
Swaraj and Szijjarto also exchanged views on the recent spate of terror attacks and the need for adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT). India has been pushing for adoption of the CCIT by the UN to effectively combat terrorism.
On the economic side, both sides expressed satisfaction at the increasing trade which had touched USD 600 million, annually.
Szijjarto talked about Indian investment in Hungary which had reached USD 2 billion that helped providing employment to more than 10,000 people.
Currently around 15 companies from India including Apollo Tyres, TCS, WIPRO, Mahindra Satyam, SMR Group and Sun Pharma were active in Hungary.
In the meeting, Szijjarto said Hungarys automotive and construction companies were keen to enter the Indian market.
He said his country was eager to participate in Clean India Mission.
Szijjarto also mentioned the 60th Anniversary of Celebrations of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and said that Hungary planned to recognise the positive role played by India at that time. PTI MPB RG
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With their husbands leaving for work every day, the two women would be lonely and would usually spend time with each other. Over time, Sonia and Mamata fell in love and decided to get married and live a happy married life as husband and wife.
By Sharat Kumar: This love story of two women has all the right elements and twists and turns of a super hit Bollywood potboiler.
Two Rajasthani women fell in love and got married. Both the women, living in neighbouring houses in Jaipur, were already married and their husbands worked in a liquor vend. Both of them had been married for eight years and had a child each.
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MADE FOR EACH OTHER
With their husbands leaving for work every day, the two women would be lonely and would usually spend time with each other. Over time, the two women, Sonia, 27, and Mamata, 26, fell in love and decided to get married and live a happy married life as husband and wife.
According to the arrangement, Sonia was to be the husband in this marriage and Mamata the wife.
The two women got married in a temple in Mansarovar village in the state's Jaipur district and eloped, leaving their husbands and families behind.
SOCIAL STIGMA
However, six months later, Mamata's brother found them living together. When he arrived at their home, he managed to convince the two women that their families would agree to their marriage and that they should return home.
Once he managed to bring the two back to Mansarovar, where the women's in-laws from the first marriage live, they beat up Sonia, the husband, and chased her out of the village. With Sonia gone, the family made Mamata disappear. The incident took place in Amli village in Rajasthan's Tonk district.
Now, unable to bear the pain of separation, Sonia is looking for Mamata and is running from pillar to post asking for help and information about her wife.
A broken-hearted Sonia lodged a formal complaint with the Diggi PS after she discovered that Mamata's family members had deserted their house to avoid police action and had left no trace of the woman. She has even approached the court for legal assistance to prove that same-sex marriages are valid and that nobody is allowed to interfere in their matter.
Now, the court has sent a legal notice to Mamata's family members. Sonia says that in order to fulfil every wish of Mamata's she had even sold off her house. Now she says that if Mamata is not found, she would commit suicide.ALSO READ
:
LGBTs charge cops with sex abuse, torture
Moment of joy for LGBT supporters as SC reopens debate
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Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Chief Muhammad Yasin Malik was placed under house arrest just hours ahead of the morning prayers on Wednesday.
By Shuja-ul-Haq : Kashmir valley is celebrating Eid-ul-Fitr today for which special arrangements are being made to offer prayers in various parts of the state.
Following the late night announcement of sighting of moon, people are observing the festival that comes after a month of fasting.
SEPARATISTS UNDER HOUSE ARREST
Separatists leaders in the valley have been barred from going to Eid congregations. Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Chief Muhammad Yasin Malik was placed under house arrest just hours ahead of the morning prayers on Wednesday. "Police cordoned off his residence and asked Yasin sahib to stay in his room," a JKLF spokesperson said.
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Hurriyat Conference leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq were also placed under house arrest. Mirwaiz was scheduled to lead Eid prayers at Eidgah grounds in Srinagar.
Clashes erupted soon after the morning Eid prayers at Eidgah grounds. Pakistani flags were also waved at the venue.
Meanwhile clashes between protesters and the security forces were reported from Anantnag. According to the reports, police had to use teargas shells after the Eid prayers concluded.
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Biologist: Overcrowding destroying Phi Phis Maya Bay
PHUKET: Although it is now the low season, world-renowned Maya Bay in Phi Phi Marine National Park is overcrowded with tourists and boats, posing a serious threat to the environment, particularly coral, marine biologist Thon Thamrongnawasawat has warned.
natural-resourcesenvironmentpollutiontourism
By Bangkok Post
Wednesday 6 July 2016, 12:11PM
Standing room only at overcrowded Maya Bay beach. Photo: Thon Thamrongnawasawat/Facebook
Mr Thon, deputy dean of the fisheries faculty at Kasetsart University, said he was shocked during a recent visit to see the entire bay was jammed with both long-tail and speed boat ferries as tourists from inside and outside the country, particularly China and Europe, crammed on to famous Ko Phi Phi Le island.
The beach was densely crowded with tourists, with only standing space left, he said.
Mr Thon, who was on a visit to gather information on coral bleaching and the effects of tourism, said he was aghast at what he saw at the countrys most famous marine park, even though it is now the low season for tourists.
Those responsible for promoting tourism have done a very good job, but they should also think of the consequences that will follow, he said.
There are now too many tourists for the island to take. Officials of the Phi Phi Islands Marine National Park accompanying me were also left speechless.
They said that a few days earlier Maya Beach alone was visited by about 5,000 tourists each day and the park collected entry fees of B1.6 million from them.
The revenue may be high, but I dont think its worth what will happen to the island after the tourists are gone, said Mr Thon.
The renowned biologist and environmental champion said all boats leaving Phuket seemed to be heading for Ko Phi Phi Le and Maya Bay. There was hardly any space left there for a boat to moor.
He also said that tourism at the marine park had not been properly managed.
From what he saw, it would be a difficult task to solve the problem of bleaching of the coral.
He did not blame the park officials as they had done what they could. The entire Phi Phi Islands Marine National Park had only 18 officials, and 10 of them were assigned to oversee Maya Bay, he said.
As a result of over exploitation, nearly all of the coral in the area of Maya Bay had died, and the remainder would probably die off soon with such a large number of tourists and tour boats, Mr Thon said.
He added that there were now only 14 toilets on Maya Beach, which was certainly not enough for the 5,000 or more tourists a day.
More toilets were being built. But, with limited space available, the number was unlikely to exceed 20, he added.
Read original story here.
Campaign launched to rid Phuket of illegal holiday rentals
PHUKET: Provincial authorities have launched a campaign to rid the island of illegal holiday rentals with local officials and community leaders compiling a register of all rental accommodations in their respective areas across Phuket.
landpropertytourismcrimeeconomics
By Suthicha Sirirat
Wednesday 6 July 2016, 02:33PM
Phuket Vice Governor Chokdee Amornwat announced the campaign to rid Phuket of illegal holiday rentals yesterday (July 5). Photo: Suthicha Sirirat
Phu Yai Baan (village headman) and Kamnan (subdistrict chiefs), as well as officers from each of Phukets three District Offices and local administration organisations (OrBorTor) and municipal officials, will scour their areas to compile the register, Phuket Vice Governor Chokdee Amornwat revealed yesterday (July 5).
They will search their areas and question local residents about any rental accommodations in their areas, V/Gov Chokdee said.
The move is the first foray under the new Phuket Hotel Model policy, which aims to make Phuket a model province from which all other provinces in the country can follow in handling rentals of less than 30 days that breach the Hotel Act, he said.
According to our records, less than 50,000 rooms are legally registered as hotel rooms in Phuket, but our investigations so far show that Phuket has more than 100,000 illegal hotel rooms, V/Gov Chokdee said.
There are too many illegal accommodations that breach the Hotel Act. This includes businesses such as condominiums, apartments, flats, mansions, guesthouses, homes for rent, rooms for rent and commercial buildings, most of which have been altered or developed into accommodation, and rented out on a daily basis, he added. (See Phuket condo owners warned 'holiday rentals' less than 30 days risks fines, jail time, here.)
In addition to such a large number of businesses potentially avoiding paying the appropriate tax on their income while affecting the income of legitimate hotels, the issue concerned tourist security, V/Gov Noted.
Businesses registered under the Hotel Act are required to inform the authorities of details of all guests who check in and out of their hotels, he said.
These businesses that breach the Hotel Act do not do this, which means the government cannot control or provide security for tourists who stay at these illegal hotel rooms, he said.
Under the Phuket Hotel Model policy, the government has a three-pronged strategy, V/Gov Chokdee explained.
First are the properties that are already in good shape and which already can operate and provide services similar to a hotel. They are able to register as a hotel right away because they do not have building, land or environmental issues to contend with first in order to satisfy the requirements under the Hotel Act, he said.
If these places want to provide rentals of less than 30 days, they can register themselves as a hotel, or else they can face the penalties under the Hotel Act, he added.
The second group are places whose owners want to offer rentals of less than 30 days but must first improve the building structure or the services provided in order to register as a hotel, he said.
These places must make the required improvements and register as a hotel or else face the punishment under the Hotel Act, V/Gov Chokdee said.
Last are properties that cannot be registered as a hotel due to the requirements of the Hotel Act. To solve this issue, they might have to provide accommodation rented out on a monthly basis instead, he added.
However, V/Gov Chokdee said that provincial officials had appealed to Interior Ministry officials in Bangkok to consider creating a new way for places that currently cannot register under the Hotel Act to be able to register as rental accommodation establishment so they could be rented out on a daily basis.
We are trying to convince the Interior Ministry to consider a change or to revise the law to allow businesses to operate as a hotel if they have more than four rooms but currently are unable to be registered as a hotel, he said.
Before, places with only four rooms could not be registered as a hotel. To solve that, we propose that they places with more than four rooms, maybe up to 20 rooms, can be registered in some way so they will fall under the Hotel Act,V/G Chokdee concluded.
Chinese nominee tour company blitz in Phuket nets 53 tour buses, 29 speedboats
PHUKET: More than 100 officers including police, military and anti-money-laundering officials seized 29 boats and 53 buses belonging to companies operating under the Tranlee Travel Co Ltd network of businesses in raids at Rassada and Koh Siray, on the east side of Phuket Town, this morning (July 6).
Chinesetourismtransportcrimemarinemilitarypoliceimmigration
By Darawan Naknakhon
Wednesday 6 July 2016, 12:57PM
More than 100 officers including police, military and anti-money-laundering officials seized 29 boats and 53 buses in raids on the Tranlee Travel Co Ltd network of businesses this morning (July 6). Photo: Darawan Naknakhon
More than 100 officers including police, military and anti-money-laundering officials seized 29 boats and 53 buses in raids on the Tranlee Travel Co Ltd network of businesses this morning (July 6). Photo: Darawan Naknakhon
More than 100 officers including police, military and anti-money-laundering officials seized 29 boats and 53 buses in raids on the Tranlee Travel Co Ltd network of businesses this morning (July 6). Photo: Darawan Naknakhon
National police Deputy Commissioner Gen Srivara Ransibrahmanakul vowed that all people, even former politicians and influential people, will be brought to justice. Photo: Darawan Naknakhon
National police Deputy Commissioner Gen Srivara Ransibrahmanakul vowed that all people, even former politicians and influential people, will be brought to justice. Photo: Darawan Naknakhon
More than 100 officers including police, military and anti-money-laundering officials seized 29 boats and 53 buses in raids on the Tranlee Travel Co Ltd network of businesses this morning (July 6). Photo: Darawan Naknakhon
Officials led by Region 8 Police Deputy Commander Col Phorasak Nuannu led the raid to seize the 29 tour speedboats at the Insee Marine Co Ltd private company pier located near the bridge joining Koh Siray to the mainland, Phuket Provincial Police Chief Col Teeraphol Thipjaroen told The Phuket News today.
The second group, led by Lt Col Pongpop Prasoppichai of the Phuket Provincial Police, raided the offices of T.L Better Way Co Ltd at Koh Sirey, which provided bus services for tourists, and where police seized 53 buses, he said.
A third group, led by Lt Col Rattakhet Munmuang of the Phuket Provincial Police, searched Racha Spa Co Ltd at Phuket Villa 5 in Wichit, where officers seized all documents, including registration licenses and accounting records, he added.
All three teams of officers were armed with warrants issued by Phuket Provincial Court, Col Teeraphol said.
The raids today follow Royal Thai Police Deputy Commissioner Gen Srivara Ransibrahmanakul yesterday (July 5) announcing that five of the subcompanies operating under Tranlee Travel Co Ltd had been shut down.
Gen Srivara was in Phuket to personally receive updates on the investigation into the Tranlee network of companies, following the raid to shut down the Tranlee head office in Phuket last month. (See story here.)
The Tranlee CEO, Kritchakorn Rungmongkolnam, or Mr Isam Sainglee turned himself in after officials had a warrant out for him and raided his company, Gen Srivara said.
His partner, Weerachai Kampaipraphankul, is wanted by police and still at large, but we believe he still in the Kingdom, he added.
In the June 16 raid, Phuket Provincial Police Deputy Superintendent Col Saman Chainarong said that Kritchakorn (Isam Sainglee) and Weerachai were foreigners who had both obtained fake Thai national identification cards in Northern Thailand.
The warrants issued for both men accuse them of staying in Thailand illegally, possession and use of fake identification and using fake identification documents to register tourism businesses.
However, Gen Sriava yesterday did not reveal the real name of Weerachai or confirm the mens nationalities.
Gen Sriava said that six companies operating in the Tranlee network including Tranlee Travel Co Ltd had been shut down, but did not name specifically which ones.
He listed the 17 companies that form the network as:
Tranlee Travel Co Ltd Yang Guang Co Ltd Manta Marine Co Ltd Phuket Ping Friend Co Ltd Meili Co Ltd Blue Haven Diving Centre Co Ltd Kenya and Fae International Co Ltd Thailee Import Co Ltd T.L Better Way Co Ltd (land transportation) Insee Marine Co Ltd (marine transportation) Blue Wave Resort Co Ltd Bluebay Resort Co Ltd Natural Bay Resort Co Ltd Venice Sea View Co Ltd Racha Spa Co Ltd Sabunnga Spa Co Ltd Zean Shabu Shabu Co Ltd
The network includes tour companies, accommodation businesses, tour guides, restaurants, shops and spas. These companies are registered, but did not report their true income to the government, Gen Srivara said.
I have ordered officials to strictly enforce the law and anyone found in connection to this case, regardless whether they are a former politician or an influential person, all must be investigated and punished accordingly, he added.
Gen Srivara pointed out that so far officials had seized assets including 117 vehicles, 35 boats and three plots of lands, amounting to several hundreds of millions of baht.
Our investigation revealed that Blue Bay Resort Co Ltd, located in Phang Nga, had added more rooms to their accommodation without a permit. Initially the company asked for a permit to build 76 rooms, today the resort has 330 rooms, he said.
Also, officials have found 21 illegal tour guides, four boats fitted with a radio communication system without a permit, two buses fitted with the incorrect engines and drivers dressed inappropriately for conducting tours, he added.
All suspects involved in this case will not get away with this, Gen Srivara said.
We will follow the money trail and the registration process that conceals their true income. The Anti Money Laundering Office (Amlo) is investigating to find out where the money went and how can it disappear out of the country.
Even nominee shareholders will face charges, the police general warned. Nominees shareholders involved in this case with less than 50 per cent ownership will face the law, he said.
Investigations into companies in Phuket using nominees will continue because Phuket is a key target area prone for illegal nominee operation, he concluded.
Fast and silent: drowning dangers
The southwestern monsoon has arrived, turning Phuket beaches into a dangerous trap for unwitting swimmers. Strong waves and swirling foam do little to prevent some beach-goers from entering the water, sadly often to their deaths.
deathmarineweather
By Chanida Summast
By Anton Makhrov
Wednesday 6 July 2016, 11:17AM
Dont go into the water where red flags and signs prohibiting swimming are posted.
The bad news is drowning can happen anywhere, including ones personal swimming pool. Good news is that help is nearby more often than not, and all it takes is just to recognise a person in trouble.
Recognising an emergency
In an aquatic emergency, survival depends on a quick response. A drowning person goes through two stages: aquatic distress and actual drowning.
A swimmer in distress realises that his life is under threat, and as he is capable of intentional actions, he shouts, splashes, tries to attract attention or grab a lifesaving device.
They look frightened. They splash, shout, try to swim, but stay still for a long time (cannot swim to shore), says Phuket Lifeguard Club President Prathaiyuth Chuayuan.
Dont think that the person is just playing or fooling you. The distress stage doesnt last long, and if not helped a swimmer in distress will soon become a drowning victim. The second stage presupposes loss of conscious behaviour: all actions are uncontrolled and instinctive.
Thus real drowning unlike distress is silent and fast. It takes from 20 to 60 seconds and doesnt look like a struggle at all due to what experts call Instinctive Drowning Response (IDR).
This is how IDR was described by Aviation Survival Technician First Class Mario Vittone and Francesco A. Pia Ph.D. for On Scene, The Journal of U. S. Coast Guard Search and Rescue:
1. Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are silent. They are physiologically unable to call out for help.
2. Drowning peoples mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. This time is enough only to exhale and inhale quickly before submerging again.
3. Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the waters surface to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water for one breath.
4. Drowning people cannot control their arm movements and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving or grabbing a lifesaving device.
5. Drowning peoples bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick.
In cases of both aquatic distress and drowning, the best way to find out if everything is okay is asking. If the person cannot answer it is time to react and do it swiftly.
Responding to an emergency
In an aquatic emergency, every second counts. The first step is alerting surrounding people. Shout for help, call for the lifeguards (if present), wave your hands informing goes before any actions and the more people alerted, the better.
Lifeguards will go to help as fast as they can by means of surfboard, jet-ski or just swimming, assures Prathaiyuth.
Lifeguards are professionally trained to respond to emergencies, but around you there can be other people with relevant skills, such as divers, surfers, rescue volunteers. Even if you have undertaken some water-safety training in the past, dont rush to help without informing others about what you are doing.
Always carefully consider the whole situation before going into the water yourself. If you are unable to swim, find a lifeline or any improvised lifesaving device that you can throw to the person and call 1669. Remember that a person can be brought back to life even after some 5-10 minutes under water.
And if you havent done so yet, enroll in water safety, first aid and CPR courses to learn what to do.
If you are in danger
If you find yourself in threat while swimming, try to calm down and suppress panic. Rescue will come and your main objective is to call for help and live to see it. Stay calm, dont panic.
To increase your buoyancy, inhale as much as you can and slowly exhale. This will help you float and at the same time calm you down.
Then try to attract attention by raising one hand and waving it. Dont try to shout for help before you are stable in the water, as this can result in you inhaling water.
Try to search for floating objects that can serve as improvised lifesaving devices and reach for them.
If you are caught in a rip, dont try to swim against it. Swim parallel to the shore, as this the easiest way to get out of the rip.
And always remember that prevention of emergency is the best form of survival. Swim only in the designated areas, dont go into the water where red flags and signs prohibiting swimming are posted.
Please observe the area before you go swimming. Remember, red flags mean No swimming. Swim only in the safe areas designated by lifeguards and try to stay close to them, because they are the people to react if you need help, says Prathaiyuth.
Infinite Luxury appoints new Marketing Director at Kata Rocks
PHUKET: Lifestyle-design company Infinite Luxury has announced the appointment of Michael Nurbatlian as Director of Marketing. Mr Nurbatlian joins Infinite Luxury with more than eight years of experience in the luxury hospitality industry, bringing with him a wealth of marketing and e-commerce experience.
tourism
By The Phuket News
Wednesday 6 July 2016, 08:52AM
Michael Nurbatlian.
Mr Nurbatlian experience includes working in luxury properties such as InterContinental Hotels & Resorts and Phuket designer resort Indigo Pearl. He was most recently at Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok for four years and held the position Director of Digital Marketing, responsible for all brand, marketing and digital strategies.
Richard Pope, CEO of Infinite Luxury, said, We are extremely pleased to have Michael join us, Michael is a natural-born entrepreneur who has successfully built his unique career and experience within the travel, luxury and hospitality industries.
With an MBA in Marketing & Innovation from the Glion Institute of Higher Education in Switzerland, Mr Nurbatlian now heads Infinite Luxurys marketing, branding, public relations, advertising, communications and digital ecosystem.
Commenting on his new role, Mr Nurbatlian said: This is a truly fantastic opportunity to work with an innovative luxury brand such as Infinite Luxury. I look forward to joining this pioneering team and building on new successes as we expand regionally by strengthening the online guest experience and connecting with new clients by further developing the Kata Rocks brand and bring the Infinite Luxury brand to life.
Michael will be based at Infinite Luxurys headquarters in Phuket and will report to CEO Richard Pope.
Kata Rocks in Phuket was launched in 2014 by lifestyle design company Infinite Luxury, the resort and residence has over 34 pool villas overlooking the Phuket coast.
Always the same old story. We only want rich foreigners here (or just their money more accurately). ...(Read More)
Prosecution underway for Dhammajayos human shields
PHATHUM TANI: Pathum Thani police are prosecuting followers of Phra Dhammajayo for blocking the Department of Special Investigation (DSI)s attempted arrest of the embattled abbot and for illegally organising a rally to support him.
crimereligionpolice
By Bangkok Post
Wednesday 6 July 2016, 08:55AM
Supporters of Phra Dhammajayo rally in front of Wat Phra Dhammakaya on May 29. Police have summoned the leader of the gathering for prosecution. Photo: Apichit Jinakul
Maj Gen Thaworn Khaosa-ard, commander of Pathum Thani police, told reporters yesterday (July 5) that DSI interrogators lodged complaints about the obstruction of their search of Wat Phra Dhammakaya in Khlong Luang district of Pathum Thani in the attempted arrest of Phra Dhammajayo on June 16.
The abbot was charged with laundering money and receiving stolen property in connection with the B20-billion embezzlement at Klongchan Credit Union Cooperative.
Maj Gen Thaworn said police were handling nine cases of obstruction after crowds gathered and vehicles including backhoes and trucks were parked across the gates of the temple, and barbed wire was installed on the fence.
The activities apparently blocked DSI staff, he said.
Seven cases concern the blockage of public roads and the seizure of six vehicles. Another case dealt with the use of barbed wire and police plan to press a charge of illegal possession of military warfare equipment.
The other case concerned illegal assembly, the obstruction of DSI officials and assisting a wrongdoer. Police arrested one person and were gathering evidence to arrest more, Maj Gen Thaworn said.
Police also summoned Virasak Hadda, president of the Khlong Sam Tambon Administration Organisation (OrBorTor), to hear a charge of organising an unauthorised demonstration at a gate of the temple on May 29 to express support for Phra Dhammajayo.
Read original story here.
Vindictive boss suspect summoned
BANGKOK: A court yesterday (July 5) gave permission to the Crime Suppression Division (CSD) to summon for questioning the woman suspected of lodging a series of false complaints that jailed her former employees, accusing them of stealing money and valuables.
crimepolice
By Bangkok Post
Wednesday 6 July 2016, 09:41AM
Sukanya Sirimuang, 54, released on bail yesterday (July 5), embraces her daughter Wanichaya Boonsoonheng, 21. Photo: Patipat Janthong
Her former employees were detained because they were not able to secure bail, prompting a volunteer lawyer to step in to fight their cases in court.
The CSD initially sought an arrest warrant for their employer, Monta Yokrattanakan, 56, also known as Ying Kai, but the Criminal Court found a summons should be sufficient at this point because the suspect showed no signs of trying to flee, said Col Chakhrit Sawatdi, deputy chief of the CSD.
The investigators will summon the suspect for questioning, said Col Chakhrit.
Acting city police chief Sanit Mahathavorn has been leading an investigation into reports detailing nine cases in which Ms Monta filed complaints with Pracha Chuen police station alleging her former employees were involved in embezzlement, fraud, damaging her property and theft.
After sifting through her files, Lt Gen Sanit said police will conclude as soon as possible whether the complaints are based on false accusations.
He also instructed the chief of the police station to carry out a probe to find out whether any of the investigators handling the cases had been reckless or negligent, leading to botched probes.
Those found guilty of negligence will face disciplinary action, he said.
Also yesterday, the Criminal Court approved a request to release on bail Sukanya Sirimuang, 54, a former employee of Ms Monta who was detained at the Central Womens Correctional Institution for allegedly stealing B3 million worth of valuables from Ms Monta.
The request was filed by lawyer Songkan Atchariyasap, chairman of the Network Against Acts that Destroy Kingdom, Religion and Monarchy, with a surety of B200,000 from the Justice Ministrys so-called justice fund, which supports suspects who cannot afford the legal costs.
Mr Songkan said he will today petition the Lawyers Council of Thailand (LCT) to help all the victims who have had theft complaints lodged against them by Ms Monta.
He said he intended to petition the LCT to file both criminal and civil suits against Ms Monta while seeking to reopen criminal cases, and those pending court hearings.
Ms Sukanya was accused by Ms Monta of stealing cash and valuables worth about B3 million last year after Ms Sukanya refused to go to Hong Kong for work.
There are at least five more cases still pending legal proceedings that the CSD is investigating, said Mr Songkan, adding that CSD investigators are now gathering more evidence and speaking to witnesses in Mae Hong Son.
Read original story here.
Kerala Tourism is developing a set of new destinations to showcase the state's cultural and traditional richness.
By India Today Web Desk: One of the things an avid traveller likes to do is taking the road less travelled and thus explore destinations where most of us haven't been to. The good thing about Kerala's state tourism board is that it is aiming to help travellers do just that.
According to a recent report by The Hindu, Kerala Tourism is looking to add 17 locations to the state's tourism map. While as many as 52 new places are already been developed as tourist destinations by the board under an initiative titled Kerala Destination Scheme, these 17 locations have been added to the same.
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Also read: 10 things that make Kerala an amazing destination
This would simply result in the addition of 69 new destinations to a state that is already loved by travel enthusiasts from all parts of the world.
The 17 new places are spread across Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Ernakulam, and Malappuram districts and the main aim of developing them is to showcase the richness of Kerala's rustic life and the state's age-old traditions and culture.
Although most of these places are already frequented by the state's local population, the development initiative by the tourism board will do a great deal in boosting foreign tourist arrivals. Also, this will create enough earning opportunities for the local communities.
Chowara, a place not too far from the famous Kovalam beach, is home to a number of pristine beaches and Ayurvedic centres. This is the only location from the capital district of Kerala that has figured in the list of 17.
So, pack your bags and keep a lookout for the revelation of several new destinations in God's Own Country. Happy travelling!
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No truth to rumor that schools are putting litter boxes in bathrooms
local
By PTI: Colombo, Jul 6 (PTI) Sri Lanka is likely to set up a truth-seeking commission this year to probe rights abuses by the army during the civil war with the LTTE, the Foreign Minister said today and asserted that the country will keep its pledges to achieve reconciliation with the minority Tamils.
"We are conscious on the need to retain international goodwill by keeping to our pledges to achieve reconciliation," Mangala Samaraweera told reporters here after returning from the 32nd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva.
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He said the commission is likely to be established by September after wide consultations with "all stake holders."
"We have laid the foundation for all required mechanisms. We have to make correct assessments of the past events. We have to deliver reparation and justice," he said
At the UN meeting, High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein expressed concern over the Sri Lankan governments slow progress in implementing its pledge to probe allegations of human rights violations and war crimes.
Samaraweera said Sri Lanka as agreed in the October 2015 UN resolution would try those responsible for war crimes -- blamed on both the government troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
"We have to restore the good name of our troops. We will find out the chain of command if any abuses had taken place," he said.
He said that the government will also set up a permanent and independent Office on Missing Persons, widely seen as an essential component of the truth-seeking process.
He said that while the war was won in 2009 little was done to win peace but the current government is taking measures to ensure that the reconciliation process goes forward.
"People in the south and the north (Tamil regions) have rejected extremists at elections. It was the moderates of two sides who won," Samaraweera said the electoral defeats of the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
He appealed to the Tamil diaspora to visit the country and support concerns they have related to human rights with facts.
Sri Lanka has faced criticism over its handling of the investigation into the alleged rights abuses during the final phase of the civil war that ended in 2009 with the defeat of the LTTE.
The army has been accused of committing war crimes during the final stages. According to UN estimates, nearly 100,000 people were killed in the 26-year-long war. PTI CORR ABH AKJ ABH
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Lashkar-e-Taibais asking the locals for details of army and police informers in the posters.
By India Today Web Desk: Many posters put out by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) have surfaced outside mosques in south Kashmir asking locals to provide them with the phone numbers of army and police informers so that they can be tracked and dealt with accordingly.
LeT has put out the following details in the posters: Seeks information on movement of military and police informers There will be no more warning for the informers Informers will be shot dead on slightest suspicion Tells women not to attend army or police training camps Tells contractors not to work with the army
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These posters have come at a time when the valley is busy celebrating Eid.
The police is now verifying the credentials of the posters.
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By PTI: From Aditi Khanna
London, Jul 6 (PTI) Prime Minister David Cameron today said that lessons must be learnt from Britains decision to invade Iraq in 2003 to ensure that war is always the last resort following a report that found fault with the country joining the US-led invasion.
Cameron was addressing the House of Commons after the release of an official inquiryby John Chilcot earlier todayinto the bloody and controversial conflict to remove Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
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"There are some lessons that we do need to learn and frankly keep on learning. Taking the country to war should always be a last resort, and should only be done if all credible alternatives have been exhausted," Cameron told MPs as he announced a two-day parliamentary debate next week on the reports findings.
In reference to Tony Blair, who was prime minister during the war and who has been severely rebuked in the report, Cameron admitted the Labour leader had given commitments to then US President George W Bush that were not discussed openly in Cabinet.
"However,at no stage does he (Chilcot) explicitly say that there was a deliberate attempt to mislead people," Cameron notes.
He also stressed the importance of the UKs close relationship with the US and warned, "It is wrong to conclude that we should not stand with US allies when our common interest is threatened. Britain has no greater friend or ally in the world than America".
The opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn told the Commons in his reaction that "by any measure, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been, for many, a catastrophe".
"We now know that the House was misled in the run up to the war, and the House must now decide how it should deal with it 13 years later...Going to war without UN authorisation was profoundly dangerous," he said.
The report, which is estimated to have cost over 10 million pounds of taxpayers money, has been chaired by former senior civil servant Chilcot and has taken seven years to complete.
It has been described as one of the most highly anticipated inquiries launched by the UK in recent times. PTI AK KUN
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An opportunity for foodies and beer lovers to get lost in a world of food and drink from a hand-selected range of food trucks and breweries from around New Zealand.
By PTI: Colombo, Jul 5 (PTI) The Maldives foreign minister Dunya Maumoon has quit the government over its "hasty" decision to implement the death penalty which could mar the image of the country.
The resignation of Dunya, niece of the countrys President Yameen Abdul Gayoom and daughter of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled the country for three decades from 1978 to 2008, comes amid reports of a power rift between the countrys powerful ruling family.
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In a statement released today, Dunya, 45, said, "She had decided to resign from the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs because of irreconcilable disagreements on the governments policy in implementing the death penalty in the Maldives.
"I have decided to resign from the position of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Maldives, effective from today. It was one of the most difficult decisions I had to take.
"Yet, the decision became inevitable because of the profound differences of opinion on the governments policy in implementing the death penalty at a time when serious questions are being asked, and concerns being expressed, about the delivery of justice in the Maldives."
"I remain convinced that the governments policy on death penalty, decided on a hasty fashion, would be detrimental to the image and reputation of the Maldives and would be a significant obstacle in achieving the President Yameens foreign policy goals, and building a resilient Maldives," she said.
Maldives, an island-nation in the Indian Ocean, became a multi-party democracy in 2008. PTI CORR SUA AKJ SUA
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Talking to reporters after taking charge of her new portfolio, Smriti Irani refused to comment on questions about BJP president Amit Shah being behind her ouster from the HRD ministry.
By India Today Web Desk: A day after their induction, elevation and 'demotion' in the Cabinet and a clear message from the Prime Minister that he wants them to perform, the ministers in the revamped Team Modi got down to work today (June 6).
It was former Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani who made headlines of all the major national dailies and news websites. Irani, who will now head the textile ministry, was at the receiving end of the netizens who trolled her for the eventful two-year stint at the HRD.
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However, Irani put up a brave face saying her new textiles portfolio signified the "faith" shown by the PM and the party in her capacity to perform.
"I am happy that I have been given an opportunity especially when a special package (of Rs 6,000 crore for the apparel segment) has been announced for the sector. This signifies that my party and especially the Prime Minister has faith that I have the capacity to implement the roadmap that was projected through the Cabinet for the rest of the country," Irani said.
Smriti Irani talking to reporters after taking charge of the textiles ministry.
Talking to reporters after taking charge of the new portfolio, she side-stepped questions about BJP president Amit Shah being behind her shift saying it is not individuals but the party who takes such decisions.
This new Modi govt minister was in news in 2008. Know why
"Kuchh toh log kahenge, logon ka kaam hai kehna (people are bound to say things because it is their job to say something)," was her reply when asked if she was moved out of the education ministry to give her more time to focus on next year's UP Assembly elections.
IMPROVING QUALITY OF EDUCATION BIGGEST CHALLENGE: JAVADEKAR
Prakash Javadekar, who took over the charge of the Ministry of Human Resource Development from Smriti Irani, said improving the quality of education was the "biggest challenge".
"Education provide meaning and value to life. The biggest challenge today is to improve the quality of education. Every parent work hard to send their children to school. Their only desire is that the children should get quality education," Javadekar said.
PM Modi's 10 commandments to his ministers
"Our job is to provide quality education and I'm hopeful that we will achieve it with the support of everyone. Modiji has a vision about education and we will work towards it," he added.
RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD ON UNIFORM CIVIL CODE
New Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that "comprehensive consultations" were required before taking steps towards a Uniform Civil Code (UCC).
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Prasad made the comments after taking charge of the law ministry. He said there would be "comprehensive consultations with all the stakeholders" before moving towards the UCC.
Ravi Shankar Prasad talking to reporters after taking charge of the Law Ministry
Describing himself as an "old hand" in the ministry of law and justice, Prasad said this was his third stint, first being as a Minister of State in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and then when Modi took office in May 2014.
He said the government favoured strengthening the justice delivery system, transparency in the appointment of judges and their fast tracking, upholding the independence of judiciary and working in harmony with it and granting citizenship rights to Hindu migrants from Bangladesh.
PASSING GST BILL WILL BE PRIORITY: SANTOSH GANGWAR
Passing the GST Bill in Parliament will be the government's priority, minister of state for finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar said after taking charge of his office.
"We hope the GST (Goods and Services Tax) will be passed in the coming Monsoon Session. Our focus will be to expedite the process of growth," Gangwar told journalists.
Minister of State for Finance Santosh Gangwar
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Arjun Ram Meghwal, who also assumed charge as a minister of state for finance said, "We will like to speed up the process of economic growth and achieve the economic goals so that the benefit of economic development will reach the last mile."
EXCITED TO 'TAKE OFF' AT CIVIL AVIATION MINISTRY: JAYANT SINHA
Shifted out of the finance ministry, Jayant Sinha said he is excited to "take off" in his new role as the Minister of State for Civil Aviation.
After taking charge of his new portfolio, he met senior colleague Ashok Gajapathi Raju and other officials at the ministry.
Jayant Sinha taking charge as MoS Civil Aviation Ministry
"Excited to 'take off' at Civil Aviation Ministry under @Ashok_Gajapathi Ji's guidance," Sinha tweeted.
Also Read
Modi's masterclass for new ministers: Stop celebrating, prepare for Parliament
Amit Shah's stamp, Javadekar's promotion: 10 big takeaways from Modi Cabinet rejig
Modi's message behind demoting Smriti Irani: Controversy no substitute for good work
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This is being viewed as a snub as Smriti Irani, a Rajya Sabha member, was personally chosen by Modi to run the HRD ministry in 2014 despite the move getting red flagged by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
By Indo-Asian News Service: Giving a clear message that controversy is no substitute for good work, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday removed his one-time handpicked high-profile Smriti Irani from the crucial Human Resource Development Ministry and gave her the responsibility of the low-profile Textiles Ministry.
This is being viewed as a snub as Irani, a Rajya Sabha member, was personally chosen by Modi to run the HRD ministry in 2014 despite the move getting red flagged by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
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CONTROVERSY QUEEN
However, Irani's stint has been marred by major controversies over protests in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus in Delhi and also the students' protest over the death of scholar Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad.
Angry protests and campus violence have been reported from various other universities too.
The role of the RSS in getting the former TV actress-turned-politician divested of one of the sought after portfolios is not ruled out as the Prime Minister carried out the exercise after repeated consultations with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley among others.
RSS INPUTS
Shah reportedly reached out to the RSS leaders and took their inputs.
Seeking to give a message that he is sensitive to popular will and also to the wishes of RSS leadership, Modi brought in Javadekar, originally a Pune-based politician, for the crucial responsibility of handling the HRD ministry.
Javadekar as Environment Minister seemed to have left a positive impact on Prime Minister and the Sangh Parivar leadership with his industry-friendly moves, carrying out of Swachh Bharat campaign in a mission mode and also pursuing environment diplomacy at the international level on climate change and related matters.
UNCONTROVERSIAL JAVADEKAR
Javadekar is also credited with bringing the National and state Compensatory Afforestation Fund, paving the way to unlocking of nearly Rs.41,000 crore earmarked for forest land, lying unspent.
In fact after the passage of the bill in Lok Sabha on May 3 with support from major opposition parties, even Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan had appreciated that the draft legislation was passed unanimously with members from different parties making their positive contribution by way of suggestions to improve the system.
In contrast to Javadekar, Smriti Irani has been mostly in controversies either against Congress, Trinamool Congress and Left leaders besides occasional skirmishes with the Sangh Parivar elements.
Besides found engaging in heated exchange of words with opposition members in Parliament, Irani did not quite go well with RSS leaders too.
Sources said during their both formal and informal consultation process, RSS leaders along with a few members from Sangh-affiliated educational bodies reportedly often found that as HRD Minister, Smiriti Irani was not quite easy to deal with.
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Smriti Irani loses HRD to Prakash Javadekar, Venkaiah Naidu gets I&B
Smriti Irani as HRD minister: How her term was riddled with controversies
Decoding Modi Cabinet: Who got what portfolio
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Now, one in every ten ministers in the 78-member Modi Cabinet comes from Madhya Pradesh. This is the largest contingent of ministers from Madhya Pradesh in the Union Cabinet.
The addition of Anil Madhav Dave, MJ Akbar and Faggan Singh Kulaste into the Union Council of Ministers has made Madhya Pradesh a central point in Indian politics. The other Cabinet-ranked ministers from the state include Sushma Swaraj, Prakash Javadekar, Najma Heptullah, Narendra Singh Tomar and Thawarchand Gehlot. With the entry of the three new junior ministers, the total number of ministers from the state is now expanded to eight. To add to this, Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan is also from the same state, India's second-largest in terms of area.
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Dave and Akbar are newly elected Rajya Sabha members from Madhya Pradesh. Kulaste is a Lok Sabha MP from Mandla in Madhya Pradesh. Akbar now holds the portfolio of Minister of State for External Affairs. Dave is now the MoS for Environment and Forests, Climate Change, independent charge. Kulaste has been the allotted the MoS charge of Health and Family Welfare.
Of the five Madhya Pradesh ministers before the Cabinet reshuffe, Prakash Javadekar replaced Smriti Irani as the new HRD minister. Sushma Swaraj remains the senior minister for External Affairs, Najma Heptullah holds Minority Affairs, Narendra Singh Tomar has Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Drinking Water & Sanitation and Thawarchand Gehlot the Cabinet minister for Social Justice & Empowerment.
Now, one in every ten ministers in the 78-member Modi Cabinet comes from Madhya Pradesh. This is the largest contingent of ministers from Madhya Pradesh in the Union Cabinet.
MINISTERS FROM MADHYA PRADESH
Cabinet ministers
Sushma Swaraj - External Affairs, Prakash Javadekar - Human Resource Development, Najma Heptullah - Minority Affairs, Narendra Singh Tomar - Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Drinking Water & Sanitation and Thawarchand Gehlot - Social Justice & Empowerment
Ministers of State
MJ Akbar - External Affairs, Faggan Singh Kulaste - Health and Family Welfare and Anil Madhav Dave - Environment and Forest, Climate Change, independent charge.
SHIVRAJ THANKS MODI
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for introducing three more MPs from the state to Union Cabinet.
Also Read:
Modi's massive Cabinet rejig: Smriti's loss is Javadekar's gain
Decoding Modi Cabinet: Who got what portfolio
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Murray Dalfen, CEO of Dalfens Limited and Dalfen America Corp., found success by investing strictly in industrial property in the U.S.
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By Asian News International: The Obama administration has offered to extend all possible help to Bangladesh to investigate last Thursday's brutal terror attack in national capital Dhaka, which left at least 20 persons dead, including one Indian.
United States Secretary of State John Kerry wasted no time in offering help to Bangladesh to investigate those behind the killing at a Dhaka restaurant on the holiest day in the Islamic calendar.
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Dhaka attack: One of the terrorists was educated boy from rich family, who once met Shraddha Kapoor
ISIS DENIED THE 'GLORY'
The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack within hours of the massacre and posted pictures of five grinning fighters with the IS flag in the background. However, Dhaka was equally quick to deny IS the 'glory' by insisting that the massacre at the Holey Artisan Cafe was the doing of local militants who had no affiliation with international terror groups.
Think tanks that study terror attacks around the globe say that the answer lies somewhere in between. First, Dhaka would need to conduct an unbiased, clinical and thorough investigation about who the gunmen were and what was their motivation before believing the ISIS claims or the too quick denial by the ruling party.
Second, there is no denying the fact that the western world has by and large ignored the festering radicalism in Bangladesh with its large Muslim population and fractured polity.
Post Dhaka attack: Why an online magazine interview is giving India a headache
ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM IN BANGLADESH
As was evident within hours of the attack, American television could barely manage to get half-a-dozen terror experts to lucidly explain the make up of Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh, its position in the Indian subcontinent, it's complicated relationship with Pakistan, links with Wahabi groups and more.
But there is a consensus that even if the IS did not plan, plot and execute the massacre, terror outfits in Bangladesh now have a common cause with the IS and the like. The pan-Islamic Hizb-ut-Tehrir has been active in Bangladesh seeking to overthrow the secular government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hassina and establish Islamic rule in its place. It found common cause in 2012 with a disgruntled Bangladeshi Army officer Major Syed Zia-ul-Haq who plotted a coup against the Awami League government.
Dhaka attack: Five of killed IS terrorists were Bangladeshi citizens and wanted by police
ROLE OF ANSAR BANGLA TEAM
When the coup was unearthed with the help of Indian intelligence agencies, Major Zia went underground but has been de facto head of another militant outfit known as the Ansar Bangla Team or ABT.
The ABT has been recruiting youth for arms training and inspiring lone wolves to attack atheist bloggers and people from the minority community. The ABT has ideological links to the al Qaeda and political affiliation to the Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami party led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia (no relation to Major Zia).
Bangladeshi authorities have been trying to trace links that Major Zia has with a Bangladeshi national Mohammad Ishraq Ahmed, suspected to have links with both Pakistani and Chinese intelligence, and who they say is providing funding for overthrowing the democratically-elected government.
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Dhaka attack: How brave Bangladeshi youth refused to leave Tarishi Jain's side, paid with his life
COOPERATION FROM INTELLIGENCE ORGANISATIONS
Bangladesh intelligence is seeking cooperation from western intelligence organisations to trace both Mohammad Ishraq Ahmed and Major Zia, the money trails and their locations. The US administration is understood to have agreed to assist the Bangladesh government in locating these two fugitives.
The Awami League leaders speaking to media in Dhaka say they are not very hopeful of finding these two men as they travel often between Pakistan and Hong Kong with the active help from establishments in both these countries. The ball now rests with US state department, if it will actively use its negotiation powers with foreign governments to help in cracking the case of the Gulshan cafe massacre.
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Also Read:
Dhaka attack: Pakistan rejects allegations of ISI involvement
Dhaka bloodbath shows brainwashed terrorists getting younger: A look at the killers
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South African Paralympic gold medallist Oscar Pistorius was sent to prison for six years on Wednesday for the murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.
Oscar Pistorious looks relieved after the judge handed him a six-year sentence in jail. (Reuters Photo)
By Indo-Asian News Service: Oscar Pistorius' defence team said on Wednesday that they will not appeal a six-year sentence given to the Paralympian by high court. (Oscar Pistorious jailed for six years for murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp)
Earlier, the high court in Pretoria handed down a six-year sentence to Pistorius for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, reports Xinhua news agency. (Pistorious threatened with gangrape in prision, claims family)
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Reading out the judgement, Judge Thokozile Masipa said the trial of murder-convicted Pistorius had many mitigating factors.
"In the result, the sentence I impose on the accused in terms of murder dolus eventualis, is six years imprisonment," Judge Masipa said.
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In this Thursday, June 30, 2016 photograph, Babson College graduate school alumnus Abhinav Sureka, of Mumbai, India, poses in his work space at the college in Wellesley, Mass. Some U.S. colleges are starting programs to help their alumni get visas through what critics say is a legal loophole. Foreign grads who want to stay and start a business typically apply for one of the 85,000 H-1B visas that the U.S. gives out each year. But college employees are exempt from that cap, so schools like UMass, Babson and CUNY have launched programs to hire alumni and foreign entrepreneurs and help them grow their businesses here. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
After months on the sidelines, President Barack Obama joined Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail at a rally in North Carolina on Tuesday, telling voters he was ready to "pass the baton" to his former secretary of state.
Obama took the microphone in Charlotte, chanting "Hillary!" and told the crowd there had never been a candidate as prepared to be president as Clinton, his rival in 2008 for the Democratic nomination.
"I've run my last campaign, and I couldn't be prouder of the things we've done together, but I'm ready to pass the baton," Obama said, in what was likely to be the first of many trips this year on Clinton's behalf.
"I know Hillary Clinton is going to take it, and I know she can run that race," he said.
Obama was returning the favour after Clinton backed him in 2008's general election. This year, he waited while she battled US Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination before endorsing Clinton last month once she became the party's presumptive nominee.
In Charlotte, Clinton preceded Obama, saying, "We're going to build on the vision for America that President Obama has always championed, a vision for a future where we do great things together."
The North Carolina trip came the same day that Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey said the agency would not recommend that Clinton face criminal charges over her use of a personal email system while secretary of state.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama did not get advance notice of Comey's announcement and said the president would not discuss the FBI's investigation with Clinton.
Clinton's campaign welcomed the end of a probe that had cast a cloud over her campaign, but Republicans seized on Comey's criticism of what he termed Clinton's "extremely careless" handling of emails.
Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, who was due to campaign in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday, criticized FBI recommendation, tweeting, "As usual, bad judgment."
Joint appearance delayed
The first joint campaign appearance by Obama and Clinton was initially planned for soon after she clinched the Democratic nomination. But it was postponed following the mass shooting on June 12 at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
On Tuesday, Obama appeared at ease back on the campaign trail. He mocked Trump's promise to "Make America Great Again," saying, "America is really great."
And he sought to contrast Clinton's preparedness for the White House and passion for helping working families with Trump, a political neophyte he referred to at times as "the other guy."
"Everybody can tweet, but nobody actually knows what it takes to do the job until you've sat behind the desk," he said, an apparent reference to the wealthy New York businessman's fondness for Twitter.
Clinton hopes to reclaim North Carolina for the Democrats in the Nov. 8 election. Obama won the state in the 2008 general election but lost it narrowly in his 2012 re-election.
Obama's appearance with the former first lady closes a circle on a relationship that began cordially when the two were US Senate colleagues, grew tense when they were presidential rivals in 2008, and became close when Clinton served in Obama's Cabinet during his first term.
Clinton and her family have played a role in Obama's elections. Clinton and Obama appeared together in Unity, New Hampshire, following their divisive primary fight in 2008, and Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, gave a well-received speech at the 2012 Democratic convention.
Obama has focussed on what he touts as Clinton's strength of character, in hopes of shoring up support among voters who find her untrustworthy, a weakness Trump has sought to exploit.
Clinton needs Obama to woo young and left-leaning voters who backed Sanders and who made up part of the president's voting coalition in 2008 and 2012. Clinton has also campaigned with high-profile liberal US Senator Elizabeth Warren, and she will appear later this week with Vice President Joe Biden.
Clinton and Obama travelled to North Carolina on the presidential plane Air Force One, which Trump characterized as a burden on taxpayers. A Clinton spokesman said the campaign would cover its portion of the travel costs.
Women's rights groups say Oscar Pistorius has received preferential treatment by the justice system compared to non-whites.
Oscar Pistorious must consider himself lucky to be let off this easily. (Reuters Photo)
By Reuters: South African Paralympic gold medallist Oscar Pistorius was sent back to jail for six years on Wednesday for murdering Reeva Steenkamp, less than half the 15 year minimum term sought by prosecutors.
Pistorius, who fatally shot his girlfriend four times through a toilet door, has already served 12 months in prison for her death. But the original manslaughter conviction was increased to murder by the Supreme Court of Appeal in December.
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Judge Thokozile Masipa, whose sentence at the initial manslaughter trial was criticised by women's groups as too lenient, said she had accepted the defence argument that a lesser punishment was appropriate.
'LONG TERM WON'T SERVE JUSTICE'
"Public opinion may be loud and persistent but it can play no role in the decision of this court," Masipa said. "I am of the view that a long term in prison will not serve justice."
Pistorius, who stood impassively as the sentence was read out, hugged members of his legal team and chatted briefly with his sister Aimee before being led away by police.
Women's rights groups say Pistorius has received preferential treatment by the justice system compared to non-whites and those without his wealth or international celebrity status. His backers say he did not intend to kill Steenkamp.
The state and large sections of the South African public had demanded a 15 year jail term, the prescribed minimum term for murder, saying he had shown no remorse for the 2013 killing.
It was unclear whether the state, which has two weeks to appeal, would accept Wednesday's sentence.
Pistorius' defence team said he would not appeal and that their client would be able to apply for parole after serving half to two-thirds of the sentence.
The track star, who had the lower part of his legs amputated when he was a baby, was freed from prison last October after almost a year behind bars. He was to serve the remainder of his five-year term under house arrest at his uncle's house in a wealthy suburb of the capital. Pistorius has been living with his uncle since.
STEENKAMP FAMILY REACTION
Steenkamp's father Barry, who in an emotional statement to the sentencing hearings said Pistorius must pay for his crime, declined to comment on the prospects for an appeal.
"We'll leave that to the state," he told reporters without showing any emotion.
In her ruling on Wednesday, Masipa said that although the Steenkamps had suffered a great loss, Pistorius' life and career were also in ruins.
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"The life of the accused shall also never be the same. He is a fallen hero and can never be at peace," she said.
The judge agreed with defence that the Pistorius who shot Steenkamp in the early hours of St Valentine's Day was not the gold medal winning athlete but a vulnerable 1.5m tall man.
She said that there was no indication at all that the deceased was in an abusive relationship with Pistorius. She also said there was no evidence there had been a row between Pistorius and Steenkamp before her death, as suggested by the prosecution.
Pistorius says he fired four shots into the toilet door at his luxury Pretoria home in the mistaken belief that an intruder was hiding behind it.
His defence argued that his disability and mental stress that occurred in the aftermath of the killing should be considered as mitigating circumstances to reduce his sentence.
DIVISIVE CASE
Outside the court, a group of supporters held up placards backing the athlete. One read: "Give Oscar his freedom back please".
Legal analysts were divided by the ruling in a country beset by high levels of violent crime against women.
"To reduce from 15 to 6 years in the circumstances of the case seems to me to be unduly generous to Oscar," Paul Hoffman, a lawyer and director of rights group Accountability Now, said.
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"It's quite possible that having invested so much effort in the prosecution ... that (state prosecutor) Gerrie Nel will saddle up again and ride out in an effort to get a bigger sentence," he said.
Johannesburg-based lawyer Ulrich Roux doubted the state would appeal, saying the judge had delivered a "just sentence, considering that he was convicted with murder with indirect intent."
But the Women's League of the ruling African National Congress (ANCWL), said the sentence was too soft.
"First five years, now six years? She is an embarrassment to the justice system," ANCWL spokeswoman Jacqueline Mofokeng said of Masipa. "It is an insult to women in this country."
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[PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]
As the two-year anniversary of Operation Protective Edge draws near, Israels national volunteer EMS organization, United Hatzalah, has implemented numerous changes on the operational and organizational levels as a direct result of lessons learned from incidents that occurred during the conflict.
Manpower
The biggest change that the organization has undertaken since the conflict has been to steadily increase the number of volunteers in the southern region. The increase in manpower specifically in the areas hardest hit during the conflict will enable the organization to respond faster to any medical emergency that arises on a regular basis as well as in a time of conflict.
The biggest influx of volunteers has been thanks to Team Daniel, a group of donors in Chicago who are sponsoring 100 volunteers in the south in memory of Daniel Tragerman, a four-year-old boy who was killed towards the end of the conflict. Other additions have included a specialized EMT course that was offered to the civilian-military-liaisons of the towns in the Gaza periphery.
The addition of extra EMTs in the region, both private individuals as well as the civilian-military-liaisons has already shortened response times and the saving of lives in the area, said Head of the Negev chapter Yisrael Rubinstein.
Additional personnel is only a small part of the story. Other innovations include the use of new medical equipment that is more efficient in saving lives than previous models. Items such as the Combat Application Tourniquet (CAT) are about to be distributed for widespread use among United Hatzalah personnel throughout the country.
Collaboration
Another change has been in the cooperative and collaborative efforts put forth by the organization in working with the IDF and the National Emergency Management Authority (RAHEL). These collaborations are aimed at raising the level of preparedness for any national emergency.
We hold cooperative drills and training exercises with the IDF on a continual basis, said Avi Marcus, the Chief Paramedic of United Hatzalah. Our volunteer EMTs, paramedics, and doctors learn how the military medical emergency personnel operate and they learn from us. Recently we held practice drills with the IDFs elite search & rescue unit 669, as well as other elite units, and more are planned for the future.
In addition to liaising with security forces, United Hatzalah has been working closely with the city and regional councils in the south to create a network of preparedness for emergency medical response volunteers. We have been working with cities such as Sderot and Beersheva, as well as the Eshkol Regional Council, to put plans in place to allow for faster medical responses in the eventuality of a regional emergency, said Shmulik Avraham, Director of Emergency and Security Operations for United Hatzalah.
In Beersheva, the city gave us one of the bomb shelters to use as regional command center for the volunteers from that chapter. The safety of our volunteers is one of the areas in which we have made huge strides since the war. In addition to the new command center we have purchased additional protective helmets and vests so that our medics who head into the field under fire will have the best protection available, added Avraham. This was one of the biggest lessons we learned early on into the operation, that our medics needed protection just as much as the people whom they were helping.
Security
During the operation, United Hatzalah teamed up with Israel Military Industries (IMI) and outfitted a versatile Wildcat Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) that can act as both a fighting vehicle and as a medical ambulance. The refitted APC ensured the safety of volunteers in areas that came under fire. The vehicle, which was introduced during the war, was the first of its kind. It has since been replicated so that in future conflicts the IDF will immediately team up with the emergency medical personnel from United Hatzalah and other organizations and will be able to provide an active medical response in conflict zones.
United Hatzalah Founder Eli Beer said that during the operation the vehicle was used as a mobile command center, transporting volunteer EMTs to the scenes of medical emergencies as well as delivering medical supplies and protective gear. The vehicle was instrumental to providing safe travel for volunteer emergency medical servicemen and women who were working in the Gaza periphery during the war. Tzvika Fuchs, an engineer from IMI and the driver of the APC during the war, said the faces of the citizens lit up whenever they saw the vehicle and the medical volunteers approaching.
Psychological Treatment
Another aspect of the war was the psychological treatment of the EMTs who worked under stressful conditions and who dealt with traumatic situations. Following the culmination of the war, United Hatzalah brought all of the EMTs, paramedics, and doctors who served in the hardest hit areas together to discuss the difficulties and traumas that they faced and, encouraged the EMS volunteers to talk about their experiences. Psychiatrist Dr. Tzachi Ben Zion lead the first meeting for the Ashdod chapter of United Hatzalah volunteers, which was held shortly after the war ended.
The organization provided the volunteers themselves with emotional and psychological support following the period of conflict and has developed new protocols for continuing support of this kind following all such events. The responsibility for such treatment falls on the shoulders of the newly formed psychotrauma unit, which graduated its first class of volunteers this past May.
Founder of United Hatzalah Eli Beer said, We recognized during and after the operation that our volunteers were going through some very traumatic emergency calls. We felt then, and we feel now, that we have to provide a professional way of dealing with such situations for our volunteers should the need arise again. We have put the pieces in place that should a large scale conflict occur again in the future, heaven forbid, our medics will be well equipped in all senses of the word.
Beer recalled that one of the EMTs said at the meeting, My wife was worried because when everyone is running to their safe room, I was running out the door rushing to help. Beer said that this is the spirit of the organization. When people are running away from danger our volunteers are running to help whomever we can wherever we can. We will continue to do so in a way that ensures the safety for our volunteers and allows them to treat the people who need medical help in the fastest way possible. We are a community based organization, and when a community, any community, is in trouble we will be there to help them, no matter the situation around us.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem/United Hatzalah Media Unit)
The family of IDF Sgt. Oren Shaul HYD continues efforts to bring the plight of their son and Lt. Hadar Goldin HYD to the head of the national agenda.
Shaul and Goldin were killed almost two years ago during fighting in Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, and their bodies were snatched by Hamas terrorists. The Shaul family turned to the nation when the news broke of the imminent reconciliation deal between Israel and Turkey, a deal that omitted the return of the bodies by Hamas in Gaza.
Dr. Shaul explained to the media that while Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during the past two years promised the return of the bodies is a national priority, he now knows that in reality, this is not so.
The families will be holding another protest on Wednesday, 1 Rosh Chodesh Tammuz outside Megiddo Prison in an effort to block the families of imprisoned terrorists from visiting their loved ones.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Dr. Ali Abu Sharkh was the first medical professional on the scene of the fatal shooting attack on erev Shabbos 25 Sivan near Otniel. Dr. Sharkh, a resident of Dahariya in the Hebron area, sent a message to the grieving family explaining that despite the great pain, he wishes to inform them he did everything he could at the scene.
Dr. Sharkh was passing the site of the shooting attack with his family, heading to Jerusalem for Friday afternoon prayers on Har Habayis. He saw the Mark family vehicle turned over on the side and stopped to assist. He explains that another Arab man was there trying to assist as well.
He tells how he began speaking to the wounded children in English, realizing they did not understand him. His brother than spoke to them in Hebrew, telling them not to be afraid that he is a doctor trying to assist. Moments later IDF soldiers arrived on the scene.
He explains that he realized Mrs. Chava Mark, who was seriously wounded, had a partially obstructed airway which he was able to improve by releasing her seatbelt. He got her out of the car and began working on her. He saw a PA (Palestinian Authority) Red Crescent ambulance pulling in, turning to IDF soldiers and shouting in English to get Israeli ambulances. He briefed the first paramedic unit that arrived on the scene, adding his actions saved Mrs. Mark.
It is also explained that since he approached the vehicle from the other side, he did not see the bullet holes and he though the entire incident was a vehicular accident, not a shooting attack.
Dr. Sharkh explains that he also checked the driver, Miki Mark, realizing he was in cardiac arrest. He simultaneously tried to calm the children in the rear.
A paramedic advised Dr. Sharkh to leave the area as forces and people arrived, fearing a hostile reaction Ynet reports. The doctor explains he did what every doctor is trained to do and he does not view himself a hero. He adds his community did not criticize him for treating settlers, actually praising him for doing what a doctor should do.
Yiscah, who is married to Shlomi Mark, one of the sons, used Facebook to get her message out following the levaya. She explained not all Palestinians are terrorists, telling the public the first person on the scene to assist was a Palestinian.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Following months of peace-making efforts with chareidi parties in Knesset, Yesh Atid leader MK Yair Lapid explains that he has not forgotten his share the burden agenda, which remains atop of his partys platform.
On Monday, 28 Sivan, Lapid told the nation the issue of drafting chareidim will not be a major component of the next government, which he plans to led. His comments led to criticism against Yesh Atid, which was spearheaded by Hiddush.
This led to an explanation/clarification, with Lapid stating his part is not planning to back down to its share the burden demands. Lapid insists it is he and his party that raised the share the burden flag, and they remain loyal to it.
Using Facebook to back down from his statements, Lapid announced that what he meant by his comment that share the burden would not occupy the next government is simply that he expects to realize victory as a result of a High Court of Justice ruling in pending petitions on the matter.
He concluded with a word to the chareidi tzibur, explaining he is not against them and not seeking to harass them, but the need to serve is simply a method of all Israelis fulfilling their obligation equally.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Chicago police flooded the streets with thousands of officers and took dozens of gang members into custody over the July 4 weekend. Fewer people were shot to death, but more suffered gunshot wounds than over the same holiday weekend last year.
There had been widespread fear in some of Chicagos most dangerous neighborhoods that the holiday weekend could be particularly bloody following a June in which about 15 people were shot a day.
Preliminary figures show that four people were fatally shot and more than 60 others were injured by gunfire. Last years total was seven dead and 48 injured. Chicago Police plan to release final numbers later Tuesday morning.
The totals dont represent a dramatic spike in the violence, but they also dont suggest the violence is easing.
(AP)
Mad about long lines? Take a number.
More than 1 in 5 Americans will cancel their summer travel plans or find other means of transportation because of long airport lines, according to a recent study by the U.S. Travel Association (USTA), a trade group.
The lines are lengthening for a number of reasons, including a seasonal influx of air travelers, heightened terrorism concerns and staffing shortages at the Transportation Security Administration.
The prospect of facing a crowd at the airport is endlessly frustrating to travelers such as Annette Kleier, a retired accountant from Louisville, Kentucky. She has watched the finger-pointing between the TSA and Congress over who is to blame for the lines, while other guilty parties hardly get a mention.
Kleier is so weary of the blame game playing out in the media (and, ahem, in stories such as this) that she echoes the USTAs findings: You can always stay home.
Vacationers who havent opted to ground themselves this summer are coping with lines in one of two ways devising clever workarounds or avoiding them altogether. And, by and large, its working.
Kleier recently watched a family of five board a flight to Orlando, Florida, and she thinks she has found one overlooked culprit: the airlines.
All their luggage was being carried on, she says. My first thought was, I was glad I was in front of them not behind them. My second thought was, Of course they had to carry all that. Airfare for a family of five was likely $1,500. Baggage fees average about $30 per bag, so add another $300 to that.
Baggage fees translate into 27 percent more carry-on bags, according to the TSA. Two U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, and Edward J. Markey, D-Massachusetts and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson have asked airlines to temporarily stop charging luggage fees to ease the congestion. So far, theyve refused. The reason is obvious: Airlines collected $3.8 billion in luggage fees in 2015, statistics from the U.S. Transportation Department show.
Passengers are irritated by the standoff. Being patient and polite is not going to change anything, says Stephen Anderson, a frequent traveler who works as a market analyst for a nonprofit professional organization based in Bellingham, Washington. Is it too much to ask our elected representatives to do their jobs and address such issues?
Actually, no. Anderson had a particular request: Publish the names and email addresses of the people who can make a difference.
(No problem. Try Johnson at [email protected] or TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger at [email protected])
In the meantime,travelers are doubling down on their time-saving strategies. Raghu Murali, a frequent air traveler based in Edison, New Jersey, decided to travel anyway, and on Memorial Day weekend, no less. But as an experienced road warrior, he knew where the lines were to be found. He took a transcontinental flight the Thursday before the holiday to avoid a crush of vacationers.
I was a management consultant for many years, logging in 100-plus nights a year at hotels, he says. So Ive found a number of small tricks over time that really help me while traveling.
His first stop in Los Angeles with his two kids, ages 6 and 8, was a largely lineless Universal Studios. Saturday through Monday are peak times, he notes. And to avoid the bumper-to-bumper Memorial Day traffic in Southern California, he drove to San Diego at night, which shaved hours off his transit time.
You dont have to be an expert to get through any line faster. Sometimes, all it takes is a little common sense. But if you were traveling this Memorial Day weekend, you probably know thats often in short supply. Travel businesses are doing their best to prevent congestion by offering customers important, necessary reminders.
Katherine Dayton, the director of Visions Service Adventures, a tour operator that offers community-service programs for high school and middle school students, based in Bozeman, Montana, is overlooking no detail.
Many wait until the last minute to provide important documentation, including passports, she says. This can create greater waiting and lines during the programs if we dont have all the ducks lined up in advance.
If you want to avoid summer lines, no matter where, it helps to consult an expert. Thats according to Scott Koepf, a senior vice president of sales at Avoya Travel, a consortium of independent travel agents. Using an agent can help travelers navigate and prepare for expected delays when traveling, he says.
Travel agents have access to the most up-to-date information on which airlines, cruise lines, hotels and transportation companies are doing, including which ones are likely to have the longest lines. Theyll also tell you that if you fly often, you should consider applying for Global Entry, the governments trusted traveler program, which also gives you access to the faster TSA PreCheck lines.
Oh, and pack less. A lot less.
Carry-on luggage has a lot to do with the wait time, so checking baggage will help with the security lines, Koepf says.
Others are reading stories such as this and making their vacation a staycation. The lost travel spending will total $4.3 billion for the three-month summer peak season, according to the USTA study. To put these figures in perspective, the USTA says, the longer airport lines are costing more than 12,000 jobs every month.
Unfortunately, were well past the point when any single measure is going to provide enough relief to completely save the summer travel season, USTA President Roger Dow said.
Dow may be right, but with just a few strategies you can avoid most of this summers longest lines. And that may be a good enough reason to stick with your summer plans.
Special To The Washington Post Christopher Elliott
South African Paralympic gold medallist Oscar Pistorius, 29, was found guilty of murdering Steenkamp by an appeals court last December.
By Reuters: South African Paralympic gold medallist Oscar Pistorius was sent to prison for six years on Wednesday for the 2013 murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, the latest twist in a trial that has gripped the world. (Pistorius threatened with gangrape in prison, claims family)
The state and large sections of the South African public had called for him to receive no less than the prescribed minimum 15-year sentence for murder, saying Pistorius had shown no remorse for the killing.
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'NO ROLE FOR PUBLIC OPINION'
Judge Thokozile Masipa disagreed, accepting the defence's arguments for a lesser punishment.
"Public opinion may be loud and persistent but it can play no role in the decision of this court," Masipa said. "I am of the view that a long term in prison will not serve justice."
It was not clear whether the state would appeal the verdict.
Dressed in a dark suit, the 29-year-old stared straight ahead as Masipa read out the sentence.
Pistorius was found guilty of murdering Steenkamp by an appeals court last December. He had initially received a five-year sentence for a manslaughter conviction in 2014 handed down by Masipa, a ruling derided by women's groups as too lenient.
'FALLEN HERO'
In her ruling on Wednesday, Masipa said that although the Steenkamp family had suffered great loss, Pistorius' life and career was also in ruins.
"The life of the accused shall also never be the same. He is a fallen hero and can never be at peace," she said.
The athlete had the lower part of his legs amputated when he was a baby and his lawyers argued that his disability and mental stress should be considered as mitigating circumstances to reduce his sentence.
Pistorius was freed from prison last October after almost a year behind bars to serve out the remainder of his five-year term under house arrest at his uncle's house in a wealthy suburb of the capital.
Some rights groups have said Pistorius, a wealthy white man and international celebrity, has received preferential treatment compared to others without his status or wealth.
He argued that he fired four shots into the door of a toilet cubicle at his luxury Pretoria home in the mistaken belief that an intruder was hiding behind it.
Members of the Women's League of the ruling African National Congress (ANCWL), who have attended the trial in support of the murdered Steenkamp, said the sentence handed down by Masipa was not sufficient.
"First five years, now six years? She is an embarrassment to the justice system," ANCWL spokeswoman Jacqueline Mofokeng said of Masipa. "It is an insult to women in this country."
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Outside the court, a group of people held up placards backing the athlete. One read: "Give Oscar his freedom back please".
Steenkamp's father Barry, who said during sentencing hearings that Pistorius must pay for his crime, declined to comment on the prospects for an appeal.
"We'll leave that to the state," he told reporters.
The judge said that she had considered both aggravating and mitigating factors while delivering the sentence, and concluded that the latter outweighed the former.
Mitigating factors:
- Pistorius was vulnerable on his stumps without his protheses.
- He believed the person in the bathroom was an intruder.
- He "immediately took steps to try to save the deceased's life".
- The judge believed he was genuinely remorseful.
Aggravating factors:
- Pistorius used a lethal weapon, with high-grade ammunition.
-He fired four times, "knowing full well" there was someone in the bathroom.- He did not take the precaution of firing a warning shot.
--- ENDS ---
The following editorial appears in Tuesdays Yomiuri Shimbun:
To eradicate tax havens of a pernicious nature, it is essential to expand an international circle of mutual surveillance and support.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), at its Fiscal Affairs Committee meeting held in Kyoto, decided on the criteria for identifying countries and regions that are uncooperative in measures against international tax evasion.
Those that fail to respond sufficiently to other countries requests for information disclosure, or do not take part in mechanisms for countries to automatically exchange such information as bank account data, would be published on a blacklist by the OECD starting next year.
The criteria are expected to be approved at the meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of 20 economies to be held late this month.
The OECD member countries, including Japan and the United States, will also discuss the imposition of economic sanctions on blacklisted countries and regions.
Tax havens, which become hotbeds of tax evasion, have become a focal point in connection with the exposure of the so-called Panama Papers. Countries must cooperate and intensify pressure.
At the Kyoto meeting, progress was also made on a project for implementing common international rules on business taxation, aimed at putting the brakes on excessive tax reduction by multinational companies.
The number of countries and regions taking part in the project has increased from 46 to 82; Singapore and Hong Kong are among the new members. By the end of this year, the number is expected to reach about 100. It is vitally important to close tax-evading loopholes by increasing this number further.
The rules include a mechanism whereby incomes of overseas subsidiaries are added to the incomes of their parent companies; ways to deal with dual taxation; and the creation of a system in which member countries can share information on the corporate activities of multinational companies.
Regarding a system of mutually monitoring and evaluating the degree to which member countries and regions implement the rules, the participants agreed to work out concrete steps by next January.
It is important to enhance the systems effectiveness so that the framework for international cooperation does not become a mere scrap of paper.
Corporate activities are undergoing marked changes, including the rapid spread of internet sales. It is also necessary to review rules.
Yet there are not a few newly emerging countries that have yet to fully establish taxation systems and structures of tax authorities. Active support from industrialized countries is called for.
A fair and highly transparent taxation system would also bring to companies such benefits as reducing the risk of having unexpected taxes levied on them. Viewed in a long-term perspective, such a taxation system will contribute to countries by attracting business enterprises.
The publication of the Panama Papers uncovered tax evasion through the use of tax havens by politicians and wealthy people in many countries. Meticulous vigilance is needed in this respect.
Through exchanging information across national borders, efforts to identify real owners of dummy companies via bank accounts and others should be promoted steadily.
(c) 2016, The Japan News/Yomiuri No Author
The FBI Director laid out today a detailed case of how Hillary Clinton compromised the safety of the American people by storing highly classified information on a private email server with no security. He confirmed that her email could easily have been hacked by hostile actors, and confirmed that those she emailed with were hacked.
Our adversaries almost certainly have a blackmail file on Hillary Clinton, and this fact alone disqualifies her from service.
It has also been revealed that Hillary Clinton lied when she said that she did not send classified information. The FBI Director confirmed that over 100 emails were deemed classified at the time they were sent, including emails classified as top secret.
On top of it all, Hillary Clintons lawyers wiped the servers clean to delete another 30,000 emails hiding her corrupt dealings from investigators. She used the State Department for her personal gain, trading favors for cash, and tried to conceal the records. Also, she didnt want people to know the details about her botched decisions in Libya, Syria, Iraq and Egypt that destabilized the Middle East.
But because of our rigged system that holds the American people to one standard and people like Hillary Clinton to another, it does not look like she will be facing the criminal charges that she deserves.
Bill Clinton didnt accidentally run into the Attorney General on the airport tarmac last week in Phoenix. Hillary Clinton didnt accidentally sneak into the FBI during one of the countrys biggest holiday weekends to testify on her illegal activities, something that wouldnt be afforded to others under investigation (and on a Saturday of all days). It was no accident that charges were not recommended against Hillary the exact same day as President Obama campaigns with her for the first time.
Folks the system is rigged. The normal punishment, in this case, would include losing authority to handle classified information, and that too disqualifies Hillary Clinton from being President.
The final jury will be the American people, and they will issue the verdict on her corruption, incompetence, and bad judgment on November 8th.
(YWN World Headquarters NYC)
Republican Donald Trump is accusing Hillary Clinton of bribing Attorney General Loretta Lynch following a report that said Clinton would consider keeping Lynch if shes elected president.
Its a bribe! Trump declared at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, Tuesday, hours after the FBI said it wouldnt recommend charges against Clinton over her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
Trump was referring to a story in The New York Times that quoted Democrats close to Clinton saying she may decide to rehire Lynch.
Trump says Lynch may have believed that, if she let Clinton off the hook, shed have four more years on the job.
Trump says, Its a disgrace, its a disgrace!
(AP)
It may soon be much easier for patients to avoid co-payments and obtain larger supplies of their prescription medication from local pharmacies, thanks to the efforts of Senator Simcha Felder (Brooklyn) and Assemblyman Michael Simanowitz (Queens). The effort is designed to improve medication compliance, lower medical costs for New Yorkers, and make it easier for residents to maintain the necessary supplies of their medications.
Currently, people who are on long-term medications must return to pharmacies once a month or use mail-order pharmacies to refill their prescriptions. This can prove to be a costly and troublesome trip, which has resulted in a decrease in adherence to medication.
Ninety day refills have shown to increase a patients adherence to their medication by 15% and reduce costs. However, existing law does not allow local pharmacies to authorize 90-day refills. The new legislation would allow local pharmacies to fill prescriptions, provided that the medication is not a controlled substance and that the patients doctor is in agreement.
The only opposition I expect to this law is from on-line pharmacies, and most of those are in Canada said Senator Felder. This is common-sense legislation that protects vulnerable New Yorkers, particularly the elderly and those with chronic illnesses.
The passage of this legislation is a huge win for public health and New York State, said Assemblyman Simanowitz. New Yorkers will now be able to obtain life-saving medication from their own pharmacies while keeping medical costs low. I am hopeful that Governor Cuomo will do the right thing for our patients and sign this bill into law.
(YWN Desk NYC)
With Rosh Chodesh Tammuz upon us, the Women of the Wall (WoW) organization announced it was dedicating its prayer service at the Kosel in memory of terror victim Hallel Yafeh Ariel HYD who was stabbed to death last week in her Kiryat Arba home.
Hearing of the WoW activity, Mrs. Rina Ariel, Hallels mother, announced she and her children are very far from the hashkafa of WoW.
Mrs. Ariel told Kol Chai Radio I am hearing this for the first time from you. Anyone who knows us is aware we are far from these activities. We really call on people to reflect, in pain, and we appreciate every tefilla of every woman, but from my part, all actions must be in line with halacha and no other way.
Mrs. Ariel added, Hallel has already become the daughter of all Am Yisrael and not just our private daughter but we would really have preferred her remaining out private child.
She called on the tzibur to visit Har Habayis in line with halachic restrictions and requirements on erev Rosh Chodesh. She is also asking to change the name of the Mughrabi Gate to the Hallel Gate. The nation decided on the name Mughrabi Gate and its can decide on a new name she added.
Gedolei Yisrael over the generations and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel prohibit visiting Har Habayis
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
An end-of-year party in a classroom is not a news item but for some Israeli public schools in the Arab-sector of the eastern capital, the event is infused with a political undertone and hate for Israel in keeping with the PA (Palestinian Authority) curriculum. These schools are funded by Israels Ministry of Education, which is headed by Minister (Bayit Yehudi) Naftali Bennett.
At some of the parties held this week students waved Palestinian flags and shouted anti-Israel statements, MyNet reports, quoting a former Arab sector PTA head, Abed el-Karim, who explains this is because the schools are connected to the Israeli Ministry of Education. Abed explains We dont want any connection with the Israeli ministry its plan is a political one.
He laments how the ministry encourages students to take Israeli matriculation exams, explaining in the books, Har Habayis and al-Aqsa belongs to Israel and he does not want his children receiving such an education, which he calls the occupation.
I am willing to forgo the ministry budgets and education for a Palestinian education. We can get donations. If I live under occupation, then according to international law the Education Ministry must give me [funding] he concludes.
The Education Ministry reports the Nur School in Ras el-Amud is not state-funded. Jerusalem City Hall says it is a private school that does not receive funding from the city.
The end-of-year party is one small example for in fact, schools in Arab areas of the city have a different curriculum that Jewish public schools and the ministrys involvement is minimum, permitting these schools to indoctrinate students with the PA rhetoric and inculcate children with a hate of Israel.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday 1 Rosh Chodesh Tammuz made a shiva visit to the Mark family of Otniel. Rabbi Miki Mark was killed in a drive-by shooting attack on erev Shabbos and his wife, Chavah Rochel bas Ayelet HaShachar is recuperating from her serious injuries in Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.
Mr. Lieberman spoke with the children sitting shiva, explaining the government is not just operating on the defense but we must cut off the head of the snake.
President during the visit was S. Hebron Hills Council head Yochai Damari, calling for additional security and expanding yishuvim. He informed the senior minister that Every Friday we here Itbach el Yahud (slaughter the Jews) from the minarets of the mosques.
The aveilim expressed their support for IDF soldiers, calling on Lieberman to permit them to act as they should to restore security. One daughter, Miriam, told Lieberman It is not about additional security or another home of a number of homes but about establishing new yishuvim
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
On the afternoon of Tuesday, 29 Sivan, Petah Tikva Magistrate Court Judge Erez Nurieli announced his decision on the Yitzhar minor currently banned from his home by administrative order.
The minor was detained before dawn on Friday, 18 Sivan in a raid by large numbers of security forces on his home, where he had remained despite an order signed IDF Central District Commander requiring him to stay at an isolated farm in the south of Israel. The minors parents had not given their consent to the arrangement and are not acquainted with the owner of the farm, who, as it became apparent during an 18 Sivan court deliberation, refused to receive the minor. Because he had remained at home, an indictment was served to the minor for violating a legal order.
Judge Nurieli ruled that the minor does not pose a danger by violating the order and that the magistrate court is not the suitable court for judging the legality of the order itself. He also ruled that as long as the administrative order is valid the minor will remain under house arrest, outside of Yehuda and Shomron, between the hours of 22:00 and 5:30 and sign-in at the nearest police station every day for 45 days.
Judge Nurieli ruled that by the afternoon of Tuesday, the address at which the minor is staying must be submitted, however Honenu Attorney Chai Haber requested a delay in carrying out the decision and announced that he will appeal the order with the district court because the minor has no place to stay. A delay was granted until the following afternoon.
Haber mentioned that throughout the past week the minor has been staying with family and friends, wandering from house to house, but no-one is willing to host him for more than one night due to the disruptiveness of the house checks. Every night the police arrived during the small hours of the night, making an excessive amount of noise, needlessly disturbing the hosts and their neighbors. On some nights the police came several times.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Colonel Yariv Ben-Ezra, the former Yehuda Brigade commander, gave testimony on Wednesday, 1 Rosh Chodesh Tammuz in the manslaughter trial of IDF soldier Elor Azariya.
Ben-Ezra joined the company commander in telling the court he does not believe the shooting was justifiable since the wounded terrorist no longer presented a mortal danger. He added that he watched and reviewed the video evidence, leading him to his conclusion. Regarding fears that the terrorist was wearing a bomb belt, Ben-Ezra told the court he was unware of such fears, hearing about it for the first time from the media later in the day.
The colonel added that Hebron community security officer Yoni Bleicher reported to him that a very serious problematic shooting occurred. Colonel Ben-Ezra stated that as he began probing the incident, explaining to the court that operating protocol regarding a shooting in a crowded urban area demands soldiers clear the area as quickly as possible to prevent revenge and solidarity attacks.
The colonel rejected the defenses position that people on the scene still felt a danger, explaining his investigation and the evidence does not support this.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Indictments were handed down against the suspects in the Bnei Brak drug operation, YMA, 26 from Jerusalem and AH, 25, from Netanya. They were in touch with a third person, YR, 22, from Betar Illit, to smuggle drugs into Israel including 13,189 ecstasy polls, MDMA powder weighing 1301 grams and other items.
The indictments stated the two traveled between Israel, Ukraine, Germany and Turkey to purchase the drugs they allegedly sold in Bnei Brak.
As reported earlier by YWN-ISRAEL, the suspects were allegedly operating a drug ring in the Torah city and one of them was taken into custody at Ben-Gurion Airport upon his arrival from Berlin via Turkey.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Double-amputee Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius is facing a possible 15-year jail term after his conviction was changed to murder for shooting girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013.
By Reuters: South African paralympic gold medallist Oscar Pistorius will be sentenced to jail today for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013, but for how long depends largely on how the judge will weigh the role of his disability in the killing. (Pistorius threatened with gangrape in prison, claims family)
Pistorius, 29, was found guilty of murdering Steenkamp by an appeals court last December. He had initially received a five-year sentence for a manslaughter conviction in 2014, a ruling that was decried as too lenient by women's groups.
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The athlete had the lower part of his legs amputated when he was a baby, and his lawyers have argued that his physical disability and mental stress should be considered as mitigating circumstances to reduce his sentence.
During the hearings, his defence lawyer asked Pistorius to walk on his stumps to show the difficulty he faced dealing with the threat of an intruder. (Pistorius faces long jail term over murder charges)
NO REMORSE SHOWN
But the state says he has shown no remorse and has called for him to receive no less than the minimum sentence for murder.
Some rights groups have said Pistorius, a wealthy white man and international celebrity, has received preferential treatment compared to others without his status or wealth.
Pistorius was freed from prison last October after almost a year behind bars to serve out the remainder of his term under house arrest on his uncle's house in a wealthy suburb of Pretoria.
CONVICTION UPGRADED TO MURDER
In December however, the Supreme Court upgraded his conviction to murder on appeal.
The original trial judge, Thokozile Masipa, will deliver the sentence at the Pretoria High Court.
Johannesburg-based lawyer and legal analyst Ulrich Roux said Masipa would have to balance any mitigating circumstances against the seriousness of his crime.
"For her it's a delicate balancing act," said Roux, adding that either the defence or prosecution could mount a legal challenge if they felt that the sentence was lenient or harsh.
In a television interview with British broadcaster ITV aired in June, his first since the shooting, an emotional Pistorius said that Steenkamp would want him to go free.
"I dont want to go back to jail. I dont want to have to waste my life sitting there," Pistorius told ITV, statements which caused an uproar on social media.
Manelisi Wolela, a spokesman at the Department of Correctional Services, said Pistorius would be taken to jail immediately after the sentencing.
--- ENDS ---
By: Hannah Levin
Recently, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved, in a 30-0 bipartisan vote, $600 million in funding toward Israeli missile defense programs, mandating that Israels Qualitative Military Edge must be maintained. The proposed bill will fund the short- range Iron Dome missile program, and long-range missile projects including Arrow Weapon System, and Davids Sling anti- missile program. This funding is part of a $576 billion Defense Appropriations bill, which was passed with a wide, bipartisan majority. However, the Obama administration, which has proposed missile defense funding at a much lower number, pushed back, threatening to veto the bill.
In light of this pushback from the Obama administration, a key delegation, part of the U.S.- Israeli Security Alliance, met with U.S. Senators who were instrumental in the $600 Million appropriation for Israels defense.
The main purpose of our coming here today, explained co-chair Joseph B. Stamm, is to thank the group of bipartisan senators who have been instrumental in the passage of this legislation.
The delegation wanted to make sure that the Senate stays on top of it, recognizing that this is a two-way relationship regarding bilateral trade, said co-chair Leon Goldenberg. Aside from the moral responsibility to Israel, Leon Goldenberg wanted to emphasize the overall robust partnership between the two countries. He stated, the American defense establishment does not only support Israeli missile defense capabilities and innovation, but also needs and appreciates it. The law states that 75 percent of the money spent in cooperation with Israel on missile defense must be spent in the U.S. Therefore, the U.S. not only benefits from Israeli technology, but U.S. defense contractors also benefit by association.
Goldenberg further explained: Israel is now the 23 rd largest trader with the United States. There is almost 40 billion dollars in trading going back and forth. There are a quarter of a million jobs in the US tied into Israeli companies. Israel is the 5 th largest investor in the United States ahead of China. Its not just about helping Israel, but it is also about how America benefits.
Co-chair Sol Goldner added: Its a two-way street. The United States benefits as well from the technology and the money thats spent here for the procurement.
Thats a very good list of reasons to continue doing what were doing, Senator Thad Cochran, Chairman of the Full Appropriations Committee, asserted in response to Leon Goldbergs acute comments regarding the U.S. and Israels bilateral trade relations.
In further agreement, Senator Lindsey Graham, keenly stated: Helping Israel is helping ourselves. As Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Lindsey Graham is in a key position to understand the need to support our allies, especially the of Israel, Ezra Friedlander, CEO of The Friedlander Group, explained.
Senator John Boozman shared similar sentiments: The need to bond with Israel is more important than ever. The U.S. and Israel have such an important friendship, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand who, in a bipartisan fashion, authored and secured a letter urging the Appropriations Committee to completely fund the $600 million argued that it is an unbreakable bond, something we rely on not only for national security, but also for economic growth. We are fundamentally tied. Their well-being is our well-being.
After visiting an Iron Dome site, Senator James Lankford noted, there are areas we could share information back and forth and be mutual accessible to each other. In regards to the Iron Dome missile program, Senator Thad Cochran encourages Congress to keep doing what theyre doing: I think weve done very well in supporting the Iron Dome, so dont mess it up, he said.
If youre going to test the system, our friends in Israel have tested it with great success, and it only gets better, said Senator Roy Blunt, describing this bill as one he very much cares about. We believe Israel knows on its own whats best for itself, explained Sergio Gor, Senator Rand Pauls (R-KY) Communication Advisor. Last year [Senator Paul] introduced legislation to defund the Palestine authority unless they recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Bukharian Chief Rabbi Itzhak Yehoshua has high hopes the administration will pass the bill, noting, The U.S. has introduced freedom to the world and has always supported Israel which is the only democracy in the Middle East.
Thanking the delegates for their advocacy, Senator David Vitter asserted: Im a proud thousand percent supporter of Israel and that will continue, but we always need to keep enlarging that root.
Congressman Ed Royce, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, disclosed why hes such a strong supporter of Israel. Mr. Goldenberg says it over, His father liberated Dachau and he took pictures. And he gave those pictures his son, one day they are going to deny all this, here are the pictures that I took.'
Ultimately, the poignant comment of Ezra Friedlander, who is behind the efforts of the U.S.- Israeli Security Alliance, holds true: the Israel-U.S. alliance reminds us that at the end of the day, we all need each other.
Donald Trump, who frequently criticizes U.S. foreign policy under President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is praising Iraqi President Saddam Husseins ruthlessness.
Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good, Trump told supporters at a campaign rally Tuesday night in Raleigh, North Carolina. They didnt read em the rights, they didnt talk. They were a terrorist, it was over.
Trump has previously said the world would be 100 percent better if dictators like Hussein and Libyas Moammar Gadhafi were still in power. Prior to the U.S. invasion, Iraq was listed by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terrorism. Hussein suppressed dissent in his country and used poison gas against 5,000 Iraqi Kurds.
Jake Sullivan, a Clinton senior policy adviser, said Trumps praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds.
Sullivan said such comments demonstrate how dangerous he would be as commander-in-chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks.
Trumps foreign policy pronouncements have proved controversial, even within the Republican Party that is poised to nominate him for president in a few weeks. He has said the United States is too fully engaged around the world and has questioned the role of NATO and said the United States has been taken advantage of by nations benefiting from its security cooperation and troop presence. Some critics within the GOP have said his policies suggest an isolationist stance in an increasingly dangerous world.
Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, partners among Republican congressional critics of Obama administration foreign policy, carried out a fact-check on Trumps national security statements earlier this year at a Capitol Hill hearing.
On April 19, when the Army general selected to lead U.S. forces in South Korea testified before the committee, McCain seized the opportunity to undermine Trumps suggestion that the U.S. withdraw its forces from the South because Seoul isnt paying enough to cover the cost of the American military presence.
Isnt it the fact that it costs us less to have troops stationed in Korea than in the United States, given the contribution the Republic of Korea makes? McCain asked Gen. Vincent Brooks.
Yes, Brooks said, telling McCain the South Koreans pay half, or $808 million annually, of the U.S. presence there.
Two days later, Trumps claim that NATO is irrelevant and ill-suited to fight terrorism came under the microscope. As president, Trump has said he would force member nations to increase their contributions, even if that risked breaking up the 28-country alliance.
In early March, more than 70 conservative national experts, including former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, wrote in an open letter that they have disagreed with one another on a variety of issues but are united in their opposition to a Trump presidency. Chertoff served in President George W. Bushs administration.
(AP)
The photo went live on the 4th of July, a young man, stone-faced, wearing a crown of flowers and holding in his hand a thin silver pole.
Dangling from its end, engulfed in flames, were the remnants of a once-flying American flag, only slivers of the stars and stripes still uncharred and visible.
Alongside the photo, posted to Facebook, was a lengthy caption written by 22-year-old Bryton Mellott, an Urbana, Ill., resident and Walmart employee who said he was not proud to be an American because of the atrocities committed against people of color, people living in poverty, people who identify as women, and against my own queer community on a daily basis.
He signed off his message: #ArrestMe.
Within hours, Mellott was in handcuffs.
Despite a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court ruling deeming flag burning protected speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution, the Urbana Police Department justified the mans arrest by citing Illinois 2013 flag desecration law but only after Mellotts post, which mentioned his employer, had caused so much unrest that police felt it was necessary to intervene.
The comments on his photo were filled with outrage from people offended by what they perceived as Mellotts unpatriotic sentiment. Before the celebratory festivities even started Monday, the police station had fielded calls from irate viewers, demanding legal action.
But it was the threats, police said, that forced them to intercede.
Shall we bring back the guillotine for this treason? wrote one commenter.
This guy should get the death penalty, one person wrote.
Online, many said he should burn in hell and deserved to be beaten. The act was called beyond disrespectful and a spit in the face to servicemembers and veterans. His address was posted next to the photo with the words have fun :^)
Many of the insults focused on one part of Mellotts accompanying caption: that he openly identified as queer.
More like burn that fag look how hes standing, said another.
Even Walmart was being targeted.
When police showed up at the store early Monday morning to confront the man about his Facebook post, authorities said in a news release that Mellott declined to assist in deescalating the situation by removing the public postings.
Police told Mellott they understood his freedom of speech, reported The News-Gazette, but were concerned for his safety and the safety of those around him, especially at Walmart. Then they put him under arrest for flag desecration and disorderly conduct.
It didnt take long for police to release the man and assign him a court date. Authorities consulted with the State Attorneys Office, which called into question the constitutionality of the 2013 flag desecration law.
On Tuesday, State Attorney Julie Rietz announced her office would file no charges against Mellott, as the act of burning a flag is protected free speech according to the US Supreme Court decision, Texas v. Johnson.
Rietz added that her office planned to ask local legislators to review the problematic contradiction between the Illinois desecration law and the 1989 Supreme Court ruling.
In Texas v. Johnson, the high court upheld a decision by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that said Gregory Johnson, a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, was unlawfully arrested during a demonstration outside the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas after he set fire to an American flag.
Around him, protesters chanted: America, the red, white, and blue, we spit on you.
That ruling the first time the Supreme Court had directly addressed whether First Amendment protections included flag burning deemed unconstitutional a Texas law making it illegal to harm the flag in a way that might offend someone.
The majority opinion said that precedent led the justices to recognize that a principal function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.
Though defenses of Mellotts actions online were sparse, those who did defend him condemned the violent rhetoric and homophobic slurs hurled at him and defended his constitutional right to burn the flag.
Since Ive served in the military, I suppose I should be angry that youre burning a piece of cloth made in China, but Im honestly not, one person commented. Im more angry at the fact taxpayer money is being wasted to arrest and suppress someone who was speaking his mind. Still, you have to understand that this was in really bad taste. You seem like a good guy, but you should find better ways at channeling your anger to make a positive change. I hope you find happiness bud.
At some point, Mellott removed the original post that accompanied his photo, though the picture remains online. Before it was deleted, however, The News-Gazette captured his words in full:
I am not proud to be an American. In this moment, being proud of my country is to ignore the atrocities committed against people of color, people living in poverty, people who identify as women, and against my own queer community on a daily basis.
I would like to one day feel a sense of pride toward my nationality again. But too little progress has been made. Too many people still suffer at the hands of politicians influenced by special interests. Too many people are still being killed and brutalized by a police force plagued with authority complexes and racism. Too many people are allowed to be slaughtered for the sake of gun manufacturer profits. Too many Americans hold hate in their hearts in the name of their religion, and for fear of others. And thats only to speak of domestic issues.
I do not have pride in my country. I am overwhelmingly ashamed, and I will demonstrate my feelings accordingly. #ArrestMe.
(c) 2016, The Washington Post Katie Mettler
Attorney General Loretta Lynch says the Hillary Clinton email investigation is being closed without any criminal charges.
Lynch announced the Justice Department decision Wednesday, one day after FBI Director James Comey recommended against any prosecution.
The decision was largely a formality given Comeys public statement on the case.
Lynch said last week that she intended to accept whatever recommendations and findings were presented by the FBI and by her career prosecutors.
(AP)
Already on the back foot after the alleged involvement of party MLA Naresh Yadav in the desecration controversy, Kejriwal hit a slippery course on July 3 when he and his party colleagues released AAP's youth manifesto.
By Manjeet Sehgal: Delhi Chief Minister and AAP's National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal's social engineering formula failed to evoke response as his three-day Punjab visit, which concluded on Tuesday, was mired in controversies- the latest being Ashish Khetan comparing the party's youth manifesto with Guru Granth Sahib.
Already on the back foot after the alleged involvement of party MLA Naresh Yadav in the desecration controversy, Kejriwal hit a slippery course on July 3 when he and his party colleagues released AAP's youth manifesto.
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POSTER ATTACK
He earlier faced a 'poster attack ' from a Sikh while visiting the famous Golden Temple complex.
Kejriwal was blamed for razing a drinking water point in Chandni Chowk, Delhi in the posters which were hurled at him.
The cover of the youth manifesto, released on Sunday, was itself controversial as it showed a broom with the Golden Temple in the backdrop.
AAP'S MANIFESTO COMPARABLE TO GURU GRANTH SAHIB. REALLY?
Party's spokesperson Ashish Khetan went on and compared the manifesto with religious scriptures.
The comparison of AAP's document with Guru Granth naturally infuriated the Sikh community.
Khetan has now been booked for hurting religious sentiments on the complaint filed by AISSF chief Karnail Singh Peer Mohammad.
Tendering an apology the next day, he said, "Inadvertently we expressed some words while releasing youth manifesto for which we felt apologetic. We never intended to undermine any section, community or any individual".
Although AAP was quick to apologise, the gesture had a little impact on Shiromani Akali Dal(SAD) which said that it has not only hurt Sikhs but also Sikhism .
CAN'T TOLERATE DESECRATION OF OUR GURUS: DEPUTY CM
"The incident has proved that you have scant regards for the Sikhs and Sikhism. Arvind Kejriwal should take stern action against. Ashish Khetan, merely tendering an apology, will not wipe out the tears. We will consider that Kejriwal has nothing to do with the sin only if Khetan is removed from the party," Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said.
"Or else, the message that will go to the public is that you were part of the conspiracy. We welcome you (Kejriwal) as the critic of our government but we cannot tolerate desecration of our gurus," Badal said.
Kejriwal also faced protests from the minority Muslims at Phagwara and Malerkotla during the second day of his visit.
AAP has been facing opposition from the Muslim community ever since the party MLA Naresh Yadav's name figured in the desecration controversy which took place on June 24.
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Just a few years ago, so-called emerging markets were talked up as the perfect place to invest for the long-term.
The Chinese, Russian, Indian and Brazilian economies were on a roll.
As well as expanding middle classes, who were buying televisions, designer clothes and mobile phones, many had vast reserves of oil, metals and other minerals to help fuel rapid growth.
Bright spark: India's economy is predicted to grow 7.6 per cent a year over the next three years.
But the boom has fizzled out. Over the past five years, the average emerging market fund has shrunk 5.1 per cent, reducing a 10,000 investment to 9,490.
The Chinese economy has slowed hugely, while Russia and Brazil are in recession. Like many emerging-market countries, theyve been hit hard by a steep fall in the price of oil and other commodities.
Oil now costs $49 a barrel, down from a peak of $147 in 2008, when emerging markets were firing on all cylinders.
Now, investors are wondering whether its time to look elsewhere for exceptional long-term returns.
A major report by the World Bank suggests that, rather than simply ditching all emerging market investments, you need to be picky. In other words, avoid putting large chunks into those countries facing a struggle - and focus instead on those still growing rapidly.
The World Bank says falling oil prices have actually helped emerging countries such as India, Indonesia and Mexico, which tend to import rather than export raw materials.
It predicts that the economies of big commodity exporters such as China, Brazil and Russia will grow just 0.4 per cent in 2016.
By contrast, big importers will grow by a much larger 5.8 per cent this year, says the report. And it expects the trend to continue for the next three years at least.
Banks and technology outsourcing firms are tipped to do well in those nations classed as importers.
Rising wealth means more money spent in the shops. The theory follows that more people will need banking current accounts, credit cards and loans as they splash out on cars, gadgets and clothes.
Rollercoaster ride: Investors in emerging markets have been knocked around in recent years
And companies with big contracts to manage computer and telephone networks across the globe have been boosted by families ever-increasing reliance on technology in day-to-day life.
Experts are singling out India as a particularly good area to invest now. Its economy is predicted to grow 7.6 per cent a year over the next three years.
Some funds invest solely in India, but experts say its safer to spread your cash with a general emerging markets fund.
Jason Hollands, director of Bestinvest, likes the JP Morgan Emerging Markets Investment Trust, which puts more than 24 in each 100 in India.
You can find this information on the funds factsheet. If you have access to the internet, find its page through Google, and look for holdings. That shows the largest ten shares on its books and how your money is split geographically.
A 10,000 investment in the JP Morgan fund five years ago would be worth 10,126 today. Although not spectacular, thats much better than the 510 loss in the average fund.
About 3.70 of every 100 is invested in Infosys, an Indian firm that builds and maintains the computer systems of Anglian Water and BTs Openreach, owner of Britains internet and telephone cable network.
Boost: Falling oil prices have helped countries like India, which imports raw materials
One of its smaller shares is Supreme Industries, Indias largest plastics producer. The firm makes tables and chairs that are popular with Indias growing middle class, and its revenues have grown by 137 per cent over the past five years.
Funds with a large chunk of cash in Indonesia are also in a good position. Its economy is expected to grow an annual 5.3 per cent for the next three years.
Darius McDermott, director of fund supermarket Chelsea Financial Services, likes the Lazard Emerging Markets Fund, which invests 7.80 in every 100 in firms based in Indonesia.
Its biggest holding there is Telekomunikasi Indonesia ADS, which runs 10 million fixed telephone lines. Its profits climbed 7 per cent last year to 891 million as families snapped up faster broadband and mobile phone deals.
If you had invested 10,000 five years ago, you would be about 900 down today, but James Donald, the funds manager, believes better returns are on the way.
There is a real possibility of some impressive economic growth in Indonesia in the next decade, he says. It pays lower wages than places like China, so it has a great opportunity to grow its industry.
Financial services firms make up nearly one third of the fund.
One is Bank Mandiri. Mr Donald says: Many Indonesians dont have bank accounts. If the country does develop well, there will be a need for finance and infrastructure.
Fund managers are so certain theres a future for emerging market investing that theyre launching new deals.
Man GLGs Unconstrained Emerging Equity Fund, launched in October last year, invests in India and Mexico, where it places nearly 8 in every 100.
Mexico is more developed than India and Indonesia and is forecast to grow more slowly over three years between 2.5 per cent and 3 per cent.
But as wages rise, consumer brands are cashing in.
The fund has a stake in Fomento Economico Mexicano SAB, which owns convenience store chain Oxxo. The firm also claims to be the biggest independent Coca-Cola bottler in the world.
Simon Pickard, fund co-manager, says: These types of stores have replaced the markets that everyone used to go to. They are a good opportunity for investors.
An elderly couple who were mis-sold a risky property investment have been left 43,000 out of pocket after their financial advisers used a legal loophole to wriggle out of paying compensation.
Peter and Sandra Whiston, both retired and in their 70s, are being forced to go through the courts by Positive Solutions, one of Britains biggest advice firms.
The company admitted it was negligent and wrong to have recommended they put their 104,000 savings in a property fund that was too risky for their needs.
The Whistons, from Formby, Merseyside, have lost tens of thousands of pounds that they need to help pay the bills in retirement but Positive Solutions, which says it offers irreproachable advice and impeccable customer service, has refused a payout, arguing they took too long to complain.
Warning: Sandra and Peter Whiston hope their case helps others investing their nest egg
It claims that, by law, it does not need to compensate them because more than six years have passed since the Whistons were sold the fund.
The case, which will go to court later this month, comes amid rising concern about property funds safety.
This week, the giant Standard Life and Aviva real estate funds blocked investors from withdrawing cash for 28 days over fears of a price crash. Many property funds froze savers cash in the credit crunch.
Peter, 78, says: We trusted that Positive Solutions would help us do the best thing with our cash, but we were wrong. I regret letting them get hold of our money.
Peter met the financial adviser who sold them the deal through a friend in 2006. He and Sandra, then retired teachers in their 60s, were keen to supplement their pensions with a regular income from the savings they had built up over the years.
They set up an appointment with the adviser to discuss some ideas and invited him to their home. The couple say they made it clear they were retired and needed a steady stream of income.
The adviser filled in a document, which was supposed to lay out the couples circumstances. It classed them as medium risk investors. The Whistons believed this still meant their money would not be exposed to any major risks.
The adviser recommended they each put 52,000 in the Sterling Property Fund. The couple say he showed them charts showing that the fund had made a profit for years, but the Whistons lawyers argue the investment was unsuitable because property funds can be volatile.
Safe as houses? Sandra and Peter's situation exposes the risks of putting pension savings into property funds
A specialist pensions analyst who conducted research for the couples lawyers said the fund was also unsuitable because of the risk of withdrawals being suspended.
When the funds value falls, they typically take a long time to recover, making them unsuitable for most pensions needs. And, as Standard Life and Aviva proved this week, you can be blocked from withdrawing your cash if the market turns sour.
Companies can do this to protect other savers, as a rush of withdrawals forces them to sell properties, causing huge losses and delays.
The Whistons lawyers say the adviser did not properly explain he would receive a 7,800 commission.
Initially, the fund seemed to perform relatively well but, in 2007, as the financial crisis struck, it plunged in value. The Whistons were concerned, but thought the fall was due to the global financial crisis, which had hit all investment stocks. They stuck with the fund, believing it would one day bounce back.
As the market recovered, other savings held by the Whistons started to increase in value, but their investments in the Sterling Property Fund barely budged.
In 2012, they decided their best option was to pull their money out. After withdrawals of 22,489, they had lost 25,908, their lawyers say, arguing that, adding the amount their money would have earned had it been put in a suitable investment, the couple are 43,000 out of pocket.
For some time, the Whistons believed their losses were down to bad luck. Peter says: I wrote it off as just the way things are. Sometimes, investments do fall. But, eventually, they started to suspect they had been offered the wrong deal.
SIT OUT FUND STORM, SAY EXPERTS Savers who piled their cash into funds that invest in office blocks, houses and shops are being told to sit tight and be brave as funds suspend trading. Yesterday, two more property funds blocked savers from making withdrawals as fears spread over a dip in house prices. M&Gs Property Portfolio and Avivas Property Trust locked savers in to prevent chaos, following a similar move on Monday by Standard Life. The funds hold 4.4 billion, 1.8 billion and 2.9 billion of savers cash respectively. The moves were made after investors started pulling cash out of property funds amid fears the housing market is wobbling, but experts say selling now just locks in losses and could cause more funds to shut their doors. Other funds reduced their value after the referendum to discourage savers from taking money out. Last week, investment firm Henderson cut 4 per cent, roughly 160 million, from its UK property fund. Not all funds can lock you in open-ended ones such as Standard Lifes must sell buildings if there is a rush on the fund. Investment trusts trade on the stock market so will just see their share price fall.
After reading about investment mis-selling, the couple thought they might have a case, so contacted law firm Neglect Assist which complained to Positive Solutions (now owned by investment giant Old Mutual Wealth) on their behalf.
The firm admitted in writing that the advice given by the adviser was negligently wrong, but refuses to pay up because it says the Whistons took too long to complain.
The firm admitted in writing that the advice given by the adviser was negligently wrong, but refuses to pay up because it says the Whistons took too long to complain
Under the Limitation Act 1980, customers must complain within six years after an investment or other financial product was sold to them.
The exception is if you can prove that you realised only within the past three years that you were wronged which can be difficult. Because the Whistons voiced concerns about their fund in 2014, eight years after it was originally sold to them, Positive Solutions is refusing to pay.
However, savers who fear they have been mis-sold an investment can go to the free Financial Ombudsman Service. The Whistons take their case to Liverpool County Court this month.
Saira Hoda, a solicitor at Neglect Assist, says: Admitting mis-selling and then trying to deny their responsibilities to an elderly couple by exploiting a loophole in the law is not in keeping with their obligations to treat customers fairly.
Peter says: I really want our case to be a warning to others so they dont fall foul of this firm as well.
Easy money
EasyHotel has sold the restaurant at its forthcoming Liverpool hotel for 600,000.
The company bought the six-storey building in April last year for 1.3m and is refurbishing it into a 79-room hotel. It is due to start taking guests early next year.
The future's orange: EasyHotel bought the six-storey building in Liverpool for 1.3m and is refurbishing it into a 79-room hotel
Chief executive Guy Parsons said the move was part of the companys strategy to dispose of surplus assets. Shares fell 4.8 per cent, or 4p to 79p.
Flying high
Ryanair saw passenger numbers increase 11 per cent last month, despite air traffic control strikes in France. The budget airline said traffic increased to 10.6m customers from 9.5m last year and called for urgent action over strike disruption.
Final payment
The finance boss of payments company PayPoint has announced plans to retire next year. George Earle, who joined the firm in 2004, will be replaced by 47-year-old Rachel Kentleton, who is the current head of strategy at budget airline EasyJet.
PayPoints shares fell 5.5 per cent, or 50p to 863p.
Euro post
Former Marks & Spencer boss Marc Bolland has joined private equity group Blackstone as head of its European portfolio operations. He will take up the post on September 19.
Big bang
Engineering company Meggitt has won a contract worth 13.8m with the Australian armed forces.
The FTSE 250 firm, which specialises in components for the aerospace and defence industries, will manufacture and install assault rifle and grenade launcher simulators at 18 locations across the country until May 2018.
Shares fell 0.7 per cent, or 2.8p to 399.9p.
High road
Paving firm Marshalls has seen its revenues rise after months of stronger sales.
The Huddersfield-based company posted revenues up 2 per cent to 202m in the six months to June 30, compared to 199m for the same period last year. In a trading update it said sales were particularly strong in May and June, and that domestic sales to customers making home improvements as opposed to public sector or commercial clients had grown 12 per cent.
Shares fell 7.5 per cent, or 17.3p to 213.1p.
Market moves
Software company IMI Mobile has swung into profit after growing its client base and moving into new markets.
Pre-tax profits were 4.2m in the year to March 31 after it made a loss of 2.3m a year earlier, while revenues rose 26 per cent to 61.6m.
Heathrow Airport is seeking to tackle baggage check-in queues by signing a 170m deal with Balfour Beatty.
The West London airport, which has worked with the infrastructure group since 2014, announced yesterday it will upgrade and replace baggage screening systems.
Balfour said the new luggage processing machines will ensure the safety of all passengers through screening the contents of luggage quickly and efficiently.
Planning ahead: Heathrow announced it will upgrade and replace baggage screening systems to cut queues
It will also use software to create a virtual version of Heathrow to assess the best routes through the airport for baggage handling without compromising security. Some 300 people will work on the project.
Balfour Beatty has a partnership in place with Heathrow over the management of Terminals 1, 2 and 4 which runs until next year.
At the end of this year there will be an opportunity to extend the contract by another two years, in a deal worth up to 70m.
The wife of tycoon Sir Philip Green was paid 28m last year for a 200m loan relating to the purchase of doomed department store BHS.
Lady Tina, who lives in Monaco and has been mockingly dubbed Lady Shifty, controls the offshore companies that own the Green familys assets, including Topshop parent Arcadia which sold BHS to thrice bankrupt Dominic Chappell last year.
Documents published yesterday by ministers probing the demise of the 88-year-old retail chain which went into administration last month, putting 11,000 jobs at risk and leaving its pension scheme with a 571m black hole revealed how Lady Tina received millions in loan repayments and interest from the sale of BHS.
Double trouble: Lady Tina controls the offshore companies that own the Green familys assets
MPs are investigating the ownership structure of BHS and Arcadia before its sale and will publish a report into the scandal later this month.
Frank Field MP, chairman of the Work and Pension committee, yesterday said: I am not much closer to understanding the complex web of offshore Green companies. What is clear, however, is that Lady Green was paid 28m offshore, in the latest accounting year, for the acquisition of BHS by Taveta.
In accounts for Taveta 2, one of the companies controlled by the Greens, there are details of the 200m loan made by one of Lady Tinas offshore companies to buy BHS in 2009.
Sainsburys has promised to create more than 1,000 shop staff jobs in the next three years after its 1.4bn purchase of Argos despite roles in head office being put at risk.
The supermarket yesterday published a 188-page prospectus for the deal and said that despite Brexit it would push ahead with the plan.
Sainsburys chief executive Mike Coupe said he remained absolutely convinced by the strategic rationale of the deal, regardless of what economic conditions prevail. But he warned: There is a danger that well talk ourselves into a crisis.
Sign of the times:Sainsburys chief executive Mike Coupe said he remained absolutely convinced by the strategic rationale of the Argos deal
The prospectus said the fees paid to advisers and bankers totalled nearly 50m. This included up to 6.3m paid by Sainsburys for legal fees, 2m for public relations paid by Home Retail Group and 25.8m for both sides banking and corporate broking advice.
Sainsburys hopes to use Argos online and delivery skills to boost sales and will open further Argos concessions in its supermarkets.
It is expected to eventually close more than 200 Argos shops but its prospectus to the City yesterday detailed plans to create 1,000 new jobs on the shop floor.
The 1.4bn takeover will mean up to 600 jobs in head office and back office functions will be lost. Argos parent Home Retail Groups head office is in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, while Sainsburys is in London.
Sainsburys finance boss John Rogers will take over running its non-food business with Argos, and will be based in Milton Keynes but remain a member of the Sainsburys group operating board and the J Sainsbury Plc Board. Ed Barker, Sainsburys director of group finance, will be appointed chief financial officer of Sainsburys on an interim basis, replacing Rogers.
The company is in consultation with those at risk of redundancy.
The combined Sainsburys and Argos business will sell 100,000 products from 2,000 stores and will be bigger than the clothing and general merchandise businesses of Tesco, John Lewis and Marks & Spencer.
AMAZON JOBS Amazon is to create an extra 1,000 new jobs this year as its UK boss claims it is business as usual following Britains decision to quit the European Union.
Doug Gurr said that the new recruits will be spread across the online giants corporate offices, fulfilment centres and its research and development wing as the firm continues to expand the rollout of Prime Now, Amazons ultra-fast delivery service.
FLIGHTS SCRAPPED Budget airline easyJet said it had to scrap more than 850 flights last month amid a series of strikes by French air traffic controllers almost double cancellations seen a year earlier.
The carrier said it axed 852 flights in June against 487 the previous June. Shares fell 3.6 per cent, or 38p to 1018p.
BREXIT BOSS Consultancy firm KPMG has appointed a senior partner to head up a team of advisors on Brexit.
Karen Briggs will support clients looking for new opportunities, such as bolstering trading relationships with China or out-manoeuvring competitors.
NEW CONTRACTS Shares in Carillion rose 1 per cent, or 2.3p to 223.7p after the engineering firm said first half revenues were likely to be better than expected.
A raft of new contracts, one maintaining houses in Northern Ireland and another in Oman providing engineering services, was behind the boost.
TOBACCO WOES The owner of Budgens and Londis said tobacco sales were suffering after the ban on small stores displaying products.
Booker reported a 10 per cent rise in group sales for the first quarter. But the company said tobacco sales were down 7.7 per cent on a like-for-like basis for the 12 weeks to June 17. The shares rose 1.2 per cent, or 1.9p to 166.3p.
CAMERA DEAL Engineering firm Costain has spent 17million buying a technology firm that develops cameras to monitor vehicles on roads.
SSL, which is based in Bristol, has developed software able to tell if a truck is too large to pass under a tunnel. It then alerts the driver. Costain shares fell 0.4 per cent, or 1p to 284.75p.
PUB SALE Legal & General Capital is selling its majority stake in pub chain the Liberation Group.
The deal which values Liberation at 118million will see the firm acquired by Caledonia Investments.
GOING UPMARKET German discount supermarket Aldi is hoping to take on Waitrose and Marks & Spencer this Christmas with an upmarket range of products that it claims are Waitrose quality but cheaper than Asda.
FURNITURE FIND Private equity firm 3i has bought a Danish furniture retailer for 166million.
Canada's long-awaited free trade deal with the European Union has been dealt a painful setback in the wake of Brexit.
The prospective deal, that stops far short of accepting the free movement of people, has been seen by many as a model for trade the UK could adopt in its future relationship with the EU.
But following pressure from Germany and France particularly, the European Commission has bowed to pressure to allow national parliaments of all member states to ratify the trade agreement, which has already been seven years in the making.
Canada's EU deal on the brink? The much-heralded trade deal could now be stalled after Brexit
Previously, it was to just be signed off by the European Parliament and Council this year.
The deal was expected to come into effect next year but when individual national parliaments and assemblies were asked to approve a trade deal between the EU and South Korea, ratification took five years.
The legal framework for the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the EU and Canada was drawn up in late February.
At the time, EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom and Minister of International Trade of Canada Chrystia Freeland heralded it as representing 'the new global standard of progressive trade agreements'.
What's the deal?
As a result of the deal, around 99 per cent of import tariffs (with the exclusion of some agricultural products) are set to be axed within seven years of the agreement coming into force. Off the back of this, imports and exports of goods and services between the two parties are expected to rise by 23 per cent, or 26 billion, a year.
Both parties have also agreed measures to reduce technical barriers to trade such as aligning certain regulations and product standards to make companies more competitive in both the EU and Canada by cutting down on costs of testing, for example.
Other measures include allowing both parties to bid for government contracts and Canada has guaranteed to EU financial service providers that its existing framework 'will not become more restrictive with regard to the provision of crossborder insurance, reinsurance and intermediation, as well as portfolio management services'. And the deal confirms that the EU and Canada fully preserve their right to regulate.
What about movement of people?
Prince Harry met with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau in Toronto ahead of the Florida Invictus Games
On the sticky subject of movement of people, the agreement stops far short of free movement. Instead it includes a clause for temporary entry.
Companies will be able to transfer staff between both Canada and the EU. Both Canada and the EU have undertaken to allow companies to post their 'intra-corporate transferees' to Canada for up to three years - regardless of their sector of activity.
And the agreement guarantees for the first time that intra-corporate transferees may be accompanied by their spouses and families when temporarily assigned to subsidiaries abroad.
Canadian and EU nationals who provide a service as so called contractual service suppliers or independent professionals will be able to stay in the other party for up to 12 months instead of the previous six months.
Why has it been stalled?
The agreement has been translated into the 22 EU treaty languages ever since with the aim of having it signed by the European Parliament and Council this year and coming into effect in 2017.
But the Canadians have been dealt a major blow as in the wake of Brexit, the European Commission has decided that all national parliaments of EU member states will have to ratify the deal.
But as mentioned above, it took five years for them to ratify a deal with South Korea.
The move follows pressure largely from France and Germany for national governments to have a say on the Canadian deal, which is seen by many as laying the ground work for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the EU and the US, which has also been in the pipeline for years.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi have discussed what role Priyanka might play in UP where the party plans to hit the streets post Eid.
By Amit Agnihotri: Priyanka Gandhi blitz in pollbound Uttar Pradesh even as party veteran Sheila Dikshit threw her hat in the ring, indicating she may hold the fort in the politically crucial state.
PRIYANKA'S ROLE
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi have discussed what role Priyanka might play in UP where the party plans to hit the streets post Eid.
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Sources said the initial plan is to focus on 150 of the total 403 assembly constituencies where the Congress thinks it is on a strong wicket.
AIMS FOR HIGH STRIKE RATE
The Congress has been on the margins in UP for over two decades and could win just 22 of the 403 seats in 2007 assembly polls and 28 in 2012. It continues to suffer from a weak organisation and infighting among leaders.
Though the Congress had touched 30 seats mark in the house over the past years, it has slipped down to 24 as the party expelled six lawmakers last month for voting against official nominee Kapil Sibal in the Rajya Sabha polls.
Sources said the Congress wants a high strike rate and win a sizable number of seats to be able to play a significant role in the formation of the next government.
PRIYANKA OR SHEILA DIKSHIT
Dikshit, who had earlier refused to take the responsibility for UP, stirred the political pot saying she was the daughter in law of the state and would not shy away from any role the party high commanded wanted her to play.
However, Congress communication department chief Randeep Surjewala played down reports related to Priyanka's and Sheila's UP role saying the newly appointed AICC general secretary in charge of the Ghulam Nabi Azad has submitted an action plan to Sonia Gandhi who would soon take decision in the matter.
Surjewala said it was Priyanka to decide on campaigning all over the state.
However, sources said that people should be ready for a surprise and could find a younger Jitin Prasada, another Brahmin leader, as the new state unit chief as incumbent Nirmal Khatri has been holding the charge for the past few years.
Also Read: No decision on Priyanka's role in UP elections, says Azad
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By PTI: Mysuru, Jul 6 (PTI) Local people and some organisations today staged a protest here, alleging delay by police in taking action on a complaint filed by Mysuru Deputy Commissioner C Shikha against a politician accusing him of intimidating her. The protest was held in front of Nazarbad police station where the complaint is lodged, demanding action against former Zilla Panchayat President Mari Gowda. They alleged that police are under pressure because Gowda is said to be a confidant of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. Gowda had allegedly stopped the DCs car recently seeking to know why a Tahsildar was not relieved from duty despite his transfer, while she was returning after meeting the Chief Minister. Calling it an administrative matter on which he had no business to question, the DC had filed a complaint on Sunday. Responding to reporters, the DC said it was not fair on her part to comment as the case is under investigation. "Law will take its course," she said. Declining to divulge any details, Mysuru Police Commissioner B Dayananda said a case has been registered in Nazarbad police station and it is being investigated by ACP. Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said "DC has filed a complaint, police are investigating.." PTI KSU RA BN RG
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Warning against any laxity in the matter, the PCC president Amarinder Singh today maintained that there was a pattern in the sacrilegious incidents which started with the desecration of holy Guru Granth Sahab, followed by holy Gita and now with the holy Quran.
By Manjeet Sehgal: Congress on Wednesday demanded immediate arrest of sacrilege accused AAP MLA Naresh Yadav.
Punjab Committee president Captain Amarinder Singh today asked the Punjab Police as why they were not arresting the Delhi AAP MLA Naresh Yadav even after being confronted with facts and evidence by the co-accused Vijay Kumar. He also lashed out at the party for its repeated sacrilegious and blasphemous acts hurting religious sentiments of people.
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"It is surprising that the police are not arresting the AAP MLA", he said, while wondering what made police to go so soft with the accused despite grave allegations with substantial evidence against him. Or, he asked, there is some subtle understanding between the AAP and the ruling Akali-BJP alliance, to disturb peace in the state, which prevents any action against the MLA.
Warning against any laxity in the matter, the PCC president maintained that there was a pattern in the sacrilegious incidents which started with the desecration of holy Guru Granth Sahib, followed by holy Gita and now with the holy Quran. "There seems to be clear and deliberate design to sabotage the peace in Punjab and it must be curbed with iron fist", he said, while cautioning against
going soft on the suspects.
AAP DID NOT CARE ABOUT RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS OF PEOPLE: AMARINDER
Capt Amarinder also condemned the AAP for using their party symbol, 'broom', along with the picture of Darbar Sahib on their posters, which he said is blasphemous and unpardonable. "This is not only sacrilegious but outrageous as well that the party did not care about the sentiments of people it is so ambitiously restless to represent", he remarked.
Besides, he said, similarly comparing the election manifesto with holy books like the Gita and Guru Granth Sahib also betrayed the AAP's ignorance and insensitivity towards the religious sentiments of people. "These are highly insensitive, blasphemous and unpardonable acts by the AAP leaders", he said, while adding, "they just can't get away with these by tendering an apology without actually meaning to apologise".
"Here is a party, restlessly ambitious to rule Punjab and yet so insensitive and ignorant about the sensitivities of its people", Captain Amarinder remarked, while referring to repeated acts of outrageous sacrilege committed by its leaders.
The former chief minister said that not only had AAP hurt the sentiments of people by using the picture of Darbar Sahib with their electoral symbol, it had also violated the electoral law. "This is a clear violation of election laws as religious symbols cannot be used for political purposes and campaigns", he said, while hoping that the Election Commission of India will also take serious note of the matter.
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SIKH PANTH BELIEVES IN "FORGIVENESS', DON'T POLITICISE THE ISSUE: AAP
Accusing Badals for politicising the sensitive religious issue, State Convenor of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Sucha Singh Chhotepur today said that since the AAP leader Ashish Khetan has already apologised for his 'inadvertent act' and Sikh Panth believes in 'forgiveness', opposition parties should be beware of politicise it to disturb the communal harmony in the state.
While talking to media, Chhotepur said it was unfortunate that AAP leader Ashish Khetan inadvertently compared the party's youth manifesto with Shiri Guru Granth Sabhib and later on Khetan submitted his apology. "Sikhism believes in forgiveness and earlier also it pardoned many serious mistakes", Chhotepur added.
"Opposition parties are deliberately politicising this issue. Better they should fight us politically", Chhotepur said.Chhotepur said that during LS poll campaign, Punjab Cabinet Minister Bikram Singh Majithia, while getting overboard of 'sycophancy', desecrated the "Gurbani" in praise of Arun Jaitely, but later he submitted apology and Sikh Panth had pardoned
him.
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Even Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had committed a 'blunder' by terming him "Bahadur" in comparison with Baba Banda Singh Bahadur, Chhotepur said adding that even PPCC Chief Captain Amarinder Singh also committed religious mistake by taking oath having 'Gutka' in his hand while wearing shoes at Bathinda during his coronation ceremony.
ALSO READ:
Captain Amarinder Singh targets Kejriwal and AAP manifesto
FIR against AAP leader Ashish Khetan for hurting religious sentiments
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Congress communication department chief Randeep Surjewala refused to comment when his reaction was sought over the issue.
By Amit Agnihotri: The social media was abuzz over reports related to Rahul Gandhi's marriage after BJP leader Subramanian Swamy tweeted that the event was being planned keeping in mind the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls next year.
"Heard from "Sources": for UP election Buddhu may marry a UP Brahmin girl soon. One more desperate stunt?," Swamy, a known Gandhi family baiter, tweeted.
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Congress communication department chief Randeep Surjewala refused to comment when his reaction was sought over the issue.
SWAMY VS GANDHIS
Swamy has been after the Gandhi family since the party lost the Lok Sabha elections in 2014. He filed a case related to the embezzlement of funds in National Herald newspaper and raised questions over Rahul's nationality.
Congress leaders in UP termed the "news" as baseless rumour.
MALIGNING RAHUL'S IMAGE
Congress leaders said Swamy is maligning Rahul's image as the party is trying to woo the Brahmin community in UP which will have assembly polls next year.
In 2015, too Swamy had tweeted about Rahul's visit to France where he was allegedly spotted with "an Afghan Muslim girl domiciled in Italy."
In 2012, after the Congress' poor performance in the UP assembly elections, Swamy had tweeted. "What is the diff between Akhilesh and Buddhu? Former is 38 years old and has three kids. The latter is 42 and still a kid."
This not the first time speculations have surfaced over the marriage plans of Rahul, who turned 46 on June 19.
RAHUL'S LOVE LIFE
In 2015, while Rahul visited A.H. Inter College School located in Musafirkhana, Amethi, Congress activist Mohammad Anwar suggested him to get married.
"Everything will be fine after marriage. Get married Rahul bhaiya," he had said. In 2004, Rahul had told media in Amethi that he had a relationship with Veronica of Spanish origin but said they had no plans for marriage. Later there were reports he had been spotted with an Afghan girl.
Also Read: Congress readies for Priyanka Gandhi blitz ahead of UP elections
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The CBI told court that Kumar's arrest was triggered by charges that he tried to intimidate and influence witnesses. The agency had registered a case naming him as an accused stating that he awarded undue favours to get contracts for Delhi government.
By Sneha Agrawal: Arvind Kejriwal's Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar, who was facing corruption charges till now, can now be charged with cheating and forgery, CBI told a Delhi Court on Tuesday. Seeking custody of Kumar and four others, including Deputy Secretary Tarun Sharma, the agency claimed to have got its hands on fresh evidence to press new charges.
FIVE DAY REMAND
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The court has ordered a five-day remand for all the five accused. The CBI told court that Kumar's arrest was triggered by charges that he tried to intimidate and influence witnesses. The agency had registered a case naming him as an accused stating that he awarded undue favours to get contracts for Delhi government.
The counsel told court that the Delhi government is creating media hype as if Kumar is a 'Sheshnag' holding the Delhi government up on his head and if he goes then the Delhi government will go too."
CONSPIRED TO GET CONTRACT TO ENDEAVOUR SYSTEMS
The agency further alleged that there was a nexus among the arrested and Kumar was well acquainted with all of them. They had conspired to get the contract to Endeavour Systems Pvt Ltd. Observing that the money trail has to be ascertained, it said the agency had the audio tapes of conversations between Kumar and other accused persons.
Opposing the application for CBI remand, senior advocate Mohit Mathur, who appeared for Kumar, said no ground has been mentioned in the agency's plea which reflects that CBI remand was required. He said there was no paper on record suggesting that his client had any relation with the others arrested. Mathur also argued that there was no allegation against Kumar for causing wrongful loss to anybody.
NO GROUNDS FOR ARREST
Senior advocate Ramesh Gupta, who appeared for Sharma, said his client had cooperated in the probe and there was no ground to arrest him. Similarly, the other three accused said they had also participated in the investigation and hence there was no need to arrest them.
ACCUSED OF CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY, BEATEN UP
Dinesh Gupta, who is one of the accused during the hearing alleged that he was beaten black and blue and is being pressurised by the investigation agency to become the approver or face dire consequences. Charges pressed by the CBI are under Sections 120-B of IPC (criminal conspiracy), and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act relating to criminal misconduct for allegedly favouring a private company in bagging five contracts. The CBI alleged that the accused persons had entered into a criminal conspiracy and caused a loss of Rs 12 crore to the Delhi Government.
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Also Read: Kejriwal's principal secretary Rajendra Kumar arrested in Rs 50 crore scam
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By Patrick Donachie
Every morning at 7, Antonis Tsampas arrives at the King Souvlaki food truck in Astoria and prepares the truck for the days business. By 10 a.m., the truck is open for business across the borough at the intersection of Northern and Bell boulevards in Bayside, offering passers-by authentic Greek food that Tsampas says lives up to the companys motto of being a truck offering Greek on the street.
Our priority is to keep it pure and good quality, because thats what makes us popular, he said.
King Souvlaki started as a food cart on the streets of Astoria in 1979. George and Tskotas Tsampas took ownership of the cart from their uncle in 1990, and for decades have popularized the business from the intersection of 31st Street and 31st Avenue in Astoria.
The family business continued as such into the next generation with Antonis, Georges son. Antonis said that his brother and cousin also work for the company.
Family, its just the best job you can find, he said.
Three years ago, the Tsampas brothers made the transition from cart to truck, while still serving the same cuisine in the same Astoria location. Five months ago, the Bayside truck opened for business. For decades, a mutual friend of the Tskotas brothers operated a cart at the corner of Northern and Bell, and they decided to partner with him in order to expand the King Souvlaki brand.
Antonis said the constant foot traffic means big business for the Bayside truck, and he has seen the crowds increase since the trucks January opening. All the food is prepped in the truck or at the crews kitchen in Astoria, with Antonis proudly noting that they cut the French fries themselves, and even import the Greek soft drink Loux to enhance the authenticity of the meal. The crew operates a full charcoal grill in the truck, which Antonis acknowledged was going to make the confines sweltering in the summer months.
Its hot, he said. But you do what youve got to do.
The Bayside truck remains open until midnight, while the Astoria truck remains open until 5 a.m. Thursdays through Saturdays to catch the late night crowds. Antonis said that much of their business came from positive recommendations on Facebook and Yelp. The Astoria location has gathered more than 100 reviews on Yelp, with an average rating of 4 1/2 out of five stars.
When you sell good quality, they respect that and theyll come to you, Antonis said as another customer stepped to the window. Its worth the wait.
By PTI: From Aditi Khanna
London, Jul 6 (PTI) Nearly 600 reports of hate crimes were made to police in London in the immediate aftermath of the UKs referendum vote to leave the European Union, according to Scotland Yard.
Figures show 599 incidents of hate crime were reported to Scotland Yard between June 24, the day the result was announced, and July 2.
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There had been a 75 per cent increase in arrests related to such crimes over the past few weeks, Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe told senior Indian-origin MP Keith Vaz, the chair of the home affairs committee.
The Home Affairs Select Committee (HAC) announced an investigation into hate crime yesterday and has begun the information gathering process.
"You cant escape the conclusion of the cause and the effect. My analysis is that there seems to be an impression that those involved in this sort of behaviour have permission to behave this way," London mayor Sadiq Khan told the London Assembly today in reference to the latest figures.
"Youve got to report it. The police want to hear from you. This police service that polices our city now is different to those in the past. From the top to the bottom they care about this," he urged victims.
The Met Police, which is the UK largest police force, usually averages between 20 and 50 reports of hate crime a day.
The force claimed that it had received at least eight allegations that Polish or other European communities had been targeted in the British capital soon after the Brexit vote.
Police have already said the aftermath of the referendum produced a five-fold increase in reports to a special hate crime reporting website, with 331 received by last Wednesday. PTI AK AMS AKJ AMS
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TRN Archives Administrator Ed Holder at Hopecrest Lodge in 1983.
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By Bridget Knight of the Times Record News
Well-meaning citizen efforts to help those suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction have been a part of Wichita Falls since the city's pioneer days, but few had as long-lasting an impact as Hopecrest Lodge, run throughout most of its tenure by Administrator Ed Holder.
The private detox center and halfway house was chartered in 1961, following a bequest by Jules and Zella Bohn of a large home at 2001 Harriet, a one-block street tucked between Seymour Highway and Seymour Road. Ministers, doctors, prominent business people and community volunteers joined together, "in the name of Christ," to bring hope to individuals and families impacted by substance abuse.
Holder came on board in 1969, when the private halfway house was incorporated and was rebranded as a "rehabilitation center," although its outward appearance and inner operations changed little. Residents were still expected to do two things: work and stay sober, with the help of mandatory Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. The program, Holder said in 1983, was far more than a few simple rules, though, enabling those in the grips of addiction to grow comfortable enough to build a new life.
Hundreds did until 1996, when the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse pulled its funding because the aging building could not meet new licensing standards without expensive remodeling work no one could afford. Hopecrest hung on for another few months before officially closing in early 1997.
While several individuals have attempted to continue the mission at Hopecrest informally, the building eventually fell into disrepair and was abandoned, save for the occasional individuals who come by seeking help based on outdated stories of hope.
AP Photo/American Girl Kell House Museum will present American Girl 1909 Camp in August.
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Kell camps will take kids back in time
Kell House Museum will offer two camps in August for children age 8 to 12. The camps are designed to help children explore history and architecture in fun, weeklong sessions filled with hands-on activities.
LEGO Architecture Camp will run from 9 a.m. to noon Aug. 1-5. Participants will explore the architecture of the historic Kell home, then build their own structures with popular LEGO blocks.
American Girl 1909 Camp will introduce campers to life in the year 1909, when the Kell House was built. The camp will run from 9 a.m. to noon Aug. 8-12. Participants are encouraged to bring their own American Girl or other doll.
Each camp costs $50, which covers the cost of all materials. Sign up on the Wichita Heritage Society website or call 723-2712.
Democratic Women will meet Monday
The Texas Democratic Women of the Wichita Area will meet at 11:30 a.m. Monday at Luby's Cafeteria, 1801 Ninth St.
Registered nurse Sally Hastings, hospital services coordinator at United Regional Health Care System, will be the speaker. Hastings will outline her work overseeing the organ donation program for the area.
TDW members will also discuss the "Popcorn and Politics" movie program planned for the Democratic headquarters on Kemp Boulevard.
Information: Terry Gilleland, 692-6450.
Program to outline Alzheimer warnings
Memory often changes as people grow older, but memory loss that disrupts daily life is not a typical part of aging. It may be hard to know the difference between age-related changes and the first signs of Alzheimer's disease.
To help identify problems early, the Alzheimer's Association-North Central Texas Chapter will present a free program, "Know the 10 Signs," at 2 p.m. Tuesday at the Alzheimer's Association regional office, 901 Indiana, Suite 350. 767-8800.
This presentation is for anyone who would like to be better informed about memory, behavioral or ability changes in themselves, family members or friends that are of concern. Early detection of Alzheimer's disease is important for the correct doctor's care, for enrolling in clinical studies as well as for planning.
Information: Sue Gross at 940-767-8800 or 800-272-3900.
By Times Record News
A Wichita Falls man has become the second suspect in an incident in which video of an under-aged girl performing sexual acts was allegedly posted on a social media website.
Demetris DeShawn Pope, 19, is charged with promotion of child pornography. Dezirae Irene Lopez, 17, also faces charges in the case.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit filed in the case: The Wichita Falls Police Departments Crimes Against Children was notified on Nov. 20, by school personnel about the possible sexual exploitation of a child. The minor was a 16-year-old girl.
School officials had been informed by another girl who saw the victim, a friend, on the social media site Snapchat engaging in sex with an 18-year-old man. A detective located the girl and she confirmed that Lopez and Pope made videos of her engaging in sex.
The girl said Lopez and the man posted the video on Snapchat against her wishes. The detective found the videos posted on the accounts of both Lopez and Pope. Lopez was arrested Friday. Her bail is set at $100,000.
Pope was arrested Wednesday. His bail had not been set by mid-afternoon.
Lopez was arrested June 24 and remains in jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.
Yellow police tape
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A spokesperson with the Texas Department of Public Safety has released the name of a woman found dead in Young County over the weekend.
Shelby Gober, 33, of Olney, was found dead about 11:20 a.m. Sunday on Lowe Road off Texas Highway 251. The Texas Rangers are investigating the incident.
Gober was the second body found over the weekend in Young County. A man was found dead inside of a clothing donation bin behind a church in Graham early Saturday morning. The identity of the man has yet to be released by officials.
Police Lights
By Times Record News
Police have released the name of a man found dead Saturday in a clothing donation bin behind a church in Graham. He was David Floyd Donald, 33, of Graham.
Donald was born in Colorado and his family moved to Graham in 1996. His body was found behind the Loving Highway Church of Christ near the Graham Police Department's administration building. Two people early Saturday morning reported they discovered the body in one of the clothing collection boxes. Donald was wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, according to police.
A preliminary examination did not reveal any obvious indications of injury, violence, or foul play. The cause of death has not yet been determined.
Donald is survived by his parents.
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The Republican yearning to pin a scandal on Hillary Clinton knows no bounds. Any scandal will do, real or imagined. She must somehow be or appear to be guilty of something.
They tried Benghazi. Boy, did they try Benghazi. House Republicans even put together a special committee, which House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy praised for hurting Clinton's chances of being elected president. "Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?" he said last September. "But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping."
To the GOP's consternation, however, those numbers recovered nicely. According to the Real Clear Politics average of polls, she leads Donald Trump by about 5 points; the most recent Washington Post survey showed her ahead by 12. Adding insult to injury, the Benghazi committee came up empty-handed. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the panel's chairman, released a final report last week that found no smoking gun. In fact, it didn't find smoke.
The Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on U.S. diplomatic and intelligence facilities in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans should be blamed on the terrorists who committed the assault not on the secretary of state. Even if she happens to be named Clinton.
So if Benghazi isn't the sought-for scandal, what else might be? Trump keeps threatening to relitigate the 1990s by dredging up Bill Clinton's womanizing and even the suicide of Clinton friend and associate Vince Foster. That is a realm peopled mostly by conspiracy theorists wearing tinfoil hats; Trump can go there if he wants, but the rest of the country won't follow.
Let's see, there's the Clinton Foundation and the vast amount of money it has raised, including from foreign governments, potentates and moguls. The problem with this line of attack is that the foundation, by all accounts, does a lot of good around the world. And it generally operates in a way that Republicans should applaud, not simply doling out money but instead boosting the capacity of local governments and organizations to solve their own problems.
What other grist for the scandal mill could there be?
I'm being somewhat disingenuous, of course. There are Hillary Clinton's emails.
As I've written, Clinton was wrong to decline a government email account when she was secretary of state and instead use a private account, run from a server in her house.
What was she thinking? I doubt it was "convenience," as she still claims. I've believed all along that Clinton wanted control. I think she wanted to guarantee that no personal or foundation emails would ever become part of the public record and thus potentially subject to release. It is certainly true that the Clintons have legions of political enemies who would love to root through the family's private affairs. This fact does not, however, make Clinton's actions right.
But were they illegal? And were they criminal?
That's what the FBI and Justice Department lawyers are trying to ascertain. From what is publicly known about the emails, I am unimpressed. The salient issue is whether she mishandled classified material. Clinton's critics note that David Petraeus, a former CIA director and one of the most lauded military officers of his time, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and was hit with a $100,000 fine for that offense. But it seems to me that routing potentially sensitive emails through a private server is different from handing classified information to one's mistress, which is what Petraeus did.
Obviously, I don't know what else the investigators on the Clinton case might have found out. I do know, however, that Bill Clinton isn't doing his wife's legal prospects any good.
Last week, at the Phoenix airport, the former president learned that Attorney General Loretta Lynch's plane would soon be landing and decided to drop by and say hello. I can't say it's the most inappropriate thing he's ever done, since that's a high bar, but it's up there.
Lynch described the visit as purely social. But to eliminate any hint of impropriety, she pledged to "accept" the recommendation of FBI and Justice investigators on whether Clinton should face any charges.
Prosecutors have enormous discretion. The danger for Hillary Clinton is that if the decision is a close call, Justice Department lawyers might decide that giving her the benefit of the doubt would make it look as if the political fix were in.
Now Clinton has to hope her husband hasn't succeeded, scandal-wise, where Republicans failed.
Eugene Robinson's email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com. He writes for The Washington Post Writers Group.
As per the latest estimates, around five lakh female foetuses are aborted annually. According to UNICEF, India has lost over two crore girls since 2007 to female foeticide.
By Harish V Nair: Supreme Court on Tuesday accused Internet giants Google, Microsoft and Yahoo of attempting to intentionally defy its orders aimed at putting an end to rampant sex determination tests and female foeticide across the country.
A bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra directed Modi government to take urgent steps to stop the search engine trio from hosting advertisements of kits for foetal gender determination, and displaying the addresses of foreign clinics that provide assistance in the act, which is an offence in India.
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FEMALE FOETICIDE
As per latest estimates, around five lakh female foetuses are aborted annually. According to UNICEF, India has lost over two crore girls since 2007 to female foeticide. Since 1991, 80 per cent Indian districts have recorded an increasingly masculine sex ratio."Call your technical people. They (search engines) need to be controlled. They are violating the laws of India. It seems that they do not have any respect for the law of this country", an angry Justice Misra told Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar.
VIOLATES LAW OF COUNTRY
"There can be no dispute that the respondent Google, Microsoft and Yahoo cannot put anything on their search engines that violates the law of the country", said the bench. SC asked Kumar to instruct the government to hold a meeting of technical experts of the government with that of the internet search engines within a week's time and made it clear that "nothing shall be there on the search engines that will violate the law of this country".
The apex court was acting on a petition filed by Sabu Mathew George, who is a member of the National Inspection and Monitoring Committee, set up by the SC in 2003 to inspect and report the implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994. The plea said such advertisements flooded the Internet after the Pre-Natal Diagnostics Technique (PNDT) Act, which came into force in 1994 to crack down on female foeticide, and banned the publication of such ads in the print media.
Section 22 of the new PNDT Act makes any form of advertisement of pre-conception and pre-natal sex determination punishable with maximum term of three years.
DIFFICULT TO BLOCK WEBSITES
The group coordinator, Cyber Laws Formulation and Enforcement Division of the Information Technology Department, had in its affidavit said it would be difficult to block these websites as they were hosted outside the country and provided good content for medical education.
The bench, however, rejected the argument, saying "as we understand, the affidavit reflects a kind of helplessness".
The websites on their part had earlier contended they do not violate the laws of India."We only provide a corridor and do not have any control over the contents," they said.
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Also Read:
Google cheers Juno's arrival in Jupiter with a doodle
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OPENING FRIDAY
MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES: Two party-happy brothers (Zac Efron and Adam Devine) trying to find respectable dates to take to their sister's wedding meet their matches in the form of Aubrey Plaza and Anna Kendrick. Based on the memoirs of real-life Menands brothers, Mike and Dave Stangle. (R for crude sexual content, language throughout, drug use and some graphic nudity) http://www.foxmovies.com/movies/mike-and-dave-need-wedding-dates
THE MUSIC OF STRANGERS: In this documentary, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and other international artists of The Silk Road Project discuss their philosophies on music and culture. (PG-13 for brief strong language) http://themusicofstrangers.film/
THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS: Louis CK, Kevin Hart and Albert Brooks provide the voices for this animated comedy about the trouble cats and dogs get into when their owners aren't home. (PG for action and some rude humor) http://www.thesecretlifeofpets.com/
WIENER-DOG: Writer-director Todd Solondz tells the tale of a dachshund passing from oddball owner to oddball owner and changing their dysfunctional lives. (R for language and some disturbing content) http://www.wienerdogmovie.com/
OPENING WEDNESDAY
THE INFILTRATOR: Walter White is back in the drug business, when Bryan Cranston stars as the real-life U.S. customs official who uncovered a money laundering scheme involving Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. (R for strong violence, language throughout, some sexual content and drug material) http://www.theinfiltrator.com/
Love movies? Love talking about them? Love reading about them? Go to Times Union Movies blog, moderated by film fanatic C.J. Lais Jr. and join in the conversation. >http://blog.timesunion.com/movies/>
Maxwell "blackSUMMERS'night": Just over 20 years after his debut album wowed audiences, this new album is upon us. Bubbling under a subtly funky bassline, "Lake By the Ocean" falls more in line with "Matrimony: Maybe You" tempo-wise and just a little more rhythmic than "Pretty Wings" than with "Ascension (Don't Ever Wonder)" or "Get to Know Ya," the lead singles from his previous four albums. Touching the listener with sensual tones and a falsetto that can still devastate, "Lake By the Ocean" may not entirely be the neo-soul vibe that enveloped his early career, but there's still plenty of soul to it that extends beyond many modern R&B acts that are more profit than prophet.
Eric Luecking, PopMatters.com
Sara Watkins "Young in All the Wrong Ways": Watkins wastes no time in letting people know that her latest album, "Young in All The Wrong Ways" is a post-breakup, post-label-shakeup/identity crisis in the making. From the opening title track's surging, aggressive chorus vocals through to the delicate, almost defeated moments of a song like "Invisible," "Young" finds Watkins searching for a voice that best represents where she is now. That she's able to run through so many stylistic iterations comes as little surprise, given the genre-hopping of Nickel Creek and her own solo work. But in attempting to establish a new direction, a new voice for herself, she seems at a loss as to who she really is.
John Paul, PopMatters.com
Other releases: Bat for Lashes "The Bride"; Beyond the Wizard's Sleeve "The Soft Bounce"; Blink-182 "California"; Blood Orange "Freetown Sound"
Streaming
Blackout Balter "Everything Becomes Mechanical": Blackout Balter makes anthemic, poppy rock music with a definitively electronic bent. Similar to the Killers (whose guitarist Dave Keuning is prominently featured on its upcoming EP, "Twist and Bend") and Walk the Moon, the band's no-nonsense brand of straight-ahead rock is just as at-home on the radio as it is on underground music coverage sites. "Everything Becomes Mechanical" jams in a straight line, expertly navigating the confines of carefully structured pop rock. It's a laser-focused piece of music, and it succeeds by setting itself up perfectly for achieving it. (http://popm.at/28Nq1zI)
Will Rivitz, PopMatters.com
Alex Cameron "Take Care of Business": Pulled from Cameron's upcoming LP "Jumping the Shark," "Take Care of Business" plods along, for much of its duration, like a lethargic, brain-rotted version of some more impassioned '80s new wave ballad. Yet, this is precisely its appeal; there seems to be a more conventionally appealing song lurking somewhere within its mottled bloodstream, but it deliberately takes a different tack, adopting a cryptic, nearly demented tone instead. Cameron also dons a faux low-register bellow that further magnifies the track's innate strangeness. (https://youtu.be/6tGqK8-6hL4)
Pryor Stroud, PopMatters.com
Lucky Chops "Buyo": Though this is admittedly a gross oversimplification of one of the most complex genres of music ever, jazz can generally be separated into two camps. In one is the sedate, steady groove of early Davis and Coltrane, poised and collected over technically masterful solos and iconic melodies. In the other is the wild, kinetic funk of Mingus and Hancock, the kind that continues to exert massive influence on artists like Flying Lotus and his Brainfeeder cohort. Lucky Chops fits pretty solidly into the second camp. (https://youtu.be/gFrCyU-1zw0)
Will Rivitz, PopMatters.com
Greenfield
In an effort to complete a 13-mile recreational trail in Saratoga County, a land conservancy group from New York City purchased 282 acres in Greenfield.
The $1 million purchase of Greentree Lake by the Open Space Institute will provide another link on the incomplete trail that is expected to connect Moreau Lake State Park with Saratoga Spa State Park. The institute also said it will protect the land from developers while preserving the natural habitat.
"The purchase is significant because it will protect the drinking water in Saratoga Springs," said Katie Petronis, northern program director. "It's also important to protect the ecology. It is a key piece of conservation in Saratoga County."
The land, which will be eventually transferred to the state for permanent management, complements a local conservation group's efforts.
Saratoga PLAN, which is devoted to preserving the county's rural character and natural landscape, has called the site "an important ecological corridor." It includes Snook Kill River, two wetland complexes, and the lake.
A Saratoga PLAN analysis found that the features absorb excess rains, prevent extreme runoff and reduce problems associated with flooding and drought.
The land was purchased from Bruce and Jami Kenison. The deal closed June 6.
wliberatore@timesunion.com 518-454-5445 @wendyliberatore
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Albany County officials are reassessing their options after opposition mounted over a proposal to make refusing a security screening at Albany International Airport a misdemeanor.
Several groups from Muslim advocacy organizations to the New York Civil Liberties Union came out against the law, which was initially proposed in April under bipartisan support. Opponents of the law say it could lead to confusion, unwarranted arrests and potential racial and religious profiling. It currently sits in Albany County's Public Safety Committee.
County Sheriff Craig Apple said he's met with many of those concerned about the proposed measures and continues to work with the Legislature with hope of coming to a compromise.
"Our goal is not to make arrests, our goal is to provide safe travel," Apple said. "We're trying to get a balancing point where we're not infringing, but yet we're doing all that we can do to keep you safe."
The law aims to cover a weak spot in the current system that allows passengers to walk away without boarding their flights if security staff flags them for additional scrutiny, Apple said, adding that his deputies currently don't have legal grounds to question such a person.
Meanwhile, the Transportation Security Administration has no police power of its own and currently can only levy a fine.
The way the proposed law is written, a passenger could be in violation of the law should they leave the line even prior to going through metal detectors and having luggage scanned.
Apple and local TSA Federal Security Director Bart Johnson said there's potential for the state to pursue the matter, but nothing has been officially proposed.
"I would characterize it as it's being reviewed. Nothing's imminent," Johnson said. "Nothing has been written formally."
State Police have had early stage conversations with the TSA about a statewide approach, spokesman Beau Duffy confirmed, but "nothing has come to fruition at this point," he said.
"I think the whole involvement of the local authorities in these issues is probably a mistake," said Stephen Gottlieb, an Albany Law School professor who concentrates on constitutional law. "The federal and local authorities often stumble upon each other and create huge and unnecessary problems."
A TSA spokesperson on Tuesday said they couldn't comment on the pending legislation, but said that this isn't an official stance of the federal group.
"The local TSA Federal Security Director (Johnson) provided technical support to the Albany Sheriff's Office on legislation it was developing to improve security specific to Albany International Airport," the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Apple said the local TSA reached out to the sheriff's office to see if they would support the measure.
"We believed in it, and we agreed with them, and then we approached our local legislators," Apple said, but public opposition has prompted them to take another look. "We've agreed to fall back, research it and hopefully find a balancing point."
Johnson couldn't be reached for clarification following TSA's emailed response later Tuesday.
afries@timesunion.com 518-454-5353 @mandy_fries
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Cohoes
The city will begin an education program Monday to slow drivers down on Route 787 in a campaign that calls for investing up to $15 million to make it safer for pedestrians to cross the highway.
Mayor Shawn Morse outlined the goals Tuesday afternoon in response to three pedestrian fatalities on the major commuter route in 17 years, the latest in June.
The multi-faceted campaign showed off its first achievement with the installation of a 35-second walk signal that halts traffic in all directions at Bridge Avenue and Route 787.
That's where 16-year-old Brittany Knight was killed by a vehicle as she tried to cross. Police Chief William Heslin said the collision is still under investigation.
"Cohoes has made it clear that the only traffic safety fix is a boulevard (configuration)," Morse said.
Making a Cohoes Boulevard, the other name for Route 787, was first proposed in 2004 after 14-year-old Michael Hallock was struck and killed on Dec. 5, 2001, at the Bridge Avenue intersection.
It would cost $12 million to $15 million to transform Cohoes Boulevard into a boulevard setting from its highway appearance, Morse said.
The transformed highway would appear very much like Route 9 does in Saratoga Springs at the Saratoga Spa State Park, said Sam Zhou, the state Department of Transportation Region One director. This would include medians, lighting, curbing and other features.
"That gives a calming effect to the traffic," Zhou said.
The boulevard is the long-range goal. On Monday, city police, Albany County sheriff's deputies and State Police will begin the educational campaign by handing out information to drivers exceeding the 45 mph speed limit. A week later, ticketing will begin. "Our goal is not to write a ticket. Our goal is education," Morse said.
Speed enforcement will coincide with the city conducting educational programs through the summer recreation program to get to children in the city. This will be supplemented by coordinating a continuing program with the Cohoes school district.
The signaling also will be at three other intersections on 787: where Ontario Street crosses; Dyke Avenue; and Tibbits Avenue.
kcrowe@timesunion.com 518-454-5084 @KennethCrowe
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BETHLEHEM - A 72-year-old Delmar man and his wife were taken to the hospital after they were struck in a T-bone accident when pulling out of Cumberland Farms on Route 9W on Tuesday afternoon.
At about 12:45 p.m., Edward Phillips was trying to cross the highway to get to the plaza across the road where McDonald's and Marshalls are located, police said. Phillips failed to yield to oncoming traffic and his sedan was struck in the passenger side by a pickup truck driving south, according to police. Phillips' car lost a tire and two more cars hit the tire. Phillips' wife Beverly Phillips, 67, had to be removed by the firefighters.
SCHENECTADY -- Hundreds of Muslims from the Capital Region marked the end of the holy month of Ramadan with a prayer service at the Islamic Center of the Capital District.
Worshippers gave thanks for the completion of Ramadan and prayed for the victims of the Istanbul airport bombing.
Saratoga Springs
If the state approves the Pilgrim Pipeline, trainloads of volatile Bakken crude oil will pass through Saratoga Springs running less than a mile away from Saratoga Hospital and Saratoga Springs High School.
But at this point, the City Council has no idea how many trains nor how the influx of them will affect residents' health and safety.
Opponents refer to rail cars as "bomb trains."
On Tuesday night, the council voted to ask the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the Thruway Authority to expand the scope of their state Environmental Quality Review Act process, known as SEQRA, to include vital information for the city. The council also wants to learn about relevant health, safety and environmental issues that the review may expose.
The council voted after Bill Boehmke, chairman of the Climate and Energy Committee of Sustainable Saratoga, asked it to act as an interested party in the SEQRA scoping process.
"We have not taken a formal position on the oil trains," Boehmke said. "We are reserving judgment until the environmental review is complete. We do believe that the scoping request is necessary for us to make an informed decision on it."
The tracks are within a one-mile radius of the hospital, four public schools and Skidmore College. Homes and businesses are within those bounds as well.
Public Safety Commissioner Chris Mathiesen has strong feelings about the crude oil trains that will be traveling from Montreal to Albany. He called it and the 178-mile Pilgrim Pipeline from Albany to New Jersey "a bad idea and not good for the city." He added it is "not a prudent investment and an insult to the Northeast."
Mathiesen said the chances of a tragic accident with oil trains are minimal. But with an increase in trains carrying crude oil, the chances of an accident surge. He also said the pipeline would result in heavy rail traffic through the city in the years to come.
"We only have one line coming up to Saratoga that we need for our passenger rail," said the commissioner. "On the city level, we have so little control. The most we can do is demonstrate we are an interested agent."
The Canadian Bakken crude comes from Montreal to Albany by train. Many environmental groups oppose the pipeline proposed to run from Albany to Linden, N.J., along the Interstate 87-Thruway corridor. They warn that the possibility of spills and explosions would increase, and the pipeline will run through wetlands and sensitive habitats causing environmental harm.
Canton, Conn.-based Pilgrim Pipeline Holdings LLC argues the project is "environmentally sound" and will "boost the region's economy." Spokesman Ed Krenik said of it will not increase rail traffic in Saratoga because Albany can handle only so much crude oil. The company's website indicates it would handle 200,000 barrels of heating oil, gasoline, diesel and kerosene in each direction daily and 73 million barrels annually.
wliberatore@timesunion.com 518-454-5445 @wendyliberatore
Gloversville
Talk to almost anyone who grew up around the tanneries in Gloversville and they'll tell you about how they gagged on the smell of the fumes as they walked to school. That the fumes sometimes reeked of rotting flesh.
The experience has left some wondering if those noxious fumes caused health problems.
Richard Tesiero, 48, felt fine the day he got up to go to his maintenance job at Perrone Aerospace in Fultonville. That is, he felt fine until he did not. "It just came onto me," Tesiero said. "I thought it was vertigo. I got all lightheaded. I fell down, passed out, everything was spinning around. I started to feel like a [limp] coming on as I walked."
PAUL BUCKOWSKI
Everything changed after that. He couldn't work. He couldn't walk the way he used to. And now it's three years later and Tesiero still doesn't know what's wrong with him.
Initially treated for multiple sclerosis, tests eventually revealed he didn't actually have it. He's seen two neurologists, endured four agonizing spinal taps and traveled hundreds of miles between Albany, Boston and New York City in search of a diagnosis.
He grew up in Gloversville, near the mostly defunct tanneries still left there. Today, he lives in a nicely kept double-wide mobile home on an acre of land in Fort Johnson, not far from where he grew up. He's been renovating the place giving the kitchen new countertops and cabinets, installing hardwood and a wall to divide up the roomy living areas but progress is slow. When you rely on a cane to get around, he said, you get used to limits.
Though he works part time now, he can't work like he used to, which makes him frustrated and restless. He used to work 80-hour weeks, which afforded him a fairly comfortable living. He used to own a couple of snowmobiles that he and his three kids revved up every winter when the snow got deep, but sold them to make up for lost income. The disability payments aren't much and the medical bills take their cut.
Most recently, his doctors thought Tesiero might have something called hereditary spastic paraparesis, a disorder characterized by stiffness or weakness in the legs. And then a genetic test ruled that out like everything else.
"They're telling me I'm a puzzle," he said.
As its name suggests, Gloversville was historically a center for glove-making.
Making gloves begins with processing animal hides into leather a grisly operation requiring the use of harsh chemicals like formaldehyde, chromium and tannins. Cow, sheep and pig skins are cured and "fleshed" to clean them of blood, tissue and fat. They're limed, which removes the hair. Then they're de-limed and "bated," a soaking process that makes the leather supple.
The pollution of the Cayadutta Creek, which wends its way through Gloversville and Johnstown's city centers, is practically legendary here. The creek changed colors day to day based on the dyes dumped in the water; suds reaching heights of 10 feet floated on top of the creek, which was barren of fish and other aquatic life for decades.
The tannery waste in the creek, processed by sewage-treatment centers, was described by one 1989 news report as "foamy effluent" that turned the water into a "chemical cesspool as unwholesome as any in the state." Over the last couple of decades, Gloversville and neighboring Amsterdam and Johnstown have made significant strides in cleaning up the pollution and contamination of the tanneries and textile mills there, according to Department of Environmental Conservation records.
PAUL BUCKOWSKI
There are nearly 30 Superfund and brownfield sites in Fulton County, though many have been remediated by the DEC and the Environmental Protection Agency. The Cayadutta Creek has been repopulated with fish, but the DEC's records indicate that some areas of the creek are still contaminated with sediment. Most people living here drink public water not well water because much of the groundwater remains polluted, according to DEC reports.
Many of the tanneries are closed now, leaving behind dilapidated old buildings, barren plots, a higher-than-average unemployment and poverty rate and a dwindling population.
And there are many in the area, like Richard Tesiero, who say growing up around the contamination in the '70s and '80s has made them sick.
The effects of contamination can endure for generations, according to Rennie Sanges, an environmental activist who, with his wife, Sandy Fonda, led the Rainbow Alliance for a Clean Environment in Gloversville, which sued several of the tanneries for violating water discharge permits with the EPA.
"There's no doubt in my mind that the practices back then had a health effect on numerous people and even for future generations," Sanges, who still lives in Gloversville, says. "Back when we were working on [these cases], people were saying that there was a lot of asthma and a lot of respiratory problems."
"I just noticed in this area, there seems to be a lot of people getting sick," Tesiero said. "And that was always a concern to me because I thought about [the pollution]. Did I get into something? I don't know."
Debbie, who asked that we use a pseudonym (she works with mental health patients and wishes to remain anonymous), grew up in Gloversville and now lives in Johnstown. She's 48 now and wonders if the old pollution had anything to do with her long history of health problems. Her grandfather and mother both worked in the tanneries, she said, and she grew up with several women who've had cervical or breast cancer.
PAUL BUCKOWSKI
"I had endometriosis for years, had two bouts with cervical cancer, a recent bout with skin cancer, and for the past year I've had a chronic cough that they can't determine what is causing it," she says. She struggled with fertility, too. "I had two miscarriages before I had my son and one after I had him." Debbie is on municipal water, but says she hasn't drunk it in 10 years. There's a plastic bag full of empty water bottles sitting in her kitchen.
"I'm sure that chemicals seeped into the water when we were kids," she said. "You can't tell me that there isn't something around here that has caused all of this. There are too many of us."
Diane Lockwood, 47, who grew up here, too, says her father worked in the tanneries, and that the doctor found leather dust in her dad's lungs. He eventually was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, but because he was a smoker, "he kind of shrugged it off," she said. "The cancer was probably a combination" of the dust and the tobacco, they figured.
Then there's Kathryn Murphy, who also grew up in Gloversville, right across the street from the tanneries and the toxic creek. But she moved away when she was 18. (She's 64 now and living in Virginia.) In 1986, Murphy was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, but she got lucky. "One of my childhood friends received the same diagnosis and succumbed to the disease in his early 20s," she said. She's been in remission for decades. But she doesn't think it's a coincidence that her father's four sisters all died from breast cancer within years of each other. "They lived across the street from the same tannery for years," she said.
You could light tap water on fire back then, Sanges remembers. And: "You could see the creek be different colors on different days. They dumped whatever they wanted into the stream and everyone thought that's just the color of money."
PAUL BUCKOWSKI
Michael Muller is a toxic torts attorney based in Glens Falls. He says in the past five years, he's had some residents of the mill towns approach him to represent them in suits against the tanneries and the city. He's had to turn them away.
"I don't have the ability to put together a strong case," he said. And that goes for pretty much all lawyers, Muller said. When a person who's sick seeks legal recourse, it's up to him to prove that it's the leather dust in his lungs and not the decades-long smoking habit that gave him cancer. "Wait till you see what it takes to fund" a class-action suit against a company for damages from contamination, he added.
No hard medical studies exist to prove what sick people here suspect is the cause of their illness. And Gloversville's current mayor, Dayton King, said he hasn't heard about anyone being sick from the tannery pollution. "I'm not saying people couldn't be sick," he says. "But nobody's brought it to my attention." Nathan Littauer, a local hospital, also said they weren't familiar with any illnesses associated with contamination in the area.
When asked why they hadn't moved away, most of the people interviewed for this story said the same thing: "Where would we go?"
"The damage is already done," Tesiero said.
bsnyder@timesunion.com 518-454-5884
Congress strategist Kishor believes she is seen as a pro-development leader because of her accomplishments as chief minister of Delhi for three successive terms.
Former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit appears to be on top of the Congress party's shortlist of its chief ministerial candidates for Uttar Pradesh elections due next year.
On Tuesday, Dikshit hinted she was ready to take the plunge in the state's poll battle regardless of her age. "I am a bahu of UP and there's no retirement age in politics," the 78-year-old leader told reporters. "I have expressed desire on being involved in UP. Time is short. But I'll go with whatever the party decides," she remarked.
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PRASHANT KISHOR's CANDIDATE
Her comments came amid Congress strategist Prashant Kishor's insistence that Dikshit be announced the party's candidate for the chief minister's post in Uttar Pradesh.
Sources close to Kishor say he believes she is seen as a pro-development leader because of her accomplishments as chief minister of Delhi for three successive terms.
DIKSHIT BEST OPTION FOR UP CM
Kishor, they say, reckons Dikshit as the best option for the Congress party to project her as Uttar Pradesh's potential chief minister. For voters, he believes, allegations of corruption and an FIR against her in connection with the water-tanker scandal of Delhi will carry little weight, the sources say.
Also Read: Ex-Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit says ready for UP role
Also Read: Water tanker scam: Kapil Mishra accuses ACB of giving clean chit to Sheila Dikshit, framing him and Kejriwal
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London
Britain's Conservative prime minister is stepping down. The Labour Party leader is barely clinging to power. And now the head of the U.K. Independence Party, a key architect of the dramatic vote to leave the European Union, has resigned as well.
It has left the country with a power vacuum just as someone needs to step up and own the talks on how Britain will exit the EU.
The June 23 referendum results have ripped through British politics like a buzz saw, and it will likely be weeks before some clarity emerges. The new Conservative Party leader will be chosen Sept. 9 and will become prime minister. The contenders are talking in general terms about "Brexit" plans, but their words aren't yet backed by any authority.
UKIP leader Nigel Farage said Monday he is leaving his party post because he wants his life back after years of political intrigue. But observers note he's keeping his seat in the European Parliament and may well be hoping for a formal role when the new prime minister takes power and, most likely, starts Brexit talks with EU leaders.
"There's always a chance of him returning, but his future relies on other people supporting him and asking him to do something," said George Jones, government professor emeritus at the London School of Economics.
The race has been shaped by the virulent feud between leading "leave" campaigners ex-London Mayor Boris Johnson and Justice Secretary Michael Gove, who torpedoed Johnson's bid for the top spot with his own last minute entry. There are five contenders, including Gove, with Conservative lawmakers set to start voting on their favorites Tuesday.
Media attention has focused on Home Secretary Theresa May who opposed Brexit during the referendum campaign, but now backs it and Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom, who made her first major speech Monday.
She cast herself as a passionate supporter of the Brexit cause, although she opposed it as recently as 2013, promising negotiations would be relatively quick and effective in terms of giving Britain the power to control how many immigrants will move to the U.K.
Legendary New York City Ballet dancer Patricia McBride, who performed with the company in more than 100 ballets between 1959 and 1989, remembers well how cold the Saratoga nights could be when you were dancing in a tiny costume in the open air.
"One year, there were a few nights that were so cold that Mr. Balanchine" that would be George, founder and director of City Ballet "purchased blankets for every single person in the company," to keep them warm when they were offstage, McBride recalled in a recent interview. "He had nicknames for each of us, and the wardrobe mistress sewed our names on the blankets."
McBride and her husband, Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, also a former principal with the company, will come back "home" to SPAC on July 20 for the opening night of New York City Ballet's 50th anniversary residency. The evening features the return of Balanchine's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," the same ballet the company danced at SPAC's opening night performance in 1966.
McBride joined the company at 16, and, two years later, became its youngest principal dancer. She retired at 46, after a special performance on June 4, 1989; in 2014, she became a Kennedy Center honoree. For the last 20 years, she and Bonnefoux have been running the Charlotte Ballet (formerly North Carolina Dance Theatre) in Charlotte, N.C. (He is artistic director, but will step down in July 2017; she is associate artistic director.)
They still come to New York state every summer, to direct the Chautauqua Ballet Program at the Chautauqua Institution. But McBride says it's been a long time since she's been in Saratoga, even though she left a big piece of her heart here.
"I have so many beautiful memories of being there and performing there," she said. "We worked really hard, but then we'd come out of rehearsal and just breathe in the nature. And Balanchine loved being there with us; he would teach class every day and come to every rehearsal."
McBride first performed in Saratoga before SPAC was built, helping to raise awareness about the new performing arts center planned for the city. A few years later, she drove down the Avenue of the Pines between two rows of tiny trees. When Bonnefoux joined the company in 1970, the two bought and renovated a cottage on Regent Street as their summer home. That was where their family gave them a wedding shower with the whole company in attendance. (Today they have two children and three grandchildren.)
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McBride danced the role of Hermia at SPAC in the original cast of "Midsummer"; it was the second part Balanchine choreographed for her, when she was just 18. Over her 30 years with NYCB, he created numerous roles for her, many of which she brought to life on the SPAC stage, including Swanhilda in "Coppelia." She remembers watching Balanchine work with the Russian ballerina Alexandra Danilova, who had performed the title role multiple times, as he choreographed his version in 1974.
"It was so inspiring, like watching history in the making," McBride recalled. "You could tell you were in the presence of a genius. I was so young when I joined the company; he molded me as a dancer, and made me into the dancer I became. Everything I teach today is really what I learned from him over all those years."
Tresca Weinstein is a frequent contributor tot the Times Union.
SPAC legend and lore through the years:
One of the worst juxtapositions between consecutive-night crowds at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center came in 1992, when the Lollalapooza tour, headlined by Pearl Jam and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, performed a 10-hour show on a Tuesday before a horde of at least 25,000, followed the next night by a crowd 90 percent smaller for the Philadelphia Orchestra. Although comparatively few in number, some fans of the Philadelphians were still displaced, because Lollapalooza's hordes had broken more than 70 seats inside the amphitheater. According to a Times Union account from the show, "Teenagers and young adults ran into the amphitheater by the hundreds, overwhelming the security staff, snapping ropes and pulling up the posts holding the ropes." Authorities reported more than 40 arrests, and the tour was not welcome at SPAC the following summer; it stopped at the then-Saratoga Raceway in 1993.
When future actor David Hyde Pierce was 7 and living in Saratoga Springs, his parents took him to see the New York City Ballet perform "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. It was 1966, SPAC's opening year.
"That was the first performance of any kind that I remember seeing," Pierce told the Times Union five years ago, when he returned to appear with the Philadelphia Orchestra and narrate the composer Benjamin Britten's "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra." Speaking of that ballet performance 50 years ago, Pierce said, "It had such a profound effect on me that I think it led me to a life in the arts."
What a difference a year makes: In 1987, news reports said society queen Marylou Whitney was upset at the decline in fashion sense signaled by male members of the Philadelphia Orchestra's decision to perform without gasp suitcoats and ties. Even though it was "hot enough to melt a baton," according to columnist Ralph Martin, Whitney was got up in finery, and she expected as much from the musicians, who during their regular season in their home city wore tuxedos. And yet by the following year she'd gotten hip, apparently: People in the 30,000-strong crowd at the Grateful Dead show reported seeing Whitney in a tie-dyed T-shirt. Photographic proof was not supplied.
Longtime Philadelphia Orchestra maestro Eugene Ormandy, who conducted at SPAC for two decades, as befit his profession, had famously sensitive ears. They detected the sound of a waterfall on Geyser Creek behind the amphitheater. That was fine for the pastoral setting of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony or "A Midsummer Night's Dream." But for quieter works, he considered it an annoyance, so a dam was built to hold back the water.
Cutting out the waterfall, however, made a pond that was a perfect home for frogs, and their nocturnal croaking got Ormandy's goat. So SPAC grounds crews caught all the frogs and moved them to another part of the park. (The dam was removed after Ormandy's death in 1985.)
When an impostor with the same name as a longtime patron who had season tickets claimed the patron's seats at one performance, then-SPAC President Herb Chesbrough came up with a creative solution when the patron asked that a scene not be made: Chesbrough gave the patron his own seats for the performance, and when the impostors went for a stroll during intermission, they returned to find the maintenance crew had removed their seats. It never happened again.
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There was a SPAC connection to the 1967 theft of nearly $800,000 in Marylou Whitney's jewelry from her Saratoga Springs estate, Cady Hill, the biggest jewel heist in Capital Region history at the time. The burglary, which she discovered while dressing to go to a SPAC gala, was a dazzling mystery that went unsolved for 37 years, until 2004, when a career cat burglar serving a life sentence for murder in a New Jersey state prison bragged about it to a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter. The burglar, Allison Williams, spoke in detail to the paper about how he pulled off the theft of the famed Whitney Sapphire and 21 diamonds, rubies, emeralds and other precious stones in rings, bracelets, pins and earrings.
The gems, which were insured, were valued at $781,800 in 1967 the equivalent of about $5.4 million today. Williams said he fenced the loot on "Jeweler's Row'' on Sansom Street in Philadelphia, where the stones were placed in other settings and the gold melted down. Whitney's husband, John Hendrickson, and a retired Saratoga Springs police chief who was involved in the original investigation both told the Times Union they were highly dubious of the 2004 confession.
sbarnes@timesunion.com 518-454-5489 @Tablehopping http://facebook.com/SteveBarnesFoodCritic
There was good news on the jobs front this week with Tipperary County Council granting permission for the proposed First Data facility in Nenagh.
The new R&D centre, which will see 300 new jobs being filled at Stereame, is a major boost to the area, especially in light of the uncertainty facing Tipperary from the fallout from Brexit. The company will move into the offices currently vacant on the Dark Road side of what is known as Springfort Retail Park.
This is a good news story in the middle of the difficulties facing Nenagh traders with the ongoing gas works, said Nenagh Chamber President Denis Finnerty. We know the gas works are the future and this news is the light at the end of the tunnel.
The initial jobs were announced in the run-up to the general election in February by then Minister for the Environment Labour's Alan Kelly, and this Tuesday, he said: I am delighted to see full planning permission being given by the council to First Data. I am in constant contact with the company and they are extremely happy with the progress being made in Nenagh.
Deputy Kelly said that the company would be making multiple visits to Nenagh in the coming months.
This project is going to be groundbreaking for Nenagh and its future, he said.
First Data is a US-based global giant in the financial world, handling billions of credit card transactions each day.
Apart from the 300 high-end jobs at the company itself, it is anticipated that figure could rise to around 500 when the company's 18m to 20m wage bill is injected into the local economy and an expected IT support sector grows up around the facility. There will also be a spinoff for contruction workers on the actual site and in the local house building sector.
[July 06, 2016] Blue Ridge Executives Discuss The Future of Supply Chain at Nordics Supply Chain Conference
Blue Ridge, a global leader in cloud demand forecasting, planning, replenishment, allocation and analytics, sponsored the 8th annual Nordics Supply Chain Conference at Losby Gods Manor in Oslo, Norway attracting a record number of attendees. At this year's conference, supply chain leaders from premier Nordic companies explained how game-changing innovations in their supply chain have dramatically reduced operating costs, increased revenues and improved organizational performance. "It was remarkable to have customers, partners, and potential customers converge with a common goal: innovating their supply chain approach and technology to better serve the end customer, while also improving their top and bottom line," said Sverre Rosmo, managing director of Inventory Investment AS. "The academic leaders, kenote speakers, customer showcases and industry vertical discussions were extremely impactful and the attendees are excited to implement these learned methods."
Featuring keynote presentations by Atle Nordli, quantum methods professor at the Norwegian School of Management and Greg White, CEO at Blue Ridge, the conference sessions highlighted transformational supply chain case studies from Icopal, REMA Distribution, Bilglassgruppen and Vectura. Kathrine Halstenstad and Bjrn Christer Fredriksen, both Supply Chain Managers at Vectura noted, "Blue Ridge cloud-native technology has revolutionized our supply chain, enabling us to be more competitive and providing increases in revenue, while also dramatically improving service levels. And with Blue Ridge technology as a foundation, we are steadily growing our position as trusted advisors to our key stakeholders - the wine importers. The technology is instrumental to our continued success and growth."
"Many retailers and distributors are examining their supply chains and challenging the status quo. There is growing recognition that commerce today is posing challenges that require new methodologies and technologies," stated Greg White, CEO of Blue Ridge. "The stories presented by our customers continue to inspire us to keep delivering capabilities that transform their businesses." About Blue Ridge Named a leader in the 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Supply Chain Planning Systems, Blue Ridge provides revolutionary cloud-native supply chain planning technology specifically designed for retail and distribution. We enable our customers to increase revenue at lower costs by delivering an unprecedented level of precision and accuracy to forecast, plan and purchase inventory. Blue Ridge ensures products are available at the right time, without incurring excess inventory cost. For more information, visit http://www.blueridgeglobal.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005843/en/
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By PTI: Nagpur, Jul 6 (PTI) Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan today met the top leaders of RSS here following the cabinet reshuffle he carried out last week in which senior ministers Babulal Gaur and Sartaj Singh were dropped.
He met RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat, general secretaries Bhaiyyaji Joshi and Dattatreya Hosbole, and other senior RSS functionaries.
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He had a closed-door meeting with Bhagwat for over 40 minutes, RSS sources said.
Gaur (84) had reportedly conveyed his anguish to the RSS leaders after he was asked to step down owing to his age.
Similarly, Madhya Pradesh PWD minister Sartaj Singh was stated to be unhappy over his ouster, sources said.
Chouhan assured the RSS leaders that he would use the experience and organisational skills of these two leaders for the party and the governance, they added.
Later, Chouhan told reporters that he met Bhagwat and other RSS leaders about the 51-point Ujjain religious fair document (resolutions passed at a conference at Ujjain last month coinciding with the Simhastha Kumbh Mela) and its implementation. PTI JOE KRK KIS BAS
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[July 06, 2016] Dental Select Names Director of Business Development
Dental Select announced today the promotion of Jeff Van Leeuwen to Director of Business Development. In this new role, Van Leeuwen will be responsible for identifying strategic relationships, building new business opportunities and further developing Dental Select's current customer base nationwide. Coming from his current position as Manager of Utah Sales, Van Leeuwen will work directly with the company's executive leadership in the development and execution of national sales strategies and initiatives. Van Leeuwen will report directly to Suzette Musgrove, Dental Select's Chief Sales Officer, who expressed that this change is "a necessary and instrumental step in preparation for deeper, wide-spread national growth." Musgrove added, "Dental Select is relentless in our focus towards national growth, and we will constantly strive to implement the changes necessary to achieve our vision. Jeff, with his knowledge and many years of experience in his industry, is a key player who will lead our efforts to further develop into new markets throughout the country."
Van Leeuwen has more than 17 years of experience in the group insurance industry working with employer sponsored and voluntary benefit plans including dental, medical, 401(k), disability, vision and life insurance. Van Leeuwen, a Utah native, received a bachelor's degree in Finance from the University of Utah and has been an active member of the Utah Association of Health Underwriters since 2001. About Dental Select
Dental Select is the nation's largest independent and privately-held dental insurance company. Founded in 1989, the company specializes in providing and administering customizable fully-insured and self-funded group dental plans, along with individual and family dental plans, for nearly half a million members nationwide. Dental Select plans are rated A++ and backed by a provider network offering over 200,000 access points nationwide. Dental Select also offers additional ancillary insurance products, including vision and AD&D, and has been recognized as the industry's leader in customer experience. More information is available at www.dentalselect.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706006263/en/
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[July 06, 2016] Early Times Kentucky Whisky Raises Awareness and Support for Veterans Suffering from Military Service Trauma with Film Documentary
"Life after combat isn't easy, but it can still be really good" is one message the new documentary "Reinforcements" delivers to U.S. military veterans suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The short film, which debuted tonight at a private screening in Louisville, aims to raise awareness and provide life-saving service dogs to veterans who return from combat to find they face a new battle against PTSD. The film was produced by Early Times Kentucky Whisky in partnership with K9s For Warriors, a non-profit organization committed to training service canines for veterans suffering from trauma resulting from military service. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706006304/en/ Early Times custom-built barrel doghouse created by veterans at the Brown-Forman Cooperage. (Photo: Business Wire) "Reinforcements" follows the transformational journey of Travis Davis - a retired Army Corporal struggling with PTSD - as he adjusts to civilian life with the help of Joe Swoboda - a retired Army Sergeant First Class - and his service dog companion, Lilly. "So many veterans don't know there is a tremendous support network available to them after they return from service through organizations like K9s For Warriors," said Swoboda. "It's been such a privilege to share my story through this film, and I hope that 'Reinforcements' will help even more veterans who are struggling with PTSD discover a new opportunity to restart their lives and move forward." After meeting in Washington, D.C., for a visit to Arlington Cemetery, Davis and Swoboda set out on a 2,167-mile road trip, stopping in Louisville, Kentucky, and Macon, Georgia, on their way to Ponte Verde, Florida, where they join fellow veterans for a graduation ceremony at K9s For Warriors. Along the way, Davis, Swoboda, and Lilly receive some unexpected gifts and meet with other K9s For Warriors graduates who are learning to cope with their past and live their lies to the fullest - thanks to the help of their service dog companions.
"Early Times and our parent company, Brown-Forman, have a long history of giving back to the men and women who have so bravely served our country and preserved our freedom through their sacrifice," said Marc Hindorff, senior brand manager for Early Times. "Every veteran who receives a service dog from K9s For Warriors has a story to tell - we wanted to share those stories across the country. We hope that 'Reinforcements' will increase awareness and support for K9s For Warriors with the goal of pairing even more service dogs with veterans, empowering them to continue living life with independence and dignity after military service." "Reinforcements" is one component of a multi-year campaign made possible by: Early Times; its parent company, Brown-Forman Corporation, which has a long history of military support; and BRAVE, a Brown-Forman veterans employee resource group. Earlier this year, Early Times donated more than $100,000 to K9s For Warriors to fund training for five warrior/service dog teams.
As another part of the campaign, veterans at the Brown-Forman Cooperage created custom barrel doghouses for service canines and the brand has invited consumers aged 21 and up to help K9s For Warriors name the five sponsored service dogs. Fans can suggest their favorite names on the Early Times Facebook page through the end of August. "Reinforcements" has been accepted into the Louisville International Festival of Film, scheduled for October, and will be touring the film festival circuit in the coming months. The documentary will be made available for public viewing later in 2016. The film's trailer may be viewed online at EarlyTimes.com. ABOUT EARLY TIMES: The Brown-Forman Company (NYSE:BFA) (NYSE:BFB) acquired Early Times in 1923, and over the next 30 years, made Early Times the best-selling whisky in the country. Today, its smoothness is savored in over 40 countries. For more than 145 years, Brown-Forman Corporation has enriched the experience of life by responsibly building fine quality beverage alcohol brands, including Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey, Jack Daniel's & Cola, Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey, Gentleman Jack, Jack Daniel's Single Barrel, Finlandia, Korbel, el Jimador, Woodford Reserve, Canadian Mist, Herradura, New Mix, Sonoma-Cutrer, Early Times, and Chambord. Brown-Forman's brands are supported by nearly 4,600 employees and sold in approximately 160 countries worldwide. For more information about the company, please visit http://www.brown-forman.com/. ABOUT BRAVE: Brown-Forman Rallying All Veterans for Excellence (BRAVE) is a veterans' employee resource group seeking to create a network to identify, support, develop and promote the unique characteristics and needs of military veterans and their families throughout Brown-Forman's business locations and surrounding communities. ABOUT K9s FOR WARRIORS: K9s For Warriors was founded in 2011 by Shari Duval after her son Brett returned from Iraq as a contractor suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disability. Duval recognized a need to innovatively and effectively treat the devastating epidemic. What started as an idea developed into a passionate nonprofit organization committed to saving the lives of rescue dogs and military heroes alike. Since 9/11, there have been 130,000 veteran suicides (22 lives lost a day to PTSD). Through a three-week, live-in training program - at no cost to the veterans - K9s For Warriors graduates are much better equipped to return to civilian life with dignity and independence while reducing their risk of suicide. The mission of K9s For Warriors is to stop these 22 daily suicides altogether. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706006304/en/
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[July 06, 2016] My Recruiting Team Announces Exclusive Partnership with KIMS Healthcare Group Across 6 Countries
My Recruiting Team announces today their partnership with KIMS (Kerala Institute of Medical Science) Healthcare Group, the largest healthcare network in Kerala State with a significant presence in the Middle East, to be its exclusive provider of recruitment process outsourcing services across its network. The network covers India, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates. "We are very pleased to partner up with KIMS Group to further support them in meeting their recruitment needs across their vast network," said Raji Wahidy, Founder & CEO of My Recruiting Team. "We will work closely with KIMS Group to ensure that we, jointly, hire industry's best talent, to allow them to excel within the healthcare industry and to continue to deliver superior services to their patients." Under the terms of this agreement My Recruiting Team will take on the responsibility for end-to-end recruitment on behalf of KIMS Group. My Recruiting Team will appoint dedicated recruiting managers to KIMS Group, who will work jointly with the Group's human resources and hiring management teams to source talent across multiple functional units and multiple geographies.
"We are definitely looking forward to working together with My Recruiting Team towards a rewarding relationship," said Jacob Thomas, KIMS Group's Director of Operations. "We strongly believe that My Recruiting Team's innovative recruitment approach will help us reduce our overall recruitment costs while continuing to hire highly qualified professionals." About My Recruiting Team
Registered in Buffalo, Wyoming, My Recruiting Team is a recruitment process outsourcing firm specialized in assisting mid to large-sized organizations in hiring industry's best talent. Leveraging its global reach, the firm is committed to addressing the pain points of recruitment, streamlining recruitment processes, and driving down the overall recruitment costs. About KIMS Healthcare Group KIMS Healthcare Group, which started in the year 2002 with a multi-specialty hospital at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, today is the largest healthcare network in Kerala State with a significant presence in the Middle East, in a short span of 14 years. The Group is committed to delivering world-class quality healthcare that is affordable and accessible to everyone within its network. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005400/en/
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[July 06, 2016] PhotoDirector Editing App Reaches Milestone and Exceeds 10 Million Downloads in the Google Play Store
CyberLink Corp. (5203.TW), the world's leading consumer multimedia software company, announced today that its PhotoDirector Mobile App has surpassed the 10 million downloads mark on the Google Play platform, also ranking first in consumer satisfaction with the highest average rating of 4.54 in the photo editing category. The PhotoDirector App brings users a simple and easy-to-use tool for photo editing on mobile and tablet devices, allowing users to effortlessly add overlays to images, remove unwanted content and add creative effects, to create DSLR-like results in a matter of seconds. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005509/en/
PhotoDirector Editing App Exceeds 10 Million Downloads in the Google ( News Alert ) Play Store (Graphic: Business Wire)
"We are honored that the PhotoDirector Mobile App has exceeded 10 million downloads in Google Play, which is truly a testament to the enthusiasm of our end-users," said Dr. Jau Huang, CEO of CyberLink. "We would like to thank our passionate supporters who are the main driving force behind this achievement, and whose invaluable feedback pushes us forward to provide the simplest yet most powerful photo editor for mobile devices." Key Features of PhotoDirector Mobile include: Complete photo adjustments for White Balance, Brightness, Exposure, Contrast and Saturation
Content-aware removal of unwanted objects from user photos
HDR (News - Alert) effects to create dramatic sceneries and landscapes
Over 40 Preset Effects, including Lomo, Artistic, HDR effects and Vignette-enabling users to give their images the mood and tone they desire
Accurate and Skin Smoothing tools and filters, to easily touch up portraits on the move Celebration Event To mark this new milestone, CyberLink will host a celebration event in Mid-July, where all PhotoDirector mobile users will have a chance to win CyberLink products. App Availability PhotoDirector Mobile is available for free on Google Play and the Apple Store. About CyberLink CyberLink (5203.TW) is a world leader in multimedia software design. Since 1996, CyberLink has transformed how people enjoy and create media on PCs, mobile devices and in the Cloud. The company's award-winning products are sold to all major PC manufacturers as well as millions of customers worldwide. Headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, CyberLink also runs regional operations through offices in the US, Japan, Europe and Asia-Pacific territories. Further information about CyberLink can be found at cyberlink.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005509/en/
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[July 06, 2016] Radian Enhances Liquidity Position and Accelerates Capital Plan
Radian (News - Alert) Group Inc. announced today that on June 30, 2016, Radian Guaranty Inc., its mortgage insurance subsidiary, redeemed its $325 million surplus note due to Radian Group, which immediately resulted in a $325 million increase to Radian Group's available liquidity. The redemption of the surplus note was approved by the Pennsylvania Insurance Department. Following the redemption, Radian Group maintained more than $700 million of available liquidity as of June 30, 2016. "Our redemption of the entire $325 million surplus note at the earliest possible date further enhances our liquidity position and reflects Radian's strong financial performance and positive future outlook," said Radian's Chief Executive Officer S.A. Ibrahim. The company plans to utilize a portion of its liquidity in order to accelerate its capital plan, with the objective of better positioning Radian Group for a return to investment grade ratings in the future. As a result, Radian's Board of Directors has authorized the following actions: A share repurchase of up to $125 million of the company's common stock
The early redemption of the remaining $196 million face value of its 9.00% Senior Notes due 2017 In addition, Radian's capital strategy continues to include opportunistically removing the company's outstanding Convertible Senior Notes from its capital structure and potentially the redemption, repurchase, or exchange of a portion of its other outstanding senior debt. Ibrahim added, "The Board of Directors and management team continue to believe that Radian's business fundamentals, growth prospects and long-term strategy are not reflected in the company's current stock price. With our common stock trading at a significant discount to book value, we believe a share repurchase program represents an extremely attractive investment opportunity. "Our strong balance sheet and liquidity position enable us to return value to stockholders through a share repurchase and further strengthen our capital position through debt redemption while simultaneously growing and strengthening our businesses." Background on Early Redemption of Surplus Note On December 30, 2015, Radian Group transferred $325 million of cash and marketable securities to Radian Guaranty in exchange for a surplus note, which was scheduled to mature on December 31, 2025. Based on its compliance with PMIERs and positive trends reflected in its capital projections, Radian Guaranty was able to obtain regulatory approval to redeem the entire note on June 30, 2016, which represented the earliest possible redemption date. Radian remains in compliance with the PMIERs and, as of June 30, 2016, estimates that Radian Guaranty's Available Assets exceed its Minimum Required Assets by approximately $150 - 200 million. Share Repurchase Program Radian's Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase program that enables the company to spend up to $125 million to repurchase its common stock. The shares may be purchased inthe open market or in privately negotiated transactions.
The authorization provides Radian the flexibility to repurchase shares opportunistically from time to time, based on market and business conditions, stock price and other factors. The authorization expires on June 30, 2017. Radian may utilize a Rule 10b5-1 plan, which would permit the company to purchase shares, at pre-determined price targets, when it may otherwise be precluded from doing so. Shares of Radian Group are currently trading below the company's March 31, 2016 book value per share of $12.42. Based on the closing price on July 5, 2016, the $125 million share repurchase program represents approximately 12.7 million shares of Radian's common stock, or 5.9 percent of shares outstanding as of March 31, 2016.
Early Redemption of Senior Notes due 2017 Radian's Board of Directors has also authorized the company to redeem $196 million principal amount of its 9.000% Senior Notes due 2017, which represents the balance outstanding. The Notes would be redeemed in accordance with the terms of the indenture governing the Notes, which provides for redemption at a price that includes a make-whole premium calculated pursuant to the indenture (assuming a redemption date of June 30, 2016, estimated to be approximately $14 million) plus any interest accrued and unpaid at the redemption date. ABOUT RADIAN Radian Group Inc. (NYSE: RDN), headquartered in Philadelphia, provides private mortgage insurance, risk management products and real estate services to financial institutions. Radian offers products and services through two business segments: Mortgage Insurance, through its principal mortgage insurance subsidiary Radian Guaranty Inc. This private mortgage insurance protects lenders from default-related losses, facilitates the sale of low-downpayment mortgages in the secondary market and enables homebuyers to purchase homes more quickly with downpayments less than 20%. Mortgage and Real Estate Services, through its principal services subsidiary Clayton, as well as Green River Capital, Red Bell Real Estate and ValuAmerica. These solutions include information and services that financial institutions, investors and government entities use to evaluate, acquire, securitize, service and monitor loans and asset-backed securities. Additional information may be found at www.radian.biz. FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS All statements in this press release that address events, developments or results that we expect or anticipate may occur in the future are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Exchange Act and the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In most cases, forward-looking statements may be identified by words such as "anticipate," "may," "will," "could," "should," "would," "expect," "intend," "plan," "goal," "contemplate," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "project," "potential," "continue," "seek," "strategy," "future," "likely" or the negative or other variations on these words and other similar expressions. These statements, which may include, without limitation, projections regarding our future performance and financial condition, are made on the basis of management's current views and assumptions with respect to future events. Any forward-looking statement is not a guarantee of future performance and actual results could differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statement. These statements speak only as of the date they were made, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. We operate in a changing environment. New risks emerge from time to time and it is not possible for us to predict all risks that may affect us. The forward- looking statements, as well as our prospects as a whole, are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation: changes in general economic, market and regulatory conditions;
factors that may affect the company's ability and willingness to repurchase shares under the proposed repurchase program and the possibility that the program may be suspended or terminated;
factors that may affect the company's ability and willingness to early redeem its Senior Notes due 2017 or to take actions with respect to our other remaining debt; and
our ability to successfully execute and implement our business plans and strategies. For more information regarding these risks and uncertainties as well as certain additional risks that we face, you should refer to the Risk Factors detailed in Item 1A of Part I of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, and subsequent reports and registration statements filed from time to time with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. We caution you not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are current only as of the date on which we issued this presentation. We do not intend to, and we disclaim any duty or obligation to, update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect new information or future events or for any other reason. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005431/en/
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SES Government Solutions Secures Contract for Thule Tracking Station DS3 Service
SES (News - Alert) Government Solutions (SES GS) has been awarded the Thule Tracking Station Digital Signal 3 (DS3) Service Contract to continue to provide the U.S. Government with critical communications capabilities.
This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005507/en/
SES Government Solutions Secures Contract for Thule Tracking Station DS3 Service (Photo: Business Wire)
The service supports a global network that enables national-level missile warning, space surveillance, space control, and satellite command and control. The service consists of a one-year base period, with four one-year option periods for a total contract value of over USD 10 milion. The solution connects key sensors to operations centers for missile defense missions and serves Air Force Space Command (AFSPC), United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). SES GS has been the sole provider of commercial satellite communications to Thule Air Base for over thirty years.
"This program continues to serve as a great example of the importance of our capability to deliver the critical intelligence data to military decision makers," said Pete Hoene, President and CEO of SES GS.
The contract provides Air Force Space Command with dedicated communications between Thule Air Base in Greenland and Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The solution includes commercial satellite bandwidth, contractor-provided hub equipment, teleport service and antennas. Thule's arctic environment, unpredictable weather patterns, and near-horizon location provide unique technical and logistical challenges. SES GS continues to provide a robust communications solution to overcome these challenging conditions.
About SES Government Solutions
SES Government Solutions, a subsidiary of global satellite operator SES, is exclusively focused on meeting the satellite communications needs of the U.S. Government. Leveraging more than four decades of experience in the government SATCOM market, SES Government Solutions offers robust and secure satellite-based communications solutions. Supported by SES's fleet of over 50 satellites offering comprehensive global coverage, SES Government Solutions provides highly reliable fixed and on-the-move capacity. Further information can be found at www.ses-gs.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005507/en/
[July 06, 2016] Technavio Announces Top Seven Vendors in the Cardiac Rhythm Management Devices Market in China until 2020
Technavio has announced the top seven leading vendors for the cardiac rhythm management devices market in China in their latest research report. To identify the top vendors, Technavio's market research analysts have considered the top contributors to the overall revenue of this market. To calculate the market size, Technavio researchers have considered the revenue generated from the sales of: Pacemakers
Implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs)
CRT devices: Cardiac resynchronization therapy-defibrillator (CRT-D) and cardiac resynchronization therapy-pacemaker (CRT-P) Request sample report: http://bit.ly/290l2dJ "Cardiac disorders such as atrioventricular blocks, ventricular fibrillation, cardiac arrest, bradycardia, sick sinus syndrome, and tachycardia are becoming prevalent in China with each year. In 2014, the Chinese Society of Cardiology estimated that cardiovascular diseases accounted for 40% of the overall mortality rate in the country," said Barath Palada, one of Technavio's lead analysts for cardiovascular devices. "A rise in the population of this age group will increase the prevalence of cardiac diseases. To cater to the rising prevalence of cardiac diseases, vendors are developing advanced cardiac rhythm management devices such as CRT-Ps, CRT-Ds, and ICDs," added Barath. Top seven leading vendors in the cardiac rhythm management devices market in China: BIOTRONIK (Beijing) Medical Devices BIOTRONIK (Beijing) Medical Devices is a subsidiary of BIOTRONIK that engages in the manufacturing and marketing of a wide range of cardiac medical devices in China. The company is headquartered in Beijing, China. In August 2015, the company enrolled its first patient BIOFLOW-VI clinical study in China. The study demonstrates safety and efficacy of Orsiro hybrid drug eluting stent that support CFDA. BIOFLOW-VI is a randomized controlled clinical trial that enrolled around 440 patients at 15 study sites in China. BSC Medical Device Technology (Shanghai) BSC Medical Device Technology (Shanghai) was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Shanghai, China. The company develops, manufactures, and markets high-quality medical devices used for treating a wide range of medical conditions. It provides an extensive range of innovative products through its subsidiaries and divisions in China. It has subsidiaries in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou in China. The company engages in the R&D, manufacturing, and marketing of a wide range of cariac medical devices. The company offers its cardiac medical devices such as ICDs, CRTs, and pacemakers through its cardiac rhythm management sub-segment and offers heart valve systems through its interventional cardiology sub-segment.
Cardiac Science Cardiac Science was founded in 1913 and is headquartered in Waukesha, Wisconsin, US. The company manufactures and markets a wide range of medical devices including automated external defibrillators. It operates as a subsidiary of Aurora Capital Group. The company offers a wide range of cardiac rhythm management devices. Some of the key products are Powerheart G5 Trainer AED, Powerheart G3 Plus AED, Powerheart G3 Pro AED, Powerheart G5 AED, and Powerheart G3 Trainer AED. The company also provides rescue-ready services accessories.
Koninklijke Philips (News - Alert) Koninklijke Philips was incorporated in 1891 and is headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It is a global leader in healthcare, lighting, consumer lifestyle, innovation, and services. The company has a strong brand value and enjoys a good market presence worldwide. As of May 2014, the company has an overall ranking of 296 in the Forbes 2000 list and is ranked 300th in sales, 71st in the world's most valuable brands, 431st in profit, and 331st in market value. The company offers its cardiac rhythm management products through its subsidiaries Philips Healthcare (Suzhou) and Philips Patient Monitoring Systems China. LivaNova LivaNova was established in 1987 and is headquartered in London, UK. It is a medical technology company that engages in the R&D, manufacturing, and marketing of a wide range of cardiac surgery, cardiac rhythm management, and neuromodulation products worldwide. In October 2015, LivaNova's subsidiary Cyberonics completed a merger with Sorin Group (News - Alert) for USD 2.7 billion. The company after the merger of Sorin Group acquired tissue heart valves portfolio of Sorin. Medtronic Medtronic is founded in 1949 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. It engages in the R&D, manufacturing, and marketing of a wide range of medical devices in more than 155 countries worldwide. In FY2015, it reported a revenue of USD 20.26 billion. As of June 2015, the company had more than 55,000 employees in 460 locations worldwide. The company engages in the R&D, manufacturing, and marketing of a wide range of cardiac medical devices such as pacemakers, ICDs, CRT-D, and CRT-P through its cardiac rhythm and heart failure disease management sub-segment and transcatheter heart valves through its coronary and structural heart disease management sub- segment of cardiac and vascular group segment. St. Jude Medical St. Jude Medical was incorporated in 1976 and is headquartered in Minnesota, US. The company engages in the R&D, manufacturing, and marketing of medical devices in the US and also internationally. In FY2015, the company generated USD 5.54 billion revenues. The company manufactures a wide range of cardiac rhythm management products in China through its subsidiary St. Jude Medical (Shanghai) and its subsidiary is headquartered in Shanghai, China. Browse related reports: Cardiac Medical Devices Market in the US 2016-2020
Cardiac Rhythm Management Devices Market in China 2016-2020
Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy Devices Market in Europe 2015-2019
Global Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT) Devices Market 2015-2019 Do you need a report on a market in a specific geographical cluster or country but can't find what you're looking for? Don't worry, Technavio also takes client requests. Please contact [email protected] with your requirements and our analysts will be happy to create a customized report just for you. About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies. Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at [email protected]. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005120/en/
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[July 06, 2016] Test and Measurement Equipment Market Worth 35.45 Billion USD by 2022
PUNE, India, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the new market research report "Test and Measurement Equipment Market by Service (Calibration Service, and Repair Services), by Equipment Type (General Purpose Test Equipment and Mechanical Test Equipment), by Application, and Geography - Global Trends and Forecast to 2022", published by Marketsandmarkets, the market is estimated to reach USD 35.45 Billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 6.8% between 2016 and 2022. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 )
Browse 75 market data Tables and 57 Figures spread through 198 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Test and Measurement Equipment Market" http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/test-measurement-equipment-market-116452716.html
Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report. Factors driving this market are increased investment in R&D activities, increased demand for testing equipment from consumer electronics and telecommunication sectors. Healthcare (Medical) application expected to exhibit highest CAGR during the forecast period With the advancement in technology, many new and advanced devices are employed to measure various medical parameters of a patient. It is very important to test and accurately calibrate these devices according to the standards as their applications are critical and any incorrect reading may prove to be fatal for the patient. To calibrate these devices oscilloscopes and signal generators are widely used. The growing demand for better healthcare services will indirectly drive the Test and Measurement Equipment Market. Non-destructive test equipment to exhibit the highest CAGR during the forecast period The market for non-destructive test equipment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. As the object under test is not destroyed and can be reused after testing, his decreases the overall cost of and is hence preferred over other testing methods.
APAC expected to hold the largest market share by 2022 and experience rapid growth during the forecast period APAC is expected to hold the largest market share by 2022 owing to major driving forces- it is home to some of the largest multinational corporations such as Yokogawa Electric Corporation (Japan) and Anritsu Corporation (Japan) among others in the test and measurement equipment ecosystem. Majority of consumer electronics industries are concentrated in this region, which makes APAC the dominant market.
Inquiry Before Buying: http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsample.asp?id=116452716 Major players involved in the development of test and measurement equipment are Yokogawa Electric Corporation (Japan), Keysight Technologies, Inc. (U.S.), Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co KG (Germany), Viavi Solutions (U.S.), and Advantest Corporation (Japan) among others. Browse Related Reports Signal Generator Market by Product, Technology, Applications, End Users (Telecommunication, Electronics Manufacturing, Industrial, Aerospace & Defense, Automotive, Education, and Medical), and by Geography - Global Forecast to 2015 - 2020
http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/signal-generator-market-1128.html Automated Test Equipment Market by Component (Industrial PC, Mass Interconnect, Handler, Prober), Type (Memory, Mixed Signal, Digital), Application (Consumer, Automotive, Aerospace & Defense, Medical) and by Geography - Analysis & Forecast (2013-2020)
http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/automated-test-equipment-market-237275050.html About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets is the world's No. 2 firms in terms of annual published premium market research reports. Serving 1700 global fortune enterprises with more than 1200 premium studies in a year, M&M is catering to a multitude of clients across 8 different industrial verticals. We specialize in consulting assignments and business research across high growth markets, cutting edge technologies and newer applications. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. M&M's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical info graphics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arrived and defend the accuracy of the numbers. We at MarketsandMarkets are inspired to help our clients grow by providing apt business insight with our huge market intelligence repository. Contact:
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[July 06, 2016] Waterford Awarded Additional Contract for UPSTART; Expanding Kindergarten Readiness in Utah
Waterford Institute was recently awarded the contract for the High Quality School Readiness Program Expansion for High Quality Education Software, which provides an allocation of up to $2 million in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds each year for the next three years. The funding will be used to expand Waterford's UPSTART kindergarten readiness program. The allocation, in combination with current funding sources, will enable UPSTART to serve approximately 10,000 children throughout Utah, roughly 20 percent of the state's four-year-olds. Waterford Institute took part in the Request for Proposal (RFP) process issued by the Utah State Board of Education (USBE) and won based on efficacy demonstrated through multiple student outcomes data. The RFP came about by the passage in the 2016 Utah Legislative Session of Senate Bill 101 (S.B. 101) sponsored by Sen. Ann Millner and Rep. Bradley G. Last. "UPSTART is all about supporting the family in preparing young children for indergarten and a love of learning," said Claudia Miner, Executive Director of UPSTART and vice president of development for the nonprofit Waterford Institute. "This new funding source will permit more at-risk children throughout Utah to participate in the program-all of whom are from lower income or non-English speaking families. UPSTART has proven to be one of the most successful kindergarten readiness programs for children in every district across the state."
"With the additional allocation, Utah will be able to serve even more preschool aged students and support them in building a solid foundation for school readiness," said Jennifer Throndsen, PreK-12 Literacy and Library Media Coordinator, Utah State Board of Education. According to the Award Justification Statement, Waterford was determined to meet the requirements of the RFP and reasonable pricing compared to other potential contractors. "After evaluating the proposal and reviewing the costs proposed, the evaluation team determined that awarding the contract to Waterford was in the best interest of the procurement unit," the statement read. Waterford was also selected for its parent support model and its ability to recruit at-risk children.
UPSTART uses Waterford Early Learning, a cloud-based adaptive learning curriculum to provide children lessons in early literacy, math and science at home, the year before kindergarten. Now starting its eighth year in Utah, UPSTART is offered at no cost to participating families through funding by the Utah State Legislature. "There is no question that UPSTART is giving Utah great and economically viable results," said State Senator Stuart Adams. Independent evaluations by the Utah State Office of Education show UPSTART children significantly outperform state averages on standardized tests in grades kindergarten through fourth across language arts, math and science. UPSTART is open to everyone, prioritizing low-income and English language learners. Qualifying families receive use of a free computer and free Internet during the program if they do not have access to these resources at home. Families can pre-register now for UPSTART at www.utahupstart.org or by phone at 800-669-4533. About Waterford Institute Celebrating its 40th anniversary, the Waterford Institute is a nonprofit research center that creates personalized cloud-based instruction through an award-winning curriculum, content and assessment for children aged pre-K to 2nd grade. As a nonprofit, Waterford is uniquely focused on providing accessibility, equity and excellence for our youngest learners to position them for a lifetime of learning and success. For more information, visit www.waterford.org or call 801-349-2200. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706006028/en/
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[July 05, 2016] Harris Corporation Supports Successful Insertion of NASA's Juno Spacecraft into Jupiter's Orbit
A team of Harris Corporation (News - Alert) (NYSE:HRS) employees supported NASA with critical communications and monitoring connectivity with the Juno spacecraft as it was successfully inserted into orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. Juno will conduct a study of Jupiter's composition, gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere. It will also search for clues about how the planet formed, including whether it has a rocky core, the amount of water present within the deep atmosphere, how its mass is distributed, and the behavior of its surface winds, which can reach speeds of 384 miles per hour. More than 100 Harris employees provided operations, maintenance and engineering services for the Deep Space Network (DSN) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and NASA. DSN provides connectivity with the spacecraft and the instruments that collect the scientific data it gathers.DSN's international communications complexes support interplanetary, robotic spacecraft missions as they conduct radio, radar and astronomy observations of the solar system and beyond. In addition to Juno, DSN-supported missions include those of Voyager 1 and 2, the Mars Exploration Rover Project, Curiosity and the Cassini Saturn mission.
Harris operates and maintains seven large antennas for the DSN, as well as multiple network and communications systems, several network operations centers, and facilities for testing, logistics, and maintenance and repair. The company also provides maintenance, operations and engineering support for JPL's Goldstone, California, complex. "Harris and the DSN have been preparing for Jupiter Orbit Insertion for well over a year to ensure the success of this mission," said Carl D'Alessandro, president, Harris Critical Networks. "Harris has supported most major U.S. space programs since the 1960s. Today, we continue to supply the next-generation technologies and services that are helping NASA better understand our planet, our solar system and what lies beyond."
In addition to supporting deep-space missions, Harris provides NASA with near-Earth spacecraft connectivity through the Space Communications Network Service (SCNS). SCNS provides most of the communications and tracking services for Earth-orbiting spacecraft, such as the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope and Earth Observing System satellites. About Harris Corporation Harris Corporation is a leading technology innovator, solving our customers' toughest mission-critical challenges by providing solutions that connect, inform and protect. Harris supports customers in more than 125 countries, has approximately $8 billion in annual revenue and 22,000 employees worldwide. The company is organized into four business segments: Communication Systems, Space and Intelligence Systems, Electronic Systems, and Critical Networks. Learn more at harris.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160705006000/en/
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By PTI: Srinagar, Jul 6 (PTI) Six persons including a senior police officer were injured in clashes between protesters and security personnel that broke out today after Eid prayers in the Kashmir Valley.
Additional Superintendent of Police Mubashir Bukhari was injured in the stomach during stonepelting at Janglat Mandi in Anantnag district, a police official said.
A constable was injured during clashes with protesters at Hyderpora chowk in the outskirts of the city, the official said.
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Four persons including a photojournalist with a local magazine were injured in clashes at Safakadal near Eidgah in the city as security personnel fired pellet guns and tear smoke shells to disperse the stone-pelting mob, the official said.
All the injured have been admitted to nearby SMHS hospital, he added.
Situation in rest of the Valley is stated to be normal, the official said.
Authorities had placed top separatist leaders including Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik under house arrest, fearing their presence at large Eid gatherings could spark violence, he said. PTI MIJ RT
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[July 05, 2016] NHI to Attend the JMP Securities Boston Real Estate Event
National Health Investors, Inc. (NYSE: NHI) announced that Eric Mendelsohn, President and CEO, and John Spaid, EVP of Finance, will attend the JMP Securities (News - Alert) Boston Real Estate Event. The conference is to be held Thursday, July 7, 2016 at The Langham Boston in Boston, Massachusetts. About NHI Incorporated in 1991, National Health Investors, Inc. (NYSE: NHI) is a real estate investment trust specializing in sale-leaseback, joint-venture, mortgage and mezzanine financing of need-driven and discretionary senior housing and medical investments. NHI's portfolio consists of independent, assisted and memory care communities, entrance-fee retirement communities, skilled nursing facilities, medical office buildings and specialty hospitals. For more information, visit www.nhireit.com. This press release may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements regarding the Company's, tenants', operators', borrowers' or managers' expected future financial position, results of operations, cash flows, funds from operations, dividend and dividend plans, financing opportunities and plans, capital market transactions, business strategy, budgets, projected costs, operating metrics, capital expenditures, competitive positions, acquisitions, investment opportunities, dispositions, acquisition integration, growth opportunities, expected lease income, continued qualification as a real estate investment trust ("REIT"), plans and objectives of management for future operations, continued performance improvements, ability to service and refinance our debt obligations, ability to finance growth opporunities, and similar statements including, without limitation, those containing words such as "may," "will," "believes," "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "estimates," "plans," and other similar expressions are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause our actual results in future periods to differ materially from those projected or contemplated in the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among other things; the operating success of our tenants and borrowers for collection of our lease and interest income; the success of property development and construction activities, which may fail to achieve the operating results we expect; the risk that our tenants and borrowers may become subject to bankruptcy or insolvency proceedings; risks related to governmental regulations and payors, principally Medicare and Medicaid, and the effect that lower reimbursement rates would have on our tenants' and borrowers' business; the risk that the cash flows of our tenants and borrowers would be adversely affected by increased liability claims and liability insurance costs; risks related to environmental laws and the costs associated with liabilities related to hazardous substances; the risk that we may not be fully indemnified by our lessees and borrowers against future litigation; the success of our future acquisitions and investments; our ability to reinvest cash in real estate investments in a timely manner and on acceptable terms; the potential need to incur more debt in the future, which may not be available on terms acceptable to us; our ability to meet covenants related to our indebtedness which impose certain operational; the risk that the illiquidity of real estate investments could impede our ability to respond to adverse changes in the performance of our properties; risks associated with our investments in unconsolidated entities, including our lack of sole decision-making authority and our reliance on the financial condition of other interests; our dependence on revenues derived mainly from fixed rate investments in real estate assets, while a portion of our debt bears interest at variable rates; the risk that our assets may be subject to impairment charges; and our dependence on the ability to continue to qualify for taxation as a real estate investment trust. Many of these factors are beyond the control of the Company and its management. The Company assumes no obligation to update any of the foregoing or any other forward looking statements, except as required by law, and these statements speak only as of the date on which they are made. Investors are urged to carefully review and consider the various disclosures made by NHI in its periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the risk factors and other information disclosed in NHI's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the most recently ended fiscal year. Copies of these filings are available at no cost on the SEC's (News - Alert) web site at http://www.sec.gov or on NHI's web site at http://www.nhireit.com.
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[July 05, 2016] Interactive Whiteboard Market - Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2016 - 2026
LONDON, July 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Introduction
An interactive whiteboard is a large display designed to be connected to a computer and projector. The projector projects what is displayed on the computer desktop and the image projected on the whiteboard can be manipulated or controlled by the user with the help of a pen, finger or other devices. In case of power outage, interactive whiteboard can also be used as a conventional dry erase whiteboard, on which the user can write on with a simple board marker. The board is typically wall-mounted floor standing, depending on the available space.
Report Synopsis
In this report, Future Market Insights presents a 10-year forecast of the global Interactive whiteboard market between 2016 and 2026. The report considers 2015 as the base year and provides data for the following 12 months. In terms of revenue, the interactive whiteboard market is expected to register a CAGR of -17.0% during the forecast period.
Report Description
This research report provides a detailed market analysis, identifying all the primary causes due to which sale of the interactive whiteboard market is going down across the concerned regions. This study delivers insights about market dynamics across the six key regions, which are expected to influence the current nature and future status of the interactive whiteboard market during the forecast period (20162026).
Interactive whiteboard manufacturers are seeking opportunities in developing regions and expanding market footprint accordingly. Increasing adoption of alternative technologies of interactive whiteboards by end users are prominent trends associated with the global interactive whiteboard market.
The report includes FMI's analysis of the key trends, drivers and restraints that are expected to influence the current and future growth of the global interactive whiteboard market over the forecast period. A weighted average model is leveraged to identify the impact of the key growth drivers and restraints across the concerned regions in the market, in order to help clients in framing accurate business strategies.
The global interactive whiteboard market is segmented on the basis of digitising technology, end-user and region. On the basis of digitising technology, the interactive whiteboard market is segmented into Digital Vision Touch (DViT) technology, infrared digitizing technology, electromagnetic digitizing technology and others (LASER, resistive, capacitive, ultrasonic, etc.). On the basis of endusers, the market is segmented into education sector and others. The report offers a detailed analysis of each of these segments in terms of market size (US$ Mn) and market volume ('000). Key regions assessed in the report are North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC) and the Middle East amp; Africa.
Given the ever-fluctuating global economy, the report not only forecasts the market on the basis of CAGR, but also analyses the impact of key parameters during each year of the forecast period. This helps the clients to understand the predictability of the market and to identify the right opportunities in the global market during the forecast period. Also, a noteworthy feature of this report is the analysis of all vital segments in terms of absolute dollar opportunity, which is critical for assessing the level of revenue opportunity in the market.
In the final section of the report, a competitive landscape of the market is included in order to present the clients with a dashboard view, based on core business segments, revenue share and key growth strategy. This section is important for gleaning insights about participants in the market's ecosystem. Additionally, it enables identification and evaluation of key competitors based on the in-depth assessment of their capabilities and successes in the marketplace. The report offers comprehensive profiles of the providers in order to evaluate their long and short-term strategies related to products across various regions, key offerings and recent developments in the interactive whiteboard space. Key competitors covered in this report include SMART Technologies Inc., Promethean World plc., Hitachi, Ltd., Panasonic Corporation, Steelcase Inc., Julong Educational Technology Co., Ltd., Touch IT Technologies Inc., Xiamen Interactive Technology Co., Ltd, Turning Technologies, LLC. and Egan Teamboard, Inc.
Research Methodology
In order to evaluate the interactive whiteboard market size, revenue generated by the interactive whiteboard manufacturers and providers has been taken into consideration. Market estimates have been analysed keeping in mind various factors, such as technological, environmental, economical, legal and social. In order to provide accurate market forecast statistics, the current market was sized, as it forms the basis of how the interactive whiteboard market would perform during the forecast period. Given the characteristics of the market, we triangulated the outcome on the basis of three different types of processes, namely secondary research, primary research and data from paid database. Primary research represents the bulk of our research efforts, supplemented by extensive secondary research. Secondary research includes product literature of key players, annual reports, press releases and relevant documents, recent trade journals, related technical write-ups, Internet sources, trade associations, agencies and statistical data from government websites. This collated data from primary and secondary sources is then analysed by the in-house research panel using market research statistical tools, which equates to the most appropriate methodology to compose a quality market research report.
Key Segments Covered
By Digitising Technology
Digital Vision Touch (DViT) technology
Infrared digitizing technology
Electromagnetic digitizing technology
Others (LASER, resistive, capacitive, ultrasonic, etc.).
By End user
Education Sector
Others (corporate sector, healthcare sector, defence & military, etc.)
Key Regions/Countries Covered
North America
U.S.
Canada
Latin America
Brazil
Mexico
Rest of Latin America
Western Europe
Germany
Italy
France
U.K.
Spain
Nordic
BENELUX
Rest of Western Europe
Eastern Europe
Russia
Poland
Rest of Eastern Europe
Asia Pacific (APAC)
China
India
Australia & New Zealand
Rest of APEJ
Middle East & Africa
GCC
North Africa
South Africa
Rest of MEA
Key Companies
SMART Technologies Inc.
Promethean World plc.
Hitachi, Ltd.
Panasonic Corporation
Steelcase Inc.
Julong Educational Technology Co., Ltd.
Touch IT Technologies Inc.
Xiamen Interactive Technology Co., Ltd
Turning Technologies, LLC
Egan Teamboard, Inc.
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Website: www.reportbuyer.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/interactive-whiteboard-market---global-industry-analysis-and-opportunity-assessment-2016---2026-300294340.html SOURCE ReportBuyer
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[July 06, 2016] Robert Zhu, Executive Chairman and CEO of ZNV, Receives The "2016's Innovative Entrepreneurs of China" Award
SHENZHEN, China, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Chinese Association of Productivity Science recently sponsored and hosted a Chinese innovation conference titled "2016's Seven Innovative Chinese Enterprises" on June 26, 2016. In this event, held at Beijing's Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, ZNV's Executive Chairman and CEO Robert Zhu was awarded the "2016's Innovative Entrepreneurs of China" honorary title. With all members of the National People's Congress Standing Committee present to direct the event, several momentous events occurred; the Vice Chairman and Honorary President of the Chinese Association of Productivity Science presented a speech and the Chief Advisor of China's Productivity Institute, Wang Maolin, spoke on behalf of the organizers. Moreover, numerous speeches were presented by several experts and scholars from well-known enterprises, including owner of several key state-owned enterprises, State Council Chairman Ji Xiaonan, Chairman of China Huarong Asset Management Corporation Lai Xiaomin, Vice Chairman and representative of CRRC Zheng Changhong, Chairman of China National Building Materials Group Corporation Song Zhiping, Board of Directors Chairman of China United Financial Investment Holdings Group Jiang Wenye and more. Topics of significance presented at this conference include "new patterns," "new ideas," "a new economy" and "new energy." The Deputy Secretary-General of China's Productivity Institute Chang Yi states that along with many setbacks from the shift in China's economic growth, old and new forms of energy are becoming more intertwined. Not only that, but Chang Yi claims that people have become more urgently reliant on new innovations and that the development of power and energy is necessary in order to obtain any further changes. Therefore, in order for the economy to develop, it is imperative to generate a new type of power. For this reason, entrepreneurs are looking to develop new ideas and models to cope with the current difficulties and challenges faced. The Chinese government also supports and encourages these entrepreneurs to innovate great change. At the same time, the annual "China's Outstanding Innovative Entrepreneurs of 2016" award ceremony, sponsored by the China Productivity Institute and organized by The Chinese Association of Productivity Science, was held. The awards presented are not only based on the principle of encouraging business innovations, which many provincial governments urge forward, but lso on data submitted about the applier's company. The companies submitted their market achievements, products, development and other related data to committee member experts to filter through and, in very few cases, approve. Through this process, Robert Zhu, the Chairman and CEO of ZNV, was awarded the "2016's Innovative Entrepreneurs of China" award and title; this was not only the highest individual honor granted to Zhu from a government, but it also brought about much recognition for ZNV's efforts. In the course of future development, ZNV will continue to work towards the national call for continuous breakthrough innovations.
Many significant changes in the security and communication markets have occurred in the past two years. Numerous manufacturers, including ZNV, have been confronted with several difficulties in improving operations due to market competition and the industry's ever changing demands. However, over the past two years, by virtue of forward-looking market strategies, remarkable leadership and extensive managing experience, Zhu has led ZNV to success. With the joint effort of ZNV's employees, who are constantly seeking courageous breakthroughs and improvements, Zhu has changed the manufacturing company into a comprehensive management solution provider in order to bring corporate development to a higher level. Throughout the past two years, ZNV has made significant advancements under the leadership of Zhu for their products, corporate positioning, market strategies and serving of target customers. ZNV has established a professional and efficient management team, a powerful and skillful business team, hired elite talents such as Dr. Joe Cao (former Vice President of Cisco China Research and Development Center) as CTO and Li Dejie, who has years of experience in electronic and security product sales and management. Additionally, ZNV has developed vital employees represented by Zeng Tao, Vice President of the Engineering Service System. In terms of corporate strategy development, ZNV has greatly improved upon safe production, energy conservation and efficiency to help customers build comprehensive management systems. Not only that, but ZNV has redefined its production capabilities and reconstructed its service sectors to solve problems concerning telecommunications, IDCs (Internet Data Centers), the government, railways, energy, and education. These main solutions, which are vital to the nation's well-being and the people's livelihoods, use science and technology to help customers develop safer production and support systems, lower OPEX (Operating Expenses) in communication network facilities and promote work efficiency. Concurrently, ZNV has been developing a global cloud O&M intelligent management and dispatching platform with a world-wide professional service team to provide customers with timely and reliable services.
In order to achieve their goals, ZNV has been continuously improving upon every aspect within their customer services, product research and development, supply chain management, talent development and cultural advancement so as to solve various issues encountered by customers. Integrating technical consultations, project designs, complex managements, organizational skills and service operations, ZNV strives to become the preferred comprehensive management solution provider. A Biography of Robert Zhu, Executive Chairman and CEO of ZNV After graduating from North China Electric Power University with a Bachelor's Degree, Robert Zhu worked as an engineer in the North China Office of the Ministry of Electric Power. At the end of the 1980s, he migrated to Australia in order to study at RMIT University, where he graduated with a Master's Degree of Electronics Engineering. Later on, he received an MBA from Monash University. Zhu has a rich experience in the global security management market; he once held the position of Vice President and South Asia's General Manager of the ABB Group, where he has accumulated numerous leadership and business strategy skills as he worked with countries all over the world. Then from 2008 to 2013, Robert Zhu was President of the Asia-Pacific region for Tyco, one of the largest global security enterprises. Over the past two years, Robert Zhu has been the Executive Chairman and CEO of ZNV. Through increased investments for product research and development, continuous corporate improvements and major advancements in the company's structure and products, Zhu has managed to turn the company around into success. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/robert-zhu-executive-chairman-and-ceo-of-znv-receives-the-2016s-innovative-entrepreneurs-of-china-award-300294570.html SOURCE Shenzhen ZNV Technology Co., Ltd.
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[July 06, 2016] ClipperCreek, Inc. Receives Technology Award From Delphi Automotive
AUBURN, Calif., July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ClipperCreek recently received a 2015 Technology Pinnacle Award for Supplier Excellence from Delphi Automotive. The award recognized ClipperCreek for its ability to focus creative resources and help Delphi deliver globally relevant solutions that capitalize on the megatrends of safe, green and connected. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160705/386162
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160705/386161LOGO "We are honored to be recognized by Delphi with the 2015 Technology Award," said Jason France, Founder and President of ClipperCreek. "We serve a great portion of electric vehicle owners in the United States with our cordsets, which are the most rugged and reliable charging stations in the industry. Our partnership with Delphi is an importantpiece of our success. We look forward to a continued partnership for many years to come."
"Delphi values its strategic partners who share our passion for excellence and innovation," said Sidney Johnson, senior vice president, Delphi supply chain management. "When innovation and collaboration meet, it leads to excellence that needs to be recognized. We are pleased to honor ClipperCreek today for its contributions in 2015 that helped Delphi to better serve our customers." Delphi recognized five suppliers with its 2015 Technology award.
About ClipperCreek: Founded in 2006 by Jason France, ClipperCreek is a worldwide leader in Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE). The company offers a wide range of products designed to be the safest, most innovative, and grid-ready EV charging stations on the market. ClipperCreek advances the plug-in vehicle market and broadens the acceptance of the most exciting vehicle revolution in a century. The industry pioneers at ClipperCreek build more than 20 years of real world EV charging expertise into every EVSE they manufacture. All ClipperCreek products are Made in America. For more information, please visit www.clippercreek.com. Media Requests: Suzanne Guinn 530-887-1674 Sales: 877-694-4194 www.clippercreek.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/clippercreek-inc-receives-technology-award-from-delphi-automotive-300294484.html SOURCE ClipperCreek, Inc.
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Technavio Announces Top Five Vendors in the Global Advanced Extremely High Frequency Systems Market until 2020
Technavio has announced the top six leading vendors for the global advanced extremely high frequency systems market in their latest research report. To identify the top vendors, Technavio's market research analysts have considered the top contributors to the overall revenue of this market. The report provides a comprehensive overview, market shares, and growth opportunities by type (ISR, navigation, and SATCOM), and growth prospects by country (Canada, Netherlands, UK, and the US).
Request sample report: http://bit.ly/293wFjb
"Military satellites are gaining popularity as it offers ease of communication and meets the needs of present and future operations. SATCOM acts as a communication bridge between various forces and national command authorities irrespective of the distances. For example, in 2011, the Libyan operation, which included small contributors such as Norway and Denmark, deployed their communication links at well-established bases such as the US Naval Air Station Sigonella," said Arushi Thakur, one of Technavio industry managers for defense.
Top five leading vendors in the global advanced extremely high frequency systems market:
Boeing (News - Alert)
In 2012, Boeing had successfully demonstrated end-to-end communication using a terminal from the AEHF satellite and the Family of Advanced Beyond Line-of-Sight Terminals (FAB-T) system. This first on-orbit test with the AEHF-1 satellite accomplished both extended-data-rate (XDR) and low-data-rate (LDR) communications using the FAB-T system.
Also, in 2013, the AEHF-3 satellite system was launched by Atlas V. The Atlas V active expendable launch system is being operated by the Lockheed Martin (News - Alert)-Boeing joint venture United Launch Alliance.
Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the AEHF satellite program. The vendor signed a contract worth USD 1.93 billion with the US Air Force to develop and build the fifth and sixth satellites for highly secure military communications.
Under the contract with US Air Force, Lockheed Martin would deliver six AEHF satellites, with the AEHF-1 and AEHF-2 already on orbit. AEHF-3 was launched in September 2013, and AEHF-4 satellite is under development. The fifth and sixth satellites are expected to be launched by 2018 and 2019 respectively.
Northrop Grumman (News - Alert)
The company develops AEHF satellite payloads, as well as integrates mission-enabling systems and associated services. Itsspace systems are used in Earth observation, satellite communications, space science, and space exploration applications.
Under the contract with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman delivered three communications payloads for the AEHF satellite systems such as processors, antennas, radio frequency subsystems, and crosslinks.
Raytheon (News - Alert)
Raytheon provides AEHF satellite communication solutions that are operated by the US Air Force Space Command Division. They are used for secure communication between the US military and its allied forces.
Its AEHF terminals provide an advanced and protected satellite communication solution, linking the President of the US and senior military advisor across the globe.
Thales (News - Alert) Group
The company designs and manufactures the systems and sub-systems of AEHF satellites. It integrates and deploys various space systems that are used for the defense, security, and commercial applications.
The company stands as one of the major contractors for the military communication satellites of the armed forces of France. The company also provides secure satellite communication services to various countries, including NATO members, through its SYSTEM 21 solutions. It provides ground station and mobile transmission solutions for air, land, and naval platforms such as UAVs, armored vehicles, helicopters, surface ships, and submarines.
establishments, and the marine infrastructure, home security, and transportation industries.
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Do you need a report on a market in a specific geographical cluster or country but can't find what you're looking for? Don't worry, Technavio also takes client requests. Please contact [email protected] with your requirements and our analysts will be happy to create a customized report just for you.
About Technavio
Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies.
Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users.
If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at [email protected].
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005072/en/
Lawrence County Council approve transfer and appropriation requests
During Tuesday evenings meeting of the Lawrence County Council, budget transfers and additional appropriations were approved for county offices.
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In a series of tweets, Irani has expressed her gratitude to the HRD ministry. She has also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for entrusting her with new responsibility.
By India Today Web Desk: Former HRD minister Smriti Irani, who was allocated the Textile portfolio, in Tuesday's Cabinet reshuffle has finally broken her silence. While taking her charge as the new textile minister, Smriti Irani said, "I took charge of second largest ministry which creates employment after agricuture. Will implement PM vision of make of India in the sector."
"My focus will be increasing export and giving power to the weavers," the new textile minister said.
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She also said, "You (to media) all have come here in Textiles Ministry in such huge numbers probably for the first time."
In a series of tweets, Irani has expressed her gratitude to the HRD ministry. She has also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for entrusting her with new responsibility. Irani's tweets came just after her meeting with her successor Prakash Javadekar which lasted for 20 minutes.
Javadekar had in the morning said that he will take forward all "good initiatives" begun by Irani in her two-year tenure as education minister. "I came here to meet Smriti Irani. We discussed a lot of things. All the good initiatives will be carried forward," Javadekar said.
I thank PM @narendramodi ji for giving me the opportunity to serve the country earlier in the @HRDMinistry & now in the @TexMinIndia. Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) July 6, 2016
Look forward to working with officials at @TexMinIndia for strengthening the very important Textile & Apparel Sector of our country. Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) July 6, 2016
Congratulated @santoshgangwar ji for his contribution to @TexMinIndia & thanked him for assuring his support as I begin my new assignment. Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) July 6, 2016
I thank officials from @HRDMinistry for the consistent support in realising PM @narendramodi's vision of ensuring quality education for all. Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) July 6, 2016
In last 2 years all initiatives of @HRDMinistry have been towards increasing learning outcomes for students & improving quality of education Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) July 6, 2016
Extended best wishes to @PrakashJavdekar ji who assured that he will build upon the initiatives undertaken by @HRDMinistry in last 2 years. Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) July 6, 2016
Giving a clear message that controversy is no substitute for good work , Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday removed his one-time handpicked high-profile Smriti Irani from the crucial Human Resource Development Ministry and gave her the responsibility of the low-profile Textiles Ministry.
Also read:
Smriti Irani as HRD minister: How her term was riddled with controversies
#ByeByeSmriti: Ruthless Twitter rubs it in to ex-HRD minister with jokes and jabs
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By India Today Web Desk: It isn't just Bollywood stars who are raving about Salman Khan's recently released film Sultan. Even Bajrangi Bhaijaan's rumoured girlfriend Iulia Vantur has given a thumbs up to the film. Iulia, who accompanied Salman to a special screening of Sultan, has called the Abbas Ali Zafar directorial venture an amazing film.
ALSO READ: Salman Khan and Iulia Vantur arrive together for a screening of Sultan
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ALSO READ: Salman Khan rocks Eid with a crowd-pleaser
Not only this, Iulia has given Sultan five stars. The Romanian beauty took to Instagram to share a picture from the film screening and wrote that she loved the film as well as Salman's performance.
In fact, Iulia has been rooting for the film for quite some time. Taking a cue from a popular song from Sultan, Salman's lady love shared a hilarious meme on the photo-blogging site.
Enjoy your dinner! #babykobasspasandhai #song #newstyle #hindi #pizza #dinner # A photo posted by Iulia Vantur Official Account (@vanturiulia) on Jul 4, 2016 at 10:11am PDT
Though, Salman and Iulia have remained tight-lipped on their relationship status, their camaraderie isn't something you can miss. In fact, last night Iulia was spotted along with Salman as the two arrived for Sultan screening at Yash Raj Studios in Mumbai.
The gossip mills are abuzz with the rumours of Salman tying the knot with Iulia by the end of this year. During a press interaction at the pre-event for IIFA 2016, Salman was asked about his marriage plans. The Sultan actor said, "Why should I tell you about my marriage? I don't even know your name. I will tweet about it. Understand? I would keep my marriage thing between me and my fans," added the Kick actor.
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"So here I am... dabbing on Abby, sobbing for Freddie Gray and raising a fist for Dems. It's a conflicted day." - @misssmith11
That was one of my recent tweets one that was promptly retweeted by a couple of my followers and liked by a few others, including @LaptopMag, an official account of my employer. My Facebook page is a political pastiche of news pertaining to womanism, Black Lives Matter, reproductive health and gentrification, with a healthy dose of cute animals, cosplay, technology and science to even things out.
My social media accounts fly in the face of the advice that most HR experts give to anyone seeking to be hirable. However, I'm extremely lucky to work in an industry, and have a job, that allows me to be myself in all my unabashed opinionatedness. But not everyone has that luxury. So how far can and should you go in expressing your G.R.A.P.E.S. on social media?
MORE: Why I Stopped Using Facebook, and You Should Too
G.R.A.P.E.S. of Wrath
In case you're unfamiliar with the term, G.R.A.P.E.S. is human-resources shorthand for conversation topics that are taboo in the workplace. The acronym stands for "guns, religion, abortion, politics, economics and sexuality." Think of it as a less-fun riff on the late comedian George Carlin's "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" bit.
It's good to have the G.R.A.P.E.S. restriction around the workplace, as it cuts down on potential friction and lawsuits. But when you're off the clock, living as a private citizen, the rules can get a bit fuzzy.
It's tempting to go on a cathartic rant about gun control, immigration, racism, abortion or LGBTQ issues on social media, especially when your least favorite pundits share their opposing views in public. However, those talking heads get paid to espouse their viewpoints.
You, on the other hand, are most likely paid to put on a good face as the representative of your employer. And it's been proven time and time again that social media postings, like diamonds, are forever. It's a lesson learned by Wendy Bell, who was fired from her longtime job as a Pittsburgh newscaster after she posted racially insensitive comments on Facebook.
You might have also heard about Moe Wahdan, a former employee of real estate company Holton-Wise Property Group, who was fired after threatening Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry and his family in a series of ill-advised tweets. People who happened upon the post reached out to the company to report the employee's inappropriate words.
Dave Ulrich, co-author of the book "HR From the Outside In" (McGraw-Hill Education, 2012), advises employees to exercise caution and to understand that a personal posting on a social media outlet has the potential to become a public document.
"While employees have a right to private lives, they should also be aware that social media accounts are accessible to employers," Ulrich told us. That means that the time you dressed up in an offensive costume at that wild Halloween party could potentially be a fireable offense or prevent you from being hired.
Know Your Rights
In the quest to do some corporate C.Y.A., companies have gone on the social media monitoring offensive, asking for employee passwords to personal accounts. Companies are citing myriad reasons that employers might request access in the name of protecting trade secrets or keeping the company shielded from legal liabilities.
As a result of what many see as an overreach, states have started introducing legislation to combat the practice. For example, New York has several pending bills that would protect the privacy of employees and prospective employee accounts, and stop companies or schools from requiring workers or students from divulging social media passwords. Laws differ from state to state, so you'll want to find out what's on the books where you live.The National Conference of State Legislature is a good resource to learn whether or not your social media rights are protected.
If you do decide to wade into the political crapstorm that is social media, your right to kvetch about Trump or Hillary is clearly protected by the First Amendment, according to Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"The U.S. Supreme Court found in Reno vs. ACLU... that speech on the internet is entitled to full First Amendment protection," Tien said. I can't see how anyone could distinguish an email or text from a Facebook post for First Amendment purposes."
And yes, the above protections carry over to your likes and reactions to posts. It's protected speech, akin to putting a political bumper sticker on your car. That means you can share your political opinion without fear of being fired or disciplined, as long as you don't talk about a protected class (race, age, religion and sex) in your rant.
However, the rules don't apply to most private companies, which can fire you for any reason whatsoever, as Tien noted in a 2015 article for The New York Times unless you're lucky enough to work in some of the states that are actively working to pass laws to protect your social media privacy such as like New York, Minnesota or Illinois. New York has pending laws that will prevent employers from requesting social media logins laws that are already on the books in California and Colorado.
Bottom Line
While your employer can't give you the ax for exercising your rights, that doesn't mean you can't be let go for another, related reason especially if you work for a private company without a union or are employed in a "right to work" state. You could be considered an "at will" employee and could be terminated for any reason that isn't prohibited by law.
Ideally, the only harm in posting your political views on social media should be getting into a flame war with other passionate sideline politicians. But in the interest of remaining employable, you should watch what you say regardless.
The depth of the best Netflix shows is one of the key reasons why Netflix stays high on our best streaming services list. That said, it just lost one of its biggest sitcoms, as Schitt's Creek left to stream on Hulu.
To pick the best shows on Netflix, we monitor what's new on Netflix, and you know, do the work of watching a lot of Netflix (here's what's new on Netflix for the week of October 24). We also do periodical deep dives to re-examine things that fly under the radar, which is how one of our latest entries made the list.
But after Stranger Things 4 dominated the service, you might be wondering "what's next?" The next big Netflix debut is The Crown season 5, but the lack of other upcoming fall debuts may have you wondering about canceling Netflix for the rest of the year.
Want to make the most of your account? You might want to check out our Netflix hacks: 7 tips and tricks for saving money if you're feeling like Netflix costs too darn much after the price increase. You can also check out Netflix's secret codes that can unlock new categories for you.
Netflix canceled Bad Crimes before it even had a chance of getting on this list
Schitt's Creek left Netflix, paddling over to Hulu
The Great British Baking Show 2022 is now on Netflix
The 67 best shows on Netflix available right now
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
(Image credit: Netflix)
Forget what you know about Cyberpunk 2077, the game that crashed out of the gates, resulting in rare refunds. Netflix's Cyberpunk: Edgerunners may sit in the same world as that game, but it's a much bigger success. It focuses on street kid David (Zach Aguilar), who seeks survival by way of being a mercenary known as an Edgerunner. This gorgeous series, which moves at a frenetic pace, will have you hanging on every moment waiting to see how David survives.
Cast: Zach Aguilar, Kenichiro Ohashi, Emi Lo, Aoi Yuki, Stephie Wong, Takako Honda
Seasons: 1 (10 episodes)
Year: 2022
Genre: Animation/action
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Better Call Saul
(Image credit: AMC)
Right now is the perfect time to start if you haven't already begun Better Call Saul. This Breaking Bad prequel/spinoff focuses on slick, shady lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), but it begins back when he's small-time lawyer Jimmy McGill who doesn't work with or for the drug cartels yet. While the series takes its moments showing moments "after" Breaking Bad, it's all about the moments that send McGill into the wrong side of the law. It's not easy to stand up to the excellence of Breaking Bad, but Better Call Saul perhaps exceeds it. We eagerly await Netflix's receipt of Better Call Saul season 6, which ended the series practically perfectly.
Cast: Bob Odenkirk, Michael McKean, Jonathan Banks
Seasons: 5
Year: 20152022
Genre: Drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 97%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
The Sandman
(Image credit: Netflix)
After the Cowboy Bebop adaptation, some may have wondered if Netflix still "had it." Fortunately, all of the right notes have been hit with this adaptation of Neil Gaiman's classic DC comic book series. Tom Sturridge is a pitch-perfect Dream (aka Morpheus), ad while the series may be a slow starter (matching the source material), critics agree it ramps up fantastically in the back half. Check out our analysis of The Sandman episode 1.
Fans are still awaiting confirmation of The Sandman season 2.
Cast: Tom Sturridge, David Thewlis, Gwendoline Christie, Kirby Howell-Baptiste
Seasons: 1 (10 episodes)
Year: 2022
Genre: Fantasy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 89%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Maid
(Image credit: RICARDO HUBBS/NETFLIX)
Maid isn't merely one of the best shows on Neflix: it's one of the best things I've watched on TV in recent history. It features a career-making performance from Margaret Qualley, who plays Alex, a woman in an emotionally abusive relationship who needs to leave her husband Sean (Nick Robinson) with her young daughter (Rylea Neveah Whittet) in the middle of the night. Nobody takes her side for this decision, and her lack of a job and any money to speak of make her situation all the more bleak. Qualley's real-life mother Andie MacDowell co-stars as Paula, Alex's mother who is the most unstable character in the series. As brilliant as it is emotionally-draining, Maid is proof that Netflix still has it on occasion.
Cast: Margaret Qualley, Andie MacDowell, Nick Robinson, Raymond Ablack, Billy Burke, Rylea Neveah Whittet, Anika Noni Rose, BJ Harrison
Seasons: 1 (10 episodes)
Year: 2021
Genre: Drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Old Enough!
(Image credit: Netflix/Nippon TV)
Old Enough! is a show that shouldn't work, but is a triumph of low-stakes reality TV. In it, 2-4 year old children are given errands and accomplishable missions from their parents, while narrators provide play-by-play commentary. The kids range from easily-distracted types or mischievous ones who don't really care about their goals. A big hit in Japanese TV from the last decades, Old Enough! is one of the best shows on Netflix because it's a true gem for unwinding. It's unique shows like Old Enough! that make Netflix one of the best streaming services, even while HBO Max has the top spot.
Seasons: 1
Years: 2022
Genre: Reality TV
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Stranger Things
(Image credit: Netflix)
One of the biggest and best Netflix shows takes audiences to Hawkins, Indiana for the retro adventures of Dustin, Mike, Lucas, Will, Max and Eleven, who keep finding themselves in the center of supernatural predicaments. Laugh at the dry wit of police chief Jim Hopper, find the joy in Winona Ryder's over-the-top performance. One of the best shows to watch on Netflix ever, Stranger Things is back with a super-sized season that goes from Hawkins to Russia to Utah and of course to the Upside Down. Stranger Things season 5 will be the end of the ride.
Cast: Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Millie Bobby Brown
Seasons: 4
Year: 2016 ongoing
Genre: Drama/Fantasy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 93%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Dead to Me
(Image credit: Netflix)
As bleak as the dark comedy Dead to Me which is about women who become friends over one of their husband's death gets, it's still one of the best shows on Netflix. Yes, Jen (Applegate) begins the series in mourning over her husband Ted's death. Fortunately, she soon meets Judy (Cardellini) at a support group. Unfortunately, their bond is rather complicated for reasons best kept secret until you watch.
Stars: Christina Applegate, Linda Cardellini, James Marsden, Max Jenkins, Sam McCarthy, Luke Roessler
Seasons: 2
Years: 2019-2020
Genre: Dark comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 90%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Derry Girls
(Image credit: Netflix)
Derry Girls is yet another show that proves subtitles are worth the work. This comedy series focuses of a group of rebellious teenage girls in Derry (in Northern Ireland), and the background for the series is the tumultuous time in the early 1990's known called The Troubles. These girls and their families may have thick accents, but you'll come to love them once you get to know them.
Much like Better Call Saul, Derry Girls already aired its finale but not on Netflix. Oh, and you can watch Derry Girls season 3 if you're outside of the U.S. or have a VPN, while we wait for its Oct. 7, 2022 Netflix debut.
Stars: Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Louisa Harland, Ian McElhinney, Kathy Kiera Clarke, Nicola Coughlan
Seasons: 2
Years: 2018-2022
Genre: Comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Archive 81
(Image credit: Netflix)
Earlier this year, we lauded Archive 81 as the one new show you had to watch on Netflix. And so it's no surprise that it's now landed a slot as one of the best shows on Netflix. Archive 81 provides a fresh mix of character-driven drama and jump-scare horror two things that shouldn't go together at all. It even manages to make a use of found-footage work, even though that should be played out by now. Unfortunately, it joined the ranks of Netflix's canceled shows, as it was killed it off before we could get a second season. If you're upset about Archive 81's cancelation, maybe give Netflix a piece of your mind and call Netflix customer service.
Stars: Mamoudou Athie, Dina Shihabi, Evan Jonigkeit, Matt McGorry, Martin Donovan
Seasons: 1 season (8 episodes)
Year: 2021
Genre: Drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 84%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Seinfeld
(Image credit: Netflix/Castle Rock)
What can you say about the show about nothing that hasn't already been said before? Well, now that it's on Netflix, you can yadda-yadda-yadda all you want while you re-discover one of the most loved television shows of all time. Sitting pretty in the Mt. Rushmore of sitcoms, these tales of four selfish New Yorkers are as influential as TV gets, with "sponge-worthy" coming back into conversations as we wonder if someone or an event is "rapid test-worthy."
Cast: Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, Michael Richards
Seasons: 9
Year: 1989 1997
Genre: Sitcom
Rotten Tomatoes score: 89%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Voir
(Image credit: Netflix)
Cinephiles need to stop what they're raving about in Letterboxd right now and turn on the new Netflix series Voir. The mini-series allows filmmakers and cinephiles to analyze and examine works of film, that influenced them. Movies and shows discussed include Jaws, Lady Vengeance, Lawrence of Arabia and The Sopranos. A bit meta, Voir is easily one of the best shows on Netflix for folks who have a list of their favorite auteurs.
Executive producer: David Fincher
Season: 1 seasons (6 episodes)
Year: 2021
Genre: Documentary
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
Voir (opens in new tab)
Crime Scene
(Image credit: Netflix)
Crime Scene rung in the new year in the most on-the-nose way, delivering a second season, "The Times Square Killer", just days before people celebrated the start of 2022 from the tourist attraction (and around the world). This series made its first splash in 2021, with The Vanishing at The Cecil Hotel, and is continuing to get raves. The new season focused on a serial killer on the loose in the 1970's in New York's practically-lawless episode.
Director: Joe Berlinger
Seasons: 2 seasons
Year: 2021
Genre: True Crime documentary
Rotten Tomatoes score: n/a%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Squid Game
(Image credit: Youngkyu Park)
Korean thriller/drama Squid Game has captured Netflix in a nine-episode run that has everyone asking questions left and right. The series revolves around chauffeur Seong Gi-hun, who is broke and finds himself involved in a mysterious series of children's games run by masked guards, for a 45.6 billion prize. Squid Game is one of the best shows on Netflix not just for how well it's made, but for how its intriguing cast of characters will send you rooting for people you might not have before. Squid Game season 2 is confirmed, and we can't wait.
Cast: Lee Jung-jae, Park Hae-soo, Jung Ho-yeon, O Yeong-su
Seasons: 1 season (9 episodes)
Year: 2021 ongoing
Genre: Thriller/drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Squid Game 8/10 83% Watch at Netflix (opens in new tab)
Resident Evil (2022)
(Image credit: Netflix)
Divisive out the gate you'd expect for a video adaptation that pivots to the Young Adult sector Netflix's Resident Evil is still a fantastic series. It tells its story in two halves: first, with young Jade and Billie Wesker accompanying their father Albert to New Raccoon City, where he's to work for the rebuilding Umbrella Corporation. They've got a new drug to market to teens, called Joy. Unfortunately, the T-Virus is still in the picture, and everything goes haywire once the girls go on an ill-advised trip to dad's office after hours. Resident Evil also tells its story years into the future, where Jade is surviving a world that's far more dangerous than the one we saw her younger self in.
Resident Evil will not have a second season, as Netflix canceled it on August 26, 2022.
Cast: Ella Balinska, Tamara Smart, Lance Reddick, Siena Agudong, Adeline Rudolph
Seasons: 1 (8 episodes)
Year: 2022
Genre: Sci-fi
Rotten Tomatoes score: 54%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Money Heist (La Casa de Papel)
(Image credit: Money Heist official images)
If you're looking for an intense and action-packed crime series, check out the greatest heists this side of Danny Ocean. The beautifully-shot series tracks the crews led by The Professor, who aims to take rob the Royal Mint of Spain and the Bank of Spain. This Spanish-language show zigs and zags all over the place, with flash-backs and time jumps to keep you on your toes. You even have to be concerned with the ol' "unreliable narrator" conceit, which adds even more intrigue. The series just ended, so you can binge it all now!
Cast: Ursula Corbero, Alvaro Morte, Itziar Ituno, Pedro Alonso
Seasons: 2 seasons (in 5 parts)
Year: 2017 - 2021
Genre: Crime
Rotten Tomatoes score: 95%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson
(Image credit: Netflix)
You'll never laugh or cringe as much as you do when watching this short-form series from Tim Robinson (Detroiters). One of the best Netflix shows (and one of the best Netflix comedies) ITYSL is one of those shows show that either your friends are demanding you watching now (so you can get the jokes) or folks have accepted you just won't like because its humor is too much. Season 2 has some amazing moments (have you paid yet?) and while we're not sure if the hot dog-shaped car's crash has been topped, it doesn't need to be. Not when you have no idea what to do behind the steering wheel. Editor's note: I Think You Should Leave season 3 is confirmed!
Cast: Tim Robinson, Andy Samberg, Ashleigh Nicole Johnson
Seasons: 2
Year: 2019 - 2021 (ongoing)
Genre: Comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 90%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Formula 1: Drive to Survive
(Image credit: Netflix)
The wild world of Formula 1 racing may often take place at hours that makes it inaccessible to those in America, and that's where the Drive to Survive show comes in. One of the best Netflix shows out there, this gripping documentary series brings you up close and personal with the best drivers in the world, including its biggest star, Lewis Hamilton. The third, and most recent, series showed how Covid-19 flipped F1 racing on its head, as Hamilton ascended to the top of the board.
And with the ultra-dramatic end of the most recent F1 season, DtS fans are more than excited to see what Hamilton has to say in the next season. We can't wait for season 5.
Cast: Fernando Alonso, Valtteri Bottas, Marcus Ericsson, Lewis Hamilton
Seasons: 4
Year: 2019 - 2022 (ongoing)
Genre: Sports documentary
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Ginny and Georgia
(Image credit: Netflix)
Young parents often lead to dramatic lives, and such is the case with Georgia Miller, who's ended her years of a nomadic lifestyle only to find more chaos. Her daughter, 15-year-old Ginny, can't escape her mother's past either. A second season of this popular series often ranked in the top shows on Netflix is inevitable, as it ended on a cliffhanger built for more stories. We're tracking all things Ginny and Georgia season 2 already.
Cast: Brianne Howey, Antonia Gentry, Diesel La Torraca, Scott Porter, Sara Waisglass
Seasons: 1 (10 episodes)
Year: 2021 Present
Genre: Drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 68%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Lupin
(Image credit: Emmanuel Guimier / Netflix)
Need a getaway and a thrill? Then it's time to tag along with Assane Diop, a thief inspired by the fictional 'gentleman thief' Arsene Lupin. Diop's whole life has been a series of moments where he saw his family being poorly treated by the rich. So he does what all daring menaces to high society do: set out for revenge. His target? The art and jewels owned by the wealthy.
Cast: Omar Sy, Ludivine Sagnier, Clotilde Hesme
Seasons: 2
Year: 2021
Genre: Crime drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 97%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Bridgerton
(Image credit: Liam Daniel / Netflix)
Even a casual soapy drama can be decadent if prepared properly. As is the case with Bridgerton, the first fruit of the deal that Netflix signed with show-runner Shonda Rhimes (Grey's Anatomy). The cleverly-written and beautifully-produced series tracks Daphne, a young socialite debuting in the London scene. Each episode has an ending that will leave you clicking "Play" again, so beware it's not the longest season. The good news is that Bridgerton season 3 (and 4) are confirmed!
Cast: Phoebe Dynevor, Rege-Jean Page, Jonathan Bailey
Seasons: 2
Year: 2020 - 2022 (ongoing
Genre: Period drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 89%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
The Queen's Gambit
(Image credit: Phil Bray/Netflix)
Believe it or not, chess is en vogue once more. In The Queen's Gambit, Anya Taylor-Joy (Emma) stars as Beth Harmon, a prodigious master of the chessboard who wants to be the very best in the world. Not only does Taylor-Joy captivate on-screen, but this is a beautifully shot show that's already earned think-pieces about its gorgeously designed spaces.
Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Bill Camp, Marielle Heller
Seasons: 1 (7 episodes)
Year: 2020
Genre: Drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
The Witcher
(Image credit: Katalin Vermes/Netflix)
Henry Cavill stars as Geralt of Rivia: a roving monster hunter in a dark fantasy world. While Geralt wants nothing more than to ply his trade, he runs afoul of prejudiced townsfolk, ambitious wizards and even foreign royalty. And while The Witcher season 2 arguably suffers from a slightly padded middle section of episodes (aka The Netflix Problem), we loved it anyways. We just can't wait for The Witcher season 3, especially after the huge reveal we just saw. Be sure to do these two things if you really want to love watching The Witcher.
Cast: Henry Cavill, Joey Batey, Freya Allan, Anya Chalotra
Seasons: 2
Year: 2019 - 2021 (ongoing)
Genre: Action, drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 81%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Emily in Paris
(Image credit: CAROLE BETHUEL/NETFLIX)
If the eponymous heroine of Emily in Paris seems to talk, act and dress like a millennial Carrie Bradshaw, theres a reason for that series creator Darren Star also masterminded Sex and the City. Emily is a Chicago marketing manager who scores a sweet gig in her dream city. Unfortunately, her new boss, Sylvie, and co-workers are a nightmare. While Paris fashionistas are sneering at the rom-coms take on Paris and fashion, both Emily and the show are irresistibly charming and fun. And we say oui, oui to the handsome eye candy who prove Paris really is the city of lust, er, love. Oh, and season 2 just dropped! Which has us wondering, when will Netflix renew Emily for a third season in Paris?
Cast: Lily Collins, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, Ashley Park, Lucas Bravo
Seasons: 2
Year: 2020 - 2021 (ongoing)
Genre: Romantic comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 73%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Cobra Kai
(Image credit: Guy D'Alema)
Yes, almost unbelievably, Cobra Kai the Karate Kid spin-off show that debuted on YouTube Premium and is now on Netflix is great. The series stays rooted to the original concept and characters, beginning with Johnny Lawrence re-opening the Cobra Kai dojo as a way to try and right his erring ways. Meanwhile, Daniel LaRusso may be thriving professionally, but he's still dealing with the absence of Mr. Miyagi. We're already looking forward to the un-confirmed Cobra Kai season 6.
Cast: Ralph Macchio, William Zabka, Courtney Henggeler, Xolo Mariduena
Seasons: 5
Year: 2018 20222 (ongoing)
Genre: Comedy/drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 95%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
The Legend of Korra
(Image credit: Nickelodeon)
Yes, now that you've finished Avatar: The Last Airbender, you can finally catch its follow-up series, The Legend of Korra on Netflix. Ambitious, and at times divisive, Korra deals with complex themes of identity and politics that you might not expect from an animated series.
Cast: Janet Varney, David Faustino, P.J. Bryne
Seasons: 4
Year: 20122014
Genre: Animated action adventure
Rotten Tomatoes score: 93%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
The Last Dance
(Image credit: ESPN/Netflix)
ESPN's Michael Jordan docuseries The Last Dance appeals to fans and non-fans alike thanks to personalities that jumped off the screen. The focus may primarily be on the battle of Jordan and Phil Jackson against the front office, but Dennis Rodman's shocking personality (for that era) and disinterest in practice, and Scottie Pippen's work in MJ's shadow are both entertaining aspects of the series.
Cast: Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman
Seasons: 1 (10 episodes)
Year: 2020
Genre: Sports docuseries
Rotten Tomatoes score: 96%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
Lucifer
(Image credit: John P. Fleenor/Netflix)
Sometimes the devil becomes his own advocate. Or at least he just needs a break from hell, as is the case here where Tom Ellis' smoldering on-screen presence as Lucifer Morningstar, the literal devil, who is taking time off in Los Angeles. Not only does he open a nightclub in the city, but he also starts doing consultant work for the LAPD, where he hits it off with detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German).
Cast: Tom Ellis, Lauren German, Kevin Alejandro, D. B. Woodside
Seasons: 6
Year: 2016 2021
Genre: Police drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 85%
Watch now (opens in new tab)
You
(Image credit: JOHN P. FLEENOR/NETFLIX)
It's time to meet You, your next guilty pleasure binge watch. A thrilling drama, You is the talk of social media these days thanks to how much the show plays with our own addictions to Instagram and other apps. It focuses on a bookstore manager named Joe, who falls in love with/stalks the heck out of Beck (Elizabeth Lail), a grad student. And, thankfully, we aren't waiting on confirmation of You season 4: the streaming service knows that many people believe it's one of the best shows on Netflix, and already confirmed we're getting more. Part 1 arrives on February 10, 2023, with part 2 on March 10, 2023.
Cast: Victoria Pedretti, Penn Badgley, Elizabeth Lail
Seasons: 3
Year: 20182021 (ongoing)
Genre: Drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 90%
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Unsolved Mysteries
(Image credit: Netflix)
Netflixs reboot of the classic true crime docuseries puts a slick spin on the original. The narration may be gone, but the new episodes still tell fascinating, spine-tingling tales of missing persons, murder and even UFO sightings. In the new Unsolved Mysteries, each episode focuses on one case, which makes the narrative more compelling and the characters more fleshed-out. But warning: You may have trouble sleeping either because youre so creeped out or you fall down a Reddit theory hole. If that's too creepy for your kids, check out our guide for how to set up Netflix parental controls.
Cast: N/A
Seasons: 2
Year: 2020-present
Genre: True crime documentary
Rotten Tomatoes score: 74%
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Moesha
(Image credit: Netflix: Strong Black Lead/Twitter/)
You don't have to go to Portlandia to feel the spirit of the 1990's on Netflix. R&B superstar Brandy Norwood starred in Moesha, a UPN series that was brought in mid-season and became one of the network's biggest hits, and Netflix is finally giving it a streaming home for all to relive its great run. The series dealt with what seemed like the social issues of the day, including drug use, teen pregnancy and race relations, all of which are still relevant today.
Cast: Brandy Norwood, Sheryl Lee Ralph, William Allen Young
Seasons: 6
Year: 19962001
Genre: Comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: not available
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Dark
(Image credit: Netflix)
At its end, Netflix's Dark -- a puzzling drama that rewards close watching -- is now complete and a highly recommendable series to watch. It focuses on a story of two children that go missing in a small German town known as Winden. Dark is commended for how it built up momentum -- instead of watching it dissolve like some show that started off hot and ended poorly (Hi, LOST).
Cast: Louis Hofmann, Maja Schone, Oliver Masucci
Seasons: 3
Year: 20172020
Genre: Crime/Drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%
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Dark 8.7/10 66% $0.99 (opens in new tab) at Amazon (opens in new tab)
The Umbrella Academy
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At the end of The Umbrella Academy season 2's first weekend on Netflix, I saw the same request up and down my timeline: "ok, where is season 3?" And it's not hard to see why. A massive success for Netflix, The Umbrella Academy found riveting TV by adapting the comic books of the same name, where the seven adopted Hargreeves siblings are trying to survive their own catastrophic powers. Season 2 send the kids back to the 1960's to prevent further calamity. Season 3 just dropped, with a new twist on the apocalypse!
Cast: Aidan Gallagher, Elliot Page, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Justin H. Min
Seasons: 3
Year: 2019-present (ongoing)
Genre: Science fiction/drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 83%
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The Baby-Sitters Club
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This long-awaited series adaptation of the much loved YA book series is sweet, positive, heartwarming without being cloying or mushy. It takes the familiar story of a group of young teens who start a babysitting service and adds modern elements like social media and smartphones. But the essential themes remain the same: friendship, compassion, loyalty, forgiveness and understanding. Sadly, Netflix canceled The Baby-Sitters Club, so we won't get season 3.
Cast: Sophie Grace, Malia Baker, Momona Tamada, Shay Rudolph
Seasons: 2
Year: 2020 - 2021
Genre: Comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%
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Dating Around
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The dating show genre has gotten kind of stale and predictable. Dating Around puts a refreshing twist on the formula: each episode centers on one singleton who goes on five blind dates, edited to look as if they're happening concurrently, so you watch all of them go through the various stages
Cast: Justin Bigting, Ben Samuel, Deva Mahal
Seasons: 2
Year: 20192020 (ongoing)
Genre: Reality TV
Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%
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Avatar the Last Airbender
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Avatar the Last Airbender arrived on Netflix with a ton of hype, instantly cementing itself as one of the best Netflix series. It follows the adventures of Aang, a tween destined to become the Avatar a magical martial artist who can manipulate all four classical elements.
Cast: Zach Tyler, Mae Whitman, Jack De Sena
Seasons: 3
Year: 20052008
Genre: Animated action/adventure
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
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Never Have I Ever
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This funny, sharp, heartwarming coming-of-age dramedy is what we need right now. Co-created by Mindy Kaling and inspired by her own upbringing, Never Have I Ever focuses on the very charming Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), an Indian-American high school sophomore whos trying to have a normal American teen experience.
Cast: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Poorna Jagannathan, Ramona Young
Seasons: 2
Year: 2020 - 2021 (ongoing)
Genre: Comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 87%
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Community
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Community is the product of Dan Harmon (Rick & Morty), and focuses on a study group at Greendale Community College that's founded by the slacker lawyer Jeff Winger (Joel McHale), who is disbarred from practicing law and trying to get laid. Allison Brie and Donald Glover thrive as Annie and Troy. Community is not just one of the best shows on Netflix right now, it's one of the best sitcoms of its generation. For more great sitcoms outside of Netflix, check out the best Netflix alternatives.
Cast: Joel McHale, Alison Brie, Gillian Jacobs, Donald Glover
Seasons: 6
Year: 20092015
Genre: Comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 88%
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Dear White People
(Image credit: Lara Solanki/Netflix)
If you've wondered where the hilarious satire has gone, you may have let Dear White People fly under your radar. The series focuses on race relations in America, providing view points from a college campus that has a terrible history and is still not where it should be yet much like this country itself.
Cast: Tyler James Williams, Tessa Thompson, Dennis Haysbert
Seasons: 4
Year: 20172021 (ongoing)
Genre: Comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 91%
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Dear White People 6.1/10 61% $3.99 (opens in new tab) at Amazon (opens in new tab)
Ozark
(Image credit: Steve Deitl/Netflix)
For us, at first, Ozark suffered from what I like to call "Didn't we just watch this?" Syndrome. Jason Bateman and Laura Linney star as "Marty" and Wendy Byrde, who get into the dark, seedy underworld to make ends meet. While early reviews were mixed, season 3 gives a giant stage for Laura Linney to thrive on screen. One of the biggest shows ending in 2022, Ozark is without a doubt one of the best shows on Netflix.
Cast: Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, Julia Garner
Seasons: 4
Year: 20172022
Genre: Crime drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 81%
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Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness
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Tiger King centers on a wildcat collector known as Joe Exotic, an extremely outlandish character who runs a private zoo filled with tigers, who loathes his nemesis, Carole Baskin, an animal rights activist he allegedly put a hit out on. Too addictive to put down, Tiger King is one of the best shows to watch on Netflix if you don't know the phrase "guilty pleasure."
Cast: Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin
Seasons: 2 + a mini-season
Year: 2020 - 2021
Genre: Documentary
Rotten Tomatoes score: 86%
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Love Is Blind
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Not all of the best Netflix series are high-brow, award-winning fare. This buzzy dating reality show is the love child of The Bachelor and Married at First Sight. Fifteen men and 15 women go on dates with each other to find their match -- sight unseen. You'll find yourself addicted to following the engaged couples up to their tense weddings. And Love Is Blind season 3 is almost here!
Cast: Nick Lachey and Vanessa Lachey (hosts)
Seasons: 2
Year: 2020-2022 (ongoing)
Genre: Reality TV
Rotten Tomatoes score: 86%
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Riverdale
(Image credit: The CW)
Somehow, Riverdale defied expectations of audiences with reboot fatigue, and became a cult sensation during its first season. That section of episodes mixed high school drama with a noir-y murder mystery (think Veronica Mars with a campy vibe), and then the second season added a cult, the Gargoyle King.
Cast: KJ Apa, Camila Mendes, Lili Reinhart
Seasons: 6
Year: 201722022 (ongoing)
Genre: Drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 86%
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Sex Education
(Image credit: Sam Taylor/Netflix)
Yes, somehow we're still getting great shows about pubescent life. Gillian Anderson and a cast of excellent young actors shake up the format, with the former Scully co-starring as the Dr. Jean F. Milburn, a sex therapist and mother of Otis, who's only surviving a sexually-charged high school with the help of his friends. Sex Education season 3 just dropped, and it's a return to form while Sex Education season 4 is already confirmed!
Cast: Asa Butterfield, Gillian Anderson, Ncuti Gatwa
Seasons: 3
Year: 20192021 (ongoing)
Genre: Comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 90%
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Big Mouth
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Don't sleep on Big Mouth. Born from the mind of comedian Nick Kroll (The League) and his cohorts, this raunchy animated series stands out by actually creating fuller, more fleshed-out characters than South Park ever did. Oh, and it even takes time to educate audiences on depression and other major issues. A sixth season is confirmed.
Cast: Nick Kroll, John Mulaney, Gina Rodriguez
Seasons: 5
Year: 20172020 (ongoing)
Genre: Raunchy comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
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Queer Eye
(Image credit: Christopher Smith/Netflix)
It's practically too perfect that a makeover show got a makeover, and became one of the best reality programs on TV, but that's where we stand with Queer Eye. And while Bobby, Jonathan and Tan all get a lot of credit, there's entertaining moments from Antoni and Karamo, whose contributions are often debatable. A new season of the fab five's life-changing work just dropped, so get at it, and see how the gang helps a honky tonk dance instructor/grandmother, a trans powerlifter and a ... high school prom committee?
Cast: Antoni Porowski, Bobby Berk, Karamo Brown, Jonathan Van Ness and Tan France
Seasons: 6
Year: 20182021 (ongoing)
Genre: Reality TV
Rotten Tomatoes score: n/a
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Russian Doll
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The first thing you should know is that Russian Doll is the funny and emotional the series that Natasha Lyonne (its star, co-creator, writer, and director) has long since deserved, as she's spent most of her career as a co-star and not a lead. Its twisting, tricky premise is so good that we won't say anything else. Russian Doll's originality makes it one of the best shows to watch on Netflix. And after a mind-bending second season, we're eagerly awaiting news about Russian Doll season 3.
Cast: Natasha Lyonne, Greta Lee, Yul Vazquez
Seasons: 2
Year: 2019 2022 (ongoing)
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 97%
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Love, Death & Robots
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What if you took the dystopic futurism of Black Mirror, but made it slightly less depressing and animated it? You'd get David Fincher's Love, Death & Robots, a hidden-gem of a Netflix original anthology series that's comprised of bite-sized episodes that run about 15 minutes a piece. For more oddball picks, check out the best Netflix alternatives.
Cast: Topher Grace, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Gary Cole
Seasons: 3
Year: 2019 - 2021
Genre: Sci-fi
Rotten Tomatoes score: 79%
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Supergirl
(Image credit: The CW)
The cure for Zack Snyder's dour and gritty murderverse of DCEU movies, Supergirl tells the tale of Kara Danvers, a plucky employee of the CatCo media empire. Of course, Kara's got something in common with her cousin Clark Kent, as her real name is Kara Zor-El.
Cast: Melissa Benoist, Calista Flockhart, Mehcad Brooks
Seasons: 5
Year: 20152020 (ongoing)
Genre: Comic book drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 86%
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Grace and Frankie
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An excellent odd-couple comedy, Grace and Frankie gives Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin starring roles with a lot of great one-liners. The series begins with a life-shattering moment as Frankie and Grace (Tomlin and Fonda) discover that their husbands are leaving them. Soon, the natural enemies slowly become friends. The series concluded after a long-awaited final set of season 7 episodes.
Cast: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Martin Sheen
Seasons: 7
Year: 20152022
Genre: Comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 89%
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Mindhunter
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Thought we had enough crime dramas? Think again. Mindhunter brought cinema-quality visuals and strong character development to the genre, and took us back in crime to the 1970s as police began to track serial killers. Excellent acting and moody writing help make it one of the best Netflix series. Frustratingly, Mindhunter has apparently been put on an indefinite hiatus, so we don't know if or when season 3 will happen.
Cast: Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, Anna Torv
Seasons: 2
Year: 20172019
Genre: Crime drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 97%
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The Great British Baking Show
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Competitive reality TV doesn't have to be a backstabbing mess. The Great British Baking Show (which is called The Great British Bake Off when it originally airs in the U.K.) subverts that trend with contestants who have a surprising amount of camaraderie as they produce plentiful amounts of pastries and cakes.
Cast: Anna Beattie, Richard McKerrow, Letty Kavanagh
Seasons: 10 (Netflix has 6 of those seasons)
Year: 20102022 (ongoing)
Genre: Cooking reality TV
Rotten Tomatoes score: 89%
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Peaky Blinders
(Image credit: Robert Viglasky/Netflix)
The first five seasons of Peaky Blinders has spanned a decade of crime drama in Birmingham, England. The series, driven by Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later) starring as the upwardly criminal Tommy Shelby, started off slow but currently moves at a breakneck pace. And Peaky Blinders the show is finally over, as season 6 just hit Netflix. A movie is to follow.
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Tom Harper, Iddo Goldberg
Seasons: 6
Year: 20132022
Genre: Crime drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 92%
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She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Retro feels powers, activate! (Image credit: Netflix)
For once, a modernized update isn't a lifeless, gritty reboot, as She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is the best new animated series on Netflix and a ton of fun. Sure, it might start in a dark place as protagonists Adora and Catra did grow up as orphaned child soldiers but it doesn't live in that despair.
Cast: Aimee Carrero, Amanda Michalka, Marcus Scribner
Seasons: 5
Year: 20182020
Genre: Animated adventure
Rotten Tomatoes score: 96%
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Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
(Image credit: Dean Buscher/Netflix)
What if you took everything people love about the hit show Riverdale, but added horror sensibilities and made it funnier? That's what you get with Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which has an excellent lead in Kiernan Shipka. Yes, Sally Draper's taking everything she learned on Mad Men and bringing it to a weirder world.
Cast: Kiernan Shipka, Miranda Otto, Chance Perdomo
Seasons: 4
Year: 20182020
Genre: Drama/Fantasy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 82%
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Tuca & Bertie
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Tuca & Bertie provided an animated take on the complications of adult friendships. A proper successor to Broad City, the show centers around a brash toucan named Tuca (voiced by Tiffany Haddish) and the anxiety-riddled songbird named Bertie (Ali Wong), who meet through living in the same apartment building. Tuca & Bertie is one of the best shows on Netflix right now, and I say "right now" because we're not sure if Tuca & Bertie will wind up with Rick and Morty on HBO Max, as S2 is picked up by Adult Swim.
Cast: Tiffany Haddish, Ali Wong, Steven Yeun
Seasons: 1 (10 episodes)
Year: 2019
Genre: Animated comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 98%
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Glow
(Image credit: Erica Parise/Netflix)
Women's wrestling heck, all pro wrestling has historically been laughed at, and called a side-show. Netflix original Glow looks to flip the script on how this predetermined spectacle is viewed, by showing how a group of misfit actors and wanna-be celebrities went from nobodies to superstardom. Sadly, Glow has been cancelled, due to complications with the COVID-19 pandemic, and its fourth season shall not come to life.
Cast: Alison Brie, Marc Maron, Betty Gilpin
Seasons: 3
Years: 20172019
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 93%
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The Good Place
(Image credit: Colleen Hayes/NBC)
What if you woke up in heaven, but knew you didn't deserve to be there, and had to hide your imperfections? That case of impostor syndrome is at the root of the critically-praised The Good Place, which has crackling chemistry, sharp and clever jokes and an existential education that make it is one of the best Netflix shows. The final season of The Good Place was recently added to Netflix, so make sure to get a hankie for the emotional conclusion. It's one of the best shows to watch while you wait for Ted Lasso season 3.
Cast: Kristen Bell, Ted Danson, William Jackson Harper
Seasons: 4
Year: 20162020
Genre: Comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 97%
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Master of None
(Image credit: Netflix/Universal Television )
While Aziz Ansari got famous for being a tonedeaf wanna-be lothario on Parks & Rec, his Netflix original series takes a much more grounded approach at the insanity that is dating in the era of apps. The series has brought Dev and his friend Arnold (Eric Wareheim) from New York to Italy, to repeated success. A third season of five episodes arrived in May 2021 taking the focus off Dev.
Cast: Aziz Ansari, H. Jon Benjamin, Eric Wareheim
Seasons: 3
Year: 20152021
Genre: Comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
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The Crown
(Image credit: Netflix)
Claire Foy and Matt Smith (Doctor Who) garnered praise from critics and audiences alike for their portrayals of Queen Elizabeth II and Philip the Duke of Edinburgh in the first two seasons of The Crown that made it a must for our list of best Netflix shows. The Crown season 4 just debuted to a strong response, and we're tracking all The Crown season 5 details.
Cast: Olivia Colman, Claire Foy, Vanessa Kirby
Seasons: 4
Year: 2016present
Genre: Drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 90%
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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
(Image credit: Greg Gagne/The CW)
Musical comedy Crazy Ex-Girlfriend stars Rachel Bloom as Rebecca Nora Bunch: a NY lawyer who moves to California, only to find her first love living nearby. The songs aren't just hilarious, they have real emotional depth, turning what seems like a silly rom-com much more and making this one of the best Netflix shows.
Cast: Rachel Bloom, Santino Fontana, Michael McDonald
Seasons: 4
Year: 20152019
Genre: Musical comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 98%
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Arrested Development
(Image credit: Saeed Adyani/Netflix)
We all love to see rich people fall, and Arrested Development scratched this itch well, while showing us how dumb the 1% can be. Of course, you might find a way to sympathise with Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) and his son George Michael Bluth (Michael Cera), who are trying their best to fix the business. Arrested Development is inarguably one of the best shows to watch on Netflix, provided you stop after season 3.
Cast: Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, Jessica Walter, Jeffrey Tambor
Seasons: 5
Year: 20032006; 20132019
Genre: Comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 75%
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BoJack Horseman
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BoJack Horseman is a hilarious and profound meditation on the nature of depression that just happens to be about an anthropomorphic horse. BoJack (Will Arnett) is a washed-up Hollywood TV star with plenty of money but no real goals or joy left in his life.
Cast: Will Arnett, Aaron Paul, Amy Sedaris
Seasons: 6 (plus a Christmas special)
Year: 20142020
Genre: Animated comedy/drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 93%
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Orange Is the New Black
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Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) realizes she can't escape the mistakes of her past when she winds up in a minimum-security women's prison on a drug smuggling charge. Granted, it's not all bad, as she befriends the quirky inmates and reflects on the bizarre backstory that brought her there.
Cast: Taylor Schilling, Laura Prepon, Kate Mulgrew
Seasons: 7
Year: 20132019
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 90%
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House of Cards
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A remake of the popular UK series of the same name, House of Cards is all about the inner workings of federal politics and just how dirty and deceitful they can get. Kevin Spacey stars as Frank Underwood: an amoral American congressman who will do absolutely anything to gain political power.
Cast: Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright, Sebastian Arcelus
Seasons: 6
Year: 20132018
Genre: Drama
Rotten Tomatoes score: 78%
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Black Mirror
(Image credit: Netflix)
Black Mirror plays with all of our worst fears about technology and privacy. While its first episode, the sexually explicit "The National Anthem" pushed at social networks, later episodes such as "Fifty Million Merits" and "White Christmas" rip apart future advances in in-app purchases, reality TV and privacy filters. Its movie Bandersnatch is one of the best Netflix movies.
Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Alice Eve, Michael Kelly
Seasons: 5
Year: 20112019 (ongoing)
Genre: Drama/Sci-Fi
Rotten Tomatoes score: 83%
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Breaking Bad
(Image credit: Ursula Coyote/AMC)
Breaking Bad is a story about disease, drugs, family, profit, power and much, much more. High school chemistry teacher Walter White needs money for his cancer treatment, and realizes he can profit from scientific know-how by cooking meth. Breaking Bad is not just one of the best Netflix shows, but one of the top series ever.
Cast: Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, RJ Mitte
Seasons: 5
Year: 20082013
Genre: Drama/Crime
Rotten Tomatoes score: 96%
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The IT Crowd
(Image credit: Channel 4 UK)
If you've ever tried to explain a simple piece of technology to someone who just doesn't get it, you know how Roy Trenneman and Maurice Moss feel. On The IT Crowd, the two best friends work in the IT department of a big company under their clueless boss, Jen Barber, with hilariously bad results.
Cast: Chris O'Dowd, Richard Ayoade, Katherine Parkinson
Seasons: 5
Year: 20062013
Genre: Comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 86%
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How to access blocked shows on Netflix
Wherever you are in the world, Netflix offers a huge range of top-quality shows like the ones weve listed above. However, due to something called geo-blocking, you may find that your favorite binge-watch isnt available. This is especially noticeable if youve traveled abroad a series you had your eye on back at home may well now not be available.
The easiest way around this is to use a Netflix VPN. By using a VPN to change your virtual location, you can trick Netflix into showing you that countrys catalog of shows. Perfect if youre in need of a quick fix to fill your vacation downtime, or even if you fancy globetrotting from the comfort of your sofa.
PM Modi's call for a clean India has been met with many spirited responses, some so overenthusiastic that they border on the bizarre.
By Vishakha Saxena: Hardly any Indian will deny that the country needs to really clean up its act. From dirty rivers to mountains of garbage, there's enough evidence of our lackadaisical attitude towards hygiene.
The situation worsens every day, as scores of people defecate in the open, spit wherever they like and don't care about using dustbins. Hygiene and sanitation problems are even more acute in rural areas.
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It isn't much of a surprise then, that PM Modi's call for a clean India has been met with many spirited responses, some so overenthusiastic that they border on the bizarre. Here's a look at some:
1. 'Tank' you very much for not peeing
Indian walls are a sad lot. When they're not being vandalised with obnoxious love messages, they face a smelly assault of nature's call. In fact, many desperate home-owners are forced to spray paint offensive warnings that call the person relieving himself an ass. Instances of these are so widespread that the warnings have even made their way to Bollywood.
Except, they never actually work.
So people are now resorting to harsher tactics to deter people from unzipping in public. A Mumbai-based activist group The Clean Indian, for example, literally declared war on public urination with their 'Pissing Tanker' which hosed down people caught in the act. Watch:
2. Name and shame: Videos, photos, children clapping, whistling at pee-public of India
In February this year, the Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation announced plans to install CCTV cameras at various bus stops to record offenders and put their videos up on YouTube. In Kanpur, even school kids were in on the fun as they took to shaming open urination with ringing bells and metal plates.
Government advertisements propagating "Swachh Bharat" were also themed around public shaming offenders - collective clapping when for anyone littering or peeing in public.
The use of such tactics precedes PM Modi's election, though. In 2012, volunteers in Rajasthan beat drums and whistled to shame those peeing in public. Later, in 2013, Bangalore police garlanded people caught urinating in public. Their methods were replicated by the Hyderabad police earlier this year.
In 2015, villages in West Bengal's Nadia district set up "walls of shame" where they put up names and photos of people caught peeing in public.
More recently, according to a Patrika report, village heads in Chhattisgarh set up teams to whistle and shine torches at people peeing in public. A panchayat in Karnataka's Koppal also resorted to blowing whistles at offenders, but his plan did not go down well with his constituents.
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Also read: Kanpur officers blow whistle to stop people from defecating in open
3. Humble requests and pleas: We beg you to reconsider
In another village of Koppal, the head devised a nobler method to encourage cleanliness.
Srinivas Karturi went around throwing himself at people's feet, requesting them to not defecate in the open and build toilets. He aims to make the village open-defecation free by 2016-17.
Srinivas Karturi requesting people to build toilets and not defecate in the open. (Photo: Rohini Swamy/India Today Group)
"I fall at your feet and request you to build a toilet please," he tells villagers. Unlike his whistle-blowing comrade, Karturi's methods are leaving a mark on villagers. Some express embarrassment and many feel they should adhere to his plea.
Read Karturi's story: In this Karnataka village, sarpanch begs people to build toilets by falling at their feet
4. Do it yourself: When villagers take charge
A Madurai village decided to ditch activism and simply take matters in its own hands. With financial help from the owner of Devaki Hospitals in Madurai and some sponsors who grew up in the village, the community built toilets for most homes and a public toilet facility for others.
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Interestingly, the entire effort was inspired by a 90-year-old-couple in the village who had spent their lives living in a kuccha house, but recently built a concrete toilet for themselves.
The 90-year-old couple that inspired their entire village to build toilets. (Photo: PIB)
Now, the villagers are so protective of their toilets, they've formed teams to ensure neighbouring villagers don't use them during peak potty-hours. Village administration is also aiming to set up a waste management scheme to manage biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste.
In another area of Madurai, a hygiene and health conscious group formed a walking club to spend their Sundays keeping streets clean.
5. Leading by example
In Guwahati, 25 schoolgirls 'adopted' the road in front of their school to ensure its cleanliness. They even worked hard to generate awareness about water contamination and recycling plastic in their neighbourhood.
In Bihar, young engineer Anoop Jain left his job to build public toilets in villages. Jain founded an organization called Sanitation and Health Rights and has seen thousands of villagers happily use and maintain toilets built by them. The organisation maintains a Google Spreadsheet that tracks the number of users each day.
A SHRI team building toilets in a Bihar village. (Photo: sanrights.org)
6. Eww! That's disgusting: Shock treatment
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What's better than taking charge? An education.
In Lucknow's Mirzapur, a district chief development officer roped in the local Swachh Bharat Mission team to educate his block about the threats of open defecation. Their subsequent demonstration left the villagers in shock.
To explain how flies spread diseases, "the NGO worker gathered villagers near the defecation ground. He had a bottle of water, which he poured in a glass. He plucked a strand of hair from his head and touched it to an excreta heap. He dipped the hair in the glass of water and asked villagers to drink. Everyone cringed," the officer told Times of India.
Their presentation persuaded people to build toilets or use existing ones.
7. Bride and prejudice
Some of the most inspiring stories of toilet-building campaigns come from brides-to-be. Women in rural areas of Kanpur, Odisha, Bihar, Haryana and several other states have refused to marry into families lacking toilets.
In April a woman from Kanpur went viral when she called off her wedding because the groom's household was toilet-less.
The government's "No Toilet, No Bride" campaign is also encouraging more and more young women to follow a similar path.
8. Social boycott: When even barbers won't give you a shave
After attending a Swachh Bharat session, villagers in Bhopal's Bhuteda decided to get stern with households that lacked toilets. Deliveries of essentials like vegetables were stopped for such homes, and villagers are now planning their social-boycott.
According to a Hindustan Times report, even barbers in the village are participating in the pro-toilet campaign by refusing to give shaves and haircuts to villagers without toilets at home.
9. The hunger games
In a Karnataka village, meanwhile, 15-year-old girl Lavanya staged a 48-hour hunger protest demanding a toilet in her home.
Lavanya with her classmates. (Photo: UNICEF)
Lavanya's initial pleas were shot down by her father since they lacked funds. But Lavanya's protest pushed the village panchayat to chip in and help construct a toilet outside her home.
10. Invoking God and Gandhi
Some Swachh Bharat crusaders, meanwhile, are hoping to inspire people to change. A drama student in Odisha is visiting villages dressed as Mahatma Gandhi to promote Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan.
Sairam started walking from Jagannath Puri Temple on June 24 and has since visited many villages around the area.
Many walls in various states - from Delhi to Mumbai - have also been covered with images of gods and religious symbols to dissuade people from spraying on them.
A wall in Mumbai painted with images of Jesus Christ and the Hindu guru Sai Baba, along with the slogan,
While one might expect these tactics to work, that's not always been the case.
11. Show them the money
When nothing else works, we know throwing money at a problem will. Thankfully, in this case it doesn't amount to corruption.
In 2015, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation announced that people will be given a rupee for using public toilets. For better results, the scheme was aggressively implemented near slum areas.
Signboard urging people to use the toilet and get paid Re 1. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Many state governments and village heads have also announced monetary rewards to convince households to use toilets.
***
These are just some of the outlandish or enthusiastic methods adopted by some citizens in their bid to help clean the country. These may or may not be successful but at the end of the day, the muck stops here.
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Gossip Girl is an American teen drama television series based on the book series of the same name, in which a group of ridiculously good-looking, prep-school rich kids go through stuff, all under the watchful eye of the mysterious and omniscient blogger Gossip Girl.
Its sort of like The OC meets Desperate Housewives, if youre into that sort of thing, which were not, though we probably would be if you, say, changed the setting from New York City to Melbourne and the good-looking rich kids to local bands.
Enter Spicy Aussie Underground Music Memes. Its not quite the same as an anonymous blogger posting the dirty laundry of New Yorks glitterati all over the web, but it is as good as an anonymous meme-maker taking the piss out of some of Australias coolest bands.
Excuse me but who is behind spicy aussie underground music ~memes~ and whyyy? one Twitter user wrote back in February. Apparently, some men just want to watch the world burn. SAUMM takes no prisoners, holds nothing back, and a bunch of other cliches.
Before you go wandering over to the Facebook page, its probably a good idea to keep everything in the context of a piss take. Some of your favourite local bands, including the likes of Bad//Dreems, Kirin J Callinan, Orion, and so on, regularly get skewered.
excuse me but who is behind spicy aussie underground music ~memes~ and whyyy dime bag (@goldbutts) February 11, 2016
The pages favourite target is certainly The Tote and the bands who frequent the beloved Collingwood venue. According to one promoter, the page has become incredibly popular amongst Tote regulars, who frequently discuss its updates between stubbies of Melbourne Bitter.
But like we said, no one is spared, especially if you happen to be in a noise band. In fact, usually the more obscure or complex your sound, the more likely you are to be featured on SAUMM. And if youre in more than one band, forget about it.
Also, the more buzz you have or the cooler you are in the scene, the more likely you are to be satirised. But like we said, its all in good fun, right? You can check out some of the highlights from Spicy Aussie Underground Music Memes below.
In the 90s, when Americans had MTV and Kurt Loder, Australians had Michael Tunn. BuzzFeed once named the Afternoon Show presenter and Australias youngest radio announcer one of their ultimate 90s dreamboats.
He became the face of 90s kids Australia wide at 17 when he was hired as Australias youngest-ever radio presenter at triple j. He hadnt even completed high school when he got the job and couldnt appear on air until completing his studies.
He first came to public attention as the host of Rock and Roll High School on Three D Radio in Adelaide in the early 1990s, before moving to Sydney to join triple j where he became the host of J-Klub and The Request Fest.
His on-air popularity soon netted him a gig as the host of ABCs Afternoon Show, a post he held for five years in addition to hosting numerous docos for the broadcaster. He eventually left triple j to work at Triple M and SAFM.
But he was booted in March 2006 following a court appearance for disorderly behaviour, which Adelaide Now reports included making indecent comments and actions toward police. On Tuesday, Tunn pleaded guilty to shoplifting charges.
As Adelaide Now writes, on Tuesday Adelaide Magistrates Court heard how Tunn, at one time one of the brightest stars in Australian broadcasting, now survives on a $40-a-day disability pension.
Having battled illness, stress, and bipolar disorder, a desperate Tunn pleaded guilty to stealing two Balfours pies, two Balfours sausage rolls and a Bonds T-shirt, which he shoved into a blue freezer bag at a Coles in Firle back in December.
He is in his 40s, has bipolar issues, is on medication, sees a psychiatrist once a month and says he has been making some bad decisions at times, Tunns lawyer said, revealing that Tunn is currently involved with community radio on a volunteer basis.
He had been under stress because Christmas was coming up and he was heading into family situations, he said. He didnt go to the shop with the intention of taking items but, at some stage, he formed the intent of taking them without paying.
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According to Adelaide Now, Tunn was eventually released without conviction, fined $50, and ordered to pay $260 in levies and prosecution costs. But Tunns situation is hardly an isolated case in the Australian music industry.
Last year, a Victoria University study found that the rate of attempted suicide in the industry is more than double the rest of the population and more than 40 percent of Australian performers have been diagnosed with mental illness.
If you or someone you know needs personal help, contact Lifeline 13 11 14 or beyondblue 1300 224 636.
An 18-year-old woman charged in connection with a car theft and police chase on July 4 that resulted in injuries to a motorcyclist, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker announced today.
The suspect, dob: 7/11/1997, faces Tampering with a Motor Vehicle in the 1st Degree, Resisting Arrest, Assault 2nd Degree, and Armed Criminal Action.*
According to court records, the defendant got into a vehicle on July 4th in the area of 3500 block of Ruysser Road. Officers attempted to stop the vehicle but the defendant failed to stop, topping 100 mph, driving into oncoming traffic, ignoring traffic signals and eventually striking a motorcycle rider near the Red Bridge exit of Interstate 470, causing the driver of the motorcycle to suffer significant injuries.
The case remains under investigation.
Prosecutors requested a bond of $25,000.
A look at one of the many allegedly feisty local ladies blazing through this town amid the hot summer causing fear and maybe just a bit of curiosity about her Tinder handle.Here's the official report . . . Take a peek:Deets:##########All suspects are innocent until proven guilty.Developing . . .
"The City Council will gather for a facilitator-led team building retreat on Friday, July 8th at 10:00 A.M. at the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce boardroom in Union Station. This is not a public meeting within the meaning of the Sunshine Law and attendance is limited to Council members and those necessary for the training. This notice is for information only.
Quick peek at a public notice . . .Here's a bit of Summer fun for public notice but not an invite . . .You decide . . .
Roll Call:
The Democratic Party's Hillary Clinton Problem
One Democratic candidate, Jason Kander of Missouri, jabbed at Clinton.
As I've said before, Secretary Clinton's decision to use a personal email server to conduct official business as secretary of state was a mistake, Kander said in a statement. I trust the thoroughness and integrity of the FBI's investigation and respect their recommendation.
INSIDERS REVEAL THAT EVEN JACKSON COUNTY LEGISLATOR CRYSTAL WILLIAMS IS BACKING OFF HER "GIRL POWER" SUPPORT OF A CADRE OF PRIMARY CANDIDATES WHO MISTAKENLY BELIEVED THAT HILLARY CLINTON WINNING WOULD POWER THEIR VICTORY AS WELL!!!
Surprising public outrage amid the Hillary Clinton E-Mail scandal aftermath could prove disastrous for some local Democratic Party denizens who have been enthusiastically tying their efforts to the girl power effort.But before all that, we feel strangely obligated to post this link for all those who haven't seen it yet given that no less than half a dozen angry white dudes have sent it our way . . .It's actually a good read inasmuch as it provides an insight into some very real frustration.Still, debates about "ethics" in politics are ultimately laughable and a sign of immaturity and vanity worse than selfies at political functions.We're more focused on how the smart money is playing this public outrage . . .Example . . .From Kansas City's favorite political son who launched his career from this cowtown . . .Meanwhile . . .As usual, JaxCo Lady Crystal hyping local ladies with silly gender identity political rhetoric miscalculated andHillary isn't going to help anybody win a primary in Missouri.What's unfortunate is that at the outset of this election cycle Crystal Williams seemed to tout Hillary Clinton enthusiasm and encouraged lady politicos to follow the ambitious lead of the former First Lady.Now, as the election cycle grows more competitive . . . We notice a lower profile for this embattled local lady who is too scared to debate any real issue but instead has resigned to speaking mostly to a closed circle of cackling lady politico hens who seem to be reinforcing their own failure and mistakenly think any smallish bit of Midtown KC support for Hillary Clinton will win a local election in this decidedly Red State.Developing . . .
- After the election lead up year of strange climate patterns, 2015 was exceptionally violent and Kansas City earned national recognition for a homicide spike.
- In 2016 there is currently a 37% increase in homicides two years running.
- With up to 53 homicides unofficially compared to 37 at this time last year, right now there have been more homicides in Kansas City than at any time in the past five years for this calendar date.
The topic of violence and polcing is soon to take center stage again in Kansas City and throughout the nation.Nationally, another police shooting is already sparking protest and outrage . . .Locally (and thanks be unto God) . . . Our discourse is a bit more subdued and involves talking points regarding data . . . Still an important topic . . .Check this bit of persuasion and a KCPD contention claiming that critics "can't argue with the lowest homicide rate since 1972" . . .Checkit:In fact, respectfully, our blog community can argue with this contention about the effectiveness of KC NoVa . . .Don't get it twisted, we realize KCPD confrontsAnd so, if we're going to crunch numbers than one statistic from two years ago clearly doe not provide the whole picture.You decide . . .
The refugee crisis has taken a heavy toll on the Aegean island of Lesvos, which this year saw a sharp decline in tourist arrivals, one of the main sources of income for its economy
The refugee crisis has taken a heavy toll on the Aegean island of Lesvos, which this year saw a sharp decline in tourist arrivals, one of the main sources of income for its economy. The island that became a by-word and for the European refugee crisis, not least for the generous hospitality that its residents showed to the desperate people arriving on their shores, has lost seven in 10 of last year's tourists.
After the floods of refugees and migrants washing up on its beaches, littering its shores with garish orange life jackets as they passed through on their way to Europe - and the iconic images of the unfolding crisis that filled the global media - arrivals of European tourists have plummetted to just a fraction of last year's levels.
According to figures released by Mytilene airport, passenger arrivals in June 2016 dropped to just 4,825, down from 15,026 in the same month last year, for a decline of 67.89 pct and an estimated loss of revenues of about six million euros. The drop in arrivals was attributed directly to the migration crisis, with troubled tourists selecting alternative destinations in the country.
In the first quarter of the 2016 tourism season, from April until June, there were a total of 9,904 arrivals, roughly a third of the 29,106 that arrived in the same period in 2015. If the trend continues until October, the island will have lost an estimated 55,000 tourists that stayed an average of nine nights each, or 495,000 stays in total.
According to a study by the Lesvos Hoteliers' Union, this will deal a severe blow to the island's tourism industry since each lost stay translates to the loss of 1.5-2 day's wages and between five and six kilos of fish and agricultural products consumed.
A small ray of hope amid a generally gloomy picture has been a rise in the number of flights from the Netherlands and Denmark, though this is not enough to offset the huge losses, hoteliers said.
Hotel owners and travel agencies said they intend to push for a series of relief measures to minimise the damage to their businesses, such as lower utility rates, tax breaks, special winter prices and others.
Source: ANA-MPA
RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
The Greek island of Folegandros is among the 10 secret European villages you must visit
The Greek island of Folegandros is among the 10 secret European villages you must visit, according to Tripadvisor.
The leading travel platform notes that "well always have Parisand Rome and Barcelona. But sometimes its worth sidestepping Europes hotspots to seek out the continents less discovered destinations. JS contributor Emma Sloley sets her sights on a host of under-the-radar villages and magical cities, from Montenegro to the Arctic Circle."
It describes Folegandros as follows:
"If youre seeking all the classic Greek Island tropeswhitewashed stone houses; cobbled streets; cascading bougainvilleabut with a less frenetic pace than more-celebrated isles like Mykonos or Santorini, this Cycladic gem is for you. There are dazzling Aegean seascapes, charming old wooden windmills and just three villages, with the main hub being Folegandros Chora. Wander up the hill to the church, check out a Venetian fortress from the 11th century, or just sit beneath the shade of a tree in the square, order an ouzo and tuck into heavenly home-cooked Mediterranean dishes. Lay your head at the stylish boutique stay Anemi, a haven of clean-lined design with a gorgeous infinity pool and a restaurant that puts a modern spin on traditional Greek classics."
The complete list of the 10 secret European villages you must visit includes:
1. Korcula, Croatia
2. Valladolid, Spain
3. Folegandros, Greece
4. Aeroskobing, Denmark
5. San Cassiano, Italy
6. Budva, Montenegro
7. Marvao, Portugal
8. Hallstatt, Austria
9. Reine, Norway
10. Gordes, France
Read more here.
RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
By PTI: New Delhi, Jul 6 (PTI) BJP MP from Almora Ajay Tamta today took charge as the Minister of State for Textiles. Prior to his election to the 16th Lok Sabha, Tamta has served as a member of the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly, from 2007 to 2012 and again from 2012 to 2014. He has also served in the Government of Uttarakhand, as a Cabinet Minister during 2008?09 and as an MoS during 2007?08.
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As a parliamentarian, Tamta has been a member of the Committee on Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes since August 2014, and a member of Standing Committee on Human Resource Development and of Consultative Committee, Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation since September 2014. PTI RSN MKJ
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Deutsche Bank is looking to sell at least $1 billion of shipping loans to lighten its exposure to the sector whose lenders face closer scrutiny from the European Central Bank, sources told Reuters.
While the oil tanker trade has picked up, the container and dry bulk shipping industries are struggling with their worst downturn due to a glut of ships, a faltering global economy and weaker consumer demand.
Banking and finance sources familiar with the matter said Germany's biggest lender was initially looking to offload at least $1 billion.
"They are looking to lighten their portfolio and this includes toxic debt. It makes commercial sense to try and sell off some of their book," one finance source said. "They are not looking to exit shipping."
Deutsche Bank, which has around $5 billion to $6 billion worth of total exposure to the shipping sector, declined to comment.-Reuters
Chevron Corp. will go ahead with a $36.8 billion expansion of the Tengiz oil project in Kazakhstan as crudes recovery to near $50 a barrel and a steep drop in costs allows explorers to ramp up.
The company and its partners including Exxon Mobil Corp. will spend $27.1 billion on facilities, $3.5 billion on wells and $6.2 billion for contingency and escalation, Chevron said it a statement on Tuesday. First oil from the expanded project is planned for 2022.
The Tengiz expansion, the largest oil investment to get approval this year, highlights the willingness of oil explorers to proceed with some of their more promising prospects after service and equipment costs came down by some 40 per cent. Drillers in the U.S. are increasing the number of rigs exploring in the most productive parts of the best shale plays, analysts at Morgan Stanley said in a report. The increased activity may help to cap further rallies in oil prices.
"This expansion works right around the $50 level," said Allen Good, an analyst at Morningstar Inc. in Chicago. Despite a relatively high price tag, the project "can ultimately ensure returns," he said.
The expansion will increase crude production in the field by 260,000 barrels a day, or about 13 million tons a year. The projects total hydrocarbon output will rise to about 1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, according to the statement.
Last year companies around the globe slashed more than $1 trillion in investments to weather a downturn that saw oil prices tumble 75 per cent from June 2014 to a 12-year low in January.
The slump has reduced prices of some services and rigs required for drilling and Chevron said its taking advantage of that.
"There is a lack of investment right now, and thats why youre prepared to take a risk as big as this," said Paul Sankey, an energy analyst at Wolfe Research LLC. "Its pretty unique because there are few of these being approved this year."
Tengiz has undergone extensive engineering and construction planning reviews and is well-timed to take advantage of lower costs of oil industry goods and services, Jay Johnson, executive vice president for upstream at Chevron, said in the statement.
The expansion will result in the production of an additional 250 million tons of oil by 2033, when the ventures contract ends, Kazakh Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev said, according to his press service. The partners at Tengizchevroil, the venture that operates the project, havent applied for a contract extension, the ministry said.
Exxon owns 25 per cent of the venture, KazmunaiGaz National Co. 20 per cent and Russias Lukoil PJSC 5 per cent.
Though the expansion of Tengiz was put on hold last year after cost estimates ballooned amid the plunging oil prices, it was the only major new project Chevron spared from the austerity budget the company imposed in 2016. Tengizchevroil probably will issue bonds or otherwise tap lenders to finance the expansion, Chief Executive Officer John Watson told analysts and investors at Chevrons annual strategy presentation in March.
The venture will finance a significant part of the expansion from its cash flow and had sought to borrow money in the first half of this year, Bozumbayev said, adding the Tengizchevroil will give a breakdown later.
Discovered in 1979, Tengiz was too technically challenging for Soviet engineers to develop. A blowout in a well called T-37 in June 1985 blazed for more than 400 days before it was extinguished by U.S. well-control experts, according to a history of the field published by Tengizchevroil.
Chevron won the rights to develop the field in 1993 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"Assuming that the price tag is correct and they run it properly, it will be a big moneymaker," said Sankey. The area "has been a tremendous success for them," he said.-Bloomberg
Simstream Group, a specialist network and IT security solutions consulting company with a major presence in UAE, has announced its first international franchise in Burundi, East Africa.
The company aims to roll out its franchise business model to accelerate international expansion and build brand awareness in various markets, including countries across East Africa, said a statement from Paris-based Simstream.
The company has grown rapidly from its base in France to open new business opportunities in the Middle East and Africa, and is working with a range of leading client companies through its firm in Dubai, said a statement.
Simstream Group also has its operations in Kochi (India), it added.
Gael Marronier, chairman of Simstream Group, said: Our companys new franchise in Bujumbura, Burundi, will allow us to position the brand in East Africa, as part of our wider international expansion.
Our local franchise will help us position our group services portfolio with the public and private sector enterprise markets; this includes everything from consulting to systems integration, our managed network services and transmission and distribution (T&D) digital portfolio, he said.
We believe that the franchise approach will accelerate our companys growth in those international markets where we operate but with no formal established local presence, he added.-TradeArabia News Service
German police evacuated a Germania plane due to take off from Kassel airport for Turkey on Tuesday after an anonymous caller said luggage on board posed a danger.
Germania said flight ST8056 had been due to fly to the Turkish resort of Antalya before notice of the threat. All 128 passengers and seven crew members were being looked after at Kassel airport in western Germany.
Police said they evacuated the plane and were checking the caller's claim.
"An anonymous caller contacted Kassel-Calden airport this afternoon," police from the state of Hesse said in a statement. "He said there was a suitcase on board one of the airplanes in the departures area that could pose a threat."
Germania operates 22 aircraft, flying predominantly to holiday destinations. Reuters
Preferred Hotels & Resorts, a leading independent hotel brand, has teamed up with Rolls-Royce Motor Cars London and Smythson of Bond Street to offer London-bound travellers a first-class experience and a luxurious way to navigate the city.
The Rolls-Royce London Suites Programme enables guests booking a suite for two nights or more at three of Preferred Hotels & Resorts finest Central London properties The Beaumont Hotel, The Wellesley, and ME London to enjoy a three-hour private use of a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce Ghost with the exclusive added gift of a personalised Smythson Panama leather currency case to take home.
The Rolls-Royce London Suites also offers complimentary daily breakfast for two throughout the guests stay as well as a special VIP amenity from the guests selected hotel such as evening cocktails for two at The Beaumont Hotel.
The Rolls-Royce London Suites Programme is valid until November 2016, exclusive for guests booking a suite for two or more nights at one of the aforementioned luxury hotels, a statement said. TradeArabia News Service
By India Today Web Desk: Islamic preacher and televangelist Zakir Naik, who has been banned from entering UK, Canada and Malaysia for his radical speech, is facing a backlash in India for defending Osama bin Laden in one of his speeches. Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju has said that the Indian government is contemplating action against Naik.
The Islamic scholar has clarified that the video of his speech on Osama Bin Laden was doctored. The Islamic preacher has also distanced himself from the controversial statement that "all Muslim should be terrorists".
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Reports also emerged that his speeches inspired the terrorists who attacked the Dhaka restaurant recently that left 20 people dead. Naik is considered one of the most influential Salafi ideologues and his ideas have been severely criticised in India after the Bangladesh terror attack.
Naik's reported controversial statements have ruffled many feathers in the country:
Naik says Islam is superior to all other faiths. Non-Muslims should not be allowed to have places of religious worship in an Islamic country. Muslims have the right to have sex with their female slaves. Sania Mirza should dress modestly while playing. No Indian politician would like to send his daughter to play beach volleyball even if it becomes an international sport. Girls shouldn't be sent to schools where they lose their virginity by the time they pass out. Schools should be shut down. They should not be allowed to wear gold ornaments. In the West, they are selling their daughters and mothers in the name of women's liberation. Wife-beating in the Muslim world is not necessarily a bad thing. Naik says the use of condom during sex is akin to killing a human being. Death by stoning or lapidation for having sex outside marriage is acceptable according to Sharia law. Based on teachings of the Qur'an and Sunnah, Naik says homosexuals should be killed. Suicide attacks advised by clerics is not bad. He refuses to condemn Osama bin Laden and claims that 9/11 was an inside job. The Islamic scholar says Muslim should seek help only from Allah and no one else, not even the Prophet - a belief which supports the Sunni view. Islamic State has used this particular understanding to justify violence against Sufis, Shias and Ahmadis.
ALSO READ: ISIS head of Hyderabad module was deeply influenced by Zakir Naik
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Leading B2B Travel company creates innovative strategy that revolutionises its technology to ensure faster searching, reduced load and increased conversions for clients.
(TRAVPR.COM) LONDON - July 6th, 2016 - Travellanda, a leading B2B global accommodation wholesaler, is committed to driving innovation and in recent years has pushed the boundaries in order to provide the best service to its clients, at the same time continue to grow financially. The company is constantly looking for problems to solve within the marketplace and its latest strategy is doing just that.
Over the past few years there has been a rise in the amount of meta search and price comparison websites being used by end customers. Because of this, more and more B2B hotel suppliers are finding a much higher amount of searches requested through their systems. For many suppliers, these high volumes can cause major problems. Valuable server bandwidth in such cases and as a result will reduce XML connection speed and ultimately lower the overall conversion rates.
The travel industry is one of the fastest moving industries in the world and companies like Travellanda must initiate better practices to make sure their systems are cutting edge and that the end user is given a fast and efficient service.
Travellanda launched the technology strategy that will dramatically reduce the load it sends to its suppliers at the same time of supporting much higher search volume from its clients. The company says it has the ability to convert a high volume of requests down to a fraction. Thus greatly reducing what it sends to suppliers, but still returning back 100% of all its original requests. It must do this, plus ensure conversion rates are only effected in a positive manner. As an example; if the company receives 5 million searches, it will be able to convert them down to around 100,000.
Travellanda CTO, Saygin Sutcu, said: The Travel industry is a low margin business and it is constantly evolving. Its imperative that we, as a company evolve at the same pace. It is not enough to simply build more data centres, or to only improve our cache. This is not solving the problem, we must be more innovative and develop smarter solutions. Saygin goes on to explain: Our goal has always been to develop the best booking system in the travel industry and our team are dedicated to do whatever it takes to achieve this. This new strategy will enable our clients to have results returned faster, but it will also greatly benefit our suppliers with less requests without negatively affecting booking volume.
About Travellanda Ltd.:
Travellanda is the travel industrys fastest growing company with head office in London and local offices in Istanbul, Bangkok and representatives in over 10 countries. Through cutting edge technology, Travellanda provides an inventory of over 200,000 hotels worldwide with highly competitive rates, plus extensive accommodation and services for groups visiting UK and Ireland. Using the Travellanda Online Reservation system, XML Connectivity or White label, travel agencies, tour operators, B2B online systems and OTAs have access to a wide range of hotels.
Contact:
www.travellanda.com
marketing@travellanda.com
+44 (0) 203 384 5410
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New research confirms what goat lovers already know; goats are smart and have the capacity for complex communication with people.
I always knew there was something special about goats. I mean, beyond their intelligence and charming curiosity and propensity to prance about and balance on precarious towers and climb trees. I figured it was just a little narcissistic attachment due to my Capricorn star-sign status, but as it turns out, there really is more to goats than meets the eye. And more than just the latest Internet craze or ruminant darlings of the hipster set.
According to researchers from Queen Mary University of London, goats have the capacity to communicate with people like other domesticated animals such as dogs and horses.
Working with goats from Buttercups Sanctuary for Goats in Kent, United Kingdom, the scientists found, for one thing, that goats respond to people by gazing pleadingly at them when faced with a problem they cannot solve alone; and they alter their responses depending on how the behavior of the human. (Read: They have puppy dog eyes!) This is a trait found in dogs and horses animals with long histories of companionship and working closely with people but not wolves. (Cats fail to perform well in this type of experiment, notes the study, and barely look at humans, "potentially owing to their rather solitary lifestyle.")
Dr. Christian Nawroth, first author of the study, says, "Goats gaze at humans in the same way as dogs do when asking for a treat that is out of reach, for example. Our results provide strong evidence for complex communication directed at humans in a species that was domesticated primarily for agricultural production, and show similarities with animals bred to become pets or working animals, such as dogs and horses."
The conclusions of the research suggest a lot about the impact that domesticating animals has upon human-animal communication. Its believed that dogs communicate so well with people because of changes to the brain from becoming a companion animal through domestication. But now it seems that domestication for reasons beyond companionship and work adds to the capacity for communication as well.
"Goats were the first livestock species to be domesticated, about 10,000 years ago," says lead author Dr. Alan McElligott. "From our earlier research, we already know that goats are smarter than their reputation suggests, but these results show how they can communicate and interact with their human handlers even though they were not domesticated as pets or working animals."
(Previous research at the college concluded that goats are far cleverer than previously thought and can learn how to solve complicated tasks quickly and even remember how to perform them at least 10 months later.)
And in a shout-out to goats everywhere, the researchers hope the study will lead to broader and better understanding of how smart livestock can be in their ability to solve problems and interact with people ... and thus an improvement in animal welfare in general.
Says McElligott, If we can show that they are more intelligent, then hopefully we can bring in better guidelines for their care.
The research was published in the journal Biology Letters.
Opt for pre-conception counselling: Your doctor will help you get your diabetes, thyroid or blood pressure under control before you conceive. Besides managing conditions, counselling also helps identify the risks involved right at the beginning, and the manner in which you can tackle them. Your doctor may ask you to take certain supplements at this stage. If you are very stressed about the pregnancy, she may suggest that you meet a psychologist to help you deal with anxiety. You may also be asked to go through certain tests, to rule out infections like hepatitis and HIV, in order to ensure that your baby is healthy. In certain cases, if you need to lose weight, do take the advice seriously, to reduce any further risks.
Get investigated: There are a few more tests to do if you're at a high-risk of pregnancy. For instance, the number of ultrasounds will be more. If you're over 35, a nuchal translucency (NT) scan, the screening test that checks for Down's syndrome, may be followed by a chorionic villus sampling (CVS) and amniocentesis. These are both diagnostic tests for congenital (chromosomal) abnormalities, if your ob-gyn feels it's necessary. While NT is done through an ultrasound, the other two have a small risk of miscarriage, since samples are required from the placenta (for CVS) and the amniotic fluid (for amniocentesis). Some mothers may choose not to do this, preferring a risk of an abnormality than loss of a baby. You may also be asked for double, triple or quad marker tests (before CVS and amniocentesis) to check for possible birth defects. These are blood tests done at various points in the second trimester.
Follow your doctor's advice: If you have a high-risk pregnancy, try not to miss your scheduled doctor's appointment. If you're asked to opt for bed rest, do so, especially in the case of pregnancy-induced hypertension, vaginal bleeding, problems with the placenta or other issues your doctor feels will be harmful for either you or your baby. If you have any questions, do ask your doctor, rather than surfing about it on the internet, because often things are seen out of context when people self-diagnose. Whether it's about additional medication, diet or exercise, check with your doctor at all times. For instance, if you're used to doing yoga, ask if it's safe to do so. Always report any change you feel--whether it is a discharge or a headache. It may be nothing, but your doctor should know.
While Divyanka Tripathi's friend organised a bachelorette party for her few days back, Vivek Dahiya wasn't that lucky.
By India Today Web Desk: While Divyanka Tripathi was pampered by her girl friends in a bachelorette party organised for her a few days back, beau Vivek Dahiya wasn't that lucky. The actor seems clearly disappointed about not having a bachelor's party.
"Do not touch upon that topic. It is a subject that brings tears in my eyes (laughs). As much as I wanted to be a part of a bachelor's party, it is not going to happen. I would say my friends have let me down (winks) and together with the fact that I have not got time to go and party. But nobody is thinking about me," Vivek said in a video posted on his Fanclub's Instagram account.
Poor Vivek haha his cute expressions???????????? #divekwedding???? . Divyanka Soon to be Mrs Vivek dahiya #groomtobeviv?? #bridetobedivyanka?? . . #vivekdahiyafanclub#SpreadVDLove#Divek#Divekians#LoveBirds#OneLove#DVD???#Engaged#foreverLove#JaankiDew#Vivyanka#VivekDivyanka#Bridetobe#divekwedding#Groomtobe#8thjuly#Acponduty#Babies#NazarNaLage#Divekwedding#kavach #Groomtobe#8thjuly#divyankatripathi#vivekdahiya @divyankatripathi @vivekdahiya08 A video posted by Vivek Dahiya FanClub (@vivekdahiyafanclub) on Jul 5, 2016 at 11:59pm PDT
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Also read: You will love this dreamy pic of Divyanka, Vivek from their pre-wedding shoot
Aww! That's really sad Vivek.
Meanwhile, bride-to-be Divyanka has reached Bhopal; beau Vivek had come to see her off with a warm hug at the airport. The wedding festivities will kick off tomorrow with sangeet, mehendi et al. The couple will exchange wedding wows on July 8. Reception will be held in Chandigarh on July 10.
WATCH: Divyanka Tripathi shops for wedding jewellery, says she's happy to become Vivek's dulhan
The groom-to-be who's known for his love for fitness, is leaving no stone unturned to look his best on his wedding day. He posted his workout photo captioning it--Fitness first #July 8.
Fitness first! #July8 A photo posted by Vivek Dahiya (@vivekdahiya08) on Jul 5, 2016 at 5:36pm PDT
Here are snaps from Divyanka's bachelorette party.
Also read: These pics from Divyanka Tripathi's bachelorette party will make you go aww!
A photo posted by ?? EK DUJE KE VAASTE ?? (@divs_shraman_love) on Jul 5, 2016 at 1:11am PDT
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Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 6
The new Minister of State for Finance Santosh Gangwar today said the government is hopeful that the GST Bill will be passed in the monsoon session of Parliament.
Gangwar, who was yesterday shifted from the Textile Ministry to the Finance Ministry in the Cabinet reshuffle assumed charge today along with Arjun Ram Meghwal, who has also been made a Minister of State in the Finance Ministry.
Gangwar said there was no real opposition by any political party to the Goods and Services (GST) Bill outside Parliament.
The entire world is looking at how India will act. I feel GST will certainly be passed by Parliament in the monsoon session, he said. The session is scheduled to begin on July 18.
Asked about Congress opposition to GST, he said, No party opposes GST outside Parliament. All parties are for GST, but they put some hurdle or the other in Parliament. I think all parties will support in getting GST passed in the monsoon session.
Meghwal said that the benefit of economic development must reach the last mile. He said that the government will strive to ensure that the benefits of Jan Dhan Yojana, Mudra and other social security Schemes should reach the common man.
He said the governments priorities include speeding up the process of economic growth and make all efforts to achieve the goal of development so that poor and vulnerable sections of our society are benefitted.
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 6
The UT police late last night arrested Navjot Singh Dhaliwal, the alleged source of the fake currency of Rs 15 lakh and 2.6 kg of opium found in the car of Bhagwan Singh, who was nabbed by the police last month near Maloya.
The police had recently arrested Punjab and Haryana High Court senior advocate Jatin Salwan, retired UT police inspector Tarsem Rana and Narender, a native of Ludhiana, for allegedly planting these items in the car. Salwan and Rana are in judicial custody.
Narender, whose three-day remand ended today, was presented in the court along with Dhaliwal. The court sent Dhaliwal on three-day remand while Narenders police remand was extended by one more day.
The prosecuting lawyer earlier told the court that Dhaliwal, who was arrested from Delhi, had supplied the two items to Narender. The police said it wanted to make Narender and Dhaliwal sit together and answer them.
Narender and Gurnihal Singh Peerjada, a retired IAS officer, reportedly had enmity with Sukhbir Singh Shergill.
The advocate and the retired policemen, along with Narender, allegedly wanted to frame Shergill by putting the items in the car of Bhagwan, who is his accountant.
Anil Chowdhry
Safety and security of citizens lives and properties, and maintenance of law and order, the basis of police forces the world over, has unfortunately taken a back seat in India. It lies deeply buried in our colonial past and unwillingness of the political and bureaucratic leadership of free India to make the police a service to its citizens, as agents of the law.
There are clear and repeated indications that law and order is being allowed to be breached and criminal depredations continue with impunity in some parts of our country. Rioting by a cult mob in Mathura which took a toll of 29 lives, including two police bravehearts and the mayhem witnessed for almost 10 days earlier this year in large parts of Haryana are pointers to the dark alleys through which law and order in our country is traversing.
The focus of policing created by British rulers vide the Indian Police Act of 1861, coming in the wake of the 1857 uprising, was unsurprisingly to defend their newly imposed (1858) sovereignty against public unrest. The British encouraged Indian police officers to create rutba, a Persian term denoting aura of power, which helped in maintenance of peace. This rutba naturally began diminishing after Independence and has almost disappeared now. Post Independence, it suits our political masters to keep the police under their tutelage and often misuse it to sub-serve their vested interests. The ordinary citizen consequently is the sufferer. But who cares.
The Prakash Singh Committee Report pointing to the total collapse of policing and mobs being allowed to indulge in wanton looting and arson in Haryana are indeed shocking. Dereliction of duty and even connivance of certain police officers with the rioters brought out by the report are areas of serious concern and deserve to be taken note of by the highest levels in the government. But will such incidents arouse public ire to the extent of forcing the political masters to put policing in our country back on the rails?
The report has generated considerable debate within the police fraternity. Questions are being asked as to how did our policing sink to such depths? Why are police leaders not able to stand up to their political masters politely but firmly? They just have to convey the message that there shall be zero tolerance to those taking the law into their hands. The government too must respond by demonstrating that in the police hierarchy only merit and integrity, and not political loyalty, shall count. But will this happen is another moot point?
That the police forces need to be reformed is universally acknowledged but they till this day continue to function by and large under the same archaic law of 1861.
Even the directions of the apex court have not been acted upon by most state governments. Debates on the need to reform the police continue. But we are nowhere near the complete overhaul that the policing system requires.
Who will do the clean-up? Most of my former colleagues, and many still in service, have become cynical, and throw up their hands in despair.
We have faltered in ensuring delivery of police services to our law-abiding citizens. The strength of our civil police has failed to keep pace with the rapid rise in our population. On the other hand, our limited resources have been spent on mindless proliferation of paramilitary police, both Central and state. Manpower of our thanas and police outposts, which are charged with the basic responsibility of prevention and detection of crime and maintenance of peace in their jurisdiction, is totally inadequate. Our citizen-to-policeman ratio as compared to even other developing countries is poor.
Multi-tiered recruitments at the level of constables, head constables, sub-inspectors, DSPs and IPS is another fault-line in Indian policing where correction is long overdue. Add to this the poor pay and working conditions of the subordinate police officers who are the cutting edge of our policing and the level at which maximum interaction with citizens takes place.
The quality of policemen thus appears appalling, particularly to the higher-income citizens who frequently travel abroad and compare their local beat constable with the London Bobby. Little do they realise that in the wake of a strike by policemen in 1980 and based on the recommendations of a commission on police reforms, the police is the highest paid civil service in the UK and recruitment is only at one levelas constables.
The communication between the higher ranks in the Indian police and their subordinates, which was earlier meticulously kept alive via thana inspections, weekly parades in the police lines, visits to living quarters of the constabulary and orderly rooms by district police chiefs, have all broken down under the weight of heavy day-to-day pressures from political masters. Field police officers are being kept occupied in unwarranted meetings and VIP security duties. All this has cost policing benefits to the average citizens dearly and created a severe trust deficit between the police and the people.
The writer is former Secretary (Internal Security), Ministry of Home Affairs.
By PTI: Kalyani (WB), Jul 6 (PTI) Son of a TMC councillor in Kalyani in Nadia district was today arrestd after he allegedly abused and assaulted junior doctors at a hospital here, police said.
Goutam Roy, son of local councillor Amar Roy of ward 13 of the Kalyani Municipality, was charged under various sections of the IPC for "pointing a gun" at a junior doctor the JNM Hospital, police said.
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He was produced today in Kalyani court and released on bail, they said.
Late last Monday some junior doctors at the JNM Hospital had been assaulted allegedly by some local medical shop-owners around midnight, as a fallout of doctors protest over an alleged drug racket running in and around the hospital.
According to the principal of the Kalyani Medical College Shantanu Bannerjee, the existence of the drug racket was challenged by the setting up of the fair price medicine shop.
"All medicines are available here with a discount of about 60 to 70 per cent on MRP. But it obviously put the drug racket in a tight spot. So, the racketeers abused, threatened and in some cases even beat up the junior doctors," he alleged.
A meeting was held among the college authority, the local police and the local administration, which was attended by SDPO, Kalyani, Kaustovdipta Acharjee and SDO, Kalyani, Swapan Kumar Kundu. PTI CORR MD KND
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Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 6
A 31-year-old man has been arrested from north-west Delhi for allegedly sending obscene messages and video clippings to about 1,500 girls in the national Capital, said the police today.
The accused has been identified as Mohammed Khalid.
He has been tormenting women and girls in the National Capital Region (NCR) by sending obscene, vulgar and abusive messages to them for a long time. In an estimate, he has sent SMS or WhatsApp messages to more than 1,500 girls across Delhi and the NCR. His arrest will be a big relief to these women and girls who have been living in perpetual trauma and mental agony, said Vijay Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North-West District).
The police said on May 30 this year, a woman from Ashok Vihar had lodged a complaint that she had been receiving obscene, vulgar and abusive
messages on her mobile phone from two unknown mobile numbers.
When she contacted the caller over telephone, he threatened her of dire consequences. A case of sexual harassment, stalking, criminal intimidation and others sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act was registered at the Ashok Vihar police station, said the police.
The police said the two mobile phone numbers from which the complainant was receiving obscene messages were obtained on fake documents. The police said the caller had allegedly obtained three SIM cards on the basis of three different ID cards.
Verification of those three different addresses mentioned in the Id proofs revealed that they were also fake, said Verma.
The biggest surprise in Tuesdays reshuffle of portfolios was the shifting of Smriti Irani from the HRD Ministry. The RSS agenda of saffronising education and Prime Minister Modis goal of commercialising it required an unquestioning, non-resistant minister and Smriti Irani was eminently qualified for the job. But her penchant for media attention and controversies, including the latest on being called dear, came in the way. Her school dropout status caused little problem. Prakash Javadekar is a smooth talker, avoids needless spats and can justify anything, no matter how damaging. He has ably achieved Modis goal of granting quick clearances to industry and built a reputation for efficiency by not letting environmental concerns come in the way of vikas. Textiles has a huge potential for creating jobs and capturing markets vacated by China but the harm Smriti can do to this sector is currently underestimated.
In Jayant Sinha, Finance Minister Jaitley had a good number two. His being grounded in civil aviation appears to be due to the uncontrolled anti-Modi fulminations of his father. Had performance alone guided the Cabinet and portfolio choices, Mahesh Sharma, Niranjan Jyoti, Sanjeev Baliyan and Giriraj Singh would not have survived the scrutiny. By leaving them untouched, Modi has sent a message that making crass, communal talk does not earn anyone poor marks in the performance appraisal. The only saving grace is that a minister from Rajasthan facing rape and murder charges has been dropped.
Doomed are the ministries handed over to the electorally useful MPs whose only claim to fame is that they were born in a particular caste. Also, by retaining ministers above 75 and having a jumbo-size ministry, Modi has violated his own rules. Gen VK Singh will have to share Foreign Ministry space with MJ Akbar, even though their senior minister herself is terribly short of work since it is Modi who decides foreign policy. This government is essentially run by the PMO through a select group of trusted officials, drawn mostly from Gujarat. Such a large ministerial army also belies Modis assertion of minimum government, maximum governance. That too has turned out to be yet another jumla.
The manner in which Bangladesh dealt with the night-long carnage in a tony Dhaka cafe last week holds lessons for us in India who have faced similar ordeals and came up short. While politicians in Dhaka refrained from off-the-cuff statements blaming each other, security officials also did not immediately jump to conclusions about the identity of the perpetrators. The media, like everywhere else, was initially reluctant to exercise self-restraint but a neatly-couched warning from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina did the trick. And when the operation was over, there was no attempt to corner the glory. Rather, the security forces confessed to having mistakenly killed one of the hostages. The Bangla Government also resisted the temptation to blame the ISIS and thereby absolve itself of blame.
This sensible approach needs to be taken note of by our security managers who of late have been raising the spectre of ISIS though those recently arrested on terrorism charges could be a band of disaffected youths, swayed by incendiary indoctrination and taking the first step towards the one-way street of extremism. India needs to tread carefully in pinning the blame for radicalisation on ISIS for another reason. Once public opinion is convinced ISIS is behind any future attack, anti-India intelligence agencies will find it convenient to mount false flag operations under the ISIS brand name.
On the negative side, Dhaka soft-pedalled the challenge from violent Islamists while Hasina kept her focus squarely on decimating Jamat-e-Islami (JeI). Meanwhile, the jehadis found the space to rebuild networks disrupted earlier. Almost unchecked, the extremists went on a killing spree, hacking to death 50 secular bloggers and Hindu and Buddhist priests. Hasinas hard-headed calculation behind targeting JeI was to weaken its ally and her main challenger, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). As with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Congress, Hasina has opted for eternal enmity with the BNP. This has affected governance and gave extremists the political space to pose as saviours for the common people. Bangladesh is paying a heavy price for lack of political civility in public life. India may like to avoid this situation.
Deepender Deswal
Tribune News Service
Hisar, July 6
Three months after the state government awarded compensation to cotton growing farmers who suffered losses due to whitefly, there are no takers for nearly Rs 270 crore (nearly 40% of the compensation) to be disbursed among the affected farmers in Hisar, Fatehabad and Sirsa districts.
Revenue officials said that they had covered all villages in the affected districts urging farmers to collect their compensation. They said officials, including tehsildars and patwaris, had been personally visiting villages to locate the farmers who were yet to collect the payment. Even public announcements had been made in the villages, but nobody was coming forward to claim the compensation, they said.
The state government had awarded a total compensation of Rs 976 crore to the whitefly affected farmers in several districts of which a major chunk of Rs 689 crore was to be given to farmers in three districts of Hisar division.
In Hisar district, Rs 229 crore was sanctioned for 1,38 lakh farmers of which only Rs 122 crore could be given to 78,000 farmers. Similarly, Rs 108 crore and Rs 55 crore could not be given to the farmers in Sirsa and Fatehabad districts.
There are multiple reasons for the delay in disbursement. The department has decided to transfer the amount directly to the bank accounts of the affected farmers. In many cases, farmland is registered in the name of a woman or an aged person who dont have bank account and joint ownership is another reason. We have been directed to credit the amount through Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system only, said Hisar District Revenue Officer Braham Dev Ahlawat.
Kisan Sabha leader Harpal Singh, however, said that the banks where the administration had deposited the compensation amount were responsible for the delay. In Bhuna block of Fatehabad, around Rs 1 crore is stuck due to delay on the part of a private bank even as farmers have given their account numbers, he said. A huge sum of interest on this amount also seems to be lure for causing the delay as interest is not paid to the farmers. It is questionable where interest of this amount goes, he added.
Dipender Manta
Tribune News Service
Solang, July 6
Alleging discrimination over insurance cover at the Solang ropeway, tourists demanded uniform insurance cover for victims in case of any mishap during their journey.
Notice boards displayed at the site at Solang reveal that in case of any eventuality during the journey via ropeway, the insurance cover for a child will be Rs 50,000, Rs 1 lakh for women, Rs 5 lakh for men and Rs 10 lakh for foreign tourists.
It is a matter of concern that despite advocating gender equality in society, there is a clear-cut discriminatory approach in fixing insurance cover for those travelling by the ropeway which is amply clear from the notice board, said Neha Bhatt, a tourist.
Gurmeet Singh, a tourist hailing from Chandigarh, expressed concern over the disparity between insurance cover. Women are at the forefront in all fields and doing exceedingly well so this kind of gender-based discrimination is simply not acceptable, he said.
Amitabh Sharma, Managing Director, Ski-Himalayas, said the company had a blanket insurance cover of Rs 10 lakh for all foreign and domestic tourists. He denied that there was any discrimination in the insurance cover.
Manoj Sharma, Additional Director of Tourism and Civil Aviation, Himachal Pradesh, said the insurance cover was decided by ropeway inspectors, who frequently reviewed the maintenance work of ropeways in the state.
However, inspector of the Solang ropeway Ajay Sharma said the responsibility to decide the insurance cover for different categories lied on the insurance company and ropeway promoters.
He added that his responsibility was to ensure that the ropeway was well maintained and run properly.
Established in 2011, the Solang ropeway attracts a large number of tourists.
Azhar Qadri
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, July 6
Markets in many areas of the Kashmir valley reopened late in the night on Tuesday following announcement of sighting of new moon, which marked the end of the fasting month and beginning of Eid-ul-Fitr festivity, at 10 pm on Tuesday.
The announcement of the sighting of new moon, made by the officially designate committee in Pakistan, changed the mood in the region as residents began preparing for the festivity.
The sighting of new moon marked the end of the fasting month of Ramazan and beginning of the month of Shawal. Eid-ul-Fitr is celebrated on the first day of Shawal, tenth month in the Islamic lunar calendar.
Many residents were anticipating Eid-ul-Fitr will be observed on Thursday as there was no news of sighting of new moon till late in evening. People rushed to markets to make purchases after the announcement was made at 10 pm. Shopkeepers too opened their shops seeing the rush.
Long queues of customers were seen during the night outside mutton and chicken shops, bakers and saloons.
Zahid Ahmad, who owns a baker shop in the city here, said he had closed the shop hoping to sell the remaining things on Wednesday. But he had to return from his home and reopen the shop at around midnight.
If markets would not have reopened it would have caused major loss as we had stocks, he said. The markets later remained open till late in the night.
The Eid festivity in Kashmir is a simplistic affair. It begins with the special prayers, offered in congregations in locality mosques and in larger congregations that gather on the grounds and in the major mosques.
It is followed by visits to the houses and friends. The main focus of the festivity remains on the food and many families cook multiple cuisines of mutton.
The festivity in the region usually lasts for up to two days during when major markets remain closed.
Tribune News Service
Jammu, July 6
Displaced Kashmiri Pandits today held a demonstration and blocked traffic near Dogra chowk to protest against the spate of attacks on temples in the Kashmir valley and theft at Tripursundari temple in Devsar a few days back.
Traffic remained disrupted for more than half an hour as protesters called for the arrest of miscreants behind the series of incidents. They tried to move towards Tawi bridge, but were prevented by the police.
In a joint demonstration organised by different organisations, Pandits demanded a high-level investigation into the desecration of temples at Logripura in Anantnag and Devsar in Kulgam and encroachment on land in parts of the Valley.
The protesters alleged that such attempts were being made under a well-orchestrated plan to destroy relics and places of reverence belonging to the minority community and the recent desecration and vandalising was part of the larger drive to hurt their religious sentiments and create fear psychosis like in 1989-90.
We demand that adequate security should be provided to religious places of Hindus in Kashmir and the persons who are responsible for desecration identified and booked under the Public Safety Act, said RK Bhat, president of the Youth All India Kashmiri Samaj.
The incidents of desecration were widely condemned by members of the displaced community, who alleged that the police and civic authorities had not been taking steps to investigate the issue properly despite an FIR lodged by the members.
Such incidents have the potential to create further distress and the government should take immediate steps to address grievences of the people, said KK Khosa of the Kashmiri Pandit Sabha.
The protesters demanded passage of the Temples and Shrines Bill in the Legislative Assembly to ensure that an elected body looked after shrines in Kashmir.
The Bill will be an important milestone in safeguarding Hindu shrines in Kashmir, which have slowly been encroached upon during the last two decades. The community is pained to see the plight of religious places in the Valley, said Ravinder Raina, president of the All State Kashmiri Pandit Conference.
Since the exodus of the minority community in 1990, when armed insurgency erupted in Kashmir, property belonging to ancient temples had, in the absence of any management mechanism, become a major target for land sharks, who managed to change the revenue records in connivance with some corrupt revenue officers in several villages.
R Sedhuraman
Legal Correspondent
New Delhi, July 6
The Supreme Court Collegium has once again rejected the procedure suggested for the appointment of higher judiciary judges, observing that the governments move to have the final say on the issue would undermine judicial independence and thereby the basic feature of the Constitution.
A meeting of the five-member Collegium comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur and four other seniormost judges of the apex court was held a few days back in light of the governments clarifications conveyed to the CJI through External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, sources said.
The Centre had sent Swaraj as an emissary in an effort to end the standoff with the judiciary over the appointment of SC and high court judges. The main sticky point is a provision in the governments draft Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) under which the executive could reject the recommendations of the SC Collegium citing national security considerations.
The Centre was understood to have assured the judiciary that the provision was envisaged as an extreme precaution to prevent unwanted persons getting appointed as a judge, not for the purpose of having a greater say. The Collegium, however, felt that the other safeguards were sufficient to deal with this perceived threat.
The delay in the finalisation of the MoP has resulted in about 400 vacancies in high courts which have a sanctioned strength of 1,050 judges.
On December 16, 2015, the Supreme Court had left the task of improving the Collegium system to the Centre by infusing greater transparency and laying down eligibility criteria. The government should, however, do this in consultation with the CJI, who in turn would consult the Collegium, it had clarified.
A five-member Constitution Bench headed by Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar had passed the order, accepting the governments contention that preparing the MoP was the job of the executive, not the judiciary.
The order had come exactly two months after the Bench revived the Collegium system on October 16 by declaring its proposed alternative (National Judicial Appointments Commission) as unconstitutional. In the 4-1 majority ruling, the Bench had nevertheless agreed to improve the Collegium system. Justice Chelamesar had delivered the dissenting verdict by upholding the NJAC Act.
The Bench had also taken note of the governments assurance that the MoP would be in accordance with the directions contained in the Second Judges case that had put in place the Collegium system.
New Delhi, July 6
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar and four others were brought face to face by the CBI officials in connection with its probe in an alleged corruption case.
Sources said today that all the accused are being confronted with each other to further prove their involvement in alleged graft.
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Meanwhile, the Delhi government has suspended Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar, as the rules state that an official is deemed suspended if he remains in custody for more than 48 hours.
The evidence gathered by the CBI officials during their investigation so far are also being shown to the accused, explaining the details of alleged monetary benefits taken by them, they said.
Meanwhile, the agency officials claimed to have found the trail of money, which was given to the accused as bribe, through different means, the sources said.
Kumar and four others were arrested by the CBI on Monday for allegedly showing undue favours to a private company in award of government contracts worth over Rs 50 crore. They were yesterday sent to five days CBI remand by a court.
The arrest of top government official has triggered a political storm and the Delhi government accused the Centre of "political vendetta" and "paralysing" governance.
Kumar, a 1989-batch IAS officer of Union Territories cadre, and Tarun Sharma, a Deputy Secretary in Kejriwal's office, are those who have been arrested in the case. The other accused are -- Ashok Kumar, a former Delhi government employee and considered close aide of Rajendra Kumar, besides owners of a private firm Sandeep Kumar and Dinesh Gupta.
The CBI had registered a case in this regard in December last year alleging that Kumar had abused his official position by "favouring a particular firm in the last few years in getting tenders of Delhi government departments". PTI/ANI
New Delhi, July 6
Amidst talk of poor performance in the HRD ministry and fresh salvos from JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, Smriti Irani on Wednesday put up a brave face saying her new textiles portfolio signified the faith shown by the Prime Minister and the party in her capacity to perform.
(Follow The Tribune on Facebook and Twitter @thetribunechd)
Talking to reporters after taking charge of the new portfolio, she side-stepped questions about BJP president Amit Shah being behind her shift saying it is not individuals but the party that took such decisions.
Asked if the move was to give her time to focus on next years assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, she quoted a line from a popular Hindi song, Kuchh toh log kahenge, logon ka kaam hai kehna (people are bound to say things because it is their job to say something).
WATCH: Kuchh toh log kahenge,logon ka kaam hai kehna: Smriti Irani to questions on being shifted out of Edu Ministryhttps://t.co/rwkKWy5Ucl ANI (@ANI_news) July 6, 2016
I am happy that I have been given an opportunity, especially when a special package (of Rs 6,000 crore for the apparel segment) has been announced. This signifies that my party, especially the Prime Minister, has faith that I have the capacity to implement the roadmap that was projected through the Cabinet for the rest of the country, Irani said.
She said she was hopeful that the much-awaited new national textile policy will soon see the light of day.
WATCH: Smriti Irani takes charge as Union Textiles Ministerhttps://t.co/pnK335eNlh ANI (@ANI_news) July 6, 2016
Asked about reports that Shah was behind the move to shift her to textiles, Irani said, It is not the individual that plans (such moves), it is the party.
Earlier in the day, she tweeted on her tenure in HRD, which was marred by controversies, In last 2 years, all initiatives of @HRDMinistry have been towards increasing learning outcomes for students and improving quality of education.
I thank officials from @HRDMinistry for the consistent support in realising PM@narendramodis vision of ensuring quality education for all, she said in another tweet.
I thank PM @narendramodi ji for giving me the opportunity to serve the country earlier in the @HRDMinistry & now in the @TexMinIndia. Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) July 6, 2016
About her new portfolio, Irani vowed to strengthen textile and apparel sectors saying her efforts would be primarily directed towards skill development and engaging more youngsters. We will ensure that the weavers who are the bedrock of this ministry get full support to enhance their incomes, she said.
Look forward to working with officials at @TexMinIndia for strengthening the very important Textile & Apparel Sector of our country. Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) July 6, 2016
In Tuesdays Union Cabinet expansion, Irani lost her Human Resources Development Ministry to Prakash Javadekar and was moved to the Textiles Ministry. Santosh Gangwar, Minister of State for Textiles, has been made MoS (Finance).
I thank officials from @HRDMinistry for the consistent support in realising PM @narendramodis vision of ensuring quality education for all. Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) July 6, 2016
Irani congratulated Gangwar on the initiatives taken by the Textiles Ministry during his tenure. Congratulated @santoshgangwar ji for his contribution to @TexMinIndia & thanked him for assuring his support as I begin my new assignment, she said. Look forward to working with officials at @TexMinIndia for strengthening the very important Textile & Apparel Sector of our country.
Congratulated @santoshgangwar ji for his contribution to @TexMinIndia & thanked him for assuring his support as I begin my new assignment. Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) July 6, 2016
Irani shunted out to divert Vemula issue: Kanhaiya
JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar who has been severely critical of Smriti Irani ever since the sedition row broke out, on Wednesday claimed that she had been shunted out of the HRD ministry to divert public attention from the Rohith Vemula issue.
Kanhaiya, who is out on bail in a sedition case, has been leading a movement demanding justice for Vemula, a Hyderabad university scholar, who was found hanging in his room earlier this year after he, along with five others, was suspended.
#JusticeForRohith is still awaited. #CabinetReshuffle is not punishment. #ByeByeSmrity n Dattatreya should be from cabinet to jail#Azadi Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) July 6, 2016
There has been an outrage in the Dalit community and among students against Irani after Vemula was forced to commit suicide. The move to send her to the textiles ministry from HRD has been made only to divert public attention from the Vemula issue, he said.
If you remove a minister from one ministry and send her to another, it is not a punishmentit is just an arrangement which has been made keeping in view the upcoming elections, he added. PTI
Blair responded that he had taken the decision to go to war "in good faith", that he still believed it was better to remove Saddam, and that he did not see that action as the cause of terrorism today, in the Middle East or elsewhere.
Protesters wearing Tony Blair and George W Bush masks pose for the media outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London. Photo: AP
By Reuters: Britain's former prime minister Tony Blair said on Wednesday he could not delay the invasion of Iraq in 2003, responding to a critical report on the war which found that taking military action was not the last resort that had been presented to parliament and the public.
The report, published earlier on Wednesday, said the US-led invasion of Iraq came while diplomatic options were still open, but Blair said that because the United States had decided on action, he could not afford to wait any longer.
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It strongly criticised Blair on a range of issues, saying the threat posed by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction had been over-hyped and the planning for the aftermath of war had been inadequate.
Blair responded that he had taken the decision to go to war "in good faith", that he still believed it was better to remove Saddam, and that he did not see that action as the cause of terrorism today, in the Middle East or elsewhere.
"The intelligence assessments made at the time of going to war turned out to be wrong. The aftermath turned out to be more hostile, protracted and bloody than ever we imagined," the former prime minister, looking gaunt and strained, told reporters.
"For all of this, I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you will ever know."
The only Labour prime minister to win three general elections, Blair was in office for 10 years until 2007 and was hugely popular in his heyday, but Iraq has severely tarnished his reputation and legacy.
The inquiry report, about three times the length of the Bible, stopped short of saying the war was illegal, a stance that is certain to disappoint Blair's many critics.
"We have, however, concluded that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for military action were far from satisfactory," said John Chilcot, the inquiry's chairman, in a speech presenting his findings.
Protesters wearing Tony Blair and George W Bush masks pose for the media. Photo: AP
Blair said the report should exonerate him from accusations of lying, which have been made by relatives of some of the 179 British soldiers who died in the conflict.
"The report should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit," he said in a statement.
"Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein; I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country."
'SHAMBOLIC EPISODE'
Relatives of some of the British soldiers who died in Iraq said they would study the report to examine if there was a legal case to pursue against those responsible.
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"We all know who the key players are ... who took part in this most shambolic episode in British politics. We would like to see all those key players face some form of accountability," said Reg Keys, whose son, 20-year-old Lance Corporal Thomas Keys, was one of those killed.
"If that's through the legal channels, then we will look at that and see what's viable and appropriate. It has been passed over to lawyers."
The report shed light on what happened between Blair and Bush in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion, an interaction that has long been the subject of speculation about secret deals and pledges.
In a memo dated July 28, 2002, eight months before the invasion, Blair told Bush: "I will be with you, whatever. But this is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties."
"The planning on this and the strategy are the toughest yet. This is not Kosovo. This is not Afghanistan. It is not even the Gulf War."
Chilcot said Blair had sought to influence Bush's decisions, offering Britain's support while suggesting possible adjustments to the US position.
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But the inquiry chairman added that Blair had over-estimated his ability to influence US decisions on Iraq.
His report also said there was no imminent threat from Saddam at the time of the invasion in March 2003, and the chaos in Iraq and the region which followed should have been foreseen.
By 2009 at least 150,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, had died, and more than a million had been displaced.
The report said Britain had joined the invasion without exhausting peaceful options and that it had undermined the authority of the United Nations Security Council by doing so.
FLAWED INTELLIGENCE
"It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged and they should have been," Chilcot said.
He also said that Blair's government's judgments about the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were "presented with unjustified certainty".
No such weapons were discovered after the war.
Chilcot said Blair changed his case for war from focusing on Iraq's alleged "vast stocks" of illegal weapons to Saddam having the intent to obtain such weapons and being in breach of U.N. resolutions.
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"That was not, however, the explanation for military action he had given before the conflict," Chilcot said.
Iraq remains in chaos to this day. Islamic State controls large areas of the country and 250 people died on Saturday in Baghdad's worst car bombing since the US-led coalition toppled Saddam.
Protesters wearing masks pose for the media outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London. Photo: AP
The inquiry's purpose was for the British government to learn lessons from the invasion and occupation that followed.
"We cannot turn the clock back but we can ensure that lessons are learned and acted on," Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament in a statement on the inquiry.
"It is crucial to good decision-making that a prime minister establishes a climate in which it's safe for officials and other experts to challenge existing policy and question the views of ministers and the prime minister without fear or favour."
Jeremy Corbyn, the current leader of the Labour Party and a fervent pacifist, told parliament that the war was an act of aggression based on a false pretext that had fuelled and spread terrorism across the Middle East.
--- ENDS ---
New Delhi, July 6
The government on Wednesday indicated taking action against a controversial Indian Islamic preacher, who was followed by one of the five Bangladeshi militants, who killed 22 people at a restaurant in Dhaka.
Zakir Nayek's speech is a matter of concern for us. Our agencies are working on this. But as a minister, I will not comment what action will be taken," Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju told reporters here.
(Follow The Tribune on Facebook and Twitter @thetribunechd)
Rijiju said India has good relations and mutual understanding with Bangladesh, especially in the matter of co-operation on fighting terrorism.
Terror can be defeated only through close coordination and by fighting together (against it)," he said.
Bangladeshi newspaper 'Daily Star' had reported that militant Rohan Imtiaz, son of an Awami League leader, ran propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Nayek.
Nayek, in his lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly "urged all Muslims to be terrorists".
Nayek, a popular but controversial Islamic orator and founder of Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation, is banned in the UK and Canada for his hate speech aimed against other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia.
He is hugely popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, although his preachings often demean other religions and even other Muslim sects, the report said.
Another Dhaka attacker Nibras Islam used to follow two alleged suspected recruiters of Islamic State -- Anjem Choudary and Shami Witness -- on Twitter in 2014.
Shami Witness is the Twitter account of 24-year-old Mehdi Biswas, who is facing trial in India for running propaganda for terror group Islamic State (ISIS). He was arrested in December 2014 following an investigation into his Twitter account, which was last active in August 2014.
Biswas was charged with operating the "single most influential pro-ISIS Twitter account".
Choudary, a Pakistan-origin British citizen, is now facing a trial in England for breaking the British anti-terrorism law. His Twitter account turned inactive since August 2015 after terror charges were brought against him. PTI
Mukesh Ranjan
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 6
As the government today indicated some action could be taken against Islamist preacher Zakir Nayek, who is believed to have influenced Dhaka attackers, fresh investigations reveal IS Hyderabad module head Mohammad Ibrahim Yazdani, recently arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), was also inspired by the speeches of the cleric.
Sources close to the probe relating to the Islamic State module in Hyderabad said Yazdani had travelled to Mumbai to attend one of Nayeks congregations in 2010 as a volunteer.
He stayed in Mumbai for the entire 10-day camp, organised by the Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), which the Islamist preacher spearheaded.
Yazdani (29), who formed the Hyderabad module along with 10 others after coming in touch with Syria-based handlers, told investigators that he was following Nayeks speeches on TV and YouTube since 2004.
Sleuths who interrogated him said Yazdanis journey to Ahle-Hadees, a puritanical strain of Islam, began only after he listened to Nayeks speeches as a teenager.
The government, while claiming it still has time to act, today indicated action against Nayek but refused to specify what will that be. Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said: Zakir Nayeks speech is a matter of concern for us. Our agencies are working on this. But as a minister, I will not comment what action will be taken.
Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said: We have time to study all these aspects.
New Delhi, July 6
An Indian techie abducted by Libyan militia in March this year has been released, the Ministry of External Affairs announced on Wednesday.
Indian Embassy has secured the release of Regi Joseph, an Indian national from Kerala who was abducted in March this year, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said.
The techie was abducted from his workplace in the Libyan capital in March this year. Agencies
Legal Correspondent
New Delhi, July 6
The Supreme Court has called for an urgent review of the provisions of the Advocates Act to tighten the regulatory mechanism for the legal profession to check indiscipline among lawyers.
A three-member Bench yesterday asked the Law Commission to go into all relevant aspects relating to regulation of the legal profession in consultation.
It also expressed the hope that the Centre would consider steps on the law panels report within six months following its submission.
The Bench issued the directives while upholding the conviction of advocate Mahipal Singh Rana by the Allahabad High Court for intimidating and threatening a senior civil judge in April 2002 and thereby committing contempt of court.
The Bench, however, set aside the two-month simple imprisonment in view of Ranas old age, but clarified that his enrolment would be suspended for two years. He also would not be allowed to appear in any court in Etah till he purges himself of contempt.
The apex court regretted that the Bar Council, both at the national and state level, had failed to take action against Rana as directed by the HC. Legal profession being the most important component of the justice delivery system, it must continue to perform its significant role and regulatory mechanism and should not be seen to be wanting in taking prompt action against any malpractice, the SC held.
Simran Sodhi
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 6
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will start his four-nation tour of Africa tomorrow with the first stop being Mozambique.
The Cabinet has also approved the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with Mozambique to double import of pluses to 2 lakh tonnes by 2020-21. India will provide high-quality seeds and technical assistance to the African nation for the import of pulses either through private channels or government-to-government sales through state agencies nominated by the two countries, an official statement said.
The visit to Mozambique tomorrow will be brief and Modi will reach South Africa tomorrow evening. He will be the first Indian PM to visit Mozambique in 34 years.
Ahead of his tour, the PM today tweeted, My programmes in South Africa will span across Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban & Pietermaritzburg. In Tanzania, I will hold talks with President Dr. John Magufuli, meet Solar Mamas & interact with Indian community, Modi tweeted.
During his South Africa visit, Modi will visit Phoenix Settlement and Pietermaritzburg Station- the places associated with the stay of Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa. He will also visit Constitutional Hill and the Nelson Mandela Foundation. The PM will interact with the Indian community in Johannesburg on July 8.
On July 10, the PM will make a brief visit to Tanzania and will visit Kenya on the evening of the same day.
The PMs Africa tour is also an attempt to counter Chinas growing influence in the continent. Despite sharing historical ties with the African continent, India lags behind China when it comes to investments and infrastructure development in Africa.
Both India and Africa also have been actively working together for the reforms of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Most African nations have been supportive of Indias bid to get a permanent seat on a reformed Security Council. The African continent wants to see two seats being allotted to it in a reformed UNSC. The UNSC reforms will be discussed by the PM with the African leaders during his visits.
Shahira Naim
Tribune News Service
Lucknow, July 6
Storming another male bastion, women will offer Eid namaaz for the first time at the historic Aishbagh Eidgah in the city tomorrow.
Naib Imam of the Eidgah Maulana Khalid Rasheed Firangi Mahali said special arrangements were being made for women to offer namaaz.
Karamat Hussain Degree College principal and All-India Muslim Personal Law Board executive member Rukhsana Lari said the decision should have been taken long ago.
When Prophet Mohammad encouraged women at religious congregations and they are allowed as equals inside the Kaba in Mecca then why has their entry been restricted inside Indian mosques so far, she asked. Lari said it was a new beginning and hoped it would be replicated at other places. But proper arrangements for women should be made, she said.
The move assumes significance in the wake of women asserting their right to enter religious places. In Maharashtra, after a hard fight, the right to enter the Shani Singhanapur temple has been won.
Vishav Bharti
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 6
After MLAs and ministers rejected the Punjab Government Employees and Pensioners Health Insurance Scheme, now the IAS officers have refused to opt it.
The state government notified the scheme in October last year and made it compulsory for all government employees to get enrolled. The scheme covers indoor treatment expenses of government employees, pensioners and their dependents.
However, the scheme was made optional for incumbent and former MLAs, serving and retired IAS officers, judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Most of the top political leaders and IAS officers refused to opt for the scheme. Most of the MLAs did not enrol themselves in the scheme. They instead asked the Health Department to contact big corporate hospitals in Delhi and Mumbai to get them empanelled under the scheme.
The recent record of the Health Department reveals that the situation is not much different when it comes to IAS officers. There are around 250 IAS officers in the state, but only 25 of them have opted for the scheme. It means not more than 10 per cent officers got themselves enrolled. Even the scheme failed to find takers among the retired IAS officers of the state. The government employees for whom this scheme is compulsory feel that it should be made compulsory for IAS officers and MLAs too. They are those who made the policy for all employees and pensioners, but why they themselves dont want to get enrolled. It makes clear that the scheme is not in employees interest, said Dr Gagandeep Singh, president, Punjab Civil Medical Services Association.
The government had launched the scheme with pomp and show. According to sources, so far more than 4 lakh employees and pensioners have enrolled themselves.
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, July 6
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Ashish Khetan was booked late last night under Section 295-A of the IPC for allegedly hurting religious sentiments. A complaint was filed by All-India Sikh Students Federation president Karnail Singh Peermohammad. Police Commissioner Amar Singh Chehal confirmed the development.
On July 3, Khetan, AAP spokesperson and head of the Delhi Dialogue Commission of the party, had allegedly equated the partys youth manifesto with Guru Granth Sahib, Bible and Quran to make a commitment towards the youth. Khetan was booked hours after he submitted a public apology for his unintentional remarks.
Peermohammad said AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal should have owned up for this blunder and tendered an unconditional apology.
We had given three days to AAP for submitting the apology, but the way they did it was not acceptable, he said.
On Quran desecration case, he said: The accused in the Malerkotla case should be interrogated for their links with political outfits. We demand a CBI probe in the matter.
Hang me if not satisfied: Khetan
Reacting to the FIR lodged against him, Ashish Khetan on Wednesday said the SAD-led government could mete out any punishment to him, including crucifixion, if not satisfied with his apology. "I had apologised to the people even yesterday with folded hands. People were hurt by something I said. Wahe Guru ji forgives everyone, I never intended to hurt anyone's religious feelings," he said. ANI
Akali Dal asks Delhi CM to apologise
Chandigarh: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Wednesday rejected the apology offered by AAP leader Ashish Khetan for reportedly comparing Guru Granth Sahib with the partys youth manifesto and said instead AAP convener and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal should apologise for it. SAD secretary general Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa said the blasphemy was committed in the presence of Kejriwal during a recent function held in Amritsar. Kejriwal did not protest against it. Now it is for him to seek an apology from the Sikh sangat and take a strict action against Khetan. This is necessary to assuage the hurt feelings of the Sikh community, he added. TNS
SGPC, Taksal warn Kejriwal
SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar said AAP leaders should limit their ambitions to the political level only and desist from acts that hurt the sentiments of the Sikh community. Damdami Taksal head Harnam Singh Dhumma said the government should initiate action against AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal in whose presence the act was committed. TNS
Ravi Dhaliwal
Tribune News Service
Gurdaspur, July 6
A day after a letter purportedly written by Lashkar-e-Taiba was found at a temple of Dinanagar, the police are veering round the theory that the note may be fake as it was written in Hindi while Pakistan-based terrorist outfits normally issued such threats in Urdu.
Jagdeep Singh Hundal, SSP, said although the chances of the letter being a forged were extremely high, the police were still taking no chances and teams to crack the case were working on several leads. The manner in which it has been written is totally amateurish and it carries too many mistakes, he said. The temple is near the police station, which was attacked by three terrorists on July 27 last year.
Officers said prima facie it appeared the letter was a hoax, yet the police was taking all preventive measures. Today too scores of police personnel were seen near the bus stand and the railway station. The investigations into the incident are being headed by ASP Surinder Lamba. A rough map identifying the main markets of the city was drawn on one side of the note.
The SSP said that a special team had been constituted which was taking handwriting samples of people living near the temple. It is a massive exercise but we are conducting it because we have doubts that some people living in the vicinity of the religious place may have written the letter. For this we have requisitioned the services of post office employees. They were eager to help us since the issue pertains to national security, he said.
The role of some local Shiv Sena leaders has also come under the scanner. The priest of the temple has also been questioned. We believe that the note may be the handiwork of some anti-social elements, said Lamba.
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 6
Accusing the Badals of politicising the sensitive and religious issue, AAP state convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur today said since AAP leader Ashish Khetan had already apologised for his inadvertent act, the rival parties should refrain from politicising the matter given the fact that and the Sikh Panth believes in forgiveness.
Talking to the media, Chhotepur said it was unfortunate that Khetan compared the partys youth manifesto with Guru Granth Sahib, but he apologised for it. The Sikhism believes in forgiveness, but the rival parties are deliberately politicising this issue, he said.
Earlier offering an apology at a press conference at Khanna yesterday, Khaitan had said he did not mean to disrespect the holy book and was regretful for his act. Leaders had also apologised for publishing the picture of the Golden Temple along with the party's symbol "broom" on their manifesto.
Chhotepur said during the Lok Sabha poll campaign, Cabinet Minister Bikram Majithia desecrated gurbani in the praise of Arun Jaitley, but later he submitted an apology and the Sikh Panth pardoned him. Even CM Parkash Singh Badal had committed a blunder by terming Jaitley bahadur in comparison with Banda Singh Bahadur, Chhotepur said, adding that Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh had also committed a mistake by taking oath with a gutka in his hand, while wearing shoes during his coronation ceremony in Bathinda.
By PTI: From Lalit K Jha
Washington, Jul 6 (PTI) Lauding the progress made in bilateral military cooperation with India, the Pentagon has said the US is looking forward to seeing the relationship grow even further.
"The (US Defence) Secretary is very pleased with the progress that weve made with regard to the military-to-military relationship with India, and hes very much enjoyed his ongoing work with Minister Parrikar and looks forward to having that relationship grow even further," Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook yesterday said.
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US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter visited India earlier this year during which he described the defence relationship between the two countries as strategic handshake.
"I think the Secretarys reference highlights his own view about how so much of what India is working towards in terms of both its economic policies and its security policies mesh so well with US policies in the same vein. I think thats what the secretary was referring to with that handshake," Cook said in response to a question.
"Its very consistent with our re-balance to the Asia Pacific. I think he was trying to make that point in a very illustrative way," he said. PTI LKJ DBS
--- ENDS ---
Vijay C Roy
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 6
The Punjab Government is in process of winding up seven corporations and three companies which are not operational for several years with a majority of them not having a single employee.
Sources say one corporation and two companies will cease to exist in the current fiscal, four corporations in 2017-18, and the remaining in subsequent years.
The corporation and companies which are likely to wind up in the current fiscal year are PUNTEX, Neem Chameli Tourist Complex Ltd and Amritsar Hotels, a subsidiary of the Punjab Tourism Development Corporation. In 2017-18, the government will wind up the Punjab State Leather Development Corporation, Punjab State Hosiery and Knitwear Development Corporation, Punjab Poultry Development Corporation, and Punjab Film and News Corporation.
Next in line will be Punjab State Land Reclamation Corporation, Electronic Systems Punjab Ltd (ESPL) and Punjab Tourism Development Corporation.
As per the norms, the company has to submit an up to date audited balance sheet stating zero balance (means neither having any liability or have to recover any asset or money) before the Registrar of Companies before winding up. The sources say the government is in process of finalising the balance sheet for these corporations.
An official said: The corporations used to run with the help of central grants and were acting as implementing agencies for central schemes. The Centre stopped grant for all corporations across the country in late 90s, the state decided to wind up these. Except one, the assets of all corporations have been liquidated. Similarly, the assets of two companies have already been disinvested, except the ESPL.
The sources say 7.5 acres of land belonging to Punjab State Hosiery and Knitwear Development Corporation in Ludhiana will be transferred to the government for setting up an exhibition centre. The corporation has a debt of Rs9 crore. Also, the assets of the ESPL (Electronic Systems Punjab Ltd), is being liquidated. Barring these two, assets of the remaining corporations and companies were liquidated long ago and the winding up operations are on.
As far as employees are concerned, the government has already offered VRS or transferred them to other departments. Currently, PUNTEX and Punjab State Leather Development Corporation have one employee each. While, the other eight corporations are without any employee, the official said.
IT was Lord Minto who first suggested a scheme for the employment of respectable Indians in the Indian Army. He restricted it as first to men of high birth and military traditions who might be raised to higher ranks in a regiment. This was to be officered, at first partly, and ultimately wholly, by Indians. The scheme somehow fell through. Apparently the military authorities did not approve of it. It was understood that Lord Kitchener was against it but he admitted that further opportunities for Indians must be given. His own scheme was to create a superior grade of Indian officers allowing them to rise to the rank of Wing Commander, but not at once placing them on a par with the British officers of a regiment. The scheme announced by the Times seems to be a compromise between the two schemes.
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 6
The Union Government will commence its Namami Gange programme tomorrow with the launch of 231 projects at 104 locations. The government bills the projects as part of an integrated approach to clean the national river.
Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Uma Bharti, Narendra Tomar and Mahesh Sharma will launch the project in Haridwar during an event which will also be attended by Chief Minister Harish Rawat.
It is a historic moment... for the first time the river is being cleaned wholly. We will show the results of the phase I of Ganga cleaning in October 2016, while the second phase will be completed two years later, Uma Bharti said while talking to mediapersons.
She said, The projects involve modernisation of ghats and crematoriums, development of sewerage network and sewage treatment, tree plantation (medicinal plants), pilot drain project, interception drain project, trash skimmers and conservation of biodiversity.
She said the government would also launch an application to monitor the level of pollution in the river.
As many as 47 projects will be inaugurated across the state at various locations, including Dehradun, Pauri Garhwal, Tehri Garhwal, Rudraprayag and Chamoli districts, besides Haridwar.
Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, newly-appointed Ministers of State for Water Resources Vijay Goel and Sanjeev Balyan were also present during the media conference.
Gadkari said the projects were being launched after conducting a detailed scientific study and would involve use of the worlds best technologies to ensure that river pollution was averted.
Referring to Moksha Dham works, which relate to construction and repair of crematoria located along the river, Gadkari said the projects would be implemented without hurting public sentiments attached to the holy river even as air and water pollution was kept under check.
He also rejected the claims that the works were taking off late. He was rather surprised that the projects were being launched within such a short span, notwithstanding the complexities involved in it, he added.
Meanwhile, when asked about Balyan and Goel joining the Water Resources Ministry following expansion of the Union Ministerial Council yesterday, Uma Bharti said she was waiting for the appointments to happen for many days.
She hoped that their joining would reduce the burden and increase the pace of work in the ministry which handles crucial subjects of river-linking and Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKYS), besides the Namami Gange programme. Uma Bharti tweeted about the launch of the programme also.
The Water Resources Ministry seconded her in a statement saying that 231 projects would be inaugurated at various locations in seven states, including five Ganga basin states of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
In Delhi and Haryana, the projects would be launched on the Yamuna, a tributary of the Ganga.
In Haryana, Chief Minister ML Khattar will inaugurate a Rs 129-crore Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) and afforestation in Panipat along the Yamuna. The Centrally-funded STP is aimed at preventing the flow of sewage of Panipat in the Yamuna.
A ministry official said a project was being prepared to use the recycled water from the plant for other uses. Sewage discharged from Panipat in the Yamuna is main source of obnoxious nitrogen content in its water which flows to Delhi and further downstream in Mathura.
The Yamuna, one of the major tributaries of the Ganga, flows through Haryana and Delhi. It needs to be protected because it merges with the Ganga and affects its water quality.
Referring to the Ganga Gram Yojana, Uma Bharti said 400 villages along the river would be engaged in waste management. As many as 13 IITs had adopted five villages each for development as Ganga Grams.
As part of the programme, 328 sarpanches have been trained at Seechewal village in Punjab. Eight biodiversity centres would be developed along the Ganga for restoration of identified priority species even as afforestation would be carried out along the river. These centres would be developed at Rishikesh, Dehradun, Narora, Allahabad, Varanasi, Bhagalpur, Sahibganj and Barraackpore, Uma Bharti added.
(With inputs from PTI)
Tribune News Service
Dehradun, July 6
A five-day second Toppers Conclave of those who have topped various state universities will be held at Raj Bhawan from August 8 to 12.
A meeting was presided over by Governor Dr KK Paul today to decide upon the dates for the conclave. A core committee has already been constituted for the smooth conduct of the conclave.
The Governor sought information about the preparations for the conclave at the meeting. He gave several directions and said the objective of the conclave was to boost the confidence of the toppers and create an environment to enable them to develop their skills. It would also help develop their personalities.
The Governor said the toppers would make their presentations at the meet.The students would also give suggestions regarding the education system.
There will be an interaction between the toppers and subject experts regarding chosen topics so that an education system could be shaped which would prove a milestone for the state and help create new employment opportunities.
On the Governors initiative, the conclave was held for the first time last year from August 3 and 7. The meeting discussed how the conclave would be held in an improved manner. Experts/guest speakers and the topics on which they would speak were also decided. The topics include good governance, development of rural economy, suggestions and possible solutions for the present education system in Uttarakhand, disaster management, making agriculture profitable in the rural hill areas, climate change, possibilities of floriculture and medicinal plant cultivation and conservation and enrichment of art and culture.
Former chief secretary Dr R S Tolia, environmentalist Dr Anil Joshi, CBRIs former director Dr RK Bhandari, UCOSTs DG Dr Rajendra Dobhal and two former VCs of Garhwal University Prof AN Purohit and Prof SP Singh have agreed to deliver lectures on these subjects.
Besides guest speakers, VCs of state universities will also deliver talks and participate in the discussions. Another meeting, to be presided by the Governor, will be held on July 18 to give the final touches to the conclave preparations. The VCs of the state universities will be invited for that meeting.
Tribune News Service
Dehradun, July 6
Relief and rescue works are in full swing in the disaster-affected districts where people in large numbers have taken refuge at various relief camps.
Officials of the administration and security personnel are searching for bodies from debris.
The State Disaster Response Force, Army, police and others have been working to remove debris from collapsed houses.
Additional Secretary, Disaster Management, Ravishankar said the work to remove debris would continue and all efforts would be made to retrieve bodies from the debris. JCB machines have been put to use to remove debris at Bastari, the worst affected village in Pithoragarh district. He said dog squads had also been pressed into service to search for any person alive beneath the debris. The disaster-affected areas were being sanitised to make the region free from foul smell emanating from dead livestock.
In the worst-hit Pithoragarh district where over 160 families were affected, 50 persons have taken refuge in the Bastari village Panchayat Ghat relief camp. Similarly, 150 have taken refuge in Singali Primary School relief camp. Twenty five persons stay put at Naulanda junior high school relief camp in Munsiyari. In Chamoli district, 18 persons have taken refuge in Jakhnigaon and 10 persons in Ghaat village.
Meanwhile, the state has started looking at utilising artificial rain technique to meet the challenges of cloudburst.
A UAE-based company gave a presentation before the state disaster management authority on the technique of artificial rain and its benefits. The technique can help weaken high water density clouds thus avoiding sudden burst and the subsequent disaster.
Garry De la Pomerai, an expert in artificial rain technique from the UAE, said the magnetic technology was of immense help in averting cloudbursts that had been a major cause of death and destruction in Uttarakhand. Through the magnetic technique, a cloud is not allowed to accumulate large volume of water, he added.
It identifies clouds that are fast turning into heavy water density clouds. Before a cloud accumulates large volume of water, it is burst prematurely and artificial rain is allowed to happen, Garry De la Pomerai said, adding that this prevents cloudbursts. He said countries such as China were already successfully using the technique of forcing artificial rain to prevent cloudbursts.
BAGHDAD, July 6
The Iraqi man who was filmed attacking Saddam Husseins statue with a sledgehammer when US troops stormed into Baghdad in 2003 said Iraq was in a better shape under his rule and George W. Bush and Tony Blair should be put on trial for ruining it.
Kadhim Hassan al-Jabouri was speaking on Wednesday as British former civil servant John Chilcot released a long-awaited report criticising Britains role in the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. The report said the policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments, and that claims that Iraq posed a threat by possessing weapons of mass destruction were presented with unjustified certainty.
It said the turmoil unleashed in Iraq since the invasion should have come as no surprise. I regret striking the statue, said Jabouri, a Shiite who lost more than a dozen relatives under Saddam, a member of the Sunni Muslim minority. He said they were killed for opposing the Iraqi leader, who was hanged in 2006.
The 12-metre statue of Saddam was pulled down by US Marines shortly after Jabouri and other Iraqis attacked it on April 9, 2003. Images of it being ripped from its plinth were broadcast live around the world and came to symbolise the overthrow of Saddams quarter-century in power.
I wish Saddam would return; he executed many of my family but he is still better than these politicians and clerics who got Iraq to the way it is, he said, referring to the Shiite religious political parties that took over after the invasion. Jabouri, 58, owned a motorcycle repair shop in the Karrada district of central Baghdad at the time of the invasion.
The mainly Shiite neighbourhood was hit by a truck bomb on Saturday night, claimed by the ultra-hardline Sunni group IS, which killed about 250 people. It was the highest toll from a single bombing in more than a decade of chaos following the war which toppled Saddam. Blair and Bush must be put to trial as they have ruined Iraq with their lies. It turned out there were no weapons of mass destruction, Jabouri said.
Different viewpoint
Others who suffered under Saddam had a different view and several said they were grateful to the governments in Washington and London for putting an end to his rule.
Overthrowing Saddams regime was a dream that came true thanks to the US and Britain and all those who say otherwise are liars, said ex-political prisoner Faris Mohammed, 46, who was serving a life sentence in Basra when the invasion took place.
But Abu Yasser, 67, a retired manager of Iraqi Airways and a member of Sunni community, said Chilcots report offered little comfort to Iraqis marking the start of the Eid holiday on Wednesday, overshadowed once again by the violence which has plagued Iraq since 2003. Abdul Illah Risan, an Appeal Court General Prosecutor in Baghdad, said he rejected the Chilcot report as it questions the legality of the war to depose Saddam. Reuters
Beirut, July 6
The Syrian military declared a three-day ceasefire across the country on Wednesday and though fighting and air attacks continued, US Secretary of State John Kerry expressed hope a more significant truce could be achieved. The truce is the first to be declared country-wide since the one brokered by foreign powers in February to facilitate talks to end the five-year-old civil war. This has mostly unravelled.
Wednesdays ceasefire covers the three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday celebrated by Muslims to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. There was no indication that it had been agreed with any of the
myriad groups opposing the government.
The military high command said in a statement that a regime of calm will be implemented across all territories of the Syrian Arab Republic for 72 hours from 1 am on July 6 until 2400 on July 8, 2016.
The Syrian government uses the term regime of calm to denote a temporary ceasefire. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad joined Eid al-Fitr prayers at a mosque in third city Homs today in a rare public appearance outside the capital for the end-of-Ramadan holiday.
Since the civil war erupted in 2011, Assad has made only rare public appearances and nearly all of those have been in Damascus. Reuters
Dhaka, July 6
Islamic State has warned of repeated attacks in Bangladesh and beyond until rule by Sharia, Islamic law, is established, saying in a video that last weeks killing of 20 people in a Dhaka cafe was merely a glimpse of what is to come.
Five Bangladesh militants, most from wealthy, liberal families, stormed the upmarket restaurant on Friday and murdered customers, the majority of them foreigners, from Italy, Japan, India and the United States, before they were gunned down.
What you witnessed in Bangladesh...was a glimpse. This will repeat, repeat and repeat until you lose and we win and the Sharia is established throughout the world, said a man identified as Bangladeshi fighter Abu Issa al-Bengali, in the video monitored by SITE intelligence site.
Bangladesh has rejected the Islamic States claim of responsibility for the Friday attack and blamed it on a domestic militant group.
It was one of the deadliest attacks in Bangladesh, where Islamic State and al Qaeda have claimed a series of killings of liberals and members of religious minorities in the past year.
The government has also dismissed those claims.
The IS video began with pictures of recent attacks in Paris, Brussels and Orlando in the United States that the Middle East-based militants have claimed.
The fighter in the video, who spoke in both Bengali and English, said Bangladesh must know that it was now part of a bigger battlefield to establish the cross-border Caliphate, the group proclaimed in 2014.
I want to tell the rulers of Bangladesh that the Jihad you see today is not the same that you knew in the past, he said from a busy street in the militant groups de facto capital of Raqqa, in Syria.
The jihad that is waged today is a jihad under the shade of the Caliphate.
Though Bangladesh has rejected the IS claim of responsibility for Fridays attack, police said they were stepping up security in response to the video threat.
We are taking this issue seriously. All our units concerned are working tirelessly, said deputy police inspector general Shahidur Rahman.
Police believe the domestic Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, which has pledged allegiance to Islamic State, played a significant role in organising the band of privileged, educated young men who carried out the attack.
Police have said they are hunting for six members of the group suspected to have helped the attackers.
But foreign security experts say the scale and sophistication of the attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe pointed to some level of guidance from international militant groups.
Officials in Dhaka said on Tuesday police commandos had mistakenly shot dead a restaurant chef during the operation to end the siege.
HT Imam, a political adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, also said security officials had seen online warnings about an impending attack on Friday and ordered major hotels and restaurants in the neighbourhood of the cafe shut.
But they missed the actual target, he said. Reuters
Los Angeles, July 6
Hundreds of people today held a vigil at the University of California's Berkeley campus to remember Indian student Tarishi Jain, who was killed along with 22 others in the Dhaka terror attack.
The 18-year-old Jain's friends from her dorm, classes and campus groups of UC Berkeley remembered her as a young woman who was sweet, generous, altruistic and intelligent. UC Berkeley Chancellor Nick Dirks and several of Jain's friends spoke next to an enlarged photograph of the smiling Jain, a large bouquet of white flowers and Indian, American and Bangladeshi flags.
"We have lost a precious member of our community and we are so much the poorer because of it," Dirk said.
Her friends and teachers appealed to the crowd to remember her for all her accomplishments and friendships, not for her brutal death. Jain graduated from the American International School in Dhaka and had joined University of California, Berkeley in 2015. PTI
Houston, July 5
NASAs solar-powered Juno spacecraft successfully entered Jupiters orbit today after a five-year journey from Earth, in a giant step to understand the origin and evolution of the king of planets and the solar system.
Mission controllers at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) erupted in cheers when the $1.1 billion spacecraft sent home the news of successfully executing a 35-minute engine burn that put the probe into the planned orbit around Jupiter.
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With its suite of nine science instruments, Juno will study the existence of a solid planetary core, map Jupiters intense magnetic field, measure the amount of water and ammonia in the deep atmosphere and observe auroras on our solar systems largest planet.
The mission also will let us take a big step forward in our understanding of how giant planets form and the role these titans played in putting together the rest of the solar system, NASA said.
As our primary example of a giant planet, Jupiter can also provide critical knowledge for understanding the planetary systems being discovered around other stars.
Juno was launched on August 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. With Juno, we will investigate the unknowns of Jupiters massive radiation belts to delve deep into not only the planets interior, but into how Jupiter was born and how our entire solar system evolved, said NASA administrator Charlie Bolden.
Confirmation of a successful orbit insertion was received from Juno tracking data monitored at the navigation facility at JPL in California, as well as at the Lockheed Martin Juno operations centre in Colorado.
The burn of Junos main engine began at 8:48 am IST, decreasing the spacecrafts velocity by 542 meters per second and allowing Juno to be captured in orbit around Jupiter. PTI
By PTI: From Shirish B Pradhan
Kathmandu, Jul 6 (PTI) The US has provided duty-free access to travel goods from Nepal under its annual trade preference programme, which provides opportunities to many of the worlds poorest countries to use trade to grow their economies and climb out of poverty.
The Annual Product Review under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) programme was announced by the United States Trade Representatives (USTR) office.
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The measure adds new duty-free status for travel goods such as luggage, backpacks and handbags for Least Developed Beneficiary Developing Countries (LDBDCs), including Nepal.
The new rule makes these products eligible for duty-free status beginning July 1.
"This is a tremendous opportunity for Nepali businesses to expand their exports to US markets," said the US Ambassador to Nepal Alaina B Teplitz.
"A strong commitment to open-market policies, a stable and transparent legal environment that secures property rights, policies that foster dynamic entrepreneurial activity, and strategic infrastructure investments will help Nepal make the most of this opportunity," she said.
In 2015, Nepal ranked second, after Cambodia, of all LDC exporters of luggage products to the US. Its exports of these products have grown 7 per cent since 2014, totaling USD 1.8 million last year.
US imports of travel and luggage goods products totaled almost USD 10 billion in 2015.
US trade preference programmes provide opportunities for many of the worlds poorest countries to use trade to grow their economies and climb out of poverty.
About 5,000 products from 122 beneficiary developing countries and territories, including 43 least-developed countries, are eligible for duty-free treatment when exported to the US under the GSP programme, which is a 40-year-old trade preference programme. PTI SBP ABH
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SYDNEY, July 6
Embattled Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Wednesday pulled within striking distance of the votes needed to form a narrow majority government in a cliffhanger election that has left the country in limbo and his leadership in doubt.
The government is still on track to form a majority government, Treasurer Scott Morrison told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
Electoral officials are counting 1.5 million postal and absentee votes that will be crucial to the result of Saturday's poll, which saw a swing against Turnbull's conservative coalition government and the rise of populist independents. A final reckoning may not be known for days, leaving Australia in a political vacuum. Reuters
Pretoria, July 6
Disgraced Paralympian Oscar Pistorius will learn on Wednesday how long he will spend in jail when a judge sentences him for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp three years ago.
Pistorius was freed from prison in the South African capital Pretoria last October after serving one year of a five-year term for culpable homicide the equivalent of manslaughter.
But an appeals court upgraded the conviction to murder, which has a mandatory sentence of 15 years.
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Due to his time already spent in jail and mitigating factors such as his disability, he could be given a lesser term.
Pistorius, 29, shot Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine's Day in 2013, claiming he mistook her for a burglar when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet.
"It is very difficult to predict what sentence it is that will be imposed. ... This is a fairly unique situation," Stephan Terblanche, a law professor at the University of South Africa, said.
Legal expert Llewellyn Curlewis, chair of the Law Society of the Northern Provinces, said that he expected a sentence of between 11 and 14 years.
The sentencing may also not be the end of the saga, as Pistorius or the state could launch a final round of appeals against the length of the prison term.
Judge Thokozile Masipa, who heard the original trial, will deliver the sentence three weeks after a court hearing that marked another episode of high drama in the long-running case.
Pistorius, sobbing heavily, hobbled on his stumps across the courtroom to demonstrate his physical vulnerability as his lawyers argued he should not return to jail on account of his anxiety disorder and depression.
But prosecutor Gerrie Nel argued that the double-amputee sprinter should be given a lengthy jail term as he failed to show any remorse for the murder.
Nel also criticised Pistorius for filming a recent television interview, despite claiming to be too unwell to give evidence in court.
In the interview his first since the killing Pistorius said that he believed Steenkamp would want him to devote his life to charity rather than return to prison.
Steenkamp's father 73-year-old Barry broke down during his testimony at the sentencing hearing as he called for Pistorius to "pay for his crime" of murdering Reeva, a model and law graduate.
Pistorius, who pleaded not guilty at his trial in 2014, has always denied killing Steenkamp in a rage, saying he was trying to protect her.
The Supreme Court of Appeal in December ruled that Pistorius was guilty of murder, irrespective of who was behind the door when he opened fire with a high-calibre pistol he kept under his bed. AFP
ADEN, July 6
At least six Yemeni troops were killed and dozens were wounded on Wednesday when two suicide bombers blew up their cars at a military base in the southern city of Aden, security sources said.
About two dozen militants launched an attack on the soldiers inside the base after the explosions. Gun battles at the base, in the Khor Maksar district, were going on and military reinforcements were arriving, the sources said. Reuters
OYO Rooms has signed a pact with Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board to standardise hotels and homestays in the hill state.
By India Today Web Desk: One of the things that matter the most in a trip is the kind of place you are staying in. It's an unsaid rule: better the stay, better the travel experience. But that doesn't mean that the modern traveller is looking for five star accommodations wherever he goes--even a homestay with neat and well-appointed rooms can make him happy. The basic idea is to make the traveller feel at home even while he is travelling.
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OYO Rooms is one travel portal that has been ensuring this for quite a while now. Now, it has signed a pact with Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board (UTDB) for helping the state tourism board provide better quality accommodations to tourists.
According to the Memorandum of (MoU) that has been signed by the two parties, OYO Rooms will look after the standardisation of the hotels and homestays spread across the hill state. This in turn will help travellers have more localised experiences while staying in places that meet the basic needs related to hygiene and comfort.
Also read: 6 of the most beautiful homestays in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh
Commenting on this development, UTDB CEO Shailesh Bagauli told PTI, "We look forward to our joint efforts contributing to increased tourist influx and a better stay experience for visitors to Uttarakhand."
According to a recent report by The Economic Times, OYO Rooms is also working with other state governments, including Maharashtra and Telangana, for developing better tourism eco-systems in the country.
If things go according to the plan, India might soon have plenty of affordable stay options for travellers from all parts.
(With inputs from PTI)
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Javadekar, who used to be the Environment Minister, said he will take charge of the HRD ministry tomorrow.
By India Today Web Desk: Prakash Javadekar, who in a stunning change of guard last night, replaced Smriti Irani as the Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister today said he will "build upon the good initiatives" taken by his controversial predecessor.
Speaking to reporters this morning at his residence in New Delhi, Javadekar, who used to be the Environment Minister, said he will take charge of the HRD ministry tomorrow.
WILL BUILD UPON GOOD INITIATED BY IRANI
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"We will build upon the good initiatives taken up by Smriti Irani," Javadekar told reporters. "We believe education is a weapon of change. To ensure everyone gets good education will be our goal," he added.
However, if there were indeed enough "good initiatives" by Irani as HRD minister, she may not have been shunted out to low-profile Textiles ministry.
Her two-year tenure was marked by a series of controversies which saw India's major universities up in arms against the government.
The Modi government has also been accused of trying to saffronise India's education policy at the behest of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh when Irani was in charge.
NEW CABINET : PACKAGE OF SURPRISES
On Tuesday night, Modi sprang a major surprise when he replaced Irani, his one-time trusted lieutenant handpicked as HRD minister, and brought in Javadekar in her place in a dramatic rejig.
Javadekar was the only serving minister to be elevated yesterday to the Cabinet rank as the government inducted 19 new faces into its Cabinet.
Irani replaces UP heavyweight Santosh Gangwar who will now be the Minister of State for Finance.
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In May, after years of build-up, the United States Department of Labor published new regulations that will affect who may be paid a salary and who must be paid by the hour. The changes, which take effect December 1, 2016, dramatically change the landscape for employers.
But first, what has not changed? While many employers do not realize it, the law has always required that employees do certain types of work before the employer is allowed to pay them a flat salary without paying extra for overtime. Generally, those duties fall under the headings of administrative, executive, or professional work.
Without going into a detailed analysis of what kinds of jobs fall under those categories, broadly speaking these employees are supervisors of two or more employees, managers of operations who use their own judgment and discretion to make important decisions, or employees whose jobs require some advanced educational degree. Being an office worker or carrying a Manager title, for example, does not necessarily mean one may be paid a salary.
If an employee has the right dutiessay, a Safety Manager who researches, designs, and implements an overall driver safety programthen the employer may pay him or her a salary, as opposed to an hourly rate of pay that fluctuates based on hours worked. This is where the new regulations come into play. Until December 1, that salary may be as low as $455 per week, or $23,660 per year. On December 1, that amount will jump all the way to $913 per week, or $47,476 per year.
So, unless a person is paid a salary at the rate of at least $47,476 per year, he must be paid by the hour and must be paid 1.5 times his hourly rate when he works over 40 hours in a workweek.
There is only one slight twist: employers may use bonuses and incentive payments (including commissions) to satisfy up to 10 percent of that $47,476, if these extra payments are paid at least quarterly. Stated otherwise, if an employer pays a bonus or commission at least quarterly, and the bonus or commission payments add up to at least $4,747 over the course of a year, then the employer need only pay a salary of $42,729. Note that this rule is not satisfied if the employee merely has the opportunity to earn that $4,474, but only if the employee is actually paid the $4,474.
As a reminder, the new regulations did not do away with the requirement that employees perform what has always been considered exempt work. Therefore, to be exempt from overtime, the employee must do the administrative, executive, or professional work that has always been required AND must receive the new enhanced salaryeither (1) at least $47,476, or (2) at least $42,729 plus an annual total in bonuses or commission, paid quarterly or more often, to reach the new level.
The upshot of the new law is that employers need to look at every salaried individual paid less than $47,476 per year and ask whether he or she should receive a raise to that new level or should become paid on an hourly basis. As simple as the new threshold is to understand, the decisions it requires of employers are not easy.
For example, consider a dispatcher whose pay is $45,000 because he is a ten-year employee and a newly hired dispatcher whose pay is $37,000. Raising the pay of the senior employee who is only $3000 away from $47,476 and converting to hourly pay the employee who is nearly $11,000 away seems financially sensible. However, that approach would mean two employees with the same job, doing the same work, would be paid under different schemes. The newer dispatcher would need to keep time records while the other would notdisadvantage for him. However, the senior employee might be asked to work all of the overtime, for no more paydisadvantage for him. Obviously, what might look like an easy fix can carry complications for employee relations.
Moving an employee to hourly status, of course, means his or her pay will fluctuate as he or she works more hours one week and fewer hours the next. If overtime is well-defined and predictable, an employer can calculate an hourly rate that will yield the same overall pay the employee now receives. However, the more that overtime changes from week to week, the more difficult it will be to make the conversion to hourly pay without affecting overall compensation. And, of course, controlling the hours of employees who work remotely requires careful management.
There is some good news for employers: examining the impact of the new salary threshold can create an opportunity for employers to address what might be existing problems. In looking at whose pay needs to change, employers might find that employees are presently misclassified. That is, some current employees might be receiving a salary without doing exempt work. Where those mistakes exist, they can now be correctedwith an explanation that the change is triggered by the new regulations' enhanced salary threshold.
Overall, these DOL-mandated changes will require good communication with employees to explain the reasons for the changes and, for some workers, the impact of moving from salaried to hourly status. In the end, employers and employees both will need to accept some degree of uncertainty and be flexible as a new pay scheme takes root.
Reposted with permission from the law firm Smith Moore Leatherwood. Alexander Maultsby is with Smith Moore Leatherwood, specializing in transportation issues.
Part of Volkswagen AGs recent settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over its emissions-cheating scandal will be used to fund diesel emissions-reduction efforts in the heavy-duty truck industry.
Announced last week, Volkswagen has agreed to pay up to $15.3 billion in a settlement with regulators requiring the automaker to buy back vehicles and set aside funding for cleaner technologies. The company is setting aside 2.7 billion as an environmental remediation fund.
The emissions-reduction funding will be used to incentivize replacing older heavy-duty diesel vehicles with newer, cleaner-operating replacements, similar to the EPAs current Diesel Emissions Reduction Act program.
The Diesel Technology Forum said that as of the end of 2015, only a quarter of all commercial vehicles are of the newest generation of clean diesel technology vehicles, produced after 2010.
The technologies included in vehicles after 2010 were designed to create fewer harmful emissions and replacing older vehicles is the fastest way to significantly reduce emissions, according to DTF.
Accelerating the turnover to the new technology clean diesel engines will achieve substantial NOx reductions, said Allen Schaeffer, executive director of DTF. Significant air quality benefits will accrue to communities across the country if more of these older commercial vehicles are replaced with new or newer diesel engines.
While the DERA program has provided funding in the hundreds of millions of dollars since 2008, the money from VWs settlement would represent a significant boost to efforts to replace older, polluting vehicles.
In a recent report, EPA found the DERA had eliminated 335,000 tonnes of NOx emissions since it began.
The DERA program has a proven record of successfully modernizing and upgrading older vehicles engines and equipment in communities across the country, said Schaeffer. Consumers will continue to find the new generation of clean diesel cars, trucks and SUVs a competitive choice to meet their personal transportation needs, and clean diesel technology is a key strategy to achieving current and future energy and climate goals.
tugtechnologyandbusiness.com
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WASHINGTON Nick Salvatore, the biographer of Eugene V. Debs, wrote that the popularity of the great American Socialist leader in the early decades of the 20th century rested upon his ability to articulate and symbolize something of the severe dislocation experienced by all Americans in the transformation to industrial capitalism.
Bernie Sanders appeal bears a striking similarity to his political heros. Debs gave voice to the unease and unhappiness bred by disruptions of the industrial period. Sanders speaks forcefully for those dismayed by inequalities and injustices in this era of deindustrialization.
Like Debs, Sanders failed to achieve victory in a presidential contest. Nonetheless, both democratic socialists spoke for many who neither shared their ideology nor voted for them. Just as Debsian socialism prepared the way for the New Deal, so will Sanders have an influence on the direction of politics.
The free-spirited Brooklyn native from Vermont, however, confronts very different political choices than those faced by Debs, who consciously and proudly worked outside the framework of the two-party system. By contrast, Sanders has a long and complicated relationship with the Democratic Party.
Until this election, Sanders ran independently of the party, but he often enjoyed its tacit support. He caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate and exercises a measure of power as a result. He still keeps the party at a critical distance even as he seeks its presidential nomination.
Sanders stands in a tradition of activists on the American left who, since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, have sought to build a strong progressive bloc inside the Democratic Party.
Now that he has lost to Hillary Clinton, Sanders task is to maximize his sides influence down the road. Given the threat posed by Donald Trump to so many of his own values, Sanders also has a moral obligation to help Clinton win this election.
So far, Sanders has been effective in influencing the writing of the Democrats 2016 platform, and Clintons forces, by past standards in these matters, have been remarkably accommodating to his wishes.
One of Sanders key voices on the platform committee, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., supported a draft that took major steps toward Sanders views. It backed a $15 minimum wage in principle, a more moderate approach to his desire to break up large banks, and a new version of the Glass-Steagall law that had separated commercial from investment banking. The draft would also put the party on record opposing the death penalty.
Sanders did not get everything he wanted. There was no call for a ban on fracking, no endorsement of a Medicare-for-all health care system, no backing for a carbon tax. The drafters also declined to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but its silence represented deference to President Barack Obama, whose administration negotiated the trade deal.
Still, Ellison praised the document for significant accomplishments that move our party firmly toward justice, fairness and inclusion. It is certainly one of the most progressive platforms in the partys history.
Sanders, however, is not satisfied. He has yet to endorse Clinton (though he did say hed vote for her over Trump) and has said he would fight for further platform victories on the Democratic convention floor. He has taken to lecturing Clinton on the steps she needs to take. On CNNs State of the Union Sunday, he urged her campaign to stand up, be bolder.
In the eyes of his staunchest supporters, this is Bernie being Bernie, keeping the pressure on to the very end. But is his fight-to-the-last approach the best way to maximize his leverage on behalf of progressive policies should Clinton defeat Trump?
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the other leading politician revered by the Democratic left, has made a different choice: Shes embracing Clinton fully. Warren campaigned on her behalf last week with enthusiasm, even glee, and seems to have a special gift for getting under Trumps skin.
Clinton, a friend of hers said, has a history of going out of her way on behalf of those who stand with her. Warren has joined this magic circle.
Sanders is staying on its outskirts, maintaining the Debs-style pressure. The risk is that he will lose his moment since some Clinton partisans already see a more centrist campaign as the best way to win over millions of middle-of-the-road voters who find Trump abhorrent. Sanders has to decide if accelerating his plans to endorse Clinton is now the best way to maximize progressive influence.
Tim Cook said the problem hit home when his friend and former boss, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, endured an "excruciating" wait for a liver transplant in 2009.
By AP: Apple wants to encourage millions of iPhone owners to register as organ donors through a software update that will add an easy sign-up button to the health information app that comes installed on every smartphone the company makes.
CEO Tim Cook says he hopes the new software, set for limited release this month, will help ease a critical and longstanding donor shortage. He said the problem hit home when his friend and former boss, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, endured an "excruciating" wait for a liver transplant in 2009.
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"Watching and seeing him every day, waiting and not knowing - it stuck with me and left an impression that I'll never forget," Cook told The Associated Press. Cook was so concerned that he offered to donate part of his own liver, although Jobs refused.
Jobs died of complications from pancreatic cancer in 2011, two years after receiving a liver transplant in Tennessee that was credited with extending his life. He enrolled in that state's registry after doctors advised him the lengthy waiting list in California meant he wouldn't live long enough to get one in his home state.
Now, donation advocates are hoping the new sign-up method will appeal especially to young adults who already use their smartphones for all kinds of online transactions.
"Younger Americans are not registering at the same rate as they have in the past," said David Fleming, chief executive of Donate Life America, a nonprofit national donation registry that's working with Apple.
More than 120,000 people in the United States are waiting for a life-saving organ transplant, Fleming said, while on average 22 die each day without receiving one.
Apple is adding the option to register with Donate Life by clicking a new button within the iPhone's Health app, which was introduced in 2014 as a tool for recording and managing a variety of health and fitness data. Another new button will link to information about organ donation. If a user registers as a donor, the app can add that fact to an optional "emergency information" display that can be seen when the phone is locked.
The software will come to all U.S.-based iPhones this fall when the company releases the next major update to Apple's mobile operating system, known as iOS 10. It's being released this week to software developers and soon after that to iPhone owners who have requested early access to a test version of iOS 10.
Apple Inc. isn't the first tech giant to embrace organ donation. Facebook added a feature in 2012 that lets members of the social network display their status as registered donors, and share links to registries in their states or countries. Johns Hopkins University researchers later reported the feature spurred thousands of new registrations, although the volume gradually fell from a one-day peak of 13,000.
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Donate Life worked with Facebook on that project and has tried to improve on it, Fleming said. For example, there was no national donor registry when the Facebook feature was introduced, so users initially had to click through multiple links to sign up in their states. Donate Life now operates a national registry, which medical groups can search, along with individual state registries, to confirm whether a recently dead person had agreed to donate organs. The iPhone app lets users enroll directly with that national registry.
Several apps related to organ donation are available for competing Android phones, but Fleming suggested the iPhone app may be more effective because "you don't have to download something or do something additional to get access to it."
After Jobs received his transplant, health experts noted that most people can't afford to travel outside their home state for a new organ. Jobs lobbied in 2010 for a California law that encouraged more people to register as donors in his state, telling audiences that, "as a transplant recipient, I know how precious this gift of life is."
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Cook said he hopes the iPhone app will bring "a substantial increase" in registrations, which in turn should "save lives and save people from that excruciating wait and wondering what's going to happen."
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The PNM is saluting one of its former Senators, Dr Lester Henry, for his contribution to nat
SBS launches a new six part series, Eating History: Italy later this month.
The series highlights he very best in Italian food, as historian John Dickie travels around Italy.
In this series, John Dickie, the charismatic and enthusiastic historian whose best-selling Delizia! The Epic History of the Italians and their Food provides the basis for the series, takes a romp through Italys past to reveal how much of it was actually shaped by its food. John will travel the length and the breadth of this fascinating Mediterranean land to uncover tales of woe and ambition at the dining table, of creative one-upmanship and scheming in the kitchen, of unbridled violence in the banquet hall and misery at the food stall.
The series travels back to the early days of the Roman Empire and shows how bread could topple regimes. It reveals the true origins of pasta, and the crucial role that a simple plate of maccheroni has often played in taming the mob. It shows how, in the Renaissance, lavish cuisine could determine a papal election, and how a banquet could mean life or death for an aristocratic dynasty. It demonstrates how public food spectaculars akin to gladiator games held many Italian cities in thrall in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It tells the story of how pizza was viewed as both disgusting and potentially life-threatening when it was invented. And it uncovers why Mussolini wanted everyone to eat rice, and how an American doctor put Italian food on its way to conquer the world.
Thursdays at 7.30pm from 21 July.
The BBC has announced a third season of its period remake, Poldark, starring Aidan Turner.
Turner will return as Ross Poldark and Eleanor Tomlinson as his wife Demelza, in ten new episodes adapted by Debbie Horsfield from the novels by Winston Graham. Filming will take place in locations across Cornwall and Bristol later this year, to air in 2017.
A second season is due to premiere in the UK shortly.
Mammoth Screen Managing Director Damien Timmer says: Poldark is a passion project for all of us, and its with real excitement that we prepare for both the launch of series two and our return to Cornwall to shoot series three. Winston Graham and Debbie Horsfields extraordinary flair for storytelling means the saga of Ross, his friends and enemies will go to even more thrilling places!
Elizabeth Kilgarriff, Executive Producer for the BBC, says: Series two promises to take the audience on another fantastic rollercoaster ride and were thrilled to know that the story wont end there. Its a testament to Debbies brilliant storytelling and the passion of the Mammoth team that Poldark will be returning for a third series, with yet more twists and turns for these much-loved characters.
Former NSW Premier Kristina Keneally and former Prime Ministerial Chief of Staff Peta Credlin will co-anchor a special edition of The Friday Show this on SKY News to examine the political aftershocks as they continue to unfold post-election.
Kristina Keneally said: Since Saturday theres been no shortage of analysis about what happened. But not everyone has sat front and centre, day in and day out, in a campaign making the big calls and fronting the voters. Peta and I have been there and done that. We hope our viewers put their feet up this Friday afternoon and join us for the fun as we take apart the campaigns from the inside out.
Peta Credlin said: Theres a long way to go with Election 2016 and even more to be said about what happens after a government is formed in order to take on board the messages the Australian people sent their leaders last Saturday. Join us for the wash-up, mistakes and the opportunities.
From the chaos within the Coalition to the surprising ALP gains, the skilled political strategists from opposing sides of politics will bring viewers their unprecedented insider knowledge to dissect what went right and what went wrong.
As the fall-out from the election non-result continues and Australia awaits the decision on who will lead the nation, SKY News continues to track developments every step of the way with its unrivalled Live political coverage and commentary.
Friday July 8 at 4:00pm AEST on SKY News
The UK is not proceeding with a third season of Benefits Street, the fore-runner to Australias own controversial series, Struggle Street.
Radio Times reports Channel 4 could not find a street or story compelling enough for more and is not proceeding this year.
The UK series attracted complaints to regulator OfCom and was branded by politicians as deplorable, dishonest poverty tourism.
Channel 4 is not believed to have formally decommissioned the series but sources say that while it is promising to continue focusing on the same arena of austerity and poverty with other factual shows, Benefits Street will not be among them.
It also had a screening in Australia following the ratings hit of Struggle Street on SBS.
In US casting news Rob Lowe, Blair Underwood and Russell Tovey are joining two US titles, both of which will air on Seven.
Rob Lowe, currently seen in The Grinder (since cancelled), has joined the second season of medical drama Code Black.
Lowe will play Col. Ethan Willis, a doctor in the U.S. militarys prestigious combat casualty care research program who has been pulled out of a combat hospital in Afghanistan and embedded at Angels Memorial to teach what the military has learned about combat medicine.
Meanwhile Blair Underwood joins season two of Quantico. He will play Owen Hall, described as having an instant presence hes charming, direct and comfortable. He is the intelligent and inspirational CIA officer every fledgling operative wishes he or she could learn from. But is he running them, or using them for something else?
Quantico also features Russell Tovey as Harry Doyle, a mysterious character described as part Thomas Crown, part grown-up Artful Dodger.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
A California man has been arrested for tossing Molotov cocktails and opening fire on a building. No one was hurt in the attacks that took place in May and June, though one of the Internet search giant's self-driving cars was destroyed by fire.
By AP: A Northern California man who said Google was "watching him" faces federal charges in three late-night attacks on the company's Silicon Valley headquarters, including accusations of tossing Molotov cocktails and opening fire on a building, authorities say.
No one was hurt in the attacks that took place in May and June, though one of the Internet search giant's self-driving cars was destroyed by fire.
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Raul Diaz, 30, faces an arson charge in the first attack that began shortly before midnight May 19 at the company's massive campus in Mountain View, California, according to a federal complaint. An employee called police after seeing a man throw a beer bottle at a Google mapping car and then watching the area burst into flames. The fire bombs landed at the rear of the vehicle, which sustained minimal damage.
Police say they recovered fragments from two bottles of Blue Moon beer.
Charges in two later attacks are pending.
The second incident happened June 4 at about 11:30 p.m., federal authorities said. Two witnesses reported hearing gunshots about half a mile away from where the fire broke out, and police arrived to find five bullet holes in Google office windows. Surveillance video captured what appears to be the same SUV captured on video May 19.
Authorities believe a .22 caliber handgun was used during the attack.
Police were called a third time about 2 a.m. June 10 after a Google self-driving car was destroyed by fire. Surveillance video captured a young Hispanic man approaching the car with what looked like a squirt gun with a long tube and then a bright flash of fire. The same SUV was also recorded on the surveillance video.
On June 30, shortly after midnight, Mountain View police pulled over a 2004 Volkswagen Touareg they said Diaz was driving on the Google campus. The arresting officer said he could see a gun case and a cylinder with wires coming out of it that was later determined to be a pipe bomb, according to a search warrant affidavit filed with a federal court.
Johnny Luu, a Google spokesman, said a self-driving car was not involved in any of the incidents and said he had no other details about what happened.
According to the affidavit, Diaz told investigators he was responsible for all three attacks and was planning another before he was stopped and arrested.
"Diaz told officers that his motivation behind the attacks was that he felt Google was watching him and that made him upset," the affidavit stated.
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Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were called to investigate the bombs and met with Google security and local police on June 15 to review surveillance video, according to court documents.
Diaz made a brief appearance in a San Jose federal court Friday, but didn't enter a plea. He remains jailed and is represented by federal public defender Varrel Fuller, who didn't return a phone call Tuesday.
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Hi, my name is Scott C. Waring and I wrote a few books and am currently a ESL School Owner in Taiwan. I have had my own UFO sighting up close and personal, but that's how it works right? A non believer becomes a believer when they experience their first sighting. You witnessed it, your perceptual field changes, so now you need to share it.
I created this site to help the UFO community get a little bit organized. I noticed that there was a lot of chaos when searching for UFO sighting reports, so I hope this site helps. I wanted to support those eyewitnesses who have tried to tell others about what they have seen, yet were laughed at by even closest of friends.
More and more each day the governments of the world leak bits and pieces of UFO information to the public. They have a trickle down theory in hopes of slowly getting citizens use to the idea that we are not alone in universe and never have been. The truth is being leaked drop by drop until one day we look around and find ourselves neck high in it.
The discovery of alien species in existence is the most monumental scientific event in human history, suppression of that information is a crime against humanity.
About me:
I live in Taiwan. I OWN MY OWN ENGLISH SCHOOL, AND ONCE HAD 5 SCHOOLS.
Am Former USAF at SAC base (flight line).
Age: 42
Educ: BA in Elem ed. Masters in Counseling ed.
I had two UFO sightings, (30+bus size orbs) in military and in 2012 personally saw the UFO over Taipei 101 building on New Years Day (and recored it).
Zhytomyr Court of Appeals have sentenced two people for eight years in jail each for human trafficking, the press service of the Prosecutor's Office in the Zhytomyr region said.
It is noted that the entrepreneur and the foreign-born person were found guilty of unlawful agreements with four Pakistani nationals, who were recruited, transported to Ukraine with the purpose of labor exploitation at a stone processing shop in Malyn district.
By taking advantage of the victims lack of Ukrainian language skills, their illegal work status and lack of chances to seek protection of their rights, their difficult financial situation, the Pakistani workers were held as actual slaves for a few months.
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Russian-backed militants launched 61 attacks on positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Donbas over the past day.
This is reported by the ATO Headquarters press center.
"Twenty-nine ceasefire violations were recorded in Mariupol direction. In particular, the enemy used 152mm artillery systems and 120mm and 82mm mortars near Shyrokyne [20km east of Mariupol]. In addition, the Russian invaders used 120mm mortars to fire at our positions near Hnutove [19km north-west of Mariupol]. Ukrainian servicemen came under small arm fire outside Marinka [35 km south-west of Donetsk] and Krasnohorivka [29 km west of Donetsk]," the report reads.
In Donetsk direction, the enemy fired at Ukrainian defenders near Mayorske (45km north of Donetsk), using 120 mm mortars. Militants used 120mm and 82 mm mortars, grenade launchers and small arms in Zaitseve (67km north-north-east of Donetsk). In Avdiyivka (18km north of Donetsk) and Luhanske (59km north-east of Donetsk), terrorists fired from grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms.
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Ukrainian government has supported a draft bill on ratification of the Agreement between the Government of Ukraine and the Government of Israel on the employment of family members of diplomatic mission or consular mission employees, as well as a draft resolution by the Cabinet.
The decision was adopted at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Ukrinform has reported.
"The bill has passed the review, the comments on it have been taken into account," said the Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin.
According to him, the bill is ready to be sent soon to the Verkhovna Rada.
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Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman and Minister for Social Policy Andriy Reva have discussed current issues of social protection after the price for natural gas has doubled at a meeting with the trade union representatives, government portal has reported.
"The market price of natural gas set in Ukraine will boost energy efficiency in the country, increase Ukrainian natural gas production and tackle corruption in the natural gas sector. Overall, the losses in the budget because of a number of different price ranges for natural gas have reached UAH 53 billion," Groysman has told trade union representatives.
"Meanwhile, the main objective for the government is to raise the wages of citizens and reform the wages system in Ukraine," he noted. The government will propose to Ukrainian parliament a system that will provide a fair wages system in the autumn, which will be worked out jointly with the trade unions, the premier said.
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The Cabinet of Ministers has extended the Ukrainian counter-sanctions in response to the Russian Federations food embargo until the end of 2017, First Vice Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development Stepan Kubiv told a Cabinet meeting, Ukrinform has reported.
"We are submitting a draft resolution for reviewing which proposes to extend until 31 December 2017 the embargo on imports of the Russian goods in Ukraine that was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers on December 30, 2015", he said.
The Russian embargo on Ukrainian goods has been effective since January 1, 2016.
tl
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has approved the free trade area agreement with Canada and declared its readiness to sign it in the near future.
This was posted on the Twitter account of the Ukrainian Economic Development and Trade Ministry.
"The Government approved FTA agreement with Canada and confirmed readiness to sign it," the message reads.
The Government also approved the draft order of the President of Ukraine authorizing First Vice Prime Minister, Economic Development and Trade Minister of Ukraine Stepan Kubiv to sign the FTA agreement with Canada.
As reported, Ukraine hopes to sign the FTA agreement with Canada in July this year.
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Thorbjrn Jagland, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, believes that conduct of reforms in Ukraine may take more than a decade.
He stated this in an exclusive commentary to an Ukrinform correspondent in Germany.
"I do not think this will be done in this decade. It is an ongoing process. Much should be overcome," Jagland said and cited the example of his own country, Norway, which needed "many decades in order to build the strong state."
However, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe assured that the best, world renowned experts were working in Ukraine now and would stay in the country "as long as necessary."
This refers to about 50 experts, including personal representative of the CoE Secretary General in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. They, among other things, should help Ukraine build not corrupt institutions, reform the Constitution, "which would help to unify the country." "If Ukraine fails to build the institutions people can trust, there will be no sovereign Ukrainian state," Jagland said.
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Six bilateral meetings of Polish President Andrzej Duda with foreign colleagues, particularly Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, will be held within the framework of the Warsaw NATO Summit.
This was announced by Polish Secretary of State Krzysztof Szczerski in Warsaw, an Ukrinform correspondent in Poland reports.
"President Poroshenko is a constant interlocutor of President Andrzej Duda. This will be a regular meeting of the two leaders. These contacts are very intensive, and we want to maintain this intensity at the same level," Szczerski said.
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Nazar Kholodnytsky, the Head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine, calls on the Parliament to pass the bill which would allow the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine to wiretap officials.
He wrote this on his Facebook page on Wednesday.
"I call on the lawmakers to pass the bill No. 4812, which gives the National Anti-Corruption Bureau the right to get information from communication channels. This bill does not cover all citizens, only the defendants in criminal proceedings within the jurisdiction of National Bureau, i.e. senior officials," Kholodnytsky wrote.
The Head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office also noted that a provision on wiretapping for the National Anti-Corruption Bureau was stipulated in the new wording of the memorandum between Ukraine and the International Monetary Fund.
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Norway will support reforms that will be implemented in Ukraine, Norwegian Minister for Foreign Affairs Borge Brende made a statement at a a joint press conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin on Wednesday, Ukrinform has reported.
"We will support all the reforms. We are glad that the Ukrainian economy has begun to expand. Although this growth totals only one percent, but we are happy about even this growth because the country conducts reforms amid conditions of conflict and aggression it fights off in Donbas," Brende said.
The diplomat noted "we did provide assistance to [internally] displaced persons as well as to the victims and injured people. This fact shows the serious consequences of destabilization in Donbas as a result of Russia's actions," he said.
Borge Brende stated that the sides will discuss their ties before President Petro Poroshenko's visit to Norway which is planned to take place in mid-October. The Ukrainian President will hold bilateral talks with the Prime Minister of Norway during his visit.
The Norwegian Minister pointed out that his country backs the efforts of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry in the Minsk process, but important conditions for the settlement are remaining to be fulfilled. These include such conditions as halting of aggression and withdrawal of Russian troops and military machinery from Donbas, restoration of Ukrainian control over the areas on the Ukrainian-Russian border.
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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will hold a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Kyiv tomorrow, the press service of the Ukrainian President has stated.
"On July 7, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will meet with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry," the statement said.
Poroshenko and Kerry are scheduled to speak with the media at approximately 12.50.
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Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin has thanked Norwegian Foreign Minister Brge Brende for consistent support for Ukraine within the framework of the Minsk process and other international formats, which are aimed at the peaceful settlement of the conflict in Donbas.
Klimkin said this at a joint press conference with his Norwegian colleague, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.
Klimkin also once again stressed that sanctions against Russia may be eased only after full implementation of the Minsk agreements.
"We need to reach a real de-escalation in Donbas as a prerequisite for holding elections there," Klimkin said. Such de-escalation, according to him, means not only complete ceasefire, but also unfettered access of OSCE monitoring mission to the conflict zone, particularly to the border area uncontrolled by Ukraine, and complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Donbas.
"These issues will be among those discussed at the Warsaw NATO summit and the meeting of the bilateral NATO-Ukraine Commission during the summit," Klimkin said.
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Slovakia, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, intends to insist on a diplomatic settlement of the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico said this during presentation of the semi-annual European program of the country in Strasbourg, Radio Liberty reports.
"We must always keep in mind the conflict in Ukraine. The European Union should join a search for diplomatic settlement of the protracted crises and conflicts in the region," Fico said.
At the same time, according to the Head of the Slovak government, it is the policy of enlargement that will contribute to positive transformations in the neighboring countries of the European Commonwealth.
"The enlargement policy is one of the most important tools of transformation, which the EU has. It creates more security and stability in the European Union as a whole and in the neighboring countries in particular," Fico said.
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UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi plays football with Colombian refugees at a sports and cultural centre in Quito, Ecuador. UNHCR/Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo
QUITO, Ecuador During his first visit to Ecuador, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi praised the innovative approach taken by the Andean nation that allows thousands of Colombians fleeing decades of conflict at home to rebuild their lives here.
Ecuador shelters around 60,000 recognized refugees (95 per cent of them from Colombia) and over 200,000 other Colombians who have fled violence and a prolonged civil war that has killed at least 220,000.
Highlighting a new era of hope for peace in Colombia, the High Commissioner also acknowledged the important contribution that refugees can make to the development of the country that has given them asylum.
As Yenny, a 21-year-old mother of two who fled Colombia one year ago, said, "We want to stay in Ecuador. We have much to offer to this country that has welcomed us.
"We have much to offer to this country that has welcomed us."
In a context where many refugees will choose to stay in Ecuador, finding solutions remains critical. To offer a comprehensive response to their needs, UNHCR is working with Ecuadorian authorities and its humanitarian partners to help the forcibly displaced rebuild their lives and provide for themselves in Ecuador.
Last year, the UN Refugee Agency and its partners launched an innovative poverty reduction programme, the Graduation Model. Aimed at supporting the most vulnerable households to find sustainable and dignified livelihoods, it seeks to lift 1,500 families out of poverty in 2016.
The programme is designed to benefit both refugees and Ecuadoran families, in line with the Governments poverty reduction goals, and is seen as key to integrating the forcibly displaced in their host communities.
At a time when forced displacement has provoked strong, adverse reactions in some countries, Grandi said that Ecuador has set an example for the world to follow.
"Ecuador can become a reference in terms of hosting and finding solutions for refugees."
As UNHCR, we believe Ecuador can become a reference in terms of hosting and finding solutions for refugees, he said. Were committed to working hand in hand with the country in strengthening this process.
He signalled the upcoming Law on Human Mobility to be debated in the National Assembly as a further opportunity for Ecuador to be at the forefront in refugee protection. People don't want to be refugees forever, so we need to invest in building their skills and capacities so that sustainable solutions are available to them. The Human Mobility law can be a powerful tool to change the lives of refugees and others on the move, Grandi said.
We hope this law will soon be approved. It will be an important step to grant refugees and asylum-seekers access to proper documentation and rights, he added.
Maria del Mar is a 22-year-old refugee and mother of a three-year-old child who studies medicine thanks to a scholarship in Quito. She said that Ecuador is where she wants to be. Here in Ecuador I have learned to be independent, to be self-sufficient and to provide for my family.
Grandi was visiting Ecuador as part of a week-long mission to Latin America. It is his first visit to the region since he was appointed in January.
A raft crosses the Suchiate River, which divides Guatemala from Mexico, in Chiapas, Mexico. It is a key transit point for Central Americans fleeing gang violence. UNHCR/Markel Redondo
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (UNHCR) As a police officer in El Salvador, Carolina* worked in a unit protecting kidnap victims and murder witnesses, so they could help bring the perpetrators to justice. Then the thugs turned on her.
Members of a powerful street gang tracked her down at work and at home and threatened to kill her. Driven to move house several times, she was left with the constant fear that she would be murdered when she ventured out into the street.
I liked my job because I liked protecting other people, she says. But I was also afraid that every time I went to work, I would leave my children and didnt know if I was coming back.
Working for the police, she had seen first-hand how the gangs abduct, threaten, extort and kill family members, and frequently reach out to recruit their children often when they are still in school.
When gang members began harassing her 13-year-old son, Juan,* Carolina now felt they had no option but to leave. Without travel documents, Carolina stumped up US$2,000 to pay smugglers to take them to Mexico, where they were held in migration detention centres while their asylum claim was processed.
Every time I went to work, I would leave my children and didnt know if I was coming back.
Now in a family shelter, she is among tens of thousands of men, women and children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras fleeing surging violence at the hands of murderous street gangs, in what has become Central Americas biggest refugee crisis since more than a million people fled civil wars there in the 1980s.
With a sweep of criminal activities that also include drug dealing, human trafficking, prostitution and robbery, the gangs reach now extends throughout the three so-called Northern Triangle countries of Central America and beyond.
Those running for their lives range from professionals like Carolina, in El Salvador, to single mother-of-five Rosario, from neighbouring Honduras, who fled to Mexico with her terrified children after gang members burned their house down
We took several buses to reach the border and then crossed the river swimming, walking and carrying the small children between Guatemala and Mexico at night, she recalls. I was terrified that the children would be swept away or be drowned.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, believes that more needs to be done regionally to protect vulnerable people like Carolina, Rosario and their families as they flee persecution and worsening violence in the Northern Triangle nations.
Refugees find themselves victims of smugglers and traffickers, exposed to abuses along the road."
As avenues for safe passage to seek asylum diminish in this region, they find themselves victims of smugglers and traffickers, exposed to abuses along the road, and their needs are often left without adequate response, said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
Grandi is meeting this week with regional partners at a roundtable in Costa Rica to hammer out a concerted response to the crisis.
This is a protection crisis which requires broader regional coordination to ensure timely and solutions-oriented responses, he added.
The need for a common response is also brought into focus by the gamut of people driven from their homes by persecution by the gangs, known as maras in Central America. While Carolina and Rosario fled El Salvador and Honduras, the same street gangs are also harassing people in neighbouring Guatemala among them Karla*, a transgender woman in her forties.
Already struggling to pay a weekly extortion payment, or war tax, of 200 quetzales (US$26), Karla sought refuge over the border in Mexico after the mara doubled its demand to 400 quetzales (US$52) a week, a sum she could not pay.
Here in Mexico I feel respected and safe and thankful for the support from UNHCR, she said.
*Names changed for protection reasons.
She sleeps at the UNICEF registration centre for missing and separated children along with six other children who have no family, relatives or neighbours to take care of them. She says she knows no one in the settlement and has any idea where her parents or brothers and sisters are.
Im not used to being alone, she said in a voice so soft its barely audible. I dont know what to do.
Helping neighbours help children
Waus grand Cathedral and its surrounding buildings have also been turned into a displacement site where some 10,000 people are now living in whatever space they can find. Nedal, 15, and her two younger brothers arrived late in the day on the 24th after getting separated from their parents in the panic that gripped their community.
Through the UNICEF registration centre at the site, they found neighbours living in another part of the grounds and are now living with a foster family. A government social worker, himself living in the camp, volunteers at the centre and regularly checks in with the three children.
Finding families willing to care for the children who are completely on their own is the most pressing need right now, said Shafeeq Ur Rehman, UNICEFs Chief of the Wau field office. Everyone in these sites is struggling to survive and being responsible for an extra child places an additional burden on them. We need to help them so they can help the children.
University of Rochester breaks the genetic code to explain why some genes are not translated into proteins. Researchers led by Beth Grayhack, Ph.D of the Center of RNA Biology discovered 17 pairs of codons that are inefficiently working within the genetic code. Grayhack said that switching orders of the codons may lead to different meaning and functions, but of same principle behind.
The genetic code transmits directions to every protein. It consists of 64 triplets of nucleotide sequences and each of the triplets makes a codon. The identity of proteins from genetic codes has been known for over 50 years and this genetic code affects the function of proteins in ways that scientists cannot comprehend.
For scientists to figure out how genes can affect the progress of diseases, they need to understand how to read the codes, as well as how changes in the codes have consequential effects towards genes, BBC reported.
In genetic code study, the research team focused on crucial analysis of a specific region in a single yeast gene to identify specific combinations of codons that contribute to the reduction of gene expression, the University official website reported.
Grayhack and Christina Brule, a graduate student in Grayhack Lab, teamed up with Stan Fields, Ph.D. of the University of Washington, as well as Caitlin Gamble, a co-author in Seattle. The team successfully identified 17 codon pairs that work together to hinder gene expression and slow the ribosome.
Grayhack said that their findings can be to roadways. She said that good codons, which can effectively make proteins are the superhighways for translating genes. Currently, single codons are being clustered into suboptimal category similar to a dirt road. The suboptimal category seen in the group's recent data is analogous to adding a pointed curve in the dirt road.
The gene code discovery opens doors for how the codon pairs work and contribute to the ineffective protein translation. It was the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health that funded these research.
University of Rochester has enhanced their support for students with addiction to drugs or alcohol following the death of a freshman due to drug overdose. The University has expressed their mourning for losing a member of the community.
The University of Rochester took two years to vigilantly review the policies and procedures on counselling and mental health, abuse prevention on drugs and alcohol, and as well as treatment for addiction. Based on their review and student ideas for improvement, the University has decided to implement changes to enhance its services to the students who are in need of support easily and immediately.
The University president Joel Seligman said that the main priority of the University is to keep their students safe and healthy as possible, the University of Rochester official website reported. He also said that conditions such as anxiety, depression, and substance addiction are treatable, but if left untreated can cause detrimental effects.
The Expanded Case Management Function at the University Counseling Center is an additional University Counseling Center (UCC) case manager that was hired in October 2015. It aims to dedicate to add more time to follow up appointment referrals for students who need service for outside treatment.
All UCC case managers discuss important things with students on insurance coverage for referrals and assist them with transportation problems to and from appointments. However, the core focus of the UCC is to assure students of successful connections with off-site specialists. A full time psychologist will also be added to the UCC family to help with the increasing demand of counselling services.
The University of Rochester's UCC is also launching an online counselling program, the Therapy Assisted Online (TAO), initially developed at the University of Florida, DRWILDA reported. It is a seven to fourteen-week therapy assisted online course to help students suffering from anxiety or depression overcome the battle. The program aims to provide students with 24/7 access to holistic tools. They can schedule a secure video conference with a therapist to monitor their progress.
* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati received the 2022 Adepi Award
* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the World Intellectual Property Review's "Influential Women in IP" of 2020.
* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2018.
* IPKat founder and Blogmeister Emeritus Jeremy Phillips listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2005, 2011, 2013, and 2014.
* Recommended by the European Patent Office as reading material for candidates for the European Qualifying Examinations, 2013.
* Listed as "Top Legal Blog" in The Times Online, March 2011.
2010 ABA Journal 100. * One of the only two non-US blogs listed in the Blawg100.
* Court Reporter Top Copyright Blog award winner, November 2010.
* Number 1 in the 2010 Top Copyright Blog list compiled by the Copyright Litigation Blog, July 2010.
* Selected by the United States Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Legal Blawgs as of 2010.
* Top Patent Blog poll 2009: 3rd out of 50 in the "Favourite Patent Blog" poll and 2nd out of 50 in the "Most-read" poll.
Blog of the Year, 20 August 2008. * ComputerWeekly IT Law and Governance, 20 August 2008.
The team of Scientists from MIT have discovered that the September ozone hole has shrunk by more than 4 million square kilometers. It is about half the area of the contiguous United States. The observation initiated in 2000 the time when ozone depletion was at its peak. The team has also observed that at some point, this recovery has slowed down due to the effects of volcanic eruptions. However, the ozone hole seems to be on its healing path.
The study findings have been published in the journal Science, where the authors shared that they used fingerprints of the ozone variations with season and altitude to accredit the ozone's recovery to the ongoing decline of atmospheric chlorine from chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). These chemical compounds has been emitted by old refrigerators, dry cleaning processes, and aerosols. In 1987, the Montreal Protocol was signed virtually by country in the world in an intensive effort to ban the use of CFCs to repair the ozone hole.
Lead author Susan Solomon, the Ellen Swallow Richards Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Science at MIT, said that we can now be confident that the things done in the past have put the planet on a path of healing. Solomon's co-authors were Diane Ivy, research scientist in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, together with researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado and the University of Leeds in the UK.
What is Ozone Hole?
In the 1950s, the time of discovery of the ozone hole, researchers used ground-based data. By the mid-1980s, British Antarctic was surveyed by scientist and noticed that the October total ozone was plummeting. From that time on, scientists worldwide characteristically tracked ozone depletion using October extents of Antarctic ozone.
Ozone is sensitive not only to chlorine, but also to sunlight and temperature. Chlorine grubs away at ozone, but only when light is present or when the atmosphere is sufficiently cold to generate polar stratospheric clouds on which chlorine chemistry occurs. This relationship was first characterize in 1986 by Solomon. Measurements have shown that ozone depletion begins in late August yearly, as Antarctica arises from its dark winter and the hole is completely formed by early October.
Read more about this research at MIT News or through the journal Science. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy.
The Pennsylvania State University presents specific room assignment for freshmen students coming this fall! The university with all pride once again presents its most organized and effective room and home assigning system, managing more than 14,500 rooms in an annual basis- the all-new and cutting-edge academic eLiving Housing System!
The eLiving Housing System had long been tapped by the university due to its pursuit of efficient and convenient house administering of the students wishing to live inside the academe, the Penn State News (re: Housing Request) reported.
Besides the countless benefits offered by having to live in the academe, especially when one's residence is situated outside the state, the room and home quality by the eLiving Housing System proved to be utterly sophisticated, the Penn State News (re: Fall room assignment) reported.
As per order in 2013, the students who wish to live on campus are thereby requested to submit a house contract request, the Penn State News (re: Housing Request) again reported.
In addition to the luxurious services, the PennState surprises newcomers with a line saying, "are you ready to #LiveTheTradition?"
Eventually, PennState's academic campaign contains an inbound link that is soon to reveal the fall room assignments.
Jennifer Garvin, the director of Ancillary Services was actually the playing figure who insisted that the fall room assignment be released the soonest.
Her main intention is to give leeway to the incoming students to swap rooms and choose roommates.
And so, the schedule for the intended room assignment was eventually announced yesterday for a July 18 (Monday) 9am-posting, the PSU reported.
By all means, the "swapping feature" in the room assignment highlights the surprise!
Leaving high school and entering the academe for the first time can be a most overwhelming phase in a student's life. The Ancillary Services and Home Administration department in PennState acknowledges very strongly the weight of the choices a student had to face to pursue academics, choosing a home is part of them, the Penn State News (re: Fall room assignment) again reported.
Thus, with the available technology, all credits to the eLiving Housing System, home gets never too far from college after all, the PSU again reported.
July 6 2016
As the dust settles on the UKs surprise exit preference toward the European Union many are questioning just how the institution has come to be so alien to a majority of Britons.Amongst them is Alistair Scott, director of Smith Scott Mullan Architects, who penetrated the formidable defences of the institutions Strasbourg base and lived to tell the tale. He said: Like many architects, I am a sad and rather disgruntled remain voter. I dont want to play the blame game, but many commentators have correctly identified that the remoteness of our European bureaucracy from the people they are meant to serve was a potent issue in the result. I think there is a serious point here and (if you are an architectural anorak) you need no more proof than to look at the European Parliament building in Strasbourg.Host to meetings of the European Parliament once a month, in tandem with its main Brussels base, the AS Architecture Studio designed parliament has long been criticised for being distant and anti-democratic but Scott believes its problems may have taken root in the architecture itself.Scott observed: I visited in 2014 while on one of our practice study trips (jollys?) to see eco-housing in Freiburg. We went up to Strasbourg to see their splendid collection of European buildings, with high expectations of democratic transparency, openness and all the other design aspirations that underpin our own Scottish Parliament. However, these were dispelled almost as we left the tram stop. In reality, there was utterly no attempt to engage the good citizens of Europe with their democratic overlords, not even a cafe!So I have dug out a (slightly satirical) sketch which I made on the visit, which shows the entrance sequence for the Parliament Building. What amused me was that it is exactly the same architectural format as Edinburgh Castle. It is separated from the city fabric, it has a killing ground (a car park) in front of it, a moat (yes) with a bridge over it and you enter the main courtyard through a tunnel which probably includes future proofing for a portcullis.I suppose my mild amusement has taken on a darker tone and if we are having a new relationship with our European partners, then perhaps it is time to have a new European Parliament building as well designed by a Scottish architect of course.Anyone fancy yet another petition?
The Canadian Androgen Suppression Combined with Elective Nodal and Dose Escalated Radiation Therapy (ASCENDE-RT) randomized trial showed that brachytherapy boost reduces recurrence by 50% compared to dose-escalated radiation. We examined how men with identical inclusion criteria to the ASCENDE-RT trial were being treated in the United States.
We used the National Cancer Database to identify prostate cancer patients treated with radiation from 2004 through 2012 who met the inclusion criteria of the ASCENDE-RT trial (intermediate-/high-risk prostate cancer, excluding patients with prostate-specific antigen >40 or tumor stage T3b/T4). The Mantel-Haenszel test was used to investigate the trend for type of radiation modality used over the study period.
A cohort of 156,411 patients was identified. Of those, 103,188 men (66%) were treated with external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) alone, 31,129 (20%) with brachytherapy alone, and 22,094 (14%) with EBRT plus brachytherapy. EBRT plus a brachytherapy boost demonstrated a significant decrease in utilization from 2004 to 2012 in both academic and nonacademic centers, declining from 15% to 8% in academic centers and from 19% to 11% in nonacademic centers (p-Value for trend <0.0001 for both). Academic centers were significantly less likely to use brachytherapy boost than nonacademic centers (adjusted odds ratio: 0.68; 95% confidence interval: 0.66-0.70; p-Value: <0.0001).
Radiation oncology practices have demonstrated a significant reduction in the use of brachytherapy boost from 2004 to 2012, and the lowest utilization was in academic centers. In light of the superior results demonstrated for brachytherapy boost by the ASCENDE-RT trial, it is unclear whether academic centers are prepared to train the next generation of residents in this critical modality.
Brachytherapy. 2016 Jun 14 [Epub ahead of print]
Peter F Orio, Paul L Nguyen, Ivan Buzurovic, Daniel W Cail, Yu-Wei Chen
Department of Radiation Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. Electronic address: ., Department of Radiation Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA., Department of Radiation Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA., Department of Radiation Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA., Department of Radiation Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA.
PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27317191
More than 1,100 young adults said goodbye to their parents and families June 30 and took their first military steps toward becoming commissioned officers.
In all, 1,168 appointees to the Air Force Academy were scheduled to begin Basic Cadet Training, a rigorous six-week mental and physical training program designed to introduce them to military life.
Kristen McKenney, 17, is from Orlando, Florida. She stood in the cadet-processing line with her parents, David and Lori McKenney.
This is kind of surreal, she said. Its weird that its finally here.
Kristen earned an ROTC scholarship but applied to the Academy.
I just wanted to be here, she said. My parents made sure this is what I really wanted to do.
David is a 1992 Academy graduate. He and wife Lori are both Force veterans.
Lori said Kristen is mentally and physically prepared to be a cadet.
Its a tough day, but shes ready, she said. My immediate thought is Oh my gosh. My daughter is going into the military. Im very proud of the effort she took to get here.
Kristen graduated from West Orange High School. She was recognized for her academic achievements as one of several Super Scholars in Orange County.
Bradlee Ang, 18, is from Chesapeake, Virginia. His father, Lee Ang, is a retired Navy lieutenant commander. He said his dads military experience, and a visit to the Academy, reduced his unease about BCT.
I was pretty nervous but meeting other cadets put me at ease, he said. Its just nice to finally be here. Everything I did in high school paid off.
Bradlee graduated from Oscar Smith High School. He was class president, and a track and field athlete.
Bradlees mom, Victoria Ang, said her emotions were bittersweet.
I want whats best for him but Im going to miss the hell out of him, she said. Just his presence around the house. [Getting here] is the tip of the iceberg. I look forward to watching him grow into his potential.
Emily Walbridge, 18, is from Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. What was on her mind as she stood in line with her parents, Jim and Ellen?
The bus ride, getting yelled at, losing my hat, she said.
Emilys older sister, Katelyn, is a cadet third class.
Emily is strong and determined, Katelyn said. Her work ethic will help her greatly during the upcoming year. The best advice I can give her is to stay positive and not give up. Emily can accomplish anything. BCT will not be a problem.
Emily ranked seventh in her class with a 4.0 GPA and participated in various leadership positions in her student government, including class president, the Rotary Interact Club and the 4-H Club.
Ellen said she is equally proud of her daughters.
Im really glad they chose a different route, she said. Im excited for Emily for stepping out of the box.
Academy leadership
Lt. Gen. Michelle Johnson, Academy superintendent; Brig. Gen. Andrew Armacost, dean of the faculty; and Brig. Gen. Stephen Williams, commandant of cadets, spoke to groups of trainees before they were taken to the cadet area via bus.
Respect everyone and the talents they bring, Johnson said. Here, you will elevate our performance by respecting the boundaries and humanity of all around you. You are becoming part of the profession of arms. Youre part of a great, elite team starting today.
Brig. Gen. Armacost said Academy life will be challenging but worth the trainees hard work.
"It will be a challenging and rich experience as you prepare to lead our Air Force and become leaders of character for our nation," he said. "You've done great things to get here -- as students, as leaders, as athletes, and as members of your communities. You've proven yourself over and over again, and we're thrilled you're here. Congratulations -- it's a huge day for you. We're honored to have you here as part of the Long Blue Line."
Williams praised the personal tenacity that brought the trainees to the Academy.
First and foremost, every one of these appointees overcame huge challenges, the first of many was to get here, he said. The same resolve, grit and dedication it took them to get here will benefit them through their cadet careers; help them as they transfer from civilian appointees to Academy cadets and eventually, Air Force officers. Ill be thrilled to watch them transfer from civilian appointees into the profession of arms.
The escalating domestic crackdown has seen the morality police and the notorious Revolutionary Guards enforcing oppressive laws about dress and association which would be considered matters of private choice elsewhere, while strikes and other forms of peaceful protest are met with punitive measures.
The author, Shahriar Kia, a press spokesman for residents of Camp Liberty, Iraq, and members of the Peoples Mujahedin Organization of Iran opposition group (PMOI, also known as MEK), asserts that this level of repression is indicative of the theocracys sense of its own domestic insecurity: the precariousness of the regimes survival was very recently demonstrated in 2009 when a narrow protest became a widespread rejection of the entire system.
In terms of Rouhanis foreign policy, The Hill is equally scathing of President Rouhanis record. Iran is designated by the U.S. State Department as the leading state sponsor of international terrorism. That support for terrorism is most vividly illustrated in Iraq. Irans fingerprints are to be seen in the Shiite militia groups, accused by international human rights organizations of pursuing systematic and sectarian killings and human rights violations targeting the minority Sunni community in the recent campaign to retake the city of Fallujah. Syria is also an arena for Irans meddling in other countries: half a million dead as the regime props up Assad.
The alternative to investment in a dangerous and morally bankrupt regime is for Western powers to fully embrace the coalition of democratic forces represented by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), argues the author. This group will be hosting a rally on July 9 where over 100,000 Iranians will join with hundreds of politicians from the West and the Middle East.
Support for the NCRI is gathering strength: 270 members of the European Parliament issued a strongly worded statement demanding that the European Union condition any further relations with Iran to a clear progress on human rights and a halt to executions.
The Hill is encouraged by the U.S. denial of access to the U.S. financial system, not least because of the use to which Iran would put additional funds, as U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, among others, have said. However, it would like to see further action on the part of both the U.S. and the European Union because of the disastrous state of human rights in Iran under Rouhani, because Irans aggression in the Middle East is costing so many lives, and because it is a regime that simply cannot be trusted to fulfil its commitments.
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Adults with arthritis and older adults looking for a low-impact workout are offered aquatic classes this summer through the Special Needs Aquatic Program (SNAP) at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.
Classes are offered on Mondays and Thursdays, with a 12-class session held July 11-Aug. 18 at a cost of $36. Each class is 45 minutes.
The Basic Aquatic Exercise class will be held at 8:45 a.m., and the Arthritis Foundation Aquatic Program will be offered at 10 and 11:15 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Each class is limited to 15 participants.
The classes are held in the therapeutic pool, adjacent to the Quandt Fieldhouse in the UW-Stevens Point Health Enhancement Center, 2050 Fourth Ave.
For registration and more information, contact Professor Rory Suomi at 715-346-2706.
UW Early Childhood Student from Colorado Gains Insights, Experience in Nepal
Student Hayley Pedersen blows bubbles for children in a kindergarten-age class in Kathmandu, Nepal, during her University of Wyoming internship earlier this summer. (UW Photo)
Hayley Pedersen, of Fort Collins, Colo., was one of 12 students in the University of Wyomings early childhood education program who gained insights they say will help them become better teachers during a three-week visit to Nepal this summer.
The students completed internships for their early childhood education and early childhood special education endorsements by teaching in classrooms in Kathmandu. This was the second group of UW students to make the trip to Nepal, following an inaugural visit by six UW early childhood students in 2014.
Pedersen, a senior in elementary education, taught in a kindergarten-age classroom with 25 students and three other teachers.
Personally, I was able to widen my view of the world through experiencing a different places food, customs, religion and people, Pedersen says. On a professional teaching level, I realized no matter the differences in upbringings, kids will always be kids, and their enthusiasm for learning is why I teach.
The trip was arranged by early childhood faculty members Samara Madrid and Nikki Baldwin, who accompanied the students as supervisors after leading the first group in 2014. The students participated in a semesters worth of study and dialogue before going. Supporting the group were the Cheney International Center, the UW Outreach School, and the Department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education.
Our purpose was to provide College of Education students, many of whom have never traveled abroad, the opportunity to teach in early childhood classrooms in a completely different setting than those they may encounter here, Baldwin says. Teaching in a classroom with a distinctively different set of cultural norms and values allows students to look at themselves more closely. They come away with increased cultural understanding and the ability to question their assumptions. They need these skills in an increasingly complex teaching environment when they return home.
The students were placed in four schools serving children and families from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds in Nepal -- including a school with high rates of poverty and homelessness; a preschool that might be considered upper-middle class; and a school that serves children of government officials, international families and private business people.
These different placements provided excellent discussion points regarding similarities and differences between student experiences, says Baldwin, who notes that the students participated in individual interviews and group seminars, in addition to completing teacher-journals reflecting their experiences.
Madrid and Baldwin plan to take another group of students to Nepal in two years. Madrid is researching the impact of the international experience on the UW students, with plans to publish results in the next year.
There is very little published regarding international teaching in early childhood education, Baldwin says. We have established strong partnerships in Nepal that we will continue to cultivate.
UW Early Childhood Students from Lander Gain Insights, Experience in Nepal
Student Aspen Cecrle, of Lander, poses with two children in her classroom at MotherCare International Preschool in Kathmandu, Nepal, during her University of Wyoming internship earlier this summer. (UW Photo)
Two students from Lander were among 12 students in the University of Wyomings early childhood education program who gained insights they say will help them become better teachers during a three-week visit to Nepal this summer.
Aspen Cecrle and Emma Estep completed internships for their early childhood education and early childhood special education endorsements by teaching in classrooms in Kathmandu. This was the second group of UW students to make the trip to Nepal, following an inaugural visit by six UW early childhood students in 2014.
Both Cecrle and Estep worked at MotherCare International Preschool, Cecrle with a class of toddlers and Estep with 4-year-olds.
The children I had the opportunity to work with were incredible, and I am very excited to share my experience in Nepal with my future students, says Cecrle, a senior in elementary education with a minor in early childhood education. My personal gains from this experience include a better understanding of who I am and the values I hold as a teacher.
The internship in Nepal allowed me to step back from my own world and see early childhood education from a different perspective, says Estep, a junior in elementary education. I was able to diversify my own methods, allowing me to integrate their ideas into my own classroom.
The trip was arranged by early childhood faculty members Samara Madrid and Nikki Baldwin, who accompanied the students as supervisors after leading the first group in 2014. The students participated in a semesters worth of study and dialogue before going. Supporting the group were the Cheney International Center, the UW Outreach School, and the Department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education.
Emma Estep, of Lander, was one of 12 University of Wyoming students who completed early childhood education internships by teaching in classrooms in Kathmandu, Nepal, this summer. (UW Photo)
Our purpose was to provide College of Education students, many of whom have never traveled abroad, the opportunity to teach in early childhood classrooms in a completely different setting than those they may encounter here, Baldwin says. Teaching in a classroom with a distinctively different set of cultural norms and values allows students to look at themselves more closely. They come away with increased cultural understanding and the ability to question their assumptions. They need these skills in an increasingly complex teaching environment when they return home.
The students were placed in four schools serving children and families from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds in Nepal -- including a school with high rates of poverty and homelessness; a preschool that might be considered upper-middle class; and a school that serves children of government officials, international families and private business people.
These different placements provided excellent discussion points regarding similarities and differences between student experiences, says Baldwin, who notes that the students participated in individual interviews and group seminars, in addition to completing teacher-journals reflecting their experiences.
Madrid and Baldwin plan to take another group of students to Nepal in two years. Madrid is researching the impact of the international experience on the UW students, with plans to publish results in the next year.
There is very little published regarding international teaching in early childhood education, Baldwin says. We have established strong partnerships in Nepal that we will continue to cultivate.
President of the European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA), Struan Stevenson, overtly condemned the horrific attack, bringing to light the inactions of the United States government, and leadership of the United Nations, in standing idly by while the residents of Camp Liberty came under this egregious attack.
Stevenson reiterated the claims that, for the past 8 days food, fuel and medicines have been blockaded by the Iraqi governments agents again acting on orders from their Iranian sponsors. This blockade has caused untold suffering to the residents during Ramadan while temperatures have soared to over 50 degrees and they have no fresh food, or any means of fueling generators to provide air-conditioning and no total medicines for the sick.
Furthermore, Stevenson emphasized the need of the US and UN to take action regarding not only the missile attacks, but also the disregard for their obligation to the residents of Camp Liberty. In doing so, The EIFA demands the immediate intervention of the UN and the US embassy in Baghdad, firstly to hold the perpetrators of this crime accountable and bring them in to justice and secondly to guarantee the safety and security of the camp until the last person can be airlifted to safety.
The safekeeping and security of the PMOI (MEK) members in Camp Liberty, formerly of Camp Ashraf, is under the responsibility of the United States and United Nations based on previous international agreements that have been drafted jointly by the aforementioned parties.
The people of Iran are therefore embracing the idea that, The only way for Iran to have a different future is under a different regime.
Growing opposition to Rouhanis administration has, The Hill reported, paralleled a rise in support for the platform of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the theocratic regimes democratic, Paris-based parliament-in-exile.
An international gathering for democracy in Iran in Paris on July 9, the author said, will be attended by tens of thousands of expatriate Iranians and their international supporters including distinguished officials and academics from around the globe.
The NCRIs skepticism about Rouhani has proved to be prudent, The Hill reported.
The West, on the other hand, ignored numerous warning signs including Iranian negotiators ever-escalating demands and red lines, as well as a stream of information from the Iranian resistance regarding undisclosed Iranian nuclear activities.
The Hill contrasted the NCRIs support for a non-nuclear Iran that is at peace with Western powers with the regimes non-cooperation with the international community on matters, including Irans stockpiling of ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons and its repressive and destabilizing activities in Syria and Iraq resulting in forced migration with global security implications.
One year on from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, rather than trying to hang on to the seductive power of deceptive rhetoric and a narrative of moderation peddled by Rouhani, or treating the Iranian regime as the best of bad options, the West should support regime change from within via the organized Iranian opposition.
Ken Blackwell is the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. In his July 5th article for American Thinker, entitled, An Iranian Voice Republicans and Democrats Should Heed Mr. Blackwell states, It may not seem so, but Republicans and Democrats absolutely can find common ground on this area of policy. In a very meaningful sense, some already have. If you look to Paris just about a week prior to the Cleveland RNC, you will see Republican and Democratic policymakers, including officials from several presidential administrations, standing side-by-side to show common cause in the fight against Islamic terrorism.
On July 9, in Paris, representatives from both the Republican and Democratic parties will take part in an enormous convention, larger than either the RNC or DNC: Free Iran, organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the democratic Iranian opposition. The Bipartisan American Delegation, along with delegations from the EU and various nations of the world, will be joined by human rights and womens rights activists, religious leaders from the United States, Europe, and Islamic countries, as well as representatives of the moderate Syrian opposition and other anti-Islamist movements.
The NCRIs fight against Islamic terrorism and extremism has broad appeal, keeping it from being packaged as a partisan issue. No single president, political party, or even nation can take on Islamic terrorism on their own. Cooperation and coalition building will lead to success.
Whoever occupies the White House next year will need help from both inside and outside his or her own administration to do all that will be necessary to undermine fundamentalism like standing up to the egregious conduct of the Iranian regime, fighting the Islamic State, facilitating the removal of embattled regional dictators like Bashar al-Assad, and making sure that the peoples of that region have strong, recognizable alternatives to the extremist groups currently vying for dominance. Ken Blackwell declares.
He further says that, As the Republican and Democratic Parties prepare speeches on global affairs and foreign policy ahead of their conventions, they could learn a thing or two from the NCRIs rally, in particular from NCRI President Maryam Rajavi, a devout and profoundly anti-fundamentalist Muslim woman leader. With a clear understanding of Islamic extremism, she has maintained that moderate democratic Islam is the antidote to the violent conduct of extremists under the cloak of Islam.
But, the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK), the main constituent of the NCRI, has paid a heavy price: 120,000 of the activists have been executed by Islamic extremists ruling in Iran during the past 30 years.
The presence of Democratic and Republican representatives at the Free Iran convention means cooperation between parties, and that they are prepared to convey the perspective of President Maryam Rajavi to their colleagues regarding moderate Muslims in the Middle East, and that the destructive role of extremism can be halted. Her ten-point plan includes the establishment of truly democratic governance in the Middle East, the separation of religion and state, an end to institutional misogyny, and many other principles that will appeal to Americans, along with all civilized peoples of the world.
Mr. Blackwell hopes that, coming so close on the heels of the NCRI rally, the Republican and Democratic National Conventions will put more focus on these principles that can bring us together in such an important common cause. The message from Paris is one that both conventions would be wise to heed.
Raul Mendoza is just one of 32 hopeful wrestlers that will be competing to win the upcoming tournament hosted by WWE; The Cruiserweight Classic.
The 24-year-old has his eyes firmly fixed on the prize but is hoping that his performances will make his country proud more than anything else.
Mexico's Mendoza
Mendoza will enter the competition as one of the many unknown qualities within the tournament but it could play to his advantage when he faces off against the experienced The Brian Kendrick in the opening episode of the Cruiserweight Classic.
The tournament which will be held at NXT's home; Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida will feature a number of international performers with a total of 17 nations set to be represented among the competitors.
The 25-year-old Luchador says he is 'happy' to be at the event and is hoping that he can represent his country well among others also.
He said (while accompanied by a translator) "I am very happy and ready for my first match here in WWE, preparing well and just getting ready. "
On representing his home nation of Mexico he said "I am very happy to not only represent my country but to represent the school that I have came from and to also be included in the top 32 cruiserweights from all over the world."
With his focus on winning the competition he said he also wants to 'impress' everyone who watches him perform as he said "I want to leave a great impression, not only with the fans but everyone involved.
"I especially want to impress my fellow cruiserweight combatants and of course win the whole tournament and represent my country well while doing so."
Mendoza is scheduled to take on former WWE superstar Brian Kendrick in the final match of Episode one which will be shown on the WWE Network on July 13th.
Looking up to Eddie
The brief introductions that were given to the competitors during the debut showing that took place via Facebook Live highlighted a number of key details about the performers and revealed who the Mexican who in his home country performs under the name Jinzo looks up to.
Like many others within the wrestling and WWE world, such as Sasha Banks, Mendoza idolized the late-great Eddie Guerrero as told during his introduction by lead commentator Mauro Ranello.
The former WCW star will be a key figure for many of the wrestlers ahead of the tournament and is one of the most famous cruiserweight stars in the world.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/LIZZY MEEHAN Miss Ventura County Caitlyn Cappadona (left) and Miss Ventura County's Outstanding Teen Erika Cook competed in Fresno on July 1 and 2 for state titles.
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By Alicia Doyle, Special to The Star
Although they didn't win the titles of Miss Teen California or Miss California over the weekend, Erika Cook and Caitlyn Cappadona said the chance to compete was an experience of a lifetime.
"It's been a great journey for both of us," said Cappadona, 21, of Camarillo.
The two women represented Ventura County at the state pageant in Fresno on July 1 and 2 Cook, 16, as Miss Ventura County's Outstanding Teen, and Cappadona as Miss Ventura County. They'd been crowned during a regional contest in Moorpark earlier this year.
"We will both wear our (local) crowns until January 14, when we pass our crown on to our successors," Cappadona noted. "For me, I'm excited about the local title and continuing to be involvedin my community."
In Fresno, both women competed against nearly 50 other contestants in their title categories. But neither made the top 15, which was required for advancement to the next level.
"Neither one of them made the top 15, but they both did the best they could possibly do," said Nancy Gruttemeyer, of Moorpark, executive director of the Miss Ventura County pageant. "They were amazing; they did so well and they conducted themselves beautifully. It's all about the journey, and they did the very best they could do on this journey."
Cook, of Ventura, said she surprised herself at the competition.
"I'm totally proud of myself for doing this crazy thing that I never thought I would do," she said. "I feel really good. Part of it was all the great memories I made and all the amazing women I met. I had the chance to be in a group with the most intelligent, beautiful women in the state."
Before she competed for Miss Teen California, Cook didn't think she'd enter a pageant again, but now she's having second thoughts after her experience at the state level.
"I always said that I wouldn't, but when I came up there I changed my mind," she said.
She noted that because of the age requirement for the teen category, she would vie for Miss California the next time around. Which county she would represent would depend on where she goes to college.
"When I decide where I'm going to college I'll definitely compete again," she said.
Meanwhile, Cook will spend this summer honing her love for acting and singing at the Rubicon Theatre in downtown Ventura, where she will play a part in the musical, "In the Heights."
"This summer I'm doing more in theater, and that's something I'm excited to get back into," she said.
Cappadona plans to continue representing the county at community events, as well as talking to students at area schools about her platform: the prevention and awareness of cyber bullying. Cappadona, who graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in psychology from Pepperdine University, is also planning to attend law school in the fall of 2017.
"I have until age 24 to run for Miss California again, so if I want to, I will," Cappadona said. "I'll take some time to decide. It depends on my law school journey."
Gruttemeyer said she couldn't be more proud of the two young women who held their own at the state competition.
"They were both in great spirits the whole time," Gruttemeyer said. "I couldn't ask for anything better. I'm happy with how they performed and represented Ventura County."
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By Wendy Leung of the Ventura County Star
The motorcyclist killed in a Saturday crash near Oxnard has been identified, officials said Wednesday.
Albert Rosales, 32, of Port Hueneme, crashed his motorcycle into a car on Rice Avenue near Channel Islands Boulevard. The accident happened around 9:45 p.m.
Rosales was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said. The driver of the car suffered minor injuries.
STAR FILE PHOTO
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By Wendy Leung of the Ventura County Star
Dogs, whether leashed or not, will be prohibited from Ormond Beach when a set of new regulations go into effect Thursday.
Rules approved by the Oxnard City Council last month ban a number of activities including flying kites, camping, making fires, and driving all-terrain vehicles. No animals except leashed service dogs will be allowed, under the revised ordinance.
Starting Thursday, violators could be fined up to $500.
Ormond Beach is home to a diverse group of wildlife and plant species including the western snowy plover, a federally listed threatened species. Many environmental groups consider the beach to be the most important wetland restoration opportunity in Southern California.
"There's not always one solution but we believe this ordinance is one that aligns public use with the sensitive nature of the area," said Lily Verdone of The Nature Conservancy.
The ordinance is backed by a number of groups including the Ventura Audubon Society, Coastal Conservancy and U.S. Fish and Wildlife.
According to the city, one of the more common problems at the beach is the presence of dogs and their potential disturbance of sensitive bird species. The beach is known to host more than 200 migratory bird species.
Other activities prohibited under the new ordinance are: use of remote-controlled cars, planes or drones; altering sand dunes; removal of vegetation; and entering or interfering with designated habitat areas.
Signs outlining these restrictions are posted on Arnold Road, Perkins Road and McWane Avenue.
The new restrictions follow the sale of 13 acres near Ormond Beach to The Nature Conservancy for wetlands restoration.
Last week, the council acting as the successor to the former redevelopment agency, approved the $80,000 sale of the property near Hueneme and Perkins roads. The city, after splitting the proceeds with other taxing entities including the county and school and water districts, is expected to receive approximately $15,800.
The sale price was a matter of contention for Councilman Bert Perello, who was the lone dissenter in the approval of the land deal. Perello thought the city should have gone out to bid to seek the highest price for the land.
"I cannot go for that price," said Perello at a council meeting last week. "The $15,000 will not even pay for our legal fees. We will basically be giving it away."
The sale of the land to The Nature Conservancy was approved by the state finance department, which did not require the city to go through a typical bidding process.
Kymberly Horner, the city's economic development director, said appraisals of the land by the city and The Nature Conservancy put the current value at approximately $80,000.
In 2005, the land had an estimated value of $612,000.
The value has dropped significantly since the city changed its land use designation in 2011 from industry to resource protection. The change limits the use of the property to wetlands restoration.
Councilwoman Carmen Ramirez applauded The Nature Conservancy for investing in Ormond Beach to create and protect a vast coastal wetlands area.
"I want to thank them for their efforts to make the city whole again," Ramirez said. "That's how we make our city whole, not with cash."
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/KENNETH JENKINS Actors and producers prepare to shoot a scene portraying the shooting at the state Employment Development Department office in Oxnard.
SHARE CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/OLIVER GOMEZ-CHAIDEZ (left to right) Andrew Jimenez directs the opening scene as assistant director Nick Mitchell sets the frame. The scene from the film takes place at Ventura County Star Free-Press between actors portraying opinion editor Timm Herdt and the shooter Alan Winterbourne. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/NICK GONZALEZ Former Oxnard police officer Robert Vizcarra speaks with director Andrew Jimenez. Vizcarra was one of the officers who responded to the mass shooting on Dec. 2, 1993. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/NESTOR OLIVIO Andrew Jimenez (right) re-enacts a scene from the story as told by survivor Cathy Stinson, who is portrayed by actress Karen Delia-Mendoza (left).
By Manuel Araujo, manuel.araujo@vcstar.com
At the start of film class Andrew Jimenez knew the story he would tell.
Jimenez based his documentary film on the experiences of his mother, who on Dec. 2, 1993 survived a mass shooting at the state Employment Development Department office in Oxnard.
Featuring various survivor and first responder accounts, "The Oxnard EDD Shooting Massacre" documents the events of that fateful day, which left four people dead.
"This film is not going to be about the killer," Jimenez, 24, said. "It's about the survivors like my mom, who are still here to tell their story."
The documentary, which is still in production, is directed by Jimenez, a San Diego City College student from Santa Paula, and has gained attention in recent months from community members across Ventura County who remember the shooting and have gotten involved in the film. Produced almost entirely on City College equipment and volunteered time, Jimenez hopes to release the documentary to Netflix and major film festivals in December.
On the day of the shooting, Alan Winterbourne shocked the county when he entered the employment office, walked into an employee area armed with a shotgun and a handgun, and began firing. He killed three people and wounded several others. He then left the office and later killed an early responder, police officer James Edward O'Brien, 35, an eight-year veteran of the Oxnard Police Department, before dying in a shootout with police.
"When he lifted up his rifle and shot at my mom the gun jammed," Jimenez said. "He had run out of bullets."
Cathie Jimenez, 59, Andrew's mother, said she had no doubt she was going to die in that moment.
"I started flashing back to all these moments in my life," she said.
All she could do was pray as she called 911 and ducked behind her desk as Winterbourne reloaded his gun. She thought the gunman would fire his now reloaded rifle at her once more.
"For some reason he didn't point it a me again," said Cathie Jimenez, who still works at the unemployment office. "He pointed it at my co-worker's desk next to mine and shot at her. That was Anne Velasco."
Velasco, 42, of Fillmore, and Richard Villegas, 43, both co-workers, died that day. Richard Bateman, 65, of Camarillo, was also killed in the office. Cathie Jimenez knew him through his work at ARC of Ventura County, which sent clients to the unemployment office.
Her accounts of the day's events are paired with a tape of her 911 call in the documentary film. The effect, Andrew Jimenez said, will show the grim reality of what his mother and other survivors experienced.
Other firsthand accounts in the film include interviews with officers and reporters who each had their own unique story from that day, Jimenez said.
Frank Forbes, an officer with the Ventura Police Department, took an acting role in the film after telling Jimenez of a connection to both O'Brien and Winterbourne. Forbes said he knew Winterbourne in junior high and high school and met O'Brien at a police training course.
Jimenez said that after he created a Facebook page teasing his film, the project began to snowball into what his professor calls the most ambitious project any film student has attempted in his class.
"I've been teaching for eight years at two different colleges and it is easily the most ambitious project I've seen from a student," said Bob Sly, who teaches the film class. "It's extremely ambitious for one semester."
Sly said other students, already busy with their own projects, were recruited to help with shoots. One student even took on a role as an assistant director.
"We would put out the word whenever Andrew needed help," Sly said. "We'd say 'here is what he needs for the shoot' and everyone would try to help with lighting or sound to make up for what you'd get at a professionally funded film."
Previous attacks, by forces loyal to Tehran, it said, had been fatal. In 2011, 36 were killed and hundreds wounded. In 2013, three separate attacks against Camp Liberty left 12 dead and more than 170 wounded, while in 2015 another 20 residents of the camp were killed in a rocket attack.
The missile attack on Monday followed an eight-day blockade that prevented food and medicine from reaching the camp. The NCRI, the International Business Times reported, has also long complained that the standards at the camp are poor, and that it has been designated a temporary transit location rather than a refugee camp in order to avoid having to meet the minimum standards for refugee camps.
The International Business Times reported that Iranian exiles blamed Monday nights attack on Tehrans Revolutionary Guard, specifically, a special unit of Irans Revolutionary Guards, the Quds Force.
NCRI President Maryam Rajavi called on the UN Security Council and the European Union to condemn the attack. She added that the attack demonstrated that the religious dictatorship ruling Iran is terrified of the PMOI/MEK and the Iranian Resistance, which it views as an existential threat.
The report also carried pictures of the destruction caused by the more than 50 missiles aimed at Camp Liberty. Comments on the report included the following:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/iraq-iranian-exiles-blame-missile-blitz-camp-liberty-tehrans-revolutionary-guard-1569048
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By Marjorie Hernandez, mhernandez@vcstar.com
Sentencing for an Oxnard man facing felony charges in connection with a gang-related shooting of another man in 2012 was continued to next year.
Carlos Hernandez, 23, appeared before Ventura County Superior Court Judge Bruce Young on Tuesday for sentencing, which was continued to Jan. 20.
Prosecutors said Hernandez and another man, David Guadalupe Calderon, drove through the Lemonwood neighborhood in Oxnard looking for rival gang members at about 9 p.m. on Feb. 22, 2012 when they came upon 19-year-old Edwin Herrera.
Senior Deputy District Attorney John Barrick said Herrera, who was not a gang member, was standing at the front of his home in the 2000 block of San Benito Street when Calderon allegedly shot him.
Herrera was going to move his car to the other side of the street so he would not get a street-cleaning ticket the next morning, Barrick said.
Barrick said Hernandez was driving the car and "agreed to serve as a lookout" during the shooting. Hernandez and Calderon are known Colonia Chiques gang members, Barrick said.
Hernandez was arrested on Sept. 15, 2013 and was indicted by a grand jury three months later. He pleaded guilty on Nov. 30, 2015 to voluntary manslaughter and a special enhancement for the commission of a felony for the benefit of a street gang.
Hernandez has signed an agreement with the county District Attorney's Office to testify against Calderon, Barrick said. In exchange for his testimony, Hernandez will receive a determinate sentence of 21 years in prison, Barrick said.
Hernandez's sentencing will be continued until Calderon's trial is complete.
A grand jury indicted Calderon on Aug. 28, 2014. Calderon was already in state prison serving a five-year sentence for an unrelated robbery when he was indicted on the murder charges.
Calderon, 23, has been charged with willful, deliberate premeditated murder. He also faces a special circumstance enhancement that he intentionally killed Herrera while being a participant in a street gang and he intentionally discharged a firearm causing great bodily harm.
Calderon faces a maximum sentence of life without the possibility of parole, Barrick said. Calderon is scheduled to return to court on Oct. 19 for a jury trial/pre-trial conference.
He remains in Ventura County Jail in lieu of $5 million bail.
SHARE CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/VENTURA COUNTY FIRE STAR FILE ART Ventura County Fire Department
By Megan Diskin, megan.diskin@vcstar.com
Six people were displaced after a structure fire Tuesday in Port Hueneme, authorities said.
The Ventura County Fire Department along with the Oxnard City Fire Department and federal fire responded to the blaze, which was reported about 6 p.m. at a two-story townhouse in the 2600 block of Barnacle Cove.
The fire, which was knocked down about 6:45 p.m., damaged a two-car garage and a residential unit.
Oxnard Battalion Chief Gary Sugich said building and safety would determine how many people would be displaced but it could be up to six.
The occupants were displaced and the American Red Cross was called in to assist them, officials said.
About two hours later crews were called to a condominium complex in the 2600 block of Rudder Avenue to put out an electrical fire, authorities said.
SHARE CHUCK KIRMAN/THE STAR Sand is eroding off Port Hueneme beaches, and dredging is scheduled for October. This spot is between the Hueneme Pier and the Port of Hueneme. CHUCK KIRMAN/THE STAR Sand is eroding off Port Hueneme beaches, and dredging is scheduled for October. This spot is between the Hueneme Pier and the Port of Hueneme. CHUCK KIRMAN/THE STAR Surf crashes against an eroded part of the beach near the Port of Hueneme. Dredging is scheduled for October, which will replenish some of the sand. CHUCK KIRMAN/THE STAR Sofia Avalos (left) and her children Audrey Villa, Nathan Garcia and Vanessa Villa, play at an eroded area of Port Hueneme's beaches. Dredging is scheduled for October. This location is between the Hueneme Pier and the Port of Hueneme.
By Anne Kallas, Special to The Star
Once again, the sand on Port Hueneme's beaches is slowly washing away, a cyclical phenomenon that has plagued the area for more than 70 years.
And once again, dredging equipment is on the way.
Channel Islands Harbor Director Lyn Krieger said the equipment will be moved into place in October or early November to pump about 1 million cubic yards of sand from the Channel Islands Harbor sand trap, which currently holds twice that much.
The condition of Port Hueneme's beaches has been an issue ever since the deep-water Port of Hueneme was constructed in the late 1930s by a group of local businessmen led by Richard Bard. The port interrupted the natural flow of sand southward along the California coast. Beaches south of the new port were stripped of sand.
The Navy took over the port during World War II, and after two buildings at the air station at Naval Base Ventura County were lost to the ocean in the 1940s, the problem was addressed. Accepting responsibility, Congress had the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a sand trap north of the Channel Islands Harbor.
Every two years since the early 1960s, sand has been dredged from the sand trap and funneled down the coast to Silver Strand Beach, Naval Base Ventura County, Port Hueneme's beach and Ormond Beach.
But the dredging isn't required, Krieger noted, and the amount of sand dredged is contingent on federal funding.
"It all depends on what is in the budget," Krieger said.
She said that said getting a full authorization for dredging cuts into allocations for other cities and agencies.
"Ventura Harbor is significantly under-dredged," she said. "It's only fair that this evens out over time."
In 2014, 2.2 million cubic yards of sand were dredged, which went a long way toward making up the shortages of previous cycles. But now the sand is once again moving down the coast, and residents have expressed concern at Port Hueneme City Council meetings.
Krieger said sand replenishment has become such an issue over the past 10 years that she starts to work on funding negotiations for the next cycle even as the current dredging is taking place.
Interim Port Hueneme Public Works Director Butch Britt said the beaches have lost a great deal of the sand that was pumped during the last replenishment, but he is optimistic the problem will be short-lived.
"If we get the replenishment, which we're scheduled to get, we should be in good shape," said Britt, who has toured the beachfront. "There didn't look to be anything our staff and Public Works Department need to be doing right now. (Erosion) is obviously taking place, but we're in contact with the county, which is the sponsor of the project."
Port Hueneme City Councilman Tom Figg has said the city needs to do more to address the situation.
"My recommendations remain the same as when I was elected in 2014: Institute proactive monitoring of sand replenishment with preemptive political and legislative intervention to prevent recurrence of severe beach erosion," he said.
Figg said he believes such monitoring will prevent losses to the city.
"We must be strategic as opposed to dealing with problems after the fact," he said. "That kind of strategy cost this city more than $2 million in the last erosion event and contributed to the depletion of our general fund reserves."
Port Hueneme Mayor Doug Breeze said monitoring alone isn't enough.
"The problem is we can't force Congress to approve funding. I don't care how hard we work. We can't get it," Breeze said, adding that it was a collaborative effort among all of those affected by the erosion, along with support from area lawmakers, that led to increased sand being pumped during the last cycle.
Breeze said that city staff and council have worked diligently to get more sand on the beaches, but because Port Hueneme is not the lead agency on the project, there's only so much that can be done.
"The county is the lead agency," he said. "We have agreement with the county that city representatives will attend local meetings and be involved in talks with the Army Corps. But the city helps, it's not the lead."
CONTRIBUTED Photo This photo was taken in 1928 days after the St. Francis Dame collapsed in San Fransicisquito Canyon, east of Santa Clarita. The failure of the St. Francis Dam on March 12, 1928, is regarded as the worst American civil engineering failure of the 20th century, affecting the Santa Clara River Valley profoundly.
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By Bartholomew Sullivan, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON A bill creating a 440-acre national monument at the site of the St. Francis Dam to commemorate the 1928 collapse that killed at least 530 people passed the House Tuesday evening on a voice vote.
The disaster at the dam on the St. Francisquito Creek north of Santa Clarita sent a 180-feet wall of water into the Santa Clara River and inundated Fillmore, Bardsdale and Santa Paula on its 54-mile race to the sea.
U.S. Reps. Steve Knight, R-Lancaster, and Julia Brownley, D-Westlake Village, co-sponsored the bill to honor the victims and remind the country of California's second worst disaster after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. It will be financed through private donations and administered by the U.S. Forest Service with a visitors' center and museum where the names of the known victims would be displayed.
Alan Pollack, president of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society, testified in favor of the bill at a hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee in late May. In an interview, he described the dam's failure as "basically an inland tsunami" flinging debris and people in its path.
"This legislation is long overdue. The victims of the St. Francis Dam Disaster deserve to be memorialized, and that's exactly why we are here today," Knight said in a prepared statement. "I am pleased that my colleagues in the House recognize the importance of honoring the individuals who perished in the St. Francis Dam Disaster."
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By Mike Harris of the Ventura County Star
The Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District has been dismissed as a defendant in 13 of the 14 lawsuits stemming from the 2013 July Fourth fireworks accident that injured several dozen people at the district's Rancho Santa Susana Community Park.
The district's administration director, Theresa Pennington, said last week the 14th suit is set to go to trial Oct. 3.
The 2013 mishap occurred when fireworks were accidentally launched into a crowd of 8,000 to 10,000 people.
State fire marshal investigators later concluded the accident was caused by the malfunction of a two-part fireworks shell inside its mortar tube.
The Rotary Club of Simi Valley hosted the event, which was put on by New York-based Bay Fireworks.
The company previously referred claims from people injured in the mishap to its insurer.
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A new report indicates that at least 12.8 percent of all drivers in California have been seen using their mobile devices while driving.
That percentage probably seems low to any of you who have spent even a few minutes out on our streets and highways. The use of the phone to talk and, worse, to send and read text messages seems to increase every day.
The report from the California Office of Traffic Safety said the figure had increased from 9.2 percent the previous year.
What was even more troubling, however, was the equally sharp decline in the number of citations issued by California Highway Patrol officers for people texting or using hand-held devices. There has been a corresponding decline in convictions from cases filed by all law enforcement agencies in the state.
The last and most tragic fact reported is that the number of California drivers killed or injured in crashes in which distracted driving was a factor has increased in each of the last three years, going from 10,162 to 11,090 last year.
A CHP spokesman told The Associated Press that part of the decline in citations was due to the fact that people are hiding their cellphone use from officers. A decline in the number of officers patrolling roads also was given as a factor.
Those seem to be a little too dismissive of an answer to a problem that is growing and creating a greater danger each year on the highways of our state.
At this point, we do not see a need for the California Legislature to step in and enact additional laws to enforce. But we do see what appears to be a need for law enforcement to make this a greater priority, so we can make our highways safer.
If law enforcement chiefs from the CHP down through local police agencies tell their officers that they want to make enforcement of distracted driving laws a higher priority, we are guessing we might see those citation numbers climb.
And if the citations increase, and convictions also rise, we believe we eventually will start to see a decline in driver usage of hand-held mobile devices.
It is distracting. It is dangerous. Let's stop it.
Saturday night, Angel Management Groups PURE Nightclub welcomed American Idol Season Five winner Taylor Hicks as he enjoyed a night out at one of Vegas hottest nightlife destinations (Photo credit: Amit Dadlaney / SpyOn Vegas).
Arriving around midnight, Hicks made his way to his VIP booth where he was joined by his band members and friends. The American superstar has been reveling in his new found Sin City fame as he celebrates his new title as resident headliner at Ballys Las Vegas.
Photo credit: Amit Dadlaney / SpyOn Vegas.
Surrounded by admirers, Hicks spent his evening sipping cocktails, meeting with fans and posing for photos as he partied into the early hours of the morning.
Rockers Counts 77 featuring the star of HISTORYs Counting Cars, Danny Count Koker with Stoney Curtis, John Zito, Barry Barnes and Paul Disibio, will perform a free show at his rock bar, Counts Vampd in Las Vegas.
All-female rockers Brazen kick off the night.
The ISJ demanded both an end to the organised violence meted out to the camps unarmed residents and an end to the blockade, by Iraqi security forces, which has seen Camp Liberty deprived of food, medicine and fuel at the height of summer and during Ramadan.
Camp Liberty is home to the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK). The US gave each resident a written guarantee of safety until transfer to a third country, the ISJ said.
The veteran Spanish politician, Alejo Vidal-Quadras, President of the ISJ, and formerly Vice-president of the European Parliament, said that the latest attack, which saw 50 missiles cause 50 casualties and widespread destruction at the camp, could not have been committed, given Camp Libertys location in a high-security zone adjacent to the Baghdad airport, unless fully supported by Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its terrorist Quds force.
The IRGC was, the statement said, controlling both the Iraqi security forces and the Shiite militias.
The timing of the attack on Camp Liberty, but days before a mass rally for a Free Iran in Paris, and its vicious nature, the ISJ said, is confirmation of the desperation of an Iranian regime facing a strong and efficient opponent in the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) of which the PMOI is the largest grouping.
In this issue of Vietnam Briefing magazine, we discuss the growing popularity of China plus one manufacturing. We highlight market entry strategies available...
Vietnams digital economy has seen significant growth over the last decade and is expected to be valued at US$57 billion by 2025. The countrys digital...
The handcrafted crown of Miss Vietnam 2016 (Photo: tienphong.vn)
The figure was released at a press conference on July 5, which also unveiled that the northern qualifying round, where 140 selected local contestants will compete, is scheduled to kick off in Hanoi on July 9.
The round will narrow down the field to 40 participants in the regions semi-final round in Quang Ninh on July 11.
Finalists selected from both the North and the South will vie for the crown in August. Each of them will be entrusted with a charity project, which they need to present to the jurors before implementing it. The entire process will be filmed and broadcast on various TV channels so that the public, too, can judge the contestants, together with the official jury.
According to the organisers, in addition to other traditional awards, a new award Humanity Beauty will be given to the contestant who comes up with the best charity project. The kind-hearted winner will be exceptionally promoted to the top five finalists.
The press conference also announced features of the crown this year, which was handcrafted from 63 pearls, which represent the countrys 63 cities and provinces, and 3,260 sapphires, which symbolise the national 3,260 km-long coast, by 40 artisans over three months.
The crown design was inspired by the prosperous and vibrant Ho Chi Minh City, which was once called the Pearl of the Orient.
After 30 years and 14 editions, Miss Viet Nam has emerged as one of the most prestigious national beauty contests that celebrates Vietnamese womens beauty, appearance, spirit, lifestyle and talent.
Accordingly, Bunge will sell 45 per cent of its Vietnamese crush operations to Wilmar, creating a three-party joint venture with Bunge and Wilmar as equal, 45 per cent shareholders, and soybean meal distributor Quang Dung, a majority owner of feed miller Green Feed, retaining its 10 per cent stake in the operations.
The joint venture connects Bunges upstream crushing capabilities to Wilmars downstream oil refining and consumer products business with Green Feeds feed milling and marketing activities, which will enable increased participation in the domestic feed milling industry.
Bunge is excited to partner with Wilmar, the largest downstream edible oils player in
Vietnam, said Soren Schroder, CEO of Bunge Limited. The collaboration will create increased operating, marketing, and logistics synergies across the Vietnamese oils and soybean meal value chains, and help us remain a low-cost operator with the highest efficiency possible.
Bunge is a natural match for us. In Vietnam, it is the largest producer of soybean oil and Wilmar is a major buyer, said Kuok Khoon Hong, chairman and CEO of Wilmar. The soybean meal distribution capabilities of the joint venture also complement Wilmars animal feed ingredients business in Vietnam, including rice and wheat bran, palm kernel and copra expeller, canola meal, and feed oils.
Bunge Limited buys, sells, stores, and transports oilseeds and grains, and processes oilseeds to make protein meal for animal feed and edible oil products for commercial customers and consumers; produces sugar and ethanol from sugarcane; mills wheat, corn, and rice to make ingredients used by food companies; and sells fertilizer in South America. Founded in 1818, the company is headquartered in White Plains, New York. It operates in over 40 countries with approximately 35,000 employees.
Wilmar International Limited, founded in 1991 and headquartered in Singapore, operates in oil palm cultivation, oilseed crushing, edible oils refining, sugar milling and refining, specialty fats, oleochemicals, biodiesel and fertilizer manufacturing as well as rice and flour milling. At the core of Wilmars strategy is an integrated agribusiness model that encompasses the entire value chain of the agricultural commodity business, from cultivation, processing, merchandising to manufacturing of a wide range of branded agricultural products. It has over 500 manufacturing plants and an extensive distribution network covering China, India, Indonesia, and some 50 other countries and has a multinational workforce of about 92,000 people.
An official of the environment department inspects the area where waste water is discharged by the Viet Thai Trade and Production Ltd.Co in Tuy Hoa City. Photo baophuyen.com.vn
This was announced by officials of the Natural Resources and Environment Department yesterday.
The officials took samples of waste water from the Viet Thai Trade and Production Ltd. Co in Tuy Hoa Citys An Phu Industrial Zone for testing.
The untreated waste water was black in colour and full of worms because it had remained stagnant for a long time behind the companys factory.
The stench of the waste water had spread several metres around the area.
Cao Xuan Phuc, the company director, admitted to discharging waste water, which had resulted in environmental pollution.
The company had built eight tanks to collect waste water, but with a large amount of water being discharged everyday, the tanks were full and the water had overflowed into the surrounding environment, Phuc said.
He also explained that the company was going through a difficult period, which had started in 2011 and continued even today.
Phuc said the company had not been able to pay dues to the industrial zone for renting land and other debts.
He said the company had asked the industrial zones management board to connect its waste water pipe to the zones system to enable production, but the board had not yet agreed despite the company committing to paying its dues.
Meanwhile, the environment department has asked the company to stop discharging untreated waste water, until it gets a waste water treatment system.
This is third time sanctions that have been imposed on the company for discharging waste water, yet the business continues to flout regulations.
The move took place amidst many companies postponing listing or floating on the LSE, probably due to uncertainty following Britains exit from the European Union.
Closed-end VEIL was originally listed on the Irish Stock Exchange. The London listing is expected to create a more transparent and liquid market in VEILs shares, thereby widening potential ownership, attracting greater analysis coverage, and narrowing the discount to net asset value (NAV) at which the shares currently trade. The listing will also address demand from a wide range of investors looking to benefit from Vietnams economic growth.
VEIL, with a net asset value (NAV) of about $900 million, is the largest Vietnam-focused fund to be listed on the London Stock Exchange. Other Vietnam-focused funds on the exchange include Vietnam Holding, Vietnam Infrastructure Ltd., Vinaland, and Vietnam Opportunity Fund (VOF).
In March, VinaCapitals VOF moved to the premium segment of the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange from the AIM. As of the end of April, VOF invested about 60 per cent of its assets in OTC and listed Vietnamese stocks.
EU Commissioner of Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs, Pierre Moscovici, speaks during a meeting in Luxembourg, on June 16, 2016 (Photo: AFP/John Thys)
Britain's finance minister George Osborne said at the weekend he would seek to slash corporation tax to under 15 per cent over fears of a corporate exodus following the June 23 referendum to leave the European Union.
The 28-nation EU gave a frosty reception to the plan, however, saying it would raise the threat of a competitive series of corporate tax cuts as countries try to lure firms to their shores.
"Going to 15 per cent does not seem to me to be a good initiative," the EU's economic affairs commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, told French radio station Radio Classique.
"We should not enter into exacerbated fiscal competition between ourselves, or fiscal dumping," Moscovici said in the first public reaction by the bloc to Osborne's proposal.
The British finance minister revealed his plan in an interview with the Financial Times published on Sunday evening. The Treasury confirmed the comments to AFP.
Prior to the Brexit vote, British tax rates on corporate profits were already set to be cut from 20 per cent to 19 next year and to 17 per cent in 2020.
But the new target, which has no timetable, would give Britain the lowest rates of any major economy, and put it closer to the 12.5 per cent rate in EU member Ireland.
"We must focus on the horizon and the journey ahead and make the most of the hand we've been dealt," Osborne told the Financial Times.
More than fifty people were injured in Mondays attack, the fifth in four years, and the camp was severely damaged.
The Rt Hon. David Jones MP, President of the newly formed all-party Parliamentary Group for a Free and Democratic Iran, said, This rocket attack on the defenceless residents of Camp Liberty is but the latest in a series of similar outrageous attacks.
The IPCDA, he said, had campaigned for years to try to ensure the international community provided for the security of the unarmed oppositionists in the camp, gaining the support of 400 Members of Parliament from all the major parties.
It was, said Mr Jones, the Iraqi government which had primary responsibility for protecting the residents. That government had once again failed in its duty, he said.
The local telecommunications market is the scene of fierce 3G competition
The prime minister last week gave in-principle approval to FPT Group and FPT Telecom being strategic investors of EVN Telecom.
EVN Telecom will this month announce its strategic investors after its negotiations with FPT and its affiliate FPT Telecom are finalised.
An EVN Telecom source revealed that the stake to be sold to FPT and FPT Telecom would be more than 50 per cent.
FPT Telecom was already licenced to be a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) and is piloting LTE TDD technology.
Mobile business is what we want in our business portfolio and we are enthusiastic in our negotiations with partners. Our investment capital will be 10-times the amount we previously planned to invest in EVN Telecom, said FPT deputy general director Phan Duc Trung Trung.
FPT previously planned to invest VND400 billion ($21 million) in EVN Telecom as the former wanted to use the latters facility to provide mobile service.
The upcoming involvement of FPT and FPT Telecom in EVN Telecom means there would be no chance for foreign entities to be the mobile operators strategic partners.
Previously, EVN Telecom, which is expected to be the first mobile operator to be equitised in Vietnam, announced its plan to sell a 30 per cent stake to a foreign strategic investor. Details of the plan were not revealed then, except that the strategic investor would be a Singaporean or Malaysian firm.
EVN Telecom then also said the foreign strategic investors name would be made public after the company completed its equitisation process in September, this year.
Meanwhile, MobiFones long-awaited equitisation has seen many delays. The company was converted into a one-member company in early July and is still waiting for new government directions. The company planned to sell a 30 per cent stake to investors, including 15 per cent to strategic partners.
Viettel Telecom does not have a clear equitisation plan, as it is trying to complete a restructuring proposal by expanding into other business segments such as mobile handset production.
The long-awaited VinaPhone equitisation is still distant, as VNPT Groups restructuring proposal has not yet been approved by the Ministry of Information and Communications.
According to the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Japan is nowhere near the top choice for Vietnamese companies when making an investment, ranking 45th out of 68 countries, with 35 projects and a combined investment of $6.6 million.
However, while outbound investment to traditional destinations prioritises natural resources exploitation and agriculture, Vietnamese investment in Japan centres around science and technology, with a focus on IT.
The number of projects is not high and their scale is small but the projects are very profitable, especially in IT and software development. They produce high added value and contribute to increasing the skill of Vietnamese IT professionals, said FIA in a report presented on July 5 at the event held by Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) to promote investment in Japan.
The agency said that Vietnam had a lot of advantages in providing IT services to Japan, including a large base of young, skilled and creative engineers who have good foreign language proficiency. Especially in the field of IT, the number of university graduates is on the rise, offering a workforce at regionally competitive wage levels. Moreover, there are more and more Vietnamese students going to school or doing research in Japan: as of now their number has reached 15,000 and is poised to grow steadily in the future.
In 2013, Vietnam became Japans second largest partner in software outsourcing, following China.
Cumulative outbound Vietnamese investment as of the end of May stood at $20.24 billion, of which the top ten countries account for $18.01 billion. Laos ranked first with $5.11 billion, followed by Russia with $2.93 billion, and Cambodia with $2.86 billion. Other countries in the top ten are Venezuela, Peru, Algeria, Malaysia, Myanmar, the US, and Tanzania.
Producing garments for export to the EU at Garment 10 conmpany
The NA will ratify the pact after referring to the law on signing, joining and implementing international treaties, and considering other TPP-related issues such as the TPPs constitutionality and compatibility with Vietnams legal documents, the possibility of enforcing the entire agreement or just part of the deal, and suggested revisions and supplements.
The parliament will issue a resolution to ratify the TPP which will approve Vietnams joining in the pact and recognise the validity of the commitments that Vietnam will carry out, Manh noted.
He said to speed up the ratification, ministries have been requested to worked with the NAs External Relations Committee and other agencies of the legislature.
For example, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has to provide full information about the TPP to NA deputies, and assess the pacts constitutionality and compatibility with legal normative documents issued by the NA and the NA Standing Committee. It is also tasked with evaluating the TPPs impacts on different industries, especially possible challenges, and work out counter-measures.
Organisations and businesses opinions on the TPP will also be collected to help build a road map for its implementation, Manh added.
The TPP brings together Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Their economic ministers signed the trade pact in New Zealand on February 4, 2016.
The member states now have two years to complete domestic work for TPP ratification. The pact will take effect when ratified by parliaments of at least six signatory countries, who comprise at least 85 percent of all members overall GDP.
A view of Tien Cave
Oxalis told customers on its website at oxalis.com.vn that the tour is expected to be opened this month and those interested can contact Oxalis by email or phone to get information about it.
A two-day tour that takes in Tien 1 and 2 caves will cost VND6.5 million (US$292) per person. The price covers bus transport, food, tent, tour guide, porter and items necessary for the tour. Only groups of two to eight people can buy this tour.
The 57 new caves were found in 14 areas in Bo Trach and Minh Hoa districts owing to a joint effort of the British Cave Research Association (BCRA), rangers of Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, experts from Vietnam National University in Hanoi and local people.
Oxalis Adventure Tours is headquartered in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park in Quang Binh.
US President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton arrive at a campaign event in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Jul 5, 2016. (AFP/Nicholas Kamm)
Obama, returning to a swing state that helped elect him in 2008, laid out a passionate, compelling case declaring he is "ready to pass the baton" to Clinton and urging voters to make her the nation's first female commander in chief.
"I'm here today because I believe in Hillary Clinton," Obama told a fired-up crowd at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, pumping his fist and leading chants of "Hillary! Hillary!"
"There has never been any man or woman more qualified for this office. Ever!"
Profile of Hillary Clinton. (AFP/Adrian LEUNG, John SAEKI, Gal ROMA)
But Obama's debut appearance on the 2016 campaign trail, while it showcased his trademark oratory and communication skills, was overshadowed by the extraordinary announcement hours earlier in Washington.
The FBI's assessment, which found that Clinton was "extremely careless" in sending classified information via her personal email account, was far from the complete exoneration she had hoped for as she rallied Democrats in her showdown with Republican Donald Trump.
Clinton and Obama flew together to North Carolina aboard Air Force One for the first in a series of high-profile rallies that the candidate hopes will energise voters - particularly minorities who remain enamoured with the outgoing president, in crucial battleground states where the November election will be decided.
Neither made any mention of the FBI's bombshell decision to recommend that Justice Department prosecutors file no criminal charges in the Clinton email investigation.
FBI Director James Comey said that after an exhaustive probe, carried out with no political agenda, investigators found no evidence of "intentional misconduct" by Clinton or her close aides.
Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said the campaign was "pleased" by the FBI's recommendation. But in a damaging rebuke to the former top diplomat, Comey said the FBI found that Clinton and her team "were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information."
'NO CHARGES. WOW!'
Comey's conclusion that Clinton sent and receive information that was deemed classified, and in some cases top secret, at the time contradicts her repeated assertion that she never sent classified information through her personal email account or homebrew server.
And while they did not find proof that her email had been successfully hacked, Comey said FBI investigators "assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to secretary Clinton's personal email account."
While not as legally damaging as a prosecution would be, Comey's judgment is far from the all-clear that the Clinton team would have hoped for.
And the FBI accusations of carelessness were set to fuel Trump's narrative that the Clintons have operated above the law for years.
"FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow!" Trump said on Twitter. "The system is rigged," said the Republican, who was also taking his campaign to the swing state of North Carolina with an event planned in Raleigh on Tuesday evening.
House Speaker Paul Ryan also weighed in, slamming Clinton for "recklessly mishandling" classified information and saying Comey's announcement defies explanation.
"Based upon the director's own statement, it appears damage is being done to the rule of law," warned the top Republican.
'COULDN'T BE PROUDER'
With just three weeks until the Democratic convention formally anoints Clinton as the party nominee, Republicans have seized on the email case to highlight her perceived lack of trustworthiness among voters.
The former first lady came under renewed fire after it emerged that her husband Bill met briefly with Attorney General Loretta Lynch at an airport in Arizona last week - prompting Republicans to cry foul over possible government interference with the probe.
Clinton meanwhile sought to reset her campaign with their joint appearance, and move on from the controversy and she and Obama took the stage to ecstatic cheers from supporters.
The president is at his highest approval rating in years and can still rally the Democratic base, crucial for Clinton whose popularity is deep in the red, as is Trump's.
Obama proved her all-too-capable attack dog, tearing into Trump and labelling the provocative billionaire as an untested, impatient blowhard without the temperament for the Oval Office.
"Everybody can tweet, but nobody actually knows what it takes to do the job until you sit behind the desk," Obama said in a swipe at Trump's propensity to fire out his reactions on Twitter.
Appealing to working American families, the president warned: "The other side's got nothing to offer you." "The bottom line is, I know Hillary can do the job," he said.
"I couldn't be prouder of the things we've done together, but I'm ready to pass the baton," Obama said. "And I know that Hillary Clinton is going to take it." "She is and will be a stateswoman who makes us proud around the world."
The sale occurred when the construction has been immobile for nearly six years.
In 2008, the Danang Peoples Committee granted the investment certificate and handed over 17 hectares of land to implement the project.
The construction was kicked off in 2010. However, after the investor completed a fence surrounding the construction site, no further stages have been implemented. Besides, Danang-based Asian Pearl JSC proposed the city to adjust the project plan as well as extend the construction deadline numerous times.
City leaders urged the investor to implement the project, which was met with a repetition of empty promises.
Le Tan Nghia, Chairman of the People's Committee of Khue My Ward, said that Asian Pearl is considered a large-scale project in the ward, but confidence is fading as construction has been delayed for numerous years. Thus the Peoples Committee of Khue My Ward proposed the city to revoke the investment certificate.
In 2012, the Department of Construction in Danang requested the investor to accelerate the construction and give commitment about the progress. If the investor had failed to restart construction before the first quarter of 2014, it would have the investment certificate revoked.
After receiving the ultimatum, the investor continued to propose the city to adjust the project plan. The city approved the adjustment, but refused to extend the deadline to resume construction works.
As of now, the construction has been immobile. VIRs reporter contacted with Tran Thi Phuong Loan, a representative of Asian Pearl JSC. Loan said that she left the company for long time and she is not sure whether the company has still being operated.
Photo : nasa.gov
The US space agency had already pushed back the launch by a day to Tuesday.
If technicians are able to finish their repairs as planned, Discovery and its six American astronauts will now launch from Florida's Kennedy Space Center at 3:52 pm (1952 GMT) Wednesday, NASA test director Jeff Spaulding said.
The flight to the orbiting International Space Station is the fourth and final shuttle flight of the year, and the last scheduled for Discovery, the oldest in the three-shuttle fleet that is being retired in 2011.
Tra fish will be traded online from the end of this month, making the trading more transparent, according to the Viet Nam Pangasius Association. - Photo vov.vn
The association's deputy general secretary, Vo Thi Thanh Huong, said a Swiss organisation has helped set up online trading platforms at www.mekongfishmarket.com and www.pangasiusmap.com.
They would be launched by the end of this month, and through them pangasius exporters can sell their products globally, she said.
While www.mekongfishmarket.com would contain news about the association's 50 members and their products, www.pangasiusmap.com would carry information about the farming areas and the standards they meet, she said.
Information about each of the more than 1,100 ponds with a combined area of around 12.3 million square metres will be regularly updated.
Nguyen Ngoc Hai, chairman of the Thoi An Pangasius Co-operative based in Can Tho, said the websites would be of great support to the tra industry.
Farmers can get up-to-date information about the market and fish and feed prices, he said.
To help the online market work efficiently, the association wants a logistics network developed.
Once the network comes into being, all tra fish products would be standardised, Huong said.
A junk navigates the sea of Ha Long Bay, Viet Nam, a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site. - Photo vietnamtourismhanoi.com
The PM ordered the Minster of Culture, Sport and Tourism to start working on a detailed plan in preparation of the ATF, which is considered one of the most important events to promote tourism co-operation among the blocs member states.
Highlights of the ATF will include meetings among the ASEAN tourism ministers, followed by meetings between the ministers and tourism representatives from China, Japan, India, Russia and South Korea. The event will also feature ATF Travex (Travel Exchange) the longest-running annual ASEAN leisure travel trade event showcasing the largest collection of ASEAN tourism sellers.
The regional gathering will also feature a number of discussions on how to develop the blocs tourism.
The Government of Viet Nam acknowledged that hosting the ATF is an opportunity to promote tourism and introduce the people and landscapes of Viet Nam to the international community. It is also the countrys responsibility as an ASEAN member to contribute to greater integration of the bloc, especially in light of the ASEAN Economic Community, which was officially founded last year.
It will also offer an opportunity for Viet Nams tourism companies to bolster business links and attract even more foreign investment for the countrys tourism sector.
The 2019 ATF will mark the 39th anniversary of this event since its inauguration in Malaysia.
A factory mock-up will be built in the Viet Nam Singapore Industrial Park joint venture company (VSIP JV) in Nghe An province. - VNS Photos
The phase will commence construction on the 5,000sq.m ready built factory in the initial phase before increasing it to 20,000sq.m with total investment of about US$6 million.
Last year, VSIP Nghe An was granted exclusive rights by the provincial people's committee to develop a 750ha integrated township and industrial park and the investment licence for phase one of the project with $15.2 million in funding.
The licence covers 198ha of industrial land and 81ha of commercial and residential land.
"A ready built factory helps investors to start their operation faster and with lower investment capital. It is ideal for those who want to start smaller and over time take up bigger units or land to build on their own as their operation expand. We have seen many tenants in VSIP Binh Duong taking this path," general director of VSIP Nghe An Anthony Tan said.
"To date, 124ha of land has been resettled and handed over to VSIP and many more will be handed over in the coming months. VSIP will push harder to quickly fill and put up the necessary infrastructure including drainage, sewer pipes, roads etc. In the next two months, we will also start building our fire station, sewage treatment plant and office building. By next September, we should complete about 140ha of industrial land with tree lined streets and facilities to support our tenants," he said,
It will be the seventh VSIP in Viet Nam after the ones located in Binh Duong, Quang Ngai, Bac Ninh and Hai Phong, in addition to Hai Duong.
VSIP said Nghe An, located in north-central Viet Nam and 70km from the Laotian border, played an important role in supporting Ha Noi, 400km away.
Garment manufacturers, agribusinesses and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sectors are the target industries of VSIP Nghe An.
Till date, the total area of the seven VSIP projects in Viet Nam covers more than 6,000ha.
The latest report said VSIPs nationwide have attracted 616 investors from 30 countries and territories with a total investment capital of $8.5 billion, creating 160,000 jobs.
Turning to Irans human rights record under Hassan Rouhani, Sir David notes that in the past three years alone, the Iranian regime has carried out over 2,400 executions, earning the regime the sobriquet, top executioner per capita in the world.
The Forbes piece quotes Rouhanis public comments in 2014 on the subject: these executions are Gods commandments. These are words which, as Sir David points out, are a very bad fit with the Iranian Presidents promise of reform: brutality continues to run through the Iranian penal system from flogging, for such offences as mixed socialising, to forced amputations.
That this level of human rights abuses should elicit little more than a shrug from the West, is not just weak ethics, the Forbes piece continues, but it is also bad policy. Sir David gives examples, from Rwanda to North Korea to Syria, where a lack of moral fibre, and thus timely intervention, has had, not only consequences for those countries, but also for states in the West.
Forbes outlines Iranian policy. Iran is propping up the Assad regime, and thus helping to unleash ISIS. It is continuing to push towards nuclear weapons with public ballistic missile tests. It sees terrorism as the primary tool in pursuit of its overseas goals. The ideology of fundamentalism and the logic of regime survival propels Iran to be as aggressive abroad as it is at home. For this reason, Sir David asserts, We cant ignore Iran.
That is not to say, the Forbes piece continues, that war is the solution; rather the cure involves empowering the Iranian people themselves to embrace a democratic system we already know they support.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) is the largest organized opposition to Irans current theocracy, Sir David says. They espouse a free and democratic Iran that fosters separation of church and state, a moderate and progressive Islam, as well as friendly ties with the international community and an embrace of international norms.
Appealing for the Iranian voice to be heard, Sir David notes that, on July 9 in Paris, a mass Free Iran rally will see a stellar bipartisan list of American dignitaries join with both the NCRI and the Peoples Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI or MEK) in discussing solutions to the problem of Iran. Those solutions include, the Forbes article continues, heightened economic sanctions on the theocratic leaders and those responsible for human rights abuses in Iran, a recognition of Irans human rights record and violent foreign policy, along with approaches vis-a-vis the nuclear program that are better adapted to an Iran that has time and again deceived the international community.
FILE - In this March 21, 2016 file photo, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich leaves after a closed-door meeting with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, in Washington. Trump has narrowed down his vice presidential shortlist to a handful of contenders. While the presumptive GOP nominee is known for throwing curveballs, here's a look at some of the men and women he is said to be considering: Gingrich, Chris Christie, Mike Pence, and others. ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
What an ordinary drug bust in Utah means for the rights of all
Ginsberg said the record of meddlesome, terror-laden interference throughout the Middle East by Tehran is growing longer the day.
The moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, appears to be in control when Iran is really under the control of the Revolutionary Guards and the political hacks within Ayatollah Khameneis politburo. Funding to the terrorist organizations Hezbollah and Hamas have sped up thanks in part to freeing the assets of Iran by the U.S. and Europe.
Iran continues engagement in its proxy war in Yemen in opposition to the U.S. and its ally, Saudi Arabia. Iran continues aggressive and destabilizing ballistic missile tests in breach of current Security Council resolutions.
He charges the Revolutionary Guards are stationed inside Syria to support the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad with Shiite militias deployed in ISIS battle areas in northern Iraq. They are part of the Iranian governments effort to prevent a stable Iraq and curtail the reinstatement of a lasting UN-sponsored cease-fire in Syria.
Ginsberg criticizes Secretary of State John Kerry for sugar-coating anything that may give rise to criticism of Iran, has turned a blind eye to what U.S. commanders in Iraq are reporting up their chains of command to the Pentagon.
Middle East allies and the international community, he wrote, would have been safer had the United States nurtured the Iran nuclear agreement with an effectual national security strategy to counter Irans regional designs.
Ginsbergs opinion comes only a few days before the large gathering in Paris on July 9 in support of freedom and democracy in Iran. Attending the rally will be parliamentarians, human and womens rights activists, religious leaders from Islamic countries, the United States and Europe and numerous senior politicians and Iranians.
It has been 19 years since the Cambodian Peoples Party seized control of the country in a violent coup.
On Wednesday, two opposition parties the Cambodia National Rescue Party and the Khmer National United held separate commemoration services in Phnom Penh to mark the coup, which was led by Prime Minister Hun Sen.
The clashes in July of that year saw Hun Sen oust his co-premier, Norodom Ranariddh, with dozens killed and disappeared in the violence.
Kem Sokha, the CNRPs deputy leader, made a rare public appearance at a religious event at the partys headquarters after keeping largely out of the public eye for a month since an attempt was made to arrest him.
He called on people to learn the lessons of the coup and not to take revenge on one another. Non-violent solutions are the only way. No revenge, no violence, we only wish for peace and the stability, he said.
More than 100 people were killed in the 1997 coup, many of whom were commanders or soldiers loyal to Prince Norodom Ranariddh, the then co-prime minister, and Funcinpec. They were either killed in fighting in Phnom Penh, or extrajudicially executed in its aftermath.
Nhek Bun Chhay, president of the Khmer National United Party and the military commander who led royalist forces during the 1997 coup, told VOA Khmer earlier this week that mistrust among politicians at that time created the bloodbath and led to instability.
CPP spokesperson Sok Eysan refused to call the fighting a coup, claiming instead that the royalists were arming themselves for a military takeover and were defeated in a preemptive strike.
Prince Norodom Ranariddh created a mistrustful friendship between the co-premier. He bought weapons and also brought in the Khmer Rouge to Phnom Penh; therefore, [Prime Minister] Hun Sen had to crackdown to maintain stability and peace.
Eysan added that the government was ready to act now against any attempts to overthrow Hun Sen.
Officials and civil society groups this week offered starkly differing opinions on proposed legislation in the United States that could see its nearly $80 million aid program linked to human rights improvements in Cambodia.
If the bill becomes law it will see this aid tied explicitly to the government ending violence, the harassment of civil society groups and the opposition party in Cambodia.
Government spokesman Phay Siphan said he did not think the United States was able to judge the state of human rights in Cambodia.
Lets discuss this clearly, why those people were jailed, he said, referring to opposition members and supporters that have been imprisoned on charges rights groups claim are politically motivated. What are the reasons? What are the facts? Why does the law need to be enforced and make its own judgments?
Sok Eysan, a ruling Cambodian Peoples Party spokesman, said the party welcomed the provision of aid from the United States but said he denied that the government and CPP had harassed the opposition.
All the issues that happened in the past were not an act of harassment, but they were the result of offenses being committed by individuals in the CNRP, he said.
Am Sam Ath, technical supervisor at local rights group Licadho, said the tense political situation had coincided with deteriorating human rights.
Therefore, the U.S. told us that if we want to obtain assistance, we must restore human rights respect as well as the resolution that could calm down the political issues, he said.
The United States Trade Representative has announced a major expansion of trade preferences to Cambodia that it said could bring significant benefits to the country.
Under the new U.S. Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), Cambodia, along with other developing countries that produce travel goods such as luggage, will be able to export those products to the United States duty free.
The expansion will give Cambodia access to the $10 billion import market in travel goods, further encouraging the development of Cambodias textile industry, according to a statement from the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh.
This announcement has the potential to open up an entirely new market for Cambodian exporters and to create thousands of jobs for Cambodians, U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia William Heidt said. We encourage Cambodian manufacturers to take advantage of this new opportunity, which would help to diversify Cambodias economic base, spur economic growth, and alleviate poverty.
The GSP is a 40-year-old trade preference program under which the United States provides duty-free treatment to imports from beneficiary developing countries. According to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, We have used these programs to give some of the poorest countries in the world a vital leg up vis-a-vis more advanced competitors.
Mey Kalyan, senior adviser to Cambodias Supreme National Economic Council, welcomed the move, saying it was a good thing for the economy.
When we have the market, I believe that more investors will come to invest in Cambodia. So, it will allow our economy to progress, allow the people to have jobs and more importantly, it will give more added value, he said.
Cambodia exports more than $5 billion annually to its two major textile export markets, the US and EU.
Under the GSP program, approximately 5,000 products from 122 beneficiary developing countries and territories, including 43 least-developed countries, are eligible for duty-free treatment when exported to the United States. In 2015, the total value of imports that entered the United States duty-free under the GSP was $17.4 billion.
With sales exceeding $80 million annually, Huy Fong Foods Sriracha brand has made a coastal Thai city a household name in America and propelled an Asian chili sauce to a condiment nearly as ubiquitous as ketchup.
Sriracha sauce now flavors numerous other American-made products from popcorn to beer. It is lauded in songs and the sauce has spawned several cookbooks all the more remarkable considering Huy Fong Foods has never advertised.
American made spicy sauce
Made with red jalapeno peppers exclusively from a farm encompassing more than 800 hectares (2,000 acres) in adjacent Southern California counties, Huy Fongs Sriracha is hot on the tail of Americas traditional best-selling spicy sauce, Tabasco.
Tabasco, a nearly 150-year old Cajun-style vinegary pepper sauce, is spicier (on the Scoville scale as tested by the American Chemical Society) and about five times as expensive as Huy Fongs Sriracha, created by David Tran, an ethnic Chinese from Vietnam who immigrated to California.
The Louisiana-based McIlhenny Company, maker of Tabasco, has begun marketing its Premium Sriracha Sauce while other mass market imitators and boutique brands in the United States also sell their own Sriracha sauces.
Tran, a major in the South Vietnamese army, created his first hot sauce in 1975, the year his country fell to the Communist North.
Hand bottling a new sauce five years later for restaurants in Los Angeles Chinatown, Tran co-opted but did not copyright the Sriracha name, a variation of the spelling of the Thai town of Si Racha.
In the seaside community on the east coast of the Gulf of Thailand, famed for its seafood dipping sauce, Thais can be disillusioned if confronted with a Sriracha sauce manufactured 13,000 kilometers away.
What do you mean its from America? Its name is Sriracha, exclaimed Booncherd Nilsonthi, a uniformed Si Racha municipal government officer when shown the American sauce in the green-capped red bottle emblazoned with a white rooster.
Food writer Wanvida Jiralertpaiboon of ipick.com agreed, saying, because of the name its obvious that it should be from Thailand.
And how does it translate on local tongues?
This American one is way saltier and spicier. But the Thai sauce is more sweet and sour, commented Nida Khajonrungruang, a purveyor of hot sauces in Si Rachas central food market. However, Si Racha [sauce] has to be produced in Si Racha.
American versus Thai
Her adult daughter, Aree, who also sampled the California concoction brought to the market by VOA, compared it to ketchup, speculating it is a better match for the meaty dishes preferred by foreigners, such as steaks, than the Thai original.
Thais, she explained, prefer a thinner sauce to eat with their typical dry noodle dishes.
Both are good, but the American variety is too hot, Aree concluded.
An owner-cook of the small, outdoor Nong Pim restaurant near the citys jetty was having none of it. Her face did not reflect enjoyment when sampling the Sriracha sauce from abroad.
I prefer our traditional Thai sauce as its flavor is more mellow, well rounded and smooth, declared Matcharee Kedpathum. The American one has some flavor, but its sharp, strong and not well rounded.
Thai brands, relying on roasted chilis, tend to use more salt than sugar for their Si Racha sauces while Trans California recipe lists sugar as the number two ingredient behind ground chilis.
There are several dueling claimants in Thailand to the origins of the original Si Racha sauce. Its creation is attributed to different people circa 1930, including a Thai woman and Burmese immigrant sawmill workers.
Some of my acquaintances conducted research about the sauces history, but they could not prove its origin, Matcharee told VOA.
But one thing on which discerning palates in Si Rachi agree the foreign upstart widely known among Americans as the rooster sauce due to its cock logo and hard-to-pronounce name has flown off in a different culinary direction.
Rights organization Amnesty International is urging Kyrgyzstans government to release Azimjan Askarov, a human rights advocate serving life in prison.
Amnesty said in a statement Wednesday that Askarov is a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression.
The rights group believes that the charges against Askarov were fabricated and politically motivated.
In April 2016, the United Nations Human Rights Committee urged Kyrgyzstan to immediately release Askarov, recognizing that he had been arbitrarily detained, tortured and denied his right to a fair trial.
Amnesty said that he was convicted and sentenced on fabricated charges in 2010 and his case will be reviewed by the Kyrgyz Supreme Court on July 11.
Amnesty is also urging authorities to ensure that adequate facilities are provided, including security measures, to guarantee the right to a public hearing with safe and free access to the Supreme Court for all wanting to attend the review, including lawyers and media.
Askarov, an ethnic Uzbek, was accused of being an accomplice to the murder of a police officer during several days of ethnic violence that took place in southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010. He was given a life sentence three months later.
Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff presented her written defense to a Senate impeachment trial Wednesday, denouncing the proceedings as a farce and saying her alleged crimes were no more than "routine acts of budgetary management."
"Everybody knows that you are judging an honest woman, a public servant dedicated to just causes," the suspended leftist leader said in a document read aloud by her lawyer and former attorney general, Jose Eduardo Cardozo. "I've honored those who voted for me."
Rousseff's removal would end 13 years of leftist rule over Latin America's largest economy by the Workers' Party that began under her mentor, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Her defense made clear she is sticking to the strategy of refuting the impeachment process as a soft "coup" led by her onetime vice president, Michel Temer, a conservative who has taken over since mid-May when the Senate voted to try Rousseff.
Rousseff has repeatedly said her impeachment is an attempt by Temer and other right-leaning members of her onetime governing coalition partner, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, to remove her because she did not impede a sweeping probe of corruption at state-run oil company Petrobras.
That investigation has ensnared dozens of top politicians, including the former speaker of the lower house of Brazil's Congress, who led the impeachment campaign against Rousseff.
Rousseff herself is not directly accused of corruption. But Brazil's chief prosecutor has asked for her to be investigated for obstructing justice in the Petrobras case. She has denied wrongdoing.
Alleged fiscal violations
Her impeachment is technically focused on accusations that she broke fiscal laws by disguising the size of the budget deficit to make the economy look healthier in the runup to her 2014 re-election.
Rousseff has said her budget maneuvering was no different than under previous presidents. But critics have said Rousseff borrowed far more money from state banks than her predecessors to plug budget gaps and hide the real state of Brazil's economy.
Rousseff's suspension in May had ample political support because her popularity had plunged amid Brazil's worst recession since the 1930s and public outrage over a string of corruption scandals involving her government. A recent poll showed interim President Temer is also highly unpopular.
"What most hurts right now is the injustice," Rousseff said in her written defense Wednesday. "What hurts most is to perceive that I am the victim of a judicial and political farce."
Rousseff said she believes she is being targeted because she "never gave in to blackmail. I never accepted ... the backroom deals so well-known in the traditional politics of our country."
Rousseff warned that should the Senate vote to find her guilty, as it is widely expected to do next month, her permanent removal would result in a Temer government that would shift Brazil's politics to the right without a win at the ballot box.
She said that would turn back democratic gains made during the fight against the nation's long dictatorship, during which Rousseff herself was arrested and tortured while spending three years in prison.
"A government that was not directly elected by the people will not have the legitimacy to propose solutions to our crises," Rousseff's defense read. "A government without popular support will not solve a crisis because it itself will always be the crisis."
Cameroon says Boko Haram fighters attacked a command post on its northern border with Nigeria. The attack followed a series of targeted military operations in the area that the government says destroyed at least 10 bomb-making laboratories.
Cameroon government spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary says more than 100 suspected Boko Haram fighters attacked the Homeka border village command post of the multinational joint task force Monday.
He told VOA the insurgents ransacked several villages after they were pushed back by the military. He said one soldier was wounded.
He says the attack on the command post is an indication that even though the enemy is in agony, it is still capable of incessantly creating trouble. He says he wants to inform them that the military will continue to defend the country's territorial integrity.
Cameroon is one of five countries contributing to the multinational joint task force.
Cameroon sent more soldiers to the far northern border area last week after two suicide bombings in the town of Limani killed 13 people.
Tchiroma says troops have since raided eight villages on both sides of the border, killing and arresting large numbers of militants and freeing captives. He says at least 10 laboratories for the manufacture of explosive devices were destroyed.
"Arrow' offensive
He says some fighters have managed to escape. He says they believe the ongoing Nigerian and Cameroonian offensive called Arrow has pushed Boko Haram toward Nigerias northern border with Niger.
Landmines and suicide bombings have been a top challenge in northern Cameroon.
Cameroon sealed trouble spots along its border with Nigeria and prohibited gatherings outside mosques during Ramadan to try to mitigate the threat.
Authorities in China have clamped down on journalists' use of what has become one of their biggest sources of news: the country's popular social media websites. Under new rules, journalists must verify reports in social media before publishing them.
The Cyber Administration of China has punished some major news websites this year, including Sina, ifeng and 163.com, because they "fabricated stories," the official Xinhua news agency said.
Cyber authorities had already pledged to "vigorously purify" disturbing comments made over social media, and make efforts to "cultivate a healthy and active, progressive internet culture for good, so rational threads [and] goodwill replies [become] common practice on the internet." Outside observers say such descriptions are euphemisms for censoring content the government finds objectionable.
The Chinese media have been routinely quoting postings on Sina Weibo, the Twitter-like microblogging platform with more than 200 million users, to report events or details of incidents that are not always confirmed by official sources. A search on the Xinhua website Tuesday revealed hundreds of references to Weibo. The official People's Daily Online even publishes photographs posted by people on Weibo. That could drastically change under the new regulations.
A bigger game
Analysts said the move is part of a larger effort to reorient the attitude of state media and the government propaganda units, as well as artists, musicians, novelists and journalists. The Communist Party feels the media in a wider sense need to refocus on advancing the party's agenda.
"There is an attempt to revamp the role of the media and the cultural industry as a whole. This is an attempt to further legitimize the role of the Communist Party in the changing times," Fengshi Wu, associate professor at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, told VOA.
China's social media are often the first to reveal stories about agitations that occur in different parts of the country and cases of official corruption and mismanagement. Active users of Weibo have exposed dozens of corrupt and wayward officials, often publishing videos of officials taking bribes or soliciting prostitutes.
These materials spilled onto the traditional media outlets, with television, newspapers and online news sites republishing them. Even the country's anti-corruption bureau has often used social media posts as evidence or a starting point for their investigations.
Restrictions on the use of social media as a source for news may result in shutting out a vital source of information, analysts said.
Media's Marxist role
Chinese President Xi Jinping set the ball rolling last February when he visited the offices of three state media companies in Beijing and urged newsmen to pursue "Marxist journalistic education."
Xi, who is also the general secretary of the Communist Party of China, asked journalists to "enhance their awareness to align their ideology, political thinking and deeds to those of the CPC Central Committee and help fashion the party's theories and policies into conscious action by the general public, while providing spiritual enrichment to the people," state media said.
The state-backed China Daily tried to provide a rationale for the media education program when it said in an editorial, "It is necessary for the media to restore people's trust in the party, especially as the economy has entered a new normal and suggestions that it is declining and dragging down the global economy have emerged."
Turmoil within party?
Some see the party's public emphasis on supporting its ideology as a sign of internal turmoil. On June 25, Zhu Tiezhi, deputy editor-in-chief of the Communist Party publication Qiushi Journal, who was seen as a key player in the internal debates, was found dead, the apparent victim of suicide. Zhu was one of the party's senior ideologues and had been engaged in providing Communist rationales for the party's capitalist ways.
But he was believed to have been greatly disturbed by the growing differences between the party's reformists and conservatives. Zhu also wrote that the differences were alienating the people from the party.
"Zhu suffered from depression and was concerned over ideological debates in recent years pitting reformists against a group of increasingly vocal academics in the conservative camp," the Beijing-based independent news outlet Caixin Online quoted his friend as saying.
Kristin Shi-Kupfer, director of research on politics, society and media at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute of China Studies, said the suicide was one of several recent incidents that "point to more fundamental disputes within the Chinese Communist Party concerning the role of media and propaganda."
"Like in many suicide cases of party cadres, personal and political factors are possibly involved at the same time," she said.
The suicide caused a stir, with thousands of people posting a wide range of comments over the Chinese internet. Even state media reported that Zhu had hanged himself, because he was too widely known within the party cadre to escape attention.
"Party Secretary Xi Jinping put a greater emphasis on ideology not only as an instrument of discipline, but also as a normative vision to support the CPCs legitimacy in the wake of slowing economy growth and more expected difficulties related to either economic restructuring or stalled economic reforms," Shi-Kupfer said.
Angry Republicans in the House of Representatives are set to grill FBI Director James Comey on Thursday over his decision not to recommend criminal charges against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server for government business while she served as secretary of state.
Comey has been called to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, while Attorney General Loretta Lynch is scheduled to go before the House Judiciary Committee next week.
Lynch and Comey met Wednesday, ahead of his testimony. Lynch said she will abide by the FBI's recommendations.
"I received and accepted their unanimous recommendation that the thorough, year-long investigation be closed and that no charges be brought against any individuals within the scope of the investigation," Lynch said in a statement released after she met with the FBI director.
Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday said Clinton may have received preferential treatment from the FBI in its investigation of the former top U.S. diplomat. "It looks it to me," he told reporters when asked.
After Comey announced his decision Tuesday, Ryan said the public should know "how and why" Comey reached that conclusion. "What bothers me about this is the Clintons really are living above the law. They're being held by a different set of standards." Ryan added, "And this is why we're going to have hearings, and this is why I think that Comey should give us all the publicly available information."
Ryan has also questioned whether Clinton should receive classified briefings as a presidential candidate, given Comey's rebuke of the way she handled sensitive material.
Surprising and confusing
Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the oversight and reform committee, also has questioned the FBI's decision.
"The FBI's recommendation is surprising and confusing," said Chaffetz. "The fact pattern presented by Director Comey makes clear Secretary Clinton violated the law. Individuals who intentionally skirt the law must be held accountable."
The FBI's recommendation Tuesday lifts a major political and legal hurdle for Clinton's candidacy.
In announcing his decision, Comey sharply reprimanded Clinton, who served as the country's top diplomat from 2009 to 2013, and her colleagues at the State Department for what he said was their "extremely careless" handling of classified material they sent to each other via a private email server she established at her home in New York.
Comey, however, said FBI investigators, in an extensive probe of thousands of Clinton's emails, could not find evidence that she "clearly, willfully" sought to violate U.S. laws and that "no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case" against her based on the evidence uncovered in the weeks-long investigation.
The FBI's probe of her use of the private server, instead of a government server with tight security controls, culminated last Saturday with investigators and government prosecutors questioning her for 3-1/2 hours at FBI headquarters in Washington.
Attorney general under fire
Comey's statement came a week after a political uproar over an encounter Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, had with the country's top law enforcement official, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, on an airport tarmac in Phoenix, Arizona. Both Bill Clinton and Lynch said they chatted for half an hour, although not about the email case, but subsequently regretted doing so while Lynch was overseeing the email investigation.
Republicans and Democrats alike criticized Lynch's airport get together with Bill Clinton.
Following Comey's announcement, Hillary Clinton's spokesman said the campaign is pleased the FBI will recommend no charges; but during a rally in North Carolina, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump called the FBI's conclusion "disgraceful."
"I don't know about you, but I've always felt that Hillary Clinton would escape criminal charges for her dangerous and illegal behavior because I always knew, and I always see, and it's so sad, that our system is in fact rigged," Trump said. "It's totally rigged. It's corrupt."
When she first acknowledged use of the private email server more than a year ago, Clinton said she did so for "convenience," so that she would not have to carry two phones one to handle government business and one to use for personal matters. She quickly acknowledged that mixing official State Department business with personal emails was "a mistake."
Long after she left office in early 2013, Clinton deleted about 30,000 emails she and her lawyers deemed personal and turned over another 30,000 official government-related emails to the State Department, as she was required to do in any event because of government record-keeping regulations. Comey said many more emails were discovered, as well.
Classified emails uncovered
Clinton said she never sent or received emails that were marked as classified documents, but Comey said FBI investigators found that 110 emails in 52 email chains contained classified information at the time they were sent, with eight of the chains having top secret information.
Comey said investigators do not believe that Clinton's emails were hacked by hostile, foreign interests; however, he said "hostile actors" gained access to private commercial interests that Clinton corresponded with and that her extensive use of personal email outside the United States and in the territories of "extensive adversaries" makes it possible they gained access to her personal accounts.
Clinton is not the first high-ranking U.S. official to run into trouble over mishandling classified information.
The State Department found that both of Clintons predecessors, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, also had emails containing classified information sent to their personal accounts, in violation of the departments policy. Powell said the two flagged emails sent to him were not judged to contain confidential information at the time they were sent to him. A representative for Rice said the 10 emails sent to her aide did not contain intelligence information.
David Petraeus resigned as CIA director in 2012 over an extramarital affair with his biographer, journalist Paula Broadwell, whom he provided with classified material. Petraeus pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified material. He was sentenced to two years' probation and fined $100,000.
In 2007, congressional investigators looking into the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys discovered that not all internal White House emails were available. Administration officials had been using email accounts hosted on a server run by a Republican Party political committee, instead of the government accounts. Investigators said that using those servers, which did not archive emails, meant that as many as 5 million emails were lost. No charges were filed in the incident.
Two suicide car bombers struck a military base near the Aden international airport in Yemen Wednesday, according to military sources.
At least six people were killed. Security sources said gun battles followed the explosions as militants tried to take advantage of the confusion.
The attack came on the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Fitr, a day marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
Aden has served as the temporary capital of Yemens Saudi-backed administration since its forces regained control of the port city last year, but deadly attacks have become more common as the pro-government forces clash with local affiliates of Islamic State and their rival group, al-Qaida.
Islamic State suicide bombers killed 45 army recruits at the base in Aden in May.
Five people were killed and at least three others injured in two separate incidents when unidentified gunmen attacked passenger vehicles Monday and Tuesday along the Torit-Kapoeta Road, according to state officials in the South Sudanese town of Torit.
A medical worker at Torit Civil Hospital said some of the injured are listed in critical condition.
Eyewitnesses said that in the first incident Monday, gunmen shot at a passenger vehicle near the small village of Tuhubak, 30 kilometers from Torit on the Torit-Kapoeta Road, killing the driver.
They said some of the passengers narrowly escaped death by jumping out of the moving vehicle and running into the bush.
A woman who survived said the attackers stole everything from the vehicle, including money and luggage.
"It was around 10 p.m. when they started shooting at us, said the woman, who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation. They shot the driver and he fell down, and the vehicle continued to move for some distance. When it stopped, all of us got out and fled into the bush.
When the attackers came, they were calling for people to come out, but no one did so. I had my sister's child, who cried and the attackers came and caught me. They took everything from me and those in the vehicle."
The woman said she could not identify the men because it was too dark.
Tuesdays attack
In the second incident Tuesday, unknown gunmen shot at a Land Cruiser in an area called Idolu on the same road, approximately 10 kilometers from Torit. The driver was transporting passengers to Kapoeta.
Eyewitnesses said four people were killed on the spot, and three others including a child were wounded and are recovering at Torit Civil Hospital.
Wednesday, anxious residents crowded around the entrance to the hospital's mortuary, hoping their loved ones were not among the five dead.
Major General Edward Dimitiri Lokak, the Imotong State Police Commissioner, said security forces are working to prevent further attacks on the Torit-Kapoeta Road, but did not specify what measures are being taken.
The main road is about 100 kilometers north of Uganda and links the newly created Imotong state to Kenya. It is one of the new states unilaterally created by South Sudanese President Salva Kiir when he expanded the number of states from 10 to 28.
France on Wednesday sentenced two former Rwandan mayors to life in prison for genocide and crimes against humanity committed in the African country in 1994.
Tito Barahira, 65, and Octavien Ngenzi, 58, were tried over attacks against ethnic Tutsis in the town of Kabarondo, where they both have been mayor. They denied any wrongdoing.
Ethnic Hutu extremists killed more than 800,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus in a three-month rampage in 1994 while the world largely stood by.
A number of Rwandan genocide-related crimes have been tried in recent years in Rwanda and other countries. This was the second such trial in France, which can rule on such cases since parliament adopted a law that gives it universal jurisdiction over cases of crimes against humanity.
Rights groups welcomed the decision but called for faster trials in other, ongoing investigations.
"We need to speed things up, it's high time, it's been 22 years," said Dafroza Gauthier from CPCR, a rights groups of Rwanda victims. "We need procedures to accelerate while there are still witnesses."
Philippe Meilhac, a lawyer for Barahira, said the accused were likely to appeal the decision.
France was an ally of the Rwandan government that ruled before the genocide.
Traffic stopped Wednesday in parts of Nairobi as hundreds of Kenyan lawyers, wearing purple ribbons, marched to protest the alleged police killings of a colleague and two other men.
The march, which brought demonstrators to the Supreme Court and police inspector general's office, was the second in Nairobi this week against the death of lawyer Willie Kimani; his client, Josephat Mwenda; and their taxi driver, Joseph Muiruri.
The three mens bodies were found in a river about 70 kilometers from Nairobi last week, several days after police had taken the men into custody.
We want to raise awareness that this is a no-go area. You cannot attack lawyers, said Charles Kanjama, chairman of the Nairobi branch of the Law Society of Kenya, the group that organized the march. If you attack lawyers, you are attacking all the citizens. You are attacking the country. It means you are saying that no one is safe.
The three victims disappeared following a court appearance June 23, in which Kimani was defending Mwenda against what they said were trumped-up police charges following an April 2015 traffic stop. Police apparently shot Mwenda in the arm by accident during the stop, and the incident escalated into a series of additional encounters with police.
After the court appearance, the attorney, his client and their driver were allegedly taken to a police administration compound. Their bodies were found just over a week later. The men had been beaten and strangled before they were killed, according to an autopsy.
Compound set ablaze
Outrage has been spreading in Nairobi as more information about the case comes to light. Human rights activists held a protest in Nairobi on Monday, and on Wednesday a mob set fire to the compound where the men are believed to have been taken.
We are, in a manner of speaking, the high priests of constitutionalism and the rule of law, and basically the justice system, said D.K. Githinji, a Nairobi-based attorney who participated in the lawyers march. And we do not want to degenerate to a situation where you will need to be looking behind your shoulders before you can represent a client.
Githinjis comments were echoed by several of his colleagues at the protest.
You cannot silence people because you have that power, because now the police have been given so much power that nobody will be seeking justice, said attorney Faye Shirekuli.
Three police officers have so far been arrested in the case and another is in custody. Kenyas attorney general and the inspector general of police have told the public that they will bring those responsible to justice.
Attempts to reach the police spokesman for additional comment were unsuccessful.
The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights released a statement Wednesday condemning the killing of the three men. It called on the Kenyan authorities to strengthen efforts toward accountability" as well as "take urgent measures to prevent extrajudicial executions and police brutality and other serious violations.
Human rights activists have decried alleged extrajudicial killings by Kenyan police for years. One group recorded nearly 300 police killings over 22 months.
Other activists say the real number is higher, as many victims families make only token efforts to pursue justice because of a lack of resources or fear of police, or both.
In an effort to reassure Georgia and Ukraine the United States is committed to their security, America's top diplomat is visiting the European nations as Russia continues to assert itself in the region.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was in Tbilisi, Georgia's capital, Wednesday to sign new joint military and security agreements that will help Georgian military forces defend their borders.
"Obviously we have great respect for your desires as a country to be able to look to the West and engage with the West without punishment," Kerry said as he met with Georgian Prime Minister Georgy Kvirikashvili and his Cabinet members.
NATO summit
Kerry will discuss security matters with Ukrainian officials in Kyiv before joining U.S. President Barack Obama in Poland Friday for a summit of NATO leaders.
NATO member states are expected to reaffirm Georgia's eventual membership.
Georgia and Ukraine are concerned about Russia's activities on their territory and have sought to associate with NATO and the European Union.
Georgia and Russia were at war briefly in 2008 over a Georgian territory that remains under Russian control. Russia also controls an enclave in Ukraine, which is currently fighting Russian backed separatists after Russia's annexation of Crimea two years ago.
A senior official traveling with Kerry said the visits to Georgia and Ukraine are intended to reassure the countries the United States supports their "Euro-Atlantic aspirations" and suggested that Russia should take note.
Millions of years ago in what is now the central Romanian region of Transylvania, a dwarf dinosaur walked the earth with a non-cancerous facial tumor similar to those found today in humans, other mammals and some reptiles.
The fossilized jaw of a Telmatosaurus transsylvanicus, a type of primitive duck-billed dinosaur known as a hadrosaur, was recently unearthed by researchers at the University of Southampton and is the first time a tumor has been discovered in a fossilized dinosaur.
This discovery is the first ever described in the fossil record and the first to be thoroughly documented in a dwarf dinosaur, Kate Acheson, a PhD student at the University of Southampton. Telmatosaurus is known to be close to the root of the duck-billed dinosaur family tree, and the presence of such a deformity early in their evolution provides us with further evidence that the duck-billed dinosaurs were more prone to tumors than other dinosaurs.
The Telmatosaurus lived some 67-69 million years ago and was found in what is called the Valley of the dinosaurs" in the Hateg County Dinosaurs Geopark in Transylvania, western Romania, also a UNESCO site.
It was obvious that the fossil was deformed when it was found more than a decade ago but what caused the outgrowth remained unclear until now, says Dr Zoltan Csiki-Sava of the University of Bucharest, Romania, who was involved in finding the fossil. In order to investigate the outgrowth, our team was invited by SCANCO Medical AG in Switzerland to use their Micro-CT scanning facilities and to peek un-intrusively inside the peculiar Telmatosaurus jawbone.
The tumor is known as a ameloblastoma, a benign growth that is found in the jaws of humans and other animals and reptiles.
Researchers say the dinosaur likely did not suffer any pain during the early stages of the tumor, but it died before being fully grown, and researchers are unsure if the tumor contributed to the creatures death.
We know from modern examples that predators often attack a member of the herd that looks a little different or is even slightly disabled by a disease. The tumor in this dinosaur had not developed to its full extent at the moment it died, but it could have indirectly contributed to its early demise, said Csiki-Sava.
Election officials in Australia are counting millions of postal and absentee votes in the country's national election. Neither of the two main parties has managed to secure a majority in Saturdays poll, in which there was a surge in support for minor parties and independent candidates.
Waiting for results
Four days after the election, Australians have little idea who will form their next government. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he is confident his center-right party will win a majority, while the opposition Labor party hopes to form a minority government with the help of minor parties and independents. They have been the big winners in this election so far.
Among them is controversial campaigner Pauline Hanson, who wants to stop Muslim immigration into Australia. She has won a seat in the upper house and says many Australians also feel squeezed out by migrants from Asia.
One Nation Party
They feel they have been swamped by Asians and regardless of that now, a lot of Australians feel that Asians are buying up prime agricultural land, housing. You don't keep putting up Mosques, and it is not me, it is our society that actually are on the streets protesting against the building of mosques," she stated. "You cannot deny the fact is in these mosques they have been known to preach hate towards us.
Hanson said her One Nation Party, which could gain two more Senate seats, is standing up for those voters who feel marginalized and ignored by the two major parties.
John Waner, a professor of politics at Australian National University, said Hanson's success is not just about race.
[There are] still pockets of a kind of anxiety and she is kind of feeding on that. The anxiety's about loss of manufacturing jobs, loss of traditional work opportunities, higher areas of unemployment, regions that feel they've been left behind. And then some are also concerned about immigration, Waner said.
Minor parties and independent candidates have attracted record support in this election. They may be a disparate bunch, who variously support tough anti-gambling policies, banning the burqa in public places and voluntary euthanasia, but their supporters believe they are free of what newspapers here have described as the all-consuming narcissism of the main parties.
A final election result is expected in the coming days.
As Muslims around the world celebrate the end of Ramadan, many are struggling to comprehend a wave of attacks that killed 350 people across several continents during the holy month and made urgent the question of what drives the militants to ever more spectacular violence against civilians.
The diverse, high-profile targets including one that struck the heart of Islam in the month's final days underline the warnings of many experts: the Islamic State group, especially when on the defensive at home, will metastasize far beyond its theater of operations.
The extremist group has always sought attention and recruits through brazen terrorism. The projection of daring, operational competence and utter disregard for the norms of its enemies has proven a winning strategy among its disenfranchised and angry followers around the Muslim world.
But having lost the key city of Fallujah in recent weeks, capping a series of setbacks in Iraq, the group is pushing to project strength while also diverting attention from its battlefield humiliations.
"ISIS is waging an existential fight,'' said Fawaz Gerges, a London-based scholar of jihadi groups, using an alternate acronym for the militant group. "The future of the Islamic State is on the line, and it is trying to maximize the cost for its adversaries and also to inspire this particular segment of young men and women who subscribe to its ideology.''
If the militants needed to send a message, the onset of Ramadan provided a convenient context.
Although the month is a holy time meant for introspection, peace and piety, it has been transformed in the hands of the extremists who have thrived during the recent decades of turbulence around the region, particularly in war zones like Iraq, Afghanistan and more recently in Syria.
Although the vast majority of the faithful regard Ramadan as a time for prayer and forgiveness, militant Muslims and hard-line clerics have been touting the month as a time for victory in jihad, or holy war.
Weeks before Ramadan, IS called for its supporters to strike wherever possible. In a digital age where statements on the internet quickly proliferate, those calls appear to have found resonance among some circles of disenchanted Muslim youth around the globe.
From Omar Mateen, who pledged allegiance to IS as he shot and killed 49 people at a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando on June 12, to the militants who killed 44 at Istanbul airport, to the young men who killed 20 hostages at a popular restaurant in Bangladesh on July 1, such violence highlights how radicals across the world can carry out attacks that are instantly attached to IS, even when the Syria- and Iraq-based group does not formally claim responsibility.
They also underlined the increasingly blurred lines in which attacks, even those stemming from local grievances, could be assigned to IS and be transformed into a global cause. The bloodshed, targeting Muslims and non-Muslims alike, also demonstrates the difficulty in neutralizing a threat that is often inspired and not necessarily directed.
Still, many of the attacks appeared to have involved careful planning, spaced out with targets clearly meant to induce fear and shock across continents.
In Yemen, where suicide bombers and other militants carried out at least seven simultaneous attacks in the southern port city of Mukalla against security targets on June 27, 43 people were killed. In one of the attacks, a bomb was concealed in a box of food brought to soldiers at a checkpoint to break their dawn-to-dusk Ramadan fast.
In the capital of Bangladesh, where attackers killed 22 people at a popular restaurant in an upscale Dhaka neighborhood frequented by diplomats and foreigners, witnesses said the attackers tortured some of the hostages before killing them for failure to recite from the Quran.
In Baghdad, residents hardened by years of war said the July 3 bombing was like no other, trapping shoppers in an inferno of fire that killed at least 175 people in one of the deadliest single attacks since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
"This is a second Hiroshima and Nagasaki,'' said Ammar al-Khafaji, a 50-year-old local from Karada district of Baghdad, where the attack happened. His son lost three of his friends in the bombing.
The wave of attacks culminated Monday with triple suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia, including one outside the Prophet's Mosque in the city of Medina, one of the holiest sites in Islam that killed four security troops. The nature of the attacks and their apparently coordinated timing suggested the Islamic State group could be to blame, although no one claimed responsibility.
The attacks come as the IS group is increasingly on the defensive in both Syria and Iraq. Its hold on territory has shrunk in both countries, after losing key strongholds, including the Iraqi city of Fallujah.
Ibrahim Bayram, a Beirut-based political analyst, said the attacks aim to dispel the notion that the organization is going to vanish or shrink.
"With such attacks, it is proving that it is still capable of crossing borders and conducting attacks'' everywhere, including in the holy sites in Saudi Arabia, he said. That is a key for the group, which seeks to boost its credentials and recruitment.
The attack in Medina outside the sprawling mosque grounds where the Prophet Muhammad is buried, however, sparked particular disgust. Millions of Muslims from around the world visit the mosque every year as part of their pilgrimage to Mecca. Across social media and on channels used by the Islamic State group, supporters appeared to be grappling to explain or come to terms with the attack, quickly labeled by opponents as an attack on Islam itself.
This might partly explain why there was no responsibility claim.
Mohammad Ballout, writing in Lebanon's daily As-Safir newspaper on Tuesday, said the attacks in Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia aim to send a direct warning to the Sunni-led nations that the undeclared truce with them may collapse if they don't revise their strategies toward IS and halt their support for the war on the group.
Gerges said the Medina attack was not surprising. "There are no red lines anymore,'' he said.
It is also possible that the radicals are seeking to goad the U.S.-led coalition arrayed against them to take them on in their strongholds of Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.
Those are the prizes, yet the Iraqis seem reluctant to move on their second-largest city, lost two years ago. In Syria, there is almost no ground war to speak of: with the coalition reluctant to ally with the government of President Bashar Assad, it has sufficed with air power, leaving the fight on the ground to Kurdish militias and smaller groups. The two cities offer the prospect of a bloody, house-to-house fight that many jihadis calculate would be worth losing, if only because it would cost their enemy so dearly.
North Korea released water from a dam near its border with the South without warning early Wednesday morning, increasing fears of floods in areas already hit by heavy rainfall in recent days.
The North did not notify South Korean officials in advance of the floodgates opening.
Seoul has said it does not believe that Pyongyang would engage in a "flooding attack," but monitors water levels at the Hwanggang Dam closely.
No major injuries or damages have been reported from Wednesday's discharge, but South Korea has evacuated residents who live along the Imjin river.
Residents in areas prone to mudslides and flooding had been evacuated earlier this week following days of heavy rainfall.
Not first time
North Korea released water from the dam without warning in 2009, killing six South Koreans camping downstream. After that incident Pyongyang agreed to give notice before releasing water from the dam.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency says the North also opened the dam's floodgates twice in May without warning. No injuries were reported in either incident.
The North Korean dam is located about 42 kilometers north of the border and is believed to have a full capacity of about 300 million to 400 million tons.
U.S. President Barack Obamas plan to maintain 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan through the end of his presidency leaves many unanswered questions about the best path forward as the security situation continues to worsen, experts said.
The administration had initially planned to reduce the number of U.S. troops from the current 9,800 to around 5,500 by the end of 2016. But Obama said Wednesday that the security situation in Afghanistan "remains precarious" and so he is leaving more troops than originally planned through the end of his administration.
"The Taliban remains a threat. Theyve gained ground in some cases, theyve continued attacks and suicide bombings including in Kabul," Obama said. "Because the Taliban deliberately target civilians more Afghan men, women and children are dying and often overlooked in the global refugee crisis."
WATCH: Obama statement on Afghanistan
U.S. troops in Afghanistan have been working on two missions. Those missions include advising and assisting Afghan troops as they battle the Taliban and combating al-Qaida-linked extremists and efforts by Islamic State to establish a foothold in the country.
Even as they improve, Afghanistan security forces are still not as strong as they need to be, said the president.
Obama said he made the decision to leave more troops in Afghanistan after reviewing the recommendations by his new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army General John Nicholson, and on the advice of Defense Secretary Ash Carter and other military and intelligence officials.
Dire conditions
No matter how much progress U.S. officials insist has been, overall conditions in Afghanistan remain dire, said Anthony Cordesman, military analyst and Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
You haven't seen major military defeats, but you seen a rise in casualties. Youve seen some serious problems for the Afghan forces. The Afghan Air Force is having problems in growing. The Afghan police the ALP, is not doing well, said Cordesman.
He added despite efforts to reform a notoriously corrupt government, lift up Afghanistans economy and implement costly programs to build up its infrastructure, little progress has been made.
You are watching the economy reach a crisis point. The World Bank and other sources note that this is a serious problem in terms of stability. You see no improvement in terms of practical reform, he added.
Meeting with Afghan officials
The president said that during the NATO summit in Warsaw, Poland later this week, he will meet with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. He will also press coalition partners to commit troops and funding to help strengthen Afghanistan through the end of this decade.
Im confident they will, because all of us have a vital interest in the security and stability of Afghanistan, said Obama.
But with only a few months left in office, Obama will likely have a difficult time securing long-term commitments.
For all of the NATO countries that are in Afghanistan, the key issue often isn't as much U.S. strategy as it is, Is the U.S. staying? suggested Cordesman. How committed is the U.S.?
Next US administration
Obama said leaving more troops in Afghanistan when he leaves office will give the next U.S. president a solid foundation for continued progress in Afghanistan as well as the flexibility to address the threat of terrorism as it evolves.
The troop level decision, he added, sends a message to the Taliban that the U.S. and the international community's "commitment to Afghanistan will endure.
Peru President-elect Pedro Pablo Kuczynski vowed Wednesday to make his "strongest effort" to reopen the polymetallic smelter at La Oroya, part of his goal of wringing more value out of the country's key mineral exports.
The former operator of the smelter, Doe Run Peru, owned by U.S.-based Renco Group Inc., halted operations at La Oroya in 2009 when it ran out of money to buy concentrates. The company also lacked financing needed to finish an environmental cleanup and to pay for upgrades to curb pollution.
Now controlled by Doe Run's former creditors, the smelter faces liquidation on August 27 unless a new buyer is found.
"La Oroya is dying and we have to change that. We have to give it oxygen, oxygen from investors," Kuczynski said in televised comments before a crowd in La Oroya, where former workers have held rallies to demand operations resume.
"You have my word that I'll make my strongest effort to push this out!" Kuczynski said to cheers. The former investment banker, 77, takes office July 28.
March to Lima
Kuczynski asked La Oroya residents to march to Lima to help him press the incoming opposition-controlled Congress to extend the liquidation deadline. He did not say what he would do to make the smelter, which opened in 1922, more attractive.
Kuczynski's party will have just 18 lawmakers in the 130-member Congress, threatening his proposed reforms. The party of his defeated rival, Keiko Fujimori, will hold 73 seats.
Kuczynski wants Peru to become a refining and smelting hub to boost its copper, zinc, tin, gold and silver exports as slumping prices drag on growth. His first trip abroad as president will be to China to talk with officials about potential partnerships on refineries.
La Oroya, 140 kilometers (87 miles) from Lima in central Peru, could process concentrates from several nearby mines, Kuczynski said. Toromocho, operated by Chinese miner Chinalco Mining Corp. International, is the biggest copper deposit near the La Oroya smelter.
"When minerals are refined here, their value will go up. There's a margin of about $400 million that we can recover," Kuczynski said.
The smelter was once the world's most diversified, churning out gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper and a dozen specialty metals. But it turned La Oroya into one of the 10 most polluted places in the world, according to a 2007 report by the Blacksmith Institute, an environmental organization.
The news Wednesday that Oscar Pistorius was sentenced to six years in prison for the murder of his girlfriend sent shockwaves through social media, with most commenters reacting with incredulity and outrage at what they considered to be a short term.
The sentence, handed down by Judge Thokozile Masipa, falls far short of the 15-year minimum recommended for murder under South African law, although the act that defines minimum sentences gives discretion to judges.
Ever the deliberate jurist, Masipa explained her reasoning in a lengthy speech Wednesday morning.
She said Pistorius -- who made history for being the first double amputee to compete in the Olympics in 2012 -- is a fallen hero who has lost his career." She said his request to do community service instead of prison time was a noble gesture. And she said a long sentence would not serve the interests of justice.
No sentence she delivered, she said, would satisfy the South African public.
The sentence she did deliver caused outrage on social media. Many South Africans have demanded tough treatment for Pistorius since he was arrested for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013 at his Pretoria home.
Six years, many commenters noted, is just one year longer than the five-year sentence Masipa originally gave him for his original conviction of culpable homicide, which is equivalent to manslaughter.
There are house songs longer than Oscars sentence, tweeted user Gugulethu Mhlungu.
The original 2014 conviction was overturned last year by an appeals court. That ruling was made shortly after Pistorius was granted parole and released after serving a year in prison.
Pistorius brother, Carl, joined the fray on the other side, tweeting: The record has been set straight and justice done. The truth will always prevail.
If Pistorius was black & non-famous, he'd have got life imprisonment. Saved by celebrity status, tweeted journalist Piers Morgan.
Speaking to reporters, the spokeswoman for the womens league of the ruling African National Congress party described the sentence as an insult to women. The league has been a constant presence at the Pistorius trial and called for harsh punishment for the athlete, for what they consider another example of South Africas rampant domestic violence.
Its unclear how much of the six years Pistorius will actually serve now. He was taken straight to prison after the sentencing.
Now the question is whether the legal proceedings are over. Pistorius defense team said Wednesday it does not intend to appeal. The prosecution did not immediately say whether an appeal is in the works.
The entire affair has been a heady mix of sports, celebrity and death. It has also been an eye-opening experience for the South African public and -- because it was the first South African trial to be broadcast live -- an educational one.
At its core, this is a story of a young woman killed in her prime. Reeva Steenkamp died on Valentines Day when her boyfriend fired four times through a locked bathroom door. She died on the scene. Pistorius said he mistook her for an intruder.
Steenkamp was a model, a law graduate and an aspiring reality TV star. She was the youngest child in her family and her father testified that he thinks about her constantly even now, three years after her death.
Her parents did not speak to journalists as they left court Wednesday.
Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of a Brazilian bishop who was accused of turning a blind eye to suspected pedophile priests in his diocese, the Vatican said Wednesday.
The Vatican said Francis had accepted the resignation of Bishop Aldo di Cillo Pagotto of Paraiba, 66, citing a section of Church law under which bishops are obliged to tender their resignation if they are ill or if there is "grave cause."
Under normal circumstances, he would have remained bishop until he turned 75.
Last year, the Church stripped Pagotto of his power to ordain priests while the accusations against him were being investigated.
Pagatto had been accused of allowing men into seminaries in his diocese to become priests even though they had been rejected from other places in Brazil because they were suspected child abusers.
In a letter posted on the diocese's website, Pagotto said: "I welcomed priests and seminarians with the intention of offering them new opportunities in life. Some were later suspected of committing serious wrongdoings. ... I made mistakes by trusting too much, with naive mercy."
Last month, Francis issued a new decree saying bishops found to have been negligent when dealing with cases of sexual abuse could be investigated and removed from office if they did not offer to resign.
The decree requires the Vatican to launch an investigation if "serious evidence" of negligence is found. The bishop is given the opportunity to defend himself. Ultimately, the Vatican can issue a decree to remove him or ask him to resign within 15 days.
A Vatican spokesman said Pagatto's case was handled under the previous procedures.
The Catholic Church has been rocked over the past 15 years by scandals over priests who sexually abused children and were transferred by bishops from parish to parish instead of being turned over to authorities and defrocked.
In some developed countries, particularly in the United States, the Church has paid tens of millions of dollars in settlements to victims.
The Red Cross launched a $1.4 million emergency appeal Wednesday to fight the spread of yellow fever in Angola, which faces its worst outbreak in 30 years.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in a statement that it would work with the Angola Red Cross to reach 9 million people by engaging communities and promoting health care and hygiene.
The need for a large-scale community engagement approach is increasingly important as vaccination campaigns scale up, said Dr. Julie Lyn Hall, IFRC Director of Health. As much as we try to provide solutions, it is the communities who are the drivers of the response and are the key to the success of it.
So far, over 15 million doses of the Yellow Fever vaccine have been delivered to Angola and the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, but lack of funding, urgent need, and the difficulty of making the vaccine have resulted in significant shortages.
Yellow fever is an acute viral disease transmitted by infected mosquitoes. The mosquito that transmits the virus is the same one responsible for the Zika virus, dengue fever and Chikungunya.
The yellow fever virus is usually very mild, and most people who are infected have few or no symptoms. However, about 15 percent of patients become severely ill and up to 50 percent of those die if left without treatment.
Health care operations at the Department of Veterans Affairs still show "profound deficiencies" and "require urgent reform," according to a report to be released Wednesday by a congressional commission charged with fixing the troubled agency.
Congress created the Commission on Care in 2014 as part of a $16 billion reform law meant to overhaul the VA, after an audit revealed that some veterans of military service had to wait as long as 90 days to see a doctor. Some veterans were reported to have died while waiting for an appointment.
The commission's report says the VA delivers high-quality care, but the care is inconsistent among the health care centers for veterans. Problems with access to care also remain, it says.
"America's veterans deserve a better organized, high-performing health care system," the commission wrote.
President Barack Obama in a statement released late Tuesday said he would review the report closely.
"We will continue to work with veterans, Congress and our partners in the veteran advocacy community to further our ongoing transformation of the veterans' health care system," Obama said. "Our veterans deserve nothing less for their sacrifices and their service."
VA Secretary Bob McDonald said many of the panel's recommendations are in line with ongoing efforts to transform the VA into what McDonald calls a "veteran-centric organization."
Three members of the 15-member board declined to endorse the 292-page report, The Arizona Republic reported. Two of those members issued a statement saying the findings and recommendations fall "far short of what is needed" to fix the VA health care system, the newspaper said.
The congressional commission cites a variety of issues still plaguing the VA system, including inadequate staffing, inefficient use of staff and antiquated facilities.
The scandal was first revealed in an audit of VA health care facilities in 2014. At the time, it was reported that 100,000 veterans had experienced delays of more than 90 days while waiting for appointments at veterans' medical centers. A number of VA officials were accused of altering paperwork to cover up the long waiting periods and other problems.
In fallout from the scandal, four senior VA executives were fired in October 2014.
The 2014 law - the Veterans Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act - aimed to make it easier and faster for former U.S. service members to get medical treatment.
It also provided funds for veterans to see private doctors if they were unable to be examined at a VA hospital, allowed for the hiring of more VA doctors and nurses and made it easier to fire incompetent bureaucrats.
The Veterans Health Administration treats nearly 9 million veterans at 1,700 facilities around the country.
News reports say members of the Islamic State group have started advertising women and children for sale on social networking applications such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Telegram.
The Associated Press is reporting that IS is advertising via encrypted messages the "sale" of Yazidi women, an ethnic group indigenous to Iraq that has been targeted by IS.
A spokesman for the U.S. State Department, John Kirby, told AP the United States continues "to be appalled by credible reports that Daesh [Islamic State] is trafficking in human beings, and sex slavery in particular."
"This depravity," he said, "not only speaks to the degree to which Daesh cheapens life and repudiates the Islamic faith, it also strengthens our resolve to defeat them."
Islamic State kidnapped thousands of Yazidi women and children in August 2014 when it attacked their homes and villages in northwestern Iraq near the border with Syria. Iraqi Kurdish forces backed by U.S. airstrikes have since recaptured some of that territory, but many children have been orphaned and many young women are believed to have been taken into slavery.
The slaves are said to be held against their will and often subjected to rape as well as forced labor. While some women have escaped, they say the slaves are closely tracked and are often recovered, only to face punishment.
One escapee, Nadia Mourad, has spoken to U.S. and European lawmakers about getting more help for the Yazidis.
"They are being used as human shields," she told the European Parliament. "They are not allowed to escape or flee. Probably they will be assassinated. Where is the world in all this? Where is humanity?"
A representative for Telegram, a messaging app, said the company regularly removes public channels used by Islamic State and is committed to preventing abuse of the service.
Americas long-simmering debate on immigration collided with election year politics Wednesday as the Senate blocked bills pertaining to undocumented aliens who commit crimes in the United States.
Democrats banded together to defeat two Republican proposals as lawmakers looked ahead to their national party conventions later this month.
One bill would compel local jurisdictions to cooperate with federal authorities in identifying and handing over undocumented immigrants who are taken into custody. Another bill would set mandatory penalties for aliens who repeatedly return to the United States after being deported.
We should come together and protect the American people, said Republican Senator Ted Cruz, a former presidential candidate. It is time to confront the sobering issue of illegal aliens.
Republicans are legislating [Republican presumptive presidential nominee] Donald Trumps vision that immigrants and Latinos are criminals and threats to the public, said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.
Near-unified Democratic opposition caused both bills to fall short of the three-fifths' backing required to advance.
The measures already had been blocked in the Senate last year, but majority Republicans revived them at the one-year anniversary of a grisly murder that focused national attention on violent crimes committed by some undocumented aliens.
Steinle murder
In July 2015, Kathryn Steinle was shot and killed in San Francisco, allegedly by an undocumented man who had several felony convictions and had been deported five times from the United States.
Weeks before the crime, the suspect was released from custody by San Franciscos sheriffs department, which ignored a request by federal immigration agents that the man be held for deportation.
Like many municipalities and counties across America, San Francisco is a so-called sanctuary city that does not flag undocumented immigrants to federal authorities.
This is madness, said Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, whose bill would cut federal funds to sanctuary cities. Its unbelievable that we have municipalities that are willfully releasing dangerous people into our communities.
Cruz, meanwhile, proposed mandatory prison sentences for repeated illegal border-crossers.
The sad truth is that Kate [Steinle] should be alive today, the Texas Republican said. But she isnt because the federal government failed her.
Democrats see election year politics at play, with Toomey waging a tough reelection campaign.
Senator Toomeys sanctuary cities bill gives him something to talk about [with constituents] when he goes home, and perhaps to give a speech about at the Republican [National] Convention, said Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois.
Polarizing issue
Immigration has long been a polarizing issue in American politics, but rarely with the intensity of the current presidential election cycle.
Donald Trump has described Mexicans as rapists, promised to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, and questioned the impartiality of a federal judge of Mexican descent.
Many Republican lawmakers have distanced themselves from Trumps statements and bristle at any suggestion they are pushing an anti-immigrant agenda on Capitol Hill.
Were a nation of immigrants, said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. We all appreciate the many contributions that immigrants have made to our country over the years.
He added that the legislation blocked Wednesday is really aimed at those who come to this country illegally and have criminal convictions. Extreme sanctuary city policies can inflict incredible pain on innocent victims and their families.
Democrats countered that the Toomey bill would undermine trust and cooperation between immigrant communities and local law enforcement, and that Cruzs proposal would lead to incarcerations on a scale the United States could not sustain or afford.
Democrats also noted that in 2013 the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill that was never taken up by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
The Syrian army declared a unilateral 72-hour cease-fire across the country Wednesday, coinciding with the festivities that mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
Referring to a statement by the military, the official media said the cease-fire would be in effect from 1:00 a.m. on July 6 to midnight on July 8, local time.
The statement did not give details whether the cease-fire extended to military action against jihadists, such as Islamic State and the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front.
Kerry welcomes cease-fire
Speaking to reporters in Tbilisi, Georgia ahead of the annual NATO Summit in Warsaw, Poland, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry welcome the declaration of cease-fire, saying that it offers a period of quiet in honor and celebration of Eid," adding that hopefully it could perhaps be a harbinger of possibilities to come.''
Kerry appealed to all parties to honor it to allow for some respite in the country's ongoing bloodshed.
Kerry also said that the cessation of hostilities in Syria had been a matter of discussion within the International Syria Support Group, which Washington co-chairs with Moscow.
There was no immediate indication whether rebel forces opposing President Bashar al-Assad's regime would abide by the new cease-fire.
Previous attempts to implement cease-fires in Syria have failed, as have diplomatic efforts to end a five-year civil war that has claimed more than 280,000 lives and forced millions of people to leave their homes.
Republican Donald Trump's list of potential vice presidential candidates got a little shorter on Wednesday when one prominent U.S. senator withdrew
from consideration and a second said she wanted to focus on her home state.
The moves by Bob Corker of Tennessee and Joni Ernst of Iowa could complicate Trump's efforts to rally establishment Republicans behind his presidential bid.
With Trump looking at a self-imposed July 15 deadline to announce his pick, there was no indication that the wealthy businessman was anywhere close to reaching what is perhaps the most important decision he will make as the presumptive Republican nominee.
In New York, Trump met with a potential candidate, Republican veteran Newt Gingrich, and told Fox News he has 10 candidates on his list, including two generals.
One source said Indiana Governor Mike Pence is being pushed internally by some members of Trump's inner circle. A former congressman, Pence met with Trump on Saturday.
Corker, a Tennessee senator who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had privately wrestled with whether to be a contender for the No. 2 position, telling friends he had never been a surrogate for another politician.
Corker, who spent eight hours at Trump Tower on Tuesday then campaigned with Trump in Raleigh, North Carolina, told reporters he withdrew because "I just felt like I was far more suited for other types of service."
"You know, it's a highly political role for the next four months," he said. "I view myself as deep in substance and policy, and I just think there are better ways for me to serve in the public arena."
A fairly vocal supporter of Trump, Corker has not shied away from criticizing some of Trump's bellicose rhetoric. His withdrawal takes away an important party establishment figure as Trump tries to broaden his appeal with plans to visit Republicans in the Senate and House of Representatives on Capitol Hill on Thursday.
"Corker's withdrawal could be considered a canary in the coal mine with establishment Republicans who are convinced that Trump cannot stay on message and can't stay focused on attacking (Democrat) Hillary Clinton without doing some type of damage to his campaign," said Republican strategist Ron Bonjean.
Some Republicans felt Trump erred by not taking full political advantage of FBI Director James Comey statement on Tuesday that Clinton was "extremely careless" with classified emails.
In Raleigh, Trump sharply attacked Clinton but strayed from the message by saying the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had done a good job cracking down on militants.
Trump has been spending time with potential running mates to get a feel for them. One of his most loyal supporters has been Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives who has been an influential adviser to Trump.
Gingrich was to campaign with Trump on Wednesday night in Cincinnati, Ohio. Some in the Trump camp feel Gingrich would be the best choice.
Ernst, a rising figure in the Republican Party, spent part of the Fourth of July holiday meeting with Trump. She seemed to be leaning against the vice presidential position, and told Politico, "I made that very clear to him that I'm focused on Iowa. I feel that I have a lot more to do in the United States Senate. And Iowa is where my heart is."
Saddam Hussein has been dead for nearly a decade. The longtime Iraqi president was hanged after a tribunal found him guilty of crimes against humanity in 2006.
On Tuesday, Hussein was one of the top trending topics on Twitter after U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump offered more praise for his style of leadership.
"Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? He was a bad guy, really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn't read them the rights, they didn't talk. They were a terrorist, it was over," Trump told his supporters.
He has made similar statements in the past few years, including in 2014 when he wrote on Twitter that Iraq was more dangerous than it ever was under Hussein.
"War was a mistake, as I said from the very beginning. Bush and Obama should apologize."
But days after U.S. forces found Hussein hiding in a hole near the city of Tikrit in December 2003, Trump appeared more supportive of the Iraqi leader being pushed from power.
"Some people agree and some people don't agree, but we are there. And if we are there, you have to take down Saddam Hussein," Trump said in an interview on Fox News. "And they have done that, and they did it maybe not as quickly as they thought in terms of finding him, but they found him. And that is a huge day for this country."
Bush's justifications
Former President George W. Bush, who launched the Iraq invasion, cited among other justifications Iraq's repeated violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions, including one barring it from allowing any terror group to operate on its soil.
"Iraq continues to shelter and support terrorist organizations that direct violence against Iran, Israel and Western governments," he said in an address to the U.N. General Assembly in late 2002. "Iraqi dissidents abroad are targeted for murder. In 1993, Iraq attempted to assassinate the Emir of Kuwait and a former American President."
That former president was Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, who was in office when U.S. forces led the defeat of Iraq after Hussein's forces invaded Kuwait. President Bill Clinton ordered airstrikes against Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad after getting what he called compelling evidence that Iraq was responsible for the assassination plot.
Sponsor of international terrorism
Judith Yaphe, a former senior Middle East analyst at the CIA told the U.S. commission that investigated the September 11, 2001 terror attacks that Iraq under Hussein's leadership was a "primary sponsor of international terrorism."
"Baghdad actively sponsored terrorist groups, providing safe haven, training, arms, and logistical support, requiring in exchange that the groups carry out operations ordered by Baghdad for Saddam's objectives."
She said that support included the Abu Nidal Organization and the Palestine Liberation Front, as well as Hussein offering $25,000 to the family of any Palestinian who died carrying out an attack on Israelis.
"Saddam's regime first and foremost was a skilled user of terrorism to intimidate Iraqis and eliminate opponents, real and imaginary," Yaphe said. "Saddam's multiple security services succeeded in its internal goals and in eliminating its critics, defectors, and enemies abroad."
Loss for words
After hearing Trump's comments Tuesday, former Iraqi Ambassador to the U.S. Lukman Faily said he was at a loss for words.
"As a diplomat, I tried to keep away from this, but as an Iraqi and a victim of Saddam's ethnic cleansing of us Failys I say get your facts first," he wrote on Twitter.
Criticism also came from the campaign of Hillary Clinton, Trump's opponent in the November election.
"Donald Trump's praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds. He has applauded the strength China showed in the Tiananmen Square massacre, offered admiration for Kim Jong Un's murderous consolidation of power in North Korea, and consistently lavished praised on Vladimir Putin," said Clinton senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan. "Trump's cavalier compliments for brutal dictators, and the twisted lessons he seems to have learned from their history, again demonstrate how dangerous he would be as Commander-in-Chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks."
Trump unfazed
Trump is unlikely to be fazed by the criticism. Throughout the campaign he has portrayed himself as the candidate best able to respond to the current threat posed by the Islamic State group in Iraq.
Two Dutch soldiers were killed and another seriously injured during a training exercise in Mali on Wednesday afternoon, the latest casualties in a mission that has become the most deadly place for United Nations peacekeepers to serve.
More than 11,000 soldiers are serving in the Mali mission, which aims to support the Bamako government in its fight against Islamist militants in northern Mali, who have staged assaults in the capital, as well as in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.
Corporal Kevin Roggeveld, 29, and sergeant Henry Hoving, 24, were killed by an exploding mortar shortly after 1130 GMT, the acting head of the Dutch armed forces told a news conference. At least 103 peacekeepers have died since the start of the mission in April 2013.
"A terrible accident took place in Mali where our soldiers are participating in the U.N. peacekeeping mission," vice-admiral Rob Bauer told reporters. A 23-year-old soldier was operated on in a field hospital before being evacuated.
Some 450 Dutch soldiers are participating in the mission to the West African country, which is meant to help implement a peace deal signed last year between Mali's government and separatist groups.
Last month, the Security Council voted to increase by 2,500 the number of peacekeepers deployed to the country, with European countries promising to send special forces and intelligence experts to support the operation.
French forces intervened in 2013 to drive back Islamist fighters who had hijacked the Tuareg uprising to seize Mali's desert north in 2012. But it has since proved difficult to prevent Islamists staging deadly attacks.
Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has claimed an attack on two U.N. sites in northern Mali at the end of last month, in which a peacekeeper from China and three civilians were killed and over a dozen others wounded.
A U.N. committee says an American businesswoman Sandy Phan-Gillis, detained in China since last year, has been subjected to "arbitrary detention" and should be released or given access to legal counsel.
The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) said in a report released this week that "international norms to the right to a fair trial and to liberty and security" had not been observed.
In Washington, the U.S. State Department expressed concerns about the welfare of Phan-Gillis, urging China to resolve the case expeditiously and to ensure her full access to an attorney.
While not legally binding, we would encourage the government of China to review and consider the opinion and recommendations received from the working group, spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday.
Kirby added that the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou, China, had been providing assistance, including monthly visits, to Phan-Gillis since she was detained on March 20, 2015. A consular officer last visited her on June 20.
Phan-Gillis, who ran a consulting firm that facilitated business dealings between U.S. and Chinese companies, was on a trip to China with a delegation from the city of Houston, Texas in March 2015 when Chinese officials detained her at the border with Macau. She has been accused of espionage.
Phan-Gillis was held for six months in a secret location before being transferred to a detention center in the southern region of Guangxi, where she was initially held in solitary confinement. She has not had access to a lawyer and has not been able to communicate with her family since September 2015, according to the report.
The White House had said in September that it was closely monitoring the case and had asked the Chinese government "direct questions" about it.
Phan-Gillis' arrest has come as a shock to both Houstons Vietnamese and Chinese communities. Although she is of Chinese descent, she was born in Vietnam and came to the United States from that country as a refugee 40 years ago.
The case is receiving renewed attention ahead of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's visit to Beijing next week.
The State Department said senior U.S. government officials had raised Phan-Gillis' case with senior Chinese government officials multiple times.
The United States trade representative has announced a major expansion of trade preferences to Cambodia that it said could bring "significant benefits" to the country.
Under the new U.S. Generalized System of Preferences, Cambodia along with other developing countries that produce travel goods such as luggage will be able to export those products to the United States duty free.
The expansion will give Cambodia access to the $10 billion import market in travel goods, further encouraging the development of Cambodia's textile industry, according to a statement from the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh.
"This announcement ... has the potential to open up an entirely new market for Cambodian exporters and to create thousands of jobs for Cambodians," U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia William Heidt said. "We encourage Cambodian manufacturers to take advantage of this new opportunity, which would help to diversify Cambodia's economic base, spur economic growth, and alleviate poverty."
The GSP is a 40-year-old trade preference program under which the United States provides duty-free treatment to imports from beneficiary developing countries.
"We have used these programs to give some of the poorest countries in the world a vital leg up vis-a-vis more advanced competitors," said U.S. trade representative Michael Froman.
Mey Kalyan, senior adviser to Cambodia's Supreme National Economic Council, called it good for the economy.
"When we have the market, I believe that more investors will come to invest in Cambodia," he said. "It will allow our economy to progress, allow the people to have jobs and, more importantly, it will give more added value."
Cambodia exports more than $5 billion annually to its two major textile export markets: the United States and European Union.
Under the GSP program, approximately 5,000 products from 122 beneficiary developing countries and territories, including 43 least-developed countries, are eligible for duty-free treatment when exported to the United States. In 2015, the value of duty-free imports to the United States under the GSP was $17.4 billion.
The U.S. debate over gun control is on center stage in Washington again this week, but the political battle lines appear hardened against passage of any new restrictions.
Last month's mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida that left 49 people dead pushed gun control to the forefront in the contentious 2016 political election season, even as fractious Republican and Democratic lawmakers remain as divided as ever.
Leaders of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives said Wednesday they would vote later this week on a measure to try to prevent terrorists from buying guns. But Democrats are opposed to the details of the legislation, with a similar proposal already defeated in the Senate.
Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin of New York said the proposal would "prevent terrorists from purchasing firearms or explosives while protecting the due process rights of Americans." It would require the Justice Department to prove that there is "probable cause" that someone is involved in terrorism before blocking a gun sale, a process that would have to be completed within three days.
But conservative Republicans said that would go too far, imperiling the rights of people to buy guns, and leaving the fate of the legislation in doubt.
Too limited
Meanwhile, House Democrats, about 100 of whom staged a sit-in on the House floor last month to demand action on gun control legislation, say the Republican proposal is too limited and are calling for votes on their proposals to bar anyone on the U.S. no-fly list from buying a gun. Republicans say that idea, also defeated by the Senate, will not even be put to a vote.
Zeldin accused Democrats of opposing the Republican legislation "for no good reason because they only want the political fight."
House Speaker Paul Ryan rejected Democratic calls for votes on their proposals, saying, "We are not going to pass legislation that infringes on anyone's constitutional rights."
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi staged a rally on the Capitol steps calling for passage of new restrictions on gun sales. She has described the Republicans' measure as "toothless ... that will do nothing to keep our communities safe." She told supporters Democrats want "real action, not a bill written by the gun lobby."
Larry Pratt, executive director emeritus of the Gun Owners of America, contended in an interview with VOA that Democratic lawmakers are "making a play for our guns right after we celebrated our independence," the country's annual July 4 holiday. But he also said it was "very disappointing" that Ryan is proceeding to go ahead with a gun control vote.
Pratt said the Orlando massacre occurred in a so-called "gun-free zone," where guns are supposedly prohibited. He said such zones should be eliminated and that "arguably if people have firearms there is the possibility" that someone with a gun inside the club might have stopped the carnage sooner. He complained that Republicans, among the staunchest gun rights supporters in the United States, have declined to advance a proposal to prohibit gun-free zones across the country.
With national lawmakers stalemated over new gun legislation, some states have acted on their own, either loosening restrictions on gun ownership, such as permitting gun owners to openly display their weapons in holsters on their hips, or adding new regulations.
California law
In the western state of California, Governor Jerry Brown recently signed a package of laws that added to the list of some of the tightest laws in the country. Among other measures, one new law would require ammunition purchasers to undergo background checks.
Gun control rights are one of many issues that sharply divide the two leading 2016 U.S. presidential contenders, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.
Clinton, seeking to become the first female U.S. president, says she supports an individual's right to own a gun, but has called for new gun sale restrictions to curb mass shootings. She supports ending gun manufacturers' immunity from lawsuits from family members whose relatives have been killed by gun violence.
Trump has been much more vocal in saying he supports the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that upholds individual gun owner rights.
For the first time, the United States has put North Korea's leader on the U.S. sanctions list for human rights abuses.
Kim Jong Un is among nearly two-dozen entities and individuals placed on Washington's blacklist for their role in serious human rights violations, hunting down defectors or censorship in North Korea.
"We have identified 23 individuals and entities in our report, one of those individuals is Kim Jong Un, we have made the judgment that he is rather plainly, ultimately responsible for the actions of his regime including its repressive policies toward his own people," a senior U.S. official announced Wednesday.
Acting Under Secretary of Treasury Adam Szubin said, "Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor, and torture."
South Korea's foreign ministry issued a statement Thursday saying it "highly praises and welcomes" the sanction, in hopes "it will lead the world to better understand the systemic and extensive violations" taking place under Kim Jong Un's regime.
Under the so-called Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list, property or interests of those designated within the U.S. jurisdiction will be frozen. In addition, transactions by U.S. persons involving the designated persons are generally prohibited.
"This will make it difficult for transactions or funds to be held or moved anywhere around the world on behalf of these individuals and entities, so it does call out the bad behavior," said another U.S. senior official, adding that Wednesday's designation will make it risky for any financial institution around the globe to hold or transfer assets on behalf of those individuals and entities through its banks.
Abuses among worlds worst
The State Department said human rights abuses in North Korea are among the worst in the world. Many of these abuses are committed in political prison camps, where an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 individuals are detained, including children and family members of the accused.
Other North Korean officials designated in the blacklist include Choe Pu Il, who is the Minister of People's Security; Ri Song Chol, who is a Counselor in the Ministry of People's Security; as well as Kang Song Nam, a Bureau Director with the Ministry of State Security.
U.S. officials said Wednesday's actions will strengthen and expand sanctions on North Korea. They are consistent with the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in February.
Two weeks ago, Umar Muhammed caught a suspected Boko Haram member who was trying to enter the northeastern city of Maiduguri with a bomb.
I grabbed him and took him to my commander, Mohammed said in his native Kanuri language. Security forces detonated the explosive.
The 32-year-old is a member of the Civilian Joint Task Force, a volunteer militia officially authorized by the Borno state government in 2013 to help tackle Boko Haram. The extremist sect has ravaged northeastern Nigeria and the Lake Chad region for seven years. The insurgency has killed more than 20,000 people and forced another 2.7 million from their homes.
An ongoing regional and Nigerian military offensive has weakened Boko Haram and pushed them out of many urban areas. The Civilian JTF, and about a dozen other vigilante groups around the northeast, played a pivotal role in turning the tide.
They defended their communities from raids and detained hundreds of suspected terrorists to hand over to the military. Some of the Civilian JTF have even attacked Boko Haram camps alongside the military and rescued female captives.
Know the enemy
Along with the operations team, the Civilian JTF has an intelligence unit made up of about 100 undercover agents stationed across the country. They wear plainclothes, gathering intelligence about the insurgents to share with the army.
We know Boko Haram better than the army does, says an official in the intelligence-gathering arm of the Civilian JTF who requested his name not be used.
Some in Maiduguri claim Boko Haram is more afraid of the Civilian JTF than it is of the Nigerian army.
Boko Haram certainly saw the threat. As militants seized territory in the northeast in 2014 and 2015, they executed men in large numbers and razed villages, warning people not to cooperate with the government.
Restoring peace
Some of the Civilian JTF members still patrol the streets of Maiduguri with machetes, hunters rifles and an assortment of homemade weapons.
The Civilian JTF are the saving grace for us in Borno State, in fact in northeast Nigeria. Without their efforts, the Boko Haram insurgency wouldnt have been put down by now, said Bulama Mali Gubio, a leader of the Borno State Elders Forum. They organized themselves from each ward from the city and some of the major towns and started fighting their own friends, their own colleagues who were members of the Boko Haram.
The city of Maiduguri, known for decades as the city of peace, is much safer than it has been in recent years.
Business owners are re-opening shops and students are returning to school. Once abandoned gardens are back in full bloom along the roadside.
The curfew fluctuates between nine and ten at night, a stark contrast to the dusk-to-dawn curfews of recent years.
Looking for recognition, incorporation, compensation
Civilian JTF members are beginning to wonder what the Nigerian government will do with them once the war is over.
They have protected the integrity of this country so they should not be dumped by the government. Government should come in and help the members of CJTF, said Abba Aji Kalli, the Civilian JTF state coordinator.
Boko Haram has killed about 300 CJTF members, Kalli said. Two weeks ago, a suicide bomber nearly invaded his home in Maiduguri.
Were facing a lot of risks but up to now government has not considered us. Government has not done anything to see that the welfare of the members of CJTF are protected, he said.
In 2013, the Borno state government officially adopted the Civilian JTF, giving members uniforms and promising to pay them a monthly stipend of about $100. Nearly 2000 of them got some military training.
But today, they say they are not getting paid and rely on handouts and what work they can find. Muhammad, like many CJTF members, never finished secondary school. He drives a truck, transporting diesel.
He and other Civilian JTF members want to enter the security forces and law enforcement agencies, such as the road safety task force and customs patrol. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has said he supports this idea.
The allocations are already taking place. In June, 350 Civilian JTF members joined the Nigerian army after they passed through the recruitment process. Last year the state security service accepted about 30 CJTF.
Abandonment could be costly
The question is -- are there enough jobs for all 26,000 registered members of the Civilian JTF?
Community leaders like Bulama Mali Gubio are worried.
They now know how to handle arms and ammunitions. They are trained in the art of warfare. If after the insurgency you abandon them, then you are planting another seed of discord. They have sacrificed their lives, Gubio said. "Thats why weve been arguing with the government to make sure that something is quickly put in place before the end of the insurgency.
Gubio proposes that the government give Civilian JTF members plots of land and assist them in getting married in a similar manner that the government of Kano State Nigeria coordinates weddings for residents through its Sharia enforcement agency.
But some Civilian JTF members have other plans.
Im a student and I know what Im doing in my life, said Haruna Issa, a Civilian JTF member eager to resume his computer science studies at the state university.
Issa, a soft-spoken 20-year-old, recounts with fierce pride his work in the Civilian JTF. He said he looked Boko Haram members eye-to-eye while handing them over to security forces.
He's not asking for a job, but he said he hopes the government recognizes them when the fight is over.
A Hong Kong group advocating for workers' rights in mainland China says the country has taken a step forward by passing a new law to regulate overseas nongovernmental organizations.
Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin is one of the overseas NGOs covered by the law, and its positive view of that Chinese law contrasts with strong criticisms from human rights activists and even the U.S. government.
Beijing approved the Law on the Management of Overseas NGO Activities Within Mainland China in April. When it takes effect on January 1st, the NGOs will come under supervision of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security.
The law gives the overseas NGOs two options. One is to register a representative office in mainland China with the ministry. The second is for the NGOs to declare that they are operating in the country temporarily with a Chinese partner organization or sponsor.
Providing clarity
I think we need to see the NGO law for what it is, said Shawn Shieh, China Labour Bulletins deputy director, while visiting Washington last week. Speaking to VOAs China 360 podcast, he called the law an attempt to regulate a sector that has not been regulated before in any comprehensive way."
Shieh said overseas NGOs have been looking to Beijing for guidance on what they can and cannot do since the 1990s, when he said they started coming to China in significant numbers.
He also said Beijing is promising to support NGOs who have questions about the registration process, indicating that it values their presence.
I think the Chinese governments recognition that overseas NGOs play an important, valuable role in the country is not a bad thing, Shieh said.
Beijing has said the law is intended to clarify the NGOs legal rights and obligations in mainland China.
New prohibitions
Chinese leaders also have said the measure has a national security element, banning overseas NGOs from engaging in activities deemed harmful to Chinese national interests.
Such language has angered human rights activists. One group, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, has called for the law to be repealed, saying Beijing will use it to suffocate China's already beleaguered independent organizations.
The Obama administration also has expressed concern. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said last month the law will create an "unwelcome environment" for overseas NGOs in China, while the U.S. National Security Council said in April it will "further narrow the space" for Chinese civil society.
China Labour Bulletin deputy director Shieh offered a different perspective, saying he does not see Beijings new NGO registration system narrowing the space for his group to operate.
"Chinese public security probably already knows a lot about what we and other NGOs are doing, he said. They talk to our partners and take them out to tea, which is a euphemism for basically interrogating individuals about their activities. So I do not think the laws notification requirement is adding anything new to what the authorities already know."
Maneuvering space
Shieh also said he does not expect China to implement the NGO law quickly, based on his groups experience of trying to ensure that Beijing enforces its laws on workers rights.
China passed labor laws in 2008, 2009 and the ensuing years, but a lot of them have not been enforced, he said. So why do we assume that this overseas NGO law is suddenly going to be enforced in full?"
The labor rights activist said he understands why some overseas NGOs feel that Beijing is closing the door on them by passing the law. But instead of staying away from China, Shieh said those groups have an opportunity to engage with it.
"Overseas NGOs, their Chinese partners and the U.S. and Chinese governments will have room to shape the new laws implementation because some Chinese officials do not necessarily agree with it, he said. They can try to implement the law in a way that is fair and does not selectively root out and close down certain, more sensitive NGOs. The law is by no means a done deal."
Tensions are climbing in cash-strapped Zimbabwe.
Civil servants took heed for a call to strike Wednesday after their wages went unpaid for a third time in the past year.
A court released former ZANU-PF official Acie Lumumba on $400 bail Wednesday on charges of publicly insulting President Robert Mugabe last week.
His lawyer, Arshelie Mugiya, said free speech was under attack in Zimbabwe, despite it being guaranteed in the country's constitution. Mugiya wants the law struck down that protects the 92-year-old Zimbabwean leader from being insulted.
"The [law], under which [Lumumba] is charged from, is not only incompetent but also unconstitutional, he said.
Dozens of arrest
For the past week, Zimbabwe has been rocked by protests. More than 100 protesters who were arrested Monday in Harare wont know the outcome of their bail application until Thursday.
On Wednesday, Zimbabwe police spokesman Charity Charamba told journalists that about 50 people had been arrested in connection with the "Shutdown Zimbabwe 2016" campaign, which called for Zimbabweans to stay away from work to push the government to address the current economic meltdown. Among those arrested was an Australian in the resort town of Victoria Falls.
"Police officers were firmly on the ground and were in uniform around towns and cities, Charamba said. Obviously the military is not there because, in our assessment, for now the situation has not deteriorated to warrant the presence of the military. If we require the military, we will call them."
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said it is assisting several protesters.
The government issued a statement Wednesday asking Zimbabweans to stop "abusing" social media by posting photos or messages about the unrest.
Trade unionists in Africa and social justice activists have expressed support for striking Zimbabweans.
Speaking to Studio 7 on Wednesday in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, during a joint African and European Union Economic and Social Stakeholder Network Conference, they called on the government of Zimbabwe to respect workers and voices of its citizens.
Ms. Rose Omamo, general secretary of Amalgamated Union of Kenyan Metal Workers, said the situation in Zimbabwe was very bad.
"As a leader in the Kenyan trade union and as a workers, I support the workers, the civil servants who are on strike fully, as the government has failed to pay its workers salary. What is happening in Zimbabwe is very bad. Workers rights are human rights so government should respect the peoples rights by paying the workers. So, I am in solidarity with workers in Zimbabwe."
The Southern Africa Trade Union Coordination Committees executive secretary, Austin Muneku, said the workers deserved to take such action because the government has taken them for granted for a long time.
"If you are aware we have just returned from the ILO (International Labor Organization) in Geneva where the Zimbabwean case was tabled and government was said to be failing to pay its workers. We saw these things coming, the workers were just pushed to the limit and we got commitment from government that they will solve this but unfortunately this has not come to what we witness in terms of the job action, strikes and stay-aways happening. As an organization we actually support the action of the workers and we expect the government to seriously take the right action."
Others bemoaned the use of force by the government in a bid to crush public protests as what happened in some eastern suburbs of the capital, Harare, on Monday. At least 109 people were arrested following skirmishes between the police and members of the public.
Chief executive Michael Gowaseb of Namibias Economic and Social Justice Trust said government has to respect its citizens.
"As an activist myself we have empathy with Zimbabweans in what is happening to them. We really commend to civil servants and other workers in Zimbabwe in standing up for their rights and taking the democratic process and government should respect that. It must really listen to the people. We support the colleagues in Zimbabwe and call on the authorities to give way for the people demands."
Brussels-based, Zimbabwean and International Trade Union Confederation deputy secretary general, Wellington Chibebe, said people back home have genuine grievances.
"The government has been exposed in a terrible way. This is a sad development, instead of suppressing the emotions of the people the government should find lasting solutions (to their problems). People have genuine reasons. It is a common knowledge that if people are not gainfully employed they resort to other alternative means, they must therefore be complemented rather than being terrorized."
Government has not yet reacted to some of these concerns.
Most shops, banks, schools and other businesses in Chinhoyi, Mashonaland West privince, were closed Wednesday following a national protest called by civic society leaders.
Denis Kagonye, a resident of Rujeko high density suburb, said local people, who dont normally take part in such protests, heeded the call to stay at home and close businesses.
Timothy Neshambe of Chikonohono said the people have spoken.
Most school children, who went to school, returned home after realizing that there were no teachers at schools.
One of the school children at Chikonohono primary school, who cannot be identified for fear of being victimized, said most students heeded the call not to report to school.
Vegetable vendor, Clemence Matare, who was selling his wares, said although the protests are commendable, the timing was wrong since its month-end, a time they normally sell a lot of goods.
Matare said business was very low today as most people did not report for work.
Most nurses at Chinhoyi Hospital did not report for duty. Sources at the hospital said most patients were discharged Tuesday before they had fully recovered.
More than 100 people, who staged protests in Harare on Monday, appeared before a Harare magistrate facing public violence charges.
At the same time, there was chaos at the courts as some court officials heeded the call for a national stay-away.
Magistrate Vakayi Chikwekwe remanded them in custody to Thursday pending continuation of their bail application.
Lawyers representing the accused persons told the court that the police severely assaulted the accused persons, who were demonstrating in the two suburbs against numerous police road blocks, and set dogs on them.
Some of the accused persons had blood-stained clothes while others could not walk on their own when they appeared in court. The defense lawyers also argued that some the accused persons were minor children who should be immediately released.
The magistrate ordered those who were injured to be taken to hospital pending continuation of the case tomorrow.
One of the defense lawyers Obey Shava said the accused persons were subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment while in police custody.
In another before the courts, the leader of the newly formed Viva Zimbabwe political party, Acie Lumumba, who was arraigned for allegedly undermining the authority of the president, was granted bail of $400 and ordered to surrender his travel documents as well as to report to the police every Monday.
His attorney, Ashiel Mugiya said he will take Lumumbas case to the Constitutional Court. Lumumba is accused of using the f-word on President Robert Mugabe when he announced the formation of his political party.
Meanwhile, some courts in Harare could not hear several cases as some court officials heeded the call to join the ongoing national job stay-away.
The stay-away resulted in some matters being postponed while some people failed to attend court sessions, resulting in local magistrates to issue them warrants of arrest to many accused people who are on bail as well as witnesses.
Some of the people, who stayed away from their work stations, like Fibion Chadahuna said they would not return to work until President Mugabe resigns.
Zimbabweans today heeded a call by civic society leaders to stay home to show their anger over the current social and economic problems faced by citizens. Our correspondents report that people stayed at home while others had running battles with the police in Zimbabwe's two largest cities, Harare and Bulawayo. Business entities, including banks, departmental stores and several others, shut down. A few restaurants were reportedly open in Harare early in the morning before they also stopped operating.
Several people in Harare's Mufakose high density suburb, who staged street protests calling President Mugabe to step down, were arrested and taken to a nearby police station. The situation is the same in Mutare, Gwanda, Chinhoyi, Masvungo and Gweru. Evan Mawarire of #ThisFlag movement and youth calling themselves Tajamuka-Sesijikile called for a nationwide stay away to press President Mugabe's government to address serious issues affecting the people.
One of the organizers of the protest, Promise Mkwanazi of Tajamuka-Sesijikile movement, said the stay away should continue until Friday.
And Regional trade unionists have also backed the protest saying Zimbabweans deserve good leaders.
Stay tuned for these stories and more coming up on Studio 7 at 7:30 pm on 9-0-9 Medium Wave and on the 4-9-3-0, 5-9-4-0 and 1-5-4-6-0 shortwave frequencies. We also broadcast on www.channelzim.net. Please check us out on Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter.
This evening on Livetalk our hosts Gibbs Dube and Jonga Kandemiiri will be talking with listeners about the Zimbabwe crisis as local people protest over the current social, economic and political problems. What are your views on this? Participate by sending your messages on our WhatsApp number 001 202 465 0318. The number again 001 202 465 0318. You can also post comments on this Facebook wall or send us your number so we can call you back. Please note that we are livestreaming on all Studio 7 Facebook pages. Stay tuned!!!!!!
Police clashed with some residents and school children in Harares south-western suburbs.
The situation was tense in Mufakose high density suburb where scores of residents and journalists were arrested and taken to Marimba Police Station.
Some journalists from local and international media houses covering the strike were arrested and released after deleting photographs from their cameras and cellphones as directed by the police.
As early as 5am residents started blocking roads with stones, logs and anything they could lay their hands on and burnt tyres, preventing kombis and private vehicles from going to the city center.
They residents led by members of Tajamuka-Sesijikile protest group, sang revolutionary songs demanding to be addressed by President Robert Mugabe, who they blamed for their suffering and the countrys economic problems.
After several hours of protests, police descended on the suburb and arrested scores of residents.
Police also raided homes and arrested many people including some as young as 16 years old.
Hardlife Mudzingw, a representative of Tajamuka, said the protest was successful as most people did not go to work.
Most shops, markets stalls and tuckshops were closed. Police ordered open shops to shut down saying they risked being attacked by protesters.
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition acting board chairman, George Makoni, who witnessed the skirmishes, said the demonstration was a clear message to the government that it has failed.
He said its time President Mugabes government to respond to the peoples needs.
Makoni said most interesting about todays protests was that they involved schoolchildren, who were not in class as their teachers are on strike.
On Tuesday night police assaulted residents in areas like Glen View and Glen Norah in a bid to preempt Wednesdays national shut down.
Tajamuka representatives said they were also being threatened by anonymous callers. They said the callers are threatening to deal with them for organizing the mass stay away.
Mutare city resembled a deserted town with only a few shops open and commuter omnibus operators, who wanted to make fast cash, reporting poor business.
School children and workers stayed at home and there was a high police presence in most suburbs in this eastern border town.
Mutare resident, Patrick Manungo, said the protests Wednesday, which are a follow-up to similar action by commuter omnibus operators and unrest in Beitbridge and some parts of Harare last week, are a sign that all is not well in Zimbabwe.
A commuter omnibus driver, Rueben Dirwai, said he failed to reach his daily takings of $50 per day as there were no commuters.
There was low business today most people did not go to work and we usually carry school children and they did not go to school. This made us to hike our fares as well to make up but this did not help much; by mid-morning we had not met our usual target.
A Mutare worker, Obert Makoni, said he failed to get to work, adding that his children stayed at home as they were advised by education officials that teachers were not going to report for duty.
"We were at the bus stop by 7am but there was no transport to take us to school and town and only those available were for other areas. At the end we had to board twice and it was expensive for my family."
Mutare based-human rights lawyer, Passmore Nyakureba, who is with the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, applauded the citizens' actions, stressing that local people are now fighting for their rights.
More than 100 Zimbabweans in Britain demonstrating against the economic decay back home on Tuesday forced Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa to sit in a taxi in London for more than an hour when he tried to leave a money-raising conference.
According to Zimbabwe Vigil coordinator and Restoration of Human Rights chairperson for Central London, Fungayi Mabhunu, the demonstrators blocked a taxi that tried to whisk Chinamasa away from the conference venue.
Mabhunu said the demonstrators demanded to know what happened to the $15 billion in diamond revenues, which President Mugabe said disappeared, and several other issues.
"We are telling the world that we have our $15 billion that disappeared. The Zimbabwean economy as you know it has collapsed and now they are trying to introduce the bond notes. These are the very same people who have damaged the economy," Mabhunu said.
He said they cannot let Chinamasa come to London and tell lies about the Zimbabwean economy while they look aside.
The minister and his team, which includes Reserve Bank governor John Mangudya, is visiting Europe. It has been meeting with business people and organisations discussing their interests to invest in Zimbabwe.
Peoples Democratic Party president, Tendai Biti, is also attending the same meeting.
Mabhunu said the minister was clearly shaken by the peaceful demonstrations.
Economist Godfrey Kanyenze of the Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe said he does not see Chinamasa reaping anything with his desperate attempt to try and find someone who can help his government.
The Zimbabwe Republic Police has detained more than 100 people who were arrested following a nationwide stay away Wednesday that turned violent in some parts of the nation.
Police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba told Studio 7 that they arrested 75 people in Bulawayo, 19 in Harare and 15 in Victoria Falls, mostly whites, including a Belgian.
Kumbirai Mafunda of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said his organisation deployed lawyers throughout the country to offer emergency legal services to those who were arrested.
We are offering emergency legal services to people arrested in Bulawayo, Harare, Chipinge, Zvishavane and Victoria Falls. At the same we are monitoring the situation in other cities and towns, Mafunda said, adding that they were still compiling the number of those arrested.
Mafunda said they were also looking into reports of human rights violations by the police following complaints against the police.
Zimbabweans on Wednesday heeded a call by civic society leaders to stay home to show their anger over the current social and economic problems faced by citizens.
Our correspondents report that people stayed at home while others had running battles with the police in Zimbabwe's two largest cities, Harare and Bulawayo.
Business entities, including banks, departmental stores and several others, shut down. A few restaurants were reportedly open in Harare early in the morning before they also stopped operating.
Several people in Harare's Mufakose high density suburb, who staged street protests calling President Mugabe to step down, were arrested and taken to a nearby police station.
The situation is the same in Mutare, Gwanda, Chinhoyi, Masvingo and Gweru.
Evan Mawarire of #ThisFlag movement and youth calling themselves Tajamuka-Sesijikile called for a nationwide stay away to press President Mugabe's government to address serious issues affecting the people.
They include the proposed introduction of bond notes, the disappearance of $15 billion in diamond revenues, human rights abuses and the government's failure to pay civil servants June salaries.
They also want President Mugabe to step down for allegedly failing to properly run Zimbabwe and for the state to find abducted political activist, Itai Dzamara.
Indications are that WhatsApp, mostly used by protest leaders and common people, has not been working well in the country today. The messaging application is slow and at times not functional.
[July 05, 2016] Extended Emphasis on STEM Education to Create Opportunities for the School Assessment Tools Market in APAC Through 2020, Reports Technavio
Technavio analysts forecast the school assessment tools market in APAC to grow at a CAGR of more than 17% during the forecast period, according to their latest report. The research study covers the present scenario and growth prospects of the global school assessment tools market in APAC for 2016-2020. The report also lists elementary and secondary education as the two end-user segments with the secondary education segment accounting for over 71% of the market share in 2015. Technavio education analysts highlight the following three factors that are contributing to the growth of the school assessment tools market in APAC: Increased participation of private players
Rise in number of schools with IB programs
Extended emphasis on STEM education Increased participation of private players The education industry in APAC is observing increasing penetration of private players who are helping schools upgrade their education infrastructure. These vendors are assisting schools resolve issues related to teacher training, building and improving ICT infrastructure, and procuring education hardware through partnerships and collaborations. "Schools are approaching vendors, catering to the education sector, to understand the needs of advanced education delivery system to develop customized solutions that are suitable for their students and budget," says Jhansi Mary, a lead analyst at Technavio for education technology research. For instance, the Teachers' Association of the Republic of Indonesia (PGRI) signed a memorandum of understanding with PT-Telekomunikasi Indonesia and Intel (News - Alert) Indonesia Corporation in 2014. Through this, teachers in 69 districts in Indonesia are ableto access ICT-based teaching facilities, including assessment of students and curricula formation. Furthermore, in India, vendors like Educomp and Next Education provide innovative school assessment solutions targeted at specific grades.
Rise in number of schools with IB programs The International Baccalaureate (IB), which is a non-profit education foundation, offers educational programs that are challenging and high in quality. Students enrolled in schools that follow the IB program are subject to continuous internal and external assessment, which include both formative and summative assessment methods.
Within APAC, the IB supports close to 600 schools across 30 countries and territories. Apart from best-in-class curriculum, these programs also focus on implementing international standards in student assessment and evaluations. Owing to these benefits, governments in countries like China, Malaysia, and Japan, are collaborating with IB to increase the adoption of this curriculum at the national level. Extended emphasis on STEM education The teaching of STEM subjects is being considered as a strategic step to empower students in these fields. Various countries in APAC such as Malaysia and Japan are encouraging students to take up careers, degree programs, and apprenticeships in STEM subjects as they realize the employment prospects in this field. As most of the governments in APAC are focusing on improving the number of STEM graduates, assessment tools implemented in schools will play an important role in meeting this objective. At a granular level, it is essential to have assessment methods in place. This implementation will help educators and students identify their strengths and weaknesses in every subject. Assessment tools focus on helping students in achieving success in their chosen field through a series of assessments. Parameters such as assimilation, interpretation, categorization, data handling, observation, and computational skills are honed using these tools. While schools are including STEM subjects as an essential part of their course curricula, they are also bringing about changes in their assessment framework as well. "In order to tap into this opportunity, vendors of school assessment tools are increasing their presence in APAC," says Jhansi. Browse Related Reports: School Assessment Tools Market in Europe 2016-2020
Cognitive Test and Assessment Market in Europe 2016-2020
Education Data Security Tools Market in the US 2016-2020 Do you need a report on a market in a specific geographical cluster or country but can't find what you're looking for? Don't worry, Technavio also takes client requests. Please contact [email protected] with your requirements and our analysts will be happy to create a customized report just for you. About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies. Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at [email protected]. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160705005286/en/
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[July 05, 2016] High Adoption of E-commerce Driving the Secured Socket Layer Certification Market in the US Through 2020, Says Technavio
According to the latest market study released by Technavio, the secured socket layer (SSL) certification market in the US is expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 24% during the forecast period. This research report titled 'Secured Socket Layer Certification Market in the US 2016-2020' provides an in-depth analysis of the market in terms of revenue and emerging market trends. This market research report also includes an up to date analysis and forecasts for various market segments and all geographical regions. SSL is a paradigm technology for the secure transmission of data between a client (web browser) and a server (web server). An SSL certificate digitally incorporates a cryptographic key into an organization's details. SSL certificates are validated and provided by the certification authority (CA (News - Alert)), which are later installed on the web server. SSL ensures the security of information while making online transactions and the transmission of confidential data. Request sample report: http://goo.gl/MM3VfR The report categorizes the SSL certification market in the US into three major end-user segments. They are: Large Enterprises
Government Organizations
SMEs SSL certification market in US in large enterprises The SSL certification market in the US in large enterprises will grow at a CAGR of more than 25% during the forecast period. One of the major reasons for the growth of the SSL certification market in the US is the increased use of the internet for many purposes such as Outlook Web Access and cloud-based computing platforms in large enterprises. According to Amrita Choudhury, a lead analyst at Technavio for b>IT security research, "The demand for SSL certification has increased because of the growing need to maintain privacy and retain credibility of the organization." Large enterprises require a high level of security and are not cost-conscious. So they use organization validation (OV) SSL and extended validation (EV) SSL certificates. The large enterprises that use SSL certificates include the major e-commerce enterprises and enterprises in the banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) sector.
SSL certification market in US in government organizations The SSL certification market in the US in government organizations will grow at a CAGR of close to 24% during the forecast period. Online security is a major concern for government organizations in the US. In 2015, the US declared a policy to require secure connections across all federal websites and web services.
Many organizations such as the United Nations, NASA, the FBI, and the US House of Representatives in the US are adopting online security solutions. The US government has made it mandatory for all publicly accessible federal websites to have a secure connection. Hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTPS) is the strongest privacy and integrity protection currently available for public connections. SSL certification market in US in SMEs The SSL certification market in the US in SMEs will grow at a CAGR of close to 24% during the forecast period. SMEs are cost-conscious, therefore, they are increasingly adopting self-signed SSL certificates because they are free. "However, the adoption of domain validation (DV) SSL or OV SSL certificates by SMEs is increasing because of the rise in number of cyberattacks. Also, SMEs are constantly under the surveillance of authorities, which monitor and ensure compliance with standards and rules, says Amrita. The top vendors highlighted by Technavio's research analysts in this report are: Comodo
DigiCert
Entrust Datacard
GlobalSign
GoDaddy
Symantec (News - Alert) Browse Related Reports: Global SSL Certification Market 2016-2020
Global EV SSL Certification Market 2015-2019
SSL Certification Market in India 2015-2019 Do you need a report on a market in a specific geographical cluster or country but can't find what you're looking for? Don't worry, Technavio also takes client requests. Please contact [email protected] with your requirements and our analysts will be happy to create a customized report just for you. About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies. Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at [email protected]. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160705005255/en/
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The European Parliament should, on July 12 2016, adopt a resolution on "strategic communications of the European Union."
At the initiative of Zbigniew Brzezinski and Polish figures who have already launched an "initiative for information warfare" against Russia at the heart of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington, NATO has established a Centre for strategic communication in Latvia and the European Union should adopt a similar structure.
The idea is to centralize all media manipulation efforts thus far divided into fields of psychological warfare, propaganda etc.
The initial program was entirely directed against Russia. However, in recent months, one component was added against Daesh (not against jihadism).
In the internal documents of NATO and the EU, we were surprised to read that one of the authors of the Voltaire Network was one of the leaders of Russian propaganda in Europe; a sign that anti-Russian work is not very serious.
Currently, the EU has a working group for strategic communications towards the East (East StratCom Task Force) within its External Action Service (EEAS). This cell sends e-mail items twice a week to several hundred journalists to insert in their articles to discredit the Russian media.
Despite a huge media sponsorship budget, the Union is particularly concerned about losing control of Euronews and about witnessing the development of Sputnik and RTs audience.
The resolution to create a veritable strategic communications service within the Union will be introduced through a report by the former Polish Foreign Minister, Anna Fotyga Elzbieta.
Photo: Paul Morigi/2016 Getty Images
This November, the track of Smokey Robinsons tears will surely be one of joy when the Motown legend receives the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song from the Library of Congress. The New York Times reports that Robinson is set to be the eighth musician honored with the award, which in past years has been bestowed upon Billy Joel, Willie Nelson, Paul McCartney, Carole King, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, and duo Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
An official statement the Library of Congress stated: His velvet falsetto and incomparable mastery of lyrical verse have created a tapestry of hits that have transcended generations and become a mainstay in American pop music, adding, As a producer, record executive and visionary, Robinson helped lead a musical revolution called the Motown sound. Robinson is mostly remembered for his 60s hits with the Miracles like The Tracks of My Tears, I Second That Emotion, and Going to a Go-Go, but he also served behind the scenes as a writer of other hits for the eras powerhouses, like the Temptations (My Girl) and Mary Wells (My Guy). The septuagenarian takes home this particular honor nearly 30 years after he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
Photo: Prince Williams/Getty Images
Rapper, marijuana advocate, and noted Hillary Clinton supporter Snoop Dogg is bringing the Gin and Juice to Democratic party donors. On July 28, the last night of the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, certain big donors can attend the Unity Party, where Snoop Dogg and Los Lobos are slated to perform.
This announcement will come as no surprise to fans of the rapper who also religiously watch Bravos Watch What Happens Live. Way back in May of 2015, during a guest appearance on the nations premier news source for Real Housewives gossip, Snoop threw his support behind a certain presumptive Democratic nominee. He said, I would love to see a woman in office because I feel like were at that stage in life to where we need a perspective other than the males train of thought. He then continued with his endorsement, And just to have a woman speaking from a global perspective as far as representing America, Id love to see that. So Ill be voting for Ms. Clinton. Move over Elizabeth Warren, it sounds like Snoopzillas eyeing the vice-presidential office.
Photo: NASA/Getty Images
Vivian Kubrick, daughter of director Stanley Kubrick, is not amused by your belief that her father faked the moon landing using his mad 2001: A Space Odyssey skills. As far as conspiracy theories go, this one, which makes crackpots feel both cultured (the super-secret symbolic meaning in the The Shining!) and scientific (space and what we remember from high-school physics!), has long been an internet darling. And hey, its true: That footage from 1969 was pretty darn trippy. Yet, for Vivian Kubrick, the idea is an affront to her fathers artistic integrity. In a Twitter post on Tuesday, Vivian unleashed a well-reasoned post explaining that her father, an avant-garde and controversial creator, would never join forces with the U.S. government for the sake of Space Race propaganda. She wrote, How could anyone believe that one of the greatest defenders of mankind would commit such an act of betrayal? ending the rant by claiming that the idea of the conspiracy is a grotesque lie. Meanwhile, Vivians statement is just another win for NASA, which is having a bit of a moment right now.
Re: Faked Moon Landings
Many people have asked me about this. And this feels like the right time to respond pic.twitter.com/UVlNFofFW8 Vivian Kubrick (@ViKu1111) July 5, 2016
>
Let this adorable blooper reel from Matthew Rhys and Matthew Goodes The Wine Show serve as an official PSA to every single American television network currently in existence. This is the show we need, and the show we deserve, goddammit. PBS, you dont want to program more Grantchester reruns? Pick up The Wine Show. Hey, USA, need something fresh as a lead-in to Mr. Robot? Might we recommend this handsome duo as they giggle their way through lush European vineyards. Netflix, my sweet, sweet Netflix, youll give the green light to anything these days. Start. Streaming. The. Wine. Show. Something this good and easy on the eyes has to come across the pond.
[July 06, 2016] Hurricane Electric Continues Expansion into Eastern Asia with New Point of Presence in Taipei
Hurricane Electric, the world's largest IPv6-native Internet backbone, continues to expand its global network with the opening of its latest Point of Presence (PoP) in Taipei. Housed within the Chief Telecom Inc./Chief LY Building located at 250 Yang Guang street in the NeiHu District, this is the company's first Point of Presence in Taiwan. With the launch of this latest PoP, networks and Internet Service Providers will now have the opportunity to exchange IP traffic or "peer" with Hurricane Electric's (News - Alert) robust global network. The new PoP will also provide access to the company's IPv4 and IPv6 network through 100GE (100 Gigabit Ethernet), 10GE (10 Gigabit Ethernet) and GigE (1 Gigabit Ethernet) ports and as a result, both new and existing customers will be able to experience increased throughput, reduced latency and improved reliability. In addition, clients will enjoy improved fault tolerance, load balancing and congestion management infrastructure capabilities in the delivery of next generation IP services. "With more than 100 PoPs operating throughout the world, Hurricane Electric is well-positioned to meet the rising demand for high-quality transit at anaffordable cost," said Mike Leber, President of Hurricane Electric. "We are excited to strengthen our presence in the Pan-Pacific Asia Region with the opening of our first Point of Presence in Taiwan and will continue to open new sites to remain ahead of the incredible growth in IPv6 traffic both in both the Asian market and globally."
In addition to operating the largest IPv6 transit network in the world, Hurricane Electric reached two important benchmarks in 2015. In March of that year, the company became the first global Internet Backbone to connect to 5000 IPv4 networks. Additionally, in June of 2015, Hurricane Electric announced that it was the first Internet backbone in the world to connect to over 100 Internet exchanges. The company has launched twelve new Points of Presence throughout the world in the first six months of 2016 as part of its aggressive global strategy to expand its robust network to regions in-need of high-speed internet transit. About Hurricane Electric
Fremont, California-based Hurricane Electric operates its own global IPv4 and IPv6 network and is considered the largest IPv4 and IPv6 backbone in the world as measured by number of networks connected. Within its global network, Hurricane Electric is connected to over 135 major exchange points and exchanges traffic directly with more than 5,000 different networks. Employing a resilient fiber-optic topology, Hurricane Electric has no less than four redundant paths crossing North America, three separate paths between the U.S. and Europe, and rings in Europe and Asia. In addition to its vast global network, Hurricane Electric owns and operates two data centers in Fremont, California, including Fremont 2, its newest 208,000 square foot facility. Hurricane Electric offers IPv4 and IPv6 transit solutions over the same connection at speeds including 10 Gbps and 100 Gbps Ethernet. For more information on Hurricane Electric, please visit http://he.net. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160705006245/en/
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[July 06, 2016]
VoiceBox Adds Nine New Members to Growing Scientific Advisory Board
Revered Scientists From Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Colorado, University of Rochester and University of Edinburgh Offer Council for the Advancement of Voice Artificial Intelligence at VoiceBox
BELLEVUE, Washington, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- VoiceBox Technologies, the award-winning innovator of Contextual Natural Language Understanding (CNLU) and next gen Voice Artificial Intelligence (AI), today announced nine new members to its Scientific Advisory Board. The diverse, world-class roster represents VoiceBox's continued investment in its broader strategy to become a unifying interface for the Internet of Things.
Board members include distinguished researchers in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI), multimodal human-computer interaction, biometrics, speech recognition, natural language understanding and dialog processing technologies. The new members hail from Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Colorado, University of Rochester and University of Edinburgh.
"Our vision of a common, intelligent interface multi-device, cross-device and multi-user integrates exciting new technologies to supplement our advanced voice offerings," said Mike Kennewick, VoiceBox's co-Founder, chairman and CEO. "With the expertise of world-renowned minds across the globe, we are able to access a fount of knowledge that rivals the largest companies in our industry."
Providing insight and direction to VoiceBox's technology initiatives, the Scientific Advisory Board will build on the company's rapid growth and pioneering work in contextual NLU and Voice AI.
The nine new members join the original five to round out a cadre of 14 advisors. The new members include:
Prof. Hynek Hermansky Johns Hopkins University
Prof. Hynek Hermansky is a Whiting School of Engineering Julian S. Smith Endowed Professor in Electrical Engineering and the Director of the Center for Language and Speech Processing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Prof. Hermansky is also a Research Professor at the Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic. His main research interests are in bio-inspired speech processing. He has been working in speech research for over 30 years, holds 10 US patents and has authored or co-authored over 250 papers in reviewed journals and conference proceedings. Prof. Hermansky holds a Doctor of Engineering degree from the University of Tokyo, and Diplom-Ingenieur degree from Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic.
Dr. Daniel Povey Johns Hopkins University
Dr. Daniel Povey completed his PhD at Cambridge University in 2003. After spending just under ten years working for industry research labs (IBM Research and then Microsoft Research), Dr. Povey joined Johns Hopkins University in 2012. His thesis work introduced several practical innovations for discriminative training of models for speech recognition and made those techniques widely popular. At IBM Research, Dr. Povey introduced feature-space discriminative training, which has become a common feature of state-of-the art systems. At Microsoft Research, and then at Johns Hopkins University, he has been creating a speech recognition toolkit "Kaldi", which aims to make state-of-the-art speech recognition techniques widely accessible.
Prof. Barbara Grosz Harvard University
Prof. Barbara J. Grosz is the Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. Her many seminal contributions to Artificial Intelligence (AI) include establishing the research field of computational modeling of discourse, developing some of the earliest computer dialogue systems, pioneering models of collaboration, and the development of collaborative multi-agent systems and collaborative systems for human-computer communication. Grosz is the recipient of the University of California, Berkeley Distinguished Alumna Award in Computer Sciences and Engineering (1997), the ACM/AAAI Allen Newell Award (2009), and the 2015 IJCAI Research Excellence Award.
Prof. Alexander Waibel Carnegie Mellon University & Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
Dr. Alexander Waibel is a Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh and at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. He is the director of the International Center for Advanced Communication Technologies (interACT). The Center works internationally in a network of eight top research institutions. Its mission is to develop multimodal and multilingual human communication technologies that improve human-human and human-machine communication.
Prof. Martha Palmer University of Colorado
Prof. Martha Palmer holds joint appointments in the Linguistics and Computer Science departments at the University of Colorado. She also directed the International Linguistic Institute 2011 gathering. Prof. Palmer is an ACL Fellow. Her research has focused on capturing elements of the meanings of words that can comprise automatic representations of complex sentences and documents. She and her students produce linguistic annotations and are also engaged in training automatic annotators, funded by NSF, NIH and DARPA. Prof. Palmer is an editor of Linguistic Issues in Language Technology and has been on the Editorial Board of Computational Linguistics and a co-Editor of the Journal of Natural Language Engineering.
Prof. Bonnie Webber University of Edinburgh
Prof. Bonnie Webber is Deputy Head of the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh. She works on Natural Language Processing, and contributes to the University's growing presence in Bioinformatics. Her current research interests include problems of terminology and text mining, as well as long-standing interests in question answering and anaphor resolution in discourse.
Prof. Mark Steedman University of Edinburgh
Prof. Mark Steedman has been Professor of Cognitive Science in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh since 1998. His research interests cover issues in computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, computer science and cognitive science, including syntax and semantics of natural languages and programming languages, wide-coverage semantic parsing, comprehension of natural language discourse by humans and by machine, grammar-based language modeling, natural language generation, and intonation in spoken discourse. He holds a PhD is in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh.
Prof. James F. Allen University of Rochester
Dr. James Allen is Associate Director and a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition in Pensacola, Florida. He has had a very distinguished research and teaching career at the University of Rochester where he retains a 50% appointment as the John H. Dessauer Professor of Computer Science. Dr. Allen's research interests span a range of issues covering natural language understanding, discourse, knowledge representation, common-sense reasoning and planning. While most of the NLP field has moved to statistical learning methods as the paradigm for language processing, Dr. Allen believes that deep language understanding can only currently be achieved by significant hand-engineering of semantically-rich formalisms coupled with statistical preferences.
Prof. Henry Kautz University of Rochester
Prof. Henry Kautz is the Robin & Tim Wentworth Director of the Goergen Institute for Data Science and Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Rochester. He has served as department head at AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ and as a full professor at the University of Washington, Seattle. In 2010, Prof. Kautz was elected president of the Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). His research in artificial intelligence, pervasive computing, and healthcare applications has led him to be honored as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and Fellow of the AAAI.
About VoiceBox Technologies Corporation
VoiceBox provides award-winning Contextual Voice Interface technology and Voice AI for the connected car, mobile, home and IoT markets, worldwide. The Company shares several CES Best in Show honors with its partners. Shipping in 23 languages across 3 continents, VoiceBox's flagship customers include Toyota and Samsung. VoiceBox can also be found on Fiat, Dodge, Chrysler, Maserati, Mercedes, Smart Car, Renault, Mazda, Subaru, Pioneer and Tom-Tom. Headquartered in Bellevue, WA, the Company has offices in Los Angeles, Munich, the Netherlands, France and Tokyo. Find more information at http://www.voicebox.com.
The Hewitt Summer Concert Series will continue with a performance by the Damn Torpedoes, an Austin-based Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers tribute band, at 7 p.m. Thursday at Creekside Amphitheater in Warren Park, 450 S. Old Temple Road in Hewitt.
The event will include food trucks and a childrens zone.
Admission is free, but there is a $2 fee for parking or a $5 fee for preferred parking. Parking can only be paid for with cash.
For more information, visit www.cityofhewitt.com.
Mayborn flash event
Baylor Universitys Mayborn Museum, 1300 S. University Parks Drive, will have an Imagine . . . Youre an Archaeologist flash event from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Thursday.
Visitors can take a step back in time and try their hand at excavation using real scientific methods to help dig and identify bones, shells and fossils.
Attendees also can look at artifacts found in the rubble dump from the Waco tornado of 1953.
Activities are recommended for ages 5 to 10. Regular admission rates will apply.
For more information, visit www.mayborn museum.com.
Library fun night
The Waco-McLennan County Library will have a Science Fun Family Night at 7 p.m. Thursday at the West Waco Library, 5301 Bosque Blvd.
Guests can enjoy science experiments and watch the Waco Civic Theater cast of Beauty and the Beast perform.
For more information, call 745-6018.
Boil-water order
The Elm Creek Water Supply Corp. issued a boil-water notice Tuesday for its customers on Stampede Road, west of Highway 317, up to and including Munz Road, as well as residents of the 10000 block of West Payne Branch Road.
For more information, call 853-3838.
Free legal advice
Mission Waco Legal Services will have a free legal advice clinic for low-income residents from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday at the Meyer Center, 1226 Washington Ave.
Participants receive a free 20- to 30-minute consultation with a lawyer.
Appointments are not required but are strongly recommended.
To schedule an appointment, call Kent McKeever at 296-9866, ext. 212.
CS garage sale
China Spring Tabernacle will have a garage sale from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Tabernacle building, 127 Ford St.
The public can rent 8-foot tables to sell their items. Cost is $15.
For more information, call 836-9015 or 836-1905.
Submit items to Briefly, P.O. Box 2588, Waco 76702-2588; fax to 757-0302; or email to goingson@wacotrib.com.
A 36-year veteran of the Waco Police Department who nearly gave his life for the department as a rookie patrolman has been chosen as its interim chief.
Waco City Council confirmed Assistant Chief Frank Gentsch to lead the department during the search to replace retiring Chief Brent Stroman.
Gentsch will serve as acting chief, overseeing day-to-day operations, until Aug. 1, when Stroman leaves and Gentsch officially becomes interim chief.
City Manager Dale Fisseler, who chooses police chiefs with the councils consent, said an outside firm will conduct a nationwide search for a permanent chief. He hopes to have a permanent chief by the end of the year, Fisseler said.
Gentschs integrity and experience, including eight years as assistant chief, equip him well for the transition, Fisseler said.
Hes done everything there is to do in the police department, he said.
Fisseler said Gentsch isnt interested in the permanent position, so there shouldnt be friction with other Waco police officials who are.
Gentsch, 54, will continue to work with the other two assistant chiefs, Ryan Holt and Robert Lanning. Gentsch said he hopes to provide continuity after the departure of Stroman, who has been chief since 2007.
Ive been working for Chief Stroman just about my entire career, and hes been not just a friend but a mentor, Gentsch said. His leadership in the department and for the city is going to be greatly missed. All I can hope to do is help us transition to new leadership.
As assistant chief, Gentsch first oversaw the Criminal Investigations Division, then switched in 2013 to the Support Service Division, which includes training, dispatch, crime scene investigations, animal control and records.
He got his got his start as a Waco police cadet in 1980 and was commissioned as an officer in December 1981, serving in patrol.
One sweltering night seven months later, he was dispatched to a call about a suspicious person near the old Greyhound bus station on Columbus Avenue. A man had been reported loitering in a long trench coat, despite the June heat.
Gentsch, accompanied only by a Baylor University student who was doing a ride-along, pursued the man down an alley, got out and approached him.
I said, Can I speak to you for a minute? He turned around and I said, Can I see your ID? Gentsch recalls. He reaches into his jacket, and I ask him what hes reaching for. And at the same time he brings out a gun and opens fire on me.
The man shot Gentsch in the arm and the lower right chest, causing him to bleed profusely. Gentsch managed to radio out a description of the man, who retreated to the old Raleigh Hotel and shot another police officer in the leg before he was arrested. The man, Frederick Joseph Watkins, remains in prison for the shooting.
Gentsch, who was critically injured, had several surgeries and was in the hospital for 11 weeks, mostly in intensive care, fighting a severe infection.
He said the police chief at the time visited him in the hospital and told him he wouldnt blame Gentsch if he wanted to leave policing.
I said, I came into this hospital in a uniform, and Im coming out in uniform, he said.
He returned to limited duty a couple of months later, then was back to full-time patrol duty by January 1983. He became a special crimes unit detective in 1990, then was promoted to patrol sergeant in 1992 and commander in 1999.
Gentsch and Stroman made a presentation together at Waco City Councils work session Tuesday, laying out budget requests that include two new civilian crime data analysts for the coming fiscal year.
Stroman said it is unusual for a department of this size not to have dedicated data analysts to help identify crime trends and respond to public requests for information. He said the new hires would free up sworn officers to focus on other things.
Stroman and Gentsch also asked the council to consider spending $855,320 in the 2017-18 budget year for a new repeat offender and gang unit, with seven members.
They said 10 offenders committed 21 percent of the 207 robberies in the last 17 months, and 18 percent of burglaries.
The council thanked Stroman for his leadership, which Councilman John Kinnaird called consistent and thoughtful.
Stroman thanked the council for supporting the police department. He said he has no big plans after his retirement at age 61, other than travel and family time.
My plan is to do nothing, Stroman said.
[July 06, 2016] SUSE Joins Microsoft Enterprise Cloud Alliance and Test Drive Program
NUREMBERG, Germany, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SUSE has joined the Microsoft Enterprise Cloud Alliance as part of its ongoing strategy to enable customers to quickly respond to changing business needs. SUSE delivers cloud-based SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, including automated updates, to enterprise customers using the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. In addition, SUSE is now part of the Microsoft Test Drive program, so customers can easily and instantly evaluate SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for High Performance Computing via the Azure Marketplace for free. SUSE provides the only commercially supported Linux for HPC available via Microsoft Test Drive. This collaboration expands access to the security and reliability of SUSE's enterprise Linux solutions to the Microsoft Cloud and highlights SUSE's long-term commitment to providing customers with on- premise, private cloud and public cloud solutions that give them the flexibility to stay ahead of market demands. "With SUSE's integration into the Enterprise Cloud Alliance, organizations have improved access to the reliability and security of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server including unique workloads such as SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for High Performance Computing on the Azure cloud," said Naji Almahmoud, vice president of cloud and software alliances for SUSE. "SUSE's growth on Azure means more options for customers. It is yet another indicator of SUSE's commitment to helping enterprise customers be successful." Nicole Herskowitz, senior director of product marketing, Microoft Azure, Microsoft Corp., said, "The Enterprise Cloud Alliance provides the opportunity to enhance our strategic relationship with SUSE and increase awareness of SUSE Linux Enterprise for customers searching for best-in-class enterprise solutions. SUSE is one of the first open source vendors to join the Microsoft Partner Network and the Enterprise Cloud Alliance and provide the benefits of open source technology in Microsoft Azure."
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on Azure is a proven platform that provides superior reliability and security for cloud computing. This versatile Linux platform seamlessly integrates with Azure cloud services to deliver an easily manageable cloud environment. More than 11,400 applications are certified and supported on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on the growing network of global data centers with Azure, including Microsoft Government Cloud. With built-in site replication and disaster recovery, customers experience performance, security and reliability comparable to on-premise alternatives. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for HPC is the only supported enterprise Linux for HPC available on Microsoft Azure, and it is the only one supported with tools like SUSE Studio for quick and easy image creation and SUSE Manager for monitoring and managing Linux virtual machines using Microsoft Systems Center. SUSE has been building solutions with Microsoft Azure since its launch in 2012 and collaborating with Microsoft Corp. since 2006, serving more than 1,000 joint customers. The SUSE test drive on Azure can be found here. For more information about SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on Azure, visit www.suse.com/azure.
About SUSE SUSE, a pioneer in open source software, provides reliable, interoperable Linux, cloud infrastructure and storage solutions that give enterprises greater control and flexibility. More than 20 years of engineering excellence, exceptional service and an unrivaled partner ecosystem power the products and support that help our customers manage complexity, reduce cost, and confidently deliver mission-critical services. The lasting relationships we build allow us to adapt and deliver the smarter innovation they need to succeed today and tomorrow. For more information, visit www.suse.com. Copyright 2016 SUSE LLC. All rights reserved. SUSE and the SUSE logo are registered trademarks of SUSE LLC in the United States and other countries. All third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/suse-joins-microsoft-enterprise-cloud-alliance-and-test-drive-program-300294095.html SOURCE SUSE
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WAHOO Saunders County Sheriff deputies arrested three individuals July 3 for drug trafficking.
Steven Barrett, 39, Kristine Kivel, 29, and Cheryl Holm, 57, were all arrested around 5 a.m. Sunday morning on Highway 64, between County Roads 11 and 12.
The group included four individuals traveling from Colorado with one pound of marijuana, marijuana edibles and methamphetamines. Sgt. Steve Malina with the Saunders County Sheriffs Office said they were in route to their homes in Wisconsin,
The group was pulling a car when they ran out of gas on the highway west of Valley.
I dont know if their GPS gave them bad directions, but they ran out of gas and used the car they were pulling to run into Valley to get gas, Malina said.
One individual drove the car that was being pulled into Valley to get gas when that car broke down. They then and made contact with Valley police, he added.
Upon contact with Valley police, 4.4 pounds of marijuana were found in the car and the driver gave up his companions awaiting his return in Saunders County.
The three arrested in Saunders County were charged with felonies and were in the Saunders County Jail, awaiting a felony first-appearance court date on July 14 at 9 a.m.
Drugs coming out of Colorado is a common theme for the Drug Task Force, Malina said.
The group wanted to get off the interstate and Highway 77 is a pipeline to Sioux City, he added.
Traffic violations cause stops and deputies use investigative techniques to look for other problems.
We do what we can to get drugs off the street, Malina said.
The name of the person arrested in Douglas County was not yet available.
[July 06, 2016] Information Builders and DBS-H Enable Enterprise Adoption of Big Data
JERUSALEM, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Information Builders, a leader in business intelligence (BI) and analytics, information integrity and integration solutions, its Israeli agent, SRL Software products and DBS-H Ltd. (www.dbs-h.com), announced their cooperation to enable enterprises to easily expand operations to include Big Data initiatives. This joint effort will be a closely coupled offering embedding Information Builder's world leading WebFOCUS BI and Reporting platform within DBS-H's innovative CR8 continuous SQL to NoSQL data integration engine. WebFOCUS is the most widely used BI and Reporting platform across major enterprises. CR8, a no-impact, near real-time streaming engine of SQL data to Big Data technologies, is the most advanced alternative to the ETL (Extract, Transfer, Load) approach and empowers companies to unlock its legacy data for continuous use in new technology-based applications. By combining WebFOCUS and CR8, enterprises can preserve and extend their IT investment base while simultaneously implementing new NoSQL systems and applications using the latest technologies in a unified environment. CR8 allows legacy SQL systems to function as before with no alterations and all updated data is captured, formatted, enriched and written to NoSQL platforms in near real-time. WebFOCUS extends its leading BI capabilities to support new Big Data engines with the same market-tested logic and user interface. This allows IT departments to easily launch new applications with their existing BI and Reporting tools and organization skill set. Information Builders and DBS-H will go to market by delivering WebFOCUS Business User Edition as part of theCR8 virtual appliance.
"The combination of SRL Software products, DBS-H Ltd and Information Builders platform will ensure customers that their data is as complete, consistent, and accurate as possible," said David Small, Senior Vice President, International Division for Information Builders. "In today's data-saturated landscape, ensuring the quality and accuracy of complex data sets is critical for intelligent and informed decision-making. "We see many enterprises who struggle to adopt new NoSQL technologies due to internal organizational obstacles," says DBS-H CEO Amos Shaltiel. "We are very excited to be able to bring a solution to many of these obstacles by delivering an end-to-end solution for integration and BI/Reporting in one box."
About Information Builders Information Builders provides solutions for business intelligence (BI), analytics, data integration, and data quality that help drive performance improvements, innovation, and value. Through one set of powerful products, we enable organizations to serve everyone analysts, non-technical users, even partners, customers, and citizens with better data and analytics. Our dedication to customer success is unmatched with thousands of organizations relying on us as their trusted partner. Founded in 1975, Information Builders is headquartered in New York, NY, with global offices, and remains one of the largest independent, privately held companies in the industry. Visit us at informationbuilders.com, follow us on Twitter at @infobldrs, like us on Facebook, and visit our LinkedIn page. About DBS-H Ltd. DBS-H Ltd. is a dynamic startup based in Jerusalem, Israel. It is led by experienced database, business and project experts, Mr. Amos Shaltiel and Mr. Michael Elkin both of whom have extensive experience in building and implementing business critical systems in large enterprises. DBS-H is backed by the Jerusalem Venture Partners and by the Office of the Chief Scientist in the Israel Ministry of Trade. DBS-H is dedicated to extending enterprise capabilities by making critical business data available to new, innovative technologies. Look for DBS-H and request a demo at www.dbs-h.com Contact:
Amos Shaltiel, CEO
+972 2 579 9113
[email protected] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/information-builders-and-dbs-h-enable-enterprise-adoption-of-big-data-300294536.html SOURCE DBS-H Ltd.; Information Builders
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[July 06, 2016] The Great Courses Plus: New Pricing and Report on Top Courses, Lessons Learned Since Streaming Launch
The team at The Great Courses Plus-the new video on-demand service featuring university-level courses that launched this past September-has learned a lot in the last 9 months about providing top-quality educational content to lifelong learners. The subscription-based service streams more than 7,000 individual video lectures-unmatched for their depth of content and production values-taught by the world's greatest professors. The service features new pricing starting at $14.99 per month for an annual plan and $19.99 per month for a pay-as-you-go plan. New members can sample the service risk-free for 30 days with a one-month free trial. The upfront annual cost is as little as $180.00 - less than the cost of a single DVD course from The Great Courses. "There has never been an all-you-can learn streaming platform with the quality and variety of The Great Courses Plus. We're continuing to learn what our members really want and quickly adjusting," said Ed Leon, Chief Brand Officer at The Great Courses. "The response to the service has exceeded our expectations. We've also seen a younger demographic - many of them new to The Great Courses - emerging as power learners." Findings from the first nine months of the streaming service reveal: "How to" and history courses dominate the most-watched list. From photography to cooking and from playing chess to learning Spanish, instructional videos are in demand. Seven of the Top 25 courses most watched by members fall within this genre, while 11 more relate to history - spanning pre-Roman Italy, to turning points in the Middle East, to U.S. history.
The Top 25 titles represent only about a quarter of all content viewed. Several new courses added each month are an important factor in retaining interest.Members flock to the new release section as on any other entertainment platform.
The most-viewed courses are: "Fundamentals of Photography" produced with National Geographic; "The Everyday Gourmet: Rediscovering the Lost Art of Cooking" produced with The Culinary Institute of America and "The Inexplicable Universe: Unsolved Mysteries" taught by astrophysicist and Professor Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Contact The Great Courses with questions, or visit us on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest or YouTube. #lifelonglearning #TheGreatCourses #TheGreatCoursesPlus
About The Great Courses Plus Unlike streaming services that merely aggregate content, The Great Courses Plus content is all originally produced, and there are no plans to remove lecture series as long as they remain relevant. Members of The Great Courses Plus get unlimited access to more than 7,000 lectures online via connected television or mobile devices for a monthly subscription fee. New members can sample the service without risk for 30 days with a one-month free trial. Learn more at www.thegreatcoursesplus.com. About The Great Courses The Great Courses is the nation's leading developer and marketer of premium-quality media for lifelong learning and personal enrichment. Delivered in engaging, expertly produced video and audio (in convenient online, digital, video on demand and disc formats), these carefully crafted courses provide access to a world of knowledge from the most accomplished professors and experts. The content-rich, proprietary library spans more than 550 series with more than 14,000 lectures designed to expand horizons, deepen understanding and foster epiphanies in the arts, science, literature, self-improvement, history, music, philosophy, theology, economics, mathematics, business, professional advancement and personal development. Creating unique learning experiences since 1990, The Great Courses is the premier brand of The Teaching Company Sales, LLC of Chantilly, Virginia, which is owned by Los Angeles-based Brentwood Associates. More information can be found at www.thegreatcourses.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005325/en/
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[July 06, 2016] Inovonics Celebrates 30 Years of Commercial Wireless Leadership
LOUISVILLE, Colo., July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Inovonics, the industry leader in high-performance wireless sensor networks, announced today that July 2016 marks the 30th anniversary of the company's founding. In 1985, the FCC passed regulations allowing the civil use of radio bands previously reserved for industrial, scientific and medical use. One year later, Don Hume and Steve Koonce, two local technology entrepreneurs, founded Inovonics in Boulder, Colorado to take advantage of the newly-available military-grade frequency-hopping, spread spectrum RF technology. Now on its third generation of wireless technology, Inovonics has established itself as a leader in the commercial wireless industry. In the 30 years since its founding, Inovonics has pioneered the use of wireless in a number of markets, including intrusion detection in commercial security, utility submetering in multi-family housing, mobile duress in both security and senior living, and a host of serial and IP-enabled interfaces that facilitate the integration of Inovonics devices into a wide variety of application specific hardware and software solutions. "What started 30years ago with a handful of innovators in a one-room lab, has grown to an international enterprise with over 10 million devices installed," Inovonics President Mark Jarman says. "We're all tremendously proud of this milestone, and especially because we've achieved it through our commitment to the same core beliefs upon which the company was founded. We call them our four Cs: Competency, creativity, commitment and collaboration."
Inovonics employees will celebrate their 30-year anniversary by hosting an open house for invited guests and local community leaders August 19th. For more information, to request images and/or to inquire about interview availability, please contact Nikki Williams by email at [email protected] or by phone at 303-209-7219.
About Inovonics
Inovonics, celebrating 30 years of commercial wireless leadership, provides wireless intrusion and mobile duress devices, senior living and submetering transmitters, signal and control sensors, and add-on, serial and IP receivers for integration into a wide variety of application specific hardware and software solutions. Supporting installations of thousands of devices across entire campuses, the EchoStream family of high-power repeaters combine to create an intelligent mesh-like network amplifying transmissions from EchoStream transmitters extending the range of wireless coverage in all types of commercial building construction. For more information, visit www.inovonics.com. Contact: Nikki Williams
Marketing Communication Manager
[email protected]
303-209-7219 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/inovonics-celebrates-30-years-of-commercial-wireless-leadership-300294674.html SOURCE Inovonics
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Mastercard Incorporated, a technology company, provides transaction processing and other payment-related products and services in the United States and internationally. It facilitates the processing of payment transactions, including authorization, clearing, and settlement, as well as delivers other payment-related products and services. The company offers integrated products and value-added services for account holders, merchants, financial institutions, businesses, governments, and other organizations, such as programs that enable issuers to provide consumers with credits to defer payments; prepaid programs and management services; commercial credit and debit payment products and solutions; and payment products and solutions that allow its customers to access funds in deposit and other accounts. It also provides value-added products and services comprising cyber and intelligence solutions for parties to transact, as well as proprietary insights, drawing on principled use of consumer, and merchant data services. In addition, the company offers analytics, test and learn, consulting, managed services, loyalty, processing, and payment gateway solutions for e-commerce merchants. Further, it provides open banking and digital identity platforms services. The company offers payment solutions and services under the MasterCard, Maestro, and Cirrus. Mastercard Incorporated was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in Purchase, New York.
Empty and derelict pubs in Waterford can now be converted into houses without the need for planning permission. The Minister for Housing Darragh OBrien has...
IMAGINING Arts was about all we could do over the last 18 months or so, but now we need imagine no more. Celebrating its 20th...
Its that time of year again! Summer in Waterford, with plenty of sunshine, and if you look carefully you may spot the odd artist atop...
Christmas is such an important time for family reunions, but there are many of us for whom Christmas is also a time when those...
... but you will need to show proof of jab get into bars STUDENTS heading to college in September will not have to be vaccinated...
[July 06, 2016] ZPE Systems Unveils NodeGrid USB - World's First 2U High Density USB Type C Server
ZPE Systems unveiled (IP patented) NodeGrid USBTM - A truly unified solution designed for mobility development and testing environments. NodeGrid USB improves productivity in the mobility development cycle by replacing the inefficient and expensive mishmash of different USB hubs, power bricks, storage, servers and cables. NodeGrid USB simplifies mobility lab deployments, saving rack space, power, configuration and management time with an all-in-one, high-density 96 USB type C port 2U storage and server appliance. "Mobility Labs attempt to piece multiple hardware devices together in the most compact footprint to create a test bed. With a mix of device trays, hubs, servers, power and the need for storage - we're looking at 6 to 10Us of the rack already taken up" said Arnaldo Zimmermann, CEO of ZPE Systems. "Cabling, powering, configuring, and managing the supporting infrastructure is a huge task in itself. The mobility development industry needed a simple and cost-effective solution that's quick to implement and easy to scale and manage. That's why we created NodeGrid USB." Designed by industry veterans, ZPE Systems brings forth a fully enclosed, high-density, space saving Unified Mobility InfrastructureTM solution that addresses the needs of mobility labs, data centers and engineering test labs. NodeGrid USB integrates with mobility development tools, USB device reservation tools and orchestration tools for dynamic environments and team collabortion. NodeGrid USB cuts device overhead costs, providing the ability to share and remotely access USB devices.
NodeGrid USB has 96 USB Type C ports integrated with a fast quad-core Intel (News - Alert) CPU, built-in large storage, dual 10GbE SFP+ network and latest 64-bit Linux OS. NodeGrid USB is equipped with lightning-fast USB data transfer, management and control, and provides continuous quick charge power output to USB devices, all within an ingenious 2U box. NodeGrid USB comes with powerful NodeGrid OS premium features, including the following time-saving technologies:
24/48/72/96 USB Type C Port Configurations in a 2U appliance
Power all 96 USB devices while running tests
Fast USB data transfer speeds of up to 5 Gbps
Built in storage for apps, logs and metrics
Dual 10Gb SFP+ Ethernet
Quad-Core Intel CPU, x86 64-bit Linux, Docker apps and shell scripting
Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP) for easy configuration
Integration with Puppet / Chef orchestration, reservation and development tools
Clustering, Natural Search, Remote Access and 360 device view Additional Resources www.zpesystems.com/products About ZPE Systems, Inc. ZPE Systems is the data center industry's first provider of Software Defined Infrastructure to manage physical and virtual IT devices. The company's NodeGrid platform simplifies access and control of compute, network, storage and power infrastructures. NodeGrid Manager provides OOB management of IT devices. NodeGrid Serial Console enables OOB control of serial devices. NodeGrid [CI] protects converged infrastructure. NodeGrid Flex and NodeGrid Bold control devices at the edge of the network. NodeGrid USB provides a high-density USB type C mobility development cycle environment. ZPE provides smart, consolidated IT management solutions that reduce downtime and CAPEX/OPEX (News - Alert). The company is headquartered in Fremont, California with resellers in Japan, UK, Netherlands, Brazil and India. ZPE Systems, the ZPE logo and NodeGrid are registered trademarks or trademarks of ZPE Systems. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005369/en/
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The more things change, the more they stay the same. That's the feeling you get sometimes about race and political debate.
In her maiden speech to Parliament in 1996, Pauline Hanson warned that Australia was being "swamped by Asians" and called for multiculturalism to be abolished. This week Hanson again claimed the country is being swamped by Asians. Her One Nation Party has also made it part of its platform to abolish the Racial Discrimination Act, impose a ban on new mosques, and have a royal commission into Islam.
Apart from the new emphasis on Islam, the politics of Hansonism haven't changed during the past two decades. By contrast, Australian society has moved on. We have grown even more diverse. Close to half of our population is first- or second-generation Australian. The largest source countries of immigration are now China and India.
Federal Election 2016 live coverage day five: Result count continues as seats fall
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"I did not see, nor endorse, the letter which was sent out to people's homes, purporting to be from me. If I had wanted to write a letter to residents, it would be from my own hand. I don't require people to speak for me and am insulted that those in [NSW National Party] head office think I do. I also think it's a massive slap in the face to the community." "I have requested a full explanation and apology from the federal campaign about how the fraudulent letter came to be delivered to people in Inverell and Glen Innes without my approval." Mr Joyce's office has sought to distance him from the letter. "It wasn't sent with Mr Joyce's knowledge and it didn't come from his office," said a spokesman. But Mr Joyce's opponent, Tony Windsor, believes the letter will be referred to the Australian Federal Police for investigation as a "fraudulent document".
Supporters of Mr Windsor have pointed out that the PO Box address in Tamworth used on the Marshall letter is the same address once used by Mr Joyce when he campaigned to win New England in 2013. Mr Marshall uses a PO Box in Armidale as his contact address. Mr Windsor said: "I'm not a lawyer but people who are have said that's a fraudulent document. I have no doubt someone will refer it to the AFP." The letter landed in mail boxes in northern New England at the same time as a damaging story in The Australian that carried allegations that he had bullied younger students at a rural boarding school in the 1960s. According to Mr Windsor, his primary support fell six percentage points in the last week of the campaign as the Nationals attack went into overdrive.
Researchers at Canberra's deep space complex were jointly tasked with communicating with Juno as it finally shifted into Jupiter's orbit.
Only three stations are part of NASA's deep space network, and because of the position of Juno on Tuesday, Canberra partnered with California to listen for the beeps the spacecraft was sending out.
Juno was more than 867 million kilometres from the Tidbinbilla site.
"Signals we were receiving here were equivalent to about one billion the amount of power that would be used by a mobile phone, it's as if we were taking a call from a long, long way away," said communication complex spokesman Glen Nagle.
Concerns have been raised about long-term maintenance costs and unpredictable effects along the coast. Credit:Neo Infrastructure "We just say oh yeah, now we will build a seawall and oh, now a road is threatened, we will build it a little bit more. "The first rule of coastal engineering is if you build something you move the problem downstream. Here, downstream is north. So you can imagine if that happens in one storm, what will happen when a few more storms come through? Residents say they will do anything to save their little slice of paradise. Credit:Neo Infrastructure "Fremantle, for example has the 100-year water level record. This didn't reach the top ten. It was just a normal winter storm."
The professor said if predictions of the movement from an El Nino to an El Nina weather system next year were correct the water level could be much higher. "Even if you build a breakwater or a groyne, two things happen: You will move the problem north ... damage will happen on a larger scale," he said. "You will spend more and more money to maintain infrastructure placed wrongly, in a vulnerable position, in the first place. "I just look at it and say, 'what is the business case?'" The Shire, asked to comment, said it would have cost more than $350,000 to move the infrastructure instead of extending the seawall.
The professor said the long-term cost would dwarf that. He gave the example of the Port Geographe marina, where the government last year spent $28 million to remove breakwaters causing seagrass to decompose, and producing a sulphurous smell that exceeded World Health Organisation guidelines. "The Enivronmental Protection Authority wanted developers to put money into a trust fund to maintain the beaches, eight or nine million, that went very quickly and the developer went bust," he said. The professor said "corporate memory" was partly to blame. "New people come to manage things and they don't know what's gone on in the past," he said.
"They think this is something we can manage without experience, then halfway down the track it backfires. "But if people are happy to keep spending money forever, then that is up to them." Seabird Progress Association spokesman Garry Thomas said further north of the public infrastructure was just a beach and a strata title caravan park. "Then further it's unallocated crown land and it's the odd kangaroo so who cares?" he said. "The strata title caravan park is set further back from the beach. It would be catastrophic if that got affected.
"Time will tell but we are already raising some money for the community and hoping to build groynes to further protect that beach we have left." The community hoped that beach, if it were protected, would become the new tourist beach. The local people have now spent more than $80,000 raised between them on coastal research and interim protection measures including concrete matting. "That tiny, tiny part of the coast has a lot of meaning to a lot of people, especially the older retired fishermen and retirees like myself, who love the peace and quiet of Seabird," Mr Thomas said. "It's a pristine part of the coast and we want to make sure it stays."
A mentally ill teenager who killed his mother by cutting her throat with a knife has been found not guilty of murder on grounds of insanity.
Gabriel Gaudi Lang pleaded not guilty to murdering Joan Marie Hendry and attempting to murder his sister Rosanna Lang at their White Gum Valley home in December 2014 when he was aged 19.
Teen who killed mum not guilty of murder
In the West Australian Supreme Court on Wednesday, Justice Lindy Jenkins ruled Lang, who is now aged 21 and a patient at Graylands mental hospital's Frankland Centre, was not guilty on grounds of unsound mind.
The court previously heard Lang was suffering an acute psychotic episode on the day of the attack and Ms Hendry had noticed her son behaving erratically.
Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli addresses the opening ceremony of the G20 Energy Ministerial Meeting in Beijing on June 29, 2016.[Photo/Xinhua]
Designed to build a sustainable, steady global economic order, the Group 20 is playing an increasingly important role in global governance, as are many non-governmental organizations, which range from chambers of commerce to think tanks.
The latter, in particular, are expected to contribute more to the world economy that is painstakingly recovering from the financial crisis of 2008 and the European Union's sovereign debt crisis. That the United Kingdom voted to relinquish its European Union membership last month has dealt an even bigger blow to the already slow global recovery.
As history has repeatedly proved, innovation-driven development is the key to putting global growth back on the right track. It requires governments to create an innovation-friendly environment for NGOs, which in turn, need to make the most of their potential by implementing tailored innovative strategies. That is exactly what the Chinese government is trying to achieve in the nationwide promotion of mass innovation and entrepreneurship.
NGOs also serve as a bridge between governments and market players in the battle against poverty, a major challenge faced by all countries, be they rich or poor. The United Nations has made poverty alleviation a prime mission and pledges to get rid of extreme poverty by 2030.
All economies, especially the G20 members that are home to almost half of the world's impoverished population, are obliged to put more efforts into facilitating tax reform and reducing inequalities. NGOs have great potential to not only counsel governments to make sure poverty alleviation funds are in the right hands, but also make the most of idle money.
In dealing with issues such as energy inefficiency and climate change, some non-governmental forces' active participation is also a boon to the shared pursuit of sustainable development.
The just concluded G20 Energy Ministerial Meeting in Beijing has passed a communique and three other plans, which encourage G20 members to formulate development strategies and action plans to boost renewable energy investment and consumption. A pledge was also made to further implement the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, a landmark deal jointly signed by over 170 countries at the UN headquarters on Earth Day on April 22.
The inclusion of NGOs in these efforts as both supervisors and participaters, to some extent, can significantly improve transparency and efficiency. For one, a green finance research group, co-sponsored by the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, and the Bank of England, has made notable progress in promoting green funds and bonds, as well as offering financial support to the fight against climate change.
Against the backdrop of rapid globalization, global governance is more about open-minded, candid cooperation between governments, international groups, NGOs, and enterprises. Among them, a number of talents with no government background are in possession of abundant firsthand information, which means a lot to policymaking. Besides, NGOs can often play a flexible role in transnational trade negotiations, thanks to their neutral position.
As the world's largest trader and second-largest economy, China is supposed to contribute more to and have a bigger say in the international affairs. Encouraging its NGOs to take part in overseas humanitarian rescues, as many of them have done in Ecuador and Nepal after the massive earthquakes in these countries is a good start.
The author is a researcher at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China.
[July 06, 2016] Gerber Technology Pledges Software and Automation Solutions to support New York City's Fashion Manufacturing Initiative
NEW YORK, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Gerber Technology, the world leader in integrated software and automated solutions for the apparel and industrial markets, announced its support for the Council of Fashion Designers of America's (CFDA) Fashion Manufacturing Initiative (FMI). The grant was created in conjunction with the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYEDC) to nurture and preserve garment production in New York City, connecting fashion designers with local manufacturing. Bestec Concept, a New York City based manufacturer, was selected by the CFDA to be a recipient of the grant. Bestec boasts 20 years of commercial apparel manufacturing experience, servicing large production runs for both men's and women's apparel. As a result of Gerber Technology's sponsorship, Bestec will be purchasing AccuMark pattern design, marker making, grading and production planning software, as well as a Gerber I-Table and Paragon HX GERBERcutter. The CFDA's Fashion Manufacturing Initiative is a public-private partnership program designed to support local fashion manufacturing throughout New York City's fashion sector and offers the chance for companies to apply for grants to purchase equipment, make capital and technology upgrades, offer training to their employees or cover the cost of relocating to New York City. Over the past three years, CFDA has awarded grants for 18 companies totaling $2 million. Mike Elia, President and CEO of Gerber Technology, said, "Since the early 20th century, New York City has been home to many of the world's fashion labels, designers, manufacturers, showrooms and suppliers. We are committed to supporting and advancing the local fashion industry in New York City and we've been proud to participate in CFDA's Fashion Manufacturing Initiative since its inception." Elia continued, "We are delighted to support Bestec Concept, a New York ity based company that makes quality uniforms for the United States Armed Forces, U.S. Postal Service, police as well as civilians."
Helen Han, President of Bestec Concept, said, "Gerber Technology's support will enable us to expand our manufacturing capabilities here in New York. We were able to grow our current production facility to a 35,000 square foot space with the capacity to produce 15,000 units per week. With the right technology, not only can business flourish, but also compete advantageously with foreign manufacturers. Gerber Technology is has been a long time leader in automated systems and has helped countless companies like ours grow and elevate their businesses." About Bestec Concept
Bestec Concept is located in Long Island City, New York. The minority woman-owned business produces quality uniforms for the United States Armed Forces, U.S. Postal Service, police and civilians. Bestec's product specialties include shirts, pants, dress coats and trousers.
About CFDA and FMI
The Council of Fashion Designers of America, Inc. (CFDA) is a not-for-profit trade association whose membership consists of more than 500 of America's foremost womenswear, menswear, jewelry and accessory designers. The Fashion Manufacturing Initiative (FMI) is a program of the CFDA in partnership with the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). FMI was created to preserve garment production in New York City, ultimately connecting fashion designers to local manufacturing. The program includes: FMI Grand Fund offering matching grants to facilities committed to improving their services through innovation and technology; Apparel Skills Training Courses to generate a stronger workforce; and ongoing professional development sessions and collaborative industry events Visit http://cfda.com/programs/the-fashion-manufacturing-initiative for more information. About Gerber Technology
Gerber Technology delivers industry-leading software and automation solutions that help apparel and industrial customers improve their manufacturing and design processes and more effectively manage and connect the supply chain, from product development and production to retail and the end customer. Gerber serves more than 78,000 customers in 130 countries, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies in apparel & accessories, home and leisure, transportation, packaging and sign & graphics. The company develops and manufactures its products from various locations in the United States and Canada and has additional manufacturing capabilities in China. Based in Connecticut in the USA, Gerber Technology is owned by Vector Capital, a San Francisco-based, global private equity firm specializing in the technology sector and managing more than $2 billion of equity capital. Visit www.gerbertechnology.com for more information. Contact: Jamie Bibb
Tel: +1 419 244 7766
[email protected] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/gerber-technology-pledges-software-and-automation-solutions-to-support-new-york-citys-fashion-manufacturing-initiative-300294832.html SOURCE Gerber Technology
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DANVILLE -- Lakeview College of Nursing in Danville and Charleston awarded numerous scholarships for the summer 2016 semester. Local residents receiving the honors are listed below. They all attend the Lakeview Charleston program.
Lakeview College of Nursing offers a bachelor of science in nursing degree. It is a single-purpose, private institution that has specialized in nursing education in the Danville area since 1894. Lakeview began offering a cooperative program with Eastern Illinois University in Charleston in 2001.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 06, 2016 | 12:13 PM | PADUCAH, KY
A book signing for Janett Blythe's new book will be held Thursday from 4-6pm, at the Ford Gallery in the 2D and Graphic Design Building at West Kentucky Community and Technical College. The college is located at 905 Harrison Street in Paducah.
Blythe is the Director of Marketing and Public Relations at WKCTC. Her new book, entitled, West Kentucky Community and Technical College: Formative Years 2000-2016 provides a glimpse of the colleges journey from newly consolidated college to one of the best community colleges in the nation. The 144-page book features more than 200 photographs and celebrates the colleges upward strides as well as its continuing transformation.
During the book signing, there will also be an opportunity to meet WKCTC interim president Dr. Charles Chrestman.
For more information, go to: wkctcformativeyears.com.
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McKendree announces spring President's List
Mount Mercy dean's list announced
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- Karlie Lading, Nursing, of Humboldt, has been named to Mount Mercy University's spring 2016 Dean's List. Students with a semester grade point average of 3.60 or better, and who are graded (letter grade, not pass/fail) for six or more semester hours, are eligible for inclusion on the dean's list.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff
Jul. 06, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 06, 2016 | 07:15 AM | PADUCAH, KY
A Paducah man wanted in a Metropolis robbery has been arrested.
The McCracken County Sheriff's Office said deputies arrested 27-year-old Kyle Speer around 9:15 am Wednesday at a home on Jefferson Street in Paducah. He was jailed on an out-of-state warrant for armed robbery and his Illinois bond was set at $2 million.
According to deputies, shortly before 8:00 pm on Tuesday, deputies responded to the area of the I-24 bridge to assist Metropolis police who were involved in the pursuit of a vehicle for an armed robbery in Metropolis. Deputies say the pursuit continued into McCracken County, where the suspects exited I-24 at Exit 3 and continued westbound on Cairo Road.
The suspects then made a right hand turn onto Ogden Landing Road where the roadway was blocked for construction. Deputies say that's when Speer exited the vehicle and ran into a creek. His passenger, 22-year-old Leighann Ahlfield, of Paducah, was taken into custody.
Deputies said Ahlfield was allegedly found in possession of multiple illegal items at the time that she was taken into custody. She was placed under arrest and booked into the McCracken County Regional Jail.
The McCracken County Sheriffs Department was assisted on scene by the Paducah Police Department, and the Metropolis Police Department.
Three juveniles charged with robbing same Paducah store twice in one day
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By Chris Skates
Jul. 05, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY
By Chris Skates Jul. 05, 2016 | 04:51 PM | PADUCAH, KY
Intrinsically it is but a barren, war-worn rock, hallowed as so many places are by death and disaster. Yet it symbolizes within itself that priceless, deathless thing, the honor of a nation. Until we claim again the ghastly remnants of its last gaunt garrison, we can but stand humble supplicants before Almighty God. There lies our Holy Grail.
General Douglas MacArthur, upon the surrender of Corregidor and Bataan
There will be fireworks tonight. Ill go out and enjoy them with my family as I have since my children were small. This year will be different, however. For the first time in my life, I will wonder what we are celebrating. Were certainly not celebrating freedom or independence in the way our parents and grandparents knew it. After all, the entirety of our populace is currently ruled by four black robed, unelected, jurists who sometimes are often tyrannical. Most recently they passed down from on high that there is some mythical constitutional right that abortion must also include the risk of butchery (i.e. Kermit Gosnell) and that making the macabre procedure more sanitary and safe is somehow a violation of the Constitution. In the same week, these leftist activists refused to hear an important religious freedom case that prompted Justice Alito to write, Those who value religious freedom have cause for great concern.
The quote above came after MacArthur was ordered to leave Corregidor and the collection of cooks, mechanics, pilots whose planes had been shot down, seamen whose ships had been sunk and some civilian volunteers who had served as his infantry in defense of Bataan. And what a defense it was. Dealing with daily torrential downpours, nearly impenetrable jungles, without food or medical supplies, they fended off 20,000 Nipponese troops while living off of roots, leaves and occasionally monkey meat. They waited for reinforcements that would never comewould never even be sent. After MacArthurs quote above, as a reward for their valor, these fighting men would face the Bataan Death March.
This Independence Day I am haunted by the ghosts of the casualties of battles like Bataan, Valley Forge, Hamburger Hill, Omaha Beach, Fallujah and the Chosin Reservoir. I am haunted because I cant help but think that they are furious with my generation. Would they have fought so viciously and sacrificially if theyd known that we would roll over and give up our freedom, without so much as a struggle?
MacArthur was referring to a rocka piece of land, but more than that he was referring to the national honor that piece of land represented. Remember the sailors that were taken hostage last year in the Persian Gulf? This week the Navy held a press conference in which they stated that a loss of morale led these seamen and their commander to make a series of mistakes that led to their capture. Ultimately it led to the release of far more information than the Navy code of conduct permits. Is it any wonder that morale was low when the sailors humiliation was preceded by Obamas agreement to pay Iran twelve billion dollars of taxpayer money, all while the GOP led Congress fiddled? Is the honor of this nation any less at stake when the international viewing of American sailors on their knees at gunpoint was followed by John Kerry giving thanks to Iran for the treatment of the sailors? How do we inspire young men and women to fight for freedom when they know full well that freedom is daily being ceded on the home front?
We as citizens thought getting more informed would be enough. We thought if we voted correctly things would turn around. But if this presidential race has taught us anything, it should have jolted us from our delusions. All the conservative think tanks weve donated to, the candidates we volunteered for, the columns we have written and read, the hours of talk radio we listened to, havent been enough. We are losing the Republic that the Bastards of Bataan fought to preserve. At first the Republic was chipped away in tiny pieces. Now its being smashed away in large chunks.
This election cycle, ending up with two horrible Presidential candidates (one of whom is probably a traitor) has convinced me that the old tactics have failed us. I no longer believe that helping get GOP candidates elected can save the country. The primaries are very nearly a rigged game, manipulated by those who have been in power a long time and wish to remain so (the establishment) at all costs. Likewise, the media and the GOP are only able to work together for a few weeks every couple of years, during primary season when they share a common enemyconservatism.
A couple of weeks ago in this space I alluded to the need for individual acts of valor. I think that those acts must manifest themselves in some type of major push for states rights. I am not sure yet if that means an Article Five convention of the States, or merely states actually exercising their existing Tenth Amendment rights. Nine years ago, I had never written a political column. I wrote about matters of the Christian faith, the heart and stories to make people laugh. Around 2007 I decided to turn the focus of my writing toward the political. I wanted to play a small part in articulating a Christian/conservative worldview back into political discussions. At the same time I volunteered with my local GOP office, eventually working on a winning campaign team at the state level. It hasnt been enough. We must do more. We must move more boldly. There are legal, non-violent means of redress at our disposal. We must pursue them.
How ironic that on this Independence Day, the empire that we once fought so desperately for our freedom, now provides us with precisely the example of courage we need. Brexit should be our model. True independence from the federal behemoth must be our goal. So this year, instead of letting the fireworks be a tribute to the ghost of independence that has passed away, Ill let them be a celebration for a new birth of freedom yet to come. I hope you will too.
Chris Skates is a Paducah resident, columnist and novelist who won the best historical fiction award from the Christian Writers Association for his first novel entitled The Rain. His second novel Going Green was compared by one critic to Grisham and Clancy. Chris has worked and traveled in an Al Quieda dominated region and was greatly enlightened during a private meeting with the son of the founder of Hamas Mossab Hassan Yousef. Chris is available to speak and can be reached at chris@chrisskates.com.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 06, 2016 | 02:18 PM | WESTERN KENTUCKY, SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Seventy-mile-per-hour winds packed a wallop this afternoon as a massive storm front rolled from Missouri into southern Illinois and western Kentucky early Wednesday afternoon.Unofficial sightings of funnel clouds both west and east of Metropolis were part of a litany of storm reports up and down the front. Officially, the National Weather Service received spotter reports from one mile west of Metropolis that power poles and trees were snapped, as well as roof damage. Power was out in the Hospital Addition of town, and 70 mph winds caused even more significant damage to at least thirty uprooted or downed trees.Reports Tuesday evening indicated there was significant damage in the Metropolis areas of Catherine Street, 8th Street and 9th Street. Super 8 Motel near I-24 also received damage to its roof. Power lines were down, large trees were on homes, traffic signals were not working, and most businesses were closed due to lack of electricity. Some parts of the city will probably continue to be without power overnight, but it is hoped most areas can be restored by 7 a.m. Thursday.While possibly not as severe as Metropolis, similar situations are reported across most western KY counties. Ballard County caught the earliest brunt of the storms in Kentucky, with downed power lines near Wickliffe. Multiple trees blocked roads east of La Center. A mobile home was overturned near Barlow. Numerous trees came down across McCracken County, including one striking a house near Grahamville. In Lone Oak, trees were uprooted near K Mart.Similar reports of wind damage were being circulated in Marshall, Crittenden and virtually every county in the region. Storm reports came from as far north as Carbondale. Cape Girardeau airport recorded 55 mph winds, and 66 mph gusts were measured near Heath in western McCracken County. A 60 mph gust was noted in Trigg County, and in Graves County where numerous trees were reported down.Police say you should NOT go out simply to look at damage. If you do, you will be in the way of those who are trying to remove trees or restore power.Crews were still working to clear roads and utility workers are restoring electricity to homes and businesses.Jackson Purchase Energy reported 186 outages at 5:00 pm, affecting around 5,300 customers, just as some folks were arriving back to their homes. Paducah Power reported around 1,000 customers without power. KU's outage map at 5:00 pm showed over 1,000 outages in the Purchase Area, and West Kentucky Rural Electric had 130 outages affecting almost 9,000 people - with many in Marshall County.A Paducah Power spokesperson said they have concentrated on distribution lines before beginning to work on individual outages at homes or businesses, which is the typical protocol for most companies.
On the Net:
By The Associated Press Jul. 06, 2016 | 05:10 AM | FRANKFORT, KY
Republican Gov. Matt Bevin says he wants to eliminate or revise some of the state's 4,500 regulations governing private businesses.
Bevin announced his Red Tape Reduction Initiative on Wednesday. He has ordered cabinet secretaries and state employees to review the state's business regulations. And he has set up a website, RedTapeReduction.com , to solicit recommendations from businesses and the general public.
The review is modeled after a similar review performed in the Canadian province of British Columbia. A study by George Mason University said the reform resulted in 37 percent of regulations being eliminated.
Bevin's office says it will partner with George Mason University to analyze Kentucky's regulations to determine which industries are the most affected.
At the Mattoon Area Family YMCA we are excited to announce another option for Yoga. The new calss is titled Mid-day Yoga. Yoga continues to be a popular class as it brings participants many benefits such as better breathing, stress relief, flexibility and more.
The new class, Mid-Day Yoga will be offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12:05 p.m. This fifty minute class is a great way to destress after a busy morning at work and a way to find focus before a full afternoon of work, family or other activities.
Mid-Day Yoga is a gentle Yoga class that will focus on postures, breath, and mindful meditation to promote strength, flexibility, balance and relaxation of the mind and body. The class will be free to our Y members and non-members may attend with the purchase of a Y guest pass.
Yoga has been considered a stress reliever as it encourages relaxation. It has also been known to help improve digestion and ease anxiety, fatigue and insomnia. Better breathing is also a benefit of practicing yoga. Karin Edwards, the instructor for Mid-Day Yoga will teach participants to take slower deeper breaths, which is beneficial for increasing the amount of oxygen available to the body.
At the Y we offer other Yoga classes as well to provide convenience to your busy schedule. These classes include Introductory Yoga which will help relieve muscle tension/pain, circulatory issues, stess and fatigue. This class meets on Mondays and Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. and is taught by Karen Reed. Even though the name is Introductory Yoga, the class is appropriate for all levels of experience in Yoga.
Another option is Core Yoga, led by Jamie Willis on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at 4:30 p.m. With this class you will sculpt, strengthen and stretch with core-focused Yoga. Challenge yourself with the exercises within this class to develop a lean and well-rounded body.
The benefits of Yoga are enormous and participants have different reasons for trying this form of exercise. To find focus, increase strength and flexibility, find relief from chronic pain, and find inner peace are several of the reasons Yoga continues to gain popularity.
We encourage you to check out one of our many Yoga classes. As with any of our classes, we suggest new participants introduce themselves to the instructor and share what brought them to class. Always let the instructor know it is your first class so they can give you support, help with form and possibly introduce you to other participants who can keep you motivated to continue with your goals.
Russian international duo Aleksandr Kokorin and Pavel Mamaev have both been punished by their respective clubs after footage emerged of the two players supposedly blowing their way through 250,000 of champagne shortly after Russias inglorious Euro 2016 exit.
According to RT, Kokorin and Mamaev spent a fortune buying 500 bottles of Armand de Brignac for everyone in the Twiga nightclub in Monte Carlo.
The bottles were then brought out amid a hail of sparklers and golden confetti while the Russian national anthem played.
Mamaevs club FC Krasnodar have already issued a statement in which they branded the players behaviour outrageous and unacceptable.
The club also confirmed that Mamaev has been fined and bumped down to the youth team for an unspecified period of time.
Zenit St Petersburg have done likewise with Kokorin, confirming that the midfielder has been stung with a substantial fine and shifted to the B team for his crimes.
For the record, both players have denied they purchased the champagne in the video, with Kokorin telling Sports.ru that the flashy booze was bought by another well-to-do Russian reveller in the club that night.
It would be foolish to deny that we were present [at Twiga]. But everybody who knows this place can confirm that there are always a lot of Russian visitors. This was the case at this time. Someone was celebrating a birthday, and we just stayed there. Naturally, we saw those bottles being ordered, heard the Russian anthem, but why accuse us of organising all this? We do not have any relation to the woman responsible, nor to her entourage, and to the money mentioned by the media. on the money referred to in the media.
As it happens, Kokorins account of the night in question has been corroborated by the nightclubs owner, ex-QPR owner Flavio Briatore, via his personal Instagram account.
The players came for dinner at Twiga with the wives. After dinner they stayed in the club to smoke shisha. There was a private party organised by some Russians. They recognized Kokorin and Mamaev and as a sign of respect, as they are fans, they started sending them bottles of champagne and they asked our DJ to play the Russian national anthem. Then other Russian clients also wanted to show their respect and sent the two players other bottles, so Kokorin and Mamaev had the table full of bottles.
Briatore also stressed that the darnedest thing was the Russian players werent even drinking alcohol.
However, the entire episode hasnt gone down well with Russia fans, who took umbrage at the indulgence on display having been forced to sit through a truly miserable outing in France.
The general response was perhaps best summed up by the head of Russias Investigative Committee, Vladimir Markin, who took to Twitter to quip: Of course other people were pouring [the champagne]. Those two wouldve just missed the glasses.
. https://t.co/opAoenUXWK (@VladimirMarkin) July 5, 2016
We think that might just be a subtle reference to Mamaev and Kokorin both failing to even come close to scoring at Euro 2016.
Ouch.
Its been in the can for over a week but today Manchester United finally got round to officially swearing in Henrikh Mkhitaryan as one of their own.
The Armenian forward, 24, has signed a four-year contract at Old Trafford, having joined from Borussia Dortmund in a deal worth around 26million.
According to recent reports, hell be raking in 200,000-a-week at United from hereon out treble the wages he was on at Dortmund.
No wonder hes over the bloody moon
A dream come true! So happy to join @ManUtd, a club I always admired for its history & fans! pic.twitter.com/EkbNVKaOyS Henrikh Mkhitaryan (@HenrikhMkh) July 6, 2016
First and foremost, United have got themselves another fantastic talent as Jose Mourinho continues to shape his squad for the coming season.
Secondly, Mkhitaryans arrival has given rise to this intriguing little statistic
Henrikh Mkhitaryan will become the 18th Premier League player with kh in his name; but the first to have it feature twice. Ryan Keaney (@RyanKeaney) July 6, 2016
How about that?
More people need to listen to a song by George Jones -- "The King is Gone (So Are You)" -- more often.
It's cute. It's clever. It's my favorite George Jones song, possibly even eclipsing his classic, "He Stopped Loving Her Today."
Oh, wait.
Am I supposed to be talking about politics this week?
Should I be commenting on the Great Hillary Email Scandal That Wasn't, or opining about the Trump Alleged Star of David Twitter Image?
Pffffftttttt!
I think it's safe to say that 99 percent of us are tired of politics.
So this week I offer you A Few Quick Hits (AFQH):
Speaking of acronyms, aren't we overdoing that a bit? I mean, it took me a minute to get ICYMI (In Case You Missed It). And that was bad enough.
But I saw a TV commercial the other day for OIC: "Opoid Induced Constipation."
Oh for heaven's sake. Make it stop! (Pun intended.)
I don't know if this is laziness or a byproduct of social media like Twitter and Facebook, but all the acronyms need to come to a halt. "LOL" (Laughing Out Loud) is cute. "ROFL" (Rolling On the Floor Laughing) is marginal. But getting out to "ROFLMBO" (Rolling On the Floor Laughing My Butt Off) is just ... well, cheeky.
I get "AYCE" (All You Can Eat) for restaurants who are putting a few words on a small sign. But let's try to keep this limited, shall we?
Otherwise, I'll have to start a new group: SMACL (Stop Making Acronyms to Cover Laziness). Yeah -- that makes about as much sense as some of the others I've seen, so there.
This week's "Still Lame Award" goes to the Illinois General Assembly and Gov. Bruce Rauner. Congrats -- you passed a stopgap budget almost a year late. Whoopie.
Make that the "Still Losers Award." Y'all still get matching dunce caps.
On a lighter note, here's the Most Polite Criminal Ever Award:
CONESTOGA, Pa. (AP) A central Pennsylvania man has pleaded guilty to trespassing in a woman's house and falling asleep after leaving her a note telling her not to be alarmed.
Online court records show 28-year-old Robert Sheets, of Holtwood, pleaded guilty to a trespassing citation and a misdemeanor drug charge in the bizarre June 21 incident.
That's when police say the woman arrived at her Conestoga Township home to find a note on the door saying, "Don't be scared when you come, Bob is here."
The woman's boyfriend told police he knew Sheets, but not well and hadn't seen him in a long time. The couple hadn't given Sheets permission to stay at their home.
Lancaster County authorities dropped a felony trespassing charge against Sheets in return for Tuesday's guilty pleas. He was fined more than $500.
***
For those who appreciate a small town -- where no one locks their doors and no ill effects are ever experienced as a result -- comes the irritating news that my niece's bicycle was stolen this week.
It was taken right out of her family's carport. They live in one of those small towns where these things rarely happen. They do lock their doors at night, but I don't think their bicycles have been locked up. I guess they will be now.
It's little things like this that make "us country folk" feel like the "big city" is creeping into our happy little world. The practically infamous fight between several people at the Charleston Wal-Mart a while back is another example of big-city mentality seeping out of, in that case, Chicago.
That kind of thing just isn't done here. The police response time certainly is much better locally than in metropolitan areas, if there even is a response in the latter for a simple fight. But folks don't get out in the streets and battle out their grievances, and they don't go around town shooting guns for no reason.
At least, most people don't.
I'm with the Charleston folks who believe that this kind of thing and related crimes have been on the rise in town. But it remains an overwhelmingly safe place to live.
Still, I don't care where I live -- I keep things locked up. Why make anything easy for potential thieves? They may carry out their crime anyway, but basic things such as locking doors will at least make it tougher.
I still find Facebook fascinating.
Twitter bores me, most of the time. But the connections between people -- if you can concentrate on that amid all the political bickering -- are really amazing.
I connect with friends from high school to the present via Facebook. I know folks in Georgia, New Jersey, Texas, Florida, Missouri, Kentucky and a whole lot of other places, and I probably wouldn't keep in touch with them nearly as well if not for Facebook.
Heck, sometimes I know what my friends in Mattoon are doing thanks to Facebook -- not because I've talked to them lately. I don't know if that's good or just sad.
I see my high school classmates' grandkids. I watch as far away family members and friends get married, have kids and reach other milestones in life. Memories from years ago come flooding back when I see what old friends are doing these days.
I have to admit, however, that the best part about Facebook is the same as what's still the best part of TV: I can "shut it off" anytime I want to.
This week's experiment is with oak trees. I have one in my backyard that I planted -- named Olivia after one of my nieces, because she gave it to me after she got it at school -- and the critters keep snipping off some of its tiny little branches. I don't know if it's rabbits or squirrels, but they're on the "bad" list this week for being a nuisance.
So when I mowed and discovered a couple of "volunteer" oak sprouts, I left one of them in the yard. I'll keep mowing around it for a while.
My guess is that the critters will leave it alone -- since it's not as important to me as Olivia The Tree. We shall see.
Finally, here's a bit of advice, and I'll give politics as an example: Most of the time, the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Some far-right folks call Hillary Clinton "Hitlery." Oh my, how ridiculously clever! And some far-left leaners call Donald Trump "Don the Con" or some other terribly intelligent moniker.
Neither person is perfect, and neither is as bad as the opposition may have you believe. The truth, most likely, really is somewhere in the middle.
Just remember that, but also remember this: If you always walk down the middle of the road, you're probably going to get hit by both sides. Sometimes you do have to choose.
Yeah. Good luck with that.
Charleston police
Vehicles driven by Jonathan Brown of Casey and Michael Fore, 933 Division St., were involved in an accident at 11:29 a.m. on June 26 at the intersection of Polk Avenue and C Street. A passenger, Lindsey Fore, 933 Division St., was sent to Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center.
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Janella Benavides of Cicero and David Carsa of Mattoon were involved in a vehicle accident at 11:29 a.m. June 24 at the intersection of Fourth Street and Lincoln Avenue. Benavides was sent to Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center.
Mattoon fire
Firefighters were dispatched to a motor vehicle collision at 7:42 a.m. June 27 at County Road 0000N 800E.
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Firefighters responded to a bike path brush fire at 6:59 p.m. June 28.
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Firefighters responded to unintentional detector activation calls at 9:23 p.m. June 28 and 6:14 a.m. June 29 at 1408 Broadway Ave.
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Firefighters responded to unauthorized burning at 9:18 p.m. Thursday in the 4800 block of Carter Lane.
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Firefighters responded to an alarm activation caused by human error at 12:24 a.m. Friday at 1301 Fort Worth Way.
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Firefighters were dispatched to a motor vehicle collision at 5:55 p.m. Friday at Sixth Street and Lafayette Avenue.
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Firefighters responded to unintentional transmission of alarms at 9:55 a.m. Sunday in the 1500 block of South 19th Street and 10:53 a.m. Sunday at 300 Lerna Road.
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Firefighters were dispatched to a motor vehicle collision at 11:35 a.m. Sunday at Interstate 57, milepost 190A. They were canceled en route.
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Firefighters were dispatched to a vehicle fire at 1:34 p.m. Monday at 1300 Richmond Ave.
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Firefighters conducted a carbon monoxide check at 3:16 p.m. Monday in the 1500 block of Marshall Avenue.
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Firefighters were dispatched to a motor vehicle collision at 10:56 p.m. Monday at Illinois Route 16 and County Road 100E.
Mattoon police
An unknown driver struck a parked vehicle, belonging to Stacey K. Nix of Mattoon, at 1:30 a.m. Sunday in the 1300 block of Wabash Avenue. The collision pushed Nix's vehicle into a parked vehicle, belonging to Caitlin S. Wingler of Mattoon.
-- -- --
Vehicles driven by Trevor J. McCormick of Mattoon and Taya J Quarles of Mattoon collided at 9:05 p.mm. June 16 in the 800 block of Rudy Avenue.
-- -- --
A vehicle driven by Fredy Seba Xolo of Mattoon ran off the road and got stuck on a curb at 12:10 a.m. June 16 in the 1900 block of Charleston Avenue.
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/07/2016 (2304 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Winnipeg technology company Librestream Technologies Inc. has signed a collaborative agreement with the Wood Group, a U.K.-based energy services company with around $6 billion in sales, and which operates in more than 50 countries.
Librestream has developed an innovative mobile video collaboration technology for field service, manufacturing, energy and public-sector industries.
The arrangement with Wood Group will see the two companies develop enhancements to Librestreams offering, which Librestream will hold the proprietary rights to, but will allow Wood Group to offer to its customers around the world.
Those customers include Shell and British Petroleum.
Under the partnership, Wood Group and Librestream will co-develop a number of discrete new technologies designed to significantly reduce the time for problem solving and associated implementation, thereby increasing productivity at remote sites both onshore and offshore.
Details of the arrangement were not disclosed but Kerry Thacher, founder and CEO of Librestream, said the arrangement could turn out to be worth millions of dollars to Librestream.
What normally happens when you try to get technology adopted like we are trying to do, is you go in with a pure technology sale where you try to get people to buy hardware and software, Thacher said. This will be different. This will become part of the service offering. (The Wood Group) will integrate this technology so that it becomes part of the standard work package.
Bobbie Ireland, a spokeswoman for Aberdeen-based Wood, said, The agreement with Librestream will enable Wood Group to deploy innovative technology to enable real-time collaboration with remote locations onshore and offshore. Our clients will benefit as the partnership rolls out services unavailable elsewhere.
Thacher said it is an important breakthrough for the company in its efforts to get significant industrial players to deploy its technology to its own customers.
You land a customer like this who is a real player in the industry and they help you move a product into their customers, Thacher said. They are carrying our technology and message on our behalf. You get a lot of leverage that way.
He said he expects the company will be able to announced a second similar arrangement with another big industrial concern later this summer.
Earlier this year, Librestream closed an $11-million round of financing led by Swiss-based firm Emerald Technology Ventures and BDC Capitals Industrial, Clean and Energy Venture Fund.
Thacher said since then, the company has been beefing up its 45-person Winnipeg staff and as well, recently opened an office in Aberdeen, Scotland, the centre of the North Sea oil industry. It also has an office in London.
martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/07/2016 (2305 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Local organizations are putting together contingency plans for how to continue with business as usual in the event of a mail service disruption.
Province of Manitoba: The provincial government, which mails around 50,000 cheques a month, has made all government cheques and other essential mail to be available for pickup at various locations since June 20. Make sure to bring proper photo ID if youre going to grab your cheque, and call ahead to the department issuing it to ensure its ready. If you already receive your payments or benefits by direct deposit, you wont be affected.
To learn more about where to pick up your cheque, call 1-866-626-4862 toll-free, or visit www.manitoba.ca.
JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Many local agencies are advising clients to pay bills online or by phone and have switched to private couriers.
WRHA: The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority initiated a plan June 24 to work without Canada Post to deliver the dozens of letters, notices of appointments and referrals to specialists sent out by the organization daily. The organization is leaning on alternative measures including the use of a contracted mail carrier, the use of other courier services and rural bus line services, telephoning patients and families and the use of hospital Internet sites to post and house relevant patient information.
If you want to connect with the WRHA, the organization suggests you consult the WRHA website, www.wrha.mb.ca, for information on health services and to confirm or inquire about your appointment or call your doctor or healthcare provider to confirm appointments or for other information.
To learn more about the WRHAs contingency plan, visit its website.
MPI: Drivers licences and Manitoba Identification Cards will be sent out once postal service resumes, according to Manitoba Public Insurance. If you paid to renew your card, your expired card and temporary licence will remain valid, including as government photo ID, throughout the disruption as long as your account is current.
New Manitobans, those traveling outside Manitoba, and those requiring replacement cards can pick up their cards at a Service or Claim Centre. If you are receiving a vehicle claims cheque, refund cheque, injury claims cheque or personal injury indemnity payment, you can pick that up there, too.
Payments and renewals are due as usual and can be made online, through your bank, or at a Service Centre or Autopac agent.
Manitoba Hydro: Manitoba Hydro is not introducing any new measures to prepare for a disruption, but is directing customers to pay bills online or by telephone, or to drop cheques or money orders off at Manitoba Hydro Customer Service or District Offices, or at 360 Portage Ave.
To check your bill, you can call their self-service billing options 24 hours a day, at 204-480-5900 or toll-free at 1-888-624-9376. You will need your 14-digit account number, service address and home or primary telephone number.
MTS: MTS is directing its customers to pay bills using its online program and app, MyAccount, or to pay through online banking, telebanking, or by phone (call 1-844-891-1827). You can also pay in person at MTS stores or at your bank or financial institution. Make sure to have your account number handy just in case.
Banking: The Canadian Bankers Association recommends customers sign up for online or mobile banking, if you havent done so already, and consider requesting electronic delivery of bank statements and credit card bills.You can also set up pre-authorized automatic payments if you want to skip a step next month. To do that or to learn more, contact your bank or financial institution.
Online shopping: Canada Post delivers about two-thirds of all parcels in Canada, but you can usually check online to see what courier the website youve purchased from used. FedEx and UPS Canada have both said in statements they have contingency plans in place, and Purolator noted a significant increase in shipment volumes as a result of negotiations in a recent statement. As a result, the organization has suspended service guarantees for time-definite and day-definite services, as well as new account registrations.
In late June, eBay issued a statement saying it will ensure sellers are not penalized for the delayed arrival of shipments originating or terminating in Canada, and that it will adjust estimated delivery dates on listings and communicate with buyers to make them aware of possible postal delays.
On Monday, it issued an updated statement advising customers of the potential service disruption and saying it hoped for a negotiated resolution.
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/07/2016 (2305 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
OTTAWA The northern community of Pimicikamak Cree Nation will get around-the-clock medical care, a safe place for women to give birth and a dialysis unit when a new $40-million hospital opens in five years.
Chief Cathy Merrick told the Free Press Tuesday the announcement made by federal Health Minister Jane Philpott at the reserve nearly 800 kilometres north of Winnipeg has been nearly two decades in the making.
It means a lot to us, Merrick said.
PATRICK WOOD PHOTO Health Minister Jane Philpott (standing) announces plans for the new hospital. She is joined at the band hall by community leaders and politicians, including Pimicikamak Chief Cathy Merrick (left of Philpott).
Pimicikamak, also known as Cross Lake, is one of the largest First Nations in Canada, with more than 8,000 band members and more than 6,000 living on the reserve. By population, it is the 10th-largest community in Manitoba, bigger than The Pas, Flin Flon, Stonewall, Altona and Swan River.
The difference, however, is that each of those communities has an inpatient health facility with 24-hour care. Pimicikamak has a nursing station the community outgrew years ago and doctors are available only during business hours.
There are no inpatient beds. Blood tests have to be sent to Winnipeg for analysis and it takes days to get results.
Anyone who has an acute care need is sent to Winnipeg or Thompson, including women who are due to give birth.
All we do now is medevac, said Merrick, referring to the transportation of patients by helicopter or airplanes. There are four to five medevacs every day.
The First Nation has a $55-million annual health budget, of which more than one-fifth is spent on medical flights. Merrick hopes a lot of that money about $12 million a year can be reinvested into health care at home.
Negotiations to have full-time physicians on staff will have to be completed with the province, which oversees that aspect, but Merrick is confident that will not be an issue.
Philpott said funding for the new facility will come from the $270-million fund in the 2016 budget for health facilities on reserves.
Manitoba reserves were to receive $50 million from that fund, and $40 million of that is going to Cross Lake. Construction will begin next spring and is expected to take up to four years to complete.
This is really going to be a game changer for them, Philpott told the Free Press, as she prepared to fly out of Pimicikamak Tuesday.
They currently have only an aging and inadequate nursing station. It was built some time ago, and its way beyond its capacity.
Winnipeg Free Press files Pimicikamak Cree Nation, also referred to as Cross Lake, is served by a nursing station run by Health Canada. The station has been called totally inadequate for the size of the community.
Philpott was also in Pimicikamak to talk about mental health programs for young people. Last month, she announced $69 million for indigenous mental health services, including a new mobile crisis team in Manitoba.
There will also be six new mental wellness teams in Manitoba.
Pimicikamak, which is still in a state of emergency because of a high rate of youth suicides this year, will have full-time mental health wellness workers.
Weve never had those services before, Merrick said.
She said the suicide crisis that gripped her First Nation earlier this year is under control but its still there.
Six young people killed themselves in a matter of weeks last winter and about 140 young people attempted suicide. At one point, there were 100 young people in the community on suicide watches.
The hospital and the additional mental wellness staff, as well as a temporary youth centre and plans for a permanent solution, are all going to help, Merrick said.
mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/07/2016 (2304 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
OTTAWA Almost nine years after Parliament unanimously endorsed a plan to end jurisdictional battles over services for Indigenous children, the federal government has stepped up to the table with $382 million to try and make it work.
In a joint statement released late Tuesday, Health Minister Jane Philpott and Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett said the money will be used over three years to introduce a new approach to Jordans Principle. It calls for children to receive the services they are entitled to when they need them. Jurisdictional battles over whether a provincial or federal government should foot the bill should come later.
This approach will put the needs of children first and ensure that First Nations children living on-reserve receive the health and social services they need in a timely manner, reads the statement.
ADRIAN WYLD / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES Health Minister Jane Philpott said in a statement the $382 million for indigenous children's health care will be used over three years.
The funding will go towards hiring regional service co-ordinators to assess and address health and social service gaps for indigenous children, as well as create a fund for Health Canada to draw from to pay for services when they are needed and are not currently met by existing programs.
Jordans Principle is named after Jordan River Anderson, a boy from Norway House Cree Nation in northern Manitoba who died in 2005 from a rare neuromuscular disorder. Jordan lived his entire life in a hospital in Winnipeg while provincial and federal officials fought over who was supposed to pay for the specialized foster home and home health care equipment he needed.
Manitoba argued because Jordan was from a reserve, it was Ottawas responsibility to pay, while Ottawa argued because Jordan was in the hospital and health care is a provincial matter, it was up to Manitoba to foot the bills.
Trudy Lavallee, the social worker who in 2005 penned the first article calling on the governments to adopt the principle, said Wednesday she is filled with hope that maybe this time it is actually going to happen.
Im very happy, she said in an interview with the Free Press Wednesday. There is still a lot to be figured out, and how exactly that money is going to be used is the million dollar question.
Lavallee was a child and family services policy analyst at the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs in 2002 when the Childrens Advocate called about a boy who doctors were ready to discharge but who was stuck in the hospital because the provincial and federal governments were both refusing to pay for his out-of-hospital care.
She went to visit Jordan at Childrens Hospital in Winnipeg. Despite his severe and complex medical issues, including being on a ventilator and unable to walk, she remembers a sweet boy who was very aware of his surroundings.
He would sit in his crib and hold my hands and play with my gold rings, she says. He had spirit.
For nearly three years, she sat around tables and watched federal and provincial bureaucrats bicker over everything from foster care rates to special food and even who was supposed to pay for the special shower head he needed.
She wrote her article creating Jordans Principle in November 2005, nine months after Jordan died, never leaving the hospital.
Two years later the House of Commons unanimously adopted an NDP motion calling for Jordans Principle to be implemented. Since then some governments have taken steps to implement the principle for children with very complex needs, where multiple service providers are involved in their care. However First Nations advocates say the systemic discrimination faced by First Nations children over the lack of services extends far beyond those with complex needs.
Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, said she is skeptical of this latest announcement because she sees just another level of bureaucracy that will be used to deny kids the care they need.
How hard can it be? she asked. Youre already giving services to other kids so just yes to the First Nations kids.
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled earlier this year that First Nations kids were victims of discrimination for lower quality child welfare services and ordered Ottawa to increase funding for CFS services on reserves and implement Jordans Principle. This announcement was made public less than 24 hours before Ottawa was due to provide the tribunal with an update on its progress in implementing the tribunals orders
mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 05/07/2016 (2305 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Development of the remaining 12 acres of land at The Forks will occur over 25 years.
Chief executive officer Paul Jordan told a council committee Tuesday that The Forks will proceed slowly in developing the remaining land and the public will be kept in the loop.
Were going to go slowly and deliberately, and were going to make sure this place becomes a people place and really connects with the rest of The Forks, Jordan told the property and development committee.
CEO Paul Jordan says development on 12 acres of land at The Forks currently two parking lots will proceed slowly over the next 25 years.
Development will take place on the two main parking lots up against the CN Rail line. The Forks owns the south lot while the city owns the lot to the north, which is known as Parcel 4.
A draft plan in 2014 called for about 60 per cent of the two properties to be devoted to public spaces, including green space and a plaza linking the north and south ends of The Forks site. The remaining 40 per cent would be earmarked for the residential and retail/commercial components.
Jordan said its a European-style concept with 30 buildings of four- to six-storeys, linked to each other with narrow roadways and public plazas.
The Forks will first move its headquarters into Union Station on Main Street, Jordan said, and the train station will be converted into a pedestrian entranceway to The Forks.
Development will start in the south lot, Jordan said, in the fifth year of the redevelopment and proceed northward.
Jordan said the main road into The Forks will be reduced to two lanes from four lanes, and the additional space will be converted into a pedestrian promenade.
Long-term plans include construction of a parkade on Main Street, just south of York Avenue.
SUPPLIED FORKS REDEVELOPMENT UPDATE Forks CEO Paul Jordan outlined how he sees development occurring at the railside lands over the next 25 years.
Jordan said about 100 developers from across the country recently submitted their credentials, part of the selection process to determine which developers will be invited to submit proposals.
aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 06/07/2016 (2304 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
The University College of the North midwifery program has paid more than $177,000 a year for specially renovated classroom space in the University of Winnipeg space the program hasnt used for the past 27 months.
And the lease in the AnX building that occupies the former bus depot runs until next March 31, even though the now-cancelled program was scheduled to be taught in a different university the University of Manitobas nursing building in September.
It was not clear Wednesday why the former NDP government brokered a deal to operate a joint program on the U of M campus when UCN was spending considerable public money on a U of W space renovated to accommodate midwifery students.
PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS "UCN Bachelor of Midwifery" is printed on a sign outside the Anx building, where the program has been paying for unused space.
UCN officials said the school leased space in the AnX beginning in April 2012, with a scheduled termination date of March 31, 2017. UCN pays rent, taxes and operating costs which together total $25 per square foot for 3,425 square feet, or $85,625 per year, plus $91,606 per year over the five-year period of the lease to amortize renovation costs associated with that space, UCN said.
There were no students enrolled in 2014-2015, and the 14 midwifery students who enrolled last September in what the former NDP government planned as an expanded joint program with the U of M, took their classes this past academic year at the nursing building on the Fort Garry campus.
Its the latest bizarre twist in a saga that has left the 14 students stranded without a program for their second year of midwifery studies.
Education Minister Ian Wishart pulled the plug on the program last week, though he is still trying to work with UCN and the U of M for a solution. The students rejected his offer of enrolment in the second year of the U of Ms nursing program, while the parties seek a long-term solution.
U of M public affairs director John Danakas said Wednesday, To be clear, U of M and UCN were on board. Government pulled the funding.
The University of Manitoba remains engaged in discussions about midwifery education in Manitoba.
He said the university has not incurred costs for space in the nursing building, and its faculty who would have taught in the midwifery program have other duties.
Much of the confusion currently comes because there are two different versions of the midwifery program which has produced only nine graduates since its inception in 2006, at a cost to the province of $8,049,000.
After the 2014-2015 intake of students was cancelled, the former NDP government created a joint program with UCN and the U of M, which would begin in the fall of 2015 with the intention of having an annual intake of students, permanent full-time faculty teaching in a permanent space at the U of M, and expansion to UCNs Thompson campus in 2020.
Thats the program in which the 14 students enrolled last fall, and which the College of Midwives of Manitoba gave its approval after a lengthy accreditation process. Thats the program in which the U of M says it agreed to participate.
But the NDP funded the first year of the joint program with only the $859,000 that has been the regular annual provincial operating grant to UCN additional government funding of $844,000 would not be paid until this September.
Everything appears to have fallen apart when new Finance Minister Cameron Friesen did not approve an additional $844,000 in his first budget the Tories reasoned the midwifery programs track record dictated getting the program right for the 14 students before expanding it.
Whats left is 14 students enrolled in the second year of a program that has $859,000 in funding. Its not the program in which the students thought they were enrolling; its not a program thats gone to the midwives college for approval; and its not the program the U of M says it agreed to join.
It was not clear Wednesday if the Department of Education had made Wishart aware of the UCN lease at the U of W, or why the former NDP government had chosen to launch a joint program involving the U of M when UCN was paying substantial public dollars to lease a space it had extensively renovated specifically to accommodate midwifery.
Meanwhile, UCN said this week it managed to find another program to use the space in the AnX for 2014-2015, but that program is finished although UCN says that the U of W is trying to help it find someone to take a sub-lease on the empty space.
For its part, the U of W says privacy rules do not allow it to discuss leases or tenants, or even to confirm that a space of campus is leased out.
The one thing on which everyone seems to agree is that it would be a good thing for Manitoba to have more trained midwives.
It was supposed to be a crown jewel of northern postsecondary education when NDP Advanced Education Minister Diane McGifford announced it in 2004.
UCN offered midwifery in The Pas and Norway House from 2006 until 2009, after which the program has been running off and on in Winnipeg.
It was not until 2013 that the first student graduated after seven years, and only after three full-time seconded professors, who were paid collectively more than $307,000 annually, developed an individual program for her. Another eight students graduated in 2014.
The plan back then would see a new cohort of students start in the fall of 2014, and sources say that prospective students had scheduled interviews right after the Easter weekend of 2014, only to have the interviews abruptly cancelled. The 2014-2015 program subsequently got cancelled, and the Selinger government announced the joint program would launch a year later.
The U of M website says under student counselling services that the university does not provide a midwifery training program, but elsewhere on the website, nursing Prof. Kellie Thiessen is listed as director of the midwifery program. Thiessen says she is not allowed to grant media interviews until a program has been announced.
nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 05/07/2016 (2305 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Brace yourselves a Brian Pallister cabinet minister has accused the former NDP government of underspending.
You may gasp now.
Alleged overspending by the wastrel NDP while grabbing even more from citizens through the PST and other taxes has been the Tory mantra since the Pallister government took office.
WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Chapman School in 2011.
But Education Minister Ian Wishart says the New Democrats served our children and our public education system badly by failing to provide sufficient capital investment in schools.
Wishart cited in his budget estimates hearings the NDP failure to make K-to-12 capital spending a priority over the past decade.
Manitoba was the only province to report a reduction in spending and was last among provinces in terms of K-to-12 investment in construction projects, said the minister. The lack of investment has led to increased pressures among school divisions and accommodating an increased demand for French immersion instruction, an area where weve seen significant growth, shortage of places for daycare spaces and also before- and after-school programming.
Wishart said in a recent interview that a national report from the Fraser Institute backs him up: Were behind on a per capita basis. We had a decline on that basis. Its all about growing populations viewing it as though we have a deficit to catch up.
Wishart said that the NDP simply didnt build enough schools, though, he cautioned, with the deficit they left behind, the Tories cant just immediately build every school trustees want.
We try to balance the long-term needs with the population, and judge when a growing community needs a school, he said.
At some point, the decision has to be made to build a school, Wishart declared.
Ironically, a series of NDP education ministers accused the Filmon Tories of not spending money on educations capital needs in the 1990s.
The New Democrats claimed they were chipping away at an enormous infrastructure deficit, by funding repairs and replacements such as a school roof, a boiler system, a new gymnasium and new science labs.
They didnt spend enough, said Wishart: Clearly, theres some deficit in terms of maintenance and repairs.
The NDP policy for much of its mandate was to avoid building schools in new suburbs if a school division had empty desks elsewhere. The policy even expanded for a while to include empty desks in contiguous school divisions, though there was little evidence that any kids were sent out of division.
Wishart is now reviewing NDP promises to build new schools in Waterford Green in the northwest corner of Winnipeg School Division, and in the south end of Brandon S.D.
Hes likely to receive other big-ticket requests: new schools in Sage Creek and Neepawa, another school in Brandon and two more in WSD, including a high school.
Can we identify spots? No, said Wishart.
Hes aware that housing development may create a bubble of growth that isnt sustained. Residents of Whyte Ridge and Linden Woods demanded a high school for years, but within a few years the four existing high schools in Pembina Trails S.D. were able to absorb the suburban growth.
The NDP surprised the education system in 2008 by imposing a moratorium on closing small schools with dwindling enrolment. At the time, 13 were scheduled to be closed in 2008 and 2009.
Since then, the only way schools have closed is if parents voted with their feet and took their kids to larger schools, leaving schools empty, and thus closing Graysville School, Kenton School, Reynolds Community School and now Chapman School.
Wishart said he is not lifting the moratorium. Not at this point. When we look at school infrastructure, that will certainly be under consideration.
nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion
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This article was published 06/07/2016 (2304 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Next Wednesday, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea will issue its ruling on Chinas claim to practically all of the South China Sea. And already the main military contenders are moving more forces into the region.
Chinas Maritime Safety Administration announced that Chinese naval and air forces will carry out seven days of exercises in an area extending from Hainan to the Paracel Islands off the Vietnamese coast. The exercises will end on Tuesday, one day before the tribunals ruling is released, so they will still be around if things get more exciting after that.
They might well get more exciting, because the U.S. navys Task Force 70, including the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, has now moved into the South China Sea. Its task, according to its commander, Rear-Admiral John D. Alexander, is to maintain the seas open for all to use.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Soldiers from the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy watch as the USS Blue Ridge arrives at a port in Shanghai in May. The United States has called on China to exercise restraint when an international tribunal issues a landmark ruling on the South China Sea disputes that Beijing has chosen to ignore.
The Chinese Defence Ministrys spokesman, Col. Wu Qian, warned last Thursday that this is an act of militarization in the South China Sea and it endangers regional peace and stability. But Id like to say that the U.S. side is making the wrong calculation. The Chinese armed forces never give in to outside forces. And on Friday, President Xi Jinping declared that China will never compromise on sovereignty and is not afraid of trouble.
In a worst-case analysis, therefore, we could be only a week away from a major military clash between the United States and China in the South China Sea. But it really shouldnt go that far, because the Hague tribunals ruling will have no practical effect.
Chinas nine-dash line claim to almost 90 per cent of the South China Sea looks preposterous on a map it extends more than 1,000 kilometres from the southernmost point of China while coming within less than 100 km of the Philippine, Malaysian and Vietnamese coasts but it is taken very seriously in China.
The historical justifications for Beijings claim are flimsy, but beginning with the seizure by force of the Paracel Islands from Vietnam in 1974, China has extended its control to most of the tiny islands and reefs in the entire area.
In the past three years it has expanded seven of these tiny footholds with concrete and landfill, building airstrips, port facilities and other potential military assets on them. In February, for the first time, it put actual weapons on them. Whether this was directly in response to the case brought against it in The Hague by the Philippines in 2013, it certainly had the effect of making a military confrontation more likely.
But China stated in advance that it would not recognize any ruling on the validity of its claim by the UN-backed Hague tribunal, which has no way to enforce its decision. So it should not feel obliged to resort to military force to defend its claim, any more than the U.S. should feel any need to use force to challenge it. In theory.
Behind the sometimes belligerent rhetoric from Beijing, there has been a long-standing policy that China should avoid military confrontations with other great powers until it has grown strong enough economically to stand a good chance of winning. Its not there yet, so it should still be gun-shy. But there may now be another consideration at work.
The social contract that keeps the Chinese Communist party in power is simple: so long as the party delivers steadily rising living standards, the population will accept its dictatorial rule. For almost 30 years it has kept its side of the bargain, with economic growth rates of between eight and 10 per cent per year.
But even the party admits that the growth rate is now down to six per cent, and hardly anybody else believes it is even four per cent. Some observers think the economy may not be growing at all this year. If that is the case, then the regime is drifting into dangerous waters, and it will need a foreign distraction to divert public attention from its failure.
An exciting but carefully contained confrontation over the South China Sea with the United States and its Southeast Asian allies could be the solution, igniting nationalist passions in China and generating support for the regime, but the tricky bit is keeping it carefully contained. Once you start down that road, you cannot be sure where it will take you.
Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
Opinion
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This article was published 06/07/2016 (2304 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
For observers of the identity wars, what some have called a hijacking of the Toronto Pride Parade by Black Lives Matters activists could have been predicted. Increasingly, Pride parades such as the one held in Toronto as part of a Pride month are viewed as too mainstream, too happy and far too white.
Part of the issue for those who are critical of the Pride movement is it reifies the mainstream notions of queerness white gay men who are masculine and white feminine lesbians. As Bustle.com writer Mariella Mosthof put it, these are the most privileged groups. They are the groups with the most access to power, and so the issues surrounding gay rights will then be fought along that narrow paradigm of identity. Mostly middle-class. Mostly white. Mostly privileged.
The message from Black Lives Matter is that Pride in Toronto has been exclusionary. It hasnt opened up safe spaces for black and indigenous LGBTTQ*, and it hasnt done enough to ensure they, too, are given a safe space to be heard. On Sunday, Black Lives Matter held up the Pride Parade with a sit-in to advocate for a number of issues including additional funding for the black-focused party Blockorama, a permanent black queer youth stage, a South Asian-focused stage and more American Sign Language interpretation provided by black deaf and hearing interpreters. But what seems to have upset many was the call for a ban of all police floats and police booths at Pride.
MARK BLINCH / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at Toronto's Pride Parade.
Rodney Diverlus, the co-founder of Black Lives Matters Toronto, told CBC that for some members of the black and indigenous gay community, participation in the parade wouldnt be possible because they are uncomfortable around police. Pride organizers say they have made no decision yet on the demands made by Black Lives Matters, including whether police will participate formally or informally in future parades. Mathieu Chantelis, Prides executive director, said he signed the list of demands presented only to get the parade moving again.
This must be viewed as another example of just how healthy the LGBTTQ* movement and Canadian democracy are. As politicians, police and advertisers all clamour to be included in Pride activities as a demonstration of just how inclusive they can be, it seems only natural that those who still feel marginalized would stand up and push back. Certainly when identities intersect, there will be discomfort. And thats a good thing.
The mere fact that since Sunday a conversation has been taking place about the lives of those who arent white, affluent or privileged in an already smaller demographic of Canada is positive and part and parcel of what Pride is supposed to be about.
This is particularly true when you see news coverage of other Pride parades that have taken place outside of this country for example, in Istanbul, where water cannons and rubber bullets faced those who dared to march. Or even in Steinbach, where some politicians still refuse to mainstream the event by participating in the simple act of walking in solidarity with those within their community who are LGBTTQ*.
An Ettrick man will return to Minnesota to face charges that accuse him of repeatedly stabbing a woman, a toddler and a dog in La Crescent.
Sean Kasten, 27, was released from a La Crosse hospital on Saturday and booked into the La Crosse County Jail pending his appearance Tuesday in La Crosse County Circuit Court. He agreed to waive extradition to Houston County, where hes charged with multiple counts of attempted murder, assault and mistreating animals.
Kasten was a passenger in a Ford Taurus about 5:15 p.m. June 28 when he went crazy and stabbed the female driver six times in the torso, her 3-year-old child in the neck and leg and a pit bull twice, according to the complaint filed in Houston County District Court.
Witnesses heard the 23-year-old woman screaming and holding the injured child in the middle of the road when the car stopped at Juniper and Willow streets. A bystander performed CPR on the child as Kasten collapsed in the grass from self-inflicted stab wounds.
The woman suffered two collapsed lungs. The child underwent surgery to repair damage to an artery and is in the care of relatives. The dog also is recovering.
A La Crosse County judge in December placed Kasten on two years of probation for stealing a car and having prescription drugs without a prescription.
A man accused of threatening a Winona police officer with a handgun, which led to the man being shot at and wounded, was ordered held Tuesday in the Winona County Jail in lieu of $150,000 unconditional bond.
Daryl Scott Jackson, 54, is also accused of fleeing in a motor vehicle and engaging officers in a hour-long standoff early Saturday south of Winona.
Bail was set by Winona County District Court Judge Mary Leahy at the Lanesboro mans initial court appearance Tuesday, where he was formally charged with second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and fleeing a police officer in a motor vehicle, both felonies.
Jackson was spotted driving erratically by an off-duty police officer just after midnight Saturday in the bluffs south of Winona, according to court documents. The officer reported the situation and followed Jacksons vehicle, while a squad was dispatched to the location.
Jackson was slow to respond the the lights and siren directing him to pull over, and when Jackson did pull over, the on-duty officer observed a case of Bud Light on the back seat as he approached the vehicle. The officer directed Jackson to put out the cigarette he was smoking, court documents state, and when asked for license and proof of insurance, Jackson instead reached down toward the floorboard and came back holding a black handgun.
The officer yelled a warning to an unarmed reserve officer riding with him as Jackson turned his weapon on the officer, who responded by drawing his service weapon and firing as he retreated to the squad car for cover, according to court documents.
The officer notified dispatch of shots fired as Jackson raced off toward Interstate 90, where his vehicle was intercepted by sheriffs deputies, who deployed spiked stop-strips.
After an hours negotiation, and a response from the Minnesota State Patrol and Winona Countys Emergency Response Unit, Jackson surrendered. A .45-caliber handgun was recovered from his vehicle. He was treated for a non-life-threatening neck injury at Winona Health and St. Marys Hospital in Rochester, then booked into the jail Saturday afternoon.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigated the incident, which is standard procedure in the case of an officer-involved shooting.
In this odd political season so shallow in rhetoric, so fundamental in consequence Americans are not only celebrating their nations independence, they are considering its meaning. Of a sudden, the most basic questions in our democracy are on the table: What is a real or good American? How do we define what is unique and great about our country?
At least a portion of the current populist wave is a nationalist backlash against cosmopolitan elites. In this view, Americans do not merely love a set of philosophic abstractions; they love a concrete nation, with an identity that is under siege. An Anglo-Protestant heritage of law, religion and culture is threatened by a variety of forces, within and without: multiculturalism, illegal immigration and politically correct leaders who refuse to even name our enemies.
It is a paradox that those who want to emphasize the uniqueness and particularity of American culture rooted in a specific ethnic and religious background are actually adopting the most typical form of nationalism. Historically speaking, nations defined by ethnicity, motivated by grievances and looking backward to a golden age are commonplace. What has been different about America is its remarkable ability to make a nation out of nations. This is a tribute to national ideals that emerged from within one culture, but now appeal and inspire far beyond it.
No nation, of course, is disembodied. It is legitimate to love the rocks and roots of a definite plot of ground, and our plot is particularly grand and lovely. It is not a coincidence that one of Americas first symbols was a rattlesnake in a defensive coil. But another symbol was the rising sun on George Washingtons chair at the Constitutional Convention, as hopeful as the break of day. Americas founders thought their work was somehow the culmination of age-old longings and a new order for the ages. This is the reason that the term American creed is rich in meaning, and American race sounds like a profanity.
The hypocrisies of our history are startling. A nation dedicated to freedom was a prison for millions of slaves. In the founding era, many towns celebrated Pope Day, in which effigies of the Bishop of Rome were cheerfully burned. While Chinese laborers worked on the massive foundation of the Statue of Liberty, Congress tightened The Chinese Exclusion Act, which set immigration rules by race. Even now, some would have those rules set by religion.
But how do we even know these are hypocrisies? It is because they are revealed by the light of the Declaration of Independence. Americas founders set a principle in place that has judged and changed cultural practices for over two centuries. It is primary to our national identity.
Keeping the balance between a real community with the right, like any other people, to define its boundaries and traditions and the liberal principles of justice and equality has not been easy. It has led to a troubled and bloody history, which is also a shining achievement in the conscience of humankind.
The American who understood both of those aspects best was Abraham Lincoln. In July 1858, he spoke of the strength that Americans draw from pride in their forefathers who founded the nation. Then he said words worth recalling in full as we celebrate our independence:
We have besides these men descended by blood from our ancestors among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe German, Irish, French and Scandinavian men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us. But when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration. And so they are.
This past weekend America celebrated another year of independence. Two hundred-forty years after her founding, nearly 47 million Americans are not living the American Dream and are not independent. Just over 50 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson announced the War on Poverty. He followed it up with Medicaid, Medicare, greater federal housing spending, and other federal programs to fight poverty.
The poverty rate in America in the late 1950s was an astronomical 22 percent. By the time Johnson introduced the battle plan in 1964, the poverty rate already was trending down toward what has seemingly become a permanent rate of 15 percent. More than $22 trillion later, if you are born poor, you are more likely to stay poor.
This is not the American Dream. This is the American Trap. There is a Better Way and Paul Ryan is leading the way. Ryans plan is a goal to provide people with the opportunity to get up and out of the system rather than to continually rely on government handouts. Its available online at http://abetterway.speaker.gov.
Ryan introduced the House GOPs Better Way plan over the past few weeks with very little fanfare from the national media. The plan covers everything from national security to health care. These are the Republican ideas President Barack Obama so often loves to state the GOP doesnt have.
In a presentation demonstrating GOP unity, Ryans proposal kicked off with A Better Way to Fight Poverty. Its a plan that doesnt cut spending, but changes how those dollars are distributed. It doesnt mean we're kicking Grandma out of her Housing and Urban Development-subsidized apartment.
The plan calls for targeting needs and delivering services so people are not trapped in this perpetual cycle. It means that someday grandma can retire without having to need government assistance to pay her monthly rent.
Today, there are more than 80 programs for low-income individuals. Its a complex maze of benefits and overlapping services that costs more than $1 trillion per year. How much do you want to bet those dollars are heavily invested in the salaries of bureaucrats rather than getting into the hands of people who need the money?
In order to be effective, these programs need to be streamlined. The qualifications and benefit matching procedures for each of these 80 programs is a burdensome expense on the system. To see these dollars get into the hands of people who need it, we have to eliminate the government maze of inefficient and duplicative programs. How complicated should it be to identify standard living costs and map out a simple plan for meeting those needs?
These programs also should focus more on individual needs and become incentive based. Right now, there are too many Americans taking minimal work out of fear of losing government assistance. People face whats known as the benefits cliff. People who want to work fear losing income when those extra hours or additional $1 per hour raise are not enough to make up for the loss of welfare money. Its a trap that is a disincentive to do better.
Ryans plan also addresses several other key issues that lead people into poverty. As married households decline, more people slide into poverty. Nearly 60 percent of families living in poverty are represented by 18- to 35-year-old single parents. That rate drops dramatically when those families have married parents in the house.
Of course, there is no incentive to getting married. The report cites Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute who says the expanded subsidies and marginal tax rates create a severe penalty, sometimes causing households to lose a dollar or more for every dollar earned and severely penalizing marriage. In other words, cohabitating or not getting married has become the tax shelter of the poor. The report adds that its a government-induced safety net that discourages people from seeking a better, more reliable route to economic stability.
There are a number of other aspects of Ryans plan addressing everything from choice in housing to food assistance. It addresses the need for work-capable adults without dependents to prepare for work. Rental assistance should align with other benefits, and there should be incentives for states, employers and individuals to move people out of federal needs programs and out of poverty. It also addresses the need to help poor kids attain more opportunities in education.
Independence Day changed how the world is governed and provided a means for the serfs to live happy, sustainable lives free of government intervention. Its time to find a Better Way.
With gun rights under increasing scrutiny, the U.S. Supreme Court has acted decisively to signal that such rights are not absolute. In a 6-2 decision, the court upheld that those convicted of reckless misdemeanor domestic violence can be banned from owning firearms.
The court previously had upheld the ban for intentional acts of violence. But, as anti-domestic violence advocates have argued, the careless disregard for the safety of a significant other is all too often a part of the continuum that can lead to serious injury and even death.
The ruling is important in two respects: It puts abusers on notice that simply claiming the violent act was unintentional will not lessen the consequences. This is only right, since for the victim the injury is the same no matter what the abusers state of mind was at the moment. But of equal significance is the intent by a clear majority of the court to reinforce the idea that the Second Amendment right to bear arms has boundaries, as do all constitutional rights.
Among the eight justices, only Justices Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor dissented, and only Thomas wrote a dissent that defended the rights of abusers to keep their firearms. In a dismissive fashion, Thomas wrote that a simple misdemeanor should not be enough to deprive someone of a constitutional right.
Thomas is wrong on that point. Only recently has domestic violence been treated with the gravity it deserves by the criminal justice system.
In the past, even abuses that resulted in serious injuries were pleaded down to misdemeanors. And the bar for felonies was high. Until 2006, when the law was changed, a husband in Minnesota who attempted to strangle his wife typically faced a misdemeanor charge.
Incredibly, the two Maine petitioners in the Supreme Court case attempted to argue that because their violence was not intentional, it should not result in lost gun rights.
Constitutional rights should carry some responsibilities. Those who prize their ability to own deadly weapons should be prepared to demonstrate that they can be responsible. Assaulting a partner or immediate family member should cause the attacker to fail that test.
FOX LAKE The names were released in an accident that left one driver dead during a July 4 head-on collision.
Caylee Krinke-Sauer, 20, Cambria, died as a result of the accident that occurred at 5:34 p.m. on Highway 33 near Pleasant Road.
According to the Dodge County Sheriffs Office, the investigation shows that Krinke-Sauer was operating a 2014 Chevrolet west on Highway 33. Roberta Nelson, 79, Des Plaines, IL, was operating a 2013 Honda east on Highway 33.
The Honda crossed the center roadway line, traveled into the westbound traffic lane and collided with the Chevrolet near the north fog line. Krinke-Sauer was pronounced dead at the scene by the Dodge County Medical Examiner.
Nelson sustained life threatening injuries and was flown to UW Hospital by Flight for Life, her current condition is unknown. A passenger in the Honda, Dennis Kersting, 72, also from Des Plaines, Ill., sustained non-life threatening injuries and was transported to Beaver Dam Community Hospital by ambulance.
The crash remains under investigation by the Dodge County Crash Investigation Team.
Residents of the town of Fox Lake: A Special Electors Meeting will be held in the town of Fox Lake on Saturday, July 9 at 1 p.m. at the Town Hall. This meeting was called by a petition of the electors which resulted in more than 125 signatures. The purpose of this meeting is to rescind the town board authority to exercise certain zoning authority, as defined in Wis. Stats. 60.10 (2) (h) and Wis. Stats. 60.62 (2). This action is intended to be directive; this is not advisory in intent.
Statements have been made by persons opposed to the proposed action that giving up zoning authority will result in the loss of local control. Local control as related to town zoning is an illusion.
Any property owner or resident that has attempted to make land use or building decisions in the town of Fox Lake quickly realizes that there are many other government agencies that are involved and have control of what can or cannot be done with their property. These agencies cover the spectrum of government from the county and other municipalities at the local level to state agencies and even federal agencies.
Some examples: If your property is within a 1,000 feet of Fox Lake, Lake Emily or Beaver Dam Lake a land use permit must be received from Dodge County Land Resources and Parks Department. Additionally, this is true if the property is within 300 feet of any navigable stream. If the property is on a county or state highway, you need approval for a driveway from the Dodge County Highway Commission (this I have from personal experience) or possibly even the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. If a sanitation permit or a sewer connection is required, either the county or the Fox Lake Inland Lake District becomes involved. If you need a land division the division needs to be approved by the Dodge County Land Use and Parks Department. If the property is on or near a water body, not only is Dodge County involved but the Department of Natural Resources and the Army Corps of Engineers may need to be contacted. Agricultural land is also subject to most of these agencies approval, as well as the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
In light of the above examples, it is quite obvious that the exercise of certain zoning authority by town government is severely limited and controlled. I ask, is another layer of government, spending your tax dollars, necessary?
When the electors rescind the town board authority to exercise certain zoning authority, the town board should take immediate action at its next regularly scheduled meeting to adopt Dodge County zoning. Property owners and residents would then be able to address any land use issues at one authority, at less cost to them personally, and little or no cost to the town.
From my perspective, the citizen members of Town of Fox Lake Planning Commission are not the issue. The Fox Lake citizen members of the zoning committee are hardworking and honest people. The issue lies with the excessive tax and spending policies of the town board.
If the town board needs to spend money, there are better options than paying a zoning administrator say perhaps road improvement. If you are an eligible voter in the town of Fox Lake, please attend this meeting and vote yes to rescind. Thank you very much.
Respectfully submitted,
Jerry L. Cypert
town of Fox Lake elector
WATERLOO The Waterloo Community Pool will hold a lifeguard certification course for qualified students ages 15 and older.
The fee will be $150 for residents and $187.50 for non-residents.
Individuals who take this course will become an American Red Cross-certified lifeguard.
Participants must pass a swimming pretest including:
300 yard swim: 100 yards front crawl, 100 yards breaststroke, 100 yards of either front crawl or breaststroke.
Swim: 20 yard approach, retrieve 10 pound brick from bottom of pool and return back 20 yards to starting point.
Tread water for 2 minutes.
Classes will be held Monday, July 18 through Thursday, July 21 from 8:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with a break for lunch.
Register at: www.waterlooschooldistrict.com. For questions, contact Pat Schellin, pool@waterloo.k12.wi.us or call 920-478-3511.
U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan has again rebuked his partys presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump, this time for a Twitter post containing an image Ryan called anti-Semitic.
Ryans comments came in a Tuesday interview with conservative radio host Charlie Sykes.
Theyre the latest example of how the 2016 campaign has frayed ties between the nations top two Republicans. Ryan, the leading Republican in Congress, repeatedly has denounced his own partys standard-bearer, Trump, while still supporting his White House bid.
This time Ryan, R-Janesville, addressed a widely criticized Twitter post made on then quickly deleted from Trumps account on Saturday. It featured a graphic with a picture of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton backed by piles of cash, next to a six-pronged star resembling a Jewish Star of David with a message proclaiming her the most corrupt candidate ever!
Groups such as the Anti-Defamation League blasted the tweet, and Clintons campaign called it anti-Semitic.
Asked by Sykes for his reaction, Ryan echoed that criticism.
Anti-Semitic images, theyve got no place in a presidential campaign. Candidates should know that, Ryan said.
Before Trump tweeted the graphic, it appeared on an online message board frequented by anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi and white supremacist users.
Sykes asked Ryan on Tuesday if Republican officials should pressure Trump to ensure his campaign is more careful on social media.
I really believe hes got to clean up the way his new media works, Ryan responded. One of the few times I spoke out against him during the primary, very forcefully, was in this area when he failed to disavow white supremacists.
Ryan called out Trump earlier this year when he initially declined to disavow the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, one of many prominent white supremacists backing Trump.
Ryan also panned Trumps plan to block all Muslims from entering the U.S., saying its not what this party stands for and more importantly, its not what this country stands for.
Last month, Ryan publicly slammed Trump over his claim that a U.S.-born judge of Mexican descent was not qualified to preside over a Trump University court case. Ryan called that the textbook definition of a racist comment.
Despite all those denunciations, Ryan after an initial reluctance to support Trump has remained on record backing him.
Protesters stood outside Department of Corrections headquarters in Madison on Tuesday morning, demanding an end to the forced feeding of inmates taking part in a hunger strike against indefinite solitary confinement.
Six inmates at Waupun Correctional Institution began refusing food on June 10, and since then, the DOC has received court approval to give forced tube feeding to three of them: Laron McKinley, 61, Norman Green, 44, and Cesar DeLeon, 34.
These prisoners are being treated worse than the supposed terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, a member of the Milwaukee Chapter of the International Workers of the World labor union told the Associated Press.
The dozen or so protesters stood along the highway in front of the DOC office with banners saying Wisconsin force feeds prisoners and solitary is torture, delivering a letter at noon demanding negotiations on solitary confinement policies.
It helped that we had a lot of support, said DeLeon in an interview on Saturday in Waupun. DeLeon months earlier spoke about hunger strikes saying that they are difficult and often short-lived. DeLeon has been in restrictive housing at WCI since being transferred there from Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage in November 2014, following an attack on the institutions legal librarian. That case is still moving through the court.
DeLeon has spent comparatively little time in solitary, compared with McKinley, who has previously sued the DOC for cruel and unusual punishment, having spent 25 years in some form of segregation following an escape and recapture.
DOC spokesman Tristan Cook, in a statement to the AP, said he was unable to provide any specifics regarding the medical or mental health conditions of any inmates, including treatment being provided.
Cook said about 100 inmates in Wisconsin are currently in solitary confinement out of a total prison population of about 22,700.
In response to a request for documents detailing inmate transfers in and out of segregation units at Columbia Correctional Institution, DOC records custodian Jill Sommers wrote that there is no running list of inmates housed in or transferred to segregation units.
DeLeon appeared well, despite about 20 pounds of weight loss, from his 5-foot, 8-inch, formerly 180-pound frame, saying that he was feeling light-headed, but otherwise fine.
Although a hunger strike can go on for days or weeks, refusing liquids will result in almost immediate tube feeding to keep an inmate alive. DeLeon did not refuse liquids as a matter of protest, he said, but because he found that with nothing else in his stomach, the water coming from the WCI tap would make him sick.
He had asked for an alternative bottled water or Gatorade but upon refusal, the DOC received court approval for him to be strapped into a security chair and have food delivered through a tube placed in his throat through his nose.
Force-feeding of prisoners has been criticized by the United Nations, the American Medical Association and the American Civil Liberties Union.
The strike was about two months in the making, according to DeLeon, who said that the inmates have been able to communicate, being in the same housing unit. The protest lost an element of surprise when word leaked to the administration what was planned.
At the top of the inmates list of demands, along with review of a psychological treatment program that DeLeon and others describe as abusive, is for solitary confinement to be limited to 90 days.
The Department of Corrections adopted a policy in June 2015, reducing the maximum length of time for an inmate to be in solitary confinement for rule violation from 360 days to 90 days. The limit does not apply, though, to inmates considered to be violent or hard to manage.
Among inmates, solitary is quickly described as a place one does not want to be, with common stories of inmates who went in, but didnt come back out, referring not to permanent placement, but permanent psychological trauma brought on by prolonged isolation.
Since the beginning of the strike, one of the inmates has dropped out of the protest, he said. During that time, the inmates have also received letters of support from California, Oregon, Colorado and Wisconsin.
I have to stay focused on my objective, said DeLeon, claiming to be ready to carry on for months, if not years. Sometimes I think maybe that it is, like, my fate, that this is my burden. Theres a lot of things that Ive done and maybe this is how I start to make up for it to pay back society.
I pray a lot, said DeLeon. Not a lot of people are religious, but it helps.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Several neighbors of a proposed steel vessel reconditioning plant have filed an official protest against the proposed rezoning of the property in the town of Dekorra where the owners want to locate the plant.
But the County Boards Planning and Zoning Committee on Tuesday voted unanimously to reject the protest, on the grounds that the protests signers did not include owners of 50 percent or more of the land around the property.
The issue, however, is far from resolved, and it might not be resolved even after the County Board takes up the matter at its July 20 meeting.
The County Board last month sent the matter back to the Planning and Zoning Committee.
At issue: a proposal to rezone a parcel on Columbia County Highway JV, just off Highway 51, from A-1 Agricultural to I-2 General Industrial.
Owners of WB Sales, a propane company located on Industrial Road just west of Portage, hope is to expand the business to include refurbishing old steel propane tanks, and to do so at the town of Dekorra site. The proposed $3 million expansion would result in the addition of at least 30, and as many as 50, new jobs, Adam Gazapian of WB Sales told the County Board on June 15.
The Dekorra Town Board, however, has gone on record as opposing the rezoning.
The reasons that town officials gave for their opposition are much the same as the reasons given in the formal protest to the proposed rezoning, which was filed on June 28 in the County Clerks office.
The property owners joining in the protest contend that:
Sights, sounds and smells coming from the plant would have a negative effect on surrounding property and the residents.
There is the potential of storing numerous old propane tanks outdoors, and existing trees would not provide sufficient screening.
Property values of nearby residences would go down.
Recreational use of neighboring properties, such as hunting, would be compromised.
Six property owners have joined in the protest.
However, Assistant Corporation Counsel Susan Fisher said some of the abutting property actually is right of way for the Canadian Pacific Railroad and even if the property owners land is within 300 feet of the parcel proposed for rezoning, it does not qualify for inclusion because the railroads land, and not their land, abuts the parcel.
According to Bluemke, a successful protest on a rezoning issue entails computing the perimeter of the parcel proposed for rezoning (in this case, almost 5,100 feet), then having owners of at least 50 percent of the property abutting that perimeter go on record as objecting to the proposed rezoning.
Since about 1,462 feet of the abutting property belongs to the railroad, and not to the property owner who joined in the protest, then the 50 percent threshold is not met, Bluemke said.
Statute questioned
One of the property owners joining in the protest, Deb Bennett, noted that the state statute seems ambiguous, but it seems to suggest that owners of property within 300 feet can be included in the protest even if their property doesnt directly abut the parcel.
Not so, said Fisher.
The statute, as she reads it, requires that the property must abut the parcel proposed for rezoning to be included in a protest, she said.
Had the protest been upheld, any County Board decision to go ahead with the rezoning would have required yes votes from at least 21 of the 28 supervisors, regardless of how many might be present for the vote.
Now, the County Board can approve the rezoning by a simple majority.
But even that might not be the end of the issue.
Bluemke said the town of Dekorra has 40 days to veto the County Boards decision.
Lawsuit fears
But even a veto might not mean that the matter is settled once and for all.
A key reason why the County Board took up the question in the first place is because of concerns, on the part of the Planning and Zoning Committee and the countys legal counsel, that a rejection of the rezoning request would result in a lawsuit.
Thats because the comprehensive plans of both the county and the town of Dekorra call for the land in question to eventually be used for industrial purposes, even though it is not now zoned that way.
The writers of the protest took issue with this, and suggested that the county is interpreting the comprehensive plans in a narrow and rigid manner.
After careful consideration, including two public hearings, the town concluded that this type of business is not appropriate for this location, the protest said. Some businesses would be acceptable at this location; the petitioners type of business is not.
Planning and Zoning Committee member Susanna Bradley asked whether a particular type of business could be rejected even if the land is rezoned for industrial use.
Not if the business meets the criteria for industrial zoning, Bluemke said adding that the proposed plant would meet those criteria.
Wisconsin company wrestles with the FDA over an infant formula
Nikos Linardakis says the FDA has stymied efforts that he and James Esselman have made to launch their Bene Baby Co.s product.
Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a disorder characterized by an irresistible urge to move the legs during rest, usually accompanied by uncomfortable sensations in the affected extremity. When these symptoms are fully developed, the diagnosis is fairly straightforward. However when RLS is more subtle, or presents with nonmotor symptoms, the diagnosis is more challenging. An understanding of the expanded symptom spectrum and associated comorbidities will help healthcare providers diagnose and treat RLS. The negative effect of RLS symptoms on patients' quality of life and general health, as well as the likelihood for misdiagnosis, make it imperative for healthcare providers to know how to recognize, diagnose, and treat this condition.
EPIDEMIOLOGY
The prevalence of RLS is 5% to 10% among adults, and increases with advancing age.1,2 RLS is more frequently reported in women, with multiparous women at increased risk.1,2 Primary and secondary RLS are phenotypically similar and can be difficult to differentiate upon initial presentation.
Primary idiopathic RLS
This form can manifest at any age. The prevalence is 2% in patients ages 8 to 17 years, 8% to 13% in patients younger than age 10 years, and 27% to 38% in patients younger than age 20 years.3 Patients may have a genetic predisposition for primary RLS.4
Secondary RLS
This form can be triggered by medications or can occur secondary to another condition such as renal failure.
Severe RLS, whether primary or secondary, is a chronic condition. Patients with milder RLS exhibit a variable pattern with long periods of remissions. Little is known about the course of the mild disorder because those with mild and/or intermittent RLS rarely seek treatment. About 40% of adults with primary RLS may have experienced symptoms as children or adolescents and gone into remission before symptoms reappeared between ages 30 and 40 years.3
DIAGNOSIS
In adults, RLS is a clinical diagnosis based on patient history because neurologic and physical examinations generally are normal. The International RLS Study Group lists five essential diagnostic criteria to help confirm or rule out RLS.5 Patients with either form of RLS must meet all five criteria, which follow the acronym URGED:
U rge to move the legs, usually but not always accompanied by unpleasant or uncomfortable sensations described as crawling, tingling, cramping, creeping, pulling, painful, electric, tension, discomfort, or itching.
rge to move the legs, usually but not always accompanied by unpleasant or uncomfortable sensations described as crawling, tingling, cramping, creeping, pulling, painful, electric, tension, discomfort, or itching. R est worsens symptoms when the position is more restful and the rest is of a longer duration.
est worsens symptoms when the position is more restful and the rest is of a longer duration. G yration or movement partially or totally relieves symptoms, immediately or very soon after voluntary movement begins, but relief is not always complete. Patients with severe RLS may experience little or no relief of symptoms no matter the amount or degree of movement, although movement may have helped to alleviate the unpleasant sensations experienced earlier in the course of the disease.
yration or movement partially or totally relieves symptoms, immediately or very soon after voluntary movement begins, but relief is not always complete. Patients with severe RLS may experience little or no relief of symptoms no matter the amount or degree of movement, although movement may have helped to alleviate the unpleasant sensations experienced earlier in the course of the disease. E vening/nighttime onset or worsening of symptoms with a peak immediately after midnight; symptoms decrease during late morning. In severe RLS, patients may have symptoms 24 hours a day with no variation, although earlier in the disease, symptoms may have worsened at evening or night.
vening/nighttime onset or worsening of symptoms with a peak immediately after midnight; symptoms decrease during late morning. In severe RLS, patients may have symptoms 24 hours a day with no variation, although earlier in the disease, symptoms may have worsened at evening or night. Denial of another primary cause of symptoms.5
Primary RLS
The following features do not occur in all patients with RLS and are not necessary for diagnosis, but can be useful in diagnosing complicated or uncertain presentations.5
Family history. More than 50% of patients with primary RLS report a positive family history of RLS, and often present with symptoms at an earlier age. Patients with a family history of RLS tend to have a slower progression of the disease.4
Positive response to dopaminergic medications. Dopaminergic medications have been shown to improve sensory and motor symptoms of RLS. Agents that block dopamine receptors aggravate RLS symptoms. A meta-analysis revealed strong evidence that medications including escitalopram, fluoxetine, carbidopa, levothyroxine, mirtazapine, olanzapine, metoclopramide, and tramadol can exacerbate RLS. Take a thorough medication history for these agents.6
Periodic limb movements of sleep (PLMS). At least 80% of patients with RLS have PLMS, repetitive involuntary limb movements that also occur in patients with sleep disorders such as narcolepsy and sleep apnea.
Secondary RLS
This form of RLS often is related to iron deficiency, pregnancy, or end-stage renal disease. Secondary RLS during pregnancy often resolves postpartum.7 Medications that can cause or exacerbate RLS include antiemetics and motility drugs that block dopamine, antidepressants such as mirtazapine, tricyclic antidepressants, and serotonergic reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).8
To gauge the severity of the disorder, ask patients about symptom intensity (mild, moderate, or severe) and frequency (1 to 2 times per week, 3 to 4 times per week, or daily).
RLS IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS
Diagnosing RLS in children and adolescents is more difficult than diagnosing the disorder in adults. The main difference between diagnosis in adults and children is that sleep disturbance, family history, and PLMS are included in the criteria for identifying RLS in children.
To be diagnosed with definite RLS, children ages 2 to 12 years must meet all essential adult criteria for RLS (U, R, G, and E of the URGED criteria) and one of the following two criteria:
The child provides a description, in his or her own words, consistent with the leg discomfort.
The child has two of the three supportive criteria: sleep disturbance for age, biologic parent or sibling with definite RLS, or five or more instances of PLMS per hour on polysomnography.
Adolescents ages 13 to 18 years have definite RLS if they meet all essential adult criteria for RLS.
As with adult RLS, symptoms must not be attributed to another ongoing sleep disorder, neurologic disorder such as ADHD, mental disorder such as depression, growing pains, medication or substance abuse. Clinical sleep disturbance can precede the full diagnostic manifestations of definite RLS by months or years in children and adolescents.3
LABORATORY EVALUATION
Patients with suspected RLS do not need to be referred for further diagnostic tests; however, difficult cases can be referred to a neurologist or sleep specialist. For clinically classic RLS, patient history and normal physical examination usually suffice for diagnosis. In patients with suspected serum iron deficiency anemia, be sure to obtain iron studies, including serum ferritin and iron-binding saturation. For patients with renal failure, obtain electrolyte levels. Nerve conduction velocity and electromyograms (EMGs) may be necessary if the patient has peripheral neuropathy.
Polysomnographic studies can be performed in patients whose symptoms may be better explained by another disorder, such as PLMS.8 Polysomnographic studies have demonstrated that patients with RLS experience reduced sleep efficiency (the ratio of actual to attempted sleep time), increased arousals during sleep, and decreased total sleep duration.9
COMORBIDITIES
Insomnia
RLS has been deemed the fourth leading cause of insomnia.10 Patients may be unable to fall asleep or stay asleep, have multiple awakenings, awaken too early in the morning, feel unrefreshed after sleep, have daytime fatigue and impaired concentration.10 Sleep disturbances can cause significant distress, and often are the reason patients with RLS seek help. The diagnosis of RLS is supported if over-the-counter sleep medication containing antihistamines exacerbates RLS symptoms and worsens insomnia.11
Depression and anxiety
Patients with RLS have an increased prevalence of depression and anxiety, especially panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and major depressive disorder.12,13 Causality between depression and RLS seems to be bidirectional, and one disease can exacerbate the other. Depression and RLS share common symptoms of sleep disturbance, fatigue, decreased concentration, and psychomotor agitation.13,14 As mentioned earlier, providers should note that antidepressants, especially mirtazapine, can exacerbate preexisting RLS symptoms.13 Bupropion, desipramine, trazodone, and nefazodone have lower rates of RLS symptom exacerbation, and should be considered for use in patients with comorbid depression.
Cardiovascular effects
RLS and PLMS are associated with hypertension, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and cerebrovascular disease.15-17 Sleep disturbances caused by RLS can increase patients' risk for hypertension and CVD.15
Parkinson disease
Both RLS and Parkinson disease are associated with CNS dopamine hypofunction, and both respond to dopaminergic medications.18,19 Several studies have found a 20% prevalence of RLS in patients with Parkinson disease, which may be underestimated.18,19
QUALITY OF LIFE
RLS is associated with lower future physical function, even when controlled for age, race, smoking status, weight, height, baseline physical activity, medication use, anxiety, and history of chronic diseases.20 Physical function scoring using the PF-10 questionnaire asks whether patients are restricted in the following 10 activities: vigorous activities such as running; moderate activities such as moving a table; lifting and carrying groceries; climbing several flights of stairs; climbing one flight of stairs; bending, kneeling, or stooping; walking more than 1 kilometer; walking several hundred meters; walking 100 meters; and bathing or dressing.20
As RLS symptoms increase in frequency, patients' physical function scores tend to fall. In a study of 12,000 participants over 6 years using the Physical Function-10 scale, patients with RLS symptoms had increased disability compared with patients without RLS.20 This increased disability is not accounted for by other covariates.20 Interestingly, the association between RLS and future physical function status remained, even among patients who were healthy without underlying CVD, obesity, diabetes, renal failure, or other conditions.20 Decreased sleep duration in general may increase the risk of weight gain.21 Taken together, these findings suggest that RLS may have an underlying effect on daily function and that these effects worsen as RLS symptoms progress.
The most profound effects on patient quality of life appear to be in overall vitality, energy, and physical problems, leading to limitations in work and daily activities. Data suggest that RLS affects quality of life as much as or worse than other major chronic medical disorders.22
TREATMENT
Lifestyle modifications
Nonpharmacologic therapies are the foundation of RLS therapy. Patients with mild RLS may be able to reduce symptoms with lifestyle changes and self-help measures that can help them cope with and alleviate their symptoms without medications.23,24
Sleep hygiene. Patients should avoid eating or drinking anything containing caffeine or alcohol within 6 hours of bedtime. They should avoid smoking and avoid taking long naps during the day.
Exercise. Mild exercise such as yoga, straight-leg raise stretching maneuvers, low-intensity leg strength training, treadmill walking, and cycling can improve RLS symptoms. However, extreme exercise may cause fatigue, which can exacerbate symptoms. 25
Distraction techniques. Patients should establish relaxing presleep rituals such as a warm bath, stretching, a massage, or reading, to distract from RLS symptoms.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). This type of therapy can improve patients' coping strategies, quality of life, mental health, and subjective ratings of symptoms.23
Alternative therapies. Therapies such as acupuncture and vibration therapy have not been found to be helpful in patients with RLS.
Pharmacologic treatment
Patients should consider pharmacologic treatment if they have symptoms three or more times a week (Table 1).
TABLE 1.: 1,3,24,26-40 Pharmacologic treatment for RLS in adults
Iron. Oral iron can cause or worsen constipation, and may not be tolerated by all patients. IV iron is better-tolerated and causes fewer gastrointestinal adverse reactions but has limited evidence of efficacy and sustained improvement of symptoms. 26-28
Dopaminergic drugs. For patients who have moderate-to-severe RLS with disturbances in daily activities, quality of life, or sleep, dopaminergic drugs are the treatment of choice because RLS appears to involve dopaminergic dysregulation in the CNS.1 Ropinirole, a nonergot dopamine receptor agonist, is the most commonly used dopaminergic drug for moderate-to-severe RLS, significantly reducing motor symptoms of RLS compared with placebo.29 Pramipexole has shown significant improvements in RLS symptoms, sleep, and quality of life.30,31 Rotigotine is available as an oral or transdermal preparation and also is indicated for treatment of RLS. Although all three medications have been deemed effective in treating RLS for 6 months, the main difference between ropinirole and pramipexole versus rotigotine is that ropinirole and pramipexole appear to be effective for up to 1 year but rotigotine appears to be effective for up to 5 years.32
The main complication of long-term dopaminergic therapy is augmentation, or treatment-induced exacerbation of RLS symptoms. Augmentation is characterized by increased symptom intensity, onset of symptoms earlier in the day, a shorter time to symptom onset during rest, spread of symptoms to previously unaffected parts of the body, and a shorter period of relief after medication administration. The mechanisms behind augmentation are unknown. However, to reduce the risk of augmentation, dopaminergic therapy should be maintained at the lowest dose possible.33
Other medications. Opioids can successfully treat RLS and are considered second-line therapy for patients who do not respond to dopamine agonists. Methadone can benefit most patients with refractory RLS.3 Gabapentin enacarbil is the only nondopaminergic therapeutic agent approved by the FDA to treat moderate-to-severe RLS. This drug is recommended for patients whose sleep disturbances are worse than their sensorimotor symptoms, and who have comorbid insomnia, anxiety, or pain disorders.24,32 Benzodiazepines do not give adequate control of RLS symptoms, but can help induce and improve the quality of sleep.33 Patients requiring opioids or secondary forms of pharmacology should be managed or comanaged by a neurologist or a pain specialist.
Treating RLS in children
The FDA has not approved any medications to treat RLS in children. However, frequently used and accepted medications for childhood RLS include clonidine, clonazepam, and gabapentin prescribed off-label. Although dopaminergic agonists have been used in children, their effects have not been extensively studied.34 Children with RLS are best cared for by a pediatric neurologist.
CONCLUSION
Because 5% to 10% of the general population is estimated to have RLS, healthcare providers must recognize and appropriately treat RLS. Symptoms can cause significant negative mental and physical health effects, often going undiagnosed for many years. Using the URGED criteria can help clinicians diagnose patients early and establish a treatment regimen, minimizing the negative effect of RLS on patients' quality of life.
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The death penalty in Nebraska wasn't exactly high on the list of social conversation topics among young professionals in Lincoln until May of 2015.
That's when the Legislature voted to repeal the death penalty, and then to override a Republican governor's veto of the repeal, in a state known to be conservative and rather set in its ways.
And that's when conversations about the death penalty took off.
"The issue comes up a lot with my friends and a lot of the people that I hang out with," said Eric Gerrard, a co-host for a young professionals fundraiser Thursday night on behalf of Retain A Just Nebraska, which is working to ensure the death penalty repeal stands.
Gerrard, a lobbyist, said he was at the Capitol for all the debate on the death penalty repeal bill (LB268) and the votes.
"Because I'm over there quite a bit, my friends will ask me what's going on and (about) the arguments on both sides, and I guess I have a difficult time coming up with too many arguments for the death penalty," he said.
They talk about whether death or life sentences are more expensive for the state. And whether the worst punishment for murder is a death sentence or spending a lifetime in prison.
His most conservative friend, who disagrees with him on just about everything, agrees with him on this issue, he said.
Convincing a state full of voters to retain the repeal will be a task, Gerrard said.
"The death penalty's kind of the easy answer and there's a lot of education and thought that has to go into understanding why it isn't the best answer," he said. "That takes a lot of research and deep thinking, and I don't know if that always happens when people go to cast a vote."
Chris Peterson is a spokesman for the opposing side, Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, the group that got the issue onto the November ballot. He said supporters of keeping the death penalty in Nebraska cut across all age groups.
"Our recent polling indicates there is no statistical difference of opinion about the death penalty for 18-34-year-olds versus all voters," he said. "So whether someone is 25, 45 or 65 years old, they have the same probability of being among the majority of Nebraskans who support repealing LB268 and keeping the death penalty."
Lincoln Sen. Kate Bolz, a sponsor of the fundraiser and a member of the Lincoln Young Professionals, said they've had a lot of interest in the death penalty from young people, and they wanted to respond to that interest.
"That generation of people is among the most diverse in our country and so the idea that the death penalty is unfairly applied resonates," she said.
Liz Ring Carlson, a public relations manager who is a co-host for the event, said Lincoln has a history of young people being politically active and wanting to have a voice in policy making decisions. "But sometimes they're just really not sure how to get involved."
So the purpose of Thursday's gathering is, along with raising money for the campaign, to share information and educate people for the November vote, she said.
The Legislature brought forward a difficult topic last year, she said.
"That increased their interest in really having an honest and authentic dialog around it, not partisan bickering or anything along those lines," Carlson said.
They want to know the facts, she said. Does the death penalty work? Is it more expensive? How many people are affected? What percentage of people put to death are actually innocent? And why is there a group going against what our elected officials said?
Young people see lot of positive things going on in the state, with job growth, startup businesses, and the interest in attracting more young professionals to the state, she said.
And the death penalty plays into that mindset of what Nebraska's all about, especially on the national stage, she said.
The fundraiser is bipartisan, Bolz said, and will be held at Fuse Coworking, 151 N. Eighth St., from 5:30-7:30.
Each week, the Lincoln Journal Star will bring you a list of the upcoming holidays dedicated to the foods we eat -- or need to try.
Here's the holiday fare for July 6-12:
July 6: National Fried Chicken Day. The chicken was first domesticated for cockfighting, not for food, according to foodimentary.com. It is believed that fried chicken was introduced to the United States by Scottish immigrants, but it was African immigrants, brought to work on plantations in southern states, that improved the recipe with varied spices and seasonings. Today, there are more chickens than human beings on earth, according to wdish.com.
July 7: World Chocolate Day. On this day 466 years ago, chocolate was introduced to Europe. The average American eats 11 pounds of chocolate per year -- just half of what the average person in Switzerland eats each year, according to RandomHistory.com.
July 8: National Milk Chocolate with Almonds Day. Our celebration of chocolate continues with the infusion of the almond. Did you know the protein in almonds is more like the proteins of breast milk than of all other seeds and nuts? That is why the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine uses almonds as a base for baby formula.
July 9: National Sugar Cookie Day. In the mid-1700s, Protestant settlers from Germany created the first sugar cookies in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. Early sugar cookies were often a cross between the modern bagel and a cookie. The cookies were tough and dry, which made them convenient for travel and long-lasting, according to weirdholiday.com. The United States leads the world in cookie baking and eating, spending more than $550 million annually on Oreos alone, according to foodimentary.com.
July 10: National Pina Colada Day. This Pina Colada was invented on Aug. 16, 1954, at the Caribe Hiltons Beachcomber Bar in San Juan, Puerto Rico, by Ramon Monchito Marrero. Hotel management asked Marrero to create a signature drink for its celebrity guests. It took Marrero three months of blending and concocting before he perfected his pina colada, according to foodimentary.com.
July 11: National Blueberry Muffin Day. This day comes on the heels of Pick Blueberries Day (celebrated July 10). In terms of popularity, blueberries rank second in the U.S., just behind the strawberry. The blueberry muffin is the official muffin of Minnesota. (FYI: Nebraskas official muffin is the smore muffin, according to statemuffin.org.)
July 12: National Pecan Pie Day. Of all the nuts grown in the U.S., the pecan is the only one that is truly native to the United States, according to the Georgia Pecan Commission. Pie as dessert, is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the 19th century, people ate fruit pies for breakfast. In fact, more than one-third of Americans confess to eating pie in bed, according to foodimentary.com.
Marijuana (illustration)
By: Wayne Morin
Officials in Jamaica, have announced that the government will set up marijuana dispensaries at airports and seaports across the country.
The government will install kiosks that will dispense marijuana to tourists in order to bring more revenue.
The New Cannabis Licensing Authority (CLA) said that the kiosks will be installed in two months after possession of small amounts of marijuana were legalized.
The dispensaries will be located at airports and seaports, and will be operated by a person with medical training.
That staff member would give tourists who have a prescription for medical marijuana from abroad, a license to use or carry up to two ounces of marijuana.
Lawmakers have legalized growing five or fewer marijuana plants per household.
Music festival (illustration)
By: Mahesh Sarin
(Scroll down for video) Police launched an investigation after numerous girls reported being raped by foreign nationals during two music festivals, according to police in Sweden.
Police in Norrkoping and Karlstad, said that so far, 49 girls and women have reported rapes and sexual assaults.
The crimes against the women happened over the weekend at the Bravalla Festival and the Putte i Parken music festival. 5 girls told police that they were raped while 12 reported being sexually assaulted at the Bravalla Festival.
In Norrkoping, 32 sexual assaults had been reported at the Putte i Parken music festival. Girls and women at the festivals said they had been groped by boys and men.
Most victims were under 18 years old, and three girls were under 15 years old. So far, police have questioned seven suspects, six of them refugees, whose ages range from under than 18 to 35.
However, no arrests have been made.
The Mumford and Sons group said on Tuesday: aWere appalled to hear what happened at the Bravalla Festival last weekend. Festivals are a celebration of music and people, a place to let go and feel safe doing so.
aWere gutted by these hideous reports. We wont play at this festival again until weve had assurances from the police and organizers that theyre doing something to combat what appears to be a disgustingly high rate of reported sexual violence.a
Gage County and the people behind a cold-case investigation that sent six innocent people to prison for a 1985 rape and murder are on the hook for $28.1 million following a federal jury's verdict Wednesday.
Jeff Patterson, an attorney for the six convicted of a crime later tied by DNA to another man, said the jury's award puts the blame for the wrongful convictions where it belongs: on investigators.
But it was just a step, he said, suggesting an appeal is expected.
Jennifer Tomka, an attorney on the other side, would only say that it's too early to comment and that she needs to talk to county officials.
Shortly before 11 a.m. on the fourth day of deliberations, word began to spread through the federal courthouse that the jury had reached a verdict.
Neither the plaintiffs nor defendants were in the fifth-floor courtroom 20 minutes later to hear Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf read the 14-page verdict form.
Jurors found Gage County liable, and they found Sheriff's Deputy Burt Searcey, who led the investigation, and Dr. Wayne Price, a psychologist and reserve deputy, individually liable for leading a reckless investigation and manufacturing false evidence.
The jury found Gage County, plus Searcey and Price individually, owe damages of $28,105,000 $7.3 million each to Tom Winslow, JoAnn Taylor and Joseph White's estate.
The three each spent nearly 20 years in prison before DNA testing in 2008 connected another man, Bruce Allen Smith, to Helen Wilson's brutal death. By then, Smith had died.
Of the remaining $6.2 million, jurors awarded $2,190,000 each to James Dean and Kathy Gonzalez, who served about five years in prison, and $1,825,000 to Debra Shelden, who served less than five years.
After they were cleared in Wilson's death, the six sued the county, the deputies and late Gage County Sheriff Jerry DeWitt for building a case on inconsistent statements, coerced false confessions and testimony about "memories," which came to co-defendants in nightmares after working with Price, who had treated at least two of them previously.
All but White entered pleas, and Taylor, Dean and Shelden testified against him at trial, saying they recalled the chaotic scene in Wilson's tiny Beatrice apartment after talking with Price in jail.
Ultimately, White's conviction was overturned and the other five were pardoned.
Their first civil trial, in January 2014, ended with a deadlocked jury. The second started June 6.
At the end of four weeks, it was for the jury to decide whether Searcey, Price and DeWitt's estate were individually liable for leading a reckless investigation, manufacturing false evidence or conspiring to do either, and whether Gage County should be liable, too, because the sheriff had established a policy by his words or actions which allowed it to happen.
The jury cleared DeWitt's estate of liability and found there was no conspiracy but ruled against the county on behalf of each of the six, who sought half a million dollars for each of the roughly 75 years combined they spent in prison more than $37.5 million total.
Attorney Maren Chaloupka said the six may never see the money but that's not what matters.
What matters is this jury heard all the evidence and issued a very fair, very specific decision of their judgment of the evidence.
Chaloupka said it meant a great deal for them to hear that the jury agreed that their lives matter.
Still, she said, she doubts the verdict will change minds in Gage County, where some still believe the six were involved in Wilsons murder.
But, Chaloupka added, I hope that those who judged our clients to be guilty will consider that question anew.
Attorneys for Gage County will have 10 days to file a motion for a new trial or 30 days to file an appeal.
Before he left the courthouse, juror Jason Bartels of Sterling called it a hard-fought battle on both sides.
"We had our hands full," he said. "It wasn't something I took lightly."
Bartels, 29, said he thought the jury treated everybody equally and that he couldn't really blame Searcey, who he described as a bulldog.
Even though they found against him, Price and the county, he said, "We're all humans."
Reached by cellphone Wednesday afternoon, Searcey hung up, then declined to comment in a text.
In a call from Alabama, Joseph White's mother, Lois, said she is relieved the trial is over. She sat through the four-week trial but since has gone home.
"Finally, Gage County and company were being held responsible for what they did to my son and the other five," she said. "I am relieved that this part of it is done, and I'm not worried about the rest of it."
For her, it was about clearing her son's name and maybe keeping the same thing from happening to others.
Joe White went home to Alabama after he was released from prison. He died in a workplace accident there in 2011.
"Joe never stopped fighting for justice," said Patterson, a lead attorney for the six. "And his family, after he passed, never stopped trying to clear his name. That was really as important as anything else."
Asked what he would think if he were alive, Lois White said: "It's about time."
Prosecutors on Tuesday charged a 29-year-old Lincoln man with a hate crime and accused him of sexually assaulting a 77-year-old because of her age.
Chad E. Drewes faces 10 felony charges in connection with the alleged home-invasion robbery on June 24 at the woman's rural Seward County home, according to the criminal complaint.
An affidavit filed in connection with Drewes' arrest recounts the horrifying details the woman told sheriff's deputies after walking to a neighbor's to call for help.
Around 10:30 p.m., a shirtless man kicked in the pedestrian door to her garage and began strangling her with his hands and forearm, investigators said in the affidavit.
Then he threw her to the ground and either hit her left eye or caused it to hit another object, the affidavit said.
On the ground, the man took a cellphone case the woman wore around her neck and used it to bind her feet before binding her hands with an unknown restraint, the woman said.
He then dragged her from the back porch near the garage into a spare bedroom on the other side of the house, she told deputies.
There he forced her face down onto the bed and raped her, she said.
Afterward, he untied her and led her to a bathroom, set up a chair for her, broke out a light switch and told her to stay there, the affidavit said.
The man ransacked her house looking for guns and valuables before he left in the woman's SUV around 4 a.m. with jewelry, prescription medication and electronic devices, the affidavit said.
Afraid, the woman stayed in the bathroom for another hour, she told police. Then she went to lie down out of exhaustion before walking to a neighbor's house to report the attack around 6:30 a.m.
Investigators found a rental car police believe the man drove to the woman's home. It was later reported stolen from Lincoln.
Deputies working with Lincoln police got information from OnStar that the woman's stolen SUV was near Ninth and Court streets in Lincoln.
Police saw a man near it who matched the description the woman gave and contacted Drewes, who told officers he "blacked out" and woke up in the woman's vehicle near 84th Street before driving it to the North Bottoms address, the affidavit said.
Drewes had some of the stolen items taken from the woman's home on him, as well as the key to the stolen car found near the woman's home, the affidavit said.
Prosecutors have charged Drewes with first-degree sexual assault, first-degree assault, robbery, theft by unlawful taking over $5,000, burglary, first-degree false imprisonment and several other felonies.
Seward County Attorney Wendy Elston filed a hate crime enhancement on the sex assault charge, which carries a longer possible prison sentence.
Elston didn't return a call seeking comment on the hate crime enhancement.
Drewes' attorney, Seward County Public Defender Tina Marroquin, couldn't be reached for comment on the allegations Tuesday afternoon.
Marroquin has filed a motion to have Drewes' competency reviewed by a psychiatrist.
Drewes was jailed at the Diagnostic and Evaluation Center, a Lincoln prison, out of concern he would harm himself, authorities said.
He remained at the prison Tuesday on $750,000 bond.
In the lead up to next Tuesdays scheduled ruling by an international court on maritime disputes in the South China Sea, the Chinese military yesterday began a series of naval exercises in the area. While the Chinese defence ministry claimed the drills were routine, Beijing is clearly expressing its determination to defend its territorial claims.
The exercises will run from July 5 to 11the day before the UN Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague is due to hand down its decision. Details are sketchy, but at least two guided missile destroyers, the Shenyang and the Ningbo, as well as a frigate, the Chaozhou, are reportedly involved. The drills are taking place in a 100,000-square kilometre zone near the Paracel Islands, which are under Chinese administration, in the northern area of the South China Sea.
HIS Janes Defence Weekly reported yesterday that China is also discussing a joint naval exercise with Russia in the South China Sea during September. Chinese defence spokesman Colonel Wu Qian confirmed on June 30 that consultation for the drill was underway but provided no details. The Joint Sea exercise was first conducted in 2012 in the Yellow Seawell to the north of the South China Sea.
The Chinese military exercises are above all meant as a warning to the US, which has deliberately inflamed territorial disputes in the South China Sea over the past six years as part of its pivot to Asia. The Obama administration has transformed the sea into a dangerous flashpoint, alongside a US diplomatic offensive and military build-up throughout the region aimed at subordinating China to American interests.
The US navy has carried out three provocative freedom of navigation operations since last October, deliberately intruding within the 12-nautical-mile territorial limit around Chinese-controlled islets. In June, the US conducted two major naval war games in areas close to the South China Sea. The most recent was a massive show of force, involving two aircraft carriers, together with their strike groups, practicing what was described as high-end war fighting.
The Obama administration has also been instrumental in encouraging the Philippines, in particular, to more aggressively press its maritime claims against China. Washington has provided crucial behind-the-scenes political and legal support to Manila to mount its legal challenge in The Hague. While it demands China abides by international law, the US has not ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), under which the Philippine case has been brought.
However, while the US actions clearly threaten Chinas interests, Beijings response to the US pivot is reckless and reactionary. Utterly incapable of making any appeal to the working class, either in China or internationally, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime, which represents a tiny ultra-rich oligarchy, is engaged in an arms race, while at the same time seeking to reach an accommodation with the US.
An editorial in yesterdays state-owned Global Times spelled out the attitude of the most hawkish sections of the CCP bureaucracy and the military. After blaming Washington for rising tensions in the South China Sea, the newspaper declared that if the US deployed more military forces to the South China Sea, which are a direct threat to Chinas national security, Chinas military exercises could be regarded as a countermeasure.
The editorial stated that while China sought to resolve the maritime disputes through talks, it must be prepared for any military confrontation. The newspaper advised: China should speed up its military capabilities of strategic deterrence. Even though China cannot keep up with the US militarily, it should be able to let the US pay a cost it cannot stand if it intervenes in the South China Sea dispute by force.
Such bellicose statements play directly into the hands of Washington and heighten the risk of a military clash that would escalate into a wider war involving nuclear-armed powers. The US is not about to allow China to inflict a cost it cannot stand, as that could damage Washingtons alliances in Asia and internationally, and is preparing accordingly. By 2020, the Pentagon plans to base 60 percent of US naval and air assets in the Indo-Pacific region.
When asked about the editorial, the Chinese foreign ministry played down the threat of conflict. Spokesman Hong Lei told the media: China will work with ASEAN [Association of South East Asian Nations] countries to safeguard the peace and stability of the South China Sea. He made clear, however, that Beijing, which has refused to take part in court proceedings in The Hague, would not abide by any ruling that challenged Chinese territorial claims.
In recent weeks, China has mounted its own campaign to garner international support for its stance before the court decision. Despite Beijings claims to have the support of up to 60 countries, it appears only a relative handful has publicly backed China. Beijing has rejected US charges that Chinas land reclamation and limited military activities in the South China Sea are expansionist or aggressive.
In reality, US military actions in the South China Sea directly threaten China, which is heavily dependent on the seas shipping lanes to import energy and raw materials from the Middle East and Africa. The Pentagons strategy for war with China, known as AirSea Battle, envisages a massive air and missile attack on the Chinese mainland, supplemented by a naval blockade to cripple the Chinese economy.
The Obama administrations pivot to Asia has dramatically raised tensions throughout the region. The heightened danger of a military clash involving China and the US or its various allies and strategic partners has been underscored by two recent incidents.
On Monday, China issued a statement accusing two Japanese F-15 fighters of lighting up Chinese military aircraft with their fire control radarthat is, preparing to fire air-to-air missiles. Japan denied the accusation. The incident took place on June 17 over the East China Sea, where the two countries are in dispute over small rocky outcrops known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyu Islands in China.
Last Friday, a Taiwanese patrol boat fired an anti-ship missile from inside a military base. The missile hit a local fishing boat about 40 nautical miles away, off the Penghu islands in the Taiwan Strait, killing its captain. Taiwanese authorities blamed an unsupervised petty officer for not following procedure, but China called for an explanation. The South China Morning Post commented: The biggest worry about such incidents is that they can get out of control and lead to armed conflict.
The California State University (CSU) system released a study last month that documented the rise of hunger and homelessness among the student body. The study, which can be accessed here, reported that of the 474,600 students spread across 23 campuses, 8 to 12 percent are homeless, and 21 to 24 percent go hungry.
If anything these figures, scandalous as they are, are an underestimation. The CSU system is the first public university to study this issue, which has gone largely unreported in the corporate media. Due to the stigma attached to identifying oneself as homeless and hungry, many students do not report their problems to the right authorities and do not know where to turn. The term starving student has almost normalized the trend.
In many of the schools, there exists no support for students in either housing or food. Less than half of the CSU schools offer food and housing programs, and only 15 percent are actively reaching out to students in need.
The study, which is only in its preliminary stages and will be conducted over two years, questioned 92 students and four focus groups at different campuses about their food and housing situations. College staff and faculty were also asked about their awareness of homelessness and hunger among students. The study notes that no research was done to examine the retention rates among impoverished students who go on to graduate.
Students were asked their degree of the food insecurity, ranging from having enough money for food, skipping meals, or being unable to eat balanced meals. They were also asked how often they worried about these things, ranging from always, sometimes, rarely or never. In a random sample of 4,945 CSU Long Beach students, 21 percent and 12 percent stated they had issues with stable housing and hunger, respectively.
Students were also asked the places you may have slept at night if you did not have a stable place to live in the past 12 months. The list of responses included temporarily living with friends, relative or other people that that were not parents and couch surfing. At least 46 percent of respondents experienced this while many others reported living in a car, tent, park, bus or train station, abandoned building, motel, camper, shelter or transitional housing or an independent living program.
Not surprisingly, students who experience hunger and homelessness to whatever degree reported increased stress and trouble studying while managing their college and personal life. As one student, Yvette, told the study, I feel like once I get my bachelors under my belt, I can just keep moving forward. Inside I think Im falling apart.
Another student, Nikki, told the study she felt the campus staff did not understand her housing needs. She spoke with a residential life staff member about having nowhere to go once the dorms closed and was told it would not be fair to others if she were allowed to stay in the dorms.
A staff member also told the study how sympathetic teachers react to hungry and homeless students on a case-by-case basis, often relying on their own funds to help: A lot of these conversations take place inside our office with the door shut. Ive seen over and over again the staff members take their own personal money and many times hundreds of dollars, try to eliminate the food crisis or you know, whatever they can do. Its not really talked about.
Nationally, the number of students facing hunger and homelessness is unknown and is largely unreported or underestimated. It is significant that the preliminary study done at CSU found middle income students who had not previously experienced poverty as also experiencing basic need issues due to the high cost of living in California.
The US Department of Education estimated that 56,588 students nationally and about 10,000 students in California identified as independent homeless youth on their Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) in 2013-14. No doubt, this a gross underestimation since many students are either unaware of the designation or do not want to identify as homeless, or become homeless afterwards.
Many students, of course, do not know where to turn to or if help is available at their school. Due to state budget cuts and years of underfunding, school programs that would offer free meals or housing are often the best kept secret on campus and are not widely known. The study also noted that roughly 2 million students in California reside in households that qualify for food stamps in 2014.
The cause of widespread hunger and homelessness among student youth is not difficult to determine. The authors of the study were forced to admit only the most obvious: lack of affordable housing and prohibitive food stamp requirements.
California is indeed one of the most expensive places to live in the United States. Combined with that is also the long-term decline of jobs that provided decent wages in the state and nationwide. Students going to college now can only find part-time, temporary work, which hardly keeps up with the cost of living.
The Obama administration in close collaboration with Democratic Governor Jerry Brown have together slashed billions from higher education and social services like food stamps and homeless shelters. Individual schools are now required to meet the flood of demand with barebones and inadequate programs, if they exist at all.
Adding insult to injury, student youth are asked not only to study and pass their classes, but to hold down a job to cover tuition and other costs that are not covered by grants, scholarships and student loans. It is an outrage that so many cannot, and many more do not know, where their next meal is coming from or where they will spend the night. All of this in the richest state in the richest country in the world.
The British vote to exit from the European Union will compound the economic crisis in Sri Lanka and further fuel popular discontent as the government implements the austerity agenda demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Britain is the second largest market for Sri Lankan merchandise exports, the third largest source of tourists and accounts for 18 percent of the expatriate remittances sent by Sri Lankans working overseas. A depreciation of the British pound, a shift away from EU employment practices and a possible contraction of British economy could all exacerbate Sri Lankas mounting balance of payments difficulties.
Moreover, the Brexit decision could also impact on Sri Lankan trade with the EU. Currently 40 percent of the countrys exports to EU countries are channelled through Britain.
The Sri Lankan government sent three senior representatives to Britain before the referendum, to actively encourage support for the Remain campaign among expatriate Sri Lankans. After the vote to leave the EU, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe immediately appointed a government committee to assess the impact of Brexit and propose remedial measures.
Wickremesinghe warned: The impact of Brexit on Sri Lanka would be greater than that stemming from Lanka losing the EUs GSP+ tariff concession. He had been boasting that his government would win back the trade concession, which the EU withdrew as a means of putting pressure on the previous administration of President Mahinda Rajapakse.
Sri Lankas foreign currency reserves fell to $US5.6 billion in May, equivalent to only three and half months of imports, down from $6.06 billion in April and $7.3 billion six months ago. During the first three months of this year, $600 million left the country from government securities, the stock exchange and the long-term government loan market.
The government is desperately seeking to shore up the countrys deteriorating balance of payments. Having just received IMF approval for a $1.5 billion loan on June 3, Wickremesinghe rammed through a decision to obtain a $3 billion Foreign Currency Term Financing Facility (FTFF)a syndicate loan through foreign banksdespite the auditor general warning about its unfavourable terms and conditions.
The government is frantically seeking to boost foreign exchange earnings. In April, it imposed a regulation forcing exporters to repatriate their export earnings to Sri Lanka within 90 days. It is also reportedly preparing to amend the Land (Restrictions on Alienation) Act, which bars foreigners from buying land in Sri Lanka. The plan is apparently to offer land to foreigners who bring $1 million or more into the country and a 10-year visa to those who bring in over $300,000.
The IMF $1.5 billion loan, or Extended Fund Facility, is spread out over three years with the first tranche only providing $168 million. The remainder will be released in six instalments following quarterly progress reports to ensure that the government implements the IMFs demands for slashing the budget deficit, more privatisation and other pro-market measures.
The government expects another $650 million in additional loans from other multilateral agencies, including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and bilateral sources such as the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA). It has also obtained finance from India via a currency swap program.
In his report to the Ministry of Finance, the auditor general pointed out that the present government has obtained 3,350 billion rupees ($23 billion) or double the 1,780 billion rupees approved by parliament. At present, 90 percent of government revenue goes to servicing debt. Even though the auditor general is supposedly independent of the government, both the prime minister and finance minister, provocatively and in violation of the constitution, called him in and demanded an explanation.
At the same time, the government is attempting to exploit the Brexit vote to overcome opposition to an Economic and Technology Cooperative Agreement (ETCA) with India and expedite its signing. The ETCA is opposed by a substantial section of Sri Lankan professionals and corporations, which fear it will expose them to intense competition from India. Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama is due to visit India next week to negotiate the ETCA.
The government is under intense pressure to implement the IMFs austerity measures. On June 20, Moodys ratings agency downgraded the outlook for Sri Lankas sovereign debt rating from stable to negative, saying it expects a more moderate reduction in budget deficits than outlined in the projections published as part of the IMF loan. Failure to meet the IMF targets could result in a credit rating downgrade, which would make loans more expensive.
At a recent press conference, Todd Schneider, IMF mission chief for Sri Lanka, said: Sri Lanka needs to do a fundamental reboot of macroeconomic policy or a policy upgrade. A fundamental reboot means nothing other than a massive onslaught on the working masses to make them pay for the economic crisis.
The IMF is insisting that the government slash the fiscal deficit to 3.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020, effectively halving the figure from 6.9 percent last year. Specific conditions include increasing tax revenues, cutting subsidies, privatising state-owned enterprises and establishing a market-driven exchange rate for the rupee. The government will also have to cut its expenditure from the current level of 20 percent of GDP.
Cutbacks to monthly allowances and plans for the privatisation of public enterprises have already triggered resistance by postal workers and port workers in recent weeks. Social services, such as education and health, have been allowed to deteriorate to such an extent that poor rural students have held protests in many parts of the island.
Increases in the Value Added Tax (VAT), up to 15 percent, have resulted in a series of protests by merchants associations in cities and towns throughout the country, including Galle, Matara, Badulla, Anuradhapura, Kadawatha, Gampaha and Maharagama.
In a note of caution to the government, the political column of the Sunday Times on July 3 stated: The public discontent can be gauged to some extent by what the civilian intelligence agencies of the state discovered. This week there were 56 protests countrywide by different groups for different reasons but all directed against the government. Therein lies a strong message.
Amid continuing protests against the Socialist Party governments (PS) reactionary labor law, Prime Minister Manuel Valls again used Article 49-3 of the French constitution yesterday to impose a new draft of the law in the National Assembly without a vote. Just outside the Assembly, riot police kettled a protest by several hundred people on Concorde Bridge.
The PS also imposed unprecedented security restrictions at yesterdays protests in cities across France, which were timed to coincide with the presentation of the bill in the National Assembly. The starting point of the protest in Paris, Italy Square, was barricaded and surrounded by riot police. Protesters arriving at the march had to undergo three searches, including with a full-body pat-down, before reaching the square.
After using Article 49-3 to ram a first draft of the labor law through the Assembly in May, and issuing an extraordinary threat to ban a June 24 protest under the state of emergency, the PS gesture is a signal that it will stop at nothing to ram through its anti-social agenda. It has trampled over overwhelming popular opposition to the law ever since it was first presented in March. Amid the unprecedented crisis caused by the British vote to exit the European Union (EU), and facing a likely economic crash, the PS intends to rapidly impose the laws anti-working class provisions.
The new draft of the bill presented to the Assembly yesterday arrived from the Senate, where the right-wing majority had eliminated all the token changes to the law the PS had made as concessions in the face of mass protests. They cut out programs for unemployed youth and reinstated limits on penalties judges can impose on employers who carry out sackings in violation of existing labor law.
None of these changes modified the essential content of the law: lengthening working hours, undermining younger workers job security and, above all, allowing unions and management at individual workplaces to negotiate contracts violating the Labor Code.
Before presenting the bill to the Assembly yesterday, the PS again added another minor change to the bill, a provision allowing unions and employers in each industry to negotiate agreements specifying how firm-level contracts can violate currently existing, industry-wide contracts. Labor Minister Myriam El Khomri insisted, however, that this was a purely symbolic change: What we are proposing does not in any way modify the importance we want to give to firm-level contracts, but it will reaffirm the role of industry-level agreements.
This measure will impose no meaningful control on the anti-worker measures that the unions and bosses will negotiate, and in any case, the Senate will once again be free to remove it.
The purpose of this maneuver is to allow the PS and the union bureaucracies to try to defuse social anger and to claim they are negotiating in the interests of the workers, whereas the law is just as harmful to the workers as the day it was first presented. The clarifications on industrial-level agreements are useful to reassure workers, stated the French Confederation of Christian Workers (CFTC) union, which supports the labor law.
Without weakening the law, we want to avoid looking like we are frozen in place, an adviser to President Francois Hollande explained, stressing that the PS still had to be careful due to explosive popular opposition: We have repeatedly thought in the last four months that we had seen a way clear of this crisis.
The central element that is emerging is the gulf separating the working class from the political parties and trade unions on the periphery of the PS. Many of these forces criticized the labor law and organized the protests against it. However, all of them had called for a vote for the PS in 2012, and all of them supported a perspective of negotiating with the PS in order to obtain whatever modifications Hollande was willing to make to the law.
No party was oriented to the task objectively posed by the eruption of a movement of the working class against the PS: mobilizing workers opposition to austerity independently of maneuvers between the PS and the unions, and linking it on a revolutionary and socialist platform to growing movements of the working class across Europein Belgium, Greece, and beyond. The sentiments driving masses of workers and youth found no genuine reflection among any of the existing political forces.
Three-fourths of the population opposes the law, and workers and youth are ever more drawing the conclusion that it is impossible to negotiate any agreement with the PS. Facing financial pressure due to repeated strike actions, and beginning to shed illusions that the current protests will stop the implementation of the bill, broader layers of workers and youth are increasingly turning away from the regularly-scheduled union protests.
The PS, the union federations and pseudo-left parties like the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) hope to use this as an opportunity to wrap up the protestsallowing the PS to ram the law through and start the process of negotiating concessions contracts in workplaces across France.
PS members or trade unionists, everyone is tired, a government minister told Liberation. We have to get to the end of this, even if this means disappearing down a mouse hole.
In the run-up to yesterdays protest, Workers Force (FO)which, together with the Stalinist General Confederation of Labor (CGT) and the NPA-linked Solidarity Union Democracy (SUD) union, organized protests against the lawindicated that it opposed the action.
Last week, FO leader Jean-Claude Mailly told La Croix that he did not want yesterdays protest in Paris to take place, adding, it is becoming complicated. He peremptorily announced an end to the protests until September: There are no demonstrations this summer, people are going on vacation.
The continuing desire to fight among workers and youth protesting the labor law yesterday, reflecting the broader anger against austerity building among workers in France and across Europe, is diametrically opposed to the positions of Mailly.
The WSWS spoke to Quentin, a university student, at the protest yesterday in Paris. Today, I cannot see based on the PS actions how it can claim to be a left-wing party, he said. I voted for Hollande in 2012 because I did not want either the ultra-free market policies of [right wing President] Nicolas Sarkozy or the authoritarian policies of Marine Le Pen. And then we ended up getting both.
Quentin added that the Brexit crisis raised both the crisis of EU institutions and the rise of far-right nationalism. Now the situation in Europe is getting very political, and the struggle against the labor law is a clear example of this, he said, adding: We know very well that this is a law that the EU Commission wants to see passed.
The month of July began for thousands of Greek retirees with drastic cuts to their pensions. The pseudo-left Syriza government is currently imposing a reform of the pension and social security systems which was adopted in May.
In a first step, they cut the social security bonus (EKAS) for pensioners retroactively from 1 June. The goal is the gradual elimination of EKAS. This reform will affect those who already only have small pensions and are dependent on the state benefit to survive.
Around 150,000 pensioners, 40 percent of the 380,000 entitled to claim the benefit, lost their entitlement. According to Greek daily To Vima, the cutbacks have now more than doubled the cuts agreed in 2015. At that time, the talk had been of 20 percent of pensioners losing EKAS.
To date, pensioners with an annual gross income of less than 8,472 were able to claim a benefit which, depending on the level of their income, ranged from 57.50 to 230. Pensions up to 9,884 or family incomes up to 13,500 were topped up with a 30 benefit. This 30 benefit has now been completely eliminated, while the other benefits will apply only to gross incomes up to 7,972, around 664 per month.
Thousands of retirees draw a mini pension which is slightly more than 664 per month. They will thus lose all entitlement to EKAS. Anyone who has retired and is entitled to EKAS only receives the benefit at age 65. People with disabilities who have retired early will also either lose the benefit or receive a reduced amount if they are more than 80 percent disabled.
In addition, further cuts to pension benefits of up to 40 percent will take effect in August. Pensions in Greece are so low that most people claim pension benefits. Due to numerous rounds of cuts, the gross monthly income of pensioners has dropped from 1,200 to 833.
The austerity measures also include a plan to cut the minimum pension from 486 to 345 for someone with 15 years of pension insurance contributions. The monthly limit for tax-free earnings has also been reduced so that many workers and pensioners now confront additional costs.
While the Syriza government is throwing pensioners into even more dire poverty, they are also selling off state property to foreign investors.
Last week, the parliament signed off on the sale of the state port company in Piraeus (OLP). Prior to this, port workers in Piraeus and Thessaloniki, whose port is also to be privatised, went on strike. Apart from the Stalinist Communist Party (KKE) and the fascist Golden Dawn, all parliamentary parties voted for the privatisation.
The buyer is the ocean carrier China Ocean Shipping Company (Cosco). For 368.5 million the company will receive a share of 67 percent in the port authority until 2052.
A further deterioration of working conditions is to be expected following the privatisation. Cosco, which has owned half of Piraeus port since 2009, wants to turn it into a hub for container transportation between the Far East and Eastern Europe, including the Balkans, as the Cosco president said when signing the deal.
Over recent years, the port workers union has repeatedly complained of arbitrary lay-offs, cuts and abuse of employee rights.
As early as 2010, the Eleftherotypia newspaper published an article with the revealing title Medieval working relations at the port, in which 13 typical conditions in a contract between Cosco and Greek port workers were exposed. Included in the first three conditions were the provisions that everyone would be hired as an unskilled labourer, that the company could relocate workers at any point without consent and that wages of 40 for an eight-hour workday were fixed and would only be paid at the end of the month. In the case of illness, Cosco was permitted to appoint a doctor to examine the worker. Workers were banned from forming a works council.
At the time, Syriza, then in opposition, was among the sharpest critics of the port privatisation. In 2009, Alexis Tsipras visited striking port workers in Piraeus with Theodoris Dritsas (also Syriza). In his speech, he railed against the government and described the contract with Cosco as colonialist.
Two years ago, port workers once again struck against the inhumane working conditions at Cosco. They complained of low wages, a lack of breaks, inadequate staff and 16-hour shifts. But the workers resistance was shut down with a few promises and concessions.
Syriza continued to verbally proclaim their support for port workers in 2014. But as the World Socialist Web Site commented at the time: Such rhetoric, which purposefully refrains from criticising the working conditions in Coscos facilities, gives the signal to Chinese and other foreign investors that a government under SYRIZA would mean business as usual.
Today it is clear that Syriza is not only continuing the right-wing policies of its predecessors, but accelerating and extending them. Dritsas is now minister of shipping and island policy, and brought the agreement to sell the port through parliament after the government reached agreement with Cosco on some outstanding legal matters.
A day after the parliamentary vote, Prime Minister Tsipras travelled to China to meet with the countrys president, high-ranking government officials and a number of company chiefs. His travel plans included significant companies such as the Wanda Group (industrial property and culture), the telecommunications firms Huawei and ZTE, the IT firm Alibaba group, the Fosun conglomerate (finance and industrial sector) and the shipping company Cosco.
Along with several government representatives and 40 heads of business, the Greek delegation included the president of the TAIPED privatisation authority and the head of Enterprise Greece, which aims to lure foreign investors into Greece.
On his trip, Tsipras emphasized Greeces important geopolitical position in the current global context. The country could become an extremely important transit hub, a bridge which connects the Western world and Europe with China, a great world power.
The excellent cooperation with Cosco was useful for both sides, according to Tsipras, and opened the way for stronger strategic collaboration. It was now necessary to talk about the modernisation of the railway network to Western Europe, as well as a series of other projects.
These are not empty words. Cosco has already shown an interest in other Greek privatisation projects in the areas of transport and infrastructure.
Tsipras also announced that Greece would become a member of the China-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank. China founded this multi-lateral development bank in 2014 as a competitor to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which are under the control of the United States.
Prior to his China visit, Tsipras welcomed German SPD leader and minister for economy and energy Sigmar Gabriel in Athens. Gabriel brought 40 heads of business with him and some members of parliamentary parties.
A few days after the Brexit vote, Gabriel hailed the solidarity with Tsipras, as Spiegel Online commented. We progressive leaders in Europe must stick together, declared Tsipras, and repeated his mantra that the austerity policies would soon end. Gabriel praised the reforms in Greece. He said that Tsipras had to work on changing the structures in the country so that German firms could invest there.
In fact, it is the austerity dictates forced on Greece by the German coalition government (which includes the SPD) which have brought the country to the brink of a social explosion. German companies now want to profit from the sell-off of state property and low wages. They find their closest partners in this effort in Tsipras and Syriza. Germanys Fraport has already bought the rights to 14 regional Greek airports.
Last Saturday, WSWS reporters spoke to voters in the Australian federal election about the social problems confronting the working class. Many voiced anger over the gutting of healthcare, education and welfare and rising unemployment.
While the corporate press and the major parties sought to cover-up the mounting social divide during the elections, it was underscored by the release of the Rich List in the midst of the campaign. It revealed that the combined wealth of the richest 200 individuals reached a record $197.3 billion. At the same time, more than 2.5 million people live in poverty.
Labor, seeking to assuage widespread anger over inequality, adopted a populist posture during the campaign. It cynically declared that the election was a referendum on Medicare, warning that the Liberal-Nationals planned to privatise the state-subsidised health system. In reality, successive Labor and Liberal-National coalition governments have gutted funding for health care, including Medicare.
Labors real agenda was underlined by the billions of dollars in spending cuts it outlined during the campaign, including to health, education and welfare. Many people who spoke to the WSWS agreed that whichever parties formed government the assault on the social rights of the working class would intensify.
In the Blaxland electorate in Sydneys south-west, Joseph, a carpenter, said that he voted for the Greens for no specific reason and added, Labor and the Liberals were both corrupt and nothing will change after the elections.
Joseph pointed to the mounting healthcare crisis. Im concerned about Medicare because my grandmother is old and she needs it. If we didnt have Medicare it would be coming out of our familys pocket. My grandmother is only on a pension and the family is struggling. My mother had to quit work to look after her because she is very sick.
He noted the difficulties facing small contractors. Me and my dad work very hard just to get by. I work on contract and the companies pay rubbish. They say there is a shortage of tradies [tradesmen] but there isnt a lot of work around.
When I started my apprenticeship the apprentice benefits lasted for two years. The government got rid of it. Whats to stop Liberal and Labour doing the same about anything? Just because they say theyre going to do something doesnt mean they will.
David, a graphic designer from Bankstown, said he was concerned about health services and the government attacks on pensions.
The government says it doesnt have any revenue but they spent huge amounts on the military and keep privatising industries and services. They used to own the Commonwealth Bank, which gave them revenue, but that was sold off.
There are no social services today and yet the politicians get big fat pensions for life and can go into business. If I had a small business theyd take the pension away from me straight away. The gap between the rich and poor is getting wider and wider.
Ayman, a small businessman from Sydneys south-west, voiced his concerns about the rising cost of living. These days the most challenging thing is to buy a house. Theyre very expensive. Its a dream hardly anyone can afford. Capitalism has made the prices high so property managers can make money, he commented.
Job security is also getting worse and worse. I dont think billions of dollars should be spent on defence spending. It should be spent on education, hospitals and other things that people need.
In Brisbane, Alysha, an ambulance paramedic who had come off a night shift, was concerned about the future of Medicare. That matters to me, so I voted towards that, she said.
Alysha agreed that consecutive governments had whittled away Medicare and the public health system. Theyve both got plans to privatise it, and one party is promising to save it, just to get the votes. I picked up those vibes too. You can only hope they do the right thing by their election promises, but they usually dont.
Insufficient funding is putting pressure on medical staff. Unfortunately, its not about meeting the demand, its about how much money we can get from the government. Theres not enough supply to meet the demand. They need to give more.
Sarah, who has major heart problems and leukemia, spoke to the WSWS in the working-class suburb of Auburn, in Sydneys west.
I got very sick in 2014, she explained. I had a massive heart attack and the system let me down. The ambulance services didnt come to my home when my husband rang them. They told him to take me to the nearest hospital, so my husband and my daughter, who was 9, got me to the hospital. I collapsed in the emergency department. They didnt attend to me when they should have so my heart was very badly damaged.
This is what has happened to this country. I remember when my father was sick we would call the ambulance and they would be at the front door before you put the phone down. Now they have cut back on these services. Everything is getting harder. Its a rich bastards world and not everyone can be rich.
Eric, a 43-year-old unemployed worker from Ashfield in Sydneys inner-west said:
Ive been looking for work for a couple of years but its been really difficult because of my medical conditions, he said. In 2008 I had a work accident and injured my neck, spine, lower back and right shoulder. I had two surgeries and Im having another one this year. I was covered under WorkCover, but in 2013 the state Liberals changed the law and 50,000 people in NSW were kicked off WorkCover.
They cut the assistance for medicine and rehabilitation. Ive been waiting for two years for the surgery Im having. This is a social crime. There are people who not only lost their houses and their family, they lost their lives. Every year people commit suicide because of that law change.
Eric said that he has gone through periods of homelessness because of unemployment. Ive got a university degree in programing and Im doing another degree at a design college and I still cant find a job, he said.
Emilee, a 20-year-old university student from the central coast in New South Wales, said she was concerned about health care after hearing that the Liberals could privatise Medicare.
Private providers are making plenty of money and are already very wealthy. Even now it is hard for people on low incomes, to get access to decent health care such as scans and x-ray services, she said.
People have the right to decent health care. The rich get the best of everything but ordinary people are supposed to fend for themselves. We need a government that acts for ordinary people, not just the wealthy.
Emilee also spoke about the difficulties facing young people looking for work on the Central Coast, where youth unemployment is over 16 percent. I wasnt accepted for many jobs I applied for because they said I was too old, she said. They were looking for younger people who they could pay less. Other times I was told I did not have the necessary experience.
Taylor, a young worker and student from the Wills electorate in Melbournes north, also spoke about increasing social hardship facing young people.
Im working three jobs now but its really hard to pay bills. Im working at two restaurants and a supermarket, as well as studying nursing. Its really hard to juggle all of this, especially in this area because I have to move constantly. I cant afford to stay in one place all the time. Ive moved four times in the last few years. At times I have been just living with friends.
Now theyre cutting Medicare. I suffer from certain sicknesses, I find it hard to go and buy medication all the time, especially when the price of everything has gone up. I require surgery, and I have to buy medication for pain. I spend roughly $40 to $60 a week on all my medication.
Taylor said she had voted for the Greens, because I dont really like either of the major parties. Labor carried out university cutsthats why I had to wait to study until now. They upped the cost of the course I was going to study to ten grand and I couldnt afford that, so I waited till now.
President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, made a joint appearance at a campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina yesterday afternoon. It was the first such appearance by Obama since his endorsement of Clinton at the beginning of last month. Clinton gave a perfunctory 15-minute speech before handing over the microphone to Obama, who spoke for nearly an hour.
The main thrust of both speeches was to appeal to those who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, particularly minority workers, and rally them behind the Clinton campaign, by presenting the election of Hillary Clinton as a continuation of the Obama administration. Both speakers gave an absurd, upside-down portrayal of American society under Obama, fortified with a heavy dose of populist rhetoric, which bears no relationship to reality.
I don't think [Obama] gets the credit he deserves for saving our economy [after the 2008 financial crisis], Clinton said. Weve added 14 million private sector jobs. The auto industry just had its best year ever, 20 million people now have health care So our next president has a different job to do: building on the progress that President Obama has made.
Look, when I came into office things were not in very good shape, you will recall, Obama said. We were losing 800,000 jobs a month, pursuing, by the way, the same proposals that Republicans are still peddling. And over the past six years our businesses have created more than 14 million new jobs, cut the unemployment rate in half, manufacturing jobs have grown for the first time since another President Clinton was in office.
In reality, the Obama administration responded to the 2008 financial crisis with the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in American history. One Harvard study found that 95 percent of all income gains between 2009 and 2012 went to the wealthiest 1 percent of American society. Backed from the beginning by Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus, the Obama administration personifies the domination of the banks and the super-rich over every aspect of American life.
The living conditions for the vast majority have deteriorated under Obama, as the direct and intended result of the policies pursued by the administration. For example, Clinton neglected to inform her listeners that the record profits in the American auto industry are due to massive wage and benefit reductions enforced by the Obama administration's restructuring of the industry in 2009, including cutting wages in half for new hires. Living standards have been literally thrown back a century, with new hires at Ford earning less in real terms than their great-grandfathers in 1914.
To the extent that employment figures have recovered, this is largely due to the prevalence after the recession of low wage and part-time jobs, which has been described as the new normal for the indefinite future. Meanwhile, millions of workers have responded to discouraging job prospects by dropping out of the workforce altogether, producing a labor force participation rate that is among the lowest on record.
And as far the health care is concerned, the Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as Obamacare) was a pro-corporate piece of legislation designed from the beginning to force workers off their employer-sponsored health care plans, the most common means through which Americans receive health care, and onto substandard plans on insurance exchanges.
Despite the faux-populism which characterized the speeches, what was most noteworthy was the near-complete absence of any appeal to the popular anger over deteriorating social conditions which found expression in the unexpected successes of the campaigns of the self-described democratic socialist Bernie Sanders and the right-wing billionaire demagogue Donald Trump.
Outside of a few perfunctory remarks about college tuition and a pledge to raise the minimum wage by an unspecified amount, they made no proposals to address the social distress facing tens of millions of Americans. Rebuffing Republican candidate Donald Trumps slogan make America great again, which he has used to channel social distress behind his right-wing campaign, Obama reiterated his complacent declaration that America is really great right now.
Both speakers sought to palm off the administrations attacks on the working class as progressive and promised more of the same if Clinton is elected. This is a further indication that Clinton is jettisoning the issues of poverty and social inequality, now that Sanders campaign has been dispatched with. Instead, she is planning to run her campaign in the general election on the basis of an appeal to sections of the military-intelligence apparatus and the Republican Party who are opposed to Trumps candidacy.
Significantly, Obama declared that the November election isnt even really a choice between left and right or Democrat and Republican [but] whether we are going to cling to some imaginary past or whether were going to reach for the future.
With regards to the real axis of Clintons general election campaign, the most important and revealing moment came when Obama, a half hour into his speech, finally turned his attention to foreign policy. Reiterating Clintons declaration that Trump is unqualified and temperamentally unfit to serve as the countrys commander in chief, Obama touted Clintons experience as secretary of state, where she played a leading role in the crimes of American imperialism.
Specifically singling out Clintons role in the planning of the assassination of Osama bin Laden, Obama declared that Clinton understands that we cant retreat from a world that needs American leadership. Thats why she offers a smarter approach that uses every element of American power. This is an appeal to the military-intelligence apparatus against Trumps occasional flirtations with isolationism and the erratic character of his foreign policy declarations overall.
Obama continued: Shell deploy diplomacy whenever possible, but she also knows what it takes to be a commander in chief, and I know she will never hesitate to use force when it is necessary. Given the enormous escalation of American militarism under Obama, who has backed devastating civil wars in the Middle East and has brought the United States to the brink of war with Russia and China, this endorsement should be taken as a serious warning.
Obama finally closed his remarks by declaring, I have run my last campaign, and I couldnt be prouder of the things weve done together, but Im ready to pass the baton and I know that Hillary Clinton is going to take it. There could hardly be a stronger indictment of Clinton as the personification of the corporate-controlled political establishment.
The Nebraska State Patrol estimates it spent more than $17,000 in the search for two convicted sex offenders who escaped a medium-maximum security prison last month, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.
State Patrol officials estimated the employee overtime cost at $15,000, Collins said.
An additional $2,250 was spent on fuel costs for the helicopter, Collin said in an email.
So far, spending figures provided to the Journal Star show the cost of Nebraska law enforcement's five-day manhunt for Timothy Clausen and Armon Dixon exceeds $34,400.
Clausen and Dixon escaped the Lincoln Correctional Center in a laundry truck June 10. Dixon was captured in Lincoln the next day.
Clausen evaded authorities until June 15, where he was taken into custody in Omaha.
But as other law enforcement officials said in releasing their figures, State Patrol leaders see these expenses as "all a part of doing our job," Collins said.
Troopers were involved in the search in Lincoln and Omaha.
During the time the manhunt for both men was centered in Lincoln, Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner said his office incurred $4,816.26 in overtime.
"We held day shift over, called second shift in early and called in the Task Force deputies who were on their days off," he said in an email to the Journal Star. "Most deputies worked between 12-16 hours that day."
Lincoln Police Chief Jeff Bliemeister put the cost to his department at $12,361.
The U.S. Marshal Service didn't incur any increased labor costs because deputy marshals are salaries.
A spending estimate for Omaha Police Department wasn't available Tuesday.
In the last week, three of Britains major right-wing publications have published articles supporting the formation of a new pro-business, pro-European Union (EU) party if the ongoing coup being organised by Labour right-wingers against party leader Jeremy Corbyn fails.
Last week, Phillip Stephens wrote in the Financial Times that in the aftermath of the referendum vote for the UK to leave the EU, Many centrist Tories have more in common with their counterparts on the Labour side than with English nationalist Brexiters; and, likewise, middle-of-the-road Labourites are closer to pro-European Tories than to Mr Corbyns brand of 1970s state socialism ... the space may be opening up for a new, pro-European, economically liberal and socially compassionate alternative to pinched nationalism and hard-left socialism.
This call has been echoed by other columnists in the Financial Times, the Economist magazine and the Rupert Murdoch-owned Times. All three view the founding of a new party as a means of reversing a referendum result, which was a blow to the dominant sections of British capital and its strategic partner, US imperialism.
The writers all proceed on the basis that if the right-wing Labourites who are plotting to remove Corbyn fail in their efforts, this will necessitate a split in the partycentring on the 172 Labour MPs who refused to back Corbyn last week in a vote of no confidence.
The Economist s Bagehot declared that after the vote for a Brexit (British EU withdrawal), the political landscape is transformed.
Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell may be about to face a leadership challenge, but they could well win it, Bagehot continues. The referendum vote revealed a new coalition made up of big-city dwellers, the Millennials, the globe-trotters, the university students, the European immigrants and their children. But they also include the millions of perfectly boring, perfectly suburban, perfectly Middle-England types who simply recognise that Britain and the rest of the world are interdependent
Describing these as the 48%ers (those who voted to remain in the EU), it welcomed the move by the Liberal Democrats to stand on a pro-EU ticket at the next general election, before cautioning, it is not clear whether [Liberal Democrats leader] Mr [Tim] Farron and his seven fellow MPs are the force needed to stand up to Britains new, illiberal establishment.
Therefore, The best existing hope of a strong, national voice for the 48%ers surely lies with Labour.
Speaking about the leader of a political party democratically elected just 10 months ago with the support of hundreds of thousands of Labour members and supporters, the Economist continued that if Mr Corbyn can be forced out, perhaps a new, moderate, pro-European leadership can reorient the party and, yes, if circumstances change sufficiently, floating the possibility that Britain revisit its choice of June 23rd.
However, if Corbyn hangs on, or is replaced by another luke-warm Remainerand unless the Lib Dems can pull off the sort of rise that, at the moment, looks unlikely, Britain needs a new party of the cosmopolitan centre.
On Monday, Financial Times principal political columnist Janan Ganesh recalled the 1981 split from Labour by four right-wing MPs, who went on to form the Social Democratic Party. This later merged with the Liberal Party to form todays Liberal Democrats.
The events of 1981 should serve as an inspiration to the Blairite plotters, Ganesh wrote. In the end, the SDP won, and won big. They were trailblazers for the past four prime ministersJohn Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron, who had sought to blend a free economy, a substantial state, cultural looseness and EU membership. He concluded, Last months eruption [the Leave vote] has broken this consensus but it still commands half of Britons. A new party must speak for them.
On Tuesday, Times columnist Rachel Sylvester penned a column titled, As Labour splits, a new party is emerging.
Three months ago the idea of a fresh political grouping was seen as mad. Now the tectonic plates are beginning to move. If Corbyn somehow stays, or is replaced by another hard-left candidate, Sylvester continued, MPs are in no doubt about what will happenas several told me: The party will split.
One option being discussed, revealed Sylvester, is for the rebels to make a unilateral declaration of independence in the House of Commons, setting up a separate grouping with their own leader. As they would have more MPs, they could argue that they, and not Mr Corbyns rump, should be the official opposition. There would also be a legal fight for the Labour name, with the larger chunk of MPs pushing to retain the brand, funding and infrastructure.
Sylvester cites one of those involved behind the scenes, who said, If Corbyn stays then we have another organisation that isnt called the Labour Party. That gets exciting because it doesnt have all the baggage, the links to the unions; you could create a new constitution and policy programme. Theres a massive opportunity for a pro-business, socially liberal party in favour of the EU.
Regarding funding a new party, the anonymous plotter said, Money would not be a problem. You would need 8 million and you could raise that in a week.
Detailing the level of collusion involved, Sylvester notes, Links forged across party divides in the Remain campaign have been maintained and are forming the basis of new alliances. Pro-European MPs from all parties have already met in the House of Commons to discuss co-operation as Brexit legislation goes through parliament. Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, the former Liberal Democrats leader, has also been talking to Labour and Tory grandees about creating a cross-party movement for people with modern progressive views.
Sylvester, with her inside track on the plot to remove Corbyn, is married to Patrick Wintour, the former Political Editor and now Diplomatic Editor of the nominally liberal Guardian. The Guardian and its sister, the Sunday Observer, are playing a key role in the moves to remove Corbyn. As the coup was in full swing last week, the Guardian editorialised that Labour faced an existential danger and that the Corbyn experiment was effectively over.
The same day as it called for Corbyns resignation, the Guardian published an opinion piece by Robert Hunter, a high-level US state operative. The former president of the Atlantic Treaty Association, and US ambassador to NATO, Hunter insisted that the referendum vote was an example of mob rule that should be ignored and that parliament should overturn the result through elections for a new leadership and a new government.
Yesterday, Unite trade union leader Len McCluskey met separately with Labour deputy leader Tom Watson (who has called on Corbyn to step down), and later with Corbyn. The talks were the first stage in Unites declared aim of brokering a peace between the two factions. Unite fears a threatened split may lead to the partys demise, with incalculable consequences for the political stability of the UK.
Amber Shipley wanted to be a nurse.
The 20-year old was working toward getting a nursing assistant certification when another young woman ran her over with a truck in September outside Morton-James Public Library in Nebraska City, according to her obituary.
The 18-year-old Nebraska City woman who was at the wheel of that truck pleaded guilty Tuesday to causing Shipley's death.
On Sept. 14, ShyAnne Parrott, then 17, got into an altercation with Shipley about 5:30 p.m. outside the library, then left to take a friend to work.
Otoe County Attorney David Partsch said Parrott went back to the library, drove into an adjacent parking lot and turned her truck around.
The pickup, rather than exiting the parking lot through the exit, drove directly toward (Shipley), he said in September, noting that some witnesses said Shipley began walking toward the truck before she was hit.
(Parrott) hit the girl with the truck, proceeded out of the parking lot, over grass, over a sidewalk and a curb and then left the scene, he said.
Surveillance video from a nearby Burger King captured most of the incident on camera.
Shipley died a few days after the incident at Bryan West Campus in Lincoln.
Parrott pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for having that charge reduced from first-degree murder and having two other charges against her dropped, including use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony and failure to stop and render aid following a serious injury accident.
She faces 20 years to life in prison when she's sentenced July 21.
LIVE OAK, FL. (WTXL) - The trial for a Live Oak Police Officer accused of downloading child porn in his police cruiser has been postponed.
Kyle Kirby will stand trial sometime in October, according to his defense attorney James Hernandez. Kirby has four motions pending against him, two of which require an evidentiary hearing. Investigators say, they found nearly 90 photos of child pornography on Kibry's patrol car computer.
Hernandez also confirmed Kirby entered a plea of not guilty in March.
SUWANNEE COUNTY, FL. (WTXL) - A High Springs man dies from an apparent drowning over the July 4th holiday.
Suwannee County Sheriff Tony Cameron says, 48-year old Donald Robinson may have slipped or stepped off the ledge accidentally at Little River Springs. Cameron says, the water drops down 15-20 feet.
Suwannee County Fire and Rescue say, Robinson was at the springs with his family Monday. Deputies were called to the scene shortly after 5:00 p.m. and began searching for Robinson in the Patrol Boat along with three Florida Fish and Wildlife Boats.
Robinson was recovered by The Columbia County Sheriff's Office Dive Team around 8:20p.m.
VALDOSTA, GA. (WTXL) - Valdosta State Prison is on lock-down Tuesday after reports of gang-related incidents at the facility and others across the state.
The Georgia Department of Corrections says, it made that decision after a man was killed by other inmates at Calhoun State Prison. Since the killing the department has investigated rising tensions between gangs at several state prisons, including Valdosta.
State officials say, visitations are cancelled until the lock-down is lifted.
Three Nebraska Department of Correctional Services staff members were assaulted by inmates over the past two days.
An employee at the Nebraska State Penitentiary was assaulted Monday and two employees at the Lincoln Correctional Center were assaulted Tuesday, the department said in a news release Wednesday morning.
The incidents began when staff members tried to talk to agitated inmates in efforts to de-escalate separate situations, Corrections spokesman Andrew Nystrom said. All three staff members were punched by inmates and taken to local hospitals for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.
An investigation is underway, and the Corrections Department will submit its findings to the local county attorney for prosecution, Nystrom said.
Expanded Panama Canal poised to boost China-LatAm trade The newly expanded Panama Canal will boost trade between China and Latin America as it makes the flow of goods between the two regions easier and more efficient, a Mexican expert on Asia said.
More Chinese companies ascend global arena Rapidly growing companies in various sectors in China and other emerging economies are ascending the international arena, according to a report from Boston Consulting Group.
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A homeless camp situated along a narrow strip of land between East Chestnut and the sidewalk in Yakima, Wash. is photographed Tuesday, July 5, 2016. City officials considered an exemption to allow camping on the empty lot adjacent to the encampment, a piece of property that is owned by Yakima Neighborhood Health Services. (SHAWN GUST/Yakima Herald-Republic)
Sometime between the wrongful arrests and convictions of six people for the 1985 murder of Helen Wilson and the six suing Gage County officials for putting them in prison, the county switched insurance carriers.
Officials are unclear how or when that happened, but one thing is certain in the wake of a $28.1 million federal civil rights judgment leveled at Gage County, Sheriffs Deputy Burt Searcey and psychologist and reserve Deputy Wayne Price: Gage County does not have liability insurance to protect it.
Myron Dorn, chairman of the County Board of Supervisors, said the liability insurance never lapsed.
But the switch in providers and the failure of past county boards to continue to pay its former carrier for coverage on prior bad acts means Gage County will likely be on the hook for the damages itself.
What this board has been told is that the county doesnt have insurance, Dorn said Wednesday afternoon. The insurance never lapsed, but some part of it wasnt brought up to speed, so there was a liability.
Attorney Herb Friedman, who represented James Dean, one of the six convicted in Wilson's murder, said whether the county has insurance isn't a concern for him.
I guess that will be their problem, he said.
The countys new carrier, the Nebraska Intergovernmental Risk Management Association, said it's clear Gage County would not be covered for something that took place before it joined the insurance pool nearly 20 years ago.
We havent been involved in that situation at all, said Larry Pelan, who manages the association's underwriting and risk management. Their coverage depends on the kind of coverage the county had prior to joining our pool, which varies from situation to situation.
Without liability insurance in place, any judgment will fall on the taxpayers in the county of nearly 22,000 to fulfill.
The seven-member county board will begin charting a way forward next week during a meeting with County Attorney Roger Harris and the legal team that represented the county during the weeks-long federal trial, which concluded with Wednesday's jury decision.
Their path will be largely unclear, however, because the judgment has no precedent in Nebraska.
Its going to raise a lot of questions, said Larry Dix, executive director of the Nebraska Association of County Officials. Counties have, of course, been in lawsuits and from time to time end up having to make payments, but those incidents are recent and they have insurance.
In my recollection, I cant think of an example where a county has been in this situation.
In 1996, the state Legislature created an emergency fund to allow then-Gov. Ben Nelson to transfer $200,000 to Richardson County to pay back a loan the county took out to compensate public defenders who represented cult leader Michael Ryan and others in the 1985 murders at his compound near Rulo.
Legislators struck the language from state law after the payment was made, and nothing like it has happened since.
Even if senators were willing to set aside $28 million from the state's general fund to pay damages in the Beatrice case, Dix noted the two situations are entirely different.
Gage County was found liable for investigative practices that violated six peoples civil rights, while Richardson County needed help to keep from going broke by providing legal defense required by the U.S. Constitution.
If this came to fruition and Gage County had to expend the funds, the only place they would have money would be whatever they have in any reserves, which isnt going to be anywhere close to this number, Dix said.
Taxable land and other property in Gage County was valued at around $3 billion in 2015, according to the Nebraska Department of Revenue. The county collected just over $9 million in taxes last year from its levy of 29.7 cents per $100 of valuation.
Paying out all $28.1 million in damages owed to the Beatrice 6 in one shot would be nearly impossible under state law. Dix said counties are held under a levy lid of 50 cents per $100 of valuation, unless voters in the county approve a measure allowing it to go above that number.
State law also places limits on how much counties can increase spending from year to year, although it's unclear if special circumstances would apply in this case, Dix said.
County officials could also look at taking out bonds to raise the money, but taxpayers would have to pay those back, plus any interest that accrues.
The amount will probably increase, too, because the federal jury ordered Gage County to pay attorneys' fees for the six people wrongly convicted. The countys own legal fees have topped $1 million.
U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf did not set any deadline for the payments, and the county is expected to decide next week whether or not it will appeal the decision.
Over the past several years, we really havent had those types of discussions, said County Board Chairman Dorn. Next week, were going to start having those kinds of discussions.
Dix said his association will advise Gage County, but if the penalty is accepted or upheld by a higher court, taxpayers will probably be on the hook for the events of more than 30 years ago.
As a whole, county governments revenue source is property taxes, he said. Its going to be taxpayer dollars paying the bill.
The oldest known masks in the world went on display in Jerusalem on Tuesday in the largest-ever exhibit of the ghoulish faces, believed to have been created in the Holy Land thousands of years before the time of the Bible.
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The 11 stone masks, said to have been discovered in the Judean desert and hills near Jerusalem, date back 9,000 years and offer a rare glimpse at some of civilization's first communal rituals.
Ancient Town 2,300-year-old village discovered near Jerusalem Second Temple-era rural town first found six months ago during construction of a gas pipe line, has been under excavation since. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4489754,00.html
The masks are thought to have been fashioned to look like skulls, and each one has its own personality. Some have round cartoon-like holes for eyes, others flash a grin of tiny teeth. One elongated mask bears a resemblance to that of Hollywood villain Hannibal Lecter of "Silence of the Lambs."
The masks have long been an enigma. Most of the artifacts had made their way into the hands of private collectors over the past several decades, so it took 10 years of carbon-14 testing and comparison to similar masks discovered in documented Israeli excavations for experts to determine their authenticity and origin.
The stone masks are thought to have been made to look like the skulls of dead ancestors, used in civilization's first public ceremonies (Photo: AP)
Iain Morley, a professor of paleoanthropology at Oxford University, said the items are believed to be the oldest of their kind. "I don't think there's anything that early from other parts of the world that you can say is a mask," said Morley, who is not involved in the exhibit.
In the past few weeks, researchers say they have resolved one of the masks' mysteries. Computer simulation tests conducted at Hebrew University in Jerusalem have led experts to conclude that many of the masks may have been worn on people's faces, not tied to structures at ritual sites as was previously thought.
The masks date to the Neolithic period, before the invention of writing. But the tradition of mask wearing is apparently even older.
Cave drawings dating back 25,000 years depict people wearing animal masks, said exhibit curator Debby Hershman. But actual masks from this time have not been found, possibly because they were made of biodegradable materials that disintegrated over time.
Crucial time in history
The stone masks were fashioned at a critical turning point in the history of civilization, when humans in the Fertile Crescent abandoned the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and became farmers, Hershman said. The Jerusalem region was one of the main centers of the agricultural revolution.
"It's the most important revolution that ever happened," Hershman said. The people who fashioned the masks, she said, "are actually the founders of civilization."
Photo: AP
Agricultural communities needed to reinforce their societal bonds to maintain their connection to the land and each other, so they began performing ritualistic rites, researchers believe. The stone masks are thought to have been made to look like the skulls of dead ancestors, used in civilization's first public ceremonies.
True mask detectives
How these 11 stone masks were brought together for this exhibit is something of a detective story.
The Israel Museum owns two of them one discovered in an Israeli excavation, and another from the personal collection of the iconic general and politician Moshe Dayan, an antiquities enthusiast who autographed his name on the back of the mask. Dayan died in 1981.
Photo: AP
Hershman, the museum's prehistory curator, said she was rummaging through the Israel Museum archives when she stumbled upon three photos of other Neolithic stone masks she had not recognized, labeled as belonging to an anonymous private collection. Hershman said Snyder, the museum's director, began to inquire with collectors around the world to try to track down the masks.
That search led to Judy and Michael Steinhardt, prominent New York collectors of Judaica and antiquities, who said they owned a hoard of similar masks and agreed to loan them to the museum for research and display.
"The masks represent a near eternal visage, their stone substance both powerful and quiet," said Judy Steinhardt in comments that appear in the exhibition catalogue. "Michael and I have lived with these masks for the past 25 years and we love spending quiet hours in our library together surrounded by these evocative works."
According to Hershman, there is one other mask of this age on display in the world, at the Bible et Terre Sainte museum in Paris. Hershman said that mask features color pigment that is too brittle for the mask to have been shipped for display in Jerusalem.
In the Israel Museum exhibit, the masks are mounted in slender glass cases and at eye level for visitors to peer through the masks, as if they were wearing them.
The museum is encouraging visitors to photograph "selfie" snapshots with the masks.
We live in an active world. Every day, we have to choose between dozens of information channels, hundreds of products vying to pull money from our shrinking wallets, and many offers of an easier, more profitable, happier life. If you check the time in New York just once, Google's mysterious algorithm will offer you a special travel deal every day for the next two weeks. Even if you don't have a passport.
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Those who can't adapt to our changing reality may not be able to keep up. Imagine a business that won't announce its productsone that doesn't advertise special deals. "Those who want it will find us themselves," the company's vice president of marketing says, while shifting a bead in his abacus and drinking some of the water he just pumped from the well outside.
Chabad international conference in Brooklyn, NY, USA, 2015. (Archive photo: AP)
In contrast, those who can sell, market, convince, and gather support will see the returns. And our children? Those whose education we worry about so much, and won't let anyone talk to? They may be the biggest victims of this brainwashing, if the SpongeBob conditioner, Frozen shampoo, and Smurfs soap in my bathroom are any indication.
This may surprise you, but religious practices need marketing too. For some reason, there are those who believewronglythat Judaism is part of that old passive world that says otherwise. Mezuzahs and tefillin can and should be marketed via the same methods used to sell Bamba (a highly popular peanut butter-based Israeli salty snack) to the public.
This is the basis for the actions of Chabadnikim (adherents to Chabad, a chassidic sect ed.), who stand on the street and offer men who pass by the chance to put on tefillin and offer women who pass by a pair of Shabbat candles. You can see them in many places across Israel: the entrances to medical centers, central bus stations, shopping centers, and other densely populated areas. There's no compulsion here, mind you. Just an offer. Those who want to take what's offered can, those who don'ttoo bad, but we wish you a good day.
Chabad representation in Alaska, USA. (Archive photo: Chabad Alaska)
Those who wish to can go on their way, but there are enough Jews who are happy and grateful for the opportunity. They didn't appoint you to be their speakers, so don't speak in their name. I, for example, receive an email from this or that company advertising some digital content service. One click is enough for me to see that I'm not interested. The junk mail can be deleted, and there are no hard feelings.
You need to take a good look in the mirror and admit that the current educational reality in Israel shouldn't leave us especially surprised to learn that many people don't have tefillin, don't know what the words "Shema Yisrael" truly mean, and have not been given education or guidance regarding these ancient and important traditions. And it's not like people are lining up to change this. The only option is to go out and offer people the chance to learn and experience, and thank God for the 336 branches of Chabad youth in Israel, who do this in charming fashion.
There's nothing illegal here, and no attempt to convert anyone either. What you see here is a simple offer to someone walking byto perform a religious practice in which they haven't yet had the opportunity to take part. That's no more of a threat than a petition booth opposing testing on animals or one marketing the services of a new cellular provider.
I spent last week signing copies of my new book at the Book Week fair in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square. The number of people of all kindsreligious, Meretz activists, LGBT people, old, young, college studentswho conversed with me was amazing. More than a few were very honest, saying they were buying the book since it was the first time they've met an ultra-Orthodox person, and I made them curious. With this in mind, wouldn't it have been a pity had I not published it?
Chabad representatives merely offer a religious experience. (Archive photo)
And what, you may ask, is the Chabadnikim's gain from all of this?
There is actually something gained. But here's where the resemblance to other marketers ends: They only do what they do for their own benefit, but Chabad does it for your benefit. Because it really cares about you. Its people care about you having a Passover seder even if you're in Kathmandu, and a kindergarten for your child in Orlando, and a way to connect to your Judaism in Tel Aviv. Chabad simple believes that connecting with Judaism will be good for you and for the entire people of Israel. And that's a huge gain for all.
A few years ago, someone who worked for a television program called me and asked for my response to the following: It turned out that there was a school in central Israel that would invite a Chabad representative to speak to the students about Jewish tradition ahead of major holidays. So that the distinguished rabbi would not feel too comfortable, he was forced to wait outside, until his five minutes came and he was allowed to enter.
"That is a outrage," I told her.
"Really?" she said enthusiastically, "And would you be willing to come admit this in our studio? I'll send a taxi right over."
The court battles over fracking wastewater are probably not over, but a judges ruling last week leaves Nebraskans in a better position to protect the states precious groundwater.
Cheyenne County District Judge Derek Weimer ruled that the Nebraska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission exceeded its authority when it issued a permit that allowed a Colorado company to inject wastewater into an old well in Sioux County.
If it stands, the ruling would be the second significant strengthening recently of the states regulatory authority on wastewater, which contains salt and heavy metals and is considered an environmental hazard.
Earlier this year the Legislature approved LB1082, which required counties, cities, villages and natural resource districts to be notified of applications to dispose of wastewater.
The measure introduced by Sen. Ken Schilz also requires fracking wastes to be sampled periodically and requires companies that dispose of fracking waste to be evaluated regularly to make sure they have adequate financial resources to plug disposal wells and restore surface damage caused by disposal of fracking wastewater.
The bill also stripped state law of verbiage declaring it in the public interest to promote the production, development and utilization of oil and gas in Nebraska.
The plans by Colorado-based T-Rex Oil to truck wastewater to the site in Sioux County touched off a furor and widespread local opposition. A public hearing in Sidney on the plans attracted overflow crowds. Of the 50 people who testified, only three supported the plan.
Originally T-Rex said the well would have the potential to process about 80 truckloads, or about 10,000 barrels of water, a day, which would have made it the biggest disposal well in the state. Most of the wastewater would have come from fracking operations in Colorado and Wyoming. There is little fracking in Nebraska.
In making his ruling Judge Weimer concluded that the state Legislature had given the commission authority to regulate disposal of oil waste including saltwater produced in Nebraska, but not wastewater from out of state.
Opponents said the ruling failed to take into account the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution and also authority delegated to the commission by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The ruling can be appealed to the Nebraska Supreme Court, so Weimers ruling is not the last word.
Because Nebraska has relatively few oils wells and is almost untouched by the fracking boom, there has been little focus in the state on upgrading and modernizing its regulations. Fortunately thats beginning to change. In this century protection of the states supply of water deserves a high priority.
Had the Israel government accepted the recommendations of the 2011 captives redemption commission, those who negotiate with Hamas these days wouldn't have the authority to offer it more than 610 live Palestinian prisoners in return for the Israelis they hold. That's more or less the "price" recommended by the commission, headed by Supreme Court President Emeritus Meir Shamgar, for two soldiers' bodies and two live Israelis.
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Hamas's published demands, which indicate that it is interested in recreating the Gilad Shalit deal , symbolize the beginning of the Israeli public's fight with its government over the return of captivesalmost without regard to the price.
The Jibril Agreement in 1985 showed that Israeli society had a hard time accepting losses, captives, and missing persons. It doubted its leaders' judgment and negotiated with them over "the price of warfare." The Shalit affair was the apex of this phenomenon, leading the political leadership to understand that it had no room to maneuver in the face of public pressure.
Hadar Goldin, Oron Shaul, and Avera Mengistu
Then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak took initiative in establishing the Shamgar Commission, which was to recommend a mechanism that would give back maneuvering space to the military-judicial-political ranks in these situations. The commission's membersamong them Shamgar himself, Prof. Asa Kasher and IDF Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yaroncame to several conclusions whose goal was to allow the professionals handling the negotiations and the country's leaders to make rational decisions that are not unduly influenced by public sentiment and are aimed at serving the national interest.
The first conclusion reached by the commission is that negotiations and operative recommendations should be handled by a professional and covert body in the security community, which would report to the minister of defense. Once a soldier or civilian is captured or kidnapped, a standard and covert series of steps should be taken, just as is done when in other types of security-related incidents.
Meir Shamgar: His commission's recommendations have not been implemented. (Photo: Yehuda Shenhav)
The presence of an Israeli in captivity in enemy territory, the commission said, demands an organized and secretive process. The professionals who should handle the negotiation for a prisoner exchange would come from all relevant bodies and areas of expertise, and should, according to the commission, present their recommendations to the defense minister alone. The prime minister would be disengaged from the process. That way, he would be less subject to pressure from the loved ones of Israeli captives.
The Shamgar Commission looked for a way to create a wall between government ranks and the public outcries, especially when negotiations are ongoing and the enemy starts to disseminate information to influence the civilian population's mindset. This is where the commission recommended a series of mechanisms that would prevent the prime ministeror a small group of high-ranking government officialsfrom altering the professional team's recommendations. If the PM and his fellow government members desire to appease the public and go against the commission's recommendation, they would not be able to do so without going through certain legal or regulatory checks.
The Gilad Shalit affair was the catalyst for the establishment of the Shamgar Commission. (Photo: AFP)
If the PM wants go give back 1,000 prisoners for one Israeli, in contrast to the recommendations of the professional team, he would have to bring the proposal to a government vote. If a majority of government members do not vote for his proposal, it would be rejected.
The second check would be the Knesset. The PM would have to bring the changes to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and have it approved by a majority of members. If the Knesset were to vote on the proposal, it would have to be approved by at least a 90-MK majority (75 percent of the Knesset) in order to pass.
The bottom line is this: The price Israel pays for captives has to be widely agreed upon.
The Shamgar Commission recommended maximum rates for the exchange of living captives and the exchange of bodies. A body, for example, would not be exchanged for more than one Palestinian prisoner. Why, five years after the commission concluded its proceedings, is the prime minister still refusing to accept its conclusions?
US Secretary of State John Kerry held an impromptu meeting on Tuesday with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and talked about the need to defeat Islamic State a day after suicide bombers struck three Saudi cities, the US State Department said.
Kerry and Jubeir also discussed the need for a political transition in Syria, the situation in Libya, the effort to reach a political resolution in Yemen and recent developments between the Israelis and Palestinians, the department said in a statement.
Leader of the British Labor party, Jeremy Corbyn, has renounced his statements in which he expressed support for Hamas and Hezbollah. Corbyn, known as one of the more vociferous critics of Israel in British politics, apologized for his controversial statements made in 2009 in Parliament when he described the terror organizations as friends.
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His apology comes amid widespread concerns that anti-Semitism has permeated the party. The language I used at that meeting was actually here in Parliament and it was about encouraging the meeting to go ahead, encouraging there to be a discussion about the peace process, he said on Monday.
Asked whether he still considered Hamas and Hezbollah to be his friends, Corbyn said, No. It was inclusive language I used which with hindsight I would rather not have used. I regret using those words, of course.
Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn (Photo: Gettyimages)
During the conversation about anti-Semitism, Corbyn also criticized the comments made in April by the former London Mayor, Ken Livingstone who claimed that Adolf Hitler supported Zionism. Ken Livingstone made remarks that are wholly unacceptable and wrong, Corbyn said.
The Labor leader found himself entangled in yet another political crisis last week after he drew comparisons between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government and ISIS.
Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organizations," the opposition leader said as he announced the results of a report investigating accusations of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party.
Corbyn himself rushed to clarify his remarks. Asked if he was really drawing comparisons between Israel and ISIS, he responded: No. Of course not. In the report it says that you shouldnt say to somebody just because youre Jewish you must have an opinion on Israel, just as much as you shouldnt say to a Muslim that you must have an opinion on ISIS, Mr Corbyn added.
Naz Shah's recommendation to relocate Israel to the US
Shortly after Corbyns statements, MP Naz Shah was reinstated into the Labor party having been suspended for writing anti-Semitic comments on her social media page and for expressing support for a proposal to relocate the State of Israel to US territory, thus supposedly solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Shah later apologized for causing upset to the Jewish community but failed to repudiate the fundamental premise of her comment. I accept and understand that the words I used caused upset and hurt to the Jewish community and I deeply regret that. I truly regret what I did, she said during a parliamentary session.
The Israeli demolition teams have already surrounded the home of the Taraireh family in the village of Bani Na'im near Hebron, "taking measurements" ahead of the demolition. The father, Nasser, was arrested and taken for questioning and his work permit has been confiscated. Security forces also confiscated the computer and cell phone of the teen/monster Mohammed Taraireh, who stabbed to death 13-years-old Hallel Ariel in her bed. That is the procedure for deadly attacks.
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A studywhose findings will not be released to the publicabout the trend of minors from the west Bank who carry out terror attacks, sought to profile them but had a hard time pointing to their common denominator. Over 230 cases were examined over the past nine months in a cooperation (which was neither full nor close) between Israeli experts and the Palestinian security forces. The Palestinians provided information; the Israelis cross-referenced it and wrote down the analysis and segmentation. The conclusions were passed back to the Palestinians in an effort to stop the next attacker, but our side knows well it must trust only in its own abilities.
Mohammed Taraireh
The information collected about Mohammed Taraireh is right on the money when it comes to profiling the new kind of terrorist. The house that will get demolished is not a tin shack or a tiny crowded apartment of those living in poverty. His family is part of the Palestinian middle cast. And, indeed, one of the conclusions of the study is that attackers are no longer the younger generations of lower-class families, who were easily recruited because of despair or promises of monetary reward, but a growing number of children from "established" families.
In the wake of the study's findings, teachers in the Palestinians education system were given a task list. For example, they were asked to dedicate special attention to "loners"teens aged 11-18 who see themselves as "unpopular," begin to draw inwards and appear to have lost their joie de vivre. These teens miss school and there is a noted drop in their grades and submitted assignments. The teachers were asked to be vigilant to such teens, initiate talks with the "unusual" kids and report it.
The researchers examined social media. When looking at attackers' pages, they identified sudden changes in their posts, like Taraireh's Facebook page that has gone through a 180 degrees change. He dropped out of school and went to work at a bakery, came home only every other day, withdrew to his room and spent a lot of time on the computer, browsing ISIS recruiting websites.
His behavior was exactly what the researchers alerted to: From a happy and active teenager, Taraireh becamefollowing the death of his cousin who carried out a vehicular attack against Israelisto a threat and a loner. "Everyone has the right to die," he wrote, "and I demand that right to myself." No one saw this, and no one addressed it.
Posts from the terrorist's Facebook page
When Prof. Mohammed Dajani started the "Middle Ground" initiative teaching how to be angry without resulting to violence, his office was vandalized and his car torched, leading him to flee to Washington.
The researchers warn against children and teenagers who post photos of the al-Aqsa mosque on their Facebook page. Taraireh was quoting phrases from the Quran that could have pointed to his intentions. He passionately wrote of "bravery" and "the knife" and in his last post, hours before committing that terrible murder, he uploaded a photo of himself. Without words or explanationsa kind of goodbye.
On his way to carry out his "mission," the Palestinian minor does not think about the fact their family's home will be demolished. Suspects who were questioned, both boys and girls, told interrogators they were sure their family would "manage" and that it "won't be abandoned."
Security forces in the village of Bani Na'im, where the terrorist came from.
In their first reaction, Taraireh's mother and sister tried to hide their shock. In their next response, they already accepted the fact they are going to become homeless and expressed "pride."
What normally happens in the Palestinian Authority is that the ministry in charge of martyrs starts paying the family a monthly stipend, while the extended family takes the terrorist's immediate family in.
So far, we haven't heard a condemnation from Abbas about the horror that took place, and it is frustrating to see how the Palestinian media covered the incident. The headlines focused on the teenager who was shot to death while carrying out a "mission," he was dubbed a hero, and writers complained of "Israeli incitement." According to reports on the Palestinian side, Taraireh encountered "difficulties" in his mission. He planned on continuing his murdering spree and killing more Israelis.
Former Yehuda Brigade commander, Col. Yariv Ben-Ezra, said Wednesday in court that there was no operational justification for Sgt. Elor Azaria to shoot the neutralized terrorist in Hebron
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Azaria is being tried on manslaughter charges after shooting dead a neutralized Palestinian terrorist, Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, in Hebron, after al-Sharif and another terrorist attacked IDF soldiers with knives, stabbing one.
"The shooting was unjustified because it happened in a situation in which there was no mortal danger," Col. Ben-Ezra said. "The more I watched the videos (from the incident), the more I saw it, when considering the behavior of the people on the scene, the discourse and the investigations we conducted."
Sgt. Elor Azaria, right, in court with his father (Photo: Motti Kimchi)
Testifying at Azaria's trial, the former brigade commander said he has received no warning of a suspected explosive belt on the terrorist. "No one approached me on the scene and warned me of a suspected bomb ... I only heard about it in the afternoon (of that day) from the media," he said.
Col. Ben-Ezra, the most senior officer to testify in the trial so far, finished his tenure as the Yehuda Brigade commander on Tuesday. He asked to testify only after stepping down from his position.
"Yoni Blaicher, the security officer for the Jewish settlement in Hebron, came up to me and told me there was a problematic shooting incident that I should look into. He told me that after (the attack on the soldiers) had ended, there was shooting done and it was unclear why," Col. Ben-Ezra recounted.
Former Yehuda Brigade commander, Col. Yariv Ben-Ezra, arriving in court (Photo: Motti Kimchi)
"I called the Shimshon battalion commander, Lt.-Col. David Shapira, and asked him to check Yoni's report. A minute and a half later, he came back and told me this was a very serious incident."
Ben-Ezra went on to say he instructed the forces to treat and evacuate the wounded quickly and then remove the bodies from the scene as fast as possible.
"A terrorist called Hadeel al-Hashlamoun, who carried out a stabbing attack at the Shoter checkpoint in Hebron, became a legend (on the Palestinian street). We noticed that the long time that her body remained at the scene, while being filmed and photographed, created an entire wave of revenge and solidarity attacksnot just in Hebron, but all over the West Bank," Ben-Ezra said.
"From one incident to the next, we got a better understanding, and in light of the lessons we learned and the investigations we conducted, we realized that as soon as there is an attack in a crowded urban area, which is flooded with cameras on both sides, we must clear the scene as fast as possible, to prevent revenge and solidarity attacks. That is how we trained the soldiers."
He went on to say that "these weren't just personal insights I had, all of the brigade commanders knew it: Graphic images coming out of terror attacks lead to serious attacks and an atmosphere of revenge on the Palestinian street."
When pressed by Azaria's lawyer, Eyal Beserglick, who said there were people on the scene who testified they felt in danger, the former brigade commander insisted, "I'm more than convinced that had people on the scene felt in danger, things would have looked different. In the first two hours after the terror attack, it was my professional understanding that there was no mortal danger."
Col. Ben-Ezra added that, "there is definitely support to what I'm asking, as we've conducted a military investigation on the scene with the people who were there."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Tuesday before a group of Christian supporters of Israel in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya: "I am glad I have the opportunity, the privilege really of coming to Africa to meet you, he said.
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We appreciate this friendship and we're expanding it to the continent of Africa. Yesterday I had a remarkable meeting in Uganda hosted by the President of Uganda, six other African leaders including President Kenyatta. Seven leaders from seven African countries talking about how to expand Israel's relationship with their countries but with all the countries of Africa, he continued.
But at the heart of it, the connection with the people is a very sound idea, it's the right idea and that's why I am expecting you in Jerusalem."
Netanyahu told the Christian audience of the shared heritage binding the two places together and told the story of a boat which was found in the Kinneret which was used during the time of Jesus. I cant tell you that Jesus was on that boat but I can tell you that that boat was in the time of Jesus.
Photo: Kobi Gidon/GPO
After inviting his listeners to visit Israel and see for themselves the places which speak to you and speak to us, he said that Israel wants to be part for the success story that Africa can be. Israel is coming back to Africa. Africa is coming back to Israel.
The prime minister cited various examples of where Israel has flourished, including agriculture, milk production and the countrys ability to solve its water problem. And we are eager to share all of this with our African friends. This is the importance of this meeting, he said.
Photo: Kobi Gidon/GPO
In the Middle East today, unfortunately, the attitude towards Christians and Christianity is not a good one. You see what is happening with Daesh in Iraq, what is happening to Christian communities and to the Yazidis and others. There is one place in the Middle East where the Christian community is not only not shrinking, its thriving and its expanding and its safe, and it's welcome and that place is Israel. You're welcome in Israel. Id like to receive you there, in Jerusalem, he said, prompting a rapturous applause.
Before addressing the Christian audience, Netanyahu participated in a meeting between Israeli and Kenyan businesspeople in an effort to boost economic cooperation between the countries and to increase Israeli exports to Africa.
Accordingly, an agreement was signed to further bilateral economic cooperation with Kenya. In the coming year, Israel will open a commercial attache office in Nairobi. Furthermore, Netanyahu approved an Israeli export program to Africa. The opportunities I think are great. I think that there is an inflection point, in a certain point that an economy can take off, he said.
Netanyahu signs agreement in Kenya (Photo: Kobi Gidon/GPO)
During the dialogue, Netanyahu also touched upon the contributions Israel can make to Africa vis-a-vis security.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta also delivered a speech in which he welcomed the historic trip. We are honored that one of the countries that he has chosen to visit is Kenya, which attests to the strong and enduring relations between our two nations, he said before praising Israeli commandos who risked their lives to liberate hostages from the death grip of terrorists in Uganda 40 years earlier.
We are in ongoing talks about how to strengthen and expand that cooperation so that we can gain from Israel's expertise in cyber security, amongst other things that we also discussed, he added.
Kenyatta highlighted that during their discussions, emphasis had been placed on areas of mutual interest including agriculture, water, health and how Kenya can benefit from Israel's expertise in cyber security.
SANAA - A suicide car bomber struck a military and security compound adjacent to the international airport in southern Yemeni port city of Aden on Wednesday, killing at least 10 people and setting of clashes with soldiers, medical and security officials said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which came as Muslims worldwide celebrated the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. This year, the holy month has been particularly bloody, with attacks that killed 350 people and spread terror across continents.
In Wednesday's attack, the officials said that after the car bomb hit the Central Security headquarters, next to the Aden International Airport, militants stormed the compound and were clashing with soldiers. Explosions were heard and ambulance sirens wailed in the distance.
The death toll was expected to rise further, the officials said.
Israel's Wildlife Hospital has decided to open a blood bank for birds that arrive injured to the country during migration.
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Every year, large birds, birds of prey and migrating birds arrive in Israel after flying thousands of kilometers. Some arrive exhausted, injured, and in need of medical treatment and sometimes even surgery.
Veterinarians at the Wildlife Hospital realized that they could better treat the birds if they had a blood bank for them because, much like humans, birds have different blood types.
A blood donation at the Wildlife Hospital
The project, which the hospital says is the first of its kind in the world, is being led by Dr. Elad Smit.
"We already have 16 samples in our blood bank," Smit said. "And now we're considering taking a blood sample from every bird we treat, to aid in the saving of the next bird that would come."
The blood bank has already helped save a common buzzard that was brought to the hospital in serious condition. The blood transfusion the bird received helped it recover, and it has already been released back to nature.
"We know we still have a long road ahead, but this is a significant breakthrough in the treatment of wild birds," said hospital director Dr. Yigal Horowitz. "We're proud to be the first hospital in the world with such a blood bank."
Israel's Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh defended the existence of the controversial Yitzhaki document - a secret police document containing information and details of suspected criminal activitity by those who were members of the Knesset in 2014 on Wednesday .
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Alsheikh told the Knesset's Interior Comittee that he stood by the decision to compile the document. It is being presented as the opposite of what it actually is," he said.
"Compiling the document is not a crime. The crime here is the leaking of the document. Whoever leaked it wanted to create the impression that the police are collecting information about public servants and are just waiting to release it, he contended.
Alsheikh rebuffed the notion that the police have been under pressure to expose its contents ever since the documents existence was brought topublic light: In order to remove any doubt, there is no pressure on us from politicians. There never was. However, we are indeed pressured by the media.
He then explained that the document was created to a way of organizing the information the police had received, and that there was no intention to hold onto incriminating information and wait for the opportune moment to use it.
Roni Alsheikh (l) and Menny Yitzhaki (r) (Photo: Yoav Dudkevitz)
The police are not allowed to seek out information about MKs and ministers. The police need to be aware of the limitations of its powers and rightly so, said Alsheikh.
However, he maintainedin his defense of the documents existence: Mountains of information comes in, including about MKs. When credible information comes, when it is not clouded or blurry but rather something substantive, we cannot simply launch an initial invesigation. We take this information to the State Attorney and the Attorney General so that they can make the decision. Because we have a massive police force consisting of 30,000 policemen and 70 police stations, obviously there are things that can fall between the cracks.
Alsheikh emphasized that the aim of the document is precisely the opposite of collecting information about MKs. It is intended to ensure that this doesnt happen. There is a control process which ensures that the head of the investigations branch can control what is happening underneath him. In light of the incidents which took place in the past, an inspection was conducted to make sure that nothing has gone unreported. When there is a commander who doesnt want problems, he carries out an inspection. The moment that the document go to the Police Investigations division, the document died.
At the beginning of the meeting, MK Michal Rozin (Meretz) said, According to our knowledge, there are around 100 cases. These cases were not checked or investigated. MK Mickey Rosenthal (Zionist Union) turned to Alsheikh and to Maj. Gen. Menny Yitzchaki and said: None of you understand the severity of the situation. You are holding the public security minister by the balls.
The document was exposed a few weeks ago by a journalist on channel 10. It was prepared two years ago at the direction of the intelligence branch of the police and included information on suspicion of criminal activities committed by all MKs and ministers in the previous Knesset. It was created at the request of Menny Yitzhaki.
The document accumulated all the information under police control obtained from every possible source and included information relating to alleged transgressions by MKs which included bribery. The journalist who exposed the documents existence claimed that it contained the names of supposed witnesses but the information never materialized into a serious investigation.
According to an earlier report published by Yedioth Ahronoth, the morning following Gilad Erdans nomination of Brig. Gen. (res.) Gal Hirsch to the position of police commissioner, Yitzhaki requested that all information held by the police about him be publicized, some of which led to the termination of his appointment.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday toured a memorial for victims of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda during the first visit by a sitting Israeli prime minister to sub-Saharan Africa in three decades.
Netanyahu laid a wreath at the mass graves honoring the more than 800,000 victims of the genocide perpetrated by Hutu extremists against the Tutsi ethnic group and moderate Hutus.
"We are deeply moved by this memorial to the victims of one of history's greatest crimes and reminded of the haunting similarities to the genocide of our own people," he and his wife, Sara, wrote in the visitors' book.
Compelled by the recent Supreme Court ruling on abortion, I must say that Im growing tired of Governor Pete Ricketts same old rhetoric whenever he talks about supposed pro-life issues ("Nebraskans react to abortion ruling," June 28) Ricketts said, "I will continue to work with lawmakers to look for new ways to ensure Nebraskas laws support a culture of life in our state that respects unborn life, protects our most vulnerable, and promotes a healthy respect for innocent life at all stages. I would argue that Ricketts is not pro-life at all, merely anti-abortion when it is politically convenient.
The Israeli Missile Defense Organization (IMDO) and the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) have successfully conducted a test meant to check the integration of Israeli and American missile defense systems, it was announced Wednesday.
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The "Integrated Ground Test," the first of its kind with the new defense systems, spanned over five days and ended on June 22.
It tested the real-time communication between missile defense systems in Israel and the US, simulating a scenario in which thousands of rockets and missiles from Iran and Lebanon are fired at Israel at the same time to see how efficiently the six different missile defense systems can work together eliminate the threats. The focus was on connecting the missile defense system to the US radar system to detect the projectiles.
A recent Arrow 3 test (Photo: Defense Ministry)
The missile defense systems tested were Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 as well as Israel's Davids Sling in conjunction with US systems Aegis Ships, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and Patriot missile defense systems.
The test was conducted simultaneously at command and control centers in Israel, which simulated Israel's multi-leyered missile defense system, and at development centers scattered across the US.
"We tested the systems' ability to work in tandem until the point of interception, without launching the missiles," Col. S of the IMDO explained to ynet. "In fact, we had one Israeli eye and one American eye on all of the targets, at the same time, and so we could see and operate better."
The Defense Ministry hailed the test as another milestone in the missile defense program, which is a cooperation between the US and Israel.
The test was carried out by Elisra, a subsidiary of Elbit Systems.
In an earlier test, conducted during a joint exercise between the Israeli and American air forces in February, it was the engineers and developers from both nations operated the missile defense systems at the same time.
The issue of missile defense is at the center of discussions over the US military aid package for Israel during the next decade. For the first time, Israel seeks to make the funding of missile-defense systems an integral part of the agreement.
This would mean an addition of hundreds of millions of dollars, which would bring the total sum of American military aid to Israel to some $40 billion over the coming decade.
Over the last ten years, Israel has been receiving hundreds of millions of dollars on top of the aid package from the US administration and, mostly, from Congress to fund the Iron Dome, David's Sling and Arrow 3 missile defense systems. In recent years, Congress approved some $600 million in funding for these systems per year, far beyond the $150 million the Obama administration sought to give.
In the wake of the nuclear agreement signed between world powers and Iran, the American administration committed to providing billions of dollars' worth of arms to Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Israeli defense officials said in talks with the Americans over the past five months that these agreements could only increase the threat to Israel if any of those regimes collapses.
Four IDF soldiers were lightly injured and a Palestinian man was seriously injured in a car collision on Wednesday afternoon at the entrance to Neve Daniel in Gush Etzion.
The soldiers were treated at the scene and did not require further treatment, while the Palestinian was evacuated to hospital.
BERLIN - A regional lawmaker for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) quit late on Tuesday after a row over his allegedly anti-Semitic views had threatened to cause a damaging split in the party.
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Wolfgang Gedeon, a former doctor turned AfD lawmaker, triggered outrage by saying that denial of the Nazi Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered, was a legitimate expression of opinion, describing Holocaust deniers in the past as "dissidents." He also drew criticism for saying that "Talmud Judaism is the inner enemy of the Christian West." Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany.
On Tuesday evening he said he hoped to prevent the split within the party by tendering his resignation from the parliamentary group following a meeting with AfD national leader Frauke Petry, according to German media reports. Gedeon, however, still maintains his statements were not anti-Semitic.
Wolfgang Gedeon (Photo: EPA)
The AfD has won growing popular support in Germany due in part to Europe's migrant crisis, which has seen more than a million refugees arrive in the country over the past year, and it now has seats in eight of Germany's 16 state assemblies.
Thirteen lawmakers from the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the southern German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg had earlier quit the AfD's regional parliamentary group after ten other members did not support a motion to expel Gedeon.
Joerg Meuthen, the leader of the AfD parliamentary group in Baden-Wuerttemberg and the party's co-chair at the national level, led Tuesday's split. He and 12 others left the regional parliamentary group, which originally comprised 23 lawmakers.
"Anti-Semitism cannot and must not have any place in the AfD," Meuthen said.
Meuthen said Gedeon's resignation did not change the fact that other members had supported him and was quoted by ARD public broadcaster as saying the split remained a "painful but necessary step."
The AfD parliamentary group had previously rejected an attempt by Meuthen for Gedeon to be expelled from the party. Instead, they suspended his membership pending an independent review of his written work.
The national leaders of the AfD said in a statement that there was no room for anti-Semitism in the party and criticized those in the state who resisted Gedeon's expulsion.
"The board distances itself from those members who do not leave the parliamentary group with Joerg Meuthen. From now on we recognize only Joerg Meuthen and the lawmakers who join him as representatives of the AfD in the Baden-Wuerttemberg assembly," said the board in a statement.
Three soldiers were lightly wounded in a suspected vehicular attack on Thursday when their military vehicle collided with a Palestinian car near Neve Daniel in the West Bank's Gush Etzion area.
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The Palestinian driver was seriously wounded and was evacuated to hospital, while the soldiers received treatment at the scene but did not require hospitalization.
Scene of the collision
At first, the collision was thought to be an accident, but as time went by the possibility a deliberate attack became more likely.
On Tuesday, a female terrorist was shot critically wounded at Giti Intersection in Samaria. The terrorist attempted to stab a soldier waiting at a bus stop, but was thwarted by the Givati soldier.
On Friday, Michael Mark was killed and his wife and children were injured when terrorists opened fire on the family's vehicle near Beit Hagai, south of Hebron. Mark's children broke the news of their father's death to their mother on Monday.
MINSK- The authoritarian leader of Belarus has told the US envoy in this former Soviet republic that he wants to forge closer ties with the United States.
The US imposed sanctions on top Belarusian officials in 2004 for curtailing freedoms in their country. Washington recalled its ambassador to Belarus in 2008 and has since been appointing temporary envoys.
President Alexander Lukashenko on Wednesday met with the outgoing US charge d'Affaires, Scott Rauland, pledging Minsk's commitment to improve ties.
TEHRAN- Iran's official news agency says "armed bandits" killed four Iranian border guards in an ambush near the Pakistani border.
IRNA says the attack took place midday Wednesday in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province. It said several of the gunmen were killed or wounded in the clashes, without giving an exact figure.
Last month police killed five members of the Sunni Jaish al-Adl militant group and lost one of their own in clashes in the same region. Security forces often clash with drug traffickers in the area, which is along one of the main routes for bringing Afghan opium and heroin to the Persian Gulf and Europe.
BAUCHI- Nigerian police say a diplomat from Sierra Leone who was abducted last week has been freed, but it is not clear whether any ransom was paid to secure his release.
Police spokesman Don Awunah told reporters Wednesday that Sierra Leone's deputy high commissioner to Nigeria, Maj. Gen. Alfred Nelson Williams, was found in sound health and has been reunited with his embassy in Abuja.
Neither the police nor the Nigerian government gave details of how the diplomat was freed.
TBILISI- Secretary of State John Kerry told ex-Soviet Georgia that the United States would help it bolster its army as he reassured a close US ally days before a NATO summit expected to focus on the threat a resurgent Russia poses.
Kerry, on his first visit to Georgia as Secretary of State, made the commitment ahead of a NATO summit in Warsaw on Friday at which members of the Western military alliance plan to announce action to deter possible Russian military aggression.
Georgia and former Soviet states such as Moldova and Ukraine have become increasingly concerned by Russia's intentions after the Kremlin annexed Ukraine's Crimea in 2014 and launched air strikes in Syria last year.
On Wednesday, the Syrian military declared a three-day ceasefire across the whole of the country. Although fighting and air attacks have continued, US Secretary of State John Kerry expressed hope a more significant truce could be achieved.
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The truce is the first to be declared country-wide since the one brokered by foreign powers in February to facilitate talks to end the five-year-old civil war. This has mostly unravelled.
Syrian refugees in Aleppo (Photo: Reuters)
Wednesday's ceasefire covers the three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday celebrated by Muslims to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. There was no indication that it had been agreed with any of the myriad groups opposing the government.
Referring to "a regime of calm" to denote a temporary truce, the Syrian military high command said in a statement that it "will be implemented across all territory of the Syrian Arab Republic for a period of 72 hours from 1,00 am on July 6 until midnight on July 8, 2016."
The rebel group Jaish al Islam issued its own response, saying that despite the announced truce, government and allied forces had attacked the town of Maydaa, in the Eastern Ghouta area east of Damascus. Maydaa has been held by Jaish al Islam, which is part of the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) representing the opposition at international peace talks.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday that government and allied forces had taken almost complete control of Maydaa and that fighting continued. Syrian state media said the army and its allies had taken ground from "terrorists" in the area. The Syrian government describes all groups fighting against it as terrorists.
The city of Aleppo (Photo: AFP)
The Britain-based Observatory, which monitors the Syrian conflict, also said there had been rebel and government shelling in areas around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, and that air strikes had hit towns in the northern Aleppo countryside.
Syrian state media also reported army operations against ISIS militants across the country on Wednesday.
US Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed the announcement, adding that discussions were under way to try to extend the truce.
"We are trying very hard to grow these current discussions into a longer-lasting ... enforceable, accountable cessation of hostilities that could change the dynamics on the ground," Kerry told a news conference in Tbilisi, Georgia.
The open-ended February "cessation of hostilities" truce, which was intended to facilitate talks to end the five-year-old civil war, was agreed upon by many opposition militias but did not include the al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front or ISIS.
While initially the truce had been rather widely accepted, it has since mostly collapsed. Instead, the Syrian army and Russian military, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, announced a number of temporary local truces in areas of intense fighting such as the city of Aleppo and near the capital Damascus. The air strikes and fighting, in any case, have often continued in spite of the declarations.
The civilian airport at Sde Dov in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Aviv will be closed to civilian flights in the coming months, and will be closed to military flights in the next two and a half years. However, civilian flights to Eilat will continue to operate out of the military airport until 2019.
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The agreement to demolish the civilian aiport was signed on Wednesday following a discussion which included Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, the heads of the Ministry of Defense, and the heads of the Ministry of Transportation.
The first of 4,000 housing units is expected to be built after the civilian airport is demolished. A further 12,000 housing units will be built once the military section of the airport is demolished. All of the housing units are expected to be completed by the year 2020.
A ministerial council was supposed to take place last Sunday to discuss a request to delay the demolition of the Sde Dov airport until an alternative is found for flights between Eilat and Tel Aviv. However, high ranking government officials were worried that this delay would delay the overall IDF move to the Negev. Therefore, council meeting was cancelled.
Sde Dov Airport north of Tel Aviv
Seven major IDF bases in the center of the country will be demolished and moved to the Negev , according to an agreement was signed a year and a half ago between the Ministry of Defense and the Israel Land Authority. A large portion of the funding for the move is coming from property developers who have bought the land that Sde Dov and the other military bases are on. Sde Dov airport is in a highly sought after area , as it sits right on the beach, and just steps away from the Tel Aviv port.
There are plans to build over 60,000 housing units on former IDF property, something which is expected to play a large part in lowering housing prices in the center of the country. Meanwhile, the IDF is expected to make over five billion shekels from the land deals.
The finance minister has been against the immediate closure of the civilian airport as he is worried about the economic impact the closure will have on the city of Eilat. The southern city is also closing its airport, as a new airport is being built north of the city. Finance Minister Kahlon believes that these closures will cause a severe economic downturn to occur in the city over the next few years.
However, Ben Gurion International Airport is expected to serve as a substitute for Sde Dov for the time being.
Although Hillary Clinton "did act carelessly with classified material" when she was secretary of state, Rep. Brad Ashford of Omaha said Wednesday, he believes she remains the "better choice" for president this year.
"(Clinton) has a grasp of the U.S. position in the world on foreign affairs and will work with Congress in a bipartisan fashion," the Democratic congressman said.
The general election showdown in November will match Clinton against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, assuming both candidates are nominated by their parties at national conventions this month.
"I trust the integrity of the FBI's investigation," Ashford said in a brief statement, referring to Tuesday's announcement by FBI Director James Comey that he would not recommend that charges be brought against Clinton despite what Comey called her "extremely careless" handling of classified material.
"Secretary Clinton did act carelessly with classified material," Ashford said.
"Everyone in the federal government with access to classified materials needs to learn from this."
Ashford, the only Democratic member of Nebraska's congressional delegation, endorsed Clinton for his party's nomination early in the primary process.
Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Don Bacon, his Republican congressional opponent in November, said he would have been court-martialed and "face possible jail time" if he had handled classified information in the same fashion.
"It is clear that the politician class in D.C. lives by a different set of rules and standards than those who represent our nation in uniform," Bacon said.
"I'm disappointed that the FBI did not pursue criminal charges against Hillary Clinton," he said.
"We need a new generation of leadership that is willing to shake up Washington, a new generation to bring about the cessation of this unacceptable behavior that is blatantly displayed by career politicians in Washington," he said.
Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Ben Sasse took the floor of the Senate to warn about "the danger of a two-tiered system of justice and the erosion of public trust in civic life."
"Simply put," Sasse said, "lying matters. Public trust matters. Integrity matters. And woe to us as a nation if we decide to pretend that this isn't so.
"This issue isn't about political points or about presidential politics," Sasse said. "It is about whether the people can trust their representatives, those who are supposed to be serving them in government for a time."
"Quite apart from the specific question of whether Secretary Clinton is going to be convicted of a crime," Sasse said, "we must grapple with the reality that the public trust, the rule of law and the security of our nation have been injured by her actions."
In a substantial gain for Holocaust survivors the world over, the Claims Conference (short for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany) has managed to secure the approval of the German government to allocate $600 million for the home care of Holocaust survivors over the next three years.
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The substantial increase in funding was reached during the organization's yearly negotiations with the German government. The agreement will include the allocation of $200 million during the years 2016 17, and $400 million during 2018, this in addition to the $1 billion that the Claims Conference had already secured from the German government in 2013.
Auschwitz concentration camp (Photo: Associated Press)
We commend the government of Germany for recognizing its continuing obligation to victims of the Holocaust, more than 70 years after liberation, said former US ambassador to the European Union Stuart Eizenstat, who had headed the Claims Conference's negotiations team. We have worked exhaustively to arrive at this agreement with the German government. Holocaust survivors, now in their final years, should know of our total commitment to trying to ensure they live in dignity, with the help they need.
The Claims Conference currently provides home care for some 67,000 Holocaust survivors around the world. All in all, 121,000 survivors are listed as receiving care through 240 different organizations in 46 states. The new agreement will expand the assistance they receive to offer them further support. Out of the sum total to be marked for improving the well-being of Holocaust survivors, NIS 450 million will be transferred to Israel, which is due to affect the lives of the 30,000 survivors living in Israel today.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara landed in the Rwandan capital Kigali on Wednesday as a part of the prime minister's east Africa tour.
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The Netanyahu and his wife were accompanied by the Rwandan President on a visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial which commemorates the genocide carried out by the Hutus on the Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.
Approximately one million people were killed in the genocide which took place over the course of 100 days.
Prime Minister Netanyahu lays a wreath at the Rwandan Genocide Memorial in Kigali (Photo: AP)
They visited the memorial museum including the wing dedicated to the Rwandan genocide, the wing dedicated to genocide in other countries, and the Children's Room. Netanyahu signed the official guestbook and laid a wreath at the memorial.
Speaking about his experiences at the Memorial, Netanyahu said "My people know the pain of genocide as well, and this is a unique bond that neither one of our peoples would prefer to have. Yet we both persevered. Despite the pain and despite the horror, we survived. We never lost hope; and you never lost hope."
He continued speaking about the how powerful incitement to violence can be, saying "both our peoples have learned a valuable lesson from our tragic pasts: Genocide is preceded by incitement to mass murder. Words matter. They have the power to kill. And broadcast words, whether on the radio or now through other means, they have the power to kill even further."
"When we see leaders in Gaza calling for the murder of every Jew around the world, we all have a duty to speak out. When we hear the Supreme Leader of Iran calling for the annihilation of Israel, we have a duty to speak out. We have a duty to alert the world to the danger of these hateful words," he continued
Netanyahu meets with Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Kigali, Rwanda (Photo: Kobi Gideon LTD)
Netanyahu then gave a scathing criticism of the UN and it's multiple peacekeeping failures, specifically during the Rwandan genocide.
"Mr. President," Netanyahu addressed Rwandan leader Paul Kagame, "we learned that in difficult times, we must be able to defend ourselves by ourselves. In Rwanda, UN peacekeepers failed to keep the peace. They not only failed to keep the peace, they failed to respond to urgent calls for salvation against an impending genocide. They ran away. We cannot, neither one of us, outsource our safety and our security."
Prime Minister Netanyahu and Rwandan President Kagame also held a lengthy private meeting at the President's residence. They focused on increasing bilateral cooperation in various fields such as military and security, energy, infrastructure, cyber, agriculture, and water.
Other agreements were also signed to strengthen the bi-lateral relations between the two countries, which included visa exemptions for diplomatic passport holders and a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in innovation, research and development, and encouraging tourism.
Netanyahu meets with Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Kigali, Rwanda (Photo: Kobi Gideon LTD)
"I am deeply impressed with Rwanda," the prime minister said. "It's a vibrant country. It's a resolute country. And you've accomplished amazing things. And these achievements are even more impressive given the horrors that you had to overcome."
He continued, saying "Mr. President, I'm in Africa because it is a continent on the rise, and because it hasn't always gotten the attention it deserves, at least not from Israel. But it does now, and I value deeply your willingness to assist us, along with other leaders in this historic summit that we had in Uganda. I'm excited about the future of your country, the future of your continent.
'A few apartments aren't preventing peace'
Prime Minister Netanyahu then responded to a question regarding US State Department claims that Israeli building in the West Bank is "a systematic process of Palestinian land seizures."
"We are familiar with the American position. It is not new. It is also not acceptable to us."
"With all due respect," he continued, "it is neither the construction in Jerusalem nor that in Ma'aleh Adumim that make peace more remote. What prevents peace, first of all, is the constant incitement against the existence of the State of Israel within any borders, and the time has come for all the nations of the world to recognize this simple truth. There is also a second truth: The way to resolve conflicts is by direct negotiations."
The prime minister concluded by saying "We are ready at all times to hold direct negotiations without preconditions with our neighbors; however, they are not prepared to hold them with us. These are the two things that are preventing peace not a few apartments near the city of Maaleh Adumim, or several neighborhoods in Jerusalem."
According to the figures, 560 apartment units will be built in Ma'ale Adumim, 140 will be built in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramot, and another 100 will be built in the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Har Homa and Pisgat Ze'ev.
On Wednesday, a scathing, seven-year inquiry report concluded that former British prime minister Tony Blair's justification, planning and handling of the Iraq War involved a catalogue of failures.
The long-awaited British public inquiry stated that eight months before the 2003 invasion, Blair told then-US President George W. Bush "I will be with you, whatever", eventually sending 45,000 British troops into battle when peace options had not been exhausted.
More than 13 years since the invasion, Iraq remains in chaos, with large areas under the control of ISIS militants who have claimed responsibility for attacks on Western cities.
Israeli actress Gal Gadot, recently made famous by starring as Wonder Woman in the film "Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice," is taking part in a more low-key film project that display Israeli strength and diversity by focusing on its women. The project itself is a short viral marketing campaign helmed by two Israeli media students. One of these students, Adi, explained that they "wished to show the world and various audiences a different side of Israel, instead of focusing on its landscapes or the Tel Aviv nightlife."
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Meirav, another student involved in the project, explained that Gadot "loved the idea of focusing on women" and that "Gal is always a big supporter of Israel."
Israeli actress Gal Gadot (Photo: Efrat Sa'ar)
The short video begins with Gadot and goes on to present the other "Israeli wonder women," including an IDF pilot, a business woman, a doctor and a competitive surfer.
Gal Gadot in video on Israeli women ( )
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"Despite the fact that different aspects of Israel have already been shown, we feel Israeli women aren't represented enough," said Shiran, a third participant in the project. "We could have showcased an even larger variety of women, but we still feel it managed to be rather diverse."
Adi stressed that "We believe Israel itself represents strong women. Each one of us is unique in her own right, and it was important to us to let the world see this." Shiran added that for this project, "We felt it was appropriate to turn to a star who represents family values while working toward an incredible international career."
US President Barack Obama spoke on Wednesday by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, emphasizing his concerns over the failure of the Syrian regime to comply with the Cessation of Hostilities in Syria. President Obama stressed the importance of Russia pressing the Syrian regime for a lasting halt to offensive attacks against civilians and parties to the Cessation, noting the importance of fully recommitting to the original terms of the Cessation.
The Presidents confirmed their commitment to defeating ISIS and the Nusrah Front, al-Qaidas affiliate in Syria. President Obama also stressed the necessity for progress on a genuine political transition to end the conflict in Syria, as well as sustained humanitarian access, and expressed his support for the efforts of UN Special Representative for Syria Staffan de Mistura to make progress on those efforts.
On Ukraine, President Obama urged President Putin to take steps to end the significant uptick in fighting in eastern Ukraine and stressed the urgent importance of moving forward with full implementation of the Minsk agreements.
Yoni Netanyahu was a childhood hero of mine. I read his book "Letters from Yoni" until the pages began to fray. I saw the movie "Yoni's Operation" dozens of times, and I get emotional every time I hear the song "Eretz Tzvi."
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If one were to count the number of schools, town squares, and streets named after Yoni Netanyahu, it becomes clear that he was the hero of an entire generation.
He was the head of a military operation that symbolized everything we wanted to see in ourselves, and only three years after the trauma of the Yom Kippur war. Yoni Netanyahu and the operation he was killed in are reminders that Israel is a daring and brave warrior, a warrior who doesn't leave a man behind, no matter where they are. Israel, where the army is a symbol of royalty and where the people in the political establishment make military decisions which could cost them their jobs.
Netanyahu meets with Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Kigali, Rwanda (Photo: Kobi Gideon LTD)
There are post-modernists who view these symbols as the root of all evil. Most of these people can't understand how violence can still exist, how the UK can vote against being in the EU, or how globalization is failing. They find it difficult to understand how patriotism and Judaism and Israelism can continue so many years after the Zionist movement succeeded in establishing a state.
For me, these symbols are an existential necessity. Human beings are motivated by symbols and spirit. They go and fight because they feel that they are connected. They vote in elections with blind trust, without knowing the results, or sometimes, the approximate results of their actions. They're willing to pay in blood and with their property because of feelings which have no quantifiable or visible value.
This is the exact reason why I refuse to get angry at how much Netanyahu's visit to Africa is costing. Contrary to popular image, the business of the spirit actually does cost money, and sometimes it costs a lot.
In the beginning of the state's history, there were giant military parades held throughout Israel on Independence Day. These used to cost a lot of money. Yet despite the IDF's tiny budget at the time, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion made them a priority. Sadly, they've disappeared because of their high price tags and the lack of understanding of national spirit and national symbols.
The Israeli presidency and all of its ceremonies cost the tax payer quite a bit as well, yet no one is calling for the position to be removed. One can say the same thing about humanities faculties in universities, the Bible Contest (a contest of biblical knowledge held in Jerusalem every Independence Day), the Police Orchestra and others.
Thus, we have the symbolic visit of the Israeli prime minister to Uganda and other African countries. He needs security, planes, food and staff members. He works, so I have no problem with him putting a bed in the plane, even if it's something he can seemingly do without. The rest are small expenses that aren't so important.
Netanyahu's visit to Entebbe is a symbolic visit in and of itself. Businessmen will operate in Africa with or without him there, and relations with African countries are dependent on interests that diplomats are in charge of creating and managing with or without Netanyahu.
However, the reminders of who we want to be and what we can be can only be done via official visits by the Prime Minister, via the ceremonies, and via the related expenses.
We must ask the question "What is Israel in 2016," and more importantly, if it is still possible to re-enact Operation Entebbe.
Netanyahu meets with the leaders of seven African nations in Uganda (Photo: Kobi Gideon LTD)
There are three processes that help us answer this question. One is the process of us turning our soldiers into "children." While the motto of the Litani operation in the 1970s was "we will return our soldiers back home in peace," this motto has turned into a national strategy. The soldiers have become more important than the civilians they protect, and that's how the Israeli public relates to them.
The second is how we treat terror organizations especially our readiness to pay them a very high price to them, and to not take risks with them. The third is the way that we make decisions, even at the risk of failure or loss of political power. We can see this with the two prime ministers who made the decisions to blow up nuclear reactors (in Iraq and Syria), and with Rabin during Operation Entebbe and the failed operation to save two soldiers in 1975.
Israel in 2016 has established commissions of inquiry into issues where nothing is there such as the case of the takeover of the Mavi Marmara. Those who don't win know that there is a commission of inquiry waiting for them at the end.
Today's soldiers are better and more professional than they were 40 years ago. Regarding the rest, this visit highlights many questions. If all of these cameras and entourages help us get back to who we really are, then this trip will have been worth every penny.
Westover firefighters assist with local fire
Members of the 439th Airlift Wing fire department had a busy Fourth of July weekend, helping local firefighters battle a large fire on Holyoke July 3 and providing backup for a gas station fire the following day.
The Westover fire department responded to an emergency call on the evening of July 3 when large bales of paper caught fire in a storage yard at Sonoco Products paper mill in Holyoke. The 439th AW fire department foam truck helped extinguish the tightly backed bales, department officials said. There were no injuries during the fire.
The following morning, the Chicopee fire chief requested two Westover engines to serve as back-up coverage at Station 1, while the Chicopee fire department responded to a gas station fire. Westover sent 2 fire trucks and eight firemen. Although Westover did not respond to any fire calls for the city of Chicopee during that time, they did respond to a medical call.
This has been a long time in the making, but in our continuing pursuit to bring only the best of firearms, 2nd Amendment and defence related news to our readers, we are very excited to announce the next step in our evolution as a company.
As of 2020, Minuteman Review is now the proud owner and operator of Your Defence News, a website with a long history of breaking huge news stories and investigative journalism.
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Two separate crashes in the Nebraska Panhandle on Tuesday claimed the lives of two people.
Just before 10 a.m. MDT, Nebraska State Patrol troopers responded to a single-car crash about 2 miles north of Kimball on Nebraska 71.
James Nelson, 55, of Harrisburg was alone in his car when he went off the road and rolled several times. He died at the scene, and was wearing a seat belt.
A Tuesday evening crash west of Minatare on Nebraska 26, claimed the life of a Wyoming man. Just after 5 p.m. MDT, Wiley Cross, 30, of Torrington, was killed when the pickup he was driving turned west onto the highway at the L79E junction and collided with an eastbound semi- trailer truck.
Two passengers in Cross' pickup were taken to Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff with nonlife threatening injuries. The driver of the semi, Clinton Fornstrom, 34, Pine Bluffs, Wyoming, was not injured. Cross was not wearing a seat belt.
MOUNT PLEASANT The soft opening leading up to Trek Bicycle Store Racines formal opening Wednesday has been an encouraging one for owner John Rodriguez.
Trek Bicycle, 5509 Durand Ave., is in Mount Pleasant Plaza, a strip retail center directly south of Regency Mall.
According to the National Bicycle Dealers Association, Waterloo-based Trek is the top-selling bicycle brand in the United States.
Trek is No. 1 in the U.S., and they have been for quite a few years for a reason, Rodriguez said.
He said Trek caters to almost every type of cyclist: They make (bicycles) for the entry-level rider through the pro-level, pro-caliber rider.
Rodriguez, who said he has worked in the bicycle industry for decades, decided to open a Racine-area bicycle dealership after Perry and Terri Oksiuta retired and closed Racine Cyclery, 4615 Washington Ave., a 59-year-old family business.
Trek had a void (in this area) that they wanted to fill, he said previously. Theres a market here that needs to have good-quality bike shops, and Trek wanted to be part of that.
Trek Bicycle Store Racine is an independent store but will carry mostly Treks, Rodriguez said.
During the few weeks of the stores soft opening, Rodriguez said: The publics been super-supportive. People who arent necessarily buying a bike come in saying, Thank you for opening a business in (the Racine area).
A soft opening, according to the thestorestarters.com website, is a retail tactic in which a new stores doors open a few weeks early, without the pressure or fanfare of a grand opening.
In that time, Trek Bicycle Store Racine has been getting a good amount of repair work, Rodriguez said.
Assets
Another facet of the business thats working out beautifully is that Wood Road leads directly into a quiet, suburban neighborhood thats ideal for test-riding a bike.
Its a great test area, theres a nice little hill, so people can test within a relatively short little route, Rodriguez said.
The store has about 150 bicycles on hand and will maintain that level year-round, he said.
When Rodriguez was staffing his store of about 4,500 to 5,000 square feet of actual retail space, he said, he was looking for a particular kind of person.
I made it a point to hire people who have really good personalities not necessarily the bike skills, he said.
Weve got the expertise when we need it, he added.
The store is open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. For more information, call the store at 262-770-3294.
In the latest step in its Plan for Fairer Safer Housing review program, the government is calling for responses to a recently released discussion paper which focuses on the condition of rental properties in the state.
A key point in paper is whether Victorias residential tenancy legislation should be updated to come in-line with jurisdictions such as South Australia and Tasmania and enforce minimum standards a dwelling must meet before it can be offered for lease.
The discussion paper puts forward 15 points that have suggested as possible minimum standards to the government by stakeholders groups, such as ensuring the property can be connected to utilities, is safe and secure, weatherproof and fitted with kitchen and laundry facilities and a hard-wired smoke alarm.
Other points include fitting rental properties with a temperature control device and making rental properties energy efficient through the use of insulation, water saving tapware and draught-proofing.
Cameron Osborne, director of property management firm Melbourne Asset Management, told Your Investment Property that the minimum condition standards would likely be a step forward for Victoria, though there is a need for balance.
Currently in Victoria you can rent out a cardboard box. Theres no minimum standards at all which is pretty crazy and unfortunately people are renting out things like caravans and shipping containers, Osborne told Your Investment Property.
Its probably going too far when it comes to things like energy efficiency. If an owner has to do that sort of thing then theyre going to have to put the rents up to cover costs or theyll choose not to rent a property out. Either way thats probably going to impact the number of properties available to rent at the cheaper end of the market, he said.
From the point of view of a property manager, Osborne said minimum condition standards would make his life easier, though he questioned who would be responsible for ensuring properties that arent up to scratch arent put up for rent.
It would make things easier if there was a standard because it wouldnt be us telling the property owner that a building isnt suitable, it would be the law, he told Your Investment Property.
Ive had a few times where somebody has got in touch saying they have a property they would like to rent out and when you go to have a look at it and they point to a caravan or an old shed in the backyard.
But its then a matter of enforceability as well, whos going to go round and inspect all these places to make sure theyre up to scratch?
While the condition of a property before a lease is signed is a major part of the discussion paper, it also looks at property conditions at the end of the lease period, specifically the issue of property cleanliness and the differentiation between fair wear and tear and damage.
Current legislation in Victoria states tenants must return the property in a reasonably clean and Osborne would like to see that strengthened in favour of landlords.
VCATs stance seems to be as long as its had a regular Saturday clean then thats ok and if the owners have to send cleaners in between tenancies then so be it.
If I put in that the carpet has to be professionally steam cleaned then Im actually legislating outside the act.
Ninety-nine per cent of real estate agents would put that sort of thing in a lease with the expectation tenants would do it at the end, but if they dont theres nothing you can do about it.
I dont think its too excessive that after a year of tenancy that someone should clean the carpets, that shouldnt be the owners responsibility.
On the issue of fair wear and tear or damage, Osborne said that is likely to remain contentious no matter what happens.
Its always going to be a debate as to whats wear and tear and whats damage.
We always have the argument with the owner who will come in and say they want a spot on the carpet cleaned or something like that and we have to explain to them that youve leased it out for a year or two years and to a certain extent you have to accept that there might be handprints or some damage to the skirting boards.
Submissions on the discussion paper can be made until 11 August through the Plan for Fairer Safer Housing web page.
Foreign buyers looking to enter the Australian property market may finally have received some good news, with the South Australian government ruling out higher property taxes for foreign investors.
According to a report in the Australian Financial Review, South Australian treasurer Tom Koutsantonis has said todays state budget will not include higher stamp duty or land tax that other states have announced.
In Victoria, foreign buyers of residential real estate now face an additional 7% stamp duty surcharge, while there land tax rate will rise from 0.5% to 1.5% for the 2017 land tax year.
In NSW, foreign investors will be hit with an extra 4% stamp duty surcharge from later this month, while the 2017 land tax year will bring an additional 0.75% surcharge.
In Queensland, foreign buyers will face an additional 3% stamp duty surcharge from October.
I will not be doing anything that in any way hurts foreign property investors," Koutsantonis told the AFR.
These types of taxes have no place in this country, he said.
While the NSW government estimates it will generate an extra $1bn in revenue over four years through its tax rises, Koutsantonis said South Australia did not want to do anything that could jeopardise foreign buyer activity in the state.
"I want more foreign direct investment," Koutsantonis told the AFR.
"We're a trading nation, we're a trading state.
While they may give up some revenue in the short term the move may be the right one, with Gavin Norris, head of Australia for Juwai.com, an online portal that markets real estate to Chinese buyers, believing states that dont try to gouge foreign investors could likely see some benefits.
The east coast states do run the risk that buyers will move to locations with more affordable property and less red tape, like South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia, Norris told Your Investment Property last month.
This is certainly a great opportunity for agents and developers in those other states to more proactively make the case that their markets offer the same lifestyle at a better price, he said.
Koutsantonis is far from alone in opposing the tax hikes, many lobby groups have criticised the moves and one real estate industry figure accused the NSW government of xenophobia over their plans.
The government has found a scapegoat in foreign investors and is playing on xenophobia. They are choosing to single out Chinese investors when the real reason house prices are being pushed up is self-funded retirees who are purchasing properties for their super funds, Malcolm Gunning, principal of Sydney based real estate agency Gunning, said.
It is important to recognise that this is just a grab for cash from the government and a cop out. Foreign investors are an easy target and they arent going to continue to invest in Australia if the government makes it harder and harder for them, Gunning said.
They play an important role in the strength of construction industry and should be a welcome addition to this country. They are good for the economy and make a crucial contribution to our society.
Koutsantonis announcement comes recently after he revealed the government would be extending and expanding a program offering stamp duty discounts to those who buy off-the-plan apartments.
As a homeowner, you probably already know that you should be working to maintain your home. But, chances are, you Read More
MADISON A Wisconsin law that requires authorities to revoke day care providers' licenses for life if they're convicted of welfare fraud is constitutional, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
Legislators passed a law in 2009 that allows authorities to permanently revoke licenses and certifications if a day care provider has been convicted of public benefit fraud. Lawmakers drew up the statutes in response to a series of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel articles detailing extensive fraud by child care providers receiving money through Wisconsin Shares, a state program that reimburses providers who care for children in working families.
According to court documents, Racine County permanently revoked Sonja Blake's certification under the law in 2010 after a background check revealed a welfare fraud conviction in 1986.
She originally faced a felony charge for failing to report a car that didn't run and a motorcycle she owned as assets, obtaining $294 in benefits to which she wasn't entitled. She later pleaded no contest to a reduced misdemeanor count.
Blake sued over the revocation, arguing the law violated her constitutional rights to equal protection and due process. She also contended the law creates an irrefutable presumption that people convicted of fraud are permanently unfit for certification.
Dane County Circuit Judge Shelley Gaylord found that Blake failed to show the law was unconstitutional and a state appeals court upheld Gaylord's decision. The state Supreme Court also sided with Gaylord on Wednesday, ruling 5-2 that the law advances the reasonable goal of reducing fraud. Justice David Prosser, writing for the majority, acknowledged that the statutes are harsh but legislators make policy, not the courts.
Justices Shirley Abrahamson and Ann Walsh Bradley, who make up the court's liberal-leaning minority, dissented. Abrahamson wrote that a lifetime ban is "draconian" and isn't tied to any legitimate state purpose. She noted that Blake hasn't been in legal trouble since her 1986 conviction and other offenses, including child neglect, don't result in a lifetime revocation.
"Simply put, (the permanent revocation for welfare fraud) shocks the conscience," Abrahamson wrote. "(The law) is so broad that it arbitrarily, irrationally, and significantly impedes the ability of law-abiding people like Blake to earn a living in their chosen profession, childcare."
Blake's attorney didn't immediately respond to an email message.
The Journal Times will update this story.
Arizona News
Phoenix, Arizona - Wells Fargo is pleased to announce it is conducting its 9th Annual Summer Statewide Food Drive July 5-27. The event collects donations for food banks that span the entire state with collection bins in all 253 Wells Fargo Community Banking stores throughout Arizona.
Donations will benefit members of the Association of Arizona Food Banks. In 2015, Arizona food banks collectively distributed 124 million pounds of food equivalent to more than 103 million meals, reaching Arizonans in need at 1,200 sites statewide. People who wish to donate cash can send checks to their local food banks or to the Association of Arizona Food Banks whose mission is to deliver food and quality services to food banks and to foster relationships in support of their commitment to eliminate hunger. Donations may be made online at http://www.azfoodbanks.org or sent to 2100 N. Central Ave., Ste. 230, Phoenix, Ariz. 85004.
All of us at Wells Fargo are excited to continue our annual tradition of holding our Summer Statewide Food Drive to benefit Arizona food banks, said Pam Conboy, lead regional president for Wells Fargo in Arizona. Last summer we collected 41,749 pounds of food and raised $3,610.44 in cash donations to help Arizona food banks feed the hungry. Wells Fargo remains committed to supporting the communities we serve through our great state and this is just one way we do that.
The needs of families and individuals around the state continue to be strong, according to the Association of Arizona Food Banks:
In Arizona, 17.1% of adults are food insecure
More than1 in 4 of Arizona children (27%)) suffer from food insecurity
At 41.5%, Apache County has the highest rate of child food insecurity in the country
Wells Fargo is once again working with us to end hunger in Arizona. This food drive couldnt come at a better time, as food banks throughout Arizona experience high demand for services during the summer months when kids are out of school and utility bills are high. Were so fortunate to have this tremendous support and partnership, said Angie Rodgers, President and CEO of the Association of Arizona Food Banks.
Latest News
Washington, DC - After an almost five-year journey to the solar systems largest planet, NASA's Juno spacecraft successfully entered Jupiters orbit during a 35-minute engine burn. Confirmation that the burn had completed was received on Earth at 8:53 p.m. PDT (11:53 p.m. EDT) Monday, July 4.
Independence Day always is something to celebrate, but today we can add to Americas birthday another reason to cheer -- Juno is at Jupiter, said NASA administrator Charlie Bolden. And what is more American than a NASA mission going boldly where no spacecraft has gone before? With Juno, we will investigate the unknowns of Jupiters massive radiation belts to delve deep into not only the planets interior, but into how Jupiter was born and how our entire solar system evolved.
Confirmation of a successful orbit insertion was received from Juno tracking data monitored at the navigation facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, as well as at the Lockheed Martin Juno operations center in Littleton, Colorado. The telemetry and tracking data were received by NASA's Deep Space Network antennas in Goldstone, California, and Canberra, Australia.
This is the one time I dont mind being stuck in a windowless room on the night of the 4th of July, said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The mission team did great. The spacecraft did great. We are looking great. Its a great day.
Preplanned events leading up to the orbital insertion engine burn included changing the spacecrafts attitude to point the main engine in the desired direction and then increasing the spacecrafts rotation rate from 2 to 5 revolutions per minute (RPM) to help stabilize it..
The burn of Junos 645-Newton Leros-1b main engine began on time at 8:18 p.m. PDT (11:18 p.m. EDT), decreasing the spacecrafts velocity by 1,212 miles per hour (542 meters per second) and allowing Juno to be captured in orbit around Jupiter. Soon after the burn was completed, Juno turned so that the suns rays could once again reach the 18,698 individual solar cells that give Juno its energy.
The spacecraft worked perfectly, which is always nice when youre driving a vehicle with 1.7 billion miles on the odometer, said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager from JPL. Jupiter orbit insertion was a big step and the most challenging remaining in our mission plan, but there are others that have to occur before we can give the science team the mission they are looking for.
Over the next few months, Junos mission and science teams will perform final testing on the spacecrafts subsystems, final calibration of science instruments and some science collection.
Our official science collection phase begins in October, but weve figured out a way to collect data a lot earlier than that, said Bolton. Which when youre talking about the single biggest planetary body in the solar system is a really good thing. There is a lot to see and do here.
Juno's principal goal is to understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter. With its suite of nine science instruments, Juno will investigate the existence of a solid planetary core, map Jupiter's intense magnetic field, measure the amount of water and ammonia in the deep atmosphere, and observe the planet's auroras. The mission also will let us take a giant step forward in our understanding of how giant planets form and the role these titans played in putting together the rest of the solar system. As our primary example of a giant planet, Jupiter also can provide critical knowledge for understanding the planetary systems being discovered around other stars.
The Juno spacecraft launched on Aug. 5, 2011 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. JPL manages the Juno mission for NASA. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agencys Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.
More information on the Juno mission is available at:
http://www.nasa.gov/juno
Latest News
Washington, DC - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili co-chaired a plenary meeting of the U.S.-Georgia Strategic Partnership Commission in Tbilisi today.
Established in 2009, the U.S.-Georgia Strategic Partnership Commission seeks to deepen the bilateral cooperation between our countries with a view toward achieving shared goals across a broad spectrum of priorities, including in the areas of Democracy and Governance; Defense and Security; Economy, Energy, and Trade; and People-to-People and Cultural Exchanges. As part of todays meeting, Secretary Kerry announced several new initiatives to further strengthen our bilateral cooperation:
Defense and Security: Secretary Kerry and Prime Minister Kvirikashvili signed a Memorandum on Deepening the Defense and Security Relationship between the United States and Georgia. This Memorandum reaffirms and expands our bilateral defense and security cooperation in the areas of defense capacity building, military and security cooperation, and information sharing.
Economy, Energy and Trade: Secretary Kerry announced the launch of a $15 million, 5-year Economic Resiliency Program administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development. This program will develop the skills of Georgian business people and improve income generation in rural households. The primary beneficiaries of this program will be ethnic and religious minorities as well as communities in the vicinity of the Administrative Boundary Lines with Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Democracy and Governance: Secretary Kerry announced $1 million in assistance from the U.S. Department of Labor for an International Labor Organization program, which will improve the Government of Georgias ability to enforce labor legislation. This funding is in addition to a pre-existing $2 million U.S. contribution.
People-to-People: Secretary Kerry and Prime Minister Kvirikashvili announced a new Memorandum of Understanding for the United States and Georgia to co-fund Georgias Fulbright Program. The U.S. government funded three Fulbright Graduate Student Program scholarships in 2016; under the terms of this new agreement, the United States and Georgia envision roughly doubling the number of Georgian students receiving Fulbright scholarships to study in the United States.
Latest News
Washington, DC - The Governments of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States welcome the agreement between National Oil Corporation (NOC) Chairman Mustafa Sanalla, and NOC Board member, Dr. Nagi el-Maghrabi strengthening the unity of the Corporation.
We urge all Libyans to work together to restore Libyas oil production and exports, and stress the importance of Libyan resource wealth being used for the benefit of all Libyans, as underlined by the Governing Principles of the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) signed on 17 December 2015, as well as UN Security Council Resolution 2259 (2015). We reaffirm our readiness to use, at the request of the Government of National Accord (GNA), all measures set out in UN Security Council Resolution 2146 (2014) to halt the illicit shipment of oil from Libya, and to sanction those who seek to exploit or divert Libyas oil or wealth. Libyas national economic institutions, including the Central Bank of Libya, National Oil Corporation, and Libyan Investment Authority, must remain united under the sole stewardship of the GNA and must use Libyas resources for the benefit of all Libyans.
The Governments of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States continue our strong support for the GNA, as stated in the Rome Communique of December 13, 2015, and endorsed in UN Security Council Resolution 2259 (2015)
MOUNT PLEASANT Village police are continuing to search for two of three vehicles apparently stolen from a car dealership early Monday by juveniles who sped away from police.
The two new vehicles a gray Ford Escape and a white Ford Escape were among three vehicles apparently stolen from the Porcaro Ford car dealership, 5910 Washington Ave., at about 2:30 a.m. Monday.
The vehicles were allegedly stolen by four juvenile suspects, police said. Officers spotted the suspects driving out of the dealership in the Escapes and chased them.
The suspects eluded officers on Highway 20, police said, and officers terminated the pursuit due to the high rate of speed and reckless driving of the suspects during the pursuit.
The two vehicles had not been recovered nor had the other suspects been identified, Mount Pleasant Police Sgt. Eric Relich said Wednesday. The SUVs are believed to be in the Milwaukee area, he said.
The other vehicle taken from the dealership, a gray Ford Transit van, crashed and started on fire as police chased it Monday. Police arrested a 13-year-old male who allegedly stole the van.
The juvenile suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the crash and was treated and released from Wheaton Franciscan-All Saints Hospital, police said.
On Tuesday, the 13-year-old was transported to a juvenile detention facility in Milwaukee, where he is awaiting a hearing in connection with previous burglary and other felony charges that occurred in Milwaukee County.
Eventually. the teen will face charges in Racine County court for burglary, operating a vehicle without owners consent, fleeing/eluding, reckless endangerment and possession of burglar tools, police said.
RACINE A Wind Lake man was in the Racine County Jail Tuesday after being charged with two counts of felony burglary for allegedly stealing a total of $700 from his former employer in two separate incidents in 2015, and reportedly scrawling obscenities aimed at his former boss during one of the incidents.
Kevin A. Page II, 24, of the 26000 block of West Loomis Road, was originally charged with the burglaries last November, but was taken into custody Tuesday, Racine County Circuit Court records showed.
Page appeared in court Tuesday and a preliminary hearing was scheduled for July 14, court records showed.
According to the criminal complaint, Page allegedly stole $502 from Garys Boathouse, 25716 W. Loomis Road, Wind Lake, in the early morning hours of April 17, 2015.
Page apparently used a two-by-four to steer the security camera away from the cash register, according to the complaint. He also reportedly scrawled obscenities aimed at the restaurants owner on the kitchen doors and knocked over a vat of cooking oil in the kitchen, according to the complaint.
Page allegedly then stole $200 from the restaurant May 11, 2015. This time, Page was identified in security footage by co-workers because he was wearing a sweatshirt belonging to his brother and distinctive shoes, according to the complaint.
Page was fired following the May 2015 incident, but co-workers suspected Page of committing the April burglary, according to the complaint.
Co-workers said that the night of the April 2015 incident, Page told them his sister had committed suicide, the complaint said. Co-workers offered him a ride home but he reportedly refused.
Meanwhile, Racine County sheriffs investigators reportedly matched the handwriting from the obscenities left behind to Pages original employment application.
Investigators then discovered Pages sister was alive and well, the complaint said. A relative told investigators Page had been kicked out of the house in May after he lost his job, according to the complaint. Relatives also viewed photos from the surveillance footage and identified the sweatshirt and shoes, according to the complaint.
Investigators made phone contact with Page in late May 2015 and he told them he had moved to California. According to the complaint, Page told investigators he committed the May burglary, but not the one in April.
The United States placed North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un on its sanctions blacklist Wednesday, saying he is directly responsible for a long list of extreme human rights abuses in his country.
Placing Kim on its blacklist for the first time, the US said, is an acknowledgment that North Korea is "among the world`s most repressive countries."
Kim and 10 other top officials named in the sanctions were behind widespread, serious abuses including killings and torture of political prisoners in the country`s system of political prison camps, US officials said.
"Under Kim Jong-Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor, and torture," said Adam Szubin, Acting Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
Treasury said that Kim, North Korea`s "Supreme Leader," was responsible for abuses in his roles as head of the country`s Ministry of State Security and Ministry of People`s Security.
According to officials in Washington, North Korea`s Ministry of State Security holds 80,000 to 120,000 prisoners in political prison camps where torture, execution, sexual assault, starvation, and slave labor are common.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of People`s Security overseen by Kim runs a network of police stations, detention centers and labor camps where suspects under interrogation "are systematically degraded, intimidated, and tortured," the United States said.
Authorities in Washington for the first time identified other top officials directly involved in rights abuses, including Choe Pu Il, the Minister of People`s Security, Ri Song Chol, a senior official in the Ministry of People`s Security, and Kang Song Nam, a Bureau Director with the Ministry of State Security.
A senior US official said on background that naming the specific officials involved will help strip the anonymity under which they carry out systematic abuses.
The designation of Kim and others for sanctions came as the State Department released a new report which documents the abuses throughout the North Korean security apparatus and political prison camp system.
The US official said the report makes clear that Kim is ultimately responsible for much of the abuses.
US officials said they do not expect immediate consequences from the designations, which freeze the assets of those named on US territory and forbid Americans from doing business with them.
However, they said there is evidence in North Korea that an increasing number of people are aware of the extent of abuses.
They said identifying the abuses, and those responsible, could encourage North Koreans hoping for a change in the country`s political leadership.
Bengaluru: The Bangalore Police has prepared a list of 1500 African nationals who are staying in the country without a valid visa, as per a media report.
As per a report in News18.com, the police have said that it will deport the students by July end.
The crackdown was initiated after they were caught in narcotics drug trade recently.
The report further said that as per the police records reveal that out of 6000 African students studying in Bengaluru, more than 1500 are staying without valid visas.
The list has reportedly been submitted to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
The media group quoted P Harishekaran Additional Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Bengaluru East, as saying, "We have already deported 50 students last week. And we are planning to deport 1500 of them by this month end. You must have seen that in recent days there were many incidents of African nationals involved in trafficking. We prepared a list and found out that high number of them are staying even though their visa has expired."
Chennai: The Chennai dog which was thrown off a terrace by a MBBS student miraculously stayed alive but suffered a fracture in one of its legs. The dog, which is now being addressed by animal lovers as 'Bhadra', was brought to Madras Veterinary College in Vepery for medical treatment on Wednesday.
Dog thrown off a terrace in Chennai, brought to Madras Veterinary College in Vepery for medical treatment. pic.twitter.com/KOzhhKgYKf ANI (@ANI_news) July 6, 2016
Veterinary doctor who conducted medical check-up on the dog said it is in shock. The dog is able to walk, the only thing is that it is in a state of shock, veterinary doctor Jaiprakash said.
Clinical examination reveal fracture of right femur, rest everything is fine. The dog is out of danger, he added.
The poor animal was spotted yesterday nearly two weeks after it was thrown from rooftop by a crazy medical student.
Chennai: Veterinary doctor conducts medical check-up on the dog that was thrown off a terrace, says it is in shock.https://t.co/e72dqCrbDr ANI (@ANI_news) July 6, 2016
Animal activist Shravan Krishnan had posted a photo of the dog on his Facebook page informing that the canine was found alive.
Sharing the picture on Facebook, Shravan Krishnan wrote, "Good news - The dog has been found alive. She is not able to walk properly. She is with us now. Will be under treatment. What breaks my heart is that she was still wagging her tail (sic)."
Meanwhile, Chennai Police today arrested two medical college students for throwing the dog off the roof of a multi-storied building. They were taken to a local court which granted them bail.
"We had put the video of a person throwing a dog from the roof-top of a building in the Facebook and got several leads and confirmed that the two persons on the video were students of a medical college," activist Shravan Krishnan said earlier.
He said the police were also very helpful in identifying the persons who did the cruel act.
The video of the incident, uploaded on social media couple of days back, wrung the hearts of even the strongest as it showed a youth on the roof-top of a multi-storied building was holding a dog which he threw off in cold-blood.
Police also reached the college and held discussions with the college authorities. Police had earlier urged the parents of the accused to see that their wards surrender at the earliest.
Chennai: The Madras High Court on Wednesday dismissed a criminal case against influential Tamil author Perumal Murugan for allegedly offending religious sentiments in his book, 'Madhorubagan'.
Murugan had landed in trouble after residents of Tiruchengode and the Kongu Nadu belt - areas depicted in his novels - claimed that the book offended their religious sentiments after it was translated into English in 2014.
The Tamil version was published in 2011. Madhorubagan is about a childless couple from rural Tamil Nadu that is forced by their families to participate in an ancient chariot festival in the temple of Ardhanarishvara - a composite androgynous form of the Shiva and Parvati.
According to the book, any man was permitted to sleep with any woman and vice-versa during the night of the festival.
The writer was hounded out of his village and eventually took to Facebook to symbolically declare that Perumal Murugan the writer was dead following the furore over his book after it was published in English as One Part Woman.
A group of writers challenged the decision of a peace committee at a meeting organised by the district administration in Namakkal after protests. After the meeting, Murugan agreed to issue an unconditional apology, delete the controversial portions from his book, and withdraw unsold copies from the market.
But the high court made it clear in its ruling on Tuesday that those terms are no longer binding.
The choice to read is always with the reader. Literary tastes may vary - what is right and acceptable to one may not be so to others. Yet, the right to write is unhindered, a bench comprised of Chief Justice SK Kaul and justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana was quoted as saying by The Hindu.
The court also directed the state to circulate a series of guidelines framed by it to handle such situations among the state police and to form an expert committee to deal with similar cases in the future.
Murugan is a prolific writer, whose works have single-handedly put the Kongu region on the literary map of Tamil Nadu.
New Delhi: The Delhi Police has arrested a man who had allegedly sent obscene messages to hundreds of girls and women in and around the capital.
As per a report in NDTV, Mohammad Khalid, 31, had sent obscene messages to some 1,500 women across Delhi.
To play smart and avoid detection, the accused who runs a bag shop in old Delhi - had used different mobile numbers and phones to send the messages.
According to the police, the women had complained against the man on various helplines being run in Delhi.
The police tracked down Khalid by putting the mobile numbers given by the complainants on surveillance.
Detailing his modus operandi, the police said Khalid used to make random phone calls and note down numbers whenever answered by women on the other side.
Khalid then used to send obscene messages to the women via SMS or WhatsApp.
He used to particularly send offensive messages and disturbing videos when told off by women.
The police found contact numbers of around 2,100 women on the three SIM cards and two mobile phones recovered from his possession.
New Delhi: In a huge set back for Congress, the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) on Wednesday issued notice to former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, asking her to join the investigation into water meter scam case.
The notice states: It appears that you (Sheila Dikshit) are acquainted with facts and circumstances of case and is required to join investigation.
ACB chief MK Meena said the case was registered in 2014 in the Anti Corruption Branch, adding that the Delhi Jal Board had bought 2.5 lakh water metres and there are allegations that there was no proper tendering and tender conditions were changed so that the personal companies are benefitted.
Congress is reportedly contemplating in projecting Dikshit as party's CM candidate for 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections.
The Congress stalwart is also under the scanner for her alleged role in the water tanker scam worth Rs 400 crores.
Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung forwarded AAP-led Delhi Government`s complaint of water tanker scam against Dikshit to the ACB last month.
London: A British inquiry into the Iraq war strongly criticised former Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government on Wednesday, saying they had led the country into war based on flawed intelligence that should have been challenged.
The long-awaited inquiry report also said Britain had joined the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 without exhausting peaceful options, that the legal basis for military action was not satisfactory, and that the planning was wholly inadequate.
Published seven years after the inquiry was set up, the report runs to 2.6 million words - about three times the length of the Bible - and includes details of exchanges Blair had with then U.S. President George W. Bush over the invasion.
"It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged and they should have been," the head of the inquiry, John Chilcot said in presenting its findings.
Iraq remains in chaos to this day. Islamic State controls large areas of the country and 250 people died on Saturday in Baghdad`s worst car bombing since the U.S.-led coalition toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.
The inquiry rejected Blair`s view that Iraq`s post-invasion problems could not have been known in advance.
The inquiry`s purpose was for the British government to learn lessons from the invasion and occupation that followed, in which 179 British soldiers died.
Opponents of Blair`s decision to join the war will pore over the report for its judgment on how the Labour leader, who quit in 2007, justified the military action. At the time, he said intelligence showed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction but after the invasion none was found.
"I was lied to. The media, the press, the families, parliament, everybody was lied to," Reg Keys, whose son was among the British fatalities and who stood as a candidate for parliament against Blair in the 2005 election, told Reuters TV ahead of the report`s publication.
Blair has always rejected any suggestions he acted dishonestly. He was expected to give his reaction to the report later on Wednesday.
The inquiry looked at the reasons for the invasion, the war itself and the aftermath - and has taken longer to complete than the British military involvement itself.
Public hearings, including two appearances by Blair, ended in 2011 but since then the writing of the report has been dogged by rows over the release of secret government files and the contacts between London and Washington. It includes details of notes from Blair to Bush and quotes from more than 130 records of their conversations.
Critics believe Blair, who sent 45,000 British troops for the invasion, gave Bush an unconditional promise that Britain would join military action and that he then distorted intelligence to back this up and put pressure on government lawyers to give the invasion legal approval.
Keys noted that Chilcot had said the inquiry would not play the blame game. "But I certainly hope it points the finger of accountability in the direction of the former prime minister who was the key player with all of this deceit," Keys said.
However, he said he feared the report might be watered down as those facing criticism have been allowed to respond prior to publication.
In an interview with CNN last October, Blair apologised that the pre-war intelligence had been wrong and for mistakes in planning, but not for getting rid of Saddam.
He also accepted the war had played a role in the rise of Islamic State but it was far from the only factor.
"I`ve said many times over these past years, I`ll wait for the report and then I will make my views known and express myself fully and properly," Blair told Sky News on Sunday.
British media said lawmakers led by the Scottish National Party were considering invoking an ancient law, last used in 1806, to impeach Blair in parliament.
"You cannot have a situation where this country blunders into an illegal war with the appalling consequences and at the end of the day there isn`t a reckoning," SNP lawmaker Alex Salmond told Sky News.
The Sunday Times newspaper also reported that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn - whose own position is in jeopardy after Britain voted last month to leave the European Union - was simply hanging on because he wanted to "crucify Blair".
France will set out its vision for a revamped EU just as a new British prime minister takes office in September in the wake of the Brexit vote, Paris said Wednesday.
President Francois Hollande asked Prime Minister Manuel Valls "to prepare a French proposal for the (European) summit in September... for what might be called a new start for Europe", according to government spokesman Stephane Le Foll.
The summit in Bratislava on September 16 will come just days after Britain`s Conservative Party announces the results of a ballot to elect a new party leader and prime minister to replace David Cameron on September 9.
The French proposals will focus on border protection, investment and issues affecting young people, Le Foll said, while ruling out the creation of any new treaties.
Following the June 23 referendum in which Britain voted to leave the EU, London has yet to formally begin its withdrawal process, with Prime Minister David Cameron saying that his successor should handle it.
Since the Brexit vote, European leaders have been divided, with some calling for greater integration while others demanding the return of certain powers to member states.
European leaders will meet - without Britain - in Bratislava for an informal summit to discuss the future of the bloc.
Panaji: Goa RSS chief Subhash Velingkar, who also heads a regional languages front, on Wednesday said the boycott of state government functions will continue in protest against the alliance government's "pro-English" policy.
Addressing a press conference here late on Wednesday, the convenor of the Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch said apart from heckling government functionaries, a series of meetings will be held in 14 assembly constituencies to make people aware of the "betrayal" by the Laxmikant Parsekar government over the issue of medium of instruction in Goa's primary schools.
"The government continues to betray the cause of regional languages of Konkani and Marathi by not withdrawing the financial grants to some English medium schools. Our boycott of government functions and protests outside these events will continue," Velingkar said.
The Forum for Rights of Children to Education (FORCE) backed by the influential Roman Catholic church and the Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch supported by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, have been at loggerheads in Goa over the last few years over the medium of instruction in junior schools.
While the former group backs English, the RSS-led group prefers varnacular languages.
Velingkar did not rule out meeting new Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar on the issue.
With assembly polls likely in early 2017, Velingkar said the Manch is in the process of becoming a political alternative to the BJP.
"We are in the process of tapping candidates with similar ideology and who will defeat the sitting BJP MLAs who have betrayed the cause of regional languages and those opposed to the development of Konkani and Marathi," he said.
New Delhi: Mumbai-based Islamic scholar Zakir Naik, who is in the limelight after it emerged that one of the Dhaka terrorists may have been inspired by him, has denied supporting terrorism.
Naik said his speeches on Islam and terrorism are being taken out of context and his name is being misused by some people.
Speaking to CNN-News18 news channel, Naik - the founder of the Islamic Research Foundation said his speeches in fact inspire people and bring them closer to Islam.
He further said that those who kill people will go to hell, whether they are Muslim or non-Muslim.
Earlier, while speaking to The Indian Express, Naik had condemned last week's terror attack in Dhaka and called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) un-Islamic.
By using the name Islamic State, we are condemning Islam They are the anti-Islamic state of Iraq and Syria that has killed innocent foreigners. The name is given by enemies of Islam, Naik had told the newspaper.
The Islamic scholar today told CNN-News18 that he had never exhorted Muslims to become terrorists.
I only said all Muslims should be terrorists to anti-social elements, the channel quoted Naik as saying on its Twitter handle.
Saying he had been misquoted, Naik said no Muslim should ever terrorise any innocent human being.
He further said all kinds of terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings, are 100% wrong, adding Muslims have been the target of such attacks around the world.
Naik further denied calling former al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden a saint.
I have neither called Osama Bin Laden a terrorist nor have I called him a saint, he told the news channel.
The video of my speech on Osama bin Laden in Singapore is doctored, he added.
Zakir Naik is a follower of the late South Africa-based preacher Ahmed Deedat.
Naik's clarification came on a day when the Central government indicated that it might take action against the controversial Islamic preacher.
"Zakir Naik's speech is a matter of concern for us. Our agencies are working on this. But as a minister, I will not comment what action will be taken," Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju said.
Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star had reported that militant Rohan Imtiaz, son of an Awami League leader, ran a propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Naik.
Naik, in his lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly "urged all Muslims to be terrorists".
Naik, a popular but controversial Islamic orator, is banned in the UK and Canada for his hate speech aimed against other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia.
He is hugely popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, although his preachings often demean other religions and even other Muslim sects, the report said.
New Delhi, Jul 6 (PTI) Newly appointed Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, who has replaced Smriti Irani after her controversial two-year tenure, on Wednesday said, "Education is not a subject for "party politics" and he was open to suggestions from everyone."
Asserting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a vision to improve the quality of education and make it more meaningful, Javadekar said that education should be seen as an 'emancipator' and 'agent of change' and he would come out with a roadmap after consultations with the PM and others including Irani.
"I will build upon the several good initiatives taken up by Smriti Irani," he said.
"I accept this (new) responsibility humbly and I will talk to our earlier minister Murli Manohar Joshi," he said.
Joshi, a former BJP president who is now part of Margdarshak Mandal, has been critical of the Modi government.
Irani's stint as Human Resources Development (HRD) Ministry was marked by controversies with the minister drawing flak over dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide in Hyderabad, JNU row and allegations of saffronisation of education.
Javadekar said education "is not a subject for party poltics" but it is an important issue and "we will have discussion on it with everyone."
Calling himself a product of student politics during the JP movement, the Minister said education was an "emancipator and agent of change" and it will play a big role in bringing changes in the India in the 21st century.
"Education gives meaning to life, it gives values to life. Therefore, to make education meaningful is the real challenge. Poor parents do a lot of hard work to educate their wards. So, to provide quality education is our aim and we will be able to do it," he told reporters here, adding he will formally take charge tomorrow.
The minister said the new education policy of India has to be "student-centric".
"I want to assure all the teachers across the country that we all will chalk out the road map of India's new eductation policy and education has to be student-centric."
"I value everyone's opinion and at the same time we will have a larger discussion on it. My doors will be open for any suggestion," he said.
Javadekar, who was in charge of Environment and Forest Ministry and was the lone minister to be promoted to the Cabinet rank while 19 new inductees took oath as Ministers of State yesterday, said under Prime Minister Modi there is a lot of focus on education.
"I will take charge tomorrow and after getting a brief from the Prime Minister, we will decide the road map ahead."
Javadekar said his 92-year-old mother who stays with him was a primary school teacher herself and he "values" teachers' contribution to the society.
Javadekar said media too has a "huge role" in this area.
Irani has been appointed as the new Textiles Minister.
New Delhi: In Jammu and Kashmir and Kerala Eid-ul-Fitr is being celebrated on Wednesday with traditional religious gaiety and fervor, as lakhs of Muslims will be attending congregational Eid prayers in Eidgahs, Masjids and Shrines across the state.
However, Eid al-Fitr, which marks the culmination of the fasting and holy month of Ramzan, will be celebrated across the country on Thursday.
The Centre announced that its offices in the national capital will remain closed on Thursday in view of Eid.
Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid Syed Ahmed Bukhari said that as the moon could not be sighted on Tuesday, Eid will be celebrated on July 7.
Eid-ul-Fitr is celebrated on the first day of Shawwal, the month succeeding Ramzan.
It is the most important festival for the Muslim community across the world.
Most of the secular societies offer holidays for at least the Muslim working population on this day.
Meerut: A 28-year-old son of a retired police inspector was shot dead allegedly by three unidentified assailants in Ganganagar area here, police said on Wednesday.
The incident occurred around midnight when three car-borne assailants shot Ankur while he was returning to his home from market, they said.
Homeguard Sanjay Kumar Sharma who came to victim's help was also shot at and injured by the attackers, SHO Anangpal Singh said.
Police have registered a case of murder against the three unidentified persons.
Investigation is underway and efforts are on to nab the accused, who are absconding, Singh said.
Dhaka: Now, this could spell a major trouble for controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik!
Bangladesh on Wednesday asked India to examine the speeches of Zakir Naik.
The development came after reports that his 'hate speech' inspired one of the five Bangladeshi militants, who hacked to death 22 people at an upscale cafe in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave last week.
Naik's teachings influenced Dhaka terrorists?
"Already there are certain complaints from the Maulanas of Bangladesh that his (Naik) teachings are not in line with the Quranic teachings and Hadith," information minister Hasanul Haq Inu said.
"How much Naik's teachings influenced the terrorists that is to be investigated. We are investigating the whole matter," he said.
Requesting the Indian government to examine the teachings of controversial preacher, Inu said: "I also request the Indian government and information minister that they also examine the context of Dr Nayek's teachings."
One of the Bangladeshi attackers, suspected to be Rohan Imtiaz - the son of a politician of Bangladesh's ruling Awami League - ran a propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Naik, a Mumbai-based doctor and an Islamic televangelist, Bangladeshi newspaper 'Daily Star' reported.
Naik urged all Muslims to be terrorists
Naik, in his lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly "urged all Muslims to be terrorists".
Islamic Research Foundation
Naik, a popular but controversial Islamic orator and founder of Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation, is banned in the UK and Canada for his 'hate speech' aimed at other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia.
Hugely popular in Bangladesh
He is hugely popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, although his preachings often demean other religions and even other Muslim sects, the report said.
Islamist gunmen had stormed the upscale Holey Artisan cafe popular with foreigners in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave last Friday, killing 22 people.
These guns dispel the notion
Founding Fathers could not
have envisioned assault rifles
By Craig Boudreau. July 2nd, 2016
A popular gun control mantra is that the founding fathers could not have envisioned assault rifles when they wrote the Second Amendment. Turns out that idea is bunk, according to an investigation by The Daily Caller News Foundation.
The DCNF found "repeater," multi-shot rifles from even prior to the Revolutionary period. Further, the investigation shows that founders and leaders from that time period were starkly aware of advancements in innovations in small arms manufacturing.
"Of course, semiautomatic firearms technology didn't exist in any meaningful sense in the era of the founding fathers. They had something much different in mind when they drafted the Second Amendment," according to a recent article by The Washington Post. "The typical firearms of the day were muskets and flintlock pistols. They could hold a single round at a time, and a skilled shooter could hope to get off three or possibly four rounds in a minute of firing."
Thomas Jefferson tapped the famous westward explorers Lewis and Clark to explore with a gun that, according to The Washington Post, didn't exist.
Enter, the Girandoni air rifle. The Girandoni air rifle is a repeating rifle capable of firing 22 shots in under a minute without needing to reload -- and Meriwether Lewis's air gun was one such firearm. Lewis's rifle was a .46 caliber, magazine-fed repeating gun capable of shooting 22 shots in under a minute. .....
Despite the (predictable) nay sayers, it has always been accepted by Second Amendment supporters that "arms" reflects the available weaponry of the current time. Taking that further, there is an implicit connection between current military weapons and the armed citizenry, and does not limit the bearing of arms to just simple muskets - something the anti-gun groups insist on continually putting forward.
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New Delhi: Founder of Islamic Research Foundation, Zakir Naik has been hogging the headlines, after it was revealed that one of the five young militants, who slaughtered 20 innocent people at the Holey Artisan Bakery in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka, used to follow the Mumbai-based preacher.
The National Investigating Agency (NIA) has started examining the speeches of Zakir Naik. The officials have been asked to be extra cautious and be very specific with the facts regarding the popular Mumbai-based preacher, a report said on Wednesday.
A senior government official told 'The Times of India' that the NIA sleuths have been directed to investigate whether Naik advocates any terrorist outfit or justifies terrorism with his speeches.
Meanwhile, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said, it is not wise on the part of a minister to make announcement on banning controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik.
"It's not wise on the part of a minister to make an announcement on what actions are likely to be taken. These are matter of the law and agencies who are dealing with it. We will give all kinds of support in dealing with terrorism," Rijiju told the media here.
Peace TVs controversial preacher Naik is banned in the UK and Canada.
Terrorist Rohan Imtiaz, son of an Awami League leader, propagated on Facebook last year quoting Naik urging all Muslims to be terrorists, the Daily Star reported.
50-year-old Naik, a doctor, had refused to describe Osama bin Laden as a terrorist. The United Kingdom, Malaysia and Canada has banned him from entering their territory.
In 2010, while answering a question about why he was banned from entering Britain, Naik had said it was because he exhorts all Muslims to be terrorists.
Islamist gunmen killed 20 hostages, mainly foreigners, and two policemen during the bloody siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery on July 1. Six gunmen were shot dead and one was captured by security forces.
New Delhi: The Modi government will commence execution of its ambitious 'Namami Gange' programme on Thursday with the launch of 300 projects including those of STP installations aiming to clean the holy river and ensuring its unfettered flow.
The projects on entry-level activities such as ghat and crematoria construction/repair, river front beautification, installation and repair of sewage treatment plants (STPs) and others work will be launched simultaneously from over 104 locations initially in all five basin states of Ganga.
Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari, Uma Bharti, Narendra Tomar and Mahesh Sharma will launch the works in Haridwar during an event, which will also be attended by Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat.
"It is a historic moment... For the first time the river is being cleaned with wholesomeness. We will show phase I of Ganga cleaning in October 2016, while the second phase will be completed two years later," Bharti told reporters here.
She said tomorrow the government will also launch an application to monitor level of pollution in the river.
Gadkari and newly-appointed Ministers of State for Water Resources, Vijay Goel and Sanjeev Balyan, were also present during the briefing.
Transport Minister Gadkari said it is "satisfactory" that the government is going to begin the work tomorrow. He asserted the projects are being launched after conducting detailed scientific study and will involve use of "best of the world" technologies to ensure river pollution is averted.
Referring to 'Moksha Dham' works, which relate to construction/repair of crematoria located along the river, Gadkari said the projects will be implemented without hurting public sentiments attached to the holy river even as air and water pollution is kept under check.
He also rejected claims that the programme works are taking off late, saying he was "rather surprised" the projects are being launched "within such a short span" notwithstanding complexity involved in it.
Meanwhile, on asked about Balyan and Goel joining the Water Resources Ministry following expansion of Union Ministerial Council yesterday, Bharti said she was "waiting for the appointments to happen for many days".
She hoped their joining the ministry will "increase pace of work" in the Ministry which handles crucial subjects of river-linking and Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sichayee Yojana (PMKYS) besides the Namami Gange programme and "alleviate the burden".
Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday that his upcoming Africa tour was aimed at enhancing ties with that continent, particularly in the economic sphere and people-to- people contacts.
PM Modi will begin his five-day tour with Mozambique and then travel to South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.
Read what he's written on Facebook:
On Mozambique -
On Thursday, 7th July I will be in Mozambique. The aim of my visit is to increase cooperation and boost cultural linkages. I will meet President Filipe Nyusi and hold extensive talks with him.
My other programmes include a meeting with Ms. Veronica Macamo, the President of the National Assembly and a visit to the S&T Park, Maluana where I will interact with students.
I will also interact with the Indian community briefly.
On South Africa -
On the evening of 7th July, I will reach Pretoria in South Africa. South Africa is an important strategic partner, with whom our ties are historical and deep-rooted. My programmes in South Africa will span across Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban and Pietermaritzburg.
History is witness to how Mahatma Gandhis stay in South Africa impacted him and the history of the world. He went to South Africa as a lawyer seeking work and returned to India as a strong voice for humanitarianvalues, who would go on to shape the history of humankind.
I will have the honour to visit Phoenix Settlement and Pietermaritzburg Station, two places very closely associated with Mahatma Gandhis stay in South Africa. A visit to South Africa is incomplete without remembering the beloved Madiba. I will also be honoured to visit the Constitutional Hill and Nelson Mandela Foundation where I would pay my tributes to an icon of human history, who made his country and the world a much better place.
During my visit, I will meet President Zuma. I will also be meeting Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa, the Deputy President.
In an effort to boost our economic ties, I will speak at the India-South Africa business meet. Other programmes include a meeting with the Alumni Network in Durban and a reception hosted by the Mayor of Durban, at Durban City Hall.
South Africa is home to a vibrant Indian community, that has made South Africa their home for years. I will interact with the Indian community a programme in Johannesburg on 8th July. I invite you to share your ideas and inputs for my speech, through the Narendra Modi Mobile App.
PM Modi will begin his five-day tour with Mozambique and then travel to South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.
On Tanzania:
On Sunday 10th July I will be in Tanzania for a brief but crucial visit to give an impetus to ties with Tanzania, a valued friend in Africa.
There will be extensive talks with President Dr. John Magufuli where we will chalk out the road ahead for bettering India-Tanzania relations in a wide range of areas. I will also be meeting Solar Mamas, a group of rural women solar engineers from Africa who have been trained under GOI-supported programmes to fabricate, install, use, repair and maintain solar lanterns and household solar lighting systems in their villages.
I will interact with the Indian community as well.
On Kenya -
I will begin my Kenya visit on the evening of 10th July. India-Kenya ties have stood the test of time. Both our nations have had very strong people-to-people ties and both nations have successfully fought colonialism in the previous century.
My deliberations with President Uhuru Kenyatta will revolve around how India and Kenya can grow their bilateral cooperation. I envision better trade, commercial and cultural exchanges between India and Kenya. The potential is immense and together we seek to harness it.
In Nairobi, I will offer floral tributes to Mahatma Gandhi, who is widely revered in Kenya. I shall also pay tributes to Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya and a towering political figure of Africa.
The meeting of the India-Kenya business forum will be an important forum to elaborate more on the economic aspect of our relationship with Kenya.
A programme that I am keenly looking forward to join is an interaction with students at the Nairobi University.
In order to deepen ties with the diaspora, I will address a community programme on 10th July. There is also a meeting with Bharatwallah Alumni Association during the visit. Another programme is the handing over of ambulances and a model of Bhabhatron.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on a four-nation tour to Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya on Wednesday in a visit, which is aimed at shoring up economic ties, firm up maritime security and counter balance China's growing influence in the resource-rich continent.
On the first leg of his visit, the Prime Minister will reach Maputo, the capital Mozambique tomorrow morning.
He will be the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Mozambique in 34 years.
The Prime Minister will meet the Mozambique president Filipe Nyusi, and will also visit the Mozambique parliament.
In the later part of the day, he will interact with local students who studied in India and Before leaving Maputo, the Prime Minister will attend a reception organized by Indian Diaspora.
Indian High Commissioner to Mozambique Rudra Gaurav Shresth told the media that the successful India Africa Forum summit, which was hosted by India in October, was the event which signalled Africa is really important for Indian foreign policy. and the present visits are continuation of the interest that New Delhi expressed during the summit.
Shresth also mentioned that, the signing of Memorandum of Undertakings (MOU's) on Government to Government Purchase of Pulses and on Civil Aviation MOU's) on Government to Government Purchase of Pulses and on Civil Aviation Co-operation will be taking place during the official meeting.
He further stated that the MoU on purchase of pulses will help Mozambique boost its agriculture production and India will be able to meet shortage of pulses in the country.
Apart from the agriculture and food, deepening cooperation in areas of hydrocarbons, maritime security, trade and investment will also be major focus areas of the Prime Minister visit.
Mozambique is the third-largest exporter of natural gas, after Qatar and Australia, and a number of Indian companies, including ONGC, have invested heavily in the hydrocarbons sector in this country.
One fourth of Indian Investment in East Africa is in Mozambique.
The Trade with Mozambique has gone up 5 fold in last 5 years and presently stands around 2 billion dollars per year, and India till now has extended around 640 million dollars as line of credit (LOC) to this country alone out of its total LOC of 2 Billion dollars to Africa.
Culturally also India shares historic relationship with Mozambique, as the Portuguese, the colonial masters of Mozambique ruled it for more than 200 years from Goa.
New Delhi: Prakash Javadekar, who was shifted to the Human Resource Development Ministry from Environment and Forests in Tuesday's reshuffle of the Union Cabinet, has described the Narendra Modi-led team as crazy boys and of doers.
Speaking to NDTV news channel, Javadekar who replaced Smriti Irani at the HRD Ministry said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a development agenda and his ministers share the same passion and zeal which their leader has.
Javadekar, who described Modi's Cabinet as Team India, said it is (the team) passionate about development as well as sustainable development.
The team is very capableand is of "doers", he said, adding we are 'crazy boys' in that way".
Javadekar said as education minister, he would hold consultations with "everybody", including Smriti Irani.
Inviting ideas and suggestions, the minister said his doors are open to all".
While stating he would build upon the initiatives taken by his predecessor, Javadekar rejected the claims of education being saffronised under the BJP government.
Saffronisation? There is no such thing," he said.
Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday called his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif on the eve of Eid and extended greetings to him.
He also wished the Pakistan PM a speedy recovery after his heart surgery.
At the same time, PM Modi also wished other world leaders on the occasion of Eid.
The PM posted the following on Twitter: "Spoke to President Rouhani, President Ghani, PM Nawaz Sharif, PM Sheikh Hasina and President Yameen and greeted them on Eid. Extended Eid greetings to HM King Salman, HH the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, HH the Emir of Qatar."
In another post he wrote: "My greetings and best wishes on Eid-ul-Fitr. May this special day deepen the spirit of harmony and peace in society."
My greetings and best wishes on Eid-ul-Fitr. May this special day deepen the spirit of harmony and peace in society. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 6, 2016
Extended Eid greetings to HM King Salman, HH the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, HH the Emir of Qatar. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 6, 2016
Spoke to President Rouhani, President Ghani, PM Nawaz Sharif, PM Sheikh Hasina & President Yameen and greeted them on Eid. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 6, 2016
Ramzan, the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, is observed as a fasting period by Muslims the world over who abstain from food and water during the period extending from 30 minutes before the sunrise to sunset.
Muslims in Kerala and Jammu and Kashmir today celebrated Eid-ul-Fitr offering prayers and giving alms to the needy and exchanging greetings and gifts.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the country, the festival will be celebrated tomorrow marking the culmination of the fasting and holy month of Ramzan.
New Delhi: In a strong message to his colleagues that controversy is no substitute for good work, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday removed his one-time hand-picked high-profile Smriti Irani from the crucial Human Resource Development Ministry and gave her the responsibility of the low-profile Textiles Ministry.
Irani's exit is now being viewed as a snub to the former TV actress-turned-politician, who was personally chosen by Modi to run the HRD Ministry in 2014 despite strong objections by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
Unfortunately, Irani's 2-year stint as HRD Minister was marred by major controversies over protests in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus in Delhi and also the students' protest over the death of scholar Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad.
The minister, also a Rajya Sabha MP, had faced angry protests and had to dealt with campus violence from various other universities too.
The role of the RSS in getting Irani removed divested of one of the most sought after portfolios can not be ruled out as Prime Minister Modi reportedly restructured his Council of Ministers after serious deliberations with BJP chief Amit Shah, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Ranjanth Singh among others.
It is believed that Shah also reached out to the RSS leaders and took their inputs.
Irani's transfer to the far quieter and less prestigious Textiles department was highlighted so much that it became a top trend on Twitter and the lead point of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's extensive cabinet reconfiguration.
Seeking to give a message that he is sensitive to popular will and also to the wishes of RSS leadership, Modi brought in Javadekar, originally a Pune-based politician, for the crucial responsibility of handling the HRD Ministry.
Javadekar as Environment Minister seemed to have left a positive impact on Prime Minister and the Sangh Parivar leadership with his industry-friendly moves, carrying out of 'Swachh Bharat' campaign in a mission mode and also pursuing environment diplomacy at the international level on climate change and related matters.
Javadekar is also credited with bringing the National and state Compensatory Afforestation Fund, paving the way to unlocking of nearly Rs.41,000 crore earmarked for forest land, lying unspent.
In fact after the passage of the bill in Lok Sabha on May 3 with support from major opposition parties, even Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan had appreciated that the draft legislation was passed unanimously with members from different parties making their positive contribution by way of suggestions to improve the system.
In contrast to Javadekar, Smriti Irani has been mostly in controversies either against Congress, Trinamool Congress and Left leaders besides occasional skirmishes with the Sangh Parivar elements. Besides found engaging in heated exchange of words with opposition members in Parliament, Irani did not quite go well with RSS leaders too.
Sources said during their both formal and informal consultation process, RSS leaders along with a few members from Sangh-affiliated educational bodies reportedly often found that as HRD Minister, Smiriti Irani was not quite easy to deal with.
However, there are strong speculations that removal from HRD Ministry is not a punishment for Irani as she is being set up by the BJP for a large role - possibly that of presumptive Chief Minister - in Uttar Pradesh, which votes next year.
Srinagar: Six persons including a senior police officer were injured in clashes between protesters and security personnel that broke out on Wednesday after Eid prayers in the Kashmir Valley.
Additional Superintendent of Police Mubashir Bukhari was injured in the stomach during stonepelting at Janglat Mandi in Anantnag district, a police official said.
A constable was injured during clashes with protesters at Hyderpora chowk in the outskirts of the city, the official said.
Four persons including a photojournalist with a local magazine were injured in clashes at Safakadal near Eidgah in the city as security personnel fired pellet guns and tear smoke shells to disperse the stone-pelting mob, the official said.
All the injured have been admitted to nearby SMHS hospital, he added.
The situation in rest of the Valley is stated to be normal, the official said.
Authorities had placed top separatist leaders including Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik under house arrest, fearing their presence at large Eid gatherings could spark violence, he said.
New Delhi: All hell broke loose on Twitter after BJP MP Subramanian Swamy tweeted about Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi's 'marriage'.
Taking to the micro-blogging website, Subramanian Swamy said, "Heard from "Sources": for UP election Buddhu may marry a UP Brahmin girl soon. One more desperate stunt? (sic)."
Heard from "Sources": for UP election Buddhu may marry a UP Brahmin girl soon. One more desperate stunt? Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) July 5, 2016
Here are some of the interesting tweets went viral over Rahul Gandhi's 'marriage' plans:-
@Swamy39 Most likely he will lose the elections. Then what happens to the girl? Also, we have many elections coming up in 2017. What then? Bharatheeyam (@SupariShambhu) July 5, 2016
@Swamy39 Sir liked the way u used word 'Sources'. Tit for tat. Durgesh Adil (@adildurgesh) July 5, 2016
@Swamy39 @swamilion @MRVChennai @ Risk for the UP girl than Rahul. He can gracefully retire from active politics Good for R.G & our country Prema Raghavan (@prema_raghavan) July 6, 2016
@Swamy39 ...and you're back. Hard to keep a good man down :) vistasp kaikobad (@vispikaikobad) July 5, 2016
@Swamy39 What a sad day for the Brahmin girl if this is true. She would need to suffer a political idiot from close proximity R. Vinayakan Aiyer (@vanderlust) July 5, 2016
@Swamy39 WOW ! Budhu Pappu still considers himself King to garner support of the electorate Yogesh (@yogashar99) July 5, 2016
@swamy39 How can Brahmins do so knowing his fake Gandhi surname...its horrible ? MIRROR (@ImgReflctr) July 5, 2016
@swamy39 even if he is trying this stunt he should opt for a Dalit girl. That would help them create more drama. Boring (@AcheLadki) July 5, 2016
@Swamy39 love the way you pay back in their own coin! #SwamyRocks OfficeOfKR (@krithikaraman) July 5, 2016
New Delhi: With the massive restructuring of his Council of Ministers on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi send out a stern message to his party colleagues that controversy is no substitute for good work.
To prove his point, PM Modi not only removed his one-time hand-picked high-profile Smriti Irani as Union HRD Minister but also drooped Ram Shanker Katheria, Minister of State (HRD) for crossing the 'Laxman Rrekha'.
Not only this, PM Modi shifted Irani to a low-profile Textiles Ministry.
Here are the key takeaways from PM Modi's Cabinet reshuffle:- .
No place for low-key performers: PM Modi rewarded top performers while high-profile ministers who were seen as slack or speaking out of turn were either demoted or dropped.
Alarm bell for veterans: PM Modi did not touch bigwigs but send out a clear message to heavyweights that it is time to deliver. Signal that performance, not perceived proximity, is what matters.
Wider focus: PM Modi's choice reflects desire for faster results in priority areas like education, rural sector, sanitation, broadband connectivity, etc. With the government approaching the halfway mark, delivery in thrust areas will be key.
Balancing act: PM Modi seems to have done a fine balancing act by inducting ministers from poll-bound states like UP although he inducted several others from MP, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Karnataka.
Caste factor: The inclusion of OBC leader like Anupriya Patel and Mahendra Nath Pandey indicates that community considerations have also been acknowledged in this Union Cabinet expansion.
Team work matters: PM Modi's advice to his newly inducted ministers to get back to to work soon is enough to understand that he wants his colleagues to work as a team and deliver.
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Jammu: A Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) trooper on Wednesday shot and killed himself in Jammu and Kashmir's Kishtwar district, police said.
Police said Akash Deep of the 52 Battalion of the CRPF committed suicide using his service rifle at the district police lines. The reason behind the suicide was not immediately known.
Delhi: Even as Zakir Naik on Wednesday rubbished reports that his speeches promoted terrorism and welcomed any investigation against him, Bangladesh said that they were looking into complaints regarding controversial Indian Islamic preacher.
Bangladesh Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu said that there were certain complaints from the Maulanas of Bangladesh that his speeches were not in line with the Quranic teachings and Hadith.
"Already there are certain complaints from the Maulanas of Bangladesh that his (Naik's) teachings are not in line with the Quranic teachings and Hadith," Inu said.
"How much Naik's teachings influenced the terrorists that is to be investigated. We are investigating the whole matter," he added.
Requesting the Indian government to examine the teachings of the preacher, Inu said, "I also request the Indian government and information minister that they also examine the context of Naik's teachings," as per PTI.
Militants had stormed a popular restaurant (Holey Artisan Bakery) in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave late on Friday and killed 22 people, most of them foreigners from Italy, Japan, India and the US in an attack claimed by the Islamic State terror group.
Did Naik inspire militants involved in the Dhaka carnage?
Naik's 'hate speech' is reported to have inspired at least one of the five Bangladeshi militants involved in the Dhaka carnage.
One of the Bangladeshi attackers, suspected to be Rohan Imtiaz - the son of a politician of Bangladesh's ruling Awami League - ran a propaganda on Facebook last year quoting 50-year-old Naik, Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Star reported.
Naik, a Mumbai-based doctor and founder of Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation, in his lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly "urged all Muslims to be terrorists".
He is hugely popular in Bangladesh through his channel, the report said.
Naik is banned in the UK and Canada for his 'hate speech' aimed at other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia.
Naik denies allegations
Meanwhile, Naik said his speeches on Islam and terrorism were being taken out of context and his name was being misused by some people.
Speaking to CNN-News18, Naik said that his speeches inspire people and bring them closer to Islam. He added that those who kill people will go to hell" whether they are "Muslim or non-Muslim.
At the same time, the Islamic scholar maintained that he had never exhorted Muslims to become terrorists. I only said all Muslims should be terrorists to anti-social elements," he told the news channel.
Saying he had been misquoted, Naik said no Muslim should ever terrorise any innocent human being.
He further said all kinds of terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings, are 100% wrong, adding Muslims have been the target of such attacks around the world.
Moreover, Naik further denied calling former al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden a 'saint'.
I have neither called Osama a terrorist nor have I called him a saint. The video of my speech on Osama in Singapore is doctored, he said.
Indian government to take appropriate action against Zakir Naik, says Rijiju
Reacting to the reports, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju told reporters in Delhi that the matter was of concern for the government.
"Our agencies are working on this. But as a minister, I will not comment what action will be taken," he said. Rijiju added that India had good relations and mutual understanding with Bangladesh, especially in the matter of co-operation on fighting terrorism.
On the other hand, the new Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu, when asked about Naik's speeches said, "We have time to study all these aspects. Terror can be defeated only through close coordination and by fighting together (against it).
(With Agency inputs)
Mumbai: Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant on Wednesday demanded an immediate ban on Islamic preacher and scholar Zakir Naik, who is under scanner after the Dhaka terror strike.
In a letter to Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Sawant said the youths who perpetrated the Bangladesh terrorist acts have claimed they were inspired by the teachings of the Mumbai-based Naik.
Despite repeated attempts by IANS, Naik and his spokesperson were not available for their comments.
"This is not the first incident that terrorists have named Naik for such inspiration. The boys who joined ISIS from India have also made the same statement," Sawant informed Singh.
He urged the home ministry to put a ban on Naik's movements in the country, investigate thoroughly his activities and his affiliated organisations and institutes and their funding.
In addition to a ban on him, Sawant sought restrictions on Naik's private television.
Born and living in Mumbai, the 50-year-old Naik is a qualified doctor who left the medical profession to set up the Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), which runs the Islamic International School and NGO United Islamic Aid for the poor and destitute.
Colombo: Sri Lanka intends to become completely demilitarised by 2018, the government said Wednesday, a significant announcement that will end the army`s involvement in civilian life after decades of ethnic war.
Heavy deployments from the Sri Lankan army have remained in former war zones in the island`s north and east since a 37-year conflict with Tamil separatists ended in May 2009.
The military is also deeply involved in private enterprise, running everything from beauty parlours to businesses selling vegetables and fish, in competition with small-scale vendors.
"By 2018, we hope to complete the demilitarisation process, not only in the north-east, but the rest of the country too," Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera told reporters in Colombo.
"We have also asked the military to disengage from all commercial activities they are engaged in," Samaraweera said.
The UN Human Rights Council has repeatedly asked Sri Lanka to reduce the military`s involvement in civilian life and restore normality to the war-torn regions.
At least 100,000 people died in Sri Lanka`s drawn-out separatist campaign, led by Tamil Tiger rebels who fought for an independent state within the majority Sinhalese island.
After the war ended, former president Mahinda Rajapakse deployed the army to operate luxury hotels, restaurants, farms and engage in retail.
The move forced many small-scale vendors out of business, while the Sri Lankan airforce ran a beauty parlour offering cheaper services that undercut private barbers.
Samaraweera said the military had already given up some of the businesses they were engaged in, adding that there would be a complete disengagement by 2018.
He added that the government has replaced former military top brass with civilian governors in two embattled provinces.
The government has begun a process of handing back some military-occupied land to its original owners.
It is also making efforts to trace thousands of people who went missing during and after the war and pay reparations to victims of the conflict.
Sri Lanka`s government has been praised for agreeing to investigate allegations that up to 40,000 ethnic Tamils were killed by troops in the final months of fighting in 2009.
However, its slow progress on probing the deaths has also drawn criticism.
New Delhi: In a latest, NASA has released a breathtaking view of Pan showing the second-innermost Saturn's moon orbiting in the Encke Gap.
The image was obtained in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 3, 2016, at a distance of approximately 232,000 miles (373,000 kilometers) from Saturn.
According to NASA, Pan (17 miles or 28 kilometers across), seen in image center, maintains the Encke Gap in which it orbits, but it also helps create and shape the narrow ringlets that appear in the Encke gap. Two faint ringlets are visible in this image, below and to the right of Pan.
The Encke Gap is a 325-kilometre-wide gap within the A Ring, centered at a distance of 133,590 kilometres from Saturn's center, as per Wikipedia. It is caused by the presence of the small moon Pan, which orbits within it.
Pan and moons like it have profound effects on Saturn's rings, ranging from clearing gaps to creating new ringlets, to raising vertical waves that rise above and below the ring plane. All of these effects, produced by gravity, are seen in this image.
Many moons, including Pan, create waves at distant points in Saturn's rings where ring particles and the moons have orbital resonances. Many such waves are visible in the image as narrow groupings of brighter and darker bands.
NASA says studying these waves can provide information on local ring conditions.
Sydney: Embattled Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Wednesday pulled within striking distance of the votes needed to form a narrow majority government in a cliffhanger election that has left the country in limbo and his leadership in doubt.
"The government is still on track to form a majority government," Treasurer Scott Morrison told Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) radio.
Electoral officials are counting 1.5 million postal and absentee votes that will be crucial to the result of Saturday`s poll, which saw a swing against Turnbull`s conservative coalition government and the rise of populist independents.
A final reckoning may not be known for days, possibly weeks, leaving Australia in a political vacuum.
The latest projections by the ABC shifted two seats into the government`s column, giving Turnbull`s Liberal-National coalition 71 out of 150 lower house seats, and the centre-left Labor opposition 67. Seven seats are too close to call.
Both major parties are short of the 76 seats needed to form a majority government in the House of Representatives, and negotiations are underway with independents who will hold at least four seats.
"It`s still either a very, very narrow coalition majority or hung parliament," ABC polling expert Antony Green told ABC`s Radio National.
Turnbull`s gamble in calling an early election failed to deliver a clear mandate for his agenda of corporate tax cuts and his disastrous polling has led to attacks from inside and outside his coalition after his attempt to end a querulous upper house Senate failed.
Despite the internal criticism, Turnbull`s position as Liberal leader does not appear in danger in the short term.
The surge in support for independents, combined with rules that make it easier for smaller parties to win Senate seats in a so-called double dissolution of parliament, will likely make it impossible for Turnbull to push through policies including a A$50 billion ($37.19 billion) corporate tax break over 10 years.
Even if the coalition wins a narrow majority in the lower house, Turnbull would then have to shepherd legislation through an even more intransigent Senate.
But Treasurer Morrison said the government would not abandon its economic policies. "We will go forward with our legislation plan for the budget, certainly if we return as a majority government," he said.
The election was meant to end political turmoil that delivered Australia four prime ministers over the past three years. Instead, it has left Turnbull`s authority in tatters less than a year after he ousted then prime minister Tony Abbott in a party-room coup with a promise of stable government.
The National Party, the junior coalition partner, is demanding a greater say in a future government given its strong electoral performance.
The Nationals represent rural Australia and take a strong stance on foreign ownership and trade. In May, the party was influential in blocking a Chinese bid for cattle giant S. Kidman & Co by a group headed by Hunan Dakang Pasture Farming Co Ltd, saying the sale was not in the national interest.
While Liberal Party Senator Corey Bernardi, a social conservative and strong supporter of Abbott, signalled he was in talks to start a breakaway Conservative Party of Liberals disaffected with what they see as Turnbull`s centrist policies.
"Irrespective of the final election result, the clear mission now is to bring people together for the good of the country," Bernardi wrote on his blog. "That is going to take the formalisation of a broad conservative movement to help change politics and to give common sense a united voice."
Beijing: The flagship newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party today warned Washington that there would be a 'price' to pay if it crosses China's 'bottom line' by meddling in disputes over the South China Sea.
The People's Daily editorial comes as Beijing ramps up efforts to assert its stance ahead of a ruling by an international tribunal in a case filed by the Philippines challenging China's claims to most of the South China Sea.
China is boycotting the case before The Hague-based court and says it will not accept the verdict.
The paper said that bilateral ties and regional stability were at stake and that the US should recognise that "there is a bottom line with every issue, and a price will be paid if that line is crossed."
"If the United States, regardless of the cost, chooses the path of 'brinkmanship' that pressures and intimidates others, there will be only one result, that is, that the US bears all the responsibility for possibly further heightening tensions in the South China Sea," the editorial said.
"China has a solid-rock position over safeguarding China's national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
It will not want anything that does not belong to it, but it will ensure that every inch of land it owns is safe and sound," the paper wrote.
The newspaper has previously accused Washington of seeking to turn the South China Sea "into a powder keg" and warned it not to underestimate China's determination to defend its territorial claims.
China yesterday also started holding seven days of military drills around disputed islands in the sea.
Dhaka: Bangladesh Police have accused six persons, including slain Holey Artisan Bakery chef Saiful Islam Chowkider, in a terrorist attack on a cafe in Dhaka.
The five others accused in the case are Meer Saameh Mubasheer, 19, Rohan Ibne Imtiaz, 20, Nibras Islam, 20, Khairul Islam Payel, 22, and Shafiqul Islam Ujjal, 26, bdnews24.com reported.
After getting the First Information Report (FIR) on Wednesday, Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Rani Chakrabarty ordered the police to submit the investigation report by Aug 24.
Gulshan Police Station Inspector Md Salauddin Mia had said on Monday that five had been named and many unidentified persons had also been accused in the case.
On Tuesday, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan also said five had been accused.
But the FIR submitted to the court on Wednesday showed six names, with Mubasheers being the first on the list of accused and Saifuls the sixth.
Though Middle East-based Islamic State has reportedly claimed credit for the attack that left at least 22 killed, plaintiff SI Ripon Kumar Das has named banned militant outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and other organisations affiliated to the JMB.
On Friday evening, a group of gunmen attacked the cafe in Banladesh capital Dhakas diplomatic district Gulshan, killing 22 people including two police officers and twenty hostages, 17 of whom were foreigners.
Police published photos of the five dead gunmen on Saturday night, after the police chief said his force had been looking for them for some time.
Of five photos, one was found to be that of pizza-maker, Saiful.
An eerie silence pervades the restaurants and shopping malls in Dhaka`s diplomatic quarter, usually teeming with well-heeled urbanites, now standing empty since the killing of 20 hostages at a popular cafe.
Five days after the brutal siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery in the Bangladeshi capital, many establishments remain closed, with shaken residents of Gulshan too afraid to venture out.
"Our guest numbers have gone down dramatically so the management took the decision to keep it shut for a while," said Abdul Mazid, a guard at Meraki, a well-known restaurant in the neighbourhood.
The run-up to Eid celebrations that mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan usually see shopping malls overflowing with crowds and millions of dollars changing hands in just a few days.
But this year Gulshan DCC market, usually bustling with Eid shoppers ahead of the biggest festival in the Muslim calendar, stood deserted.
At least five gunmen stormed the bakery on Friday evening, sparking an 11-hour stand-off with police that saw victims murdered with machetes, most of them Italian or Japanese.
Around the corner from the site of the bloodbath, Thai restaurant Soi 71 and neighbouring Korean diner Suaron, which usually remain lively past midnight, were shuttered Tuesday.
"Ours is a happening business, it`s hard to believe how quiet it has become over the past few days," said Mohammad Farhan, manager of the upmarket Butlers Chocolate Cafe, where waiters were standing around.
"It has just turned upside down."
Britain was among countries urging its citizens to avoid areas frequented by foreigners, such as international hotels, large supermarkets or clubs, while Japanese firm Uniqlo restricted non-urgent travel for employees.
As Dhaka residents attempt to regroup, fears are mounting that the attack may herald an escalation of violence in Bangladesh.
Islamist militants have been blamed for a wave of murders of foreigners, religious minorities and secular writers over the past three years.
However, Friday`s murders were on a totally different scale.
"I keep thinking about escape routes in our apartment and the building complex... I am too scared to be in my city any more," Dhaka-based private university researcher Shahana Siddiqui posted on Facebook.
The revelation that the attackers were educated, well-off members of society has sparked fears that Islamism has become a fashion not confined to disenfranchised youngsters being radicalised in madrasas.
"Missing young men are potential moving bombs now. They can strike anywhere, any time," Mushtaq Ahmed, an entrepreneur, posted on social media.
At a mourning ceremony for the dead at a heavily secured park in Gulshan on Monday night, some expressed fears that the weekend attack will not be the last.
"What we are seeing today is only the tip of the iceberg," retired Brigadier General Sakhawat Hossain, a security analyst, told the gathering.
"They came to kill and propagate their agenda. The ideology is there among our children."
Aden: At least four people were killed in a double car bomb attack today targeting a military base adjoining Aden's international airport, according to a military source who blamed jihadists.
"The attackers detonated a car bomb at the entrance to the base, allowing a second vehicle to drive inside where it exploded", the source told AFP, with at least four dead among the military.
Baghdad: Iraq`s interior minister resigned on Tuesday and said a deputy would take over his responsibilities, a few days after the deadliest of many car bombings in Baghdad since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Mohammed Ghabban made the announcement at a news conference in Baghdad, a video of which was posted on his Facebook page. His resignation will be official only if Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi approves it. Abadi`s office had no immediate comment.
The death toll from a massive suicide bombing in Baghdad`s central shopping district of Karrada on Saturday has reached 250, Iraq`s Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
It was the worst single car bomb attack in Iraq since U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein 13 years ago and deepened the anger of many Iraqis over the weak performance of the security apparatus.
Islamic State militants, who government forces are trying to eject from large swathes of northern and western territory seized in 2014, claimed responsibility for the bombing.
The attack showed Islamic State (IS) remains capable of ad-hoc attacks causing major loss of life despite losing considerable ground on the battlefield, most recently the city of Falluja, an hour`s drive west of the capital.
The interior minister said that the explosive-packed vehicle came from the eastern province of Diyala, blaming a lack of communicating between multiple forces in charge of the capital`s security.
Ghabban told Reuters in an interview last month that a recent spate of IS bombings in Baghdad would not end unless "disorder" plaguing Iraq`s security apparatus was rectified.
He said then that security forces outside his control - including units reporting to two counter-terrorism agencies, two Defence Ministry directorates and regional security commands - overlap with his ministry`s own counter-intelligence efforts.
Lahore: In the wake of bomb blasts in Saudi Arabia by terrorists, including including one outside Masjid-i-Nabwi in Madina, the second-holiest site in Islam, Pakistan has renewed its security assurance to the kingdom nation.
According to Dawn, the government "reiterates its abiding commitment to the safety, security and territorial integrity of Saudi Arabia," the Foreign Office said in a statement on terrorist attacks in Madina, Qatif and Jeddah.
The Jeddah attack was carried out by a Pakistani expat whereas the attacks in Madina and Qatif were reported to have been executed by Saudi nationals.
The Foreign Office renewed the security assurance after a telephonic conversation between Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif and Saudi Defence Minister Prince Muhammad bin Salman.
"The COAS sympathised with affected families of attack victims and said we stand shoulder to shoulder with our Saudi brothers in fighting the menace of terrorism," the ISPR said in a statement.
Pakistan has a longstanding agreement with Saudi Arabia guaranteeing the kingdom`s security, however, it came into question when Pakistan did not send troops for joining the kingdom`s invasion of Yemen.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sharif, in a statement issued by his office, called for unity among Muslim countries in the fight against terrorism and extremism.
"Ummah in particular needs to forge unity at this critical moment to foil the nefarious designs of enemies of humanity and Ummah.
We need to renew collective efforts to fight the menace of terrorism," Sharif said.
Emphasising the unity in the fight against terrorism, he recalled the attacks by militants, mostly belonging to the Islamic State group, in Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh during Ramazan.
The statement said that Sharif had emphasised on unity in counter-terrorism efforts 'in the wake of increasing acts of terrorism and extremism across the continents'.
Beijing: China Wednesday asked the Dalai Lama to give up his bid to divide the country and said it was "never too late" return to the "right track" as the Tibetan spiritual leader turned 81.
"Dalai Lama has been engaging separates activities," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a media conference here reacting to Dalai Lama's comments advocating "middle path" policy of providing more autonomy to Tibet as a solution to the Tibetan issue.
"We hope that the Dalai Lama can give up his attempt to divide China and it is never too late for him to come back to the right track," Hong said.
The Chinese government, which in the past held talks with the Dalai Lama representatives views the autonomy demand as a ploy for separation.
Chinese officials in the recent past have said that the Dalai Lama's demand to unify all the Tibetan prefectures with the Tibetan Autonomous Region and provide greater autonomy is unacceptable to Beijing.
There were no talks between the two sides in the last few years.
The Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in Dharamsala since a failed 1959 uprising in Tibet, has called for more Tibetan autonomy rather than independence.
China maintains he is a "wolf in monk's clothing" and is against foreign leaders meeting him in any form.
When President Xi Jinping took over power in 2013, the Tibetan spiritual leader recalled his association with Xi's family and hoped that the dialogue would be resumed.
Over 120 Tibetans committed self immolations in recent years calling for the return of the Dalai Lama from his exile in India.
Born on July 6, 1935 in Taktser, China, the 14th Dalai Lama, is one of the longest serving Dalai Lama's of the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
Beijing: China on Wednesday asked the Dalai Lama to give up his bid to divide the country and said it was "never too late" return to the "right track" as the Tibetan spiritual leader turned 81.
"Dalai Lama has been engaging separates activities," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a media conference here reacting to Dalai Lama's comments advocating "middle path" policy of providing more autonomy to Tibet as a solution to the Tibetan issue.
"We hope that the Dalai Lama can give up his attempt to divide China and it is never too late for him to come back to the right track," Hong said.
The Chinese government, which in the past held talks with the Dalai Lama representatives views the autonomy demand as a ploy for separation.
Chinese officials in the recent past have said that the Dalai Lama's demand to unify all the Tibetan prefectures with the Tibetan Autonomous Region and provide greater autonomy is unacceptable to Beijing.
There were no talks between the two sides in the last few years.
The Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in Dharamsala since a failed 1959 uprising in Tibet, has called for more Tibetan autonomy rather than independence.
China maintains he is a "wolf in monk's clothing" and is against foreign leaders meeting him in any form.
When President Xi Jinping took over power in 2013, the Tibetan spiritual leader recalled his association with Xi's family and hoped that the dialogue would be resumed.
Over 120 Tibetans committed self immolations in recent years calling for the return of the Dalai Lama from his exile in India.
Born on July 6, 1935 in Taktser, China, the 14th Dalai Lama, is one of the longest serving Dalai Lama's of the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
Istanbul: Human Rights Watch on Wednesday warned that the European Union measures on curbing the flow of migrants from Libya to the bloc risk condemning asylum-seekers to "violent abuse" by armed groups in the North African nation.
In a new report, the New York-based rights group said the migrants had faced abuses, including "torture, rape and killings in squalid detention centers" before setting off on their perilous journey.
The migrants told HRW they faced abuse at the hands of Libyan government officials, smugglers, militiamen and criminal gangs.
The violence and lawlessness of Libya have pushed many who had initially planned to work in the oil-rich nation to attempt the dangerous sea crossings to Europe.
The report said some migrants had been detained after being intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guards at sea.
Last month, the EU expanded its anti-smuggling operation in the central Mediterranean to include training Libyan coastal and naval forces, which are intercepting boats and returning migrants to Libya.
The EU is also asking NATO to help in the operation a topic that will likely be on the agenda at the military alliance's summit in Warsaw that starts on Friday.
"The EU isn't sending people back to Libya, knowing that's unlawful, so it wants to outsource the dirty work to Libyan forces," said Judith Sunderland, associate Europe, and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The EU - soon perhaps with NATO's help - is basically deputising Libyan forces to help seal Europe's border."
The HRW report is based on interviews conducted with 47 migrants in June on the Italian island of Sicily.
While men reported being beaten and tortured at various stages of the journey, women shared stories of sexual violence at formal detention centers in Libya or while held by smugglers.
The report quotes a 31-year-old Gambian who said criminals had raped his wife: "In Libya, they do whatever they like because there's no law, no nothing," he told HRW.
Since the 2011 ouster and killing of longtime Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, the country has sunk into lawlessness and chaos, facing a myriad of militias vying for influence and an emerging Islamic State affiliate.
On the political front, the North African country became split between two different parliaments, each with their own government. A new, UN-brokered unity government established this year in the capital, Tripoli, is trying to overcome those divisions.
Taipei: A fire that tore through a nursing home killed six people and injured another 28 in Taiwan on Wednesday.
Television footage showed elderly people being evacuated from the facility, some in clothes blackened by smoke.
Bodies were found in the private nursing facility on the eighth floor of a ten-storey building in Xindian, New Taipei City, while rescuers rushed 31 people to a hospital.
"Three bodies were found in a room where the deadly fire likely started," an official at the city government`s fire department told AFP.
"As they were all charred, they could not be immediately identified," she said.
A further three people were later pronounced dead, while 17 were found to be suffering from serious injuries, the fire department said.
All of the identified dead were female, aged 79, 87 and 95 separately, it said.
The fire broke out around 7:00 am (2300 GMT Tuesday) and was extinguished in around 30 minutes, but the evacuation process was made more difficult by the fact that most elderly residents were bedridden or wheelchair-bound, the department added.
Authorities are still investigating the cause of the blaze.
They are also looking into claims that insufficient staffing at the home had further complicated the rescue effort.
"The facility has passed inspections but we are investigating if its response (to the fire) and the staffing on the day met regulations," New Taipei City deputy mayor Hou You-yi told reporters.
The facility has seven members of staff, according to the authorities. Local media reported that there were only two or three workers looking after some 40 residents at the time of the fire.
A relative of the deceased told Apple Daily that the staff had seemed overloaded, but still decided to let her mother stay because it was closer to their home and convenient to visit.
It was not immediately clear how many residents were present when the blaze broke out and how many managed to escape.
The owner of the nursing home named Ching Pao-ling, was being questioned by police and prosecutors.
In 2012, 13 people were killed and 60 others injured in a nursing home fire in southern Taiwan started by a 67-year-old man.
The culprit, who was later sentenced to death, said he was in a bad mood and was suffering from cancer and other chronic health problems.
Seoul: The South Korean military is planning to ramp up its propaganda broadcasts targeting North Korean troops by doubling the number of loudspeakers along the heavily-fortified border, a report said Wednesday.
Since the North`s widely-condemned nuclear test in January, the South has blasted a mix of news, propaganda messages and Korean pop music across the border using giant banks of about 17 loudspeakers.
Yonhap news agency said the number of the loudspeakers would be doubled by the end of the year, and some ageing equipment replaced by new devices capable of broadcasting more than 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) away.
It quoted a Seoul military official who declined to be named. Seoul`s defence ministry declined to confirm the report.
"We will make more efforts to erode the morale of the North`s troops at the frontline and deliver information (about the outside world) to civilians there," said the official quoted by Yonhap.
North Korean civilians live within range of the loudspeakers.
The move is aimed at punishing Pyongyang for its recent series of provocations, including last month`s launch of the new medium-range missile, said the official quoted by Yonhap.
The widely-condemned launch of Musudan missile, which theoretically could reach US military bases in the Pacific including Guam, raised alarm over Pyongyang`s capability to deliver a nuclear warhead.
The border propaganda broadcast would carry more criticisms of the North`s leader Kim Jong-Un and his "hopeless" policies of pursuing simultaneous development of nuclear arsenal and the economy, according to the official quoted by Yonhap.
The propaganda broadcasts targeting North Korean troops, intensely hated by Pyongyang, have been switched on and off in line with the swings of volatile inter-Korea ties.
Seoul last August resumed them for the first time in 11 years after two of its border patrol soldiers were maimed by mines it said was planted by the North`s soldiers.
The broadcasts infuriated Pyongyang, which at one point threatened artillery strikes against the loudspeaker units unless they were switched off.
But the broadcasts came to a halt two weeks later after two Koreas reached an agreement to defuse growing military tension and Pyongyang expressed regret over the mine explosion.
Beirut: The Syrian military has declared a 72-hour "regime of calm" covering all of Syria from 1 am on Wednesday (2200 GMT Tuesday), a military source told Reuters.
The military high command said in a statement that "a regime of calm will be implemented across all territory of the Syrian Arab Republic for a period of 72 hours from 1 am on July 6 until 2400 on July 8, 2016".
The Syrian government uses the term "regime of calm" to denote a temporary ceasefire.
The truce covers the three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday celebrated by Muslims to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. There was no indication that it had been agreed with any of the myriad groups opposing the government.
A ceasefire brokered by foreign powers in February to facilitate talks to end the five-year civil war has mostly unravelled in areas where it took effect in the west of the country.
That truce was agreed with many opposition militias, but did not include the al Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front or Islamic State.
Since then, the Syrian army and the Russian military, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have announced a number of temporary local truces in areas of intense fighting, for example in the city of Aleppo or near the capital Damascus.
But air strikes and fighting have often continued in spite of the declarations.
Damascus: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad joined Eid al-Fitr prayers at a mosque in third city Homs on Wednesday in a rare public appearance outside the capital for the end-of-Ramadan holiday.
Large parts of Homs were once under the control of rebels fighting to overthrow Assad`s regime but since May 2014 they have been confined to a single besieged neighbourhood in the city`s outskirts.
The Al-Safa mosque, where Assad joined worshippers, is in Akrama, a loyalist neighbourhood which has been hit by repeated attacks by the Islamic State group and its jihadist rival al Qaeda.
State television broadcast footage of the president in the congregation alongside Islamic Endowments Minister Mohammad Abdel-Sattar Sayyed and Syria`s top Muslim cleric Ahmad Badredine Hassoun.
Since the civil war erupted in 2011, Assad has made only rare public appearances and nearly all of those have been in Damascus.
North Carolina: Donald Trump has praised late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for killing off "terrorists," reprising previous comments in support of dictators in the Middle East and earning a swift rebuke from White House rival Hillary Clinton.
The United States "shouldn't have destabilized" Iraq, now a hotbed for the Islamic State group 13 years after the US-led invasion, said Trump, who showed lukewarm support for the war before it took place and later opposed it.
"He was a bad guy really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good," Trump told supporters.
"They didn't read them the rights. They didn't talk. They were terrorists. It was over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism," the Republican firebrand added, referring to the prestigious US university.
Shortly after the remarks, Clinton`s campaign pounced on Trump`s apparent support of a strongman, who was hanged in Iraq in 2006 for ordering the sectarian killings of nearly 150 Shiites two decades earlier.
"Tonight, Trump yet again lauded Saddam Hussein as a great killer of terrorists, noting with approval that he never bothered to read anyone their rights. In reality, Hussein`s regime was a sponsor of terrorism," Clinton senior policy advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement.
"Trump`s cavalier compliments for brutal dictators, and the twisted lessons he seems to have learned from their history, again demonstrate how dangerous he would be as Commander-in-Chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks."
Paul Ryan, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, did not back Trump when asked about the comments.
Saddam "was one of the 20th century`s most evil people. He was up there, and he committed mass genocide against his own people using chemical weapons. Saddam Hussein was a bad guy," Ryan said on Fox News.
Last year, Trump said the world would be "100 percent" better off if Saddam and slain Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi were still in power, adding that human rights abuses are "worse than they ever were" in Iraq and Libya.
"I mean, look at Libya. Look at Iraq. Iraq used to be no terrorists. He (Saddam) would kill the terrorists immediately, which is like now it`s the Harvard of terrorism," Trump said at the time.
"If you look at Iraq from years ago, I`m not saying he was a nice guy, he was a horrible guy, but it was a lot better than it is right now."
YEREVAN, JULY 5, ARMENPRESS. The Israeli Parliament (Knesset) has sent the Armenian Genocide resolution to the Education and Culture Committee: 24 out of 120 MPs voted in favor of the decision, no one voted against, former Israeli lawmaker, founder of the Israel-Armenia inter-parliamentary friendship group Alexander Zinker told ARMENPRESS, noting that the Jewish people who survived the Holocaust have no moral right to ignore the tragedy of another people.
It is noteworthy that Israel itself acknowledges the mass slaughter of Armenians, however it refuses to name it Genocide. Similar behavior of member of the Israeli Government and representatives of several social-political structures, in my opinion, is the factor of perceiving their own tragedy as exceptional, Zinker said.
According to him, Israels position regarding the Armenian Genocide also depends on its regional policy. I mean the relations with Turkey an important Muslim state in the Middle East. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had honestly announced that there are more important things than politics, diplomacy, and mass massacres of peoples are in this category. Apparently, by coming to power, the Israeli political figures forget their promises, despite the fact that recent surveys show Israelis are in favor of recognizing the Armenian Genocide, Zinker said.
Nevertheless, Zinker doesnt think that now is the most convenient time for expecting the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, however he assures that they will continue struggling. Taking into consideration regional issues, as well as the recent agreement between Turkey and Israel regarding normalization of ties it isnt the best time to achieve positive result. In any case, our struggle aimed at the recognition of the Armenian Genocide will be consistent. Israeli leaders will not once expose Erdogans Turkeys real anti-Israel face. They will eventually have to understand that there is historical truth, and not a single political intrigue can overshadow the horrifying attempt of exterminating an entire people, he said.
On July 5, the 3rd debate on the Armenian Genocide issue took place in the Israeli Parliament. The debate was initiated by Zehava Gal-On, President of the Meretz party.
YEREVAN, JULY 6, ARMENPRESS. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry discussed issues related to the cooperation of Russia and the US as Co-Chairs of the International Syria Support Group during the phone talk, Armenpress reports, the Russian MFA informs.
The issues related to the cooperation of Russia and the US as Co-Chairs of the International Syria Support Group, including the contacts in the expert and political levels were discussed, the statement says.
On the occasion of Kerrys upcoming visit to Ukraine, Sergey Lavrov drew the attention on the information over the intentions to resume the large-scale military operations in Donbass calling Washington to take efforts not to permit this incident to happen, reports TASS.
YEREVAN, JULY 6, ARMENPRESS. The development of the IT sector in Armenia creates constant demand of qualified professionals for which experts suggest their approaches.
According to Ara Chalabyan, head auditor of the Central Bank, it is necessary to change the economic model, by creating incentives for growth of professionals in the fields of exact sciences, including the IT.
Today everyone uses technologies, almost everyone has smartphones, its another issue that a part of the society is involved in the IT sector. In my opinion, our educational system must pay greater attention that our youth get educated in this direction, get developed, as this is a global direction. The more engineers, IT professionals we prepare, the more competitive we will become in the world. But here its not just about professionals, but rather about the change of the economic model, Ara Chalabyan said.
Speaking about incentives, Chalabyan talked about the example of neighboring Georgia, where specializations law, economic, medical which have market demand, are not implemented under state order.
Referring to IT solutions, in particular about e-management and appliance of IT in military industry, he noted that he shares the point of view that there is some isolation between IT and other fields.
YEREVAN, JULY 6, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute of the NAS of Armenia Suren Manukyan gave two explanations over not holding a voting on the Armenian Genocide recognition resolution by the Israeli Parliament (the Knesset) and sending it to the Education and Culture Committee.
First of all, Israel has a unique approach towards the Armenian, and the other genocides in general. From this perspective it is difficult to say whether in the nearest future the Armenian Genocide will be recognized by that country. Majority of Israels elite views the Holocaust as an exclusive event, the only genocide, and from this point of view, it is difficult to imagine that they will make similar decision on the Armenian Genocide, he said in an interview with Armenpress.
Then, there is a state in the Middle East with which the relations of Israel are sometimes worsening, and vice versa, are improving. It conducts long-term policy with that state which is Turkey. Thus, the Armenian Genocide recognition is not in the interests of Israel.
The issue will be regularly discussed in the Israeli Parliaments agenda, and it is very good since it will become a topic of discussion, but I dont think Israel will recognize the Armenian Genocide in the nearest future. There is no problem within the public sector, in many cases consensus exists within the Israeli scientific circles who admit that what happened is genocide, but at this stage I exclude this issue will find positive solution within the political circles, Manukyan said.
On July 5, the 3rd debate on the Armenian Genocide issue took place in the Israeli Parliament. The debate was initiated by Zehava Gal-On, President of the Meretz party. The Israeli Parliament sent the Armenian Genocide resolution to the Education and Culture Committee.
YEREVAN, JULY 6, ARMENPRESS. 14 servicemen have been hospitalized as a result of a car crash on July 6 near the Karmrakar village, Syunik Province, Armenia.
The servicemen are currently being examined, preliminary I can say we dont have serious cases, but we will provide final information after the examination is completed, the reception of Kapan medical center told ARMENPRESS.
YEREVAN, JULY 6, ARMENPRESS. On July 6 President of the National Assembly of Armenia Galust Sahakyan received Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Greece to Armenia Ioannis Taghis whose diplomatic mission comes to its end, press service of the Armenian Parliament informed Armenpress.
Galust Sahakyan expressed gratitude to Ioannis Taghis for his productive work conducted in Armenia and wished him success in his future activities.
Referring to the process of the recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide, Galust Sahakyan highly appreciated the adoption of liability bill on the denial of the Armenian Genocide by the Greek Parliament. In this context, he attached also importance to the statement condemning the genocides of Greeks and Assyrians committed by the Ottoman Empire adopted by the Armenian Parliament on March 24, 2015.
Speaking about the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Galust Sahakyan said Armenia appreciates Greeces balanced stance over the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.
He said Armenia attaches special importance to the promotion and expansion of cooperation with Greece in different sectors of the economy. In this context, it has been emphasized that there is a great potential which is still not used in the trade and economic fields.
In his turn Ioannis Taghis expressed gratitude for the reception and said with satisfaction that during his tenure in Armenia, the relations between Armenia and Greece were at the high level and expressed hope the stable development of the relations will be continuous.
The Greek Ambassador expressed gratitude to the National Assembly President for the assistance provided by the Armenian Parliament during his diplomatic mission in Armenia.
At the meeting the sides attached importance to the high-level inter-parliamentary ties, the contacts and mutual visits of the parliamentary friendship groups.
YEREVAN, JULY 6, ARMENPRESS. Recently Jan Wareby, SVP, Head of Sales, Wojciech Bajda, Head of Customer Unit Eurasia, which covers 11 countries (Belarus, Ukraine, Mongolia, Armenia inclusive) and Peter Laurin, the Head of Region Northern Europe and Central Asia paid a working visit to Yerevan, Armenpress was informed from Ucom company.
The honor to introduce Ucom's 4G+ network is entrusted to Ericsson, which is being represented in 180 countries all over the world. The launch of cooperative work was announced in March, and now both companies approach the final stage of project implementation.
According to the top-managing representatives of Ericsson, the Armenian telecommunications market is considered to be one of the advanced as per world standards. They are excited to provide the Armenian Ucom with a technology, introduced in such leading markets like North America, Korea, Japan, some parts of China, and, of course, the telecom markets of some European countries.
Out of 11 countries I have in my portfolio, this is the first implementation. Its a very unique technology from the hardware and software point of view, which secures high performance of the network, superior quality and user experience, said Wojciech Bajda, Head of Customer Unit Eurasia at Ericsson.
Speaking about the landscape and associated with that complications with introduction of the latest Ericsson's Radio Solution, Mr. Bajda expressed confidence that they can quite easily provide good coverage and good capacity for Ucom subscribers in the country, regardless if this is a city, or a small village, or the mountains. According to him Armenian landscape is not as challenging as many mountainous countries in Asia or deserts of Africa, where the network introduction is far more complex.
We are here from Ericsson to visit the Armenian market and also to be part of the success of Ucom, when they now launch the next generation network. Its a very advanced network, we have the latest technology, enabling this network, not only from sort of 3G, 4G, but also advanced LTE - with the carrier aggregation as well as the air antennas - which is our latest and greatest product, said Peter Laurin, the regional Head from Ericsson for Region Northern Europe and Central Asia.
The guests have also expressed great satisfaction with the technical staff performance, which installs and puts into daily operation the internationally designed equipment in a professional way.
In September we will witness the fact of how one can have an Armenian company, delivering global level quality services within Armenia. Our technical staff is well-trained, during the entire period they have astonished their international counterparts with an exceptional professionalism. I can state with satisfaction, that it is thanks to our technical staff, Armenia among all post-Soviet countries is the first to introduce this innovative technology solution, said Hayk Yesayan, the CEO of Ucom.
YEREVAN, JULY 6, ARMENPRESS. The farmers of Shirak Province of Armenia whose crops have been damaged by the recent days hails will receive support from the Ministry of Agriculture of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh Republic), Armenpress reports Minister of Agriculture of NKR Aram Mkhoyan told Artsakhpress. He clarified that depending on the size of the land, the farmers will receive high quality winter wheat seeds.
10th SAPE Education Career Fair kicks off today
The trend of organizing education fairs has mushroomed with an increase in the number of students aspiring for a foreign degree.
French pharmaceutical group Sanofi said net profit dropped 11.1 percent to 1.16bn euros ($1.29bn) on sales of 8.14bn euros, down 5.1 percent
US cancer drugmaker Medivation said Tuesday it agreed to share confidential data with Sanofi after rejecting a second, higher offer from the French company.
Medivation said it had turned down an uninvited offer worth about $10 billion from Sanofi, increased from the first bid of $9.3 billion, as still "not in the best interests" of its shareholders.
But the new confidentiality agreement between the two made clear that Medivation remained open to a merger with Sanofi or other companies.
Medivation, known for its lucrative prostate cancer medication Xtandi, said it reached similar agreements with a number of other possible suitors. Those include Pfizer and Amgen, a person familiar with the matter told AFP in May.
Medivation chairman Kim Blickenstaff stressed in a statement that it is still pursuing growth as an independent company.
"Medivation has significant scarcity value as one of the only profitable, commercial-stage oncology companies," he said.
But he added that it is also committed "to objectively considering all avenues that may enhance our ability to deliver superior value."
In April Sanofi offered $52.50 a share for Medivation, an offer quickly smacked down as one that "substantially undervalues" the company.
In May, Sanofi, complaining that Medivation refused to even meet to discuss a bid, launched an attempt to replace all board members of Medivation.
In Tuesday's announcement Medivation revealed that Sanofi had increased the offered price to a minimum of $58 a share, with another $3 a share possible based on sales of Medivation's new talazoparib breast cancer drug.
Investors anticipating a higher offer pushed Medivation shares up 2.7 percent to $61.76 in trade Tuesday.
By Nicole Mordant (Reuters) - Canadian mining company Centerra Gold agreed on Tuesday to buy U.S. based miner Thompson Creek Metals for around $1.1 billion in shares and cash, including paying off nearly $900 million of debt, to expand its operations in North America. Centerra, whose main asset is the Kumtor gold mine in Kyrgyzstan, has wanted to reduce its exposure to the impoverished Asian nation, which has in recent months escalated its rhetoric against the miner as it guns for a bigger slice of its profits. Denver, Colorado-based Thompson Creek's main asset is the Mount Milligan copper and gold mine in British Columbia. "Half of the value of all our assets will now be domiciled in Canada. I really think we have absolutely transformed the company in a very favorable way," Centerra Chief Executive Scott Perry said in an interview. Thompson Creek last November hired Moelis & Co and BMO Capital Markets to look at alternatives, including debt refinancing and restructuring and asset sales, after the company's debt ballooned following the 2010 purchase of Mount Milligan and the cost of developing it into a mine. In December, Deutsche Bank analyst Jorge Beristain described Thompson Creek's debt as "unsustainable" in a note to clients and said the company was "quickly approaching an end-game". The company was also hit by weaker gold and copper prices. REPAY ALL NOTEHOLDERS In terms of the deal, Centerra will redeem all of Thompson Creek's secured and unsecured notes at their call price plus accrued and unpaid interest for $889 million. Perry said Centerra opted to pay off all the noteholders to ensure "deal certainty". All of Thompson Creek's common shares will be exchanged for Centerra shares at a ratio that implies a value of 79 Canadian cents per Thompson Creek share - a premium of 32 percent on the stock's closing price on July 4 for a value of $140 million. Both company's shares were halted before the deal was announced. To fund the transaction, Centerra said it would raise C$170 million ($130.76 million) through a bought deal, pay $460 million from cash on hand at Thompson Creek and Centerra, and raise $300 million from a new debt facility. Centerra also has a commitment from mining financier Royal Gold Inc to restructure Royal's so-called streaming finance deal with Thompson Creek. Royal had helped finance the construction of Mount Milligan in exchange for 52.25 percent of its future annual gold output. That will now be amended to 35 percent of annual gold output plus 18.75 percent of copper production. Thompson Creek shareholders will vote on the transaction in September. (Reporting by Nicole Mordant in Vancouver; Editing by Chris Reese and Andrew Hay)
By Alastair Sharp and Allison Martell TORONTO (Reuters) - The parent company of infidelity dating site Ashley Madison, hit by a devastating hack last year, is now the target of a U.S. Federal Trade Commission investigation, the new executives seeking to revive its credibility told Reuters. The breach, which exposed the personal details of millions who signed up for the site with the slogan Life is short. Have an affair, cost Avid Life Media more than a quarter of its revenue, Chief Executive Rob Segal and President James Millership revealed in an interview, the first by any senior executive since the incident. We are profoundly sorry, said Segal, adding that more could perhaps have been spent on security. The two executives, hired in April, said the closely held company is spending millions to improve security and looking at payment options that offer more privacy. But it faces a mountain of problems, including U.S. and Canadian class action lawsuits filed on behalf of customers whose personal information was posted online, and allegations that it used fake profiles to manipulate some customers. The sites male-to-female user ratio is five to one, the executives said. An Ernst & Young report commissioned by Avid and shared with Reuters confirmed that Avid used computer programs, dubbed fembots, that impersonated real women, striking up conversations with paying male customers. Avid shut down the fake profiles in the United States, Canada and Australia in 2014 and by late 2015 in the rest of the world, but some U.S. users had message exchanges with foreign fembots until late in 2015, according to the report. Another site, JDI Dating, paid $616,165 in redress for similar practices in an October 2014 settlement with the FTC. Avid said it does not know the focus of its FTC investigation. Asked about the fembot messages sent to U.S. customers, Segal said: Thats a part of the ongoing process that were going through its with the FTC right now. The FTCs consumer protection unit investigates cases of deceptive advertising, including instances when consumers are told that their information is secure but then it is handled sloppily. Lawrence Walters, a lawyer who represented JDI Dating in the 2014 case, said the FTC will likely look at the hack. The FTC is very focused on this data breach issue at this point, he said. Im not surprised that they are continuing to look at, possibly, Ashley Madison. An FTC spokesman declined to comment. REINVENTING EXISTING BRAND Ashley Madison got plenty of media attention before the hack, with former chief executive Noel Biderman boasting of a $1 billion valuation. Segal acknowledged that the company is not worth that much and said Avid still doesnt know how the attack happened or who was responsible. It has hired cyber security experts at Deloitte and expects to reach the first level of Payment Card Industry compliance, an industry standard, by September. We had to basically reinvent their security posture, said Robert Masse, who leads Deloittes incident response team. His team, hired by the company in late September, found simple backdoors in Avid Lifes Linux-based servers. Avid Life is on track to record roughly $80 million in revenue this year, with margin on earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization of 35 to 40 percent, said Millership. Its 2015 revenue was $109 million, with a 49 percent margin. The executives said the Ashley Madison name would endure, though they are moving some focus away from infidelity. We certainly feel that the Ashley Madison brand can be repositioned, Segal said. Millership said they have roughly $50 million to spend on acquisitions or partnerships with like-minded discreet dating sites. (Additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Diane Bartz in Washington; Editing by Sandra Maler and Cynthia Osterman)
Retention
Arizona CC Hopes to Lift Student Success with Early Notifications, Support
Starting this fall an Arizona community college system will be automating collaboration workstreams among faculty, advisors and students to help it improve student outcomes and completion rates. Pima Community College District in Tucson will invest an estimated $423,000 over three years to implement Starfish Early Alert and Starfish Connect from Hobsons. The early alert program is intended to flag behaviors that could signal problems that a student is at risk (or the opposite that kudos are needed). The Connect software provides a customized collection of resources a student may turn to in times of need, including faculty advisors, counselors, instructors and tutors.
The 70,000 students of Pima CC will gain access to the applications through computers and smartphones as part of the institution's efforts to provide "proactive support services," especially during the first year of students' college careers, as a written recommendation from the chancellor stated during a recent board meeting.
The Starfish programs were chosen in a purchase process that drew five proposals. An evaluation team made up of advising, counseling, faculty, IT and administration recommended Hobsons. During the rollout, the system will undergo continual evaluation during and after each semester to continue improving on its use.
"We chose Starfish to have a tool that will help advisors, counselors and faculty individualize support for students and assess which services and interventions are working," said Irene Robles-Lopez, the college system's vice president for student development, in a press release. "Our objective is to be more responsive to our students, to help support them at every point in their educational career and help them reach their goals."
Financial Aid
Department of Education Launches Federal Student Aid Feedback System
The EDs new online portal enables federal student aid recipients to submit complaints and feedback, among other features.
The United States Department of Education (ED) announced the launch of an online portal that collects feedback about federal student aid programs. The Federal Student Aid (FSA) Feedback System enables students, parents, borrowers and others to file complaints about their experiences with federal aid programs.
Specifically, the FSA Feedback System is designed to:
Handle complaints about applying for and receiving federal loans, grants and work study; federal loan servicing; the collection of defaulted federal loans; and the institutional administration of programs;
Report suspicious activity, including violations of federal laws regarding student aid; and
Allow customers to submit positive feedback, either about their own experiences or on behalf of others.
The portal fulfills one main objective of President Obamas 2015 Student Aid Bill of Rights: to help borrowers manage their federal student debt, improve federal student loan servicing and protect taxpayers investments in the student aid program. Using the feedback, the ED will contact institutions to resolve issues.
Partner agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commissions Consumer Sentinel Network, will be allowed access to data collected through the portal in order to solve special complaints, such as issues with private student loans. The ED aims to publish the first annual report for the FSA Feedback System this fall on the FSA Data Center.
To access the system, visit the FSA site.
Alarm raised after flood in Rapti River
With a rise in water level on the Rati river, the local administration has alerted the people nearby to stay safe.
English Latvian
Joint-Stock Company Reverta has made another regular payment to the State Treasury in the amount of EUR 5.5 m, thus in first six months of 2016 Reverta has paid the Treasury a total of EUR 30.1 m thrice as much as in the same period last year.
Notwithstanding the fact that top distressed assets have been already disposed of in the previous six years of Revertas operation, performance results of June have been excellent as demonstrated by the recovery of EUR 9.5 m from the workout of loan portfolio, points out Solvita Deglava, Chairperson of the Management Board.
The funds were recovered from several complex deals concluded in Latvia, Russia, Lithuania, and Estonia after a many year struggle to overcome the energetic counteractions by clients. Their opposition manifested itself both in the form of legal challenge and, in certain cases, also as open threat, says Solvita Deglava.
One of the deals was the conclusion of a large and complex project that had spanned eight years and finally has resulted in the takeover of a real estate property a commercial space of approximately 1000 sq. m at the prestigious Frunzenskaja Naberezhnaya, Moscow, Russia. Another achievement was the conclusion of the largest and most complex loan project in Lithuania on 29 June 2016 Reverta received the remaining EUR 550 k of the total EUR 10.6 m for the concluded assignment deal.
Overall, since 1 August 2010 till 31 May 2016 Reverta has recovered EUR 695.8 m from the restructuring of distressed loans, sales of bonds, and disposal of real estate properties.
Additional information:
The activities of Reverta are focused in three main directions: loan restructuring, legal recovery, and real estate management and sales.
According to the EC approved Restructuring Plan for Parex Bank, Reverta has to complete the workout of its portfolio and close all operations by the end of 2017.
Reverta has commenced selection of an Advisor to ensure sales process of its loan and real estate portfolios. Regulations for Selecting an Advisor are available upon request via e-mail please apply to tenderRH@pa.gov.lv indicating the company name and registration number of the Applicant. Applications will be accepted by 15:00 on 14 July 2016 at the latest.
For more information contact:
Marita Ozolina
Head of Communication and Marketing Department
Tel.: 67779142 or 29287169
E-mail: marita.ozolina@reverta.lv
NEW YORK, July 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Evercel, Inc. (Evercel) (OTC:EVRC) announced today that it has received an additional $18.3 million in cash related to the previously disclosed sale of Printronix, Inc. (Printronix Inc.), which contained certain assets related to the thermal printer business. The $18.3 million amount is equal to 100% of Evercels original investment in Printronix. In addition, following the sale of Printronix's factory in Singapore, Evercel received an additional $4 million representing the net gain (e.g. after taxes, transaction costs, pay down of mortgage, etc.) from the sale of the factory real estate. Printronix originally acquired the factory in Singapore as a separate transaction for $5.5 million several months after Evercels acquisition of Printronix and did so solely for debt (i.e., Evercel invested no additional equity). Over the past several months, Printronix, LLC (Printronix LLC"), which was created in connection with the sale of Printronix Inc. to hold the Line Matrix printer business and other business operations not directly related to the thermal printer business that was sold, has completed the transition from the Singapore facility to a new factory it built in Malaysia and is in the process of ramping up its operations there.
Evercel is focused on optimizing the Printronix LLC Line Matrix printer business, which will include significant strategic restructuring plans to improve operational efficiency following the sale of the thermal printing business in which only a portion of the sales and engineering staff transitioned to the buyer. On a longer term basis, Evercel intends to leverage its platform to find additional investment opportunities.
Consistent with our practice since 2013, Evercel plans to communicate to shareholders with an annual letter following the release of the audit in the fall. Evercel also plans to communicate to shareholders the occurrence of material events in the interim, such as the acquisition or sale of a business. We will continue our strict policy to distribute information to all shareholders simultaneously and are unable to respond to individual requests. We communicate through issuing press releases with information, or through a press release announcing the posting of information to the Evercel website.
Due to Evercels limited number of shareholders and its decision at present not to register with the SEC, Evercel is not obligated to report financial information. Evercel chooses to voluntarily report information periodically at the discretion of management. However, management may change the reporting policy at its discretion without notice. The information provided in this announcement and any other information provided by Evercel as to its operations, financial statements, conditions, prospects or any other matter does not purport to be complete as it does not contain risk factors, qualifications or further explanation that investors may deem relevant. You should not rely on the information provided as being complete.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Information
Statements in this announcement that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements that may involve material risks and uncertainties. The company wishes to caution readers not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which statements speak only as of the date made.
Board directors exempt from rule
Although the bill to amend the NRB Act includes a prohibitory clause for staff ranging from the governor to officers, board directors of the central bank are exempt from this rule. However, they have a strong influence on decision making at NRB.
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Borders between Nepal and India will be managed: Minister Subba
Minister for Land Reforms and Management Ram Kumar Subba, responding to the questions raised by lawmakers during discussion on the Ministry of Land Reform and Management under the Appropriation Bill-2073 at parliamentary meeting Wednesday, said that the border between Nepal and India will be managed.
Construction of integrated check post on Nepali side in limbo
When bids were invited the first time, there was only one taker; and the tender offer was scrapped for failing to get the minimum three bids
Eleven killed in landslides
Eleven people were killed in several places on Tuesday in landslides caused by continued rainfall in the past few days. Three died in Gorkha district, the epicentre of the magnitude 7.8 earthquake last year.
Farmers' tearful farewell to flooded pigs prompts sympathy online
Photographs of two farmers bidding an emotional farewell to 6,000 pigs who they feared would drown in severe flooding in China may have helped secure their rescue.
Five Nepali Kabul attack victims discharged from New Delhi hospital
Five of the six Nepalis injured in an explosion in the Afghan capital Kabul on June 20, who were receiving treatment at the Apollo Hospital in New Delhi, were discharged on Monday evening.
Hillary Clinton emails 'endangered US' - Donald Trump
Hillary Clinton's use of private email while secretary of state put the "entire country in danger", US Republican Donald Trump has said.
Photo by Martin Thomas via Flickr - CC-BY
In 2015, I wrote a blog post about how I thought that Bitcoin was similar in many ways to the Internet. The metaphor that I used was that Bitcoin was like email - the first killer app - and that the Bitcoin Blockchain was like The Internet - the infrastructure that was deployed to support it but that could be used for so many other things. I suggested that The Blockchain was to finance and law what the Internet was to media and advertising.
I still believe it is true, but the industry is out over its skis. Over a billion dollars have been invested in Bitcoin and Fintech startups, tracking and exceeding investment in Internet investments in 1996. Looking at many of the businesses, they look like startups during that period, but instead of pets.com, we have blockchain for X. I don't think today's blockchain is the Internet in 1996 - it's probably more like the Internet in 1990 or the late 80's - we haven't agreed on the IP protocol and there is no Cisco or PSINet. Many of the application layer companies are building on an infrastructure that isn't ready from a stability or a scalability perspective and they are either bad idea or good idea too early. Also, very few people actually understand the necessary combination of cryptography, security, finance and computer science to design these systems. Those that do are part of a very small community and there are not enough to go around to support the $1bn castle we are building on this immature infrastructure. Lastly, unlike content on the Internet, the assets that the blockchain will be moving around and the irreversibility of many of the elements do not lend the blockchain to the same level agile software development - throw stuff out and see what sticks - that we can do for web apps and services.
There are startups and academics working on these basic layers, but I wish there were more. I have a feeling that we might be in a bit of a bubble and that bubble might pop or have a correction, but in the long run, hopefully we'll figure out the infrastructure and will be able to build something decentralized and open. Maybe a bubble pop will get rid of some of the noise from the system and let us focus like the first dot-com bust did for the Internet. On the other hand, we could end up with a crappy architecture and a bunch of fintech apps that don't really do much more than make existing things more efficient. We are at an important moment where decisions will be made about whether everyone will trust a truly decentralized system and where irresponsible deployments could scare people away. I think that as a community we need to increase our collaboration and diligently eliminate bugs and bad designs without slowing down innovation and research.
Instead of building apps, we need to be building the infrastructure. It's unclear whether we will end up with some version of Bitcoin becoming "The Internet" or whether some other project like Ethereum becomes the single standard. It's also possible that we end up with a variety of different systems that somehow interoperate. The worst case would be that we focus so much on the applications that we ignore the infrastructure, miss out on the opportunity to build a truly decentralized system, and end up with a system that resembles mobile Internet instead of wired Internet - one controlled by monopolies that charge you by the megabyte and have impossibly expensive roaming fees versus the flat fee and reasonable cost of wired Internet in most places.
There are many pieces to the infrastructure that need to be designed and tested. There are many ideas for different consensus protocols - the way in which a particular blockchain makes their public ledger tamper proof and secure. Then there are arguments about how much scriptability should be built into the blockchain itself versus on a layer above it - there are good arguments on either side of the argument. There is also the issue of privacy and anonymity versus identity and regulatory controls.
It looks like the Bitcoin Core developer team is making headway on Segregated Witness which should address many concerns including some of the scaling issues that people have had. On the other hand, it looks like Ethereum which has less history but a powerful and easier to use scripting / programing system is getting a lot of traction and interest from people trying to design new uses for the blockchain. Other projects like Hyperledger are designing their own blockchain systems as well as code that is blockchain agnostic.
The Internet works because we have clear layers of open standards. TCP/IP, for instance, won over ATM - a competing standard in some ways - because it turned out that the end-to-end principle where the core of the network was super-simple and "dumb" allowed the edges of the network to be very innovative. It took awhile for the battle between the standards to play out to the point where TCP/IP was the clear winner. A lot of investment in ATM driven technology ended up being wasted. The problem with the blockchain is that we don't even know where the layers should be and how we will manage the process of agreeing on the standards.
The (Ethereum) Decentralized Autonomous Organization project or "The DAO" is one of the more concerning projects I see right now.* The idea is to create "entities" that are written in code on Ethereum. These entities can sell units similar to shares in a company and invest and spend the money and operate much like a fund or a corporation. Investors would look at the code and determine whether they thought the entity made sense and they would buy tokens hoping for a return. This sounds like something from a science fiction novel and we all dreamed about these sorts of things when, as cypherpunks in the early 90's, we dared to dream on mailing lists and hacker meetups. The problem is, The DAO has attracted over $150M in investors and is "real," but is built on top of Ethereum which hasn't been tested as much as Bitcoin and is still working out its consensus protocol even considering a completely new consensus protocol for their next version.
It appears that The DAO hasn't been fully described legally and may expose its investors to liabilities as partners in a partnership. Unlike contracts written by lawyers in English, if you screw up the code of a DAO, it's unclear how you could change it easily. Courts can deal with mistakes in contract language by trying to determine the intent, but in code enforced by distributed consensus rules, there is no such mechanism. Also, code can be attacked by malicious code and there is a risk that a bug could create vulnerabilities. Recently, Dino Mark, Vlad Zamfir, and Emin Gun Sirer - key developers and researchers - published "A Call for a Temporary Moratorium on The DAO" describing vulnerabilities in The DAO. I fear that The DAO also raises the red flags for a variety of regulators that we probably don't want at the table right now. The DAO could be the Mt. Gox for Ethereum - a project whose failure may cause many people to lose their money and cause the public and regulators to try to slam the brakes on blockchain development.
Regardless of whether I rain on the parade, I'm sure that startups and investors in this space will continue to barrel forward, but I believe that as many of us as possible should focus on the infrastructure and the opportunities at the lowest layers of this stack we are trying to build. I think that getting the consensus protocol right, trying to figure out how to keep things decentralized, how to deal with the privacy issues without causing over-regulation, how we might completely reinvent the nature of money and accounting - these are the things that are exciting and important to me.
I believe there are some exciting areas for businesses to begin working and exploring practical applications - securitization of things that currently have a market failure such as solar panels in developing countries, or applications where there are standardized systems because of the lack of trust creates a very inefficient market such as trade finance.
Central banks and governments have begun to exploring innovations as well. The Singapore government is considering issuing government bonds on a blockchain. Some papers have imagined central banks taking deposits and issuing digital cash directly to individuals. Some regulators have begun to plan sandboxes to allow people to innovate and test ideas in regulatory safety zones. It is ironically possible that some of the more interesting innovations may come from experiments by governments despite the initial design of Bitcoin having been to avoid governments. Having said that, it's quite likely that governments will be more likely to hinder rather than help the development of a robust decentralized architecture.
* Just a few days after this post, The DAO was "attacked" as I feared. Here's an interesting post by the alleged "attacker". Reddit quickly determined that the signature in that post wasn't valid. And another post by the alleged attacker that they're bribing the miners not to fork. Whether these are actually the attacker or epic trolls, very interesting arguments.
Eugene Robinson
Eugene Robinson is an Associate Editor and twice-weekly columnist for The Washington Post. His column appears on Tuesdays and Fridays. In a 25-year career at The Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper's award-winning Style section. In 2005, he started writing a column for the Op-Ed page. He is the author of "Coal to Cream: A Black Man's Journey Beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race" (1999) and "Last Dance in Havana" (2004). Robinson is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and has received numerous journalism awards.
I firmly believe that PBS/WETA and the production company they hire to do "A Capitol Fourth" should have kept their live cameras on the fireworks bursting in 2016's real, actual cloudy skies. Fake is fake and there's no getting around it. This editorial in The Post is exactly right.
The network's reasoning is lame, but, as the editorial points out, it gets to an increasingly blurry distinction between fact and entertainment in our daily lives. Some may think this is no big deal, but trust me, it is. Look at our presidential election if you don't think so.
After reading about the incident, I had a secret hope that as it was happening and the head producer was throwing the switch that showed the old fireworks footage, some young idealistic assistant producer was loudly delivering an Aaron Sorkin-like monologue to her colleagues about this lapse in integrity. And nobody listened to her.
Then again, maybe they all thought it okay.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. As the world swelters toward a third straight year of record-breaking heat, experts in air conditioning and refrigeration are chilling out during three international conferences this month at Purdue University.
"This year's conferences are happening at a time when key international decisions are helping to define the direction of issues related to the environment, climate change, solar and other technologies," said Eckhard Groll, the Reilly Professor of Mechanical Engineering and general conference chair.
Around 800 people are expected to attend the 16th International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference, the 23nd International Compressor Engineering Conference and the fourth International High Performance Buildings Conference from July 11-14. The conferences are hosted by the Purdue Center for High Performance Buildings in the university's Ray W. Herrick Laboratories.
The conferences are held every two years. Participants will present a record 476 papers including talks related to more energy efficient and environmentally friendly technologies, "intelligent buildings" and various innovations related to air conditioning, refrigeration and compressors.
Sessions will cover areas critical to industry, commerce, and domestic air-conditioning and refrigeration and include talks on innovative design concepts aimed at reducing energy consumption and improving performance, said James Braun, the Herrick Professor of Engineering and chair of the Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference.
"Buildings require large amounts of energy for heating, cooling and ventilation, lighting and appliance services, and there is more interest lately in energy efficiency," said Braun, director of the Center for High Performance Buildings. "We also have introduced an intelligent building operations workshop, and that is attracting new participants."
Buildings are responsible for roughly 40 percent of the nation's energy use, more than 70 percent of electricity consumption and more than 30 percent of carbon dioxide emissions.
Various concepts and findings being reported during the three conferences have implications for energy efficiency and the environment. This year is on track to become the hottest on record, following record years in 2014 and 2015. Meanwhile, the global use of air conditioning is expected to rise dramatically by 2030, adding around 700 million air conditioners, according to a study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
"The question is, where is all of the energy coming from to operate these additional systems?" Groll said. "This expansion in air conditioning and refrigeration will drive greater needs for energy efficiency and environmental considerations."
A keynote talk at 9:30 a.m. Monday (July 11) in Stewart Center's Loeb Playhouse will focus on climate-change issues related to air conditioning and refrigeration. The talk, titled "Climate action driving our future forward, key perspectives on climate change and refrigeration and air conditioning linkages from the World Bank Montreal Protocol Program," will be presented by Viraj Vithoontien, program leader of the World Bank's Montreal Protocol Program.
A talk about solar energy at 8:30 a.m. July 12 in Loeb Playhouse will be presented by Ian Beausoleil-Morrison, a professor in the Faculty of Engineering and Design at Carleton University in Canada. His talk, "Maximizing the use of solar energy to radically reduce the energy needs of housing," will demonstrate new techniques in solar energy including a "hybrid active-passive system" and concepts for the long-term storage of solar thermal energy in homes.
A talk at 8:30 a.m. July 13 in Loeb Playhouse will be presented by Drusilla Hufford, director of the Stratospheric Protection Division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She will discuss her work on cutting U.S. production of ozone-depleting and climate changing refrigerants, alternatives for use in major industrial and consumer sectors, and encouraging responsible refrigerant management through regulations and partnerships with supermarkets and grocery stores, appliance retailers, equipment manufacturers, states and utilities.
The chemical industry has developed new refrigerants called hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs), designed to replace conventional refrigerants, called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).
"The HFOs have a very low global warming potential, on the order of 3 to 5 compared to 2,000-5,000 for HFCs," Groll said.
Global warming potential is a measure of a chemical's contribution to the global warming. Carbon dioxide has a global warming potential of 1. However, various refrigerants have far greater global warming potentials.
A talk at 8:30 a.m. on July 14 in Loeb Playhouse will focus on a type of compressor called a scroll compressor, which is more efficient than conventional compressors. Gene Fields, vice president of Global Compressor Technologies at Johnson Controls, will deliver the talk titled "The past, present, and future of scroll compressors."
Groll and Braun have been working on scroll technology for about 20 years.
"It is the fastest growing type of compressor on the market," Groll said.
The compressors are more efficient and make less noise than conventional compressors and might be used to recover energy normally lost as heat during compressor operation.
Researchers also will present papers on natural refrigerants such as carbon dioxide, hydrocarbons and ammonia. Carbon dioxide was the refrigerant of choice during the early 20th century, but it was later replaced with synthetic chemicals, which are now being phased-out due to their detrimental effects on the environment.
Two papers will be presented on projects to improve the efficiency of Purdue plants that provide chilled water for building cooling, steam for heating and electricity for the campus. The papers will be presented by Braun, W. Travis Horton, an associate professor of civil engineering with a courtesy appointment in mechanical engineering, and their students. Horton is chair of the compressor conference.
The conferences also will include student paper competitions. Six papers in a range of subjects have been selected as finalists and will be presented.
"We really are student-friendly in these conferences," Braun said.
The conferences will include tours of facilities housed in the university's Ray W. Herrick Laboratories, a hub of industry-oriented research in areas ranging from advanced automotive technologies to "smart" buildings. The new 68,000-square-foot building houses the Center for High Performance Buildings, where research is focused on equipment and operational technologies to make possible future buildings that are safer, more environmentally and user friendly, energy efficient, productive and comfortable.
The conferences will include a Sunday (July 10) workshop on intelligent building operation, and short courses on oil management compressors and their systems, and final frontiers in vapor compression cycle efficiency.
On-site registration is available daily in Stewart Center's east foyer. Most of the conference sessions will be in Stewart Center. The on-site registration fee is $750 and is $350 for students. Detailed information about the conferences and technical abstracts to be presented can be found at http://engineering.purdue.edu/Herrick/Events
The conferences are organized by faculty from Herrick Labs in cooperation with sponsoring and participating organizations. A list of sponsors is available at https://engineering.purdue.edu/Herrick/Events/Conferences
Writer: Emil Venere, 765-494-4709, venere@purdue.edu
Sources: Eckhard Groll, 765-494-7429, groll@ purdue.edu
James Braun, 765-494-9157, jbraun@ purdue.edu
Former British prime minister Tony Blair defended his case for going to war in Iraq, after a long-awaited report found the 2003 invasion was based on flawed evidence and woefully executed. The hugely anticipated Chilcot report offered a damning verdict on Britain's role in the US-led war, detailing the flawed intelligence, questionable legal basis and inadequate preparation for the occupation. Britain deployed troops before diplomatic options had been exhausted and at a time when "there was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein", the Iraqi leader, the report found. It also highlighted how Blair wrote to US president George W. Bush in July 2002, the year before the invasion, saying: "I will be with you, whatever." Blair mounted a passionate defence of his decisions in a two-hour press conference, telling reporters: "I believe we made the right decision and the world is better and safer". His voice cracking with emotion, Blair said he had "more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe" for mistakes in the planning of a war that deeply divided Britain. Anti-war protesters rallied in London as the report was released, shouting: "Blair lied, thousands died" and "war criminal Tony Blair". Newspaper front pages were scathing, with The Times describing it as "Blair's private war" and the Daily Mail calling the former prime minister: "A monster of delusion". Some 150,000 Iraqi people were killed in the six years after British and American troops invaded, plunging the country into chaos and creating fertile ground for jihadist groups like the Islamic State. - 'Empty talk' - In Iraq, still wracked by violence and reeling from a suicide bomb that killed at least 250 people in Baghdad this week, the findings counted for little. "The report... will not change anything -- all this is empty talk," said Zainab Hassan, aged 60. Former Australian leader John Howard Thursday defended his decision to go to war with Iraq alongside the US and Britain, saying it was justified at the time and there was "no lie." "I believed that the decision to go into Iraq was justified at the time and I don't resile from that because I thought it was the right decision," he told a press conference in Sydney. The war was justified at the time by claims that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, but they were never found and the intelligence was later withdrawn. Inquiry chairman John Chilcot laid the blame for this firmly on spy chiefs, clearing Blair's officials of "improperly" influencing a key intelligence paper published in September 2002. "There were no lies, parliament and cabinet were not misled, there was no secret commitment to war. The intelligence was not falsified and the decision was made in good faith," said Blair, who was prime minister for Labour from 1997 to 2007. Bush also defended the invasion in a statement given through his spokesman, saying: "The whole world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power." Relatives of some of the 179 British soldiers who died in Iraq said they would scrutinise the findings for possible grounds for legal action against Blair and other officials. "The inquiry has confirmed all our fears that these young men and women were deployed on the back of a falsehood," said Roger Bacon, whose son Matthew, 34, died in 2005. A cross-party group of MPs is also looking into the possibility of taking legal action against Blair, including in the International Criminal Court. - 'A catastrophe' - Judging the legality of the invasion was not in Chilcot's remit, but he said the process of deciding the legal basis for war was "far from satisfactory". "We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort," he said. Shortly after Blair spoke, current Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn -- a top figure in the anti-war campaign -- directly contradicted his predecessor Blair. "The invasion and occupation of Iraq was a catastrophe," Corbyn told families of British soldiers who died. "I now apologise sincerely on behalf of my party for the disastrous decision to go to war in Iraq." The war, which at one point saw 46,000 British troops deployed, still looms large over British politics. Britain's scarring experience in Iraq has made it deeply wary of committing ground troops to international military interventions in countries like Syria and Libya. Retired civil servant Chilcot said his report was "an account of an intervention which went badly wrong, with consequences to this day". In a statement to the House of Commons, Prime Minister David Cameron said: "We cannot turn the clock back but can ensure that lessons are learned and acted on".
Maoist Centre not to rush govt formation
The CPN (Maoist Centre), a key ally in the ruling coalition, is preparing to wait for the ruling CPN-UML a little longer to piece together a national unity government.
As he wheels his 77-year-old aunt away from Bangkok's first day centre for the elderly, Nakhon reflects on the familial duties that oblige him to juggle night-shift work and care for his ageing relative.
It is an increasingly common predicament in rapidly greying Thailand, where a demographic shift is straining social mores and threatening upheaval for the economy.
"She raised me when I was little so now I will take care of her when she's old. It's our culture," explained 35-year-old Nakhon Thianprasert.
Adult children in Thailand often care for their ageing parents -- a responsibility drummed into kids from an early age.
But these duties are getting tougher, with the share of Thais over 65 expected to surge from seven to 17 million people over the next three decades, shrinking the workforce and placing a huge burden on the welfare and medical systems.
While other Asian countries with elderly populations -- such as Japan and Singapore -- have the money to plan for welfare, middle-income Thailand is getting old before it gets rich.
Thailand's warm weather and abundance of luxury retirement homes makes it a top destination for Western retirees. But the concept is taboo locally.
Nakhon's community in Bangkok's northeastern outskirts is working towards a compromise solution.
Using donations, they run a small centre where children can drop off their parents during the day while they go to work or run errands.
Earlier this year, the middle-class neighbourhood flipped an unused building into a brightly-painted room equipped with a few beds, several rows of plastic chairs and simple exercise equipment.
Nurses and volunteers offer activities like sewing, painting and singing -- plus a much-needed opportunity to socialise.
"It is much better than staying home where I always just watch TV and do nothing", said Nakhon's aunt, Boonrod Khamhomkul, who suffers from diabetes and is not able to walk on her own.
- The $20 pension -
The centre's head nurse, Larita Chobpradith, goes door-to-door to around the neighbourhood to check on older residents and introduce them to the daycare concept.
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"Elderly people who have health problems don't need to be bed-bound any more. That way their relatives can also do their own thing and they won't be stressed," she said.
Thailand's rapid economic development, coupled with a successful contraceptive campaign in the 70s, set the country on the path to ageing -- a demographic transition that has taken some other developed countries up to 100 years.
But Thailand has only had a few decades to prepare for that shift and some 20 million Thais -- a quarter of the population -- do not have retirement savings and can only count on a paltry $20 a month state pension.
While the kingdom does offer a universal healthcare scheme, many elderly people, especially those in rural areas, struggle to access it, said Sutayut Osornprasop, the author of a recent World Bank report on ageing in Thailand.
He said more state support for community care programs would help ensure no one is falling through the cracks.
"In communities that are interested in elderly issues, we see very good results," he told AFP. "We need to think about the approach of community-based healthcare."
- Old man of the Mekong -
Thailand's shrinking work force also threatens to weigh down the country's already slumping economy.
Neighbouring nations like Myanmar and Cambodia, whose populations are young, are positioned to become increasingly appealing options to foreign investors looking for cheap labour.
One solution, according to Kirida Bhaopichitr, a researcher at a Thai think tank, is to shift the country's economy away from agriculture towards services, giving elderly people opportunities to remain in the workforce.
"As Thailand ages the service sector could be a future engine of growth", she said.
The country is also considering raising the retirement age and creating tax incentives for businesses to hire older workers.
Community leader Tanapol Petchmali, 64, was behind the first elderly daycare centre, but says more changes are needed.
"One day while I was working, I walked out here and saw an old woman carrying a bag and crying," he told AFP, explaining that the grandmother had been kicked out of her home and had nowhere to go.
"That was the starting moment that made me feel that if we kept letting this happen in the society, it would be trouble for sure."
In a landmark ruling, a Paris court jailed for life Wednesday two former Rwandan mayors accused of orchestrating the massacre of hundreds of Tutsis during the country's 1994 genocide. The court said Octavien Ngenzi, 58, and his predecessor Tito Barahira, 64, were guilty of "crimes against humanity", "massive and systematic summary executions" and "genocide" in their village of Kabarondo, where some 2,000 people seeking refuge in a church were bludgeoned and hacked to death. Ngenzi and Barahira have consistently denied the charges. Both appeared impassive as the judge read out their sentences. It was the stiffest genocide sentence ever handed out by a French court. In 2014, former Rwandan army captain Pascal Simbikangwa got 25 years in solitary confinement for genocide and crimes against humanity. The eight-week trial has heard chilling testimony depicting the two men as "supervisors" and "executioners" in the massacre at the height of the genocide in which 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were killed by Hutu extremists. "Ngenzi was the leader," said prosecutor Philippe Courroye, who requested life sentences for the two men. Barahira was the "dreaded machete officer," he added. Ngenzi and Barahira's lawyers had pointed to contradictory testimony delivered 22 years after the killings to argue that reasonable doubt exists over their role, portraying them as having been helpless to stop the chaos unfolding around them. "I am extremely disappointed but not really surprised," said Philippe Meilhac, Barahira's lawyer, after the ruling adding that his client may appeal the verdict. - 'They continued with machetes' - A lawyer for the civil parties to the case, Gilles Paruelle, told the jury: "To kill one man, hatred is sufficient. To kill 1,000, you need organisation." Alain Gauthier, whose organisation is one of the civil parties in the case, was jubilant. "The jury has understood the distress of the victims," he said. "We hope that this sentencing signifies that one cannot live with impunity in France." His wife Dafroza, whose family was wiped out in the genocide, said she was "comforted" but would be "taking up the fight" again to bring other genocide offenders to justice. The violence broke out in Kabarondo a week after the shooting down of a plane carrying Rwanda's president Juvenal Habyarimana, which inflamed ethnic tensions and sparked the genocide. Among those seeking shelter at the church on April 13, 1994, when the genocidal Hutu "Interahamwe" militia attacked, was Marie Mukamunana, who told the court how her seven children and husband were killed by grenades and machetes. "Someone said 'don't waste the bullets' and they continued with machetes," she said. She recalled seeing former mayor Barahira "armed with a gun, among the Interahamwe" and testified that Ngenzi was "supervising the massacre." Jean-Damascene Rutagungira -- who lost 21 members of his family including his wife and children -- told the court he saw the pair encouraging the killers, shouting "cut them down." - Rwandans tried around the globe - The bloodshed in Kabarondo, a town near the border with Tanzania, was over by the end of April, when Tutsi rebels in the armed wing of what is now the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR) took control of the area. Elsewhere in the former Belgian colony, the slaughter continued until the FPR fighters finally prevailed in July. Ngenzi and Barahira were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by Rwandan people's courts, known as "gacaca", in 2009. Ngenzi has been in custody since 2010 when he was captured in the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte off the east coast of Africa, where he had been living under a false name. Barahira was arrested in 2013 in the southwestern French city of Toulouse where he was living. The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which ended its mandate in 2015, sentenced 61 people for their role in the genocide. Alleged perpetrators of the genocide have also been captured and tried in Belgium, France, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and the United States.
AFP News
Many Indians are delighting in the elevation of Rishi Sunak -- a practising Hindu with Punjabi roots -- as British prime minister, in a milestone year for the subcontinental country's relationship with its former colonial ruler. Sunak took charge Tuesday as Britain's third premier this year with his Conservative Party floundering in the polls and daunting challenges ahead. The 42-year-old was born and raised in Southampton, but his appointment as his country's first prime minister of colour has been cheered by Indians who still consider him a son of the soil. "I am extremely happy," Krishna Kumar, an Indian IT worker, told AFP in the capital New Delhi. "Great Britain is a country which ruled India for more than 300 years -- now a person of Indian origin is going to rule UK." Sunak's parents were born into the Indian diaspora in east Africa, and trace their heritage back to pre-independence Punjab in northern British India. He is married to Indian-born Akshata Murty, whose father co-founded IT giant Infosys. India celebrated 75 years since the end of British rule in August, just weeks before becoming the world's fifth-largest economy when its GDP overtook the United Kingdom's, according to IMF figures. Colonial subjects would never have imagined such a "big development" as a man of Indian heritage taking charge of Britain, said Basavaraj Bommai, the chief minister of southern Karnataka state. "The wheel of fortune has turned completely," he told reporters on Monday. Sunak's ascent has been the subject of wall-to-wall television coverage in India, animating discussion during the usually lethargic Diwali holiday season. "Indian son rises over the Empire -- History comes full circle in Britain," read a news banner splashed on broadcaster NDTV. Sunak takes charge of the UK as his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, is accelerating efforts to scrap symbolic vestiges of the colonial years. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) espouses a muscular Hindu nationalism that champions historical figures who opposed foreign domination and influence. In September, Modi inaugurated a statue of Subhas Chandra Bose, an independence hero venerated for taking up arms against the British, but controversial for his collaboration with Nazi Germany's war machine. The unveiling ceremony took place just hours before Britain announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II, and the statue itself replaces one of Britain's King George V torn down nearly half a century ago. The same month, Modi unveiled a new naval ensign that removed the prominent St George's cross -- the national emblem of England -- from the existing flag. - 'Position of strength' - Modi congratulated Sunak on Monday and said he looked forward to the opportunity to "transform our historic ties into a modern partnership". Sunak's first order of business with India will be to finalise a delayed free trade deal, a pact that both countries had hoped to sign before Monday's Diwali festivities. The agreement is important for Britain as it seeks alternative markets after leaving the European Union, but talks have reportedly snagged over fears among Conservatives that it would lead to an increase in immigration. Sunak's appointment could be an added hindrance to the deal, said Harsh V Pant, a professor at King's College London's India Institute. "Being a person of Indian origin, he'd not like to be seen as being soft on India. He will have to negotiate from a position of strength," Pant told AFP. His ability to push the deal over the objections of his party's rank and file would be an "important benchmark" for the success of his premiership, Pant added. The new leader already faces the uphill task of uniting a party riven with divisions and infighting -- and still reeling from the brief but calamitous tenure of his predecessor Liz Truss. Despite Indians hailing Sunak's appointment as a historic moment for both countries, the political and economic instability he inherits has muted expectations for his tenure. "This is the third prime minister in a year," Himanshu Singh, an engineer, told AFP. "So we don't know how many hours, or how many days or how many weeks he's going to be there." arc-gle/stu/lb
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said Tuesday the country must boost its military might, as he fends off attempts to remove him from office. "Military power has to keep growing," Maduro said at a military parade in Caracas to mark Venezuelan independence day. He said Venezuela was fighting an "unconventional war" -- an apparent reference to what he frequently alleges are capitalist efforts to oust him. Venezuela is suffering a deep recession driven by falling prices for its oil exports. The crisis has sparked food shortages and deadly looting. The political opposition blames the socialist president's economic management and is pushing for a referendum to remove him from office. Maduro regularly accuses the business elite of waging an "economic war" against him by hoarding supplies to aggravate the crisis. Missiles and tanks rolled by and jet fighters flew overhead at Tuesday's annual parade. Maduro has mounted the latest in a series of legal challenges against the opposition efforts to get rid of him. He has challenged their referendum proceedings in the Supreme Court. The opposition MUD coalition says the court and electoral authorities are stacked with Maduro's allies. "If the Supreme Court intends to trample on the Venezuelan people's efforts... that will throw petrol on the fire," said senior leader Henrique Capriles on Tuesday. Maduro broke with tradition this year and avoided attending a session in the legislature on independence day. The opposition took control of the legislative National Assembly in elections in December. Maduro's popularity is low, according to opinion polls. But so far the military command has publicly backed him. Henry Ramos Allup, the opposition speaker in the assembly, and Capriles have alleged that not all of the military may support him, however. "The lawmakers are backed by the votes of the people," Ramos said. "The regime is backed by bayonets."
Jordan Thackeray Welcome to Lovenskate Jordan Thackeray is welcomed to Lovenskate via a two session edit
Jordan Thackeray is welcomed to Lovenskate via a two session edit of casual, floppy armed destruction at Victoria Park and Harrow. Alex Hallford, Ewen Bower, Dan Hill, Aaron Wilmot, Josh Cole Felix Parker and Nick Palomino back up the gnar!
From Bangalore to Kovolam to drink tea, make tea, get rad, pour 'crete, skitch and generally spread the stoke whilst skating everything in their path!
NASS have just announced the list of skateboarders who will be competing in NASS 2016, which takes place 8th-10th July.
The Moonshine Skateboards vert sessions at NASS saw the ramp take a proper beating this year, with Monkeyglove Matt on hand to capture the carnage....
The origins of the company, the DIY ethic that drives it, how he sees changes in the UK skate scene over the last 15 years...
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The Reckless Abandon crew soldier through the wettest June since the planet was covered by the sea and manage to extract some fun from the grimness, dodging showers and sabotaging skate stoppers to hit the streets of London. Rich Armitage, Tim Prozorov and Josh Mayson get wet
Slick Willies have just dropped their latest monthly edit, and will also be hosting a Southbank jam in association with Jart Skateboards tomorrow...
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Please enter your email so we can keep you updated with news, features and the latest offers. If you are not interested you can unsubscribe at any time. We will never sell your data and you'll only get messages from us and our partners whose products and services we think you'll enjoy.
Read our full Privacy Policy as well as Terms & Conditions.
Mathema resigns as KU senate member
Mathema in his resignation letter has said KU has failed to come up with any statement on reports of CIAA intervention in its examination
The human gut is a complex and amazing system, and the more we learn about it, the more amazed we are. It turns out
Tech Philanthropy
Microsoft Awards $3.4 Million Technology Grant to New England Center for Children
Microsoft has donated $3.4 million in software and services to the New England Center for Children (NECC), an institute that provides education and research for children with autism. The grant will be used to update the centers technology infrastructure, with goals toward improving communications, data storage and reliability.
The New England Center for Children is honored to be a recipient of Microsofts generous philanthropic gift of industry-leading software, said Vincent Strully, Jr., founder and CEO of the NECC, in a prepared statement. Microsofts donation allows us to maximize our resources and provide our students with the innovative programs, facilities and materials they need to thrive.
The New England Center for Children performs a critically important role in educating children with autism and Microsoft is delighted to provide our technology to help in the centers mission, said Robert Davy, general manager of Microsoft, in a prepared statement. Through Microsoft Philanthropies, were investing Microsofts strongest assets to drive greater inclusion and empowerment of people who may not have access to technology and the opportunities it offers and enables.
A 501 (c)(3) nonprofit based in Southborough, MA, the NECC built its core computing infrastructure on Windows technology in order to provide a dynamic and immersive technology experience for both staff and students. With Microsofts gift, NECC plans to upgrade to newer, more robust versions of Exchange, SQL and Windows Server. All staff and student computing devices will be upgraded to Windows 10 in an effort to provide a secure, flexible and unified end user experience.
Also with this donation, NECC will be able to streamline data collection for its Autism Curriculum Encyclopedia (ACE) program that all 800 teachers at NECC use while working one-on-one with their students. The ACE is a web-based toolkit which provides an interactive interface containing assessment tools, lesson plans, teaching materials and student performance reports for more than 1,300 skills drawn from the curriculum used at NECC. ACE is used by more than 4,700 users in 24 states and nine foreign countries, according to a news release.
Many of our students use technology to learn, to interact with the world around them and even to simply communicate, said Beth Bellone, director of speech and language services at NECC, in a prepared statement. A percentage of our student population is non-verbal, and with the use of technology, they can ask for what they need or communicate how they are feeling.
NECC provides its teaching staff with Surface tablets to facilitate teaching, administrative and data collection functions. NECCs services include home-based, day and residential programs; public school partnerships and consulting; autism research programs; and the ACE curriculum software.
In addition to its Southborough headquarters, NECC also operates a center in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
By Marton Dunai and Krisztina Than BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary will hold a referendum on Oct. 2 on whether to accept any future European Union quota system for resettling migrants as Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government steps up its fight against the EU's migration policies. Emboldened by Britain's shock vote to quit the European Union, Orban is forging ahead with his own referendum which he hopes will give him a mandate to challenge Brussels. A massive pre-referendum campaign has already been underway. Orban took an anti-immigration stance during the migrant influx to Europe last year. Hungary was the main entry point into the EU's border-free Schengen zone for migrants travelling by land until Orban shut the Croatian and Serbian frontier. President Janes Ader said in a statement posted on his office's website on Tuesday that the vote will be about the following question: "Do you want the European Union to be entitled to prescribe the mandatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary without the consent of parliament?" Hungary is already fighting an EU relocation scheme established during the height of the crisis last year, which will set quotas for each EU country to host a share of the migrants over two years. Along with Slovakia, Budapest has launched a court challenge against the plan. But the EU is also discussing a change to asylum rules that would require member states to accept a quota of refugees or pay a penalty for them to be housed elsewhere. Antal Rogan, Orban's cabinet chief, said on Tuesday the flow of migrants had to be stopped. "The Hungarian government asks Hungarian citizens to say no to mandatory resettlement and to say no to the immigration policy of Brussels," Rogan told reporters. "Only Hungarians can decide with whom we want to live in Hungary." Rogan also said Hungary has doubled troops patrolling its southern border with Serbia, where 6,000 to 10,000 policemen and soldiers will be deployed from now on. More than 17,000 migrants have crossed into Hungary illegally from Serbia so far this year, according to the government. Rogan said human traffickers had begun to use drones to monitor the movement of Hungarian border patrols, adding Hungary would inform Serbian authorities about this. Orban's anti-immigration measures have been popular at home but criticised by rights groups. As of this month, a new law has taken effect which allows police to send back to Serbia illegal migrants detained within eight kilometres (five miles) of the border, drawing criticism from the U.N. refugee agency. (Additional reporting by Sandor Peto; Editing by Ralph Boulton and Raissa Kasolowsky)
Sitting in a plastic chair, the trim general in neat fatigues gestured towards his hometown Mosul, barely eight miles away, shimmering in the river plain below.
He told me: "You British and Americans have been plotting against the Sunni for decades. Daesh is your creation.
"This is a war to destroy the Sunnis organised by your people."
"Oh," I said, "I truly wish there had been some intelligent design behind what we have done to this region. I really do.
"But I have been working here since before Saddam fell. There was no intelligence. No design. There was just stupidity.
"Imagine children playing the piano with a hammer. That's what they were doing in Washington and London."
His face collapsed into incomprehension. I felt terrible.
His country had been wrecked, the region blighted by sectarian killing.
The Tigris River has literally been flowing with the blood of murdered Iraqis.
All an accident - the result of crass, uncomprehending stupidity which began with a misleading use of poor intelligence on Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" in the run-up to the start of the war in 2003.
Sir John Chilcot's report into the events will no doubt shed some new light onto the details of how it was possible to have made such an almighty mess.
But the toxic fallout of the war effort, led by Tony Blair and George Bush, continues to poison and spread horror into almost every corner of the Middle East and has driven terrorism around the world.
For the Iraqis, life is immeasurably worse now that it was under the brutal and malicious dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.
This week, at least 175 people were killed in a bombing of a Shia area in Baghdad by Islamic State, just the latest victims of the apocalyptic death cult which was spawned in the resistance against the US-led occupation of Iraq.
That occupation itself was so vividly incompetent that the conduct of its leaders would have been edited out of a political satire.
Story continues
Of course it is absurd to sack 400,000 battle-hardened soldiers and toss them onto the street without their pensions!
Of course it would be quite mad to give post-war reconstruction contracts to foreign companies when the Iraqis have one of the biggest, best, and unused domestic building industries in the world!
Of course it is unwise to privatise show factories, pharmaceutical operations and create unemployment, but not rebuild the oil-rich nation's ability to generate electrical power to provide clean water!
No one could be that stupid, surely? But there were American officials who were every bit as dangerously stupid as any fiction writer could have conjured.
And they were ably assisted by British officials who, if they saw what was going wrong, did nothing at all to alert the outside world to the wanton catastrophe that was being visited on Mesopotamia.
What happened to Iraq, because it was so violent and so pointless, has looked ever since like a conspiracy against Arabs and Muslims, and especially against Sunnis.
It has empowered Iran, a Shia theocracy; it has shattered Syria; it fuelled the Doomsday End Times cult of Daesh (Islamic State); it has caused a mass movement of refugees to Europe and destabilised the European Union, and it has been a driving energy behind al Qaeda and IS terror.
And it has confirmed the view among the peoples of the East that Western governments are maliciously intent on destroying their way of life, religion and culture.
Sadly, they're wrong about that. The West is doing all that, yes, but as a result of cock-ups - not conspiracies.
:: Full coverage of the Chilcot Report live on Sky News and on skynews.com.
Terrorism has a new enemy in the shape of the Iranian Hulk - a weightlifter who has vowed to battle ISIS on the front line.
Sajad Gharibi is an absolute behemoth of a man - and almost of all of his 24-and-a-half stone weight is made up of MUSCLE.
The 24-year-old, who is also dubbed the Persian Hercules, can lift up to 386lbs - around THREE STONE more than his own weight.
Dont make him angry: Sajad Gharibi is dubbed the Iranian Hulk for his intimidating physique (CEN)
Heavy: Salad weighs over 24 stone and most of it is muscle (CEN)
Since building up a 127,000 following on his social media accounts, the Hulk has quickly become an Internet sensation with those who cant get enough of his impressive frame.
In his free time, he also likes to take pictures with objects that look smaller when held next to him - like cans of Fanta.
Contrast: The Persian Hercules makes cans look very small (CEN)
Athlete: Sajad built up his body by weightlifting (CEN)
However, despite his intimidating appearance, friends say that Sajad has a big heart and is a gentle giant.
His muscles will instead go into scaring ISIS extremists as he joins the Iranian army in a bid to rid the region of terror.
Top pic: CEN
Muslims around the world mark end of Ramadan
Muslims around the world have been celebrating Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
We can help you make sense of the agribusiness industry, extending from chemicals and fertilizers used as inputs into agriculture, to the commodities, food and by-products that are an output to farming, with policy and regulation applied at every step of the value chain.
Arbor Investments has paid tribute to its co-founder and former vice chairman Joseph P. Campolo following his death after a battle with brain cancer.
YEREVAN, JULY 6, ARMENPRESS. National Assembly RPA MP Lernik Aleksanyan says today the most important is the issue of the NKRs national self-determination. Self-determination is an ongoing process. Nagorno Karabakh can become an independent, then to join Armenia, this means that now the problem is not the recognition of the NKRs independence, but rather the talk is about its self-determination. Nagorno Karabakh can be even recognized as an independent state, and join Armenia, it is the will of the NKRs people, he said in an interview with Armenpress.
Referring to Armenias membership in the CSTO, he said Armenias presence is necessary within these pro-Azerbaijani states.
Armenias presence is necessary in these circumstances. Armenia can have a very productive role in that structure for forming the opinion of the international community. It is better to be present, to pose issues, to prevent them, rather than to keep away from it, he said adding that in any case Armenia must first of all rely on its military potential.
In his turn Azat Arshakyan said Armenia doesnt have any interest from the CSTO, both military and economic.
On July 4 President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan received the Council members of the CSTO Foreign Ministers and the CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha who arrived in Yerevan to participate in the CSTO FMs Council session within the framework of Armenias chairmanship in the CSTO.
Nepal to have own satellite: Minister Rai
Minister for Information and Communications Sherdhan Rai says that Nepal is to have its own satellite.
Oscar Pistorius given six years for Reeva Steenkamp murder
South African Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius has been sentenced to six years in prison for the murder of his girlfriend in 2013.
It was announced today that sixty-four new jobs and over 262,500 in financial supports have been announced for sixteen Fingal start-ups and growing small businesses in the latest announcement of job-creation grants by the Fingal Local Enterprise Office (LEO) this week.
The sixteen local businesses were approved for business priming grants, business expansion grants and innovation grants by the Evaluation Committee of the Fingal Local Enterprise Office this month.
The Mayor of Fingal Cllr. Darragh Butler and the Chief Executive of Fingal County Council Paul Reid presented grant approval letters to each of the 16 businesses at a specially convened awards event in County Hall today, 5th July.
The sixteen start-up companies (located in Swords, Balbriggan, Howth Junction, Portmarnock, The Ward, Castleknock, Blanchardstown, Skerries, The Naul, Malahide and Lusk) were approved for Business Priming and Business Expansion Grants.
Included in this crop of exciting businesses are six food and drink start-ups, including Fingals first substantial Craft Beer brewery, a ready to cook vegetable meal producer and a ready to go healthy breakfast producer.
In addition, the Local Enterprise office approved funding for new jobs in international corporate tourism, an export-oriented craft producer, a cloud based business intelligence company specialising in hospital services, an engineering company producing solutions for food production, a ceramics manufacturer, a precision engineering company, a chemical product provider, and an Android tablet developer creating products for the over 65s.
A Business Priming Grant is a business start-up grant for qualifying small businesses. The Business Expansion grant is designed to assist the business in its growth phase after the initial 18 month start-up period.
Feasibility Study Grant assistance is provided to individuals or businesses that wish to develop new products or services or explore international markets. Business Priming and Expansion grants are capped at 80,000 per application, while Feasibility Study grants are 20,000 maximum.
Mayor Darragh Butler today commented, "Local business is the lifeblood of our economy and the local authority has a crucial role to ensure that small businesses and start-ups are given every opportunity to succeed."
He added, "I am delighted that our Local Enterprise Office in Fingal is proactively and successfully encouraging and incentivising entrepreneurship."
Source: www.businessworld.ie
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Irish consumer sentiment rose to a four-month high in June, a survey showed on Wednesday, although responses were given before Britain's vote to leave the European Union, which the authors said is likely to weigh on confidence going forward.
Ireland is considered to have more to lose from Brexit than other European Union economies and a survey of the services sector on Tuesday showed confidence tumbled to a near three-year low in June, with some firms concerned that activity will slow.
The KBC Bank Ireland/ESRI Consumer Sentiment Index rose to 103.4 in June from 98.1 in May. The index hit a 15-year high of 108.6 in January and is roughly around the same level it was at a year ago.
"By increasing both uncertainty and downside risks to the economic outlook, Brexit is likely to weigh on Irish consumer sentiment in the coming months," KBC chief economist Austin Hughes said.
"Consumer sentiment readings could remain very 'choppy' in the near-term with a risk of clearly softer readings in the next month or two. However, while we expect some weakening in sentiment, we don't expect any dramatic deterioration."
Hughes said the extent of the damage to sentiment should be limited in the near term as the early impact of Brexit is likely to be seen in external trade and investment rather than household spending.
Ireland's economy has grown faster than any other in Europe for the last three years and is expected to do so again in 2016, with a 4.9% expansion forecast. The government has cut its forecast for 2017 to around 3.4% from 3.9 percent, however, and warned that worse could be ahead if Britain strikes an unfavourable post-Brexit deal with the EU. (Reuters)
Source: www.businessworld.ie
About us
Published On Jul 06, 2016 03:24 PM By Raunak for Rolls-Royce Phantom
The eighth-generation Phantom will be based on the Rolls-Royces all-new aluminium architecture, which will also underpin future RR models!
Rolls-Royce has revealed the very first image of the next-generation Phantom, which will arrive in 2018. Calling it the 'image of the new Phantom' will be an overstatement since the makers have just teased its new aluminium chassis. The famed British luxury marque said that the development programme of the new Phantom is making an excellent progress at Rolls-Royces home in GoodWood. It will be based on an all-new aluminium architecture, which will also underpin all of the companys upcoming vehicles, including its first-ever, much-anticipated SUV, presently codenamed Cullinan.
Rolls-Royce said that the Phantom is often touted as the Best Car in the World and we dont doubt it either. The Phantom was the base upon which the renaissance of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars was built during the BMW era. The seventh-generation model was launched on January 1, 2003, almost thirteen years ago.
Whatever is mentioned above is all we have heard from Rolls-Royce. Besides this, the luxury automaker had announced earlier in February 2016 that the seventh-generation Phantom would see the end of its production this year. Presently, the Phantom is available in four versions the Phantom, the Extended Wheelbase, the Coupe and the Drophead Coupe.
The production of the Phantom will close on December 31, 2016, while the build of the very last Phantom Coupe and the Drophead Coupe will be completed in November 2016. Sadly, the Coupe and the Drophead Coupe will not be revived for the eighth generation. Rolls-Royce also said that the demand for each of the four current versions of the Phantom have remained strong and will be satisfied well into 2017.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of Phantoms death are greatly exaggerated, said Torsten Muller-Otvos, chief executive officer, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. The huge level of demand for Phantom VII, which we will fulfil well into 2017, clearly demonstrates that the Rolls-Royce customer and patron of true luxury will accept no compromise when considering the purchase of a super-luxury motor car, and will not be seduced by mass-luxury brands. I am proud and excited to confirm that a new Phantom is on the way and it will be a contemporary and beautiful Phantom befitting of its role as the flagship of global luxury."
Don't Miss: Rolls-Royce Unveils Its Vision Next 100 Concept
Read More on : Rolls Royce Phantom india
Modified On Jul 06, 2016 03:28 PM By Khan Mohd. for Toyota Innova Crysta 2016-2020
After its impressive run in the Indian auto market in the past two months since its launch, the Innova Crysta is now being offered in a petrol avatar. As per the official tweet, the Crysta petrols price starts at Rs 14.7 lakh. Bookings of the same are open now and deliveries will start from August. The formal launch is expected later this month.
As far as the petrol engine is concerned, Toyota will employ its indigenously developed 2.7-litre unit. However, this is not the first time the Innova is getting a petrol motor; earlier, its predecessor had a 2.0-litre engine, which eventually had to be discontinued due to consistent low demand. Whether Toyota will offer an automatic option with petrol or not is yet to be confirmed.
Sales of the Toyota MPV have been pretty strong, with its May sales figures reading 7,259 units while June ones clock in at 7,500. Earlier, the carmaker had ramped up the production of the vehicle from 6,000 units in May to 7,800 units in June. This increase in production will help Toyota cut long waiting periods, which currently stands at over three months at certain dealerships.
The continuing ban on 2,000cc or above capacity diesel motors barred the Innova Crysta from being sold in Delhi NCR & Kerala. It resulted in a loss of more than 800 units since December, as per N. Raja, director and senior vice president (sales & marketing), Toyota Kirloskar Motor. To offset the loss, the carmaker has accelerated its efforts in the R&D of the 2.7-litre petrol motor.
Presently, the vehicle is offered with 2.4-litre and a 2.8-litre diesel engines, which generate 150PS and 174PS of peak power respectively. The former is linked to a five-speed manual transmission while the latter is mated with a six-speed automatic gearbox.
Read More on : Innova Crysta india
Panel to probe into wall collapse that killed two
The MoHA-formed probe committee has been asked to submit its report in a week
Issues affecting credit union will get tangled up in the drafting of the Democratic national party platform. A July 1 draft of the party platform states that the Dodd-Frank Act should be defended and even expanded and the U.S. Postal Service should be allowed to offer basic banking services.
At a time when many of the largest banks have shunned communities across America, Democrats believe that we need to give Americans affordable banking options, including by empowering the United States Postal Service to facilitate the delivery of basic banking services, the document stated.
In January 2014, the USPS Office of Inspector General recommended that the postal service was well positioned to offer basic banking services.
News of a tractor driver getting fined and having points added to his licence after allowing a 50-car tailback on a road in Somerset sparked a swift response from Farmers Weekly readers.
Jake Fear, 20, pleaded guilty to driving without reasonable consideration for other road users the same charge police issue motorists for hogging the middle lane and driving slowly.
Below are some of the comments Farmers Weekly readers left on our Facebook wall.
What about when you get that one person behind you who will not overtake you, even if there is a clear stretch of road ahead?
People then pile up because they dont want to overtake a car and a tractor. Put in more pull-in places where we can pull over ones that arent littered with pot holes, too.
Catherine Dean
When a tractor driver does pull in to let a tailback of traffic pass on a busy road, other drivers wont give way to let the tractor back into the flow of traffic as nobody wants to be stuck behind the tractor.
Therefore, its a catch-22. Dont forget farmers and agricultural contractors have deadlines to meet, too.
Phil Curtis
What do you think? Do you have a view on this topic? If so, email them to fwfarmlife@rbi.co.uk
I got stuck behind three cyclists this morning for more than a mile and a half, they went past lots of places where they could have pulled over or given me more space to pass. Rather be stuck behind a tractor any day.
Shelly Chandler
The number of vehicles is irrelevant, its the time theyve been behind the tractor that should be the offence.
I farm half a mile from the A158 Skegness road at weekends in summer and holiday time cars are nose to tail so it would be impossible to have a vehicle number limit because youd be pulling over every 30 seconds and, when you have a tractor and trailer outfit that is maybe 50ft or longer, you cannot stop in many places.
Robert Waite
The driver should have got a warning, that is it, nothing more. Did the 50 cars behind him benefit from the fine and points on his license, no they didnt, another case of the police being over zealous.
There is no minimum speed limit on A and B roads, how many of us have been stuck behind retired folk doing 25mph for no reason? Do they get fined?
Neil Holdstock
It is about basic respect. While farmers do an important job, so do other road users who should also be able to use the roads with an expectation to get to their jobs on time.
Also, large tractors that straddle the white line need to move for oncoming traffic.
A Kiwi cousin farmer got stuck in a massive tailback because of a tractor near Whitby and he was appalled the young lad didnt pull over.
Janine Maidwell
The lack of places to pull over is what I would blame. The amount of laybys that have been closed over the past 10-15 years is ridiculous and then, if we pull over onto grass verges and we sink, they moan because the road needs closing for recovery.
Car drivers have a chance to pass and dont bother so you cant just blame a tractor driver people would soon be moaning if they didnt have food on their plates at night because we have to pull over to let every single vehicle past wasting hours every day.
Danny Hodgkinson
I was threatened with points for pulling over the other day so you cant win either way. Apparently the layby was a bus stop, too, but there was no bus or sign. Seems you cant win either way
Adam Marriott
Absolutely ridiculous. I am going to start reporting everyone who drives below 45mph, on a road who have a whole load of vehicles behind them, now because thats what the law has set the precedent on.
Jo Short
It is a hard one to call without witnessing it. I have been driving tractors for 40 or so years and have never had 50 cars following me so I cant imagine he was faultless.
However, I really dont know why a fine and points were called for? Surely a good old-fashioned telling off would have been sufficient?
Ivan Manley
Fifty-car tail back? He could have potentially held up emergency services responding to any kind of emergency, and also would have caused drivers to make dangerous manoeuvres, thus causing an accident.
Im all for farming and machinery on roads, it has to be there but some of the operators need to learn manners.
Matthew Lewis
This is a disgrace. What are farmers meant to do, tractors carrying heavy loads cannot go faster, and if the roads dont have laybys, then that is not farmers fault.
Nicky Jayne Heys
There could be paramedics, nurses and doctors that need to get to work in that queue.
Clare Cheetham
What about the caravans that clog up the roads and NEVER pull over or overtake? The lad was doing a job.
Dave Walter
I pull over whenever possible, but a lot of the places I use to use are now kerbed or fenced off. If fully loaded, there are fewer and fewer places to safely pull over.
James Ballantyne
Do you have a view on this topic? If so, email them to fwfarmlife@rbi.co.uk
The new Welsh farming minister has come under fire for suggesting farmers are perhaps not the best people to run a business.
Wrexham AM Lesley Griffiths, who was recently appointed as the new environment and rural affairs cabinet secretary, made the comments in a plenary debate.
They were made in response to a question about strategic initiatives in the Welsh Assembly Governments seven-year, 957m Rural Development Plan (2014-2020).
See also: Welsh agriculture gets new dedicated cabinet secretary
Two years into the RDP project, Welsh Conservatives told the Senedd Chamber that it had produced limited results despite promises from Rebecca Evans, the previous Welsh minister for food and farming, that the plan would have a transformational impact on the rural economy.
Ms Griffiths told the chamber: We do need to see much more of a transformational change, and we need to do that in partnership with the farmers.
I also think we need to look at how we can help them with the sustainability and the resilience of their businesses, and to look at the business side of it.
Because I think farmers, certainly in my very early discussions with them, are perhaps not the best people to run a business.
They havent that kind of business perspective, yet they want to work with us in relation to that. This is just some of the farmers I have spoken to early in the portfolioIm not saying all farmers at all.
The comments, made on 22 June, have only just come to light, following huge recent coverage in the media of the EU referendum.
The Welsh Conservatives said the remarks were likely to cause a great deal of offence to Waless farming community, which has 14,000 registered businesses and generates a 5.7bn annual turnover.
Calls for an apology
Speaking outside the Senedd Chamber on Tuesday (5 July), Andrew RT Davies, leader of the Welsh Conservatives, called on Ms Griffiths to make an immediate apology to Waless farming community.
Farmers in Wales contribute billions to the Welsh economy they directly employ 48,000 people and are among the most industrious and entrepreneurial members of our business community, said Mr Davies.
To say that farmers are not the best people to run a business is not only highly offensive but calls into question whether she is in fact the right person to take this brief forward.
It simply betrays her ignorance of this vital artery of the Welsh economy.
In an exclusive interview with Farmers Weekly last month, Ms Griffiths admitted that she had no background or expertise in farming, but was keen to get to grips with some of the key issues in Welsh agriculture.
Devkota is an expert in federalism and local governments, and is an independent member of the National Assembly.
Prez pardons jail time for shooter
President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on Monday granted pardon to a notorious culprit who had been doing time for attempted murder.
- A court in Spain has found Lionel Messi and his father guilty of tax evasion
- The duo have been sentenced to 21 months behind bars
- The Barcelona player and his father Jorge do not have any criminal record
Barcelona forward Lionel Messi and his father Jorge have been sentenced to 21 months in prison for tax fraud, Eurosport reports.
The Messi's however wont spent any time behind bars due to their clean criminal record.
Lionel Messi
The Messis were found to have evaded tax on Lionels image rights, owing more than 4m in back payments.
The Court of Catalonia has now taken action and now sentenced the pair to just under two years in prison.
However, as the sentence is short of two years, and neither Lionel nor Jorge have a criminal record, they wont be required to serve any jail time.
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Leo Messi had argued that he wasnt aware of the tax arrangements set in place by his father and other advisors.
The state attorney, Mario Maza however compared the player to a mafia boss, who denies knowing any the illegal operations were going on in his name.
The defendants can appeal to the supreme court, the Barcelona local court said in its statement. Messi and his father had already paid 5 million euros to the tax authorities as a "corrective" measure after formal investigations were opened.
Recall that Messi was named 10th on Forbes Magazine's list of the world's highest-earning athletes over the past decade, with an estimated income of $350 million during this period. ($1 = 0.9034 euros)
Source: Legit.ng
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.
On Wednesday, July 6, Nigeria lost one of its finest politician and former presidential candidate.
Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi died in a hospital in London at about 4:07 pm today.
Late Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi
Legit.ng lists 10 important things to know about the man best remembered for his pioneering role in the creation of the National Security Organisation (NSO).
1. Alhaji Umaru Ali Shinkafi hails from Zamfara state.
2. He was a politician and former federal commissioner of internal affairs from 1975-1979.
3. He was a presidential aspirant during the Third Nigerian Republic.
4. He was the head of the secret police, the Nigeria Security Organisation (NSO), which has been rebranded Department of State Services (DSS), from 1979 to 1983.
5. He was also the vice-presidential candidate of Olu Falae in the APP/AD alliance in 1999.
READ ALSO: Former presidential candidate Umaru Shinkafi is dead
6. Shinkafi joined the Nigerian police force in 1959, after passing through the police college in Kaduna.
7. In 1973, he graduated from the University of Lagos and a year later, he graduated from the Nigerian Law School.
8. Shinkafi held the traditional title of Marafan Sokoto.
9. He is survived by three wives, and five children. One of his daughters is Zainab, wife of Governor Atiku Bagudu of Kebbi state, and another is Hadiza, the wife of Zamfara governor, AbdulAzeez Yari.
10. Shinkafi was one of the promoters of the Nigerian National Congress (NNC) a political association formed in 1989 after the disbanding of poltiical groups by the Babangida administration.
Source: Legit.ng
A historic moment has been made with the opening of the Starwood Hotels & Resorts
Four Points Havana in Cuba on June 29. This is the first American hotel to welcome guests to the Pearl of the Antilles in almost 60 years.
The opening of the hotel is a result of innovative deals by Starwood in Cube earlier this year that states Starwood as the first U.S. based hospitality company to enter Cuba. Four Points Havana is located in the Miramar district, which is a financial and business center where many international embassies are located, and owned by Grupo Hotelero Gaviota and managed by Starwood Hotels & Resorts.
The hotel offers guests 186 rooms, 1,000 square feet of facilities, breakfast and lunch at
El Olivo, full-service dining at Don Quixote and poolside snacks. Local beers will be available such as Cristal and Bucanero which will be featured in the brands signature Best Brews at the lobby bar. Amenities include a business facility, Wi-Fi throughout the hotel, 24-hour fitness center and a fully equipped spa with a steam bath, sauna and a variety of massage treatments available.
We are thrilled to once again be pioneers with our groundbreaking entry into Cuba, offering our guests a way to stay with Starwood in this sought after destination, said Starwoods Senior Vice President and Chief of Latin America Operations, Jorge Giannattasio. As one of the most successful brands in the Latin America region, the Four Points brands aggressive footprint18 hotels in 9 countriescaters to business travelers from around the world. We are confident that it will be a perfect fit for this dynamic market.
Four Points has more than 200 hotels in nearly 40 countries. The company continues to boast Starwoods largest channel while they enter new markets to further their track of expanding their collection of rooms by more than 60 percent in the next few years.
Be a part of this monumental landmark in history and visit Four Points Havana for your next vacation destination.
Lauren Spiler is a freelance journalist based in Athens, Georgia, but most call her Spiler.
People are protesting in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and online after a black man by the name of Alton Sterling was shot dead by two police officers at point blank range.
Sterling, 37, was killed while selling CDs outside a convenience store. Officers responded to a disturbance call around 12:35am Tuesday morning (local time) from a complainant who said a black male selling CDs had threatened him with a gun.
A witness caught part of the incident on camera. In the 48-second footage, you can hear officers yell Hes got a gun! Gun! and later You fucking move, I swear to god.
Two officers are seen wrangling a man to the ground on his back. One officer is pulling the the mans left arm down while he presses into the the mans chest. Theres a lot of yelling, and then the officer on the mans chest pulls out his gun and shoots him twice. The bystander drops their phone, but after a brief pause, you can hear two more shots.
Police later confirmed in a media statement that Sterling died of multiple (meaning more than two) gunshot wounds to the head and chest.
How many more times must this happen for us to matter? How many more must we lose?
BLACK. LIVES. MATTER. #AltonSterling Zendaya (@Zendaya) July 6, 2016
The owner of the convenience store, Abdullah Muglahi, told local media that although Sterling was armed, he was not holding his gun; it was later found it Sterlings pocket.
Both officers have been placed on administrative leave. They will apparently be identified to the public on Wednesday morning (local time). An investigation is ongoing.
Although police seized CCTV footage from the store, and will be examining body cameras and dash cameras, the police officers body cams apparently came loose during the incident.
Later that same day, Sterlings family and friends gathered outside the convenience store to protest the shooting. By 7:30pm, the crowd had swelled to more than 100, with some people carrying signs and chanting Black lives matter and Hands up, dont shoot.
Sterlings death has also sparked a wave of grief and outrage on social media.
#AltonSterling wasnt killed for selling CDs. He was lynched for being black. Broderick Greer (@BroderickGreer) July 6, 2016
Before you say the officers fears for their lives. Ask yourself why did #AltonSterling fear for his. Kwame Rose (@kwamerose) July 6, 2016
Yet again. What is there to say at this point? #AltonSterling roxane gay (@rgay) July 6, 2016
They tackled him.
They threw him to the ground.
They pinned him down.
They murdered him at point blank range.#AltonSterling #TheCounted Sam White (@samwhiteout) July 6, 2016
In the morning they will let us know that #AltonSterling stole a bike when he was 12 Jayz unclaimed kid (@MsJennaJacobs) July 6, 2016
Well have #AltonSterling entire criminal history in 24 hours while we couldnt even get a mugshot for that rapist Oliver Willis (@owillis) July 6, 2016
#AltonSterling was the father of five. A neighbor said of him, Whatever he cooked, he cooked enough for everybody. Jesse Benn (@JesseBenn) July 6, 2016
A point-blank execution. I am sick and heartbroken. Say his name. RIP. #AltonSterling Em Harriss (@EmHarriss) July 6, 2016
The footage of the shooting can be viewed here, but please be warned that it is very graphic.
Source: The Advocate.
Photo: Supplied.
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RPP, RPP-N agree to announce merger soon
Rastriya Prajatantra Party and Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal (RPP-N) have agreed to announce merger of the two parties soon.
TH Real Estate, on behalf of its pan-European retail Fund, Herald, has sold Hydrion retail park in Arlon, capital of the southern Belgian province of Luxembourg. The retail park was acquired by Redevco, on behalf of one of its clients, for c. 60 million.
Carl White, Fund Manager at TH Real Estate,...
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There was a period during the last ice age when temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere went on a rollercoaster ride, plummeting and then rising again every 1,500 years or so. Those abrupt climate changes wreaked havoc on ecosystems, but their cause has been something of a mystery. New evidence published this week in the leading journal Science shows for the first time that the ocean's overturning circulation slowed during every one of those temperature plunges -- at times almost stopping.
"People have long supposed this link between overturning circulation and these abrupt climate events. This evidence implicates the ocean," said L. Gene Henry, the lead author of the study and a graduate student at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
The impact of changes in the ocean overturning circulation on climate has become a hot topic today as global temperatures rise and melting sea ice and glaciers add freshwater to the North Atlantic. A 2015 study suggested that cooling in the North Atlantic may be due to a reduction in the overturning circulation, while a 2016 study suggested there had not been enough freshwater to have an effect.
The new study explores what happened to ocean circulation when Earth went through a series of abrupt climate changes in the past during a time when ice covered part of North America and temperatures were much colder than today. It looks at the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, which distributes heat as it moves warmer surface water from the tropics toward Greenland and the high northern latitudes and carries colder, deeper water from the North Atlantic southward.
Using chemical tracers in sediment that builds up on the sea floor over time, Henry and his coauthors were able to document the relative speed of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation during each abrupt climate change during the last ice age.
The chemical tracers show that the speed of the ocean overturning circulation changed first, and that sea surface temperature changed a while later. That suggests that cooling may start with changes in the ocean circulation, influencing the northern sea surface and atmosphere, said co-author Jerry McManus, a professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Evidence from ice cores and deep-sea sediment has shown that the northern climate also cooled before the southern climate during these abrupt changes, creating a "bipolar seesaw," with the north cool while the south was warm, and the south cooling as the north warmed.
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The scientists stress that more work is needed to determine whether changes in ocean circulation initiated the abrupt climate changes or were an intermediary effect initially triggered by something else. "Our study supports the view that changes in ocean circulation were at least in part responsible for causing abrupt climate changes. However, what in turn caused those changes in circulation remains a mystery," Henry said.
Also unclear is why these abrupt climate shifts, also seen in previous ice ages, haven't happened in the past 10,000 years. The instability appears to occur only in certain temperature ranges, and when there is a large amount of land ice that could contribute freshwater.
"We would all like to understand better how the Earth's climate operates," McManus said. "This demonstrates the crucial role that global circulation can play. The dynamics of the deep ocean directly influence the Earth's climate."
The series of abrupt climate changes studied here occurred between 60,000 and 25,000 years ago, ending as the last ice age peaked. Each followed a general pattern in the Northern Hemisphere: The cooling happening over hundreds to 1,000 years, then the frigid temperatures persisted for a few hundred years in what is known as a stadial, McManus said. Once warming started, it happened very rapidly, with a rise of 3 to 6 degrees Celsius in average sea surface temperature and larger changes over Greenland within a span of decades.
During every cold northern stadial, the overturning circulation had slowed, so it wasn't bringing as much heat northward from the tropics and Southern Hemisphere, the study shows. The chemical tracers also suggest that circulation slowed almost to a halt during certain stadials known as Heinrich events, when massive amounts of icebergs broke off and drifted away from the Laurentide ice sheet, which covered a large part of North America at the time. Icebergs carry freshwater that can affect ocean circulation, and computer models have suggested that adding that much freshwater to the Atlantic could shut down circulation. Exactly what influence the icebergs had during these periods will be the target of future research.
To determine how ocean circulation changed, the scientists measured three types of chemical tracers. By comparing the ratio of protactinium-231 to thorium-230, two daughter isotopes of uranium decay that remain in seawater for relatively short but consistently different periods of time before drifting into the seafloor, they could determine when circulation was strongest. Another isotope, carbon-13, captured in tiny shells, is more common in North Atlantic waters than in southern waters. When circulation was strong, protactinium was low and carbon 13 was high, because more protactinium was carried away by the current and more northern waters formed.
Axel Timmermann, a professor of oceanography at the University of Hawaii who studies abrupt climate changes and was not involved in this study, called it a "breakthrough analysis."
"Large changes in the North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation are thought to have played a major role in generating millennial-scale global variability, known as Dansgaard-Oechger events, during the last glacial period. The paper by Henry, McManus and colleagues finally provides supporting evidence for this fundamental scientific hypothesis," Timmermann said.
The other coauthors of the paper are Bill Curry of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences; Natalie Roberts and Alex Piotrowski of the University of Cambridge; and Lloyd Keigwin of Woods Hole. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Comer Science and Education Foundation, and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Climate Center.
Tubingen researchers in international team uncover grisly evidence that Neanderthals butchered their own kind some 40,000 years ago.
Neanderthal bones from an excavation in Belgium have yielded evidence of intentional butchering. The findings, from the Goyet caves near Namur, are the first evidence of cannibalism among Neanderthals north of the Alps. The skeletal remains were radiocarbon-dated to an age of around 40,500 to 45,500 years. Remarkably, this group of late Neanderthals also used the bones of their kind as tools, which were used to shape other tools of stone.
Professors Herve Bocherens and Johannes Krause of Tubingen's Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, along with Cosimo Posth and Christoph Wissing, also of the University of Tubingen, took part in the investigations. A review of the finds from the Troisieme caverne of Goyet combined results from various disciplines; it identified 99 previously uncertain bone fragments as Neanderthal bones. That means Goyet has yielded the greatest amount of Neanderthal remains north of the Alps.
By making a complete analysis of the mitochondrial DNA of ten Neanderthals, the researchers doubled the existing genetic data on this species of humans which died out some 30,000 years ago. They confirmed earlier studies' results, which showed relatively little genetic variation in late European Neanderthals -- in other words, that they were closely related to one another. The findings have been published in the latest Scientific Reports.
The Troisieme caverne of Goyet was excavated nearly 150 years ago. Today, researchers are able to extract vast amounts of information using current methods -- such as precise digital measurement and categorization of the bones, examination of the conditions in which the bone fragments were preserved, as well as isotopic and genetic analysis.
Some Neanderthal remains from Goyet have been worked by human hands, as evidenced by cut marks, pits and notches. The researchers see this as an indication that the bodies from which they came were butchered. This appears to have been done thoroughly; the remains indicate processes of skinning, cutting up, and extraction of the bone marrow. "These indications allow us to assume that Neanderthals practised cannibalism," says Herve Bocherens. But he adds that it is impossible to say whether the remains were butchered as part of some symbolic act, or whether the butchering was carried out simply for food. "The many remains of horses and reindeer found in Goyet were processed the same way," Bocherens says. Researchers have long debated the evidence of cannibalism among Neanderthals, which until now focused on the sites of El Sidron and Zafarraya in Spain and two French sites, Moula-Guercy and Les Pradelles. The Troisieme caverne of Goyet is the first example of this phenomenon from more northern parts of Europe.
Four bones from Goyet clearly indicate that Neanderthals used their deceased relatives' bones as tools; one thigh bone and three shinbones were used to shape stone tools. Animal bones were frequently used as knapping tools. "That Neanderthal bones were used for this purpose -- that's something we had seen at very few sites, and nowhere as frequently as in Goyet," Bocherens says.
The new findings open up many possibilities regarding the way late Neanderthals dealt with their dead in this last period before they died out. Bocherens says none of the other Neanderthal sites in the region have yielded indications that the dead were dealt with as they were in Goyet. On the contrary, they have yielded burials. Researchers say that, in addition, other northern European Neanderthal sites had a greater variety and various arsenals of stone tools. "The big differences in the behavior of these people on the one hand, and the close genetic relationship between late European Neanderthals on the other, raise many questions about the social lives and exchange between various groups," says Bocherens.
A long-term plan for managing noise in shallow parts of the ocean such as Falmouth Bay is needed to protect the environment, scientists have said.
Humanmade noise in the marine environment can increase stress in animals, alter their behavior, and displace them from habitats important to their daily lives.
There has so far been limited scientific research on methods to assess long-term trends in marine noise in coastal regions, but engineers and biologists from the Universities of Exeter and Bath, have been investigating how best to monitor this increasing human influence in our seas.
They used underwater sound recorders in Falmouth Bay for 14 months at a marine renewable energy test site and have found managing noise in shallow coastal environments will likely require a very different strategy to other, deeper ocean environments.
Lead author of the research, Dr Joanne Garrett, from the University of Exeter, said: "We found considerable variation in noise throughout the year. As well as anthropogenic noise sources such as shipping, we found that natural environmental conditions, such as waves and tide, also affect the sound levels.
"Both of these factors highlight the need for tailored and long-term monitoring to develop a robust understanding of our effects on the marine environment."
Dr Matthew Witt, from the University of Exeter's Environment and Sustainability Institute, said: "This work underlines the need for continued and focused research in the area of human noise, both on techniques to collect, analyse and interpret data, and on the biological implications of noise on marine species and consequences for marine ecosystems upon which we are so very much dependent."
Dr Philippe Blondel, from the University of Bath's Centre for Space, Atmosphere and Oceanic Science, said: "This work provides much-needed data to inform the debate about the impacts of human activities on marine environments, by providing measurements over several years in a sensitive and important area of the British Isles.
"This data will be extremely useful to both European regulators, who lead the way in terms of environmental monitoring, and standardisation bodies like British Standards and the International Standards Organization."
The way we age might be determined long before the aging process starts and the first signs appear. Scientists at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC), in partnership with groups at the universities of Zaragoza and Santiago de Compostela and the UK's Medical Research Council, have uncovered how the combination and interaction between our two genomes, the nuclear and the mitochondrial, triggers a cellular adaptation that has repercussions throughout our lives and determines how we age.
The study, led by Dr. Jose Antonio Enriquez, sheds light on the physiological differences between individuals and opens the way to the study of common aging-related conditions, such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer. The Nature study also provides extremely valuable information about how to best use mitochondrial donation technology. This therapeutic approach, popularly known for producing "three-parent babies," is designed to avoid the transmission of inherited pathogenic mutations and has already been approved in the UK.
Of the more than 20000 human genes, 37 are found not in the cell nucleus but in the mitochondria, small organelles that function as energy factories. The small mitochondrial genome, which we inherit from our mothers, is known as the mitochondrial DNA. Like its nuclear equivalent, the mitochondrial genome shows a degree of genetic variability, both in mice and humans.
The CNIC-led team found that non-pathogenic mitochondrial DNA variants have different impacts on organismal metabolism and aging. Dr. Enriquez explains that the study uncovers how "variation in just a few genes can determine whether we experience healthy aging." The results represent a major advance in our understanding of the aging process, showing that "non-pathogenic differences in mitochondrial function have direct repercussions on the pace of aging."
"The key to this study was understanding how the combination and interaction of our two genomes, the nuclear and the mitochondrial, triggers a cellular adaptation with repercussions throughout our lives," explains study first author Dr. Ana Latorre-Pellicer.
By using animal models, the research team obtained robust evidence that the simple measure of changing an animal's mitochondrial DNA triggers a series of adaptive cellular mechanisms in young animals that ensure a more healthy aging process. "If we can understand the biology underlying healthy aging that is free of age-associated diseases, we will be in a position to maintain long-lasting health during the aging process," affirms Dr. Latorre-Pellicer.
Three-parent babies
Mitochondrial donation technology has the potential to prevent the transmission of disease-causing mitochondrial DNA. This therapeutic approach, aimed at avoiding transmission of heritable pathological mutations, consists of replacing the suboptimal maternal mitochondria with mitochondria from a healthy donor. However, the use of this technology, popular known for producing "three-parent babies," and which is already approved in the UK, requires a thorough understanding of the physiological impact of mitochondrial DNA variability.
The results of the study underline the importance of making sure that the donor mitochondrial DNA in mitochondrial donation procedures is an appropriate match for the recipient's nuclear genome. The CNIC researchers are keen to stress that the potential risks of this procedure should not be ignored. "Just as with organ transplantation and blood transfusion, it is important to select mitochondrial donors, to ensure that the new mitochondrial DNA is genetically similar to that of the mother whose eggs require mitochondrial DNA replacement," concludes Dr. Enriquez.
Wednesday, 06 July 2016 09:51:20 (GMT+3) | Shanghai
Inner Mongolia-based Chinese steelmaker Baotou Iron and Steel (Baogang) has announced that it has delivered 15,000 mt of rail steel for National Hu-Zhun-E Railway Project, accounting for 50 percent of the overall rail steel needed in the project in question.
The Hu-zhun-E Railway is an important project in the west Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which is listed in the National Mid-long term Railway project plan. It is designed to have a total length of 245 kilometers and run for 160 kilometers per hour when completed.
Tuesday, 05 July 2016 23:12:16 (GMT+3) | Sao Paulo
Aceros Arequipa, one of Peru s largest steelmakers, is considering building a new EAF mill in the province of Pisco, the company said in a public filing at the nations securities exchange commission, SMV.According to the steelmaker, it has contracted an engineering research project to determine the attractiveness of the initiative. The company said the new EAF mill is one of the investment projects its been analyzing.Aceros Arequipa said the companys board is responsible for approving the companys investment projects; however, the board is yet to make a decision on the advancement or not of the project.A companys executive told Peruvian media the mill could be built in 2018.
Corbin Imgrund
Emma was found living under a bridge in Dowdy Ferry, an illegal dog dumping ground in Dallas. Dead and unwanted dogs are dumped there every day.
Corbin Imgrund
A local rescue group, Dallas DogRRR, discovered Emma living in Dowdy Ferry, and tried for weeks to rescue her but was unable to catch her because she was so scared. While living on her own, Emma became very sick, and was eventually too weak to run away anymore.
Dodo Shows Soulmates Growling Little Kitten Becomes Her Mom's Best Friend
Corbin Imgrund
After being rescued, Emma went to live with Corbin Imgrund, who was supposed to be her foster dad - but after meeting Emma, he knew he had to adopt her. "I said I would foster Emma, but decided to adopt her about a week later after learning how serious her medical needs were," Imgrund told The Dodo. "I fell in love with Emma immediately and knew very few people would be in the financial position to save her, so I decided to adopt her."
Corbin Imgrund
When Emma first went to live with Imgrund, she was very weak. The vets were unable to figure out what was making her so sick, and her health continued to decline. "Emma was incredibly sweet, quiet and low energy," Imgrund said. "Her illness was definitely affecting her personality." Imgrund already had two rescue dogs at home, who were a little unsure of tiny Emma at first, but ultimately accepted her as part of their pack. "The other dogs could definitely tell she was sick when I first brought her back," Imgrund said. "My Chihuahua-terrier mix, Lizzie, was frightened by the way she looked initially, and my beagle, Butters, was extremely protective of her. He would sleep in front of her kennel at night to protect her."
Corbin Imgrund
Weeks went by, and Emma only continued to get sicker. The vets treated her for a staph infection and histiocytosis, but nothing worked. As her health declined, her nose also began to deteriorate, which affected her breathing. "When Emma was at her worst I had to wake up hourly during the night to give her breathing treatments," Imgrund said. "There were definitely long periods of time where we weren't sure if she would survive."
Corbin Imgrund
At a loss for what to do, Imgrund had Emma's blood work completely redone and sent to Texas A&M;'s medical research hospital for further analysis - and finally, there was an answer. Emma was diagnosed with histoplasmosis, a rare fungal infection that she'd contracted while living in Dowdy Ferry. The vets immediately changed her meds, and within days, her health finally began to improve. Unfortunately, as Emma healed, her nose fell off completely and healed shut, leaving her only able to breathe out of her mouth. Surgery was attempted to try and open her nostrils up, but was unsuccessful, and so Emma's vets decided to wait until her histoplasmosis was gone to try again.
Corbin Imgrund
Six months later, Emma was finally ready for her next surgery, and this time they decided to open just one nostril slit instead of two. The surgery was successful, and Emma is now, finally, in recovery. "Emma is doing great," Imgrund said. "She is my most playful dog and goes around sniffing everything now that she can breathe again!"
Corbin Imgrund
Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
For more than three years, the adult red fox that photographer Ian Murray loved to capture on camera was simply known as "Mom."
"Mom" with his family | Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
It was only a few months ago that Murray learned that Mom was, in fact, a male. His name was appropriately changed to Dad.
Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
What made the fox such a fascinating subject to photograph was how he took care of his children year after year. But sadly, just last month, Dad's life came to an abrupt end.
Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
He was run over by a car while carrying food back to the den of his family - a female fox and their kits.
Dodo Shows Cat Crazy Fluffy Cat Wants To Sit On His Dad At All Times
Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
"He was so gentle and loving with the kits, and at the same time such a good provider," Murray wrote on Facebook, dedicating an album of photos featuring the fox to his memory. "I'm going to miss this wild animal."
Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
Murray met Dad through a friend, who told him that there were foxes living on his property in Nova Scotia, Canada. "I was welcome to come over and take some pictures," Murray told The Dodo.
Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
"[Dad] was special in so many ways," he said. What was most striking to Murray was how much the fox seemed to enjoy being a father - whether he was feeding his kits, grooming them, showing them around their den area or even "scolding" them when necessary.
Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
Murray said Dad was friendly toward the humans he knew, and rightfully wary of the ones that he didn't. However, Murray and Dad managed to form a once-in-a-lifetime bond.
Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
"He knew my truck and would trot over to say hello when I pulled into the yard," Murray said. "He would sit fairly close to me when I was sitting on the ground taking pictures of his family."
Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
Even then, Murray noted, Dad wasn't entirely focused on the photographer - his attention always remained mainly on his children, a true testament to his unwavering devotion.
Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
Dad, whom Murray was used to seeing walk up and down the dirt roads of his friend's property with a mouthful of mice to take back to his family, made his last trip out and about early last week.
Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
Murray's friend gave Dad a respectful burial on his property - the home he had known best, leaving his surviving children to his mate to finish raising.
Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
"[The mother] is not as approachable as the dad was," Murray said. "Whenever I approach the den and see her, I leave immediately to respect her privacy, and now especially to preserve her relationship with her family."
Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
Even though Dad's partner isn't as sociable around humans, Murray is glad nonetheless that she is around to continue keeping watch over Dad's kits until they are old enough to be on their own.
Dad's kits from this year | Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
As for Dad, who's built up an international legion of admirers, according to Murray, his legacy as a kind, attentive parent (and his former identity as a "female" fox) won't be forgotten.
Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
"Response [to Dad's death] has been remarkable, and I must say all positive, yet sad, empathetic and caring," Murray said.
Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
"He had a lot of fans on Facebook before his passing, but he was almost universally known as 'Mom,'" he said.
Ian Murray/Wallace River Photography
Throughout his 30-year career at Torstar Corp., David Holland has made difficult choices about the future: his decision to retire was one of them.
The president and chief executive of the publisher of the Toronto Star and community newspapers across Ontario said Wednesday that he will retire this fall after seven years as CEO, which in this era, feels long enough.
Since taking the reins at Torstar in 2009, and before that in various senior management roles, he was ultimately responsible for navigating the news company through the continuing shift in the advertising business to the emergence of new online competitors and into the mobile news age.
You have no choice but to take some measured risk and pursue different types of opportunities that could yield a future thats more promising, he said.
Id rather try and it not work out than never try.
Holland, who started with the company in 1986, said that he is proud of many of those moves from an investment in Auto Trader owner Hebdo Mag in 1989 to the decision to sell the romance book publishing segment Harlequin in 2014 to using that capital to retire debt and invest in a digitally-oriented future through its investment in VerticalScope last year.
Hes also relieved the company exercised prudence in choices not to invest such as its decision not to buy the CanWest newspapers in 2010 when that company was in bankruptcy protection and forced to sell off its newspapers.
We didnt chase it and I think, with the benefit of hindsight, it was wise to be as disciplined as we were.
As technology rapidly changes audience habits and advertising options, investment in the industry has become riskier because confidence in the outcome is much lower, he said.
Fifteen to 20 years ago you could make an investment in a paper and have some confidence around the outlook for the next five to 10 years, he said.
Im not sure there are many things that you can invest in today that you feel highly confident in the outlook.
Still, hes confident that the focus on investigations at the Toronto Star, as well as in-depth coverage of local news will help distinguish Torstars well-known community brands in an era of overwhelming supply of online news.
Whats become more difficult is the business model. Supporting investment in that newsgathering continues to be under pressure and I dont think anybody has unlocked the code yet, he said.
And its not from lack of effort, or lack of experimentation, and were still working hard to try to unlock that code.
Thats why Torstar decided to be flexible with experimentation in business models, he said, first with paywalls and more recently with its Star Touch tablet app.
The tablet investment was based on finding a way to renew reader engagement with the Toronto Star brand. The experiments traction is slower than management would like, but does have a core group of users who spend an average of 30 minutes per day on it a level that surpasses time spent with our brands on websites, Facebook or Twitter, Holland said.
Holland, 58, said he plans to depart later this fall and is committed to ensuring an orderly and successful transition.
An executive search firm has been hired to find the right candidate for the joint position of president and CEO of Torstar and publisher of the Toronto Star. The board expects to name a successor by late fall.
Holland said he is prepared to help the board if asked and offered some advice to Torstars future CEO.
Weve got terrific brands and we need to continue to be innovative around revenue and develop as better marketers of what we are.
Holland has had a front seat to the biggest overhaul the news business has ever seen. And after rising through the ranks at Torstar for three decades, he said he hopes he made a contribution to a business that makes a difference in peoples lives.
I think a legacy would be that I contributed to navigating through what was obviously a challenging period in the industry and I played a small part in setting up Torstar for its future.
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Sagoon invites investors
Sagoon, a social commerce platform founded by a non-resident Nepali in Washington, DC, has announced an opportunity for accredited investors to invest as little as $5,000 and own a piece of the company.
Infidelity site Ashley Madison, famously hacked last year, is now being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission.
The new CEO Rob Segal and President James Millership of the sites parent company Avid Life Media told Reuters about the investigation. Avid also shared a report by consulting firm Ernst & Young that found Ashley Madison had used computer programs, or bots, to impersonate women and engage men subscribers.
The company does not know whether the use of bots is critical to the FTCs focus or not. Segal told Reuters, thats a part of the ongoing process that were going through ... its with the FTC right now.
Avid quit using the fake bot profiles in North America in 2014 and globally in 2015, Millership says in a post Tuesday on the Ashley Madison blog. Some U.S. users exchanged messages with foreign bots until late in 2015, according to the report.
My understanding is that bots are widespread in the industry, but they are no longer being used, and will not be used, at Avid Life Media and Ashley Madison, Millership said.
The FTC, which declined to comment on the situation, has taken up the case of bots sometimes termed fembots when they impersonate women in the past. In October 2014, JDI Dating paid $616,165 (U.S.) as part of an FTC settlement for using fake, computer-generated profiles.
Ashley Madisons new executive leadership is seeking to recover from a costly hack last July that resulted in millions of its users information posted online. Then-CEO Noel Biderman resigned in the wake of the anonymous hack.
The incident cost Avid more than a quarter of its revenue and the company faces U.S. and Canadian class action lawsuits tied to the incident. Hired in April, the executives said that the company is putting millions toward better security and improved, more private payment options.
Originally marketed as a website for married people, with the motto of life is short, have an affair, Ashley Madisons website now bills itself as more than an affair site. It boasts 46.6 million members.
A year ago, Avid Life Media was silenced by a devastating, criminal hack that affected our company and some of our members. The company is truly sorry for how peoples lives and relationships may have been affected by the criminal theft of personal information, Segal said in the post. Thats why were charting a new course and making some big changes.
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OTTAWAAn internal federal analysis says lower income Canadians remain highly dependent on cars to get to work a finding that surfaces as Ottawa considers infrastructure investment models that could put more toll booths on the countrys roads.
The February briefing note was prepared weeks before the Trudeau government signalled its intention to engage institutional investors, such as pension funds, to help raise money for public infrastructure projects.
Senior pension plan officials have said they are looking to invest in infrastructure projects with reliable, predictable returns that could include user fees like road tolls.
The Finance Department memo said that user fees ensure those who benefit most from infrastructure are the ones who pay for it.
But a case study contained in the secret briefing package warned that when it comes to road tolls, a significant proportion of lower-income Canadians could be forced to dig into their wallets.
The document said about 85 per cent of people whose after-tax earnings were in the top two fifths of the income spectrum commuted in private vehicles.
By comparison, 77 per cent of taxpayers in the bottom fifth of income earners also took private vehicles to work, the briefing said.
Higher income people do tend to use road infrastructure more than lower income people, said the study, which aimed to evaluate the potential implications of charging user fees on roads and highways.
However, lower income people still rely heavily on road infrastructure.
The document, prepared for deputy finance minister Paul Rochon, was obtained recently by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.
The analysis also noted that about 17 per cent of taxpayers in the bottom fifth of earners pay for road infrastructure through their taxes, even though they dont directly use it to commute to work such as those who walk to and from their jobs.
But in general, the document said imposing user fees on public infrastructure is typically considered regressive because people of all income levels are usually required to pay the same amount.
The regressivity of user fees on roads, for example, would be especially acute in regions where there are fewer substitute methods of transportation, said the partially redacted memo.
In contrast, it can be argued that in cases where higher-income individuals use relatively more of the infrastructure, general taxation is implicitly more regressive than charging user fees since charging user fees would remove the kind of subsidization implicit in the general tax system.
The note also laid out two perspectives on equity.
One view argues that individuals should pay for public infrastructure based on their incomes to ease the burden on lower earners. The other states that people should pay for the benefits they receive from the infrastructure rather than asking non-users to subsidize it via general taxation.
The subject of user fees on public infrastructure in Canada has gained attention in recent months.
Since their March budget, the federal Liberals have said they would welcome some private investment cash to help enhance Ottawas commitment to spend $120 billion on infrastructure over the next decade.
I think just to meet the needs of the communities, government investments are not going to be sufficient on their own, so we need to engage (the) private sector, Infrastructure Amarjeet Sohi told The Canadian Press in a recent interview.
All government resources are not going to meet that need, so we need to unlock the pension funds.
Pension funds have said theyre looking to invest in projects that would generate steady returns everything from snack bar sales to road tolls.
Andrew Claerhout, who leads the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan infrastructure group, recently said major federal assets like airports and ports would offer some of the most intriguing opportunities for private investment should they ever go up for sale.
Claerhout also said certain types of provincial and municipal infrastructure, such as waste water, utilities and highways, can also be attractive to big investors.
Any implementation of road tolls, for example, would fall under municipal and provincial jurisdictions.
When asked about the possibility that inviting institutional investors to the table could eventually lead to the installation of new road tolls, Sohi insisted Ottawa would respect the choices of other governments.
We dont tell municipalities and provinces how they run their infrastructure, how they build their infrastructure, said Sohi, a former Edmonton city councillor.
But if they want to price, or not price, thats their decision.
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After ending a two-year smartphone slide with the Galaxy S7, Samsung Electronics Co. could be about to hike capital spending to sustain a revival across the company.
At least $5 billion (U.S.) more of investment is headed to the display and semiconductor businesses, according to a survey of analyst estimates, to help Samsung ride out bumps in the phone market. Such a move reflects new optimism about the company after the success of the Galaxy S7, with the shares rallying 13 per cent this year.
Samsungs rise into an electronics behemoth has been fuelled by the ability to get its memory chips and displays, often the most expensive components, into devices made by others.
With the South Korean company said to be in talks to supply Apple with next-generation OLED screens and bring out its own phones with bendable screens, Samsung can use its cash pile of more than $60 billion to extend its lead on rivals.
Samsungs smartphone business has finally had a soft landing after a bumpy ride, said Chung Chang won, an analyst at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Seoul. Samsung will probably boost spending on memory and displays, which are poised for a sudden rise as the next growth drivers.
The shares slid 3.3 per cent to close Wednesday at 1.42 million won. Analysts however are betting theyve got room to rise. Since the companys last earnings report, the average target price of analysts has risen by 6.7 per cent, backing the Galaxy S7s ability to keep winning customers. In the same period, profit estimates have risen by almost half a billion dollars.
Samsung will report preliminary second-quarter earnings Thursday, with operating income expected to rise about 7 per cent to 7.4 trillion won ($6.4 billion), according to the average estimate. Sales are projected to increase 4.9 per cent to 50.9 trillion won.
But with growth in the global smartphone market evaporating, it needs to build up its other major businesses as competitors bring out new products in an attempt to spark growth.
The mobile business is holding up well, but its still questionable whether this trend will be sustained over the coming quarters with more new devices in the pipeline from rivals, said Lee Jae-yun, an analyst at Yuanta Securities Co.
The Korean technology giant hasnt been afraid to make bold investments in advanced technologies and plants, even during a severe economic downturn. That has helped it outrun competitors in Japan and combat Chinese producers as it rose to the top of smartphones, chips and TVs.
Samsung had almost $23 billion of capital spending in 2015, the fourth straight year that capital spending topped $20 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The company said in April that it spent 4.6 trillion won in the first quarter and annual spending could increase slightly.
OLED is one such example, with Samsung championing the screens as thinner, brighter and less taxing on the battery compared to liquid-crystal displays. By using the technology in its own Galaxy range, Samsung has become the biggest producer for mobile devices.
The company may introduce two new smartphones with bendable OLED screens as soon as next year, a move that could spark sales of components to rivals, people familiar with the matter said last month. Samsung has also held talks to be the exclusive supplier of displays for future iPhones, people familiar have said.
Delivering such products requires new plants, factory upgrades and equipment and the company may need to spend as much as 15 trillion won ($13 billion) just on OLED, according to HI Investment & Securities Co. But its got money in the bank: its hoard of cash and short-term investments has been growing steadily in past years, to more than 70 trillion won at the end of March.
To keep rivals off its turf, Samsung needs to move faster and go bold with investment now, said Chung Won-suk, a Seoul-based analyst at HI Investment. With Apple expected to join the race, the bendable display will eventually become the default feature on future smartphones.
Samsungs panel-making subsidiary Samsung Display Co. has already started to halt some of its older LCD lines to boost OLED capacity. Chung at HI Investment expects that to continue.
The popularity of the Galaxy S7 models, one with a curved display, is expected to have continued into the second quarter, helping to bail out its mobile division from a slump that has hit Apple and Chinese companies.
Samsungs business outlook seems extremely good and creates a lot of excitement now, said Peter Yu, a Seoul-based analyst at BNP Paribas SA. That is the opposite of what had been thought earlier this year.
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The downside of the GTAs housing boom has been landing in mail boxes across the province for the past two months.
Its a warning of higher property taxes to come in the form of notices from the Municipal Property Assessment Corp. (MPAC) of the new assessed value of your home. This value is used to set your property taxes.
Every four years MPAC updates the value of five million residential and commercial properties in Ontario. The changes are largely based on the information recorded when properties are sold. As we all know, prices have headed nowhere but up.
Whats arriving now is your assessed value as of Jan. 1, 2016, showing how much it has changed since Jan. 1, 2012.
But dont despair. If you dont think the assessment is fair, or believe the new value is out of line with your neighbours house, you can ask for a reconsideration. Its free. If youre still not happy you can formally appeal, which will cost $125.
Should you bother? Its certainly worth thinking about. MPACs chief operating officer Rose McLean says about half of requests for reconsideration give homeowners some relief. Those are pretty good odds.
Here are some answers to common questions abut the process:
What is MPAC?
MPAC is the largest property value assessor in North America. It is a non-profit corporation funded by Ontario municipalities.
Every four years the Ontario government requires MPAC to update the value of properties in the province. The values are used by local municipalities to determine your property taxes. Any changes are phased in over the next four years.
My assessed value rose 25 per cent. Will my taxes rise that much?
No. While most of us should get set to pay more, some tax bills may fall if the increase is way below the average for the community.
For example, the new assessed value on my 1,900-square foot home in Oakville, built in 1950, is 26 per cent higher than 2012. The Oakville average like Torontos is 30 per cent. (The provincial average is 18 per cent.) I would expect a slightly smaller than average increase.
Related: Toronto property values soaring
Its unlikely, but in the event that the towns spending remains unchanged, my taxes may fall.
The municipality adds up all the new assessed values and divides by its spending needs. That gives you a tax rate. The rate is applied to your assessed value.
How does MPAC determine value?
It looks at over 200 factors, but five things account for 85 per cent of its weighting. They are location, living area, age of property, lot size and quality of construction.
Have your say
Location is most important. For example, a backyard that faces a power line corridor will be assessed at a lower rate than a similar house nearby that backs onto a park. One closer to a school, maybe a little more.
How can I appeal?
There are two ways. The first is the request for reconsideration. Go to the MPAC website and register at aboutmyproperty.ca.
You must launch an appeal within 120 days of the date the notice was issued.
You need your property roll number and the access key found on the assessment form that came in the mail. You can compare the assessments and key features of houses in your neighbourhood.
Use this information to make your case. If your request for reconsideration is turned down, you can formally appeal.
What is MPAC looking for?
MPAC acknowledges that its information may not be complete. Homeowners may have done additions, or renovations without permits. Original details, or selling prices, may have been incorrectly entered or missed.
MPAC wants homes with the same features in the same neighbourhood to have the same assessed value. Compare online, but also take a walk around the block. Take pictures.
How many people appeal?
MPAC sends out five million notices a year and about 2.5 per cent, or 12,500 people, file requests for reconsideration, says MPACs McLean.
How many are successful?
About half. Of those turned down, a very small portion go to the next level, McLean says.
If I lose can MPAC increase my assessment?
Not likely. The next change in assessed value is four years from now.
Given the high odds of a favourable result, it may be time well-spent to take a look at how your property stacks up. It seems to be a rare example of how the average citizen can take on city hall and win.
More columns by Adam Mayers END
Adam Mayers writes about investing and personal finance on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Have a question? Reach him at amayers@thestar.ca .
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Its bronze hide has been burnished by the bottoms of generations of Toronto schoolchildren, who have seen it more as a misshapen jungle gym than an icon of late-Modern sculpture. Its one of the citys most recognizable symbols, and quite possibly the one-and-only thats universally loved. Its sat since 1974 at the corner of Dundas and McCaul Sts., a sturdy icon rooted amid the swirl of a burgeoning metropolis growing up all around it.
And now, Henry Moores LargeTwo Forms, that pair of outsize, amorphous doughnuts as much a part of the Art Gallery of Ontario as the building it inhabits, is on the move. The gallery confirmed Wednesday that the beloved sculpture will be uprooted next year and relocated to a new home in Grange Park, the expanse of grass and trees on the gallerys south side, as part of an $11 million makeover to add playgrounds, trees, bigger expanses of greenspace and a water feature.
Caitlin Coull, the AGOs manager of communications, told the Star the move was meant to restore the sculpture to a place of prominence, saying that the mass of buildings that have gone up all around it since its arrival here 42 years ago have overshadowed it.
Nonetheless, it could be a hard sell for generations of Torontonians who have come to see its Dundas St. location as much a part of the works as the sculpture itself.
Large Two Forms beautifully anchors the corner of Frank Gehrys curving facade of the new AGO, and I am trying to think of a good reason why anyone would to think of moving it, said Geoffrey James, a prominent artist here, and Torontos photographer laureate.
Civic icons are few, and not only here, but worldwide. Chicagos famous bean, by Anish Kapoor (its actually called Cloud Gate, but its adoption by the public to the point where its been renamed in the collective consciousness is a mark of its success) or Robert Indianas Love Park in Philadephia are two of the most indelible public art gestures going universally loved, and a proud projection of a citys identity to the larger world.
If Large Two Forms, or Moore more generally, doesnt occupy the same exalted position, its surely the closest weve got. The Archer at Nathan Phillips Square, another major public commission by Moore, James says, helped to nudge Toronto out of its provincialism. Two Forms has become part of the citys fabric, and I think we should leave well enough alone.
Sarah Robayo Sheridan, the curator at the University of Torontos Art Museum, is less concerned with the move-from and more about the move-to. Buildings and publics change, and cultural memory fades, she wrote in an email. Thats a natural expectation in a cityscape.
Most important, she thinks, is whether its positioned prominently enough in the park to befit its status. I wouldn't want to see it reduced to being just another design element in the grand plan, she says, so attention needs to be paid to scale in its placement.
The park has been the gallerys property since the Grange estate was donated to the Art Gallery of Toronto (the AGOs predecessor) in 1910, and the city has managed it as a public park for almost as long.
The redux, slated to reopen in June 2017, is well underway, and the AGO sees Large Two Forms as an opportunity to connect the gallery to the greenspace that its always owned. When the park opens to the public, Large Two Forms will be tucked into a leafy glade on its west side.
Luis Jacob, one of the citys prominent artists and curators, said the relocation will likely cause some initial shock, but that ultimately, its for the good. Its a landmark you see kids playing on it, or people lounging on it, having their lunch, he says. So yes, it might feel a little naked without it. But I think it being in the park will make it even more prominent. It will signal the parks connection to the museum.
The gallery said it was too early to say whether it planned to replace Large Two Forms with another piece at the corner of Dundas and McCaul Sts.
As to the naked corner it will leave behind, Jacob says that should be the museums next step. Of course, it should be replaced with something, he said. Its important to keep that corner as a place for art.
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SASKATOONJustice officials in Saskatchewan say a teenage girl accused of killing a baby boy had escaped custody the day before the death.
The teen was arrested after officers found the injured six-week-old infant at a Saskatoon home on Sunday morning. The baby died in hospital.
Ministry of Justice spokesman Drew Wilby said the girl was seen leaving an open-custody youth facility at about 1:45 a.m. on Saturday. Saskatoon police were notified just over an hour later.
So there was about 30 hours where she was out of our care and before she was rearrested by the police, Wilby said Tuesday in Regina.
In Saskatoon, where the girl appeared briefly in court on charges of second-degree murder and escaping lawful custody, the infants relatives cried out for help.
The boys maternal grandfather said his daughter met the girl downtown and realized that she had nowhere to go. He said the teen was lost to society and the world, so his sympathetic daughter brought her home.
I raised my children with respect, to help out people in need, he said outside the courthouse.
The grandfather cant be named because doing so could identify the baby. The childs parents have not given explicit consent to having his name used.
All I wanted to say was let there be justice served for my grandson, the grandfather said as he choked back tears.
He was sadly taken away from us, for what, I dont know.
The grandfather said no one in the family knew the girl.
Wilby said open custody means doors cannot be locked and staff cant physically stop young offenders from leaving. But if they do, they are breaking the law.
Young offenders under an open-custody sentence are able to leave under their own accord, in accordance with the Youth Criminal Justice Act, he explained.
Once they leave the facility, theyre now guilty of another offence.
The girl was sentenced last December to 10 months in open custody for break and enter, arson, assault causing bodily harm, assault with a weapon and robbery with a weapon. She was also to serve five months of community supervision after her time in custody.
The teen first escaped in February, was caught and sentenced to 60 days secure custody, which she served at a facility in Regina. She was returned to open custody in Saskatoon in April.
The teen cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
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A paradox.
No important British or European personality has said publicly that the U.K. shouldnt leave the European Union in the wake of the Brexit referendum two weeks ago. Theyre unanimous that Leave means Leave. This includes every candidate to replace David Cameron as British Tory leader; poor Jeremy Corbyn across the Commons aisle; and the leaders of France, Germany and the various institutions of the EU.
And yet in Canadas government theres a lot of skepticism about whether Brexit will ever happen.
I checked with senior sources at the Prime Ministers Office, the foreign affairs department (grandly renamed Global Affairs Canada), and in the public service. Each was unconvinced. Less sure every day, one of those people said.
How could the U.K. not leave the EU, after everything thats happened?
The answer lies in the nature of the June 23 referendum. In itself, it wasnt a decision to exit the Union. That decision must be formally communicated to the European Council the 28 heads of the 28 EU member countries, presidents, prime ministers and chancellor, meeting in Brussels.
The process for getting a country out of the EU is laid out in Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. The British prime minister tells his council colleagues Britain intends to leave. That starts a two-year clock ticking on negotiations. At the end of those two years, European treaties cease to function with regard to Britain. Some new bilateral arrangement could take their place, but that moment would mark the end of Britains membership in the EU.
Now heres the thing: David Cameron didnt invoke Article 50 the morning after he lost the referendum. He didnt invoke it when he visited the European Council six days later. Hes said hell leave the nasty task to his successor, whos to be in place by the beginning of September. And no candidate to succeed him expects to trigger Article 50 before the new year.
And if they do not want to start the real work in 2016, why on earth would any of them want to do it in 2017? The Leave campaigns wish list lies in tatters.
They cherished the notion that Britain could abandon its EU obligations but enjoy every benefit. That it could remain a member of the tightest multi-national economic union in history, while picking and choosing who gets to live, work or vote in Britain. That its banks could continue to carry out huge transactions in euros. That investors would build their plants in Kent or Manchester for export to the EU instead of building them in the EU. Because the whole point of the exercise is that Britain and the EU would be two different things.
China looks at a pound thats down 10 per cent and it starts looking for things to buy, a European diplomat in Ottawa said yesterday. And then it looks for places to put those things in Slovakia or Poland.
My hunch is that every candidate to replace Cameron absolutely intends to trigger Article 50. But they are huffing and puffing about well do it when were good and ready because they are hoping the answers theyre getting from the rest of Europe, and really the answers theyre getting from the universe, will change. When those answers dont change, what will make a PM decide Wednesday was a bad day to start the clock ticking, but Thursday is a fine day?
Im not sure how this whole thing ends. A government that refuses to implement the will of the people would be wrecked in public opinion. A government that implements that will, and demonstrates forever that it was misguided, would not face a better end. Its a mess.
Is there anything a Canadian prime minister can do? Maybe not. But its crazy how popular Justin Trudeau is in European capitals these days. Im told theres a traffic jam of leaders hoping for a meeting with him, especially leaders who are heading into an election. That stock of political capital wont last forever.
But if Trudeau took even a diplomatically veiled version of his bridges-not-walls message to London and Brussels the latter a destination Canadian prime ministers rarely visit he would be noticed and heard.
Canada still wants a trade deal with the EU, after all. That deal is worth less if the U.K. is out. A separate trade deal with a separate U.K. would not compensate for the loss. Canada has interests here. So do our historic friends on both sides of the English Channel.
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OTTAWAThe long road to replacing the Air Forces aging fighter jets took another turn Wednesday, as the Liberal government announced it will consult with industry to determine the best new aircraft for Canada.
The move, announced by Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan in a speech to industry representatives, comes after reports last month that the Liberals were considering buying Boeing Super Hornet fighter jets without a competition.
Sajjan said no decision on a new fighter has been made. Rather, officials from National Defence and other federal departments will sit down with fighter jet manufacturers through the summer to determine what they can offer.
Officials will seek up-to-date information from leading manufacturers on key issues, including cost, economic benefits for Canada, and their ability to deliver planes quickly, he said. That information will inform a decision on a procurement path in the coming months.
The government also intends to consult with allies about their experiences using various aircraft.
Its not the first time the government has held such consultations. The Conservatives launched a similar exercise in December 2012 as it pressed pause on its plans to purchase the F-35 stealth fighter.
Those consultations, which were overseen by an independent panel, included a fulsome assessment of what Canada needs in a new fighter jet, and what options were available. The final report, released in December 2014, came out favourably for the F-35.
Critics, however, said such consultations could not replace an open competition as there was no way to fully test each companys claims.
Sajjan did not say whether there will be any independent oversight over the consultations. He also refused to say whether the Liberal government still intends to hold a fighter jet competition, as it promised during last years election campaign.
No decision has been made, and right now myself and my department are working diligently to making sure that we have all the necessary information so that a decision can be made to move forward, he told reporters before his speech to industry representatives.
The minister also didnt say when an actual decision on a new fighter will be made.
However, Sajjan did emphasize the need to replace the Royal Canadian Air Forces 77 CF-18s quickly. Only about half the fleet is available for operations at any given time, he said, which is not enough to meet Canadas commitments to NATO and North American defence.
Today, the number of mission-ready aircraft we can deploy on an average day is actually less than the number of planes we are committed to have ready, he said. The capability gap will get worse in the years ahead as CF-18s must be taken out of service.
Critics have previously questioned such assertions, pointing to Air Force commander Lt.-Gen. Michael Hoods testimony before the Commons defence committee in April as proof the Liberals have manufactured a crisis.
Hood said the CF-18 fleet should be able to operate through 2025 thanks to a $500-million upgrade ordered by the Conservatives in 2014. Twenty-six out of the 77 fighters have already undergone structural work to fly through the mid-2020s, and electronic upgrades are planned.
Sajjan, however, said even with the upgrades, Canada will be hard-pressed in a few years just to defend North America with the U.S. unless new aircraft are delivered. At the same time, the shortage means Canada isnt able to contribute to other, non-NATO missions.
The Liberals promised during last years election that they would hold an open competition to replace the CF-18s. But they also promised not to buy the F-35. This created a potential legal situation if the government was seen to discriminate against the stealth fighter.
The F-35 has previously won competitions in South Korea, Japan and Denmark.
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Mayor John Tory has written a letter to the Toronto Police Association expressing his support for continuing police participation in Torontos Pride parade.
The letter comes in response to an incident during this years parade, when Black Lives Matter protesters blocked the parade until a Pride representative signed a commitment to ban police floats and booths from future Pride events.
I for one appreciate both the support for Pride and all that it represents coming from the police officers who march as well as the professional way in which they have kept Pride and its participants safe all these years, Tory wrote to TPA president Mike McCormack on Tuesday, in a letter obtained by the Star.
I am confident Pride and its supporters, including me, will be successful in seeing this participation continue in the years to come.
During Sunday's Pride parade through downtown, members of Black Lives Matter Toronto who Pride organizers had made honoured guests at the event stopped floats and marchers at Yonge and College Sts. until Pride officials agreed to their demands, among them a ban on police floats at future marches.
Nearly 30 minutes into the protest, Pride Torontos executive director Mathieu Chantelois signed off on the list of demands.
However, Chantelois said Monday that he had only agreed to the demands to get the parade moving, and that he had no plans to honour them before consulting with Pride's membership and community.
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Janaya Khan, one of the co-founders of Black Lives Matter Toronto, said it was very unfortunate that (Chanteloiss) reaction has been to backpedal after one day.
Hundreds of police officers from across the province participated in Sundays event.
McCormack said even if the agreement was made to move the parade along, officers deserved an apology. He said the agreement to exclude police from future Pride parades had been a slap in the face to all police officers.
Our officers feel thrown under the bus, as it were, or betrayed by the organizers, he said Monday.
In a statement, Tory said he would have serious concerns if police were excluded.
As a city, we rely on our police service to keep Pride happy and safe as they did once again yesterday, and the Mayor believes they must continue to do so going forward, the statement said.
We understand Pride Toronto is in the middle of dealing with this and will be meeting with the Chief later this week.
The attempt by Black Lives Matter to ban visible police participation in the event prompted a gay Toronto police officer to write an open letter to Pride Toronto.
I do not speak for the police, and I do not speak for the LGBTQ community. I speak as an individual, one who saw his first PRIDE, only to be excluded from the next, Const. Chuck Krangle, wrote in his letter.
Exclusion does not promote inclusion.
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The first call to police came just before 2 a.m., and they didnt stop coming for the next 20 hours.
As the reports poured in, their locations changed, but their grim theme remained the same: A pedestrian or cyclist had been hit by a car.
Monday, July 4, marked an extraordinarily dangerous day for Torontos vulnerable road users. In a span of less than 24 hours, there were 18 reported collisions involving 20 pedestrians and cyclists, according to police. Most of the victims escaped serious injury. But one, a 73-year-old man, was killed.
The deadly day came just a week before council is set to debate a new road safety plan that critics say doesnt go far enough to combat ever-mounting traffic-related injuries and deaths in the city.
The troubling trend didnt stop on Monday, either. On Tuesday afternoon, a cyclist was killed near the intersection of Christie St. and Dupont St. Police said the 71-year-old rode at high speed into the back of a parked vehicle as he swerved to avoid a turning van.
Its hard to ignore numbers like these, said Kasia Briegmann-Samson, whose husband Tom Samson died in 2012 after being hit by a car while riding his bike in the Junction neighbourhood.
Since his death, Briegmann-Samson has spoken publicly about the need for better safety measures like lower speed limits and separated bike lanes. She said whats so devastating about Torontos rash of traffic injuries is that it could be stopped.
Its extremely sad if it takes 20 people being injured or killed in one day to make things happen, she said. Every single one of these deaths are preventable. Every single one.
Through a spokeswoman, Mayor John Tory said Tuesday he was saddened by the collisions, and called on drivers to to obey the law, slow down and stop aggressive behaviours.
The Mayor is committed to making sure all those who use our roads pedestrians, cyclists and drivers are safe, Tory spokeswoman Keerthana Kamalavasan wrote in an email. One death on our roads is one too many. . . . We have to do more to prevent these tragedies and keep each other safe.
So far this year, 22 pedestrians and one cyclist have been killed on Torontos roads, according to police. The city is on track to match the 40 pedestrian fatalities it posted in 2013, which was the highest single-year total in the past decade.
Of Mondays 20 reported victims, nine were cyclists and 11 were pedestrians.
Const. Clint Stibbe said the force typically sees about six pedestrian collisions a day, and its particularly unusual to see such high numbers in the early summer. It isnt until later in the year, when darkness falls earlier, that numbers tend to spike.
That said, whenever we have a bright sunny day, kind of a day perfect for driving, its a day that we see individuals making mistakes, and unfortunately collisions occur, he said.
Stibbe said the cause of Mondays accidents is clear. Its carelessness. Lets call it what it is, individuals that have made mistakes, whether its cyclists, pedestrians, or drivers . . . and, in some cases, it costs them their lives.
Police couldnt provide details on all of Mondays incidents, but according to initial reports, the first collision occurred at 1:41 a.m. in Scarborough, when a pedestrian suffered minor injuries at Lawrence Ave. East and Susan St. At 8:16 a.m., a cyclist was knocked off her bike at College St. and Elizabeth St. and injured her head. Then at 11:43 a.m., a pedestrian was reportedly side-swiped by a car at Queen St. East and Sumach St.
Late in the evening, in a single incident just after 8 p.m., three seniors were struck at the northwest corner of Huntingwood Dr. and Birchmount Ave. Police said they were taken to hospital but their injuries werent serious.
But less than an hour later, on the opposite side of the city, a 73-year-old was killed at the intersection of Kipling Ave. and Brookemere Rd. in north Etobicoke. According to police the man, whose identity has not been released, was crossing legally at a stoplight when he was hit by a driver making a left turn north from West Humber Blvd. The driver remained at the scene and police said Tuesday afternoon their investigation was ongoing.
Its actually startling to me whats happening, said Councillor Jaye Robinson (Ward 25 Don Valley West), who as public works chair spearheaded efforts to create the citys new road safety plan.
She said the recent collisions are a clear indication that we have to get the (road safety plan) into action now. Clearly, the status quo is not effective in reducing collisions and improving safety for vulnerable road users, meaning pedestrians, cyclists and seniors.
The new safety strategy was unveiled last month by Robinson and Tory, and immediately faced criticism for setting a goal of reducing serous injuries and fatalities by only 20 per cent over 10 years.
Robinson amended the plan to explicitly set a target of eliminating fatalities, but critics still say the strategy, which proposes safety measures at specific locations that have statistically a high number of collisions, is too narrow in scope. Advocacy groups like Walk Toronto argue that measures like reduced speed limits should be applied citywide.
The location of Mondays fatal collision is just south of a stretch of Kipling, where the safety plan recommended reduced speed limits.
Critics also charge the budget for the strategy, set at $68.1 million over five years, is too small to have a real impact. Only about $40 million of that is new funding.
At a public works meeting last month, Robinson directed staff to seek out opportunities for new and enhanced funding, which she said could include money from other levels of government. She told the Star on Tuesday that staff members are expected to report back next Monday, a day before the council meeting at which the safety plan will go to a vote.
Jared Kolb, executive director of Cycle Toronto, said council needs to improve the plan next week if the city is to meet the vision zero target of completely eliminating serious collisions. As it stands, he said, the strategy sets out a bold policy direction, but it does not have the resources to back it up.
We need to scale up resources significantly to achieve vision zero here in the city of Toronto.
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A Brampton woman says she has been removed from a recently-created Peel police black community advisory group after she made critical comments about Chief Jennifer Evans and the force.
The move comes as community groups voice serious concerns about a co-ordinated effort by Peel police against the civilian board that oversees it, following the boards decision to conduct a probe of the forces equity and diversity practices.
Patti Ann Trainor said she just found out that she was dumped from the advisory group struck last year by Evans. I phoned yesterday and spoke with (a Peel police inspector), Trainor said Tuesday. And thats when he said to me, he called me back, he said there is a caveat to the membership and it really is the chiefs discretion.
Trainor said she suspected she had been dropped from the group when she was not included in an email that was recently sent to members, and that Monday the inspector confirmed she was no longer part of the committee.
He said it was regarding attendance, overall commitment and what people are bringing to the table, Trainor said, adding that she attended four meetings and believes she missed only one since the committee was formed by Evans last spring.
Neither Peel police nor Evans responded to a request from the Star on Tuesday seeking comment and confirmation that Trainor had been removed.
Trainor, who is white, has raised three children who she says identify as black. She said she joined the committee with a sense of hope that Evans was committed to changing the forces culture, something Trainor has fought for ever since her children began to be routinely profiled by Peel police, she said.
I really admire Chief Evans as a woman, the first woman in Peel as the chief, and I came to this committee very, very excited to be working with her. As a fellow white woman I wanted to be able to make a difference and have her really understand the systemic racism, all the profiling, just how heartbreaking that was for my children.
But Trainor said she quickly came to feel that Evans, who attended the advisory committee meetings, was only paying lip service to the issues, and using the group as a publicity tool to show the public she cared about improving diversity relations.
After Evans ignored a police board vote in September to have carding stopped in Peel (where the practice is known as a street check), and then in January presented a widely-criticized report in support of street checks, Trainor began voicing her criticism of the force and called for Evans to step down for failing to listen to the community.
Thats why I believe I was dropped from the advisory committee. I wasnt even told or asked if I could sit down for a discussion. You wouldnt think this would happen in a democracy by an institution meant to uphold democratic principles.
Margaret Parsons, who has for decades been at the forefront of the movement to reform police culture and deal with alleged systemic racial profiling by police in the GTA, says shes not surprised by the way Trainor appears to have been treated.
These advisory groups are just there to rubber stamp the actions of the chief and the police service, said Parsons, executive director of the African Canadian Legal Clinic. These groups should be completely independent, not stacked with individuals that the chief feels comfortable with.
Parsons said the public in Peel should be concerned about the recent actions by the police against a reform-minded civilian police board, featuring new chair Amrik Ahluwalia, and Mississauga and Brampton Mayors Bonnie Crombie and Linda Jeffrey. Despite overseeing the force, they have come under fire from police members, including Evans, with three scathing letters sent to the board in the last three weeks.
A letter from the senior officers association called for Ahluwalia to resign. One from the police union alleged the board had labelled its members racist for ordering the audit of the forces diversity practices. And one from Evans to Ahluwalia harshly criticized him for the way the audit was called.
Union president Paul Black did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Edmond Brown, president of the Peel Criminal Lawyers Association, said police are taking the wrong approach. He referred to an Ontario Court of Justice decision by judge Jill Copeland last week, when a Sikh man had charges of driving with excess blood-alcohol dismissed because Peel officers failed to obey policies against keeping the mans turban from him.
This was something that was occurring. (Some) officers had no idea that this was part of the policy . . . the only way to get their attention was to dismiss the charge.
Brown said the force should welcome the boards move for an equity-diversity audit. I would think its a good idea. What we want to do is improve the force.
Sophia Brown Ramsay, programming director for the Black Community Action Network of Peel, is a member of the advisory committee that Trainor was removed from. She described the move against Trainor and the recent letters as a co-ordinated effort by the force.
She said shes troubled and perplexed by the move at a time when the community is demanding Evans and her force acknowledge mistakes and learn from them.
We are surprised by how things were handled, the letters, Patti Ann has just found out about this . . . I need to ask (Evans) why wasnt she called, why wasnt she notified about this, she said.
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During a week-long supervised propaganda tour of North Korea in 2013, Jieun Baek was caught off guard by a young ladys curiosity about the most popular luxury brands in the U.S.
I mentioned Chanel, Christian Dior and Burberry, and she said, Everyone knows them. Tell me something I dont know about, recalled Baek, a Belfer Centre fellow at Harvard Universitys John F. Kennedy School of Government.
I was surprised by her cavalier response to my response. What it did tell me is that people have natural curiosity that the government cannot squash with fines, torture and executions.
That anecdotal encounter in Pyongyang also confirmed for Baek, an American-born Korean, the potential of what she dubs information fracking as a means to liberalize North Korea and empower its people for democratic change in the worlds most isolated totalitarian regime.
The regime is not impenetrable and we can foment change from the bottom up, said Baek, author of the upcoming book North Koreas Hidden Revolution, who was recently in Toronto for a community forum on how to hack North Korea.
Its similar to hydraulic fracking, the idea of penetrating something thats seemingly impenetrable through pressure. Its a powerful metaphor for North Korea. Their information and ideological blockades that seem to be impenetrable can be penetrated.
While the idea of ideological warfare is not new, its execution has evolved with the technological changes from old-school propaganda leaflets to radio broadcasts, as well as information dissemination through DVDs, SD cards and most recently, USB keys.
With the collapse of the former Soviet Union Pyongyangs staunchest supporter and the severe famine in the 1990s, North Koreans have grown to become more independent from the handouts of the regime. An increasingly porous border with a rising capitalist China also created more opportunity for information exchange.
Since 2008, the Seoul-based North Korea Strategy Center has smuggled more than 18,600 portable computer memory sticks loaded with translated dramas, documentaries, current affairs, educational and informational content.
The information disseminated through the variety of devices has also shifted from traditional overt political messages to soft, nuanced contents, said Sharon Stratton, the strategy centres U.S. program officer, and another key speaker at the Toronto forum.
Rather than sending something that says you have a terrible government, Communism is evil and democracy is the great, free world, we know thats not effective. If we are sending content that enforces that, its counterproductive to our goals, said Stratton, who is half-Australian and half-Korean.
We just want to illustrate and show what its like in the world outside of North Korea. The hope is North Koreans will see that. Its about opening up their eyes to whats happening around the rest of the world so they can look more critically and objectively on whats happening around them in North Korea.
Both Baek and Stratton said grassroots societal and cultural changes must go side by side with changes at the political level. Part of their speaking tour is to shift the public narrative on North Korea from a closed impenetrable black box to a place of today.
The regime is still super closed, very brutal, one of the worst human rights states in the world. However, in the past 20 years, the country has evolved to becoming much more dynamic, not at the state level but at the people level, said Baek, who has a masters degree from Harvard and will start her doctoral studies in public policy at the University of Oxford this fall.
Most people who think of North Korea dont think about the markets or the information people are taking risks to learn more about the outside world. I want to not keep North Korea in this hopeless place thats beyond change and hope.
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RIO DE JANEIROA month before Rio de Janeiro hosts South Americas first Olympic Games, two cellphone videos have brought home the grim reality of rising violence in the citys teeming favelas the poor communities that are home to almost a quarter of its population.
In one clip, small children cower in fear in a cable car gondola while a gun battle rages below at 4 oclock on a Monday afternoon. The clip hit the Internet on the same day that Mayor Eduardo Paes told CNN that the state government is doing a terrible job with security. By Monday night, the video was on the front page of Brazils biggest news site, the Globo networks G1.
That morning, police and firefighters had organized a protest at Rios international airport over violence and unpaid salaries. Welcome to hell, a banner read. Police and firefighters dont get paid, whoever comes to Rio de Janeiro will not be safe. It was their second demonstration at the airport, which will receive Olympic participants and visitors.
The second video, released Friday, shows a baying crowd following police officers hurriedly carrying a 16-year-old boy they had just shot and bundling his body into the back seat of their car in the Borel favela. He died en route to a hospital.
The violence is deepening anguish and anger among residents, and it comes at a time when Rios state government is broke and has slashed police budgets by a third.
It was a calm Monday afternoon when a young mother set out with her 3-year-old daughter and 2-month-old son, along with two friends and one of their sisters, just 10, for a spin around the Complexo do Alemao favela, not far from Rios international airport. But when they were leaving the Palmeiras station, one of six served by a cable car network, a gun battle broke out below them between police and a drug gang.
It was the most horrible thing. It was desperation. The children were crying, and we were trying to protect them. There is a big risk of a bullet hitting, the woman said. She spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals from the gang or police.
The complex of favelas was pacified by police and military after a battle in 2010, a high-stake operation carried live on TV. The pacification policy was initiated in 2008 to bring peace to communities dominated for decades by violent drug gangs, and armed police bases have since been installed in 38 of Rios favelas. The cable car was later opened and became a tourist attraction for a time.
But peace has been hard to come by, said the young mother, who filmed the video and was surprised when it went viral.
It is very difficult. We dont live with it. We survive it. Out of nothing there is a gunfight, and there are residents in the street, children coming out of school, she said. The pacification policy, she added, has failed. Before the police base, the community never had these gunfights, she said. For me, it was a big mistake.
A police spokesman said by email that officers had been told that armed gang members had been seen in the area and that officers were fired upon when they went to investigate. Three other confrontations were registered Monday evening. No injuries were reported, police said.
The second video was recorded after Jhonata Alves, 16, was fatally shot in the Borel favela on Thursday. According to local media reports, he was carrying a bag of popcorn when police opened fire and killed him.
There was no gunfight. They shot my son in the head, ended my life. Everybody saw him with a packet of popcorn in his hand, his mother, Janaina Alves, said, according to the O Globo newspaper.
Rio tabloid O Dia published this video of police carrying the dying boy to their car while residents follow, shouting and screaming. The video was supplied anonymously via WhatsApp, an O Dia reporter said.
Cowards! one man can be heard roaring. They killed the boy, what is this? another woman is seen exclaiming in horror.
The police spokesman said officers had stopped two men on a motorcycle and that one of them opened fire, as did other men in a nearby alley. He said police opened fire in response. Residents blocked streets and threw stones and rocks at the officers.
Jhonatas grandfather Antonio Alves told The Post that the family would not comment on the tragedy as a lawyer was handling the case. Across Rio state, killings by police rose 91 per cent in May compared with a year ago, with 84 people killed.
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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J.Hillary Clinton on Wednesday ripped Donald Trump as a shameful businessman with a history of exploiting workers, holding up the presumptive Republican nominees turbulent history in struggling Atlantic City as a warning for American voters.
What he did here in Atlantic City is exactly what hell do if he wins in November, said Clinton, standing on the seaside towns famed boardwalk outside a shuttered hotel formerly owned by Trump.
Clintons remarks were part of a growing effort by her campaign to tear down Trumps business reputation, which Democrats believe is overhyped and based more on his ability to attract publicity than actual private sector skills. In the coming weeks, Clintons campaign is expected to highlight victims of Trumps business ventures, including contractors who went unpaid replicating a strategy Democrats employed successfully against 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney.
Clinton focused narrowly on Trump in her address, making no mention of the FBIs recommendation Tuesday that she not face charges for her controversial email practices as secretary of state. In clearing Clinton of breaking the law, FBI director James Comey was blistering in his criticism of the Democratic nominee, saying she was extremely careless in handling classified information on a private email and personal internet server.
Even with Comeys tough rhetoric, Clinton aides were relieved to have the investigation formally closed so they can fully turn their attention to the fall faceoff with Trump. Campaign aides say that while Trumps controversial comments about minorities and women weaken his prospects of winning the White House, he is still viewed favourably as a businessman by many Americans.
For Clinton, Atlantic City provides a picture-perfect backdrop to try to undermine that reputation.
Once a casino-lined coastal jewel, Atlantic City has struggled in recent years, losing more than half of its gambling revenue during the last nine years. The casino struggles have led to job losses and credit downgrades.
Trump defended his record in the gambling town, saying he created thousands of jobs and made a lot of money in Atlantic City, which was what, as a businessman, I am supposed to do for my company and my family. Earlier Wednesday, he blamed Atlantic Citys troubles on politicians big mistakes.
But even in the years when other Atlantic City casinos were growing, casinos carrying the Trump name werent. When Trumps publicly traded company, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc., went bust in 2004, Atlantic Citys casino revenues were on their way to an all-time high. In fact, two of his casinos three bankruptcies occurred in years when overall Atlantic City gambling revenue was rising.
Isnt he supposed to be some kind of amazing businessman? Clinton said. So its fair to ask, since he is applying for a job, what in the world happened here?
She also placed blame for Atlantic Citys troubles on New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, one of Trumps biggest supporters.
If your governor would start doing his job instead of following Donald Trump around holding his coat, maybe we could really get New Jerseys economy moving again, Clinton said.
After a months-long fight over the citys future that included threats of a state takeover, Christie signed legislation in May that kept Atlantic City solvent and staved off immediate bankruptcy. The city now has until the end of October to formulate a plan for balancing its budget in order to avoid being taken over by the state.
Christie, meanwhile, has blamed the citys issues on Democrats as well as larger structural forces, including increased competition from new gambling centres and the citys failure to rebrand itself and expand its attractions.
Following Clintons remarks, she briefly greeted striking casino workers at Trump Taj Mahal. While the casino still bears Trumps name, it now belongs his friend Carl Icahn, the billionaire businessman magnate.
In Washington, Clinton was getting support from Democrats on Capitol Hill. House Democrats met privately with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who challenged Clinton vigorously in the presidential primary and has yet to endorse her.
Lawmakers voiced frustration with Sanders slow-moving support for Clinton, shouting timeline, timeline at the presidential candidate during a closed-door meeting. Sanders never clarified when he would endorse Clinton, though at one point he said, our goal is not to win elections, then paused. During that pause, Sanders was booed, according to a Democrat who attended the session and spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the meeting.
Following the session, Michigan Rep. Sander Levin said Democrats believe Sanders should throw his support behind Clinton right away.
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KHANKE, IRAQ The advertisement on the Telegram app is as chilling as it is incongruous: A girl for sale is Virgin. Beautiful. 12 years old . . . Her price has reached $12,500 and she will be sold soon.
The posting in Arabic appeared on an encrypted conversation along with ads for kittens, weapons and tactical gear. It was shared with The Associated Press by an activist with the minority Yazidi community, whose women and children are being held as sex slaves by the extremists.
While Daesh, also known as Islamic State, is losing territory in its self-styled caliphate, it is tightening its grip on the estimated 3,000 women and girls held as sex slaves. In a fusion of ancient barbaric practices and modern technology, Daesh sells the women like chattel on smart phone apps and shares databases that contain their photographs and the names of their owners to prevent their escape through Daesh checkpoints. The fighters are assassinating smugglers who rescue the captives, just as funds to buy the women out of slavery are drying up.
The thousands of Yazidi women and children were taken prisoner in August 2014, when Daesh fighters overran their villages in northern Iraq with the aim to eliminate the Kurdish-speaking minority because of its ancient faith. Since then, Arab and Kurdish smugglers managed to free an average of 134 people a month. But by May, a Daesh crackdown reduced those numbers to just 39 in the last six weeks, according to figures provided by the Kurdistan regional government.
Mirza Danai, founder of the German-Iraqi aid organization Luftbrucke Irak, said in the last two or three months, escape has become more difficult and dangerous.
They register every slave, every person under their owner, and therefore if she escapes, every Daesh control or checkpoint, or security force they know that this girl . . . has escaped from this owner, he said, using the Arabic acronym for the group.
U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby told the AP that the U.S. continues to be appalled by credible reports that Daesh is trafficking in human beings, and sex slavery in particular.
This depravity not only speaks to the degree to which Daesh cheapens life and repudiates the Islamic faith, it also strengthens our resolve to defeat them, he said.
The AP has obtained a batch of 48 head shots of the captives, smuggled out of the Daesh-controlled region by an escapee, which people familiar with them say are similar to those in the extremists slave database and the smartphone apps.
Lamiya Aji Bashar tried to flee four times before finally escaping in March, racing to government-controlled territory with Islamic State group fighters in pursuit. A land mine exploded, killing her companions, 8-year-old Almas and Katherine, 20. She never learned their last names.
The explosion left Lamiya blind in her right eye, her face scarred by melted skin. Saved by the man who smuggled her out, she counts herself among the lucky.
I managed in the end, thanks to God, I managed to get away from those infidels, the 18-year-told the AP from a bed at her uncles home in the northern Iraqi town of Baadre. Even if I had lost both eyes, it would have been worth it, because I have survived them.
The Sunni extremists view the Yazidis as barely human. The Yazidi faith combines elements of Islam, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, an ancient Persian religion. Their pre-war population in Iraq was estimated around 500,000. Their number today is unknown.
Nadia Mourad, an escapee, has appeared before the U.S. Congress and the European Parliament to appeal for international help.
Daesh is proud of what its done to the Yazidis, she said to Parliament. They are being used has human shields. They are not allowed to escape or flee. Probably they will be assassinated. Where is the world in all this? Where is humanity?
Daesh relies on encrypted apps to sell the women and girls, according to an activist who is documenting the transactions and asked not to be named for fear of his safety.
The activist showed AP the negotiations for the captives in encrypted conversations as they were occurring in real time.
The postings appear primarily on Telegram and on Facebook and WhatsApp to a lesser degree, he said.
Both Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Telegram use end-to-end encryption to protect users privacy. Both have said they consider protecting private conversations and data paramount, and that they themselves cannot access users content.
Telegram is extremely popular in the Middle East, among other regions, said Telegram spokesman Markus Ra. This, unfortunately, includes the more marginal elements and the broadest law-abiding masses alike. He added the company is committed to prevent abuse of the service and that it routinely removes public channels used by Daesh.
In addition to the posting for the 12-year-old in a group with hundreds of members, the AP viewed an ad on WhatsApp for a mother with a 3-year-old and a 7-month old baby, with a price of $3,700. She wants her owner to sell her, read the posting, followed by a photo.
We have zero tolerance for this type of behaviour and disable accounts when provided with evidence of activity that violates our terms. We encourage people to use our reporting tools if they encounter this type of behaviour, said Matt Steinfeld, a spokesman for WhatsApp.
Like the Bible, some passages of the Quran implicitly condone slavery, which was widespread when the holy book emerged. It also allows men to have sex with both their wives and those they possess with their right hands, taken by interpreters to refer to female slaves.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, most Muslim scholars backed the banning of slavery, citing Quranic verses that say freeing them is a blessing. Some hard-liners, however, continued to insist that under Sharia, sex slavery must be permitted, though the Islamic State group is the first in the modern era to bring it into organized practice.
In the images obtained by AP, many of the women and girls are dressed in finery, some in heavy makeup. All look directly at the camera, standing in front of overstuffed chairs or brocade curtains in what resembles a shabby hotel ballroom. Some are barely out of elementary school. Not one looks older than 30.
One of them is Nazdar Murat, who was about 16 when she was abducted two years ago one of more than two dozen young women taken away by the extremists in a single day in August 2014. Her father and uncles were among about 40 people killed when IS took over the Sinjar area, the heart of the Yazidi homeland.
Inside an immaculately kept tent in a displaced persons camp outside the northern Iraqi town of Dahuk, Nazdars mother said her daughter managed to call once, six months ago.
We spoke for a few seconds. She said she was in Mosul, said Murat, referring to Iraqs second-largest city. Every time someone comes back, we ask them what happened to her and no one recognizes her. Some people told me she committed suicide.
The family keeps the file of missing Yazidis on a mobile phone. They show it to those who have escaped the caliphate, to find out if anyone has seen her, and to other families looking for a thread of hope theyll see their own missing relatives again.
The odds of rescue, however, grow slimmer by the day. The smuggling networks that have freed the captives are being targeted by Daesh leaders, who are fighting to keep the Yazidis at nearly any cost, said Andrew Slater of the non-profit group Yazda, which helps document crimes against the community and organizes refuge for those who have fled.
Kurdistans regional government had been reimbursing impoverished Yazidi families who paid up to $15,000 in fees to smugglers to rescue their relatives, or the ransoms demanded by individual fighters to give up the captives. But the Kurdish regional government no longer has the funds. For the past year, Kurdistan has been mired in an economic crisis brought on by the collapse of oil prices, a dispute with Iraqs central government over revenues, and the fallout from the war against the Islamic State.
Even when Daesh retreats from towns like Ramadi or Fallujah, the missing girls are nowhere to be found.
Rescues are slowing. Theyre going to stop. People are running out of money, I have dozens of families who are tens of thousands of dollars in debt, Slater said. There are still thousands of women and kids in captivity but its getting harder and harder to get them out.
Lamiya was abducted from the village of Kocho, near the town of Sinjar, in the summer of 2014. Her parents are presumed dead. Somewhere, she said, her 9-year-old sister Mayada remains captive. One photo she managed to send to the family shows the little girl standing in front of an IS flag.
Five other sisters all managed to escape and later were relocated to Germany. A younger brother, kept for months in a Daesh training camp in Mosul, also slipped away and is now staying with other relatives in Dahuk, a city in the Iraqi Kurdish region.
Sitting very still and speaking in a monotone, Lamiya recounted her captivity, describing how she was passed from one Daesh follower to another, all of whom beat and violated her. She was determined to escape.
She said her first owner was an Iraqi Daesh commander who went by the name Abu Mansour in the city of Raqqa, the de-facto Daesh capital deep in Syria. He brutalized her, often keeping her handcuffed.
She tried to run away twice but was caught, beaten and raped repeatedly. After a month, she said, she was sold to another Daesh extremist in Mosul. After she spent two months with him, she was sold again, this time to a Daesh bomb-maker who Lamiya said forced her to help him make suicide vests and car bombs.
I tried to escape from him, she said. And he captured me, too, and he beat me.
When the bomb-maker grew bored with her, she was handed over to an IS doctor in Hawija, a small Daesh-controlled Iraqi town. She said the doctor, who was the Daesh head of the town hospital, also abused her.
From there, after more than a year, she managed to contact her relatives in secret.
Her uncle said the family paid local smugglers $800 to arrange Lamiyas escape. She will be reunited with her siblings in Germany, but despite everything, her heart remains in Iraq.
We had a nice house with a big farm . . . I was going to school, she said. It was beautiful.
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RALEIGH, N.C.Donald Trump, who frequently criticizes U.S. foreign policy under President Barack Obama and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, is praising former Iraqi president Saddam Husseins ruthlessness.
Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? . . . But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good, Trump told supporters at a campaign rally Tuesday night in Raleigh, N.C. They didnt read em the rights, they didnt talk. They were a terrorist, it was over.
Trump has previously said the world would be 100 per cent better if dictators like Hussein and Libyas Moammar Gadhafi were still in power. Prior to the U.S. invasion, Iraq was listed by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terrorism. Hussein suppressed dissent in his country and used poison gas against 5,000 Iraqi Kurds.
Jake Sullivan, a Clinton senior policy adviser, said Trumps praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds.
Sullivan said such comments demonstrate how dangerous he would be as commander-in-chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks.
Trumps foreign policy pronouncements have proved controversial, even within the Republican Party that is poised to nominate him for president in a few weeks. He has said the United States is too fully engaged around the world and has questioned the role of NATO and said the United States has been taken advantage of by nations benefitting from its security co-operation and troop presence. Some critics within the GOP have said his policies suggest an isolationist stance in an increasingly dangerous world.
Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, partners among Republican congressional critics of Obama administration foreign policy, carried out a fact check on Trumps national security statements earlier this year at a Capitol Hill hearing.
On April 19, when the army general selected to lead U.S. forces in South Korea testified before the committee, McCain seized the opportunity to undermine Trumps suggestion that the U.S. withdraw its forces from the South because Seoul isnt paying enough to cover the cost of the American military presence.
Isnt it the fact that it costs us less to have troops stationed in Korea than in the United States, given the contribution the Republic of Korea makes? McCain asked Gen. Vincent Brooks.
Yes, Brooks said, telling McCain the South Koreans pay half, or $808 million (U.S.) annually, of the U.S. presence there.
Two days later, Trumps claim that NATO is irrelevant and ill-suited to fight terrorism came under the microscope. As president, Trump has said he would force member nations to increase their contributions, even if that risked breaking up the 28-country alliance.
In early March, more than 70 conservative national experts, including former homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff, wrote in an open letter that they have disagreed with one another on a variety of issues but are united in their opposition to a Trump presidency. Chertoff served in president George W. Bushs administration.
More U.S. election coverage on thestar.com:
Clinton takes aim at Trumps shameful business record in Atlantic City
GOP to probe FBI decision on Clinton emails
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NAIROBI, KENYAKenyans burned a police station Wednesday as thousands across the country protested against extra-judicial killings linked to police, days after the bodies of a human rights lawyer, his client and another man were pulled from a river and several officers were detained.
Anger over the killings has simmered in the East African country where human rights groups say police-linked killings are pervasive.
Hundreds of lawyers from the Law Society of Kenya marched to police headquarters in the capital, Nairobi, to demand action. Lawyers across Kenya are on a week-long work slowdown to protest the murders, and the law society is seeking orders to compel police to ensure there is no interference into investigations into the killings.
Human rights lawyer Willie Kimani, his client and motorcycle taxi driver Josephat Mwenda and taxi driver Joseph Muiruri went missing on June 23. Their bodies were pulled from a river on Friday.
The men were tortured, according to a post-mortem report presented to the court. Mwendas testicles were crushed, pathologist Dr. Andrew Gachii said, and his skull was fractured. The bodies of the others also bore wounds from a blunt object.
Despite threats, Mwenda had been pursuing charges against a police officer at the Syokimau police station who had shot him in an unprovoked incident in 2015.
Four officers from the station are being held for the murders. Rights groups say witnesses claim the three men were held there after being abducted.
Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet condemned the burning of the station. He also pledged that those responsible for the murders will be held accountable.
Kenya is vetting hundreds of thousands of police officers, trying to restore the image of a force often accused of abuses. Rights group Independent Medico Legal Unit says 520 extra-judicial killings have occurred since 2013.
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BEIRUTAs Muslims celebrate the end of Ramadan, many are struggling to comprehend a wave of attacks that killed 350 people across several countries during the holy month and raised the question of what drives the militants to ever more spectacular violence.
The high-profile attacks underline the warnings by many experts that Daesh, also known as ISIS or the Islamic State, especially when on the defensive, will metastasize far beyond its theatre of operations.
The extremist group has always sought attention and recruits through terrorism, which has proven to be a winning strategy among its disenfranchised and angry followers.
The loss of its key city of Fallujah capped a series of recent setbacks in Iraq, and the group is pushing to project its strength while also diverting attention from its battlefield humiliations.
ISIS is waging an existential fight, said Fawaz Gerges, a London-based scholar of jihadi groups. The future of the Islamic State is on the line, and it is trying to maximize the cost for its adversaries and also to inspire this particular segment of young men and women who subscribe to its ideology.
If the militants needed to send a message, Ramadan provided a convenient context.
Most Muslims regard the month as a time for introspection, peace and piety, but militants and hard-line clerics have been touting it as an opportunity for jihad, or holy war.
Weeks before Ramadan, Daesh urged its supporters to strike wherever possible, and those calls appear to have found resonance.
Omar Mateen, who pledged allegiance to Daesh, killed 49 people at a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on June 12. Militants killed 44 people at Istanbuls main airport on June 28. Young men killed 20 hostages at a Bangladesh restaurant on July 1.
Such violence highlights how attacks can be instantly attached to Daesh, even when the group does not claim responsibility. It also underscored the increasingly blurred lines in which attacks can be assigned to Daesh and transformed into a global cause.
The bloodshed also demonstrated the difficulty in neutralizing a threat that often is inspired by the group and not necessarily directed from within it.
Still, many of the attacks appeared to have been carefully planned, with targets clearly meant to induce fear and shock.
In Yemen on June 27, there were seven simultaneous attacks in the southern port of Mukalla against security targets, killing 43 people. In one of them, a bomb was hidden in a box of food brought to soldiers at a checkpoint to break their Ramadan fast.
In the Bangladesh violence, witnesses said the attackers tortured some of the victims before killing them for their failure to recite from the Quran.
Baghdad residents hardened by years of war said a July 3 bombing that killed 175 people was like no other in recent memory. They said shoppers were trapped in an inferno of fire that was one of the deadliest single attacks since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The wave of violence culminated Monday with triple suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia, including one that killed four security troops near the Prophets Mosque in the city of Medina, one of Islams holiest sites. The apparently co-ordinated attacks suggested Daesh was to blame, although no one claimed responsibility.
Daesh is increasingly on the defensive in Syria and Iraq. Its hold on territory has shrunk after losing key strongholds, including Fallujah.
Beirut-based analyst Ibrahim Bayram said the groups goal is to dispel the notion that it is going to vanish or shrink.
With such attacks, it is proving that it is still capable of crossing borders and conducting attacks everywhere, including in the holy sites in Saudi Arabia, he said. That is a key for the group, which seeks to boost its credentials and recruitment.
But the attack in Medina outside the sprawling mosque grounds where the Prophet Muhammad is buried sparked particular disgust. Millions visit the mosque every year as part of their pilgrimage to Mecca. Across social media and on channels used by Daesh, supporters appeared to be grappling to explain the violence, quickly labelled by opponents as an attack on Islam itself.
This could be why there has been no claim of responsibility.
Mohammad Ballout, writing Tuesday in Lebanons daily As-Safir newspaper, said the attacks aim to be a direct warning to Sunni-led nations that an undeclared Daesh truce with them may collapse if they dont halt their support for the war on the group.
Gerges said the Medina attack was not surprising because there are no red lines anymore.
It is also possible the radicals want to goad the U.S.-led coalition arrayed against them to take them on in their strongholds of Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.
Those two cities offer the prospect of a bloody, house-to-house fight that many jihadis calculate would be worth losing, because it would cost their enemy so dearly.
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The citizens who demonstrated against the Summit of the Americas in 2001 recognized they didnt all want and need to demonstrate in the same way. They divided into three classes, the green, yellow, and red zones.
The green zone believed in peaceful negotiations, leading with love first. Confronted with riot cops, they would sit down and light candles and lay flowers. These are some of the most powerful moments and images that came out of the Summit: a line full of people trained for war aiming tear gas at citizens lighting candles and holding flowers. Can you really shoot at someone offering you a daisy? I dare you.
The yellow zone, peaceful supporters who were moderate or new to demonstrating, knew how important it is to be present and be a witness. Never underestimate how important it is to be on the right side of history. If youre not showing up, youre sitting out.
The most extreme version of the red zone believed corporations would only feel the effects of material destruction, smashing the sign of a gas station and whatever other materials in their path, because they felt people driven by money would only listen where they feel it; in their bank account.
Everyone had the same goal and the same sentiment. They didnt agree on each others tactics, but, in recognizing that, divided into primary coloured zones and different parade routes with the same intent. Between 50,000 and 150,000 marched to spread one message in mind. Not everyone agreed with everyones tactics, but the movement recognized a very important fundamental thing. We can all be on the same team and want the same thing, even if we dont agree about how to get from point A to point B.
Point A to point B is messy. Revolution doesnt come easily. Especially when youre dealing with a movement of thousands upon thousands. The loudest and proudest is how people seize the day, which is how Pride started in the first place. So how shocking that a group as loud and proud as one of the most repressed, beat down, systematically shut down decided to lie down in the middle of the countrys biggest parade.
Black Lives Matter, the honoured group of Pride, lay down in front of the very parade they were honoured by and represented the black queer bodies that die regularly just for being who they are. They demanded Pride get back to its roots of representing its communitys needs and the very reason Pride exists in the first place.
The parade has stopped for no reason! Theres helicopters flying over head! Knowing there were fears for Justin Trudeaus safety because he was the first prime minister to walk in a Canadian Pride parade and the merciless massacre of the LGBTQ community in Orlando two weeks earlier, the unexplained delay was frightening. Chaos ensued and the unknown leads to fear.
Its understandable why people were upset before they were even able to understand.
Black Lives Matters tactic is well contested. One can argue it was the wrong time and place, but would we be even talking about it if they hadnt of done it at that time and place? Not a lot of people cared when they stood in the rain for weeks, asking for justice for a dead black mans body.
Did you even know the South Asian stage existed? Or that it had been abolished? That Blockarama, Prides longest running stage, celebrating black and African diaspora, had been getting smaller to make room for stages named after banks and beer companies? Are we attending Pride to watch floating advertisements with go-go dancers or celebrate an actual community and revolutionary history?
You can support a movement without always agreeing on its tactics. You can believe in equality for all and do things in your every day life and choices and still think an unannounced 30-minute demonstration in the middle of the Pride parade wasnt the best way to go about it. But would we even be talking about it if they didnt? Sometimes its hard to be tactful. Orlando wasnt tactful. Systemic oppression isnt tactful. We wouldnt be talking about Rosa Parks if she was tactful.
Sometimes we have to stop focusing on the tactics, and start listening to the message.
And if you dont like how the message was sent, start sending it the best way you know how. Movement means moving forward, not tripping over each others feet because of infighting on how to lead.
There are many ways to get from point A to point B. Dont shoot, step on or antagonize your allies for not being perfect in the process. They want the same things as you, they may just not be going about it the same way as you. Recognize your allies when theyre on your team and, in the words of Gandhi, be the change you want to see.
Paddy Jane is a journalist who covered the Summit of the Americas for the National Campus and Community Radio Association, is Captain of the No Pants Society, regularly produces shows at Pride and is a photographer at Fifty Two Pinups.
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With the U.S. presidential candidates actively debating Americas participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), it is time for Canada to begin reconsidering its role in the trade agreement. The TPP may leave significantly more Canadians without medications, causing a heightened urgency to create and implement a national plan that ensures access to necessary drugs for all Canadians.
The TPP, a free-trade agreement between 12 countries that account for 40 per cent of the worlds gross domestic product, was drafted in October 2015 and signed February 2016. Currently, the TPP is waiting to be ratified.
Although the ratification will probably spur GDP growth by reducing barriers to trade, the agreement will also have many negative side effects. Regarding health care, the TPP could increase pharmaceutical prices and thereby decrease access to medications among Canadians.
Pharmaceutical development can reach costs as high as $1.3 billion. To ensure firms are motivated to innovate, they are granted patent protection on their drugs. This intellectual property protection gives firms a monopoly over their drugs market, allowing them to control the sales price. Eventually, patent protection expires and prices are brought down by generic drug production.
The TPP influences drug prices by strengthening intellectual property rights and preventing generic drug production. Two ways such rights are strengthened include making evergreening easier for innovative firms and by granting data exclusivity to pharmaceutical products.
Evergreening is the renewing of patent protection on pre-existing drugs through minor adjustments. Previously, the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights flexibilities under the World Trade Organization, allowed countries to control patent term length through high requirements for patent renewal.
However, the TPP makes it much more difficult for countries to control the patent renewal process. By requiring all countries in the trade agreement to grant patents for minor innovations to existing drugs, the threshold of innovativeness in the pharmaceutical industry is lowered. As a result, firms can extend the protection on certain medications, delaying the production of generic drugs and keeping prices high.
Data exclusivity refers to the protection companies are granted on information related to their patented medications. The TPP requires that new pharmaceutical products receive at least five years of data protection and existing products that have new uses receive at least three years which can extend beyond the patent period. As a result, generic drug manufacturers must wait until exclusivity ends, or conduct their own expensive and time-consuming clinical trials, before being able to sell generic drugs once again, keeping drug prices high.
By raising the prices of medications, the TPP makes it more difficult for patients to access their medications. Today, one in 10 Canadians are unable to afford medications as a result of costs a problem that affects nearly a quarter of Canadian households. In addition, employers have difficulty sustaining the high costs of the employee health-care coverage responsible for a third of Canadas drug expenditure.
The potential for the TPP to leave significantly more Canadians without medications heightens the urgency to create a national pharmacare plan that ensures universal drug access.
Pharmacare returned as an issue last year after the CMAJ published results showing a universal public drug coverage plan would reduce spending on prescription drugs by about $7.3 billion. Currently, Canada spends a disproportionately high amount on prescription drugs, as compared to other developed countries. For example, in 2013 Canada spent $713 USD per capita on retail pharmaceuticals, compared to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development average of $515 USD.
By switching to a single-payer purchasing system, rather than the expensive multi-payer system we currently use, the bulk savings and reduced administrative costs are substantial. Such a system would effectively neutralize the price increases of the TPP while providing Canadians with fair and equitable access to resources that will restore their health.
Dr. Eric Hoskins, Ontarios minister of health and long term care, is a particularly strong supporter of national pharmacare. Additionally, the federal government has recently acknowledged our countrys high cost of medicines by creating a working group to research these costs further.
Now we need a bold push from the federal and provincial government to develop a pharmacare program appropriate for Canada. Policy developers must take the lead and push forward progress using the best available evidence. Doing so will not only allow us to remove our status as the only country with a universal health care system that does not cover prescription drugs, but will also ensure the welfare of many Canadians is not put further at risk by the TPP.
Tanishq Suryavanshi (@nishqy) is a medical student at McMaster University, culinary graduate from Liaison College, and a researcher in public health at the Global Strategy Lab in Ottawa. Jake Hirsch-Allen (@jakehirschallen) is an instructor at McMaster University and an adjunct faculty member at the McMaster Health Forum.
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SC decides to disband separate criminal and civil benches of seven districts
The full meeting of the Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to disband the separate criminal and civil benches set up in various seven districts.
A June 9 article by the Washington Post reporting that Israeli Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel said he wants to annex more than half the West Bank stated incorrectly that Ariel also said he wants to remove the Palestinians living the West Bank's Area C. The article had cited a Times of Israel interview with Ariel. The Times later issued a correction stating that Ariel did not call for the removal of Palestinians and said the mistake was a mistranslation.
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Shares of Netflix (NFLX) are sliding after Jefferies analyst John Janedis downgraded the stock to Underperform, a sell-equivalent rating, citing growth concerns, particularly in the U.S. This is the second downgrade in as many days, following yesterday's rating cut by Needham analyst Laura Martin on similar growth concerns regarding the company's international subscribers. Nonetheless, this mornings bearish move has not been enough to shed yesterday's gains after a news report stating that Netflix will be incorporated into Comcast's (CMCSA) ; (CMCSK) X1 platform.
GROWTH CONCERNS: In a research note to investors this morning, Jefferies' Janedis downgraded Netflix to Underperform from Hold after assuming coverage of the name, and lowered his price target on the shares to $80 from $120. While the analyst believes the company's runway will span multiple years, he said his research indicates that Netflix's domestic subscriber growth trajectory "may be somewhat flatter" than the market's current expectations. Additionally, Janedis acknowledged that while international opportunity is large, he believes that international growth will be more challenging than expected in the near-term, making growth non-linear. Yesterday, Needham's Martin had also downgraded Netflix, cutting the stock rating to Hold from Buy. The analyst believes the recent Brexit vote adds risk that decelerating U.K. and EU GDP growth will slow the company's subscriber growth or accelerate its churn rates. The analyst also pointed out the negative currency translation risks and the EU legal changes proposed in May that would force Netflix to fund European-made films, which could bring higher costs.
COMCAST DEAL BENEFITS: Conversely, Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Nat Schindler remains bullish on Netflix following the reported deal with Comcast, reiterating a Buy rating and $146 price target on the stock. The analyst noted that Comcast is the first major U.S. cable provider to allow Netflix onto their core set top box platform, which he sees as bringing several benefits to the streaming company such as expanded household reach, potential integration into monthly cable bills, and stronger positioning for future partnerships with other Pay-TV providers. Also positive on the agreement was Pacific Crest analyst Andy Hargreaves, who believes the deal should reduce consumer friction and help support higher usage and subscription levels. Additionally, Hargreaves expects the agreement to improve Comcast's competitive position and increase demand for its higher broadband offerings. He reiterated a $130 price target on Netflix's stock and a $65 price target on Comcast's shares. Pacific Crest has an Overweight rating on both stocks.
PRICE ACTION: In morning trading, shares of Netflix have dropped about 3.5% to $94.55.
Reporting by Jessica de Sa-Mota.
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NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Mondelez (MDLZ) are up 0.5% to $45.12 late Wednesday morning even though Susquehanna said the company's unsolicited bid for Hershey (HSY) will most likely fail, Barron's reports.
"Todd Stitzer tried (former CEO of Cadbury), WM Wrigley also tried, and now Mondelez CEO Irene Rosenfeld is trying. But we think the outcome will be the same: no sale of HSY," the firm said in a note cited by Barron's.
"True, the Mondelez approach is well-timed given the slew of challenges faced by the Hershey Trust (owner of a 34% economic interest in Hershey, but holder of 81.5% of the voting stock)," Susquehanna added.
Additionally, diversification would probably help the Hershey Trust's ultimate mission of funding and operating the Milton Hershey School, where the endowment per student ratio is $6 million compared with $1.7 million at Harvard University, according to the firm.
"But our read of politics and regulations in Pennsylvania, makes us doubt a sale will ultimately take place. There are too many (mostly political) variables that would need to come together," Susquehanna said.
Shares of Hershey are down 0.52% to $109.98 late this morning.
Separately, TheStreet Ratings Team has a "Buy" rating with a score of A- on Mondelez stock.
The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its solid stock price performance, notable return on equity, expanding profit margins, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and impressive record of earnings per share growth.
Recently, TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author.
You can view the full analysis from the report here: MDLZ
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Italy is facing a banking crisis as its ailing economic situation continues to worsen after recent reports of bad bank loans.
The former Head of the Italian Treasury, Lorenzo Codogno, believes the European Union must approve an injection of public money into one or more Italian banks.
"There must be an injection of public money into at least one bank, or possibly more than one, to stop the contagion because it has become a systemic risk problem," Codogno said on CNBC's "Fast Money" on Wednesday. "It's difficult to figure out how the situation can improve without any government intervention."
The Italian situation was "very fragile and vulnerable before Brexit," Codogno says. He believes the U.K. referendum to leave the EU created an event that sent ripples throughout Europe and "certainly affected the Italian banking sector more than others."
Codogno warns against the Italian government facilitating the injection of funds themselves and that it should happen via European rules. He believes "the debate now is whether you can do it outright without any bailing or if you have to go through some form of bailing." The outcome of that debate should be realized within the next few days.
"The risk is if we [Italy] have another major shock we may end up with another credit crunch or a significant slowdown in the growth of credit in the economy which would affect the pace of growth in the economy," Codogno added.
Dear Heloise: I often see breakfast casserole recipes in which you refrigerate the pan overnight and then bake the next morning. However, none of the recipes say to let the pan sit awhile before putting it in the oven. Wont a glass pan crack if its put into the oven directly from the fridge? Im asking because I dont want to end up cleaning cooked eggs off my oven walls and floor.
Kathy M., via email
Kathy M.: Youre right! Its rare to see a recipe that tells you to do this. However, a major glassware manufacturer states that you should pull a dish out of the refrigerator and allow it to warm up for 15 minutes before placing it in the oven. Also, dont place the glassware in an oven that is preheated above 425 degrees.
It is sudden temperature changes that can cause cracking or shattering of glassware, so never take a glass pan directly from freezer to oven. Instead, thaw the dish overnight in the refrigerator for cooking the next day.
Dear Heloise: When I opened a package of bacon, I normally took out one slice. I then sealed the package and put it back in the refrigerator. I didnt use it often, so after a while, the bacon wouldnt look so appetizing, and it had to be trashed. I finally solved the problem.
I spread a length of plastic wrap on the counter. I take one slice and place it at the end of the plastic and fold the plastic over the slice. The second slice is placed on top of the first (separated by the plastic), and I fold the wrap over that slice. I place it in a plastic zipper-top bag and squeeze out the air. The package is put in the freezer and stored until needed. Its very simple to remove one or more of the slices. No more discarded bacon!
Paul K., Oak Park, Calif.
Dear Heloise: Two hints that I use when making buckwheat pancakes from a mix and frying them on a nonstick griddle:
1. Measure the vegetable oil first, then use the same spoon for the honey. It slides right off.
2. Rub cold butter on the cold griddle before heating. It coats the surface and doesnt pool.
Carol W., New Cumberland, Pa.
Dear Heloise: I keep celery leaves stored in a zipper-top plastic bag in the refrigerator. When recipes call for chopped celery or parsley, I add some leaves for a burst of celery flavor.
Sally W., Hammond, Ind.
Dear Heloise: I have problems with arthritis in my hands, so it is hard to mix chopped meat for meatloaf, etc. I have found that using my stand mixer is a great way to mix the meat, and it also keeps my hands from getting cold. I use the regular attachment that I use for mixing cookies and cakes.
Phyllis B., via email
Heloises column appears six days a week at washingtonpost.com/advice. Send a hint to Heloise , P.O. Box 795000, San Antonio, Tex. 78279-5000, or email it to Heloise@Heloise.com.
Alexandria
These were among incidents reported by the Alexandria Police Department. For information, call 703-838-4636 or visit alexandriava.gov.
HOMICIDE
Montgomery St., 1000 block, 11:28 a.m. June 24. A homicide was reported.
SEXUAL ASSAULTS
Derby Ct., 5600 block, 9:19 p.m. June 28. A sexual assault was reported.
Quaker Lane N., 1200 block, 1:17 a.m. June 24. A sexual assault was reported.
ASSAULTS
Bruce St., 3900 block, 12:04 a.m. June 29. An assault was reported. An arrest was made.
Duke St., 4500 block, 8:23 a.m. June 29. An assault was reported.
Duke St., 6200 block, 4:10 a.m. June 29. An assault was reported.
Dulany St. and Jamieson Ave., 4:51 p.m. June 26. An assault was reported.
Edison St., 3600 block, 12:40 a.m. June 25. An assault was reported.
Four Mile Rd., 400 block, 10:30 p.m. June 27. An assault was reported.
Jordan St. S., unit block, 10:40 p.m. June 28. An assault was reported.
Morgan St. N., 5400 block, 2:44 a.m. June 29. An assault was reported.
Mount Vernon Ave., 2100 block, 11:24 a.m. June 25. An assault was reported. An arrest was made.
Pendleton and N. Royal streets, 8:10 p.m. June 29. An assault was reported.
Quaker Lane N., 1200 block, 1:17 p.m. June 25. An assault was reported.
Rayburn Ave., 5600 block, 6:10 p.m. June 24. An assault was reported.
Reading Ave., 5700 block, 2:35 a.m. June 25. An assault was reported.
Reynolds St. S., 300 block, 11:19 p.m. June 23. Two people fought. An arrest was made.
Roanoke Ave., 5400 block, 7:24 a.m. June 23. Two people fought.
Sanger Ave., 1400 block, 7:44 p.m. June 24. An assault was reported.
Sheffield Ct., 5400 block, 9:57 p.m. June 25. An assault was reported. An arrest was made.
Van Dorn St. S., unit block, 6:13 p.m. June 23. Two people fought.
Whiting St. S., 300 block, 3:01 a.m. June 27. An assault was reported.
ROBBERIES
Van Dorn St. S., unit block, 4:46 p.m. June 27. A robbery was reported.
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Adams Ave., 200 block, 8:32 a.m. June 29. A theft was reported.
Armistead St. N., 400 block, 3:21 p.m. June 27. A theft was reported.
Bragg St. S., 100 block, 4:33 p.m. June 28. A theft was reported. An arrest was made.
Bragg St. S., unit block, 6:03 a.m. June 29. A theft was reported.
Bruce St., 3900 block, 11 a.m. June 26. A theft was reported.
Cameron Station Blvd., 500 block, 6:05 p.m. June 25. A theft was reported.
Century Pl., 200 block, 9:26 a.m. June 25. A theft was reported.
Commonwealth Ave., 3400 block, 5:30 p.m. June 26. A theft was reported.
Commonwealth Ave., 3700 block, 12:29 a.m. June 29. Property was entered. An arrest was made.
Commonwealth Ave., 3700 block, 10:15 p.m. June 23. Property was entered. An arrest was made.
Duke St., 4600 block, 5:35 p.m. June 27. A theft was reported.
Duke St., 5700 block, 3:25 p.m. June 24. A theft was reported. An arrest was made.
Edsall Rd., 5700 block, 9:15 p.m. June 27. A theft was reported.
Edsall Rd., 6200 block, 1:12 p.m. June 26. A theft was reported.
Exeter Ct., 5700 block, 7:43 p.m. June 24. A theft was reported.
Glendale Ave. E., 200 block, 10:27 a.m. June 29. A theft was reported.
Henry St. N., 800 block, 4:01 a.m. June 23. Property was stolen from a residence.
Jefferson Davis Hwy., 3100 block, 6:26 p.m. June 25. A theft was reported. An arrest was made.
Jefferson Davis Hwy., 3100 block, 9:28 p.m. June 23. A shoplifting incident was reported. An arrest was made.
Kenmore Ave., 4700 block, 6:02 p.m. June 23. Property was stolen from a residence.
King St., 1100 block, 9:09 a.m. June 29. Property was stolen.
King St., 1500 block, 11:40 a.m. June 23. A theft was reported.
King St., 1700 block, 2:43 p.m. June 25. A theft was reported.
King St., 4300 block, 2:01 p.m. June 23. Property was stolen from an office building.
Madison St., 1000 block, 11:15 a.m. June 27. A theft was reported.
Mill Rd., 2600 block, 4:22 p.m. June 29. A theft was reported.
Mount Vernon Ave., 1000 block, 9:35 a.m. June 24. A theft was reported.
Naylor St. N., 700 block, 2:48 p.m. June 26. A theft was reported.
Pickett St. S., 300 block, 10:52 a.m. June 28. A theft was reported.
Pickett St. S., 600 block, 9:53 a.m. June 27. A theft was reported.
Quaker Lane S., unit block, 3:01 p.m. June 28. A theft was reported. An arrest was made.
Quantrell Ave., 5800 block, 4:48 p.m. June 26. A theft was reported.
Ramsey St., 700 block, 3:26 p.m. June 27. A theft was reported.
Rayburn Ave., 5600 block, 9:35 a.m. June 24. A theft was reported.
Reynolds St. S., unit block, 9:08 a.m. June 29. A theft was reported.
Ripley St. N., 300 block, 6:36 p.m. June 29. A theft was reported.
Russell Rd., 600 block, 4:42 a.m. June 28. Property was entered. An arrest was made.
Van Dorn St. S., 200 block, 9:44 p.m. June 23. A theft was reported.
Van Dorn St. S., unit block, 3:56 p.m. June 28. A theft was reported.
Van Dorn St. S., unit block, 4:42 p.m. June 27. A theft was reported.
Whiting St. S., 200 block, 9 p.m. June 27. A theft was reported.
MOTOR VEHICLE THEFTS
Bragg St. S., unit block, 6:03 a.m. June 29. A vehicle was stolen.
King St., 1100 block, 9:09 a.m. June 29. A vehicle was stolen.
Park Center Dr., 2600 block, 9:33 a.m. June 27. A vehicle was stolen.
Patrick St. S., 600 block, 2:12 p.m. June 27. A vehicle was stolen.
Reynolds St. S., 200 block, 9:19 p.m. June 23. A vehicle was stolen.
Royal St. N., 200 block, 10:28 a.m. June 25. A vehicle was stolen.
VANDALISM
Alexandria Ave. W., unit block, 11:07 p.m. June 25. Property was damaged.
Derby Ct., 5600 block, 5:19 a.m. June 25. Property was damaged.
Duke St., 4200 block, 10:38 a.m. June 25. Property was damaged.
Eisenhower Ave., 4800 block, 9:26 p.m. June 23. Property was damaged.
Executive Ave., 3800 block, midnight June 24. Property was damaged.
Masonic View Ave. W., 300 block, 11:04 a.m. June 29. Property was damaged.
Wheeler Ave., 3600 block, 12:40 a.m. June 26. Property was damaged.
Arlington
These were among incidents reported from June 23 to June 29 by the Arlington County Police Department. For information, call 703-558-2222 or visit newsroom.arlingtonva.us.
SEXUAL ASSAULTS
Wilson Blvd. N., 1900 block, 11:10 p.m. June 27. A man exposed his genitals to a female pedestrian and placed them on her. The female fought back and the man fled from the scene.
ASSAULTS
Columbia Pike S., 2900 block. An assault was reported.
Columbia Pike S., 5500 block. An assault was reported.
Courthouse Rd. N., 1400 block. A harassment incident was reported.
Fillmore St. S., 300 block. An assault was reported.
Greenbrier St. S., 800 block. An assault was reported.
Irving St. N., 1100 block. An assault was reported.
Jefferson Davis Hwy. S., 1700 block. An assault was reported.
Kennebec St. N., 1100 block. An assault was reported.
Lee Hwy. N., 6700 block. An assault was reported.
Lee Hwy. N., 6800 block. An assault was reported.
Stafford St. N., 900 block. An assault was reported.
Wilson Blvd. N., 3000 block. An assault was reported.
Fourth St. N., 4400 block. An assault was reported.
14th St. N., 2000 block. An assault was reported.
17th St. N., 3700 block, 1:28 a.m. June 23. Two people fought.
27th Rd. N., 4000 block. An assault was reported.
MISSILE TO AN OCCUPIED DWELLING
Wilson Blvd. N., 3200 block. 2:40 p.m. June 26. A man threw a beer bottle into a car window after a verbal altercation. Two people inside the vehicle received minor cuts from shattered glass.
ROBBERIES
15th St. S., 500 block, 6:45 a.m. June 25. A man got out of a vehicle and brandished a firearm at a female pedestrian and robbed her of property. The man drove away.
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Arlington Blvd. N., 1000 block. Property was stolen from a vehicle.
Buchanan St. S., 2900 block. A theft was reported.
Calvert St. N., 2000 block, 5 p.m. May 8 to June 26. Property was stolen from a residence.
Carlin Springs Rd. N., 4200 block. Property was stolen from two vehicles.
Clark St. S., 1200 block. Property was stolen from two vehicles.
Columbia Pike S., 1900 block, 9:30 a.m. to noon June 27. Property was stolen from a residence entered by force.
Columbia Pike S., 3700 block. A theft was reported.
Columbia Pike S., 4800 block. Property was entered.
Columbus St. N., 200 block, 10:35 p.m. June 27. A homeowner saw a male assaulting a female in the street and shouted he was going to call police. The male entered the residence by force and assaulted the homeowner causing him to lose consciousness. A resident in the home saw the assault and yelled at the man, who then made threats and attempted to steal items before the female took him away. A police investigation said that the male had attempted to enter a residence and a vehicle at 10:25 p.m. the same day, in the 100 block of N. Columbus St. An 18-year-old, of no fixed address, was charged.
Crystal Dr. S., 1500 block. Property was stolen from a vehicle.
Eads St. S., 1100 block. Property was stolen from a vehicle.
Eads St. S., 1600 block. Property was stolen from a vehicle.
Fairfax Dr. N., 4000 block. Property was stolen from a vehicle.
George Mason Dr. N., 1600 block. Property was stolen from two vehicles.
Glebe Rd. N., 700 block, 7:36 p.m. June 23. A shoplifting incident was reported.
Glebe Rd. N., 700 block, 6:43 p.m. June 23. A shoplifting incident was reported.
Glebe Rd. N., 700 block, 12:54 p.m. June 23. A shoplifting incident was reported.
Glebe Rd. N., 700 block. Two thefts were reported.
Glebe Rd. N., unit block. A theft was reported.
Hayes St. S., 1000 block. An employee theft was reported.
Hayes St. S., 1000 block. Two thefts were reported.
Hayes St. S., 1100 block. An attempt was made to steal property.
Hayes St. S., 1100 block. Six thefts were reported.
Hayes St. S., 1400 block. A theft was reported.
Jefferson Davis Hwy. S., 1900 block. Property was entered.
Joyce St. S., 1100 block. A theft was reported.
Kensington St. N., 1000 block. Property was stolen from a vehicle.
Kent St. N., 1100 block. Property was stolen from a vehicle.
Key Blvd. N., 2000 block. Property was stolen from a vehicle.
Lee Hwy. N., 1400 block. A theft was reported.
Lynn St. N., 1800 block. A theft was reported.
Monroe St. N., 400 block, 9:30 to 11 a.m. June 27. Property was stolen from a residence entered by force.
Nelson St. S., 2700 block. Property was entered.
Oak St. N., 1800 block. Property was stolen from a vehicle.
Oakland St. S., 2700 block. Property was stolen from a vehicle.
Ohio St. N., 1100 block. A theft was reported.
Queen St. S., 1000 block, 11:18 p.m. June 23. Two males entered a residence by force. Nothing was reported missing.
Thomas St. N., 100 block. A theft was reported.
Wilson Blvd., 1100 block, 6 p.m. June 23. A theft was reported.
12th St. S., 200 block. Property was stolen from two vehicles.
15th St. S., 500 block. A theft was reported.
15th St. S., 600 block. Property was stolen from a vehicle.
17th St. N., 3700 block. Property was entered.
23rd St. N., 4200 block. A theft was reported.
25th St. S., 3400 block. A theft was reported.
MOTOR VEHICLE THEFTS
Ball St. S., 200 block, June 24. A black 2006 Kawasaki motorcycle was stolen.
Troy St. N., 1700 block, June 25. A blue 2012 Hyundai Sonata was stolen.
VANDALISM
Adams St. N., 1400 block, 1:43 p.m. June 23. Property was damaged.
Carlin Springs Rd. N., 4200 block. A vehicle was tampered with.
George Mason Dr. S., 1600 block. Property was damaged.
Greenbrier St. S., 800 block. Property was damaged.
Hayes St. S., 1700 block. Property was damaged.
Lee Hwy N., 1400 block. A vehicle was tampered with.
Montague St. N., 500 block, 5:30 a.m. June 23. A flower pot was broken and graffiti was sprayed on several trash cans and a stop sign.
Thomas St. N., 200 block. Property was damaged.
Wilson Blvd. N., 1500 block, 7:33 a.m. Property was damaged.
Wilson Blvd. N., 1500 block. Property was damaged.
Fourth St. N., 5000 block. Property was damaged.
Eighth St. S., 5100 block. Property was damaged.
President Barack Obama visits a classroom at Buck Lodge Middle School in Adelphi, Md., in 2014. Obama has urged schools nationwide to move toward fewer, better tests. (Jewel Samad/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)
A Maryland commission on public school testing is urging the states 24 school systems to closely examine the type and volume of the exams they administer to students and to propose potential changes to local school boards.
In a newly released report, the Commission to Review Marylands Use of Assessments and Testing in Public Schools stopped short of suggesting an across-the board cap on testing, and the groups findings were not as far-reaching as some had hoped. But commission chairman Christopher Berry, principal at James Hubert Blake High School in Montgomery County, said he hopes the findings will spur action in exam programs statewide.
[Read the commissions full report]
He said new district-level committees will examine how tests inform instruction, whether they are duplicative and whether teachers see alignment between tests and classroom work.
There have been a lot of changes on the national landscape where assessment is concerned, he said. The recommendations of the commission can and should serve as a catalyst for making assessment work more effectively for students, educators and parents.
Testing has been at the forefront of the national education discussion, especially as students in numerous states, including Maryland, have been transitioning to new exams based on the Common Core. In October, a study released by the Council of the Great City Schools found that a typical student takes 112 mandated standardized tests between pre-kindergarten and 12th grade.
[Study says standardized testing is overwhelming nations public schools]
President Obama days later acknowledged that his policies have helped lead to overtesting and said that he wants students to take fewer, better tests. And reducing the role of testing was a major theme on Capitol Hill during debate over the Every Student Succeeds Act, which passed in the fall with bipartisan support.
On Wednesday, the Obama administration proposed new rules for K-12 standardized testing to implement the new law, including a program to encourage states to develop innovative tests and regulations that would allow districts to do away with state tests in high schools and instead administer the SAT, ACT or other nationally recognized assessments.
[Obama administration proposes new rules for K-12 standardized testing]
Reaction to the Maryland commissions report was mixed, with some saying they had hoped for broader reform. Del. Eric G. Luedtke (D-Montgomery), who sponsored a bill this year that would have limited standardized testing to 2 percent of instruction time, said the recommendations do not go far enough.
I dont think passing the buck is a complete solution, Luedtke said. They should have called for more reductions in state-mandated testing.
Sen. Nancy J. King (D-Montgomery), who has served on the Montgomery school board, said she also was disappointed in the scope of the report. She served on the commission but said she missed several meetings because of scheduling conflicts.
I had really hoped we could cut the testing time, King said, adding that there is a strong feeling in the General Assembly that students are overtested and that legislation is needed to address the loss of instructional time. I dont think this is going to close the door on the issue.
The testing commission made a number of recommendations that would require state officials to act. It urges, for example, that a state-required social studies assessment for middle school students not be implemented as planned. Berry said that although social studies is important, our thought was thats going in the wrong direction. We should be decreasing the assessment footprint, not increasing it.
The commission made other recommendations that seek to limit testing disruption.
It recommended that state-required exams called HSAs be given over several class periods, rather than in one long session, so that schools are not as greatly impacted. The panel also suggested loosening restrictions on which school staff members can administer exams, pulling fewer educators away from classroom duties.
For the coming school year, the group urged that the state require students to take biology HSA exams but not be required to pass them because new science standards are not fully aligned with the longtime tests.
Betty Weller, president of the Maryland State Education Association, which represents more than 70,000 educators, said she was hoping for more concrete proposals for change. We think the commission was really cautious in their recommendations, she said. They didnt go after overtesting in the way we had hoped.
But Weller said she was encouraged by the idea of locally analyzing the value of tests. A lot of the tests that are given are actually district tests, not necessarily statewide tests, she said.
The 19-member commission met from November to June, hearing testimony from groups representing students, teachers, administrators, superintendents, school boards and PTAs.
[Maryland panel to review overtesting in schools is selected]
Del. Eric D. Ebersole (D-Howard), a teacher and a member of the commission, said the panel looked not only at ways to reduce testing but also at whether tests are unnecessary or duplicative. The goal was not to scrap testing, he said.
We werent going to sweep the broom and all the testing would go out the window, he said.
Emma Brown contributed to this report.
Transgender student Gavin Grimm poses on his front porch during an August 2015 interview at his home in Gloucester, Va. The Gloucester County School Board is fighting to keep Grimm from the boys bathroom while his lawsuit against the board proceeds. (Steve Helber/AP)
A Virginia school board that has been ordered to allow a transgender student to use the boys bathroom is asking a federal appeals court to overturn the mandate amid concerns that it could cause a disruption or prompt students to drop out of school.
Transgender high school student Gavin Grimm sued the Gloucester County School Board in federal court last year alleging it had violated his civil rights when it banned him from the boys bathroom. The Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled in April that his lawsuit could continue, deferring to the Obama administrations position that barring transgender students access to bathrooms that match their gender identity constitutes sex discrimination.
[Federal appeals court sides with transgender teen, says bathroom case can go forward]
U.S. District Court Judge Robert Doumar in late June granted Grimms request to use the boys bathroom while his case proceeds, relying on guidance from the 4th Circuit. The school board later sought to have the order halted, saying it could cause irreparable harm to parents and children. The board also argued that it plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.
[If transgender student uses boys bathroom, others would withdraw from school, district says]
But Doumar on Wednesday upheld his own order, finding that there are no grounds to give the school board a reprieve while the case moves forward, effectively again ordering the school system to allow Grimm to use the boys bathroom when he returns to school in the fall. The school board immediately appealed Doumars decision to the 4th Circuit, again arguing that the order could cause turmoil and that the order should be halted while the board seeks a review from the U.S. Supreme Court.
The 4th Circuits ruling to allow the case to go forward marked the first time a federal appeals court had weighed in on the question of whether transgender students should have access to bathrooms matching their gender identity. The Obama administration in May issued guidance to the nations public schools, directing them to allow transgender students to use bathrooms in accordance with their gender identity.
[Obama administration directs schools to accommodate transgender students]
Joshua Block, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing Grimm, said that he does not believe the board will be successful in its effort to overturn the order. The 4th Circuit already rejected the boards request to have a full panel of judges rehear the case and to put the case on hold while it petitions the U.S. Supreme Court for review.
Block said he is skeptical that allowing Grimm to use the boys bathroom would cause any disruption, as the board argued.
The only thing this injunction does is let Gavin use the boys restroom, Block said. The notion that simply allowing one boy to use the restroom during his senior year of high school would cause the sky to fall is impossible to take seriously.
David Corrigan, the school boards attorney, did not respond to a request for comment.
Strike ban in Sez as House panel passes new bill
The parliamentary committee on Industry, Commerce and Consumer Welfare Protection on Tuesday approved the newbill on Special Economic Zone (Sez) with a provision that prohibits workers from holding all forms of protests that could affect the production of the factories in the zone.
Fairfax County
These were among incidents reported by the Fairfax County Police Department. For information, call 703-246-2253.
Fair Oaks District
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Fair Oaks Shopping Ctr., 11000 block, 11 p.m. June 25. Officers responding to an alarm discovered that someone had entered a store and stolen property.
Clarkes Landing Dr., 2700 block, June 27. Property was stolen from a residence.
Dulles Corner Blvd., 2300 block, June 27. A purse was stolen from a business.
Franklin Farm Rd., 13300 block, June 30. A beer was stolen from a business.
Lauries Way, 4200 block, June 29. Property was stolen from a residence.
Lee Jackson Memorial Hwy., 12300 block, June 27. A license plate was stolen from a vehicle.
Majestic Lane, 4000 block, June 27. A beer was stolen from a business.
Metrotech Dr., 13900 block, July 1. Property was stolen from a business.
Pheasant Ridge Rd., 4900 block, June 27. A wallet was stolen from a business.
Stringfellow Rd., 5000 block, June 27. Items were stolen from a vehicle.
Valentino Dr., 10100 block, June 30. Jewelry was stolen from a business.
VEHICLE THEFT
Nevitt Way, 6500 block, June 27. A 2013 Toyota Corolla.
Franconia District
SEXUAL ASSAULT
Spring Mall Rd., 6700 block, 6 p.m. June 30. A teenage boy was walking when a man approached him in a vehicle. The man allegedly touched himself inappropriately in front of the boy. Jay Karanwal, 27, of Arlington, was charged with obscene sexual display and released on a summons. A sexual assault was reported.
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Amherst Ave., 6100 block, June 27. Property was stolen from a residence.
Bath St., 7300 block, July 1. Property was stolen from a vehicle.
Edsall Rd., 6700 block, July 1. Tools were stolen from a residence.
Frontier Dr., 6500 block, June 27. Merchandise was stolen from a business.
Kingstowne Towne Ctr., 5900 block, June 29. Merchandise was stolen from a business.
Loisdale Rd., 6600 block, July 1. Merchandise was stolen from a business.
Old Keene Mill Rd., 7000 block, June 27. A beer was stolen from a business.
Old Keene Mill Rd., 7700 block, June 27. A beer was stolen from a business.
Richmond Hwy., 9500 block, June 30. A wallet was stolen from a vehicle.
Sipes Lane, 7200 block, June 29. Items were stolen from a vehicle.
Sky Blue Dr., 8000 block, June 28. Cash was stolen from a residence.
Springfield Mall, 6500 block, July 1. Merchandise was stolen from a business.
Springfield Mall, 6600 block, July 1. A bike was stolen from a business.
Vine St., 5600 block, July 1. Property was stolen from a vehicle.
VEHICLE THEFTS
Conwell Dr., 4600 block, July 1. A 1997 red Toyota Corolla.
Harrington Falls Lane, 5500 block, July 1. A 2014 Kawasaki motorcycle.
Springfield Mall, 6600 block, July 1. A 2014 gray Nissan Altima.
Vincent Gate Terr., 5500 block, June 27. A 2012 Honda CBR 250 motorcycle.
Mason District
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Arlington Blvd., 6100 block, June 27. A purse was stolen from a business.
Castle Pl., 6300 block, June 28. Property was stolen from a business.
Fairview Park Dr., 3100 block, June 27. A phone was stolen from a business.
Lachine Lane, 6200 block, June 27. A phone was stolen from a residence.
Leesburg Pike, 5100 block, June 27. A wallet was stolen from a business.
Leesburg Pike, 5500 block, June 27. Merchandise was stolen from a business.
Leesburg Pike, 6200 block, June 29. Merchandise was stolen from a business.
Little River Tpke., 6100 block, June 27. A wallet was stolen from a business.
Little River Tpke., 6100 block, June 28. Cash was stolen from a residence.
Little River Tpke., 6200 block, June 27. A purse was stolen from a residence.
Little River Tpke., 6500 block, July 1. Property was stolen from a business.
Little River Tpke., 7100 block, June 27. A phone was stolen from a business.
Magnolia Ave., 3200 block, June 27. Items were stolen from a vehicle.
Seminary Rd., 5500 block, June 29. Property was stolen from a residence.
Seminary Rd., 5600 block, June 27. A phone was stolen from a vehicle.
South George Mason Dr., 3500 block, June 27. Property was stolen from a residence.
South Jefferson St., 3400 block, June 29. Merchandise was stolen from a business.
South Manchester St., 3100 block, July 1. Cash was stolen from a business.
Southland Ave., 4500 block, June 27. A phone was stolen from a residence.
Wilson Blvd., 6200 block, July 1. Cash was stolen from a business.
Woodburn Village Dr., 3300 block, June 27. A phone was stolen from a residence.
McLean District
ROBBERIES
Avenir Pl., 2600 block, 11 a.m. June 25. Robbery reported.
Leesburg Pike, 8000 block, 2:56 a.m. June 26. Robbery reported.
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Arbor Lane, 7000 block, June 18. Property was stolen from a residence.
Birch St., 6900 block, 11:40 a.m. June 30. A resident reported that a stranger entered a home through an unsecured door. The man fled when he saw someone in the home. The man was described as black, in his 20s, and about 6 feet tall with a slim build.
Buckelew Dr., 2400 block, June 26. Property was stolen from a residence.
Cedar Lane, 2300 block, 2:54 p.m. June 14. Property was stolen from a residence.
Chain Bridge Rd., 1400 block, June 27. A beer was stolen from a business.
Chain Bridge Rd., 1400 block, June 28. A phone was stolen from a business.
Chain Bridge Rd., 1900 block, 12:30 p.m. June 24. Larceny.
Chain Bridge Rd., 1900 block, June 27. A phone was stolen from a residence.
Chain Bridge Rd., 1900 block, July 1. Merchandise was stolen from a business.
Chain Bridge Rd., 1900 block, July 1. Merchandise was stolen from a business.
Cornerside Blvd., 1500 block, June 27. A phone was stolen from a business.
Crestwood Heights Dr., 8200 block, June 27. A briefcase was stolen from a residence.
District Ave., 2900 block, June 28. A wallet was stolen from a business.
District Ave., 2900 block, June 30. Merchandise was stolen from a business.
Gallows Rd., 2700 block, June 27. Cash was stolen from a residence.
Gallows Rd., 2900 block, June 27. A wallet was stolen from a business.
Gate House Plaza, 3000 block, June 27. A phone was stolen from a business.
Greensboro Dr., 8200 block, June 27. Money was stolen from a business.
Greenwich St., 2100 block, June 30. Midnight. Property was stolen from a residence.
Hapton Vw., 6600 block, June 27. An electronic was stolen from a residence.
International Dr., 2000 block, June 27. A wallet was stolen from a business.
International Dr., 2000 block, June 30. A wallet was stolen from a business.
Jeffersonian Dr., 1800 block, June 28. A wallet was stolen from a vehicle.
Orland St., 6500 block, June 27. Cash was stolen from a residence.
Tetterton Ave., 9100 block, June 28. A license was stolen from a vehicle.
Tysons Corner Ctr., 7900 block, July 1. Merchandise was stolen from a business.
Westmoreland St., 2200 block, 2 p.m. June 24. Property was stolen from a residence.
Westwood Center Dr., 8600 block, June 27. A phone was stolen from a business.
VEHICLE THEFTS
Dover Lane, 2800 block, June 27. A 2009 Yamaha YZF motorcycle.
Lee Hwy., 9300 block, June 27. A 2004 Kawasaki Ninja ZX10R motorcycle.
Mount Vernon District
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Belle Haven Rd., 1200 block, June 27. Merchandise was stolen from a business.
Birchlake Ct., 4300 block, June 27. A bag was stolen from a vehicle.
El Camino Pl., 3900 block, June 29. A bicycle was stolen from a business.
Huntley Manor Lane, 3500 block, June 27. A license was stolen from a vehicle.
Janna Lee Ave., 7900 block, June 27. Items were stolen from a vehicle.
Janna Lee Ave., 7900 block, June 30. Items were stolen from a vehicle.
Lockheed Blvd., 3100 block, June 29. A gutter was stolen from a residence.
North Kings Hwy., 6200 block, June 27. A phone was stolen from a business.
Pantano Pl., 8000 block, 9:54 a.m. June 25. Trespassing.
Parkers Lane, 2500 block, June 27. Skateboards and bicycle stolen.
Parkers Lane, 2500 block, June 28. Jewelry was stolen from a residence.
Richmond Hwy., 6000 block, July 1. Tools were stolen from a business.
Richmond Hwy., 6000 block, July 1. Tires were stolen from a vehicle.
Richmond Hwy., 6600 block, June 27. A bicycle was stolen from a vehicle.
Richmond Hwy., 7600 block, June 28. A wallet was stolen from a business.
Richmond Hwy., 7600 block, June 30. Merchandise was stolen from a business.
Richmond Hwy., 7700 block, June 29. A wallet was stolen from a business.
Richmond Hwy., 7700 block, July 1. Cash was stolen from a business.
Richmond Hwy., 7900 block, June 30. Merchandise was stolen from a business.
Richmond Hwy., 8600 block, June 27. Liquor was stolen from a business.
Rolling Hills Ave., 3600 block, June 30. Attempted robbery.
Sonia Ct., 4200 block, June 29. GPS device and wallet were stolen from a vehicle.
Venoy Ct., 8600 block, June 28. Property was stolen from a vehicle.
Vernon Square Dr., 7400 block, June 27. A phone was stolen from a residence.
Washington Ave., 8500 block, June 29. A wallet was stolen from a vehicle.
VEHICLE THEFT
Beacon Hill Rd., 2400 block, 12:07 a.m. June 26. Recovered stolen vehicle.
Reston District
ROBBERY
Baron Cameron Ave., 11300 block, 4:20 a.m. June 24. Robbery reported.
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Aiken Pl., 13300 block, June 27. A license was stolen from a vehicle.
Centreville Rd., 2100 block, July 1. Cash was stolen from a business.
Colts Neck Rd., 2300 block, June 28. A bicycle was stolen from a residence.
Fountain Dr., 1700 block, June 30. Cash was stolen from a business.
Killingsworth Ave., 11900 block, June 27. A purse was stolen from a business.
Park Crest Cir., 1600 block, June 27. A wallet was stolen from a vehicle.
Polly Jefferson Way, 2500 block, June 28. Property was stolen from a residence.
Quick St., 2400 block, July 1. Property was stolen from a residence.
Reston Pkwy., 1600 block, June 27. Property was stolen from a business.
Sunrise Valley Dr., 12700 block, June 29. Computers were stolen from a residence.
Tournament Dr., 12800 block, July 1. Passenger did not pay fare.
Town Center Plaza, 12300 block, June 29. Property was stolen from a business.
Town Sq., 12000 block, July 1. A wallet was stolen from a business.
VEHICLE THEFT
Valencia Way, 1600 block, June 27. A 2010 Ford Escape.
Spectrum Ct., 11800 block, June 29. 2003 Lexus RX300.
Apgar Pl., 13300 block, June 30. 2003 Nissan Sentra.
Sully District
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Belcher Farm Dr., 5800 block, June 27. A phone was stolen from a vehicle.
Post Corners Trail, 5800 block, June 27. A wallet was stolen from a residence.
Rock Canyon Dr., 14100 block, June 27. A wallet was stolen from a vehicle.
Stone Rd., 4900 block, June 30. Items were stolen from a vehicle.
Stone Rd., 5800 block, June 30. Tools were stolen from a residence.
Stream Pond Ct., 5800 block, June 30. A purse was stolen from a vehicle.
Sullyfield Cir., 14300 block, June 29. Hubcaps were stolen from a vehicle.
Walbern Ct., 4700 block, June 29. A wallet was stolen from a vehicle.
Westfields Blvd., 5100 block, June 27. A beer was stolen from a business.
Wood Home Rd., 14800 block, June 28. Jewelry was stolen from a residence.
West Springfield District
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Bardu Ave., 6300 block, 6 p.m. June 25. Officers responded to a school alarm and apprehended two juveniles inside the school. They have been referred to the Restorative Justice program.
Charwood St., 6400 block, June 27. Property was stolen from a vehicle.
Clerkenwell Ct., 5900 block, June 27. A bicycle was stolen from a residence.
Goss Rd., 4000 block, June 27. Property was stolen from a residence.
Millwood Dr., 8300 block, July 1. Property was stolen from a residence.
Oak Bluff Ct., 10500 block, 11:17 p.m. June 25. Attempted burglary.
Old Keene Mill Rd., 9200 block, June 27. A wallet was stolen from a business.
Patriot Dr., 7900 block, July 1. Property was stolen from a roadway.
Rolling Rd., 8000 block, June 29. Property was stolen from a business.
Springwood Meadow Lane, 8200 block, June 27. Cash was stolen from a residence.
Tibbitt Lane, 4900 block, July 1. Electronics were stolen from a residence.
VEHICLE THEFT
Split Oak Lane, 10800 block, June 28. A 2009 Subaru Forester.
Fairfax City
These were among incidents reported by the Fairfax City Police Department. For information, call 703-273-2889.
ASSAULT
Fairfax Blvd., 9600 block, 2:53 a.m. June 25. A 42-year-old Fairfax-area woman reported that one of two unknown females with whom she had had a verbal altercation had shoved her, causing her to fall to the ground and suffer injuries. The females then left the area in a vehicle. The victim was taken to a medical facility for treatment.
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Chain Bridge Rd., 4100 block, 11:15 a.m. June 29. Larceny.
Fairchester Dr., 10900 block, 7:47 p.m. June 23. Larceny.
Fairfax Blvd., 10700 block, 4:23 p.m. June 27. Larceny.
Main St., 9600 block, 2:49 p.m. June 29. Shoplifting.
Main St., 10400 block, 2:40 p.m. June 24. Larceny.
VEHICLE THEFT
Fairfax Blvd., 9700 block, 10:33 a.m. June 28.
VANDALISM
Main St., 9600 block, 10:05 a.m. June 27.
Wilcoxson Dr., 3800 block, 11:33 p.m. June 25.
Willard Way, 10300 block, 12:12 p.m. June 25.
Falls Church
These were among incidents reported by the Falls Church Police Department. For information, call 703-248-5056.
SEXUAL ASSAULT
Leesburg Pike, 7100 block, midnight June 21. Sexual offense reported.
ASSAULTS
Broad St. W., 400 block, midnight June 22. Simple assault.
Broad St. W., 1200 block, midnight June 21. Simple assault.
ROBBERY
Wilson Blvd., 6700 block, midnight June 21. Carjacking.
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Broad St. W., 500 block, midnight June 22. From building.
Broad St. W., 1000 block, midnight June 25. Counterfeiting or forgery.
Broad St. W., 1100 block, midnight June 20. From building.
Washington St. S., 200 block, midnight June 23. From building.
Wilson Blvd., 6600 block, midnight June 21. Theft reported.
FRAUD
Washington St. S., 400 block, midnight June 21. Credit card/ATM fraud.
VANDALISM
Annandale Rd., 3900 block, midnight June 21. Destruction of property.
Meridian St., 500 block, midnight June 22. Damage to property.
Herndon
These were among incidents reported by the Herndon Police Department. For information, call 703-435-6846.
ASSAULTS
Herndon Pkwy., 900 block, 11:41 a.m. June 23. Simple assault.
Laurel Way, 100 block, 11:11 p.m. June 22. Simple assault.
ROBBERY
Elden St., 1000 block, 11:46 p.m. June 23. A person was robbed.
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Campbell Way, 700 block, 8:31 a.m. June 26. Stolen property.
Center St., 600 block, 5:48 p.m. June 20.
Crest Dr., 1100 block, 8:32 a.m. June 23. From vehicle.
Elden St., 1000 block, 12:56 p.m. June 23.
Elden St., 1000 block, 9:27 p.m. June 24.
Elden St., 1200 block, 8:39 p.m. June 20. Shoplifting.
Elden St., 1200 block, 3:25 p.m. June 24. Shoplifting.
Locust St., 800 block, 8:18 a.m. June 25. From vehicle.
Park Ave., 900 block, 4:12 p.m. June 24. From vehicle.
Summerset Pl., 1400 block, 5:12 p.m. June 22. Tampering with a vehicle.
VANDALISM
Elden St., 1000 block, 10:16 a.m. June 22. Destruction of property.
Elden St., 1000 block, 1:04 a.m. June 24. Destruction of property.
Ferndale Ave., 900 block, 11:58 a.m. June 23. Graffiti.
Vienna
These were among incidents reported by the Vienna Police Department. For information, call 703-255-6396.
ASSAULT
Westbriar Court NE, 5:25 p.m. June 29. Officers responding to an assault report were met on arrival by two females, both of whom reported a verbal disagreement over a civil transaction. One of the females became angry and pushed the other away. Officers advised them about the warrant process.
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Echols St. SE, 900 block, 6:30 a.m. June 29. Tampering with a vehicle.
Kramer Driver SE, 500 block, 9:22 a.m. June 29. Tampering with a vehicle.
Moorefield Creek Rd. SW, 900 block, 6:10 a.m. June 29. Grand larceny.
Niblick Dr. SE, 500 block, 6:30 a.m. June 29. Tampering with a vehicle.
Niblick Dr. SE, 600 block, 10 a.m. June 29. Grand larceny.
Wolftrap Rd. SE, 500 block, 11:05 a.m. June 29. Tampering with a vehicle.
Wolftrap Rd. SE, 500 block, 11:26 a.m. June 29. Tampering with a vehicle.
Church St. NW, 100 block, 11:36 a.m. June 29. Petty theft.
Maple Avenue West, 500 block, 10:05 p.m. June 27. Petty theft.
THE DISTRICT
Police identify man shot by transit police
A man who was fatally shot Monday night by a Metro Transit Police officer has been identified as a 21-year-old resident of Southeast Washington, according to D.C. police.
Sidney Washington was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time after the 10:50 p.m. shooting in the 1300 block of 49th Street NE, near the Deanwood Metro station.
Washingtons relatives could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Police said an officer responded to a report of suspicious activity and encountered a large crowd detonating fireworks. Police said a man in the crowd pointed a handgun at the officer, who was still in his vehicle. Other officers were also at the scene.
A D.C. police statement said officers observed an individual holding a weapon and identified themselves as police. The suspect fired multiple rounds at the officers before one officer discharged his service weapon, striking the suspect.
Washington was struck once in the chest.
Police did not release the name of the officer who fired.
Peter Hermann
Manhole fire causes explosions downtown
A malfunctioning underground electrical transformer caused explosions Wednesday evening outside of a Northwest Washington restaurant.
No injuries were reported after flames shot eight to 10 feet high, and black smoke poured from sidewalk grates and manholes outside of Panache in the 1700 block of Desales Street NW about 7:30 p.m.
D.C. firefighters responded to the scene. According to preliminary reports, an underground Pepco transformer produced the fire and smoke, officials said.
About 8:30 p.m., D.C. Fire/EMS tweeted that firefighters had checked adjacent buildings and found no threat or power outages.
Clarence Williams
MARYLAND
Man is stabbed near Metro station
A man was stabbed outside a Metro station in Prince Georges County on Wednesday afternoon, police said.
The incident was near the Addison Road Metro stop at about 3:25 p.m., according to Dan Stessel, a spokesman for Metro.
The man was stabbed in the left arm and was taken to a hospital with injures that didnt appear to be life threatening, Stessel said.
Lynh Bui
VIRGINIA
Police find a bullet in childs mattress
A bullet was found lodged in the mattress of a 9-year-old Herndon girl Tuesday after someone fired a shot through her bedroom window while she was inside, Fairfax County police said.
A parent called police about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday to report that the girl was on her bed in a home in the 2100 block of Monaghan Drive when she heard a loud noise outside and went to the window, police said. The girl felt something on her arm, possibly glass fragments.
Her parents investigated and found a hole in the window where the girl had been standing, police said. Officers searched the scene and found a bullet in her mattress.
Police searched the area but were unable to locate the shooter.
A man was killed in a car crash early Wednesday morning in Kensington, police said.
At about 4:50 a.m., police and fire personnel responded to a report of a collision at Cedar Lane and Everett Street, Montgomery County police said in a statement. A preliminary investigation revealed that a 2011 Honda Civic was traveling east on Cedar Lane when it crossed the center line, colliding with a westbound 2004 Honda Pilot, the statement said.
[Fatal crash in Kensington, Md., causes road closures and delays]
The driver of the Civic, Marcial Matthew Saenz, 35, of Bethesda, was transported to a hospital, where he died, the statement said. The driver of the Pilot, Sara Nohemy Mejia Montoya, 28, of Silver Spring, was taken to a hospital with injuries that were not considered life-threatening, according to the statement.
Police said they are investigating alcohol use by Saenz as a possible factor in the crash.
Police asked anyone who witnessed the collision or who has information about it to call the Collision Reconstruction Unit at 240-773-6620.
Tensions between Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and the states departing school-construction chief escalated Wednesday as Hogan turned away the late-arriving official during a public meeting to discuss funding requests.
David Lever, who in May resigned his position as head of the Interagency Committee on School Construction amid a power struggle over how to air condition Baltimore-area classrooms, showed up for the Board of Public Works meeting about 35 minutes late.
His arrival came moments after the three-member panel, which includes Hogan, Comptroller Peter Franchot (D) and Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp (D), voted to defer its decisions on several funding proposals because no one from Levers organization was present to speak about them.
[Top Md. officials fighting over air conditioning in Baltimore-area schools]
When Lever appeared, Hogan told him the board had moved on.
The vote to defer the funding items was 2-1, with Kopp voting against the move.
Shortly before the vote, Hogan acknowledged that his office had told Lever not to bother attending any more of the boards meetings but that it expected somone from the school-construction program to be present to answer questions.
Theres one person that has resigned, no longer doing the work, who we dont have much faith in, the governor said. We asked him not to attend.
Hogans office had requested that Joan Schaefer, who has been tapped as Levers interim replacement starting in September, appear at the meeting. Lever said when he arrived that Schaefer, who is his deputy, could not be there.
Earlier in the meeting, the governor and Franchot criticized Lever for recommending that the state reduce its goal for school-maintenance inspections from 220 each year to 100 because his program was short-staffed and couldnt keep up.
A recent review by the legislatures auditors found that Levers agency had not completed reports on 72 percent of the inspections it conducted the previous three years. It also found that findings about inadequately maintained schools were consistently released 18 to 30 months late.
Weve increased the staff over there, specifically to fix the reporting backlog, and the problems have really been about as the audits make abundantly clear poor management and having the wrong priorities, Hogan said.
But Kopp noted that only half of the school-construction programs four maintenance-inspection positions were filled until recently, when the state finally added a third. She said low salaries had created a challenge in hiring more staff, although she acknowledged that the governor added money to the budget this year to improve the situation.
I believe we should do as many inspections as you can, but to assume that two people or even three, because one is now hired, can do the same that four were designated to do seems to me not very realistic, she said.
Hogans actions Wednesday were the latest in an ongoing quarrel between the governor and Lever, who resigned in May after the Board of Public Works voted 2-1 to withhold $15 million in school-construction money for Baltimore city and county until they come up with plans to install air conditioning in all of their classrooms by the start of the next school year. Those two jurisdictions are the only two in the state with a significant number of rooms without cooling systems.
Lever resigned in protest over the boards intervention, which Kopp opposed. In a searing two-page letter, he described the decision by Hogan and Franchot as an exercise of blunt authority that undermined the work of school-construction experts.
Hogan and Franchot have insisted that the school districts should buy window air-conditioning units as a temporary fix. But the school-construction program had already created a rule that disallowed such purchases with state funds.
Baltimore County tried to resolve the situation in May by promising to accelerate its plans for installng central air at all of its schools, saying it could essentially finish the job by August 2018 one year ahead of schedule.
[Under pressure from Hogan, county finds air-conditioning solution]
Hogan and Franchot have said they are waiting to see details of the accelerated plan before deciding whether to lift the hold.
Kopp suggested Wednesday that the friction between Hogan and Lever was counterproductive. This ongoing battle isnt doing any good, she said.
I know, Hogan replied. Hopefully it will be over soon.
Max D. Ticktin, a professor of Yiddish and Hebrew literature at George Washington University before retiring in 2014, died July 3 at his home in Washington. He was 94.
The cause was a cerebral hemorrhage, said a son-in-law, Eric Rome.
Before joining the GWU faculty in the late 1970s, Rabbi Ticktin was for six years the associate national director of Hillel, the on-campus student foundation for Jewish life. Earlier, he had been Hillel director at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Chicago.
At GWU, Rabbi Ticktin taught courses in Hebrew language and contemporary Israeli literature. In 2016, the university announced the establishment of a newly endowed professorial chair named for him with a focus on Israel studies.
In an announcement, the university described him as a teacher who connected easily with young people and a consummate storyteller who captivated audiences. . . . A Ticktin lesson on Hebrew grammar might veer into a brilliant reflection on how Shakespeares sonnets compare to the King James Bible.
Rabbi Max Ticktin was also the associate national director of Hillel, the on-campus student foundation for Jewish life, for six years. (Judy Licht)
Max David Ticktin was born in Philadelphia on June 30, 1922. His parents Jewish immigrants from Poland had arrived in the United States a year earlier. One of his foremost influences was his maternal grandfather, a rabbi.
In 1947, he was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. He also had studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
In the 1970s, Rabbi Ticktin was a leader in a small group of American Jews called Breira, or choice, that supported greater understanding between Israel and the Palestinians and the removal of new Jewish settlements being built in the West Bank.
Max was deeply committed to an Israel and a Zionism that did not dominate another people, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, a former leader of Breira, told the Baltimore Jewish Times last year.
But the groups views were met with hostility by many other Jews and Jewish organizations at a time of Palestine Liberation Organization-sponsored skyjackings and other terrorist activities, and shortly after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.
A meeting between what were called moderate PLO leaders and members of Breira provoked a fierce and public backlash from powerful Jewish groups from which Breira never recovered. It soon went defunct.
We botched it up, Rabbi Ticktin said to the Baltimore paper, because we had little sense of where the power lay. It lay with the people who made the biggest donations and were behind the big Jewish organizations. And they could do what they did do, which was bring us to our knees. We were young. We were chutzpadik [impudent].
It was a different time, he added. It was the first encounter of an articulate Jewish population with a crisis which well call the 60s or Vietnam. Breira made a lot of sense for the time.
In Washington, he was a member of Fabrangen, a Jewish fellowship group.
Survivors include his wife of 70 years, Esther Kelman Ticktin of Washington; two daughters, Deborah McCants of Madison, Wis., and Ruth Ticktin of Washington; 11 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Another daughter, Hannah Ticktin, died in 1991.
Authorities have identified a man who was fatally shot Monday night by an officer with the Metro Transit Police as a 21-year-old from Southeast Washington, according to D.C. police.
Sidney Washington was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time after the 10:50 p.m. shooting in the 1300 block of 49th Street NE, near the Deanwood Metro station and a community recreation center.
Police said an officer responded to investigate a report of suspicious activity and encountered a large crowd detonating fireworks. Police said one man in the crowd pointed a handgun at the officer, who was still in his vehicle. Other officers were also at the scene.
[Police officer shoots man near Deanwood Metro station]
A statement from D.C. police, the agency investigating the incident, said that officers observed an individual holding a weapon and identified themselves as police. The suspect fired multiple rounds at the officers before one of the officers discharged his service weapon, striking the suspect.
Washington was struck once in the chest and died at Prince Georges County Hospital Center. Police declined to release the name of the officer who fired.
A man who allegedly stabbed a grocery store security guard trying to stop a theft last month in Southeast Washington was arrested Tuesday in North Carolina after leading officers on a high-speed chase, according to authorities.
Klein Andrew Lawrence, 32, of Hyattsville, Md., faces several traffic charges, including speeding, eluding police and hit and run, driving without a license and possession of cocaine, police said. Lawrence was being held in North Carolina on Wednesday, where he could make his first court appearance.
D.C. police confirmed that Lawrence also has been charged with assault on a police officer stemming from the grocery store incident.
Media in North Carolina reported the chase reached speeds of 110 mph through rush hour traffic in the congested area around Raleigh, but a spokesman for the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, Lt. Jeff Gordon, could not confirm the top speed.
Gordon said a clerk at a BP Gas station on U.S. 70 near the town of Pine Level called police Tuesday morning to report Lawrence after noticing him sitting for a long time in a 2003 Mercedes.
32-year-old Klein Andrew Lawrence of Hyattsville, Md., took North Carolina State Highway Patrol officers on a high-speed chase that ended with his arrest. Lawrence is also accused of stabbing a police officer in the neck while shoplifting in Southeast Washington in June. (WRAL)
[Security guard stabbed in neck trying to stop shoplifter]
A Pine Level officer questioned Lawrence and believed he was impaired, a statement from the state patrol said. The officer also reported seeing several knives in the vehicle. When the officer asked the man his name, police said he jumped into the Mercedes and sped off, prompting a pursuit through the North Carolina counties of Johnston and Wake.
Several police agencies were involved, including the state patrol, which took over the pursuit and boxed in the car near an exit off Interstate 40 just south of downtown Raleigh. Gordon said the officers used what is called a PIT maneuver Precision Immobilization Technique in which one cruiser strikes the fleeing vehicle in the side near the front so that it spins out and stops.
Police said Lawrence was arrested after a struggle and was taken to a hospital for treatment before going to the Wake County Detention Center.
Police said Lawrence was wanted by D.C. police in connection with the June 25 stabbing of a special police officer a security guard with limited arrest powers at a Giant Food store in the 1500 block of Alabama Avenue SE.
Police said the guard approached the suspected shoplifter, he became upset an started to run. The guard chased the man, caught him and they struggled. The suspect allegedly took out a knife and stabbed the guard in the neck, upper body and back.
The guard was treated for injuries at George Washington University Hospital. It was not immediately clear when Lawrence would be returned to the District to face charges.
Lawrence has a lengthy arrest record in the District and Maryland, court records show, with several convictions related to robbery and theft. Police in North Carolina said at the time of his arrest he was also wanted in Prince Georges County in a warrant charging him with strong armed robbery.
Court records from D.C. Superior Court show that Lawrence was arrested in the District on May 17 and charged with receiving stolen property. He was released pending trial on May 18 and placed under what is called the high intensity supervision program, the strictest form or pre-trial release.
Lawrence failed to show up for a court hearing on June 13, records show. At the time of the incident at the Giant Grocery, authorities said an arrest warrant had been issued charging him with failing to appear.
A man was stabbed outside the Addison Road Metro station in Maryland on Wednesday afternoon.
The incident occurred at the station in Prince Georges County at about 3:25 p.m., according to Dan Stessel, a spokesman for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. The man was stabbed in the left arm and taken to a hospital with injures that didnt appear life threatening, Stessel said.
Authorities are still searching for the attacker.
Police in Virginia are searching for a bank robber who said he was armed with an explosive device in an incident that shut down U.S. 50 in Falls Church on Tuesday.
[U.S. 50 reopens after bank robbery, bomb threat]
Officers responded to the report of a bank robbery at the TD Bank at 6198 Arlington Blvd. on Tuesday at around 3:25 p.m., Fairfax County police said in a statement. A man entered the bank, claimed to have an explosive device in a backpack and demanded money, the statement said.
The man left the bank with an undisclosed amount of cash. There were no injuries, but he left the backpack outside the bank, according to the statement. Police said they evacuated the bank and surrounding businesses while the bomb squad examined the backpack, which was declared inert shortly before 7 p.m. Arlington Boulevard at Patrick Henry Drive was shut down periodically to maximize the safety of passing motorists, police said.
The bank robber was described as a white male in his 50s, about six feet tall, with a thin build and gray hair in a ponytail, wearing sunglasses, a yellow hat, a gray shirt and jeans. Police believe the same man is responsible for a bank robbery on June 1 at the BB&T Bank at 8416 Arlington Boulevard.
A man wanted for a bank robbery in Falls Church. (Fairfax County Police)
Anyone with information about this man or either robbery is asked to call Fairfax County police at (703) 691-2131.
Symbolic protest of silence at zero hour
Lawmakers speaking at the zero hour of Parliament on Tuesday called for turning the House into a place from where instructions are issued to the concerned offices for solution, rather than making it a place for outpouring of grievances.
Authorities said a La Plata woman and a D.C. man were victims in a double shooting at a motel in Laurel this weekend.
Howard County police identified the pair following the Saturday morning incident. The woman, 29-year-old Amanda Diane Duer, died in the shooting, police said. The man, 33-year-old Derick DeAnthony Henderson, was listed in serious condition, according to a police department press release.
[One killed, another injured in double shooting in Maryland motel]
Authorities were called to the Turf Motel, in the 9800 block of Washington Boulevard, around 4:30 a.m. Saturday. There officers found that Duer and Henderson had been shot, the release said.
Police said Duer was pronounced dead at Laurel Regional Hospital, while Henderson was being treated at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center.
According to the release, detectives are investigating the circumstances surrounding the double shooting and are following up on leads to try to identify the suspect.
Preliminarily, investigators believe that the suspect and the victim may have known each other, the release said.
Authorities ask that anyone with information is asked to call (410) 313STOP or email hcpdcrimetips@howardcountymd.gov.
Calvert County
These were among reports received by the Calvert County Sheriffs Office and the Maryland State Police. Anyone with information about these crimes is asked to call the Criminal Investigation Division at 410-535-2800 or 301-855-1194, the Crime Solvers line at 410-535-2880 or the state police Prince Frederick Barrack at 410-535-1400.
DUNKIRK AREA
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Webb Lane, June 17. A microwave oven was stolen from a house under construction.
LUSBY AREA
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Stern Ct., June 19 to 4:30 a.m. June 20. Cash was stolen from a vehicle.
PORT REPUBLIC AREA
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Parkers Creek Rd., June 24. Furniture, jewelry, tools and other items were stolen from a business.
PRINCE FREDERICK AREA
ASSAULTS
Calvert Towne Dr., 7:03 p.m. June 24. A man saw another man remove cash from his vehicle near a liquor store in Port Republic. The man followed the man who took the money in his vehicle and, when he confronted him, the man swung a pickax at him and damaged his vehicle.
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Armory Rd., June 16. Bath towels were stolen from a home, and a shed on the property was forcibly entered; but nothing was reported stolen from the shed.
Chesapeake Ave., June 20. A wallet was stolen from a vehicle.
Crescent Ct., June 21. License plates were stolen from a vehicle.
Fire Berry Ct., 8 p.m. June 19 to 6 a.m. June 20. A credit card and Social Security cards were stolen from a vehicle.
Sandy Point Rd., June 17. A leaf blower was stolen from a shed.
ST. LEONARD AREA
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Chesapeake Ave., 9:58 a.m. June 25. Cash and property were stolen from a home.
Scenic Way, 11:15 a.m. June 18. A delivered packaged was stolen from a home.
VANDALISM
Magnolia Cir., June 20. A substance was thrown onto a vehicle that caused the paint to bubble and flake off on the hood, trunk and doors.
Charles County
These were among reports received by the Charles County Sheriffs Office and the Maryland State Police. For information, call 301-932-2222 or 301-870-3232. The website ccso.us has crime statistics and information on crime prevention programs.
REWARDS FOR INFORMATION
Crime Solvers will pay a reward for information leading to an arrest and indictment. The 24-hour hotline is 866-411-8477. Callers may remain anonymous.
NEWBURG AREA
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Popes Creek Rd., 11400 block, 8:15 a.m. June 27. An aluminum case containing a quad-prop drone and equipment was stolen from the cargo area of a sport-utility vehicle.
WALDORF AREA
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Floyd Ave., 1000 block, 5 p.m. to midnight June 24. A mountain bike was stolen.
Roy Hobbs Pl., 11900 block, June 22. A bag containing headphones and a wallet was stolen from a vehicle.
St. Marys County
These w ere among reports received by the St. Marys County Sheriffs Office and the Maryland State Police. For information, call 301-475-8008. To submit a tip, call Crime Solvers at 301-475-3333. The Leonardtown Barrack of the state police has an anonymous tip line at 301-475-2936.
CALIFORNIA AREA
ASSAULTS
Three Notch Rd., June 28. A former restaurant employee assaulted an employee at the restaurant after the former employee was issued a notice not to trespass. A Lexington Park man, 29, was charged with second-degree assault and trespassing.
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Sandra Lane, June 28. Property was stolen from a home.
HOLLYWOOD AREA
ASSAULTS
Jones Wharf Rd., June 26. During an argument, a woman hit an acquaintance in the neck. A Hollywood woman, 18, was charged with second-degree assault.
LEONARDTOWN AREA
ASSAULTS
Leonardtown, June 28. Two inmates at a detention center assaulted each other. A Mechanicsville man, 35, and a Lexington Park man, 21, were charged with second-degree assault.
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Hanover Dr., June 29. A vehicle was broken into overnight.
LEXINGTON PARK AREA
ASSAULTS
Flower Dr., June 26. During an argument with an acquaintance, a man was asked by police to lower his voice. The man then approached a deputy with a clenched fist. A Great Mills man, 21, was charged with second-degree assault.
VANDALISM
Morning Drew Lane, June 28. A vehicle was vandalized.
Radford Lane, June 28. A vehicle was vandalized.
MECHANICSVILLE AREA
ASSAULTS
Ridge Rd., June 27. A woman bit an acquaintance and hit the acquaintance in the head with an ashtray and brandished a knife. A Lexington Park woman, 62, was charged with first- and second-degree assault.
THEFTS/BREAK-INS
Tin Top School Rd., June 28. An all-terrain vehicle was stolen.
TALL TIMBERS AREA
ASSAULTS
Deagles Boatyard Rd., June 24. During a fight, a woman grabbed an acquaintance by the arm. A Tall Timbers woman, 32, was charged with second-degree assault.
The first weekday commute of the third phase of Metros year-long SafeTrack rebuilding program resulted in confused riders, crowded platforms, packed trains and at least one lost shuttle bus Wednesday but there were no major meltdowns, transit agency officials said.
The third surge involves a line segment shutdown between Reagan National Airport and Braddock Road affecting the Blue and Yellow lines, primarily in Northern Virginia. That means no trains are running between those stations.
The work, which will last through Monday, will disrupt the commutes of an estimated 50,000 riders daily, in addition to the thousands of travelers who use National Airport. Then, starting July 12, Surge #4 will shut down service between National Airport and Pentagon City, affecting about 86,000 weekday riders, plus air travelers.
The surges are among 15 that the region will endure between now and mid-March, based on Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefelds timetable.
Metro deployed shuttle buses to bridge the gap between stations where rail lines are shuttered, and local jurisdictions expanded their bus operations to help meet the needs of riders who abandoned Metro for alternatives. Many commuters used buses, cars and bikes to avoid Metro. Others used car services such as Uber. And some used slug lines. Still, confusion, long waits and crowds were common.
The third surge in Metros long-term maintenance overhaul known as SafeTrack runs July 5-July 11 on the Blue Line. Take a look at how it will affect your commute. (Claritza Jimenez,Danielle Kunitz/The Washington Post)
[Heres how to get to National Airport during Metros SafeTrack disruptions]
Metrobus is running shuttle buses between the Braddock Road and Pentagon City stations and, for airport customers, between the Braddock Road and National Airport stations. Metro commuters on one Blue Line train said their shuttle bus driver got confused at National.
Rider Jerry Freese, a grant manager for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said he knew something was wrong when the driver stepped off the bus somewhere along Braddock Road and started looking around.
Then he got back on the bus and started asking people if they knew how to get to the airport, Freese said. Obviously, they didnt train the employees.
Freese, who was headed to LEnfant Plaza from Van Dorn Street, said 25 minutes of the trip were spent on the shuttle bus.
Maybe Im not going to be back tomorrow, Freese joked.
Asked about the confusion, Metro spokeswoman Morgan Dye said shuttle bus operations are supported by about 100 operators. About half of the drivers are exclusively dedicated to SafeTrack. But the other 50 operators are not, and some of those drivers might only receive notice that they are working a shuttle route the night before, Dye said.
The third surge in Metros long-term maintenance overhaul known as SafeTrack runs July 5-July 11 on the Yellow Line. Take a look at how it will affect your commute. (Claritza Jimenez,Danielle Kunitz/The Washington Post)
Metrobus training staff are out at various SafeTrack locations to ensure that all operators are familiar with the route, she said. Generally, things are going well and any first-day issues will be smoothed out.
Metro and local officials have encouraged riders to avoid the Blue and Yellow lines during the surge. Those who decided to brave the system Wednesday encountered crowded platforms, trains and buses and in some cases long delays similar to the previous two surges.
At the Pentagon City Metro station, the platform was so packed with riders waiting for Blue Line trains headed to the District that some commuters even had trouble getting off escalators.
Arthur Hamilton stepped onto the descending escalator and spotted the masses on the platform. He yanked out his earbuds in shock. Oh my God, he said, to no one in particular. But it only took a few moments for him to sigh and enter Metro commuter zen mode. Well it is what it is, he said.
[Your guide to riding the Yellow Line during SafeTracks third surge]
Mary Wei-Haas, a writer for Smithsonian.com, stood on the platform at the National Airport station and craned her neck, hoping to spy a train. Shed skipped the shuttle bus routine by having her husband drive her to the airport station and was hopeful that a train would arrive quickly. Her prayers were answered sort of. A train pulled in within minutes but it was Blue and shed been hoping for Yellow.
Well, it is heading downtown, she said. She pondered her options and then hopped aboard.
A new slug line at the Franconia-Springfield Metro station was empty early Wednesday, but organizers, who started it to help commuters cope with SafeTrack, hope that will change as word of it spreads.
The alternative modes of getting around that were embraced by many commuters werent an option for some. Kristina Ament, who is blind, said she and her 9-year-old German shepherd guide dog, Tekla, have their route between their home in Alexandria and her office near Judiciary Square carefully mapped out. They typically walk to the Braddock Road station, hop on Metro and get off at Judiciary Square for her job as an assistant U.S. attorney, she said. They know exactly where to enter and exit each Metro station.
[SafeTrack closures: These D.C. Metro lines and stations will be disrupted in the next year]
At 7:45 a.m., Ament and Tekla stood near the bus bay at the Braddock Road station, waiting for a co-worker who would accompany them on Wednesdays commute. Ament said they would board the bus to Pentagon City, where they would catch the Yellow Line.
Weary-looking commuters scrambled around them, asking Metro workers which shuttle-bus line they should be in to go to Pentagon City, Crystal City or National Airport. Metro workers in neon-yellow vests shouted out, Wherere you trying to go? as confused-looking passengers headed toward the line of waiting buses.
With her co-workers help, Ament said, the commute via Metro would be doable.
But otherwise this would be a nightmare with all these buses and just trying to figure out which bus line to get in, she said. By the time my poor dog figures it out, this surge will be over.
Ament said she bought a home within walking distance to the Braddock Road station after she found she couldnt rely on MetroAccess, the regions paratransit service for the elderly and people with disabilities.
MetroAccess isnt reliable enough to get to a job every day, Ament said. Its frustrating.
The shutdown didnt appear to affect traffic during the morning commute, with no major delays reported on area roadways.
At 7:45 a.m, traffic was light on Crystal City roads near the airport. Not far to the north, Interstate 395 was crowded, but traffic was flowing across the 14th Street bridge, an area that often becomes a bottleneck.
Arlington Countys transportation director, Dennis M. Leach, said residents have proved nimble during Metros first two maintenance projects.
What weve learned from the first two surges is, if you provide the options and really get the word out, our traveling public is resilient. Theyll make adjustments. From an Arlington perspective, so far, so good. Its worked pretty well, Leach said.
Yon Lambert, Alexandrias transportation director, said rail ridership in the affected area was down more than 65 percent Wednesday morning. But buses along routes where Metro was doing repair work were standing-room-only.
One thing that we clearly have going for us is this is a holiday week, Lambert said, adding that summertime in general has somewhat lower traffic volumes.
[Looking for an alternative to SafeTrack? Try the original ridesharing system: Slugging.]
The Metroway bus rapid transit service stretching from Braddock Road to Pentagon City, in dedicated lanes and with mixed traffic, also helped release some of the pressure, Lambert said. Having a high-frequency, parallel service during the entire event is a really powerful option for people, he said.
Lori Aratani, Ashley Halsey III, Mary Hui, Robert Thomson, Martine Powers and Faiz Siddiqui contributed to this report.
One of Metros new board members has potential conflicts of interests because of his day job as a Washington transportation lawyer, raising concern among some that his appointment could fuel perceptions that special interests have undue influence at the transit agency, Metro officials said.
Board member David L. Stricklands first conflict could arise because he is a partner at the Venable law firm, which is Metros top legal adviser on labor negotiations, the officials said.
Strickland, a federal appointee to the board, also risks a conflict, they said, because he represents a coalition of transportation companies that includes Uber and Lyft, which are both vying for Metros paratransit work.
Venable, in a one-sentence statement, said Strickland will recuse himself from any board vote or discussion of any matter at Metro in which the firm is directly involved. The firm and Strickland declined further comment.
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, who appointed Strickland to the board for his safety expertise, was aware of Stricklands possible conflicts of interest but DOT ethics officials concluded that the recusal process would be adequate to address them, a spokeswoman for the secretary said.
New Metro board member David Strickland is a partner at the Venable law firm and a former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
Still, the case again calls attention to past worries about Metro board members outside business interests that create entanglements with the agencys work.
[Foxx, saying no more excuses for Metro, names 3 new board members]
It also revealed a new source of tension between Metro and the Transportation Department, which has been pushing the transit agency relentlessly to improve its safety performance and financial management. Some board members complained that Foxx should have found someone without Stricklands ties.
And it created a new complication for major labor talks that began recently to renew multiyear union contracts for Metro workers.
Metros largest union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, which represents about 13,000 workers, called for Stricklands immediate resignation. It cited a clear conflict of interest and what it called Venables infamously known record of anti-union tactics.
Foxx named Strickland to Metros 16-member board in April as part of a major shake-up aimed at forcing the agency to move faster on safety. Foxx, who controls four seats on the board, ousted three longtime members and replaced them with experienced transportation safety professionals.
Strickland is a former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. His practice at Venable involves automotive safety and cybersecurity, and the spokeswoman for Foxx said Strickland is not directly involved with the firms work for Metro.
But some of Stricklands colleagues at Venable are important players with the transit agency. The firm, in addition to serving as Metros principal counsel on labor talks, has worked for the transit agency in business transactions, telecommunications and litigation, according to a July 2015 contracting document.
Metro has paid Venable a total of $508,700 for its work since the start of 2014, an agency spokesman said.
In addition, Strickland is counsel and spokesman for a coalition of five companies formed in April to push the federal government to approve driverless cars. The Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets includes Uber and Lyft, both of which are interested in getting Metro contracts to provide paratransit service for the disabled and elderly.
Some advocates for people with disabilities have opposed the move, expressing concern about Ubers lack of accessible vehicles and the level of training its drivers receive in dealing with passengers with special needs. Other concerns have been raised about the company, mostly centered on safety and the vetting of its drivers.
[Could Metro and Uber be teaming up?]
Because of Stricklands potential conflicts, a Metro board member said he was unhappy about the perception, as it relates to the public and others, that board members could obtain monetary gains as a result of their association with the agency.
The board member noted that a previous federal appointee to the panel, Mortimer L. Downey, had to recuse himself from some actions because he had a contract to advise a major Metro contractor, Parsons Brinckerhoff.
Stricklands appointment is just another example . . . that the feds dont do their background work properly, said the board member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid publicly antagonizing Foxx or Strickland.
Downeys alleged conflict of interest resulted in an ethics investigation in which he was cleared. But to eliminate any perception of wrongdoing, Downey gave up his work for Parsons Brinckerhoff.
Asked about Stricklands case, Downey, a former board chairman, said it was natural for people appointed to the panel to have potential conflicts of interest. He said the recusal process in the boards code of ethics was the appropriate remedy.
You have people on the board who have other jobs and other interests, and sometimes they overlap, Downey said. If they were totally uninvolved with matters having to do with Metro, Im wondering what good theyd be on the board.
In an earlier case, former Metro board member Tom Downs drew criticism from the union and others for serving on an advisory board of a company that won a Metro contract for paratransit service.
Downs said he made a statement at a public board meeting recusing himself from any involvement in the decision and physically left Metro headquarters when discussions of the contract arose. He recommended that Strickland take similar action.
[Metro board chairman cleared of alleged ethics violation]
The transit workers union warned that Strickland could prejudice the rest of the board regarding the current labor talks even if he recused himself.
Stricklands role is especially troubling because Local 689 is in contract negotiations and he is in close communication with key players that are a part of our negotiations, said the locals president, Jackie L. Jeter. Recusal from votes is not enough when you play a key role in influencing other people on the board who do have a vote.
She added: Venable is well known as an anti-union law firm with a history of going around the country instructing companies on tactics to weaken and break unions. Stricklands association as a partner with Venable is too strong to be separated from his board duties.
A Metro spokesman said that board members recuse themselves on a case-by-case basis for individual board actions and thatsuch an occasion has not yet arisen for Mr. Strickland.
Foxxs spokeswoman said that the department officials looked closely at Mr. Stricklands background prior to the nomination, vetting him for potential conflicts that may arise.
She said his work at Venable does not in any way involve legal representation to [Metro] on labor matters. The department also found that his work for the coalition involving Uber and Lyft is the development of policies for self-driving vehicles; he is not an advocate for any particular Coalition members business interests.
As a result, the spokeswoman said, DOT concluded that the recusal practices in the Code of Ethics for WMATAS Board of Directors would effectively address any possible conflict of interest.
Stricklands potential conflicts were also discussed at length within Venable before the appointment was made, according to a Metro official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
The official, who was familiar with Stricklands thinking, said Strickland planned to establish a very clear firewall between Metro board matters and issues where Venable is directly involved.
Mary Pat Flaherty contributed to this report.
NEBRASKA
Six to get $28.1 million for wrongful conviction
Six people, known as the Beatrice Six, who were wrongfully convicted in the 1985 rape and killing of a southeast Nebraska woman will receive a share of $28.1 million, a federal jury ruled Wednesday.
The verdict against Gage County and former county law enforcement officials who carried out the investigation against the group came after four days of deliberation. The jury decided in the second trial the first ended in a mistrial last year that investigators recklessly strove to close the case, despite contradictory evidence, rather than seek justice.
James Dean, Kathleen Gonzalez, Debra Shelden, Ada JoAnn Taylor, Thomas Winslow and Joseph White served a combined 77 years in prison in the death of 68-year-old Helen Wilson before DNA testing cleared them in 2008. They were the first people in the state cleared by DNA evidence, which was made possible by a 2007 Nebraska Supreme Court ruling.
Wilsons killing has since been linked to Bruce Allen Smith, who grew up in Beatrice, returned to the town days before the slaying and then quickly went back to Oklahoma. He died in 1992.
Winslow, Taylor and the estate of Joseph White, who died in 2011, will get $7.3 million each. Dean and Gonzalez will get $2.2 million, and Shelden was awarded $1.8 million.
Winslow, Taylor and White spent 20 years in prison, while the others spent between five and six years behind bars.
Associated Press
IOWA
Court upholds jail time for egg farmers
A father and son whose Iowa-based egg production company caused a massive 2010 salmonella outbreak can be required to serve jail time for misdemeanor food safety violations, a divided appeals court ruled Wednesday.
In a 2-to-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit upheld three-month jail sentences issued last year to Austin Jack DeCoster, 82, and his son Peter DeCoster, 53.
The DeCosters were aware of unsanitary conditions at their sprawling Iowa egg farms but failed to improve them before the outbreak, which sickened up to 56,000 people and left some with permanent injuries, Judge Diana Murphy wrote.
The case, a rare prosecution against those responsible for an outbreak of foodborne illness, was closely watched by advocates for consumer safety and food and drug manufacturers.
The DeCosters, who owned and operated Quality Egg, had pleaded guilty to violating the law by introducing adulterated eggs into interstate commerce.
Associated Press
CALIFORNIA
4th homeless person set ablaze in San Diego
A homeless man in San Diego was set on fire and critically injured early Wednesday in the fourth in a series of attacks on transients in the city that have killed two people and are believed to be the work of a single suspect, police said.
San Diego police Capt. David Nisleit said witnesses to the latest attack saw an individual crouched over the flaming victim before running away. The latest victim was injured in his chest, in addition to being burned, Nisleit told local media.
San Diego television station 10 News, an ABC affiliate, said the attack occurred outside a downtown apartment complex.
The attacks on homeless people in Californias second-most-populous city began Sunday when the body of a homeless man was discovered on fire between a highway and train tracks in the Mission Bay area of San Diego, police said.
Reuters
Calif. town fixes curb studied for quakes: A faulty curb that perfectly illustrated the seismic forces at work underneath a San Francisco Bay Area neighborhood has been fixed, stunning scientists who say a curbside laboratory for studying earthquakes was destroyed. The Los Angeles Times reports that since at least the 1970s, scientists have painstakingly photographed the curb as the Hayward fault pushed it farther and farther out of alignment. David Schwartz, a U.S. Geological Survey geologist, said, It really was an iconic location on the Hayward fault. Hayward officials say they didnt know the significance for geologists when they fixed the curb last month. Kelly McAdoo, assistant city manager, said the curb was replaced to install a wheelchair-accessible ramp.
Soldier pleads guilty to gun-running scheme: A U.S. Army soldier who participated in a scheme to buy guns and send them to a security detail for the president and vice president of Indonesia has pleaded guilty to several charges in federal court in New Hampshire. The U.S. attorneys office in New Hampshire said Audi Sumilat pleaded guilty Tuesday and will be sentenced in October. Authorities say Sumilat joined a conspiracy to buy guns in Texas and New Hampshire for members of the Indonesian Presidential Guard.
Behold the reluctant warrior.
Five years and two weeks ago, President Obama addressed the nation about the end of the war in Afghanistan. There would be no more Americans in combat in Afghanistan in 2014, he said, vowing to match what hed already accomplished in Iraq.
Tonight, we take comfort in knowing that the tide of war is receding, he said. Weve ended our combat mission in Iraq, with 100,000 American troops already out of that country. And even as there will be dark days ahead in Afghanistan, the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance. These long wars will come to a responsible end.
Some time later, he said the United States would have no more than a normal embassy presence in Afghanistan by the end of 2016.
But on Wednesday, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner announced that the war would go on into the term of his successor and with an 8,400-troop force that will be more than 50 percent larger than he had set in his last announcement that he was slowing the pullout from Afghanistan.
The security situation in Afghanistan remains precarious, Obama, in charcoal gray, said from the Roosevelt Room, his defense secretary and his top uniformed officer at his side. He allowed that Afghan security forces are still not as strong as they need to be and that the Taliban remains a threat.
The 15-year war, already well longer than the Soviets 10-year adventure there, goes on.
Todays decision best positions my successor to make future decisions about our presence in Afghanistan, Obama said.
For Obama, it was another acknowledgment that, as he put it in 2014, its harder to end wars than it is to begin them.
[White House releases count of civilian deaths in counterterror operations]
He pulled American troops out of Iraq, but a power vacuum and Islamic State violence there has caused the military presence to creep back up, to nearly 5,000.
Since Obama surged troops into Afghanistan and then pulled them out faster than his generals wanted, he has had to keep a larger presence there than he had planned as the Taliban has rebounded.
He successfully decapitated al-Qaeda, only to see the terrorist hydra spread in the form of the Islamic State and other groups, making the world seem more chaotic and dangerous. The terrorism prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which Obama pledged to close, remains open.
U.S. forces have been involved in bombing campaigns in Libya, Syria and elsewhere, and Obama has exponentially increased the use of targeted killings in places such as Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. The administration recently announced that such strikes have killed about 2,500 members of terrorists groups and between 64 and 116 civilians, though human rights advocates say the civilian figures are dramatically understated.
Certainly, there are far fewer U.S. troops in harms way than there were at the start of the Obama presidency, but to revisit his speeches over the years is to see his journey from hope to hard reality.
In mid-2011, despite concerns in the military, he began what he said would be a steady Afghanistan withdrawal. Let us responsibly end these wars and reclaim the American Dream that is at the center of our story, he said.
A few months later, he triumphantly announced that the last troops would leave Iraq, and he was still ebullient in May 2012: My fellow Americans, weve traveled through more than a decade under the dark cloud of war. Yet here, in the pre-dawn darkness of Afghanistan, we can see the light of a new day on the horizon.
Two years ago, in 2014, Obama announced that this is the year we will conclude our combat mission in Afghanistan, declaring that by the end of 2016 the military would have but a normal embassy presence.
But by October 2015, Obama reported that Afghan forces are still not as strong as they need to be, while the Taliban has made gains. He said he would drop the military presence only to 5,500 troops by the end of 2016. Thats the number Obama increased Wednesday. In between, he expanded the authorities for U.S. troops in Afghanistan so they can engage in combat-enabling support of Afghan forces.
When we first sent our forces into Afghanistan 14 years ago, few Americans imagined wed be there in any capacity this long, he said Wednesday. Still, we have to deal with the realities of the world as it is. He spoke of the need for troops and funds to keep strengthening Afghan forces through the end of this decade.
It was a sensible, perhaps inevitable decision. But it felt a long way from Oslo.
Twitter: @Milbank
Read more from Dana Milbanks archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
In his press briefing, FBI Director James B. Comey said he was going to provide more detail about Hillary Clintons extremely careless . . . handling of very sensitive, highly classified information than he normally would because I think the American people deserve those details in a case of intense public interest.
Hes right. But his 2,314-word statement is woefully inadequate. The FBI has amassed a massive amount of evidence on Clintons reckless conduct evidence that it has presented to the Justice Department in a detailed decline to prosecute memorandum. This memo, and supporting documentation, should be publicly released. While the evidence against Clinton may never be submitted in a court of law, it must be submitted to the court of public opinion so that Americans can judge whether Clintons behavior disqualifies her from holding the highest office in the land.
Based on the information Comey did make public, we now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Clinton repeatedly lied to the American people about her emails. For example, in March 2015, Clinton held a news conference in which she assured Americans, I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material. That statement, Comey says, was flat untrue. Seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received, Comey said in his press briefing, adding These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. He added that the FBI also found emails that were properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community.
Clinton also lied when she changed her story and declared that I did not send nor receive anything that was classified at the time, (emphasis added). That is also false, according to Comey: 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received, he declared (emphasis added).Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information.
Clinton also lied when she said that this process will prove that I never sent nor received any email that was marked classified (emphasis added). Her emails did include some that bore markings indicating the presence of classified information, Comey said. But he added that whether they included such markings was irrelevant. Even if information is not marked classified in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it, he said.
Clinton also lied when she definitively assured the American people that there were no security breaches of her private server. She had no way to know that, Comey explained. Given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see . . . direct evidence of security breaches, Comey said. But the FBI did conclude that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. The FBI also concluded that Clinton used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. And the e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government or even with a commercial service like Gmail. Therefore, Comey said, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clintons personal e-mail account.
The reason all this did not result in criminal charges, Comey said, was that the FBI did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information (emphasis added). As many legal scholars have pointed out, the statute in question does not require intent, simply evidence of gross negligence. Comey provided that in spades. None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, Comey said, adding that any reasonable person in Secretary Clintons position . . . should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.
While he declined to recommend prosecution, Comey did say that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would often be subject to security or administrative sanctions. Such sanctions usually include the suspension of that individuals access to classified information.
Indeed, the Daily Caller reports that in 2015, a Navy reservist was found by the FBI to have stored classified materials on his personal, unclassified electronic devices and storage media during a deployment to Afghanistan. Unlike Clinton, he was prosecuted and sentenced to two years of probation and a $7,500 fine and ordered to surrender any currently held security clearance and to never again seek such a clearance. Apparently, the rules that apply to Navy reservists dont apply to the Clintons.
Based on Comeys conclusions, its hard to see how Clinton should ever be allowed to hold a security clearance again. Indeed, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) has called on the director of national intelligence to block Clintons access to classified information while she is a presidential candidate.
While Clintons actions may not land her in the jailhouse, they should disqualify her for the White House. That decision rests not with the FBI, but the American people which is why the FBI must give them the evidence they need to decide.
Release the memo!
Read more from Marc Thiessens archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Donald Trump says the United States is too preoccupied with being politically correct. Here's how the presumptive Republican presidential nominee bashes the idea of being too PC. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
Donald Trump says the United States is too preoccupied with being politically correct. Here's how the presumptive Republican presidential nominee bashes the idea of being too PC. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
Perusing the wires on a deadline morn, I was struck by a constellation of intellectuals struggling to translate the relative meanings of Brexit, Donald Trump and the Wests populist surge against elites.
At least three bright fellows caught my eye: columnist Ross Douthat of the New York Times; Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at Tufts University and a Post blogger; and New Yorker writer George Saunders. Im grateful to each for his contribution to this column.
Studying the indigenous peoples is chin-stroking, good fun, no doubt about it. I like to dabble now and then myself. But reading these dissections of the other meaning not Muslims but the mostly white Americans who attend Trump rallies and the British voters who chose leave across the pond suggests a clue in that the distilling process itself sort of explains what the writers are trying to articulate.
This reminds me of a question I was asked several years ago as a panelist at a national editors confab:
Kathleen, the moderator began in a mustache-tweaking tone, Do you think todays journalists are too elite for ordinary Americans?
1 of 45 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad What Donald Trump is doing on the campaign trail View Photos Businessman Donald Trump has become the Republican Partys presumptive nominee for president. Caption Businessman Donald Trump officially became the Republican nominee at the partys convention in Cleveland. Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at Trump Doral golf course in Miami. Carlo Allegri/Reuters Wait 1 second to continue.
Ahem, well, I think the answer is implicit in the question, I replied.
Of course, opinion writers have to write about something, dont we? Thus, Douthat got things rolling with a recent column observing that the left/right, liberal/conservative template is being replaced with a new divide. In Western democracies, wrote Douthat, the divide will be between globalists (whom he labels cosmopolitans, even if, he says, theyre not really) and nativists.
Dissecting Douthats dissection, Drezner agreed up to a point but suggested that one could as easily replace nativist with old and cosmopolitan with young.
True enough. Older folks tend to like things the way they were in the good ol days. But Drezners point about the cosmopolitan/young is true because young people generally tend to be more adventurous and open to a larger world. This may be more true, however, among urbanites and the educated class who have had greater exposure to diversity, have traveled to exotic locales, are fluent in ethnic food, and may be more amenable to a globalist perspective.
Indeed, Drezner refers to a YouGov breakdown of the Brexit vote: 75 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted to remain, while only 39 percent of over-65 voters did.
While were at it, why not break it down into educated vs. poorly educated, not that all Trump voters are uneducated. And certainly not that educated people are necessarily smart or wise. But it was Trump, referring to his fans, who said, I love the poorly educated. When was the last time you heard a presidential candidate say that?
Douthats main point, which Ive necessarily reduced to a mere teaspoon of sauce (or, God willing, a soupcon), was basically that cosmopolitans dont understand people beyond their circuit of fellow professionals and, crucially, talk only to each other in essentially non-diverse ways. Also true.
1 of 23 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad 23 well-known people who support Donald Trump View Photos See who supports Donald Trump. Caption See who supports Donald Trump. Paul D. Ryan The House speaker endorsed Trumps bid for president on June 2. Joshua Roberts/Reuters Wait 1 second to continue.
Wrapping up my morning menu was Saunderss amusing romp through Trumpland to learn just who these people are who support Trump. He came as a reporter but seemed more like an anthropologist on a virgin foray into the out yonder. He might as well have been studying the mating rituals of honey badgers. Perhaps he was!
Reeling from snarling confrontations between Trumpies and protesters, Saunders escaped across the avenue to an Old Mexico-themed minimall where, to his surprising solace, a wedding was about to begin, featuring bridesmaids promenading, each with a dog on a leash and wearing a tutu. As reality goes, Id take the latter, too.
Over the next many months, millions more words will be dedicated to summarizing the hearts and minds of Brexiters and Trumpists, none of whom will likely read the words they inspired. Or, if they do, theyll feel further validated in their mission to elect Trump. Besides, they know who they are and what theyre up to, which I can say with some authority having actually lived among ordinary Americans.
High on the list is sticking it to guys who like to ride their horses high, sneering down their moisturized noses, notebooks aloft and pens poised in the belief that you need a thesaurus and a graphing app to understand human nature.
Trump, by contrast, treats them with respect. He may be a pompous, arrogant, bombastic ass, but hes their ass and, most important, they share a common enemy the rest of us.
You can take that summation to the bank and put a tutu on it.
Read more from Kathleen Parkers archive, follow her on Twitter or find her on Facebook.
HAVING CAMPAIGNED for reelection four years ago on the boast that the tide of war is receding for the United States, President Obama on Wednesday made a final concession to the reality that the tide rolled back during his second term. Mr. Obama once aspired to withdraw all but a handful of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by January 2017; instead, he announced that his legacy would be a force of 8,400 up from the 5,500 he decided to keep in the fall. The shift of position came at the urging of the Pentagon and U.S. NATO allies, who said conditions in Afghanistan, including disturbing gains by the Taliban, did not justify a further drawdown. Mr. Obama deserves credit for accepting their advice rather than clinging to his wished-for legacy.
The troop extension will have three crucial consequences, as Mr. Obama explained in a statement. First, U.S. forces will be able to continue stiffening the resistance of the Afghan army to the Taliban, which during the past year gained territory in several parts of the country while inflicting heavy casualties on government troops. Two key bases manned by U.S. forces in the east and the south of the country will remain open. The U.S. pledge also will open the way for a NATO-led coalition of 41 countries to extend military commitments that provide another 6,000 troops; at a NATO summit in Warsaw this week, the allies are expected to commit to funding the Afghan army through the end of the decade.
At best, the decisions could force acknowledgment by the Taliban that, as Mr. Obama put it, the only way to end this conflict and achieve a full drawdown of foreign forces from Afghanistan is through a lasting political settlement with the government. In the past, Mr. Obamas public commitments to timetables for U.S. withdrawal probably encouraged Taliban leaders to wait out the United States in the hope that the Kabul government would subsequently crumble. Now, with the new U.S. and NATO commitments, President Ashraf Ghani may finally be able to gain traction in his persistent attempts to jump-start a peace process.
Finally, Mr. Obamas move should allow his successor to inherit a relatively stable military situation and make his or her own decisions about future U.S. engagement in Afghanistan. On that point, both major candidates have gaps: Hillary Clinton has said little about Afghanistan and nothing about future troop deployments, while Donald Trump has been characteristically self-contradictory. Both should be pressed between now and November to say whether they are prepared to extend the U.S. military presence once they take office.
For now, Mr. Obama has done the minimum to ensure that 15 years of U.S. investment and sacrifices in Afghanistan, including 2,300 military deaths, do not end in catastrophe during his presidency. His successor would do well to learn both from this presidents mistakes including his attempt to end the war on an arbitrary timetable and from his political courage in correcting them.
Bubaker Habib, a local contractor for the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, speaks about his time working with Amb. Chris Stevens during the days leading up to the attack and what prompted him to tell his story. (Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)
Bubaker Habib, a local contractor for the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, speaks about his time working with Amb. Chris Stevens during the days leading up to the attack and what prompted him to tell his story. (Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)
Bubaker Habib was a local contractor for the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.
The last time I saw my friend Chris Stevens was at the Benghazi Airport as his body was being transferred to the plane to begin his last journey back to the United States. The great, honorable, gentle man I welcomed to Benghazi only two days earlier now lay lifeless before me on the same tarmac.
Chris had arrived in Benghazi on Sept. 10, 2012, for five days of meetings and to inaugurate an American cultural center at an English-language school under my care. A Libyan by birth and lifelong resident of Benghazi, I had for years taught English and facilitated cultural exchanges with the United States and, upon the resumption of diplomatic relations, served as an adviser and cultural interpreter for U.S. officials especially Chris. I was also the one charged with coordinating his fateful visit to Benghazi.
I learned that I had been targeted that night and it was no longer safe for me to remain in Libya. I arrived in the United States two months later. Upon my arrival I was dismayed to find that the public conversation here had veered from memorializing a slain hero to hijacking his legacy for naked political agendas. Yet I maintained faith that, over time, the country would settle its discord, heal its wounds and return to honoring Chris Stevens, his lifes work and the noble mission for which he died.
We all know this has not happened, but not everyone will understand why. Yet I have had a front-row seat. For months, I have been approached by people seeking to persuade me to publicly endorse their false version of events that night, namely that Chris was taking part in secret weapons smuggling and that the secretary of state was responsible for letting him die.
But they do not need to pay me, threaten me, or persuade me to tell my story. I have already told the full truth, first to U.S. law enforcement, then to the State Departments Accountability Review Board and again to the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Now, the repeated attempts to get me to endorse unfounded theories and the fact that politicians and others continue to revive false narratives and accusations have pushed me to step out from the shadows. The American people, to whom I owe such a debt of gratitude as one of the Libyans whom their country saved, deserve to know the truth and that there are people who are actively seeking to mislead them.
The truth is that Chriss mission was to help build a partnership between the United States and the Libyan people and to help rebuild the country. Thats what brought him to Benghazi, first as a special envoy in 2011 and then as ambassador in September 2012. He knew the dangers better than anyone else, yet he believed his mission was too important not to carry out to the fullest of his abilities. The attacks that claimed his life and those of three other brave Americans were crimes and tragedies of the greatest magnitude. The blame rests entirely and unquestionably on those who carried out the attacks.
The promotion of utterly false conspiracy theories are offensive, to me, to the truth and to Chriss memory. The political attacks based on the events of that night portray Chris not as the hero and leader that he was but as the pawn and the victim of incompetence or worse in Washington.
Chris does not deserve to have his legacy undermined in this way. The mission of the United States in Libya in 2011 and 2012 was noble, and Chris was its most lovable and effective champion. That the attack created chaos on the ground in Benghazi I know first-hand. It also left Libyans with a crisis of faith in our own politics and society. Chriss loss was a blow to both our countries.
To allow a cloud of false and misguided allegations to remain over Chris would be to compound that loss. His memory and mission must be given the true honor and recognition they deserve.
Mourners in the West Bank town of Qalqilyah carry the coffin of Sondos al-Basha, a Palestinian woman who was killed in the June 28 Istanbul airport attack blamed on the Islamic State. (Jaafar Ashtiyeh/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)
A STRING of horrific suicide bombings linked to the Islamic State, all in Muslim nations, underline a crucial truth that has been ignored by Donald Trump and many others in the West: Terrorist jihadism is above all a war within Islam. Muslims have been its first victims and they are the only force that can bring about its definitive defeat.
Though it is losing territory and leaders in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State has managed to mark the last days of the holy month of Ramadan with a formidable offensive. Successive attacks in Istanbul, Dhaka and Baghdad and in three cities of Saudi Arabia since June 28 killed at least 290 people and seriously injured hundreds more. In the cases of Istanbul and Saudi Arabia, there were no formal claims of responsibility. But the assaults bore all the hallmarks of the Islamic State, which has made clear that it regards all Muslims who do not share its extreme ideology as enemies.
The terrorists targets included places frequented by foreigners the Istanbul airport, a cosmopolitan cafe in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and the U.S. consulate in Jiddah. But one bombing also targeted the mosque complex in the Saudi city of Medina, where the prophet Muhammad is buried one of Islams holiest sites. Its hard to imagine a more direct challenge to Saudi political and religious authorities, who have fought both the Islamic State and al-Qaeda and tried to curb the spread of their religious influence.
To be sure, the Saudi and Turkish regimes have been far from ideal allies of the United States. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was slow to move against the flow of extremist recruits to the Islamic State through Turkey, while Saudi Arabias sponsorship of mosques and charities promoting its own fundamentalist ideology has been a toxic influence in both Islamic and Western countries. Both have grown less tolerant of domestic opposition, including liberals advocating for free expression and minorities whether Kurd or Shiite with legitimate grievances.
The events of the past week nevertheless ought to make it clear that Sunni Muslim governments face a mortal threat from the Islamic State and consequently are critical allies in the fight against it. A policy that regards the two sides as indistinguishable that, say, bans all Muslim entrants to the United States could have the devastating effect of weakening the very forces that are, for now, the only alternative to the jihadists.
The past week has seen an alarming campaign of slaughter unleashed by the militants of the Islamic State, hitting targets in four different countries. (Jason Aldag,Ishaan Tharoor/The Washington Post)
Mr. Trumps camp is suggesting that he would not ban all Muslims from U.S. entry, only those from terror countries. Would that not include Saudi Arabia, homeland of most of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers? Would a Trump administration retreat from U.S. commitments to defend the Persian Gulf states, or NATO member Turkey, as the candidate has suggested? If it did, how would it partner with the intelligence and counterterrorism officials in Riyadh now attempting to track down those who carried out the attack on Muhammads grave as well as the U.S. consulate? To consider those questions which Mr. Trump has shown no sign of having done is to understand how damaging his presidency could be to the anti- terrorism cause.
UN top official submits letter of credentials
The newly appointed Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in Nepal and the Resident Representative of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Valerie Julliand, presented her Letter of Credentials to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Kamal Thapa, on Tuesday.
With only two crosswalks at the intersection of International Drive and Chain Bridge Road in Tysons, pedestrians face long waits, indirect routes or facing off against traffic. (Dayna Smith/For The Washington Post)
In the July 3 Metro article Feeling pushed into a corner, the Tysons coordinator for the Fairfax County Office of Community Revitalization said the area will be able to absorb thousands of new residents and workers without traffic getting worse. One would like to think that proposed improvements would reduce congestion. For more than a half-century, planners have been promoting solutions to traffic congestion through mass transit and related measures. Despite these actions, we are dealing with the same problem, and it only gets worse.
Builders and developers focus on housing, employment and providing a tax base. But the public costs of development can outstrip the projected tax revenue. The county looks for the infrastructure improvements to follow, not precede, construction, suggesting projected revenue is necessary to finance capital improvements. Good planning dictates that site improvements come first.
The larger issue is that the county is defying the limits of growth and its impact on the natural environment. Economic development has to be measured more carefully against the effects on traffic congestion, air quality, clean water and related concerns; and against a realistic assessment of local financial capacity. Job creation does not warrant overlooking such negative effects. People will follow job opportunities, and such possibilities should be aimed at parts of the country where economic development is more essential. The residents concerns are quite understandable.
Joseph G. Feinberg, Gaithersburg
Under ordinary circumstances, the prospect of a popular president walking down the stairway of Air Force One in a battleground state with his favored successor would be a political high point.
But the much-anticipated joint appearance here Tuesday by President Obama and Hillary Clinton had an unexpectedly awkward backdrop coming hours after FBI Director James B. Comey rebuked Clintons careless handling of sensitive government information on her private email setup while secretary of state.
The scene in North Carolina served as a reminder that Obama has stuck by his former Cabinet secretary as the scandal eroded voters trust in her over the past year and that, in the campaigns final stretch, he will serve as a crucial defender and advocate.
I believe in Hillary Clinton, Obama boomed to a packed crowd at the Charlotte Convention Center.
Neither he nor Clinton mentioned the FBI investigation in their public remarks but on a day that Clintons judgment and character had been questioned, Obama said his respect for Clinton had never wavered.
My faith in Hillary Clinton has always been rewarded, he declared, with his shirtsleeves rolled up and Clinton perched on a chair a few feet away. And there has never been any man or woman more qualified for this office than Hillary Clinton ever. And thats the truth.
[Can Clinton overcome her trust problem?]
Obama had telegraphed soon after Clintons private email setup was revealed last year that he did not see the matter as a major problem, telling CBSs 60 Minutes eight months ago that Clintons use of a private server for official purposes was a mistake but that it was not a situation in which Americas national security was endangered. He added that the controversy had been ginned up by Republicans hoping to block her path to the Oval Office.
While Comey on Tuesday took pains to say that the FBIs investigation was independent and free of partisan interference, the timing of the Obama-Clinton rally gave Republican critics a chance to question whether the presidents support for Clinton had affected the FBIs decision not to recommend criminal charges.
Doug Andres, a spokesman for House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), mocked the spectacle of Obama boarding a plane where Clinton was already seated, tweeting: Great day for Team Clinton and The Most Transparent Administration In History
Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump criticized both Clinton and Obama in multiple tweets Tuesday. FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow! #RiggedSystem, he tweeted.
Earlier, Trump tweeted about the trip: Taxpayers are paying a fortune for the use of Air Force One on the campaign trail by President Obama and Crooked Hillary. A total disgrace!
The Clinton campaign will pay a portion of the presidents travel expenses, according to White House press secretary Josh Earnest, through the Democratic National Committee.
Earnest declined to comment in detail Tuesday about Comeys recommendation, noting that the Justice Department hadnt reached a final conclusion in the case. The president is aware of the news, he said.
Still, Comeys decision to wrap up the probe Tuesday took the White House by surprise. Obama aides had rescheduled the rally in Charlotte, originally planned for last month, in the wake of the mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub that killed 49 people. Obama and Clinton had planned to campaign together in Green Bay, Wis., just three days after the massacre.
A senior Democrat familiar with the plans for Clinton to campaign with Obama called the timing slightly awkward, but overall far better than the alternative.
The issue would have hung over their heads regardless, said the Democrat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal political strategy.
Aides to Clinton acknowledged the inopportune timing of the announcement, but insisted that they were relieved to have it out and were not surprised by its substance.
Its a great day, John Podesta, a top Clinton adviser, said after the plane landed. When asked by a reporter whether the FBI announcement detracted from the joint event, he replied, Hardly.
Obamas presence Tuesday reflected how the presidents thinking about his fiercest 2008 primary opponent has evolved, as well as his determination to block Trump from the White House.
Without mentioning the New York businessman by name, he mocked Trumps tendency to take to Twitter, saying, Everybody can tweet, but nobody actually knows what it takes to do the job until youve sat behind the desk.
Taking aim at Trumps populist appeal, Obama added later: If your concern is working people, this is not a choice. I dont care if youre black, white, Hispanic, Native American, polka-dot, male, female.
Aaron David Miller, vice president for new initiatives at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said that Obama can serve as a key validator for Clinton and that any concern the president might have about the email scandal is trumped by any sense that he has one alternative, and that is to ensure her election to protect his legacy.
Air Force Ones passenger list spoke to how deeply the Obama and Clinton camps are intertwined. The three senior aides accompanying Clinton on the plane Podesta, Jake Sullivan and Huma Abedin all served in the Obama administration. Obamas former communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, now plays that role for Clinton and flew separately to the event.
Back in 2012, as Obamas popularity sagged and Clintons remained high, White House aides contemplated whether it was worth putting her in Vice President Bidens spot. But as Obama has made a comeback and Clinton has faced ethics questions about her email practices and her highly paid corporate speeches, she needs the president to win over undecided voters as well as liberal Democrats supporting her primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.).
Preaching to the choir, as Obama described the audience in Charlotte, the two politicians made a joint pitch for what would amount to a third Obama term. They heaped praise upon each other and spoke of Democratic priorities such as middle-class jobs and clean energy.
Clinton alluded to the fact that not only was the election of the nations first African American president historic, but so would be the first win by a woman.
Just think about those early patriots who met in Philadelphia that hot summer of 1776. They knew we would all rise or fall together, she said. Now, nobody who looked like Barack Obama or me would have been included back then, but were here today because the story of America is the story of hard-fought, hard-won progress.
Obama worked to put the focus on Clinton.
Taking the stage to Rachel Plattens Fight Song rather than Hail to the Chief, the president led the audience in chants of Hill-a-ry.
Standing behind a lectern bearing the presidential seal, he said, I have had a front-row seat to her judgment and her toughness and her commitment to diplomacy. When faced with adversity, he added, shed just stand up straighter and come back stronger.
Comeys announcement was not likely to affect Clintons schedule for the rest of the week, aides said. She is planning to deliver a speech in Atlantic City on Wednesday that aides say has the potential to broaden the discussion if not temporarily change the subject. She plans to take aim at Trumps business record in the coastal casino city that, according to an advisory by Clintons campaign, includes multiple bankruptcies, stiffing contractors and spurring hundreds of job losses while pocketing cash for himself.
On Friday, Clinton is scheduled to campaign with Biden in Scranton, Pa., where he plans to testify to her character and values.
Eilperin reported from Washington. David Nakamura and Anne Gearan in Washington contributed to this report.
Donald Trump tweeted an image that came from a June 15 tweet by @FishBoneHead1, an account with a penchant for memes that mock Muslims, black Democrats and more. Trump later deleted the tweet and uploaded it with a circle instead of a red Star of David. (Twitter screengrab)
Donald Trump struggled Tuesday to move past his latest social-media firestorm for the fourth consecutive day, facing a bipartisan scolding for tweeting a controversial image attacking Hillary Clinton that was widely viewed as anti-Semitic.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said in a radio interview that anti-Semitic images have no place in a presidential campaign and added, I dont know what flunky put this up there. Some leading Jewish Republican donors and activists also voiced concerns about Trumps habit of posting material that originated in racist, white supremacist corners of the Internet.
Trumps son-in-law and close campaign confidant Jared Kushner, who is Jewish, also faced blowback. An entertainment writer at the New York Observer posted an open letter to Kushner online urging him to rebuke the tweet. Kushner, who is married to Trumps daughter Ivanka, is the publisher of the Observer.
Kushner released a statement calling Trump an incredibly loving and tolerant person who has embraced my family and our Judaism since I began dating my wife." He said that the suggestion that he may be intolerant is not reflective of the Donald Trump I know.
Clinton, who condemned the tweet over the weekend, on Tuesday posted a video on Twitter of Trump in a TV interview this year waffling over whether to denounce the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and other white supremacists. In interviews before and after that, Trump denounced Duke.
GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump faced a backlash after posting a tweet of Hillary Clinton next to $100 bills and a Star of David-like logo. The Posts Robert Costa explains why this latest controversy is typical of the way Trumps campaign operates. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)
For some, Trumps tweet and the ensuing backlash have highlighted an enduring problem the presumptive GOP nominee has not been able to put to rest: his occasional posting of racially charged messages on social media that could be avoided with more careful research and vetting. For others, the episode has served as a troubling reminder that Trumps campaign, which has centered on calls to deport immigrants and ban Muslims, has attracted strong support among the white nationalist movement.
[How Americas dying white supremacist movement is seizing on Trumps appeal]
I think that its really, really clear the point is, I think hes got to clean this up, Ryan told conservative host Charlie Sykes on WTMJ radio in Milwaukee. My understanding is this is done by staff, not by he himself.
The controversy erupted Saturday morning after a tweet from Trumps account showed an image of Clintons face next to a Star of David shape on top of a bed of money. Inside the star were the words Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!
Less than two hours later, the tweet was deleted, and the image was posted again with a circle instead of the star.
The offending image first appeared in a June 15 tweet by a user known for anti-black and anti-Muslim messages. According to the news website Mic, it was then shared June 22 on a section of the 8Chan Web forum frequented by white supremacists.
On Monday, Trump and his social-media director, Dan Scavino, said the image they used contained a basic or sheriffs star.
Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Donald Trumps tweet of a Star of David image was stupid, but that he did not believe Trump was anti-Semitic. (Carolyn Kaster/ASSOCIATED PRESS)
The social media graphic used this weekend was not created by the campaign nor was it sourced from an anti-Semitic site, Scavino said in a statement. It was lifted from an anti-Hillary Twitter user where countless images appear. The sheriffs badge which is available under Microsofts shapes fit with the theme of corrupt Hillary and that is why I selected it.
But many Republicans saw the episode as part of a broader pattern of Trump retweeting messages from openly racist individuals.
There have been too many instances. Thats what bothers people, said Lisa Spies, a Republican fundraiser with strong ties to the Jewish community. If it was just the tweet and he apologized, that would be one thing. Why does this keep coming up? Whats inexcusable is that its happening over and over again.
Spies, who said she is having a hard time supporting Trump because of his history of offensive statements, added: Heres the fundamental problem: No one knows anybody on the Trump campaign. Usually donors would be talking to the director of Jewish outreach. I dont know if they even have a director of Jewish outreach.
[Donald Trump draws rebuke for his tweet with an image of Clinton and a Star of David]
Trumps campaign said that it does not a staffer in that role right now but that it has Jewish team members and prominent Jewish supporters outside the campaign.
Ben Carson, a Trump supporter, said Tuesday on MSNBC that it doesnt really matter if Trump adjusts his social-media style because he is going to face criticism anyway. I know Donald Trump, and I know hes not a racist by any stretch of the imagination, and thats really what needs to be brought out, Carson said.
But he posted a vaguely worded tweet earlier Tuesday: Social media provides a great platform for discourse, but we must be careful with the messages we send out.
Ari Fleischer, who served as George W. Bushs White House press secretary and sits on the Republican Jewish Coalitions board of directors, was blunter.
This was stupid, and it was foolish, Fleischer said. Anybody who has been around politics would have instantly recognized the blunder he was making.
But Fleischer, who plans to vote for Trump, added: I reject the notion that he is anti-Semitic. No one who is anti-Semitic would welcome the marriage of their daughter to an Orthodox Jew, he said, referring to Kushner.
The RJC, which has said it will work to help get Trump and other Republicans elected, has not responded to requests for comment on the tweet.
In her piece titled An Open Letter to Jared Kushner, From One of Your Jewish Employees, Observer writer Dana Schwartz recalls the anti-Semitic messages she received on Twitter after posting criticism of Trumps original tweet.
When you stand silent and smiling in the background, his Jewish son-in-law, youre giving his most hateful supporters tacit approval, Schwartz wrote. Because maybe Donald Trump isnt anti-Semitic. To be perfectly honest, I dont think he is. But I know many of his supporters are, and they believe for whatever reason that Trump is the candidate for them.
Matea Gold and David Weigel contributed to this report.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein holds up a rifle during a Dec. 31, 2000, military parade in Baghdad. Hussein was forced from power in 2003 in a U.S.-led invasion. (Jassim Mohammed/Associated Press)
Donald Trumps regular praise for authoritarian governments and dictators has come under fresh scrutiny this week following his latest laudatory comments about the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, whose human rights abuses and support for international terrorism made him a top enemy of the United States for decades.
He was a bad guy, really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good, Trump said during a campaign event in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday evening. They didnt read them the rights they didnt talk, they were a terrorist, it was over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism. You want to be a terrorist, you go to Iraq. Its like Harvard. Okay? So sad.
The remarks have revived worries among Republican lawmakers and members of the partys foreign-policy establishment, many of whom have become increasingly despondent over Trumps loose and threatening rhetoric on international relations. Many critics in both parties also say that the presumptive GOP presidential nominee is laying out an alarmingly dark worldview that should give voters serious pause.
This follows a disturbing trend of Trump relating to the way brutal tyrants executed policy in their countries. I do think that theres something dark about Trumps view of the world, said Republican strategist Tim Miller, a former Jeb Bush aide who has played an active role in the anti-Trump movement. When a person running for president continually compliments brutal, undemocratic dictators and their methods, I think its fair to have some concerns that those are methods that they might be interested in deploying if necessary.
[Donald Trump praises Saddam Hussein for killing terrorists so good]
Donald Trump seemed to praise Saddam Hussein at a July 5 rally, but it's not the first time the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said nice things about authoritarian leaders. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
Trump commented on Husseins record several times throughout the Republican primary season, saying that Iraq would have been better off if he were still in power in part because of his brutal tactics against dissenters. He also spoke dismissively in December about Husseins use of chemical weapons against the Kurds: Saddam Hussein throws a little gas, everyone goes crazy. Oh hes using gas!
Trump has also repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un as strong leaders unlike what we have in this country, citing the control they have over their people. When Putin complimented Trump last year, Trump called it a great honor, and pranksters have painted murals in several cities showing the two men kissing.
In January, he also mused favorably about the North Korean strongmans brutal consolidation of power in the country.
If you look at North Korea, this guy, I mean, hes like a maniac, okay? And youve got to give him credit, Trump said during a campaign event in Iowa. He goes in, he takes over, and hes the boss. Its incredible. He wiped out the uncle. He wiped out this one, that one.
Kim was formally sanctioned by the United States for human rights violations Wednesday.
Trumps comments regarding Hussein this week were met with particular furor, in part because the race has effectively entered the general election phase and because of Husseins brutal record and long history of conflict with the United States, including a failed attempt to assassinate then-President George H.W. Bush.
Trumps past comments on this were overshadowed by other crazier, wackier, more offensive things, but it stood out yesterday, Miller said.
The Clinton campaign released a statement by senior Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan that took Trumps foreign-policy judgment to task and sought to provide cover for Clinton amid the fallout over the FBIs findings about her use of a private email server while secretary of state.
[Inside Trumps financial ties to Russia and his unusual flattery of Putin]
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who has endorsed Trump, distanced himself forcefully from the candidates Hussein comments. He was one of the 20th centurys most evil people. He was up there. He committed mass genocide against his own people using chemical weapons, Ryan said on Fox News Channel late Tuesday.
Among other Republicans, Trumps staunchest backers offered a full-throated defenses while others kept their distance Wednesday.
His comment was just a factual comment that Saddam Hussein did not have a terrorist problem, said Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), one of Trumps biggest cheerleaders in Congress. But the void created when he was deposed and then Barack Obama had no plan afterwards was the beginning of ISIS.
Other Republicans were more skeptical.
Well Im certainly not going to disagree with anybody that said Saddam Hussein did a lot of bad things. But he killed a lot of people not just terrorists. So, he was no friend of the United States, said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a Trump supporter.
Cole added: I dont have any doubt that anybody looking at Saddam Husseins record would recognize what a terrifically evil person he was. And the worlds better off without him.
Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), a national security hawk who supports Trump nominally, offered a brief response. I supported the war in Iraq. And Ill leave it at that, King said.
On foreign policy, the real estate mogul has fashioned an unconventional, hybrid America First posture that alternates between promises to stay out of overseas conflicts and vows to kill terrorists en masse and target their families.
He routinely claims falsely that he was always against the Iraq War, blasting other Republicans for the conflict and knocking Clinton for advocating additional interventions in Libya and Syria that he also once praised. He often blames the United States and in particular George W. Bushs administration for destabilizing the Middle East with the 2003 Iraq invasion.
But he has also promised to bomb the [expletive] out of the Islamic State in Syria and has signaled his support for sending a larger contingent of American soldiers into the Middle East.
Trumps free-wheeling rhetoric on foreign policy has presented tangible problems for his campaign, which has struggled to court respected foreign-policy minds. Many fear that their professional reputations would be damaged if they joined the Trump operation.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Trumps latest remarks on Hussein. But in a March presidential debate, Trump was confronted over similar comments by CNNs Jake Tapper, who pressed him on his positive remarks about authoritarian governments in China and Russia. Tapper asked Trump about his assertion in a 1990 Playboy interview that the Chinese government massacre of students in Tiananmen Square shows you the power of strength.
Trump distanced himself from the suggestion that he had endorsed the crackdown but would not back down when Tapper noted that strong is most often used as a compliment.
That doesnt mean I was endorsing that. I said that was a strong, powerful government that put it down with strength. They kept down the riot, it was a horrible thing, Trump responded, wrongly labeling the peaceful demonstration as a riot. It doesnt mean at all I was endorsing it, Trump responded. As far as Putin is concerned, I think Putin has been a very strong leader for Russia. Hes been a lot stronger than our leader, that I can tell you. I mean, for Russia.
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Are prison employees behind the persistent problem of contraband smuggling in federal prisons? An investigation into the Justice Departments Federal Bureau of Prisons cites weak and ineffective procedures that make it easier for workers to get prohibited items to inmates. 2021 Election: Complete coverage and analysis ArrowRight And employees, albeit a small percentage, do smuggle. Justice Department news releases show seven cases of smuggling-related crimes charged against individuals while they were federal prison employees so far this year. That does not include staffers disciplined administratively. To put that in context, contraband represents about 5 percent of the prison staff misconduct cases.
A new report from the departments Office of the Inspector General says 134 BOP staffers, less than 1 percent of the agencys workforce, were implicated in substantiated contraband-related investigations over the two-year period that ended in July 2014. More employees might have been investigated directly by the prison system, but a spokesman said he couldnt immediately provide that information.
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While the portion of employees involved is small, contraband poses grave dangers to the 200,000 prison inmates, as well as staffers, visitors and the public, the report warned. The most common prohibited items found in federal prisons during fiscal years 2012 through 2014 were cellphones.
Inmates with cellphones can direct criminal activities from behind bars, including intimidating witnesses and victims, Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said in a statement. Inmates also have used cellphones to coordinate escapes. We found that cellphones are one of the most prevalent and dangerous contraband items that the BOP recovers in federal prisons, with over 8,000 phones confiscated during a recent three-year period. Thats almost eight every day.
Heres a big problem BOP still does not have an effective policy for searching staff when they enter prisons, despite our raising this issue more than 13 years ago, Horowitz said. For example, we found that correctional officers and other staff entering federal prisons are rarely subject to random pat-down searches.
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The inspector generals analysis found that high-security federal penal institutions do the equivalent of one random pat search every three months. A staffer could probably escape that.
The BOP agreed with the reports recommendations and said it will develop and propose changes to the staff search policy that includes a minimum frequency and duration requirement for randomly pat searching staff.
Lackadaisical procedures dont stop with searches. The inspector generals office said prison officials do not comprehensively and reliably track recovered smuggled goods and employees need more guidance and training on new technologies to detect contraband.
In 2003, the inspector general told prison officials they should require searches of workers and their property when they enter facilities. Apparently it was not considered a top priority, because a staff-search policy was not implemented until 10 years later, following talks with the American Federation of Government Employees. That policy lasted only two years before it was thrown out by the Federal Labor Relations Authority. It acted on a complaint by the unions Council of Prison Locals that the search policy had not been fully negotiated with the labor organization as required.
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Although prison officials agreed that the current level of staff searches are not conducted with enough frequency to be an aggressive and effective deterrent, the report says the bureau is limited because any new policy requires additional labor negotiations.
While AFGE officials did not comment for this story, the report said union leaders pointed out that relatively few employees engage in illegal activities and emphasized that random pat searches subject the rest of the rule-abiding staff to harassment, intimidation, and coercion by institution management. Union officials said they would support staff searches when there is reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.
Because it took a decade for prison officials to implement the 2003 recommendation for staff searches, the report said, we believe the BOP must make this issue a priority with the goal of much more timely corrective action to improve the safety of BOP institutions.
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The staff-search policy was reinstated with minor changes in March. While the policy allows random staff searches, it does not dictate any level of frequency. Lax policy means searches are rare.
Another problem is that staffers can take containers of any size into work, according to the report, including duffle bags, briefcases, and large and small coolers, contrary to a 16-year-old inspector generals office recommendation against that: We reported in 2003 that unrestricted property and large personal containers are among the significant methods for introducing contraband.
This contrasts with state prison systems that employ more stringent measures to deter contraband introductions, the report said.
Also, the prison systems security camera operation has blind spots known to inmates and staff that further reduce the BOPs ability to deter contraband introductions.
The report concluded, The safety and security of staff and inmates will continue to be at risk until the BOP develops and implements a comprehensive and effective staff search policy.
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US protests after police shooting of black man in Louisiana
Protests have taken place in the US state of Louisiana after a video emerged appearing to show two white police officers holding down and shooting dead a black man.
A man wearing an anti-immigration T-shirt walks during the Armed Forces Day Parade in Romford, Britain, on June 25. (Diamond Geezer via AP)
Critics from across Britains fractious political spectrum have attacked the front-runner to become the countrys next prime minister for treating Europeans living in the United Kingdom as negotiating chips in the coming talks with the European Union.
I think it is completely disgusting that youve got a candidate for prime minister who seems to think that human beings are bargaining chips, Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland told Channel 4 News. She met with E.U. diplomats this week and emphasized to them that E.U. nationals were still welcome in Scotland.
E.U. nationals are legally welcome in all parts of the U.K. Britain is still a member of the European Union, and the freedom-of-movement principles will apply at least until Britain officially leaves the bloc.
But many E.U. citizens are anxious about their future after last months referendum that saw the majority of Britons voting to leave the E.U., a position popularly known as Brexit.
The vote also led to the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron, who wanted the U.K. to stay in the E.U., and triggered a contest to replace him.
1 of 56 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Britons react to cutting ties with the European Union View Photos Many celebrated the referendum results on June 24, and British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he will resign after Britons went to the polls the day before. Caption In late June, many celebrated the referendum results, and British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he will resign after Britons went to the polls. June 26, 2016 People walk over Westminster Bridge wrapped in Union Jacks, toward the Queen Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) and the Houses of Parliament in central London. Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images Wait 1 second to continue.
Theresa May, who is leading that contest, has stopped short of promising the 3 million E.U. nationals living in the U.K. that they can stay here indefinitely, suggesting it would be a mistake to give assurances without getting similar ones for British nationals living in the E.U.
[Meet Theresa May, the British politician who could be the next Margaret Thatcher]
When asked in a television interview over the weekend if E.U. nationals in the U.K. could stay forever, May responded: Well, nobody necessarily stays anywhere forever.
That unnerved some.
My own kids would quite like their mom to stay here forever if that is okay, Andy Burnham, a Labour Party politician, said in a passionate speech in Parliament earlier this week. His wife is from the Netherlands, and their three children are half-British, half-Dutch.
On Wednesday, he led a debate in Parliament that saw lawmakers back a motion 245 to 2 in support of E.U. migrants right to remain in the U.K. The vote was nonbinding and largely symbolic.
Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London and prominent leave campaigner, supported the motion, telling the House of Commons that he wanted to set on record that the Vote Leave campaign gave exactly this reassurance to people living and working here, and it is very disappointing this should be called into question.
After Britains historic vote to leave the European Union, late-night hosts had a lot to say about the decision. Here are some of the jokes from Trevor Noah, Jimmy Fallon, Samantha Bee and others. (The Washington Post)
Thousands have jumped on social media with the hashtag IamNotABargainingChip.
[If you thought Brexit was getting dull, watch this video of two senior politicians slamming their peers]
Alan Greene, a lecturer at Durham University, tweeted: Irish. Law lecturer researching public law and human rights. And even if I were working a minimum wage job instead, #IamNotABargainingChip."
Im Portuguese, a scientist and a lecturer, creating and sharing knowledge in the UK for the last 15 years. #IamNotABargainingChip, wrote Paula Salgado, a lecturer at Newcastle University.
Philip Hammond, Britains foreign secretary who backs Mays bid for leadership, has said that it would be absurd to guarantee the futures of E.U. nationals without a reciprocal deal for the 1.2 million Britons living in Europe.
Those offering such a promise without extracting a matching promise that Brits in Spain are able to stay there, I think, are selling our people out too cheap, he told the BBC.
A YouGov/Times poll showed that 72 percent of Conservative Party members who will play a key role in choosing the next British prime minister agree with Mays stance.
But she has come under attack from politicians across the political spectrum for not guaranteeing the rights of E.U. citizens as a starting point.
The two other candidates left in the Conservative Party leadership race Andrea Leadsom and Michael Gove have said that E.U. nationals should be given assurances immediately.
[What a real Brexit Britain would look like]
James Brokenshire, a Home Office minister, told Parliament that there was no immediate change in the status of E.U. nationals living in the U.K. But he insisted that it would be unwise to guarantee their status without reciprocal assurances from the E.U.
Such a step might also have the unintended consequence of prompting E.U. immigration to the U.K., he said.
Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University and an author of books about the Conservative Party, said that May is probably holding back pledges because she thinks she has a real shot of becoming the next prime minister and will be the one at the heart of Brexit negotiations.
I can understand from the governments point of view, that we shouldnt necessarily give away that principle before weve ensured that other countries are willing to do the same for our citizens, he said.
The other leadership contenders were freer to show their negotiating hand, Bale said, because they were less likely to actually be at the table.
Its much easier to make promises when you regard yourself as throwing the dice, and you might as well put everything on red. Whereas for May, she obviously has a reasonably good chance of winning.
Read more:
Conservative politician Theresa May leads race to become Britains next prime minister
Britains 850,000 Polish citizens face backlash after Brexit vote
Some European migrants in Britain back decision to leave the E.U.
Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
A sweeping, multi-year inquiry into Britains role in the Iraq War delivered a devastating assessment Wednesday, with investigators blaming the countrys political, military and intelligence leadership for disastrously mismanaging a conflict that need never have started and that ended a very long way from success.
The findings offer official validation to the views of the Iraq Wars most ardent critics, forensically eviscerating in the sober language of the British civil service nearly every aspect of the conflicts conception, planning and execution.
In a country where the shadow of Iraq continues to loom over both politics and policy, the reports documentation of a disaster in the making guided by American allies could shape British decision-making for years or even decades to come.
It could also permanently taint the legacy of the countrys prime minister at the time, Tony Blair, who came in for the sharpest critique of all and responded with a marathon news conference on Wednesday afternoon at which he was by turns deeply contrite and pugnaciously defiant.
I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe, Blair said, his voice cracking with emotion.
1 of 56 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Britons react to cutting ties with the European Union View Photos Many celebrated the referendum results Friday, and British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he will resign after Britons went to the polls the day before. Caption In late June, many celebrated the referendum results, and British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he will resign after Britons went to the polls. June 26, 2016 People walk over Westminster Bridge wrapped in Union Jacks, toward the Queen Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) and the Houses of Parliament in central London. Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images Wait 1 second to continue.
But for all his misgivings over what he acknowledged were failures of planning and preparation, he insisted that the war was still worth it because it rid the world of the dictator Saddam Hussein.
I did it because I thought it was right, said a graven-faced Blair, the countrys prime minister for a decade.
The findings by a team of British investigators are the culmination of seven years of work in which they were given nearly unfettered access to British documents and witnesses. Delivered in a breathtaking 2.6 million words five times the length of War and Peace the focus was on Britains role as both invader of Iraq in 2003 and an occupier for the next six years.
[The official summary of the Iraq Inquiry]
But the report inevitably also cast light on U.S. decision-making. The United States, which led the march to war, has never conducted a comparably ambitious study of its own failings in Iraq.
The report includes memos that Blair sent to then-President George W. Bush though not the replies. In one such memo, from July 2002, Blair writes to Bush that I will be with you, whatever suggesting a British blank check for war at a time when other European allies were strongly opposed.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair reacts to the sweeping Chilcot report of Britain's role in the Iraq War, which blamed the countrys political, military and intelligence leadership for a conflict that could have been avoided and that ended a very long way from success. (AP)
With violence in Iraq still raging a bombing in Baghdad on Sunday left more than 250 people dead the inquiry casts blame widely for a conflict that cost the lives of 179 British troops and, at the time of the British withdrawal in 2009, at least 150,000 Iraqis. To date, more than 4,500 Americans have died in Iraq and more than 32,000 have been wounded.
The war was initially sold to the public on both sides of the Atlantic as a vital intervention to deprive Hussein of weapons of mass destruction. But no such weapons were ever found.
[Key points from the report]
With exacting detail, the report catalogues a succession of failures.
British intelligence painted a flawed picture of Iraqi military capacity, with agencies never doubting the existence of WMDs. In fact, the report concluded, Iraq posed no imminent threat to Britain. In making their case to the public, Blair and other British officials described the case against Hussein with a certainty that was not justified.
In their private deliberations, they ignored warnings that the invasion of Iraq could be a boon to Islamist extremists. Groups such as al-Qaeda gained key footholds amid Iraqs chaos, and militant offshoots later became the foundation for the Islamic State.
The British relied almost exclusively on their American counterparts for postwar planning, then failed to deliver the manpower and resources needed to make good on promises to transform Iraq into a functioning, stable democracy.
In a statement delivered Wednesday in London, the reports lead author, retired civil servant John Chilcot, said Blair took the country to war before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort.
[Tony Blair kind of apologized for the Iraq war, but many Brits still hate him]
Chilcot, speaking at a conference center in central London, was applauded by relatives of British troops who were killed in the war. Wiping away tears, family members later praised the inquiry and said it had opened a pathway to possible legal action against Blair and other British officials responsible for launching the war.
Sarah OConnor, whose brother, Sgt. Bob OConnor, was killed in 2005, described Blair as the worlds worst terrorist. Roger Bacon, whose son also died in 2005, said the report should be used to ensure that all aspects of the Iraq war fiasco are never repeated again.
Outside, protesters held aloft signs reading Bliar and chanted, Blair lied, thousands died!
[Russian Embassys mocking tweet: Told you so]
The report was commissioned by Blairs successor, Gordon Brown, and was originally expected to take a year to complete.
Instead, it took seven years amid persistent delays that Chilcot has said reflected his own underestimation of the scale of the challenge involved with assessing Britains first invasion and full-scale occupation of a sovereign state since World War II.
The report will give ample ammunition to the wars toughest critics, including those in Britain who have called for war crimes charges to be brought against Blair who now runs a lucrative consulting business that has drawn scrutiny for working with authoritarian governments in the Middle East and elsewhere.
The leader of Britains Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, on Wednesday described the war as illegal and apologized on behalf of Blairs party to the millions of British citizens who feel our democracy was traduced and undermined.
[Blair to Bush: Ill be with you, whatever]
Others in Parliament floated the idea of formally censuring Blair. But the report takes a pass on the issue of Blairs legal culpability, and he is unlikely to be charged.
Chilcot said the question was beyond the scope of his inquiry and could only be resolved by a properly constituted and internationally recognized court.
In two hours of passionate statements after the reports release, Blair said that not a single day passes without him thinking over the Iraq War decisions.
Yet he stood firm on the question of whether he had deceived the public, saying he had taken the country to war in good faith, and that the report had validated his contention that there were no lies from his government.
That view was echoed by the man who now holds Blairs job, David Cameron, who said he did not believe the report had found evidence of deliberate deception.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Cameron urged politicians to learn the lessons of the inquiry, the first being that taking the country to war should always be a last resort.
[The Iraq War still haunts the U.S. presidential race]
Wednesdays report lands as Britain continues to reckon with the aftermath of its June 23 vote to exit the European Union, an outcome that prompted Camerons resignation and that has spawned a mutiny against Corbyn from within his own ranks.
The report does not have a direct bearing on the countrys current political chaos, but it is likely to revive for many Britons memories of a rush to war that has come to epitomize betrayal by the nations elites. The cynicism of British voters that the Iraq War helped to spawn was on display last month, when many seemed to blithely ignore the warnings of experts that a British exit from the E.U. could spark economic and political chaos.
The shadow of the Iraq War also influenced Britains 2013 decision to stay out of a U.S. plan to launch airstrikes against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and to delay joining in when the United States began bombing Islamic State targets a year later.
Even as Wednesdays report ignited a reckoning in Britain on Wednesday, the reaction in Iraq was relatively muted among people too focused on daily survival to worry about another report documenting the Wests failures in their country. After 13 years of violence, the war to depose Hussein hardly seems worth it even to those who celebrated his fall.
[The man who took a sledgehammer to Saddams statue wishes he was back]
Bush and Blair are war criminals and should be punished, said Kadhim Sharif Hassan, 60, who famously took a sledgehammer to a statue of Hussein in central Baghdad in 2003 and now says it would have been better if the dictator had not been overthrown.
The system they created is much worse than the old system. Its only produced death and destruction, he said.
Karla Adam in London, Brian Murphy in Washington, Loveday Morris in Beirut and Mustafa Salim in Baghdad contributed to this report.
Read more:
Iraqs crisis: Dont forget the 2003 U.S. invasion
U.S., Britains special relationship endures but with less vigor
U.S. military ties with Britain are sheltered from Brexit storm, officials say
Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Fayrouz Ahmed Haider is 11. Her father married her off to a 25-year-old man to help pay for her mothers hospital bills. As Yemens war grinds on, community leaders and aid workers say more girls are being married off to help their families. (Sudarsan Raghavan/The Washington Post)
Inside a ramshackle tent, seven days after she was married, Fayrouz Ahmed Haider softly recounted how she ran away from her 25-year-old husband when he tried to force her to have sex.
It would have been better if my marriage had been delayed, she said.
Fayrouz is 11.
Child marriages have long been woven into Yemens social fabric, driven largely by poverty and ancient traditions, as in many parts of the world. But before the civil war began last year, international and local activists had made progress toward ending the practice. They were campaigning for a law setting 18 as the minimum age for marriage and for girls to remain in school.
Now, those efforts have stalled. As the war grinds on, community leaders and aid workers are noticing that more and more girls, some as young as 8, are being married off to help their desperate families. Tens of thousands of families have been displaced, losing their homes and possessions.
14-year-old Fatma Ali Al-Ansi. She was married in April to a 21-year-old, Zaid Ahmed Ali (standing next to her) in the refugee camp. (Sudarsan Raghavan/The Washington Post)
Fathers are thinking, If I have a daughter at or near puberty, I should try to get her married as fast as possible to lessen expenses, said Ahmad al-Qurashi, the director of SEYAJ, a well-known Yemeni nonprofit organization working to protect children.
[Yemen is turning into Saudi Arabias Vietnam]
Fayrouzs mother needed a blood transfusion. The family sold their belongings after fleeing airstrikes in the northern city of Saada last year. But the money raised was not enough to pay their debts to the hospital and relatives.
Their shy daughter, a shade under 4 feet tall, became their only source of income.
We needed the money from the dowry, said her father, Ahmed Haider Sayed. Or else, I would never have married her off.
Wars toll on children
The rise in child unions is the latest, and among the least visible, indicator of the wars disproportionate impact on children. Across this nation, the Middle Easts poorest, more than 1,000 children have been killed nearly one-third of all civilian deaths since the conflict began in March 2015, the U.N. Childrens Fund says. About 1,500 children have lost limbs or have been otherwise maimed.
[It was a childrens soccer game. Of course he knew he was going to kill children.]
The refugee camp in the town of Khamer, Yemen. Thousands have fled the civil war, many arriving here for the past year. Now, child marriages are an increasing practice in this camp, a source of income in desperate times. (Sudarsan Raghavan/The Washington Post)
Sixty percent of child casualties were from airstrikes by a U.S.-backed coalition led by Saudi Arabia, according to the United Nations, which last month placed the kingdom on a blacklist of countries violating childrens rights in conflicts. But after Riyadh denounced the figure as exaggerated, the United Nations removed it from the list.
The coalition is battling an alliance of Shiite Houthi rebels and forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh who gained influence in the chaotic aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings of five years ago. The Saudis and their allies are seeking to restore Yemens government to power.
Today, hospital wards are filled with children suffering from bullet and shrapnel wounds. Others are severely malnourished. Thousands have died from hunger or preventable diseases. Children are widely used as soldiers or to man checkpoints. More than 1,600 schools have shut down.
Less than two years ago, Fayrouzs future looked more promising. She was getting an education. Her father was working as a laborer in Saada. Yemen was in a humanitarian crisis long before the war began, and aid agencies were providing food, medicine and other assistance for their community.
In January 2015, after pressure from activists, Yemen set a minimum age of 18 for marriage in a new constitution. But then the war began and the Houthis did not ratify the document. Today, Yemen still doesnt have a legal minimum age for marriage.
[Pakistan police arrest 14 in honor killing of teen said to have helped bride to elope]
One charity, the Danish Refugee Council, recruited community leaders in Saada to raise awareness about the dangers girls face when they marry young and become mothers. Yemen has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world, with girls as young as 12 dying at childbirth, aid workers informed the residents.
We tried to prevent child marriages, and there was some impact, said Abdo Ali Salim, an elder who worked with the charity. The community knew all the bad effects.
But the conflict has forced most international aid agencies to curtail their operations. Funding for local groups assisting children, including SEYAJ, has shrunk dramatically. Even the United Nations is struggling to obtain funds as more publicized conflicts in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere compete for donor money.
The efforts of courts, police and social service organizations to protect women and children have also been disrupted by the war.
In the absence of the rule of law, assaults, rape and other forms of harm to females have also risen. Gender-based violence, including child marriage, has noticeably increased in Yemen due to the conflict, although the situation before was already of concern, said Fahmia Al-Fotih, an analyst with the U.N. Population Fund in Sanaa.
[Two of her daughters joined ISIS. Now shes trying to save her two younger girls.]
When their home was bombed and their livelihoods shattered, Fayrouz and her family fled to Khamer, a drab, sandy town 52 miles north of Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, which has attracted thousands displaced by the war. There, their problems worsened. Few aid agencies came to help. Families began sending their children into the towns center to beg for food, community leaders said. As desperation grew, girls became a commodity.
On a recent day, eight community elders sat in a camp, some chewing khat, the narcotic leaf favored by most Yemeni men. Seven have married off their girls this year.
Even Salim, the elder who worked at the charity, is preparing to marry off his two daughters, ages 13 and 14.
I want to feel secure of their futures, if only for economic reasons, he said.
Mohammad Ali al-Ansi married off his two girls, ages 13 and 14, in April.
My heart is bleeding inside, but I was forced to do this, he said. I have no job. Its difficult for me to feed my 10 children.
He received $1,600 in dowry for each of his girls, he said.
But after paying for their weddings and meeting other debts, the money has nearly run out.
If things get worse, theres no doubt Ill marry off my 12-year-old daughter, Ansi said.
I am too young
Dressed in a traditional black head-to-toe abaya, Fatma waited for her 21-year-old husband, Zaid, to return home. She is Ansis 14-year-old daughter.
Outside their tent, boys kicked a ragged ball and girls skipped rope. But Fatma spent her day cooking and washing clothes for her in-laws.
When asked the name of her husbands family, Fatma didnt know it.
She remembers her father telling her and her sister, Amal, that the family needed money. She remembers that Amal was in tears because her new husband was taking her to another region. The two sisters have not seen each other since their weddings.
I am too young to be married, Fatma said. I want to study. I want to learn how to write.
I have sacrificed for my family, she continued, her voice dropping to a whisper.
Minutes later, her husband arrived at the tent, and Fatma went silent. He said Fatma was at a good age to marry. When asked if she could attend school, he shook his head no.
Shes a little too old for school, he said.
Rescued from her husband
Of the experiences of all the recently married girls in the camp, Fayrouzs stands out.
When she got married, she was scared, said Thabit Gaid, an elder. This is a crime. Shes still a kid. I dont believe shes 11. She looks more like 10.
Community elders were so concerned that they made Fayrouzs husband sign a document saying he would not consummate their marriage until she reached puberty. He agreed and paid $2,000 in dowry, with a promise to pay $400 more at a later date.
On the wedding day, Fayrouz said, she was thrilled to be the center of attention.
I was going to live a life like my mom and dad, she recalled. I was happy.
But that changed when they reached her husbands home near Saada. That night, he started to flirt with her, she said. Then he ordered her to get into his bed. Scared, she ran into a bedroom and locked herself inside.
He wanted to sleep with me, Fayrouz said. But I ran so fast. I called my father and he called my grandfather.
Her grandfather, who lived in the same town, came immediately.
They acted innocent in front of my grandfather, Fayrouz recalled. When he arrived, I was dressed, packed and ready to leave.
They returned to Khamer. But shes still married. Theres no way her parents can afford to return the dowry money.
Shes staying with us until she reaches puberty, said Fayrouzs father, adding that her in-laws will pay the remaining $400 only after she returns.
Read more:
Pakistani husbands can lightly beat their wives, Islamic council says
Saudi military threatens to move forces into Yemeni capital if peace talks fail
How the Syrian revolt went so horribly, tragically wrong
Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
The FBIs finding leaves the door open for ongoing accusations that Hillary Clinton may have allowed sensitive information to fall into the hands of Russia and China both of which she visited a number of times or even Iran and North Korea. (Richard Drew/AP)
The FBI investigation into Hillary Clintons private email server found no evidence that her communications were hacked while she was secretary of state, but it made clear that hostile actors here and abroad could have done so.
Clinton used her personal email extensively while outside of the United States, FBI Director James B. Comey said, including in the territory of sophisticated adversaries.
It was possible that they accessed her account, he said. But given the nature of the system and the actors potentially involved, we assess we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence.
The finding, like others reached by the FBI, leaves the door open for ongoing accusations that Clinton may have allowed sensitive information to fall into the hands of Russia and China both of which she visited on a number of occasions or even Iran and North Korea.
[FBI recommends no criminal charges in Clinton email probe]
FBI Director James Comey said on July 5 that Hillary Clinton should not be charged for her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state. Here's what he said, in three minutes. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
If malign outsiders didnt get into Clintons account, however, it was not for lack of trying.
Dont email HRC anything sensitive, aide Huma Abedin messaged Clinton chief of staff Cheryl D. Mills and deputy chief Jake Sullivan at 1:31 a.m. on Jan. 10, 2011. The day before, Abedin was twice told via emails from Justin Cooper, a Bill Clinton aide who set up the original private server in 2009, that he had shut the system down because of hacking attempts.
According to a May report by the State Department inspector general, another email exchange between two members of Clintons immediate staff later in 2011 discussed a message she received with a suspicious link.
Hours later, the report said, Clinton received an email from the personal account of then-Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs that also had a link to a suspect website. The next morning, Secretary Clinton replied to the email . . . Is this really from you? I was worried about opening it!
None of these cybersecurity incidents were reported to internal authorities, as required by department guidelines, the report said.
Hackers believed to be linked to Russia have repeatedly tried to enter unclassified State Department and White House email systems with phishing attempts, which try to gain access by luring the recipient into opening an attachment or a link containing malware within a seemingly innocuous communication. In a recent radio interview, former defense secretary Robert M. Gates said that the Pentagon acknowledges they get attacked about 100,000 times a day.
Russian government hackers succeeded in penetrating the Democratic National Committee, and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said officials had seen attempted hacks of presidential campaigns. He did not specify who was targeted or whether the attempts were successful.
[Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump]
Comey said that any reasonable person should have known better than to use an unclassified system to communicate what the FBI determined included some top-secret information.
While investigators found no evidence that Clintons account had been accessed, we do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial email accounts with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account, Comey said. Her use of a personal domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent.
But, he said, the investigation found no indication of intentional mishandling, or vast quantities of information exposed in such a way to support an inference of intentional misconduct or indications of disloyalty to the United States or an obstruction of justice as was the case in some other investigations, which led to prosecutions.
Although there is evidence of potential violation of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, Comey said, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case against Clinton.
Among government agencies, he indicated, the investigation found that the State Department was especially vulnerable to hacking.
While not the focus of our investigation, he said, we also developed evidence that the security culture of the State Department in general, and with respect to use of unclassified email systems in particular, was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government.
That provoked a sharp response from State Department spokesman John Kirby, who said that while were always looking for ways to improve, the department did not share that assessment that there is a lax culture here when it comes to protecting classified information. We take it very, very seriously.
But Susan Hennessey, a Brookings Institution fellow in national security law and formerly a lawyer in the National Security Agencys office of general counsel, cited the State Departments reputation for not being an information security team player. Writing on the Lawfare blog, Hennessey said that reputation predates Secretary Clintons tenure and endures beyond it, and deserves far more attention than it has received amidst the sordid political posturing of this whole investigation.
Charges that security breaches must have taken place have been regular fare during the presidential race. In a speech last month, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump said that Clintons server was easily hacked by foreign governments perhaps even by her financial backers in Communist China putting all of America in danger.
Asked in an interview for the basis of that charge, Trump told NBC News that I think I read that, and I heard it, and somebody also gave me that information.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who chairs the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, called Clintons email practices reckless and dangerous.
You have to assume that our enemies and our adversaries had access to every email that ever went over her private server, Johnson said in a May appearance on CBSs Face the Nation. Did it affect their actions as . . . it related to, for example, Vladimir Putins invasion of Crimea or eastern Ukraine? What about the negotiations with Iran? What about [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad?
[Even without charges, FBI rebuke leaves a heavy political cloud over Clinton]
In a letter last fall to a company that he said provided a threat monitoring device for Clintons server, Johnson said a committee investigation had indicated hacking attempts originating from China, South Korea and Germany, among others.
Asked last fall about possible security risks with the private server, President Obama told CBSs 60 Minutes, I dont think it posed a national security problem.
When Clinton was confronted on a rope line during a campaign stop in January with a question about whether her email was hacked, she replied, Yeah, its totally untrue, and moved on.
Carol Morello contributed to this report.
Read more:
President Obama announced revised troop plans for Afghanistan on Wednesday, keeping 8,400 U.S. troops in the country when he steps down early next year, the clearest indication yet of his inability to end the long war there.
I strongly believe that it is in our national security interest, especially after all the blood and treasure weve invested in Afghanistan over the years, that we give our Afghan partners the very best opportunity to succeed, Obama said in remarks at the White House. He had hoped to leave a force of 5,500 in early 2017.
The decision is likely to be the last in a series of adjustments that Obama, who came into office promising to end costly U.S. wars in the Muslim world, has made to a withdrawal schedule he hailed in 2014 as proof the United States was finishing the job in Afghanistan.
That goal has remained stubbornly out of reach as security has deteriorated across Afghanistan in recent years. Local forces, reliant on foreign troops for air power and other kinds of support, have struggled to contain sustained offensives by Taliban militants who, even after the death of their leader this spring, remain a potent force.
[U.S. widens war in Afghanistan, authorizes new action against Taliban]
President Obama, flanked by Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, center, and Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivers a statement Wednesday at the White House on the deployment of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Obama, speaking alongside Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the United States is no longer fighting a major ground war in Afghanistan. He ticked off a list of accomplishments he said made the country a safer, more inclusive place than it was under the Talibans repressive rule.
He also acknowledged that the Afghan government would need more time to build up its military capacity before it can stand fully on its own.
There are now about 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, tasked with a dual mission to support local troops and hunt down al-Qaeda and other militants. That compares with a force of about 100,000 stationed there during Obamas 2010 troop surge.
In a conference call with reporters to discuss the announcement, senior administration officials said the revised troop number, a slight decrease from the current level, reflected recommendations from the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Mick Nicholson Jr. The changes were approved by Carter and Dunford, they said.
The presidents guidance was just to have a recommendation as to what the best presence and necessary resources would be at the end of 2016, said one official who, like others, spoke on a condition of anonymity imposed by the White House.
This was . . . not about calibrating how many troops we could afford to reduce it was about designing the best possible presence to carry out those missions through the end of the year, the official said. This was the Pentagons recommendation.
In a statement, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani welcomed Obamas announcement, which signaled an extension of crucial support at a time when militant attacks have exposed local forces weaknesses in key military areas, including intelligence and air power.
The decision is a sign of continued partnership between our nations to fight our common enemy and strengthen regional stability, Ghani said through his spokesman, Haroon Chakhansuri.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the United States had been unable to quash the group with a force of 100,000 and would fail to do so with a smaller footprint. However long American invading forces remain in Afghanistan, their defeat will be definite, he said in a statement.
Already over the past two years, Obama had given commanders in Afghanistan new powers to combat militants, an acknowledgment that the official end to U.S. combat operations at the end of 2014 did not signal a halt to the fighting.
[U.S. was supposed to leave Afghanistan by 2017. Now it might take decades.]
Daniel F. Feldman, who was Obamas special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan until last year, said Wednesdays announcement would send a positive signal to Afghanistan and its neighbors.
Its important for what it means for military and security resources, and important symbolically in terms of demonstrating continued commitment, Feldman said. Pakistan, where Taliban leaders are believed to reside, continues to play an important role in Afghanistans fate.
But Wednesdays decision could be a political liability for Obama, opening him to criticism for altering earlier plans, while failing to satisfy Republicans who believe Afghanistans insecurity merits a larger force.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he would have preferred to keep current troop levels untouched.
When the President himself describes the security situation in Afghanistan as precarious, it is difficult to discern any strategic rationale for withdrawing 1,400 U.S. troops by the end of the year, he said in a statement.
As part of current military plans, the United States will also maintain six major bases across Afghanistan. That will afford U.S. and NATO troops greater reach into contested areas and make it easier to rebuild a larger force if the next U.S. president decides to do so.
The announcement comes several days before Obama attends a NATO summit in Poland that had imposed something of a deadline on the White House.
Officials acknowledged that about 40 governments participating in the Afghanistan effort, including many from NATO, want to know how to calibrate their own contributions of about 6,000 troops. Germany and Italy make the largest contributions, with nearly 1,000 troops each.
The announcement allows us to have a more constructive discussion at the NATO summit, an official said.
Officials did not specify what additional funds would be needed to maintain troop levels beyond the initially budgeted 5,500 but said they would discuss the matter with Congress.
It is time that the President level with the American people about what it will really take to achieve our goals in Afghanistan, and how much it will cost, Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.
Officials said they anticipated no change in the U.S. mission. Under the expanded military authorities Obama granted in May, U.S. troops are now allowed to be present at the Afghan corps level and at an expeditionary level. Commanders can also deploy U.S. air assets to support an ongoing Afghan operation and to intervene if Afghan forces find themselves in difficulty. Those moves were a reflection of the danger posed by the Taliban, even though the White House has said it is no longer at war with the group.
[Senior U.S. general wants to start striking the Taliban again]
Obamas announcement tees up additional decisions for the next U.S. president, who will also have to grapple with the wars in Iraq and Syria and the growth of the Islamic State.
As secretary of state, presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton sent hundreds of diplomats and aid workers to Afghanistan in Obamas civilian surge. If elected, she is expected to take a more hawkish view of using U.S. military power overseas than Obama.
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has said he would probably leave U.S. troops in Afghanistan but has not provided specifics.
U.S. officials emphasized that successful peace negotiations remain the only way to bring the war to a sustainable end. They said the administration continues to support talks without preconditions.
While Ghani has sought to foster negotiations with the Taliban, militants have shunned those talks. Last year, Pakistani-hosted talks collapsed after one meeting, and invitations to the Taliban to return to the table have been rejected since then.
Obama said his decision to leave a larger force in Afghanistan signaled to Taliban militants their inability to prevail after almost 15 years of war. It is also a reminder of the same point to the United States.
Even as we work for peace, we have to deal with the realities of the world as it is, Obama said. And we cant forget whats at stake in Afghanistan.
Tim Craig in Kabul contributed to this report.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Obama shake hands for the cameras before the start of a bilateral meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York last September. (Sergei Guneyev /Ria Novosti / Kremlin Pool/European Pressphoto Agency)
President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a telephone call Wednesday, agreed they were ready to intensify military coordination in Syria, according to a Kremlin statement.
Both sides reaffirmed their readiness to increase the military coordination of Russian and U.S. actions, it said, according to a translation by the Russian news agency, Interfax.
The call, initiated by Putin, came as the Syrian military said it would begin a 72-hour truce in the countrys long-running civil war to honor the Eid holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Syrian rebels reportedly agreed to the truce, although fighting continued.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry said he hoped the truce initiative was an outgrowth of talks in which the United States is trying to persuade Russia to press its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to stop bombing civilians and opposition groups seeking to oust him. Kerry spoke during a visit to Tblisi, Georgia.
[U.S. jets abandoned Syrian rebels in the desert. Then they lost a battle to ISIS.]
The administration last week offered to help Russia improve its own air targeting against terrorist groups, including the Islamic State, if it would rein in Assad. In Wednesdays call, the Kremlin said, Putin urged Obama to work harder to separate U.S.-backed opposition groups from the forces of Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaedas Syrian affiliate.
U.S. officials have said they are willing to discuss additional coordination in their so-far separate counterterrorism operations in Syria, but remain unsure if Russia would pressure Assad and that no decisions have been made.
The White House made no mention of increased coordination with Russia in its own statement about the Putin call. Obama, it said, emphasized his concerns over the failure of the Syrian regime to comply with the cessation of hostilities in Syria, referring to a truce that was negotiated under U.S.-Russian auspices in February, but has since largely fallen apart under intensified Syrian and Russian bombing.
President Obama stressed the importance of Russia pressing the Syrian regime for a lasting halt to offensive attacks against civilians and parties to the cessation, noting the importance of fully recommitting to the original terms of the cessation, which was signed by Assad and opposition groups, but excluded the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra.
Russia has long been eager to expand its military cooperation with the United States, a goal that administration officials attribute to Putins desire for increased status on the world stage. While both oppose the Islamic State and agree that Syrias separate civil conflict undermines efforts to destroy the terror group, they have vastly different prescriptions centering on whether Assad stays or goes for resolving it.
Both Obama and Putin, their statements said, called for progress on negotiations toward a political solution to the Syrian conflict.
Both also said they discussed efforts to settle the lengthy conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia said Obama highly praised Russias efforts to resolve the dispute, while the White House said only that Obama expressed his readiness to intensify efforts together with Russia and with France, co-chairs of an international push for resolution.
On Ukraine, the White House said, Obama urged Putin to quell increased fighting that the administration blames on Russian-backed separatists, and stressed the urgent importance of moving forward with international agreements. The Kremlin said Putin called for intensification of cease-fire efforts, for which Russia holds the U.S.-backed government responsible.
Events in Ukraine have raised concerns of other states sharing borders with Russia, including members of the former Soviet Union that are now part of NATO, over increasing Russian aggression. NATOs response to those concerns will be at the top of the agenda at the alliance summit Obama will attend in Warsaw this week.
[Near Russias border with the Baltics, soldiers on both sides are practicing for war]
Russias 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea led NATO to suspend active military cooperation with Russia, although the alliance has reactivated its NATO-Russia Council, which will hold talks following the summit.
In a July 4 message to Obama, Putin wrote that the history of Russian-American relations shows that when we act as equal partners and respect each others lawful interests, we are able to successfully resolve the most complex international issues for the benefit of both countries peoples.
Read more:
FBI Director James Comey walks to the podium to make a statement at FBI headquarters on Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state. (Cliff Owen/AP)
It was, say those who know him, classic Jim Comey: stern, unflinching and standing on principle politics and position be damned.
The FBI director may not have recommended that Hillary Clinton be charged for her extremely careless handling of classified material some of it top secret but his 15-minute exposition Tuesday left the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate bruised by such a harsh and public scolding.
James B. Comeys apparent indifference to the fact that he may be sitting across from a President Clinton in a few short months reflects not only his temperament but the institutional independence of the position he holds. Relations with a President Trump are also likely to be strained. In the wake of Comeys announcement, the presumptive Republican nominee questioned the directors integrity by saying the outcome was rigged.
Hes not having anybody go out and say it for him, said Robert Anderson, a former executive assistant director of the FBIs Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch who worked directly with Comey. That takes a lot of guts, in this situation.
Hes basically saying, Hey, Im just going to tell you the way I feel, and I know who you are and who you could be, Anderson said.
Since 1976, FBI directors have had 10-year terms and have answered to the U.S. attorney general and the White House. Comey has said he remains committed to serving his full term, which would take him beyond the four-year term of the next president unless he is fired or pressured to resign, as has happened to other directors.
[FBI rebuke of Clinton leaves a heavy cloud over her campaign]
Comey has a history of being blunt. He likes to deliver what he calls hard truths.
One came after a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014. That death sparked a national debate about how police interact with minority communities, with many in law enforcement complaining about growing anti-police sentiment. Comey did not shy away from the conversation, delivering a speech at Georgetown University the next year that rankled some of his colleagues, at the federal and local levels.
Let me start by sharing some of my own hard truths, he said. First, all of us in law enforcement must be honest enough to acknowledge that much of our history is not pretty.
He added: At many points in American history, law enforcement enforced the status quo, a status quo that was often brutally unfair to disfavored groups.
As scrutiny of police action intensified, Comey lent his support to the idea that crime, including homicide, might be increasing because police across the country were enforcing the law less aggressively out of fear of being captured on video and ending up in the dock.
The validity of the Ferguson effect, as the phenomenon was called, was not embraced by Comeys bosses Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and President Obama.
Hes earned a reputation as a straight shooter, and in a highly political city, said Tim Weiner, author of Enemies: A History of the FBI.
More recently, and without notes, Comey spoke at the Defense Intelligence Agency. The event was to celebrate LGBT Pride Month, and Comey turned his gaze on diversity in his own agency. He noted that 83 percent of FBI agents were white and described those numbers as a crisis, according to two U.S. officials familiar with Comeys comments.
Our ability to be believed is at risk, Comey told the group assembled at DIA last month. The FBI must be able to stand on any corner in the U.S. or before any jury and be believed.
He has also shown a willingness to look at the bureaus record.
After last months Orlando terrorist attack, he acknowledged the FBI had once investigated the shooter, Omar Mateen.
We are also going to look hard at our own work to see whether there is something we should have done differently, he said. . . . We will look at it in an open and honest way and be transparent about it.
Comeys approach has won praise within the halls of FBIs headquarters. His agents are confident he will tackle the tough cases that make politicians and the White House uncomfortable.
He pushed for the prosecution of Sen. Robert Menendez, a powerful Democrat from New Jersey, who was indicted last year on corruption charges. He backed his agents when they sought felony charges against former CIA director David Petraeus, who was ultimately convicted of a misdemeanor for mishandling classified information that he provided to his biographer and lover.
[How the Petraeus and Clinton cases differ]
After Clinton called the FBI investigation a security inquiry, Comey later corrected her at a news conference. He reminded reporters this was an investigation.
Its in our name. Im not familiar with the term security inquiry, the director said.
Weiner said Comey established a standard of speaking truth to power in 2004 that is pretty hard to top. The author was referring to a now famous hospital showdown during the George W. Bush administration with White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Andrew H. Card Jr., the presidents chief of staff.
The White House officials were trying to persuade Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who was recovering from emergency surgery, to reauthorize a controversial warrantless domestic eavesdropping program.
Comey, who was acting attorney general in Ashcrofts absence, had refused to agree to extend the program, because he believed it did not comply with the law.
When he learned that the White House was attempting to go around him and get the ill Ashcroft to sign off on an extension, Comey rushed to George Washington University Medical Center, arriving just before Gonzales and Card.
Comey, who had threatened to resign over the incident, has described the night as the most difficult of my professional career.
Comey has made it clear he wants his agents to understand the bureaus history. He makes sure new agents and analysts are aware of the FBIs investigation of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Comey keeps a copy of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedys approval of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoovers request to wiretap King a request Comey said was without fact or substance.
One reason we cannot forget our law enforcement legacy is that the people we serve and protect cannot forget it, either, Comey said at Georgetown. So we must talk about our history. It is a hard truth that lives on.
Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to continue developing nuclear weapons while also strengthening his countrys economy. (NKO via Associated Press)
The United States imposed economic sanctions Wednesday on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and other government officials for their role in human rights abuses in the isolated country, particularly the running of forced labor camps and the torture and executions of dissidents.
The unusual but not unprecedented step of blacklisting a head of state is part of a concerted effort to step up pressure on Pyongyang that began in March when the U.N. Security Council and then the United States imposed harsh restrictions on trade with North Korea over its testing of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
[North Koreas military buildup isnt limited to nukes]
The Treasury Department sanctions, backed by a State Department report on human rights abuses in the country, builds on a U.N. Commission of Inquiry report released in 2014. That report accused senior members of the military regime, including Kim, of overseeing crimes against humanity.
The blacklist names 10 people other than Kim, and five government institutions involved in monitoring ordinary North Koreans and keeping an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 people in camps for political prisoners. Officially, it freezes any assets they may have in the United States and bars Americans from interacting with them both of which are limited to nonexistent.
Visiting reporters went on a state-organized tour of a maternity hospital in Pyongyang, while North Korean minders carefully monitored their conversations with the hospitals staff. (Jason Aldag,Anna Fifield/The Washington Post)
But officials said the sanctions would have a global ripple effect, and might give pause to other government officials who otherwise operate fairly anonymously.
The fact they are being named might not affect lives today, said an administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under rules for briefing reporters. But in a future scenario in which the political situation in the DPRK [North Korea] is different, being on this blacklist could have considerable impact on any prospects these people have. And I think they know it.
Kim now joins the company of other authoritarian leaders who have been judged responsible under U.S. sanctions law for horrific conditions in their countries. They include Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. This is the first time Kim has been named.
We made the judgment he is rather plainly, ultimately responsible for the actions of his regime, including its repressive policies toward its own people, the administration official said.
Congress passed a law requiring the State Department report and authorizing stiffer sanctions, but administration officials said they had been preparing it anyway because North Koreas pursuit of nuclear weapons is a threat to national security and because human rights conditions are so grim.
[In North Korea, calm before the sanctions storm]
Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor and torture, said Adam J. Szubin, acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. The actions taken today by the administration under an act of Congress highlight the U.S. governments condemnation of this regimes abuses and our determination to see them stopped.
Among the people who were blacklisted were officials in ministries where some of the worst abuses occur, according to the State Department report.
The Ministry of State Security administers North Koreas vast network of political prison camps, where detainees are subjected to beatings, starvation, sexual assault, forced abortions and infanticide. The Ministry of Peoples Security conducts interrogations and is reported to have used torture to extract confessions. The Organization of Guidance Department, part of the Workers Party of Korea, is responsible for ensuring the ideological purity of party members, the Treasury said. Among its functions are executing people who defy Kims will, and hunting down defectors overseas.
U.S. officials said the list is not comprehensive, and will be updated periodically with new information.
Read more:
North Korea claims it could wipe out Manhattan with a hydrogen bomb
The secret life of Kim Jong Uns aunt, living in the U.S.
In North Korea, the regimes control is absolute
Oscar Pistorius, the double-
amputee Olympic track star who was convicted in the shooting death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, was sentenced Wednesday to six years in a South African prison.
Judge Thokozile Masipa appeared to anticipate criticism of the sentence, which fell far short of the normally mandated 15 years for murder under South African law, declaring: Our courts are courts of law, not courts of public opinion.
Pistorius, who shot Steenkamp through the door of a toilet cubicle in his home early onValentines Day 2013, was asked to stand and face Masipa as she announced his sentence. He was calm after the ruling, embracing his aunt and tearful sister before being led down a courtroom staircase to a holding cell ahead of being taken to prison.
The sentencing was the latest act of a 3 1 / 2 -year legal drama that has often played out on live television and shown the fall from grace of a runner once viewed as an inspiration to many for overcoming his disability. Pistoriuss legs were amputated below the knees when he was 11 months old because of a congenital defect.
Pistorius, 29, made history by competing at the 2012 Olympics on his carbon-fiber running blades.
Hes a fallen hero. He has lost his career, and he is ruined financially, said Masipa, who had convicted Pistorius of manslaughter. That ruling was overturned by an appeals court, which instead convicted him of murder and sent the case back to her for sentencing.
In explaining the sentence, Masipa said there are substantial and compelling circumstances to show leniency toward Pistorius because he is a good candidate for rehabilitation, is unlikely to commit another crime and had shown what appeared to be genuine remorse over Steenkamps death.
Pistorius maintained that he killed Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and reality TV star, by mistake, thinking she was an intruder. Prosecutors alleged that he killed her intentionally after the couple argued.
Part of the difficulty in determining an appropriate sentence was that the Supreme Court convicted Pistorius of murder with indirect intent. Pistorius was found guilty because he knew someone might die even an intruder when he shot. As Masipa noted, the court did not find that Pistorius knew he was firing at Steenkamp.
Pistorius will be eligible to apply for parole after three years, according to legal experts. Prosecutors, who had asked that he be sentenced to 15 years in prison, can appeal for a heavier sentence.
The Steenkamp family did not criticize the sentence. The family has said it before: They wanted the law to run its course. It has done so. No further comment. They will keep a dignified silence, said Dup de Bruyn, a Steenkamp family representative.
Even as it increases its troop presence and prepares a further escalation of US military violence in Syriaa move that could well trigger a war between the United States and RussiaWashington is publicly proposing to increase its military coordination with Moscow in Syria.
Last week, the Obama administration acknowledged having submitted a proposal to the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin for stepped-up collaboration in air attacks on the forces of the Al Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, in return for a Russian agreement to end attacks by Russian jets and Syrian government forces on anti-regime rebels openly backed by the US and its NATO and Gulf allies.
The five-year-old war for regime-change against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the only Arab ally in the Middle East of both Russia and Iran, has already taken the lives of more than 250,000 Syrians and turned more than half of the countrys people into homeless refugees.
There has as of yet been no public response from Moscow. Putin, for his part, has made clear that he is prepared in principle to accept a government without Assad as part of an overall settlement with the US and its allies, but only in return for guarantees for Russian military and naval bases by a new Syrian government acceptable to Russiademands that cut across Washingtons basic war aims.
Al Nusra, whose fighters operate alongside Washington-backed jihadist militias, is the major force defending the rebel position in the key city of Aleppo, which is increasingly surrounded and besieged by Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian government forces. The main purpose of the US initiative to Russia is to prevent the fall of Aleppo and buy time while the Obama administration prepares a major expansion of the war, which will most likely be delayed until after the November elections.
According to press reports, the White House is proposing a number of measures for US-Russian military cooperation in Syria, including joint air strikes and intelligence sharing. To the extent that the offer is more than a cover for US preparations to step up its aggression in Syria and its confrontation with Russia in both the Middle East and Eastern Europe, it is motivated primarily by the severely weakened position of US proxy forces on the ground in Syria. They have suffered major setbacks since Moscow launched its military intervention in support of the Assad regime in September of last year.
The partial ceasefire negotiated by the US and Russia and initiated last February has been used by US proxy forces to shore up their positions in Syria, with, however, only limited effect.
In the intervening period, the Obama administration and the Pentagon have announced the deployment of hundreds more Special Forces troops to the battlefields of the country and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has made numerous statements pointing to a more direct role for the American military in the fighting.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has pledged to implement a Plan B for increased US military aid to the rebels and other moves to escalate the war should the already compromised ceasefire collapse. These measures could include supplying the rebels with hand-held ground-to-air missiles, capable of bringing down Russian military jets operating in Syria.
Within the US political, security and media establishment, there are growing criticisms of Obamas policy and demands that Washington move more decisively against both Assad and Putin. There are reportedly sharp divisions within the administration itself.
Earlier this month, US State Department sources leaked a dissent memo authored by 51 mid-level department operatives calling for US air strikes against the Syrian government. Secretary of State Kerry, who headed up the campaign in 2013 for a full-scale US air war against Assad on the basis of false allegations of government chemical weapons attacks against civiliansa plan Obama cancelled at the last minute in favor of a Russian-proposed plan to dismantle the regimes chemical weapons stockcalled the memo an important statement and held a cordial meeting with several of its drafters.
The reports of the administrations proposal for stepped-up military cooperation with Russia have evoked heated denunciations from sections of the media. The Washington Post published a lead editorial on Saturday headlined Obama retreats from Russia in Syriaagain. The newspaper complained, Obama appears fiercely determined to learn nothing from his tragic mistakes in Syria. It warned that the only tangible result of the plan would likely be the reinforcement of the Assad regime.
A Newsweek analysis, Why is Obama Getting Into Bed with Putin in Syria? similarly denounced the White House proposal, lamenting that the deal would block further US offensives aimed at weakening Assad and that from now until January 2017, US objectives in Syria will be limited to lowering the level of violence as much as possible.
In the US election campaign, the danger of a wider war in the Middle East as well as war with nuclear powers Russia and China has been deliberately buried, so that there will be no opportunity for the broad anti-war sentiment in the population to find expression in the election.
Whichever party wins, however, the incoming administration will carry out a reckless escalation of militarism. Both the Democratic and Republican presumptive presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, have declared their support for intensified bombing and the imposition of a no-fly zone directed against the Syrian regime and its Russian backers.
The uncertain result of the July 2 Australian election, with no party or group of parties yet in a position to form government, is the outcome of a profound crisis of the traditional forms of capitalist rule that prevails in country after country around the world.
In unprecedented numbers, Australian voters rejected the major capitalist partiesthe Liberal-National Coalition and the Australian Labor Partyand incessant calls in the media for the election of a stable, majority government.
A profound disconnect exists between the political establishment, which serves only the interests of a financial and corporate elite, and the majority of the population, whose primary concerns are stagnant or falling wages, insecure employment, deteriorating services and the bleak future facing the younger generation. The lives of ordinary working people are dominated by instability and insecurity, as austerity measures imposed by Labor and Coalition governments since the onset of the global slump in 2008 compound decades of declining living standards.
For six years, Labor and the Coalition have resorted to anti-democratic conspiracies and shameless lies and populism to try to overcome their inability to win popular support for an agenda dictated by imperialist interests and the major banks and corporations.
In 2010, in order to swing Australian foreign policy behind the US military build-up against China, the Labor Party ousted Kevin Rudd as prime minister through an overnight factional coup and installed Julia Gillard, behind the backs of the population. Just months later, Labor suffered a debacle in the 2010 election and was forced to form the first minority government since 1941, relying, above all, on the support of the Greens to push through militarist and austerity policies.
As popular discontent continued to grow, Rudd replaced Gillard in another anti-democratic conspiracy on the eve of the 2013 election. The Coalition under Tony Abbott came to office in a landslide victory by whipping up anti-refugee hysteria and covering up its anti-working class agenda, while Labor suffered its lowest vote in 110 years. Within two years, however, facing a parliamentary impasse over attempts to ram through deeply unpopular austerity measures, Abbott himself was ousted last September in yet another backroom coup, this time by current prime minister, former investment banker and multi-millionaire, Malcolm Turnbull.
Now, Turnbulls deluded belief that he could win a working majority in both houses of parliament, on the basis of fraudulent claims of bringing jobs and growth and exciting times, has suffered a shipwreck on the rocks of mass alienation and hostility toward the two-party system.
If Turnbull loses office or is ousted by his own party, the position of prime minister will have changed hands six times in just six years. To underscore the magnitude of the current political volatility, it is only necessary to recall that in the 32 years between 1975 and 2007, Australia had just four prime ministers.
The crisis of the Australian establishment parties and parliamentary mechanisms, under the impact of ever-widening social inequality and growing class antagonisms, is paralleled around the world. Across Europe, longstanding political formations have collapsed or are in the process of collapsing. The European Union itself is disintegrating following the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom, where the centuries-old Tory Party may not survive the political upheavals that threaten to tear the country apart.
In the United States, the Republican Party is wracked by divisions and potential splits in the face of the success of fascistic demagogue Donald Trump in the presidential primaries. The Democratic Party is no less in disarray, after facing a rebellion against the party establishment in the form of the support of millions of workers and youth for the campaign of Bernie Sanders, in the mistaken belief that he represented socialism.
The ruling elites, whether in Australia or around the world, cannot return to the stable and predictable parliamentary forms through which they ruled in the past. The systemic breakdown of world economy, ever mounting geopolitical conflicts, the rising danger of war, and, above all, the political radicalisation underway within the working class and youth, preclude that possibility. The suggestion of some commentators that another Australian election be immediately called, would only produce the same, or an even more unpredictable result.
Australian billionaire Gerry Harveys declaration on Monday that the only cure weve got is to have a dictator, reflects intense frustration within ruling circles that they cannot achieve their political, economic and military agendas through democratic means. They can only defend their obscene levels of wealth and the profit system itself, as it devastates the lives of workers and threatens to drag humanity into world war, through authoritarian forms of rule and the ruthless suppression of opposition.
The working class must take a sharp warning from the emergence in Australia of the same nationalist and even fascistic tendencies that have developed elsewhere. The Xenophon Team, which advocates economic protectionism and trade war, won a large vote in the devastated industrial state of South Australia. A range of right-wing Christian parties and a law-and-order candidate attracted significant votes. Pauline Hansons One Nation, which seeks to divert social discontent over unemployment and poverty into anti-immigrant and particularly anti-Muslim xenophobia, gained sufficient support to once again win seats in the Senate.
Political responsibility for the ability of right-wing demagogues to make appeals to disaffected workers and youth lies with the Labor Party and the trade unions, which have for decades suppressed any struggle by workers in defence of jobs, wages and living conditions. Moreover, the promotion of the bogus war on terror by the entire political and media establishment has enabled formations like One Nation to peddle their anti-Islamic filth.
Pseudo-left organisations such as Socialist Alliance and Socialist Alternative have played a particularly pernicious role by promoting the Labor Party and the Greens as a lesser evil and thus acting as a barrier to the independent mobilisation of the working class, on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program, against the entire official establishment.
The 2016 Australian election reveals the existence of an unprecedented political vacuum. Longstanding loyalties have broken down and masses of people are looking for alternatives. This situation will only become more polarised and explosive. The next Australian government will have to attempt, under condition of worsening global slump and domestic recession, to protect the Australian financial and corporate elite through intensified budget austerity cuts and attacks on workers jobs, wages and conditions. It is inevitable that class conflict will erupt.
Moreover, the commitment of Australian imperialism to its strategic alliance with the United States, and the escalating preparations for a military confrontation with China, particularly in the South China Sea, will provoke intense anti-war opposition.
It is in this context that the objective significance of the election campaign conducted by the Socialist Equality Party, the Australian section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), can be fully appreciated.
At the very centre of the SEPs campaign was the fight to cut through the conspiracy of silence, by the entire Australian establishment, on the threat of war and to promote the call by the ICFI for the building of a unified international anti-war movement to prevent the catastrophe of World War III.
The SEP advanced the internationalist and socialist alternative to the failure of world capitalism and the nation-state system: the fight for workers governments in every country, which will bring the immense productive capacity that exists under the democratic control of the working class and the oppressed, and reorganise economic and social life in the interests of the vast majority of humanity, not the privileged few.
The SEPs principled campaign for the development of an international anti-war movement on the basis of a socialist program has laid down a marker that will, in the coming period, register in the political consciousness of the most advanced and thoughtful sections of the working class and youth, in Australia and around the world. We look forward with confidence to building a mass international and revolutionary movement of the working class, in collaboration with all the sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International, the world party of socialist revolution.
KARLOVY VARY The Czech Republics top-notch production design, technical prowess, renowned facilities and attractive incentive program were front and center at a lively discussion at the Karlovy Vary Festival on Monday.
The panel, moderated by Varietys Peter Caranicas, included Czech Film Commissioner Ludmila Claussova; British director Sean Ellis, whose World War II drama Anthropoid (pictured) opened this years fest; Oscar-winning Barrandov Studio production designer Allan Starski; production designer Jindrich Koci; cinematographer Jaromir Sedina; and Rick Smotkin, senior VP of government affairs at U.S. cable giant Comcast, parent of NBCUniversal.
Discussing the Czech Republics incentive program, which offers a 20% cash rebate on local spend, Claussova said the financing support plays a vital role for most projects, adding that incentives are necessary if you want to stay competitive. Its the first question producers ask.
Yet Claussova stressed that efforts to lure foreign productions to the country meant not just promoting incentives, but also the Czech Republics entire infrastructure, from the high quality and expertise of its crews to the value of its state-of-the-art facilities and wealth of historical locations. The incentives are the starting point, she added. Without them there wouldnt be any further discussion.
Starski echoed the sentiment, arguing that Barrandov Studios provides such good quality of work that producers have chosen to go to the Czech Republic rather than nearby Hungary, which also offers generous incentives. Starski, who won an Oscar for his work on Steven Spielbergs Schindlers List, noted that even before the introduction of the Czech incentive program, producer Dino De Laurentiis chose Barrandov over Hungarian facilities for the shoot of Hannibal Rising a decade ago. Despite Hungary already having incentives at the time, De Laurentiis was decidedly impressed with the studios high quality of workmanship, Starski added.
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Since then, however, financial support has become vital for the Czech industry, Starski said, noting that his native Poland has no incentive program and, as a result, offers no real services to international productions.
Despite the Czech Republics popularity with international filmmakers from around the globe, including a growing number of Asian producers, not to mention its relatively low costs in view of the strong U.S. dollar, Smotkin said NBCUniversal had not been to the country in a decade because it was not economical enough for the conglom. The countrys incentive is not competitive with that of Hungary, the U.K. or Ireland, Smotkin said, adding that despite the great crews and great studios, NBCUniversal would not shoot projects in the country until the government raised the rebate incentive to the 25% range.
Addressing the prospect of possible public resistance to the Czech Republic providing money to rich Hollywood producers, as has been the case in some U.S. states, Claussova said the government support is sometimes misunderstood.
The incentive is here not to help international or Hollywood producers. Its not to do them a favor. The incentive is here to support our industry. This is the view that we have to communicate. We are not giving it to the producers, we are making their budgets and their shoots more cost effective.
The film commissioner added that the incentive was established to support the Czech film business, to help train and employ people and to also provide the country with great promotion through films like Anthropoid, which is sharing a piece of Czech history with the world. The pic tells the true story of two Czechoslovakian resistance fighters on a mission to assassinate a high-ranking Nazi official in occupied Prague.
For his part, Ellis said he planned from the outset to shoot Anthropoid in the Czech Republic regardless of incentives.
There was no question that it had to be here if you wanted the authenticity of recreating that story, Ellis said, adding that it was a story that is very close to the hearts of the Czech people. Even the carpenters who worked on the production were very proud to be a part of the project, he added.
The panel, Inside the Czech Republics Production Benefits: Why Facilities, Locations, Incentives & Skills Make for an Unmatchable Combination, was sponsored by Barrandov Studio.
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matt-damon-elsyium
TriStar Pictures
Matt Damon may have scored early Oscar gold in Good Will Hunting, but hes built his bank account with action movies. In fact, hes done so many buff-body projects that people are genuinely surprised when he schlubs it up for Steven Soderbergh. One can witness Damon beating up bad dudes and waving a gun around in any number of films, including the Bourne flicks, Elysium, and Saving Private Ryan (yes, that one counts). So, it could be jarring to witness his sentiments regarding gun control, but he is very much in favor of stronger regulations.
Damon voiced this opinion in Australia while promoting his new Jason Bourne movie where he will very likely (once again) tote around a gun. With the continued mass shootings in the United States, gun control advocates often mention the country, which enacted the National Firearms Agreement after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre. The NFA outlaws semi-automatic and automatic rifles along with pump-action shotguns and, after a buyback program, saw a sharp decline in firearm-related homicides (59 percent) and suicides (65 percent). Damon would like to see this happen in the United States, but he wasnt optimistic while speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald:
People get so emotional that even when you make a suggestion about not selling AK-47s to people on terror watch lists, thats a non-starter. I dont know what needs to happen. Obviously mass shootings arent going to do it. There have been so many of them at this point. Sandy Hook, when those children were murdered, if that didnt do it, you know, I just dont know. Maybe we just need to evolve further before we can have that conversation, I dont know.
Perhaps Damon got swept up in the down-under spirit and forgot which project he was promoting. After all, the twin subjects of mass shootings and gun control remain on everyones mind after the Orlando nightclub shootings and the Senates failed measures to end the pattern. And mass shootings happen nearly every day in the United States, which is home to a governor who happily signed five pro-gun bills in one day. Still, it does look a little odd to advocate for gun control while pushing a Bourne movie. Such an act opens up the NRA criticism floodgates on Twitter.
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Gun-Toting Action Star Matt Damon Wants Australian-Style Gun Ban in U.S. https://t.co/wXqqIuslzi #2A NRA (@NRA) July 5, 2016
The reply tweets are predictably chaotic and range from telling Damon to leave America all the way to arguing that movies are only fiction (and they obviously are). Mainly, a Twitter search for Matt Damon hypocrite reaps a whole lot of replies like this:
@NRA @AZWS @BreitbartNews -maybe he should move THERE instead- hypocrite to use guns in movies ok I guess Becca F (@eforrest40) July 5, 2016
Matt Damon complaining about gun violence is funny. Dude made living by pretend gun killing hundreds. New Bourne coming out haha. Hypocrite Baron Zemo (@Shawpaw85) July 5, 2016
@NRA People who call him a hypocrite clearly have no grasp of movies being fiction and therefore SHOULDN'T have guns. J. Bebastian Sach (@BebastianSach) July 5, 2016
(Via Sydney Morning Herald)
The Band Perry postponed a show scheduled for Sunday in Delaware after two men entered the Americana Bayside Welcome Center, where the country trio was set to perform, and made alarming statements to an employee, according to police.
Authorities did not release the mens statements, but Delaware State Police Master Cpl. Gary Fournier said the concert was postponed due to heightened security concerns and for the safety of the public.
Delaware troopers blasted out a press release to media outlets and social media following the incident and released security camera photos of the two, who were described as white men between 20 and 30 years old, one wearing a purple T-shirt and blue shorts, the other in a green T-shirt and shorts.
One suspect, Dzmitry N. Papou of Selbyville, Del., turned himself in after learning photos had begun circulating through local media outlets. He was charged with one count of terroristic threatening, a felony, and arraigned before being released on a $20,000 unsecured bond and a no contact order with Americana Bayside.
The second suspect has been identified but has not been arrested.
Patti Grimes, executive director of the foundation that operates the Freeman Stage, told Delaware News Journal, you always want to make the right decision, and that might not be the popular decision.
The trio expressed their thoughts on the threats via Twitter stating, while we are sad we dont get to see you tonight, we love you and consider your well-being and security our top priority. Well see you soon.
The show has been rescheduled for Aug. 17.
Prahlad Rijal is a business reporter at The Kathmandu Post, focusing on the energy sector. Before joining the Post, Rijal was an online reporter at The Himalayan Times.
At two different music festival in Sweden this past weekend, there were widespread reports of sexual assaults. According to The New York Times, at both Karlstad's Putte I Parken festival and the Norrkoping's Bravalla Festival, dozens of women reported being assaulted or, in some cases, raped.
At two different music festival in Sweden this past weekend, there were widespread reports of sexual assaults. According to The New York Times, at both Karlstads Putte I Parken festival and the Norrkopings Bravalla Festival, dozens of women reported being assaulted or, in some cases, raped.
In Karlstad, police are seeking seven men for questioning after 32 attacks on mostly teeanged girls were reported. The youngest girl attacked was 12. Meanwhile, Norrkoping police are investigating five alleged rape cases and many more assaults.
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven calls the attacks totally unacceptable and claims that hell be working to strengthen laws against sexual assault. And Mumford & Sons, who headlined Bravalla, have addressed the attacks in a statement on Facebook:
You might not believe that such a thing could possibly exist, but today we get to see it: Footage of Justin Vernon performing with a full head of hair. In 1998, the future Bon Iver frontman led a nine-piece band called Mount Vernon. That year, they released the album We Can Look Up, and they
You might not believe that such a thing could possibly exist, but today we get to see it: Footage of Justin Vernon performing with a full head of hair. In 1998, the future Bon Iver frontman led a nine-piece band called Mount Vernon. That year, they released the album We Can Look Up, and they also performed in a high-school battle of the bands in Eau Clair, Wisconsin, footage of which has just appeared online, as Pitchfork points out. The band included Brad Cook, Phil Cook, and Joe Westerlund, all of whom would later play with Vernon in DeYarmond Edison before going off on their own and forming Megafaun. And based on what Im seeing in this video, they played some strange hybrid of 311-esque ska and jam-band music. There is at least one flute solo. Witness it all below.
Spoiler alert: Mount Vernon won the battle, taking home a cool $300. Thats more than $33 per member!
From Cosmopolitan
At least twenty hostages were killed and 13 were released July 2 when seven ISIS gunmen stormed a bakery in Bangladesh demanding those inside recite verses from the Quran. According to the New York Times, one of the victims was Faraaz Hossain, a 20-year-old Emory University student who was given the opportunity to leave safely but refused, opting to stay with his two friends instead.
"We will not kill Bengalis. We will only kill foreigners," the gunmen reportedly said before sorting the hostages they took into groups. A few women wearing hijabs were released, as were those who could converse in Bengali. Hossain was among this group as he reportedly could recite a few verses of the Quran on command.
Hossain's nephew Hishaam Hossain told the Times that Faraaz's friends, Abinta Kabir, 18, and Tarishi Jain, 19, were wearing Western clothes and that upon learning they were from United States and India, the gunmen would not let them leave. Hossain then refused to leave them behind, Hishaam said.
According to the New York Post, Jain was able to call her father while the three friends hid in the bathroom before they were killed. "I'm not sure whether I will be able to come out alive. They are killing everyone here I think we will be killed one by one," she reportedly said.
CNN reports Hossain, Kabir, who was also an Emory student, and Jain had studied at the American International School in Bangladesh before going to college; Jain, a UC Berkeley student, was visiting family and friends in the city. She'd started an internship at a Dhaka bank just weeks before.
Indiatoday reports the three friends were found dead next to each other when police recovered hostages the next day.
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From Dr. Oz The Good Life
Even if your favorite Instagram stars seem like they have it together with perfectly-plated healthy meals and impossibly voluminous, sweat-free hair after intense workouts, rest assured: looks can be deceiving. Which is why we're loving the fitness enthusiasts who are keeping it real and breaking the mold.
Whether they're being open about belly bloat or embracing their bodies exactly as they are, these ladies are definitely worth following.
1. Anna Victoria, creator of the Fit Body Guide
Even the fittest of fitness fanatics have their "bad angles" and "loose skin" when they're not flexing, just like everyone else.
2. Joanna Ecarnacion, fitness Instagrammer behind @GoFitJo
Stretch marks aren't something you should be ashamed of, and Joanna is proof. The super-fit Instagrammer dubs her post-pregnancy lines as "strength marks," wearing them with pride as she continues her fitness journey.
3. Lita Lewis, fitness Instagrammer and personal trainer
Why be stick thin when you can be strong and curvy? Lita constantly challenges fitness stereotypes, proving health and beauty have so much more to do with confidence than body shape or size.
4. Chinae Alexander, fitness Instagrammer behind @GetFitBrooklyn
Think every Instagram fitness star gets a perfect picture on the first try? Think again. Chinae's #SelfieOuttake series will make you feel a whole lot better about your phone gallery full of funny attempts to get a usable shot.
5. Katherine Kerrick, fitness Instagrammer behind @FitNuzz and instructor at SLT
Yes, fitness instructors eat ice cream, too. Everybody needs a little treat-yo-self moment now and again!
6. Emily Schromm, Denver-based personal trainer and nutritionist
No weights? No problem. Emily's human, and just like us, she doesn't always have time for the gym. So she makes do with what's lying around instead.
7. Jessamyn Stanley, fitness Instagrammer behind @MyNameIsJessamyn
Got armpit hair and/or love handles? So does Jessamyn, who is a wonderful example of how your physical and emotional wellbeing has nothing to do with image and everything to do with self love.
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8. Tiffany Brien, U.K.-based fitness blogger
Bloated? That's totally normal, as this fitness blogger proved when she went viral for showing the world what a difference a good night's sleep can have on a full tummy.
9. Jennifer Gelman, trainer and owner of BWMC Fitness
Free time can be hard to come by - for fitness gurus and lay-people alike. When it's hard to find time to squeeze in a workout, multitasking can help. This mom has it down.
10. Elisabeth Akinwale, CrossFit athlete
If you think you're the only one with aches and pains after a workout, think again. No body is perfect, and everyone faces limitations at some point.
By Ashlyn Heller
In food we trust. But we shouldn't.
We all put a lot of faith in our food. We mindlessly add items to our shopping cart without thinking about where they've been, who's touched them, and how they got there. We bite into an apple that we haven't washed or try a supermarket sample without asking questions. We fall in love with certain brands whose CEOs focus solely on profit instead of health impacts, and we try weight loss trends before they've been scientifically backed.
Unfortunately, that blind trust can backfire in multiple waysone being food recallsand we only find out about the ill effects of certain foods after they've taken their toll. Companies are forced to cancel sales and take their products off the market only after they've been linked to certain illnesses or after certain foreign objects have been found in their food. As if that's not bad enough, some of our all-time favorite foods can fall from grace and be in danger, too! If you rely on a certain food or restaurant, it can be a little devastating to find out that something is now blacklisted, at least temporarily. We've compiled a list of all the times a food recall has broken hearts and changed lives forever.
1. Parmesan Cheese
If you're the type of person whose go-to meal is pasta and meatballs, chances are we can find parmesan cheese in your refrigerator. And chances are we can find some wood particles in that parmesan. Wait, what? Yes, you read that right. Parmesan cheese brands like Kraft and Organic Valley have come under fire recently for adding wood pulp to their grated parm recipes. Wood pulp is exactly what it sounds like: wood particles ground down to make a pulpy substance. Its cover name is "cellulose" and it's found in the majority of those supermarket parmesan cheeses you love so much. According to experts, an acceptable level of cellulose in food is 2-4 percent, but many supermarket brands tested up to 9 percent cellulose. All hell broke loose in 2012 when the FDA showed up unannounced to Castle Cheese Inc. in Pennsylvania to test the ingredients in their cheese. They found a product that was less than 40 percent cheese and mostly wood particlesyikes! Wood-filled cheese definitely needs to be added to our list of horrifying things found in food. Thankfully, this discovery resulted in massive recalls and recipe remakes for parmesan companies across the nation. But parm lovers were never the same.
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2. Cheeseburgers
Ready to get really mad? Think back to this recall that ruined your favorite BBQ food forever. People went mad in 2003 after the first American case of mad cow disease was officially diagnosed in Texas. Since then, there have been major recalls on American hamburger meat that has been suspected of contracting Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), aka mad cow disease. When humans consume meat infected with BSE, they can develop a fatal brain disease known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease that severely alters behavior and movement. The most recent recall happened in 2014 when over 4,000 lbs of beef products were recalled from supermarkets across the nationmost notably Whole Foods.
3. Ice Cream
The world can be a cold, cold place. Especially when your favorite frozen dessert gets recalled big time for suspected Listeria contamination. A big-name, Texas-based freezer aisle ice cream company, Blue Bell, was forced to recall its products in April 2015 and subsequently lay off many of its employees as a result of Listeria detection in its factory. Listeria hysteria ensued. According to the CDC, 10 people were hospitalized and three were killed in relation to the Blue Bell ice cream scandal. Afterward, other brands came forward confessing their own Listeria crisis. On the mild end of the spectrum, Listeria causes flu-like symptoms, but those more at risk (pregnant women, the elderly, and young children) could suffer from more serious complications. As a result, many reluctantly put the spoon down as they waited out the cone contamination that rocked the ice cream world.
Bonus: If you're still spooked by the ice cream Listeria recall and want a dairy fix, try one of these greek yogurts!
4. Chipotle
If you're a member of the Chipotle cult, you probably already know about this one. And if you're not, you probably still know about this one. Chipotle seemed to be on track to fast casual sainthood when suddenly it was struck with a string of food contaminations that knocked the chain down, repeatedly. The food born illnesses linked to Chipotle went media viral and became front page news across the country as many mourned the tragedies that plagued their beloved burrito joint. The timeline of Chipotle recalls goes something like this: In September 2015, Minnesota Chipotles were linked to a string of salmonella outbreaks in tomatoes. Shortly thereafter, 43 restaurants in the Pacific Northwest were closed for E. coli contamination. Chipotle's bad luck found its way to the East Coast that December when a Boston Chipotle shut down due to many customers contracting norovirus from the food. More and more E. coli and norovirus cases broke out across the nation and Chipotle hung on for dear life. Thankfully, the company hasn't had any health issues and has to improved sanitary standards to earn their good reputation back. If you're jumping back on the Chipotle wagon, here are some healthy menu tips to get you started.
5. Peanut Butter
Everybody's go-to bread spread had a pretty scary moment back in 2008. when the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) was caught distributing salmonella-infected peanut butter across the nation. The recall was the most extensive recall in U.S. history since many of PCA's products were distributed as ingredients to other food companies before being put on the market. Members of its ownership have since been convicted of covering up the contamination that killed 9 people and infected another 714. Since then, nut butters have made a major comebackbut we'll never forgive PCA for bringing such shame to our favorite healthy fat.
6. Mac N' Cheese
This one is a real heartbreaker. The easy, cheesy pasta that everyone loved as a child is going metallic! No. That's not something to get excited about. In 2015, Kraft recalled 242,000 boxes of its classic stove-top mac n' cheese after customers found metal shavings in the boxes. The company believes that a piece of stainless steel got wedged in a piece of machinery and shattered into the mac as it was being packaged. Chomping down on a piece of metal is a surefire way to ruin any fond childhood memories you have of eating mac n' cheese.
7. Cookie Dough
Do you want to lick the spoon? Not anymore! One innocent lick of cookie dough can lead to a week of nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. And, in some, it can result in kidney failure. This past year, General Millsone of the leading distributors of flour in Americaissued a major recall on many of its raw flour-based products (like cookie dough) as a result of widespread E. Coli poisoning. Approximately 10 million pounds of flour were recalled in this food scandal and a grand total of 42 people were infected with the severe illness. Yes, cookie dough might not do the best things for your toned body, but it's hard to picture a world where sneaking a little lick of dough while baking isn't allowed.
8. Hummus
This one was truly a loss for foodies across the nation. Everyone's precious creamy dip is yet another product to add to the chronicles of Listeria. Supermarket hummus has taken off in recent years due to its delicious taste and numerous health benefits. Brands like Sabra, Tribe, and Cedar's have gained significant popularity in the specialty foods aisle. However, the popular hummus brand, Sabra, is not only #1 on our list of worst supermarket hummus brands for your health, but it was also contaminated with Listeria in 2015a bacteria that gives consumers Listeriosis. Listeriosis is an illness marked by flu-like symptoms as well as headaches, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance, and convulsions. About 30,000 cases of Sabra's classic flavor were recalled under suspicion that they had been contaminated with Listeria. Thankfully, no customers were infected.
9. Chocolate
For many people, chocolate is the most sacred indulgence. So, is there anything more devastating than waking up one morning to find that it has been taken off the shelves? Chocolate (particularly, dark chocolate) had been making major strides in the health world, hailed for its high levels of antioxidants and metabolism-boosting effects. But in August 2006, chocolate giant Cadbury recalled more than a million chocolate bars because they discovered that their chocolate had been contaminated with salmonella, due to a pipe leaking in the factory. The recall took a huge hit on the companywhich lost about $30 millionbut took an even bigger hit on the emotions of chocolate-lovers around the world.
10. Hot Dogs
We're throwing it back with this one. In 1998, we saw one of the most devastating product recalls of all time. Some may even say this is the Listeria outbreak that started all the hysteria. In 1998, Sara Lee recalled 35 million pounds of meatmost of which included hot dogswhen it was found that these products were linked to 100 cases of Listeria and 21 deaths. The recall stunned the nation. After all, is there anything more American than a good ol' frank on a bun? Since then, Listeria has been at the forefront of the FDA's priorities as many companies (like Blue Bell and Sabra) have been forced to recall their products based on suspected Listeria contamination. The recall almost knocked Sara Lee out for good, but thankfully we Americans are loyal hot dog eaters (even if they don't help us melt our love handles). The company got back on track and we got right back to eating our franks.
11. Cereal
Mmm, who doesn't love a good bowl of cereal for breakfast or before bed? Unfortunately, the days of innocent cereal consumption are over. In 2013, Kellogg recalled 36,000 packages of Special K cereal due to complaints that customers had found shards of glass in their cereal. Hey, we're all about adding stuff to your cerealespecially if it makes it more nutritionally sound. But glass shards? That takes artificial ingredients to a whole new level and sounds really painful!
Bonus: For ways to eat cereal and keep your weight loss progress on track, check out our list of best cereals for weight loss!
MORE FROM EAT THIS NOT THAT
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From Cosmopolitan
Beau Solomon, a 19-year-old University of Wisconsin student, went missing hours after he arrived in Italy to begin his semester abroad at John Cabot University in Rome. His body was found in the Tiber River yesterday and police are now investigating his death as a murder, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinelreports.
Solomon had been seen last around 1 a.m. at a bar in Rome's Trastevere neighborhood on July 1. His roommate reported him missing to the school shortly afterward when he couldn't contact Solomon. The school alerted both American and Italian police.
Solomon's brother Cole told the Journal Sentinel that Solomon suffered a head wound and had blood on his shirt when his body was found. He also said someone charged thousands of dollars to Solomon's credit card just after he disappeared. ANSA reports Solomon's entire wallet and his cell phone were not found with his body, furthering the police's theory he was robbed before he was killed.
According to NBC News, Massimo Galioto, a 40-year-old homeless man, was charged with aggravated murder in connection with Solomon's death and is currently being held in police custody, though witnesses told Italian newspaper La Republica they believe they saw a group of people throw a body under the Garibaldi bridge late Friday night. The paper also reports the charges made on Solomon's card happened in Milan, not in Rome.
Solomon was a childhood cancer survivor. He battled the disease for 10 years, the Journal Sentinel reports, and was planning on becoming a lawyer one day. His brother Jake said Solomon was the "toughest S.O.B. that we've ever met."
UW officials also told the paper that even though the investigation is ongoing, all of their other students in Rome are safe and there is no indication other students in the city are in danger.
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The New York Times
HOUSTON Tony Earls hung his head before a row of television cameras, staring down, his life upended. Days before, Earls had pulled out his handgun and opened fire, hoping to strike a man who had just robbed him and his wife at an ATM in Houston. Instead, he struck Arlene Alvarez, a 9-year-old girl seated in a passing pickup, killing her. Is Mr. Earls licensed to carry? a reporter asked during the February news conference, in which his lawyer spoke for him. Sign up for The Morning newsletter
Victims changing property titles for aid
Earthquake victims from several villages in Dhading have been frequenting the District Land Revenue Office at Dhadingbesi, the district headquarters, these days to change the land titles held by their elderly parents and grandparents.
marco polo netflix
In January, Netflix made the bombshell announcement that it had expanded to over 130 new countries in a single day, bringing it into every major international market except China.
Since then, the results have been mixed.
At its last quarterly earnings, Netflix reported good international growth results in the first three months of 2016. But the company's outlook for the second quarter did not go over well with investors. Netflix stock tanked after its forecast for Q2 international-subscriber growth was way below Wall Street targets.
Those numbers will be foremost in Wall Street's mind going into Netflix's Q2 earnings.
There are a few reasons why Netflix could be having trouble in some international markets. And in a note Wednesday, Jefferies analysts led by John Janedis outlined four potential short-term stumbling blocks in Netflix's plan for world domination.
Here they are:
Limited amount of local content. This is especially relevant because many regional competitors in developed markets, like Germany and France, have looked to Netflixs success in the US as inspiration to get their own offerings into the market ahead of Netflixs entry. These competitors generally have more localized content.
Language barriers. Much of Netflixs content is in English, which can hamper it in countries like Russia, where only 5% of the country speaks English (according to a 2010 census).
Expensive price point in certain markets. Netflix has made the choice to not chop down its price point significantly in developing markets. This makes it relatively more expensive compared to competitors, many of which have lower price points.
Underdeveloped payment processing and broadband infrastructure. Netflix has been plagued by payment issues even in the US, where it claimed the switchover to chip credit cards caused people to accidentally cancel their subscriptions. But the logistical pieces of Netflixs system, which US customers can take for granted, can present bigger problems in developing markets. Management has acknowledged that in the early stage of its global launch the company will need to adapt to local traditions related to payments, as consumers in many markets do not own credit / debit cards, or are resistant to entering payment information online, the analysts write. So far, the company has leveraged prepaid / gift cards, phone billing solutions, and is working with local partners. However, we expect the company will wait to see which markets gain the most traction before making long term investments in local payment services.
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NOW WATCH: How to find Netflixs secret categories
More From Business Insider
Correction appended
The long-awaited Iraq Inquiry has delivered a damning verdict on Britains role in the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, stating that the country went to war alongside the U.S. on the back of unjustified intelligence and assessment, inadequate preparations and exaggerated statements.
The report makes ugly reading for former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is charged with overselling the case for invasion to British lawmakers and the public. But the report stops short of saying Blair violated international law, as his critics have claimed.
Here are four of the biggest takeaways so far revealed in the 12-volume and 2.6-million word report, which is still being parsed by journalists and lawmakers:
1. Tony Blair agreed to go to war at least 8 months before the invasion
In one of several letters published alongside the report, then Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote to President George W. Bush on July 28, 2002 eight months before the invasion, and before getting the approval of the British parliament that he would support military action in Iraq. I will be with you whatever, he wrote.
The letter contradicts Blairs previous claims to the public that he never privately committed to join the U.S. military action in Iraq in the year before invasion. The letter also said that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do. He is a potential threat. He could be contained. But containment is always risky. His departure would free up the region.
2. The invasion of Iraq was not a last resort
Chilcott said Wednesday that Blair took Britain to war before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Although Hussein was a brutal dictator, he said, the case that removing him from power by military force was the only way to deal with him did not add up.
Blair famously told the Commons based on a so-called dodgy intelligence dossier that Saddam could deploy WMDs against the West within 45 minutes. But these claims were presented to lawmakers with a certainty that was not justified by the strength of the intelligence, Chilcott concluded the final nail in the coffin for the idea that Saddam posed a serious, immediate threat to the West.
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3. The U.Ks legal basis for military action was flawed
In March 2003, then Attorney-General Peter Goldsmith changed his legal advice and gave approval for war after being informed it was Blairs unequivocal view that Iraq was in breach of a U.N. resolution to get rid of WMD. The report states that it is unclear how Blair came to that conclusion: It is unclear what specific grounds Mr Blair relied upon in reaching his view.
At Wednesdays press conference, Chilcot said that Goldsmith should have been asked by the government for written advice explaining how in the absence of a majority in the U.N. Security Council Mr Blair could take that decision. this is one of a number of occasions when policy should have been considered by a cabinet committee and then discussed by cabinet itself. He also added that final decision to invade Saddam Husseins Iraq was made with no evidence of major new Iraqi violations.
4. Preparations for Iraq post-invasion were wholly inadequate
The report states that there was equipment shortages for troops on the ground in southern Iraq due to there being little time to prepare the three brigades that were deployed there. Chilcot said that Blair was aware of the difficulties ahead but was wholly inadequate in his preparations. This stance is ruled in the report: U.K. planning and preparation for the postconflict phase of operations, which rested on the assumption that the U.K. would be able quickly to reduce its military presence in Iraq and deploy only a minimal number of civilians, were wholly inadequate. It also said that the U.K. failed to plan or prepare for the major reconstruction programme much needed in Iraq.
Correction: This article originally misstated who should have sought further legal advice in 2003 on the decision to go to war. It was the British government.
From Town & Country
Following a wave of recent food scandals and high-profile exposes, from counterfeit olive oil on 60 Minutes to cheese made of wood pulp instead of milk on Inside Edition, Americans are increasingly nervous about what they are eating. However, the perception persists among many devoted foodies that they can remain above this fake-food fray by sticking to high-end restaurants. But a celebrity chef or a clutch of stars does not necessarily protect you from subpar ingredients and outright scams. We take a look at the biggest myths that lurk on the menus of high-end restaurants.
Kobe and Wagyu Beef
The most famous, prized and expensive beef in the world comes from Japan, but for most of the 21st century Americans had none at all, thanks to a total ban by the USDA. Nonetheless, during this period hundreds of restaurants across the country boasted Kobe or Japanese wagyu, from $300 steaks to $50 gourmet burgers to cheaper sliders and even hot dogs. Since the ban was lifted it is even more confusing because a trace amount of Kobe now reaches our shores, but only eight restaurants in the entire country offer the real thing. After Inside Edition confronted New York's famed 3-Michelin star Le Bernardin about the $110 Kobe beef at lunch, the restaurant admitted its mistake and changed the menu to read wagyu, which refers to five traditional types of purebred Japanese cattle. At least Le Bernardin uses actual Japanese wagyu, which is rarely the case. The most common indicated source for wagyu on fine dining menus is Snake River Farms, whose wagyu and "American-style Kobe beef" products are neither Japanese nor from purebred wagyu cattle.
Longtime unapologetic Kobe exaggerator Old Homestead, a steakhouse with branches in New York and Las Vegas, was among the first to introduce an overpriced Faux-be burger. To this day Old Homestead claims to serve Kobe steaks (they don't) for as much as $350, and the owner recently dismissed the reality as semantics, telling Inside Edition, "You're getting hung up on what the name is." Unfortunately they are hardly alone, and almost every time you see Kobe or wagyu on a menu you can safely assume it is not the real thing from Japan. Real Japanese beef is incredibly rich and distinctive, unlike any other meat, but very few Americans, even the most food educated, have ever tried it.
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Truffle Oil
Awful oil is more accurate. This is a cheap artificial ingredient widely used in fine dining restaurants to "elevate" the perception (and price) of dishes, from soups to risottos to most infamously, French fries. Truffle oil contains no truffle at all (you read that right-none), and understandably gives food a chemical taste because it is, well, a chemical, entirely manufactured in laboratories using the same process as perfume. The most common source of "natural truffle" flavor in the oil is a chemically altered form of formaldehyde called 2,4-dithiapentane.
Renowned New York and Boston chef Ken Oringer is famed for encouraging creativity by staffers, but truffle oil was the first ingredient he banned outright in his restaurant kitchens. Michelin-starred celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten described it in an interview as "like gasoline" and "the most overrated ingredient." Another famous chef and TV host, Gordon Ramsay, berated a MasterChef contestant for using it, calling truffle oil, "One of the most pungent, ridiculous ingredients ever known to chefs." Its use, often with a heavy hand, gives whatever it is added to an artificial, petroleum taste. Only order truffle dishes containing pieces of truffles, ideally shaved in front of you, and next time you see truffle fries on a menu, give them a hard pass.
Snapper, Tuna, and Grouper
Seafood fraud is pervasive in both stores and restaurants from coast to coast, and studies have shown that a full third of the fish sold nationwide is misrepresented-often of a completely unrelated (and inferior) species. But when it comes to better restaurants, snapper, tuna, and grouper are the Fake Fish Trinity (though plenty of so-called "wild caught salmon" on menus is farmed and full of antibiotics and dyes). Fish is easier to fake in restaurants than stores, because it is already cleaned and prepped so you rarely see it whole, and it is often served under a layer of sauce or mixed with other ingredients.
A prized eating fish common on menus, red snapper is actually surprisingly rare at the commercial level, and as a result, you almost never get it when you order it. The single worst performer of all seafood in the largest national study, less than six percent of the fish sold as red snapper was legit, and you usually get much cheaper rockfish or tilapia (often farmed). For the entire snapper familythere are nearly four dozen variationscustomers got an inferior species 87 percent of the time. While pink tuna is hard to fake on the plate, white tunaimmensely popular in sushi eateriesis actually tuna just one in 19 times. While it performed slightly better than red snapper, the most common substitute for white tuna was much worse: escolar, nicknamed the "Ex-Lax fish" for the digestive distress it can caused, a fish banned in some other countries and once banned in ours. Grouper fared "better" with just over one in three dishes containing a fake, but grouper is especially distressing because it is a great cooking fish that takes on spices and flavors exceptionally well, and a proud domestic product. Caught off the coast of Florida, where it is very popular, grouper is never farmed, only wild caught, and in theory should be one of the safest seafood choices. But the most common substitute is Cambodian ponga, catfish mass-produced in Asian fish farms under suspect conditions that have included banned drugs. One Florida restaurant got caught serving a $23 "champagne braised black grouper" entree made with neither champagne nor grouper.
Champagne
Unfortunately, "champagne braised black grouper" is hardly the only restaurant falsehood associated with the world's most famous wine. Champagne, ironically, is a victim of its own success in our country. As the world's first product protected on the basis of geography (except in this country), the vast majority of Americans "know" that the name refers to a sparkling wine that can only be made in one region of Francea Wine Spectator editor put this perception at 99 percent of our population. Except the perception is wrong. It is perfectly legalenshrined by an Act of Congressfor winemakers in the U.S., from California to Texas to upstate New York, to label their wine champagne with no oversight (it doesn't even require bubbles). So many of these second-rate producers do this that fake domestic "champagne" outsells the real thing here. Obviously, you won't get duped when ordering a bottle of Dom Perignon in a restaurant, but once the cork is popped, it's buyer beware, whether in dishes, in cocktails (Mimosa, anyone?), and most of all, at brunch. Fancy champagne brunches can be found coast to coast and in most major cities on earth, yet regardless of price or prestige, just a tiny handful serve real champagneand most are in Hong Kong or Tokyo. In brunch-mad Las Vegas, Bally's Sterling Brunch is perennially rated best, and has been selling out for nearly four decades, largely because they are the only ones pouring bottomless Perrier Jouet Grand Brut. The Brown Palace hotel in Denver serves endless Moet & Chandon, and the Peninsula Beverly Hills Nicolas Feuillatte, but these three are very rare exceptions to the industry rule, which is to advertise champagne and serve something else. Like fake crab legs in sushi places, it's hardly shocking, but rather a fraud so common it has become the norm.
Heirloom, Heritage Breed, Dry Aged, Grass Fed, Local, Fresh, Wild Caught, Natural
The more elaborate the adjectives a menu boasts, the more likely you are to be ripped off. A few years back, the food service industry discovered that simply adding the word "Angus" to menu descriptions of steaks or burgers wooed customers into gladly paying more, and today even Burger King has an Angus offering. Trouble is it doesn't really mean anything. The name is borrowed from the famous Scottish Aberdeen Angus, so tasty and productive it is nicknamed "The Butcher's Breed." But the USDA requires absolutely zero trace of the real thing and defines Angus any cattle of any heritage that is predominantly (50.01 percent) black, which happens to include most beef cattle and a fair amount of dairy cows. What's more, that's just a retail definitionfew American food lovers realize that the entire restaurant industry is exempt from USDA and FDA labeling laws. So while slapping USDA Prime on a vacuum packed steak at Safeway is a crime, slapping USDA Prime, or Angus, Grass Fed, Antibiotic Free, 28-Day Dry Aged or anything elseincluding Organicon a menu is business as usual for many restaurants.
Star chef Tom Colicchio, a pioneer in serving drug-free meats in the fine dining setting, told the New York Times, "This has been going on for as long as I've been cooking . I have a restaurant down the street that says they have organic chicken when they don't ... It's all part of mislabeling and duping the public." Earlier in 2016, a comprehensive investigation of so-called "farm-to-table" restaurants by the Tampa Bay Times found this same scam, much to the chagrin of Jewish and Muslim customers who can eat veal but not pork. One restaurant specializing in veal schnitzel could produce no veal or even old veal invoices, but was well stocked with frozen pork chops. The study examined every restaurant the paper had reviewed that made specific menu provenance claimsand found fault with all of them. "Veal" was made of pork; "Florida blue crab" was another species from the Indian Ocean; "wild Alaskan" Pollock was farmed in China; "fresh local" salad greens were a month old from Mexico; "grass-fed" beef came from industrial feedlots; "water buffalo" mozzarella was derived from cow's milk; and heirloom vegetables and heritage pork reportedly came from specialty farmers who insist they did not supply the restaurants in question. As the paper noted, "Research shows people will pay more when descriptions are longerMore often than not, these things are fairy tales."
Larry Olmsted is the author of the recently released Real Food / Fake Food (Algonquin $28), a comprehensive look at the world's most delicious foodstuffs, why they matter, and how they are widely imitated in everywhere from supermarkets to Michelin-starred eateries.
Tweed Bath Robes Tweed Bath Robes A take on the classic Chanel jacket, a tweed robe will put even the fluffiest of fluffy bathrobes to shame. ImaxTree Club W
Good things come to those who wait. Since weve been patiently waiting for the first-ever Chanel-branded spa since, well, forever, we have had more than enough time to dream up what it would look like. The spa, set to open at the end of the year, is located inside the extensively renovated Hotel Ritz Paris, and will undoubtedly be the one of the worlds most luxurious destinations complete with over-the-top amenities. Heres what we hope they will include.
A simplified employee pension plan and SEP IRA are options for investors who are self-employed or run their own business.
While many small business owners may be concerned about cash flow and how much they can invest in retirement, an SEP IRA offers flexible contributions that are easy for employers to increase, decrease or suspend.
What's an SEP IRA? Think of it as another individual retirement account set up specifically for business owners, says Wayne Bland, a financial advisor for Metro Retirement Plan Advisors in Charlotte, North Carolina.
It's similar to a traditional IRA except there are higher contribution limits and no minimums.
[See: 7 Stocks to Buy When a Recession Hits.]
For 2016 filings, you are allowed to contribute whichever is less: $53,000, or 25 percent of an employee's compensation up to $265,000. In the case of self-employed individuals the 25 percent limit converts to 20 percent of net self-employment income.
That's a lot more than the $5,500 maximum ($6,500 cap for those age 50 and older) the Internal Revenue Service puts on a Roth or a traditional IRA.
To maximize their investment strategy, some employees will have a Roth IRA as well as an SEP IRA, Bland says.
Like a traditional IRA, an SEP IRA has a required minimum distribution at age 70.5, which will be taxed at ordinary income tax rates. Similarly, an SEP can also be invested in any kind of security including stocks, bonds, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. And if you keep working past 70.5, you can continue to make SEP contributions.
Who should consider an SEP? Any business owner who is in an individual LLC, partnership, S- or C- corporation should consider an SEP, says Paul Ferrigno, a certified financial planner at Ferrigno Financial in Washingtonville, New York. "I advise my clients to open these plans when they have a small family business or limited number of employees that the employer feels the obligation to help save for retirement," Ferrigno says.
Story continues
Small business owners should start by deciding if they want to make all the contributions or if they want employees to be able to contribute, Ferrigno says, since SEP IRAs only allow employer contributions.
Bland says about 65 percent of his clients who add SEP IRAs to their investing strategy are self-employed and the other 35 are small business owners. "Once they get 10 or more employees they usually start looking at 401(k) plans or other options," he says.
Be aware that if you, as an owner, make a contribution to your account, you must also make the same percentage contribution to each eligible employee. For example, if you contribute 20 percent of your salary to your SEP IRA, you must also contribute 20 percent of an employee's salary to their SEP.
[See: The Perfect 10 Shares.]
Although contributions aren't mandatory, it's preferable to contribute throughout the year, ideally on a monthly basis, to avoid making a one-time larger payment that's not always possible for small businesses and individuals who are self-employed, says Greg Wells, vice president of EP Wealth Advisors in Torrance, California.
"SEPs are great because they can be opened and funded after the year ends, all the way up until the extension if the person files for an extension," Wells says. If a small business owner filed an IRS extension for the 2015 tax year, they could wait until six months after the filing deadline to open a SEP IRA or make a contribution.
Wells says the plan "is very beneficial" for small businesses and self-employed where cash flow can be a problem.
"It's also a great tax planning technique as one can wait until their year ends and see where the numbers finish, then decide what to contribute to a SEP," he says.
For example, Bland says he works with a client who runs three nightclubs and typically makes his SEP contribution the day before filing his taxes because his income radically fluctuates and he wants to avoid contributing too much.
Employee eligibility. It's also important to remember that if you decide to create an SEP IRA, your employees must be included if they are at least 21, have received at least $600 in the past year or have worked for your business in at least three of the last five years.
Employers may also expand the scope of the obligatory rules and include younger employees, such as someone who is 18, or employees who have worked for a shorter period of time.
Even though the contributions are discretionary, employers need to fill out an IRS 5305-SEP Form, which doesn't have to be mailed back to the IRS, Bland says, but does need to be shared with employees to make them aware they may be eligible for a SEP IRA.
Make sure your business is set up with an employer identification number, also known as an EIN.
"I've never seen anyone set up a SEP under their own social security number, it's always been under an EIN number," Bland says.
Where should you go? "We recommend one of the discount brokerage firms who have no setup fees, no maintenance fees, extremely low trading cost and commission-free options," Wells says. "[Charles] Schwab, Fidelity and TD Ameritrade are all great low-cost options, and easy to work with if a client is up against the deadline."
Pitfalls to consider. Unlike a 401(k), employees are 100 percent vested once you contribute. That means when you contribute to a SEP on the behalf of an eligible employee, that money automatically belongs to them.
"If they quit and go to work for a competitor down the street they take all of those contributions with them," Bland says.
Similar to a traditional or Roth IRA, individuals can make early withdrawals from a SEP IRA with a 10 percent penalty. But investors can avoid the penalty if they meet a qualifying factor, such as withdrawing to pay medical expenses that are more than 10 percent of their gross income or as a first-time homebuyer who withdraws up to $10,000.
"There's no ability to take early distributions from the account if you retire prior to 59.5 as some other qualified plans may allow," Ferrigno says.
Use your SEP as a retention strategy. With millennials and others in the workforce switching employers more frequently, an SEP can also be an added perk and help business owners retain talented employees, Ferrigno says.
[Read: How to Defend Your Portfolio With Utilities.]
"Most investment options are available in whatever type of retirement plan you open," he says. "But employees love to know that the company is contributing 10, 15 or 25 percent above the gross pay to their retirement account. It reduces the need for the employee to save 10 percent of their gross pay."
More From US News & World Report
A simplified employee pension plan and SEP IRA are options for investors who are self-employed or run their own business.
While many small business owners may be concerned about cash flow and how much they can invest in retirement, an SEP IRA offers flexible contributions that are easy for employers to increase, decrease or suspend.
What's an SEP IRA? Think of it as another individual retirement account set up specifically for business owners, says Wayne Bland, a financial advisor for Metro Retirement Plan Advisors in Charlotte, North Carolina.
It's similar to a traditional IRA except there are higher contribution limits and no minimums.
[See: 7 Stocks to Buy When a Recession Hits.]
For 2016 filings, you are allowed to contribute whichever is less: $53,000, or 25 percent of an employee's compensation up to $265,000. In the case of self-employed individuals the 25 percent limit converts to 20 percent of net self-employment income.
That's a lot more than the $5,500 maximum ($6,500 cap for those age 50 and older) the Internal Revenue Service puts on a Roth or a traditional IRA.
To maximize their investment strategy, some employees will have a Roth IRA as well as an SEP IRA, Bland says.
Like a traditional IRA, an SEP IRA has a required minimum distribution at age 70.5, which will be taxed at ordinary income tax rates. Similarly, an SEP can also be invested in any kind of security including stocks, bonds, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. And if you keep working past 70.5, you can continue to make SEP contributions.
Who should consider an SEP? Any business owner who is in an individual LLC, partnership, S- or C- corporation should consider an SEP, says Paul Ferrigno, a certified financial planner at Ferrigno Financial in Washingtonville, New York. "I advise my clients to open these plans when they have a small family business or limited number of employees that the employer feels the obligation to help save for retirement," Ferrigno says.
Story continues
Small business owners should start by deciding if they want to make all the contributions or if they want employees to be able to contribute, Ferrigno says, since SEP IRAs only allow employer contributions.
Bland says about 65 percent of his clients who add SEP IRAs to their investing strategy are self-employed and the other 35 are small business owners. "Once they get 10 or more employees they usually start looking at 401(k) plans or other options," he says.
Be aware that if you, as an owner, make a contribution to your account, you must also make the same percentage contribution to each eligible employee. For example, if you contribute 20 percent of your salary to your SEP IRA, you must also contribute 20 percent of an employee's salary to their SEP.
[See: The Perfect 10 Shares.]
Although contributions aren't mandatory, it's preferable to contribute throughout the year, ideally on a monthly basis, to avoid making a one-time larger payment that's not always possible for small businesses and individuals who are self-employed, says Greg Wells, vice president of EP Wealth Advisors in Torrance, California.
"SEPs are great because they can be opened and funded after the year ends, all the way up until the extension if the person files for an extension," Wells says. If a small business owner filed an IRS extension for the 2015 tax year, they could wait until six months after the filing deadline to open a SEP IRA or make a contribution.
Wells says the plan "is very beneficial" for small businesses and self-employed where cash flow can be a problem.
"It's also a great tax planning technique as one can wait until their year ends and see where the numbers finish, then decide what to contribute to a SEP," he says.
For example, Bland says he works with a client who runs three nightclubs and typically makes his SEP contribution the day before filing his taxes because his income radically fluctuates and he wants to avoid contributing too much.
Employee eligibility. It's also important to remember that if you decide to create an SEP IRA, your employees must be included if they are at least 21, have received at least $600 in the past year or have worked for your business in at least three of the last five years.
Employers may also expand the scope of the obligatory rules and include younger employees, such as someone who is 18, or employees who have worked for a shorter period of time.
Even though the contributions are discretionary, employers need to fill out an IRS 5305-SEP Form, which doesn't have to be mailed back to the IRS, Bland says, but does need to be shared with employees to make them aware they may be eligible for a SEP IRA.
Make sure your business is set up with an employer identification number, also known as an EIN.
"I've never seen anyone set up a SEP under their own social security number, it's always been under an EIN number," Bland says.
Where should you go? "We recommend one of the discount brokerage firms who have no setup fees, no maintenance fees, extremely low trading cost and commission-free options," Wells says. "[Charles] Schwab, Fidelity and TD Ameritrade are all great low-cost options, and easy to work with if a client is up against the deadline."
Pitfalls to consider. Unlike a 401(k), employees are 100 percent vested once you contribute. That means when you contribute to a SEP on the behalf of an eligible employee, that money automatically belongs to them.
"If they quit and go to work for a competitor down the street they take all of those contributions with them," Bland says.
Similar to a traditional or Roth IRA, individuals can make early withdrawals from a SEP IRA with a 10 percent penalty. But investors can avoid the penalty if they meet a qualifying factor, such as withdrawing to pay medical expenses that are more than 10 percent of their gross income or as a first-time homebuyer who withdraws up to $10,000.
"There's no ability to take early distributions from the account if you retire prior to 59.5 as some other qualified plans may allow," Ferrigno says.
Use your SEP as a retention strategy. With millennials and others in the workforce switching employers more frequently, an SEP can also be an added perk and help business owners retain talented employees, Ferrigno says.
[Read: How to Defend Your Portfolio With Utilities.]
"Most investment options are available in whatever type of retirement plan you open," he says. "But employees love to know that the company is contributing 10, 15 or 25 percent above the gross pay to their retirement account. It reduces the need for the employee to save 10 percent of their gross pay."
Dawn Reiss is an award-winning journalist in Chicago who has written for TIME, Reuters, Chicago Tribune, The Atlantic and Travel + Leisure and many other publications. Follow her on Twitter, Google+ and Instagram @dawnreiss.
From ELLE
As you might have read, a group of Grey's Anatomy fans has decided that Jesse Williams' impassioned speech about race in America at the BET Awards last week was too much truth for them and launched a petition to get the actor, who plays Dr. Jackson Avery, removed from the ABC show. We're not here to pretend that that is even a remote possibility-for one thing, his boss Shonda Rhimes has shut down the idea and basically laughed at it on Twitter. We're here because we have a great excuse to celebrate the work of Mr. Williams as Dr. Jackson Avery on Grey's, and we're going to use it. Here are five reasons we need him to stay on the show, which he is, we repeat, not in any danger of being fired from.
Of course, he has far more (just go back and re-watch some old episodes) but these should remind you just how essential Williams and his abs are to Grey's.
When He Has Sex In A Laundry Room
Okay, yeah, this isn't some grand hero moment. But it is a moment where Dr. Jackson Avery removes his shirt. During season seven, before we're totally sure if we like Dr. Avery beyond his dazzling eyes and abs for days, he starts wooing Lexieand taking his shirt off in her laundry room. "Can you wash this too?" is a really good pick-up line if you look like that, and it's definitely one Lexie can't resist. And that their hookup is set to an Adele song only makes it that much more exciting.
When He Saves McDreamy From A Shooter with a Genius Trick
The two-part finale of the sixth season was one of the show's best episodes to date, following a shooter who sends the hospital into a state of fear. A series of events puts Dr. Shepherd on an operating table with a bullet through his chest, leaving Dr. Yang and Dr. Avery to save him. Unfortunately the shooter finds his way into the operating room and holds them at gunpoint, forcing the doctors to stop operating. Dr. Shepherd flat-lines and the shooter leavesexcept it turns out it was all a trick pulled off by Jackson, who removed the monitors from his patient's body so it only seemed like he died. It was a clever ploy that saved a man's life and made everyone at Seattle Grace reconsider who Jackson really is.
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When He Renames The Hospital
After his Mommy installs him as a board member for the new edition of Seattle Grace Hospital, it's unclear whether Dr. Avery is up to the task. None of the doctors will listen to him and everyone think he's only in charge due to nepotism (he is). But even though Jackson can't quite get the OR board under control and his colleagues keep sniping at him during meetings, eventually Jackson proves that he's got something real to offer. During a board meeting, he recommends a new name for the hospital, one that represents those whose lives were lost. He holds up a sign that reads "Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital" and suddenly Dr. Avery isn't looking so bad after all.
When He Rescues A Child From A Burning Bus
During a massive storm, a bus flips and crashes outside the hospital. The doctors are able to pull everyone out before it threatens to explode, but Jackson realizes that a child is missing and tries to coax her out of the bus as rain pours down. It's unclear if he's going to be able to persuade her to leave, and April, along with several other doctors, watches as the bus ignites into flames with Jackson and the kid inside. But waitJackson, our hero, walks out of the smoke and flames with the child in his arms. We've never loved him more (and neither has April).
When He Objects At April's Wedding
It's maybe not a great move to interrupt someone's wedding, but it worked for Jackson, who stopped April from marrying Matthew during season ten. As April, clad in a long white dress, stands at the altar, Jackson is unable to restrain himself and rushes forward and announces, "I love you April. I always have. I love everything about you. Even the things I don't like, I love." It's all too much for April to resist and the couple rushes out of the wedding venue together. It's lovely (and there's no reason, right now, to remember that this romantic gesture eventually ends in their own divorce). He can object at our wedding any time.
If you missed Williams' speech-the one that started all this-you can watch it here.
Copenhagen (AFP) - A militant conservation group claimed Wednesday that up to 50 pilot whales have been killed in the first traditional whale hunt of the year in the Faroe Islands, but authorities there defended the practice and slammed the activists.
A pod of 100-150 pilot whales was spotted off the northeastern island of Svinoy, where several boats had chased them 11 kilometres (6.8 miles) towards the village of Hvannasund, claimed the Sea Shepherd group.
"The whales were forced to beach, and slaughtered by locals," the group said in a statement, citing local media reports as saying between 30-50 pilot whales had been killed.
Pictures on the website of Faroese newspaper Nordlysid showed the sea turning red with blood as the whales were killed.
But a spokesman for the Faroese government, Pall Nolsoe, said: "Whaling is a natural part of Faroese life and pilot whale meat and blubber are a cherished supplement to households across the islands.
"Whaling in the Faroe Islands is conducted in accordance with international law and globally recognised principles of sustainable development."
And he added: "The illegal and potentially dangerous actions by activists from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, combined with attempts to spread deliberately misleading information .. continue to be the hallmark of this groups activities."
Sea Shepherd has traditionally tried to stop and document the hunt, but earlier this year a law was passed to allow the government to ban ships from entering Faroese waters "in order to prevent any disruption of... pilot whale drives and other lawful activity in these waters."
Sea Shepherd said it had "modified its tactics" this year and that it would target the Faroese whale hunt "in the judicial and political arenas, in commerce, in industry and as always in the media" instead.
In August last year, a ship carrying 21 activists from the group trying to disrupt the traditional hunt was refused entry by Faroese authorities based on "immigration legislation and in the interests of maintaining law and order."
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During the hunt, the three-to-six metre (10-to-20 foot) sea mammals are driven by a flotilla of small boats into a bay or the mouth of a fjord before being killed by hand -- a practice that many locals defend as a cultural right.
The whale meat and blubber are consumed by locals and considered delicacies.
The Faroe Islands are a self-governing archipelago belonging to Denmark in the North Atlantic Ocean.
6 Instagram accounts that will inspire your adventures this summer
6 Instagram accounts that will inspire your adventures this summer
We all use Instagram for different things. Some of us use it to document our daily lives, some of us use it to show off our cooking skills, some of us use it solely to show off how cute our pets are. But what about using it for inspiration? These six adventure Instagram accounts will do just that for you theyll make you want to get off the couch and go do something, and even if you dont have the time or the money to do that, theyre totally worth a follow for the beautiful pictures alone.
Chelsie Autumn Antos (@chelsiantos)
This entrepreneur, photographer, dog lover, and traveler, will make you want to buy a camper ASAP. Chelsie and her husband/MIDDLE SCHOOL sweetheart-turned pastor, Ryan, left their cozy apartment behind to travel the United States together. While running the nonprofit jewelry store, Trades Of Hope, which helps women from impoverished countries make their way out of poverty, Chelsie and her husband hope to spread love and peace across the United States. Oh, and she does wedding photography, what could be more perfect?
I love you more than the depths of this great big hole in the ground. A photo posted by Chelsie Autumn Antos (@chelsieantos) on Jun 4, 2016 at 7:48am PDT
Caroline Calloway (@carolinecalloway)
This writer/Cambridge queen will make you want to visit the British countryside. Calloway weaves magical, fairytale-esque stories out of photos. Through the use of the written word and the backdrop of Cambridge and London, Caroline makes us fall in love with her, her boyfriend Oscar, and their adorable pup Winston. After just a few minutes on Carolines Instagram, which includes castles, princes (yes PRINCES), and balls, were ready to find our own fairytale.
Kirstyn Hippe (@kirstynhippe)
This NYC-based student, photographer, and songwriter makes you want to visit the Big Apple, like, yesterday. From shots of that trendy ice cream you saw on FB to photos at your favorite Broadway show, Kirstyn shows that it doesnt matter how young you are or if youre on a student budget, you can still find adventure. Even in your own city! Plus she managed to create a RAINBOW with Instagram photos, how cool is that!
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Sometimes I pretend to be Humans of New York. Minus the interaction with humans. A photo posted by Kirstyn Hippe (@kirstynhippe) on Oct 19, 2015 at 3:26pm PDT
The Proper People (@theproperpeople)
These two best friends take adventuring to a whole new level they explore abandoned buildings! Through their YouTube videos and Instagram, The Proper People share the beauty in the places we tend to forget. From old insane asylums to missile silos, The Proper People arent afraid to get their hands dirty. Theyll inspire you to check out that haunted house at the end of your block (with permission, of course).
Don't go in the basement #urbanexploration #urbex #abandoned #abandonedfl #flurbex #florida #exploring #explore #abandonedplaces #partnersingrime#photowall_urbex#sfx_decay#showmethatgrime#urbex_supreme#urbxtreme#ig_urbex#ig_captures_decay#abandoned_seekers#all_is_abandoned#tv_urbex#the_relics#urbxtreme#exploreflorida#exploreeverything#roamflorida#abandoned_fl A photo posted by The Proper People (@theproperpeople) on Sep 6, 2015 at 10:06am PDT
Aspyn Ovard (@aspynovard)
This YouTuber travels the world with her husband, Parker. Aspyn and Parker vlog their adventures everywhere from London to VidCon. From her OOTD in Copenhagen to shots of her breakfast, Aspyn makes us want to book a flight ASAP.
New Copenhagen blog post is on AspynOvard.com Link in my bio, comment a once you've read it! A photo posted by Aspyn Ovard Ferris (@aspynovard) on Apr 19, 2016 at 7:17pm PDT
Jason Charles Hill (@JasonCharlesHill)
This Australian- based lifestyle/adventure photography will make you fall in love with, well, everything. From stunning shots of waterfalls to hot air balloons, Jason knows how to capture the beauty of this world. Jason will encourage you to explore the outdoors. Grab your lantern and some Smores because you will definitely want to go camping after looking at Jasons Instagram.
Made the most of the rainy weather today & spent some time in the forest... Hope everyone had a great weekend, I'm off to one of my favorite places ever tomorrow! @tasmania #discovertasmania A photo posted by Jason Charles Hill (@jasoncharleshill) on Jun 17, 2016 at 5:32am PDT
The post 6 Instagram accounts that will inspire your adventures this summer appeared first on HelloGiggles.
This Utah girl was born without arms, but her two feet are more than enough for her to do everything else.
Read: Family Discovers Adopted Daughter Has a Long Lost Twin in Chinese Orphanage And Now Wants To Adopt Her Too
Sophi Green was adopted from China when she was just 2 years old by parents Christianne and Jeremy Green, making her the youngest member of their family of nine children.
In Christianne's blog, she wrote that she was compelled to try adoption after giving birth to three children, but losing two others to miscarriages.
The couple has since adopted six children with special needs from China, and each child had a unique quality that drew the couple.
"Sophi had these beautiful big eyes," her mom Christianne of Herriman said in an interview with Barcroft Media, "and we actually noticed these before even thinking about the fact she didnt have arms."
Despite the challenges the family might face due to her disability, Christianne and Jeremy had already fallen in love with the little girl, and adopted her alongside her older sister, Lexie, who is blind.
Right after they adopted the sisters, Christianne said she recalled buying Sophi an ice cream cone: "I was ready to feed it to her and I held it out and she just snatched it up with her little foot and started eating it all by herself," she said.
From that moment onward, it was clear that Sophi's two feet would do just as much, if not more, than if she had arms, too.
7-year-old Sophi can pick up food with chopsticks, paint her own toe nails and even write using her dexterous feet.
To make the home more accessible to her needs, the Green family replaced door knobs with handles so she could open doors with her chin. They even installed a sink 18 inches above the ground that she can reach to wash her feet for dinner.
Even though Green family was originally told she may not be able to walk, her favorite thing to do is dance.
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"I like dancing because it makes me feel happy," Sophi said.
She takes one-on-one lessons with an instructor, and, with the musical talents of her older brother Connor, she makes up her own routines.
Read: Kind-Hearted Mom Adopts Kids of Best Friend Who Died of Brain Cancer
Her confidence has quickly made her to be one of the most popular girls in the class, but her mom said it hasn't always been that way.
On her first day of class, her curious classmates asked, "Why don't you have arms?" She arrived home that day, crying and afraid to go to class, Barcroft reported.
"I decided to go in and talk to the class on the first day," Christianne said. "We made a little video of her showing all the things she can do. We went and talked to the children and they were wonderful."
Now, when people ask what happened to her arms, she might respond, "A shark ate them!" or, "I buried them!"
Watch: Teen Cancer Survivor Gets Part of Leg Amputated But That Doesn't Stop Her From Dancing
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Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas called on the UN Security Council on Wednesday to reject a key report by the diplomatic Quartet that condemned both Israeli settlement building and Palestinian incitement to violence.
The report published last Friday by the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States was criticised by both Israel and the Palestinians as being unfair.
The report is due to be presented for discussion at the UN Security Council in the coming weeks, though a date has not yet been set.
Abbas said in a statement on Wednesday the report "does not further the cause for peace."
"We hope that the Security Council does not support this report," he added.
Palestine Liberation Organisation secretary general Saeb Erekat has condemned what he called an "attempt to equalise the responsibilities between people under occupation and the foreign military occupier."
The report's findings and recommendations are supposed to serve as the basis for reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process that has been comatose since a US initiative collapsed in April 2014.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also rejected the report, calling it a "myth" that settlement building in the occupied West Bank is an obstacle to peace.
There was no formal response from the Quartet but a source involved with the report said Wednesday there were positives to be drawn from the responses.
"If both president Abbas and Prime Minister Netanyahu find the report disturbing, then the report must contain some truths that both are uncomfortable with," he said.
A Palestinian official said they would no longer deal with the Quartet as a body, but would continue to work with its four members individually.
"It's not only about the report, it's more than that -- but the report confirms how useless (the Quartet) is," the official said.
Story continues
There has been growing alarm that ongoing violence and the construction of Jewish settlements on land earmarked to be part of a future Palestinian state are killing off prospects for a deal.
There are currently at least 570,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make the capital of their future state. The United Nations has said settlements are illegal.
In the recent wave of violence since October, there have been more than 250 attacks and attempted attacks by Palestinians that have killed at least 30 Israelis, the report said.
BERLIN, July 6 (Reuters) - Access to the European Union's single market means accepting the bloc's basic freedoms, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Wednesday.
Some British politicians who advocated a Brexit have suggested Britain could have full EU market access, including for the vital financial sector, and curb immigration. The EU's single market seeks to guarantee the free movement of goods, capital, services, and people between the EU's 28 member states.
"We don't talk about that (Britain's future relations with the EU) before the application (to leave the bloc) has been made," Schaeuble told a news conference. "But one thing is clear: membership of the internal market means that one has to accept the basic freedoms in Europe."
"And this had to be painfully learned in Switzerland after a referendum (on limiting free movement of people) ... That's how it is," he said when asked by Reuters if there was any scope for a compromise that would give Britain access to the internal market while allowing curbs on the movement of people.
(Reporting by Gernot Heller and Michael Nienaber; Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Caroline Copley)
* Schaeuble points to Switzerland as a "painful" lesson
* Minister says EU's basic freedoms can't be divided (Adds Schaeuble comment on sterling, background on Switzerland)
By Gernot Heller
BERLIN, July 6 (Reuters) - Access to the European Union's single market means accepting the bloc's basic freedoms, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Wednesday, rejecting suggestions from London that Britain could retain full EU market access while curbing immigration.
Some British politicians who advocated a Brexit have suggested Britain could have full EU market access, including for the vital financial sector, while limiting the number of EU nationals who enter the country. The EU's single market seeks to guarantee the free movement of goods, capital, services, and people between the EU's 28 member states.
Britain and the EU will not start negotiations on their future relations before London had officially filed the application to leave the bloc, Schaeuble told a news conference.
"But one thing is clear: membership of the internal market means that one has to accept the basic freedoms in Europe," he added.
"And this had to be painfully learned in Switzerland after a referendum (on limiting free movement of people) ... That's how it is," he said when asked by Reuters if there was any scope for a compromise that would give Britain access to the internal market while allowing curbs on the movement of people.
Switzerland is not an EU member, but home to more than a million EU citizens. In 2014, Switzerland voted to impose quotas on migration, potentially ripping up a bilateral deal with the EU on free movement of people. It could trigger a "guillotine clause" cancelling six other bilateral agreements, including on air transport, road, rail and agriculture.
The Swiss government sees few ways out and, in what could be a warning to Britain, may have no choice but to ask voters to reconsider.
Britain has not yet activated the Article 50 clause in the European treaty that triggers the process for its departure from the bloc, and Schaeuble said it could not be compelled to do so: "Nobody can force Britain to submit this application," he said.
Schaeuble said fluctuations in the British pound, which tumbled to a new 31-year low on Wednesday, could be discussed at a meeting of finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the G20 leading economies in China later this month.
But he added: "I think at the G20 meeting in China the Brexit issue will come up more under the topic of geopolitical risks." (Reporting by Gernot Heller and Michael Nienaber; Writing by Paul Carrel)
PAMPLONA, Spain (Reuters) - Animal rights activists covered themselves in fake blood in Pamplona on Tuesday in protest against bull runs and bullfights ahead of the northern Spanish city's San Fermin festival, which kicks off this week. People from around the world come to see the week-long festival's daily running of the bulls, where runners lead the animals through the streets. In the evening, there are bullfights. Dozens of protesters, wearing only underwear and bull horn headbands, poured buckets of fake blood on themselves at the demonstration, which was organized by animal rights organizations AnimaNaturalis and PETA. (Reporting By Reuters Pictures)
Alibaba Group Holding Limited BABA has been taking every effort to clean up the companys image as a platform of fake goods.
Alibaba on Friday, at an intellectual property (IP) conference in Hangzou, unveiled its new online system to track and remove fake products from its websites. The company requested brands to help its anti-piracy campaign rather than rebuke the issue.
Jessie Zheng, Alibabas chief platform governance officer, said that In the face of such a complex problem we cant be complaining about each other, or criticizing each other, instead we have to have everybody involved and work together to do it.
ALIBABA GROUP Price
ALIBABA GROUP Price | ALIBABA GROUP Quote
The company said that this new online platform has been designed to streamline IP-related communications between brands and Alibaba. This new effort is an expansion of the existing good faith takedown scheme which was started last year. This will further simplify the removal of listings of suspected counterfeits, making Alibabas marketplace more transparent and trustworthy.
With the companys latest efforts to crack down on fakes, Alibaba is trying to improve the companys image which has been continuously dogged by accusations that its sites are flooded with counterfeit products.
In May, Alibaba had to take an embarrassing hit in its fight against fakes when it was forced out of the Washington-based International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition, the worlds largest non-profit organization that combats product counterfeiting and piracy. This came after a mutiny by members of the group, including U.S. luxury goods maker Michael Kors Holdings and French group Kering SA's's Gucci brand, against the Chinese firm.
We, like many other analysts, are expecting that these continuous efforts will help the company to maintain the integrity of its marketplaces and will take Alibaba an extra mile in eradicating the counterfeit issue.
However, increasing competition from Baidu, Inc. BIDU Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN and eBay Inc. EBAY remain as an overhang.
The company is slated to report its first-quarter fiscal 2017 results on Aug 10.
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GOP CONGRESSMAN COMMUNISTS
Former Florida Congressman Allen West wrote in a blog post Wednesday that he was "delighted" the FBI will not recommend charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email system as secretary of state.
"I can't thank Director [James] Comey enough for coming to this decision," West wrote.
The conservative firebrand said he "always" had "concern" President Barack Obama would "release the hounds" on Clinton in an effort to replace her as the presumptive Democratic nominee with Vice President Joe Biden.
Biden, West contended, would have been far more difficult for Donald Trump to defeat in November.
"That would be a really tough ticket to beat, since Joe Biden's favorables, regardless of gaffes and such, are extremely high," West wrote.
West wrote that Comey had instead opted to leave Clinton in the race as a significantly damaged candidate a "gift wrapped with a bow" to Republicans.
Comey said at a Tuesday press conference that 110 emails that traversed Clinton's private email server had classified information at the time they were sent or received. He called her behavior "extremely careless" and said it was "possible" that "hostile actors" had gained access to her account.
Nevertheless, the agency director said "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring charges against her and that the bureau would not recommend doing so.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch indicated last week that she would likely accept the FBI's recommendation.
Both Comey and Lynch are set to testify before Congress this month.
NOW WATCH: We took a Louisiana literacy test and failed spectacularly
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New York (AFP) - Alternative rock pioneers the Pixies on Wednesday released a new song and announced a forthcoming album, the second since the influential group reunited.
"Head Carrier," which will come out on September 30, will be followed by a tour of Europe where the Boston-born band initially enjoyed a greater fan base than in the United States.
The group led by Black Francis put out a first track, "Um Chagga Lagga," a return to the Pixies' hard-charging brand of surfer rock with fast-paced guitar and drums.
"Head Carrier" is only the sixth album by the Pixies, who went on hiatus at their height in the early 1990s.
The band reunited in 2004 but it took another 10 years until the group released a second-generation album, "Indie Cindy," in 2014.
"Head Carrier," which was recorded in London, will be the first album with the Argentine-born bassist Paz Lenchantin as a full-fledged member.
She had tentatively replaced Kim Deal -- also known for her band The Breeders -- who left in 2013 after years of on-off clashes with Black Francis.
The Pixies became an underground sensation in the late 1980s as they mixed distorted guitar with absurdist lyricism, as witnessed in songs such as "Debaser" which was inspired by Salvador Dali's surrealist film "Un Chien Andalou."
The rough-around-the-edges sound and artistic sense became a major influence on alternative rockers such as Nirvana who took the global music scene in a less mainstream direction in the early 1990s.
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Yet another police-related killing caught on tape the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling, 37, in Baton Rouge on July 5 has spurred a strong reaction from celebrities speaking out against police brutality and its impact on black Americans. The comments from the likes of gun legislation advocate/comedian Amy Schumer and comedian Kumail Nanjiani offer their support and love for the people of Baton Rouge and the Black Lives Matter movement. Meanwhile, a number of artists have called for action and condemnation for what appears to be yet another deadly show of force by a police department on a black man.
Samira Wiley (Orange is the New Black)
Amy Schumer
Love to Louisiana #AltonSterling Amy Schumer (@amyschumer) July 6, 2016
Zendaya
How many more times must this happen for us to matter? How many more must we lose?
BLACK. LIVES. MATTER. #AltonSterling Zendaya (@Zendaya) July 6, 2016
Nick Jonas
This is so disturbing and wrong. My thoughts and prayers are with the family and loved ones of #AltonSterling Nick Jonas (@nickjonas) July 6, 2016
Kumail Nanjiani (Silicon Valley)
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Meek Mill
Executed this man about selling bootleg DVDs! Smh its only gone get worst! They dont care about us! A video posted by Meek Mill (@meekmill) on Jul 5, 2016 at 11:21pm PDT
Bridget Kelly
That #AltonSterling video just brought me to tears. I cant even wrap my head around it. Bridget Kelly (@IamBridgetKelly) July 6, 2016
Chuck D
Selling..cds? W.T..F????? This cop was deranged and KNEW he was gonna DO this one day-it was a matter of when AND who Chuck D (@MrChuckD) July 6, 2016
IF anything THIS proves why the term #BlackLivesMatter is the CRYOUT to the rest of the Planet Earth from this United States Of America. Chuck D (@MrChuckD) July 6, 2016
Best Coast
Bruno Mars
They Murdered that man. We just saw it. Thank you @Rosenbergradio https://t.co/PyDmLY52ld Bruno Mars (@BrunoMars) July 6, 2016
Hayley Williams (Paramore)
Praying for justice & peace in #AltonSterling case. Leadership roles(i.e. police) MUST require real accountability. The pattern MUST change hayley from Paramore (@yelyahwilliams) July 6, 2016
Xzibit
Angry tweets, marching, protesting,none of that shit works. We have to speak economically. We generate BILLIONS, and retain none of it. XZIBIT (@xzibit) July 6, 2016
MC Hammer
This barbaric behavior under the guise of law is despicable, inhumane and heartbreaking. Justice for #AltonSterling https://t.co/PgG76xSk5t MC HAMMER (@MCHammer) July 6, 2016
Christina Perri
heartbroken for #altonsterling and his family christina perri (@christinaperri) July 6, 2016
Talib Kweli
RT @syndicalisms: #AltonSterling is the 558th person in the US murdered extrajudicially by cops in 2016 alone. https://t.co/K5aH5YNYbq Talib Kweli Greene (@TalibKweli) July 6, 2016
DL Hughley
You ever notice how video used against suspects tells the whole story, but used against cops it doesnt #AltonSterling #TeamDl DL Hughley (@RealDLHughley) July 6, 2016
Justin Timberlake
Janelle Monae
Katy Perry
You cant just go on with your day, you must watch this & we must face this continual outrageousness #ALTONSTERLING https://t.co/NqW3aVSZ1j KATY PERRY (@katyperry) July 6, 2016
According to CNN, the president of the Baton Rouge NAACP branch called for the citys police chief and chief executive to resign in light of Tuesdays shooting death of Sterling, a black man who was seen in a video being pinned to the ground and shot after he allegedly got into an altercation with the officers. Police said they arrived on the scene early Tuesday, responding to an anonymous 911 call about a man threatening him with a gun; a preliminary autopsy found that Sterling died as a result of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back."
Sterling was known in the area as the "CD man, someone his attorney said was a beloved, gentle member of the community known for selling songs and DVDs outside of the store where he was shot. The stores owner told WAFB TV that the first officer used a stun gun on Sterling and a second one tackled him, with Sterling fighting to get the second officer off him as the first one shot four to six times. The owner said he didnt see a gun in Sterlings hand when one of the officers yelled hes got a gun, but that he did see officers remove a weapon from Sterlings pocked after the shooting.
Following protest over the killing on Tuesday, more demonstrations are expected on Wednesday (July 6). The two officers involved in the shooting have been placed on administrative leave and have not yet been identified publicly. The Associated Press reported that that officials and family members have called for a federal investigation into Sterlings death, saying they dont trust local law enforcement to handle the probe. Its a horrible thing, its a horrible thing to happened to him he didnt deserve that, said Sterlings aunt, Sandra Sterling.
Some other tweets under the #AltonSterling hashtag:
If you dont take issue with this then you are part of the problem #AltonSterling pic.twitter.com/wzwNi2UuOk Matthew A. Cherry (@MatthewACherry) July 6, 2016
Amazon bookstore
It looks like Amazon is continuing on its path to prevailing over the retail industry.
It's already threatening the apparel industry with its rapidly growing fashion sector.
Now, it might threaten bookstores in New York.
Two sources told The New York Post that Amazon was planning on opening up a retail store in New York City, in Hudson Yards, in 2018 or 2019.
"I dont know if the final lease was signed yet, but I know the deal is happening" a source told the The Post. "Theres no way that deal is dying."
Amazon already has a brick-and-mortar store in Seattle.
Amazon bookstore
When Insider's Aly Weisman visited it, she noticed that it sold both books and Amazon products, like Kindles.
Though she liked the store for the most part, she didn't like how prices weren't listed; shoppers had to look up prices with an app or a scanner.
However, as Business Insider's Eugene Kim has pointed out, that's because the prices online are subject to change, and as the sign in the photo above notes, the prices will be the same as what's on the website.
Kim also noted that the stores are similar to the website (and different from other bookstores) in that books come complete with a review from a shopper, recommendations for other books to read, and ratings.
Should more book stores come to fruition (and the company said in May that more will be coming), it would be yet another facet of Amazon's ever-growing business.
Its music service is becoming successful, and as mentioned previously, its apparel business shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, Morgan Stanley recently predicted that it would hold the majority of the market share by 2020, toppling even Walmart.
NOW WATCH: Here's how to see how much you've spent on Amazon in your lifetime
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RATINGS CHANGES
American Airlines was downgraded to underperform from outperform at Credit Suisse. Industry unit revenue growth will likely continue to disappoint, Credit Suisse said.
American Water Works was downgraded to neutral from buy at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. The valuation is less attractive, based on an $88 price target, analysts said.
Fifth Third Bank was downgraded to perform from outperform at Credit Suisse. Earnings estimates were also cut, given industry profitability headwinds, Credit Suisse said.
Juniper Networks was downgraded to hold from buy at Deutsche Bank. $22 price target. Earnings estimates were also cut, given lower expected margins and potential market share loss with service providers, Deutsche said.
Netflix was downgraded at Jefferies. $80 price target. The new analyst expects flatter U.S. subscription growth, Jefferies said.
NXP Semiconductors was downgraded to hold at TheStreet Ratings. You can view the full analysis from the report here: NXPI.
Taubman Centers was upgraded to buy at TheStreet Ratings. You can view the full analysis from the report here: TCO.
United Continental was downgraded to neutral from outperform at Credit Suisse. Consensus earnings estimates appear too high, given higher industry fuel costs, Credit Suisse said.
Whiting Petroleum was downgraded to neutral from buy at Goldman Sachs. $12.75 price target. Equity investors are being diluted to reduce debt, Goldman said.
WPX Energy was upgraded to buy from neutral at Goldman Sachs. $14.75 price target. The company is attractive, following a repositioning and recapitalization, Goldman said.
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Yes, they will make the city more inviting
Maybe ... does it really matter?
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Anderson Cooper doesn't just have a vacation home -- he has a full-on vacation compound.
The 49-year-old journalist owns Casa Anderson -- you haven't made it until your house has a name -- in Trancoso, Brazil. If you want serious real estate envy, Cooper allowed Architectural Digest to take what have to be the prettiest pictures of the prettiest home you've ever seen.
"Within a day I was fantasizing about buying a house there," Cooper told the magazine about a 2013 trip to Trancoso with his longtime partner, Benjamin Maisani, and best friend, Andy Cohen. "Ben thought I'd lost my mind, and Andy, who is encouraging about almost everything, thought I was nuts, too."
Architectural Digest
RELATED: Anderson Cooper Doesn't Like Being a Silver Fox: I Look Like a 'Game of Thrones' White Walker!
Architectural Digest
Just read this insane description of the property:
"The first cottage -- colonial in style -- contains the conjoined living and dining rooms, a kitchen, and a veranda for alfresco meals. The two center buildings are guest bungalows -- one of brick, the other built using pau a pique (or 'wattle and daub'), a process whereby clay is layered over a wood frame. The last structure, tucked away near the pool, is a two-story tree house of reclaimed timber planks that comprises a master suite above and an outdoor living room and bar below."
A tree house! There's also a pool set against the rain forest, mango trees and MONKEYS.
Architectural Digest
There's much ado about how "unpretentious" and "authentic" the Casa is. Such as: The compound was constructed using materials salvaged from an abandoned farmhouse! The outdoor shower is made out of a tree trunk! And a local Brazilian fisherman crafted the beds!
But fear not: There is a flat-screen TV in his bedroom -- it's just hidden in a "rustic trunk."
WATCH: Anderson Cooper Addresses 'Live!' Co-Hosting Rumors: 'It Would Be a Dream to Work With Kelly'
Architectural Digest
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"I've worked in 70 countries and traveled to even more, and I've never seen anything like Trancoso," the Anderson Cooper 360 host said in the issue, which is out now. "It's a real place not a Potemkin village for tourists."
Cooper will have even less time to visit his Brazilian getaway if he lands a permanent gig as Kelly Ripa's co-host on Live! He has said it "would be a dream" to work with Ripa, but ET previously learned that execs are "hesitant" to pick him.
Now, a source says Ripa's co-host will be announced before the new season premieres in September -- which could mean Cooper is no longer the frontrunner. Get the scoop on the situation in the video below.
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By Sebastien Malo NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Angola is suffering its worst outbreak of yellow fever in 30 years with 350 deaths since last December, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on Wednesday as it launched an emergency appeal for funds. With a yellow fever epidemic underway in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, public health authorities have been scrambling to keep the disease from gaining a foothold in Angola. Yellow fever, a mosquito-borne haemorrhagic virus, results in death rates as high as 75 percent in serious cases but its transmission can be prevented with a vaccine. Yellow fever has killed 356 people in Angola and infected more than 3,400 infected since late last year, according to World Health Organization (WHO) and Angolan government figures that IFRC cited. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which shares a frontier to the northeast of Angola, suspected cases numbered about 1,307 and deaths 75 as of late June, according to the WHO. Congolese authorities declared a yellow fever epidemic in the capital and two provinces last month.[nNRA25fc4u] The WHO said in late June it was scaling up its efforts to combat the outbreak with the launch of an emergency vaccination campaign in July along the border between Angola and DRC, as well as in the Congolese capital Kinshasa.[nL8N19F1J5] But efforts to vaccinate the two countries' populations have been hampered by logistical challenges, including a shortage of yellow fever vaccines. In Angola, suspicion about the effectiveness of vaccines over traditional medicines was another hurdle, IFRC spokeswoman Camelia Marinescu told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from the country's capital city Luanda. "People take traditional plant-based medication which, when it comes to yellow fever, do more harm than good," Marinescu said. "Consequences ... can be lethal." In an effort to dispel myths, IFRC staff and volunteers have been helping the Angola Red Cross with door-to-door visits and targeting the southern African country's media to raise awareness about the disease, the IFRC said. "The message of our community mobilizers (is to) quickly go to the closest health center or hospital," Marinescu said. More than 11 million yellow fever vaccines have been administered in Angola between Dec. 5, 2015 and July 5, 2016, she said. Even so, suspected cases of yellow fever have been reported in Angola's 18 provinces, the IFRC said as it launched an appeal for 1.4 million Swiss franc ($1.4 million) appeal to fund its work to help stem the outbreak in the country. ($1 = 0.9755 Swiss francs) (Reporting by Sebastien Malo, Editing by Katie Nguyen.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)
As leaders in the Republican Party scramble warily to build a united front ahead of Novembers presidential election, Donald Trump continues to send mixed signals to his supporters about just how united the GOP needs to be.
We need unity in the Republican Party, and I have to be honest I think I win without the unity but we need unity in the Republican Party, Trump said during a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina this week.
With the majority of GOP voters wanting someone other than Trump as the presidential nominee, his campaign is facing an uphill battle against the partys establishment players. While the billionaire's bombastic personality has alienated members of his own party, it has also riled up the Republican base, which is why he hasnt been so concerned with appeasing those holding GOP leadership positions.
Related: A New Map That Ought to Scare Trump Supporters
Unlike the Democratic party's presumptive presidential nominee, Trumps relationship with his party elite is much more fraught, and his messaging on bringing members of his party together has never been clear. Remember those loyalty pledges, taken and revoked?
Its clear where Trumps real loyalty lies and that he expects the GOP to fall in line.
We have great people, but we need real unity, and the leaders have to get supportive, and if they dont get supportive were going to win anyway. Dont worry about it, he said. In fact, probably Ill do better without the kind of support that were talking about because thats why Im here in the first place. Thats why Im here in the first place.
Republicans in leadership positions have been attempting to unify the party without the help of its presumptive presidential nominee. Despite having reservations about Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan has urged unity amid this years untraditional campaign season. Other congressional Republicans have echoed the speakers remarks on the matter.
Related: The Foreign Country That Trusts Trump the Most
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But maybe its not Donald Trump who ultimately pulls the party together. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in May suggested that Hillary Clinton alone will "be enough to unify Republicans across the country." With the former secretary of states scandals angering both GOPers and voters in general, McConnells brief remarks may be the real key to unifying the Republican Party.
FBI Director James Comey's announcement yesterday that he wont be recommending charges be brought related to Clintons use of a private email server that her conduct was extremely careless but not criminal is already fueling the GOP fire. And as Florida Senator Marco Rubio more recently pointed out, the FBI's decision may not be the end of Clinton's scandals.
So the real question in any discussion of Republican unity, at least as we head to November, is whether Clinton can succeed in bringing the party together and energizing it in a way that Trump never will.
Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
Got a spare $350,000 sitting around?
Then, boy, do we have an offer for you. The town of Cabin Creek, Colorado, 45 minutes from Denver, is up for sale, via Craigslist, for a scant $350k. Included: A motel, a commercial zoned shop, a small cafe, a two-bed, one-bath house and a water well. Also a mobile home.
The current owner of the town, James Johnson, first purchased the town 36 years ago. The town was renowned for its chicken-fried steak, according to Joan Lippet, who told ABC 13 that "a lot of people just went out there for the meals because they were so good." The Craigslist ad mentions that "most neighbors are hundreds of acres away," so that testifies to just how good the chicken-fried steak was.
Johnson wanted to turn the property into a tourist attraction, but he and his wife's plans have detoured into traveling, so he's looking to unload the property.
And that whole "ghost town" thing? Apparently there was a murder there in the 1970s. "There was some people that [a couple] took in, felt sorry for or something, and they found out the couple had money," Lippett explained. So you've got that to get around if you're trying to invest.
But what a bargain!
ArcelorMittal Galati in Romania, a unit of ArcelorMittal MT, has supplied 34,000 tons of steel for the construction of one of the longest bridges in the world. The Osman Gazi Bridge reduces the distance between Istanbul and Izmir in Turkey by 140 kilometers, thereby cutting down the time of travel to 3.5 hours from 9 hours required earlier. The bridge was opened to the public last week.
ArcelorMittal, which is among the prominent players in the steel industry along with Nucor Corp NUE and U.S. Steel X, has supplied the steel used for constructing the horizontal deck of the bridge. The company supplied the 34,000 tons to Cimtas in four main lots, differing in width and thickness. Cimtas was selected as the only fabricator of the suspension bridges steel tower blocks as well as the orthotropic steel deck panels.
The bridge has been designed by a Danish engineering design firm, Cowi, and will be operated by an Italian-Turkish consortium, Nomayg, for 23 years. The consortium awarded the construction contract to Japanese firm, IHI Corporation. The $9 billion project makes the 2,682 meter bridge the longest suspension bridge in Turkey, the second longest in Europe and fourth longest in the world. It connects both sides of the Bay of Izmit in Northwest Turkey.
ARCELOR MITTAL Price
ARCELOR MITTAL Price | ARCELOR MITTAL Quote
As the worlds leading integrating steel and mining company, ArcelorMittal steel has previously been used for the construction of an earthquake-resistant high-rise in Philippines, the worlds tallest building, BurjKhalifa, in Dubai as well as the worlds largest cruise ship, Harmony of the Seas. The company has also been chosen by Volkswagen AG VLKAY as a supplier for the carmakers Future Automotive Supply Tracks initiative.
ArcelorMittal recorded a wider year-over-year adjusted loss of 10 cents per share in first-quarter 2016. However, the loss was narrower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate. Revenues plunged 21.7% year over year to $13,399 million in the quarter and missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate.
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ArcelorMittal expects the impact of an improving steel spread environment to reflect in its results in the second half of 2016. The company has also set certain goals for 2020. It is working toward streamlining and building on the core strengths of the U.S. facilities, while progressing with its Transformation plan in Europe.
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As part of the National Constitution Centers on-going Interactive Constitution project, leading constitutional experts interact with each other to explore the Constitutions history and what it means today. In this discussion, Randy E. Barnett of the Georgetown University Law Center and Heather Gerken of Yale Law School find common ground on the overall evolution of federalism.
In practice, federalism has waxed and waned since the founding, and federal-state relations have always been contested. Nonetheless, federalism underwent four distinct phases during four different eras in our constitutional history: post-Founding, post-Civil War, post-New Deal, and from the Rehnquist Court to today.
Enumerated Powers Federalism
In 1787, the Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederationwhich was essentially a treaty among sovereign stateswith a new constitution ratified by the people themselves in state conventions rather than by state legislatures. The Founders provided the national government with powers it lacked under the Articles and ensured it would be able to act on behalf of the citizenry directly without going through the state governments. But the Founders also thought it important to preserve the states power over their own citizens.
The Founders struck this balance by granting the new national government only limited and enumerated powers and leaving the regulation of intrastate commerce to the states. State legislative powers were almost exclusively limited by their own constitutions.
Federalism at the Founding can therefore best be described as Enumerated Powers Federalism. The national government was conceived as one of limited and enumerated powers. The powers of states were simply everything left over after that enumeration. This is expressed in the first words of Article I, which created Congress: All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States. The Tenth Amendment reinforces this principle: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. State power, then, was protected not by affirmatively shielding state power, but by limiting the ability of the federal government to act in the first place.
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Fundamental Rights Federalism
Federalism changed in the wake of the Civil War. The Republicans in the Thirty-Eighth Congress enacted the Thirteenth Amendment, eliminating the power of states to enforce slavery within their borders. But Southern states almost immediately used the rest of their vast police powers to enact Black Codes to oppress the newly freed slaves. Their aim was to come as closely as possible to restoring slavery in everything but name.
In response to this, the Republicans in the Thirty-Ninth Congress used their Thirteenth Amendment enforcement power to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Although they overrode the veto of President Johnson by super-majorities in both houses, some in Congress saw the need to write these protections into the Constitution lest courts question Congresss power to enact the Civil Rights Act.
The Republicans thus created the Fourteenth Amendment. Section 1 forbade states from violating the fundamental rights of their own citizens, placing new federal constraints on all three branches of state governments. Section 5 granted Congress the power to enforce those constraints. With the passage of the 14th Amendment, the federal government could now prevent states from violating the privileges and immunities of their citizens; depriving anyone of life, liberty, or property without due process; and denying anyone equal protection. Following on its heels, a similar provision was enacted to prevent states from denying citizens the right to vote based on their race. The Reconstruction Amendments, taken together, thus ushered in what we can call Fundamental Rights Federalism.
Soon after its enactment, however, the Supreme Court systematically neutered the Fundamental Rights Federalism of the Reconstruction Amendments through such cases as The Slaughter-House Cases (1873),U.S. v. Cruikshank (1875), The Civil Rights Cases (1883), Plessy v. Ferguson(1896), and Giles v. Harris (1903). As a result, the powers accorded to the federal government lay dormant until the Court and Congress took them up again in the early Twentieth Century to protect economic liberties in cases like Lochner v. New York (1905) andBuchanan v. Warley (1917). Eventually, beginning in the 1930s until today, the Court largely withdrew from this area in favor of to protecting so-called fundamental rights and the civil rights of suspect classes like racial minorities.
New Deal Federalism
With the New Deal, the Court expanded federal regulatory power. Relying primarily on the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause to expand Congresss reach, the Court effectively brought about the demise of the Enumerated Powers Federalism of the Founding Era. The Court interpreted Article I to give Congress the power to regulate wholly intrastate economic activity that substantially affects interstate commerce. Because the scope and importance of the national economy had vastly outpaced the vision of interstate commerce held by the Founders, the power to regulate anything that affects interstate commerce amounts to the power to regulate almost everything. As a result, the federal government could now regulate in areas once governed exclusively by the states. It could even regulate the states themselves. So what becomes of the states in the wake of New Deal Federalism?
State Sovereignty Federalism
Enter the Rehnquist Court. After William Rehnquist became Chief Justice in 1986, the Court began developing what came to be known as the New Federalism, but which in this story could be called State Sovereignty Federalism.
First came the Courts so-called Tenth Amendment cases of New York v. United States (1992), Gregory v. Ashcroft (1991), and Printz v. United States (1997). In each of these cases, the Court attempted to carve out a zone of state autonomy that the federal government could not invade. States were thus shielded from federal regulation in a fashion that private parties were not. Then came the Eleventh Amendment cases of Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida (1996) and Alden v. Maine(1999), immunizing states from some lawsuits in federal court in order to preserve their sovereign status.
The Rehnquist Court later began tentatively to revive Enumerated Powers Federalism in cases like United States v. Lopez (1995) and United States v. Morrison (2000). Pushing back against New Deal Federalism, the Court continued to license federal regulation of wholly intrastate economic activity that had a substantial effect on interstate commerce while drawing a line at the regulation of noneconomic intrastate activity.
The Roberts Court has now taken up the mantle. Like its predecessor, it has continued both to (1) invoke state sovereignty to preserve a zone of state autonomy, and (2) build out a modern version of enumerated powers federalism by interpreting the New Deal federalism as the high water mark of federal power such that federal powers cannot be expanded still further without a limiting principle. The first strategy places external limits on Congresss power, marking where Congresss power ends by identifying where state power begins and using sovereignty as a touchstone. The second derives those limits internally without reference to the states. But both are efforts to cut back on the expansive view of federal power that had evolved in the wake of the New Deal and thereby preserve a zone of autonomy for the states.
Further Reading:
For an explanation of how the Court relied mainly on the Necessary and Proper Clause to expand Congresss reach during the era of New Deal Federalism, see Randy E. Barnett,Commandeering the People: Why the Individual Health Insurance Mandate is Unconstitutional, 5 N.Y.U. J. of Law and Liberty 581 (2010).
For a comparison of the two different strategies the Court has used to cut back on the expansive view of federal power that emerged from the New Deal, see Heather K. Gerken, Slipping the Bonds of Federalism, 128 Harv. L. Rev. 85 (2014).
Matters of Debate
To learn more about what these scholars of different perspectives agree upon, and what they disagree about, go to our Interactive Constitution section page about these provisions. These experts were selected with the guidance of leaders of two prominent constitutional law organizationsThe American Constitution Society and The Federalist Society. This project is sponsored by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
AstraZeneca plc AZN signed an agreement with LEO Pharma A/S for the worldwide development and commercialization of tralokinumab for skin diseases - atopic dermatitis and any future additional dermatology indications.
Financial Terms
AstraZeneca will get an upfront payment of $115 million from LEO Pharma and could get up to $1 billion in commercially related milestones as well as mid-teen tiered percentage royalties on product sales.
Tralokinumab has completed a phase IIb study for the treatment of patients with atopic dermatitis and is in late-stage development for patients with severe asthma. Under the terms of the deal, AstraZeneca retains all rights to tralokinumab in respiratory disease and any other non-dermatology indications.
Announces Brodalumab Deal As Well for Europe
AstraZeneca also announced that it will be terminating its licensing agreement with Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. VRX for the development and commercialization of brodalumab in Europe.
AstraZeneca has instead signed up with LEO Pharma which will get an exclusive license to brodalumab in Europe. Brodalumab is under regulatory review for patients with moderate-to-severe plaque and in development for psoriatic arthritis.
We note that AstraZeneca previously had a co-development and commercialization agreement with Amgen Inc. AMGN for brodalumab. However, Amgen had terminated that deal based on events of suicidal ideation and behavior in the brodalumab program, which Amgen felt would likely lead to restrictive labeling. Amgen will, however, continue to receive a low single-digit inventor royalty.
The deals with LEO Pharma support AstraZenecas strategic focus on three main therapy areas: Respiratory, Inflammation and Autoimmunity, Cardiovascular and Metabolic disease and Oncology. The company said that it does not expect these agreements to impact its guidance for 2016. On its first quarter call, the company had said that it continues to expect both total revenue and core earnings to decline in the low-to-mid single-digit percentage range in 2016.
One of its key drugs, Crestor, started facing generic competition from May 2016 with Allergan plc AGN launching a generic.
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Embattled Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's conservative coalition seemed "absolutely certain" to emerge as frontrunner following the general election, a leading analyst predicted Wednesday, and may even secure a majority.
Turnbull's ruling Liberal/National coalition will hold at least 73 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Antony Green said as counting continued.
Parties need 76 seats for a majority in Canberra's lower house of parliament.
With five seats still too close to call, Green said he was "absolutely certain" that the government would win more seats than the opposition Labor Party and could get to the 76 needed to claim victory.
"I think they can get to 76," Green told Radio National.
"Seventy-three is a definite, 74 is also likely, 75 is possible, 76 is less possible."
Labor is forecast to win at least 67 seats, with crossbenchers from minor parties and independents expected to hold at least five, meaning they could hold the balance of power.
Turnbull, who Tuesday took full responsibility for the dismal election campaign, has said he believes he will be able to form a government without the help of these crossbenchers.
The 61-year-old millionaire former banker, who called the election early in a bid to shore up his power, has dismissed the idea of quitting, saying his job was to "get on and govern".
But he acknowledged that the government needed to "listen very carefully to the concerns of the Australian people expressed through this election".
"The Australian people have voted, and we respect the result," he said.
Turnbull became prime minister in September after ousting unpopular predecessor Tony Abbott in a party room vote in a bid to put the government in a position to win this year's election.
But after a protracted eight-week campaign focusing on "jobs and growth", Turnbull was unable to comprehensively win the support of the nation of 24 million.
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When he became prime minister in 2015, Turnbull was the nation's fourth leader in two years following a turbulent period in which sitting leaders were ousted by their own party.
The new member for the Sydney seat of Macarthur, Labor candidate Mike Freelander, said Turnbull's rise to power may have impacted the election outcome.
"People here didn't like Malcolm Turnbull, particularly because he rolled Tony Abbott," he told The Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday. "They liked Tony Abbott in many ways."
The Australian Electoral Commission, which is completing the painstaking task of counting postal votes and those cast by people outside their normal electorates, has given little indication of when the vote count be complete.
It said Wednesday that "some close seats will become clearer this week".
* Hobbled Australian PM edges closer to election victory
* Both major parties remain short of magic 76 seat number
* Conservative senator threatens to break from Turnbull
* Treasurer pledges to push on with economic agenda (Adds call for Liberal party split, latest vote tally)
By Matt Siegel
SYDNEY, July 6 (Reuters) - Embattled Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Wednesday pulled within striking distance of the votes needed to form a narrow majority government in a cliffhanger election that has left the country in limbo and his leadership in doubt.
"The government is still on track to form a majority government," Treasurer Scott Morrison told Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) radio.
Electoral officials are counting 1.5 million postal and absentee votes that will be crucial to the result of Saturday's poll, which saw a swing against Turnbull's conservative coalition government and the rise of populist independents.
A final reckoning may not be known for days, possibly weeks, leaving Australia in a political vacuum.
The latest projections by the ABC shifted two seats into the government's column, giving Turnbull's Liberal-National coalition 71 out of 150 lower house seats, and the centre-left Labor opposition 67. Seven seats are too close to call.
Both major parties are short of the 76 seats needed to form a majority government in the House of Representatives, and negotiations are underway with independents who will hold at least four seats.
"It's still either a very, very narrow coalition majority or hung parliament," ABC polling expert Antony Green told ABC's Radio National.
Turnbull's gamble in calling an early election failed to deliver a clear mandate for his agenda of corporate tax cuts and his disastrous polling has led to attacks from inside and outside his coalition after his attempt to end a querulous upper house Senate failed.
Despite the internal criticism, Turnbull's position as Liberal leader does not appear in danger in the short term.
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The surge in support for independents, combined with rules that make it easier for smaller parties to win Senate seats in a so-called double dissolution of parliament, will likely make it impossible for Turnbull to push through policies including a A$50 billion ($37.19 billion) corporate tax break over 10 years.
Even if the coalition wins a narrow majority in the lower house, Turnbull would then have to shepherd legislation through an even more intransigent Senate.
But Treasurer Morrison said the government would not abandon its economic policies. "We will go forward with our legislation plan for the budget, certainly if we return as a majority government," he said.
The election was meant to end political turmoil that delivered Australia four prime ministers over the past three years. Instead, it has left Turnbull's authority in tatters less than a year after he ousted then prime minister Tony Abbott in a party-room coup with a promise of stable government.
The National Party, the junior coalition partner, is demanding a greater say in a future government given its strong electoral performance.
The Nationals represent rural Australia and take a strong stance on foreign ownership and trade. In May, the party was influential in blocking a Chinese bid for cattle giant S. Kidman & Co by a group headed by Hunan Dakang Pasture Farming Co Ltd , saying the sale was not in the national interest.
While Liberal Party Senator Corey Bernardi, a social conservative and strong supporter of Abbott, signalled he was in talks to start a breakaway Conservative Party of Liberals disaffected with what they see as Turnbull's centrist policies.
"Irrespective of the final election result, the clear mission now is to bring people together for the good of the country," Bernardi wrote on his blog. "That is going to take the formalisation of a broad conservative movement to help change politics and to give common sense a united voice."
($1 = 1.3444 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Matt Siegel; Editing by Stephen Coates and Michael Perry)
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Adverse weather has caused a delay of up to eight weeks in the Indian Ocean search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, search officials said on Wednesday, pushing the hunt well beyond an expected conclusion date of mid-2016. The jet carrying 239 passengers and crew disappeared enroute from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, in one of aviation's great mysteries. A wing part, known as a flaperon, washed up on the French island of Reunion in July 2015. Crash investigators have otherwise confirmed no other trace of the plane. An undersea search of the southern Indian Ocean, history's costliest such effort, has turned up nothing. "Poor weather conditions have severely impacted search operations," the Joint Agency Coordination Centre in charge of the search said in a statement. "Progress has slowed, with only a minimal area searched" since the start of the southern hemisphere winter, it added. The search has covered 110,000 sq km (42,000 sq miles) of ocean floor, leaving just 10,000 sq km (3,800 sq miles) unchecked, said the agency, which represents the Australian, Malaysian and Chinese authorities spearheading the effort. The poor weather will permit some use of deep tow equipment, but an autonomous underwater vehicle that surveys the most difficult stretches can only be launched in the calmer conditions of spring and summer, the agency added. If the weather remains hostile or equipment fails, the search "may continue well beyond the winter months," it said. The agency had originally expected to wrap up its search of about 120,000 sq km (46,000 sq miles) of ocean floor in mid-2016. (This story has been refiled to fix spelling of "investigators" in paragraph 3) (Reporting by Byron Kaye; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
July 6 (Reuters) - A Baltimore man pleaded guilty on Wednesday to puncturing a fire hose at a burning pharmacy during rioting last year, federal authorities said.
Gregory Butler Jr., 22, admitted to obstructing firefighters battling a blaze at a CVS Health Corp pharmacy in April 2015, the office of the U.S. Attorney in Baltimore said in a statement.
The drugstore was set afire during unrest after the funeral of Freddie Gray, a black man who died from an injury suffered in police custody. His death heightened a U.S. debate on police treatment of minorities.
Butler said he had twice punctured the hose with a knife, the statement said. The incident was caught on video and the burning pharmacy became a symbol of unrest in the largely African-American city.
Butler faces up to five years in prison.
(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Frances Kerry)
- German star forward Dirk Nowitzki has agreed to terms on a two-year deal to stay with the Dallas Mavericks, worth $40 million, according to The Dallas Morning News and ESPN. Nowitzki, 38, has spent his entire 18-year career with the Mavericks and ranks sixth on the NBA's all-time scoring list with 29,491 career points. In addition to Nowitzki, the Mavericks have a four-year deal worth $94 million with ex-Warrior Harrison Barnes and an agreement for Golden State to trade them Australian big man Andrew Bogut. The Mavericks also made a two-year deal worth $6 million for Seth Curry, who averaged 6.8 points a game and shot 45.5 percent from 3-point range last season for Sacramento.
AFP
Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. on Wednesday said he would not resign after the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling and added that hes demanding answers to determine what led a pair of police officers to shoot the Louisiana father.
The police chief, who has come under fire and is facing calls for his resignation, called Sterlings death a horrible tragedy and offered his condolences to Sterlings family. He said those who are asking for him to step down from his post were acting off emotion.
Im not retiring. Im not resigning, he said at a news conference. I dont think its fair for people to act out of emotion. We have done a lot of good in this community. Were working diligently to bring the truth out.
Dabadie said the department is seeking to gather information from the officers body cameras as the U.S. Justice Department also investigates the shooting death. Like you, there is a lot that we do not understand, he said. And at this point, like you, I am demanding answers. Like you, all my prayers are with this community and especially the community and loved ones of Mr. Sterling.
As a community, when difficult things happen, its important to have an honest conversation about it, what we know to be true and how to ensure that justice and accountability are held at the highest levels, he added. No stone will be left unturned.
Authorities identified the two police officers involved in Sterlings shooting as Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake. Salamoni has been with the Baton Rouge Police Department for four years, while Lake has served for three years, authorities said. Both work for the Uniform Patrol Division and have been placed on paid administrative leave.
The officers were captured on video pinning Sterling, 37, down in the parking lot of a convenience store in Baton Rouge. The department said the two cops were responding to a disturbance call outside the store about 12:30 a.m. Tuesday. A caller told a dispatcher that a black man in a red shirt who was selling CDs had threatened him with a gun. Police said Wednesday that Sterling was armed.
An altercation between Sterling and the officers ensued. Sterling was shot during the altercation and died at the scene, the police department said in an earlier statement.
A video of a Baton Rouge police officer shooting a suspect in the chest at point-blank range is disturbing to say the least, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Wednesday.
Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old man who was selling homemade CDs outside a convenience store, was shot and killed early Tuesday during what police described as some type of altercation with two officers.
The governor said the U.S. Department of Justice has accepted his request to lead the investigation, adding he will demand that the probe be conducted thoroughly, impartially, and professionally. The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting on Wednesday.
Officials are hoping their proactive request for a federal review will prevent the kind of citizen backlash seen in Ferguson, Mo., two years ago. The decision by the St. Louis County prosecutor not to seek an independent investigation after white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot black teenager Michael Brown was widely criticized and fueled violent protests.
Absolutely, we did not want another Ferguson, East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore told a newspaper reporter on Wednesday. Baton Rouge is not Ferguson; we have a completely different history.
Alton Sterling, who was shot dead by Baton Rouge police early Tuesday, is seen in an undated jail mug shot by the East Baton Rouge Sheriffs Office. (Handout via Reuters)
Slideshow: Alton Sterling killed by police in Baton Rouge, La. >>>
Police said they were called to the convenience store after an anonymous caller complained that a man fitting Sterlings description had threatened them with a handgun.
At a news conference Wednesday, Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie said that Sterling was armed but that questions remain about what prompted the initial scuffle and shooting.
Like you, there is a lot that we do not understand, Dabadie told reporters. And at this point, like you, I am demanding answers.
The officers, identified Wednesday as Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II, have been placed on paid leave. Salamoni, 28, is a third-generation Baton Rouge officer, while Lake, 29, was a former all-state defensive lineman at a Baptist high school in the capital city, according to local news archives. Authorities have declined to say whether one or both fired their weapons or how many times.
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A 48-second cellphone video captured by a bystander outside the store shows two officers shouting Get on the ground! Get on the ground! and shooting Sterling with a stun gun before tackling him.
The video, which circulated widely on social media amid a protest over the shooting death, shows the officers wrestling with Sterling and trying to pin him to the ground. During the scuffle one of the officers yells, Hes got a gun! Gun, a moment before the other officer draws his weapon and shoots Sterling.
In this photo made from a video, Alton Sterling is held by two Baton Rouge police officers outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, La. Moments later, one of the officers shot and killed Sterling. (Arthur Reed via AP)
The bystanders cellphone video doesnt show all the shots being fired, but the store owner, Abdullah Muflahi, told the Baton Rouge Advocate that he witnessed four to six shots and that Sterling never reached for his gun. Police have not confirmed his version of events.
The store owner said Sterling was his friend, and only recently began carrying a weapon because he feared being mugged.
According to Muflahi, one of the officers retrieved a pistol from Sterlings shorts pocket as he lay dying. Police have not confirmed Muflahis version of events.
But his account appears to be supported by a second video of the shooting that emerged Wednesday afternoon. The cellphone video, first published by the Advocate, is recorded from a different angle but also shows the officers wrestling with the suspect and one of them shouting that Sterling has a gun.
Hey, bro, you f*** with me, I swear to God one of the officers appears to yell a second or two before multiple shots are fired.
Near the end of the video, one of the officers appears to bend over Sterling and reach toward the suspects shorts. Joel Porter, a Baton Rouge attorney representing the store owner, told the Advocate that Muflahi took the second video, which has now been turned over to the FBI.
Warning: Video contains graphic content
I have very serious concerns, Gov. Edwards said of what he saw on the first witness video.
According to public records, Sterling faced multiple charges in 2008 and 2009, including aggravated assault, drug possession, resisting arrest and weapons possession. He had also been a registered sex offender since 2000 after being convicted of having consensual intercourse with a juvenile, state records reveal.
At the police news conference, Dabadie rejected calls by some citizens for him to step down.
Im not resigning, Dabadie said. Im not retiring.
DOJ investigators will look into whether Salamoni and Lake willfully violated Sterlings civil rights through the use of unreasonable or excessive force.
Similar investigations were launched in recent years following the police-related deaths of Brown in Ferguson, Mo.; Eric Garner in New York; and Walter Scott in North Charleston, S.C.
The officers gave statements to police Tuesday afternoon, District Attorney Moore told the Advocate. Both believe they were completely justified in using deadly force, he said.
Lake, who has been on the force for three years, was on administrative leave at least once before. In December 2014, he was one of six Baton Rouge officers involved in a shootout with a gun-wielding suspect, according to archival news accounts. The suspect, who survived his injuries, was charged with leading police on a chase and firing at officers.
The Baton Rouge chief honored both officers in 2015, according to the departments Facebook page. Salamoni, an officer for four years, was given a lifesaving award, and Lake received a certificate of commendation. Salamoni is the son of Capt. Noel Salamoni, who commands the Baton Rouge departments special operations division. His mother, Melissa Salamoni, is a retired Baton Rouge police captain.
Salamoni, a construction worker before following in his parents footsteps, told the local newspaper in 2013 that he enjoys police work, especially chasing suspects.
Its a fun job, said Salamoni, who is married to an ambulance emergency medical technician.
(This story has been updated since it was originally published.)
Jason Sickles is a national reporter for Yahoo News. Follow him on Twitter (@jasonsickles).
After a long process and several executive departures, the BBC has defined its new senior leadership team. Significantly, Director General Tony Hall said today that finance chief Anne Bulford has been named Deputy Director General. The move makes Bulford the first Deputy Director General at the broadcaster since Mark Byford left in 2011. It also sets her up as a potential replacement for Hall when he chooses to exit. In total, the executive team has been reduced by about a third, providing what Hall calls fewer layers and clear lines of accountability.
Bulford will take on added responsibilities related to the broadcasters marketing and audience teams. She will also create a new centralized commercial and rights group which will coordinate all BBC negotiations. In a statement, Hall said Bulford will look at what more can be done to ensure the BBC spends as much money as possible on content.
The reshaping of the senior management structure comes following the governments White Paper on reforms for the broadcaster. In May, the document put at its heart a desire for the BBC to make distinctive content the center of its focus.
It has been a tumultuous several years for the BBC in the wake of the Jimmy Savile and Newsnight scandals. Over the past several months, it lost such top execs as Danny Cohen, Polly Hill and Kim Shillinglaw. While drama remains strong, and The Great British Bake Off has become a phenomenon, cash-cow series Top Gear this week saw host Chris Evans ankle after poor ratings for the revamped show.
Piers Wenger was recently poached from Channel 4 to take over as drama chief. Charlotte Moore, who is controller of BBC One, has now been named Director of Content, responsible for all the BBCs TV channels and iPlayer, Hall said today. She will also take on oversight of BBC Sport.
Hall said today, Together we stabilized the BBC after a difficult period in its history. We went on to create a compelling case for a new decade of the BBC and secured an eleven-year charter as a result. The corporations new charter begins in 2017.
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I want us to turn our energy to focus on the future of public service broadcasting and what it means for our audiences. We must continue to harness the creative power of the UK. We must continue to be a creative beacon to the world and we will do this best by renewing the way we engage with our audiences as we enter our centenary year.
The leadership changes I am making today can help ensure that the BBC is best equipped to do this. We must never stand still. We must always be looking to innovate and change. The new Executive will lead this process of creative renewal to ensure the BBC remains the most creative force in the world, Hall said.
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Bio-Techne Corporation TECH, a global developer, manufacturer and seller of clinical diagnostic products, announced plans to acquire Space Import-Export, an Italy-based distribution company in the Life Sciences space, for an undisclosed sum.
Space Import-Export is a leading distributor of life science research products like reagents, antibodies, proteins, Elisa kits and vitro diagnostic products. The company provides its highly advanced services to customers, especially in the fields of Biomedical Research and Diagnostics.
Post acquisition, Bio-Techne will be able to utilize Space Import-Exports extensive business network in Italy. The company also aims to establish a direct link with customers in the local markets.
This acquisition is expected to enhance Bio-Technes presence and visibility in greater Europe by making its products highly exclusive in the market. Bio-Techne intends to meet the demand of its increasing clientele through the utilization of Space Import-Exports best-quality reagents and instrument solutions.
In the global scenario, data from Markets and Markets reveal that the molecular diagnostics market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 9.3% to $9,333.8 million by 2020. Notably, the reagent sector of the molecular diagnostic market has accounted for the largest share of market growth in 2015. We believe that this buyout can be highly accretive for the joint companies if such trends continue in the days ahead.
Notably, Bio-Techne boosted its M&A pipeline with the acquisition of Zephyrus Biosciences on May 21. We believe Bio-Techne would strengthen its position across geographies through these takeovers and also leverage its high-end resolutions in the emerging markets.
Key Peers
ANI Pharmaceuticals Inc ANIP, CytRx Corporation CYTR and Fibrocell Science Inc FCSC are top-performing stocks in the broader medical sector.
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July 6 (Reuters) - South African Paralympic gold medallist Oscar Pistorius was sent back to jail for six years on Wednesday for murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, less than half the 15 year minimum term sought by prosecutors. It was unclear whether the state, which has two weeks to appeal, would accept Wednesday's sentence. Pistorius' defence team said the athlete would be able to apply for parole after serving half to two-thirds of the sentence. Following is a timeline of Pistorius' life and murder trial: - Born on November 22, 1986 in Johannesburg. - Born without fibulas, Pistorius has both legs amputated below the knees before turning one. - After learning to walk on prosthetic legs, he becomes a keen sportsman in high school, turning to sprinting in 2003. - Running on carbon fibre prosthetic blades that earn him the nickname "Blade Runner", Pistorius becomes a Paralympic gold medallist over 200m in Athens in 2004. He wins three gold medals at the Paralympics in Beijing in 2008. - In what was hailed as a significant turning point for disabled athletes, Pistorius successfully wins the right to race against able-bodied runners at the London 2012 Olympics. - Pistorius reaches the pinnacle of his fame in London 2012 when he becomes the first double amputee to run in the Olympics, reaching the 400m semi-finals, before taking two golds in the Paralympics. - Pistorius is arrested and charged with murder on Valentine's Day, 2013 after firing four shots through a locked bathroom door at his luxury Pretoria home, killing Steenkamp, a law graduate and model, almost instantly. - Judge Thokozile Masipa convicts Pistorius of culpable homicide in September 2014 after a sensational seven-month trial. She also convicts him of firing a pistol under the table of a packed restaurant but clears him of illegal possession of ammunition and firing a pistol out of the sun-roof of a car. - Pistorius starts his five-year jail sentence on Oct 21, 2014. - Pistorius is released to house arrest on Oct. 19 2015 to serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest at his uncle Arnold's home in a wealthy suburb of the capital, Pretoria. - Supreme Court of Appeal overturns Masipa's ruling in December and finds Pistorius guilty of murder based on the legal principle of 'dolus eventualis', arguing he should have foreseen the possibility of killing someone when he fired the shots. - At sentencing hearings in June, Pistorius shuffles through court without his prosthetic legs to show the difficulty he faced dealing with the threat of an intruder. - Masipa sends Pistorius back to jail for six years for murdering Steenkamp, less than half the 15 year minimum term sought by prosecutors. (Editing by James Macharia and Ed Cropley)
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair looks on as President George W. Bush speaks at the White House in June 2005. (Photo: Jason Reed/Reuters/File)
Eight months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, British Prime Minister Tony Blair sent a note to President George W. Bush pledging his support for the war.
I will be with you, whatever, Blair wrote in the July 28, 2002, memo that was published Wednesday as part of a long-awaited report by the U.K. Iraq Inquiry Committee, led by Sir John Chilcot.
The exhaustive inquiry, a 2.6 million-word report seven years in the making, concluded that U.K. leaders chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament were exhausted. It also concluded that Blair backed Bush despite there being no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein and no concrete evidence Hussein had weapons of mass destruction to justify going to war.
It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments, Chilcot said at a press conference announcing the reports release. They were not challenged, and they should have been.
By the time most British troops had withdrawn from Iraq in 2009, 179 British had lost their lives.
"I will be with you, whatever"
Tony Blair's confidential Iraq memo to George W Bush https://t.co/lOjx5zrKSA (1/3) pic.twitter.com/plUrto92Q3 BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) July 6, 2016
The report, while damning, did not issue a recommendation over the legality of the U.K. militarys involvement in the Iraq War a point Blair highlighted in his response.
The report should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit, Blair said in a statement. Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein; I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country.
He said he took full responsibility for any mistakes, without exception or excuse, but added, I believe that it was better to remove Saddam Hussein.
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However, the report does make real and material criticisms of preparation, planning, process and of the relationship with the United States, Blair said. These are serious criticisms and they require serious answers.
The former prime minister addressed some of those criticisms later Wednesday.
The intelligence was wrong, Blair said. I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know.
Outside the conference center where the inquiry was published, more than 100 anti-war protesters lined up to demonstrate Wednesday afternoon. Blair lied, thousands died, some shouted, while others carried signs labeling Blair a war criminal.
Slideshow: The Chilcot report on Britains role in the Iraq war >>>
By Mark Hosenball LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote to U.S. President George W. Bush eight months before the 2003 Iraq war that he would support him "whatever", even as he outlined numerous reservations about a possible military operation. The contents of the July 28, 2002 note, originally classified "SECRET-PERSONAL", were revealed on Wednesday in the findings of a seven-year British inquiry into the conflict. In the very first sentence, Blair promised Bush: "I will be with you, whatever." The inquiry report quoted a top Blair aide as saying that he and another adviser had tried to get the prime minister to drop the sweeping promise. But the aide told the inquiry Blair ignored their recommendations. The note is significant in the light of persistent accusations by Blair's critics that he was a 'poodle' of Washington whose subservience caused him to lead Britain into a disastrous conflict. Blair denies this, and told the inquiry: "I could not and did not offer some kind of 'blank cheque' in how we accomplished our shared objectives." In the note to Bush, the British leader explained his concerns that ousting Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein could prove much harder than previous military interventions since the 1991 Gulf War. "This is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties," Blair said. "The planning on this and the strategy are the toughest yet. This is not Kosovo. This is not Afghanistan. It is not even the Gulf War. The military part of this is hazardous." Blair went on to suggest that the United States, with British support, could oust Saddam on its own, but wondered whether a broader coalition was needed. "The danger is, as ever with these things, unintended consequences. Suppose it got militarily tricky. Suppose Iraq suffered unexpected civilian casualties. Suppose the Arab street finally erupted.... "If we win quickly, everyone will be our friend. If we don't...recriminations will start fast." Blair added. His reservations were prescient: the war plunged Iraq into a sectarian conflict in which, by 2009, at least 150,000 people, mostly civilians, had been killed. Blair expressed his concern that neither the Germans, French and "probably not" the Italians or Spanish would support any military coalition to oust Saddam without explicit and specific United Nations authority, adding: "At the moment, our best ally might be Russia!" The inquiry report said the note "reflected Mr. Blair's own views" and that his proposals "had not been discussed or agreed with his colleagues." It said Sir David Manning, a senior policy adviser to Blair, confirmed to the inquiry that he had tried to get Blair to drop the first sentence pledging his loyalty "whatever" because it seemed to Manning to "close off options" and that this was "not a sensible place to be." Another Blair aide, Jonathan Powell, "agreed" that the promise should be dropped, "But the Prime Minister decided to leave it," Manning told the inquiry. The inquiry report published other Blair notes to Bush that chronicled his dawning realisation about the daunting challenges facing them as they tried to stabilise and rebuild Iraq after the invasion. Within a week of the launch of the war on March 20, 2003, Blair wrote to his ally in the White House: "This is the moment when you can define international priorities for the next generation: the true post-cold war world order." He said the fundamental goal was "to spread our values of freedom, democracy, tolerance and the rule of law". But by June 2, Blair's tone had changed sharply. "The task is absolutely awesome and Im not at all sure were geared for it. This is worse than re-building a country from scratch," he told Bush. "We start from a really backward position. In time, it can be sorted. But time counts against us ... My sense is: were going to get there but not quickly enough. And if it falls apart, everything falls apart in the region. (Additional reporting and editing by Mark Trevelyan)
London (AFP) - Former British prime minister Tony Blair defended his case for going to war in Iraq, after a long-awaited report found the 2003 invasion was based on flawed evidence and woefully executed.
The hugely anticipated Chilcot report offered a damning verdict on Britain's role in the US-led war, detailing the flawed intelligence, questionable legal basis and inadequate preparation for the occupation.
Britain deployed troops before diplomatic options had been exhausted and at a time when "there was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein", the Iraqi leader, the report found.
It also highlighted how Blair wrote to US president George W. Bush in July 2002, the year before the invasion, saying: "I will be with you, whatever."
Blair mounted a passionate defence of his decisions in a two-hour press conference, telling reporters: "I believe we made the right decision and the world is better and safer".
His voice cracking with emotion, Blair said he had "more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe" for mistakes in the planning of a war that deeply divided Britain.
Anti-war protesters rallied in London as the report was released, shouting: "Blair lied, thousands died" and "war criminal Tony Blair".
Newspaper front pages were scathing, with The Times describing it as "Blair's private war" and the Daily Mail calling the former prime minister: "A monster of delusion".
Some 150,000 Iraqi people were killed in the six years after British and American troops invaded, plunging the country into chaos and creating fertile ground for jihadist groups like the Islamic State.
- 'Empty talk' -
In Iraq, still wracked by violence and reeling from a suicide bomb that killed at least 250 people in Baghdad this week, the findings counted for little.
"The report... will not change anything -- all this is empty talk," said Zainab Hassan, aged 60.
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Former Australian leader John Howard Thursday defended his decision to go to war with Iraq alongside the US and Britain, saying it was justified at the time and there was "no lie."
"I believed that the decision to go into Iraq was justified at the time and I don't resile from that because I thought it was the right decision," he told a press conference in Sydney.
The war was justified at the time by claims that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, but they were never found and the intelligence was later withdrawn.
Inquiry chairman John Chilcot laid the blame for this firmly on spy chiefs, clearing Blair's officials of "improperly" influencing a key intelligence paper published in September 2002.
"There were no lies, parliament and cabinet were not misled, there was no secret commitment to war. The intelligence was not falsified and the decision was made in good faith," said Blair, who was prime minister for Labour from 1997 to 2007.
Bush also defended the invasion in a statement given through his spokesman, saying: "The whole world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power."
Relatives of some of the 179 British soldiers who died in Iraq said they would scrutinise the findings for possible grounds for legal action against Blair and other officials.
"The inquiry has confirmed all our fears that these young men and women were deployed on the back of a falsehood," said Roger Bacon, whose son Matthew, 34, died in 2005.
A cross-party group of MPs is also looking into the possibility of taking legal action against Blair, including in the International Criminal Court.
- 'A catastrophe' -
Judging the legality of the invasion was not in Chilcot's remit, but he said the process of deciding the legal basis for war was "far from satisfactory".
"We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort," he said.
Shortly after Blair spoke, current Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn -- a top figure in the anti-war campaign -- directly contradicted his predecessor Blair.
"The invasion and occupation of Iraq was a catastrophe," Corbyn told families of British soldiers who died.
"I now apologise sincerely on behalf of my party for the disastrous decision to go to war in Iraq."
The war, which at one point saw 46,000 British troops deployed, still looms large over British politics.
Britain's scarring experience in Iraq has made it deeply wary of committing ground troops to international military interventions in countries like Syria and Libya.
Retired civil servant Chilcot said his report was "an account of an intervention which went badly wrong, with consequences to this day".
In a statement to the House of Commons, Prime Minister David Cameron said: "We cannot turn the clock back but can ensure that lessons are learned and acted on".
Miami (AFP) - A blood test is being developed by US researchers that may indicate whether a person with stage 2 colon cancer is likely to see that cancer return after surgery, a study said Wednesday.
The test by scientists at Johns Hopkins University looks for tumor DNA circulating in the blood, according to the report in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Stage 2 colon cancer is considered an early form that has not spread to other tissues, and can most of the time be cured by surgically removing the tumor, according to Bert Vogelstein, co-director of the Ludwig Center at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.
But tumors can regrow in as many as 40 percent of patients, making it difficult for doctors to predict who would benefit from chemotherapy after surgery and who would not.
"Some of these cancers will recur, and we need to improve our diagnostic approaches to detect recurrence earlier than it can be found with current, conventional methods," he said.
The new genetic test was used on 230 Australian patients with stage 2 colon cancer.
More than 1,000 blood samples were collected from the patients over the course of four years, as doctors looked for bits of cancer-related DNA circulating in their blood.
Their tumors were also genetically tested, and researchers tracked each patient's cancer-related mutation in his or her blood samples in the months and years after surgery.
Just 20 of the 230 patients were found to have cancer-linked DNA fragments in their blood.
Fourteen of those patients had not opted for additional chemotherapy after surgery, and 11 of them developed a recurrence of cancer.
Of the six who showed cancer-linked DNA in the blood even though they had undergone chemotherapy, three saw their cancer return.
The test was far from foolproof.
Of the initial group of 230, another 14 patients saw their cancer return even though their blood tests had not showed any fragments of tumor-linked DNA.
"Although this and other DNA-based blood tests are not perfect, this study shows that when we find tumor DNA circulating in the blood of cancer patients, recurrence is very likely," said Nickolas Papadopoulos, professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
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With further research, scientists hope to improve on genetic-based blood tests to identify high-risk patients who could benefit from more aggressive cancer treatment.
"There is mounting evidence that circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is a viable approach for earlier detection of cancer recurrence, and more research is underway to refine the technology, improve its sensitivity and determine the best testing intervals," said Kenneth Kinzler, co-director of the Ludwig Center at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.
The US Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved any such DNA-based cancer blood tests for the market.
If and when they become available to consumers, the cost may range from hundreds to thousands of dollars, researchers said. It remains to be determined whether they would be covered by insurance.
Aside from their tousled hair, foul mouths, and inflated flamboyance, one might think theres little in common between the blue-blooded English intellectual Boris Johnson and the outer-borough-born erstwhile casino magnate Donald J. Trump. But theres one commonality in their upbringings that helps explain the common distortions in their personalities and politics their attendance of private boarding schools.
Boarding school is a vestige of English culture, and the United States and the United Kingdom are among the few nations in the world that still cultivate the practice. Elite boarding is a seamless part of these countries education systems, first choice of both established and aspirant classes, if they can afford tuition that runs into the tens of thousands of dollars or pounds per year. But other countries in Europe think of it as a remnant of imperial nostalgia, one that breeds gentlemen, as E. M. Forster said, with well-developed bodies, fairly developed minds, and undeveloped hearts.
They have a point. For nearly 30 years, I have studied the psychological damage inflicted on the children of the British elite by the hothousing of institutionalized boarding school life. Rather than loving parenting, these children are routinely exposed to bullying and fear. There is not a single contemporary theory of child development that supports educating young children in residential institutions, but the practice is so protected by habit and privilege that its obvious defects are almost always overlooked. Only now are an increasing number of psychology professionals revealing how boarding school survivors find normal life surprisingly challenging.
This background offers an important window into the political turmoil in Britain over the past several weeks. Brexit has confirmed a point made frequently by the master British novelist John le Carre: Betrayal can only happen among friends and those we love. Britains elite betrayed each other, and their countrys trust, because they themselves felt betrayed. It is a lifelong reaction to damage inflicted on them during childhood specifically, during their years spent in boarding schools.
Consider Johnson, who, having betrayed his Eton and Oxford chum David Cameron during the entirety of the referendum campaign, was knifed shortly after the votes were tallied, in turn, by his Brexit running mate, Michael Gove. It was impossible to entirely understand Johnsons actions prior to the Brexit vote without first appreciating the shock on his face in its immediate aftermath. It was clear he hadnt predicted winning the referendum, nor had he foreseen the hostile reception from the crowd gathered around his house as he emerged. And he didnt know how to handle either situation. And its precisely this helplessness that explains the irresponsibility of his actions.
Whereas Johnson was sent away at 11, Trump was sent to the New York Military Academy when he was 13, but the experience would have deeply formed him, nonetheless. In 2015, when challenged that he had been a bully at NYMA, Trump boasted his education had given him more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military. Brutal hazing and excessive competition are endemic in these kinds of schools, whose regimes were designed in a patriarchal past, and whenever children or young men are institutionalized, bullying and sexual abuse are inevitable. This may be a clue as to why Trump pushes such aggressive policies, from torture to mass deportation.
But by focusing on the dramatic, we may miss the more common underlying problems of privileged abandonment at boarding schools. Its worth considering the basic, psychological trauma faced by young Donalds and Borises.
Prematurely separated from home and family, from love and touch, boarding children are obliged to speedily reinvent themselves as self-reliant pseudo-adults think Trumps neurotic insistence that he is a self-made business genius, or the blustering reinvention of Nigel Farage, a stockbrokers son, as an anti-establishment man of the people. In rule-bound institutions with rigid timetables, children must also be ever alert to staying out of trouble. Crucially, they must not look unhappy, childish, or foolish in any way vulnerable or their peers will bully them. So they dissociate from all these qualities and project them out onto others, developing duplicitous personalities that are on the run which is why ex-boarders make the best spies.
With empathy and emotional intelligence not on the curriculum, survival, self-invention, and betrayal become second nature; entitlement becomes a compensation for loss. A false veneer of confidence the strategic survival personality endures long after school but belies an anxious core. This personality cannot afford to be wrong (think Fettes-educated Tony Blair) and needs others to carry their disowned vulnerability, which may be why, when these children ascend to politics, they easily indulge in targeting foreigners and migrants.
In my book Wounded Leaders, on the psychohistory of British elitism, I named elite residential education as the training grounds for developing a facility in duplicity, entitlement, and misogyny. I proposed developing a strategic survival personality to be terrible preparation not just for family life, but also for leadership. People who have never experienced genuine belonging will find it inconceivable to engage in communal politics like the EU; having disavowed vulnerability, how would ex-boarders understand the socially vulnerable? Ex-boarders mutual esprit de corps compensates for loss of family life but makes them suspicious of foreigners and liberals. Bullying becomes routine in adult life: Think institutions like the House of Commons, where members routinely and mercilessly turn on one another, with Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn being the latest example.
This is all backed by the latest neuroscientific evidence. Professor Stephen Porges, research professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has discovered that under conditions of great stress, people can shut down the entirety of their nervous system related to emotional experience and social expression in order to conserve energy, like a mouse playing dead. Facial muscles are then deprived of blood so we cant read facial signals or communicate facial gestures of our own.
Porges proposes that such states become chronic in survivors of traumatic childhoods or environments like boarding schools. Sufferers lose the ability to make correct assessments of danger, and the world is constantly framed as hostile. This explains one of the most common clinical problems reported by ex-boarders and their families: the inability to discern whether an approach is intimate, friendly, or hostile while defaulting to the latter assumption. Now add Porgess insights to what we already know from the work of professor Antonio Damasio on brain legion data: Humans need access to their emotions in order to make good judgments. The hyper-rational education on offer at the expense of emotional intelligence at traditional boarding schools now seems a recipe for disastrous leadership.
New research into the development of resilience broadens the picture. Along with independence of the mind, resilience is one of the attributes that elite boarding schools say they promote. But corporate psychologist Olya Khaleelee recently contacted me about her surprising research results after analyzing data from many years of testing senior executives for head-hunting recruitment. Using methods developed in Sweden to assess the stress management of air force pilots, she found that those who suffered separation shocks early in life had a tendency, when under pressure later on, to lose touch with emotional intelligence. This left them with an enhanced sensitivity to stress, lowered resilience, and a disability in making accurate judgments.
A significant portion of those interviewed had boarded as children: Fifty percent of nonboarders were able to stay in touch with their emotional intelligence under stress, compared with 33 percent of ex-boarders, who were severely limited in their ability to differentiate and assess risk. In an article for the journal Organisational and Social Dynamics, Khaleelee wondered if this could explain what happened to Cameron who, in supporting a referendum, failed to distinguish between the splits in his party and those in the country.
What are the implications of all this for Britons and Americans and for a possible Trump presidency?
To start, I suggest that those of my own profession, with knowledge of psychological processes, come out of our precious consulting rooms to help political commentators identify dangerously grandiose and emotionally illiterate leaders. An informed media could better spot the dissociation of vulnerability, projection, and bullying that often lies behind populist politics and which typically encourages people to vote against their own best interests. And crucially, we must listen, and respond, to the fears of those who are the losers under globalization so that the wounded leaders who emerge from our elite schooling systems are less able to take advantage of them.
Brexit has showed that democracy can bring on disaster when citizens are led by elites who are driven less by their sense of responsibility than their own childhood traumas. Now the world can only count on Americans not to allow a similar mistake to befall them.
Photo credit: Christopher FURLONG/Getty Images; Gerardo MORA/Getty Images; Justin TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images; Foreign Policy illustration.
ROME (Reuters) - The bodies of nine Italians killed by Islamist militants who stormed an upmarket restaurant in the Bangladeshi capital last week were brought to Rome in a military plane on Tuesday. Most of the 20 victims of the attack, which started late on Friday night, were foreigners - from Japan, India and the United States as well as Italy. Italian President Sergio Mattarella cut short a visit to Latin America after the attack and returned to Rome, where he waited for the arrival of the plane with Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni. Nine coffins, draped in the Italian flag, were lowered from the plane and white-robed priests sprinkled them with Catholic holy water as the victims' families looked on. The Holey Artisan restaurant in Dhaka where the attack took place is popular with foreigners, and investigators in Rome are looking into whether Italians were specifically targeted, a judicial source said. Autopsies will be carried out on the Italian victims. (Reporting by Cristiano Corvino, writing by Isla Binnie; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
The Americas Got Talent auditions came to an end Tuesday night and one of the last acts to move on to the next round was RL Bell. The 50-year-old massage therapist surprised the judges with his silky smooth voice as he sang Billy Pauls hit, Me and Mrs. Jones. Not only did RL Bell have a strong set of pipes, he had a strong everything else since he used to be a bodybuilder. In the middle of the song Bell took off his jacket, revealing his massive biceps. Even though RL was clearly talented, the judges had mixed feelings about whether or not to send him to the next round. Heidi Klum and Mel B. both really liked the bodybuilding massage therapist, but Simon Cowell and Howie Mandel thought his mini-striptease was too much. Ultimately, Simon thought there was enough potential in Bells voice that he gave him a third yes, which sent him on to the next round.
By Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi and Allison Lampert
ZURICH/MONTREAL July 6 (Reuters) - Canada's Bombardier Inc is under less pressure to ink new orders for its CSeries jet at a major European air show next week after receiving orders from Delta Air Lines and Air Canada , a senior executive said on Wednesday.
Those two deals for a combined 120 narrowbody planes enabled Bombardier to surpass its own target of 300 CSeries orders by the smaller CS100's entry into service this month. By contrast, the company announced no orders for the jet at the Paris air show in June of last year.
Bombardier executives will be attending Britain's Farnborough air show next week, where planemakers regularly publicize new orders.
"There was a lot of pressure from the industry looking at this program, because early in the program there was a milestone of 300 firm orders," Bombardier Commercial Aircraft President Fred Cromer said in an interview in Zurich. "We have surpassed that number, so from that standpoint the pressure's off."
After securing deals with the two legacy carriers, Cromer said Bombardier would now like an order for the fuel-efficient CSeries from a low-cost airline "to really demonstrate the versatility of the aircraft."
Bombardier has held sales talks with other carriers including Ethiopian Airlines.
Separately, the planemaker could announce certification of the 130-seat CS300 jet for use in commercial flights at Farnborough, though the final decision remains in the hands of Transport Canada, according to one source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The CS300 should be certified "soon," a company spokeswoman said, but declined to specify whether it would be announced at Farnborough.
Bombardier executives, who recently reached a $1 billion investment deal with the province of Quebec for a stake in the CSeries, will also meet with Canada's Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains in Farnborough.
The company and federal government are in talks for a $1 billion federal injection in the plane program. But the Canadian government has expressed concerns about Bombardier's dual-class share structure that gives majority voting control to the founding Bombardier-Beaudoin family.
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The UK meeting is not expected to lead to a breakthrough in the negotiations which have stalled, according to a separate source familiar with the talks, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of negotiations.
Bombardier could not immediately be reached to comment on the status of talks.
(Additional reporting by Tim Hepher in Paris and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by James Dalgleish)
(Adds comment from Bombardier on federal talks)
By Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi and Allison Lampert
ZURICH/MONTREAL, July 6 (Reuters) - Canada's Bombardier Inc is under less pressure to ink new orders for its CSeries jet at a major European air show next week after receiving orders from Delta Air Lines and Air Canada , a senior executive said on Wednesday.
: Those two deals for a combined 120 narrowbody planes enabled Bombardier to surpass its own target of 300 CSERIES orders by the time the new jet enters service this month. At the Paris air show in June last year, the company announced no orders for the CSeries.
Bombardier executives will be attending Britain's Farnborough air show next week, where planemakers regularly publicize new orders.
"There was a lot of pressure from the industry looking at this program, because early in the program there was a milestone of 300 firm orders," Fred Cromer, president of Bombardier Commercial Aircraft, said in an interview in Zurich. "We have surpassed that number, so from that standpoint the pressure's off."
After securing deals with Delta and Air Canada, Cromer said Bombardier would now like an order for the fuel-efficient CSeries from a low-cost airline "to really demonstrate the versatility of the aircraft."
Bombardier has held sales talks with other carriers including Ethiopian Airlines.
Separately, the planemaker could announce certification of the 130-seat CS300 jet for use in commercial flights at Farnborough, though the final decision remains in the hands of Transport Canada, according to one source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The CS300 should be certified "soon," a company spokeswoman said, but did not specify when it would be announced.
Bombardier executives, who recently reached a $1 billion investment deal with the province of Quebec for a stake in the CSeries, will also meet with Canada's innovation minister, Navdeep Bains, in Farnborough.
The company and federal government are in talks for a $1 billion federal injection in the plane program. But the Canadian government has expressed concerns about Bombardier's dual-class share structure that gives majority voting control to the founding Bombardier-Beaudoin family.
Story continues
The U.K. meeting is not expected to lead to a breakthrough in the negotiations that have stalled, according to a separate source familiar with the talks, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.
A spokeswoman for Bombardier said Wednesday that the company was in "ongoing" discussion with the federal government.
(Additional reporting by Tim Hepher in Paris and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by James Dalgleish and Leslie Adler)
By Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi and Allison Lampert ZURICH/MONTREAL (Reuters) - Canada's Bombardier Inc is under less pressure to ink new orders for its CSeries jet at a major European air show next week after receiving orders from Delta Air Lines and Air Canada , a senior executive said on Wednesday. : Those two deals for a combined 120 narrow body planes enabled Bombardier to surpass its own target of 300 CSERIES orders by the time the new jet enters service this month. At the Paris air show in June last year, the company announced no orders for the CSeries. Bombardier executives will be attending Britain's Farnborough air show next week, where plane makers regularly publicize new orders. "There was a lot of pressure from the industry looking at this program, because early in the program there was a milestone of 300 firm orders," Fred Cromer, president of Bombardier Commercial Aircraft, said in an interview in Zurich. "We have surpassed that number, so from that standpoint the pressure's off." After securing deals with Delta and Air Canada, Cromer said Bombardier would now like an order for the fuel-efficient CSeries from a low-cost airline "to really demonstrate the versatility of the aircraft." Bombardier has held sales talks with other carriers including Ethiopian Airlines. Separately, the planemaker could announce certification of the 130-seat CS300 jet for use in commercial flights at Farnborough, though the final decision remains in the hands of Transport Canada, according to one source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The CS300 should be certified "soon," a company spokeswoman said, but did not specify when it would be announced. Bombardier executives, who recently reached a $1 billion investment deal with the province of Quebec for a stake in the CSeries, will also meet with Canada's innovation minister, Navdeep Bains, in Farnborough. The company and federal government are in talks for a $1 billion federal injection in the plane program. But the Canadian government has expressed concerns about Bombardier's dual-class share structure that gives majority voting control to the founding Bombardier-Beaudoin family. The U.K. meeting is not expected to lead to a breakthrough in the negotiations that have stalled, according to a separate source familiar with the talks, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the negotiations. A spokeswoman for Bombardier said Wednesday that the company was in "ongoing" discussion with the federal government. (Additional reporting by Tim Hepher in Paris and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by James Dalgleish and Leslie Adler)
* Prosecutors found evidence of $60 mln in bribes
* Former nuclear chief Pinheiro arrested
* Eletrobras nuclear unit CEO forced to give up post (Adds Pinheiro arrest, size of bribery allegations, Brazil nuclear detail, changes dateline)
By Jeb Blount
RIO DE JANEIRO, July 6 (Reuters) - Brazilian police arrested 19 people on Wednesday as part of a probe into a graft scheme at a nuclear power plant owned by state-led utility Eletrobras that has allegedly paid out more than 200 million reais ($60 million) in bribes.
The alleged bribes were paid to senior executives of Eletronuclear, the nuclear power unit of Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA, as Eletrobras is formally known, federal prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro said.
In return, executives allegedly let construction companies such as Andrade Guitierrez inflate the cost of the 17.7 billion real ($5.3 billion) Angra 3 nuclear reactor 100 kilometers west of Rio de Janeiro, kicking back part of their take to politicians and political parties.
The arrests expands the giant, two-year-old Operation Car Wash probe of price-fixing, bribery and political kickbacks at state-led oil company Petrobras. The resulting scandal has spread to other state-run enterprises such as Eletrobras and hobbled investment in oil and energy projects.
It has also led to dozens of convictions for bribery and money laundering, the investigation of dozens of top politicians, and probes and civil lawsuits in the United States and Europe.
Eletrobras had its shares suspended from trading on the New York stock exchange because of the scandal and wrote off 4.97 billion reais for Angra 3 in its 2015 accounts.
In statements, Eletrobras said it is aware of the probe and Andrade Guitierrez said it is cooperating with authorities. Both companies have aided the Car Wash probe in the past.
Construction of the 1,405 megawatt Angra 3 reactor, the third at the site, has dragged on for three decades. Completion, scheduled for 2017 is unlikely until 2023 said Rio energy consultancy PSR on Wednesday.
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Work stopped again late last year after Andrade Guitierrez, Odebrecht, Queiroz Galvao and other contractors pulled out of the project.
People arrested on Tuesday include former Eletronuclear chief executive Othon Luiz Pinheiro da Silva, a retired admiral who was already under house arrest and facing related bribery charges.
Police and prosecutors declined to name others arrested but said they are targeting senior executives of Eletronuclear companies involved the alleged bribery scheme.
In addition to Pinheiro, six of the 19 arrested were put in preventative custody, prosecutors said. Three more were jailed on temporary warrants and nine were picked for questioning.
Eletronuclear CEO, Pedro Jose Diniz Figueireido was removed from office by court order on Wednesday for allegedly interfering in an internal investigation to help Pinheiro, prosecutors said. ($1 = 3.3315 Brazilian reais) (Reporting by Jeb Blount and Silvio Cascione)
By Jeb Blount RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian police arrested 19 people on Wednesday as part of a probe into a graft scheme at a nuclear power plant owned by state-led utility Eletrobras that has allegedly paid out more than 200 million reais ($60 million) in bribes. The alleged bribes were paid to senior executives of Eletronuclear, the nuclear power unit of Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA, as Eletrobras is formally known, federal prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro said. In return, executives allegedly let construction companies such as Andrade Guitierrez inflate the cost of the 17.7 billion real ($5.3 billion) Angra 3 nuclear reactor 100 kilometers west of Rio de Janeiro, kicking back part of their take to politicians and political parties. The arrests expands the giant, two-year-old Operation Car Wash probe of price-fixing, bribery and political kickbacks at state-led oil company Petrobras. The resulting scandal has spread to other state-run enterprises such as Eletrobras and hobbled investment in oil and energy projects. It has also led to dozens of convictions for bribery and money laundering, the investigation of dozens of top politicians, and probes and civil lawsuits in the United States and Europe. Eletrobras had its shares suspended from trading on the New York stock exchange because of the scandal and wrote off 4.97 billion reais for Angra 3 in its 2015 accounts. In statements, Eletrobras said it is aware of the probe and Andrade Guitierrez said it is cooperating with authorities. Both companies have aided the Car Wash probe in the past. Construction of the 1,405 megawatt Angra 3 reactor, the third at the site, has dragged on for three decades. Completion, scheduled for 2017 is unlikely until 2023 said Rio energy consultancy PSR on Wednesday. Work stopped again late last year after Andrade Guitierrez, Odebrecht, Queiroz Galvao and other contractors pulled out of the project. People arrested on Tuesday include former Eletronuclear chief executive Othon Luiz Pinheiro da Silva, a retired admiral who was already under house arrest and facing related bribery charges. Police and prosecutors declined to name others arrested but said they are targeting senior executives of Eletronuclear companies involved the alleged bribery scheme. In addition to Pinheiro, six of the 19 arrested were put in preventative custody, prosecutors said. Three more were jailed on temporary warrants and nine were picked for questioning. Eletronuclear CEO, Pedro Jose Diniz Figueireido was removed from office by court order on Wednesday for allegedly interfering in an internal investigation to help Pinheiro, prosecutors said. ($1 = 3.3315 Brazilian reais) (Reporting by Jeb Blount and Silvio Cascione)
Brasilia (AFP) - Brazil's suspended president Dilma Rousseff rejected attempts to impeach her as an "injustice" in a defense filing Wednesday, as a decision on her political fate moved a step closer.
The affair has rocked Latin America's biggest nation as it struggles with a recession and corruption scandals ahead of next month's Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
In a written defense statement to a Senate impeachment committee, the 68-year-old leftist leader denied she had breached the constitution by fiddling government accounts.
She recalled her past as a leftist dissident under Brazil's dictatorship in the 1970s, when she was tortured, and more recently, her battle to overcome cancer.
"What hurts most at this moment is the injustice," said her statement, read out by her lawyer Eduardo Cardozo.
"What hurts most is seeing that I am being made a victim of a judicial and political farce," it added.
"I was not responsible for committing any crime," the statement said. "I never diverted a single cent of public money for my personal gain or for that of third parties."
- Impeachment timetable -
The full Senate is due to hear the commission's non-binding verdict on August 4.
Brazil hosts the Olympic Games from August 5 to 21.
The Senate will then vote in a plenary session between August 25 and 27 on whether to remove Rousseff from office for good by impeaching her.
At that point Rousseff will have the opportunity to appear in person to defend herself.
That would be her last chance to try to swing a few crucial Senate votes in her favor, though analysts are judging it unlikely she will escape impeachment.
Rousseff has denounced the impeachment drive as a coup.
She declined to appear in person to defend herself on Wednesday before the 21-member commission, which is dominated by her political rivals.
"The cards are marked in this game and we advised the president not to come and endorse this coup, and that she only attend the plenary," said Lindbergh Farias, a senator from Rousseff's Workers' Party.
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- Corruption scandal -
If two-thirds of the full Senate eventually vote to impeach Rousseff, she will be immediately removed from office.
"The issue is already settled. The crimes were committed and have been proven," opposition senator Cassio Cunha Lima told AFP on Wednesday.
He estimated that 59 Senators would ultimately vote to impeach Rousseff -- just four more than the majority needed.
Rousseff was suspended from office in May after lawmakers voted to hold an impeachment trial over allegations that she fiddled government accounts while running for re-election.
Her former vice president turned rival, Michel Temer, has replaced Rousseff as acting head of state. Several of his ministers have already stepped down over separate corruption allegations.
Unless fresh elections are held, Temer will expect to serve as president until the end of Rousseff's term in 2018.
Brazil is suffering a deep recession and numerous politicians are implicated in a separate corruption probe centering on state oil firm Petrobras.
Among those caught up in that probe is Rousseff's predecessor and ally Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
He returned to the headlines on Tuesday when his lawyers called in a statement for the case against him to be handed to a different judge.
They accused investigating judge Sergio Moro of "abuse of authority," alleging he had "lost his impartiality" in the politically explosive case.
Moro has been criticized over the leaking of a recorded conversation between Lula and Rousseff.
FRANKFURT/LONDON, July 6 (Reuters) - The planned stock market listing of UK auto parts supplier TI Automotive, a potential 3 billion euro ($3.3 billion) deal, is facing a delay due to volatility triggered by Britain's vote to leave the European Union, people familiar with the matter said.
Bain Capital, which owns the maker of fuel tanks, pipes and pumps for cars and trucks, picked Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs to organise an initial public offering, the sources said.
The banks were mandated several weeks before the June 23 vote with a view to floating the company as early as the end of the year, but that has now become unlikely, they said.
"They would like to see things calm down a little now," one of the sources said.
Bain and the banks declined to comment.
Brexit has triggered a slide in stock markets and equity capital markets and bankers expect a listings freeze as a result.
In a sign of how European companies seeking to float are facing difficulties, Italian air traffic controller ENAV is delaying its listing, sources familiar with that deal have said.
"For any British company wanting to float, it may prove very difficult to pull it off in 2016," a capital markets banker said.
TI Automotive, headquartered in Oxford but with its corporate offices in Auburn Hills in Michigan, could also be floated in the United States and may be valued at 3 billion euros including debt, one of the sources said, adding that no decision has been taken yet.
While an IPO is seen as Bain's favoured exit route, TI, which supplies all of the world's major automakers, may also attract offers from peers or private equity groups, one of the sources said.
When Bain bought TI Automotive in late 2013 for about $2.4 billion including debt, buyout groups Carlyle and Pamplona were runner-ups in the auction.
TI Automotive may also appeal to peers like Chinese Yapp Automotive Systems, while European groups such as Plastic Omnium or Hutchinson are not expected to bid, the source said.
TI Automotive, which has 23,000 employees at 130 locations worldwide, and U.S. rival Cooper-Standard are the world's two largest suppliers of systems that control, sense and deliver fluids and vapours in vehicles.
(Reporting by Arno Schuetze, Freya Berry and Greg Roumeliotis; editing by Susan Thomas)
By Michelle Chen and Michelle Price
HONG KONG (Reuters) - London's role as a major offshore yuan hub is likely to survive Britain's decision to leave the European Union, but the vote could help foster the Chinese currency's internationalisation by encouraging multiple yuan hubs in the bloc.
In the aftermath of the referendum, market-watchers and domestic Chinese media had raised fears London's leading role as an offshore yuan hub would be undermined, potentially setting back Beijing's efforts to internationalise the yuan. [nL4N19G427]
But as the dust begins to settle, some bankers and analysts believe the pessimism was overdone. That is not to say there will not be an impact, but the move may encourage China to foster yuan trading in cities in mainland Europe and so expand the currency's global footprint.
"We expect London to keep its status as the world's largest foreign exchange centre though some of the city's other financial services may have the risk to be moved to other countries following Brexit," said Andrew Fung, head of global banking and markets at Hang Seng Bank, adding FX trading is currently the key part of the yuan's internationalisation.
Brexit comes at a difficult time. China is pushing to increase international use of the yuan ahead of inclusion in the International Monetary Fund's Special Drawing Rights basket in October, while also trying to control capital outflows. [nL3N14W441]
London has played an important role in the internationalisation of the yuan, which is also known as the renminbi (RMB). It was the world's second-largest offshore clearing centre for the currency in March, payments operator SWIFT said. [nL3N17V1LB]
PASSPORTING RIGHTS
Over the past five years, the big Chinese banks have established extensive yuan trading and clearing infrastructure in London and the first Chinese sovereign yuan bond issued outside China was listed in the city, in June.
In 2016 alone, more than 50 yuan-denominated bonds were listed in London, higher than in any other financial centre outside Greater China, according to the London Stock Exchange Group.
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"As the key ex-Asia RMB hub, with infrastructure laid and already in use, flows will not dry up. London is ahead of other designated hubs in the EU bloc by some margin," Shanghai-based Z-Ben Advisors said in a client note.
One concern is Britain could lose crucial financial services "passporting" rights, which allow UK-licensed firms to distribute financial products and services across the EU, said Andrew McGinty, partner at Hogan Lovells in Shanghai.
"If UK financial institutions lose EU passporting rights and RMB-denominated products can't be sold cross-border in the EU without fresh approvals, will that have an impact on China's willingness to continue to position the UK as its leading offshore international RMB financial centre?"
Many business leaders believe it is unlikely the UK would lose these rights entirely.
Britain's long-established international investor base, which makes London attractive to China as an offshore hub, would be central to UK-EU negotiations, Brian Schwieger, head of equities at the LSE Group told Reuters last week.
"The close relationship between London and China is a key example why operating as a financial hub is so important to the UK and EU economy," he said.
POSSIBLE BOOST?
Still, Brexit could prompt Beijing to hedge its bets and foster more offshore yuan hubs across the EU, analysts said.
"Frankfurt, Paris and Zurich are all very active in offshore yuan business," said Ngan Kim Man, deputy head of treasury at China Everbright Bank's Hong Kong branch.
Germany's Deutsche Boerse Group has agreed to create a joint venture exchange operator with the Shanghai bourse, in what many saw as a major coup for Frankfurt.
Hang Seng's Fung echoed that Paris and Frankfurt had an advantage, adding that Dublin was also in a strong position. Dublin is a low-tax base, Paris has good financial infrastructure and the European Central Bank is located in Frankfurt, he said.
"Brexit may not be a bad thing to China's global yuan plans, and it may create new space for the internationalisation," said Raymond Yeung, a senior economist at ANZ in Hong Kong.
In addition, the fall of asset prices in the UK may encourage Chinese banks and companies to make more investment there, not less, he said.
(Reporting by Michelle Price and Michelle Chen; Editing by Neil Fullick)
During an MSNBC broadcast, Brian Williams compared a President Obama speech to highly lauded and controversial late comedian Richard Pryor, sparking outcry on social media, many calling the comment racist.
Williams, who was suspended from Nightly News duties last year for misrepresenting anecdotes from his coverage during the Iraq War in 2003, took aim at Obamas speech during his campaign appearance with Hillary Clinton.
The president was being urged by one member of the crowd to preach, said Williams during the broadcast. He seemingly tried to at one point borrowing almost a Richard Pryor delivery to deliver the degree of his disgust and disdain for the other side, the comments clearly aimed at Donald Trump.
Twitter exploded with outraged viewers who called the statement racist and labeled Williams as a bigot. One person said he proves his white privilege and ineptness with the recent comments, and others accused him of disrespecting President Obama.
Williams is no stranger to controversy. Along with his 6-month suspension, hes been called out for several inconsistencies in the past.
Williams moved to MSNBC after he was let go from NBC following his suspension. MSNBC did not immediately respond to Varietys request for comment on Tuesday.
Brian Williams refers to Richard Prior while summarizing Prez Obama's wrap up proves his white privilege and ineptness. Rick Jenkins (@Rickiejay) July 5, 2016
I actually supported Brian Williams when he was caught lying, felt his suspension was unfair, until he decided to disrespect @POTUS Corey B. King (@coreybking) July 5, 2016
Dont be surprised Brian Williams said Obama gave "Richard Pryor" delivery He now works for rightwing @msnbc he's supposed to be racist Jon In Seattle (@JonInSeattle1) July 5, 2016
I bet @lesterholtnbc would never say @potus had the delivery of Richard Pryor (Brian Williams) or was too good at what he does (Chuck Todd). I'm That Type Of Guy (@Marrrrcussss) July 5, 2016
Brian Williams said the Obama's speech was the "Richard Pryor delivery". Chuck Todd asked if Obama was too good at this. MSNBC is a toilet. Jake Dawson (@jdny2) July 5, 2016
Brian Williams just called Obama's speech the "Richard Pryor delivery." wow. Samuel Sinyangwe (@samswey) July 5, 2016
OK now this just too mush! Brian Williams like who tha hell you think you are? #OMMFGDWAWSOS Sammy Davis, IV (@FiscalSammy) July 5, 2016
@xianb8 @Meka_luvs_music Brian Williams is a joke and so white he doesn't even realize how racist that sounded maraleia (@maraleia) July 5, 2016
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On a day when FBI Director James Comeys sharp criticism of Hillary Clintons handling of emails while at the State Department handed Donald Trump a prime opportunity to question her qualifications as commander in chief, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee instead leapt at the chance to praise Saddam Hussein.
You know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good, Trump said at a Tuesday night stop in North Carolina. They didnt read em the rights, they didnt talk. They were a terrorist, it was over.
Never mind the fact that Hussein actually offered reward money to families of terrorists who conducted suicide bombings, or that while Washington supported Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, Baghdad was listed by the American government as a state sponsor of terrorism. In fact, as the Associated Press pointed out, while theres no clear evidence that Hussein killed terrorists so good, he did have a lengthy record of killing civilians, including gassing 5,000 Iraqi Kurdish men, women, and children.
Trumps comments Tuesday came as some surprise to observers, as the New York businessman is supposed to be professionalizing his campaign and staying on message just weeks ahead of his official nomination at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
Even seemingly potential running mates are running for the hills. At the Tuesday rally in North Carolina, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, (R-Tenn.) introduced Trump in something of a tryout for the number-two spot on the ticket. On Wednesday, he said hes taken his name out of the running.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, wholl preside over the convention, once again found himself in the position of repudiating Trumps remarks.
He was one the 20th centurys most evil people, Ryan said of Hussein in a Fox News interview Tuesday night. He was up there. He committed mass genocide against his own people using chemical weapons.
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But Trumps latest remarks were far from the first time hes expressed admiration for the brutal strongman who ruled Iraq as president for decades before being overthrown after the U.S. invasion in 2003 or for a host of other strongmen, for that matter. Hes praised North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, sanctioned for human rights abuses by the U.S. government for the first time on Wednesday; Russian President Vladimir Putin, who the U.S. is pushing to help negotiate a political resolution to the Syrian civil war; and Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi, killed in the wake of an international coalitions intervention there.
Yet Trump, too, was one of many initially rattling sabers against Hussein. Since the United States had decided to go in, you have to take down Saddam Hussein, he said in 2003 after the dictators capture, calling it a huge day for this country.
Still, hes since said that while he was a bad guy, he should never have been overthrown. The real estate magnate claims he predicted the instability that would follow in his wake and later give rise to the Islamic State.
So here, for Foreign Policy readers viewing pleasure, a brief and not comprehensive history of Trumps decade-plus rhetorical love affair with the man who was one of the Middle Easts most brutal leaders:
He killed terrorists. He would shoot terrorists in the street. There were no terrorists.
Oct. 9, 2006 appearance on Larry King Live, CNN
They had very few terrorists, because he didnt want terrorists in Iraq, and he killed terrorists.
Oct. 15, 2008, Situation Room, CNN
Its not even a contest.
Oct. 4 Meet the Press appearance, asked whether the Middle East would be better off without Hussein and Qaddafi
Iraq used to be no terrorists. He would kill the terrorists immediately. It was like now its the Harvard of terrorism, Iraq. If you look at Iraq from years ago Im not saying [Hussein] was a nice guy. He was a horrible guy, but it was a lot better than it is right now.
Oct. 25 CNN State of the Union appearance
Hussein throws a little gas, everyone goes crazy, oh, hes using gas. They go back, forth, its the same. And they were stabilized. And I said if you go after one or the other in this case Iraq youre going to destabilize the Middle East, thats whats going to happen.
Dec. 30 South Carolina campaign rally, referring to the Iraq-Iran war
Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, but the one thing about him: he killed terrorists.
Feb. 15 press conference in South Carolina
If these politicians went to the beach and didnt do a thing, and we had Saddam Hussein and if we had Qaddafi in charge, instead of having terrorism all over the place, wed be at least they killed terrorists, all right?
And Im not saying they were good because they were bad, they were really bad, but we dont know what were getting. You look at Libya right now, ISIS, as we speak, is taking over their oil. As we speak, its a total mess.
We would have been better off if the politicians took a day off instead of going into war.
Feb. 25 Republican presidential debate in Houston
Photo credit: Gilles BASSIGNAC / Contributor
LONDON Britains decision to go to war in Iraq was a failure born of flawed intelligence, lack of foresight and wholly inadequate planning, an official inquiry concluded Wednesday in a report seven years in the making.
Retired civil servant John Chilcot, who oversaw the inquiry, said the U.K. chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort.
The 2.6-million-word report is an exhaustive verdict on a divisive conflict that by the time British combat forces left in 2009 had killed 179 British troops, almost 4,500 American personnel and more than 100,000 Iraqis.
It continues to divide Britain and overshadows the legacy of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair. As Chilcot introduced his report at a London conference center on Wednesday, dozens of anti-war protesters with placards reading Bliar rallied outside.
For families of British troops who died in the conflict, the long litany of mistakes by Blair and others provides some vindication of their struggle to hold the wars planners to account.
But it did not declare the conflict illegal, which might have opened the way for Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes.
Chilcot refrained from saying whether the 2003 invasion was legal and didnt accuse Blair of deliberately misleading the public or Parliament. But he said that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for U.K. military action were far from satisfactory.
For Iraqis, it was little comfort. They continue to live with violence, including a massive weekend bombing in Baghdad claimed by the Islamic State group that killed more than 175 people.
Since 2003 until now, our country has been a scene of destruction, killing, massacres, explosions and sectarianism, Baghdad resident Ali al-Saraji said.
He said that Blair destroyed our country and should be prosecuted as a war criminal.
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An emotional Blair told a news conference that going to war in Iraq was the hardest, most momentous, most agonizing decision I took in my 10 years as British prime minister.
He said that I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know, or can believe, for all the things that went wrong. But, he added: I took this decision because I believed that it was the right thing to do.
Chilcot said the people of Iraq have suffered greatly because of a military intervention which went badly wrong.
The report said Blairs government presented an assessment of the threat posed by Saddam Husseins weapons with certainty that was not justified. The inquiry also found military planning for the war and its aftermath were not up to the task.
Relatives of soldiers killed in the conflict said they hadnt ruled out legal action.
All options are open, said Matthew Jury, a lawyer for some of the families.
In a statement, a group of families said we must use this report to make sure all parts of the Iraq fiasco are never repeated again.
Never again must so many mistakes be allowed to sacrifice British lives and lead to the destruction of a country for no positive end, they said.
The inquiry was set up after U.K. combat troops left Iraq in 2009 by then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was under pressure for a public accounting of the deeply unpopular conflict.
Chilcot and his panel heard from 150 witnesses and analyzed 150,000 documents. His conclusions are a blow to Blair, who told President George W. Bush eight months before the March 2003 invasion without consulting government colleagues I will be with you whatever.
The report says Blair went to war to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Britains main ally, only to find the U.K. excluded from most important decision-making about the military campaign and its aftermath.
Mr. Blair, who recognized the significance of the post-conflict phase, did not press President Bush for definite assurances about U.S. plans, the report concluded.
And it said that after the invasion, Britain had only limited ability to influence U.S. decision-making.
Iraq descended into sectarian strife after the occupiers dismantled Saddam s government and military apparatus, unleashing chaos that helped give rise to the Islamic State group.
Jack Straw, Britains foreign secretary at the time, blamed the U.S. for that, saying actions by U.S. administration officials blindsided the British government.
The report found failings by military chiefs who did not provide adequate equipment to forces in the field, and whose main post-invasion strategy was to reduce the level of (U.K.) deployed forces.
The report concludes that Britains combat mission, which ended in 2009, did not achieve the objectives laid out in 2003 and saw British forces make a humiliating deal with militias in southern Iraq to avoid attacks.
The U.K. failed to plan or prepare for the major reconstruction program required in Iraq, the report said.
The war has overshadowed the legacy of Blair, whose government has been accused of exaggerating intelligence about Saddams alleged weapons of mass destruction in order to build support for the invasion.
Chilcot criticized spy chiefs who failed to ensure their partial intelligence about Saddams weapons was not hardened into certainty by government spin. He said they also failed to consider that Iraq might no longer have chemical biological or nuclear weapons which turned out to be the case.
The report said the widespread perception that the government had exaggerated intelligence evidence has produced a damaging legacy, including undermining trust and confidence in government statements.
The report also faults Blair for making key decisions with only a few key aides rather than through collective Cabinet consultation.
Chilcots report has been repeatedly delayed, in part by wrangling over the inclusion of classified material, including conversations between Blair and Bush. Some of Blairs pre-war letters to the president are published in Chilcots report, but not Bushs replies.
It remains unclear what, if any, legal action could be taken against Blair or others.
The International Criminal Court is looking into alleged war crimes by British troops in Iraq, but says has said that Britains decision to go to war falls outside its jurisdiction.
Sarah OConnor, whose airman brother died in a plane crash in Iraq in 2005, said the war remained an indelible stain on the whole world.
There is one terrorist in the world that the world needs to be aware of, and his name is Tony Blair, she said.
___
Associated Press writers Danica Kirka in London, and Mohammed Kaftan in Baghdad, contributed to this story.
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain needs a more open and independent relationship with the United States to avoid a repeat of the 2003 invasion of Iraq which was an "act of military aggression", opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Wednesday. Corbyn, a veteran anti-war campaigner who opposed the conflict at the time, was speaking in parliament during a debate on Britain's joining the 2003 invasion following the publication of the long-awaited Chilcot report into the war. "The war was not, in any way, as Sir John Chilcot says, a last resort," Corbyn said. "Frankly it was an act of military aggression launched on a false pretext, as the inquiry accepts, and has long been regarded as illegal by the overwhelming weight of international legal opinion." He added: "There are many lessons that need to be drawn from the Iraq war ... They include the need for a more open and independent relationship with the United States and for a foreign policy based on upholding international law and the authority of the United Nations." (Reporting by Elizabeth Piper and Kylie MacLellan; writing by Kate Holton; editing by Stephen Addison)
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's business minister Sajid Javid said the government should cut corporate and personal taxes to soften the blow from an expected slowdown after Britain's vote to leave the European Union. Javid told the Financial Times the government needed to switch its focus from reducing the deficit to stimulating economic growth by introducing unfunded tax cuts to boost research and investment for companies. Confidence in Britain's economy has been rocked by the decision by voters to leave the world's largest trading bloc on June 23. The pound is trading at 31-year lows and the Bank of England has warned that the financial risks it highlighted ahead of the vote were starting to crystallise. Finance minister George Osborne has said he plans to cut Britain's corporation tax to below 15 percent and has also dropped his aim of turning Britain's budget deficit into a surplus by 2020. Javid backed Osborne's softer approach to fixing the public finances. He told the FT it was hard to predict what would happen to the deficit. "Does it mean 3 percent becomes 4 percent or 5 percent? I don't think anyone can say at this point," he said. Britain's budget deficit was just under 4 percent of gross domestic product in the financial year which ended in March. Javid said the government should double tax credits for research and development, exempt new plant and machinery from business rates and increase the annual investment allowance. He said the threshold at which people start paying income tax should also rise by 1,000 pounds. As well as the signals from the government of help for the economy from lower taxes, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has said he expects the central bank to provide more monetary stimulus over the summer. On Tuesday, the BoE lowered a requirement for banks to set aside money to cover losses. It is not clear how long Osborne and Javid will remain in their jobs. Prime Minister David Cameron has said he will resign by September and the ruling Conservative Party is in the process of choosing a new leader. (Reporting by Kate Holton, editing by William Schomberg and Estelle Shirbon)
What we know:
Britains long-awaited Chilcot report found former Prime Minister Tony Blair joined the U.S.-led invasion before peaceful options to disarm Saddam Hussain had been exhausted.
The report says there was no imminent threat from Iraq before the war started and its legal justifications were "far from satisfactory.
Parliament is planning two days of debate on the reports findings.
In a statement, Blair said he will accept full responsibility, without exception and without excuse.
The full report can be read here.
Were live-blogging the major findings, and you can read how it all unfolded below. All updates are in Eastern Standard Time (GMT -5).
4:36 p.m.
The inquirys report offers the most comprehensive timeline yet on how the British governments top lawyer came to support the legal basis for the Iraq War. While it did not weigh in on whether the war itself was lawful, the inquiry described the conditions in which that determination was made as far from satisfactory.
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First, some quick background. In November 2002, five months before the war began, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1441. It declared Iraq to be in material breach of its obligations to disarm under previous resolutions and offered it a final opportunity to comply. Both the Blair government and the Bush administration cited it as justification for the war under international law, a conclusion that many legal scholars dispute.
Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General at the time, told the inquiry in 2010 he believed a second UN resolution would be necessary to justify military intervention in Iraq until about a month before the war began in March 2003. The inquirys report outlines how his thinking evolved towards a green light.
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Just a few days after the resolutions adoption in 2002, Goldsmith told Jonathan Powell, Tony Blairs chief of staff, that he was not optimistic about the legality of military action without a second resolution. The next month, Blairs office asked Goldsmith for a draft of his advice for the prime minister before presenting it to the full Cabinet.
Goldsmith provided it on January 14, writing that Resolution 1441 included no express authorization for the use of military force. He also acknowledged the theory that the Security Council could authorize it through means other than a formal resolution, such a statement by the Councils rotating presidency. Goldsmith also expressed skepticism about the idea that an unreasonable veto by one of the Councils five permanent members could be ignored.
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Despite Lord Goldsmiths draft advice, Mr. Blair continued to say in public that he would not rule out military action if a further resolution in response to an Iraqi breach was vetoed, the inquiry said.
While Goldsmith authored the draft so it could eventually be presented to the Cabinet, Blair did not inform other ministers at a January 16 Cabinet meeting on Iraq that he had received legal advice on its legality.
As the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith was the Governments Legal Adviser not just the Legal Adviser to Mr. Blair, the inquiry noted. And although a similar legal dispute was unfolding within the Foreign Office, the inquiry said there was no evidence that [Foreign Secretary Jack] Straw was aware of Lord Goldsmiths draft advice before Cabinet on 16 January, although he was aware of Lord Goldsmiths position.
One day before Blair was set to meet with Bush on January 31, Goldsmith again sent a letter to Blair reminding him of his stance on whether a second resolution would be required.
I recognise that arguments can be made to support the view that paragraph 12 of [Resolution 1441] merely requires a Council discussion rather than a further decision, Goldsmith wrote. But having considered the arguments on both sides, my view remains that a further decision is required.
On his copy of the letter, Blair underlined that quote and scribbled in the margin, I just dont understand this.
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That was the third time Lord Goldsmith had felt it necessary to put his advice to Mr. Blair in writing without having been asked to do so; and on this occasion he had been explicitly informed that it was not needed, the inquiry pointed out.
But Goldsmiths stance then began to soften over the coming weeks. In early February, he traveled to Washington and discussed the case with the Bush administrations legal experts. When he returned, he said in a February 12 draft memo he was prepared to accept that a reasonable case can be made about Resolution 1441s authorization. His formal opinion, issued on March 7, made a largely similar point: a second resolution would be preferable, but relying on Resolution 1441 could suffice.
In a statement Wednesday, Lord Goldsmith said the inquiry's report had confirmed the legal interpretation was his "honestly-held, professional opinion."
12:23 p.m.
In addition to his earlier remarks, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has just apologized for his partys role in the war in a speech in Westminster.
So I now apologize sincerely on behalf of my party for the disastrous decision to go to war in Iraq in March 2003. That apology is owed first of all to the people of Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost and the country is still living with the devastating consequences of the war and the forces it unleashed. They have paid the greatest price for the most serious foreign policy calamity of the last 60 years. The apology is also owed to the families of those soldiers who died in Iraq or who have returned home injured or incapacitated. They did their duty but it was in a conflict they should never have been sent to. Finally, it is an apology to the millions of British citizens who feel our democracy was traduced and undermined by the way in which the decision to go to war was taken on the basic of secret I will be with you, whatever understandings given to the U.S. president that have now been publicly exposed.
10:05 a.m.
David Cameron, Britain's prime minister, says some of the missteps that led to the Iraq war have been addressed in the years since, including the way in which intelligence is assessed and used.
"We cannot turn the clock back," he told Parliament. "But we can ensure that lessons are learned and acted on."
Jeremy Corbyn, the head of the opposition Labour Party who has long been one of the war's most vocal critics, called the invasion "an act of military aggression launched on false pretext."
"By any measure," he said, "the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been for many a catastrophe."
9:50 a.m.
Tony Blair is calling the invasion of Iraq the "hardest, most momentous, most agonizing decision I took in 10 years as British prime minister."
He was reading a prepared statement on the Chilcot report, hours after its release. Here's the rest of his statement:
For that decision today I accept full responsibility, without exception and without excuse. I recognize the division felt by many in our country over the war and in particular I feel deeply and sincerely in a way that no words can properly convey the grief and suffering of those who lost ones they loved in Iraq, whether the members of our armed forces, the armed forces of other nations, or Iraqis. The intelligence assessments made at the time of going to war turned out to be wrong. The aftermath turned out to be more hostile, protracted and bloody than ever we imagined. The coalition planned for one set of ground facts and encountered another, and a nation whose people we wanted to set free and secure from the evil of Saddam, became instead victim to sectarian terrorism. For all of this I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe.
9:48 a.m.
The inquiry devotes an entire section to Britains diplomatic efforts in 2002 and early 2003, in which Blair and his government lobbied both the U.S. to seek a second resolution against Iraq from the United Nations Security Council and the councils permanent members to grant it. Both efforts ultimately failed before the war began in March 2003. According to the inquiry, this diplomatic failure was caused not by intractable differences, but by an artificial military timetable imposed by Washington.
In the Inquirys view, the diplomatic options had not at that stage been exhausted, the report says. Military action was therefore not a last resort.
The report lays out how Blairs willingness to abide by the U.S. timetable was largely driven by his eagerness to not damage the special relationship between his country and the U.S., which he believed could be used to influence U.S. policy. That influence had clear limits, the inquiry notes. While it says Blair likely influenced Bush to initially seek Security Council approval in late 2002, it also concludes that other crucial matters, Blair did not succeed in changing the approach determined in Washington.
But was the special relationship really that imperiled? Britain and the U.S. have had stark disagreements on foreign conflicts in the past without undermining the two countries close ties, the inquiry observed. It also noted France and Germany had both strongly opposed the U.S.-led invasion, and that neither country suffered permanent diplomatic damage from it.
Had the UK stood by its differing position on Iraq which was not an opposed position, but one in which the UK had identified conditions seen as vital by the UK Government the Inquiry does not consider that this would have led to a fundamental or lasting change in the UKs relationship with the US, the report ultimately surmises.
9:29 a.m.
Family members of British soldiers killed in Iraq held a news conference in response to the report's release.
Now we can turn and say we have got the proof," said Rose Gentle, whose son Gordon was 19 when he was killed. "Twelve years of fighting for my son have been worth it.
She added: "Now we know where we stand and what we can do. Tony Blair should betaken to court for trial for murder. He cant get away with this any more.
Others at the news conference blamed Blair as well.
Mark Thompson, the father of Kevin Thompson who was killed in 2007, said: "We have lost grandchildren. We have lost a daughter-in-law. Hes got everything."
9:08 a.m.
Britain's relationship with the U.S. in the lead up to the war comes under special scrutiny in the report. Indeed, many in the U.K. believe Tony Blair's close relationship with President George W. Bush compelled him to follow the U.S. into the conflict without questioning any of the assumptions made to invade Iraq. But at least one missive from Blair to Bush, included in the report, on the conflict warns that the coming war was not Kosovo, not Afghanistan, "not even the Gulf War." And, Blair adds, he's keen on building a politicalif not a militarycoalition. But it's the first line of the note that's likely to get most play. Blair writes: "I will be with you, whatever." That line is likely to feed into whatever perception people have about why the U.K. entered the war, which was hugely unpopular in the country.
Here's the note in full:
The "I will be with you, whatever" memo in black and white #Chilcot pic.twitter.com/jeF8zjP7AK Nick Bryant (@NickBryantNY) July 6, 2016
Chilcot, in his statement, refers specifically to the U.S.-U.K. relationship.
"Mr Blair overestimated his ability to influence US decisions on Iraq," he said. "The UKs relationship with the US has proved strong enough over time to bear the weight of honest disagreement. It does not require unconditional support where our interests or judgements differ."
In a statement on his website, Blair notes:
The report should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit. Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein; I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country.
You can read his full statement here.
7:57 a.m.
Sir John Chilcot, in his statement, outlined the U.S. and U.K.s attempt to win the UN Security Councils buy-in for an invasion of Iraq. When it became clear that was not going to happen, because most members of the Security Council could not be convinced that peaceful options to disarm Iraq had been exhausted and that military action was therefore justified, Blair and Jack Straw, his then foreign secretary, blamed France and claimed to act for the international community to uphold the authority of the Security Council.
In the absence of a majority in support of military action, we consider that the UK was, in fact, undermining the Security Councils authority, Chilcot said.
His other main conclusions:
The judgements about the severity of the threat posed by Iraqs weapons of mass destruction WMD were presented with a certainty that was not justified. Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated. The planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam Hussein were wholly inadequate. The Government failed to achieve its stated objectives.
7:43 a.m.
Some of Blair's most prominent critics, including current Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and former Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond, previously hinted the former prime minister should face a war-crimes investigation. While that aspect of the war is beyond the inquirys scope, some of its details could strengthen those calls.
The circumstances in which it was ultimately decided that there was a legal basis for UK participation were far from satisfactory," the reports executive summary said.
It also describes how Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General for England and Wales at the time, said the safer route would be to seek clearer authorization from the United Nations Security Council before invading. The British government instead relied on Resolution 1441 as its legal justification, a position that Goldsmith later endorsed.
7:11 a.m.
A long-awaited 12-volume report on Britains involvement in the Iraq War found former Prime Minister Tony Blair joined the U.S.-led invasion before peaceful options to disarm Saddam Hussein had been exhausted.
It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on basis of flawed intelligence and assessments, Sir John Chilcot, the inquirys chairman, said Wednesday. They were not challenged, and they should have been.
The 2.6-million-word Chilcot report, officially known as the Iraq Inquiry, is longer than all seven volumes of the Harry Potter series combined. It took seven years to complete, longer than the countrys participation in the war itself. Heres an excerpt from Sir John Chilcots statement, which was released Wednesday:
Blairs decision to commit British troops to the Iraq war has become the defining moment of his legacy as prime minister. The war was hugely unpopular in the U.K., and as it dragged on, Blairs popularity suffered. One hundred and seventy-nine Britons died in the war between 2003 and 2009. Blair, who resigned in 2007, has defended his decision to join the U.S.-led conflict that succeeded in ousting Saddam Hussein. At the same time, he has recently acknowledged mistakes in the lead-up to the conflict.
The report also has broader implications for Blairs Labour Party. His successor, Gordon Brown, set up the inquiry in 2009 amid internal party discontent from Labour MPs and grassroots supporters about the war. Its purpose was to provide a narrative of what happened and to offer lessons for the future. Blair was among the 100 witnesses who was interviewed by the inquirys members.
Chilcot, the reports author, told the BBC:
The main expectation that I have is that it will not be possible in future to engage in a military or indeed a diplomatic endeavor on such a scale and of such gravity without really careful challenge analysis and assessment and collective political judgement being applied to it. There are many lessons in the report but that probably is the central one for the future.
Among Blairs harshest critics will likely be Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Partys leader, who was a backbencher MP during the war and ranked among its highest-profile opponents in Parliament. British newspapers reported earlier this year that Corbyn would call for Blair to be investigated for war crimes after the reports publication.
But Corbyn also faces his own hour of political peril as Labour moderates, often called Blairites, hope to oust him from leadership after the Brexit referendum defeat last month. The Iraq War is a central fissure between the Blairites and Corbyns hard-left faction of the party, which strongly opposed the conflict.
Read more from The Atlantic:
This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Karma_Kid_Shot_21_F1B
Demo Taped is one of our favorite rising artists, a vocalist and producer creating his own lane of vibrant electronic pop. His latest move is to team up with Manchester, UK producer Karma Kid for Shapes, which also features mysterious London producer Ten Ven.
Together, they create a sparkling, summer-ready jam, and Shapes is just one of four excellent tracks on Karma Kids Man of the Year EP. Whats most impressive is the variety on this release, with Portland rapper Amine featuring on the bubbly Tundra and Karma Kid flexing his vocal sampling skills on the title track. The EP is far from scatterhsot, however, a palpable sense of fun running through Man of the Year and tying everything together.
Listen to Shapes and find out how Karma Kid approaches his collaborations below. The Man of the Year EP is out this Friday, July 8, via Greco Roman. Buy here.
How did you choose the vocalists for this EP and what do you look for in vocal collaborators?
I found Amine on Soundcloud last year along with his album Calling Brio and immediately hit him up with some beats. I couldnt believe how little heat he had on him at the time when I was listening through the music, hes ridiculous. Demo Taped was a really good find from the Greco-Roman guys, they introduced me to his music when I signed with them and I very quickly became a fan of his tunes. They both worked so well on my beats from the first demos they sent over to us, it just clicked. We went back and forth maybe only twice with them and their management which is unheard of to be honest, they killed it.
For me, vocalists have to be interesting, fresh and bringing something relevant to the track. Thats the most important thing, theres no point in having a vocal for the sake of having a vocal, it has to step the track up and add 20% and thats exactly what Amine and Demo Taped did!
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You also use your own vocals for the first time on this EP what was behind that decision? Do you feel as if its given you a lot more creative control/freedom?
This was a bit of a weird one to start off with. In a lot of ways Im not the most outgoing person so I was very self conscious of my vocals for a while. Over time Ive learned how to use them in my own way and most of the time I use my voice as a tool or instrument for achieving sounds that dont necessarily have lyrics. Its lovely having the freedom when Im writing music to get on the mic and record myself because I feel like I can be as harsh as I like with myself and I can sing in different styles depending on what Im doing.
To be honest though, the main reason why I started using my own vocals in the first place was because I was never satisfied with vocals I was getting back or there were complications with major labels or with the vocalists I was working with. Its basically ten million times easier to rely on yourself and no one else.
How did you link up with Greco-Roman and what have you learned from Joe Goddard?
Ive been a Greco fan for a number of years as they were putting out a some of the major records that inspired my sound in the early days when I was 17 or 18. When I sent them some demos and they were interested in releasing them I was stoked. Weve done loads of parties together already and Ive worked with TEED, Baio, and Joe Goddard through them.
Joe has taught me a lot in the short time weve known each other. Theres too much to list but he is super relaxed in the studio, so hell just walk around the room setting up drum machines, synths and stuff for me to play with and well just jam for ages on the analogue gear. On top of the studio stuff the parties weve done together have all ended up being wicked fun. Its just shit when we dont have more than two hours to play with because we could carry on playing tracks for hours. We are gonna continue to work together in the future and weve got a last B2B set together this year at Bestival in the UK.
What is inspiring you creatively at the moment?
Musically the things that are inspiring me come from all different angles. I dont actually listen to a great deal of electronic music in my spare time, which is a massive influence on my sound and style when it comes to creating it. Im a huge jazz head, particularly the more psychedelic side of it such as Yusef Lateef, Idris Muhammed, and Alice Coltrane. On top of that, Brazilian and Portuguese music has had a massive influence on my music for years. The sample on Man of The Year is from a really well known woman in Brazil, Bebel Gilberto.
The rhythms, grooves, and sounds have been an eye opening experience for me and I just find it so much more interesting than a straight electronic beat with no style or swing. Other than that, when it comes to writing music I do think its important to have relevant things to write about so Im always looking to be inspired and interested by the surroundings or situations Im in when Im travelling or spending time with family and friends. I keep a little diary of words, feelings, and small poems on my phone for when I sit down to write lyrics.
What are your plans for the rest of 2016?
Im heading off on my first solo U.S. tour at the end of July for a couple of weeks which Im really excited for. I had a blast playing all around the States when I was last there with Bondax so it should be a treat. Ive got an EP to come out very soon with my other project, Shy Luv, Im playing Bestival with the Greco crew and Ill be working on my next EP for them as well. A lot to look forward to!
Karma Kid U.S. Tour Dates:
July 28th US San Francisco, 1015 Folsom
July 29th US Bernalillo, The Stage At The Star
July 30th US San Diego, Bang Bang
August 3rd US Denver, Vinyl
August 4th CAN Toronto, The Hoxton
August 5th US New York, Webster Hall
August 6th CAN Montreal, Ilesoniq Festival
August 10th US Seattle, Q Nightclub
August 11th US Chicago, East Room
More from Pigeons & Planes
Some of the biggest names in music have come together for a musical tribute to the victims of the Orlando massacre.
The soulful song, "Hands," features vocals from Mary J Blige, Selena Gomez, Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani, Pink, Jennifer Lopez, Jason Derulo, Ty Herndon, Adam Lambert, Meghan Trainor, Kacey Musgraves and Imagine Dragons among many others.
WATCH: Beyonce Dedicates 'Halo' to Victims' Families in Orlando Shooting
Proceeds from the song, released by Interscope Records and available for purchase on iTunes, will benefit the Equality Florida Pulse Victims Fund, GLAAD and the LGBT Community Center of Central Florida.
The emotional track was penned by songwriter Justin Tranter, co-writer of Justin Bieber's hit single "Sorry" as well as a number of other songs for artists who participated in the tribute.
WATCH: Lady Gaga Gives Emotional Speech at L.A. Vigil for Orlando Shooting Victims
"The second I heard about this horrible tragedy where so many of my LGBTQ brothers and sisters lost their lives, I immediately got on a plane to Orlando to volunteer my help anyway I could," Tranter said in a statement about the heartfelt collaboration. "Putting this charity single together is just a way for me, and everyone involved, to keep volunteering our help and promote peace and love in the world."
On June 12, 49 victims were fatally shot at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, while another 53 were injured in the deadliest mass shooting in American history.
RELATED: Justin Bieber Honors the Pulse Victims at Orlando Concert With a Moving Tribute
Recently, Jennifer Lopez and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda announced their own benefit song for the victims, "Love Make the World Go Round." Proceeds from the downloads of the forthcoming song will go to the Hispanic Federation's Proyecto Somos Orlando.
Check out the video below for a look at how a number of other stars have paid tribute to those who lost their lives in last month's devastating Orlando terror attack.
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By Patrick Nduwimana KIGALI (Reuters) - Burundi's tax receipts soared in June, official data showed on Wednesday, rising 31 percent compared to the same month in 2015 when a political crisis and unrest would have hampered tax collection. The landlocked east African nation's president, Pierre Nkurunziza, sought and won a third term last year to fierce opposition. More than 450 people have been killed in related violence since then and 260,000 have fled abroad. No explanation was given for the surge in tax revenues, but June 2015 saw tensions mount before a parliamentary election at the end of that month and a presidential poll in July. Tax receipts rose to 57.1 billion francs ($34.4 million) in June, higher than a target of 53.9 billion francs, the semi-autonomous revenue board (OBR) said in its monthly report. Cumulative tax collection from January to June climbed to 302.7 billion francs from 288.3 billion francs the same period last year. The European Union and other key donors have suspended some aid to Burundi, which relies on modest coffee and tea revenues. Burundi has since been seeking closer ties with Russia, signing a deal last month with Russias Gazprombank to facilitate investment. International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects Burundis economic growth at 3.4 percent this year after shrinking 7.2 percent in 2015. ($1 = 1,656.5000 Burundi francs) (Reporting by Patrick Nduwimana; Editing by Edmund Blair and Raissa Kasolowsky)
Part of OZYs occasional Know This Name series on prominent leaders in business, sports, politics and other fields.
As the results trickled in, Hun Sen did not like what he could see with his one good eye. It was 1993, Cambodia was staging its first free election in decades under direction of the United Nations, and the prime minister had entered the vote confident that his leadership not to mention an intimidation campaign against his foes would deliver victory.
But his Cambodian Peoples Party narrowly lost to the royalists, and Hun Sen destroyed the television, a CNN article related. He then set about playing at blindness, as though hed never seen any of the broadcast at all. Hun Sen engineered a secession of part of the country, garnering himself leverage for a power-sharing deal that put him on equal footing with the victors, whom he proceeded to shove aside in a 1997 coup. Since then, he has continued to fend off challenges and though an election looms in 2018, Hun Sen, whose party did not reply to multiple requests for comment, has no intention of losing again. He is combining an increasingly broad crackdown against his opposition with a makeover as a man of the people, honed through what else? Facebook.
Authoritarians hold sway across Southeast Asia: Vietnam and Laos are one-party Communist states, Thailand is run by a military junta thats delaying scheduled elections, and the Philippines just elected a Trump-like figure whos talked of killing criminals himself. Cambodia seems freer but in recent months, the country of some 15 million has witnessed crackdowns against the opposition party, suggesting the wind might be blowing in the direction of the rest of the region. A lawmaker was jailed over Facebook posts. A U.N. official and others close with opposition leaders were charged with bribing a woman to not admit being the mistress of a prominent opposition leader. That man, Kem Sokha, is in hiding; an arrest warrant awaits him. The election here, still two years away, is being discussed as a litmus test for whether a semblance of representative government could survive.
The government demanded the media use Lord Prime Minister and Supreme Military Commander Hun Sen.
It doesnt look good: Hun Sen has defied European Union warnings against his tactics and declared outfit coordination a crime in response to a group of black-clad protesters. The scope and breadth is unprecedented, says Sophal Ear, a professor at Occidental College in California and author of Aid Dependence in Cambodia: How Foreign Assistance Undermines Democracy, Ear compares Sens measures to a soap opera. Indeed, it seemed like a half-baked operatic script, perhaps one inspired by Kim Jong Il, when the government demanded the media use Lord Prime Minister and Supreme Military Commander Hun Sen on first reference, or risk legal repercussions. The request was laughed off by an international press with a robust presence in Cambodia, but Khmer-language media are likely to fall in line.
Gettyimages 174572442
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen raises his inked finger at a polling station during the general elections in Kandal province on July 28, 2013. Voting began on July 28 in a Cambodian general election with strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen seeking to extend his nearly three decades in power.
Source: Tang Chhin Sothy/Getty
And why? Sebastian Strangio, a Phnom Penhbased journalist and author of Hun Sens Cambodia, says the man knows his country well. Hes able to understand the wants and desires of rural people. He is [one] himself. Born in 1952 to rice and tobacco farmers, Hun Sen spent his childhood as an errand boy for monks, being educated in a Buddhist pagoda. He joined the Communist rebellion against the American-backed government losing his left eye in one battle, and gaining quite a story eventually becoming a commander in the Khmer Rouge.
He escaped to Vietnam, avoiding the genocide, and returned when the Vietnamese invaded to toss out Pol Pot. Hun Sen became the effective leader of the country in 1985 and has barely twitched since. He never had much of an ideology, ditching Communism when convenient and adopting the jargon of international development, even as he used force to cling to power. Mocking the Wests notions of how to run his country, a favorite phrase became: International standards exist only in sports.
As the nations quality of life has risen the countrys growth rate of around 7 percent a year since 2011 is one of the best and most consistent in the world so have expectations. The youth movement is focused on inequality, and is less appreciative of the unprecedented stability of the era. Theyre victims of their own success in a way, Strangio said, adding that the leaders politics have fallen out of sync with the needs and desires of the younger generation. The ruling party nearly lost the 2013 elections, and the leader responded with a charm offensive, posting Facebook videos of himself mingling with foreign leaders such as Vladimir Putin, dancing with his wife and distributing water in drought-stricken areas. He now has 4 million likes on his Facebook page, though the Phnom Penh Post reported that most of them are from overseas, forcing Hun Sen to deny charges that hes paid for fake followers.
As the crackdown continues, watch for the 2017 World Economic Forum on ASEAN. WEF head Klaus Schwab, Ear pointed out, fancies himself a peacemaker and once helped broker a rapprochement between Nelson Mandela and South African leaders. (WEF spokesman Georg Schmitt declined to comment on Cambodia but said the group closely monitors political situations in host countries.)
In the meantime, the Facebook Liveloving strongman is happy to be gazed upon on his terms. In June, he got on a motorbike belonging to an apparently unsuspecting member of the public, then gave the man a short ride. He streamed the whole thing. Viewers noted the prime minister was not wearing a helmet, and Hun Sen apologized, accepting his $3.75 fine, in a wink to critics whod say he fancies himself above the law.
This story has been updated: An earlier version misstated Sophal Ears employer. It is Occidental College, not Occidental University. Additionally, an earlier version misstated the name of the forum Cambodia is scheduled to host next year. It is the World Economic Forum on ASEAN, not the World Economic Forum on East Asia. Finally, an earlier version also misstated the legal case against the U.N. official, who has been charged but not arrested. The case involves an opposition party leader, who is not a minister, as stated in an earlier version.
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LONDON (Reuters) - Lawmakers who voted to support Britain's joining the 2003 invasion of Iraq need to take their share of responsibility for the mistakes that were made, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Wednesday. Cameron, speaking after the publication of a long-awaited report on the events that led up to the conflict, said the country must ensure its armed forces are well equipped for any future conflict. "The decision to go to war came to a vote in this House and members on all sides who voted for military action will have to take our fair share of the responsibility," he told parliament. "We cannot turn the clock back but we can ensure that lessons are learned and acted on. "It is crucial to good decision-making that a Prime Minister establishes a climate in which it's safe for officials and other experts to challenge existing policy and question the views of ministers and the Prime Minister without fear or favor." (Reporting by Elizabeth Piper and Kylie MacLellan; writing by Kate Holton; editing by Stephen Addison)
LONDON (Reuters) - Canada Life Ltd said on Wednesday it was suspending its property funds, becoming the sixth firm this week to do so. Canada Life said it was suspending its Canlife Property and Canlife UK property funds due to the ongoing uncertainty around the pricing of commercial property assets following Britain's vote to leave the European Union. The firm also made the decision after a recent increase in requests to withdraw from the funds, it said in a statement. The funds, which are valued in the region of 450 million pounds ($581.18 million), include the Canada Life Property Pension Fund, Canada life UK Property Life Fund and Canada Life Property Life Fund among others. Canada Life said that it was suspending its Canlife Property and Canlife UK Property life and pensions funds with effect from 1400 GMT July 5. The number of British property funds suspended following the country's vote to leave the EU doubled to six on Wednesday, leaving 15 billion pounds ($19.4 billion) frozen in the biggest seizing up of investment funds since the 2008 financial crisis. (Reporting by Carolyn Cohn; editing by Rachel Armstrong and David Evans)
By Allison Martell
TORONTO, July 6 (Reuters) - Statistics Canada has not collected jobs data for Fort McMurray since the Alberta city was engulfed by wildfire in May, the federal statistics agency said, and it has not yet decided when the country's key employment survey will resume there.
Some 90,000 people were evacuated from Fort McMurray and the surrounding area in early May as an out-of-control forest fire burned into the heart of Canada's oil sands region. Re-entry began in early June. At its height, the fire shut down about half of oil sands production.
The survey is one of Canada's most closely watched economic indicators, and economists would usually look to it to measure the fallout of events like the wildfire. With no data collection in Fort McMurray, the June report that is due out on Friday will not fully reflect the impact of the fire.
"We don't want to impose on people - they are going through very hard times," said Christel Le Petit, the Statistics Canada assistant director responsible for the survey. "Some could have maybe responded, but we didn't want to ask."
When Statistics Canada released May jobs and unemployment data last month, the agency said it had not collected data for Wood Buffalo, the area that includes Fort McMurray. The agency said this week its Labour Force Survey had still not resumed in Wood Buffalo.
The decision to resume will be made with local and provincial governments, Statistics Canada said. An Alberta government spokeswoman said the province had no concerns with resuming in July.
Le Petit said it was the first time the survey had been suspended in a disaster-struck area in the 10 years she had worked on it.
"We've had some small impact on collections in the past, but we were able to get to some of the people. This is really unique," she said.
To partially correct for the missing data, Statistics Canada substituted results from similar households in surrounding areas. Since some oil sands workers live outside Fort McMurray, the survey likely captured some of the impact of the fire.
Even so, any impact on the provincial and national unemployment rates would be small, given that Fort McMurray is home to just 2 percent of Alberta's population.
(Editing by Peter Cooney)
(Adds details from morning trade, data; updates prices)
* TSX down 96.92 points, or 0.68 percent, to 14,122.65
* Nine of the TSX's 10 main groups move lower
TORONTO, July 6 (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index fell on Wednesday, with heavyweight financial stocks pulling back as global growth fears rose and energy shares falling with subdued oil prices.
The index - sensitive to global sentiment due to its high concentration of resource-related issues - took a less severe hit than European indexes as Brexit-related worries resurfaced.
The economic uncertainty bolstered bullion, supporting gold miners.
At 10:28 a.m EDT (1428 GMT), the Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index was down 96.92 points, or 0.68 percent, to 14,122.65.
Nine of the index's 10 main groups were in negative territory, with five decliners for every two advancers.
The financials group lost 1.2 percent, with Toronto-Dominion Bank down 1.7 percent to C$54.49 and Royal Bank of Canada off 1.1 percent to C$76.09.
Insurers also fell, with Manulife Financial Corp shedding 3 percent to C$16.63 and Sun Life Financial down 1.9 percent to C$40.70.
The energy group retreated 1 percent, as oil edged lower for a third day on demand worries.
Pipeline operator Enbridge Inc fell 1 percent to C$54.27, Suncor Energy Inc lost 1 percent to C$36.35, and Canadian Natural Resources slipped 0.8 percent to C$39.91.
The value of Canadian energy exports surged in May even as the industry was coping with a major Alberta wildfire, but improved oil sales were not enough to prevent the second biggest trade deficit on record, Statistics Canada data showed on Wednesday.
Gold miners again helped to limit overall losses, as investors sought bullion as a haven from risk, pushing the precious metal to its highest level in more than two years.
Barrick Gold Corp added 2.1 percent to C$29.72, Goldcorp Inc advanced 1.1 percent to C$26.27, and Yamana Gold rose 2.7 percent to C$7.60.
Centerra Gold declined 7.3 percent to C$7.51 after agreeing to buy U.S.-based Thompson Creek Metals for around $1.1 billion to expand its operations in North America.
The materials group, which includes precious and base metals miners and fertilizer companies, added 0.7 percent.
(Reporting by Alastair Sharp; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)
Ottawa (AFP) - Canada's trade deficit held steady in May, despite an increase in exports to the United States, its largest trading partner, official figures showed on Wednesday.
The trade deficit was Can$3.3 billion, virtually unchanged from April, government agency Statistics Canada said. Economists had anticipated a small decline.
Overall, exports from Canada fell by one percent, to Can$41.1 billion. Imports were down 0.9 percent to Can$44.4 billion.
Exports to the United States grew a solid 3.6 percent to Can$32.1 billion, while US imports fell by 1.1 percent to Can$29.3 billion.
Excluding the US, Canada's trade gap with other countries widened to a record Can$6.0 billion in May, from Can$4.6 billion in April.
Canada, the world's fifth largest producer of crude oil, posted a 7.1 percent rise in exports of energy products to Can$5.3 billion in May.
The main factor driving the gain were exports of crude oil and crude bitumen, produced from natural oil sands deposits, which rose 10.5 percent to Can$3.8 billion on the back of higher oil prices.
Volumes rose 0.6 percent, despite devastating wildfires in northeastern Alberta province that put a major crimp in production.
"Preliminary evidence indicates that Canadian refinery activity declined in May, freeing up crude oil supply for export, while the remaining shortfall was largely met by a drawdown of Alberta inventories of crude oil," Statistics Canada said in a statement.
"Although crude oil and crude bitumen export volumes for May increased, export volumes for April and May were below recent levels," it noted.
By Ethan Lou
TORONTO, July 6 (Reuters) - Ontario's program to allow testing of self-driving cars on public roads has not received any applications since it launched Jan. 1, the Canadian province's government said on Wednesday, as a recent U.S. accident increased scrutiny of the technology.
Ontario, home to nearly all of Canada's auto industry, said last year it would be the first province to allow testing of self-driving cars. Ontario's auto sector has struggled as investment shifted to cheaper jurisdictions, and the government has sought to attract higher paying research and development work.
But the province is a late-comer compared with parts of the United States, where Alphabet Inc's subsidiary Google has been testing self-driving prototypes since 2009.
Debate about the safety of driverless cars heated up last week after driver of a Tesla Motors Inc car in autopilot mode was killed in a collision.
A spokesman from Ontario's Ministry of Transportation said the self-driving car program has a 10-year time frame and has received a lot of interest despite the lack of applications.
Ontario confirmed the lack of applications after Reuters learned about it through a freedom-of-information request.
The province said last year nearly 100 companies and other organizations were already working in the connected vehicle and automated vehicle industry in Ontario, and its driverless-car program would enable them to keep research local.
But some car companies with plants in Ontario are still favoring the United States.
Honda Motor Co Ltd, which does research on autonomous vehicles in the United States, said it had no plans to participate.
Canadian auto parts supplier Magna International Inc said that in most cases it is testing self-driving car technology on closed circuits.
General Motors Co said in June it would expand its Canadian engineering base to add 700 jobs in Ontario as it boosts research spending on connected and driverless cars. It did not immediately respond to questions on whether will participate in Ontario's program.
A spokesman for Google, which has agreed to work with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV to build a fleet of 100 self-driving minivans, said the company is not participating in Ontario's program, though he said the province was taking the right steps. Chrysler declined to comment.
(Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
Yes, really. A 61-year-old former boxer punched a 300-pound black bear in the face and lived to tell the tale.
Rick Nelson, a Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, native, told CBC News that he was walking his dog on Sunday, July 3, when he came across the bears cub.
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I sat down on a log and the bear cub poked its head out of the shrub nearby, he recounted to the Canadian news outlet. It was so close I could touch it. It let out a yelp, because I scared the heck out of it. I knew right away I was in trouble. Its calling for mommy.
Within seconds, the mother bear was charging full speed toward Nelson, who, luckily, is a former bear hunter. He explained to CBC News that he tried swinging a clenched fist at the animal but missed, hitting it in its teeth.
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The bear scratched Nelson across his face and chest before the former boxer put his dukes up again. I knew it would swing first with its left [paw] but it would really come with its right, because most bears are right-handed, he said. I had the perfect shot to take. I did an underhand and hit it right in the snout. The bear squealed and started to move away.
Now it was the moment of truth. Whats the bear going to do? Nelson recalled wondering. It is going to follow its cub or is it going to come after me? [The mother bear] turned around and it was snorting blood. It looked at me, and I thought, Oh no. Here it comes. But it just turned back around and walked away like nothing ever happened and followed the cub. So I really lucked out there.
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Despite the terrifying incident, the Canuck explained that people shouldnt be afraid of the wild animal because they really arent dangerous unless you have a cub involved. (See: Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant.)
Sometimes black bears get a really bad rep, he explained. Probably theyre more afraid of you and [me] than we are of them. Im really glad that the bear walked away. And Im really glad I did too.
Five years after Casey Anthony was acquitted of murder charges in the death of her young daughter, the 30-year-old once considered the most hated woman in America is reportedly bored with the life she leads.
Without a steady job or much of a social life, Anthony sort of lives like an old person, on a fixed income without much going on in her life, a source told People.
She's bored, and she complains about boredom all the time, the source said.
Still residing in South Florida, Anthony largely relies on members of her legal team for financial support and to be set up on dates, People wrote.
Though she started a photography business, Case Photography, Anthony has done very few projects and allegedly stages paparazzi-style photo ops that she tries to sell to media outlets when she needs money, sources told the magazine.
Read: Casey Anthony's Lawyer Said She Killed Her Daughter, Claims Former Private Investigator
"She gets up each day, hangs around, checks the internet, takes some pictures, and doesn't do much, someone reportedly close to Anthony said. She can't hold a real job, and she doesn't really make a lot of friends, for obvious reasons. When people find out about her history, they usually bail on her. She's 30, with very few friends her age.
"She's got enough money to live, but not enough to really do anything," a source said.
Anthony also no longer maintains relationships with her parents, only occasionally speaking with her mother, Cindy, People wrote.
She doesnt talk to her dad at all, an insider said. Her father, George, had been accused by Anthony's attorney of abusing his daughter and it was insinuated that his late granddaughter may have actually been his child. George Anthony denied the allegations.
Anthony also no longer speaks to her brother, Lee, whom she accused of molestation at the trial. He also denied Anthony's claim. Lee has since married his longtime girlfriend, Molly Parker, and has had a baby boy, but his sister was not invited to the wedding.
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Anthonys 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, was found dead in December 2008 after she was reported missing five months earlier by her grandparents.
Prosecutors said Anthony, who was pictured partying in the days after her daughters disappearance, murdered the toddler and hid her body in the woods. Defense attorneys said the child drowned in the familys swimming pool.
Read: Mystery Deepens Over 2-Year-Old Boy Who Vanished in the Woods
Despite what many said was a cut and dry case against Anthony, the young mom was found not guilty.
A former member of Anthonys defense team has since claimed that Anthonys trial attorney, Jose Baez, said Anthony was guilty of murdering Caylee.
Baez had told me that Casey murdered Caylee and dumped the body somewhere," Dominic Casey, a former private investigator on Anthonys defense team, said in an affidavit filed during Anthonys bankruptcy case.
He also accused Baez of offering his legal services to Anthony in exchange for sex.
Baez denied the allegations, saying in a statement: I unequivocally and categorically deny exchanging sex for my legal services with Ms. Anthony. I further unequivocally and categorically deny having any sexual relationship with Ms. Anthony whatsoever. I have always conducted my practice consistent with the high ethical standards required of members of the Florida Bar. My representation of Ms. Anthony was no exception.
Legal action is forthcoming, he added.
Watch: 9 Interesting Facts We Bet You Never Knew About Casey Anthony
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Once again, the Miami Heat and Dwyane Wade are doing the tense dance wherein Wade asks to be paid a salary commensurate with the signature star that he is, while the Heat ask him to take less money for the purpose of building a better team around him. Both sides are well within their rights to do business this way, but the process is clearly wearing thin on Wade, as he makes louder and louder overtures about signing with a new team for the first time in his career.
Its now come to this: Dwyane is meeting with several teams, conspicuously leaving out the Heat.
Sources on @TheVertical: Beyond Denver meeting for Dwyane Wade in New York today: Milwaukee, Chicago meetings set. Miami possible too now. Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojVerticalNBA) July 6, 2016
Sources on @TheVertical: So far, closest Wade has to a third-year on deal: Chicago w/ a partial guarantee. Denver, Miami offering two years. Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojVerticalNBA) July 6, 2016
Perhaps only this stands between Dwyane Wade and his Miami Heat departure: Possible one-on-one meeting with owner Micky Arison today. Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojVerticalNBA) July 6, 2016
For now, there's still no Miami Heat meeting set for Wade today, league sources tell @TheVertical. Still a fluid conversation. Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojVerticalNBA) July 6, 2016
Furthermore, the Cavaliers are reportedly trying to work their way into the Wade sweepstakes, but to do so would require either Wade taking far less money than with other teams (which runs counter to his whole reason for looking around) or the Cavs seriously blowing up their roster. Seemingly the only selling points they have are a reunion with LeBron James and the hardware Cleveland just won.
Through all of this, we have to believe the most likely scenario here is that Wade re-signs in Miami. His public shopping around has successfully brought the Heat up to offering $20 million per year, and it would be a shock to see him head to the developing Nuggets, Bucks or Bulls for an extra $5 million. The potential monkey wrench is a guaranteed third year, which is reportedly what Wade has his heart set on the most. If he can finagle that out of a non-Miami team, all bets are off. Kevin Durant proved that anything can happen this offseason, but until the ink is dry on a contract taking D-Wade out of Miami, the odds are still on him staying.
(Via Akron Beacon-Journal)
The U.S. Army says Chelsea Manning was briefly hospitalized this week, but few details have been provided.
Army spokesman Wayne Hall says the 28-year-old imprisoned transgender soldier was taken to a hospital on Tuesday near Fort Leavenworth and was later returned to the Kansas military base's prison, where Manning is now being monitored. Hall and other Pentagon officials didn't say why she was hospitalized.
On Wednesday morning, CNN and TMZ reported that Manning was hospitalized due to what is believed to be a suicide attempt, citing anonymous sources.
Manning's appellate attorney, Nancy Hollander, said she was unaware of the hospitalization until Wednesday and was "profoundly distressed by the complete lack of official communication about Chelsea's current situation."
Hollander, the lead attorney on Manning's defense team, added that she was "shocked" and "outraged" that an official at Leavenworth contacted the press with "private confidential medical information."
Read the full statement below:
We're shocked and outraged that an official at Leavenworth contacted the press with private confidential medical information about Chelsea Manning yet no one at the Army has given a shred of information to her legal team.
I had a privileged call scheduled with Chelsea at 2pm Leavenworth time yesterday, after the Army has now said she was hospitalized, but the Army gave the excuse - which I now believe to be an outright lie - that the call could not be connected although my team was waiting by the phone.
Despite the fact that they have reached out to the media, and that any other prison will connect an emergency call, the Army has told her lawyers that the earliest time that they will accommodate a call between her lawyers and Chelsea is Friday morning. We call on the Army to immediately connect Chelsea Manning to her lawyers and friends who care deeply about her well-being and are profoundly distressed by the complete lack of official communication about Chelsea's current situation.
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Manning, formerly Bradley Manning, was convicted in military court in 2013 for sending classified information to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks and is currently serving a 35-year prison sentence.
A Fort Leavenworth spokeswoman declined comment, citing medical privacy laws.
Read More: Chelsea Manning Faces Possible Solitary Confinement Over Caitlyn Jenner 'Vanity Fair' Magazine
From Cosmopolitan
Chi Phi, a national fraternity founded in 1824 at Princeton University, announced their decision to change their membership policy to include transgender men. In a press release following their 151st annual Congress, the fraternity explained "any male as defined by valid legal documentation" is eligible to join.
Undergraduate chairman of the Committee of Membership Sam Borchart said the decision originated with the student members of the fraternity, not the nationally employed ones: "The fact that this change comes as a result of Congressional vote is a testament that our Fraternity and its individual members want to make Chi Phi more inclusive. One change is never a stopping point, and we hope this opens the door to further discussion about inclusivity, particularly for transgender men who want to join us in brotherhood."
In March of this year, a trans student's testament about pledging the Ohio Wesleyan University chapter of Chi Phi was published. He explained he'd made it through pledging and found a family in the fraternity, but was ultimately denied initiation by the Executive Director of the Alpha-Chi chapter, who allegedly wrote a letter saying because the student was legally documented as female, his initiation would violate the fraternity's Constitution.
ThinkProgress notes Chi Phi is not the first Greek life organization to accept trans members (Trinity University's Zeta Chi sorority is believed to be. The sorority allowed a trans woman to rush about six years ago.), but it's still among the first. Chi Phi's membership eligibility change is effective immediately.
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After seven years, the Chilcot Inquiry, the official inquiry into the Iraq war has been released.
The report has been a long time coming, totalling 2.6 million words four times longer than Tolstoys War and Peace costing the country 10 million, and taking almost as long as the Iraq war itself.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and 179 British soldiers died in the conflict, which began in 2003 under Prime Minister Tony Blair. Many families of those killed are still looking for answers and will hope the report can provide them, along with a huge portion of the population who took to the streets to protest the war and remain angry to this day.
The inquiry was set up by ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2009 to look into the run-up to the US-led conflict and its aftermath. It is named after Sir John Chilcot, a retired civil servant, who led it. More than 120 witnesses gave evidence, including Blair himself, military chiefs and ministers.
It will no doubt take days for journalists to go through the whole 12-volume report, but heres what we know about its contents so far.
The invasion of Iraq was unnecessary
Chilcot said the UK invaded Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted, and as such, military action was not a last resort, as reported by The Guardian.
Blair overplayed the threat posed by the Iraqi regime
The intelligence used to justify the invasion was presented with a certainty that was not justified, Chilcot said. In other words, Blair deliberately exaggerated the threat from Iraq and downplayed the risks of invading the country.
Chilcot said Blair relied too heavily on his own beliefs, rather than the more nuanced judgments of the intelligence services.
Planning for after the invasion was extremely poor
Chilcot called the planning and preparations for Iraq after the invasion wholly inadequate, saying: Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated. The war was therefore, he said, a failure as The government failed to achieve its stated objectives.
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Blair overestimated his influence over the US
The then-UK PM overestimated his ability to influence US president George Bushs decisions on Iraq, Chilcot said.
Blair had offered Bush his backing unconditionally, but Chilcot said: The UKs relationship with the US has proved strong enough over time to bear the weight of honest disagreement. It does not require unconditional support where our interests or judgments differ".
Blair still believes he made the right decision to go to war
In a statement on the report released by Blairs office, the former PM said he sticks by his decision to lead the UK into war and remove Saddam Hussein, saying he took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country.
However, he acknowledged the criticisms made about the preparation, planning, process and of the relationship with the United States. He called these serious and said they require serious answers, adding that he will respond to them later today.
Blair also said he doesnt believe the removal of Saddam Hussein caused the terrorism we see today.
The British public are still furious about the war
People are protesting in central London, outside the building where Chilcot delivered his findings, calling on Blair to be punished.
Green MP Caroline Lucas said she believes Blair is a war criminal, adding: It [the Chilcot report] confirms what we know, that Tony Blair lied when he took this country to war on a false prospectus, the Huffington Post reported.
Supporters of Stop the War, a campaign group that was heavily involved in the anti-war protests in 2003, read out the names of Iraqi and British people who died.
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A sprawling, seven-year long inquiry into Britains role in the invasion and occupation of Iraq has revealed that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair attempted to use the U.K.s special relationship with the U.S. to restrain and advise President George W. Bush in the run-up to the conflict.
The long-awaited findings by a team of British investigators, led by retired civil servant Sir John Chilcot, provided a damning assessment of Blairs leadership on Wednesday, citing flawed intelligence and woefully inadequate post-war planning. The Chilcot Report, which is far more detailed than any U.S. Congressional examination of the Iraq war, was given unprecedented access to previously classified documents and more than 150 witnesses, including dozens of confidential cables sent to the White House by then-Prime Minister Blair.
The majority of the 2.6-million word reportfour times as long as War and Peacefocuses on failures by Britains intelligence services and post-war reconstruction, but British politicians have been quick to seize on claims that as early as July 2002, Blair promised the U.S. President that he had his backing for regime change whatever the circumstances. This was well before the British leader had informed his Cabinet of plans for invasion and nearly a year before British politicians were given a vote on the conflict.
Read More: The 4 Biggest Revelations in Britains Iraq War Report
The report, which was released on former President Bushs 70th birthday, also exposed the extent to which Blair pressured the then-U.S. President to seek United Nations approval and a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict prior to the 2003 invasion. Sir Johns report, which was published after repeated delays, finally lifts the veil on the extraordinary exchanges between the two leaders and concludes that the ongoing health and quality of the U.S.-U.K special relationship was a determining factor in Blairs decision to support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
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The most telling of the memosentitled Note on Iraqwas written by Blair on 28 July 2002. It opened with the line: I will be with you, whatever. The memo, which was not shared by Blair with his Cabinet ministers, went on to outline what the British leader saw as the main obstacles to building a coalition and securing United Nations approval of the invasion.
The British press has been quick to label the series of 31 memos between Number 10 and the White House as love letters, but Bushs replies were not included in Sir Johns report, at the request of Washington officials. Sir Johns report also details Blairs comments to the President six days after American and British tanks rolled into Iraq, when he hailed the invasion as a chance to establish the true post-Cold War world order.
Read More: Everything to Know About Britains Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War
According to the Chilcot report, the transatlantic memos showed Blair had followed an established British tradition and decided the best way to influence U.S. policy was to commit full and unqualified support, and seek to persuade from the inside. The issue of influencing the US, both at the strategic and at the operational level, was a constant preoccupation at all levels of the U.K. Government, said Chilcot.
The Chilcot reports measured and delicate choice of words on Wednesday came in stark contrast to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trumps comments the night before, when he praised Saddam Husseins efficient killing of terrorists. Trump, who supported the Iraq war, said the U.S. shouldnt have destabilized Iraq before changing tack and praising Husseins regime.
However, in revelations that could embarrass U.S politicians who backed the war, Chilcots report makes clear that the British security services were warning that the invasion of Iraq would come as a boost to al Qaeda. In his statement to the British media on Wednesday, Chilcot said: Mr Blair had been warned, however, that military action would increase the threat from al Qaeda he had also been warned that an invasion might lead to Iraqs weapons and capabilities being transferred to the hands of terrorists.
Read More: The Iraq Invasions Legacy Is Still Bloodily Apparent
For former President Bush, the British reports conclusions could prove embarrassing ahead of the publication of a new biography from presidential writer Jean Edward Smith. It is expected to offer severe criticism of the 43rd presidents mistakes and missteps, including Iraq and the war on terror.
Wednesdays report came as Bushs spokesman said the former President planned to spend the day at his Texas ranchwhere he hosted world leaders including Blair during his time in officeriding his mountain bike with veterans. He did give a statement in response: Despite the intelligence failures and other mistakes he has acknowledged previously, President Bush continues to believe the whole world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power.
Meanwhile in London, his friend and onetime political ally Blair was forced to give an impassioned defense of his role in the conflict in an unprecedented two-hour press conference in central London. An emotional Blair said that he took full responsibility for the decisions that led to the U.K.s involvement in the conflict, adding that he expressed more sorrow, regret and apology than people could ever know.
The current crop of British political leaders have been quick to seize on Chilcots conclusions, which blame the countrys political, military and intelligence leadership for a conflict that could have been avoided and that ended a very long way from success. Tim Farron, a member of Parliament and the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the only major opposition party to vote against the invasion of Iraq in 2003, told TIME: Far from being Bushs passenger, Blair was his co-pilot in taking this catastrophic decision which has destabilized Iraq, provided the hotbed for Daesh [Islamic State] and tarnished Britains reputation around the world.
For all the evidence of close relations between Blair and the former U.S. President, the Chilcot inquiry actually found that London ultimately had very little to show for offering unwavering support to Washington. Blair was able to convince Bush to at least seek UN Security Council backing, but Chilcot concluded: On other critical decisions [Mr Blair] did not succeed in changing the approach determined by Washington. Just because Blair was able to get inside didnt mean he was able to persuade.
Paris (AFP) - "Don't put your daughter on the stage," Noel Coward, the great chronicler of the follies of fashion, once warned in his song "Mrs. Worthington".
His advice has not quite made it to the catwalk, where nearly a dozen little girls toddled down the runways of the Paris haute couture shows Wednesday.
French designer Franck Sorbier dressed up half a kindergarten class as little tsarinas with fez-like pillbox hats and red fur trimmed cloaks as a colourful contrast to the mourning weeds of his aristocratic Russian black widows.
And Elie Saab, whose ball gowns are often the thing of little girls' princess fantasies, also sent two children out as mini-me versions of their catwalk mothers trailing clouds of organza, feathers and glitter.
- Waders for madam? -
Wellington boots have been awfully stylish for some time now. But who in their wildest dreams who would have thought that fishermen's waders would too?
After the trendsetting French brand Vetements set jaws dropping with their silk Manolo Blahnik stiletto waders that reach right to the ribs on Sunday, John Galliano went full rubber Wednesday.
The English-born designer has long been in love with a very 18th-century kind of aristocratic anarchy, and in his new collection for Maison Margiela, his fantasy punk duchesses went to the ball in wellies.
A wench who seemed like she has just led the storming of the Bastille powered down the runway in waders under an Empire line gown, while another in a pirate tricorne hat waded ashore in search of booty.
"A sense of the incredible and the impossible spins throughout the collection," Galliano wrote in his notes, adding that his "fantasy is tempered by the jarring authenticity of today's reality".
"Napoleon and Josephine meet skate culture," quipped the New York Times' Vanessa Friedman on Twitter.
- Squared shoulders -
Although little of haute couture -- which is destined for the wardrobes of the world's richest women -- filters down to the malls, you can be sure that you will be seeing squared shoulders on the high street this winter.
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Fashion's top table, Chanel, Dior and Giorgio Armani, all pushed their shoulders out in their new collections, and the trend which has also been percolating through the men's shows last week, seems unstoppable.
In what will almost certainly be her last collection for the Italian house Valentino before taking over at Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri added the merest of puff shoulders to the odd dress. But she would not be deflected from her glorious recreation of a Renaissance court, all ruffs, regality and silk breeches.
If this is the sort of unstated grandeur she will bring to Dior, Paris will gladly open its gates to its new queen.
- Back to the woods -
That eternal sprite Jean Paul Gaultier ran deep into the Japanese forest for inspiration for his show. And by the amount of fur he put on the catwalk, he probably come back via Siberia.
With the world the way it is, we need "to breathe the air, get away from it all, and get closer to nature," he told AFP.
With a palate of deep bark-coloured coppery reds and browns, he dressed his women like wood spirits and fairy queens, their faces framed by haloes of fur or wool.
Others seems to have escaped from some Middle Earth, though even in their wildest fantasies no Hobbit noblewoman would ever dream of looking this good.
Dutch pair Viktor & Rolf also embraced nature and the idea of the found and reused, describing their equally romantic crafty collection as being "alive with cascading blossoms... and metallic dragonflies".
In their crumpled Dr. Seuss top hats, their models looked like tramp princesses; and no less regal for being so.
By Gram Slattery SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Two weeks after Chile's government completed work on a landmark labor reform, leading lawyers in the world's top copper exporter say the bill is filled with gaping regulatory voids that have replaced many laws with question marks. The reform, aimed at strengthening organized labor in the South American country, was initially passed by Chile's Senate in March after a bruising battle that opened up divisions within the governing coalition. However, key parts of the bill, touted as a central element of leftist President Michelle Bachelet's broad reform program, were later struck down by a constitutional court. The government, whose fractured coalition could not produce the votes needed to replace the removed parts, responded by excising the reform's unconstitutional sections in June, thus letting the unchallenged provisions become law. The removed parts, however, contained a huge chunk of the laws that define the nation's collective bargaining framework. Lawyers now say bargaining outside established unions has been left essentially unregulated, meaning the nation's courts, not its legislators, will establish many of the new rules. Some see deja vu with the country's recent tax reform, which had to be simplified last year due to its complexity. All see an uptick in court cases, at least in the short term. "When morning comes and a company goes to negotiate with a group (of workers outside a union), they're going to ask, 'Well, how is it regulated?'" said Juan Vergara, a labor advisor and member of pro-labor group ProSindical. "What rights do they have? These are the questions that exist, and this is where the uncertainty is." Unions worry that the laws could encourage less-formal bargaining units that weaken established organized labor in the long-term. Business-affiliated lawyers fear that small bargaining units will proliferate as there is no longer an enforceable floor for the amount of workers that can band together to bargain collectively. Questions have also arisen about the enforceability of some contracts, and several pro-labor parts of the original bill, such as restrictions on replacing striking workers, will still go into effect as they were never challenged in court. Still, while many executives and business lawyers are apprehensive, others see opportunity in the new laws. "There are many who say this project is very negative," said lawyer Felipe Saez, who has advised heavy industry group Sofofa. "But for companies with decent labor relations, less regulation might not be the worst thing." (Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by David Gregorio)
BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Wednesday U.N. authorities should respect its judicial independence after a U.N. agency said last week that an American businesswoman who is accused of spying in China had been detained arbitrarily. The U.S. State Department said it was concerned about the welfare of Sandy Phan-Gillis of Houston, Texas, who has been held for more than a year without formal charge. It urged China to resolve the case "expeditiously." State Department spokesman John Kirby said that although the ruling of the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention was not legally binding, "we would encourage the Government of China to review and consider the opinion and recommendations received..." Earlier, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei criticized the U.N. group after it said Phan-Gillis's detention violated international human rights norms and that authorities had not provided evidence for holding her without any specific charges. "We hope that the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention can perform its duties impartially, respect China's judicial sovereignty and cease making irresponsible remarks about legal cases being handled by relevant Chinese departments," he told a regular briefing. Kirby, who spoke at a regular news briefing in Washington, said senior U.S. officials had raised the case multiple times with the Chinese government and a U.S. consular officer last visited her on June 20. Kirby said China should ensure Phan-Gilles had full access to an attorney. In a statement that cited an unidentified source, the U.N., working group said Phan-Gilles had not been allowed to speak to a lawyer or family members regularly and had recently been hospitalized after suffering a heart attack. The group called for her to be released or granted access to legal counsel and given a fair trial. Phan-Gillis was detained in March 2015, when she was stopped for questioning in the southern city of Zhuhai as she was preparing to depart for Macau through a border crossing. China's state secrets law is extremely broad, encompassing everything from industrial data to top leaders' birthdays. Information can also be declared a state secret retroactively. International organizations including the United Nations have criticized China's judicial processes for failing to guarantee the rights of the accused, including freedom from torture, and fair trials. There is no independent oversight of China's law enforcement authorities or courts, which answer to the ruling Communist Party. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is visiting Beijing this week. (Reporting by Megha Rajagopalan in Beijing and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Robert Birsel, Bernard Orr)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China's foreign minister spoke with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry by telephone on Wednesday ahead of a key international court ruling on China's South China Sea claims and warned Washington against moves that infringe on China's sovereignty, Beijing's official Xinhua news agency reported. Xinhua said Wang Yi repeated China's rejection of the jurisdiction of the International Court of Arbitration in a case the Philippines has brought against China's claims to nearly all of the South China Sea, calling it a "farce" that should come to an end. The court, based in The Hague, is due to give its ruling on Tuesday, raising fears of confrontation in the region. U.S. officials say the U.S. response should China stick to its vow to ignore the ruling could include stepped up freedom-of-navigation patrols close to Chinese claimed islands in what is one of the world's business trade routes. In the call initiated by Kerry, Wang "urged the United States to honor its commitment to not to take sides on issues related to sovereign disputes, to be prudent with its actions and words, and not to take any actions that infringe upon the sovereignty and security interests of China," Xinhua said. Wang said that regardless of the tribunal's ruling, China would "firmly safeguard its own territorial sovereignty and legitimate maritime rights and firmly safeguard the peace and stability," it said. Wang also said that relations between China and the United States were generally on a sound track and that the two sides should further focus on cooperation while properly managing their differences. The U.S. State Department confirmed that Kerry had spoken by phone to Wang. "The two discussed issues of mutual interest. We are not going to get into the details on this private diplomatic conversation," State Department spokeswoman Gabrielle Price said. China has been angered by U.S. patrols in the South China Sea in recent months and on Tuesday launched what the Defense Ministry termed "routine" military drills there. On Tuesday, Beijing sought to downplay fears of conflict in the South China Sea after an influential state-run newspaper said Beijing should prepare for military confrontation. U.S. officials say they fear China may respond to the ruling from The Hague by declaring an air defense identification zone in the South China Sea, as it did in the East China Sea in 2013, and by stepping up its building and fortification of artificial islands. (Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Sandra Maler)
By Xihao Jiang and Jake Spring HANGZHOU/BEIJING, China (Reuters) - Chinese tech firm Alibaba's internet-connected car will set the Chinese e-commerce giant up to quickly introduce driverless vehicle technology, Chief Technology Officer Wang Jian told Reuters on Wednesday. Alibaba and the country's largest automaker SAIC Motor Corp demonstrated their jointly developed car equipped with the YunOS operating system, which can link up with smart phones, at an event in eastern China's Hangzhou on Wednesday. The car is slated to go on sale later this year. "You'll quickly see driverless car technology resulting from this platform," Wang said on the sidelines of the event. Among major tech companies, Alibaba is relatively late to offer a platform that can link a smart phone to a car, trailing platforms already launched by Alphabet's Google, Apple and Baidu. But the race to commercialise driverless cars is far from over with experts predicting that a fully autonomous car will not hit the market until 2020 or later. (Reporting by Xihao Jiang and Jake Spring; Editing by Stephen Coates)
* Chinese government has called for "mass entrepreneurship"
* Called on migrants-to-students to start own businesses
* Innovation centres are popping up around the country
* But they are often in the wrong place, occupancy rates low
* Raises concerns investment is wasted, glut of innovation centres
By Sue-Lin Wong
SHACHENG, China, July 7 (Reuters) - The Chinese government's call to the nation to build an innovation-driven economy from the top down has sparked a rush by local governments to construct new buildings in the name of supporting creativity.
Innovation centres have been popping up around the country and are set to more than double to nearly 5,000 in the next five years, according to internet research firm iiMedia. The only problem for local governments; entrepreneurs are not moving in.
Many centres are in small Chinese cities or towns, not ideal locations for attracting startups. There is no local market for their product, no local ecosystem of suppliers and fellow entrepreneurs and centres generally provide only basic amenities, such as a desk and a telephone. They lack the financial, technical or marketing expertise that many startups need.
Most incubators have occupancy rates of no more than 40 percent, iiMedia says.
The result: like steel mills, theme parts and housing before them, the country now faces a glut of innovation centres as another top-down policy backfires to leave white-elephant projects and a further buildup of debt.
"The risk of a bubble is extremely large," said Shi Jiqiang, a partner at Leilai Management, which runs day-to-day operations at a startup base in the city of Tianjin, near Beijing.
"This is both a test for government and for the managers of startup spaces ... there aren't enough entrepreneurs."
China's Ministry of Industry and IT declined to comment and the state planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, did not respond to a request for comment.
Beijing argues its development model that worked so well for infrastructure and real estate, powering the country through the global financial crisis, can build successful, high-tech startups.
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With slogans such as "mass entrepreneurship" and "internet plus", Beijing has called for innovation centres to be built all over the country, hoping to lay the groundwork for the next Jack Ma - who founded e-commerce giant Alibaba - to emerge.
It has encouraged college students and even migrant workers to try their hand at starting their own businesses to transform China into a high-tech economy less reliant on basic manufacturing.
Almost 80 percent of the capital for the innovation centres springing up around the country is coming from the government or universities, which are state-backed in China, or a combination of sources, iiMedia said.
"In any sort of market, you want the experts making the decisions, not some technocrat or bureaucrat," said William Bao Bean, investment partner at venture capital fund SOSV, which invests in startups. "You don't tend to see too many successful companies come out of a government-based decision-making process."
OPEN FOR BUSINESS
The small town of Shacheng in Huailai county in northern Hebei province answered Beijing's call for innovation by building two 25-storey adjoining towers - one for office space and the other as an innovation centre.
However, the innovation centre, offering desks and a period of free rent and utilities to potential startups, is empty. The floors are littered with rubbish and dust.
Like other towns in China's industrial heartland, Shacheng is feeling the brunt of Beijing's push to reduce massive industrial overcapacity. Glass and cement factories, and coal mines and steel mills have been shut down.
The town offers few signs of the central government's innovation campaign. Chinese characters hanging on a fence in Shacheng's economic zone spell out "mass entrepreneurship" but otherwise local people said they had not seen any promotion of the innovation centre and they felt it was not targetted at them anyhow.
Instead, they assumed it was designed to attract students and entrepreneurs from Beijing, some four-hours away by train.
"I wouldn't consider becoming an entrepreneur. You need money to do that. No, for someone like me, I don't really have many options," said Liu Haiyang, 30, who runs a shop next to the innovation centre, selling bathroom fittings.
Shacheng's local authority and the county economic planner declined to comment.
Residents said they hoped their economic fortunes would improve when a high-speed rail link with Beijing, which will cut travel time to the capital down to half an hour, is completed in 2019.
"The incubator is losing money," said a businessman with strong ties to the local government, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But we're playing the long game, hoping this push will create companies that pay taxes and add jobs to the local economy."
Elsewhere, some local governments have rebranded empty office space as innovation centres. At the new Yujiapu economic zone in Tianjin near Beijing, the government has designated 5.5 square kilometres for 11 incubators with at least four more on the way. The zone's flagship incubator is only 30 percent occupied, an administrative assistant said.
"All these office buildings have already been built," said Yang Dehong, a local government official. "We might as well use them, help startups reduce their costs," she said.
"And ride the wave of this (innovation) policy," added Pei Lei, another government official.
AGAINST THE ODDS
Venture capitalists say startups gravitate to where successful innovation centres are already up and running, or where they can find the right mix of a local market, talent, expertise and fellow entrepreneurs.
That generally means the big cities, such as Zhuhai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen - the five cities that top the rankings for startups in China.
"The idea that you can predict location or the idea that every geography happens to have this nascent group just waiting to be given capital to go create the next Alibaba, is just not true," said Gary Rieschel, founder of Qiming Venture Partners, a China-based venture capital firm.
Other more fundamental factors are holding back an entrepreneurial culture in China, startup experts say.
Even in towns with universities, young Chinese are often pressured by their parents to find a job considered more steady, such as in government or with a private company. Starting your own business is seen as too high risk.
The Chinese education system, which largely focuses on rote learning, also crimps the development of creative thinkers, said Bo Yiqun, chief executive of a privately run co-working space in Beijing with 85 percent occupancy.
"Innovation is related to education," Bo said. "If education levels don't rise, we can't expect innovation to catch up that fast."
Even if all those factors were in place, government efforts would have more chance of success if officials teamed up with former entrepreneurs or venture capitalists with money at stake, Chinaccelerator's Bao said.
"Where it's not worked the world over, as well as in China, is where the governments themselves are making the investment decisions," he said.
(Additional reporting by Zhang Qi, Elias Glenn, Pete Sweeney, Nathaniel Taplin and the Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Neil Fullick.)
Chris Hemsworth had a pretty weird request before he started shooting Thor 3
Chris Hemsworth had a pretty weird request before he started shooting Thor 3
It takes a lot to roll out of bed in the morning and pick up Mjolnir. So like any Norse God, before Chris Hemsworth started filming Thor 3, he had a small lists of request. He needed his shakes, his shoesand also a rollercoaster.
In a new video posted to Instagram, Hemsworth celebrates the beginning of filming for Thor 3 (YAY YAY YAY!) by taking a little stroll around the studio lot. Hemsworth is dressed more like us on a Saturday morning than Thor, as he walks around in a hoodie and shorts. Also, slippers, because why not?
Clearly, hes excited to be back to work, and even more excited that his most outlandish request for Thor 3 has been met. If Thor asks for a rollercoaster, Thor gets a rollercoaster.
Thor 3 has begun #wheresmyhammer #thor3 #rollercoastersrock A video posted by Chris Hemsworth (@chrishemsworth) on Jul 5, 2016 at 3:57pm PDT
Just a little something that comes with being Thor, Hemsworth shrugs as he gestures towards a giant roller coaster, like yeah, all the Avengers get rollercoasters.
In reality, this rollercoaster just happens to be next to the studio where Thor 3 is filming. The cast and crew are in Queensland, Australia, filming at the Village Roadshow Studios which is right next door to the Warner Bros. Movie World theme park, that yes, has a few roller coasters.
Now with a coaster so close to filming, how often do you think Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Mark Ruffalo, and Jeff Goldbum will sneak away to go and ride it?? Sounds like a perfect opportunity for some Thor 3 bonus features.
The post Chris Hemsworth had a pretty weird request before he started shooting Thor 3 appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz says the Brexit decision is an "abysmal stupidity."
In an interview with SkyNews, the Austrian-German actor spoke frankly about his disappointment in the move and in the politicans who are fleeing in the aftermath.
First David Cameron quit as Prime Minister. Then the face of the Brexit, Boris Johnson, said he wouldn't run for Prime Minister. And then Nigel Farage, another chief campaigner for Brexit, resigned as the leader of the U.K. Independence Party, saying, "I've done my bit."
Waltz isn't letting them go without calling them out.
"Of course, the head rat would leave the sinking ship," Waltz told SkyNews. "Leave the mess for others to clean up and retreat into some profitable other business. That shows you how despicable these people are that they can't even stand up for what they caused."
Watch Waltz's full reaction:
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New York (AFP) - Hillary Clinton can breathe a sigh of relief. She has avoided criminal charges that could have ended her campaign, but a brutal FBI rebuke over her emails could still complicate an increasingly tight race against Donald Trump.
The FBI's decision against prosecuting Clinton for using a private email server while secretary of state has robbed Republicans of the election game-changer they had so desperately craved.
"I don't think it was complete exoneration but it was probably the best they could have hoped for," said Jeanne Zaino, political science professor at Iona College in New York.
"They should be counting their lucky stars that things weren't worse."
Clinton was questioned by agents over the Independence Day holiday weekend and the FBI announced its findings Tuesday, when many ordinary voters were still on vacation or outside relaxing, not inside glued to the news.
But if Clinton dodged a bullet, her public dressing down from FBI Director James Comey could yet foretell an even tougher war of political attrition all the way to the ballot box in November, analysts warned.
Comey said 110 emails contained classified information -- Clinton said there were none whose content was classified at the time they were written -- portrayed the politician as "extremely careless" with sensitive information and said her emails could have been hacked: all bad news.
"That will resonate with many people," said Zaino.
"Is it going to derail her campaign? No. Is it going to have a long-term impact? Probably not.
"The damage is going to be if the Republicans are able to use this to rally the troops and improve turnout and in some way rob the Democrats of some support in the Senate and at the top of the ticket," she said.
The silver lining for Clinton, analysts agree, is that she is running against a man even more disliked, with even more questionable judgment and representing a party so far unable to unite behind him.
Story continues
- Lucky it's Trump -
"They (Republicans) would have to make the case that Hillary Clinton is so dangerous that people who might not otherwise turn out to vote against her would turn out and vote for Donald Trump. That's not easy to do," said Zaino.
Trump seized on the findings to brand Clinton a liar and charge that the system was rigged, drawing a much-mocked parallel with disgraced former CIA chief David Petraeus, who pled guilty to mishandling classified information.
The Republican billionaire, who has never held public office, languishes nearly five percentage points behind Clinton in a poll average produced by Real Clear Politics.
"She's very lucky she's in a race with a man with higher negatives," political analyst Stuart Rothenberg told AFP. "She's bad, he's worse."
Ever since the email scandal emerged last year, critics have interpreted it as further evidence of her being dishonest, while supporters insist she did nothing illegal and was subject to a Republican witch hunt.
"It doesn't really change the race too much," Rothenberg said.
"Unless she was indicted, unless there was a Justice Department that believed she engaged in criminal behavior, really all the damage has already been done."
Were she up against a Republican like charismatic House speaker Paul Ryan, unflappable moderate John Kasich or even Mitt Romney, who twice failed to beat Barack Obama, the fallout might be worse, experts say.
The Clinton campaign quickly issued a statement saying it was "pleased" the matter was closed and Clinton spent Tuesday afternoon dressed in hot pink and beaming on stage in a gleefully awaited first campaign appearance with Obama.
Neither mentioned the FBI and the president offered a ringing endorsement of his former rival, saying no man or woman had ever been more qualified.
Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, conceded that Comey's "pretty tough language" would raise further questions about her judgment, but doubted it would prove decisive.
"It might help Trump a little bit. If you don't like him, you still don't like her more -- if you're a Republican," Zelizer said.
"My guess is, the report overall still helps her and solidifies the support she still has, even though it's critical and again she benefits from the fact that Trump is her opponent and there are so many questions about his judgment."
By John Whitesides and Julia Edwards
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI recommended on Tuesday that no criminal charges be filed over Hillary Clinton's use of private email servers while she was secretary of state, but rebuked the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate for "extremely careless" handling of classified information.
While FBI Director James Comey's announcement lifted a cloud of uncertainty that had loomed over Clinton's White House campaign, his strong criticism of her judgment ignited a new attack on her over the email issue by Donald Trump, her likely Republican opponent in the Nov. 8 election.
Comey's comments are likely to reinforce what polls show are widespread public concerns about Clinton's honesty and trustworthiness. Republicans have pointed to the controversy as evidence that she considered herself above the law.
House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest- ranking elected U.S. Republican, said in a statement that Comey's announcement "defies explanation."
Ryan called on the FBI to release all of its findings in the case and said Comey would be called to testify before the House Oversight Committee. "We need to know more," Ryan told Fox News.
In a lengthy statement on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's conclusions from its yearlong investigation, Comey directly contradicted statements Clinton has made while defending her use of the private email setup.
He said, for example, that the FBI found at least 110 emails that contained classified information when they were sent, although Clinton has repeatedly said she never sent or received classified information on her private servers.
"Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of the classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," Comey said.
But he said the FBI concluded "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring charges. "Although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case," Comey told reporters in Washington.
Story continues
His recommendation will likely stand. The country's top prosecutor, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, said on Friday she would accept the recommendations of career prosecutors and the FBI director on whether to charge Clinton for mishandling emails.
'SHE LIED!'
Clinton's campaign was anxious to move on after Comey's announcement, saying in a statement it was pleased with the FBI decision.
"As the secretary has long said, it was a mistake to use her personal email, and she would not do it again. We are glad that this matter is now resolved," spokesman Brian Fallon said.
He did not respond to questions about Comey's rebuttal of the main arguments Clinton has offered in defense of her use of private email.
At a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday night, Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, said the controversy should disqualify Clinton from being president and that her email system may well have been hacked by U.S. enemies.
"Our enemies may have a blackmail file on crooked Hillary and this alone means that she should not be allowed to serve as president of the United States," Trump said. "We now know that she lied to the country when she said that she did not send classified information on her server. She lied!"
Following Comey's late-morning remarks, Clinton became one of the top trending topics on Twitter, with about 671,000 tweets posted by 4 p.m. (2000 GMT). The overall sentiment was more negative than positive, with about two negative tweets for every positive one, according to social media analytics firm Zoomph.
The FBI director's announcement came hours before Clinton's first campaign appearance with President Barack Obama, in Charlotte, North Carolina, where neither Obama nor Clinton mentioned the email probe. It also came less than three weeks before the Democratic National Convention at which Clinton is to be nominated as the party's candidate for the November election.
NO 'INTENTIONAL MISCONDUCT'
The FBI has been investigating whether Clinton broke the law as result of personal email servers kept in her Chappaqua, New York, home while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. One question is whether she mishandled classified information on the servers.
As the investigation wound up, Clinton underwent a voluntary 3-1/2-hour interview with the FBI on Saturday in Washington.
Comey said the FBI did not find that Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate the law, and that there was no "intentional misconduct" by her lawyers who sorted her emails.
He said her staff should have known Clinton's private email was an improper place for classified information, but added there was no evidence anyone had hacked Clinton's communications.
Comey said, however, that "hostile actors" gained access to email accounts of people with whom Clinton corresponded regularly. He also said she used email extensively while traveling "in territory of sophisticated adversaries."
Experts routinely advise U.S. government officials not to bring important digital information to countries with a track record of aggressive cyber activity. Clinton traveled to more than 100 countries during her four years as top U.S. diplomat, including trips to China and Russia, considered among the most sophisticated U.S. cyber adversaries.
The FBI found 110 emails in 52 email chains that contained information that was classified at the time the messages were sent, Comey said. Eight of those chains contained "top-secret" information, the highest level of government classification for material that could harm national security.
A further 36 email chains contained "secret" information, and eight "confidential" information, he said. Agents also found three classified emails among the thousands Clinton never returned to the State Department.
Comey said there were no previous cases that supported filing criminal charges against Clinton. Other cases had involved intentional mishandling of information, he said.
Last year, the FBI recommended that former CIA Director David Petraeus be charged with a felony for his mishandling of classified information with his biographer, with whom he was having an affair.
In that case, however, the FBI had evidence that Petraeus knew the information was highly classified. Petraeus eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information.
Republican lawmakers have called for an independent investigation of Clinton, saying they do not trust the Justice Department to handle the inquiry with impartiality.
Republican criticism of the process heated up after Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, met privately with Lynch in Phoenix last week. Lynch, who was appointed by Obama, said later she regretted the meeting and that she and the former president did not discuss the investigation.
(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen and Angela Moon in New York and Dustin Volz, Steve Holland and Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney)
By John Whitesides and Julia Edwards WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI recommended on Tuesday that no criminal charges be filed over Hillary Clinton's use of private email servers while she was secretary of state, but rebuked the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate for "extremely careless" handling of classified information. While FBI Director James Comey's announcement lifted a cloud of uncertainty that had loomed over Clinton's White House campaign, his strong criticism of her judgment ignited a new attack on her over the email issue by Donald Trump, her likely Republican opponent in the Nov. 8 election. Comey's comments are likely to reinforce what polls show are widespread public concerns about Clinton's honesty and trustworthiness. Republicans have pointed to the controversy as evidence that she considered herself above the law. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest- ranking elected U.S. Republican, said in a statement that Comey's announcement "defies explanation." Ryan called on the FBI to release all of its findings in the case and said Comey would be called to testify before the House Oversight Committee. "We need to know more," Ryan told Fox News. In a lengthy statement on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's conclusions from its yearlong investigation, Comey directly contradicted statements Clinton has made while defending her use of the private email setup. He said, for example, that the FBI found at least 110 emails that contained classified information when they were sent, although Clinton has repeatedly said she never sent or received classified information on her private servers. "Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of the classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," Comey said. But he said the FBI concluded "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring charges. "Although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case," Comey told reporters in Washington. His recommendation will likely stand. The country's top prosecutor, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, said on Friday she would accept the recommendations of career prosecutors and the FBI director on whether to charge Clinton for mishandling emails. 'SHE LIED!' Clinton's campaign was anxious to move on after Comey's announcement, saying in a statement it was pleased with the FBI decision. "As the secretary has long said, it was a mistake to use her personal email, and she would not do it again. We are glad that this matter is now resolved," spokesman Brian Fallon said. He did not respond to questions about Comey's rebuttal of the main arguments Clinton has offered in defense of her use of private email. At a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday night, Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, said the controversy should disqualify Clinton from being president and that her email system may well have been hacked by U.S. enemies. "Our enemies may have a blackmail file on crooked Hillary and this alone means that she should not be allowed to serve as president of the United States," Trump said. "We now know that she lied to the country when she said that she did not send classified information on her server. She lied!" Following Comey's late-morning remarks, Clinton became one of the top trending topics on Twitter, with about 671,000 tweets posted by 4 p.m. (2000 GMT). The overall sentiment was more negative than positive, with about two negative tweets for every positive one, according to social media analytics firm Zoomph. The FBI director's announcement came hours before Clinton's first campaign appearance with President Barack Obama, in Charlotte, North Carolina, where neither Obama nor Clinton mentioned the email probe. It also came less than three weeks before the Democratic National Convention at which Clinton is to be nominated as the party's candidate for the November election. NO 'INTENTIONAL MISCONDUCT' The FBI has been investigating whether Clinton broke the law as result of personal email servers kept in her Chappaqua, New York, home while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. One question is whether she mishandled classified information on the servers. As the investigation wound up, Clinton underwent a voluntary 3-1/2-hour interview with the FBI on Saturday in Washington. Comey said the FBI did not find that Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate the law, and that there was no "intentional misconduct" by her lawyers who sorted her emails. He said her staff should have known Clinton's private email was an improper place for classified information, but added there was no evidence anyone had hacked Clinton's communications. Comey said, however, that "hostile actors" gained access to email accounts of people with whom Clinton corresponded regularly. He also said she used email extensively while traveling "in territory of sophisticated adversaries." Experts routinely advise U.S. government officials not to bring important digital information to countries with a track record of aggressive cyber activity. Clinton traveled to more than 100 countries during her four years as top U.S. diplomat, including trips to China and Russia, considered among the most sophisticated U.S. cyber adversaries. The FBI found 110 emails in 52 email chains that contained information that was classified at the time the messages were sent, Comey said. Eight of those chains contained "top-secret" information, the highest level of government classification for material that could harm national security. A further 36 email chains contained "secret" information, and eight "confidential" information, he said. Agents also found three classified emails among the thousands Clinton never returned to the State Department. Comey said there were no previous cases that supported filing criminal charges against Clinton. Other cases had involved intentional mishandling of information, he said. Last year, the FBI recommended that former CIA Director David Petraeus be charged with a felony for his mishandling of classified information with his biographer, with whom he was having an affair. In that case, however, the FBI had evidence that Petraeus knew the information was highly classified. Petraeus eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information. Republican lawmakers have called for an independent investigation of Clinton, saying they do not trust the Justice Department to handle the inquiry with impartiality. Republican criticism of the process heated up after Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, met privately with Lynch in Phoenix last week. Lynch, who was appointed by Obama, said later she regretted the meeting and that she and the former president did not discuss the investigation. (Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen and Angela Moon in New York and Dustin Volz, Steve Holland and Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney)
CHARLOTTE, N.C.Four years ago, Hillary Clintons husband stepped up to a lectern at the convention center in Charlotte and delivered one of the most pivotal speeches of Barack Obamas presidency. On Tuesday, Obama returned to the Queen City to try to repay the favor to Clinton, whos now vying to succeed him.
After leading the crowd in a Hil-la-ry! chant, Obama strode to the microphone. Im fired up! he said. Hillary got me fired up.
And he was. Speaking for more than half an hour in his first appearance with his would-be successor, the president showed that aides who insisted he was raring to get back on the campaign trail werent making it up.
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A Tale of Two Rallies
Obama was folksy and loose, jacketless and with sleeves rolled up, and he grinned broadly as he bonded with the crowd and took a series of shots at Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. While praising Clinton at length, Obama portrayed the election as a referendum on Trump.
There has never been anyone, man or woman, more qualified for this office. Ever. And thats the truth. I know Hillary can do the job. Thats why I am so proud, North Carolina, to endorse Hillary Clinton as the next president of the United States, he said. You have a clear choice to make between two fundamentally different visions of where America should go.
Recommended: From Whitewater to Benghazi: A Clinton-Scandal Primer
Clinton is hoping that a combination of fear of Trump and love for Obama in places like Charlotte can carry her to a big win in November. Obama and Clinton were originally scheduled to campaign together for the first time on June 15 in Wisconsin, but that appearance was postponed after the massacre in Orlando. By the time they rescheduled, as my colleague Russell Berman reported, bad polling and lack of organization for Trump in the upper Midwest had given the Clinton campaign the confidence to shift its focus to North Carolina, a reddish-purple state it believes is now in play.
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Obama won the Old North State narrowly in 2008, on the strength of high turnout among African American voters and in urban centers. Since then, the state has only become more polarized between cities and rural areas, with battles over voting laws, government spending, guns, education, andmost recentlytransgender rights, around HB2, the controversial bathroom bill. Republicans upgraded their own political organization following the 2008 loss, capturing the state legislature, the governorship, and a U.S. Senate seat. In 2012, Mitt Romney edged Obama in North Carolina. For Clinton to recapture Obamas 2008 magicand avoid his fate in 2012she will need to motivate the states black and city-dwelling voters, and hope Republicans dont turn out. For the first part, shes relying on Obama. And for the second, shes relying on Trump.
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Just like Bill Clintons 2012 speech at the Democratic National Convention, where the elder statesman practically overshadowed the president, Obamas performance was almost too good, showing the natural charisma that helped him beat Hillary Clinton in 2008. (Obama even emulated the Big Dogs legendary long-windedness. Near the end of his remarks, Obama fauxpologized for going on so long: When you havent campaigned in a while, you start enjoying it too much.) He joked with the crowd about his love of North Carolina and especially its cuisine. Hillary Clinton wisely chose to speak first, letting Obama close things out, though she got her punch lines in, too. Praising Obama for never forgetting where he came from, she added, And Donald, if youre out there tweeting: Its Hawaii.
Clinton is touting an economic planincluding a major jobs program, debt-free college, fighting offshoring, and taxing the wealthyand the president took that cue, focusing on the economic case for a Clinton presidency. Shes actually got a plan. Its actually paid for! You can actually look at it, he said. This isnt even a choice, because the other sides got nothing to offer you. As he has done before, Obama mocked Trump as nothing but a television star. This is not a reality show. This is reality, he said. When a crisis hits, you cant just walk of the set. You cant fire the scriptwriter. While helping Clinton, he took the opportunity to help himself, criticizing Republicans for blocking his agenda and for refusing to hold confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland, his nominee for the Supreme Court.
Recommended: How American Politics Went Insane
If Clinton is wary of being tied too closely to Obama, there was little sign of that in her remarks, as she praised his family, leadership, judgment, and track record. Actually, I dont think he gets the credit he deserves for saving our economy, she said, ticking off a litany of benchmarks: I could go on and on but you get the idea. She framed her role not as a third Obama term, but as using his legacy as a base. Our next president has a different job to do: building on the progress that President Obama has made, Clinton said.
Shes actually got a plan. Its actually paid for! You can actually look at it. This isnt even a choice, because the other sides got nothing to offer you.
It would have been easy for her to get carried away with the love for Obama in the crowd. The president won North Carolina narrowly in 2008, buoyed by strong support from African Americans and city dwellers in urban centers like Charlotte. Pauline Semuel, a distinguished black woman, came to the rally wearing a dress shed had made out of five Obama t-shirts, each in different colors. Shed missed a chance to see Obama speak at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she was working at the time, and was determined not to miss him again.
Im very excited about the history thats being made here, she told me. Im excited the President Obama and Hillary Clinton are coming together, a black man and a white woman. They cant talk about prejudice. Lets talk about love.
Leonard Williams, another Charlotte resident, was more direct about the historical resonance of the two politicians. Im here to join the celebration, he said. Its like a red moon.
If the shots at Trump were clear and pointed, Clinton and especially Obama had a pointed, if slightly more subtle, message for the other candidate in the race, Senator Bernie Sanders, and to his supporters: Fall into line. Recalling her rivalry with Obama in 2008, Clinton said, When it was over, I was proud to endorse him and campaign for him, emphasizing the syllables.
Obama made the case for party unity in the face of a Trump candidacy at greater length. At the end of our contest, I saw the grace and the energy with which she threw herself into my campaign, he said. Not because she wasnt disappointed by the outcome of the primary, but because she knew there was something at stake that was bigger than either of us, and that was the direction of the country. We may have gone toe to toe from coast to coast, but we stood shoulder to shoulder for the ideals we shared.
Neither Obama nor Clinton mentioned FBI Director James Comeys press conference earlier Tuesday, in which he announced that he was recommending that Clinton not be charged with any crime for her use of a private email server, yet also starkly criticized her judgment in using the system. But Clinton, like Obama, seemed in high spirits.
The event brought Clinton back to North Carolina for the second time in two weeks. On June 22, she held a rally at the state fairgrounds in Raleigh. Two recent polls, from CBS News and the conservative, North Carolina-based Civitas Institute, show Clinton with a small lead over Trump. A third, from Democratic-affiliated firm Public Policy Polling, showed Trump up narrowly.
North Carolina features two tight down-ballot races this year, and Clintons performance here could spell the difference in the races for governor and U.S. Senate. State Attorney General Roy Cooper, who is running against Governor Pat McCrory, and Deborah Ross, who is running against Senator Richard Burr, both appeared at the rally, having skipped her appearance in Raleigh. (It turns out the president isnt just a big draw for votershe can help with turnout among office seekers, too.) After Clinton and Obama announced their rally, Trump scheduled a rally for Tuesday evening in Raleigh, halfway across the state. He, too, has been a somewhat frequent visitor, campaigning in Greensboro in mid-June. But neither McCrory nor Burr attended Trumps Raleigh event, which was most notable for the candidates remarks about Saddam Hussein. Though both men have endorsed him, somewhat tepidly, Republicans still see him as too unpredictable and potentially damaging to embrace.
The urban-rural divide that explains why North Carolina is in play in this election was on display to the nation in the fight over HB2, the states bathroom law. The fracas began when Charlotte instituted a local ordinance requiring transgender bathroom accommodation, and Republican state legislators moved to overturn it. Several attendees cited the law as a reason they felt strongly about this years race. At the rally on Tuesday, Vara Bell of Raleigh, who sported a Hillary yall button, dared to hope that Clinton, Cooper, and Ross could make a clean sweep. There are a lot of dormant Democrats that are champing at the bit, she said.
For Democrats, Trump remains the surest fire way to ensure that rank-and-file voters are as fired up and ready to go as the president is, a truth that Obama acknowledged in framing the election as a referendum on the Republican. Monica Mehareb, an 18-year-old Charlotte resident who is voting in her first election, couldnt even bring herself to speak Trumps name. Asked why shed come to the rally, she told me, Anything to save the future of America from the other candidate running.
Read more from The Atlantic:
This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Atlantic City (United States) (AFP) - Hillary Clinton came out swinging Wednesday after the FBI's damning indictment of her email scandal by lacerating Donald Trump's business record in the city where four of his companies went bankrupt.
"The people of Atlantic City know better than anyone Donald Trump cannot do the job for American workers and businesses," the presumptive Democratic nominee told supporters outside one of Trump's boarded up former businesses.
Her Republican rival often brags about the money he made in the 1980s in the now depressed gambling resort in the largely Democrat state of New Jersey, but Clinton attacked his record as "shameful."
"Every single voter in America needs to know about it so we don't let him do to our country what he did to his businesses," the former secretary of state said to chants of "Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!"
"In America, we don't begrudge people from being successful, but we do if they get rich by destroying other people," she said.
"So, let's just make sure we don't put a person like this with his empty promises and his lifetime of selfishness in a position to destroy our lives."
Clinton said Trump ripped off small business owners and investors, waiters and plumbers went unpaid. Contractors took heavy loses and went bust, but "Donald Trump walked away with millions."
Clinton, whose combined wealth with husband Bill is estimated at $45 million by Forbes, aligned herself with the ordinary worker and said her father had been a small businessman of the type that Trump had conned.
"He wants to make America great again? Maybe he should actually start making things in America again," she said, charging that Trump furniture was made in Turkey, suits in Mexico and Trump lamps in China.
She also bashed Republican Governor Chris Christie, who has endorsed Trump, saying that if he were doing his job "instead of following Donald Trump around holding his coat, maybe we could really get New Jersey's economy moving again."
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On Tuesday, the FBI said it would not seek charges against Clinton in an email scandal from her time as secretary of state, but rebuked her as "extremely careless" and contradicted her claim that no classified emails were involved.
On Wednesday, Trump hit back with a statement defending his record and turned the tables on Clinton, saying nobody would do more for the economy than him.
The New York billionaire declared bankruptcy four times in connection with Atlantic City properties and pulled out of the city in 2009.
By John Whitesides ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton visited the famous boardwalk in Atlantic City on Wednesday to highlight Republican rival Donald Trump's casino bankruptcies, warning he would bring the same cutthroat approach to managing the U.S. economy. Clinton, standing next to the shuttered Trump Plaza casino that Trump once owned, said the real estate developer routinely profited from the financial ruin of workers in the economically depressed seaside resort town. "The people he's trying to convince to vote for him are the same people he's been exploiting for years - working people, small-business people," Clinton said. Clinton said Trumps casino bankruptcies and numerous complaints against him by contractors showed he cannot be trusted to set economic policy from the White House. "He makes over-the-top promises and says if people trust in him, put their faith in him, he'll deliver," she said. "Then everything falls apart, people get hurt, and Donald gets paid." The Trump Plaza was one of four casinos Trump once owned in Atlantic City. He left the city after his last bankruptcy. Clinton frequently uses criticism of Trump's business record to illustrate a principle campaign theme - that the wealthy New Yorker is only interested in boosting his financial bottom line, and not concerned about the economic struggles of working Americans. Clinton reminded supporters who gathered on the boardwalk under a boiling sun, within steps of the city's beach, that Trump had promised to "do for the country what I did for my business." She said Trump intentionally ran up hundreds of millions of debt on his companies, borrowed at high rates, defaulted on the loans, and left in the lurch the workers and contractors who relied on his casinos for income. "That says everything you need to know about Donald Trump," Clinton said. "Its not about what he can build. Its about how much he can take." ECONOMIC STRUGGLES Atlantic City has struggled economically in recent years as a series of casinos have closed. The city's 10 percent unemployment rate is nearly double the national average, and closed buildings pockmark its boardwalk. In an emailed statement, Trump defended his bankruptcy filings on casinos and other projects as a commonly used practice to restructure a business and ultimately save jobs. "I created thousands of jobs and made a lot of money in Atlantic City, which was what, as a businessman, I am supposed to do for my company and my family and as President I will make America rich again," he said. "Nobody understands the economy like I do and no one, especially not Crooked Hillary Clinton, will do more for the economy than I will." After the speech, Clinton drove a few blocks to shake hands with dozens of striking workers outside the Trump Taj Mahal, another of the casinos that Trump once owned. Her attack on Trumps business dealings came as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee blasted her integrity following an FBI report that criticized her use of private email during her tenure as secretary of state. Clinton did not address the email issue during her stop in Atlantic City. On Tuesday, FBI Director James Comey said the agency would recommend no criminal charges against Clinton for her use of private email servers. But Comey rebuked her for what he said was "extremely careless" handling of classified material on her email servers, and contradicted her claims that she never transmitted or received classified material on that email system. Republican lawmakers criticized Comey for what they saw as lax treatment of Clinton, and on Wednesday, committee chairman Jason Chaffetz, a Republican, announced that Comey will testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Thursday to explain the bureau's "surprising and confusing" recommendation. The FBI has been investigating whether Clinton broke the law as result of personal email servers kept in her Chappaqua, New York, home while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, including whether she mishandled classified information on the servers. (Additional reporting by Alana Wise in Washington)
By Tom Hals and Patrick Rucker
WILMINGTON, Del./WASHINGTON, July 6 (Reuters) - Alpha Natural Resources said on Wednesday it expects to reach a deal with the U.S. government over responsibility for the cost of cleaning up mining sites, removing one of the most significant hurdles to the coal company's exiting bankruptcy.
Over the past few weeks, the fourth-largest U.S. coal miner and a slew of government agencies appeared to be heading for a showdown in court on Thursday, when Alpha is scheduled to ask a federal judge to approve its plan over objections.
At issue is a program called self-bonding that has allowed leading coal companies to forego purchasing cleanup insurance on federal land by pledging to cover any such costs.
Peabody Energy, Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources have all gone bankrupt in the last 11 months, leaving behind roughly $3.6 billion in self-bonding liabilities, according to securities filings.
Federal officials have promised to try to shield taxpayers from that cost, but the Obama administration must compete with other creditors for the companies' scarce assets.
The government called Alpha's plan "fundamentally flawed" and said it was not prepared in good faith because it skirts environmental obligations, while the company has said the plan is the best way to benefit all parties.
On Wednesday, Alpha said it anticipated reaching a deal by Thursday with the U.S. Department of Interior, Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies, according to a filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond, Virginia.
Alpha said a deal would include a "funding agreement" between Alpha, its lenders and a new company created to take over Alpha's best mining assets.
The U.S. Department of Justice, which brought the government's objections, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Peter Morgan, an attorney for the Sierra Club, said the government may have backed off its tough stance because of fear of getting nothing in the event Alpha liquidated.
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Alpha filed for bankruptcy in August as coal prices plunged to a 12-year low.
Alpha plans to sell core mining assets to its lenders, who will pay by forgiving what they are owed rather than cash. Alpha has also reached a deal to sell natural gas assets for $200 million in cash.
The reorganized Alpha would continue to own a number of mining complexes primarily in Appalachia, and critics say it will lack funds for clean-up costs. The plan also shields its creators from liability.
(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by James Dalgleish)
A new full scale replica of Noahs Ark is set to open in Williamstown, Kentucky, Thursday. The biblically accurate tourist attraction named The Ark Encounter, built by the group Answers in Genesis, cost more than $100 million to build and is believed to be the largest timber-framed structure in the world.
Answers in Genesis President and CEO, Ken Ham, told the FOX Business Networks Maria Bartiromo, he expects the structure, built by 100 Amish craftsmen with 3.3 million board feet of timber over six years, to be an economic boost to the Kentucky economy.
We actually had outside consultants, Gerry Henry and Associates, who actually did an economic study--and they said based on minimum attendance of just 1.4 million [people] a year, and we think there will be a lot more than that, in fact, our researchers indicate at least 2 million a year, but the research indicates over ten years an economic impact on the state of Kentucky of $4 billion, creating up to 20,000 jobs, he said.
Ham also said the privately funded project which drew 8,000 supporters and donors to preview the ark, will provide a boom to the tourism industry in Northern Kentucky.
The whole area was slammed in regard to restaurants and hotels. Hotels are saying they are booked out around the area, he said.
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tight rope
The US trade deficit widened 10.1% to -$41.1 billion in May, according to the Commerce Department.
Exports fell compared to the prior month while imports excluding oil and aircraft increased, widening the gap.
This could reduce the contribution that trade makes to second-quarter gross domestic product.
Economists had forecast that the excess of imports over exports widened to -$40 billion from -$37.4 billion, according to Bloomberg.
America's trade deficit with China increased by $1.7 billion to $28.3 billion in May. The balance with the UK shifted from a surplus to a deficit of $0.3 billion, while the deficit with Japan fell to $5 billion.
The Commerce Department said it will introduce a new "advance economic indicators report" on July 28. It will combine new estimates for retail and wholesale inventories with advance estimates of international trade.
NOW WATCH: Obama had some incredible reactions while campaigning with Hillary Clinton
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NEWS BRIEF With the Democratic convention only a few weeks away, the Hillary Clinton camp can release a sigh of relief after FBI Director James Comey announced that the agency found that no charges are appropriate in the probe into the former secretary of states emails.
Our judgement is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case, Comey said. In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts.
On Tuesday, Comey announced that The FBI is completing its investigation and referring to DOJ for a prosecutive decision. He added that it was going to be an unusual statement. And it was certainly a long-anticipated one. The FBI probe into Hillary Clintons use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state has long haunted her presidential campaign.
Recommended: How American Politics Went Insane
Comey likened the former secretary of states emails on Tuesday to a huge unfinished jigsaw puzzle and dumping all the pieces on the floor. Of the 30,000 emails turned over by the State Department in 2014, 110 emails in 52 email chains were determined to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received, Comey said. But there wasnt reason to believe that there was intentional misconduct. Comey added, however, that Clinton and her aides were extremely careless. Comey continued, saying the security culture of the State Department in generaland with respect to the use of unclassified systems in particularwas generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information that's found elsewhere in the U.S. goverment. And although the FBI found no proof her server had been hacked, Comey said that it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal e-mail account.
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The press conference came three days after the agency interviewed Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. Agents interviewed the presumptive Democratic nominee for more than three hours at FBI headquarters in Washington. At question was whether Clinton or her aides put classified information at risk by corresponding on a private server. The New York Times has more on the meeting:
Accompanying Mrs. Clinton into the meeting were her lawyer David E. Kendall; Cheryl D. Mills and Heather Samuelson, longtime aides who are also lawyers; and two lawyers from Mr. Kendalls firm, Williams & Connolly, Katherine Turner and Amy Saharia. Eight officials from the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice conducted the interview, according to a person who was familiar with the substance of the session but declined to be named because the meeting was private. This person characterized the meeting as civil and businesslike.
Clinton told MSNBCs Chuck Todd in an interview following the meeting: Ive been eager to do it, and I was pleased to have the opportunity to assist the department in bringing its review to a conclusion.
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Last week, Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch met in Phoenix. While Lynch insisted that the meeting was of a personal nature, it raised questions about the investigation into Clintons emails. Lynch announced on Friday that she would accept the recommendations put forth by federal prosecutors.
Republicans, including Donald Trump, have targeted Clinton on the matter of her emails, which also appears to have influenced voters. A Washington Post / ABC News national poll released in March found only 37 percent of people view Clinton as honest and trustworthy.
President Obama will join Clinton on the campaign trail on Tuesday in North Carolina.
Read more from The Atlantic:
This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
On Tuesday, Conan aired the third annual Scrapisode, an entire show made out of the scraps from failed bits from the shows rehearsals. In one, Conan OBrien set up an audience plant by saying, Spielberg says there is only one actor playing Indiana Jones and that is Harrison Ford. In response an old man in an Indiana Jones costume with a thick accent muttered, No, that cant be true.
The timing was so off, OBrien couldnt help but chuckle. The man tried to impress OBrien with his whip skills. Sadly those skills included only sheepishly dangling the whip from his hand. OBrien responded to the limp whip with, Sir, the line I have been giving is, Please stop. You can hurt someone, but I dont think there is any way in Gods earth you could hurt anyone.
The unheroic Indiana Jones stormed off to Conan OBriens approving cheers for the awkward sketch.
Conan airs weeknights at 11 p.m. on TBS.
Watch Zac Efron and Adam Devine describe their very different fans:
Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Cynthia LuCiette, on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
London (AFP) - At times close to tears, former prime minister Tony Blair faced the world's media Wednesday to defend his place in history after the damning findings of Britain's inquiry into the Iraq war.
There was an apology -- of sorts -- from the former Labour leader, who in 1997 at the age of 43 became Britain's youngest premier in nearly two centuries.
"I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe," said a hoarse-sounding Blair, his voice breaking.
He also insisted that memories of events around the invasion -- which led to the death of more than 150,000 Iraqis and 179 British soldiers -- would never leave him.
"There will not be a day of my life where I don't relive or rethink what happened," he told the news conference at London's Admiralty House, once home to wartime prime minister Winston Churchill.
But after nearly two hours of talking and a barrage of questions from journalists, Blair was still adamant that he had taken the right decisions on Iraq despite the serious flaws in planning and execution which dogged the US-led invasion in 2003.
The man known as "The Master" at Westminster now looks set to slip back into his lucrative career of advising foreign governments, despite threats from some MPs that they will try and impeach him via a law last used in 1806.
A defiant Blair said he could not accept a whole string of the Chilcot report's central findings, including that it was unnecessary to invade Iraq in March 2003.
"I believe we made the right decision and the world is better and safer" without toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, he said.
"They want me to say what I can't in all frankness say -- that we should have taken a different decision. I'm sorry if people find that difficult to reconcile," Blair added.
- Conspiracy theories? -
His comments came a few hours after retired civil servant John Chilcot finally announced the findings of his inquiry into Britain's role in the war after seven years.
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More than 100 anti-war protestors had gathered outside the venue where Chilcot spoke shouting "Blair lied, thousands died".
Perhaps seeking to avoid similar scenes, Blair's aides only gave journalists 15 minutes' notice of his news conference -- though he did stay to answer their questions for "as long as you want".
He could not resist a snipe at those who accuse him of lying over his motives for invading Iraq -- a claim which has become commonplace in Britain since he resigned as premier in 2007.
"Neither history nor the fierce and raucous conduct of modern politics, with all its love of conspiracy theory and its addiction to believing the worst of everyone, should falsify my motive," he said.
"I did it because I thought it right," he said.
One of Britain's most popular ever politicians when he won his first election by a landslide in the 1990s, Blair now has an approval rating of -67 percent, according to pollsters YouGov.
At 63, Blair is still relatively young and reportedly interested in senior political jobs.
An article he wrote for the Daily Telegraph last week was seen by some commentators as an informal pitch for a job helping to negotiate Britain's exit from the European Union following last month's referendum.
But for all the deft political touch exhibited at Wednesday's press conference, some of the reaction demonstrated how toxic his Iraq legacy remains.
Blair's name was trending on Twitter after his press conference and many comments referred to him having "blood on his hands".
"It will take many hours to read Sir Johns magnum opus, and there will be much to learn from his findings," wrote political commentator Matthew d'Ancona in a column for Wednesday's Evening Standard newspaper.
"But those who already hate Blair will not have their opinions shifted by an inch."
Data. Many of us may think data is just a line item on our cell phone bill where we are penalized if we used too much that month. In the business world, data is on the mind of every CEO. How to acquire customer data? How to use data to determine buying patterns? How to keep confidential data safe? These questions have resulted in a wave of new career paths -- and our workforce does not have enough qualified employees to match the hiring. Here are two paths to consider if you want to participate in these fast-growing professions.
[See: 25 Awesome Business Jobs for 2016.]
Marketing Analytics. Marketing departments are huge consumers of data and technology. A prediction by Gartner (a leading research company) estimated that by 2017 the head of marketing will actually spend more on information technology than the chief information officer. Businesses of every kind want to know more about their customers and want to create practices that make it easier to target the right customers at the best time in an effort to increase sales efficiently.
Most entry-level marketing careers begin by learning all of the technology tools available to capture customer preferences, identifying buying patterns and marketing goods or services. Proficiency with the software tools leads you to where data and ideas converge. Initiatives measured by analytics drive the majority of marketing efforts in mid-to-large firms. Measuring things like click-through rates and determining the return on investment for specific marketing campaigns or strategies give executives factual information about what is actually working (and what is not a good use of time). If you are pursuing a career in marketing, be prepared to demonstrate more than just good ideas -- as a matter of fact, your ideas may not even be needed for many years to come. Instead, display how you have increased followers, expanded online communities, grew user engagement and ultimately had an impact on revenue because of your analysis of data. Let the numbers show your marketing potential.
[See: 10 Ways Social Media Can Help You Land a Job.]
Data Science. Ever wanted to be a treasure hunter? Maybe you have a knack for solving puzzles, finding glitches or seeing the piece that is out of place? Good news -- you might be a natural data scientist.
But why pursue a data-driven role versus a more traditional math or programming role? Eric Haller, executive vice president and global head of Experian DataLabs, gives this explanation: "Data Science offers continuous exploration. It is a multidisciplinary career path. You look for things that others may not have seen -- patterns to tell a story. Furthermore, the stronger your skills, you can tackle more complex and intriguing problems -- marketing, fraud, credit risk."
A safe way to explore the career path while a student or a new computer science or mathematics graduate, advises Haller, is to try out some online courses in data hygiene, data management, data infrastructure, analytics, statistics and machine learning. If the online learning piques your interest, then you can pursue an advanced degree in data science specifically. A career may start as a data engineer, tasked with cleaning up data sets. Over time, and possibly with an even more advanced degree, you can move to a data scientist role where you tackle business and security problems more comprehensively using your technical and analytical skills.
If you are pursuing career growth in the field, Haller suggests that you be prepared to demonstrate your math, programming and data management skills in interviewing situations and that you actively network to learn more about the companies and industries best suited to your interests. Also, there are considerably more opportunities in certain regions of the U.S., such as Seattle, the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, New York, Austin, Texas, Charlotte or Raleigh, North Carolina and San Diego. The highest concentration of roles is near the technology and financial centers throughout America. Relocation may be necessary for career progression.
[See: 15 Awesome Jobs That Pay More Than $90K.]
In a 2009 article in The New York Times, Hal Varian, the chief economist at Google, famously noted, "I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians. And I'm not kidding." Move over programmers and software engineers. Analysts and scientists who can manipulate huge amounts of data and emerge with powerful insights that impact strategic decisions are now the ideal professions for career-minded high achievers. With its rapid rate of growth and employment potential, the future is bright for those who pursue big data.
Robin Reshwan is the founder of Collegial Services, a consulting/staffing firm that connects college students, recent graduates and the organizations that hire them and a certified Women's Business Enterprise (WBE). She has interviewed, placed and hired thousands of people across a broad spectrum of companies and industries. Her career tips and advice are used by universities, national clubs/associations and businesses. A Certified Professional Resume Writer, Robin has been honored as a Professional Business Woman of the Year by the American Business Women's Association. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and as a Regents Scholar from University of California, Davis.
A prudent investor takes advantage of stocks which appear promising at the right juncture. Hence, we suggest investing in Constellation Brands Inc. STZ, as the stock has been gaining traction on the back of its splendid earnings history, solid strategic initiatives and inherent strength.
Spectacular Earnings History
Constellation Brands boasts a robust earnings history, as its bottom line has outperformed the Zacks Consensus Estimate for seven straight quarters now, with an average beat of 8.1%. The company recently posted stellar first-quarter fiscal 2017 results, wherein both top and bottom lines registered double-digit growth and exceeded expectations.
Results were backed by the companys effective integration and growth of its recently acquired brands, higher margins across its portfolio along with strong consumer demand. Also, strength in its beer business, improving trends at its wine and spirits business, and solid overall depletion trends aided the beat.
Given the impressive first quarter, the company remains optimistic of its fiscal 2017 performance. The strong results and encouraging outlook also caused an uptrend in the Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2017, which increased from $6.29 to $6.31, over the past 7 days.
Growth Strategies
Constellation Brands, which shares space with other well-established players including Compania Cervecerias Unidas S.A. CCU, Molson Coors Brewing Company TAP and Boston Beer Co. Inc. SAM, has a formidable portfolio of well-known brands, and is the largest wine company in the world. The company has a dominant position in the premium wine and beer segment in the U.S., which provides it with a competitive edge, and further bolsters its well-established position in the market.
Constellation Brands constant focus on brand building and its initiatives to include new products in its wine and spirits business are the key revenue drivers for the stock. Backed by its strategic endeavors, the company is witnessing robust depletion trends and increasing market share in the U.S. wine and spirits category. Also, it strives to enhance points of distribution at retail and effectively execute its strategic merchandising initiatives to boost sales.
These factors, along with Constellation Brands focus on acquisitions and constant shareholder-friendly moves bode well, instilling confidence among investors. Thus, we believe that it is the right time to take advantage of Constellation Brands bull-run, as the stock is likely to keep its momentum going.
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Jeff Cohen, Sean Astin, Corey Feldman, and Ke Huy Quan in The Goonies (Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures)
Goonies never say die, but Goonies fans hoping for a sequel might have to give up the ghost. Speaking with Movieweb, Corey Feldman (who is doing press to promote his new EDM album) offered a reality check on why Goonies 2 is unlikely to happen or at least, why its unlikely to happen with the original cast and director of the 1985 cult classic.
[The Goonies director] Richard Donner is 87 years old. And its like, no one really wants to make it without him, Feldman told the website. Hes the driving force behind it. He says its still alive. But as we all know When you get to that age, things slow down quite a bit. There is a big possibility that he might not want to keep driving it.
Related: Corey Feldman on Friday the 13th, Goonies 2, and How Mel Gibson Cost Him a Role in Maverick
Donner has openly, if noncommittally, entertained the possibility of a Goonies sequel. During Empire magazines Goonies reunion in 2009, Donner said that he and producer Steven Spielberg had conducted many meetings with potential Goonies 2 writers, but ultimately nothing stuck and the idea seemed disrespectful. Then in 2014, the director caused a stir when he told TMZ that he and Spielberg were collaborating on Goonies 2 and planned to bring the entire original cast back. Last year, when Uproxx pressed him on the issue, Donner seemed less confident. If there were going to be another movie it would take us a long time to get it right, he said. And thats a sentiment that Feldman echoed to Movieweb.
It could have a very bad backlash! the actor acknowledged. At the end of the day, and I have said this before, the only way a Goonies sequel happens, and is forgivable to the fan baseIs if it is done right. And what does that look like? Obviously I dont know. Because Im not Steven Spielberg, Im not Richard Donner, Im not [screenwriter] Chris Columbus.
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Feldman did, in fact, pitch a Goonies 2 treatment to Donner at some point, written with his original co-star Sean Astin; according to Feldman, Donner liked their idea but dismissed it as too expensive.
Related: What Goonies 2 and Four Other Long-Delayed Sequels Would Look Like
Oddly enough, while Feldman thinks that Goonies 2 might never happen, Astin believes that its inevitable. I have said and will always say, that its not a question of if, but rather of when the sequel gets made, Astin told Tulsa World in September. He went even further while visiting Phoenix ComicCon this spring, broadly hinting to the crowd that his Goonies character Mikey would meet the legendary pirate One-Eyed Willy in the sequel. Feldmans response?
Unless Sean has a magic ball somewhereone of those magic eight balls which is telling him that One-Eyed Willy is going to be starring in a new Goonies film I have no idea what he is talking about, Feldman told Movieweb.
Of course, theres nothing stopping Goonies 2 from going into production with an all-new cast except producer Steven Spielberg, who is apparently in no rush to make a quick buck off a Goonies reboot. And for that, maybe we should all do a little Truffle Shuffle of thanks.
Goonies Costar Robert Davi Shares Secrets from the Set:
Costco Wholesale Corporation COST continues to be one of the dominant retail wholesalers based on the breadth and quality of merchandise offered. Lets delve deeper to know more about this Issaquah, WA-based companys stock.
Driving Forces
Costcos strategy to sell products at heavily discounted prices helps it to remain on a growth track as cash-strapped customers continue to reckon the company as a viable option for low-cost necessities. A differentiated product range enables it to provide an upscale shopping experience for its members, boosting its market share gains and sales per square foot.
Moreover, the company maintains a healthy membership renewal rate. Also, it is gradually expanding its eCommerce capabilities in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Mexico, Korea and Taiwan.
Costco continues to make prudent use of its cash flow through share repurchases and dividend payouts. This highlights its efforts to maximize shareholders returns amid difficult economic conditions. Further, the companys current resources are reasonably adequate to support expenditures associated with its ongoing expansion initiatives.
Going forward, Costco has one of the highest square footage growth rates in the industry, and remains committed to opening new clubs in the domestic and international markets. We believe the companys diversification strategy is a natural hedge against risks that may arise in specific markets.
COSTCO WHOLE CP Price and Consensus
COSTCO WHOLE CP Price and Consensus | COSTCO WHOLE CP Quote
The Overhangs
While the aforementioned factors bode well, the companys top-line performance has been soft for a while now. Evidently, its sales have missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate for six straight quarters now. Also, investors are worried about Costco's sluggish comparable-store sales (comps) performance. Comps remained flat in the third quarter of fiscal 2016, following an increase of 1% in the second quarter. While lower gasoline price is impacting U.S. comps, currency fluctuations are hurting international comps.
Further, Costco faces stiff competition and remains sensitive to macroeconomic factors. Also, cautious consumer spending has been weighing upon its sectors performance. Costco competes with Fred's, Inc. FRED, Burlington Stores, Inc. BURL and Dollar General Corporation DG.
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- Disgraced Paralympian Oscar Pistorius will learn Wednesday how long he will spend in jail when a judge sentences him for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp three years ago. Pistorius was freed from prison in the South African capital Pretoria last October after serving one year of a five-year term for culpable homicide -- the equivalent of manslaughter. But an appeals court upgraded the conviction to murder, which has a mandatory sentence of 15 years. Due to his time already spent in jail and mitigating factors such as his disability, he could be given a lesser term. Legal expert Llewellyn Curlewis, chair of the Law Society of the Northern Provinces, told AFP he expected a sentence of between 11 and 14 years.
AFP
By Davide Scigliuzzo
NEW YORK, July 6 (IFR) - Mexico's consumer finance lender Credito Real will begin a series of investor meetings on Friday, ahead of a potential US dollar bond sale to finance the buyback of its 7.5% 2019s.
The company, rated BB+/BB+, has hired Barclays, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley to arrange the meetings, which will take place in London on July 8, Boston, Los Angeles and Lima on July 11, and New York and Santiago on July 12.
Proceeds from the sale will help finance a tender on Credito Real's 7.5% 2019s, on which the company has US$425m outstanding, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Bondholders who tender by the early bird deadline of July 19 will receive US$1,057.50 for every US$1,000 in principal. Those tendering their notes after that date but before the final deadline of August 2 will receive US$1,027.50 for every US$1,000 in principal.
In conjunction with the tender, Credito Real on Wednesday also announced a consent solicitation on the 2019s to eliminate substantially all of the covenants on the notes, remove certain events of default and shorten the minimum notice period required for redemption.
(Reporting by Davide Scigliuzzo; editing by Shankar Ramakrishnan)
With Harry Potter now in his rearview mirror although never say never! Daniel Radcliffe has set about amassing one of cinemas most interesting and diverse bodies of work, including wildly different recent turns as a villain in Now You See Me 2 and a farting corpse in Swiss Army Man. Come this August, hell travel even further down that transformational path when he plays an undercover agent posing as a white supremacist. Now we have a first look at his neo-Nazi saga above.
Related: A Deep Dive Into Daniel Radcliffes Eclectic Post-Harry Potter Career
In Imperium, Radcliffe plays Nate Foster, a young FBI agent whos assigned by his boss (Toni Colette) to infiltrate a gang of skinheads. To do this, he shaves his head, gets some white-power tattoos, and straps on his jack boots to become a member of a local National Socialist outfit led by The Knicks burly Chris Sullivan. No matter that, as he claims in the films debut trailer, he isnt experienced (or tough) enough for this assignment; in director Daniel Ragussis film, Radcliffes cop is thrust head-first into the lions den, where he discovers, unsurprisingly, that neo-Nazis are scarily intolerant folks with a lust for violence and plans for a domestic terrorist attack.
Resembling the offspring of American History X and Donnie Brasco, Imperium has the makings of a tense and timely thriller when it arrives in theaters Aug. 19. To get a glimpse of the former boy wizard posing as a Hitler-loving racist, check out the films premiere trailer above.
Crime and justice network Investigation Discovery is honoring Dave Navarro for the documentary Mourning Son at ID's fourth annual Inspire a Difference event that will be held in October in New York on a to-be-determined date. Mourning Son tells the story of how Navarro's mother, Connie Navarro, was murdered by an ex-boyfriend, John Riccardi, in 1983.
Navarro, known for his guitar work in Jane's Addiction and Red Hot Chili Peppers, was 15 when his mother was killed. He produced the film with his close friend, writer-director Todd Newman.
Life Term Upheld For Killer Of Guitarist Dave Navarro's Mother
"Many people know the public persona of Dave Navarro, but Investigation Discovery is truly honored to be able to show viewers this different side," Henry Schleiff, group president of ID, American Heroes Channel and Destination America, said in a statement. "Through his heartbreaking, inspirational journey, Dave perfectly embodies the true essence of why we started Inspire a Difference, and we are thrilled to give him an additional platform to help share his wisdom and healing around the horrific realities of domestic violence."
Added Navarro in a statement: "Losing a loved one to domestic violence is a difficult and unfortunately much-too-common event. It is my hope that Mourning Son was a way to shine a light on this horrible epidemic within our culture so that we can all help end it. I appreciate the efforts by Investigation Discovery and Inspire a Difference, and am touched that they would bestow me with this honor."
Riccardi was originally sentenced to death for the murder of Connie and her friend Sue Jory, but the California Supreme Court overturned the sentence in 2012. Riccardi was resentenced in 2013 to life without parole.
Dave Navarro Opens Up About His Late Mother In 'Mourning Son' Documentary: Exclusive
Navarro is Inspire a Difference's first male honoree; he joins such previous honorees as Kristin Chenoweth and Rosario Dawson. The organization, which formed in 2013, acts as ID's public affairs campaign to create a dialogue around such issues as domestic abuse and violence against women, and is supported by nonprofit partners that include No More, Safe Horizon, the National Center for Victims of Crime and the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
Mourning Son is available to watch on VOD and cable on-demand. For more information, click here for the film's official Facebook page.
On July 6, 1854, disgruntled voters in a new political party named its first candidates to contest the Democrats over the issue of slavery. Within six years, the newly christened Republican Party would control the White House and Congress as the Civil War began.
For a brief time in the decade before the Civil War, the Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson and his descendants enjoyed a period of one-party rule. The Democrats had battled the Whigs for power since 1836 and lost the presidency in 1848 to Zachary Taylor. But the Whig Party dramatically collapsed in the few short years after Taylor died in office in 1850.
By 1854, the battle between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions ended the Whig party as a force in American politics. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, allowing new territories and states to decide on their own if they would allow slavery. The act was a fatal blow to unity within the Whig Party.
There are at least three dates recognized in the formation of the Republican Party in 1854, built from the ruins of the Whig Party. The first is February 24, 1854, when a small group met in Ripon, Wisconsin, to discuss its opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The group called themselves Republicans in a reference to Thomas Jeffersons Republican faction in the American republics early days. Another meeting was on March 20, 1854, also in Ripon, of 53 people formally recognized the movement within Wisconsin.
A much-bigger meeting in Jackson, Michigan, on July 6, 1854, was attended by about 10,000 people, and is considered by many as the official start of the organized party. The gathering ended with a full slate of candidates to run in Michigans elections.
Horace Greeley, the newspaper publisher, had officially christened the group as Republicans in an editorial prior to the meeting.
We should not care much whether those thus united [against slavery] were designated Whig, Free Democrat or something else; though we think some simple name like Republican would more fitly designate those who had united to restore the Union to its true mission of champion and promulgator of Liberty rather than propagandist of slavery, he wrote.
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Today, the official Republican Party website recognizes that the first meeting was held in Ripon, and that the Party was formally organized in July 1854 by thousands of anti-slavery activists at a convention in Jackson, Michigan. (There is still some disagreement, at least in Michigan and Wisconsin, about bragging rights.)
The Republicans made quick inroads with their anti-slavery platform that year as a regional party, with its candidate, Kinsley Bingham, becoming Michigans governor.
But in 1854 the Republicans had rivals in other northern states popularly called the Know Nothings (or the Native American or American party). That rival party was loosely organized and campaigned on an anti-immigrant platform; it faded away after 1856, also divided over slavery.
By the end of the 1856 election year, the Republican Party had become a national power. Although its first presidential candidate, John Fremont, lost to James Buchanan, the Republicans did surprisingly well in the Electoral College, taking most of the northern states.
The Democrats benefited from the Know Nothings diverting votes in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois and New Jersey from Fremont. Four years later, the Republicans would take those four states as the their candidate, Abraham Lincoln, easily won the electoral vote.
Recent Historical Stories on Constitution Daily
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(AFP file photo)
The defective SMRT trains which are being sent back to their manufacturer in China will be repaired by 2019.
Singapores LTA (Land Transport Authority) has negotiated with the manufacturer and it will be able to speed up the process. Trains are being sent in batches and the rectification work will be completed in 2019, said a posting on the Singapore governments Factually website on Tuesday (5 July) night.
The information was attributed to the Ministry of Transport (MOT). Earlier media reports had stated that the trains would be repaired by 2023.
In the Q&A-style posting, titled Why are MRT trains being shipped back to manufacturer?, other issues surrounding the reported secret recall of a batch of China-made SMRT trains were addressed, including explanations for why the trains were covered up as they were transported in the dead of night.
The MOT said that the trains had to be moved at night so as to minimise obstruction and inconvenience to road users and were covered to protect the trains, just as how we would bubble-wrap or enclose in boxes and styrofoam-pad electronic equipment and machinery that we want to transport overseas.
Regarding the safety of the trains, the MOT said that the defects which were discovered in 2013 are superficial cracks (like those that show up on the walls of a new house) and that they are not safety-critical.
LTA also commissioned an external third-party assessment in 2013 which had confirmed that the trains are safe to operate. As advised by the third-party assessment, there has also been close monitoring of the crack propagation rate, said the MOT.
Given that the trains are still under warranty, the LTA is sending them back in small batches to ensure we get the value for our money, said the ministry.
Welcome to this edition of Hurried or Hungover, in which we ask chefs to answer our cries for help: What to make when either stressed for time or suffering the dreaded morning-after? Each chef was also tasked to keep it to ingredients most people have in their kitchens, since Heat up the leftover osso bucco isnt an option for most of us.
This round, we have the late-night stylings of one of NYCs most lauded chefs.Rebelle, on the Bowery, opened less than a year ago and already has its first Michelin star. Chef/Co-owner Daniel Eddy took a few minutes out of his insane schedule to share what he makes when hes busywhich, due to that sparkly M-star, is basically all the time.
His choice for a quick snack is a dish his moms family made him as a kid during visits to her native Nicaragua. Its called Peor es Nada, which translates cheekily to Worse is Nothing.
We made this all the time in Nicaragua, Eddy says. Everyone always has day-old, leftover tortillas there, and I usually do at home too. And, I mean, who doesnt have an egg and an onion in their fridge?
After a long night on the line serving NYC diners, Chef Eddy loves this for something quick, delicious, and heavy on the hot sauce.
Dish: Peor es Nada
Best when: Hurried
(Serves 2)
What you need:
6 corn tortillas cut into 6 or 8 triangle slices
1/2 small onion, chopped
3 eggs
2 pats of butter
Salt and pepper to taste
Your favorite hot sauce
How to make it:
Place the butter in a skillet and add the chopped onions. Sweat them over low-medium heat until tender, then remove. Over medium heat, add the tortillas. Season them with salt and pepper, and fry until they are browned and slightly crispy. Beat two eggs, season with salt and pepper, and pour into the pan. Mix them well with the tortillas and onions. Keep stirring consistently until the eggs are cooked to your liking. Transfer the mixture to a plate, splash it all with a healthy dose of hot sauce, and eat immediately.
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Copenhagen (AFP) - Danish prosecutors on Wednesday charged a celebrity magazine publisher and eight others with allegedly paying a computer expert to obtain details of stars' credit card transactions.
In April 2014 former journalist Ken B. Rasmussen published a purportedly fictional book detailing how gossip magazine Se & Hor used credit card information to write stories about members of the royal family.
The magazine's rivals had been baffled by a series of celebrity scoops it had run including about Danish Prince Joachim's 2008 honeymoon in Canada, which had been kept secret.
After a police probe prosecutors filed charges against eight people as well as magazine owner Aller Media, prosecutor Morten Frederiksen said in a statement.
The hacker suspected of leaking the information initially worked at a firm which is now part of a card payment company, before the group outsourced his job, according to police.
All eight, including three former editors of the magazine, are accused of breaching Danish laws on cybercrime and confidential business information, and face up to six years and four years behind bars, respectively.
Acquisitions offer long-term growth opportunities for companies like DeVry Education Group, Inc. DV. Such acquisitions enable the companies to grow and diversify into new program areas, levels and geographical locations, and build high-quality brands to compete in an increasingly competitive market.
On Jul 1, 2016, DeVrys subsidiary, Becker Professional Education closed its acquisition of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS) for $330 million. ACAMS will report under Becker Professional Education, which is a part of DeVry Groups International and Professional Education segment.
ACAMS is an international membership organization, owned by global private equity firm Warburg Pincus. ACAMS provides online and in-person training in skills related to anti-money laundering (AML) and financial crime prevention. The institution offers credentialing through its CAMS certification, conferences, and risk assessment tools. ACAMS is expected to generate revenues in the low $40 million range in fiscal 2017.
The acquisition strengthens DeVrys portfolio by adding a career oriented program that has strong demand in the job market. Also, it will extend Beckers geographic presence as about 40% of ACAMS revenues are generated outside Beckers global footprint. Over the near term, DeVry is looking for acquisitions in the fields of health care, professional and international education. This strategy is similar to another education company American Public Education, Inc. APEI which acquired Hondros College, Nursing Programs in Nov 2013.
Another player in the same space, Capella Education Company CPLA also resorts to acquisitions to drive growth. It acquired Hackbright Academy on Apr 22, a provider of non-degree software engineering. The new non-degree programs focus on bridging the skill gap in the market and should appeal to working adults as well as employers, thereby driving the companys top line in the near future.
Meanwhile, another education company, Apollo Education Group, Inc. APOL signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by a consortium of investors for about $1.1 billion on Feb 8. These investors include Chicago-based investment company, The Vistria Group, LLC; funds affiliated with Apollo Global Management, LLC (APO), one of the leading global alternative investment manager; and Najafi Companies, an Arizona-based investment firm. If the deal gets all the necessary approvals, the transaction is expected to close in Aug 2016.
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An eerie silence pervades the restaurants and shopping malls in Dhaka's diplomatic quarter, usually teeming with well-heeled urbanites, now standing empty since the killing of 20 hostages at a popular cafe.
Five days after the siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery in the Bangladeshi capital, many establishments remain closed, with shaken residents of Gulshan too afraid to venture out.
"Our guest numbers have gone down dramatically so the management took the decision to keep it shut for a while," said Abdul Mazid, a guard at Meraki, a well-known restaurant in the neighbourhood.
The run-up to Eid celebrations that mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan usually see shopping malls overflowing with crowds and millions of dollars changing hands in just a few days.
But this year Gulshan DCC market, usually bustling with Eid shoppers ahead of the biggest festival in the Muslim calendar, stand deserted.
The festivities, which start in earnest on Thursday, are likely to be subdued, with attendees instructed not to bring bags and high security at the National Eidgah Maidan in central Dhaka, where thousands will congregate for prayers in one of the largest such gatherings.
At least five gunmen stormed the bakery on Friday evening, sparking an 11-hour stand-off with police that saw victims murdered with machetes, most of them Italian or Japanese.
Around the corner from the site of the attack, Thai restaurant Soi 71 and neighbouring Korean diner Suraon, which usually remain lively past midnight, were shuttered on Tuesday.
"Ours is a happening business, it's hard to believe how quiet it has become over the past few days," said Mohammad Farhan, manager of the upmarket Butlers Chocolate Cafe, where waiters were standing around.
"It has just turned upside down."
- 'Moving bombs' -
Britain was among countries urging its citizens to avoid areas frequented by foreigners, such as international hotels, large supermarkets or clubs, while Japanese firm Uniqlo restricted non-urgent travel for employees.
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As Dhaka residents attempt to regroup, fears are mounting that the attack may herald an escalation of violence in Bangladesh.
Islamist militants have been blamed for a wave of murders of foreigners, religious minorities and secular writers over the past three years.
However, Friday's murders were on a totally different scale.
"I keep thinking about escape routes in our apartment and the building complex... I am too scared to be in my city any more," Dhaka-based private university researcher Shahana Siddiqui posted on Facebook.
The revelation that the attackers were educated, well-off members of society has sparked fears that Islamism has spread far beyond disenfranchised youngsters being radicalised in madrasas.
"Missing young men are potential moving bombs now. They can strike anywhere, any time," Mushtaq Ahmed, an entrepreneur, posted on social media.
At a mourning ceremony for the dead at a heavily secured park in Gulshan on Monday afternoon, some expressed fears that the weekend attack will not be the last.
"What we are seeing today is only the tip of the iceberg," retired Brigadier General Sakhawat Hossain, a security analyst, told the gathering.
"They came to kill and propagate their agenda. The ideology is there among our children."
A few days after Britains vote to leave the E.U. on June 24, PhD student Agata Brzezniak was approached by a woman on a bus in Manchester, asking her if she was Polish. When Brzezniak said yes, the woman told her to be scared before moving on.
The 25-year-olds account is just one of hundreds of anecdotes circulating on social media of xenophobic attacks against Europeans and other minority groups traveling on public transport, serving patrons in restaurants, or walking in their neighborhoods. Their claims have been supported by police, who announced a 57% increase in reported hate crimes compared to a pre-referendum average.
Commentators such as Labour Party MP Carolyn Harris say the vote to leave the E.U. has spurred a racist minority to lash out at the countrys immigrant population. The focus on immigration levels by some pro-Leave campaigners and heavily anti-E.U. newspapers such as the Daily Express was sometimes called racist; a poster unveiled by former U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage was heavily criticized for displaying a column of dark-skinned migrants stretching towards the horizon, with the words Breaking Point.
Yet groups that monitor hate crimes say it is too simplistic to blame the spike in reported incidents purely on the referendum vote. This behavior just did not start last week, Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton, the National Police Chiefs Council lead on hate crime, told the BBC this week. Many people have suffered for a long time.
Rachel Robinson, a policy officer who focuses on immigration at the civil liberties group Liberty, says their group saw a change in mood in 2010 after the Conservatives first took power. The current government tied every social ill in the political discourse to immigration, she says, turning immigrants into a scapegoat for everything that can go wrong.
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She points to such examples as a 2013 van scheme carrying billboards telling illegal immigrants to go home pioneered by Home Secretary Theresa May currently on track to be Britains next Prime Prime Minister as well as right to rent measures that placed the onus on checking the immigration status of tenants to landlords. You cant make it a hostile environment for one group of people without it having knock-on effects to the wider community, she says.
Matthew Collins, a researcher for the anti-racism group Hope not Hate, says he has observed virulent anti-immigrant rhetoric seeping into the mainstream for years. Part of his job involves monitoring far-right online media in the U.K. But in recent years he has found himself checking national newspapers like the Daily Mail and the Express, which have been using language and symbolism that was once considered taboo. In 2015, an editorial cartoon by the Mail was criticized as using 1930s Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda as it seemed to equate migrants fleeing wars into Europe with rats.
Traditional far-right groups have collapsed in the U.K. due to their language being mainstreamed and used by populists like UKIP, Collins says. When David Cameron was elected as Prime Minister for the second time [in 2015] he promised things like being tough on immigration, he promised people a referendum on E.U. membership. That is when we really saw a real hardening of language in reporting.
The bigotry that has emerged has different roots to the popular ethno-nationalism of the 1970s, says Collins, who was a member of far-right groups like the National Front before he grew up in 1989 and began helping anti-extremist organizations. The xenophobic schisms in todays Britain, he says, have less to do with ideas of [racial] superiority and more and more of it is just based on desperation.
Collins suspects todays hate crime perpetrators largely come from marginalized white communities who largely voted for Britain to leave the E.U. in the referendum. These communities exist in a constant fight for resources caused by years of austerity, he says, where the struggle to find jobs and get doctors appointments, school places and housing can seem exacerbated by migration levels.
The question now becomes how to fix the levels of distrust and fear among certain sections of the British population. The U.K.s equality watchdog, the Equality and Human Rights Commission will look into how race policy in the U.K. must be strengthened. Speaking to TIME, its chair David Isaac says that projecting the message that diversity is a source of opportunity in the U.K. should be supported. The referendum has created all sorts of splits and schisms, and thats why getting the message across that diversity can enhance what the U.K. has to offer[is] important.
But Collins says its important for anti-racism campaigners not to widen the empathy gap that opened up during the referendum campaign. Dismissing the 52% of voters who elected to leave the E.U. as fuddy duddy and racist could exacerbate tensions even further, he says. If you victimize someone, if you go around calling someone a racist for long enough, they will become a racist.
(Reuters) - Dominion Diamond Corp said it would focus on developing its core assets in Canada's Northwest Territories and on buying back shares, months after a group of investors urged the diamond miner to take steps to boost its share price. Dominion also said Chief Financial Officer Ron Cameron would step down on July 15 and Vice President Group Controller Cara Allaway would take over as interim CFO. An investor group led by hedge fund K2 & Associates said in December that it believed Dominion's share price had "suffered excessively and unnecessarily" as a result of "misguided policies and missed opportunities." The diamond miner, whose Toronto-listed shares had lost a third of their value in 2015, had said then that it would engage in talks with the group. Dominion will focus on developing the Sable and Jay projects at its majority-owned Ekati mine and a fourth pipe at its Diavik mine, among other core assets, it said on Wednesday. Both Diavik and Ekati mine sites are located in the Lac de Gras region of the Northwest Territories. Dominion is also selling its office building in downtown Toronto. The sale is expected to be completed in the third quarter of fiscal year 2017, the company said. Reuters reported in December, citing sources, that Dominion was working with Rothschild & Co to find ways to boost shareholder value, including a potential sale. Dominion's U.S.-listed shares closed at $9.11 on Tuesday. Up to Tuesday's close, the stock had fallen more than 35 percent in the past 12 months. (Reporting by Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Kirti Pandey)
(Adds comments from CEO)
By Nicole Mordant
July 6 (Reuters) - Dominion Diamond Corp , Canada's biggest publicly traded diamond miner, is keeping an eye out for acquisitions in Canada where some prospects are "very encouraging," its chief executive said on Wednesday.
Dominion, which owns stakes in two of Canada's biggest diamond mines, Ekati and Diavik, is looking for a new chief financial officer who has been involved in a lot of mining mergers and acquisitions, CEO Brendan Bell said.
Dominion said earlier on Wednesday that Chief Financial Officer Ron Cameron would step down on July 15 and Vice President Group Controller Cara Allaway would take over as interim CFO.
"We think there are some very encouraging prospects on the horizon potentially," Bell said in an interview.
"We think Dominion Diamonds, the largest publicly traded Canadian diamond player, is the logical acquirer," he said.
Dominion's main focus remains on developing its core internal diamond projects in Canada's Northwest Territories and it was "not desperate to rush in and overpay", Bell said.
Dominion was open to purchasing either a project that it would develop into a mine, or a producing mine, he said.
Asked if Dominion would be interested in De Beers' Snap Lake mine, also located in the Northwest Territories, Bell said he was not aware that it was for sale.
Diamond giant De Beers is weighing whether to sell, close, reopen or continue suspension of the money-losing Arctic mine, which was shuttered last December due to poor market conditions.
Dominion, which in December faced a revolt from an investor group angry at its falling share price, earlier on Wednesday unveiled a new capital plan. It includes buying back up to 7.2 percent of its issued shares and the sale of an office building in downtown Toronto.
Bell said the building is expected to sell for "tens of millions of dollars". The sale is expected to be completed in the third quarter of fiscal year 2017.
The diamond miner also said it is looking to increase its dividend to shareholders, depending on cash flow. Until it has a better handle on the impact of a June 23 fire at the Ekati process plant, it will, however, stick with its 40 cents annual dividend.
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Dominion also said its board had approved the development of the Jay diamond pipe at its majority-owned Ekati mine.
Dominion's board was looking to fill some upcoming vacancies and is in the process of reviewing prospective directors, Bell said.
(Additional reporting by Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Kirti Pandey, Bernard Orr)
Taking the stage in North Carolina just hours after Hillary Clinton and President Obama left the state, Donald Trump slammed the duos joint campaign appearance and accused Clinton of bribing Attorney General Loretta Lynch for favorable treatment in her email investigation.
Its a bribe, Trump said of Clinton reportedly being open to keeping Lynch on as Attorney General. I mean the Attorney General is sitting there saying, If I get Hillary off the hook, Im going to have four more years or eight more years. But if she loses, Im out of a job. Its a bribe. Its a disgrace.
Lynch said Friday that she would accept the FBI and prosecutors recommendation on charges related to the investigation of Clintons private email server. On Tuesday, FBI director James Comey recommended that there be no criminal charges against Clinton, despite finding her conduct to be extremely careless.
Trump also accused Obama of being in on the conspiracy. Hes campaigning and this was set up a long time ago, and he knew that the FBI was going to do this because it would have been very uncomfortable for him to campaign with her actually if they didnt take a pass on crooked Hillary, Trump said. So they take a pass, they announce theyre not going to press charges, lo and behold, a few hours later, lets have a press conference, lets do a speech together.
Multiple outlets reported that the White House had no advance warning on the FBIs decision.
Trump called on voters to see Clintons email controversy as evidence of poor decisionmaking. Stupidity is not a reason that youre going to be innocent, and I dont happen to believe it was stupidity, Trump said. Look at her judgment on emails, he continued. Who would do it? Look at her judgment. Her judgment is horrible. He said Clinton put the entire country in danger.
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Trump spent most of his speech railing against the former Secretary of State and the President, tying them together in his pitch to voters for change. The last thing we need is an Obama-Clinton in the White House, he said.
On terrorism, Trump also seemed to praise former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, Trump said. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He didnt read them the rights.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump offered some unexpected praise of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein Tuesday night for his technique in ridding his country of terrorists.
Speaking at a Raleigh, North Carolina rallywhere the Republican accused opponent Hillary Clinton of bribery in the investigation into her emailsTrump told supporters that Hussein did at least one thing well.
Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? He was a bad guy, really bad guy, said Trump. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didnt read them the rights, they didnt talk. They were a terrorist it was over.
The line was meant as a dig at the Obama administrations handling of terrorism, however, House Speaker Paul Ryan pushed back against the comments Wednesday morning, flatly calling Hussein evil, according to the Hill.
He was one the 20th centurys most evil people, Ryan said in an interview with Fox News when asked about the statement. He was up there. He committed mass genocide against his own people using chemical weapons.
This isnt the first time Trump has praised Hussein, according to the Hill, having made the same argument in February and in October saying that the world would 100 percent be better off if the former Iraqi president were still alive and in power.
If you only read one thing: The old maxim that its not the crime, its the cover up could hardly be more apt after FBI Director James Comeys evisceration of Hillary Clintons use of a private email server Tuesday. While Comey recommended that no charges be filed against her or her senior aides, he said evidence exists that Clinton or her top aides did violate federal classifications and records laws, first by being negligent in the handling of top secret information, and then by improperly deleting emails. She is hardly the first Secretary of State to use private email, and its likely her predecessors also messaged about information that could be considered classified, but Clinton delayed in turning over her records (and only then an incomplete set) for two years after leaving office. She denied the presence of any classified information, when agency after agency proved her wrong. She said she only used one email device, when photos and then the FBI proved she wasnt telling the whole story. Clinton said she set up the system for convenience, when her internal emails about the server and aides testimony made clear she did it to keep her information private. In a troubling instance, a top spokesman demanded a correction from TIME after a story pointed out that Clintons lawyers only ran searches to determine which messages needed to be turned over to the government as federal records. The spokesman repeatedly said her attorneys read every single e-mail, but that too was found to be false by the FBI. Time and again Clinton didnt tell the whole truthand in some cases appears to have liedto try to brush aside criticism of her arrangement, and each time she did and was proven false she did more damage to her own credibility. Already she suffers mightily on trustworthiness with American voters. Tuesdays announcement was about as good as it could have been for Clinton, but had she come clean about the private email system as soon as she left the State Department, this wouldnt be a controversy. It has been a series of unforced errors that may be the most visible symptom of the Clintonism that many voters still cant get behind.
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Donald Trump, incapable of allowing a positive news cycle to pass without stepping on it, accused Clinton of bribing federal officials in the email case at a rally Tuesday night and then praised former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. He was a bad guyreally bad guy. But you know what? He did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didnt read them the rights. They didnt talk, Trump said. America may have come to regret the war, but Hussein, who tried to assassinate a U.S. president, funded terrorism, and fired missiles at American allies is no hero in their eyes. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan rejected Trumps logic calling Hussein evil in an interview with Fox News, as Clinton campaign policy advisor Jake Sullivanone of the subjects of the FBI email proberushed out with a blistering critique of Trumps comments. Republican leaders also found themselves condemning the Trump Star of David tweet, with Ryan saying hes told Trump he needs to police his controversial social media presence.
President Obamas campaign swing on behalf of Hillary Clinton featured the president overshadowing Clinton in his native formatthe rally. Deviating from his remarks to deliver a harsh attack on Trump (even without using his name), Obama focused most of his energy on attesting to Clintons qualifications for the job. Far more at home on stage, he ended up upstaging Clinton at her own event, as the White House and Clinton campaign made clear they would be doing fewer joint events in the future.
Hillary Clinton will be campaigning in Atlantic City, where she is highlighting Trumps failed casino businesses. Her campaign released a video previewing her speech. Donald Trump will be in Cincinnati with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, as he continues to audition potential running mates.
More scrutiny for Trumps charitable giving. Your questions about Air Force One costs answered. And Ill chat with RNC Rules committee member Steve Duprey on Sidewire at 1 p.m. ET. You can join here.
Here are your must-reads:
Must Reads
Why the FBI Didnt Throw the Book at Hillary Clinton
TIMEs Massimo Calabresi on how Clinton potentially violated the law, but skirted prosecution
FBI Says Hillary Clinton Claim on Reading Emails Was False
Her staff gave reporters information the FBI found to be untrue [TIME]
Five Questions We Still Cant Answer About Donald Trumps Charity Donations
Little evidence to back Trumps giving claims [Washington Post]
GOP Foreign Policy Elites Flock to Clinton
Its perhaps the last, strongest bastion of the #NeverTrump movement: the Republican national security establishment
Obama Joins Hillary Clinton on Stump, Saying She Has Been Tested
Says anyone, including his daughter, can tweet [New York Times]
Sound Off
Anti-Semitic imagestheyve got no place in a presidential campaign. Candidates should know that. The tweet has been deleted and I dont know how long he put this up there. Obviously theyve got to fix that. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan in a radio interview on Donald Trumps tweet
Everybody can tweet. But nobody actually knows what it takes to do the job until youve sat behind the desk I mean, Sasha tweets. President Barack Obama implicitly criticizing Donald Trump
Bits and Bites
President Obamas Stumping Raises Questions About Air Force One Cost [TIME]
ISIS Attacks Spike Even As It Loses Ground at Home [TIME]
Donald Trump Accuses Hillary Clinton of Bribery in Email Investigation [TIME]
Judge: Kansas Cant Cut Planned Parenthood Medicaid Funding [Associated Press]
Paul Ryan Denounces Donald Trumps Use of Anti-Semitic Hillary Clinton Image [TIME]
Former Congressman and Judge Abner Mikva Dies at 90 [Associated Press]
David Duke: No Way Star In Trumps Tweet Was A Sheriffs Star [BuzzFeed]
An Open Letter to Jared Kushner, From One of Your Jewish Employees [Observer.com]
On Hillary Clintons Rough Day, Republicans Rue Missed Chance [New York Times]
Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump says he expects to announce his vice-presidential pick just prior to the kickoff of the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland.
I think sometime prior, just prior, to the convention, Trump told TIME in an interview in his New York office on Wednesday. The billionaire real-estate developer left open the possibility that the announcement could still come during the convention, which runs from July 18 to July 22. But I would say sometime prior to the convention, Trump added.
That timetable is as specific as Trump has been about his schedule for announcing a running mate, although aides have recently revised initial predictions and told reporters that the pick would likely come before the convention. Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, who withdrew Wednesday from consideration for the job, told the Washington Post that he expected Trump to make a final decision by July 15, three days before the event opens.
As he auditions potential running mates for the role, Trump has tried to drum up interest in the process through public events and Twitter hints. He will campaign Wednesday night in Cincinnati with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a day after appearing in Raleigh, N.C., with Corker. Trump met over the weekend with Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, who also appeared to take herself out of the running on Wednesday. And he tweeted praise for Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who like Ernst is a freshman senator with military experience. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who Trump tapped to lead his White House transition effort, is also on the short list to join the ticket.
But in recent days, Trump has stepped on the speculation by sparking a series of controversies. Over the weekend, his campaign took fire for tweetingand subsequently deleting and revisingan image of Hillary Clinton overlaid with a flurry of $100 bills and a six-pointed star that resembled a Star of David. Critics said the graphicwhich appeared on a white supremacist message board before a campaign staffer plucked the image off the Internetevoked anti-Semitic imagery.
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Talking to TIME on Wednesday, Trump blasted reporters for distorting the meaning of the image. It was a star. I never viewed it as the Star of David and I still dont view it as the star of David, he said. And it wasnt picked up by me, it was picked up by somebody who works for mewho happens to be married to a Jewish woman. But this was a star that was picked up on the Internet, and the words Corrupt Hillary were there. And all we did was tweet it out.
Trump also groused about news coverage of his remarks Tuesday night in Raleigh, where he praised former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for being good at killing terrorists.
What I said about Saddam Hussein is hes a bad person a very, very bad guy, Trump told TIME. But he was good at killing terrorists. So basically, the fact that I said that, they said that I love Saddam Hussein.
These are very, very dishonest people, Trump said of reporters covering the controversy. Theyre untalented and theyre dishonest and for the most part theyre not very bright. But they have a false narrative going.
While jihadist networks have spread in Iraq since Hussein was ousted from power, the nation was identified by the U.S. State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism prior to the 2003 invasion.
donald trump
Donald Trump named Bernie Sanders on Tuesday as the biggest loser of the FBI's decision to not recommend charges be brought against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email system as secretary of state.
"Who is the most angry about this? I think the one with the most to lose is Bernie Sanders," Trump said in North Carolina. "Because honestly, he was waiting for the FBI primary. And guess what? He just lost today. He lost the FBI primary. Bernie, my poor Bernie. I feel so bad for Bernie."
"But you know what? A lot of Bernie Sanders supporters will be voting for Trump. Because he was right about the system being rigged, and he was right about trade."
During much of his presidential campaign, Sanders dismissed questions about his thoughts on Clinton's use of a private email server, though some high-profile supporters essentially cheered on the FBI to indict Clinton.
Sanders' reticence to critique Clinton on the issue didn't stop Trump, who speculated on Tuesday about Sanders' personal feelings about Clinton, claiming that the senator was unhappy with the FBI's ruling.
"He's not happy tonight folks. Because it looks like it's over for Bernie. I have a feeling that they'll have a lot of people marching on Philadelphia," Trump said, referring to the location of the Democratic National Convention later this month.
Over the past several months, sympathizing with Sanders has become a signature part of Trump's stump speech. The real-estate magnate frequently draws parallels with Sanders over their skepticism of international trade deals.
In an interview earlier this year, Trump noted he would refashion some of the senator's rhetorical barbs at Clinton.
"Bernie Sanders has a message that's interesting," Trump said. "I'm going to be taking a lot of the things that Bernie said and using them."
He added: "I can reread some of his speeches and I can get some very good material."
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It's less clear whether Trump will actually persuade many Sanders supporters.
In a Washington Post/ABC poll released last month, only 8% of former Sanders primary supporters responded that they would support the presumptive Republican presidential nominee over Clinton in the general election. That number was down from May, when 20% of Sanders supporters said they would back Trump over Clinton.
For his part, Sanders frequently dismisses Trump's claims about his relationship with Clinton.
In an interview last month, Sanders skewered Trump for saying that Sanders "hates" Clinton.
"He has read my mind! What a man, what a genius!" Sanders joked when asked about Trump's comments by MSNBC's Chris Hayes.
"No, the answer is, of course, you know Trump is lying, as he always does. No, I do not hate Secretary Clinton. I've known her for 25 years, I have a lot of respect for her. We've worked together. We have disagreements on issues, but to say that I hate her is absolutely untrue."
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RALEIGH, N.C.Donald Trump offered surprising, if qualified, praise for former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein at a rally here Tuesday night, describing him as a bad guy who also happened to be good at killing terrorists.
Speaking to about 2,000 people at a rally in what is expected to be a battleground state this fall, the presumptive Republican nominee had been trashing President Obamas handling of terrorism and offering a critique of the ability of his likely Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, to keep the country safe, when he veered off written notes.
Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? Trump declared. He was a bad guy, really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didnt read them rights. They didnt talk. They were terrorists. It was over.
Trump, who supported the Iraq War in the early months of the conflict but later disavowed it, also criticized the United States decision to invade Iraq and remove Hussein from power, suggesting it destabilized the region.
Today, Iraq is the Harvard for terrorism, Trump said. You want to be a terrorist, you go to Iraq. Its like Harvard, OK?
Slideshow: Not just Saddam: Other strongmen who have received Trumps praise >>>
Trumps comments, which quickly made the rounds on social media, came just minutes after he was introduced by Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who is also considered a potential vice presidential running mate for Trump.
But it wasnt the first time Trump seemed to have nice words for the Iraqi dictator. Speaking at a New Hampshire politics event in January 2014, more than a year before he launched his insurgent bid for the presidency, Trump offered similar praise for Hussein, who was removed from power in 2003 and ultimately sentenced to death in 2006.
Whether you liked Saddam or not, Trump said at the time, he used to kill terrorists.
Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in Raleigh, N.C. (Photo: Sara D. Davis/Getty Images)
Trump has frequently criticized the Obama administrations approach to terrorism, suggesting that the U.S. doesnt go far enough in pursuing and punishing those who would bring harm to the country. He has advocated using waterboarding and other methods rejected by critics as torture.
On Tuesday night, the Clinton campaign seized on Trumps comments, pointing to friendly comments he has offered about other controversial foreign leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin. Donald Trumps praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds, Jake Sullivan, a Clinton foreign policy adviser, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Trumps latest comment seemed to catch Republicans off guard, including House Speaker Paul Ryan. In an interview with Fox News Megyn Kelly, Ryan seemed surprised by Trumps remarks but then quickly rejected them. He was one of the 20th centurys most evil people, the Wisconsin congressman said.
Donald Trump
Donald Trump revived one of his oldest Twitter insults on Wednesday calling NBC's "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd "Sleepy Eyes."
"Sleepy eyes Chuck Todd, a man with so little touch for politics, is at it again," Trump tweeted. "He could not have watched my standing ovation speech in N.C."
"I have over seven million hits on social media re Crooked Hillary Clinton," he followed up in a subsequent tweet. "Check it out Sleepy Eyes, @MarkHalperin @NBCPolitics."
During a Wednesday appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Todd said he was "stunned at how badly Donald Trump is botching" a "gift" from FBI director James Comey, who delivered a stern statement Tuesday on condemning Hillary Clinton's use of a private email system as secretary of state.
Host Joe Scarborough also brought up Trump's praising of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein at a campaign rally the night before.
In a pair of early June tweets, Trump said he doesn't watch that program anymore.
"Nobody is watching @Morning_Joe anymore," he wrote. "Gone off the deep end - bad ratings. You won't believe what I am watching now!"
"I don't watch or do @Morning_Joe anymore," he posted a few days prior. "Small audience, low ratings! I hear Mika has gone wild with hate. Joe is Joe. They lost their way!"
Including his pair of Wednesday tweets, Trump has called Todd "Sleepy Eyes" a total of 16 times since 2012.
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Aden (AFP) - Yemeni troops backed by a Saudi-led coalition Wednesday repelled an assault on a base where the army said 16 died, as Al-Qaeda claimed to have blasted its way into the facility.
Between 15 and 20 militants seized the headquarters building at Aden airport in the early hours, and the fate of the officers who had been inside remained unclear several hours later.
The jihadists penetrated the base after detonating two car bombs, the military said, in the latest attack on security forces to hit the southern port city where Yemen's government took refuge after Shiite rebels seized the capital.
Dressed in military uniforms, the assailants set off one car bomb at the base's entrance then rammed through a second and detonated it inside, killing at least 10 soldiers, a military source said.
"Troops and special forces have regained control of the base after pushing back the jihadists, several of whom were killed in the fighting," base commander General Nasser Sarie told AFP.
A security source said six jihadists were killed but others escaped.
Al-Qaeda claimed the attack, saying dozens of soldiers were killed or wounded, in a message posted on its Telegram channel, according to SITE Intelligence Group.
"Dozens killed and wounded among officers and soldiers of (President Abedrabbo Mansour) Hadi is the initial toll following the detonation of an explosives-laden vehicle followed by ... storming the Solban camp in the city of Aden," said Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
AQAP, quoted by the US-based monitoring group, said the operation was in retaliation for "crimes of bombing in Lahj and Abyan" provinces of southern Yemen.
The military said the recapture of the headquarters building came after troops exchanged rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire with the militants throughout the morning.
Apache attack helicopters of a Saudi-led military coalition that intervened in support of the government in March last year were in the skies above the base, witnesses said.
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The base commander said coalition forces had assisted in the recapture of the headquarters building.
- Repeated jihadist attacks -
The attack came as Muslims celebrated the feast of Eid al-Fitr which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
Prime Minister Ahmed bin Dagher, who was in Aden at the time of the attack, said he would "not allow saboteurs to harm the security of residents and block the policies of the government."
But the security forces are still struggling to secure Aden more than a year after it was taken back from Shiite Huthi rebels who have seized control of large parts of the country.
They have come under repeated attack from both the Islamic State (IS) group and its jihadist rivals in Al-Qaeda.
Both groups have exploited the power vacuum created by the conflict between the government and the rebels to expand their presence in the south and southeast.
Last month, CIA director John Brennan told the Senate Intelligence Committee that AQAP had several thousand "adherents and fighters" in Yemen while there are also "several hundred" fighters loyal to IS.
In May, twin suicide bombings in Aden claimed by IS killed at least 41 people.
A spate of shootings in April and May claimed the lives of the city's traffic police chief and the governor of its main prison, while the chief of police escaped two assassination attempts in the space of a week.
Washington considers the Yemen-based AQAP to be the network's deadliest franchise and has vowed no let-up in its longstanding air war against the jihadists.
A US drone attack killed three suspected Al-Qaeda militants in Shabwa province east of Aden on Monday, a security official said.
On Friday, a similar drone attack in Shabwa killed four suspected jihadists.
In March this year, the Saudi-led coalition too turned its sights on the jihadists after a year of focusing its firepower on the Huthis and their allies.
Emirati and Saudi special forces helped government forces to recapture the southeastern city of Mukalla from Al-Qaeda in April ending a year of jihadist rule.
But in Mukalla too, the government has struggled to secure the city and there have been repeated deadly reprisal bombings by the jihadists.
By Jennifer Ablan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jeffrey Gundlach, the chief executive of DoubleLine Capital, said on Wednesday that gold remains the best investment amid fears of instability in the European Union and prolonged global stagnation, as well as concerns over the effectiveness of central bank policies.
"Things are shaky and feeling dangerous, Gundlach said in a telephone interview. I am not selling gold.
Gold hit more than two-year highs on Wednesday as some bond yields slid to record lows in the wake of Britain's vote to leave the European Union, prompting investors to buy bullion as a haven from risk. Spot gold (XAU=), which is up almost 30 percent so far this year, was up 0.56 percent at $1,363 per ounce at 2:34 p.m. EDT (1834 GMT)
Gundlach, who has been a staunch supporter of the precious metal and sees gold rising to $1400 an ounce this year, said gold bullion and gold-related stocks are attractive relative to government bonds, which have been hitting record low yields in recent days. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note hit a session high on Wednesday of 1.393 percent after its earlier record low of 1.321 percent.
"You're seeing people who hated the '2 percent' 10-year suddenly loving it at a 1.38-1.39 percent revisit of the all-time low closing yield," Gundlach said.
"If you buy 10-year Treasuries now, I would say, it is a terrible trade location. It is the worst trade location in the history of the 10-year Treasury."
Gundlach, who oversees $100 billion at Los Angeles-based DoubleLine, said gold is attractive against the backdrop of "a banking system in Europe, which is in a state of heading toward insolvency."
He was referring to Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS.MI), Italy's third largest bank, whose pile of bad debts and capital shortfalls are threatening contagion to other European Union nations. Gundlach also cited Deutsche Bank AG, whose shares hit a new record low Wednesday and whose value has halved since the beginning of the year.
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"Banks are dying and policymakers dont know what to do," Gundlach said. "Watch Deutsche Bank shares go to single digits and people will start to panic... you'll see someone say, 'Someone is going to have to do something'."
Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) shares were down 5.56 percent on Wednesday to $11.54.
Gundlach, known on Wall Street as the 'Bond King,' is one of the first heavyweight investors to recommend gold as a hedge against the credibility of major central banks as countries struggle to manage economic growth.
(Reporting By Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Bernard Orr and Diane Craft)
Ducati Birthday Celebrations Continue With World Tour
Hot on the heels of a successful World Ducati Week, the Italian brand is continuing its 90th birthday celebrations with the Globetrotter 90 event that will see a Multistrada 1200 Enduro ridden roughly 30,000 kilometers (18,641 miles).
More than 81,000 people attended World Ducati Week, which centered on the companys 4 July birthday (coincidentally, American brand Victory shares the same birthday).
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As Ducati employees cut the birthday cake, they also bid farewell to the first of seven riders that will pilot a Multistrada 1200 Enduro for the Globetrotter 90 event. The Globetrotter 90 is a trip around the world for seven motorcyclists who were selected from more than 3,000 applications. Their journey will retrace the streets and places where the most important pages of the first 90 years of Ducati history have been written.
The first Globetrotter is Vir Nakai, a 37-year-old from India. He will ride toward Moscow, where on 29 July he will pass the baton to the second traveller.
ducati3
To send-off the first rider/torch-bearer in Borgo Panigale, some 160 representatives from various Desmo Owners Clubs representing 40 nations were in attendance.
Ducati says the Globetrotter 90 is a strongly symbolic moment for the company, with the torch that Nakai will be carrying meant to be the symbol of Ducati passion, ready to cross the five continents and bring a positive and enthusiastic message.
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch markets regulator on Wednesday asked for EU permission to conduct an antitrust review of a proposed merger between Liberty Global's Dutch cable company Ziggo and Vodafone's Dutch operations.
The Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) said it had asked the European Union Commission, which has default authority over the matter automatically due the size of the companies' combined sales, to remand it to the ACM.
The Commission declined a similar request in 2014 to review the merger that created Ziggo.
Ziggo and Vodafone in February announced plans to merge their Dutch operations in order to better compete with former incumbent KPN (KPN.AS).
(Reporting by Toby Sterling; editing by Jason Neely)
Check out which companies are making headlines before the bell:
Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) The drugstore operator earned an adjusted $1.18 per share for its latest quarter, four cents a share above estimates. Revenue was short of forecasts. Walgreens was helped in part by increasing sales of drugs paid for by Medicare Part D. The company also raised the bottom end of its fiscal 2016 earnings forecast.
Twitter (TWTR) Twitter named former Facebook (FB) chief technology officer and current Quip CEO Bret Taylor to its board of directors.
Medivation (MDVN) Medivation rejected Sanofi's (Euronext Paris: SAN-FR) improved $58 per share takeover bid, but has signed confidentiality agreements with Sanofi and other unnamed parties. That could lead to a takeover offer from one of those possible bidders.
Tesla (TSLA) The automaker told U.S. regulators about a fatal accident involving the use of its autopilot feature nine days after the crash. Tesla said it learned about the May 7 crash shortly after it occurred, and disclosed it to the government on May 16. The National Highway Safety Administration is currently conducting an investigation into the incident.
Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) Chipotle executive Mark Crumpacker surrendered to police in New York and was arraigned on charges of cocaine possession. Crumpacker is the restaurant chain's chief creative and development officer.
Apple (AAPL) Apple will eliminate the 16GB storage option in its next iPhone, according to published reports, making 32GB the entry level storage option. That report has also helped shares of chipmaker Apple supplier Qorvo (QRVO).
Newmont Mining (NEM), Harmony Gold (Johannesburg Stock Exchange: HAR-ZA), AngloGold (Johannesburg Stock Exchange: ANG-ZA), Randgold (London Stock Exchange: RRS-GB) These and other gold stocks are on watch this morning after gold touched its highest levels since March 2014.
Royal Bank of Scotland (London Stock Exchange: RBS-GB), Deutsche Bank (XETRA:DBK-DE), and UBS (Swiss Exchange: UBSG-CH) (Swiss Exchange: UBSG-CH) These are among U.K. banking stocks under pressure this morning and weighing on European averages, as worries about the effects of the Brexit vote resurface.
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Juniper Networks (JNPR) Juniper was downgraded to "hold" from "buy" at Deutsche Bank, which thinks the networking equipment maker profit margins especially in its routing business will come under pressure.
Netflix (NFLX) Netflix was downgraded to "underperform" from "hold" at Jefferies, following a five-day win streak for the stock. Its Tuesday rise was helped by news that Comcast (CMCSA) would incorporate Netflix service into its X1 set top cable boxes. (Disclosure: Comcast is parent of NBCUniversal and CNBC.)
Fiat Chrysler (Milan Stock Exchange: FCA-IT) Barclays downgraded the automaker's stock to "underweight" form "overweight," and cut the price target by nearly half.
Questions? Comments? Email us at marketinsider@cnbc.com
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By Marja Novak and Balazs Koranyi
LJUBLJANA/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Central Bank threatened to take legal action against Slovenia on Wednesday after police seized documents from the country's central bank in a rare conflict between authorities and one of the euro zone's most respected institutions.
ECB President Mario Draghi said he deplored the seizure, which infringes on the ECB's legal privileges and immunities, and called on European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to intervene.
Slovenian police conducted an investigation in four locations in Ljubljana on Wednesday, including at the central bank, collecting evidence in a pre-criminal investigation related to possible irregularities during a bank overhaul in 2013.
"Seized equipment contains ECB information and such information is protected under directly applicable primary EU law," Draghi said in a letter to the Slovenian State Prosecutor General. "The ECB will also explore possible appropriate legal remedies under Slovenian law."
The ECB said police seized information on the computers of Bank of Slovenia Governor Bostjan Jazbec, who sits on the ECB's rate-setting Governing Council, as well as a former deputy governor and some staff members.
Slovenian police said the investigation related to an assessment of one of the banks rescued by the state in 2013, which meant the bank could scrap its obligations towards holders of subordinated bonds and subordinated debt in the value of 257 million euros (220.6 million).
In 2013 the previous government had to pour more than 3 billion euros into local banks to prevent them from collapsing under a large amount of bad loans. The move helped the country narrowly avoid an international bailout.
As part of the bank overhaul about 600 million euros of subordinated bonds were scrapped in five banks.
In 2014, the Slovenian Association of Small Shareholders filed several court cases against the Bank of Slovenia and local banks, claiming the subordinated bonds and shareholders' capital in rescued banks should not have been erased. None of the cases have been finished yet.
The Bank of Slovenia had repeatedly rejected allegations that it mishandled data used when putting together a rescue package for Slovenia's banks.
(Editing by Jeremy Gaunt and Andrew Hay)
workers strike protest wages
There's a new 99 percent.
A new report from Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce says that 11.5 million of the 11.6 million jobs in the US created during the post-2008 recovery went to workers with at least some college education. Moreover, 73% went to workers with a bachelor's degree or higher.
According to The Wall Street Journal, that makes this year the first time in which college-educated workers outnumber those with a high diploma or less. College-educated workers (those with at least a bachelor's degree) now make up 36% of the workforce, while those with a high-school diploma or less dropped to 34%, down 5 percentage points from 2007. The other 30% of workers are those with an associate's degree or some college education.
"Jobs are back," the Georgetown report said, but "they are not the same jobs lost during the recession. The Great Recession decimated low-skill blue-collar and clerical jobs, whereas the recovery added primarily high-skill managerial and professional jobs."
Jobs filled by people with a high-school education or less fell by 5.6 million from December 2007 to January 2010, and just 80,000 have since been added. On the other hand, those filled by people with at least a bachelor's degree increased by 187,000 during the recession and then by 8.4 million during the recovery. And those tend to be the "good jobs," the report said jobs that pay more than $53,000 a year for full-time workers and include some benefits.
graph 1
This all adds to the economic divide between the "College Haves and Have-Nots," as the report is titled. Structural changes have led to "a clear shift in job creation" toward industries that require workers with postsecondary educational attainment industries like healthcare, consulting and business, financial services, and government. These industries accounted for 28% of the workforce in 1946, the report says; they now account for 46%.
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This shift, however, has been a long time coming. The authors of the report write that "college access and success have been the defining factors in the growing economic divide in America since the early 1980s." It is not a new phenomenon, and it is not borne of the Great Recession.
But the recession did strengthen and accelerate the economic divide. Facing a bleak job market, workers with a college education, or some college education, took the middle- and low-skill jobs that formerly went to high-school graduates, Anthony Carnevale, one of the report's authors, told The Journal.
"If you're running a pizza joint and you're going to hire somebody then you're looking for a more highly skilled worker than you were looking for 20 or 25 years ago," he told The Journal. "It's very clear there's been some bumping effect."
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QUITO, Ecuador -- It's a bright morning in late May, and several hundred Cubans are gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Quito. Peter Borges, the organizer of the meeting and the co-founder of the group Cubanos Destino USA, stands at the front of the crowd, delivering a speech over the din of nearby traffic.
"We're thankful to Ecuador, which was one of the only countries to open its doors to us, but we know that our time here is up," he says. The group cheers, and minutes later chants a response meant to carry over the embassy walls. "United States, we're counting on you," they say.
More than a 100,000 Cubans have traveled to Ecuador since 2008, when the government drafted a new constitution promoting the idea of universal citizenship and eliminated visa requirements for many foreigners. For many of those Cubans, Ecuador was merely the starting point for a dangerous, 3,000-mile overland trek to the U.S.-Mexico border.
After governments in Central America began cracking down on illegal border crossings earlier this year, that dangerous journey became nearly impossible. Now Borges' group and another have ramped up their efforts to secure safe passage for the 5,000 or so Cubans who they say want to go to the United States -- a move that has sharply divided Ecuador's Cuban community.
Both Cubans Destino USA and another group, the Cuban National Alliance in Ecuador (ANCE), hold rallies outside embassies of countries situated along the journey to the U.S., asking for visas and security protection from criminal organizations during their passage.
Once in the U.S., they hope to take advantage of the Cuban Adjustment Act, a 1966 law that provides Cuban migrants who arrive by land at a U.S. port of entry with a special path to residency. They are also active on social media, highlighting the plight of Cubans in Ecuador, where, they say, jobs are scarce and acts of xenophobia and discrimination are on the rise.
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Low oil prices have driven the previously booming Ecuadorian economy into recession, and pushed the unemployment rate above 7 percent, the highest figure in years. And many Cubans here say that their nationality is affecting their daily lives, preventing them from getting service at restaurants, job interviews and timely compensation when they do land work.
"I've experienced xenophobia here as a Cuban, including verbal harassment," says Roxana Acanda, a member of Cubans Destino USA's leadership. "People say, 'What are you doing in my country? What are you doing here? Why did you come? Why did you come to steal our opportunities?' Those are things that hurt, because we're the same as millions of other people in the world -- immigrants."
Rafael Nodarse, president of the Association of Cuban Residents in Ecuador (ACURE) -- the largest group of Cubans in the country -- acknowledges a rise in local discrimination toward Cubans, but places much of the blame on the newer arrivals. His group believes the activists are engendering a backlash against Cubans by way of disorderly protests and unrealistic requests of the cash-starved Ecuadorian government. Most of the members of ACURE have lived in Ecuador for several years, often because of job opportunities or family ties as opposed to political reasons.
"I have told the ANCE to stop acting ridiculously and complicating the lives of Ecuadorians and Cubans who have come to live here," says Nodarse, a physical therapist who immigrated to Ecuador in 2003 after visiting the country for a professional conference.
[READ: Five refugee crises that you don't know about, but should.]
Concerned by the number of Cubans making the dangerous trip through Central America with human smugglers, ACURE supported the Ecuadorian government's decision in December to implement a visa requirement that would slow the flow of Cubans into the country. The group also criticized the newer activists for sending an open letter to Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa soliciting a charter flight to the U.S. on humanitarian grounds.
"Now, when you go to a restaurant and they see you're a Cuban, they close the door on you," he says. "What could have happened, if Ecuador wasn't xenophobic in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, but is now? Something happened. And the fault is our own."
While much of the rhetoric on both sides involves the migratory issue, underlying the disagreement are also differing attitudes toward the Cuban government: ACURE is broadly supportive of the Castro regime, while many of the Cubans seeking refuge in the U.S are fleeing what they view as a persistent climate of political oppression on the island.
As a result, some analysts suspect that ACURE is not supportive of the activists because it views them as disloyal to the Cuban government.
"The fact that ACURE accuses the protesters of generating xenophobia by raising awareness of the issues Cubans face in Ecuador has a political component, because the protesters are not on the side of the Cuban government," says Carmen Gomez, a sociology professor who studies Cuban migration to Ecuador at the Latin American School of Social Sciences in Quito.
Some activists say that pro-government Cubans in Ecuador have targeted them with threats over social media, necessitating security precautions. During his speech outside the U.S. Embassy, for example, Borges, an ex-member of the Communist Party in Cuba, instructed the crowd to stop recording at one point so that he could provide an update on the group's operations.
"Our way of thinking is patriotic," says Nodarse, who says he respects the activists' right to assemble and denies any connection between ACURE and the online threats lobbied against immigration activists. "We are with Cuba, and we will be with Cuba. The worst thing an immigrant can do is leave their country and then speak poorly of it."
Nodarse notes that ACURE has spoken out against the Ecuadorian government's treatment of Cuban immigrants when appropriate, most notably in denouncing the prolonged detention of undocumented Cubans at the Hotel Carrion in Quito, a facility where migrants are held, sometimes for months, before being deported.
Meanwhile, for many activists like Osmani Garrido, a Cuban lawyer and member of the ANCE, the goal is to avoid becoming further embroiled in intra-Cuban disagreements during what, they hope, will be their brief remaining time in Ecuador.
"My focus is on figuring out how to get to the U.S," he says. "I left Cuban politics behind when I came here."
Noah Schumer is a journalist based in Quito, Ecuador. You can follow him on Twitter here.
(IOWA CITY, Iowa) A father and son whose Iowa-based egg production company caused a massive 2010 salmonella outbreak can be required to serve jail time for misdemeanor food safety violations, a divided appeals court ruled Wednesday.
In a 2-1 decision, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld three-month jail sentences issued last year to 82-year-old Austin Jack DeCoster and his son Peter DeCoster, 53.
The DeCosters were aware of unsanitary conditions at their sprawling Iowa egg farms but failed to improve them before the outbreak, which sickened up to 56,000 people and left some with permanent injuries, Judge Diana Murphy wrote.
We conclude that the record here shows that the DeCosters are liable for negligently failing to prevent the salmonella outbreak, Murphy wrote, joined by Judge Raymond Gruender.
The case, a rare prosecution against those responsible for an outbreak of foodborne illness, was closely watched by advocates for consumer safety and food and drug manufacturers. At issue was whether corporate executives could face imprisonment for violating the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which allows responsible corporate agents to be held criminally liable even if they were not aware of the wrongdoing.
The DeCosters, who owned and operated Quality Egg LLC, had pleaded guilty to violating the law by introducing adulterated eggs into interstate commerce. They said they did not know the eggs were contaminated but acknowledged they were in a position to stop the problems had they known.
U.S. District Judge Mark Bennett ordered the jail time in April 2015, saying they knew or should have known about the risks posed by the presence of salmonella in and around millions of egg-laying hens. But he allowed the DeCosters to stay free while they appealed the sentences, which they argued were unconstitutional and unreasonably harsh.
Business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, filed friend-of-the-court briefs backing the DeCosters appeal. They argued that it would be unfair to send corporate executives to prison for violations that they were unaware of or that were committed by subordinates.
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Murphy rejected those arguments, saying the food safety law does not require executives to have known about the violations to be subject to criminal penalties. She said the jail terms were relatively short, within federal guidelines and not grossly disproportionate to the gravity of their misdemeanor offenses.
Gruender added in a concurring opinion that the DeCosters were not being punished for the acts of others, saying their own failure to take steps to prevent the outbreak was to blame.
Dissenting Judge C. Arlen Beam said prosecutors failed to show that the DeCosters had criminal intent, and therefore there is no precedent for sending them to jail. He said they were not aware the products were tainted with salmonella and that they immediately recalled hundreds of millions of eggs once the outbreak was confirmed at great expense.
This is hardly the stuff of guilty minds, he wrote.
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt said on Wednesday it was considering retaliating against Italy for halting military supplies to protest the killing of an Italian student earlier this year. Italy's Senate voted last week to halt supplies to Egypt of spare parts for F16 warplanes, the first commercial steps taken against Cairo since the death of Giulio Regeni. Regeni, who was doing postgraduate research on Egyptian trade unions, was last seen by his friends on Jan. 25. His body, which showed signs of torture, was found in a roadside ditch on the outskirts of Cairo on Feb. 3. Italy has repeatedly complained that Egyptian authorities have not cooperated to find those responsible for the 28-year-old student's death. In April, it withdrew its ambassador to Egypt for consultations. Egypt's foreign ministry said the senate vote would hurt cooperation between the two countries. "We regret the decision and are considering taking similar measures that affect areas of cooperation with Italy," a foreign ministry statement said. The statement did not specify the exact measures, but it said they would "affect bilateral, regional and international cooperation between Italy and Egypt". That would include "a review of ongoing cooperation in combating illegal immigration in the Mediterranean and dealing with the situation in Libya." Italy was Egypt's fourth-largest trade partner in terms of both imports and exports in 2015, according to Egypt's official statistics agency, CAMPAS. (Reporting by Ali Abdelaty; Writing by Eric Knecht; Editing by Larry King)
(Reuters) - Eight prisons in the state of Georgia have been placed on lockdown after rising tensions between gangs led to the murder of one inmate and a series of fights that sent 16 other convicts to the hospital, correctional officials said on Wednesday.
Prisoner movement has been restricted at the eight prisons and visitation has been canceled until further notice, Georgia Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gwendolyn Hogan said.
The violence began when inmate Joshua Brooks was found unresponsive in his cell at Calhoun State Prison in Morgan, Georgia on June 11, Hogan said.
An autopsy later determined that Brooks had died from blunt force trauma and a subsequent investigation led to the arrest of three prisoners and a correctional officer in connection with his death.
On June 20 multiple fights broke out between inmates at Smith State Prison in Glenville, Georgia, resulting in injuries to some 20 inmates, 16 of whom were taken to outside hospitals, Hogan said. All 16 have since been returned to the prison.
In addition to Calhoun and Smith, the state's Autry, Hancock, Macon, Telfair, Valdosta and Ware prisons were also placed on lockdown, Hogan said.
(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
Los Angeles (AFP) - The brother of the late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar has asked Netflix to review the second season of the hit series "Narcos" before its release.
Roberto Escobar said in a statement released on Tuesday by Escobar Inc. that he had sent Netflix a "friendly request" to review the material "solely on an informational basis."
"It is depicting me, my life, my family and my brother," the statement said. "I think nobody else in the world is alive to determine the validity of the materials, but me."
Although Netflix has kept details of the second season of "Narcos" under wraps, it is understood that the shows will be available for the streaming service's 81 million subscribers in August, with the death of the feared Medellin Cartel's "Don Pablo" recreated in the finale.
The Colombian farmer's son who became the world's seventh-richest man with his ruthless dominance of the global cocaine trade was hunted for years before police killed him in his hometown of Medellin in 1993.
His brother Roberto was the cartel's chief accountant and served a lengthy spell in prison. He wrote about the group's exploits in a book entitled "The Accountant's Story: Inside the Violent World of the Medellin Cartel."
During the height of its operations, the cartel brought in more than $60 million a day, providing 80 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States.
Olof Gustafsson, the CEO of Escobar Inc., said he had tried to reach Netflix about the new season but had gotten no response.
"I think it is important that they recognize Roberto Escobar's wishes to review the show they are putting out, ensuring the family and viewers of an accurate portrayal of Pablo and Roberto," he said in the statement.
Netflix could not be immediately reached for comment.
(ADVISORY- Follow European and UK stock markets in real time on the Reuters Live Markets blog on Eikon - see cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageId=livemarkets)
* STOXX 600 and FTSEurofirst 300 down around 0.6 pct
* Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse touch record lows
* Property stocks fall
By Sudip Kar-Gupta
LONDON, July 6 (Reuters) - European stocks fell on Wednesday, led lower by major banks, amid persistent worries over Britain's vote to leave the European Union.
The pan-European STOXX 600 and the similar FTSEurofirst 300 index were both down 0.6 percent.
The STOXX Europe 600 banks index fell 1.8 percent, with shares in Spain's Caixabank down 2 percent after Caixabank warned it expected a 1.25 billion euro ($1.4 billion) hit related to mortgage clauses.
Shares in Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse also touched record lows, as investors' concerns mounted over the impact of Britain's decision to leave the EU on the European economy and its banks.
Valentijn van Nieuwenhuijzen, Head of Multi Asset at NN Investment Partners, expected euro zone shares to underperform U.S. stocks for some time to come given this weak economic backdrop for Europe.
"It is unlikely that European equities will outperform U.S. equities as long as the political uncertainty lingers and the impact on the real economy cannot be assessed. This could be a prolonged period," said van Nieuwenhuijzen.
"The downward revision in economic growth and earnings will prevent cyclical sectors from outperforming, especially those linked to European corporate investments and consumer spending also looks vulnerable," he added.
Telecom Italia shares also slumped after French rival Iliad said it was entering the Italian mobile market.
Property stocks bore the brunt of investors' concerns over Brexit, with the STOXX Europe 600 Real Estate index down 1.1 percent, after M&G suspended trading in its 4.4 billion pound ($5.7 billion) UK property portfolio and feeder fund.
M&G's move comes after Standard Life taking similar measures earlier in the week.
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"There was always a strong chance that once the Standard Life domino fell others would follow, just as in the financial crisis of 2008. And, as then, it is hard not imagine a fall in commercial property values this time," said ETX Capital chief executive Andrew Edwards.
($1 = 0.9044 euros)
(Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
Frankfurt (AFP) - Strong demand for German-made goods from eurozone neighbours offset a drop in domestic orders in May, key factory orders data showed on Wednesday.
"Low domestic orders and from non-eurozone countries were made up for by high levels of orders from eurozone countries," the economy ministry said in a statement.
Factory orders were unchanged in May from April in seasonally-adjusted terms, the ministry calculated.
Domestic orders fell by 1.9 percent, while foreign orders rose by 1.4 percent, with non-eurozone business slipping by 0.3 percent, while orders from within the eurozone jumped by 4.0 percent.
The figures showed a "below average" level of big-ticket orders, the economy ministry said.
In terms of sector, semi-finished goods saw a sharp fall of 2.9 percent compared with the figure for April, while consumer goods also slid by 0.4 percent.
Carsten Brzeski, chief economist at ING Bank, rejected the economy ministry's analysis that the figures pointed to "solid progress" in the indicator.
"Since the start of 2015, new orders have been decreasing by an average of 0.1 percent" each month, Brzeski said. "Demand from outside the eurozone remains weak."
"The trend is obvious: German industry is treading water."
Update: Roger Ailes is slamming Gretchen Carlson's lawsuit, telling Us Weekly in a statement that her claims are "retaliatory" and "false." Read his full statement.
Original story:
Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the networks chairman and CEO, Roger Ailes, on Wednesday, July 6.
The political commentator, 50, who claims she was fired from Fox News on June 23 after a successful 11-year tenure, filed the suit in the Superior Court of New Jersey on Wednesday. In it, she alleges that her former boss sabotaged her career after she rejected his sexual advances.
PHOTOS: Stars at Court
According to the lawsuit, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, Carlson alleges that Ailes, 76, made sexually charged comments about her body.
In her suit, Carlson claims that Ailes once stated, I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago and then youd be good and better and Id be good and better, during a September 2015 meeting.
Carlson also alleges that Ailes fired her from the networks hit morning show Fox & Friends in 2013 as an act of punishment after she reported allegedly sexist behavior by former cohost Steve Doocy. She then hosted The Real Story With Gretchen Carlson, which was ranked No. 1 among other cable news programs in her afternoon time slot.
PHOTOS: Stars Who Survived Abuse
We believe that the evidence will confirm that Gretchen was fired from Fox & Friends for speaking up about demeaning and discriminatory behavior on and off the set, the commentators lawyer, Nancy Erika Smith, explained in a statement. Like women in every profession, Gretchen Carlson worked hard, did her job well and participated in the world while raising her family. Also like many working women, she was reduced to a sex object by a powerful and sexist boss. Rebuffing Roger Ailes' sexual demands cost her dearly. She was marginalized and ultimately fired because she sought a harassment- and discrimination-free workplace. Gretchen has decided to take a stand, not only for herself but for all women, by declaring that this kind of behavior has got to stop.
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According to Politico, Carlsons co-counsel, Martin Hyman, wrote, We believe that Mr. Ailes behavior toward Gretchen, as described in the complaint, speaks volumes about what she had to endure. The evidence will show that Ailes deliberately sabotaged the career of a talented, hardworking journalist and loyal Fox News employee. Opposing sexism and rejecting unwanted sexual come-ons should never cost a woman her job or subject her to disparagement and emotional anguish.
PHOTOS: Celebrity Mugshots
Carlson also released a statement on Wednesday morning, writing, I have strived to empower women and girls throughout my entire career. Although this was a difficult step to take, I had to stand up for myself and speak out for all women and the next generation of women in the workplace. I am extremely proud of my accomplishments at Fox News and for keeping our loyal viewers engaged and informed on events and news topics of the day.
Us Weekly has reached out to Ailes rep for comment.
According to the World Bank, 12 percent of humanity lives in Africa, yet it produces only about 1 percent of global research output. This gap persists because governments dont emphasize science and technology, says 2015 Global Thinker Ameenah Gurib-Fakim. As president of Mauritius, the trained chemist has prioritized science diplomacy and helped establish a scholarship for local intellectuals. 2010 Global Thinker Ory Okolloh has built a career determining how technology can improve lives; shes currently at the Omidyar Network, previously worked for Google, and co-founded Ushahidi, a crowd-sourced platform for crisis reports. Gurib-Fakim and Okolloh recently connected to discuss harnessing the energy of the worlds youngest continent and whether African solutions to African problems is a dated trope.
Ameenah Gurib-Fakim: To me, the Global North and Global South divide today is all about science, technology, and innovation. The only way to shorten the gap is to start valuing Africas best resource, which is its human capital. We need to consider this now because Africa is the youngest continent; the median age is about 19. The other thing is that 50 years ago, when we were talking about investment in science and technology, we were talking about massive investment in infrastructure. But this has changed. When you look at a country like India that has made massive leaps forward, it no longer depends on heavy-capital investment in infrastructure, but on investment in the human brain. We have seen the progress that country has made in terms of information technology.
Ory Okolloh: I wholeheartedly agree with the importance and the need for technology, science, and innovation for some of the same reasons, and particularly because Africas demographics are very young. But I dont necessarily think its only that. As a continent, we are falling behind, yes, and I think we are missing the opportunity to come up with solutions for challenges, some of which are global for instance, climate change and some that are quite unique to our region. For instance, if you look at agriculture, there is still a lot of opportunity there to change the way weve traditionally done things. If you look at services, which could probably absorb many of the young people in the region, are we getting them to compete with the global companies like Uber and Facebook and so on? But even as we look at science and technology and how we are falling behind, the other big gap that I see and worry about is around industrialization. As much as innovation is important, I think we also need to just make stuff. If we look at Kenya, where Im from, as an example, we are importing everything down to toothpicks. That worries me because if you cant build things or manufacture them, you struggle to close gaps in education and in skills around technology, science, and even engineering. I do worry that this push for a fourth industrialization is primarily driven by tech, and I worry that it is suggesting there is an opportunity for Africa to leapfrog straight to digital. India is excelling in technology, yes, but they are also building. I think we need to remember that our region has quite an illustrious history of making and building. We need to regain that.
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AGF: I think this all leads to a very important issue and thats science diplomacy. Issues like climate change and agriculture are more global issues that need to be tackled through collaboration, be it through African and intra-African collaboration, or North and South, or South and South, or between some countries in Africa and India or Brazil. Though, unfortunately, if you go back in history after the removal of the Colonial period, we find that countries still look up to institutions in the North. There is not enough intra-African collaboration, so we need to see how best to promote it and have a science diplomacy framework thats set up within the continent. We still have to work together to make sure we address our needs: Agriculture, water, and energy all are issues critical for the continent. We need now to find our own way to address our own agenda and to start investing in our own people. Until we get into this mindset, we will not even be staying put we will be going backwards and we cant afford to do that.
* * *
OO: We talk about African solutions for African problems, but that is not necessarily at the exclusion of everything else. I dont think its binary. If you look at my trajectory, Ive recognized that there is both a need for solutions that are more relevant to us, but that there is also the need for global collaboration. I am always looking for how to bring the best that is out there whether its in Kenya, whether its in the U.S. to bear on this region. I think a lot of Africans in my generation, and especially those of us who have spent time overseas before coming back, are quite comfortable moving between the two worlds, though always with a lens of, What can we do to help our countries or regions? The Omidyar Network is trying to find the best entrepreneurs working on solutions that could have an impact in the region and what better way to do it than to work with great local talent to help identify those entrepreneurs?
AGF: This issue of brain drain, though, will always be there, and has been there for major countries in Asia or South America. Africa, too, has lost many of her best brains. Why do people leave the continent? Salary is, I think, secondary. The main reason is that people do not have the best environment to work in meaning proper labs and research facilities. Often, funding has been given to individual researchers, but focus increasingly is being put on the development of facilities, which are critical for researchers in the Global South to remain and continue their work. When looking at sponsoring a Ph.D. student, we are looking at retaining this brain, and we know we need to provide that person with the proper, enabling environment perhaps even better than they could find in the West. This is what many Asian countries have done in terms of bringing back the best brains. Then we have to also find a way of addressing employability of these graduates so that they are not going to just be employed, but they also become very good ambassadors for the program. Right now, the statistics are dire.
OO: For me, the appeal of returning home after studying abroad was always a sense that I would do my best work here, at home home more broadly being the region, and also Kenya. Im a lawyer, Ive in tech, Im been involved in investments; the fear was whether or not I would be able to maintain the fluidity that is a bit easier to maintain when you are overseas, and avoid being put into a box. But surprisingly its worked out. That being said, and as much as I speak to people who are on the fence on whether to come back or not, you realize over time that just because you are in the diaspora does not mean that you cannot have an impact back at home.
* * *
OO: The depiction of Africa has changed in the media in that it is not always poverty, disease, and so on. Of course you have the 10 years of the African good story, sort of at the other extreme. There were some bombastic stories: Africas rising and rising, and then economists were like, Sorry, its over. Lets go back to the doom and gloom. I think thats whats frustrating. Yes, there are bad things happening on the continent, but there are also good things happening. Its the nuance. If I was to go by what I see on CNN nowadays, I would think America was falling apart because of Trump. Ive been like, Oh, my God, America is finished. Its over. Its the end of American glory. There would be all sorts of bombastic headlines if the current U.S. election were being covered the way an African election would be covered. So the media coverage of Africa has improved, but I do think the pendulums swinging toward the extremes are a bit frustrating. Its the whole Africa is not a country problem. Some countries are struggling; others are back on the rise. There are pockets of opportunity. I would also say that local voices in media have definitely gotten better, and I think technology has had a lot to do with that your ability to tell your story directly without going through intermediaries. The next generation of writers who are emerging or who have emerged, your Chimamanda Adichies, have powerful stories, op-eds, and portrayals of us. I think the owning of your spaces and not necessarily trying to impress or wanting acceptance is something Ive observed that is very different in this generation coming up. Less of, Hey, we want to join your club and be part of this. Its more like: Were here, and we have a right, and you take notice of us, and if not, thats too bad because here we are. I think theres sort of an extra oomph with the younger people coming up. Theyre writing. Theyre communicating. Theyre sharing, and they are very much technology driven. That ability to have your platform whether its your blog, your Twitter, your Vine, your Instagram its shifting the dynamics there and allowing people to tell their stories better and more effectively and, I think, much more unapologetically.
AGF: I totally agree, because I think we need to tell our own story. But having said that, there is another layer that we also have to put in this, which is that Africa must value African culture. Africa must value African tradition. Africa must value Africa, period. For example, one area that I have been able to witness closely is traditional medicine. If you look at the way India and China, for example, have addressed this is that they got government support to say, OK, yes, we believe this is part of our heritage and our culture. Well go along with it. What did you see last year? The Nobel Prize was awarded to China for having developed one product against malaria. Now, how many such plans do we have on the continent? How much value do we add to this? I think what we have to do now is use available technology to tell our own story and to value our past, our history, and our tradition. I think increasingly, and this may sound a bit bombastic, but we have to increasingly say, We are African, as opposed to saying, We are from Botswana. We are from Nairobi. We are African. We have a common culture. We have a common heritage, and this is us. This is where we come from, and this is something that has to be told to our kids, because they are still aping other cultures. They are still aping other values, and this is something that has to be taught effectively in our education system, and we need to be proud to be Africans.
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AGF: I was very interested in sciences from a young age because I had motivated teachers who managed to actually infect me with the virus of science. When I finished my A-level high school, I visited the career officer and he looked at me and said, Why do you want to study chemistry? I said, Well, I find it fascinating. Chemistry has all the answers to my questions. It may be a stupid question, but it can explain why the sky is blue, why the plant is green, so I want to study chemistry. He said, I would not advise you to study chemistry because, first of all, you are a girl, and the second thing is that when you come back, there will be no job for you because we dont need scientists, especially women scientists. I went home and my father asked how the meeting was. I told him but said, Im still going to do sciences. I still did it because I was passionate. We have all these stereotypes that science is for boys. Last Womens Day, for example, in Mauritius we asked young girls to name female innovators and female scientists who have made it in the world. Nobody could give a name. Nobody knew about Marie Curie; no one could tell who Rosalind Franklin was. If we are going to make quantum leaps in actually bringing girls on board to study science, we need to work on removing stereotypes.
OO: My own story, interestingly enough, started at home. My father had two daughters and lots of pressure from the family, both on him and my mom, to keep going until they had a son, but he was perfectly happy with two daughters. Thats one of the reasons that I havent changed my maiden name. My father was George Okolloh. He was quite adamant, and the phrase he used was, What boys can do, girls can do better. Now, as Im a mother of three daughters, Im just realizing how invaluable your home surrounding is. We still struggle with the invisibility of female accomplishments; its so stark. Even up until a few years ago, I would avoid womens conferences and womens panels. I would run away from them because I wanted to be recognized in my own right and not as a woman. Now, as I am getting wiser and older, I am starting to appreciate why such forums are important, why having visibility not just as an African in tech, but as an African woman in tech, is important. Im sort of embracing my position as a role model in different ways because it is only by seeing how other people have done it that you can believe that you can do it.
This conversation has been condensed for publication. A version of this article originally appeared in the July/August issue of FP magazine.
Photos: Courtesy of Ameenah Gurib-Fakim and courtesy of Ory Okolloh
By Jonathan Saul, Arno Schuetze and Andreas Kroner
LONDON/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank is looking to sell at least $1 billion of shipping loans to reduce its exposure to a sector whose lenders face closer scrutiny from the European Central Bank, sources told Reuters.
While the oil tanker trade has picked up, the container and dry bulk shipping industries are struggling with their worst downturn due to a glut of ships, a faltering global economy and weaker consumer demand.
Banking and finance sources familiar with the matter said Germany's biggest lender was initially looking to offload at least $1 billion.
"They are looking to lighten their portfolio and this includes toxic debt. It makes commercial sense to try and sell off some of their book," one finance source said. "They are not looking to exit shipping."
Deutsche Bank, which has around $5 billion to $6 billion worth of total exposure to the shipping sector, declined to comment.
Germany was one of the world's main centers of global ship finance before the 2008 financial crisis, and lenders there still have around 80 billion euros ($88.62 billion) on loan to the sector.
Deutsche Bank's ratio of non-performing loans stands at about 5 percent, compared with 10 to 15 percent among competitors, one banking source estimated.
Reuters reported last month that the European Central Bank has launched a review of banks' lending to the shipping sector. This has raised concerns among lenders that they may be required to set aside more capital and make higher loss provisions against loans to the industry.
"Every bank with a significant amount of shipping loans is evaluating options to sell some of them. The ECB probe has encouraged banks even more to pursue sales," another banking source said.
"However, it is difficult to agree with buyers on the mix of the portfolio such as performing, less performing, non-performing loans and different types of ships."
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Deutsche Bank's global head of ship finance Klaus Stoltenberg said last month that banks would be forced to mark down their loans and adjust portfolios to market values over the next two years.
Deutsche will join other German banks, including state-owned lender HSH Nordbank [HSH.UL] and NordLB [NDLG.UL], who are trying to sell off shipping loans.
Royal Bank of Scotland is also looking to divest its Greek ship finance business, which is worth around $3 billion, Reuters reported in June.
"It is going to become a more crowded market place and any buyers for these portfolios will want a bigger discount now," another finance source said.
NordLB as well as HSH, Commerzbank , DVB and KFW [KFW.UL], have set aside more capital and made higher loss provisions against loans to the industry.
Deutsche Bank has embarked on an overhaul of its overall business. The International Monetary Fund said last week the bank's links to the world's largest lenders made it a bigger potential risk to the wider financial system than any other bank.
(Editing by Rachel Armstrong and Louise Heavens)
Facebook, Inc. FB finds itself increasingly at loggerheads with authorities across different countries who accuse the social media giant of repeatedly failing to co-operate with them on extremely sensitive matters.
Recently, Israels Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan has accused Facebook of not removing offensive content that Palestinians post against the country on the network. As per a Bloomberg report, Israel has seen an unprecedented increase in lone wolf attacks by Palestinians and the government feels that posts backing such gruesome incidents on social media platforms like Facebook tend to glorify such ghastly acts.
Per media reports, in a stern statement, the minister said, Facebook today, which brought an amazing, positive revolution to the world, sadly, we see this since the rise of ISIS and the wave of terror, it has simply become a monster.
Facebook today sabotages, it should be known, sabotages the work of the Israeli police, because when the Israeli police approach them, and it is regarding a resident of Judea and Samaria, Facebook does not cooperate.
Judaea and Samaria refer to present day West Bank, where the Israel-Palestine conflict has been going on for close to half a century.
Facebook, in a statement, said that we work regularly with safety organizations and policymakers around the world, including Israel, to ensure that people know how to make safe use of Facebook. There is no room for content that promotes violence, direct threats, terrorist or hate speeches on our platform."
Facebooks statement however doesnt seem to have pacified the authorities. Israels government is now drafting a legislation that will help it order social services like Facebook, Twitter TWTR and Alphabets GOOGL YouTube to remove posts that the government feels will likely propagate terrorism, as per Reuters.
Facebook at present is facing similar issues in Brazil. Last week, a federal court in the city of Londrina sealed Facebooks funds worth 19.5 reais or $6 million held in the country for constantly refusing to handover data pertaining to a WhatsApp user involved in drug trafficking, even after repeated court orders. Per media reports, though WhatsApp functions as an independent entity, it does not have any bank accounts in Brazil and so the court froze the funds of its parent organization. Further, Facebook is facing an antitrust probe in Germany.
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Recently, however, Facebook won a big lawsuit against Belgiums data protection authority. In 2015, the Belgian Privacy Commission had sued Facebook to prevent it from tracking information of non-users who visit Facebooks public pages.However, the regulatory bodys claim was rejected by the Brussels Appeals Court citing that "Belgian courts don't have international jurisdiction over Facebook Ireland, where the data concerning Europe is processed."
Analysts observe that the issue involving Internet companies and law enforcement agencies is highly complicated as neither of the parties can be blamed for what they are protecting. While Internet companies are trying to protect users privacy, national security concerns require law enforcement agencies to gain access to this data. The Apple AAPL - FBI spat over unlocking the iPhone of the alleged San Bernardino shooter is a glaring example of this conflict. While FBI was hell bent on investigating the massacre that claimed many innocent lives, Apple was adamant about not creating a backdoor to iPhone as it would compromise the security of other users. Eventually, FBI claimed to have unlocked the iPhone on its own.
Coming to Facebook, as the company hosts a huge cache of personal data, it will continue to invite constant scrutiny from privacy groups and federal agencies. This huge database is its primary asset for attracting advertisers. As a result, the company has been criticized for allegedly selling this personal data to advertisers in order to boost its top line. Although the company has denied any wrongdoing, we believe that increasing scrutiny by regulators of its data handling practices remains a major concern, going forward.
Facebook, on its part, is also taking steps to control abusive/prejudiced content on its platform. As per Forbes, Facebook has signed up for the new EU Initiative whereby the company has pledged to remove offensive content related to xenophobia or child pornography as soon as possible. The company has a trained team that can review such posts and take it down, if required, in a matter of 24 hours.
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By Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) - A British inquiry into the Iraq War delivers its long-awaited report on Wednesday, with critics of the U.S.-led invasion hoping it will condemn former Prime Minister Tony Blair while some families of slain soldiers fear it may be a whitewash. To be published seven years after the inquiry was set up when the last British combat troops left Iraq, the report runs to 2.6 million words - about three times the length of the Bible - and will include details of exchanges Blair had with then U.S. President George W. Bush over the 2003 invasion. Iraq remains in chaos to this day. Islamic State controls large areas of the country and 175 people died on Saturday in Baghdad's worst car bombing since the U.S.-led coalition toppled dictator Saddam Hussein. The inquiry's purpose was for the British government to learn lessons from the invasion and occupation that followed, in which 179 British soldiers died. But opponents of Blair's decision to join the war will be pouring over the report for its judgment on how the Labour leader, who quit in 2007, justified the military action. At the time, he said intelligence showed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction but after the invasion none was found. "I was lied to. The media, the press, the families, parliament, everybody was lied to," Reg Keys, whose son was among the British fatalities and who stood as a candidate for parliament against Blair in the 2005 election, told Reuters TV. Blair has always rejected any suggestions he acted dishonestly, and a spokeswoman for him said she would not comment until the report was published. The inquiry, headed by former civil servant John Chilcot, looked at the reasons for the invasion, the war itself and the aftermath - and has taken longer to complete than the British military involvement itself. Public hearings, including two appearances by Blair, ended in 2011 but since then the writing of the report has been dogged by rows over the release of secret government files and the contacts between London and Washington. It will include details of notes from Blair to Bush and quotes from more than 130 records of their conversations. Critics believe Blair, who sent 45,000 British troops for the invasion, gave Bush an unconditional promise that Britain would join military action and that he then distorted intelligence to back this up and put pressure on government lawyers to give the invasion legal approval. Keys noted that Chilcot had said the inquiry would not play the blame game. "But I certainly hope it points the finger of accountability in the direction of the former prime minister who was the key player with all of this deceit," Keys said. However, he said he feared the report might be watered down as those facing criticism have been allowed to respond prior to publication. Chilcot played down this risk in a BBC TV interview on Tuesday. "I made very clear right at the start of the inquiry that if we came across decisions or behavior which deserved criticism then we wouldn't shy away from making it," he said. "Indeed, there have been more than a few instances where we are bound to do that. We are not a court - not a judge or jury at work - but we've tried to apply the highest possible standards of rigorous analysis to the evidence where we make a criticism." His report is expected to be released sometime after 11 am (1000 GMT). BLAIR'S APOLOGY In an interview with CNN last October, Blair apologized that the pre-war intelligence had been wrong and for mistakes in planning, but not for getting rid of Saddam. He also accepted the war had played a role in the rise of Islamic State but it was far from the only factor. "I've said many times over these past years, I'll wait for the report and then I will make my views known and express myself fully and properly," Blair told Sky News on Sunday. British media said lawmakers led by the Scottish National Party were considering invoking an ancient law, last used in 1806, to impeach Blair in parliament. "You cannot have a situation where this country blunders into an illegal war with the appalling consequences and at the end of the day there isn't a reckoning," SNP lawmaker Alex Salmond told Sky News. The Sunday Times newspaper also reported that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn - whose own position is in jeopardy after Britain voted last month to leave the European Union - was simply hanging on because he wanted to "crucify Blair". (Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and David Stamp)
Family members of a 37-year-old black man fatally shot by police in Baton Rouge, La. broke down in tears Wednesday as they mourned the loss of a father and pledged to fight for justice.
Supporters of Alton Sterling, who was killed early Tuesday while police apparently pinned him down outside a convenience store, called for the police chief to be fired or resign and urged residents to boycott the local mall after the fatal shooting.
I, for one, will not rest or not allow him to be swept in the dirt, said Quinyetta McMillon, 31, the mother of Sterlings 15-year-old son. The teenager, Cameron Sterling, sobbed loudly and was overcome with emotion as his mother spoke at a news conference.
Sterlings death, which sparked protests in Baton Rouge, was caught in a graphic video, which was widely shared on social media. The footage appears to show two officers approaching Sterling outside of a convenience store. One officer appears to tackle him over the hood of the car, then both pounce on him, apparently to restrain him on the pavement.
As this video has been shared across the world, you will see with your own eyes how he was handled unjustly and killed without regard for the lives that he helped raise, McMillon, who is not married to Sterling, told reporters.
As a mother, I have now been forced to raise a son who is going to remember what happened to his father that I cant take away from him, she added. He is at an age of understanding. I hurt more for him and his loss.
McMillon wept as she said the greatest failure as a parent is to see your child hurt and know theres nothing you can do about it.
Michael McClanahan, head of the NAACP in Baton Rouge, called for Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. to be fired. He must step down. We cannot have anybody who allows this type of action to take place, he said.
Dabadie said at a news conference that he would not resign and said those who are asking for him to step down from his post were acting off emotion. Im not retiring. Im not resigning, he added later. I dont think its fair for people to act out of emotion. We have done a lot of good in this community. Were working diligently to bring the truth out.
Abdul Rashid Muhammad, who leads the local chapter of the Nation of Islam, urged supporters to boycott the Louisiana mall, starting Friday until we get justice. Lets withhold our money, he said. Dont spend anything.
Sandra Sterling, the aunt of the slain man who raised him, said she was grateful for the unknown bystander who recorded the video but that she was very disturbed and hurt at what she saw in the footage. Its a horrible thing to happen to him, she told reporters Wednesday. He didnt deserve that.
A 25 year old man has survived being lynched an angry mob in Nakalang village, Bukatube sub-county in Mayuge district for allegedly stealing matooke to sell to people preparing for Eid day celebrations today.
The suspect has been identified as Banuli Mulema a resident of Nakalang village in Bukatube county.
Abubaker Kirunda reports that the suspect who confessed to have stolen four bunches of matooke belonging to a Nabila Byantuyo of the same village explained that he had stolen the matooke for him to feast on and sell to others during idd day celebration.
The area LC1 Chairman, Zaidi Kawuka rescued the suspect and handed him over to police.
Abdallah Nasser Mulimira the Mayuge CIID says the suspect will be charged with theft and warned the public against mob justice.
Getty Images brian cox game of thrones
Now that a role on "Game of Thrones" is one of the most coveted acting gigs in Hollywood, veteran actor Brian Cox regrets that he turned one down during its early days.
"Stupidly, I turned it down in the early days because they didnt pay enough money," Cox told Vodzilla.co when the site asked him if he'd take a role on the HBO hit.
Cox who won an Emmy for TNT's 2000 miniseries "Nuremberg," and appeared in HBO's "Deadwood," two "Bourne" movies, and "Braveheart, among many others didn't mention the role he was offered. But it's clear to him now that the money got better.
"Now they have more money," the 70-year-old Scottish native said. "And I was silly. I was silly, it was silly, because Im a complete addict now."
ian mcshane game of thrones
It's true that the show's cast recently got pay hikes to continue beyond the recently aired sixth season, but Cox realized the pay was better when he saw that Ian McShane had appeared on the show. It was a one-episode guest role as Brother Ray, the sept leader who nursed Sandor Clegane (Rory McCann) back to health, and then was killed by renegade Brothers Without Banners members.
"I just watched my friend Ian McShane, and I thought, 'Ooh, Ians in it,' so I settled down to watch him," Cox said. "And I thought, Ian did that? and immediately I thought, God, they must have paid him well,' because I know Ian!"
NOW WATCH: Kit Harington explains why he showed up to his 'Game of Thrones' audition with a black eye
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Police fatally shot a 37-year-old black man named Alton Sterling while apparently pinning him down outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana early Tuesday morning.
Footage of the incident has been posted to social media, CNN reports, and appears to show two officers approaching Sterling outside of the shop. One officer appears to tackle him over the hood of the car, then both pounce on him, apparently to restrain him on the pavement.
Then, from off-camera: Hes got a gun! A series of gunshots are heard, followed by the sound of a woman sobbing.
The Guardian reports that the officers were responding to an anonymous call describing a man in a red shirt selling CDs outside of the store who may have been Sterling allegedly threatening the caller with a gun. The stores owner told a local television station that the police also used a Taser on Sterling, but that is not seen in the video.
The footage in question has gone viral since the shooting, with #AltonSterling trending on Twitter early Wednesday morning. Protests erupted in Baton Rouge to decry Sterlings death, USA Today reports.
Law enforcement authorities told CNN that detectives will review the footage and that the case is under investigation. The officers involved have been placed on administrative leave.
(Reuters) - FBI Director James Comey is set to testify before the U.S. House Oversight Committee on Thursday about the agency's decision not to recommend charges against Hillary Clinton over her use of a personal email server while serving at the State Department, the panel said in a statement. In the statement on Wednesday, Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said that Congress and the American people have a right to understand the FBI's investigation in the matter. The panel said the hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. (Reporting by Adam DeRose)
FBI Director James Comey Delivers Keynote Address On Cyber Security At Georgetown University
FBI Director James Comey will testify before Congress on Thursday after announcing the bureau would recommend Hillary Clinton not be prosecuted for her email practices as secretary of state, the House Oversight Committee announced Wednesday.
"The FBI's recommendation is surprising and confusing. The fact pattern presented by Director Comey makes clear Secretary Clinton violated the law. Individuals who intentionally skirt the law must be held accountable," committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said in a statement.
The Utah Republican representative added: "Congress and the American people have a right to understand the depth and breadth of the FBI's investigation. I thank Directory Comey for accepting the invitation to publicly answer these important questions."
Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon reacted to the news on Twitter, calling the hearing a public "flogging."
So House GOP will hold a hearing flogging Comey for not charging Clinton on same day Trump visits the Hill? This should end well. Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) July 6, 2016
Comey said at a Tuesday press conference that 110 emails that traversed Clinton's private email server had classified information at the time they were sent or received. He called her behavior "extremely careless" and said it was "possible" that "hostile actors" had gained access to her account.
Nevertheless, the agency director said "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring charges against her and that the bureau would not recommend doing so.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch indicated last week that she would likely accept the FBI's recommendation. She is also set to testify before the House later this month.
Republicans from all corners blasted the decision. House Speaker Paul Ryan said it "defies explanation," and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump argued it proved the "system is rigged." Texas Sen. Ted Cruz even went as far as to question Comey's integrity.
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NOW WATCH: Obama had some incredible reactions while campaigning with Hillary Clinton
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The investigation of the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling has been handed over from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to federal authorities for a civil rights investigation, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said at a press conference Wednesday.
Edwards said the lead investigatory agency will be the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, which will be assisted by the FBI.
"I have full confidence this matter will be investigated thoroughly, impartially and fairly, and that's the way I will demand it be conducted," Edward said.
At 12:35 a.m. on Tuesday, police responded to a call from an anonymous complainant who said a black man was selling CDs, according to a statement from Baton Rouge police. Police encountered Sterling, 37, and he was shot during the encounter, the release says.
A 48-second long video taken by a witness shows police telling the man, 37-year-old Alton Sterling, to get on the ground outside the store. A second officer quickly tackles him to the ground. One of the officers yells, "He's got a gun! Gun!" before apparently firing his weapon at Sterling.
FBI and Justice Department's Civil Rights Division Take Over Alton Sterling Shooting Investigation from Baton Rouge PD| Crime & Courts, Shootings, True Crime
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In a statement, Justice Department Spokesperson David Jacobs said, "The FBI's New Orleans Division, the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorneyas Office for the Middle District of Louisiana have opened a civil rights investigation into the death of Alton Sterling. The Justice Department will collect all available facts and evidence and conduct a fair, thorough and impartial investigation. As this is an ongoing investigation we are not able to comment further at this time."
According to the East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner, preliminary findings indicate wounds to the chest and back.
Regarding the footage, Edwards said, "I have very serious concerns. The video is disturbing to say the least."
FBI and Justice Department's Civil Rights Division Take Over Alton Sterling Shooting Investigation from Baton Rouge PD| Crime & Courts, Shootings, True Crime
Edwards urged the protests to be peaceful. "One thing is for sure: Another violent act or destruction of property is not the answer," he said.
Quinyetta McMillon, the mother of Alton Sterling's son, spoke at an earlier press conference, while Alton's son, 15-year-old Cameron Sterling, sobbed.
Edwards said he spoke with Sandra Sterling, the aunt who raised Alton. "Obviously she's very distraught," he said.
He said he has not talked to the Baton Rouge police chief.
The FDA is giving cryotherapy a treatment that is popular with celebrities and athletes the cold shoulder. (Photo: Getty Images)
Whole body cryotherapy (WBC) just received the big chill from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
According to a statement released on July 5, the FDA does not have evidence that WBC effectively treats diseases or conditions like Alzheimers, fibromyalgia, migraines, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, stress, anxiety, or chronic pain.
In fact, the FDA has not cleared or approved this therapy for any specific medical condition, even though countless websites claim WBC can improve a number of chronic illnesses, along with providing other health benefits, like improving circulation, increasing metabolism, and improving recovery and soreness after workouts.
In its general form, cryotherapy is a cooling remedy that can treat pain and inflammation associated with physical injuries (such as placing an ice pack on sore back muscles) or remove various skin issues, such as freezing off warts, moles, and skin tags.
However, WBC involves exposing the entire body to subzero temperatures ranging, on average, from -200 to -300 degrees Fahrenheit, which are generated by liquid nitrogen for two to four minutes. The person can either stand in an individual-sized enclosed tank where only their head remains exposed at normal room temperature or they can enter a fully enclosed chamber with others who are willing to brave the cold.
Numerous celebrities have taken the deep freeze with WBC in order to combat aging, uneven skin tones, or inflammation. Christina Aguilera, Demi Lovato, Mandy Moore, Minka Kelly, Lindsay Lohan, Alicia Keys, and Demi Moore, as well as professional athletes (including Floyd Mayweather and LeBron James) and dancers from Dancing with the Stars (including Derek Hough) have reportedly chilled out using this trendy treatment.
Yet this frigid fountain of youth may also be dangerous. Potential hazards include asphyxiation, especially when liquid nitrogen is used for cooling, FDA scientific reviewer Anna Ghambaryan said in the press release.
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This isnt the first time weve heard about the possibility of a treacherous outcome linked to WBC. In October 2015, the death of 24-year-old Chelsea Patricia Ake-Salvacion made national headlines when the Las Vegas spa employee accidentally died from asphyxia caused by low oxygen levels in a chilled cryotherapy chamber. According to the Associated Press, the young woman was found crumbled at the bottom of the device. Her family attorney reported that she texted a friend about a possible nitrogen leak in the machine.
Also, back in 2013, a 15-year-old male who was advised by his physician to receive cryotherapy treatment for viral warts developed frostbite dark grey/black blistered areas in multiple locations on his left foot and both hands. While freezing the lesion is the intended mechanism of treatment, freezing the lesion for prolonged periods or too close to the lesion is likely to cause deep burns that extend over a larger surface area than the initial lesion, stated the authors in a letter published in The British Journal of General Practice.
Skeptical is an understatement, Ian Harris, a professor of orthopedic surgery at Whitlam Orthopedic Research Center in Australia who has studied the effects of cryotherapy, told Business Insider back in 2012. My official position is that unless they can show a clear reproducible benefit from properly blinded randomized controlled trials, then they are peddling unproven therapies for profit.
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Washington (AFP) - Federal civil rights investigators will probe the fatal police shooting of a black father of five in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, officials said Wednesday, as the US city's mayor and police chief faced down calls to resign.
The death of 37-year-old Alton Sterling outside a convenience store was captured on cell phone video, triggering protests in the city and outrage nationwide over the latest case of alleged police brutality against black suspects.
The shooting came on the eve of a closely watched trial in Baltimore for an officer charged in the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who suffered a broken spine in the back of a police van.
Sterling was fatally shot in the early hours of Tuesday after an anonymous caller told police they had been threatened by a man with a gun, according to the police.
His family's lawyer said Sterling was merely selling CDs outside a convenience store, with the permission of the shop's owner.
Officials appealed for calm and promised a transparent investigation.
Calling the video "disturbing," Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said federal authorities will take over the investigation, led by the Department of Justice civil rights division.
"I have very serious concerns," Edwards told a news conference in Baton Rouge. "The video is disturbing to say the least."
Edwards said he spoke to the White House and planned to meet with faith-based community leaders to appeal for calm.
Baton Rouge officials identified the officers involved as Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II. Both were placed on administrative leave, according to procedure, pending the results of the investigation.
- 'No cover-up' -
David Harris, a University of Pittsburgh law professor who studies police behavior and regulation, said it was "unusual for the Department of Justice to step in so quickly."
But he said the opening of a civil rights probe does not necessarily mean the Department will bring a case.
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Federal law "requires not only showing of use of force that is excessive, but also that it was a willfull violation of the Constitution," Harris said. "That is the highest standard that any prosecutor has to take on in this country."
In Baton Rouge, emotions were running high. At an emotional press conference with relatives of the victim, the head of the city's chapter of the civil rights group NAACP, Michael McClanahan, called for the resignations of the police chief and mayor.
"What we are going to do today is rule out the one percent of bad police officers that go around becoming the judge, the jury, the executioner of people period but more specifically, innocent black lives," he said.
Both city officials responded with promises of transparency.
"We're an inclusive city," said Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden. "We have a wound right now. But we'll be healing and making the city and parish whole again."
Police chief Carl Dabadie said he is "demanding answers."
"There is a lot that we do not understand," Dabadie said, "It is our goal and our mission to make sure that a thorough, just, transparent and independent investigation be conducted into this incident."
- Video -
A graphic video shot by a witness and circulated online showed the altercation between the two officers and Sterling at 12:35 am (0535 GMT) Tuesday.
In the video, the officers ordered the tall and heavy-set Sterling to the ground but he remained standing.
The officers wrestled him to the floor, and while he was pinned down one officer pulled a gun and shot Sterling several times at close range.
ABC News published a second witness video late Wednesday, taken from a different angle, but which did not provide further clarity on the incident.
Police Chief Dabadie said Sterling had been armed.
- Body cameras -
Suspicion over police actions grew after reports emerged that the officers' body cameras fell off during the confrontation.
Authorities seized the convenience store's video surveillance system, which apparently captured the shooting, but have yet to release any footage.
Protesters, including friends and relatives of Sterling, gathered outside the store after the shooting, some blocking roads.
Holding up handmade signs, they chanted: "Black lives matter" and "Hands up, don't shoot."
- 'Legal lynching' -
Online reactions to the shooting grew Wednesday.
Actor Jesse Williams, whose televised BET Awards speech about police killings of black people was an internet sensation, responded on Twitter by asking for "a list of infractions punishable by spontaneous public execution."
African American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson called the shooting "a legal lynching."
On Instagram, Colin Kaepernick -- the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers football team -- said it was a murder "at the hands of the people who they say will protect us."
Video footage of the incident can be viewed at: https://twitter.com/AyYoDex27/status/750499359339343872
London (AFP) - Roger Federer and Andy Murray showed their never-say-die spirit as the Wimbledon title rivals battled into the semi-finals in a pair of Centre Court classics on Wednesday.
Federer saved three match points in a 6-7 (4/7), 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (11/9), 6-3 victory over Croatian ninth seed Marin Cilic as the world number three reached a record-equalling 11th semi-final at the All England Club.
The 34-year-old also claimed a new record for Grand Slam match wins of 307 as he made a 40th semi-final at the majors.
Federer, a 10-time Wimbledon finalist, will play Canadian sixth seed Milos Raonic as he continues his pursuit of an 18th Grand Slam title and a record eighth All England Club crown.
"Marin is such a wonderful player and I knew I was in so much trouble in the third set and in the fourth," said Federer.
"But my legs and back were there and serving was key. Mentally this will give me a hell of a boost."
Murray followed Federer onto Wimbledon's famous showcourt and treated the crowd to another thriller as he squandered a two-set lead before storming to a 7-6 (12/10), 6-1, 3-6, 4-6, 6-1 win against French 12th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
On the brink of a shock exit, Murray rallied impressively in the deciding set, screaming out to his box 'there's no way I'm losing this match' before making good on his rallying call.
Murray's 100th career grass-court win booked his seventh Wimbledon semi-final appearance and Czech 10th seed Tomas Berdych stands between the 29-year-old Scot and his second All England Club final.
World number two Murray, beaten in the Australian and French Open finals this year, is looking to earn his third major title and first since becoming the first British man to win Wimbledon for 77 years.
"It was a tough match. Tsonga is one of the best grass-court players in the world and he came up with some great shots at big moments," Murray said.
"I just tried to use all my energy at the start of the fifth set to get myself pumped up and thankfully I got the early break and managed to hang onto it."
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- Rollercoaster -
Even Murray's rollercoaster victory couldn't overshadow Federer's latest Wimbledon heroics as he came from two sets down to win for the 10th time in his glittering career.
Federer, who saved the three match points in the fourth set, fired 27 aces and 67 winners to avenge his semi-final loss to ninth seed Cilic in the semi-finals of the 2014 US Open.
Federer's dramatic triumph was his 84th win at Wimbledon -- taking him level with Jimmy Connors and making him the oldest All England Club semi-finalist since 39-year-old Ken Rosewall in 1974.
Raonic enjoyed far more serene progress to his second Wimbledon semi-final as he ended Sam Querrey's surprise run to the last eight with a 6-4, 7-5, 5-7, 6-4 victory on Court One.
The 25-year-old was too strong for Querrey, who had eliminated defending champion Novak Djokovic, and will hope it is third time lucky after losing his previous two Grand Slam semi-finals.
"There were some momentum shifts there. I'm glad I was able to get back on the right path after he won the third," Raonic said.
"I was able to get things back on my terms. It's a well deserved chance to be in the semi-finals. "
Berdych was on cruise control as the Czech 10th seed crushed France's Lucas Pouille 7-6 (7/4), 6-3, 6-2.
Berdych is one win away from reaching his second Grand Slam final six years after losing to Rafael Nadal in the Wimbledon title match.
The 30-year-old, who blasted Pouille off Court One with 35 winners and 10 aces, is the third Czech man to reach multiple Wimbledon semi-finals after Ivan Lendl and Jan Kodes.
"It's a great feeling. I had to find my rhythm in the first set tie-break. After that it was more straightforward," Berdych said.
A slow-simmering, Western-style action drama of blood feud, misfired machismo, and spiritual quest spread across Tibets rolling steppes and scorching deserts, Soul on a String follows the travails of a hunter led by fate to deliver a sacred stone to a mythic mountain despite motley foes at his heels. Chinese director Zhang Yang (Shower, Sunflower) eschews the thrill of propulsive duels for a discursive allegorical approach, serving up picturesque visuals, highland-dry humor, and karmic plot twists. While the nearly two-and-a-half-hour running time is sure to hamper theatrical release prospects, Zhangs quirky blend of genre and art-house elements should ensure considerable fest play.
The directors second film set in Tibet after his minimalist docudrama Paths of the Soul is steeped in fairy-tale color. Its prologue depicts a forest encounter between a young urchin, a deer hunter, and a young girl who falls from a cliff clutching a glowing stone. Like the metafictions of Italo Calvino and Jorges Luis Borges, the meaning of the characters crossed destinies will be revealed in due course, but their connections remain concealed for so long, the multi-pronged narratives fell obscure and unfocused at first.
The story proper begins with hot-headed wastrel Guori (Zerong Dages) challenging a man called Tabei to a duel to avenge his fathers death. Many people are named Tabei, protests his hapless target, and sure enough, Guoris thirst for revenge doesnt stop with the first Tabei he meets. Both his mother and older brother Kodi (Lei Chen) fear that hes making so many new enemies that their future generations will have to pay dearly for it.
On a parallel quest is Tabei (Kimba), former hunter, ex-con and fugitive. Hes revived by a lama (Mima) after being hit by a thunderbolt and told to bring a holy stone to Palm Print Mountain as penance to cleanse his many sins, attracting an odd bunch of followers en route: Chung (Quni Ciren), who decides hes the love of her life after a one-night stand; Pu (Yizi Danzeng), a mute scalawag with psychic powers; Gedan (Siano Dudiom Zahi), a mysterious stalker; Zandui (Solange Nima), a wanderer with a wondrously daffy dog.
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Set on vast, vacant landscapes which make past and present indiscernible, the stylized film suggests Westerns in which characters struggle as much against the elements as they do other humans. Even when the men brandish broadswords, their poise and unpolished moves resemble standoffs in gunfights rather than typical Chinese martial arts duels. And yet Zhang offers a twist on generic ideas of vengeance by imbuing every fight with a spiritual dimension. The films abstract tone slowly gives way to a moving sense of futile longing and tragedy as it explores Tabeis lifelong burden of having to pay for the murder committed by a father hes never met and how that colors his attitude toward love, or Chungs desire to bear his child.
The title refers to the leather string that holds the stone, which Tabei wears around his neck, as well as Chungs habit of counting the days of her romance by tying knots on a leather cord, symbolizing their pilgrimage to free themselves from physical and spiritual bondage. All the protagonists need to let go of their attachments, which according to Buddhist teaching is the root of all suffering. Without straining for heavy mysticism, the epiphany in the denouement skillfully elides time while rendering cause and effect irrelevant.
The performances are uneven, dominated by Kimba and Quni Cirens passionately willful personalities. Other roles, except the delightfully rascally Yixi Danzeng, tend to be one-dimensional. Gender relations seem to hail from the Dark Ages when men thoughtlessly sowed their wild oats while women, useful only for their cooking and sexual services, stoically raise kids alone.
The standout of the aesthetically pleasing production is Guo Damings widescreen cinematography, which captures Tibets stunningly varied terrain of lakes, deserts and mountains with sweeping aerial shots, in dramatic tones of fiery reds and brooding umber. Zhang Jian score infuses the electric rock score with Tibet folk melodies.
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Film Review: 'I Am Somebody'
A new wave of Latin indie sounds will invade New York this week during the 2016 Latin Alternative Music Conference from July 6-9. This year's lineup includes an array of sounds, including electro soul, punk, rock, funk and pop, that will satisfy music enthusiasts at one of NYC's hottest summer event.
2016 Latin Grammy Awards Date Set by the Latin Recording Academy
If you're not sure which artist to check out during the fest, here are five up-and-coming artists to watch at this year's LAMC:
Sexy Zebras
The Spanish rock band won't disappoint with their mean punk tracks that talk about social injustice. The trio's latest, "Hijo de Puta," featuring Molotov's Randy, criticizes political figures, including Donald Trump. They perform Wednesday night (July 6) at NYC's Highline Ballroom.
Izal
Another Spanish band is pop-rock band Izal. Although the indie group has performed in more than 20 music festivals around the world, it is their first time bringing their showcase to the U.S. Their setlist includes tracks like "Pequena gran revolucion," "Copacabana," and "El baile." They perform Wednesday night at the Highline Ballroom.
Ileana Cabra of Calle 13 Talks New Solo Album
iLe
Ileana Cabra, who goes by stage name iLe, will perform songs from her debut album iLevitable. The crowd will be in for a treat when they hear iLe's, Calle 13's Visitante and Residente's younger sister, powerful and mature vocals singing bolero ballad style tunes with a twist of Latin funk. iLe performs Thursday at S.O.B.'s as part of LAMC's Indie Showcase.
Santi Mostaffa
If you're a fan of hip-hop artists like Ana Tijoux and Orishas, you'll probably want to check out Uruguay's next big thing: Santi Mosaffa. The MC, whose music has been featured on shows like Fear The Walking Dead, Graceland and ESPN, will make his U.S. debut at LAMC. Santi will show off his rapping skills on Friday at S.O.B.'s.
Las Robertas
The Costa Rican trio is ready to turn heads at LAMC with their psych-pop tunes. The indie band will make a stop at LAMC during a full-length tour in the U.S. in anticipation of their third album to release later this year. They perform Wednesday night at Sunnyvale in Brooklyn.
From Woman's Day
By now, every pet owner should know that dogs can suffer heat stroke in temperatures as low as 70 degrees Fahrenheit, but it seems some haven't gotten the message.
Recently, officers with Pensacola Police Department smashed a car window to rescue a puppy locked inside. The temperature that day was 94 degrees, with a heat index of 108 degrees. (According to the American Veterinary Medical Association if it's 95 degrees outside, temperatures inside a parked vehicle can reach114 degrees in just 10 minutes.) The pup lived, and now cops are offering quite the solution for other pet owners who might do the same: free rides for you and your furry pal-to jail and the county animal shelter, respectively:
According to the Humane Society, exposure to high temperatures can lead to sever organ failure in animals or, in some cases, death.
Florida is one of a handful of states with a Good Samaritan law that protects bystanders who break into cars to rescue pets. Last summer, Tennessee passed its own version, which applies to both children and pets.
(h/t Huffington Post)
By Dr. Nehginpao Kipgen
The International Court of Arbitration said on June 29 that it will give its ruling on the South China Sea dispute on July 12 amidst strong opposition from China.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said "I again stress that the arbitration court has no jurisdiction in the case and on the relevant matter, and should not hold hearings or make a ruling."
The case filed by the Philippines at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea at The Hague in 2013 protests the Chinese claims in the South China Sea. Beijing insists that Manila's case is an issue of territorial sovereignty over which the tribunal has no jurisdiction.
China claims almost all of the South China Sea along the nine-dash line dots on the map. The Philippines argue that the claim made by China is against international law.
The current round of tension between the two countries began in 2008-2009 after a tense but bloodless standoff over the Scarborough Shoal, which led to China gaining de facto control of it in 2012.
In recent years, the attention has shifted to China's construction and installation of military-capable infrastructure on the Spratly Islands. The pace and scale of China's island-building work has dwarfed other countries that engage in similar activities and is beginning to take on a more overtly strategic character, which includes the construction of runways and port facilities.
There are no easy answers to the South China Sea dispute. At the same time, it is well understood by the disputing parties as well as the international community that the dispute needs to be resolved.
Because of the capital spent on island building works by individual countries, the sea's rich natural resources and the yearly revenues generated from the sea routes, none of the disputing parties are likely to sacrifice or surrender their claims easily.
The underlining problem are the claims of overlapping areas by different countries, involving China, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, as well as Taiwan.
One of the fundamental principles of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been to resolve disputes by peaceful means and to reach agreement by a consensus. But over the years, the position of ASEAN on the South China Sea dispute has been weak and at times they have been unable to formulate a consensus policy.
This is partly due to the fact that not all the 10 ASEAN members are claimants to the South China Sea. Another reason is that members of ASEAN have overlapping claims among themselves.
One other reason is due to the bilateral relations between China and some smaller ASEAN members, such as Laos and Cambodia. Because of its economic and military power, China has been able to silence some ASEAN members or even get them to support its position.
China is well aware that a united voice of all ASEAN members will have greater force. ASEAN's inability to build a united front on the South China Sea dispute is a major challenge for the regional bloc.
There is no single country in ASEAN, which is a party to the South China Sea dispute, capable of challenging China individually. This is an important reason why ASEAN welcomes the role of the United States as power balancer on the issue.
While China insists on talks among the concerned parties, the claimants in ASEAN want to pursue this through multilateralism or the Court of Arbitration. The existence of two diametrically opposing approaches is a major challenge in bringing a mutually acceptable solution to the South China Sea dispute.
Since China has openly refused to acknowledge or accept the ruling of the arbitration court, despite the support from several countries, and as well as due to its lack of enforcement power, this channel is likely to be inconclusive.
However, the reaction of the international community in the aftermath of the court's ruling will put pressure on the disputing parties. The ruling may also provide a justification basis for a coalition action.
To resolve the dispute peacefully, the claimants should be willing to abandon their confrontational attitude and agree to find some common ground even if that requires sacrificing certain portions of their claims.
For example, one possible peaceful solution would be for all claimants to limit their claim to the areas of 200 nautical miles of their Exclusive Economic Zones in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). By agreeing to such a proposal, the parties in the dispute can also reach an agreement to leave international waters for free navigation.
Another possible solution is for the concerned parties to establish common ownership of the disputed areas whereby all the revenue from the South China Sea is equitably shared among the littoral countries.
One other possibility is for the disputing countries to specifically lay out their claims and allow a neutral party to adjudicate on the basis of UNCLOS or any other relevant international laws.
Dr. Nehginpao Kipgen is Assistant Professor and Executive Director of Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Jindal School of International Affairs, O.P. Jindal Global University. He is the author of three books and several articles in international journals.
TCU now has seven four-star recruits in its 2016 recruiting class (AP).
All of the 2016 incoming freshman signees released from their letters of intent at Baylor have found new schools as defensive end Brandon Bowen has picked TCU.
Brandon Bowen has reportedly committed to TCU. Recently released from Baylor NLI. Huge addition PurpleMenace.com (@TCU_Rivals) July 6, 2016
The news of Bowens commitment was first reported by Scout.com.
According to Purple Menace, Bowen is the second-highest recruit ever in Rivals individual rankings to commit to TCU. A four-star recruit, Bowen was ranked the No. 63 player in the class of 2016 per Rivals.
If youre wondering who the highest-ranked recruit to choose TCU is, its not a name you may recognize. LaDarius Brown, a wide receiver in the class of 2011, was the No. 53 player in the country that season. Brown was dismissed from the team in February 2014.
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His addition to the 2016 class at TCU bumps up whats already a stellar class for the Horned Frogs. TCUs class was No. 21 overall in Rivals rankings and had six four-star recruits before Bowens arrival.
Baylor has lost 11 of the 22 members of its 2016 signing class. Four of those freshmen Devin Duvernay, Donovan Duvernay, J.P. Urquidez and Patrick Hudson, committed to Texas. Cornerback Parrish Cobb (Oklahoma) and running back Kam Martin (Auburn) committed to schools outside of Texas.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) - A former Rabobank [RABOVR.UL] trader from Australia will plead guilty on Thursday to U.S. charges that he conspired in a huge scandal to manipulate Libor, the leading benchmark for pricing financial transactions, his lawyer said.
The expected plea by Paul Thompson, former head of money market and derivatives trading in Northeast Asia for the Dutch bank, was disclosed by his attorney, Harry Sandick, at a hearing on Wednesday in Manhattan federal court.
Thompson, 50, who faces charges of conspiracy and wire fraud, was extradited from Australia and released on a $500,000 bond after the hearing.
Libor, or the London interbank offered rate, underpins trillions of dollars of financial products globally from mortgages to credit cards. The rate is based on what banks say they believe they would pay if they borrowed from other banks.
U.S. and European authorities have been probing whether banks attempted to manipulate the rate to benefit their own trading positions. Investigations have resulted in roughly $9 billion in sanctions worldwide against financial institutions.
The U.S. Justice Department has charged 16 people, including seven former traders at Rabobank, which in 2013 reached a $1 billion deal to resolve related U.S. and European probes.
Thompson was charged in 2014 and arrested in October in Australia at the request of U.S. authorities, while two other ex-Rabobank traders, Anthony Allen and Anthony Conti, were undergoing trial in New York.
Both were convicted in November for conspiring with Thompson from 2006 to 2011 to manipulate the U.S. dollar and yen Libor rates to benefit the bank's trading positions.
In March, Allen was sentenced to two years in prison, while Conti was sentenced to one year in prison. Both are appealing.
Three other Rabobank traders have pleaded guilty.
Thompson's extradition came as Britain's Serious Fraud Office said it would seek the retrial of two ex-Barclays (BARC.L) traders, Stylianos Contogoulas and Ryan Reich, after jurors were unable to reach a verdict in their Libor-related case.
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Three other Barclays traders, Jonathan Mathew, Jay Merchant and Alex Pabon, were found guilty. A fourth, Peter Johnson, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud. The men will be sentenced on Thursday.
In total, 12 people have faced trial in the United Kingdom in relation to the Libor probes. Jurors there have convicted four individuals and acquitted six others.
The case is U.S. v. Thompson, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 14-cr-272.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York and Colin Packham in Sydney; Editing by Richard Chang)
Washington (AFP) - Former US president George W. Bush reiterated his belief Wednesday that the world is "better off" without Saddam Hussein, as a damning inquiry blasted Britain's part in the rush for war with Iraq in 2003.
"Despite the intelligence failures and other mistakes he has acknowledged previously, President Bush continues to believe the whole world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power," Bush's spokesman Freddy Ford said in a statement.
"He is deeply grateful for the service and sacrifice of American and coalition forces in the war on terror. And there was no stronger ally than the United Kingdom under the leadership of Prime Minister Tony Blair."
Britain's former prime minister was at the center of a detailed inquiry that probed Britain's role in the US-led war, examining the flawed intelligence, questionable legal basis and "woefully inadequate" preparation for the occupation.
Ford noted that Bush had not yet had the chance to read the lengthy enquiry report.
Britain deployed troops before diplomatic options had been exhausted, the report said.
Broader reaction to the lengthy inquiry by John Chilcot was muted in the United States, with officials unwilling to weigh in on historical decisions.
President Barack Obama's "longstanding opposition to the invasion of Iraq is well known and has been extensively litigated," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
Obama "has been dealing with the consequences of that fateful decision for the entirety of his presidency. Future presidents will likely have to do the same," he added. "It is important that the United States... learn the lessons of those past mistakes."
John Kirby, a spokesman for Secretary of State John Kerry, said the current administration is focused on the current crises in Iraq and Syria.
"Our focus is on trying to get a political transition in Syria, trying to defeat Daesh (the Islamic State group) in Iraq and Syria; trying to help Prime Minister (Haider al-)Abadi make the necessary political and economic reforms he knows he needs to make in his country," he said.
"That's where Secretary Kerry's head is, and we're not interested in re-litigating the decisions that led to the Iraq war in 2003."
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter declined to comment on the Chilcot report.
Washington (AFP) - Fox News host and former Miss America Gretchen Carlson filed suit Wednesday against the company's chief executive, saying she was fired for rejecting his sexual advances.
The sexual harassment suit filed in New Jersey state court said Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of Fox News, terminated Carlson as a retaliatory act.
Fox said that it saw the allegations in the suit and had launched an internal review.
"We take these matters seriously," Fox said in a released statement.
The media giant went on to said that it had "full confidence" in Ailes.
US media reports said that Ailes stepped up to his own defense, releasing a statement saying the accusations were false and that the suit was retaliation for not renewing Carlson's contract due to low ratings.
He called the suit "offensive" and vowed a vigorous legal defense.
Carlson, a top Fox personality, had been with the network for more than a decade.
Ailes "unlawfully retaliated against Carlson and sabotaged her career because she refused his sexual advances and complained about severe and pervasive sexual harassment," the lawsuit alleges.
According to the lawsuit, Ailes fired Carlson on June 23 after "ostracizing, marginalizing and shunning her" and making it clear that "these 'problems' would not have existed, and could be solved if she had a sexual relationship with him."
Fox News parent company Twentyfirst Century Fox did not immediately reply to an AFP request for comment.
Carlson, who won the Miss America pageant in 1989, joined Fox in 2005 after working at CBS News, and during her career interviewed numerous world leaders including President Barack Obama, former president George W. Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair.
For over seven years she hosted the highly rated "Fox & Friends" morning news show.
The complaint, posted on the website of Carlson's attorneys, said Carlson complained about a hostile work environment at Fox as far back as 2009.
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It said that when she complained to Ailes, the executive called her a "man hater" and said she needed "to get along with the boys."
Ailes, the lawsuit said, responded by assigning Carlson to less important news and interviews and "directing that she not be showcased at all."
The lawsuit alleges that when Carlson met with Ailes last September, he suggested a sexual relationship as a way of resolving her problems.
The complaint seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Ailes, a former consultant to Republican presidents, is a key figure in the media empire controlled by mogul Rupert Murdoch and his family.
Gretchen Carlson, a broadcast veteran, claims in a sexual harassment lawsuit that she was let go from Fox News on June 23 as retaliation for rebuffing Roger Ailes' sexual advances.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in New Jersey Superior Court, states that her contract expired and that despite working at Fox News for 11 years and being the host of a show that was leading in its afternoon time slot, she was unfairly terminated as the result of events that had occurred much earlier.
According to the complaint, "When Carlson met with Ailes to discuss the discriminatory treatment to which she was being subjected, Ailes stated: 'I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago and then you'd be good and better and I'd be good and better,' adding that 'sometimes problems are easier to solve' that way. Carlson rebuffed Ailes' sexual demands at that meeting, and nine months later, Ailes ended her career at Fox News."
21st Century Fox released a statement on Wednesday, saying: "The Company has seen the allegations against Mr. Ailes and Mr. Doocy. We take these matters seriously. While we have full confidence in Mr. Ailes and Mr. Doocy, who have served the company brilliantly for over two decades, we have commenced an internal review of the matter."
Carlson, who worked at CBS on its Saturday morning show, joined Fox News in 2005. She has interviewed many prominent politicians and celebrities and spent seven-and-a-half years as a co-host on Fox & Friends. Most recently, she's been leading the program The Real Story With Gretchen Carlson.
In 2009, Carlson says she complained to a supervisor that Steve Doocy, one of her co-hosts on Fox & Friends, "had created a hostile work environment by regularly treating her in a sexist and condescending way, including by putting his hand on her and pulling down her arm to shush her during a live telecast."
Read More: Gretchen Carlson Lawyer Says Fox News May Be Added to Roger Ailes Harassment Lawsuit
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Carlson accuses Doocy of "severe and pervasive sexual harassment" off the air and "generally attempting to put her in her place by refusing to accept and treat her as an intelligent and insightful female journalist rather than a blond female prop."
But complaints about Doocy (who isn't named as a co-defendant) allegedly went nowhere.
"After learning of Carlson's complaints, Ailes responded by calling Carlson a 'man hater' and 'killer' and telling her that she needed to learn to 'get along with the boys,'" states the complaint, which adds that her gripes led to her being assigned fewer hard-hitting political interviews.
She says she was fired from Fox & Friends in 2013, and after being reassigned, claims she was tormented by Ailes' sexual comments and innuendo. Ailes allegedly told her that she saw everything as if it "only rains on women" and admonished her to stop worrying about equal treatment and getting "offended so God damn easy about everything."
Ailes also ogled Carlson in the office, adds the lawsuit, and "asked her to turn around so he could view her posterior," urging her to wear certain outfits that enhanced her figure.
Read More: The Introspective Roger Ailes: Fox News' Chief on Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Brian Williams' Future ("I'd Put Him Back") and His Own
Other Ailes comments such as "I'm sure you can do sweet nothings when you want to" led to a meeting in September 2015, continues the complaint, which was the scene of a more explicit invitation for a sexual relationship. Carlson says she refused, and as a result, according to the lawsuit, her compensation was cut, her appearances on the network were curtailed and she was blocked from having social media and public relations support.
Carlson is now suing for compensatory damages for what has happened to her career, damages for mental anguish, punitive damages and more. She is represented by Nancy Smith at Smith Mullin.
Read More: Roger Ailes Fires Back at Gretchen Carlson's "Defamatory" Lawsuit as Fox Launches Internal Investigation
For the second quarter of 2016, Carlson still easily won her time slot among cable news shows - but, at 1.15 million viewers and 183,000 adults 25-54, she ranked an admittedly mediocre No. 14 among all FNC programs.
On Wednesday afternoon, Ailes released the following statement: "Gretchen Carlson's allegations are . This is a retaliatory suit for the network's decision not to renew her contract, which was due to the fact that her disappointingly low ratings were dragging down the afternoon lineup. When Fox News did not commence any negotiations to renew her contract, Ms. Carlson became aware that her career with the network was likely over and conveniently began to pursue a lawsuit. Ironically, FOX News provided her with more on-air opportunities over her 11-year tenure than any other employer in the industry, for which she thanked me in her recent book. This defamatory lawsuit is not only offensive, it is wholly without merit and will be defended vigorously."
Read More: How Fox News Dodged a Complaint of Selectively Promoting GOP Candidates
July 6, 3:40 p.m. PT: Updated with Fox, Ailes statements
PARIS (Reuters) - Marine Le Pen, the leader of Frances far right National Front party, said in a magazine interview said that if she were American, she would vote for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. "If I was American I would vote for anyone but Hillary Clinton ... Between him and Hillary Clinton, it is clear that I would choose Donald Trump," Le Pen told the French magazine Valeurs Actuelles. "What appeals to Americans is that he is a man free from Wall Street, from markets and from financial lobbies and even from his own party," she said. The anti-immigrant, anti-euro National Front was the only major French political party to call for Britons to vote to leave the European Union, hoping Brexit can boost its own eurosceptic agenda at home. Le Pen in the interview reiterated her call for a French referendum on European Union membership. (Reporting by Dominique Vidalon, editing by Larry King)
* Accord with Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
* Sanofi to develop clinical and regulatory strategy
* French firm only big drugmaker actively working on Zika (Adds further details on vaccine development)
By Matthias Blamont and Ben Hirschler
PARIS/LONDON, July 6 (Reuters) - French drugmaker Sanofi said on Wednesday it had struck a research and development deal with the U.S. Army to speed up the development of a vaccine against the mosquito-borne Zika virus.
Sanofi is the only major drugmaker working on a vaccine against Zika, which has been linked to birth defects and neurological disorders, although more than a dozen smaller biotech firms and other groups are also active in the field.
The tie-up with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) in the United States gives Sanofi access to a promising new vaccine, made from inactivated virus, that has already produced impressive results in mice.
The vaccine is one of the furthest advanced in development and could be ready for testing on humans in October.
Sanofi said the WRAIR, a biomedical research facility administered by the U.S. Department of Defense, would transfer virus vaccine technology to Sanofi Pasteur, the company's vaccines division.
The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will conduct the Phase I trials during the technology transfer and then Sanofi will be in charge of clinical and regulatory development.
Global health officials are racing to better understand the Zika virus, which has caused a major outbreak that began in Brazil last year and has spread to many countries in the Americas.
The World Health Organization has said there is strong scientific consensus that Zika is a cause of the birth defect microcephaly, or small heads in babies, as well as Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disorder.
A single dose of the WRAIR's experimental vaccine was shown to give 100 percent protection in mice against the Zika virus, according to a study published in Nature last week, boosting hopes that it will also work in humans.
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Sanofi is developing another Zika vaccine based on its own know-how in battling established mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue, Japanese encephalitis and yellow fever.
However, that vaccine will take longer to develop and Sanofi said earlier this year it did not expect to start clinical trials on its in-house Zika candidate until 2017.
John Shiver, vice-president for R&D at Sanofi Pasteur, said it therefore made sense to use outside partnerships to accelerate progress.
"We're looking at this from both a short- and long-term perspective, collaborating to get into the clinic quicker to provide a vaccine in response to the current emergency, and adapting our own technology to ensure production capacity of a vaccine for years to come," he said.
Sanofi Pasteur has a big factory in Lyon capable of producing 100 million doses a year of its four-strain dengue shot, which could be adapted if needed to make even more doses of a single-strain Zika product.
(Editing by Kenneth Maxwell and Elaine Hardcastle)
Frank Mir was fighting in the UFC when it wasnt cool. The dark days of MMA 2001. Mir turned pro in the summer of 2001, and by November he was fighting at UFC 34, which is almost universally considered the turning point for the UFC after Zuffa purchased the company. Mir went on to snap Tim Sylvias arm to win the heavyweight title before he even had 10 fights to his name, would sit out for over a year and have his belt stripped after a motorcycle accident, then time after time be front and center in some of the biggest moments in UFC heavyweight history. Now, the 27-time UFC fighter could be on his way out of the company due to a failed drug test and a two-year ban from the sport.
According to Mir, the B sample that was flagged as positive after his loss to Mark Hunt in Australia last March has led to a two-year ban, even though hes been trying to have his sample cleared by other labs in the United States. Mir explained on Ariel Helwanis show that the failed sample and his A sample can be tested at his expense. If he wants to view the work himself, he can pay his own way. This led to Mir considering his options and deciding that the cost of a lawyer, travel, and lab work wouldnt be worth it, especially if he lost.
This has led him to ask for his release from the UFC, he revealed on The MMA Hour.
Im still suspended and Im not allowed to fight or broadcast and I have to think about my savings and I have children. I made a calculated decision to forego fighting it further. Even if it was a reduced sentence of one year, I have children that are very active and are in private school and different endeavors fighting and (no work) for a year let alone two years isnt feasible. Hopefully, the UFC the would just release me so I can follow broadcasting and fighting in different avenues.
Helwani then asked if Mir had brought up his potential release to the UFC brass.
Yeah I already put that in motion when it first happened after I realized two weeks ago, three weeks ago the situation in its entirety and looked at my savings account and what my kids cost to raise, I realized I have to go make a living. Being tied up not being able to fight, to not broadcast or do other analytical work
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At that point, Mirs Skype feed broke up, maybe with Dana White cutting his internet access for all we know. He quickly hopped on his cell and continued the conversation with Helwani, questioning how Brock Lesnar, his greatest rival, was able to get drug testing that was convenient thanks to the UFC, but the company that hes called home for 15 years wasnt able to do the same for him.
Its unfortunate to think that this could be the end of Frank Mir in the UFC after all of these years, and what makes it worse is that he seems to want to fight it, but simply cant. Unfortunately, its another scenario in which a fighter needs money, and cant seem to make it.
So what are his options? If the UFC were to actually release him, he could go to Rizin or ONE FC, where drug testing is far less stringent. That would certainly be fun. He could also do this
Frank Mir has 3 options at this point: submitting Fedor and losing a decision in Moscow moat fighting Jimmy Ambriz Calcio Storico Jessica Hudnall (@LegKickTKO) July 5, 2016
Watching Frank Mir compete in a moat fight would be great. He should do that.
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BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Free Syrian Army rebel alliance said on Wednesday it would respect an Eid holiday ceasefire, but only if government forces also abided by it, accusing the government of having already violated the truce. "We, the armed revolutionary groups in Syria, welcome any effort towards a ceasefire for the happy Eid al-Fitr period. We declare we will abide by it so long as the other side does the same," said the statement, posted on the Twitter account of Mohammed Alloush, the former chief peace negotiator for Syria's mainstream opposition. "Until now, (the government) has not abided by what it has announced, in that it has launched a number of attacks in various areas today," the statement said. Alloush is also the representative of the powerful Jaish al Islam rebel faction in the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC). The Syrian government earlier declared a three-day ceasefire across the whole of the country, although fighting continued and until now there had been no indication that it had been agreed with any of the myriad groups opposing the government. The truce is the first to be declared country-wide since one was brokered by foreign powers in February to facilitate talks to end the five-year-old civil war. This has mostly unraveled. The statement said the rebel alliance welcomed international efforts that had led to the announcement from the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but that attacks had not ceased as a result. Jaish al Islam spokesman Islam Alloush said: "The regime has made this announcement purely to escape international pressure. On the ground, I don't think anything has changed." (Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
PARIS (Reuters) - A charity worker will stand trial in France in November on charges of falsely reporting being attacked by a couple shouting "Allahu Akbar", the public prosecutor's office said on Wednesday. The director of the Restos du Coeur soup kitchen in Montreuil, east of Paris, had told police on Friday that a man who appeared to be of African origin had swung an ax at him and missed, before a female accomplice stabbed him several times in the stomach. In a similar case, in February, prosecutors decided a teacher at a Jewish school in Marseille would stand trial after investigators concluded that he falsely reported being stabbed by Islamic State supporters. France has suffered several high-profile attacks claimed by Islamist militants over the past 18 months. In June, a Frenchman who pledged allegiance to Islamic State stabbed a police commander to death outside his home and also killed his partner. The country has been under a state of emergency since Islamic State gunmen and bombers killed 130 people in Paris last November. (Reporting by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Louise Ireland)
Paris (AFP) - In a landmark ruling, a Paris court jailed for life Wednesday two former Rwandan mayors accused of orchestrating the massacre of hundreds of Tutsis during the country's 1994 genocide.
The court said Octavien Ngenzi, 58, and his predecessor Tito Barahira, 64, were guilty of "crimes against humanity", "massive and systematic summary executions" and "genocide" in their village of Kabarondo, where some 2,000 people seeking refuge in a church were bludgeoned and hacked to death.
Ngenzi and Barahira have consistently denied the charges. Both appeared impassive as the judge read out their sentences.
It was the stiffest genocide sentence ever handed out by a French court. In 2014, former Rwandan army captain Pascal Simbikangwa got 25 years in solitary confinement for genocide and crimes against humanity.
The eight-week trial has heard chilling testimony depicting the two men as "supervisors" and "executioners" in the massacre at the height of the genocide in which 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were killed by Hutu extremists.
"Ngenzi was the leader," said prosecutor Philippe Courroye, who requested life sentences for the two men. Barahira was the "dreaded machete officer," he added.
Ngenzi and Barahira's lawyers had pointed to contradictory testimony delivered 22 years after the killings to argue that reasonable doubt exists over their role, portraying them as having been helpless to stop the chaos unfolding around them.
"I am extremely disappointed but not really surprised," said Philippe Meilhac, Barahira's lawyer, after the ruling adding that his client may appeal the verdict.
- 'They continued with machetes' -
A lawyer for the civil parties to the case, Gilles Paruelle, told the jury: "To kill one man, hatred is sufficient. To kill 1,000, you need organisation."
Alain Gauthier, whose organisation is one of the civil parties in the case, was jubilant.
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"The jury has understood the distress of the victims," he said. "We hope that this sentencing signifies that one cannot live with impunity in France."
His wife Dafroza, whose family was wiped out in the genocide, said she was "comforted" but would be "taking up the fight" again to bring other genocide offenders to justice.
The violence broke out in Kabarondo a week after the shooting down of a plane carrying Rwanda's president Juvenal Habyarimana, which inflamed ethnic tensions and sparked the genocide.
Among those seeking shelter at the church on April 13, 1994, when the genocidal Hutu "Interahamwe" militia attacked, was Marie Mukamunana, who told the court how her seven children and husband were killed by grenades and machetes.
"Someone said 'don't waste the bullets' and they continued with machetes," she said.
She recalled seeing former mayor Barahira "armed with a gun, among the Interahamwe" and testified that Ngenzi was "supervising the massacre."
Jean-Damascene Rutagungira -- who lost 21 members of his family including his wife and children -- told the court he saw the pair encouraging the killers, shouting "cut them down."
- Rwandans tried around the globe -
The bloodshed in Kabarondo, a town near the border with Tanzania, was over by the end of April, when Tutsi rebels in the armed wing of what is now the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR) took control of the area.
Elsewhere in the former Belgian colony, the slaughter continued until the FPR fighters finally prevailed in July.
Ngenzi and Barahira were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by Rwandan people's courts, known as "gacaca", in 2009.
Ngenzi has been in custody since 2010 when he was captured in the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte off the east coast of Africa, where he had been living under a false name.
Barahira was arrested in 2013 in the southwestern French city of Toulouse where he was living.
The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which ended its mandate in 2015, sentenced 61 people for their role in the genocide.
Alleged perpetrators of the genocide have also been captured and tried in Belgium, France, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and the United States.
It says a lot about "The Winds of Winter," the sixth season finale of HBO's Game of Thrones, that Jon Snow's parents were finally revealed, and the answer is perhaps the third most monumental event of the episode.
Granted, the wildfire explosion and Cersei's subsequent ascent to the Iron Throne, paired with Daenerys finally heading for Westeros, are big enough blockbuster moments to carry an entire episode of Thrones on their own. And in many respects, the truth behind Jon's origin was already widely guessed at, if not outright known, before the big reveal. Fan theories about Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark as Jon's true father and mother existed long before Game of Thrones ever premiered, beginning with the 1996 release of George R.R. Martin's first entry in A Song of Ice and Fire, the novel series on which Thrones is based. It was only a matter of when, not if, the strongly supported R+L=J theory would become canon.
Read More: 'Game of Thrones' Finale: Everything to Know About Jon Snow's Secret Origin
But now that the truth is out there, to borrow a phrase from another massively popular show, an even more important unknown than Jon's mysterious past emerges: his future. What's next for him now that the secret's out about his Targaryen heritage?
For one, the secret isn't exactly out, at least not yet. Bran Stark carries the information, and while he's not too far away from his half-brother (or cousin, more accurately - that's going to take some getting used to), he still has many miles to travel before reaching Winterfell. What's more, Bran knows that Jon's mother is actually Lyanna, but has he deduced that Jon's father is Rhaegar Targaryen? If the viewer didn't hear Lyanna's whispers, then Bran likely missed the words - and he doesn't even have a handy infographic to fill in the blanks.
In any event, assume Bran reaches Winterfell, and assume he either knows about Rhaegar or can find out. (There's no rule against multiple trips to the past, and the ancestral seat of House Stark contains the necessary Weirwood to fuel Bran's visionary abilities.) What does sharing this knowledge with Jon do for the forward momentum of the story?
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"It's telling us that maybe Jon Snow is actually not who we think and could actually be a very valuable asset and ally in these times," Isaac Hempstead Wright, who plays Bran, theorized during a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter after the finale. "For Bran right now, the fact that he's seen it and has now learned that it's not his father's son, I think that makes Bran go, 'Well, then the father is clearly an important figure that has something to do with the history and future of Westeros.'"
Read More: 'Game of Thrones' Finale: Isaac Hempstead Wright Breaks Down Bran's Stark Realization
Hempstead Wright is absolutely right, as Jon's Northern experience and Targaryen blood could prove an invaluable asset in the war to come. Who's to say that an alliance between Jon and Dany, two secret relatives, couldn't lead to Jon following the Targaryen tradition of riding a dragon into battle, against White Walkers no less? But that's a Valyrian-foil fantasy for another day. There are more pressing concerns at the moment, including what happens when others discover Jon's secret.
Consider Jon Snow's new role as King in the North, crowned after Lyanna Mormont's passionate speech in his defense: "I don't care if he's a bastard. Ned Stark's blood runs through his veins." Will Lyanna and her fellows think otherwise if they find out Jon is not even Ned's bastard - that he's Ned's nephew instead?
There's at least one man likely to put up a fight in that case: Littlefinger. In the finale, he confessed that his single desire is to sit on the Iron Throne with Sansa Stark at his side. With that goal in mind, Littlefinger desperately wanted to anoint Sansa as the Queen in the North, rather than seeing Jon rule over Winterfell. If he catches wind of Jon's Targaryen roots, then Lord Baelish is sure to spin that information for his and Sansa's benefit.
Then again, perhaps Sansa won't be interested in Littlefinger turning the tables on her half-brother. Speaking with THR, Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa, speculated that the truth behind Jon's history might actually mend some fences with Sansa, as she's still nursing trust issues toward her "half-brother."
"I think it may even heal the relationship between Jon and Sansa somewhat, because she's always taken her mother's view of how Jon entered the family," said the actress. "I think finding out that her father did not cheat on Catelyn and had an illegitimate child would probably build a few bridges rather than burn them. I think it could do good for the relationship."
Read More: 'Game of Thrones' Finale: Sophie Turner on Sansa Stark's Killer Instinct, Trust Issues and Power Plays
The King in the North could face potential political resistance at Winterfell, with or without Sansa as an adversary, depending on how people react to the news about his parents assuming they believe the news at all. After all, how exactly will Jon verify himself as a Targaryen to the greater population's satisfaction? That's a knot the show will have to untie, but only if greater knowledge of Jon's backstory is critical to the show's end-game - and perhaps it's not.
Really, there are plenty of reasons to think the truth about Jon Snow will remain unknown in the grand scheme of things. All his life, Lord Snow has been a man very much in the mold of his father figure. Like Ned, Jon does the right thing for the right reasons, and usually with little reward. Indeed, he's far more used to feeling blades pierce his chest than seeing blades shoot toward the sky in honor of his coronation. Is Jon Snow destined for a great and glorious reign over Westeros, even if his bloodline allows for such an outcome? Or is it more in line with Jon's character if he remains an unsung hero, the full extent of his story known only to a few?
Many of these questions won't even be answered in the next wave of Thrones, of course. Jon Snow's full future is an end-game question, if it's even fully answered once the series comes to a close. But the White Wolf's next moves should be among the most front-of-mind considerations leaving season six, because when Game of Thrones returns, there won't be much time to puzzle it all out - not with White Walkers approaching knocking distance of the Wall.
Watch the video below for more season-seven predictions:
Follow THR's Game of Thrones coverage for more deep dives, interviews and news.
Gayle King didnt hold back when talking about her ex-husband, William Bumpus, and his past affair during a new interview with Vanity Fair. The CBS This Morning host recalled the cheating scandal when asked who she despises most in the world.
PHOTOS: Biggest Celebrity Cheating Scandals Ever!
Despise is a strong word, King, 61, said. Im not a huge fan of the woman I caught naked with my now ex-husband on June 24, 1990, at 9:16 p.m. but I dont remember the details.
King ended her 11-year marriage to Connecticut-based lawyer Bumpus in 1993. (The pair are parents of two adult children, daughter Kirby and son Will.) Back in 2006, King briefly opened up about the split while interviewing Will Smith, who was gushing over his marriage to Jada Pinkett Smith at the time.
PHOTOS: Biggest Celebrity Scandals of 2015
I was married to a cheater, Gayle told Smith on her SiriusXM radio show. I went to marital counseling. I have been divorced since 1993, so Im all healed and everything. I have worked it out. Im not bitter. Im OK. Im really OK.
King has since kept in contact with Bumpus for the sake of their kids. Its so important for people who have children together to get along, she added to Smith. Regardless of how you feel about the other as a spouse, you still have these children to raise together.
PHOTOS: Hollywoods Ugliest Divorces
Despite the heartbreak, King who says shes genuinely happy is open to finding love again. Qualities she looks for in a partner are height and depth and a good sense of humor. When asked who the greatest love of her life is, she quipped: Ill let you know just as soon as I meet him.
Former President George W. Bush says the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein in power following the release of a lengthy inquiry into the Iraq war.
A spokesperson for Bush released a statement Wednesday afternoon after the release of the Chilcot report on Britains role in the war, according to the Guardian.
Despite the intelligence failures and other mistakes he has acknowledged previously, President Bush continues to believe the whole world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power, the spokesperson said in a statement.
Bush is said not to have read the report in full as of yet, according to the statement. He went on to defend former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has been accused of overselling the war in Iraq to the public in the United Kingdom.
[Bush] is deeply grateful for the service and sacrifice of American and coalition forces in the war on terror. And there was no stronger ally than the United Kingdom under the leadership of Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bushs spokesperson said.
The 2.6-million-word report, overseen by retired civil servant John Chilcot, is some seven years in the making and concluded that military action for the U.K. at that time was not a last resort.
By Michael Nienaber
BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet agreed on Wednesday to stick to plans for a balanced budget over the next four years, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said, holding course despite the shock of Britain's vote to leave the European Union.
With its plans for slowly raising state spending without taking on net new debt up to 2020, the government wants to send a message of "reliability and continuity" after Britain's decision to leave the 28-member bloc, officials said.
The German approach contrasts with that of Britain, where finance minister George Osborne said after the Brexit vote he was abandoning his goal of eliminating Britain's budget deficit by 2020, once the centrepiece of his fiscal policy.
"Germany remains reliable. We're strengthening the state's ability to act by doing without new debt," Schaeuble told a news conference, adding that the government was raising its spending on infrastructure, security and integrating migrants.
Berlin is able to raise expenditure without incurring net new debt thanks to buoyant tax revenues brought by record-high employment and ultra-low debt refinancing costs, helped by the European Central Bank's accommodative monetary policy.
The cabinet on Wednesday approved final details of the 2017 budget and financing plans up to 2020. Berlin expects to reduce its total public debt to less than 60 percent of gross domestic product in 2020 for the first time since 2002, meeting a criterion set out in the EU's Stability and Growth Pact.
The Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament, will vote on the budget plans in November. There are usually no major changes made during the parliamentary process.
INTEGRATION OF MIGRANTS
Schaeuble said the economic conditions for Germany's upswing to continue were still favourable despite Britain's decision to leave the EU. "The result of the British referendum changed nothing about that, or at least nothing noticeable," he said.
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When asked about plans from British finance minister George Osborne to cut corporation tax, Schaeuble said: "We don't have the intention in Europe to start a new race to the bottom."
An influx of more than 1 million migrants into Germany last year raised questions about whether the government would be able to integrate the newcomers without jeopardising its cherished balanced budget.
But it has maintained its balanced budget while earmarking 77.5 billion euros (66.27 billion) up to 2020 for managing the flow of migrants and tackling the causes of migration to Europe.
Merkel's ruling coalition of her conservatives and the left-leaning Social Democrats has faced criticism - both at home and abroad - for holding to the balanced budget plans and not investing more for the future.
But Schaeuble said his budget plans do not mean excessive constraints. Next year, the government plans to raise its overall state spending by 3.7 percent to 328.7 billion euros.
He also added that the promise of a balanced budget should reassure consumers that taxes will not be raised, thereby helping the economy to stay domestically strong and to cushion any external shocks such as an economic fallout from Brexit.
The German economy is expected to grow by 1.7 percent this year, matching last year's rate of expansion. However, industrial orders data released earlier on Wednesday pointed to the economy losing some steam in the second quarter.
(Reporting by Michael Nienaber and Gernot Heller; Editing by Paul Carrel and Raissa Kasolowsky)
By Sabine Siebold
BERLIN, July 6 (Reuters) - Germany needs to spend 14 billion euros ($15.48 billion) on replenishing its badly depleted stockpile of munitions as part of a broader plan up to 2030 to upgrade military equipment after years of decline, a German military source said.
Government sources said earlier this year that Germany sought to invest about 130 billion euros ($143.74 billion) over the next 15 years on modernising equipment to enable the army to better fulfill its missions abroad.
Military sources said that a vital part of that upgrade would be to restore stocks of munitions to acceptable levels.
Hans-Peter Bartels, military ombudsman in the German parliament, said current stocks had fallen to a two-day supply, far below NATO's old Cold War requirement of 30 days.
Bartels, a member of the Social Democrats who are the junior partner in the right-left coalition, said Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea had put a new focus on NATO's collective defence responsibilities.
"And having adequate supplies on hand, from munitions to fuel to logistics, is a big part of that capability," he said.
Henning Otte, a defence expert in Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, acknowledged that current German munition supplies were not good. "Personal equipment, weapons and munitions are the life insurance of our soldiers," he said.
A defence ministry spokesman would not comment on the state of the military's munitions supplies on the grounds that the data was classified.
However a confidential ministry report seen by Reuters acknowledged that the stockpile had shrivelled and would limit any deployment by Germany to aid NATO allies in eastern Europe.
The report prepared by the ministry in March concluded that additional spending was needed to beef up supplies of equipment and munitions.
Barring additional funding, "it would not be possible to execute national and allied defence with larger, rapidly deployable forces", the report said.
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"Negative consequences for allied commitments and structures would be inevitable, and it would be possible to maintain capabilities only at a low qualitative and quantitative level."
Critics say they are uncertain whether Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen will succeed in securing the full 130 billion euros in funding she hopes to spend to rebuild capacity through 2030.
Current budget plans for 2017 include just 359 million euros in funding for new munitions, only 30 million more than in 2016.
($1 = 0.9044 euros) (Reporting by Sabine Siebold; Writing by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
BERLIN (Reuters) - German investigators and customs authorities have searched several Ryanair (RYA.I) bases and the homes of Ryanair pilots, as part of a probe into tax evasion by two employment agencies through which pilots are employed, prosecutors and pilot representatives said on Wednesday.
The two service companies are suspected of having evaded taxes and withheld wages, a spokesman for state prosecutors in Koblenz told Reuters.
The Ryanair Pilot Group, which represents Ryanair pilots in industrial matters but is not affiliated with the Ryanair group, said five Ryanair bases - Cologne, Niederrhein, Baden-Baden, Berlin Schoenefeld and Bremen - had been searched and that homes of pilots had also been raided.
Ryanair said it was not the subject of the German probe, but that it had met with the authorities to assist them.
"Ryanair requires all of its pilots, both directly employed and contractor, to be fully tax compliant at all times. Should the German authorities require any further assistance, we'll be happy to provide it," it said in a statement.
(Reporting by Victoria Bryan and Peter Maushagen; Editing by Jane Merriman)
GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS), a unit of General Electric Company GE, has recently agreed to sell 45 leased aircraft worth $2 billion to Bohai Financial's subsidiaries.
Two of Bohais subsidiaries, Avolon Aerospace Leasing Ltd and Hong Kong Aviation Capital Ltd (HKAC), will enter into an agreement with General Electric.
As per sources, the Chinese aviation and shipping conglomerate, HNA, which is also the controlling shareholder of Bohai Financial, is a leading contender for the aviation assets of U.S. lender CIT Group Inc. The deal will boost Bohais foothold in the aviation industry as well as improve General Electrics revenues from its aviation segment.
GENL ELECTRIC Price
GENL ELECTRIC Price | GENL ELECTRIC Quote
Bohais Subsidiaries
Bohai is a listed leasing company on the Chinese A-Share stock market and is primarily owned by HNA Group, a Fortune 500 company. It has operations across a range of sectors including aviation, leasing, logistics, tourism and transportation.
Recently acquired on Jan 10, 2016, Avolon is a wholly owned, indirect subsidiary of Bohai Leasing, a global leader in transportation (container and aircraft) asset leasing. Including Avolon, HKAC and other aircraft leasing assets, Bohai has a total fleet strength of over 500 aircraft, which makes it the worlds fourth largest aircraft leasing business by means of asset value.
About GECAS
GECAS is an Irish-American commercial aircraft financing and leasing company. It is the largest commercial airline leasing and financing company in the world. It is a part of GE Capital, a segment of General Electric. GECAS comprises a fleet of over 1800 aircraft, used by 245 airlines.
GECAS purchases its aircraft from manufacturers like Airbus and Boeing and leases them to airlines. Typically the leases extend for eight years. The company has three global headquarters, located in Singapore; Shannon, County Clare and Norwalk, CT.
The primary competitor of GECAS is AerCap Holdings N.V. AER. Revenues of these two companies together account for $228 billion.
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General Electric is one of the largest and also one of the most diversified technology and financial services firms in the world. Its products and services range from aircraft engines, power generation, water processing, and security technology to medical imaging, business and consumer financing along with other industrial products.
GE Aviation accounted for 22.5% of the companys revenues in the past quarter. It offers commercial and military jet engines and components and aftermarket services.
Earnings Dates for GE and its Peers
General Electric will be announcing its earnings on Jul 22, before the market opens. A couple of its peers in the same space, Honeywell International Inc. HON and Carlisle Companies Incorporated CSL, will declare their earnings on Jul 22 and Jul 26, respectively.
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After 11 years, Gretchen Carlson is saying goodbye to Fox News -- but not without a legal battle.
The 50-year-old journalist, who was the anchor of The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson, took to social media on Wednesday to announce her official exit as a host with the 21st Century Fox-owned network.
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"As you may have heard, I am no longer with Fox News," she shared via Twitter and Facebook. "I value your support and friendship, especially now, so please stay in touch with me."
The confirmation came on the same day she filed a lawsuit against the network's chairman and CEO, Roger Ailes, in Bergen County, New Jersey. According to court documents obtained by ET, Carlson alleges that Ailes "sabotaged her career" because she "refused his sexual advances and complained about severe and pervasive sexual harassment."
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She also claims that Ailes made it "clear to her that these 'problems' would not have existed, and could be solved, if she had a sexual relationship with him." Carlson claims that when she met with Ailes and refused his sexual demands in September 2015, he allegedly ended her career nine months later (on June 23), "causing her economic, emotional and professional harm."
"I have strived to empower women and girls throughout my entire career," Carlson said in a statement on Wednesday. "Although this was a difficult step to take, I had to stand up for myself and speak out for all women and the next generation of women in the workplace. I am extremely proud of my accomplishments at Fox News and for keeping our loyal viewers engaged and informed on events and news topics of the day."
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Fox News also released a statement, which read, "The Company has seen the allegations against Mr. Ailes and Mr. [Steve] Doocy. We take these matters seriously. While we have full confidence in Mr. Ailes and Mr. Doocy, who have served the company brilliantly for over two decades, we have commenced an internal review of the matter."
Ailes denied Carlson's claims against him, releasing the following statement to ET:
"Gretchen Carlson's allegations are false. This is a retaliatory suit for the network's decision not to renew her contract, which was due to the fact that her disappointingly low ratings were dragging down the afternoon lineup. When Fox News did not commence any negotiations to renew her contract, Ms. Carlson became aware that her career with the network was likely over and conveniently began to pursue a lawsuit. Ironically, FOX News provided her with more on-air opportunities over her 11 year tenure than any other employer in the industry, for which she thanked me in her recent book. This defamatory lawsuit is not only offensive, it is wholly without merit and will be defended vigorously."
Carlson, a graduate of Stanford University, joined Fox News in 2005. In addition to her work with the network, she is also well known as a best-selling author and for being crowned Miss America in 1989.
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Gretchen Carlson, a longtime presence on Fox News Channel, said Tuesday she had filed a lawsuit alleging the top executive at the network, Roger Ailes, made sexual advances on her and ended her career at the 21st Century Fox-owned outlet after she rebuffed him.
A Fox News Channel spokesperson could not be reached for immediate comment.
Carlson, who was a co-anchor at Fox & Friends and who more recently anchored a daytime program, The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson, alleged in the lawsuit, filed in Superior Court of New Jersey, that she was removed from Fox & Friends in 2013 after she complained about behavior by co-host Steve Doocy, and was moved to an afternoon program as a way to diminish her presence at the network. Carlson alleged she was terminated on June 23 after her current contract elapsed.
We believe that the evidence will confirm that Gretchen was fired from Fox & Friends for speaking up about demeaning and discriminatory behavior on and off the set, said Nancy Erika Smith, an employment litigator at Smith Mullin P.C., a Montclair, N.J., firm that is representing Carlson, in a prepared statement.
Carlson confirmed via Twitter that she is no longer with the network, which she joined in June of 2005.
As you may have heard, I'm no longer with @FoxNews. I value your support and friendship so please stay in touch: https://t.co/R7JBTsvYSh Gretchen Carlson (@GretchenCarlson) July 6, 2016
Although this was a difficult step to take, I had to stand up for myself and speak out for all women and the next generation of women in the workplace, Carlson said in a statement. I am extremely proud of my accomplishments at Fox News and for keeping our loyal viewers engaged and informed on events and news topics of the day.
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The lawsuit threatens to draw more scrutiny to the most-watched TV-news network on cable, which has made headlines in recent months for the role it has played during the current election cycle. Fox News has battled with Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate for U.S. President, and garnered attention for the way in which another prominent female anchor, Megyn Kelly, has drawn his ire during a televised debate among that partys candidates. Allegations of a sexually-charged environment at Fox News have surfaced in the past, such as in the recent Gabriel Sherman book, The Loudest Voice in the Room, an account of how Ailes built Fox News.
Carlson alleged she was fired after rebuking sexual advances by Ailes and after trying to challenge the way that male colleagues treated her. She alleged that Ailes propositioned her sexually after she met with him last September to discuss discriminatory treatment. In one of the most inflammatory accusations, Carlson alleged Ailes told her, I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago and then youd be good and better and Id be good and better, adding that sometimes problems are easier to solve that way. The lawsuit contends that in retaliation for Carlsons complaints about the alleged harassment and discrimination, Ailes denied her fair compensation, desirable assignments and other career-enhancing opportunities, before eventually terminating her employment.
The lawsuit also cites alleged incidents involving Doocy, who allegedly engaged in a pattern of severe and pervasive sexual harassment of Carlson, including, but not limited to, mocking her during commercial breaks, shunning her off air, refusing to engage with her on air, belittling her contributions to the show and generally attempting to put her in her place, according to the suit.
In response to learning of Carlsons complaints, Carlsons lawsuit alleges, Ailes purportedly responded by calling Carlson a man hater and telling her she needed to learn to get along with the boys.
The lawsuit cites examples of Ailes alleged sexual and sexist comments, including claims that Ailes engaged in ogling Carlson in his office and asking her to turn around so he could view her posterior, commenting repeatedly about Carlsons legs, and claiming that Carlson saw everything as if it only rains on women and admonishing her to stop worrying about being treated equally and getting offended so God Damn easy about everything.'
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gretchen carlson fired sexual harassment fox news getty
Gretchen Carlson says she was fired from Fox News Channel after 11 years for turning down CEO Roger Ailes' sexual advances.
"I have strived to empower women and girls throughout my entire career," Carlson said in a statement on Wednesday.
"Although this was a difficult step to take, I had to stand up for myself and speak out for all women and the next generation of women in the workplace. I am extremely proud of my accomplishments at Fox News and for keeping our loyal viewers engaged and informed on events and news topics of the day."
According to a court filing with the Superior Court of New Jersey obtained by Business Insider, the former "Fox and Friends" cohost and "The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson" host claims her firing was a result of retaliation for refusing to have sex with the CEO and for reporting disparaging treatment in the newsroom.
The complaint alleges that Carlson was fired on June 23 when her contract expired without warning, despite the ratings success of "The Real Story" in its time slot.
The court document also states that the behavior by Ailes toward Carlson included lewd innuendo, ogling, and remarks about Carlson's body, as well as demands for sex as a way for her to improve her job standing.
"We believe that Mr. Ailes' behavior toward Gretchen, as described in the complaint, speaks volumes about what she had to endure. The evidence will show that Ailes deliberately sabotaged the career of a talented, hard-working journalist and loyal Fox News employee. Opposing sexism and rejecting unwanted sexual come-ons should never cost a woman her job or subject her to disparagement and emotional anguish," said Carlson's attorney Martin Hyman of Golenbock Eiseman Assor Bell & Peskoe LLP.
The complaint also states that she was fired from "Fox and Friends" in 2013 after complaining of sexist behavior by her cohost Steve Doocy and that her move to the 2 p.m. time slot with "The Real Story" was intended to give her a lower profile on the channel.
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"We believe that the evidence will confirm that Gretchen was fired from 'Fox and Friends' for speaking up about demeaning and discriminatory behavior on and off the set," Carlson's attorney Nancy Erika Smith of Smith Mullin PC in Montclair, New Jersey, said in a statement.
Ailes called Carlson's lawsuit "without merit" and "defamatory" in a statement to Business Insider on Wednesday afternoon:
Gretchen Carlsons allegations are false. This is a retaliatory suit for the networks decision not to renew her contract, which was due to the fact that her disappointingly low ratings were dragging down the afternoon lineup. When Fox News did not commence any negotiations to renew her contract, Ms. Carlson became aware that her career with the network was likely over and conveniently began to pursue a lawsuit. Ironically, FOX News provided her with more on-air opportunities over her 11 year tenure than any other employer in the industry, for which she thanked me in her recent book. This defamatory lawsuit is not only offensive, it is wholly without merit and will be defended vigorously.
Carlson joined Fox News in 2005. Previously, she was a news correspondent at CBS News and went on to host the Saturday edition of its "Early Show." In 1989, she was crowned Miss America.
This article has been updated based on information provided after the original publication.
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ALBION Indiana history gets turned on its head in a new book, Hoosier Hysterical: How the West Became the Midwest Without Moving at All.
Mark R. Hunter of Albion decided to celebrate Indianas bicentennial, and enlisted his wife, Emily, to poke some fun at Hoosier history and trivia. The result is a tongue-in-cheek romp through the state from prehistoric times on, covering everything from rotary jails, locks of Elvis hair, and even where the name Indiana was stolen.
When Emily didnt roll her eyes at me, I knew I was on to something, Mark says of the idea. The pair previously collaborated on two local history books: Images of America: Albion and Noble County, and Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century or So With the Albion Fire Department. They also put together a collection of Marks humor columns, Slightly Off the Mark.
Mark is also the author of three novels and a short story collection. In Hoosier Hysterical, he riffs on everything from early American history:
Some say Columbus actually got here hundreds of years before 1492, on a Viking River Cruise.
To ancient American burial mounds:
The purpose of those mounds remained a puzzle, until a 12-year-old boy from Clarksville pointed out the natives seemed to have no outhouses. This came as a tremendous shock to archeologists of the time, who were known to be very hands-on.
To the origins of the nickname Hoosier:
Indiana flatboat crewmen were called hoosa men after the Indian word for corn, hoosa. This theory fails to account for the fact that the Indians never called corn hoosa.
And even how the Indiana state flag ended up in a Batman movie:
Some brave souls talked of sneaking into Gotham to steal our flag back, but you know Batman.
Along the way, Hoosier Hysterical covers wars, economics, sports, and politics, as well as everything from weather to famous Hoosiers. However, the authors are quick to point out that, despite doing a large amount of research and trying to stay true to the facts, their main emphasis was on humor. The problem with history isnt that its not interesting, Mark points out in the books forward: Its that its not made interesting.
He quickly adds, So sit back and learn something fun about history. When youre done, read this book.
Hoosier Hysteria and all the Hunters books can be found at markrhunter.com/, and on Amazon at amazon.com/Mark-R-Hunter/e/B0058CL6OO.
Its the kind of story that might make great fodder for a Fox News program like The OReilly Factor or The Kelly File: A veteran female TV-news anchor launches a lawsuit against the leader of a popular and well-watched TV network along with allegations of sexual harassment.
In this case, however, the story isnt being analyzed by the 21st Century Fox-owned news outlet. Instead, the network stands at the center of the story even if it isnt being named in the legal proceeding.
TV anchor Gretchen Carlsons sexual-harassment lawsuit against Fox News Chairman and Chief Executive Roger Ailes will rely not only on her testimony alleging that she was accosted by the executive, but is also likely to incorporate evidence from former employees of Fox News Channel and their associates who have come forward in the hours since Carlson announced the filing of her lawsuit in Superior Court of New Jersey, said one of the attorneys representing the TV journalist.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Carlson alleged she was fired June 23 in retaliation for rebuking Ailes sexual advances and for challenging the way women were treated at the cable-news network. Carlson also alleged she was removed from her perch at the networks morning show, Fox & Friends, in 2013 after she complained about behavior by co-host Steve Doocy, and was moved to an afternoon program as a way to diminish her presence at the network.
It is evident that other women have been similarly treated by Mr. Ailes. I can tell you in the last few hours, we have been contacted by many women who say they were similarly treated by Mr. Ailes, said Nancy Erika Smith, an attorney from Smith Mullin, a Montclair, N.J., law firm acting as co-counsel for Carlson in the case. Some of the people, she said, are former employees of Ailes himself. Some have information about the way they were treated and others have information about the way in which friends or colleagues were treated. We havent had a chance to talk to them all yet, but between that and Gretchens evidence, we feel pretty confident, she said. Carlson was terminated in one minute, Smith alleged, after working at Fox News since 2005.
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A spokesperson for Fox News Channel did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment. A biography of Carlson that had been available on the Fox News website earlier Wednesday appeared to have been removed by the afternoon.
There may be reason for silence. Smith noted that the lawsuit was not leveled at Fox News or its parent company, but at Ailes himself. Indeed, the suit is filed in New Jersey, she said, because Ailes resides there. We do not believe that he was authorized by the company to engage in this behavior, she said.
Carlson is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, among other forms of relief, according to the lawsuit.
Carlson has been a presence on the network for 11 years. After working for CBS News starting in 2000 on its Saturday morning-news program, co-anchoring with Russ Mitchell, she joined Fox News. She first served as a substitute host, then joined the regular lineup of Fox & Friends alongside co-anchors Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade.
But she said as part of the lawsuit that she met with friction during her time there. In her complaint, Ms. Carlson alleged that Ailes worked to derail her career after she reported unwelcome behavior by Doocy, who she accused of trying to diminish her and even of at one point pulling her arm down to silence her during a live telecast. As a result, she said, she was given a post on her own daytime show, which she alleged was not given much promotion. When she complained about her treatment on Fox & Friends in September, she alleged, Ailes told her: I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago and then youd be good and better and Id be good and better. The lawsuit also alleged Ailes frequently made sexually charged comments and called Carlson a man hater.
Attorneys for the news anchor are likely to examine past allegations of sexual harassment at the network, Smith said. She cited the 2014 book, The Loudest Voice in the Room, authored by Gabriel Sherman, as being filled with allegations of sexual harassment by Ailes or a charged, sexually oppressed atmosphere at Fox News Channel. According to the book, a biography of Ailes in which the executive did not participate, Fox News has under Ailes placed great emphasis on showing bare legs of female anchors. The book also alleged that Ailes in past jobs made women uncomfortable during work conversations and interviews.
Fox News has had to deal with similar allegations in the past. In 2004, Fox News personality Bill OReilly settled a sexual-harassment lawsuit filed by a former producer on his show, Andrea Mackris, alleging he had made explicit phone calls to her. OReilly filed a lawsuit against the employee alleging she was trying to extort millions of dollars in so-called hush money to stop the case.
Carlson may have hinted at her treatment in the past. In June of last year, she penned an essay for The Huffington Post discussing the issue of sexual harassment. Most professional women I know have experienced sexual harassment, she wrote. So have I a few times and I never talked about it until now. In 2016, Carlson is amplifying the issue.
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A senior official with the Navy has been caught on video wielding a gun at several young men while spewing out threats.
Read: Ex-Cop Charged in Killing of 2 K9 Partners Now Linked to Death of Third Dog: Police
Karnig Ohannessian, a deputy assistant secretary of the Navy, pulled the gun on partygoers in Fairfax, Virginia, last month, claiming the young men were drunk and causing a ruckus in front of his house.
I can shoot the f*** out of you guys right now, hes heard saying in the video.
Ohannessian is a high-ranking official at the Pentagon, and has received two prestigious civilian service awards.
You're pointing a gun at my friend, one person is heard saying in a video.
This is a criminal offense, so please stop it, says another.
Ohannessian then tells the men to get in their car.
A woman believed to be the man's wife tried to calm him down.
Let them leave, she begs.
Read: Army Whistleblower Chelsea Manning Hospitalized After Apparent Suicide Attempt: Report
But the young men don't back down and appear to taunt him.
Be thankful you have a gun, man. It shows what kind of a [expletive] you are, said one of the men.
The mother of the young man wearing a hat in the video called local police. It's horrifying to see someone pointing a gun at your child, Anne Sheerin, the mother, told Inside Edition.
Now Ohannessian's superiors at the Navy are looking into the incident, saying in a statement, Mr. Ohannessian's supervisor is taking the appropriate action to include working to understand the full details of what occurred.
Ohannessian was briefly detained, but not charged.
Watch Below: Shocking Video Shows Kidnapper Snatching Girl, 4, as Her Mother Stands Feet Away: Cops
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HBO Europe is to focus on developing original drama as it builds on the success of a raft of adaptations across its core Central and Eastern European territories.
The subscriber satellite service launched its latest freshly penned drama, Czech series Pustina (Wasteland), at a special gala screening at the Karlovy Vary film festival late Tuesday. The series, written by Stepan Hulik, the scriptwriter on Agnieszka Holland's Burning Bush, is the second original drama to be offered to HBO Europe subscribers after Polish thriller Wataha (The Pack).
Wahata recently aired in the U.K. on Walter Presents, the Channel 4 foreign-language drama series slot under the title The Border.
"The trend now is to developing more original programming," Antony Root, HBO Europe's executive vp original programming and production, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Read More: HBO Europe's 'Pustina' Drama to Premiere at Karlovy Vary Fest
"We shall continue to do adaptations, but are not looking to do a lot more because we are confident in the ability now of our writers to produce original content."
Although HBO Europe's next new series, Romania's Valea Muta (Silent Valley) - a four-hour series also launching in the fall - is adapted from an original Norwegian NRK six-hour series Eyewitness, subscribers will increasingly see original drama when they tune in, he added.
Valea Muta hinges on the conundrum faced by two young homosexual men who witness a series of brutal murders while engaged in clandestine tryst in a mountain hideaway. If they come forward as witnesses they risk revealing their love to a critical world.
Directed by Marian Crisan, the drama is expected to prove controversial for Romanian viewers, Root said.
"Something that may not have been seen as particularly controversial for Norwegian audiences will play very differently in Romania."
In the longer term Root hopes that HBO Europe may produce original drama that captures the attention of the world - in the way that Scandinavian crime thrillers have over the past few years.
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"We've been nurturing writers at workshops across our territories and believe we shall see the dividends from that," he added.
Valea Muta will be available to HBO Europe subscribers in 19 countries, including its core territories of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Kosova, Montenegro, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. It will also be available to viewers of HBO Nordic in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark and in the Netherlands via HBO Nederland.
Read More: Berlin: HBO Europe to Produce Original Drama Series for Scandinavia
The moguls of media and tech settled into the first day of investment banker Allen & Co.s annual retreat in Sun Valley, ID, for a morning session to hear Canadas 45-year-old Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. One of the countrys youngest leaders ever, the liberal eldest son of late former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau impressed attendees by laying out a role for morality in public service.
It was a breath of fresh air to hear him talk about campaigning and taking a harder position how, although its the harder thing to do, it is the right thing to do, said one attendee. Trudeau has fought for environmental issues and womens rights as well as the legalization of marijuana and Senate reform.
There also was a panel discussion this morning on the Future of Cities that included Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, often mentioned as a possible veep choice for Hillary Clinton. He and an executive from Google spoke about autonomous cars, education and housing.
It was pretty interesting to see where the future might be going, said a member of the audience. Hickenlooper is chairman of the National Governors Association. and a former geologist who subsequently became involved in politics. Hickenlooper is s strong advocate of gun violence prevention legislation, and opposes capital punishment, in a state that has suffered an unusual number of mass shootings.
Silicon Valley execs are well represented at the soiree. We all know its just a matter of time before one of them buys something big, said one attendee who has been traveling to Sun Valley for many years. They have so much money.
The possibility, even likelihood, of consolidation is on top of everyones mind at Sun Valley this year. Small to mid-sized players seem ripe following Comcasts agreement to buy DreamWorks Animation and Lionsgates new deal with Starz.
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Theres already been a lot of chatter about what Liberty Medias John Malone is likely to do next: He helped to engineer the Starz deal as well as Charter Communications recent purchase of Time Warner Cable and is outspoken about his desire to unite what he describes as the industrys free radicals.
And then theres the mess at Viacom. CEO Philippe Dauman is trying to persuade at least two courts that 93-year-old Sumner Redstone who controls Viacom and CBS is not incompetent, and being manipulated by his daughter, Shari. If Dauman loses, some attendees believe some of Viacoms cable or film assets may sold or merged into CBS.
All eyes at Sun Valley are on Shari Redstone, who was seen chatting with CBS chief Les Moonves. Dauman is also scheduled to attend.
Others who made the trip include Discovery CEO David Zaslav and Comcasts Brian Roberts. Disneys well represented with CEO Bob Iger, Disney-ABC Television Groups Ben Sherwood, ESPNs John Skipper and former COO Tom Staggs. Former Disney CEO Michael Eisners also there.
The guest list includes regulars Harvey Weinstein, DreamWorks Animations Jeffrey Katzenberg, Time Warners Jeff Bewkes, Warner Bros Kevin Tsujihara, and Foxs Rupert Murdoch with his sons James (whos CEO) and Lachlan (co-Executive Chairman).
All the usual suspects are here and right now everyone is networking, an attendee says. Some people get a lot out of just being here.
In addition to the industry talk, many are wondering about the implications for the economy and policy if theres another terrorist attack in the U.S.
The (presidential) election, Brexit, of course, and the long-term effect, that kind of thing is what weve been talking to each other about.
The rest of the day is set aside for family activities. Executives have been attending the retreat since Herb Allen launched it in 1982.
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The world can't get enough of Taylor Swift, from her chart-topping albums and singles to her squad life to her romantic relationships. Since amicably breaking up with Calvin Harris after 15 months together, her alleged relationship with Tom Hiddleston has sparked new interest in the pop star's love life.
Taylor Swift & Tom Hiddleston Couple Up in First Instagram Pic
While neither camp has publicly confirmed they're together, all signs point to this being the real deal. So, out of celebration for the new couple Hiddleswift, we present a timeline of their relationship so far.
May 2, 2016:
Swift and Hiddleston began their friendship at the Met Gala in May 2016. In a video that went viral, the duo's personalities went hand in hand while dancing to T.I.'s "Bring Em Out." Swift twirled around in a metallic mini dress -- appropriate for the nights' "Manus X Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology" theme -- alongside the Marvel villain.
TAYLOR SWIFT & TOM HIDDLESTON GETTING DOWN #MET #DANCE #FUNFUN #PRINCE #NYC #tomhiddleston
A video posted by Carlos Souza (@carlossouza1311) on May 3, 2016 at 6:28am PDT
June 14, 2016:
The "Hiddleswift" fairytale truly began June 14, when the mega pop star and actor were first sighted by The Sun canoodling on the beach in Rhode Island. The alleged couple held hands while walking along the sand hugging, kissing and taking selfies. The photos sparked headlines as Swifties started obsessing over TSwift's reported new relationship.
June 12, 2016:
Over a week later, the rumored couple couldn't keep their hands to themselves while dancing along to Selena Gomez's Nashville performance of "Hands To Myself" on June 21.
June 23, 2016:
While in Nashville, Hiddleston met Swift's parents. They also reportedly got dinner with Holly Williams and her husband; Williams is the granddaughter of country pioneer Hank Williams, who Hiddleston portrayed in the biopic I Saw The Light.
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June 24, 2016:
A day after meeting her parents, Hiddleston introduced Swift to his mom in Suffolk, England.
June 27, 2016:
Swift and Hiddleston jetted to Rome, where they were spotted checking out the Vatican and kissing atop the nearly-2000-year-old Colosseum over the next few days.
Taylor na turne de Selena esta noite #RevivalTourNashville -- #selenagomez #selena #gomez #selenator #revival #revivaltour
A video posted by Selena Gomez Brasil (@divaselena) on Jun 21, 2016 at 8:59pm PDT
July 5, 2016:
Over the Fourth of July weekend, Hiddleston was in attendance during Swift's annual party at her Rhode Island seaside home. While the Internet had a laugh when photos surfaced of Hiddleston wearing an "I Heart T.S." tank top, the couple also took an important step in their relationship with Swift's good friend Britany Maack posting couple's first sanctioned Instagram photo showing them getting cozy at the beach bash.
----
A photo posted by Britany LaManna (@britmaack) on Jul 5, 2016 at 12:11pm PDT
July 6, 2016:
The next day, Cara Delevingne shared a photo from the same Fourth of July weekend bash. The Instagram snap shows Taylor, Tom, Cara and Gigi Hadid going down a massive waterslide together with the caption "pretty cool runnings," in reference to the 1993 film.
Pretty cool runnings
A photo posted by Cara Delevingne (@caradelevingne) on Jul 6, 2016 at 2:17am PDT
Hillary Clinton is will propose a three-month halt on federal student loan repayments in order to allow debtors to restructure their debt.
Clinton will announce her plans Wednesday, according to a preview obtained by the Washington Post, while she campaigns in Atlantic City, N.J. the site of a casino worker protest.
Under the proposal, student borrowers would be able to defer loan payments for three months, which could cost the federal government some $1 billion dollars in lost interest, according to the Post. Clinton addressed the student debt problem Tuesday at teachers union convention.
I want everyone to be able to refinance your student loans so you never have to pay more than you can afford and for people who go into public service, and I include teaching because it is the first and primary public service, Clinton said Tuesday at the National Education Association meeting in Washington. Any remaining debt after you refinance will be forgiven after 10 years.
During the Democratic primary, her opponent Bernie Sanders proposed offering free tuition at public colleges and universities, but Clinton dismissed the idea as impossible, instead focusing on student debt, which she believes achievable.
Hillary Clinton may not be facing criminal charges in the FBI investigation into her handling of emails when she was secretary of state but the fallout from the scandal is far from over.
As tabloids and critics like presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump condemned Clinton's use of a private email server and the "rigged" system that allowed her to get away with it FBI Director James Comey has been called to testify before Congress on his recommendation not to prosecute Clinton.
Comey, a Republican who on Tuesday referred Clinton's email case to the Justice Department with the recommendation that "no charges are appropriate," agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday after lawmakers sought an explanation for his decision.
"The FBI's recommendation is surprising and confusing," Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said. "The fact pattern presented by Director Comey makes clear Secretary Clinton violated the law. Individuals who intentionally skirt the law must be held accountable. Congress and the American people have a right to understand the depth and breadth of the FBI's investigation."
Comey acknowledged Tuesday that the FBI found "evidence of potential violations" in Clinton's "extremely careless" handling of classified information, but said that "no reasonable prosector would bring such a case."
'Hillary Skates' Trump and Tabloids Make Sure Clinton Gets No Pass on Email Scandal as FBI Director Asked to Testify on Decision| 2016 Presidential Elections, politics, Donald Trump, Hillary Rodham Clinton
Meanwhile, the New York Post and the New York Daily News mocked Clinton on their Wednesday covers, with the Post showing a photo of a smiling Clinton wearing a figure-skating skirt and pirouetting past a hole in the ice on a rink frozen over an FBI logo. "HILL SKATES: Clinton gets away with it again," the cover reads.
The Daily News cover featured a less colorful photo, of Clinton campaigning with President Obama in North Carolina on Tuesday. The headline reads: "I'm with Careless" a play on Clinton's campaign slogan "I'm with her."
The Wall Street Journal, in a scathing editorial on Wednesday, criticized Comey for showing how Clinton "broke the law" and then "[rationalizing] no indictment." The paper even suggested that his decision not to recommend charges against the presumptive Democratic nominee was in fact a covert effort to keep Trump out of the White House.
"The rule of law requires its natural application. We almost wish Mr. Comey had avoided his self-justifying, have-it-both-ways statement sand said bluntly he could't indict Mrs. Clinton because the country must be spared a Donald Trump Presidency. It would have been more honest and less corrosive to democracy than his Clinton Standard."
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Ivanka Trump's Husband Defends Donald Trump Against Anti-Semitic Allegations
Trump himself weighed in with a flurry of tweets Wednesday morning, declaring Clinton "not fit" for the presidency in the wake of the decision:
Crooked Hillary Clinton and her team "were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information." Not fit! a Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 6, 2016
Crooked Hillary has once again been proven to be a person who is dishonest, incompetent and of very bad judgement. a Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 6, 2016
The rigged system may have helped Hillary Clinton escape criminal charges, but... https://t.co/KO64IAMDgj pic.twitter.com/8CBSfNpl2l a Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 6, 2016
Crooked Hillary Clinton lied to the FBI and to the people of our country. She is sooooo guilty. But watch, her time will come! a Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 6, 2016
At a rally in North Carolina Tuesday night, Trump declared the FBI's decision a "tragedy" and said of Clinton, "You didn't have to be careless. You didn't even have to really know that what you were doing was wrong, and you're guilty. The laws are very explicit. Stupidity is not a reason that you're going to be innocent."
Meanwhile, Trump's own dimmed star was hardly rising amid Clinton's troubles. On Wednesday, yet another prominent Republican considered a potential running mate, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, took the once-unusual step of publicly saying, " no, thanks," to being considered for the controversial Trump ticket.
Hong Kong (AFP) - Hong Kong police offered protection on Wednesday to a bookseller who was detained in China for eight months without access to a lawyer, as Beijing warned that he was violating his bail terms.
Lam Wing-kee was seized after crossing the border into China and taken away blindfolded for allegedly bringing banned books into the mainland, he said last month.
The 61-year-old is part of a group of staff from a Hong Kong firm that published salacious titles about leading Chinese politicians.
The five mysteriously went missing late last year and later emerged in mainland China, intensifying concerns in Hong Kong about China's increasingly tight grasp on the city.
Since returning to Hong Kong, Lam has said he fears for his personal safety while other activists have alleged that Chinese agents abducted one of the other booksellers on Hong Kong soil.
Although the city has the status of a special administrative region of China, the two have separate legal systems, distinct police jurisdictions and maintain strict border controls.
The city was returned by Britain to China in 1997 under a deal guaranteeing freedoms that would be unimaginable in the mainland, and the case has fanned anxieties that the semi-autonomous city's fiercely guarded liberties are being eroded.
Lam is the only one of the five booksellers to speak openly about the case and has suggested the other four feel too much pressure from China to do the same.
He was supposed to return to the mainland after being released to Hong Kong on bail last month but has refused to do so.
The case has put the city's China-friendly Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying in a very awkward position, trapped between his political masters in Beijing and Hongkongers angry about the city's direction.
- Forced confession -
"The government and I are paying close attention to the issue of Lam Wing-kee's concerns for his personal safety," Leung told reporters Wednesday.
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Hong Kong and China have no extradition treaty, meaning there is no obligation for city authorities to hand Lam back to China even if he is violating the terms of his bail.
Police deputy commissioner Tony Wong said officers were willing to offer Lam protection "if he wishes it".
Activists have alleged that Chinese security agents are operating in the city, which would be illegal under the city's mini-constitution.
Lam had been due to lead a pro-democracy march last week on the anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China, but pulled out at the last minute, saying that he had been followed prior to the rally.
The police comments came after a new video released by Chinese authorities featured him in detention saying: "I am very regretful because I have broken Chinese laws".
Lam has previously said he was forced into making the confession.
Chinese authorities have warned Lam he was violating his bail terms and that he could face tougher action as a result, media reports said.
Leung said a team of senior officials who visited Beijing Tuesday discussed Lam's case and reviewed the mechanism whereby authorities on the mainland are required to give details about arrests of Hong Kong citizens over the border.
Leung said the visit was productive, with both sides agreeing that mainland authorities should notify their Hong Kong counterparts of arrests and detentions within 14 days.
Numerous celebrities are sharing their disgust and angst over the death of Alton Sterling, a black man fatally shot by police in Baton Rouge, La., on Tuesday.
Amateur video of the shooting went viral online Tuesday night, sparking peaceful protests in Baton Rouge and a renewed outrage about police brutality. At first, it was reported Sterling was unarmed, but at a later media conference Wednesday, the Baton Rouge police chief said Sterling had a weapon.
On Wednesday morning, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards told reporters the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division will spearhead the investigation. The officers involved in the shooting are on paid leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
The amateur video shows the 37-year-old Sterling pinned down by two officers when multiple shots are fired. Authorities say Sterling died of gunshot wounds to his chest and back.
Hollywood was quick to condemn the shooting and invoke the Black Lives Matter movement as #AltonSterling began to trend on Twitter Tuesday night.
Celebrities from Katy Perry and Mark Ruffalo to Taraji P. Henson and Jesse Williams took to social media to decry the tragic event. On Wednesday afternoon, Jon Cryer helped to circulate a Go Fund Me link now accepting donations for Sterling's family.
See the reactions below.
A photo posted by champagnepapi (@champagnepapi) on Jul 6, 2016 at 5:50pm PDT
You can't just go on with your day, you must watch this & we must face this continual outrageousness #ALTONSTERLING https://t.co/NqW3aVSZ1j
- KATY PERRY (@katyperry) July 6, 2016
Something is horribly wrong. This is an epidemic. #AltonSterling https://t.co/0bo04H2IRb
- Josh Gad (@joshgad) July 6, 2016
I am literally sick to my stomach watching the video of the #AltonSterling takedown.
- Ron Perlman (@perlmutations) July 6, 2016
Another police murder on video. #AltonSterling.
Watching his son crying & collapse on live TV is heartbreaking. pic.twitter.com/gQb8QaxeXD- Isaac Hayes III (@IsaacHayes3) July 6, 2016
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#AltonSterling. Say his name.
- Samira Wiley (@samirawiley) July 6, 2016
Love to Louisiana #AltonSterling
- Amy Schumer (@amyschumer) July 6, 2016
That's murder. #AltonSterling
- Andy Richter (@AndyRichter) July 6, 2016
1) In the interest of time, would ye noble patriots please provide a list of infractions punishable by spontaneous public execution? Thanks!
- jesseWilliams. (@iJesseWilliams) July 6, 2016
God dammit #AltonSterling #blacklivesmatter
- Constance Zimmer (@ConstanceZimmer) July 6, 2016
#AltonSterling
Please. No more. This must stop.- Rashida Jones (@iamrashidajones) July 6, 2016
There is not a more appropriate time than now. #AltonSterling https://t.co/dBulBg44gq
- Nancy Sinatra (@NancySinatra) July 6, 2016
So to you petition signers, y'all on "Hmmm well maybe Jesse had a point"? status yet or still nah? #AltonSterling
- Questlove Gomez (@questlove) July 6, 2016
Sick and tired of being sick and tired
A photo posted by taraji p henson (@tarajiphenson) on Jul 6, 2016 at 12:11pm PDT
This incident reminds me so much of #OscarGrant. It's sad that even with video that shows this man was restrained and on the ground little to nothing will likely be done.
A photo posted by Octavia Spencer (@therealoctaviaspencer) on Jul 6, 2016 at 12:01pm PDT
#AltonSterling RIP... When will it stop?
- Wesley Snipes (@wesleysnipes) July 6, 2016
This is real. We must come to terms with it. Any parent can understand the depth of this grief. https://t.co/2E6MK9gpPN
- Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) July 6, 2016
#AltonSterling was MURDERED! There's nothing else to call it. pic.twitter.com/VcLnM93oIm
- Michelle Williams (@RealMichelleW) July 6, 2016
This is so disturbing and wrong. My thoughts and prayers are with the family and loved ones of #AltonSterling
- Nick Jonas (@nickjonas) July 6, 2016
I thank the brave one who filmed the police during Mr. Sterling's murder. Film is one of our weapons. #FilmThePolice https://t.co/QUsaC2rqcq
- Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) July 6, 2016
My Heart is broken, thoughts and prayers to #AltonSterling and his family. When is enough, enough ?
- Chloe Grace Moretz (@ChloeGMoretz) July 6, 2016
How many more lives will be shot down and shattered? Who's next? My brother? My father? Me? You? #AltonSterling pic.twitter.com/ap3BLwNlnb
- Gabby SidiBae (@GabbySidibe) July 6, 2016
If only #AltonSterling had this luxury. pic.twitter.com/uueoZE5eDP
- Anthony Anderson (@anthonyanderson) July 6, 2016
How many more murders of black people by police before we hold our system and those that enforce https://t.co/qMZ1F7cEC1
- Macklemore (@macklemore) July 6, 2016
This now familiar ache. Can't see straight. Screaming inside for Alton Sterling and family. #Rp pic.twitter.com/Bu8KfuMxKm
- Niecy Nash (@NiecyNash) July 6, 2016
Our hearts go out to the family and loved ones of Alton Sterling.
- Pharrell Williams (@Pharrell) July 7, 2016
WAKE UP America. If I see one more dumb comment about All Lives Matter vs Black Lives Matter. Stop deflecting from the issue. This is a problem!! The police have to stop senselessly killing our fathers our brothers our uncles our sons and killing our spirits.
A video posted by Danielle Brooks (@daniebb3) on Jul 6, 2016 at 10:43am PDT
He had a right to sell CDs, and a right to due process, but he he was shot for being a black man. Don't rationalize murder. #AltonSterling
- olivia wilde (@oliviawilde) July 6, 2016
Alton Sterling https://t.co/60yQnwT2T4
- KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) July 7, 2016
Read More: 'Orange Is the New Black' Star Talks Taking on Black Lives Matter, Her Character's Tragic Fate
Editors note: An earlier version of this story lead with the incorrect statement that the House of Representatives passed a bill that would allow entrepreneurs to raise up to $5 million with equity crowdfunding, five times the current $1 million cap. That reporting was based on outdated Congressional record keeping documents. An earlier version of the House bill included a provision that raised the cap to $5 million. The compromise version of the bill, which actually passed the House, did not include that provision. We regret this error.
In a rare sign of bipartisan support for just about anything on Capitol Hill, two bills both aiming to make it easier for entrepreneurs to raise money sailed through the House last night in landslide votes.
Both bills were spearheaded by Rep. Patrick McHenry (R) of North Carolina. "Despite the headlines from Silicon Valley, the truth is the vast majority of early-stage companies are not securing venture capital, Rep. Patrick McHenry said on the House floor while introducing the bills. In a written statement announcing the successful vote in the House, McHenry said that "Angel investing and investment crowdfunding are both innovative new forms of capital formation which -- in the proper regulatory climate -- can become vital tools for entrepreneurs and small businesses."
Related: Starting May 16, Entrepreneurs Can Raise Money in a Whole New Way. Here's What You Need to Know.
The goal of the legislation is to make it easier for entrepreneurs to get access to capital.
In mid-May, rules for equity crowdfunding went into effect -- more than four years after they were passed into law by the Jumpstart Our Business Startup Act in 2012 -- making it possible for entrepreneurs to raise money from unaccredited investors through registered online crowdfunding portals. Before the rule change, entrepreneurs could only raise money through equity crowdfunding from sufficiently wealthy accredited investors.
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At the time the legislation was written back in 2012, a funding vehicle called special-purpose funds or single-purpose vehicles were not being used. A special purpose fund is an investment vehicle in which one investor will spearhead a fund to go to an individual company. These vehicles are becoming increasingly popular in Silicon Valley and are being used by elite investors such as Chris Sacca. The House bill allows crowdfunding portals to host these special purpose funds or single purpose vehicles.
Related: An Entrepreneur's Essential Guide to the New Wild West of Funding Opening on May 16
Single-purpose vehicles allow small investors to invest alongside a sophisticated lead investor with a fiduciary duty to advocate for their interests. The lead investor may negotiate better terms, defend against unfair dilution by negotiating with venture capitalists during follow-on financing, mentor the company and represent small investors on the board, says Nick Tommarello, the co-founder and CEO of crowdfunding platform WeFunder, in a letter to the Committee of Financial Services shared with Entrepreneur.
Not only do single-purpose vehicles give investors confidence, because they get to go in alongside sophisticated investors, they are better for the entrepreneur, too. Due to the fear of collecting thousands of signatures needed to sign off on the types of strategic decisions common among pre-IPO companies, higher-quality issuers -- particularly those with other financing options -- are less likely to crowdfund without a single-purpose vehicle, Tommarello says. Over 80 percent of the companies that were interested in Regulation Crowdfunding dropped out when we informed them a single-purpose vehicle was not an option.
The other piece of the Fix Crowdfunding Act (H.R.4855) that passed the House last night gives entrepreneurs a longer runway before having to deal with the regulatory burden of extensive, pre-IPO documents required to be filed with the SEC. Under the 12(g) exception, companies with existing revenue can raise up to $50 million before triggering disclosure requirements and companies without existing revenue can raise up to $75 million before triggering disclosure requirements.
Related: Your Guide to the High-Risk, High-Reward World of Investing in Startups When Fundamental Finance Law Changes Go Into Effect May 16
These bills are the greatest political achievement for startup and growth-company entrepreneurs since passage of the JOBS Act in 2012. Specifically, this legislation truly democratizes the access to capital for entrepreneurs by eliminating the last few major limitations in holding entrepreneurs back from using these important new regulations, said Ron Miller, CEO of equity crowdfunding platform Start Engine Crowdfunding, in an email to Entrepreneur. We are so pleased to see that bipartisanship is alive and well when it comes to well thought out legislation that helps Americas entrepreneurs raise capital, build companies and create high paying jobs.
The second bill that passed the House last night, also by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, is the Supporting Americas Innovators Act of 2016 (H.R. 4854). It would expand the pool of investors in any qualifying venture fund supporting startups from 100 to 250.
Some say we should wait and see before fixing equity crowdfunding. I am sympathetic to this argument when it comes to raising the investment cap from $1 million to $5 million. While I strongly support that increase, it can be delayed without endangering investors, Tommarello says. However, I would like it on the record -- as an expert who has thought about these issues nearly every working hour over the last four years -- that Im convinced that without the SPV and 12g fixes, retail investors will be heavily disadvantaged as compared to accredited investors and equity crowdfunding will ultimately be seen as a failure. Early evidence already bears this out.
Related: Which Entrepreneurs Will Benefit Most From the New Era of Crowdfunding?
The House bills still have to be passed by the Senate and be signed into law by the president. McHenrys office does not know when the Senate plans to take up the bills.
By Will Boggs MD Young women who get the recommended three doses of human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine have fewer abnormal Pap tests than unvaccinated women and women who only get two doses, Canadian researchers say. HPV vaccination is intended to prevent cervical cancer and abnormal cells that can lead to cancer, but how well its working among North American women remains unclear. Both HPV vaccination and cervical cancer screening are important to further reduce the incidence, morbidity, and mortality of cervical cancer, senior study author Dr. Huiming Yang from Alberta Health Services in Calgary told Reuters Health by email. The province of Alberta implemented a school-based HPV vaccination program for girls in 2008 and expanded it to include boys in 2014. The HPV vaccination program provides three doses of the vaccine over a six-month period. Yang and colleagues studied the impact on Pap test results eight years into this program. The researchers analyzed data on 10,204 women, 56 percent of whom were unvaccinated and the rest had received at least one dose of HPV vaccine before having cervical cancer screening. Overall, 14.5 percent of women had abnormal Pap tests and 85.5 percent had normal tests. Most abnormal tests, nearly 94 percent, were low-grade abnormalities, but the rest were the high-grade abnormalities that could progress to cervical cancer. Less than 12 percent of women who had received at least three doses of the vaccine had abnormal Pap results, whereas 16 percent of unvaccinated women had abnormal tests. This translates into a 28 percent risk reduction with full HPV vaccination. The difference was even greater a 50 percent reduction in risk when only high-grade abnormalities were included, according to the results published in CMAJ. Surprisingly, incomplete HPV vaccination with two or fewer doses of the vaccine was not associated with a lower risk of having an abnormal Pap test. "Our study shows that three doses HPV vaccination is very effective in reducing cervical cell abnormalities, particularly for high-grade lesions, but two does not appear to offer similar protection, Dr. Yang concluded. It is important to complete all scheduled doses of vaccine. "I found it interesting that young women in this study that received two doses of the quadrivalent vaccine had similar odds of having an abnormal Pap as those who had 0 doses, said Dr. Jacqueline M. Hirth from the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, who has also studied the effect of HPV vaccination on cervical cancer screening among young women. That result should be interpreted with caution, she told Reuters Health by email, since many of the young women in this sample were under 21 years of age and may not have been receiving routine Pap screenings. They may have actually gone to their providers for abnormal bleeding or other symptoms, which may have prompted them to receive Pap tests that would not have met the criteria for routine screenings, Hirth said. HPV vaccination in combination with cervical cancer screening according to guidelines is important for the prevention of cervical cancer, Hirth said, because the HPV vaccine does not protect against all high-risk HPV types. She added that it's important for women to receive all three doses of the HPV vaccine and to undergo cervical cancer screening regardless of vaccination history in order to reduce their risk of developing HPV-related cancers. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/29ig8pw CMAJ, online July 4, 2016.
Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. HII recently won an initial $272.5 million fixed-price-incentive firm target contract from the U.S. Navy for the planning, advanced engineering, and procurement of long lead time material for the LHA 8 ship, with full funding to follow.
HUNTINGTON INGL Price
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The assault ship, designated LHA 8, will be built at the Ingalls Shipbuilding yard in Pascagoula, MS, which has produced all previous assault ships for the Navy.
The contract is valued at $3.13 billion on the potential exercise of all options and is slated for completion by Jun 2017. This contract further confirms the expertise and reputation of Huntington Ingalls Industries' Gulf Coast shipyard that is entitled to build the Navy's newest amphibious assault ship.
Ingalls is the sole builder of amphibious assault ships for the U.S. Navy. The division is the only builder of National Security Cutters (NSCs) for the U.S. Coast Guard and one of only two companies that builds the Navy's current fleet of DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, while the other being General Dynamics Corp. GD.
The companys first-quarter 2016 adjusted earnings surged 60.3% year over year, primarily driven by strong contribution from its Ingalls Shipbuilding division. Segment revenue surged 24.9% year over year. The upside was primarily driven by higher revenues from Surface Combatants and Amphibious Assault Ships.
Given the positive shipbuilding business outlook in the enacted fiscal 2016 and proposed fiscal 2017 budget, companies like Ingalls, Lockheed Martin LMT and General Dynamics seem to be well poised for further gains.
Huntington Ingalls Industries, originally an affiliate of Northrop Grumman Corp. NOC, was spun off in Mar 2011. It operates major shipyards in Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia. The company primarily deals with the supply of nuclear and non-nuclear ships to the U.S. Navy and Coast Guards. The company also provides manufacturing, engineering and management services to the commercial and non-commercial oil, gas and energy markets.
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The research department of the International Monetary Fund dropped a political bombshell last month. The furor was set off by the publication of an article Neoliberalism: Oversold? that sparked a near-panic among advocates of free market policies and celebrations among their critics. The piece concluded that, over the past 30 years, the proponents of the economic philosophy known as neoliberalism have been systematically overselling the benefits of the two planks at its heart namely, fiscal austerity during economic slowdowns and the deregulation of financial markets.
This is a huge concession for an institution long known for its ideological self-assuredness. Essentially, the article contends that these two policies, which the IMF has long championed, are of questionable utility. It finds that they have not delivered the higher economic growth rates that were promised and may have even done more harm than good. Additionally, according to the article, both fiscal austerity and increased financial openness have often exacerbated economic inequality, which itself could become a drag on future economic growth rates. In other words, the venerable institution had essentially everything wrong at least as far as these two key tenets of neoliberalism go.
Most strikingly, the article infers that three policy prescriptions long advocated by the IMFs critics regulation of some capital flows, Keynesian fiscal stimulus policies, and effective economic redistribution all have more merit than the IMF has long contended. As Ben Norton wrote in Salon, these conclusions amount to heresy: It is somewhat like the Pope declaring that there is no God; it is a volte-face on almost everything that the IMF has ever stood for. Longtime IMF critic Naomi Klein tweeted sarcastically, So all the billionaires it created are going to give back their money, right?
Presumably not. But the significance of the article at least in the long term is that it might signal a deeper reckoning, both within the IMF and more broadly across Western capitals, about the failure of 30 years of neoliberal policies to bring about financial stability or lessen widening economic divides.
In the meantime, unsurprisingly, the IMF leadership was quick to distance itself from the piece, making clear that it had no intention of abandoning neoliberalism. The organizations chief economist, Maury Obstfeld, conceded that the shock of the 2008 global financial crisis has led to a broad rethink of macroeconomic and financial policy in the global academic and policy community, including within the fund, but argued that the troublesome article has been widely misinterpreted and does not signify a major change in the funds approach. Similarly, the Financial Times described the article as more a reflection of the vigorous debates [underway] inside the IMF than a brutal takedown of the free market policies the fund has long advocated.
Indeed, despite the uproar, its not clear that the IMFs approach to economic development is about to change. Many IMF watchers have noted that the fund continues to operate as usual, attaching austerity policies and other neoliberal reforms as binding conditions to its loans. Economist Jerry Epstein said while such internal debates within the IMF are healthy, they have so far had little or no impact at the operational, country level of IMF policy. Isabel Ortiz of the U.N. International Labor Organization wondered, Will the operational side of the IMF even listen to the researchers?
The controversial articles lead author, Jonathan Ostry who is the deputy director of the IMFs research department said the piece focused on two specific policies and was not meant as an attack on the entire neoliberal agenda or the Washington consensus. On the other hand, he also hinted that he hoped the article would be the first of more to come and that it would set up the opportunity to more broadly examine neoliberalism this year.
The fact that the IMF is using the word neoliberalism in such a high-profile way is telling, since it is employed almost exclusively by critics of economic liberalization. Advocates of neoliberalism prefer to avoid the term, assuming that the policies are so self-evidently right that they dont need a name at all. The fact that the IMFs own research department has acknowledged the term could be interpreted as a nod to the funds critics that some of its policies did reflect ideological biases and that other approaches are valid.
If so, its about time.
The challenges raised by neoliberal economic development policies were easy for Western leaders to ignore when they were limited to crises in the developing world, such as Latin America in the 1980s, East Asia in the 1990s, and Russia and Turkey in the early 2000s. But since the 2008 financial crisis struck the rich countries too, their shortcomings have been harder to deny. With economic inequality untamed, financial markets still unstable, and fiscal austerity having utterly failed to revive economic growth and employment to pre-2008 levels, its increasingly difficult to keep pretending that the status quo is working.
Before Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher repopularized the ideology of free markets in the 1980s, the need for Keynesian economics and financial regulation had been widely accepted for a 40-year stretch following the Great Depression, and the advocates of free markets languished on the sidelines. Western leaders had learned the best way to prevent socialist revolutions and fascist dictatorships was to adopt policies that would avoid financial crises and lessen economic inequality. But the Reagan-Thatcher revolution set about unlearning those lessons, and the worsening inequality and financial instability of the last 30 years were the unfortunate result.
If the IMFs article is the first sign of a swing back in the other direction, Norwegian economic historian Erik Reinert, for one, wont be surprised. He has noted that the popularity of free market policies has risen and fallen cyclically throughout history, such as before and then after the French Revolution, before the 1847 financial crisis that was followed by a string of social revolutions across Europe in 1848, and before the stock market crash of 1929 that was followed by the Great Depression. During each of these cycles, free markets were championed for a while but then eventually abandoned as financial crises became more frequent and economic inequality more pronounced.
Today, in a time when Thomas Pikettys critique of worsening economic inequality is a best-seller, leading U.S. presidential candidates rail against free trade deals, right-wing anti-immigrant parties win elections across Europe, and even the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development calls on its members to put the brakes on austerity, its clear that the political center, which has favored neoliberal policies for the last 30 years, is no longer holding. The high-profile IMF mea culpa may well be a first shot across the bow, a sign that we are now entering what Reinert calls our own modern-day 1848 moment.
In the photo, people in Madrid demonstrate in support of Greece against a deal with other European governments, the EU, and the IMF to implement austerity measures on July 5, 2015.
Photo credit: JAVIER SORIANO/AFP/Getty Images
IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 5, 2016 / Khang & Khang LLP (the "Firm") announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Deutsche Bank AG ("Deutsche Bank" or the "Company") (DB). Investors who purchased or otherwise acquired shares between April 15, 2013 and April 29, 2016 inclusive (the "Class Period"), are encouraged to contact the Firm prior to the July 11, 2016 lead plaintiff motion deadline.
If you purchased shares of Deutsche Bank during the Class Period, please contact Joon M. Khang, Esquire, of Khang & Khang, 18101 Von Karman Avenue, 3rd Floor, Irvine, CA 92612, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or by e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.
There has been no class certification in this case. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may choose to take no action and remain a passive class member.
According to the complaint, throughout the Class Period the Company issued false and misleading statements to investors and/or failed to disclose that: Deutsche Bank has serious and systemic failings in its controls against financing terrorism, money laundering, aiding against international sanctions, and committing financial crimes; that Deutsche Bank's internal control over financial reporting and its disclosure controls and procedures were not effective; and as a result of the above, Deutsche Bank's statements about its business, operations, and prospects, were false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis.
If you wish to learn more about this lawsuit, or if you have any questions concerning this notice or your rights, please contact Joon M. Khang, a prominent litigator for almost two decades, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or by e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.
This press release may constitute Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions.
Contacts
Joon M. Khang, Esq.
Telephone: 949-419-3834
Facsimile: 949-225-4474
joon@khanglaw.com
SOURCE: Khang & Khang LLP
IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 5, 2016 / Khang & Khang LLP (the "Firm") announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Inovalon Holdings, Inc. ("Inovalon" or the "Company") (INOV). Investors who purchased or otherwise acquired shares on or about the February 12, 2015 initial public offering ("IPO") date, are encouraged to contact the Firm prior to the August 23, 2016, lead plaintiff motion deadline.
If you purchased shares of Inovalon on or about the IPO date, please contact Joon M. Khang, Esquire, of Khang & Khang, 18101 Von Karman Avenue, 3rd Floor, Irvine, CA 92612, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or by e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.
There has been no class certification in this case. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may choose to take no action and remain a passive class member.
According to the complaint, the Company's Registration Statement issued in connection with the IPO failed to disclose material facts and contained misleading and/or false statements. Inovalon did not disclose that the Company receives substantial revenues from sales in New York City and New York State, both of which were pushing to obtain more taxes from out-of-state businesses like Inovalon. The corporate tax rate increases were implemented on January 1, 2015. This increase significantly raised Inovalon's effective tax rate, and lowered the Company's 2015 earning potential. When this news was revealed to the market, the Company's common stock declined in value significantly.
If you wish to learn more about this lawsuit, or if you have any questions concerning this notice or your rights, please contact Joon M. Khang, a prominent litigator for almost two decades, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or by e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.
This press release may constitute Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions.
Contacts
Joon M. Khang, Esq.
Telephone: 949-419-3834
Facsimile: 949-225-4474
joon@khanglaw.com
SOURCE: Khang & Khang LLP
IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 5, 2016 / Khang & Khang LLP (the "Firm") announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Code Rebel Corporation ("Code Rebel" or the "Company") (CDRB). Investors who purchased or otherwise acquired shares between August 17, 2015 and May 5, 2016 inclusive (the "Class Period"), are encouraged to contact the Firm prior to the July 11, 2016 lead plaintiff motion deadline.
If you purchased shares of Code Rebel during the Class Period, please contact Joon M. Khang, Esquire, of Khang & Khang, 18101 Von Karman Avenue, 3rd Floor, Irvine, CA 92612, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or by e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.
There has been no class certification in this case. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may choose to take no action and remain a passive class member.
According to the complaint, the Company issued false and misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: Code Rebel's financial statements contained errors concerning its assets and financial condition; and as a result, Code Rebel's public statements were materially false and misleading. On May 6, 2016 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued an Order stating that there is a lack of accurate information about the Code Rebel securities due to the questionable accuracy of some its Form 10-Q statements in 2015. When this news was released, shares of the Company fell sharply.
If you wish to learn more about this lawsuit, or if you have any questions concerning this notice or your rights, please contact Joon M. Khang, a prominent litigator for almost two decades, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or by e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.
This press release may constitute Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions.
Contacts
Joon M. Khang, Esq.
Telephone: 949-419-3834
Facsimile: 949-225-4474
joon@khanglaw.com
SOURCE: Khang & Khang LLP
(Reuters) - U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning, imprisoned for handing over classified files to pro-transparency site WikiLeaks, was hospitalized, her attorney said on Wednesday, after media reports that Manning had attempted to commit suicide. The Army confirmed Manning, 28, who was born male but identifies as a woman, had been released back into custody from the hospital, American Civil Liberties Union attorney Chase Strangio said. Manning's medical condition was not released. Manning was taken to a hospital near the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, early on Tuesday, U.S. Army spokesman Colonel Patrick Seiber said. CNN, citing Seiber and an unnamed official, reported that she was taken to a hospital after an apparent attempt to take her own life. "Reports of Chelsea's suicide attempt are unconfirmed," Strangio wrote on Twitter. "We just know that she was taken to the hospital and are trying to learn more." Seiber said that officials continue to monitor the inmate's condition. Attempts to reach the military correctional facility where Manning is imprisoned were not successful. One of Manning's attorneys, Nancy Hollander, said in a statement on Wednesday that she was outraged over the release of her client's confidential medical information to the news media. Hollander also said the Army failed to connect Manning with her lawyers for a planned phone call on Tuesday, and the earliest Army officials could accommodate a call was Friday morning. "We call on the Army to immediately connect Chelsea Manning to her lawyers and friends who care deeply about her well-being and are profoundly distressed by the complete lack of official communication about Chelsea's current situation," Hollander said. Manning, a former intelligence analyst in Iraq, is serving a 35-year sentence after a 2013 military court conviction of providing more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to WikiLeaks. It was the biggest breach of classified materials in U.S. history. Among the files that Manning turned over to WikiLeaks in 2010 was a gunsight video of a U.S. Apache helicopter firing at suspected Iraqi insurgents in 2007. A dozen people were killed, including two Reuters news staff. Manning in May appealed to an Army court to overturn her court-martial conviction. Manning's lawyers contend she was held in unlawful pretrial detention for almost a year and that she was excessively charged so she would be exposed to undue punishment. They also argue that the trial judge considered evidence that was not related to the offenses. (Reporting by Laila Kearney in New York and Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Bernard Orr)
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The two Indian medical students who threw a puppy from a roof in a viral video were arrested by the local police, but soon released on bail. The five-month-old dog was rescued yesterday and is undergoing treatment for fractures in her hind leg and spine.
SEE ALSO: Manhunt on for Indian student who threw a puppy from a roof in viral video
The two students were charged under the existing laws for animal cruelty, but were released on bail soon after. The quick bail has led several activists to argue for the need for stronger laws to prevent animal cruelty. Anyone accused under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act can be let off with minor fines of as little as Rs 10 and Rs 50, instead of imprisonment.
Gautam Sudarshan, who threw the dog from the roof in the video, and Ashish Paul, who shot the video, were final year students at a medical college in the southern city of Chennai. The two had been absconding since the video, originally shot a couple of week ago, went viral on social media in the last two days and sparked widespread public outrage.
Chennai police has been on a manhunt, and finally spoke to their parents and told them to surrender. Meanwhile, their college authorities also issues an ultimatum that they wouldn't be allowed to write their exams if they didn't surrender. Several organisations had also offered cash rewards for leads about their identity and location.
"With video evidence and so much of public outrage, we couldn't even remand them for even one day. It is a black day for animal rights in the country, animal rights activist Shravan Krishnan wrote in a Facebook post. "However, we will keep fighting and try and get the police to file the charge-sheet."
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi telephoned his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday, the Muslim holiday of Eid, to wish him a speedy recovery from surgery, a sign the two men remain in touch, despite fraught diplomatic relations. Sharif, 66, had successful open heart surgery in a London hospital in May, his second cardiac procedure in five years. "Indian Prime Minister Modi called Prime Minister Sharif on the occasion of Eid," Sharif's office said in a statement. "He also wished him well for his health post-surgery." Wednesday is a national holiday in mainly Muslim Pakistan, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn till dusk. Before the surgery in May, Sharif had also telephoned Modi to thank him for his wishes for a quick recovery. Sharif made a bid to improve ties with old rival India a key plank of his 2013 election campaign, though progress has been slow and relations remain frayed over Islamist militant attacks and long-standing distrust. (Reporting by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads to Africa on Thursday, seeking to boost his country's economic influence in a region long dominated by rival Asian power China.
India has been working to improve ties with African nations as it vies for a greater share of the continent's natural resources. Last year, it hosted a major summit of the Africa's heads of state in New Delhi.
Modi will head first to Mozambique, marking the first visit by an Indian prime minister in 34 years, before travelling on to South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.
"The visit marks an unprecedented diplomatic outreach to the African continent and underlines the importance that India places on forging a multi-layered relationship with a rising continent," political analyst Manish Chand told AFP.
"The visit is not going to be just about the optics. It is underpinned by a substantive agenda encompassing all areas of interest -- economic as well as strategic," said Chand, the editor of Africa Quarterly.
India's economic presence in Africa is dwarfed by that of China, whose trade with the continent topped $200 billion last year -- more than the GDP of the 30 smallest African economies combined.
But it is gaining ground, dominated by the energy sector and led by private entrepreneurs.
India is now South Africa's sixth largest trade partner, with two-way trade reaching $5.3 billion in 2015-16.
South Africa has also been vocal on the need to reform the UN Security Council, making it a natural ally in India's long-running campaign to be made a permanent member.
India and Africa are together home to a third of the world's population, but neither India nor any African country has a permanent seat on the council, which is made up of China, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom and France.
"South Africa is seen as a representative of the continent," said Chand.
"It's a part of the BRICS grouping and has been shaping the global discourse."
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With 1.3 million people of Indian origin it also has the largest diaspora population in Africa, a major element of Modi's diplomatic push across the world since taking office two years ago.
On Friday he will address a thousands-strong audience at a stadium in Johannesburg, having hosted similar rallies for the diaspora in cities from New York to London.
India's foreign ministry sought to downplay any rivalry with China and denied New Delhi had neglected the continent in the past.
"(Relations between India and Africa) are like the two banks of the river which are apart but never separate. We are trying to bridge that," said Amar Sinha, secretary for economic relations in the foreign ministry.
"Africa is a huge continent, it has tremendous requirement for development assistance and infrastructure building. Everybody can chip in."
Taylor Swift and her squad of model and actress friends celebrated the Fourth of July in music video style, complete with a seaside mansion backdrop, a wardrobe of matching red, white and blue bathing suits and a romance at the center.
Swift welcomed an array of Hollywood elite to her Rhode Island beach party, including a pregnant Blake Lively and husband Ryan Reynolds, Uzo Aduba, models Gigi Hadid and Karlie Kloss and beau Tom Hiddleston, among numerous other famous faces.
The patriotic day gave Swifties serious summer holiday envy as photos from the bash trickled in on social media showcasing attendees frolicking through turquoise waves, canoodling on the beach with their significant others and splishing and splashing on an oversized inflatable party slide (no swans this year).
Pret-a-Reporter breaks down the who, what and where of the weekend (Hiddleston's "I [love] T.S." tank top and heart-shaped tattoo, included).
Read More: Taylor Swift Hosts July 4th Bash at Her Rhode Island Mansion
THE SQUAD
Numerous members of Swift's loyal squad journeyed to the East Coast for her Independence Day party. In addition to longtime friends Britany LaManna and Abigail Anderson, Ruby Rose, Cara Delevingne, Harley Gusman, St. Vincent, the band Haim and Martha Hunt were among the actors, models and musicians who joined Lively, Reynolds, Aduba, Hadid, Kloss and Hiddleston for the wet and wild gathering.
A photo posted by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Jul 4, 2016 at 6:14pm PDT
A photo posted by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Jul 5, 2016 at 11:32am PDT
A photo posted by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Jul 5, 2016 at 11:28am PDT
A photo posted by Britany LaManna (@britmaack) on Jul 5, 2016 at 12:11pm PDT
A photo posted by Abigail Anderson (@abigail_lauren) on Jul 5, 2016 at 10:57am PDT
Read More: Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston Are Instagram Official
THE OUTFITS
What's a Fourth of July party if you and your favorite gal pals don't have matching onesies and bathing suits? Swifty didn't miss the memo when it came to matching with her besties for the summery celebration: She posed alongside Hadid and Delevingne in matching bathing suits before the tribe later changed into stars-and-stripes onesies. Tay also made her musical fan army's "wildest (budgetary) dreams" come true when she donned a Forever 21 bikini while cuddling with Hiddleston on the Watch Hill beach. But if you hope to get your hands on the red "America" two-piece Swift wore, be prepared to wait - while you can still score the $12.50 low-rise bottoms, the halter top is already sold out.
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Ladies aside, Hiddleston was the major topic of conversation on social media after photos of the British actor sporting a washable heart-shaped tattoo and an "I [love] T.S." tank top surfaced. Why the Night Manager actor chose to strip down to an undershirt with Swizzle's initials has many scratching their heads and others reportedly wondering if it's a conspiracy that the outfit is part of a larger, unannounced project (aka music video).
A photo posted by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Jul 5, 2016 at 11:24am PDT
A photo posted by Abigail Anderson (@abigail_lauren) on Jul 5, 2016 at 11:41am PDT
A photo posted by forever21 (@forever21) on Jul 3, 2016 at 9:59pm PDT
A photo posted by my bio riflecs my pour englis (@nothingbutfabulouz) on Jul 5, 2016 at 6:03am PDT
THE ACTIVITIES
T-Swizzle and her friends participated in all-things summer on July Fourth, which included a supersized inflatable water slide, patriotic body paintings, lots of swimming and intimate body contact. As the hostess with the mostest, Swift participated in each of the activities with her guests: She cascaded down the slippery slide with model-friend Kloss; showcased American flag and heart-shaped paint tattoos on her arm with friend Anderson; waded in the cool Atlantic waters with her crew; and cozied up to Hiddleston on the beach.
A photo posted by @karliekloss on Jul 5, 2016 at 11:51am PDT
A photo posted by @karliekloss on Jul 5, 2016 at 12:06pm PDT
A photo posted by Abigail Anderson (@abigail_lauren) on Jul 5, 2016 at 10:18am PDT
A photo posted by Revista QUEM (@quemacontece) on Jul 4, 2016 at 11:42am PDT
Sorry we couldn't make it, Taylor.
Read More: July Fourth: See How Amy Schumer, Reese Witherspoon, More Are Celebrating
By Sue-Lin Wong
SHACHENG, China (Reuters) - The Chinese government's call to the nation to build an innovation-driven economy from the top down has sparked a rush by local governments to construct new buildings in the name of supporting creativity.
Innovation centres have been popping up around the country and are set to more than double to nearly 5,000 in the next five years, according to internet research firm iiMedia. The only problem for local governments; entrepreneurs are not moving in.
Many centres are in small Chinese cities or towns, not ideal locations for attracting startups. There is no local market for their product, no local ecosystem of suppliers and fellow entrepreneurs and centres generally provide only basic amenities, such as a desk and a telephone. They lack the financial, technical or marketing expertise that many startups need.
Most incubators have occupancy rates of no more than 40 percent, iiMedia says.
The result: like steel mills, theme parts and housing before them, the country now faces a glut of innovation centres as another top-down policy backfires to leave white-elephant projects and a further buildup of debt.
"The risk of a bubble is extremely large," said Shi Jiqiang, a partner at Leilai Management, which runs day-to-day operations at a startup base in the city of Tianjin, near Beijing.
"This is both a test for government and for the managers of startup spaces ... there aren't enough entrepreneurs."
China's Ministry of Industry and IT declined to comment and the state planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, did not respond to a request for comment.
Beijing argues its development model that worked so well for infrastructure and real estate, powering the country through the global financial crisis, can build successful, high-tech startups.
With slogans such as "mass entrepreneurship" and "internet plus", Beijing has called for innovation centres to be built all over the country, hoping to lay the groundwork for the next Jack Ma - who founded e-commerce giant Alibaba - to emerge.
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It has encouraged college students and even migrant workers to try their hand at starting their own businesses to transform China into a high-tech economy less reliant on basic manufacturing.
Almost 80 percent of the capital for the innovation centres springing up around the country is coming from the government or universities, which are state-backed in China, or a combination of sources, iiMedia said.
"In any sort of market, you want the experts making the decisions, not some technocrat or bureaucrat," said William Bao Bean, investment partner at venture capital fund SOSV, which invests in startups. "You don't tend to see too many successful companies come out of a government-based decision-making process."
OPEN FOR BUSINESS
The small town of Shacheng in Huailai county in northern Hebei province answered Beijing's call for innovation by building two 25-storey adjoining towers - one for office space and the other as an innovation centre.
However, the innovation centre, offering desks and a period of free rent and utilities to potential startups, is empty. The floors are littered with rubbish and dust.
Like other towns in China's industrial heartland, Shacheng is feeling the brunt of Beijing's push to reduce massive industrial overcapacity. Glass and cement factories, and coal mines and steel mills have been shut down.
The town offers few signs of the central government's innovation campaign. Chinese characters hanging on a fence in Shacheng's economic zone spell out "mass entrepreneurship" but otherwise local people said they had not seen any promotion of the innovation centre and they felt it was not targetted at them anyhow.
Instead, they assumed it was designed to attract students and entrepreneurs from Beijing, some four-hours away by train.
"I wouldn't consider becoming an entrepreneur. You need money to do that. No, for someone like me, I don't really have many options," said Liu Haiyang, 30, who runs a shop next to the innovation centre, selling bathroom fittings.
Shacheng's local authority and the county economic planner declined to comment.
Residents said they hoped their economic fortunes would improve when a high-speed rail link with Beijing, which will cut travel time to the capital down to half an hour, is completed in 2019.
"The incubator is losing money," said a businessman with strong ties to the local government, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But we're playing the long game, hoping this push will create companies that pay taxes and add jobs to the local economy."
Elsewhere, some local governments have rebranded empty office space as innovation centres. At the new Yujiapu economic zone in Tianjin near Beijing, the government has designated 5.5 square kilometres for 11 incubators with at least four more on the way. The zone's flagship incubator is only 30 percent occupied, an administrative assistant said.
"All these office buildings have already been built," said Yang Dehong, a local government official. "We might as well use them, help startups reduce their costs," she said.
"And ride the wave of this (innovation) policy," added Pei Lei, another government official.
AGAINST THE ODDS
Venture capitalists say startups gravitate to where successful innovation centres are already up and running, or where they can find the right mix of a local market, talent, expertise and fellow entrepreneurs.
That generally means the big cities, such as Zhuhai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen - the five cities that top the rankings for startups in China.
"The idea that you can predict location or the idea that every geography happens to have this nascent group just waiting to be given capital to go create the next Alibaba, is just not true," said Gary Rieschel, founder of Qiming Venture Partners, a China-based venture capital firm.
Other more fundamental factors are holding back an entrepreneurial culture in China, startup experts say.
Even in towns with universities, young Chinese are often pressured by their parents to find a job considered more steady, such as in government or with a private company. Starting your own business is seen as too high risk.
The Chinese education system, which largely focuses on rote learning, also crimps the development of creative thinkers, said Bo Yiqun, chief executive of a privately run co-working space in Beijing with 85 percent occupancy.
"Innovation is related to education," Bo said. "If education levels don't rise, we can't expect innovation to catch up that fast."
Even if all those factors were in place, government efforts would have more chance of success if officials teamed up with former entrepreneurs or venture capitalists with money at stake, Chinaccelerator's Bao said.
"Where it's not worked the world over, as well as in China, is where the governments themselves are making the investment decisions," he said.
(Additional reporting by Zhang Qi, Elias Glenn, Pete Sweeney, Nathaniel Taplin and the Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Neil Fullick.)
A couple of generations ago investing in stocks meant buying shares of a big-name company like Ma Bell, keeping them forever and enjoying dividend income along the way. But the boom in mutual funds in recent decades has created legions of investors who've never owned an individual stock.
Are they missing something?
In some respects, it's easier to trade individual stocks now than in the good old days. A trade that once cost hundreds of dollars in commissions can be done online with a deep discount broker for $5 or $10. You can track prices, do research and place orders on your laptop, tablet or cellphone.
So why not dabble in stocks? When should you choose a stock over a fund?
[See: 7 Stocks to Buy When a Recession Hits.]
"It's better to hold a stock when you are more confident that you've got a winner -- when you really understand what the company does ... and that they will outperform their peers in the future " says Stan Bokov, chief operations officer at TradingView, a social media platform for individual investors. "It's more work to research, but the potential upside is higher. However, the risk is higher as well."
Some experts insist that owning individual stocks is too challenging for most ordinary investors. "In general, owning individual stocks is a bit of a sucker's bet," says Ryan McGuinness, president of CTR Financial in Lincolnshire, Illinois, citing factors like transaction costs and taxes.
But others acknowledge stocks have some advantages over funds and exchange-traded funds. Here are some of the considerations:
Big potential. For the legendary 10-bagger -- a 1,000 percent gain -- you need to bet on stocks, as a fund's mix of winners and losers typically prevents extreme moves. Of course, an individual stock can be wiped out, too. You can lose lots of money in a bad mutual fund, but probably not everything.
Control. With a fund, the hard work is done by the asset managers. A stock investor can take all the credit for a winner -- and the blame for a loser.
Story continues
"Individual stocks can help create a tangible connection between investors and their money, by enabling them to invest in something they use themselves or see around them in their day-to-day lives -- Johnson & Johnson (ticker: JNJ), Procter & Gamble (PG), Apple (AAPL), Netflix (NFLX), etc." says Russell Robertson, owner of Alidade Wealth Partners in Atlanta.
Though he usually recommends ETFs for his customers, he sees a role for individual stocks. "It can also be useful if you want to take advantage of a specific area where there isn't a good option in the fund/ETF world -- liquefied natural gas, for example."
Derek Tharp, founder of Conscious Capital in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, says stocks are more useful for investors with finely targeted goals, such as a focus on firms with certain ethical or environmental values
Quick moves. You can buy or sell a stock anytime during the trading day, while mutual funds are traded only at the end-of-day price. That means you can quickly react to news.
Fancy strategies. With a stock, you can short the market, or bet that the price will fall. You borrow shares from your broker, sell them and hope to buy replacements later at a lower price. You can't short a standard mutual fund.
With stocks, you can also place short-term bets and play with options, which are the right to buy or sell a block of shares at a guaranteed price for a given period.
But sophisticated strategies and day-trading are not wise for individual investors, says Nicole Boyson, associate professor of finance at the D'Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University. "Day trading is a bad idea for everyone. It's costly in terms of both trading costs and taxes, and it has nothing to do with fundamental research," she says.
[See: 11 Great Investing Tips for Women.]
Taxes. "One of the advantages of owning individual stocks is the extra flexibility you have from a tax standpoint," Tharp says. "Whereas a mutual fund will generate capital gains that are distributed [and taxed each year] regardless of whether an investor sells their mutual fund position, an investor holding individual stocks is in greater control of the timing and magnitude of capital gains realizations."
Dividends. With a fund, you'll be lucky to get a dividend yield of 3 or 4 percent. But some individual stocks pay more. That's nice for income-oriented investors. "Dividend-payers can make sense to own individually if you are trying to target a certain yield percentage on your portfolio," Robertson says.
Others caution against fixating on dividends.
"The thing is that dividends represent a trade-off," McGuinness says. "Companies that are paying a high dividend are doing so because they are bringing in cash, but significant growth prospects aren't there. You receive the dividend, but it means that the company is going to grow more slowly -- so the price will grow more slowly."
Investing in individual stocks, Robertson says, requires some clear thinking and study.
"If shopping by yourself, you should have a well-established investment philosophy," he says. "Are you a value investor? Do you like trend-following strategies? Are you looking for dividend income? Don't just buy something because you hear a ticker on CNBC and see the price is up 30 percent in the last year."
Of course, funds have advantages, too.
Professional management. For your modest fund fee, you'll get professional analysts and stock pickers for the heavy lifting. It's far cheaper than paying a broker or financial advisor to recommend individual stocks.
"If you are not an expert, you should not pick individual stocks, in my opinion," Boyson says.
She feels individual investors do better with funds and ETFs than hiring an advisor to pick stocks, since few pros are able to beat the market consistently. But a pro using funds and ETFs can help one develop a long-term strategy, prepare an estate plan and do other chores that take expertise, she says.
Diversification. One or two funds is enough to spread your risk, while you might need dozens of individual stocks to assure that some bad choices don't wipe you out.
Tax efficiency. Many mutual funds -- index funds in particular -- are especially kind at tax time, even though they do not offer the fine control over tax matters that stocks can provide. With a basket of stocks, you or your pricy pro must decide when to sell winners and losers to get the best mix of realized gains and minimal taxes.
Having it both ways. One way to tackle the stocks-versus-funds dilemma is to take the middle ground, with ETFs. They are listed like stocks, can be traded throughout the day, have options and can be shorted, while offering many benefits of funds like easy diversification and tax efficiency.
[See: 8 Soaring Stocks That Suffered the Big Bounce.]
Or you can do both: use funds and ETFs for the core of your portfolio and dabble in individual stocks on the side -- but only with money you can afford to lose.
Jeff Brown spent nearly 40 years as a newspaper reporter, columnist and editor, including 20 years writing about investing, personal finance, the economy and financial markets. He spent 20 years at The Philadelphia Inquirer and has been freelancing since 2007.
A couple of generations ago investing in stocks meant buying shares of a big-name company like Ma Bell, keeping them forever and enjoying dividend income along the way. But the boom in mutual funds in recent decades has created legions of investors who've never owned an individual stock.
Are they missing something?
In some respects, it's easier to trade individual stocks now than in the good old days. A trade that once cost hundreds of dollars in commissions can be done online with a deep discount broker for $5 or $10. You can track prices, do research and place orders on your laptop, tablet or cellphone.
So why not dabble in stocks? When should you choose a stock over a fund?
[See: 7 Stocks to Buy When a Recession Hits.]
"It's better to hold a stock when you are more confident that you've got a winner -- when you really understand what the company does ... and that they will outperform their peers in the future " says Stan Bokov, chief operations officer at TradingView, a social media platform for individual investors. "It's more work to research, but the potential upside is higher. However, the risk is higher as well."
Some experts insist that owning individual stocks is too challenging for most ordinary investors. "In general, owning individual stocks is a bit of a sucker's bet," says Ryan McGuinness, president of CTR Financial in Lincolnshire, Illinois, citing factors like transaction costs and taxes.
But others acknowledge stocks have some advantages over funds and exchange-traded funds. Here are some of the considerations:
Big potential. For the legendary 10-bagger -- a 1,000 percent gain -- you need to bet on stocks, as a fund's mix of winners and losers typically prevents extreme moves. Of course, an individual stock can be wiped out, too. You can lose lots of money in a bad mutual fund, but probably not everything.
Control. With a fund, the hard work is done by the asset managers. A stock investor can take all the credit for a winner -- and the blame for a loser.
Story continues
"Individual stocks can help create a tangible connection between investors and their money, by enabling them to invest in something they use themselves or see around them in their day-to-day lives -- Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Procter & Gamble (PG), Apple (AAPL), Netflix (NFLX), etc." says Russell Robertson, owner of Alidade Wealth Partners in Atlanta.
Though he usually recommends ETFs for his customers, he sees a role for individual stocks. "It can also be useful if you want to take advantage of a specific area where there isn't a good option in the fund/ETF world -- liquefied natural gas, for example."
Derek Tharp, founder of Conscious Capital in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, says stocks are more useful for investors with finely targeted goals, such as a focus on firms with certain ethical or environmental values
Quick moves. You can buy or sell a stock anytime during the trading day, while mutual funds are traded only at the end-of-day price. That means you can quickly react to news.
Fancy strategies. With a stock, you can short the market, or bet that the price will fall. You borrow shares from your broker, sell them and hope to buy replacements later at a lower price. You can't short a standard mutual fund.
With stocks, you can also place short-term bets and play with options, which are the right to buy or sell a block of shares at a guaranteed price for a given period.
But sophisticated strategies and day-trading are not wise for individual investors, says Nicole Boyson, associate professor of finance at the D'Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University. "Day trading is a bad idea for everyone. It's costly in terms of both trading costs and taxes, and it has nothing to do with fundamental research," she says.
[See: 11 Great Investing Tips for Women.]
Taxes. "One of the advantages of owning individual stocks is the extra flexibility you have from a tax standpoint," Tharp says. "Whereas a mutual fund will generate capital gains that are distributed [and taxed each year] regardless of whether an investor sells their mutual fund position, an investor holding individual stocks is in greater control of the timing and magnitude of capital gains realizations."
Dividends. With a fund, you'll be lucky to get a dividend yield of 3 or 4 percent. But some individual stocks pay more. That's nice for income-oriented investors. "Dividend-payers can make sense to own individually if you are trying to target a certain yield percentage on your portfolio," Robertson says.
Others caution against fixating on dividends.
"The thing is that dividends represent a trade-off," McGuinness says. "Companies that are paying a high dividend are doing so because they are bringing in cash, but significant growth prospects aren't there. You receive the dividend, but it means that the company is going to grow more slowly -- so the price will grow more slowly."
Investing in individual stocks, Robertson says, requires some clear thinking and study.
"If shopping by yourself, you should have a well-established investment philosophy," he says. "Are you a value investor? Do you like trend-following strategies? Are you looking for dividend income? Don't just buy something because you hear a ticker on CNBC and see the price is up 30 percent in the last year."
Of course, funds have advantages, too.
Professional management. For your modest fund fee, you'll get professional analysts and stock pickers for the heavy lifting. It's far cheaper than paying a broker or financial advisor to recommend individual stocks.
"If you are not an expert, you should not pick individual stocks, in my opinion," Boyson says.
She feels individual investors do better with funds and ETFs than hiring an advisor to pick stocks, since few pros are able to beat the market consistently. But a pro using funds and ETFs can help one develop a long-term strategy, prepare an estate plan and do other chores that take expertise, she says.
Diversification. One or two funds is enough to spread your risk, while you might need dozens of individual stocks to assure that some bad choices don't wipe you out.
Tax efficiency. Many mutual funds -- index funds in particular -- are especially kind at tax time, even though they do not offer the fine control over tax matters that stocks can provide. With a basket of stocks, you or your pricy pro must decide when to sell winners and losers to get the best mix of realized gains and minimal taxes.
Having it both ways. One way to tackle the stocks-versus-funds dilemma is to take the middle ground, with ETFs. They are listed like stocks, can be traded throughout the day, have options and can be shorted, while offering many benefits of funds like easy diversification and tax efficiency.
[See: 8 Soaring Stocks That Suffered the Big Bounce.]
Or you can do both: use funds and ETFs for the core of your portfolio and dabble in individual stocks on the side -- but only with money you can afford to lose.
More From US News & World Report
Tehran (AFP) - Iran will not intervene in Bahrain despite a growing risk of internal conflict caused by the kingdom's treatment of its Shiite majority population, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran will not intervene in any way in the affairs of Bahrain," Khamenei told a gathering of top officials to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan, in remarks carried on his official website.
"But if political wisdom exists in this country (Bahrain), they should not allow the political conflict to transform into a civil war," he added.
Bahrain and its ally Saudi Arabia frequently accuse Iran, the region's predominant Shiite power, of fomenting unrest in the tiny kingdom, which Tehran firmly denies.
But Iran has strongly criticised the repressive actions of the Sunni monarchy in Bahrain, which rules over a 70-percent Shiite population.
There was particular concern over Bahrain's decision to strip the country's leading Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Isa Qassim, of his nationality last month.
"Surely they know that the aggression against Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim is a red line... that will leave no option for the people but to resort to armed resistance," Qassem Suleimani, head of the elite Revolutionary Guards' overseas operations arm, the Quds Force, told state media at the time.
There has been mounting international criticism of Bahrain, which stepped up moves to dissolve the main Shiite opposition bloc last month.
Even the United States, a close ally that has its Fifth Fleet stationed in Bahrain, condemned the action against Qassim, saying it was "deeply troubled by the government of Bahrain's practice of withdrawing the nationality of its citizens arbitrarily."
On a hill outside a displacement camp near the town of Makhmour, in northern Iraq, men stand near a shallow grave at dusk. They await the burial of Ahmed Mohamed Ali, a farmer in his fifties who was wounded when the Iraqi army retook a nearby village, Kabaruk, from Islamic State fighters in May.
Ali survived the battle but like the thousands now living in tents at the Debaga Camp, he had to flee the fighting. He collapsed at a mosque, the men say, unsure of the exact medical cause of his death. His wife and children, also wounded, had been hospitalized nearby. There are other graves on the hillside, some with only cinderblocks for headstones.
An hour passes and the men walk away. The sun drops below the horizon. The sky turns from blue to grey and deep blue. Without warning, a large procession of men and boys comes rolling down the hill from the gate of the camp. They walk fast, carrying a wooden coffin almost in silence. The dirt and scrub crunches under their feet. They lower the body into the grave, then spades move the dirt. One young man sobs on anothers shoulder. They kneel for prayer, and then drift back up the hill to the camp.
Death is frequent in Iraq. Since the American-British invasion in 2003, hundreds of thousands have died as a direct or indirect result of the conflict. The countrys armed factions remain locked in a struggle with the forces of the Islamic State, whose ongoing campaign of terror most recently featured a suicide bombing near a Baghdad shopping center that killed at least 250 people and wounded nearly 200 others early on Sunday. The attack was the deadliest since the 2003 invasion.
On Wednesday, a British government commission released the results of a seven-year investigation into the U.K.s role in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The report from the inquiry, led by former civil servant Sir John Chilcot, makes for damning reading, blaming the British government for acting on flawed intelligence against a state that did not pose an imminent threat, and failing to plan for the aftermath. Meanwhile in Iraq, ordinary people are living and dying with the legacy of the 2003 invasion every day.
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That incursion triggered a bloody insurgency lead primarily by Sunni Arab Iraqis against U.S. and British occupying forces. The insurrection soon spawned a civil war in which extremists preyed on sectarian tensions. Jihadist groups including al-Qaeda thrived in the chaos, forming the nucleus of what would within a decade become ISIS. Islamic State militants now control large parts of the Iraq. The Iraqi armed forces and allied militias are fighting back and have reclaimed key cities from the jihadists, but the countrys military and security institutions are still struggling to rebuild after they were all but dismantled by U.S.-led coalition authorities in 2003.
As a result of the undoing of Iraqi institutions, and the failure of U.S. and British authorities to prepare for the aftermath, the Iraqi state often fails to provide basic services from healthcare to sanitation to security. On a more fundamental level, the Iraqi state can no longer maintain control of all Iraqs territory. When ISIS fighters swept across the border from Syria in 2014, the rebuilt Iraqi military crumpled.
Were now still seeing to this day the devastating impact of having an extremely ill-thought out, poorly prepared plan for invasion, says Nussaibah Younis, an Iraq analyst affiliated with the Atlantic Council in Washington. The challenges that face Iraq today are so monumental that they will take at least a generation to be resolved, she adds in a phone interview.
Measuring the human cost of the war is difficult. U.S. authorities chose not to record the number of Iraqi civilians killed. A nonprofit group called Iraq Body Count reports that between 160,400 and 179,312 civilians have been killed by violence since the 2003 invasion, a figure based on cross-referenced media reports. An epidemiological study based on a house-to-house survey published in the British medical journal The Lancet in 2006 found that nearly 655,000 Iraqis had died following the invasion, but debate continues about those figures and others. Some 4,822 military personnel from the U.S.-led coalition have died in Iraq.
The invasion toppled the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein, and many Iraqis were euphoric to shed the Baathist system of rule. But after 13 years of war and civil strife, some are reexamining the moment their country transitioned from authoritarian rule to chaos.
Even the man who felled the statue of Saddam in central Baghdad in 2003 now says he regrets how Iraq turned out. Kadhim Sharif Hassan Al-Jabbouri, who had been jailed for a year and a half under Baathist regime told the BBC, Saddam is gone, but in his place we now have a thousand Saddams.
Read more: How Tony Blair Could Face Impeachment After Iraq War Inquiry
Some Iraqis and outside observers argue that instead of ending the corruption and abuses of the Saddam era, the invasion simply allowed those ills to continue in a new and more chaotic form. The corruption that took hold in the Iraqi state during years of U.N.-backed sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s became endemic in the turbulent years following Saddams demise.
In many cases the kinds of abuses that weve seen institutionalize themselves in the Iraqi system have their roots in Baathism and in Saddams rule, says Younis, who is also a member of the Task Force on the Future of Iraq. What the invasion did was rip the ceiling off. It got rid of kind of the safeguards that that system had kind of built in to prevent these types of abuses from getting out of hand, she says.
The enduring failure of Iraqs postwar institutions was on display on Sunday following the catastrophic bombing in the Karada neighborhood in Baghdad. Following the attack, Iraqs interior minister resigned on Monday. He had earlier said that the recent series of ISIS bombings in Baghdad would not end until the country resolved the disorder in the security apparatus. Multiple competing security agencies now exist, reporting to different ministries, while Shiite-dominated militia groups grow in power.
The reason there is terrorism in Iraq now is not because of Islam or sectarianism or any of these other things, but because of simply dismantling a functioning state and replacing it with a completely dysfunctional system, says Sinan Antoon, an Iraqi poet and author who teaches literature at New York University.
He adds, The question we usually get posed is, Was it better under Saddam Hussein? And I think it should be posed the other way around. Is it worse now under the post-American regime? And I think it is worse.
LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron said on Wednesday that Britain's military involvement in Afghanistan had not repeated the planning failures of the 2003 Iraq invasion. "I don't accept that all the same failures are apparent in some way when it comes to planning in Afghanistan," he said in parliament. He was responding to criticism after the publication of an inquiry into the Iraq war. "In Afghanistan, there was a very clear connection between a Taliban regime which was playing host to al Qaeda," he said. "The goal of government policy, which I supported at the time and indeed put into place when I became Prime Minister, was to make sure that country couldn't become a safe haven for al Qaeda, and there was some considerable success in pursuing that." Britain was involved in the conflict in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014. (Reporting by William James; editing by Stephen Addison)
Did you know that one in five U.S. jobs is supported by trade, including nearly 2,000 jobs in La Crosse?
In February, the United States signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement to level the playing field for American workers and businesses. This trade deal between the United States and 11 other countries will eliminate import taxes on every made-in-America manufactured product that we export to participating countries. This free flow of goods and services will benefit the La Crosse economy and Trane employees and suppliers. Thats why our company is a proud supporter of this agreement.
Ingersoll Rands support for the partnership is part of our ongoing investment in the La Crosse community and the state of Wisconsin, which includes giving more than $200,000 in local grants and contributions and nearly $40,000 in scholarships within the last year. Our plant employs 670 workers in the factory or on the manufacturing floor. Nearly 40 percent of the chillers used in commercial air conditioning systems produced at our plant are exported, creating comfortable and efficient environments for people around the globe.
The import tariff in the United States for products that compete with our plant is zero, whereas the tariff in some of the partnership countries is as much as 30 percent. Naturally, we want a level playing field. U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D- La Crosse, is a strong supporter of the partnership, and we thank him for that support. Please join us to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
London (AFP) - Britain's war in Iraq, to be examined in a major report due out Wednesday, instilled a deep sense of distrust towards military intervention that still casts a shadow over foreign policy, analysts say.
The decision to join the US-led invasion in 2003 on the basis of flawed intelligence, the occupation and Iraq's bloody descent into sectarian violence, have been examined in detail by the Chilcot inquiry.
But the experience, including the deaths of 179 British soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis, has already left its scars -- on both sides of the Atlantic.
"It has defined Britain's security policy," said Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director general of the RUSI think tank.
"You can trace directly the reluctance of the British government to have boots on the ground in Libya or Syria to the experience in Iraq."
With France, Britain initiated efforts for a NATO-led no-fly zone during the uprising against Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi in 2011 -- but the mission was limited.
It is also conducting air strikes against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, but only after the House of Commons first voted against the mission in Syria in 2013.
"The debate that took place in the UK parliament was utterly dominated by Iraq," noted Jane Kinninmont, deputy head of the Middle East and North Africa programme at the Chatham House think tank.
"Even before that, back around 2005 when you had the severe ethnic cleansing in Darfur, it had become much harder even by then to argue for humanitarian intervention."
The initial justification for war was that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. But when these were not found, the attention switched to the benefits of having removed a brutal dictator.
"It has had a profound impact on public scepticism about the efficacy of military intervention and in particular, of interventions that are styled as humanitarian," Kinninmont said.
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"In the US you have seen some parallels -- it became a major feature of Obama's election campaign that he would get the US out of military engagements in the Middle East."
- 'Policy vacuum' -
Kinninmont noted that Britain had moved towards working with military forces in the region, such as Jordan and the Gulf states, rather than taking action itself.
"The problem is that these forces are still not very strong," she said.
But John Bew, reader in history and foreign policy at King's College London, said Iraq had had a paralysing effect, accusing Britain of having a "non-policy" in Syria for many years.
"We stopped thinking seriously about how to manage down violence, how to stabilise the neighbourhood, how to do things like potentially humanitarian corridors, how to put more diplomatic pressure on the Assad regime," he said.
"There is a vacuum in Western foreign policy," he told AFP.
"We haven't addressed Syria and Libya on their merits so much as having a re-run about debates over Iraq. And at some point that has to stop."
The neo-conservative think tank the Henry Jackson Society also warned against retreating further following the publication of the Chilcot report.
"There are many significant failings and lessons to be learned from the Iraq war, as with any conflict," said its executive director Alan Mendoza.
"But one lesson that must not follow is that intervention is wrong, or that we are somehow responsible for the totality of the turmoil in the Middle East today."
His comments echo those made by former Labour prime minister Tony Blair, the man who took Britain into the war and recently called for Western countries to send in ground troops to defeat the IS group.
"It's not clear to me that even if our policy did not work, subsequent policies have worked better," he told CNN in an interview last October.
By Saif Hameed and Ahmed Rasheed BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi man who was filmed attacking Saddam Hussein's statue with a sledgehammer when U.S. troops stormed into Baghdad in 2003 said Iraq was in a better shape under his rule and George W. Bush and Tony Blair should be put on trial "for ruining" it. Kadhim Hassan al-Jabouri was speaking on Wednesday as British former civil servant John Chilcot released a long-awaited report criticising Britain's role in the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. The report said that "policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments", and that claims that Iraq posed a threat by possessing weapons of mass destruction were "presented with unjustified certainty". It said that the turmoil unleashed in Iraq since the invasion should have come as no surprise. "I regret striking the statue," said Jabouri, a Shi'ite who lost more than a dozen relatives under Saddam, a member of the Sunni Muslim minority. He said they were killed for opposing the Iraqi leader, who was hanged in 2006. The statue of Saddam was pulled down by U.S. Marines shortly after Jabouri and other Iraqis attacked it on April 9, 2003. Images of it being ripped from its plinth were broadcast live around the world and symbolised the moment Saddam's ruthless quarter-century in power came to an end. "I wish Saddam would return; he executed many of my family but he is still better than these politicians and clerics who got Iraq to the way it is," he said, referring to the Shi'ite religious political parties that took over after the invasion. Jabouri, 58, owned a motorcycle repair shop in the Karrada district of central Baghdad at the time of the invasion. The mainly Shi'ite neighbourhood was hit by a huge truck bomb on Saturday night, claimed by the ultra-hardline Sunni group Islamic State, which killed about 250 people. It was the highest toll from a single bombing in more than a decade of chaos following the war which toppled Saddam. Blair and Bush "must be put to trial as they have ruined Iraq with their lies. It turned out there were no weapons of mass destruction," Jabouri said. The head of Iraq's parliamentary foreign affairs committee, Hassan Khudhair, said people who suffered in the conflict deserved reparation. "In Iraq, many people, civilians and military, were harmed by the war and the same happened in Britain. This means that compensation must be paid to the citizens and the country." "A DREAM COME TRUE" However, others who suffered under Saddam said they were grateful to Washington and London. "Overthrowing Saddam's regime was a dream that came true thanks to the U.S. and Britain - and all those who say otherwise are liars," said former political prisoner Faris Mohammed, 46, who was serving a life sentence in the southern Shi'ite city of Basra when the invasion took place. Mowaffak al-Rubaiee, a member of parliament and former National Security Adviser, said the war was waged for a noble cause - to oust a tyrant. "I personally told Tony Blair one time: You are the greatest Brit in history for removing the dictator'," he said. "Removing him gave us a true chance at democracy. The country was ruled by a single strongman and now we have a parliament and elections." But Abu Yasser, 67, a retired marketing manager at Iraqi Airways and a member of Iraq's Sunni community, said Chilcot's report offered little comfort to Iraqis marking the start of the Eid al-Fitr religious holiday on Wednesday, overshadowed once again by the violence which has plagued Iraq since 2003. "Their investigation will not change our situation, it will not restore our Iraq and the people who are gone," he said. "The war came and then the sectarian violence ... and Daesh," he added, referring to Islamic State fighters who seized most of the country's Sunni territories in 2014 and still control the northern city of Mosul. "Now even the joy of Eid was taken from us in the bombing of Karrada," Abu Yasser said. Abdul Illah Risan, Baghdad's Appeal Court General Prosecutor, said he rejected the Chilcot report as "it questions the legality of the war to depose Saddam." "Yes it is true that the war to oust the dictator has cost the Iraqi people a lot," he said. "But Iraqis feel grateful to all the coalition countries, and at the top are the United State and Great Britain because they simply gave Iraqis what they wished for and what they were deprived of since birth - which is freedom and democracy. (Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Dominic Evans)
Baghdad (AFP) - For Iraqis, a British war inquiry criticising former premier Tony Blair means little as, whoever is to blame, they are still suffering the devastating consequences of the 2003 US-led invasion.
The Chilcot report was released just days after one of the deadliest bombings ever to hit the country tore through a crowded shopping area in Baghdad, killing at least 250 people.
The attack was claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group, which includes members of Saddam Hussein's toppled regime and has its roots in the insurgency that began after the dictator's overthrow in 2003.
The 2.6 million-word report resulting from an inquiry chaired by John Chilcot, which was seven years in the making, criticised Blair as having taken his country into a badly planned, woefully executed and legally questionable war.
While the report was hotly anticipated in London and has sparked widespread commentary and media attention, the reaction in Baghdad has been somewhat more muted.
"What report?" Iraqi foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Jamal responded when asked for comment.
For Iraqis, the inquiry is little more than a distant academic exercise.
"The report... will not change anything -- all this is empty talk," said Zainab Hassan, aged 60.
- Thirteen years of bloodshed -
Abbas Salman Mahdi, 56, said the report's conclusion was somewhat less than surprising.
"Of course Britain and America made a mistake in taking part in the war," Mahdi said.
But "this report will not change anything for Iraq," he said.
Ali al-Alaq, a lawmaker from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's Dawa party, said whether or not the decision to topple Saddam was correct, it was made and cannot be undone.
"After all this time, I don't believe that this report will have an impact," Alaq said.
"They carried out their mission and toppled Saddam's regime, whether this decision was correct or not, and it had major effects on Iraq," he said.
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The invasion that overthrew Saddam -- and a series of disastrous decisions by Washington and its allies that followed -- set the stage for 13 years of bloodshed that plagues the country to this day.
Chief among these were the decisions to disband the Iraqi military and launch a "de-Baathification" programme targeting members of Saddam's party, both of which contributed to the rise of a bloody insurgency.
But the countries that toppled Saddam are not solely responsible for the current disastrous state of affairs.
- Return to Iraq -
Politicians bent on power, self-enrichment and revenge instead of building a viable state, as well as neighbouring countries that backed various armed groups, also played key parts in creating the hellish circumstances in which Iraqis now live.
More than a decade after the fall of Saddam, the Islamic State group overran large areas north and west of Baghdad, sweeping government forces aside and carrying out a slew of atrocities.
The offensive drew the US and Britain, among other countries, back into Iraq to carry out air strikes and provide training and other assistance to help Baghdad regain lost ground.
Despite all that has since transpired, Blair asserted following the release of the report that he "made the right decision and the world is better and safer" because of it.
It is a claim that the huge number of Iraqis who have lost relatives and friends, who have made daily trips to the morgue searching for the missing, who have faced bombings and death squads and kidnappings, would likely dispute.
Ghaith al-Ghaffari, 26, said he too does not believe the report will change anything, and that he would rather see concrete action on the part of those responsible.
"I would like them to truly contribute to the reconstruction of Iraq after they made this mistake," Ghaffari said.
"At the least, it is their duty to truly rebuild the country," he said.
Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel on Wednesday relaunched the bidding process to build 42 new homes in a settlement in the occupied West Bank where a Palestinian stabbed to death a 13-year-old Israeli last week, an NGO said.
Israeli media have previously reported that the government had approved relaunching the tender for the homes in Kiryat Arba in the wake of the attack, though the move has not been officially confirmed.
Settlement watchdog Peace Now said the housing ministry reissued the tender on Wednesday, after a previous attempt in 2013 for 84 units had failed to draw bidders.
The ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Some Israelis have called for a harsh response to a series of Palestinian attacks in recent days, including in Kiryat Arba last Thursday when 13-year-old Israeli-American Hallel Yaffa Ariel was fatally stabbed in her bedroom.
At the same time, Israel has been strongly criticised internationally over settlement expansion, with a key report from the diplomatic Quartet last week saying it was among the factors eroding the possibility of a two-state solution.
"Construction in settlements is not an answer to terrorism; it is not going to save the life of any Israeli, but rather strengthen the extremists on both sides," Peace Now said in a statement.
"The real answer to terrorism is ending the occupation and reaching a negotiated peace agreement. Unfortunately, Israeli citizens continue to pay the price of the extreme right-wing government's policies."
Israel's current government is considered the most right-wing in the country's history.
Kiryat Arba is located on the outskirts of the flashpoint Palestinian city of Hebron.
In addition to the tender there, Israel also this week allowed planning to move forward for 560 new settler homes in Maale Adumim, east of Jerusalem, on the West Bank.
The government also reportedly did the same for 240 new homes in settlement neighbourhoods in annexed east Jerusalem.
The Israeli military also locked down the Hebron area and the government has reduced monthly tax payments to the Palestinian Authority.
Kigali (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Rwanda on Wednesday for a symbolic stop on his "historic" African tour, boosting ties between two countries with a history marked by genocide.
Welcomed on arrival by Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Netanyahu visited the Kigali Memorial Centre where more than 250,000 of the at least 800,000 victims of the 1994 genocide are buried in mass graves.
"My people know the pain of genocide as well, and this is the unique bond that neither one of our people would prefer to have," Netanyahu said at a press conference after visiting the memorial, alongside Kagame.
"Yet we both persevere despite the pain and despite the horror. We survived, we never lost hope - and you never lost hope."
Netanyahu said it had also provided the nations with a bitter lesson.
"In difficult times, we must be able to defend ourselves by ourselves," he said.
Kagame spoke of how the history of genocide had also influenced the two small nations to rely on their citizens.
"We have been formed and shaped to see, to do things in a certain way - but based mainly on the major resource we have," Kagame said. "And that is our people, the other resources come after."
From a pragmatic point of view, Israel is seen by Rwanda as an alternative partner amid increasingly strained relations with traditional allies such as the United States or Britain.
In 2014, when Rwanda sat on the UN Security Council, Kigali abstained from a resolution -- ultimately rejected -- advocating the end of the occupation of Palestinian territories.
- Four-nation Africa tour -
Netanyahu's visit to Rwanda is part of a four-nation Africa trade and security tour aimed at boosting ties.
"The Rwandan government felt a real affinity with Israel for obvious historic reasons," said Phil Clark, a Rwanda specialist at London's SOAS university.
"Israel was seen as a small country in a very hostile neighbourhood; a country with very few resources but which had recovered from its genocide very quickly and very impressively," Clark said. "So Israel was an obvious place for Rwanda to look to for inspiration."
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On the eve of Netanyahu's tour Israel announced a relatively modest $13 million (12 million euro) aid package to strengthen economic ties and cooperation with African countries.
Israel's business with Africa constitutes only two percent of its foreign trade, leaving plenty of room for growth while demand for its defence expertise and products is rising.
It also sees African countries as potential allies, particularly at the United Nations and other international bodies, where it is regularly condemned over its occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza Strip.
On Monday, Netanyahu visited Uganda to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Israeli raid on Entebbe airport in which his brother Yonatan was killed rescuing hostages held by German and Palestinian hijackers.
On Tuesday he visited Kenya, and will end his tour on Thursday in Ethiopia.
By Francesco Guarascio
BRUSSELS, July 6 (Reuters) - European financial services commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis dismissed on Wednesday arguments that Italian banking is in crisis due to Britain's vote to leave the EU, weakening Rome's push to soften rules limiting state-funded bank rescues.
Addressing the European Parliament's economic affairs committee, Dombrovskis blamed Italian banks' problems on long-standing low profitability and a heavy burden of bad loans.
"This is reflected, among other things, in a decline of share prices," he said, ruling out that the British referendum on June 23 may have created new systemic problems for Italian banks. "This is not a new development. It's something which is already happening since the beginning of the year."
The dive in Italian banking shares has shaken the financial foundations of the euro zone's third-largest economy and threatened contagion to other European Union nations.
Italy has faced a banking crisis for months, as lenders struggled to unload 360 billion euros ($400 billion) of non-performing loans - about one third of the euro zone total. The country's bank sector index has fallen 30 percent since the referendum, taking its losses this year to 57 percent.
The Brexit shock has reinvigorated Italian efforts to soften new EU bank rules that impose losses on private investors before public money can be used to rescue a lender.
Hitting investors would be a huge political risk for the government of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, which faced mass protests after it imposed losses last year on bondholders of four troubled small lenders.
Rome is in talks with the European Commission to recapitalise its weakest lenders, including Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, without hitting investors.
The Commission would not oppose measures to protect retail investors, such as compensation funds to reimburse those who were sold risky financial products without knowing it.
But Brussels insists that private losses should be imposed before using public money, implying that larger investors, such as pension funds, may have to pay their share.
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Dombrovskis said measures that will be adopted "depend on the requests of the Italian authorities".
He was addressing lawmakers in his first hearing since he was appointed financial services commissioner, replacing Briton Jonathan Hill who resigned after the referendum. Dombrovskis will formally take up his new functions on July 16.
He reiterated the limits of existing rules, which allow a public recapitalisation of a bank only after stress tests show a capital shortfall and the lender cannot raise capital in the markets because of "a serious disturbance" in the domestic economy.
The results of next European banking stress tests are expected on July 29. ($1 = 0.9033 euros) (editing by David Stamp)
ROME (Reuters) - Italy is not planning any immediate measure to prop up stricken Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS.MI), a Treasury undersecretary said on Wednesday.
The day after Italy's market watchdog banned short-selling on the stock after it fell more than 30 percent in two trading sessions, Treasury Undersecretary Pier Paolo Baretta said in an emailed statement:
"No intervention is expected in the coming hours. We are monitoring the situation as agreed with the European Union."
Monte Paschi, the world's oldest bank, is among the sickest on a roster of weak banks whose pile of bad debts and capital shortfalls are sending shockwaves across Europe.
(Reporting by Massimiliano di Giorigo, writing by Isla Binnie)
La Crosse County school districts could all receive more state aid for the 2016-17 school year, according to data released July 1.
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction released state aid estimates for 2016-17 on Friday, showing 61 percent of school districts will see state aid increases. La Crosse County is projected to see $2.7 million of the $119.97 million in increased state aid next year. According to the DPI, general state aid totals $4.584 billion for the 2016-17 school year.
Onalaska should be the big winner, with budget forecasts calling for nearly a million dollars more in state aid next year, a 7.26 percent increase. Other districts in the county should see between 1.61 percent and 3.11 percent increases in the amount of state aid they receive.
Director of Finance and Business Services Kent Ellickson said Onalaskas bump in state aid is mostly the result of increased enrollment in relation to property values in the district. This in turn could mean the state takes on a larger share of the burden while given property owners a reprieve on their taxes.
If you do the math, if we have more kids, then we have more aid, he said.
The DPI is required by state law to publish estimates of general aid levels for school districts on July 1, the start of the new fiscal year. Final aid numbers arrive in October.
ROME (Reuters) - The difficulties facing Italian banks over their bad loans are miniscule by comparison with the problems some European banks face over their derivative exposure, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said on Wednesday.
Renzi's comments appeared to be directed at Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE), which has outstanding derivative positions running into trillions of euros, and marked an escalation in his war of words aimed at securing an EU deal over Italy's troubled lenders.
Italian bank shares have crumpled over the past 10 days, hit by anxiety over the sector's pile of non-performing loans, totalling some 360 billion euros (309 billion), and reviving fears of possible financial disaster in the eurozone's third-largest economy.
Speaking at a joint news conference with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, Renzi said other European banks had much bigger headaches than their Italian counterparts.
"If this non-performing loan problem is worth one, the question of derivatives at other banks, at big banks, is worth one hundred. This is the ratio: one to one hundred," Renzi said.
He did not directly name Deutsche Bank, but he has singled it out for criticism in the past, including last December, when he said he would not swap Italian banks for their German peers.
Rome is in talks with Brussels to devise a plan to recapitalise its lenders, including Italy's third-largest lender, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS.MI), whose share price has dropped some 75 percent this year.
Italian officials had argued that volatility caused by Britain's vote to leave the European Union meant it should be given greater flexibility to prop up struggling banks.
However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel slapped down the suggestion, saying new rules for bank rescues, which reduce governments' room for manoeuvre, had to be respected.
Renzi told reporters that a solution was being found for Italy's non-performing loan woes and said savers had nothing to worry about. But he said Europe had a wider credit problem that needed to be tackled.
"I am certain that the European authorities will think carefully about this in the coming days," he said.
(Reporting by Isla Binnie; Editing by Crispian Balmer and David Evans)
FBI Director James Comey's announcement Tuesday that the agency will not recommend charges against Hillary Clinton was blatantly political, just not the way critics claim.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump tweeted that Comey's decision not to seek charges against Clinton over her use of a personal server while she was Secretary of State shows a "#RiggedSystem." Other Republicans chimed in to suggest Comey corruptly sought to appease his potential future boss.
But it was to avoid such criticism that Comey wandered into political positioning. Anticipating attacks and probably worried about the appearance of Attorney General Loretta Lynch's ill-advised meeting with former President Bill Clinton, Comey tried to telegraph evenhandedness. He balanced his announcement with information about the job he was given, recommending whether to charge Clinton, with views that were not his job to share.
Comey, a Republican picked by President Obama for a 10-year term, did not have to hold a news conference to say the FBI was not seeking charges against Clinton. He said doing so was "unusual." It was more like unprecedented.
Comey opened the surprise press conference by noting that neither the Justice Department, to which his recommendation went, nor the the rest of the Obama administration knew what he would say. The director built drama by waiting until the end of his statement to announce the FBIs recommendation. Before he got there, he took care to trash Clinton's handling of classified information with the immediately famous words: "extremely careless."
"Any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation," Comey said of Clinton's use of a personal email account to conduct seven top secret conversations.
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Those characterizations are notable because, as he said in the same statement, Comey was not tasked with opining on Clinton's conduct. He was in charge of the investigation into whether a crime occurred.
"In our system, the prosecutors make the decisions about whether charges are appropriate based on evidence the FBI has helped collect," Comey explained. "Although we don't normally make public our recommendations to the prosecutors, we frequently make recommendations and engage in productive conversations with prosecutors about what resolution may be appropriate, given the evidence."
So why go public this time? Because a presidential candidate is involved. "In this case, given the importance of the matter, I think unusual transparency is in order," Comey said. Transparency on such a closely watched matter is appealing, particularly when Clinton's aversion to transparency appears to have caused the problem.
But along with public interest, the director's public description of his decision appears aimed at serving the interests of the FBI and James Comey. By stating that even though Clinton will not face charges she did something bad, Comey sought a sort of of Solomonic balance.
The many problems with that course surfaced quickly on Tuesday.
"Comey will be the most important, unpaid speechwriter any presidential campaign has ever had," tweeted Scott Jennings, a Republican operative and former political aide to President George W. Bush. "He iced the cake on the Trump narrative."
Republicans including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz attacked Comey for concluding Clinton was careless but apparently not criminally negligent. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee demanded the FBI publish documentation on its investigation.
Matthew Miller, who worked as the Justice Department's top spokesman under Attorney General Eric Holder, called Comey's presser "absolutely outrageous." Miller said the Justice Department and FBI typically comment on open investigations only in court, and the agencies should have kept it that way. "Clinton gets worse treatment than anyone else would," Miller tweeted. "I cant remember an FBI press conference like that when charges declined."
Miller said Comey seemed to break Justice Department rules barring comments on ongoing investigations. The rules allow an exception for matters that have "received substantial publicity, or about which the community needs to be reassured," but only with approval from Justice Department superiors. Comey said he had not coordinated or reviewed" his statement with anyone at Justice, though that does not exclude the chance he obtained approval to make some statement.
Comey gambled, putting himself forward in a charged process. To avoid the perception of political influence, he served up a statement that will play a significant role in electoral politics. He may have done it to protect the reputation of his agency, and maybe even the federal justice system; noble goals, but still political ones.
See original article on Fortune.com
More from Fortune.com
Hollywood has inflicted revenge on Nazis many times, though with varying degrees of adherence to fact. In the forthcoming film Anthropoid, director and co-writer Sean Ellis dramatizes the true story of the 1942 operation, from which the movie takes its name, to assassinate one of the main architects of the Holocaust, Reinhard Heydrich.
This weighty mission, designed by the British Special Operations Executive, fell on the shoulders of two Czechoslovakian operatives, Josef Gabcik (played by Cillian Murphy) and Jan Kubis (Jamie Dornan). When Gabcik and Kubis are parachuted into their occupied homeland at the close of 1941, their resources are as limited as their task is great: take out Hitlers third-in-command, a figure the Fuhrer himself dubbed the man with the iron heart.
In the clip above, premiering exclusively on TIME, Murphy and Dornans soldiers lay out the challenge that lies before them only to be met with impassioned skepticism. You kill Heydrich and Hitler will tear Prague apart, goes the warning. Its a threat that not only makes for compelling drama, but one that history bore out: Operation Anthropoid was followed by brutal reprisals, with thousands of Czechs murdered in retaliation.
Discussing his role at a press conference last year, Dornan said that his characters mission is one he had little trouble identifying with. This is murder in a sense, he said, but its for a greater good.
Anthropoid hits theaters Aug. 12.
American listeners' infatuation with featherweight pop hits - which often borrow rhythms from overseas - continues to grow stronger. Drake's "One Dance" has been the country's No. 1 hit for 7 weeks, while Sia's collaboration with Sean Paul, "Cheap Thrills," recently cracked the top 10. This is not just a summer fling anymore, either: Justin Bieber's "Sorry" held onto the No. 1 spot for three weeks starting in January, and Rihanna's "Work" started a lengthy run beginning in March.
Classixx Traveled the World and Soul-Searched for Sophomore Album 'Faraway Reach'
As listeners crave music that scratches a specific itch, smaller names have a chance to earn notice. In June, a song titled "African Sun" shot into Spotify's U.S. Viral 50 chart. It's a breezy track with all the elements of a warm weather pop hit: marimbas and a gentle but firm beat that won't scare off those who want to sway rather than commit fully to dancing. But its author, Jamie Prado, is relatively unknown.
Nathan Hayes, the man behind Prado's music, actually entered the world of DJing through the subgenre known as drum and bass. When he first started attending raves, he was drawn to the more extreme end of the experience. "There's always the jungle room at every party," he tells Billboard. "It was usually in the basement, three flights down, dingy and dark and nobody cared. That's always where I ended up."
At the time, the sound in these rooms appealed to several of his musical interests. "I was a big reggae head, a big ska head," Hayes says. He also liked the energy of punk. Drum and bass maintains a strong connection to reggae while also incorporating the ballistic energy - the music often hovers above 170 b.p.m. - that Hayes enjoyed in his high school punk bands.
Netsky Talks Moving to Major Label & Beyond Drum and Bass
A chance encounter in a used CD store led him towards the softer edge of the genre. "I ran across LTJ Bukem's Logical Progression 1," Hayes recalls. "[Bukem] really kind of pioneered the atmospheric, intelligent, whatever you want to call it drum and bass scene. It was a lot lighter in sound and energy and rhythm compared to what I had been hearing."
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In North Carolina, where he was living at the time, Hayes found a group of likeminded DJs to form what he calls "a little crew of drum and bass heads." Working under his own name or the alias Atlantic Connection, he also put out a series of releases through labels that specialized in the genre, many of which were based in the U.K., like Renegade and Spearhead.
Hayes' drum and bass trajectory was interrupted by a mission of self-discovery. "I was adopted from Colombia," he explains. "Three or so years ago, I decided I wanted to retrace my ethnic roots and maybe take a trip to Colombia. I went back to North Carolina to my family's home and started going through old adoption records."
Though Hayes suggests that the birth names of many adopted children are not disclosed, he was able to find his in the old adoption papers. "There was actually a name that was attached to me before I was adopted," he says. "That name was Jamie Prado." The discovery of his original title gave him extra impetus for a trip to Colombia; it also served as the name of his new creative endeavor. "This was a perfect opportunity to explore the house sound that I've always wanted to do," Hayes notes. "But also in the process of writing that music, understand who I am as an artist and wrap my head around this name."
Hayes sees little difference between drum and bass and house. "When I made the transition, it was really easy," he explains. "A lot of the sounds are the same. An organ bassline - that's a sound that originated in house before being adapted into drum and bass, but I didn't know that at the time, cause all I listened to was drum and bass. It's like I just slowed it down a little bit, but I still pull from the same sample collection, I still write with the mentality of intro, breakdown, drop, second breakdown, outro."
The DJ now returns to Bogata "every couple months," and he believes this benefits his music, largely by exposing him to music that his peers - and competitors - aren't hearing. "There's a lot of hyper enthusiasm in the Colombian music scene," Hayes says. "And a lot of experimentation and incorporation of native sounds: salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, samba, bossa nova, calypso. They all get stirred into the pot."
Despite having more distance from the American electronic music scene, "African Sun" - which quickly became Hayes' most popular tune on Spotify - is squarely on-trend. "I started playing around with some marimbas," the producer remembers. "Obviously that's a very popular sound right now in dance music and has been for the last couple summers. I ran across that riff in 'African Sun' - what grabbed me about it was that it wasn't unlike the popular tropical house stuff that's happening, but it had a different chord progression. It had something a little more native-sounding to me." He later added electric guitar riffs, which bring a light serration to the soft pulse, and vocals sourced from a cd of African samples that he acquired in the '90s.
Though "African Sun" was signed by Artist Intelligence Agency's label Ivory Oasis, Hayes seems pleasantly surprised that it's bubbling on a streaming platform. "It's great to see it still have some life after several months of being out," he says, confessing that he has "absolutely no idea" why it suddenly garnered a burst of interest.
But "African Sun" listeners aren't the only ones eager to hear Prado's work. After the producer fell in love with the band Bomba Estereo, he managed to land two remixes on the group's official Amanecer remix album, which is coming out through Sony Music Latin by the end of the year.
Hayes believes his trips to Colombia played a key role in his recent successes: "It really helped my sound take on its own life," he says. As a result, a new audience is taking note.
* Gay sex legal in Japan since 1880, but still socially taboo
* LGBT rights not covered in equality or anti-discrimination laws
* Conservative LDP manifesto mentions LGBT rights for first time
* Some local governments, companies recognise same-sex couples
By Elaine Lies
TOKYO, July 7 (Reuters) - When openly gay independent candidate Wataru Ishizaka campaigned for a 2007 Tokyo local election, people snickered at his speeches, but now even Japan's conservative ruling party mentions gay rights in its platform for this year's upper house election.
Though the paragraph is deep in the manifesto of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and refers only to promoting understanding of sexual diversity, even this was unthinkable a decade ago.
By Asian standards, Japanese laws are relatively liberal - homosexual sex has been legal since 1880 - but social attitudes keep the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community largely invisible.
LGBT rights are not covered in Japan's Equal Opportunity Act and there are no anti-discrimination laws.
But things are changing.
Several municipalities, including two Tokyo districts, now give same-sex partners rights similar to spouses, as do a growing number of companies.
On his second attempt in 2011, Ishizawa won the Tokyo district assembly seat, and this time he said there were tears, not titters, when he spoke.
Gaku Hashimoto, an LDP lawmaker in the lower house of Parliament who sits on a committee working for a law on LGBT rights, said winning the hosting rights for the 2020 Summer Olympics had helped bring change, since the Olympic charter mandates equality, including on matters of sexual orientation.
"The LDP has some very conservative aspects, and I believe there weren't a lot of people aware of this issue, so without this outside pressure, things might not have come this far," said Hashimoto, son of a former prime minister.
"But at the same time, society has developed ... There's a lot of debate on the issue, and local governments are taking their own steps."
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Helping society understand LGBT issues and obtaining a social consensus should nevertheless come before anti-discrimination laws, he added.
Critics say the LDP mostly wants to burnish its image overseas before the Olympics, with an eye to luring tourists.
"The LDP and people in the core of government ... if they could get by without dealing with LGBT issues, they would. But there's the calculation that doing nothing looks bad overseas," said Akiko Shimizu, associate professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at Tokyo University.
"In reality they oppose same-sex marriage and don't clearly talk about laws to forbid discrimination."
Same-sex marriage remains a distant dream in Japan, where some gays still enter heterosexual marriages of convenience or sport wedding rings as straight camouflage.
"There's the whole family system ... - a father, a mother, children, and the inheriting of assets. Conservatives don't want to break this system down," Ishizaka said.
The main opposition party, the centrist Democratic Party, hasn't weighed in on same-sex marriage either, he added. Its manifesto does mention anti-discrimination measures.
"SPIRIT OF DIVERSITY"
Public views remain mixed. A 2015 survey by a research group led by Kazuya Kawaguchi at Hiroshima Shudo University found that while 51 percent of respondents supported the idea of same-sex marriage, they were less willing to countenance an LGBT relative, friend or colleague.
As many as 53.2 percent said they were repelled by the idea of a gay male friend.
But even this is an improvement, said Takahiko Morinaga, CEO of the new Japan LGBT Research institute, noting the influence of social media and news events such as the U.S. same-sex marriage ruling and Japan's winning the Olympics.
"Those of us in the gay community had pretty much given up, feeling strongly that Japan was not a place where you could expect to come out. These events gave us a bit of hope," he added.
"These things have really brought the global spirit of diversity to the attention of Japanese corporate executives, as well as media and ordinary citizens."
Panasonic Corp this spring joined a handful of firms that give same-sex partnerships some of the rights of married couples, while others allow same-sex partners family rights for phone bargain schemes and airline mileage.
With LGBT spending estimated at 5.9 trillion yen ($58 billion), others are eyeing the potential of the "pink yen" in Japan's stagnant economy.
"There are a lot of services that LGBT people want - insurance that includes a same-sex partner, housing, and services connected to ageing," said Morinaga.
Human resources personnel at Nomura Securities, a pioneer in Japanese LGBT inclusion since it bought U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008 and adopted its equality policies, say they are getting more inquiries from companies looking to implement diversity policies, including domestic firms eager to recruit and retain talent.
"It's starting to become a situation where if somebody does it, the others have to fall in line, especially in the same industry," said Yuki Higashi, Japan Head of Talent Management, Diversity & Inclusion at Nomura.
Politics might take a little longer to fall in line.
"We're aware that people say it's not enough, and that we aren't going as far as to ban things - but just to get this far, we've really had to balance the opinions of many people," said lawmaker Hashimoto. ($1 = 101.0400 yen) (Reporting by Elaine Lies; Editing by Will Waterman)
Santosh Nair
A far-fetched reality for most, Japan has legalised the use of cameras in place of rear-view mirrors. Weve all come across quite a few concept cars, at various auto shows that sport cameras instead of mirrors.
Thanks to the UN clearing this tech late last year, companies can now shift to cameras if they meet certain specifications. Such cars that have dumped the exterior mirrors and incorporate cameras have been on car designers wish list for some time now. For one, it added to the sleeker style quotient and secondly, improved safety and aerodynamics considerably.
Cameras have the ability to capture a wider angle of view and can also highlight blind spots. They also weigh lesser than a conventional mirror. Some examples use a 1.3-megapixel camera which offer a 160 degree view with notable clarity. Being the start of things to come, fine tuning of this tech along the way is of utmost priority.
Japans Ichikoh Industries and Germanys Robert Bosch GmbH have shown keen interest to supply this technology. Several countries like the USA and China are slated to indulge in this tech in the next few years. Initially, cost is expected to be seen as a challenge, however going by the benefits, it looks like its here to stay.
For more news,reviews,videos and information about cars, visit CarWale.com.
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By Linda Sieg TOKYO (Reuters) - A big win for Japan's prime minister and his allies in a Sunday election would raise concern that the government will switch its focus from a stuttering economy to revising the post-war, pacifist constitution to ease constraints on the military. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's coalition is in no danger of losing power in the election for half the 242-seat upper house, a vote he is portraying as a referendum on his "Abenomics" recipe of hyper-easy monetary policy, spending and reform, amid growing signs the strategy is not working. Media surveys published on Wednesday showed Abe's Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition and like-minded parties could win a two-thirds "super-majority" in the upper house of parliament. That would both allow Abe to assert he has a mandate for his economic policies and let the government begin the process of revising the constitution. "If the LDP wins big and together with like-minded parties, gets a two-thirds majority, the markets will see that as negative, because concerns will increase that the government will switch from putting priority on the economy to focus on constitutional revision," said Mitsuo Imaizumi, chief currency strategist at Daiwa Securities. Abe won a rare second term as prime minister in a 2012 election promising to reboot the long-stagnant economy, but his deeper agenda was to ease the limits of a pacifist constitution to let Japan play a bigger global security role. Conservatives see the constitution as a humiliating symbol of Japan's defeat in World War Two and as shackling the military. Its admirers consider it the source of post-war peace and democracy. Abe has recently played down his goal of changing the constitution but a big win on Sunday could open the door to achieving his long-held ambition, opposition politicians say. "During the campaign, Prime Minister Abe has not mentioned amendment of the constitution. This is a stealth approach," Katsuya Okada, leader of the opposition Democratic Party told a recent news conference. 'ABENOMICS IS STALLED' The Democratic Party and three small parties, backed by grassroots groups, are trying to prevent the ruling camp and its allies from winning the two-thirds majority. Amending the constitution requires two-thirds of seats in the upper house and the lower chamber, where the ruling bloc already has a "super majority", and a majority in a public referendum. Many voters are also apparently reluctant to see the proponents of revising the constitution win big. A Jiji news agency survey showed 49.6 percent of respondents did not want to see the LDP-led coalition and its allies win a two-thirds majority versus 31.5 percent who did. Turnout on Sunday will be closely watched in an election overshadowed by Britain's vote to leave the European Union, the death of seven Japanese in a militant attack in Bangladesh and a looming city election in Tokyo. Low turnout could undercut Abe's portrayal of the vote as an endorsement of his economic policies. "Even if the LDP wins big, there is a strong feeling that Abenomics is stalled and not many will see this as a positive mandate for it, Imaizumi added. The LDP has a shot at a simple majority in the upper house for the first time since 1989, while the LDP and its junior partner are all but certain to exceed Abe's target of taking a majority of the seats up for grabs, bolstering their grip on the chamber, the media surveys showed. The opposition alliance is struggling against memories of the Democrats' 2009-2012 rule when the government was plagued by infighting and policy flip flops. (Additional reporting by Daiki Iga; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Jenna Fischer and Greg Germann have been tapped to star in Meteor Shower, the new comedic play by Steve Martin that will reunite him with San Diegos The Old Globe. Thats the venue where Martin and Edie Brickell debuted their musical Bright Star, which ended up on Broadway and scored five Tony nominations after its 2015 bow.
Meteor Shower revolves around Norm and his wife Corky who invite another couple to their Ojai backyard to watch a meteor shower. As the stars come out and the conversation gets rolling, cocktails flow, tempers flare, and sparks fly literally. Alex Henrikson (Fish In The Dark) and Josh Stamberg (The Affair) will play the other couple, the production said.
Gordon Edelstein is directing in a co-production with Long Wharf Theatre, where he serves as artistic director. The play begins previews July 30 and will run through September 11, with opening night August 7 at the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, part of the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. The Old Globe has extended the run by a week due to ticket demand, it said today.
Martin isnt done at the Globe yet: In February, as part of the 2016-2017 season, the venue will mount a production of his comedy Picasso At The Lapin Agile set to run February 4-March 12, 2017.
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Jesse Williams said on Wednesday that there is not a single sane sentence in the Change.org petition demanding ABC fire him from Greys Anatomy.
The actor addressed the petition again shortly after TheWrap published an article about the amount of signatures nearly quadrupling in 24 hours, and blamed media attention for the rise. Currently, over 19,300 people have hopped on board the petition calling his BET Awards acceptance speech a racist rant.
Because you keep incessantly promoting their cowardly intolerance, Williams tweeted with a link to TheWraps article. Not a single sane sentence in their claim. Not One.
Also Read: 6 Most Outlandish Online Petitions, From Jesse Williams to Piers Morgan
Williams previously addressed the petition by tweeting, Do not promote empty people & their tantrums. Pure clickbait to gain followers, attention & money, for themselves, not you. Never you.
While 19,000 may seem like a big number, heres some context. The most recent season of Greys Anatomy in which Williams appeared averaged approximately 8 million viewers per episode. That means just 0.002 percent of the shows audience providing those signing actually watch the Shondaland drama wants to see him fired. Good luck with that.
Also Read: Hollywood Reacts to Alton Sterling Police Shooting: 'Don't Rationalize Murder'
Shonda Rhimes has previously scoffed at the notion of firing Williams for his speech, which received a standing ovation from the crowd and was praised by many viewers on social media.
Williams used his time on stage at the BET Awards to call for an end to violence against the black community and police discrimination.
Story continues
Police somehow manage to de-escalate, disarm and not kill white people every day I dont want to hear anymore about how far weve come when paid public servants can pull a drive-by on 12 year old playing alone in the park in broad daylight, killing him on television and then going home to make a sandwich, Williams said in his speech, referencing the killing of unarmed Ohio child Tamir Rice.
Also Read: Jesse Williams' BET Speech: Here's What Offended Some People
[We are] dedicating our lives to getting money just to give it right back for someones brand on our body when we spent centuries praying with brands on our bodies, and now we pray to get paid for brands on our bodies, he continued.
If this was a white person making the same speech about an African American, the petition reads, they would have been fired and globally chastised, as they should be, but there has been no consequences to Williams actions.
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Petition to Fire Jesse Williams From 'Grey's' Nearly Quadruples Signatures in 24 Hours
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TOKYO, July 6 (Reuters) - Japanese government bonds rose on Wednesday, sending yields on longer maturities to fresh record lows as investors scurried into the safety of sovereign debt on fears of global fallout from Britain's vote to exit the European Union.
The benchmark 10-year yield fell 2 basis points to a record low minus 0.275 percent, while the 30-year JGB yield shed 3.5 basis points to 0.020 percent. after touching a record low of 0.015 percent earlier.
The 20-year JGB yield fell 2 basis points to 0.010 percent after some traders said it briefly fell as low as minus 0.005 percent earlier in the session, blipping into negative territory for the first time.
"Yields are hanging around zero percent. No one wants to buy at these levels, but no one wants to sell aggressively, either," said Tadashi Matsukawa, head of Japan fixed income at PineBridge Investments in Tokyo.
"The situation of the Italian banks makes me a little bit worried that Brexit effects will spread, and we need to be carefully watching the European banking sector," he said.
Shares in Italy's banks, which are groaning under a load of non-performing loans, plunged overnight.
Fears of financial contagion in the wake of the Brexit vote helped push the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield to a fresh record low of 1.341 percent in Asian trading on Wednesday, which added to the pressure to JGB yields.
September 10-year futures ended up 0.17 point at 153.48 after earlier scaling a record peak of 153.64.
(Reporting by Tokyo markets team; Editing by Richard Borsuk)
The Friends of the Black River invites the public to join its members for a walk through a restored prairie. Steve Humphrey will lead the walk on land he is restoring to native prairie flowers.
The free event will be held next Wednesday, July 13. Those interested in the walk-and-talk event can meet at 6 p.m. in the Black River Area Chamber of Commerce parking lot to carpool to the land.
Humphrey since 1991 has worked with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to return about 30 acres of a former farm to vegetation that would have grown on the land before European settlers converted it to agriculture.
Among the native plants now growing on the land include lupine, butterfly weed, lead plant, cup plant, blazing star, cone flowers, bee balm and various species of indigo. The variety of plants supports a diversity of wildlife. Humphrey also has created a pond and marsh habitat on the farm.
For more information, email to info_fbr@yahoo.com or call Steve Rake at (715) 284-2087.
The autopsy report for Jim Carrey's former girlfriend Cathriona White reveals the heartbreaking circumstances of how her friends discovered her body.
White, who fatally overdosed on prescription medication in September 2015, was discovered dead in her Los Angeles home by four friends after they became concerned when they didn't hear from her for four days following her split from Carrey the week prior, according to the documents. She died at age 30.
The friends told officers that White could have "depressive qualities" and after they had "not heard from [White] in some time," they became increasingly worried.
"They then all decided to go to White's house to check up on her in hopes of cheering her up," stated the report.
After White failed to answer the door when they knocked, the friends entered the backyard through an unlocked side gate.
White's friend Dennis Bradshaw told officers that he was able to see that the inside of the house looked dark and that the alarm was not on.
"He went inside and began looking for White and calling out her name," states the report. "He then found her in a back bedroom in her bed, and at first, though she might be sleeping. However, she was unresponsive to his calling out her name and he then got closer and realized she was deceased."
Once the rest of the friends entered the house and saw her body, they found White's phone and used it to call Carrey and inform him of her death. They then called 911.
White's friends had last heard from her on Sept. 23. On September 24, she wrote that she was "signing off" Twitter and briefly Facetimed Carrey around 10am. On September 27, Carrey sent White a text message asking about his prescription medication. The text went unanswered, according to the autopsy report.
Her body was not found until September 28.
White, who was from Ireland, and Carrey, 53, first met on a film set in 2012, but their relationship was on and off. Bradshaw told officers that she was normally happy and upbeat, but was prone to get "really down." He said that White had mentioned missing her family in Ireland, but added that she was "madly in love with Jim" and called their relationship a "rollercoaster."
At the time of her death, White was found with a suicide note addressed to the actor.
"I've spent 3 days now in disbelief that you're not here. I can go on brokenhearted and try to put the pieces back. I could, I just don't have the will this time," she wrote in a note found by police. She added, "I'm sorry you felt I wasn't there for you. I tried to give you my best part."
The toxicology report confirms that the death was a suicide and that White had a variety of prescription pills in her system at the time of her death, including propranolol (a beta blocker used to treat high blood pressure), zolpidem (a sleep aid sold as Ambien), and painkillers oxycodone and oxymorphone.
By Lesley Wroughton and Margarita Antidze TBILISI (Reuters) - Secretary of State John Kerry told ex-Soviet Georgia that the United States would help it bolster its army as he reassured a close U.S. ally days before a NATO summit expected to focus on the threat a resurgent Russia poses. Kerry, on his first visit to Georgia as Secretary of State, made the commitment ahead of a NATO summit in Warsaw on Friday at which members of the Western military alliance plan to announce action to deter possible Russian military aggression. Georgia and former Soviet states such as Moldova and Ukraine have become increasingly concerned by Russia's intentions after the Kremlin annexed Ukraine's Crimea in 2014 and launched air strikes in Syria last year. Moscow says such fears are unfounded and based on what it calls anti-Russian hysteria. In a memorandum of understanding signed on Wednesday by Kerry and Georgian Prime Minister Georgy Kvirikashvili, the United States promised to bolster Georgia's ability to defend itself against potential threats. That meant greater military and security cooperation, enhanced information sharing, and help building up defense capacity, such as improving combat readiness and supporting defense procurement, the document said. Until now, U.S. security support has focused on training Georgian troops for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. "The United States stands firm in its commitment to Georgias sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders," Kerry told reporters. Georgia, which is crisscrossed by strategically important oil and gas pipelines, fought and lost a short war with Russia in 2008. Moscow then recognized two breakaway pro-Kremlin Georgian regions - South Ossetia and Abkhazia - as independent countries, though most other countries have not. "Russia's occupation and militarization of parts of Georgia's territory are unacceptable," said Kerry. "We continue to call on Russia to fulfill its obligations under the 2008 ceasefire agreement, including a withdrawal of its forces to pre-conflict positions." Moscow for its part has accused the West, notably Washington, of stirring anti-Russian feelings in former Soviet states it deems part of its own sphere of influence. Kerry visits Ukraine next, on Thursday, before heading to Warsaw to join U.S. President Barack Obama for the NATO summit. In Ukraine, Kerry's third visit there since Russia annexed Crimea, he will focus on the implementation of the Minsk peace accords and the country's reform agenda. It will be Kerry's first chance to meet new Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman. (Writing by Lesley Wroughton and Andrew Osborn; Editing by Larry King)
Just FYI, there might be a huge avocado shortage
Just FYI, there might be a huge avocado shortage
Well need to get pretty innovative with our appetizer recipes this summer.
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According to the L.A. Times (by way of Time.com), avocados are in trouble. Why? Because of the extreme California heat wave we just experienced it caused avocado trees to wither across the lower half of the state. Not a good time for avocados to poop out on us, because sales typically spike during this time of year So, sales typically spike during this time of year. All of this means avocado may not be able to produce enough avocados for us this summer. *infinitely sobs*
The Times also reported that importing avocados from Mexico may not even be an option this season, as the Mexican growers appear to have miscalculated the size of the market. Heath Shoup of West Pak Avocado told the LA Times that Mexican growers overestimated and underperformed this year. There are not enough avocados in the industry right now to supply the demand, says Shoup. The news just keep getting worse and WORSE.
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Weve been here for 25 years, and this has never happened before, said Jeanne Davis, a California avocado grower from Coyote Growers. Davis was ending her Hass season just before the heat wave negatively impacted her six-acre Fallbrook orchard.
Tom Bellamore, president of the California Avocado Commission, isnt quite sure of the long-term damage the three-digit heat wave may have caused. After the heat, it takes a while for the effects to manifest themselves, so at this point, were uncertain if there is a loss or not to next years crop, says Bellamore.
So not only is there avocado damage, but we dont even know how bad the damage is. YIKES.
The post Just FYI, there might be a huge avocado shortage appeared first on HelloGiggles.
The governor of Louisiana on Wednesday called for calm amid local protests and national outrage Wednesday as he announced that the U.S. Department of Justice will investigate the shooting death of Alton Sterling, a black man killed by police in Baton Rouge.
The Justice Department has opened a civil rights probe into Sterlings fatal shooting, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said at a news conference. The department confirmed the start of the investigation on Twitter.
Edwards said there should be no doubt in anybodys mind that the investigation will be conducted fairly and thoroughly. When the community understands that, the tensions will ease and well continue to press for calm and patience, he told reporters. Thats what Im asking for right now.
BREAKING: DOJ has opened a civil rights investigation into the death of Alton Sterling. Melanie R. Newman (@MelanieDOJ) July 6, 2016
Sterling, 37, was shot dead while police apparently pinned him down outside a convenience store. The incident was caught on video and prompted calls for boycotts of the local mall and for the police chief to be fired or resign.
Baton Rouge Police said two officers responded to a disturbance call outside the store about 12:30 a.m. Tuesday. A caller told a dispatcher that a black man in a red shirt who was selling CDs had threatened him with a gun. An altercation between Sterling and the officers ensued. Sterling was shot during the altercation and died at the scene, the police department said in a statement.
The two officers have been placed on administrative leave.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama is aware of the situation in Baton Rouge but Earnest declined to comment further, citing the Justice Department investigation. Regardless of what the investigation finds, there is a family in Baton Rouge and theres a community thats grieving right now, Earnest said. Were thinking about them as they endure that grief.
(WASHINGTON) The Justice Departments investigation into Hillary Clintons email setup has been formally closed without any criminal charges, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Wednesday.
The decision had been expected and was largely a formality given FBI Director James Comeys recommendation a day earlier against any prosecution. Even before Comeys public statement, Lynch had said she intended to accept the recommendations of the FBI director and of her career prosecutors.
Even so, it officially closes out an FBI investigation that had dogged Clinton for the last year and had proved a distraction on the campaign trail.
Lynch said she met with Comey and prosecutors Wednesday and agreed that the investigation, which looked into the potential mishandling of classified information, should be concluded.
I received and accepted their unanimous recommendation that the thorough, year-long investigation be closed and that no charges be brought against any individuals within the scope of the investigation, Lynch said in a statement.
Comey, in an unusually detailed and public accounting of the investigation Tuesday, said no reasonable prosecutor would pursue a criminal case and said he was advising the Justice Department against bringing any charges. But he also rebuked Clinton, who relied exclusively on a private email server as secretary of state, and her aides for being extremely careless with their handling of classified information.
Comey was scheduled to face questions about that decision in an appearance Thursday before a House committee.
FBI agents spent the last year investigating the matter following a referral from the intelligence communitys inspector general. As part of that investigation, investigators pored through tens of thousands of State Department emails and interviewed top Clinton aides and finally, Clinton herself this past weekend.
Lynch on Friday announced she was prepared to endorse whatever findings and recommendations were presented to her. Though she said she had already settled on that process, the announcement came just days after she had an unscheduled meeting with Bill Clinton aboard her plane in Phoenix. Lynch said the investigation as not discussed, but she acknowledged that the meeting had cast a shadow on the process and led to questions about the independence of the investigation.
After a vigorous investigation of Hillary Clintons email server, FBI Director James Comey concluded on Tuesday that there wasnt enough evidence to indict Hillary Clinton. He claimed that Clinton was extremely careless with her emails but no charges were recommended.
On the FOX Business Network's Mornings with Maria, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani claimed that gross negligence is the same as being "extremely careless."
[Comey] is in charge of a very proud agency that does investigations, that protects the citizens, looks after their welfare, looks after their assets and looks after their intellectual property and solves kidnapping cases and does all of these wonderful things and should not be making political decisions, former FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom told the FOX Business Networks Deirdre Bolton.
Kallstrom said that FBI Director Comey is a "good and peace loving guy" but regardless, has to be tough.
The FBI Director cant be a soft marshmallow; The FBI Director has to stand up for the American people. The FBI Director has to stand up for the citizens, for the children, he said.
Kallstrom also said that the FBI Director should not be making political decisions.
Comey should have resigned or could have laid the facts out and said let the attorney general decide whether Clinton should be prosecuted or not and put that mantel on the Attorney General and not the FBI, he said.
Comey is expected to testify before Congress Thursday morning.
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Roberto Ando takes great delight in destabilizing established orders, if only on-screen. In 2013s euphoriant Long Live Freedom, he substituted a worn-out center-left politician with his over-the-top twin brother a philosopher just released from the psychiatric hospital who ultimately proved to be a much more popular and visionary candidate. Now, in his quasi-metaphysical thriller The Confessions, the Italian director disrupts a G8 summit by slipping in a mysterious and unorthodox monk, casting the same actor (Italian idol Toni Servillo) in the lead. As Ando told audiences before the films premiere at the Karlovy Vary film fest, The Confessions was born from a feeling of dissatisfaction toward how the power is handled and that very contemporary and international concern should offer the Italian film a rich life beyond its own borders.
Somewhere in Germany, in a luxury hotel requisitioned by the G8 organizers and placed under the highest supervision, leaders from eight of the most powerful countries in the world (played by Pierfrancesco Favino, Marie-Josee Croze, Richard Sammel, Stephane Freiss, Togo Igawa, Andy de la Tour, John Keogh and Aleksei Guskov, accompanied by Moritz Bleibtreu as a secret service agent) discuss their top-secret new plan for the planet. Their little gathering is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of three outside observers: rock star Michael Wintzl (Johan Heldenbergh), acclaimed childrens novelist Claire Seth (Connie Nielsen) and the Italian monk and author Roberto Salus (Servillo), who exceptionally accepted to break his vow of silence.
The newcomers presence obviously worries the white-collar assembly, though it appears that the three civilians have been personally invited by International Monetary Fund director Daniel Roche (Daniel Auteuil), an outrageously rich and powerful man whose unusual behaviour masks his more surprising actual agenda: The IMF director wants the quiet monk to hear his confession.
Shortly after their clandestine discussion, the freshly confessed economist is found dead in his room, suffocated in a plastic bag that belonged to the monk. The G8 assembly is more puzzled than ever: What secret did the monk became the custodian of? Given the choice to describe the death as a murder or a suicide, which public announcement would destabilize the stock market the less?
Naming a real institution the International Monetary Fund to host the action was a bold decision explained by the directors intention to picture the heart of economic power as a neurotic organism capable of undermining itself: Convinced that they have a scientific authority on all things, the arrogant ministers lose their aplomb in the presence of a man who considers himself absolutely free and inalienable since his life belongs to God.
Both the other guests the musician and the writer could also have embodied an alternative vision of freedom, by means of creation instead of religion. Unfortunately, Ando and Angelo Pasquinis script doesnt dwell long enough on these characters. Instead, the monk serves as the epicentre of the narrative, and Servillos soulful gaze gives the wise man a placid charisma: He tapes bird songs on his recorder and believes silence is the ultimate form of freedom. But this focus on Servillos character, along with attention to a few others (namely Croze and Favino as the guilt-ridden ministers from Canada and Italy, respectively), also has its purpose: The Confessions is a philosophical thriller in which characters contemplate the meaning of time or the concept of creative destruction in international relations. By giving it the aspect of a more traditional whodunit, Ando makes his story enjoyable by the general audience, as his elegant mise en scene and voluntarily classical composition often perfectly geometrical, with intimate closeups on faces, bolstered by Nicola Piovanis graceful score makes the narration instantly readable.
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How can a lonely woman break out of a decades-long devolution into dowdiness and invisibility? Thereby hangs a tail in Russian director Ivan I. Tverdovskys second feature after his well-received Corrections Class in 2014. Following a downtrodden office worker who has inexplicably sprouted a long, fleshy tail and who experiences a brief Indian summer when she finds love and acceptance in the arms of a younger man, Zoology, however, is a bit of a muddle of metaphor and meaning. The overtly fable-like structure of the story compels us to search for various different allegorical readings psychological, social, political but Tverdovsky, who also co-wrote the screenplay, overloads his simple, provocative premise with too many clashing ideas, which blunts its potential impact and obscures its message, to the extent that the film ends up tripping over its own caudal appendage.
But the fault certainly does not lie with lead actress Natalia Pavlenkova (who reunites with Tverdovsky). Shes committed and convincing in the role of Natasha, so much so that she sells some of the less believable psychological contortions her character is required to perform through sheer force of conviction, and thus papers over some of the films cracks in logic. And she also gets to undergo an all-time great ugly duckling makeover transition halfway through: If nothing else, Zoology is a shining testament to the rejuvenating power of a new hairdo.
Natasha is in her mid-fifties and her life consists of a job in zoo administration at which shes despised by her colleagues, frequent visits to the zoo animals she adores, and a life at home with her aged, God-fearing, superstitious mother and a cat, who dies. Suddenly, she grows a tail. (Its a bit of an issue how vague the timeline is and that her unhappy spinsterish lifestyle predates this event by so long, but the why now? question is never answered.) Natasha learns how to hide the appendage a nicely grotesque practical effect programmed to twitch and spasm autonomously wearing shapeless skirts and tucking it, despite its bulk, into her underwear.
The doctor she visits merely glances at it and orders an X-ray. The radiologist is a handsome, personable young man, Peter (Dmitri Groshev), whose own reaction to her peculiarity is encouragingly accepting. They meet again, they get drunk, Natasha gets her hair done, buys a sparkly dress, and they start to date. Meanwhile, word has seeped out into this superstitious little seaside town of a woman with a tail, and the locals trade rumors that she is a demon with nefarious powers.
Thus far it is unfolding nicely, and the subtle, cool-toned palette of Alexander Mikeladzes camerawork makes the most of its interesting, practical locations. But then the waters get muddier. The impulses of the films social allegory which might suggest that conformity is dangerous and one should let ones freak flag fly are countermanded by the more personal reading, in which Natasha is ultimately grossed out by Peters way-too-into-it sexual enthusiasm for her tail. And thats where the metaphor breaks down, because if the tail stands for Natashas individuality, how can Peter getting off on it be a bad thing? Beyond that, isnt it the wrong message that Natashas newfound self-worth should in fact not derive from her tail, or her own relationship to it, but from her belief that this hot guy liked her in spite of it? The films tentative ambitions as a manifesto for accepting and celebrating your own uniqueness are dented by Natashas reliance on the approval of others, especially when those others are, in Tverdovskys pessimistic worldview, hardly worth the bother.
Indeed, theres very little warmth in how the film treats its supporting characters from the bullying harpies at Natashas office, to the unsympathetic Orthodox priest who denies her communion, to her own mother, obsessively painting crosses all over the walls to ward off the demon she doesnt realize lives inside the house. Even Natasha, ostensibly the soul worth saving here, ends up worse off than she was before her brief interlude of happiness. Zoology has provocative moments and a well-judged performance at its center, but the rather easy cynicism of its final act leaves us unsure of what overall conclusion to draw, except that with a tail or without, as a proud, take-me-as-I-am freak or a dowdy dont-look-at-me dormouse, who would even want to engage with this loveless, spiteful world?
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Taiwan's main opposition Democratic Progressive Party, DPP, Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen speaks during a press conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on April 15, 2015. [Photo/IC]
Zhang Zhijun, the Chinese mainland's Taiwan affairs chief, has urged Taiwan officials to give a "responsible explanation" for the misfiring of a missile. The island's authorities confirmed on Friday afternoon that the navy had misfired a missile that morning, which hit a Taiwan fishing boat in the waters off the island, killing one person and injuring three people.
In response, Taiwan new leader Tsai Ing-wen has called for strict "military" discipline and promised a full explanation to the mainland and neighboring states. Also, the island's "military" issued a written report on Monday explaining the entire incident.
Speculations aside, the island's poor "defense" management and disorderly training program is to be blamed for the "failure of personnel to follow procedures during a test". On the one hand, many of the island's "defense" personnel, especially new recruits, are not adept at handling cutting-edge weapons like anti-ship missiles, with the misfiring of the missile being a case in point. On the other hand, the incident may have a lot to do with the low morale of and simmering discontent among the "defense" personnel.
The Taiwan "defense" sector has long fallen victim to populism. The recent public protest against some soldiers who had killed a stray dog, for example, prompted the offenders and a senior official to apologize twice, dealing another blow to the "defense" department's image.
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party, too, has challenged the authority and competence of the "defense" forces beforeit did so even after DPP chairwoman Tsai assumed office in May.
True, there is no need to over-interpret the misfiring of the missile on Friday. But absurd as it may sound, similar incidents have taken place even earlier. Until now, mainland authorities have exercised restraint on such "accidents", which some observers say, was "created" to urge the mainland to restart the cross-Straits communication mechanism.
But the truth is, whether or not the misfiring of the missile conveys such a political urge, both sides can cooperate only on the political basis of the 1992 Consensus.
Indeed, the incident highlights the importance of timely communication between the mainland and Taiwanit reportedly took the latter eight hours to report to the mainland Taiwan affairs office perhaps because of the temporary suspension of the hotline.
It is therefore important for Tsai and her DPP to make clear their stance on the 1992 Consensus and, hopefully, acknowledge it if they really want the resumption of communications. Otherwise, they have to take the blame for and have to deal with any untoward outcome in the absence of candid exchanges.
The author is a professor at the Institute of Taiwan Studies, Beijing Union University. The article is an excerpt from his interview with China Daily's Cui Shoufeng.
Houston County is to be envied.
That was the word from Dr. Ross Reichard, medical examiner for the Southern Minnesota Regional Medical Examiners Office, which oversees Dodge, Fillmore, Goodhue, Houston, Olmsted, Wabasha, and Winona counties, and who addressed the Houston County Board of Commissioners at its June 28 meeting.
Commissioner Dana Kjome was absent from the meeting.
Reichard was there to present the medical examiners annual data report, which oversaw 98 cases in 2015. He also said his office finally received accreditation in the fall by the National Association of Medical Examiners, a major organization; its also a major deal, as only a small number of offices across the country have it, he said, and it took a number of years to accomplish.
As for the report, Reichard said it covered deaths that occurred in Houston County, which doesnt necessarily mean a residents death, which is an important distinction to make.
What he called a high-level summary showed that 98 deaths were reported; of those, his office did complete autopsies on 20.
We like having that larger number that are reported to us, compared to a smaller number that were doing full post-mortem examinations, Reichard said, because that sort of tells us that a lot of people are reporting things to us.
A high number is the driver for the data because, he said, they cant investigate cases if theyre not called.
He dubbed the report a good thing, which showed evidence of a robust reporting system in the area.
On a death certificate, Reichard said, there are several key reporting fields, including the cause and manner of death. Natural deaths constitute a vast majority of the report.
In 2015, 80 of the reported deaths were of natural causes, with one suicide and 17 defined as accidental.
This is what were aspiring to be, is people passing away from natural causes, he said.
The leading cause of the natural deaths was cardiac disease, he said, with cancer a close second.
Six of the unnatural deaths were fall-related, and that came as something of a surprise. Not as much of a surprise is that 80 of the deaths were in the age category of 65-years-old and up, with a further 15 falling into the 45 to 64-years-old bracket, and only one between 18 to 25-years-old. Two more were between 26 to 44-years-old.
Of the remaining data, two deaths were caused by poison/drugs, six by motor vehicles, and three by other means.
He also noted it has been several years without any homicides in Houston County.
There are a lot of places in the country that would envy this type of data for themselves, Reichard said.
County auction site approved
Sheriff Mark Inglett asked the board to approve MinnBid for auction purposes within his department. The board had previously approved the use of the online Dar auction site.
Inglett said the MinnBid site would likely be used for squad and forfeiture vehicles, and it is state-wide site and well-utilized.
The cost would be $50 for items up to $500, 8 percent of the sales price for items $501 to $4,000, and 6 percent of the sales price for items over $4,000, with a maximum sellers fee of $1,000.
One of our local police departments sold a squad car on there recently and received quite a bit more than weve received in the past, Inglett said.
Inglett pointed out that, in the past, local county auctions have brought in much less revenue.
I think thats my job, to make sure we get as much money for these vehicles as we can, he said.
Chairman Judy Storlie agreed, but said it was the boards job to know where things are being sold. She wanted to table the decision, saying she didnt feel comfortable opening up items to websites without a formal policy in place for tracking the items.
County auditor Char Meiners said tracking wasnt an issue.
I guess were keeping track of that, Meiners said.
Storlie said she was unaware of that, and asked Meiners if she was the contact person in the advent of any questions.
Meiners said she has been in the past for the county auctions. She also said she collaborates with the county departments already.
We have to work together even for the insurance on the vehicles and stuff, Meiners said.
Inglett explained proceeds from forfeitures are split between various departments by percentage, with Meiners adding that everything is tracked for the state auditors.
Inglett said items would not be added online willy nilly.
I think thats where you have to have trust in your department heads, Inglett said.
The vote to approve the MinnBid site was unanimous, with the board also approving to have a list of the approved auction sites appearing on the countys website with attendant links.
Highway shop
County engineer Brian Pogodzinski gave a brief county highway shop update.
Pogodzinski said he met with commissioners Justin Zmyewski and Steve Schuldt the prior week, with the focus now on looking at individual aspects of the projects spacing needs at its current site adjacent to the countys fairgrounds.
The team looked at the square footage of each individual space, including office areas; no formal changes have been made to the plans that have previously been presented to the board, Pogodzinski said.
Items for re-evaluation include restrooms and the width of the bays for the open storage areas, he said, with the possibility of reducing those by an estimated three feet.
Pogodzinski said theres also the possibility of sharing a building with the fairgrounds, which potentially could get a new hog and sheep building.
Schuldt said he met with the fair board the previous Sunday.
Im not sure how receptive they are to sharing the facility, Pogodzinski said.
Schuldt said they didnt appear to be receptive, as the fair board wants a non-cement floor, non-insulated building with drop-down panels so it would be open air. It could work as cold storage, he said, but not heated.
For the type of building theyre looking for, itd be overkill, Schuldt said.
The fair board also wants to be able to use it year-round, which could be an issue. Discussions could continue if desired by the county board.
They invited us to their meeting at any time, Schuldt said.
Pogodzinski said next steps include looking at the previous site layout, especially at parking stalls, as well as salt and gravel storage space. He said he will look at whats currently on the site and how they could restructure it to house more without increasing the current sites footprint; theres also the possibility of making it a two-story building, but that would require further discussion.
No new meeting was scheduled at this time.
In other news
Pogodzinski asked for an approval for the crack-filling and seal-coating job for the county airports runway, apron and hanger areas.
The low bid was $135,746 from Fahrner Asphalt Sealers, with the only other bid from Struck and Irwin Paving totaling $142,900. The engineers estimate was $176,667.
The board unanimously approved the Fahrner Asphalt Sealers bid for the job.
Deputy Sheriff Travis Lapham asked the board for its approval of a joint powers agreement, along with a court amendment resolution, for cross-departmental access to portals, multiple programs, and data. The joint powers are spread between the sheriffs department, the county attorneys office, the BCA, and the courts; it essentially ensures the functioning of accident reports, charging, and the day-to-day tools of the various departments jobs. The agreement and amendment are on a five-year renewal.
I guess, in short, we cant do our work without this stuff, attorney Sam Jandt said.
The vote to approve the agreement and the resolution was unanimous.
On recommendation of county planning and zoning director Aaron Lacher, the board unanimously approved an interim-use permit, set to expire Nov. 17, for Mathy Construction to set up a temporary bituminous plant in an agricultural protection district in Mayville Township. The permit had already passed the planning commission.
The board also unanimously approved 10 zoning permits, with Zmyeweski abstaining from one, as he was the applicant.
The board also unanimously approved the following human resource requests:
The assigning of Samantha Hancock as probationary Lead Jailer, effective June 29, at $27.41 per hour; the amendment to a hire start date for Scott Jennings as jail/dispatcher from July 11 to July 7; the extension of Mary Marchel as interim director of human services for the extent of Linda Bahrs absence, which wasnt further defined; and the hire of Larissa McCann as an environmental services clerk, a 67-day temporary employee, at $14.83 per hour, effective immediately.
The board then went into closed session to discuss an ongoing litigation matter.
KARLOVY VARY Italian director Roberto Andos latest film, Le confessioni (The Confessions), is a spiritual sequel to his 2013 hit Viva la liberta (Long Live Freedom). While his previous film provided a satirical look at Italian politics, The Confessions broadens the filmmakers canvass to skewer global economic institutions.
The mystery thriller, which is vying for Karlovy Vary Film Festivals Crystal Globe, centers on a simple monk, played by Toni Servillo, who upsets the goings-on at a G8 meeting in a seaside hotel in northern Germany (the Grand Hotel Heiligendamm, which actually hosted a G8 meeting in 2007) after a high-ranking official is found dead. The films international cast includes Daniel Auteuil, Connie Nielsen, Marie-Josee Croze, Pierfrancesco Favino, Lambert Wilson and Moritz Bleibtreu.
Produced by Angelo Barbagallo, the film has already sold to a number of territories worldwide via Italian sales company True Colours, including major markets in Europe, Asia and Latin America. The Confessions was produced by BiBi Film in coproduction with Barbary Films.
Variety spoke with Ando in Karlovy Vary.
Your last film, Long Live Freedom, dealt with Italian politics. Was your intention with this film to examine global politics?
Yes, I think its really connected with Viva la liberta. That film concerned politics and people who work in politics. Here, the film deals with people who work behind the scenes: Economists, people who work with the banks, where the money is. These are the only politics we have now. We dont really have politics, its all only a question of money. Its also connected to my previous film in that there is again a stranger. In Viva la liberta the stranger, also played by Toni Servillo, was [a political leaders] twin brother, a crazy man. Here he is a monk.
In what way does the monk, a member of the Carthusian Order, who in the film seems to be the voice of compassion and rationality, represent the church?
Monks do not represent the church. They have always been separate and independent from the church. In many different situations, there have been conflicts between monks and the church. They live in a world of no power and sometimes they became too eccentric for the church. They work in agriculture, they restore books. They are people who take care of something. And they are disciplined.
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Was the character of the monk influenced by Pope Francis, who is very different to previous popes and often speaks out against the wealthy who exploit the poor?
Its interesting because we just came back from Argentina [where the film screened at Semana de Cine Italiano in Buenos Aires], and people were crazy about the movie, I think because its a place where all these kinds of problems are really evident, but also because of the influence of the pope. What I think is that the pope is an isolated man in the church. He is not the church, he is a stranger. The ideology although its not really an ideology of Franciscanism is taking care of something in a different way. For me, this is really the solution. In our world, we have arrived at a moment in which capitalism is not working any more. We have to deal from the standpoint of how to start again. This is the moment in which we live. ISIS is also a face of that, I think. We have had 15 years of neoliberalism, and this is the real politics all over the world. There are no differences in all of Europe, leaders all speak about austerity.
What motivated you to tell this story?
I was very attracted to this monk and the chance to let him meet these people and see what happens. I saw him as a real character who explores this world that pretends to be rational, that pretends to be truthful and pretends to take responsibility.
What is your next project?
Im writing a series. Its the first series about politics. In Italy nobody has done that. We have seen House of Cards but we dont have an Italian one, so Im trying to do that. I will do it next year with RAI. Its called Lirresistible ascesa (The Irresistible Rise). What interests me is mixing different situations in politics with the human side.
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From Cosmopolitan
After rocking worlds with her mystery outfit and truly retro hair net over the weekend in France, Kate Middleton re-emerged in England on Wednesday to attend a dinner at London's Natural History Museum.
To present the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2016 Prize, the Duchess of Cambridge stepped out in a beautiful cream dress with a fitted bodice and pleated skirt, and took a fashion risk by showing off her bare shoulders (and yes, an off-the-shoulder look definitely counts as ~bold~ish for a senior royal!).
As pointed out by What Kate Wore, the dress is from designer Barbara Casasola's spring 2016 collection and was priced at $2,385 in a trunk show on Moda Operandi. (It was also sold as separates, but the crop top would have been far too much skin for the Duchess.)
Kate's hair was looking especially on point for the event. She wore it down with good volume and a bouncy curl at the ends.
Even a hint of skin was enough to throw everyone off. The Daily Mail's royal correspondent Rebecca English went as far as to call it vampy.
And while normally, I'd be like, Rebecca, please, calm yourself, I do see here that Kate is smiling in a - dare I say it - flirtatious way? So wow, maybe we're entering the dawn of sexy Duchess Kate. Here's to hoping? No more hair nets!
Kate also revealed an adorable little tidbit about Prince George, who she likes to take to museums. She revealed that George likes the 3D sculptures at the Natural History Museum, according to the Sun's Emily Andrews.
According to the Daily Mail, she ate the appetizer (asparagus and quail egg) and main course (sea bream and crushed potatoes) at the dinner but didn't eat dessert. Everything in moderation for the Duchess.
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The magic spotters of the Internet have noticed that a recent photo of the royals seems to show both of Kate Middletons feet off the ground at the same time.
The photo depicts Middleton walking beside Prince William, Prince Harry and Prime Minister David Cameron in Thiepval, France to honor the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme on Friday. Thanks to irrefutable photo evidence an optical illusion, it looks like shes floating above the ground. (Gaze closely, and youll see it only looks this way because the footbed of her right pump matches the ground.)
While the likelihood that she can levitate is on par with two identical snowflakes, its pretty clear she can fly. Now that this evidence exists, its safe to say that William and the rest of the lot are powerful people, but theyre nothing more than a bunch of Muggles.
Kate Middleton floating pic.twitter.com/25iXFZmObn aimee hutton (@ahluhhuhh) July 2, 2016
[EOnline]
NAIROBI (Reuters) - The weighted average yields on Kenya 182-day and 364-day Treasury bills rose at auction on Wednesday, while the yield on the 91-day bill slipped, the central bank said. The yields on the 182-day bill rose to 9.647 percent from 9.393 percent last week and the 364-day yield climbed to 10.952 percent from 10.676 percent. The yield on the 91-day bills dipped to 7.027 percent from 7.045 percent last week. The bank offered bills worth a total of 16 billion shillings ($158.21 million) and accepted bids worth 5.8 billion shillings. The central bank said it would offer bills on all three tenors worth 16 billion shillings next week. ($1 = 101.1300 Kenyan shillings) (Writing by Edmund Blair, editing by Larry King)
TBILISI (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday he hoped a 72-hour truce in Syria was "a harbinger" that more ambitious and long-lasting similar deals could be struck. "We very much welcome the Syrian army declaration of 72-hours of quiet," Kerry told a news conference in Tbilisi, adding that discussions were underway to try to extend the truce. "We are trying very hard to grow these current discussions into a longer lasting ... enforceable, accountable cessation of hostilities that could change the dynamics on the ground," he said. The Syrian military declared a 72-hour "regime of calm" covering all of Syria from 1 a.m. on Wednesday (2200 GMT Tuesday), a military source told Reuters, although fighting and air attacks have been reported since then. (Reporting by Lesley Wroughton and Margarita Antidze; Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
London (AFP) - Britain's Iraq War Inquiry report on Wednesday heavily criticised intelligence, military and political leadership under then prime minister Tony Blair in the run-up to the 2003 invasion and during the conflict.
Here are four key conclusions from the damning 2.6 million word report by retired civil servant John Chilcot:
- Blair blindly went along with US war plans -
"I will be with you, whatever," said Blair's note to then US president George W. Bush on July 28, 2002 -- nearly a year before the March 2003 invasion.
"By early January (2003), Mr Blair had also concluded that 'the likelihood was war'. At the end of January, Mr Blair accepted the US timetable for military action by mid-March," the report said.
It concluded that Blair "set the UK on a path leading to diplomatic activity in the UN and the possibility of participation in military action in a way that would make it very difficult for the UK subsequently to withdraw its support for the US."
Blair "did not press President Bush for definite assurances about US plans, did not consider or seek advice about whether the absence of a satisfactory plan called for reassessment of the terms of the UK's engagement and did not make agreement on such a plan a condition of UK participation in military action".
- Britain failed to exhaust peaceful options -
"In the absence of a majority in support of military action, we consider that the UK was, in fact, undermining the Security Council's authority".
"We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort".
- War based on 'flawed intelligence' -
"It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged, and they should have been.
"Judgements about the severity of the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction -- WMD -- were presented with a certainty that was not justified."
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Chilcot said spy chiefs "should have made clear to Mr Blair that the assessed intelligence had not established 'beyond doubt' either that Iraq had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons, or that efforts to develop nuclear weapons continued".
But he was more cautious about the dossier on Iraq's weapons which was released by Blair's 10 Downing Street office in September 2002 and has become a focal point for criticism of the plan for war.
"There is no evidence that intelligence was improperly included in the dossier or that Number 10 improperly influenced the text," the report found.
- Plans for post-war Iraq 'wholly inadequate' -
"Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated. The planning and preparation for Iraq after Saddam were wholly inadequate," the report said, referring to the ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Blair "did not ensure that there was a flexible, realistic and fully resourced plan that integrated UK military and civilian contributions and addressed the known risks".
"The failures in the planning and preparations continued to have an effect after the invasion.
"The government's preparations failed to take account of the magnitude of the task of stabilising, administering and reconstructing Iraq."
Brussels (AFP) - NATO leaders meet July 8-9 in Warsaw to finalise the biggest alliance revamp since the collapse of the Soviet Union to counter what they see as an aggressive and dangerously unpredictable Russia.
The US-led alliance is putting in place a "Readiness Action Plan" to ensure it is not caught napping the way critics say it was by the conflict in eastern Ukraine and Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Here are key issues to be discussed:
Spending power
NATO leaders took a first, crucial step at their 2014 summit in Wales when they agreed to reverse years of spending cuts and committed to allocate two percent of annual economic output to defence.
Progress since then has been patchy, with only five of the 28 member states meeting the target at a time of austerity.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says the alliance has now halted the cuts, increasing combined spending last year by 0.6 percent for Canada and the European allies, with a gain of 3.0 percent expected in 2016.
In Warsaw, member states will be given a report card to show just where each stands -- and what more they must do to come up to scratch.
Baltic tripwire
NATO was shocked by the speed and effectiveness of Russia's Ukraine intervention, especially its former Soviet-bloc members who fear they could be left in the lurch in any repeat.
To meet those concerns, NATO leaders will approve sending four battalions -- one each to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland -- to act as a tripwire against any Russian adventurism.
Each battalion will number 600-800 troops, perhaps slightly more, with the deployment to send a signal of NATO resolve to all concerned.
Spearhead Force
The forward battalions are backed up by a "Spearhead Force" -- officially the "Very High Readiness Joint Task Force" -- which numbers about 5,000 troops ready to move within a couple of days.
NATO has established forward command centres along its eastern flank so that these Spearhead troops can hit the ground running, picking up pre-positioned heavy equipment to cut deployment times in a crisis.
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The alliance has also tripled the size of the NATO Response Force to some 40,000 troops which would follow the Spearhead unit -- but many are concerned their deployment would take weeks if not months.
Readiness exercises
NATO has mounted a series of exercises, especially in the eastern member states, to test readiness levels and reassure nervous allies.
It has also deployed extra aircraft to boost air policing, especially over the Baltics where they frequently encounter Russia planes in a dangerous game of cat and mouse.
More ships also help keep a closer eye on Moscow.
Cyberdefence
The Ukraine crisis highlighted the danger posed by "hybrid warfare," a combination of conventional weaponry and information technology to destabilise an opponent without a formal declaration of hostilities.
NATO leaders agreed in Wales that a cyber attack against a member state could be considered the equivalent of a military attack, triggering its "one for all, all for one" Article 5 collective defence response.
Now they are going further, formally designating cyber defence as a NATO operational area which will require resources and planning.
Eyes south
The NATO upgrade revamp has largely been driven by the Ukraine crisis but alliance leaders are increasingly worried by war and upheaval in the Middle East and across North Africa.
Deadly terrorist attacks, most recently in Paris and Brussels claimed by Islamic State jihadis, have brought the message home that instability to the south is also a threat.
Accordingly, NATO aims to "project stability" by providing advice and assistance in the region to head off future problems while boosting cooperation with the European Union.
RENO, NV / ACCESSWIRE / July 6, 2016 / Scandium International Mining Corp. (TSX: SCY) ("Scandium International" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Nigel J. Ricketts to the Nyngan Project team as Vice President, Project and Market Development. Dr. Ricketts is a metallurgist with a 30-year career in mine project, engineering, flow sheet design, and advanced research in metallurgy and alloy development. His career spans numerous specialty, base, and precious metals projects, including projects and processes targeting magnesium, aluminum, gold, copper, lateritic nickel, palladium & PGM's, lead-zinc, and scandium.
Most recently Dr. Ricketts and partners formed Altrius Engineering Services (AES, Brisbane, QLD. Australia), where he did extensive flow sheet design work on the Nyngan Project, both at preliminary economic assessment (PEA) stage and again at definitive feasibility study (DFS) stage. In addition, Nigel designed and managed numerous scandium test work programs that defined and refined the current project flow sheet for the Nyngan project.
Nigel's previous roles in project engineering with AMEC Minproc Ltd., AMEC Mining & Metals, Worley Parsons, and Chesser Resources in complex mineral recovery businesses are all highly relevant to the detailed design/construction/commissioning work about to start at Nyngan. Nigel will support any further flow sheet optimization work, early-works project engineering, and manage major vendors on long lead project items.
Dr. Ricketts also worked for CSIRO, the Australian government-supported technical research center in Melbourne, as a principal research scientist, for 15 years. His principal specialties were magnesium alloys and casting techniques. Dr. Ricketts is the author and holder of 5 metallurgical patents in alloy and flow sheet design. This technical metallurgy background will assist Nigel in his other role in SCY, which is his significant involvement in global marketing efforts for scandium oxide product.
Dr. Ricketts received a metallurgy degree (B App Sc) from South Australian Institute of Technology in 1985, followed by a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Monash University in Melbourne in 1993. Nigel will report to John D. Thompson in Australia, who continues in his role as General Manager, Australia, for SCY.
George Putnam, CEO of Scandium International Mining Corp. commented:
"I am very pleased to welcome Nigel Ricketts to the SCY team. Nigel has been doing great work for us in technical, business and marketing areas for two years now, with help from his partners at AES. He has excellent local experience, highly relevant to our scandium project, and we are very fortunate to have him now on staff, fully involved with us, to construct the Nyngan Scandium project and assist us to further develop this business."
QUALIFIED PERSONS AND NI 43-101 TECHNICAL REPORT
Willem Duyvesteyn, MSc, AIME, CIM, a Director and CTO of the Company, is a qualified person for the purposes of NI 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical content of this press release on behalf of the Company.
ABOUT SCANDIUM INTERNATIONAL MINING CORP.
The Company is focused on developing the Nyngan Scandium Project into the world's first scandium-only producing mine. The Company owns an 80% interest in both the Nyngan Scandium Project, and the adjacent Honeybugle Scandium Property, in New South Wales, Australia, and is manager of both projects. Our joint venture partner, Scandium Investments LLC, owns the remaining 20% in both projects, along with an option to convert those direct project interests into SCY common shares, based on market values, prior to construction.
The Company filed a NI 43-101 technical report in May 2016, titled " Feasibility Study - Nyngan Scandium Project" . That feasibility study delivered an expanded scandium resource, a first reserve figure, and an estimated 33.1% IRR on the project, supported by extensive metallurgical test work and an independent, 10-year global marketing outlook for scandium demand.
In addition to the two lateritic scandium properties in Australia, SCY owns a 100% interest in the Trdal Scandium/REE property in southern Norway, where we continue our exploration efforts, specifically for scandium and REE minerals.
For further information, please contact:
George Putnam, President and CEO.
Tel: 925-208-1775
Email: info@scandiummining.com
This press release contains forward-looking statements about the Company and its business. Forward looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and include, but are not limited to: reserve and resource estimates, estimated NPV of the project, anticipated IRR, anticipated mining and processing methods for the Project, the estimated economics of the project, anticipated Scandium recoveries, production rates, scandium grades, estimated capital costs, operating cash costs and total production costs, planned additional processing work and environmental permitting. The forward-looking statements in this press release are subject to various risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause the Company's actual results or achievements to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by forward looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and other factors include, without limitation risks related to uncertainty in the demand for Scandium and pricing assumptions; uncertainties related to raising sufficient financing to fund the project in a timely manner and on acceptable terms; changes in planned work resulting from logistical, technical or other factors; the possibility that results of work will not fulfill expectations and realize the perceived potential of the Company's properties; uncertainties involved in the estimation of Scandium reserves and resources; the possibility that required permits may not be obtained on a timely manner or at all; the possibility that capital and operating costs may be higher than currently estimated and may preclude commercial development or render operations uneconomic; the possibility that the estimated recovery rates may not be achieved; risk of accidents, equipment breakdowns and labor disputes or other unanticipated difficulties or interruptions; the possibility of cost overruns or unanticipated expenses in the work program; risks related to projected project economics, recovery rates, and estimated NPV and anticipated IRR and other factors identified in the Company's SEC filings and its filings with Canadian securities regulatory authorities.
Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, opinions and expectations of the Company's management at the time they are made, and other than as required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not assume any obligation to update its forward-looking statements if those beliefs, opinions or expectations, or other circumstances, should change.
Cautionary Note to U.S. Investors Regarding Resource Estimates: The Company's technical disclosure uses terms such as "indicated resources" and "measured resources" which are defined by the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, and are required to be disclosed in accordance with Canadian National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101). The disclosure standards in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) Industry Guide 7 normally do not recognize information concerning these terms or other descriptions of the amount of mineralization in mineral deposits that do not constitute "reserves" by U.S. standards in documents filed with the SEC. Accordingly, information concerning mineral deposits set forth in the Company's disclosure documents may not be comparable with information presented by companies using only U.S. standards in their public disclosure.
SOURCE: Scandium International Mining Corp.
Seoul (AFP) - The South Korean military is planning to ramp up its propaganda broadcasts targeting North Korean troops by doubling the number of loudspeakers along the heavily-fortified border, a report said Wednesday.
Since the North's widely-condemned nuclear test in January, the South has blasted a mix of news, propaganda messages and Korean pop music across the border using giant banks of about 17 loudspeakers.
Yonhap news agency said the number of the loudspeakers would be doubled by the end of the year, and some ageing equipment replaced by new devices capable of broadcasting more than 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) away.
It quoted a Seoul military official who declined to be named. Seoul's defence ministry declined to confirm the report.
"We will make more efforts to erode the morale of the North's troops at the frontline and deliver information (about the outside world) to civilians there," said the official quoted by Yonhap.
North Korean civilians live within range of the loudspeakers.
The move is aimed at punishing Pyongyang for its recent series of provocations, including last month's launch of the new medium-range missile, said the official quoted by Yonhap.
The widely-condemned launch of Musudan missile, which theoretically could reach US military bases in the Pacific including Guam, raised alarm over Pyongyang's capability to deliver a nuclear warhead.
The border propaganda broadcast would carry more criticisms of the North's leader Kim Jong-Un and his "hopeless" policies of pursuing simultaneous development of nuclear arsenal and the economy, according to the official quoted by Yonhap.
The propaganda broadcasts targeting North Korean troops, intensely hated by Pyongyang, have been switched on and off in line with the swings of volatile inter-Korea ties.
Seoul last August resumed them for the first time in 11 years after two of its border patrol soldiers were maimed by mines it said was planted by the North's soldiers.
The broadcasts infuriated Pyongyang, which at one point threatened artillery strikes against the loudspeaker units unless they were switched off.
But the broadcasts came to a halt two weeks later after two Koreas reached an agreement to defuse growing military tension and Pyongyang expressed regret over the mine explosion.
La propera pell (The Next Skin), by Spanish filmmakers Isaki Lacuesta and Isa Campo, tells the story of a teenager who returns home after having disappeared eight years prior and long presumed dead.
The film, in competition at Karlovy Vary, explores the emotional impact the boys return has on his mother, who ardently believes that he is in fact her long lost son, although others in the small Pyrenean village begin to doubt his identity.
Lacuesta and Campos latest collaboration is a tense and atmospheric drama that unfolds like a thriller while examining themes of family, loss, jealousy, sexuality and abuse.
The film stars Alex Monner, Emma Suarez, Sergi Lopez, Bruno Todeschini and Igor Szpakowski and re-teams up-and-coming actors Monner and Szpakowski, who starred in the hit Spanish TV series Polseres vermelles (The Red Band Society).
The film marks Campos first outing as a director, although she has served as a screenwriter on a number of Lacuestas past works while also teaching direction at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.
The Next Skin won six awards at the recent Malaga Film Festival, including the best director, actress and editing prizes.
Variety spoke with Lacuesta and Campo in Karlovy Vary.
How would you describe your film?
Lacuesta: Its difficult to describe. We explain it as a mixture of drama and thriller because its not a conventional thriller. It has mystery and there is a plot that you must discover through the film. We tried to put the accent on the relationships of the characters.
The story also explores abuse and its affect on people. Was this always a central theme in your story?
Lacuesta: Its difficult to remember because we have been working on this script for 11 years.
Campo: It changed a lot. I dont think it was part of the story from the beginning. The emphasis was always on the creation of familial links beyond those of blood ties and how the need of a son for a mother of a mother for a son can create a family despite suspicions that the boy could be an imposter. That was always central to the story.
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How did you come up with the idea for the story?
Lacuesta: At that time, in 2004 or 2003, there was a faker that appeared in our town, in Girona, and at the same time there were several stories about impostors and people with amnesia. And we began working with that idea.
Why did you choose to set the story in a small Pyrenean village?
Lacuesta: One of the central themes of the film is the possibility of beginning a new life, the idea if we can be someone else, become another person. And this is more difficult to do in a small town. If you live in New York or Berlin, its quite easy to change your life, you [have a big] society around you. In this little town, everyone knows you, everyone will remember you when you were a child.
Campo: We also wanted an atmosphere that would present all of the vital complications that this young person would ultimately have. The small community forces often forces people to lie, to hide things, to make up stories. In bigger cities there is no need for that because no one cares what you do.
Did you want to work with these specific actors, or did you select them through a casting process?
Lacuesta: Actually we wrote the first script for Emma. We told her about the idea in 2006 and she agreed. On the third or fourth draft we were already thinking about Sergi and one of our producers, Oriol Maymo, was working on TV program [The Red Band Society] with Alex Monner, who was about 14 years old at the time, and Oriol was always talking about how great Alex was, but he was a child, it was impossible. But he finally grew up. And weve always admired Bruno Todeschini.
Campo: We dont work well with castings. Its a situation that is a bit violent and we really dont like. We prefer to get to know the actor, go out for a coffee together and see how it goes, see if we understand each other.
Who are among your major influences?
Lacuesta: Thousands and thousands. I began working on documentaries. Jean Rouch is one of my most important influences, Chris Marker, these kinds of filmmakers. But as a spectator, growing up I watched Hitchcock, John Ford, these kinds of films. We usually make more experimental films, and we wanted to make a more classical one. For this one we were thinking a lot about Raoul Walsh and Jacques Tourneur, these kinds of filmmakers from the 40s and 50s. Once we thought about Hitchcock we watched Shadow of a Doubt but we never again thought about Hitchcock. But in Malaga journalists asked us about Hitchcock. I think maybe theres something there.
What are your next projects?
Campo: Im writing a film for Federico Veiroj, a Uruguayan director. Its a story set in the 1950s in Estoril. And hes preparing the second part of a film he did, La leyenda del tiempo.
Lacuesta: Its a documentary-fiction film I shot in 2004-2005, a portrait of two brothers in the south of Spain, in a town with the highest unemployment rate, the island of San Fernando, its a lovely place. That film is about how the children become teenagers. You can see them growing up. But the idea was always to shoot them forever. And now we want to make the second one. We now see them at 24, 25.
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Minnesota officials have charged an Ettrick, Wis., man with attempted murder in connection with the stabbing of a woman, child and dog in La Crescent.
According to a criminal complaint filed in Houston County District Court, 27-year-old Sean Kasten attacked the 23-year-old woman and 3-year-old before stabbing himself while they were driving June 28.
Witnesses said they heard a Ford Taurus screech to a halt on Juniper Street and saw a woman jump out screaming for help; Kasten got out of the passenger seat and collapsed, according to the complaint. Police arrived to find Kasten, the woman and the child all covered in blood as bystanders tended to their injuries and a bloody pit bull wandered around the scene.
The unnamed woman told police Kasten had stayed at her home the night before and she was giving him a ride when he began acting strangely, so she decided to go to a friends house in La Crescent. While driving on Juniper Street, she said, Kasten began hitting her and stabbed her with a folding knife. He then attacked the child and dog, who were in the back seat.
We were driving, and he went crazy, she told police.
According to the complaint, the woman was stabbed six times in the torso and suffered two collapsed lungs. The child was stabbed in the leg and neck and needed surgery to repair damage to an artery. The dog was stabbed twice and was stitched up by a veterinarian.
Kasten, 27, faces two counts each of attempted first and second degree murder, first and second degree assault, and animal mistreatment. He is currently in the La Crosse County Jail awaiting extradition to Houston County following treatment for his injuries at a local hospital.
The child has been released from the hospital and is in the care of relatives, said La Crescent Police Chief Doug Stavenau, adding that the dog is healing up nicely.
Stavenau said that a stabbing is an unusual occurrence in La Crescent and he believes that neighborhood, and the city as a whole, to be safe.
Authorities from the La Crescent, Hokah and Caledonia police departments, as well as the Houston County Sheriffs Office, assisted at the scene.
By Aaron Ross KINSHASA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that it will launch emergency yellow fever vaccination campaigns along the border between Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo and in the Congolese capital Kinshasa next month. The worst yellow fever outbreak in decades has killed about 345 people in Angola, while Congo declared an epidemic in Kinshasa and two other provinces on Monday after reporting 67 confirmed cases and more than 1,000 other suspected cases. In a statement, WHO said that the campaign would target areas within 75-100 km (45-60 miles) of the border where there are high levels of movement and trade in order to create an "immune buffer" and prevent the disease spreading further. WHO said that the campaign would begin in July. There is currently almost no vaccine left in Congo and a new stock of more than 1 million doses may take weeks to arrive. The global stockpile of yellow fever vaccine has already been depleted twice this year to immunise people in Angola, Uganda and Congo. It stands at 6 million doses, but experts warn this may not be enough if there are simultaneous outbreaks in a number of highly-populated areas. The mosquito-borne haemorrhagic virus is a major concern in Kinshasa, a city of about 12 million people with poor health services, a humid climate beloved of the insects and much stagnant water where they can breed, owing to pour drainage. The government and international health organisations vaccinated more than 2 million people, about half of them in Kinshasa, between May 26 and June 4. But there is no more vaccine left, aside from a few doses left in reserve in Kongo Central and some being administered by a government agency at Kinshasa's central hospital, airport and river crossing with neighbouring Congo Republic. To cope with the shortage, WHO has recommended using a fifth of the standard dose of yellow fever vaccine, which would not give lifelong protection to those who receive it but might at least contain the outbreak. However, a WHO spokeswoman said such a move would not be appropriate for the current emergency plan on the border. "Due to the logistical challenges involved in rural areas, dose fractioning would not be proposed in this area. WHO would recommend using full doses," Sarah Cumberland said. She added that the recommendation was being considered only for Kinshasa, "as a way to extend a limited stock of vaccine to cover the entire city". (Additional reporting by Stephanie Ulmer-Nebehay; Editing by Tim Cocks/Jeremy Gaunt)
By Julia Edwards
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In declining to seek prosecution of Hillary Clinton, FBI Director James Comey said the former Secretary of State's handling of classified emails was "extremely careless" - conduct, legal experts said, that falls short of "gross negligence," a standard for criminal charges under the Espionage Act.
"Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case," Comey said in a news conference Tuesday detailing the FBI investigation and his decision.
Several legal experts agreed with Comey's conclusion that there was no recent precedent for bringing such a case without evidence of willful intent or gross negligence, and they said it would have been difficult to convince a jury to convict Clinton based on the evidence.
"Extreme carelessness doesn't necessarily translate into gross negligence," said Laurie Levenson, a professor of law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and former federal prosecutor.
"The only times I have seen these statutes used has been situations in which people knew they were disclosing classified, confidential information, or they could show they didnt really care," Levenson said.
Comey said investigators determined that Clinton exchanged 110 emails that contained government secrets and that she and her staff should have known the information was classified.
But unlike other cases prosecuted under the Espionage Act, the FBI has not suggested that Clinton intentionally shared government secrets with people not authorized to see them.
The statute for charging gross negligence under the Espionage Act, written in 1917, requires the information be "removed from its proper place," a tough legal requirement in the digital age, said Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at University of Texas.
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Vladeck said the law is not "well suited for careless discussion of information in unsecured media that doesn't dispossess the government of that information or direct it right into the hands of a foreign power."
Previous cases charged under the Espionage Act have shown intent, experts said.
Defense attorney Abbe Lowell said Comey's decision was "completely consistent" with every case brought for leaking classified government information.
Defendants in other cases include Stephen Kim, Lowell's client who pleaded guilty to leaking State Department documents to the press, as well as former C.I.A. Director General David Petraeus. He admitted to keeping classified information, which he would also share with his biographer, in his home, while telling the government he had returned all such information.
"The one common denominator of all such cases is that the individual involved intentionally sent material to those not authorized to receive it, like the press, like a foreign government," Lowell said.
Comey said the FBI "did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information." But he said it did find "evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling a very sensitive, highly classified information."
His recommendation, which Attorney General Loretta Lynch previously said she would accept, angered Republicans who said her actions should be punished.
Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump reacted to the news from his Twitter account, saying, "The system is rigged. General Petraeus got in trouble for far less."
In that case, the FBI recommended a felony charge. But Attorney General Eric Holder pursued a misdemeanor under another part of the law, and Petraeus pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to two years probation in 2015.
The FBI had recordings of Petraeus acknowledging the information in notebooks in his home was highly classified. Petraeus also admitted to lying to the FBI about sharing the information with Paula Broadwell, his biographer and lover.
Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, said Clinton's cooperation with FBI investigators also may have helped her avoid charges.
"There was no obstruction of justice, no failure to cooperate truthfully with investigators, no concealment of her activity," Aftergood said.
Legal precedent suggests that Clinton is unlikely to face a misdemeanor charge for recklessness because recent cases that ended with misdemeanors began as much larger felony charges against individuals who intended to leak information.
In 2010, Thomas Drake, a whistleblower from the NationalSecurity Agency who helped expose the government's warrantless surveillance of Americans, was charged with espionage after the government accused him of bringing five classified documents home. He denied the accusation, and those charges were dropped. Drake pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count for exceeding authorized use of a computer.
"Somebody needs to ask Comey about my case," Drake, who now works at an Apple store in Maryland, wrote in an email late Tuesday.
Former president Bill Clinton's national security adviser pleaded guilty in 2005 to smuggling classified documents out of the National Archives by stuffing them under his clothes. He was fined $50,000 and sentenced to two years of probation.
(Reporting by Julia Edwards in Washington; Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen and Noeleen Walder in New York; Editing by Amy Stevens and Lisa Girion)
BANGUI (Reuters) - At least 12 people were killed in Central African Republic in fighting between two factions of a former rebel group in the centre of the town of Bambari, medical and local sources said on Tuesday. Insecurity has persisted since President Faustin-Archange Touadera was sworn in in March, after an election intended to draw a line under inter-communal and inter-religious violence that involved the mainly Muslim Seleka rebels and anti-balaka militia began in 2013. The fighting on Monday started when a local businessman was murdered. It involved members of the Union for Peace in Central Africa, which is part of the Seleka, according to the mayor of Bambari Abel Matchipata, who said between 15 and 20 people were killed. Soldiers from Mauritania and Burundi who form part of the U.N. peacekeeping mission, MINUSCA, restored calm, Matchipata said. "We have received 14 wounded, of whom six are serious, and they were evacuated to Bangui this morning. According to our information, there were that many wounded on the field of combat," the director of the hospital in Bambari told Reuters. An official for the national Red Cross society, who declined to be named, said 20 people had died. The U.N. mission declared Bambari a non-armed zone in 2014. But this has not stopped sporadic clashes in the town, northeast of the capital. Two people also died when a young man who had been arguing with friends in the mainly Muslim PK-5 neighbourhood of Bangui threw a grenade, Ibrahim Hassan Frede, spokesman of an association that coordinates Muslims in the area, told Reuters. A dozen others were wounded in the attack, he said. (Reporting by Crispin Dembassa-Kette; Writing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
By Mohammed Mukhashaf ADEN (Reuters) - Eight Yemeni troops and six militants were killed on Wednesday in an assault claimed by Al Qaeda on a military base near the international airport of Yemen's southern city of Aden, the military said. Two suicide bombers blew up their cars, then militants stormed the Solaban base and fought with troops backed by Apache helicopters for several hours, a special forces statement said. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the attack on the messaging app Telegram, according to the militant monitoring SITE Intelligence group, calling the attack revenge for government attacks elsewhere in southern Yemen. Islamist militants in Yemen have gained territory in the past year as a civil war, pitting government forces against Iran-allied Houthi rebels, has created a security vacuum. The Houthis control the capital, Sanaa. Both Al Qaeda and Islamic State operate in Yemen and consider government forces and the Houthis as enemies. They are also ideologically opposed to each other and compete for recruits. Al Qaeda has seized swathes of southern and eastern Yemen but in recent months has seldom claimed attacks on security forces. However, Islamic State has launched several major attacks on government troops. Three coordinated Islamic State bomb attacks on government forces killed 38 people in the coastal city of Mukalla in southern Yemen on June 27 as they were preparing to break their Ramadan fast. In a separate incident on Tuesday night, a Katyusha rocket barrage launched by Houthi forces on the outskirts of the central city of Marib killed seven children between the ages of five and nine, local officials said. A shaky ceasefire between government forces and the Houthis that began nearly three months ago has brought some respite from the war which started when the Houthis pushed the government into exile in March 2015. But clashes regularly flare on various battlefronts throughout Yemen. The conflict has killed more than 6,400 people - about half of them civilians, according to the United Nations - and plunged the impoverished country into a humanitarian crisis. (Additional reporting by Mohamed Ghobari; Writing by Noah Browning; Editing by Louise Ireland)
When Rachel Fishel went to school at St. Peters in Hokah, she knew she one day wanted to be a teacher there which is exactly what she did.
Fishels been teaching at the Catholic school since 1993, and now shes been principal since 2001.
Its just like a big family, she said.
The church itself has 154 envelope holders; an estimated 300 to 400 parishioners overall.
This is where I wanted to be, Fishel said. This is where I was meant to be.
No matter what you go through in life, she said, you feel like people here are there for you.
Were all connected, she said.
Theresa Von Arx agreed. She knows a lot about the parish, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, but she doesnt consider herself its official historian by any means.
Im just very interested, Von Arx said.
Parishioner Carol Walcker spearheaded a compilation book of the churchs history in 1978, and another in 2006, which includes a detailed history of its origins, builders of the community of faith, parish priests, and church and school members.
My familys been part of this church forever, she said.
Von Arx was baptized there in 1981. Her maiden name was Tschumper, and her family connection goes back to the 1860s.
Its fitting to note, since the shadow is still being cast from St. Peters June 4 centennial celebration, which included Bishop John Quinn presiding over Mass, a potluck in the parking lot, two local bands, and kids singing; it lasted into the early evening.
It was actually 100 years of this building, Von Arx said. The history of our actual parish goes back further than that, but this building, the foundation was laid in 1916, completed in 1918. So we chose 1916 as our starting point.
In 1856, the first Catholic settlers came to Hokah, which puts the actual parish origins closer to 160 years.
Shes not only a member; Von Arx also teaches third and fourth grades at the churchs school, where her own children go. They represent six generation members.
There are 11 students in her combined teaching grades, with a total student body of 75 from preschool through eighth grade. There was even a high school until 1966.
It is a special feeling because you think of the hard work that our ancestors put into building this church, Von Arx said. A lot of them were farmers; they didnt have a lot of money, but they were able to raise $9,000 starting in 1913 to build a new church. Where did that money comes from? They gave everything, and then their time. They put in hours themselves helping to build this church.
Literally by hand. The men had to bring their teams of horses, and their plows and graders, to level off the hillside on which the church now stands.
They said it was like a living rosary, she said, going around and around.
The women were told to take care of their farms during the day while their husbands came to help build the church.
It is a neat feeling, she said, because you know that weve kept this going so long. People really think of this church as home. And a lot of people are related, but everybody feels like family.
She taught at the parish school in 2007 for two years, but then she was pregnant with her second child and took time off. Now, with three children, she returned to teaching last year when there was an opening.
Theres just this connection, Von Arx said.
She got a great education, both academically and as a person, at St. Peters, she said, and she knows this is where she wants to be.
I want to do that for the next generation of kids, she said. And for my own kids who go to school here.
Joseph Pfeffer, who lived in a nearby valley, arrived in 1856, and in 1858, he bought a flat-bottom boat to transport church-goers across the river to La Crosse, as there wasnt a church Hokah could call its own.
They were so adamant about going to church, and living their faith, that they took this boat to La Crosse once month, she said. One time, they go and a huge storm comes up and they barely made it back without being capsized.
That convinced Pfeffer they needed a church of their own, so on his farm, back in what is known as Pfeffer Valley, he built a small log church which no longer exists.
By 1867, he had decided to donate 200 acres of land for a convent to be built past Pfeffer Valley up on the hillside. It became known as The Convent, Church of the Blessed Sacrament. Its fate, however, was a sad one, Von Arx said.
The bishop at that time, she said, he never would fully recognize this as being like a parish church. Part of it, I think, is that it wasnt in town.
The other piece, she said, has to do with St. Peters mission, which from the very beginning included having a school to teach the Catholic faith to children. At the time of the convent, it was felt religion should be taught in the public school system. How, it was speculated, would the faith be brought into the public schools if it was being taught on its own?
But the people loved this place, Von Arx said of the convent. I mean, heart and soul.
The convent had a school and an orphanage, and even boarded kids who couldnt easily travel on a daily basis from area farms.
In 1904, the bishop forced the convent sisters to leave, but the local people wouldnt let go.
For a few years, they would get their own priest to come once a month and say Mass, she said.
The bishop sold the property, and the parish countered by leasing the land for a year, but eventually it was official: the convent was razed.
In 1878, while the saga of the convent was going on, the bishop decided a church should be built in Hokah itself. It was, and is, called St. Peters. It was up the street from the current location, and much smaller. Von Arx said the new church caused some members distress; they couldnt leave the convent site and would go up and pray the rosary there after it was torn down.
It just breaks your heart, she said.
A new vibrant priest, Father Wermerskirchen, provided the salve by mobilizing the people to build a new church. By 1916, the money had been raised and the current church was built.
The majority of the people who go here are descendants of these early people, she said.
Her own great- great-grandfathers name is in a book of donations and meeting notes on display in the churchs lobby.
Von Arx joins a long line of what she called great teachers who have taught parishioners to have fun, work hard and work together.
Hallmarks still exist not only the book with Von Arxs great- great-grandfathers name, among many others, but a church bell dated 1863 on display in the lobby (which has its own unique history). Renovations happened in the 1950s, again in 2006, and most recently, a massive renovation effort totaling almost $240,000.
The congregation, which shares a priest in whats known as a cluster (including parishes in Rushford and Houston), still gets donations from members who no longer reside in the area. The connection to St. Peters is strong and forever.
I dont know how to explain it really, Von Arx said.
Parishioner Mike Ott, who is Fishels father, said an estimated $1 million has been raised since the turn of the 20th century in renovations alone, which have included new roofs, a playground, a parking lot, a new boiler, an elevator, and re-plastering the entire building.
All raised by the members and alumni of the school, Ott said.
He joined in 1962, when he came to attend ninth grade. He noted how good the acoustics are in the church; one member lived on Tschumper Ridge and the story goes that, in the 1920s and 1930s, you could hear the Von Arx family singing down in the valley just like The Sound of Music. Vocations have been spurred by that singing.
Mary Kay Sheehan, whose mother was one of the 14 Von Arx children, has her own special history with the parish.
Ive been here forever, Sheehan said.
Her mother was a year old when the building was built, she said, and she started school at St. Peters in 1952 and went there all 12 years.
She lived in the Twin Cities for 40 years and recently returned.
I was still quite active here, she said, because my parents were in town.
The reason for her continued presence is clear.
Its my home, Sheehan said. Its where I belong.
Theres a lot to do in the small parish, she said, and because its small, you can do lots. She was on the centennial committee, involved in the ministry by doing readings; stepping in, she said, wherever anybody needs help.
Help, it seems, is sorely needed.
I just think that, in this world, everyone is searching for a feeling of community, Fishel said, especially my generation. Theyre searching for something all the time. They dont know what theyre searching for, so theyre reading self-help books, and theyre going to yoga, and theyre trying meditation, and if they would just realize whats missing in their lives is a relationship with God, and Gods waiting patiently for them to figure that out.
When they do, the church in Hokah will be there. Its a community, they all agreed, that holds you up, cries with you, and shows a path of hope for the future.
St. Peters will never close, Sheehan said. I mean, it wont. It just wont happen. Its such a strong community.
Legionnaires' disease is back on the rise, with several new outbreaks in June alone. A Hawaiian island resort, a Pittsburgh hospital and a Maryland senior-living community are all battling pneumonia-causing Legionella bacteria in their water systems. Older adults are at higher risk for getting sick after breathing in water droplets containing Legionella. Here's what you should know about this respiratory illness.
[See: 7 Red Flags to Watch for When Choosing a Nursing Home.]
Outbreak Response
The first case in May could have been a coincidence. Just four days after moving into The Lutheran Village at Miller's Grant, a continuing care retirement community, a resident was diagnosed with Legionnaires' disease. On June 10, the Ellicott City, Maryland, facility informed residents and staff of what was then a single case of pneumonia.
It was unclear whether the resident had been exposed in the community or elsewhere. But a second and then a third resident (who also recently moved in) developed Legionnaires' disease. By then, administrators had brought in a consultant, Janet Stout, director of the Special Pathogens Laboratory in Pittsburgh, and were already taking precautions.
The facility "pulled out all the stops" to address the issue, says Stout, an associate research professor at the University of Pittsburgh and a Legionnaires' expert. That meant restricting access to tap water and providing bottled water to drink; adapting ways of cooking, tooth-brushing, shaving and showering; and bringing in a team to assess the water distribution system and test water samples. Treating water systems with extra chlorine is the first step for reducing Legionella bacteria, Stout says.
In a three-hour meeting, Stout spoke with residents and staff members to address their many questions. "Can someone get Legionnaires' disease from somebody else who has it?" was a major concern. No, she told them. There's no person-to-person transmission with Legionella. Also reassuring: In general, people who've had Legionnaires' usually won't get it a second time.
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From the time Legionnaires' was suspected, staff and residents had been educated about the disease and kept in the loop about guidelines from the Howard County Health Department, says Lisa Albin, director of church and public relations at Lutheran Village at Miller's Grant. "Our first round of test results came back very well," she says. While Legionella levels in the water system have been markedly reduced, she says, the bacteria were not completely eliminated. Now staff is awaiting the second round of results.
As hyper-chlorine water treatment and testing continue, residents face a choice. Should they find a temporary home with relatives or a nearby hotel, or stay and be extra cautious when drinking, bathing and preparing meals? Most residents are staying put, Albin says.
[See: 10 Seemingly Innocent Symptoms You Shouldn't Ignore.]
Lurking Legionella
The number of people diagnosed with Legionnaires' disease increased nearly fourfold between 2000 and 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported. Each year, about 5,000 people are diagnosed with Legionnaires' disease, and at least 20 outbreaks are reported, mostly in buildings with large water systems. About 7 percent of cases reported from outbreaks were fatal, according to the CDC.
Air conditioning cooling towers that aren't well-maintained are considered primary risk factors for Legionnaires' outbreaks, says Dr. William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.
Besides cooling towers -- not individual air conditioning units -- Legionella can spread through aerosols around hot tubs, decorative fountains and even vegetable-refreshing sprayers at the supermarket, says Schaffner, who is a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Most people in good health won't develop the disease even after exposure to Legionella. Smokers and people with weak immune systems are at higher risk. Seniors face extra risk for several reasons. They're more likely to have previous respiratory conditions like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD. Their immune systems may be weaker with age or from taking certain medications.
Bacteria may also affect older people through aspiration -- when water gets into the lungs. "Many people are familiar with aspiration pneumonia, which is very common in hospitalized patients," Stout says. "But what it means to most of us is that experience you have of something going down the wrong pipe -- that choking feeling."
People also aspirate in their sleep, Stout says, and many older people have swallowing disorders that make aspiration more likely. "So bacteria is in the upper airway because we drink water or even inhale the mist. And then we aspirate, and that's a way the bacteria gains entry into the lung," Stout says.
[See: 11 Items to Pack in Your Hospital Bag.]
Protecting Seniors
Here are some steps for avoiding Legionnaires' disease or catching it early to start proper treatment.
Recognize symptoms. After someone is infected, it takes two to 10 days for symptoms to appear. Patients start feeling tired and weak, followed by high fever, severe cough and diarrhea. "Relatively speaking, if the patient with pneumonia has accompanying diarrhea, that should make you think of Legionnaires,'" Schaffner says. Productive cough with blood or sputum is another sign. Others include nausea and vomiting, headaches, muscle aches, shortness of breath and chest pains.
However, symptoms may vary for older adults, Stout points out: "Sometimes, their only symptom will be mental-status changes or delirium-like changes."
Request a Legionnaires' test. Many diagnoses are made through a simple laboratory test called a urine antigen test. Some less-common Legionella strains are isolated through a sputum test. A senior who gets sick with likely symptoms should speak up, Stout says: "If you go to the doctor and they say, 'You have pneumonia,' you can advocate for yourself and say, 'I want to be tested for Legionnaires' disease.'"
Take extra precautions. A senior with a weakened immune system, such as an organ or bone-marrow transplant recipient, is more susceptible to infections, including Legionnaires'. People in very high-risk groups might ask their doctor about boiling tap water before drinking, Stout says, or using a special filter to take out bacteria and parasites.
Start antibiotics early. It's important to start treatment as soon as possible to get the infection under control. Several types of antibiotics are effective against Legionella. However, Stout says, certain antibiotics that may work with other types of pneumonia don't necessarily work for Legionnaires'. The CDC offers a Legionnaires' fact sheet for clinicians.
Keep perspective. While Legionnaire's disease rates are rising, it's not common. "The numbers on Legionnaires' disease show that it causes about 2 to 5 percent of all the community-acquired pneumonias that require hospitalization," Stout says. And with early detection and treatment, most people get better.
Albin says of the three Legionnaires' patients at MIller's Grant, all have been discharged from the hospital and are recovering. All the residents have been "tremendous," she says, with a positive attitude throughout the process. "But we're ready for it to be over," she adds. "That's for sure."
Lisa Esposito is a Patient Advice reporter at U.S. News. You can follow her on Twitter, connect with her on LinkedIn or email her at lesposito@usnews.com.
MILAN (Reuters) - Italian defense group Leonardo Finmeccanica (LDOF.MI) said on Wednesday it intended to press ahead with overhauling the supply chain that produces parts for the Boeing 787 program.
The state-controlled group supplies major segments of the 787 fuselage for Boeing (BA.N).
Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore said on Wednesday Boeing had written a letter to Leonardo Finmeccanica complaining of the quality of its production and delays in delivery.
A spokesman for the Italian company confirmed receipt of the letter.
In a note emailed to Reuters, Leonardo Finmeccanica acknowledged there had been problems in the past.
"A complete review of the supply chain has been carried out, including the insourcing of the most valuable parts of the production process," it said.
Boeing's high-tech 787 Dreamliner is facing slowing sales and needs to sell dozens of planes to help recover investments.
(Reporting by Stephen Jewkes; editing by Francesca Landini)
From Cosmopolitan
Without a day of formal culinary school, Caroline Schiff entered the food industry by begging for a part-time, unpaid internship shadowing chefs in a small restaurant. To pay the bills, she worked at a cheese shop in her neighborhood until full-time cooking opportunities opened in the kitchens of fine-dining restaurants in Manhattan. Ten years after leaving that little cheese store, Schiff is back as the new executive pastry chef at The Greene Grape, a company that runs a wine bar, cafe, butcher and cheese shop, and bakery and ice cream shop. Schiff, 30, talks about the challenges of being a boss, the impact of female mentors, and the magic of making cakes.
Ever since I was a little girl, I've had an insatiable sweet tooth. Every time I would walk by a bakery with my mother, I had to - had to - go in. The first thing I learned to bake from scratch was a lemon bar recipe with shortbread crust from my Winnie the Pooh cookbook. It's still one of my favorites.
My family loved to go out to restaurants and we traveled a lot. Seeing so much of the world also made me want to go to school abroad. I received a degree in French from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. I didn't know what path my career would take at the time, but I figured a [liberal arts] degree would be useful.
During my junior year, I did an abroad-abroad program at the Universite de Grenoble in France. Walking to class every day, I passed a tiny chocolate shop. I was fascinated by how the chocolatier would hand-dip chocolates and craft chocolate sculptures of the Eiffel Tower. It was so clear to me that this was art.
My senior year, I started throwing really fun dinner parties for friends. I made my first layer cake for a friend's birthday. I was excited that it turned out so beautiful, and my friends kept saying, "This is so good!"
After graduating in 2007, I moved home to New York City and started temping. Fashion has always been something I've loved. I thought maybe I would go into fashion or marketing, but my heart wasn't in it. I wanted to cook every day. I wanted to bake. I wanted to have a dinner party. But the restaurant world - especially in New York - is very intimidating. One day, my roommate said to me, "You really love cooking, you're good at it, so just do it!"
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I applied for cooking jobs on Craigslist. I didn't even put in a resume because I had no experience. Instead, I wrote a very enthusiastic but vague cover letter that said, "I'm the most passionate person with food. I'll work really hard!" One chef called me back. She was from this great little restaurant in Red Hook, Brooklyn, called The Good Fork. I was offered an unpaid internship shadowing the chefs. This was my big shot to get my foot in the door, but I still needed a job to pay my bills. They agreed to let me work three days a week so I could get another job.
The only food I love almost as much as pastry is cheese. There was a little market with a cheese counter in my neighborhood in Brooklyn called The Greene Grape. I walked in one day and asked to speak to the manager. I said, "I don't have a lot of experience, but I know a lot about cheese and I'm really passionate about food." They took a chance on a foodie with no training and gave me a part-time job selling cheese.
At the restaurant, I started by following the cooks around and doing the work no one else wanted to do, like dicing onions, peeling beets, and unwrapping all the cheese and then rewrapping it nicely in new plastic wrap. Little by little, I learned new things, like how to make fresh pasta. I was an intern for about four months before they moved me into the lowest-level paid cook position. I gave my notice at the cheese shop.
My first night of dinner service as a full-time cook, I lost a ticket and one table never got their food. I was so frazzled and stressed out that it was taking 45 minutes for customers to get an appetizer. I thought I was going to get fired.
The next day, the chef was so nice to me. She said, "OK, last night was a little tough, but just watch your ticket times and don't be scared; you know what you're doing." There are a lot of kitchens in New York where if you do something wrong, you get screamed at. I was so lucky to be in such a nurturing environment. My boss was so encouraging to a young cook who didn't know much about the industry at all. She would have long talks with me in her living room about where I saw myself in five years, 10 years, etc. She would reach out to other chefs on my behalf to see if I could meet them. She pushed me to move onward and upward with my career.
Working for women at The Good Fork and at The Greene Grape had a huge impact on me. Seeing these two women running successful businesses, managing people, and cooking, I knew I could do it too. Sexism exists in the food world - as well as in many industries - but I've been lucky to work in places that would never tolerate it. In the past 10 years, I've seen so many more women enter the kitchen and be successful. It's inspiring.
I worked my way up at The Good Fork. After two years, the owner said to me, "Let's talk about your future because you can't stay here forever." It was a small kitchen and there wasn't a lot of possibility for growth, and they didn't have a pastry chef. I knew I wanted to work with pastries, even though I was still a little intimidated by desserts at fine restaurants. My boss told me, "You need to go across the bridge to Manhattan and get your butt kicked in those fancy restaurant kitchens to learn your stuff."
The chef world is very small - everyone knows someone who knows someone. She set up some [cooking] trials for me at various kitchens. Job offers happen very quickly. After you work for a day, you either get a job offer or you don't.
The next week, I accepted a job as the pastry cook at a little restaurant called Caffe Falai. I learned to make souffles, which is an incredible and terrifying experience. If you pull the souffle out of the oven, and it falls before it gets to the table, you have to make it again and the customer will have to wait half an hour for dessert. But every time, it worked, it was the most beautiful thing.
I loved the fine-dining experience. Everything had to be perfect, and it made me a better chef. Six months after I started work at Falai, the owner decided to close the business. I had a friend who was working as a cook at a farm-to-table restaurant called Mas (farmhouse). The owner was opening up another location, and I was hired to work under the pastry chef. When she moved on a year later, I was promoted to executive pastry chef.
I was 27 years old, and all of a sudden, I was a boss. The most difficult thing was allowing other people to do the work and maybe make mistakes. Chefs are control freaks and perfectionists. But if you don't push people to learn themselves, you can't rely on them. It's emotionally difficult to let go of that control.
Two years later, I was recruited to start the pastry program at Maysville, which had recently received two stars from the New York Times. I was their first pastry chef, so I was able to build the program from the ground up. Typically, I build from an ingredient that's in season, like strawberries [in the summer]. Or I'm inspired by flavors I'm obsessed with, like chocolate and peanut butter, which is the greatest combination ever invented. I created a chocolate peanut butter tart that was layers of chocolate cookie, milk chocolate with peanut butter, roasted peanuts, and dark chocolate ganache on top with a cookie crumble.
After seven years as a restaurant chef, I started to think more about working in a bakery. I knew I could do plated, composed dessert, but I wanted to see if I could make the types of everyday desserts that people come back for day after day - the perfect chocolate chip cookie or scone.
I did have a little bit of burnout. When you work in a restaurant, you work till 1 a.m. every night, and holidays and weekends. I worked Thanksgiving for so many years that my parents started eating holiday meals at the restaurant so they could see me. Everybody was always really supportive, but I'm sure there were times when my family wished I had been home for Christmas, or a friend hoped I could make it to their wedding.
I was thinking hard about opening my own bakery, but I was also being really realistic with myself. I can bake cake all day, but when it comes to opening a business, that's something I wasn't confident I could do on my own.
I gave my notice at Maysville in early spring of 2016. I figured I would cater and consult for a while as I figured out what was next. Around the same time, I got an email from my old boss from the Brooklyn cheese shop, The Greene Grape. Business had grown to three locations, and she was now the director of operations for the company. They wanted to open a fourth location, a year-round ice cream shop and bakery. They were looking for a chef to run the business, and they asked if I knew anyone. I thought about it for a week or two, and then I realized that this was exactly what I'd been looking for. I emailed my old boss and said, "I might be interested in this."
They brought me on as the executive pastry chef for Scoops & Sweets. I would be growing the Greene Grape business with this new store selling ice cream sundaes, cakes, pies, cookies, chocolates, scones, and more. I also became the executive pastry chef for the entire company, meaning I develop the dessert menus [and recipes], oversee the pastry cooks, and bake a lot of the desserts myself. This was more responsibility than I had ever had. It was more people to manage, more recipes to suss out, more ordering to be in charge of.
Leading up to the opening, I was terrified that I would forget to order something. I worried no customers would show up. Or what if too many showed up, and we ran out of everything? What if I forget to make everyone fill out their paperwork properly and someone doesn't get a paycheck?
Once we got into a groove, I was able to relax a little bit. People started coming in, buying ice cream and cookies, and asking questions about the business. I started to do a lot of promotion on Instagram. I had people coming in saying, "You posted a photo of this dessert with the strawberries that looks delicious. Can I have that?" Now there are customers who visit us every day for their favorite chocolate chip cookie or scoop of ice cream. Because it's not a restaurant, I'm not going to be at work later than 9 or 10 at night on my busiest day. Most nights, I'm home by 7 and I can go for a run.
Working in a bakery every day does take a lot of willpower. We have this garlic and Gruyere scone with rosemary. When it's hot out of the oven, the smell permeates the whole bakery with its cheesy garlicky deliciousness. It's very hard not to eat one every day.
I want to get better at doing what I'm doing now and grow this business. I think I have a lot of work to do still. I know a ton of successful chefs who did go to culinary school, and a lot who did not. To become a doctor, you need to go to medical school. To become a lawyer, you need a J.D. But to become a chef, you just put your time in at restaurants and learn by doing.
Get That Life is a weekly series that reveals how successful, talented, creative women got to where they are now. Check back each Monday for the latest interview.
Follow Heather on Twitter.
Lionel Messi (AFP Photo)
Lionel Messi and his father Jorge Horacio Messi were sentenced to 21 months in jail for tax fraud by a Spanish court on Wednesday.
The news was surprising, but Messi and his dad dont figure to do any jail time. The sentences are expected to be suspended since both are first-time offenders of non-violent crimes with sentences of less than two years.
[ FC Yahoo: Barcelona absolving Messi of wrongdoing underscores big problem ]
As long as the Messis dont break any laws during the period of their sentences, they will not see the inside of a jail. The players attorney announced they will appeal the decision.
Lionel Messi and his father were found guilty of using companies in Belize, Britain, Switzerland and Uruguay to avoid paying taxes on 4.16 million euros of the Barcelona stars income earned from his image rights from 2007 to 2009. During a four-day trial last month, Messi told the court that he knew nothing about how his finances were being managed by his dad, but the court ruled that Messi had decided to remain in ignorance.
Messi will have to pay an additional 1.7 million euros and his dad 1.3 million euros on top of the 5 million euros in unpaid taxes and interest fees they shelled out before the trial.
Barcelona publicly backed its five-time World Player of the Year. In a statement, the club said: FC Barcelona gives all its support to Leo Messi and his father with relation to the sentence for tax evasion handed out by the Provincial Court in Barcelona today.
Hows Messi handling the bad news, especially after failing to end Argentinas major tournament title drought? Judging from the photos of his vacation in the Bahamas, hes probably doing OK.
In honor of the Pulse nightclub massacre, an all-star panel of 24 artists, including Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, Selena Gomez, Jason Derulo, Gwen Stefani, Mary J. Blige and Pink, have teamed up for a recording that will raise money for the shooting victims and their families, Billboard reports.
The megatrack Hands is the brainchild of hit songwriter Justin Tranter, co-writer of Justin Biebers Sorry and songs for DNCE, Fall Out Boy and Stefani.
Tranter was on tour in Miami with Gomez, for whom hes also written songs, when news poured in of the June 12 carnage in Orlando that killed 49 and injured 53 the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Tranter, an LGBT advocate since coming out at the age of 14, immediately went to the Center Orlando, the regions chief LGBT community center, to volunteer.
I called them and said, If I fly up, is there something for me to help with? he told Billboard. They say, We need as many hands as we can possibly get.
Hands was born the following day, attracting a whole litany of artists. Mark Ronson co-produced the track.
We didnt want to have any trendy electronic elements, Tranter told Billboard. We wanted it to sound classic, timeless and human. We want this anthem of positivity to be played for years to come.
Tranter joins the ranks of several other artists and musicians who have paid tribute to the victims of Orlando, including Lin-Manuel Miranda and Lopez, Demi Lovato and Nick Jonas, and Adele.
Hands is available to download on iTunes.
[Billboard]
Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) has always flown against the crowd with pick your own seats and free checked bags. The company was even forward thinking enough to buy oil futures when oil prices were still in the $50s back before the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent spike of oil prices above $100 a barrel.
But there is one key area where the airline isn't as progressive as its competitors: technology.
From Bloomberg:
"For most of its 45 years, Southwest Airlines Co. has operated with a kludgy hodgepodge of technology systems, mainly built in-house. It was generally a cheaper approach that better fit the needs of its network, radically different from those of hub-and-spoke airlines."
Kludgy... That's one way of putting it. Falling behind its competition is another.
Because there's a line between cost efficiencies and being cheap enough that you sacrifice other efficiencies.
And Southwest crossed that line quite a bit ago, according to the company's CEO Gary Kelly. Apparently, the company hasn't updated its reservation system in 30 years... an unheard-of amount of time for a technology.
One has to ask if they're still using dot-matrix printers, too.
The main reason for this update is the need for more flexibility. Its current passenger service and scheduling system means a fixed schedule and clunky interfacing with international flight options, among other issues.
[More from StreetAuthority.com: Should You Invest In This Big Beer Merger?]
The upgrade has a price tag of $250 million, but the company is expected to double its investment by increasing annual profits by $500 million by 2020. That's not an insignificant boost. Its roughly 10% of quarterly revenues that are climbing at a rate in the low single digits year over year.
This isn't beginning of a cultural overhaul, though. Customers should still expect open seating and free baggage check -- two fairly big revenue generators for other airlines.
So what kind of impact will this move really have on LUV share prices?
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I expect it to be a slow burning boost to revenue and cost efficiencies... but that won't translate to a huge windfall for investors.
That's why investors should take a look at the company Southwest has tapped to build its new passenger service system.
That company is Amadeus IT Holdings SA (OTC: AMADY, Madrid: MCE).
Headquartered in Madrid, Spain, AMS provides transaction processing solutions to the global travel and tourism industries. The company brought in 3.91 billion in 2015, a 14.5% jump over 2014. In fact, AMS revenue has grown at a CAGR of 8.6% between 2010 and 2015.
Analysts expect this year to be another double-digit growth year, with revenue growing to 4.329 billion, then to 4.644 billion and 4.934 billion in 2017 and 2018 respectively.
[More from StreetAuthority.com: Can Disney Compete In China?]
Southwest will begin to move its operations over to the new passenger service system in the first half of 2017, so that could mean next year will be a substantial year for AMS. Transaction fees have been slowly but steadily increasing over the past decade or so, and that trend is expected to continue.
AMS share prices have been hit by the Brexit vote, just like everyone else, but this could be a great entry point for investors, as shares have tried to move sharply higher since early February 2016.
Ambitious analysts are targeting a share price 29% higher than current prices. A move like that would put shares above 50.60 or $53.87, an all-time high.
Risks To Consider: As with any new adoption of technology, there's the potential for glitches, particularly since Southwest has to overhaul everything.
AMS seems to be an old hat a these systems, though, and it's a go-to company in the industry. In other words, the company knows what it's doing.
It even won a Red Hat award for its innovation in open source technology.
[More from StreetAuthority.com: You Won't Believe What George Soros Just Did]
Another risk to consider is that tourism may slow down in the face of global terrorism. The latest horrific bombing in Turkey shows that there is considerable real risk for travelers. This isn't going away anytime soon.
As AMS makes a lot of its money off of transaction fees, this is nothing to sneeze at.
That said, there are lots of regional travel that's remained unaffected by these risks, and AMS has its hand in most of these areas.
Action To Take: The $250 million investment might not be more than 10% of Southwest's quarterly revenues, but it's well over 10% of AMS's annual revenues.
Amadeus IT Holdings SA (AMADY) could climb 29% to fresh all-time highs through 2017 with this deal with Southwest. Investors can also take a look at the pinksheet as an alternative to the Madrid listing. It's rather lightly traded, though, so proceed with caution.
Editor's Note: AMADY isn't the only stock set for gains. If history is any guide, Apple's newest iSecret could send shares of this little-known tech stock soaring. This firm holds 7,300 patents in a $150 billion industry that's about to take off big -- thanks to Apple. Get in now, and you could pull in 228% returns in just 12 months... and 30X gains in the next few years. Click here for details.
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The UK's largest international contemporary art festival, taking place from July 9 through October 16, will explore the past, present and future of Liverpool through six separate "episodes": Children's Episode, Ancient Greece, Chinatown, Flashback, Software and Monuments from the Future.
Artists from around the world
Forty-two artists from Australia, Belgium, China, France, Greece, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, Russia and Taiwan, as well as the UK have been comlissioned to produce pieces that will be exhibited across the city of Liverpool for the Biennial, as well as a showcase of ten associate artists working around the North of England. The event has been divided into thematic "episodes."
Children's Episode
2016 marks the first time that the Liverpool Biennial has commissioned a program in which artists collaborate with children. Japanese artist Koki Tanaka will revisit the scene of a protest in Liverpool in 1985, in which 10,000 children demonstrated against employers' exploitation of the government's Youth Training Scheme. The original protestors and their children will retrace the route through the city.
Ancient Greece
Many of Liverpool's most opulent buildings were inspired by Ancient Greece. In honor of this connection, a whole floor of Tate Liverpool will be transformed into Ancient Greece during the fair. Classical Greek sculpture will be displayed alongside new commissions by international artists including Andreas Angelidakis, Koenraad Dedobbeleer and Jumana Manna.
Chinatown
Fifteen artists from around the world will be showing their work in the Chinatown episode, inspired by Liverpool's thriving Chinese community, among the oldest in Europe. Among the pieces will be work by artists Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian, currently exiled in Dubai, who had their art shipped over to the festival.
Flashback
Flashback will see Merseyside-born artist Mark Leckey presenting his autobiographical film "Dream English Kid" alongside sculptural pieces. The festival has also commissioned Sarah Browne and Jesse Jones to produce a live broadcast "The Truncheon and the Speculum," which will be available for download from July 21.
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Software
Biennial artists have been invited to consider the interactions between art and technology. The Minecraft Infinity Project, for example, will invite "Minecraft" gamers to work together and produce a virtual sculpture of the Liverpool Biennial.
Monuments From the Future
For the final section, artists have been invited to conceive an idea of Liverpool in the future. Of the artists in this section, the interdisciplinary artist Coco Fusco will present his lecture "Observations of Predation in Humans: A lecture by Dr Zira."
For more information, visit www.biennial.com
Berlin (AFP) - The Frankfurt and London stock exchanges will not base their merged headquarters in London, German media reported on Wednesday, in the latest fallout from Britons' shock vote to leave the EU.
Stock market operators Deutsche Boerse and London Stock Exchange (LSE) had hoped to manage both exchanges from London following a planned merger.
But bosses have come under pressure from regulators and politicians to base the new company within the European Union since the June 23 referendum on British EU membership ended with a win for "Leave", business daily Handelsblatt reported.
"Of course, in the event of Britain leaving the EU, it must be ensured that European regulatory requirements are respected," German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said at a Berlin news conference on Wednesday.
"The most important question is which businesses remain in Frankfurt and which in London," Schaeuble went on.
"The appropriate authorities must watch this closely, but it's up to the companies involved to make a decision."
Media further reported that the merged businesses could create a "double holding" company, allowing them to get around clauses in the legally-binding merger agreement that specify London as the headquarters.
"A structure like that does cost money, but that way the merger could succeed despite the threat of Brexit," a major Deutsche Boerse shareholder told Handelsblatt.
Deutsche Boerse chief Carsten Kengeter has "promised" shareholders that the double holding structure will allow the deal to go ahead, Munich-based daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported.
Handelsblatt further suggested that the company was examining placing the joint headquarters in Frankfurt alone -- or even in a third, "neutral" city such as Amsterdam.
Deutsche Boerse and LSE have sought to calm fears that their third attempt at a merger will fall through because of the British vote, saying in a statement on Tuesday that "the combined group will meet all regulatory requirements".
An overwhelming majority of LSE shareholders backed the deal on Monday.
On June 26 at the BET Awards, Greys Anatomy star Jesse Williams delivered a fiery speech criticizing police brutality and cultural appropriation. At the time, it was met with a standing ovation. But on July 1, a petition appeared on change.org calling Williamss speech racist and demanding his firing from Greys Anatomy.
The petition has since received more than 18,000 signatures, and its creator writes: I will not tolerate the blatant disrespect to all ethnicities. I will not stand by and watch this hypocrisy continue. I will not let this effect [sic] the future of our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, friends, family, my neighbors and especially police officers.
Now, by their very nature, online petitions give every idea or off-kilter perspective an insanely wide audience. So, here are some of our favorites:
1. In 2013, someone petitioned the White House to convert at least one national park into a dinosaur clone park. It managed to rack up only about 2,000 signatures, but, cmon guys, everyone remembers how Jurassic Park went down, right?
2. Next, is a slightly more serious petition: Remove Making a Murderer from Netflix. The 2016 petition argues that the documentary series has harmed the reputation of Manitowoc County, Wis. the site of the series investigation. It also says this about the murderer at the heart of the doc: Were not saying hes guilty, not saying hes innocent We just want our city back. Unfortunately for this petition, the show will be getting a Season 2.
3. And last, but not least, the 2012 granddaddy of all online petitions, directed to the federal government, Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016. Yes, that kind of Death Star. The White House even responded to the inane request, jokingly saying, Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?
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If youve got a better petition up your sleeve, hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Khail Anonymous, on Twitter.
WATCH: a recap of this years BET Awards, below:
As the sun set over New York on June 12, hundreds of Muslims gathered in Hudson River Park to break their Ramadan fast together.
Iftar, the evening Ramadan meal, is often a joyous celebration of faith and family. But the mood that Sunday was solemn: That morning, news had broken of the ghastly massacre of LGBTQ revelers at Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
A lone Muslim had allegedly perpetrated the attack. Here by the Hudson, more than 200 knelt in prayer.
Were praying for those who were lost, one woman explained in a video circulated by the Huffington Post, her voice breaking. As Muslims, were united in our outrage over this senseless act of violence.
Meanwhile, an Orlando imam condemned terrorism as un-Islamic and affirmed his belief that Islam teaches peace. The Florida chapter of a national Muslim group called on members to donate blood for the victims. And statements of sympathy tumbled forth from American Muslims in what CBS News called an avalanche.
Today, we stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ community, said the group Muslim Advocates. Your grief is our grief. Your outrage is our outrage.
Unfortunately, none of those touching gestures deterred Donald Trump from warning darkly that radical Islam is coming to our shores.
In a falsehood-riddled speech following the Orlando massacre, the presumptive GOP nominee blamed the shooting on immigration and political correctness.
As Muslims all over America sent their sympathies to Orlando, Trump mocked his Democratic rivals insistence that Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people. He accused Muslims of causing death and destruction by covering up terrorism in their midst (though it was later revealed that a Muslim member of Mateens community had reported him as suspicious).
Then, in perhaps the most ominous part of the address, Trump claimed that Democrats will take away Americans guns and then admit the very people who want to slaughter us.
Muslim immigrants are the problem, he seems to be saying. And guns are the solution.
If you ask me, Id feel much safer with the crowd at Hudson River Park than anywhere near a rally of armed Trump supporters. But heres the creepier part: For all his blathering that we have to get smart about radical Islam, Trump is stupidly playing right into ISISs hands.
Like Trump himself, the group benefits immensely from anything that drives a wedge between Muslims and the societies they live in.
ISIS said as much itself in plain English in a publication detailing its plan to destroy the gray zone between infidels and believers. Since most Muslims seem to like living in the liberal societies of Europe and North America, ISIS propagandists have written, the only way to drive up recruitment is to make Muslims feel unwelcome there.
No wonder ISIS recruiters are now featuring Donald Trump in advertisements.
Its not because theyre afraid of him its because few people are working harder to make Muslims feel unwelcome than he is. Civil rights groups report that Trumps rise has paralleled a shocking increase in hate crimes against Muslims in this country.
Thats an outrage. And its thoroughly self-defeating.
In fact, the United States has arguably the most prosperous, well-integrated Muslim population in the western world. Even as ISIS has scored a few recruiting successes among the much more marginalized Muslim communities of Europe though even there the group falls way outside the mainstream its flat-lined here.
Scenes like the iftar gathering in New York, in other words, are the rule, not the exception. Theyre a touching rejoinder to the toxic politics of division, and a far more accurate reflection of our Muslim neighbors than anything peddled by Trump.
And, not least, theyre a much better asset in the fight against terrorism than any bullet or bomb or any demagogue who urges his followers to reach for their guns at the first sign of trouble.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards urged calm in Baton Rouge during a press conference on July 6, a day after a police officer shot and killed 37-year-old Alton Sterling outside a convenience store in the city.
Edwards said he had very serious concerns after watching disturbing video of the fatal shooting, and confirmed that an investigation would be carried out by the Department of Justices Civil Rights Division.
A transcript from the press conference can be found here. Credit: YouTube/Louisiana Gov
By Bryn Stole and Kathy Finn
BATON ROUGE, La. (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday it would investigate the killing of a black man pinned to the ground and shot in the chest by two white police officers outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Captured on at least two videos, graphic images of the shooting of Alton Sterling, 37, early Tuesday stirred protests and social media outcry over the latest case of alleged police brutality against African-Americans in cities from Ferguson, Missouri, to Baltimore and New York.
One of the two officers shot Sterling five times at close range, and the other removed something from Sterling's pants pocket as he was dying, according to images on a video recorded by Abdullah Muflahi, owner of the Triple S Food Mart where Sterling was killed in the parking lot.
"I'm heartbroken. It's outrageous. It's crazy," said Muflahi, who considered Sterling a friend and allowed him to sell CDs outside his store. He provided a copy of the video to Reuters and said police took a gun from Sterling's pocket.
Several hundred people gathered on Wednesday for a prayer vigil near the spot where Sterling was fatally shot, with speakers calling for peaceful protests, justice and unity in the face of "excessive force" by police against black residents.
"If we stand divided, we are already defeated," Bishop Gregory Cooper of Baton Rouge told the crowd that included families with children and filled the store's parking lot as well as nearby streets. Police stayed on the fringes of the crowd.
Overnight, about 200 protesters gathered outside the store chanting "Hands up, don't shoot" and "Black lives matter."
Local officials rushed to defuse tensions, saying there would be an independent investigation, after media showed a separate graphic video of the shooting recorded by a bystander.
"I have very serious concerns. The video is disturbing, to say the least," Governor John Bel Edwards told reporters.
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Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden and local police said they welcomed the probe launched by the Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and federal prosecutors.
GRAPHIC VIDEOS
A video recorded on the bystander's cell phone shows an officer confronting Sterling in the parking lot of the store and ordering him to get on the ground. The two officers then tackle Sterling to the pavement, with one pulling a gun from his holster and pointing it at his chest.
Muflahi's video shows the officers on top of Sterling. One of them yells "he's got a gun." The video jerks away from the scene after the first two shots are fired. Three more shots are heard, then the camera shows one of the officers leaning over Sterling and taking something out of his pocket.
Police did not say how many shots were fired and declined to say whether a stun gun was used on Sterling. Muflahi said police Tasered Sterling before he was tackled.
The two police officers involved in the shooting, Blane Salamoni, a 4-year veteran, and Howie Lake, a three-year veteran, were both put on administrative leave, Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie said at a news conference.
The officers were responding to a call regarding a black man wearing a red shirt, who reportedly made threats with a gun, Dabadie said.
"When officers arrived Sterling was armed and the altercation ensued that resulted in the loss of his life," Dabadie said.
The body cameras of both officers became dislodged during the altercation, but continued recording audio and video, police said at the news conference. Those and other recordings will be turned over to federal investigators, police spokesman Lieutenant Johnny Dunham told reporters.
RAP SHEET
Relatives of Sterling and acquaintances from the neighborhood described him as a local fixture who had been peddling copied CDs, DVDs and games in front of the Triple S Food Mart for years.
According to court records, Sterling has multiple criminal convictions since the mid-1990s, for battery, resisting arrest, burglary and other crimes. He is a registered sex offender after spending close to four years in prison for felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile.
Those who knew him described a funny, jovial and friendly person who worked hard.
"I'd never seen him get out of hand with anyone," said Elvina Scott, who lives nearby and said she had purchased a CD from Sterling a few minutes before the shooting.
Cameron Sterling, Alton's 15-year-old son, broke down crying at a news conference on Wednesday morning as his mother spoke. "He was killed unjustly and without regard for the lives he helped raise," said the mother, who did not give her name.
(Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Fla., Laila Kearney in New York City, Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee, and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Writing by Fiona Ortiz and Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Matthew Lewis)
CHICAGO, July 6 (Reuters) - Shortly after enacting a temporary budget, Illinois is seeking a team of underwriters to handle bond sales over the next three years, according to a notice on the state's procurement website.
The notice, posted on Friday with responses due on July 22, seeks to qualify as many as 30 firms as senior, co-senior and co-manager underwriters for an unspecified amount of bond issuance.
Illinois has the worst general obligation bond ratings among the 50 states at the low investment grade triple-B level due to its $111 billion unfunded pension liability, chronic structural deficit, and a budget impasse that was put on hold last week with the passage of a six-month spending plan.
The budget deal includes authorization to refund up to $2 billion of bonds to save about $20 million. It also marked a truce in the battle between Republican Governor Bruce Rauner and Democrats who control the legislature, who put aside their differences so that the fifth-largest U.S. state could fund some operations at least through the Nov. 8 general election.
So far this year, Illinois sold $1.03 billion of GO bonds in two competitively bid deals that resulted in wide so-called credit spreads over Municipal Market Data's benchmark triple-A yield scale.
State law limits the use of underwriters in a negotiated debt issuance to no more than 75 percent of the par amount of bonds sold each fiscal year.
The state's last solicitation for underwriters was in 2013 with firms that included Citi, Wells Fargo Securities, J.P. Morgan, Barclays Capital, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Loop Capital Markets, tapped as rotating senior underwriters.
(Reporting by Karen Pierog and Matthew Lewis)
By Brad Haynes SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's lawyers asked on Tuesday that crusading federal judge Sergio Moro be removed from a corruption investigation involving the former president, arguing he had shown a lack of impartiality. The filing highlighted a showdown between two of Brazil's most prominent public figures - the former president who remains a front-runner in polling for the 2018 presidential race and the judge who jailed several of Lula's closest allies. The lawyers said a decision by Moro to publicly release Lula's wiretapped conversations in March "caused public embarrassment," leading to lawsuits in which the judge himself could eventually be held liable. The judge's explanation of his decision before the Supreme Court also suggested that Lula had obstructed justice and concealed ownership of a country estate, Lula's lawyers told journalists in Sao Paulo, calling Moro an "accusatory judge." The federal court in the southern city of Curitiba, where Moro has overseen a multibillion-dollar bribery probe centred on state oil company Petrobras , said in a statement that Moro would answer the accusations through the legal process. Lula is under investigation for allegedly receiving luxury real estate and speaking engagements from engineering groups implicated in the Petrobras scandal. Brazil's top prosecutor has also asked the Supreme Court to investigate Lula regarding allegations he benefited from the corruption scheme and obstructed efforts to investigate it. Lula has denied wrongdoing and vowed to fight the charges. (Reporting by Brad Haynes; Editing by Peter Cooney)
July 1 will be Garrison Keillors last official time hosting A Prairie Home Companion, a public radio broadcast with a history a decade longer than that of Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundations (SMIF), which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Theres no denying Keillors radio show, particularly his News from Lake Wobegon monologue, has crafted one of the most pervasive narratives for rural Minnesota and our small, Midwest towns.
For those of us living in and working for the future of that mythical yet somehow incredibly real Lake Wobegon, we understand that Keillors sign-off from a place where all the women are strong, the men good-looking, and the children are above average is a somewhat misleading simplification. Through SMIFs early childhood programming, we understand that all of our children are not above average, but instead, struggle due to income and racial achievement disparities. In our rural region, we are home to many new immigrant families who can feel isolated by our business-as-usual approach, no matter how much Minnesota nice envelopes it. And, as evidenced by my photo with this column, Ill just say not all the men are necessarily good-looking.
Yet, one of the things the more than 1,500 Lake Wobegon tales have done is create a rural voice pumped weekly into the radios of rural and urban dwellers alike. Keillors stories are highly edited, nostalgia-inducing yarns filled with a somewhat realistic yet limited cast of characters. The question may now become: with the departure of Keillor and his monologue, how else can we carry the rural narrative forward?
Keillors show has created a nostalgic connection point for those of us who reside in rural areas and for those with rural roots, but those roots are weakening with generational change. The stage is set for a new voice even better, new voices to step up to the mike, or blog, or podcast, or camera lens, or whatever medium they may find to help tell our rural stories.
Perception becomes reality, William James observed. If thats indeed the case, the stories we tell ourselves and others are important. In Minnesota, while 40 percent of the population still lives in greater Minnesota, our representation in mainstream media does not seem to reflect that proportion. Additionally, we face researchers who have been predicting the doom-and-gloom of rural Minnesota for decades, locals who pessimistically eye empty main streets and yearn for the better days of yore, and outsiders who pass through and often pass judgment of these dying places.
However, I argue that theres a new vitality in many of our rural communities and that we need to be the ones telling that story. Certainly, researchers like Ben Winchester and others at the University of Minnesota Extension are providing evidence that things are not as dark for greater Minnesota as people may tend to believe. But beyond statistics of new blood coming back into rural areas, especially in our 20-county region, there is a lot to celebrate: enviable quality of life, beautiful landscapes, a world-class medical facility, many new businesses, quality schools, and generous, dedicated residents.
In addition, there is a spirit of entrepreneurialism that lives on in our small towns. At SMIF, we see it as our job to help spark that spirit and give seed investments to help them grow. As with everything we do, this needs to be a collaborative, regional effort. A growing tourism industry in Fillmore County must be seen as a success for surrounding counties; a theater project in Le Sueur must be celebrated by any town within an easy drive.
Most importantly, we should all be vigorous advocates of our region and more hopeful in our thinking of what can be. With Keillor stepping aside, we must be the ones to reclaim our own narrative. We must become the story tellers offering a more complete, more hopeful telling of what is and where were headed.
I welcome your comments and questions. You can reach me at timp@smifoundation.org or 507-455-3215.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 6, 2016 / Makena Resources Inc. (MKN.V) (45CM.F) (CANSF) (the "Company" or "Makena") has secured the services of Hardrock Diamond Drilling Company ("Hardrock") of Penticton for the next phase of drilling at the Patterson Prospect in the Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan. Hardrock has drilled in the area previously and has extensive knowledge of the Athabasca Basin. Makena anticipates commencing the drill program in July consisting of 3-5 holes in this next phase.
Negar Adam, president of Makena states, "We are very pleased to be conducting a significantly larger drill program at Patterson. This area is home to many of the largest uranium deposits on earth and recently some of the largest new discoveries. This prospect is located in-between Fissions' Patterson discovery, the Pure Point discovery and NexGen. Recently there has been a renewed global interest in the Athabasca basin, as NexGen's discovery has increased in size dramatically and Fission received a cash infusion from CGN Mining Company Ltd. We look forward to commencing the drilling and are very optimistic about the upcoming results."
If you would like to be added to Makena's news distribution list please send your email address to makenaresourcesinc@gmail.com
Contact Information
Tel: 1.604.685.5150
Fax: 1(604) 689-1733
"Negar Adam"
President, Director
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.
SOURCE: Makena Resources Inc.
The former site of the historic Rustic Mill restaurant in Jackson County has been cleaned up after sitting dilapidated for nearly five years in the aftermath of a fire that destroyed the building.
The town of Albion allocated up to $15,000 to clean up the N5491 Highway 54 site, and workers concluded the effort in late June. The county already has started the process of taking the property back in light of back taxes owed by its former owner Brian Adkins, who was sentenced to prison for soliciting a former employee to burn down the establishment.
Its definitely a benefit to the township, Albion Clerk Tammy Rush said of the cleanup. Itll be a definite improvement.
Albion for years had been exploring ways to clean up the site, which sat as a pile of rubble since the July 2011 fire that destroyed the building. The structure dated back to 1866 under its original name of the Charter Oak Mill when it served as a grist mill. It became a nightclub in 1961 and in 1965 it opened as The Rustic Mill, changing ownership three times since 2007.
Adkins was sent to prison after a jury convicted him of soliciting the arson, and accomplice Kyle Rott, who set the fire, got a six-month jail term for his role.
The town received many phone calls and inquiries about the status of the site in light of its dilapidated state since the fire, and this spring it got the OK to send a raze order to Adkins, giving him 30 days notice to clean up the site or have Albion step in to complete it.
The town also had been working with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to ensure there werent environmental concerns with the cleanup effort in light of a minor amount of asbestos present.
I suppose its like everybody pretty happy (that its cleaned up), said Albion Supervisor Tom Tomter. Wed get phone calls. Now (people) dont have to drive by that unsightly public nuisance.
The countys tax deed committee this Wednesday is set to vote on sending a resolution to the full county board to take the property. Last Thursday was the final day for Adkins to pay the back taxes, and the county board will vote in August on the resolution to take the property in the event the tax deed committee OKs it to move forward.
Adkins then would have 60 days from the August county board meeting to pay all back taxes to redeem the property, which will total just over $19,557. The county would be able to keep the property or sell it if Adkins doesnt redeem the property, or it also would have the option of giving it back to Albion, according to Jackson County Clerk Kyle Deno.
I dont know what the committees thoughts will be, Deno said.
By Bryn Stole and Kathy Finn BATON ROUGE, La. (Reuters) - The black man shot dead by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was described by those who knew him as a fun-loving guy who scraped together a living selling music recorded on compact discs. The father of five had been arrested several times in his 37 years of life, and a felony conviction landed him on a list of sex offenders. Alton Sterling, 37, was shot at close range by two white police officers at about 12:30 a.m. CDT on Tuesday. The shooting, captured on cell phone videos, aggravated the unrest that has coursed through the United States for two years over the use of excessive force by police, especially against black men. Relatives and acquaintances of Sterling from his Baton Rouge neighborhood described him as a local fixture who had been peddling CDs, DVDs and games for years in front of the Triple S Food Mart, where the shooting took place. The money he made supported him and his children. "He was a very nice guy, always smiling and laughing and joking," said store owner Abdullah Muflahi, who said he considered Sterling a friend. Sharida Sterling, a cousin who grew up with Sterling, said he was often harassed by police outside the store, attention that she and others said was unwarranted. "I'd never seen him get out of hand with anyone," said Elvina Scott, who lives nearby and said she bought a CD from Sterling a few minutes before he was shot. Baton Rouge police officials said officers had responded to a call that a black man was making threats with a gun. They said Sterling was armed when they arrived. Shopkeeper Muflahi said Sterling had recently gotten a gun to protect himself from possible robberies, but he did not see a weapon in friend's hand during the encounter with police. According to the Louisiana Department of Corrections, Sterling was convicted in 2000 for a crime against a minor that led him to spend about four years in prison and be registered as a sex offender. A court document reviewed by Reuters showed that he was accused of having sex with a 14-year-old girl and impregnating her when he was 20. Sterling was arrested several times after his release in 2004. His most recent conviction was in 2011 for illegally carrying a weapon, the Corrections Department said. In November 2015, on his Facebook page where he smiled from many of his photos, Sterling posted a blurry picture of himself in what appears to be handcuffs with the caption, "To all facebook friends and family Im gone to do my time." Louisiana arrest records showed that he was taken into custody at about the time of the posting, but they did not specify the reason. An arrest warrant had been issued in August 2015 after Sterling was accused by prosecutors of violating the terms of his sex offender registry program. Those who knew Sterling, a 5-foot-11-inch, 300-pound man referred to as "Big Alton" in notes left at a makeshift memorial outside the convenience store, said he did not deserve to die from what many saw as more heavy-handed treatment of racial minorities by police. "He was a good man," said Jamese Perry, who held a sign outside the store on Wednesday to let people know about a vigil for Sterling, who had dated her cousin. "Never bothered anyone," she added. "Gentle." (Reporting by Bryn Stole and Kathy Finn in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; and Angela Moon in New York; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Toni Reinhold)
Beverly Hills-based management and production firm Management 360 has bolstered its management team with three new hires: Fox casting executive Cameron Washington, digital guru Alessandra Torre and British comedy executive Siobhan Bachman.
Washington began working at Fox in 2009 and has served as manager of casting for the past four years. Among the shows the Los Angeles native worked on were Lee Daniels' Empire; Gina Prince Bythewood and Reggie Bythewood's first TV series Shots Fired; and the Andy Samberg comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Torre is returning to Management 360 where she started off her career as an assistant in the talent department. She then joined EQAL Media Networks in 2012, where she produced creative content for the firm's lifestyle clients including Lauren Conrad, Michelle Phan, Jennifer Lopez, and Elizabeth Banks. She most recently served as vp Business Development and Strategy at Digital Brand Architects, working with global brands such as L'Oreal, Toyota, Volvo, Tiffany + Co, Frye & Company and Neutrogena.
Bachman began her career as an agent, and then joined BBC Casting in 2002, where she worked on shows such as The Office, Little Britain, and Extras. In 2006, she helped The Daily Show find new correspondent John Oliver. Most recently, she executive produced the pilot of Randall & Hilda Are Not a Couple, written by Ed Weeks (The Mindy Project) and Hannah Mackay (Peep Show).
"We are incredibly lucky to have three dynamic executives joining our team, each of whom bring something unique to the company," said a statement from Management 360's partners. "Cameron is a respected and accomplished casting executive with a great eye for talent, and the natural ability to help guide actors into the right roles. Siobhan has extensive knowledge of both the international landscape and the comedy world, along with impeccable taste, smarts and instincts. We're also thrilled to welcome back Ali Torre to Management 360, where she began her career. Her expertise in the digital sphere and extensive knowledge of emerging platforms will be a great boon to our company as we continue to explore this new frontier."
Margot Robbie is great at explaining things. Exhibit A: her cameo in the The Big Short, in which she manages to break down the intricacies of complex finance concepts. Exhibit B: this helpful video from Vanity Fair, in which a beachside Robbie takes the time to translate 50 Australian slang terms into plain old English. (Spoiler alert: even the native Aussie is stumped by some of the weirder terms that her countrymen use. Doovalacky, anyone?)
In under four minutes, you can learn the proper way to use fun phrases like fair dinkum (far out) and pash rash (when you kiss too much and your face is all red, youve got pash rash, Robbie says). Turns out Aussie slang is heavy on the insults and terms to describe beers, parties and bathroom activity. Naturally. Also to note: thong and fanny have some rather different meanings Down Under.
So next time you chuck a sickie to hit up the bottle-o in your ute for a tinny, you can explain your whereabouts to your unenlightened American friends while maintaining that Aussie mystery about your activities. Accent not included. Thanks, Margot!
Twentieth Century Fox Television Distributions (TCFTD) International TV president Marion Edwards plans to step down after 24 years with the company.
Shell be succeeded in 2017 by Gina Brogi, EVP of Worldwide Pay Television and Subscription Video on Demand.
It has been a very difficult decision to leave Fox but I am excited to see what new adventures lie ahead for me, Edwards said on Wednesday. [TCFTD president] Mark [Kaner], Gina, and I have worked together to make sure that our group is fully prepared and ready to face the challenges of the demanding future that lies ahead and now, having achieved that goal, it is the perfect time for me to step away and for Mark and Gina to lead the group forward to what I am sure will be an extraordinary future.
Gina has proven herself to be up to every challenge and Mark continues to be one of the most inspiring leaders in our business, she continued. The future looks very bright for Fox!
Also Read: Fox News Host Gretchen Carlson Sues Roger Ailes for Sexual Harassment
Edwards first joined TCFTD in 1992 as senior vice president. She became head honcho in 2007. Prior to coming to Fox, Edwards was vice president of MGM/UA Telecommunications and VP of MCA Universal International TV.
Marion is an institution in international television. We are very sorry to see her leave but I know she will have the same enormous success going forward. She is an exceptional leader who is highly regarded and admired throughout the industry and has achieved such great things for us, Kaner said. I can think of few executives who are as passionate, smart and dedicated as Marion and I am extraordinarily pleased she has agreed to stay on through the end of the year to lead a smooth transition..
I feel so much admiration and respect for Marion, Brogi added. She paved the way for women in this industry at a time when it was not an easy thing to do. She has become a significant mentor to me and I will wholeheartedly miss her collaboration and friendship at the office every day.
Story continues
Brogi joined TCTFD in 1999 as director of Worldwide Pay TV Distribution. She became EVP in 2011.
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Fox News Prevails After FEC Votes Not to Punish Network Over GOP Debate
Disney, Fox, Discovery Stocks Rebound Post Brexit
Fox, Netflix, Disney: US Media Companies Lose Billions in Value Following Brexit Vote
Stacey Snider's Fox Takeover May Mean Personality Clash With Top Execs, Insiders Say
In a recent letter to the editor I mentioned about millions of dollars lost due to bad loans made by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. Soon after that, an area newspaper carried an article about De Pere businessman Ron Van Den Heuvel declaring bankruptcy on behalf of his business Green Box NA Green Bay.
He has less than $50,000 in assets and owes between $10 and $50 million.
WEDC loaned his company more than $1.2 million in 2011-12 to help create 116 jobs. Recently a judge issued an arrest warrant for Van Den Heuvel after he was found in contempt of court for selling company machinery to someone in another state and not paying his creditors. He also was charged with 13 counts of federal bank fraud for an alleged scheme dating back to 2008 and 2009.
The WEDC was created by our governor and his comrades in Madison. Why would the governor and WEDC make such terrible loans?
Could it be that it had to do more with a contribution to the Republican Party than anything else?
Barcelona (AFP) - Barcelona star Lionel Messi will appeal a Spanish court decision that sentenced him to 21 months jail for tax fraud and slapped them with a fine of 3.7 million euros ($4.1 million) on Wednesday.
The Argentine's lawyers feel an appeal would eventually succeed in persuading the court that Messi and his father have behaved correctly, the players representatives told AFP.
(Adds details about deal size, background)
MEXICO CITY, July 5 (Reuters) - Mexican high-end department store chain Liverpool on Tuesday said it had reached an agreement to acquire Chilean retailer Ripley in a deal that values the target at 813 billion Chilean pesos ($1.2 billion).
Liverpool said has it has agreed a deal with the Calderon family, Ripley's majority owner, offering to pay 420 Chilean pesos per share for the target. The Mexican firm said it would consider the deal successful if it acquires at least 25.5 percent of Ripley.
The offer represents a premium of about 25 percent to Ripley's closing price on the Santiago Stock Exchange on Tuesday.
The agreement is still subject to various conditions, including regulatory approval, Liverpool said in a statement to Mexico's bourse. The acquisition includes an option for Liverpool to buy additional shares five years after the deal goes through.
Ripley, which has 69 stores in Chile and Peru, was in talks with various companies last year about developing its business. Mexican press had previously reported rumors about a Liverpool acquisition.
($1 = 661.9000 Chilean pesos) (Reporting by Gabriela Lopez and Adriana Barrera; Writing by Anna Yukhananov; Editing by Sandra Maler and Kenneth Maxwell)
Lily Aldridge has been signed up by Michael Kors to launch the fashion brand's new fragrance, 'Wonderlust'.
The adventurous scent, designed to capture a free-spirited and romantic vibe, features a mixture of blossoms and spiced notes for an exotic and oriental tone. The fragrance begins with top notes of Italian Bergamot and Pink Pepper, smoothed by the refined gourmand of Almond Milk. A dash of spicy Dianthus and a sheer, vanilla-like touch of Heliotrope deepen the odor, which ends with the exotic and creamy base notes of Benzoin Siam, Sandalwood Sri Lanka and Cashmeran Wood. It signals, according to the designer, an "infinite desire for adventure, romance, and discovery."
Supermodel Aldridge was shot by fashion photographer and director Mario Testino for the scent's debut campaign, sharing the camera with Dutch model Wouter Peelen. Captured in Sri Lanka, the images feature the couple escaping from a yacht to head to a remote island together for a Wonderlust-inspired rendezvous in paradise, and are accompanied by the perfume's slogan, "Let desire lead the way."
The fragrance, which will launch starting in August and rolling out through fall, comes in a luminous gradient bottle accented with dreamy golden hues.
Aldridge has a long history of working with the US fashion house, having first starred in its Spring 2015 ad campaign and fronting many campaigns for the brand since, such as 2015's Miranda Eyewear Collection and 2016's Jet Set Go campaign. Alongside fellow models Candice Swanepoel and Liu Wen, she also fronted the designer's charitable 2015 'Watch Hunger Stop' campaign, the result of a long-term partnership between Michael Kors and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to help "build a world with zero hunger."
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One year ago, Mick Fanning was counting his lucky stars.
The Australian surfer had just been on the end of a shark attack while in the water at the J-Bay Open, a competition that takes place in Jeffreys Bay, located on the eastern cape of South Africa.
SEE ALSO: 6 apps to help you win summer
"Man, I'm happy to not even compete ever again. To walk away from that, I'm just so stoked," Fanning said after the incident. Now he has courageously returned to the scene where it all happened.
Fanning competed at the 2016 J-Bay Open Wednesday, battling through an ankle injury picked up during a warmup last Friday. He had told Instagram followers on Tuesday that he would be "good to go" and hoped his ankle would hold up.
Fanning has participated in some surfing events in 2016 after taking personal leave from the World Surf League tour after the incident and the death of his brother.
A three-time world champion, Fanning was up against Connor Coffin of the U.S. and Alejo Muniz from Brazil in the competition's first round.
Fanning started strongly with his first wave scoring 6.17 points out of 10, then consolidated his lead on his third wave, which scored 7.50. Fanning convincingly won the first round with a total of 13.67 points of a possible 20, moving on to the third round of the competition.
fanning
Image: world surf league
It was a seemingly casual win for the champion surfer, visibly hobbling from his ankle problem as he was greeted by photographers and media when he returned to shore.
Fanning didn't reference the shark attack in an interview with Rosy Hodge from the World Surf League after his heat, preferring instead to focus on how he was getting over his ankle injury.
"It's been a big week actually," Fanning told Hodge. "I got here early and hurt my ankle, and had to sit on the sidelines and watch the amazing waves go through, it was just like torture ... once you're out there in the heat, you don't feel anything. It was great to get back out."
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article stated Fanning won with a score of 13.87, when in fact the score was 13.67.
Technology major Microsoft Corporation MSFT has announced a partnership with a U.S. based biotech company Monsanto Company MON in a bid to invest in Brazilian agricultural technology startups.
Partnership in Details
Monsanto is reportedly expected to join forces with a Brazilian investment fund with a corpus of 300 million reais ($92 million). The fund will be managed by Microsoft. The objective of the partnership would be to evaluate feasible innovative ideas for new digital tools that could be applied to augment agricultural production in the country.
An initial funding of up to 1.5 million reais ($459,000) would be granted to selected ideas for facilitating early development. On the other hand, the project owners can choose to either pay back the investment after three years or convert the money into equity.
We note that, QUALCOMM Incorporated QCOM is also interested in the partnership and is reportedly investing in the fund.
Smarter Agriculture
Today technology has given us the means to change the dynamics of the agricultural sector and tackle issues that were earlier thought to be inevitable. Increased accuracy in weather prediction along with timely availability of production and crop data has transformed the way agriculture is practiced in developed countries.
Given the huge scope for research and development in the agricultural sector, such partnerships are likely to gather momentum in the coming years, thereby backing new startups in this particular segment.
Another Stock to Consider
Investors looking to buy stocks in the broader technology space can take a look at Citrix Systems, Inc. CTXS, which is currently in a favorable position.
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Microsoft could be gearing up to expand its Surface range with four new devices by the end of 2017, according to a picture taken by an Indian developer visiting the firm's Redmond campus in Washington state. Currently doing the rounds on social media, the photo shows a wall of images featuring the firm's Surface products, including four projects still in the pipeline (three for 2017 and one for 2016).
Specialist high-tech websites suggest that the next Surface product could be an all-in-one PC, similar to those already marketed by Apple, HP and Lenovo. In the long term, Microsoft could develop a whole series of computers under the Surface brand, building on 2015's Surface Book laptop. This notebook PC could be due an update in 2017 to integrate new-gen Intel Kaby Lake processors.
Microsoft is also expected to release a new tablet in 2017. The "Surface Pro 5" promises an even bigger screen (up to 14" and with ultra-high definition), faster performance (up to 1GB of RAM) and more features (such as a fingerprint reader).
However, the major new arrival in Surface range could be a first smartphone, expected for a few years already. This could come in three versions -- one consumer model, one pro model and one mixed-use version.
Microsoft's current Surface range includes three consumer devices (Surface 3, Surface Pro 4, Surface Book) and one device for business (Surface Hub). Note that Microsoft has just launched Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book models offering 1TB of storage.
New York (AFP) - Donald Trump's pick for vice president could make or break his hopes of defeating Hillary Clinton in the US election. But who's being vetted and who actually wants the job is another question.
The New York businessman has spoken of his desire to find a seasoned politician who can help force legislation through Congress and offset his lack of political experience.
A sensible choice might help overcome the shortcomings of a 70-year-old who has never held elected office and lags an average of nearly five percentage points behind Clinton in national polls.
Yet the wrong pick could restrict his support base or alienate moderate and independent voters.
Trump sent the rumor mill into overdrive this week by meeting Indiana Governor Mike Pence and Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, campaigning with Tennessee Senator Bob Corker and dishing out praise for Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton.
Here is a look at the chief candidates considered in the running with Trump expected to decide before the Republican National Convention begins on July 18.
Chris Christie, 53
Often described as a political bruiser, the New Jersey governor was the first Republican heavyweight to endorse Trump way back in February after abandoning his own bid for the White House.
His chief asset was winning two elections in a largely Democratic state -- a cross-party appeal that could come in handy in a deeply divided Congress.
The former federal prosecutor is already in charge of Trump's transition team, should he win in November, and he is a staunch defender of the man he calls a "friend," including against allegations that Trump is racist.
But Christie's popularity plummeted in the "bridgegate" traffic scandal. An investigation officially cleared the governor of wrongdoing, but his aides shut down lanes on a busy route into New York, allegedly to punish a Democrat mayor for failing to support their boss's re-election.
The New York Times also says relations are strained between Christie and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, because Christie was on the prosecution team that jailed Kushner's father for corruption in 2005.
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Newt Gingrich, 73
Trump-Gingrich would be the oldest ticket in US politics: two septuagenarians competing for the millennial vote in 21st century America.
Gingrich packs the political punch that Trump lacks. He was in Congress for 20 years and speaker of the House of Representatives from 1995-99 during Bill Clinton's presidency.
A failed presidential candidate in 2012, he is now a political consultant who has advised Trump for months. Crucially, he says he is willing to serve as vice president, but he is also not afraid to criticize Trump.
But for all his name recognition, he is a polarizing figure and as an aging white male brings nothing new to the support base. Like Trump, he has also been married three times to the displeasure of conservatives.
Mike Pence, 57
The Indiana governor and former radio host served six terms representing his home state in Congress. A fiscal conservative and lawyer by training, he was House Republican Conference chairman from 2009-11.
Trump spent time with Pence and his family -- the governor is married with three adult children -- over the Independence Day weekend.
"Very impressed, great people!" he tweeted with customary gusto.
His staunch defense of family values and core Republican beliefs could appeal to conservatives put off by the billionaire's tabloid divorces and more socially liberal views. On the downside, he may not attract swing voters.
Tom Cotton, 39
An outside choice as currently the youngest US senator, he was only elected in November 2014 and lacks the political weight that Trump is likely to favor.
Nonetheless he is a rising Republican star. Educated at Harvard, he joined the Army after the September 11, 2001 attacks serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Joni Ernst, 46
Trump lavished praise on Ernst after meeting her on Independence Day, saying she had done "a fantastic job" for Iowa and America.
A veteran who served as a company commander in Kuwait and Iraq in 2003, she became the first woman elected to the Senate from the key swing state of Iowa in November 2014.
The senator says she had a "good conversation" with Trump but appeared to rule herself out in an interview with Politico published Wednesday. "I feel that I have a lot more to do in the United States Senate," she said.
Bob Corker, 63
The chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee ruled himself in an interview with The Washington Post.
"I think I'm far more suited for other types of things," he told the newspaper. A relative unknown on the national stage, his foreign policy credentials and bipartisan experience had earmarked him as a possible contender.
Wisconsins pollution control agency released a draft Tuesday of a comprehensive study of sand mining to swift criticism from environmentalists who say it relies too heavily on industry-funded air quality data.
The Department of Natural Resources strategic analysis is intended to assess the latest scientific, natural resource, and socioeconomic information of the 128 mines, processing and loading facilities across western Wisconsin. The DNR is accepting public comments on the draft.
For years, companies have mined the fine-grained silica sand prevalent in western Wisconsin for industrial use. But advances in a gas and oil mining technique known as hydraulic fracturing created enormous demand for the sand, which is used to open cracks in underground rocks.
Many of those sites have been shuttered in the past year as world oil prices plunged, but environmentalists warn the industry is not going away.
Midwest Environmental Advocates immediately critiqued the 155-page documents assessment of air quality in nearby communities.
According to the DNR analysis, the primary concern is airborne particles smaller than 10 microns known as PM10 rather than the smaller, more dangerous fine particulate matter (PM2.5), which can lodge deep inside human lungs. The DNR says air quality monitors in western Wisconsin have not detected elevated levels of fine particulates.
But MEA attorney Sarah Geers argues there is no evidence to support that conclusion.
Like DNRs 2012 analysis, the strategic analysis provides a lot of background about the industrial sand process and the regulatory framework. This should not distract the reader from the limited data and analysis of the actual air quality impacts of industrial sand facilities, Geers wrote. The most serious limitation is that DNR fails to adequately assess the threat from PM2.5 emissions because DNR is operating under the faulty premise that these facilities do not emit PM2.5.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has previously expressed concerns with the DNRs approach to regulating fine particulate matter.
A DNR spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
MEA also bemoaned the DNRs reliance on a previous study by the nonprofit Institution for Wisconsins Health.
Published earlier this year, the Health Impact Assessment concluded industrial sand operations pose little risk to air and water quality. MEA says the reports authors overlooked the risks of fine particulate matter while failing to acknowledge the limitations of a study based on data gathered by the industry itself.
All of these important organizations keep pointing back to this industry-funded study, said MEA spokeswoman Stacey Harbaugh. The big problem here is that the DNR is not collecting data.
The IWH study has come under fire from others, including the Ho-Chunk Nation, which suggested the organization may not have the resources to properly evaluate the topic.
Jim Steinhoff, the environmental health and lab manager for the La Crosse County Health Department, was one of more than a dozen local health officials who reviewed the IWH study. He shares some of MEAs concerns about the lack of data on PM2.5.
They did the best they could do with what they had, he said. I dont think you can say theres no concern here looking at the data they had to work with.
The IWH, an independent nonprofit, has defended the study, even publishing a 14-page response to prior MEA critiques.
Were standing by the findings of the study, said IWH manager Dustin Young. We realize it cant be all things to everybody.
Young said the institute encourages further study of the issue and welcomes advocacy from groups like MEA.
Geers said she was glad to see the DNR acknowledge the threat of water contamination and call for additional study.
DNR has known for some time that some wastewater holding ponds at industrial sand mines have had high levels of metals, which present a risk to groundwater quality and the health of rural residents who rely on private wells for drinking water, she said. In the meantime, DNR should require monitoring at industrial sand facilities to ensure that these discharges are not going unnoticed.
Mila Kunis is baffled by Donald Trumps anti-refugee policy.
In a recent interview with Glamour to promote her upcoming film Bad Moms, the actress opened up about immigrating from the Ukraine with her parents on a religious-refugee visa.
The whole Syrian-refugee thing we came here on a religious-refugee visa, and Im not going to blow this country up, Kunis said. Im clearly paying taxes. Im not taking anything away. So the fact that people look at whats happening and are like, Pfft, theyre going to blow st up? It saddens me how much fear weve instilled in ourselves.
She also addressed Trumps call to build a wall on the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
the whole, Hey, lets build a wall between Los Angeles and Mexico I dont even have to answer that one. Theres no point, Kunis said. Its a really great sound bite. And it got him far. Nobody should be mad at him; we did it to ourselves.
Trump has consistently taken an anti-refugee position on the campaign trail, at one point comparing Syrian refugees to a Trojan horse.
We have to stop the tremendous flow of Syrian refugees into the United States, Trump said in April. We dont know who they are. They have no documentation and we dont know what theyre planning.
Trumps controversial position on immigration has faced backlash from a number of celebrities including Padma Lakshmi; an open letter from America Ferrera, George Lopez and others; and an op-ed written by Aziz Ansari. Last year, Univision ended its deal with the Miss Universe Organization over Trumps remarks about Mexican immigrants.
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Mila Kunis is baffled by Donald Trump's outlook on refugees coming to America.
The 32-year-old actress, best known for her work in Ted, That '70s Show and as the voice of Meg on Family Guy, recently told Glamour magazine her family came to the U.S. on a religious-refugee visa "and I'm not going to blow this country up."
Kunis said she pays taxes and is not taking anything away by being a part of the country. Kunis' family is from Ukraine.
"So the fact that people look at what's happening and are like, 'Pfft, they're going to blow shit up'? It saddens me how much fear we've instilled in ourselves," she told Glamour of the suggestion by the presumptive GOP presidential nominee to block Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. over terrorist concerns.
As far as Trump's proposed wall along the Mexico border, Kunis told the magazine, "There's no point. It's a really great sound bite."
She added, "And it got him far. Nobody should be mad at him; we did it to ourselves."
Read More: Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher and Dax Shepard Play "Never Have We Ever"
Molson Coors Brewing Company TAP has been witnessing sluggish beer volumes in the U.S. and Canada for quite some time. The company is now focused to improve its beer volume and as a result has shifted focus to expanding the above premium category that will bear fruits in the future.
Molson Coors subsidiary MillerCoors is reportedly hoping to strengthen the marketing campaign for its Coors Banquet beer, one of the best-selling brands in the United States. It is to be noted that Coors Banquet has managed to increase its sales for the past nine years, amid a scenario when most major domestic beers are losing sales and share of the market to craft beer.
Per reports, MillerCoors will increased its marketing marketing expenditure by 5% compared with the last year, in order to gain significant market share in the American beer market. The efforts are also directed toward capturing sales from full-calorie competitors like Budweiser and Mexican imports.
In addition, the brewery expects to sell its beer at on-premises locations, which will also help in creating customer loyalty.
MOLSON COORS-B Price and Consensus
MOLSON COORS-B Price and Consensus | MOLSON COORS-B Quote
MillerCoors currently is a joint venture of Denver-based Molson Coors and London-based SABMiller plc SBMRY that sells both companies' products in the U.S. Molson Coors will soon complete the acquisition of SABMiller's 58% share of MillerCoors, after the closing of Anheuser-Busch InBevs BUD $107 billion takeover of SABMiller, which is expected in the second half of 2016.
Anheuser Busch reached a deal to acquire London-based SABMiller in Oct 2015. On May 25, 2016, the two big global beer companies received approval to merge from the European Union's (EU) competition regulator, the European Commission. Per the deal, AB InBev is offering common SABMiller shareholders $67.59 per share, while SABMillers two biggest investors, Altria Group, Inc. MO and the Santo Domingo family from Columbia will be offered cash and shares alternative worth about $60 per share. However, the deal is yet to receive shareholders and regulatory approval.
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Besides purchasing, SABMillers 58% stake in MillerCoors, Molson Coors plans to buy the Miller brand portfolio globally and retain the rights to all the brands currently in the MillerCoors portfolio for the U.S. market, including Redds and import brands such as Peroni and Pilsner Urquell.
Molson Coors purchase of SABMillers stake would allow it to take strategic control of its operations in its biggest market. Molson Coors would also be in a position to gain significant synergies, which would allow the company to cut costs quickly. As the U.S. beer market grows slowly, lower costs will help Molson Coors to increase its profits in the coming years.
Per the Wall Street Journal, the purchase of SABMillers stake in the joint venture could add nearly 50% to Molson Coors earnings per share, besides allowing the company to cut nearly $400 million in costs.
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The Montauk, N.Y., hotspot The Surf Lodge has won a permit by the New York state liquor authority to have live bands perform on their outdoor deck before 8 p.m. as part of their summer concert series after an East Hampton court dismissed a noise complaint against the restaurant.
St. Lucia, a band that traditionally played on the Fourth of July weekend, was not able to play this past weekend, but their married members Patty and Jean-Phillip were seen enjoying the sunset while kissing to their own songs from a playlist they put together. Milky Chance was scheduled to play on Friday, July 1, but since the Surf Lodge had to wait for their permit, the concert was moved to Swallow Restaurant's terrace.
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The Surf Lodge's owner, Jayma Cardoso, told Billboard in an exclusive statement: "We are happy to bring live music back to our community. Live music is the DNA of our brand. Starting Wednesday our concert series will resume with local favorite Nancy Atlas, followed by this weekend Sunflower Bean and 9 year veteran G. Love."
The concert summer series will also feature Gary Clark Jr. and Courtney Love, who spent the Fourth of July weekend with her boyfriend, film director Nicholas Jarecki, at the hotel.
How to Do the Montauk Music Scene, Where Willie Nelson, Courtney Love and More Rock
Montauk has been an inspiration for musicians such as the The Rolling Stones. Mick Jagger wrote the song "Memory Motel" for their 1976 album Black and Blue after a one-night stand at the seaside resort town's Memory Motel.
C3, who has been organizing the concert series for a year, told Billboard, "We, along with our team at the Surf Lodge, are very thankful to have resolution on this issue, and are looking forward to getting so many more great bands out to Montauk this summer!"
It takes a long time to become a saint unless youre Frances Cabrini, the woman who 70 years ago became the first American saint.
By the time Catholicism was well established in the United States, it was a lot harder to become a saint than it once had been, as the Catholic Church had stabilized the canonization process, as TIME explained after Cabrinis sainthood was set. The process of investigating miracles performed by the candidate became so involved that the church was less willing to undertake it without strong preexisting support for the person, and the candidate also had to have been dead for at least 50 years.
When it came to Cabrini, however, Pope Pius XI decided that, after her death in 1917, the canonization process could begin early. (One less-savory part of the process: her body was exhumed in 1938 so one of her limbs could be brought to Rome for ceremonial use as a relic.)
What made her so special? It wasnt just a matter of her claim to the requisite miracles. Heres how TIME described it upon her canonization:
On March 31, 1889, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, a tiny, frail nun, daughter of a Lombard farmer, arrived in New York with six members of the order she had formed, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Pope Leo XIII had sent her to work among the Italian immigrants who were finding neither a welcome nor prosperity in the New World, and worse, in the eyes of the Church, were losing their faith and piety. Mother Cabrini and her six set to work in the New York slums. To support their first orphanage they begged their way through the squalor of Little Italy, later managed to set up a tiny, ill-equipped hospital for the Italian poor. Though funds came mostly in small change, Mother Cabrinis masterful will again & again overcame obstacles that seemed insuperable. For the next 28 years she traveled indefatigably, setting up schools, hospitals, orphanages and novitiates in Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver and other U.S. cities. Her shrewdness in acquiring property for these institutions and raising funds to pay for it made her seem to many a sharp businessman a kind of saintly Hetty Green. And she was as tough as she was canny. When a group of highbinding Chicago contractors tried to get the better of the sisters in remodeling a hotel into a hospital, the little Italian nun fired them out of hand, tucked up her habit, and stumped about the scaffoldings for weeks directing the laborers herself. She was an American after Americas heart, and in 1909, in her 59th year, she became a U.S. citizen.
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Though she had been born in Italy, that citizenship would earn her the title of the first American saint. The first saint born in the U.S. would come later, when Elizabeth Ann Seton was canonized in 1975.
Read the full story, here in the TIME Vault: First U.S. Saint
Paris (AFP) - A tiny repository of DNA inherited only from one's mother may be key for healthy ageing, according to researchers who swapped out mouse genes to prove the point.
For a study published Wednesday, the team created two sets of lab mice identical but for their mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) -- and found that one group was much healthier and more sprightly in old age.
"The way we age might be determined long before the ageing process starts and the first signs appear," said a statement from the Spanish National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) in Madrid, whose scientists took part in the study.
Previous research had suggested that mtDNA variants could yield different health impacts, "but the issue remained very controversial due to contradictory observations," study leader Jose Antonio Enriquez told AFP.
The new findings, however, "definitively demonstrate" that this is true, he said.
Every cell in the human body holds about 20,000-25,000 genes, almost all of them in the nucleus -- so-called nuclear DNA.
But 37 others reside in tiny structures called mitochondria, which turn sugar and oxygen into energy and power our cells.
While nuclear DNA is transferred to offspring by both parents, mtDNA is inherited from the mother alone.
Sometimes, genetic mutations can cause mitochondria to malfunction, resulting in organ failure and even death.
Both strains of mtDNA used in the study were healthy, with only a 0.5-percent difference in genetic coding.
All the rodents were bred to have the same nuclear DNA.
- 'Mind-boggling' -
Mice in one group "were ageing healthier and had a median life span longer than" the other, Enriquez explained by email.
Lab mice have a life expectancy of just over two years.
Comparing a specimen from each test group at the age of two, the researchers remarked that one showed "evident signs of superior health".
It has "more abundant and more lustrous fur," they noted, "is more robust, has more muscular mass, and is more active." Liver function was also better.
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"Regarding the central fact that different mtDNA variants may contribute to the natural differences between individuals, we don't see any reason why this would be different in humans," said Enriquez.
Experts not involved in the study called the results surprising.
Few would have expected that mixing and matching mtDNA would have such an obvious effect.
And while the implications for human health remain unclear, commentators said the results may be important for the field of "pronuclear transfer" -- a technique for producing embryos free of mitochondrial diseases carried by their mothers.
The work "is an important contribution to the necessary and continuing debate concerning mtDNA replacement," said Robert Lightowlers, director of the Institute for Cell and Molecular Biosciences at Newcastle University.
Stem cell researcher Dusko Ilic of King's College London described the results as "fascinating and mind-boggling," though further study must determine whether they could be replicated in humans.
By Lawrence Delevingne
NEW YORK, July 6 (Reuters) - David Shukis, head of global investment services at investment consulting giant Cambridge Associates, has retired, a spokesman for the firm said on Tuesday.
Shukis joined Cambridge in 1989 and was based in its Boston office. His most recent responsibilities have been assumed by Chairman and Chief Executive David Druley.
Sandy Urie, chairman emeritus of Cambridge, said in a statement that the firm was "deeply appreciative" of Shukis' work.
"I had a wonderful career at Cambridge," Shukis said in an email to Reuters. "I'm excited about the firm's new leaders ... and sure that Cambridge will prosper under their direction."
Cambridge was ranked the second largest investment consultant by Pensions & Investments in November 2015, based on the firm's $4.6 trillion in assets under advisement as of June 30, 2015. Mercer was first with $9.1 trillion.
(Reporting by Lawrence Delevingne; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
Another U.S. coal company may fall victim to current coal regulations.
Murray Energy, Americas largest private coal producer, announced 4,400 jobs could be cut in six states, with bankruptcy being a possibility as well, citing the Obama Administrations war on coal.
The coal industry has been cut in half under President Obama Coal employment is down from 200,000 to 60,000 today and these people just want to work and honor dignity and theyre being denied that. The regulations from the Obama EPA now total $380 billion a year, Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray told the FOX Business Network.
Currently, the spot price of coal in Northern Appalachia is about $43, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The coal executive, who founded the business in 1988, explained that the company is working to avoid any layoffs or bankruptcy filings, saying the announcement was only precautionary.
We have a four-step program to stay out of bankruptcy and were dealing step-by-step with the things that we need to get done to stay out of bankruptcy, including working with our creditors, including working with the United Mine Workers on a new contract, including working with our customers, he said.
Hopefully well avoid bankruptcy. Its the last thing that I want to do.
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Kathy KasaKaitas wants people to know their cars are not dog sitters. The Coulee Region Humane Society animal control officer takes three to six calls every day in the summer regarding dogs left in vehicles.
There are no false alarms, KasaKaitas said. We respond to every call.
For the first time, citizens in Wisconsin can also take rescue action without repercussions, thanks to Assembly Bill 308. The bill, formulated to protect children and domesticated animals from overheating in vehicles, provides immunity from civil liability to those assisting the distressed. The bill was signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker in November.
According to the law, if an animal or person appears to be in imminent danger or distress due to the heat, a Samaritan is legally allowed to take the following steps:
Determine there is an immediate need to remove the animal/child.
Check whether the vehicle is unlocked and forced entry is required.
Call 911 or animal control.
Use as little force as possible to access the animal/child.
Remain with the animal/child until animal control or law enforcement arrive.
If the owner has not returned, leave a note on the windshield including contact information, reason for evacuating the animal/child and where they were taken.
Twenty-two states have some form of hot car law, sometimes referred to as hot dog or good Samaritan laws, though many only allow authorized public officials to conduct a rescue. Wisconsin is one of five states that allow citizens to take action, with California amending its law.
While KasaKaitas believes the law is an asset for communities without animal control departments, she has concerns.
Citizens need to understand the law, she said. We hope they would only take action in a dire situation. They cant just see an animal, break in and think its OK.
KasaKaitas says animal controls response time is usually under 15 minutes, which she prides herself on. The police assist when they can reach the location faster.
Our concern is when citizens become upset. They often fight with the dog owner and yell even after weve arrived, KasaKaitas said.
In Wisconsin, it is legal to leave a dog in a parked vehicle, but illegal to leave a child younger than 8 unattended. The Department of Meteorology & Climate Science at San Jose State University reported that 24 children perished in hot cars in 2015 throughout the U.S., and The American Veterinary Medical Association estimates that several hundred to thousands of animals die that way each year.
KasaKaitas said it has been several years since a dog was deceased by the time local officers arrived, but two years ago she encountered a dog in the throws of heat stroke, convulsing and vomiting.
It only takes 15 to 20 minutes to enter the danger zone, she said. People really push that time limit. They plan to run into the store for a minute, and then the line is long or they see someone they know. Its easy to lose track of time.
Dogs can only lower their body temperature by panting or sweating through their paws, and extreme heat can quickly lead to nerve, liver or brain damage, heart problems or death. Parking in the shade and leaving a dish of water or the windows partially open is insufficient.
Weve seen dogs get their heads stuck in windows, KasaKaitas said. The seats become very hot, and we dont recommend leaving the car running.
Children can develop hyperthermia in as a little as 15 minutes, resulting in brain or kidney impairment.
Signs of heatstroke in dogs include reddened gums or tongue, vomiting, dizziness, rapid breathing and weakness. Children may show symptoms of nausea, cramping, clammy skin and excessive sweating.
People often think they are the best owners because they bring their dogs everywhere, KasaKaitas lamented. But really its the opposite.
Several precautions can be taken to lower body temperature while waiting for medical assistance. For both animals and children, it is recommended that you move them to an air-conditioned area, provide water, Pedialyte or another re-hydrating solution, and apply damp, cool compresses to pulse points, underarms and feet. Ice water is discouraged, as it can cause body temperature to drop too quickly.
If you see an animal or child in a parked car, dont be afraid to speak up. Ask the service desk to make an announcement. Knock on a neighbors door. KasaKaitas recommends breaking in as a last resort.
People really dont understand the severity of these situations, she said. This bill is a good wake-up call.
NASHVILLE, TN / ACCESSWIRE / July 6, 2016 / Jonathan Turner, a criminal defense attorney who practices in the Nashville, Tennessee area, has been awarded two different awards in 2016 for exceptional DUI Defense.
Due to exceptional client reviews, AVVO.com awarded Mr. Turner the "Client's Choice" Award for 2016 for the second consecutive year.
In addition, Mr. Turner was awarded Expertise.com picked him as one of the best DUI attorneys in Nashville. He was selected out of a group of 256 DUI attorneys. Expertise.com wrote that they "analyzed and scored DUI lawyers on more than 25 variables across six categories" to give readers a "hand-picked list of the best DUI lawyers in Nashville, TN."
Expertise.com judged attorneys based on reputation, credibility, experience, availability, professionalism, and engagement.
Mr. Turner said, "I am honored to receive such recognition. But in the end, I just want to help my clients to get the best possible result."
Jonathan has been practicing DUI defense and criminal defense in several counties around Nashville including including Williamson, Davidson, Rutherford, Maury, Marshall, Robertson, Hickman, Sumner, Trousdale, Wilson, and Lewis Counties, and in Franklin, Fairview, Columbia, Mount Pleasants, and Smyrna.
One of Jonathan's blog articles called "Two DUI Dismissals in Two Weeks, How?" is currently up on his website at http://criminaldefensetn.com/two-dui-dismissals-in-two-weeks-how/.
In addition to graduating from the University of Virginia School of Law, Jonathan Turner was a past Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney in Halifax County, Virginia. His experience and training have made him a versatile professional capable of helping clients with criminal defense cases.
Jonathan Turner is admitted to practice law in Tennessee and Associate Member of the Virginia State Bar. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law.
Contact Jonathan Turner, Attorney:
Jonathan Turner
615-979-6401
jonturner@turnerlawtn.com
Jonathan Turner, Attorney at Law 1847 Brentwood Pointe Franklin, TN 37067
SOURCE: Turner Law Offices
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange January 22, 2016. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Via Dave Lutz at JonesTrading, here's a quick guide to what traders are talking about right now:
Good Morning! Nasty out there early. Havens on fire, with Gold at Yesterday's highs and US 10YY below 1.33%. US futures are skittering along the floor, with the Minis down 50bp after failing to hold the 50dma. Over in Europe, DAX off 1.7% after a 9400 break sets off stops. European bank stocks are getting hammered again DB on record lows, but those Italian banks are rebounding into the green from the recent drubbing. In London, angst evident as UK asset managers halt retail investors from withdrawing money out of property funds weighing heavy on builders and banks, hitting the FTSE for 1.8% and FTSE 250 nearing down 2%, has lost 23% since Brexit. Volumes across the continent are heavy, with NO sectors trading positive early. In Asia, Nikkei was hit for 2% as carmakers and banks sink, Aussie lost 60bp as the Big banks weighed, while Shanghai reacted to the $/Yuan fix with a small rally. Financial markets in Singapore, Malaysia, India and Indonesia are closed for public holidays.
Japans 20-Year Government Bond Yield Goes Negative overnight, while Aussie bond yields hit record lows driving the German 10YY to -19bp. The DXY is lower, as the $/Y rapidly approaches 100 in the overnight while the Pound touches a 31-year low below $1.28. Metals are mixed, with Silver leaping 3% and Gold hitting another two-year high while Ore fell 3% in China, causing Copper to retreat 2% from multi-month highs. Oil is adding to its biggest 1day whack since February, losing 1.5% as OPEC hit a record high output last month. Natty has lost an early 1.5% bid, dropping back into the red with no recovery from yesterdays 7% smackdown. Dead Cat bounce in the Grains as wet weather persists in the Midwest.
Ahead of us today, we get US Trade Balance at 8:30 - Fed's Tarullo (Voter, Neutral) Speaks on Regulation and Monetary Policy at 9. At 9:45 Markit PMI his, followed by the official ISM Services number at 10. At 2pm the U.S. Fed Releases Minutes from June 14-15 FOMC Meeting. At 4:30 we get API data (delayed from yesterday, DoE tomorrow) Street looking for a overall draw of 2.5mm (Bloomberg) with a 230k+ build in Cushing (Genscape). Eyes will be on Kuroda as he speaks from Tokyo at 8:30 tonight.
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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO envoys will hold a further formal meeting with Russia on July 13, days after the alliance's summit in Warsaw, in a sign Washington and Moscow want to defuse tensions in Europe. The forum bringing together Russia and its former Cold War adversary NATO last met in April after an almost two-year hiatus as relations sank to their lowest level in decades over Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula. The NATO-Russia Council will meet again at ambassadorial level in Brussels next week following the NATO summit in Warsaw in which Western leaders will cement a new deterrent against what they say is Russian aggression in Ukraine. Russia's envoy to NATO said Moscow would focus on the decisions taken in Warsaw, reiterating its view that the alliance's military build-up is risking peace in central Europe. "The main focus will be on military security in the wake of decisions to be taken at the NATO summit in Warsaw," said Russian ambassador Alexander Grushko. "We hope for a frank and serious dialogue on the issues related to the increased NATO activities near Russian borders and their impact on the security and stability in Europe and its regions," Grushko said. The West and Russia remain at odds over Ukraine and whether NATO has the right to expand eastwards, but the Russia-NATO Council session hints at a willingness to patch up diplomatic ties and avoid any accidental clashes in the region. "Our discussions will focus on the crisis in and around Ukraine and the need to fully implement the Minsk Agreements," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement. He was referring to the peace deal signed in Belarus last year that aims to end the conflict involving pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. "We will also look at military activities, with a particular focus on transparency and risk reduction, as well as the security situation in Afghanistan," the statement said. (Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Toby Chopra)
KABUL (Reuters) - After 15 years of conflict in Afghanistan and no sign of peace, NATO members meeting in Warsaw this week are expected to confirm their support for the Kabul government, aware that they have little alternative if the country is to hold together. Foreign ministers agreed in May to extend assistance past 2016 and at the summit in the Polish capital on Friday and Saturday, alliance partners are also expected to continue their non-combat training and assistance mission. Total financial support is expected to be about $5 billion a year to 2020, with the United States, the largest donor, contributing about $3 billion of that. "These decisions are very much about demonstrating NATO's enduring and steadfast commitment to Afghanistan," Ismail Aramaz, NATO's senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, told a media briefing in Kabul this week. "Afghanistan will not stand alone." The summit comes as President Barack Obama considers whether to go ahead with plans that would see U.S. forces in Afghanistan nearly halved from their current level of 9,800 to 5,500 by the beginning of next year. The Taliban have made major gains since a NATO-led international force ended combat operations at the end of 2014 and now control more territory than at any time since they were driven from power in 2001. They briefly seized the northern city of Kunduz last year and control much of the southern province of Helmand, the largest source of opium. However, NATO officials point to signs of progress by Afghan forces. They say a better trained, better equipped force is at least holding its own against the Taliban and is building up air power while steadily improving in key areas from logistics and recruitment to operational planning. They also say a stable Afghanistan is the best guarantee that militant networks such as al Qaeda or Islamic State cannot re-establish bases to threaten the West and that the uncontrolled flow of migrants to Europe can be slowed. However, they are also aware that public support cannot be taken for granted and there is pressure to ensure that President Ashraf Ghani's government uses aid effectively, bringing costs down while continuing reforms the West wants to see. "This is a two-way street," said Aramaz. NATO will be looking for "demonstrable signs of continued political stability" and "tangible signs of progress" in areas like women's rights, counter-corruption, electoral reform, and other human rights, he said. Afghan leaders must also make sure the security services remain under civilian control and free from political interference, he said. (Reporting by Josh Smith, Mirwais Harooni; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Robert Birsel)
The case of a Navy SEAL student who drowned after being dunked underwater by an instructor has been ruled a homicide Wednesday, according to a San Diego Medical Examiner report.
Seaman James Derek Lovelaces May 6 death was not announced by the Navy until officials were questioned about it days later, according to the Virginian-Pilot, and even then it was announced as a training mishap.
Lovelace, 21, was apparently struggling during a drill where trainees tread water while wearing combat gear. Instructors, according to the report, are reportedly advised to not dunk or pull students underwater.
Video of the incident, however, shows otherwise as instructors repeatedly splashed the student. Although the manner of death could be considered by some as an accident, especially given that the decedent was in a rigorous training program that was meant to simulate an adverse environment, it is our opinion that the actions, and inactions, of the instructors and other individuals involved were excessive and directly contributed to the death, wrote Kimi Verilhac and Abubakr A. Marzouk of the San Diego County Medical Examiners Office. The manner of death is best classified as homicide.
A Navy Seal spokesman declined to comment on the report.
A planned campaign would provide free sunscreen to all residents and visitors of the Big Apple. (Photo: Getty Images)
When New Yorkers head to our Citys parks, beaches, pools, and playgrounds this summer, they shouldnt return home with a sunburn and increased risk of skin cancer, writes New York comptroller Scott M. Stringer in a new press release published on his website.
In a policy brief called Sunscreen in the City, Stringer emphasizes the correlation between sun exposure and skin cancer and explores the possibility of providing free sunscreen in public places throughout the city in the foreseeable future.
The press release points out that skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the U.S., afflicting 5.4 million Americans per year. According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, that means one in five people will develop skin cancer in their lifetime. Even 15 minutes of direct sun exposure can cause DNA damage that could morph into skin cancer down the road, the release says.
19 Summer Skin-Care Picks From Hollywoods Top Aesthetician
Stringer feels its imperative to make free sunscreen available to all 8.4 million New York City residents and more than 50 million tourists who visit the city each year. In the summer, UV index ratings in New York City are typically sky-high and present an increased risk of harm to unprotected sun-bathers. Just five sunburns throughout a persons life could result in melanoma the most deadly form of skin cancer. Ninety percent of melanomas are caused by exposure to UV rays.
In order to launch this campaign without charging taxpayers, the comptroller is taking his cue from programs already in place in Miami Beach and Boston. These cities partner with local advocacy groups, hospitals, and other organizations to help fund dispensers that are then placed in public spots where sun exposure is high places like beaches, parks, and public pools. The dispensers are free to use.
A free sunscreen dispenser in Miami (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
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In Miami Beach, where sun worshippers flock, Melanoma is a public health epidemic, says Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine in support of the NYC initiative. Thats why its program offers pro bono use of 50 sunscreen dispensers placed throughout the citys heavily populated beaches. According to the release, the city even signed an innovative licensing agreement in 2014 which allows a private company to produce and market Miami Beach branded sunscreen.
And in Boston, support from Mayor Marty Walsh along with partnerships with the Parks and Recreation Department, the Melanoma Foundation of New England, and Make Big Change allow the city to provide 20 sunscreen dispensers that are free to use public parks. [The program] sends a message that the city is proactive and cares about the health of its residents, said Boston City Councilor Matt OMalley in the release.
Contrary to popular belief, you dont have to slather on super-high SPFs in order to ward off harmful UV rays. Deb Girard of the Melanoma Foundation of New England says that SPF 30 is perfectly fine for preventing skin cancer, and is used in public dispensers throughout Boston. Providing free SPF 30 sunscreen in outdoor spaces is not only effective to reduce the costs of skin cancer, it just might save lives.
There is no proposed date for implementation of a free sunscreen program in New York City. But with summer vacations starting, now is the perfect time to start talking about it.
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The Americas Got Talent auditions are finally over and they saved the best act for last. Tuesday nights show ended with 90-year-old Dorothy Williams, who was a dancer way back in the 1940s, but never achieved any real success. So Dorothy figured this was her last chance at becoming a star. Dorothys performance was a seductive dance where she slowly discarded her feather boa, the bottom of her dress, and eventually her lacy top, revealing a flesh-colored tank top with two tassels dangling from her chest. The 90-year-old had everyone on their feet, cheering for her sultry performance. While the judges were praising Dorothys dirty dancing, Nick Cannon came out and took over the show. After he said it was unfortunate that the judges had all given out their allotted Golden Buzzer selections, Nick exclaimed that he was gonna break the rules! The AGT host then ran down and slammed the Golden Buzzer himself, shooting gold confetti all over Dorothy and sending her on to the live shows.
Amid speculation that Nick Young cheated on his ex-fiancee Iggy Azalea, snapchats suggest that he cheated death over the holiday weekend.
The Los Angeles Laker was partying at his L.A. home, the one Iggy recently moved out of, during a Fourth of July celebration when he picked up a lit firework with his bare hand.
WATCH: Iggy Azalea Dumps Ex Nick Youngs Belongings Outside, D'Angelo Russell Makes Fun of Cheating Controversy
In a Snapchat posted by TMZ, Swaggy P is seen holding the artillery round over his head as it explodes. Fortunately, when the dust cleared, it appeared as though Young emerged unharmed.
This comes a year after Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul injured his hand in a similar mishap in a Fourth of July fireworks accident. Pierre-Paul lost one finger and mangled another in the incident, prompting him to record a PSA in which he detailed what happened during his accident.
I lit up a firework, thought I could throw it away real quick and in a split second blew off my whole hand just right there, he says in the video. On the way to the hospital, all I could do is think about my son and was I going to make it? Now Im just truly, truly blessed to be alive. Now when I look at fireworks I think about the safety.
WATCH: Nick Young Responds to Iggy Azaleas Cheating Allegations
Despite the injury, Pierre-Paul was able to return to the Giants for his one-year franchise deal.
Last week, Young seemed to respond to Azaleas cheating allegations against him in a tweet, writing, If you perfect then be perfect. I live in a world where ppl f**k up learn from it and move onThats life hate me or love me Im still going to love life man.
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Abuja (AFP) - President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday pleaded with militants to "give Nigeria a chance", vowing to keep the country intact despite widespread ethnic and religious divisions that threaten unity.
Nigeria is facing security threats on multiple fronts: Boko Haram Islamists in the northeast, Biafran separatists in the southeast, oil rebels in the south and nomadic herdsmen in the central states.
There have long been tensions between the Muslim majority north and largely Christian south, which were joined as one entity by former colonial ruler Britain in 1914 for political and economic expediency.
Buhari said there had been "a lot of improvement" against Boko Haram, whose seven-year insurgency has killed at least 20,000 people and displaced more than 2.6 million others.
Work was now ongoing to tackle the new threat to OPEC-member Nigeria's oil production from rebel groups in the southern delta region, he told senior ministers at a meeting to mark the end of Ramadan.
"We are now concentrating on the militants to know how many of them (there are) in terms of groupings, leadership and plead with them to try to give Nigeria a chance," he said.
Most of the attacks on oil installations since February have been claimed by the Niger Delta Avengers, which wants international oil companies out of the region and fairer revenue sharing of profits.
Several other groups have emerged with similar aims but the NDA has also said it wants self-determination for the delta, allying itself with Igbo people in the southeast, who want an independent Biafran republic.
Buhari, a former army general who led a military government in the 1980s, referred to his time under General Yakubu Gowon, who was in charge during the Nigerian civil war from 1967-70.
That conflict was sparked by a previous unilateral declaration of independence by the Igbo of the southeast.
"I assure them (the militants) that when we were very junior officers, we were told by our leaders, by the head of state which was General Gowon, that to keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done," he added.
"We never thought of oil," he said, responding to militant claims that the redistribution of oil revenue across the federation was unfair.
"What we were after is one Nigeria. Please, pass the message to the militants that one Nigeria is not negotiable. And I pray they better accept it."
Norman Lear had taken up plenty of causes during his life, but now, as he faces his 94th birthday on July 27, he's turned his attention to challenging the common media stereotypes of what it means to be old.
"The culture dictates how you behave, and maybe the elderly buy into it, the way they grow old," he says. "My role here now is to say, 'Wait a minute, that's not all there is. There's a good time to be had at this age.'"
Lear stakes out that position in a new, 7 1/2-minute video from directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, who also directed the documentary Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, which Music Box Films begins rolling out in theaters July 8. The new short, titled Not Dead Yet, debuted today as an "Op-Doc" posted by The New York Times.
In recounting how the short film came about, Ewing explained that in the documentary, which debuted earlier this year as the opening night film at the Sundance Film Festival, "We didn't have the opportunity to talk about his take on age. When we were doing the movie, to be honest, he didn't love talking about age and mortality. He does care about the portrayal of elderly people, but it was hard to get a persuasive conversation about it with him when we were making the movie."
Since then, though, Ewing and Grady - whose credits include the Oscar-nominated 2006 doc Jesus Camp - have become much friendlier with Lear as they all traveled together to various film festival appearances. "Really, our friendship began once the film was finished," she says, "because during the make of a film you can't be friends with your subject."
During one of their conversations, Lear told them of how frustrated he was that he couldn't find any buyers for a script he'd written called Guess Who Died?, set in a senior living facility. Ewing and Grady suggested they film him auditioning actors for a reading and that becomes the heart of the new short film as Lear meets with such veteran performers as Paul Sorvino, Barbara Bain and Allan Mandell. "I wrote it because we are so under-represented," Lear explains of the script.
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As for the documentary, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, it takes a broader view of Lear's life and career - from his teen years working at Coney Island to his groundbreaking sitcoms such as All in the Family and Maude to his founding of the progressive advocacy group People for the American Way in 1981. And also digs into family secrets - like his father's incarceration for selling fake bonds - that haunted him into adulthood.
A production of PBS' American Masters series came about after Ewing interviewed Lear for a documentary she was filming on women comedians for the PBS series Makers: Women Who Make America. "We just hit it off. I found him so wry and soulful," recalls Ewing, who was struck by all the archival material, home videos and DVDs sitting on the shelves in his offices. She asked him why'd they'd never been a documentary about, but Lear said while there had been requests, he'd never been interested.
But after he wrote his own autobiography, 2014's Even This I Get to Experience, Lear became more receptive to the request from the two filmmakers, who wanted to tell his story. Says Ewing of Lear, "He's like a Forrest Gump kind of character. He intersected with every major moment in the last 50 years in our culture and in American history, so we knew there was a good story there." Adds Grady of Lear's decision to finally turn his life over to someone else to tell, "Probably writing the memoir, putting all that stuff out into the world, prepared him to surrender [control] in some way."
One of the creative challenge, the documentary faced was finding ways to illustrate Lear's early experiences as a boy and young teen. "It was really important creatively and intellectually to include those stories. But what do you do, when you don't have material? You have to invent it," Grady says. And so, for the portions of the film dealing with his youth, they cast a young actor, Keaton Nigel Cooke, to play a young version of Lear, wandering through his life.
They also filmed Lear as he watched clips from his work - one of Carroll O'Connor's dramatic monologs from All in the Family, behind-the-scenes footage from Good Times - to catch his spontaneous and often very emotional reactions. What surprised the two filmmakers, says Grady, is "how someone of his success and power and influence was willing to be seen as human and vulnerable. He understands that vulnerability is what makes you interesting. And he puts his money where his mouth is. He's the real deal."
Watch the video below.
By David Brunnstrom, Patricia Zengerle and Yeganeh Torbati WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday sanctioned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the first time, citing "notorious abuses of human rights," in a move that diplomats say will incense the nuclear-armed country. The sanctions, the first to target any North Koreans for rights abuses, affect property and other assets within U.S. jurisdiction and extend to 10 other individuals and five government ministries and departments, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement. The sanctions place those officials on a blacklist making them radioactive to major financial institutions and companies while freezing any assets they may already have in U.S banks. "Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor, and torture," Acting Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Adam J. Szubin said in the statement. In North Korea, the leader is the subject of state-mandated adulation and considered infallible. In a report by the U.S. State Department to Congress, Kim Jong Un topped a list of those responsible for serious human rights abuses and censorship in North Korea. Many of the abuses happen in North Korea's political prisoner camps, which hold between 80,000 and 120,000 prisoners including children, the report said. The Treasury statement said he had "engaged in, facilitated, or been responsible for an abuse or violation of human rights by the Government of North Korea or the Workers Party of Korea." The sanctions also named lower-level officials such as Choe Pu Il, the minister of Peoples Security, as directly responsible for abuses. Senior U.S administration officials said the new sanctions demonstrated the administration's greater focus on human rights in North Korea, an area that had long been secondary to Washington's efforts to halt Pyongyang's nuclear program. The report was the most comprehensive to date of individual North Korean officials' roles in forced labor and repression. They said the findings were based on an earlier United Nations report and accounts from civil society groups and the South Korean government. They said the sanctions would be partly "symbolic" but hope that naming mid-level officials may make functionaries think twice before engaging in abuses. It lifts the anonymity," a senior administration official told reporters. The North Korea mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment. MORE SANCTIONS TO COME Using sanctions against a head of state is not unprecedented. In 2011, the United States sanctioned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and six other senior Syrian officials for their role in Syrias violence. Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was also sanctioned. Policymakers often worry that targeting a country's leader will destroy any lingering chance of rapprochement, say former diplomats. It is a sign that "there probably isnt much of a hope for a diplomatic resolution," said Zachary Goldman, a former policy adviser in the U.S. Treasury's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. Peter Harrell, a former State Department sanctions official, said the measures would signal to companies in China as well as others doing business with North Korea that the U.S. would continue escalating sanctions. Harrell added that it was unlikely that any assets would be blocked "given the realities of where Kim Jong Un and his cronies likely hide their assets." In March, U.S. President Barack Obama imposed new sanctions on North Korea after it conducted its fourth nuclear test and a rocket launch the United States and its allies said employed banned ballistic missile technology. Those steps froze any property of the North Korean government in the United States and essentially prohibited exports of goods from the United States to North Korea. In March, the U.N. Security Council imposed harsh new sanctions on the country in response to its nuclear and missile tests. The U.N. General Assembly urged the U.N. Security Council to consider referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court after a 2014 U.N. Commission of Inquiry detailed wide-ranging rights violations in the country. However diplomats say China, North Korea's neighbor, is likely to veto any such move. (Additional reporting by Joel Schectman in Washington and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Editing by Yara Bayoumy, Lisa Von Ahn and Chizu Nomiyama)
By Joachim Dagenborg
KONGSBERG, Norway (Reuters) - Norway will not negotiate any separate trade deals with Britain until London has agreed the terms of how it will leave the European Union with Brussels, the Norwegian Prime Minister told Reuters on Wednesday.
The Nordic country is not an EU member but pays hundreds of millions of euros to access the European internal market. It has often been touted by referendum campaigners as a potential model for Britain to follow.
The comments also underline the possible difficulties Britain may have in negotiating bilateral trade agreements when it leaves the EU.
"There won't be any bilateral agreements between Norway and Britain before a solution is in place with the EU," Prime Minister Erna Solberg said in an interview on the margins of a conference.
"The deal they (the British) get will go a long way to clarify what kind of relationship they will have with EEA countries," she said, referring to the members of the European Economic Area - the EU countries plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
Britain is Norway's third-biggest destination for goods produced by its mainland economy, which excludes the volatile oil and shipping sector, with an eight-percent share.
Mainland exports are primarily seafood, including salmon, but the country of 5.2 million is also a major gas supplier to Britain and its $860-billion wealth fund, the world's largest, is a major foreign investor.
Since the result of the referendum in Britain, the Norwegian government has been weighing its options to see what is best for the Nordic country's national interests, the prime minister said.
"I don't think it would be difficult to reach a deal to sell our fish," she said, adding that nor did she anticipate problems in negotiating contracts for Norwegian gas.
But there could be difficulties if Britain wanted to join the European Free Trade Association, which includes Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein, she said. The EFTA countries count 14 million inhabitants while Britain counts 65 million.
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"It would change the balance of power in EFTA," said Solberg. "Britain has other vital interests than Norway when it comes to negotiating free trade deals with other countries. And this is what we use EFTA for."
"We have strategic interests on fish, while Britain's and Switzerland's strategic interests are more about finance and other sectors."
(Writing by Gwladys Fouche)
Wherever you look, the American media seems to be decrying Southeast Asias political retrogression. According to the headlines, theres no end in sight to the junta in Thailand, religious tyranny is on the rise in Malaysia, Filipinos live in fear of their new president, and Indonesia is itching to execute foreigners.
These stories arent entirely wrong, and they certainly point to a number of serious challenges for the regions democrats. The problem is that the litany of bad news gives one the impression that democracy in Southeast Asia must be in free-fall. In fact, this is not the case.
The sheer volume of negative press as well as increased criticism from the think tank world is a side effect of Washingtons newfound obsession with Southeast Asia. It is the United States increased attention to the region (the so-called pivot to Asia) that is making commentators more aware of its shortcomings. And as Southeast Asian regimes face greater scrutiny, their imperfections are thrust into the media spotlight. As a result, even seasoned observers not to mention casual readers may fail to pay sufficient attention to the underlying trends, which are overwhelmingly positive.
Its no surprise that the pivot has attracted the backing of some within the American government who would like to contain China. Washington fears it is losing sway to Beijing, which is carrying out a massive investment campaign across Southeast Asia and is even building new islands in the South China Sea. India and Japan, both of which tend to see China as a rival, are the United States natural allies in this effort. The Southeast Asian countries, on the other hand, occupy a more ambiguous position. Their inhabitants find themselves balancing strong economic and geographical ties with China against a longing for closer association with the West.
Think tanks and human rights groups are keen to highlight the regions political regression and persecution of dissidents. Major publications describe it as politically unstable, in democratic recession, and ridden with dictators. But we should treat such wholesale condemnation carefully, as it is often exaggerated and driven more by increased scrutiny than by facts on the ground.
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The increased focus on Southeast Asias problems creates a tendency to overlook its long-term positive advances. In fact, the region is much more stable and democratic now than it was just 30 years ago. Back then, Burma and the Philippines were led, respectively, by a junta and a dictator. Indonesia was ruled by a military regime that was carrying out a violent occupation of neighboring East Timor. Further north in mainland Southeast Asia, Vietnam which had not yet normalized relations with the United States was propping up a proxy government in war-torn Cambodia.
Since then, the region has seen a host of improvements. Burma has emerged from more than 50 years of military misrule and brought a party led by a Nobel-prize-winning dissident into power. Indonesia and the Philippines have held several rounds of democratic elections after decades of ruthless dictatorship. And East Timor has held two national elections since its independence in 2002, emerging as a promising democracy.
International indices confirm that, viewed over the longer term, the region has advanced. According to Freedom House, Southeast Asian countries have generally improved in terms of civil liberties and political rights since 1972. Similarly, the Polity IV research project indicates that the regions democracy rankings have trended upwards over the last 30 years.
And, despite setbacks in several countries (particularly Cambodia, Malaysia, and Thailand), theres no reason to believe the positive developments described above are over. As standards of living across the region improve and they have dramatically over the last few decades its growing middle classes will continue to demand more meaningful political participation.
It is in this context that we must understand news reports about Southeast Asias democratic setbacks. Otherwise, the stream of bad news risks obscuring the regions long-term gains. This can be especially detrimental when it affects U.S. foreign policy leading, for example, to excessive criticism that may only drive the regions governments into the arms of China. Its a pretty obvious choice: When two superpowers are competing to win you over, why not go with Beijing, the one that refrains from hassling you over your democratic shortcomings?
Nowhere is this tension more obvious than in the case of Thailand. Washington has repeatedly reproached the generals in Bangkok since the 2014 coup, while Beijing has offered to sell them military hardware and to invest in large infrastructure projects. Unsurprisingly, Thailand has chosen to shift its allegiance towards the Chinese. Thai leaders are understandably miffed; their country has gone through more than a dozen coups in its modern history, but none has affected bilateral relations with the United States as severely as this one. Now the fact that the Thais are cozying up to Beijing is exacerbating the harsh reaction from Washington.
Despite the political setbacks in some countries, strategic thinkers in the U.S. government are betting that, in the long run, authoritarian regimes will ultimately choose to side with the liberal order. According to this view, we should be careful not to overestimate the impact of democratic shortcomings, which arent representative of the regions overall political direction.
The stress on Southeast Asias political regression is fueled less by what is happening in the region than by developments in the United States. Americans need to pursue a smart foreign policy that is not based on a Manichean worldview that sees the world in terms of good and bad states. Instead, we need a more nuanced understanding of the areas political trends.
This is not to say Southeast Asia does not have serious problems worth debating. Of course it does. But lets avoid exaggerating them, and remember instead how far the countries of the region have advanced. Southeast Asia isnt going to hell in a handbasket. Dont be duped into thinking so.
In the photo, people look for their names on a master list prior to casting their ballots in the presidential election at a polling station in Manila, Philippines on May 9.
Photo credit: TED ALJIBE/AFP/Getty Images
From Good Housekeeping
Hide your kids, hide your cheddar.
Police in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, are actively investigating the theft of a semi trailer that was loaded with 20,000 pounds of cheese. That's right - cheese.
The 53-foot trailer had been parked in a fenced-off lot in Oak Creek where drivers can rent space to park large vehicles, according to WWLP-22News. The truck's driver had parked the vehicle there at approximately 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday night, only to find it missing when he returned four hours later. He had been using the truck to transport $46,000 worth of US Foods cheese.
"It's a unique case and we're working several leads right now," Oak Creek Police Captain Mike Bolender told WWLP-22News.
We won't deny that the idea of a real-life Cheese Burglar is slightly comical, but cheese theft really is starting to become a serious problem in Wisconsin, where about a quarter of the cheese in the United States is produced.
Earlier this year, a thief stole a whopping 41,000 pounds of Minnesota-made parmesan cheese (valued at $90,000) from a distribution center in the northern Wisconsin city of Marshfield, according to Newsweek. The week after the Marshfield theft, a second batch of parmesan (valued at $70,000) was stolen in Germantown, Wisconsin, Newsweek reports.
If these two cases are any indication, however, the Oak Creek police will ultimately recover the most-recently lifted cheese: In both Marshfield and Germantown, the parmesan was found within two weeks of being stolen.
Hear more about the most recent case in this video from WWLP-22News.
It has been 400 years since William Shakespeare died, but the British literary great continues to inspire as Italian fashion house Valentino paid tribute to the playwright for its Autumn Winter 2016 haute couture collection in Paris on Wednesday. Valentino's co-creative directors Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli derived inspiration from Britain's Elizabethan era with high neck ruffles, ornate cloaks, masculine jackets, billowing lace sleeves and slim trousers paired with tunics. The collection presented a contrast between femininity and masculinity in one design, hailed by some of those who came to the show. "It was unbelievable. It was sexy, Medieval, modernism. I loved it," said actress Mila Jokovich. Other designer houses unveiling their haute couture collections this week include Giorgio Armani Prive, Dior and Versace. Dior is expected to announce that Valentino designer Grazia Chiuri will be joining the brand, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters last month. Neither party has officially announced or confirmed the appointment.
VIROQUA Gov. Scott Walker and about 50 demonstrators played an impromptu game of hide-and-seek when the Republican governor stopped in Viroqua for a press conference where he officially launched the states Broadband Forward Community Certification Program.
Many of the participants toting anti-Walker signs in front of Vernon Communications Cooperative Technology Center ran around to the back of the building when Walkers Wisconsin State Patrol escort dropped him off there.
Back door Walker, they chanted in frustration over the governors relatively below-the-radar visit. After they returned to the front sidewalk and noisily coaxed honks of support from drivers on Main Street, a Vernon official asked them to move away from the front, so they grouped again at the back hoping to intercept Walker, whose caravan left quickly.
Walker created the Broadband Expansion Grant Program with $500,000 in allocations in the 2011-13 biennial budget. Last year, the Republican-controlled Legislature tripled funding for the grants to $1.5 million annually for four years.
The tripling is intended to advance broadband Internet access and speed to meet needs for decades to come, Walker said, noting that it is necessary not only to enhance Wisconsins quality of life, economic development to compete in the global economy, education but also aid in tourism.
As much as people say they want to get away (from Internet connections), still at the end of the day, they want to check in or watch Netflix, as well as have the ability to work from home, he said.
The goal is to have rapid broadband accessible throughout the state instead of lagging in some rural areas and smaller towns, he said.
Asked whether broadband accessibility might have improved more quickly if he had not decided in 2012 to forego $23 million in federal grant money that would have expanded broadband networks to dozens of schools and hundreds of libraries, Walker said he would have to review the record on that question.
The certification program is intended to streamline the application process for broadband access because few communities and companies were applying under the previous legislation, said Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Madison, co-sponsor of the new law who also spoke at the press conference.
Telecommunications companies and communities must partner to advance broadband, Marklein said.
State Rep. Lee Nerison, R-Westby, whose 96th Assembly District includes Vernon and Crawford counties and part of Monroe County and who attended the press conference as an observer, saluted the legislation.
Ive got constituents who still are on dial-up, because of the southwest Wisconsin terrain of hills and valleys.
Im glad to see it finally coming, said Nerison, adding that he has been involved in efforts to expand broadband since he was elected to the Legislature in 2005, when Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle was in office.
Despite the increased emphasis, the Badger States broadband initiatives have faced criticism in some quarters, including among demonstrators Monday, as paling in comparison with Minnesotas.
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton has budgeted $20 million to improve broadband in the Gopher State, and he advocates spending another $100 million from the states surplus.
Attending the press conference was Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse. She also welcomed Broadband Forwards certification measures.
It streamlines the application process so communities will know how and where to apply, Shilling said.
However, the measure is not nearly enough to meet Wisconsin residents needs, she said.
Legislators have been talking for five to six years about making internet access fast enough, and more user-friendly, to serve not only individuals but also schools, health care facilities, economic development and tourism, Shilling said.
She told of working with firefighters in Seneca to help fill out paperwork at a highway department office.
They only had dial-up, she said. Nobody in this day and age should have dial-up.
Many would-be internet users are trapped in what Shilling described as the last mile, being a stones throw from broadband but too far out to be connected.
Vernon Communications Cooperative has done a very good job of being a leader in the quest to obtain access, speed and connectivity, said Shilling, whose 32nd District includes La Crosse, Vernon and Crawford counties, and part of Monroe County.
Some businesses have resisted broadband improvements, but Vernon saw the need, she said.
Shilling said she suspected the demonstrators were upset about Walkers string of private listening sessions throughout the state, a suspicion that participants confirmed.
George Wilbur, vice chairman of the Vernon County Democratic Party, said a tipster notified party members about Walkers press conference, prompting them to organize a protest of not only the private sessions but also Walkers performance in general.
Were fed up with the governor destroying the Wisconsin we used to know, Wilbur said, citing restraints on education, voting rights and water and the environment, among other issues.
This (Broadband Forward!) bill is to cover up for the fact that he isnt doing anything, he said. This is a feel-good bill.
Doctors approved to prescribe buprenorphine for opioid addiction will soon be able to treat close to three times as many patients.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced the highly anticipated new rule Wednesday, along with several other proposals from the Obama administration, as part of the ongoing effort to tackle the countrys deadly opioid abuse epidemic.
Though widely recognized as both an effective antidote to opioid withdrawal during detox and as a long-term maintenance medication, buprenorphine has been encumbered by tight federal restrictions since it was first approved for opioid addiction treatment under the Drug Addiction Treatment Act of 2000.
>>>Related: How buprenorphine changed opioid addiction treatment
Currently, doctors whove received special DEA approval to prescribe buprenorphine can treat up to 100 patients at a time a limit that, according to many addiction treatment specialists, has resulted in endless waiting lists and prevented countless opioid abusers from accessing potentially life-saving medication.
Starting this August nearly one year after Burwell first announced plans to loosen restrictions on buprenorphine prescriptions that number will increase to 275.
Im pleased that the cap is being lifted, said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, chief medical officer of Phoenix House, a national addiction-treatment program based in New York City.
But while he said he thinks the new patient limit will help expand access to treatment and save lives, Kolodny, who is also the Executive Director of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, admitted, I wouldve preferred to see HHS remove the cap rather than lift it.
I think in a couple of years were going to be right back here again asking for a higher cap, Kolodny told Yahoo News Wednesday, noting that there is no patient limit for doctors prescribing highly addictive opioid painkillers like Percocet and OxyContin.
There shouldnt be a cap at all, he said.
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>>>Related: How opioids affect your brain
The latest Obama administration actions came ahead of a crucial meeting between members of Congress to finalize a bipartisan opioid treatment bill thats been at the center of a funding fight for months.
The opioid epidemic is one of the most pressing public health issues in the United States, said Burwell, calling on lawmakers to approve President Obamas request for $1.1 billion to expand access to addiction treatment.
Despite threats from both House and Senate Democrats to oppose the legislation without the addition of significant federal funding, congressional Republicans voted unanimously Wednesday against attempts to tack at least $940 million onto the treatment package.
Kolodny said he supports Democrats refusal to sign a bill that does not allocate additional funding for addiction treatment, arguing that without money, theres very little there.
Warning that al-Qaida is trying to regroup and its Taliban hosts have made battlefield gains, President Obama announced Wednesday that he was slowing the scheduled U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and that his successor will inherit some 8,400 troops there.
The security situation in Afghanistan remains precarious, Obama told reporters in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Joint Chiefs Chairman Joseph Dunford at his side. As president and commander and chief, Ive made it clear that I will not allow Afghanistan to be used as safe haven for terrorists to attack our nation again.
Obama first ran for president vowing to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but his announcement means that the next commander in chief will inherit major conflicts in both countries.
U.S. troop numbers, previously scheduled to slip down to 5,500 by the end of the year, will now drop from about 9,800 currently to about 8,400 going into 2017.
The decision Im making today ensures that my successor has a solid foundation for continued progress in Afghanistan as well as the flexibility to address the threat of terrorism as it evolves, Obama said.
While he emphasized that America no longer has a combat mission in Afghanistan, Obama has made significant adjustments to U.S. posture there over the past year. In October 2015, he announced that he was slowing the pace of the troop withdrawal. And then in early June, he expanded the U.S. military role in helping Afghan security forces from the air and on the ground.
On Wednesday, he renewed his call for the Taliban to come to the negotiating table to hammer out a political settlement with the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.
The only way to end this conflict and to achieve a full drawdown of foreign forces from Afghanistan is through a lasting political settlement between the Afghan government and the Taliban thats the only way, he said. That is why the United States will continue to strongly support an Afghan-led reconciliation process, and why we call on all countries in the region to end safe havens for militants and terrorists.
The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, after the Taliban Islamist militia that controlled the country refused to turn over Osama bin Laden in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The conflict is Americas longest war.
The names of the two officers who were involved in Tuesday's fatal shooting of 37-year-old Louisiana man Alton Sterling were revealed on Wednesday.
Blane Salamoni, a four-year veteran of the department, and Howie Lake II, a three-year veteran, have been placed on administrative leave, PEOPLE confirms.
Both men will be the focus of a federal criminal investigation that will be overseen by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's New Orleans Division, the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Louisiana, United States Attorney Walt Green announced in a statement obtained by PEOPLE.
Sterling was shot at 12:35 a.m. on Tuesday when Salamoni and Lake responded to a call from an anonymous complainant who said a black man selling CDs in front of a convenience store had allegedly threatened him with a gun, according to a statement from Baton Rouge police.
A 48-second long video taken by a witness that has circulated widely online shows the two officers telling Sterling to get on the ground outside a convenience store. One of them quickly tackles him to the ground while the other officer yells, "He's got a gun! Gun!" before firing his weapon at Sterling.
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Veda Washington, Sterling's aunt, tells PEOPLE that when she first found out about Sterling's death, "I screamed because I knew this shouldn't have happened."
"The police are supposed to protect and serve," she says, adding, "They harassed him and they murdered him."
She says Alton was known for selling CDs, which she says he'd been doing for about 15 years: "That's how he supported his family."
At a Wednesday press conference, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said the federal government would take the lead in the investigation.
Sterling is on the sex offender registry in Louisiana after a 2000 conviction for carnal knowledge of a juvenile, according to online records. He was released in 2004.
At an earlier press conference, Quinyetta McMillan, the mother of one of Sterling's children, 15-year-old Cameron Sterling, said, "If we can reflect on the measure of a man, it should not be judged on his past."
Messages left for East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore were not returned Wednesday.
According to The Advocate of Baton Rogue, Moore said both officers were interviewed in the presence of their attorneys, and "believe they were completely justified in using deadly force."
An Ohio woman pleaded guilty to four counts of rape after sexually assaulting four children in 2013 at the daycare center where she worked.
Heather Koon, 27, pleaded guilty to charges including rape, kidnapping, and tampering with evidence during an appearance in Lorain County Common Pleas Court on July 1, her defense attorney Daniel Wightman told People.
Koon raped four children at ABC Kidz Child Care in Elyria, Ohio in order to appease her fiance, a registered sex offender, according to the Chronicle-Telegram. She also took obscene photos both at ABC Kidz and Country Day School in Amherst, Ohio, another childcare center where she worked.
ABC Kidz could not be reached for comment and Country Day School declined to comment.
Koon initially pleaded not guilty when arrested for the crimes in 2013.
Her fiance James Osborne, 37, also pleaded guilty last week to charges of complicity to rape, complicity to kidnapping and pandering obscenity involving a minor, according to a Loraine County Court official.
Koon and Osborne face 15 years to life in prison for their crimes, according to the Chronicle-Telegram. The couple could be sentenced to life in prison without parole if a judge decides they are sexually violent predators.
If they are released, they will be required to register as sex offenders, according to the Chronicle-Telegram.
(Reuters) - An Ohio man pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges including attempted aggravated murder and attempted murder for shooting his father and a sheriff's deputy following a dispute over eating too much hummus, authorities said.
Mohammed Abdou Laghaoui, 19, was appointed an attorney and was being held at a local jail on a $2 million bail, according to Warren County Court documents.
Laghaoui, who was indicted Tuesday on nine charges including attempted murder and tampering with evidence, is accused of shooting Warren County Sheriff's deputy Katie Barnes with an AK-47-style rifle as she investigated a fight between Laghaoui and his father last month, said county prosecutor David Fornshell.
The fight and subsequent shooting occurred at an apartment complex in Deerfield Township, Ohio, after Laghaoui's father got upset with his son for eating too much of his hummus.
The town is about 25 miles northeast of Cincinnati.
Laghaoui's father was also shot with the AK-47-style rifle, Fornshell said.
An attorney for Laghaoui, Timothy McKenna, could not be immediately reached.
Barnes and Laghaoui's father both survived their injuries.
(Reporting by Justin Madden in Chicago; Editing by James Dalgleish)
President Barack Obama finally released data on civilians killed in U.S. counterterror operations in Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen an important step toward ending the absurdity of undeclared drone wars.
The governments estimates that 64 to 116 civilians have died in 473 drone strikes since 2009 fall short of independent counts by a wide margin. Without satisfactory justification, the administration has refused to disaggregate the data by countries, years, or incidents. Organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism have begun to challenge the governments numbers, but without the disclosure of further details, an exchange about methodologies can only go so far. Nonetheless, its a step in the right direction, and at least the commitment to release annual data binds the next administration to rudimentary transparency.
Alongside the data, however, comes a policy breakthrough: For the first time, the United States will have an interagency policy on protection of civilians. Compared with the civilian casualty numbers, this part of the executive order did not generate much chatter, but it will have a far-reaching impact. During a presidential race that has seen candidates argue for war crimes rather than the protection of civilians, its a bold move.
Obama has clearly absorbed a painful lesson from Afghanistan that civilian harm is not just a legal and moral issue, but also a strategic one that can have a decisive impact on U.S. military engagements. In a report that former Pentagon advisor Chris Kolenda and I co-wrote in June, we documented the costs of civilian harm in Afghanistan. Put simply, civilian harm fueled the insurgency and undermined the legitimate government to the extent that Gen. Stanley McChrystal bluntly declared: Were going to lose this fucking war if we dont stop killing civilians.
Kolenda and I use the term civilian harm to encapsulate more than just civilian casualties, having witnessed in Afghanistan the enormous impact of egregious mistakes in U.S. targeting of civilians labeled Taliban by their rivals, wrongful detentions, and support for corrupt or predatory actors. This pattern of harm led many individuals and communities to choose the Taliban for protection, out of economic self-interest or to seek revenge.
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It took years for the U.S. military to reckon with the full cost of civilian harm, but once the realization came, the United States and international forces in Afghanistan took decisive action. U.S. commanders adopted groundbreaking reforms between 2008 and 2013, including new operational directives that limited the use of airstrikes in residential areas, required call-outs before night raids, improved data collection and analysis, and emphasized scenario realism in training. The reforms significantly reduced civilian casualties and were critical in repairing Afghan and U.S. government relations, which had hit rock bottom. Despite complaints from a small minority within the military that the restrictions left troops exposed, there is no evidence that the reforms put American soldiers at greater risk. Yes, the reform period saw a rise in U.S. fatalities, but thats because the Taliban increasingly resorted to asymmetric warfare, and improvised explosive devices in particular, in response to the troop surge. As Kolenda and I detailed in our report, the proportion of U.S. fatalities to direct-fire engagements situations where troops would be most likely to use airstrikes and artillery in self-defense did not increase.
The July 1 executive order on civilian casualty mitigation demonstrates that the lessons of Afghanistan have not been forgotten. The order enshrines a commitment to the appropriate use of force, to monitoring civilian casualties, to provide compensation to victims of civilian harm, and other appropriate consequence management policies. The assistant to the president for national security affairs is now required to conduct periodic interagency reviews of casualty trends and revise guidance as necessary. Despite continued concerns about undercounting, this at least raises the issue of civilian casualty mitigation to senior levels in government and provides an ongoing commitment to review and revise policy revisions that are essential in the dynamic environments in which the United States executes counterterror operations.
The Pentagon now has the task of translating the executive order into workable day-to-day practices and integrating it with standing policies on civilian protection. A number of gaps remain to be addressed. While the order represents a major step forward, it focuses too narrowly on civilian fatalities, omitting injuries and the kinds of broader civilian harm that have proven so damaging in Afghanistan. Part of the reason why the United States failed for so long to realize the full consequences of war on civilians was an enemy-centric intelligence focus, which counted bodies both insurgents and civilians but did not take into account the extent to which military intervention could warp or destroy a local political economy, creating a vacuum in which an insurgency could multiply. In Afghanistan, U.S. military spending drove the war economy and helped empower abusive local actors who remain part of that vicious cycle.
The U.S. Army Techniques Publication 3-07.6 on protection of civilians rightly defines the term in a nuanced way, as efforts that reduce civilian risks from physical violence, secure their rights to access essential services and resources, and contribute to a secure, stable, and just environment for civilians over the long-term. The Departments of Defense and State should interpret the executive order through this lens. To do so, they will need to draw on a more complex data set than the one Obama released on Friday. Fuller data would provide a broad picture of military operations consequences for civilian life including impacts on political, economic, social, and cultural dynamics and insight into the risk of U.S. military forces and resources being manipulated by local elites or fueling a war economy. The intelligence community should provide such data to the Pentagon and State Department. Its encouraging that the new order reflects the need for openness and credible, independent monitoring of civilian casualties by the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and civil society organizations like the Center for Civilians in Conflict whose policy recommendations and data have been invaluable in Afghanistan and in many other contexts.
Although working with partner forces has become central to U.S. foreign and military policies, the executive order only requires training and assistance for foreign partners to help share and learn best practices for reducing and responding to civilian casualties. The United States pays enormous strategic penalties when partner forces fail to protect civilians. Just look at the spiraling conflict in Yemen, for which we have Saudi Arabias brutal tactics to thank. As Michele Flournoy, former undersecretary of defense for policy, told Kolenda and I: If youre there ostensibly to support a government thats meant to be legitimate, but lots of civilians are dying on the governments behalf you start undermining the governments effectiveness.
To follow Obamas order, the Defense Department which has learned in Afghanistan how challenging it can be to embed protection of civilian principles in its work with partner forces must provide something more concrete. The Afghan security forces caused 70 percent more civilian casualties in the first quarter of 2016 than it did the previous year, according to the U.N. This is partly due to a reliance on low-precision weapons such as mortars, rockets, and grenades, as well as challenges in capacity and resources, and poor leadership. The Afghan government relies on patchy self-reporting, has no analytical capacity, and dramatically undercounts the civilian casualties it causes. In interviews for our report, officials working with the Afghan Ministry of Defense said they counted around 200 civilian casualties by pro-government forces in 2015; the U.N. puts that number closer to 1,200.
Fixing this would require a multipronged approach: boosting the capacity of Afghan security forces to track and analyze the data, ensuring that local forces are not relying on low-precision weapons, helping leadership to develop adequate civilian casualty mitigation policies (a task already underway), and helping to promote the understanding that civilian harm isnt simply a legal obligation but a strategic necessity. The Afghan security forces enjoy a great deal of popular support, at least among urban elites, but this has the potential to dissipate quickly. If civilians on the front lines feel equally threatened by government mortars and Taliban rockets, loyalty will be hard to win.
In meetings with Pentagon officials over the past year, our recommendations have met positive responses, although officials always ask about resource implications during a time of spending restraint. Our recommendations include calls for civilian protection cells at headquarters and operational levels, and for improved data collection and analysis to provide a more complete awareness of civilian harm and its impacts, which would call upon human resources over economic ones. Overall, civilian protection is a high-reward, low-cost endeavor that provides the United States with clear strategic gains.
Despite his best efforts, Obama has earned himself a reputation for being a war president. Fridays executive order, however, sets the United States on a path toward becoming a global leader on civilian protection. It is now up to the Defense Department to bring the new policy to fruition.
Photo credit: MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images
Pretoria (AFP) - Oscar Pistorius, the South African double-amputee sprinter who shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013, was sentenced on Wednesday to six years in prison.
In December, the country's Supreme Court of Appeal threw out his earlier conviction of the lesser crime of culpable homicide, for which Pistorius had served one year of a five-year jail sentence.
Here is a snapshot of events that began with the shooting on Valentine's Day 2013.
- 2013 -
February 14 : Police arrest the double-amputee Olympic sprinter for killing Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, who was shot four times at his Pretoria home.
February 15 : Pistorius bursts into tears as he is charged, denying murder "in the strongest terms".
February 19 : Pistorius claims in an affidavit he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder. He fired through a locked bathroom door in what prosecutors term "premeditated" murder.
February 22 : Pistorius is granted bail.
- 2014 -
March 3 : The trial opens in Pretoria before an army of journalists from around the world, with the testimony of a neighbour who tells the court she heard "terrible screams" from a woman. Ten days later, Pistorius vomits when a picture of Steenkamp's body is flashed on the court's television screens.
April 7-15 : Pistorius takes the stand and begins with a tearful apology to Steenkamp's family. This is followed by five days of often intense cross-examination, marked by bouts of tears and breaks in the session. Pistorius steadfastly denies any intention to kill Steenkamp.
June 30 : After a six-week break, a panel of three psychiatrists and a psychologist conclude that Pistorius does not suffer from mental illness.
September 12: Pistorius is found guilty of culpable homicide or manslaughter.
October 21 : Judge Thokozile Masipa sentences Pistorius to a maximum of five years in jail. The athlete is immediately taken to Pretoria prison.
- 2015 -
October 20: Pistorius is allowed out of prison after just one year to spend the remainder of his sentence under house arrest.
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December 3 : The Supreme Court of Appeal convicts Pistorius of murder, saying his testimony was "vacillating and untruthful".
December 8: Pistorius is released on bail pending sentencing, and remains under house arrest.
- 2016 -
January 11: Pistorius makes last-ditch attempt with South Africa's top court to overturn his murder conviction.
March 2: Pistorius loses his final bid to appeal his murder conviction.
July 6: He is sentenced to six years in jail for the murder.
Oscar Pistorius, the former Olympic and Paralympic star, has been sentenced to six years in prison for murder by a South African judge.
The 29-year-old double-amputee, who became known the world over as the "Blade Runner," faced up to 15 years in prison for fatally shooting his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp through a bathroom door of his home in 2013.
On Wednesday, Judge Thokozile Masipa said Pistorius had become a "fallen hero" and that his remorse for the shooting was a compelling reason for leniency, the Associated Press reports.
"He's a fallen hero, he's lost his career and he's ruined financially. The worst is that having taken life of a fellow human being in the manner that he did he cannot be at peace. Recovery is possible, but it will depend mostly on the accused," Masipa said during her ruling in Johannesburg, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Steenkamp's parents, Barry and June, wiped away tears as the sentences was read, according the to Journal.
Pistorius sat stoically as the judge explained her decision, CBS News reports.
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Pistorius, who shot Steenkamp multiple times through a locked bathroom door at his home, has always maintained that he acted in self-defense, believing that an intruder had barricaded himself in the room. He says he never meant to shoot Steenkamp.
To drive home the point, defense attorneys had him remove his prosthetic legs last month and walk across the court room on his stumps to show how vulnerable he was at the time of the late-night shooting.
Masipa had previously convicted Pistorius of manslaughter and sentenced him to five years in prison. He served less than one year before being released on bail during appeal. In December, an appeals court ruled Pistorius was guilty of murder and sent the case back to Masipa for a new sentence.
Pistorius can still appeal the judge's sentence, CBS reports.
Oscar Pistorius sentenced to 6 years in prison for death of Reeva Steenkamp
Oscar Pistorius sentenced to 6 years in prison for death of Reeva Steenkamp
Three years after the tragedy, Oscar Pistorius, a South African athlete, has been sentenced to six years in prison for the death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, the UKs Guardian reported.
Reeva, a model and reality star, was killed at Oscars home in Pretoria, South Africa, on February 14, 2013. Oscar had claimed he mistakenly shot her several times through a bathroom door because he thought a stranger had broken into his home. However, loved ones had expressed concern that she was killed in an act of domestic violence.
@PulseSalonSA waves for last nights event. Go in and get a wash & style for your next event Cc @annie__p A photo posted by Reeva Steenkamp (@reevasteenkamp) on Jan 18, 2013 at 5:33am PST
The six-year sentencing is less than many people following the case had expected, given that the mandatory minimum for murder is 15 years. The Guardian noted that Oscar Pistorius had originally been sentenced to five years for culpable homicide but it was later appealed. He will be eligible for parole after three years, the New York Times noted.
Oscar Pistorius is a double amputee who had his legs removed below the knee at 11 months old. Hes a Paralympic athlete who competed in the 2012 Olympics and runs with prosthetic legs, leading to the nickname Blade Runner.
The judge presiding over the case told the court room, Hes a fallen hero who has lost his career and is ruined financially. The worst is that having taken the life of a fellow human being in the manner that he did, he cannot be at peace. Although nothing will bring their daughter back, we hope Oscar Pistorius sentencing will bring some measure of peace to Reeva Steenkamps parents and loved ones.
The post Oscar Pistorius sentenced to 6 years in prison for death of Reeva Steenkamp appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius has been sentenced to six years in jail for murdering his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in 2013.
PHOTOS: Stars at Court
His latest jail sentence comes after his initial five-year conviction for manslaughter was changed to that of murder during an appeal in December 2015.
The South African athlete was taken straight to the cells after he received his sentence from Judge Thokozile Masipa. His lawyers say they will not appeal the decision.
Pistorius, 29, shot Steenkamp four times through a locked door in February 2013. He admitted to shooting her but claimed he had mistaken his girlfriend for an intruder.
PHOTOS: Olympic Athletes Turned TV and Movie Stars
Many commentators have expressed surprise at the sentence, which is much less than the prescribed minimum for murder.
Pistorius has already served one year of his previous conviction. He is obliged to serve half of his new term before being eligible for parole.
PHOTOS: Olympic Athletes: Where Are They Now?
"A long term in prison will not serve justice," Judge Masipa said in her hour-long session. "Public opinion may be loud and persistent but it can play no role in the decision of this court."
Tell Us: What do you think of Pistorius' new sentence?
narcos
Pablo Escobar's brother Roberto asked Netflix to allow him to review the second season of the hit drama "Narcos" before it is released in September. The show depicts Escobar's rise to the most famous cocaine kingpin of the 1980s.
"I am submitting a formal, friendly request to review this material solely on an informational basis. It is depicting me, my life, my family, and my brother. I think nobody else in the world is alive to determine the validity of the materials, but me," Roberto wrote in a statement.
roberto escobar
Roberto was the accountant for the Medellin cartel and registered in 2015 for "successor-in-interest rights" to Pablo Escobar and the Escobar family name in California.
Roberto has written a book about his time with the cartel, including a 1993 letter-bombing incident that injured him while he was in prison. He also has claimed to have found the cure for AIDS through his work with horses.
Roberto's associates claim they have been trying to get in touch with Netflix since the first season of "Narcos."
"We tried to contact Netflix after we had registered the rights to Pablo, prior to Narcos being released with no response," Olof K. Gustafsson, CEO of Escobar Inc., said in a statement. "I think it is important that they recognize Roberto Escobar's wishes to review the show they are putting out, ensuring the family and viewers of an accurate portrayal of Pablo and Roberto."
NOW WATCH: There's a terrifying reason why people are warned to stay inside at 5:45 p.m. in parts of Mexico
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VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 6, 2016 / ParcelPal Technology Inc. ("ParcelPal" or the "Company"), (CSE: PKG) has now launched their API (Application Program Interface) to enable online eCommerce platform services the ability to offer ParcelPal as a same day shipping method.
This year will be defining for eCommerce providers and their merchants, in terms of mobile supremacy. Predictions state that 2016 will mark the consolidation of the mobile era, with half of all consumers using their mobile devices to make transitions and thus growing the eCommerce industry - which is expected to reach 384 billion by year end. Local business can now integrate with ParcelPal and request deliveries through their website which instantly calls ParcelPal to fulfill the order. The company's API can be installed within mere hours and customers can start requesting deliveries immediately. ParcelPal now directly solves the issue of high delivery costs and speed by delivering products to the consumers in the same day or less. ParcelPal aims to be the number one shipping option in Vancouver by year end.
The Company's development team has already begun expansion of plug-ins' for the largest eCommerce providers found in North America such as: Shopify, Magento, PrestaShop, BigCommerce and WordPress. The Company plans on recruiting couriers at the source of where eCommerce merchants are located and scaling to each location where demand is highest.
President and CEO Jason Moreau states, "The growth in eCommerce is resulting in a rapid increase in the overall demand for package delivery services. This continuing growth is making it challenging for retailers to effectively manage their supply chains to profitably fulfill orders. Specifically, the increase in e-commerce transactions is forcing retailers to manage smaller, more frequent orders, thereby shifting the focus of retail distribution centers from pallet picking for store replenishment to single-item picking for orders shipped directly to a consumer's home. This consequence is compounded by the rising expectations of consumers who want their orders delivered quickly, which requires retailers to do more work in less time."
"To help those (merchants) meet these and other challenges associated with fulfilling e-commerce orders, retailers are can now integrate ParcelPal directly onto their eCommerce website which offsets the exorbitant costs of shipping for a cheaper and much faster alternative. In many respects, the continued growth of e-commerce is likely to depend on goods consistently arriving on consumers' doorsteps on time and at the right price."
About ParcelPal Technology Inc.
ParcelPal is an iPhone, Android and desktop computer service enabling businesses and individuals to quickly and affordably have items delivered locally though crowd-sourced couriers. The Company offers same-day delivery of merchandise for leading retailers in Vancouver and soon in major cities Canada-wide.
ParcelPal: www.parcelpal.com
The Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") or any other securities regulatory authority has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release that has been prepared by management.
CSE - Symbol: PKG
Shares issued: 25,401,511
Contact:
Jason Moreau, President, ParcelPal Technology, Inc.
604-401-8700
Forward Looking Information
This news release contains forward looking statements relating to the Proposed Transaction, and the future potential of ParcelPal. Forward looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will," "may," "should," "intends," "anticipates," "expects," "plans" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release are forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, the risk that the Proposed Transaction will not be completed due to, among other things, failure to execute definitive documentation, failure to complete satisfactory due diligence, failure to receive the approval of the CSE and the risk that ParcelPal will not be successful due to, among other things, general risks relating to the mobile application industry, failure of ParcelPal to gain market acceptance and potential challenges to the intellectual property utilized in ParcelPal. There can be no assurance that any forward looking statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.
The Company cannot guarantee that any forward looking statement will materialize and the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company will only update or revise publicly any of the included forward looking statements as expressly required by Canadian securities laws.
SOURCE: ParcelPal Technology Inc.
By David DeKok
HARRISBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - Authorities have filed a driving-under-the-influence charge against a Pennsylvania man who helped get tougher laws passed after his young son was killed by a driver who fled the scene to avoid an alcohol check.
Dr. Stephen Miller, 40, a dentist from Dallas, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles west of Scranton, is due in court on Aug. 17 to face charges he had a blood alcohol count more than twice the legal limit, Pennsylvania State Police said on Wednesday.
He was arrested on June 12 after a trooper observed him driving late at night without his car headlights on, police said. The charges against him were delayed until Tuesday.
Miller and his wife, Caroline, became advocates for tougher penalties for leaving the scene of a fatal accident after their 5-year-old son, Kevin was struck and killed by a driver while holding his fathers hand as the family crossed a street in Wilkes-Barre after a Christmas party in 2012.
Bystanders chased the car but the driver, Thomas Letteer Jr., then 22, fled and remained at large for several days. By law, police have a two-hour window for completing blood alcohol tests.
As a result, authorities said, Letteer was charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident, but escaped a drunken driving charge. After pleading guilty in 2014, Letteer is serving a two- to five-year prison sentence.
A state law endorsed by the Millers and known as Kevins Law took effect in 2014. It attempted to eliminate the "drunken driving loophole" by raising the mandatory minimum sentence for fleeing the scene of a fatal accident to three years, more than the combined minimums for homicide by vehicle and drunken driving.
Miller is charged with endangering the welfare of children because his two surviving children - including Kevin's twin - were in the car with him.
Neither Miller nor his lawyer could be immediately reached for comment.
(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Bill Trott)
Brazil's state-run energy giant Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. or Petrobras PBR is reportedly planning to divest nine shallow water oil fields in the northeastern states of Ceara and Sergipe. These fields produce a total of 13,000 barrels of oil and equivalent natural gas a day from multiple wells.
The proposed divestment, however, is not expected to result in a significant reduction in the companys debt. This is because the nine fields contribute even less than 1% of the total production of the company. Also, the sale is unlikely to draw the same level of interest as the integrated players prized deep water, pre-salt oil fields, which will be up for auction in 2017. Notably, the aforesaid sale is in line with the companys $15 billion divestment program to shed non-core properties.
Petrobras remains the most debt-laden company in the oil industry with a total debt of about $126 billion. Also, it has been hard for the company to raise money in the debt as well as the equity markets after its involvement in a money laundering scam. Hence, the company is focusing on massive asset divestitures to reduce debt and strengthen its balance sheet.
To this end, the company is trying to vend a stake in its fuel retailing unit, BR Distribuidora SA, and the network of gas pipelines Nova Transportadora do Sudeste SA to address issues such as deteriorating net income, high debt management risk, disappointing return on equity and weak operating cash flow.
PETROBRAS-ADR C Price
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Headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Petrobras is the largest integrated energy firm in Brazil and one of the largest in Latin America. The companys activities include exploration, exploitation and production of oil from reservoir wells, shale and other rocks, as well as refining, processing, trading and transportation of oil and oil products, natural gas and other fluid hydrocarbons.
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Weakness in the commodity markets for the last two years has severely impacted the financials of Petrobras and other energy majors like Chevron Corporation CVX, BP plc BP and Royal Dutch Shell plc RDS.A. However, the scenario is now getting better to some extent since oil is walking on the bullish path after recovering from multiyear low marks in February.
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Heres a look at what the World Oyster Festival has in store this year. We recommend starting your oyster binge with either the Kumamotos or the New Zealand Pacific Rock oysters before finishing with the giant Barron Point. (Nurul Azliah Aripin/ Yahoo Singapore Style)
The annual World Oyster Festival returns to Singapores shores for the month of July with some of the freshest oysters from around the world.
From the waters around countries such as Canada, the US and Australia, local seafood restaurant Greenwood Fish Market continues to showcase a wide variety of oysters for fans here.
Now in its fourth instalment, patrons can reserve tables at their newly opened outlet at Quayside Isle in Sentosa Cove or their Bukit Timah location.
Today marks the third anniversary of the Lac-Megantic oil train disaster in Canada, which killed 47 people in a fiery explosion. This train passed through La Crosse days before the accident.
Since this disaster, there have been additional oil and ethanol derailments that have resulted in spills and explosions. Most recently, the oil train derailment in Mosier, Ore., demonstrated once again that crude oil is simply too dangerous to transport by rail. Responding to this disaster, Jim Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, wrote, Carrying crude by rail is just not a good idea We need to phase out rail shipments of crude oil.
On June 26, a Federal Emergency Management Agency response training class was held in La Crescent, Minn., to train first responders on what to do in case of a rail accident. This class underscored how municipal fire departments are on the hook when an oil train derails and catches fire. The experience of 14 major oil train fires in the United States since Lac-Megantic proves that there is no way to douse a crude oil train fire. The Washington State Council of Fire Fighters delivered a letter to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on June 8 demanding an immediate halt to crude rail movement and citing that "these fires are exceedingly difficult to extinguish, even under ideal circumstances."
PIMCO CEO Doug Hodge.
Pimco just made two big hires in its London office.
The asset manager, based in Newport Beach, California, has hired Gene Frieda as its executive vice president and global strategist, according to a press release.
Frieda previously worked at billionaire Louis Bacon's Moore Capital Management in London, where he was a partner and senior macro strategist.
He was also the primary macro strategist for Bacon, the firm's founder. In his new role at Pimco, he will report to Andrew Balls, chief investment officer of global fixed income.
Pimco also hired Yacov Arnopolin as executive vice president and emerging markets portfolio manager. Arnopolin was previously a managing director and portfolio manager at Goldman Sachs Asset Management in New York, where he helped manage portfolios for pensions, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds, according to a press release.
"As the adverse global backdrop of lower commodity prices and a stronger dollar give way to a more constructive picture for emerging markets, now is an exciting time to be adding two such talented investment professionals as Gene and Yacov to the Pimco team," Balls said in a statement.
The hires come weeks after Pimco announced it was cutting 68 jobs, or about 3% of its workforce, as investors' preferences for different investment products changes.
Pimco says it has made hires that offset those losses, however, hiring more than 130 new employees, including 14 portfolio managers, according to the press statement.
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Pretoria (AFP) - South African Paralympian Oscar Pistorius was sent back to prison on Wednesday after being given a six-year jail term for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at his home three years ago.
Pistorius' lawyers said he would not appeal over the term, which was criticised by some activists as too lenient.
High Court judge Thokozile Masipa listed several mitigating factors for sentencing him to less than half the minimum 15-year term for murder, including the athlete's claim he believed he was shooting an intruder.
"He cannot be at peace. I'm of the view that a long term of imprisonment will not serve justice," Masipa said.
"He's a first offender. Considering the facts of this matter, he's not likely to re-offend.
"The sentence that I impose on the accused... is six years' imprisonment."
The double-amputee Olympic sprinter may be able to apply for parole after serving just three years behind bars.
Pistorius, 29, hugged his family before being taken out of the court and driven to the nearby Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria.
He was released from the same jail last October after serving one year of a five-year term for culpable homicide -- the equivalent of manslaughter.
But an appeals court upgraded his conviction to murder in December.
Steenkamp's parents looked on quietly as the judge passed sentence.
"We let the law run its course, nothing will bring Reeva back," the family's lawyer Petrus de Bruyn told AFP afterwards.
Pistorius shot Steenkamp, a model and law graduate, in the early hours of Valentine's Day in 2013, saying he mistook her for a burglar when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet.
The National Prosecution Authority said no decision had been made on whether to appeal for a longer sentence, but expressed its disappointment.
"How are we going to be satisfied if we have been fighting for 15 years and we get six?" said NPA spokeswoman Bulelwa Makeke.
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With his long legal battle perhaps still not at an end, some campaigners called for a tougher punishment.
"It's an insult to the women of South Africa," Jacqui Mofokeng, spokeswoman of the ruling ANC party's women's league, told AFP outside the court.
- 'Fallen hero' -
A challenge by the prosecution to the Supreme Court of Appeal would be another slight to Masipa, who issued the original culpable homicide verdict that was later overturned.
Many legal experts said they had expected a term of between 11 and 14 years.
Pistorius, dressed in black tie, white shirt and black jacket, stared straight ahead in court during Wednesday's televised proceedings.
He was then taken by car to prison, a correctional services official confirmed to AFP.
During his earlier jail term he was held in the hospital wing, separated from regular inmates.
"Thankfully, healing has already started, Mr and Mrs Steenkamp have stated they have forgiven the accused," the judge said in her ruling.
"The life of the accused shall also never be the same. He is a fallen hero who has lost his career and he is ruined financially."
At his sentencing hearing last month Pistorius, sobbing heavily, hobbled on his stumps across the courtroom to demonstrate his physical vulnerability.
His lawyers had argued he should not be returned to jail on account of an anxiety disorder and depression.
Pistorius, who pleaded not guilty at his trial in 2014, has always denied killing Steenkamp in a rage, saying he was trying to protect her.
The Supreme Court of Appeal last year ruled he was guilty of murder, irrespective of who he believed was behind the door, when he opened fire with a high-calibre pistol he kept under his bed.
The year before he killed Steenkamp, Pistorius became the first double-amputee to race at Olympic level when he appeared at the London 2012 games.
He told a recent television interview that he believed Steenkamp would want him to devote his life to charity rather than return to prison for killing her.
"I don't want to go back to jail," he said. "If I was afforded the opportunity of redemption, I would like to help the less fortunate."
"I would like to believe that if Reeva could look down upon me that she would want me to live that life."
By James Macharia JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African paralympic gold medalist Oscar Pistorius will be sentenced to jail on Wednesday for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013, but for how long depends largely on how the judge will weigh the role of his disability in the killing. Pistorius, 29, was found guilty of murdering Steenkamp by an appeals court last December. He had initially received a five-year sentence for a manslaughter conviction in 2014, a ruling that was decried as too lenient by women's groups. The athlete had the lower part of his legs amputated when he was a baby, and his lawyers have argued that his physical disability and mental stress should be considered as mitigating circumstances to reduce his sentence. During the hearings, his defense lawyer asked Pistorius to walk on his stumps to show the difficulty he faced dealing with the threat of an intruder. But the state says he has shown no remorse and has called for him to receive no less than the minimum sentence for murder. Some rights groups have said Pistorius, a wealthy white man and international celebrity, has received preferential treatment compared to others without his status or wealth. Pistorius was freed from prison last October after almost a year behind bars to serve out the remainder of his term under house arrest on his uncle's house in a wealthy suburb of Pretoria. In December however, the Supreme Court upgraded his conviction to murder on appeal. The original trial judge, Thokozile Masipa, will deliver the sentence at the Pretoria High Court. Johannesburg-based lawyer and legal analyst Ulrich Roux said Masipa would have to balance any mitigating circumstances against the seriousness of his crime. "For her it's a delicate balancing act," said Roux, adding that either the defense or prosecution could mount a legal challenge if they felt that the sentence was lenient or harsh. In a television interview with British broadcaster ITV aired in June, his first since the shooting, an emotional Pistorius said that Steenkamp would want him to go free. "I dont want to go back to jail. I dont want to have to waste my life sitting there," Pistorius told ITV, statements which caused an uproar on social media. Manelisi Wolela, a spokesman at the Department of Correctional Services, said Pistorius would be taken to jail immediately after the sentencing. (Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
The Pixies are back, again.
The influential alternative rock outfit has announced its forthcoming album will be titled Head Carrier, and is slated to drop Sept. 30 through Pixies Music.
NEW ALBUM #HeadCarrier. Pre-order now & hear #UmChaggaLagga at https://t.co/JAjjWI3nJz #PixiesAreBack pic.twitter.com/nmXS7RtGPf
- PIXIES (@PIXIES) July 6, 2016
Head Carrier will be the band's sixth studio album, their second since their reunion in 2003, and the first to feature new bass player Paz Lenchantin. Tom Dalgety produced the 12-track LP.
The Pixies set the ball rolling with the release overnight of the first single, the sweaty rock'n' roll track "Um Chagga Lagga," which can be heard below.
Thursday's announcement coincides with the veteran Boston act's first European summer tour date of the year, at NOS Alive in Lisbon, with a post-reunion lineup of Black Francis, David Lovering, Joey Santiago and Lenchantin (who replaced another touring bassist, Kim Shattuck, who was let go in Nov. 2013. Legendary original bassist Kim Deal left the Pixies earlier in 2013).
New Video Teases Pixies Music in 2016
The group will slip back into Europe later in the year for a trek in support of the new album, with dates kicking off Nov. 15 at Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, Austria. More U.K. shows will be announced soon, according to a statement.
Head Carrier is the followup to the Pixies' 2014 self-released Indie Cindy, which peaked at No. 23 on the Billboard 200. Indie Cindy, their first full-length album since 1991, featured songs compiled from a series of EPs released between Sept. 2013 and March 2014.
Head Carrier tracklist:
1. Head Carrier
2. Classic Masher
3. Baal's Back
4. Might As Well Be Gone
5. Oona
6. Talent
7. Tenement Song
8. Bel Esprit
9. All I Think About Now
10. Um Chagga Lagga
11. Plaster of Paris
12. All the Saints
(Reuters) - Brazil's Bruno Soares is the latest player to express his frustration towards the officiating at Wimbledon this year after he was warned for racket abuse in a doubles match on Tuesday. Soares received the warning from umpire Marijana Veljovic as he and playing partner Jamie Murray, the third seeds, earned a 6-3 7-6 (3) 4-6 4-6 16-14 victory against 16th seeds Mate Pavic and Michael Venus in the third round. Soares said the warning was unnecessary and that umpires should be realize tempers get frayed during the heat of competition. "They have got to understand it is competitive, best of five," the 34-year-old told British media. "Some days, it is very frustrating with rain delays and things like this and we are not robots. We have feelings and it is not easy sometimes. "It's the first thing I do after three hours and you give me a warning. Why is that? Are we in prison or something?" On Monday, Pablo Cuevas and partner Marcel Granollers held a sit-down protest after they received warnings for threatening to urinate in a can and blasted a ball out of the court when Cuevas was refused a toilet break. "I think they are taking it to extremes right now," Soares added. Soares and Murray face the French pairing of Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Julien Benneteau in the quarter-finals. (Reporting by Nivedita Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
Women who show more skin in a job application photo may have a much better shot of landing an interview, a new study suggests.
Researchers in France found that women who submitted a color picture of themselves wearing a low-cut dress were more likely to be called in for a job interview for sales and accounting positions than women whose photos showed them wearing a dress with a less revealing, round neckline, according to the study.
The analysis revealed that the female candidates who showed more cleavage were five times more likely to be invited to an interview for a sales position, and four times more likely to land an interview for an accounting position, than women who were more conservatively dressed, said study researcher Sevag Kertechian, a doctoral candidate in human resources management at Paris-Sorbonne University in France.
In France, including a picture with a resume when applying for a job is a common practice, Kertechian told Live Science. [7 Facebook Posts That Could Ruin Your Career]
The study suggests that dressing in a sexy outfit gives a woman more chances of passing the first step of the recruitment process, Kertechian said. He noted, however, that the researchers aimed to look at the effects of a low-cut dress that was "not provocative," but still sexy.
The researchers presented their findings on June 30 in London at the Appearance Matters Conference, which is hosted by the Center for Appearance Research at the University of the West of England Bristol. The results have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
In the study, the researchers asked two women who had very similar looks and who listed nearly identical skills and work experience on their resumes to submit applications for 200 job openings in sales and in accounting over a three-year period. Each woman submitted 100 applications that included a photo of herself wearing a V-neck dress, and 100 applications that included a photo of herself wearing a more modest, round-neckline dress.
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The study showed that the plunging neckline was more successful at catching the eye of recruiters: When the applications included the photos of the women in dresses with a low-cut neckline, the women received 62 more interview offers for sales positions, and 68 more interview requests for accounting positions, than they did when their pictures showed them wearing dresses with a more conservative neckline. [5 Delightfully Tech-y Dresses from the 2016 Met Gala]
Dress for success?
The researchers noted that the study was small, and that attaching a photo to a job application may not be required in other countries, or in professions other than acting or modeling, for example. And the study did not look at whether the women were ultimately successful at obtaining a job offer more often when they wore a low-cut dress to an interview for these positions.
Still, the findings suggest that a woman's selection of clothing in a job application photo may help her get a foot in the door for an interview.
Kertechian said that he was most surprised by the results for the accounting position. He had expected that a woman's looks and clothing choice would matter for a job in sales, which has more public interaction, but had not expected that those choices would also have a big impact on her chances of obtaining a job interview for the accounting position, which is an office job.
One factor that can influence the results is the person doing the initial screening of the job applicants. In this study, 75 percent of the recruiters for the accounting position were male, Kertechian said, so this may possibly explain why the photos of the women in the low-cut dress were more effective in this stage of the application process.
Kertechian is not a fan of including photos on job applications. He said he believes that not including pictures and creating a more anonymous process is a crucial first step in giving everyone an equal opportunity for a job that "will ultimately depend on skills rather than looks."
Originally published on Live Science.
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Werner Eichhorst is director of Labor Policy Europe at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, Germany.
From coping with the refugee crisis to managing the consequences of a possible Brexit, Germany faces plenty of economic challenges. This does not seem to be an auspicious time for German politicians to launch yet another big debate about higher benefits to be provided by the country's public pensions system.
However, with the 2017 federal election campaign coming up next, Germany's two biggest parties -- the CDU and the SPD, who also form the government - are eager to curry favor with the electorate in order to combat declining percentages in opinion polls. As a result, top politicians of both parties are trying to outbid each other with generous retirement proposals.
But before they engage more deeply in that debate, German politicians ought to undertake a reality check. They should pay special attention to the views of young people.
Case in point: When asked on Deutsche Welle TV about Germany's high level of taxes and social security contributions recently, one young woman confessed that, while she didn't like the trends, she wasn't really worried about them either. "I plan to emigrate anyway," she stated. "To Canada. Or Australia."
With electoral politics, whether in Europe or the United States, generally much more geared toward the elderly (because they vote more than young people), politicians usually disregard such responses.
This time, they better listen up. The young woman's response provides them with a helpful reminder. Politicians need to strike a proper balance between intergenerational dynamics, social needs and the future affordability of the country's retirement system.
To see how this plays out from the vantage point of the younger generation in the German case, look at the recently released 2016 edition of the OECD's "Taxing Wages" report. The data show that a childless single worker in Germany earning the average national wage has to cope with the third-highest average tax burden in the entire OECD (at a staggering 49.4%). Only in Belgium and Austria did such workers face an even higher burden (at 55.3% and 49.5%, respectively).
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Those numbers are a clear warning sign. Young people, whether in Germany or elsewhere, already have to cope with much more uncertain job prospects compared to their parents' generation. Young people also feel understandably frustrated that, while many of their own social security contributions provide the cash flow to finance the retirement of the baby-boom generation, the funding of their own retirement claims is much less assured.
That may well be the logic of the pay-as-you-go social security system. But given how difficult - and often costly - it is today to accumulate private savings for retirement, young people effectively feel stuck in a double bind.
The rising costs of pensions to the young are vividly demonstrated by the steady rise in Germany's economic dependency ratio over the next few decades. This ratio measures the number of inactive people age 65 and older to total employment. In 2013, this percentage stood at 41%. It is projected to increase to 57% as soon as 2030 and to a staggering 70% by 2050.
This is not to say that there aren't some inequities remaining in Germany's public pensions system. The concerns about facing poverty in old age are very real.
The key question is how to strike a proper balance between retirement security, individual incentives and accountability of Germany's public pension system.
The most important principle in that context is that a longer work life - already the widespread practice in the United States reduces the risk that individuals will have to contend with a lower level of income in retirement. That may be unwelcome news in a country that, until quite recently, featured mandatory retirement at 65. However, the precious practice -- forced retirement upon reaching a certain age, enshrined via the automatic end date of employment contracts throughout Germany -- no longer makes sense.
In contrast, establishing a flexible "retirement corridor" above a certain minimum age or a specific pension level makes sense. Choosing to work longer in old age in order to increase one's level in payout when fully retired properly aligns incentives with outcomes. It is also an important way to lessen the pressures resulting from a shrinking workforce.
There are now calls to push the regular retirement age farther out, possibly to 70 years of age. Unpopular though these calls may be, this policy response may be unavoidable, at least when viewed actuarially.
The dirty little secret of the German pension scheme, as in many other countries, is that current (and soon-to-be) retirees receive considerably more in benefits than what they actually paid in. Of course, most retirees deny this and believe they only get (and therefore deserve) what they paid in. Politics and perceptions aside, the fact remains that such a positive rate of return for public pensions can only be sustained with consistently increasing birth rates, certainly not declining ones.
Whatever some big party politicians in Europe's largest economy may want to provide as giveaways ahead of a critical election, they have to come to terms with reality. They need to ensure that the - already staggering - financial burden carried by the younger members of the workforce will not rise even higher. Keeping them motivated and willing to carry their load is of paramount importance. Any further increase may be the straw that breaks the proverbial "camel's" back.
See original article on Fortune.com
More from Fortune.com
Wisconsin residents finally are realizing that Gov. Scott Walkers lack of concern for environmental issues has been jeopardizing our precious states natural resources. In this election year, it is important to keep in mind that U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D-La Crosse, continually has been a champion for conserving our natural heritage.
He has been a leader on sportsmens issues, and he authored the Upper Mississippi River Basin Protection Act. This legislation calls for the development of a coordinated, public-private approach to studying and reducing nutrient and sediment runoff. He also has championed funding for conservation programs to reduce the impact of agriculture on the river and Gulf of Mexico.
In addition, Kind has been involved with many other environmental issues, including funding for the National Wildlife Refuge System, supporting the National Parks System and protecting migratory birds.
With our states natural resources at the mercy of our state Republican legislators, it is vital that we re-elect Ron Kind, a champion for Wisconsin's environment.
Officer Frank Poncherello has graduated from the California Highway Patrol.
Erik Estrada, the actor best known for playing "Ponch" on the TV police drama CHiPs from 1977a83, was sworn in as a reserve officer for the St. Anthony Police Department in Idaho over the weekend, according to the Associated Press.
The 67-year-old will work with the police department's new Internet Crimes Against Children task force, reports local outlet KPVI.
"Education is the best protection especially on the Internet. Children should be educated in how to handle a chat room," Estrada explained go what he'll advise in his role, reported the AP. "Don't give out personal information. Certainly don't give out your mother's or father's name or what school you go to. Don't ever accept gifts. Certainly don't ever go meet someone you've been chatting with. They're not who they are. If they send a picture, that isn't them."
Estrada and the team will work to develop programs geared toward shutting down online threats to children, including a software that will record children's pictures from various angles information geared toward helping police find missing kids.
The actor said he wanted to work in St. Anthony, as small town communities are more willing to participate in his task force.
"What happens in a big city there is a tremendous amount of politics involved," Police Chief Terry Harris said, adding, "We're talking a long-term partnership. I expect it will run for the next two or three years. He's a great guy. He's going to be a great part of the team."
OK fnf's I'm now a police officer with the ST ANTHONY POLICE DEPT. pic.twitter.com/aAvG4l7SSf a ERIK ESTRADA (@ErikEstrada) July 2, 2016
Estrada has served as a reserve officer before, working nights in Muncie, Indiana, according to the AP. After coming into contact with authorities working against Internet predators, he decided to get more involved in helping children be safe online.
"I wanted to be a cop first and then I became an actor and then became a cop on TV. The TV thing allowed me to become a reserve officer in Indiana. I became a real cop," he told the AP. "How many people have that kind of blessing? I've been blessed that way. I've been lucky."
By Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of a Brazilian bishop who was accused of turning a blind eye to suspected pedophile priests in his diocese, the Vatican said on Wednesday. The Vatican said Francis had accepted the resignation of Bishop Aldo di Cillo Pagotto of Paraiba, 66, citing a section of Church law under which bishops are obliged to tender their resignation if they are ill or if there is "grave cause". Under normal circumstances, he would have remained bishop until he turned 75. Last year, the Church stripped Pagotto of his power to ordain priests while the accusations against him were being investigated. Pagatto had been accused of allowing men into seminaries in his diocese to become priests even though they had been rejected from other places in Brazil because they were suspected child abusers. In a letter posted on the diocese's website, Pagotto said: "I welcomed priests and seminarians with the intention of offering them new opportunities in life. Some were later suspected of committing serious wrongdoings ... I made mistakes by trusting too much, with naive mercy." Last month, Francis issued a new decree saying bishops found to have been negligent when dealing with cases of sexual abuse could be investigated and removed from office if they did not offer to resign.. The decree requires the Vatican to launch an investigation if "serious evidence" of negligence is found. The bishop is given the opportunity to defend himself. Ultimately, the Vatican can issue a decree to remove him or ask him to resign within 15 days. A Vatican spokesman said Pagatto's case was handled under the previous, existing, procedures. The Catholic Church has been rocked over the past 15 years by scandals over priests who sexually abused children and were transferred by bishops from parish to parish instead of being turned over to authorities and defrocked. In some developed countries, particularly in the United States, the Church has paid tens of millions of dollars in settlements to victims. (Additional reporting by Silvio Cascione in Brasilia; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Wednesday consoled the parents of a 19-year-old American university student whose body was found in the Tiber River, who police suspect was murdered. The Vatican said Francis had met the parents of Beau Solomon privately and expressed his deepest sympathy and "closeness in praying to God for the young man who died so tragically". Solomon, from Wisconsin, was found tangled in vegetation in the river on Monday, three days after going missing in the middle of the night. He had been due to start a program at the American John Cabot University in Trastevere, a vibrant district in central Rome that is particularly popular with young Americans. Police have detained a 40-year old homeless Italian man on suspicion of aggravated homicide. (Reporting by Isla Binnie; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Pope Francis met with the parents of Beau Solomon on Wednesday, after the 19-year-old American college student was found dead in the Tiber River earlier this week.
The Pope held the private meeting prior to his audience with French pilgrims at the Vatican, according to a statement from the Holy See, and expressed his heartfelt participation in their mourning, and his closeness in prayer to the Lord for the tragic death of the youth.
Solomons body was discovered Monday, three days after he was reported missing by his roommate, shortly after arriving in Italy to take summer classes at John Cabot University in downtown Rome.
Local police believe the student, who was visiting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was robbed and killed, as more than $1,700 was charged to his credit card following his disappearance. Police arrested a 40-year-old man, Massimo Galioto, Tuesday, in connection with the crime, the New York Times reports.
Pope Francis on Wednesday met with the parents of the American college student found dead this week in a Rome river, the Vatican announced.
Francis had a private meeting with Beau Solomon's parents, Nick and Jodi Solomon, just two days after Beau's body was pulled from the Tiber River.
The Pope expressed his "feelings of deep sympathy and compassion" and "his closeness in prayer to the Lord for the young man who died so tragically," according to a Vatican statement.
Pope Francis Meets with Slain Student Beau Solomon's Parents, as Witness Details Alleged Scuffle Between Beau and Suspect| Crime & Courts, Death, Murder, True Crime, True Crime, Pope Francis
The Solomons appeared emotional as they stood with the Pope.
Their son arrived in Rome on Thursday, to study abroad for the summer at John Cabot University. His roommate reported him missing hours later, on Friday, after he failed to return from a night out.
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.
Beau's body was recovered on Monday, the university announced. A 40-year-old homeless man has since been arrested in connection with his death, ABC New reports.
Massimo Galioto was taken into custody on Tuesday, and police said he was "seriously suspected of aggravated homicide," according to CBS News. It was not immediately clear if Galioto had appeared in court or responded to the accusations, since his arrest.
Pope Francis Meets with Slain Student Beau Solomon's Parents, as Witness Details Alleged Scuffle Between Beau and Suspect| Crime & Courts, Death, Murder, True Crime, True Crime, Pope Francis
One woman told Italian news outlets that she lived in a tent with the suspect and allegedly watched Galioto fight with Beau, according to ABC.
"The American came this way, one could see he was upset," the woman said. "They were pushing each other. The boy pushed back and then it ended badly."
Beau battled cancer for 10 years and went on to become a star high school athlete.
He had just finished his first year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he majored in personal finance, according to the school.
An unidentified animal that ran into a Rhode Island Walmart on Monday and bit several customers may have been rabid.
Health officials are urging anyone who was in or around a Walmart in Westerly on July 4 and who came into contact with a small black mammal to come forward.
The animal is described as either a mink, ferret or weasel. At least two people were reportedly bitten by the animal.
Read: Raccoon That Attacked 6-Year-Old Boy Tests Positive For Rabies
However, neither victim has come forward to seek treatment.
Because the animal was not tested for rabies, state health officials are working under the assumption that it could have been rabid.
Rabies is a serious disease known to affect all mammals. Once symptoms appear, the disease is always fatal.
Read: 99-Year-Old Woman Wakes Up to Find Exotic Animal on Her Chest
Rabies immunization must be started as soon as possible after exposure, officials warned.
The incident occurred at the Post Road location in Westerly between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m.
Anyone who may have had any physical contact with a small black mammal in the area should contact the Rhode Island Department of Health for an assessment.
Watch: Former Walmart CEO Used Parachute to Land Plane
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(WASHINGTON) President Barack Obama plans to leave around 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan when he finishes his term, people briefed on the plan said Wednesday, an increase from his previous plan that reflects the difficulty for the U.S. in drawing down the conflict.
Obama had planned to drop troop levels from 9,800 to 5,500 troops by the end of 2016. But a Taliban resurgence has led Washington to rethink its exit strategy.
The individuals briefed on the plan spoke on condition of anonymity because they werent authorized to disclose the numbers before the presidents announcement.
Obama planned to announce the numbers during a statement from the Roosevelt Room. Hell appear with Defense Secretary Ash Carter and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Joseph Dunford.
The numbers reflect a compromise between Obamas original plan and what many military commanders had recommended.
Last month a group of more than a dozen former U.S. ambassadors and former commanders of U.S. forces in Afghanistan wrote to Obama urging that he sustain the current level of U.S. troops through the remainder of his term in office. They included Gen. John F. Campbell, who had been the top U.S. commander in Kabul until four months ago, and retired Gen. David Petraeus.
Unless emergency conditions require consideration of a modest increase, we would strongly favor a freeze at the level of roughly 10,000 U.S. troops through January 30, they wrote in a June 1 letter. This approach would allow your successor to assess for herself or himself and make further adjustments accordingly.
Obamas announcement will help shape his legacy. A president who came into office promising to end the wars he inherited, has instead found himself wrestling with continued conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan and new conflicts in Syria and Libya.
___
Associated Press writers Kathleen Hennessey and Lolita C. Baldor and AP National Security Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report.
July 6 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories in the Financial Times. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
Headlines
May takes strong lead in race to be next UK PM (http://on.ft.com/29gIPb9)
Medivation agrees to $10bn takeover talks (http://on.ft.com/29gJvgp)
Deutsche Borse suggests dual holding company after LSE merger (http://on.ft.com/29gJZDv)
VW, BMW and Daimler raided in steel price-fixing probe (http://on.ft.com/29gJPvN)
Overview
Theresa May established a strong lead in a her bid to become prime minister.
Medivation Inc said it will hold talks with French pharmaceutical company Sanofi SA about a sale that will be open to other bidders.
Deutsche Boerse AG floated the idea of setting up a dual holding company after its merger with London Stock Exchange Group Plc to meet all regulatory requirements.
Six of Germany's carmakers and parts suppliers, including Volkswagen AG, BMW and Daimler AG were raided by the country's cartel authority following suspicions they had colluded when buying steel.
(Compiled by Abinaya Vijayaraghavan in Bengaluru)
Algiers (AFP) - The director of a television station is arrested... a court blocks the sale of an opposition media group... parliament passes a law to stop retired army officers commenting on politics.
Despite a new constitution in Algeria guaranteeing freedom of the press, criticising the government is becoming increasingly risky.
Producers at KBC TV, a privately owned channel which airs a talk show that regularly criticises the government, know that only too well.
In late June, a court placed two of the channel's executives in pre-trial detention.
The order came five days after security forces shut down a studio producing talk shows for KBC.
The channel's director, Mehdi Benaissa, and producer Ryad Hartouf were accused of making "false declarations" to obtain filming permits for the programme, Ki Hna Ki Ness (Just Like Everybody Else).
Mounia Nedjai, a culture ministry official who had issued the permits, was also detained.
On Friday evening, around 300 artists and journalists gathered outside the National Theatre in the capital to demand their release.
"I'm not a sycophant or an agitator, I just love my country," they chanted.
International NGOs criticised the arrests.
"Jailing TV executives on the pretext of film-permit irregularities is disproportionate, to say the least," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch.
"The clear intent is to muzzle private media."
- Repeated attacks -
It was not the first time KBC has found itself in the government's crosshairs.
In June, the government won a court case to freeze a bid by billionaire Issad Rebrab to buy KBC and one of Algeria's top newspapers, El Khabar (The News).
The $45-million (40-million-euro) sale is expected to be definitively blocked by mid-July.
Rebrab is Algeria's richest entrepreneur but has a tense relationship with the authorities.
Like KBC and El Khabar, Rebrab's French-language daily Liberte strongly opposed Abdelaziz Bouteflika's decision to stand for a fourth term as president in 2014, an election he won.
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The ailing 79-year-old suffered a stroke in 2013 that has impeded his mobility and speech. Speculation has been growing in the Algerian press about who will succeed him.
Opposition leaders have spoken of a power vacuum.
Former prime minister Ali Benflis, who stood against Bouteflika in 2014, condemned the latest arrests and denounced the government for "repeated attacks on independent media".
He said the government was "a regime that doesn't hold back from any excess" and "persists in placing itself above the constitution and the law".
Amnesty International said the charges against the KBC TV executives and Nedjai were "politically motivated".
It called on the Algerian authorities to "respect, protect and promote freedom of the media following the growing restrictions against independent outlets and journalists in the past few months".
The government cited a law preventing a single legal entity owning more than one Algerian daily newspaper.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called the court ruling "extremely worrying".
It said it was "outraged" at the "new attack on the independence of KBC", and demanded the trio's release.
Algeria's constitution, adopted in February, explicitly guarantees freedoms of assembly and the press, dictating that "press offences may not be punished by a custodial sentence".
Communications Minister Hamid Grine has denied that Algeria jails journalists who offend the government.
"A journalist would never go to prison" for a press offence, he said in May.
- Draconian drift -
Mehdi Benaissa's father Slimane, a well-known dramatist, wrote an open letter to Bouteflika on Sunday.
"I am a worried and angry father. Worried because my son is in prison, and angry because I don't know exactly why," he wrote in the letter, published by the opposition newspaper Le Soir d'Algerie.
Louisa Hanoune, a Trotskyist member of parliament and former presidential candidate, condemned the government's "totalitarian intentions" and said it was promoting "draconian laws contrary to the constitution".
Parliament, which is dominated by Bouteflika supporters, last week passed a law limiting the right of retired senior military officers to comment on politics.
The new law demands that former soldiers abstain from "every act, remark or behaviour likely to harm the institutions of the state and public authorities".
Some retired military figures regularly comment on political issues. One retired general, Hocine Benhadid, has been in custody for more than a year after criticising the government.
Ahead of last week's vote, former defence minister Khaled Nezzar, the country's strongman during its civil war in the 1990s, urged parliamentarians to reject the text.
He said it represented a "grave draconian drift".
What a sAve. As Hanna (Ashley Benson) began to adapt to normal life after her agony-filled kidnapping, the Liars decided to put all of their energy into rescuing Ali (Sasha Pieterse), who they (correctly!) assumed was being tortured by her husband, Elliott (Huw Collins). The road to freeing their friend in Pretty Little Liars' Tuesday, July 5, episode was filled with untangling relationships, betrayals of friendships and testing new boundaries all leading to one insane death.
PHOTOS: TV's 10 Most Shocking Deaths of the 2015-2016 Season
Into the Ring
Spencer (Troian Bellisario) decided to go to Toby (Keegan Allen) for help with rescuing Ali which seems oddly coincidental, since he was absent from last weeks episode while she and Caleb (Tyler Blackburn) grew distant. When she arrived at Tobys house, she was greeted by his girlfriend, Yvonne. Spencer told Yvonne that she isnt looking to cause any problems between her and Toby. Without missing a beat, Yvonne responded, You already have. Just when it couldnt possibly get more awkward, Yvonne revealed to Spencer that she and Toby are now engaged. Yep, Toby put a ring on it, and our #Spoby dreams have vanished for now.
PHOTOS: Best TV Couples of All Time
Fresh off of hearing that the former love of her life was set to marry her former political rival, Spencer went to see Caleb for yet another round of their new favorite game: Are You Sure Youre Not in Love With Your Ex?
Within seconds of telling Caleb about Toby and Yvonne, Spencer asks Caleb what happened with Hanna. He tells her that he and Hanna did kiss, and blames the incident on the fact that it was like we were in a time warp. Note: If you are trying to justify to your current girlfriend why you kissed your ex-girlfriend, use any excuse but it was like we were in a time warp. Really, any excuse but that.
PHOTOS: Stars They're Just Like Us!
Spencer asked Caleb if he still has feelings for Hanna (because, yes), but before he could answer, Spencers phone rang with a call from Jason DiLaurentis. This show is full of many things wonderful things, but constant cliffhangers caused by calls from obscure characters is not one of them.
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Making a PlAn
The Liars sprang into action and decided to take Alis rescue into their own hands. While Emily (Shay Mitchell) started her first day bartending at a new job (shockingly, a lifetime of avoiding kidnappers, murderers and people wearing masks of other peoples faces doesnt pay the bills), Aria (Lucy Hale), Spencer and Hanna decided to snoop through Alis house for clues.
Aria goes into the house alone (the buddy system would probably do wonders for these women, but more on that later) and takes a key from Elliotts light fixture. For a criminal mastermind capable of masking someones face onto his own, we would think hed have a better hiding spot than under a lampshade. Aria took photos of the weapons, chemicals and drugs in his trunk, and escaped as Elliott watched the girls drive off.
A Sinking Ship
Spencer, who seemed as equally dedicated to rescuing Ali as she was determined to prove her boyfriend and best friend are still in love, confronted Hanna about her kiss with Caleb. Hanna also insisted the kiss meant nothing and told Spencer, Caleb is my past, and Jordan is my future. Were not sure what Jordan is, but considering she ended her engagement to him in episode 2, its safe to assume that he is not in fact her future.
Later, Spencer once again asked Caleb about his relationship with Hanna, and he insisted that he only wanted to be with Spencer and proceeded to list all of the reasons that he likes her. Spencer paused and said, Thats the problem. You like me, but I love you. Caleb began to tear up and said he wanted the chance to make things right (theres pretty much one acceptable response to I love you, and this was definitely not it). Spencer looked down and told him that she wasnt sure if she could give him that chance.
All Dolled Up
Aria and Hanna drove an hour away from Rosewood in search of Elliotts family in order to piece together who exactly their friend married. As they arrived, Aria groaned in frustration at the fact that they have lost cell service. Were not sure what cell phone provider these girls use, but we think it may be time to switch, since it seems the only time they do have a signal is when someone is sending them life-ruining texts.
When they got out of the car, they met a young girl named Eliza, who showed them dolls given to her by Charlotte. The dolls were, of course, named Aria, Emily, Hanna, Spencer and Ali. As they played with the dolls, Eliza told Aria and Hanna that she saw Elliott and Charlotte kissing once. At the property owners sudden request, Aria and Hanna began to leave when Hanna noticed a cattle prod and realized it was the same weapon her kidnapper used on her. Aria stared at the prod with a horrified look on her face and promised, Elliott will pay for what he did to you.
Shes Crushed
As Emily trained at her new bartending job, Sabrina walked in and sat down. Emily approached her and confessed her feelings for her, when a woman walked in and kissed Sabrina on the lips. Sabrina later told Emily that the woman was her ex, but that seemed like an extremely friendly greeting between exes even by Rosewood standards.
Later, Emily gave Toby a file on Elliott that she stole from Spencer, and he immediately got to work. As he began to unravel Elliotts past, he lied to Yvonne and told her that he wasnt doing exactly what he was in fact doing helping the Liars. Spoby shippers, stay tuned.
Out of the Woods
As Elliott realized that the Liars knew what he was doing to Ali, he put her in his car and began to drive. Ali pretended to be passed out and dropped Emily a pin from Elliotts phone with their cars location. How these girls use Apple watches to receive death threats but have yet to discover the Find My Friends app is beyond us, but this seems like a good place to start.
Ali attacked Elliott in the car and jumped out running where else? into the woods. Elliott chased her and was hit by the Liars, and they concluded he was dead. Anything is possible, but it seems like a safe bet that the grave that Spencer, Aria and Emily were digging in season 7s premiere may just be the right size for one psychotic doctor.
Tell Us: Is this the last we've seen of Elliott?
Pretty Little Liars airs on Freeform Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
Prince George and Princess Charlotte may be making a trip across the pond!
Royal parents Prince William and Princess Kate have been invited to Canada and the kids are invited, too.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has asked the royal couple to visit as the country prepares for its 150thA birthday celebrations in 2017.
If they accept the invitation to head to Canada, it will be the second time Will and Kate have visited. The country was the destination of their first royal tour in summer 2011, not long after their April wedding.A
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"The Prime Minister certainly has invited William and Kate and family to come to Canada whenever they are available on their schedule," Kate Purchase, the Prime Minister's director of communications, told the Globe and Mail.
Trudeau's office is awaiting a response and news on what destinations the couple might visit if they head across the Atlantic.
If their visit is confirmed, it is seen as part of the lead-up to next year's celebrations that will peak around July 1A the 150th anniversary of the formation of the Dominion of Canada. A
Princess Charlotte Is All Grown Up in Her First Birthday Portraits
The couple's office at Kensington Palace is not commenting on the possible trip, telling PEOPLE that they don't have anything to announce.A
Prince Harry made quick trip to Canada in May ( sharing a high-powered summit with the world's hottest Prime Minister!) to announce the location of the next Invictus Games, which will be held in Toronto.A
Prince William is standing up against bullying in the U.K. and all across the globe.
The Duke of Cambridge stars in a new video aimed at raising awareness about the first annual Stand Up To Bullying campaign sponsored by The Diana Award.
"[Bullying] can happen for many reasons. It is often stupid and cruel, and can take many forms," the 34-year-old royal explains in the impassioned video. "The reach of technology means it can feel unrelenting, leaving the victim feeling attacked, powerless and isolated."
WATCH: Celebs Launch Powerful Anti-Bullying Campaign
In the powerful call-to-action, Prince William reveals that over 16,000 young people in the U.K. miss school due to fear of being bullied and tormented.
"To shatter their trust in relationships and faith in the world around them, at such a young age, can have a lasting impact on their mental health and state of mind," he explained. "This cannot be allowed to continue, and it's why I am supporting The Diana Award Stand Up To Bullying Campaign."
NEWS: Kate Middleton, Prince William, Prince Harry Honor Fallen Soldiers at Somber Memorial Service
The Diana Award is a charity founded in 1999 as a legacy to the late Princess Diana's "belief that young people have the power to change the world," according to the foundation's website. The Diana Award is also part of The Royal Foundation's Cyberbullying Taskforce, which Prince William recently launched in an effort to support the victims of targeted online harassment.
"It is our collective responsibility to be alert and be ready to challenge the behavior we see around us. We all have a role to play to insure that we do not stand by, but instead stand up, and put a stop to bullying."
Click here for more information on The Diana Awards' important anti-bullying campaign.
WATCH: Prince William Becomes First Royal to Cover a LGBT Magazine, Takes Stand Against Bullying
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(Adds statement from wife)
July 5 (Reuters) - Prosecutors on Tuesday declined to charge Edsel Ford II, a member of the board of directors of Ford Motor Co and the great grandson of company founder Henry Ford, after he was arrested earlier, city officials said.
Ford, 67, was expected to be released after prosecutors decided not to file misdemeanor domestic violence charges following an altercation with his wife late Monday at his home in the Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe Farms, a police officer said.
"Charges were not authorized," a Grosse Pointe Farms court official said by phone.
The director of public safety, Daniel Jensen, said the case was sent to the city attorney following the "very minor" physical assault but that there was not enough evidence to pursue charges, the Detroit Free Press said in a reporter's tweets posted on the paper's website.
Ford's wife, Cynthia Ford, defended her husband in a statement, saying: "I would like to clarify this situation: contrary to reports, this is not a case of domestic violence. I stand behind true victims of domestic violence and I am not one of them.
"We are working in the right direction to heal from this experience and move forward," she added.
Ford was elected to the board of directors in 1988 and is married with four sons, according to a biography on the Ford Motor website.
"We are aware of what has been reported in the press, but it would be inappropriate to comment on personal matters," a Ford company spokeswoman said in an email.
(Reporting by Michael Hirtzer in Chicago; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Leslie Adler)
Harare (AFP) - Riot police patrolled through Zimbabwe's capital Harare on Wednesday as a call for a national strike against President Robert Mugabe's economic policies closed businesses and crippled the public transport system.
The strike follows days of unrest over the government's failure to pay civil servants' salaries, a currency shortage, import restrictions and multiple police road blocks reportedly extorting cash from motorists.
Mugabe's government has delayed pay dates for civil servants as treasury funds run short after years of economic decline, worsened by a severe drought which has hit agriculture.
Zimbabwe spends at least 80 percent of its revenue on state workers' wages, according to officials, while about 90 percent of the population is out of formal employment.
There were few people on the streets of the usually bustling capital after civil society organisations called the strike to pressure Mugabe to tackle the economic crisis.
"I can't go to work when the rest of the country is not going to work," said Sybert Marumo, who works for an electrical shop.
"Life is tough and we need to show the government that we have been stretched to the limit."
Children were seen streaming home from school after teachers failed to turn up.
In the south-eastern town of Masvingo, police dispersed protesters who blocked streets with burning tyres.
Telecommunications, including internet and WhatApp services were erratic, but the authorities denied jamming the services to cripple strike plans.
The strike is the latest in a series of protests against Mugabes government as calls mount for the 92-year-old leader, who has been in power since 1980, to step down.
On Monday, police arrested 113 public transport drivers and their supporters protesting against corrupt police roadblocks, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said.
Some of those arrested were injured after police set dogs on them, the lawyers said.
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Last Friday around 70 people were arrested in Beitbridge town at the border with southern neighbour South Africa during protests over a ban on imports of basic commodities.
"This is a sign of economic collapse which has left people with nothing more to sacrifice and nothing to lose," said Dumisani Nkomo, spokesman for the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition.
"We are heading towards a tipping point as a country, where citizens will express their pain by any means."
Family and supporters of Alton Sterling held a heartbreakingly emotional press conference in the wake of the man's reported death at the hands of two Louisiana cops.
The teen son of 37-year-old Sterling broke down into sobs Wednesday morning as his mother lamented to reporters that she'll never be able to help him unsee the moment his own father was shot dead.
A video that purports to show Baton Rouge police officers fatally shoot Sterling while he's pinned to the ground has sparked outrage and protests in the Bayou State and beyond.
Sterling was reportedly shot dead by police Tuesday after a call to 911 that claimed he'd brandished a gun and threatened the caller while selling CDs outside a convenience store after midnight.
In the video, two officers can be seen wrestling a man to the ground before one appears to yell, "he's got a gun! Gun!"
One of the officers then fatally shoots the suspect, according to Cpl. L'Jean McKneely of the Baton Rouge Police.
Read: Man Dies Shielding Son in Shooting That Killed His Daughters, Ages 10 and 3, at Their Home
A Baton Rouge PD press release named the officers as Blane Salamoni, a four-year veteran, and Howie Lake II, a three-year veteran.
The shooting of #AltonSterling in #BatonRouge is a legal lynching. Justice must prevail. #Outraged Rev Jesse Jackson Sr (@RevJJackson) July 6, 2016
Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie told reporters that the case has been turned over to the FBI and US Justice Department Civil Rights Division. "Like you I am demanding answers," he said at an afternoon press conference.
Earlier Wednesday, the Governor John Bel Edwards referred to Sterling's death as "a tragedy" and offered his condolences to his grieving family.
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"I have very serious concerns, the video is distrubing to say the least," the governor said.
The owner of the store told WAFB-TV that Sterling was first hit with a stun gun before being shot "four to six" times.
The store owner told reporters he did not see Sterling pull a gun on the officers but that he did see the officers remove a gun from Sterling's person.
East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Dr. William Clark has said Sterling died of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back.
A crowd of some 200 protesters had gathered outside the store after the video went viral Tuesday afternoon.
Protesters also at conference holding up signs pic.twitter.com/CCxp5a16Gq Robbie Reynold (@RobbieReyNews) July 6, 2016
The demonstrators chanted "black lives matter" and "hands up don't shoot" while many waved signs late into the night.
A memorial to Sterling had sprung up outside the store by Wednesday.
"My brother didn't deserve it," Sterling's sister, Mignon Chambers, told reporters outside the store. "That was a life that you took away. That was a family man."
Chambers said Sterling had been selling CDs in front of the Triple S food mart for several years.
The press conference held Wednesday by Sterling's family, Michael McClanahan with the Baton Rouge NAACP and others was punctuated by many wrenching displays of emotion and angry demands for justice.
Read: Teen Accidentally Shot Dead in Front of Siblings By Their Father at Gun Range
Through tears, the mother of Sterling's 15-year-old son told reporters "he is not what the mass media is making him out to be."
VIDEO: Protests after fatal police shooting in Louisiana. https://t.co/Uypb7sh7r6 The Associated Press (@AP) July 6, 2016
He was "a man who simply tried to earn a living, to take care of his children," she said.
The teen, who stood by his mother during her remarks, wept uncontrollably as she told reporters how he watched the killing of his own father in the viral footage.
"I will now be forced to raise a son who is forced to remember what happened to his father," she said. "I will not be able to take away from him."
The local NAACP chapter called for the resignation of the city's police chief, the officers involved and the city's CEO.
Two Baton Rouge PD officers have been placed on administrative leave per department policy. The BRPD called the investigation into the matter "ongoing."
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London (AFP) - As protesters outside bayed for Tony Blair's prosecution, inside the building where John Chilcot delivered his damming Iraq War Inquiry report the father of a dead serviceman delivered his own verdict: "My son died in vain".
Having waited seven years for the former civil servant to deliver his verdict on Britain's role in the 2003 conflict, bereaved families and anti-war protesters were united in an outpouring of anger.
"There is one terrorist in this world that the world needs to be aware of, and his name is Tony Blair, the world's worst terrorist," Sarah O'Connor, whose brother Bob was killed in Iraq in 2005, told a press conference following the report's publication.
The inquiry found that former prime minister Blair had taken Britain into a badly planned, woefully executed and legally questionable war in 2003.
O'Connor demanded that Blair explain his actions directly to relatives of the 179 British troops killed in the invasion and subsequent occupation.
"Why is he not here looking at us? If he is so sure of his decision, why is he not here looking at our eyes, and seeing our faces?" she said.
Given the chance, grieving mother Rose Gentle said she would ask Blair: "Why did you kill my son?"
Reg Keys, whose son Thomas died when a mob attacked a police station in 2003, accused Blair of "manufacturing and massaging the intelligence reports" even though Chilcot laid the blame for faulty intelligence at the feet of spy chiefs.
- 'War crimes' -
Outside the Queen Elizabeth II centre in London -- where Chilcot delivered a summary of his 2.6 million-word report -- more than a hundred protesters shouted "Blair lied, thousands died!" and "war criminal Tony Blair!".
Two demonstrators were dressed up as Blair and former US president George W Bush, with fake blood dripping from their hands, while others carried placards reading: "Blair must face war crimes trial", "Justice for Iraq. The Hague for Blair", and "Bomber Blair. Jail this criminal now".
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"Tony Blair is a war criminal. We knew the war was based on lies," said Michael Culver, 78.
Kim Sparrow, 52, said: "Tony Blair is a mass murderer.
"He knew what he was doing. Over a million people died," Sparrow said.
Although more restrained, the families were equally determined to see Blair, and other government officials, face further action.
"If state officials are determined to have acted unlawfully or in excess of their powers, then the families will then decide on whether to take any necessary and appropriate action," said Matthew Jury, who is representing some of the relatives.
"All options will be considered."
Legal action could "motivate government into making sure that they change the way they do business," said Richard Bacon, whose 34-year-old son Matthew was killed in 2005, adding that "never again must so many mistakes be allowed to sacrifice British lives."
With Iraq still consumed by violence, families doubted that the sacrifices had been worthwhile.
"I look at Iraq and on my TV screens today, with 200 plus deaths that took place the other day. I can only conclude... my son died in vain," said Keys.
However, families said the report sent a strong message to the world, and that the seven years taken to publish the findings had been "worth the wait".
"Governments have to recognise that people who walk past these houses of power, they have voices and we will be heard," said O'Connor.
JUNEAU Two more people have been charged in the death of Holly Nehls who died of a heroin overdose on May 31.
Terence Jannke of Watertown, 49, is charged with first-degree reckless homicide, maintaining a drug trafficking place as a party to a crime, second and subsequent offense and possession with intent to deliver heroin, second and subsequent offense. If convicted he faces up to 56 years in prison and $135,000 in fines.
Jason Twaite of Watertown, 33, is charged with maintaining a drug trafficking place as a party to a crime, repeater and possession of drug paraphernalia as a repeater. He faces up to three and a half years in prison and $10,500 in fines
Also charged in the case is 29-year-old Gabriel Joseph Brandl of Clyman who is charged with first-degree reckless homicide/deliver drugs. He faces up to 40 years in prison and $100,000 in fines if convicted. He is currently being held on a $5,000 cash bond. According to the criminal complaint, Brandl helped 41-year-old Holly Joy Nehls inject the heroin that led to her death and then attempted to hide the body to avoid criminal charges.
During their initial appearances in court, Dodge County Circuit Court Commissioner Steven Seim set a $1,000 cash bond for Twaite with the conditions that he not use or possess any controlled substances or have any contact with Jannke.
Seim set a $100,000 cash bond for Jannke with the conditions that he have no contact with Twaite, Brandl or Nehls family. He also may not use or possess any controlled substances.
On May 31 officers were called to Watertown Memorial Hospital, 125 Hospital Drive, to investigate the death of Nehls, whose body had been brought to the hospital earlier that day. Officers were directed to a maroon colored 2010 Dodge Charger that was secured with police crime scene tape where Nehls body was in the front passenger seat.
Officers learned that Brandl was the one who had brought Nehls body to the hospital at approximately 10:30 a.m. that morning. The complaint states that Brandl told officers Nehls had died of a heroin overdose. Hospital staff informed officers that Nehls was dead upon arrival.
Brandl was interviewed by officers and according to the complaint he identified Jannke as his primary drug dearler. Brandl told officers that he and Nehls had bought heroin from Jannke the previous afternoon. He said they went to Clyman Park at approximately 3:30 p.m. and Jannke arrived at 5:30 p.m. The complaint states that Brandl told police he and Nehls bought heroin, but he thought it looked like it had been mixed with something.
Brandl allegedly told officers he reluctantly helped Nehls inject the heroin and gave her half a dose. He said that about 10 minutes after the injection, Nehls was out of it.
Brandl said they stayed at the park for about 45 minutes before Nehls became unconscious. He told officers he threw water in her face and slapped her to try to rouse her but eventually put her in the car where she was snoring and unresponsive. Brandl allegedly told officers that he and Jannke drove around for a while.
Brandl alleged that he told Jannke they should take Nehls to a hospital but that Jannke convinced him that she would snap out of it soon. Brandl claimed that Jannke drove them around for three hours before they returned to Jannkes residence, 100 Warbler Way, to do more heroin, leaving Nehls in the car. Brandl told officers that she was still snoring and out of it when he and Jannke went to do more heroin.
Brandl said he returned to the vehicle 20 minutes later and Nehls was still snoring. Brandl told officers he went to Walmart when he noticed that Nehls was no longer breathing. He allegedly told officers he tried to give her CPR in attempts to revive her, but she was already dead.
Brandl said he believed it was between midnight and 1 a.m. when Nehls died. He told officers he then went back to Jannkes home and told him Nehls was dead. Jannke told Brandl not to mention his name since he had given them the heroin. Brandl allegedly told officers that Jannke took Nehls phone and deleted his contact information and text messages to avoid incriminating himself.
According to the complaint, Brandl told officers he went to Oak Hill Cemetery to think about what to do and decided to take Nehls to the hospital. Brandl allegedly told officers that he struggled with the decision because Jannke was a friend.
Brandl allegedly told officers he wanted to do what was right for Nehls. He told officers he drove to the hospital but didnt have the courage to go in. He then went to Moravian Cemetery where he again contemplated what to do. Eventually, Brandl drove back to Watertown Hospital and went inside to tell staff that Nehls body was in his car.
According to his timeline, Brandl waited approximately 10 hours to take Nehls to the hospital after he believed her to be deceased.
A confidential informant told officers that they had previously bought heroin from Jannke at 100 Warbler Way in the town of Lebanon where he resided. A search warrant was executed at the residence on July 1. Officers learned the residence was inhabited by both Jannke and Twaite.
In Jannkes bedroom officers located many hypodermic syringes, foil packaging, and writings identified as a drug ledger with recordings of names and dollar amounts next to the names. Syringes were also located in the common area of the home and in Twaites bedroom. Neither Twaite nor Jannke were home at the time of the search.
Shortly after the search of the 100 Warbler Way residence, Twaite and Jannke were stopped by police in a vehicle owned by Twaite. Twaite was in possession of a kit, containing items used to inject heroin including a rope, cotton ball, hypodermic syringe and a metal cap with residue. Three grams of heroin were also located in the glove box.
The confidential informant told officers that Jannke and Twaite had left their residence on July 1 between 7 and 7:30 a.m. to acquire heroin in Illinois. The two allegedly traveled to Rockford, Ill., where Jannke entered a residence and shortly thereafter returned with the bag of heroin that was located by law enforcement in the glove box.
Jannke and Twaite were both convicted of delivery of cocaine in Jefferson County in 1992. Twaite was also convicted of felony disorderly conduct in 2013 in Dodge County.
Twaite will appear in court again on July 27 at 8:15 a.m. for a review hearing and again on Aug. 25 at 8:30 a.m. for a preliminary hearing. Jannke will appear in court on July 14 at 1:30 p.m. for a preliminary hearing.
By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI report scolding Democrat Hillary Clinton over her email practices as secretary of state plays into a chief vulnerability that her rival, Republican Donald Trump, hopes to exploit wariness among U.S. voters about her trustworthiness. Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said the Federal Bureau of Investigation's recommendation against criminal charges for Clinton means the email matter is now resolved. Yet even as he removed the threat of charges against the Democratic candidate, FBI Director James Comey described Clinton's handling of classified information as extremely careless. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, seized on that comment. "We're talking about serious stuff," he told a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. "The laws are very explicit." The New York businessman has been struggling to unify the party around his candidacy, and Republicans say Trump could use the issue to heal some of the rifts within his party while motivating conservatives to go to the polls in the Nov. 8 election. Indeed, a main element of Trump's strategy for winning over Republicans who are lukewarm on his candidacy is to emphasize the importance of keeping Clinton out of the White House. "Clinton won the 'Comey primary' but Trump has the opportunity to drive home the lack of trust theme," said Republican strategist Scott Reed. A Reuters/Ipsos poll from May 1-11 found that a majority of American adults do not think Clinton is an honest person. This included 89 percent of Republicans, 72 percent of independents and 36 percent of Democrats. More than a quarter, 27 percent, of Clinton's own supporters did not think she is an honest person, according to the poll. Democratic strategist Steve Elmendorf said Clinton needs to move quickly to get past the email episode and talk about issues central to her campaign. He predicted the issue will be short-lived as voters focus on the candidates' vice presidential running mates, the nominating conventions and fall debates. "She made a mistake here, there's no question about it," said Bob Shrum, a Democratic strategist who was chief strategist for 2004 nominee John Kerry, the current secretary of state. "But theres also justice in what she says, that for 24 years the Republicans have relentlessly gone after Bill and Hillary Clinton. That has its impact and that impact you can see in her trust numbers. But this decision, despite how anybody spins, it not only helps her but in my view was indispensable to her," Shrum said. Hours after Comey's announcement, Trump's campaign sent an email soliciting money based on the Clinton email controversy. The big question for Republicans is whether their presumptive presidential nominee will be able to prosecute the case effectively against Clinton since he is still at war with fellow Republicans and has little in the way of campaign funds to pay for TV ads against her. "I dont think theres a way that Clinton can use this to raise anger at Republicans," said Andy Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. "But the Republicans can certainly use this to raise anger at Clinton and the Democrats. Anger is a great motivator to get people out to vote." Trump's initial response showed why Republicans continue to have concerns about him. Interviewed by Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, Trump spent as much time criticizing Comey as he did Clinton. Comey is respected by Republicans and Democrats alike. "I have such respect for the FBI that I just dont understand what happened here," Trump said. "Everybody knows shes extremely guilty. And they really said she was guilty today and then they said were not going to prosecute." Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist and former spokesman for 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, called the FBI report a "disqualifying event" for Clinton. "Trump's singular focus should be that she acted inappropriately. But Trump has a knack for distracting from Hillary Clinton's scandals with his gaffes and missteps," he said. Trump has been fighting allegations of anti-Semitism in recent days over his campaign's use of a Jewish star in a tweet attacking Clinton as corrupt. (Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by Caren Bohan and Leslie Adler)
By Kathryn Doyle (Reuters Health) Attending religious services at least once a week may offer spiritual and social protection against suicide, a large U.S. study suggests. Among nearly 90,000 women followed for over a decade in the Nurses Health Study, those with regular religious attendance had a five-fold lower risk of suicide compared to women who didnt go to services. There was also some evidence that this varied by religious affiliation: Protestant women who attended services once or more per week were approximately 3 times less likely to subsequently commit suicide, whereas Catholic women who attended services once or more per week were about 20 times less likely to commit suicide, lead author Tyler J. VanderWeele said by email. These are very large effect estimates, said VanderWeele, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. The researchers analyzed data on female nurses who were recruited starting in 1976 when they were 30 to 55 years old and who answered extensive lifestyle questionnaires every two years. Focusing on the period between 1996 and 2010, the study team followed 89,708 participants. Among women with a religious affiliation, most were Protestant or Catholic, and about 2,000 identified as Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu or other. Of all the women followed, 17,000 said they attended religious services more than once a week, 36,000 went once weekly, 14,000 went less than once per week and 22,000 never attended. By 2010, 36 women had committed suicide according to the results in JAMA Psychiatry. Compared to women who didnt attend services, those who went once a week or more had just 16 percent of the risk. The researchers found that differences in alcohol intake, depression and social integration accounted for some of the difference in suicide risk between women who never went to services and those who attended regularly. But it didnt explain the entire risk difference. Those who attended religious services tended to subsequently have more social support, were less depressed, and consumed less alcohol, VanderWeele told Reuters Health. Our speculation is that an important mechanism relating religious service attendance and lower suicide risk might be the belief that suicide is morally wrong, but this would require other studies that assessed such moral beliefs, he said. Feeling close to God has also been proposed as a mechanism that may prevent suicide but this too would require future research to assess. Theres strong evidence that this is a causal relationship, with attending religious services causing a reduction in suicide risk, but with this kind of observational data its not possible to say for sure, he said. The results may vary by religious group as well, and there were no men included in the Nurses Health Study, VanderWeele noted. Suicide is much less common for women than for men, said Dr. Harold G. Koenig of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study. In most Christian religious like Catholicism and Protestantism, you are not supposed to kill yourself, Koenig said. Actually as a psychiatrist I find that helpful in many respects, he added. If providers take a spiritual history of their patients with depression, it may help identify strategies to reduce suicide risk Koenig told Reuters Health. We support a patients resources, and one resource may be a persons faith community if they are already involved or were involved, he said. Decisions about religious practice and formation of religious beliefs are of course not made on grounds of health or suicide prevention, but rather reflect values, relationships, experiences, evidence, thought, upbringing and so on, VanderWeele said. However, for those who already hold religious beliefs, but do not attend services, the study does question whether they are perhaps missing something of the communal religious experience that is powerful. Suicide is one of the 10 leading causes of death in the U.S. Psychiatrists, clinicians and healthcare providers should at least be aware that there may be a relationship between religious services and suicide risk, VanderWeele said. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2938rTK and http://bit.ly/29r6S4G JAMA Psychiatry, online June 29, 2016.
Frankfurt (AFP) - The Bayreuth Festival, the legendary summer music festival dedicated exclusively to the works of Richard Wagner, said it had found a replacement conductor for a new production of "Parsifal" just three weeks before it is scheduled to open.
Festival organisers said in a statement late Tuesday that east German-born conductor Hartmut Haenchen would take over from Latvian shooting star Andris Nelsons, who withdrew unexpectedly a week ago due to unspecified "differences".
"We are very pleased to welcome Hartmut Haenchen, an exciting artist and a passionate musician with an intimate knowledge of Wagner's works," said festival chief and the composer's great granddaughter, Katharina Wagner.
"I am very grateful to Maestro Haenchen for taking the baton for the new production at such short notice and look forward to his first appearance at the Bayreuth Festival."
In a shock announcement last week, 37-year-old Nelsons, currently chief conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and soon to take up the baton at Germany's Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, threw in the towel.
"Owing to a differing approach in various matters, the atmosphere at this year's Bayreuth Festival did not develop in a mutually comfortable way for all parties," Nelsons' management had said.
Nelsons has previously conducted Wagner's "Lohengrin" in Bayreuth to unanimous critical acclaim.
His resignation, so soon before the opening night, sent shockwaves around the opera world.
The new production of "Parsifal" is being staged by German director Uwe Eric Laufenberg and is scheduled to open the festival on July 25 in a gala performance attended by Germany's political and social elite.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is a regular visitor, but will not be at the opening night owing to scheduling commitments.
Haenchen, 73, is well admired for his interpretations of Wagner, notably the mammoth four-opera "Ring" cycle in Amsterdam.
He has also conducted "Parsifal" in a number of different productions from Berlin and Stuttgart to Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Paris and Brussels.
Bob Corker
Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker said Wednesday that Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka would be the Manhattan billionaire's best choice for a running mate.
The comment came as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair explained to MSNBC why he was taking his name out of the running.
"You know, the Trump family is most impressive," Corker said. "His best running mate, by the way, would be Ivanka."
He added: "I know that wouldn't pass muster probably, but I don't know that I've met a more composed, brilliant, beautiful-in-every-way person."
Corker took himself out of the running for the role earlier Wednesday in an interview with The Washington Post. He introduced Trump at a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday night.
A representative for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
Trump told Fox News on Wednesday afternoon that his vice president list includes 10 names, several of which haven't surfaced yet.
Watch Corker's comments below:
Sen. Bob Corker: Trump's best running mate" would be Ivanka pic.twitter.com/Z1q4mtxWfX Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) July 6, 2016
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Only a week before President Obama announced that he would keep a greater number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan through the end of his administration than previously planned, the strength of the Taliban insurgency in the country was underscored in the bloodiest of ways, when two suicide bombers attacked a convoy carrying Afghan police cadets on the outskirts of Kabul.
Close to 40 people died and at least as many were wounded in the bombings on June 30, the latest sign of the Talibans potency nearly a decade and half after the militant group was driven from the Afghan capital by the U.S.-led invasion of the country in 2001. The security situation in Afghanistan remains precarious, Obama said Wednesday, unveiling a shift in strategy that will leave 8,400 U.S. troops on the ground as he leaves office, instead of reducing the American deployment to 5,500 by the end of 2016. Currently, there are around 9,800 U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan.The Taliban, he added, remains a threat.
Read More: Lt. Col. Daniel Davis: The U.S. Has Failed Spectacularly in Afghanistan
In fact, the Taliban today controls a wider swathe of Afghan land than at any point since 2001. Last year, soon after it emerged that the groups longtime leader Mullah Omar had died in 2013, the Talibans then-chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour oversaw the capture of the northern city of Kunduz, one of the last Taliban strongholds to fall during the U.S.-led invasion. Backed by U.S. forces, Afghan troops eventually retook the city, but only after the Taliban had telegraphed its resurgence around the world with the headline-grabbing raid.
The groups territorial gains have been accompanied by a steady rise in violence, which helps explain why the White House revised its plans for scaling back the American deployment. The deteriorating situation was apparent in recent figures from the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan showing that Afghan civilian casualties rose to more than 11,000 in 2015, the highest since the U.N. group began keeping records in 2009. More than 3,500 people died and nearly 7,500 were injured as Afghan forces fought the insurgency in the country with reduced international support following the end of the NATO combat mission in Afghanistan in 2014. Both Taliban fighters and Afghan forces were responsible for the heavier toll.
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Read More: Fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan Echoes the 30 Years War
The rising violence is reflected in local perceptions of the security situation, with 42% of Afghans saying that security is worse now than during the time of the Taliban, according to a June report from the Pentagon. Only 20% say that security in their community is good, down from nearly 40% last year.
Even with the shift in U.S. strategy, there is little to suggest that anything will change on the ground in the near future. Instead of expanding their role and assuming combat duties, the 8,400 troops who still be in the country when the next U.S. President takes office in January will maintain their narrow mission of supporting counter-terror operations and training local forces, whose performance, though improving, remains uneven, according to the Pentagon report. And although Obama stressed the need for a lasting political settlement between the Afghan government and the Taliban, saying it was the only way to end the war and withdraw all foreign forces, the militant group is showing little appetite for talking peace.
Read More: Doctors Without Borders Describes Relentless and Brutal U.S. Attack in Afghanistan
Hopes were briefly raised last year when Mansour took charge of the Taliban. The mullah was thought to be a pragmatist who might engage constructively with the Afghan government. But instead the militant group stepped up its attacks. Amid escalating violence, Mansour was killed by a U.S. drone in May, triggering the elevation of a hitherto little-known Taliban cleric called Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, who just days ago called for U.S. troops to leave the country.
Admit the realities instead of useless use of force and muscle and put an end to the occupation, he said on July 2 in his first public message since taking over, according to the AFP news agency. Our message to the American invaders and her allies is this: the Afghan Muslim people neither fear your force nor your stratagem. They consider martyrdom in confrontation with you as a cherished goal of their life, he added, giving little hope for peace in the war-ravaged nation.
From the looks of it, Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna's reality show is in full swing!
The couple, who have been visiting Washington D.C. for the past week, took a tour of Chyna's old high school on Tuesday with a camera crew right behind them.
Wearing a fitted black dress and flat sandals, 28-year-old Chyna looked comfortable as she showed Kardashian, 29, around the school.
Rob Kardashian and Black Chyna Tour Her Old High School While Filming New Reality Series| Babies, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, People Picks, TV News, Blac Chyna, Rob Kardashian
The reality TV stars announced they were expecting a baby nearly one month after revealing in April 2016 that they were engaged.
Rob Kardashian and Black Chyna Tour Her Old High School While Filming New Reality Series| Babies, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, People Picks, TV News, Blac Chyna, Rob Kardashian
"I mean it's my first time, so everything is exciting, literally," the father-to-be previously said in an on-camera interview with E! News at the ChyMoji launch party in May.
He added, "I'm happy and I just like to keep I, you know, keep it private a as private as can be."
Rob Kardashian and Black Chyna Tour Her Old High School While Filming New Reality Series| Babies, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, People Picks, TV News, Blac Chyna, Rob Kardashian
Though the couple is being hush-hush on all things baby and wedding, fans can expect to see everything fold out on the new show, Rob & Chyna, which will be out later this year.
Rob Kardashian and Black Chyna Tour Her Old High School While Filming New Reality Series| Babies, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, People Picks, TV News, Blac Chyna, Rob Kardashian
"They won't share any details," a source close to Kardashian previously told PEOPLE. "They are saving it for their show. Even when friends ask, they refer to their show and say they will share it all on the show."
Despite being mum on the major baby details, Chyna has been sharing her most recent food cravings via social media.
On their trip back East, the duo stopped at the Ruff N Ready Crab House in Maryland to grub on some fresh seafood a again, with the camera crew in tow.
Rob Lowe will join the cast of medical drama "Code Black" as a series regular reports Deadline.
His character will be introduced in the Season 2 premiere, set to air on September 28.
The actor is set to star as Col. Ethan Willis, a doctor in the U.S. military's prestigious Combat Casualty Care research program who has been moved from Afghanistan to Angels Memorial to teach what the military has learned about combat medicine.
The news see Lowe joining "Code Black" cast members Marcia Gay Harden, Luis Guzman, Melanie Chandra, Harry Ford, Benjamin Hollingsworth, Jillian Murray, Boris Kodjoe and William Allen Young.
Lowe has previously starred in the hit TV drama "The West Wing," "Parks and Recreation," and "Brothers and Sisters." He also received a Golden Globe nomination earlier this year for his the now-canceled Fox comedy "The Grinder."
Many people believe Michael Skakel killed 15-year-old Martha Moxley in 1975.
But his cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. isn't one of them.
"There were a lot of suspects who had much stronger evidence against them than Michael," Kennedy, the son of slain Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel, tells PEOPLE exclusively.
Skakel's murder conviction in Moxley's death was set aside in 2013, when a judge ruled that his original defense attorney, Mickey Sherman, was inadequate. Skakel has been free ever since, released on a $1.2 million bond, and is awaiting a state Supreme Court's decision on whether or not he will receive a new trial.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Makes New Claims Two Men Killed Martha Moxley in 1975 Not His Cousin Michael Skakel| Crime & Courts, True Crime, Michael Skakel
Kennedy is helping him prepare for that possibility, and is out with a new book, Framed, which claims to reveal new evidence exonerating Skakel.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Makes New Claims Two Men Killed Martha Moxley in 1975 Not His Cousin Michael Skakel| Crime & Courts, True Crime, Michael Skakel
Kennedy's book points to two former New York City teens, Adolph Hasbrouck and Burr Tinsley, who allegedly admitted to being near the scene of the crime that same night. (They have both invoked the Fifth Amendment in refusing to testify and have never been charged in connection with Moxley's death. Neither could be reached for comment for this story.)
But prosecutors, who are appealing the judge's 2013 ruling, tell PEOPLE they believe the original conviction was correct. Though prosecutor Jonathan Benedict had not yet seen the book when he spoke to PEOPLE at press time, he says he stands by the evidence presented in the case.
"[Skakel's] conviction was the result of a strong case of evidence, the most telling of which came from Mr. Skakel's own mouth, and reached despite the evidence of an experienced, savvy and energetic defense attorney," prosecutor Jonathan Benedict says.
Moxley's mother, Dorthy, agrees, telling PEOPLE: "It is not easy to do this over and over again. But I am supporting the prosecution until the day I die."
With reporting by CHRIS HARRIS and LIZ MCNEIL
Robin Williams shocked the world when he ended his life in August 2014, leaving behind a legacy of laughter and kindheartedness. But the star was so much more than Hollywood's beloved humorist he was also a devoted father.
In Arthur Grace's new book, Robin Williams: A Singular Portrait, 1986-2002, Williams' life out of the spotlight and at home with children Cody, now 24, Zelda, 26, and Zak, 33, is on touching display.
The photographer shares images from his longtime friendship with the star, whom he first met while photographing him for Newsweek in 1986.
Over the years, Grace photographed his famous friend often, and he looked forward to the day "when I was 84 and Robin was 80 and we would reminisce and put together a book."
With Williams gone, Grace, 69, handled the task on his own a little ahead of schedule.
"He was totally involved with his kids," Grace tells PEOPLE of Williams, adding of the intimate photographs, "One of his biggest regrets was having to spend time away when he was working."
Grace explains that Williams, who was 63 when he died, "loved to play games with his kids, read them stories."
"He loved to snowboard with Zak and did puzzles with Zelda. When he was with his kids was when he really lit up."
Robin Williams Behind the Scenes: Photographer's Intimate View of Tragic Star as a Quiet Family Man| Movie News, Robin Williams
Zak was Williams' son with first wife Valerie Velardi, and Zelda and Cody's mother was Marsha Graces, the actor's spouse from 1989-2010.
For more of Arthur Grace's intimate photographs of Robin Williams, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday
Robin Williams Behind the Scenes: Photographer's Intimate View of Tragic Star as a Quiet Family Man| Movie News, Robin Williams
Grace also tells PEOPLE about Williams' kindhearted nature, explaining of his own 1988 wedding, "Robin hosted a dinner for me and my wife and then put us up at the Carlyle Hotel with a bottle of champagne."
He concludes, "He was the funniest man on the planet."
Photo credit: Courtesy of Christie's
From Veranda
Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy are icons of an era. It was a time in which music greats like Frank Sinatra gifted the President with, say, an engraved silver clock, and former prime minister Margaret Thatcher sent her love with engraved silver beakers. Now, these items from Reagan's Bel Air home are going up for sale at a Christie's auction in the Private Collection of President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan.
"The collection is very much a reflection of the simple and elegant life the Reagans enjoyed together," Richard Nelson, Christie's senior specialist of decorative arts, told the Associated Press. "The furniture and accessories reflect the classic 'Hollywood Regency' style that Mrs. Reagan chose for the house ... (and) incorporated many of the same colors and fabrics in the Bel Air house that she loved in the White House."
The items are slated for sale at Christie's New York September 21 and 22. Meanwhile, it will be on preview for the public at Christie's London from now until July 14.
Sinatra's clock and Thatcher's silver beakers are just two notable items in the collection. The clock - a Tiffany American Marine Chronometer (estimate: $5,000 to $10,000) - was an inauguration gift from Frank and Barabara Sinatra. It has an engraved plaque that reads "Good Morning Mr. President," according to Christie's.
The pair of Elizabeth II Beakers (Estimate: $1,000 to $2,000), meanwhile, are a gift inscribed with the words, "With love, from Margaret and Denis Thatcher."
Also featured in the collection is Mrs. Reagan's personal collection of jewelry, including a suite of Van Cleef & Arpels Diamond and Gold Lion Pendant-Brooch Necklace (estimate: $30,000 to $50,000) and accompanying Diamond and Gold Lion Ear Clips (estimate: $15,000 to $20,000). According to the Associated Press, Mrs. Reagan wore the ear clips on a state visit to England in 1988. First Lady style? Count us in.
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The collection also includes furniture, books, paintings, sculpture, prints, decorative works, and pieces designed by Billy Haines, according to Christie's. (The entire sale catalogue will be available in late summer.)
Overall, the auction is expected to fetch more than $2 million, according to the Daily Mail.
Proceeds of the sales will benefit the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute. Check out the video below to learn more about the sale.
h/t: Luxury Listings New York City
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Rose McGowan
Variety's chief film critic Owen Gleiberman wrote an entire piece about Renee Zellweger's looks after the premiere of the "Bridget Jones's Baby" trailer, so Rose McGowan has now written an entire column about Gleiberman's attack.
The "Charmed" and "Grindhouse" actress wrote a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter, saying Gleiberman's critique is "indefensible" and "vile, damaging, stupid, and cruel."
"It also reeks of status quo white-male privilege," she wrote in the column. "You are an active endorser of what is tantamount to harassment and abuse of actresses and women. ... Men like you and the women who sit idly by and say nothing should know that aiding and abetting is a moral crime, and if it were punished in Hollywood, most of you would be in some form of jail."
McGowan said she speaks from personal experience of harassment, recounting a time when her publicists did nothing while Howard Stern asked her to show him her labia on his radio show.
Simply put, she writes that she is tired of being fearful.
"I loathe fear. And this town is built on fear. Fear was instilled in me by the men and women of this town, just as I'm sure it was instilled in Ms. Zellweger," she wrote. "Fear of being blacklisted, fear of being branded difficult, fear of ... fear of ... fear of."
To illustrate her point that too much focus is put on women's not men's appearance, she replaced Zellweger's name in Gleiberman's column with the names of some A-list male actors: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Cruise, Matt Damon, Ryan Reynolds, and more.
"He worked with costars who reinforced his supernova status, through their fame or their beauty or both. ROB LOWE, with pillowy cheeks and quizzically pursed lips and that singular squint, was beautiful, but not in the way that a BRAD PITT or GEORGE CLOONEY was."
Zellweger has been on a self-imposed break from acting since 2010 but will return to the big screen when "Bridget Jones's Baby" opens on September 16. Zellweger has said that she managed to keep herself away from previous reports about her appearance, so it's likely she'll stay away from the attention this time as well.
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Read Rose McGowan's full column.
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After eight seasons and more than 100 episodes, Royal Pains -- the last remaining cog from USA Network's blue-skies machine -- closes its doors for good.
Debuting in the summer of 2009, the medical procedural followed a successful New York City ER doctor, Hank Lawson (Mark Feuerstein), who moves to the Hamptons and reluctantly becomes a concierge doctor for the wealthy and famous. Along the way, Hank recruited the help of his younger brother Evan (Paolo Costanzo) and physician's assistant Divya (Reshma Shetty), who became invaluable parts of HankMed.
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"Like my favorite character in the movies, Rocky [Balboa], who only wanted to go the distance, we went the distance," Feuerstein, 45, told ETonline during a recent interview about Royal Pains' long run, "and I'm so proud that we got to do that and have that full experience."
In ET's exclusive first look at the final episode, Hank bares his soul to Divya, sharing that his current life as a concierge doctor isn't fulfilling him anymore. "This isn't just about finding a new title or a new way to practice medicine. I realized I need to find a new way to live," Hank admits in the clip below.
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Ahead of Wednesday's swan song, Feuerstein -- who's already busy filming Fox's upcoming Prison Break revival -- jumped on the phone to reflect on Royal Pains' seven years of success, the emotional final moments on set and what he'll miss the most.
ET: Now that we're heading into the series finale of Royal Pains. Has it sunk it for you yet?
Mark Feuerstein: If you asked me what was the one thing I would take away from the experience the most, my answer would be the people: the crew, the writers, the cast. The real moments of goodbye were the ones where we were wrapping every main cast member, from Henry Winkler to Campbell Scott to Reshma Shetty, Paulo Constanzo, Ben Shenkman to me. When we wrapped me and Paulo together, our executive producers Michael Rauch and Andrew Lenchewski made these beautiful speeches to us. It was in those toasts and final hugs with those people that it really ended for us. Then, we shot in Cape Town afterward. Then we got together at the ATX Festival [this year]. So there were all these little moments of goodbye that have stretched out our swan song together, but now it's really happening.
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ET: What was the last day like on set?
There was this moment with Paolo -- it was literally the last shot of the last episode -- and it was a scene in a dressing room. Henry Winkler, who plays our dad, had to leave for a talk show or an interview so we had a stand-in for him as there was a shot over his shoulder onto me and Paolo and we finished the scene. We knew this was our last shot ever on Royal Pains and Andrew and Michael were at the monitors outside of the set. When they yelled "cut," Paolo and I had a hug that lasted an eternity and Andrew and Michael were also hugging. Afterward, Paolo had this great line to the stand-in, who was standing there: "Oh, hey Henry!" (Laughs.)
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ET: Your friendship with Paolo really translated on screen as the show progressed and we saw Hank and Evan's relationship evolve on Royal Pains. Was that important for you guys?
Watching the arc of my relationship with Paolo, which started by both of us wondering who the hell is this guy that I'm going to have to spend all this time with? We definitely were figuring each other out in that first season, but we grew together as people and as friends, and by the end, we were as thick as thieves. In the moments where we were connected as friends, you could see that on screen --using things from our own lives and jokes from our relationship -- and in moments when we were frustrated, where we had a lot of conflict, we would use that. We really lived the show and our relationship in one.
ET: What will you miss the most about playing Hank?
I never got into this business to play a character who might be a role model or anything -- that wasn't the goal. Recently, I've been playing a character [on Prison Break] who's less than moral, far less virtuous than Hank; it's fun and there's a kind of release to it. But what Andrew Lenchewski wrote in the pilot of Royal Pains -- that Hank Lawson will make an entire generation of kids want to go to medical school -- really got me excited and moved to play this character because it was ambitious or optimistic, which was the show as a whole.
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ET: Have you had any lasting encounters with fans that really impacted you?
There was a day when a kid came up to me on the street and said "Hey, Dr. Hank! I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to Johns Hopkins medical school in the fall because of you and your character." Knowing that I had some remote impact on a kid, even if it was one kid, it's very satisfying. It's rarer and rarer on TV now to find characters whose intentions are pure because there's a darkness to the TV landscape as a whole right now. For this one blue-skies moment in the history of television to have gotten to play the ultimate blue-skies character who meant well and was only out for the greater good was a great opportunity and I'm so glad I got to play him. I will miss him a lot.
ET: What are your thoughts on how Hank's story ended? Was it where you pictured Hank would be and who he would end up with?
My dream for Hank was somewhere between going on a Doctors Without Borders mission like Jill (Jill Flint) had done back in the day and being some sort of itinerant hero who managed to have the perfect wife and kids along the way. But there's something very fitting about him ending up in the Hamptons, the place that was his second chance, his new lease on life where he found not only the connection between him and his patients, which was something he was lacking, but also his connection to all the special people he got to know, from Boris to Jeremiah to Paige to, of course, Divya and Evan. In my mind, the reason he stayed in the Hamptons -- as great as Boris' house was, as great as the opportunity was to be a concierge doctor -- it was Jill Casey who kept him there. It was love in the beginning and it was love in the end that kept him there, and I think that's very fitting.
Royal Pains airs its series finale on Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on USA Network.
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Image via Shutterstock
Six of the contestants who lost the Miss Corpus Christi Latina Pageant not only think the pageant crowned the wrong winner, theyre suing over it. Their lawsuit makes the case that Caitlin Cifuentes, 25, should not have received the crown on June 11 because of her criminal record and a past marriage, reports the Houston Chronicle.
Specifically, the suit argues that Cifuentes should have been disqualified because she is on deferred adjudicated probation for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, along with probation for misdemeanor DUI. Those charges stem from a 2013 car crash that injured four people, reports Courthouse News Service. The lawsuit is seeking $100,000 from pageant director Kayla Alvarez, who stands by the decision to crown Cifuentes.
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Just because you have a bad background doesnt mean that should hold you back from accomplishing your goals, Alvarez tells the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. Shes worked very hard and the judges saw that and she won fair and square."
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Alvarez says Cifuentes probationary status means she was never technically convicted and was therefore still eligible to compete. While the suit cites a clause in the agreement all contestants signed that begins "I have never been married, Alvarez says the rule against no marriages applies only to the teen competition, with divorced adults eligible for the Miss title.
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The suit also argues that due to Cifuentes probation, her travel outside of Nueces County is dependent on the Nueces County Probation Departments approval. As of now, Cifuentes is still on track to compete for the state Latina title in August.
By John Johnson
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kuznetsov
Russia's state-run TASS news agency recently announced that Russia's sole aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, will deploy to the Mediterranean from October 2016 to January 2017 to fly sorties against the enemies of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.
"The General Staff has prepared a plan for involvement of the deck aircraft in delivering strikes on terrorist groups in the Syrian Arab Republic, where the crews will practice taking off the carrier to deliver strikes on ground targets," the source told TASS.
This deployment will mark only the fifth deployment of the Kuznetsov since it's launch in 1985. All previous deployments only lasted a few months were also in the Mediterranean.
Additionally, the Kuznetsov only displaces about 55,000 tons and can support about 30 aircraft. It's ski-jump platform and lack of catapults mean that planes launched from the Kuznetsov have a reduced maximum takeoff weight, and can therefore carry less fuel and strike within shorter ranges, meaning the carrier will have to float closer to the shore.
The Kuznetsov is further limited by mechanical issues and the fact that it has to be refueled every 45 days or so.
In comparison, US aircraft carriers are nuclear powered and can stay at sea for extended periods. Currently the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower is stationed in the Mediterranean in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, the US-led mission to destroy ISIS.
USS Dwight D. Eisenhower
"The aircraft carrier will come to the Mediterranean Sea roughly before end of January - early February, after that it will return home and in February-March it will undergo maintenance and modernization in Severodvinsk, supposedly at Sevmash," the source told TASS.
The Russian media outlet reported that "about 15 fighters Su-33 and MiG-29K/KUB and more than ten helicopters Ka-52K, Ka-27 and Ka-31," would carry out strikes from the ship, while regular land-based operations from Hymemim Air Base in Syria continue.
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Paris (AFP) - A Paris court will rule Wednesday in the trial of two former Rwandan mayors accused of orchestrating the massacre of hundreds of Tutsis during the country's 1994 genocide.
Octavien Ngenzi, 58, and his predecessor Tito Barahira, 64, are accused of playing a direct role in the slaughter in their village of Kabarondo, where some 2,000 people seeking refuge in a church were bludgeoned and hacked to death.
The eight-week trial has heard chilling testimony depicting the two men as "supervisors" and "executioners" in the massacre at the height of the genocide in which 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were killed by Hutu extremists.
"Ngenzi was the leader," said prosecutor Philippe Courroye, who requested life sentences for the two men. Barahira was the "dreaded machete officer".
Ngenzi and Barahira deny the charges.
Their lawyers have pointed to contradictory testimony 22 years after the killings to argue that reasonable doubt exists over the defendants' role, portraying them as having been helpless to stop the chaos unfolding around them.
One of their lawyers, Francoise Mathe, gave an emotional six-hour closing speech on Tuesday in which she said Ngenzi had done the best he could with "six police officers for 35,000 residents."
However a lawyer for civil parties to the case, Gilles Paruelle, told the jury: "To kill one man, hatred is sufficient. To kill 1,000, you need organisation."
- 'Don't waste the bullets' -
The violence broke out in Kabarondo a week after the shooting down of a plane carrying Rwanda's president Juvenal Habyarimana, which inflamed ethnic tensions and sparked the genocide.
Among those seeking shelter at the church on April 13, 1994, when the genocidal Hutu "Interahamwe" militia attacked, was Marie Mukamunana, who told the court how her seven children and husband were killed by grenades and machetes.
"Someone said 'don't waste the bullets' and they continued with machetes," she said.
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She recalled seeing former mayor Barahira "armed with a gun, among the Interahamwe" and testified that Ngenzi was "supervising the massacre."
Jean-Damascene Rutagungira -- who lost 21 members of his family including his wife and children -- told the court he saw the pair encouraging the killers, shouting "cut them down."
The bloodshed in Kabarondo, a town near the border with Tanzania, was over by the end of April, when Tutsi rebels in the armed wing of what is now the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR) took control of the area.
Elsewhere in the former Belgian colony, the slaughter continued until the FPR fighters finally prevailed in July.
- Rwandans tried around the globe -
Ngenzi and Barahira were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by Rwandan people's courts, known as gacaca, in 2009.
Ngenzi has been in custody since 2010 when he was captured in the French overseas department of Mayotte off the east coast of Africa, where he had been living under a false name.
Barahira was arrested in 2013 in the southwestern French city of Toulouse where he was living.
Their trial in France comes two years after Pascal Simbikangwa, a former Rwandan army captain, was tried in Paris and jailed for 25 years for his role in the genocide -- the first such conviction in a country that had previously dragged its heels on prosecuting Rwandan genocide cases.
The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which ended its mandate in 2015, sentenced 61 people for their role in the genocide.
Alleged genocidaires have also been captured and tried in Belgium, France, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and the United States.
Memories of the genocide continue to strain relations between France and Rwanda, which accuses Paris of complicity -- and even direct involvement -- in the violence because of its support for the Hutu nationalist government of the day.
Kigali broke off ties with Paris in 2006 after a French judge issued arrest warrants against nine Rwandan officials over Habyarimana's assassination.
The diplomatic freeze lasted for three years.
Pants-saggers beware: A South Carolina town is coming for your exposed underpants.
As of Tuesday, the town of Timmonsville (pop. 2000), has banned any pants that expose undergarments.
The ordinance, which passed the Timmonsville Town Council by a vote of 4 to 1, also bans anyone from anyone engaging in public nudity or displaying pornographic material in public.
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According to WBTW, violators of the ordinance could face fines of up to $600.
A message left for the city administration was not immediately returned Wednesday afternoon.
While certainly not common, Timmonsville is not the first town to outlaw sagging pants.
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In July 2014, a similar ordinance was passed in Ocala, Florida, a significantly larger town that counts John Travolta among its nearly 60,000 residents.
However, the Ocala ordinance was struck down just a month later after facing criticism from the city's mayor as well as the NAACP, which argued the law directly targeted young black males.
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Johnny Cueto
A few months after making his debut with the San Francisco Giants (and currently having one helluva season), pitcher Johnny Cueto is cutting ties with Ohio. The former Cincinnati Reds star just put his home on the market in Sharonville for $425,000.
Built in 1987, Cuetos traditional-style house features five bedrooms and oak hardwood floors that were freshly refinished last month, listing agent Heather Herr says. The house caters to every type of buyer looking for a home with privacy, beautiful amenities, and a convenient location.
The fireballer and his family appear to be nearly moved out, but if a buyer is interested in the remaining items perhaps the exercise equipment in the gymHerr says we can negotiate.
Cueto was just named to the National League All-Star squad thanks to his 12-1 recordits his second time as an All-Star. After spending seven-and-a-half seasons in Ohio with the Reds, the pitcher with the long locks was traded to the Kansas City Royals in the middle of the 2015 season. He picked up a World Series ring with the Royals, before departing the Midwest and signing a six-year, $130 million deal with the Giants in December.
Front view of Cueto's home
Kitchen with hardwood oak flooring
Foyer
Living room
Basement/game room
Pool
Open dining/living area
The post San Francisco Giants Ace Johnny Cueto Lists His $425K Cincinnati Home appeared first on Real Estate News and Advice - realtor.com.
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Republican presidential candidates, from left, Lindsey Graham, Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Scott Walker confer after a forum, Aug. 3, 2015, in Manchester, N.H. (Photo: Jim Cole/AP)
The idea of a convention insurgency against Donald Trump continues to loom as a possibility, but one Republican governor who had been floated as a possible leader of any rebellion in Cleveland against Trump took himself out of the running for any such role this week.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker told the state press corps hed like to speak at the GOPs four-day convention that starts July 18, and hinted Wednesday that his decision to reverse course and support Trump was based on his belief that any effort by the roughly 400 anti-Trump delegates out of the 2,472 headed to Cleveland has no chance to wrest the nomination away from the presumptive nominee.
Its now clear who the RNC delegates will vote to nominate. And he is better than she is, Walker wrote on his Twitter account, implying that up until recently, he thought the effort to stop Trump had some chance of succeeding.
However, there are delegates from Walkers own state of Wisconsin, as well as from Colorado and New Jersey, who are heading up an anti-Trump plan. There are different accounts of how close they are to having enough votes on the 112-member rules committee to force a vote on the convention floor to unbind delegates from the results of the primary and allow them to vote for someone other than Trump.
And the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the effort is remarkably close to getting past the first hurdle.
Less than a month ago, Walker said it was just sad in America that we have such poor choices right now, referring to Trump and Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee. And he said two weeks ago that delegates should vote in Cleveland according to their conscience, and not necessarily according to the popular vote in their states primary.
But just as Walker took himself out of the anti-Trump conversation, Ohio Gov. John Kasich has hinted hed like to enter it.
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Kasich told the Washington Posts Dan Balz Tuesday that delegates should not automatically vote for Trump in Cleveland. They have to weigh their responsibilities against their consciences, and then make a decision about what they want to do, Kasich said.
Adding further to the intrigue, an email was sent out Tuesday from Kasichs campaign which he suspended in May but did not formally end that touted the results of an NBC News poll that came out the same day that showed Kasich beating Clinton by 8 points in a general-election matchup.
Perhaps most surprising are the results of a Clinton vs. Kasich November matchup, said the portion of the NBC News article that was included in the Kasich campaigns email. It cited Kasichs ability to win over larger numbers of Democratic and Independent voters than either the 2012 Republican nominee for president, Mitt Romney, or House Speaker Paul Ryan.
John Weaver, who ran Kasichs presidential campaign, said, No one is stoking the idea of Kasich running against Hillary, other than, I guess, NBC, who did one survey, and the other news outlets. We are not.
We are showing that a positive, inclusive, conservative reform agenda is the right one for Republicans running down-ballot. And that Kasich, the most popular Republican in the country, will be a positive force in trying to help us keep control of Congress, etc., Weaver said.
But Tim Miller, a spokesman for an anti-Trump group, Our Principles PAC, said that Kasich was basically signaling that, should there be some sort of revolt, his name will be in the mix.
Miller also said that Walker and Kasich both seemed to be staking out positions with an eye on how it would affect another run for president in 2020.
Walkers calculation is that Hillary is going to be president, and you need to be the one out there who is fighting her, Miller said.
A network of ancient rivers lies frozen in time beneath one of Greenland's largest glaciers, new research reveals.
The subglacial river network, which threads through much of Greenland's landmass and looks, from above, like the tiny nerve fibers radiating from a brain cell, may have influenced the fast-moving Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier over the past few million years.
"The channels seem to be instrumental in controlling the location and form of the Jakobshavn ice stream and seem to show a clear influence on the onset of fast flow in this region," study co-author Michael Cooper, a doctoral candidate in geography at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, told Live Science. "Without the channels present underneath, the glacier may not exist in its current location or orientation." [See Images of Greenland's Gorgeous Glaciers]
Fast-moving glacier
The Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier in Greenland is the world's fastest glacier; it races toward the sea at the breakneck pace of 11 miles (17 kilometers) per year. The speedy glacier is dumping huge amounts of ice into the sea and is Greenland's main contributor to sea level rise, raising levels about 1 millimeter (0.04 inches) between 2000 and 2010, researchers previously told Live Science.
Climate scientists have zeroed in on this fast-moving glacier in recent years because it may be a harbinger of climate change to come. It is melting quickly: The glacier has lost more than 9,000 gigatons of ice since 1900, according to a 2015 study in the journal Nature.
A secret world, locked in ice
As part of the effort to characterize Jakobshavn, Cooper and his colleagues used ice-penetrating radar to peer beneath the massive hunk of ice and analyze the height of the bedrock below.
The radar revealed a secret world, frozen in ice. Beneath Jakobshavn lies a stunning landscape of jaw-dropping canyons, some of which are roughly the size of the Grand Canyon; dramatic ravines; and a lacework of mountain streams. By analyzing the shape of the valleys and canyons beneath the ice, the team determined that these features were likely formed by rivers cutting the rock away over time, rather than by the glacier.
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"The shape of the valleys was V-shaped, rather than U-shaped; the flow network had a dendritic or tree-like structure; and the long profiles showed a smooth, concave-up shape," Cooper told Live Science. These are good clues that the channel system was carved by rivers, not glaciers, he added.
Thus, the landscape must have formed at least 3.5 million years ago, prior to the ice sheet's formation. At that time, the area may have been much warmer and home to forests and shrubland, Cooper said.
"I imagine the landscape would have been home to a lot of life," Cooper said.
The glacier has had two effects. Near the interior, where the ice is the thickest, it has preserved the primeval landscape. At the edges, glacial ice has deepened some of the canyons through erosion, Cooper said.
The network of rivers that lies beneath the ice is now mostly dry, but some water does still flow.
"Near the margins, toward the outlet glacier, Jakobshavn Isbrae, the channels may well have water flowing through, as part of the modern-day subglacial drainage system," meaning water is seeping from the ice's surface to the bottom of the glacier, flowing along the edges of the ice-sheet bottom, he said.
Original article on Live Science.
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From Cosmopolitan
Choosing to breastfeed is a completely personal thing that some moms do for a month, a year, or several years, depending on her supply and a gazillion other factors. A 29-year-old mom named Natasha Fogarty from St. Louis, Missouri, recently marked her last day of breastfeeding her 5-month-old son Milo. Although her original plan was to breastfeed for seven more months, Fogarty was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer.
Fogarty shared her story on the popular Facebook page Breastfeeding Mama Talk, writing, "My breastfeeding story stopped just Sunday. There are heavy tears in my eyes. ... I had to have a single mastectomy. I wanted and planned to breastfeed for a year. Unfortunately to save my life I had to stop."
Fogarty actually recalled finding the lump on her right side while she was pregnant. "I actually felt a lump on the right side [when] I was like a month from delivering [Milo], and I just thought it was my milk coming in," she tells Cosmopolitan.com. "My boobs were getting lumpy and different, and I was like, 'Oh, I'm not going to worry about it.' I had him, and then my boobs got really engorged, [and] I forgot about it, and I started being a mom and raising my son. But every time I would breastfeed him, that particular bump would never go away. I'd push it around, thinking it was a clog, and it didn't [budge]."
That's when she decided to go see her obstetrician who advised she have an ultrasound. That screening lead to a mammogram, which lead to a biopsy, and on a Friday, while she was at work, Fogarty received a phone call about her results. "They were like, 'You know, I hate to tell you this over the phone...'" she says. "It was shock and disbelief, and she starts saying all these other things, I felt like I didn't even hear her, I couldn't believe that was what it was."
Although Fogarty was initially devastated and says she "cried a lot" with her husband after hearing the diagnosis, she felt very supported by her whole medical team. They moved quickly to schedule a single mastectomy, and Fogarty also saw a fertility specialist to discuss trying for another baby in five years, once she's completed treatment.
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Through the flurry of appointments, Fogarty was also grappling with the reality of having to stop breastfeeding Milo. "I loved breastfeeding more than anything in the world," she says. "It was my favorite thing to do. I still get choked up about it - the fact that I had to stop was extremely hard. [Before my mastectomy, I thought,] I'm just going to cherish every single moment and just breastfeed. ... Even during the hardest moments, it was just so special to just grab him and know that he could be comforted by me, and he just looked into my eyes, and there was such a connection of love. I wanted to go for a year, I never wanted to stop, so coming to terms with [stopping] was really hard."
To mark the last time she'd nurse her son, Fogarty scheduled a photo shoot with Kari Dallas of Vintage Lens Photography in St. Louis, Missouri. "My sister was over and we were just hanging out, and I said, 'Do you mind if I take a shower?'" Fogarty explains. In the shower, she had the idea to document her last breastfeeding session with Milo with professional photos. Fogarty recalls that Dallas responded to her call-out on Facebook "immediately" and also volunteered to do the shoot for free. "It was so amazing," she says. "That is what I wanted - not only be able to remember breastfeeding, but the last day I was breastfeeding my son."
The shoot was made even more ~brilliant~ by Fogarty's recent hair makeover. "Pink has always been my favorite color," she says. "The moment that I found out that I had breast cancer, and I knew I'd lose my hair because of chemo, I said, 'I'm going to do it!' All my friends and family were like, 'Of course you dyed your hair - we didn't expect anything less.' And I love it!"
Fogarty says she wanted to share her gorgeous photos and story with Breastfeeding Mama Talk, because she had been an avid follower of the page since she gave birth to Milo. "I [also] wanted women to just be aware," she says. "I'm so young, and [breast cancer] happened. I wanted women who are going through what I'm going through to reach out if they need some support."
She also hopes her experience can serve as a source of comfort and inspiration for other mothers who either have to stop breastfeeding before they wanted to or who are finding it challenging. "To hear a story like mine could inspire you to take a deep breath and say, 'I'm very lucky, and I get to do this as long as I want,'" Fogarty says. "[It could] inspire them and push them whenever they're having a bad moment. I am completely humbled by this whole experience, and I hope I can give hope it other women."
As she looks toward 24 weeks of chemo treatment, Fogarty feels blessed to have the help of three close friends who are donating breast milk for Milo. "Milo would not eat formula," she explains. "The stress was huge." But when her friends offered to help out, Fogarty cried says she cried with them in "absolute joy." As a result, Fogarty is better able to focus on her battle ahead. "I'm just trying to stay strong and push through it," she says.
Here are some of the gorgeous shots Dallas captured of Natasha Fogarty, baby Milo, and Natasha's husband James.
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Music industry royalty has come together to sing in honour of the 49 victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida on June 12, 2016.
The song, "Hands," is being released through Interscope Records with support from LGBT advocacy group GLAAD. It features Mary J Blige, Jason Derulo, Britney Spears, Selena Gomez, Halsey, Imagine Dragons, Jennifer Lopez, Kacey Musgraves, P!nk, Prince Royce, Gwen Stefani, and Meghan Trainor, alongside many others.
Lin-Manuel Miranda and and Jennifer Lopez are also working on a song inspired by the tragedy called "Love Make the World Go Round."
"When you hear the song it talks about hate being the driver here," GLAAD CEO Sarah Kate Ellis told Billboard. "That's important because we have to be able to identify what's driving these cruel acts in order to stop them. Artists using their platforms to accelerate acceptance is very powerful."
"Hands" is available on iTunes with proceeds from sales going towards the Equality Florida Victims Fund, among other charities.
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By Susan Cornwell and Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Donald Trump's list of potential vice presidential running mates got a little shorter on Wednesday when one prominent U.S. senator withdrew from consideration and a second said she wanted to focus on her home state. The moves by Bob Corker of Tennessee and Joni Ernst of Iowa could complicate Trump's efforts to rally establishment Republicans behind his presidential bid. With Trump looking at a self-imposed deadline of July 15 to announce his pick, there was no indication that the wealthy businessman was anywhere close to reaching what is perhaps the most important decision he will make as the presumptive Republican nominee. Trump is looking to announce his running mate just ahead of the Republican National Convention, to be held July 18-21 in Cleveland, where he is expected to become the party's official nominee. In Cincinnati, Ohio, on Wednesday, Trump campaigned with potential vice presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the House of Representatives who is popular in conservative circles. Introducing Trump, Gingrich tried out the role of the No. 2 with a robust attack on presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for her email practices, on the same day the Justice Department decided not to levy criminal charges over what the Federal Bureau of Investigation called her "extremely careless" handling of classified information when she was secretary of state. "There are two Americas. There's the corrupt Washington of the old order. And there's all the rest of us. I say to you, Enough!" Gingrich said. Trump liked what he heard. "I'm not saying it's Newt, but if it's Newt, nobody is going to be beating him in those debates," Trump said. Trump told Fox News he has 10 candidates on his vice presidential list, including two generals. One source said Indiana Governor Mike Pence is being pushed internally by some members of Trump's inner circle. A former congressman, Pence met with Trump on Saturday. Corker, from Tennessee, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had wrestled privately over whether to be a contender for the No. 2 position, telling friends he had never been a surrogate for another politician. Corker spent eight hours at Trump Tower in New York on Tuesday, then campaigned with Trump in Raleigh, North Carolina. He told reporters he withdrew because "I just felt like I was far more suited for other types of service." "You know, its a highly political role for the next four months, he said. I view myself as deep in substance and policy, and I just think there are better ways for me to serve in the public arena." His withdrawal eliminates an important party establishment figure as Trump tries to broaden his appeal with plans to visit Republicans in the Senate and House on Capitol Hill on Thursday. "Corker's withdrawal could be considered a canary in the coal mine with establishment Republicans who are convinced that Trump cannot stay on message and can't stay focused on attacking Hillary Clinton without doing some type of damage to his campaign," said Republican strategist Ron Bonjean. Some Republicans felt Trump erred by not taking full political advantage of FBI Director James Comey's statement on Tuesday that Clinton mishandled classified emails. In Raleigh, Trump sharply attacked Clinton but strayed from the message by saying the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had done a good job cracking down on militants. Ernst, a rising figure in the Republican Party, spent part of the Fourth of July holiday on Monday meeting with Trump. She seemed to be leaning against the vice presidential position, and told Politico, "I made that very clear to him that Im focused on Iowa. I feel that I have a lot more to do in the United States Senate. And Iowa is where my heart is." (Reporting by Susan Cornwell and Steve Holland; Editing by Toni Reinhold and Leslie Adler)
Last week news broke that Adnan Syed, the subject of the popular podcast Serial, was granted a new trial; and no one seems to be more shocked than series host Sarah Koenig.
"I happened to be on Skype with our Executive Producer Julie Snyder, and both of us did exactly the same involuntary thing of sucking in our breath and then putting out hands over our mouths," Koenig wrote on her Serial blog. "We weren't so much shocked because of the legal arguments, but because it was such a longshot, this outcome."
According to the court order, which granted the new trial, Judge Martin P. Welch cited the cell phone tower data as the reason for throwing out the previous conviction. Specifically, Welch said that Syed's former attorney's "failure to cross-examine the state's cell tower expert about the reliability of cell tower location evidence," as reason for the vacated conviction.
In Koenig's posted opinion on the news, she delves into the problem which resulted in Adnan's new trial, revealing that attorney Susan Simpson in conjunction with Rabia Chaudry's Undiclosed podcast contacted "the cell phone expert who testified in Adnan's trial, and found out he was unable to stand by his crucial trial testimony from back in 2000."
Revisiting her first conversations with Adnan, Koenig recalls how he seemed similar to other inmates in his optimism as he argued that things would look different, '"If only someone would take another looka'"
Koenig recalls how the Serial podcast prompted many to do exactly that, including Judge Welch who had original denied Adnan's request for a vacated conviction in 2010.
"To reduce his conclusion to one line: Welch found that Gutierrez's (Adnan's lawyer) cross-examination of the state's cell phone expert at trial was so deeply deficient," Koenig writes. "And her deficiency so avoidable if only she'd employed the twin virtues of reading comprehension and attention to detail, that Adnan's convictions should be vacated, and he should be granted a new trial."
The family of Hae Min Lee, Adnan's ex-girlfriend who he was accused of killing, has not commented on his new trial. However, after the first day of Syed's hearing for a new trial, earlier this year, Deputy Maryland Attorney General Thiru Vignarajah read aloud a statement from them.
The hearing is forcing "us to relive a nightmare we thought was behind us," they said.
"We believe justice was done when Adnan was convicted in 2000," the statement continued. "We look forward to bringing this chapter to an end so we can celebrate the memory of Hae instead of celebrating the man who killed her."
Serial podcast host Sarah Koenig has shared her thoughts on Adnan Syed's new trial.
Syed, now 35, is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of his 18-year-old girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, in 1999.
Interest in the case heightened following the award-winning first season of Serial, which investigated the murder, and a Maryland judge has now granted Syed a new trial.
NEWS: 'Serial's' Adnan Syed Is Getting a New Trial
The news sent Koenig into shock.
"I happened to be on Skype with our Executive Producer Julie Snyder, and both of us did exactly the same involuntary thing of sucking in our breath and then putting our hands over our mouths," wrote the former political reporter in a post on the Serial website. "We weren't so much shocked because of the legal arguments, but because it was such a longshot, this outcome."
Koenig went on to detail her earlier conversations with Syed, including one that took place shortly after Judge Martin P. Welch's decision to deny Syed's first petition for post-conviction relief in December 2013.
"At the time, it seemed to me Adnan was spinning optimistic," continued Koenig. "Possibly falsely so. I mean, his legal options, by any clear-eyed assessment, were moribund. And yet Adnan struck this familiar jailhouse posture: 'If only someone would take another look'"
NEWS: 'Serial' Finale Is Here and We're Dream Casting If the Podcast Were a Movie
While Serial has brought widespread attention to the case, Koenig added that one of the key findings which lead to the new trial Syed's then-attorney M. Christina Gutierrez conducting a "deeply deficient" cross examination of a cell phone expert was not brought to light by the podcast.
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Doctor sex abuse scandals are an issue across the country, according to a new report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
An investigation published Wednesday by the newspaper said that since Jan. 1, 1999, more than 2,400 doctors in the U.S. received sanctions for sexually abusing patients -- based on an analysis of more than 100,000 disciplinary orders issued against doctors since 1999. More than 3,100 were reprimanded following sexual abuse allegations. For comparison's sake, there are 900,000 doctors in the U.S., according to the report.
Half the sanctioned doctors still have active medical licenses, according to the findings. The report offered examples of abuse that ranged from a psychiatrist seducing an emotionally fragile patient to a family practitioner fondling a minor.
This is the first part of the investigation; the remainder will be published through the rest of 2016.
"It's treated with a sort of secrecy that we don't see in other arenas when we're talking about allegations this serious," AJC's Carrie Teegardin, who worked on the investigation, told ABC News.
Much like the abuse committed by Catholic priests, abuse by doctors appears far-reaching and systemic.
"One thing we found that was shocking to us is some of these doctors are the most prolific sex offenders in the country, with hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of victims," Teegardin told ABC News.
When pushed for comment from ABC News, the American Medical Association responded with its sexual misconduct ethical guidelines, but didn't say anything specific about the AJC findings.
"Sexual contact that occurs concurrent with the patient-physician relationship constitutes sexual misconduct," reads AMA's Sexual Misconduct in the Practice of Medicine opinion.
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David Oliver is Associate Editor, Social Media at U.S. News & World Report. Follow him on Twitter, connect with him on LinkedIn, or send him an email at doliver@usnews.com.
By Edmund Blair NAIROBI (Reuters) - Seychelles will legislate this year for a central registry to record ownership of offshore companies, a move to meet new international standards that seek to counter money laundering, the finance minister said. In Seychelles, as in many other offshore financial centres, individual corporate agents hold details on ownership of the thousands of offshore firms, known as International Business Companies (IBCs), registered on the Indian Ocean archipelago. Experts say this can add to the complications facing any investigator seeking to trace ownership, even though agents are required to hand over details at the request of the authorities. The Financial Action Task Force, a global body that recommends policies to combat money laundering and corruption, has called for nations to make it easier to trace beneficial owners. A central registry is one such step. Finance Minister Jean Paul Adam told Reuters legislation had been drafted "that makes provision for registry of beneficial ownership" that would go before the National Assembly, or parliament. "The legislation will be passed before the end of this year," he said, adding that other changes to laws covering all companies in Seychelles, not just IBCs, were also going ahead. "We want any company that establishes itself in Seychelles to feel confident that it is ... operating in an environment that offers world-class compliance and regulation," the minister said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. The Seychelles has sought to reduce its reliance on tourism by promoting itself as a financial services centre, offering a low-tax environment for companies registered on its territory. According to OECD ratings in 2014 on compliance on transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes, Seychelles is listed as "Largely Compliant", the same rating as jurisdictions such as Britain and Singapore. Britain said last year it would set up a central register by June 2016. Executives in the Seychelles offshore industry say that since 1994 about 140,000 firms have been incorporated on the archipelago, which has fewer than 100,000 inhabitants. But many firms have been struck off since then, they say, either at the request of owners or for failing to pay fees. The financial services business now accounts for about 5 percent of Seychelles gross domestic product, compared with more than 30 percent for tourism and 10 percent for fisheries. The minister said financial services would grow but the focus would shift from incorporating companies to more value-added business, such as setting up investment vehicles to channel funds from Asia to Africa. "The future should very much be about being a gateway between Asia and Africa," he said, adding that Seychelles was focused on "moderate growth" in the industry to ensure standards and regulations kept pace. (Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Catherine Evans)
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 6, 2016 / Levi & Korsinsky announces it has commenced an investigation of TriMas Corporation (TRS) concerning possible breaches of fiduciary duty by the board of directors of the company. To obtain additional information, go to: http://zlk.9nl.com/trimas-trs or contact Joseph E. Levi, Esq. either via email at jlevi@zlk.com or by telephone at (212) 363-7500, toll-free: (877) 363-5972.
Levi & Korsinsky is a national firm with offices in New York, New Jersey, California, Connecticut and Washington D.C. The firm's attorneys have extensive expertise in prosecuting securities litigation involving financial fraud, representing investors throughout the nation in securities and shareholder lawsuits. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
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Levi & Korsinsky, LLP
Eduard Korsinsky, Esq.
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New York, NY 10004
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SOURCE: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP
Before breaking the days fast with an iftar meal on July 1, five fundamentalists, their minds awash with Islamic State propaganda, stormed Dhakas trendy Holey Artisan Bakery and brutally killed 20 hostages in the name of Islam. The attackers all came from elite backgrounds and specifically targeted foreigners for their alleged crimes against Islam and the Islamic State.
Naturally, citizens of Bangladesh, Dhaka-based expats, and anyone else with even a passing connection to the country are still in shock five days after the event. But should we be? After all, the writing that a major attack in Dhaka was not only possible but probable has been on the wall for years. Indeed, with a major increase in religiously motivated assassinations against secular bloggers, Hindus, and anyone else accused of working against Islam, alongside the more gradual creep of the Islamization of Bangladeshi politics, the idea that this country could insulate itself from the kinds of major attacks that take place in Pakistan and the Middle East no longer passes muster.
Since 2013, more than 40 people have been killed in Islamist attacks in Bangladesh, many of which targeted Bangladeshi citizens who have been accused of heresy and blasphemy. The high-profile killing of Bangladeshi-American Avijit Roy in 2015 by machete-wielding extremists in broad daylight is illustrative. Roy did little more than publish blog posts in favor of secularism and atheism, which was apparently enough to warrant a targeted assassination. His death, and that of many others, should have been a wake-up call to the government of Bangladesh that the security situation in the country was heading into troubled waters.
Instead, the government chose to downplay the religious connections and focus on Roys assassination as if it was just a criminal issue, preferring to ignore the ideological, religious, and political motivations at the heart of the crime. The response from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas government was a slight increase in security but also, more tellingly, the imposition of restrictions on the freedom of expression, making it a crime to publish anything that might offend religious sensibilities. This came just two years after a major movement within Bangladesh for strict anti-blasphemy laws that would have allowed capital punishment for secular activists. The government rejected these demands but did concede to arresting four bloggers for hurting religious sentiment. While the government stopped short of arresting all the accused blasphemers, some portion of the countrys hard-line Islamic community was happy to pick up the slack.
As always, minorities are far more aware of radical, oppressive trends than those standing atop the social ladder. While many Muslims in Bangladesh might be able to pretend there is no real extremist problem in their country, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Shiite Muslims, and LGBT people are only too aware of the reality.
In 2013, more than 40 Hindu temples were vandalized, and many Hindu homes were attacked across the country. Many more Hindus and Christians have been the victims of religiously motivated attacks since then. Buddhists primarily indigenous Tibeto-Burman-speaking peoples in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the countrys southeast face daily threats to their existence. They have also come under fire from Bangladeshs largest Islamic political party, the Jamaat-e-Islami, which has orchestrated large-scale attacks in the area against indigenous non-Muslim peoples. On Oct. 24, 2015, three bombs were detonated during a Shiite procession in Dhaka. The Islamic State was quick to claim responsibility, presumably acting through local supporters. When Julhas Mannan was killed for his advocacy work with Bangladeshs criminalized LGBT population, the government did eventually take on the task of finding the perpetrators, motivated at least in part by the U.S. Embassys strong condemnation of the murder. However, the issue was treated as a simple murder, rather than a political action intended to silence anyone defying a hard-line interpretation of Islam. This is the key distinction between a simple criminal act and an act of terrorism: One is personally motivated; the other is clearly about power and politics.
Despite this, Sheikh Hasina is already hard at work downplaying the seriousness of these recent attacks. In fact, she seems determined to avoid connecting the events in Dhaka with the long string of attacks perpetrated in the name of Islam in her country, calling on everyone to unite against these handful of criminals not radical Islamists or the Islamic State. Other attacks in Bangladesh claimed by the Islamic State have been met with official skepticism, and the government continues to deny that the group has any presence in the country. Foreign intelligence and embassy staff, meanwhile, took the Islamic States claims of responsibility for the attacks against Shiites as well as the killings of a Japanese man and Italian aid worker last year more seriously than Sheikh Hasinas government. In October 2015, the prime minister noted: I can surely say that [the Islamic State] or any such type of organization or their activities have not sprouted in Bangladesh yet. Instead, her government continued to argue that the attacks were organized by opposition parties to tarnish her leadership and legitimacy. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan echoed this conspiracy but added an international component by insinuating that Israeli intelligence was also involved. More recently, on July 3, 2016, Khan stressed that the attackers were part of the homegrown terrorist group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, which he claimed had no connection with the Islamic State.
Nothing will improve in Bangladesh until the government and a sizable chunk of the population admit that this is not your run-of-the-mill law-and-order problem. Whether the majority of Bangladeshs Muslims like it or not, there is already an ongoing, visible, deadly debate underway for the soul of the Muslim-majority country. But unless the government and the mainstream population get involved in the ideological battle that the Islamic State is now supporting in Bangladesh, it is unlikely to end in a way that fosters diversity of thought, religion, or even existence.
Dhaka will not escape the global reach of Islamic extremism by sticking its head in the sand.
Bangladesh might not be the first country to ignore jihadi-type threats until it was too late, but it can lead the way to a workable solution. The first step will be the sobering recognition that Bangladeshs Islam is not isolated from broader developments in the Islamic world. Its religious leaders, after all, are largely trained in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; the countrys porous borders allow for easy infiltration from Pakistan via India; and the Islamic discourses and debates are increasingly digital and accessible to wide audiences. The next step will be recognizing that connections, however informal or rhetorical, between Bangladeshs homegrown groups and those operating in Pakistan and the Middle East are not only possible but likely. This will be a critical realization if Bangladesh is to tailor its counterterrorism strategy and domestic security policy. Then, and only then, will Dhaka be able to design a meaningful campaign that not only relies on breaking up terrorist networks, but also includes a concerted effort to counter hard-line propaganda with a strong, civil society-led moderate Islamic message in favor of social justice and the rights of all of Bangladeshs diverse citizens.
Photo Credit: ROBERTO SCHMIDT / Staff
Snoop Dogg will headline a "unity party" on the final night of the Democratic National Convention hosted by the pro-Hillary Clinton Super PAC, Priorities USA Action.
How Hillary Clinton Made Women's History
The concert will take place at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia on July 28th, and is being hosted in conjunction with the House Majority PAC and the Senate Majority PAC. The three organizations will also host a reception several days earlier that will feature a performance from Los Lobos, though an exact date and venue have yet to be announced.
The Democratic National Convention will take place in Philadelphia July 25th through 28th. Additional information for the Snoop Dogg and Los Lobos shows, as well as other events being held around the convention, will be announced in the coming days.
Snoop Dogg has long been a supporter of Hillary Clinton, giving the candidate his endorsement on Bravo's Watch What Happens Live in May 2015. "I would love to see a woman in office because I feel like we're at that stage in life to where we need a perspective other than the male's train of thought," the rapper said. "And just to have a woman speaking from a global perspective as far as representing America, I'd love to see that. So I'll be voting for Mrs. Clinton."
On July 1st, Snoop Dogg released his new album, Coolaid, his first straight rap album since 2011's Doggumentary. Over the past five years, the MC has made forays into reggae (Reincarnated), funk (7 Days of Funk, with Dam-Funk) and, most recently on Bush, Pharrell's special brand of neo-disco and soul.
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Ever fought with your parents and wanted to report them to the authorities?
Here's some friendly advice: Don't call the police on your father if he sets fire to your illegal cannabis plants. Unfortunately, that's exactly what an irate teenager in Humpty Doo, Australia did Tuesday evening.
SEE ALSO: Justin Trudeau looks like a huge stoner in this Toronto Pride Parade photo
According to a Facebook post from the Northern Territory police, the young man had moved back in with his father several months ago, something heralded by millennials everywhere as "literally the worst." That meant at any moment, one of them would crack. And crack. They. Did.
NT police
Image: Facebook/northern territory police
It's unknown whether the incident occurred thanks to a run of the mill disagreement or a screaming match, but either way, the father took command of one of the teen's dearest possessions, his cannabis plants, and tossed them on a bonfire. Not just a diminutive fireplace or hearth, the police said, but a straight up bonfire.
More than a little upset, the teen called the local authorities, who had to remind the young man that possession of an illegal substance is more legally damning than flaming parental retribution.
In a brutal smack down by the cops, the department said no charges had been laid at this point, but that "the evidence has been destroyed. Along with his reputation."
(H/T ABC News)
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's Eskom is paying too much for the coal it buys from one of Anglo American's mines and will shop around for a cheaper source, an executive at the power utility said on Tuesday. * "It's unacceptable and we will change and we will go tounconventional suppliers," Eskom's Group Executive forGeneration Matshela Koko told reporters. * Anglo's New Denmark Colliery is the most expensive coalsupplier to Eskom, Koko told Reuters. * Eskom's Tutuka power station was paying Anglo American1,600 rand ($109) per tonne, said Koko. * However, Anglo's spokesman Moeketsi Mofokeng said thecompany charged Eskom an average of 668 rand per tonne duringthe last financial year. * European coal futures traded around $58.90 per tonne at1030 GMT. * Eskom, which had faced a funding shortfall and struggledto keep the lights on in Africa's most industrialised economy,said it posted a net profit of 4.6 billion rand in the year toMarch from 0.2 billion rand in the previous year. * The utility also said it had secured 57 percent of thefunding for its 2016/2017 financial year. * Eskom had received 23 billion rand in the 2015/2016financial year which ended in March through government loans andan equity injection.($1 = 14.7218 rand) (Reporting by Zandi Shabalala; Writing by TJ Strydom; Editing by James Macharia)
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's ruling African National Congress said on Tuesday the public broadcaster, accused by opposition parties of pro-government bias as local elections approach, was practicing censorship by not broadcasting images of violent anti-state protests. The comments by party chief whip Jackson Mthembu represent a U-turn and may point to schisms in the ANC, which in May welcomed the broadcast ban by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) as the "best decision." "When property is burnt, people of South Africa need to be shown those images, that is the ANC view. Because when you don't show those images, that amounts to censorship," Mthembu said in a televised media briefing. "You can't take that decision, in our view. That decision can be taken by the people of South Africa. Not anybody sitting in some cozy office to decide and be that arrogant and decide what it is that the people can see or not see," he said. SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng, who has pushed through a number of policy changes at the broadcaster, is considered close to President Jacob Zuma, whose popularity has been sagging with record-high unemployment, a looming recession and a string of scandals. Mthembu said the ANC would meet with Communications Minister Faith Muthambi on Monday to discuss the SABC, where the acting chief executive, a journalist, resigned last week, citing a "corrosive atmosphere". Outbursts of violence over the lack of services such as water or roads are common in South Africa, and in recent months have included the torching of schools and other property, both public and private. The protests have taken on political significance before Aug. 3 elections, which are expected to be the ANC's sternest test at the polls since it came to power in 1994. The SABC said its decision not to broadcast such incidents was an "editorial decision" and not a "policy issue." "It should be noted that the decision is not to censor any violent protests but not to glamorise the act of burning public property," the SABC said in a statement. Various civil society and media groups have protested the broadcast ban on civil disturbances by the SABC, which has the widest broadcasting reach in South Africa. (Reporting by Tanisha Heiberg; Writing by Ed Stoddard; Editing by James Macharia, Larry King)
A chubby Superman in a fading blue costume takes pictures with tourists, children chase a giant yellow Minion and Ive got my eye on the pile of green goodies on a neighbors plate. Visiting Madrids Plaza Mayor is a feast for both the eyes (plenty of street artists) and taste buds (plenty of cafes). But my husband and I have gotten off to a slow start.
Thinking a pitcher of sangria and a plate of meat was the way to go, we chose accordingly, only to gaze with envy at deliveries made to nearby tables. What are those? I ask the waiter, pointing to the mountain of green the people at the next table are devouring. Padron peppers, he tells me, and our order quickly expands.
Where has this Spanish equivalent of french fries been all my life, and when can I have some more?
The northwestern Galician town of Padron once a popular haunt of pilgrims heading to Camino de Santiago apparently has a helluva green thumb. The peppers originally hail from here, though theyre now grown in different parts of the world and readily available off-season thanks to the advent of greenhouses. When our orders arrive, I pick up a stem and let the rest of the fried, salted pepper melt in my mouth. I fall instantly for its warm, salty charm. Most have a mild taste, but a few offer surprising zings part of the fun is not knowing which ones pack more of a punch and my husband and I quickly realize weve discovered the Spanish equivalent of french fries. We gobble all the peppers up, leaving our other dishes languishing. Once the peppers are gone, I want to know two things: Where have these little green gems been all my life, and when can I have some more?
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Will this Padron pepper be mild or spicy?
Source: Flickr CC
Turns out, Im not alone. Brits are readily seduced by these succulent pementos so much so that theyre a staple at most Galician and Madrid bars and restaurants as well as Londons Spanish eateries. Jose Rodriguez of El Pirata of Mayfair says Padron peppers are one of his restaurants most popular dishes, and the best part is that theyre really simple to make.
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All you need are Padron peppers sourcing them may prove the hardest part, so check with local suppliers olive oil and sea salt. Heat the oil in a frying pan. Once very hot, add the peppers for 30 seconds to a minute and keep moving them around, Rodriguez says, until their skin begins to blister. Plate them, sprinkle with sea salt and serve warm. Its as easy as that, Rodriguez says with a laugh.
Trying the peppers in Plaza Mayor, where a holiday atmosphere and sangria set the tone, may be more fun. But theres no reason not to try them at home, and you could even wheel them out for dinner parties peppering (yes, pun intended) your guests with a fine taste of international cuisine.
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By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists are recruiting volunteers to test whether ketamine, also known as the party drug "Special K", may be helpful in reducing relapse rates among people with severe alcoholism. After pilot studies that showed ketamine combined with psychotherapy might make detoxing alcoholics less likely to relapse, the scientists are looking for 96 volunteers with severe alcohol disorder who have been "recently abstinent". Ketamine is a licensed medical drug, widely used as an anaesthetic and to relieve pain. But it is also used as a recreational drug and can lead some people into drug abuse. "Ketamine is a well-tolerated drug and can help alleviate the symptoms of depression, with a pilot study suggesting that it could cut alcohol relapse rates by more than half," Celia Morgan, who will lead the research at Exeter University, said. "This trial will allow us to examine whether ketamine, combined with therapy, can indeed help people stay abstinent from alcohol." Half the participants will get a low-dose ketamine injection once a week for three weeks, and will also get seven 90-minute sessions of psychotherapy. A control group will get the same course of therapy, but with injections of saline solution. Morgan's team will compare the results after six months using data collected via a device fitted to each participant's ankle that monitors alcohol intake by testing sweat. Research in mice has shown ketamine could prompt changes in the brain that make it easier for a person to make new connections and learn new things in the short-term. The researchers hope this could make the psychotherapy sessions more effective for alcoholics. A pilot study found that three doses of ketamine plus psychotherapy reduced average 12-month relapse rates to 34 percent from 76 percent. Scientists think ketamine's antidepressant properties may have helped. According to World Health Organization (WHO) figures, some 3.3 million people die each year from harmful use of alcohol, and alcohol abuse contributes to more than 200 diseases and conditions caused by injury. "Alcoholism can have a terrible impact," said Kathryn Adcock, head of neurosciences and mental health at the Medical Research Council, which is jointly funding the study. "But current treatments ... are associated with high relapse rates with people often return to drinking after only a short time." (Editing by Louise Ireland)
The shocking killing of four Memphis children, allegedly at the hands of their mother, has generated speculation over whether possible mental health problems caused Shanynthia Gardner to snap.
The 29-year-old mother of five was arrested on July 1 and charged with slitting the throats of four of her youngest children with a butcher knife at the modest apartment complex where they lived, according to an affidavit of complaint filed in court on July 1 by a Shelby County Sheriff's Office detective.
Her oldest child, 7, fled the house and ran to a neighbor, yelling that his mother had just stabbed his sister, according to the affidavit. He is now in protective custody, according to police.
On Tuesday after a brief court appearance via video, Gardner, who remained silent during the entire hearing, refusing to answer the judge's questions, was moved from the Shelby County women's jail and taken to the Memphis Mental Health Institute. She did not enter a plea.
Officials have not said why she was taken to the psychiatric hospital, which serves patients who "have a severe and persistent mental illness and are hospitalized on an emergency, involuntary basis," according to the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services website.
As Gardner awaits her next court date on July 11, investigators are trying to determine whether Gardner suffers from mental health problems, Shelby County Sheriff Bill Oldham said at a press conference.
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All four children died of "severe lacerations to the throat," according to the affidavit. The victims were Tallen Gardner, 4, Sya Gardner, 3, and Sahvi Gardner, 2, and Yahzi Gardner, 6 months.
Gardner has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder associated with aggravated child abuse, four counts of first-degree murder in association with aggravated child neglect, and four more counts each of aggravated child abuse and aggravated child neglect or endangerment.
Her attorney has not returned calls for comment.
Troubling Signs
As authorities investigate what caused Gardner to allegedly murder her children, friends and community members say they believe mental health problems, including the possibility of post partum depression, plagued the young mother.
But no one knew just how serious her issues were.
"Nothing rang a bell that something was seriously wrong," Gardner's longtime friend, Brandon King, told WMC Action News 5 in Memphis.
Gardner, who was a "friendly, caring person" and a good mother, he told the station. "We knew she loved those babies."
Since King had never seen Gardner become violent, news of her alleged crime "was just a big shock," he said. Speculating, he added, "There was just a mental breakdown. I don't know where it came from."
James Johnson, another friend of Gardner's, told the station, "It hurts that this happened, because I know that's not the person that she is."
"Something had to happen for her to do her kids like that. She wasn't in her right mind," he speculated.
Still, there may have been signs that something was wrong.
Gardner went missing on March 19, just days after telling loved ones that she felt some someone was trying to hurt her and her family, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press.
She also took her kids out of school in March 2015 before driving them to Corinth, Mississippi, where, her husband Martin Gardner told police, she knew no one, according to the AP report.
The Rev. Dr. L. LaSimba Gray, Jr. ,of the New Sardis Baptist Church in Memphis, organized a prayer vigil at the apartment complex where the killings took place and is trying to raise community awareness about mental health.
"There was nothing we could do for those four children, but their memory should have us take action in the future to make that less likely to happen again," Gray tells PEOPLE. "That means seeing erratic behavior and caring enough to intervene and confront and to make referrals and to engage other family members,.".
Gray, who spoke to members of Gardner's family, says, "She was overwhelmed with the responsibility of caring for five babies and other things and she melted down. But she showed some symptoms long before she melted down that we believe the community should be aware of."
After the slayings, he noted that Sheriff Oldham pointed out that access to mental health services must become a community priority.
"Heretofore it has not been seen as a real priority," says Gray. "But we are seeing these kinds of tragedies more and more and it goes back to mental health.
He adds, "After this happened, I said, 'God, what good can come out of this?' It may well be the increase of access to mental health care for this community."
The FBI yesterday recommended Hillary Clinton not be prosecuted over her use of private email while she was secretary of state, but the storm of controversy still hangs over her with GOP members grousing that the recommendation puts her effectively above the law. Lucky for her, Clinton had President Barack Obama campaigning alongside her yesterday and who, in the throes of the Reverend Wright controversy in 2008, gave a soaring exposition of race in America that transcended the issue and snuffed out the scandal. In the following speech, OZY imagines how Clinton might use her own oratorical skills perhaps with a little help from Obama to finally bring her nagging email-gate to an end.
SECRETARY CLINTON: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated 225 years ago, a group of men passed the Bill of Rights of our Constitution and, with these simple words, launched Americas improbable experiment in privacy.
The Fourth Amendment they produced was eventually ratified but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nations original sin of search and seizure the way the British authorities would search the homes of American colonists and rifle through their personal correspondence. Since that time, there has been a constant struggle between liberty and security in this nation. Privacy is a core American value, embedded in our Constitution a Constitution that ensures that even as technology changes what is meant by our papers and effects, we are still protected from unwarranted searches.
I can no more disown my private email server than I can disown my white grandmother
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to protect our personal correspondence from government inspection. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part through protests and struggles, through wiping private servers clean that could contain work-related emails to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at Carl Hayden High School in Phoenix, Arizona.
Source: Gage Skidmore/Flickr CC
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this presidential campaign to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal America, based on a belief that we alone can determine which of our emails are relevant to a congressional subpoena.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own story. I am the daughter of a white traveling salesman from Scranton and a white clerical typist from Chicago. Ive gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in the White House as first lady. I won a senate seat in a state I had never lived in, and for four years as secretary of state, I never bothered to use an official state.gov email address. I am married to a white man and former president of the United States who was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice. And for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other modern government on earth is my story even possible.
Its a story that hasnt made me the most conventional of candidates. On one hand, weve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow hiding something in the 31,830 email messages residing on my private server that were deemed personal and destroyed. On the other, weve heard my representatives use evasive language to express the view that there is nothing unusual about a secretary of state reviewing high-level correspondence from the same account in which she gets sale offers from Zappos a view that rightly offends the computer-literate and the non-computer-literate alike.
I have already condemned, in equivocal terms, the private email server that has caused such controversy and, in some cases, pain. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know that having multiple email accounts does not require having multiple electronic devices? Yes. Did I want to be seen to still be using a BlackBerry in 2011? Of course not. But I can no more disown my private email server than I can disown my white grandmother a woman who helped babysit me and my brothers, who once confessed her fear that the postman was reading her mail and who used to communicate in a made-up code language that made me cringe.
Truly top secret government information is never sent by email it is available only in hard copy, carried by a government courier.
The fact is that the comments that have caused the recent firestorm reflect the complexities of digital security in this country that weve never really worked through a part of our papers and effects we have never addressed. Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. Technological evolution creates challenges for a Constitution ratified over 200 years ago. Today, most Americans maintain their entire lives on their electronic devices and email, and there can be no real doubt that these are our modern equivalent of papers and effects.
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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking with supporters at a town hall meeting at Hillside Middle School in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Source: Gage Skidmore/Flickr CC
Some assume that a private server is less secure than an institutional one. That assumption is simply wrong. Government and company servers are breached all the time just look at what Russian hackers did to the Democratic Partys documents recently. No one has presented evidence to suggest that my private server or emails were ever hacked in such a way. In fact, our government presumes that its officials emails will be subject to attack, which is why additional security measures, including electronic encryption, are employed to keep information secret. And truly top secret government information is never sent by email it is available only in hard copy, carried by a government courier. In short, for security purposes, it doesnt matter whether I was using a government account or my own private server for sending email.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation and explanation are not enough. Why associate myself with a private server in the first place, they may ask? Why not sign up for a government email like every other federal employee in this great nation?
But the truth is, that isnt all that I know about my private email account. The account I set up more than a decade ago is an account that helped introduce me to my grandchildren and plan my daughters wedding, an account that informed me when I had dinner reservations through Open Table. When I got to the State Department, I opted to continue to use my personal email account for one reason, one that is familiar to all of you: convenience. It allowed me to reach my family and friends quickly as well as my department colleagues, chatting about yoga routines one minute and North Korean ballistic missile testing the next. Just like any one of you.
Yesterday, FBI Director James B. Comey said he knew there would be intense public debate in the wake of his agencys recommendation to basically leave me alone. And today, we have a choice to make in this country. We can accept a politics that focuses on the deletion of tens of thousands of potentially relevant emails. We can pounce on the fact that I have an iPad and an iPhone in addition to my BlackBerry as evidence that I am comfortable using multiple electronic devices. We can do that.
Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, Not this time. This time, we want to talk about digital encryption strategies and layered security protocols. This time, we want to talk about quantum computers and how technological advances will eventually render all of todays secrecy techniques inadequate. This time, we want to talk about how best to protect our papers and effects in a digital age. I would not be running for president if I didnt believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country.
By itself, forgetting I ever used a private server is not enough. But it is where we start. It is where our campaign excuse me, our union grows stronger.
written on my iPhone, please excuse any typos
After nine months of intense workouts and meal plans to get into the strapping shape of vine-swinging jungle hero Tarzan, Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgard found a fitting way to decompress with his famous father, veteran Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard. "My dad was shooting a miniseries in London at the time, and so I went straight to his house, and he loved to cook, Skarsgard told Reuters at the London premiere of The Legend of Tarzan on Tuesday. I went straight to his house after wrap and spent four to five days on his couch just being fed. Incredible weekend. The new Tarzan film, based on the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs and out in UK theaters on July 6, is woven into the real life story of African-American historian George Washington Williams, who traveled to the Congo and condemned Belgium's King Leopold II for his harsh and brutal treatment of the Congolese people. Tarzan has also appeared in numerous comic books since its debut, making the film the latest in a long line of recent comic book adaptations for the big screen. The films director David Yates, best known for directing four "Harry Potter" films, said the comic book genre is not yet in danger of tiring out audiences. "I think the comic book genre will constantly evolve. Because it is a genre that contains stories and characters that can go in any direction so I as a place for theater it will probably be with us for a little bit longer yet, he said. Marvel do an amazing job and they're bright enough to take those worlds in different directions.
A stuntman on USA's upcoming show Shooter has been injured on set.
While filming the series on Wednesday in Los Angeles at the Agua Dulce Airport, a stuntman was run over by a Cadillac SUV that castmember Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan) was reportedly driving. The victim, whose condition is unknown at this time, was freed from the vehicle and airlifted to a nearby hospital.
"An adult male was struck by a vehicle and partially trapped underneath it," said Battalion 22 Fire Chief Darius Ane, according to the Santa Clarita Signal newspaper. "The man was extricated prior to Fire [Department] arrival ... The patient is stable at this time."
He added that a Fire Department helicopter airlifted the stuntman to a local hospital, leaving the scene of the incident at 12:48 p.m.The man's condition is unknown at this time.
The show, which was picked up to series in February, is based on the 2007 Mark Wahlberg film about an American marksman on the run from the U.S. government. Wahlberg is an executive producer on the 10-episode drama, which stars Ryan Phillippe, Omar Epps and Sizemore.
Read More: 'Shooter' Remake Starring Ryan Phillippe Picked Up to Series at USA Network
It shouldnt matter to Sumner Redstone whether a case challenging his competence is held in Massachusetts as opposed to California, lawyers for his granddaughter Keryn said today in a court filing: The ailing 93 year old wont attend no matter where the case is heard.
The memorandum of law challenges arguments about Redstones rights made at a June 30 hearing at the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court: Judge George Phelan could rule any time on Redstones request to dismiss Viacom CEO Philippe Daumans challenge of a May 20 decision dismissing him and company director George Abrams from key positions in the Redstone family power structure.
Dauman and Abrams want the court to have a doctor examine Redstone, contending that he is incompetent to run his media empire and is being manipulated by his daughter Shari. Keryn is supporting Dauman and Abrams.
Redstones team says hes still calling the shots and any question about his abilities should be determined in California, where he lives and where he prevailed in a recent challenge to his competence by former companion Manuela Herzer.
His lawyers said they want a west coast venue because, among other things, Redstones too frail to travel and they would need to communicate with him in order to effectively represent him.
Its questionable whether Redstone is able to effectively engage with anyone on any subject, todays filing says.
Whats more, Redstone will not appear in court no matter where the case is heard. If his lawyer needs to see Redstones face to pick up on non-verbal cues then this could easily be accomplished via FaceTime (which Redstone is reported to regularly use to communicate with family), or other similar videoconferencing services such as Skype or GoToMeeting.
The brief scoffs that the lawyer must have some plan in place because Redstone-controlled National Amusements asked a Delaware court to rule on a separate effort to replace five Viacom directors including Dauman.
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The filing also challenges the assertion that if Redstones competency is in question, then California law would require that a conservator be named and that persons authority would be determined by a jury.
The states law does not require a jury trial for a determination of incapacity, and conservatorship cases with a jury are the exception to the general rule.
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When it comes to understanding how terrestrial planets evolve around other stars, Mars may provide a good stand-in. Early Mars once boasted an atmosphere and even oceans, but as the active sun evolved, it began to strip the Red Planet of its air, a process that has also been spotted in action outside the solar system. NASA's MAVEN mission, currently orbiting Mars, may help scientists to understand the atmosphere of other rocky worlds undergoing that process.
"We're at the brink of starting to understand the habitability of terrestrial planets," said Shannon Curry, a research scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. Part of the MAVEN team, Curry spoke at the 228th American Astronomical Society meeting in San Diego in June about the spacecraft's observations of the Martian atmosphere.
"Mars right now is our ground truth for planets of this size," Curry said. [Mars Atmosphere Being Stripped By Solar Wind (Video)]
'Stupid solar cycle'
Early Mars was warm and wet, with flowing rivers and enormous oceans. But the planet is smaller than Earth, and too small to hold onto its protective atmosphere. Over time, the low gravity, combined with radiation from the sun, stripped away the air on Mars, removing liquid water from the surface and leaving behind the dead red world seen today.
MAVEN can help peer into the planet's past by examining how much atmosphere it's losing today. The satellite launched in 2013 and entered orbit around Mars within a year, where it began measuring what's happening in the planet's air. The probe observed how solar flares, radiation and large bursts known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) affect the planet's atmosphere.
"The solar environment we're talking about is specific to our sun today, but all of these are physical processes that occur on planetary bodies throughout the universe," Curry said.
By understanding how the sun's activity today affects the Martian atmosphere, scientists can better estimate how well exoplanets can hold onto their own.
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Of course, such observations require a little help from the sun help which has been rather lacking recently. According to Curry, the current solar cycle is the lowest it has been since the ice age, not producing many CMEs or solar storms.
Flares especially have been few and far between. While discussing flare-related loss, Curry said, "We've been getting nothing because of the stupid solar cycle.
"We're really wishing for big storms at Mars and haven't really gotten any of them," she added.
Blowing out the atmosphere
The low solar activity doesn't mean MAVEN hasn't gathered any information. The spacecraft has still been able to observe the shape of the atmosphere as it stretches behind the planet. The tear-drop-shaped atmosphere is similar to how a comet sheds material, but not identical: In addition to a trailing tail that stretches more than twice the width of the planet, Mars also spouts plumes from its poles.
"It's not simply a stream behind the planet," Curry said. "It's actually crafting these different plume features."
By probing the atmosphere in far- and mid-ultraviolet, MAVEN created maps of escaping carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, all of which flee the atmosphere at different rates. Curry said the water in the upper atmosphere is contributing to the escaping hydrogen.
Mars isn't the only planet known to have an escaping atmosphere. For another example, Curry pointed to GJ 436b, a Neptune-size world with a comet-like trail of escaping hydrogen behind it. The planet isn't close enough to its star to completely lose its atmosphere, but with a tail stretching 9 million miles (14 million kilometers) behind it, the exoplanet could provide a clue into how rocky super-Earths form. Understanding how the sun helps strip the Martian atmosphere could provide further insight into the process.
MAVEN's measurements have allowed scientists to determine that, if the sun were as quiet through its history as it is now, the Red Planet would have lost about 63,000 gigagtons of atmosphere, a number that corresponds to a surface layer of water 15 feet (4.5 meters) deep. The quiet solar cycle leads to a deceptively small atmosphere, but it provides a floor for estimations. [How NASA's MAVEN Mars Orbiter Works (Infographic)]
"MAVEN's observations during a quiet solar cycle are incredibly helpful as they place a lower limit on the atmospheric escape," Collins told Space.com. "Our measurements now serve as baseline numbers, in effect."
The sun hasn't been still through MAVEN's whole mission. In March 2015, an enormous CME caught the edge of the Red Planet, resulting in what Curry called "an explosion of plasma." MAVEN examined the real-time escape rates of the planet's atmosphere, including an uptick in the process known as sputtering.
Sputtering occurs when charged particles ejected from the sun fall into the atmosphere and collide with neutral particles (that have no charge). The collisions knock some of the neutral particles out of the planet's grasp, sending them hurtling through space. Curry said that although sputtering is the smallest escape process under current conditions, it is thought have had the strongest effect on destroying the Martian atmosphere when the sun was younger and more active.
When the sun is quiet, particles from the solar wind knock out a few atmospheric particles at a gradual pace. But explosions such as the March CME dramatically increase how much of the atmosphere blows off, as much as 10 to 20 times more than during quiet periods. Curry compared the difference to a child entering a pool or a ball pit.
"If you carefully step in, not much is going to come out," she said. "But if you get a running start from 100 feet away, all of the balls or water comes out of the pool."
Earlier in its lifetime, the sun was more active than it is today, so sputtering was probably a more important process for removing the atmosphere, Curry said. Understanding that process will help scientists figure out what they see on other worlds.
"Using Mars as a ground truth for understanding atmospheric escape from exoplanets will be really important, especially when we are able to observe the makeup and density of exoplanets and their atmospheres, or even magnetospheres someday," Curry said.
While Venus has a sweltering atmosphere and Earth a comfortable one, Mars' thin atmosphere makes it rather unique, as does its smaller mass. The Red Planet also released less gas from its surface in its early history, which Curry said would result in a very different atmospheric evolution. Combining observations from all those planets can help to understand the variety of worlds that exist beyond the solar system.
"We can take our specific wealth of knowledge about Mars' size, density, atmospheric composition and history, which we know about through imaging and rovers, to put together a timeline of when there was water and a thick atmosphere, and how those inventories were depleted," Curry said.
Follow Nola Taylor Redd on Twitter @NolaTRedd or Google+. Follow us at @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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Media and tech moguls are mixing in Sun Valley, Idaho, on Wednesday for the first full session of the annual Allen & Co. summit, where everything from the U.K.'s Brexit vote to the U.S. presidential race to burgeoning corporate dealmaking is on the agenda.
Some 300 power players received a coveted invitation for the annual confab, where attendees turn out for panel discussions, barbecues, rafting and plenty of one-on-one meetings. But it's those off-the-record conversations that invariably get the most attention since the conference has led to many of the media world's biggest blockbuster deals - think Time Warner's acquisition of AOL, Disney's buy of Capital Cities/ABC and Comcast's purchase of NBCUniversal.
And there have been a number of recent transformative deals that might get executives talking. Media mogul John Malone last week orchestrated a $4.4 billion deal to combine Lionsgate and cable programmer Starz, and that follows Comcast's $3.9 billion purchase of DreamWorks Animation earlier this year.
"It is likely that consolidation will be discussed," says Drexel Hamilton analyst Tony Wible. "The industry will also need to focus on ways to monetize viewing as cord-cutting continues to grow."
Read More: 8 Momentous Deals Tied to Sun Valley
There's also certain to be some personal drama amid the deal talk. Viacom and CBS board member Shari Redstone, whose family trust owns both companies, was spotted arriving at the tony Sun Valley Lodge on Tuesday. Redstone has drawn the most attention because she and Viacom chairman Philippe Dauman are in the midst of a dramatic legal fight over the future of the company and the potential sale of a major stake in Viacom's Paramount Pictures as the health of her father, Sumner Redstone, deteriorates.
Also attending is Leslie Moonves, CBS' chairman and chief executive, who was seen by the gathered media driving Shari Redstone to dinner on Tuesday. There has been heavy speculation on Wall Street that Redstone might like to see a merger between CBS and Viacom - with Moonves leading the combined media giant.
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Comcast's Brian Roberts is expected to attend this year. And Disney is well-represented, with CEO Bob Iger arriving Thursday and meeting Disney-ABC TV chief Ben Sherwood and ESPN head John Skipper. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, former Disney COO Tom Staggs is attending despite leaving the company after being dropped as heir apparent to Iger.
The guest list, though not made public, this year is said to include other heavy hitters: 21st Century Fox executives and board members Rupert, James and Lachlan Murdoch; Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav (one of the few moguls to stop and talk to the reporters gathered in front of the entrance to the lodge, according to reports); Scripps Networks Interactive CEO Ken Lowe; Apple CEO Tim Cook; Activision/Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick; IAC chairman Barry Diller; Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg; Paramount chief Brad Grey; and New England Patriots owner (and former Viacom board member) Robert Kraft.
Such celebrities as Jerry Seinfeld, who has said via a rep that he won't go, Oprah Winfrey and Tom Brokaw also are invited. Also, some of the wealthiest people in the world are expected this week, including Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Facebook investor Peter Thiel should also be there, perhaps with fresh tales to tell about his war against Gawker Media that involved him secretly funding Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against the controversial outlet.
Not attending, though, is Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who is shopping the core assets of the company (which don't include stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan, apparently) for roughly $4 billion. And while Chris Silbermann, founding partner of ICMPartners, and former superagents Mike Ovitz and Jeff Berg are in attendance, current WME-IMG co-CEOs Ari Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell are sitting the event out. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam is expected to be there, though, and his company is allegedly a frontrunner in the bidding for Mayer's Yahoo, a process that should end in mid-July.
The Sun Valley mogul-fest was launched after investment bank Allen & Co. sold its controlling stake in Columbia Pictures to Coca-Cola in 1982. Industry power players often have used the exclusive event not only to casually discuss business opportunities, but also to listen to guest speakers talk about various geopolitical topics, hence one of the planned discussions will be led by Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker on the topic of "free trade in a post-Brexit world," as CNBC put it. New Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau is expected to participate in a talk with former U.S. senator Bill Bradley.
Also expected to attend are major players from the world of digital startups, all hoping for the same kind of megadeal like when Google's then-CEO Eric Schmidt met up with YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley in 2006. Three months later, the leader in search bought the fledgling online-video company for $1.65 billion. The list of Silicon Valley companies to be represented includes names like Snapchat, Airbnb and Pinterest.
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Sometimes you've just got to pee on Christie Brinkley's $30 million dollar Hamptons home.
Erica Remkus is a mother of three who was swimming near Brinkley's home over the holiday weekend. Unable to find a bathroom, Remkus decided to relieve herself on the rocks near the Sports Illustrated supermodel's home.
SEE ALSO: I know more about Taylor Swift's Fourth of July than my own
So Brinkley responded the way a true lady would: by hosing the squatting, suffering 36-year-old down.
"I know it's Independence Day but that does not mean 'free to pee' in front of my guests and me at my fireworks gathering," Brinkley wrote in an Instagram post."Maybe the trespasser should celebrate 'Depends Day' as she apparently thinks she lives in 'The Land of the Pee."
Nice!
Remkus later told Page Six that she was peeing on public property, and that she hadn't even started with Brinkley hosed her down. Perhaps Brinkley is from 'The Land of the Peevish?'
Brinkley then called the police, but local authorities refused to cite Remkus as she was technically on public property.
Not one to let "hosing an innocent victim" to get her down, Brinkley later wished everyone on Instagram a holiday "free from belligerent drunken stalkers with weak bladders and foul mouths."
America: Land of the Free, not the Freely Peeing.
By TJ Strydom and Tanisha Heiberg PRETORIA (Reuters) - South African Paralympic gold medallist Oscar Pistorius was sent back to jail for six years on Wednesday for murdering Reeva Steenkamp, less than half the 15 year minimum term sought by prosecutors. Pistorius, who fatally shot his girlfriend four times through a toilet door, has already served 12 months in prison for her death. But the original manslaughter conviction was increased to murder by the Supreme Court of Appeal in December. Judge Thokozile Masipa, whose sentence at the initial manslaughter trial was criticised by women's groups as too lenient, said she had accepted the defence argument that a lesser punishment was appropriate. "Public opinion may be loud and persistent but it can play no role in the decision of this court," Masipa said. "I am of the view that a long term in prison will not serve justice." Pistorius, who stood impassively as the sentence was read out, hugged members of his legal team and chatted briefly with his sister Aimee before being led away by police. Women's rights groups say Pistorius has received preferential treatment by the justice system compared to non-whites and those without his wealth or international celebrity status. His backers say he did not intend to kill Steenkamp. The state and large sections of the South African public had demanded a 15 year jail term, the prescribed minimum term for murder, saying he had shown no remorse for the 2013 killing. It was unclear whether the state, which has two weeks to appeal, would accept Wednesday's sentence. Pistorius' defence team said he would not appeal and that their client would be able to apply for parole after serving half to two-thirds of the sentence. The track star, who had the lower part of his legs amputated when he was a baby, was freed from prison last October after almost a year behind bars. He was to serve the remainder of his five-year term under house arrest at his uncle's house in a wealthy suburb of the capital. Pistorius has been living with his uncle since. STEENKAMP FAMILY REACTION Steenkamp's father Barry, who in an emotional statement to the sentencing hearings said Pistorius must pay for his crime, declined to comment on the prospects for an appeal. "We'll leave that to the state," he told reporters without showing any emotion. In her ruling on Wednesday, Masipa said that although the Steenkamps had suffered a great loss, Pistorius' life and career were also in ruins. "The life of the accused shall also never be the same. He is a fallen hero and can never be at peace," she said. The judge agreed with defence that the Pistorius who shot Steenkamp in the early hours of St Valentine's Day was not the gold medal winning athlete but a vulnerable 1.5m tall man. She said that there was no indication at all that the deceased was in an abusive relationship with Pistorius. She also said there was no evidence there had been a row between Pistorius and Steenkamp before her death, as suggested by the prosecution. Pistorius says he fired four shots into the toilet door at his luxury Pretoria home in the mistaken belief that an intruder was hiding behind it. His defence argued that his disability and mental stress that occurred in the aftermath of the killing should be considered as mitigating circumstances to reduce his sentence. DIVISIVE CASE Outside the court, a group of supporters held up placards backing the athlete. One read: "Give Oscar his freedom back please". Legal analysts were divided by the ruling in a country beset by high levels of violent crime against women. "To reduce from 15 to 6 years in the circumstances of the case seems to me to be unduly generous to Oscar," Paul Hoffman, a lawyer and director of rights group Accountability Now, said. "It's quite possible that having invested so much effort in the prosecution ... that (state prosecutor) Gerrie Nel will saddle up again and ride out in an effort to get a bigger sentence," he said. Johannesburg-based lawyer Ulrich Roux doubted the state would appeal, saying the judge had delivered a "just sentence, considering that he was convicted with murder with indirect intent." But the Women's League of the ruling African National Congress (ANCWL), said the sentence was too soft. "First five years, now six years? She is an embarrassment to the justice system," ANCWL spokeswoman Jacqueline Mofokeng said of Masipa. "It is an insult to women in this country." (Writing by James Macharia; Editing by Jon Boyle)
From Road & Track
When at the age of five, your father takes the whole family on a nine month trip across America in a vintage Bentley, 28,000 miles later, you're hooked on the feel of these machines forever. It also helps if your old man is a toolmaker. You'll be needing a lot of special tools to work on these, especially if you believe cars look their best at their absolute limit, sideways across chicanes. That usually involves crashing at some point.
William Medcalf's team was left behind after breaking a differential unit. After fixing the Bentley, they drove for 1500 miles through the Gobi Desert from Ulaanbataar to Biysk non-stop in 66 hours, unsupported of course. Talk about an epic adventure.
He also knows why you can't miss third gear in a race, having devoted his life to find out more about the secrets of the original Bentley Boys and the team that made their cars so damn fast in the twenties. Further road trips will be inevitable of course. Petrolicious is here with some stunning images, as always:
I only saw these race at Goodwood so far, but I get it. They are special indeed.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese electronic parts maker TDK Corp aims to boost sales of automotive products to reduce its proportion of smartphone-related business to 30 percent of revenue from 40 percent, its new chief executive said on Wednesday.
"We hope to raise the weight of the automotive business, currently just 17 to 18 percent, to 30 percent as early as possible," Shigenao Ishiguro told Reuters in an interview.
Japanese electronic components makers such as TDK and Murata Manufacturing Co Ltd prospered in recent years as suppliers to Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and other global smartphone makers. But a worldwide slowdown in smartphone sales is now forcing the manufacturers to find new revenue sources.
"There's nothing new about a device reaching a maturity point," Ishiguro said, noting the same scenario happened with personal computers.
In the past, the 81-year-old company rode out technological shifts. Once an audio tape maker, it enjoyed brisk sales of magnetic heads for hard disk drives until demand for personal computers tapered.
It then reinvented itself as a smartphone parts supplier with main products including rechargeable batteries and high-frequency filters that separate radio signals.
Drawing on its magnetic head technology, TDK is expanding sales of magnetic sensors that measure angles in the electric power steering systems and windscreen wipers of vehicles.
The company in talks with around 40 major automotive parts suppliers, Ishiguro said.
"We have several projects running with some clients," he said, aiming to expand the automotive applications of the sensor.
(Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki and Kentaro Hamada; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
By Ana Mano
SAO PAULO, July 6 (Reuters) - Telefonica Brasil SA , the country's largest telecom operator, sees revenue from digital services growing faster than overall sales as the company moves away from a model based on offering voice and internet connection.
The Brazilian unit of Spain's Telefonica SA says revenue from digital services including video streaming and cloud storage already represented 1.9 billion reais ($569.24 million) in 2015, or about 5 percent of net revenue.
That reflects rapid growth for a segment that "started from scratch" less than three years ago, according to Ricardo Sanfelice, the division's recently appointed vice president.
If trends continue, voice revenue should continue shrinking as a share of revenue from around half currently to about a quarter of sales in five years, Sanfelice told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Digital services at Telefonica Brasil grew 15 percent last year, he said, outpacing overall revenue growth of 5 percent. Although he declined to give firm forecasts, Sanfelice said "there is no reason" for digital services not to keep expanding at the same pace.
Last week Telefonica Brasil announced the creation of a specific division to develop services including music streaming, cloud storage and data protection applications for personal and corporate users.
The division also invests in startup companies linked to the telecom sector, giving them $50,000 and business support to develop new ideas, Sanfelice said. Telefonica is currently investing in 13 Brazilian startups with an eye on growing sales from innovation.
The focus on digital services follows high-profile criticism from Telefonica Brasil Chief Executive Amos Genish aimed at tech companies offering over-the-top services using telecom networks without facing the regulatory burden on operators in Brazil.
Genish had especially harsh words last year for messaging app Whatsapp, owned by parent company Facebook Inc, which he accused of competing with traditional text-messaging services while using cell numbers paid for by operators' regulatory fees.
($1 = 3.3378 Brazilian reais) (Reporting by Ana Mano; Editing by Tom Brown)
Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim (in black), attending the Eid Fitr prayers at Ar Raudhah mosque in Bukit Batok earlier this morning.(Photo: Safhras Khan/Yahoo Newsroom)
Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, the Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs, says Singapores Muslims must be concerned and remain vigilant in the light of the recent terrorist attacks that have taken place in Malaysia, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.
Yaacob, who is also the Minister for Communications and Information, condemned the recent attacks, labelling the perpetrators as non-Muslims who have no interest in Islam whatsoever.
Speaking to reporters after the annual Hari Raya Eid Fitr prayers held at the Ar-Raudhah mosque on Wednesday (6 July) morning, he called for Muslims in Singapore to stay vigilant and also urged them to continue living their lives normally.
We must not give in to the demands of the terrorists and we must integrate with the wider community.
"They will continue to strike to dampen our spirits but we must not lose hope. We have to continue working together with our fellow Muslims and non-Muslims to preserve what we have in Singapore, he said.
Yaacob, along with Singapores Mufti Dr Mohamed Fatris Bakaram and other religious leaders, were at the Bukit Batok mosque to perform the annual prayers, where they were joined by over 4,000 residents.
In his interview with the media, Yaacob said that he was shocked by the attacks, especially with the one that took place at the Nabawi mosque, which is also the Prophet Mohammads mosque in Medina.
He questioned the audacity of the terrorists to attack one of Islams holiest mosques during the holiest month of the Islamic calender.
It shows that they have no interest in Islam and are not Muslims as far as Im concerned. The attack is also a reminder for us not to take our security for granted.
"We have a lot at stake in this country. Weve played a part in this country and we are a part of the Singapore family, he added.
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Meanwhile, Fatris in his sermon also stressed on the ideology of the terrorists, labeling them as an extremely ignorant group.
He urged Muslims in Singapore to reject such ideas as they plant the seeds of violence and hatred among Muslims and non-Muslims.
Fatris said: Their acts of violence are not only sinful but also heinous.
What does Tesla (TSLA) know or not know about last Friday's crash involving a Model X SUV that was reportedly in autopilot mode when it rolled onto its roof on the Pennsylvania Turnpike?
Federal investigators from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) are collecting information from the automaker, the Pennsylvania State Police and the vehicle's driver "to determine whether automated functions were in use at the time of the crash," the organization said.
It's the latest part of NHTSA's ongoing investigation into Tesla's autopilot systems, which was launched following the death of a Model S owner who drove into tractor trailer in Williston, Florida, while the car was autopilot mode. That accident happened on May 7, but NHTSA did not announce its investigation until last Thursday, June 30.
The next day, Albert Scaglione from Southfield, Michigan, was behind the wheel of his 2016 Tesla Model X when the vehicle hit a guard rail, went across the road to hit a concrete median, and flipped onto its roof. Scaglione and his son-in-law, who was also in the vehicle, were not hurt.
The Pennsylvania State Police say Scaglione told an officer he had activated the autopilot feature. But as evidenced by a series of statements from Tesla Wednesday, it is still unknown whether the driver had turned over control of the vehicle.
As questions about the accident continued to swirl, Tesla's statements became less certain. Initially, spokespeople from Tesla said they had "no reason to believe that Autopilot had anything to do with this accident." Later, the company tweaked its statement to say it had "no data at this point to indicate that Autopilot was engaged or not engaged."
The company said it's tried to call Scaglione three times and has been unable to reach him. It's not the only organization looking for Scaglione. CNBC and other media outlets have also tried and failed to reach the 77-year-old owner of an art gallery in Southfield, Michigan.
Tesla won't know for sure if the Model X was in autopilot mode until it can get into the vehicle's data recorder and look at the onboard logs.
Questions? Comments? BehindTheWheel@cnbc.com .
By Alexandria Sage and Paul Lienert
SAN FRANCISCO/DETROIT, July 5 (Reuters) - Tesla Motors alerted regulators to a fatality in one of its electric cars in partial self-driving Autopilot mode nine days after it crashed, the company said on Tuesday, defending its decision not to make the accident public before a federal investigation was announced.
Tesla learned about the crash of the Model S sedan in Florida "shortly" after the May 7 crash, and on May 16 it disclosed the incident to the government. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on June 30 announced a probe.
The news comes as the company faces pressure on several fronts. Its bid to buy rooftop solar power company SolarCity has been questioned by investors, and over the U.S. July 4 holiday weekend, it disclosed that second-quarter vehicle production missed company targets.
Autopilot is one of the most advanced and most promoted Tesla technologies and is still in beta or test mode. That has spurred questions - including in an article by Fortune magazine - over whether the company and regulators should have informed the public earlier of the fatality.
On Tuesday, Chief Executive Elon Musk tweeted in response to the article about the timing of the disclosure that the May fatality "wasn't material" to Tesla.
Tesla raised at least $1.46 billion from investors on May 18-19 with a stock offering, as the Autopilot investigation was unfolding.
The company knew of the crash by the time of the capital raising. But its own investigation was not yet complete and it had not yet been informed by the government of its probe, according to a timeline described by a Tesla spokeswoman.
The windshield was ripped off the Model S after it plowed into the side of a truck on a divided highway, and the damage meant the car was unable to transmit data to Tesla. Tesla learned of the accident "shortly thereafter" from local authorities, the spokeswoman said.
The company was obligated to disclose the fatality to regulators during its third quarter but notified them earlier, on May 16, as it was investigating.
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"Tesla then provided NHTSA with additional details about the accident over the following weeks as it worked to complete its investigation, which it ultimately concluded during the last week of May," the spokeswoman said.
NHTSA spokesman Bryan Thomas said the investigation was "active" and the agency would not comment further.
TESLA SAYS DISCLOSURE WAS NOT NECESSARY
Asked why the company did not disclose the incident ahead of the share sale and ahead of its recently announced bid to acquire SolarCity, Tesla issued the following statement:
"Tesla does not find it necessary, nor does any automaker, to share the details of every accident that occur in a Tesla vehicle. More than a million people die globally every year in car accidents, but automakers do not disclose each of these accidents to investors, let alone before those investigations are complete and without regard to what the results of those investigations end up being."
Tesla shares fell as much as 4 percent on the first trading day after the accident was disclosed but then ended the day up 2 percent.
The spokeswoman said the reaction showed investors agreed with the company. "The market apparently understands this," she said.
Tesla have swung widely this year and are down about 11 percent so far. The stock dived on news of Tesla's SolarCity bid, falling more than the value of its offer. Its shares ended down 1.16 percent on Tuesday, the first trading day after disclosing the production shortfall.
Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, said Tesla probably should have informed investors of the crash before its stock offering and SolarCity offer.
"The materiality issue is not about the death itself, but more about the circumstances of the crash and calling into question a technology that's important to Tesla's future," Henning said.
"Those are issues that investors want to know, so you could make a reasonable argument that it crossed the (materiality) line. When it's that close, the (U.S.) Securities and Exchange Commission expects disclosure."
The SEC did not immediately respond to an after-hours request for comment.
(Editing by Peter Henderson and Cynthia Osterman)
London (AFP) - Tony Blair rode a wave of "Cool Britannia" optimism in his first heady years in office but is now reviled by many Britons who accuse him of leading the country into an unnecessary war in Iraq that shattered his legacy.
Published 13 years after the 2003 US-led invasion, Wednesday's Iraq War Inquiry report pointed the finger squarely at the former prime minister for catastrophic planning failures.
"I will be with you, whatever," Blair wrote in a note to then US president George W. Bush in July 2002, eight months before the invasion was launched.
Hundreds of people wearing Blair masks and carrying placards reading "Bliar" gathered outside the London conference centre where the report was unveiled, highlighting how divisive a figure Blair remains.
The contrast could not be greater with 1997 -- the year the youthful centre-left reformer Blair was elected in a surge of enthusiasm comparable to the historic 2009 election of US President Barack Obama.
Blair's achievements in office -- from securing peace in Northern Ireland to economic prosperity, devolving power to home nations and winning a record three general elections -- are now often overlooked.
Since leaving office, many in Britain have also viewed his moneymaking activities -- including advising countries with questionable human rights records such as Kazakhstan -- with distaste.
"The pity of Blair's position is that if it weren't for Iraq, more of the astonishing social transformation of Britain and the change in its structures of government would be recognised," commentator Bronwen Maddox wrote in Prospect magazine last month.
"As it is, he is all but disqualified from British and European politics."
The leadership of the Labour party which Blair led from 1994 until his resignation as premier in 2007 has now totally rejected his centrist policies, embracing a left-wing programme.
Its current leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a leading opponent of the Iraq war, is hoping to use the report to bolster his own position in the face of a massive rebellion by MPs against his leadership.
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- Three straight election wins -
As Labour leader from 1994, Blair rebranded the historically socialist party as "New Labour" and hauled it to the centre ground to try and end a long spell in opposition.
In 1997 he was elected prime minister, at 43 becoming Britain's youngest premier since 1812, and ushering in a new era of hope and confidence for many after 18 years of Conservative governments.
The following year brought a peace deal in Northern Ireland, the British province devastated by three decades of violence between Protestant and Catholic communities.
With the economy booming, increases in spending on health and education helped secure another election win in 2001.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Blair was quick to ally Britain closely with Bush.
London sent troops to Afghanistan and agreed to join the US-led mission to remove Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003.
But one million people protested on the streets of London against the Iraq invasion, and when the evidence for the war proved flawed, wider dissatisfaction set in.
Blair won the election in 2005, a record third term for a Labour premier, but with a reduced majority.
On July 7, 2005, the day after London won the right to host the 2012 Olympic Games, four British suicide bombers attacked the capital's public transport system, killing 52 people.
Two years later Blair stood down after a long and increasingly bitter power play with finance minister Gordon Brown, who replaced him.
- 'Hard to apologise' -
Blair has spent much of the last decade abroad, including eight years as the unpaid envoy for the diplomatic Middle East Quartet but he stepped down last year after failing to produce a meaningful breakthrough.
He made a rare foray back into British politics to warn of the dangers of leaving the European Union in the June 23 referendum -- an intervention that fell on deaf ears.
A committed Christian who converted to Roman Catholicism after leaving office, Blair set up a foundation to support inter-faith dialogue and counter extremism, and has also worked with governments in developing nations in Africa.
In his defence following the publication of the Iraq War Inquiry on Wednesday, Blair said he had acted in "good faith" and in Britain's "best interests".
"I will take full responsibility for any mistakes without exception or excuse," he said.
CBS news has hired Tony Dokoupil has a New York-based correspondent, reporting for all broadcasts and platforms. He starts in August. Previously he spent three years at NBC News, most recently as an MSNBC correspondent.He was that networks lead reporter on coverage of the Paris climate agreement, the Flint water crisis and the armed occupation of federal land in Oregon. Earlier, Dokoupil was a senior writer for NBC News, where he contributed scripts and features for the news divisions digital operation and co-produced segments for Today and Nightly News.
From 2007 to 2013, Dokoupil was a senior writer at Newsweek and The Daily Beast. Dokoupil authored the book, The Last Pirate: A Father, His Son and the Golden Age of Marijuana about his fathers exploits smuggling marijuana during the 70s and 80s.
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Sam Altman Y Combinator
Sam Altman, the president of top startup mentorship and investment program Y Combinator, thinks venture capitalists like himself have gotten off too easily, tax-wise so he's putting the difference into improving the world.
"I donate up to the tax amount I think I should pay," Altman told BuzzFeed News' Nitasha Tiku.
The fiscal issue Altman is rebelling against is the "carried interest" tax for hedge fund managers and VCs. It's one of Wall Street's favorite loopholes, and one that President Barack Obama has long railed against. Basically, it allows these fund managers to take the incentive portion of their fees which they earn based on the gain in value of the investments they made for clients and classify that income as capital gains rather than ordinary income, thereby paying a much lower tax rate.
In lieu of carried interest tax reform, Altman tells Business Insider that he's simply calculating "up to what it would be if everything was taxed as ordinary income." The difference between what Altman actually pays and thinks he should pay goes into YC Research, the newly-formed nonprofit arm of Y Combinator.
YC Research, formed in October 2015, kicked off with a $10 million personal investment from Altman, to give you a sense of how his calculations turned out. Altman's big donation initiative only started last year, he tells Business Insider, because he "had much more liquidity last year than previous years which is what really got me thinking about it."
We've already seen some of what YC Research is focused on: In December 2015, YC Research joined up with Tesla CEO Elon Musk to start OpenAI, a nonprofit researching safer and more humane artificial intelligence research.
Other YC Research projects include a study into "universal basic income," an ambitious and utopian plan to give Americans unconditional free money. More recently, the nonprofit discussed plans for building new, smarter cities from scratch.
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All of this is crazy ambitious, but Altman is an ambitious kind of guy. And as the public face of the startup mentorship program that turned out companies like Dropbox and Airbnb, he wields a lot of influence. Maybe, like Bill Gates before him, Altman can inspire real change among his powerful peers.
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Limoges (France) (AFP) - Chris Froome is expecting the overall contenders to do battle on Wednesday's fifth stage.
The 31-year-old reigning Tour champion currently sits fifth on the overall standings, just 18sec behind yellow jersey wearer Peter Sagan.
And while he doesn't think an overall contender will win Wednesday's 216km stage from Limoges to Le Lioren, he does believe that time gaps will appear between the top contenders.
"It will be similar to stage two but harder, more selective. There will probably be a few tired legs out there," said the Sky team leader.
"Even though these days have been relatively easy, they've still been 250km stages.
"I think it's a bit too early to see a real GC battle but it's definitely somewhere where there will be time gaps -- it won't be a bunch sprint.
"Maybe it's a stage for someone like (Julian) Alaphilippe, (Alejandro) Valverde or Dan Martin."
With time bonuses on the line for the first three finishers, those last three could all take over the yellow jersey with victory.
Alaphilippe is second at 12sec from Sagan, Valverde third at 14sec with Martin, Froome and other top contenders at 18sec.
Some people think the hilly finish will prove too much for Sagan to keep up with the specialist punchers -- those riders who excel in hilly one-day classics.
But following Tuesday's fourth stage, Sagan himself said he hadn't even looked at the stage profile yet for Wednesday.
"I will try (to keep the yellow jersey), we'll see," he said, after admitting he had no idea what to expect.
- 'Dangerous' -
Valverde said he wouldn't pass up an opportunity to win a stage if the chance is there on Wednesday, but insisted that his main role is still to help Movistar leader Nairo Quintana -- currently two places behind Froome but in the same time -- win the overall title.
"Already tomorrow (Wednesday) we'll have the first difficult day in the mountains," he said of the stage that will climb to more than 1.5km above sea-level with the Pas de Peyrol in the Massif Central region of France.
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"I'd even say it's dangerous, but for me the days we've already had were more so than Wednesday's.
"We're here, we're well placed and tomorrow it's logical to think we can stay close to the leader.
"But, let's be clear: what will happen, will happen. If the chance (to win the stage) presents itself and I'm there, we won't pass it up, but it's not essential."
As for Quintana, he was happy not to lose time to Froome on the early flat stages, unlike last year when he gave up 1min 27sec in crosswinds on the second stage before eventually losing out on overall victory by just 1min 12sec.
He's looking forward to the mountainous terrain, which begins in earnest on Friday when the race enters the Pyrenees.
"We hope tomorrow everyone's bodies in the team will react well," said the 26-year-old Colombian.
"The arrival in the mountains means we're entering terrain that suits our characteristics.
"It will be a fairly difficult day but we'll tackle it with the hope that we'll be in good shape, that we have a great team and that personally, I feel good."
A medical examiner has ruled the May drowning death of a prospective Navy SEAL during training was a homicide.
The San Diego County autopsy report released Wednesday said Seaman James Derek Lovelace died after he was repeatedly dunked in a pool by an instructor in his first week of basic training.
The cause of death is listed as drowning with a contributing heart problem.
While Lovelace's death has been ruled a homicide, it does not imply any criminal wrongdoing and the instructor has not been charged, the Associated Press notes.
Watch: Navy SEAL Receives Medal of Honor For Rescuing American Hostage
Lovelace, 21, was reportedly pulled out of the pool after having difficulty treading water at the SEAL facility in Coronado, California, on May 6.
Emergency responders were not able to revive the Florida native, Naval Special Warfare Center spokesman Lt. Trevor Davids said.
As part of his first week of training, Seaman Lovelace was in a camouflage uniform and a dive mask doing a pool familiarization exercise.
According to the report, instructors are supposed to splash students, make waves and yell at them but are not advised to dunk them underwater.
The instructor who allegedly dunked Lovelace has been assigned to administrative duties while the military investigates, according to Navy spokesman Lt. Trevor Davids.
According to an online obituary, Lovelace was a native of Crestview, Florida, where he attended Crestview High School.
Read: Purple Heart Day: Meet the Transgender Former Navy SEAL Now Running For Congress
Lovelace attended Faulkner State Community College in Bay Minette, Alabama before graduating from basic training on January 28, 2016 in Great Lakes, Illinois.
Lovelace was pursuing a lifelong dream of becoming a Navy SEAL, according to his obituary.
He is survived by his father, two sisters and other extended family.
Watch: Army Vet Shot to Death Wife, Children, Then Set Fire to House and Killed Himself
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By Joel Chirwa MZUZU, Malawi (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - At the local brick kiln, a truck laden with logs pulls up and unloads. Soon smoke is billowing, as a new set of bricks bakes inside. Malawis construction industry relies heavily on bricks and the wood needed to make them is a major reason the countrys indigenous forests are fast disappearing. But an unusual home construction technique using dirt or sand packed into plastic sacks and stacked is now being tried out in Rumphi, in the north of the country, as a way to cut back on bricks and save whats left of the regions forests. As part of the project, carried out by the Roscher Youth Development Centre with German backing, young people are being given technical and financial help to construct the environmentally friendly houses. "We have lost a lot of trees and we now still continue losing them, at a chilling rate. Our mountains and hills that had thick forests are now bare except for a few trees and shrubs, said Moir Walita Mkandawire, executive director of the non-profit youth development centre. That loss of forest has led to more extreme weather and worsening droughts, he said, one reason the remaining trees need to be protected. "The weather we have now is not the same we used to have decades ago, he said. FEWER TREES, MORE DISASTERS According to statistics from the Department of Forestry, Malawi annually has been losing about 1.6 percent to 2.8 percent of its forests to human activities. But in February, Ronnnie Chirambo, a tree planting officer with the Department of Forestry, told a local newspaper that the deforestation rate was now down to 1 percent a year, simply because there were too few trees left to cut down. As the forests have disappeared, natural disasters including droughts, cyclones, landslides and floods have become a regular and costly threat in towns such as Rumphi, located 67 kilometres from Mzuzu, the largest city in Malawi's Northern Region. Heinrich Wegener of Support Malawi Heidelberg, which has provided technical and financial backing for the housing initiative, said he first heard about earth bag homes in 2012 while on a visit to South Africa. He felt the homes would be an ideal solution for Malawi. "I started to research the various ways to build houses with sandbags instead of bricks. My idea was to try a first earthbag house as a prototype, working with the youth centre in Rumphi, he said. If such houses catch on, Wegener believes they could become a major contributor to cutting deforestation in Malawi. Sandbag houses can help because they are cheap and simple to build, he said. Just fill used plastic or other bags with soil, close them, stack them into walls, leave space for windows and doors, put a roof on top, plaster the walls. Thats basically it, and it saves a lot of wood and time. He said the cost of the houses depends on the size and amenities added, but a small village home without electricity or a toilet should cost around $1,400. SAFER HOMES Allan Chitete, a civil engineer and the Rumphi director of public works, said he thinks the homes will ultimately become widely used, and not just because they cut the need for wood for construction and for baking bricks. The building blocks (sacks filled with earth or sand) have a lot of advantages, he said. They act like cushions or shock absorbers so that in times of earthquake or floods the structure cannot develop cracks or collapse, he predicted. The idea of building low-cost structures of sandbags or soil-filled bags has been around for at least a century, and has been used in a range of places, from Africa to South Asia to North America. Perhaps the toughest barrier to expanding use of the homes in Malawi will be winning over people to a dramatic change in the idea of what a house is made of, Wegener admitted. Most homes today are built of brick. He said the main disadvantage of the earth houses is that hammering a nail into the wall to hang art or portraits can be hugely difficult. Their backers hope the homes may find backing from Malawis government, which is trying to discourage the use of wood-baked bricks in construction in favour of cement blocks and stabilised soil blocks. Chitete said he will try to sell the idea of more earth bag homes to members of Malawis parliament and ward councillors. The youth centre also plans to train more young people in the district in the building technique, and hopes to roll out the initiative to other disaster-prone areas of the country. (Reporting by Joel Chirwa; editing by Laurie Goering :; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, women's rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate)
poster true blood season 4
HBO's "True Blood," like the vampires it portrayed, may rise again.
The New York Post reports that a musical adaptation of the hit supernatural series was recently workshopped in New York City.
Reportedly, theatrical director Pam McKinnon oversaw the workshop. The book and lyrics are being written by Elizabeth Scott, the author of the YA novel "Living Dead Girl."
The production's music is being provided by the HBO show's music supervisor, Nathan Barr. And "True Blood" star Stephen Moyer and the show's cocreator Alan Ball are reportedly attached, as well.
Scott has a lot of work ahead of her if the report is true. The Post's sources said that the script needs a lot of cutting as act one alone is nearly 132 pages.
The musical is based on the show's same small town of Bon Temps, Louisiana, which hosts human residents as well as a variety of supernatural ones.
Talk of a "True Blood" musical has been around for more than two years. In 2014, Barr said he had pitched it to Ball and HBO. The presentation included samples from Moyer, who showed off his singing chops in NBC's "Sound of Music Live!" The deal was said to be in early talks then.
That there's interest in a "True Blood" musical isn't hard to believe. Before "Game of Thrones," "True Blood" was HBO's most-watched show since "The Sopranos." In addition to Moyer, it starred Oscar winner Anna Paquin, current "The Legend of Tarzan" star Alexander Skarsgard, "Magic Mike's" Joe Manganiello, and "The Good Wife's" Carrie Preston.
HBO didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
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Within a few hours on Tuesday, the presumptive presidential nominees of the two major political parties had made clear their strategies for responding to the FBIs decision not to recommend a criminal prosecution of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server while secretary of state.
Her rival, Donald Trump, would howl about the injustice of the decision, allege conspiracies and claim that even absent an indictment, the scandal proves Clinton is unfit for office. For her part, Clinton would pretend nothing ever happened.
Related: Clinton Dodges Indictment, but Not the FBI Directors Scorn
It took Trumps campaign more than four hours to get around to issuing anything more than a pair of angry tweets from the candidates account on Tuesday morning. But by late afternoon, team Trump had come up with an official response.
The Trump statement did manage to hit the major points of FBI Director James Comeys blistering presentation of his agencys findings Tuesday morning.
The FBI Director laid out today a detailed case of how Hillary Clinton compromised the safety of the American people by storing highly classified information on a private email server with no security, it read. He confirmed that her email could easily have been hacked by hostile actors, and confirmed that those she emailed with were hacked.
It added, It has also been revealed that Hillary Clinton lied when she said that she did not send classified information. The FBI Director confirmed that over 100 emails were deemed classified at the time they were sent, including emails classified as top secret.
At that point, Trump might have just dropped the mic and walked offstage. Comey may not have recommended an indictment, but his account of the extremely careless treatment of classified material by Clinton and her inner circle was an indictment all by itself.
But it wasnt enough for Trump.
Our adversaries almost certainly have a blackmail file on Hillary Clinton, and this fact alone disqualifies her from service, the statement claimed.
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Related: Investigating Clinton -- How Many Millions Were Spent on Email, Benghazi Probes?
Thats a bit of a leap, but fine.
She used the State Department for her personal gain, trading favors for cash, and tried to conceal the records.
Actually, thats a federal crime Trump is accusing Clinton of, and there has been no evidence presented that suggests Clinton traded favors for cash while in office.
Trump also went on to accuse the FBI -- indeed, the entire Department of Justice -- of an illegal conspiracy to subvert justice.
Bill Clinton didnt accidentally run into the Attorney General on the airport tarmac last week in Phoenix, the statement says. Hillary Clinton didnt accidentally sneak into the FBI during one of the countrys biggest holiday weekends to testify on her illegal activities, something that wouldnt be afforded to others under investigation (and on a Saturday of all days). It was no accident that charges were not recommended against Hillary the exact same day as President Obama campaigns with her for the first time.
Former president Bill Clintons controversial meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch last week definitely created at least the appearance of impropriety. But its unclear why the fact that Clinton was interviewed by the FBI on a Saturday (of all days!) is supposed to disturb anybody -- particularly as the interview was announced to the press in advance.
Related: Trump Is Looking at These 7 Republicans as His VP Pick
Trumps final insinuation -- that the Comey announcement was timed for the same day that President Obama would make his first campaign appearance with Clinton -- requires believing that Comey, a Republican who was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York by George W. Bush and then moved up to serve as deputy attorney general in the Bush Justice Department, is conspiring with the Democratic presidential candidate.
It was at that rally mentioned by Trump that Clinton had her first opportunity to personally address the question of Comeys decision. Not surprisingly, she took a pass. Appearing with Obama in Charlotte, North Carolina, she stuck to praising the man she hopes to succeed and to her standard stump speech.
Obama, likewise, didnt touch the issue, contenting himself with a multiple jabs at Trump that characterized the presumptive Republican nominee as a noisy political dilettante and a spirited endorsement of Clinton: There has never been any man or woman more qualified for this office than Hillary Clinton. Ever. And that is the truth. That is the truth. And that's why I am so proud, North Carolina, to endorse Hillary Clinton as the next president of the United States.
And if history is any guide, this is how it will continue, Trump shouting Look! Look! Look! as Clinton smiles and says, Nothing to see here.
Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
By Ginger Gibson and Alana Wise WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee raised nearly $51 million for his presidential campaign in June, after he launched his first aggressive effort at raising cash, Trump's organization reported on Wednesday. The most recent haul dwarfed the $3.1 million the Trump campaign raised in May. That low number prompted widespread concern among Republicans that the New York businessman, a newcomer to politics who largely bankrolled his primary campaign, would be unable to compete with Democrat Hillary Clinton's massive fundraising operation. For June, fundraising emails circulated by the Trump campaign attracted $26 million, in addition to more than $25 million raised in conjunction with the RNC through joint fundraising events in June and the last week of May. The joint funds are intended to help both Trump and candidates in other races, such as people running for Congress, in the Nov. 8 election. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, personally contributed $3.8 million in June, the campaign said, bringing the total contributions for the month to about $55 million. "We just started our fundraising efforts in the last week of May and we are extremely pleased with the broad-based support in the last five weeks for the Trump Campaign and Trump Victory," the campaign said in a statement. In June, Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, raised $68.5 million, including $40 million for her campaign and $28 million for the DNC and state victory funds. She began July with $44 million in cash on hand. While Trump's June total far eclipsed the candidate's past hauls, Lisa Spies, a Republican fundraiser who worked for Mitt Romney in 2012 and raised money for Jeb Bush in the 2016 primary, said the dollar count was much lower than the $106 million that Romney, the party's standard-bearer in 2012, brought in during the same month four years ago. "This is his low-hanging fruit, and its good, Im not putting it down. But it needs to get much better than this quickly. Hes playing a game of catch-up right now," Spies said. Clinton's fundraising advantage has allowed her to build a vastly larger campaign infrastructure. Clinton already has extensive staff operations in the most important battleground states and has begun to run paid advertising. Trump has only a handful of staffers and has made no large television ad purchases. Trump beat 16 rivals in the Republican presidential race, but his free-wheeling style and some of his campaign pledges, such as his plan to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, have long worried some in the party establishment and he has struggled to unify Republicans behind him. CLINTON'S SUPER PAC ADVANTAGE The Super PACs supporting Trump, which are permitted to raise and spend unlimited sums but are not allowed to coordinate directly with the campaign, have also struggled to get organized. While there was once a constellation of more than a dozen Super PACs backing him, most of his support has consolidated around Great America PAC, which is being run by veteran political operative Ed Rollins. The PAC is on target to raise $10 million before the July 18 start of the Republican National Convention, said Eric Beach, a top PAC official. They have already seen an uptick in fundraising, bringing in $5 million in June, doubling the May haul of $2.5 million. Great America PAC is using that money to run television ads, and plans to attack Clinton over her use of personal email servers during her time as secretary of state. The Super PAC supporting Clinton, Priorities USA, had raised $88 million by the end of May and had $51 million to spend. The group is already running ads attacking Trump. Trump got off to a slow start in fundraising, funding much of his primary campaign with his personal wealth in loans that totaled about $50 million. He announced last month he would forgive the loans to his campaign, intending to signal to potential donors that he would not use their funds to repay himself. He held his first fundraiser in late May and had several in June, including a high-dollar event in New York City and several fundraisers in Texas. Trump continues to promise to make contributions to his own campaign. In June, he launched an online fundraising effort by promising to match donations up to $2 million. Trump and Clinton both use joint fundraising agreements with their respective parties. The agreements allow the candidates to accept checks larger than the $5,400 limit that an individual can give to a campaign. Instead, the larger donations are divided up among the campaign, the national party and various state victory funds. All the money is then used to help elect the presidential candidate as well as other candidates. The campaigns and the political parties are permitted to coordinate how they spend that money. (Additional reporting by Michelle Conlin in New York and Emily Stephenson in Washington; Editing by Frances Kerry and Peter Cooney)
By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump is taking some of his potential vice presidential running mates out for a test drive this week, meeting in private and trotting them out in public as he seeks to make his choice before the Republican National Convention less than two weeks away. Republicans close to the campaign say Trump and his team are considering announcing his running mate pick next week ahead of the convention, to be held July 18-21 in Cleveland, to try to get maximum media buzz from the decision. As his aides vet the people on his short list, Trump is getting an up-close look at some of the candidates and talking about it publicly, dispensing with the usual tradition of keeping secret the process of choosing a running mate. Trump, who is to be formally nominated at the convention as the Republican candidate for the Nov. 8 election, met privately on Tuesday with one possible pick, U.S. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, at Trump Tower in New York. On Tuesday night, the two appeared together at a Trump rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. Trump introduced Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as "a great friend of mine, somebody respected by everybody." Then it was Corker's turn. "Ive figured out the reason why you love him so much," the senator told the crowd. "The reason you love him so much is because he loves you. He loves you and he wants the best for you." On Wednesday, Trump is to be joined for an event in Cincinnati by Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives who is another possible pick by Trump for the No. 2 position. Gingrich has been a close Trump adviser and is well regarded at Trump Tower. On Monday, Trump met on Monday with U.S. Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, another candidate on his short list. Others on Trump's running mate list include Indiana Governor Mike Pence, who Trump met with on Saturday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin and U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. Christie, a former Trump rival for the Republican nomination, and Sessions are among Trump's earliest supporters in the party and closest advisers. (Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Leslie Adler)
An airport employee just nearly ruined Chelsea Peretti and Jordan Peeles honeymoon, and she told Twitter ALL about it
An airport employee just nearly ruined Chelsea Peretti and Jordan Peeles honeymoon, and she told Twitter ALL about it
Congratulations are in order, as are retweets. Chelsea Peretti and Jordan Peele just got married, and though it seems their wedding went off without a hitch (they got hitched without a hitch, get it?), their honeymoon is a different story. While trying to board an airplane at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to leave for their honeymoon, Jordan Peele was told by an airport employee that he wouldnt be able to get on the flight this is where the trouble (and the tweets) started.
The reason Peele was denied entry to his flight? His passport apparently looked a little worn, or at least thats what Peretti and Peele were told by the employee.
She then said (in all caps, of course), SOLO HONEYMOON SHOULD BE COOL TOO! presumably while Peele worked out the situation.
Heres where we really start to feel bad for the newlyweds. The airport employee apparently gave them some greeting card wisdom while Peretti started to shed a few tears, and as we all know, that never really helps matters.
At least she had a sense of humor about the situation, and how strange it was that a slightly worn passport could stop a person from getting on an airplane (to their honeymoon, no less).
He finally got on the plane, however, and Peretti started tweeting about the Brexit and asking her followers questions about jetlag.
Oh, Chelsea. You always make things interesting. We wish you two the best and we also hope that before your next trip, you both renew your passports, just in case.
*This post has been updated to reflect the fact that it was an airport employee rather than a TSA agent.
The post An airport employee just nearly ruined Chelsea Peretti and Jordan Peeles honeymoon, and she told Twitter ALL about it appeared first on HelloGiggles.
By Daren Butler ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish authorities are seeking two suspected Islamic State militants thought to be linked to last week's Istanbul airport attack and believed to be in hiding near the border with Syria, a Turkish newspaper said on Wednesday. Turkey has jailed a total 30 suspects pending trial over the triple suicide bombing at Ataturk Airport, which killed 45 people and wounded hundreds, the deadliest in a series of bombings this year in Turkey. Turkish officials are not commenting on reports about the investigation, although one government official has said the attackers were Russian, Uzbek and Kyrgyz nationals. President Tayyip Erdogan has said Islamic State militants from the former Soviet Union were behind the attack. On Tuesday he described the Sunni hardline group as a "dagger plunged into the chest of Muslims". The pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper said two Islamic State suspects were believed to be hiding in woodland in the Yayladagi area of Turkey's southern Hatay province and could be planning to change their appearance and joint rebel groups in Syria. It said they were from Dagestan, a mainly Muslim province of Russia's North Caucasus region. The paper did not identify its sources for the story. "Security and intelligence units have taken top level measures in the area to capture the terrorists given the possibility that they could cross into Syria," it said. Other members of the same Islamic State team had fled to the Kilis and Gaziantep areas further east and were hiding there, while militants from the Caucasus were using fake identity papers and were receiving support from IS cells, it said. EID AL-FITR ATTACKS The Istanbul bombing was followed by major attacks in Bangladesh, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in the past week, all apparently timed for the run-up to Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Ramadan holy fasting month. "Using sacred Islam's name, exploiting it, this terrorist group which spills Muslim blood has gone as far as attacking the town where the mosque and blessed remains of our Prophet are located," Erdogan said in a speech on Tuesday. "Daesh is a dagger plunged into the chest of Muslims. Whoever gives support to this group, whether out of sectarian fanaticism or another motive, commits the same sin," he said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. Interior Minister Efkan Ala said on Tuesday that 15 of 30 people remanded in custody were foreigners from various countries. Yeni Safak said all 11 of the foreign suspects jailed on Tuesday were Russian nationals, while four of the 13 suspects remanded in custody on Sunday were foreigners. In last week's attack, three bombers opened fire to create panic outside the airport before two of them got inside and blew themselves up. The third militant detonated his explosives outside at the entrance to the international arrivals terminal. The Kremlin said on Wednesday it believed the Istanbul airport attack could be a result of Turkish and European security services ignoring Moscow's signals about suspected terrorists hiding in Turkey and Europe. "Over the past many years, the Russian side ... has informed our Turkish and European colleagues that persons suspected of being linked to terrorism ... find shelter both in Turkey and in a number of other European countries," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "In most cases such signals from the Russian side have not been given proper attention or any reaction by our colleagues. To our regret, these (Istanbul attacks) can be a consequence of such disregard." Moscow says that thousands of Russian citizens and citizens of other former Soviet states have joined Islamic State, traveling through Turkey to reach Syria. Russia fought two wars against Chechen separatists in the North Causcasus in the 1990s, and more recently has fought Islamist insurgents in Dagestan. Russia and Turkey have been at odds over Moscow's support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkey's backing of rebels opposed to him, especially since last year when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the border. But recent weeks have seen a thaw in relations between the two countries, with both citing a need to bury their differences to fight the common Islamic State foe. (Editing by David Dolan and Ralph Boulton)
By Matt Siegel SYDNEY (Reuters) - Embattled Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Wednesday pulled within striking distance of the votes needed to form a narrow majority government in a cliffhanger election that has left the country in limbo and his leadership in doubt. "The government is still on track to form a majority government," Treasurer Scott Morrison told Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) radio. Electoral officials are counting 1.5 million postal and absentee votes that will be crucial to the result of Saturday's poll, which saw a swing against Turnbull's conservative coalition government and the rise of populist independents. A final reckoning may not be known for days, possibly weeks, leaving Australia in a political vacuum. The latest projections by the ABC shifted two seats into the government's column, giving Turnbull's Liberal-National coalition 71 out of 150 lower house seats, and the center-left Labor opposition 67. Seven seats are too close to call. Both major parties are short of the 76 seats needed to form a majority government in the House of Representatives, and negotiations are underway with independents who will hold at least four seats. "It's still either a very, very narrow coalition majority or hung parliament," ABC polling expert Antony Green told ABC's Radio National. Turnbull's gamble in calling an early election failed to deliver a clear mandate for his agenda of corporate tax cuts and his disastrous polling has led to attacks from inside and outside his coalition after his attempt to end a querulous upper house Senate failed. Despite the internal criticism, Turnbull's position as Liberal leader does not appear in danger in the short term. The surge in support for independents, combined with rules that make it easier for smaller parties to win Senate seats in a so-called double dissolution of parliament, will likely make it impossible for Turnbull to push through policies including a A$50 billion ($37.19 billion) corporate tax break over 10 years. Even if the coalition wins a narrow majority in the lower house, Turnbull would then have to shepherd legislation through an even more intransigent Senate. But Treasurer Morrison said the government would not abandon its economic policies. "We will go forward with our legislation plan for the budget, certainly if we return as a majority government," he said. The election was meant to end political turmoil that delivered Australia four prime ministers over the past three years. Instead, it has left Turnbull's authority in tatters less than a year after he ousted then prime minister Tony Abbott in a party-room coup with a promise of stable government. The National Party, the junior coalition partner, is demanding a greater say in a future government given its strong electoral performance. The Nationals represent rural Australia and take a strong stance on foreign ownership and trade. In May, the party was influential in blocking a Chinese bid for cattle giant S. Kidman & Co by a group headed by Hunan Dakang Pasture Farming Co Ltd, saying the sale was not in the national interest. While Liberal Party Senator Corey Bernardi, a social conservative and strong supporter of Abbott, signaled he was in talks to start a breakaway Conservative Party of Liberals disaffected with what they see as Turnbull's centrist policies. "Irrespective of the final election result, the clear mission now is to bring people together for the good of the country," Bernardi wrote on his blog. "That is going to take the formalization of a broad conservative movement to help change politics and to give common sense a united voice." ($1 = 1.3444 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Matt Siegel; Editing by Stephen Coates and Michael Perry)
When covering a story, its a good idea not to become the story.
Mexican television reporter Lydia Cumming was dispatched last week to cover heavy flooding in the central city of Puebla.
Read: Revered Radio Journalist And Breast Cancer Advocate Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide
The 24-year-old journalist interviewed two residents about how the natural disaster had affected an elderly neighbor.
Then the man and woman carried her through floodwaters to the womans house so she wouldnt get her shoes wet.
Someone snapped a photo and posted it to Cummings Facebook page, where it became a meme sensation. It also got Cumming fired.
Under the hashtag #Lady Reportera, Cumming being carried showed up on the moon and aside a very small pony.
* Small step for man, giant leap for #LadyReportera * pic.twitter.com/CtZLi7WPGO Papa Olvidado (@PapaOlvidado) June 29, 2016
Esta bien que todos tengan un poquito de miedo en su primer clase de equitacion #LadyReportera pic.twitter.com/62MF2K34xG Chucho Rizo (@todologoax) June 28, 2016
Her boss didnt think it was funny. On Twitter, he posted: She was fired yesterday. Im sorry for what happened. Her attitude is regrettable and for this, we sacked her."
Read: Journalist Who Vowed To Eat His Column If Trump Won The Nomination Keeps His Promise
Cumming later posted an apology, saying, "I admit my mistakes. The photos show a lack of professionalism and tact.
Watch: Reporter Working For Trump's Son-In-Law Calls Donald's Ad Anti-Semitic
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Related Articles:
Alton Sterling is the newest name added to the ongoing list of black men and women killed by law enforcement. Tuesday night (July 5) video surfaced online of the Baton Rouge man being shot multiple times by two Louisiana police officers.
The uniform officers involved have since been placed on administrative leave. According to reports, the cops responded to a disturbance at the Triple S Food Mart because a man was allegedly selling CDs, carrying a gun and threatening people. An altercation ensued between Sterling and law enforcement which resulted in Sterling being, shot multiple times in the chest and back, according to the local coroners office.
News of 37-year-old Sterlings death comes a little more than six weeks after Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards signed a Blue Lives Matter bill, which expanded the states hate crime statute to include the targeting of police officers, firefighters and EMS personnel.
After the gruesome video (below) of Sterlings death surfaced, many online expressed frustration about the on-going violence against African-Americans in this country, as well as the sadness.
I will not be watching #AltonSterlings lynching. I dont need further proof of the lethality of white supremacy. Broderick Greer (@BroderickGreer) July 6, 2016
When I first saw the #AltonSterling video, the reporter in me HAD to see the video. But the human in me wants to log off. Be human. Log off. Terrell J. Starr (@Russian_Starr) July 6, 2016
God, Im so tired. Praying for his family & friends. #AltonSterling Johnetta Elzie (@Nettaaaaaaaa) July 6, 2016
They straight up tackled that man, threw him under the car, and executed him. #AltonSterling Capt. Jake Ballard (@kidnoble) July 6, 2016
I hope members of Congress will do a sit-in for people who look like Alton Sterling and protest against police brutality. Chris Williams (@iamchriswms) July 6, 2016
Hey white folks with influence, right now would be a great time to do some shit. It cant just be us making a stink about this Kazeem Famuyide (@RealLifeKaz) July 6, 2016
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AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Two Dutch soldiers were killed and another seriously injured during a training exercise in Mali on Wednesday afternoon, the latest casualties in a mission that has become the most deadly place for United Nations peacekeepers to serve. More than 11,000 soldiers are serving in the Mali mission, which aims to support the Bamako government in its fight against Islamist militants in northern Mali, who have staged assaults in the capital, as well as in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. Corporal Kevin Roggeveld, 29, and sergeant Henry Hoving, 24, were killed by an exploding mortar shortly after 1130 GMT, the acting head of the Dutch armed forces told a news conference. At least 103 peaeckeepers have died since the start of the mission in April 2013. "A terrible accident took place in Mali where our soldiers are participating in the U.N. peacekeeping mission," vice-admiral Rob Bauer told reporters. A 23-year-old soldier was operated on in a field hospital before being evacuated. Some 450 Dutch soldiers are participating in the mission to the West African country, which is meant to help implement a peace deal signed last year between Mali's government and separatist groups. Last month, the Security Council voted to increase by 2,500 the number of peacekeepers deployed to the country, with European countries promising to send special forces and intelligence experts to support the operation. French forces intervened in 2013 to drive back Islamist fighters who had hijacked the Tuareg uprising to seize Mali's desert north in 2012. But it has since proved difficult to prevent Islamists staging deadly attacks. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has claimed an attack on two U.N. sites in northern Mali at the end of last month, in which a peacekeeper from China and three civilians were killed and over a dozen others wounded. (Reporting By Thomas Escritt; Editing by Toby Chopra)
Bamako (AFP) - Two Dutch UN peacekeepers were accidently killed and one seriously wounded Wednesday in an explosion in northwest Mali during a training exercise, the Dutch defence ministry said.
"During the accident, two of our men lost their lives," said The Netherlands' Vice Chief of Defence, Vice Admiral Rob Bauer.
"Another 23-year-old soldier was seriously wounded," Bauer told reporters in The Hague at a hastily-convened press conference after the incident in the Malian town of Kidal.
The injured man was operated on in a field hospital and then taken to a military hospital in northern Gao.
The defence ministry named the two men as Corporal Kevin Roggeveld, 24, and Sergeant Henry Hoving.
Officials with the UN mission in Mali said in a statement that "an accidental explosion of a shell caused the deaths of two MINUSMA peacekeepers during a training exercise" in Kidal.
MINUSMA has launched an internal investigation, while Bauer said "we do not know exactly what happened and we don't want to speculate."
The Netherlands has been taking part in the UN stabilisation mission in the west African nation since April 2014, and has deployed some 400 troops, four Apache helicopters and three Chinooks, the Dutch news agency ANP said.
The UN mission was deployed in Mali in July 2013 as part of an international effort against jihadist groups which overran the country's northern territory.
The north continues to be beset by violence having fallen under the control of Tuareg-led rebels and jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in 2012.
The Islamists sidelined the rebels to take sole control, and although they were largely ousted by a French-led military operation in January 2013, extremist groups still pose a threat.
The UN Security Council last month decided to send 2,500 extra peacekeepers to Mali, authorising the force to take "all necessary means" to deter attacks in what has become the UN's deadliest mission.
Ankara (AFP) - An explosion on Wednesday that rocked a house used by refugees in a Turkish town near the Syrian border killed two people, the private Dogan news agency reported.
Two Syrians caught in the blast died in hospital after the powerful explosion in the town of Reyhanli in southern Turkey, Dogan said. The cause of the explosion is not yet known.
A Turkish official told journalists: "At this point I can only confirm that an explosion took place in Reyhanli."
In 2013, twin car bombs in Reyhanli killed 46 people in attacks that were blamed on pro-Damascus forces. The Syrian government denied involvement.
Turkey, a vocal opponent of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, hosts 2.7 million Syrian refugees who have fled the war. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently suggested that Syrian refugees in Turkey could be offered Turkish citizenship.
Two Republican Senators seen as contenders for Donald Trumps vice presidential pick withdrew themselves from consideration Wednesday.
Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker and Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst said separately on Wednesday that they are want to remain focused on their work in the Senate. Corker told the Washington Post he told Trump he did not want to be vice president during the GOP nominees Tuesday campaign stop in North Carolina, adding, Im far more suited for other types of things. Ernst said she told Trump she is focused on Iowa in an interview with Politico.
Ernst announcement comes after it was revealed she will have a key speaking slot at the Republican convention in Cleveland later this month. She drew national attention to her 2014 Senate campaign with bold advertising and her upstart campaign that beat an establishment Republican and coordinated Democratic effort.
Corker chairs the Senate Foreign Relations committee and has criticized the Obama administration for its handling of ISIS and the Syrian civil war. The Tennessean emerged as a key power broker in last years Iran nuclear deal.
Trump is said to be vetting several vice presidential contenders, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
(Recasts first paragraph, updates throughout with arguments before appeals court)
By Dustin Volz
WASHINGTON, July 6 (Reuters) - U.S. government lawyers on Wednesday defended the legality of a warrantless surveillance program challenged as unconstitutional in an Oregon court by a Somali-born American citizen convicted of attempting to detonate a bomb at a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Portland heard arguments in the case brought by Mohamed Mohamud, convicted in 2013 of plotting to use a weapon of mass destruction in the 2010 incident and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
The case is the first of its kind to consider whether a criminal defendant's constitutional rights are violated under a National Security Agency program that allows spying on Americans' international phone calls and internet communications.
Mohamud contends the program violates the Constitution's Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.
Kelly Zusman, a lawyer with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Portland, told the court that because surveillance data on foreigners is legally collected under the program, no warrant is required when searching that information even if it is conducted to find communications involving an American.
Stephen Sady, a federal public defender representing Mohamud, said the government's argument represented an "incredible diminution of the privacy rights of all Americans."
"That is a step that should never be taken," Sady added.
Mohamud, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was 19 when he was arrested, attempted to remotely detonate what he thought was a car bomb near a square in downtown Portland crowded with thousands of people attending a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony the day after the Thanksgiving holiday.
The bomb was actually a fake. Mohamud's lawyers said he was entrapped by U.S. law enforcement officers posing as al Qaeda militants.
Mohamud is challenging the admissibility of evidence used against him at trial that was obtained under a foreign intelligence statute. His lawyers argue that the law does not allow the government to retain and access content of communications belonging to Americans and that the statute is unconstitutional.
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The law, enacted in 2008 by Congress as an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and known as Section 702, involves internet surveillance programs known as Prism and Upstream that were first disclosed publicly in a series of leaks three years ago by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Prism gathers messaging data from Alphabet Inc's Google , Facebook Inc, Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc and other major tech companies that is sent to and from a foreign target under surveillance. Upstream allows the NSA to copy web traffic flowing along the internet backbone located inside the United States and search that data for certain terms associated with a target.
U.S. officials have conceded that data about Americans is sometimes "incidentally" collected under these programs and later used for domestic criminal investigations. Critics see this as unlawful back-door surveillance of Americans without a warrant.
During the arguments, Judge Carlos Bea, an appointee of former Republican President George W. Bush, challenged claims by Mohamud's lawyers that data on U.S. citizens and lawful residents caught up in a legal foreign surveillance program was off limits.
"Tell me why, once it is legally procured, it becomes illegal to look at it?" Bea asked.
Zusman acknowledged some of the criticisms of Section 702 may be valid but that changes to its implementation should be decided by policymakers, not the courts.
The government has not disclosed which program was used with Mohamud, and it alerted him and his lawyers about how evidence against him was collected only after his conviction.
The case may have political implications, as Congress must reauthorize Section 702 by Dec. 31, 2017, or let it expire.
(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Will Dunham)
By Jessica Dye
NEW YORK, July 6 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge has slashed a $500 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson and its DePuy unit over allegedly defective metal-on-metal Pinnacle hip implants to approximately $151 million.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade in the Northern District of Texas said he was compelled to reduce the verdict under a Texas state law limiting punitive damages according to a specific formula.
In March, the five plaintiffs and three of their spouses had been collectively awarded roughly $360 million in punitive damages, along with $140 million in compensatory damages, following a two-month trial.
Kinkeade also denied J&J's bid to set aside the verdicts and order a new trial. The company had argued jurors were biased by hearing irrelevant and unfair evidence during trial. Plaintiffs' lawyers had claimed the company was seeking an improper "do-over" after its trial strategy backfired.
Mark Lanier and Richard Arsenault, lead lawyers for the Pinnacle plaintiffs, said they disagreed with Texas' cap on punitive damages but were pleased J&J's bid for a new trial had been rejected.
A lawyer for J&J, John Beisner, said that the company is "confident that the trial verdict will be reversed on appeal."
J&J and DePuy are facing roughly 8,400 lawsuits over the devices, which plaintiffs say contain design flaws that cause them to fail. The lawsuits claim friction between the devices' metal components can shed ions into the bloodstream, leading to injuries such as tissue death, bone erosion and high levels of metal in their blood.
J&J and DePuy have denied any wrongdoing in connection with developing and marketing the devices. DePuy stopped selling the metal-on-metal version of Pinnacle hips in 2013. That year, it paid $2.5 billion to settle more than 7,000 lawsuits over another metal-on-metal hip device, the ASR, which was recalled in 2010.
The $500 million verdict in March was the second in a trial involving Pinnacle hip devices. J&J was cleared of liability in the first trial, which involved a single plaintiff and ended in 2014. A third trial involving multiple plaintiffs is scheduled for September.
(Reporting by Jessica Dye; Editing by Tom Brown)
By Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. House of Representatives panel will debate legislation on Thursday intended to block Boeing Co's planned sale of dozens of commercial aircraft to Iran, which could also affect other planemakers, including Airbus if they became law. A Financial Services subcommittee will debate three measures, including one that would prohibit the U.S. Treasury from licensing the sale announced last month. Another would bar the Treasury secretary for authorizing transactions by U.S. financial institutions connected to the export of aircraft. A third measure would bar the Export-Import Bank from financing involving any entity that does business with Iran or provides financing to another entity to facilitate transactions with Iran. "I am extremely concerned that by relaxing the rules, the Obama administration has allowed U.S. companies to be complicit in weaponizing the Iranian regime," Representative Bill Huizenga, chairman of the Monetary Policy and Trade Subcommittee, said in a statement on Wednesday. If the bills became law, they would affect other firms' sales to Iran because virtually all modern jets have more than 10 percent U.S. content, the threshold for requiring export licenses. A House committee aide said the full financial services committee was likely to approve the bills, but a vote had not yet been scheduled. However, the measures showed the extent of concern by Republicans, who control majorities in both the House and Senate, about the Iran deal and the potential Boeing sale. Democrats, including President Barack Obama, are expected to oppose the legislation. While most congressional Democrats backed the Iran deal announced a year ago, every Republican U.S. lawmaker opposed the pact in which the United States and international partners agreed to ease crippling economic sanctions in exchange for Tehran curtailing its nuclear program. When news of the Boeing deal emerged, several Republicans in Congress worried that it could threaten U.S. national security. Asked about those concerns last month, a Boeing executive noted last month that the Obama administration considered implementation of the nuclear pact "critical" to national security. A "memorandum of agreement" (MOA) calls for IranAir to buy a total of 80 aircraft from Boeing and lease a further 29 with Boeing's support. Deliveries of the purchased jets are scheduled to start in 2017 and run through 2025. An Iranian official told Reuters some officials in Tehran are concerned about the legislation, arguing that if such measures become law they could endanger implementation of the nuclear deal by intensifying pressure on Iran President Hassan Rouhani to take a harder line in his dealings with the United States and its allies. (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Ankara, editing by G Crosse)
By Jonathan Stempel
July 5 (Reuters) - The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said on Tuesday it has filed a lawsuit accusing the operators of a McDonald's restaurant in Bentonville, Arkansas, of firing a worker because he was HIV-positive.
In its complaint against Mathews Management Co and Peach Orchard Inc, the EEOC said the worker was fired in February 2015 after admitting to the restaurant's general manager to having had "an interest" in a co-worker, and telling that co-worker about his HIV-positive status.
The EEOC said the fired worker had been questioned a week earlier by his shift manager, and told he might lose his job because the defendants had previously fired a female worker who was also HIV-positive.
"People with HIV face enough obstacles in their lives," said Katharine Kores, an EEOC district director in Memphis, which has jurisdiction over Arkansas, in a statement. "The ability to work in an environment free of discrimination should not be one of them."
The complaint dated July 1 accused Mathews of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by firing the worker, and requiring employees to report their use of prescription medication.
Mathews operates 34 McDonald's restaurants, while Peach Orchard operates the restaurant in Bentonville, the EEOC said. They did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
McDonald's Corp is based in Oak Brook, Illinois, and was not named as a defendant. It did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The EEOC identified the fired worker as "John Doe," said he had been hired in November 2014, and said his duties included cleaning, operating the register, working the drive-thru window, and opening and closing the restaurant.
Its lawsuit seeks to recoup back pay, recover punitive damages, and end the defendants' alleged discrimination.
The case is EEOC v Mathews Management et al, U.S. District Court, Western District of Arkansas, No. 16-05166.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Political uncertainty over Democratic Republic of Congo's next presidential election could spiral into a severe crisis and United Nations peacekeepers are developing contingency plans for widespread violence, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned. In a report to the U.N. Security Council released on Tuesday, Ban said that under those plans peacekeepers in Congo might need to ask for help from other U.N. missions. "I am concerned that in the absence of a credible and meaningful political dialogue among Congolese stakeholders, tensions could degenerate into a severe crisis, with a high risk of relapse into violence and instability," Ban said. The Congolese government has said it is unlikely it will be able to hold elections in November for logistical reasons but opponents of President Joseph Kabila accuse him of trying to cling to power. The government has denied the claim. Kabila, who has been in power since 2001, is barred by the constitution from standing for a third term. But a Kabila ally has raised the prospect of a referendum to allow him to run. Dozens of Kabila's critics have been arrested since last year as part of what the United Nations and rights groups say is an escalating crackdown on political dissent ahead of a presidential election. "I urge the government of Democratic Republic of Congo to respect freedom of expression, assembly and information as fundamental rights that are essential to the conduct of free and fair elections," Ban said. Dozens died in street protests in January 2015 against a revision to the election code that could have pushed the election back by years. "(The U.N. peacekeeping mission) MONUSCO is developing contingency plans in the event of widespread violence in the context of the electoral process," Ban said. The U.N. Security Council is due to be briefed on the U.N. peacekeeping mission on Thursday. The overthrow of longtime Congolese ruler Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997 fuelled years of conflict in the mineral-rich east that sucked in more than half a dozen countries and killed millions of people. U.N. peacekeepers have been deployed in Congo since 2000. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)
By David Morgan and Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. congressional Republicans on Tuesday resisted Democratic demands for a vote on gun-control measures and warned that some could face punishment for an unusual sit-in last month that tied up the House of Representatives for 25 hours.
With Democrats already rejecting a Republican gun bill and warning of further protests, the Republican-controlled House appeared to be heading for renewed discord over gun restrictions following the June 12 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
House Speaker Paul Ryan met for about 30 minutes on Tuesday with two Democrats who led the sit-in: Representatives John Lewis of Georgia and John Larson of Connecticut. The Democrats said they would ask Ryan for a vote on two Democratic-backed measures but left the meeting without speaking to reporters.
"The path ahead ... will be discussed and determined by the majority in the coming days," Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said later in a statement.
The measures sought by Democrats would expand background checks for gun purchases and allow the government to block gun sales to suspected extremists without first getting a judge's approval.
Hours before the meeting, Ryan suggested a vote on the Democratic legislation was unlikely, telling a Milwaukee radio station: "The last thing we are going to do is surrender the floor over to these kinds of tactics when we know it's going to compromise the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens."
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said separately that he and Ryan would meet this week with the chamber's top enforcement official to talk about reports that some Democrats at the June 22-23 sit-in engaged in "intimidation" while carrying out their protest.
Ryan has announced that the House will vote this week on a measure intended to keep guns out of the hands of people the government suspects of involvement in violent extremism. But Democrats say the legislation is inadequate because authorities would have only three days to convince a judge that a gun sale should be blocked.
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"Ninety-one people die each day from gun violence in this country and the best Speaker Ryan can muster is a meaningless bill," said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi aide Drew Hammill.
Six people who said they lost family and loved ones to gun violence were arrested in the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, after a protest demanding Congress reject the Ryan measure and vote on the Democratic measures.
(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by James Dalgleish and Peter Cooney)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican lawmakers in U.S. Congress on Wednesday rejected two Democratic amendments to provide nearly $1 billion in funding for bipartisan legislation intended to combat America's opioid epidemic, aides said. The rejection, which came during a meeting of U.S. House of Representatives and Senate negotiators on the measure, could undermine Democratic support for final legislation that could come up for a vote in the House of Representatives as early as Friday. The House and Senate each passed its own versions of the legislation in the last few months. House and Senate Democratic lawmakers are now withholding their support for the final version of the bill, according to two Democratic aides. Democratic opposition could prove to be an obstacle, especially in the Senate, where lawmakers need 60 votes to move legislation forward. Two amendments, from House and Senate Democrats, would have provided $920 million up front to finance program grants for states. Aides said the programs otherwise require completion of a lengthy appropriations process that could stall in a congressional session shortened by this year's election campaign. Republican aides were not immediately available for comment. But House Republicans are separately considering a health spending measure that would provide more than $581 million to address opioid abuse. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra said on Wednesday it was only the latest instance in which legislation with bipartisan backing fell short on funding. "It's becoming a bit of a joke to say we're concerned and want to do something, when the only thing we'll do is shell of what it actually takes," he said. (Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Diane Craft)
For the first time, the United States slapped economic sanctions on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for what U.S. officials called notorious abuses of human rights. The move is expected to elicit an angry reaction from the nuclear-armed country and comes just days after the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, called on countries to enforce sanctions against the Hermit Kingdom after its latest ballistic missile test.
Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor, and torture, the Treasury Departments Acting Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Adam Szubin said in a statement.
The sanctions target a range of assets, including property under U.S. jurisdiction, and take aim at 10 other individuals as well, including Choe Pu II, head of the Ministry of Peoples Security; Ri Song Choi, a counselor in the Ministry of Peoples Security; and Kang Song Nam, bureau director at the Ministry of State Security.
The Ministry of State Security engages in torture and inhumane treatment of detainees during interrogation and in detention centers, said the Treasury Department in a statement. This inhumane treatment includes beatings, forced starvation, sexual assault, forced abortions, and infanticide.
North Korea, one of the most isolated countries in the world, has long been under economic sanctions for its nuclear program. But U.S. officials said this is the first time the countrys 30-odd-year old leader has been specifically targeted. Like his father, who died in 2011, Kim has not been shy about responding to western sanctions by testing nuclear weapons, launching ballistic missiles, or issuing bombastic threats against the United States and its regional allies South Korea and Japan.
The move follows a lengthy investigation by the State Department and Treasury and the passage earlier this year of a law that requires the executive branch to assess Kims culpability for human rights abuses in the country.
Getty Images
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives have reached a bipartisan deal to upgrade U.S. airport security in the aftermath of attacks in Brussels and Istanbul, an influential Republican senator said on Wednesday.
Senator John Thune of South Dakota, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said the agreement would be formally unveiled later on Wednesday and could be voted on in the House this week and in the Senate by next Friday, after which lawmakers are due to leave Washington for a seven-week summer break.
The legislation represents the most comprehensive set of aviation security reforms in a decade, Thune told reporters at a news conference.
Thune said the deal calls for tougher vetting of aviation workers with access secure airport areas, expands the Transportation Security Administration's pre-check security program to move passengers more quickly out of airport areas that are not secured, and increases the number of police dogs available for security duty in the U.S. transportation system.
The bill would also renew programs operated by the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. aviation regulatory agency, which are due to expire.
(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Richard Chang)
Israels plan to build hundreds of new homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has drawn a sharp rebuke from Washington.
In a press briefing Tuesday, State Department spokesman John Kirby said the plans would be the latest step in what seems to be a systematic process of land seizures, settlement expansions, and legalizations of outposts that is fundamentally undermining the prospects for a two-state solution.
He added: We oppose steps like these, which we believe are counterproductive to the cause of peace.
The remarks come after U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon denounced the intended settlements as illegal under international law. In a statement, Ban urged the Israeli government to halt and reverse such decisions in the interest of peace. He also said that legitimate questions could be raised about Israels long-term intentions, which are compounded by continuing statements of some Israeli ministers calling for the annexation of the West Bank.
According to the Associated Press, the Israeli plans involve the building of 560 new homes in Maale Adumim, just outside Jerusalem, as well as construction in the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Ramot, Gilo and Har Homa. Some 600 new homes will also be built in an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
Israeli officials say the construction is necessary as a response to a series of deadly Palestinian attacks against Jewish settlers. In the latest attack, a 13-year-old girl, who was also a U.S. citizen, was stabbed to death in her bedroom in the West Bank community of Kiryat Arba by a 19-year-old Palestinian. The assailant was subsequently killed.
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's business minister Sajid Javid said the government should cut corporate and personal taxes to soften the blow from an expected slowdown after Britain's vote to leave the European Union.
Javid told the Financial Times the government needed to switch its focus from reducing the deficit to stimulating economic growth by introducing unfunded tax cuts to boost research and investment for companies.
Confidence in Britain's economy has been rocked by the decision by voters to leave the world's largest trading bloc on June 23. The pound is trading at 31-year lows and the Bank of England has warned that the financial risks it highlighted ahead of the vote were starting to crystallise.
Finance minister George Osborne has said he plans to cut Britain's corporation tax to below 15 percent and has also dropped his aim of turning Britain's budget deficit into a surplus by 2020.
Javid backed Osborne's softer approach to fixing the public finances. He told the FT it was hard to predict what would happen to the deficit.
"Does it mean 3 percent becomes 4 percent or 5 percent? I don't think anyone can say at this point," he said.
Britain's budget deficit was just under 4 percent of gross domestic product in the financial year which ended in March.
Javid said the government should double tax credits for research and development, exempt new plant and machinery from business rates and increase the annual investment allowance. He said the threshold at which people start paying income tax should also rise by 1,000 pounds.
As well as the signals from the government of help for the economy from lower taxes, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has said he expects the central bank to provide more monetary stimulus over the summer. On Tuesday, the BoE lowered a requirement for banks to set aside money to cover losses.
It is not clear how long Osborne and Javid will remain in their jobs. Prime Minister David Cameron has said he will resign by September and the ruling Conservative Party is in the process of choosing a new leader.
(Reporting by Kate Holton, editing by William Schomberg and Estelle Shirbon)
London (AFP) - Britain's government will force junior doctors in England to accept a new contract, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Wednesday, after a long-running row which has prompted a wave of strikes.
The move came after the junior doctors, who provide a large part of the workforce in the state-run National Health Service (NHS), on Tuesday rejected a proposed package brokered between ministers and their trade union.
They have staged six strikes over pay and conditions during the dispute, which erupted late last year.
"Unfortunately because of the vote we are now left in a no-man's land that, if it continues, can only damage the NHS," Hunt told parliament.
He said a new contract had to be imposed to end "protracted uncertainty at precisely the time we grapple with the enormous consequences of leaving the EU".
Junior doctors are medical graduates with years of experience but who have yet to complete their training. There are about 53,000 of them working in England's NHS, many of whom work very long hours.
The government argues that reforms to junior doctors' contracts are necessary to ensure that the quality of care for patients is as high at weekends as it is during the week.
While it has been shielded from government austerity cuts to public services, the NHS faces an increasing financial strain due to factors like rising treatment costs and an ageing population.
LONDON, July 6 (Reuters) - British government bond yields hit fresh record lows on Wednesday as investors continued to buy sovereign debt as a shelter from the fallout to the country's decision to leave the European Union.
The yield on 10-year gilts fell to as low as 0.731 percent, almost half its level on June 23, the day when Britons were voting in the referendum, which many investors had expected to result in a decision to stay in the EU.
Yields on British 20- and 30-year government bonds also sank to fresh record lows on Wednesday.
Gilt futures rose more than 50 ticks to new contract highs of 130.47.
Fear of further instability in the EU and of weak global economic growth ahead sent stock markets sharply lower on Wednesday and Britain's pound sank below $1.30 for the first time in more than three decades.
(Writing by William Schomberg; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa and Kevin Liffey)
The Rock WMD
A UK intelligence agency might have based part of a report on Iraq's alleged chemical weapons on a movie starring Nicolas Cage, according to a government inquiry released Wednesday.
The inquiry contends that Britain's involvement in the Iraq war was based on "flawed intelligence and assessments" that were "not challenged" when they should have been.
The 2.6 million-word document, known as the Iraq Inquiry, or the "Chilcot report," is the culmination of a huge investigation that former Prime Minister Gordon Brown launched in 2009.
One volume of the inquiry focuses on the UK's evidence of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction. These intelligence assessments turned out to be false, as both the US and the UK discovered after the 2003 Iraq invasion turned up no such weapons.
The inquiry notes that two Secret Intelligence Service assessments from September 2002 were called into question months later. Some within the intelligence agency, which is also known as MI6, began doubting the source of the information that was included in the assessments.
The intelligence reports stated that Iraq had "accelerated the production of chemical and biological agents." Officials believed the source of this information was reputable.
But one of the reports mentioned glass containers that supposedly contained the chemical agents the Iraqi government was thought to possess.
Here's the relevant section from the Iraq Inquiry:
"In early October, questions were raised with SIS about the mention of glass containers in the 23 September 2002 report. It was pointed out that:
Glass containers were not typically used in chemical munitions; and that a popular movie (The Rock) had inaccurately depicted nerve agents being carried in glass beads or spheres.
Iraq had had difficulty in the 1980s obtaining a key precursor chemical for soman [a chemical agent].
"The questions about the use of glass containers for chemical agent and the similarity of the description to those portrayed in The Rock had been recognised by SIS. There were some precedents for the use of glass containers but the points would be pursued when further material became available."
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The movie the report refers to is the 1996 Michael Bay action thriller, "The Rock," starring Nicolas Cage playing a FBI chemical-warfare expert. Sean Connery plays a former British spy who teams up with the FBI agent to prevent a deranged US general from launching a chemical-weapons attack on San Francisco.
The Iraq Inquiry states that intelligence officials were meant to do further reporting on the questionable intelligence contained in the September 2002 report.
By December, doubts emerged within SIS "about the reliability of the source and whether he had 'made up all or part of'" his account.
Later that month, there were still "unresolved questions" about the source of the chemical-weapons intelligence. But the UK was under considerable pressure to produce evidence of such weapons.
Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary for the UK, was reportedly concerned about "what would happen without evidence of a clear material breach" of Iraq's December 2002 declaration that it did not have weapons of mass destruction.
SIS eventually determined that their source was lying about the supposed chemical agents, but intelligence officials did not inform the prime minister's office, according to the inquiry.
While chemical weapons are different from weapons of mass destruction, these intelligence reports still informed policymakers' opinions of the extent of Iraq's weapons programs. And the evidence of these weapons programs was eventually used as a justification for going to war in Iraq.
David Manning, a former British diplomat, told former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in December 2002 that there was "impatience in the US administration and pressure for early military action" in Iraq, according to the inquiry.
"There were concerns about the risks if the inspections found nothing," the inquiry noted. UK and US officials also worried about "the difficulties of persuading the international community to act if there were a series of 'low-level and less clear-cut acts of obstruction' rather than the discovery of chemical or biological agents or a nuclear programme."
The inquiry states that Manning told Blair: "We should work hard over the next couple of months to build our case."
Blair reportedly said the UK would "continue to work on securing credible evidence" that then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein "was pursuing [weapons of mass destruction] programmes."
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LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's relationship with the United States is vital for national security, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Wednesday, after the publication of a critical report into the events leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Britain needed to have a more open and independent relationship with the United States after the report showed Britain joined the war without satisfactory legal basis or proper planning. "I don't believe the United States is always right about everything but I do believe our partnership with the United States is vital for our national security," Cameron told parliament. "They are always our best partner and we should work with them." Cameron also said that while the invasion of Iraq had created space for Al Qaeda, it was important to remember that violent Islamist extremism began long before the Iraq War. (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan and Elizabeth Piper; editing by Kate Holton)
The Student Loan Ranger likes to give readers the tools they need to manage their student loan debt in an educated way. Understanding student loan vocabulary is one of those tools.
Loan language can be complicated. In fact, when it comes to student loan repayment, mixing up just one word -- or even a variation of the same word -- can cost you.
Read the [11 terms you need to know before repaying student loans.]
That's the case with two seemingly unrelated subjects: forbearances and involuntary payments. We hope you never need to use either; but in case you do, make sure you take advantage of the right version of each.
Discretionary vs. Mandatory Forbearance
As we have previously discussed, forbearances are tools available on many federal student loans and some private student loans that allow borrowers to postpone payments if they are in a financial pinch. Almost any option, though -- except letting loans default -- is usually better than using forbearance.
That said, forbearance can be a valuable tool if borrowers' student loans are at risk of going past due or defaulting.
When we refer to forbearance, we're generally talking about discretionary forbearances -- these are given at the loan holders' discretion.
All loan holders have different criteria -- although they are usually lenient -- and different lengths of time they allow borrowers to utilize these tools. The average time is a total of three years over the life of the student loan.
Follow a [timeline of federal student loan delinquency and default consequences.]
Excessive debt forbearance, though, is another type of forbearance that might come in handy if lenders refuse borrowers' requests for a discretionary forbearance. This is also a mandatory forbearance, which means if borrowers are eligible, loan holders are required to give it.
Borrowers whose federal student loan payments add up to 20 percent or more of their gross monthly income qualify for excessive debt forbearance. They may request this forbearance for a year at a time for a total of three years over the life of the loan.
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The benefit of this option is that borrowers can opt to pay a lower payment during this period instead of no payments at all; paying at least the interest is always a good idea.
To apply for excessive debt forbearance, borrowers should complete this form and submit it to all of their federal loan holders.
Involuntary vs. Voluntary Payments
A long time ago, the Student Loan Ranger heard a tenured, well-respected member of the higher education industry say that, for some borrowers, default is just part of the process. We've learned over the years that, unfortunately, this is absolutely true.
Borrowers get overwhelmed or don't realize the many free resources -- not the least being their loan holder -- that can help them manage their federal student loans and prevent them from defaulting.
Because default happens, Congress created a student loan rehabilitation program. In a nutshell, this program allows borrowers to make nine consecutive, voluntary payments to get their loan out of default and in good standing, lower the collection costs and remove the default from their credit report.
The problem: Many defaulted borrowers don't fully understand what the voluntary payment is. They assume that garnished wages are helping them complete the rehabilitation program.
See how to avoid turning into a scary [student loan statistic.]
If borrowers are in default and the loan holder is garnishing their wages, tax refund, Social Security or other federal payments, rehabilitation will help stop those garnishments.
However, those garnishments do not count as voluntary payments for rehabilitation purposes. This is the case even if borrowers decide not to appeal the garnishment order.
Only payments in the amount that the borrowers and their loan holders have agreed to and that the borrowers send in on time every month -- no postdated checks -- count as voluntary payments for loan rehabilitation. During the time they are working toward the nine voluntary payments, the garnishments will continue.
Once borrowers make their fifth on-time payment, the wage garnishment order will be rescinded from their employer. After they complete rehabilitation and their loan is again in good standing, other garnishments will also stop.
Betsy Mayotte, director of regulatory compliance for American Student Assistance, regularly advises consumers on planning and paying for college. Mayotte, who received a B.S. in business communications from Bentley College, responds to public inquiries via the advice resource "Just Ask" and is frequently quoted in traditional and social media on the topics of student loans and financial aid.
Montevideo (AFP) - Uruguay will this month start signing up smokers to buy marijuana from pharmacies in the world's first scheme for state-production and sale of the drug, an official source said Wednesday.
The leftist government has begun harvesting its own marijuana and aims to start selling it in mid-August, the source told AFP.
The marijuana leaves have been grown under heavy security at privately operated, state-supervised farms.
"It is being harvested and dried," said the source, who asked not to be named.
The government will buy the drug from the producers and sell it on to the pharmacies. But the amount released for sale will depend on how many users register.
The government aims to start registering users by the end of this month, the source said.
Under a law passed in 2013, Uruguay already allows users to grow marijuana if they register as members of state-regulated clubs.
The state will now expand that initiative to regulate the sale of the drug in pharmacies.
The law allows for users to buy up to 40 grams (1.4 ounces) a month. Authorized buyers will be identified by their fingerprints.
The scheme is being overseen by the state Cannabis Regulation and Control Institute.
Officials have not ruled out extending sales to establishments other than pharmacies.
The initiative was launched by former president Jose Mujica as a way to undermine drug-trafficking gangs.
A poll at the time indicated that nearly two thirds of Uruguayans were opposed to the law.
GBU Bunker Buster
The United States had a top-secret operation that gave it the ability to shut down much of Iran's infrastructure ahead of a full-scale war, without a single bomb being dropped.
The incredible insight into a highly-classified cyber operation called Nitro Zeus was first exposed in the film "Zero Days" and later corroborated by The New York Times, which interviewed intelligence and military officials who were involved.
The film, directed by Alex Gibney, premieres on Friday.
"We spent hundreds of millions, maybe billions on it," an anonymous National Security Agency source says in the film. "We were inside, waiting, watching. Ready to disrupt, degrade, and destroy those systems with cyber attacks. In comparison, Stuxnet was a back alley operation. [Nitro Zeus] was the plan for a full scale cyber war with no attribution."
The source, whose face and voice are concealed throughout the film, is later revealed to be an actor reciting lines from testimony offered to Director Alex Gibney by CIA and NSA employees.
The focus of the "Zero Days" film is on Stuxnet the world's first cyber weapon that was used against Iran's nuclear facilities. But in researching for the film, Gibney found that malicious software was just one small piece of a much larger puzzle.
Nitro Zeus went much further than Stuxnet (the US codename was Olympic Games), giving the NSA the ability to attack Iran's command-and-control systems, so it would not be able to communicate. It could hack in and disable air defenses, so US or Israeli planes would not be shot down. And systems such as the power grid, communications, and financial systems were all infected or backdoored, in case of war.
"This was an enormous, and enormously complex, program," one participant in the program told The New York Times. "Before it was developed, the US had never assembled a combined cyber and kinetic attack plan on this scale."
Stuxnet successfully destroyed roughly one-fifth of Iran's nuclear centrifuges. Nitro Zeus could have done much, much more.
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Iran nuclear facility
Ultimately, that plan was shelved after Iran slowed its uranium enrichment activities during nuclear negotiations. The US and Iran reached a deal to dismantle much of its nuclear program in January.
But it's frightening to see just how far the US could have gone in its cyber warfare efforts, which included taking out major infrastructure that would no doubt affect Iranian civilians as well.
"When you shut down a countrys power grid," the source says. "It doesnt just pop back up. Its more like humpty dumpty. And if all the kings men cant turn the lights back on or filter the water for weeks, lots of people will die."
And that's why, perhaps, some US officials are afraid of a devastating cyberattack very similar to Nitro Zeus someday happening here at home.
Though many cybersecurity experts say the rhetoric is somewhat overblown when talking about hacking into critical infrastructure, if there is one thing the Stuxnet attack proved, it's that sophisticated cyber attacks on the grid or other systems are certainly possible.
"The science fiction cyber war scenario is here," the source says. "Thats Nitro Zeus."
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Tbilisi (AFP) - US Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday welcomed the Syrian army's declaration of a 72-hour ceasefire but said he was working with Russia and others to try to transform it into a lasting truce.
"We very much welcome the Syrian army's declaration of a period of quiet in honour and celebration of Eid," Kerry told reporters during an official visit to Georgia in the runup to the annual NATO summit.
"And we very much hope it will be honored by all parties and it will hold," he said, adding that the truce had been a "matter of discussion" within the International Syria Support Group, which Washington co-chairs with Moscow.
Earlier, the Syrian army had said it would observe a 72-hour pause in fighting between July 6 and midnight on July 8, to coincide with the festival marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Syria has been in the grip of a bloody civil war for more than five years, but the 22-nation ISSG is pushing both government and rebel forces to honour a notional ceasefire and prepare for negotiations on a political settlement.
"We are engaged right now in ongoing discussions with various parties including Russia regarding the possibility of extending this," Kerry said, expressing the hope that the truce would be a "harbinger" of opportunities to come.
"So is 72 hours enough? The answer is simple: 'no'. Is 72 hours more welcome than nothing? The answer is 'yes'."
Tbilisi (AFP) - The United States and Georgia signed a security deal Wednesday designed to shore up the former Soviet republic's defences against Russia as it waits to join NATO.
US Secretary of State John Kerry and Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili inked the agreement at a ceremony in Tbilisi just two days before the annual NATO summit in Warsaw.
The agreement is bitter-sweet compensation for tiny Georgia, which was promised a path to NATO membership in 2008 but still has no real prospect of joining the alliance.
Two breakaway regions of Georgia are occupied by Russian forces and, along with Ukraine, it has seen its way to the alliance delayed by nervous European powers.
"On security, our partnership is unwavering," Kerry told reporters, hailing Georgia's large commitment of troops to the NATO support mission in Afghanistan.
"The Georgian people have chosen a Euro-Atlantic future and the United States remains committed to helping the Georgian people attain that goal."
Tbilisi fought a brief war against Moscow in 2008. Russian troops now occupy the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Kerry said the other NATO allies would this week repeat their promise, made in Bucharest in 2008, that Georgia will eventually join the transatlantic alliance.
The US pledge will infuriate Moscow and make some Western allies nervous that they may be called to defend Georgia against Russia or even try to force its troops out.
But Kerry told his hosts: "The United States remains steadfast in its support of Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
"Russia's occupation and militarisation of parts of Georgia's territory are unacceptable."
The vulnerable Caucasus country has already received US military assistance but so far this has been focused on helping it deploy troops on missions overseas.
The new memorandum would expand Georgia's defence strength "and security cooperation in the areas of defence capacity building, military and security cooperation".
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Fears of Russian expansionism have risen over Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its support for separatist rebels waging an insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
- 'Deeper partnership' -
Constantly alert to what it sees as post-Cold War Western efforts to surround and pressure Russia, the Kremlin firmly opposes NATO expansion on its borders.
Georgia's President Giorgi Margvelashvili and Ukraine's Petro Poroshenko will attend the Warsaw summit, but as partners not as full members.
Washington is keen not to cede any more ground to President Vladimir Putin's Russia, and Kerry's visit to Kiev and Tbilisi is meant to show that.
Asked how the Kremlin might see such a trip ahead of the NATO summit, a senior US official smiled and said: "Russia can take whatever message it likes from this."
Kvirikashvili lauded the new agreement with Washington as "an extremely important document".
"The memorandum creates new framework for deeper partnership ... for strengthening Georgia's security and self-defence capabilities."
Since 2008, Russian troops have tightened their grip over the breakaway Georgian regions, putting them 20 minutes drive from Tbilisi.
But under the NATO treaty, members have an obligation of mutual defence and few Western capitals want a direct standoff with a nuclear-armed Russia.
"NATO's activities don't strengthen the security of its members, but on the contrary provoke tensions," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned on Tuesday.
"NATO's expansionist policy underlines the aggressive character of the organisation."
- Distant dream -
With full NATO membership a distant dream and EU expansion plans in chaos after Britain's vote to leave the bloc, Georgia and Ukraine must focus on domestic reform.
Kerry also used his visit to Tbilisi to check on preparations for Georgia's parliamentary elections in October.
Georgia is rare among former Soviet states in having organised successful democratic changeovers in power since leaving Moscow's orbit -- but this year will be a test.
The poll pits the premier's Georgian Dream party, backed by billionaire tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili, against former president Mikheil Saakashvili's United National Movement.
Ukraine, meanwhile, is struggling to implement reforms promised under the Minsk Accord designed to halt the war in the east.
US officials will urge Kiev to complete its side of the deal and vow to maintain pressure on the Kremlin to reciprocate.
The EU last week renewed sanctions imposed on Russia for its role in destabilising Ukraine, but only for another six months.
US sanctions remain, but officials fear Putin will seek to retain his military leverage in Ukraine while waiting for US President Barack Obama to leave office in January.
Washington (AFP) - President Barack Obama on Wednesday put the brakes on the US pullout from Afghanistan, saying 8,400 troops will remain in the war-ravaged country into next year to tackle the threat from a resurgent Taliban.
Obama, who was elected in 2008 on a promise to end America's longest war, had previously vowed to slash the US troop presence from its current level of 9,800 to 5,500 by 2017.
But he said a still "precarious" security situation, with Afghan security forces struggling to contain the Taliban, made such a move untenable.
"Instead of going down to 5,500 troops by the end of this year, the United States will maintain approximately 8,400 troops in Afghanistan into next year through the end of my administration," Obama said.
"It is in our national security interest, especially after all the blood and treasure we've invested in Afghanistan over the years, that we give our Afghan partners the very best opportunity to succeed," he added.
With only a few months left in office, Obama said additional troops would enable his successor to have "a solid foundation for continued progress" in Afghanistan.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid mocked his announcement.
"The more American invaders in Afghanistan, the more casualties they will suffer," he said on Twitter.
"They will certainly be defeated," he added. "We have good experience in fighting the idiots. We have high morale."
- NATO mission -
Most of the US troops, operating under the NATO banner, work as trainers or advisers to Afghan forces. Around 40 NATO members and partner countries currently contribute to the overall force of nearly 13,000.
It was not immediately clear whether Obama's decision would influence other countries' troop levels, expected to be a central issue at this week's NATO summit in Poland.
"I welcome @BarackObama's announcement on troop levels in Afghanistan. A strong signal of our continued commitment," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Twitter.
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Obama's announcement effectively acknowledges that Afghan forces, which took charge of the country's security in 2015, still face massive institutional shortcomings.
They have suffered devastating setbacks at the hands of the Taliban, including the temporary loss of the northern city of Kunduz, and more than 5,000 Afghan troops killed last year alone.
Other organizations, including the Islamic State group, have meanwhile stepped up activity.
"The security situation in Afghanistan remains precarious," said Obama, who last month unveiled looser rules making it easier for US forces to strike Taliban targets.
"Afghan security forces are still not as strong as they need to be," he added. "With our help, they're still working to improve critical capabilities, such as intelligence, logistics, aviation and command and control."
- Optics and politics -
Stephen Biddle, an Afghanistan expert and professor at George Washington University, said adjustments to the comparatively small US troop presence -- the Afghans have about 320,000 police and troops -- would make little difference to local security capabilities until Afghanistan tackles issues such as deeply entrenched corruption.
"The ability of the Afghans to hold the line is not primarily being shaped by whether there are 9,800 or 8,400 or 5,500 US soldiers," Biddle told AFP, noting that the troop count is "more about the optics and the politics of this than it is about military capability."
In particular, the Pentagon needs to maintain a steady troop level to ensure continued Congressional funding for the Afghan cause, Biddle said.
Obama himself acknowledged the solution to the conflict, which has dragged on for 15 years, would not be military alone.
"The only way to end this conflict and to achieve a full drawdown of foreign forces from Afghanistan is through a lasting political settlement between the Afghan government and the Taliban," he said.
"That is why the United States will continue to strongly support an Afghan-led reconciliation process, and why we call on all countries in the region to end safe havens for militants and terrorists."
But diplomatic efforts to engage with the Taliban are in disarray. The United States in May killed the group's leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, in a drone strike in Pakistan.
Obama's decision follows a review of the security situation by General John Nicholson, the new commander of the US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan.
Republican Senator John McCain, a longtime critic of Obama's military policies, welcomed the move, but said the president should have kept the entire 9,800 US troops in the country.
Still, he said, "the decision to retain 8,400 US troops in Afghanistan into next year is certainly preferable to cutting those forces by nearly half."
US forces have been in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion to oust the Taliban in late 2001.
The United States has spent around $1 trillion in total since, and some 2,200 American lives have been lost in the longest war in US history.
nusra
Al Qaeda has thrived in Syria thanks to the continued political survival of Syrian President Bashar Assad and Washington's failure to adequately support the revolution's more moderate opposition groups, Syria expert Charles Lister wrote Wednesday.
"The principal benefactor of Assad's survival is not Assad, nor Russia, Iran, Hezbollah or even ISIS it is Al Qaeda," Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and author of "The Syrian Jihad," wrote in The Daily Beast.
"Having spent the past five years embedding itself within broader revolutionary forces and strategically choosing to limit and very slowly reveal its extremist face, Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra is reaping the rewards of our failures to solve the Syrian crisis," Lister added. His research on Syria's antigovernment insurgency has involved direct engagement with the leadership of more than 100 opposition groups from across the country.
A proposal for stepped-up coordination between the US and Russia against Nusra in Syria which would involve enhanced sharing of information about the group's positions was confirmed Wednesday in a phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama.
But the new initiative is more likely to enhance than hinder Nusra's momentum in Syria, where the group has "accepted more than 3,000 Syrians" in the country's Idlib and Aleppo provinces in the past five months.
nusra
Experts say any perceived coordination between the US and Russia is likely to increase the opposition's disenchantment with the West.
Rebels have expressed concern that weakening Nusra would strengthen Assad. And in its campaign to eliminate Syria's "terrorists," Russia has primarily bombed moderate opposition factions and civilian targets, including hospitals, schools, and bakeries.
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"The continuing mingling in places of the so-called moderate opposition" with Nusra is "complicating antiterrorist action," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month.
Acquiescing to a central Russian request, the US reportedly has begun urging rebel groups to leave areas where Nusra is present so Russian warplanes can target Nusra without hitting the mainstream opposition. To that end, the US has demonstrated that it is more willing to work on the Kremlin's terms than on those of the rebels.
Ultimately, many experts say, the opposition groups Russia has relentlessly targeted since late September 2015 are the only actors on the ground capable of challenging the influence Nusra is trying to cultivate among Syria's Sunni Arab population. Accommodating Moscow's demands in the war, then, is seen as a "slippery slope" that is more likely to serve Nusra's interests than those of the US.
'Adverse consequences galore'
Nusra's rise has boxed Washington into a Catch-22: To coordinate with Russia against Nusra would be to legitimize Assad's rule, fuel Al Qaeda's narrative, and ensure the continuation of the war. To spare Nusra and increase support for the opposition, on the other hand, would infuriate the regime and its allies and lead them to double down on the battlefield.
Emile Hokayem, a Middle East expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said on Twitter that Obama's proposal to coordinate with the Russians was likely to have "adverse consequences galore."
"Obama resisted entanglement in Syria only to embrace entanglement w/ Russia there, probably making everything worse. Do Kerry and the geniuses at the White House realize that coordinated bombing of Nusra under current circumstances will actually benefit Nusra?" he wrote, referring to Secretary of State John Kerry.
Al Qaeda Nusra Front
Some members of the Syrian opposition, however, believe Obama has prioritized US national security which he believes requires weakening Nusra in the short term over the longer-term effect it may have on Syria's revolution.
"The US has info that Nusra is trying to do something against US national interests somewhere in the world, and they are taking it very seriously," a Syrian opposition member told Al-Monitor on Tuesday. "And accordingly, they offered to Russia to work with them on that issue, to weaken and defeat Nusra, with the condition that Russia and the regime should respect the cessation and allow food and material to come into Syria."
putin obama
Experts have scoffed at the administration's hope that it can get concessions for Syrian rebels and civilians, such as more pressure on the regime to stop bombing civilian targets and to ground its air force, by agreeing to share intelligence with Moscow.
That is especially difficult, they say, given the US's lack of leverage in Syria and its demonstrated unwillingness to hold Russia or the regime accountable for their repeated attacks on civilian targets and rebel groups backed by the West.
"Russia has positioned itself militarily to guarantee that any unilateral US military action against the regime seriously risks at least a great power shooting match over Syria, if not an apocalyptic nuclear war," journalist Sam Heller wrote in War On The Rocks late last month.
Heller added: "America is currently unwilling to test Russia and directly press the regime militarily, leaving it to Russia to ensure its allies' compliance with the cessation of hostilities and deliver their buy-in for a political settlement."
assad putin
Analysts are divided over how wedded Moscow really is to an Assad regime in Syria. Some say the Russians don't care as much as the Iranians about keeping Assad in power as long as the war is settled on the Kremlin's terms. Others, however, contend that the idea that Russia would work with the Syrian government to keep state institutions intact while transitioning Assad out betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how Syria works.
"There is no regime without Assad, so if the Obama administration ever believed the Russians and the Iranians when they said they would try to transition Assad out, they were living in a fantasy," Middle East expert Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider in October. "If you take Assad out, the whole system collapses."
For the US to propose a working relationship with Russia, then, is ultimately bound to entrench Assad, whose continued survival gives Nusra a revolutionary purpose with which rebels and civilians can identify.
"By proclaiming itself specifically as a revolutionary movement fundamentally opposed to the Assad regime, Al Qaeda has sealed its future in part to that of Bashar al-Assad," Lister wrote in a briefing for the Middle East Institute in March, just after Assad and his allies recaptured the ancient city of Palmyra from the Islamic State. "Should one remain, the other will invariably survive also."
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Shares of troubled pharmaceutical company Valeant are soaring Wednesday afternoon after retailer Walgreens gave the firm a vote of confidence.
Walgreens partnered with Valeant in December 2015 to sell its products in exchange for a 10% discount on dermatological and ophthalmological products.
During a conference call following Walgreens' quarterly earnings, Co-COO Alexander Gourlay said the pharmacy was happy with the deal.
"We are satisfied and pleased with the performance in the dermatology business," Gourlay said.
"The volume is as we expected. And remember, this is we are paid for the service we provide. We're not paid on the margin mix here at all. So we are satisfied. The relationship is good."
Additionally, Gourlay expressed confidence in Valeant's newly appointed CEO, Joseph Papa, who took over the company in April.
"We know Joe well in the past from Perrigo, where the group had a very good relationship with Joe and Perrigo, and we're in constant dialog with Joe and the management team," Gourlay said. "We do see their situation, and we're very willing to help them in a positive way."
Finally, Gourlay said that they anticipated the relationship to last for a long time.
"So it's early days, a 20-year contract, and from our point of view we are pleased, and we want to help our partner to be more successful in the market," he said.
Following the news, shares of Valeant headed north. As of 2:40 p.m. ET, Valeant was up $2.68 a share, just over 13%, at $22.63.
This comes as welcome news for Valeant after a disastrous year that included redoing the past two years of financial statements, a Congressional inquiry, the firing of multiple executives, and a stock drop of 90%.
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Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. VRX announced that its partner AstraZeneca AZN has amended the companys license to its pipeline candidate, brodalumab.
As per the amendment, AstraZeneca has decided to terminate Valeants rights to develop and commercialize brodalumab in Europe. We note that brodalumab, an IL-17 receptor monoclonal antibody, is currently under regulatory review for the treatment of patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis.
The companies had inked the agreement in Aug 2015, which granted Valeant an exclusive license to develop and commercialize brodalumab globally, other than Japan and certain other Asian countries.
However, as per the amended agreement, Valeant will continue to hold the license to develop and commercialize brodalumab in the U.S. and the remainder of the territory outside Europe. In lieu of the termination of rights in Europe, AstraZeneca will pay an upfront fee to Valeant, along with certain sales-based milestone payments. Additionally, one of the pre-launch milestones, which would be paid by Valeant to AstraZeneca, has been reduced.
Earlier, in 2016, FDA accepted the Biologics License Application (BLA) brodalumab for review, as submitted by AstraZeneca and Valeant, and assigned a Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) action date of Nov 16, 2016. The Dermatologic and Ophthalmic Drugs Advisory Committee is scheduled to review the BLA on July 19.
With the termination of Valeants rights, the company will now focus on the approval and commercialization of brodalumab in the U.S. Meanwhile, AstraZeneca has granted LEO Pharma the rights to develop and commercialize brodalumab in Europe.
VALEANT PHARMA Price and Consensus
VALEANT PHARMA Price and Consensus | VALEANT PHARMA Quote
Given its current state of affairs, it is imperative for Valeant to develop its pipeline. The company has been making headlines of late, for all the wrong reasons like a price hike of specialty drugs, erroneous financial reporting and termination of contracts with Philidor Rx Services. The company also delayed its earnings release due to the review of certain accounting practices. As if the delayed results were not enough, a slash in guidance hints at more troubled conditions ahead. We believe management transition issues, heavy debt levels and persistent organizational distractions will continue to impact the companys business.
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Investors interested in the health care sector may consider stocks like United Therapeutics Corporation UTHR and Eisai Co., Ltd. ESALY.
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Verizon is increasing Its prices
Verizon is overhauling its data and pricing plan by giving customers 30% more data, but itll cost you. The largest carrier in the US announced the changes to its plans on Wednesday along with a new My Verizon app and a slew of additional features.
The carriers changes follow growing competition from the likes of T-Mobile, which has helped to upend the wireless industry with its Uncarrier initiatives that dont require contracts.
With the new plans, Verizon will charge Small and Medium plan users an additional $5 a month, bringing the cost of a Small plan to $35 per month and the cost of a Medium plan $50. That increase brings the data allotment for Small data subscribers to 2GB per month from 1GB. The Medium plan jumps to 4GB per month from 3GB.
The Large plan now costs $70 per month rather than $60 and gets 8GB of data, up from 6GB. X-Large subscribers will also pay an additional $10 a month for a total of $90 and receive 16GB of data compared to 12GB. Finally, XX-Large subscribers will see a price jump to $110 from $100 and get 24GB of data compared to the plans previous 18GB.
Existing customers wont see any price increases, but if you want the new, larger data pools, youll have to make the jump to the new plans.
In addition to the new pricing structure, Verizon says it will now allow users to carry unused data over to the next month. Unfortunately, Verizon says you can only carry data over for one month. After that it just disappears.
T-Mobile, on the other hand, lets you carry your data over for up to a year. Verizon says limiting the amount of carryover data to one month makes the process less confusing to customers. It doesnt hurt that doing so gives Verizon more opportunities to charge customers for overages and additional data.
Speaking of overages, Verizon has also unveiled a new Safety Mode that throttles your data speeds from 4G LTE to 128 kilobits per second, which is significantly slower than even the companys 3G speeds. And thats incredibly slow, it still allows you to browse the web for free without having to pay for data overages. The feature is free to X-Large and XX-Large subscribers, but if youre on a Small, Medium or Large plan, youll have to pay an extra $5 a month.
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If you do burn through your monthly data cap, you can also choose to pay $15 for an additional 1GB.
Verizon also said it will now offer free international calling and texting in Mexico and Canada to X-Large and XX-Large subscribers. But again, Small, Medium and Large subscribers need to pay $5 for the feature.
Email Daniel at dhowley@yahoo-inc.com; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.
A man escaped from the Fillmore County Jail Tuesday morning, and was re-captured later in the day in Rochester.
A Fillmore County corrections officer noticed a prisoner missing about 6:15 a.m. during breakfast wake-up, according to the Fillmore County Sheriffs Office, and soon determined he had escaped.
The escapee was identified as Dylan Bathke, 19, of Preston, who was arrested in June following a brief police pursuit after he stole a vehicle, according to Fillmore County Sheriff Tom Kaase.
Bathke was soon located in Rochester, where he was apprehended at 4:20 p.m. with assistance from the Rochester Police Department and the Southeast Minnesota Violent Crimes Enforcement Team.
The office did not release additional details Tuesday about what allowed Bathke to escape.
The Fillmore County Sheriffs Office will continue this investigation to fully explain how this happened, Kaase said in a statement Tuesday night. We will review our policies and procedures, as well as reviewing our facilitys operational aspects. We will strive to assure the safety of our public and prevent any future breeches in the security of our operations.
Bathke is facing charges of second-degree assault, fourth-degree assault of a police officer, theft of a motor vehicle, fleeing a police officer in a motor vehicle, reckless driving, and drunken driving, all stemming from the June 16 incident.
During the June incident, Bathke attempted to steal a pickup truck and at one point rammed a police cruiser during the ensuing chase before being arrested without incident.
Omkar Thakur
Volvo has brought the T8 hybrid variant of their flagship SUV, the XC90, to India for homologation purposes. The XC90 T8 hybrid demonstrates the Swedish automakers commitment towards bringing in cleaner cars while not compromising on performance.
The Volvo XC90 was launched more than a year ago with the 2-litre inline four cylinder turbocharged diesel engine. The T8 also has a 2.0-litre turbocharged inline four engine but runs on petrol and develops more than 300bhp of power output and drives the front wheels through an eight speed automatic gearbox. The rear axle gets its independent power source which is an 80bhp electric motor powered by the lithium ion batteries that sit in the now empty transmission tunnel.
The almost 400bhp four-wheel-drive XC90 sprints from zero to 100kmph in 5.9 seconds thanks to the supercharged and turbocharged engine and the supplementing torque from the electric motor. The T8 can also run for about 40kms on a full charge and hence will boost the fuel economy figures.
Volvo has built the XC90 on the Scalable Product Architecture (SPA platform) to allow varied powertrain options to be used. It gets Pure Electric, Power, AWD mode along with a Save mode which freezes the battery charge to be used later for the Pure Electric driving mode. We expect the T8 to be launched before the end of this year making it three probable launches in the calendar year 2016 the S90 sedan, the new V40 and now the XC90 T8.
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(Adds details on accepting third-party wallets, CurrentC)
By Nandita Bose
CHICAGO, July 6 (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Wednesday it has completed the rollout of its Wal-Mart Pay mobile payment service across the United States and that 88 percent of transactions on the payment app are from repeat users.
Overall transactions on the app, which the world's largest retailer launched in December, jumped 45 percent in the last week, Daniel Eckert, senior vice-president of services at Wal-Mart US, said on a conference call with the media.
Wal-Mart declined to disclose the increase in transactions since the launch, or the number of the mobile app's users in its stores.
U.S. retailers have launched many mobile payment apps in the last two years, but customers and merchants have been slow to adopt them.
U.S. mobile payments accounted for an estimated $67 billion of purchases in 2015, and are expected to grow this year to $83 billion, or 24 percent of all purchases made via smartphones, according to the latest Forrester Research data.
Eckert said Wal-Mart Pay users have not been spending more as a result of using the app. The company is monitoring shopping patterns to see if purchases would increase.
The retailer will start advertising the app to push customer usage, he said.
Walmart Pay is available on Apple and Android devices and allows payments with any major credit, debit, pre-paid or Walmart gift cards.
Customers at a checkout counter must choose the payment option within the app and use their smartphone camera to scan the code displayed at the register. An e-receipt would be sent to the app.
Apple Inc's Apple Pay and Alphabet Inc's Android Pay require retailers to install compatible new equipment, which has hindered wider acceptance.
Wal-Mart does not accept external mobile wallets like Apple Pay in its stores. Discussions about accepting third party wallets are ongoing, but Wal-Mart has no immediate plans to do so, Eckert said.
Wal-Mart leads a consortium of U.S. retailers to develop a mobile wallet app called CurrentC. The group, which includes Target Corp and Best Buy Co Inc, said earlier this year it would delay launching the app after the project hit several roadblocks.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Chicago; Editing by Richard Chang)
Lin-Manuel Mirandas final performance as the titular Alexander Hamilton in his uber-popular Hamilton is here. After this Saturday, Miranda will be handing over the reins to Javier Munoz, who co-created the musical with Miranda (if you missed Varietys interview with the new star of Hamilton, you can check it out here).
Wednesday marked the last Ham4Ham lottery performance before Miranda steps off the plate, along with Leslie Odom, Jr. and Phillipa Soo, who are turning over the roles of Aaron Burr and Eliza Hamilton to Brandon Victor Dixon and Lexi Lawson. Miranda took the stage to cap his run, while wearing a very appropriate One Last Time t-shirt, to read a real life letter from Alexander Hamilton to Eliza.
But I will one day cure you of these refractory notions about the right of resistance, (of which I foresee you will be apt to make a very dangerous application), and teach you the great advantage and absolute necessity of implicit obedience, read Miranda, as he spliced the letter with humorous quips.
Fifty Shades of Grey by Alexander Hamilton, he added as the crowd joined in laughter.
The lengthy letter expresses Alexanders extensive love for Eliza. Miranda has often stated that Hamiltons lengthy prose was the main reason that hip-hop was the perfect genre to include the high volume of words and information into lyrics.
At the end of his performance reading, Miranda brought out Soo and Odom, Jr. so the audience could bid them farewell with a rendition of Happy Trails, cue-cards included, of course.
Earlier this year, Miranda and the cast of Hamilton took home 11 out of their 16 nominations during the Tony Awards. The Chicago production opens in October, and a separate touring production kicks off this spring with 21 weeks each in San Francisco and L.A. A London staging, meanwhile, is on tap for 2017.
Next up, Soo will be starring in Broadways Amelie and the increasingly busy Miranda, who composed songs for the upcoming Disney animated film Moana, is set to star in the sequel to Mary Poppins.
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This weeks round of ETF launches has issuers hitting some familiar territory. Previous weeks have seen a variety of new subsectors and smart-beta indexes, but this week is more about fleshing out lineups and expanding existing product lines.
For mega-ETF sponsors State Street and its popular SPDRs, that meant expanding large lineup sector funds by diving deeper into subsectors within tech. For Deutsche Asset Management, this meant adding another fund to its Comprehensive Factor ETF suite. This time targeting small-caps is in the Russell 2000.
For those investors already familiar with or using these firms ETF systems, the new group of funds provides a chance to expand their opportunity sets and achieve market-beating returns.
State Street New Tech Subsectors
With more than $12 billion in assets, State Streets Technology Select Sector SPDR (XLK A) continues to be one of the most popular ways to own the technology sector. After all, it covers a wide range of subsectors and stocks involved in the industry. But for some investors wanting more from the index or in this case less the XLK does come up a little flat. With that in mind, SSgA has decided to slice and dice the XLK according to popular Global Industry Classification Standards. The first two to get the axe are internet and hardware-related tech firms. Both the SPDR S&P Technology Hardware ETF (XTH ) and the SPDR S&P Internet ETF (XWEB ) are results of that slicing.
XTH will track a basket of companies involved in technology hardware segments. This can include everything from hard/flash drive storage, peripherals, gaming systems, electronic equipment, and other components. The key is that XTH doesnt mean just computers but all technology-related hardware. So the fund isnt just a PC play. There are plenty of other stocks among its 44 holdings that have nothing to do with computers.
XWEB, on the other hand, is very much about computers. The ETF will focus its attention on those firms operating various businesses on the World Wide Web. This includes retail, travel, gaming, and lifestyle sites as well as various software-as-a-service firms. XWEB isnt the first internet-related ETF on the market; the First Trust DJ Internet Index Fund (FDN B+) is immensely popular. However, me-too funds do have their place especially when institutional investors are mandated to use a certain provider. For State Street, XWEB gives it a chance to retain clients.
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As with many of its subsector funds, SSgA has chosen to equal-weight both XTH and XWEB. Additionally, expenses for the two funds are rather cheap at just 0.35% or $35 per $10,000 invested.
Deutsche Bank Hits the Factors
For Deutsche Bank, this week meant giving investors a way to play small-caps via its popular lineup of Comprehensive Factor ETFs. The suite of funds uses a variety of fundamental screens, rather than just one or two, to build out its holdings. Already, the group of funds includes exposure to developed market international stocks and emerging markets and U.S. large-caps. Today, small-caps have been added to the mix.
The Deutsche X-trackers Russell 2000 Comprehensive Factor ETF (DESC ) will use the same screening method as its sisters funds but apply them to the broad, small-cap Russell 2000. This includes screening for smart-beta staples such as value, momentum, quality, low volatility, and size to build out its portfolio.
These screens create quite a different picture than the broader Russell. DESC skews toward micro-cap stocks and has a ton of value versus the Russells growth. This should create a very different return profile for the new ETF compared with the broader fund.
Expenses for the DESC run 0.30%.
The Bottom Line
Although the three funds this week didnt break any new ground, they still are very important and helpful for investors. The additions to State Streets and Deutsche Banks product lines only help expand the number of tools investors have to choose from. At the end of the day, they should serve a purpose for a variety of investors both small and large.
Click here to read the original article on ETFdb.com.
American Eagle (AEO)
Being a mall based retailer is not easy days as despite savings from low gas prices, consumers have been reluctant to spend. And when they shop, they prefer to shop online. Then, being a teen focused retailer makes things even more difficult because teen fashion trends change continuously and there is increasing competition from off price fashion chains.
Despite these challenges, this teen focused retailer has been able to deliver solid performance by improving merchandise and adapting to the rapidly changing tastes of their fickle teen clients. They have also improved operational performance by closing stores and controlling inventory levels. The company operates more than 1,000 stores worldwide with limited presence in the UK.
The company had reported strong results for Q1, beating on both top and bottom lines. In addition to solid growth potential, company has a dividend yield exceeding 3%. They have also been returning capital via buybacks.
AEO is a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) stock.
AT&T (T)
AT&T is a global telecom giant with very little exposure to the UK. Telecom stocks are very popular this year due to their juicy dividend yields and defensive nature.
AT&T is a dividend aristocrat with more than 30 years of consistent dividend growth. Their current dividend yield is 4.4% and they distribute about 70% of their free cash flow as dividends.
Telecom stocks are generally considered boring stocks with low growth prospects in a highly regulated industry but AT&T actually continues to grow nicely thanks mainly due to innovation as also acquisitions. Last year they had acquired DIRECTV and now have the highest position in the U.S. pay-TV market.
The company had reported strong results for Q1, beating on both top and bottom lines and has seen upward revisions in earnings estimates by analysts after results.
AT&T is also a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) stock.
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London (AFP) - The Chilcot inquiry report on Britain's role in the Iraq war could still have significant fallout when it is published Wednesday -- even though it is seven years after the probe was launched.
Here are some of the likely ramifications:
- Tony Blair -
The former Labour prime minister took Britain into the US-led invasion, making the case to the public and parliamentarians, many of whom were strongly opposed.
The justification was that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but these were never found and the intelligence was later severely criticised.
Blair's close relationship with US president George W. Bush led to accusations that he privately pledged British support for the war well before parliament agreed to it.
During the war, the International Criminal Court was petitioned to investigate alleged war crimes by Blair and his ministers relating to Iraqi civilian casualties.
The court has said it would look at the Chilcot report but noted it cannot rule on the legality of the war and could only act if British courts first refused to take up the case.
A group of MPs led by former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond is also investigating possible legal action and whether Blair could be retrospectively impeached.
In a CNN interview last year, Blair said: "I apologise for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong."
He added: "I also apologise for some of the mistakes in planning and, certainly, our mistake in our understanding of what would happen once you removed the regime.
"But I find it hard to apologise for removing Saddam."
- Relatives of soldiers killed -
Relatives of the 179 British soldiers killed in Iraq had pressed for the inquiry, amid criticism of the motivation, planning and management of the conflict, and accusations that the troops were not properly equipped.
Lawyers will be scouring the report for any potential basis for legal action against Blair, other officials or the Ministry of Defence, likely based on misconduct in office or neglect of duty.
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However, some relatives are reportedly boycotting the launch, already convinced it will be a whitewash.
- Military and intelligence chiefs -
The inquiry is expected to deal extensively with the failures in the military operation, from the planning of the war to the occupation, during which Iraq descended into sectarian violence from which it has yet to emerge.
"There is already general recognition that there were systemic failures in the operation after we entered Basra and the south," said Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director general of the Royal United Services Institute think tank.
He said British forces underestimated the strength of the local opposition and the determination of regional powers -- notably Iran -- to undermine the US and Britain.
Previous reports have criticised the failures in intelligence that led to the conclusion that Iraq had WMD, and how that was used by politicians -- but Chilcot could add to this.
Britain's Chief of Defence Staff Nick Houghton, who was a senior British military commander in the Iraq war, could be singled out for criticism, the Guardian newspaper reported earlier this year.
- Labour party, and parliament -
Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is facing a rebellion by more than 80 percent of his MPs, is expected to use the Chilcot report to bolster his position.
The veteran socialist was strongly opposed to the war in Iraq and maintains it was illegal, while many of those trying to unseat him had supported it.
But one of his supporters, Paul Flynn, said that "parliament is on trial" over the war.
"It was not just one man; it was hundreds of MPs, three select committees of this House, the military and the press who were in favour of joining a war in pursuit of non-existent weapons of mass destruction," he said.
- US-British relations -
The report will reportedly include 29 letters sent by Blair to Bush in the run-up to the invasion, which will only be lightly redacted.
There will also be some form of record of conversations between them, as well as between their successors Gordon Brown and Barack Obama.
Diplomatic wrangling over what could be published was one of the reasons why the Chilcot report took so long.
From ELLE
Just a few weeks ago Celine Dion emerged as a style star to watch...kind of out of nowhere. As I wrote then, while I know all the words to many of Dion's songs, her outfits never really brought out a similar passion. That was, until she teamed up with her new stylist, Law Roach. In a short period of time the "image architect," as he calls himself, behind Zendaya, Ariana Grande, Ruby Rose, and Skai Jackson added fashion darling to Dion's legendary CV, dressing her in It pieces from of-the-moment brands like Off-White, Demna Gvasalia's Balenciaga, and Hedi Slimane's Saint Laurent.
"It's a lot of work, but I'm having fun, and I'm actually quite humbled by all the press that it's getting," Roach told me over the phone from Paris. "I'm just doing my job, you know. But I guess I've made some good choices!" Over the next 30 minutes, Roach, who began his career as a vintage broker, shared how his relationship with Dion came to be, discussed what it's like to work with a celebrity with her star power, and revealed what else we can expect from his relationship with Celine Dion.
Everyone wants to know: How did you and Celine find each other?
She started following Zendaya and her looks. It's so funny, she knows her show K.C. Undercover because she has children, but she didn't have an idea of who Zendaya really was. But she started looking at the things she was wearing and basically said, "You know, this girl is like 19, but I can wear the same clothes that she wears because it's so sophisticated." She said she Googled who Zendaya's stylist was and when my name popped up she had her team contact me. And that's it! I went to her Vegas show (which was amazing) and then the very next day, after the Billboard Awards, we met and we sat and we talked for about 20 minutes just about fashion and who I am. There was a certain energy, it was amazing. Then the very next day they offered me the job and were like, "Well, can you come to Paris with Celine for a month?" And I was like, "Absolutely." It was crazy.
What went through your mind when you got that email from Celine's team?
When my manager first said, "Someone from Celine's team called and they want to talk to you," I was like, "Celine. Celine who? Couldn't be Celine Dion." And she was like, "No, exactly Celine Dion." I was freaking out. I mean, you have superstars and you have legends. Celine is an icon. She is an absolute icon. And when I finally had the conversation with her and she told me how she found me and Googled my work-like one of the looks she referenced was of Zendaya from New York Fashion Week a few years ago. She went back that far. I was like, "Wow, Celine Dion is Googling me and knows so many things." The thing about Celine is she's very into fashion. She reads the magazines and she's very current. Which I was surprised about. So it was beyond. She's telling me all this stuff and I'm like, "Celine! I can't take too much more!"
How does actually getting ready for this come together?
I have an French assistant who's here working with me and I have [one in] L.A. as well. But we don't even do that many fittings. I'm so emotional about fashion that I can't plan looks. We have a workroom that's full of clothes and Celine comes down every day to get dressed in the morning and we just go on how I'm feeling or what pieces are talking to me. And I just pull the look. She comes in and I dress her and that's it!
Was it hard to get designers to lend to her?
Well, let's back up. I had no idea Celine Dion didn't really get fashion press. That was news to me. It's Celine Dion; when you do see her she always looks great! So before I came to Paris I reached out and many people said no. And then after your write-up, all the show rooms were like, "We'd love to send you stuff for Celine." And now it's crazy. Everyone's clamoring to dress her now.
I'm sure they are.
You know, Celine loves fashion. She was speechless after the Giambattista Valli show. It was the cutest thing. I said, "Celine, when is the last time you went to a fashion show?" And she said, "Twenty years ago." And in interviews she's said I just want to thank my stylist for bringing me back to what I love so much.
You can tell from the photos that she's really having fun with it.
Yeah she is. And she is one of the most humble, down-to-earth people I've ever met in my life. She is a dream. An absolute dream. I mean, when I found out about the job I was like, She's a probably a diva and if she is she deserves to be, so I'm going to come in and just do my job. But when we had our first fitting, which was like a three-hour fitting, we laughed the whole time. I was like, Who is this woman? She's such a lady, in a vintage way. I haven't seen that in a long time in this profession. It's amazing.
She's been going through a hard time, so it's nice to see her so happy.
Yeah, she's definitely having fun and it makes me excited about her and want to work 10 times harder. When I see how happy she is, I'm like, Okay, what's next?
So you're with Celine for the rest of the month?
We're in Paris until the 10th [of July]. We have four more looks to go.
Will you continue working with her after this?
Yeah, yeah. We're stuck together [laughs]. If I could afford to work for free I probably would. It's all about the feeling I get when I see [my clients] feel their most beautiful. I'm very flattered by all the press. I was just thinking, Oh this look is great, Celine is going to love this. Or Zendaya is going to love this and feel beautiful and amazing in this. Women feeling happy and excited and beautiful is what feeds me.
How does Zendaya feel knowing that she inspired Celine Dion?
She was like, "Celine Dion knows who I am?" [laughs].
Paris (AFP) - Britain's shock vote to leave the EU is bad news for NATO and for Europe's defence cooperation in general, experts said ahead of this week's NATO summit.
"It's bad news for everyone," said Camille Grand, director of the Fondation pour la recherche strategique (RFS, or Strategic Research Foundation) in Paris.
"In NATO, the British will have less influence because the US will no longer necessarily rely on them," as Washington has long seen London as a useful lever to exert US influence within the EU, he added.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg of Norway said he was "certain" that Britain would remain a key force in the alliance despite its June 23 Brexit vote to leave the 28-nation European Union.
One of his NATO predecessors, Dutchman Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, warned that the British vote "will negatively affect the close relationship between the EU and NATO which the UK had been a key part of."
Brexit also risks plunging Britain back into recession, threatening to cut its $60 billion defence budget, already hit by austerity cuts in recent years.
- Kremlin 'buoyed' by Brexit -
In the immediate term, the vacuum left by Brexit threatens above all to play into the hands of Russia, which sees any weakening of Europe as boosting its strategic interests.
"News of the referendum undoubtedly buoyed spirits in the Kremlin today, where leaders will view it as confirmation that Europe is weak and disunited," said Christopher Chivvis of the non-profit RAND Corporation.
He added: "This could encourage a more aggressive Russian stance against NATO in the future."
"But if Brexit is a near-term problem for NATO, it is a much bigger blow to the EU's long-struggling effort to build up its own security and defence capability," he added.
The EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) will wither as a result of losing one of the continent's main military powers, experts said.
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The United Kingdom and France are the only two European nations with substantial military assets including nuclear weapons and able and willing to intervene in external conflicts.
Britain heads up Europe's anti-piracy Operation Atalante off the Horn of Africa, helps hunt migrant smugglers in the Mediterranean and contributes to EU's Battlegroup rapid-reaction force.
- Europe divided -
"The most serious thing about Brexit, is that Europe will be divided and will therefore be unable to focus on strategic issues," said Grand.
Britain's negotiations to leave the EU will likely take years, even if the bloc's leaders would like it to go faster.
"It is likely that those who want to push Britain out the door as quickly as possible will clash with those who want to accommodate their wishes," said Pierre Razoux of the Institut de Recherche Strategique de l'Ecole militaire (IRSEM) in Paris.
The challenge is all the greater because Europe is facing the biggest threat since the end of the Cold War on its eastern flank, where Moscow is showing new appetites, and on its southern flank with growing pressure from migrants and jihadists.
The departure from the EU of Britain, fiercely opposed to military integration within the EU, could in theory boost European defence coordination long sought by EU heavyweights France and Germany.
- Major military power lost -
But creating a European military command and finding more money for EU operations, both blocked by London, will represent a "marginal" gain compared with the "loss of a major military power," said Grand.
Europe could find itself diminished at a time when the United States, more concerned by Chinese threats in Asia, is asking the Europeans to do more for their own defence.
To avert any such dangerous development, some argue that the EU and Britain should retain defence ties as close as possible.
"We have integrated Canadians and Georgians into European operations," said an aide to French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
"We should perhaps find some kind of closer association status so that the United Kingdom continues to commit itself to EU operations,
In a highly unusual public statement Tuesday morning, FBI director James Comey said Hillary Clinton and her aides may have violated the law in using a private email server when she was Secretary of State, but that their actions didnt warrant criminal charges. In its year-long investigation of how government secrets got onto the server, Comey said, the FBI found evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, but he said, we are expressing to [the] Justice [department] our view that no charges are appropriate in this case.
In the American system, justice depends not only on judges and juries, Comey said, but also on the decisions of investigators and prosecutors. Law enforcement officials weigh a number of factors before bringing charges, he said, and to make those decisions responsibly they must consider the context of a persons actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past. Normally those calls are made behind the scenes, but Comey said because the case had received intense public interest he had decided to lay out why Clintons actions didnt justify prosecution.
Comey brings nonpartisan credibility to that decision. As described in a TIME profile last March, he investigated Bill and Hillary Clinton in high profile controversies over the years, including the failed Arkansas real estate deal known as Whitewater, Bill Clintons last minute Presidential pardons in January 2001, and now the e-mail investigation. As George W. Bushs Deputy Attorney General from 2003 to 2005, Comey also bucked Vice President Dick Cheney and his allies over warrantless eavesdropping and the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plames identity.
From the start of the Clinton e-mail case last summer, Comey instructed his agents to pursue the investigation independently, former senior FBI official John Giacalone told TIME in March. Comey put 20-30 agents on the case full time, and they collected and read tens of thousands of e-mails, and forensically analyzed multiple servers and mobile devices used to send and receive messages. They also conducted dozens of interviews, including with Clinton and her closest aides.
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Over the course of the investigation, the agents found thousands of emails that contained information that should have been treated as government secrets, Comey said Tuesday, including eight messages that had Top Secret information in them. All those messages had been sent or received through unsecure, unclassified channels on Clintons private e-mail network. And while agents found no direct evidence that the network was hacked, the FBI thinks it is possible some hostile actors may have done so. That combination of facts led Comey to declare Tuesday that Clinton and her aides had been extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.
Technically speaking, that conclusion could have put Clinton in legal jeopardy. The laws regarding handling of classified information dont authorize punishing government officials for carelessness, but they are written so broadly they come close. One section of the Espionage Act, 18USC793(f), for example, says anyone authorized to handle secrets who through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. Other laws controlling government secrets are similarly broad, especially with regard to Top Secret material.
In practice, however, law enforcement officials have set a high bar for prosecuting violations of those laws, looking for clear criminal intent, which Comey said was absent in the Clinton case. Because the government is awash in secrets, they are regularly mishandled unintentionally. In 2013, according to the National Archives, which tracks classification, executive branch agencies created more than 77 million documents with secrets in them, including 46,800 with newly created secrets. The FBI receives dozens of referrals of leaked classified information every year, according to Justice Department declarations to Congress.
Prosecutors have also been wary of testing whether broad prosecutions under the espionage laws would hold up in court, especially in cases of news organizations pursuing Secret or Top Secret information for publication. In the Clinton probe, investigators found that at least some of the classified information referred to was contained in a newspaper article that aides then forwarded to Clinton.
To be sure, the Justice department has been aggressive in prosecuting leaks in some cases, especially under President Obama. But Clintons mishandling of secrets did not clear the bar for prosecution, Comey said Tuesday, when compared to other cases that have been taken to court. In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts, Comey said.
Normally, thats a judgment made in private to avoid damaging the reputation of someone investigators arent prepared to prosecute. Back in 2002, when he was the top U.S. prosecutor in Manhattan investigating Bill Clintons 11th hour pardons, Comey declined to go public with his findings. I cant really go into it because it was an investigation that didnt result in charges, Comey said at the time. That may be a frustrating answer, but thats the one Im compelled to give. On Tuesday, Comey said he was breaking with that tradition because the American people deserve [details of the investigation] in a case of intense public interest.
Comeys statement Tuesday appeared to anger both parties. Republicans including the GOP presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan criticized Comey for deciding not to recommend charges. Clinton surrogates criticized him for choosing to publicly discuss the matter at all.
It remains to be seen whether either decision will shield the FBI from allegations it has been politicized four months before the November election.
It has been quite a week for Hillary Clinton. On Tuesday, FBI Director James Comey recommended against criminal charges in the wake of an investigation into Clintons use of a personal e-mail server during her time as secretary of state. It was the second piece of good news for Clinton in a matter of days: A week earlier, House Republicans found no new evidence of wrongdoing by Clinton in an investigation into the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.
That is, its good news for Clinton up to a point. Investigations into the e-mail server and Benghazi attacks have loomed over the Democratic Partys presumptive presidential nominee like a dark cloud. Clinton undoubtedly hopes to put these scandals behind her with the Democratic National Convention less than a month away. Yet both investigations have yielded results that Donald Trump, and other opponents, can seize on to reinforce the perception of many voters that Clinton is a corrupt politician who cant be trustedeffectively guaranteeing that the criticisms will persist regardless of how hard the Clinton campaign works to distance itself from controversy.
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Clintons political enemies will not find it hard to pick and choose from the FBI findings to make an argument that she cant be trusted. I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time it was sent and received, Clinton said in July 2015. During a January 2016 interview on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd, Clinton said she never sent or received any material marked classified. In his briefing on Tuesday, Comey reported that 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined ... to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Later on, Comey noted that only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked classified in an e-mail, he said, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it. If nothing else, the FBI findings read like a rebuke that Clinton should have known better.
For that reason, the investigation could undermine Clintons case that her judgment makes her better suited to be president. Comey explicitly said that though there was not clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. The accusation of carelessness may undercut Clintons case that she, unlike Trump, is an experienced and steady hand, capable of keeping the nation safe. The charge also threatens to feed suspicions harbored by her opponents that the Democratic candidate doesnt think the rules apply to her. That, in turn, could further erode public confidence in Clinton.
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Comey made other assertions as well that could easily show up in attack ads against Clinton. The FBI discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not in the group of 30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014, Comey said during his press conference, adding that some had been deleted over the years. The FBI director insisted that there was no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them, but Republicans could easily trot out the assertions to raise questions over Clintons conduct with regard to the e-mail server.
As long as Republicans can keep doubt over Clintons trustworthiness alive, they can ensure that she never manages to escape controversy. And even if Clinton is formally exonerated for using a private e-mail server, Trump can simply argue that the verdict is proof that the system really is rigged in her favor. He has already started making that case explicit: FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow! #RiggedSystem, he tweeted on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Republicans can point to a recent meeting between former President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch to argue that Clinton has been unjustly shielded by the administration, regardless of Lynchs insistence last week that she was prepared to accept the FBIs recommendations.
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Similarly, the House Republican Benghazi investigation can be used by critics to question the extent to which Clinton has been protected from retribution by well-placed political allies and raise the possibility of corruption. As Politico noted , the Benghazi report criticizes what it called the administrations shameful stonewalling of the investigation, adding that the administrations refusal to turn over all records to the panel made it impossible for committee investigators to say with certainty that they have reviewed all the facts surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi that left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.
For their part, Clintons campaign will have to work tirelessly to beat back criticisms that seem destined to linger long after these investigations have concluded. The campaign has already characterized the House Republican Benghazi investigation as a partisan effort to discredit the candidate. On Tuesday, Clinton spokesperson Brian Fallon reacted to Comeys press conference in a statement, saying: We are pleased that the career officials handling this case have determined that no further action by the Department is appropriate. As the Secretary has long said, it was a mistake to use her personal email and she would not do it again. We are glad that this matter is now resolved.
The notion that anything has been fully resolved, however, seems overly optimistic. No matter how much she wants to put controversy behind her, Clintons opponents can make sure it remains present in the minds of voters: They will continue to dredge up allegations of wrongdoing and raise questions over her culpability as long as it appears that to do so will be politically expedient. Clinton may wind up legally exonerated, but she may not fare nearly as well in the court of public opinion. She is guaranteed to face plenty of obstacles as she battles on toward the White House. And in yet one more indicator that Clintons path to the presidency is far from clear, a spokesman for Bernie Sanders announced on Tuesday that the FBIs assessment will not impact the Vermont senators decision to remain in the race.
Read more from The Atlantic:
This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Washington (AFP) - Imprisoned transgender soldier Chelsea Manning was briefly hospitalized this week, the US Army said Wednesday amid media reports the famous intelligence leaker had attempted suicide.
Manning's legal team, however, was unable to contact their client to ascertain the circumstances surrounding her visit to the hospital.
Army spokesman Colonel Patrick Seiber told AFP that Manning had been taken to a local hospital in Kansas's Fort Leavenworth area on Tuesday morning.
"She was returned to the disciplinary barracks yesterday morning," Seiber said, without providing any information on Manning's medical condition.
Celebrity news site TMZ.com cited an unnamed source saying Manning had tried to hang herself and was currently being monitored.
And CNN, citing an official who also spoke anonymously, said Manning was hospitalized after an apparent suicide attempt.
Manning's lawyer Nancy Hollander reacted furiously to the apparent disclosure of medical information to the media, noting she'd had no word from the Army about Manning's condition.
"We're shocked and outraged that an official at Leavenworth contacted the press with private confidential medical information about Chelsea Manning, yet no one at the Army has given a shred of information to her legal team," Hollander said in a statement.
The attorney said she had been due to call Manning on Tuesday only to be told by Army officials that the call "could not be connected."
"The Army has told (Manning's) lawyers that the earliest time that they will accommodate a call between her lawyers and Chelsea is Friday morning," Hollander said.
"Her lawyers and friends who care deeply about her well-being... are profoundly distressed by the complete lack of official communication about Chelsea's current situation," she added.
Army officials did not immediately respond to a request for response on Hollander's comments.
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Originally called Bradley, Manning was convicted in August 2013 of espionage and other offenses after admitting to handing classified documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
After sentencing, Manning announced she identified as female and later obtained legal authorization to change her name and receive hormone therapy.
She remains, however, in a men's military prison in Kansas, where she is appealing a 35-year sentence.
From Cosmopolitan
After months of shooting in and around Vancouver, on-site production on the Fifty Shades movie sequels Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed just wrapped, author E. L. James confirmed on Instagram, barring reshoots. It's likely been kinky hard work for all those involved on the films' crew, and also for the ~hardcore~ fans (yes, that pun is intended) who've spent countless hours watching and waiting and salivating over the filming process. Fans like Lisa Fish, otherwise known as Fifty Shades Girl Portland, a blogger and writer of the Fifty Shades Location Guides.
Over the past few months, Lisa has been a near-constant presence on (or, OK, as close as she can get to) the Fifty Shades set, watching exterior filming across the city and sourcing intel from both the crew and a network of fellow fans on social media. She's a treasure trove of information on all things related to the franchise, and spoke with Cosmopolitan.com about her best practices and biggest fangirl moments while on scene in Vancouver. Don't ask for spoilers though, because she's not here for that.
Is FSoG blogging your full-time gig?I mean, I'm a fan first. Right now, I have two good friends that are helping and supporting me because when you're on the street all day I tell them, I feel like I'm in a tunnel. I have no idea what's going on outside of what I'm seeing and doing and I'm taking photos. But I don't get paid for anything; I don't sell any [of my photos]. I've been approached to sell, even though [the real-deal] paparazzi are here. They're putting out so much stuff I'm just different than them. They are going for the money shots, and I respect that.
Do you ever see this evolving - maybe one day you would want to sell your photos and intel?Right now, I'm happy doing what I'm doing. I've had to just consciously decide that I'm not posting [spoilers] - I could jump ahead and go take photos of where they're going to be filming and post them. I've decided I'm not doing that. I'm not going there. I'm trying to uphold my integrity. I don't want to spoil the movies! I don't want to go there. I'm holding a few things now that I'm just going to sit on until they're finished, and then I'll share with the fans.
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You're with same paparazzi every day, right? Do you have any sort of relationship with them now?They're an interesting group. They're very big in Vancouver. We don't have any anything like them in Portland; there's no paparazzi there. In Portland, I follow other shows - I've been following [the NBC show] Grimm for about two years, and I know the show's cast and crew pretty well. I was also following Twilight before - the first movie was filmed all around Portland so I was out with friends, going to all the locations, scouting things out. But [Fifty Shades] is a different fandom than Twilight.
How so?It's older - somewhat older. I don't think you have the, "Oh my god, that's" fandom. Although the other day when I was filming Jamie Dornan, some girls came up behind me and they were freaking out. They were just so excited.
How do you feel about the casting? Do you think they've done a good job?I think it's wonderful. They've brought in a lot of really good people. I kind of met them - I came up for the [Fifty Shades of Grey] reshoots in October of 2014. I was working at the time, but I was able to drop it and just come. For the first two days [of reshoots], they were shooting downtown. I was able to follow along for all the scenes that were filmed outside. That was really incredible. And I met Jamie Dornan. Jamie is the nicest guy - his accent really surprised me. He made me fangirl! I did not meet Dakota, but I saw her and smiled at her a lot. I've met E. L. James and Dana Brunetti and Sam Taylor-Johnson. I actually got to talk with her [when I came up for reshoots] for a little bit, and she nicely signed a book I had for me. She was wonderful.
And do you watch the actors interact when they're not shooting?I do a lot of that. They're very friendly, always smiling and chatting with each other.
In terms of tracking them down, how do you keep up with where filming is happening?Twitter! That's about it right now. I'm in a Twitter group [with other fans], so they can update me or tell me if something's changed, if something's going on, or if somebody reported this.
E. L. James is really active on Instagram. If you know Vancouver, it's very easy to see where she is.Yeah. I don't know if she realizes that. [Laughs.] She has also been on the set almost every day throughout filming and I admire her for it. She is always very positive to her fans - always with a wave or hello that we all appreciate. She is a remarkable woman.
But I don't go to their hotels [or follow them from Instagram off-set] because that's their personal life. I'm not going there. The filming, that's my interest, seeing what's happening on the set, seeing what's going on. It has been an amazing experience to be so close to it. The crew and actors have been incredibly kind and generous. I have learned so much about the technical side of filming by watching them.
And have you ever seen any of the cast outside of filming?Yes, I did last week! It was a stunner. They had been filming late. I think Dakota left the set around 5, 5:30 p.m. It was probably an hour after she left; I left and I was just walking to my car, and I looked up and I heard her laugh - it was Dakota, a friend, and her bodyguard, who I recognized, right in front of me on the street. I was just like, "Oh em gee." I did not actually approach her or speak to her. She turned with her friend and went into one of the shops right here, and he stayed outside. I walked past - now, maybe a crazed fan would have been all over it with photos. I'm like, "No, she's on her own time." So I just hung around and watched.
It must be weird. It's like seeing someone out of context almost.It was really weird, because it was like all the weeks I've been here, I've been watching her on set [in character] the whole time. It was really strange to see her just out and about. Nobody recognized her, saw her, or anything.
So on a day of filming, what does your day look like?It's varies a lot - today, they're filming in [Ana's] apartment, for example, so they're inside. I know last night, they were there until 9 still filming. Today was supposed to be four or five scenes inside so I don't know how late, but they ended up doing a late start today because [they went] late last night. I find all this out through Twitter; it just varies a lot. [I can't tell you too much] because that's my bread and butter.
They also spent a whole day filming on The Grace, Christian Grey's yacht out in the Howe Sound just north of Vancouver, for example. It was a beautiful, sunny day and I think it will play out as a significant part in movie.
So the first Fifty Shades movie, did you enjoy it?I liked the movie. Of course I did!
Are you nervous about the director change?No. What I've seen so far is amazing. I think [James Foley] has brought in new people, but I think they're his people - people he's worked with before. He's bringing something completely different. Everybody says the sequels are going to have a very different look - I've heard it's going to be more of a thriller. Everybody's been telling me that on the set.
And in terms of book versus movie, what's your preference?
That's a tough one. After being so attached to the book, when I see scenes getting filmed that are straight out of the book, I get really excited about that. It's incredible just seeing those scenes come alive. And that's why I'm here, to see things happen that are straight out of the book.
A trick went terribly wrong on live television in Poland when a shows co-host got stabbed through the hand with a nail.
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While appearing on the morning show, Question for Breakfast, magician Marcin Poloniewicz stood a nail in one of four paper bags, mixed them up, and slammed his hand down on one of the bags, without hitting the nail.
Then Poloniewicz, whos appeared on Polands Got Talent, asked the shows co-host, Marzena Rogalska, to do the same. I dont want the one with the nail, she begged.
Poloniewicz took her hand, saying, Well do this on three, okay? Watch out. One, two
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Then he slammed her hand down on a bag, but the outcome wasnt nearly as positive.
She hit the nail, and it went through her hand. She screamed out in pain, as Poloniewicz said live on-air, "Oh f---, Im sorry. I pierced your hand. Really. I pierced her hand."
Crying out, and at one point bending toward the ground, she cried out, "Ow, that hurt!" as her co-host said, Please, dont let this be happening for real. The magician then whisked her off the set.
Rogalska, who was rushed to a hospital, later issued a statement saying that the wound was superficial, and that she was doing fine. He didnt mean for this to happen, she said.
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As analysts and scholars compose their first drafts of the history of the Obama administrations foreign policy, a chapter will surely address what were once dubbed rising powers, a group that included Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and others. But the optimism of 2008 when the so-called BRICS were ascendant, ready to reshape global economics and politics has turned to doubt. The impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and a Russian doping scandal that only a Soviet could be proud of are just the latest unmistakable signs that a surge of newly powerful nations collectively remaking the world stage is hardly a sure thing. A few years ago, a mortal rupture in Europe would have invited crowing over the demise of the West and the rise of the Rest. Now, the picture is more complicated: Europe is in disarray, as are several of the might-have-been beneficiaries of the continents turmoil.
And as the United States looks ahead to a new administration come January, its approach to shifting global power relations will be ripe for a rethink. Amounting to neither a freshly minted set of trusty democratic allies nor a cohesive counterweight to the Western order, newly powerful nations are proving to be less predictable, more fragmented, and ultimately more reinforcing of U.S. power than even Washingtons own intelligence establishment predicted a decade ago.
In the latter years of the George W. Bush administration and the early part of the Obama years, rising or so-called emerging powers seemed to captivate the foreign-policy establishment. Foundations and think tanks proffered rising powers projects, conferences, and white papers. Some were bullish. Analysts, including Princetons Anne-Marie Slaughter and John Ikenberry, predicted the rise of a group of new democracies with Brazil, India, and South Africa topping the list that would grow into natural allies for the United States. Everyone from John McCain to Madeleine Albright (who promoted the idea nearly a decade before others cottoned on to it) advocated uniting democracies in a global alliance premised on shared values and joint action.
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On the flip side, other academics and analysts anticipated that the rise of new powers could only herald an American decline. In 2010, University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Alfred L. McCoy predicted imperial collapse and painful daily reminders of what such a loss of power means for Americans in every walk of life. A detailed study prepared by officials from rising powers and published by Oxford University Press in 2012 explicated the synergies and complementarities that had already catapulted the BRICS into a leadership position globally. As Autonomous University of Madrid professor Susanne Gratius wrote in 2008: In recent years a number of emerging nations have been challenging the position of dominance of the old powers, which are dropping down the international pecking order. The downcast lot predicted that the decline in relative importance of the United States would be matched only by that of Europe, inaugurating what historian Timothy Garton Ash termed Europessimism, a creeping sense that the continent was being edged out by the fast-rising states of China, India, Brazil, and Russia.
The one thing the two sides agreed on was that the shifts wrought by rising powers would be tectonic. In Mapping the Global Future, an influential analysis published by the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC) in 2004, intelligence experts predicted that the arriviste powersChina, India, and perhaps others such as Brazil and Indonesiahave the potential to render obsolete the old categories of East and West, North and South, aligned and nonaligned, developed and developing. The report made headlines like 2020 Vision: A CIA report predicts that American global dominance could end in 15 years.
Not so fast, as it turned out. Many of the premises undergirding these predictions evaporated in the ensuing decade. The genesis of global focus on rising powers was a 2001 analysis by Goldman Sachss Jim ONeill that forecast faster, more consistent growth rates among emerging economies that would position them to gradually dominate the world stage, eventually leaving only the United States and Japan among the traditional industrial powers still ranking among the top six global economies. The bank focused on Brazil, Russia, India, and China a group that ONeill dubbed the BRICs and, later, the BRICS, after South Africas induction. While Goldmans analysis was full of caveats, policy wonks focused on the breathless expectation of sustained, rapid growth by emerging economies. Goldmans anointment of the BRICs as the emerging markets most likely to succeed prompted a flurry of prognosticators to formulate their own acronym accolades: MIST (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, and Turkey which ONeill designated as next in line after the BRICs) and SANE (South Africa, Algeria, Nigeria, and Egypt supposedly the African continents leading up-and-comers). Britains Telegraph went so far as to publish a full lexicon of the emerging-market alphabet city.
Fifteen years later, several of those BRICS (not to mention MIST or SANE) are crumbling, done in by self-dealing, asset bubbles, stock market swoons, commodities fluctuations, and finite supplies of low-wage workers. In a warning published in January, the World Bank predicted negative growth in Brazil and Russia, just over 1 percent growth in South Africa, steady growth of 7.8 percent in India, and a shortfall from expectations in China topping out at 6.7 percent. As the Financial Times put it: What had once been the brightest spark in the global economy has now become its big headache. Late last year, Goldman finally shuttered its BRICS investment fund, which had lost 88 percent of its value since its 2010 peak.
The problems arent merely economic. Politically, several of the BRICS have proved similarly unstable. The rise of emerging powers was premised on the notion that they were domestically stable, ready and able to consistently project global influence. While some analysts spotlighted corruption, institutional weakness, and political dysfunction as risks, such concerns were often relegated to the footnotes. As the 2020 NIC project put it in its report: Only an abrupt reversal of the process of globalization or a major upheaval in these countries would prevent their rise.
Yet in South Africa, Brazil, and Russia, corruption and governance failures have proved catastrophic. Whether you think Rousseff is being rightfully targeted or unfairly scapegoated and no matter what you make of charges that her interim successor is trading favors for the votes to impeach her none of it augurs well for Brazilian governance. In South Africa, President Jacob Zuma narrowly withstood an impeachment campaign and now clings to office as a lame duck in what is effectively a one-party democracy. While Russia and China continue to project firm centralized authority, their intensifying crackdowns on dissidents, lawyers, and influential cultural figures bespeak regimes nervous that corruption and economic slowdowns could turn their populations restive.
Back when rising powers were in style, theorists diverged on what to expect from their foreign policies. Some expected the leading democracies to align with Washington, whereas others foresaw a solid political bloc of BRICS holding Western influence in check. Neither vision came true. In their approach to international human rights and humanitarian intervention, rising democracies have been influenced by their post-colonial identities far more than their modern political bedfellows, emphasizing respect for sovereignty over the moral imperative of civilian protection or conflict prevention. Brazil and India abstained on the 2011 U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against Libyas Muammar al-Qaddafi, anxious about the prospect that intervention could lead to regime change. Those two countries and South Africa have taken a reticent approach to handling the civil war in Syria, straddling the middle, but with a tilt more toward Russia and China than the United States and Europe.
But while dreams of a powerful alliance of democracies have been dashed, the nightmare scenario of a solid BRICS wall has also failed to manifest. While the BRICS do meet periodically as a group, diverse growth rates, population sizes, carbon emissions levels, wealth, and other indicators dictate diverging interests on issues including the global economy and trade, climate change, nuclear proliferation, and conflicts in the Middle East. BRICS countries have come together to form their own development bank, a rebuke to the Western-dominated International Monetary Fund and World Bank system. But the two most powerful and stable nations in the bloc, India and China, are increasingly at odds over terrorism, Beijings regional ambitions in the South China Sea and beyond, and New Delhis strategy of hedging through strengthened relations with the United States and Japan.
Analysts were right to draw attention to the rapid growth and expanded international profile of a new set of countries. Individual nations, including China, Russia, and India, have become far more important to the United States and the rest of the world than they were a decade ago. Yet the expectation that this group as a group would collectively remake global power relations has not materialized. With most of the emerging-powers programs and projects having gone the way of Goldman Sachss erstwhile fund, it falls to the rest of us to consider what conclusions to draw from the rise and fall of the concept of rising powers.
A few observations arise. First, the United States status as what Madeleine Albright once called the indispensable nation remains intact. The United States is far from omnipotent and has bumped up hard against the limits of its diplomatic influence and military capabilities in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. But when it comes to catalyzing global action and providing the decisive voice in whether, and to what degree, a global conflict Libya, Syria, the Islamic State, Ukraine, climate change, Ebola, take your pick will be addressed at a global level, no other countrys say comes close to Washingtons. With the exception of Russia (where President Vladimir Putin seems motivated by dual desires to check the United States and perpetuate his own personal power), no other rising power has sought to call the shots nor assumed an obligation to lead outside its region.
Second, Europe still matters. The implicit logic of the rising powers was that they would leave the continent a relic of a bygone era of power relations. Despite its economic stagnation, political malaise, refugee crisis, and rising right wing, Europe remains, by far, the United States most stable and reliable major ally. While Brexit has dealt a major blow to the European Union, it is likely to further strengthen U.S. relations with Berlin, Paris, and any other European capital that may stand in for London as Washingtons go-to conduit within the union. Just as many Brits belatedly seem to be awakening to just how important the EU is, so Washington may emerge from the crisis with a heightened sense of appreciation for the bloc. Whether on Iran, Ukraine, the Islamic State, or virtually any other issue, European support is the necessary if no longer sufficient precondition for U.S. action to enjoy legitimacy.
As President Barack Obama came to recognize this, he was forced to maneuver what Politico described as a pivot from a pivot of sorts, turning back from his heralded rebalance to Asia to try to keep the continent in one piece amid severe political and humanitarian strains. Rather than a series of rotating pivots, each of which cancels the other out, Washington needs to perfect a 360-degree model of leadership, where focusing on one region does not come at the expense of others. If U.S. diplomats can pursue major new trade agreements at the same time as a nuclear deal with Iran and a climate change accord, there is no reason the commensurately robust, parallel regional overtures should be mutually exclusive.
A third conclusion derived from the uneven rise of new powers is that Chinas rise has rendered the United States more, not less, globally important. Rather than becoming the has-been many predicted, the United States, due to Chinas surging influence, has become a far more important ally to countries throughout Asia and beyond. As Chinas regional neighbors seek to fortify themselves against the behemoth next door, their relationships with the United States have both broadened and deepened. The U.S. pivot to Asia is now being driven as much by local demand for an American presence in the region as it is by Washingtons fear of being edged out. Recent discussions about arms sales and even the possibility of a renewed U.S. military presence in Vietnam are only the latest manifestations of thickening ties between the United States and numerous allies in the region, including South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
The reality of geopolitical ups and downs also warrants revisiting some of the major policy prescriptions that grew out of the rising powers literature. Many analysts stressed the urgent need to reform the U.N. Security Council to reflect updated global power dynamics. Analysts called for permanent seats for Brazil and India on a revamped U.N. Security Council and urged the United States to take the lead on restructuring, lest a reconfigured group be somehow foisted upon it.
If one subscribes to the idea that overhauling the Security Council (which still operates as it did when it was originally established in 1946, with five permanent veto-wielding seats reserved for Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States) is inevitable in the near future, it may be to Washingtons advantage to push reform through sooner rather than later. But, unlike a decade ago, the incentive to move now is not because excluded countries are so strong. Its because they are relatively weak. Brazil and South Africa, two of the most prominent Security Council aspirants, are limping. While India is in good shape, regional resistance to enhanced status for New Delhi remains entrenched. A new U.S. administration may be able to advance a proposal to address the Security Councils anachronistic makeup while perpetuating a council that Washington can work with. Few countries will be fully satisfied with proposals to leave most of the councils structure (including the crucial five veto-wielding permanent seats) intact while creating about half a dozen semi-permanent members that serve renewable, four- to five-year terms. But Washington and many others could live with this rather modest version of reform. The United States may be well-served by helping to effectuate it rather than awaiting a time when new powers are back in a position to demand more.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has a tendency to describe rising powers in apocalyptic terms: In 2007, he said, Weve gone from this tremendous power that was respected all over the world to somewhat of a laughing stock. And all of a sudden, people are talking about China and India and other places. This year, he repeated his prediction that a Chinese economic tsunami that will engulf the United States. His Democratic counterpart, Hillary Clinton, has looked at rising powers pragmatically, helping to engineer a heightened U.S. focus on Asia and forging regular strategic dialogues with Brazil, India, and South Africa. As secretary of state, though, she resisted calls to privilege an anointed few and instead worked to cultivate a broad portfolio of partners, including Indonesia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Kenya, Chile, Japan, and many others. This portfolio approach to alliances investing broadly, with the knowledge that some of the energy expended will be wasted, that other relationships will prove indispensable, and that it is hard to know in advance which is which acknowledges that country trajectories hinge not just on growth fundamentals and geopolitics, but also on individual leadership qualities and luck.
After 9/11, and once the long-term damage to the United States global standing began to recover from the 2003 Iraq War, foreign-policy thinkers started opining about what would come after what Charles Krauthammer once dubbed the countrys unipolar moment following the end of the Cold War. Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations projected a nonpolar era, with power widely dispersed. New Americas Sherle Schwenninger and others forecast a multipolar world. The prognostication-defying fate of the BRICS over the last decade, not to mention last weeks Brexit shocker, may point to a more unsettling prospect: an ambipolar world ambivalent, ambiguous, ambient where power is diffuse and national fortunes rise and fall to a rhythm too complex for any theory to adequately reflect.
So rather than betting heavily on specific winners and losers, the United States should diversify its diplomatic capital, recognizing that predicting the path of the worlds rising powers is an uncertain business at best.
Photo Credit: NELSON ALMEIDA / Staff
Image via FOURSIX
Image via Foursix
New Yorks Foursixa seven member collective comprised of Amoedo, Ashlee, J-Pay$o, Jahnei, Verde Madera, Zach Day, and Zinocapture the energy of their hometowns summer evenings on new single Nothing Yet.
Producer Jahnei says the inspiration for Nothing Yet struck him while [he] was skating in front of [his] school, thinking about some girl, listening to a song by [his] favorite producer Lido.
It was kinda windy out, he continues. I went back to my dorm and created a cool vocal effect and started mumbling dumb wordsa couple days later, I liked it enough to play it for Verde [Madera] and J-Pay$o.
Humble origins led to a fitting soundtrack for lazy summer dusk, the aimless byproduct of days drained by heat and Coronas, concrete wanderings and small adventures. Madera and J-Pay$o pine for fleeting romances over Jahneis shifting production, which feels as indebted to 808s and Heartbreak-era Kanye West as to the post-Jeremih courtship of R&B and downtempo electronic.
In its small way, Nothing Yet says as much about the state of New York hip-hopnow the infinite melting pot, rather than staunch purveyor of a single soundas it does its young creators, searching for inspiration in every moment and sound.
Nothing Yet is the intro to Foursixs upcoming debut album The Manhattan Project. Listen below.
For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL July 06, 2016 Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include Energy Transfer Equity L.P. (ETE), Williams Companies Inc. (WMB), Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI), Hess Corp. ( HES) and BP plc (BP).
Today, Zacks is promoting its ''Buy'' stock recommendations. Get #1Stock of the Day pick for free.
Here are highlights from Tuesdays Analyst Blog:
Oil & Gas Stock Roundup
It was a week where oil prices moved higher on fading Brexit concerns, while natural gas futures soared to a 13-month high.
On the news front, Energy Transfer Equity L.P. (ETE) walked away from the merger with Williams Companies Inc. (WMB), while Kinder Morgan Inc. ( KMI) agreed to sell a 50% stake in its Utopia Pipeline Project.
Overall, it was a good week for the sector. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures added 2.8% to close at $48.99 per barrel, while natural gas prices jumped 12.2% to $2.987 per million Btu (MMBtu). (See the last Oil & Gas Stock Roundup here: Crude Down on Brexit Vote, Court OKs Energy Transfer's Pullout from Williams Deal .)
Oil prices moved north for the first time in 3 weeks on subsiding fears about the effects of Brexit the short way of saying Britains exit from the EU on crude demand. A weaker dollar, which made the greenback-priced crude cheaper for investors holding foreign currency, also lent support.
Things were further helped by the U.S. Energy Department's weekly inventory release that showed a large drop in crude stockpiles. However, some of the gains were erased after the Baker Hughes report revealed a rise in the U.S. oil rig count indicating resurgence in shale drilling activities.
Oils-Energy Sector Price Index
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Natural gas gained big following another lower-than-average build and predictions of strong cooling demand with forecasts of warmer temperature across the country over the next few days.
Recap of the Weeks Most Important Stories
1. Texas pipeline operator Energy Transfer Equity L.P. reported that it has ended its merger agreement to buy rival natural gas pipeline company Williams Companies Inc., following the ruling by the Delaware Court of Chancery.
Few days back, the court ruled in favor of Energy Transfer Equity. Notably, the ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Williams to hold Energy Transfer Equity to the deal. In May, Williams took the legal step when Energy Transfer Equity expressed concerns over the merger citing that the deal had not secured the necessary legal opinion to make it tax-free for shareholders.
But much to the dismay of Williams, the Delaware Court concluded that Energy Transfer Equity is contractually entitled to end the merger agreement with Williams in the event that the companys counsel Latham & Watkins LLP were unable to deliver a required tax opinion prior to the merger deadline date of June 28, 2016. (See More: Energy Transfer Terminates Merger Deal with Williams .)
2. Houston, TX-based energy infrastructure provider Kinder Morgan Inc. announced that it has divested a 50% stake in the Utopia Pipeline Project to private equity firm Riverstone Investment Group LLC.
Per the agreement, Riverstone would provide an upfront cash payment, consisting of the reimbursement to Kinder Morgan for its 50% share prior capital expenditures and a payment in excess of capital expenditure to recognize the value created in developing the project. The total project cost is estimated at $500 million.
The Utopia Pipeline is a common carrier project that will include approximately 215 miles of new, 12-inch diameter pipeline constructed entirely within the state of Ohio - from Harrison County to Fulton County. The pipeline will facilitate the transport of ethane and ethane-propane mixtures to petrochemical companies operating in Ontario, Canada, to be used as a feedstock in the production of plastics. (See More: Kinder Morgan Divests 50% Stake in Utopia Pipeline Project .)
3. Energy producer Hess Corp. (HES) tasted success in the Liza-2 exploration well in the Stabroek block, offshore Guyana. The results indicate that Liza prospect is a world-class oil discovery with estimated recoverable resources between 800 million and 1.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
Located in the Stabroek block, the Liza wells are about 120 miles (193 kilometers) offshore Guyana. The Stabroek block spans across an acreage of 6.6 million acres (26,800 square kilometers).
Drilled by an affiliate of Exxon Mobil Corp., the Liza-2 well was drilled to a total depth of 17,963 feet (5,475 meters) in 5,551 feet (1,692 meters) of water. The Exxon Mobil unit is also the operator of the Stabroek block with a stake of 45%. Other partners in the block are Hess Guyana Exploration Ltd. and CNOOC Nexen Petroleum Guyana Ltd. with 30% and 25% interest, respectively. (See More: Hess Announces Positive Exploration Results from Liza-2 Well .)
4. British energy major BP plc (BP), on behalf of Tangguh Production Sharing Contract Partners, declared that its Tangguh Expansion Project in the Papua Barat Province of Indonesia has received approval for the Final Investment Decision (FID).
This FID decision follows the Government of Indonesias approval of the Plan of Development II in late 2012. The contracts for the projects key engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) are anticipated in the third quarter of 2016, while the construction is expected to begin soon afterward. The project is scheduled to come online in 2020.
The scope of the project includes construction of a third LNG process train (Train 3). The production capacity will also be augmented by 3.8 million tons per annum (mtpa), thereby increasing the total plant capacity to 11.4 mtpa. This apart, the project has two offshore platforms, 13 new production wells, an expanded LNG loading facility and supporting infrastructure.
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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
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ENERGY TRAN EQT (ETE): Free Stock Analysis Report
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For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL July 06, 2016 - Stocks in this weeks article include: Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. (FDP), Ryerson Holding Corp. (RYI), Spark Energy, Inc. (SPKE), OMNOVA Solutions Inc. ( OMN) and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT).
Screen of the Week of Zacks Investment Research:
5 Stocks Near 52-Week Highs Set to Soar Even Higher
Trading like a pro requires a dependable investment strategy that can help you rake in some good money. Some of the sliest tricks of successful investing are hidden in plain sight which are often disregarded.
One such tried and tested technique is picking stocks nearing their 52-week highs, as it seldom disappoints when clubbed with the right set of parameters.
Why 52-Week High is a Good Indicator
At the core of the 52-week high investment strategy lies the much debatable adjustment and anchoring bias. Stemming from a psychological stance, this phenomenon asserts that investors generally use the 52-week high price as a reference point and value stocks against this anchor. They shy away from buying stocks if they are near their 52-week highs even if there is positive information. Investors think that these stocks may under react to any news and thus lose their sheen.
This opens up the other side of the argument that such under reaction leaves these stocks somewhat undervalued, particularly in the context of their growth drivers. Investors are jolted awake by encouraging news from these stocks and rush in to take positions. The renewed confidence propels prices even higher. As a result, these stocks begin to soar beyond their 52-week highs, eventually attaining higher price levels. There may be a broad set of factors including impressive sales, robust profitability and bullish earnings prospects driving the stocks up. Recent major developments may also send these stocks soaring.
Another theory put forward by market watchers and experts is that the price level of these stocks reflects their momentum more transparently than past changes in prices. It means if a stock is trading close to its 52-week high, chances are that it will perform better in subsequent periods. So investing in stocks near their 52-week high is akin to following the momentum strategy, which is based on the understanding that once a trend is established it is most likely to continue.
Story continues
However, betting on these high-flying stocks without a clear investment blueprint may be risky. There is no denying the fact that these stocks are trading near their 52-week highs and bear the risk of falling fast as the market might consider them overvalued.
And for that very reason weve added a few other parameters to devise a foolproof strategy.
We will screen for stocks which are close to their 52-week highs, but still have strong growth prospects relative to their respective industries. In addition, weve made sure these stocks are relatively undervalued compared to their peers, in terms of earnings as well as sales.
With positive momentum in the stock price, blended with strong earnings growth expectations and great value metrics, we believe these stocks will continue their uptrend for quite some time to come.
A Safe and Sound Strategy
Current Price/52 Week High >= .80
(This simply measures the ratio between current price to the highest price at which the stock has traded in the past 52 weeks. A value greater than 0.8 implies that the stock is trading only within 20% of its 52-week high range and is likely to touch the 52-week threshold soon.)
% Change Price 4 Weeks > 0
(It ensures that the price of the stock has moved north over the past four weeks.)
% Change Price 12 Weeks > 0
(This metric ensures that the stock has continued its upward price momentum over the past three months we well.)
Price/Sales <= XIndMed
(Lower the ratio, the higher is the benefit for investors as they have to pay a smaller price for the same amount of sales generated by the company.)
P/E using F(1) Estimate <= XIndMed
(This metric measures the amount that an investor will invest in a company to obtain one dollar of that companys earnings.)
One-Year EPS Growth F(1)/F(0) >= XIndMed
(This metric will help in zeroing in on stocks that have growth rates higher than the industry median. This is a meaningful indicator as decent earnings growth always adds to investor optimism.)
Zacks Rank = 1
(No screening is complete without our proven Zacks Rank, which has proved its worth since inception. It is a fundamental truth that stocks with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy) have always managed to beat adversities and outperformed the market.)
Current Price >= 5
This parameter will help in screening stocks which are trading at a minimum price of $5.
Volume 20 days (shares) >= 100000
Inclusion of this metric ensures that there are substantial volume of shares that can be traded easily.
Here are five of the nine stocks that made it through the screen:
Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. (FDP): This company and its subsidiaries are engaged in the production, marketing and distribution of fresh and fresh-cut fruit and vegetables across the globe.
Ryerson Holding Corp. (RYI): This company along with its subsidiaries is engaged in the processing and distribution of metals like stainless steel, aluminum, carbon steel, and alloy steels, as well as nickel and red metals. The stock has an impressive four-quarter trailing surprise of 118.19%.
Spark Energy, Inc. (SPKE): This retail energy services company is engaged in the distribution of natural gas and electricity to residential, commercial, and industrial customers. The company has a stellar four-quarter trailing surprise of 780.42%.
OMNOVA Solutions Inc. (OMN): The company offers emulsion polymers, specialty chemicals, and engineered surfaces for clients in commercial, industrial, and residential domains across North America, Europe, and Asia. The company has a decent four-quarter trailing surprise of 78.57%.
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT): The company, together with its subsidiaries, offers fixed and mobile voice related services, IP/packet communications services, telecommunication equipment and other telecommunications-related services to clients across the globe.
You can get the rest of the stocks on this list by signing up now for your 2-week free trial to the Research Wizard and start using this screen in your own trading. Further, you can also create your own strategies and test them first before taking the investment plunge.
The Research Wizard is a great place to begin. It's easy to use. Everything is in plain language. And it's very intuitive. Start your Research Wizard trial today. And the next time you read an economic report, open up the Research Wizard, plug your finds in, and see what gems come out.
Click here to sign up for a free trial to the Research Wizard today .
Disclosure: Officers, directors and/or employees of Zacks Investment Research may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material. An affiliated investment advisory firm may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material.
Disclosure: Performance information for Zacks portfolios and strategies are available at: https://www.zacks.com/performance.
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Disclosure: Officers, directors and/or employees of Zacks Investment Research may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material. An affiliated investment advisory firm may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material.
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Zacks.com created the first and best screening system on the web earning the distinction as the "#1 site for screening stocks" by Money Magazine. But powerful screening tools is just the start. That is why Zacks created the Screen of the Week to highlight profitable stock picking strategies that investors can actively use. Each week, Zacks Profit from the Pros free email newsletter shares a new screening strategy. Learn more about it here https://at.zacks.com/?id=112
About Zacks
Zacks.com is a property of Zacks Investment Research, Inc., which was formed in 1978. The later formation of the Zacks Rank, a proprietary stock picking system; continues to outperform the market by nearly a 3 to 1 margin. The best way to unlock the profitable stock recommendations and market insights of Zacks Investment Research is through our free daily email newsletter; Profit from the Pros. In short, it's your steady flow of Profitable ideas GUARANTEED to be worth your time! Click here for your free subscription to Profit from the Pros.
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Zacks.com provides investment resources and informs you of these resources, which you may choose to use in making your own investment decisions. Zacks is providing information on this resource to you subject to the Zacks "Terms and Conditions of Service" disclaimer. www.zacks.com/disclaimer .
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
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FRESH DEL MONTE (FDP): Free Stock Analysis Report
RYERSON HOLDING (RYI): Free Stock Analysis Report
SPARK ENERGY (SPKE): Free Stock Analysis Report
OMNOVA SOLUTION (OMN): Free Stock Analysis Report
NIPPON TELE-ADR (NTT): Free Stock Analysis Report
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On Jul 4, 2016, we issued an updated research report on Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc. ZBH a major player in the musculoskeletal industry. The consolidated company formed post the merger of the legacy Zimmer Holdings and Biomet, is successfully expanding through strategic mergers and acquisitions.
The companys recent $1 billion LDR buyout deal should bolster its presence in the $10 billion global spine market by expanding its portfolio of innovative solutions and providing a strong foothold in the fast growing cervical disc replacement market. This transaction is also expected to drive significant financial benefits for the consolidated company post 2017.
Additionally, its net synergies from the Biomet merger are currently anticipated to exceed $350 million in pre-tax by the end of the third year, post transaction. The company also expects the merger to contribute 95 cents to $1.05 to adjusted earnings per share with $135 million of pre-tax, net synergy savings in the first year of the acquisition. Moreover, the growth rate of adjusted earnings per share beyond 2015 is likely to accelerate.
We are also encouraged about the slowly stabilizing global musculoskeletal market. The last three reported quarters witnessed gradual stability in this market with better-than-expected sales growth in certain geographies, banking on improved procedural volume. This was driven by favorable demographics and growing utilization of musculoskeletal healthcare in emerging markets and under-penetrated developed markets.
However, macroeconomic uncertainties, pricing pressure and unfavorable currency adversely impacted sales in the first quarter of 2016. As expected, currency headwinds continued as a major threat, accounting for the sluggish top line worldwide. The huge margin contraction also posed hurdles. In addition, intense competition in the orthopedic market continues to raise concerns.
Key Picks in the Sector
Some medical product stocks worth a look are Boston Scientific Corporation BSX, ICU Medical, Inc. ICUI and NuVasive, Inc. NUVA.
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BOSTON SCIENTIF (BSX): Free Stock Analysis Report
NUVASIVE INC (NUVA): Free Stock Analysis Report
ICU MEDICAL INC (ICUI): Free Stock Analysis Report
ZIMMER BIOMET (ZBH): Free Stock Analysis Report
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Zacks Investment Research
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China's famously strict Internet rules regarding news websites took another odd turn this week: News sites cannot publish stories sourced from social media without official approval.
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the country's official agency tasked with governing Internet affairs, put the new rules in place.
SEE ALSO: Turkey's internet censorship after the Istanbul attack is nothing new
"Online media basing news reports on contents made on social media must verify them before publication," reads the directive published on Xinhua, China's state-run new outlet.
In the report, several of China's top tier sites are mentioned as having previously run afoul of the agency, including sina.com, ifeng.com and 163.com. A separate report from the South China Morning Post indicates that Tencent's Qq.com and Caijing.com.cn have also been punished by the country's Internet agency for posting what it deemed to be "fabricated" news.
Image: Ted S. Warren-Pool/Getty Images
CAC recently saw the exit of its leader, Lu Wei, a high profile official who has met with a number of U.S. technology leaders, including Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. The reason for Lu's departure hasn't been detailed, but the agency quickly moved to put Lu's former deputy director, Xu Lin, in place as the new head of the agency.
And while the new rules are likely to further curtail the distribution of information from China's social media sites, not much changes with regard to Chinese citizens getting info from U.S. social media sites, as sites including Facebook and Twitter remain blocked in the country.
Google Chromecast and Google Chrome are two popular Google products that work well together. But in order to cast content from your browser to a TV connected to a Chromecast, you still need a browser extension to handle the functionality. If that seems strange to you, given that Google controls both the software and the hardware, don't worry: Google is working to fix it.
DON'T MISS: Foxconn spy shot reveals new iPhone 7 details no one saw coming
As Ars Technica reports, Googles latest Chrome build comes with a built-in Cast feature. In version 51, youll be able to throw media from your device to your TV directly from the browser without worrying about needing an extra piece of software thats also developed by Google to handle the connection. If you have updated to version 51 and the Cast option isnt there yet, it should be out soon, Ars says.
google-chrome-chromecast-cast
All you have to do is update Google Chrome to version 51 and, voila, the Cast feature will be there in your settings menu, as seen in the screenshot above. As expected, a Chromecast is still needed to make everything work you wont be able to cast any media to your TV without the Google dongle.
Google also streamlined the delivery, meaning that Chrome will control the parameters automatically so that you dont have to worry about resolution, bitrate or quality.
Ars points out that in version 52, currently in beta, users will also be able to cast a tab into a video Hangout. The feature requires a little extra work from the user, however Cloud Services have to be enabled.
Related stories
Google's next-gen Nexus devices are going to be monsters
Google's full-disk encryption in Android can be hacked
Best thing about Google's 2016 Nexus phones: They'll finally copy the iPhone properly
More from BGR: Elon Musk: Teslas Autopilot software could save half a million lives every year
This article was originally published on BGR.com
Apple's next-generation iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus (or iPhone 7 Pro?) will be two of the most popular smartphones of all time following their release later this year. "Boring" or not, Apple's new iPhones always draw a crowd and while this year's designs appear strikingly similar to last year's iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, each new report firms up the notion that these new iPhones will represent a bigger upgrade than most people thought.
It's the outside of the iPhone 7 we'll focus on in this post though, as a new leak likely shows us what Apple's new iPhone 7 will look like when it launches this coming September.
MUST SEE: Foxconn spy shot reveals new iPhone 7 details no one saw coming
Two big leaks on Tuesday helped firm up the idea that this year's iPhones could end up being much more exciting than people thought. First, BGR drew everyone's attention to a spy shot captured at Foxconn that seemingly shows a slide from an internal presentation. On the slide, we likely learned of two brand new iPhone 7 features that no one saw coming.
Then later in the day, The Wall Street Journal reaffirmed earlier reports suggesting that Apple will do away with the 16GB storage tier on its entry-level iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, instead opting for 32GB base models. This is huge news for Apple fans who will apparently get twice as much storage for the same price this year.
Now, moving back to the outside of the phone, a new leak may have just shown us exactly what the finished iPhone 7 will look like when it debuts late this summer.
An image pulled off of Chinese website Baidu and reposted by a blog called TechTastic does not show a finished iPhone 7, as some have suggested. What it may show, however, are the outer components of an iPhone 7 put together from real iPhone parts currently in production in Apple's supply chain.
iphone-7-5
Reports have suggested that Apple's new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus have entered production, and that certainly would make sense considering how many millions of units Apple will need to build just to meet demand at launch. With parts now moving in bulk at Foxconn and elsewhere, leaks are picking up pace.
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The iPhone 7 build shown above doesn't have final branding and stamping on it, but it may indeed be physically complete, at least on the outside. It shows a slim smartphone that looks a great deal like an iPhone 6s, but it has the redesigned antenna lines and the larger camera lens we're expecting. It also lacks a 3.5mm headphone jack, which is expected as well.
Apple's new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will likely be unveiled at a press conference in early to mid-September ahead of their release later that month.
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Angry about the iPhone 7 headphone jack? Apple has a long history of making people angry
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This article was originally published on BGR.com
Google is also accused of restricting manufacturers from installing rival versions or modifications of Android, an open source software operating system, on their phones (AFP Photo/Justin Sullivan) (Getty/AFP/File)
San Francisco (AFP) - Google on Wednesday announced a deal to buy Moodstocks, a French startup behind technology that helps smartphones recognize whatever they are aimed at.
Moodstocks caught the US technology giant's eye for its work in computer vision and machine learning, as well for accomplishments in enabling smartphones or other mobile devices to recognize images and objects.
Google is among Silicon Valley titans investing in ways to get computers to see and understand the world around them the way people do.
Machine learning has been woven into an array of Google offerings, such as its free language translation and photo services.
"There's a lot more to be done to improve machine vision," Google France tech site lead Vincent Simonet said in a blog post.
"That's where Moodstocks comes in."
The Moodstocks team, described as a small group of researchers and engineers, will join a Google research and development center in Paris, according to Simonet.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Google and its parent Alphabet are expected to integrate the image search team in artificial intelligence efforts.
At its annual developers conference in May, Google unveiled a virtual home assistant device that will challenge Amazon Echo.
Google Home, about the size of a stout vase, will hit the market later this year and will incorporate new virtual assistant software.
When Home hits, it will challenge Amazon Echo voice-controlled assistants that have proven to be a hit since the Seattle-based online retail colossus unveiled them two years ago.
Many Internet companies are exploring the promise of artificial intelligence -- for example, smartphone applications that can learn a user's habits and anticipate searches and requests.
Microsoft, Apple, and Google have each created their own virtual assistants for users.
(Photos: Michael Conroy/AP, Cliff Owen/AP)
by Rob Pegoraro
Before concluding that no reasonable prosecutor would file criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for using a private email system as secretary of state, FBI Director James Comey called her communications habitswhich on rare occasions included sending classified information via this unofficial channelextremely careless.
Comey scolded the email practice of Clinton and her colleagues, criticizing the State Departments entire security culture as generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government.
But his harshest critique may have come towards the end of the remarks he delivered Tuesday morning, when the FBI director mentioned Clintons international email use.
She also used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries, Comey said. It is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clintons personal email account.
Tech-travel advice for the paranoid
Security experts agree: When you visit countries with a habit of snooping on their citizens and visiting Americans, you cant use your devices and your apps as you would at home.
I use the most secure devices I can, only bring the most absolutely necessary data and access with me, and wipe everything when Im done, said Rich Mogull, CEO of Securosis, when I asked him for advice before a business trip to China I made in April.
For one recent international trip, that amounted to taking only an iPad and iPhone. He wiped each device clean before traveling, then set them up with a subset of his usual apps that included virtual private networking (VPN) software to create a secure connection to U.S. sites.
(AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
He also used a prepaid SIM card for the iPhone instead of his regular SIM, which could otherwise be reprogrammed over the air.
Chris Soghoian, chief technologist with the American Civil Liberties Union, said he takes a Chromebookhe called it a great, secure burner devicefor international travel. He endorsed a useful Chrome OS feature if you fear an inspection of your device by U.S. customs and immigration officials: an easy-to-use reset to factory defaults button in the settings.
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In certain destinations, it may be safer not to use your devices. Thats the plan Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology, settled on before a trip to Russia in May followed by more overseas travelhed keep his iPad off while in the country.
Fortunately, not everybody will be of interest to another countrys spooks. If you arent a target like a corporate exec, government official, or security consultant/analyst, then you dont need to worry as much, Mogull told me.
In April I took my phone and laptop to speak on a panel at the IFA Global Press Conference in Hong Kong and its affiliated CE China show across the border in Shenzhen. While in China, I used Truphone SIM loaned by that London firm, I only used my laptop on the hotels WiFi, I installed no apps or app updates and I set OS Xs firewall to refuse all incoming connections. Somehow, almost every U.S. site worked on both devices.
This is why encryption matters
But a secretary of state is a giant target who cant take a technology sabbath when she leaves the country. She must stay in touch, securely.
Thats doable only with encryptionbut we dont know if the private mail system Clinton foolishly had set up years before we learned of its existence in 2015 used cryptography effectively.
Considering how long ago this began, Clintons phone probably didnt incorporate a level of encryption that would scramble its data even if the device were lost or stolen the level that stymied the FBIs attempt to get into the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters until security researchers found a software flaw it could exploit. Fortunately, cabinet secretaries with security details should face zero risk of a phone going astray.
(While in China, I was amused to see one local phone vendor make crypto a selling point: CE China exhibits included a phone by Shanghais Vargo Technology that touted a variety of encryption features. I could not find anybody from the Ministry of State Security to grade their effectiveness.)
Its more important whether Clintons mail system used encryption to secure messages on their way to and from the mail server, then across the Internet to her correspondents. We dont know that either; Comey didnt even use the word encryption in his statement.
Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a campaign rally in Columbus, Ohio, U.S., June 21, 2016. (Photo: Aaron Josefczyk/Reuters)
But while most mail systems now support these kinds of encryption, historically that wasnt the case. I must note here that Yahoo Mail trailed competitors such as Gmail (commended by Comey in his talk for its focus on security) in this regard until a couple of years ago.
That said, we also dont know if the State Departments own email would have offered more protection, considering its sorry record of being hackedin November of 2014, State briefly shut down its unclassified-mail system after one intrusion.
I would like to think that Clinton will listen to the IT departments advice from now on. But theres also a lesson to be learned from this debacle about encryptions importance. Has it adequately informed Clintons tech policy? The vague statements in it about crypto suggest we dont know that either.
Email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com; follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro.
Apple's mobile platform has continuously grown more and more capable over the years. iOS continues to get exciting new features with each new update, enhancing in-built functionality for end users and offering plenty of new APIs for developers. Of course, there are some areas where Apple will likely never budge, and more enthusiastic iPhone and iPad users get around those limitations by jailbreaking their iOS devices.
That's why new software releases are so bittersweet for hardcore users who jailbreak their devices. On the one hand, it means new features are coming. But on the other, it means they cannot update their devices with the new software until an associated jailbreak is released to the public.
Well, we have good news, jailbreakers: The wait for a public iOS 10 jailbreak might not be very long at all.
MUST SEE: Foxconn spy shot reveals new iPhone 7 details no one saw coming
There is an ongoing cat and mouse game between the jailbreak community and Apple.
Each new iOS release plugs holes present in earlier released, which in turn often prevent current jailbreak methods from working on new iOS builds. Then the various programmers active in the jailbreak community go on a fresh new hunt for exploits, and eventually a new jailbreak is released for the latest version of iOS.
iOS 10 marks the next stage of this ongoing battle and from the looks of things, it won't be much of a fight. Apple's new iOS 10 software won't be released to the general public until sometime this coming September, but it looks like a team of Chinese iOS hackers called Pangu have already managed to jailbreak iOS 10.
The second iOS 10 beta was just released on Tuesday but even before Apple's second developer release, Pangu had cracked into iOS 10. During the Mobile Security Conference (MOSEC) in China last week, Pangu team members gave a presentation that covered a number of security issues surrounding iOS. At the end of the presentation, as noted in a recent blog post by Stephen Chan, the team showed a slide that included a screenshot of Cydia installed on iOS 10.
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ios 10 jailbreak
Cydia is the jailbreak community's version of the iOS App Store, and it can only be installed on a device that is jailbroken.
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Angry about the iPhone 7 headphone jack? Apple has a long history of making people angry
After iPad and MacBook Pro, Microsoft is taking on the iMac with new kind of Surface
More from BGR: That time Huawei took a photo with $4,500 camera but said it was a $475 phone
This article was originally published on BGR.com
Microsoft surprised fans last year with a great MacBook Pro alternative, a high-end 2-in-1 Surface Book laptop that nobody saw coming. The Surface Book line joined the regular Surface models to better compete against Apple MacBooks and iPads. A report that flew under the radar last week claims that Microsoft is working on the next generation of Surface-branded devices. Among them, theres an iMac-killer as well, which would become the companys first Surface desktop.
DONT MISS: Foxconn spy shot reveals new iPhone 7 details no one saw coming
According to sources from the supply chain who spoke to Digitimes, Microsoft pushed the release of the second-generation Surface Book to 2017 following shipping delays of Intels Kaby Lake CPUs.
But Microsoft is apparently going forward with making an all-in-one computer under the Surface brand that will be released in the third quarter of 2016 at the earliest. The device is going to compete against similar Windows-based products made by Microsofts partners, but it will also take on Apples iMac.
Currently, Lenovo and Apple are the top two all-in-one PC vendors, Digitimes notes, with global all-in-one sales expected to drop from 14 million in 2015 to 12.6 million this year.
Actual details about the Surface all-in-one are not yet available, but considering the bar that Microsoft set for itself with the Surface Book, were definitely curious to see Microsofts vision for a high-end iMac rival.
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More from BGR: Netflix is coming to Comcast set-top boxes later this year
This article was originally published on BGR.com
How can you love and hate a phones design at the same time? Its pretty easy actually. Just take the iPhone 6 and 6s. Look at it from the front. Gorgeous. Flip it around, and let me know how you feel about those antenna lines, and that protruding rear camera. Yes, these represent necessary compromises between design and engineering teams.
Lets move on to an upcoming hot pair of handsets, the HTC-made 2016 Google Nexus handsets, which should be unveiled at some point in the coming months. A new leak tells us what to expect from the "Marlin" and "Sailfish" when it comes to design, and we have good and bad news.
DONT MISS: Angry about the iPhone 7 headphone jack? Apple has a long history of making people angry
Lets start with the good news first. Google seems to finally get it this year. The bigger Nexus doesnt have to be different from the smaller one. They should have the same design and hardware, and thats whats going to happen this year, Android Police reports.
The two HTC handsets will look almost identical, with the only differences between them being overall size, a source told the Android blog. Based on that information, Android Police created the following render:
google-nexus-2016-marlin-sailfish
The HTC Nexus design is inspired by HTCs existing Android flagships, and its made of metal but well get to that in a second. The phone wont have HTC branding, and theres no Nexus label on the back either. Instead, a G might be present. Theres also no rear camera hump, and the fingerprint sensor is present on the back of the phone.
Which brings us to the phones rear shell, which is absolutely hideous. The top part is made of glossy plastic or glass, and its meant to let internal radios communicate with the outside world. Isnt that what antenna lines (which HTC uses on all of its One phones) should do? No, the mix of glass and aluminum isnt cool at all. Id take ugly antenna lines over that any day.
If that sounds familiar, thats because the HTC EVO 4G LTE featured a similar rear case, which was also hideous. Lets have a look at it:
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bgr-htc-evo-4g-lte-8
Android Police also says the rear camera will have three holes next to it, which are rather mysterious. One could handle auto-focus, one could be a microphone, and the third could be some other sensor.
When it comes to colors, the phone might be available in a few different options. The standard seems to be a white face with a standard aluminum finish, but the render above shows the dark gray/black version. An electric blue version is also apparently in the works (white face and glossy rear panel).
So there you have it. The 2016 Google Nexus phones will be amazing thanks to a brand new uniform design, stellar hardware and great performance assuming recent rumors pan out but they might just be the ugliest Nexus phones of all time.
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More from BGR: How to install iOS 10 beta 2 on your iPhone or iPad without a developer account
This article was originally published on BGR.com
(Reuters) - The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating a July 1 crash in Pennsylvania of a Tesla Model X to determine whether automated functions were in use at the time of the accident, the agency said on Wednesday. NHTSA is looking to learn whether Tesla's Autopilot function, a semi-autonomous technology that helps drivers steer and stay in lanes, was at play. NHTSA is currently probing a May 7 fatality of a Tesla Model S driver using Autopilot. In a statement, Tesla Motors Inc said, "Based on the information we have now, we have no reason to believe that Autopilot had anything to do with this accident." Tesla said it had received an automated alert from the car indicating airbags had been deployed, but never received logs containing details about the state of vehicle controls - which would indicate whether Autopilot was on or off. Multiple attempts to reach the car's owner were unsuccessful, Tesla said. NHTSA said it was collecting information from state police, Tesla and the driver, Albert Scaglione of Farmington Hills, Michigan. NHTSA's disclosure last week of its probe into the May crash in Florida that killed a Model S driver using Autopilot has focused attention on the nascent technology that Tesla has said is still in "beta," or test, mode. While Tesla has said drivers are responsible and their hands should be on the wheel even as the car takes over more control, some industry experts have questioned whether such partially autonomous systems lull drivers into a false sense of security. In the Pennsylvania crash, state police said the Model X struck a turnpike guard rail, then veered across several traffic lanes and into the median, where it landed on its roof in the middle of the roadway. The driver and a passenger were injured, according to the police report. (Reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit, Alexandria Sage in San Francisco; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Chris Reese)
A screenshot of the official 2016 Republican National Convention mobile app, released Wednesday.
The Republican National Convention launched its official 2016 mobile app Wednesday morning, the latest facet of what is slated to be, by far, the most tech-savvy political convention season to date.
The smartphone app, which is now available for download in the Apple and Google Play stores, resembles those that have become staples of music festivals and other large events in recent years. The GOP convention will be in Cleveland from July 18 to July 21.
The app provides delegates, press and other convention attendees with a list of hotels in the Cleveland area and a guide to the free convention shuttle bus stops closest to each hotel; the guide also has real-time updates on shuttle bus departure and arrival times. The app also uses Google Maps to provide driving directions to and from the convention venue, as well as interactive guides to restaurants in the Cleveland area and specific destinations, including bathrooms, within the Quicken Loans Arena, the site of the convention.
A screenshot of the app.
In addition to maps, another product of the GOP conventions partnership with Google which has prompted a backlash from anti-Trump activists is the apps live-streaming video feature. Though the app now displays a static countdown to the convention, the convention promises gavel-to-gavel live-streaming of the conventions proceedings so that anyone with the app will have every moment in the palm of their hand.
The app will also provide live, 360-degree footage from the convention for the first time ever, according to a press release from the convention.
Although only 12 days are left until the convention begins, the newly released app isnt entirely ready for primetime. The interactive convention venue map, for example, is not yet available nor is the event schedule. In fact, the only name now listed in the Speakers section is George Washington.
Still, the product which was developed with AT&T, the conventions official communications, video and technology provider already seems light-years ahead of the first-ever convention apps released by both the Republican and Democratic conventions in 2012.
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Neither political party has launched an app as technologically advanced for their respective national conventions, the convention said in its press release announcing the apps launch Wednesday.
Thats a challenge the Republicans Democratic counterparts are happy to accept. Although unable to confirm a release date for its own official app, Democratic National Convention spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein told Yahoo News: When our convention app launches, with more inclusive and engaging features than ever before, it will indisputably raise the bar.
The Democratic National Convention will be in Philadelphia from July 25 to July 28.
He has ridden a bike, received a medal, flown a kite and learned the alphabet. He has even traveled into space.
Since the Curious George series began in 1941, the beloved childrens book character has also celebrated different holidays. The playful monkey took part in Christmas, Hannuka and Easter traditions.
But in 75 years Curious George had never celebrated Ramadan.
Until now.
George is taking part in the Muslim holy month in the new book, Its Ramadan, Curious George.
An Islamic religious center in the state of Maryland, the Diyanet Center of America, held a public event for the new book. Eight-year-old Amina expressed joy to have a popular character like George represent Muslims.
When I see a monkey celebrating Ramadan, and he does all this stuff, I am surprised, she said.
Writer Hena Khan is a Pakistani-American and a Muslim. She shows George making food for late night feasts. She also has George playing games throughout the day with his friend Kareem. This helps Kareem keep the daytime fast, a period of no eating.
Later, while enjoying the peaceful sound of evening prayers, George breaks his fast with a sweet date. Later at the mosque, the famed monkey helps the imam prepare food and gather clothing for people in need.
After a whole month of daily prayers, fasting and giving to the poor, Curious George celebrates Eid-al Fitr, marking the end of the fast.
Khan says the publishing company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, invited her to write the book. It has published the Curious George series for 75 years.
Khan said, They found me because I had written two other books about Islam and Ramadan for kids. They asked me if I would be interested in doing the book and, of course, I was overjoyed at the opportunity, such a beloved character, to introduce him to Ramadan and in turn to be able to introduce so many children to Ramadan.
Since the book's release in May, it has become a best-seller on Amazon.com.
As this Ramadan comes to an end, Khan and Curious George remain busy traveling the U.S. in support of the book.
More than 200 people showed up for Khan's reading of the book at the event in Maryland.
Maryam is a local mother of five. She said she was pleased that the book helps explain Ramadan, especially to non-Muslims.
Maryam said, I am really glad they brought a book about the beautiful month that we are supposed to teach our children about from very young age.
Im Anna Matteo.
Vina Mubtadi wrote this report for VOANews. Caty Weaver adapted it for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.
Do you have a special holiday or tradition you would like explained in a childrens book? Let us know, and practice your English writing skills in the Comment Section. Or leave a message on our Facebook page.
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Words in This Story
curious - adj. having a desire to learn or know more about something or someone
feast - n. a special meal with large amounts of food and drink
fast - n. a period of time when you do not eat any food : a time of fasting
date - n. a small, sweet, brown fruit from a kind of palm tree
imam - n. a Muslim religious leader
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has been dead for almost ten years. But his name came alive as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump praised Husseins dealing with suspected terrorists.
Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? He was a bad guy, really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didnt read 'em the rights, they didn't talk. They were a terrorist -- it was over."
Trump has made similar statements in the past. In 2014, he wrote on Twitter that Iraq was more dangerous then than it ever was under Hussein.
(The) war was a mistake, as I said from the very beginning. Bush and Obama should apologize, Trump wrote.
However, in 2003, when American forces found Hussein hiding in a hole near the city of Tikrit, Trump appeared to support Husseins removal from office.
He told Fox News: Some people agree and some people dont agree, but we are there. And if we are there, you have to take down Saddam Hussein. And they have done that, and they did it -- maybe not as quickly as they thought in terms of finding him -- but they found him. And that is a huge day for this country.
Lukman Faily is a former Iraqi ambassador to the United States. On Twitter he strongly criticized Trumps statement about Hussein.
As a diplomat, I tried to keep away from this, but as an Iraqi and a victim of Saddams ethnic cleansingI say get your facts first, he wrote.
Hillary Clintons campaign also criticized Trump. Jake Sullivan is Clintons senior policy adviser. He said Trumps praise for brutal strongmen like Hussein demonstrate how dangerous he would be as Commander-in-Chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks.
In an interview with Fox News, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan disagreed with Trumps comment about Hussein.
He was one of the 20th centurys most-evil people, Ryan said. He was up there. He committed mass genocide against his own people using chemical weapons.
Trump is not likely to be influenced by the criticism. Throughout the campaign he has said he is the person who can best answer the actions of the Islamic State terrorist group in Iraq.
Im Christopher Jones-Cruise.
VOA News Writer Chris Hannas reported this story from Washington. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted his reporting for VOA Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.
We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page.
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Words in This Story
ethnic cleansing n. the practice of removing or killing people who belong to an ethnic group that is different from the ruling group in a country or region
genocide n. the deliberate killing of people who belong to a particular racial, political or cultural group
2 A man looks for victims at the site of a car bomb attack at a commercial area in Karada neighborhood, Baghdad, Iraq. At least 124 people were killed and 186 others were wounded in two separate bomb attacks.
3 Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, second right, bows in front of the coffins of victims in a weekend attack on a restaurant in Bangladesh, at Haneda Airport in Tokyo as they returned. Seven Japanese were killed in the attack.
Maz Jobrani likes to make people laugh.
The Iranian-American knew early in life that he wanted to become an actor or comedian. His path to stardom was a long journey.
His immigrant story is not unusual. He was born in Irans capital Tehran, but grew up in America.
Jobrani came to the U.S when he was six years old, just before the Iranian revolution in 1979. He and his parents moved to California where he attended school.
Jobrani says he grew up around a lot of people that made him laugh. His introduction to acting was an audition for a school play.
And when I was 12, I ended up trying out for the school play and I fell in love with being on stage...
Jobrani says he had many friends who were funnier than he, adding to his interest in being a comedian.
A lot of my friends were the funny people in school. I have friends from when I grew up that were funnier than I was!
Jobrani tried a conventional career path, studying political science in college and even starting a Ph.D. program at UCLA.
But the comedy of Eddie Murphy was a more powerful influence.
The reason Im a comedian is because Im a fan of comedy. I think what inspired that was Eddie Murphy because back then I used to love watching comedy and I believe I discovered Eddie Murphy probably by watching Saturday Night Live and from there I just wanted to be like Eddie Murphy.
Now as a full-time comedian, Maz Jobrani uses comedy to bridge the cultural divide caused by Islamic extremism. His performances both ridicule that extremism and challenge American stereotypes of Muslims.
And his recent movie does the same.
Maz Jobrani co-wrote and stars in Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero.
He says the film playfully makes fun of American preconceptions of the Middle East.
You know most people when they see people of Middle Eastern descent on film and television in America, they tend to see people in the news, burning flags and protesting and being anti-American. We wanted to make a movie about a guy who loves America, who wins the green card lottery to come to America from Iran. Who wants to be a cop like his hero Steven McQueen was back in the day when he used to watch Steven McQueen movies. But once he comes to America, he realizes that America of the 21st century doesnt embrace immigrants the way he thought they would and the only job he can find is working as a security guard in a Persian grocery store and from there he has to go on to save the world.
Jobrani also says the movie sends a message to Americans that they have not seen before.
I feel that this comedy does have a message, it has a message of peace, it has a message of diplomacy. More importantly, it has a message of showing Iranians in a very different light then what were used to seeing Iranians. I show them in a fun light. I show them in a light that I dont think most Americans are used to seeing.
Maz Jobrani can turn that which frightens him into something funny.
For example, the comedian was alarmed when he first heard the phrase axis of evil. President George Bush used the term to describe Iran, Iraq and North Korea.
But he soon realized it could also make a great name for a series of shows. So, in 2005, the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour came to be.
The shows featured Jobrani and three other comedians of Middle Eastern descent. The group first appeared on the American television channel Comedy Central.
Jobrani says it is always a good feeling when people laugh at your jokes.
Its a good feeling because then you realize that its working, its relating. The worst feeling is when youre doing stand-up and for whatever reason there is a crowd that doesnt relate to you. Those are the nights when you think to yourself, 'Wow, I cant wait to get off the stage.' But when they get you its a great feeling and its probably one of the reasons you stay up there. Its this drug that keeps feeding you. Its kind of like what I would assume surfing could be because every laugh is like a wave. You want to catch that wave and ride it out until the next laugh comes. So whether its doing stand-up comedy or putting on a movie, your goal as a comedian is to make people laugh.
Life as a comedian has been good for Maz Jobrani. He has appeared in numerous films and television shows. He has toured much of the world and performed for the King of Jordan.
Maz Jobrani also has a bestselling book, Im Not a Terrorist, But Ive Played One on TV. It tells the story about his life in a very funny way.
Im Marsha James.
Marsha James wrote this story for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.
We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.
Test your understanding with this multimedia quiz.
Quiz - People in America - Maz Jobrani Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz
Next on People in America, meet the oldest female bodybuilder Ernestine Shepherd!
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Words in This Story
stardom n. the state of being a very famous performer
introduction n. the act of making a person known to others or to something
audition n. a short performance to show the talents of someone who is being considered for a role in a play
conventional adj. common and ordinary: not unusual
challenge n. an action, statement, that is against something
ridicule n. the act of making fun of someone or something in a cruel or harsh way
preconceptions n. an idea or opinion that someone has before learning about or experiencing something directly
embrace v. to accept something readily or gladly
alarmed v. to worry or frighten (someone)
Working parents in America are increasingly sharing childcare. In other words, both mothers and fathers go to a business or office, and both take care of family members at home especially babies.
But the U.S. does not require employers to pay workers while they take time off to care for new family members. It is the only developed country in the world that does not mandate some kind of paid parental leave.
Instead, working parents in the U.S. must negotiate for time off directly with their employers. But a few states, as well as Washington, D.C., are trying to change parental leave laws.
The Lott family
The Lott family in Washington, DC is one of many families advocating for the U.S. to change its parental leave policies.
Rob and Jessica Lott both have jobs outside the home. They also have a 12-month-old daughter named Shulie.
When Shulie was born last July, both Rob and Jessica looked forward to spending time with her. They also needed to take care of her, and Jessica had to recover from childbirth.
But Jessicas employer offered her just four weeks of paid leave. Robs employer did not give him any.
Instead, Rob used his vacation and sick leave to care for his wife and daughter for two weeks. He noted that these kinds of paid time off are not the same as parental leave.
Certainly, having a child is not vacation, nor is it a sickness, he said.
Universal Paid Leave Act
Rob and Jessica Lott are part of a campaign to bring paid parental leave to all Americans, starting with those who live or work in Washington, DC.
Lawmakers here are considering a bill called the Universal Paid Leave Act. The act would require all businesses to give workers up to 16 weeks of paid time off to care for a family member or for themselves.
To cover the costs of the program, every employer would contribute 1% of each workers salary into a common pool of money.
Joanna Blotner is the manager of the D.C. Paid Family Leave campaign. She said the program does not hurt small businesses because it spreads costs across the entire workforce.
And, she said, businesses with fewer than 20 employees do not have to hold someones job while he or she is away from work. That employee will still be paid for the time off, but each employer can decide whether to fill the position before the worker returns.
Stronger families
Charles Allen is a local lawmaker and the father of a young child. He supports the legislation.
Allen listened to Jessica Lott and other parents share their stories around a conference table in his office.
We know that families will be stronger when you have this [bill], Allen told them. The connection you get to have with your kid -- that just makes a stronger family.
Cost and flexibility
But some people oppose D.C.s family leave bill.
Marc Freedman works for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He said the bill would be too financially difficult for employers.
Our feeling is that employers provide leave as they are able to provide leave, Freedman said. Many do so happily, and if they can't afford it, then thats generally why they dont provide it.
In addition, Freedman says, he believes the program will be more expensive than activists are saying. And, he wants employees not just businesses to pay for part of the cost, too.
Freedman notes he does not have the perfect solution. But, he suggests that businesses should not be required to give employees paid time off. Instead, he says, businesses should be able to be flexible about what they offer, and to benefit from leave programs, too.
Im Mario Ritter.
Julie Taboh wrote this story for VOA News. Jim Dresbach adapted it for Learning English. Kelly Jean Kelly 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
mandate v. to officially demand or require
leave n. a period of time when someone has special permission to be away from a job or from military service
negotiate v. to discuss something formally in order to make an agreement
pool n. an amount of money that has been collected from many people for some purpose
The Android One initiative is Googles attempt to partner with smartphone makers to offer low-cost handsets designed to offer decent performance with Googles Android operating system.
So far most Android One phones have been virtually indistinguishable from other cheap Android handsets. But the Sharp 507SH actually brings a few nifty features to the table.
The phone features a 5 inch, 720p IGZO display, a 3,010 mAh battery for up to 3 days of run time, and a water and dust-resistant design. The only catch? Sharps new Android One phone will only be available in Japan for now.
Sharp and Google have announced that the 507SH will be available from Japanese carrier Y! Mobile.
Other specs include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage. The phone has a microSDHC card slot and supports 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2, and NFC.
Theres a 13MP camera on the back and a front-facing 5MP camera.
The Sharp 507SH will ship with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, and like other Android One phones it should receive software updates directly from Google for at least 18 months.
via Google Japan
The SABC cannot decide what people can or cannot watch as this is in contravention of the Constitution, the ANC's communications subcommittee head Jackson Mthembu said on Tuesday.
He said people, led by the ANC, fought for media freedom and freedom of expression and that any policy changes made by the SABC that in anyway limited those freedoms could never be sanctioned by the governing party.
Mthembu was adamant that the party did not condone the decision taken not to show footage of violent protests, despite its spokesman Zizi Kodwa at the time welcoming the decision taken by the SABC.
"The decision of the SABC to desist from showing images of the destruction of property has not been consulted with or condoned by the ANC," he said. "This is worrying as it amounts to a change in policy position of the governing party - without any engagement on its merits and reasoning."
Mthembu said such policy changes did not go through any public consultation.
The ANC has made an about-turn on its stance with regards to what was happening at the public broadcaster. The public broadcaster has not been immune from political interference for over a decade - and governance has suffered as a result.
However, Mthembu on Tuesday said the SABC did not answer to the ANC and did not "connive" with anyone at the public broadcaster. He said to date there had been no evidence of this.
No one at senior level at the SABC came from the party's deployment committee, Mthembu said.
The ANC was of the view that the "crisis engulfing" the SABC was a consequence of a lack of leadership.
Mthembu questioned the expertise of those who were at the highest managerial level at the public broadcaster.
This was something that needed to be addressed, he said.
The ANC will be meeting Communications Minister Faith Muthambi and has called for an inquiry into allegations that "tarnished the image of the ANC" with respect to current developments at the SABC.
Source: BDpro
Los Angeles: Former couple Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck reunited to celebrate the US Independence Day with their children.
The duo, who announced they were splitting in June 2015 after 10 years of marriage, were spotted at the 68th Annual Fourth of July Parade in Pacific Palisades, California on Monday, along with their two children, daughters Violet and Seraphina, according to People.com.
However, a source said there were no signs of them getting back together.
(Ben) and (Jennifer) were sitting together watching the parade. They were not being affectionate, the source said. Ben and Violet were holding hands, and Ben was smiling watching the parade and walking around the community, the source added.
Was Sultan leaked online a day before its release?
Several news reports on Wednesday, 6 July, said that Salman Khan starrer may have been leaked online a day before its release.
Spokespersons from Yash Raj Films the studio that has produced the film denied the development.
However, cyber crime experts said the leak had taken place.
An investigator was quoted as saying that Sultan had been leaked onto the dark web, and would soon be available on Torrent as well.
The investigator also added that this was not the full-length film, but a trailer of Sultan that had been morphed and made available online. Another cyber crime sleuth shared screenshots from the two-and-a-half hour Salman starrer, that he claimed to have got from an illegal download, with media houses, to raise awareness about the leak.
Sources also claimed that the few leaks online were being plugged on a war footing.
It was just a few weeks ago that the film Udta Punjab had been leaked online a day before its theatrical release. At the time, the filmmakers had approached the Mumbai Police's Cyber Crime Cell to have the download links on various sites blocked. The copy that had been leaked online was one the Udta Punjab team had shared with the Central Board of Film Certification for rating purposes.
The Sultan leak if it indeed has occurred will be the second of its kind this week. The adult comedy Great Grand Masti also had a similar issue, with the entire film (once again, the copy sent to the CBFC) being leaked online.
Previously, the CBFC copies of the Marathi film Sairat and Ketan Mehtas Manjhi: The Mountain Man made their way onto the internet before their theatrical releases, causing losses to the producers.
New Delhi: Ravi Shankar Prasad is among the Union ministers who lost key portfolios in the Cabinet reshuffle last evening - he was shunted out of the telecom portfolio. But just before that, the minister managed to convince the Cabinet about revising pension payouts for employees of the key PSU under him - BSNL.
The revision was announced before the reshuffle news broke and entails an estimated recurring annual expenditure of Rs 155 crore while arrears from 2013-14 would be about Rs 284 crore. Ostensibly, it is about correcting some anomaly in pension calculations but increased pension payout for BSNL is yet another nail in its coffin. The government needs to bite the VRS bullet for any meaningful turnaround of this loss-laden PSU. Even divestment of some or majority stake in BSNL by the government will be of little help.
Prasad has left the festering issues of hugely inflated workforce at BSNL for his successor to tackle. That BSNL needs to trim workforce drastically is a no brainer its H R issues form the core of its troubles and make it the top loss-making public sector enterprise in the country. Sample this: the PSU gave away about Rs 15,000 crore in wages to its 2.1 lakh employees in 2014-15. It spent 52 percent or more than half its topline in paying staff salary that year compared to just about 7-8 percent of revenues that private telecom companies spend on staff. In other words, about 52 paise of every rupee BSNL earned was spent on wages in 2014-15 while private telecom companies spent 7-8 paise!
According to the Public Enterprises Survey of 2014-15 (the latest available survey), BSNL made maximum losses among the 77 public sector units surveyed, with its net loss accounting for almost a third of the total losses incurred in that year at Rs 8,234 crore. That translates to over Rs 22 crore net loss each day of the fiscal year under review. Though minister Prasad claimed yesterday while announcing the increased pension burden that BSNL is in line to report over Rs 2,000 crore operational profit for FY16, this alone will not turn around the fortunes of BSNL. Insiders claim that making operational profits was never really an issue with BSNL and that it never had to borrow for its day-to-day expenses even though its net loss was mounting year after year since 2009-10.
Since 2009-10, there has been continuous reduction in revenue as against almost fixed operating costs. BSNL has been unable to invest in expansion of network, marketing and promotional activities etc due to financial distress and the huge salary payout. The need of the hour for BSNL to turn around is a sound VRS package, something which has been discussed for years between the BSNL management and the government but with little forward movement. This will, to be sure, entail a huge one-time payout but there is really no other way to tackle the staffing time bomb which threatens the survival of BSNL. Some VRS package for the second telecom PSU, MTNL, has already been cleared by the government.
R K Upadhyay, former CMD BSNL pointed out that resolution of complex HR issues facing BSNL should be top priority for any meaningful turnaround. According to a report in the Indian Express it could cost the government anywhere between Rs 18,000-Rs 20,000 crore for offering VRS to around 65,000 or a third of all employees. Recently, the Telecom Commission had cleared MTNLs VRS plan for employees who are 50 years of age and above to save costs. The exchequer is expected to save around Rs 500 crore-600 crore every year by giving VRS to some MTNL employees.
Anyway, telecom industry experts warn that not only has the government enhanced its burden by correcting the pension anomaly for BSNL employees, more trouble could be in store as the aftermath of the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations sinks in. The Pay Revision Committee for PSEs would follow with its own formula for hikes and the powerful BSNL unions could then urge the PSU to increase salaries, never mind if it continues to report net loss year after year.
According to a reply R S Prasad gave in Lok Sabha during the Budget Session, the government has provided financial assistance to BSNL in several forms such as agreeing to pay Rs 6,724.51 crore as refund for the PSU surrendering BWA spectrum in six circles. Telecom industry experts point out that though this money was cleared way back by the Cabinet, actual payout to BSNL has still not been completed. This has obviously affected the PSUs ability to raise loans and make critical investments in technology. Total debt liability of BSNL almost trebled, from Rs 2,561.14 crore in March 2013 to Rs 7,666.94 crore by January this year.
Additional assistance from the government includes waiver of Rs 1,411 crore which it was to pay the government and refund of another Rs 169.16 crore on account of surrendered CDMA spectrum.The government says it has also assigned some lucrative projects to BSNL to fill its coffers but as we have pointed out earlier, VRS is the key to solving the BSNL conundrum.
New Delhi: Ahead of the 11 July strike called by the central government employees' unions against the 7th Pay Commission's recommendations, representatives of various unions on Wednesday met Home Minister Rajnath Singh for talks which were termed as "positive" by the government.
Sources said the unions and the government evolved a "broad consensus" and arrived at an understanding that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley would make a statement on the issue soon.
Wednesday's was the second meeting the employees' unions had with the government on the issue. Earlier, they had met the Group of Ministers chaired by Singh on 30 June.
The National Joint Council of Action (NJCA) of central government employees' unions including Railways, Post & Telegraph and Defence have announced an indefinite strike from 11 July against the "unilateral" announcement of the Central government on implementation of 7th Pay Commission's awards.
A number of employees' unions have extended support to the proposed strike call by NJCA.
The unions have said the recommended pay hike was the lowest in the last 70 years. They have also accused the government of announcing the awards "unilaterally" without any consultation with them.
The Central Trade Unions will be meeting tomorrow to chalk out an action plan and express their solidarity with the government employees.
RSS affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) and other trade unions have rejected the recommendations, contending that it would increase disparity between the minimum and maximum pay.
Maintaining that the government has "disappointed" the employees, BMS has announced country-wide protests on 8 July against the decision and warned implementation of the 7th pay commission's recommendations may lead to industrial unrest.
Chennai: A medical student, who hurled a dog from a terrace, and his friend, who filmed the incident, were on Wednesday arrested after the shocking video went viral drawing outrage, but the duo was soon released on bail, while the dog was now undergoing treatment and "doing well".
"We arrested Gowtham Sudarshan and Ashish Pal today and they were produced before Sriperumbudur Judicial Magistrate court," Kundrathur Police Inspector Ruban said.
"The duo were granted bail by the court," he told PTI.
The dog was taken to a veterinary hospital for treatment and is doing well, police said.
Gowtham Sudarshan, a final year MBBS student of a private medical college, flung the dog from the terrace of a building here and the act was video allegedly recorded by his friend Ashish Pal.
After the video went viral, animal welfare activists, including Antony Clement Rubin and Jennifer Jacob, lodged a complaint with police which registered an FIR and launched a search for them.
The duo were booked for cruel treatment meted out to an animal under IPC sections 428 and 429 and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (Sec 11 (1-a). Subsequently, they were arrested on Wednesday.
Rubin said the dog luckily survived and was taken to a veterinary hospital. "It has suffered fractures in its front and rear legs. It is being treated."
"It is nothing short of a miracle that the dog survived," he added.
"People should come forward to lodge police complaints if they come across acts of cruelty against animals without waiting for activists to step in," he told PTI.
Rubin said the dog has been named 'Bhadra' after goddess Bhadrakali.
New Delhi: The high-profile Communications and IT ministry has been split with Manoj Sinha on Wednesday taking the charge of the telecom ministry, which is all set to conduct the largest-ever spectrum auctions in the country.
Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad, who is the new Minister for Law and Justice, will continue to look after
Department of IT and Electronics. So far, Prasad was handling both Communications and IT portfolios.
"I will share my views (on telecom) day after tomorrow," Sinha told reporters after assuming the charge at his new
office as Minister of State (Independent Charge).
He is a Lok Sabha MP from Ghazipur constituency of Uttar Pradesh.
Sinha, an M Tech in civil engineering, will have his hands full as the new minister for the telecom sector which boasts of the world's second largest mobile subscriber base and the lowest tariffs, and where the biggest corporate houses - RIL, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular - are slugging it out for market dominance.
While on the one hand, Telecom Department is gearing up for the mega spectrum auction, where airwaves worth Rs 5.66
lakh crore will be up for bidding, on the other, Sinha will have to address issues such as call drops wherein the Supreme Court has struck down telecom regulator Trai's plans of making operators compensate mobile phone users for call drops.
In fact, to check call drops, Trai has demanded more teeth, including imposing fine of up to Rs 10 crore on
operators and jail term of up to two years for their executives, prompting the telecom companies to term such
powers as 'draconian'.
Sinha will also have to handle framing of regulation on the much-debated net neutrality issue, where battlelines are already drawn between telecom operators and internet based content providers. As such, Trai has started pre-consultation process on net neutrality, and has already got written comments from industry stakeholders and members of civil society.
Former telecom minister Prasad had earlier said that the government will take a view on net neutrality after receiving Trai's recommendation.
Sinha will have the challenging task of protecting consumer interest for affordable telephony services while
maintaining investor confidence in the sector.
The IT-BHU pass-out minister will also look after the Department of Posts which is undergoing massive reforms to
start 650 payments bank branches by September 2017.
It is after 20 years, the telecom ministry has been handed over to an MoS (Independent Charge). Before this, former
telecom minister Beni Prasad Verma, also from UP, handled the ministry with independent charge between 1996-98.
A couple of days after a video of a man throwing a dog from the rooftop of a building in Chennai emerged, the incident has received widespread media coverage and created a major furore. Shravan Krishnan was among the group of activists which was at the forefront of the campaign seeking justice in the case.
"The existing laws to deal with such cases of animal abuse are not adequate at all. Such an offence must be made non-bailable and there must be a higher quantum of punishment. At present, a person who tortures animals in this way can get away by paying merely a Rs 50 fine," Krishnan told Firstpost from Chennai.
"A revised version of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 still remains stuck in Parliament. The legislature needs to pass this law to prevent such incidents," he said.
A group of animal rights activists came to know about the horrific instance of abuse after several people tagged them while sharing the video on social media. "We also shared the video on social media and it soon become viral. Later, we got several leads in the matter and passed on the information that we received to the police," Krishnan recalled.
To a question on the importance of changing people's attitudes towards animal rights, the activist said, "First, the laws which are presently inadequate and ineffective need to made more stringent. If this happens, it will lead to a change in public attitudes."
A medical student and his friend have been arrested in the case by the Chennai Police. While the former is seen in the video throwing the dog from the terrace, the latter is said to have filmed the video. A case has been filed under IPC sections 428 and 429, and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (Sec 11 (1-a).
Although the dog has survived the ordeal, it has suffered fractures on its front and hind legs. However, the animal is undergoing treatment and is recovering well, PTI has quoted a police official as saying.
Gurgaon: A sub-inspector of Gurgaon police was arrested by a Special Investigation Team of Mumbai police in connection with the alleged fake encounter of suspected gangster Sandeep Gadoli in Andheri, police said.
Pradhuman Yadav, Sub-Inspector of Gurgaon Police, was arrested in a raid conducted at his house last night at Old Gurgaon, Sanjay Saxena, Joint Commissioner of Mumbai Police, Crime Branch said, adding, more people are likely to be apprehended.
Two Special Investigation Teams (SIT) of Mumbai police Crime Branch, camping in two hotels at Mahipalpur and old Gurgaon in Rajokari area from 27 March, were monitoring the activities of Yadav, who was changing his location to escape arrest, Saxena said.
Acting on a tip-off that Yadav was hiding in a house in Old Gurgaon, the teams raided the premised and arrested him.
"We have arrested him on charges of murder, attempt to murder, Arms Act, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence," the Joint Commissioner of Mumbai police said.
A team headed by Praful Bhonsle, ACP-Crime Branch, Mumbai police accused the Gurgaon police personnel of evading probe and not submitting blood samples of the accused policemen despite repeated reminders.
Meanwhile, Gurgaon police claimed it has no information about Yadav's arrest.
"We do not know that our sub-inspector has been arrested by Mumbai police. They did not approach or inform us. We are looking into the matter," Hawa Singh, PRO, Gurgaon police said.
Earlier, Gurgaon Police had assured Mumbai Police of extending all possible support during the course of investigation.
Pradhuman Yadav, sub-Inspector in Gurgaon crime branch was leading a team of five policemen that gunned down alleged gangster Sandeep Gadoli on 7 February, inside Hotel Airport Metro in Andheri.
The team led by Yadav claimed that Gadoli, an alleged gangster from Haryana, was shot in retaliation after he fired at them to avoid arrest. His relatives alleged that it was a fake encounter and filed a police complaint.
Interrogation is on in the case to ascertain the sequence of events, Saxena said, adding, more arrests are likely to be made in the case.
New Delhi: A high-level committee will soon be set up to look into issues raised by various unions of central government employees on pay scales and other recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission.
"A new high-level committee will soon be set up to look into the grievances raised by the employee unions," a top government official told PTI.
Expressing dissatisfaction over the recommendations of the Pay Commission, various central government employees' unions have threatened to go on an indeifinite strike from 11 July.
Earlier in the day, representatives of various unions met Home Minister Rajnath Singh for deliberations over their concerns after which the government termed the talks as "positive".
Wednesday's was the second meeting the employees' unions had with the government on the issue. Earlier, they had met the Group of Ministers chaired by Singh on 30 June. The GoM includes Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu.
The Unions had asked the government to set up a committee to look into issues raised by them in relation to the pay scales and other recommendations of the Pay Commission.
"The Ministers assured the Union leaders that the issues raised by them would be considered by a High Level Committee," the Finance ministry said in a statement late in the evening.
The National Joint Council of Action (NJCA) of central government employees' unions including Railways, Post and Telegraph and Defence have announced an indefinite strike from 11 July against the "unilateral" announcement of the Central government on implementation of 7th Pay Commission's awards.
A number of employees' unions have extended support to the proposed strike call by NJCA.
The unions have said the recommended pay hike was the lowest in the last 70 years. They have also accused the government of announcing the awards "unilaterally" without any consultation with them.
The Central Trade Unions will be meeting tomorrow to chalk out an action plan and express their solidarity with the government employees.
RSS affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) and other trade unions have rejected the recommendations, contending that it would increase disparity between the minimum and maximum pay.
Maintaining that the government has "disappointed" the employees, BMS has announced country-wide protests on July 8 against the decision and warned implementation of the 7th pay commission's recommendations may lead to industrial unrest.
The annual Rath Yatra of Lord Jagannath and his siblings started in Puri on Wednesday. The district administration on Tuesday said they were expecting about 10 lakh people to take part in the nine-day chariot festival. Security has been strengthened across Puri for the Rath Yatra.
"Multi-layer security arrangements have been made for the smooth conduct of the festival. CCTVs have been installed at various locations to keep a tab on the people," said Director General of Police (DGP) KB Singh told IANS on Tuesday.
There is heavy security around the three chariots and Grand Road, the sea beach, the railway station and the bus station. Air surveillance and land and air patrolling will be intensified, Singh added.
Inspector General (Operation) Soumendra Priyadarshi said the visitors would be informed from time to time about traffic management through social media and Puri police administration website.
Police and other personnel have been deployed to guide the public. Sri Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) has announced it will provide an accident insurance cover of Rs five lakh, effective from 5-17 July, to each person taking part in the Rath Yatra.
Final touches were given to the three chariots Taladhwaja of Lord Balabhadra, Nandighosh of Lord Jagannath and Darpadalana of Devi Subhadra which were pulled to the Gundicha temple in Puri on Wednesday. The deities will be worshiped for seven days at the temple.
East Coast Railway (ECoR) will run special trains to clear the extra rush of passengers for the festival.
"Railways have planned to facilitate pilgrims with reserved 'class accommodation,' for the trains leaving from its jurisdiction towards Puri and vice versa, apart from the special trains from neighbouring states," said a statement of ECoR.
Politicians took to Twitter to greet people on Rath Yatra.
On the occasion of Rath Yatra, my warmest greetings to you all. May Lord Jagannath continue to shower his blessings on everyone. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 6, 2016
May the blessings of Lord Jagannath lead to development of villages, well-being of poor & farmers and take India to new heights of progress. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 6, 2016
Heartfelt greetings on this joyous & most auspicious occasion of #RathaJatra. Jai Jagannath! pic.twitter.com/bb7ouz0Ovp Naveen Patnaik (@Naveen_Odisha) July 5, 2016
I wish you all on the auspicious occasion of Rath Yatra. May Lord Jagannath bless everyone with happiness and prosperity. #RathaJatra Maneka Gandhi (@Manekagandhibjp) July 6, 2016
Greetings to people on #RathaJatra. May Lord Jagannath bless us all with happiness,prosperity & peace. Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) July 6, 2016
On this holy #RathaJatra I pray to Lord Jagannath,the Lord of universe for peace and prosperity of my nation. #RathYatra2016 Naveen Jindal (@MPNaveenJindal) July 6, 2016
Faridabad: A charge sheet has been filed against police inspector Amit Kumar, an accused in death case of journalist Pooja Tiwari who allegedly committed suicide by jumping from the fifth floor of her residential building in Faridabad in May, police said on Wednesday.
The SIT probing the suicide case has completed its investigation and filed its charge sheet against Kumar for "abetting her to commit suicide", a police spokesperson said.
On May 2, 28-year-old woman journalist Pooja Tiwari, working with an online news portal, had allegedly committed suicide by jumping from her residential building, but her family suspects foul play in her death and has demanded a CBI probe into it.
On 6 May, Haryana Police inspector Amit Kumar was arrested in connection with the case. He was present at the fifth-floor flat in Sector 46 from on that night when Pooja allegedly fell to her death.
On 29 Jue, forensic team recreated the "fall" scene as narrated by the accused police inspector.
New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University student leader Kanhaiya Kumar on Wednesday welcomed the exit of Smriti Irani from the Human Resource Development Ministry but said this was no "punishment" for the suicide of Dalit student Rohith Vemula.
After Smriti Irani was transferred to the Textiles Ministry, the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) President said justice had not been served to Vemula, who committed suicide in Hyderabad.
The student leader tweeted saying
#JusticeForRohith is still awaited. #CabinetReshuffle is not punishment. #ByeByeSmrity n Dattatreya should be from cabinet to jail#Azadi Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) July 6, 2016
He demanded the resignation of Irani and another minster Bandaru Dattatreya from ministerial posts and said a case must be lodged against them for the "institutional murder" of Vemula.
"Smritiji has been transferred from one ministry to the other. Our demand was to remove Irani and Dattatreya from the ministerial posts and lodge a case against them for the institutional murder of Vemulla," Kumar said.
Vemula was a PhD student at the University of Hyderabad who committed suicide on 17 January, triggering widespread protests against Smriti Irani and Dattatreya who were blamed for the suicide.
Five Dalit students, including Vemula, were suspended in September 2015 following a clash with a leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).
Kumar further said that he did not have "much hopes" from the new minister as well.
He said: "The new minister (Prakash Javdekar) made a very sad statement that he will take forward the works of Smriti Irani. Does it mean that more Dalit students will be killed in educational institutions? Does it mean that people who are close to the minister would continue to get key posts in the government?"
When asked whether he would seek time from the new Education Minister Prakash Javdekar, Kumar said he would meet him (Javdekar) and put before him various demands of the students' community.
"Obviously we will meet him. We have our demands for the betterment of the education system. But we are not very hopeful," he added.
New Delhi: An Indian national abducted in Libya in March has been released, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Wednesday.
Indian Embassy in Libya has secured the release of Regi Joseph, an Indian national from Kerala, Sushma Swaraj tweeted.
Indian Embassy in Libya has secured the release of Regi Joseph - an Indian national from Kerala. He was abducted in March this year. Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) July 6, 2016
She said this became possible due to the efforts of Azar AH Khan, India's ambassador to Libya.
Joseph, who hails from Kozhikode in Kerala, was working as a computer engineer near the Libyan capital. He had been there for two years with his nurse wife and three children.
The last contact Joseph had with his wife was on 31 March through an SMS, saying he would be delayed returning home.
Guwahati: Former Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Wednesday criticised the expansion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers, saying Assam has been neglected in the process.
"There should have been at least two ministers, including at least one cabinet minister, from Assam considering the mandate the BJP had received from the people of Assam," Gogoi said.
"This is perhaps the first government at the Centre which had only one minister and not even a minister of cabinet rank," he added while addressing a press conference in Assam's main city Guwahati.
"How can the wishes and aspirations of the people of Assam be placed at the Cabinet meetings of the central government," Gogoi asked, adding that Assam was largely ignored during the ministry expansion by Modi on Tuesday.
Gogoi also took a dig at the BJP-led Assam state government for its decisions to increase Value Added Tax (VAT) on 127 items and to withdraw the subsidy on petrol and diesel, and said this will hit the people of the state hard.
"The BJP had campaigned of 'achche din' during the elections but are these good days that people of Assam are witnessing," he asked. "Where is the 'achche din' promised by them? I admit that we had failed to control the price-rise, but why has the BJP failed to do so as well," Gogoi said.
"We have failed and so people did not vote for us. They voted for the BJP, expecting better days and the state government is doing just the opposite," he said, adding that although the chief minister had instructed the state machinery to contain price rise, the administration and bureaucrats have failed so far.
"The BJP government at the Centre had also claimed to have abolished the illegal toll gates in different parts of the state. However, the price-rise is continuing and now the government has increased the VAT which will further increase the price rise," Gogoi added.
He also slammed the NDA government at the Centre over the proposed sale of 12 oilfields in Assam and said that the move will harm the state.
"Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan himself admitted that there is a probability of getting 21 million tonnes of oil in the 12 oilfields. If it is so, then why the same had not been explored earlier? And if there are 21 MMT of oil there, how can these be marginalised oil fields," Gogoi questioned.
"If there is so much of oil, the Centre should have taken up steps to explore those oilfields by the public sector companies. This is a conspiracy to hand over the oil fields to private parties and this will affect the interest of Assam," he added.
Brussels: A Belgian court has sentenced a group of Islamic State suspects up to 16 years in jail for last year's Paris terror attacks that left more than 130 persons dead.
The three main defendants at the trial, Marouane El Bali, Schofield El Abdi and Mohamed Arshad were found guilty of belonging to the IS militant group and were sentenced on Tuesday to 16 years in prison.
The fourth, Omar Damache, was sentenced to eight years, Xinhua news agency reported.
Prosecutors said the men standing trial had returned from fighting with the Islamic State in Syria and were in constant contact with the group through the leader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud.
Abaaoud was killed in a November raid in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis.
The cell had intended to target Zaventem airport in Brussels on 23 March this year, a judge said.
The terrorist cell was dismantled by police during a raid on 15 January, 2015 in Verviers, an eastern Belgian town close to the German border.
A total of 16 suspects were charged in connection with the raid, but nine remain at large.
During the operation, police found "ingredients" to manufacture six kg of explosives.
Hyderabad: Members of the Telangana Judges Association, who went on a mass leave last month in protest against suspension of 11 judges of the lower courts in the state, have decided to resume duty on Wednesday.
Around 200 judicial officers, working in various capacities in courts across the state, went on mass leave on 28 June amid the agitation against appointment of judges from Andhra Pradesh to the Telangana courts.
The Hyderabad High Court which is common for AP and Telangana had suspended 11 judges on disciplinary grounds for taking part in the agitation over allocation of judges.
"The extraordinary general body meeting of Telangana Judges Association here today decided to call off the mass leave protest in view of appeals made by the Chief Justice of India, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Governor and the Acting Chief Justice of the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad," a judicial officer told PTI.
When asked about the demand of revocation of suspension of 11 judges, he said, "The acting Chief Justice (of High Court) will take care of it. It takes its own time ... there is a process for that."
"The CJI, Governor and acting Chief Justice advised us not to continue with the protest. The acting Chief Justice is already seized of the issue of provisional list (of allocation of judges) and he assured us to look into the matter....(so) we decided to call off the mass leave protest," he said.
The members of TJA went on mass leave on 28 June to protest suspension of 11 judges by the HC.
On June 26, over 100 judges under the banner of Telangana Judges Association had taken out a procession and submitted a representation to the Governor, protesting allotment of judges who hail from Andhra Pradesh to the subordinate courts in Telangana. This led to HC's action of suspending 11 judges.
Federation of Bar Associations of Telangana's president G Jithender Reddy told PTI on Tuesday that the agitation will continue. "The Federation is going to conduct a meeting at Warangal after Ramzan to discuss future course of action," he said.
The TJA members had not informed the Federation about today's meeting, he said.
Telangana Advocates Joint Action Committee's co-convener T Sri Rangarao told PTI that it too would call an extra-ordinary general body meeting in a day or two to chalk out the future course of action.
Delhi's Anti Corruption Branch (ACB), controlled by the central government, has summoned former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit for questioning in an alleged water meter scam. She has been asked to join the ongoing investigation.
"We have served a notice to Sheila Dikshit," ACB chief MK Meena said.
ANI referred to Meena as saying, "It appears that you (Sheila Dikshit) are acquainted with facts and circumstances of the case and are required to join the investigation."
A report of a fact-finding panel on the alleged 400-crore water tanker scam linked Dikshit to the scam. It suggested that "the acts of omission and commissions by the Delhi Jal Board under Dikshit has resulted in loss of approximately Rs 400 crore to the exchequer," Meena said.
AAP leader Kapil Mishra, who complained against Dikshit on 13 June, is reportedly not cooperating with the inquiries and investigation. "The notice indicates as if an order has been given to the ACB to behave politely with Sheila Dikshit. If she feels bad, then she might expose all the scams of the BJP," Mishra told ANI.
The case was registered in the Anti Corruption Branch in 2014.
With inputs from IANS.
New Delhi: Asserting that dialogue is the key to avoid agitations, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday said education is not a subject for party politics, as he replaces Smriti Irani who had a controversy-ridden tenure.
Speaking to reporters, Javadekar said he was open to suggestions and consultations with everyone. He lauded the "good initiatives" taken by Irani and said he will also speak to her to take them forward.
"I am a product of student agitation, so we will always talk with everybody. So with dialogues in place, there will be no necessity of agitation," Javadekar said.
Irani's tenure was marked by controversies including JNU row and protests in Hyderabad University following dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's death. There have also been allegations by opposition parties of saffronisation.
"I accept this (new) responsibility humbly and I will talk to our earlier minister Murli Manohar Joshi," he said.
Joshi, a former BJP president, is now part of Margdarshak Mandal.
The HRD minister said he believes that education should be student-centric and encourage innovation.
On the new education policy, which is being formulated by the HRD ministry currently, Javadekar said it needs to become more relevant and "we have to make our education system more innovative."
He emphasised that standard of education has to be raised.
Asked about his elevation as a Cabinet minister, Javadekar said that for taking the responsibility of HRD
ministry, "you need to have a Cabinet minister. So its a technical requirement."
Speaking about his handling of the Environment and Forests Ministry, Javadekar said that he had always worked to empower tribals and any criticism on these aspects is misplaced.
Asked about reports of Congress' planned agitation on the alleged dilution of Forest Rights Act, Javadekar
retorted with an apparent jibe at Rahul Gandhi, asking "Has their leader returned? I don't know. That is their internal issue."
He added that while political parties have a right to put forth their views and agitate, but "there is no case for any agitation (on this issue) as of now."
How many feminists does it take to fix the attitude of rigid patriarchal minds? None. Because, no matter which century you enter, apparently that attitude never changes. Why, you ask? We found this interesting article on a matrimonial website Chennai Sai Sankara Matrimonials soaked in overwhelming wisdom on 'lessons we should learn from the tragic episode of Swathi'.
The writer, the founder of the website, has offered his condolences to the 24-year-old Chennai Infosys techie, S Swathi, who was hacked to death by a stalker in broad daylight at Nungambakkam station amid thousands of horrified onlookers. The premise of this article being Swathi was friends with her stalker (Ram Kumar) on Facebook.
The writer ponders why such things happen at all. Is it the changing culture, movies, negative impact of modern technology and social networking sites, the careless attitude of the youngsters due to too much freedom and faulty education system and upbringing and so on.
The concerns are legit. But then comes a bold statement, (literally too), that boys from other castes are keen to woo girls of higher genetics. (Wait, what?) He adds that they do it in some way or the other, either for love or marriage and our girls too easily fall prey to such temptations. Because, he explains, that hanging out with people of the opposite sex has become inevitable for girls these days as they too seek people who are highly-qualified. Therefore, it has become necessary for girls to follow the 'delicate art of keeping people at a distance' (whatever that means). They should be friendly, but should also restrain themselves. They must also develop the courage and confidence to face such eventualities (like stalking?) tactfully.
The writer has also shared a list of pointers encouraging girls to 'implement these lessons by KG Sivakumar Inspector of Police'. 'I am happy to know that many have started restricting the usage of Facebook and other social networking sites to a minimum level,' he adds.
- Girls married or unmarried should be selective in accepting friends request on Facebook and other social networking sites.
- Avoid posting photos in different attires, if interested, share such photos only in your relatives group.
- Dont entertain boys whom they found suspicious on the first acquaintance.
- Dont be vigorous in posting your views in groups which often entertain unwanted chats in any social media.
- Dont confirm friend requests from anyone who is disguising himself with names of popular figures.
- Dont trust anyone because he is professionally as qualified as you are.
- Avoid people who have inherent hatred towards working and high earning people.
- It is highly advisable to limit their friend circle with close friends, colleagues, and relatives.
- And the most important thing is, limit the use of social media and dont get addicted. Dont open the social media sites at tea breaks and during busy travelling hours.
- Please dont decide on your life partner without your parents' consent or consensus
- Dont fall in love suddenly or dont go out with the person whom you dont trust or believe.
Alright, Sir. We are listening because we (girls) don't have a mind of our own.
That's not it.
He makes another bold statement (again, literally) to be born as a human being is a rarity, to born as a Brahmin is still more a rarity. It seems by getting into inter-caste marriages, Brahmin brides lose their privileges and glory at once. There is no point in regretting after Brahmin girls commit this 'himalayan blunder'. Wait, there is more: The very purpose of running our marriage bureau exclusively for Brahmins is to ensure that such inter-caste marriages don't take place! It's high time that Brahmin brides should resolve to marry Brahmin grooms only so that there is no scope for any temptation.
This, dear reader, we call a classic mix of sexism and casteism.
Why are we crying blue murder over this article written by someone who is as unimportant as this matrimonial website? Because, no matter how much feminists around the world try to neutralise the tilting balance of rights for women, blinkered and rigid mindset like the one above still prevailing in our society is definitely going to make their fight difficult. No, it would tire them out actually, or is it already?
Now, before the 'meninists' pounce on the comments section, please read the 'lessons that girls should learn' once again and think.
Smriti Irani was shifted from the key HRD ministry to the Textiles portfolio and replaced by Cabinet minister Prakash Javadekar after the cabinet reshuffle of the Union Council of Ministers. Considering how everyone loved to hate the Irani and her controversial decisions, the Twitterati had a field day with this announcement.
Whether it was the amusing portfolio option, the dear fiasco and the aunty outrage, no slur was spared. Social media denizens took this opportunity to take a few jabs at Javadekar as well. Some even dismissed the whole cabinet expansion as a vote-garnering exercise.
The conversations also included the much-discussed JNU row and the suicide of Rohith Vemula controversy. Many tweets also claimed that the BJP was saving face by moving Smriti to this less significant portfolio.
Smriti also received some support from a minority of the social media populace, with many stating that there is potential in the textiles portfolio and that she could even be a key face in BJPs UP campaign. Whether Smriti was affected by this announcement or not remains to be seen, but she promptly deleted her HRD minister tag from Facebook and Twitter nonetheless.
Heres the best of all the social media reactions to the reshuffle:
full
Dear HRD ,
, #ByeByeSmriti Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) July 6, 2016
Is it really #ByeByeSmriti? I don't think so..India has high stakes in the Textile sector. pic.twitter.com/TlRm0z3ji7 Tele Mohan (@Mohaniya88) July 6, 2016
Chetan Chauhan is the new NIFT Chairman & #ByeByeSmriti is now textile minister! This will SERIOUSLY be fun!! Radhika Khera (@Radhika_Khera) July 6, 2016
They either wanted to put her off controversies or Put TEXTile ministry into controversies.Her TEXTing cud still b trolled #ByeByeSmriti Sakshi Joshi (@sakshijoshi85) July 6, 2016
#JusticeForRohith is still awaited. #CabinetReshuffle is not punishment. #ByeByeSmrity n Dattatreya should be from cabinet to jail#Azadi Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) July 6, 2016
Taking HRD #SmritiIrani is the victory sIGN of #kanhaiyakumar and #JNU and all other ppl and institu. Which she targeted ! #ByeByeSmriti Tea Freak (@BhopaliChai) July 6, 2016
Round 1 goes to JNU #ByeByeSmriti Nirbhaya's India (@NirbhayasIndia) July 6, 2016
Don't think @smritiirani has been 'demoted'. She could be key face in BJP UP campaign. So watch this space! Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) July 5, 2016
As a token advance of action the textile industry minister- Smriti Irani banned the song "Choli ke peeche kya hei.... #ByeByeSmriti TeXTile Dhamaka (@iCongwala) July 5, 2016
In Hindsight, Smriti Irani shouldn't have said 'Judge me by my Work'. Her boss just did Joy (@Joydas) July 5, 2016
The next generation will be now much relaxed that their future isn't as bleak #ByeByeSmriti Youth Congress (@IYC) July 6, 2016
From Text Books to TextTiles. From Students Union Protests to Trade Union Protests. The battle ground has shifted!#ByeByeSmriti Navin Khaitan (@navinkhaitan) July 5, 2016
Dear aunty-national has been judged and hence shunted out to spinning ministry. #ByeByeSmriti Shariqul Bari (@ShariqulBari) July 5, 2016
Among all this I am thinking whether the official mail informing her about the removal will have Dear Smriti or just Smriti #ByeByeSmriti Piyush (@LazyLekhak) July 5, 2016
Smriti Irani was one of the most-discussed reshuffles in the cabinet expansion of the Union Council of Ministers on Tuesday night. She was shifted from the key HRD ministry to the relatively less prestigious textiles portfolio.
The former model-turned-TV actress-turned politician has had a turbulent journey from Indias favourite bahu to Indias trolled aunty. We take a look at Iranis journey from gaining prominence as a politician in BJP and being the youngest Cabinet minister in the Modi government to becoming an alleged liability for the same.
Kyunki Smriti bhi kabhi bahu
1976: Irani was born in Delhi and comes from a PunjabiBengali family. She has said that she worked as a waitress and cleaned the floors at a McDonald's restaurant before finding stardom. Irani initially worked as a model and was a finalist in the Femina Miss India 1998 pageant.
2000: She acted in two television soaps- Aatish and Hum Hain Kal Aaj Kal Aur Ka- before getting her big break in Kyun ki Saas bhi kabhi bahu thi. Her portrayal of Tulsi Virani, the ideal bahu gained her a huge fan following. The show ran for about 8 years and ended in 2008.
Tulsi enters politics
2003: Smriti entered the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2003 while continuing to work on Kyunki.
2004: She contested from the Chandni Chowk constituency in Delhi and lost against Kapil Sibal in the Lok Sabha elections.
An ironic piece of Iranis past is revealed by the fact that she threatened to go on a fast-unto-death demanding the resignation of Modi with regards to the 2002 Gujarat riots. She changed her stance eventually and event went on to defend Modi about the issue.
Iranis rise in BJP
2010: Irani was made the National Secretary of BJP and also appointed as All India President of the BJP Mahila Morcha.
2011: She was appointed as Member of Parliament from Gujarat in the Rajya Sabha.
2012: Iranis ascension continued BJP's vice-president.
2014: Smriti contested the 2014 general elections against Rahul Gandhi in Amethi constituency of Uttar Pradesh. Despite losing, she gave the Indian National Congress quite the scare of a reduced mandate in this key constituency.
Smriti Irani controversial appointment as HRD minister
Smriti was appointed as the Union Minister for Human Resource Development on May 26. People were infuriated by the decision, finding it absurd that 12th pass Smruti would handle the education portfolio.
Degree dilemma
Her education has always been a murky subject, with disputing reports about her qualifications. In 2004, Irani stated in an affidavit that she had a Bachelors of Arts degree from the School of Correspondence, Delhi University. But in the 2014 General Elections, she declared that she had a Bachelors of Commerce Part-1 degree from University of Delhi.
Which leads us to the Yale controversy; Irani was in even more hot water when she claimed that she had a degree from the prestigious Yale University, and she even declared that anyone can file a PIL about the poll affidavit. Turns out that she attended a six-day leadership programme (read: crash course) at the Yale campus in Connecticut, in June 2013.
German-Sanskrit row in Kendriya Vidyalayas
Irani once again received flak for replacing German with Sanskrit as the third language in Kendriya Vidyalayas. Her defence for the decision was that Germans inclusion was a violation of the three language formula. She also said that German would continue to be taught as an "additional subject of hobby class". This decision, at a time when Modi was to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel, led to quite a bit of indignation.
FYUP rollback storm
2015: The rollback of the controversial Delhi Universitys four-year university programme (FYUP) Critics, many being from the Opposition, bashed the decision, calling it the ministrys attempt to impose its decision on an autonomous institution. Irani asserted that 40-odd courses in the programme were not sanctioned by the President. She also added that, The programme would have produced 77,000 students (each year) with degrees without any worth. Had they been on the streets, were we ready to meet that situation? If I have protected their future, why are they hurt?
Controversy over appointment of IIT directors
Anil Kakodkar resigned as the chairperson of IIT-Mumbai allegedly because due to clashes with the HRD ministry over selection of IIT directors. Kakodkar slammed the ministrys interference in the selection process.
Rohith Vemula suicide
The straw that broke the backbone of Iranis HRD ministry was the outrage over the suicide of Rohit Vemula, a Hyderabad University scholar. Rohith hung himself on campus on January 17, only days after he was banned from the University hostel and other common areas on campus for allegedly attacking an ABVP activist.
The poor handling of this case was not the only major blunder on Iranis part. She was also accused of altering facts in her Parliament speech about the issue. Many believe that this case was one of the factors that encouraged the reshuffle.
JNU debate
The raging issues of sedition, nationalism and student politics following the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) controversy. The events inflamed after a "disciplinary" enquiry and arrests were held into the holding of an event against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.
When she tried to prove a point about the same in Parliament while reading an offensive pamphlet about Goddess Durga, the Congress attacked her act, asking for an apology for the blasphemous remarks.
Cabinet reshuffle
2016: Which leads us to the cabinet expansion for the Union Council of Ministers. Her replacement in the HRD Ministry will be the newly-elevated Cabinet minister Prakash Javadekar. Many see this move as punishments for falling short of the Modi governments expectations.
New Delhi: Justifying the latest expansion of Union Council of Ministers, Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday said 78 ministers were not a large number for a country as large and diverse as India.
Speaking to reporters after taking over charge from his Cabinet colleague and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, he said Tuesday's reshuffle had evoked a favourable reaction from people and even from some rival leaders.
There are some people, who, however, cannot take a positive view of anything, he added.
"The Constitution allows 15 percent of the strength of Lok Sabha for the Cabinet of the Prime Minister. We are well within that and it is a huge country. We have inherited huge problems and it needs a huge effort.
"For a country of our size and range of issues to be addressed, coordination with states and three tier institutions, I think 78 ministers is not certainly large," he said.
"The Prime Minister's focus is more on delivery. It needs effective coordination, monitoring, that is why these inductions are made," Naidu, who was earlier in charge of Parliamentary Affairs Ministry, said.
Rival parties have raised questions over the increase in the size of the Council of ministers in the context of PM's mantra of 'minimum government and maximum governance'.
On the shifting of Smriti Irani from HRD to Textiles Ministry, Naidu asked reporters not to read too much into it.
"The person who you are talking about is also a dynamic person," he said, adding, the decision regarding portfolios is the prerogative of the Prime Minister.
"I don't think anybody is unhappy about this," he said.
Lauding Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Naidu said he is the "hope of the nation" and after long time the country has a combination of a stable government and an able leader.
Flanked by Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore, Naidu thanked Jaitley for having given quality time and attention to the important ministry despite his preoccupation with Finance Ministry and the economy and said he would broadly like to carry on with the same approach.
He said his mission would be to ensure various media units of the government emerge as credible brands serving the cause of information to the people.
On a question about religious leader Zakir Naik's speeches, Naidu said, "We have time to study all these aspects" and added that he would be communicative and outspoken on issues.
It was speculated. Now it's clear.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi nurtures deep animosity towards the media. Nothing else explains why the prime minister chose to drop a bombshell so late into the night when most star anchors were busy negotiating homeward traffic and print media had almost sorted out its first page.
The cars had to be reversed and Page 1 had to be redrawn because on Tuesday, Modi gave the words 'Cabinet reshuffle' an entirely new meaning by announcing sweeping changes that were simultaneously a strong statement of intent to peers and an unmistakable message to the electorate at large that he means business.
It was not so much a Cabinet 'reshuffle' as a thorough dismantling of his council of ministers and a total overhaul of far reaching proportions the impact of which will be discussed for a long time to come.
Though the focus, for obvious reasons, will be on the shifting of Smriti Irani from the high profile Union HRD ministry to the relatively low-key textiles, in reality, the transfer of minister of state Jayant Sinha from finance to civil aviation is a bigger shock and a more inexplicable move, considering the fact that the Harvard-educated former venture capitalist was a natural fit in his portfolio and was largely thought to have carried out his responsibilities with some degree of competence.
Let's face it, the Irani move was hardly an unexpected one.
The BJP is in the midst of a massive outreach towards the Dalits ahead of the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. The party has lined up Modi and Amit Shah to address a series of rallies apart from a sequence of other Dalit-centric events. IIT-trained professionals have been roped in to assess the impact of the exercise. As part of the same outreach, Modi on Tuesday inducted Ramdas Athawale, a prominent Dalit leader from Maharashtra, into his Cabinet as the BJP sought to send a message of inclusion to the politically crucial segment ahead of elections to five states.
In the scheme of things, the controversy over Hyderabad University scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide and Irani's handling of the incident was always going to be held against her. As long she was at the helm of a politically sensitive HRD ministry, the BJP would find it difficult to win the perception game. The prime minister would have to be really daft not to recognise the problem. Far from it being a surprise, shifting her was perhaps the most obvious move.
Irani is a feisty leader, never one to shy away from a fight. Her pugnaciousness could be better utilised in the rough and tumble of electoral politics and there is a possibility that Modi simply made a tactical move by giving her a less important portfolio so that she can be left free to take charge of the BJP campaign in the UP Assembly polls.
Sinha's shifting, however, is intriguing. There is speculation not entirely idle that the Hazaribagh MP was made to pay for his father's outspokenness. Yashwant Sinha, cast by BJP's GenNext into the orbit of obscurity, has been a virulent critic of the Modi government since almost its inception. Most recently, Sinha Sr has castigated the prime minister for taking a special interest in getting NSG membership for India, saying the country stands to lose and not gain by becoming a member, and alleging that people sitting in the government were misguiding it every day.
But the theory doesn't hold water for a very simple reason. If his father's garrulousness was a problem, Jayant Sinha would never have been appointed as a minister in the first place.
Strangely, however, Sinha has been shifted out of finance at a time when he was spearheading some crucial reforms in the banking sector. The Indradhanush plan, for instance, is a seven-pronged scheme launched last year to revamp functioning of PSU banks that include appointments, board of bureau, capitalisation, de-stressing, empowerment, framework of accountability and governance reforms.
Sinha was also the brain behind India's first Rs 40,000-crore sovereign wealth National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) and was in the process of choosing the CEO. During a recently-held Advancing Asia conference in the capital, Sinha revealed that he has received "82 very high quality CVs (for the post of NIIF CEO)" which will be shortlisted to about 8-10 people. "We will be shortly calling them for interview and we hope to whole process complete within next few weeks," he had said.
With the global market in a turmoil over Brexit and domestic economy still struggling to find its feet, it seems a bizarre time to shunt out a man who holds an MBA with Distinction from the Harvard Business School, an MS in Energy Management and Policy from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Technology degree with Distinction from IIT, Delhi.
One uncharitable explanation holds that Modi government is not unduly impressed with Ivy League policy wonks and their ability to impact the Indian economy, going by the way RBI governor failed to find favour for an extension of his term. But Sinha has hardly put a foot wrong and never ventured beyond his brief, even criticising the RBI governor for his 'one-eyed king' comment.
It should equally be pointed out, however, that with a freshly minted new civil aviation policy on the table, perhaps the government needed somebody more energetic than Mahesh Sharma to guide a much-needed revamp of the sector that just a few days ago became open to 100 percent FDI without any caveats except a government nod after the foreign investment limit crossed 49 percent. And not to speak of piecing together the Air India jigsaw one puzzle that has so far eluded a solution.
Having said that, purely in terms of core competence though, Sinha's transfer doesn't make sense.
New Delhi: Newly appointed Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, who has replaced Smriti Irani after her controversial two-year tenure, on Wednesday said education is not a subject for "party politics" and he was open to suggestions from everyone.
Asserting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a vision to improve the quality of education and make it more meaningful, Javadekar said education should be seen as an "emancipator" and "agent of change" and he would come out with a roadmap after consultations with PM Modi and others including Irani.
"I will build upon the several good initiatives taken up by Smriti Irani," he said. "I accept this (new) responsibility humbly and I will talk to our earlier minister Murli Manohar Joshi," he said.
Joshi, a former BJP president who is now part of Margdarshak Mandal, has been critical of the Modi government. Irani's stint as Human Resources Development (HRD) Ministry was marked by controversies with the minister drawing flak over dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide in Hyderabad, JNU row and allegations of saffronisation of education.
Javadekar said education "is not a subject for party poltics" but it is an important issue and "we will have discussion on it with everyone."
Calling himself a product of student politics during the JP movement, the Minister said education was an "emancipator and agent of change" and it will play a big role in bringing changes in India in the 21st century. "Education gives meaning to life, it gives values to life. Therefore, to make education meaningful is the real challenge. Poor parents do a lot of hard work to educate their wards. So, to provide quality education is our aim and we will be able to do it," he told reporters, adding that he will formally take charge on Thursday.
The minister said the new education policy of India has to be "student-centric". "I want to assure all the teachers across the country that we all will chalk out the road map of India's new eductation policy and education has to be student-centric."
"I value everyone's opinion and at the same time we will have a larger discussion on it. My doors will be open for any suggestion," he said.
Javadekar, who was in charge of Environment and Forest Ministry and was the lone minister to be promoted to the Cabinet rank while 19 new inductees took oath as Ministers of State on Tuesday, said under Prime Minister Modi there is a lot of focus on education.
"I will take charge on Thursday and after getting a brief from the Prime Minister, we will decide the road map ahead." Javadekar said that his 92-year-old mother who stays with him was a primary school teacher herself and he "values" teachers' contribution to the society.
Javadekar said media too has a "huge role" in this area. Irani has been appointed as the new Textiles Minister.
New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party leader Ashish Khetan, under fire for equating the party's 'Youth Manifesto' for Punjab polls with religious books and using the image of Golden Temple on it, on Wednesday met Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in New Delhi.
AAP's Punjab in charge Sanjay Singh and senior leader Ashutosh were also present in the meeting.
However, the party maintained that the meeting had got nothing to do with the controversy.
While Khetan has already tendered an apology, saying he did not intend to "undermine any section of the society", a
case was registered against him in Amritsar today for allegedly hurting religious sentiments.
When contacted, a senior party leader said the meeting was "informal". The leader criticised the opposition for
"communalising" the issue despite Khetan tendering apology.
"The opposition is just trying to whip up communal sentiments. Khetan has already apologised and the party's Punjab unit has also done the same," the leader said.
While Kejriwal, who was recently on a three-day tour of Punjab, has kept mum on the issue, he shared videos of
Khetan's apology on Twitter.
The opposition led by BJP-SAD pounced on AAP after Khetan had reportedly compared the manifesto with "the Bible, Gita and Guru Granth Sahib" to underline the party's commitment to it during its launch in Amritsar.
Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal had attacked AAP, saying its act amounted to "desecration" of the
holy book and sought an apology from AAP chief Kejriwal.
PTI
Muslim worshippers gather after a suicide bomber detonated a device near the security headquarters of the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, Saudi Arabia, July 4, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]
RIYADH - Suicide bombers struck three cities across Saudi Arabia on Monday, killing at least four security officers in an apparently coordinated campaign of attacks as Saudis prepared to break their fast on the penultimate day of the holy month of Ramadan.
The explosions targeting US diplomats, Shi'ite worshippers and a security headquarters at a mosque in the holy city of Medina followed days of mass killings claimed by the Islamic State group in Turkey, Bangladesh and Iraq. The attacks all seem to have been timed to coincide with the approach of Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that celebrates the end of the Islamic holy month.
A suicide bomber detonated a bomb at a parking lot outside the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, the second-holiest site in Islam, a Saudi security spokesman told state news agency SPA.
"Security men noticed a suspicious person among those approaching the Prophet's Mosque in an open area used as parking lots for visitors' cars. As they confronted him, he blew himself up with an explosive belt, which resulted in his death and the martyrdom of four of the security men," the spokesman said.
Five other officers were wounded, the statement added.
A Saudi security official said an attacker parked a car near the US consulate in Jeddah before detonating the device.
A video sent to Reuters by a witness to the aftermath of the Medina bombing showed a large blaze among parked cars in the fading evening light, with the sound of sirens in the background. A picture sent to Reuters showed a burnt and bleeding man lying on a stretcher in a hospital.
Other pictures circulating on social media showed dark smoke billowing from flames near the Mosque of the Prophet, originally built in the 7th century by the Prophet Muhammad, who is buried there along with his first two successors.
In Qatif, an eastern city that is home to many members of the Shi'ite minority, at least one and possibly two explosions struck near a Shi'ite mosque. The security spokesman said the body of a bomber and two other people have been identified, without providing any more details.
Witnesses described body parts, apparently of a suicide bomber, in the aftermath.
A resident of the city reached by telephone said there were believed to be no casualties there apart from the attacker, as worshippers had already gone home to break their fasts. Civil defence forces were cleaning up the area and police were investigating, the resident said.
A video circulating on social media and purporting to show the aftermath of a Qatif blast showed an agitated crowd on a street, with a fire raging near a building and a bloody body part lying on the ground. Reuters could not immediately verify the video.
Hours earlier a suicide bomber was killed and two people were wounded in a blast near the U.S. Consulate in the kingdom's second city, Jeddah.
The Jeddah blast was the first bombing in years to attempt to target foreigners in the kingdom. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Authorities identified the attacker as a 34-year-old Pakistani driver named Abdullah Qalzar Khan, who lived with his wife and family in the city.
An official of the US State Department said no American citizens or consulate staff were hurt in the Jeddah blast. He said the United States was aware of reports of explosions in Qatif and Medina and would monitor the situation closely.
He said the State Department encouraged US citizens in Saudi Arabia "to be aware of their surroundings, and keep security and situational awareness levels high."
Islamic State has carried out a series of bombing and shooting attacks in Saudi Arabia since mid-2014 that have killed scores of people, mostly members of the Shi'ite Muslim minority and security services.
Police and groups of local volunteers increased security near mosques in Qatif after suicide bombings hit mosques in Shi'ite areas last year, killing dozens. Another suicide blast at a mosque used by security forces killed 15 a year ago.
The top Saudi clerical body condemned the attacks.
"They are renegades from the (true) religion who have left behind the Muslim flock and their imam, violating all sanctities," the Secretariat of the Council of Senior Scholars said in a statement.
"They have no religion," it added.
Thiruvananthapuram: Embarrassing the CPM- led LDF, Marxist veteran V S Achuthanandan on Wednesday expressed displeasure over the stand taken by the LDF government in the ice cream parlour case in the Supreme Court and said it was "unfortunate".
Achuthanandan, whose plea for a CBI probe into the over two decade old sex scandal was turned down by the Supreme Court on Tuesday, broke his silence on Wednesday and said he had only approached the court for the rights of the poor girls who were forced into prostitution.
Senior advocate K K Venugopal, who represented the government, had said Achuthanandan's plea was "politically motivated".
Asked about the government's stand, a miffed Achuthanandan told reporters that it was "unfortunate".
"I had raised strong voice to help the poor girls who were forced into prostitution. Court observed that the case was politically motivated and that was unfortunate," he said.
Asked for his response, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said he was unaware of the senior party leader's remarks.
The outburst of the 92-year-old leader, who was sidelined by the party for the Chief Ministerial post, has come when he is tipped to be named as chairman of the Kerala Administrative Reforms commission.
The ice cream parlour case, which had rocked the state in the early 1990s, was used as a cover for running an alleged sex racket and names of some politicians, including that of former state minister P K Kunhalikutty, had come under a cloud.
Achuthanandan had moved the Apex Court seeking a CBI probe into the case following fresh disclosures by a close relative of Kunhalikutty.
However, a division bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur had, while dismissing Achutanandan's plea, observed that it would not become party to "political battles where people have political vendetta and rivalries".
Achuthanandan was also critical of the manner in which the CM's legal advisor M K Damodaran, a former Advocate General, had appeared for lottery king Santiago Martin in a case before the Kerala High Court on Tuesday.
Achuthanandan said he had launched legal battles against Martin, which saw him eventually "packing off" from the state and that was a big achievement for the LDF.
Meanwhile, Opposition Congress today attacked the government, saying it had rolled out the 'red carpet' for the lottery king against whom several cases were pending before the High Court.
Both KPCC President V M Sudheeran and BJP President Kummanam Rajasekharan demanded that Damodaran quit as Chief Minister's legal advisor.
Kummanam alleged that Achuthanandan had charged Martin with siphoning off about Rs 80,000 crore from Kerala by conducting lotteries and it was surprising that Chief Minister's legal advisor had appeared for the accused in the
case.
Mumbai: Although Smriti Irani is trying to put up a brave face by taking recourse to an evergreen Bollywood number Kuch toh log kahenge, logon ka kaam hai kehna" after being replaced by Prakash Javadekar as the Union HRD minister on Tuesday, the hangover of her tumultuous legacy is not yet over.
During her two-year tenure as the HRD minister she was dogged by never ending controversies, whether it was the death of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula or the police crackdown in JNU which she had firmly supported.
"JNU did play a role (in her ouster from the HRD ministry) but our fight is still continuing. There was definitely pressure on the government but this latest shuffle happened probably because of electoral equations like the upcoming UP polls," JNU Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumar told Firstpost from New Delhi.
While for some like Umar Khalid, who was booked for sedition during the February police crackdown, who believed that the 'Government even had to settle for a shuffle shows the phenomenal fightback by the students', others like Anirban Bhattacharya, another co-accused in the sedition case is skeptical at the induction of Prakash Jadavekar.
"She has been shunted simply because in this 'OLX raj', Prakash Javadekar has proved his worth in selling better. He has sold environment, land and resources so far. Now he would flaunt his expertise in salesmanship in education. He earned his way to HRD with the Rs 200 crore fine waiver to Adani. I see more anti-student moves in the coming days. I see more struggles," Anirban said.
But the aggrieved students community is no mood to call for peace until their terms are met. "Rohith Vemula is yet to get justice and Appa Rao is still roaming scot free while shuffling doesn't mean that Smriti Irani has been dropped from the cabinet. The saddest part was when Javadekar told that he'll follow in the footsteps of his predecessor," Kanhaiya said.
But, Saurabh Kumar Sharma, a Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad activist and a JNUSU office bearer dismissed such claims. "This section of people should first accept that this government is for everyone. This section should first start acting keeping the goodwill of the country in mind rather than going against the ethos of what this country stands for."
When the JNU row was in full swing, Finance Minister Arjun Jaitley had claimed that BJP was fighting an ideological war and that they were winning it. "I completely agree with Arun Jaitley that it was an ideological war. But was mistaken in thinking that he had won the war. Ideological wars are fought at the level of ideas but when you bring the police in that shows you are on a weak ideological footing," Umar said.
While what lead to Smriti Irani's exit from HRD ministry is still shrouded in mystery, Tathagata Satpathy, Biju Janta Dal MP from Odisha, who had given a rousing speech in the Parliament over the JNU row blamed the attitude of the Union government.
"Textile offers a lot of scope for a young minister like Smriti Irani. Finally the government has woken up to roti, kapda aur makan problem by addressing kapda first. Ministries like textile and drinking water and sanitation is very important so why do people consider as some kind of demotion?" Satpathy told Firstpost.
Kanhaiya, who had written an 'open letter' to Smriti Irani, when the JNU Committee had fined him Rs 20,000 for creating ruckus in the campus and which he had termed as a witch hunt had some words of advice for the new HRD minister. "Prakash Jadavekar has seen what has happened to Smriti ji. Please do not act against the interests of the students," he said.
"You already announced that you will be following in the footsteps of of your predecessor. Which means campus violence will continue and deaths of dalit scholars will go unabated and allocation of funds in every budget will shrink. Don't allow that to happen," Kanhaiya said.
While Eid is officially yet to be declared, festivities have already started in JNU. "Revolution is but festival of the masses. We are going through a revolutionary struggle. In that regard everyday is a festivity for us but we are definitely going to savor Eid this time," said Umar.
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Thiruvananthapuram: The honeymoon of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in Kerala seems to have ended with Communist Party of India (Marxist) veteran VS Achuthanandan speaking out against the government in two controversial cases.
The 92-year-old leader broke the ceasefire brokered by the partys central leadership on the eve of the Assembly election after the chief ministers legal advisor MK Damodaran appeared in the court for a lottery king he has been fighting for over two decades and the government took a stand against his petition in the sensational Kozhikode ice-cream parlour sex scandal.
His long legal battle in the sex case came to a virtual end on Tuesday with the Supreme Court dismissing his petition for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe against prime accused PK Kunhalikutty, former industries minister and leader of Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), warning him against using the court for settling political scores. The apex court chided him after government counsel KK Venugopal termed the case politically motivated.
The crusade launched by Achuthanandan against lottery king Santiago Martin in the early 2000 may also meet with the same fate if the government goes by the advice of the chief ministers legal advisor, who had appeared in the high court on Tuesday to oppose the Enforcement Directorates order to attach Martins assets worth Rs 122 crore.
There is no reason to believe that the government will not do so since Martin has been a major source of fund for the party and its media outlets. The unholy deals between the party and the tainted lottery king came to the surface in 2008, when it was revealed that the partys mouthpiece Deshabhimani had accepted Rs 2 crore from him when he was wanted in the state in connection with a tax evasion case.
The CPM refunded the amount and suspended the then Deshabhimani general manager EP Jayarajan in connection with the deal following a big uproar in the state. However, the party reinstated Jayarajan a year later and promoted him now as minister for industries and sports.
Achuthanandan had initiated a move for a CBI probe into the lottery scam during his 2006-11 tenure as chief minister alleging that he had looted Rs 80,000 crore from the state, but it was opposed by Pinarayi. A CBI probe was finally ordered by the Central government after pressure from the next Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) government.
However, the CBI gave clean chit to Martin in 23 cases. The last government has filed an appeal in the high court against the CBI decision to write off these cases. The Congress fears that the LDF government with Pinarayi at its helm may let off Martin easily. The party has demanded removal of Damodaran from the post of chief ministers advisor if he had appeared for the lottery king without its approval.
The CPM has defended Damodarans appearance in the ED case, saying that the latter was not under the rolls of the government. Party central committee member and a close Pinarayi loyalist A Vijayaraghavan said Damodaran was free to pursue his legal career since he is not taking any remuneration from the government for advising the chief minister on legal issues.
The Achuthanandan camp suspects the hand of Damodaran, who is the counsel for the chief minister in the SNC Lavalin case, in the pro-Kunhalikutty stand the government took in the ice-cream parlour case in the Supreme Court. Damodaran, who had advised the government against prosecuting Kunhalikutty in his capacity as Advocate General during 1996-2001, was later accused of receiving considerations from the Kunhalikutty camp.
KA Rauf, a relative of Kunhalikutty, had alleged that the latter had paid Damodaran Rs 32.5 lakh to clear the debt of Malabar Aqua Farms, operated by his wife, and later he got the sick firm taken over by one of his friends. Rauf, who had handled the deals on behalf of Kunhalikutty, had made the revelations after they fell out due to some reasons.
Rauf had also alleged Kunhalikutty had paid bribes to judges for getting favourable verdicts and huge cash to the victims and witnesses for not speaking against him. It was on the basis of these revelations that Achuthanandan had moved the Supreme Court for a CBI probe against Kunhalikutty.
Reacting to the court verdict, the veteran leader said that the stand the state government took against his petition was unfortunate. "I have fought the case for the unfortunate girls who were the victims of the sex racket. The government should not have stated that the petition was politically motivated," he said.
He also expressed his displeasure over Damodarans appearance for Martin saying that it was he who forced the lottery king to quit Kerala. The party veteran claimed his pursuit of the case had prevented outflow of crores of rupees from the state.
Political analysts view the expression of displeasure by Achuthanandan against the government as a bad omen for the Pinarayi government. They feel that the nonagenarian leader can prove to be a thorn in the flesh of the chief minister if the government goes in the wrong direction.
The two have been daggers drawn till the Assembly election. Achuthanandan had tried to prevent the ascendance of the group led by Pinarayi by openly criticising their actions and sending missives to the central leadership frequently. He had caused big headache to Pinarayi by raking up the SNC Lavalin corruption case.
The tug of war between the two had even led to the suspension of two from the partys politburo. However, they continued the tussle. It snowballed into an open war with the party state committee controlled by Pinarayi accusing Achuthanandan of "deteriorating to an anti-party mentality," at the Aalappuzha state conference in February last year and the latter walking out of the conference.
The two rivals agreed for a ceasefire before the Assembly election after the central leadership intervened and allowed both to contest the election. Though Achuthanandan had sought a clarification on his post-poll role, the party leadership had promised to consider his claims after the election. However, the leadership dismissed his claim for another term as chief minister citing his advanced age.
Though party general secretary Sitaram Yechury sought to put him in a corner by describing him as the Fidel Castro of Kerala, Achuthanandan said he would rather prefer to be a sentinel of the people.
The Pinarayi government is trying to silence him by appointing him as the chairman of the Administrative Reforms Committee with a cabinet rank, but it has to be waited and seen how long Achuthanandan will remain silent.
In the high decibel din of the Cabinet expansion and reshuffle of portfolios in the Narendra Modi government, the media seems to have forgotten about a certain BJP maverick MP Subramanian Swamy who until recently was its obsession. Where is he now in this celebration?
Swamy neither figures in the list of new inductees, nor does he seem to be throwing tantrums over his exclusion. Evidently, Swamys antics of attacking the likes of RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, economic advisor Arvind Subramanian and other officials of the Finance Ministry turned out to be a misadventure. His snide remarks against Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was the final nail in the coffin of his aspirations to be a Union minister.
In his attempt to rejig the Cabinet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shown a distinct distaste for those with a penchant for courting controversy. Swamys exclusion and Smriti Iranis removal from the human resource development (HRD) Ministry are indicative of a pattern.
Though unlike Swamy, Irani never crossed the Rubicon line of party discipline. Yet she found herself in the midst of many controversies related to her haughtiness with bureaucrats and academics with Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide in Hyderabad and the JNU row marking crucial blows in her two-year tenure as HRD minister.
Though senior BJP leaders, including Modi, are quite impressed by Iranis political pugnacity, she seems to have lost out on moderation. In a recent conference of vice-chancellors of central universities, she ticked off seasoned academics in a very unpleasant manner.
Apparently the ministers conduct could not endear her to the bureaucracy and academics. On some occasions, she was seen courting controversies that may suit the image of a street-fighter, but not of a Union minister.
Contrast this with Prakash Javadekar, an unassuming leader from Maharashtra, who is the only one elevated in this Cabinet expansion he is now the HRD minister, after relieving his post as the Environment Minister. All this, with Javadekar maintaining a low-profile while facilitating the industry to negotiate with environmental concerns.
Insiders say that Javadekar very deftly handled his assignment of aligning the regulatory regime of the environment Ministry with developmental concerns. He was rewarded with the HRD portfolio for efficiently implementing the governments agenda and for his pro-active role in the climate change talks in Paris. Given Javadekars own training as Swayamsevak, his new assignment would only get wide approval within the Sangh Parivar.
If the reshuffle is any indication, then it is clear that the prime minister did not hesitate to clip the wings of those found falling short of his expectations. For instance, the communication portfolio was taken away from a voluble Ravi Shankar Prasad and given to Minister of State for Railway Manoj Sinha, as additional responsibility.
Sinha, an engineering graduate from Banaras Hindu University, won unqualified admiration for his efficiency, while maintaining a low-profile. Prasad was, however, given back the charge of the Law Ministry in view of his background as a lawyer he replaced DV Sadananda Gowda, who had taken over the law ministry from Prasad back in 2014.
Modi has also plugged gaps in certain portfolios by appointing MJ Akbar in the Foreign Ministry and by deploying Ananth Kumar as Parliamentary Affairs Minister, along with SS Ahluwalia, to mobilise support from non-congress parties for the smooth conduct of Parliament.
The underlying theme of the Cabinet reshuffle is quite Biblical 'meek shall inherit the earth'. This is the precise reason why Swami is left sulking. Similarly, a powerful leader like Yogi Adityanath in eastern UP was ignored, though the Cabinet expansion saw the accommodation of several leaders with influence at the local level. Modi also did not hesitate to axe Ram Shankar Katheria as the junior HRD minister as his controversial utterances had caused much consternation.
Taken together, the whole exercise conveyed that those inducted within the government would not be allowed to mess around with its image, either by their conduct or by their utterances.
The implied message was clear that those having self-inflated notions about themselves can enjoy all the freedom of speech and expression, but while sitting outside the government.
The media worked out the names of most of the 19 new ministers appointed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- a day before the official announcement on Tuesday -- based on deductive reasoning.
Scribes standing outside the residence of BJP president Amit Shah logically surmised that those ministers who gathered at Shahs residence on Monday, had come to express their gratitude to the leader. In some cases, inductees told reporters about the call they had got about their inclusion in the council of ministers.
This apparently innocuous spectacle carries wide connotations and ramifications for the power structure in the ruling party. By asking all to-be-sworn-in ministers to meet the BJP chief before taking over assignments in the government, the prime minister has very subtly re-emphasised the pre-eminence of the BJP organisation over the government.
The entire exercise conveyed a clear message that there existed only two centres of power the prime minister in the government and the BJP president in the partys organisational structure with clear demarcation of their work. Contrast this with the functioning of the NDA-1 government led by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani duo, and you will understand the difference.
In 1998, when Vajpayee took over as the prime minister, Advani was holding dual charge as the Union home minister and BJP president. He relinquished his charge as BJP president to one of the most outstanding organisational men in the party in his time, Kushabhau Thakre who worked as the general secretary (organisation) before taking over.
Thakre, who was known for building the party from the scratch in Madhya Pradesh, soon found himself grossly marginalised and hugely overshadowed by the Vajpayee-Advani combine in the government.
Though Thakre was one of the most respected RSS pracharaks loaned out to the BJP, his successors were mostly political featherweights, chosen only to be figureheads. Bangaru Laxman, who succeeded Thakre, is a case in point.
Laxman was essentially chosen as he belonged to a scheduled caste. In view of the BSPs emergence as a formidable force, Laxman was fielded as Hindutvas Dalit face, only to be unceremoniously thrown out following his involvement in a corruption case. The tenure of Laxmans successor, Jana Krishnamurthi, was quite insipid, though the NDA regime was at the peak of its power.
Krishnamurthi was thrown out as well because of his lacklustre performance, and M Venkaiah Naidu succeeded him, owing to his proximity to Advani. Naidu was assisted by another powerful leader, Pramod Mahajan, as his general secretary.
Since Naidu and Mahajan were brought into the party by giving up their cabinet positions, they were expected to revitalise the organisation. But they could not preclude the emergence of multi-power centres within the government, the party and the Sangh Parivar. As a result, the BJP lost the 2004 Lok Sabha elections; which saw the exit of Naidu as the BJP president, and the reinstatement of Advani.
This brief story of the selection of BJP presidents bears significance in view of the fact that almost all of them lived under the shadow of multiple power centres, and were quite tentative in exercising their control over the party. Other than Vajpayee and Advani, all other BJP presidents played only marginal roles in deciding over issues related to the organisational structure.
The cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday marked a radical deviation from the past. While Amit Shah was given unquestioned pre-eminence within the organisation, the reshuffle also gave a clear message that there does not exist any other power centre, except for the prime minister.
The spectacle at Shahs residence on Monday was a clear repudiation of the impression that individuals like Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Home Minister Rajnath Singh could emerge as parallel power centres.
At the same time, it effectively neutralized the impression that the RSS headquarters at Jhandewalan could also play a role in influencing the decisions within the BJP and the government with the rumoured, RSS-backed induction of Subramanian Swamy and Yogi Adityanath not coming through.
That does not mean that Narendra Modi, Amit Shah or the BJP have declared complete independence from the Sangh Parivar. Far from it, Modi seems to have clearly demarcated the lines of duty and responsibility within the government and the party in order to nip any confusion in the bud.
The reason behind Modi being extra-cautious on this front is not far to seek. Modi served as BJP general secretary in the NDA-1 regime and was witness to the deleterious impact of marginalisation of the party, entailed in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, when the BJP lost to the UPA. He does not want to repeat that mistake in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Mumbai: Posing an open challenge to the estranged ally Shiv Sena which rules the roost in the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday said nobody can stop BJP from coming to power in the civic body.
Election to the MCGM, country's richest civic body, is due early next year.
Fadnavis was addressing the party cadres at a function where he felicitated BJP MLA Ashish Shelar for his reappointment as Mumbai unit president for the next two years.
Shelar, incidentally, has been taking on Sena aggressively in the recent past.
Speculation is rife that BJP is likely to snap its electoral ties with the Sena for MCGM elections.
"No one can stop BJP from coming to power in the MCGM," the CM said, asking the cadres to gear up for winning the election.
The face of the city had to be transformed, he said, and expressed resolve that it would happen by the 2019 Assembly polls. "There is a vast difference between BJP and other political parties. We do not indulge in politics," he said.
A survey for providing permanent houses to the poor in Mumbai is underway, he said, adding, "some political parties use slum-dwellers for vote bank politics."
"The government is planning to invite Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the foundation-stone laying ceremony for the Mumbai-Nhava Sheva trans-harbour link in October," he said.
The NDA government at the Centre had speedily issued eight clearances for the planned airport at Navi Mumbai, he pointed out.
Dont miss the latest tragi-comedy unfolding in Karnataka.
IAS officer C Shikha, the Deputy Commissioner of Mysuruequivalent of a district collector in other statesslaps a criminal case against a Congress leader close to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday. Reason: the Congress leader, K Marigowda, had the temerity to intimidate her in the very presence of Siddaramaiah on Sunday night.
And Shikhas fault? She had not expedited the transfer of a tehsildar, who had incurred Marigowdas wrath by seizing some land encroached by him. After Shikha lodges the police complaint, Marigowda runs to her husband Ajay Nagabhushan, another IAS officer and the Deputy Commissioner of the neighbouring Mandya district, and seeks his help. The husband refuses to interfere and Marigowda goes absconding. On Tuesday, womens organisations promptly hold demonstrations demanding Marigowdas arrest. On Wednesday, it leads to a ruckus in the state Legsialture.
On his part, Siddaramaiah is doing the only thing he can: holding his head and watching the blow-by-blow account of the row unravel on the local TV channels.
But Siddaramaiah is not new to situations in which he finds himself in a fix.
Less than a month ago, IPS officer Anupama Shenoy, the deputy superintendent of police in Kudligi in Bellary district, took on a mining baron and the liquor mafia as well as the district-in-charge minister PT Parameshwar Naik all at once. Finally, she quit her job in disgust, noting on her Facebook page that Siddaramaiah was presiding over a rum rajya.
Narendra Modi and Amit Shah might want to give a warm hug to Siddaramaiah. He is doing much more than any BJP leader can to make Karnataka a Congress-mukt state after the assembly elections in 2018. Karnataka is the only big state that the Congress rules now.
Though Siddaramaiah put down a rebellion in the Congress that flared up after his clumsy 19 June cabinet reconstitution, he continues to hog newspaper headlines and take up prime time on local television for, of course, the wrong reasons.
Sample these headlines:
-Illegal sand mining, land grab charges shake Siddaramaiah
-Housing site scam rocks Siddaramaiah
-Siddaramaiah makes book about himself a must-read in schools
-Siddaramaiahs convoy blamed for ailing womans death
-Siddaramaiah changes car after a crow sits on it
Such an impressive array of media reports over a period of six months or even an year would have shaken the very ground under any chief ministers feet. In the case of Siddaramaiah, all this happened in less than a month.
There is no knowing what turn Shikhas case against Siddaramaiahs aide would take.
But Anupama Shenoy hit the nail bang on its head when she said the Chief Minister was running a rum rajya.
The liquor lobby is indeed the richest and the most powerful among all lobbies in Karnataka. And there are many: the mining, land, real-estate and education mafias.
Anupama can take comfort from the fact that Veerendra Patil lost his job as the states Congress Chief Minister in October 1990 after he locked horns with liquor tycoons. Rajiv Gandhi, then the Congress President, unceremoniously sacked Patil, an action that ultimately led to the partys debacle in 1994.
No Chief Minister after Patilof either the Congress, the Janata Dal (Secular) or the BJPhas been prepared to fight the lobbies. They fill the election coffers of all parties in varying proportions that depend on how they estimate each partys winning chances.
The pressure groups even ensure their representation in the ministries and ride rough shod over officials who refuse to toe their line. Parties come and go, but lobbies stay on forever.
These lobbies have never had it as good as they do now in the current Congress regime. And for the parties, backing the moneybags seems the wisest thing to do, especially in times of political uncertainty.
Like the many lobbies, even the factions within the Congress have had a free-for-all so far. But right now they are seemingly at peace after the high-decibel revolt against Siddaramaiah following his cabinet reshuffle. Apparently, the rebels are lying low after senior state and central leaders advised caution and after the Chief Minister pampered some of them with all kinds of sops.
This truce, though tenuous, is also the result of the fact that when elections are only two years away and the partys fate is hanging precariously in balance. No minister or MLA is ready to lose his position by precipitating a situation that may lead to assembly dissolution. Nobody wants a lose-lose scenario in politics.
Despite this artificial peace, undercurrents of dissidence against Siddaramaiah are there for all to see.
A principal cause of the current mess in the Congress in Karnataka is the weak central leadership and an even weaker state leadership. And the chief casualty of this disarray is the states governance, though Siddaramaiah goes through the motions of administration.
And even as Congressmen unravel their political burlesque, an occasional snippet of comedy is perpetrated on people. Siddaramaiah, for instance, changed his official car after a crow sat on it and refused to budge.
But nobody in Karnataka is laughing, except state BJP President BS Yeddyurappa.
Yeddyurappa has his own share of dissidence in his partypartymen are taking exception to the way he recently appointed office-bearers. Yet Yeddyurappa knows that, with former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowdas Janata Dal (Secular) falling apart because of an open rebellion, its the BJP that will become the biggest beneficiary of the current goings on.
The author's Twitter handle is @sprasadindia
New Delhi: Smriti Irani, who on Wednesday assumed charge as the Textiles Minister, took to a popular Hindi song to answer questions on being shifted from the HRD Ministry, where her tenure was marred by controversies.
Asked if the move was to give her more time to focus on next year's assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, she quoted a line from a popular Hindi song: "Kuchh toh log kahenge logon ka kaam hai kehna" (people are bound to say things because it is their job to say something).
Irani, who had a successful stint as a TV actress, plunged into politics and fought unsuccessfully against Rahul Gandhi from Amethi in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
In a move that surprised many in the political circles, Irani was assigned the HRD portfolio after the BJP-led NDA came to power in May 2014.
While some people hail Prime Minister Narendra Modis decision to shift Smriti Irani from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) to the Ministry of Textiles, others cannot stop speculating about how her role has changed in the BJPs strategy for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh elections.
Controversy has escorted Irani since she was appointed the HRD Minister in 2014 and some people seem to think that this apparent 'demotion' will keep her out of headlines. It is also seen as a sign of disapproval from Modi for the politician earlier 'favoured' by the PM.
However, it may just be a clever decision to still keep Smriti Irani as one of the most important cabinet ministers and yet quell controversies which have dogged her at every step of her stint as the HRD minister.
It definitely seems to be a calculated move by the BJP leadership.
What the media and some people deem as a demotion might actually be a covert promotion. According to a Hindustan Times report, Irani said, It is Prime Minister Narendra Modis dream to boost the textile industry.
And that is exactly why Irani has not been demoted in reality. Her portfolio has only been shifted to another but equally important ministry, which eludes the media eye. Ajoy Bose also points out in this FirstPost article, "The real reason, of course, is that textiles ministry, by its very nature, is a far less high profile department than HRD, quite unconnected to academics or Dalits which should allow Irani to stay out of the public limelight for the moment."
According to the Indian Brand Equity Foundation, Indias textile sector is one of the oldest industries of the Indian economy. It is also the largest contributor to Indias exports. It is currently estimated at $108 billion and is expected to rise to $223 billion by 2021.
The Indian textile industry is also closely linked to agriculture, which is also in a dilapidated state under the present central government. The farmers crisis has paralysed the economy to some extent.
According to the annual report by the Ministry of Textiles, the industry contributes to 10 percent of manufacturing production, 2 percent of Indias GDP and 13 percent of the countrys export earnings.
The 12th Five Year Plan constituted by the Planning Commission envisages Indias exports of textiles and clothing at $64.41 billion by March, 2017.
It is also the second largest source of employment generation after agriculture. The industry employs about 45 million people directly. Indirect employment, which covers manpower for the production of agriculture-based raw materials, includes another 60 million people.
India is also in a favourable balance of trade in the textile sector. Exports exceed imports of textile . According to the UN Contrade data released in 2015, India is the second largest textile and clothing exporter globally. The exports have been increasing annually as well. The industry has seen a growth of almost eight percent.
The textile industry is also deemed as a self-reliant industry which produces raw materials and delivers its own products.
Iranis induction as the Minister of Textiles is possibly to materialise Modis promise of keeping a focus on the textile industry. According to a report by The Indian Express, Modi said at an election rally before the 2014 general elections that weavers were an integral part of the citys history and have been neglected for a long time.
In the 12th Five Year Plan, the various segments of the textiles got a total outlay of Rs 1038.10 crore. The central government has also announced a grant of Rs 6000 crore to the textile industry.
Considering that the textile industry is pertinent to the growth of our country, it is unlikely that the BJP government would bestow it to a failed minister who has been embarrassing the party.
The Modi government may not actually consider Irani to be a failed minister or one who has not met the PMs expectations.
Ajoy Bose, in his article, also points out that textiles is important for both Modi's home state of Gujarat and the weaving looms of his constituency Varanasi. It is therefore, "unlikely that the ministry would be used for stop gap appointments."
Iranis shift can be an attempt to keep her out of news for a while and redeem her image before the crucial Uttar Pradesh polls. Rumours have been doing the rounds that Irani can be BJPs chief ministerial candidate.
Textile industry, which some say is a less significant ministry as compared to the HRD Ministry, is vital for our countrys revenue.
Some people are gradually realising the importance of the Textile industry as these tweets suggest:
Is it really #ByeByeSmriti? I don't think so..India has high stakes in the Textile sector. pic.twitter.com/TlRm0z3ji7 Tele Mohan (@Mohaniya88) July 6, 2016
#ByeByeSmriti this one is real stupid trend, she has not gone anywhere rather emerging with more powers and responsibilities QueenBee (@vaidehisachin) July 6, 2016
Am with @autumnshade that @smritiirani 's new gig is a promotion 1) Education is state subject,textile central 2)Vote catcher 3)6000 cr fund Madhavan Narayanan (@madversity) July 6, 2016
Mumbai: BJP ally Shiv Sena on Wednesday sought action against controversial Indian Islamic preacher Zakir Naik amid reports that the terrorists who struck at a Dhaka restaurant last week had followed him.
Sena MP Arvind Sawant said he had written to the Union Home Minister seeking a ban on Naik and his organisation, the Islamic Research Foundation, in the country's interest.
"People whose language propagates violence against the nation's unity should be banned," Sawant said in the letter.
"Islam teaches love and peace. But everyday is a day of high alert now. I appeal to the Home Minister that action needs to be taken," he said.
"How do young children in our country join ISIS? So, may be we are failing somewhere....we should know the seriousness of this situation. Radicalised minds can now take any step. In the name of Islam, they are slaughtering people who cannot recite verses," Sawant said.
New Delhi: Ahead of his departure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said his four-nation tour of African countries is aimed at enhancing ties with that continent, particularly in the economic sphere and people-to- people contacts.
Modi will begin his five-day tour with Mozambique and then travel to South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.
Focus of the visit will be on deepening cooperation in areas of hydrocarbons, maritime security, trade and investment, agriculture and food.
"My Africa tour, aimed at enhancing ties between India & Africa will begin from Mozambique in a brief but key visit," he tweeted.
"My programmes in South Africa will span across Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban & Pietermaritzburg," he added.
"In Tanzania I will hold talks with President Dr. John Magufuli, meet Solar Mamas & interact with Indian
community," Modi added.
With regard to his visit to Kenya in the last leg of his visit, he tweeted, "Talks with President @UKenyatta, deliberations on economic & people-to-people ties will be focus of my Kenya visit."
Giving details in Facebook posts, the Prime Minister said the aim of his visit to Mozambique is to increase cooperation and boost cultural linkages.
"I will meet President Filipe Nyusi and hold extensive talks with him," he said.
Other programmes include a meeting with Veronica Macamo, the President of the National Assembly and a visit to the S&T Park, Maluana, where he will interact with students. He will also interact with the Indian community briefly.
Tomorrow evening, Modi will travel to Pretoria in South Africa, a country he described as an "important strategic partner, with whom our ties are historical and deep-rooted."
He said, "History is witness to how Mahatma Gandhis stay in South Africa impacted him and the history of the world. He went to South Africa as a lawyer seeking work and returned to India as a strong voice for humanitarian values, who would go on to shape the history of humankind," Modi said.
"I will have the honour to visit Phoenix Settlement and Pietermaritzburg Station, two places very closely associated with Mahatma Gandhis stay in South Africa.
"A visit to South Africa is incomplete without remembering the beloved Madiba (Nelson Mandela). I will also be honoured to visit the Constitutional Hill and Nelson Mandela Foundation where I would pay my tributes to an icon of human history, who made his country and the world a much better place," he said.
During his South Africa visit, he will meet President Jacob Zuma as also Cyril Ramaphosa, the Deputy President.
"In an effort to boost our economic ties, I will speak at the India-South Africa business meet," he said.
NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Angola is suffering its worst outbreak of yellow fever in 30 years with 350 deaths since last December, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on Wednesday as it launched an emergency appeal for funds.
With a yellow fever epidemic underway in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, public health authorities have been scrambling to keep the disease from gaining a foothold in Angola.
Yellow fever, a mosquito-borne haemorrhagic virus, results in death rates as high as 75 percent in serious cases but its transmission can be prevented with a vaccine.
Yellow fever has killed 356 people in Angola and infected more than 3,400 infected since late last year, according to World Health Organization (WHO) and Angolan government figures that IFRC cited.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which shares a frontier to the northeast of Angola, suspected cases numbered about 1,307 and deaths 75 as of late June, according to the WHO. Congolese authorities declared a yellow fever epidemic in the capital and two provinces last month.[nNRA25fc4u]
The WHO said in late June it was scaling up its efforts to combat the outbreak with the launch of an emergency vaccination campaign in July along the border between Angola and DRC, as well as in the Congolese capital Kinshasa.[nL8N19F1J5]
But efforts to vaccinate the two countries' populations have been hampered by logistical challenges, including a shortage of yellow fever vaccines.
In Angola, suspicion about the effectiveness of vaccines over traditional medicines was another hurdle, IFRC spokeswoman Camelia Marinescu told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from the country's capital city Luanda.
"People take traditional plant-based medication which, when it comes to yellow fever, do more harm than good," Marinescu said. "Consequences ... can be lethal."
In an effort to dispel myths, IFRC staff and volunteers have been helping the Angola Red Cross with door-to-door visits and targeting the southern African country's media to raise awareness about the disease, the IFRC said.
"The message of our community mobilizers (is to) quickly go to the closest health center or hospital," Marinescu said.
More than 11 million yellow fever vaccines have been administered in Angola between Dec. 5, 2015 and July 5, 2016, she said.
Even so, suspected cases of yellow fever have been reported in Angola's 18 provinces, the IFRC said as it launched an appeal for 1.4 million Swiss franc ($1.4 million) appeal to fund its work to help stem the outbreak in the country.
($1 = 0.9755 Swiss francs)
(Reporting by Sebastien Malo, Editing by Katie Nguyen.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
BRASILIA, Brazil Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff presented her written defence to a Senate impeachment trial on Wednesday, denouncing the proceedings as a farce and saying her alleged crimes were no more than "routine acts of budgetary management."
"Everybody knows that you are judging an honest woman, a public servant dedicated to just causes," the suspended leftist leader said in a document read aloud by her lawyer and former Attorney General Jose Eduardo Cardozo. "I've honoured those who voted for me."
Rousseff's removal would mark an end to 13 years of leftist rule over Latin America's largest economy by the Workers Party that began in 2003 under her mentor, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Her defence made clear she is sticking to the strategy of refuting the impeachment process as a soft "coup" led by her one-time Vice President Michel Temer, a conservative who has taken over since mid-May when the Senate voted to try Rousseff.
Rousseff has repeatedly said her impeachment is an attempt by Temer and other right-leaning members of her one-time governing coalition partner, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), to remove her because she did not impede a sweeping probe of corruption at state-run oil company Petrobras (PETR4.SA).
That investigation has ensnared dozens of top politicians, including the former speaker of the lower house of Brazil's Congress, who led the impeachment campaign against Rousseff.
Rousseff herself is not directly accused of corruption. But Brazil's chief prosecutor has asked for her to be investigated for obstructing justice in the Petrobras case. She has denied any wrongdoing.
Her impeachment is technically focussed on accusations that she broke fiscal laws by disguising the size of the budget deficit to make the economy look healthier in the run-up to her 2014 re-election.
Rousseff has said her budget manoeuvring was no different than under previous presidents. But critics have said Rousseff borrowed far more money from state banks than her predecessors to plug budget gaps and hide the real state of Brazil's economy.
Rousseff's suspension in May had ample political support because her popularity had plunged amid Brazil's worst recession since the 1930s and public outrage over a string of corruption scandals involving her government. A recent poll showed interim President Temer is also highly unpopular.
"What most hurts right now is the injustice," Rousseff said in her written defence on Wednesday. "What hurts most is to perceive that I am the victim of a judicial and political farce."
Rousseff said she believes she is being targeted because she "never gave in to blackmail. I never accepted ... the backroom deals so well known in the traditional politics of our country."
Rousseff warned that should the Senate vote to find her guilty, as it is widely expected to do next month, her permanent removal would result in a Temer government that would shift Brazil's politics to the right without a win at the ballot box.
She said that would turn back democratic gains made during the fight against the nation's long dictatorship, during which Rousseff herself was arrested and tortured while spending three years in prison.
"A government that was not directly elected by the people will not have the legitimacy to propose solutions to our crises," Rousseff's defence read. "A government without popular support will not solve a crisis because it itself will always be the crisis."
(Reporting by Maria Carolina Marcello; Writing by Brad Brooks; Editing by Tom Brown)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
The much-delayed official inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war finally issues its findings on Wednesday, with former prime minister Tony Blair expected to face severe criticism.
Relatives of some of the 179 British troops who died were gathering in London for the publication of the Chilcot report, which runs to 2.6 million words -- more than four times the length of "War and Peace".
The inquiry, launched in 2009 as the bulk of British troops withdrew from Iraq, was tasked with investigating the run-up to the 2003 US-led invasion which toppled dictator Saddam Hussein and the subsequent occupation.
Anti-war protesters demanding Blair be prosecuted for war crimes are converging on the conference centre near the Houses of Parliament where retired civil servant John Chilcot will present his report.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis died during the conflict and violence in the country has spiralled since.
More than 200 people were killed in a car bombing in Baghdad on Sunday - one of the country's deadliest attacks ever which was claimed by Islamic State jihadists.
Britain's scarring experience in Iraq has made it deeply wary of committing ground troops to international military interventions in countries like Syria and Libya.
The US-led invasion was deeply controversial at the time as it did not have explicit approval from the UN Security Council, while claims that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction proved unfounded.
'Won't shy from criticism'
Chilcot was not asked to rule on the legality of the invasion, but leaks suggest Blair -- pictured leaving his London home looking grim-faced early Wednesday -- will be heavily criticised over the decision-making process.
Blair apologised last year for the fact the intelligence was wrong, and for mistakes in the planning, but said he did not regret removing Saddam.
"We haven't set out to criticise individuals or institutions," Chilcot said ahead of the report launch at 1000 GMT.
"However, I made very clear right at the start of the inquiry that if we came across decisions or behaviour which deserved criticism then we wouldn't shy away from making it."
More than 120 witnesses gave evidence during months of public hearings, including Blair, his successor Gordon Brown, spy and military chiefs and ministers.
Chilcot's report was repeatedly delayed by wrangling over what could be published, from diplomatic notes to records of cabinet meetings, as well as the need to give key figures prior warning of its contents.
Among the documents expected to be published are 29 letters sent by Blair to US president George W. Bush, and some records of conversations between the pair.
Blair has denied evidence submitted to the inquiry by Christopher Meyer, Britain's former ambassador to Washington, that he and Bush may have had an agreement "signed in blood" to topple Saddam a year before the invasion.
The International Criminal Court, which was petitioned to examine possible evidence of war crimes, has said it will consider the report but has no investigation open. The legality of the war is outside its jurisdiction.
'Blood on his hands'
Many families of soldiers killed in the conflict say they are sceptical about what the report will uncover.
Gary Nicholson, 42, was one of 10 British troops who died when their military transporter plane was shot down in 2005. His mother Julia said she feared a "whitewash".
"I'm absolutely disgusted," she said. "Tony Blair has got blood on his hands. He will have covered his back and Bush's back."
Admiral Alan West, the head of the Royal Navy when the war began, told The House magazine that he hoped the report would not spark a witch hunt.
"What one really wants out of it is lessons so that we don't make the mistakes again. I have a horrible feeling what other people want is to be able to get at people," he said.
The war, which at one point saw 46,000 British troops deployed, mostly in southern Iraq around the strategic oil hub of Basra, still looms large over British politics.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is currently facing a rebellion by his own MPs, but is expected to use the report to try and bolster his position.
The veteran socialist, who was only picked as leader last year, strongly opposed the war in Iraq, while many of his critics had supported it.
Atlantic City: In a gesture to her former Democratic primary rival Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton is announcing new steps aimed at tackling the rising cost of college tuition and the burden of student loan debt, including a three-month moratorium on loan payments for all federal borrowers.
Clinton is also calling for a plan that ensures families with annual incomes up to $125,000 pay no tuition at in-state public colleges and universities.
Wednesday's policy rollout is a direct overture to Sanders, the Vermont senator who posed a serious threat to Clinton in the Democratic primary and is yet to endorse her in the general election. A Clinton campaign fact sheet announcing the new proposals was laced with multiple references to Sanders and his calls for addressing college affordability.
Sanders welcomed Clinton's plan, calling it a "very bold initiative." In a positive sign for Democratic unity, he said also said he hopes to find more areas of agreement with Clinton before the party's national convention in Philadelphia later this month.
Sanders was wildly popular with young voters during the Democratic primary, with many drawn to his calls for free tuition at all public colleges and universities. Clinton cast her opponent's proposals as unrealistic, saying that while she shared his concerns about rising debt, she didn't want wealthier families to be able to take advantage of opportunities aimed at the middle and lower class.
A centerpiece of Clinton's plan is an executive order that would give federal student loan borrowers a three-month break from making payments. During that window they would be able to consolidate their loans or sign up for other programs aimed at reducing their monthly payments. Those who are delinquent or in default would get "additional rehabilitation options," the campaign said, though aides provided no details on those options.
Clinton is also seeking to eliminate college tuition at public, in-state institutions for families making $125,000 or less per year. The campaign said the policy would roll out gradually, first for families making $85,000 or less and increasingly the threshold by $10,000 annually through 2021.
The campaign did not provide details about how much the plan would cost or how Clinton proposes paying for it. It was unclear whether she would implement it using executive actions or need congressional approval.
A third proposal from Clinton aims to restore year-round Pell Grant funding so students can receive financial aid for summer classes.
New York: An Illinois-based man was arrested after he set the US flag on fire and posted photos on the social networking site Facebook, a media report said on Tuesday.
Bryton Mellott, 22, posted several photos on Facebook earlier this week, showing him with a burning flag. He also posted a statement why he is "not proud" to be an American, Fox59.com reported.
"In this moment, being proud of my country is to ignore the atrocities committed against people of color, people living in poverty, people who identify as women, and against my own queer community on a daily," quoted Mellott posted.
Before the photos were deleted, they had gove viral on social media.
Police said they made the decision to arrest him after consulting with the Champaign County State Attorney's office and weighing his free speech rights against concerns of public safety, the report added.
Mellott was released after receiving a notice to appear in the court later.
BEIRUT The death toll from a suicide bomb blast claimed by Islamic State at a bakery in the mostly Kurdish-controlled city of Hasaka in northeastern Syria on Tuesday rose to at least 25, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
At least nine more people had succumbed to their injuries, the monitor said on Wednesday. Six of the dead were children.
Islamic State said on Tuesday that it had carried out the attack and had targeted the Kurdish YPG militia.
Bomb attacks in Hasaka city have been rare in recent months although Islamic State has attacked areas in the surrounding Hasaka province in the past, including the city of Qamishli.
The YPG, which controls most of Hasaka, captured large areas of territory from Islamic State in northeastern Syria last year and is involved in a U.S.-backed offensive that has advanced against the jihadists further west near the Turkish border.
(Reporting by Lisa Barrington and John Davison; Editing by Louise Ireland)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
An eerie silence pervades the restaurants and shopping malls in Dhaka's diplomatic quarter, usually teeming with well-heeled urbanites, now standing empty since the killing of 20 hostages at a popular cafe.
Five days after the siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery in the Bangladeshi capital, many establishments remain closed, with shaken residents of Gulshan too afraid to venture out.
"Our guest numbers have gone down dramatically so the management took the decision to keep it shut for a while," said Abdul Mazid, a guard at Meraki, a well-known restaurant in the neighbourhood.
The run-up to Eid celebrations that mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan usually see shopping malls overflowing with crowds and millions of dollars changing hands in just a few days.
But this year Gulshan DCC market, usually bustling with Eid shoppers ahead of the biggest festival in the Muslim calendar, stand deserted.
The festivities, which start in earnest on Thursday, are likely to be subdued, with attendees instructed not to bring bags and high security at the National Eidgah Maidan in central Dhaka, where thousands will congregate for prayers in one of the largest such gatherings.
At least five gunmen stormed the bakery on Friday evening, sparking an 11-hour stand-off with police that saw victims murdered with machetes, most of them Italian or Japanese.
Around the corner from the site of the attack, Thai restaurant Soi 71 and neighbouring Korean diner Suraon, which usually remain lively past midnight, were shuttered on Tuesday.
"Ours is a happening business, it's hard to believe how quiet it has become over the past few days," said Mohammad Farhan, manager of the upmarket Butlers Chocolate Cafe, where waiters were standing around.
"It has just turned upside down."
'Moving bombs'
Britain was among countries urging its citizens to avoid areas frequented by foreigners, such as international hotels, large supermarkets or clubs, while Japanese firm Uniqlo restricted non-urgent travel for employees.
As Dhaka residents attempt to regroup, fears are mounting that the attack may herald an escalation of violence in Bangladesh.
Islamist militants have been blamed for a wave of murders of foreigners, religious minorities and secular writers over the past three years.
However, Friday's murders were on a totally different scale.
"I keep thinking about escape routes in our apartment and the building complex... I am too scared to be in my city any more," Dhaka-based private university researcher Shahana Siddiqui posted on Facebook.
The revelation that the attackers were educated, well-off members of society has sparked fears that Islamism has spread far beyond disenfranchised youngsters being radicalised in madrasas.
"Missing young men are potential moving bombs now. They can strike anywhere, any time," Mushtaq Ahmed, an entrepreneur, posted on social media.
At a mourning ceremony for the dead at a heavily secured park in Gulshan on Monday afternoon, some expressed fears that the weekend attack will not be the last.
"What we are seeing today is only the tip of the iceberg," retired Brigadier General Sakhawat Hossain, a security analyst, told the gathering.
"They came to kill and propagate their agenda. The ideology is there among our children."
Islamic State has warned of repeated attacks in Bangladesh and beyond until rule by sharia, Islamic law, is established, saying in a video last week's killing of 20 people in a Dhaka cafe was merely a glimpse of what is to come.
Five Bangladesh militants, most from wealthy, liberal families, stormed the upmarket restaurant on Friday and murdered customers, the majority of them foreigners, from Italy, Japan, India and the United States, before they were gunned down.
"What you witnessed in Bangladesh ... was a glimpse. This will repeat, repeat and repeat until you lose and we win and the sharia is established throughout the world," said a man identified as Bangladeshi fighter Abu Issa al-Bengali, in the video monitored by SITE intelligence site.
Bangladesh has rejected the Islamic State's claim of responsibility for the Friday attack and blamed it on a domestic militant group.
It was one of the deadliest attacks in Bangladesh, where Islamic State and al Qaeda have claimed a series of killings of liberals and members of religious minorities in the past year. The government has also dismissed those claims.
The Islamic State video began with pictures of recent attacks in Paris, Brussels and Orlando in the United States that the Middle East-based militants have claimed.
The fighter in the video, who spoke in both Bengali and English, said Bangladesh must know that it was now part of a bigger battlefield to establish the cross-border "caliphate" the group proclaimed in 2014.
"I want to tell the rulers of Bangladesh that the jihad you see today is not the same that you knew in the past," he said from a busy street in the militant group's de facto capital of Raqqa, in Syria.
"The jihad that is waged today is a jihad under the shade of the Caliphate."
Though Bangladesh has rejected the IS claim of responsibility for Friday's attack, police said they were stepping up security in response to the video threat.
"We are taking this issue seriously. All our concerned units are working tirelessly," said deputy police inspector general Shahidur Rahman.
Police believe the domestic Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, which has pledged allegiance to Islamic State, played a significant role in organising the band of privileged, educated young men who carried out the attack.
Police have said they are hunting for six members of the group suspected to have helped the attackers.
But foreign security experts say the scale and sophistication of the attack on the Holey Artisan bakery cafe pointed to some level of guidance from international militant groups.
Officials in Dhaka said on Tuesday police commandos had mistakenly shot dead a restaurant chef during the operation to end the siege.
H.T. Imam, a political adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, also said security officials had seen online warnings about an impending attack on Friday and ordered major hotels and restaurants in the neighbourhood of the cafe shut.
But they missed the actual target, he said.
New Delhi: The bloody weekend attack by Bangladeshi militants that left more than two dozen dead was also an attack on the country's vital garment industry.
Clothing manufacturing, the Southeast Asian nation's top export industry, had been recovering after a disastrous factory collapse three years ago shook up the industry, forcing workshops producing for foreign brands to improve working conditions.
Now, the industry, which is reliant on foreign investment, is in turmoil again after Friday's attack, in which armed extremists besieged an upscale restaurant, taking dozens of diners hostage and later killing 20 in an attack that targeted foreigners. Among the dead were a group of Italian designers and buyers for European stores.
The fallout has been almost immediate. On Monday, as people returned to work, companies were rethinking travel plans to the garment manufacturing hub.
Japanese fast-fashion clothing brand Uniqlo halted all non-essential travel to Bangladesh through the end of July and would continue to monitor the situation, said Aldo Liguori, a spokesman for corporate parent Fast Retailing, which has about 10 Japanese employees in Bangladesh who oversee manufacturing by local factories and supervise its four shops.
"The attacks could have significant economic impact which may well have been in part, the intention," said Gareth Price, a South Asia specialist at the London-based Chatham House think tank.
"The decision by Uniqlo to suspend travel to Bangladesh would, if replicated by other companies, have a devastating effect on the economy," Price wrote in an op-ed piece in the Indian Express newspaper on Wednesday.
Bangladeshi factory owners are bracing for the worst.
"It is a disaster for us. For the trade, it will be very tough to overcome this situation," said Mobasher Ali Mir, CEO of the Horizon Group, which makes clothes for British chain Next and Italian retailer Terranova.
Mir, who spoke by phone from Dhaka, said garment manufacturers in Bangladesh were already under pressure from Western buyers over concerns about worker safety after several fatal accidents in makeshift buildings.
Bangladesh, long one of Asia's poorest countries, earns about $26 billion annually from garment exports mainly to the United States and Europe. The garment industry employs about 4 million workers, mostly women from rural areas, who earn about $72 a month among the lowest minimum wages in the world.
With low labor and infrastructure costs to keep it globally competitive, Bangladesh has become one of the world's biggest workshops after China for clothing, churning out everything from cheap T-shirts to high-end designer wear.
However, the high death toll in the April 2013 collapse of Rana Plaza, a multistoried building outside Dhaka housing five garment factories, raised ethical questions about global brands outsourcing manufacturing to Bangladesh with its appalling work conditions.
Over the last two years, the Bangladeshi government and garment factory owners, under pressure from those global brands, stepped up safety and work conditions, and business was once again on an upswing.
Bangladesh's economy has maintained a robust 6 percent growth on average over the past two decades, making the country an attractive investment destination.
But that confidence was tempered by growing concerns about the resurgence of Islamic militancy in the country, with the past two years seeing a sharp rise in fatal violence by Islamic fundamentalists against secular bloggers, foreign aid workers and religious minorities in the traditionally moderate Muslim-majority nation.
The militant attacks in Bangladesh have also set off alarms in Japan, with more than 240 Japanese companies operating in the country.
Japan is also one of Bangladesh's biggest aid donors, having contributed billions of dollars assistance last year to build roads, railways and bridges, and improve water and sanitation.
But the deaths of seven Japanese aid workers in the attack will force the Japanese government and companies to reevaluate their roles in Bangladesh at a time when many Japanese companies are considering setting up production facilities in Bangladesh as labor costs rise in China.
Japanese nationals in Bangladesh have already been warned to avoid places that attract foreigners because such places may become targets, said Hiromitsu Sho, spokesman for the Japan External Trade Organization.
It was too early to see if any companies will decide to leave Bangladesh but Japanese have been instructed to stay indoors either at home or in the office, Sho said. "We are looking into risk management measures that may be needed," he said. "It is possible that companies may become cautious about investment in the future."
Other Japanese companies are also voicing caution.
Toshiba spokeswoman Midori Hara said it is suspending business travel to Bangladesh until July 10. The electronics giant, which opened an office in Dhaka last year to study the country's infrastructure needs, said it would then reassess the situation.
Washington: Reacting strongly to the FBI's decision not to charge Hillary Clinton in the email gate scandal, Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has alleged "the system is rigged" even as he exuded confidence that the American people would be the "final jury" in the general elections to be held on 8 November.
"Folks the system is rigged. The normal punishment, in this case, would include losing authority to handle classified information, and that too disqualifies Hillary Clinton from being President," Trump said on Tuesday in a statement hour after the FBI announcement in this regard.
"The final jury will be the American people, and they will issue the verdict on her corruption, incompetence, and bad judgment on 8 November," he said.
Clinton is the Democratic presidential candidate and will face Trump in the November polls.
Trump said the FBI Director James Comey laid out a detailed case of how Clinton compromised the safety of the American people by storing highly classified information on a private email server with no security.
He confirmed that her email could easily have been hacked by hostile actors, and confirmed that those she emailed with were hacked, the GOP presidential candidate said.
"Our adversaries almost certainly have a blackmail file on Hillary Clinton, and this fact alone disqualifies her from service," Trump said.
"It has also been revealed that Hillary Clinton lied when she said that she did not send classified information," he said, adding that the FBI Director confirmed that over 100 emails were deemed classified at the time they were sent, including emails classified as top secret.
On top of it all, Clinton's lawyers wiped the servers clean to delete another 30,000 emails hiding her corrupt dealings from investigators, he alleged citing FBI statement.
"She used the State Department for her personal gain, trading favors for cash, and tried to conceal the records. Also, she didn't want people to know the details about her botched decisions in Libya, Syria, Iraq and Egypt that destabilized the Middle East," Trump alleged.
Trump said because of the rigged system that holds the American people to one standard and people like Clinton to another, it does not look like she will be facing the criminal charges that she deserves.
"Bill Clinton didn't accidentally run into the Attorney General on the airport tarmac last week in Phoenix," he said.
"Hillary Clinton didn't accidentally sneak into the FBI during one of the country's biggest holiday weekends to testify on her illegal activities, something that wouldn't be afforded to others under investigation (and on a Saturday of all days)," he said.
"It was no accident that charges were not recommended against Hillary the exact same day as President Obama campaigns with her for the first time," Trump said.
LONDON A British inquiry into the Iraq War delivers its long-awaited report on Wednesday, with critics of the U.S.-led invasion hoping it will condemn former Prime Minister Tony Blair while some families of slain soldiers fear it may be a whitewash.
To be published seven years after the inquiry was set up when the last British combat troops left Iraq, the report runs to 2.6 million words - about three times the length of the Bible - and will include details of exchanges Blair had with then U.S. President George W. Bush over the 2003 invasion.
Iraq remains in chaos to this day. Islamic State controls large areas of the country and 175 people died on Saturday in Baghdad's worst car bombing since the U.S.-led coalition toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.
The inquiry's purpose was for the British government to learn lessons from the invasion and occupation that followed, in which 179 British soldiers died.
But opponents of Blair's decision to join the war will be pouring over the report for its judgment on how the Labour leader, who quit in 2007, justified the military action. At the time, he said intelligence showed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction but after the invasion none was found.
"I was lied to. The media, the press, the families, parliament, everybody was lied to," Reg Keys, whose son was among the British fatalities and who stood as a candidate for parliament against Blair in the 2005 election, told Reuters TV.
Blair has always rejected any suggestions he acted dishonestly, and a spokeswoman for him said she would not comment until the report was published.
The inquiry, headed by former civil servant John Chilcot, looked at the reasons for the invasion, the war itself and the aftermath - and has taken longer to complete than the British military involvement itself.
Public hearings, including two appearances by Blair, ended in 2011 but since then the writing of the report has been dogged by rows over the release of secret government files and the contacts between London and Washington. It will include details of notes from Blair to Bush and quotes from more than 130 records of their conversations.
Critics believe Blair, who sent 45,000 British troops for the invasion, gave Bush an unconditional promise that Britain would join military action and that he then distorted intelligence to back this up and put pressure on government lawyers to give the invasion legal approval.
Keys noted that Chilcot had said the inquiry would not play the blame game. "But I certainly hope it points the finger of accountability in the direction of the former prime minister who was the key player with all of this deceit," Keys said.
However, he said he feared the report might be watered down as those facing criticism have been allowed to respond prior to publication.
Chilcot played down this risk in a BBC TV interview on Tuesday. "I made very clear right at the start of the inquiry that if we came across decisions or behaviour which deserved criticism then we wouldn't shy away from making it," he said.
"Indeed, there have been more than a few instances where we are bound to do that. We are not a court - not a judge or jury at work - but we've tried to apply the highest possible standards of rigorous analysis to the evidence where we make a criticism."
His report is expected to be released sometime after 11 am (1000 GMT).
BLAIR'S APOLOGY
In an interview with CNN last October, Blair apologised that the pre-war intelligence had been wrong and for mistakes in planning, but not for getting rid of Saddam.
He also accepted the war had played a role in the rise of Islamic State but it was far from the only factor.
"I've said many times over these past years, I'll wait for the report and then I will make my views known and express myself fully and properly," Blair told Sky News on Sunday.
British media said lawmakers led by the Scottish National Party were considering invoking an ancient law, last used in 1806, to impeach Blair in parliament.
"You cannot have a situation where this country blunders into an illegal war with the appalling consequences and at the end of the day there isn't a reckoning," SNP lawmaker Alex Salmond told Sky News.
The Sunday Times newspaper also reported that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn - whose own position is in jeopardy after Britain voted last month to leave the European Union - was simply hanging on because he wanted to "crucify Blair".
(Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and David Stamp)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Taipei: A fire that tore through a nursing home killed five people and injured another 29 in Taiwan on Wednesday.
Television footage showed elderly people being evacuated from the facility, some in clothes blackened by smoke.
Three bodies were found in the private nursing facility on the eighth floor of a ten-storey building in Xindian, New Taipei City, while rescuers rushed 31 people to hospital.
Two people were later pronounced dead, while 18 were found to be suffering from serious injuries, the local fire department said.
The fire was extinguished in around 30 minutes but the evacuation process was made more difficult by the fact that most elderly residents were bedridden or wheelchair-bound, it added.
Authorities are looking into claims that insufficient staffing at the home had further complicated the rescue effort.
"The facility has passed inspections but we are investigating if its response (to the fire) and the staffing on the day met regulations," New Taipei City deputy mayor Hou You-yi told reporters.
The facility has seven members of staff, according to the authorities. Local media reported that there were only two or three workers looking after some 40 residents at the time of the fire.
In 2012, 13 people were killed and 60 others injured in a nursing home fire in southern Taiwan set by a 67-year-old man.
The culprit, who was later sentenced to death, said he was in a bad mood, and was suffering from cancer and other chronic health problems.
Lahore: JuD chief and Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed on Tuesday led Eid-ul-Fitr prayers in the city where he sought to whip up hysteria, saying the US and India are signing agreements against Pakistan and there are preparations for a "big war."
Addressing a large gathering at the Gaddafi Stadium, the Lashkar-e-Taiba founder called for unity among Muslim community "to fail the design of infidels."
He said international players are conspiring against Pakistan's nuclear programme.
"The United States and India are signing agreements against Pakistan and there has been a preparation of a big war", he said, alleging "drones are parked at Indian airports and our rulers are engaged in a fight with opposition."
Saeed, on whose head the US has put a bounty of USD 10 million, termed Pakistan and Saudi Arabia's growing distance with the US as a "blessing in disguise."
"It is a blessing in disguise that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are getting distanced from America. This will lay foundation of the Islamic Union which is the need of the hour for the Islamic world," he said.
He condemned the terror attack in Saudi Arabia and alleged the involvement of "foreign hands" in destabilising the Muslim world.
A large number of people offered their prayer behind Saeed amid tight security with police personnel and JuD security wing members deployed in and outside the stadium.
Saeed has been leading the Eid prayers at Gaddafi Stadium for the last many years.
India has repeatedly asked Pakistan to bring Saeed to justice for masterminding the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
He has often been seen addressing anti-India rallies in Pakistan. Islamabad says it has no proof against the Jamat-ud-Dawa chief. A total of 166 people were killed in the attack orchestrated by the LeT in November 2008.
The Islamic State group said on Wednesday that it carried out a suicide bombing that killed 16 people in a mainly Kurdish city in northeastern Syria.
Tuesday evening's blast in Hasakeh struck outside a bakery in a Kurdish neighbourhood where a large crowd had gathered as they prepared to break the last daytime fast of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The bomber infiltrated the Salihiah district then blew up his explosives belt in the middle of the crowd, IS said in a statement on social media.
A Kurdish police source said the bomber, who was on a motorbike, also wounded 40 people.
Fifteen of them were in critical condition, the Syrian Observatory for Human Right said.
Parts of Hasakeh remain under Syrian government control but most of the city and nearly all of the surrounding province are held by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).
The YPG, who have declared an autonomous region across the mainly Kurdish northern areas they hold, are regarded by the Pentagon as the most effective fighting force against IS on the ground in Syria.
BATON ROUGE, La. The U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday it will investigate the killing of a black man pinned to the ground and shot in the chest by white police officers outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Captured on a bystander's video, the graphic images of the shooting of Alton Sterling, 37, early Tuesday stirred a social media outcry over the latest case of alleged police brutality against African-Americans in cities from Ferguson, Missouri, to Baltimore and New York.
Overnight, about 200 protesters in Baton Rouge chanted "Hands up, don't shoot" and "Black lives matter" and more protests were planned for Wednesday evening.
Local officials rushed to defuse tensions on Wednesday, saying they were concerned about the incident and that the U.S. Justice Department will lead the investigation.
"I have very serious concerns. The video is disturbing, to say the least," Governor John Bel Edwards told reporters. He said he had spoken with the victim's family and that they joined him in calling on protesters to be peaceful.
Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden and local police said they wanted answers about the shooting of Sterling, and welcomed the outside investigation.
Parts of the incident caught on a bystander's cell phone show an officer confronting Sterling in the parking lot of the Triple S Food Mart, and ordering him to get on the ground.
The brief video then shows two officers tackling Sterling to the pavement, with one pulling a gun from his holster and pointing it at his chest, then firing a shot.
Although the camera jerks away from the scene, at least three gunshots were heard. Police did not say how many shots were fired and declined to say whether a stun gun was used on Sterling before he was tackled.
The two police officers involved in the shooting, Blane Salamoni, a 4-year veteran, and Howie Lake, a 3-year veteran, were both put on administrative leave, Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie said at a news conference.
Early Tuesday morning, the officers responded to a call regarding a black man wearing a red shirt and selling CDs outside the convenience store, who reportedly made threats with a gun, Dabadie said.
"When officers arrived Sterling was armed and the altercation ensued that resulted in the loss of his life," Dabadie said.
The body cameras of both officers became dislodged during the altercation, but continued recording audio and video, police said at the news conference. The recordings and video from the store and from a vehicle will be turned over to federal investigators, police spokesman Lieutenant Johnny Dunham told reporters.
The owner of the Triple S store, Abdullah Muflahi, who said he witnessed the shooting, told The Advocate newspaper that Sterling was armed but was not holding his gun or touching his pockets during the encounter. He said police retrieved a gun from Sterling's pocket after the shooting.
Relatives of Sterling and acquaintances from the neighbourhood described him as a local fixture who had been peddling copied CDs, DVDs and games in front of the Triple S Food Mart for years.
According to the Louisiana Department of Corrections, Sterling was convicted in 2000 for carnal knowledge of a juvenile, a felony, and spent about four years in prison. He was to be registered as a sex offender upon his release.
He was arrested about five times after his release. He was convicted in 2011 for illegally carrying a weapon.
Those who knew him described a funny, jovial and friendly person who worked hard, sometimes selling CDs well into the night to eke out a living.
"I'd never seen him get out of hand with anyone," said Elvina Scott, who lives nearby and said she had purchased a CD from Sterling a few minutes before the shooting.
"He could always make you laugh," said Sharida Sterling, a cousin who grew up with him and described prank calls and other jokes. She said he had a "rough childhood."
"Big Alton," read notes on a memorial that friends and family put together outside the store.
Cameron Sterling, Alton's 15-year-old son, broke down crying at a news conference on Wednesday morning as his mother spoke. "He was killed unjustly and without regard for the lives he helped raise," said the mother, who did not give her name.
(Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Fla., Laila Kearney in New York City and Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee, Wis.; Writing by Fiona Ortiz and Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
In light of the recent spike in terrorist attacks, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came out in support of the Muslim community in Canada with his Eid-al-Fitr message.
The holiest and peaceful month of the Islamic calendar approached its end with three separate suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia and an attack in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which marred the peace of the holy month.
Trudeau started his message with a traditional salutation. Today, Muslims in Canada and around the world will gather to celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramadan and to give thanks for the spiritual renewal and many blessings received throughout the holy month."
He explained the importance of this special day and its relevance in the lives of Muslim. Eid al-Fitr is a time to strengthen family ties, renew friendships, and show compassion and humanity towards those in need both in local communities and around the world."
Sending my best wishes to all those celebrating Eid al-Fitr in Canada & around the world!https://t.co/LxEgSZHiGr Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) July 5, 2016
His message for compassion seemed like an impassioned plea for the world to maintain peace and come together to fight against racism and terrorism.
He went on to thank the Muslim community of Canada for their tremendous contribution in shaping and building the nation. He also emphasised on cultural diversity and identified it as a source of pride.
On behalf of our family, Sophie and I extend our best wishes to all those celebrating Eid al-Fitr in Canada and around the world. Eid Mubarak!
Earlier in June, Trudeau was seen sharing an Iftar meal with Muslim politicians. The video had gone viral and garnered more than four million views on Facebook.
In the video he was seen wishing 'Ramadan Mubarak' and relishing some traditional dishes.
In the past year Trudeau has become popular for building close relationships with various minority groups such as Sikhs, Muslims, LGBTQ and also Syrian refugees.
On 4 July he was seen participating in Canada's largest Pride parade in Toronto becoming the first sitting prime minister to do so. He also paid tribute to Orlando victims in last month's shooting massacre in the US.
But Trudeau downplayed his appearance at the parade as 'no big deal', noting he had been attending pride parades for years.
"It should not be a big thing that the prime minister is walking in the Pride Parade and from now on, it will not."
The prime minister said the Orlando tragedy was a reminder that "we cannot let hate go by."
With inputs from agencies
Washington: US Secretary of State John Kerry has held an impromptu meeting with Saudi Arabia Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, during which the two leaders discussed terror attacks in that country and challenges being posed by 'Daesh'.
"The two discussed the need to combat and defeat Daesh, including in Syria, where the Kingdom has offered to commit troops to the counter-Daesh campaign," State Department Spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday.
Kerry and his Saudi counterpart also discussed the need for a political transition in Syria, the situation in Libya, the effort to reach a political resolution in Yemen, and recent developments between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Earlier in the day the State Department "strongly" condemned the recent spate of deadly terrorist attacks that have been focused on civilians, including women and children, and which have brutally taken hundreds of lives from Istanbul to Dhaka to Baghdad to the attacks in Saudi Arabia.
"These acts have shown no respect for human life, whether young or old, male or female, Muslim or non-Muslim. These terrorists murdered without discretion," Kirby said.
"We cannot say whether these attacks were coordinated or whether they were conducted by independent opportunists," he added.
Noting that a Daesh spokesman himself called for targeting during this very holy month, he said this is obviously evident that Daesh certainly has no respect for Muslim life, life in general, or any respect for Islam itself.
"Now, even as we continue to pressure Daesh in Iraq and Syria, we remain extremely concerned about their ability to inspire terrorist attacks that require few resources with little to no coordination," he said.
The US, he said, has always made clear that the military campaign is not enough to defeat Daesh or to remove the threat that it poses; that a holistic campaign that addresses the root causes of extremism is the only way to deliver a sustainable defeat.
"That's why we're working with partners from around the world to cut off Daesh's messaging, financing, and recruitment networks," he said.
"That's why we work with partners to expand the global ability to identify, disrupt, arrest, and prosecute suspected foreign terrorist fighters. And it's why we've identified concrete areas to increase partner capacity in disrupting, arresting, and prosecuting suspected foreign terrorist fighters and better information sharing on their networks," Kirby said.
Kirby said the US now has information-sharing agreements with 55 international partners to identify and track the travel of suspected terrorists, and the number of countries contributing foreign terrorist fighter profiles to Interpol has now increased by some 400 percent over the last two years alone.
"We're partnering with governments in areas including strengthening information sharing on known and suspected terrorists, implementing or enhancing counter-terrorism legislation, increasing effective traveller screening, and strengthening border security, as well as building comprehensive financial investigations," he said.
Washington: Lauding the progress made in bilateral military cooperation with India, the Pentagon has said the US is looking forward to seeing the relationship grow even further.
"The (US Defence) Secretary is very pleased with the progress that we've made with regard to the
military-to-military relationship with India, and he's very much enjoyed his ongoing work with Minister Parrikar and looks forward to having that relationship grow even further," Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said on Tuesday.
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter visited India earlier this year during which he described the defence relationship between the two countries as strategic handshake.
"I think the Secretary's reference highlights his own view about how so much of what India is working towards in terms of both its economic policies and its security policies mesh so well with US policies in the same vein. I think that's what the secretary was referring to with that handshake," Cook said in response to a question.
"It's very consistent with our re-balance to the Asia Pacific. I think he was trying to make that point in a very illustrative way," he said.
Srinagar: Moderate Hurriyat Conference leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq on Wednesday denounced the terror attack at the Prophet's Mosque in Medina in Saudi Arabia and said "such elements" have nothing to do with Islam and its teachings.
Addressing an Eid gathering at Eidgah over telephone, the Mirwaiz, who is the religious head of Muslims of Kashmir
Valley, asked the Muslim leadership across the world to stand united against the menace of terrorism and extremism.
"Such elements who carry out these attacks in the name of Islam have in fact nothing to do with the religion and its teachings," the Mirwaiz, who is under house arrest, said.
Four security officers were killed in Monday's attacks that targeted US diplomats, Shia Muslim worshippers and a
security headquarters at the Prophet's Mosque in the holy city of Medina.
Though no group claimed responsibility for the attack, Islamic State terrorists have carried out similar bombings in the past targeting minority Shias and Saudi security forces.
In his address to the congregation at Eidgah, the Mirwaiz said there is no option for the state but to address the
Kashmir issue.
The Mirwaiz pitched for a meaningful and result-oriented engagement between India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir issue with the participation of the people of the state.
As the Mirwaiz remained under house arrest, a statement was issued by the Hurriyat Conference, a conglomerate of
separatist parties, condemning the action of the state government which it termed as "blatant and shameless denial of his human and religious rights and duties".
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi hopes his visit this week to four African nations, some not visited by an Indian leader in more than three decades, will reinvigorate cooperation in energy, trade and investment.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Mozambique on Thursday followed by South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.
Brushing aside suggestions that India is trying to compete with China in Africa, an Indian External Affairs Ministry official says several agreements are expected to be signed with each of the four countries during Modi's visit.
Amar Sinha says these countries have been India's maritime neighbors across the Indian Ocean and act as gateways for Indian exporters and traders to landlocked African countries.
India's President Pranab Mukherjee also has recently visited Africa.
Beijing: China said on Wednesday that the Dalai Lama should "give up" attempts to divide the country and asked him to come back on the "right track" as the Tibetan spiritual leader turned 81 on Wednesday.
"Dalai Lama has been engaging separates activities," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a media conference here reacting to Dalai Lama's comments advocating "middle path" policy of providing more autonomy to Tibet as a solution to the Tibetan issue.
"We hope that the Dalai Lama can give up his attempt to divide China and it is never too late for him to come back to the right track," Hong said.
The Chinese government, which in the past held talks with the Dalai Lama representatives views the autonomy demand as a ploy for separation.
Chinese officials in the recent past have said that the Dalai Lama's demand to unify all the Tibetan prefectures with the Tibetan Autonomous Region and provide greater autonomy is unacceptable to Beijing.
There were no talks between the two sides in the last few years.
When President Xi Jinping took over power in 2013, the Tibetan spiritual leader recalled his association with Xi's family and hoped that the dialogue would be resumed.
Over 120 Tibetans committed self immolations in recent years calling for the return of the Dalai Lama from his exile in Dharamshala in India.
His holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, celebrated his 81st birthday on 6 July.
He assumed the position of the Dalai Lama in 1940 and his birthday also marks the celebration of 'World Tibet Day' in an attempt to generate greater awareness about the Tibet's fight for freedom. Here's how the Dalai Lama celebrated his birthday in Dharamsala.
Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama's 81st birthday being celebrated in Siliguri (West Bengal) pic.twitter.com/W4atFD1ulo ANI (@ANI_news) July 6, 2016
The Dalai Lama believes the secret to him being young at the ripe old age of 81 is peace of mind.
"When I was on my way to the US, at Heathrow airport, someone told me that although I'm now 81, my face looks only that of a 60-year-old and asked what's the secret," a post on his website quoting the Dalai Lama said.
"I first teasingly said 'It's my secret and I don't want to tell you', but then explained that it's to do with having peace of mind," the post added.
"I personally find analytical meditation more effective and more satisfying," the spiritual leader told American pop star Lady Gaga in an interview which was broadcast live on Facebook, in the US last week (26 June).
The Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, believes in the "middle-path" policy that demands "greater autonomy" for the Tibetans. Twitter users bestowed warm wishes on His Holiness for his birthday:
Birthday greeting to His Holiness the @DalaiLama. May the humanity bask in your light and love, always! Sukhbir Singh Badal (@officeofssbadal) July 6, 2016
He is the symbol of peace, love & compassion. Prayed on 81st birth anniversary of His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama. pic.twitter.com/Vbla2qecUo Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) July 6, 2016
Today in 1935, 81 years ago: The 14th Dalai Lama was born as Lhamo Thondup & then renamed Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso Mohandas Menon (@mohanstatsman) July 6, 2016
Happybirthday to a man whose ideologies need to posses the entire world!#happybirthday #DalaiLama
Love&light&magic pic.twitter.com/90lpEgZBCG Manasi Scott (@ManasiScott) July 6, 2016
"If you think you are too small to make a difference,
try sleeping with a mosquito."#DalaiLama pic.twitter.com/c6A65k1BZH Er P K Prajapati (@ErPKP) July 6, 2016
Happy 81st birthday to His Holiness The Dalai Lama. May you continue to spread your messages of peace and... https://t.co/HCOYpKaAr1 nadya hutagalung (@Nadya_HutaGalng) July 6, 2016
With agency inputs
London: Former British prime minister Tony Blair claimed that an official inquiry into his decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 released on Wednesday absolves him of any "lies or deceit".
The Labour party stalwart, 63, who was in charge when the UK joined US forces to invade Iraq in 2003, said he will take "full responsibility" for any mistakes made but stressed that John Chilcot's 'Iraq Inquiry' makes clear there was no "falsification or improper use of intelligence".
"I will take full responsibility for any mistakes without exception or excuse. I will at the same time say why, nonetheless, I believe that it was better to remove Saddam Hussein and why I do not believe this is the cause of the terrorism we see today whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world," Blair said in a statement in response to the report.
"The report should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit. Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein; I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country," he added.
The inquiry was chaired by Chilcot and supported by a four-member committee, which included Indian-origin House of Lords member Baroness Usha Prashar.
It had been set up by former prime minister Gordon Brown in 2009 in the aftermath of widespread criticism of the grounds on which Britain decided to go to war over 13 years ago.
"We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort," the former senior civil servant led committee told reporters in London on Wednesday.
Blair now faces the prospect of impeachment in Parliament under a 19th century law being contemplated by Scottish National Party (SNP) MPs and also possible legal action by relatives of the 179 British soldiers who died in the war.
Many of them had gathered outside his home in London and near Parliament Square where the Chilcot inquiry report was being unveiled.
The sister of one of the soldiers killed in the conflict called Blair "the world's worst terrorist".
"The terrorists took my brother - and in that sentence of terrorists I include Mr Blair - took my brother and took my family. But you won't take me. I'm going nowhere. I'm going nowhere Blair," Sarah O'Connor, whose brother Sergeant Bob O'Connor died in Iraq in 2005, said as she fought back tears.
WASHINGTON U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday said lawmakers are examining whether there is any action they can take over Hillary Clinton's email practices while secretary of state, saying it appeared she had received preferential treatment from the FBI.
Ryan, a Republican, said the House of Representatives would not "foreclose any options" when asked whether a special prosecutor was necessary to get to the bottom of the Democratic presidential candidate's use of a private email server while she ran the State Department.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Tuesday it would not recommend charges regarding Clinton's email, although FBI Director James Comey rebuked the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate for "extremely careless" handling of classified information.
The FBI decision, Ryan said, "looks like" preferential treatment for Clinton. Ryan, who was the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2012, said Director of National Intelligence James Clapper should deny Clinton access to classified information during the campaign, although presidential candidates normally get such access once they are formally nominated.
Clinton's campaign, responding to Ryan's remarks, said House Republicans appeared to be trying to launch another "sham of an inquiry" against Clinton now that they had ended their two-year probe of the deaths of four Americans at a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi while Clinton was secretary of state.
"For weeks Republicans have said they trusted FBI Director Comey to lead an independent review into Secretary Clinton's emails, but now they are second-guessing his judgment because his findings do not align with their conspiracy theories," campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said in an emailed statement.
The campaign said on Tuesday it was pleased with the FBI's decision, noting that the candidate has said repeatedly that it was a mistake to use her personal email while secretary of state.
Ryan noted that two House committees are looking into the Clinton email matter -- the Judiciary committee and the Oversight Committee, where Comey has been invited to testify on Thursday.
"He (Comey) did say that short of prosecution, some kind of administrative action might be in order," Ryan said, adding: "I think it's the least we can do, given how she was so reckless in handling classified material and sending classified information on insecure servers."
"So look, I think that's something that the administration should do on its own, but we'll look into seeing if that's something we can do as well," Ryan said.
Senate Republican leaders said they thought Clinton's testimony to the FBI should be released to the public. But Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid dismissed as political the Republican calls for Clinton to stop getting classified information.
"The Republicans are in such desperate shape because of (Republican presidential candidate Donald) Trump, they would seize upon anything," Reid told reporters. He said the FBI investigation had been thorough. "It's over and it's time to move on."
(Additional reporting by Alana Wise and Kouichi Shirayanagi; Editing by Bill Trott and Tom Brown)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
London: As protesters outside bayed for Tony Blair's prosecution, inside the building where John Chilcot delivered his damming Iraq War Inquiry report the father of a dead serviceman delivered his own verdict: "My son died in vain".
Having waited seven years for the former civil servant to deliver his verdict on Britain's role in the 2003 conflict, bereaved families and anti-war protesters were united in an outpouring of anger.
"There is one terrorist in this world that the world needs to be aware of, and his name is Tony Blair, the world's worst terrorist," Sarah O'Connor, whose brother Bob was killed in Iraq in 2005, told a press conference following the report's publication.
The inquiry found that former prime minister Blair had taken Britain into a badly planned, woefully executed and legally questionable war in 2003.
O'Connor demanded that Blair explain his actions directly to relatives of the 179 British troops killed in the invasion and subsequent occupation.
"Why is he not here looking at us? If he is so sure of his decision, why is he not here looking at our eyes, and seeing our faces?" she said.
Given the chance, grieving mother Rose Gentle said she would ask Blair: "Why did you kill my son?"
Reg Keys, whose son Thomas died when a mob attacked a police station in 2003, accused Blair of "manufacturing and massaging the intelligence reports" even though Chilcot laid the blame for faulty intelligence at the feet of spy chiefs.
'War crimes'
Outside the Queen Elizabeth II centre in London where Chilcot delivered a summary of his 2.6 million-word report more than a hundred protesters shouted "Blair lied, thousands died!" and "war criminal Tony Blair!".
Two demonstrators were dressed up as Blair and former US president George W Bush, with fake blood dripping from their hands, while others carried placards reading: "Blair must face war crimes trial", "Justice for Iraq. The Hague for Blair", and "Bomber Blair. Jail this criminal now".
"Tony Blair is a war criminal. We knew the war was based on lies," said Michael Culver, 78.
Kim Sparrow, 52, said: "Tony Blair is a mass murderer.
"He knew what he was doing. Over a million people died," Sparrow said.
Although more restrained, the families were equally determined to see Blair, and other government officials, face further action.
"If state officials are determined to have acted unlawfully or in excess of their powers, then the families will then decide on whether to take any necessary and appropriate action," said Matthew Jury, who is representing some of the relatives.
"All options will be considered."
Legal action could "motivate government into making sure that they change the way they do business," said Richard Bacon, whose 34-year-old son Matthew was killed in 2005, adding that "never again must so many mistakes be allowed to sacrifice British lives."
With Iraq still consumed by violence, families doubted that the sacrifices had been worthwhile.
"I look at Iraq and on my TV screens today, with 200 plus deaths that took place the other day. I can only conclude... my son died in vain," said Keys.
However, families said the report sent a strong message to the world, and that the seven years taken to publish the findings had been "worth the wait".
"Governments have to recognise that people who walk past these houses of power, they have voices and we will be heard," said O'Connor.
BATON ROUGE, La. The U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday it will investigate the killing of a black man pinned to the ground and shot in the chest by two white police officers outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Captured on at least two videos, graphic images of the shooting of Alton Sterling, 37, early Tuesday stirred protests and social media outcry over the latest case of alleged police brutality against African-Americans in cities from Ferguson, Missouri, to Baltimore and New York.
One of the two officers shot Sterling five times at close range, and the other removed something from Sterling's pants pocket as he was dying, according to images on a video recorded by Abdullah Muflahi, owner of the Triple S Food Mart where Sterling was killed in the parking lot.
"I'm heartbroken. It's outrageous. It's crazy," said Muflahi, who considered Sterling a friend and allowed him to sell CDs outside his store. He provided a copy of the video to Reuters and said police took a gun from Sterling's pocket.
Overnight, about 200 protesters gathered outside the store chanting "Hands up, don't shoot" and "Black lives matter" and more protests were planned for Wednesday evening.
Local officials rushed to defuse tensions on Wednesday, saying there would be an independent investigation, after media showed a separate graphic video of the shooting recorded by a bystander.
"I have very serious concerns. The video is disturbing, to say the least," Governor John Bel Edwards told reporters.
Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden and local police said they welcomed the probe launched by the Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and federal prosecutors.
GRAPHIC VIDEOS
The video recorded on the bystander's cell phone shows an officer confronting Sterling in the parking lot of the store and ordering him to get on the ground. The two officers then tackle Sterling to the pavement, with one pulling a gun from his holster and pointing it at his chest.
Muflahi's video shows the officers on top of Sterling. One of them yells "he's got a gun." The video jerks away from the scene after the first two shots are fired. Three more shots are heard, then the camera shows one of the officers leaning over Sterling and taking something out of his pocket.
Police did not say how many shots were fired and declined to say whether a stun gun was used on Sterling. Muflahi said police Tasered Sterling before he was tackled.
The two police officers involved in the shooting, Blane Salamoni, a 4-year veteran, and Howie Lake, a 3-year veteran, were both put on administrative leave, Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie said at a news conference.
The officers were responding to a call regarding a black man wearing a red shirt, who reportedly made threats with a gun, Dabadie said.
"When officers arrived Sterling was armed and the altercation ensued that resulted in the loss of his life," Dabadie said.
The body cameras of both officers became dislodged during the altercation, but continued recording audio and video, police said at the news conference. Those and other recordings will be turned over to federal investigators, police spokesman Lieutenant Johnny Dunham told reporters.
RAP SHEET
Relatives of Sterling and acquaintances from the neighbourhood described him as a local fixture who had been peddling copied CDs, DVDs and games in front of the Triple S Food Mart for years.
According to court records, Sterling has multiple criminal convictions since the mid-1990s, for battery, resisting arrest, burglary and other crimes. He is a registered sex offender after spending close to four years in prison for felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile.
Those who knew him described a funny, jovial and friendly person who worked hard.
"I'd never seen him get out of hand with anyone," said Elvina Scott, who lives nearby and said she had purchased a CD from Sterling a few minutes before the shooting.
Cameron Sterling, Alton's 15-year-old son, broke down crying at a news conference on Wednesday morning as his mother spoke. "He was killed unjustly and without regard for the lives he helped raise," said the mother, who did not give her name.
(Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Fla., Laila Kearney in New York City and Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee, Wis.; Writing by Fiona Ortiz and Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Matthew Lewis)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Washington: The United States has criticised Israel's plans to build 560 new settler homes in the West Bank, warning that they would be part of "systematic" land seizures undermining chances for peace.
Israel's green light for the homes came days after a key report from the diplomatic Quartet the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia warned that Israel's settlement expansion and confiscation of Palestinian land were eroding the possibility of a two-state peace settlement.
Completion of the homes would "be the latest step in what seems to be a systematic process of land seizures, settlement expansions and legalisations of outposts that is fundamentally undermining the prospects for a two-state solution," State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday.
"We oppose steps like these, which we believe are counterproductive to the cause of peace in general," he told a briefing.
Under new approval granted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, planning for 560 new Jewish homes in the large Maale Adumim settlement east of Jerusalem will be allowed to move forward.
The settlement, founded in 1975, already has a population of more than 37,000.
The approval follows calls inside Israel for a harsh response to the latest spate of Palestinian attacks.
On Thursday, 13-year-old Israeli-American Hallel Yaffa Ariel was fatally stabbed in Kiryat Arba settlement on the outskirts of the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron.
Her 19-year-old Palestinian assailant was then shot dead by a security guard.
A day later, Sarah Tarayra, 27, was shot dead after drawing a knife on Israeli forces in Hebron. She was a relative of the Kiryat Arba attacker.
The Quartet report also called on Palestinians to halt attacks and incitement to violence.
Peace talks have been at a complete standstill since a US-led initiative collapsed in April 2014.
Washington: The US is imposing sanctions on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (kim jawng oon) and 10 other top officials for human rights abuses.
The penalties are escalation of Washington's effort to isolate Kim's government.
The Treasury Department says it's blacklisting Kim for human rights violations by his government and the ruling Communist Party.
Treasury official Adam Szubin (ZOO'-bin) says that North Korea under Kim "continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labour and torture."
The department also is blacklisting officials at the Ministry of State Security which administers political prison camps and the Ministry of People's Security's Correctional Bureau which supervises labour camps. The penalties also hit North Korean agencies responsible for propaganda.
Washington: President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that 8,400 US troops will remain in Afghanistan into 2017 in light of the still "precarious" security situation in the war-ravaged country.
"Instead of going down to 5,500 troops by the end of this year, the United States will maintain approximately 8,400 troops in Afghanistan into next year through the end of my administration," Obama told a news conference.
"The decision I'm making today ensures my successor has a solid foundation for continued progress in Afghanistan, as well as the flexibility to address the threat of terrorism as it evolves," he said.
The current number of US troops in Afghanistan is 9,800.
Obama's announcement is further acknowledgement that Afghan security forces, who took charge of the country's security in 2015, are still not ready to go it alone.
They have suffered a devastating string of setbacks at the hands of the Taliban, including the temporary loss of the city of Kunduz, and more than 5,000 Afghan troops were killed last year alone.
Other organisations, including the Islamic State group, have also stepped up activity.
"The security situation in Afghanistan remains precarious," Obama said.
"Even as they improve, Afghan security forces are still not as strong as they need to be. With our help, they're still working to improve critical capabilities, such as intelligence, logistics, aviation and command and control."
Obama's decision comes after General John Nicholson, the new commander of the US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan, this year conducted a review of the security situation.
Republican Senator John McCain, a longtime critic of Obama's military policies, praised the move, but said the president should have kept the entire 9,800 US troops in country.
Still, he said, "the decision to retain 8,400 US troops in Afghanistan into next year is certainly preferable to cutting those forces by nearly half."
London: Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday said that lessons must be learnt from Britain's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 to ensure that war is always the last resort following a report that found fault with the country joining the US-led invasion.
Cameron was addressing the House of Commons after the release of an official inquiry by John Chilcot earlier on Wednesday into the bloody and controversial conflict to remove Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
"There are some lessons that we do need to learn and frankly keep on learning. Taking the country to war should always be a last resort, and should only be done if all credible alternatives have been exhausted," Cameron told MPs as he announced a two-day parliamentary debate next week on the report's findings.
In reference to Tony Blair, who was prime minister during the war and who has been severely rebuked in the report, Cameron admitted the Labour leader had given commitments to then US President George W Bush that were not discussed openly in Cabinet.
"However, at no stage does he (Chilcot) explicitly say that there was a deliberate attempt to mislead people," Cameron notes.
He also stressed the importance of the UK's close relationship with the US and warned, "It is wrong to conclude that we should not stand with US allies when our common interest is threatened. Britain has no greater friend or ally in the world than America".
The opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn told the Commons in his reaction that "by any measure, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been, for many, a catastrophe".
"We now know that the House was misled in the run up to the war, and the House must now decide how it should deal with it 13 years later...Going to war without UN authorisation was profoundly dangerous," he said.
The report, which is estimated to have cost over 10 million pounds of taxpayers' money, has been chaired by former senior civil servant Chilcot and has taken seven years to complete.
It has been described as one of the most highly anticipated inquiries launched by the UK in recent times.
Dhaka: On the last Friday of Ramadan, Meer Hayet Kabir was hoping his son Meer Saameh Mubasheer, missing for the past four months, would come home. In Bangladesh, even kidnappers sometimes released hostages on a holy day.
The 18-year-old did return to the capital Dhaka that night, but not to his father. Instead police believe he, along with at least four other gunmen, attacked an upscale restaurant in the city and murdered 20 people, mostly foreigners.
Now he is dead, killed with his fellow assailants by police.
On Tuesday, still in shock, Kabir was trying to make sense of what happened and what made the quiet, soft-spoken teenager give up a privileged life and loving home in one of Dhaka's upscale neighbourhoods to take up arms in the name of radical Islamism. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.
"Something has gone wrong. Something has gone wrong," said Kabir, 53, holding back tears as he showed pictures from Mubasheer's 18th birthday in December on his iPad.
"I still don't want to believe my son has done it with his own, conscious mind," he told a small group of reporters who visited his home.
It is a question many people in Bangladesh are asking after the attack on Friday, one of the most brazen in the South Asian nation's history and potentially damaging to its $26 billion garment export industry.
Most of the attackers were young like Mubasheer, went to some of the best schools and came from well-to-do families.
Another suspected attacker, Nibras Islam, was around 22 and went to Monash University in Malaysia, where a bachelor's course costs nearly $9,000 a year, at least six times the average income in Bangladesh.
As the stories of the militants emerge, they are challenging the popular narrative that poverty and illiteracy are the key ingredients in the making of a South Asian militant.
Kabir, a telecoms executive, blamed Islamist groups in the country for luring his son away. Some people close to the family blamed it on the Internet, while Kabir thinks the smartphone he gave his son months before his disappearance might have been the way extremist groups reached him.
He said that if such groups could radicalise someone who came from a loving family and was getting secular education at the elite Dhaka school Scholastica, no one should feel safe.
"We are a caring family," Kabir said. "If they can steal my son from my family, they can steal anybody's kid."
H.T. Imam, political adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, told Reuters the attackers could not have acted alone and must have come in contact with radicals who influenced them. Imam said the militants' parents should also be investigated.
As a child, Kabir said his son was interested in dinosaurs and could memorize several of the animals' complicated names.
"His one speciality is that once he is interested in something he will get into details," Kabir said.
During a visit to India around eight years ago, the family visited the city of Agra, home to the famous Taj Mahal. After that, Mubasheer became interested in history and started drawing pictures of Mughal emperor Akbar and Hindu Goddess Durga.
Over the next few years, he also began to study Bangladesh's history, including its 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
"He would buy independence war-related movies, dramas. That was his craze," Kabir said.
Mubasheer was also fond of watching English films and cartoons. Occasionally he cooked food for himself and his father.
In the months before his disappearance, Kabir said he noticed no visible change in his behaviour, other than that he stopped using Facebook and focussed more on studies.
Family pictures at their spacious home, complete with tiled floors and a chandelier, depicted a normal childhood; in one, Mubasheer stands with his elder brother and plays a synthesizer.
But his "mental growth was slow," Kabir said.
"His classmates also noticed it. They would say he was a Mamma's boy. He would not like it."
Other than hobbies, Mubasheer was always interested in religion. His father advised him to use the right sources for learning about the subject when he gave him an English version of the Koran.
"Sometimes he would say he wants to become an accountant, sometimes he would say theology or sociology," Kabir said.
Inside Mubasheer's small bedroom, a photograph of the Koran hung on a wall behind his bed, next to a study table that was covered with books on business studies, accounting and TOEFL, an English language test.
Mubasheer would usually pray five times a day and visit a nearby mosque.
Kabir has yet to go and identify the body believed to be that of his son.
"I am hoping a miracle happens, that he is not one of these guys."
Zakir Naik, has come under the scanner after reports of one of the young militants of the Dhaka attack having been inspired by the Islamic scholar surfaced.
However Naik, the Mumbai-based founder of Islamic Research Foundation, has condemned the attack and said that the term Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (IS) is actually un-Islamic, reported Indian Express.
By using the name Islamic State, we are condemning Islam They are the anti-Islamic state of Iraq and Syria that has killed innocent foreigners. The name is given by enemies of Islam. said Zakir Naik.
Zakir Naik reaffirmed that he did not endorse the militant's methods. He said that though a lot of people come close to Islam because of him, these people then listen to other speakers, including those, who in the name of Islam, misguide thousands.
"My speeches on Islam and terror are being taken out of context", said Naik in an interview with CNNNews18.
Naik defended himself saying that he never propagated or supported killing of innocent non-Muslims. He lamented of having been misquoted time and time again.
Regarding the Dhaka attackers being inspired by his teachings, Zakir Naik said that he was not shocked that they knew him, reported India Today.
Zakir Naik also claimed to have never supported Osama. The video of Zakir Naik's speech on Osama in Singapore too, Naik said was doctored, as reported by CNNNews18.
Naik also declared that when a person kills someone, 'it is as though he has killed the whole of humanity'.
The government on Wednesday indicated taking action against Naik.
"Zakir Naik's speech is a matter of concern for us. Our agencies are working on this. But as a minister, I will not comment what action will be taken," Minister of State for HomeAffairs Kiren Rijiju told reporters.
Rijiju said India has good relations and a mutual understanding with Bangladesh, especially in the matter of co-operation on fighting terrorism. "Terror can be defeated only through close coordination and by fighting together (against it)," he said.
Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Star had reported that militant Rohan Imtiaz, son of an Awami League leader, ran a propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Naik. Zakir Naik, in his lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly "urged all Muslims to be terrorists".
Naik, a popular but controversial Islamic orator is banned in the UK and Canada for his hate speech aimed against other religions. He is one among the 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia. Zakir Naik is also hugely popular in Bangladesh through Peace TV, although his preachings often demean other religions and even other Muslim sects, the report said.
Another Dhaka attacker Nibras Islam used to follow two alleged suspected recruiters of Islamic State Anjem Choudary and Shami Witness on Twitter in 2014.
Shami Witness is the Twitter account of 24-year-old Mehdi Biswas, who is facing trial in India for running propaganda for terror group Islamic State (IS). He was arrested in December 2014 following an investigation into his Twitter account, which was last active in August 2014.
Biswas was charged with operating the "single most influential pro-ISIS Twitter account". Choudary, a Pakistan-origin British citizen, is now facing a trial in England for breaking the British anti-terrorism law. His Twitter account turned inactive since August 2015 after terror charges were brought against him.
With inputs from agencies.
Canopy by Hilton, Hilton Worldwide's (NYSE:HLT) new hotel brand that redefines the lifestyle hotel category, and Icelandair Hotels have unveiled plans for Canopy's first hotel in Iceland's vibrant capital Reykjavik. "Canopy Reykjavik | City Centre" is expected to be the first hotel globally to open in the brand's portfolio, which launched in October 2014.
"Reykjavik has an incredible energy and is a fitting setting in which to introduce our first Canopy by Hilton hotel," said Patrick Fitzgibbon, senior vice president, development, Europe & Africa, Hilton Worldwide. "Iceland has grown in stature as a destination, owing to the efforts of Icelandair, which has improved the country's connectivity and visibility as a global destination. Visitor numbers to Iceland have more than tripled in the last 15 years1, and Canopy Reykjavik | City Centre will add fresh momentum to the city's vibrant travel scene."
Canopy Reykjavik | City Centre is now under construction on Hverfisgata St, a thriving neighborhood in the centre of the city. The hotel is slated to open in early 2016 with the brand's thoughtfully local aesthetic, which includes an open, light lobby and relaxing public spaces. A rooftop bar and restaurant will serve drinks and food throughout the day, while guests can also visit a bistro, sampling fresh, local produce while taking in the city sights.
"In creating Canopy by Hilton, we focused heavily on customer research at every stage, and the result is a brand which redefines the lifestyle segment, and brings guests closer to the destinations and communities in which they travel," said Gary Steffen, global head, Canopy by Hilton. "Reykjavik is unlike any other city on Earth, and its rich cultural heritage and natural beauty align with the ethos of Canopy by Hilton. It is with considerable excitement that we anticipate the opening of Canopy Reykjavik | City Centre in 2016."
Canopy Reykjavik | City Centre will welcome guests with 115 guest rooms and suites, will feature an entirely new interior, while sensitively retaining the buildings' elegant facades, and preserving the important architectural integrity of the neighborhood.
Wi-Fi and a local artisanal breakfast will be included in the room rate, along with a property-specific gift to welcome guests on arrival, helping ensure they get off to a positive stay in Reykjavik. As with all Canopy by Hilton hotels, Canopy Reykjavik | City Centre will be inspired and influenced by its local surroundings. Occupying an entire block of the prestigious Hverfisgata St, the hotel will provide guests with an opportunity to explore the city on foot.
Reykjavik is one of the world's cleanest and greenest capital cities, and is home to a vibrant culinary scene, attracting gourmet aficionados to its many Michelin starred restaurants. Just two degrees south of the Arctic Circle, Iceland is one of the few countries where the spectacular Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights can be seen clearly. As a result of its unique location, during the summer season Iceland experiences 24 hour daylight and is a magnet for nature enthusiasts. Its unusual volcanic landscape has produced thermal springs and dramatic glaciers, helping to forge its reputation with tourists from around the world. In May 2015, Iceland's second largest glacier, Langjokull, opened to the public, allowing visitors to travel through a 500m tunnel in the centre of one Europe's largest glaciers.
"We have established a great relationship with Hilton Worldwide and Hilton Reykjavik Nordica, which we've opened and managed since October 2007," Magnea Thorey Hjalmarsdottir, managing director, Icelandair Hotels said. "Reykjavik is the perfect destination for the Canopy by Hilton brand, as the connection between this new lifestyle brand and dynamic city is strong. Canopy by Hilton will play a substantial role in further enhancing Reykjavik as an ideal destination choice for travelers seeking local fun, culture, and breathtaking nature."
The hotel will be operated by Icelandair Hotels, a subsidiary of Icelandair Group and a long term partner of Hilton Worldwide, having operated Hilton Reykjavik Nordica since it opened in 2007. Icelandair is committed to increasing tourism to Reykjavik through the introduction of direct flights from Reykjavik to destinations across North America and Europe.
Canopy Reykjavik will participate in Hilton HHonors, the only guest rewards program that allows members to earn Points & Miles for the same stay and redeem points for free nights with No Blackout Dates at more than 4,350 hotels worldwide. Hilton HHonors members who book directly through www.canopybyhilton.com will have access to benefits including: digital check-in, choose your room, and free Wi-Fi.
For more information about Canopy by Hilton, please visit www.canopybyhilton.com or http://press.canopybyhilton.com or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest or Twitter (@canopybyhilton).
About Hilton
Hilton (NYSE: HLT) is a leading global hospitality company with a portfolio of 18 world-class brands comprising more than 6,800 properties and more than 1 million rooms, in 122 countries and territories. Dedicated to fulfilling its founding vision to fill the earth with the light and warmth of hospitality, Hilton has welcomed more than 3 billion guests in its more than 100-year history, earned a top spot on the 2021 World's Best Workplaces list and been recognized as a global leader on the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices for five consecutive years. In 2021, in addition to opening more than one hotel a day, Hilton introduced several industry-leading technology enhancements to improve the guest experience, including Digital Key Share, automated complimentary room upgrades and the ability to book confirmed connecting rooms. Through the award-winning guest loyalty program Hilton Honors, the nearly 128 million members who book directly with Hilton can earn Points for hotel stays and experiences money can't buy. With the free Hilton Honors app, guests can book their stay, select their room, check in, unlock their door with a Digital Key and check out, all from their smartphone. Visit newsroom.hilton.com for more information, and connect with Hilton on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.
Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu is not a happy man. As an ally in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), he has held himself back from taking on the Centre for what he sees as its failure to give the state its due - special category status and other financial incentives - after the state split in two. It is still to get what was promised in discussions before the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act (APROA), 2014, which came into force in the last days of UPA-II.
The state believes it began with a disadvantage. While its 13 districts accounted for 58.3 per cent of the population of the undivided state, revenue from the region was only 47 per cent. It also lost Hyderabad, which brought 19 per cent of revenue. Andhra was to have got a headstart through special financial assistance for backward tracts (seven districts) and grants to build a new capital as also funds from the 14th Finance Commission (FFC) recommendations. But what the state has got so far is measly: Rs 13,000 crore instead of the promised Rs 49,000 crore, excluding what it is to get in the long term for the Polavaram project.
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Two years on, the discontent runs deep. At the three-day annual Telugu Desam Party mahanadu (conclave) in Tirupati (May 27-29), partymen complained about broken APROA promises. It may make or mar the TDP's future (though elections are still three years away). So even though state BJP leaders claim their government in Delhi was giving Andhra special treatment, the conclave adopted a resolution demanding special category status and a special financial package.
After the division, hand-holding the nascent state was to be the Centre's responsibility, going by APROA. But constitutional provisions and the restraints imposed by the FFC recommendations prevent Delhi from granting the largesse Naidu is demanding TDP leader Kalva Srinivasulu says: "We want a world-class capital city and to build it, liberal funds are required. If the Modi government gives us special status, in three years, the state can create wonders, and in a decade, become the best in the country."
With two years gone, TDP workers, like many others in the state, want Naidu to be a bit more confrontational. The CM says he does not want "any confrontation", he just wants to offer an argument. "Eleven states were given special status," he says, "and none of them is still fully developed. Which is why Andhra Pradesh is demanding that along with special status, the Centre give a special package so that it grows faster."
Union finance minister Arun Jaitley has ruled out any special status, though he says the Centre will be "unflinching" in financial aid. Union urban development minister M. Venkaiah Naidu scoffs at Naidu's ambition to have a Singapore-style capital in Amaravati. "We need a Raj Bhavan, a Secretariat and an Assembly. The Centre will fund these and it is already doing so."
"The Centre should honour its commitments," says Loksatta president Dr Jayaprakash Narayan. At the same time, he believes the state is confused about what it wants. "Asking for a larger financial package unrelated to the revenue deficit attributable to the partition, and the demand for tax exemptions in the new capital region instead of backward regions will only be counter-productive."
Incidentally, the state has already procured 34,481 acres from farmers under a land pooling system and is seeking an additional 5,571 acres to meet the growing needs of theRs 52,000 crore "world-class capital".
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An excessive reliance on Amaravati as the engine of growth, neglecting the long coastline and mineral wealth of Rayalaseema, lack of focus on improving outcomes in education and healthcare and the marginalisation of local governments are casting doubt on Naidu's growth strategy. "The state has a great opportunity to reshape governance and focus on its natural strengths," says Narayan. "But excessive centralisation, an unsustainable growth model, based on real estate and speculation, caste polarisation and fiscal pressures, compounded by reckless freebies, are formidable threats."
The state BJP, while not inimical to Naidu's efforts, is looking to widen its own base. The emergence of Naidu's sister-in-law, D. Purandeswari, as a combative BJP leader since 2014 has helped to an extent. Still, analysts feel, the BJP is unlikely to make a dent unless there is a change in the caste calculus in the run-up to 2019. Political commentator C. Narasimha Rao is even expecting "the TDP to break its alliance with the BJP just before or after the elections in Uttar Pradesh".
The TDP too is witnessing a churn. At the Tirupati conclave, Naidu waved the welfare wand-promising Anna canteens (like the Amma canteens in Tamil Nadu) and a quota for the numerically strong Kapus. As Narayan put it, "The TDP is now a replica of what the Congress was and [still] is-a competitor for power as an end." No dressed-up reforms or multi-crore capitals can camouflage this greed.
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Follow the writer on Twitter @AmarnathKMenon
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Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is a veteran of many a political battle, but the one currently brewing in the state has the potential to dent the broad social coalition he has built over the years, one that has ensured a third term for him as CM.
On April 30, a division bench of the MP High Court, in response to a PIL, struck down the MP Public Services (Promotion) Rules, 2002, a provision that allowed reservation in promotions for government employees from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The state government was also asked to reverse all promotions granted under the rules since 2002.
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For a BJP already battling the perception of being anti-Dalit-starting with the Centre's handling of the Rohith Vemula suicide and RSS sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat's remark on reviewing reservation on the eve of the Bihar assembly polls-the political ramifications of the ruling were not lost on the chief minister. Two corruption-tainted IAS officers in the state, Ramesh Thete and Shashi Karnawat, have been waging a campaign saying vigilance agencies are persecuting them for being Dalit.
To combat this image ahead of a crucial 2017 assembly poll in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP has been wooing Dalits at a national level. At the Simhastha celebrations in Ujjain last month, BJP president Amit Shah was to take a holy dip with 'valmiki sadhus', but the plans had to be modified and the dip made a more inclusive affair after other sadhus took exception to the original format. State BJP chief Nandkumar Singh Chauhan has been dining with Dalit families regularly as part of the Vikas Parv Yatra the state government is organising to celebrate two years of the Narendra Modi government. On April 14, Bhimrao Ambedkar's 125th birth anniversary was celebrated with great fanfare at his birthplace Mhow, with Prime Minister Modi as chief guest at the function. "The MP government's stand on the reservation issue is in keeping with the BJP's larger strategy at the national level vis-a-vis the Dalit vote. In such a situation, the BJP government had no option but to appear to be opposing the HC order with all its legal muscle," said a senior BJP state leader, requesting anonymity.
The day the high court delivered the judgement, the CM and his advisors went into a huddle. Reacting to allegations that the state government had not argued its case well, Chouhan, in his first statement after the ruling, said the state government was committed to the idea of reservation in promotions, and would oppose the HC ruling in the Supreme Court. The CM also said he would get Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi to argue the government's case, acceding to the demand by the Anusuchit Jati Janjati Adhikari Karmachari Sangh (AJJAKS), an organisation that espouses the cause of Dalit and tribal employees. He also announced there would be no demotions, at least not immediately.
On May 12, the Supreme Court rejected the MP state government demand for a stay on the HC ruling. Instead, the apex court asked the state government to maintain status quo. That was to say there would be no more promotions for SC/ST employees on the basis of quota, but those already promoted would not be demoted either. The next hearing has been fixed for September 23.
There is talk of bringing in an ordinance in case things don't go the MP government's way in court. The Congress is watching Chouhan's tightrope walk from the sidelines, willing him, as it were, to falter. "The BJP-led state government did not reply to the points raised by the HC, which suggests they may deliberately want to lose this case," says state Congress spokesperson Pankaj Chaturvedi. "When the RSS chief has spoken against reservation, how can the CM be expected to support it?"
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Anti-reservation protest in Bhopal on May 10
The state is also staring at an administrative nightmare in case the apex court upholds the HC verdict. "Promotions based on reservations have been carried out for almost three decades," says a senior official of the general administration department (GAD), "and there are thousands, if not lakhs, of beneficiaries. Reverting to original positions as per the HC ruling will be a mammoth task, and not only because of the numbers. Many of the employees and officers who benefited from promotion have since superannuated. Will financial recoveries be ordered as well?"
The quota issue has deeply divided the nearly 7.5 lakh-strong employee/officer community under the MP government. Reservation in promotions for SCs and STs in MP began in 1997 (see timeline: The Road to Affirmative Action). However, while an employee could move up from Class IV to III, from Class III to II and from Class II to I on the basis of reservation, once in Class I, reservation would cease. The 2002 notification changed that. The rules came along with a clutch of other initiatives by former CM Digvijaya Singh around the time his second term as CM was ending. Broadly called the Dalit agenda, the stated objective of the initiatives was to empower Dalits, but the political aim was to prevent the transfer of the traditional SC/ST vote from the Congress to the BJP and BSP.
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The SCs constitute 15 per cent of the state's population and STs almost 21 per cent. Together, they constitute 36 per cent of the state's electorate. There are 35 seats reserved for SCs and 47 seats for STs in the 230-member Madhya Pradesh assembly. In the 2013 assembly elections, the BJP bagged 28 of the 35 SC reserved seats, the Congress 4 and the BSP 3. Among the reserved seats for STs, the BJP won 31, the Congress 15, an independent another while byelections are due in one seat.
Having successfully cornered the SC/ST votebank in 2013, the BJP will spare no effort to retain it. And it can ill afford to alienate them before the next election.
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A section of the BJP state leadership downplays the possible impact a withdrawal of quota might have. "The party that brought in the concept, the Congress, has been abandoned by the Dalits and tribals. If the court does uphold the HC verdict and reservation in promotions goes, the BJP will not suffer," says a general secretary of the state unit. It's possible he is underestimating the wrath the BJP will face for being in power when the provision is withdrawn. It could even outweigh the advantage the party that introduced it ever got.
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Three days after being asked to steady the Congress ship in Punjab, Kamal Nath steps down as the state in-charge in the face of a verbal assault from the Opposition.
For almost the entire day on June 15, Congress Lok Sabha MP Kamal Nath was waiting patiently for party president Sonia Gandhi to return to Delhi from a personal visit. He had made up his mind to quit as general secretary in-charge of Punjab, a position he had been given only three days ago. The Congress veteran was "deeply hurt" by the smear campaign launched by Opposition parties linking him to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi. At 7 p.m., not long after Sonia returned, Nath sent her his resignation. "The primary issue in Punjab today is drugs. I resigned because I did not want to offer an opportunity to our rivals to distract attention from the drugs issue," Nath told India Today.
Just 24 hours before his resignation, the Congress general secretary, known for his meticulous planning, seemed to have embraced his new job with gusto. On June 14, he was seen immersed in an article written by Fareed Zakaria on the US presidential elections. As recent elections in India have been fought and won around personality cult, moving closer to the US presidential format, Nath was scouting for a few tips from the American experience.
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It's this ability to think differently and execute ideas effectively that had forced the Congress to fall back on the 69-year-old Nath, a nine-time Lok Sabha MP, to chalk out a strategy for Punjab. Congress insiders saw this as the return of the Chhindwara MP to the inner circle of the Nehru-Gandhi family. One of Sanjay Gandhi's closest friends, Nath was also Rajiv's trusted lieutenant. During the second edition of the UPA government, his cross-party acceptability made him Sonia's go-to man to manage allies and the Opposition. In the recent Rajya Sabha elections, Nath ensured victory for Congress candidate Vivek Tankha from Madhya Pradesh even though the party was short of one MLA. All he did was dial good friend Mayawati for help and she readily obliged.
However, party circles have long been abuzz with murmurs that vice-president Rahul Gandhi does not particularly care for Nath's style of functioning. When he was not made leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha in 2014, Congress veterans saw it as a sign of Rahul's lack of trust in the Madhya Pradesh leader.
Nath laughs off such speculation, saying he has always enjoyed a warm and cordial relationship with Rahul. Sources in Rahul's office also told India Today that Nath has remained one of his primary troubleshooters. He was, for instance, head of the committee that finalised the Congress candidates for the recent Assam assembly elections. "He will be an important cog when Rahul restructures the top order of the party," says a senior Congress leader. "His political experience and election management skills are indispensable."
Among the big states headed for elections next year, the Congress sees a chance of making a comeback in Punjab, riding the supposed anti-incumbency against the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). Of course, the Aam Aadmi Party could put a spanner in the works.
However, the reaction to Nath's appointment was something the Congress did not anticipate. Minutes after his name was announced on June 12, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted asking Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh to explain his stand on Kamal Nath, "who allegedly had a role in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi". BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya also tweeted that the appointment amounted to rubbing salt into Sikh wounds. SAD spokesperson Daljit Singh accused the Nehru-Gandhis of honouring people accused in the anti-Sikh riots with plum posts.
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On June 13, Nath's phone kept ringing constantly, with mediapersons seeking his reaction to the verbal onslaught against him. He had an answer ready, along with hundreds of photocopies of the relevant bit of Justice Nanavati Commission report, which states: "In the absence of better evidence, it is not possible for the Commission to say that he had in any manner instigated the mob or that he (Nath) was involved in the attack on the Gurudwara."
"It has been 32 years," says Nath, "but nobody raised my name ever. Even the BJP-appointed Nanavati Commission exonerated me. In 2005, the Akalis moved a debate in Parliament but they did not mention my name."
Though there is no credible evidence directly against Nath in connection with the 1984 riots, some Congress leaders had feared from the start that the Opposition would try to use his name to discredit the Congress with the Sikh community in a perception battle in the run-up to the elections.
These internal misgivings notwithstanding, Nath had the firm backing of Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh, and poll strategist Prashant Kishor, who has been hired by the Congress to manage the election campaigns in both Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. Kishor, in fact, was the first to suggest Nath's name to take charge of either of the two states. Nath, who was three batches junior to Amarinder at Doon School, shares a warm rapport with him. Kishor, too, had met Nath several times at his Delhi home before the latter was formally given charge of Punjab. On June 13, the two lengthy calls Nath received were from Amarinder and Kishor.
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If AICC sources are to be believed, the appointment of Nath along with Ghulam Nabi Azad, who has been given charge of UP, was the first step in the direction of the "major surgery" general secretary Digvijaya Singh has advocated. The recent setbacks in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand have forced the Congress high command to rethink the process of appointing general secretaries in charge of the states.
Backed by Rahul, several backroom men were given charge of states, breeding resentment in the state leadership. They have no electoral experience and failed miserably to control dissidence in the states. "Leaders such as Mohan Prakash, Madhusudan Mistry and C.P. Joshi don't have the aura, stature and connect to discipline errant state leaders," says a general secretary of the party. General secretaries of several other states will also be changed, he adds. "They could be good at background research, but political management is not just paperwork."
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But the surgery seems to have gone wrong even before Rahul Gandhi could hold the scalpel. Of course, Nath's role and relevance as a backroom negotiator is important but politics is also a battle of perception. In the electoral arena, a clean chit from a commission may not be enough as rhetoric has the power to swing public mood. If the Congress vice-president had factored in history of perception before Nath's appointment, he could have saved the party this embarrassment.
Follow the writer on Twitter @KDscribe
--- ENDS ---
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's unorthodox move, to engage directly with state chief secretaries and departmental secretaries in Delhi disregarding conventional lines of command, is clearly a winner. Pragati (Pro-Active Governance And Timely Implementation), the year-old monthly review aimed at fast-tracking long-delayed Centre-state projects-a first for an Indian PM-has been an incredibly successful exercise.
Consider the numbers: 108 of the 350 Centre-state projects, worth over Rs 3 lakh crore across critical infrastructure sectors like railways, national highways, power and civil aviation, interminably delayed for the past four to 15 years, have been revived. An additional 20 state infrastructure projects, mired in central red tape, are also back on course.
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The Pragati Room in South Block seems stark compared to the stateliness that defines Lutyens' Delhi. What stands out is a sense of urgency to get on with the business at hand. The Pragati meetings are packed 90-120 minute consultations the PM holds on the last Wednesday of every month. Flanked on either side by PMO officials, including cabinet secretary P.K. Sinha, principal secretary Nripendra Misra and additional principal secretary P.K. Mishra, and a retinue of other officials including deputy secretary Ajit Kumar and junior officer Mrugendra Jha, Modi sits before three large interactive screens. One has live video of the officer he is talking to, while the other screens show details of the project under discussion, its location, with information like causes of delay and cost overruns.
A fourth screen, not visible to outstation participants, bears precise advice on the best direction forward. Its content, collated by the PMO's research team, is designed to give Modi a critical information edge. While projecting the PM as a hands-on commander, it allows him to engage in an informed discussion, pulling up officers when necessary and even occasionally indulging in banter.
To nudge things along, projects up for review are put up on the Pragati portal 15-25 days in advance. This is to alert state chief secretaries or concerned Union secretaries and help them prep for the interaction. In several instances, sources say, projects stuck for minor reasons are already back on track by the time they come up for discussion. "The Pragati programme has succeeded in cutting through bureaucratic red tape like nothing before," says an official, describing how panicked officers, fearing a dressing-down from the PM, have called (the PMO) promising to 'okay' projects. It is clearly shaking up things down the line.
For instance, the 84-km Katakal-Bhairabi railway line sanctioned in 1999 to link Assam with Mizoram had been stuck over local opposition to the acquisition of five hectares of land needed for the last mile of the project. After being listed for review on May 25, work on the impossibly-stuck rail line started again a few days ahead of the meeting. Maharashtra chief CS Swadheen Kshatriya too is ecstatic, "The speed with which we got clearances for the delayed Navi Mumbai airport and Mumbai-Navi Mumbai trans-harbour project was astonishing."
A rail-cum-road bridge over the Ganga in Patna. Photo: Getty images A rail-cum-road bridge over the Ganga in Patna. Photo: Getty images
The last Pragati session on May 25 offered a window to the way Modi's mind works. The first project up for review was the Tumkur-Davengere rail line. Delayed since 2011 because of the Karnataka government's failure to contribute the promised half of the costs despite bidding for the project, the PM was in an uncompromising mood. "How long can this continue? Review all such railways-states partnership projects till 2014. If the states are not interested, drop them," he told Railway Board chairman A.K. Mittal, following an exchange with Karnataka chief secretary Ashok Jadhav. "There is only one pragati here...the cost has doubled, from Rs 900 crore to Rs 1,800 crore," the PM sardonically commented at the end of the brief session.
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Among the big success stories of Pragati has been the new strides in solid waste management. At the May 25 session with the chief secretaries of MP, Gujarat, Delhi and Rajasthan, the PM cited MP's significant accomplishment in the area and got commitments from other provinces with two simple directives: a minimum of eight per cent of plastic waste must be used in road construction; and making compost (fertiliser) from organic waste must get priority over power generation from this source. "Farmers need manure whereas generating power from waste is a costly affair," was the prime minister's logic.
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The monthly Pragati sessions are a mix of grim queries and straight talking, but invariably interspersed with chitchat to keep things light. At a session some months ago, Modi indulgently ribbed Mittal who is usually up to speed on anything even remotely connected with the railways: "Mittalji, you were the opening batsman. How come you are at No. 5 today?" At another, he wanted to know if the civil servant had come to the service from a teaching job...for the man simply wouldn't stop talking!
The Salma hydroelectric dam at Chishti Sharif in Herat. Photo: Getty images
Pragati's success, officials say, hinges on the PM's insistence that the exercise be free of political considerations. In fact, a growing number of non-NDA CMs have been asking Modi to include their state projects in the monthly review. The snail-paced Lucknow Metro was a beneficiary, with long-pending clearances and funding in place after Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav requested Modi to include it in the initiative. UP chief secretary Alok Ranjan is full of praise. "Pragati is a perfect review model for spurring on stalled projects. What is great is the states get to place their views directly before the PM," Ranjan told India Today.
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The Pragati concept, developed on the basis of a mid-2014 review of 55 central ministries conducted by Modi, zeroed in on three major infrastructure sectors-energy, transport and digital. "We found that delayed projects created a lot of stress on the economy in the form of NPAs, escalating project costs and aimed benefits not accruing to the targeted people. A system for timely review of national programmes and policy-related grievances with nationwide consultation was needed. That's how Pragati was born," says PMO joint secretary A.K. Sharma, describing the start of one thing that is clearly working for the Modi sarkar.
Follow the writer on Twitter @UdayMahurkar
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Rajasthan is different this year. May and June are the hottest months in the state's desiccated climes, but this time around it is the 'corrupt'-civil servants, politicians and their cronies-who are feeling the brunt of what may be the severest summer in decades. The past month has seen former Union secretary for financial services, Gurdial Singh Sandhu, and the state's special secretary for health, Niraj Kumar Pawan, two influential bureaucrats during the tenure of former Congress chief minister Ashok Gehlot, land in jail on alleged corruption charges.
The two are part of an extended list feeling the heat from the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB), which is directly under chief minister Vasundhara Raje. " I have told them to do what they understand to be correct,'' Raje told India Today on the extent to which she controls the ACB.
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Sandhu, who retired in September 2015, was forced to turn himself in after the Supreme Court rejected his anticipatory bail petition, filed by former Union minister and senior lawyer Kapil Sibal on May 9. The officer, who spent eight critical years in Rajasthan's urban development department between 1998 and 2013 (during two alternating terms of Gehlot), is charged with multiple offences, including 'illegally' leasing Jaipur Development Authority land worth Rs 125 crore to realtor Shailendra Garg in 2011.
V.K. Singh, inspector general of police, ACB, says, "Sandhu colluded with others, including two Rajasthan Administrative Service officers and perhaps even former urban development minister Shanti Dhariwal to hastily push through the orders, ignoring the objections." Sandhu, however, denies the allegations. Dhariwal has been questioned twice so far.
Under Raje, the ACB appears to be making a show of going after wrongdoers, irrespective of political lineage. So if Sandhu is in trouble for alleged offences during Gehlot's tenures, Pawan is in hot water for his purported misdemeanours during the present BJP regime. The ACB's hands-on IG Singh conducted raids at 19 different locations to unearth a major scam in the National Health Mission which eventually led to the arrest of Pawan.
Three others, including Ajit Soni, a go-between startlingly empowered as a nodal officer (allegedly to work out contracts and bribes), and Deepa Gupta, chief accounts officer with the department, were also held. ACB detectives claim to have traced Rs 2 crore worth of bribes, given in 2015-16 for publicity contracts of the health mission. Predictably, both Pawan and Gupta deny the charges, the latter insisting that 'seniors' were against her and that they also "took bribes through middlemen".
ACB officials say rather than nailing individual instances of corruption, they are now more focused on rooting out the 'systemic rot'. Acting director-general Bhupendra Dak says ACB investigations have unearthed startling instances of top officials-IAS officers and chief engineers-outsourcing their powers to middlemen who then indulge in outright extortion. Dak's officers even found instances of honey traps wherein, besides money, sexual favours were also on offer. "The entire process makes it impossible for people unwilling to pay bribes to land contracts," says Dinesh M.N., IGP (ACB), who booked 11 people, including a chief engineer in the same national health mission complex for taking bribes just a week after the raid on Pawan's office. It showed how brazen officials have become.
Cuffs on: Rajasthan ACB officers arrest IAS officer Niraj K. Pawan Cuffs on: Rajasthan ACB officers arrest IAS officer Niraj K. Pawan
A pen drive recovered from Soni's residence, ACB officers say, has details of bribes paid to Pawan on tenders for grassroots publicity of the national health mission, including "money the officer's wife spent shopping". A seized video allegedly shows Gupta demanding Rs 20 lakh while threatening to blacklist a vendor. In another audio recording, a voice matching Soni's can be heard advising a vendor that he could save half of a Rs 7 crore contract "by doing things the right way".
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Among the 'right ways', the ACB discovered, was the use of Arogya vans, hired for publicity of public health schemes, including street plays and health quizzes in different places where excess money was claimed. In yet another contract, the price of toys given away to attract family participation in health mission schemes was inflated four-fold. The bureau estimates that on an average 17 per cent of each contract was earmarked to grease palms, but often officials demanded even more.
The first signs of the crackdown came with the arrest of IAS officer and CEO of Jaipur Municipal Corporation, L.C. Aswal, in 2014. Now, many believe Raje's zero-tolerance initiative and giving the ACB unbridled powers is a response to the heat she took in mid- 2015 over her alleged endorsement of former IPL chief Lalit Modi. But clearly she's intent on demonstrating that she means business-of late, the ACB has been registering cases at an average of one a day. Like Aswal, officers like former principal secretary (mines), Ashok Singhvi, long counted among her favourites, were also jailed.
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Although the ACB's actions have discomfited Rajasthan's bureaucracy, the chief minister seems to be accumulating more than a few brownie points in the capital. In May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally intervened to get the sanction to prosecute Singhvi, a senior IAS officer (clearance came in two days after the PM was informed that the file was stuck, in Delhi, for nearly four months).
The crackdown this May has been cleverly designed to help Raje project a 'clean, no-nonsense' administration. And it already has her critics on the back-foot. Former CM Gehlot, who vociferously defended officers like Sandhu, insisting that they were being targeted only because of their proximity to him, has curiously turned silent. Indeed, his detractors, both within the ruling BJP and the Congress, suggest the former CM perhaps now fears that the ACB could turn on him.
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Gehlot has reason to worry. Among the complaints being probed are the questionable building permissions granted during his tenure for a project in Jaipur's Statue Circle as well as dubious sanctions allowing 'double spends' on projects in Sardarpura, Gehlot's constituency in Jodhpur. Information with the ACB suggests that the Jodhpur Development Authority permitted massive violations, flouting rules and revising Rs 396 crore contracts to Rs 643 crore days before the imposition of the poll code in December 2013.
Some of the cases have revealed corruption at bizarre levels. Like a community centre, for which a tender was awarded for Rs 30 lakh, being revised to Rs 1 crore in one meeting and to Rs 2 crore in another. There are also instances of payments released without any work being done.
Of course, there's a lobby in the bureaucracy upset about colleagues being caught. They accuse the CM of demoralising them, but many others are happy. Chief minister Raje, if she sticks to the path and if citizens are seen to benefit from her actions, then her party might too, in the next assembly elections in December 2018.
Follow the writer on Twitter @rohit0
Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje in an exclusive interview to Senior Editor Rohit Parihar, answers questions on a range of subjects including some of her successes and failures. Excerpts:
You are halfway into your term. How much have you achieved so far? There's a perception that you have slowed down...
My team has done enough to ensure that we finish most of what was promised by 2018. The BJP has been creating records in every poll since we came to power, which shows that the people know that I am doing my best.
But with an 80 per cent majority, shouldn't things have moved a lot faster?
The state was bankrupt when we took over. We got it back on the rails. We have tried to find spaces within which to give what the people require. I have also taken over the Rs 60,000 crore debt of our electricity discoms. We have not gone for tokenism to get publicity nor for mega projects at the cost of depriving the people of what they need most.
Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje
How has your governance style changed in the second term?
I learnt a lot from my previous innings. I am a little older and a little wiser, more in control of my emotions. I am also travelling more, so are my ministers and officials as we review policies and their execution. I have made surprise visits to three districts so far.
There was lot of hype created about your labour and industrial reforms. Have those brought in any investment?
I did not create the hype. Those reforms were a first for the country. The fact that we had so many proposals lined up during Resurgent Rajasthan, our investors' meet last November, shows that our reforms have enthused them. These are small steps but a lot of projects are coming up.
You had promised 1.5 million jobs in the government and private sector, including training the unemployed in various skills?
We have already trained 1,30,459 youths of which 53,568 have got jobs in the private sector. In the government sector, six lakh jobs have been offered. I will be putting all such data on digital signboards in every district where it will be updated with every job created.
What are your favourite projects, the success stories?
The Bhamashah scheme which enables a woman to have a bank account in which benefits of all family members are directly transferred. This was a direct transfer of subsidy concept that I initiated in my first tenure but was abandoned later. I have restarted it and five crore five lakh transactions have taken place so far; some Rs 2,480 crore has been directly deposited into the accounts of beneficiaries. We have added health insurance to it and will now link it to their health card. It's a scheme close to my heart.
Some dream projects failed to take off, like the PPP in state highways which was to make 20,000 km of roads.
The overall recession has taken its toll but there will be investments the moment the economic scenario brightens up for such a massive investment. That said, we have done exceptionally well in providing roads inside villages along with drains, as also in national highways.
What about the inputs from the advisory council and its sub-committees?
Tremendous. Council member Uday Kotak (MD, Kotak Mahindra Bank) has literally bailed out our power sector (with a Rs 5,000 crore loan). We have also got valuable inputs in health, water conservation, heritage and art and education. Lot of innovations have come from them.
You were expected to have 5,0007,000 ration shops running as mini department stores by March 31 in a tie-up with the Kishore Biyani group. That too is lagging.
Biyani is supplying quality goods at prices that have to be the lowest for a similar product. It is a difficult task in such a vast state. Besides, ration dealers also must feel comfortable about such a tie-up. So far, 1,200 have come aboard.
There were PILs accusing you of grabbing the Dholpur Palace and stealing carpets from a state-run hotel. The courts have dismissed the cases, but how do you feel?
Some people habitually file PILs and often they have the backing of my political rivals in the Congress. The courts have dismissed the petitions and even imposed costs in one case.
Your son Dushyant is an MP but you have kept him away from state politics?
Dushyant is happy with his family and his constituency.
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ST. LOUIS The four candidates for the Republican nomination for Missouri governor will face off in their next debate at 7 p.m. Wednesday in St. Louis.
St. Louis Public Radio will host and moderate the debate. Tickets to view the event at the St. Louis studio are sold out, but the debate can be heard live on 90.7 KWMU, online at stlpublicradio.org and via other sources.
Additional information is available HERE.
The GOP primary candidates expected to participate are businessman John Brunner, former Navy SEAL Eric Greitens, former Missouri House Speaker Catherine Hanaway and Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder.
The winner of the Aug. 2 primary will face the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, expected to by Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, in the Nov. 8 general election.
The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division will lead the investigation into the fatal police shooting of an African American man outside a convenience store Tuesday in the southern city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Governor John Bel Edwards said the Justice Department will be assisted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local law enforcement agencies.
Edwards said Wednesday "I have very serious concerns. The video is disturbing to say the least."
The video showed one of two officers shooting 37-year-old Alton Sterling while he was pinned to the ground. The video sparked protests and calls for the dismissal of the town's police chief, Carl Dabadie.
At a separate media briefing, Debadie said "when officers arrived, Sterling was armed" and a struggle ensued.
Police have not said what led to the escalation.
But Louisiana state Representative Edmond Jordan, an attorney for the victim's family, said "Mr. Sterling was not reaching for a weapon. He looks like a man that was actually fighting for his life."
Multiple gunshot wounds
Sterling suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, according to the autopsy report.
The officers have been identified as four-year veteran Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II, who has been on the police force for three years. Both have been put on administrative leave.
They responded to an anonymous caller who said someone was selling CDs and had threatened him with a gun outside the store. A brief altercation ensued when the officers arrived. The store owner, Abdul Muflahi, told local media that one officer tackled Sterling, and when he resisted, the second officer shot him "four to six times."
Sterling, a father of five, died at the scene.
The video corresponds with Muflahi's testimony, showing the victim being wrestled to the ground and shot. On the video, a person shouts, "He's got a gun!" before the shooting officer is heard saying, "If you [expletive] move I swear to God," before firing his gun.
Protesters then took to the streets in Baton Rouge, with the crowd growing to over 200 people, according to local reports. The group waved signs and chanted "Black lives matter" and "hands up don't shoot" late into Tuesday.
Hong Kong officials said yesterday theres little chance a bookseller wanted in mainland China will be sent back after mainland authorities threatened him with tougher punishment if he didnt return.
Security officials also said they will further investigate the case of Lam Wing-kee, whose revelations last month about being secretly arrested and interrogated over his companys books rekindled fears that Beijing is tightening its grip on the semiautonomous city.
Lam, who went missing last year, said he was allowed to return to Hong Kong in June on the condition he bring back information about his bookshops customers. But he went off script and held a news conference to talk about his ordeal of being held for months in the city of Ningbo, near Shanghai, and vowed never to return to the mainland.
Ningbo police warned Lam on Tuesday to return to the mainland, otherwise they will be forced to take other legal measures, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The police said Lam violated his bail terms by declaring his intention not to return to the mainland.
Hong Kong Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok said there is no legal arrangement for the transfer of persons to the mainland authorities because the city has no extradition agreement with the mainland. Lai and other officials spoke to reporters a day after meeting with their counterparts in Beijing about the case.
The Hong Kong delegation was given a summary of the case against Lam by police in Ningbo, where the investigation started after police found books published outside the mainland were being sold illegally, Xinhua said.
They were also shown a video of Lam eating meals, having a haircut and getting his blood pressure checked as evidence he was well treated during his detention. However, it also showed him sitting in a room with padded walls and no visible windows, watched over by surveillance cameras from several angles.
Lam was one of five men who worked for a publisher churning out racy books on Chinas Communist leaders.
They operated their business legally in Hong Kong, which has wide autonomy and a separate legal system, but their books were banned in the mainland. He and the others disappeared last year, only to turn up months later in the mainland, detained or involved in investigations. Kelvin Chan, Hong Kong, AP
beijing agrees to report detentions of hk suspects faster
Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said mainland Chinese officials have agreed to report detentions of the citys residents within two weeks, as the government seeks to calm concerns raised by the months-long booksellers saga.
The two sides would in the future summarize the nature of allegations against residents held in either jurisdiction within 14 days, Leung told reporters yesterdayy, after Hong Kong officials returned from a meeting in Beijing. They planned additional talks later this month to discuss greater law enforcement communication. Bloomberg
The Philippines new president says Manila is ready to talk to China, not go to war, if an arbitration tribunal rules in its favor in a case it brought against Beijings claims in the South China Sea.
President Rodrigo Duterte said yesterday the Philippines remains optimistic that the tribunal will rule in its favor. But he says if the ruling is not favorable, then the Philippines would accept and abide by it.
He says the country will proceed accordingly after it obtains a copy of the judgment.
The official China Daily reported that China is ready to start negotiations with the Philippines if Manila ignores the tribunal ruling, which is expected to be issued on July 12.
Indonesias leading budget airline Lion Air has just flown some 250 Chinese tourists directly from Macau to the countrys province of North Sulawesi.
According to Indonesian media outlet Tempo.Co, Lion Air aims to attract 30,000 Chinese visitors to the capital city of North Sulawesi, Manado.
Lion Group founder Rusdi Kirana told Tempo.Co that the Group is committed to attracting tourists from China, stressing that North Sulawesi is an appropriate travel destination for China, with its substantial market.
Kirana added that Macau, Shenzen, Chongqing, Wuhan, Shanghai and Changsha have huge market potential, large population and high purchasing power.
Meanwhile, North Sulawesi Governor Olly Dondokambey welcomed the Chinese tourists at Sam Ratulangi Airport, also known as Manado International Airport.
The governor said the Indonesian government aims to boost the number of visitors, and expressed his hopes for regular and direct visits from numerous Chinese cities.
Olly Dondokambey revealed that Chinese tour guides had visited North Sulawesi two months previously to determine whether it would be worthwhile for Chinese tourists to visit the province.
The governor has advised the residents of the province to create a calm and safe environment for the tourists.
Following the direct flight from Macau on a Boeing 737 ER aircraft, flights to Manado from Shenzhen and Shanghai will depart tomorrow and July 12, respectively.
ST. ANTHONY (AP) The man famous for his many years as a motorcycle cop on the hit '80s TV series "CHiPs" is now a St. Anthony police reserve officer.
Mayor Neils Thueson swore Erik Estrada into office on Saturday at City Hall in this town of 3,500 people northeast of Rexburg. Estrada plans to work with the police department in protecting children from internet predators.
Estrada arrived on Saturday where he spent the afternoon with police officers and their families at the city park. After Thueson swore Estrada in as a reserve police officer, Estrada spent the rest of the afternoon at the high school at a meet and greet where he had his picture taken with residents of all ages.
Estrada has spent the past decade working with various law enforcement departments in keeping kids safe online. Following his induction, Estrada said how important it is to teach children what not to do while on the web.
"Education is the best protection especially on the internet. Children should be educated in how to handle a chat room. Don't give out personal information. Certainly don't give out your mother's or father's name or what school you go to. Don't ever accept gifts," Estrada said. "Certainly don't ever go meet someone you've been chatting with. They're not who they are. If they send a picture, that isn't them."
Even in conservative and generally safe St. Anthony, there are still threats to children, Police Chief Terry Harris said.
"I think that this brings to the surface that (internet crime) happens in smaller communities. Everything that happens in the big cities, happens here," he said.
Estrada's team is developing various programs such as software that will record children's pictures at various angles. It will also provide other information such as a child's medical needs. The information will be readily available for police should a child come up missing.
"The first 72 hours is a very crucial time to recover a child," Estrada said.
Estrada chose St. Anthony as small rural communities prove more willing to quickly join forces with his organization. In larger cities, there is too much red tape and too many bureaucrats involved in trying to reach the mayor and police officials, he said.
"What happens in a big city there is a tremendous amount of politics involved," he said.
In St. Anthony, after just a few emails and telephone calls, city officials quickly and eagerly welcomed Estrada into the police reserves.
"We got everybody on board immediately, so we don't waste his time. In a larger city, it could take weeks," Harris said.
Estrada and his organization made contact with Harris about six weeks ago via email. As Estrada has continually warned, you can't trust everybody on the web. Harris, having worked as a police officer for many years, thought the email was one big hoax. Before responding, he did some detective work and learned that the email was legitimate. He later got in touch with Estrada and told the city council about Estrada's plans.
Harris later met with the city council where he announced Estrada's visit. Of course, not everyone in town believed Harris. Social media lit up with many saying it was indeed a joke. More than once, Harris heard that he "was full of beans." In the meantime, he sallied forth making plans for Estrada's visit.
Estrada's addition to the city will prove beneficial to the city's police department, he said.
"We're talking a long-term partnership. I expect it will run for the next two or three years. He's a great guy. He's going to be a great part of the team," Harris said.
Estrada grew up wanting to become a police officer thanks to his mother's friendship with an exceptionally good police officer. Yet, during high school, he got the acting bug after he signed up for drama when he became interested in dating a young woman.
After Estrada told his mother of his change in plans, he promised her that, if acting didn't work out by the time he was 30, he would return to New York and become a police officer. The cutoff to do so was 32 years of age.
By the time Estrada was 27, he landed the role of California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer Frank "Ponch" Poncherello. He continued in that role from 1977 to 1983, making it possible to support his mother, who hasn't worked since that time.
"I've been taking care of her for 35 years," he said.
Following "CHiPs," Estrada continued acting, but later became a reserve officer in Muncie, Indiana. To avoid attention, he worked nights as an officer. He later came in contact with law enforcement officers who spent the day working against internet predators. What Estrada witnessed sickened him so much that he decided to form a foundation to help educate and protect children from internet enticement.
Estrada says that all his dreams from crime fighting to acting have all come true.
"I wanted to be a cop first and then I became an actor and then became a cop on TV. The TV thing allowed me to become a reserve officer in Indiana. I became a real cop," he said. "How many people have that kind of blessing? I've been blessed that way. I've been lucky."
TWIN FALLS A judge on Tuesday signed an order dismissing the rape charge against KMVT meteorologist John Jack William Holland.
The order, signed by District Judge Randy Stoker, was mostly a formality after Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs filed a motion to dismiss the charge Friday. A trial was set for Aug. 1.
In his motion to dismiss the charge, Loebs said that while continuing to investigate the case after the preliminary hearing, new witnesses and new information came forward that showed that Mr. Holland did not commit the crime of rape.
Holland was charged Feb. 1 and accused of raping a woman at his apartment after meeting her for a date. He faced up to life in prison if convicted.
Holland hasnt appeared on KMVT since his arrest, and news director Chris Huston said Friday he couldnt comment on personnel issues. The station referred to Holland as a KMVT meteorologist in a story Tuesday, but he does not appear on an employee page on the stations website.
Chuck Peterson, Hollands attorney, said Friday his client essentially lost his job, and an argument could be made he lost his career.
Loebs said in an interview Friday that although the charge was dismissed without prejudice meaning prosecutors retain the right to refile charges his office does not intend to refile a rape charge or any other charges against Holland.
The prosecutor also said the accuser in the case wouldnt be charged with making a false report.
Were not filing charges against anybody at all in this matter, Loebs said. Unless new evidence comes to light, this case is over.
TWIN FALLS A Twin Falls man is charged with attacking another man with a knife and nearly severing one of his fingers in a fight the victim said started because he was flirting with his attackers wife.
Nicholas Anthony Slane, 34, was arraigned Tuesday in Twin Falls County Magistrate Court on a felony count of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
Prosecutors say Slane used a bowie knife to attack his victim, Brandon Gifford, who was later found hiding under a pickup truck, bloodied, with his pinky finger hanging from his hand due to the lacerations.
Police got a call about 5:15 a.m. Saturday morning that there was a man covered in blood who tried to push his way into a home on Polk Street, court documents said. When the officers got there, they found Gifford hiding under a truck.
Gifford told police it was Slane who attacked him with the large knife after Gifford flirted with Slanes wife, court documents said.
Gifford had a deep laceration to his right hand and right forearm that required multiple stitches, an officer wrote in a sworn affidavit. He also had a laceration to his left knee.
Police said the cut on Giffords right hand cut in the webbing of his pinky finger and on the meaty portion on the outside of his pinky so that the finger was nearly severed.
These cuts will cause permanent disfigurement on the hand, the officer wrote.
A man at the home on Taylor Street where the stabbing occurred told police Slane left about 4:30 Saturday morning, but when officers spoke with Slane that night, he told them hed been out of town since Friday night, court documents said. On Sunday police arrested Slane at his home, but he continued to deny his part in the stabbing, saying he was out of town at a friends cabin.
Eventually Slane admitted to being at the home but said it was another man who stabbed Gifford, court documents said. He told police Gifford raped the other mans wife, which prompted the stabbing, and said he didnt call police because he was scared.
Police based their arrest on Slanes changing story and because Gifford identified him as the attacker, court documents said. The investigation also resulted in the arrest of 24-year-old Jose Daniel Jimenez, Jr., whos accused of stealing his mothers 2014 Harley Davidson; police found Jimenez and the motorcycle while searching Slanes home.
Slane is being held in Twin Falls County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bond and a preliminary hearing is set for July 15.
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TWIN FALLS A Twin Falls chiropractor is charged with engaging in sexual contact with four women during massages that turned increasingly sexual and uncomfortable for his victims as he focused on their inner thighs and breasts and repeatedly brushed against their genitals.
Robert Max Johnson, 54, of Twin Falls was arraigned Tuesday in Twin Falls County Magistrate Court on four misdemeanor counts of sexual exploitation by a medical care provider.
Johnson owned and operated Brain Core Therapy of Southern Idaho, 488 Blue Lakes Blvd. N. Police are still seeking other potential victims who Johnson may have touched inappropriately.
In court documents filed Wednesday, prosecutors laid out a pattern in which Johnson gave massages to women that often lasted much longer than theyd paid for and in which he gradually exploited the women, spending inordinate amounts of time massaging their inner thighs, brushing up against their genitals and fondling the breasts of two of his victims.
After interviewing four women who complained of the overly sexual massages, police contacted the dean of academic affairs at Palmer College of Chiropractic in Iowa, where Johnson went to school. The dean told police there are no accepted chiropractic protocols or procedures similar to the massages the women described.
Gayla Nickel from the Idaho Board of Massage Therapy also told police the massages the women described are not accepted massage therapy techniques and that they appeared to be sexual in nature and not therapeutic.
Police launched their investigation in January when a woman complained Johnson improperly touched her during a December massage. The woman told police shed received nearly 100 Swedish massages in her life but had never had a massage like the one she received from Johnson.
The first woman and three others said Johnson spent the bulk of the time massaging their lower backs, butts and upper thighs without ever asking what areas were sore. At least three of the women reported Johnson also touched or brushed his hands against their pubic area, with one woman describing him doing it in a way that didnt feel accidental.
At least two of the women said they were scared because Johnson was much larger and they were the only two people in the office at the time.
The first woman to report Johnson said she never felt so dirty or sexualized during a massage and when she left, she realized it lasted 45 minutes longer than the hour for which she had paid. Two other women also reported their massages lasted 30 to 45 minutes longer than the hour for which theyd paid.
Two of the women reported Johnson fondled their breasts during the massage and that his breathing became much quicker and heavier while he did so.
His hands started shaking as he massaged her breasts, and his breathing became faster, the detective wrote of one encounter.
The woman said Johnsons hands only shook while he was massaging her breasts, but she said it felt more like he was fondling than massaging. She also described his breathing while touching her breasts as similar to what you would hear in a bad porno.
Another woman said Johnson asked if he could massage her chest, which she agreed to thinking he would massage above her breasts. But she said Johnson ended up fondling her breasts after hed already pulled down her underwear without asking and brushing his fingers against her vagina several times.
Johnson is being held in Twin Falls County Jail in lieu of $10,000 bond, and a pretrial conference is scheduled for Aug. 16.
TWIN FALLS Prosecutors and defense attorneys are at odds whether the victim in last summers Harry Barry Park shooting will testify against his alleged assailants.
While a defense attorney said Tuesday the prosecutions case is weak because the victim has not testified and will not testify, a prosecutor said theres no reason to believe the victim wont testify in the future, even though he already refused once before during a preliminary hearing.
The two men charged in the shooting 27-year-old Fred Zapata Paiz and 20-year-old Jesus Hilario Manjares-Contreras were both in court Tuesday for hearings in the case.
Manjares-Contreras was seeking a reduction of his $100,000 bond, which a judge denied, while Paiz was in court for a pretrial conference. His trial is set to begin July 19.
During the bond-reduction hearing, Manjares-Contreras attorney said Marcus Loya, the victim who was shot in the arm Sep. 1 at the park, has not and will not testify.
Dan Brown, Manjares-Contreras attorney, argued that his clients bond should be reduced because without Loyas testimony, prosecutors dont have a strong case.
But Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs disputed that claim, saying Loya doesnt have legal reason not to testify against either of the alleged shooters if hes called to do so.
Well decide at (Paizs) trial whether we call him to testify or not, Loebs said Tuesday.
But at least part of what Brown said was correct Loya has not yet testified against either Paiz or Manjares-Contreras. He was called to testify during Paizs preliminary hearing but was held in contempt of court when he refused. He was not called to testify in Manjares-Contreras preliminary hearing.
If Loya does not testify, the case could rest largely on the testimony of Kayla Gutierrez, another victim who was at the park the night of the shooting. She testified during Manjares-Contreras preliminary hearing that Paiz shot Loya in the arm while Manjares-Contreras fired at her when she drove away in a borrowed Jeep.
Brad Calbo, the attorney for Paiz, said Tuesday the case has developed into a straight-forward identification case, meaning Loyas testimony, or lack thereof, could be key for prosecutors to prove it was Paiz and Manjares-Contreras shooting at Loya and Gutierrez that night.
But Loebs said theres lots of other evidence against the pair besides just the testimony of the victims.
Both Paiz and Manjares-Contreras are charged with felony counts of aggravated battery and aggravated assault with enhanced penalties on each count for use of a deadly weapon.
Manjares-Contreras is still being held in Twin Falls County Jail after Judge Richard Bevan denied his request Tuesday to reduce his bond. Paiz is also in custody awaiting his July 19 trial, which is expected to last three days.
TWIN FALLS A judge entered a not-guilty plea Tuesday for a 75-year-old Twin Falls man indicted on felony counts of sexual battery of a child and transferring of bodily fluids containing the HIV virus.
William Billy Smith was indicted by a Twin Falls County grand jury last month and arraigned in felony magistrate court June 24. He appeared in district court Tuesday for an arraignment where his attorney from the public defenders office said his client chose to stand silent.
District Judge Richard Bevan entered a not guilty plea for Smith and scheduled a three-day trial to start Oct. 5.
Smith is accused of performing oral sex on a child who was 16 or 17 years old while knowing he had HIV or AIDS sometime between Dec. 1, 2013 and May 1, 2015, the indictment said. But few other details of the alleged crime are available as grand jury proceedings are sealed to the public.
The indictment said Smith did transfer or attempt to transfer his bodily fluid to (his victim) by oral to genital contact knowing that he has been afflicted with AIDS or other AIDS-related complexes or manifestations of HIV.
Smith is being held in the Twin Falls County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bond, which was set by a magistrate judge June 24 during his initial appearance.
Convicted of a felony drug delivery charge in 2007 in Blaine County, Smith faces up to life in prison on the sexual battery charge and up to 15 years on the charge of transferring HIV bodily fluid.
TWIN FALLS Twin Falls school trustees met Monday on the Fourth of July to accept a top administrators retirement, leaving lingering questions about her departure.
The school district announced Tuesday that Clara Allred submitted a letter of retirement. Allreds retirement was effective June 30, a day before the start of the districts new fiscal year.
As director of support services, Allred oversaw many of the districts education programs outside regular classroom teaching, including the special education program, gifted and talented education, paraprofessionals, school counseling, and services for students such as mental health services, psychology, audiology, speech, occupational therapy and physical therapy.
School district spokeswoman Eva Craner declined to discuss the matter, saying its a personnel issue. Allreds phone number is not listed, and she couldnt be reached for comment.
A meeting agenda was posted at 11:30 a.m. Friday on the school districts website. But due to a clerical error, the date on the agenda was June 27 instead of July 4, Craner said.
Its highly unusual for the board to meet on federal holidays, and the error on the date of the meeting meant few in the public would have known it was taking place. Its also unusual for the board to meet to accept a single retirement; typically, the board approves them in batches.
Craner said the meeting date was chosen simply because it worked for those staff and board members who needed to be in attendance. School district administrators had vacations scheduled during the upcoming week, she added. School district Superintendent Wiley Dobbs was out of the office Tuesday and unavailable to comment.
The county prosecutors office said it was not aware of any ongoing criminal investigations involving Allred.
Pressed further about Allreds departure, including whether theres a separation agreement with Allred, Craner again said its a personnel issue and the school district cant comment.
Instead, the district issued a statement: The board wishes to thank Allred for her dedicated years of service to the District.
The school district plans to immediately post the job opening.
Allred was making $101,464 under her contract for the 2015-16 school year.
TWIN FALLS Except for the fireworks, the Fourth of July holiday was nearly just another long weekend for regional police and fire departments.
The Twin Falls Police Department had more calls for service between midnight Saturday and 2 a.m. Tuesday, but city spokesman Joshua Palmer said some of that can be expected with an increase in population. Crashes, noise complaints and fires were down from past years.
Despite three crashes, nine arrests for driving under the influence and two small fires, city, county and state law enforcement say things were quieter than other party holidays.
It was pretty uneventful for a holiday weekend, Twin Falls County Sheriff Tom Carter said.
Arrests and Citations
Law enforcement agencies responded to several reports of driving under the influence, and made nine DUI arrests over the three-day weekend in Twin Falls County.
Idaho State Police Sgt. Andy Hitt said his agency made three arrests for DUI between Friday and Monday, and teams prepared with a DUI enforcement plan.
For my team, it evidently worked, he said.
ISP reported six DUIs in the past week, Hitt said.
Twin Falls County Sheriffs Office did not make any citations for illegal fireworks.
Sgt. Dusty Solomon said Twin Falls police got 91 calls related to fireworks between July 4-5. The typical call was about illegal fireworks.
That was the biggest concern, she said.
The number of fireworks citations police wrote wasnt available Tuesday.
Last year, police issued 47 citations following a campaign to educate the public about fireworks laws. Palmer said the citys focus has been education before enforcement.
Crashes and Injuries
Two personal-injury crashes and one property-damage crash were reported to ISP.
Compared to previous weekends, we didnt see nearly the crashes, and the severity of crashes seemed to be down, Hitt said.
On Monday morning, drivers from East- and West-coast states collided in a two-vehicle crash on Idaho 75 near Hailey. George Daves, 73, of Potomac, Md., and Michael Timmerman, 37, of Corvallis, Ore., were treated for injuries and released at St. Lukes Wood River, Hitt said.
Both were wearing seat belts. Alcohol was not involved, he said.
Everybody went home at the end of the night, Hitt said.
That afternoon, another scene unfolded on U.S. 30 near Hagerman. A single-vehicle rollover sent the driver and her passenger to separate hospitals. The driver, Dawn Brown, 49, of Buhl, was flown to St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise and was in critical condition Tuesday afternoon.
The passenger, William Beadz, 23, of Twin Falls, was at St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center in good condition.
Alcohol contributed to the crash, ISP reported, and the vehicles occupants were not wearing seat belts.
Hitt said no seat belts, driver impairment, and not stopping at stop signs are three major contributors to accidents in the Magic Valley.
Unfortunately, were seeing a number of behaviors that we believe are driving the fatality and injury crashes, he said.
However, Hitt noted that its never just one issue that results in a crash with injuries.
Fireworks brought three patients to St. Lukes Magic Valley on Monday, a hospital spokeswoman said. Thats the same number of fireworks-related injuries reported for the holiday weekend last year.
Fires
The city had three reported fireworks-caused fires over the weekend, but only two of those were confirmed, Palmer said. Both were small brush fires.
Calls and Complaints
We had more total calls for service, but fewer calls for noise disturbance, Palmer said.
In all, Twin Falls Police Department received 564 calls for service between midnight Saturday and 2 a.m. Tuesday, Palmer said. Last year, the city had 510 calls.
Of those, 127 were complaints for noisy or illegal fireworks compared with 166 in 2015 and 114 in 2014.
Palmer said that before the city began educating the public in earnest, there were a minimum of 250 fireworks-related calls in 2013.
Twin Falls County Sheriffs Office received 16 fireworks-related calls over the weekend, spokeswoman Lori Stewart said, compared with four last year. Most festivities had quieted down by the time deputies arrived, Capt. Tim Miller said.
The county did not report any DUIs this weekend, Stewart said. While city police received six calls for DUI, they didnt lead to arrests because the drivers were not intoxicated, Palmer said.
State police said most of its complaints hinged on what youd might expect on a busy holiday weekend.
Said Sgt. Hitt: Friday and Saturday night, we had a lot of traffic complaints.
TWIN FALLS Results of the Wednesday recount of the votes in three precincts for Don Hall and Leon Mills in the Twin Falls County Commissioner race were the same as the original votes.
Under the supervision of officials from the state Attorney Generals and Secretary of States offices, county election workers recounted the votes in Twin Falls precincts 2 and 10 and Filer Precinct 3.
When they were done, Hall, the challenger who beat the incumbent Mills in the May Republican primary, had 265 votes in those precincts, and Mills had 158. These are the same numbers as were already reported.
Hall won countywide 4,532 to 2,824. Barring an upset, Hall will be the next commissioner to represent District 2, as nobody else is running.
Idaho law allows a candidate to petition the AGs office for a recount. No reason is required, but unless the race is extremely close the candidate requesting the recount has to pay the attorney generals office $100 per precinct.
It didnt cost the county, but it took these people away from their normal jobs, county Clerk Kristina Glascock said.
If the results of the recount of the three precincts had been different than the previously recorded election results, it would have triggered a countywide recount at public expense.
Mills said he asked for the recount for my own peace of mind, not sour grapes, and that he didnt expect the outcome to change as a result.
Mills said he chose the three precincts at random. The three werent the closest in the race either although Hall beat Mills in every precinct, Mills lost several by slimmer margins than the ones that were recounted. He lost Twin Falls Precinct 1 by just two votes and Precinct 14 by seven votes, for example.
The closest of the three recounted precincts was Twin Falls 10, which Hall carried by 18 votes, getting 57 percent of the total there. Hall carried Filer 3 and Twin Falls 2 by almost 2-to-1.
The ballots had been impounded by the sheriffs office, and election workers started by cutting open the boxes of ballots that were cast on Election Day and recounting each precinct by hand, one at a time, putting the Democratic and nonpartisan ballots aside and tallying the Republican votes on paper. The initial count showed 229 votes for Hall, 121 for Mills. A handful of GOP primary voters left the line for that race blank, one wrote in Jill Skeem (who is running as a Democrat for county commissioner in District 3), and one Republican voter in Filer Precinct 3 wrote in a frowning face.
Then, after testing the counting machines, election workers added in the early and absentee votes and counted all the votes, yielding the same 265-158 outcome in those three precincts.
The recount in the Mills/Hall race was the third recount in Idaho this year, Deputy Attorney General Carl Withroe said. The other two a sheriffs race in Shoshone County and a commissioner race in Ada County didnt change the outcomes either, in each case there was a shift of one vote. This recount was the first in Twin Falls County in years at least, possibly ever a couple of longtime county employees said they cant remember another one ever being held.
Withroe said the AGs office will issue a letter within a day confirming the recount results, and the candidates have a day to appeal after that.
BURLEY Parents need more information to help keep children safe, a special government review team has concluded after examining the deaths of dozens of Idaho children.
The Idaho Child Fatality Review Team released its latest report on child mortality after reviewing 92 child deaths out of 182 that occurred in Idaho in 2013. The team was established by a governor's task force.
In it's first report, issued last year, the team screened all 168 deaths of Idaho children younger than 18 in 2012 and pulled 78 of the cases for full review.
Many of the conclusions are the same: Children's deaths could be prevented if parents had more information about safety risks.
The team's latest key findings include an ongoing need for education for parents and caretakers to stress the importance of a safe sleeping environment and evidence that many drivers are unclear about safe and legal practices for transporting children that include the proper use of seat belts and correctly installed child seats. Teens should also receive reinforcement to prevent them from using electronic devices while driving, the team recommended.
In it's latest report, the team reviewed eight child drowning deaths. Most of the children were between the ages of 10 and 17 with limited swimming skills. Half of the children who drown had recently resettled in Idaho from another country. The report said cultural sponsors and resettlement agencies should include water safety as part of health and safety recommendations for refugee families.
The report also urged parents to childproof their homes to prevent crush deaths from furniture and appliances and make sure guns are out of reach for children to prevent accidental shootings.
Fourteen of the child deaths reviewed by the team were by suicide, and three of the children were elementary or middle school age. Most had a history of mental health problems, and several were untreated. Nearly half of the children expressed suicidal thoughts prior to the act. Some of the acts had an impulsive component arising during a short-term crisis. Limiting access to highly lethal methods like guns or drugs may reduce the risk during emotionally charged moments, the team found.
The team included a dozen legal and medical experts from across the Idaho. Until Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter formed the review team in 2013, Idaho was the only state without a commission to review child deaths.
BURLEY The summer promised warm days spent with family and friends for Inessa Scales.
Scales was planning get-togethers to mark milestones. She would celebrate her daughter Adaleizes first birthday July 2. The next day, Scales would turn 24.
Scales had recently reunited with her father, Billy Rhodes, who now lives at Victory Home, a Christian nonprofit that helps rehabilitate the lives of ex-gang members, drug addicts and alcoholics.
She was planning more trips to Twin Falls so she and her three children could get to know him better.
Instead, the mother of three died in a car crash June 26 in Burley.
Scales, 23, was on her way home after working the night shift at a rehabilitation center. She fell asleep at the wheel of her vehicle, over-corrected, and went into the oncoming lane. She was struck by a pickup truck and her vehicle separated into three pieces. She died at the scene.
Geneen Gillogly, Scales aunt and Rhodes sister, said she was a young mother working hard to make ends met for her family.
When you have these angels on earth its sad to have them leave, Gillogly said. She didnt have the best childhood, but she smiled right through it. Never once have I ever heard her be disrespectful or unkind to anyone. She was a blessing to have in my life.
Scales is survived by her fiance, Miguel Lopez, and their children Davon, 6, Dontecz, 3 and Adaleize, 1. Her parents are Vinessa Scales of Rupert, and Rhodes of Jerome. Other surviving family includes stepfathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.
A gofundme campaign was created shortly after her death to raise money for her children and pay for funeral and memorial costs. On Tuesday, the campaign had raised $700 toward its $5,000 goal.
Gillogly said Scales was cremated because she was unrecognizable after the car accident. Necklaces carrying her ashes were made for family members. Lopez was heartbroken, Gillogly said, because a part of him had died. Lopez and Scales had been a couple since they were 14. She had dreams of working as a hairstylist and they were saving money to move into a new home.
When the family celebrated Adaleizes birthday, six days after her mothers death, it was a somber celebration. Lopez brought the urn with Scales ashes so she could be at her daughters birthday.
It was really hard, Gillogly said.
Gillogly was also worried how her nieces death would affect her brother, but his faith is helping him through it all.
He didnt go backwards, she said. He told me yesterday everything through Jesus Christ is love. I was like, You are amazing. He is very quiet. He is quiet anyways. He is mourning with a quiet voice and a quiet heart.
Rhodes shared his story with the Times-News in late June when he became the first patient at the The Wellness Tree Community Clinic to have a bullet removed. The Wellness Tree Community Clinic is a nonprofit organization that provides free acute short-term regular medical care for people at or below the poverty level and/or no medical insurance.
To support her brothers new life, Gillogly started volunteering at Victory Home four months ago when he moved there. She also takes discipleship classes and attends the Victory Home church.
I did it for my brother and myself, she said. I saw a need here and people who graduate also volunteer as well. I can definitely feel a difference, and if I could, I would spend all my time here.
Gillogly said Scales was so excited to have another chance to build a relationship with her father.
The kids called him grandpa which was awesome, she said. Last year, her oldest didnt know who he was. This year, he knew instantly and ran up to him and said grandpa. It was very heartwarming.
The family held a celebration of life Sunday in Twin Falls to remember Scales.
She was outgoing, Rhodes said. She had a great sense of humor and was always trying to take care of others. Very loving.
Rhodes said getting the opportunity to reconnect with his daughter was everything to him.
Just to have a third and fourth chance that she was willing to give me, he said. That to me, said a lot about her character and she was an inspiration to me. I feel like its my duty to make sure her memory is carrying on and they (her children) dont lose sight of who their mom is and lose the meaning of family.
Special To The Washington Post
In 1973, five years before President Jimmy Carter would appoint Elie Wiesel to chair a commission to determine how the United States should memorialize the Holocaust, Wiesel was already a prominent author and thinker. On the other side of the planet, I was an untested middle school English teacher in Sydney, Australia, fresh out of an American college. No one could have predicted that 20 years later we would be together at the opening of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
But something happened in Sydney that perhaps foreshadowed our common destiny. It was an event that forever changed my studentsand me. I chose to have them read Wiesels iconic memoir Night in hopes that it might addressand amelioratesome of the rampant prejudice among my students in this multi-ethnic, working-class community, teeming with immigrants and resentments. Indeed, they were deeply moved.
They were also shocked to discover that I was a Jew. They had never before seen one and were astonished that I was so normal.
It was a transformative moment for all of us. And transformative is the word that defines the life and legacy of Elie Wiesel. His memoir has transformed millions of people worldwide. His vision for the museum was as an institution that would transform the living by remembering the dead. In 2005, Elie and I traveled to Romania, where he was instrumental in transforming that nation from one that denied its complicity in the HolocaustRomania is second only to the Germans in the number of Jews it killedto one that now hosts an Elie Wiesel Institute devoted to Holocaust research and education.
In 1986, the Nobel Committee called Elie a messenger to mankind. While that is true, it is not complete. He was one of the few whose message was not just delivered, but heardif, sadly, too rarely heeded. I sensed that one of the great sorrows of Elies life was the failure of the world in the face of genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur. He recognized that giving a voice to victims was necessary but insufficient. Action was required.
But it was Elies singular voicea voice whose moral clarity resonated with millions from all walks of lifethat was his hallmark. He also boldly envisioned the museum as a voice. He called it a living memorial. For him, memory was sacred but it also had to have a purpose. He saw the museum as a unique moral platform that would serve as an antidote to one of the worlds gravest problemsindifference.
Elie never presented himself as having all the answers. He was a man of moral certainty who was also plagued by doubts. Although never consumed by cynicism or anger, he was driven in his pursuit of questionsendless questions. He always said that the museum is not an answer. It is a question.
At the dedication ceremony, he said the museum is a lesson. There are many lessons. You will come. You will learn. We shall learn together. We did. And we do. He is now silenced, but his voicea voice that both inspires us and challenges uslives on.
Dave Johnston, the executive director of Idahos Republican Party, is only 27 years old, but hes quickly mastering the art of herding cats. Those skills are handy in his line of work, where peace and harmony do not always prevail.
The GOP is the party of the Otter PAC, where pragmatism is not viewed as a dirty word, and followers of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, where pragmatism is another word for liberalism. Its the party of legislators such as Rep. Maxine Bell of Jerome, who as a co-chair of the budget committee sees a legitimate role for government. Its also the party of Rep. Heather Scott of Blanchard, who views government overreach as the root of all evil.
The different factions dont always mix well, as demonstrated two years ago during a state convention that had everything but chains and brass knuckles. Republicans went home without agreeing on a platform or settling on major resolutions. The media had a field day, watching the states dominant party melt down before its eyes.
But Republicans managed to do something smart that year. They elected Idaho Falls businessman Steve Yates as the party chair, and he managed to put the broken pieces back together enough to sweep the top-of-the-ticket races and keep the GOPs large majority in the Legislature. Along the way, Yates hired Johnston, a Marine veteran whose personality is perfect for herding cats. He is not intimidated by competing factions or big egos.
I will work with anyone that is willing to work with me, he said.
So with Yates and Johnston in charge, this years convention was different from two years ago. There was a clear message that we wanted order, and not get headlines for doing stupid things, Johnston said.
There were a few welcome changes in key positions, he said. There are some people who are more interested in burning the house down, and some people who are happy being unhappy.
As one Republican stated, We reclaimed our party. But it doesnt mean conservatives are going away.
Dont take the relative quiet of the convention to mean that the grassroots of the party have stopped expecting Republican elected officials to hold true to the principles in their platform, said Wayne Hoffman, director of the Idaho Freedom Foundation. There are a lot of people out there who wonder why a state government with nearly all Republicans struggles so mightily to adhere to conservative policies.
Conservatives continue to make the most noise in North Idaho. Rep. Sage Dixon of Ponderay, one of the young chargers in the GOP, credits former Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul for paving the way for conservatives.
He opened peoples eyes to things they didnt like, Dixon said. I wasnt a strong supporter of Ron Paul, but I agreed with some of the things he said about what is wrong with government.
Generally, he says, people are concerned about spending and the governments heavy hand. On the state level, he said, its frustrating that issues such as state insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion are even discussed in a Republican caucus.
Idaho legislators, he said, are not suspicious enough of some things. Its easier to go along and get along rather than take a stand.
But at least with Dixon, there is no conflict with the partys structure. He supports Yates and thinks highly of Johnston. From Johnstons perspective, issues can be bantered about in the Legislature; his job is to see to it that Republicans are doing the bantering.
As great as the challenges might be in his own party, he sees even more difficulties on the Democratic side. Democrats are not going to beat us. I dont say that arrogantly or condescendingly; its the reality of it, he said.
But he also knows the dynamics can change if Republicans are consumed by infighting. We are our own worst enemies, he says. Rome was not defeated by an outside force. Rome was defeated by itself.
Britain's Home Secretary Theresa May attends a press conference in London, Britain, June 30, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]
LONDON - British Home Secretary Theresa May remained frontrunner to replace Prime Minister David Cameron Tuesday as one of the five Conservative leadership contenders dropped out of the race and another withdrew hours later.
In a ballot of Conservative members of the Parliament (MPs), ex-Defense Secretary Liam Fox notched up the lowest number of votes, 16, compared to May who won the backing of 165 MPs. He was immediately eliminated from the leadership race.
Just two hours after a vote by Conservative MPs at Westminster had finished, the man who came fourth, Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb, who won 34 votes, announced he was withdrawing, and backing May.
Of the 330 Conservative MPs in the House of Commons, all voted apart from the Prime Minister whose resignation after the EU referendum triggered the contest.
The result makes it almost certain that May, a Remain supporter in the referendum process, will be one of the two candidates to go forward to the final stage when thousands of party members across the country decide who they want at 10 Downing Street.
Pro-leave Andrea Leadsom, the energy and climate change minister, came second in Tuesday's ballot, with 66 votes, followed by Justice Secretary Michael Gove, who won 48 votes.
A second ballot Thursday will decide which two of the three will go to a national ballot of all Conservative Party members.
May is virtually guaranteed a place, meaning Thursday vote will effectively decide whether her challenger will be Leadsom or Gove.
Gove has faced criticism from many within the party for treachery after he decided to stand, knowing that former mayor of London Boris Johnson had already set his sights on moving to 10 Downing Street.
Russia interested in Georgias elections
By Messenger Staff
A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson says Moscow is attentively following the parliamentary elections in Georgia, the Tass news agency is reporting.Russia cares about the results of the upcoming parliamentary elections in Georgia, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Tuesday."A fair election is certainly fully within the competence of the Georgian people - this is our basic approach," Zakharova said. "But at that, Georgia is our neighbour and the results of the political processes in that country interest us greatly, because it will define who will come to power in Georgia."She added rather cryptically that Russia "attentively follows the processes, as the course announced by the country inside and outside will depend on who will come to power".Based on the polls, the current ruling Georgian Dream coalition (GD) has the chance to gain more votes than other parties.However, there are two aspects that are worth attention.Firstly, the Georgian Dream coalition which was comprised of six political parties for 2012 parliamentary elections has split for the upcoming elections; the ruling Georgian Dream party has said it will take part in the elections alone.Consequently the current polls might not reflect the genuine situation, as the surveys are about the coalition and not about its constituent parties.Herewith, all surveys stressed majority of the Georgian population doesnt know whom to vote, hence an effective campaign by even a small party could tip the balance against the dominant GD and UNM parties.Most of the leading parties acting in Georgia currently say they have a pro-Western course, but unlike in previous elections it is not clear which (if any) the Western powers are backing. There is little doubt, however, that Moscow supports the handful of pro-Russia Georgian parties.Despite the fact that the current Georgian Government tries to restore relations with Moscow, Russia continues to occupy 20 percent of Georgia's territory, and changes the border almost at will.
@PatriciaMazzei
Some big Republican names have signed up to speak at a September conference in Orlando for Americans for Prosperity, the conservative political organization backed by the Koch brothers.
Former presidential candidate Carly Fiorina and Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst will take the stage, AFP said Wednesday. Ernst is rumored to be a potential running mate for presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Also on the agenda are incoming Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran and Speaker Designate Jose Oliva.
The conference, titled "American Dream Summit," will be held Sept. 2-3 at the Orange County Convention Center.
Faced with an environmental disaster now attracting international headlines, Gov. Rick Scott on Wednesday announced he will seek "additional funding" in his budget next year aimed at replacing leaking septic tanks that are believed to be one of the sources of the polluted run-off causing the outbreak of blue-green algae coating the coastlines of Martin and St. Lucie counties.
Scott did not specify the amount of taxpayer money he is willing to seek to stem the pollution that has led to a stinky toxic sludge coming from the Indian River Lagoon and Caloosahatchee River. The governor said his proposal will include new funding for a 50/50 matching grant program "with local communities surrounding the water bodies affected by algae blooms resulting from the frequent discharges of Lake Okeechobee."
The governor's press release said it would be a voluntary program designed "to encourage people to move from septic tanks to sewer systems" but he made no mention of requiring any change to water quality standards imposed on sugar-cane and other farmers whose land has also been cited as the source of the polluted run-off.
For years, septic tank run-off has been identified as a major problem contributing to the pollution in the state's waterways in springs. After years of effort, environmentally-conscious lawmakers passed a bill in 2010 requiring the inspections of all 2.6 million septic tanks every five years and they banned the land application of septic tank waste.
But after Scott was elected in 2011, homeowners and Tea Party groups complained about the septic tank law and the $400 cost of the septic tank inspections. Septic tank waste haulers and legislators representing rural counties complained that the septic tank ban could the to the skyrocketing costs of septic tank clean-outs.
In 2011, the Legislature and the governor repealed the requirement on septic tank inspections and in 2012 lawmakers delayed the ban on septic tank waste. Now, septic tank owners aren't required to have their systems inspected unless their current septic tank is modified or replaced and public health officials say they do not know how many septic tanks are failing in Florida.
Meanwhile, a 2012 study by the Everglades Foundation concluded that 76 percent of the phosphorus entering the Everglades comes from agricultural lands south of Lake Okeechobee but the agricultural polluters were paying only $200 million -- or 24 percent -- of their share of the clean-up costs.
Scott has steered blame to the Army Corps of Engineers, which has managed the water levels of Lake Okeechobee by releasing billions of gallons of water polluted from agricultural back-pumping and ground water runoff into the St. Lucie Canal and the Caloosahatchee River.
Scott argues that the discharge is needed to keep water levels low in the lake because the federal government failed to strengthen the Hoover Dike but environmentalists say that reason is too simplistic, arguing that higher water levels could also do damage to the lake's fragile ecosystem.
Every day, millions of gallons of water continue to be discharged into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries by the U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers after years of the federal government failing to repair the federally operated Herbert Hoover Dike,'' Scott said in the statement.
"While the state has continued to step up and invest in important restoration projects to help South Florida waterways, it is clear that more work has to be done. It is up to all of us the state, Floridas local communities and the federal government to work together on long term solutions to improve the quality of our water."
@PatriciaMazzei
Former U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia, a Miami Democrat, recently pounced on news that incumbent Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo backed a fellow GOP congressman who suggested immigrants in the U.S. be tracked like Fed-Ex packages.
"Rep. Comstock: track immigrants like FedEx packages. Yet @repcurbelo gave her $1000 from immigration PAC," Garcia tweeted on June 30.
Rep. Comstock: track immigrants like FedEx packages. Yet @repcurbelo gave her $1000 from immigration PAC #TNTweetershttps://t.co/o3W78HXKwK Joe Garcia (@JoeGarcia) June 30, 2016
The post linked to a Miami Herald story about contributions from Curbelo's leadership back -- including one to Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock, who said in 2-14 that "Fed-Ex can track packages coming in here all of the time, we can track people who are coming into the country and we can do that right."
Comparing people to shipping packages did not go over well with pro-immigration activists. But it turns out Garcia made a similar reference two years ago -- not to shipping, but to credit cards.
In a local 2014 radio interview with host Grant Stern, Garcia -- then a sitting congressman -- made an analogy to a traveler using his credit card to buy a coconut in a remote area of Thailand. (Aroud the 40-minute mark.)
"American Express finds you, yet we can't find Pedro, when he crosses the border. It's silliness," Garcia said, apparently using a "Pedro" as the stand-in name for a Hispanic immigrant.
Garcia had been talking about the need for immigration reform, but he added he didn't advocate open borders, just better policies.
Asked about Garcia's comment in light of the candidate's shot at Comstock and Curbelo, Garcia spokesman Javier Hernandez argued the AmEx reference related to financial instruments the U.S. could use to find trouble immigrants -- though if that's what Garcia meant, he didn't make it explicit in the 2014 interview.
"Unlike the Trump Republicans supported by Carlos Curbelo, Joe Garcia would never compare immigrants to inanimate objects in order to score political points," Hernandez said in a statement. "Joe's comments -- in an interview supporting immigration reform -- addressed the ability of the government to use financial tracking mechanisms, if needed, to bring justice to individuals who are breaking the law."
A convicted child rapist has been ordered held on a $500,000 bond on charges that he smothered a five-month-old baby boy in Missoula.
Marc Allen Palmer, 25, faces felony deliberate homicide for allegedly suffocating infant Brayden Beal while the child's mother and Palmer's mother were sleeping, according to a court affidavit.
Allen is a registered sexual offender after being convicted of child rape and three counts of child molestation in Washington in 2007.
Juvenile court records from Clallam County, Washington, say then 15-year-old Palmer was charged in December 2006 with sexually assaulting an 8-year-old girl on six occasions over the course of a year at a residence in the town of Port Angeles.
Palmer pleaded guilty to the charges in May 2007, and was sentenced to two years of community supervision, which was carried out in Missoula County. He also was ordered to attend counseling, mental health programs or sex offender treatment ordered by his probation officer, and was not to have contact with any children under the age of three without adult supervision.
In the homicide case, court documents say emergency responders went to a residence in the 1800 block of Sherwood Street on the morning of March 30 after receiving a report of an infant who was not breathing.
They found Palmer holding the child, along with the childs mother and Palmers mother. The baby was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Medical personnel noted that there was bruising around the babys mouth and a tear on the inside of his mouth.
Missoula police have been investigating the death for the past few months.
Authorities learned that Palmer, who is not the father of the infant, and the childs mother had been staying with Palmers mother, sleeping on a futon in her trailer while the child apparently slept in his car seat.
All parties said Beal was alive when they went to bed early on the morning of March 30. Palmers mother said she had awoken around 2 a.m. and heard Palmer saying knock if off Brayden.
She said her son was at the car seat and she could hear a rocking noise. The next time she woke up, Palmer was telling her the child wasnt breathing.
An autopsy of the child found bruising under Beals noise and around his mouth, as well as a tear on the inside of his lip. Bruising also was found on the back of his head, consistent with the child being pressed against a hard surface. A medical examiner concluded Beal died of asphyxia by smothering.
The Montana State Crime Lab also conducted a DNA test on bloodied baby wipes found in the trash at the trailer. Palmer told police he woke up with a bloody nose and used the wipes to clean himself. DNA found that the blood was a match for Beal.
Justice of the Peace Karen Orzech set the $500,000 bail during Palmer's appearance Wednesday. She also said Palmer cannot discuss the case with the victim's mother, who Palmer identified as his fiancee, cannot have weapons and must remain in Missoula County if he posts his bond.
A convicted felon arrested in January with a stolen all-terrain vehicle, drugs and guns in his truck has been sentenced to prison as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors.
James Allen Garrison, 43, was arrested Jan. 28 on North Russell Street after the owner of the ATV, which was reported missing in November, saw the vehicle in the back of Garrisons truck.
Around 5.5 grams of methamphetamine, a baggie of hallucinogenic mushrooms, four handguns and a machete were also located in his vehicle, according to a court affidavit. Garrison later admitted to police he had stolen the ATV and was selling the drugs.
As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Garrison pleaded guilty to felony drug possession with intent to distribute, drug possession, theft, possessing money from the drug sales, and a misdemeanor for possession of drug paraphernalia.
On Tuesday, District Court Judge Robert Dusty Deschamps chose to abide by the terms of the plea agreement and sentenced Garrison to 23 years in the Montana State Prison with 15 years suspended on the charges, with credit for 159 days already served in custody.
Garrison had a prior felony theft conviction from 2006 for which he had received a fully-suspended 10-year sentence. Deschamps imposed a five-year prison commitment against Garrison for violating the terms of his suspended sentence, but ran that time concurrent to the sentence in his 2016 case.
MISSOULA Joy, perhaps no woman was so aptly named. Adrienne Joy Jourdonnais, 86, of Missoula passed away early Sunday, July 3, 2016, after fighting valiantly and gracefully against dementia. Her loving demeanor, beautiful smile and contagious laugh touched folks well beyond her family.
Joy entered this world in Yreka, California, on March 15, 1930, born to Fern "Boots" Naylor Tabor and Stanley Tabor. As a young child Joy traveled with Boots who performed as a trapeze artist for the Barnum and Bailey Circus. As a teenager she settled with Boots and her stepfather Lee Terrell in Missoula and attended Missoula County High School.
Joy worked as a carhop in summer 1953 and met Missoula native Jack Jourdonnais upon his return from serving in the Army during the Korean War. They married three months later on Sept. 6. Before the wax cooled on the wedding cake candles, they moved to Chicago where Jack attended Orthodontics School at Northwestern University. Following the birth of their first child and Jacks graduation they relocated to Great Falls, the birthplace of their remaining four children.
Dr. Jack Jourdonnais of Missoula, her husband of 63 years, remembers her devotion, strong Christian faith and service to a myriad of civic organizations like PEO, Cursillo and Montana age group swimming. Beyond all else, she was selfless, even keeled and a loving mother of five kids.
Youngest son Tyler, 50, of Reno, remembers Joy embracing his rebel spirit unconditionally and loving to drive fast. Daughter Lynne, 52, of Billings, misses Joys boundless love and deep friendship. Son Scott (Marybeth), 55, of Missoula recalls Joys countless acts of kindness and service to the community and stern yet loving grace she extended to him. Joys strong faith and devotion to motherhood inspires son Jon (Linda), 59, of Missoula. Son Craig (Jenny), 56, of Missoula smiles at the way all five siblings experience a distinct and special connection to Joy. She allowed each of them to feel unique and loved beyond measure.
Aside from family, Joy loved the strength and hardiness of the American bison, listening to music by Barry Manilow, Andy Williams and Frank Sinatra, enjoying peach and pralines ice cream and lemon meringue pie and watching Les Miserables.
Joys journey home leaves 12 grandchildren, two step-grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren and a great number of other folks who experienced her phenomenal ability to love and spread joy to those around her.
Joys family is incredibly grateful that she now experiences the gift of perfect love, healing and peace. Her family loves and remembers her as a world-class wife and mother.
Joys family plans a memorial service at the Holy Spirit Episcopal Church, 130 S. Sixth St. on Friday, July 8, at 11 a.m. followed by a reception. The family suggests directing any donations to the Missoula Chapter of PEO.
If you used to slide down the muddy path at the Orange Street trailhead in the past, you probably won't anymore.
Last month, a crew rebuilt the entrance to the North Hills at the Interstate 90 interchange and moved the gate closer to the parking lot.
"All this work is really important because this is one of the most heavily used trailheads" in Missoula, said Elizabeth Erickson, open space acquisitions attorney for the city's Parks and Recreation Department.
In the past, the first portion of the trail was steep, and it iced up in the winter and muddied up in the spring. Now, the gate that leads to the Froelich Trail offers a wide access point with a gradual incline that blends into the first switchback.
On Tuesday, workers were putting some finishing touches there.
It's a friendlier design and the beginning of a project that's a partnership among Parks and Rec, the Montana Trail Crew, the North Missoula Community Development Corporation, and the Montana Department of Transportation, which later will redo the parking lot along with the intersection just south of the interstate.
***
Seth Swanson, with Montana Trail Crew, said some 20 volunteers put "boots to soil" last week to get the job done, moving the trailhead much further up the draw. He said members of the relatively new nonprofit see mountain bikers often proactively maintaining the trails they use, and they wanted runners to offer similar support.
"We as a group wanted ways the trail running community could give back to some trails and take some ownership and get people involved in maintaining the trails we use every day," said Swanson, a volunteer with the Montana Trail Crew.
The nonprofit has been working with the city of Missoula for a couple years, and he said the trailhead at Orange Street was a good place to start because the system there limits access to pedestrians, "so it's really up to us."
People who live on the Northside, Westside and in the downtown area often use that trailhead, he said, and he believes the numbers will only increase with upcoming improvements from the Department of Transportation.
"It gets a ton of use, and it's going to get a ton more use when that underpass gets put in this fall, which is really cool," Swanson said.
The completed project required buying a couple tiny triangles of land oddly shaped parcels severed by the interstate, according to Parks and Rec. Montana Trail Crew donated $1,000 to buy the land, and with help from the NMCDC and Parks and Rec, brokered the deal.
"We thought it was a great use of our time, energy, (and) funds," Swanson said.
In the future, crews will plant more vegetation at the trailhead, he said. They'll also apply for a grant from the Office of Neighborhoods to put a kiosk explaining some of the unique flora and fauna in the hills, the Moon Randolph Homestead, and place some benches there, too.
***
Erickson said the new trail means hikers and runners can use the entrance all year without worrying about ice in the winter. The conservation lands manager did a lot of the prep work for the project and has other trailhead work on the docket this season, she said.
At this point, the trailhead offers a garbage can, plastic mitts for dog waste, and a soon-to-be latching gate.
On June 3, our company, HomeBase, filed an appeal to the Missoula City Council after the Historic Preservation Committee voted to deny a deconstruction permit for the Missoula Mercantile. While we appreciate the work the HPC volunteers did in trying to sort out this unique situation, we have now entered into discussions with the city council to determine whether our carefully considered project will go forward. We believe, according to Missoulas own regulations, planning processes, staff reports and community visioning, that the new Mercantile should be allowed to move forward to help make this iconic corner in the downtown vibrant and useful once again.
As I reflect on the past year and our involvement with the Mercantile, I have a wide range of emotions. Last summer, as we began our investigation and analysis of the Mercantile, we were full of hope and enthusiasm with our plan to repurpose the existing building and convert it to a new mix of retail and office uses while adding a hotel to the east of the building.
After months of hard work, time and considerable investment, we realized that we could not renovate the existing building. The combination of higher-than-expected costs and the functionally obsolescent design resulted in our inability to attract an anchor tenant. An anchor tenant is a required component in order to obtain basic bank financing for any project.
Towards the end of 2015, we made the extraordinarily difficult decision to investigate a plan to deconstruct the existing building and essentially start over. The new plan would accomplish two important things. 1. While more expensive and longer in duration, it would salvage and repurpose a significant amount of material; and 2. a mixed-use project with a strong anchor could bring back the activity and commerce this important corner once had.
We anticipated this decision could be met with resistance, especially from the HPC, an agency generally charged with preserving historic structures. We were correct. But, we (and so many of you in Missoula) also feel strongly that this corner of Missoulas downtown needs to be brought back to life and that HomeBase has the experience, plan and financing to get it done.
While there has been much discussion about wanting to Save the Merc, no viable plan exists to accomplish this. As we explained in detail during our most recent public Land Use and Planning meeting, numerous qualified users, developers and businesses have taken a serious look at renovating the existing building over the past six years and they, like us, have come to a similar conclusion. Without an anchor tenant or group of tenants to occupy a majority of the project, the project cannot obtain financing.
Experience has demonstrated that the addition of a high-quality hotel with a mix of retailers adds to the vibrancy of a downtown. We are excited to move forward with our planned Mercantile project, including a 154-room beautiful, custom Residence Inn by Marriott, almost 24,000 square feet of dynamic retail along Higgins and Front and the inclusion of the Mercantile Mews, a 4,000 square foot indoor corridor dedicated to showcasing the history of the Mercantile.
While our proposed project does not save the structure, it does save the most important architectural elements of the building, and will provide the catalyst to keep the spirit, sense of commerce, trade and activity alive for generations. We plan to work with the Missoula community to continue to refine the design, to determine how best to repurpose the salvaged material and to attract locally based retailers to occupy the ground level.
From all of us at HomeBase, we appreciate the opportunity to be part of Missoulas bright future.
In addition to Montanans posting their feelings on Facebook regarding the future move of the state Title and Registration Bureau from Deer Lodge to Helena, they can write and call in their concerns to Attorney General Tim Fox at doj.mt.gov, (406) 444-2026, fax (406) 444-3549, and to Gov. Steve Bullock at governor.mt.gov, (406) 444-3111, fax (406) 444-5529.
And good luck: when I called, all I could do was leave messages with the receptionists. One stated the governors office had nothing to do with the issue; it is an attorney general issue, she said. I notice the governor has stood up for the working families on the east side of Montana regarding coal; where is he regarding Deer Lodges working families losing their jobs?
Along with the hardship on TRBs 35 families, when Montanans call, post and write, remind Bullock and Fox of the impact moving the bureau will have on Deer Lodges local businesses, its tax base and, down the road, its property values. Ask them what the actual cost of the move will be.
Ask Fox and Bullock about the impact on those who utilize the TRB. Right now customers can get off Interstate 90, buy gas, eat a sandwich and complete their business fairly quickly. If the TRB moves to Helena, one will have to drive downtown and find a parking site before arriving at the office. Forget about lunch.
During Thursday nights meeting June 23, two poorly prepared representatives from the Department of Justice, Mike Milburn and Sarah Garcia, stated that the move would be more efficient. Ask Fox and Bullock what efficiency model the DOJ used, and what the process was in making their decision. Who were the players, who signed off on each step? Where is their documentation? Did they have a business plan? Did they receive feedback from Powell County or city of Deer Lodge officials; from the citizens of Deer Lodge or from any of their 35 impacted employees?
Ask Bullock and Fox why a newspaper article from June 22 stated that deferred maintenance costs required the owner to raise the rent and require a long-term lease, but at the meeting the owners refuted that and said they were not raising the rent.
Ask Bullock and Fox to produce the list of properties the DOJ claimed to have looked at in Deer Lodge, Anaconda and Butte before deciding there were none suitable. Milburn and Garcia didnt have a list, and they blamed the decision on an unknown lease manager.
Ask Bullock how he thinks moving the TRB matches his Main Street Montana Project, whose goal is to create a dynamic private-public partnership to build and implement a business plan for Montana by Montanans.
Fox states that our campaign donations toward his re-election will help him work on behalf of Montanans. Really?
Bullock states that the supporting votes from the primary will help him keep working for the best interests of Montanans. Really?
Ask Bullock and Fox this: Was this really a well-thought-out decision or was it the political whim of someone lurking in the state buildings of Helena?
Over the last couple of months there have been numerous comments about Donald Trump. I would like to add my own feelings about him and my fears.
Watching a speech given by D. Trump in New York after the June primary, at the end, he raised his right hand in a fist. The audience followed with their right hand raised.
The image it created was like Hitler in the 1930s. The rhetoric that Hitler proclaimed was very similar to what Trump is saying. By using certain words, voice tone and theatrics, you can get people to follow. That is a very scary response. People follow and do not know why they are doing it, or because everyone else there is doing it.
I cannot support a person like this for the following reason. My grandparents left Russia in 1907 and 1909. They were in communication with their family until Hitler overran the Belarus area in Russia. All we know is they were slaughtered and put in a common grave with many others. The reason for their emigration was this was a country that accepted all people.
I urge you to carefully examine your reasons for who you vote for. There is more than one side to everything.
Maxine Lane,
Charlo
TransCanada of Canada, and of the USA, will sue the USA for $15 billion in the North American Free Trade Agreement tribunal. Volkswagen will settle for $14.7 billion. This may come as a complete surprise.
Looks like NAFTA has jurisdiction. Global politics have forced NAFTA to increasingly favor international investors suing member nations of NAFTA.
TransCanada had realistic expectations to receive a five-year construction presidential permit for the cross-border Keystone XL Pipeline. A TransCanada pipeline from Alberta was permitted and operating just fine.
With a few vote changes, Congress would have overridden two presidential vetoes and forced a permit.
Our president knows that a nations right to sue to receive trade benefits equivalent to a most favored nation has long helped stabilize world markets.
Investors of member nations of NAFTA have a right to sue on principle (not for damages) when treated unfavorably. American pipeline companies are favored with timely approval of new USA pipeline projects. KXL had to prepare three environmental studies. Justice delayed is justice denied!
Federal failure to present answerable objections to the KXL final supplemental environmental study released March 2013.
Our president claimed 576 barrels per minute of dilbit into and delivered by KXL would not significantly increase global CO2 emissions.
That overlooks CO2 emissions from gas, also coal-fired electricity in the USA, also Canada, demanded by the three to five, 6,500 horsepower electric motors torquing impeller pumps to sequentially surge pressure to 1,303 psi discharged from KXL pump stations; 1,600 psi discharged from pump station proposed at bottom of the very tall hill, two oxbows on the Missouri River below Fort Peck Dam.
Pump stations commonly sited 45-90 miles apart, where line pressure falls off to, say, 350 psi. All pump stations and valves remotely operated from Calgary.
Bob Williams,
Stevensville
The most effective and least expensive way to reduce domestic terrorism is to take every single domestic violence incident very seriously and follow up on the perpetrators. The terrorists in every one of the 10 most recent mass shooting/domestic terrorism events had previous records of domestic violence.
Misogyny is at the heart of religious extremism that drives this terrorism around the globe, but unlike the billions of extremists elsewhere, in America we have separation of church and state so religious justification for abuse is unacceptable. Sadly, victims of domestic violence are dying every day and we will continue producing lone wolf attacks as long as we treat this problem as aprivacy issue and a civil problem.
I dont think waterboarding the abuser is going to help; as much as it might make me feel better, the answers are more complicated than brute force. Every incidence of violence needs to be investigated and followed up, especially when the offenders are young and the possibility of true redemption is possible. Any qualified counselor who examined the most recent shooters would have been fully justified in denying them weapons given the information various agencies possessed and didnt share.
Why didnt they share? The National Rifle Association. Cowardly, greedy politicians who value party over people and who regard re-election as the most vital mission before them more important than saving lives. Having two women as the most powerful elected leaders in our history might be a better idea. We need more C words in Washington; courage, convictions, compassion, common-sense cooperation, collegiality and congressional confidence. Might end up more popular than cockroaches.
"A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home." - James Madison
Robert Petersen,
Evergreen
HELENA An East Helena man is accused of stealing more than $400,000 from an 81-year-old woman. Authorities say the he used the funds on gambling and fast food.
Ernest Norman Hughes, 53, faces felony charges of exploitation of an older person and theft by common scheme. Police allege the scamming started in 2003 and continued until recently.
Authorities were alerted to the situation as the woman was getting evicted for not paying fees at her nursing home. Court documents say Hughes, who met the woman when she hired him to work around her former home and later became friends with her, has power of attorney and controlled her finances.
An adult protective services worker learned the woman had about $434,000 in her account when Hughes took over her finances in 2003, according to documents. She also received about $1,600 a month. The woman ran out of money to pay for her housing and care in December.
Last month, police received bank records showing Hughes allegedly wrote a significant number of checks for cash and to casinos. Court documents note the 81-year-old was in a wheelchair and rarely left her residence. Hughes is also accused of using the woman's checks to eat fast food and give money to his relatives.
Authorities said although some of the checks were written for goods and services for the woman, "there is no accounting for the disappearance of more than $400,000."
Following the investigation, an arrest warrant was issued for Hughes on Friday. He made his initial appearance on the charges Tuesday.
A U.S. Forest Service decision to close most of Idahos Great Burn area along the Montana border to motorized access has observers both frustrated and confused.
Nez Perce-Clearwater Forest Supervisor Cheryl Probert released a draft record of decision banning snowmobile access in the national forests recommended wilderness areas and limiting summer motorized use to a single trail. Motorized advocates called the ban unjustified because the area lacks a federal wilderness designation. A coalition of environmental groups was equally upset because Proberts decision appears to ignore a recent court order telling the Forest Service to protect more elk habitat from motorized access.
The bottom line for me is that the forest plan, after considerable analysis of values and public comment and discussion, did recommend four areas for wilderness designation, Probert said in an email about the travel management plan.
Through that rigorous analysis, the Forest Service found compelling reasons that elevated these areas above all other roadless areas on the forest and led to the wilderness recommendation in the forest plan. Until such time as the forest plan is revised or Congress makes a decision to either designate these areas as Wilderness or clearly reject them, management of those areas needs to protect the values that resulted in them being recommended for wilderness designation in the first instance.
Idaho State Snowmobile Association public lands director Sandra Mitchell said the decision repeated a previous Forest Service stance that had been challenged in court.
We prevailed in that lawsuit, and the judge ordered them to go back and make a new decision, Mitchell said Tuesday from her Boise office. This is identical. We will be appealing and objecting.
The snowmobile association and the Blue Ribbon Coalition, a motorized recreation user group, argued Forest Service was usurping Congress authority under the 1964 Wilderness Act to create and manage wilderness areas. Without such congressional legislation, the groups claimed, the Forest Service has no power to block existing uses of public lands.
This is just an absolute classic backcountry snowmobile experience you cant find anywhere else in the Clearwater, Mitchell said. For snowmobiling the Great Burn is the biggest issue for us. And were not asking for all of it just those acres that are rideable. Theres only about 20 percent that is what we actually snowmobile.
The Friends of the Clearwater joined with several other environmental groups in a different lawsuit saying the Forest Service disregarded its own rules for protecting elk habitat from motorized intrusions. They found the Proberts decision equally perplexing.
Those areas are not supposed to be motorized during the summertime, Friends of the Clearwater Director Gary McFarlane said Tuesday. Thats what we won on, and the Forest Service was told to go back and fix that.
McFarlane said hes unclear how Proberts proposal will withstand the judges elk habitat order, given that the Forest Services own statement acknowledges it doesnt specifically address the ruling.
In all likelihood well file an objection to that portion, McFarlane said. By choosing to go this way theyve created a bit of confusion.
The Great Burn Recommended Wilderness Area covers the state line roughly south of Superior nearly to Highway 12 west of Lolo Pass. Its 252,000 acres includes many scars from the historic forest fires of 1910, as well as part of Lewis and Clarks route across the Rocky Mountains, Nez Perce and Salish cultural sites, numerous lakes and trails.
The draft travel plan allowed motorized summer access to the Fish Lake Trail No. 419, which can be reached from Hoodoo Pass on the Montana side or Pierce, Idaho.
It now goes through the Forest Services objection process, which is only open to people and groups that have participated in the previous comment periods. The 45-day objection period started on Tuesday.
HELENA - A wildfire reported near Elk Trail Loop outside of Lincoln burned some out-buildings associated with cabins and homes in the area and possibly some vehicles, Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton said.
Fire crews have been able to stop the advancement of the fire, the sheriff reported, and are working on other perimeter fires.
Residents of 10 or 12 of the cabins and homes there either left when they saw the column of smoke rising nearby or after being alerted by emergency responders, according to Dutton.
Four helicopters have arrived from federal agencies to haul water to combat the fire as has an airplane that carries a fire-retardant payload. A fire behavioral specialist is also working the fire, the sheriff noted.
An investigation is beginning into the cause of the fire that Dutton said was where the road entered a small subdivision. It is possible that the fire was human caused.
A deputy near Lincoln was advised by radio of the fire about 2 p.m. after a report of smoke.
Flames that were initially reported by an officer at between 4 feet to 8 feet in height increased to more than 100 feet tall within a half hour after the fire was reported, according to dispatch radio traffic.
The fire was initially about one-half acre in size but had increased to 5 acres within that half hour, Dutton said.
Copper Creek Road was closed because of the advancing wildfire.
The helicopters were drawing water from Krohn Lake, said Janet Sholder in a telephone interview from her home with her husband, Brian, on Landers Fork Road, which is just east of Elk Creek Trail Loop.
An airplane, apparently helping to direct the helicopters with their payloads of water, is also on the scene.
The Sholders have lived in their home about 11 years, and this is the third evacuation theyve faced because of wildfire, she said.
Were ready to go in a moments notice, she added.
They have not yet left because they have several ways to leave the area if the fire threatens their home, Janet said and noted that the fire seems to be burning on the northwest side of their property.
Smoke from the fire was estimated by her husband to be less than one-half mile from their home although the direction of the wind was of concern to the Sholders.
Police reports
A MAN NEEDS TOOLS
Victor Schwartz Jr., 28, of Butte reportedly took a hammer, measuring tape, stapler and drill from Mountain Man Trading Post, 2084 Harrison Ave., and was seen by an employee cutting the price tags outside the pawn shop Tuesday. The items were valued at $175. He was booked on a misdemeanor charge of theft.
TIPSY MAN
Sheldon Brien, 30, of Crow Agency was arrested for disorderly conduct Tuesday after police say the intoxicated man was stumbling inside the Covellite Theatre, 215 W. Broadway St., and refused to leave during a play rehearsal.
STOLEN VEHICLE
A blue 1989 Dodge van parked at the Developmental Disabilities Council, 305 W. Mercury St., was reported stolen Tuesday. The vehicle was valued at $2,500 and was last seen Thursday.
WANTED MAN
Brandon Leclair, 40, of Butte was stopped by police Tuesday for a missing bumper and front license plate on the 2300 block of Cobban Street. Police say he gave a phony name.
He was arrested on misdemeanor charges of operating a vehicle without a current registration, no liability insurance in effect, obstructing a peace officer and an Anaconda-Deer Lodge County warrant for failure to appear.
URINATING MAN
Eric Puentes, 30, of Odessa, Texas, was arrested for disorderly conduct for urinating on the drivers side of a vehicle in front of an Uptown bar about 2 a.m. Wednesday.
Liberal Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, led by aging activist John Lewis of Georgia, have now resorted to the same whiny, childish behavior exhibited by college freshmen in the 1960s with their recent 26-hour sit-in publicity stunt on the floor of the House of Representatives. This was in clear contravention of the rules of order.
The hypocrisy here is overwhelming. They blame Republicans for standing in the way of passage of more stringent gun-control laws; however, when the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency, they didnt get it done, mainly because most American people didnt want it then and dont want it now.
Instead, they chose to ram home a $787 billion stimulus plan that included shovel-ready projects that mostly didnt materialize and the so-called Affordable Care Act, which is anything but.
When will these politicians realize that law-abiding American people cherish their constitutional freedoms, including their Second Amendment right to own guns to protect themselves from any and all threats, including the potential for a tyrannical government? They talk about common-sense gun laws, but as usual, the devil is in the details.
Local, state and federal government agencies need to figure out how to communicate with one another and stop known dangerous people from buying guns. Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas last week introduced a bill that would go a long way toward doing that, but it got shot down.
The FBI knew all about Omar Mateens terrorist leanings three years before his horrific act on June 12 at an Orlando nightclub. More laws limiting the sale of specific firearms to good citizens wont do one thing to stop people who have no intention to obey the law in the first place. With more than 300 million guns already in the hands of the public, bad people will simply buy their guns in the very active black market, which doesnt perform background checks.
All weapons, regardless of their configuration, are built to inflict damage on the intended target. A kitchen knife, a pressure cooker, a fertilizer truck, a Boeing 767 or a Smith & Wesson .44 magnum revolver used to terrorize us will be every bit as lethal as any .223 AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle. Enough of this assault weapon blather. Its time to focus on the real problem, which is a liberal government bureaucracy egged on by a politically correct and biased mainstream press.
Unlike the elites in Washington with their Capitol Police, Secret Service and myriad government agency military-style SWAT teams, we have no choice but to protect ourselves. Our local police usually come on the scene after the shooting starts. As Democratic Congressman Charlie Rangel put it so eloquently, I think we (in Congress) deserve I think we need to be protected.
What about the rest of us, Charlie?
Another wake up call, America.
-- George W. Koehn, a retired banker, is a member of the Orlando, Florida, Sentinel editorial advisory board.
It all started at a kitchen table in the Blackfoot Valley. Back around 1970. Local folks like us, worried about increasing recreational pressure on the river, our property and the surrounding lands.
We knew what we wanted to do, but we werent sure how to do it. We knew we wanted to engage the public. They had a stake in the river and the land that surrounded it. So we got together some landowners, river users, hunters, agency folks to see what kind of options or solutions we could come up with.
What we wanted to do was find a way to protect property rights and conserve land now and in the future. The idea of voluntary private land conservation appealed to us. So we sat around kitchen tables in the evenings, maybe passing around a bottle of Old Crow, talking about the future and what was important to us, our families and, in our case, the (Blackfoot) river.
Truth was, in those days, we didnt know what a conservation easement was. Luckily we heard more about easements from a guy named Huey Johnson who, if we recall correctly, in those days was the only Nature Conservancy employee west of the Mississippi.
What has happened since is astonishing. Remarkable, really. We never anticipated it. Weve been told landowners have worked with land trusts and public agencies to conserve more than 2.4 million acres of Montana private land. Montanas a national leader in land conservation. That wasnt our intent. We know celebrating Montana Open Land Month in July is a big deal. Its wonderful to see, but that sure wasnt what we were trying to do.
The first try, in 1974, to pass a bill in Helena creating conservation easements, failed. We did get support. And some of the people who killed that first attempt helped us sort out what we were really trying to accomplish, and in 1975 legislation passed. In 1976 the first conservation easement in Montana history was created right here in the Blackfoot Valley.
Sure, there was some opposition. Conservation easements were new, and different. People would ask us, How can you do that to your children or grandchildren? The answer was, Were not doing it to them. Were doing it for them. For their benefit.
Our first thoughts about conservation easements mainly focused on lands along the banks of the river. But things took off when we started thinking about community. Not just about a single property but about the whole Blackfoot Valley, ridge top to ridge top.
Theres been a conservation easement on the Lindbergh Ranch for almost 40 years. Why someone puts a conservation easement on their place varies with each landowner. The Lindbergh place is a stupendous piece of ground, along a beautiful river that people were enjoying every year and enjoying in every way. And we wanted that to continue.
Here, in the Blackfoot, it all starts with the river. Its a river thats very alive, very powerful. It sustains everything in this valley, and everything in the valley flows back into it. And that includes all our conservation efforts. If you listen carefully, the river will tell you how youre doing.
When you allow a conservation easement on your property it comes with a responsibility. Not so much a legal responsibility but a personal pledge to continue to carry on what you treasure about the property. What we do in our lifetime for the generations still to come is far more important than any gain we might have as an individual in our lifetime.
Congratulations to Montana on the 40th anniversary of the states first conservation easement.
It all started with people around a kitchen table. And it continues today with people around a kitchen table.
-- Land Lindbergh has lived in the Blackfoot Valley since 1965. Hank Goetz is the former manager of the Lubrecht Experimental Forest. Both have long been active in the Blackfoot Challenge. July 2016 is officially recognized by Gov. Steve Bullock as Montana Open Land Month. See http://openlandmt.org/ for more information.
Jessica Rife, 39, was charged with one count of possession of contraband in a correctional institution and one count of possession of a controlled substance.
Rife was found inside a vehicle in a parking lot with three pipes, and when taken into custody allegedly failed to advise officers of the 3.1 grams of methamphetamine in her pockets, according to the criminal complaint.
AMES, Iowa Building a Culture of Conservation is the theme for the Iowa Learning Farms monthly webinar on Wednesday, July 20 at 1 p.m.
Jacqueline Comito and Ann Staudt will showcase some significant ways that the Iowa Learning Farms and Water Rocks! programs have been educating Iowans of all ages about water quality and conservation issues over the past year.
As program director, Comito will emphasize the importance of the farmer-to-farmer interactions at ILF field days and workshops. The team has developed a multi-tiered approach to evaluation as a feedback mechanism to improve the effectiveness of their outreach. Through the framework of a Field Day Success Loop, Comito will discuss the relationship between attending field days, adopting conservation practices and networking and influencing other farmers. Comito will call attention to a new ILF publication, the "Field Day Toolkit."
The second part of the webinar will draw attention to Water Rocks!, the youth outreach program. As science director, Staudt will highlight their interactive and engaging approach to water quality, soil health and conservation outreach that combines STEM with the arts, especially music. She will share stories from outreach events and the recent Teacher Summits and preview new programming for the fall.
The Iowa Learning Farms webinars are held on the third Wednesday of each month at 1 p.m. They are free, and all that is needed to participate is a computer with Internet access. To log in, go to https://connect.extension.iastate.edu/ilf/ at 1 p.m. on the afternoon of the webinar and log in through the guest option. Webinar participants will be able to converse with Comito and Staudt by typing their questions through the chat function. The webinar will be recorded and archived on the Iowa Learning Farms website for viewing at any time at http://www.extension.iastate.edu/ilf/Webinars/.
ILF has hosted a webinar every month since January 2011. To date, there are 66 webinars to view on a wide range of topics including soil erosion, water quality, cover crops, buffers and farmer perspectives.
MUSCATINE, Iowa The Muscatine Fire Department has five new firefighters, all of whom said they are looking forward to joining the team.
The firefighters were selected from more than 15 candidates, and Assistant Fire Chief Mike Hartman said he is happy with the selection.
"We chose those we thought would be the best fit for the department," he said.
A seven-person committee, with representatives from various areas within the department, selected the five best candidates to fill the open spots.
The Muscatine City Council approved the hiring of four new firefighters this year, and after one other retired, the department needed one additional firefighter.
The firefighters are being trained in a two-week mini-academy program that was developed in 2000, when the department last filled five new positions.
The academy training, Hartman said, has been adapted to introduce the new firefighters to the department before they begin their shifts.
"It will help get them up to speed," he said.
Trevor Levins, of Wilton, has a background in volunteer firefighting, and said he is looking forward to the opportunity to help people.
"I'm excited to be part of the team," he said.
Levins said he was planning to go into law enforcement, but after joining the volunteer fire department and taking a first responder class he decided to become a paramedic.
"I really fell in love with it," he said.
Justin McCarthy went to Saint Ambrose University, and became a volunteer firefighter in Bettendorf. He said he is excited to work with the Muscatine department because they do not use a private ambulance service.
"I can transport patients here, so I get to use those skills here more than at a fire department that maybe wouldn't transport patients," he said.
Brett Becker, of West Liberty, was a member of the Army Reserve, and said that experience led him to becoming a firefighter.
"Coming off my first tour in Iraq it was a way to continue doing public service and keep making a difference," he said.
Kyle Moser, of Burlington, said he originally did not want to be a firefighter.
"I only wanted to do EMS, I had no idea that I wanted to go into a fire, that I wanted to run into a house, none of that," he said.
But Moser's first practice burn with West Burlington changed all that.
"I was hooked, I loved it," he said.
Kyle Nickels, of Davenport, said he also was only interested in EMS, until an experience his father had changed his mind.
"I just wanted to do EMS, but then my dad was a burn victim. He was up in Iowa City and I got to talk to a bunch of firefighters there," he said.
Nickels attended Kirkwood Community College, where he received his Firefighter 1 certification.
The firefighters said they are enjoying their classes, and listened attentively as more experienced firefighters taught them the basics of the department.
"The guys that have been training us so far have been very knowledgeable," said McCarthy.
McCarthy said he is looking forward to being part of a smaller department, because the firefighters are all a part of the family.
"They take pride in what they do and they are willing to pass that on to us," he said.
DES MOINES Two public hearings have been scheduled to accept public comment on a proposed rule to ban alcohol on the beaches at Lake Macbride State Park and Pleasant Creek State Recreation Area.
A public hearing will be held starting at 2 p.m. Tuesday, July 26, in the Fourth Floor Conference Room of the Wallace State Office Building, 502 E Ninth St., Des Moines. A public hearing will also be held the same day starting at 4 p.m. at Palisades-Kepler State Park Lodge, 700 Kepler Drive, Mount Vernon. Both oral and written comments can be submitted at either meeting site. At the hearings, persons will be asked to give their names and addresses for the record and to confine their remarks to the subject of the proposed rule amendment.
The definition of beach means that portion of state parks or recreation areas designated for swimming activity including the sand, a 200-foot buffer of land surrounding the sand or a designated area which is fenced in, and the water area contiguous to the beach as marked by swim buoys or swim lines. However, the alcohol ban would not apply to any rental facilities located within the 200-foot buffer of land surrounding the sand or fenced-in area that have been officially reserved through the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Thus, for example, the proposed amendment would not prevent an individual from reserving a beach-bordering shelter for a large party, such as a reunion or a wedding, and providing alcohol to guests.
DNR citation records and incident reports indicate alcohol consumption at these particular beaches presents legitimate safety risks to the public and DNR personnel. During the summer season, the ratio of park users to park personnel on these beaches has, at times, been estimated at over 500:1. Documented citations and incidents at these beaches that are attributed to alcohol include assaults, public intoxication (to the point of near unconsciousness), littering, interference with official acts, disorderly conduct, and minors in possession.
Any interested person may make written suggestions or comments on the proposed rule amendment on or before July 26, 2016. Such written materials should be directed to Sherry Arntzen, State Parks Bureau, Department of Natural Resources, Wallace State Office Building, 502 East Ninth Street, Des Moines, Iowa 50319-0034. Comments may be sent by fax to (515)725-8201 or by e-mail to Sherry.Arntzen@dnr.iowa.gov. Persons who wish to convey their views orally should contact SherryArntzen at (515) 725-8486.
Is America ready for a two-woman presidential ticket?
It certainly seems the Clinton campaign is considering the question. Hillary Clinton has made a high profile public appearance recently with Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. They clicked so well that the Washington Post called them the "it" couple of Democratic politics.
At a rally in Ohio, Sen. Warren spoke with her customary sassy brilliance as Clinton looked on warmly. Warren for weeks has taken to Twitter to aim her quick wit and sharp invective at the presumptive GOP nominee, Donald Trump. She showed she can play the role of the mean girl against the bully. She goaded Trump for his "goofy" hat, his simplistic sloganeering and his elite birth. Women cheered at the display of saucy sisterhood.
The public display of friendship seems to be a trial balloon, and many wondered when it would be burst by the pinprick of reality.
Two women? Could voters possibly be progressive enough to support such an estrogen-heavy ticket?
Some turned the question around: Who second-guesses a ticket with two men? Nobody, because we've been doing it that way for centuries.
True. But sexism is a fact of American politics. It will be front and center with Trump in the presidential race. The man cannot shape-shift into a gentleman no matter how much the GOP establishment works to improve him.
The unsettling reality is that Donald Trump can get elected to the White House by being a jerk. Hillary Clinton cannot.
Voters need to like female candidates more than they do male candidates. They can dislike a man running for office and still regard him as qualified and electable.
Likeability is not a litmus test for men. It tends to be for women, according to research by Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster. And many people, even Democratic-leaning women, do not like Clinton all that much.
Another finding is that voters seldom think that woman candidate wins a debate with a male opponent. That might have something to do with assumptions about presentation -- how a man can be viewed as tough and strong, whereas a woman with similar posturing will be viewed in a negative light. A man is still the model for what people view as a politician. Both genders tend to be more questioning of the qualifications of female candidates.
The 2016 presidential race exemplifies this. The idea that a virtual political nobody like Trump can be held on the same plane as a person like Clinton, with a long and distinguished record of public service, is offensive.
These are the unfair headwinds Hillary Clinton has to face.
Yet there are promising signs for her. Eighty percent of unmarried women support Clinton, according to polls, and she has a substantial lead among women voters generally. In fact, 2016 will be the first time that a majority of vote-eligible women are projected to be unmarried. Those numbers could easily turn the election in all states, according to Celinda Lake.
But alas, polling can only predict so much. Lake emphasizes that demography is not destiny. Voters have to turn out.
To some extent, this campaign can be about challenging sexism. But it would be foolish to underestimate the extent to which such bias persists and will motivate voters.
The same goes even if Clinton wins the White House. Women and girls will not suddenly be viewed as equals and treated with respect any more than African-Americans felt racial bias and discrimination lift from their lives with the election of Barack Obama. In fact, racism became in many ways more overt after Obama was inaugurated. One need only consider the widespread belief among white Republicans that Obama has divided the nation racially. (No, his presence in the White House just held the mirror up to America.)
Sexism will be similar for Clinton. It's dying, slowly. Women are certainly far better off in work and home life than they were decades ago. But gender bias affects women and girls every minute of the day -- in subtle digs, unrecognized effects of long-held beliefs as well as blatant verbal attacks. It's not fair. It's not right. But it is America, 2016. And it will impact the election.
Lake has another prediction: When the big money gets out and civility returns to American politics, you'll see more women running for office. And more women candidates may also bring out more women voters.
The problem is that we are not there yet. We live in a time when Donald Trump can be seriously considered as a candidate to lead the greatest nation on Earth. We clearly have work to do.
Mary Sanchez is an opinion-page columnist for The Kansas City Star. Readers may write to her at: Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. 64108-1413, or via e-mail at msanchez@kcstar.com.
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 []
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 []
African National Congress chief whip and communications sub-committee chair Jackson Mthembu took a jab at the SABCs senior management on Tuesday, saying the public broadcaster kept moving from one crisis to another.
I can assure you that at the highest managerial level, we are lacking. That is why we keep moving from one crisis to another, he told journalists at a press briefing on media freedom and the SABC.
Mthembu said the SABC needed to bring in people with expertise and who had the know-how in terms of running a big corporation.
He made examples of the public broadcasters former chief executive officer Peter Matlare who he said ran the corporation like a smooth engine.
Mthembu said Minister of Communications Faith Muthambi needed to come up with a turnaround strategy that would include people who are knowledgeable in running a billion rand institution.
We are not saying this dismissing the good quality we have at other levels We have said to all our appointed ministers at communication, you need to assure that we have people who know how to run an institution as big as the SABC at the highest level. You cant bring in any Tom, Dick and Harry to run such an elite institution.
Qualified people
When you appoint at the highest level, please do so properly and follow the law. We are not happy about the expertise at the SABC, he told journalists.
Mthembu added that challenges that the SABC faces, including the ongoing court battles of its chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng, have led to the collapse of the institution.
We want people who are qualified to lead at the SABC.
Mthembu said the ANC had also felt the consequences of negative corporate culture at the SABC which needed to end.
The briefing comes after Motsoenengs decision to stop airing any violent protests. This decision has been widely criticised.
Three journalists who disagreed with an instruction not to cover a Right2Know campaign protest against censorship at the SABC were later suspended. This followed the suspension of three other SABC employees.
On Monday another SABC journalist was charged.
News24
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Akamai has released its Q1 2016 State of the Internet report, which shows a massive increase in mobile data traffic globally.
South Africa is no exception, with affordable smartphones and tablets fuelling increases in mobile data consumption in the country.
The growth in data demand means that mobile operators have to provide additional network capacity, but a lack of additional spectrum is making it difficult.
In a mobile network the access medium spectrum is shared by different users in the same cell. More spectrum means that you can offer more bandwidth to users.
When spectrum remains unchanged while usage increases, the user experience can deteriorate.
To make sure this does not happen, mobile operators have to build new towers. This comes at a high cost, which is inevitably passed on to consumers.
If the government provides additional spectrum to mobile operators it will make it much easier for them to serve the growing data demand. It will also lower input costs, which will mean lower data prices.
However, the government continues to drag its heels on spectrum allocation, which means that South African network operators such as Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, and Cell C and consumers continue to suffer.
The graph below shows global monthly data and voice traffic volumes since 2011.
More on spectrum
Governments incompetence with spectrum is costing SA billions a year
Why South African operators need spectrum now
Final radio spectrum assignment plan published
Zimbabwes telecoms regulator has threatened to disconnect mobile subscribers it says are spreading information via WhatsApp about the protests that have rocked the country.
Zimbabwe is battling to contain public outrage over economic mismanagement, alleged police heavy handedness and delayed salaries for civil servants.
Public workers and other citizens called for job actions, stayaways and protests on Wednesday and Thursday via WhatsApp and other social messaging platforms.
However, there was an outage of WhatsApp early on Wednesday with accessibility to the service only restored later in the day.
The Posts and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe has now taken a swipe at those sharing and spreading information about the protests, saying they will be disconnected from mobile networks inside Zimbabwe.
All SIM cards in Zimbabwe are registered in the name of the user. Perpetrators can easily be identified, Potraz said in a public notice on Wednesday.
The notice further stated that any person caught in possession of, generating, sharing or passing on abusive, threatening, subversive or offensive telecommunication messages, including WhatsApp or any other social media messages will be arrested.
Zimbabweans now have to be wary over arrest for any social media or telecom messages that may be deemed to cause despondency, incite violence, threaten citizens and cause unrest, according to the state telecom industry regulator.
Potraz said it had noted the irresponsible use of social media and mobile telecommunications services in the past few days.
Social media in Zimbabwe has splashed pictures of protests in Beitbridge and Harare over import restrictions and outrage in the public transport sector over police roadblocks.
Zimbabweans took to Twitter and other social media platforms on Wednesday to complain over the gagging of over the top services.
The government has previously hinted at moves to regulate usage of social media platforms in Zimbabwe, saying it would lean on technology from China.
This has however, been criticised, with campaigners saying this infringes on rights to the free flow and access of information.
Meanwhile, mobile companies in Zimbabwe have recorded surging revenues from internet usage via mobile platforms as voice revenues continue to slow down.
All of the countrys mobile operators, Econet Wireless, Telecel Zimbabwe and state controlled NetOne have bundle options for social media and internet access through smartphones and other mobile devices.
Fin24
More on Zimbabwe clampdown
Zimbabweans slam government over social media shutdown
WhatsApp down in Zimbabwe concerns of a government block
Workers of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) continued their picketing action on Wednesday.
The strike entered its third day Wednesday as workers demanded salary increases and bonus pay back-dated to 2014.
These issues stem from 2014 when the Communications Workers Union (CWU) was part of negotiations regarding restructuring at Icasa.
But workers felt that they werent consulted properly about changes at the regulator and they then ditched the CWU, said the organiser of the strike Suzan Mashinini
Subsequently, disgruntled workers hired a legal representative and they obtained permission from the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) to go on strike, Mashinini told Fin24 earlier this week.
The strike is still happening today, Icasa spokesperson Paseka Maleka briefly told Fin24 by phone on Wednesday morning.
Mashinini told Fin24 late on Tuesday that the strike would continue despite her claims that discussions had taken place between a group of workers, management and Icasa counsellors.
The discussions resulted in an agreement that a task force would study workers complaints, said Mashinini.
But Mashinini said discussions of the task force fell through on Wednesday morning as management allegedly said that they dont have the mandate to carry out the task force.
They (management) are not serious about the workers, Mashinini told Fin24 on Wednesday.
The strike is still onwe arent budging she added.
Fin24 asked Icasa to confirm whether a meeting about a task forced occurred on Tuesday but the regulator neither confirmed nor denied the said gathering.
Icasa is open to communication with staff representatives to ensure that all matters are resolved on an expedited basis, Paseka Maleka, spokesperson for Icasa, told Fin24.
Mashinini has further accused Icasa of launching disciplinary action against some workers heading up the strike, including herself.
Icasa issued a notice to staff last week acknowledging that every employee has a right to strike, said Maleka.
However, it should be noted that Icasa has a duty to service its licensees and clients, as well as to protect the rights of those employees who have decided not to participate in the strike, added Maleka.
Icasa also maintained that prior to implementing its policies in 2014, it consulted with the representatives of employees in the form of the Communication Workers Union. Icasa is responsible for regulating the communications and telecommunications sectors in South Africa.
Fin24
More on Icasa
Icasa management drive BMW SUVs, and we dont get salary increases: Staff
SABC needs evidence to back up protest decision: Icasa
Researchers at MITs research center in Singapore have developed a new microfluidic device that tests the effects of electric fields on cancer cells.
They observed that a range of low-intensity, middle-frequency electric fields effectively stopped breast and lung cancer cells from growing and spreading, while having no adverse effect on neighboring healthy cells.
The device, about the size of a U.S. dollar coin, is designed to help scientists narrow in on safe ranges of electric fields to noninvasively treat breast, lung, and other forms of cancer.
The results are published online in Scientific Reports.
The papers co-authors include Roger Kamm, the Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Mechanical and Biological Engineering at MIT, as well as research scientists Andrea Pavesi and Giulia Adriani, postdoc Majid Ebrahimi Warkiani, and student Andy Tay of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART).
Senior research officer Wei Hseun Yeap and associate professor Siew Cheng Wong of the Singapore Immunology Network also contributed to the report.
We hope this device will increase interest by researchers who are exploring the effect of electric fields on different types of cancer, Adriani says.
In our study, we noticed the effect was limited to the cancer cell at the tested frequencies and intensities, but we really need to explore other cells and parameters.
An electric recipe
For the past decade, scientists have been experimenting with the use of electric fields to treat malignant cells, in an alternative cancer treatment called tumor treating field, or TTF.
The therapy stems from the interaction between key cellular structures in tumors, and an external electric field.
In general, an electric field is a field of forces that act on objects that have an electric charge. An electric field can also influence the alignment of polar molecules in tumor cells, such as microtubules.
Normally, these molecules are crucial for cell division, which, when it goes into overdrive, leads to tumor growth. When microtubules line up end to end to form a mitotic spindle, the cells genetic material attaches to the spindle fibers, pulling and splitting the cell into two cells.
In the past, scientists have observed that these charged molecules respond to a low-frequency electric field, between 100 and 300 kilohertz and with an intensity as strong as the field strength of a mixer or toaster.
Instead of forming mitotic spindles, the microtubule alignment is disrupted in such a way that it prevents cell division and tumor growth.
Scientists have been trying to figure out a lot of different recipes to try to stimulate the cell with an electric field, Pavesi says.
By tweaking the intensity and frequency, you can have an effect only on the cancer cells, leaving the other type of cells unaltered, without destroying them. Thats the key concept.
A company, Novocure, has since been founded to develop TTF therapies for people with brain and lung cancer.
Pavesi, who has been helping to design microfluidic devices with Kamm, came up with the idea for a device to test TTF after watching a TED talk by Novocures founder.
Immediately, I was thinking to myself, This is an easy thing I can replicate in one of my devices, Pavesi recalls.
Gaining time
The researchers fabricated the device from PDMS, a widely used, gel-like polymer, and patterned small channels across the device.
They then developed a conductive mixture made from micron-sized silver flakes and PDMS, which they cured, then injected into two channels in the device to form two tiny, separate electrodes.
In the region between the electrodes, they injected hydrogels with breast or lung cancer cells as well as small tumor masses. The researchers also injected healthy human endothelial cells.
The hydrogels created a three-dimensional matrix to mimic the extracellular environment.
The team subjected each cell type in the 3-D matrix to alternating electric fields at frequencies of 150 or 200 kilohertz, continuously, at an intensity of 1.1 volts per centimeter.
In the absence of an electric field, Pavesi says the cancer cells begin to proliferate and spread within two days.
However, he and Adriani observed a significant slowdown in tumor progression after three days of continuous electric field stimulation: Proliferation was markedly reduced, while small masses of lung cancer cells did not disperse indicating an inhibition of their metastatic potential.
Whats more, healthy endothelial cells in the same device were left unaffected. The researchers hypothesize that healthy cells may require different frequencies to be influenced by an electric field, as their size and electrical properties are far different from that of cancer cells.
Adriani hopes the microfluidic device can help scientists test a wide range of electric field intensities and frequencies on other cancer cell types.
While TTF therapy has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treating brain tumors, that approval process took years to test electric fields, first in vitro, then in animals and in humans.
Pavesi says a microfluidic device could speed up that process.
Maybe by screening TTF to optimize frequency and intensity, you can at least reduce the time it takes for in vivo studies, Pavesi says.
There may be thousands of variables, but you could first try them in this device. If you find 10 that work, you can go ahead and try those 10 in the animal model.
Ultimately, the device may be used to identify the most effective electric field to treat cancer cells taken directly from a patient, says Chwee Teck Lim, a professor of biomedical engineering at the National University of Singapore, who did not participate in the study.
One step forward that the group can take is to start testing on cancer patient-derived cells either obtained from tumor or liquid biopsy, such as circulating tumor cells, and to see if there are particular types of cancer cells that will succumb to or be more resistant to such TTF treatment, Lim says.
For personalized medicine, you can test if a recipe works for a specific person, Adriani says. In three days, you can have an answer. And for many cancer patients who are dying of metastasis, time is everything.
This research was supported, in part, by the National Research Foundation of Singapore through the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology BioSystems and Micromechanics interdisciplinary research group.
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The FBI has said it will recommend to the Justice Department that no prosecution is warranted after a yearlong investigation into Hilary Clintons use of a private email server while secretary of state.
Director James Comey said in a press conference on Tuesday that while there was evidence of potential violations regarding the handling of classified information, no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against Clinton.
Comey said the FBIs probe found there was evidence of extremely careless handling of emails by Clinton, now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and that at least 110 emails contained classified information at the time they were sent.
From the group of 30,000 emails returned to the State Department in 2014, 110 emails in 52 email chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received, said Comey.
Eight of those chains contained information that was top secret at the time they were sent; 36 of those chains contained secret information at the time, and eight contained confidential information at the time.
Comey said the FBI had also discovered several thousand work-related emails that were not included among the original group of 30,000 emails returned by Clinton to State in 2014.
The FBIs recommendation to the Justice Department will have a significant impact on the upcoming US presidential election.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Friday that she would accept whatever recommendation the FBI put forward.
The FBI has been investigating whether Clinton broke the law as a result of a personal email server kept in her New York home while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.
The investigation has dogged Clintons campaign for the past year. She and her staff have repeatedly fought of accusations that her use of the private server, which is in violation of State Department protocol, indicated that she was untrustworthy.
Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has said the FBI investigation should disqualify Clinton from running for president.
Although [Comeys] recommendation is there should be no criminal charges filed he certainly had some very damning statements about her conduct, Al Jazeeras Kimberly Halkett said in Charlotte North Carolina, outside a Clinton campaign site.
Its not a completely triumphant day for Hilary Clintonshes sort of out of the woods in terms of facing criminal action, but in terms of the court of public opinion, [she] still has a lot of work to do to try and earn back the trust of the American voter.
With the US presidential election less than four months away, Clintons lead in the polls over Trump in recent weeks has shrunk to the single digits and nearly 69% of American voters believe she is untrustworthy.
Al Jazeera
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Cyber security is a battle of the people versus email scammers
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Many WhatsApp users in Zimbabwe have reported that the service is down on most networks, which has raised concerns of government interference.
This follows a strike by government workers in Zimbabwe because of pay disputes.
Teachers, doctors, and nurses were among those who stopped work because they had not been paid in more than a month, the BBC reported.
According to TechZim writer L.S.M Kabweza, WhatsApp is down on the countrys three most-popular mobile networks.
Kabweza said WhatsApp is not working on TelOne, Liquid Telecom Zimbabwe, ZOL Zimbabwe, Telecel, and Econet.
The messaging service is working on Africom a converged communication service provider in Zimbabwe.
Kabweza reported that the Zimbabwean government has been planning to block access to social media.
The Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Postal, and Courier Services in Zimbabwe, Supa Mandiwanzira, denied any intention to block social media.
More on WhatsApp
WhatsApp calling growth flat
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WASHINGTON, July 6, 2016 Cargill Inc. has agreed to sell its 18 ag-retail outlets in the U.S. to Calgary-based Agrium Inc., the largest retail seller of crop inputs in North America. The outlets, located in Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota, Indiana and Michigan, have annual revenues of over $150 million, Agrium said in a release.
The transaction, which does not include Minnesota-based Cargill's Canadian crop input retail business, is expected to close by the end of the third quarter of 2016.
"This acquisition (by Agriums Crop Production Services unit) demonstrates our continued focus on growing our North American Ag-retail business, particularly in the highly desirable U.S. Corn Belt. The locations are in regions where we currently have a limited presence, said Chuck Magro, Agriums president and CEO. "We welcome the Cargill ag-retail employees to the Agrium family and are excited to bring our agronomic expertise and quality products and services to growers in this important agricultural region."
Did you know Agri-Pulse subscribers get our Daily Harvest email and Daybreak audio Monday through Friday mornings, a 16-page newsletter on Wednesdays, and access to premium content on our ag and rural policy website? Sign up for your four-week free trial Agri-Pulse subscription.
Roger Watchorn, group leader of Cargill's North American agricultural supply chain, said Cargill will focus on being the world's leading merchant of grain and oilseeds. We remain steadfast in our commitment to help farmers succeed by ensuring they remain competitive in the global market and being as efficient as possible in getting products from origins to destinations, he said.
While Cargill has been trimming some of its lower-margin operations in the face of slumping commodity prices, Agrium has been seeking to expand its retail business in the U.S., Magro told the Reuters news agency in May. The company bought 27 U.S. retail locations in the first quarter.
#30
The U.S. Justice Department opened a federal civil rights investigation Wednesday into the videotaped police killing of a black man who was shot as officers wrestled with him on the pavement outside a convenience store.
The announcement came a day after the killing of 37-year-old Alton Sterling, who authorities say was confronted by police after an anonymous caller said he had threatened someone with a gun outside the store where he was selling homemade CDs.
In a cellphone video taken by a community activist and posted online, two officers had Sterling pinned to the ground, and gunfire erupted moments after someone yelled, "He's got a gun! Gun!"
Baton Rouge police have not detailed the circumstances surrounding the shooting and have not said whether Sterling in fact had a gun.
"I have very serious concerns. The video is disturbing, to say the least," Gov. John Bel Edwards said in announcing that the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division would lead the investigation.
The shooting fueled anger and protests in Baton Rouge, with community leaders and Sterling's family demanding a federal investigation and the firing of the police chief.
"Mr. Sterling was not reaching for a weapon. He looks like a man that was actually fighting for his life," said state Rep. Edmond Jordan, an attorney for Sterling's family.Authorities have not released the race of the two officers, who have been placed on administrative leave, which is standard department procedure.In Washington, Justice Department spokesman David Jacobs said the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office in Louisiana will also take part in the investigation.The Justice Department investigation will look into whether the officers willfully violated Sterling's civil rights through the use of unreasonable or excessive force.Similar investigations, which often take many months, were opened following the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York.Federal investigators must meet a high legal burden to bring a civil rights prosecution, establishing that an officer knowingly used unreasonable force under the circumstances and did not simply make a mistake or use poor judgment. Many federal probes conclude without criminal charges.Quinyetta McMillon, the mother of Sterling's teenage son, trembled as she read a statement outside City Hall, where a few dozen protesters and community leaders had gathered. Her son, Cameron, 15, broke down in tears and was led away as his mother spoke.She described Sterling as "a man who simply tried to earn a living to take care of his children."The individuals involved in his murder took away a man with children who depended upon their daddy on a daily basis," she said.Jordan said police confiscated the store's video surveillance system, but he said the store owner is confident the video shows the entire confrontation and shooting. He said the cellphone video that was posted online "certainly speaks for itself.""It's a horrible thing. It's a horrible thing to happen to him," said Sterling's aunt, Sandra Sterling. "He didn't deserve that."The cellphone video prompted hundreds to protest Tuesday night.In the video, which appears to be shot from inside a nearby parked car, one of two police officers outside the store can be seen tackling a man in a red shirt and wrestling him to the ground. Then the other officer helps hold the man down.At one point someone can be heard saying, "He's got a gun! Gun!" and then one officer on top of the man can be seen pulling his weapon from his holster.After some shouting, what sounds like a gunshot can be heard and the camera pulls away. Then four more shots can be heard. At one point, a person in the vehicle asks, "They shot him?" as a woman can be heard crying.At the Wednesday news conference, the head of the NAACP in Baton Rouge called for the police chief to be fired. "He must step down. We cannot have anybody who allows this type of action to take place," Michael McClanahan said.State Rep. Denise Marcelle of Baton Rouge, who has been at the forefront of the protests, said the chief told her that body cameras fell off both officers during their "tussle" with Sterling. But Marcelle said she saw no evidence of that on the video.When a pastor told the small crowd gathered that the protest would be peaceful, 45-year-old protester Sharon Alexander, her voice cracking, countered: "We don't need peace. We need answers; we need justice."Alexander was there with her daughter and three other relatives, said later: "We sound like a broken record. It's time for a change."By dawn Wednesday, protesters and friends had created a makeshift memorial to Sterling on the white folding tables and folding chair he had used to sell homemade music compilations on CDs."He never bothered nobody. He was just trying to make an honest dollar," said Arthur Baines, who came by to pay his respects.Mufleh Alatiyat, a 25-year old employee of the store, said Sterling he often gave away CDs or petty cash or bought food or drink for some people."He was a very nice guy," he said. "He helped a lot of people."The man who claimed to have shot the cellphone video, Arthur Reed, said he has been distributing it online as a service to the community. Reed said his company, Stop the Killing Inc., shoots documentary-style videos about killings in Baton Rouge.
Officials and family members of a Louisiana community called for a federal investigation Wednesday into the shooting death of a black man by police, saying they don't trust local law enforcement.
Speakers at a news conference said they want answers to why 37-year-old Alton Sterling was shot and killed outside a convenience store where he was selling CDs.
"It's a horrible thing, it's a horrible thing to happened to him," said Sterling's aunt, Sandra Sterling. "He didn't deserve that."
Police say they were called to the store Tuesday after an anonymous caller said Sterling had threatened someone with a gun.
A video that purported to show the killing further fueled public anger about the shooting on Tuesday, prompting hundreds to protest. The protest lasted into the night, with people chanting and holding up signs.
In the video, which appears to be shot from inside a nearby parked car, one of two police officers outside the store can be seen tackling a man in a red shirt and wrestling him to the ground. Then the other officer helps him hold the man down.At one point someone can be heard saying, "He's got a gun! Gun!" and then one officer on top of the man can be seen pulling his weapon from his holster. After some shouting, what sounds like a gunshot can be heard and the camera pulls away. Then another four shots can be heard. At one point, a person in the vehicle asks "They shot him?" as a woman can be heard crying.The Associated Press has not been able to authenticate the video. But the appearance of the store in the video matches the front of convenience store where the shooting occurred. The man being subdued by police was wearing a red shirt, matching the description given earlier by police.Sandra Sterling said the video "made us realize what really happened. It shed light on everything we didn't know."At the Wednesday news conference, the head of the NAACP in Baton Rouge called for the police chief to be fired."What I'm calling for today is that the chief law enforcement officer to fire the police chief," Michael McClanahan said. "He must step down. We cannot have anybody who allows this type of action to take place."The Advocate reported the crowd that gathered late Tuesday afternoon at the store where Sterling died grew to more than 200 people. They chanted "black lives matter" and "hands up don't shoot" and waved signs late into the night, according to the newspaper.By dawn Wednesday, protesters and friends had created a makeshift memorial to Sterling on the white folding tables and fold out chair he had used to sell homemade music compilations on CD's.Arthur Baines came by to pay his respects. He said Sterling had stayed with his sister at some point."He never bothered nobody. He was just trying to make an honest dollar," Baines said. He said he thought Sterling was out late on July 4th because more people were out on the holiday: "That's really how he made all of his money,"Mufleh Alatiyat, a 25-year old employee of the store described Sterling as generous and said he often gave away CDs or petty cash or bought food or drink for some people."He was a very nice guy," he said. "He helped a lot of people."An autopsy shows Sterling died of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Dr. William Clark said.Officers responded to the store about 12:35 a.m. Tuesday after an anonymous caller indicated a man selling music CDs and wearing a red shirt threatened him with a gun, Cpl. L'Jean McKneely said.Two officers responded and had some type of altercation with the man and one officer fatally shot the suspect, McKneely said. Both officers have been placed on administrative leave, which is standard department policy, he said.The store's owner, Abdul Muflahi, told WAFB-TV that the first officer used a stun gun on Sterling and the second officer tackled the man. Muflahi said as Sterling fought to get the officer off of him, the first officer shot him "four to six times."The owner said Sterling did not have a gun in his hand at the time but he saw officers remove a gun from Sterling's pocket after the shooting.McKneely said late Tuesday that he could not confirm Muflahi's description of the event or any other details of the investigation.Kimberly Lang said she purchased CDs from Sterling on occasion and said he did not have a reputation for violence, according to a report by NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune. If Sterling did have a gun on him, Lang said, it was probably because he feared being robbed while peddling his CDs late at night, not because he wanted to threaten anyone.
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. Standing on Atlantic Citys famed Boardwalk, Hillary Clinton ripped Donald Trump as a shameful businessman who contributed to the decline of the oceanfront resort town and would be just as disastrous for Americas workers as president.
What he did here in Atlantic City is exactly what hell do if he wins in November, Clinton warned on Wednesday, the faded facade of Trump Plaza, a shuttered hotel formerly owned by the presumptive Republican nominee, just over her shoulder.
Clintons remarks were part of a growing effort by her campaign to undercut Trumps business reputation, which Democrats believe is greatly overhyped and based more on his ability to attract publicity than actual private sector skills. In the coming weeks, she is expected to highlight victims of Trumps business ventures, including contractors who went unpaid echoing a strategy Democrats employed successfully against 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney.
Clinton made no mention of the FBIs withering criticism Tuesday accompanied its recommendation that she not face actual charges for her email practices as secretary of state. She ignored reporters shouted questions about the matter later in the day as she greeted striking workers at the Trump Taj Mahal, another property previously owned by her GOP opponent.
In clearing Clinton of breaking the law, FBI Director James Comey was scorching in his criticism of the Democratic nominee, saying she was extremely careless in handling classified information on a private email account and personal internet server.
Even with Comeys tough rhetoric, Clinton aides were relieved to have the investigation closed so they can fully turn their attention to the fall face-off with Trump. Campaign aides say that while Trumps comments about minorities and women weaken his prospects of winning the White House, he is still viewed favorably as a businessman by many Americans.
For Clinton, Atlantic City provided a picture-perfect backdrop to try to undermine that reputation.
Once a casino-lined coastal jewel, the city has struggled in recent years, losing more than half of its gambling revenue during the past nine years. The casinos struggles have led to job losses and credit downgrades.
A quarter-century after Trump sought to build a casino empire, he owns not a single hotel here. His name is still atop the Taj Mahal, but the property belongs to his friend Carl Icahn, the billionaire businessman magnate.
Trump has defended his record in the gambling town, saying he created thousands of jobs and made a lot of money in Atlantic City, which was what, as a businessman, I am supposed to do for my company and my family. Earlier Wednesday, he blamed Atlantic Citys troubles on politicians big mistakes.
Even in the years when other Atlantic City casinos were growing, those carrying the Trump name werent. When his publicly traded company, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc., went bust in 2004, Atlantic Citys casino revenues were on their way to an all-time high. In fact, two of his casinos three bankruptcies occurred in years when overall Atlantic City gambling revenue was rising.
Isnt he supposed to be some kind of amazing businessman? Clinton said. So its fair to ask, since he is applying for a job, what in the world happened here?
She also placed blame for Atlantic Citys troubles on New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, one of Trumps biggest supporters and a possible vice presidential pick.
If your governor would start doing his job instead of following Donald Trump around holding his coat, maybe we could really get New Jerseys economy moving again, she said.
After a months-long fight over Atlantic Citys future that included threats of a state takeover, Christie signed legislation in May that kept the city solvent and staved off immediate bankruptcy. The city now has until the end of October to formulate a plan for balancing its budget in order to avoid being taken over by the state.
Christie, meanwhile, has blamed the citys issues on Democrats as well as larger structural forces, including increased competition from new gambling centers and the citys failure to rebrand itself and expand its attractions.
As Clinton campaigned in New Jersey, Democrats on Capitol Hill were pushing her primary rival Bernie Sanders to join them in backing the former secretary of state. Sanders challenged Clinton vigorously in the Democratic primary and has yet to endorse her.
During a private meeting, House Democrats voiced frustration with Sanders slow-moving support for Clinton, shouting timeline, timeline at the Vermont senator. Sanders never clarified when he would endorse Clinton, though at one point he said, our goal is not to win elections, then paused. During that pause, Sanders was booed, according to a Democrat who attended the session and spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the discussion.
Grgich Hills Estates annual Croatian Extravaganza wine club party had a little more to celebrate this year than usual. The winery celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Judgment of Paris, the 1976 blind wine tasting that selected as the winner a chardonnay crafted by Miljenko Mike Grgich.
The Croatian National Anthem was performed by Grgichs daughter, Violet Grgich, and her husband, Colin Shipman, and attendees sang the American national anthem. The Croatian Kolo group Skalinada Ensemble showed off traditional clothing and dance and invited the crowd to join them, followed later with modern tunes provided by Blue Moon.
Inspired by the music and festivities, Grgich, 93, got on the dance floor and was quickly surrounded by dance partners.
Traditional Croatian food was served, including cevapi, a skinless sausage made with lamb, pork and beef. A spit-roasted lamb started at 2 a.m. that day by professional Croatian pitmasters from the Croatian American Cultural Center in Sacramento was served with chicken, corn salad, caprese salad, fingerling potato salad, and more.
Naturally, Grgich Hills Estate wine flowed throughout the event.
A caricaturist, Rene Pulid, had a line of people waiting for him to draw a caricature of themselves, and two photo booths were available with silly hats, glasses, boas and other costume pieces, while others played wine bottle toss or bocce.
Grgich, who lives in Calistoga, was the winemaker of the winning 1973 chardonnay made for Chateau Montelena.
Grgich and business partner Austin Hills had the groundbreaking of their own winery on July 4, 1977. To celebrate they hold their Croatian Extravaganza on the Saturday closest to that date.
The event was held on the grounds of the Yountville Victorian house Grgich lived in for 18 years.
The developer of the Calistoga Family Apartments recently received an international award for its energy design and use, and was lauded for providing low-income housing from a building industry group.
You may start with the LEED Platinum Standards, the simple charming design elements, site limitations, and the comfortable neighborhood feel, said the Gold Nugget Award judges statement. Given the focus on affordable and low-income clients, it is all the more impressive (what) the project team was able to accomplish. When you add the primary goal of the client profile that it make a significant contribution toward meeting the housing needs of local farm labor, the overall accomplishment of this design group is truly astounding.
Justin Hardt, executive vice president for Corporation for Better Housing, the developer of Calistoga Family Apartments, said it is an honor just to be considered for a Gold Nugget (Award) let alone win for special excellence.
We felt that we deserved it, but competing with other highly, highly sophisticated developers as well, made it all that more special, Hardt said. We are on cloud nine because of this.
Corporation for Better Housing (CBH) received the Gold Nugget Awards Judges Special Award of Excellence for Calistoga Family Apartments Net Zero Energy Design.
What really set our development apart was the design, the LEED Platinum Standards, and the projects ability to create as much energy as it consumes on-site, Hardt said. And what made it truly unique was that it was geared toward agricultural workers.
This adds to the list of successes that weve had and aside from winning this particular award, which is special and unique, and difficult to get, it is really building up our LEED green acumen, he said.
Were really pushing the environmental consciousness by participating in these certification programs, he said.
The city of Calistoga is partnering with CBH, which is a nonprofit organization, on a new apartment project on lower Washington Street that will house low-income senior citizens. The city owns the land for the senior apartment project, but had no financial involvement in the Family Apartments at 1713 Washington St.
Planning department staff believe that (Calistoga Family Apartments) is an excellent example of a development project that not only addresses a significant community housing need but does so with an attractive design that is well-integrated into the neighborhood, said Lynn Goldberg, planning and building director. We look forward to the construction of the Calistoga Senior Apartments by the same developer in the near future.
Hardt said the senior apartment building at 611 Washington St. is expected to break ground at the end of this year, or early 2017. They are in the process of securing funding for the project.
Winning awards such as the Gold Nugget, CBHs first, and the success of the Family Apartments it is 100 percent occupied helps to build and solidify the companys credibility that it delivers on its promises, Hardt said.
The Gold Nugget Awards, which has been presented for 53 years is sponsored by Builder Magazine and given by PCBC, which is the nations largest regional conference and trade show for the real estate development field. PCBC was an acronym for Pacific Coast Builders Conference but as the show grew and started drawing attendees from all over the U.S., Canada, Mexico and more than 25 other countries, it simplified the name by going with the acronym.
The awards honor architectural design and planning excellence with entries from throughout the U.S. and internationally.
Where your education dollars come from, where they go
Like all California school districts, each year NVUSD prepares a budget for the following the school year. Both the budget year and the academic year run from July 1 to June 30, so the budget that begins July 1, 2016, is referred to as the 2016-2017 budget.
Budget cycle
The budgeting process starts within the school district in January, as principals and administrators identify needs and the business office works to estimate revenues. In May, Californias governor releases a state budget that helps the schools more accurately assess their revenue for the coming year. District staff finalizes the recommended budget and takes it to the elected Board of Education in June. Once the budget is approved, it takes effect July 1.
Once a budget year is complete, an external auditor reviews the planned and actual revenues and expenses and presents the board with a report in December. Then the entire process begins again.
Where funds come from
For 2016-2017, NVUSDs General Fund budget will be about $171 million. Funding for public schools generally comes from three major sources:
1. The state government, via property taxes and the Local Control Funding Formula. The formula pays school districts a base amount per student, plus a supplemental amount for each student who is an English learner, eligible for free or reduced lunch, or in foster care. Districts are required to show how they plan to spend those base and supplemental funds in an annual plan called a Local Control Accountability Plan, or LCAP. State revenues are about 93 percent of NVUSDs revenue.
2. The federal government supplies some funding for low-income schools (through No Child Left Behind) and magnet schools. Federal revenues are about 5 percent of NVUSDs revenue.
3. Here in Napa, local supporters, such as the Napa Valley Education Foundation and NapaLearns, give donations and gifts that directly impact our students. These efforts account for about 2 percent of the revenue.
Where General Fund dollars go
Education relies heavily on people teachers, administrators and other staff working to help students learn. So the bulk of the districts expenses (about 84 percent) are in salaries and benefits, including health care and retirement contributions.
Services, such as utilities, account for an additional 11 percent. Books and other classroom supplies account for about 4 percent of the budget, and capital purchases, such as computers, are about 1 percent.
Other funds
Aside from the General Fund, several other operating funds service specific tasks. For example, board policy dictates that the district hold 7.5 percent of the total annual budget in a reserve account (basically a savings account) for economic uncertainty. In a bad year, that money is used to offset losses so the district can continue to pay staff and keep students learning. State law sets a limit on how much a school district can keep in reserve: The reasoning is that the funds should be going to the students immediate needs.
Another fund holds the districts share of fees that developers pay to the local cities; those funds can only be used to support growth-related projects, such as adding portable classrooms to a school site to accommodate more students.
The School Facilities Fund is funded when the district is allocated money from state bonds for construction and spends it prudently, with money left over. The district is allowed to keep that extra money and spend it on capital construction projects. Right now, the state has no funds available for school construction. If and when it becomes available, NVUSD would need to provide significant matching funds to be eligible to apply.
Your input
At any time, you can view NVUSDs budget and previous years audits on our website at www.nvusd.org. We also seek community input into our budgeting process through parent advisory committees; at open comment period at any board meeting; and specifically at the board meetings when the budget is presented for discussion and approval. For information, please call the Office of Communications at 707-259-7525 or email elizabeth_emmett@nvusd.org.
In honor of the 100th birthday of St. Helena resident Chuck McKinnon, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) presented him with an American flag last month.
McKinnons birthday was on March 9 and the American flag was flown over the U.S. Capitol a few weeks later on March 23. Thompson told McKinnon the flag was flown at my request in your honor.
Thompson said, When I first went to Congress and I was told that I could have flags flown at the Capitol for special people on special occasions, I thought they probably put all the flags in an airplane and flew them over the Capitol. But they actually have somebody who runs them up the pole all day.
When asked how he had made it to 100, McKinnon told Thompson that he exercises, including riding a stationary bike, and indulges in an attitude adjustment hour with his wife, Janice, but he added, I only have one drink, but I make it last all night.
The McKinnons celebrated the Fourth of July with a small gathering and said Monday was their 10th anniversary in their Vineyard Valley home. They evacuated from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, in part because Janice couldnt run her aviation company without power and phones, Chuck said.
Thompson spent a midday riding in a car at the annual parade that kicks off the Napa County Fair and was at the McKinnons house shortly after noon. He and his aide, Brad Onorato, couldnt spend a lot of time with the McKinnons, because Thompson was flying back to Washington.
Im going back today because were going to have a vote on a Republican gun bill tomorrow, Thompson said. One of the issues (on the gun control issue) is that people on the terrorist watch list can legally buy firearms, and weve been fighting to get one of the loopholes closed. We were told late last week that the Republicans were going to bring the bill to the floor. As I understand it, its not a very good bill.
He said theres been a lot of pressure on the Republican leadership to do something about gun violence, although he said he didnt know it would be so soon. In Thompsons opinion, the Republicans could have brought another compromise bill, that from Republican Sen. Susan Collins from Maine. They could have brought that to the floor and that would have passed easily, but they overreached, they brought up a bill that doesnt really protect the American people, Thompson said.
Thompson represents the 5th District and is the Democratic Gun Violence Prevention Task Force chairman. He participated in the 25-hour sit-in on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in late June that was designed to force the Republican leadership to bring a gun violence compromise bill to the floor for a vote.
Sometimes its just not a good time to call 911.Thats one of the reasons Napa and other cities around the nation are looking into 911 texting.
Napa hopes to implement the technology by this time next year, said Gus Ulloth, 911 Communications Manager with the city of Napa. There is a definite benefit to having an alternative route to 911, especially when making a voice call could impact the safety of the caller, he said.
Some extreme examples would be hiding from an active shooter or being trapped in the trunk of a vehicle, he said.
Out of more than 6,000 dispatch centers nationwide, a little more than 650 can accept text messages, with more than 150 making the text-to-911 upgrade this year, the Federal Communications Commission said.
In Orlando, where text-to-911 is not available, several victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting texted family members to call 911 for them, fearing they would draw too much attention by making voice calls. San Bernardino launched its text-to-911 service in December about two weeks after an attack at a social services center where a man and his wife killed 14 people at a holiday gathering.
Ulloth said that the city of Napa is looking into options to implement text-to-911, and although they plan on having it by next year, there is no definite timeline. Whatever option the city goes with will have to be integrated with the current Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system, he said. We believe this integration is required to maintain efficiency, he said.
General conversation about 911 texting started in the 911 communications industry about two years ago, he said. Ulloth said that the city of Napa has already narrowed it down to two systems the less expensive option would cost $35,000 the first year and $20,000 each year after that.
The majority of Napa County residents would benefit from the service, he said, including those in Napa, American Canyon, and Yountville. The cities of St. Helena and Calistoga as well as California Highway Patrol, though, use different services and would not be included in the coverage area.
Individuals who are not in a text-to-911 area will receive a bounce back message instructing them to call 911, Ulloth said.
A phone call will remain the preferred method of communication, Ulloth said. Dialing 911 and reaching emergency services is consistent through California, he said. Text-to-911 is not.
Other setbacks to the technology are that it does not use the same location detection technology that voice calls use and having a conversation via text is also much slower than voice calls, Ulloth said. It may take longer to pinpoint the location of a text-to-911 caller versus one who calls 911, he said.
As long as texting is used in situations where it may be beneficial and doesnt supplant voice calls, he doesnt see it slowing down response times, Ulloth said.
Text-to-911 isnt going to replace voice calls, but it can work as a tool to enhance the delivery of emergency services, he said. When the technology does come to Napa educating the public about its preferred use will be important, he said.
Nearly every municipality with text-to-911 service has sought to address that concern by promoting the slogan: Call if you can, text if you cant.
Ulloth doesnt anticipate an increase in call volume or a need for additional dispatchers, but dispatchers will need additional training, he said. They will need to learn the new system as well as how to handle these type of calls, he said.
Its a two-way conversation, Ulloth said. Well have both canned responses and theyll be able to manually type in conversations as well. Texts will be prioritized the same way calls are and may have additional unforeseen benefits, he said.
Text-to-911 could be helpful during a widespread disaster, like an earthquake, or during an event like BottleRock, Ulloth said.
The number of calls dispatchers received during the earthquake in 2014 became overwhelming very quickly, he said. In a situation like that, text-to-911 technology could provide emergency services information via text that would help when dealing with multiple requests for emergency service, he said.
If there was some sort of big fight or incident at a large event, a text might be better than a call, especially if dispatchers are receiving many calls about the same incident, Ulloth said.
One of the biggest benefits of the system, Ulloth said, would be for hearing-impaired individuals. I cant think of a better way to improve their life, he said. Instead of having to go through a third-party service or using teletypewriter (TTY) mode, those individuals would be able to communicate quickly and directly with dispatchers in Napa, he said.
Supporters of such systems say their use would go beyond active-shooter and hostage situations to scenarios in which a battered spouse, for example, could surreptitiously message police without alerting the attacker.
Ulloth said that dispatchers already get calls from people in these situations. People will call 911 and just leave the line open, allowing dispatchers to hear arguments going on in the background, he said.
Its the scenario where a voice call would put that caller in danger, he said.
I see this as a positive alternative to accessing services through the 911 system, said Napa Police Chief Steve Potter. It will allow people access when voice calling is not available or when voice calling presents a hazard to the person seeking assistance, he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Elie Wiesel, survivor of Auschwitz, was one of the great moral heroes of our time. His exceptional memoir, Night, informed millions of people about the nightmare of the Holocaust. Wiesel wrote with masterful honesty, raised questions that relate to all of us, and bore his soul and heart in a way that inspires hope and courage. The world has lost a voice who eloquently and insightfully spoke out for justice, human rights and the importance of being involved not standing idly by. President Obama called him the conscience of the world.
He never stopped bearing witness to human degradation and suffering. He never lost his courageous, humble and strong voice of speaking truth to power. His Jewish identity, his suffering during the Holocaust anchored him and gave him boundless energy and strength to care about, speak out and act on issues that face all of humanity.
Thanks to his prolific writing and teaching, the light that was his life has not been extinguished but remains accessible to all of us. When he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, he reflected on how he gave his life meaning after the Holocaust: I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
This deep conviction informed his entire life. Over 30 years ago, I attended many of his lectures in New York City. His voice was gentle and strong, compassionate and passionate as he brought the lives of great Biblical heroes and prophets to life in the way he described their dreams and vulnerabilities, as well as their hopes and disappointments. Wiesel was a uniquely gifted storyteller, weaving in history, his own life as well as his listeners life. He spoke in a charismatic and poetic way that enveloped everyone in the audience and made you feel as if you were in personal conversation with him.
As a writer, speaker and activist, Wiesel spoke out about countless human rights issues, including nuclear proliferation, victims of oppression in places like South Africa, Argentina and Nicaragua and victims of genocide in the former Yugoslavia and Sudan. He fought for the freedom of Soviet and Ethiopian Jews, and was a lifelong supporter of Israel and its unequivocal right to exist.
In 1997, I had the privilege of speaking with him at a program in San Francisco on the genocide taking place in Darfur. I listened with awe as this man, the recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal, as well the Presidential Medal of Freedom, spoke with depth of knowledge, with personal anguish, and with fierce resolve to stop the violence.
After the program, we sat and talked for a short while. Those personal moments with him left an indelible impression on me of a man who never forgot the nightmare of the Holocaust and how it empowered him to devote his life to doing everything in his power to halt the brutal way human beings continue to treat each other throughout the world.
He was tired and I offered to walk him to his hotel room, but he declined. It was only moments later that he was assaulted by a Holocaust denier outside of his room. How sad and ironic that this man, who championed the rights of all, had to suffer again at the hands of another.
Wiesels accomplishments in his 87 years on this earth give insight to the man who stands shoulder to shoulder with contemporary prophets like Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and the Dali Lama. He authored 57 books, was a distinguished professor of the Humanities at Boston University and he served as founding chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council from 1978 to 1986, and guided the building of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
He had the ability to speak truth to power in an honest but forceful way. He knew that President Reagan was planning a trip to visit Bitburg, a cemetery in West Germany where members of Hitlers elite Waffen SS were buried. Thus, when he received the Congressional Gold Medal of Achievement from President Reagan in 1985, he challenged the President: That place, Mr. President, is not your place, he said. Your place is with victims of the SS.
Wiesel was a man who was small in physical stature but a giant in moral stature. The horrors of the Holocaust and the brutality of men never stopped him from pursing justice, rather they provided him with the lifelong resolve and commitment to alleviate human suffering.
Thank you, Elie, for doing your part as a Jew and a citizen of the world in carrying the mantle of prophetic courage and in doing your best to make this world a bit more just and humane. As you taught: One person of integrity can make a difference. We will pay best homage to your life and legacy when each of us strives to become that person.
Rabbi Lee Bycel is rabbi of Congregation Beth Shalom in Napa and an adjunct professor in the Swig program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice at the University of San Francisco.
Yesterday we reported that sibling trio The Band Perry postponed a July 3 Delaware show following threats that were made to the band, its fans, and venue employees. Today, news has emerged that a related arrest was made in the case.
Dzmitry N. Papou of Selbyville, Delaware turned himself in last night, facing charges of felony terroristic threatening. He was released on $20,000 unsecured bail.
Though there is no word about what threats were made, Papou and another male spoke to a worker at the venue during the afternoon of the scheduled event, creating cause for concern and precaution.
The Band Perrys show was rescheduled for August 17.
European Parliament report amendment condemns Azerbaijan policy of erasing Armenian cultural heritage in Artsakh
Armenia to provide around $50M loan to Artsakh
EU monitors in Armenia set off on first patrol on Azerbaijan border
Armenia to introduce system of transition from compulsory to contractual military service
Newsweek: American troops are preparing for war with Russia
Azerbaijan and Russia discuss increasing number of checkpoints on border between 2 countries
Ombudsperson to attorneys of Frances Montpelier: POWs trials in Azerbaijan are aimed at terrorizing Armenian society
Karabakh parliament to convene special session Sunday
Today marks 23rd anniversary of Armenia parliament tragedy
Newspaper: October 31 trilateral meeting in Russias Sochi to not be groundbreaking
US State Department: Armenia-Azerbaijan direct dialogue is key to resolving issues, reaching lasting peace
Armenia MOD: No wounded soldiers in military hospitals who are in severe or critical condition
Ukraine Presidents Office: Kherson direction situation changing unpleasantly for Kyiv
Raisi: Terrorist attack in Shiraz will not go unanswered
Turkey arrests doctor who called for investigation into chemical weapons use in northern Iraq
Blinken: China has decided that the status quo in Taiwan is no longer acceptable
Steven Mnuchin says China will face significant economic downturn that will affect rest of world
German government allows Chinese company to buy reduced stake in Hamburg port terminal
'Corridor' between Armenia and Azerbaijan becomes subject of heated debate in European Parliament
Awkward lunch: Macron humiliates Scholz in Paris
Polish government prepares for 'potential use of nuclear or chemical weapons' by Kremlin
Iran: Unknown shoot and kill 2 IRGC members
EU calls on defense ministers of bloc countries to coordinate arms purchases
What will Israeli defense minister discuss in Turkey
Erdogan: We cannot allow 'terrorist organizations' to take the issue of Sweden's membership in NATO hostage
KGB: Opponents of authorities will begin to rock situation in country in November-December
Finance Ministry: Armenia plans to increase pensions in July next year
Terrorist who carried out shooting in Shiraz is foreigner
Saudi Arabia slams countries for using emergency oil reserves to manipulate prices
Azerbaijani who fought in ranks of AFU killed in Kiev as result of Iranian drone strike
Konstantin Zatulin: You don't have to be Armenian to love Armenia and Armenians
Biden's approval rating approaches lowest level of his presidency just 2 weeks before election
White House tones down its previous optimism about the midterm elections
Ford Motor leaves Russian market by selling its stake in Sollers joint venture
Council of Lazarev Club considers ban on Konstantin Zatulin to enter Armenia outrageous trick
The New York Times: Saudi Arabia pissed off U.S. by derailing a secret deal
Samvel Karapetyan: Various forces are pushing Armenia away from Russia, this cannot be allowed
Dubai Silicon Oasis interested in cooperation with Armenia in IT sector
Jens Stoltenberg announces his intention to visit Turkey
Wiktorin: EU observation mission will ease tensions
Saudi Aramco: European embargo on Russian oil increases uncertainty in global oil market
Commander of Lithuanian Armed Forces against transfer of howitzers and air defense systems to Ukraine
Armenian Finance Ministry gives outlook on economic activity and debt ratio
Minister: Rehabilitation works after Azerbaijani Armed Forces' invasion continue
About 230 kilometers of roads are being built and repaired in Syunik
Bloomberg: Europe has more gas than it can use
Pashinyan says he would like to sign Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal before end of year
168.am: President of Artsakh leaves for Russian capital
Armenia's Pashinyan: I will attend trilateral meeting in Sochi
Bloomberg: China's budget deficit since beginning of year approached record trillion dollars
PM: There is expectation that CSTO will adopt roadmap to restore Armenias territorial integrity
Pope receives Armenian FM
Armenia ruling party convention to be closed to media
Dollar falls, euro rises in Armenia
Kremlin: Russia has information that Ukraine is preparing terrorist attack using 'dirty bomb'
Governor underscores EU envoy to Armenias efforts in returning of Shirak Province POWs (PHOTOS)
Putin: US is using Ukraine as battering ram against Russia, CSTO, and CIS
Russian journalist Ksenia Sobchak leaves Russia
Russian military practices massive nuclear strike in response to nuclear attack of adversary
Germany restricts visas for Iranian passport holders
Belarus Foreign Minister visits Iran
Iran expands sanctions against EU
Zatulin says it is necessary to discuss relations between Russia and Armenia at different levels
Ardshinbank is the only company from Armenia with assigned ratings from the big three credit rating agencies
Armenia Security Council chief receives OSCE needs assessment mission members
Kremlin comments on deployment of American division in Romania
Iltalehti: draft bill on Finland's membership in NATO allows deployment of nuclear weapons
Kremlin informs about preparation for Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan leaders meeting
Armenia envoy briefs Costa Rica president on South Caucasus situation
Legislature head on chances of Armenia leaving CSTO: There is very little time left for us to make decision
Mercedes confirms intention to leave Russia
Armenia parliament speaker: No document on table
Air-raid alarm sirens to be installed in Estonia
Armenia legislature head: PM will go to Sochi on October 31, meet with Russia, Azerbaijan presidents
US State Department: Armenia, Azerbaijan should decide whether Putin's invitation would be useful to them
US transfers to Ukraine first 2 NASAMS complexes
Armenia National Assembly speaker: Phrase about signing peace treaty by years end is tacit deadline
Armenia parliament speaker: We have 240 casualties as result of Azerbaijan attack
Armenia FM in Vatican, meets with Substitute for Holy See Secretariat of State for General Affairs
Israel president gives US intel on Iran UAVs in Ukraine
Copper prices are rising
World oil prices falling
Armenia MPs approve several changes to laws
FM: Armenia has never lost its belief in humanity despite facing many challenges, calamities
Canada embassy to soon be opened in Armenia
Biden: Russia would be making serious mistake to use tactical nuclear weapon
Margarita Simonyan says she is banned from entering Armenia
Newspaper: Artsakh Public Council establishment causes concern in political arena
First sneakers for horses created in US
India fines Google for $113 million
Mass dedicated to peace in Armenia is celebrated at Vatican
Saudi Arabia decides to be more mature guy in its quarrel with US
Biden says Russia would make 'serious mistake' if it deploys tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine
Ukrainian media report on Dnipro rocket attack
Romania plans to intensify talks on Black Sea and military purchases
Karekin II and Aram I refuse to participate in World Armenian Forum
IMF Director: Ukraine's need for external financing could reach $5 billion month
Turkey continues to beat out gas discount from Russia and payment deferral from Gazprom
Alen Simonyan refuses to participate in fifth meeting of Russian-Armenian Lazarev Club
New Serbian government plans to invest 12 billion euros in energy projects
The head of National Wine Agency mentioned, that Georgian wine consumption on China market has been progressing since 2014. Progressing tendency in China started two years ago and is still sustained up today. Georgian wine publicity is raising as a result of important performed work. The whole wine industry is involved in Georgian wine promotion on China market including National Wine Agency and wine producing companies. Relationship with China on governmental level is progressing, that has significant influence on wine sales-mentioned Giorgi Samanishvili.
Georgian wine masterclasses and tasting was lead by Debra Meiburg, MW. The festival was attended by the head of National Wine Agency, Giorgi Samanishvili and representatives of the Agency. Festival was hosted by Shanghai's Roosevelt House and Hong-Kong's Cordis hotel . The event was organized by National Wine Agency and international marketing company Meiburg Wine Media.The head of National Wine Agency mentioned, that Georgian wine consumption on China market has been progressing since 2014. Progressing tendency in China started two years ago and is still sustained up today. Georgian wine publicity is raising as a result of important performed work. The whole wine industry is involved in Georgian wine promotion on China market including National Wine Agency and wine producing companies. Relationship with China on governmental level is progressing, that has significant influence on wine sales-mentioned Giorgi Samanishvili.
Hvino News
Georgian Wine Catalogue To add this Search Box to your website, click here. Many designs are available.
05.07.2016. (Hvino News). Georgian wine festival was held in Hong Kong and Shanghai, where brand names of 9 Georgian wine producers were introduced. Companies introduced at the festival are: Bagrationi, Chateau Mukhrani, Dugladze Wines and Spirits, GWS, KTW, Kakhetian Wine Cellar, Winery Khareba, Mildiani, Usakhelauri Vineyeards.Debra Meiburg MW spoke about Georgian wine significance. Georgian wine can offer broad diversity of great varieties of different wines to try, for example new styles of wines, wines that are a little bit lower in alcohol and have freshness of fruit, for the collectors, saperavi ages beautifully, there are different styles for different types of consumers in China- mentioned Ms. Meiburg.During the visit, representatives of National Wine Agency met with Christ Lai and Tersina Shieh of Wine Academy of Hong-Kong.According to data of 6 months of the current year, 1.9 mn bottles of wine was exported in China, which is 148% higher, than last year. According to NWA, 2015 year was extremely important for Georgian wine export in China progress exceeded 122% compared to 2014, total export amounted to 2 672 154 bottles (0.75l). China takes the fourth place in the five top Georgian wine importers after Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
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SIU recognized for serving students with disabilities
by Christi Mathis
CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Southern Illinois University Carbondale has long been a leader in assuring students with disabilities have access to a good college education, and that ongoing commitment recently earned two national rankings.
The acknowledgement is welcome and appreciated, but comes as no surprise, Sam Goodin, director of Disability Support Services at SIU, said.
Weve been a leader in providing support to people with disabilities in the field of higher education since the 1950s. Delyte Morris led us in the early efforts and this has always been our role. The expectation is that SIU will be a leader in supporting students with disabilities of all types, whether physical or psychological. We appreciate that these ranking organizations recognize what we do, Goodin said.
SIU is No. 9 within the 10 Best Online Schools and Resources for Students with Disabilities, an online guide from OnLineSchoolsCenter.com. The new guide, by author and higher education researcher Kenneth Williams, determined the rankings on the basis of evaluations on the accessibility of institutions and willingness to accommodate students with disabilities, particularly when it involves distance education.
The website indicates that the flexibility and affordability of an online education makes this alternative attractive to many students, including those with some form of disability, so this online ranking platform was created. The guide also includes links to the top 10 schools and additional information geared toward students with disabilities.
Goodin said much credit for the ranking goes to Liz Hunter, Alexis Ray and the web communications team at SIUs University Communications and Marketing for their work in assuring that campus websites are accessible to all students. For instance, he said all photos, graphics and other elements of websites must have proper labels and codes so students using screen readers know what is there even if they cant see it. And thats just one of the ways accessibility modifications are made, Goodin noted.
A newly developed SIU website template recently launched and is being applied to 175-200 websites. It features accessibility coding that not only meets the current Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 AA but that is always evolving in anticipation of future requirements.
In addition, SIU earned a spot on the College Choice 2016 Ranking of the Best Disability Friendly Colleges and Universities. SIU ranks 40th on the websites top 50 list of schools recognized for providing exceptional support for students of all abilities with the best rate of return on their educational investment, according to the College Choice website. The list was compiled based on a variety of factors including academic reputation, student satisfaction, affordability, average financial aid award and average salary of recent graduates.
The College Choice post, which includes a photo and profile of SIU, notes a number of the services the university provides to students with disabilities including: note takers, lab assistants, testing accommodations, accessible course materials, tutorial referrals, advocacy and counseling, housing assessments, loaner Telecommunications Devices for the Deaf, interpreting and speech-to-text typists and a case coordinator fluent in sign language to assist deaf and hearing-impaired students.
The profile also notes that SIU delivers route familiarization for new students with visual impairments along with equipment loans of items such as talking calculators and electronic note-taking systems with GPS. The Achieve Program, which offers assistance to students with learning disabilities and access to van transport and personal assistants through the Southern Illinois Center for Independent Living, also was recognized.
While SIUs initial accessibility efforts focused on enabling people in wheelchairs, including veterans returning home from World War II, the efforts have expanded and become more coordinated during the ensuing decades. In addition to providing a wide array of services and accommodations for students with a variety of physical disabilities, the office also helps students suffering from depression, anxiety disorder and other psychological conditions. Goodin said often times these conditions dont present themselves until students reach college age so its important that help is available.
Recent campus accessibility improvements include networking all of the adaptive technology so it can be used anywhere on campus, installing an elevator at Woody Hall and remodeling and updating the Disability Support Services office area there, which doubled the size of the office. Goodin noted that the State Division of Rehabilitation Services Counselors has also moved back to campus, giving support to students with disabilities while they are in school and assisting them in finding employment.
During the 2015-2016 school year, SIU had more than 600 students who indicated they have some form of disability, according to Goodin.
Setting the Gold Standard
UF chemistry professor is first to use light to make gold crystal nanoparticles
A team of University of Florida researchers has figured out how gold can be used in crystals grown by light to create nanoparticles, a discovery that has major implications for industry and cancer treatment and could improve the function of pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and solar panels.
Nanoparticles can be grown in crystal formations with special use of light, in a process called plasmon-driven synthesis. However, scientists have had limited control unless they used silver, but silver limits the uses for medical technology. The team is the first to successfully use gold, which works well within the human body, with this process.
How does light actually play a role in the synthesis? [This knowledge] was not well developed, said David Wei, an associate professor of chemistry who led the research team. Gold was the model system to demonstrate this.
Gold is highly desired for nanotechnology because it is malleable, does not react with oxygen and conducts heat well. Those properties make gold an ideal material for nanoparticles, especially those that will be placed in the body.
When polyvinylpyrrolidone, or PVP, a substance commonly found in pharmaceutical tablets, is used in the plasmon-driven synthesis, it enables scientists to better control the growth of crystals. In Weis research, PVP surprised the team by showing its potential to relay light-generated hot electrons to a gold surface to grow the crystals.
The research describes the first plasmonic synthesis strategy that can make high-yield gold nanoprisms. Even more exciting, the team has demonstrated that visible-range and low-power light can be used in the synthesis. Combined with nanoparticles being used in solar photovoltaic devices, this method can even harness solar energy for chemical synthesis, to make nanomaterials or for general applications in chemistry.
Wei has spent the last decade working in nanotechnology. He is intrigued by its applications in photochemistry and biomedicine, especially in targeted drug delivery and photothermal therapeutics, which is crucial to cancer treatment. His team includes collaborators from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where he has worked as a visiting scholar, and Brookhaven National Laboratory. In addition, the project has provided an educational opportunity for chemistry students: one high school student (through UFs Student Science Training Program), two University scholars who also funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, five graduate students and two postdocs.
The research was supported by the Air Force Office of Science Research and National Science Foundation. The findings were published online on July 4 in Nature Materials.
Pakistan has renewed its security assurance to Saudi Arabia after a string of bombings took place in the kingdom, including one outside Masjid e-Nabwi in Madina, the second-holiest site in Islam. The government "reiterates its abiding commitment to the safety, security and territorial integrity of Saudi Arabia", Dawn online quoted the country's Foreign Office as saying in a statement on Tuesday. Pakistan's Foreign Office statement referred to the terror attacks in Madina, Qatif and Jeddah on Monday. The Jeddah attack was carried out by a Pakistani national. He came to Saudi Arabia 12 years ago to work as a taxi driver. The assurance was made after Pakistani Army Chief General Raheel Sharif spoke over the phone with Saudi Defence Minister Prince Muhammad bin Salman. "The COAS sympathised with the families of the attack victims and said we stand shoulder to shoulder with our Saudi brothers in fighting the menace of terrorism," the ISPR said in a statement. Pakistan has a longstanding agreement with Saudi Arabia guaranteeing Riyadh's security. The understanding last year came into question when Pakistan did not send troops for joining the kingdom's invasion of Yemen. Islamabad later made amends by joining a Saudi-led 34-nation military alliance against terrorism even though it kept claiming for long that it was not clear about its details. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, in a statement issued on Tuesday by his office, called for unity among Muslim countries in the fight against terrorism and extremism. "Ummah in particular needs to forge unity at this critical moment to foil the nefarious designs of enemies of humanity and Ummah. We need to renew collective efforts to fight the menace of terrorism," Sharif said. Emphasising the unity in the fight against terrorism, he recalled the attacks by militants, mostly belonging to the Islamic State terror group, in Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh during the holy period of Ramadan. The statement said Sharif had emphasised on unity in counter-terrorism efforts "in the wake of increasing acts of terrorism and extremism across the continents". --IANS py/dg ( 351 Words) 2016-07-06-16:00:03 (IANS)
"BSF and Pakistan Rangers today (Wednesday) exchanged sweets and greeted one another at the Octroi Post on the international border in Jammu district on Eid," a BSF official told IANS here.
Eid-ul-Fitr is being celebrated on Wednesday in Pakistan as well as Jammu and Kashmir.
The festival will be celebrated on Thursday in the rest of India.
--IANS sq/tsb/vt
( 96 Words)
2016-07-06-18:24:02 (IANS)
Days after the deadly Dhaka cafe attack, a new video has surfaced on the internet of three Bangla-speaking men praising the gunmen who massacred 20 hostages in the Gulshan cafe and threatening more such attacks. The Islamic State video released on the Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE) intelligence site on Tuesday is said to have been shot in Raqqah, the so-called capital of the Islamic State in Syria, reports bdnews24.com. The message containing threats has gone viral on social media. "It was a glimpse ... will repeat," tweeted Rita Katz, Director of SITE intelligence, quoting the men from the video. The video begins with IS propaganda messages, with captions in Bangla, and boasts of death tolls from numerous terror attacks claimed by IS. It shows one man with his face covered, while two others were bearded. The jihad in Bangladesh, the one you are witnessing now, is nothing like anything you have seen before, said one of the IS militants from the video, in his message for the Bangladesh government. Many on Facebook have identified the first speaker based on facial resemblance, but the claims could not be verified. The IS militant then speaks in English, for the Christian and Jewish crusaders and their allies to tell that their leader, Sheikh Adnani, was not joking when he asked them to wage war. What you witnessed in Bangladesh yesterday was just a glimpse, this will repeat, repeat and repeat until you lose and we win ... the IS militant warned. Six gunmen of the July 1 Gulshan attack were shot dead by Bangladesh commandos while another was captured, ending a 12-hour siege of the upscale cafe. The morning raid led to freeing of 13 hostages, but 17 foreigners and three Bangladeshis were slaughtered by the gunmen. Bangladesh police have maintained that the militants were members of the banned Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). Three of the attackers were from affluent families and had studied in top schools and universities, while two others came from poor families in Bogra. --IANS ss/rn/dg ( 351 Words) 2016-07-06-19:34:01 (IANS)
Japan is among the top most natural disaster prone countries. The capital, Tokyo faces Tokyo Bay makes efforts on natural disaster preventions and has set up a protection center. On a daily basis, other than monitoring the tide level, in order to create protection from tsunamis or high tides when disaster happens, beginning with a floodgate, it monitors and operates the shore protection facilities. "It plays a very important role in protecting civilians' lives and properties. Also, since unpredictable disasters, such as tsunamis that are caused by earthquakes, do exist, we do our work with a sense of emergency," said Tokyo Metropolitan Government official. For Tokyo Bay the main strategy for high tides are coastal levees and floodgates. When a typhoon comes, shutting down the floodgate can prevent inward flooding from the gate. The operation of the floodgate is conducted remotely from the storm surge protection center. Since 2015, the operation system has been rebuilt, and multiple bases were added. Utilizing the past experiences for typhoon damages in Tokyo, the preparation plan is set for the earthquakes and tsunamis that are concerned after the Great East Japan Earthquake. In order to search for solid disaster prevention solutions, systematical training has been conducted. He further added that as a city with advanced disaster prevention solutions, we look forward to actively share the technologies that Tokyo has acquired over time with Asian countries. Farming is a practiced globally with different methods. The types of crops depend on the country or area. Along with various forms of cultivation, the soil conditions are all different. It has been 38 years since KUBOTA Corporation Co., Ltd. started producing and selling diesel engines for agriculture. From production and sales to service, the company has been contributing to the agricultural mechanization in Southeast Asian countries, starting with Thailand through localization that meets the needs to the specific area. "KUBOTA Corporation Co., Ltd. sees Thailand as the strategic center of the production of agricultural machines in Southeast Asia and has completed the one and only consistent production system as an agricultural machine maker that covers from basic parts such as engines to oil pressure parts, to the assembling of tractors or combines," said President Siam Kubota Corporation Co., Ltd., Hiroshi Kawakami. In many countries like Thailand there is still a lot of machinery relying on human labor. The products made in Thailand KUBOTA (SKC) are not only mainly exported to Thailand and other nearby ASEAN countries, but also to India and Africa. SKC has been playing the role of a supply center of agricultural machines for emerging countries. By running the new research and development center, the company look forward to be further rooted in the local community and to contribute to regional agriculture. "We at KUBOTA Corporation Co., Ltd. aim at contributing on elevating the agricultural productivities and qualities in emerging countries through product development and after service that fits local needs, supplying adequate agricultural machines and making suitable suggestions on solution," added Hiroshi Kawakami. Pursuing beauty is an eternal theme for women. Japanese cosmetic maker Shiseido Co. Ltd. has introduced an app called Oshiete beauco. The character Beauco gives directions on cosmetic techniques or advises searching for beauty products. NTT Communications, the pioneering firm in AI development, co-developed the app along with Shiseido Co. Ltd. This app is especially popular among female users in their 10s and 20s. Furthermore, users enjoy the friendly communications with AI not only for the cosmetic- related topics, such as makeup techniques for dating or for being attractive, but also the conversations on everyday episodes, etc. (ANI)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, in a series of posts on Twitter and Facebook, said that his five-day four-nation African tour starting from Thursday is aimed at enhancing ties between India and Africa. My Africa tour, aimed at enhancing ties between India & Africa will begin from Mozambique in a brief but key visit, Modi tweeted ahead of his first official visit to continental Africa. Apart from Mozambique, he will also visit South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya. Elaborating on Facebook, he said his visit to Mozambique was aimed at increasing bilateral cooperation and boosting cultural linkages. I will meet (Mozambican) President Filipe Nyusi and hold extensive talks with him, Modi stated. My other programmes include a meeting with Ms. Veronica Macamo, the President of the National Assembly and a visit to the S&T Park, Maluana where I will interact with students, he said, adding that he would interact with members of the Indian community as well. The Prime Minister said his programmes in South Africa, where he would be reaching on July 7 evening, would span across Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban and Pietermaritzburg. South Africa is an important strategic partner, with whom our ties are historical and deep-rooted, he stated. History is witness to how Mahatma Gandhis stay in South Africa impacted him and the history of the world. He went to South Africa as a lawyer seeking work and returned to India as a strong voice for humanitarian values, who would go on to shape the history of humankind. Modi said he would be visiting Gandhi's Phoenix Settlement and Pietermaritzburg railway station, two places very closely associated with Mahatma Gandhis stay in South Africa. A visit to South Africa is incomplete without remembering the beloved Madiba (Nelson Mandela). I will also be honoured to visit the Constitutional Hill and Nelson Mandela Foundation where I would pay my tributes to an icon of human history, who made his country and the world a much better place, he stated. Apart from South African President Jacob Zuma, the Prime Minister said he would also be meeting Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa. He said to boost economic ties, he would speak at an India-South Africa business meet. Other programmes, he said, include a meeting with the Alumni Network in Durban and a reception hosted by the Mayor of Durban at Durban City Hall. South Africa is home to a vibrant Indian community, that has made South Africa their home for years. I will interact with the Indian community at a programme in Johannesburg on 8th July, he stated. After completing his engagements in the twin cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria on July 8, Modi will travel to Durban on July 9. Durban is home to 800,000 of the 1.2 million Indian-origin people in South Africa. The Prime Minister, who would reach Tanzania on July 10, described that east African country as a valued friend. There will be extensive talks with President Dr. John Magufuli where we will chalk out the road ahead for bettering India-Tanzania relations in a wide range of areas, he said. I will also be meeting Solar Mamas, a group of rural women solar engineers from Africa who have been trained under GOI (Government of India)-supported programmes to fabricate, install, use, repair and maintain solar lanterns and household solar lighting systems in their villages. Modi will also interact with members of the Indian community in Tanzania, which numbers around 50,000. The Prime Minister, who will reach Nairobi on July 10 evening on the fourth and final leg of his visit, said that India-Kenya ties have stood the test of time. Both our nations have had very strong people-to-people ties and both nations have successfully fought colonialism in the previous century, he stated. He said his talks with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta would revolve around how India and Kenya could grow their bilateral cooperation. I envision better trade, commercial and cultural exchanges between India and Kenya. The potential is immense and together we seek to harness it, Modi said. He said he would offer floral tributes to a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, who is widely revered in Kenya. I shall also pay tributes to Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya and a towering political figure of Africa, he said There would also be a meeting of the India-Kenya business forum which, the Prime Minister said, would be an important forum to elaborate more on the economic aspect of our relationship with Kenya. A programme that I am keenly looking forward to join is an interaction with students at the Nairobi University, he said, adding that he would address a community programme on July 10. "There is also a meeting with Bharatwallah Alumni Association during the visit. Another programme is the handing over of ambulances and a model of Bhabhatro," Modi stated. --IANS ab/bg ( 813 Words) 2016-07-06-18:12:02 (IANS)
The recovery of weapons and ammunition strongly indicate that the hideout had been stocked to cater for militant operations in days to come, said Defence Spokesperson Lt Col Manish Mehta in a statement issued here.
The spokesperson said based on "hard" intelligence from a reliable source, a search operation for the militant hideout was launched by the army at around midnight on Monday in the general area of Ratta Chhamb Nar in Surankote Tehsil.
After sustained operations by the army search party, an underground hideout in the forested area of Ratta Chhamb Nar was found in the early hours on Tuesday. "Three AK-47, nine AK magazines, 270 rounds of 7.62 mm and six Chinese grenades were seized from the hideout." (ANI)
Hungary's Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter Szijjarto, who is on a three-day visit to India, met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj here today, during which both leaders expressed satisfaction at the increasing trade between the two countries. Sources said that the two Foreign Ministers had an in-depth exchange of views, during which Swaraj recalled Szijjarto's visit to Mumbai in May last year and Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban's visit to India in October 2013. She thanked Hungary for its support to India's membership of MTCR and NSG. Both sides agreed that the tradition of high level visits should be maintained and there should be more Parliamentary exchanges, said sources. Foreign Minister Szijjarto also mentioned the 60th anniversary of celebrations of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and said that it was planning to recognize the positive role played by India at that time. On the economic front, both sides expressed satisfaction at the increasing trade which had touched US$ 600 mn. Foreign Minister Szijjarto positively assessed Indian investment in Hungary which had reached US dollars 2 bn and was providing employment to more than 10,000 people. Currently, around 15 companies from India including Apollo Tyres, TCS, WIPRO, Mahindra Satyam, SMR Group and Sun Pharma were active in Hungary. EAM Swaraj said both countries should widen cooperation in IT education, innovation and Research & Development. The two ministers also discussed the prospects of India-EU BTIA (Broadbased Trade and Investment Agreement) in the wake of Brexit. Sources said that the two ministers also discussed cultural, educational and Science and Technology Cooperation. The EAM expressed appreciation for Hungary's cooperation in celebrating the first ever Ganga - Danube Cultural Festival and the second International Day of Yoga which was attended by Minister of State for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma. Government of Hungary has established a Hungarian Room at Tagore House in Kolkata and is prepared to set up an India Centre and Hindi teaching facility in the University of Budapest. A Joint India -Hungary Science and Technology Fund of Euro 2 million has been created to promote research in agriculture, pharma, nanotechnology and molecular biology. They also discussed defence cooperation and Hungary's participation in 'Make in India'. The two ministers also discussed multilateral issues including reform of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) (Hungary supports India as a permanent member in a reformed UNSC) and the election of the new Secretary General of the United Nations. They also exchanged views on the recent spate of terror attacks and the need for adoption of the CCIT. (ANI)
There were large Eid prayer congregations at Eidgah, Hazratbal, Polo Ground and other places in the summer capital Srinagar.
Similar assemblies were seen in Baramulla, Sopore, Ganderbal, Bandipora, Pulwama, Shopian, Kulgam, Anantnag and Shopian towns in the Kashmir Valley.
Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah joined the devotees for the Eid prayers at Hazratbal Shrine on the banks of the Dal Lake in Srinagar.
The biggest gathering in Jammu was at the Eidgah ground in Residency Road area where a good number of Hindus greeted the Muslims after the prayers.
Reports of large Eid congregations have also come in from Rajouri, Poonch and Doda towns of Jammu region.
While Eid prayers passed off peacefully in the Jammu region, clashes between police and stone-pelting youths occurred in the south Kashmir town of Anantnag and at Eidgah and Hyderpora areas of Srinagar.
As a precaution, authorities on Wednesday placed separatist leaders including Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik under house arrest in Srinagar.
Geelani had called for peaceful protests after the Eid prayers.
--IANS sq/mr
( 214 Words)
2016-07-06-12:52:00 (IANS)
State Government today entered into an agreement with Dongfan electronics, China to implement the smart rid project in Puducherry town area. Puducherry Electricity Department Superintendenting Engineer Madhivanan and Dongfang's representative Sriram Anumanghappalli signed the agreement in the presence of Power Minister Kamalakannan. A statement here said, Power Grid Corporation had approached the Puducherry administration in February 2012 for the implementation of the pioneer power Grid project for which the Union government would bear 50 percent of the expenses. The Corporation then agreed to share the 50 percent expenses of the Puducherry administration with the help of their associates and an agreement in this regard was signed in 2012. The Central government had given permission in 2013 for the implementation of the project in Puducherry at a cost of Rs.46.11 crore. However, in 2013, the Power Grid corporation had written to the Puducherry administration stating that it could not mobilize the said 50 percent expenses and to cancel the agreement signed earlier and also that the 50 percent expenses be borne by the Puducherry government.The Puducherry administration decided to implement the project and to appoint the Power Grid Corporation as the consultant and M/s Dongfang electronic Company, China as the contractor . Under this project 34,000 power consumers would be provided with smart meters at a cost of Rs. 43.91 crore. Steps would be taken to set up a control room with modern technologies and to include all the power consumers under the scheme in a phased manner, the statement said. Since, the Puducherry administration will have to bear an expense of Rs.23.05 crore, the approval of the Cabinet was essential and it was obtained and the agreement signed today, the statement added.UNI PAB CS 1447 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0434-822372.Xml
WARSAW, July 5 (Xinhua) -- Recently, under a loan provided by the Bank of China's Polish branch, China Everbright International Limited acquired Poland's biggest solid waste disposal company, Novago, for 123 million euros (137 million U.S. dollars).
The acquisition marks the largest sum of a single project in Poland by a Chinese enterprise.
The purchase was one of many made by Chinese banks in Poland to promote the "Belt and Road" initiative.
Poland, a crucial node in the "Belt and Road" initiative, due to its strategic location and good investment environment, has become a center of attention for many Chinese institutions and businesses. Numerous Chinese banks have opened branches in Poland, putting down roots in the Polish market, and providing financial support for Chinese enterprises.
Director of the Bank of China Polish branch, Xia Bin, told Xinhua that for Chinese banks in Poland, entering the mainstream local market and expanding the influence of brands is regarded as a core business development.
As the first Chinese bank officially opened in Poland, the Bank of China Polish branch has entered the Polish financial market, offering loans, trade financing, guarantees, deposit, and wealth management business for Chinese-Polish commercial circles, providing a comprehensive service both for financial and individual clients.
Since its opening in June 2012, the Bank of China Polish branch has already "won" a number of important projects in Poland, including providing 140 million euros of refinance credit support to the Capital Park Group, investor of the Eurocentrum Office Complex; involvement in a wind power loan project with Polish Energy Group POLENERGIA as one of the leading banks, and participation in the real estate credit project of Polish Blue City Group.
Xia said all of these enterprises cooperated with international banks and financing institutions. The fact that Polish branches of the Chinese bank can participate in these projects and ventures proves the Chinese banks have already entered the Polish market and gained the trust and approval of the local companies.
With the advance of the "Belt and Road" initiative, Chinese banks are seizing upon strategic opportunities, gradually putting roots down in the local market, and observing the accompanying increase in profits.
According to the data provided by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Poland branch, until May 2016, the total assets of the bank were 2.0 billion U.S. dollars. Since opening in December 2012, the accumulated after-tax profit reached 17.15 million dollars, and counting from the first full fiscal year in 2013, the assets reached an annual growth rate of more than 50 percent with an annual after-tax profit growth of 100 percent.
On one hand, the Chinese banks provide help to "Belt and Road" strategy implementation, promoting cooperation between Poland and China in the fields of resources, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, as well as production capacity.
On the other hand, they enhance the level of overseas financial advising services to help Chinese enterprises.
Bank of China's Poland branch also provided 260 million zlotys (about 65 million euros) for the core financing project of the China Three Gorges Corporation's holding company EDPR Group, supporting the group's investments in the Polish wind power sector.
Xia said Chinese banks should grasp the "Belt and , One Road" strategic opportunity and strive to build its financial artery, adhere to both local business and service aimed at the Chinese enterprises. Chinese banks should also fully bring into play the international, diversified, professional advantages, and further promote exchanges and cooperation between China and Poland.
by Justice Lee Adoboe
ACCRA, July 5 (Xinhua) -- More and more Chinese companies are willing to invest in Ghana due to peace and stability environment in Ghana, Chinese Ambassador to Ghana Sun Baohong has said.
"Chinese enterprises are generally interested in investing in Ghana because Ghana is a very peaceful country and it has a lot of advantages which attract Chinese investments. I think stability is one of the biggest dividends," she told the media during the recent China-Ghana Economic forum held here.
One major facet of the attractive investment climate in Ghana the ambassador said was the well educated labor force.
"In Ghana we have more than four to five hundred Chinese companies. More are coming. I know many Chinese companies are interested in Energy, manufacturing, agro-processing and real estate development," she said, adding that the Chinese government will continue to encourage more Chinese manufacturing firms to set up in Ghana.
China has become one of the major trading partners of Ghana with 2016 alone recording more than 6 billion dollars worth of trade volumes between the two countries.
Sun said the Chinese government will intensify dialogue with the Ghanaian government to provide more incentives in trade and investment for Chinese companies, as well as to identify some major projects that have long term influence on Ghana's development and the living conditions of the people.
The ambassador however urged the Ghanaian government to take steps to find solutions to some of the lingering difficulties in the investment environment.
"Land issue is always a headache for outside investors, because the land system is complicated. And also we wish the government can make some effort to streamline the procedure of approving investment to have some one stop office that can provide facilities to investors," Sun urged.
Tang Fuzang, General Manager for EraTruck Ghana Ltd, said the vibrant construction sector has been beneficial to EraTruck.
"I think in Ghana Heavy Duty Trucks is good. It is a good country, they have ports, they have mining. They have their agriculture and everything so many people come here to do business," Tang told Xinhua on the sides of the forum.
Shandong Wuzheng Group, manufacturers of trucks, tractors, tricycles and other agricultural machinery has been in Ghana for the past seven years, and seeks to put up a new plant at the Northern city of Tamale, 753 km north of the capital.
"Now we are planning to make assembling plant in Tamale. We want to reduce our cost of the machine and make sure every farmer can use the machine and enjoy the benefits brought by the machine," Xu Yanbing, Sales Manager of the company, told Xinhua.
Abdallah Abubakar, Northern Regional Minister acknowledged the role of the government of China and Chinese firms in Ghana's development history and introduced them to the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) zone.
The minister was hopeful that the Chinese firms would find it opportune to invest in the SADA zone. "Government and people in the SADA zone are looking forward to an enhanced cooperation and collaboration in various areas. We must make a conscious effort to build upon the outcomes of the forum so that these efforts do not go in vain," Abubakar said.
"We should also seek to widen the frontiers of our collaboration and cooperation for mutual benefits to the peoples of our two countries," the minister added.
BRUSSELS, July 5 (Xinhua) -- A Belgian court on Tuesday sentenced a group of terrorist suspects linked to last year's Paris terror attacks up to 16 years in jail.
The three main defendants of the trial, Marouane El Bali, Schofield El Abdi and Mohamed Arshad have been found guilty of belonging to the terrorist group Islamic State (IS) and were sentenced to 16 years in prison. The fourth, Omar Damache, was sentenced to eight years.
Prosecutors said the men standing trial had returned from fighting with IS in Syria and were in constant contact with the group through the leader of the Paris attacks Abdelhamid Abaaoud.
Abaaoud was killed in a November raid in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis.
Pierre Hendrickx, the judge in the case, said the cell had intended to target Zaventem airport in Brussels as early as 2015. The airport ended up being one of the targets of the March 22, 2016 attacks in Belgium.
The terrorist cell was dismantled by police during a raid on Jan. 15, 2015 in Verviers, an eastern Belgian town close to German borders. A total of 16 suspects were charged in connection with the raid, but nine remain at large.
During the operation, police found "ingredients" to manufacture 6 kg of explosives.
DAMASCUS, July 5 (Xinhua) -- A booby trapped motorcycle went off near a bakery store in Syria's northeastern province of al-Hasakah on Tuesday, killing 16 and wounding tens of others, a monitor group reported.
The blast hit near a bakery in the Salhiyeh neighborhood and left many wounded people in critical conditions, said the report.
Meanwhile, state news agency SANA reported the blast, placing the death toll at 10.
Al-Hasakah has witnessed several deadly bombings throughout the country's five-year-old conflict with the Islamic State (IS) group claiming responsibility.
Much of that province is under the control of the Kurdish People Protection Units (YPG), which is engaged in battles against the IS on several fronts in northern Syria.
TORONTO, July 5 (Xinhua) -- Canada's main stock market in Toronto inched lower Tuesday as crude oil prices tumbled further as investors worried that Britain's exit from the European Union would slow the global economy.
The Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index lost 39.30 point, or 0.28 percent, to close at 14,219.57 points. Six of the TSX index's eight main sub-sectors were lower.
Oil prices were down nearly 5 percent as a potential economic slowdown weighed on prospects of global demand amid the uncertainty surrounding the so-called Brexit.
The West Texas Intermediate for August delivery dropped 2.39 U.S. dollar to settle at 46.60 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for September delivery plunged 2.14 dollar to close at 47.96 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.
Equities in Toronto fell on Tuesday as energy companies followed oil prices lower, with a return of global investor jitters prompting some gains for yield-paying telecom stocks and gold miners.
Telecom companies retreated, with the country's three largest operators among the most influential gainers as investors sought out relatively stable stocks offering decent dividend yields.
TELUS Corporation gained 1.87 percent to 42.93 Canadian dollars (32.98 U.S. dollars), BCE Inc. rose 0.87 percent to 61.73 Canadian dollars, and Rogers Communications Inc. advanced 1.14 percent to 53.10 Canadian dollars.
But the TSX index fell as the heavyweight energy group retreated 1.06 percent, as Baytex Energy Corp. dropped 4.17 percent to 7.35 Canadian dollars.
The materials group, which includes precious and base metals miners and fertilizer companies, also lost ground with a 2.56 percent decline.
Gran Colombia Gold Corp. gained jumped 11.54 percent to 0.145 Canadian dollar and Kinross Gold added 5.91 percent to 7.35 Canadian dollars, even as bullion slipped from a two-year high.
First Quantum Minerals fell 4.66 percent to 9.41 Canadian dollars, Teck Resources declined 2.42 percent to 17.32 Canadian dollars, and Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc. lost 3.26 percent to 21.09 Canadian dollars.
South of the border, U.S government bond yields reached record lows as investors found refuge in the perceived safety of Treasuries and worries from Britain's vote to exit the EU.
Brexit worries also hit Britain's property market and drove the pound to a 31-year low.
Data from China showed that the country's services sector activity rose to an 11-month high in June, but a composite measure of activity including manufacturing fell to its lowest in four months.
The Canadian dollar traded lower at 0.7683 U.S. dollar, compared with Monday's closing rate of 0.7778 U.S. dollar. Enditem
LOS ANGELES, May 6, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gestures as she campaigns at East Los Angeles College in Los Angeles, the United States, May 5, 2016. (Xinhua file photo/Zhao Hanrong)
CHARLOTTE, the United States, July 5 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday showered praise on Hillary Clinton's judgement and toughness hours after FBI Director James Comey blasted the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for being "extremely careless" in handling classified information.
"I'm here today because I believe in Hillary Clinton," said Obama during his 2016 debut on the campaign trail at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina. "There has never been a man or woman more qualified for this office than Hillary Clinton. Ever. And that's the truth."
Speaking to a roaring crowd of Clinton supporters, Obama reminded them and TV viewers across the country of his bitter experience of competing against the strong-minded former first lady in the 2008 primary season and of Clinton's "grace and the energy with which she threw herself into my campaign."
"I came away from that primary admiring her even more, because during that year and a half, I had a chance to see up close just how smart she was and just how prepared she was," said Obama who hailed Hillary in first joint campaign appearance.
While slamming Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, for his "tough talk" and "phony bluster", Obama lauded Clinton's past record as his top diplomat as evidence of her exceptional judgement and toughness.
"My faith in Hillary Clinton has always been rewarded. I have had a front-row seat to her judgement and her toughness and her commitment to diplomacy. And I witnessed it in the Situation Room where she argued in favor of the mission to get Bin Laden," said Obama.
Obama's praise of Clinton's judgement came just hours after FBI chief Comey criticized her for her private email setup during her stint at the State Department, describing her and her senior aides as being "extremely careless" in handling sensitive information.
Comey said federal investigators found that 110 emails in 52 email chains had contained classified information at the time they were sent or received and that eight of those 52 chains "contained information that was top secret" when they were sent.
Apart from the approximately 30,000 work-related emails Clinton turned over to the State Department in 2014, investigators later discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not among the group of 30,000 e-mails, Comey told a press conference in Washington, D.C.
"With respect to the thousands of e-mails we found that were not among those produced to the State Department, agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received; one at the secret level and two at the confidential level," he said.
However, the FBI would not recommend criminal charges against Clinton for her use of a private email server as secretary of state, said Comey, adding that here was no clear evidence that Clinton and her aides intended to violate the law.
The FBI's recommendation on Tuesday immediately drew criticism from Republicans, with House Speaker Paul Ryan questioning whether "damage is being done to the rule of law" in the case.
"No one should be above the law," said Ryan in a statement. "Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent."
Meanwhile, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Tuesday said in a statement that the FBI decision was rigged.
"This is grossly negligent conduct on the part of Hillary Clinton and her aides, but as the Obama Administration has repeatedly shown throughout this process, they were never going to prosecute Clinton's criminal behavior because they are counting on her to deliver their failed agenda a third term," said the statement.
Comey has in the first place defended the FBI investigation as being done "honestly, competently and independently."
"I know there were many opinions from people who were not part of the investigation, including people in government. But none of that mattered to us," said Comey. "No outside influences of any kind was brought to bear."
Early this year, U.S. President Barack Obama weighed in on Clinton's intent of using a private email setup during her stint at the State Department.
He told Fox News in an interview that he believed that Clinton did not intentionally endanger national security in her handling of classified information.
The remarks immediately raised concerns that the federal investigators could be swayed by the president's view on the issue.
The FBI announcement also came a week after former U.S. President Bill Clinton had a private meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
The 30-minute meeting on June 27 at the Phoenix International Airport in Arizona, which Lynch described as primarily social, raised concerns about a potential conflict of interests.
According to ABC News who first disclosed the meeting, Mr. Clinton waited for Lynch's arrival after being notified that she would be arriving at the same airport. Mr. Clinton approached Lynch and initiated the unplanned chat.
Speaking on Friday at Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado, Lynch indicated her regrets about not having turned down the former president.
She also announced that she "fully" expected herself to accept recommendation by FBI investigators on whether to bring charges related to Hillary Clinton's personal email setup.
Lynch said her decision to accept FBI recommendation was made long before her impromptu chat with Mr. Clinton.
Related:
Spotlight: FBI director recommends no charges against Hillary Clinton in email probe
WASHINGTON, July 5 (Xinhua) -- U.S. FBI Director James Comey said on Tuesday his agency would not recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server as secretary of state but called Clinton and her team "extremely careless" in handling sensitive information.
U.S. President Barack Obama waves with Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during a Clinton campaign event in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S., July 5, 2016. (REUTERS/Brian Snyder - TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY )
CHARLOTTE, the United States, July 5 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday showered praise on Hillary Clinton's judgement and toughness hours after FBI Director James Comey blasted the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for being "extremely careless" in handling classified information.
"I'm here today because I believe in Hillary Clinton," said Obama during his 2016 debut on the campaign trail at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina. "There has never been a man or woman more qualified for this office than Hillary Clinton. Ever. And that's the truth."
Speaking to a roaring crowd of Clinton supporters, Obama reminded them and TV viewers across the country of his bitter experience of competing against the strong-minded former first lady in the 2008 primary season and of Clinton's "grace and the energy with which she threw herself into my campaign."
"I came away from that primary admiring her even more, because during that year and a half, I had a chance to see up close just how smart she was and just how prepared she was," said Obama who hailed Hillary in first joint campaign appearance.
While slamming Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, for his "tough talk" and "phony bluster", Obama lauded Clinton's past record as his top diplomat as evidence of her exceptional judgement and toughness.
"My faith in Hillary Clinton has always been rewarded. I have had a front-row seat to her judgement and her toughness and her commitment to diplomacy. And I witnessed it in the Situation Room where she argued in favor of the mission to get Bin Laden," said Obama.
Obama's praise of Clinton's judgement came just hours after FBI chief Comey criticized her for her private email setup during her stint at the State Department, describing her and her senior aides as being "extremely careless" in handling sensitive information.
US President Barack Obama bids farewell to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on the tarmac in Charlotte, North Carolina, on July 5, 2016. Obama threw his full weight behind Hillary Clinton's bid to succeed him, extolling the experience and fighting spirit of his former secretary of state at their first joint campaign appearance. ( AFP PHOTO / NICHOLAS KAMM)
Comey said federal investigators found that 110 emails in 52 email chains had contained classified information at the time they were sent or received and that eight of those 52 chains "contained information that was top secret" when they were sent.
Apart from the approximately 30,000 work-related emails Clinton turned over to the State Department in 2014, investigators later discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not among the group of 30,000 e-mails, Comey told a press conference in Washington, D.C.
"With respect to the thousands of e-mails we found that were not among those produced to the State Department, agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received; one at the secret level and two at the confidential level," he said.
However, the FBI would not recommend criminal charges against Clinton for her use of a private email server as secretary of state, said Comey, adding that here was no clear evidence that Clinton and her aides intended to violate the law.
The FBI's recommendation on Tuesday immediately drew criticism from Republicans, with House Speaker Paul Ryan questioning whether "damage is being done to the rule of law" in the case.
"No one should be above the law," said Ryan in a statement. "Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent."
Meanwhile, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Tuesday said in a statement that the FBI decision was rigged.
"This is grossly negligent conduct on the part of Hillary Clinton and her aides, but as the Obama Administration has repeatedly shown throughout this process, they were never going to prosecute Clinton's criminal behavior because they are counting on her to deliver their failed agenda a third term," said the statement.
Comey has in the first place defended the FBI investigation as being done "honestly, competently and independently."
"I know there were many opinions from people who were not part of the investigation, including people in government. But none of that mattered to us," said Comey. "No outside influences of any kind was brought to bear."
Early this year, U.S. President Barack Obama weighed in on Clinton's intent of using a private email setup during her stint at the State Department.
He told Fox News in an interview that he believed that Clinton did not intentionally endanger national security in her handling of classified information.
The remarks immediately raised concerns that the federal investigators could be swayed by the president's view on the issue.
The FBI announcement also came a week after former U.S. President Bill Clinton had a private meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
The 30-minute meeting on June 27 at the Phoenix International Airport in Arizona, which Lynch described as primarily social, raised concerns about a potential conflict of interests.
According to ABC News who first disclosed the meeting, Mr. Clinton waited for Lynch's arrival after being notified that she would be arriving at the same airport. Mr. Clinton approached Lynch and initiated the unplanned chat.
Speaking on Friday at Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado, Lynch indicated her regrets about not having turned down the former president.
She also announced that she "fully" expected herself to accept recommendation by FBI investigators on whether to bring charges related to Hillary Clinton's personal email setup.
Lynch said her decision to accept FBI recommendation was made long before her impromptu chat with Mr. Clinton.
WASHINGTON, July 6, 2016 - In a landmark step for agricultural biotechnology, the Senate advanced a compromise on GMO disclosure that will preempt state labeling mandates and allow digital disclosure of genetically engineered ingredients.
The Senate voted 65-32 on Wednesday to limit debate on the legislation. Eighteen Democrats supported the cloture motion, which required 60 votes to be approved. Five Republicans voted against it.
A final vote, which will require just a simple majority, is expected Thursday evening, which would send the legislation to the House for final approval.
This clears the pathway for a final vote on passage, and I remain optimistic sound science and affordable food will prevail, said Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan. "Both farmers and consumers deserve this certainty.
The vote was interrupted briefly by several protesters in the gallery who threw money onto the Senate floor and shouted slogans such as Stop taking Monsanto money! One protester singled out the ranking Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. Senate pages quickly cleared the floor of the money.
Vermonts first-in-the-nation GMO labeling requirements took effect July 1, and there is little time for the House to consider the measure before both chambers break at the end of next week for the national party conventions and then their annual August recess. Congress wont return to work until September.
We hope that once the Senate takes a final vote on the measure that the House will take it up and pass it -- and that the president will sign itbefore Congress goes into recess for the party conventions, said Chuck Conner, president of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives.
In a last-minute boost for the bill just ahead of Wednesdays vote, the United Food and Commercial Workers sent a letter to Senate leaders in support of the legislation. By creating a national standard for GMO labeling, we can avoid a patchwork of different state labeling requirements and also give consumers additional information at the grocery store, the union wrote.
But opponents of the legislation, citing the Food and Drug Administrations technical comments on the bill, argued that it contained loopholes that would exempt many ingredients, including oils and sugar, as well as new techniques for genetic engineering. The critics also said that the digital disclosure would be inadequate.
This bill should be titled the consumers' right not-to-know, complained Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.
Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley disputed claims by the Agriculture Departments general counsel, outlined in a letter to Stabenow, that the legislation would give USDA authority to cover techniques such as gene editing and include highly refined ingredients in the disclosure standard.
USDA is not an impartial actor, Merkley said in what was an unusual allegation to make about an agency run by the lawmakers own party.
Merkley said the department had been a major proponent of digital disclosure. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has long supported the industrys plans to provide information about ingredients through QR codes that can be read by smartphones.
Stabenow told reporters before Wednesdays cloture vote that some of the bills opponents could never be won over. The folks that are opposed to our technology and the use of genetically modified ingredients wont be satisfied, she said. I respect their opinion. Its just different than mine around the science of biotechnology.
The 17 Democrats who joined her in supporting the cloture motion were: Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Michael Bennet of Colorado, Tom Carper of Delaware, Robert Casey of Pennsylvania, Chris Coons of Delaware, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Dianne Feinstein of California, Al Franken of Minnesota, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Gary Peters of Michigan, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Mark Warner of Virginia.
The margin might have been larger if three senators had not missed the vote. Roberts said he thought at least two of them would have voted for cloture. All three of those senators - Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Lindsay Graham, R-S.C.; and Mike Lee, R-Utah - had supported a procedural motion June 29 to move to the GMO bill.
For food and agriculture groups, Wednesdays outcome came as a relief after months of uncertainty about the Vermont labeling law and the prospects for federal preemption.
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We are thankful for the tremendous showing of bipartisan support that has lined up behind this bill and we are hopeful that it will clear the Senate later this week, said Pamela Bailey, president and CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association. We saw over the weekend that the negative impacts of Vermonts law are already hitting consumers and small businesses, with shoppers in Vermont seeing fewer options on the shelves.
Richard Wilkins, president of the American Soybean Association, said the bill would provide consumers the information about biotech content in food products that they need without stigmatizing a completely safe and sustainable food technology.
Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation, said, We are now a major step closer to ending the confusion that has already arisen because of the Vermont law.
#30
QUITO, July 5 (Xinhua) -- Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa said Tuesday that his country is seeking funds from Asia for the building of an oil refinery.
An Ecuadoran delegation is touring South Korea, China and India for funds for the mega project, Correa told reporters.
Asian countries are interested in this refinery because they lack energy while countries such as Ecuador are short of funds, said Correa, suggesting that a long-term partnership will benefit both.
The president expressed confidence that construction of the project in the western Manabi province would start by the end of his term in May 2017, saying the project is long overdue.
The refinery, which is estimated to cost 13 billion U.S. dollars, has a designed capacity of 300,000 barrels of crude a day.
NAY PYI TAW, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's Preparatory Committee for Holding the 21st Century Panglong Ethnic Conference has outlined the policy guidelines for the peace process, according to U Zaw Htay, spokesman of the President's Office on Wednesday.
The policy guidelines include allowing non-signatory groups to the Nationwide Ceasefire Accord (NCA) to join the Panglong Conference, relaxation of restriction on inviting political parties that do not hold a parliamentary seat to the conference and functions of the National Reconciliation and Peace Center (NRPC) in dealing with international donors and their assistance to the peace process.
Talks remain to be held with three groups of 21 ethnic armed organizations regarding the new government's peace policy, said Chairman of the Preparatory Committee Dr. Tin Myo Win.
At Tuesday's meeting of the preparatory committee in Nay Pyi Taw, State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi called for inclusion of key figures of armed groups in the upcoming Panglong Conference.
Reconciliation is not only to be made between the government and the armed groups but also between the government and ethnic nationalities, she stressed.
According to U Hla Maung Shwe, secretary of the preparatory committee, a meeting between the state counselor and non-signatory armed groups, represented by the United Nationalities Federal Council's(UNFC) Delegation for Political Negotiation(DPN), is to be held in Yangon later this month and the 21st Century Panglong Ethnic Conference by the last week of August.
Myanmar's former government and eight ethnic armed groups out of 15 signed the NCA on Oct. 15, 2015.
NEW TAIPEI, July 6, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Photo taken on July 6, 2016 shows the site of a fire in New Taipei City, southeast China's Taiwan. At least three were killed and dozens were injured after an elders care center caught fire in Taiwan early Wednesday. The fire broke out at about 7 a.m. on the eighth floor of a building in Xindian District, New Taipei City, trapping about 40 people in the center. Fire fighters put out the blaze in 40 minutes. (Xinhua)
TAIPEI, July 6 (Xinhua) -- At least three were killed and dozens were injured after an elders care center caught fire in Taiwan early Wednesday, said rescuers.
The fire broke out at about 7 a.m. on the eighth floor of a building in Xindian District, New Taipei City, trapping about 40 people in the center.Fire fighters put out the blaze in 40 minutes.
Three were killed. Thirty others, including four in critical condition, have been rushed to hospitals.
The cause of the fire is currently unclear.
MELBOURNE, July 2, 2016 (Xinhua) -- A voter lines to cast his vote at the Moonee Ponds West Public School polling station in Melbourne, Australia, July 2, 2016, on Australia's federal election day. (Xinhua/Bai Xue)
By Matt Walsh
CANBERRA, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Australia's incumbent coalition government still has a chance to secure a majority in Parliament, leading political analysts have said on Wednesday, after it managed to secure three of the seats that were previously "on a knife's edge."
The vote count for Australia's federal election has entered its fifth day, after the result was deemed "too close to call" and a hung Parliament was touted as the most likely result, but according to one of the nation's most respected political analysts, Antony Green, there is still a chance the Liberal-National Party coalition could secure a majority government.
He said while a hung Parliament -- where no major party wins enough seats to govern in its own right -- was the likely result, a majority for the coalition was still "possible."
According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the coalition is set secure at least 73 seats, only three short of the 76 required to form a majority government.
"I think they can get to 76 (seats)," Green told the ABC, which would hand the coalition the slimmest majority.
"Seventy-three is a definite, 74 is also likely, 75 is possible, 76 is less possible."
Members of the coalition remain confident of retaining power on Wednesday. Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said a number of pre-poll and postal voted were yet to be counted in disputed seats.
Joyce said the coalition had traditionally polled strongly with the long-distance voters.
"We still have postal votes to come in, we look at the trend of the postal votes, we look at how many votes we are behind and if the trend stays consistent we make the analysis that we'll end up in front, and I think we will, so that basically means we're at 76," Joyce told the Nine Network on Wednesday.
But Green tempered the deputy PM's claims, and said if a majority was to be clinched, it would be "very narrow", and there would be no absolute majority.
"It's still either a very, very narrow coalition majority or hung parliament. The coalition will have more seats than Labor," Green said.
If the coalition is unable to secure the 76 seats needed for a majority, Labor still might be able to secure a minority government, should the Independent MPs choose to side with Opposition Leader in the case of a hung Parliament.
Joyce, a member of the National Party -- the junior member of the coalition -- said he expects a "complete policy rethink by the coalition" after the "aloof" election campaign, and said he expects the Nationals to play a bigger role in the government, after it increased the number of seats it won.
Despite Joyce's claims, Treasurer Scott Morrison said the coalition would be going ahead with its current plan, particularly if they win a majority of seats to form a government. The Treasurer told reporters on Wednesday the coalition was "on track" to secure the 76 seats required.
"We will go forward with our legislation plan for the budget, certainly if we return as a majority government and we are still on track to form those 76 seats that would be needed to form a majority government," Morrison.
Meanwhile, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has come under fire after claims that ballot papers were left improperly stored for the "knife's edge" Western Australian seat of Cowan.
AEC spokesperson Phil Diak dismissed the claims on Wednesday, and assured voters the ballot papers were "always within the AEC's keeping."
"I've been advised that those votes were always within the AEC's keeping, they were in the secure containers," Diak told Sky News.
"We do, as part of our administrative surrounding that we have, forms where we record the numbers of the seals that are on those boxes. That sheet was in a different place, it was with the officer in charge rather than the transfer but always within the keeping of the AEC."
Australians voted on Saturday, however, a result to determine government may not be known until later this week.
This photo taken on Dec. 11, 2015 shows uniquely beautiful winter scenery of the Zhaoshu Island in the South China Sea. (Xinhua file photo/Zhao Yingquan)
by Xinhua writer Xiong Ping
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Since Japan took over the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council on July 1, it has been relentless in voicing concern over the South China Sea.
Koro Bessho, Japan's new ambassador to the UN, said he would put the issue on the agenda of the 15-member council if there is a request from its members. Instead of trying to solve more urgent matters, Koro is using the Security Council to try and embarrass China.
In recent years, Japan has been trying to fool the international community and serve its own agenda by portraying China as a threat.
The latest show was staged in May when Japan, as the host of the Group of Seven (G7) summit, unnecessarily raised concerns of "maritime security" in the South China Sea.
Japanese media have reported that Japan has pressed the G7 to issue a joint statement on the South China Sea arbitration case, which was unilaterally initiated by the Philippines. China has refused to participate and will not recognize the arbitral tribunal's award, expected to be issued on July 12.
Furthermore, Japanese Ambassador to Cambodia Yuji Kumamaru reportedly mounted pressure on the Cambodian government to oppose China's claims in the South China Sea by threatening to halt the much needed aid to the country.
Japan's behavior at the UN and elsewhere could only backfire. Not only does it hurt the solemnity and authority of the Security Council, but it also violates the principles of the UN Charter.
The UN Charter is aimed at maintaining international peace and security and promoting international cooperation. Instead, Japan seems more interested in inciting other Security Council members to focus on the South China Sea and create hostility toward China.
Japan is tapping various diplomatic arenas to shame China, and its actions reflect badly on the world's third largest economy. It should quit making trouble on the international stage and behave more responsibly.
Related:
China reaffirms adherence to peaceful settlement of South China Sea disputes
BEIJING, July 5 (Xinhua) -- China on Tuesday reaffirmed its adherence to dialogue and consultation in settling the South China Sea issue.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei made the remarks at a routine press briefing in response to a question on whether a military confrontation is possible in the South China Sea. Full Story
Commentary: U.S. needs to readjust attitude regarding South China Sea issue
BEIJING, July 5 (Xinhua) -- The South China Sea used to be a peaceful region before the United States poked its nose into the area. Instead of its "Rebalance to the Asia-Pacific" strategy, what the United States really needs is to "rebalance" its attitude toward the issue.
KASHGAR, Xinjiang, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Chen Liang has decided to have a lamb slaughtered and treat his guests to some delicious meat for Eid al-Fitr, the festival marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan on Wednesday.
Chen has operated a youth hostel for eight years in Kashgar, a city with a high concentration of Muslims in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Last year, he had three pots set up in the hostel yard to boil the lamb. "Our guests are very interested in the festival and Uygur culture," he said.
Muslims do not eat or drink from dawn to dusk during Ramadan. They look forward to a feast on Eid al-Fitr.
Chen's guests are not all Muslims, but a varied bunch of travelers hungry for a taste of local culture at this special time of year. Chen describes his hostel as the "United Nations," as the guests, mostly tourists, are from around the world.
"Many of them are Europeans and Americans teaching English in Xinjiang, and some of them are from Central Asia," he said.
Kashgar, meaning "the gathering place of jade" in Uygur, used to be a trading hub along the Silk Road, the 7,000-km-long pathway created by camel-driving merchants who carried silk and porcelain to Western Europe and spices to the Far East 2,000 years ago.
As time has passed, historic sites and the integration of Eastern and Western cultures have attracted numerous tourists to the city. The old Kashgar town, composed of traditional streets featuring Uygur architecture and shops, has become a big draw.
"Kashgar is different from the rest of China. It is safe here, not like what I have heard before I came here," said Angela Perry, a backpacker from California.
Perry quit her job half a year ago to tour the world. Kashgar is her first stop in Xinjiang. She likes the people here, as well as the food, such as naan, a kind of flatbread.
"Naan is a bit like pizza, you can eat it with anything really," she said.
Giorgia Franco, from Italy, enjoyed wandering among the terraced houses most during her two-day stay in the city.
"The seemingly orderless household cluster is actually well designed," she said, observing that houses built with rectangular bricks indicate a dead end while sticking to those built with hexagonal bricks will lead you out of the maze.
Franco, 24, is learning Chinese at Xiamen University. Although she spent two years learning Chinese at a Confucius School back in Italy, she found herself unable to communicate with people in Xinjiang.
"We can't understand each other, but I can feel their kindness from their eyes and smiles," she said.
While the backpackers are gaining valuable life experience from traveling, local youth hostel owners are doing much the same, through interacting with their guests.
Ma Like, from Xinjiang's neighboring Gansu Province, does not make profit out of his hostel as he offers free accommodation to backpackers in return for doing odd jobs. The 37-year-old likes the deal.
"By making friends with them, I can learn about a life I am not able to experience myself," he said.
TOKYO, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Tokyo shares fell Wednesday morning, with the Nikkei index down over 3 percent for a moment, as market confidence was discouraged by the stronger yen as well as the renewed concerns over Britain's decision to exit the European Union.
The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average shed 463.03 points, or 2.96 percent, from Tuesday to 15,206.30.
The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange was down 35.78 points, or 2.85 percent, to 1,220.86.
Notable decliners included financials, rubber products and security issues.
SYDNEY, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The body of an Australian man who was killed while battling Islamic State militants in northern Syria will be returned to Australia for burial more than a month after he died.
Former Australian army engineer Jamie Bright, 44, was killed in late May after more than 18 months fighting alongside Kurdish militants against IS.
Sighting social media posts supporting the Kurdish campaign, local media reported on Wednesday the man's coffin has been adorned with flowers and flags and will be returned to the man's home city of Perth in Western Australia. The posts included a photos of his comrades lined up behind the coffin in a mark of respect.
"The body of freedom fighter Jamie Bright is expected to be back in Australia by the end of this week," the Queensland state-based Harding family, who's son Reece also died fighting IS militants alongside Kurdish forces, said in a statement posted on social media.
"His body (was) transferred from Rojava (north Syria) to Iraqi Kurdistan on (the) 5th of July."
The Australian government maintains Australians should not seek to join foreign conflicts, instilling hash penalties for members who join either side of the conflict.
Before his death, Bright defended his actions saying he wanted to help the Kurdish people in "any way I can".
MELBOURNE, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The Australian state of Tasmania will proceed with ground-breaking legislation to establish a tobacco-free generation, after receiving approval from the parliamentary committee who were investigating the new law.
The Tasmanian legislative body, which was formed to inquire into the Public Health Amendment (Tobacco Free Generation) Bill 2014, released its final report on Wednesday and found there were no legal reasons why Tasmania couldn't forge ahead with its pioneering legislation.
The Bill would result in a law banning tobacco sales to people born after January 1, 2000. This means the generation of Tasmanians aged 16 and under will not have legal access to tobacco products.
And despite the report highlighting risks such as potential legal action by tobacco manufacturers, age discrimination and accidental breaches by tourists, the committee gave Tasmania a green light for its proposal to establish Australia's, and the world's, first smoke-free generation.
"Although there are a range of issues that have been identified by the committee in relation to the bill ... there does not appear to be any significant legal impediment to the operation of the bill," committee chairman Craig Farrell wrote in the report on Wednesday.
Professor E Haydn Walters and PhD student, Kathryn Barnsley, from the University of Tasmania, published an article in 2015 on the tobacco-free generation in the Medical Journal of Australia, where they believed The Tasmanian Public Health Amendment Bill would be vital to improving the health in Tasmania.
"Tasmania's smoking rates are considerably higher than the national figures, reflecting the state's low socioeconomic status and historic lack of investment in evidence-based tobacco control strategies," Walters and Barnsley wrote in the Medical Journal of Australia article.
"Currently in Tasmania around 40% of younger men smoke. Male smoking rates have not fallen significantly for 10 years, and are 50% greater than nationally, " they wrote in 2015.
According to the report, the notion of a Tobacco Free Generation has gained further international support with Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, approving the legislation.
SUVA, July 6 (Xinhua) -- New major opposition party leader Sitiveni Rabuka poses no threat to the ruling FijiFirst party, Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has said.
Bainimarama said outside parliament earlier this week that Rabuka is not a member of parliament but just a leader of a political party, leading local newspaper Fiji Sun reported Wednesday.
The prime minister was responding to a statement made by two opposition MPs in parliament challenging both party leaders to a public debate.
"Who is Rabuka? He is just a leader of a party; to me he is nothing but probably when he stands for elections then maybe that will be opportune time for him to come and have a debate with me," Bainimarama said.
Rabuka, leader of Fiji's 1987 coups and Fiji's former prime minister, was chosen last month as the party leader for the Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA).
Rabuka was elected as prime minister in 1992, serving as head of government until 1999.
UNITED NATIONS, July 5 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Tuesday "strongly deplored the heinous and cowardly terrorist attacks" in three cities of Saudi Arabia on Monday.
"The members of the Security Council stressed the need to take measures to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism, terrorist organizations and individual terrorists," said the council in a press statement.
"They stressed that those responsible for these killings should be held accountable, and urged all states ... to cooperate actively with all relevant authorities in this regard."
The attack near Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (The Mosque of the Prophet), one of the holiest sites in Islam located in Medina, is the most serious one, leaving at least four people dead and five others injured. The Islamic State extremist group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Attacks also occurred in Qadif and Jeddah.
Earlier Tuesday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks in Saudi Arabia, which were carried out as people were preparing for Eid al-Fitr celebrations to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
MALE, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Maldives President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom on Tuesday night said he would go ahead with the implementation of the deal penalty, the president's office announced.
He made the announcement hours after his Foreign Minister Dunya Maumoon decided to resign over the stand taken by the president.
During an address to the nation to mark Eid ul-Fitr celebrated by the Muslims, which falls on Wednesday, the president said that his administration had seen three vice presidents and as many defence ministers as well as several changes in cabinet positions.
He said that the ruling Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM) was the largest political movement in the nation and that this was a time for the party to come together, rather than slide back to the uncertainty of four years ago, and to deliver on meaningful change for the nation to move forward through clear dialogue and mutual counsel.
Speaking on the implementation of the death penalty, the president said that while he moved forward with a heavy heart and with scrutiny from the international community, he was steadfast in his belief that it served the greater good for the safety and protection of society.
He added that the country was facing added international scrutiny because of leaders of political parties being sentenced by the courts, and that while the administration cannot and should not influence the judiciary, that justice should not elude those with higher influence.
Acknowledging that it was the duty of every leader to bring happiness and progress to the people, the president stated that his intention of taking office was not to challenge other leaders but to face and deliver on the challenges to the nation.
UNITED NATIONS, July 5 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Tuesday strongly deplored "the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack" in Baghdad, which left at least 250 people dead and 225 others injured.
"The members of the Security Council underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice," said the 15-nation UN body in a press statement.
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack in a crowded shopping district in Baghdad, the deadliest in Iraq in months.
On Sunday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the terrorist attack in Baghdad, calling on the Iraqi government to ensure that "the perpetrators of this horrific crime are brought to justice as soon as possible."
WELLINGTON, July 6 (Xinhua) -- A pair of bamboo umbrellas drew public attentions in Wellington, along with series of Chinese products of creative design, during the "Beautiful Zhejiang Cultural Festival" held in New Zealand Portrait Gallery on Wednesday.
With the theme of "Integration", the exhibition brought products of daily life created by young designers from Chinese Zhejiang Province, aiming to represent oriental aesthetics and the beauty of crafts design.
Jianguo Yu, the curator of the exhibition, told Xinhua that they try to bring creative ideas with simple designs to kiwis. The exhibition, which displayed in many countries before, includes some international award winning designs. It will showcase contemporary Chinese art designing, as well as to bring Chinese creative products into the international scene and be appreciated worldwide.
The Chinese Ambassador to New Zealand Wang Lutong said that all the products in the exhibition designed and made by very young and talented artists from Zhejiang Province with natural materials. It is a part of the cooperation on creative industries between New Zealand and China.
"In the world of technology, creation still matters. It gives us the inspirations and holds a unique place in our heart. Arts, culture and creative industries are also important to our commons and business, therefore it is vital to our wellbeing," said Wang.
As a fan of Chinese art, Wellington mayor Celia Wade-Brown sees Chinese calligraphy and traditional painting as "something frozen in time." She said that the creative products of Chinese art in the exhibition are examples of craft, technology and beauty of "today's life".
"I think this exhibition, in particular, brings an understanding of contemporary Chinese art design. We often see many beautiful landscape paintings, lovely calligraphy scrolls. Today's exhibition is something quite different for Wellington people," said Wade-Brown.
The exhibition is organized by Zhejiang Provincial Department of Culture, Chinese Cultural Center in New Zealand and Wellington City Council. Zhejiang and Wellington city entered into a strategic economic partnership in 2012.
HANOI, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Imported steel from China has accounted for some 60 percent of Vietnam's total imported steel so far in 2016, according to Vietnam Steel Association (VSA) on Wednesday.
Statistics by VSA showed that, so far this year, Vietnam imported over 9.6 million tons of all kinds of steel worth around 3.42 billion U.S. dollars.
The figures post a year-on-year increase of 48 percent in volume and 1 percent in value, local Vietnam Economic Times quoted the VSA as saying.
VSA vice chairman Nguyen Van Sua said despite growth in domestic steel production and trading over the past time, Vietnam remains a big importer of steel.
The country ranks first in the Southeast Asian region and seventh worldwide among steel importers.
In 2015, Vietnam imported some 18.7 million tons of steel, said the official.
VSA forecast that steel imports into Vietnam is likely to rise in final months of the year, as domestic demand for construction materials goes high.
Former State councilor Dai Bingguo delivers a speech at the China-US Dialogue on South China Sea between Chinese and US think tanks in Washington on Tuesday. (Photo source: China Daily/Niu Yue) WASHINGTON, July 5 (Xinhua) -- Dai Bingguo, China's former state councilor in charge of foreign affairs, on Tuesday called on related parties to cool the unreasonably hot South China Sea issue, warning of its potential dangers. "If such momentum goes unchecked, accidents could happen and the South China Sea might sink into chaos and so might the entire Asia," Dai said in a keynote speech at a forum held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a U.S. think tank, one week before an expected arbitral ruling over the issue. "Should that happen, countries around the South China Sea, the Asian countries and even the United States itself will suffer," Dai told a group of Chinese and U.S. experts on international law and foreign relations. He said all countries concerned should make concrete efforts to let off the heat over the issue. ARBITRATION RESULT NO MORE THAN "A PIECE OF PAPER" With regard to the expected ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on July 12, Dai said it will be "nothing more than a piece of paper" and warned against any attempt to enforce the ruling in any form. He stressed that the Philippines, which initiated the arbitration case against China, must be dissuaded from making any further provocation. "Otherwise, China will not sit idle," he said. China has made its stance clear that it does not accept the arbitration and therefore has stayed away from the proceedings. China has said that the arbitral tribunal has no jurisdiction over sovereignty issues which should be resolved by the two claimants themselves. Dai noted that China's territorial claims to the South China Sea are based on abundant historical evidence and documents. He said the United States recognized and respected China's sovereignty over the islands when China recovered them from Japanese occupation after World War II, and provided military vessels to ferry China's military and government personnel to Xisha and Nansha Islands to hold the restoration ceremony. The islands' return to China is part of post-WWII international order and relevant territorial arrangements, Dai stressed. COMMITMENT TO PEACEFUL RESOLUTION The current U.S. stance of taking no position on the dispute "actually amounts to back-pedalling and defiance of the post-war international order, which the United States participated in building," he noted. He pointed out that China, in fact, has been "completely at the receiving end of encroachments" in the South China Sea, as the Philippines, Vietnam and other countries have illegally occupied 42 islands and reefs in Nansha Islands by force. He said that although China has the capability to recover the islands and reefs, it has all along exercised enormous restraint and sought a peaceful settlement through talks. MORE CONSTRUCTIVE U.S. ROLE CALLED FOR Dai said differences between China and the United States over the South China Sea issue should not be allowed to define the China-U.S. relations as these two countries have neither territorial disputes nor a fundamental clash of interests in the South China Sea. Washington should honor its promise not to take sides over the dispute, and stop speculating that China is trying to compete with it for dominance in the region, Asia and the world as a whole, Dai added. "We have no intention or capability to engage in 'strategic rivalry' with anyone. We have no ambition to rule Asia, still less the Earth," he said. Dai urged Washington to scale back its "heavy-handed intervention" in the South China Sea issue through reinforcing military alliances, the forward deployment of military assets, and increasing close-in reconnaissance and the so-called "Freedom of Navigation" operations targeted at China. Otherwise, it might fall into trouble against its own will and pay an unexpectedly heavy price, as certain countries stand to gain from great-power rivalry, he warned. Dai said that as China and the United States have shared interests in peace and stability in Asia Pacific, they should find ways to manage their differences constructively and maintain communication on maritime issues. Related: Speech by Dai Bingguo at China-U.S. dialogue on South China Sea between Chinese and US think tanks I am delighted to attend the China-U.S. dialogue on South China Sea between Chinese and U.S. think tanks jointly organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University and meet with old and new friends. I would like to take this opportunity to thank both organizations for putting this dialogue together and my sincere thanks go to all of you here who have for long cared for and supported the development of China-U.S. relations. I became honorary president of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University after retiring from government. In this sense, I can also be counted as a think tank scholar. I very much look forward to having candid and in-depth exchanges with all of you for mutual enlightenment. Full story
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Mainland police passed on the details of their handling of the case of bookseller Lam Wing-kee to a Hong Kong delegation on Tuesday while discussing a mutual notification system between police.
Lam Wing-kee, 61, was detained last year in the mainland for running an illegal book selling businesses. At a press conference in Hong Kong on June 16, Lam, on bail at the time and accompanied by local legislator Albert Ho Chun-yan, claimed that he was mistreated, banned from meeting relatives and refused a lawyer while under alleged house arrest.
He also accused mainland police of breaking the "one country, two systems" policy.
His remarks stirred debate across China and internationally.
Hong Kong and mainland agreed to meet and discuss improving the current notification mechanism.
APPREHENDED FOR SUSPECTED ILLEGAL BUSINESS OPERATIONS
In the first half of 2015, police in the eastern city of Ningbo found that books produced outside the Chinese mainland were illegally sold to the city.
Investigation led police to a woman surnamed Hu, purportedly Lam's girlfriend, in southern Guangdong Province, who was suspected of mailing a large number of books to Ningbo and other parts of the mainland. Some buyers told police that they had bought books from Hong Kong's Causeway Bay Books store managed by Lam and provided payment details. In September 2015, Ningbo police began a formal investigation into the involvement of Lam and others.
Between Oct. 17 and 24, 2015, suspects including Lam and Hu were detained in cities including Shenzhen and Dongguan and later placed under surveillance.
As early as in September 2012, Lam was penalized by customs authority in Shenzhen for bringing illegal publications to the mainland.
After that, Lam and his accomplices attempted to elude regulators with fake book covers and either mailed books directly to mainland buyers or used intermediaries like Hu. Buyers made payments totaling more than 400,000 yuan (60,000 U.S. dollars) into relevant mainland bank accounts.
According to Lam, most of the books were filled with "made-up stuff."
"The more horrifying the titles are, the more readers they draw, the better they sell. The content is mostly fabricated out of stories from the Internet or magazines. It takes about a month to put a book together," Lam told investigators.
After confessing, Lam said he was elderly, in poor health, and fully understood his mistakes.
"I hope to be given leniency," he said, promising never again to engage in illegal bookselling.
In March, Lam was released on bail. Upon his request, police helped him find a residence and a job in Guangdong. On June 2, Lam asked for permission to return to Hong Kong for personal reasons and, pledging to abide by all the rules of his bail, his request was approved.
TELLING LIES TO THE PRESS
What Lam had said at his press conference has been met with astonishment by many of the major players.
His girlfriend Hu, 37, said Lam had "brainwashed" her into sending books by courier, but he had never told her it was illegal. She also repudiated Lam's claim that he had been forced to sign a document waiving his right to a lawyer or speak with members of his family.
According to Hu, they were both told of their right to contact family and hire lawyers but gave up the right because they did not want their families to know they were having an affair, a statement confirmed by police.
Video records provided by Ningbo police show that Lam was well treated during his stay in the mainland. Police sent him fruit, took his blood pressure every day and arranged for him to have his hair cut.
Chen Weiqing, curator of a library in Guangdong who gave Lam a job, was angered and shocked upon hearing Lam's "lies."
"Lam claims he was confined in Shaoguan. That is totally inconsistent with the facts," said Chen. On the contrary, Chen offered him a job to show sympathy given his age. Everyone at the library can attest that during his stay at in Shaoguan he was in good shape and even gained weight, said Chen, adding they traveled together to local resort and had many pleasant chats.
"As a facility open to the public, Lam came and went as he pleased, working and reading. How can he claim that he was not free? Is the library a prison?" said Chen.
"In my mind Hong Kong is a society championing rule of law, but why has it allowed Lam to tell overt lies to the world?" asked Chen, believing that Lam had been coerced into doing so.
According to the police, by declaring his intention not to return to the mainland, Lam has violated the terms of his bail. Ningbo police urged Lam to return to the mainland, otherwise they will be forced to take other legal measures.
"ONE COUNTRY, TWO SYSTEMS" REMAINS INTACT
"The Lam Wing-kee case had been handled in accordance with the law from the beginning to the end. The process respected the HK judicial system, strictly adhered to the stipulations of 'one country, two systems,' and there was no so-called 'cross-border law enforcement' nor tracking or control of the suspect," said a Ningbo police statement.
Law professor Song Xiaozhuang from Shenzhen University believes mainland police have jurisdiction over Lam's case, as the acts and consequences of his crime occurred in the mainland. Moreover, the freedom of speech claimed by Lam should also be enjoyed within a legal framework, therefore, mainland police have not violated the "one country, two systems" policy.
Song suggested mainland and Hong Kong establishing a mutual judicial assistance mechanism on criminal cases between, which was also echoed by Liu Cheng, associate law professor with Sun Yat-sen University.
Liu insists that the judicial assistance agreement should be based on the "one country" principle.
"When people stress 'two systems,' they often neglect the 'one country' aspect of the premise," said Liu. "Hong Kong people are, of course, Chinese people. 'One country' is the bottom line of the agreement, under which authorities will only consider the facts of a criminal case rather than whether the suspect is located in Hong Kong or the mainland."
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The South China Sea arbitration unilaterally initiated by former Philippine President Benigno S. Aquino III has not only soured China-Philippines ties, but also undermined international rule of law and regional stability.
The arbitration was a bad idea from the beginning for one simple reason: it is detrimental to the interests of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that groups 10 member states, including the Philippines.
Firstly, the integrity of ASEAN is at stake. The United States, a close ally of the Philippines, has long interfered in the region and is using the arbitration to widen divisions and undermine mutual trust. ASEAN members have differed on the South China Sea issue, the arbitration, as well as external intervention by non-regional countries.
Secondly, the arbitration compromises existing ASEAN rules of conduct. For more than half a century, ASEAN member states have emphasized a spirit of equality, consensus and cooperation.
For example, the dual-track approach, originally thought up by ASEAN and supported by China, advocates that disputes should be resolved peacefully through negotiations between parties directly concerned. It further calls on China and ASEAN to work together to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea.
The dual-track approach is the most pragmatic way to manage maritime and territorial disputes in the South China Sea. It is also in full compliance with the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), signed by China and all ASEAN members in 2002.
However, the unilateral arbitration against China completely disregards the DOC, denies the double-track approach and ignores ASEAN's many past achievements in using negotiation as a tool to resolving disputes.
Thirdly, regional security is at risk. The frequent visits by aircraft and warships from countries outside the region are a deep concern for ASEAN and could spark an arms race. Some external countries having a hidden agenda are repeatedly muddying the waters, leaving regional countries to bear the brunt of any consequent instability.
More importantly, arbitration isn't a panacea to solving disputes. Instead, it more likely creates more disputes and stokes regional tensions, doing harm to the fundamental interests of peoples in the region.
With regard to the so-called arbitration, China has repeated its stance of non-acceptance of third-party dispute settlements or any imposed solution.
The disputes between China and the Philippines can only be solved via bilateral negotiations on the basis of fully respecting historical facts and in line with international laws.
Since winning election, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has made a string of overtures on Philippines-China relations, with his spokesperson Ernesto Abella having said that Duterte wanted a "conversation" with China on the South China Sea to work out a "win-win relationship" with the country.
If Duterte is serious about solving the South China Sea issue properly and about bringing the China-Philippines ties back on track, it is time for him to act as a responsible player and make the right choice to eliminate the advance effects caused by the arbitration farce as soon as possible.
SHIJIAZHUANG, June 6 (Xinhua) -- When Lyu Zhenqian arrived in Chengde last year to fill a high-ranking government post, he knew little about the northern city that was once a summer resort for China's emperors.
"Before I came, my knowledge of Chengde was no better than that of an average tourist," said Lyu, 34, who has worked in government for a decade and was previously a policy researcher in Beijing's Fengtai District.
He was among 200 officials from Beijing and neighboring Hebei Province asked to swap jobs for a year, often leaving their families behind, as part of the efforts to advance regional integration.
Last July, Hebei and Beijing each sent 100 people as part of the government switch-up to help officials understand other cities across the sprawling region. The program will continue until 2020, with 200 civil servants trading places every year. Officials from nearby Tianjin Municipality are also expected to join the program.
The officials are assigned posts in another city based on their expertise, and in some cases, jobs are created for them. The exchanges last at least a year, and participating officials can apply for extensions.
BRIDGING THE MEGALOPOLIS
China rolled out the integration plan for Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei in 2015 to address urban problems such as traffic and air pollution and seek balanced development of the region.
Under the plan, Beijing will act as the political and administrative center, while Tianjin will be a hub for R&D and shipping and Hebei will serve as an industrial zone and ecological buffer area.
Zhang Gui, an expert on Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integration at Hebei University of Technology, said officials who participated in the first year of the exchange have been enthusiastic about the program.
"The officials have served as bridges, connecting different departments and industries and improving cooperation," said Zhang.
"Many program participants said they have a deeper understanding of what needs to be done to achieve integration," he said.
BIGGER PICTURE
"Changing posts has helped officials see the bigger picture and reach beyond city divides," said Zhang.
As deputy director of Chengde's development and reform department, Lyu Zhenqian has spent a lot of time visiting the 11 districts and counties under the city's jurisdiction.
According to the regional integration plan, Chengde, located a three-hour drive northeast of Beijing, will play an important role in water conservation for the urban cluster. The city's Chaohe River supplies water to the Miyun Reservoir, Beijing's largest water source.
Lyu helped Chengde secure more than 22 million yuan (3.29 million U.S. dollars) from Beijing's water resources fund, about four million more than the year before. The money will be used to fund irrigation facilities, village landfills and reforestation programs in Chengde.
Lyu has also helped the city develop industry, such as agricultural processing, to create jobs without damaging the environment.
"I came to realize that though Beijing is the capital, it should not siphon away all the resources and stand on its own if it wants clean air, clean water and a well-functioning metropolis," he said.
IMPROVING INFRASTRUCTURE
Liang Zhonglin, vice mayor of Zhuozhou, a small city in Hebei, has been enjoying his new gig in Beijing's Zhongguancun, often called "China's Silicon Valley." As a human resources official on the Zhongguancun Management Committee, he has gotten to know some of China's most talented tech experts.
"Zhongguancun is a well of innovation, but many of its creations are taken to cities in the Yangtze River Delta, or further down south to the Pearl River Delta, which have better industrial infrastructure to turn ideas into products," he said.
"Hebei needs to increase its appeal to innovators," he said.
In January, Zhuozhou and Zhongguancun signed an agreement to support entrepreneurship.
Changes have already been happening in Zhuozhou and further east. Caofeidian District, an industrial zone near the Bohai Sea, is expanding quickly with new companies, hospitals and schools.
Shui Yong, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Investment Promotion Bureau, has been assigned to serve as vice mayor of Tangshan City and chief coordinator for Caofeidian District as part of the exchange.
In 2015, Caofeidian signed 75 deals with Beijing and Tianjin, with total investment of more than 245 billion yuan, he said. Construction has also started on a new campus of Jingshan School, one of Beijing's best middle schools.
"The integration plan is not new. It was first talked about 20 years ago, but it was never real like it is now," said Wang Yukai, professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance.
"The three regions differ in their stages of development. Integrating them is a tough job, but clearly, people are making a difference," he said.
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague has said that it will issue an award on July 12 on the South China Sea case unilaterally initiated by the Philippines.
China has said that it does not accept and will not participate in the arbitration, and will never recognize the so-called "award," as it is illegal, null and void.H On the South China Sea disputes, China advocates a "dual-track" approach, namely peacefully and properly handling the disputes left from history through direct talks between the parties involved and jointly maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea with the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
This should be the most effective and viable, and the only way, to resolve the South China Sea disputes. The following is the rationale behind this Chinese initiative:
First, consultation and negotiation by countries directly concerned are the most practical and feasible way to resolve disputes, a principle in compliance with the peaceful settlement of disputes through negotiation advocated by the UN Charter.
Second, it also conforms to one of the most important provisions in the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), signed by China and ASEAN countries in 2002.
Third, peace and stability in the South China Sea concerns the real interests of all littoral countries of the South China Sea. It is the responsibility and obligation of all sides to work together to uphold peace and stability in the region.
Past experiences prove that as long as all concerned parties remain committed to the "dual-track" approach and encourage positive interactions between efforts along the two tracks, they are well capable of effectively managing and properly handling specific disputes and maintaining overall peace, stability and cooperation in the region.
Fourth, such an approach to dispute settlement on a bilateral basis is an inheritance of the "Bandung Spirit." China and its Asian neighbors should properly resolve disputes and prevent them from being capitalized on by certain countries to sabotage stability in the Asia-Pacific region.
Sixty years ago, China chose to actively participate in the conference in Bandung, Indonesia, to create a peaceful international environment favorable to the newly founded People's Republic of China. The principle of "seeking common ground by shelving differences," later known as the "Bandung Spirit," contributed much to the success of the milestone conference.
Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta (L) talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the State official reception at State House in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, July 6, 2016. Uhuru Kenyatta and Benjamin Netanyahu held bilateral talks that focused on building the capacity of the Kenyan health systems, emergency preparedness and immigration that will see the abolition of certain categories of visas. (Xinhua/Allan Mutiso)
NAIROBI, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Kenya and Israel have agreed to strengthen security cooperation in the fight against terrorism after visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held bilateral talks with his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta here on Tuesday.
The cooperation will include training, intelligence sharing and technology.
The Daily Nation, Kenya's top newspaper, said Israel will also help Kenya to speed up the construction of the Somali border wall, citing anonymous sources.
The two countries on Tuesday also signed agreements on immigration and health.
Speaking after talks with Netanyahu in Nairobi, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said the 50-year relationship between Kenya and Israel was set to be strengthened after the two countries signed more pacts and agreed to work more closely on security issues.
"The agreements will allow us to build the capacity of our health systems and professionals in the area of emergency preparedness and resources as well as specialised medical services," Kenyatta said during a joint news conference.
Netanyahu arrived in Nairobi on Monday night for a three-day visit as part of his African tour, which has taken him to Uganda.
Kenyatta said the future of Kenya-Israel friendship was bright and would bring more development and improved security for Kenyans.
"Kenya will benefit in terms of training, equipment, technology and strategic intelligence," he said.
On his part, Netanyahu said Israel viewed Kenya as its best partner in Africa and that the two countries shared common opportunities.
Netanyahu said Israel had been supporting Kenya in fighting terrorism and sharing intelligence information with Kenya.
Kenya has suffered several bloody attacks by Somalia-based Al-Shabaab militants in recent years.
Netanyahu said Israel would work with Kenya to gain itself a foothold in Africa as the continent rises economically.
Netanyahu pushed for Kenya to back Israel's bid to be granted an observer status at the African Union, for which Kenyatta pledged full support.
During the meeting, Kenyatta also spoke about the peace process between Israel and Palestine, adding Kenya was for sustainable solution.
Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta (L) welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) on his arrival for the State visit offical reception at the State House in Nairobi, Kenya July 5, 2016. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
JERUSALEM, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged Tuesday that Africa has no better ally than Israel in addressing security and development issues, amidst the second day of his visit to Africa.
Netanyahu is on a four-day quest to Africa, seeking to strengthen ties with the continent and finding new allies to counter the increasing Palestinian influence in international bodies like the United Nations.
He is the first ruling Israeli prime minister to visit Africa since the late Yitzhak Rabin visited Morocco in 1994.
On Tuesday, he met with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta for a talk on security, intelligence, cyber, energy, agriculture, and trade, according to a statement by the Israeli Prime Minister's Office.
Netanyahu said in a joint press conference in Nairobi that both nations must join forces against the "resurfacing of a new form of terrorism." He added "I think we see eye to eye on the nature of this problem, and I think Africa and Israel overwhelmingly see eye to eye on this."
Noticing the deadly attacks by extremist groups in Nairobi's Westgate Mall in 2013 and in the Garissa University in 2015, he stated that terrorism makes Israel and Kenya "natural partners."
"I know that working together will help us defeat the scourge of this terror even faster. And when I say working together it's Kenya, Israel and other African countries that have an equal stake in defeating the forces of this radicalism that threatens all our societies," he said.
Kenyatta said that nations that oppose terror should work together. "That's why I strongly believe it's critical for us reevaluate our relationship," he said.
Netanyahu said that Kenyatta told him he would assist Israel to restore its status as an observant country at the African Union, an organization comprised of 54 African nations.
Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta (L) talks to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) during the State visit offical reception at the State House in Nairobi, Kenya July 5, 2016. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
"It tallies with our desire to join with African countries, creating a new partnership for security and development," Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu was the first incumbent Israeli prime minister to visit Kenya. The two nations had strong ties, but their relations strained in the 1970s amidst pressures by Arab countries and Israel's strong support of South Africa's apartheid regime.
Netanyahu's tour includes visits to Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Ethiopia, and meetings with leaders from these countries in addition to South Sudan, Zambia, and Tanzania.
ADEN, Yemen, July 6 (Xinhua) -- At least eight soldiers were killed and 10 others wounded Wednesday when two car bombs went off at the main gate of a military base in Yemen's temporary capital of Aden, a government official told.
The government source based in Aden said that the latest reports indicate that eight soldiers were killed and more than 10 others wounded by the massive blasts of two car bombs that targeted a military base in Aden's district of KhorMaksar.
The double suicide attacks targeted the Sulaban special forces camp located near Aden's airport and followed by heavy clashes that continued for about one hour.
An army source told Xinhua that "scores of assailants wearing Yemeni army uniforms launched an a well-planned attack on the military base after the two suicide bombings."
"The terrorist attackers used rocket-propelled grenades RPGs and attempted to storm the military base from different directions," the army source said.
Witnesses told Xinhua that Saudi-led helicopters intervened and air-covered security forces during the armed confrontations with the terrorist attackers.
The two massive blasts set fire to some army vehicles inside the brigade and caused partial damage to nearby residential buildings, the source added.
Medical sources said that the toll could rise as ambulances and police vehicles were evacuating victims to the nearby hospitals and medical centers in Aden.
The Yemeni government forces launched anti-terror offensives and drived out scores of gunmen linked to the al-Qaida and the Yemen-based affiliate of the Islamic State (IS) from key neighborhoods and government compounds in Lahj and Abyan provinces in the last two months.
The pro-government forces backed by UAE warplanes continued to make significant gains and recaptured key areas from al-Qaida militants in the country's southern provinces and in southeastern province of Hadramout during the past weeks.
However, Yemen's temporary capital of Aden and other provinces controlled by the internationally recognized government are still witnessing a state of chaos and lawlessness that resulted in the assassinations of several high-ranking security and military officials.
The turbulent and complicated security situation in Aden and neighboring southern provinces of Lahj and Abyan is one of the biggest challenges for the Saudi-led Arab coalition forces operating in Aden.
The Saudi-led Arab 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-Qaida insurgencies in the Middle East and the affiliate of IS.
KATHMANDU, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Tonnes of rice donated by China and Bangladesh meant for delivering to the earthquake victims are being sold in Nepal's capital Kathmandu.
Considering that the donated rice could be rotten due to prolonged storage after failing to distribute them among the quake victims, the Nepalese government recently took decision of selling them in the market.
As per the government's decision, the state-owned Nepal Food Corporation (NFC) has started selling around 1,730 tonnes of rice in the Kathmandu Valley. It has also planned to sell additional donated rice in other major cities.
"We started selling the rice for the last two weeks as there was high chance that the rice could rotten if kept in warehouse for more time," NFC spokesperson Pawan Kumar Karki told Xinhua.
The company has set up mobile teams that are moving from place to place selling the rice at reduced price compared to market rate.
There were reports that some of the rice brought from Bangladesh had started to rot.
Immediately after the earthquake on April 25, 2015, China and Bangladesh had donated around 10,030 tonnes of rice to distribute among the earthquake victims in 14 worst affected districts.
Even after more than a year since donation was provided, the Nepalese government only distributed around 2,600 tonnes to the needy people from quake-affected zones while the rest remained in the NFC's warehouses.
Out of remaining rice, the NFC dispatched 3,400 tonnes to five districts in the Karnali region in the far western part of the country which has been facing food crisis in the recent months due to prolonged drought.
As per the government's plan, the rice will be distributed under 'food for work program' to the people of Karnali.
The people from the area will be mobilized in the road construction program and will be given rice as the payment.
COLOMBO, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The Sri Lanka Navy assisted the Sri Lanka Coast Guard to arrest 17 Indian fishermen for poaching in local waters on Wednesday, the navy media unit said here.
Two Indian fishing trawlers were also taken into custody when the fishermen were arrested in East of Point Pedro, in the island's northern seas.
The navy said that the arrested fishermen along with the fishing trawlers were handed over to the Jaffna Fisheries Inspectorate for onward action.
Sri Lanka and India have been trying to resolve the long standing fishermen issue with fishermen from both sides having to face arrest and boats being detained when they stray into each other's waters illegally.
Both India and Sri Lanka have held several discussions in the past and have agreed to find a lasting solution to resolve the issue.
Eight soldiers were killed and 10 others wounded on July 6 when two car bombs went off at the main gate of a military base in Yemen's Aden. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)
ADEN, Yemen, July 6 (Xinhua) -- At least eight soldiers were killed and 10 others wounded Wednesday when two car bombs went off at the main gate of a military base in Yemen's temporary capital of Aden, a government official told.
The government source based in Aden said that the latest reports indicate that eight soldiers were killed and more than 10 others wounded by the massive blasts of two car bombs that targeted a military base in Aden's district of KhorMaksar.
The double suicide attacks targeted the Sulaban special forces camp located near Aden's airport and followed by heavy clashes that continued for about one hour.
An army source told Xinhua that "scores of assailants wearing Yemeni army uniforms launched an a well-planned attack on the military base after the two suicide bombings."
"The terrorist attackers used rocket-propelled grenades RPGs and attempted to storm the military base from different directions," the army source said.
Witnesses told Xinhua that Saudi-led helicopters intervened and air-covered security forces during the armed confrontations with the terrorist attackers.
The two massive blasts set fire to some army vehicles inside the brigade and caused partial damage to nearby residential buildings, the source added.
Medical sources said that the toll could rise as ambulances and police vehicles were evacuating victims to the nearby hospitals and medical centers in Aden.
The Yemeni government forces launched anti-terror offensives and drived out scores of gunmen linked to the al-Qaida and the Yemen-based affiliate of the Islamic State (IS) from key neighborhoods and government compounds in Lahj and Abyan provinces in the last two months.
The pro-government forces backed by UAE warplanes continued to make significant gains and recaptured key areas from al-Qaida militants in the country's southern provinces and in southeastern province of Hadramout during the past weeks.
However, Yemen's temporary capital of Aden and other provinces controlled by the internationally recognized government are still witnessing a state of chaos and lawlessness that resulted in the assassinations of several high-ranking security and military officials.
The turbulent and complicated security situation in Aden and neighboring southern provinces of Lahj and Abyan is one of the biggest challenges for the Saudi-led Arab coalition forces operating in Aden.
The Saudi-led Arab 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-Qaida insurgencies in the Middle East and the affiliate of IS.
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Prosecuting authorities are investigating two local officials suspected of corruption, the Supreme People's Procuratorate said Wednesday.
Zhang Yu, formerly an Inner Mongolia official in charge of researching the history of the Communist Party of China, was arrested over allegations of embezzlement.
Ou Aiguo, former general manager of the Hunan Hotel, was accused of accepting bribes and is subject to "coercive measures".
Coercive measures may include summons by force, bail, residential surveillance, detention and arrest.
Investigation into their cases is underway.
TEHRAN, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday lashed out at some western countries for "raising" terrorism in the Muslim world.
"Unfortunately, the Eid al-Fitr in some of the Muslim countries this year was turned into mourning ceremonies by the terrorists who want to introduce the fake Islam as the real Islam," Khamenei made the remarks while leading the prayers of Eid al-Fitr in the capital Tehran.
"Such crimes are the results of raising terrorism by the intelligent services of the United States, Israel and the United Kingdom," he said.
However, the creators of terrorism will not remain secure from the repercussions of terrorist acts either, he warned.
In the early hours of Wednesday, the Iranians attended the mosques and holy shrines across the country to celebrate Eid al-Fitr which marks the end of fasting month of Ramadan.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during Friday prayers in Tehran. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
TEHRAN, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday lashed out at some western countries for "raising" terrorism in the Muslim world.
"Unfortunately, the Eid al-Fitr in some of the Muslim countries this year was turned into mourning ceremonies by the terrorists who want to introduce the fake Islam as the real Islam," Khamenei made the remarks while leading the prayers of Eid al-Fitr in the capital Tehran.
"Such crimes are the results of raising terrorism by the intelligent services of the United States, Israel and the United Kingdom," he said.
However, the creators of terrorism will not remain secure from the repercussions of terrorist acts either, he warned.
In the early hours of Wednesday, the Iranians attended the mosques and holy shrines across the country to celebrate Eid al-Fitr which marks the end of fasting month of Ramadan.
CHENGDU, July 6, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Chen Gang (front), a division commander of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force, takes the oath during the hand over ceremony of the Y-20, China's homegrown large transport aircraft, in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, July 6, 2016. Y-20 officially joined the People's Liberation Army Air Force on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Liu Yinghua)
CHENGDU, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Y-20, China's homegrown large transport aircraft, officially joined the People's Liberation Army Air Force on Wednesday.
With a maximum takeoff weight of around 200 tonnes, the Y-20 is ideal for transporting cargo and people over long distances in diverse weather conditions.
On behalf of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and its chairman Xi Jinping, CMC vice chairman Xu Qiliang congratulated those who contributed to the research and production of the aircraft as well as the air force personnel.
Addressing a ceremony to hand over the freighter plane, Xu called for enhanced efforts to build capacity and boost innovative development in order to foster a new type of strong air transport force.
Xu urged beefing up aviation design and manufacturing, use and command of force, and equipment maintenance.
"The Y-20's entrance into service marks a crucial step for the Air Force in improving its ability in strategic power projection," said Air Force spokesperson Shen Jinke.
The Air Force needs more and better transportation to better fulfill its military responsibilities, including safeguarding national security as well as domestic and international rescue and relief work, Shen added.
The Air Force has provided aid and delivered relief supplies to Pakistan, Mongolia, Thailand, Nepal and other countries hit by disasters in recent years.
The China-designed and developed Y-20 completed its maiden flight in January 2013 and debuted at the 10th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in November 2014.
LHASA, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The Forum on the Development of Tibet will be held on Thursday and Friday in regional capital Lhasa, local authorities said on Wednesday.
More than 130 researchers, officials and correspondents from over 30 countries and regions are scheduled to attend the forum, hosted by the State Council Information Office and the Tibetan regional government.
The agenda will be focused on discussion of entrepreneurship and industrial modernization in Tibet, preserving tradition, environmental protection, Tibet's involvement in regional infrastructure projects, and poverty relief, the regional government said in a statement.
Nikhil Agarwal, a forum participant from the Press Trust of India, visited Lhasa and Shannan before the event.
"The forum is going to be very interesting for all of us," he said. "India shares a long border with Tibet, but still, due to the geography and the mindset, we do not really get to know what is happening in Tibet."
"This is the best way to see things that are happening in Tibet, not from reading newspapers or bias about what is happening here."
TOKYO, July 6 (Xinhua) -- A subsidiary of the Japanese automaker Mazda Motors Corp. admitted Wednesday that it has charged two clients with over 2,000 items of non-existent car maintenance fees over the past 10 years, amounting to some 11 million yen (1.09 million dollars).
Kansai Mazda, a subsidiary of Mazda Motors Corp. in western Japan, said that one of its store in Osaka sent non-existent maintenance fees bills to two car-renting companies between June 2004 and December 2015.
The car-renting companies submitted their doubts about the bills to Kansai Mazda in October 2015. The latter then conducted investigations within the company and found out the misbehavior.
Kansai Mazda said it has returned the falsely charged fees to the two car-renting companies.
Mazda is one of the largest automakers in Japan, with its revenue reaching record high in fiscal 2015, amounting to 3,406.6 billion yen.
HANOI, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam witnessed the lowest growth in export revenues of garment and textile in the first half of 2016 in the past six years, the General Statistics Office (GSO) said on Wednesday.
Vietnam's garment, textile export revenue went up 5.1 percent year-on-year to hit 10.7 billion U.S. dollars.
The growth is the lowest compared with increases during the same period since 2010, according to the office.
In the first six months, lack of orders, dropping export price, rising costs, falling demand of consumers are among difficulties faced by Vietnam's garment and textile companies, reported local Bao Dau Tu (Vietnam Investment Review) online newspaper.
Nguyen Thi Thanh Huyen, general director of Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group's May 10 Garment Company, said on Bao Dau Tu that she is worried about the sector's situation in the last months of the year.
Importers are now seeking for garment and textile exporters with lower prices like Bangladesh, Cambodia and Myanmar among others, said Huyen.
Thus, it may be hard to realize the 31-billion-U.S. dollar export revenue target set for the sector this year, reported Bao Dau Tu.
In 2015, Vietnam earned some 22.63 billion U.S. dollars from garment and textile exports, up 8.2 percent year-on-year, said the GSO.
COLOMBO, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The Sri Lankan government said on Wednesday that a proposed fact-finding commission will inquire into allegations raised against the army.
The army has been accused of committing war crimes during the final stages of a 30-year war with Tamil Tiger rebels.
Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera said the government will not flatly deny any allegation related to the war but will investigate them.
A fact-finding commission is expected to be established later this year following wide consultations with all stake holders.
Samaraweera said the commission will investigate if the army chain of command issued orders during the war which led to human rights violations.
Allegations that the military may have used cluster bombs will also be looked at.
Sri Lanka defeated the Tamil Tigers in May 2009 but Samaraweera said that while the war was won little was done to win the peace.
Sri Lanka has won the confidence of the international community and this was clear from the support Sri Lanka received at the recently concluded UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva, he said.
He invited the Tamil diaspora who are making allegations against the country to visit Sri Lanka and get a first-hand view of the changes now taking place in the island nation.
WASHINGTON D.C., July 6, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte speaks during a dialogue on South China Sea issue in Washington D.C., the United States, July 5, 2016. One week ahead of the July 12 ruling over the South China Sea case initialed by the Philippines, a group of former Chinese and American officials and experts on international law and foreign relations held a dialogue in Washington to discuss the ruling's legality, possible reactions and its implications on the China-U.S. relations. (Xinhua/Bao Dandan)
WASHINGTON, July 5 (Xinhua) -- China and the United States need to manage their differences over the South China Sea issue, as they are bracing for an arbitral court's ruling, experts said Tuesday.
One week ahead of the July 12 ruling over the South China Sea case initialed by the Philippines, a group of former Chinese and American officials and experts on international law and foreign relations held a dialogue in Washington to discuss the ruling's legality, possible reactions and its implications on the China-U.S. relations.
In a keynote speech at the dialogue held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Dai Bingguo, former Chinese state councilor in charge of foreign affairs, reiterated that China will not accept the ruling because the tribunal under the Permanent Court of Arbitration has no jurisdiction over the case.
Noting the rising tensions in the South China Sea as the United States steps up its pressure on China to abide by the ruling, Dai issued a call for cooling down the issue, warning otherwise it could lead to unexpected accidents and even chaos in the region and Asia.
At the same time, Dai bluntly warned any party against trying to enforce the court ruling or force China into its implementation. Particularly, the Philippines should be dissuaded from making further provocations.
Dai also urged China and the United States to manage their differences constructively, demanding Washington scale back its "heavy-handed intervention" in the South China Sea issue.
He reaffirmed that, despite all the negative factors, China remains committed to peaceful settlement of the South China Sea disputes with concerned parties through negotiations.
COOLING DOWN TEMPERATURE OF SOUTH CHINA SEA
Most experts attending the dialogue praised Dai's speech for clarifying China's position ahead of the court ruling, while echoing Dai's call for cooling down the temperature of the South China Sea for the sake of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.
The speech "certainly reinforces a very clear position that China has taken on the issue for a while, (and) there is a continued offer for cooperation," said Rodger Baker, vice president of strategic analysis at the Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence firm.
Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a U.S. think tank, said it "is the time for diplomats and politicians to exercise cool judgment and try to find ways to keep the issue from exploding into something more dangerous."
Paal told reporters that both China and the United States can do a lot more to cool things down and related parties in the dispute can "find ways to manage the arbitration award, and to keep it from becoming a source of additional tensions and conflicts."
Stapleton Roy, former U.S. Ambassador to China and a senior fellow at the Wilson Center, told reporters that Dai gave a "very detailed and comprehensive statement of China's view on the issues in the South China Sea."
He agreed with Dai's call for cooling down the situation, noting it's important to resolve territorial issues peacefully through negotiations instead of threats or use of force.
"China and the U.S. should work collaboratively on this issue. I think that's very important point also," Roy commented on Dai's remarks.
Brendan Mulvaney, associate chair of the Languages and Cultures Department of the U.S. Naval Academy, told Xinhua that he did not expect the U.S. reaction to the court ruling to be very aggressive because it is not a claimant to the territorial dispute.
At the same time, he expected China and the United States not to take "any super aggressive steps" to worsen the situation.
U.S. HAS TO TAKE LEAD IN REDUCING TENSIONS
On how to cool down the situation, Huang Renwei, vice president of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said the United States should take the lead because it is the most powerful nation in the region.
Then the Philippines should refrain from taking any actions after the court ruling next week, otherwise it will surely trigger off counter moves, Huang told Xinhua.
At the same time, other outside parties such as Japan and Australia should avoid stepping into the troubled waters in the South China Sea, he proposed.
Huang said China will not be the sole party that will endure loss if anyone tries to forcibly enforce the court ruling, as all related parties will have to pay a price.
Zhu Feng, director of the China Center for Collaborative Studies of the South China Sea at Nanjing University, told reporters that one of the major factors behind the rising tensions in the South China Sea is overreaction from the relevant parties, especially from the United States.
Zhu said it is impossible to enforce the upcoming arbitration ruling on the South China Sea case either by the United States or the Philippines.
He added that the core issue in cooling down the tensions is to conduct a serious review of the differences between China and the United States and try to find practical ways to narrow the gap.
Baker believed that the immediate reaction to the court ruling from the United States could be talking immediately with the Philippines on the next step for Manila to take.
He proposed the related parties first change the tone of the discussion right now in order to lower the tensions.
He noted some cooperation between China and the United States despite their differences. For example, China's Navy was invited to this year's multi-national RIMPAC naval exercises, a move that could lower the tensions by creating a set of understandings at the lower level.
SIT DOWN TO MANAGE DIFFERENCES
The experts said the South China Sea issue is only part of the broader relationship, so the two sides should manage their differences through talks to prevent it from leading to strategic rivalry or confrontation.
"I think one of the most important things would be sit down and have discussions about how we're going to manage conflicts, specifically, on intended or unplanned conflicts," Mulvaney said.
He believed that the two powers will not just focus on the single issue of the South China Sea, because "it's not one of our central focus points."
Huang said one of the major mistakes made by the United States is siding with its allies no matter what they do, while criticizing China for whatever it does.
"I often tell the Americans, if you keep taking a biased position, the U.S. leadership will naturally be weakened," Huang said.
Zhu said the two countries should find a way of compromise and cooperation on the South China Sea issue from a long-term perspective, because neither side wants to turn the region into a battlefield.
"A military confrontation will benefit neither side, as it will be a disaster to the regional and global economy," he said.
Huang said despite all the differences, Beijing and Washington do have a consensus, that is, neither wants an all-out confrontation in the West Pacific. This is evident in the progress being made in improving the military-to-military cooperation and crisis management mechanisms.
"The South China Sea issue is only part of the overall China-U.S. relationship, which should never be kidnapped by the dispute," he added.
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PRETORIA, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The High Court in Pretoria on Wednesday handed down a six-year sentence to Paralympian Oscar Pistorius for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Reading out the judgment, Judge Thokozile Masipa said the trial of murder-convicted Pistorius had many mitigating factors.
"In the result, the sentence I impose on the accused in terms of murder dolus eventualis, is six years imprisonment," Masipa said.
She said a long term of imprisonment will not serve justice in this matter.
The accused has already served 12 months, he is a first offender and he is not likely to reoffend, according to Masipa.
"Punishment is not what you choose to do. It is something that is imposed on you. By it's nature it is unpleasant, uncomfortable and painful," said the judge.
"Recovery is possible. It will depend mostly on the accused's attitude of the punishment imposed on him."
The life of the deceased will never be brought back, the judge said, adding that the facts considered are the gravity of the offence, the interests of society, and the rights of the deceased and the accused.
"The life of the accused also has changed forever," she said.
Masipa said she has considered all the evidence, submissions and case law.
Last month, Pistorius's legal team argued for a non-custodial sentence citing his physical and emotional vulnerability as mitigating factors.
But the state was seeking the minimum sentence of 15 years to be imposed, arguing that Pistorius failed to show remorse for his actions.
The Paralympic sprinter was convicted of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at his home on Feb. 14, 2013. Pistorius insisted in trial that he mistook her as an intruder and his life was in danger when he fired at the door of the bathroom.
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PRETORIA, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Oscar Pistorius' defense team said on Wednesday that they will not appeal a six-year sentence given to the Paralympian by high court. Full story
Paralympian Pistorius in court, awaiting his sentence
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BOGOTA, July 5 (Xinhua) -- With a total of 61 bands, Rock al Parque, the largest annual music festival in Latin America, drew some 240,000 participants to Bogota's Simon Bolivar Park, Colombia for three days of nonstop music on July 2-4.
In 2012, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) inducted Bogota into the Creative Cities Network because of this festival, declaring it to be a City of Music, one of only three in the Americas, along with Kingston, Jamaica and Salvador de Bahia, Brazil.
"These festivals contribute to the appropriation of public spaces by citizens and reinforce Bogota's identity and cultural diversity," UNESCO says on its website.
Over the years, Bogota has improved its concert venue, setting up three stages for the festival.
Vocalist Colin Abrahall, whose band is from Birmingham, told Xinhua, "The festival, somewhat newer in South America, is bringing music to the people."
The Colombian journalist and music critic, Eduardo Arias, said "the event serves as a symbol of tolerance for different lifestyles and an example of peaceful coexistence," adding that it can also promote civic mindedness.
"We hope that this really is the beginning of the end of the war!" the vocalist for local band Ikarus Falling yelled to the crowd, before launching into "Prisoners", a song dedicated to victims of the 50-year-long conflict.
Colombians have long been divided by a civil war, and a recent bilateral ceasefire agreement between the government and rebel leftist guerrillas has raised hopes that a definitive peace deal is close at hand.
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- China's large steel plants saw improved profits and narrowed losses in the first five months of this year thanks to their destocking efforts, according to a national steel association.
Major iron and steel enterprises raked in 8.736 billion yuan (1.31 billion U.S. dollars) in the Jan-May period, up over 700 percent year on year while fewer firms reported losses, according to the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA).
The improvement is a result of the firms' rational response to overcapacity in the sector, as most large iron and steel plants reduced their output in the first five months and tried to stabilize product prices, CISA head Liu Zhenjiang said.
Total steel production in the first five months of this year dropped 1.4 percent year on year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.
China, the world's largest steel producer and consumer, plans to cut steel capacity by about 10 percent -- as much as 150 million tonnes of steel -- in the next few years, with funds set aside to help redundant workers.
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- A spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry has called for objectivity on Chinese military drills in the South China Sea after official Vietnamese protests on the matter.
Vietnam's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Le Hai Binh said in a statement posted on the ministry's website late on Monday that a recent drill had seriously violated Vietnamese sovereignty. He demanded that China stop the activity.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei told a daily news briefing on Wednesday that the drill was a routine exercise under the Chinese navy's annual plan.
The drill was not targeted at any country, said Hong, without giving its date.
KINSHASA, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The support group facilitating political dialogue in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) on Tuesday recommended the holding of dialogue before the end of July 2016.
"Meeting for the first time in Addis Ababa, on July 4, the support group facilitating political dialogue in DR Congo urges the start of talks before the end of this month," a statement issued by the African Union (AU) in Kinshasa, said.
The support group is comprised of representatives of the AU, European Union, the United Nations, the International Organization of the Francophonie, Southern African Development Community, the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region and the UN Mission for Stabilization of Congo (MONUSCO).
The AU statement pointed out that Maman Sidikou, the head of MONUSCO, had placed particular emphasis on the advancement of efforts aimed at convening the national dialogue.
"The situation remains precarious and there is need to support the facilitator to kick-start the national dialogue," he said.
On June 29, DR Congo President Joseph Kabila urged Edem Kodjo, the facilitator appointed by AU, to quickly launch the dialogue process.
"Given that this dialogue option is irreversible for us, I urge the African Union facilitator to finalize his consultations to quickly open dialogue," Kabila said in a speech to the nation during celebrations to mark DR Congo's 56th independence anniversary.
DAMASCUS, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The General Command of the Syrian Army announced on Wednesday a 72-hour truce in all Syrian cities, local media reported.
The nationwide ceasefire goes into effect as of July 6 until midnight July 8, the military statement said.
The regime of silence truce came apparently to mark the three-day holiday of the Muslim Eid al-Fitr feast, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
Previous truces, which were backed by Russia and the United States, have been established in areas near the capital Damascus, and northern province of Aleppo.
However, several breaches were reported, in which the government accused the rebels.
The previous truce is largely holding near Damascus, but abjectly failed in Aleppo.
It's not yet clear how the new nationwide truce, the first in such a big scope, will hold amid a complicated conflict, where tens of rebel groups are involved, including the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and the Islamic State (IS) group, which are expected to be excluded from the new truce akin to the previous ones.
WELLINGTON, July 6 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand winemakers will soon be able to register the geographical origins of their wines in order to protect their reputation in a booming export market.
The government Wednesday announced the start of consultation on the proposed regulations for wine and spirit makers.
"Providing a registration regime for geographical indications will assist the wine industry to protect the reputation of our exported New Zealand wines," Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Paul Goldsmith said in a statement.
"New Zealand wine exports were just under 100 million NZ dollars (71.01 million U.S. dollars) in 1998 and this year those exports broke 1.5 billion NZ dollars (1.06 billion U.S. dollars)."
The proposed regulations set out the procedure for examination and registration of a geographical indication as well as the process for setting up the Register of Geographical Indications.
The register would be administered by the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand.
A geographical indication is a name, usually a regional name, which is used to identify the origin of goods where some quality of the goods is influenced by their geographical origin, such as Champagne and Scotch whisky.
BRAZZAVILLE, July 6 (Xinhua) -- An international business center comprising of hotels, a commercial center, a conference center as well as administrative buildings will soon be constructed in Brazzaville, the Republic of Congo capital, an official source said Tuesday.
The project for the construction of the business center resulted from an agreement signed between the Congolese state and a Turkish firm for a total of 312 billion CFA Francs (about 520 million U.S. dollars).
At least 115 billion CFA Francs of the cost of construction will be provided through a loan from Turk Exim Bank, the Congolese state will provide 93 billion CFA Francs while private players will provide 103 billion CFA Francs.
The project will be carried out in two phases, with the construction of the first phase underway. It involves the construction of a conference center and a hotel in Kintele, a suburb in northern Brazzaville.
In central Brazzaville, the Turkish firm will construct a commercial center, a 4-star hotel as well as an administration building that will host the finance ministry.
The second phase of the project will involve putting up of a governmental center comprising of seven administrative buildings and a multi-level parking building at the center of the city.
NANJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders has begun collecting historic photos about the Nanjing Massacre from home and abroad.
Zhang Jianjun, curator of the memorial hall, said the memorial hall wants to commemorate the victims for the 80th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre next year by collecting and exhibiting photos.
According to Zhang, a photo exhibition on the theme "mark of history" will be held at the memorial hall in the next year.
Photo collection will end on December 31.
From Dec. 13, 1937 to January 1938, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers were killed in the massacre carried out by Japanese invaders after the city fell into the hands of the Japanese army.
New Syrian army recruits carry their plates before heading for their Iftar (breaking fast) meals, at a military training camp in Damascus, Syria June 26, 2016. Picture taken June 26, 2016. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
DAMASCUS, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The General Command of the Syrian Army announced Wednesday a 72-hour truce in all Syrian cities, local media reported.
The nationwide ceasefire goes into effect as of July 6 until midnight July 8, the military statement said.
The regime of silence truce came apparently to mark the three-day holiday of the Muslim Eid al-Fitr feast, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
Previous truces, which were backed by Russia and the United States, have been established in areas near the capital Damascus, and northern province of Aleppo.
However, several breaches were reported, in which the government accused the rebels.
The previous truce is largely holding near Damascus, but abjectly failed in Aleppo.
It's not yet clear how the new nationwide truce, the first in such a big scope, will hold amid a complicated conflict, where tens of rebel groups are involved, including the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and the Islamic State (IS) group, which are expected to be excluded from the new truce akin to the previous ones.
JINAN, July 6 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese court heard the case of a former provincial-level official suspected of graft on Wednesday.
Qin Yuhai, former deputy director of the Henan Provincial People's Congress Standing Committee and also former deputy governor of the province, stood trial at the Zibo City Intermediate People's Court, Shandong Province.
Qin was accused of accepting bribes totaling 20.86 million yuan (3.1 million U.S. dollars) from 38 companies or individuals from 2001 to 2013, when he served in posts including Party chief of Jiaozuo City, deputy governor of Henan, head of the provincial public security department and deputy director of the Henan Provincial People's Congress Standing Committee, according to the prosecutors at the court.
He helped the bribers in company acquisition, promotion, among other aspects.
Qin pleaded guilty in court.
A verdict will be handed down at a later date.
TEHRAN, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Iran's supreme leader on Wednesday strongly denounced western countries during an Eid al-Fitr celebration, saying they are creators of terrorism and should be responsible for recent terror attacks.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lashed out at the West when addressing prayers celebrating Eid al-Fitr in central Tehran, a major Muslim holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
Terrorism in the Muslim World is a phenomenon created by the intelligence services of some Western countries, Khamenei said, warning that they are not immune from the repercussions of terrorist acts either.
He also expressed regret over a number of attacks in some Muslim countries which claimed hundreds of innocent lives.
Several deadly terrorist attacks claimed by Islamic State occurred in the month of Ramadan. A suicide bombing in Baghdad over the weekend has left at least 250 people dead and serial terrorist attacks in three Saudi Arabian cities caused 7 deaths.
SAO PAULO, July 5 (Xinhua) -- Automobile sales in Brazil marked the worst record for the first half of 2016 in 10 years, Fenabrave, an association of auto dealers, said.
According to Fenabrave, automobile sales fell by 25 percent in the first half of 2016, compared to the same period last year, according to a recent release from the association.
A total of 951,200 automobiles were sold in the first six months of 2016 in Brazil, down from approximately 1.27 million in the same period in 2015.
No major changes in the industry data would take place unless the political scenario returns to stable, said Alarico Assumpcao Junior,Fenabrave president, in a release announcing the results.
Fenabrave estimates an overall decline of 15.04 percent in automobile, truck, road equipment and motorcycle sales this year.
"We have already taken an improvement in the overall economy and the industry into consideration, and if the economy remains as sluggish as the beginning of the year, the results would be worse," said Alarico.
"Forecasts take into account the difficult economic situation early this year, which negatively affected light vehicle sales," said Antonio Megale, president of Anfavea, the National Association of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, in a release.
Megale forecasts that due to the favorable foreign exchange rate, exports should increase by 21.5 percent this year, which will help improve the sector's overall results.
WINDHOEK, July 6 (Xinhua) -- On a Tuesday morning, primary learners assemble for school at Monte Christo Primary Project School in Havana informal settlement on the outskirts of Namibian capital, Windhoek.
At the school, in tents, which serve as classrooms, teaching take place.
"We have been operating from the tent classrooms since February this year," said acting school principal, Elizabeth Murangi.
Murangi told Xinhua teaching in tents is a challenge as the area is windy and dusty, "But we have nine committed staff members whose core aim is to provide quality education to learners regardless of the physical infrastructure."
Due to an influx of many people to the Havana informal settlement, the demand for schools have increased.
To meet the demand for education, the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture has set up temporary school structures, according to Gerard Vries, Director of Education, Arts and Culture in the Khomas Region.
Of the 325,858 people living in Windhoek, over 110,000 are living in informal settlements, with an estimated close to 100,000 living in wood and zinc structures in Havana alone, recent records from Namibia Statistics Agency showed.
As the number of rural-urban migrants increased, the city is faced with a shortage of classrooms, which resulted in learners being taught in tents, said Vries.
To address the problem, the private sector is meeting the Ministry half-way in transforming the conditions of schools by providing container classrooms.
Leading business venture Ohlthaver and List (O&L) Group of Companies set up two container classrooms to the Monte Christo Project Primary School valued at 700 000 Namibian dollars (47 297 U.S. dollars) on Tuesday. The two classrooms will accommodate between 35 and 40 children each.
The container classrooms are equipped with desks for the teachers, white boards and standard classroom facilities.
The prime aim is to provide the children with the opportunity to acquire basic education in a standard environment, said the group's executive chairperson Sven Thieme.
Receiving the container classrooms, Sanet Steenkamp, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture said that the erection of the two container classrooms will bring about significant improvements in the general teaching and learning conditions at the school.
While the container classrooms eases the burden of classroom shortage, Steenkamp expressed concern over the small and squeezed space of the school,"Lifting two class groups out of tents is a big step forward towards a longer lasting solution. But the school will need to add an additional six more tents in order to cater for both grade one and two in 2017."
The permanent secretary called on the key partners to assist the Ministry in addressing this challenge.
In the meantime, on its part, the Ministry is underway with plans to construct a permanent school, "We will therefore, as partners and co-drivers of education, put our heads together to work on how best we can secure funds for the permanent construction and relocation of this school," she said.
KASHGAR, Xinjiang, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Kashgar, where sporadic terrorist attacks have dampened tourism since 2009, saw a surge in tourists in the first half of this year.
Kashgar, in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, received 1.14 million tourists and reaped tourism revenues of 650 million yuan (97 million U.S. dollars) in the first half of 2016, up 38 percent and 23 percent year on year respectively, the Kashgar municipal tourism bureau announced on Tuesday.
The city, renowned for its ancient mud-brick architecture, received 18,032 foreign tourists in the first six months.
Tom Chambers, an English teacher in Karamay, an oil city in northern Xinjiang, was one of them.
"Xinjiang is much safer than many British people have thought," said Chambers, who will stay in Kashgar for a month before heading back to London.
Ma Chunshan, a 70-year-old from Beijing, spent 56 days driving all the way to Kashgar with his wife.
"We just wanted to have a look around Xinjiang. It feels great," said Ma.
The number of tourists arriving in Kashgar increased remarkably this year compared with the past two years, although it is still less than seven years ago, said Chen Liang, who opened a youth hostel in the city eight years ago.
More than half the population of remote Xinjiang are Muslim. Violence in the name of "jihad" has been increasing since 2009 and represents the biggest threat to the region.
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Eight Internet organizations and 52 Internet giants in China signed a commitment letter on Wednesday promising to strengthen integrity and credibility by improving censorship and resisting online rumors.
The eight organizations include the Internet Society of China and China Internet Development Foundation, while the 52 web companies include Alibaba, Sina, 58.com and Xinhuanet.com, the official website of Xinhua News Agency.
Representatives from the companies said they will take measures to improve current work at an event organized by the Office of the Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs.
The Internet companies promised to focus on "positive publicity," strengthen censorship of content, protect the interests of netizens, resist rumors and legally collect users' information, according to the commitment letter.
Ren Xianliang, deputy head of the office, said joint efforts are needed from the government, social organizations, Internet companies and users to clean up the Internet and ensure online integrity and credibility.
Also on Wednesday, the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Ministry of Public Security co-launched an online platform for receiving tips related to Internet scams in order to handle cases in a timely and uniform manner.
Chinese people have been vulnerable to Internet fraud in recent years, and the ministry has arrested a number of suspects amid the crackdown, said the ministry.
MANILA, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is taking a "soft-landing" approach in exploring ways to renew friendly ties with China, which have been strained in the past years over the disputes in the South China Sea, analysts said on Wednesday.
This is a departure from his predecessor Benigno Aquino III, under whom the Philippines unilaterally initiated an arbitration case against China in 2013 over the dispute at the Permannent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
At his first cabinet meeting after he was sworn in on June 30, Duterte, who had said he was open to talking with China about the territorial dispute, stated, "If we can have peace by just talking I'll be really happy."
Richard Heydarian, an associate professor at De la Salle University, said Duterte "is taking a significant different approach, constantly emphasizing necessity for direct engagement and revival of bilateral ties."
"He is signaling that neither the maritime disputes nor the arbitration case should negatively define the texture of overall bilateral relations," Heydarian said.
He said that Duterte was aiming at "a soft-landing" especially after the arbitration verdict is handed down on July 12, "which may mean not aggressively criticizing China."
In exchange, Heyadarian said Duterte will most likely seek for concessions in the South China Sea.
"A lot of horse trading is on the horizon," he said.
NOT EVEN "WAR OF WORDS"
Even before he assumed the presidency, Duterte has made it clear that "I am not ready to go to war," referring to the worst scenario of fighting between China and the Philippines over the disputes in the South China Sea.
Benito Lim, a political science professor, said Duterte wanted to engage China, making his position clear to China that he wanted direct talks and that he did not want to engage China in war, not even "war of words."
"It means that he wants to explore other avenues aside from letting the situation fester in the standoff," Lim said in an interview, adding that Duterte "is trying to look for ways and means by which this long-time standoff can be removed and then agree on things that are mutually beneficial."
Lim said this is a logical step on the part of the Duterte administration, adding that both countries can move on by forging "cooperative and beneficial agreements."
"He is sending a message to China that both countries can agree on mutually beneficial agreements instead of a standoff," Lim said.
"Exploring other avenues by which there can be agreements that are equally beneficial to both is better than saying bad things about each other," he said.
Moreover, he said that Duterte was "addressing" Philippine national interests by making this reconciliatory move with Beijing.
Duterte has said that the Philippines will charter a course of its own, shifting away from Aquino government's overarching dependence on U.S. military support.
"We will chartering a course of our own," Duterte has said.
"It will not be dependent on America, and it will be a line not intended to please anybody but the Filipino interests," said Lim.
Asked what the implication of Duterte's "softening move" will be on the country's relations with the United States, Lim said, "Philippine interests will not be formulated whether the international community would look at it with approval or not. It would be in the interests of the Philippines."
Lim said Duterte's statement that he would wait for the ruling and study its implications meant that even if it were in our favor "he will still examine the consequences of what that decision means."
TO HAVE STRONG TRADE, INVESTMENT RELATIONS
Rommel Banlaoi, director of the Center for Intelligence and National Security Studies, said Duterte wanted to open direct talks with China on many facets of diplomatic relations like economic and trade, and not just about political issues like the South China Sea.
Banlaoi said Duterte was not just exploring ways "to revive the stagnant relations between Beijing and Manila but he also wants a better economic ties with China."
"Duterte does not want the bilateral relationship with China to revolve around the dispute on the South China Sea, meaning that his administration is willing to talk about other, more equally important aspect of the relations," Banlaoi said.
In an editorial on Monday, the Philippine Daily Inquirer said that despite its territorial dispute with China, it is possible for the Philippines to have strong trade and investment relations with China, adding one major avenue for this is the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
"The AIIB has been described as modern and multilateral, or China's 21st-century answer to lenders like the World Bank and the ADB (Asian Development Bank). And the Philippines will be better off borrowing through a more transparent window now," the editorial said.
Banlaoi said Duterte was fostering an independent foreign policy, "a policy that is not pro this and against that" despite what he described as "tremendous pressure" from strategic partners like the United States and its allies in the region.
"It's a difficult and delicate balancing act," Balaoi said, adding that Duterte was determined to have good relations with everybody.
On the forthcoming arbitral ruling, Banlaoi said the administration has already said that it will carefully study the ruling before taking the next step.
"My reading is that the administration will make sure that its next step will support its position to bring back good ties with China," he said.
Related:
Spotlight: Expectation of resumption of sound development of China-Philippines relations
BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) -- As the farce of arbitration on the South China Sea is to end soon, it is time for the new Philippine government of Rodrigo Duterte to stop the wrong foreign policy of its predecessor, so as to bring China-Philippines ties back to the track of sound development. Full story
Spotlight: Philippines' new president Duterte expected to be pragmatic in China approach
LONDON, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Britain on Wednesday published the long-awaited inquiry into the Iraq War, concluding that Britain went to war before all peaceful options had been exhausted, according to the chairman of the UK's inquiry, John Chilcot.
In a statement, Chilcot said military action was not a last resort in the Iraq war. "At the time of the parliamentary vote of 18 March, diplomatic options had not been exhausted. The point had not been reached where military action was the last resort," it said.
The inquiry has also found then British Prime Minister Tony Blair told then U.S. President George Bush that he would be with him "whatever" in regards to Iraq, several months before they launched the Iraq invasion.
by Abdul Haleem, Omid Jawed
KABUL, July 6 (Xinhua) -- All the big mosques and nearby grounds were packed with faithful Muslims in the capital city of Kabul and other major cities on Wednesday offering Eid al-Fitr prayers to mark the end of Ramadan and pray for the returning of lasting peace in the war-wrecked country of Afghanistan.
Afghanistan has suffered enormously due to the ongoing military over the past decade and a half and during Ramadan in particular several deadly bombings, including two suicide attacks in the capital city of Kabul, claimed more than 50 lives including 32 police cadets and 12 Nepalese citizens.
Both Taliban militants and fighters loyal to the so-called Islamic State group have intensified activities since the beginning of this year, which have left hundreds of people, mostly innocent civilians, dead.
"Oh Almighty Allah, enough is enough, we are fed up with war, we the Afghans are in urgent need of peace and therefore are bowing before You to pardon our sins and grant us lasting peace," a prayer leader humbly said in a Kabul mosque after offering Eid prayers.
Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani in his short speech to welcome Eid to his countrymen praised the security forces for ensuring security during Eid days and also begged Almighty Allah to grant lasting peace and prosperity to Afghans.
To prevent any possible terrorist attack during the Eid holiday, the government has deployed police personnel around the mosques and sensitive areas in Kabul and other cities to enable people to celebrate Eid festivals in a peaceful environment.
Taliban militants who have been fighting to regain power have spared no efforts, however, to destabilize peace in Afghanistan even during Eid days, according to the war-weary Afghans.
Recalling the armed outfit's ceaseless brutalities, a Kabul resident Mohammad Dawood told Xinhua that the Taliban, by organizing a suicide attack outside a mosque on an Eid day in the Faryab provincial capital of Maimana a couple of years ago, had killed 41 people and injured more than 50 others.
The new Taliban leader, Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada, in his message to congratulate Eid al-Fitr to Afghans vowed to continue the violent course of action of his predecessors Mullah Mohammad Omar and Mawlawi Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, which means more bloodshed.
Afghans have offered their Eid prayers in Kabul and other cities amid tight security and so far no security incidents has been reported.
"Thank God that we have offered our Eid prayers in a peaceful environment and I am hopeful that the security situation will improve with each passing day from now on," Wazir Gul, 37, told Xinhua.
In his wheelchair outside a mosque, the disabled but grateful Gul explained how the war had crippled him and how he hopes his children and fellow Afghans will be able to embrace a future free of war and threats of violence.
Another Afghan, Hajji Mohammad Naeem, 65, who offered his Eid prayer in a mosque in downtown Kabul, wished for the return of enduring peace in his country.
"Peace is everything for us, because having peace will facilitate the rebuilding of our battered country, revive our economy and improve the living conditions for us, our children and many generations to come."
LAGOS, July 6 (Xinhua) -- An expatriate was abducted by unknown gunmen in southwest city of Epe in Lagos, Nigeria's economic hub, local police said Wednesday.
State police spokesperson Dolapo Badmos told Xinhua that efforts were on to ensure the victim's release.
The expatriate, who was among the contractors from Granebury Construction Company handling a project executed by the Lagos State Government, was kidnapped late Monday while working on the site.
The Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Steve Ayorinde, also confirmed the incident.
"Yes, it is true. But we are working with the police to ensure he's released. The police will also issue a press release on the kidnap soon," he added.
Kidnapping, often for ransom, is one of the major security problems in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country. Expatriates, whose firms can pay the ransom, are usually released by their abductors unhurt.
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese mainland spokesperson on Wednesday thanked people in Taiwan for their concern over heavy rain battering the south of the mainland.
"The Kuomintang and people from all walks of life in Taiwan have expressed their concern and condolences via various channels... We are thankful," said Ma Xiaoguang of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs said on Tuesday that five days of heavy rain along the Yangtze River and its tributaries had left 128 people dead and 42 others missing.
The rain had led to the collapse of 41,000 houses and forced the evacuation of more than 1.34 million people. Nearly 600,000 people are in urgent need of basic living assistance.
JERUSALEM, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Shooting a subdued Palestinian attacker in Hebron in March was "unjustified," Yariv Ben-Ezra, the outgoing commander of the Hebron Brigade, told the court on Wednesday.
Sgt. Elor Azaria is charged with shooting and killing Abdel al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif, 21, at Tel Rumeida neighborhood of the West Bank town of Hebron on March 24.
According to military accounts, the incident occurred after al-Sharif and another Palestinian, Ramzi Aziz al-Qasarwi, stabbed another soldier, wounding him lightly.
Troops opened fire at them, seriously injuring Al-Sharif and killing al-Qasarwi. Al-Sharif was laying on the ground, immobilized, for several minutes, before Azaria approached him and shot at his head.
A video footage of the incident surfaced on the internet and went viral, prompting a military police investigation into the case.
"The shooting was unjustified because it happened in a situation in which there was no mortal danger," Col. Yariv Ben-Ezra, the outgoing commander of the Hebron Brigade, told the military court in Jaffa, near Tel Aviv.
"The more information was added that day, the more I understood that the shooting had not been justified. Since the shooting took place in a situation where life was not in danger, and the more I watched the video clip later, I understood that better," he said.
Asking on Azaria's line of defense, charging the shooting was done for fear that al-Sharif is hiding an explosive belt under his jacket, Ben-Ezra said "No one approached me on the scene and warned me of a suspected bomb."
Ben-Ezra said that he first heard of that "suspicion" at noon through media reports. "Not on my way to the site, not at the site - the subject of fear of a bomb never came up," he added.
The incident sent shockwaves throughout Israel. It has divided the nation, with some people condemning Azaria's act as an unlawful execution and many others considering him as a national hero that has been wronged by the system.
On June 6, an investigation by B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, indicated that the second Palestinian, who carried out the stabbing together with al-Sharif, was also executed by a soldier.
The Israeli army said following the incident that the second Palestinian attacker, al-Qasarwi, died of gunshots fired by a soldier during the attack. However, B'Tselem said it has gathered testimonies from Palestinians charging that's not the case.
B'Tselem said that according to the testimonies, al-Qasarwi was only wounded from the shots after the stabbing attack, and that another soldier "shot him in the head or neck twice on point-blank."
The Israeli military said in response that the accounts "do not match the findings of our operational investigation," adding that the shots fired at al-Qasarawi were necessary "to remove the threat while he was attacking the soldiers."
The incident came amidst a nine-month spate of Palestinian unrest, including stabbing, shooting, and car-ramming attacks.
The violence has killed at least 215 Palestinians and 34 Israelis. According to Israel, most of the Palestinian were killed amidst attacks or attempted attacks.
LAGOS, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The police in Nigeria confirmed Wednesday that Sierra Leonean Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, Maj.-Gen. Nelson Williams, who was abducted in northern Kaduna State, has been released by his captors.
The diplomat was kidnapped last Thursday evening on his way from Abuja to Kaduna to attend a military passing out parade. Two Sierra Leonean officer were among those passing out.
National police spokesperson Don Awunah said Williams was released along Abuja- Kaduna road following credible intelligence and technical support.
There was intense police activities on both land and air patrol within the area, he added, noting that Williams was in good condition and has been reunited with his family.
MADRID, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Barcelona striker Lionel Messi and his father have been sentenced to 21 months in jail for tax fraud, a court in Spain said on Wednesday.
However, under Spanish law a prison sentence under two years can be served under probation.
They were also fined a total of 3.7 million euros (4.1 million US dollars).
LONDON, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Britain on Wednesday published the long-awaited inquiry into the Iraq War, concluding that Britain went to war before all peaceful options had been exhausted, according to the Chairman of the UK's inquiry John Chilcot.
In a statement, Chilcot said military action was not a last resort in the Iraq war.
The inquiry has also found the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the then U.S. President George Bush he would be with him "whatever" in regards to Iraq, several months before they launched the Iraq invasion.
Chilcot also said the legal basis for British military action in Iraq was "far from satisfactory," stressing that British policy on Iraq was made on the basis of "flawed intelligence and assessments".
He noted that Blair was warned that military action in Iraq would increase the threat of al Qaeda to Britain, but war risks were not "properly identified".
In March 2003, there was "no imminent threat" from Saddam Hussein, according to Chilcot.
Britain military role in Iraq went "badly wrong" and "ended a long way from success', he said.
In the statement, Chilcot also revealed that Blair "overestimated his ability to influence U.S. decisions on Iraq".
HANOI, July 6 (Xinhua) -- "The breakthroughs in theory, bold reforms in practice, the building of socialism with Chinese characteristics over the past 40 years have helped change the face of China," a Vietnamese expert told Xinhua.
Do Tien Sam, editor-in-chief of the China Research Journal, published by the Institute for Chinese Studies at the Vietnam Academy of Social Science, made the remark in an exclusive interview with Xinhua in the capital city of Hanoi on Tuesday, on the occasion of China celebrating the 95th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
According to Sam, "the socialism with Chinese characteristics is a product of Chinese reform and opening up process, as well as a result of the combination between basic principles of Marxism and specific practices of China."
The process has resulted in two principles including Mao Zedong Thought and the ideological system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, said the expert.
Talking about the changes to the face of China over the past 40 years, Sam said before the reform and opening up, China remained restricted, poor and outdated. After that, the country has become the world's second largest economy.
In 2015, China's gross domestic product (GDP) per capita reached some 7,800 U.S. dollars, compared to around 200 U.S. dollars before the reform and opening up, the expert explained.
With the maintenance of high economic growth in successive years, China's general power has also been strengthened, Sam assessed, adding that the lives of its people have been improved while the country's international status has been enhanced remarkably.
"The world recognizes China's high economic growth over the years as well as Chinese enormous market with rising purchasing power, as contributing greatly to the growth of regional and global economies," Sam told Xinhua.
"China's development is the impetus for the global economy," Sam affirmed, explaining that previously, people said that main impetuses of the global economy included the United States, Japan, and the European Union (EU). Now, with China's rapid development, China is also the main impetus.
"Especially in the context of the global economic depression in which economies of the U.S. and EU are facing difficulties, Chinese development provides a new driving force for global economic growth," said the expert.
"As such, many people say the world's new economic center has shifted to the Asia-Pacific region," Sam told Xinhua.
Concerning the socialism with Chinese characteristics, Sam said "the biggest feature of it is the combination between socialism and market economy. The combination has helped promote the strengths of both socialism and market economy. For socialism, the advantage is a concentration of resources while for the market economy, it is the effectiveness of resources."
"It can be said that with China's successes over the past decades are strikingly attractive to other developing countries, as they consider their own development paths and take cues from China's triumphs," said the scholar.
"The socialism with Chinese characteristics provides a new paradigm for developing countries. If successfully implemented, such countries can achieve great successes like China," Sam said.
"The future of socialism with Chinese characteristics is in the hands of the Chinese people. As Chinese people continue to see the path as suitable, they will continue their unwavering support of the CPC," Sam said.
The expert added that general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese President Xi Jinping, at an event marking the 95th founding anniversary of the CPC, urged the whole party to strengthen confidence in "the path, theory, system and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics."
"I believe that if Chinese people are all confident with the four convictions, then socialism with Chinese characteristics will continue moving forwards," said the expert.
As for Vietnam, he said "Vietnam has many things in common with China in its development path. The two countries are both led by communist parties, take Marxism-Leninism as a governing ideology and are both committed to following socialism."
"The two countries can learn from each other. From the practices of building socialism with Chinese characteristics, Vietnam can learn valuable lessons and combine the basic principles of Marxism with Vietnamese practices," said the expert.
"With a creative ideological model based on reviewing Vietnam's practices, as well as learning from China's many experiences, we can better clarify the theoretical issues of socialism and the path towards socialism that's suitable to Vietnamese conditions and Vietnamese cultural identity," said Sam.
BANGKOK, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Lao Premier Thongloun Sisoulith on Wednesday met with Thai Prime Minister Gen Prayuth Chan-Ocha to discuss ways to promote skills development, employment and protection of Laotian workers residing in Thailand.
The two neighboring leaders of Thailand and Laos discussed issues including regional connectivity and infrastructure, trade and investment, cross-border tourism, development and labor management.
The two premiers also witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on Labor Cooperation with the aim to promote skills development, employment and protection of workers.
Prayut said Laotian migrant workers were essential to the Thai economy, as they tend to do hard-labor jobs that most Thais prefer to avoid.
Prayut said Thongloun's visit was also about strengthening the bilateral relationship, as Thailand was a partner of the Mekong region.
Werachon Sukondhapatipak, the deputy government spokesman, said the talks would also touch on the ASEAN summit that Vientiane will host in November.
Thongloun's two-day official visit to Thailand is his first since taking office in April.
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic exchanged congratulations on Wednesday to mark the 10th anniversary of diplomatic ties between China and Montenegro.
In his message to Vujanovic, Xi said that China and Montenegro enjoy a deep traditional friendship. China-Montenegro relations have grown rapidly over the past 10 years since the two countries established diplomatic ties, Xi said.
Xi said that he highly values the development of China-Montenegro relations and is willing to work together with Vujanovic to further advance the ties.
Vujanovic said in his message that Montenegro attaches great importance to its relations with China and is willing to make joint efforts to promote bilateral cooperation in infrastructure, tourism, economy, culture, healthcare and elsewhere between the two countries.
WINDHOEK, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Swakop Uranium has vowed to raise Namibia's competitiveness and help the country to achieve its goals in the newly launched Harambee Prosperity Plan.
During a courtesy visit to Namibian President Hage Geingob on Tuesday, Swakop Uranium mine's Chief Executive Officer Zheng Keping said that the company's will be done through the provision of its services and employment.
"The social responsibility vehicle of the company has set aside 800 000 Namibian dollars (54 054 U.S. dollars) to support areas and pillars set in the Harambee Prosperity Plan,"said Zheng.
Swakop Uranium is majority owned by the Chinese state-owned China General Nuclear Power Company which is investing 2.5 billion USD in the world-class Husab mine in Namibia.
The Harambee Prosperity Plan, launched by President Geingob earlier this year is based on five pillars, namely effective governance and service delivery; economic advancement; social progression; infrastructure development and international relations and cooperation.
"Support will be provided in the areas of vocational training, food Bank, youth unemployment, drought relive, sanitation and rural development," Zheng added.
On his part, Geingob said the support from the company is a testimony of the all-weather friendship between Namibia and China.
"What you are doing in sub-contracting Namibian companies is also commendable. And this is just one of the areas of cooperation. We look forward to cooperating with you further," said the president.
Geingob also called on the company to invest more in the Namibian people.
Nay Pyi Taw, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar earned 533.49 million euros (709.54 million U.S. dollars) from the sale of jade, gems and pearl at the 53rd Myanmar Jade, Gems and Pearl Emporium which ended in Nay Pyi Taw Wednesday, according to the sale announcement of the emporium committee.
The emporium, since June 24, has displayed a total of 6,939 jade,gems and pearl lots.
All items were sold through the open tender and competitive bidding in euro currency.
A total of 4,177 gems and jade merchants from Myanmar, China, China's Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore and Thailand attended the emporium.
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic exchanged messages on Wednesday, congratulating the 10th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Montenegro.
In his message to Djukanovic, Li said that since the establishment of diplomatic ties 10 years ago, China-Montenegro relations have enjoyed a lasting and steady development, with bilateral cooperation growing vigorously in various fields and scoring significant achievements.
China is willing to join hands with Montenegro to take full advantage of platforms such as the cooperation mechanism between China and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries to further China-Montenegro ties and cooperation in various fields, he said.
Djukanovic said in his message that the foundation of the Montenegro-China relationship is solid, with satisfactory results achieved in bilateral cooperation in various fields, and the China-CEE cooperation mechanism has injected a new vitality into bilateral ties.
Djukanovic said that Montenegro highly appreciates China's contribution to Montenegro's development and construction, adding that the Montenegrin government and he himself will make unremitting efforts to continuously advance the relations between the two countries.
LONDON, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Former British prime minister Tony Blair said he will "take full responsibility for any mistakes without exception or excuse" over the Iraq war, after the publication of a long-awaited inquiry into the war on Wednesday.
Speaking before the publication of the report, the chairman of the inquiry John Chilcot said Britain went to war before all peaceful options had been exhausted.
He also said that the legal basis for British military action in Iraq was "far from satisfactory," stressing that British policy on Iraq was made on the basis of "flawed intelligence and assessments."
In the report, finally published seven years after the inquiry began and 13 years after British and U.S. troops invaded Iraq, Chilcot concluded that Britain's military role in Iraq went "badly wrong" and "ended a long way from success."
He noted that Blair was warned that military action in Iraq would increase the threat of al Qaeda to Britain, but war risks were not "properly identified."
In March 2003, there was "no imminent threat" from Saddam Hussein, according to Chilcot.
In response to the publication of the report, Blair said "the report does make real and material criticisms of preparation, planning, process and of the relationship with the United States."
"These are serious criticisms and they require serious answers," he said in a statement.
He also announced that he will respond in detail to the criticisms later on Wednesday.
"I will at the same time say why, nonetheless, I believe that it was better to remove Saddam Hussein and why I do not believe this is the cause of the terrorism we see today whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world," he added.
However, Blair defended his "good faith" in his decisions to go to war in Iraq.
"The report should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit. Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein, I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country," he said.
Blair said that in the report there was no falsification or improper use of intelligence, no deception of Cabinet, and no secret commitment to war whether at Crawford Texas in April 2002 or elsewhere.
"The inquiry does not make a finding on the legal basis for military action but finds that the Attorney General had concluded there was such a lawful basis by March 13, 2003," he explained.
Blair paid tribute to British Armed Forces, saying: "I will express my profound regret at the loss of life and the grief it has caused the families, and I will set out the lessons I believe future leaders can learn from my experience."
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The South China Sea seems unsettling, with the final award by an international arbitral tribunal approaching and heavyweight politicians and diplomats exchanging heated words.
High-level Chinese and U.S. think tanks held a forum in Washington on Tuesday dedicated to the topic.
However, compared with turbulent regions in other parts of the world, where many face life-or-death situations daily, very little is actually happening in the Asian tropical waters.
Except, of course, frequent visits by U.S. warships and fighters to the region in response to infrastructure upgrades by China within its territorial waters.
It raises the question whether resources and attention are wasted on something that should not be an issue.
China and the Philippines have had a dispute since the latter invaded and occupied islands and reefs belonging to China in the 1970s.
But the two countries have agreed to settle the disputes through bilateral negotiation. For years there were no serious confrontations worthy of international interference.
It was the Philippines that unilaterally initiated the arbitration on the disputes in 2013. The Chinese government has every right not to accept or participate in the arbitration.
For one reason, the arbitration proceeding under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) does not apply to disputes such as the one between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea.
Also, why go international when the two sides have not exhausted means to negotiate between themselves? There are plenty of precedents that show introducing a third party only complicates things.
In the South China Sea, a third party is never a buffer, but only an accelerator of tensions.
The United States, which is an ocean away, practically invited itself in the name of freedom of navigation and flight. This notion is hardly justified, since more than 100,000 vessels from various countries sail through the South China Sea without incident every year.
It is wise to foresee a risk and prevent it from happening. But the United States' meddling in the South China Sea is more like a self-fulfilling prophecy, born out of dark motives to insert itself in power plays in East Asia.
Whatever its Asian strategy, the United States would not want the situation to grow out of control and become a real confrontation with China, nor is that China's intention. But China will not back down on sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Last month, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the arbitration panel's ruling would be "an opportunity for China and the rest of the region to recommit to a principled future, to renewed diplomacy, and to lowering tensions, rather than raising them."
Mr. Carter has put his hope in the wrong place. It is not Beijing, or The Hague, or the Nansha Islands, but Washington where he should look for changes.
LAGOS, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Nigerian police confirmed Wednesday that a Sierra Leonean diplomat who was abducted in northern Nigeria has been released.
Maj.-Gen. Nelson Williams, deputy high commissioner in Abuja, was kidnapped on Thursday evening when traveling from Abuja to the northern city of Kaduna for a military passing-out parade.
"The diplomat has been reunited with the Sierra Leonean high commissioner and his family," Nigeria's national police spokesman Don Awunah said.
He added that the diplomat was released at about 4:00 p.m. local time (1500 GMT) along the Abuja-Kaduna road with credible intelligence and technical support.
There were intense police activities on the ground and there was an air patrol around the area, he said, noting that Williams was in good condition.
Nigerian Inspector-General of Police Ibrahim Idris on Wednesday assured members of the diplomatic corps and other foreigners of their safety and security in the country.
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- China and Britain vowed on Wednesday to make the Group of Twenty (G20) Summit to be held in the Chinese city of Hangzhou a great success as the two sides agreed to deepen cooperation in various areas.
The consensus was reached when Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi held a phone conversation with British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.
During their talks, Yang suggested the two countries, under the current circumstances, make concerted efforts to advance bilateral ties and expand cooperation in various areas.
As the global economic recovery is facing more uncertainties, Yang said the cooperation between China and Britain, two important world economic engines, has played a critical role in helping facilitate growth in their respective regions as well as that of the world at large.
The Chinese side, the state councilor said, stands ready to work jointly with the British side to ensure the 2016 G20 summit, scheduled for Sept. 4-5 in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, is a great success, so as to inject fresh momentum into global economic development and world economic governance.
For his part, Hammond said Britain stands ready to continue to develop its ties with China in a positive manner and continuously deepen cooperation with China in various areas.
He stressed Britain's willingness to work closely with China to make the upcoming G20 summit a successful event. The foreign secretary also briefed Yang about the British referendum in June, during which the country voted to leave the European Union after 43 years in the bloc.
In addition, Yang urged the two countries to maintain the momentum in the development of their ties and make positive contributions to both Asia and Europe as well as world peace and prosperity.
by Federico Grandesso
BRUSSELS, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Europe should focus on attracting Chinese investments in the area of information and communication technology (ICT), said Luigi Gambardella, president of ChinaEU, a business-led association aimed at intensifying business cooperation and investment in the telecom and hi-tech spheres.
"Europe should fully understand the potential of China, especially in sectors such as the ICT," Gambardella told Xinhua in a recent interview.
"I hope Europe will be able to grasp this opportunity because China will become the most important player in the world regarding these highly value-added sectors," he said.
Europe should be more active in consolidating its partnership with China, he said. "We should work together with China attracting investments to create new jobs."
Chinese participation in the Juncker investment plan is a "generous act," and it is also a proof that Europe and its citizens can receive tangible benefits from China, Gambardella said.
Gambardella underlined the need to concentrate on the digital sector, where many small and medium enterprises are developing interesting technologies but at the same time face limited financial resources.
He proposed several specific projects for ICT cooperation between Europe and China, such as developing driverless cars.
BEIJING, July 6, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Zhang Dejiang (R), chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress, meets with President of the Cambodian Senate Samdech Say Chhum in Beijing, capital of China, July 6, 2016. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- China and Cambodia agreed to consolidate their traditional friendship here on Wednesday.
The traditional friendship between the two countries has become even firmer as time goes by, said China's top legislator Zhang Dejiang in his meeting with President of the Cambodian Senate Samdech Say Chhum in Beijing.
Zhang said the two countries support each other on their core interests, which shows their strategic mutual trust.
He said the two sides should expand cooperation in all areas, enhance cultural and people-to-people exchanges, and carry forward the traditional friendship.
Zhang, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), said the NPC will have more exchanges with Cambodia's National Assembly and senate on national governance, and strengthen coordination and cooperation in multilateral parliamentary organizations.
Say Chhum said Cambodia attaches high importance on their traditional ties and spoke highly of the contribution made by China to the peace and development in the region and the world.
He said Cambodia is willing to strengthen bilateral exchanges between legislative bodies.
Top political advisor Yu Zhengsheng met with Say Chhum on Tuesday.
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- With the Philippines as the leading actor and the United States cheering in the bleachers, the political farce of an arbitral tribunal without jurisdiction over the South China Sea issue has sounded an alarm for the lingering cold-war mentality.
By supporting the Philippines in this action, the United States has regressed from his historical stance of World War II, misleading the world about China's rise in the 21st century.
Few people realize that China is the only one of the five big anti-Fascist countries that has not fully recovered its territory.
That is not because of the cowardice of the Chinese people but the values it uphold in its diplomacy with surrounding countries: always seeking good neighborly and friendly ties.
In a world already accustomed to the law of the jungle and zero-sum games in international relations, China's restraint and kindness are not only difficult for some countries to understand but also result in the mistaken impression that it is a pushover.
Back in 1948 when China officially unveiled the map of the South China Sea to the international community, including the U-shape line after recovering its sovereignty and jurisdiction over the Xisha and Nansha Islands in compliance with the Cairo Declaration in 1946, none of the countries in the South China Sea area raised any objection.
It should be mentioned that the United States, during its rule over the Philippines, never recognized the Nansha Islands as part of the Philippines.
According to evidence presented when the Philippines tried to seize part of the Nansha Islands in 1933 by history professor Hu Deshen, chief of the China Institute of Boundary and Ocean Studies of Wuhan University, the U.S. State Department notified the Philippines that America could not recognize those islands some 200 nautical miles away from the waters of the Philippines as its territory, according to the Spanish-American Treaty in 1898.
In the 1970s, the Philippines illegally occupied China's Nansha Islands again. To cover up its act of aggression, it described the Taiping Dao as a "rock". The truth is that when the Chinese government recovered Taiping Dao after WWII, it found six freshwater wells and lush plants there.
According to Japanese archives, during its occupation of Tailing Dao, Japan exploited phosphates and there were over 600 people living there.
Obviously the Philippines is trying to deceive the international community, but China did not resort to force. Instead, it proposed negotiation, and later suggested "shelving disputes and joint development."
As a country whose people left their footprints on the islands in the South China Sea more than 2000 years ago, China has exercised restraint, not out of fear, but for the good of the region.
Interference by the United States, on the contrary, is not to uphold justice as it has proclaimed, but to contain China and jeopardize regional peace. If Asia is in turmoil, the United States has nothing to lose.
Neither is China the only country refusing to enforce the ruling of an international court with no jurisdiction. The United States is doing just the same. Pressing China to follow the upcoming arbitration result will only attest the country's love of double standards.
Nevertheless, whatever the result is, the real challenge is the obsolete thinking that a rising power is sure to seek hegemony.
If the United States is unwilling to off-load its thinking and try to appreciate China's logic and culture, similar farces will occur again in different forms. Regional peace and shared development will then be a distant memory in Asia.
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua)-- World Bank member International Finance Corporation (IFC) signed an MOU with central China's Yichang City for a public-private partnership (PPP) on Wednesday to boost the city's economy and provide essential public services.
This partnership is the IFC's first PPP infrastructure advisory with a Chinese city, and it will hopefully support growth in Yichang by helping businesses improve productivity and tap new markets, according to Philippe Le Houerou, IFC Executive Vice President and CEO.
The partnership will focus on projects such as healthcare, transportation, the environment and sanitation. Under the terms of the MOU, Yichang and IFC will collaborate to identify suitable private sector partners, structure projects, and carry out capacity-building activities.
The PPP has become an important tool to help governments worldwide facing fiscal challenges to draw on the strengths of the private sector and drive economic growth.
China has encouraged PPP as a means to attract private investment for public projects amid downward economic pressure. China's insurance regulator decided to allow insurance companies to invest in PPP programs on Monday.
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The Philippine-initiated arbitration on the South China Sea issue is but a political farce under "legal" pretexts aiming to fake "a new reality," which provokes both principles of international law and order, said an article published in a renowned Chinese biweekly magazine.
The article, which appeared in the latest edition of the biweekly Qiushi, said the arbitration is believed to endanger the foundation of the existing international law and order by defying basic respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and voluntary choice by sovereign states, as it seeks maritime jurisdiction overriding national sovereignty and other international laws.
China rejects the arbitration for its failure to conform with international law, said the article carried by the magazine, one of the publications of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
The magazine's comment is made prior to an arbitral tribunal ruling due on July 12, reiterating the Chinese government's stance of no-acceptance of and non-participation in the arbitration.
It also reaffirmed China's insistence on its sovereignty and rights in the South China Sea based on historical facts and legal principles.
The Philippines unilaterally initiated the compulsory arbitration proceedings of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in January 2013, prompting a five-member arbitral tribunal presided over by a former Japanese diplomat.
However, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea obliges peaceful solution of disputes in an agreed way out of voluntary choice, and encourages comparison of notes on differences over its application before seeking a third-party intervention.
Meanwhile, the tribunal has no jurisdiction over territorial claims and allows delimitations, including maritime demarcation.
The article criticized the arbitral tribunal for overstepping its jurisdiction and abusing the UN sea convention to consider the Philippine submissions.
The tribunal has chosen to ignore Manila's obligation to a negotiated solution under bilateral deals and the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea by China and all members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and to defy the delimitations China has made to the UN sea convention.
The moves amount to a de facto nullification of convention members' self-choice rights and the delimitations so far made by some 30 members, undermining the integrity of the convention's dispute settlement mechanism.
Worse, it reaches beyond the convention's jurisdiction. It feeds Manila's illegal territorial claims under technical pretenses, attempting to deny China's sovereignty herein through distorted interpretations of the convention, in a way not to pride itself, the article notes.
The Qiushi article also denounced the arbitral tribunal's misconduct in ascertaining facts and law application.
The tribunal has deliberately misinterpreted China's position paper on the arbitration by quoting out of the context, it points out.
As regards dispute settlement and the legal binding force of related accords, the tribunal reduces readings to be of single document and cites highly disputable judicial precedents in favor instead of more ones otherwise, so as to arrive at a conclusion that China and the Philippines do not rule out a third-party intervention.
On the legal status of the reefs concerned, the tribunal chose to discriminate them from a macro geographic context in defiance of China's insistence on deeming the Nansha Islands as a whole, says the article.
The arbitral tribunal is also found to have selectively collected evidence to fit but only to contradict presumptions against China.
While determining that the Manila requests have nothing to do with territorial claim and maritime demarcation, the tribunal used related bilateral consultations to justify Manila's initiation of the arbitration.
The Qiushi article also noticed suspicious shifts in basic stance of key figures in the arbitration. For instance, Professor Alfred Soons of The Netherlands, a longtime advocate for legal status of reefs as an inextricable part of maritime demarcation, supports their disconnection instead after being involved as an arbitrator, believed to argue for the tribunal's jurisdiction and Manila's ill-purposed evasion of China's delimitation.
On procedural justice, the article elaborated on China's opposition to the tribunal presidency held by former Japanese diplomat Shunji Yanai. It also disputed the geographic representation and cultural background of the five arbitrators for the sake of an unbiased judgement.
What the arbitral tribunal has done runs against the international principle for peaceful solution of disputes, and it has worked to worsen disputes and destabilize the situation in South China Sea, stresses the article.
KATHMANDU, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of people along the Nepal-China border in Sindhupalchowk district have started moving to the safer locations due to the monsoon-triggered massive flood and landslides on Wednesday.
The incessant rainfall since Tuesday night, the swollen Bhotekoshi River and landslides along the border area have led to the displacement of human settlements.
Issuing a statement, the District Administrative Office (DAO) Sindhupalchowk informed that more than 20 houses were completely damaged in Tatopani Liping area whereas two parked trippers, canteen of Tatopani Customs Office and a bridge have been swept away by the monsoon induced disaster in the border.
Though no any human casualty has been reported so far, human settlements on the river bank have been evacuated, according to DAO.
Hundreds of people from Tatopani, Barhabise, Lamo Sanghu and Khadichaur have been moving to safer locations out of high risk of inundation as the water flow in the Bhotekoshi River has significantly increased since last night. Bhotekoshi River has been flowing at 1.5 meters higher than the normal days, the statement reads.
The flooding has also swept away Tatopani-based Mansarobar Boarding School and embankment of Upper Bhotekoshi Hydropower Project at Das Kilo, putting more than 200 houses into high risk.
Local Police Office reported that the swollen river has caused land erosion in multiple sections of Araniko Highway that leads Nepal to its northern neighbor, resulting to disruption.
Araniko Highway is regarded as a lifeline for Sino-Nepal trading which is the shortest distance route between the two neighbors. However, the Tatopani border point, some 130 kilometers away from the capital city, has not been in operation for cross border trading since the April 25 massive earthquake last year.
According to the Home Ministry, nearly 100 incidents of flood and landslide have occurred across the country since mid-April, taking the lives of more than 40 people.
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- China is carrying out a new round of reforms on its torpid state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and pushing local governments to support private firms.
One key part of the broad reforms would allow employees to hold stakes in SOEs, as mixed-ownership companies are considered more vibrant and efficient.
"We are working to select a few centrally and locally administered SOEs to pilot the employee stakeholding reform," an anonymous source with the state-owned assets authority was quoted by Xinhua-run newspaper Economic Information as saying on Wednesday.
High tech companies will be given preference to pilot the reform, said the source, adding that the trials are expected to build experience for future expansion.
"The second half of 2016 will be a critical period for the employee-stakeholding reform," said Li Jin, chief researcher with the China Enterprise Research Institute (CERI).
China has more than 150,000 SOEs. They play a pivotal role in bolstering the economy and providing employment, with total assets worth about 125 trillion yuan (nearly 20 trillion U.S. dollars) as of the end of May.
However, an economic slowdown, which trimmed the country's GDP growth to 6.7 percent in the first quarter, has bitten into SOEs' profitability and left many struggling to keep afloat.
Combined profits of Chinese SOEs saw a decline of 9.6 percent year on year in the first five months despite warming signs in the broader economy.
To reverse the situation, policy makers are promoting an overhaul on SOEs, piloting mixed ownership programs, encouraging mergers and acquisitions, and downsizing overstaffed companies.
President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang gave written advice on the development of SOEs to a national meeting on SOE reform earlier this week.
Xi demanded continued efforts to enhance SOEs' vitality, competitiveness and risk resistance, and to establish a modern corporate governance system.
The premier urged SOEs to slash excess production capacity, boost technological innovation and upgrade traditional industries.
In fact, many SOEs still have huge investment in lackluster traditional heavy industries and are overburdened by high operational costs and long payrolls, according to Xiao Yaqing, head of the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.
More efforts are needed to improve state-owned asset management and change rigid corporate governance, Xiao said.
"Further measures will be rolled out to facilitate changes in SOEs, including industry consolidation, improvement in main business and overcapacity reduction," said CERI's Li.
At the same time, Chinese leaders appeared to attach similar, if not equal, importance to private firms, which created about 60 percent of China's GDP and around 80 percent of jobs, but have recently been hesitant to invest.
Private fixed-asset investment increased 3.9 percent year on year in the first five months of 2016, compared with 11.4-percent growth in the same period last year.
Official surveys in May revealed local governments' failure to fully implement pro-private investment measures, including wider market access, lower financial costs and equal government services.
The State Council said in a notice also this week that it will dispatch inspectors in mid-July to regions with huge, but sharply slowed, private investment.
The notice did not specify which provincial-level regions will be targeted. It asked local governments and departments to mend their ways and do as required by a string of documents released since the incumbent central government was formed.
Related:
Chinese leaders emphasize efforts to deepen SOE reform
BEIJING, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Chinese leaders have urged continued efforts to propel reforms of state-owned enterprises (SOE) to enhance their competitiveness. Full story
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NEW DELHI, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Indian government will take actions against an Islamic preacher for hate speech which inspired the terrorists in the Dhaka attack earlier this month, said local media Wednesday.
An Indian official Wednesday said Zakir Nayek, a Mumbai-based Islamic preacher, has caused concern of the government for his speech.
"His speech is a matter of concern for us. Our agencies are working on this. But as a minister, I will not comment what action will be taken," the Press Trust of India quoted Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju as saying.
Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Star had reported that one of the Dhaka attack terrorists, Rohan Imtiaz, who was the son of an Awami League leader, ran a propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Nayek.
Nayek, in his lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly "urged all Muslims to be terrorists", according to media reports.
Founder of Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation, the doctor-turned religious leader is banned in Britain, Canada and Malaysia for his hate speech.
Twenty-two people were killed by at least six terrorists in an attack upon a restaurant-cafe shop in Dhaka last Friday.
STRASBOURG, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The British government should begin withdrawal negotiations with the European Union (EU) as quickly as possible, British eurosceptic member of European Parliament (MEP) Nigel Farage said Wednesday.
Speaking at his first European Parliament press conference after the UK's referendum vote to leave the EU, Farage batted away suggestions that Britain would end up with a worse trading relationship with the EU once withdrawal negotiations were concluded.
"Britain's current relationship with the EU is rubbish," he said.
"I hope we see a new strong prime minister in Britain who recognizes that in the real commercial world the customer is king. And we (Britain) are the customer; our trade deficit with the EU is 70 billion pounds (91 billion U.S. dollars) a year," said Farage.
Farage added that as elections take place next year in both France and Germany he expected to see German car manufacturers and French wine producers "putting big pressure" on politicians to achieve a "common sense" deal with Britain.
"Even if there is no agreement at the end of the negotiations and we end up with the worst case scenario of relying just on World Trade Organization rules, even that would be better than what we have now," Farage said.
Farage said the free movement of people would be a major issue in any future EU-Britain relationship.
He urged the next British prime minister to trigger Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon soon after coming into office so that withdrawal negotiations could start.
"We are not leaving Europe," he continued, "just the failing political union of the EU."
Farage also claimed the British referendum result offered a "beacon of hope" to other eurosceptic movements across the EU.
He pointed to events scheduled for October this year, including the Hungarian vote on refugee quotas and a rerun of Austria's elections, as likely to further the cause of hastening the end of political union.
Moreover the eurozone crisis was back, he believed, pointing to worries over the next round of Greece's debt repayments and "worrying signs" in the Italian banking sector.
Farage confirmed he was stepping down as leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) but said he would continue to sit as an MEP until his current term expires.
MOMBASA, Kenya, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's anti-terrorism detectives on Wednesday killed a member of Somalia-based Al-Shabaab Islamist group in the coastal town of Kwale.
Regional police commander, Francis Wanjohi, said Juma Mohamed Jakarata alias Modi Tulia was gunned down for engaging in terrorism activities. A grenade was recovered from his house during the dawn operation.
Jakarata is a "Somalia trained Al-Shabaab returnee", the police commander said.
"Upon being challenged, he attempted to hurl a grenade at police officers but was shot dead just outside the house," he added.
Jakarata's girlfriend and brother Majid Akiba Miwa, who was living in an adjacent house, were arrested and are assisting with investigation. Body of suspect removed to hospital pending autopsy.
Jakarata is believed to be behind the killing of three community leaders and one reformed Al-Shabaab returnee in Bongwe area in June. The four had come out openly to oppose extremism ideologies of Al-Shabaab.
The government says there are over 1,500 Al-Shabaab returnees in Kenya, and many of them have surrendered after a State Amnesty Program was announced last year.
Coast regional Coordinator, Nelson Marwa, said security had been tightened in the region to avert attacks during Eid festivals.
He assured locals and visitors of security following alert of possible terrorist attacks in Lamu county.
Locals reported an alleged sighting of Al-Shabaab militants in Lamu on Sunday.
JERUSALEM, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Israel's defense ministry said Wednesday it has "successfully" completed a joint military drill with the U.S., linking missile defense systems of both countries in a simulation of missile attacks from Iran and Lebanon.
The so-called "Integrated Ground Test" was conducted over five days by Israel's Defense Ministry, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, and the United States European Command.
In the trial, which was completed on June 22, systems in Israel and the U.S. were synched to test a combined response to a missile attack on Israel, a spokesperson for the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
The drill included Israel's Arrow Weapons System, using Arrow-2 and Arrow-3, two anti-ballistic missile interceptors developed by the U.S. and Israel, and the David's Sling missile defense system, a U.S.-developed system which was recently delivered to the Israeli Air Force and participated in the drill as part of the process of becoming operational.
These systems were interoperated with the U.S. command and control elements, Aegis ships, Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and Patriot missile defense systems.
"The test validated the combined United States and Israel Missile Defense integrated architecture for the defense of Israel," the statement read.
"During the test, scenarios consisted of multiple missile and rocket attacks were simulated against Israel with both United States and Israel successfully employing, engaging and destroying the simulated incoming threats," the spokesperson said.
Israel's last round of war with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, its arched enemy, ended in 2006, after some 4,000 Katyusha rockets fired by the Shiite organization slammed into northern Israel.
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- China's top legislator Zhang Dejiang exchanged congratulatory messages with his Montenegrin counterpart Darko Pajovic on Wednesday, commemorating the 10th anniversary of their countries' diplomatic relations.
Zhang, who is the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), said that over the past 10 years, the relationship between China and the Republic of Montenegro has seen sound development while the two countries' legislatures have also cooperated smoothly and achieved fruitful results.
China's NPC stands ready to communicate more closely with the Montenegrin parliament on various levels so as to make new contributions to the further development of the two countries' traditional friendship.
Pajovic, who is the president of the parliament of Montenegro, said that his country is ready to join China in continuously pushing forward the two sides' reciprocal cooperation in areas such as tourism, culture, business and trade.
Pajovic also said that the parliament of Montenegro is willing to enhance dialogue and communication with the NPC so as to push forward bilateral ties.
NAIROBI, July 6 (Xinhua) -- An African agricultural think tank has launched an initiative aimed at availing mechanized threshers and airtight storage bags to help reduce post harvest losses of cereals in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) said Wednesday the 36-month project was aimed at scaling up the use of the two technologies in Africa and will support applied research to bring effective, field tested innovations.
"We are starting the project within Burkina Faso and Mozambique to help reduce post harvest losses in cowpeas and soybeans to 10,000 smallholder farmers," AGRA President, Agnes Kalibata, told journalists in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
Kalibata said that over the years, many organizations have developed a set of innovative technologies to reduce post harvest agricultural losses across the value chain, but in vain.
"For more than 70 percent of Africans drawing their livelihoods from agriculture, finding sustainable solutions to the problem holds tremendous promise for enhancing economic growth, food security," she said.
Sub-Saharan Africa is home to over 230 million people suffering from chronic undernourishment, but loses about 30 percent of the grains produced, which is blamed on the lack of adequate post-harvest management and structured markets, inadequate storage in households and on farms, and limited processing capacity.
Financed by the Canada-based International Development Research Centre (IDRC) at a cost of 2.15 million U.S. dollars, the project is expected to reach 60,000 farmers in sub-Saharan Africa by 2020.
"Reducing the losses is necessary to help meet the increased demand for food and also efforts at strengthening farmer's resilience to climate change," IDRC Regional Director for sub-Saharan Africa, Simon Carter, said.
He said the project will introduce low-technology and low-cost threshers which will significantly reduce physical damage to grains, increase threshing efficiency, enhance their quality and make agriculture less labor intensive.
Jane Ambuko, Head of Horticulture in the University of Nairobi, said that with the right tools and partnerships, farmers in Africa were capable of feeding the populations.
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The offprint on President Xi Jinping's speech marking the 95th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on July 1 has sold over 1.6 million copies in three days.
In the speech, Xi, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, called on his comrades to "stay true to the mission" taken up by the CPC 95 years ago.
The offprint was published by the People's Publishing House on July 2 and distributed through retail bookstores.
KASHGAR, July 6, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Muslims dance in front of the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 6, 2016. Muslims on Wednesday across China celebrated the Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. (Xinhua/Bu Duomen)
URUMQI, July 6 (Xinhua) -- More than 20 million Muslims across China began celebrating Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, on Wednesday.
Some 200,000 Muslims, most of whom are ethnic Hui, visited the Dongguan Mosque Wednesday morning in Xining, capital of northwest China's Qinghai Province.
Ma Lu, a local barber, was one of them.
Wearing a pristine robe and white hat, Ma prayed in a queue of people that stretched as far as 5 kilometers outside the mosque, with the voices of Imams coming from loudspeakers. The Arabic prayer is first, followed by a Chinese version.
"For us Muslims, the holy month of Ramadan is the time when we are most close to Allah," said Ma, 56, who closed his barbershop after the prayer.
"I will celebrate the festival with my family for three days," said Ma, who served twice as many customers as usual in the past week.
In Kashgar of the neighbouring Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, more than 30,000 Muslims gathered at the Id Kah Mosque, listening to the sermon of the Mullah.
"The Mullah told us to carry on the endurance, tolerance and calmness we experienced during the holy month into the next year," said Alimjan Erfan, a local resident.
In Xinjiang, where more than half of the 22 million population are Muslims, business is flourishing due to the celebrations.
Tursun Ili, a 19-year-old vendor, is busy selling prayer mats outside the mosque with his brother.
Ili said he will buy gifts for his grandparents and little brother.
The crowds dispersed after the 20-minute prayer. Many went back home while some danced outside the mosque to traditional Uygur music.
"Amazing dancing and special prayer, Kashgar is hard to forget," said Pierre Barthelet, a French tourist.
For Eniwar, a supermarket worker in the regional capital of Urumqi, it is the first Eid al-Fitr for him and his wife in the metropolis after moving there from Kashgar last year.
"I want to spend a unique Eid al-Fitr," said Eniwar, adding that he plans to watch a movie, visit a music bar and enjoy pizza.
For Muslims, Eid al-Fitr is also a day to commemorate their deceased loved ones and a day for charity.
Nurgul, a Muslim woman of Kirgiz ethnic minority from Akqi County, read from the Quran in front of her father' tomb together with her family, throwing cereal and rice on the ground.
The 55-year-old woman had prepared a large pan of fried cakes, fruit and nuts for the poor.
"It is a day for sharing and giving," she said.
Ramadan, a month of prayer and fasting, lasted from June 6 to July 6 this year. With more than 20 million Muslims in China, the event is also celebrated in other regions such as Ningxia, Gansu and Beijing.
In Ningxia, where most of the Hui minority lives, a five-day holiday will begin on Wednesday. Highways will be free of charge during the holiday.
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The arbitral tribunal should correct its mistakes and make up for the homework it has neglected to do, chief expert at the Institute of Boundary and Ocean Studies of Wuhan University Sienho Yee told Xinhua in an exclusive interview Wednesday.
The tribunal has made four major mistakes, said Yee, who was the main convener of the seminar on the South China Sea arbitration case in The Hague on June 27.
First, Yee said, experts found that the arbitration has violated many international rule of law standards. "The arbitral tribunal does not properly identify or prove the existence of the real disputes; the membership of the tribunal does not represent the main forms of civilization or principal legal systems in the world," Yee said.
Moreover, the fact that all the tribunal' s fees were paid by the Philippines seems to explain why the arbitration proceeds at a "frightening speed."
Besides, the tribunal deliberately changed the singular "is" used by China to describe the Nansha Islands into the plural "are," thus failing to regard the Nansha Islands as a single unit for sovereignty, maritime rights and delimitation purposes.
"The true rule of law requires us not to be misled by the superficial image of resorting to arbitration, but to examine the substance of all the concrete issues involved," Yee cited the experts at the seminar as saying.
Second, Yee said the experts believed that the arbitral tribunal fails to properly fulfil its duties, especially when compared to the International Court of Justice.
Yee said that experts have observed that there have been over 14 cases of non-appearance internationally. When a non-participation scenario happens, international tribunals should take a very cautious approach to assure fair treatment for both sides, especially to ensure that the non-appearing side would not be punished simply because of its non-appearance, he said.
However, "the tribunal completely ignores the Louisa case, which is favorable to China and is directly applicable to the interpretation of China' s exclusion of disputes 'concerning' or 'relating to' maritime delimitation," Yee said.
Third, "the award on jurisdiction does not pay due respect for historical facts and makes some general, convoluted comments," Yee said.p Yee said he had the impression that experts observed that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) does not override historic titles or rights in general, which means the two may exist in parallel.
Fourth, Yee said, experts have observed that "the arbitral tribunal adopts an excessively expansive interpretation of the jurisdictional grant, plays a game of words, and distorts the text of the Convention." He said this wrongful exercise of the jurisdictional right presents a substantial damage to the international rule of law.
What's more, Yee said this excessively broad interpretation of the tribunal's jurisdictional reach will make it difficult to persuade the United States and other non-parties to ratify the Convention in the future, "because the United States' greatest fear is that a court or tribunal may abuse its jurisdictional competence."
"If the arbitrators are rational and serious, they would have to listen to these views from the bottom of the hearts of the experts," Yee said.
The experts emphasized that the complexity of the South China Sea issue and the myriad choices available to solving it make it an impossible task for a court or arbitral tribunal to settle it, but negotiation was the most appropriate way to settle the issue.
"In the next phase, the tribunal and the arbitrators should correct their mistakes and make up for what they have neglected to do, and consider the issues not yet but should have been considered," Yee said.
HEFEI/CHANGSHA, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Persistent rainstorms have caused severe floods on the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze, China's longest river, and its tributaries, causing casualties, inundating cities and villages and forcing more than 1 million people to relocate.
As of Tuesday night, storms had left 128 people dead and 42 others unaccounted for, according to figures from the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
Flood fighters are battling against torrents and engaging in round the clock rescue work.
A PHOTO OF FEET
A photo of an armed police officer's feet went viral on China's social media. The pair of pale, sodden feet with the soles wrinkled were regarded as "beautiful" by Chinese netizens.
In the photo, Jiao Lei was sitting against a wall, frowning. He still wore a wet life jacket and his trousers were stained with mud. He was battling against a leaking dike in Pingshan Township, Huaining County in east China's Anhui Province.
When the photo was taken, Jiao and his comrades had been carrying sandbags through waist-deep water all day, said Zhang Guangzhou, a police officer at the site who took the photo and sent it to a military doctor.
"I asked him to see if he wanted to go to hospital," Zhang said.
Impressed by Jiao's flood-fighting efforts, Zhang shared the photo on WeChat, a popular instant messaging tool in China, and it aroused wide attention across the country.
Jiao was allowed to rest on Monday, which made him worried. "I want to go back to join my comrades soon," he said.
Zhang said Jiao was not the only soldier whose feet were soaked in the floods all day long.
FLOATING 10 KM
Central China's Hunan has been one of the worst hit. Floods hit Xupu County in the city of Huaihua on Monday, trapping people in their fragile homes. The county seat was inundated with the water to a depth of over three meters in some areas.
Two officers who were relocating five villagers on a steam boat were washed away by floods when their boat capsized.
Lu Tao, one of the officers, pushed two villagers onto the bank, but he himself was swept away after he was hit by a chunk of floating wood.
A child and six adults were saved. Lu and Yang Yanqiu, another officer, and two women were unaccounted for.
People on a bridge downstream attempted to pull Yang out using a rope but failed because he was too exhausted to struggle against the torrent.
Luckily, Yang was rescued after floating another kilometer, while Lu was rescued after floating more than 10 km for nearly an hour.
The body of a missing woman was found on Tuesday morning. The search for another missing woman is still under way.
"As the floods hit our county, people and soldiers helped each other. We are like a family," said Meng Han, Xupu County Party secretary.
A TEMPORARY DAD FOR LEFT-BEHIND TODDLER
On Tuesday, a dike near Liancheng Village, Zongyang County in Anhui started leaking. The floods covered a highway to a depth of 1.5 meters. Firefighters were dispatched to relocate the villagers.
Firefighter Zhu Hao heard that a toddler had a fever and when he arrived on the scene found an old woman holding the child in her arms trapped in their waterlogged home. He asked his comrades to take care of the woman and took the child on a steam boat to see a doctor.
As the child's parents were away, they had no one to ask help for. Zhu decided to be the "temporary dad" for the toddler. He took him to see doctor and then to have blood tests in hospital.
After the treatment, Zhu took the child back to home, walking for an hour along a mountain road.
Such rescue efforts are continuing in the flooded areas.
HANOI, July 6 (Xinhua) -- A high-rank Vietnamese military official has thanked China for help in the search and rescue of a missing CASA airplane.
Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Defense Nguyen Chi Vinh made the remarks while meeting with Chinese Ambassador to Vietnam Hong Xiaoyong, reported Vietnam's state-run news agency VNA on Wednesday.
On June 16, while carrying out searching mission for a fighter jet and a pilot which went missing earlier, the CASA aircraft with nine people aboard crashed in waters off northern Vietnam.
At Vietnam's request, China sent several warships, coastguard vessels and rescue ships to help Vietnam search for the missing Vietnamese aircraft and crew in waters of the Beibu Gulf between Vietnam's northern coastline and China's Hainan Island.
On behalf of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Military Commission, the Ministry of Defense and families of the martyrs killed in the accident, Vinh thanked China for helping Vietnam in the search and rescue for the plane and its crew members.
Vinh expressed his hope that in the future, the two countries' defense ministries will continue to expand cooperation mechanism in search and rescue area on the basis of international law, enhancing relations between the two parties, two states and two armies, reported VNA.
Ambassador Hong Xiaoyong, for his part, extended condolences to families of the martyrs as well as highlighted Vietnam's search and rescue efforts over the past time. Enditem
Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong (L) meets with Governor of the Irkutsk region Sergey Levchenko in Irkutsk, Russia, July 6, 2016. (Xinhua/Bai Xueqi)
IRKUTSK, Russia, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong on Wednesday called for promoting regional cooperation between China and Russia during a visit to Russia's Irkutsk region.
The China-proposed One Belt and One Road Initiative and Russia's regional development projects in the Far East and Siberia provide new opportunities, especially for regional cooperation between the two countries, Liu said.
Both sides should make the most of the mechanisms at different levels, including the regular meetings between Chinese and Russian regional leaders and bilateral agreements on friendly ties among regions and cities of the two countries, Liu added.
Regional cooperation could be expanded at multiple levels by coordinating regional development plans to bring mutual and practical benefits to both China and Russia, Liu said.
"The Irkutsk region has rich natural resources and lies geographically near to China, which are the advantages of developing cooperation with the Chinese side," she said.
"The Chinese side would continue supporting the practical interaction between the Irkutsk region and Chinese provinces and cities on infrastructure construction, investment as well as humanities cooperation," she added.
Governor of the Irkutsk region Sergey Levchenko on his part praised the positive results of cooperation with China, the biggest investor and largest source of tourists of the region.
Levchenko hoped cooperation would be deepened in areas like trade, investment, tourism, education and culture.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair speaks to media reporters after making a presentation on countering violent extremism through education during an open sessin of the United Nations Security Council Committee on Counter-Terrorism, at the UN headquarters in New York, on Nov. 21, 2013. (Xinhua/Niu Xiaolei)
LONDON, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Former British prime minister Tony Blair said he will "take full responsibility for any mistakes without exception or excuse" over the Iraq war, after the publication of a long-awaited inquiry into the war on Wednesday.
Speaking before the publication of the report, the chairman of the inquiry John Chilcot said Britain went to war before all peaceful options had been exhausted.
He also said that the legal basis for British military action in Iraq was "far from satisfactory," stressing that British policy on Iraq was made on the basis of "flawed intelligence and assessments."
In the report, finally published seven years after the inquiry began and 13 years after British and U.S. troops invaded Iraq, Chilcot concluded that Britain's military role in Iraq went "badly wrong" and "ended a long way from success."
He noted that Blair was warned that military action in Iraq would increase the threat of al Qaeda to Britain, but war risks were not "properly identified."
In March 2003, there was "no imminent threat" from Saddam Hussein, according to Chilcot.
In response to the publication of the report, Blair said "the report does make real and material criticisms of preparation, planning, process and of the relationship with the United States."
"These are serious criticisms and they require serious answers," he said in a statement.
He also announced that he will respond in detail to the criticisms later on Wednesday.
"I will at the same time say why, nonetheless, I believe that it was better to remove Saddam Hussein and why I do not believe this is the cause of the terrorism we see today whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world," he added.
However, Blair defended his "good faith" in his decisions to go to war in Iraq.
"The report should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit. Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein, I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country," he said.
Blair said that in the report there was no falsification or improper use of intelligence, no deception of Cabinet, and no secret commitment to war whether at Crawford Texas in April 2002 or elsewhere.
"The inquiry does not make a finding on the legal basis for military action but finds that the Attorney General had concluded there was such a lawful basis by March 13, 2003," he explained.
Blair paid tribute to British Armed Forces, saying: "I will express my profound regret at the loss of life and the grief it has caused the families, and I will set out the lessons I believe future leaders can learn from my experience."
by Xinhua Writer Liu Fang
THE HAGUE, July 6 (Xinhua) -- A dozen of Chinese young scholars of international law in the Netherlands are preparing to launch an open letter to contest the erroneous exercise of jurisdiction and abuse of legal process in the South China Sea (SCS) arbitration unilaterally initiated by the Philippines.
The open letter also highlights the significance of state consent as the very foundation of international judicial and arbitral organs and call for attention to the dangerous tendency towards the judicial and arbitral expansion in the field of the Law of the Sea, the drafters of the letter told Xinhua.
Peng Qinxuan, 29, Ph.D candidate of international law at Utrecht University, said the idea of writing an open letter hit her like a "natural reflex" to a "bizarre" case.
"A decade-long study on international law and international relations leaves its mark on me. I have always put faith in the international justice by international law. And I am always interested in examining international judicial and arbitral cases," said Peng.
Peng and her colleagues closely followed the highly controversial SCS arbitration case during the past months.
"Many of us share the analysis that no matter how smart the Philippines' disguise is, the real issue in this case is barely about territorial sovereignty and maritime delimitation. The UNCLOS does not deal with territory issues and China has excluded delimitation disputes from compulsory settlement procedures. Evidently the tribunal has no jurisdiction over this case," said the Ph.D candidate.
As the arbitration proceeds despite worldwide questioning, Peng felt an urgency to take action.
"How could such a bizarre case openly violating UNCLOS provisions keep advancing in The Hague, the capital of international law? How can we stay silent in face of such a lawfare which carries ulterior motives? The eyes of the arbitrators are blindfolded with the leaves of the Philippine claims, and they cannot see the mountain behind the leaves. But we lawyers of international law have the duty to pierce the veil," she said.
Peng, who is also head of an association of Chinese students and scholars in the Netherlands, was not alone in her drive.
Among 8,000-more Chinese students studying in the Netherlands, over 100 are scattered in faculties of law across the country. A dozen of them, specialized on international law and the Law of the Sea, set up a research group for the drafting of the open letter.
Xu Qi, a 26-year-old Ph.D candidate on the Law of the Sea at Groningen University, volunteered to contribute with his academic knowledge.
"After many rounds of discussions we decided to present our own analysis of problems of the tribunal's jurisdiction ruling based on the provisions of the UNCLOS and also on the historical facts," he told Xinhua.
Three months of brain-storming produced a 2,500-word document so far.
The young scholars tried to build their case on four aspects: state consent as the basis of compulsory arbitration; territorial disputes and maritime delimitation as real disputes of the SCS case; abuse of legal process and ultra vires acts in the SCS arbitration; the SCS arbitral awards being neither binding nor helpful.
"I wish to draw particular attention to the detrimental impact caused by the SCS arbitration to the inherent balance of the compulsory settlement procedures under the UNCLOS. The tribunal should have been more cautious when ruling on jurisdiction," Xu said.
"When doing research for this open letter, we noticed that a growing number of non-Chinese experts and scholars expressed their concerns over the tribunal's jurisdiction ruling, especially in relation to the real issue of the Philippines' claims. This is both inspiring and encouraging," he said.
"In the open letter we make it clear that China has a correct understanding of the UNCLOS compulsory procedures. China does not accept these procedures being abused for political purposes. By upholding state consent as the basis of compulsory arbitration, China made a right move to defend this fundamental principle of international rule of law. In the long run, more States will see the value of these efforts," added Xu.
Zhang Tong, 24, the youngest of the team, told Xinhua that the faith in the international law led her to join the open letter.
"Compared to the richly experienced arbitrators of the tribunal, I am only a beginner. But I have to say that the jurisdiction ruling is not convincing enough for me. I was particularly surprised by the circular arguments they exercised to substantively exclude the application of China's declaration about the compulsory jurisdiction under article 298," said Zhang.
The Leiden master student on international law believed that in the positivist tradition, compulsory arbitration and other compulsory procedures under the Convention, as agreed upon by more than 160 countries through nine-years' negotiation, are strictly consent-based in substance.
"Within the scope of such consents, an organ is legitimate; stepping beyond, the legitimacy will be highly arguable," said Zhang.
The State-consent principle maintains the balance of interests of all States in a subtle and sustainable way, which helps to maximize the common interests among States, Zhang argued.
"The life of international law comes from and should also serve for the common interests of the international community, which makes the principle of state consent indispensable. But the SCS tribunal seemingly prefers to expand its jurisdiction rather than protect the legitimate interests of the contracting State," said Zhang.
"The Tribunal is probably undercutting the States' already fragile trust towards international judicial and arbitral organs. It might seriously weaken the authority of itself and even of the international judicial bodies as a whole. I started to believe in international justice since high school when I participated and enjoyed Model United Nations activities. What the SCS tribunal did is really disappointing and hurting," she added.
As law students busied themselves with drafting the letter, Wang Zhili, Utrecht University master student in Public International Laws and Finance who has been studying in the Netherlands for more than six years, took up the outreach task of their action.
Together with Peng, they opened social media accounts on Wechat, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter for this purpose and mobilized their friends and classmates to circulate the draft document and collect reactions.
"Most of reports in western media on the SCS arbitration follow the track of their old-style cliches and prejudices against China. You can hardly find any balanced and in-depth article here. I was really shocked by the ignorance of China's arguments when discussing this case with professors and fellow students. That's why we write our open letter in English, Dutch and Chinese. We will spread it far and wide to gather as much support as possible," Wang told Xinhua.
"We do believe that the voice of the truth must be heard," said Peng, the enthusiastic student leader, "One open letter criticizing one single case cannot drive out the shroud of darkness enveloping the world of the international law. Light a candle, you only get a dim light. Pass the candle on, the shadow has nowhere to hide." Enditem
Palestinians pass bags through an Israeli barrier blocking access to the al-Fawar refugee camp south of the West Bankcity of Hebron on July 6, 2016 after they closed access to the camp following an attack targeting an Israeli driver near the camp earlier in the week, as Palestinians try to visit relatives to celebrate Eid al-Fitr which marks the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. (Xinhua/AFP)
JERUSALEM, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Three Israeli soldiers and a Palestinian man were wounded Wednesday in a suspected car-ramming attack in the West Bank, Israel's military and police said.
In the incident, near the Neve Daniel settlement in the Jewish settlement bloc of Gush Etzion, "a Palestinian rammed his vehicle into a military vehicle," a military spokesperson said in a statement.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said three soldiers were lightly wounded due to the crash while the Palestinian driver sustained serious injuries and was taken for medical care.
Photos of the scene, sent by Samri, show a civilian car, its front smashed, and a close military jeep that turned on its side.
Both Samri and the military said that initial inquiry indicates that the ramming was intentional.
The incident came amidst a nine-month spate of Palestinian unrest, including stabbing, shooting, and car-ramming attacks.
The violence has killed at least 215 Palestinians and 34 Israelis. According to Israel, most of the Palestinian were killed amidst attacks or attempted attacks.
HARARE, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Business activity was severely subdued in the capital Harare on Wednesday after a social movement called #This Flag called on residents to stay at home to protest against economic decay.
The mass action, a rare scene in 20 years, coincided with the second day of the job strike by teachers, nurses and doctors who are demanding their June salaries which the cash-strapped government has delayed to July 7 and 14 respectively.
This followed messages on social media for days urging people not to report for work or send their children to school as they risked having their cars and household properties burnt.
While it was not immediately clear whether people had stayed away in response to the call by the social movement or due to fear of possible violence.
Zimbabwe's economy slipped into near stagnation in 2016, suffering from low export income, liquidity crunch, and a ever tightening government budget.
The authorities have resorted to rein in capital flows, impose cash withdraw limits, restrict importation of basic goods, and delay payments to civil servants including teachers, security personnel, and government workers.
On Wednesday, most businesses in the national capital Harare were closed including major retail shops and business offices while banks and government departments were among the few open, a snap survey by Xinhua revealed.
Most commuter omnibus operators were not plying their routes, a situation that left many commuters stranded while there were fewer people than usual in the central business district.
There were reports of some skirmishes between police and residents in some high density suburbs of the city.
There was no activity at public schools as teachers continued with their strike while limited staff and medical students manned government hospitals.
Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers president Denford Mutashu said most retail supermarkets including OK Zimbabwe, Spar and Pick n Pay were open and did not heed the stay away call.
"Most of the retail shops opened and those that did not, it's not because they heeded to the stay away call but were afraid of possible violence that might occur," he said.
Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce chief executive Takunda Mugaga echoed similar sentiments by Mutashu, saying most of their members in the retail sector were open.
"We are yet to know if our members were open but those in the retail sector were open such as OK Zimbabwe," he said.
Zimbabwe last witnessed a mass stay away of this magnitude in 1997 when the then Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions secretary general Morgan Tsvangirai organized a two-day nationwide job stay-away against high government taxes.
Tension built up in the southern African country over the past few days as Zimbabweans were angered by a series of radical government policies to pump up the country's ailing economy, worsened by a severe drought and weak global demand for raw materials.
Last Friday, protesters rioted at the Beitbridge Border Post protesting against a government decision to ban importation of basic goods, most of which come via South Africa, resulting in a warehouse belonging to state revenue agency being burnt down.
Three days later, a protest by taxi drivers against police harassment in Harare turned violent, resulting in the police firing tear gas and water cannons to disperse the protesters.
Police say they have since arrested 95 people in connection with the violence.
Following the nurses and doctors strike, the Ministry of Health has appealed for army nurses, doctors and laboratory scientists to assist.
"Assistance is required from the defense forces to augment coverage for emergency services especially in central hospitals in Harare and Bulawayo," the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health Gerald Gwinji said in a letter to the Defense Forces Commander Constantine Chiwenga.
State news agency New Ziana reported that there was mixed reaction to the call for mass action in the towns Masvingo and Gweru, with most workers staying away from work while the majority of big businesses, including chain stores, banks and government departments opened and operated as normal.
However, most workers in Masvingo did not turn up for work while in Gweru the turn up was high, it said.
The government had Tuesday urged people to disregard the stay away call.
For hours on Wednesday morning, there was disruption in internet services which affected communication through social networking sites such as WatsApp and Facebook.
This came after the telecommunications regulator POTRAZ issued a warning to the public against abuse of social media and telecommunications services to spread "messages that may be deemed to cause despondency, incite violence, threaten citizens and cause unrest".
Meanwhile, police said they had deployed adequate manpower to deal with people that might want to cause violence. Enditem
ISLAMABAD, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday rang his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif and extended greetings on the Muslim festival of "Eid," and wished his early recovery from a heart surgery, officials said.
Pakistan on Wednesday celebrated Eid that marks the end of the month of fasting.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi telephoned Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif to convey Eid greetings. He also enquired about the health of the Prime Minister and wished him a complete and speedy recovery," the Foreign Ministry said.
Sharif underwent open heart surgery last month in a London hospital. Ministers and family said he has been recovering fast and will return to the country as doctors allow him.
"Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif thanked the Indian Prime Minister for his kind sentiments," a Foreign Ministry statement said.
Indian Prime Minister said on his official Twitter he "Spoke to President Rouhani, President Ghani, PM Nawaz Sharif, PM Sheikh Hasina & President Yameen and greeted them on Eid."
Modi called the Pakistani leaders at a time when the bilateral relations are under pressure after the attack on an Indian air force base in January.
Indian had postponed dialogue with Pakistan after the Pathankot Air Force station assault in which seven Indian troops and six militants were killed.
India blamed Pakistan-based group Jaish-e-Mohammad for carrying out the attack.
Pakistani officials had taken action against the group and detained its chief Maulana Masoud Azhar and several other activists.
WASHINGTON, July 6 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that he will leave 8,400 American troops in Afghanistan into 2017, slowing the planned drawdown of the U.S. military presence in the country.
Obama said that the security situation in Afghanistan remains "precarious" and that the country's security forces are still "not as strong as they need to be."
His original plan was to draw down U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 5,500 by the end of the year. Enditem
ISLAMABAD, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan Army Chief, General Raheel Sharif, on Wednesday ordered military officials not to allow any anyone to cross the border into neighboring Afghanistan for violence.
Afghanistan and U.S. officials had long been claiming that the Taliban militants cross the border into Afghanistan for attacks on the foreigners and Afghan security forces.
Pakistan and Afghanistan have nearly 2,600 kilometers of border, mostly porous in the difficult mountainous terrain, and illegal cross-border movement has also been a source of tensions between the two countries.
The latest remarks by the Pakistani Army Chief reflected a tough stance against the militants who routinely take advantage of the loose border control and create problems in both countries.
General Raheel visited the troops in Waziristan tribal region, border Afghanistan, which has been cleared by the security forces of the Taliban and other militant groups, the military said. He spent the first day of the Muslim festival of Eid with the troops in North and South Waziristan, an army statement said.
"The COAS (Chief of the Army Staff) said, as consolidation goes on and operational dividends optimized for Pak-Afghan Border region, Pakistan will not allow anyone to use its soil against Afghanistan and directed all commanders, intelligence agencies and LEAs (Law Enforcement Agencies) to take concrete measures against violators," the statement said.
At the same time General Raheel also stressed that Afghanistan should also ensure that its soil is not used against Pakistan.
"We expect non-use of Afghanistan territory against Pakistan," the army chief said.
Pakistani security officials believe that the Pakistani Taliban, who had fled as the result of military operations, now "operate from the Afghan side of the border and launch attacks on the forces from there."
As Pakistani forces have now killed and expelled the militants from the tribal areas, they now focus on the better management of its borders with Afghanistan so the militants could not create problems again.
"Peace and stability along Pak-Afghan border remains the (Pakistani) forces' priority; towards which they will commit all their efforts," General Raheel further said.
He also reiterated Pakistan's stated position to "facilitate the reconciliation process (in Afghanistan) with sincerity and commitment," adding, "Our efforts for peace in Afghanistan have been acknowledged."
General Raheel extended Eid greetings to the troops in Waziristan and praised their morale and sacrifices to beat the militants.
"We will not let these sacrifices go waste. With FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Regions) cleared and terrorists being chased across the country, we are determined not to allow them to return and reverse our gains," he said in his address to the soldiers.
On Sunday, a U.S. congressional delegation led by Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, paid a rare visit to North Waziristan, and appreciated Pakistani forces for clearing the area of the armed groups. Enditem
ANKARA, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Two Syrians were injured in an explosion in Turkey's southeastern province of Hatay on Wednesday, Dogan News Agency reported.
The explosion occurred in a house located in Reyhanli district of Hatay. The injured were sent to hospital for treatment.
Local police were dispatched to investigate the incident.
Meanwhile, some local media reported that the two were militants trying to make explosives for terro attacks and later died in hospital. Enditem
DAMASCUS, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Visiting the deceased relatives is one of the traditional practices Muslims are keen to follow on the first day of the Eid al-Fitr feast in Syria.
Ahead of the crisis, graveyards would be busy with visitors, but not like after five years of war, when the number of those visiting has largely gone up.
Before the war, most of those visiting the graves were young people visiting late parents. Now, most visitors are parents visiting their slain sons, who had been killed in the battles and violence that has engulfed the country over the past five years.
Throughout the country's five-year-old conflict, estimates of deaths varied between 155,587 and 402,819. On April 23, 2016, the United Nations and Arab League Envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, put out an estimate of 400,000 that had died in the war.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitor group, said Wednesday that 1,138 people, including 400 women and children, were killed during last month only.
Now, instead of visiting one or two graves, it's become increasingly common to see a man or a woman visiting several graves for relatives.
Following the crisis, people have become inclined to distinguish between two types of death, the first is "God-caused death," which is death by natural causes, and the "martyrdom," a type of death exceeding that of natural causes.
Each party of the conflict deems its casualties as martyrs as there is a perceived belief that martyrs die to defend their families and thus will be granted heaven.
In government-loyal areas in the coastal cities of Tartus and Latakia, photos of the martyrs fill public squares and villages, most of those slain are young men.
On the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, local social networking sites, such as the "Syrian Martyrs, Beacons of Light," posted on Wednesday tens of photos of slain soldiers from different Syrian cities.
One post from a woman called Emma read "If it wasn't for your sacrifices, we would have been under the knives," in reference to the Islamic State (IS) gruesome beheadings.
"True that the spirit of Eid is beautiful and should be embraced and lived happily, but there are people wearing black from inside out... there is a martyr everyday," Emma posted.
Somar, a journalist in the coastal city of Tartus, told Xinhua that visitors jam packed the Martyrs Cemetery there with posters of slain soldiers and Syrian flags as well as flowers covering the head stones.
In Latakia city, another bastion of support to the administration of President Bashar al-Assad, graveyards' visitors also flocked cemeteries, holding green plants to place them over the tombs, as part of a belief that the green leaves bring peace to the spirits of those gone.
In the predominantly Kurdish region in northeastern Syria, Kurdish media said thousands of people visited five graveyards in Kurdish towns to pay a tribute to their slain relatives and friends who got killed during battles against terror groups.
In the capital Damascus, people visited its 33 graveyards in large numbers Wednesday to place green plants and recite verses of the Holy Quran.
"As you can see many people are paying the visit to the deceased ones this year. This conflict has sent more people under ground than any other conflict in nearby countries," Wassim said, while visiting the graves of his father, who he said had died of a mortar attack in al-Mazraa neighborhood in central Damascus last year.
The large number of dead people has also contributed to the skyrocketing prices of graves, especially in city centers.
Earlier this year, the government-owned Tishreen newspaper said the prices of graves have bounced to imaginary prices during the crisis, as the price of one grave reached between 1,110,000 and 1,480,000 Syrian pounds (roughly 3,000 U.S. dollars).
The price in dollar could not be seen as expensive as a global price, but the slump of Syrian pound, which lost 1,200 percent of its pre-war value, is the reason.
The amount of Syrian cash now for buying a grave could be enough to buy a house in the suburbs of Damascus ahead of the crisis.
The paper also said the government has opened a new graveyard in Husainiyeeh suburb, 13 km from central Damascus, as the cemeteries of the capital can no longer contain more bodies due to the growing number of deaths.
In less fortunate areas like Aleppo city in northern Syria, people started burying their relatives in public parks due to the high death tolls. Enditem
YUEYANG, July 6, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (2nd R) presides over a meeting on flood control and disaster relief in Yueyang, central China's Hunan Province, July 5, 2016. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)
CHANGSHA, July 6 (Xinhua) -- On the night of 5 July, Li Keqiang, Member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Premier of the State Council, chaired an overnight meeting on the flood prevention of relevant provinces in Yueyang city, after inspecting the flood control work in the flooded areas of the Yangtze River and Huaihe River during the day. The meeting set forth plans for flood prevention and control, emergency response and disaster relief in the next stage.
According to the report of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters at the meeting, due to the early arrival of flood season and heavy rainfall, the country is to face extremely difficult conditions of rain and flood this year. The water levels have crossed the warning mark in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the Dongtinghu Lake and the Poyanghu Lake as well as more than 200 rivers, and a number of middle- and small-sized flood control facilities were damaged. The task of flood prevention is therefore heavy and arduous. Premier Li said that water conservancy and flood prevention and control have always been of utmost importance to the stability of the country and well-being of the people. It is forecasted that torrential rain will continue in several places and the flood situation remains serious. The instructions of the Party Central Committee and the State Council must be carried out faithfully to ensure greater preparedness for major floods and better emergency response and relief efforts. No one shall drop guard although no major flood has occurred in the recent years and no one is allowed to leave it to chance even if we now have better major water conservancy facilities. We must always put people first, act in accordance with law and make sound plans for flood prevention and control, and mobilize the widest possible masses, so that we can be fully prepared to fight even the most catastrophic flood and minimize its damage.
Premier Li stressed that contingency plans should be ready based on a close analysis of the current flood situation so as to ensure the intensity, order and efficiency of the work. We must, first and foremost, ensure the safety of the people as well as the security of major embankments and major facilities. Second, we need to focus our efforts on preventing basin-wide floods and secondary disasters. Key water conservancy projects should be better leveraged, and controlled reservoirs and gate dams should be fully utilized to retain and discharge flood, and reduce and shift the flood peaks. There should be better coordination of various water conservancy facilities to adjust water flow. We should also improve all kinds of emergency plans, particularly the plan for the orderly evacuation of people, and mobilize the system of collective surveillance and prevention to guard against torrential floods, landslides, mud slides and other disasters. Third, we need to ensure the effectiveness of the two basic jobs of monitoring, forecasting and early warning as well as risk detection and elimination. We need to closely monitor the developments and changes in rainfall, water level and flood, enhance information sharing and joint consultations, make rigorous assessment of the trend of flood, strive to buy more time for flood and disaster prevention and relief and relocation of residents, and make utmost efforts to avoid casualties. We must do a good job in the patrolling and troubleshooting of flood-prevention facilities including main dikes, reservoirs and floodgates as well as embankments of rivers and lakes where water levels are already beyond the warning mark, and ensure prompt risk detection and management.
Premier Li said that while fighting the current flood, it is also important to enhance our flood prevention and disaster relief capability in an all-round way. To overcome the problems exposed during the flood control, all localities must be determined to shore up the two major weak links in urban underground pipelines and small-scale water facilities. While more input by the state is needed, greater efforts should also be made to advance reform, innovate mechanisms, widen market access, and encourage greater participation of private capital. We must take good stock of and accumulate experience of flood control and emergency response, improve institutions, enhance emergency management, and ensure early prevention, prompt control and effective relief at crucial phases.
Premier Li stressed that all relevant regions and parties, under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the General Secretary, must bear in mind the overall interests, enhance their sense of responsibility and pool their efforts to form synergy. The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters and basin management authorities must enhance overall coordination and specified guidance, and take a holistic approach to the flood control work in the upper streams and lower streams, on left banks and right banks, and in mainstreams and branches of rivers. Should there be defiance of coordination orders that leads to major losses or should there be any ineffective work or organizational effort that may lead to embankment breaches, dam collapses or major casualties, those responsible must be held accountable in strict accordance with the law. We need to improve the joint operation mechanism between the military and the civilian authorities and support the flood control and emergency relief efforts of the PLA and armed police forces, so as to achieve a resounding victory in the fight against flood.
Wang Yang and Yang Jing attended the meeting. Principal and competent officials of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei, Hunan and Sichuan Provinces, heads of the relevant departments of the State Council, Water Conservancy Commissions of the Yangtze River, Yellow River and Huaihe River and the Taihu Basin Authority, and relevant heads of the PLA and armed police forces participated in the meeting.
by Elias Shilangwa
LUSAKA, July 6 (Xinhua) -- With almost a month to go before Zambia holds its general elections, concerns have risen on whether the country will uphold the peace it has enjoyed for over 50 years since gaining independence.
Zambia will hold presidential, parliamentary, local government and mayoral elections on August 11 as well as a referendum on the amendment of part three of the constitution which deals with people's rights.
But politically-motivated violence has continued in the run-up to the general elections despite calls by stakeholders for leaders to urge their supporters to stop the violence.
Apart from inflicting injuries on each other, rival supporters of the two parties have also gone to the extent of pulling down campaign posters.
Violence has been a major sticky point in the ongoing campaigns despite church leaders holding meetings with political leaders to urge them to renounce violence.
There have been accusations and counter-accusations between supporters of the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) and the main opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) on who was behind the vice.
Despite a number of arrests from both sides, violence has continued unabated and analysts fear this could mar Zambia's good name of being a beacon of peace in Africa. Pictures of people hacked in electoral violence are the order of the day on social media and national newspapers while unconfirmed reports say some people have been killed.
"Please, do not put our peaceful Zambia on fire. We strongly condemn the attitude of promoting violence and using the youth as tools to fan violence," former chief judge Justice Lombe Chibesakunda said in a statement.
The former chief judge, who is chairperson of the Pillars of Peace Zambia, a local organization established to promote peace, said the country's electoral body should expeditiously deal with candidates promoting violence and that the government should establish a fast-track court to deal with individuals perpetrating violence during campaigns.
Other stakeholders have called on Zambian President Edgar Lungu to do more to end the violence, adding that as head of the defense chiefs, he is the only one who could put a stop to the vice.
Lungu said on Monday that he will not enforce the state of emergency despite the political violence, adding that he will not yield to the temptation as he believed the problem could be solved without resorting to the drastic step of imposing a state of emergency.
"I cannot declare a state of emergency in an election era. We have to tolerate certain infringements but I am watching the situation very closely," he told reporters when asked whether it was true that he intends to declare a state of emergency.
Lungu said he had confidence that the police will deal with the problem of violence and bring to book all culprits.
But some stakeholders have questioned the police's ability to curb violence as they have failed to do so despite repeated promises since the campaigns started. The stakeholders are concerned that repeated calls by the police to political leaders to urge their supporters to stop engaging in violence have not yielded any positive results.
Opposition political parties have also accused the police of bias as they seem to pay a blind eye to the violence perpetrated by the ruling party supporters and were quick to swoop on opposition supporters.
But the police have dismissed the claims, saying it has the mandate of enforcing the law irrespective of the political party supporters involved.
"If anybody commits a crime, what we have decided to do is to arrest them and we have been doing those arrests. So far we have arrested political cadres from both the ruling party and opposition," Rae Hamoonga, the Zambia police deputy spokesperson, told local media recently.
Last month, the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) warned that it will be forced to suspend the campaigns and suspend any party or candidates from participating in the elections for engaging in violence.
Cris Akufuna, the electoral body's public relations manager said the constitution empowers it to suspend or prevent a political party as well as candidates from participating in elections if it concludes that party supporters have engaged in acts of violence.
"The commission has observed with dismay the rising levels of intolerance and violence and to that effect, the commission has condemned the behavior, the intolerance and violence. And it is for that reason that the commission has reminded political parties that they should conduct their campaigns peaceful," he said.
However, despite the threats, the violence has continued. Last week, the main opposition party alleged that one of its supporters died after he was attacked by ruling party supporters for putting on a T-shirt bearing the portrait of main opposition contender Hakainde Hichilema.
Efforts to end the violence seem not to be paying any dividends so far.
For instance, on March 29, 18 political parties agreed to end violence after a meeting convened by church leaders. After the meeting, the party leaders committed to stop their supporters from engaging in violence and that they would institute measures to deal with issues that results in violence.
But so far, the opposite seems to be true as violence as continued despite the promises from the leaders.
As the country heads to the polls, it remains to be seen whether peace will prevail or whether Zambia's tag of being a peaceful nation be broken. Enditem
BEIJING, July 6, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) shakes hands with Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister Peter O'Neill during a welcoming ceremony for O'Neill before their talks in Beijing, capital of China, July 6, 2016. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday called on China and Papua New Guinea (PNG) to further integrate development strategies with each other.
Li's pledge came during his talks with Peter O'Neill, PNG prime minister at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
China and PNG have highly complementary economies with great potential for cooperation, Li told O'Neill.
China would like to further integrate its strategies with the development plans of PNG, enhance cooperation on production capacity, agriculture, forestry, fishery, energy resources, telecommunication, transportation and infrastructure construction, Li said.
He encouraged the two countries to further expand two-way trade, intensify technological and personnel exchanges, and initiate negotiations on an FTA agreement at an early date.
O'Neill said PNG views China as an important partner and is willing to become a portal for cooperation between China and South Pacific countries.
PNG is ready to cooperate in areas including energy, tourism, aviation, finance and education, he said.
On the political front, Li hailed the sound development of bilateral relationship in the past four decades since the two forged diplomatic ties.
China established formal diplomatic relations with PNG in 1976, soon after the country gained independence from Australia.
Li called on both countries to enhance coordination within multi-lateral mechanisms including the United Nations, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, ASEAN Regional Forum and the Pacific Islands Forum, as well as the South-South cooperation framework.
At the beginning of the talks, O'Neill expressed sympathies to the flood-hit areas in southern China.
O'Neill kicked off his week-long official visit to China on Tuesday. Besides Beijing, he will attend the Eco Forum Global in Guiyang in southwestern China and visit Shenzhen.
BEIJING, July 7 (Xinhua) -- China and Iran have pledged to cooperate to promote the implementation of a comprehensive agreement on Iranian nuclear issue.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, at the invitation of his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, had a telephone conversation on Wednesday with Zarif, in which they exchanged views on China-Iran relations and the implementation of the comprehensive nuclear agreement.
Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a successful state visit to Iran in January and the two countries upgraded their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership, Wang said, adding that both sides have made positive progress in implementing the consensus reached by the heads of state of the two countries.
Since the comprehensive agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue was reached in July 2015, Iran and the six major world countries -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States -- have actively made their commitment and the implementation of the agreement goes smoothly, Wang said.
Wang said that he hoped all related parties would continue to shoulder their responsibilities, deepen mutual trust and implement UN Security Council Resolution 2231 as well as the Arak heavy-water project. "China will continue to play a constructive role," he said.
For his part, Zarif said Iran attaches great importance to the fruits Xi's Iran visit has yielded and will work with China to realize the consensus reached by the two heads of state.
The Iranian side speaks highly of the efforts the Chinese side has made to facilitate the Arak reactor's reconstruction, Zarif said, adding that Iran will cooperate with China to enhance the implementation of the comprehensive nuclear deal.
WUHAN, July 6, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang inspects flood control of the Huaihe River at Wangjiaba in Fuyang, east China's Anhui Province, July 5, 2016. Li Keqiang made an inspection tour in Anhui, Hunan and Hubei provinces on Tuesday and Wednesday to see flood control and disaster relief at first hand. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)
WUHAN, July 6 (Xinhua) -- From 5 to 6 July, Li Keqiang, Member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Premier of the State Council, made a non-stop visit to Fuyang in Anhui Province, Yueyang in Hunan Province and Wuhan in Hubei Province to inspect flood control and rescue and relief work in areas along the Yangtze River and Huaihe River.
This year's flood season started earlier than before, with intense and large-scale heavy rainfall of long duration. To ensure major rivers and lakes are safe during the flood season and protect people's lives and properties is of extreme importance. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council attached great importance to this work. General Secretary Xi Jinping and other leaders of the central leadership have given important instructions and directives on many occasions. Relevant departments of different parts of China have made solid efforts for flood prevention and control. The Huaihe River is a disaster-prone area historically. Premier Li visited the Wangjiaba Dam in Fuyang, Anhui Province. The dam is known as "the most important dam on the one-thousand-kilometer-long Huaihe River". He observed carefully water coming from upstream, inquired about developments in flood situation, and asked working personnel to stay vigilant to such changes and make accurate and timely forecast based on monitoring. Premier Li heard briefings of the head of the Huaihe River Water Conservancy Commission. He said that July and August are critical months for flood control. The harder battle is yet to come. The Commission should always bear safety in mind and never slacken efforts. It should work in a well-coordinated way between the upper stream and lower stream, make good preparation for various kinds of emergencies and gain the initiative in flood control and disaster relief.
Visiting Zhengtaizi embankment in Mengwa flood storage area, Premier Li asked local people about their production and living conditions, as well as food and drug preparation for the flood season. He inquired about measures taken to ensure that the embankment is strong enough. He told local officials that they are in charge of a critical area for flood control in Huaihe River. They need to make sure that priority is always given to people's lives and property, work in advance, and put in place safeguards to make people more confident that they will prevail over the disaster. The Premier said that "the party and the government will continue to give more support and make sure that the flood storage lowland does not become a lowland for people's livelihood".
Baishiling village is an urban village in Yueyang city. Due to continuous heavy rainfall, many houses have been submerged. Premier Li arrived here despite the rainfall, carefully inspecting the flood situation, and asking how the relocation is going. He said that now, many cities have seen floods within the city area. This is due to intense rainfall, and it also reflects a "historical deficit" in urban construction. He asked for efforts to be made to ensure proper settlement for the affected population and for speeding up the renovation of shanty towns and the construction of underground pipeline corridor, in order to address this weakness and "scar" of the city and raise disaster response capacity both overground and underground.
Premier Li visited Jingjiang, the most dangerous section of the Yangtze River. He inspected the power-pumped section along the Jingjiang River in Yueyang city and the Liuyehu section of the Jianxinyuan embankments of the Dongting Lake, checking the water level and dam situation there. Leading officials of the Yangtze River Water Conservancy Commission briefed the Premier about their flood control efforts. Premier Li said that ensuring the safety of the main embankments is critical to flood control and must therefore never be taken lightly. As the main flood season has just arrived, the situation could get worse before it gets better. It is important to make all-weathered patrols of the embankments, reservoirs and other projects. Efforts must not be slackened in the slightest way. Contingent plans must be made in light of the latest developments to ensure the overall safety of major rivers, lakes and the basin area throughout the flood season.
The rainfall in Wuhan city has exceeded 600mm in one week, leading to rapid rise of water levels of the Yangtze River and Han River, both of which have passed the warning line. The non-stop torrential rains have caused piping in one section of the main embankment in the city along the Yangtze River. Premier Li went to the site and inquired about the situation on the ground from soldiers of the People's Liberation Army, armed police, water conservancy workers and other personnel fighting on the front line and asked them whether there exist fresh risks in the surrounding areas. Premier Li said that taking care of a densely-populated area means heavy responsibilities. Although the embankment is much more solid than before, we still should not drop our alert. Even one ant hole may cause the collapse of a solid dyke. This piping incident is a cause of alarm for us. We are in a critical period for flood control. It is imperative to fill up all loopholes and guard against invisible perils, cement the embankment and gather useful experience. We need to remove all hidden dangers and ensure the safety of the people.
The water level of Longwangmiao section of the Yangtze River has passed the warning line and is above the city roadbed. Wading through the river water, Premier Li inspected the embankment consolidation and material preparation. He said that for flood control, "prevention is the foundation, control is the key, while people is at the core". It is important to strengthen patrol and inspection, remove risks and leave nothing to chance. We must ensure safety for the tens of millions of citizens in Wuhan. Having withstood the test of massive flooding in the past, we are in a better position with greater confidence to safeguard our homeland. The central government will lose no time in allocating flood prevention and disaster relief funds in support of local efforts. We will guide different parts of China to make accurate early warning, set aside adequate materials, make available a strong task force, take prompt actions in response to emergency and work in concert to win the hard battle of flood control this year.
Vice Premier Wang Yang and State Councilor Yang Jing also took part in the inspection tour.
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Jing Hanchao, vice president of China's Supreme People's Court (SPC) said Wednesday that all of its open trials would be broadcast live on the Internet from July 1.
Jing said the live webcasts will be significant progress for judicial openness. With full transparency of trials online, the public can better play their supervisory role.
Live broadcasts will also drive judges to strengthen their capabilities, thus improving the judicial system, Jing added.
Furthermore, Jing said live webcasts will create a large amount of data that will help jurists study China's legal system.
NAIROBI, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Fish imported from China for the Kenyan market is safe and fit for consumption, a senior official said on Wednesday.
Japhet Ntiba, the Principal Secretary for Fisheries and Blue Economy, said fish imported from China had been certified for consumption by the Kenya Bureau of Standards.
"We are forced to allow Kenyan importers to bring in the country additional tons of fish to meet the local annual per capita demand," Ntiba told journalists in Nairobi.
He said the Kenyan market required one million metric tons of fish per year but only 200,000 metric tons were produced domestically, leaving a gap of 800,000 metric tons.
Ntiba revealed that besides China, Kenya was also currently importing fish from Uganda, Tanzania and India.
"Kenya has imported 2,300 metric tons of fish this year due to the China's high standards and safety of their fish," he said.
Due to the dwindling stoke of fish in the country, Ntiba revealed that the government had plans to start investing in the Indian Ocean and other lakes besides Lake Victoria to help meet the local demand and also export.
"We have also started cage farming in Lake Victoria and seaweed commercialization at the coast region for export and also as an alternative to the use of plastic," he said.
Ntiba blamed low production of fish on climate change, overfishing and lack of monitoring by county governments.
His remarks came after Kenyan lawmakers expressed concern over the safety of tilapia imports from China.
The imported tilapia is packaged, frozen and imported to Kenya by a Chinese company with the East African Sea Food Limited being its local agent, local reports say. Enditem
TORONTO, July 6 (Xinhua) -- House prices in Canada's largest city continued to surge as potential home buyers struggled with a lack of supply in the hot real estate market, said a report Wednesday by the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB).
The average price of a home in the Toronto area, which includes the regions of Peel, Halton, York and Durham, as well as Simcoe County, jumped by almost 17 percent in June compared with the same month last year.
An average home in Toronto area cost 746,546 Canadian dollars (574,019 U.S. dollars) in June, up 16.8 percent from 639,309 Canadian dollars in June 2015. That average encompasses all home types, including detached houses, attached houses and condos.
Though the number of sales also rose across the region, 12,794 this June compared with 11,905 last June, the number of new listings was down 3.8 percent.
That lack of supply was a key factor driving prices, according to TREB president Larry Cerqua.
"Demand is at a record level," he wrote in the report. "Would-be home buyers continue to face an uphill battle against a constrained supply of listings."
Average Toronto home prices have surged more than 85 percent in the past decade, from 335,907 Canadian dollars in 2005 to more than 622,000 Canadian dollars in 2015, according to data from TREB.
Cerqua also said TREB will conduct further research into "issues affecting lack of supply" as "the federal, provincial and local levels of government discuss housing policy in the coming months."
News of the sale price increase comes as governments ponder how to cool hot housing markets, particularly in Vancouver and Toronto.
Vancouver real estate board figures showed the benchmark price for all residential properties in Metro Vancouver was 917,800 Canadian dollars in June, a 32 percent jump since June 2015.
Residential property sales in Metro Vancouver totalled 4,400 in June, an increase of about 0.5 percent compared with one year earlier, but a drop of nearly 8 percent since May.
Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has proposed a tax on vacant homes in that city, where skyrocketing housing prices have been driven in part by foreign buyers who using the homes as an investment.
Last month, the Canadian federal government announced a working group to monitor the housing market and issues around affordability. Enditem
BEIJING, July 7 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had a phone conversation with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday to discuss maritime issues, at the latter's invitation.
Wang said that relations between China and the United States are generally on a sound track and that the two sides should further focus on cooperation while properly managing their differences to push forward the new type of major power relations between the two countries.
Wang said the so-called South China Sea arbitration is tainted "with illogical and flawed application of procedures, laws and evidences."
"Therefore, the arbitral tribunal which clearly has been expanding and over-stretching its jurisdiction beyond the limit has no jurisdiction at all (over the South China Sea disputes)," Wang said. "Any award it makes in disregard of the laws and facts is naturally not legally binding."
China, by not participating in and not accepting the so-called arbitration, is in fact upholding international laws and rules and safeguarding the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) seriously and its integrity.
"The arbitration tribunal farce should come to an end," Wang said.
Wang urged the United States to honor its commitment to not taking sides on issues related to sovereign disputes, be prudent with its actions and words, and not to take any actions that infringe upon the sovereignty and security interests of China.
The Chinese foreign minister said that, regardless of any outcome of the so-called arbitration, China will firmly safeguard its own territorial sovereignty and legitimate maritime rights and firmly safeguard the peace and stability in the South China Sea.
China remains committed to peacefully resolving the disputes through negotiations and consultations with directly involved parties, in accordance with the United Nations Charter and the fundamental principles of international law and international relations, including the principle of respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity and that of resolving disputes by peaceful means, Wang said.
Kerry, for his part, said the United States understands that China has its own stance on the arbitration.
He also expressed the hope that all relevant parties show restraint.
The United States and China share common interests in keeping the peace and stability in the South China Sea and the United States supports countries in the region to make continuous efforts to peacefully resolve disputes through diplomatic means, Kerry added.
Belgian police block a street in Verviers, a town near Liege, in the eastern Belgium, Jan. 16, 2015. Two people have been killed in an anti-terrorism operation here on Thursday, and the third person was injured. (Xinhua/Ye Pingfan)
BRUSSELS, July 6 (Xinhua) -- A Belgian court on Tuesday sentenced a group of terrorist suspects linked to last year's Paris terror attacks up to 16 years in jail.
The three main defendants of the trial, Marouane El Bali, Schofield El Abdi and Mohamed Arshad have been found guilty of belonging to the terrorist group Islamic State (IS) and were sentenced to 16 years in prison. The fourth, Omar Damache, was sentenced to eight years.
Prosecutors said the men standing trial had returned from fighting with IS in Syria and were in constant contact with the group through the leader of the Paris attacks Abdelhamid Abaaoud.
Abaaoud was killed in a November raid in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis.
Pierre Hendrickx, the judge in the case, said the cell had intended to target Zaventem airport in Brussels as early as 2015. The airport ended up being one of the targets of the March 22, 2016 attacks in Belgium.
The terrorist cell was dismantled by police during a raid on Jan. 15, 2015 in Verviers, an eastern Belgian town close to German borders. A total of 16 suspects were charged in connection with the raid, but nine remain at large.
During the operation, police found "ingredients" to manufacture 6 kg of explosives.
KIGALI, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in the Rwandan capital of Kigali Wednesday as part of a tour of four African countries -- Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia.
Upon Landing at Kigali International Airport at around 10:00 a.m. local time, Netanyahu accompanied by his wife Sara Netanyahu were received by the Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his wife Jeanette Kagame.
The Israeli leader was greeted by an honor guard detachment mounted by Rwandan defense forces, and later told reporters his trip is about rebuilding ties with Africa.
At his arrival, Netanyahu headed to Kigali Genocide Memorial centre to honor the victims of the 1994 genocide.
Together with President Kagame and their spouses, the Israeli PM laid a wreath to mass graves of genocide victims at the memorial centre.
The two leaders later witnessed the signing of bilateral agreements between Rwanda and Israel before addressing a joint news conference.
The bilateral cooperation agreements signed are in the areas of visa exemption for holders of diplomatic passports, joint declaration of intent on innovation and agriculture.
"We believe that Africa is a continent on the rise and our partnership with African countries including Rwanda will mutually benefit our people and Africans," Netanyahu told reporters.
He stated that Israel and Rwanda share tragic histories, Holocaust and Genocide, but they have managed to pick up the pieces and they have become success stories of development.
"I am in Africa because it is a continent on the move. I believe that in the past it was not given the place it deserves," Netanyahu said.
"To fight genocide denial, we have to tell the truth. It is an ongoing battle. We need to insist on stopping this hate propaganda. We must know that no one will defend you if you don't defend yourself. The Genocide and Holocaust that we've both suffered taught us that we must have the capacity to defend ourselves at whatever cost," he stressed.
His host, Rwandan President Paul Kagame reiterated the point.
"We must put in place measures to deal with genocide denial upfront. We have to build our capacities bearing in mind that we can't afford to have people committing Genocide and Holocaust again," said the Rwandan president.
Kagame stated that Rwanda and Israel enjoy cordial bilateral relations and the visit was a great moment for the two nations.
Netanyahu's visit started at Entebbe Airport, Uganda, that coincided with the 40th anniversary of his government's raid on the same airport in 1976 to rescue hostages taken by Palestinian terrorists who had been allowed by then Ugandan President Idi Amin to land in Entebbe.
On this first leg of his historic visit to Africa, Netanyahu attended on Monday a summit of regional leaders on countering terrorism in Uganda.
In June 2014, Rwanda signed a partnership agreement with Israel that established a forum for consultations between the two nations, and boosts Rwanda's foreign direct investments from Israeli businesses.
Netanyahu will conclude the visit to Africa in Ethiopia on Thursday.
An aerial photo taken on Sept. 25, 2015 from a seaplane of Hainan Maritime Safety Administration shows the Yacheng 13-1 drilling rig during a patrol in South China Sea. (Xinhua/Zhao Yingquan)
BERLIN, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The real nature of a dispute between China and the Philippines over the South China Sea is about territorial sovereignty, which is beyond the jurisdiction of an arbitral tribunal, a German expert has said.
Stefan Talmon, director of the Institute of Public International Law at the University of Bonn, said in a paper published recently that despite the Philippines' claims about issues such as "traditional fishing rights," the "actual controversy" in the case is about territorial sovereignty.
The Hague-based Arbitral Tribunal on the South China Sea established at the unilateral request of the Philippines has no jurisdiction over the case, as disputes over territorial sovereignty are not governed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Talmon said.
The arbitral tribunal will issue a final award on July 12. China has repeatedly said that it will neither accept nor participate in the arbitration.
Talmon also criticized the tribunal for failing to scrutinize the documents referred to by the Philippines in its submission and ignoring China's position before rendering an award on Oct. 29, 2015 when it ruled that it has jurisdiction over the case.
"The tribunal's finding on the true nature of the dispute is based on a misunderstanding of the disputes in the South China Sea," he said, calling the tribunal's award on Oct. 29, 2015 an example of "discounted justice."
In a recent interview with Xinhua, Talmon said the coming award would not help solve the disputes over the South China Sea, but rather have a "counterproductive impact" on the issue.
"There is a danger that the decision will be misused for political purposes and ultimately contribute to the hardening of positions of both sides," he said.
US President Barack Obama delivers a statement on Afghanistan with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter (L) and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford at the White House in Washington, DC, on July 6, 2016. Obama announced that 8,400 US troops will remain in Afghanistan into 2017 in light of the still "precarious" security situation in the war-ravaged country. ( AFP PHOTO / NICHOLAS KAMM )
WASHINGTON, July 6 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that he will maintain about 8,400 American troops in Afghanistan into 2017 through the end of his administration, slowing the planned drawdown of the U.S. military presence in the country.
Obama said the security situation in Afghanistan remains "precarious" and the country's security forces are still "not as strong as they need to be."
His original plan was to draw down U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 5,500 by the end of this year.
"My decision today also sends a message to the Taliban and all those who have opposed Afghanistan's progress," the U.S. president said in a televised address at the White House. "You have now been waging war against the Afghan people for many years. You've been unable to prevail."
Obama said the troops will remain focused on narrow missions of supporting Afghan forces and going after terrorists.
"Maintaining our forces at this specific level, based on our assessment of the security conditions and the strength of Afghan forces, will allow us to continue to provide tailored support to help Afghan forces continue to improve," he said.
The U.S. President said the new decision was based on recommendation of U.S. military leaders and following extensive consultations with his national security team, as well as the Congress, the Afghan government and international partners.
He added that Wednesday's decision best positions his successor to make future decisions about U.S. presence in Afghanistan.
"The decision I'm making today ensures that my successor has a solid foundation for continued progress in Afghanistan as well as the flexibility to address the threat of terrorism as it evolves," he said.
WASHINGTON, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday imposed sanctions on Kim Jong Un, the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), and other top officials over alleged human rights abuses.
Kim was designated "for having engaged in, facilitated, or been responsible for an abuse or violation of human rights by the Government of North Korea or the Workers' Party of Korea," the Treasury Department said in a statement.
The designated top DPRK officials include Choe Pu Il, Minister of People's Security, Ri Song Chol, Counselor in the Ministry of People's Security, and Kang Song Nam, a Bureau Director with the Ministry of State Security, according to the statement.
In addition, the Treasury also slapped sanctions on 10 other individuals and five entities for their ties to DPRK's alleged abuses of human rights.
As a result of the move, any property or interest in property of those designated within U.S. jurisdiction is frozen. Transactions by U.S. persons involving the designated persons are also generally prohibited.
The department has previously sanctioned four individuals and three entities of the DPRK over alleged human rights abuses.
Servicemen of Ukrainian Forces holds a flag of Ukrainian Airborne Troops to set it on the frontline after a battle with pro-Russian separatists at Avdiivka, in Ukraine's Donetsk region on June 25, 2016. (AFP PHOTO / ANATOLII STEPANOV)
MOSCOW, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Russia is hoping Germany and France will dissuade Kiev from starting a military operation against insurgents in eastern Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
Moscow was concerned with the build-up of Ukrainian Armed Forces and volunteer battalions at the contact line with the rebels, which was noticed by observers from the Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the ministry said in a statement.
"It is clear that Ukrainian forces are preparing a military operation," it said.
The issue had been discussed at a meeting between Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin with the German and French ambassadors to Russia.
Karasin said such activities by Ukraine could "nullify" efforts, including those made by the Normandy Quartet of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France, aimed at peacefully settling the Ukraine crisis.
Moscow hopes that German and French partners will be able to use their influence on Kiev to prevent a military scenario, which may seriously destabilize the region, the statement said.
The leaders of the Normandy Quartet signed an agreement in Minsk in February 2015 on a peaceful settlement in the independence-seeking Ukrainian region of Donbass.
The Minsk deal envisaged a ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the contact line, a prisoner exchange, and holding local elections in Donbass, among other measures.
However, the peace process has reached a stalemate, with Kiev and the eastern insurgents accusing each other of violating the ceasefire.
Policemen stand guard at the entrance to Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul, Turkey, June 29, 2016. (Xinhua/He Canling)
MOSCOW, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The Kremlin said Wednesday there was no reliable information on Russian nationals' involvement in the recent deadly attacks on Istanbul Ataturk Airport.
Turkish media reported Monday that Turkish police detained overnight one Russian and one Kyrgyz national with suspected links to the Islamic State (IS) in relation to the triple suicide attacks on June 28 that left 45 people dead and more than 200 others injured.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the Turkish authorities blamed them on the IS.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged more cooperation including information sharing on countering international terrorism, saying that some terrorist attacks including the recent attack at Istanbul's airport could be prevented.
"For many years, the Russian side has handed over information through channels in various services, including intelligence services, both to Turkish and European colleagues, that persons suspected of intending to join terrorist groups can be hiding on the territory of Turkey, as well as a number of other European countries," Peskov said.
"Most often, these signals from the Russian side have not received proper attention or any sort of reactions from our colleagues," Peskov told reporters.
He said that Russia had consistently supported cooperation between all states in fighting terrorism, which was a universal threat. No country could stop its spread alone, he said.
Russia and Turkey have started mending ties after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan presented on the eve of the airport attack apologies to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for a Russian jet downed by Turkey in November last year.
MOSCOW, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday discussed with his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama the situations in Nagorno-Karabakh region, as well as Syrian and Ukrainian crises in a telephone conversation, according to a Kremlin statement.
On the dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which escalated into bloody clashes in early April, Putin and Obama talked about the results of the June 20 meeting of Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders in Russia's St. Petersburg.
Both Russia and the United States co-chair the Minsk Group under the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Putin stressed Russia expected the speedy stabilization of the situation and the creation of conditions to push forward peace process.
Obama praised Russia's efforts and agreed to continue active joint work under the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group.
On Syrian crisis, Putin repeated the call for separating moderate Syrian oppositions from the Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist group and other extremists not covered by the ceasefire regime.
"(Putin and Obama) reaffirmed their readiness to intensify the coordination of military actions in Syria, as well as the importance of resuming the intra-Syrian negotiation process under UN auspices in order to reach political settlement of the conflict," said Kremlin.
When discussing the Ukrainian crisis, Putin stressed that Kiev should strictly comply with the Minsk accords, "including establishing a real direct dialogue with Donetsk and Lugansk, announcing amnesty, granting (self-proclaimed) Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics the special status, a joint work on a law on local elections."
"There is no alternative to the path of political settlement," Putin said, adding that more efforts should be paid by all relevant sides to prevent ceasefire violations, and ensure a complete heavy weapons withdrawal.
BERLIN, July 6 (Xinhua) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday that she does not see any serious consequences for the German economy by the impending exit of Britain from the European Union.
"Germany and the UK have very close trade relations," said Merkel after her visit at a bureau meeting of German Employers' Associations (BDA) in Berlin.
"I also believe that the uncertainties are limited," she noted with respect to the consequences of Brexit for the German economy, adding that the impairments caused by the Exit-Referendum were for Germany and Europe significantly less than that for the UK.
For the Britons, it now depends a lot on what relations the country wants to develop in the future with the European Union, Merkel said.
Meanwhile, the Chancellor encouraged the remaining member states of the European Union to work more together for competitiveness, growth and thus for more jobs, which would be expected by the people of Europe now.
Now is not the right time for fundamental discussions about institutions or changing European conventions, she added. Enditem
BRUSSELS, July 6 (Xinhua) -- NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday announced in a statement that NATO will hold a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council at Ambassadorial level with Russia next week.
The meeting will take place on July 13 at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, shortly after the NATO Summit in Warsaw.
"The NATO-Russia Council has an important role to play as a forum for dialogue and information exchange, to reduce tensions and to increase predictability. Our practical cooperation with Russia remains suspended, but we are keeping channels for political dialogue open," said NATO chief.
The discussions will focus on the crisis in and around Ukraine and the need to fully implement the Minsk Agreements, according to the statement.
"We will also look at military activities, with a particular focus on transparency and risk reduction, as well as the security situation in Afghanistan," added Stoltenberg.
In April, NATO allies and Russia held a "frank and serious" discussion at a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council after it had been suspended for almost two years in light of the Ukraine crisis.
The NATO-Russia Council, which was established in 2002, was conceived as a mechanism for consultation, consensus-building, cooperation, joint decision and joint action.
File photo showcases Chinese fishermen raising tilapia in standardized cages as a way to increase fish productivity at a dam in Qionghai city, south China's Hainan Province in 2007. (Xinhua)
NAIROBI, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Fish imported from China for the Kenyan market is safe and fit for consumption, a senior official said on Wednesday.
Japhet Ntiba, Principal Secretary for Fisheries at Kenya's State Department of Fisheries, said fish imported from China had been certified for consumption by the Kenya Bureau of Standards.
"We are forced to allow Kenyan importers to bring in the country additional tons of fish to meet the local annual per capita demand," Ntiba told journalists in Nairobi.
He said the Kenyan market required one million metric tons of fish per year but only 200,000 metric tons were produced domestically, leaving a gap of 800,000 metric tons.
Ntiba revealed that besides China, Kenya was also currently importing fish from Uganda, Tanzania and India.
"Kenya has imported 2,300 metric tons of fish this year due to China's high standards and safety of their fish," he said.
Robert Wanyama, Director of State Department of Fisheries (Kisumu), also told local media earlier that the reason why there are tilapia imports into Kenya with Kisumu as the main market is because the demand for tilapia is high, yet Lake Victoria can not sustain it.
Due to the dwindling stock of fish in the country, Ntiba revealed that the government had plans to start investing in the Indian Ocean and other lakes besides Lake Victoria to help meet the local demand and also export.
"We have also started cage farming in Lake Victoria and seaweed commercialization at the coast region for export and also as an alternative to the use of plastic," he said.
Ntiba blamed low production of fish on climate change, overfishing and lack of monitoring by county governments.
His remarks came after Kenyan lawmakers expressed concern over the safety of tilapia imports from China, who also equally accused successive Kenyan governments of "deliberate neglect" to develop the fishing industry since independence.
KIGALI, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The Mufti of Rwandan Muslims Salim Hitimana announced Wednesday that they had reached a decision banning wearing of the Muslim full-face veil - the niqab.
Speaking during Eid celebrations at Kigali regional stadium, Hitimana said the ban on wearing veil is for security reasons because it conceals the face.
Niqab has been used by terrorists to compromise security, "not only in Rwanda but across the world," he said.
He stressed that the Quran asks, "Women to cover all parts of the body but not their faces and the hands."
For the goodness of our faith and for security reasons, he said, we concluded that niqab should not be used in our country, because some people have abused this dress code to carry out terrorism in the name of Islam across the world.
Though some Muslims who spoke on condition of anonymity say the ban violates their religious freedom, Sheikh Musa Sindayigaya, the spokesperson of Muslim community in Rwanda, says the ban has wide support.
He said some two Rwandan Muslim girls wearing niqab were recently arrested at the Kigali International Airport, before boarding a plane to unknown place where they were destined to join the radical Islamic State (IS).
Muslims constitute about 4.6 of Rwandan population. But it's not clear how many wear the veil.
The Mufti warned the Muslim community in Rwanda against extremism. Enditem
by Larry Neild
LONDON, July 6 (Xinhua) -- A leading criminal law academic said Wednesday there was enough evidence for a war crime investigation against former British Prime Minister Tony Blair over the 2003 Iraq War.
Families of British soldiers killed in the war, which saw Britain join forces with the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein, also said Wednesday night they plan to consider legal action against Blair.
The long awaited Chilcot Report into the war ruled the invasion started before all peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. It said judgements made about Hussein having weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) were presented with a certainty that was not justified, and the planning and preparations for post-war Iraq were wholly inadequate.
But Sir John Chilcot did not portion blame on any of the principle characters in the decision to go to war, instead constantly speaking of failures.
Prime Minister David Cameron said the Chilcot inquiry had "not expressed a view as to whether or not the UK's participation in the war was legal."
Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, issued an apology on behalf of his party and Blair also gave a response.
But the big question now is whether there will be any fallout from Chilcot's 13-volume, 2.6 million words report.
Demonstrators around Westminster called for Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes, while Sarah O'Connor, sister of one of the British soldiers killed in Iraq, branded Blair as "the world's worst terrorist."
Professor David Whyte, who has studied the Iraq War and its aftermath, told Xinhua: "There is enough evidence for an investigation against Blair and members of his cabinet, but whether that leads to any prosecutions is another matter.
"It would seem that the occupation of Iraq was illegal under the Geneva Convention. The International Criminal Court could look at the reconstruction and political changes as a consequence of the occupation under the Hague and Geneva conventions."
Whyte said Britain, as partners in the government of occupation, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), effectively ignored legal advice given by Britain's own Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith.
Whyte, professor of socio legal studies at the University of Liverpool, has made a detailed study of the Iraq War with London-based Greg Muttitt who works for an oil industry think tank.
Both men say oil resources played a part in the decision to invade.
Muttitt told Xinhua: "There is not a single mention of oil or energy recourses in Chilcot's summary, but a careful study of volume nine of his report gives clear evidence about the part oil played in this decision. A lot of people have always suspected this, but this section finally confirms it.
"In an Iraq Option Paper from the Cabinet Office, made public for the first time, it lists reasons for an invasion or a coup as, firstly, peace and security and secondly, British energy security, in other words oil."
The British lost 179 soldiers in the Iraq campaign between 2003 and 2009, but in the instability that followed the invasion an estimated 250,000 Iraqis died and a further million were displaced.
The decision by the Blair government to go to war was one of the most controversial by the British government in many decades, its impact continuing and likely to continue for some considerable time.
It was justified to parliament on the basis that Hussein had access to WMDs that posed a threat to Britain. After the invasion no such weapons were ever discovered.
In the Commons, Cameron told MPs: "Britain has and will continue to learn the lessons of this report. But as with our intervention against Daesh (IS) in Iraq and Syria today, Britain must not and will not shrink from its role on the world stage or fail to protect."
Corbyn said in the Commons that the Iraq War had been an act of military aggression launched on a false pretext. He added the weight of international opinion had long held it was an illegal war.
Later at a meeting with relatives of killed and injured soldiers Corbyn apologized on behalf of the Labour Party for what he said was a disastrous decision to go to war. Without naming any individuals, Corbyn said Britain should back moves to give the International Criminal Court the power to prosecute those responsible for a crime of military aggression.
Blair, giving his first public response to the Chilcot report said the decision to send troops to Iraq was the most agonizing and momentous he had made in his 10 years as prime minister. But he insisted there had been no lies to parliament and his cabinet had not been misled. The decision to invade Iraq, he insisted, was taken in good faith.
He said he felt deeply and sincerely in a way that no words can properly convey the grief and sorrow of those who lost loved ones
"The intelligence assessments made at the time of going to war turned out to be wrong, the aftermath turned out to be more hostile, protracted and bloody than ever we imagined," he said, adding the nation whose people "we wanted to set free from the evil of Saddam because instead victims of sectarian terrorism."
Looking emotional and drained, he gazed into the cameras as if to address the relatives of the dead and injured and said: "For all of this I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe." Enditem
HARARE, July 6, 2016 (Xinhua) -- People place rocks, burnt tyres and tree branches to block a dirt road in suburban Harare, Zimbabwe, July 6, 2016. Business activity was severely subdued in the capital Harare on Wednesday after a social movement called on residents to stay at home to protest against economic decay. The mass action, a rare scene in 20 years, coincided with the second day of the job strike by teachers, nurses and doctors who are demanding their June salaries which the cash-strapped government has delayed to July 7 and 14 respectively. (Xinhua)
by Greitnah Machingura, Xu Lingui
HARARE, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Business activity was severely subdued in Zimbabwe's capital Harare and other major cities on Wednesday after a social media-organized movement successfully persuaded many urban Zimbabweans to stay at home to protest against the country's economic decay.
Wednesday's mass action, a rare scene in more than a decade, coincided with the second day of the job strike by teachers, nurses and doctors over pay delays and two days after a violent clash between police and mini-bus drivers protesting administrative harassment in Harare.
The strike appeared to be initiated by online messages trending on social media #Thisflag and #ShutDownZimbabwe 2016 urging people not to heed calls of a "stayaway". Some other messages went further to warn people not to report for work or send their children to school as they risked having their cars and household properties burnt.
While it was not immediately clear whether people had stayed away in response to the call or due to fear of possible violence, most shops, restaurants and business offices were closed in the capital while banks and government departments were among the few open.
Most commuter omnibus operators were not plying their routes, a situation that left many commuters stranded while there were fewer people than usual in the central business district.
Skirmishes broke out between police and residents in a few high density suburbs of the city. In Mufakose, to the west of the capital, residents burnt tyres and barricaded roads using cement blocks and rocks.
National Police Spokesperson Charity Charamba said about 40 people were arrested for disturbing the peace, including a Belgian tourist among others held in the resort town of Victoria Falls for staging "unlawful demonstrations".
Charamba, however, said the military was not called in to quell the protests.
"The situation has not deteriorated to warrant the presence of the military," she said.
Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers president Denford Mutashu said most retail supermarkets including OK Zimbabwe, Spar and Pick n Pay were open and did not heed the stay away call.
"Most of the retail shops opened and those that did not, it's not because they heeded to the stay away call but were afraid of possible violence that might occur," he said.
Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce chief executive Takunda Mugaga echoed similar sentiments by Mutashu, saying most of their members in the retail sector were open.
"We are yet to know if our members were open but those in the retail sector were open such as OK Zimbabwe," he said.
Meanwhile, there was no activity at public schools as teachers continued with their strike while limited staff and medical students manned government hospitals.
Zimbabwe last witnessed a mass stayaway of this magnitude between late 1990s and early 2000s, starting in 1997 when the then Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions secretary general Morgan Tsvangirai organized a two-day nationwide job stay-away against high government taxes.
In the years to follow, strikes were often called upon to protest rising prices of food and fuel but few heeded the calls in the years after 2004. Strikes were rare in more than a decade.
Tension built up in the southern African country over the past few days as Zimbabweans were angered by a series of radical government policies to pump up the country's ailing economy.
Zimbabwe's economy slipped into near stagnation in 2016, suffering from low export income, liquidity crunch, and a ever tightening government budget. The authorities have resorted to rein in capital flows, impose cash withdraw limits, restrict importation of basic goods, and delay payments to civil servants including teachers, security personnel, and government workers.
Last Friday, protesters rioted at the Beitbridge Border Post protesting against a government decision to ban importation of basic goods, most of which come via South Africa, resulting in a warehouse belonging to state revenue agency being burnt down.
Three days later, a protest by taxi drivers against police harassment in Harare turned violent, resulting in the police firing tear gas and water cannons to disperse the protesters.
Police say they have since arrested 95 people in connection with the violence.
Following the nurses and doctors strike, the Ministry of Health has appealed for army nurses, doctors and laboratory scientists to assist.
"Assistance is required from the defense forces to augment coverage for emergency services especially in central hospitals in Harare and Bulawayo," the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health Gerald Gwinji said in a letter to the Defense Forces Commander Constantine Chiwenga.
State news agency New Ziana reported that there was mixed reaction to the call for mass action in the towns Masvingo and Gweru, with most workers staying away from work while the majority of big businesses, including chain stores, banks and government departments opened and operated as normal.
However, most workers in Masvingo did not turn up for work while in Gweru the turn up was high, it said.
The government had Tuesday urged people to disregard the stay away call.
For hours on Wednesday morning, there was disruption in internet services which affected communication through social networking sites such as WatsApp and Facebook.
This came after the telecommunications regulator POTRAZ issued a warning to the public against abuse of social media and telecommunications services to spread "messages that may be deemed to cause despondency, incite violence, threaten citizens and cause unrest".
The country's largest mobile network Econet also confirmed that WhatsApp was down in the morning but would also not give reasons.
"Econet would like to confirm that WhatsApp is currently down. We will notify you once it is working again," the private company said in response to queries by local blog Techzim.
#Thisflag, the campaign that led to Wednesday's stayaway, first appeared on WhatsApp in April by local pastor Mawarire to protest against corruption, injustice and poverty. It has gained thousands of followers over the past two months. The surging support emboldened Mawarire to organize such a stayaway in exchange for the government, under veteran President Robert Mugabe, to fire corrupt ministers, abandon radical economic policies, among other demands.
"We are not playing and we ask you to take us seriously," Mawarire wrote in his facebook page.
Charamba, on the other hand, said the police are urging members of the public to ignore social media messages inciting people to engage in violent activities. The authorities have previously denied a popular social media message saying a curfew was imposed on the eve of the strike. Enditem
BRASILIA, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's suspended President Dilma Rousseff on Wednesday did not attend her defense hearing in front of the Senate's impeachment commission.
Rousseff had been expected to appear to speak in her own defense but instead sent a written response presented by Jose Eduardo Cardozo, her lawyer and former Justice Minister.
The president had announced her decision on social media Tuesday, saying that she would "consider the possibility of appearing in front of the Senate, but at another time."
In a statement read out by Cardozo, Rousseff stated that the impeachment attempt against her was purely politically motivated. She repeated her defense argument that the fiscal maneuvers, for which she is being investigated, had no impact on the government's fiscal budget.
On Tuesday, the senators with the commission listened to experts for the defense and prosecution. A number of them concurred that while Rousseff did approve the allegedly illegal budget movements, they did not identify actions that could be said to be a crime of responsibility.
Rousseff was temporarily suspended on May 11 for up to 180 days, pending a full impeachment trial in the Senate, which will be conducted in August.
A two-thirds majority vote in the Senate is needed to fully impeach Rousseff and suspend her from public office for eight years.
Dai Bingguo, former Chinese state councilor in charge of foreign affairs, reiterated on July 5, 2016 that China will not accept an arbitral court's ruling on South China Sea, because the tribunal under the Permanent Court of Arbitration has no jurisdiction over the case. Dai made the remarks at a dialogue held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington and attended by a group of former Chinese and American officials and experts on international law and foreign relations.
WASHINGTON, July 5 (Xinhua) -- China and the United States need to manage their differences over the South China Sea issue, as they are bracing for an arbitral court's ruling, experts said Tuesday.
One week ahead of the July 12 ruling over the South China Sea case initialed by the Philippines, a group of former Chinese and American officials and experts on international law and foreign relations held a dialogue in Washington to discuss the ruling's legality, possible reactions and its implications on the China-U.S. relations.
In a keynote speech at the dialogue held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Dai Bingguo, former Chinese state councilor in charge of foreign affairs, reiterated that China will not accept the ruling because the tribunal under the Permanent Court of Arbitration has no jurisdiction over the case.
Noting the rising tensions in the South China Sea as the United States steps up its pressure on China to abide by the ruling, Dai issued a call for cooling down the issue, warning otherwise it could lead to unexpected accidents and even chaos in the region and Asia.
At the same time, Dai bluntly warned any party against trying to enforce the court ruling or force China into its implementation. Particularly, the Philippines should be dissuaded from making further provocations.
Dai also urged China and the United States to manage their differences constructively, demanding Washington scale back its "heavy-handed intervention" in the South China Sea issue.
He reaffirmed that, despite all the negative factors, China remains committed to peaceful settlement of the South China Sea disputes with concerned parties through negotiations.
COOLING DOWN TEMPERATURE OF SOUTH CHINA SEA
Most experts attending the dialogue praised Dai's speech for clarifying China's position ahead of the court ruling, while echoing Dai's call for cooling down the temperature of the South China Sea for the sake of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.
The speech "certainly reinforces a very clear position that China has taken on the issue for a while, (and) there is a continued offer for cooperation," said Rodger Baker, vice president of strategic analysis at the Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence firm.
Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a U.S. think tank, said it "is the time for diplomats and politicians to exercise cool judgment and try to find ways to keep the issue from exploding into something more dangerous."
Paal told reporters that both China and the United States can do a lot more to cool things down and related parties in the dispute can "find ways to manage the arbitration award, and to keep it from becoming a source of additional tensions and conflicts."
Stapleton Roy, former U.S. Ambassador to China and a senior fellow at the Wilson Center, told reporters that Dai gave a "very detailed and comprehensive statement of China's view on the issues in the South China Sea."
He agreed with Dai's call for cooling down the situation, noting it's important to resolve territorial issues peacefully through negotiations instead of threats or use of force.
"China and the U.S. should work collaboratively on this issue. I think that's very important point also," Roy commented on Dai's remarks.
Brendan Mulvaney, associate chair of the Languages and Cultures Department of the U.S. Naval Academy, told Xinhua that he did not expect the U.S. reaction to the court ruling to be very aggressive because it is not a claimant to the territorial dispute.
At the same time, he expected China and the United States not to take "any super aggressive steps" to worsen the situation.
U.S. HAS TO TAKE LEAD IN REDUCING TENSIONS
On how to cool down the situation, Huang Renwei, vice president of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said the United States should take the lead because it is the most powerful nation in the region.
Then the Philippines should refrain from taking any actions after the court ruling next week, otherwise it will surely trigger off counter moves, Huang told Xinhua.
At the same time, other outside parties such as Japan and Australia should avoid stepping into the troubled waters in the South China Sea, he proposed.
Huang said China will not be the sole party that will endure loss if anyone tries to forcibly enforce the court ruling, as all related parties will have to pay a price.
Zhu Feng, director of the China Center for Collaborative Studies of the South China Sea at Nanjing University, told reporters that one of the major factors behind the rising tensions in the South China Sea is overreaction from the relevant parties, especially from the United States.
Zhu said it is impossible to enforce the upcoming arbitration ruling on the South China Sea case either by the United States or the Philippines.
He added that the core issue in cooling down the tensions is to conduct a serious review of the differences between China and the United States and try to find practical ways to narrow the gap.
Baker believed that the immediate reaction to the court ruling from the United States could be talking immediately with the Philippines on the next step for Manila to take.
He proposed the related parties first change the tone of the discussion right now in order to lower the tensions.
He noted some cooperation between China and the United States despite their differences. For example, China's Navy was invited to this year's multi-national RIMPAC naval exercises, a move that could lower the tensions by creating a set of understandings at the lower level.
SIT DOWN TO MANAGE DIFFERENCES
The experts said the South China Sea issue is only part of the broader relationship, so the two sides should manage their differences through talks to prevent it from leading to strategic rivalry or confrontation.
"I think one of the most important things would be sit down and have discussions about how we're going to manage conflicts, specifically, on intended or unplanned conflicts," Mulvaney said.
He believed that the two powers will not just focus on the single issue of the South China Sea, because "it's not one of our central focus points."
Huang said one of the major mistakes made by the United States is siding with its allies no matter what they do, while criticizing China for whatever it does.
"I often tell the Americans, if you keep taking a biased position, the U.S. leadership will naturally be weakened," Huang said.
Zhu said the two countries should find a way of compromise and cooperation on the South China Sea issue from a long-term perspective, because neither side wants to turn the region into a battlefield.
"A military confrontation will benefit neither side, as it will be a disaster to the regional and global economy," he said.
Huang said despite all the differences, Beijing and Washington do have a consensus, that is, neither wants an all-out confrontation in the West Pacific. This is evident in the progress being made in improving the military-to-military cooperation and crisis management mechanisms.
"The South China Sea issue is only part of the overall China-U.S. relationship, which should never be kidnapped by the dispute," he added.
A woman holds up a BlackLives Matter sign at the Michael Brown memorial in Ferguson, Missouri, U.S., on August 9, 2015. Several hundred people gathered in Ferguson on Sunday to mark the anniversary of the shooting death of the unarmed black teenager by a white police officer that sparked protests and a national debate on race and justice. (Xinhua file photo/Marcus DiPaola)
HOUSTON, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Department of Justice began on Wednesday a civil rights investigation into Tuesday's officer-involved fatal shooting of a black man in Baton Rouge, the capital city of the U.S. state of Louisiana.
A police spokesman said at a press conference in Baton Rouge on Wednesday that while the Justice Department will investigate potential civil rights violations, Louisiana state police will supplement the investigation to determine if any criminal actions took place, according to New Orleans' daily newspaper The Times-Picayune.
The FBI's New Orleans Division also confirmed the investigation in a statement on behalf of the Justice Department, saying that the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, in cooperation with the office of Walt Green, the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Louisiana, has opened an investigation into the shooting and will not comment further "at this time."
The Justice Department will collect all available facts and evidence and conduct a fair, thorough and impartial investigation, the FBI said in the statement.
Officers Blane Salamoni, a four-year veteran in Baton Rouge, and Howie Lake II, a three-year veteran, were the two officers seen in a video circulated widely on social media showing one angle of the the fatal shooting of the 37-year-old Alton Sterling. The two officers pinned Sterling to the ground, someone yelled, "He's got a gun! Gun!" and gunfire erupted moments later. But the spokesman Lt. Johnny Dunham refused to answer which officer fired his weapon.
Sterling was reportedly selling homemade CDs and DVDs outside a store in the early hours of Tuesday morning when the two police officers arrived on the scene, responding to an anonymous 911 call about a man in a red shirt threatening people with a gun. The store's owner Abdul Muflahi told local press that the two officers showed up, and an altercation broke out between the two officers and Sterling. The first officer used a stun gun on Sterling and the second officer tackled him to the ground. As Sterling tried to get the second officer off him, the first officer fired several shots, killing the black man instantly.
Dunham said that the two officers wore body cameras during the shooting incident, but both became detached during an altercation with the Sterling that preceded the shooting. Audio and video footage was still captured and will be turned over to federal investigators.
He said that all leaders believed it was best to "take impropriety out of the equation," including the potential appearance of it, by handing the investigation over to State Police and the federal government.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards also said on Wednesday that he had "serious concerns" about the shooting incident.
The video of Sterling's death fueled anger in Baton Rouge, with hundreds protesting on Tuesday night and demonstrations continuing on Wednesday. Community leaders and Sterling's family demanded a federal investigation.
Commentary: U.S. needs to readjust attitude regardingSouth China Seaissue
BEIJING, July 5 (Xinhua) -- The South China Sea used to be a peaceful region before theUnited Statespoked its nose into the area. Instead of its "Rebalance to the Asia-Pacific" strategy, what the United States really needs is to "rebalance" its attitude toward the issue.
Small frictions in the South China Sea date back to the late 1960s when some American scientists reported the discovery of rich gas and petrol resources in the region. Some coastal countries started to occupy the islands for that reason since then. Full story
China reaffirms adherence to peaceful settlement of South China Sea disputes
BEIJING, July 5 (Xinhua) -- China on Tuesday reaffirmed its adherence to dialogue and consultation in settling the South China Sea issue.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei made the remarks at a routine press briefing in response to a question on whether a military confrontation is possible in the South China Sea. Full story
China committed to solving maritime disputes via dialogue with countries directly concerned: premier
BEIJING, July 4 (Xinhua) -- China is committed to solving maritime disputes through dialogue and negotiation with countries directly concerned in line with international laws and on the basis of respecting historical facts, Premier Li Keqiang said Monday.
Li made the remarks at a China-Greece maritime cooperation forum held in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Li and his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras attended the forum and deliver speeches. Full story
Interview: South China Sea dispute suggests U.S. efforts to contain China: Italian expert
ROME, July 4 (Xinhua) -- The South China Sea dispute between China and the Philippines suggest the attempt by the United States to contain China's role as regional and global power, an Italian expert said.
"The United States needs China to be economically strong, but it does not want China to develop further as a geopolitical actor," Domenico Moro, an economist and member of the political committee of Italy's Communist Refoundation party, told Xinhua in a recent interview. Full story
Cambodia, Myanmar back negotiations over South China Sea by all parties concerned
PHNOM PENH, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia and Myanmar fully supported all parties concerned to negotiate with each other peacefully to resolve their disputes over South China Sea, Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen said on Monday.
The statement was posted on his Facebook page after a meeting with newly-designated Myanmar Ambassador to Cambodia Myint Soe at the Peace Palace in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. Full story
Spotlight: Arbitration case cannot deplete China's historical rights
BEIJING, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Looking into the Philippines' submission at the Arbitral Tribunal on the South China Sea, many confusing concepts aimed at denying China's historical rights have been found. But they only serve to expose the Philippines' ignorance and prejudice.
In its arbitration statement, the Philippines claimed that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has never mentioned historical rights. Full story
Interview: U.S. has complicated South China Sea issue: Australian expert
BEIJING, July 4 (Xinhua) -- The United States has complicated the situation in the South China Sea instead of playing a constructive role, an Australian expert on maritime security has said.
Sam Bateman, a former commodore who is now a professorial research fellow at the University of Wollongong's Australian National Center for Ocean Resources and Security, told Xinhua recently that the controversial arbitration process initiated by the Philippines in The Hague is highly likely to produce "a lose-lose outcome." Full story
Spotlight: China never a bully in South China Sea: experts
BEIJING, July 4 (Xinhua) -- At a time of heightened tension in the South China Sea, Washington and its allies have launched publicity campaigns against China, repeatedly using the "bully" tag to refer to China and its activities in the region.
The groundless accusation, however, has been refuted by experts, who pointed to the fact that China has never bullied any country in South China Sea disputes. Instead, it has exercised restraint to the greatest extent possible over this issue. Full story
147 civil society organizations in Cambodia backs up PM's stance over South China Sea
PHNOM PENH, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Leaders of 147 non-governmental organizations, associations and trade unions in Cambodia on Monday issued a joint statement, expressing their support to Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen's stance over the South China Sea issue.
I am delighted to attend the China-U.S. dialogue on South China Sea between Chinese and U.S. think tanks jointly organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University and meet with old and new friends. I would like to take this opportunity to thank both organizations for putting this dialogue together and my sincere thanks go to all of you here who have for long cared for and supported the development of China-U.S. relations.
I became honorary president of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University after retiring from government. In this sense, I can also be counted as a think tank scholar. I very much look forward to having candid and in-depth exchanges with all of you for mutual enlightenment.
Since the door of communication between China and the U.S. opened more than 40 years ago, China-U.S. relations have come a long way despite twists and turns and produced tremendous and extraordinary outcomes. This has not only benefited the people of China and the U.S.,but also the whole world. Fast growth of relations between these two major countries in a short span of 40 years can be described as nothing short of a miracle in the history of major-country relations.
Three years ago,in June 2013, President Xi Jinping and President Obama held a successful meeting in Annenberg, Sunnylands. Since then,guided by the strategic consensus of no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation,the two countries have continued to make important progress in the building of a new model of major country relations. China and the U.S. have joined hands in promoting progress in a wide range of fields in bilateral relations and addressing major issues bearing on mankind's future and destiny. Their trade volume and two-way investment have both scaled new heights. The two countries have stepped up macro-economic coordination which effectively facilitated world economic recovery and growth. China and the U.S. have signed 3 joint statements on climate change, playing a crucial leading role for reaching the Paris Agreement on climate change. The two sides continued to broaden practical cooperation in military-to-military, law-enforcement, energy, and cultural and people-to-people exchanges. They have conducted close coordination and cooperation on international and regional hotspot issues and major global issues such as Iranian nuclear issue, Korean nuclear issue, Syria, Afghanistan, peacekeeping, international development and global public health. Such cooperation has benefited both countries, and bolstered international confidence in the continued growth of China-U.S. relations.
China and the U.S. are two major countries with very different histories, cultures, social systems and values and at different levels of development. As such, it is only natural that they would encounter differences and challenges in their relations. What's important is to increase strategic communication in a candid way and handle and manage differences in a constructive manner. Furthermore, we should endeavor to transcend differences by focusing on and expanding cooperation. The South China Sea could well have been an example of this approach.
For a period of time, the South China Sea which used to be a rather quiet place has become not so quiet. The situation there has heated up to a quite unusual degree,drawing extensive international attention. What has really happened there? I noticed that reports and comments on this issue tend to take a static view from a certain angle, and thus have not shown the full picture of the South China Sea issue. In my view, to study an international hotspot issue, it is necessary to seek truth from facts by fully considering the relevant international background, tracing the historical development, and thoroughly reviewing how the concerned parties have interacted on this issue. Only in this way can one see the whole picture, tell right from wrong and draw the right conclusion. In this vein, I would like to focus my speech on the historical facts of the South China Sea issue and China's policy on this issue. And I will endeavor to view and handle the South China Sea issue from the perspective of China-U.S. relations and explore ways to genuinely cool down this issue and restore calm to this part of the world.
1. Nansha Islands are China's integral territory
Historical materials of China and many western countries corroborate the fact that it was the Chinese people who were the first to discover, name, develop and administer the islands in South China Sea, and that the Chinese government was the first to peacefully and effectively exercise continuous sovereign jurisdiction on South China Sea islands. During the Second World War, Japan illegally invaded and occupied China's South China Sea islands, which were restored to China after the war. Pursuant to Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation,which were cornerstones of the post-war international order, Japan shall return the stolen Chinese territory to China. Following the end of the war, China restored Taiwan, Penghu Islands, Xisha Islands and Nansha Islands illegally occupied by Japan.
Many of you were probably not aware of this, but China's actions to restore the islands was supported by General Douglas McArthur. China's military and government personnel were ferried by US-provided military vessels to Xisha and Nansha Islands to hold the restoration ceremony. After that, the U.S. filed applications to Chinese authorities on Taiwan to conduct geodetic survey in some of Nansha Islands on many occasions.
All this shows that the return of Nansha Islands to China is part of the post-war international order and relevant territorial arrangements. For a long time since the end of the War, the U.S. has recognized and in reality respected China's sovereignty over Nansha Islands. China's sovereignty over South China Sea islands, as part of the post-war international order, is under protection by the UN Charter and other international law. To be blunt, when the U.S. states today that it does not take a position on issues of territory, it actually amounts to back-peddling and defiance of the post-war international order, which the U.S. itself has participated in building.
There are sufficient grounds to state that on the South China Sea issue, China is completely at the receiving end of encroachments. For a long time, the South China Sea had remained trouble free and calm. But since the 1970s, the Philippines, Vietnam and other countries have illegally occupied 42 islands and reefs in China's Nansha Islands by force, which gave rise to disputes over territory in these islands and reefs. Over several decades, the Philippines and Vietnam carried out large scale construction and deployed armaments on them and continued to take provocative actions at sea. These illegal occupations and provocations are violations of international law and the UN Charter, and should be universally condemned. The world can see that on the South China Sea issue, China is by no means a wrong-doer or trouble maker, but rather a victim. According to international law, China has every right to self preservation and self-defense. It possesses the ability to recover the above-mentioned islands and reefs. However, in the interest of regional peace and stability, China has all along exercised enormous restraint, and sought peaceful settlement through negotiations. In recent years, China has taken actions only as compelled response at a minimal level to unbridled encroachments by certain countries on China's rights and interests. Stand in China's shoes for a moment, if it was the U.S. who was challenged with such provocation, it would have long resorted to force to recover the illegally occupied islands and reefs.
2. China remains committed to peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea through negotiations and consultations with countries directly concerned
The Chinese government was the first to propose and has consistently followed the position of "shelving disputes and pursuing common development." Its consistent position on the South China Sea issue includes the following three elements:
--Disputes should be settled peacefully through negotiation and consultation, and managed through rules, norms and operating mechanisms;
--Shared interests should be expanded through joint development and cooperation;
--Freedom of navigation and overflight should be upheld and peace and stability maintained.
These are both China's basic policies and solemn pledges on the South China Sea issue. For the past several decades, the South China Sea region has maintained stability on the whole, and the relevant disputes have been kept under control. Southeast Asia has been able to achieve robust growth, and is seen as an example of peace, stability and prosperity and a magnet of cooperation in the eyes of many countries and regions. This is a great contribution China and its neighbors have made to the international community.
As the biggest coastal country of the South China Sea and a country dedicated to peaceful development, China sees peace and stability of the South China Sea as bearing on its vital interests. That is why China will never resort to force unless challenged with armed provocation. Despite the negative impact of factors both within and outside the region, China has not lost confidence and will stick to its policy of seeking peaceful settlement through bilateral negotiation and consultation, for the following reasons.
First, peaceful settlement of disputes through negotiation and consultation best reflects adherence to international law and the basic norms of international relations. According to the UN Charter and the Declaration on Principles of International Law, negotiation is the primary way for peaceful settlement of international disputes. The UNCLOS stipulates that countries concerned should settle maritime delimitation disputes through negotiations as the first recourse, and China and ASEAN countries also made such solemn commitment in the DOC. The fact is, China has benefited from the existing international order, and has firmly observed and upheld such order. China will continue to honor its due obligations, earnestly fulfill international and regional responsibilities, uphold the integrity and authority of the UNCLOS and other international law, and safeguard the rule of law.
Second, to settle disputes peacefully and through negotiations has been a successful practice of China in implementing international rule of law. Back in the 1950s, China has proposed addressing historical boundary issues through consultation under the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence. In the following decades, China has resolved its boundary questions with 12 out of 14 land neighbors through negotiations. They have surveyed and demarcated around 20,000 kilometers of boundaries, about 90% of China's land boundary. China and Vietnam have delimited maritime boundary at the Beibu Gulf through negotiation. Of all boundary talks, those between China and Russia lasted for over 40 years, between China and Vietnam on land boundary over 30 years, and on Beibu Gulf over 20 years. I personally have participated in some of the boundary talks, and I believe that peaceful negotiations can best reflect countries' own will and sovereign equality and have unique strength and efficacy in addressing complex territorial and maritime disputes. There is no reason why disputes in the South China Sea cannot be resolved through peaceful negotiations.
Third, peaceful settlement of disputes through negotiation and consultation is the only viable way to manage and resolve the South China Sea issue. The truth is, the parties concerned in the South China Sea issue have all along been working in this direction, which is also a clear provision in the DOC. The parties have established mature and effective mechanisms to this end, and the COC consultation has been making notable progress. Despite all this, the Philippines went on a pervert course of initiating arbitration without prior consultation with China. This is nothing but an act of imposition by the Philippines on China, and a culmination of the Philippines' actions to advance its illegal claims. The truth behind the arbitration case is political intrigue, whereby certain countries have been deliberately provoking problems and stirring up tensions, eager to see turbulence in the South China Sea. The arbitral tribunal has no jurisdiction over this case. By making a so called "award", it has wilfully expanded its power, which is against the UNCLOS and is null and void.
By taking a position of not participating in or accepting the arbitration, China is upholding its own rights and interests under international law and safeguarding the integrity and authority of the UNCLOS. We hope that the U.S. side will take an objective and fair approach regarding the arbitration, rather than criticizing China for upholding the UNCLOS from the position of a non-state party. The final award of the arbitration, which will come out in the next few days, amounts to nothing more than a piece of paper. China suffered enough from hegemonism, power politics and bullying by Western Powers since modern times. The Versailles peace conference at the end of World War I forced a sold-out of Shandong Province. The Lytton Commission, sent by the League of Nations when Japan invaded China's northeast provinces, only served to justify Japan's invasion. Even the U.S.-led negotiations on San Francisco Peace Treaty excluded China. These episodes are still vivid in our memory. That is why China will grip its own future on issues of territorial sovereignty, and will never accept any solution imposed by a third party.
3. The situation in the South China Sea must cool down
The temperature of the South China Sea is now high enough. Some people even clamored for "fight tonight". If such momentum went unchecked, accidents could happen and the South China Sea might sink into chaos and so might the entire Asia. Should that happen, it will be countries around the South China Sea, the Asian countries and even the U.S. itself that will suffer. We must not let this happen, and not allow Asia to become another West Asia and North Africa. Anyone intent on fueling the flames and unleashing disastrous outcomes will be held accountable by history.
Cooling down temperatures in the South China Sea requires concrete efforts by all countries concerned.
First, the urgent priority is to stop the arbitration case initiated by the Philippines. If the tribunal insisted on its way and produced an "award", no one and no country should implement the award in any form, much less to force China into implementation. And the Philippines must be dissuaded from making any further provocation. Otherwise, China would not sit idle.
Second, China and the U.S. have neither disputes over even one inch of territory nor fundamental clash of interests in the South China Sea. The South China Sea issue should not be allowed to define China-U.S. relations. Rather, this issue should be put in perspective against larger bilateral relations and be transformed into an area of cooperation rather than arena for confrontation. We must forestall undue disruptions or damages to the overall China-U.S. relations as a result of differences over this issue. The people of China and the U.S. will not forgive us, if we let the basically sound China-U.S. relations cultivated by both sides over the past forty years be ruined by mis-judgment and mishandling over this issue.
I have made China's position and views clear. Let me conclude with a few more personal observations.
First of all, even if the U.S. is unable to go back to its position of recognizing China's sovereignty over the Nansha Islands, it should honor its stated position of not taking sides on issues concerning territorial disputes. If the U.S. is truly committed to peace and stability in the South China Sea and the wider Asia-Pacific and a rule-based order, it should judge the issue on its merits, respect facts, oppose or restrain provocations by certain countries against China and encourage countries directly concerned to settle the disputes peacefully through negotiation and consultation and implement the DOC fully and effectively.
Second, one should not be too ready to frame the South China Sea issue as a strategic issue or interpret and predict China's behavior by drawing from western theories of international relations and history. It would be nothing but baseless speculation to assert that China wants to make the South China Sea an Asian Caribbean Sea and impose the Monroe Doctrine to exclude the U.S. from Asia or that China is trying to compete with the U.S. for dominance in the South China Sea, Asia and even the world. Unlike traditional western powers, China, an oriental civilization that goes back five thousand years, has distinctive culture, values, political thinking and view of the world. For China, the South China Sea issue is all about territorial sovereignty, security, development and maritime rights and interests. It is all about preventing further tragic losses of territory. China's thinking is as simple as that. And there is no other agenda behind it. We have no intention or capability to engage in "strategic rivalry" with anyone. We have no ambition to rule Asia, still less the Earth. Even in the context of the issue in question, we have never claimed we own the entire South China Sea. We only have one ambition, which is to manage our own affairs well and ensure a decent life and dignity for the nearly 1.4 billion Chinese people. China's right to rise peacefully and deliver a better life for its people should not and will not be taken away by anyone.
Third, the US's heavy-handed intervention in the South China Sea issue needs to be scaled back. There is deep concern about the U.S. continued reinforcement of its military alliances in the Asia-Pacific and forward deployment of its military assets. Since last year, the U.S. has intensified its close-in reconnaissance and "Freedom of Navigation" operations targeted at China. The rhetoric of a few people in the U.S. has become blatantly confrontational. How would you feel if you were Chinese and read in the newspapers or watch on TV reports and footages about U.S. aircraft carriers, naval ships and fighter jets flexing muscles right at your doorstep and hear a senior U.S. military official telling the troops to be ready "to fight tonight"? Wouldn't you consider it unhelpful to the U.S. image in the world? This is certainly not the way China and the U.S. should interact with each other.
Having said that, we in China would not be intimidated by the U.S. actions, not even if the U.S. sent all the ten aircraft carriers to the South China Sea. Furthermore, U.S. intervention on the issue has led some countries to believe that the U.S. is on their side and they stand to gain from the competition between major countries. As a result, we have seen more provocations from these countries, adding uncertainties and escalating tensions in the South China Sea. This, in fact, is not in the interest of the U.S. The risk for the U.S. is that it may be dragged into trouble against its own will and pay an unexpectedly heavy price. Hopefully, the countries, whose recent course of action has been driven by reckless impulse, will engage in some cool-headed thinking and realize that China has been living alongside them peacefully as a friendly neighbor for several thousand years. Neither had this neighbor invaded anyone nor interfered in any country's internal affairs. Neither is this neighbor pursuing any regime change nor building confrontational political or military blocs. All China's endeavors are focused on protecting its sovereignty, security and development interests and it has no intention to seek dominance or hegemony. Those countries will eventually see that it is the friendly China that will remain their neighbor for generations to come instead of some faraway superpower.
Fourth, China and the U.S. need to find ways to manage their differences constructively. As I said, the South China Sea issue boils down to disputes between China and a few other littoral states. Given that these disputes are not going to be settled any time soon, the key question is how these disputes should be managed pending final resolution. Should parties provoke each other over these disputes, aggravate tensions and encourage confrontation? Or should they downplay the disputes, shelve their differences and expand cooperation? The answer is apparent. China has all along been committed to resolving the disputes peacefully through negotiation and consultation. Even though the South China Sea is clearly not an issue between China and the US, China is willing to maintain communication with the U.S. on maritime issues and work with the U.S. and all other parties to keep the situation under control, considering our shared interest in peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific. Our two sides may work together to find ways to jointly promote regional peace and stability through constructive dialogue on matters such as regional confidence-building, effectively managing disputes and advancing maritime practical cooperation.
Fifth, China and the U.S. need to expand their positive maritime agenda. Both countries support freedom of navigation and overflight. As long as the U.S. does not use that as a pretext to challenge China's sovereignty and security interests, the two countries can cooperate on a global level to safeguard such freedom. Closer cooperation is also called for in a wide range of ocean-related fields such as marine environmental protection, marine science and research and maritime law-enforcement to give a stronger boost to China-U.S. interaction at sea.
I was born at the height of the Second World War, and as a 75-year-old man, I either lived through or witnessed the evolutions of relations between some major countries. I have studied the Korean War, Vietnam War and Iraq War and how these wars took a heavy toll on the US. Since the turn of the century, I had the further privilege to chair China's strategic dialogues with the U.S. and some other major countries, which were of great depth and quality and helped produce common thinking between our two countries on building a new model of major-country relationship. I love my country and people and have nothing but profound goodwill towards the American people. I wish for the best of China-U.S. relations and for both our countries. We must work together to avoid strategic mistakes pushing U.S. into conflict or confrontation. Some of my remarks today might sound a little bit harsh, but I said them with the best of intentions. You may consider them words spoken from the heart of a friend of the US.
Wang Anshi, a famous Chinese poet who lived in the Northern Song Dynasty wrote, "We should not be afraid of the clouds blocking our view, because we already are at the highest elevation." It means that only by adopting a strategic vision and minimizing distractions can one understand where the trend is moving. In a globalized world full of opportunities and challenges, as the biggest developing and developed countries and the world's two largest economies, China and the U.S. shoulder more common responsibilities and face more common challenges in driving world economic recovery and promoting international peace and security. There is so much potential of cooperation yet to be tapped. What we need is not a microscope to enlarge our differences, but a telescope to look ahead and focus on cooperation. Both Chinese and Americans are great nations with insight and vision. As long as the two sides work for common interests, respect each other, treat each other as equals, have candid dialogue, and expand common ground, China and the U.S. will be able to manage differences and find the key to turning those issues into opportunities of working together. I have no doubt that China-U.S. relations will embrace a great future.
To conclude, I wish the dialogue a full success.
(Source: fmprc.gov.cn)
The Chinese people would not be intimidated by the U.S. actions, not even if the U.S. sends all its ten aircraft carrier s to the South China Sea , said Dai Bingguo, former state councilor of China, on Tuesday at the dialogue on South China Sea between Chinese and U.S. think tanks in Washington, D.C.
Dai said, first, Nansha Islands are China's integral territory; second, China remains committed to peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea through negotiations and consultations with countries directly concerned; and third, the situation in the South China Sea must cool down.
The arbitral tribunal has no jurisdiction over this case. By making a so called "award", it has willfully expanded its power, which is against the UNCLOS and is null and void, he added.
He said, We hope that the U.S. side will take an objective and fair approach regarding the arbitration, rather than criticizing China for upholding the UNCLOS from the position of a non-state party.
Dai also said, One should not be too ready to frame the South China Sea issue as a strategic issue or interpret and predict China's behavior by drawing from western theories of international relations and history.
It would be nothing but baseless speculation to assert that China wants to make the South China Sea an Asian Caribbean Sea and impose the Monroe Doctrine to exclude the U.S. from Asia or that China is trying to compete with the U.S. for dominance in the South China Sea, Asia and even the world, he continued.
For China, the South China Sea issue is all about territorial sovereignty, security, development and maritime rights and interests. It is all about preventing further tragic losses of territory. China's thinking is as simple as that. And there is no other agenda behind it. We have no intention or capability to engage in strategic rivalry with anyone. We have no ambition to rule Asia, still less the Earth. Even in the context of the issue in question, we have never claimed we own the entire South China Sea. We only have one ambition, which is to manage our own affairs well and ensure a decent life and dignity for the nearly 1.4 billion Chinese people, he said.
Since last year, the U.S. has intensified its close-in reconnaissance and Freedom of Navigation operations targeted at China. The rhetoric of a few people in the U.S. has become blatantly confrontational. How would you feel if you were Chinese? Wouldn't you consider it unhelpful to the U.S. image in the world? This is certainly not the way China and the U.S. should interact with each other, he added.
Having said that, we in China would not be intimidated by the U.S. actions, not even if the U.S. sent all the ten aircraft carriers to the South China Sea. Furthermore, U.S. intervention on the issue has led some countries to believe that the U.S. is on their side and they stand to gain from the competition between major countries. As a result, we have seen more provocations from these countries, adding uncertainties and escalating tensions in the South China Sea. This, in fact, is not in the interest of the U.S. The risk for the U.S. is that it may be dragged into trouble against its own will and pay an unexpectedly heavy price, said Dai.
The daylong closed session between Chinese and U.S. think tanks was jointly organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University, in coordination with the National Institute for South China Sea Studies and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
(Source: Xinhuanet/fmprc.gov.cn)
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By Wang Yifan
The issues of difficulty in receiving medical treatment and tension between doctors and patients have become the greatest concerns for Chinese. However, the medical situations that are criticized by many Chinese are not that bad for foreigners living in China, according to a report from Global Times on Tuesday.
The appointment time is shorter than that in Japan and Norway, and the emergency treatment is faster than that in America and England
Currently, making an appointment to see a doctor has become a new tendency. But Bi Angsong Olsen, a botanist from Norway, thinks that it in China is not necessary to make an appointment with doctors every time when people want to get treatment. But in Norway, he said, even if taking an emergency treatment, sometimes patients should wait one to three days. Shan Hu, a Japanese student in China, also deems that compared to the hospitals in China, it takes more time in waiting for the treatment appointment in Japanese hospitals.
Waiting to take emergency treatment is also a problem that the Chinese patients complain about, whereas the people from Europe even think that emergency treatment in China has some advantages. Alex Bluck, an engineer from England, works with Audi China. Although he complains about the Chinas medical treatment, he is still satisfied with the speed of emergency treatment. Tony Williams, an American who works in Volkswagen in China, has similar feelings. Chinas emergency treatment is faster than that in America, he said.
Advanced medical facilities, professional doctors, but too big crowds
According to the report by Global Times, almost all foreigners who are interviewed express their idea that hospitals in China have advanced medical facilities and doctors are professional. Zhakeya, an interpreter from Pakistan, said the advanced facilities have become a significant preponderance in many Chinese hospitals.
Speaking of the conditions of hospitals, big crowds of people and poor environment are the most intolerable things for foreigners.
For Beatrice, a Kenyan student in China, and many other foreign patients, language barrier is one of the problems, which should be improved in Chinas hospitals.
The poor relationship between doctors and patients in China
Referring to communication, foreigners also pay much attention to the conflict between doctors and patients. Thai student Bin Mi thinks those patients dont respect their doctors. An Indian student named Cheng Rui said that no doctor wants to hurt his patients. If the patient and his relatives think that the doctors should be blamed for something, they can solve this problem by means of legal approaches.
Yi Fan who comes from Mauritius believes that for medical workers, they should take the responsibilities by themselves if they have really done something wrong in their work..
Devoe from South Africa works as a teacher in an international school in Beijing. He said he hates to see the mutual trust between hospitals and patients fades away in China, because once trust is gone, it will be very hard to restore it.
$750,000 bail for policeman
Larry Goddard was charged with five counts of perverting the course of justice, which included soliciting a known criminal to do grievous bodily harm to Paula Kissoondath and placing false evidence for the possession of a firearm. The charges were brought before the court by Sergeant Byron Daniel of the Professional Standard Bureau (PSB) and read aloud by Chief Magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar.
Goddard, who was assigned to the San Fernando Police Station, was not called upon to enter a plea as the charges were laid indictably.
Goddards attorney, Chase Pegus, urged the court to show leniency towards his client by granting bail in a reasonable amount.
He cited Goddards role as a husband and father and also his record as a police officer.
He is 24-years-old, he has a fixed place of abode where he resides with his common- law wife and two children. He has had four years service with the TTPS and, until the time of his arrest, he was a serving police officer, with the Robbery Squad in San Fernando. My client is also willing to surrender his passport to the court, Pegus said. Police prosecutor, Inspector Wayne Mohammed, agreed to the terms of granting bail.
Bail was granted in the sum of $750,000, on the condition that Goddard surrender his passport to the court, he must report to the Marabella Police Station twice a week and refrain from contacting the Kissoondath.
Goddard, is expected to reappear in court on August 2.
Goddard was arrested on Saturday by officers of the Professional Standard Bureau, in connection with an alleged plot to murder Kissoondath, the estranged wife of a San Fernando businessman.
Goddard is accused of hiring a man to carry out the killing and steal the womans motorcar under the guise of a robbery gone wrong.
Man freed of doctors murder
This, after a jury found him not guilty of the crime .
Green, 38, of Pleasantville, went on trial in the Second Assizes Court before Justice Hayden St Clair Douglas and a 12-member jury in May charged with the murder of Dr Ravi Maharaj.
Maharaj, 63, was beaten to death in his home located at Chacon Street, San Fernando, on January 11, 2006.
His hands were tied behind his back and there was a piece of cloth in his mouth.
A total of 17 witnesses testified on behalf of the prosecution while there were only three defence witnesses.
In February, 2006 police arrested Green, who was at the time 28 years old.
Attorneys Kwasi Bekoe, instructed by Jerod Ali, represented Green while attorneys Trevor Jones and Brandon Sookoo prosecuted on behalf of the State.
Shot brothers still in hospital
The cousins were fatally shot in the head while the Francis brothers sustained multiple gunshot wounds.
Autopsies performed on Monday at the Forensic Science Centre, St James revealed that Kyle and Smith died as a result of single gunshot wounds to their heads. Kyle, a former part-time private law student was expected to enter The University of the West Indies (UWI) full-time next month, to pursue his law degree.
Police meanwhile continue their search for the killers who, it is believed, came in search of a male relative who, reports revealed, had been on the run and suddenly turned up at their home in Hardbargain last week Thursday.
Andre is Kyles father and Smiths uncle. Investigations are continuing.
Kangaloo says Manning a good PM, a good man
In a statement read out on her behalf in the Senate by Senate Vice-President Nigel De Freitas, Kangaloo said, His goodness touched me directly in 2001. Mr Manning believed in and took a chance in me and appointed me to this very chamber as an Opposition Senator. His goodness touched me every day during my tenure. His goodness touched me every day as a member of his Cabinet from 2002 to 2010. From that vantage point, I saw and experienced Mr Mannings goodness not only in the decisions he made as a leader but in the manner in which he dealt with those whom he led. She added, His goodness shone through in the patience and forgiveness he showed when I made my first mistakes; in the caring and support he extended when I had my own personal challenges; and in the confidence and self-belief he engendered in me when, as a young politician, I at times doubted whether I had the strength to finish the course of public service. Kangaloo continued, Who can forget his dimpled smile? He was as polite as he was principled. As charming as he was courageous.
As debonair as he was demanding.
He had a special place in his heart for young people. He made time to come to them and they responded in equal measure.
Above all, he was a man of love.
Of love for his wife and for his family. Of love for music and for dancing. Of love for a good life and for people. And most of all, his country. The Senate observed one minute of silence.
PNM Senator Foster Cummings said Manning was, a true comeback kid noting all of the moments when he came back after political defeats.
He credited Manning with, the revitalisation of the capital city and the introduction of GATE and UTT.
Independent Senator David Small said Manning was immeasurable; a giant of a man.
He cast a positive light that radiated across the length and breath of this country. He spoke of Mannings innate ability to touch the hearts of those he encountered.
Parliament to police policymakers promises
Government Senator Foster Cummings yesterday piloted a motion to approve this first report of the Joint Select Committee on Government Assurances.
The committee approved a list of phrases which would be regarded as assurances and also outlined procedures involving: a ledger, notices, requests for written responses; reminders; site visits and periodic reporting to the Parliament.
Similar committees exist only in a few jurisdictions, Cummings said.
Also speaking during the motion was UNC Senator Khadijah Ameen.
I believe it would be worthwhile for all of us to consider the principles and merits of a promise, of the value of keeping our word as leaders, Ameen said. There are a number of promises have been made. The population would be the judge in the long run. It is better for you to be truthful than to play games. She suggested the Parliament should also consider keeping track of promises made outside of Parliament as well.
We must consider not only what is said in Parliament but what is said outside as well, she said.
Ameen and Labour Minister Jennifer Baptiste-Primus sparred when Ameen said the Government had broken promises in relation to GATE, job-losses and social programmes.
We never broke a promise, the Labour Minister said.
Caricom tributes to Manning
Meanwhile, outgoing Chairman of Caricom, Dominicas Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has announced that in honour of Mannings contribution to Dominica and the region, Dominica will observe two days of mourning - on Friday and Saturday.
Prior to welcoming the Heads of Governments including Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, Secretary General Irwin LaRocque said, it was only fitting at the outset they pay tribute to a true champion who passed away on July 2.
Mr Manning was a member of the conference for 13 years.
In that time he demonstrated an unwavering commitment to Caricom.
The initiatives he promoted to advance integration ensures that his legacy as a regionalist is secure. His calm and deliberate manner was a distinctive feature during the meetings, he noted.
Also paying tributes and extending condolences to the Mannings family and the people and government of TT were President of Suriname Desi Bouterse who noted Mannings Commitment to regional integration, Mannings friend Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines Dr Ralph Gonsalves, Jamaicas Prime Minister Andrew Holness, and St Lucias Prime Minister Allan Chastanet. In response, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley expressed on behalf of all the people of Trinidad and Tobago my deep appreciation to those who sent messages of sympathy and to the distinguished speakers who offered their condolences. Mannings passing, Rowley said, represented a tremendous loss not only to the people of (TT), but also to the community and the entire Caribbean region
Dillon: No confirmation AR-15 used last week
Dillon was responding to an urgent question from UNC Senator Wade Mark.
While there appeared to be the use of a high-powered weapon as described, there is no confirmation, the Minister said. He urged Senators and members of the public to come forward if they had information.
On Thursday, at about 11.30 pm, police reported that Akeem Seepersad, 17, of Goodwill Road, Enterprise, Akeem Morris, 25, of Tobago Road Extension, Chaguanas, Kion Moore, 20, of Kenny Cyrus Road, Enterprise and Sherwin Williams, 36, of Bynoe Trace, Enterprise, were standing on the corner of Mangalee Street and Tobago Road Extension when a grey AD wagon drove east along the street and stopped immediately.
It was further reported that gunmen exited the vehicle and opened fire on the group.
The men began running but were shot and wounded.
There have been several incidents involving AR-15 rifles in recent months. One was seized by Central Division police in January; and Inter-Agency Task Force officers seized one in October 2015. Several of these guns were seized during the 2011 state of emergency. In September 2011, it was reported that five Panther AR-15 guns were found at TTPosts head office at Piarco, destined for Thailand.
Also during Question Time, Finance Minister Colm Imbert said there was no validity to a report that $6 billion had gone missing from Clico. He said the Clico deficit moved from $9.5billion in 2009 to 933 million in 2014.
Assets, he said, have increased by about $14.3 billion. He said unaudited results for 2015 are to confirm a similar picture.
Imbert: Well examine NIS
Initially, Couva South MP Rudy Indarsingh and Caroni East MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh had each asked about the sustainability of the NIS as run by the National Insurance Board (NIB).
Dr Gopeesingh made the point of an aging population pressuring NIS funds by saying the ratio of elderly to young people in TT is 43 percent, compared to an international benchmark of concern, of 30 percent.
He added that in an 11 year period recently (2000 to 2011), the life expectancy had increased from 68 to 71 years for men and from 73 to 77 years for women. Further, Dr Gopeesingh said the NIBs $40 billion in assets have not been earning enough revenues. Indarsingh asked if NIB funds have been hit by post-Brexit world volatility and whether Government intends to raise by five years, the age for which one can qualify for a State pension.
He asked about a possible rise in retirement age from 60 years up to 65. Imbert denied any post-Brexit effect, saying the NIB is limited in the size of international investments it can make. He added that a fortnight before Brexit he got a NIB request to raise its ratio of investments overseas, but has not yet considered it. And now the event of Brexit has made him further reflect.
As far Im aware theres been no significant impact, he assured.
Imbert scotched any idea of raising the retirement age, at this time, saying, Id like to put that speculation to rest. He lamented cases where the NIS deductions of employees including staff at State corporations, dont end up at the NIB. As an example Imbert cited himself.
He had checked his statement of NIS deductions at the NIB only to find that six years of deductions were missing! Even more startlingly, he quipped that these missing payments were for his years of service as a Member of Parliament. To avoid hassle, he had paid the NIS contributions again.
He read the conclusion of NIBs Ninth Actuarial Review (2010 to 2013). It said the financial situation of the NIS had in years significantly deteriorated, and now major actions must be taken to restore its financial health. Imbert said the present rate of NIS contributions are clearly insufficient, and must be raised, with an built-in mechanism for future automatic rises.
Armed forces of the future could be using rapid response aircraft equipped with engines capable of propelling those aircraft to hypersonic speeds similar to the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE) which is currently being developed by Reaction Engines Limited, a small British company in which BAE Systems has invested 20.6 million.
Engineers and scientists at BAE Systems and the University of Glasgow have outlined some of their current thinking about military aircraft including the idea that military planes could soon be grown in labs and reach hypersonic speeds.
During this century, the scientists and engineers envisage that small Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) bespoke to specific military operations, could be grown in large-scale labs through chemistry, speeding up evolutionary processes and creating bespoke aircraft in weeks, rather than years.
A radical new machine called a Chemputer could enable advanced chemical processes to grow aircraft and some of their complex electronic systems, conceivably from a molecular level upwards.
Flying at such speeds and high altitude would allow them to outpace adversary missiles. The aircraft could perform a variety of missions where a rapid response is needed. These include deploying emergency supplies for Special Forces inside enemy territory using a sophisticated release system and deploying small surveillance aircraft.
The world of military and civil aircraft is constantly evolving and its been exciting to work with scientists and engineers outside BAE Systems and to consider how some unique British technologies could tackle the military threats of the future said Professor Nick Colosimo, a BAE Systems Global Engineering Fellow.
Regius Professor Lee Cronin at the University of Glasgow, and Founding Scientific Director at Cronin Group PLC who is developing the Chemputer added; This is a very exciting time in the development of chemistry. We have been developing routes to digitize synthetic and materials chemistry and at some point in the future hope to assemble complex objects in a machine from the bottom up, or with minimal human assistance. Creating small aircraft would be very challenging but Im confident that creative thinking and convergent digital technologies will eventually lead to the digital programming of complex chemical and material systems.
SOURCES BAE Systems, Youtube
Alton Sterling. Photo: Facebook
The Justice Department will now launch a civil-rights investigation into the death of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man who was killed Tuesday by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In an incident drawing comparisons to the killing of Eric Garner by NYPD officers in 2014, Sterling was fatally shot by Baton Rouge cops while selling CDs outside a convenience store. According to police, Sterling was killed at 12:35 a.m. when two officers responded to a call from a complainant who stated that a black male who was selling music CDs and wearing a red shirt threatened him with a gun outside the Triple S Food Mart.
A video of the incident, which was apparently taken by witnesses sitting in a parked car, has surfaced online. It opens with two loud pops, which may be from a stun gun, as an officer shouts get on the ground. Sterling is still standing, so one officer tackles him onto the hood of a silver car, taking him to the ground. The two officers appear to have Sterling pinned, when someone yells hes got a gun. One of the officers draws his weapon, and says, You fucking move, I swear to God. After more unintelligible shouting two shots ring out. The witnesses drop the camera and shriek, and there are three more gunshots.
Sterling was pronounced dead on the scene at 12:46 a.m. East Baton Rouge Parish coroner William Beau Clark said an initial autopsy showed Sterling died due to a homicide after suffering multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, according to the New Orleans Advocate.
On Wednesday, Baton Rouge police chief Carl Dabadie Jr. identified the two patrol officers involved in the shooting as Blane Salamoni, a four-year member of the force, and Howie Lake II, a three-year veteran. The two officers have been put on paid administrative leave, though its believed that only one fired his weapon. Dabadie told reporters Wednesday he welcomed the Justice Departments involvement. It is our goal and our mission to make sure that a thorough, just, transparent and independent investigation be conducted into this incident, the chief said.
As of Tuesday night, the officers have yet to be interviewed about the incident because, according to Rouge Police Cpl. LJean McKneely Jr., the stress of being involved in a shooting can cause tunnel vision, so we give officers normally a day or so to go home and think about it.
Abdullah Muflahi, who owns the convenience store and has been friends with Sterling for six years, said police were too aggressive from the start of the altercation. His hand was not in his pocket, nor did he have the gun in his hand, he told the New York Daily News. While he was laying there dying, the cop went inside his pocket to pull the gun out. Muflahi said police interviewed him for several hours, and took the footage from his surveillance cameras.
The officers were wearing body cameras, but they came loose during the incident and were dangling from their uniforms. McKneely said there is footage from a dashboard camera.
Sterling, a father of five, had been staying at the Living Waters Outreach Ministries, a transitional center and shelter, for the past few months, according to The Advocate. A fellow resident said Sterling worked as a cook in addition to selling CDs, and he never saw him with a weapon. Muflahi said he only started carrying a gun recently after a friend was mugged. Sterlings rap sheet goes back to 1996, and includes arrests for drug and assault charges. He registered as a sex offender following a 2000 conviction for one count of carnal knowledge of a juvenile, and was sentenced to five years for marijuana and weapon possession in 2009.
The incident has drawn the attention of the Black Lives Matter movement, and Sterlings name was trending on Twitter. Hundreds of people gathered outside the convenience store on Tuesday night to protest the shooting.
People in Baton Rouge taking to the streets in response to the shooting of #altonsterling pic.twitter.com/7wYCY7gGFl Unity Black (@UnityBlackNews) July 6, 2016
Protestors now parking in street to block traffic, raising fiats & chanting "black lives matter" #AltonSterling pic.twitter.com/aGu463ZTN4 Bryn Stole (@brynstole) July 6, 2016
People telling me they don't plan on leaving soon, though I believe I'm only reporter still here #AltonSterling pic.twitter.com/a3XgSVTJNq Bryn Stole (@brynstole) July 6, 2016
Congressman Cedric Richmond, who called for a Justice Department investigation, said there are a number of unanswered questions about the incident. The video footage released today of the shooting of Alton Sterling by officers of the Baton Rouge Police Department was deeply troubling and has understandably evoked strong emotion and anger in our community, he said in a statement. I share in this anger and join the community in the pursuit of justice. My prayers and thoughts are with Mr. Sterlings family as they deal with this tragedy.
Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards said at a press conference this morning that the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Louisiana and the FBI will work with the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division on the Sterling probe. Following our conversations this morning, I have full confidence that the U.S. Department of Justice will conduct a thorough, transparent investigation from beginning to end, Bel Edwards said in a statement after meeting with reporters. I will demand that, as all of you should.
Eric Yahnker, Pierced Piety and Precious Patriotism.
Though he reputedly never voted, Andy Warhol was a liberal Democrat who gave his assistants days off from the studio during elections if they promised to cast a ballot for Democrats. But after some nudging from actress Brooke Hayward and writer Jean Stein, Warhol entered into the political fray during the 1972 election with a poster for George McGovern. I wanted to do something clever, so I got the bright idea to do a green face of Nixon with Vote McGovern under it, Warhol wrote in his diaries on November 3, 1983. And thats when the IRS got so interested in me. In fact, every year after Nixon took office, up until Warhols death, the artists business was audited. Warhol remarked that he hated Hayward for urging him to make the poster, but the work endures as one of the more iconic pieces of visual political speech in modern history.
Warhols Nixon poster is part of a long history of prominent artists who have mocked conservative politicians. (For a number of reasons especially the prevailing politics of the art world and the cultural leanings of most artists there arent many examples of well-regarded art created in support of the GOP.) Peter Sauls toxic neon depictions of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and Jonathan Yeos porn collage of Sarah Palin both enjoyed a great deal of attention. Not surprisingly, Donald J. Trump has already inspired a lot of art.
Carrie Mae Weems, Paul Chan, and Richard Prince have all responded to Trump in their world as have the six artists below. From a 2004 pastel and watercolor send-up of the Donald as a Vegas Elvis, which the nominee apparently owned (and may still), to the less-than-flattering Trump nude that got artist Illma Gore beaten up on the street, these works suggest that if the divisive real-estate tycoon wins the White House, the art world should expect plenty of exciting new work.
NIR HOD, Donald
In 2004, I was working on really big oil paintings, influenced by American Pop Art. I started to combine the style of James Rosenquist and David Salle with these painters in the street who do portraits of people in pastel and charcoal. They always have pictures in their stands or booths in Times Square Rocky and Michael Jackson and Johnny Depp. I also used paintings of Las Vegas for my backgrounds. The neon lights giving this sense of something very dirty, but also very emotional. I saw a picture of Trump when I was painting these Vegas backgrounds and I thought, Hes like the new version of Elvis. He symbolizes all these things the American Dream, the beauty-queen contest, all this illusion of Vegas with money, power, the private jet. I really like gold, so when a collector of mine moved to Trump Tower I did a lot of pictures there. Trump Tower is brilliant so powerful, very much like the palace of Saddam Hussein and many Arab dictators. Next to these images of Rocky, Michael Jackson, Madonna, I thought it was good to create this icon and call it Donald, almost like I was a friend of his. The white suit and Donald Trump just worked so perfectly together for me. I wanted to make it intimate, but at the same time its out there and in your face.
In 2006, I had a show at Jack Shainman with some works on paper but didnt put Donald in the show. At the opening I met an Israeli real-estate guy who came with one of Trumps lawyers. He really liked my works and bought the picture for Donald Trump. A month after, I got a letter from Donald Trump. It said something like, Dear Mr. Hod, Though I dont see myself as Elvis, I do appreciate the sense of humor and I enjoy it. Hes an icon, and you cannot ignore it.
I like it when life imitates art. When it happens, this is one of the best things about art, and one of the most difficult things about life. I think we live in a very problematic time, and if you asked me ten years ago it would sound so surreal that he would be a presidential candidate. Its what I would call the Right Mistake something thats so wrong but also somehow right. The world is crazy.
ILLMA GORE, Make America Great Again
The piece was inspired by trying to blatantly make my friends see the prejudice we unconsciously hold about genitals and the idea of masculinity. The idea came to me after seeing a friends body who has a similar build to Donald Trump. I transplanted Trumps head onto this other body, and all of a sudden Trump as both potential leader and racist idiot seemed defined by his penis size.
I am proud of what the painting has resulted in, even if it has ended up with someone physically assaulting me. At noon on April 29, I left my house to go to the art store. Had I known about the protests happening nearby, I probably would have stayed home. As I walked along Alvira Street, near La Cienega, a car full of young people pulled up beside me, yelling slurs at me as I walked by. The only thing I heard clearly was TRUMP 2016! Over the past few months, I have become accustomed to being recognized, and Trump supporters and protesters alike have approached me in public spaces.
I messaged my partner to tell her what was happening, and I continued to ignore them, keeping my head down, looking at my phone, taking deep breaths. I heard the passenger-side door open. I looked up, and a slender man got out of the car and punched me in the face as the group began to laugh and cheer him on. TRUMP 2016! he yelled. The man who had attacked me fled as the group laughed. I went straight to LAPD on Wilshire. There has been a lot of violence through this campaign, and it is indicative of the time we are in, really.
I try never to be defined by the success or failures of any art piece, or any one instance. Its sort of like that Andy Warhol quote: Dont think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it is good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art. I would paint the piece again, even if it meant another black eye.
Abe Lincorn & Pierced Piety
ERIC YAHNKER, Pierced Piety and Precious Patriotism
Ive made several Donald Trumprelated images over the past year. Obviously, the satirist in me is attracted to the bottomless pit of Cheeto-hued turds Trump provides, but, in all honesty, his ascension from tycoon caricature to viable presidential candidate sends very real chills up my spine. I still have considerable faith in my fellow Americans, but the whole thing is beyond dangerous.
For my show Noahs Yacht, at Zevitas Marcus earlier this year, I actually made two Trump-related images: Pierced Piety features a profile of the man himself, and the other, Precious Patriotism, offers a window into the soul of his supporters. Pierced Piety is actually part of a diptych alongside a drawing titled Abe Lincorn, featuring Abraham Lincoln in cornrows. I installed the two images facing one another as bookends: the noble beginning and presumably the explosive end of the GOP as we know it. With Pierced Piety, I wanted to reflect on the notion of a snake-oil salesman willing to tack on any symbol or stance in order to collect votes and victories. In this case, I gave Trump with an ear full of gleaming gold crosses a nod to the candidates attempts to rack up the family-values vote. With Precious Patriotism, I wanted to contrast Trumps Pied Piperlike rhetoric with Smeagols in J.R.R. Tolkiens Lord of the Rings. I truly intended it as an empathic image. I actually very much want to give Trump supporters some benefit of the doubt that they are mostly good, kindhearted folks who have been temporarily blinded by all-too-human temptations and desires, but will ultimately find themselves corrupted by the power of a force they dont fully comprehend. For my exhibitions, I try to create images that engage the viewers internal biases, making them more a test or mirror reflection, rather than just reflective of my own personal politics. Nevertheless, Im not immune to wearing my politics on my sleeve on occasion!
ROB PRUITT, Studio Lunch Tables
The Trump drawings that I have recently posted on Instagram are a part of a larger, ongoing project call Studio Lunch Tables. The drawings are made with Sharpies and pens during our lunch break, in a spirit of anonymity, like graffiti you might encounter in a public-bathroom stall. However, since in this case we are dealing with the specific subject of Donald Trump and the specter of his presidency, it seems appropriate to break our silence.
The first drawing of Trump we posted was done by Akira Horikawa (one of my studio assistants, who does not have an Instagram account of his own God only knows why). He said his original drawing was inspired by a mental image of Trump pushing a breast-feeding baby aside to steal the mothers breast milk straight from the teat. Its clearly meant to be symbolic, and could be offensive to some, but theres undoubtedly something important in the underlying suggestion that this monstrous man would take food from the mouth of a baby. The first drawing inspired a succession of others, sort of like a meme created within the culture of the lunch-table drawings.
JIM TOROK, Donald Trump
I did the painting a couple of months ago, but it was not until after the recent art fairs in New York that I asked Pierogi Gallery to show it. I feel as though this coming election is very important, yet I have not seen much, if anything, about it in the art world. What inspired me to make the painting was listening to news on the radio one day while I was painting. It was some NPR weekly news roundup show. They were all talking about the election and how nobody seems to know what is going on with Trumps popularity, and I was thinking he is going to win because he is channeling other peoples anger, giving it false targets, like Muslims and immigrants. But no one asked why he himself is so angry. I wanted to capture that anger as opposed to doing a more representational painting.
WILLIAM POWHIDA, Some Names for Drumpf
Somebody mentioned to me that Drumpf is his original family name and that the Trump thing is the Americanized version. I get asked to donate drawings to these benefit auctions all the time, and I always feel its a chance to take a shot at somebody like Trump, who is such a noxious figure, so awful. Its kind of an inside joke, but when I do benefit drawings I like to throw in something political. I did one with John McCain, but nothing this specific for a while. I always find artists give gentle, nice things. But I made this specifically for the Smack Mellon. Trump is such a cartoon character with all of his facial expressions, and each one I painted just to give the shape and color, kind of giving him the time and attention I felt his portraits all deserve, so its all just basically blobs and little awful paintings with his particular palette of orange that represents his emotional range of bluster (theres not a big range).
I did another drawing that was a Venn diagram of Bernie and Hillary, and the title was Which Democrat Am I Voting For? and Trump sort of found his way into the part where both candidates are Not Trump. Im doing a sequel to that drawing where the issues are gone, its only accusations, and the point in the Venn diagram where they overlap is the Not Trump portion, this black hole.
Photo-Illustration: Photo: Michael Krinke Photography/Getty Images
Donald Trump spent yesterday campaigning with Senator Bob Corker, whom the Republican nominee called a great friend of mine, somebody respected by everybody. This was the sort of affirmation Trump is counting on to consolidate Republican support and tamp down potential unpleasantness in Cleveland. Unfortunately for him, Corker proceeded to announce that he is withdrawing from consideration to be Trumps vice-presidential nominee. Worse, from Trumps point of view, he did so in an interview with the Washington Post, a newspaper banished by Trumps campaign. And then, even worse still, Trumps campaign bizarrely refused to accept that Corker was breaking up with Trump. Katrina Pierson tells CNN, Historically a lot of the candidates say theyre not interested or they dont want to be considered. At the end of the day, once theyre asked, they usually accept.
The Trump campaign has operated on a circular form of reasoning about its vice-presidential selection. Its premise is that anybody would be gratified to run on a ticket with Trump. It follows that, if any rumored candidates say they would not run with Trump, this only proves they have not been considered. Yet reality is not following this script. Todays withdrawal from consideration by Joni Ernst, the right-wing Iowa senator, contributes to the dilemma. Trumps intent use of the period leading up to his convention as a reality-television-style audition where he appears with a series of potential running mates and selects the most desirable is giving way to a reality in which the field is considering, and then rejecting, Trump, until he is left with no other decent options. This is a version of the Trump show in which a series of guests appear across the table from Trump to tell him they quit.
Meanwhile, last night, Trump resumed his long-standing, occasional habit of lavishing public praise on the anti-terror policies of Saddam Hussein, a figure not held in high esteem among likely voters in the United States or any region outside the Sunni Triangle. He accuses his opponent of having bad judgment via sporadically all-caps, misspelled tweets that are themselves evidence against his own judgment:
Crooked Hillary Clinton is unfit to serve as President of the U.S. Her temperament is weak and her opponents are strong. BAD JUDGEMENT! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 6, 2016
The campaign, reports Byron York, has been hemorrhaging staff in recent days:
Republicans Kevin Kellems, Erica Freeman, Vincent Harris, and now Bennett have all left recently Harris after two days on the job and Kellems after a little less than three weeks. And that is on top of Trumps firing of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Earlier, Rick Wiley, a former top Republican National Committee official and Scott Walker campaign chief, also left Trump after a brief tenure.
Katie Glueck reported last week that Trump has almost no campaign apparatus in Pennsylvania, the single state most crucial to his Electoral College strategy. And David Fahrenthold, who has amassed damning evidence that Trump has abused or misstated his professed charitable donations, received the following on-the-record response from Eric Trump: Im just saying, Jesus Christ, why is this guy trying to f***ing kill us? Trump did not rebut the central allegations of Fahrentholds reporting.
With his visceral attack on trade and globalization last week, Donald Trump reduced the slim ranks of potential running mates even more. Photo: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
The small universe of potential Donald Trump running mates may have gotten a lot smaller last week when the mogul delivered his vein-charring over-the-top attack on free trade and globalization, followed up quickly with a sharp rhetorical exchange with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
As Margaret Hartmann noted on Friday, its hard to find much of anyone in the political universe who seems to lie awake at night dreaming of becoming Donald Trumps running mate. Its a gig with all the hallmarks of being a dead end and a bummer, to boot. If Trump loses badly, he will go down in Republican history as a cautionary tale for the ages, and his partner in political malfeasance will be lucky to be forgotten (like Barry Goldwaters 1964 ticket mate William Miller). If Trump somehow wins, being the second fiddle to Americas leading narcissist cannot be much fun. If his policies have the most likely effect of tanking the economy and even further dividing the country, Republicans will be plotting to destroy all of his administrations works as his veep stands by helplessly. The path to anything other than disaster will be very narrow.
But identifying oneself with the Boss as intimately as a running mate must carries a fresh peril now that Trump has all but declared war on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups that dont understand that the trade agreements they have promoted relentlessly for the last several decades have destroyed America and betrayed its workers.
Aligned with the Chamber and its allies on trade and investment issues are K Street, Wall Street, and most Main Street Republicans, the latter populating the state and local Chambers of Commerce that often share the national groups point of view and lobbying positions. Beyond the towns, there are the many agricultural interests that have supported the trade agreements Trump excoriated. With relatively few exceptions, Republican pols at the statewide or federal level have reflexively supported the business communitys trade agenda since the early 1970s. With even fewer exceptions, conservative think tanks and academics regard free trade as a no-brainer. Yeah, there have been the occasional populist conservatives, like Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, who have expressed displeasure at globalizations impact while supporting most actual trade deals, and the rare out-and-out protectionist pariah like Pat Buchanan (whose 1998 anti-globalization jeremiad, The Great Betrayal, appears to have influenced Trumps own positions). Support for trade-expansion measures hasnt been quite as obligatory in the GOP as, say, opposition to legalized abortion; for one thing, its always been acceptable to kvetch about the trade negotiation and enforcement efforts of Democratic administrations. But the kind of full-frontal assault on the very idea of free trade remains out there.
So unless Trump engineers a massive sea change in the Republican views, anyone who joins his ticket will very likely sacrifice future support from elected officials, donors, and grassroots conservative activists as well. Sure, Republicans who simply support Trump with varying degrees of enthusiasm can give themselves a mulligan on this and other issues. But not his running mate, and not on this issue so central to Trumps worldview.
How many potential veeps can and will make this great leap backward to the view of the Republican and before that, Whig protectionists of the distant past? The inveterate paleo-conservative Jeff Sessions is already there, though selecting him as the veep would be a sign of Trump campaign inbreeding so egregious as to inspire widespread GOP despair. So far Newt Gingrich has been the one potential running mate to execute a full recantation on trade, and what a big, looping full-gainer it has been, given Newts pivotal role in the passage of NAFTA and early and loud support for bringing China into the world trading community (he is, of course, a very flexible pol who began his career in Nelson Rockefellers 1968 presidential campaign). Beyond that, its tough sledding to find a viable option.
Sen. Bob Corker took himself out of the running just today, reportedly telling Trump he was not temperamentally suited to be an attack dog. You have to wonder, though, if Corkers outspoken support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a factor. Sen. Joni Ernst, a recent addition to the ranks of The Mentioned, went out of her way to disclaim interest as well, with the air of someone heading off an unwelcome date request by announcing plans to reorganize the sock drawer. Again, perhaps it was not a factor, but Ernst actually campaigned against her Democratic opponents anti-trade voting record when she was elected to the Senate in 2014.
Are Trumps vetters pretesting the willingness of Veep prospects to slavishly follow him into rank heresy on international economics? If not, will the vice-presidential nominee be kept out of the Rust Belt states where Team Trump clearly intends to make Hillary Clintons association with her husbands pro-trade administration a major talking point?
All in all, it makes more sense for ambitious young Republican pols to endorse Trump and then take a long summer vacation, with perhaps an Indian-summer chaser. They could leave the maximum sacrifice of going on the tycoons ticket to septuagenarians like Newt who have nowhere else to go.
No, Trump isnt really contesting California, and if he did, hed get clobbered anyway. Photo: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images
Its the sort of thing you say during a primary that you dont really mean and hope no one remembers later: Just before the June 7 California primary, Donald Trump promised hed be back in the general election to contest the state for the GOP. Janet Hook offered the obvious skeptical reaction:
Mr. Trump has said he wants to contest a number of states Republicans have lost since the 1980s, including Oregon and New York. Yet California is probably the longest shot among his targets. The latest Wall Street Journal/Marist/NBC News poll of California found that Mrs. Clinton outpolls him 55%-31%; her rival Sen. Bernie Sanders beats Mr. Trump 62%-28%. No GOP presidential candidate has won the state since 1988. Since then, the statewide political terrain has become so inhospitable to conservatives that most GOP candidates dont even try. The Republican National Committee, upon which Mr. Trump intends to rely heavily for help in the general election, doesnt even have a state director in California.
Its the sort of thing you say during a primary that you dont really mean and hope no one remembers later: Just before the June 7 California primary, Donald Trump promised hed be back in the general election to contest the state for the GOP. Janet Hook offered the obvious skeptical reaction:
So yeah, the Cali talk looked like the usual Trump braggadocio. But lo and behold, Team Trump has now announced an initiative aimed at building a huge, beautiful ground game in the state, per Sam Stein:
Donald Trumps campaign is launching a venture called the Trump Leadership Initiative fellowship program to ramp up its organization in key states. But at least one of the states where Trump is organizing could best be described as a long shot. In an email sent out by Donald J. Trump for President Inc., the campaign seeks volunteers and fellows based in California, with a seminar being held in Stanton on July 13. Trump, apparently, believes he can play in the Golden State. The fellows program, the email reads, will be the backbone of the Trump strategy to launch the largest, earliest, and most diverse ground operation in California history.
Sounds impressive, eh? As with everything connected to Trump, its a good idea to look beneath the packaging. Politico suggests RLI is nothing more than a rebranding of an RNC program:
[I]n a sign of the Trump campaigns reliance on the Republican National Committee for the nuts and bolts of its campaign, the email directs supporters to an Eventbrite page promoting a training session for the Republican Leadership Institute, the partys existing program. The page does not mention Trump, suggesting that rather than being run by the campaign, the Trump fellowship is an arrangement akin to the businessmans commercial licensing deals, in which he puts his name on services administered by third parties.
So the whole Trump initiative sure looks like a head fake.
Hey Hillary, enjoy! Photo: Sara D. Davis/Getty Images
Its time to reconsider the possibility that Donald Trump is a secret Hillary Clinton supporter, as opposed to merely a man whose campaign is a garbage fire. While we learned on Tuesday that Clinton will not be indicted over her use of a private email server, Republicans managed to salvage the day by focusing on FBI director James Comey rebuking Clinton for her extremely careless behavior, and calling for even more hearings on the matter.
Here's Donald Trump praising Saddam Hussein pic.twitter.com/ybmqoEc59c Mashable News (@MashableNews) July 6, 2016
Now suddenly Saddam Hussein was trending on Twitter, and replacing headlines about Clintons email scandal. Republican commentators were not amused:
Of all days, why does Trump have to praise Saddam Hussein TODAY?! Bob Estes (@BobEstesPGA) July 6, 2016
Hey guys remember I told you five hours ago Trump would screw up this day somehow? Praising Saddam Hussein. He did it. John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) July 6, 2016
Seriously. How do you screw up messaging Hillary's "extreme carelessness" by praising Saddam freaking Hussein. Amanda Carpenter (@amandacarpenter) July 6, 2016
Nor was Paul Ryan, who looked surprised when Megyn Kelly concluded their Tuesday night interview by asking where his party stood on mass-murdering tyrants (moments after the House Speaker explained that campaigns should not use anti-Semitic imagery). He was one of the 20th centurys most evil people, said Ryan. He was up there. He committed mass genocide against his own people using chemical weapons.
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
Paul Ryan's face as Megyn Kelly tells him about Donald Trump's remark about Saddam Hussein. h/t @Aaron_RS pic.twitter.com/WWxWnUL6E2 Caleb Howe (@CalebHowe) July 6, 2016
Republicans might have been surprised by Trumps timing (if they havent been paying attention to his campaign of late), but their candidates admiration of Hussein is no secret. Hes made the same point many times, dating back to at least 2004, when he told the Dallas Morning News, No matter how much you hate Saddam Hussein, and obviously he was a horror show, he kept terrorists out of Iraq.
In a 2011 interview with Human Events he said:
Whether you like Saddam Hussein or not, and I dont he was a bad guy but he used to shoot the terrorists; he used to kill them. He didnt give them a trial like this country, where the trial lasts for 21 years. He used to shoot the terrorists and kill them. There were no terrorists, very little terrorists in Iraq.
And in a January 2014 speech at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics and the New England Councils Politics & Eggs event he reiterated: You know, whether you like Saddam Hussein or not, he used to kill terrorists. I mean, terrorists did not have fun in that country. Now, thats the Harvard of terrorism.
Then in October 2015, he noted that Hussein would kill the terrorists immediately, adding that Iraq was better off during his reign. People are getting their heads chopped off, theyre being drowned. Right now, they are far worse than they were, ever, under Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi, he said.
At the time, Iraq War veteran and Republican representative Steve Russell rejected Trumps analysis, telling CNN it was absolutely absurd and demonstrates a complete lack of the facts. Hes wrong, Russell said. Regardless of what people think about the Iraq War, human rights advocates worldwide believe that the one silver lining that came out of the Iraq war was the demise of Saddam Hussein.
Undeterred, Trump repeated the line in December 2015, telling Fox News:
Had we spent zero dollars in Iraq and all of the places over there, we would have been in much better shape. Right now the Middle East is a powder keg. Whether you like Saddam Hussein or not, he was great at one thing, he killed terrorists. They were executing terrorists on a daily basis. Now its the harbor of terrorism. You want to be a terrorist, go to Iraq. We have really messed up the Middle East.
Then in February 2016, he said it again:
You know, Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, but one thing about him: He killed terrorists. Now, Iraq is Harvard for terrorists. You wanna become a terrorist? Go to Iraq. Saddam Hussein understood and he killed terrorists. Bad guy, but if the President and other people and, frankly Obama, who is no better because the way he got us out was a disaster. Look whats happened since then: a disaster. Shouldnt have been there, shouldnt have gotten out the way we got out but, if the president went to the beach, we would have been better off, believe me.
Tuesday nights remarks were a slight departure, since Trump elaborated for the first time since 2011 on what exactly he admires about Husseins anti-terror policy: that he executed those he deemed terrorists without due process. But in general, Trumps position on Hussein has been shockingly consistent. It predates by at least two years his now-rejected belief that Clinton should be forgiven for her vote to authorize the Iraq War, and is very smart and has a major chance to be our next president.
Thus, theres no reason for Republicans to worry that with this one remark Trump has undermined his case against Clinton on Iraq:
The most amazing thing about Trump praising Saddam is how he's managed to turn Hillary's worst subject (Iraq) into an asset for her campaign (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) July 6, 2016
Of course, the Clinton camp did jump on Trumps remark, with this statement from Jake Sullivan, a senior policy adviser:
Donald Trumps praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds. In reality, Husseins regime was a sponsor of terrorism one that paid families of suicide bombers who attacked Israelis, among other crimes. Trumps cavalier compliments for brutal dictators, and the twisted lessons he seems to have learned from their history, again demonstrate how dangerous he would be as commander-in-chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks.
But it seems unlikely that Trumps position on Hussein (and flip-flopping on Clintons fitness for office) will alienate his supporters. After all, whats more politically incorrect than praising a man who was known to finance and support various terrorist groups for boldly flouting basic human rights?
A college degree or the lack thereof could mean nearly as much as race in differentiating Clinton and Trump voters. Photo: Ralph Freso/Getty Images; Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images
Theres been a lot of loose talk in the commentariat about Donald Trumps riding the broad shoulders of the white working class to a shocking Rust Beltbased general-election victory, and some equally loose talk about Hillary Clintons sweeping everybody else to achieve a national landslide. Though neither assertion is likely true, there are elements of truth in each.
As Harry Enten explains at FiveThirtyEight, there is a growing gap in presidential preferences between college-educated and non-college-educated white voters. And its a gap thats emerging at both ends of the spectrum, with Hillary Clinton showing signs of what would be a historically strong performance among the college folk and Trump building on already-high numbers for Republicans in the white working-class demographic. This dynamic is complicating the usual formula of Democrats with their Obama Coalition of young and minority voters and Republicans with their older white voters.
The 2016 election is being contested along a different battle line than presidential elections usually are. Well-educated white voters say theyre going to vote for the Democratic presidential nominee in numbers that just havent been seen over the past 60 years. That could have big ramifications for our political discourse, creating a class-based divide among white voters that isnt akin to any other American election in recent memory.
Its rather shocking to realize that Hillary Clinton could accomplish something for Democrats this year that even Lyndon Johnson could not do in his 1964 landslide victory: carry the white college-educated demographic. Even if she doesnt, her strength among the college educated could substantially offset Trumps strong showing down the education ladder, and along with the usual huge Democratic advantage among minorities, give her a solid victory.
No matter how the overall votes add up, however, this education-based breakdown of partisan preferences could change the battlefield map as we know it. Here are some examples from a Bloomberg Politics analysis:
White, college-educated voters could help Clinton strengthen Democrats prospects in states like Colorado and Virginia, which rank No. 1 and No. 9, respectively, in a Bloomberg analysis of 2014 U.S. Census Bureau data that calculates the percentages of non-Hispanic whites age 25 or older who hold bachelors degrees or higher. They are 44.4 percent of the population in Colorado and 40.3 percent in Virginia. At the same time, Trumps appeal to less educated whites may complicate Clintons efforts to hold some of the states Obama won, if Trump can expand on Mitt Romneys 2012 share of the working-class white vote, and motivate them to get to the polls. Consider Ohio, ranked 40 out of 50 states for whites college attainment, at 27.5 percent; or Iowa, ranked 38th, at 28 percent.
A Clinton advantage in Colorado and Virginia would also be augmented by relatively high minority voter populations. Ohio and Iowa, conversely, have relatively small minority voter populations, making them truly ripe targets for Trump.
In the end, the electoral votes of solidly blue states outnumber the electoral votes of solidly red states, giving Clinton a larger margin for error in the battleground states along with greater strategic flexibility. But before the new map fully takes shape, you can expect some freak-outs over polling trends in states where the white education gap and variable minority populations may challenge our 2012-based assumptions.
Im Bernie Sanders and I dont endorse this message. Photo: Matt McClain-Pool/Getty Images
The FBI just roped off Bernie Sanderss last path to the Democratic nomination. Americas most-committed Sandernistas had been awaiting James Comeys Tuesday morning press conference with all of the eager anticipation of small children staying up to see Santa Claus.
FBI DIRECTOR COMEY TO (hopefully) RECOMMEND CRIMINAL INDICTMENTS THIS MORNING. WILL MAKE ANNOUNCEMENT AT 11:00 am @BernieSanders PrezBernieSanders (@SoaringRhetoric) July 5, 2016
Despite his famous disinterest in Hillary Clintons damn emails, the Vermont senator had fantasized about a late-breaking indictment, according to Politico, and tuned in to the corporate media to hear Comeys remarks.
Spox added that @BernieSanders did indeed watch FBI Director Comey's televised statement today from Burlington. https://t.co/ZhRaXA0nZN Danny Freeman (@DannyEFreeman) July 5, 2016
But the FBI director had no charges to recommend. The bomb was defused, the elephant in the room tranquilized. Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee.
Granted, Sanders had already admitted that much, and indicated that he plans to pull the lever for Clinton in November. But what he hasnt done is endorse her. And the socialist senator indicated Tuesday that the FBIs decision would not impact his thinking on that front.
Sanders spokesperson says FBI announcement re Clinton emails will not impact the senator's decision to stay in the race MaryAlice Parks (@maryaliceparks) July 5, 2016
Which raises the question: Why not? Does remaining the Democratic Partys wet blanket really aid Sanderss cause? His friends on Capitol Hill certainly dont think so. At a meeting with House Democrats Wednesday, Sanders was met with boos when he refused to say whether he planned to endorse Clinton.
Most liberal pundits take a similar position. And theyve produced a series of columns that collectively speak in the voice of a disappointed Jewish mother, asking the Vermont senator, Why cant you be more like your colleague, Elizabeth?
Throughout the Democratic primary, Elizabeth Warren conspicuously withheld her endorsement of the Democratic front-runner and advocated for an economic agenda to the left of Clintons platform. But once the writing was on the wall, Warren became a team player. She offered Clinton an enthusiastic endorsement, subjected her general-election rival to an epic series of Twitter burns, and campaigned with the presumptive Democratic nominee in Cincinnati.
Warrens good cop approach to pulling Clinton left has a lot to recommend it. First, shes earned the close ear of the woman most likely to be Americas next president. Second, shes further heightened her national profile amid the medias breathless coverage of her prospects in the veepstakes. And third, shes leveraged one and two to advance at least one policy that a Democratic White House could actually unilaterally implement: a drastic increase in antitrust enforcement to crack down on big business.
Slates Jamelle Bouie argues that, in his stubborn refusal to admit defeat, Sanders has allowed Warren to steal his starring role as the lefts anti-Trump crusader, while squandering his leverage over the Democratic standard-bearer in the process. Bouies central evidence for the latter claim is that Clinton has already secured the backing of most Sanders supporters, even without their champion putting in a good word:
In May, 20 percent of Sanders supporters said they would back Trump over Clinton in the general election. In June, that number is down to 8 percent. Overall, 81 percent of Sanders backers have rallied to Clinton, surpassing the 74 percent of Clinton supporters in 2008 who fell in behind Barack Obama. By any measure, the Democratic Party is unified.
Had Sanders pledged his allegiance to Clinton after the final primary ballots were cast, he could have taken credit for the migration of his voters. Instead, hes allowed his rival to see how little she needs his help.
This is a reasonable assessment. But its worth noting that:
1. Polls have a habit of changing
2. Bernie Sanders has points of leverage beyond his most intransigent supporters.
As my colleague Ed Kilgore has noted, a defiant Sanders could cause all manner of headaches at Clintons coronation in Philadelphia. The senator will come to the convention with no small number of die-hard delegates ready and willing to provide a hungry media with the stories of intra-party conflict it craves. Beyond that, Sanders still has his grip on one of the most coveted email lists in modern politics, and enjoys the benefit of a Republican nominee hell-bent on increasing his relevance in the general-election campaign.
Donald Trump on Bernie Sanders: "He lost the FBI primary. Bernie, my poor Bernie. ... I feel so badly for Bernie." https://t.co/1VcBjyj7Rp CNN (@CNN) July 6, 2016
Trump has name-checked Sanders in nearly every major speech hes given in the last month. And his relentless focus on reiterating the socialist senators critiques of Clintons record on free trade has likely increased the value of a full-throated Sanders endorsement.
Whats more, the Vermont senator has won concessions while withholding that endorsement. As the Washington Posts Greg Sargent notes, the latest draft of the Democratic platform has Sanderss fingerprints all over it. Beyond the $15 minimum wage and expanding Social Security, the platform contains wonkier provisions on financial reform that come straight from the democratic socialists box of pet causes: Among these are reforming the process for selecting the Federal Reserves regional board members, prohibiting Wall Street banks from being able to pick their own credit-ratings agencies, and reinstating postal banking, to expand low-income Americans access to financial services (beyond those proffered by payday lenders).
Beyond the platforms paper promises, Clinton has continued to incorporate aspects of Sanderss agenda into her own, announcing a plan to provide free public college to families with incomes below $125,000.
And like Warren, Sanders has recently focused his advocacy around a policy goal that a Democratic president could unilaterally realize: tearing up the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Elected officials must focus on protecting the environment for our future generations, not enable polluters to curb regulations. #StopTPPNow Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 5, 2016
.@TheDemocrats must go on record in opposition to holding a vote on the TPP. https://t.co/d6yJ5tFelL #StopTPPNow pic.twitter.com/9x6jPcbEp8 Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 5, 2016
We don't need more unfettered free trade deals that outsource millions of jobs and shut down tens of thousands of factories. #StopTPPNow Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 5, 2016
Its impossible to know whether Sanders would enjoy more influence, in both the present and future, had he followed Warrens lead. Ultimately, the senators commitment to taking a bad cop approach to ideological policing is more philosophical than tactical.
Sanders wants to cultivate a progressive movement that shares his adversarial attitude toward his newly adopted party. In the final major speech of his campaign, Sanders implored his supporters again and again to transform the Democratic Party into a vehicle for democratic socialism. Throughout his campaign, the former independent called on supporters to put ideology above party, commitment to principles above (supposed) pragmatism. According to Politico, Sanders reiterated that message to his colleagues on the Hill Wednesday, explaining that elections are not necessarily about winning but about transformations.
This is the ethos that has animated Sanderss entire political career its what led him to call for a primary challenge when Barack Obama floated Social Security cuts in 2011. And its one of the many reasons that Sanders isnt going to be the Democratic nominee.
There are plenty of sound arguments to make against this approach to politics. But a recent meeting of the Democratic platform committee helped illustrate its appeal.
A majority of the committees members oppose the TPP. As does the partys 2016 nominee (at least officially). But the committee voted against expressing that sentiment in the Democratic platform because, as Congressman Elijah Cummings put it, doing so would undercut the president of the United States.
In the Democratic Party Bernie Sanders hopes to build, undercutting opposition to misguided legislation would be viewed as the more pressing concern.
As you read this, over 100 brown bears are arriving in Katmai National Park in Alaska. Their purpose? To paw through the Brooks River in search of fish and not just any fish, but sockeye salmon. The pink fish of kings. And while usually Id say such a natural and beautiful process should be left untouched by the sticky hands of man and technology, four years ago some genius decided to livestream the river 24/7 while the bears fed. And it was great.
This year, the tradition continues. You can watch the river round the clock as the bears splash around, hunt for food, and stumble sated back into the woods. The live camera feed jumps from several different vantage points, so youre sure not to miss the action. And even when the bears arent around, the flowing river becomes the most calming screensaver this side of Windows 95. Its fun for the whole family. Unless you come from a family of salmon. In which case, its probably less fun.
Photo: Getty Images, AP
Say a prayer for Kim Kardashian: Yesterday, BlackBerry announced it was discontinuing its BlackBerry Classic model, the last vestige of its former glory days. While the company will seemingly continue to produce other (less chic) models, the keyboard-centric BlackBerry as we know it has officially been consigned to the dustheap of history.
Way back when, the BlackBerry was the first smartphone to become a full-blown cultural sensation, spawning a nation of CrackBerry addicts whose BBM pin was as essential a marker of selfhood as birth date or blood type. Thinking back on my own BlackBerry days, I can still feel its heft in my pocket, hear the clacking of its keyboard, remember the soft squish of its roller ball. I close my eyes and can still see that flashing red light signaling an incoming message, a beacon of connectivity in the lonely nights: You are not alone, that light said. You will never be alone again.
Throughout the 2000s, everybody who was anybody was spotted with a BlackBerry in hand, from Madonna, who told reporters she and Guy Ritchie slept with theirs under their pillows, to Oprah Winfrey, who named it one of her favorite things back in 2005. Remember 2006, when Lindsay Lohan accused Paris Hilton who had her own BlackBerry hacked back in 2004 of hacking her BlackBerry and sending mean texts from it? (Has there ever been a more 2000s sentence?) Back in 2007, a young Canadian named Justin Bieber even offered to be the companys brand ambassador, with BlackBerry dismissing him because RIM honchos thought his career wasnt going to last. If only they had Beliebed as much as they believed in their product, what a different world it might have been.
Politicians, too, favored the device for its security features. Al Gore reportedly received the 2000 Election Night results on his BlackBerry, with his campaign manager messaging him, Never surrender. Its not over yet. Obama, too, used a BlackBerry through most of his presidency, modified for additional security. And, of course, Hillary Clintons single-minded devotion to her BlackBerry was so fervent that it spawned a classic meme and an FBI investigation. What says brand loyalty more than a potential indictment?
Yet even once the phones fell out of vogue, dwarfed by the iPhone, they still had their adherents those members of the A-list whose chubby, ungainly fingers pined for a keyboard. Still PING squad for life, tweeted Drake in 2014, always one to support Canadian industry. In 2014, when Bill Murray finally ditched his legendary 1-800 number in favor of a smartphone, he chose an old BlackBerry to be his first smartphone. As recently as May, Sarah Jessica Parker revealed she remains a BlackBerry devotee. And, of course, there is Kim Kardashian, the phones most loyal adherent, who is known for hoarding old BlackBerry Bolds she buys on eBay. Its my heart and soul, Kim told Kara Swisher back in 2014. I love it, and Ill never get rid of it.
Sorry, Kim: Nothing Bold can stay.
In honor of the Classics demise, here is a look back at some of the phones most classic celebrity moments.
Photo: Kevin Lamarque
The photo that launched a thousand memes, and one political shitstorm.
Photo: Pool/2009 Getty Images
While Hillary favors a one-handed grip, Obama goes for the patented two-hand clasp.
Photo: JB Lacroix/2013 JB Lacroix
Paris Hilton: BlackBerry devotee, double-fister extraordinaire.
Photo: Bauer-Griffin/2016 Bauer-Griffin
As Keeping Up With the Kardashians taught us, the best way to Keep Up With Kim has always been via one of her many BlackBerries.
Photo: GVK/HM/Bauer-Griffin/2012 Bauer-Griffin
Khloe is a fan too.
Photo: IGNAT/Bauer-Griffin/2013 Bauer-Griffin
Sarah Jessica Parker, who has always had a good eye for classic vintage, was seen using a BlackBerry as recently as May 2016.
Photo: GVK/Bauer-Griffin/2013 Bauer-Griffin
Doesnt care Im always on my BlackBerry, crooned Lana Del Rey in her song Children of the Bad Revolution.
Photo: BuzzFoto/2012 BuzzFoto
Just a dad with his dad phone.
Photo: Jason LaVeris/2010 Jason LaVeris
You used to call Drake on his BlackBerry, late night when you needed his love. But now what will happen when that hotline blings?
Photo: University of Tennessee, Knoxville/Facebook
The University of Tennessee has agreed to pay almost $2.5 million to settle a case brought by eight women against the university for its handling of allegations of sexual assault, particularly against student athletes.
The case first came to light in early February when six unnamed women filed a federal lawsuit against the university claiming it had violated Title IX. The university, according to the lawsuit, had created a hostile sexual environment because of its indifferent responses toward allegations of assault.
The six women all claimed to have been sexually assaulted and then reported their individual cases, only to find themselves in an unfair review process that mostly left their perpetrators off the hook. Later, the complaint was amended to include two other women who also said they had experienced similar treatment.
In the settlement agreement, the University of Tennessee is clear about not admitting any guilt or wrongdoing, ESPN reports. The universitys statement indicates that they had already spent more than $220,000 in litigation fees and the case would have cost more than $5 million if it proceeded to trial. Lawyers for all parties involved agreed to the settlement two days before the University of Tennessee had to respond to the lawsuit in court.
The president of the University of Tennessee also said in a statement that he will appoint an independent commission to review the universitys current programs involving Title IX and recommend ways to improve.
We are satisfied that, while universities everywhere struggle with these issues, the University of Tennessee has made significant progress in the way they educate and respond to sexual assault cases, the womens attorney, David Randolph Smith, told ESPN.
looks a lot more chill than the rhode island set
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she's cute
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She looks cute with bangs but honey no to wearing shorts like that.
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i agree
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Why would Demi care? What new dramz have I missed?
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Will this staged party get 600+ comments too?
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she only posted two short videos and a couple of pics. not like 500 staged pap pics and then 20 pics on insta
Edited at 2016-07-06 12:55 am (UTC)
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Come on... There's a damn attempt at a professionally shot video of her sashaying around her party (starting with a booty shot) just to jump into a pool..... That's not as staged as photos?
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lol you know it won't
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What Drake song is in that cute and sexy Selena video?
I don't like Drake so much but damn that song SLAPS
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I went to her meet and greet when she was here in Houston and she is honestly so sweet. She was so nice and cute to everyone. Her concert was boring af tho.
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LOL it's a shame she sucks at being a pop star
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well, that video was embarassing.
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Why didn't anyone tell her to tuck in the tag on her shorts?
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lmao I just noticed that
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apparently it's a high school/teen thing? My cousin says girls roll up their pants for the purpose of their tags showing. I don't see it often so I don't know how common/true that is
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OMG, reading this made me feel so old. I'm like why?!
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I feel like that's been a thing for ages. I remember back when I was a pre-teen girls would do that with their Soffe shorts.
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she's so cute, it looks like she had fun
edited to add I want to get drunk with her, she seems fun and affectionate
Edited at 2016-07-06 12:42 am (UTC)
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And whoever made the comment of her strutting through Jade from top model style gets comment of the year from me for how accurate that video is.
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fuck yes
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Ty :')
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LMAO, perfect reference.
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Yesss, this biracial butterfly.
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lol <3
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yasssssss
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So iconic.
Wonderful, fabulous.
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Wonderful fabulous~~
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this was so amazing.
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always so good
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We are not worthy!!!
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yes! this was my first thought!
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LMAO I miss her why didnt she get her own reality show
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god never let this die
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related: is bieber dating ashley benson now?
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ahh who's that?
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i will never understand snapchat.
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same
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I finally joined it a month ago and apart from the actual picture taking I really hate how it's set up tbh /grandma
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Me neither. The random choppy snippets are so annoying.
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I hate that they call them 'snapchat stories'...like actual effort went into them or something.
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ditto. My brother was trying to explain it to me and I just don't understand what the point is.
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i never used to understand it either but now i like it better than insta because the pictures ~disappear~ i don't scrutinise my pictures as much (which i do on insta b/c i'm lame) and also the filters are fun
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same. i just use it for the fun face filters.
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i dont wanna be "old man yells at cloud" but my friends who snapchat are starting to get annoying to hang out with. they want to snap everything and theres always a phone in someones face, especially if we go out drinking. chill bitch and enjoy the moment.
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I had one for about a week but had to delete it because I got second hand embarrassment from my friends who would always post videos of themselves in cars lip syncing to songs, but they were super serious about it. I couldn't handle it.
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I feel the same way about Twitter.
Such a waste of time.
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me neither!!! all my friends use it but i feel so inept when i try to. i just don't get it.
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Gretchen Wieners coup d'etat!
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So many minorities. White Flight Swift would never~
I cringed at that corny first video LOL
Edited at 2016-07-06 01:00 am (UTC)
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As shitty as the music at her concert was, the choreography alone makes it worth the watch
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meetza peetza feetza sheetza is pretty much what she said
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what i am as gaga really is, at this moment, what other people think gaga is.
Wasn't that what ARTPOP was?
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Her Gaga could mean anything.
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what
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She comes up with the craziest statements.
Remember when everyone thought iamamiwhoami was Xtina tryna out artpop Gags? Good times.
Edited at 2016-07-06 02:38 am (UTC)
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Yeah and people had like teeth match ups and stuff lmao
Then they dragged it out forever and no one cared anymore
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Yasss I remember the teeth match ups, only for it to be a nobody.
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Lol there was sooooo much hype around that and when it turned out to be that nobody, iamamiwhoami seemed to virtually disappear.
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that was the most exciting thing xtina didn't do
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Those were exciting times in pop music. I lived for those music videos.
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LMAOOO those were fun times, we all thought iamamiwhoami's project was for xtina's bionic and we ended up getting the timeless smash, NOT MYSELF TONIGHT instead
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Everyone was gaga
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an embarrassing tryhard?
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Is she high.
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This is one of those statements that reads like it was initially written in English, translated into another language, and then translated back into English.
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omg I saw the picture first and my mind was like, "what did Kim do to herself"
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Edited at 2016-07-06 03:08 am (UTC) Shut up and give me #LG5
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be careful what you wish for; i did the same in 2013 and all i got was this lousy artflop
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she is our creation!
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pretentious gaga is back
prepare for the new album
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lol i get what shes saying tbh
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ditto
like im pretty sure all she's saying is who lady gaga is, is whoever she is in our minds
not really one entity but multiple entities seen through the eyes of the general public
im so wasted and stoned sry y'all
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It seems like a lazy art interpretation "it means what you want it to mean" yeah but what did YOU mean to do? You're the artist
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lmao same but prob cause I'm stoned
I'm over here like "Yeah, I see where she's coming from"
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It's just funny how she went from "I'll die from my art. This is the true me!" to now saying GaGa is a separate entity. She's not consistent.
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it's a sociological concept called looking glass self
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yah lol
translation: "i've grown up from my shtick and i would like to move on to a new phase in my career but i'll continue to play up this character i have to"
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Same people are being obtuse on purpose.
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Her artpop could mean anything!
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I actually love art pop the song tbh
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me too tbh
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Lol i'm glad someone said it.. What i came in this post for
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I don't think that's what she means
I think she's basically saying lady gaga conceptually is soooo misconstrued that she could never recover popularity wise because lady gaga is literally a different person to everyone who knows her
/drunk
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RIP
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Again and again. Knew it was a matter of time before an incident would blow up in my hometown. BRPD is ridic. Not to mention the biggest prison in the country is 1.5 hrs away.
It's so egregious and shameless. The body cameras fell off? BOTH officers? They're definitely going to try to blackball the shop owner's security footage, thank goodness for cell phones. No hope for justice.
Edited at 2016-07-06 10:53 am (UTC)
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As someone who lived in BR for a bit and is from Louisiana, can't say I'm surprised that this happened there either. They throw black people in prison for decades for minor offenses all the time and I'm sure this is just the first case like this to get attention but not the first time it has happened.
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Yep! My brother lived in Louisiana for a few years. We had to fight the system to get him out. Had we not, he would've served years in jail for a crime he didn't commit. It's crazy. It's terrible here in TN too but Louisiana's justice system is even worse.
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Definitely not. My parents are originally from LA we have family in BR, the amount of times we had cousins go to jail for stupid ass shit is ridiculous. There's a reason why my parents left, took their kids away from there. The place is crocked and racist as fuck.
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I live in NOLA and had to stay in BR for a bit after Katrina, y'all police wild out as much as ours.
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I was just down there about a year ago to visit family. My aunt warn me to drive the speed limit because police will pull you over for anything.
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I have family there and I'm not shocked at all by this. That poor man.
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I lived in BR for a long time and I also not surprised either.
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I'm not too far from BR and I'm definitely not surprised by this. This state is full of so many shitty cops.
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Comment twins regarding your first paragraph. Also surprised the NOPD hasn't been caught pulling the same shit.
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oh god not again :(
what happened exactly?
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JFC..that made me tear up
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my god, killing someone because he's selling cds (and he's black ofc)
this is insane and ofc the cameras fell off~
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Oh my fucking god!
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JFC
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jesus christ, I cannot imagine what must have been going through his mind when that gun came out.
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This is one of the cops
the officer that shot #AltonSterling ... not surprising. bet the media wont show these pictures of him. smh pic.twitter.com/18OgrlVFKf I dont care (@nargiswtf) July 6, 2016
yah what the above person saidThis is one of the cops
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Police got a call that Alton was threatening someone with a firearm (keep in mind that open carry is a common thing in Louisiana), they confronted him and for some reason they tasered him and tackled him to the ground. With 500 lbs of manpower literally on top of Alton they decided that they still needed to shoot him multiple times. They then took his gun out of his pocket to make it seem like he was threatening them with it.
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I'm not gonna watch the video, but i'm glad someone recorded it so the police can't turn it on the victim or the shop.
RIP :(
Edited at 2016-07-06 10:53 am (UTC)
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Jfc. RIP to Alton
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This horrific and just literally another day :(
I have little hope for actual justice but maybe this time
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What the FUCK. FUCK law enforcement which doesn't punish this kind of bullshit behaviour. Goddamn.
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Their both on paid leave, I doubt they will get an indictment let alone a conviction.
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I have always hated the fact that got basically fucking vacation time(because what the fuck paid time off?) for this shit.
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They have 30 days from the time of the shooting before they can even legally be QUESTIONED. What type of backwards ass legal system?
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jfc, yet again :(
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How very convenient that BOTH of their body cameras fell off and that they were able to corner him behind something large enough to hide his hands to they could claim he was going for his gun.
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*oops maybe not
Jesus Christ. Fuck the police.
Edited at 2016-07-06 12:54 pm (UTC) Even if he was going for his gun -- which witnesses claim he wasn't, that his hands were nowhere near his gun or pocket -- he was at point blank range over him and could have easily shot him in the shoulder or arm and disarmed him. I'm sure* they train officers how to disarm suspects at the police academy.*oops maybe not https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/21/police-shoot-kill-taser-force-experts-law Jesus Christ. Fuck the police.
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Nah I think most law enforcement is trained to shoot to kill. That's also why some stand your ground laws get tricky (and fucked up). The idea is you can only attack someone and claim self defense if you feel your life is in imminent danger. If you shoot to wound the law says you must not have been in imminent danger otherwise you would've shot to kill. It's really, really fucked. That's why after the whole Trayvon Martin case, there was another case of a mother who fired warning shots at her abusive husband to protect her kids but SHE got arrested because warning shots are dangerous and she totally should've shot and killed him in front of her kids because that's what she would've done if she was really in danger. She was also black though so :/
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it's fucking disgusting and if they don't get prosecuted the fullest extent -- i can't even finish writing that sentence bc we all know wtf's gonna happen here.
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My ex is a cop and we were together while he was still a cadet/in the academy. During the shooting training if you had too many "kill shots" (I'm assuming head/chest) you failed and had to test again. It's horrible that they even allow a few kill shots, but they don't technically don't condone it
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I'm so tired of black people being assaulted/murdered by police and us having to have that on video so people don't believe we did something to "deserve" it. I hate that videos are a necessity to prove our innocence when we're the ones who are victimized. I hate that our deaths have to be so wildly circulated on recordings so that we may have the slightest chance at justice which rarely ever comes.
Then again, even with the videos, people still make excuses for the cops and try to justify our deaths so...
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Insult to trash. These cops are a deep void of love, compassion, and humanity.
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FUCK THE POLICE.
Made my blood boil reading the TL last night. Unfollowing anyone in my feeds who remain silent about this. Will cut out anybody remotely All Lives Matter about this. Enough.
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Hard to be patriotic when "the best country in the world" is nothing more than a black hole of violence, racism, inequity, greed and hatred.
I guess all you have to do to become a murderer without going to jail is be a police officer. Unbelievable.
Edited at 2016-07-06 11:30 am (UTC)
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The lulling stability of oil prices over the last months has been a welcome respite, and both Saudi and Russian authorities have declared the glut ended. The balance, however, is unconventional and perhaps unstable since it is not a balance of supply and demand.
While demand has continued to creep and production to decline, the stability delicately balances two larger moving parts on the supply side: increasing supply from some countries and supply interruptions elsewhere. Expectations of future prices require calculations of each of these two largest moving parts.
According to OPEC, demand growth is around 100,000 bpd/month, and total non-OPEC supply decay is expected around 60,000 bpd/month both for 2016. While supply from Russia and Iran as well as Saudi Arabia and its satellites have expanded, overall supply is down 800,000 bopd, making the appearance of a balancing market. In fact, it is the predicted force majeure-style interruptions which have accelerated and continued to drive oil prices over the past few months.
Though actual and threatened strikes have had minor impacts, larger interruptions have concentrated in three locales: Canada, Nigeria and to a lesser extent in Colombia. The Fort McMurray fire shut down 1.5 million bopd at its peak, and rates are still suppressed. Return and restoration projects are beginning, and production may take some time to reach previous levels. Research has now established what had previously been expected, namely that the fire was caused by people and not nature. Related: Oil Dragged Lower By Crashing Gasoline Futures
(Click to enlarge)
Source: Natural Resources Canadas Canadian Wildland Fire Information System via WSJ
The image above shows the extent of the blaze in its first days as determined by Canadian authorities. It was meant to show how rapidly the fire spread, but it also happens to show how serendipitous the location was for interrupting production. It started about five miles directly upwind of Fort McMurray.
Less circumstantial but almost as disruptive, sabotage in Nigeria has taken out 1 million bopd, nearly half of the nations production, in a rapid series of attacks all by the Niger Delta Avengers. Their debut attack in February was conducted under 20 feet of water using a well-placed, military-style explosive, and then the previously-unknown group did not claim responsibility for nearly two months. Since then the mysterious saboteurs have stepped up to weekly attacks and continue to use methods unorthodox for the region. Instead of using hack saws and stealing oil, the Niger Delta Avengers destroy, and they do so with sophistication. As one local analyst reported, They knew exactly where to attack and the time to attack. There was literally nothing you could do. Related: Why Chevron And Shell Are Better Bets Than BP and Exxon
The group has pledged to reduce oil production to nothing while, ironically, refusing dialogue, making ridiculous demands and not responding to requests for media interviews. The Avengers continued to attack even as other rebels in the Delta continue to honor a cease-fire and condemn the Avengers attacks. The Nigerian government recently claimed that the Avengers were involved in truce negotiations, but a spokesman for the group denies the claim. In total and other than location, the pattern of behavior by the Niger Delta Avengers does not fit the pattern for regional, indigenous discontent, and it shows no sign of true resolution.
Colombia has suffered similar resurgence in pipeline sabotage: similar timing and similar effects. By May, there had been 14 pipeline attacks in Colombia taking offline up to 900,000 bopd of production. The biggest and most recent attacks have been blamed on, though not claimed or disavowed by, the second largest rebel group, the ELN, after agreeing in March to negotiations with the government. The presumed culprit is, in this case, well-known, but the resurgence is novel. As in Nigeria, there are not near-term prospects for resolution.
These three major interruptions have been each irregular and out-off-sync, but together and in combination they have more than absorbed the supply growth from other countries over the last months. Smaller increases in supply have come from Saudi Arabia and its satellites, not unlike the joint play they made for market share previously in this cycle.
Much larger increases have come, however, from Russia and Iran, the same two countries which seem to have the national character and military capabilities to support international force majeure-style interruptions. Both countries have increased supply by hundreds of thousands of bopd each. Iran claims the intent to increase supply significantly more, but the capacity of both countries to increase supply is debatable.
Beside the prospect of increasing Iranian supply, some analysts worry about the potential return of Libyan production and the possible return of supplies from Canada, Nigeria and Colombia. These are perfectly reasonable concerns since the current, tenuous balance is predicated on supply interruptions. The return of production back to capacity would without doubt drive prices down. In my view, the same forces which have led to the current balance are likely to continue to operate to keep oil prices, while potentially volatile, between the observed limits of $30 and $70 per barrel.
By Dwayne Purvis for Oilprice.com
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The U.S. holds more oil reserves than anyone else in the world, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela.
That conclusion comes from a new independent estimate from Rystad Energy, a Norwegian consultancy. Rystad estimates that the U.S. holds 264 billion barrels of oil, more than half of which is located in shale. That total exceeds the 256 billion barrels found in Russia, and the 212 billion barrels located in Saudi Arabia.
The findings are surprising, and go against conventional wisdom that Saudi Arabia and Venezuela hold the worlds largest oil reserves. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, for example, pegs Venezuelas oil reserves at 298 billion barrels, the largest in the world. Rystad Energy says that these are inflated estimates because much of those reserves are not discovered. Instead, Rystad estimates that Venezuela only has about 95 billion barrels, which includes its estimate for undiscovered oil fields.
Moreover, Rystad argues that there are not uniform ways of measuring oil reserves from country to country. Some countries report proven reserves, using conservative estimates from existing oil fields. Other countries, like Venezuela, report undiscovered reserves. But Rystad applied similar metrics to all countries in its report to make comparisons easier. An established standard approach for estimating reserves is applied to all fields in all countries, so reserves can be compared apple to apple across the world, both for OPEC and non-OPEC countries. Other public sources of global oil reserves, like the BP Statistical Review, are based on official reporting from national authorities, reporting reserves based on a diverse and opaque set of standards. The latest assessment, Rystad argues, paints a more accurate portrait.
The U.S., then, sits atop with its oil reserves. Rystad notes that Texas alone could have 60 billion barrels of oil.
Over at Reuters, John Kemp uses the data to take a look at Saudi Arabia, long thought to have a vast and seemingly endless pool of oil upon which to draw. He notes that the Saudi government suddenly upgraded its oil reserve estimates from 170 billion barrels in 1987 to 260 billion barrels in 1989. Since then, Saudi oil reserves have been unchanged for more than 25 years at 260 billion barrels. As Kemp wryly puts it, If the government data is accurate, the kingdom has managed the remarkable feat of exactly replacing each produced barrel with new discoveries or increased estimates of the amount recoverable from existing fields. Related: Fresh Niger Delta Attacks Could Send Oil Prices Up
Of course, nobody knows the true extent of Saudi oil reserves, which is a closely guarded state secret. But the economic transformation initiated by the Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman could start to change things. The prince has cited his plans to help steer the Saudi economy away from its dependence on oil sales. Part of that plan includes a partial IPO of Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company. Of course, part of any privatization would need to include a valuation of the company, and to properly assess the value of Aramco, the company would need to disclose more data on its reserves. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen.
Nevertheless, Rystad still puts the U.S. ahead of Saudi Arabia in oil reserves, at 264 billion barrels compared to Saudis 212 billion barrels.
The rankings change when simply looking at oil reserves from Proved + Probable (commonly referred to as 2P), an estimate from existing oil fields. Saudi Arabia has 120 billion barrels of 2P oil reserves, compared to the U.S. 40 billion barrels.
On a global basis, Rystad estimates that the world has about 2,092 billion barrels of reserves, or about 70 years worth of oil at todays production rate of 30 billion barrels per year. That compares to the 1,300 billion barrels produced around the world in history. While there is a lot of oil left then, according to this estimate, most of it is of the unconventional variety whether shale or oil sands or other difficult-to-produce forms of oil. In short, Rystad concludes: this data confirms that there is a relatively limited amount of recoverable oil left on the planet. It goes on to caution that business-as-usual wont work. With the global car-park possibly doubling from 1 billion to 2 billion cars over the next 30 years, it becomes very clear that oil alone cannot satisfy the growing need for individual transport.
By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com
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Want to invest in the oil majors? Take a look at Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell, but steer clear of ExxonMobil, BP, and Total.
That is the conclusion from a new analysis from Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., which identified Chevron and Shell as the best of the lot. The reason for choosing Chevron, for instance, is that the American oil major will have high-margin growth, largely due to the completion of several large-scale projects. The Gorgon LNG project is one example with huge capex requirements behind it, Chevron will enjoy free-cash-flow turnaround. Tudor Pickering Holt also likes Chevrons top quality Permian Basin assets.
For Shell, it is much more about the dividend, which Tudor Pickering describes as safe. Shell is in the midst of a $30 billion asset sale, which could be difficult to pull off. But Tudor Pickering is more optimistic, calling the disposal campaign achievable, helping Shell to slash its debt pile and return to share buybacks.
If Tudor Pickering Holt is keen on Chevron and Shell, it is less so on some of its peers. BP has a stretched balance sheet, in large part because of its massive liabilities related to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. Total has high debt levels and a dearth of new long-term projects, which could hurt growth. And what about the worlds largest publicly traded oil and gas company? Tudor Pickering Holt argues that Exxon faces growth challenges as well, which should weigh on its premium valuation. Related: Big Oil Could Spark A Renaissance In U.S. Shale
The oil majors were not without their own news in recent days. Exxon announced a very large oil discovery off the coast of Guyana, which might go a long way to improving its growth prospects. Separately, Chevron and Exxon, along with some partners, announced their decision to move forward with a $37 billion expansion of the Tengiz oil field in Kazakhstan, one of the largest final investment decisions in two years. Investors may differ on whether or not the decision is a smart one, but the oil majors are clearly still pursuing growth.
By Charles Kennedy of Oilprice.com
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There has been a lot of optimism returning to the energy markets of late as oil prices have climbed to the $50 a barrel region. Ironically, while a few years ago $50 a barrel would have been seen as an unthinkably low oil price, today it is regarded as much needed relief from prices that ran in the $25 a barrel region earlier this year. Yet with the climb in prices, analysts are now starting to forecast prices per barrel of as much as $80 in the next year. That view is not the mainstream though.
Instead most analysts are looking for oil prices to remain in the $50 range over the next year, and that has some investors forgetting about the possibility of a renewed downside in oil which could create more losses. In particular, noted economist Gary Shilling is out with a much discussed forecast that oil will retrace its losses and fall even further to between $10 and $20 per barrel. No one knows what the future will bring of course, but Shillings view is worth considering.
Broadly speaking, Shillings thesis has three points of note for investors. First, he points out that Saudi Arabia and more broadly OPEC, have lost any semblance of control that they once exercised over the markets. Thats unequivocally true. OPEC is no longer the swing producer of oil, and internal divisions within the cartel are so great that any kind of coordination among producers looks increasingly unlikely. That in turn makes coordination with outside producers like Russia out of the question. Rationally then, OPEC is likely to continue producing as much as they possible can. The constraint facing many OPEC nations is their ability to invest in new capex rather than internal OPEC dictates. Related: Is Russia Winning The Oil Export War Against The Saudis?
Second, Shilling sees U.S. producers as the new swing producers and says that production will continue as long as the price of oil remains above the marginal cost per barrel in U.S. shale formations. That marginal cost is between $10 and $20 a barrel excluding existing sunk costs like leases and drilling expenses.
Third, Shilling sees renewed global economic weakness from China and Japan to Europe failing to trigger much growth in oil demand. Its particularly hard to argue with this tenet of the thesis. Global growth has consistently underperformed in recent years and it shows no signs of improving now. The Brexit situation combined with cratering growth rates in China are doing little to bolster confidence. Indeed for all of the concern about the U.S. economy as a whole, the U.S. is arguably the only country doing even reasonably well. Related: Oil Bust Continues To Take Its Toll On Canadian Economy
Yet for all of the negatives around oil, and it is easy to make a bear case, the economics of oil production still leave room for hope. Shilling is right that the U.S. is the key producer on the world stage today. U.S. producers are more volatile and financially weaker than other major producers. As much of a basket case as Iran and Venezuela are, both are far less likely to go bankrupt than most of the individual oil producing companies in the U.S.
The bull case for oil then rests on the frailty of U.S. producers and the speed of the decline curve in horizontally fracked wells. Fracked wells decline much faster in production terms than conventional wells do about 70 percent of production falls off within two years. Thus shale producers have to keep drilling new wells just to maintain production.
At this stage and at prices below $40 a barrel, virtually no new drilling occurs. As a result, prices today may be artificially boosted by market speculation, but as long as they dont go high enough to lead to significant new drilling, fundamentals will eventually catch up and production will fall dramatically. That in turn will support current prices and perhaps even higher prices in the future.
By Michael McDonald of Oilprice.com
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The government of Colombia and the National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels announced plans to begin peace talks in March but the situation between the two entities has remained tense. It recently deteriorated further when the rebels killed six members of that countrys security force and bombed the Cano Limon-Covenas, which is the second-largest oil pipeline in the nation.
The pipeline is located near the Venezuelan border and belongs to the state-run company Ecopetrol, which celebrated its 52nd anniversary this past weekend. Ecopetrol issued a statement blaming the ELN for the attack.
According to Orlando Hernandez, president of Agora Consultorias, the Colombian military has continued operations against rebel groups and criminals in the rural areas of the country. The presence of those groups has made the situation difficult and dangerous in Colombias oil fields. Hernandez reported that while FARC (The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) has decreased its activities following a cease-fire one year ago, the ELN has stepped up its attacks. The ELN has carried out 15 other attacks on pipelines so far in 2016. Last year, the group was responsible for five attacks.
Attacks by rebel groups such as ELN are not the only problems for the oil industry. Members of the local communities and indigenous groups have been blockading oil and gas facilities. Some have environmental concerns about oil and gas activity while others are seeking concessions for labor or royalties.
Related: Gas Pump Skimming At New Records This Holiday Weekend
Ecopetrol executives have said that these blockades have caused more problems than the activities by the rebel groups. At present, a blockade at the town of Gibraltar in the northeast area of the country has resulted in a 30 percent spike in natural gas prices for customers in the town of Bucaramanga, which is located nearby. That blockade has been in place for one month. In 2015, repairs crews were stopped from working on the Cano Limon pipeline for two months. Hernandez said the delay resulted in millions of dollars of lost oil revenue.
By Lincoln Brown for Oilprice.com
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Lebanon is preparing to join the ranks of oil and gas producers in the Mediterranean after lagging behind neighbors such as Israel and Egypt for years, unable to even start exploration. The countrys government, Bloomberg reports, is now gearing up to tender the first offshore fields in its history, until now held back by long years of political bickering.
Three years ago, seismic research suggested the country may have access to some 850 million barrels of crude and at least 96 trillion cu ft of natural gas. Getting to exploit these reserves, however, has proved impossible so far, in a country torn by hostility between different political factions and no president for two years.
Now, it seems, the main participants in the conflict are ready to overlook their differences in the name of energy revenues. Part of the reason for this new readiness to work together may be reports that Israel might abuse its offshore oil and gas rights and steal from Lebanons deposits. The two countries have an ongoing dispute over an area that could contain billions of dollars worth of oil and gas.
Although there is no certainty that Lebanons government will manage to get to the stage of tendering offshore blocks, if it does, this will be a major development. The head of Lebanons parliamentary energy committee Mohammad Kabbani told Bloomberg that the authorities have finally agreed on the 10 blocks that will be tendered. Delineating tender blocks has been an additional challenge for Lebanon.
Related: Breakthrough In Oil Sands Tech Could Transform The Industry
Aside from worries about getting swindled out of its oil and gas by Israel, which are more or less part of Middle Eastern culture, Lebanon has more pressing matters to attend to, namely its huge public debt, which at end-August 2015 stood at US$68.88 billion, or 141.5 percent of GDP.
There are already 46 companies that are pre-qualified to explore Lebanons offshore hydrocarbon reserves. After the decrees representing the framework of how these reserves will be exploited is approved by the government, they will be free to choose which blocks to bid for, Kabbani told Bloomberg. The approval is expected shortly.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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The Italian beef has landed.
There are officially less than two weeks before Chicagolands fast-food staple opens its first location. The states first Portillos will open at 17685 W Bluemound Rd. on Tuesday, July 19.
The restaurant that specializes in Chicago-style fast casual fare, including Italian beef and loaded hotdogs, also serves up favorite items like crinkle cut French fries drizzled with cheese sauce and cake shakes, ice cream drinks comprised of vanilla ice cream blended with a slide of chocolate fudge cake.
Unlike many multi-location restaurants, no two Portillos are exactly the same. The Brookfield location, which will seat about 200 inside and an addition 45 on its patio, will have a rock 'n roll theme and sport 1950s-60s diner decor, including a jukebox. Interestingly, the look and feel of the restaurant pays homage to a local classic: Karters, a 24-hour diner that was a fixture on Bluemound Road from the mid 1950s through the late 1980s.
Portillos was birthed in 1963 when entrepreneur Dick Portillo opened a food trailer he called the The Dog House in Villa Park, Ill. Once the largest privately held restaurant company in the Midwest, Portillos is now the property of private equity firm Berkshire Partners.
And, since 2005, the Portillos brand has expanded beyond metropolitan Chicago to markets in California, Indiana and Arizona, boasting a total of 43 locations (Brookfield will be the 44th). In addition to the new Brookfield location, Portillos has also set its sights on locations in Greenfield and Madison, which are expected to open sometime before the end of 2017.
Beginning July 19, Portillos will be open daily at 10:30 a.m.
As of this weekend, Sake Tumi, the Asian fusion sushi restaurant at 714 N. Milwaukee St., will be closed for the next month or so to accommodate renovations.
According to owner Sunhee Selliken, the goal of the renovation is to provide a more comfortable experience for customers. Upgrades are also being made to the kitchen to accommodate a new menu, which will roll out when the restaurant reopens.
Additional changes include the hiring of master sushi chef James "Oshi-san" Oh. Oh brings more than 25 years of sushi experience to Sake Tumi, with a resume that includes work at Midori Sushi and Pacific Rim Bistro in Albuquerque, as well as Asahi Sushi Steak and Grill in Los Lunas, New Mexico.
Selliken says the restaurant will host a grand re-opening celebration sometime in August.
Watch OnMilwaukee for updates as they become available.
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When Bob Marley's second-oldest son, Stephen Marley, took the Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard stage at Summerfest on Tuesday night, he played tunes from his own solo records, of course, but he also spent a lot of time paying tribute to his father's monolithic contribution to music.
Those of us of a certain age who've long followed Jamaican music can still picture Stephen Marley in the earliest days of the Melody Makers a quartet of Marley kids who debuted in the waning years of the 1970s with chipper light reggae tunes like "Sugar Pie," on which he sang lead (see video below), and "Children Playing in the Streets."
The fact that Stephen is himself now a grandfather boggles this mind.
Stephen Marley singing "Sugar Pie" at Sunsplash 1981.
By 1982, Stephen and siblings Ziggy, Sharon and Cedella Marley had upped their game with deeper roots tunes like "What a Plot," which foreshadowed the heavy reggae, laced with conscious lyrics, of Stephen's solo career.
That roots reggae of his own and his dad's fueled Marley's roughly 90-minute performance Tuesday night at Summerfest, where he was backed by a rock-solid band, anchored by the rhythm section of drummer Squidly Cole and bassist Christopher Meredith, who have worked together for decades.
Though there was plenty of good seating still available, Marley drew a densely packed, heavily engaged crowd that was eager to get involved, singing along on a number of songs.
Just short of half the night's set was focused on the elder Marley's material. A cover of "Lively Up Yourself" kicked off the show and versions of "Buffalo Soldier," "Jamming," "Could You Be Loved" and others were peppered throughout. Stephen Marley enlisted the crowd to contribute vocals to "Three Little Birds."
In between, Marley performed tunes from three of his four solo releases, including the new "Revelation, Pt. II: The Fruit of Life," from which he previewed "So Strong," "Revelation Party" and "Rock Stone."
Early on, a trio of tunes from "Revelation, Pt. I: The Root of Life," released in 2011, included "Can't Keep I Down," "No Cigarette Smoking (In My Room)" and "Pale Moonlight (How Many Times)."
He also played some material from 2007's "Mind Control," including "Hey Baby," "The Traffic Jam," Iron Bars" and "The Mission."
Some of these tunes had a slightly different flavor because Marley is an eager collaborator, and his artistic foils, like Sizzla and Capleton (guests on the recording of "Rock Stone"), and Julian Marley and Spragga Benz (guests on "Iron Bars"), were, of course, not at the show. But that didn't make the material or its delivery any less compelling.
While Marley was eager to spotlight his father's material, his own past with the Melody Makers, a band that made some really solid records (one thinks especially of 1988's "Conscious Party" and 1991's "Jahmekya") went entirely unacknowledged.
Marley has a strong voice that bears an eerie resemblance to his late father's and also packs a powerful lyrical punch. So, as is the case when seeing The Wailers every few years at Summerfest, it's a tad disappointing that so much of the focus is on the work of someone else, even if that someone else is the legendary and iconic Bob Marley.
Having said that, it's a safe bet most folks in the crowd Tuesday night didn't mind one bit.
When Blink-182 is done playing so you go to the next stage over and watch Stephen Marley AM (@bbyjedi) July 6, 2016
Stephen Marley was ill Jade Is Dead (@SatiiivaBreatha) July 6, 2016
Thirty-five years after Bob's death, reggae is still engaged in Marley hero worship, even as brilliant talent has continued to emerge from Jamaica. The downside of that is that promising young performers including Marley's own children are always compared to and tied to this legacy. In the rock-and-roll world, it'd be like measuring every new performer against Elvis or the Beatles.
Reggae certainly doesn't need to not should it ever disconnect from the legacy of its most iconic, influential and far-reaching artist, but it must move forward and allow Jamaican talents to carve their own paths, too, rather than be compelling them to adhere to the, ahem, straight and narrow way.
As we saw Tuesday night, Stephen Marley definitely has the skills to carve out his own place as he follows his own path.
Set list
"Lively Up Yourself"
"Can't Keep I Down"
"No Cigarette Smoking (In My Room)"
"Pale Moonlight (How Many Times)"
"Three Little Birds"/"Buffalo Soldier"/"Iron Lion Zion"
"Hey Baby"
"So Strong"
"Rock Stone"
"Iron Bars"
"Jamming"
"The Traffic Jam"
"Revelation Party"
"Could You Be Loved"
Encore:
"Is This Love"
"The Mission"
"Waiting in Vain"
"It's Alright"
There's a man who has been reported to be a victim at the nightclub killings in Orlando, the EgyptAir crash, the terror attack at the Ataturk airport in Istanbul, Turkey, and more.
Some false flag conspiracy theorists have used his "presence" at these multiple events as evidence of false flag attacks. The reality appears to be very different. Observers website published an article yesterday, Who is this man who seems to die in every terrorist attack?
RT @marty_batiato: @10uru01 #Help my brother Alfonso was on #Ataturk Airport and we dont know anything about him, help please #Turkey https at ATATURK YASIYOR (@ATATURKHERYERDE) July 6, 2016
The article offers a fascinating alternate explanation for why this man has appeared to be a victim in multiple incidents-- revenge.
Some people exact revenge on ex-girlfriends by posting revenge porn. Apparently, the Observers article reports, multiple people report that this man has "cheated them out of money, ranging from fairly small sums up to about $1,000.
'This man used to be my friend but he's cheated money out of me and at least four people who I know. I lodged both civil and criminal complaints against him, but because the legal proceedings are dragging on and he still hasn't given us back our money, we decided to punish him by posting his photo online. Our goal is to ruin his reputation. We want the whole world to recognise his face.'
So, people who are angry at this man have taken revenge by telling the world he is dead. This is a new twist in the world of today. If you are someone who sees false flags in each tragic event, consider that this is one story that has come to light. it is not benign. People are trying to pull off a fraud. But it is not the one that supports false flag claims. In fact, it requires that every false flag claim be viewed with the consideration that other actors, not suspected false flag perpetrators may be confusing the story, adding elements that are not real.
"My photo is everywhere because of someone who started it as a prank after a legal dispute. I never reported the people who did this to me because, in Mexico, nothing ever happens in these kinds of cases. Now, my photo has appeared in several stories that were widely shared on Twitter. I contacted several media outlets like the BBC and the New York Times and asked them to delete my photo but they never responded." Here are a few words the Observers aticle received from the man in the pictures:
Clearly, this kind of deception has not just tricked false flag theorists. Mainstream media have also used the images of this man.
Bernie Sanders in the South Bronx March 31st 2016 by Michael Vadon
(Image by Michael Vadon) Details DMCA
It's quite understandable that some might think this whole Democratic nomination thing was over long ago -- or at least should have been -- even though they're still counting June 7 California primary votes (Hillary Clinton's overall win is not in doubt, but Bernie Sanders has closed the gap, so there are delegates still being chosen). For one thing, a lot of mainstream media in the east pretty much checked out after Hillary Clinton's April 19th New York primary win. And in Washington, there's always been a Capitol Hill crowd that resented the very idea of anyone contesting Hillary Clinton for the nomination -- much less Sanders. But what really appears to have some of the opinion leaders flummoxed right now is the prospect that the upcoming Democratic Nominating Convention might not be another infomercial-like, public display of unity like the events of recent years. Could this be a year when delegates once again actually vote for the candidates they were selected to represent? And even debate the issues that brought them to Philadelphia?
For some Clinton-backers, the very idea may be something of an affront. After all, eight years ago, it was Clinton herself who made the motion that her erstwhile opponent, Barack Obama, be nominated by acclamation. Doesn't she then deserve the same in return? Certainly recent precedent is in her favor, since the last Democratic nominee with a less than 99 percent convention vote was Bill Clinton in his first run in 1992. Four years later he was unanimously renominated, which was not unusual for a sitting president. Then, in 2000, Vice President Al Gore became the first non-incumbent nominated unanimously, as none of Senator Bill Bradley's delegates actually voted for him (a few abstained). In 2004, the only one of the candidates who had contested the nomination with Senator John Kerry who actually received convention votes was Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich -- and that was only about one percent.
For the last runner-up to even record a double digit vote, we have to go back to former (and future) California Governor Jerry Brown who drew 14 percent of the 1992 convention vote, with another seven percent going to Senator Paul Tsongas. 30 percent voted for Jesse Jackson in 1988, and 31 percent for Senator Gary Hart in 1984, when Jackson also received 12 percent. And that's how it used to be done -- if the voters selected you to go to a convention to represent a specific candidate, that's what you did.
Which makes for the better convention -- the new way or the old? Depends upon whether you're looking for decorum or debate.
A platform worth arguing about?
It seems that if there's anything even more unpopular among current Democratic party planners than non-unanimous nominations, it would be public displays of disunity on the issues. For years now, Democrats and Republicans alike have downplayed the importance of a platform. The argument first was that the convention shouldn't tie the candidate's hands. Which then developed into the idea that delegates shouldn't even disagree publicly (and might be ignored if they did, as happened during a 2012 Democratic Convention floor amendment voice vote). Here again, though, it wasn't always this way.
In the early part of the twentieth century, Democrats, who once considered debating the big issues of the day to be only a logical part of a national convention, held important convention debates regarding the League of Nations and the Ku Klux Klan Perhaps most notably, in 1948, Democrats began their long process of supplanting the party of Lincoln as the advocate of civil rights when the convention adopted a minority report calling for federal government guarantees of equal rights. They did their disagreeing in prime time, too, as a live audience estimated at 70 million heard then Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey call upon his party to "get out of the shadow of states' rights." Anti-Vietnam War delegates did not make out as well in 1968, when Humphrey stood on the opposite side as Vice President and presidential nominee. Nevertheless, it was a given that an issue of that magnitude would be debated at the convention.
For many of the conventions thereafter, the platform's significance was taken for granted -- if only perhaps rhetorically. Commitments to creating a full employment economy and a universal national health insurance system became routine, but then disappeared as the party moved toward candidate-oriented centrism. The most recent flurry of floor fights came at the end of Jackson's issue-oriented 1988 run.
Here again comes the question of decorum or debate: If your main thing is your candidate's supposed qualifications or symbolic value you may not be eager to entertain arguments on specific issues, but if you think it's all about your candidate's position on those issues, you obviously will be eager to have those discussions. This year there is little doubt that there will be quite a large group of delegates who are of the latter persuasion -- at least 1,800, it would appear. So unless the Clinton campaign should change stances it has taken in the drafting committee by the time the full platform committee meets, we may well see some of the day's biggest issues -- fracking, the Trans Pacific Partnership, Israeli West Bank settlements, a $15 minimum wage, a single payer health insurance system -- come up for debate at the highest level of the Democratic Party -- the nominating convention in Philadelphia -- just like they used to.
I was reading an article at another independent news site and someone commented by quoting the words of Ann Rand and in her time these words held a ring of truth:
"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money--and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being--the self-made man--the American industrialist.
"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money'. No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality."
The commenter had this to say beforehand:
"Here is why we are exceptional. We aren't, like all other nations, founded by a mere accident of history. We are founded on the ideas that men can rule themselves. That we can deal with each other by trade, instead of force! That we can create, not just take."
So I had this to say in reply:
Yes, it WAS... now they make money out of thin air. Now 'they' are on the take! They need a hundred-billion bucks, they print some bonds over at the Treasury Department... the capitalist "Madonna" just got pregnant. But, she's no virgin. Immaculate Conception of the Billions-Dollar-Baby. So, they take the bonds over to the Federal Reserve and---'CONGRATULATIONS Mizz Madonna', it's a Hundred-Billion-Dollars-Baby! Let's just go down to the printing department and watch the birth. Now, let's grow up fast'.
Mr. Bank has all these clients that need all these expensive things. They have been and intend to work hard, but they really, really need to get that American Dream, so Mr. Bank is going to loan them a piece of that Billion-Dollar-Baby Pie.
Mr. Bank goes over to the Fed and says: "I need fifty-million bucks to loan my clients."
Mr. Fed says:
"Now that's what I'm talking about! Here ya' go Mr. Bank. Now just bring that fifty-million back soon, oh, and keep the change."
Billion-Dollar-Baby just got a job. Now our baby says, in the famous words of our fictional Mr. Forest Gump, "I'm somebody!" Except, in this case, that value of "somebody" is debt.
Now that use to be okay. It was like priming a great, economic engine that produced, and I mean PRODUCED, real, visible, physical, pick it up, wind it up, crank it up and go with it products. But things have changed. 60,000+ factories said:
"Thanks America! You have made us great so now it's time to dump you suckers and keep all the dollars for ourselves so screw you, good luck!"
Now the grand American dream is dying. The banks and producers have a whole new plan... and "making money" has a whole new meaning. Debt takes on a value of its own and spins in a vortex around a perpetual economic motion machine called Wall Street like billions of bats... feeding, haphazardly in a frenzy on all the little insects ...90% of the American population. BUT, there is one really, really, big problem on the horizon! It is rising from the East... Russia, China, Iran, that big "Mid" section, "others", and a growing loss of faith in the "Emperor God" [everywhere] and his immaculate babies. It is the light of reason that threatens to make the bats scurry for cover, perhaps in the comfort of their cave with a floor knee deep in dollars.
One of the great difficulties for the general public trying to make sense of the competing arguments for and against Brexit has been the constant and intense climate of Project Fear which the Remain campaign delivered at every opportunity. The prospect of leaving the embrace of the European Union to carry on an economic and political life outside that union was constantly being referred to by commentators as a divorce by Britain from the EU. Indeed, it was described as a "messy divorce". Using the analogy of a divorce was probably a good way of personalising the endeavour so that it conjured up an instant image for the public which was recognisable to those less involved in the intricacies of politics and economics of the process.
In several senses Brexit could be described as a divorce. The only part missing in the analogy was an adequate description of the marriage and the partners in that marriage. The marriage of the UK with the EU was a marriage between a nation-state and a polygamous partner with twenty-seven other nation-state wives led by a group of unelected Commissioners. The UK became part of the polygamous relationship long after the first marriages had been completed. There were two "senior" wives in the marriage when the UK joined, the French and the Germans, but neither were very accepting of the UK. There were many other "junior" wives in the relationship as well but played only a minor part in the marriage.
When the UK joined it stayed in its own house and carried on with its own business, despite the marriage. This was resented by the Commission and, to varying degrees, the other wives. The Commission grew increasingly abusive to many of its wives with the consent and support of the senior wives. Greece and Italy had their elected officials replaced by officials appointed by Brussels. The Spanish and Portuguese electors found themselves overruled and a program of austerity thrust on them. The Dutch, French, Irish and Danes voted against the abuse by the Commissioners and found that their objections were overruled and new referenda called until they 'got it right' and bowed to the will of the Commission. The Italians found their ability to sustain their banking system blocked by the same Commission.
Many marriage counsellors find that abuse in a marriage is more than just physical abuse. Psychological abuse is often more prevalent and important. Psychological abuse occurs when a person in the relationship tries to control information and opportunities available to another person with intent to manipulate that person's sense of reality or their view of what is acceptable and unacceptable. Psychological abuse often contains strong emotionally manipulative content and threats designed to force the victim to comply with the abuser's wishes. The object is a learned dependence on the abuser and a fear of separation because of that dependence. All abuse takes a severe toll on self-esteem. The abused person starts feeling helpless and a diminished sense of self. In addition, most mental abusers are adept at convincing the victim that the abuse is his fault. Somehow, the victim is responsible for what happened.
It became increasingly clear that the introduction of the Euro as a common EU currency and the creation of the Schengen Zone allowing free movement of peoples within Europe was not desirable or acceptable to the UK. It was able to create opt-outs for these, much as the Danes won the right to have protections from the effects of the Maastricht Treaty which the Danes initially refused to ratify. There was a great deal of abuse of the UK for obtaining a rebate from the budget and its opt-out of the Euro and Schengen. There was even more abuse hurled at the Danes until they were persuaded by the Edinburgh Agreement which allowed Denmark to opt out of the Euro, to opt out of the European Defence Agreement and to retain some powers over its judiciary.
When the UK raised all these issues it insisted on a reform of the EU terms of marriage. The EU refused to make any meaningful adaptations. Its borders were swamped by refugees and economic migrants invited in by the Germans and they had no realistic plan for controlling their influx. In addition to being an abusive marriage partner the EU demonstrated that in the face of the Russian moves in the Ukraine and the massed hordes of refugees on its borders it was impotent. The UK public, having been given an opportunity to state its wishes in a referendum, voted against the continuation of an abusive, polygamous marriage with a feckless partner in an advance state of erectile dysfunction.
They voted to withdraw from the marriage despite a campaign of fear-mongering and exaggeration by the Remain camp. Now, the UK is in the process of removing itself from the marriage. It is preparing for the divorce. Divorce, however is rarely straight-forward. As the first step the partners discuss the procedures for divorce (property rights, debts, liabilities, etc.) Then they proceed to the issuance of a court recognition of the divorce with a Decree Nisi. With the issue of Decree Nisi the Court accepts that the marriage is no longer viable. It is an order of the Court confirming that the grounds for the divorce have been proved and that the marriage has irretrievably broken down. In terms of the EU Constitution that means the issuance by the UK Government of a notice of the invocation of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. It says
"1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.
2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.
3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period." [i]
The invoking of Article 50 by the UK Government is the equivalent of a Decree Nisi under UK law. It certifies that the marriage has broken down and that a divorce is underway. The UK and the EU will have to meet on the matters raised under Article 50 to reach decisions on the points raised. However, engaging in Article 50 is not the same as leaving the EU. It states that a breakdown has taken place and the divorce proceedings are underway. For a full break with the EU the UK is obliged to repeal or alter the European Communities Act 1972
"The UK is a 'dualist' state, unlike many continental European countries, which are 'monist'. In dualist states a treaty ratified by the Government does not alter the laws of the state unless and until it is incorporated into national law by legislation. This is a constitutional requirement: until incorporating legislation is enacted, the national courts have no power to enforce treaty rights and obligations either on behalf of the Government or a private individual.
Under the European Communities Act 1972 (ECA) Parliament voluntarily gave effect to the UK's obligations and duties under the former Community and now EU Treaties in national law. The ECA defines the legal relationship between the two otherwise separate spheres of law, and without it EU law could not become part of national law.
Section 2(1) provides:
All such rights, powers, liabilities, obligations and restrictions from time to time created or arising by or under the Treaties, and all such remedies and procedures from time to time provided for by or under the Treaties, as in accordance with the Treaties are without further enactment to be given legal effect or used in the United Kingdom shall be recognised and available in law, and be enforced, allowed and followed accordingly; and the expression "enforceable EU right" and similar expressions shall be read as referring to one to which this sub-section applies." [ii]
Thus, in order for the break with Europe to be final and binding (in effect a Decree Absolute) Parliament will have to revise or repeal the provisions of the European Communities Act 1972 (ECA).
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Why is it that we address so many problems with instantaneous blazing, maiming bombs when we should address them with the long-term healing, penned bullets herein?
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
President John F. Kennedy
Why should you help push Congress to introduce People's Lobby's citizen-initiated American World Service Corps (AWSCNS) National Service Congressional Proposal? Because its legislative bullets build:
- Robust, cost effective voluntary national service.
- Bigger platoons that respond to Katrinas.
- Public policy enlightenment gained via peaceful productive service at home and abroad.
- Healthy growth grown from "Missions not missiles.
- Strategies that win hearts and minds that barn-building, can-do, action-oriented Americans understand and support; and needs no American blood to implement.
Why will sending a million Americans aged 18-70+ per year (.5 of 1% of U.S. 18+ population) strengthen volunteers, America, and the world? Because AWSCNS volunteers,, serving through already existing do-good organizations such as Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat, etc.:
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Heres looking at you kid
(Image by George Eliason) Details DMCA
"Walled safely inside their gerrymandered districts, incumbents are insulated from general-election challenges that might pull them toward the political center, but they are perpetually vulnerable to primary challenges from extremists who pull them toward the fringes."-Rolling Stone- Matt Tiabbi
No matter where you look inside the CEEC or associated emigre voting blocs you will find the 1 st generation emigres in America after WWII were for the most part Nazi SS, Axis counterparts, Prometheans , or their children.
From the late 1940's until this current election cycle, they provided the foot-soldiers for all the political parties and in the primaries they consistently provide the majority of voters for the candidates. During general elections, they provide the most dedicated on the ground political activists and large bloc votes that determine election outcomes.
The emigres developed settlement patterns to facilitate this early on and gained a rapid and powerful presence in American politics. This is what made the gerrymandering process relatively easy and natural looking by guiding new immigrants into their bloc region or Congressional district.
This was set up in the post-WWII CEE immigration years when initially even the fledgling UN recognized that these hopeful emigres to the US and Europe were pre-war Nazi's whose views hadn't changed after the war.
Guiding the actual voting patterns is as easy as saying which candidate supports or will support whatever the emigre political leaders want to do or think is good for the "old country." For the most part, that's all it takes. The other rallying point for all the nationalist emigres is which candidate hates what they hate. During WWII it was the Soviet Union and Russia. Afterward, during the Cold War, it was communism and Russia. After the Cold War, it is Russia.
A direct example of this today is the Jewish-American vote. According to Gary Rosenblatt " A few years ago writers got in trouble for using the phrase "Israel Firster." Now an outright supporter of Israel, Gary Rosenblatt, uses that phrase in the Jewish Week in a piece titled, "Israel-Firster's Seen Edging Toward Trump." Rosenblatt says that some voters care more about Israel than the U.S. "
... I t's good that American Jews will begin openly saying of other Jews that their first loyalty is Israel. It makes such a stance untenable: it will make it impossible for people who act on "what they believe is best for Israel" to hold high positions in foreign policy-making in the U.S. government. It demonstrates that the neoconservatives are losing oxygen slowly. And that those critical of Israel are having greater influence in the discourse." - " NY Jewish Week" speaks bluntly of "Israel firsters" in US politics - Phillip Weiss
The crux of the problem is the dual loyalty nationalism I have been describing over the past year. American foreign policy and very dangerously CEE, Russia, and China policy are being driven by ultra-nationalists that don't care about America, American concerns, or consider them secondary. They push to drive policy based on their prejudices and how they view the "old country."
This means they have no problem sacrificing American lives to fight wars America has no national interest in. Phillip Weiss' article linked above includes the Iraqi war as part of this. Further in this article is the rest of that equation. In previous articles, I have shown unequivocally that the Korean and Vietnam wars were part and parcel of this.
In Ukraine, the Baltics, and the Balkans this chauvinism goes as far as determining what kind of people should inhabit the "old country" even though most of the emigres have never set foot there. If the people in the "old country" don't measure up to the politics or nationalism of the emigre community,they need to be reformed or replaced. During the 60+ year direct communication gap of the Cold War between the emigres and the people that lived in the countries, radically different views developed over what it meant to be a good citizen from a particular country. The emigre view hardened considerably.
In 1991, the Ukrainian nationalists OUNb were at a loss at how to proceed. " Before the changes in Ukraine in 1991, as a political movement and an ideology Ukrainian nationalism could be active only in the emigration. Even in its splintered form it remained an explosive and vibrant force. It had great ideological difficulties, however, because of its confrontation with Western democracy, its inability to deal fully with the question of the political beliefs of Ukrainians in Ukraine, and its lack of contact with political processes there." Encyclopedia of Ukraine- Nationalism article
At this point, the country of Ukraine was too "Sovietized," which only means that all 18 nationalities that make up Ukraine got along equally. From then until now the nationalists used the education system and children's groups to indoctrinate the population into Ukrainian nationalism.
What you see now playing out in Ukraine is a proxy war between the Ukrainian-American emigres and the local Ukrainians that reject nationalism/nazism. It was never about language. The Ukrainian-American emigres overthrew Victor Yanukovych and promised the presidency to whom ever would change the governmental form to hard nationalism.
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Reprinted from Consortium News
Compared to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton presents herself as the well-qualified steady hand to manage U.S. foreign policy over the next four years, yet she has associated herself with a series of failed strategies and now faces an FBI judgment that she was "extremely careless" in protecting national security secrets.
A partial list of her dubious and dangerous judgments include voting for the catastrophic Iraq War, pushing for a misguided counterinsurgency "surge" in Afghanistan, embracing an anti-democratic coup in Honduras, devising the disastrous Libyan "regime change," undercutting President Obama's efforts to peacefully constrain Iran's nuclear program, advocating a new invasion of Syria under the guise of creating "safe zones," likening Russian President Vladimir Putin to Hitler, and -- now according to FBI Director James Comey -- failing to protect classified material from possible exposure to foreign adversaries.
Clinton admits that some of her judgments were "mistakes," such as believing President George W. Bush's blatant falsehoods about Iraq's alleged WMDs and using a personal email server to communicate regarding her duties as Secretary of State. But -- arguably even more troubling -- is the fact that she doesn't regard other of her official judgments as mistakes. Instead, she holds to them still or spins them in deceptive ways.
For instance, Clinton has never expressed regret about her support for the ouster of progressive Honduran President Manuel Zelaya in 2009, or her siding with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and General David Petraeus against President Obama in mouse-trapping him into a foolhardy counterinsurgency escalation in Afghanistan, or her sabotaging Obama's plan in 2010 to use Brazil and Turkey to convince Iran to surrender much of its refined uranium, or her propagandistic justification for bombing Libya in 2011 and leaving behind what amounts to a failed state, or her similar scheming for "regime change" in Syria that helped expand terrorist movements in the Middle East and has now destabilized Europe, or her reckless demonizing of Russia's Putin and encouragement of a dangerous new Cold War.
In many of those cases, Clinton has not been called on to apologize or admit error because Washington's neoconservative/liberal interventionist foreign-policy establishment marched in lock-step with the former Secretary of State. It turns out that if you move with the pack, you do enjoy relative safety even if your collective judgment is unsound. Usually, the people picking up the messy and blood-spattered pieces left behind by foolhardy policies are American soldiers and taxpayers whose opinions don't matter much in the rarefied atmosphere of Officialdom.
The Worst News
Arguably, Comey's July 5 statement terming Clinton's use of an unsecured email server as "extremely careless" but not criminal was the worst possible news for the Democratic Party. A recommendation to indict Clinton might have compelled her to step aside and let the party nominate someone more likely to defeat Republican Donald Trump, but the lack of an indictment probably means that Clinton will persevere through the Democratic convention and go into the general election as damaged goods.
That outcome means she will be viewed by many voters as a privileged politician who was let off the hook while more poorly connected Americans would likely have ended up in prison.
Assessing Clinton's sloppy use of a private email server -- a process that she justified as a matter of personal convenience so she could keep her beloved Blackberry -- Comey said laws may well have been broken and national security secrets may have been jeopardized to foreign governments though he couldn't say for sure that her server was successfully hacked.
Explaining his reasoning, Comey said, "Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no responsible prosecutor would bring such a case." Despite Comey's recommendation, the ultimate decision still rests with Justice Department prosecutors.
But the impression that many Americans will get is that there is one set of rules for the "great and powerful" and another set for the rest of us, an extraordinarily damaging message in a political year of obvious voter discontent with the Establishment.
While there will be enormous pressure on responsible Americans not to elect the loose cannon known as Donald Trump, there are serious worries that Hillary Clinton may present her own enormous risks as President.
Will she surround herself with neocons and liberal hawks who will be eager to jam the American people into new and even more dangerous wars, including possibly the most reckless "regime change" of all, in Moscow?
Will she turn U.S. policies in the Middle East over to Israel's right-wing leader Benjamin Netanyahu as she has implied in her desire to take the relationship to "the next level"? Will she display the same faulty warmongering judgment that she has demonstrated again and again, but without the temporizing influence of President Obama?
Reprinted from The National
There were no tears shed in the Israeli government over Britain's vote last month to leave the European Union. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli right blame Europe for many of Israel's woes.
Internal wrangles about how to manage Brexit, they hope, will shift member states' focus away from criticizing Israel. The longer-term fallout could be a clamor from voters in other European countries to follow Britain's lead. A weakened Europe, according to this theory, will be less effective as a counterweight to Washington, which invariably prefers Israel's interests.
As an added bonus, a Europe with an uncertain future, and one where nativist sentiment makes identifiable minorities less welcome, could be boon to those, such as Mr Netanyahu, who believe Israel is the only true home for Jews.
Committed to beating the Palestinians in a battle of numbers, Mr Netanyahu already exploits every terror attack in Europe to urge Jews to move to Israel. Now he can milk rising racism too.
For these reasons Regavim, an organization representing the illegal Jewish colonies in the occupied territories that enjoys close ties to the Netanyahu government, campaigned loudly for British Jews to back Brexit.
Sensing the danger, British prime minister David Cameron reassured the Jewish community shortly before the June 23 vote that Britain was "Israel's greatest friend" and would be "powerless" to help if it left the EU.
The Israeli right is almost certainly misreading developments in Europe and beyond.
True, the EU has been a thorn in Mr Netanyahu's side, especially since his government effectively quashed the Oslo peace process. Europe leads the diplomatic opposition to the settlements, and is introducing a labeling system to identify settler products.
Also, last month the French tried to revive the moribund peace process by dragging it out of Washington's orbit. Later this year a Paris summit may give Europe the chance to embarrass Mr Netanyahu.
But the deeper reality is that the EU has been a loyal friend to Israel, and one almost as central to preserving its strategic interests as the United States.
The labeling of a few settlement items has done nothing to dent Europe's role as Israel's largest trading partner. While Washington has watched Israel's back with military aid and tireless diplomatic support, the EU has created an economic haven for Israeli goods.
Trade, worth $5 billion (Dh18.4bn), has doubled in the past decade. Israel also benefits from important EU research grants and cooperative projects.
In addition, Europe foots much of the bill for Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority, effectively underwriting the costs of Israel's occupation.
All of this would be in jeopardy if the Israeli right's fantasy -- of an EU collapse -- actually occurred. But assuming the EU survives Brexit relatively unscathed, Britain's absence will nonetheless be felt by Israel, as Mr Cameron warned.
Since the end of the Second World War, Britain has been Washington's key ally in Europe -- its eyes and ears. With Britain out of the EU, Washington fears its influence in the region will be diminished.
Almost two years after the firestorm that took place in Ferguson, Missouri, when a white police officer shot an unarmed black teenager and militarized police descended in a brutal show of force to quell local protests, not much has really changed for the better.
Unarmed Americans are still getting shot by police with alarming regularity.
SWAT teams are still bursting through doors, terrorizing families and leaving lives and property shattered.
And the military industrial complex is still making a killing (literally and figuratively) at taxpayer expense from the transformation of small-town police forces into extensions of the military.
What has changed is the extent to which Americans--easily distracted by all of the political mumbo jumbo being bantered around--seem to have stopped paying attention or being outraged about revelations of government corruption, wrongdoing and outright abuse.
Part of this ignorance can be attributed to the failure of the mainstream media to report on what's really taking place in the American police state.
dead dog :(
(Image by jamesfischer) Details DMCA
Another part of this apathy can be chalked up to a widespread desensitization to police violence, thanks to the growing availability and accessibility of surveillance and camera footage. As Salon points out, "the increased visibility of trauma and death at the hands of cops" has resulted in "the deadening of our collective senses."
And yet another part of this indifference seemingly stems from the fact that we just don't value human life as much as we should. How many Americans seem unconcerned about the carnage inflicted on civilians worldwide as a result of the nation's bloody, endless wars abroad?
If there's one area where Americans do seem to still get outraged, it's in relation to their pets, who occupy a sizeable place in their hearts, homes and wallets.
According to newspaper editors, "stories about animal abuse often generate more responses from upset readers than articles about violence directed toward humans." Reports from police agencies support the claim that "shooting a dog brings more heat down on an agency than an officer-involved shooting of a human."
Prepare to be outraged.
A dog is shot by a police officer "every 98 minutes."
The Department of Justice estimates that at least 25 dogs are killed by police every day.
The Puppycide Database Project estimates the number of dogs being killed by police to be closer to 500 dogs a day(which translates to 182,000 dogs a year).
Because not all police departments keep track of canine shootings, these numbers vary widely. However, whatever the final body count, what we're dealing with is an epidemic of vast proportions.
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This one is a real shocker, showing terrible photos of the environmental destruction in many nations wrought by Rio Tinto Mining of Australia, the very same corporation which got Arizona's John McCain to put in a bill to privatize the Tonto National Forest and turn much of it into North America's largest copper mine! At the request of the San Carlos Apaches, Senator Sanders jumped into this to protect the Apaches Sacred land with the Save Oak Flat Act (S2242), which is hung up in Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski's Committee, members listed in my article below.
Getting this bill out of Committee is in my opinion a vital test of Bernie Sanders' growing power and particularly of his millions of supporters. Please take the time to write to these Senators listed in the article asking them to vote Bernie's S2242 out of the committee and to the Senate floor. In the photo on our group page (Bernie Sanders: Advice and Strategies to Win!) are all of the key San Carlos Apaches and some other key Native Leaders.
Writing to Senators is quite easy: if you don't have time or don't want to look their Senate Room Numbers up from their web pages, you can always write to them, c/o United States Senate, Washington D.C. 20510
If we lose, we lose not only the West to more of this kind of depraved degradation, but we lose a looming major battle to the corporate plutocracy in general. I can't understand how the Senate, particularly John McCain, could resort to permitting something as depraved as this, a complete departure from the sanctity of public lands.
Sunrise in the Tonto National Forest
(Image by JefferyTurner) Details DMCA
Sanders' bill is now cosponsored by New Mexico's Senator Martin Heinrich and Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin, and needs more co-sponsors. Please ask your Senators to co-sponsor this Act.
Their co-sponsorship is necessary because the bill is stuck in the Senate Committee chaired by Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski. These Senators below are the Republican Majority on this Committee, and of course, your letters to them should remind them of the idiocy and dangerous precedents implicit in privatizing any national forest, even if their colleague, John McCain, is the progenitor of this diabolical and bizarre corporate-manipulated plan.
Make no mistake. These nefarious plans by Senator John McCain and Rio Tinto d/b/a Resolution Mining will most certainly proceed, unless Bernie's Save Oak Flat is not passed out of the committee and approved by the Senate. Rio Tinto/Resolution has been widening the roads in the area to make way for the huge earth moving equipment they have scheduled to start ripping up Oak Flat and the Tonto National Forest].
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources:
Lisa Murkowski
Chairman, Alaska
John Barrasso
Wyoming
Jim Risch
Idaho
Mike Lee
Utah
Jeff Flake
Arizona
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By Dave Lindorff
Hillary Clinton may or may not be a crook. That remains to be proven, though the sheer magnitude of the wealth that she and husband Bill have amassed since leaving the White House, and while she was serving as Secretary of State -- nearly a quarter of a billion dollars earned by two people with no known skills capable of producing that kind of income -- should raise questions. What can be stated now as fact though, is that Hillary is a serial liar.
If this wasn't clear already from her long history of distortion and prevarication -- like her false claim that she had to "duck to avoid sniper fire" during a state visit to Bosnia -- it is clear now from FBI Director James Comey's 11-page public report on his agency's year-long investigation into her use of a private server for all her private and official emails during her term as Secretary of State.
That report has exposed her serial lying to both Congress and the public about that illegal use of private email service to handle her public business.
As the Associated Press reports, Clinton lied in March 2015 when she declared in one of her rare news conferences, "I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material."
But as Comey reports, she did. Quite often in fact. The FBI in its exhaustive investigation found at least 113 email chains --some of which had to be uncovered after they had been erased by Clinton's private lawyers -- contained material that was classified at the time of sending, including some that were classified Top Secret and that referred to a "highly classified special-access program."
She lied again at that same press conference when she asserted, "I responded right away and provided all my emails that could possibly be work related" to the State Department.
Not true, according to the FBI, and also, of course, to the Inspector General of the State Department, whose own investigation of her actions, Clinton simply refused to cooperate with.
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Clare Hanrahan's memoir The Half Life of a Free Radical: Growing Up Irish Catholic in Jim Crow Memphis is a remarkable feat: part Jack Kerouac, part Dorothy Day, part Howard Zinn, and a bit of Forest Gump.
First and foremost this is an entertaining and irreverent tale of childhood and adolescence told with great humor, honesty, and empathy. But it's also told by someone who became a peace and justice and environmentalist activist in later life, someone able to look back on the poverty, racism, consumerism, militarism, sexism, and Catholicism of her youth with passion and perspective -- even appreciation for all the good that was mixed in with the bad. Hanrahan writes what in outline form would read like an endless tale of misfortune, and yet leaves you with the thought of how much riotous fun she and her eight siblings and other acquaintances had.
I know Clare, though I learned much more about her from this book, and I wouldn't risk changing her if I had a time machine and magical powers. But I still found myself wondering, as with most stories of most people in the United States and much of the world, how different Hanrahan's life would have been in a society with the decency to provide free college and free job training as needed, or a society that integrated civic activism into everyone's life, or a society in which peace activist careers were marketed on the level of military recruitment ads or even marketed at all so that they weren't so frequently found so late, or a society in which some of the best people didn't live below a taxable salary level so as not to pay taxes for wars.
Hanrahan gives us her family genealogy first, and by doing so teaches some U.S. history that echoes through the book and the years. So, she shows us the cruelty of Jim Crow, for example, through personal experiences as a white girl, but illuminates it with an understanding of its origins, and -- even more importantly -- an awareness of its latest incarnations today. She also contrasts what she knows of the history of Memphis with what she was taught in school in Memphis growing up.
Hanrahan tells her story largely in chronological order, with no lengthy flashbacks, but with numerous quick bits of foreshadowing. For example:
"Brother Tommy gouged his initials, TPH, with a pocket knife on that same bannister long before the American war in Viet Nam maimed his hand, stole his youth, poisoned him with Agent Orange, and eventually took his life and that of his twin brother Danny. The bannister was later knocked down by a speeding car that careened into the porch stopping just short of the front bedroom."
Tommy returned from Vietnam to a hospital. "In my naivete," Hanrahan writes,
"I rushed to my brother's bedside to embrace him. I may even have called him 'my hero' as I approached, expecting a hug. Lightning fast his good arm flailed out knocking me across the room and onto the floor. 'Wake up!' he said. 'Wake up you stupid b*tch.' I can still hear those harsh words. Dazed and confused, I picked myself up and backed away. This was not the brother I had sent away with a patriotic poem, proudly recited before my senior class."
Hanrahan's two veteran brothers suffered in many ways, and failed to fit back into society in many ways, but it was the cruelty toward women that they came back from the war with that their sister Clare eventually found intolerable.
When Hanrahan left Memphis she saw a lot of the country and a bit of the world, including living off the grid on land and water, joining intentional communities and finding her way to a job writing for peace. She also protested for peace and spent six months behind bars. During the course of her ramblings, Hanrahan managed to be present at or part of an extraordinary number of crucial events and developments in recent U.S. history. Hanrahan became editor of Rural Southern Voice for Peace just in time for the first Gulf War and the awful wars that have followed.
Hanrahan found her way back to Memphis on numerous occasions, sometimes for funerals, but also to be part of activist efforts such as the successful campaign to preserve the band shell in Overton Park launched by one of her brothers. Hanrahan intersperses her memories with her dreams and poetry, adding emotional depth to an account of an extraordinary family in a struggling city that I've enjoyed visiting but would like to visit again with this book as a guide.
Reprinted from Reader Supported News
Conservative and other Republican-leaning websites over the July 4 long weekend began preparing their readers for the possibility -- the likelihood, maybe -- that Hillary Clinton would not be indicted as a result of her email scandal. And this is despite the fact that former President Bill Clinton may have improperly and inappropriately inserted himself into the case by "running into" Attorney General Loretta Lynch on the tarmac at an airport in Phoenix, AZ.
The former President claimed later that the two had spoken for 20 minutes, but only about his grandchildren. His wife's case, he said, wasn't discussed. That meeting came within a day of news reports that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee had met with the FBI for three-and-a-half hours to talk about her email server.
More importantly, Attorney General Lynch went so far as to say that she would have to assess whether or not Hillary Clinton had "criminal intent" when she had the email server set up and when she sent classified emails from it.
Either this is a red herring or the Justice Department, the FBI, and the judge in my case owe me and others an apology and the President owes me a pardon.
Four years after I blew the whistle on the CIA's torture program I was charged with five felonies, including three counts of espionage (for speaking about torture with reporters from the New York Times and ABC News), one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (for confirming the name of a former CIA colleague; the reporter never revealed the name, and it was never made public), and one count of making a false statement, a "throwaway charge," the basis of which was never clear to me.
In my very first hearing, my judge, a Bill Clinton appointee who reserves all national security cases for herself (me, Jeffrey Sterling, Ed Snowden, and others), said that she would not respect precedent from the Tom Drake case, saying that a defendant in a national security case had to have criminal intent to be prosecuted for espionage. That begged the question of whether a defendant could then "accidentally" commit espionage. "That's exactly what it means," the judge said. I didn't stand a chance.
But in Hillary Clinton's case, it seems that everything rests on the notion of criminal intent. Did Hillary, then, set up her email server specifically to subvert the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)? Did she set up her email server for the express purpose of passing classified information to people not entitled to receive it? Of course not. But that's not the standard, at least it's not in the federal Eastern District of Virginia.
I understand that life isn't fair. I understand the reality of American politics that some people get special treatment and others don't. I understand that I wasn't married to a president and that I'm not a former Secretary of State. I sincerely appreciate the fact that two -- yes, TWO -- FBI agents who worked on my case have discreetly apologized to me in the past six months, saying that they were ordered to go after me for political reasons.
But the Constitution says that all Americans are equal, even if they are named "Clinton." We know that Hillary sent and received classified information on an unsecured email system. That's a crime. I don't care whether or not she had criminal intent. My own trial judge says that it doesn't matter. But if Hillary didn't have criminal intent, and that's the reason the Justice Department uses to not prosecute her, then Tom Drake and I, at the very least, deserve a pardon. Otherwise, the system really is as corrupt as so many Americans say it is.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
On Tuesday morning, July 5, fifty-two percent of the Brits gave a quiet fist pump and issued a silent YES that they, in fact, got it right when they voted to exit the European Union. There was probably another substantial percentage of those browbeat by the politicians and press into voting against Brexit for fear of being branded racists or anti-Islamic that joined in that collective sigh of relief.
You see, shortly before the Brexit vote, European officials had voted yet another $8.4 Billion bailout for Greece.
That came one short year after they had authorized a $95 Billion bailout for Greece. All of this despite the fact that Greece juggled its books to give the appearance of financial stability as a condition for admission to the European Union and the other members looked the other way because increasing the size of the European Union was more important than adhering to the financial requirements. And despite the fact that Greece has repeatedly promised economic reforms that they have repeatedly failed to produce.
Greeces reaction to its worsening economic conditions is akin to Wimpy (from the Popeye cartoons) noting:
I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.
And while Wimpy and his friends in Italy, Greece, Portugal, Cyprus and elsewhere continue to devour the hamburgers, Tuesday never arrives for payment.
Ghana is becoming a hub of traffickers since structures which are supposed to check the menace are not working, an anti-trafficking NGO, Challenging Heights, has said.
Ghana is gradually becoming the hub of traffickers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our legal structures are not working and traffickers have taken advantage of that opportunity to turn Ghana into an operation centre for their illegal activities. They know the police will not arrest them and even if they are, they will not be convicted, Ms Pomaa Arthur, Communications Manager of Challenging Heights said in a statement.
According to her, the NGO is disappointed in the Government for still failing to address the issue of human trafficking in Ghana.
Ghana has for the second consecutive year been classified as a Tier 2 Watch List country in the Trafficking in Persons (TiP) Report released by the U.S State Department last week due to the governments inability to demonstrate enough efforts to prevent trafficking, prosecute criminals and protect victims.
The American government has warned that the country risks losing millions of money in aid if no effort is taken to address the situation.
Ms Arthur said that it is rather disappointing that systems and structures put in place by the government to fight trafficking are nothing but a cosmetic measure.
This report reveals how much our government is unconcerned about the issues of trafficking and forced labour. Through governments inactions, all efforts by other non-governmental organisations and agencies to bring an end to trafficking in Ghana appears to be nothing but a drop in the ocean, she said.
Ms Arthur explained that since the Human Trafficking Fund was set-up several years ago, there has been less than GH200,000 deposited in that coffers coupled with a virtually non-functioning Human Trafficking Management Board in place.
She said although the government directly and indirectly receives funds from international organisations and countries such as the US to combat trafficking, the issue seems not to be on the countrys priority list as almost all government agencies mandated to fight trafficking are under-resourced or understaffed.
We want to know what government uses donor monies for; we want to know why law-enforcement agencies are not able carry out their duties properly and we want to know why government doesnt care about its own people who are being bought and sold as though they have no value, she asked.
Ms Arthur noted that due to the governments apathetic attitude towards the issue of trafficking, law-enforcement agencies such as the police and judiciary are equally laidback resulting in the country been classified as a source, transit and destination point for traffickers.
Ms Arthur noted that its almost an established fact that most of the efforts to address Human Trafficking has been through civil society organsations such as Challenging Heights therefore, government needed to collaborate and co-operate well with NGOs who have the resources and know-how on trafficking related issues.
Challenging heights has been rescuing trafficked children since 2005 and providing them with rehabilitation to ensure that they are psychologically sound before they are reintegrated into society. We are committed as an organisation to end this menace, but are efforts will be futile if government does not demonstrate the same commitment, she said.
Ms Arthur said irrespective of what Challenging Heights or any other NGO does, government still remains the most effective primary tool for stopping trafficking in the country and ensuring that the country makes significant efforts to bring an end to the situation.
She called on the government to take swift action to resource the Human Trafficking Management Board through the Human Trafficking Fund and to appropriately tool the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Ghana Police Service to ensure the effective delivery of their mandate under the law.
We fear that if this government inaction on Human Trafficking is not changed, Ghana may well slip into Tier 3 in the next report, she added.
Source: starr FM
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Emerald Development Group Co., Ltd. leads by Khun Sawit Ketroj, Managing Director of Emerald Development Group has been participating and presenting the projects from Phuket and Aonang, Krabi provinces with several special promotions for the customers in Dot Property Show 2016 at Siam Paragon Department store, Bangkok during June 30 July 3, 2016 recently and feedback has been excellent.
This is the latest in a series of posts about the 1916 presidential election between Democratic incumbent Woodrow Wilson and Republican challenger Charles Evans Hughes, a Glens Falls native.
The Johnson City-Endicott Record on June 17, 1916 reported that shoe town lawmaker state Sen. William N. Hill met with Republican presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes in New York City.
His views are in harmony with the general views of all elements of his party, and they have the ring of sincerity, the Record quoted Hill in the report that can be viewed on the New York State Historical Newspaper web site, a project of public libraries.
The calling of Mr. Hughes is in the nature of a man being drafted to perform a public duty, Hill said. Men are drafted when they are needed for special service, and Mr. Hughes, like other men, is to pay the price of duty by sacrificing his personal ambition and inclination at least during a political campaign.
Warren County Republican Committee also used the metaphor of a military draft when the committee endorsed Hughes months earlier. Click here to read about it.
Click here to read the most recent previous post in the series.
Mike Mender, assistant to Glens Falls Mayor Jack Diamond, first heard about it from Memphis.
"My daughter in Memphis texted me and said, 'Dad -- Glens Falls Green Party is on NPR," Mender said.
National Public Radio's signature "All Things Considered" nationally broadcast news program profiled Green Party congressional candidate Matt Funiciello and Warren County Green Party on Monday.
Funiciello, a bread company owner and political activist from Glens Falls, is running in the 21st Congressional District against U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro, and Democrat Mike Derrick, a retired Army colonel from Peru, in Clinton County.
Green Party state Assembly candidate Robin Barkenhagen also was interviewed in the segment.
Barkenhagen, a retail shop owner and musician, is running against Assemblyman Dan Stec, R-Queensbury, in the 114th Assembly District.
Click here to listen to the segment.
GLENS FALLS Glens Falls Councilman at-Large Dan Hall said he will decide by winter whether to run for mayor next year.
Im thinking maybe sometime toward the end of October or November, he said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
I just turned 66. So Im in my older days here if this is something Im going to do, said Hall, a Democrat. It would be an honor.
Mayor Jack Diamond, a Democrat who is serving his second full four-year term, will reach term limits in 2017 and cannot run for re-election.
As Hall weighs his options, there is discussion in political circles that Peter Casertino, a detective lieutenant with the city Police Department, is considering the race.
Somebody mentioned that to me the other day, Hall said, referring to Casertinos possible candidacy.
Two other city officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because Casertino had not informed them directly, said they heard Casertino is considering the race.
Contacted Wednesday, Casertino said, Ive heard the rumor too. He said he cannot discuss politics while employed as a police officer.
I hadnt really thought about it, he said, referring to running for mayor. Its kind of flattering, so once I heard it, its crossed my mind a little bit.
Casertino said he will have 20 years of service and be eligible to retire from the Police Department next year.
If the need arises, I can (retire), he said, when asked if he plans to retire. Ive got so much work piled up on the desk that right now thats my current focus.
Casertino lives in the 5th Ward.
He previously served five years on the Glens Falls city school board, a non-partisan elected position.
He said he would not disclose his political affiliation because it might violate Police Department rules prohibiting political activity.
Two other potential mayoral candidates have said they are considering the race.
Im still exploring my options, Nancy Underwood, who serves on the city Water and Sewer Board, said Wednesday.
Underwood, who lives in the 1st Ward, is program director of a charity that assists backstretch workers at Saratoga Race Course.
Underwood is registered in the Independence Party.
William Brown, a real estate broker who lives in Queensbury, said Wednesday he still intends to relocate to Glens Falls to run for mayor in 2017.
Brown is registered in the Conservative Party.
JOHNSTOWN A woman missing for two weeks returned to her familys home in Johnstown early Wednesday morning.
The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office said 24-year-old Rachael Mattice was being evaluated at Nathan Littauer Hospital. She appeared to be in good condition.
A friend of the family told NewsChannel 13, The Post-Stars newsgathering partner, that Mattice said she had been kidnapped and held against her will during her disappearance. The friend said Mattice told her she escaped by jumping from a car and running to her home.
Mattice had last been seen in the city of Johnstown on June 22 as she headed to her family camp in Wells. She was staying there while she worked as a home health care aide in the area. Her car was found at the cabin.
Her disappearance led to a massive search involving helicopters and dogs.
GLENS FALLS Two area businesses are helping Open Door mission in Glens Falls raise money and collect food to continue and expand programs.
The TD Bank Bring Change program will collect cash donations from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. July 15 at its branch office at 54 Quaker Road in Queensbury.
The bank also will make a contribution.
Open Door is seeking to raise about $12,000 to replace its convection oven and commercial range at the missions soup kitchen on Lawrence Street.
The convection oven, purchased in 1998, has needed frequent repairs, said Kim Cook, executive director of The Open Door.
Its getting to the point now where its more expensive to fix it than replace it, she said.
North Country Subaru at 616 Quaker Road in Queensbury is collecting non-perishable food items during July for the Open Door backpack program that distributes backpacks of food and free milk vouchers through area schools to children from needy families.
Suggested food items include boxed cereal, oatmeal, healthy snacks, peanut butter, jelly and juice boxes.
North Country Subaru is offering a 10 percent discount on vehicle service work, up to a maximum discount of $25, to customers who contribute 10 or more food items.
Food to take home to families is distributed to children who qualify for the free and reduced-price school lunch program.
The backpack program will be expanded this fall to about 300 students in 10 schools in the Glens Falls, Abraham Wing, Queensbury and Lake George school district and the BOCES program.
The program supplied food to about 240 students in nine schools in the school year that just ended, Cook said.
Three years ago, the program provided food to 75 students in three schools.
Open Door also is seeking corporate sponsors and individual cash contributions for the backpack program, Cook said.
For more information, contact Cook at 792-5900.
Checks, made payable to The Open Door and earmarked for equipment replacement, backpack program or general expenses, can be mailed to The Open Door, P.O. Box 3306, Glens Falls, NY, 12801.
Inventory needs to be managed and managed well, or you are going to get in recurring trouble, and lose your credibility and hard-earned conversions, whether
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The group is also expected to ensure a one touch win for the party during the 2016 polls.
According to sources, the actor has expressed his eagerness and readiness to work with other officials of the group in achieving the aim of the party.
Other members of the group include internationally celebrated Human Rights Lawyer, Francis Xavier Sosu, who will be in charge of legal affairs, Dr. Lawrence Appiah who is based in the United States is to handle the international affairs of the group.
Read also:Robbery
Grace Addey and Selina Hayibor will work hand in hand as Women's Organiser and Deputy Women Organisers respectively.
Other appointees are French media practitioner Le Roi Chambas who will be in charge of the groups welfare whiles the special assistant to John Dumelo, Wilberforce Senyo Kporku takes charge as the organiser.
Educationist Nelson Mawuli Gbadagba and Media Practitioner Mauricia Adaabre Agana who are both based in China are to take care of activities of the group in Northern and Southern Sectors of Ghana.
There is no rivalry between Abraham and myself. I am proud of him because he is doing what most of us couldnt do when we were his age and I feel he is definitely making Ghana proud at the end of the day, the Ghanaian actor said.
In a reply to the fans who taunt him with memes on social media, he remarked that he is not perturbed the least about it rather he finds it quite funny.
Dumelo also added that he and Abraham Attah have laughed over the memes.
Thats how life is. When I see it I laugh and the last time I saw it we were just joking about it too. Its just nothing I worry about.
He also congratulated and advised the young actor on his role in the new Spiderman Homecoming movie.
I want to congratulate him for earning that role because this is just the beginning for him and I wish him nothing but the best.
I think he should understand exactly what the movie entails, the contract and everything else because I know this movie will be another stepping stone to realize more opportunities so I wish him nothing but the best
Dumelo also cleared the air on the rumor about leaving acting to pursue politics full time. He said that he wasnt a politician and has new movies hes starred in but only believes in a certain agenda and philosophy of the political party he is campaigning for.
Earlier in June, fans of Abraham Attah mocked John Dumelo on twitter after the former landed a role on the cast of Spiderman Homecoming.Ghanaian actor and entrepreneur John Dumelo says there is no such rivalry going on between himself and Beast of No Nation actor, Abraham Attah.
Dumelo speaking to Pulse.com.gh in an interview said he does not have any qualms whatsoever about Abraham Attahs rise to the top.
There is no rivalry between Abraham and myself. I am proud of him because he is doing what most of us couldnt do when we were his age and I feel he is definitely making Ghana proud at the end of the day, the Ghanaian actor said.
In a reply to the fans who taunt him with memes on social media, he remarked that he is not perturbed the least about it rather he finds it quite funny.
Dumelo also added that he and Abraham Attah have laughed over the memes.
Thats how life is. When I see it I laugh and the last time I saw it we were just joking about it too. Its just nothing I worry about.
He also congratulated and advised the young actor on his role in the new Spiderman Homecoming movie.
I want to congratulate him for earning that role because this is just the beginning for him and I wish him nothing but the best.
I think he should understand exactly what the movie entails, the contract and everything else because I know this movie will be another stepping stone to realize more opportunities so I wish him nothing but the best
Dumelo also cleared the air on the rumor about leaving acting to pursue politics full time. He said that he wasnt a politician and has new movies hes starred in but only believes in a certain agenda and philosophy of the political party he is campaigning for.
Considering recent events associated with women and how so-called gender activists are dealing with the situation, its easy to see where she is coming from.
From endless workshops, conferences, round-tables, seminars, policy briefings and others attempting to address the myriads of problems still facing women, the term gender activism still seems disconnected from the general public, particularly, the rural folks.
Many of those professionals who have a wealth of knowledge about gender and development still find it difficult to communicate in ways that touch the public.
History of Gender Activism
Women activism was very vibrant in Africa, especially in the early 80s when women were advocating a lot of things, including the Maputo Protocol, which was aimed at ensuring gender equality, womens reproductive rights, bringing an end to female genital mutilation, and protecting other rights of women.
Since pre-colonial days, Ghanaian women have contributed immensely towards national development and the deepening of democracy in the country.
Talk about the likes of Akua Asabea and other women in the CPP, who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with their male counterparts such as Kofi Baako and Sacki Scheck in 1949, as they toured the country and addressed large rallies to spread the message of Independence Now for Ghana.
Mention could also be made of the role of Dr Letitia Obeng, an educationist, and other women who were nurses, broadcasters, judges, and lawyers who became part and parcel of the independence struggle.
But since then, although the vibrant energy behind womens rights movement has heightened, its target and approach seem to be misplaced.
The present situation
Its been 20 years since the Beijing protocol was signed to advance the goals of equality, development and peace for all women everywhere in the interest of all humanity. But what do we see now? In fact, in Ghana, women are still arguing about equal access to land and resources such as water, and now, technology. Others still argue about what they call their inherent sexual and reproductive health and rights.
It appears that the systems that are oppressing women and girls are winning the battle. And what effective approaches are gender activists taking to solve the problem?
A case in point has to do with recent comments by the Assin Central MP, Kennedy Agyapong that the Electoral Commission chair traded her body for the position.
And of course, the comments did not go down well with several gender activists who came out in their numbers to condemn the MP.
The Minister of Gender Children and Social Protection subsequently requested an apology from Agyapong on behalf of the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission.
But where were the gender activists when the host of a radio programme, Afia Schwarzeneger was verbally assaulted by the same MP. Was she sidelined by the activists because she was seen as a controversial fellow, or because as many would say, it serves her right?
As outspoken actress, Lydia Forson puts the situation in her own words: "Didnt he [Kennedy Agyapong] say worse about Afia Schwarzenegger? Didnt he all but call her a harlot? Didnt he say she had HIV? Didnt he sit on radio and TV to make these statements? Werent women in the building and around him? So whats new here? Or wait, let me guess he did it against someone we 'like, respect or deem worthy' or someone that interest or benefits us in a way."
What about some single mothers Ive spoken with, who often feel dejected by the Departments of Social Welfare in the country. A sister who lost her son in the process of a failed marriage tells me: They [members of the Welfare Department] end up supporting the men whenever a case of assault or neglect of upbringing of children is brought before them.
When the Social Welfare Department was contacted on the issue, the Director, Benjamin Otu said those claims are mere allegations.
This is an allegation they are making and they have to substantiate the allegation. If they can come out with a case that they have sent Social Welfare and its like the Social Welfare Officers were not objective, then they can mention the name of the office that they went and these things happened, he added.
So my issue is; has gender activism become only for a particular class of people?
Take another case in point. Recently, Gifty Anti, a veteran broadcaster and a gender activist, described Akua Donkor, founder and leader of the Ghana Freedom Party (GFP) as a wrong choice for a female president in Ghana.
Akua Donkor is a cocoa farmer by profession, who has had no formal education. She however receives formal invitations from President John Mahama and his government to attend state functions.
She was disqualified by the Electoral Commission in 2012 when she declared her intentions to contest in the presidential race.
Many have criticized her for her sometimes unsavoury comments in public, saying she is not the best choice for the presidency.
Notwithstanding her not too appealing demeanour, is that the best form of approach Ghanaians, especially women advocates could adopt in her situation? Should she be condemned or be given the little support needed to mentor or shape her into what society wants?
As gender activist, Esther Tawiah puts it: Women are contesting everyday and they are losing because these rural women have this idea that these elitist people want us to vote for them to be in power, but that is not it.
Esther Tawiah believes that her co- gender activist, Gifty Anti was wrong in her description of the GFP leader. She believes women rights activists must desist from being selective in their activism roles.
We appreciate that these rural women need capacity to be able to do active democratic government. And so give them that capacity they need. So if you feel that Akua Donkor lacks that capacity as a gender activist, what you need to do is approach her, give her the capacity. If you [Gifty Anti] feel that she cant speak English, and it is a challenge, the University of Ghana provides adult education, have you suggested it to her before? What is the possible way of getting her to do some of the things that in this global world you think she needs to empower her, Ms. Tawiah asked.
The way forward
Lets take a cue from what happened in Iceland where women in October 24, 1975, walked away from their responsibilities to show how important they were to the progress of the country.
From 12 noon to 12 midnight, on a day men would remember as that long Friday, 90% of Icelands women left their typewriters and steno pads, put down their paint brushes, music books, and lecture notes, took off their aprons, left the dishes in the sink, handed the children over to their dads, and left their phones unanswered.
Being the UNs International Womens Year, the women at the time, who made less than 60% of the wages men made, took that action to challenge male dominance.
Can we replicate such an action in Ghana? Imagine women shunning all their daily activities for a day to stand for their rights? Yes, it could be done.
Instead of so-called loud feminists taking to social media to vent out their anger and frustrations about a particular course of action, they should redirect that anger to the streets.
Their main targets should be the rural folks and middle class women, who seem to be the most affected by domestic violence issues in the country. Such women seem to be the most disadvantaged as they lack basic knowledge about what their fundamental human rights entail, and how to fight for those rights.
In Egypt, Cairo, many informal youth-based initiatives have also sought to transform the streets of Cairo into harassment-free spaces for women.
Their catchy slogans "Don't harass: the street is yours and hers" and "Look me in the eye" have been widely circulated by people in the street carrying messages for passersby to read.
I suggest that gender experts and policymakers learn from such initiatives, and make their work more appealing to the proletariats in society.
Hummus
A popular Middle Eastern dish which is easy to prepare, and delicious to eat is hummus.
Made of chickpeas, it is high in protein, and can be enjoyed as a dip with bread or crackers, or with a salad, or as a side with rice.
Here's how to prepare it.
Either use canned chickpeas, or dried ones, if they are dry, you need to soak about a cup of them for 12 hours, then boil them for about an hour, until they are soft. Let them cool.
Using either your tinned chickpeas, or your cooked ones, put them in your blender, along with:
Add a bit of water and then blend all the ingredients until they form a thick paste, not too runny. Make sure the chickpeas are all blitzed.
Either eat it straight away or refrigerate for later.
khanapakana.com has listed an Indian dish for Eid - Punjabi Dum Murgh.
You will need:
To make this meal:
heat your oil in a pan and fry the whole chicken, then take it out, in the same oil, add the finely chopped onion and cook until golden brown.
Add all the rest of the ingredients and cook until the oil seperates. This is your masala.
Put the whole chicken in this masala with a 1/2 cup of water. Cook it in the pan on low heat, covered, until it is tender and cooked through, this should take about an hour.
Keema Kachori
Food website theholidayspot.com suggests some Keema Kachori for this Eid.
Kachori is a spicy snack popular in India, Pakistan and other parts of South Asia. It is also common in places with South Asian diaspora, such as Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Suriname.
To make the dough, you need 2 cups of wheat flour, a pinch of salt, and 2 tbsp of oil
To make them:
Sosu was speaking after a 22-year old trader was handed a death sentence by a Tamale High Court in the Northern Region. The culprit Zeila Sulemana stabbed the girlfriend of his ex-boyfriend in the chest and abdomen to death after a heated argument over the Zeilas ex boyfriend.
Amnesty International described the sentence handed to her as pointless as the death sentence does not deter crime. Director of Amnesty International Ghana Lawrence Amesu who also called for the removal of the death sentence from the statutory books of the country argued that [The] death sentence is not an answer to a crime. It is unfortunate it is still in our constitution and the judges will continue ruling in such directionsa death sentence doesnt deter crime, otherwise crime would have been stopped in countries that practice it.
Speaking to pulse.com.gh Sosu explained that even though the basis for the death sentence was for a culprit to receive equal measure of punishment of what he meted out to a victim, many culprits after they have been executed are found innocent of the said crime.
That is the genesis for the death sentence, that tooth for tooth, eye for eye, those who live by the sword must die by the sword. But research over the years has shown that there are many people who have been executed and later on pieces of evidence are found to show that they did not commit those offences.
"Ive met people who have served the full sentence, some 50 year jail term just for them to come out and evidence is showing they are not the people who committed those offences. So we cannot rule out the fact that the possibility of us convicting somebody and sentencing that person on offences he never committed or knew nothing about are also there, once those possibilities are there it will be better to tread on the side of caution.
He also mentioned that even though nobody has been executed in Ghana since 1993 it is important that those punishments are taken out of our statutory books to also show that we have equal respect for human rights and human dignity. He also argued that there are times fresh evidence is found only after the culprit has been executed. He therefore questioned that what then do you do? There is no more remedy.
Sosu said to expunge the death sentence from the statutes of the land it would require a constitutional amendment, which will affect all statutes that push forward this agenda.
But until that is done, he recommended that culprits who formerly deserved a death sentence should rather be handed a number of years to serve a jail term or at worse a life sentence.
His comments come on the back of recent bombing in Bahgdad that saw hundreds of shoppers killed at a shopping square.
The president said: We live in a world that is changing and some people under the guise of religion and religious extremism misinterpret the religious doctrines and use it to create harm for ideological reasons.
President Mahama further advised all and sundry to refrain from linking terrorism to Islam.
Terrorism has entered our sub region and these people who propagate the terrorism ideology come under the guise of religion and erroneously try to create an equation between terrorism and Islam ; it is not true; there is no link between terrorism and Islam, he added.
Muslims in Ghana are joining their counterparts across the world to celebrate the breaking of fast festival after a successful Ramadan.
Scores of Moslems gathered at the Black Star Square on Wednesday as the Chief Imam, Sheik Osman Nuhu Sharubutu led the Eid prayers.
Background
The National Security Co-ordinator, Mr Yaw Donkor, indicated in August 2015 that two Ghanaians have joined the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Deputy Power Minister, John Jinapor, last week announced that the country would have to shed 300 Mega Watts of power, owing to the shortfall in the supply of light crude from VRAs Nigerian suppliers.
This meant that thermal plants in the Aboadze enclave did not have enough power to provide steady supply of power.
In his address to the Muslim gathering on Wednesday, President Mahama said,
We are not declaring load shedding; I believe things will normalize but we are taking steps everyday to ensure that Ghana has security when it comes to power.
This declaration is contrary to statements by Deputy Power Minister, John Jinapor the Ministry will release a loadshedding timetable this week if supply of light crude does not stabilize.
In order to forestall future occurrences of the problem, President Mahama says he has ordered the Bulk Oil Storage Company to keep a minimum of one months supply of light crude oil for emergencies such as these.
This is because oil production has drastically minimized at the field to the point that the field is no longer economically viable.
Michael Aryeetey, Chief Operations Officer of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation Exploration and Production- EXPLOco. confirmed the news, saying decommissioning is part of the plan for 2016.
The Chief Operating Officer of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) Exploration and Production Company, Mr Michael Aryeetey, explained that the decommissioning of the field formed part of GNPCs plans for 2016.
We do have about 17 licences that are active offshore Ghana, with the exception of the Saltpond Field which we are looking at decommissioning, he said on the sidelines of the Maritime Week Africa Oil and Shipping Conference in Accra, he said.
Government, is, however, yet to ascertain the cost of the decommissioning of the field.
Several calls have been made by institutions like the Public Interest and Accountability Committee as well as the Public Accounts Committee of parliament for the oil field that has been in operations from 1970 to be decommissioned.
PIACs recommendation for the field to be closed is because its operation costs far exceed revenues accruing to the field.
Saltpond Oil Field recorded 41,113 barrels for total production for 2014, which is 30,000 barrels less than the total production of 79,602 barrels of oil.
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Kunle Fawole popularly known as Abounce (actor and rapper)who is the son of the actress confirmed her passing away to Nollywood website TNS. "Mumsie passed away about thirty minutes ago. God knows best" he told the website.
Another reliable source close to the veteran actress also confirmed the passing away of Bukky Ajayi to Pulse. TNS also states that she passed away "after a battle with heart-related issues."
Bukky Ajayi was a widely respected actress in Nollywood. On June 15, 2016, a group of Nollywood actors paid a visit to the veteran actress at her home.
The actors were Joke Silva, Uzor Osimkpa, Chika Chukwu, Rita Dominic, Kate Henshaw, Nichole Banna, Seun Ajayi and Zara Udofia Ejoh.
Joke Silva shared a photo with the caption:
"TAA (The Actors Advocate) with the gorgeous uassuming supertalented mama Buky Ajayi. We went down memory lane...we laughed..we cried we prayed. Well done Mildred Okwo for bringing all the generations together...it's the only way we can grow."
On Saturday, March 5, 2016 at the undefined, the veteran received a "Industry Merit Award."
Popularly known as Toolz, Tolu Oniru is a Nigerian radio personality, talk show host, and presenter.
Best known for hosting "The Midday Show" on The Beat 99.9 FM, Toolz was born in London on July 6. She had her primary education at Talbot House preparatory school in Bournemouth, UK, and secondary education in Nigeria before relocating to study at Westminster College.
She comes from the famous Oniru Royal family of Lagos State and also has a degree in Business and Mass Communication from London Metropolitan University.
Born 6 July 1961, Richard Mofe Damijo popularly known as RMD, is a Nigerian actor, lawyer and politician.
Born in Warri, Delta State, Nigeria, RMD attended Midwest College, Warri and Anglican Grammar School and was a member of the Drama Club.
He enrolled into the University of Benin to continue his education where he studied Theatre Arts. In 1997 Mofe-Damijo returned to the classroom to study Law at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and graduated in 2004.
Mofe-Damijo took part in a television soap opera in the late 80's called "Ripples". Before then, he worked with Concord Newspapers and Metro Magazine as a reporter.
In 2005 at the maiden edition of the African Movie Academy Awards, Mofe-Damijo won the award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
Sharing a photo from their white wedding which took place in Dubai, on May 28, 2016, Demuren wrote:
"To my better half, the one that makes me better, and the one that makes me want to do better.. Happy Birthday love!"
Toolz who shared a stunning photo of herself via social media on July 4, 2016, as she counted down to her birthday today, tweeted her regret over her lack of a birthday photo shoot.
ALSO READ: OAP shows off slimmer physique
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! 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 three suspects, Austin Agba, 35, Friday Sunday Paul, 23, and 27-year-old Christian Ekenu, were rounded up at Olympus Hotel, located along Afaha Uqua Road, Eket Local Government Area of the state, when they turned up to retrieve the money.
Confirming the arrest which she saw as a victory for the force, the State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), ASP Cordelia Nwawe, said they were members of the same gang that has been terrorising the state.
While parading the suspects at the State Command Headquarters in Ikot Akpan Abia, Uyo, Nwawe said the that the command under the Commissioner of Police, Murtala Mani, was equal to the task of making the state uncomfortable for criminals.
In his confession, Agba, the leader of the gang denied being a kidnapper but a middleman between pirates and the various fishermen groups operating along the Ibeno-Opobo water way.
Agba, an indigene of Bayelsa State, said that though it was true he was at the hotel when he was arrested, but that he had gon there to collect the N3 million he had negotiated for the pirates from the fishermen when the police apprehended him.
I am just an Ijaw man and a middleman to the Ijaw fishermen and the pirates. So, there are certain groups of fishermen that normally contribute money to the pirates to make sure they do their businesses smoothly.
When the pirates had a meeting with the fishermen, they said I am the one that would be negotiating the monthly payment.
The fishermen said if they negotiate directly, the pirates will charge them too high, but if I intervene, the pirates will bring down the levy because I am an Ijaw brother.
On that fateful day, I went to collect the money to settle the pirates so that they would allow the fishermen do their business. It was in the process that I was arrested, Agba added.
On his part, Paul who denied being a kidnapper, said his duty was to convey victims on his motorbike.
I was riding my bike along Afaha Uqua Road junction when three guys stopped me. Two of them climbed the bike and told me to take them somewhere.
On getting there, one of them put his hand in my trouser and said I must take them to where they were going to. They used a gun to threaten me, saying they were going for an operation. I am not one of them, they kidnapped me.
The third suspect, Ekenu who hails from Oron Local Government Area, said he is a Lagos based artiste and was implicated by his friends.
I came in from Lagos to meet my friend, Tony. I am an artiste. When I arrived Oron, he asked me how much I came with and I said I did not come with any money. He called his friends and said they should take my shoes, watch and phones.
When they went outside the room, I escaped through the ceiling and ran to the police station. Unfortunately for me, along the road, they picked me and took me to the police station, saying I was a kidnapper.
Associated Press reports that a statement from police in Sarasota, Florida claim that the suspect, William Brumby was with his 24-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter at the time the accident reportedly took place on Sunday, July 3, 2016.
Eye witness accounts reveal that Brumby had fired a round, with the spent shell casing bouncing of the wall to fall on the back of his shirt.
In a bid to get rid of the hot shell casing, Brumby whose hand was still on the handgun's trigger, inadvertently pointed the gun at his son identified as Stephen.
the teenager was reportedly rushed to Sarasota Memorial Hospital where he later died as a result of the injuries he sustained.
ALSO READ: Grandfather commits suicide in Anambra
Following a review of a video of the shooting, the police have reveled that they would be carrying out further investigations as well as talking with witnesses but charges are yet to be files against Brumby.
The reports reveal that the victim identified as Miss Moyinoluwa Abdulkareem, was allegedly kidnapped by a motorcyclist, in Owo Local Government Area of Ondo State on Friday, July 1, 2016.
Miss Abdulkareem was later found on Sunday evening, July 3, 2016, along Idanre road in Akure after she managed to escape from the den of her kidnappers.
A student of Prospect High School, Owo, Miss Abdulkareem was allegedly abducted by an okada rider whose bike she had boarded to carry out a transaction at one of the new generation banks within the area, after writing her National Examination Council (NECO) examination.
The Okada rider is reported to have diverted into the bush pretending to be avoiding a police check point along their route.
Speaking with The Nation, Miss Abdulkareem revealed that her escape had been by divine intervention which made her courageous and allowed her to escape her abductors after they forgot to lock the door of the place where she was kept amongst other victims.
She went on to reveal that the okada rider had handed her over to his collaborators who were waiting in a car after he had been given an envelope.
Miss Abdulkareem disclosed that she had met two pregnant women and two young boys she suspects to have also been victims, after which her abductors had driven along Akure road before diverting to Ilu Abo.
They reportedly spent 30 minutes on the ride before arriving at an isolated building where she was kept with other victims and also managed to escaped via unknown bush parts which led her to Idanre road in Akure.
Miss Abdulkareem has reportedly been reunited with her family and friends, hale and hearty.
The police spokesman, Mr Femi Joseph confirmed the issues while disclosing that the command has now commenced further investigation into the matter.
It was gathered that the suspects identified as Samuel Akpan, Shola Owolabi and Michael Lanre, had lured the girl on her way back from school into a room at 7, Kaka Street, Ayobo, Ipaja area of the state, where they locked her up and took turns having sexual intercourse with her.
According to a police source, two other suspects, who are at large identified simply as Sadiq and Fatai, had earlier lured the girl to Akpan's house where they raped her but when Akpan came back, he was said to have chased the two away and also defiled the girl.
When he was done, he also invited Owolabi and Lanre, to join him in having sex with the teenager.
It was the unusual movements in the compound that attracted the landlord, Shakiru Akinola, who forced the door to Akpan's room open and caught the culprits in the act.
The police source added:
The three men made a video recording of their act as they raped the girl one after the other. They also threatened to kill the girl and dump her corpse should she raise an alarm as they enjoyed themselves.
Akinola told newsmen that some of his tenants were the ones who drew his attention to the unusual happening in Akpans room.
On that fateful day, I returned from the hospital and was resting when some tenants called to inform me the movements of some men in Akpans room. So, I managed to walk to the room to knock, asking them to open the door, which they refused.
So, I was compelled to force the door open and caught them having sex with the girl and taking videos of the actions with their phones. At this point, the girl was weak and I rescued her and immediately bought a tin of milk and a can of malt to make her regain strength.
While some men were watching her, I sneaked out to inform the police and they arrived at the scene almost immediately to apprehend them.
It was gathered that the 40-year-old Haruna, was stopped for a search by the anti-drug agency at a checkpoint by seven officers of the agency and during an altercation, the officers manhandled the man with one of them kicking him in the stomach, resulting in his death.
Harunas conductor identified as Matthew, said that they were on their way to Jos, Plateau State, when the sad incident happened.
We were going to Jos around 5am on Saturday, July 2. The NDLEA officers were seven and their leader held a gun. Others held clubs. One of them stopped our truck and we tried to park by the roadside. While doing that, he hurled insults at us.
When my boss (Haruna) came down, the officer first beat him with a club. My boss told him there was no reason for the abuse as we were carrying lawful goods. The officer got angry and kicked him in the stomach.
He fell and the officer marched on his stomach. It was when they noticed he was not moving that they decided to rush him to a hospital.
He died in Jos on Monday around 4am. I am still at the hospital as an autopsy will be conducted on him.
The Managing Director, Vintage Transport and Logistics, Lekan Akinkiitan, said Haruna had worked with the company for 10 years before the tragedy.
Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the NDLEA, Mitchell Ofoyeju, said Haruna tried to resist the officers from carrying out their lawful duties and in the process, he sustained injuries during the search.
The worst yellow fever outbreak in decades has killed about 345 people in Angola, while Congo declared an epidemic in Kinshasa and two other provinces on Monday after reporting 67 confirmed cases and more than 1,000 other suspected cases.
In a statement, WHO said that the campaign would target areas within 75-100 km (45-60 miles) of the border where there are high levels of movement and trade in order to create an "immune buffer" and prevent the disease spreading further.
The global stockpile of yellow fever vaccine has already been depleted twice this year to immunise people in Angola, Uganda and Congo. It stands at 6 million doses, but experts warn this may not be enough if there are simultaneous outbreaks in a number of highly-populated areas.
The mosquito-borne haemorrhagic virus is a major concern in Kinshasa, a city of about 12 million people with poor health services, a humid climate beloved of the insects and much stagnant water where they can breed, owing to pour drainage.
The government and international health organisations vaccinated more than 2 million people, about half of them in Kinshasa, between May 26 and June 4.
But there is no more vaccine left, aside from a few doses left in reserve in Kongo Central and some being administered by a government agency at Kinshasa's central hospital, airport and river crossing with neighbouring Congo Republic.
To cope with the shortage, WHO has recommended using a fifth of the standard dose of yellow fever vaccine, which would not give lifelong protection to those who receive it but might at least contain the outbreak.
However, a WHO spokeswoman said such a move would not be appropriate for the current emergency plan on the border.
"Due to the logistical challenges involved in rural areas, dose fractioning would not be proposed in this area. WHO would recommend using full doses," Sarah Cumberland said.
In a statement signed by her Special Assistant on Media, Mr Abdur-Rahman Balogun, in Abuja on Wednesday, Dabiri-Erewa said the killing of 17-year-old Fola Orebiyi, was unacceptable to the Government and people of Nigeria.
The presidential aide said the killing of Orebiyi and other extra-judicial killings of Nigerian citizens in UK was becoming worrisome.
While condoling with the family of the deceased over the ugly incident, she prayed God to give them the fortitude to bear the painful loss.
She said that while Nigeria would not condone crime and criminal tendencies, it took exception to the harassment, killing and execution of its nationals abroad unjustifiably.
The statement said that Orebiyi was stabbed to death during a street clash by a gang of youths on Sunday at Notting Hill, London.
It said that he was reportedly chased into the busy road, where he was stabbed in the neck in front of shocked passersby and tourists, adding that all efforts by the Police and paramedics to resuscitate him when an ambulance arrived, proved abortive.
Reacting to the death, the deceaseds neighbour, Osman Sahal, told the police: ``He was a nice boy and very considerate; none of us can understand how this could have happened.
``As far as I knew, he was never in trouble. I suppose we must now wait for the police to investigate, Sahal was quoted as saying.
Orebiyi, who completed his General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) at Holland Park in London, was studying for his `A levels at the Chelsea Academy before his death, the statement said.
AFEDs President, Mrs Ifejola Dada, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that these children were receiving quality education in over 8,000 private schools across the state.
Dada said that the state government alone could not meet the educational needs of all the children in their states.
AFED was offering a stop-gap solution that had been complimenting the governments efforts in the provision of affordable education.
``AFED is giving back to the society what it enjoyed in the public schools in the time past and thus complementing the efforts of the state government.
``We are social justice and equity crusaders tackling the out-of-school children phenomenon, Dada said.
She said it was important to tackle the education of such children as they would be critical for the future of the country.
The president said that the association had schools in nine states in the country with over 3 million children in such schools who were paying tuitions as low as N5,000 per child in some cases.
She said that private schools with no fewer than 50 pupils had as many as eight staff members.
The president said that some private schools had been offering scholarships to brilliant children and the indigent ones.
She, however, pleaded with governments to encourage AFED by using commendable words rather than derogatory words to describe it.
She said that derogatory words would discourage international investors or banks that would have loved to give loans or financial assistance to the association from doing so.Meanwhile, the patron of the association, Prof. Pat Utomi, had lauded the activities of the association.
``Education is not about blocks or buildings but what comes out of the blocks and buildings.
``I was amazed at the performance of the children in AFED schools who were in urban challenged neighborhood.
Utomi said that AFED was not a charitable organisation but low fee-paying schools, adding values to the teaching business.
``There is wealth at the bottom of the pyramid, when you put together all your earnings, you find out that you make money even from the poor, he said.
Buhari, in his Eid-el-Fitr message to Nigerians, also congratulated Muslims in Nigeria and those around the world on the successful completion of the spiritual journey of fasting, prayer and almsgiving in obedience to the divine command.
He expressed the hope that all true followers of Islam had been rejuvenated on the true meaning and essence of life.
The president also expressed optimism that through the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, Muslim faithful had learnt to imbibe the virtues of piety, sacrifice, love, self-denial and good conduct in their daily relationship with one another.
"As we celebrate another Eid- el-fitr, I admonish all patriotic Nigerians to uphold these lessons and also appreciate the numerous material and human blessings God has endowed us with.
"Let us learn to show gratitude, respect and tolerance to one other, irrespective of our religion, tribe, language and political leanings as we forge ahead to build on our strengths and opportunities to make Nigeria great again.
"I sincerely pray that the Almighty Allah will reward our sacrifices with increased blessing and a more prosperous future, he said.
Buhari recalled how the vice-president, the speaker of the House of Representatives and other government officials joined him to host Iftar reception at the State House with Nigerians of different backgrounds including Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), artisans and Physically-challenged persons.
"Like I said during the reception, I want to once again appeal to those of us who have the means, to remember the millions of Nigerians who are suffering deprivation because of violence perpetrated by terrorists.
"I am not unaware of what Nigerians are going through and I want to use this medium to commend the amazing sacrifices of Nigerians in the face of the temporary economic and social challenges.
"I want to also reassure Nigerians that my administration is working assiduously towards providing basic needs and other amenities.
He reaffirmed the determination of his administration not to relent in the fight against corruption, saying that "we will ensure that all appropriate and legal measures are deplored to root out this malaise.
He commended the Armed Forces and security agencies for the gains recorded in the fight against terrorists and the rescue of hostages in the North-East part of the country.
Buhari appealed for the support, understanding and patience of all Nigerians and the nations international partners in exploring the fastest means to end the economic sabotage in the Niger Delta and amicably resolve the conflicts within the region.
"I promise you all better days ahead even as we remain grateful for your unflinching support to our administration.
Dogara, in a statement issued by his spokesman Turaki Hassan, in Lagos on Wednesday, described the death of the elder statesman as a huge loss to the nation.
He said that Shinkafi was a true democrat who contributed immensely towards the restoration of democracy in Nigeria in 1999.
"In all his years in the public service, Shinkafi distinguished himself as a patriot, committed and dedicated Nigerian.
"He served the nation with distinction as a lawyer, police officer, federal commissioner of internal affairs and intelligence chief in the National Security Organisation before joining politics."
"Our hearts go to his immediate family, government and people of Zamfara state over the irreparable loss," he said.
Report said the corporation now prefers to sell petrol in bulk to oil marketers who have the financial capacity, instead of pumping to the depots from where independent dealers could get their petrol supply.
It was gathered that petrol scarcity may occur in some parts of the country due to the incessant attacks on oil installations by Niger Delta militants, which is impacting negatively on the sector.
According to an executive member of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, (IPMAN), Mr. Dibu Aderigbigbe, members of the association are not supplied the product due to the non-availability of petrol at the NNPC depots.
We are not being supplied products. There is no product in any NNPC depot for they are afraid of pumping petrol because of issues of vandalism. They dont want to waste the product, because they know they have gone commercial and are aware that they cant report any loss to the government, Aderigbigbe told Punch.
He dismissed claims that IPMAN members were unable to pay outstanding funds needed before fuel could be supplied by the NNPC.
He said: Some of our people have paid the difference, but there are no products in the depots. For instance, the Ibadan and Mosimi depots are empty, despite the fact that marketers have paid the difference for products in those depots.
The excuse they (NNPC) give is that they dont have products. But we know that they store their products in marine tanks and now sell to people who are ready to buy in bulk.
According to a major marketer, failure of the NNPC to supply petrol to independent dealers might lead to scarcity in some parts of the country.
Many independent marketers are being denied product by the NNPC and this is not healthy in that it may cause fuel scarcity in selected locations. We know that the corporation has stopped pumping to some depots and the reason for this is understandable, but their refusal to supply to other marketers is not in the interest of consumers, the marketer who did not want to be named said.
The patrol team of 157 Task Force Battalion, 7 Brigade, on Monday ambushed and killed a Boko Haram spy at Barwati village, Kukawa Local Government Area," army spokesman, Colonel Sani Usman said.
The terrorist was said to have been on a mission to infiltrate the troops position.
According to Usman, he was killed while trying to gain entry into military location.
"The team recovered 1 AK-47 rifle, 59 rounds of 7.62mm (Special) ammunition, one 40mm x 46mm BGL2 grenade, 1 bandolier and 3 AK-47 rifle magazines from him.
"Troops have intensified vigilance and high level of alertness as they continued with efforts of clearing the remnants of the Boko Haram terrorists in their Area of Responsibility, the statement said.
The militants were said to have blown up the oil facilities in separate attacks between 10pm and 11:20pm on Monday night, the same day Twitter shut down the group's account.
The development followed the Avengers' attacks on five oil installations in the region last weekend.
It was gathered that the recent attack on the two manifolds operated by the NPDC occurred at Batan community in the Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State.
Two other trunk lines, belonging to the NNPC in the area were also destroyed by the militants, report said.
The affected Chevron facility, an oil well, was located at the Makaraba village of Gbaramatu Kingdom.
This is contained in a statement issued by the Commands Public Relations Officer, Mr Kareem Olanrewaju, in Abeokuta on Tuesday.
The statement stated that the operatives were deployed to sensitive areas such as Mosques, events centres and motor parks to ensure a hitch-free celebration.
The other areas were markets, Eid grounds, locations of critical infrastructure, blackspots and other strategic places.
It stated that the NSCDC operatives would complement the efforts of other security agencies in the state.
It enjoined the public to be vigilant and report any suspicious movement in and around their neighbourhood to security agencies.
In Sokoto, Alhaji Salisu Fagge, the Commissioner of Police in Sokoto State, said plain cloth security personnel had been deployed on foot patrols to sensitive locations.
Fagge, who inspected the Eid grounds, recreations centres and, public parks told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Sokoto that the measures was part of proactive measures to protect the people.
He said that Area commanders and Divisional Police Officers had been directed to map out operational order to deal with any unforeseen circumstances before, during and after the celebrations.
The commissioner urged the public to assist those deployed with information on any suspected persons and activities.
He said the command had enjoyed mutual working relationship with the public, adding that this had aided full implementation of security strategies.
In Kaduna, the police have assured residents of adequate security ahead of Wednesday's Eid-el-Fitr celebrations in the state.
The Commissioner of Police, Mr Adamu Ibrahim, gave the assurance when he donated food items to widows of police personnel who had served in the command.
He said that the command would ensure the security of lives and property, stressing that uniformed and plain cloth personnel would be deployed to all parts of the state.
The political parties are the Progressives Peoples Alliance (PPA), People Democratic Change (PDC) and New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) respectively.
Speaking after the primaries, Sado anchored his programme on a-seven-point-agenda for the state.
He said that the programme would ensure a positively and totally transformed state.
"In line with the PPA manifesto, the programme cuts across health, education, agriculture, employment, industrialisation, infrastructure development, security and housing," he said.
On how prepared the party is for the polls, the state chairman of PPA, Mr Davide Esokpunwu, said that the party would win the election.
According to him, We are not merely in this governorship race but we are strongly in it to win, believing that come September 10, the PPA will be on its way to Dennis Osadebe Avenue.
"As vividly enunciated by our candidate in his acceptance speech, Edo will be better off for it, going by the laudable programme of our party, he added.
Also speaking, Akhalamhe, who emerged as the consensus candidate of the PDC, promised to revive the economy of the state through industrialisation with a focus on critical income generating infrastructure.
In his own reaction, Ukonga, who was the former state chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), emerged as the governorship candidate of the NNPP.
He promised enhanced relationship between the government and workers in the state.
DailyMail reports that over 50,000 Muslims were gathered around Lakemba Mosque, Sydney's biggest mosque, to celebrate the end of the 30-day fast.
The mosque was full by 6am, leaving others to place their prayer rugs on the streets around the place of worship.
The celebrations also affected the market, as the stalls were filled with the evening meal, also known as Iftar.
These stalls sold camel burgers, corn on the cob, tandoori chicken kebabs, paratha flatbread and the cheese dessert Knafeh.
"This is the Mecca you might say of Muslim activity at this time of year. The shops are open virtually all night, and the streets as you can see are just full of people who are shopping and enjoying themselves", Canterbury Mayor, Brian Robson, said, concerning the 30-day fast.
In an interview with the Argentine newspaper, La Nacion, the Pontiff said he would continue to pursue his vision for the church,
ALSO READ: Pope Francis urges Osun state residents to live in peace
Speaking to Joaquin Morales Sola, a journalist, Pope Francis said, "They do their work and I do mine," when asked, "What is your relationship with ultraconservatives in the church?"
"I want a church that is open, understanding, that accompanies families who are hurting. I continue my course without looking over my shoulder.
I don't cut off heads. I've never liked doing that. You remove nails by putting pressure on the top. Or you set them aside to rest when they reach retirement age," he added.
CENI, the DRC's electoral body, has already received 22,000 mobile biometric voter enrollment kits to aid an update of the country's national voter register.
DRC aims to setup 18,000 enrollment centers to acquire photographs, fingerprints and signature records of citizens, and issue personalized voter cards for the upcoming general elections.
Gemalto's Coesys Mobile Enrollment stations are going to be used for the exercise and they feature a ruggedized, suitcase-style design that be deployed just about anywhere.
The electoral officers that will use the kits will also be trained by Gemalto, and the company will also provide maintenance and support for the voter registration project.
Mohammed was responding to comments by Ms. Zhao Yueqin, vice-president of StarTimes Group of China, who led a delegation of the company on a courtesy visit to the Minister in his office in Abuja on Monday, Nigerian CommunicationsWeek reports.
The Minister said Nigeria is irrevocably committed to meeting the June 2017 Digital Switch Over deadline in order to protect broadcast signals from interference and also to unlock the creative potentials of Nigerians in technology and content development.
The process of digitalization is unstoppable and irreversible; its not a matter of choice. If we do not follow the world to digitalise and meet the June 2017 target, it means that our telephones, televisions and radios will not be free from interference. As a matter of fact, planet earth today does not know the extent of the dividends of digitalization and how far it will go.
Digitalization is going to affect the way we perceive and understand broadcasting. It will act as a catalyst to unleash the creative potentials of our youths. It will also provide the panacea to piracy. It will create so much possibility that will enable Africa leapfrog and join the next generation of technology, Mohammed added.
Insecurity has persisted since President Faustin-Archange Touadera was sworn in in March, after an election intended to draw a line under inter-communal and inter-religious violence that involved the mainly Muslim Seleka rebels and anti-balaka militia began in 2013.
The fighting on Monday started when a local businessman was murdered. It involved members of the Union for Peace in Central Africa, which is part of the Seleka, according to the mayor of Bambari Abel Matchipata, who said between 15 and 20 people were killed.
Soldiers from Mauritania and Burundi who form part of the U.N. peacekeeping mission, MINUSCA, restored calm, Matchipata said.
"We have received 14 wounded, of whom six are serious, and they were evacuated to Bangui this morning. According to our information, there were that many wounded on the field of combat," the director of the hospital in Bambari told Reuters.
An official for the national Red Cross society, who declined to be named, said 20 people had died.
The U.N. mission declared Bambari a non-armed zone in 2014. But this has not stopped sporadic clashes in the town, northeast of the capital.
Two people also died when a young man who had been arguing with friends in the mainly Muslim PK-5 neighbourhood of Bangui threw a grenade, Ibrahim Hassan Frede, spokesman of an association that coordinates Muslims in the area, told Reuters.
It was the worst single car bomb attack in Iraq since U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein 13 years ago and deepened the anger of many Iraqis over the weak performance of the security apparatus.
Islamic State militants, who government forces are trying to eject from large swathes of northern and western territory seized in 2014, claimed responsibility for the bombing.
The attack showed Islamic State (IS) remains capable of ad-hoc attacks causing major loss of life despite losing considerable ground on the battlefield, most recently the city of Falluja, an hour's drive west of the capital.
The interior minister said that the explosive-packed vehicle came from the eastern province of Diyala, blaming a lack of communicating between multiple forces in charge of the capital's security.
Ghabban told Reuters in an interview last month that a recent spate of IS bombings in Baghdad would not end unless "disorder" plaguing Iraq's security apparatus was rectified.
There are only two practising psychiatrists for South Sudan's 11 million people, Amnesty International said in a report ahead of the country's fifth anniversary of independence on July 9.
"My mind is not good," the report quoted one man, Phillip, as saying as he described being forced to eat the flesh of dead men rounded up and shot in a security forces building in the capital, Juba, when conflict broke out in December 2013.
More than 10,000 people have been killed and two million displaced since fighting erupted between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar.
Clashes have continued even though warring factions signed a peace deal in August, with 200,000 people still sheltering in United Nations military bases across the country.
There are no official statistics on mental health in the country. But the director of the department of mental health told Amnesty that the number of patients with mental health problems has risen since 2013.
Most of the 82 inmates categorised as mentally ill in Juba Central Prison in May did not have a criminal file, the report said.
The majority of displaced people surveyed in a U.N. base in the northern town of Malakal exhibited symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a 2015 study found.
PTSD is a severely debilitating condition in which patients re-experience horrific traumas from the past in forms of intrusive memories, flashbacks and nightmares.
"I HATE MYSELF"
Lual, another man quoted in the report, said he felt suicidal after security officers forced him to disembowel corpses in detention in Juba in 2014.
"Whenever they would kill people, we would be taken to dissect the stomachs of those who were killed, so they could be thrown into the river and wouldn't float," he was quoted as saying.
"I dream that I am still in jail. I am haunted by the cutting of the stomachs ... I hate myself."
Of the 161 displaced people interviewed by Amnesty, several knew of others who had attempted or committed suicide.
One mother in a displaced camp, Nyayang, whose soldier husband had disappeared, used to beat her children and tried to kill herself three times by drinking poison, the report said.
She eventually disappeared, leaving her children behind.
Poor mental health can contribute to violent behaviour in the home, community and nationally, experts say.
Many interviewees said they could not eat or sleep and felt angry, anxious or irritable. They also struggled to concentrate or remember things, making it difficult to carry out every day tasks like cooking.
"Doing more to address mental health needs is not only essential for individuals' wellbeing, it is also critical for South Sudanese to effectively rebuild their communities and country," Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International's regional director, said in a statement.
Healthcare services in South Sudan have been predominantly funded by charities since independence in 2011.
Humanitarians have received just over one quarter of the $1.29 billion requested for 2016, the United Nations says.
Hunger is at its highest level since the conflict began, with up to 4.8 million people facing severe food shortages in coming months, the U.N. says.
BEATTY The weather for the last weekend of October may or may not be chillier than normal, but it is certain to be chili weather for Beatty Days this weekend. The annual event runs Oct. 28-30 at Cottonwood Park.
Bettendorf City aldermen approved spending $105,000 in emergency funds to fix a serious problem with a large section of sanitary sewer.
City engineer Brent Morlok reported at Tuesday's City Council meeting on the results of an inspection of the sewer main in the 1300 block of Spruce Hills Drive.
A large section of the main was either completely blocked or collapsed, Morlok told aldermen. The funds will be used to replace 300 feet of 8-inch sewer main located 10 feet below street level, reconnect the sanitary sewer and repair driveway and sidewalks, Morlok said.
City Administrator Decker Ploehn assured aldermen adequate funds are available in the citys sewer fund to cover the expense.
In other business, aldermen approved on third and final reading an ordinance allowing non-Iowa residents to be employed by the city. City Attorney Kristine Stone recommended the change to increase the applicant pool by extending civil service employment eligibility to residents of Rock Island County.
Teresa LaBella
Plans to improve a Davenport neighborhood by renovating sidewalks and crosswalks, making alley repairs and adding security cameras are in the works, aldermen learned during a Tuesday City Council briefing.
Clay Merritt of the city's Public Works Department presented findings that could lead to multiple improvements to the Washington Street area. It's a pilot project of an Urban Revitalization grant, and it would begin after it receives full council approval.
In the meantime, six aldermen were amenable to the project. During a briefing session Tuesday afternoon, council members Maria Dickmann, Bill Boom, Rita Rawson, Kerri Tompkins, Ray Ambrose and Jason Gordon, as well as city staff, heard the presentation. Another briefing was held later Tuesday for other council members.
As Merritt explained, the improvements are tied to areas in the city that have a relatively high number of police and nuisance calls. About 20 areas got an initial look, and the list was pared down to eight specific areas, such as Farnum and 14th streets as well as Division and 53rd streets.
Some of the areas have a relatively high number of rental properties or vacant lots. Still, Merritt said more than 50 percent include owner-occupied homes.
A relatively inexpensive neighborhood improvement is to replace all existing street lights with LED, or light-emitting diode, lights, city staff said. That improvement would be done in all eight of the identified areas.
"This would be a low-cost move with a great benefit," Merritt said.
The city also has consulted with the police department on places where security cameras could be placed, and that will be done at selected intersections. Ambrose, 4th Ward alderman, said the cameras installed at 14th and Gaines streets have made an "incredible change" in that area of town.
Gordon, at-large alderman, said the pilot project could fund the following changes: street lights, handicapped-accessible ramps, sidewalks, crosswalks and alley repairs as well as the security cameras.
Rawson, 5th Ward, endorsed the program, noting such improvements are important to central-city residents. People move away when they become afraid in their neighborhoods, she said.
In another road-related topic, aldermen heard from Brock Earnhardt and Tim Wilkinson of the Greater Davenport Redevelopment Corp., which manages the Eastern Iowa Industrial Center on the northwest side of the city. Twelve property owners are involved in the center located off Northwest Boulevard in an area that includes Hillandale Road and West 83rd Street, and concerns are being raised about growing traffic congestion in the area.
Issues begin with the busy Love's Travel Stop at 8255 Northwest Blvd., which caters to drivers off Interstate 80 and Northwest Boulevard.
Also, Earnhardt said, 250 tractor-trailers move in and out of the industrial center every day, and 150 more of the big rigs are expected to be running every week in the near future. That's because of the new Kraft Heinz food plant and pending developments involving Burlington Trailways and Craftsmen Trailers LLC.
Gordon, who represents the city on the corporation's board, said there are 460 employees currently in the area and that number is expected to nearly double.
Right now, there is too much congestion at the intersection of Northwest Boulevard and Hillandale Road, Earnhardt said.
"There are lengthy backups and delays virtually every day," he said.
The city could remove the existing median, Wilkinson said, cut down the trees that have been planted in the area to create a third lane and more space for the big rigs.
But the Love's facility bears some responsibility for the situation, Boom said. Love's should consider making adjustments at its entrances and exits.
Aldermen made no promises to the representatives, but Corri Spiegel, Davenport's interim city administrator, said officials at public works would consider the problem and come up with recommendations.
And, she said, if the trees end up being removed, more trees could be planted in the green space along the roadway.
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner praised the recently passed emergency "stopgap" budget relief Tuesday on a visit to Moline while claiming to have broken up House Speaker Mike Madigan's "one party rule, one person control."
Rauner made stops in the downtown area, including at Cafe Fresh at 1514 5th Ave. and Johnny's Italian Steakhouse at 1300 River Drive, where he spoke one-on-one with the Quad-City Times.
The Republican governor said that with the stopgap relief he blocked Democrat Madigan's majority from having taxpayers in the Quad-Cities and downstate bail out the mismanaged Chicago Public Schools while ensuring schools all over the state can open on time and for a full year.
"If they passed their $7 billion out-of-balance budget, it would have cost taxpayers $1,000 a year in taxes," Rauner said.
Senate Bill 2047, which Rauner signed last week, is not a full-year budget but a "step in the right direction," including $7.2 billion in general funds for elementary and secondary education, the governor said.
Ben McAdams, a member of the Moline-Coal Valley School school board, said he could not remember another time a decision to fund schools has come at the final hour.
A day before the fiscal year ends, they pass a partial budget, McAdams said. We elect these people and expect them to run this state, but it is always a battle.
He added, I think all of them, in both the Senate and the House, should be voted out. If they cant do it, get new people in there.
Tim Miller, who also sits on the Moline-Coal Valley School Board, said he is not surprised lawmakers delayed making a deal till last week.
With the shape Illinois is in, I dont think anyone is shocked, Miller said.
Janet Neff, a member of the East Moline School Board, said she remains cautious about the funding.
Im glad to see they are talking to each other, but Im just going to have to wait to see how it pans out, Neff said. Im hoping for the best. Its all about the kids.
Hillary Clinton's email fiasco is a case-study in officialdom's active flouting of Freedom of Information laws. It's a sweeping problem that requires government to actively join the fight for compliance and citizens' right to know.
Clinton's use of a private email server, used to transmit numerous Top Secret documents during her tenure as secretary of state, didn't rise to felony status, FBI Director James Comey said Tuesday. Comey's comments, however, pose serious problems for the Democrat's presidential bid. Her use of a private, non-governmental email was "extremely careless," Comey said.
But Clinton's email debacle extends far beyond one official obviously consumed with ducking FOIA and the basic requirements of transparency.
President Barack Obama's administration has, for years, been mired in a standoff with the media over its unmitigated devotion to secrecy. In fact, just last week, the administration finally copped to its widespread drone program, the spear's edge of its anti-terrorism campaign that has for years been detailed in the media.
Ironically, the acknowledgement that U.S. drones had killed numerous civilians came the same week that Obama signed the FOIA Improvement Act. The law is an incremental improvement that codified the actual intent of FOIA, the "presumption of disclosure." It's essentially an admission that, on its 50th birthday, FOIA has long been a headache that federal agencies would rather stifle.
The disclosure mandate might be an exercise in stating the obvious. But history has shown that Iowa, and all states, should follow suit, if for no other reason than to remind agencies that FOIA is intended to promote access, not create a legal framework for denial of access. In fact, Iowa should do one better: Increasingly, states are realizing that the creation of pro-transparency "ombudsmen," or legal advocates, that could weigh in prior to litigation or administrative hearings. Such a move would bolster the Legislature's 2012 creation of the Iowa Public Information Board, tasked with shaming offending boards and agencies into compliance through largely advisory opinions.
Iowa's FOIA compliance ranked 24th among the states in 2013, concluded researchers with Chicago-based Better Government Association. The "F" grade hinged on general awful response times from state agencies and a weak appeal system for those denied access. The Legislature in 2013 and 2014 amended Iowa FOIA laws. But they won't be much more than toothless paper tigers until governments, not the citizenry, assume the burden of court appeal. Fighting city hall, to quote the old saying, is expensive and often beyond most citizens. The state, either through the Office of the Attorney General or Secretary of State, should fund a pro-access watchdog responsible for rendering opinions on state and local matters of transparency. Earlier this year, Iowa Supreme Court hammered Warren County supervisors for an attempted end-run on FOIA's twin, the Open Meetings Law.
It's been largely left to the media to fight the University of Iowa when it refuses to release data it paid a political agent to collect. It's been up to nonprofits to fight police agencies looking to declare body camera videos "investigatory" and therefore exempt from FOIA. Government is merely an adversarial litigant. A pro-openness advocate within government is an important message to all agencies uninterested in accountability.
Trust in government, at all levels, is at historic lows, polls say. Increasingly, Americans believe the elected class is only looking out for itself and its monied backers.
Clinton's emails. Obama's drones. State officials using chat apps to discuss public business. Local elected officials holding court through private email chains. Clerks charging people insane rates for easily accessible record.
FOIA-dodging has become an art for too many elected and appointed government officials.
And that fact won't change until government itself starts fighting for the citizens' right to know.
The company one keeps, or is supported and praised, can tell a lot about a presidential candidates personality and future presidency.
With this in mind, it is terrifying to learn that two of the worlds wiliest dictators, Russias Vladimir Putin and North Koreas Kim Jong-un, are eager to see Donald Trump win this falls presidential election.
Trumps bromance with the Kremlins chief first flourished late in 2015, when he praised Putins leadership sparking Putin to call Trump a very lively man, talented without doubt. Kim Jong-un also praised Trump.
Some attribute these odd, self-serving and egotistical salutes to the like-mindedness of authoritarian personalities. Trump certainly fits an obnoxious and un-presidential personality like Putin and Jong-un.
Recently, Klu Klux Klan leaders praised Trump's immigration position and his ascendency in the GOP as signs things are going their way. What an alarming and ghastly statement.
Being praised and favorably cited by Putin, Jong-un and the KKK are worrisome votes of confidence or praise for any U. S. presidential candidate.
Americans should wise up and take notice of these dreadful world leaderss praise and admiration of yet another dictator-like and out-of-touch with reality personality, Donald Trump, who should disqualify Trump from entering the White House.
Michael Thomas Masters
Bettendorf
SPRINGFIELD Continued uncertainty over state funding for tuition-assistance grants could jeopardize the future academic success of thousands low-income college students, the Illinois Student Assistance Commission warned this week.
A short-term budget deal that Gov. Bruce Rauner signed into law last week provided $151 million to cover grants made to students this spring through the Monetary Award Program. That followed an earlier emergency funding measure that covered MAP grants for the fall semester.
But the agreement, which is designed to keep state government functioning through December, doesn't provide any funding for the grants for the upcoming school year.
As a result, state universities, private schools and community colleges must decide whether to front the money to students, which many did for at least part of last year. In turn, students who depend on the grants have been left to decide whether to enroll or return to campus in the fall.
With future funding still up in the air, more than 18,000 students could delay or not complete their degrees, according to a survey from the Student Assistance Commission, which oversees the program. Citing research from the organization Complete College American, the commission says students who take longer to work toward their degrees are less likely to finish.
The commission cautions that the survey of more than 10,000 MAP grant recipients was conducted before the recent deal was approved and notes that some students might have responded differently in light of the grants being fully funded for the 2015-16 school year.
But the commission also points out that no decision likely will be made on future funding until long after students have to make their enrollment decisions.
"Any appropriation would not come until sometime after the General Assembly reconvenes, which isn't scheduled to occur until mid-November leaving students and schools with ongoing uncertainty about when and how much funding will be available," the commission said in a written statement.
In the survey, 96 percent of respondents said receiving a MAP grant played an important part in making college attendance possible.
Universities are taking differing approaches to the issue.
As it did last year, Illinois State University plans to cover MAP grants for its students for the full year, university chief of staff Jay Groves said, "unless something drastic happens."
Despite the recent funding turmoil, Illinois State expects "another robust class this year," Groves said.
Southern Illinois and Western Illinois universities, meanwhile, have announced that they will cover the grants for the fall semester but are taking a wait-and-see approach to the spring semester. Eastern Illinois University did not respond to a request for comment.
Private colleges and universities also are facing the decision.
Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, for example, says it has a plan in place in the event that MAP grant money doesn't come through this school year.
"To reduce the pressure on our students, last year Illinois Wesleyan credited the unfunded MAP Grant to our students' accounts for tuition, room and board, and stood ready with a mix of grants and loans to bridge any shortfall, should the state not have met its obligations to students and their families," spokeswoman Ann Aubry wrote in an email. "It is our intention to continue to support our students this year, should the need arise."
MAP grants were awarded to 101,000 students statewide last year. The average award for the 2014-15 school, the last period for which numbers are available, was $2,782. The average was $3,550 for students at public universities and $944 for community college students.
Tuesday was the final day to purchase fireworks in South Dakota, but residents in areas where fireworks are permitted can discharge them until Sunday. That's potential for a big fire risk, Pennington County Fire Administrator Denny Gorton said Tuesday.
There were several small grass fires started by fireworks throughout the county over the weekend, Gorton told county commissioners, while discussing recent fires, fire conditions and the activities of various agencies throughout the county.
The Rapid City Fire Department alone responded to five grass fires between 7 a.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. Tuesday. The department responded to two more grass fire calls Tuesday. Spokesman Jim Bussell said most were blamed on fireworks.
The Rapid City Police Department answered 1,731 calls for service between Friday and Tuesday. Of those, 235 involved fireworks, with 114 on July 4 alone. Three people on Madison Street were arrested on Sunday and Monday for discharging illegal fireworks and, coincidentally, earlier arrest warrants for other crimes.
Gorton said he receives calls from the public about restricting fireworks, but the county commission makes the decision on bans or restrictions, and their power to do so is limited by state law.
State law requires that the fire danger officially hit the "extreme" category between June 20 and July 2 before county commissions can decide to regulate or ban the use of fireworks.
The South Dakota grassland fire danger index ratings from the National Weather Service are none, low, moderate, high, very high and extreme. The current rating is "very high."
If the commissioners did regulate or ban fireworks, and the danger falls below very high, the ban would cease and then become effective if the grassland fire danger index reaches the extreme category.
Commissioners Deb Hadcock and Nancy Trautman expressed frustration at the limits the law places on the county's ability to regulate fireworks.
"I've had many calls from Rapid Valley," Hadcock said.
"We have gone to Pierre a number of times, we just haven't been able to break through and get some changes made," she said.
Gorton asked the commissioners to keep in mind that it might be time to start "looking at building up the restriction."
He said its just a conversation at this point and that officials will look at having a meeting with businesses and others involved in the near future.
A weekly conference call of fire agencies regarding fire restrictions began last week and will continue every Tuesday for the "foreseeable future," according to county documents.
Several counties' fire officials, the South Dakota Emergency Management, the state Fire Marshal's office and others concluded last week that there isn't a need to increase restrictions on recreational fires, like campfires and grilling, at this time.
The Rapid City Council Tuesday night approved Mayor Steve Allender's request to make half the Vision Funds for 2017 available for community projects.
He will now select nine citizens to serve on a committee that will choose projects for the special sales-tax funds totaling about $6.5 million next year.
Allender said he was not planning to include city projects in the next funding round, but Aldermen Jerry Wright and Brad Estes said their votes to reopen the selection process depended on including city projects.
The motion passed unanimously.
The city council split the Mayor's request into two motions. The first was to vote to reopen the process for half of next years Vision Funds and the second to amend the ordinance to change the time period for projects.
Previous council action created a five-year plan, but many on the council argued that is too long and projects should be considered individually.
Estes and Alderman Chad Lewis previously said some selected projects actually did not get finished or even started because of changes to the plan.
The council unanimously supported modifying Vision Fund rules to inject flexibility on planning and funding deadlines.
"Its important for the citizens to know whether their project is going to be done," Alderwoman Amanda Scott said.
The council also unanimously supported reimbursing landfill fees paid by a Hermosa man who helped with last months tornado cleanup efforts.
Todd Stainbrook, owner of TASAK Construction, told other Hermosa residents to charge their landfill unloading costs to his account to speed up the process. His total bill was just over $2,062, but after some residents received payment from insurance companies, the bill was reduced to just over $1,700.
Alderman John Roberts expressed his sympathies for delaying a decision, but said he was not sorry for saving taxpayers money.
In other action, council members voted to block construction of a large garage in the Corral Drive neighborhood after several residents complained the more than 1,000-square-foot stand-alone structure planned for Corral Place was not appropriate. Opponents argued the garage would be as big as another house and did not meet permitting requirements.
Two new Rapid City Council members and three returning aldermen took office Tuesday.
Lisa Modrick and Jason Salamun joined Steve Laurenti, Amanda Scott and Darla Drew in taking the oaths of office. There were elected or unopposed last month. All five will serve three-year terms.
The council re-elected Brad Estes as board president and elected Scott as vice president.
Outgoing council members Ron Weifenbach and council vice president Chad Lewis were honored for their service to the city.
Conditions remain dry in Central Meade County as of Sunday, July 3.
Most ranchers are finished haying as there was not a plentiful crop so far this year. Conditions are dry for this time of year, however as we look to the south from Union Center it appears that New Underwood, Elm Springs and southern parts of the county receive moisture quite often.
Sandy and Larry Rhoden, along with other legislators in the area, stocked up on candy to throw out at the Belle Fourche parade on Monday.
The Stoneville School Reunion will be here before we know it. For questions one may call Donna Cammack.
Seth Rhoden spoke during church services about his mission trip to Honduras.
Tom Howie sang a special and spoke briefly during services. There was a Howie reunion that took place last weekend.
Hopefully, everyone enjoyed the July 4 celebration with friends and family.
Most of all, I hope we remembered that we celebrate the freedoms we enjoy which so much sacrifice took place for us to have them. May we continue to celebrate the freedoms we still hold and fight to keep them from those who may want to snatch them from us.
SPEARFISH | A $28 million project to fix Interstate 90 interchange at Exit 14 in Spearfish is moving along as planned, with hopes of re-opening a section of the busy road in time for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in August.
The projects overall completion is targeted for June 1, 2018. Heavy Constructors, Inc., of Rapid City is the main contractor.
The goal is to replace the existing design with a single-point interchange to improve traffic flow, improve access, and increase safety. A single-point interchange, made up of parallel main routes joined with ramped entrances and exits, is controlled by a single traffic signal. Engineers say this type of design takes up less space and is more efficient than a standard diamond-shape interchange.
Project supervisors recently decided to improve traffic flow and reduce costs by working on one route at a time, said Adam McMahon, project engineer with South Dakota Department of Transportation.
The contractor will focus on completing Highway 14A/Colorado Boulevard this year, which means work on 27th Street north of the westbound I-90 on- and off-ramps will be delayed until next year, McMahon said.
Instead of having both routes under construction for two years, planners believe this change will help adjacent business owners, residents, and travelers by reducing the duration of the delays and traffic congestion on Colorado Boulevard and 27th St, McMahon said.
This change also will save the state about $260,000 by eliminating a temporary diversion for the eastbound on-ramp.
Project highlights include:
replacing the existing bridge with a single point interchange over I-90, including new on and off ramps (similar to the Exit 61-Elk Vale Road interchange in Rapid City),
lowering the interstate to increase clearance space below the bridge,
realigning 27th Street to the east so it lines up with the south end,
realigning Highway 14A/Colorado Boulevard to the north,
installing raised medians to control access,
installing new traffic signals at 27th Street and Highway 14A/Colorado Blvd,
and installing new traffic signals at 27th Street and 1st Avenue.
Pedestrian access will be improved with the installation of sidewalks on the west side of the bridge and along the west side of 27th Street to the north. This also will connect to the bike path.
Weekly public project update meetings are held at 2 p.m. Thursdays in the Hudson Hall (Room C), 222 W Hudson St., in Spearfish.
A fight after midnight on the Fourth of July resulted in one man suffering stab wounds at a Sturgis Road motel.
Rapid City police arrested Albert Richard Waters Jr. at the Family Inn on suspicion of aggravated assault. He was being held in the Pennington County Jail.
The alleged victim, who was not identified, was taken to Rapid City Regional Hospital for non-life threatening injuries.
Some South Dakota police departments are collecting urine samples from uncooperative suspects through the use of force and catheters. The states top prosecutor says the procedure is legal, but others criticize it as unnecessarily invasive and a potential constitutional violation.
The Rapid City Police Department says it does not use forced urine collections, while the Pennington County Sheriff's Office says it does not have records of recent forced sampling but will follow the legal process if the method becomes necessary.
The practice isn't new, according to attorneys. It's been brought to light in a recent case in Pierre. An attorney for a man charged with felony drug ingestion is asking a judge to throw out evidence from an involuntary urine sample, saying it violated his client's constitutional rights.
Dirk Landon Sparks was arrested March 14 after a report of a domestic disturbance. While in custody, officers with the Pierre Police Department observed Sparks fidgeting and his mood changing rapidly. A judge signed a search warrant for police to obtain blood or urine.
After Sparks refused to cooperate, police transported him to Avera St. Mary's Hospital in Pierre, where he was strapped to a bed while a catheter was forced into his penis so that officers could obtain a urine sample.
Sparks' urine tested positive for THC and methamphetamine. He was charged with obstruction, two counts of felony drug ingestion, and possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
Sparks' attorney, Jeremy Lund, declined to comment on the case. In a motion filed May 16 in Hughes County he argued that the way police obtained the urine sample was not authorized by the judge and violated his client's Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Sticking a needle in your arm is very intrusive I cant imagine anything more intrusive than this, said Ryan Kolbeck, a Sioux Falls lawyer and president of the South Dakota Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
It's unclear how widespread the practice of forced catheterization is in South Dakota.
Rapid City police said the practice is not employed by its officers. The department declined to comment further, saying it would not offer remarks about methods used by other agencies, according to spokesman Brendyn Medina.
The Pennington County Sheriffs Office, through spokeswoman Patty Garland, said Tuesday that its deputies do not remember using forced catheterization and would need time to go through records.
The sheriffs office would exhaust all measures before considering this, but with a search warrant it would be legal under state law, Garland said. The circumstances could dictate such an instance, but it is not left to the discretion of a deputy.
Attorney General Marty Jackley said state law permits the practice if there is a signed court order. He cited several cases that supported the legality of the practice.
The attorney general said law enforcement would prefer not to collect urine samples by force, but that ultimately is up to suspects if they don't want to cooperate.
I dont think anyone wants to go through that methodology, Jackley said.
Police always take the person to a hospital if they are going to take a forced urine sample, said Tim Whalen, a Lake Andes attorney who has represented a couple of clients who have had urine samples taken without permission. Health care workers at the Wagner and Platte hospitals conduct the procedure on a regular basis, he said.
They dont anesthetize them, Whalen said. Theres a lot of screaming and hollering.
Avera healthcare spokesman Jay Gravholt said its employees do not force care or treatments on patients but they do comply with court orders.
Kolbeck said he doesnt know what state law would allow authorities to use forced catheterization. It's an extreme measure that shouldnt be used in routine cases such as drunken driving or drug ingestion, he said. Most disturbing, he said, is the fact that it could be happening to women.
They want someones urine that bad? Kolbeck said.
The Pierre Police Department declined to comment and deferred all questions to the Hughes County States Attorney office. Hughes County States Attorney Wendy Kloeppner declined to comment on the case or the practice of forced catheterization.
Pam Hein, a defense attorney in Lake Andes, said the practice of forcing catheters into suspects' urethras "has been going on for years."
Hein has seen the issue from both perspectives. She has served as state's attorney for Charles Mix and Bennett counties.
Often an officer will have suspicion of drug use, request the warrant for testing and get the test before any reports on a drug violation charge lands on a prosecutors desk.
Do I think that its being abused? Yeah, I do, Hein said.
Usually it doesn't come to force, though, she said. The threat alone is enough. Officers can hold defendants in a room, sometimes for hours, Hein said, and then tell them they can offer the urine test voluntarily or face a warrant that would allow the officer to take it by force.
Most of the time, when they threaten them with catheterization, they say, Thats OK, you can have it, Hein said.
Hein says shes argued to suppress results based on coercion but hasnt had a lot of success.
Courtney Bowie, legal director for ACLU South Dakota, said the practice raises serious legal concerns.
It would be completely improper for people to place a catheter on an individual of the opposite gender, Bowie said. That would border on an unlawful assault, battery or rape.
After reading Bob Mercer's "South Dakota Doesn't Have To Be The Land of Scandals" column in the Sunday Rapid City Journal, I became more convinced than ever that we should pass Constitutional Amendment V on November's ballot.
The initiated measure would do away with party identification of candidates in our state's primary and general elections.
In recapping the lack of "high level accountability ... enriching private hands" in South Dakota in recent years, Mercer asserts that "we don't have to be Scandal Land." Indeed we don't.
Readers of my blog will recall that I, along with other prominent bloggers (Cory Heidelberger in Aberdeen comes to mind) in the state, took long looks at the EB-5 ("cash for green cards") fiasco that has so far resulted in one suicide and one felony indictment and found the entire mess to be a story of ineptitude, bad judgement, conflicts of interest and, per the indictment, alleged criminal behavior. As Mercer notes, the same conclusions can be attached to the GEAR UP program involving the mishandling of federal funds intended to be used for assisting Native American students.
I just think we have had a Republican chokehold on state government for too long in South Dakota, so much so that the entire calcified system lends itself to partisan complacency and chumminess.
I remember the state Legislature's Government Operations and Audit Committee's lame attempt at investigating the EB-5 fiasco in 2014. GOAC didn't even insist on a face-to-face meeting with the lead guy in the mess (Joop Bollen), allowing him to provide written answers to written questions instead.
That the attorney general soon found enough evidence to indict Bollen makes you wonder what the not-so-super sleuths at GOAC overlooked during their kids-glove handling of their oversight responsibilities.
The whole debacle occurred in the context of overwhelmingly partisan government, with Republicans dominating the statehouse, the Legislature and the committee itself. When GOAC's EB-5 report came out, the few objecting Democrats were basically ignored. They have since been vindicated by the continuing unraveling and disclosures of the fiasco's details.
I believe that a stronger Democratic presence in the partisan environs of state government would have resulted in much more forceful efforts at uncovering the truth, but that's the way it isn't in South Dakota.
Ergo, my belief that a non-partisan setup like Nebraska's, which has had non-partisan government since the 1930s would be a welcome change from the stultifying domination of Republicans in this state.
What Amendment V would create is an opportunity to vote for the person, not the party, in our primary and general elections, which means that elected officials would be free to act independently, without fear of party retaliation and with the ability to approach agenda items on an issue-by-issue basis.
Given the way that "rage against the establishment" has made such a powerful showing in this cycle's presidential campaigns, many South Dakotans are probably as fed up with political business-as-usual as millions of others across the country. Voting in favor of Amendment V would be an effective way of registering our contempt for the status quo and sending the message that it's time to shake things up.
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving two North Dakota men and a Minnesotan makes sense. The court decided recently that refusing a blood test during a drunken-driving arrest cannot be a crime, but refusing a breath test can. The decision struck down a North Dakota law criminalizing refusal of a blood test.
In their decision, justices said blood tests are more invasive than breath tests. A blood test involves extracting part of a person's body, and the sample contains other biological information. The information from the sample could be used for other purposes unrelated to the drunken-driving case. The court, however, held that a breath test is part of a normal search of a person during an arrest.
The ruling affects North Dakota and 12 other states with laws criminalizing refusal of a blood test. Law enforcement can still impose civil penalties, such as license suspensions, for refusing a blood test. The rulings actual impact on law enforcement appears minimal, especially since steps were taken in advance to deal with the possible decision.
"We knew this was coming," state court administrator Sally Holewa said. "We weren't sure the extent."
The state is developing a plan where each judicial district will have an on-call judge. If theres a need for a search warrant to get a blood test, the judge can use email and e-signatures to sign warrants electronically. The North Dakota Supreme Court will receive the plan soon for review.
Bismarck Police Chief Dan Donlin noted that his department already avoids using blood tests. They have been used as a last resort and thats a wise policy.
Blood tests are invasive a part of your body is being removed. Some people are reluctant to have blood tests and other procedures done for any reason. We might not agree with them, but they are entitled to their beliefs.
The ruling clarifies the issue and its unlikely well see many requests for blood tests. Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem pointed out that breath tests will likely become the standard in the state.
Thats disappointing to Tom Murtha IV, a Dickinson attorney representing one of the plaintiffs in the case. Murtha believes breath tests are more intrusive than the court stated in the ruling. So, as often is the case, no one got everything they wanted in the decision. The public did have their rights clarified and thats a big victory.
Currently the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Corker would bring serious foreign policy chops to a Trump ticket.
Corker was one of the highest-profile Republicans to praise a major foreign policy speech Trump delivered this spring. But he has also not shied away from criticizing the billionaire businessman, including over Trump's attacks against an Hispanic judge.
The pair met at Trump Tower in New York in May to get better acquainted, sparking VP speculation, though Corker has so far remained mum about whether he is being vetted for the job.
ECHR refuses to review case brought against Russia by opposition leader Navalny
MOSCOW, July 5 (RAPSI, Vladimir Yaduta) The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday dismissed a request which had been filed by Russia seeking to review a ruling in favor of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his former colleague Pyotr Ofitserov.
Navalny and Ofitserov applied to ECHR after being convicted in timber company Kirovles embezzlement case. In July 2013, by a ruling of the Leninsky Court in the town of Kirov both opposition activists were sentenced to five years in prison and fined 500,000 rubles ($7,700) each. Later the jail time for Navalny and Ofitserov was replaced with suspended sentences.
In their complaints the applicants relied on Article 6 (right to a fair trial), Article 7 (no punishment without law), and Article 18 (limitation on use of restrictions on rights) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In particular, Navalny and Ofitserov alleged that the the authorities extended the interpretation of the offence to such broad and ambiguous terms that it did not satisfy the requirements of foreseeability. Besides, they claimed that their prosecution and criminal conviction had been for reasons other than bringing them to justice, and in particular in order to prevent the first applicant from pursuing his public and political activities.
ECHR published its decisions on the two complaints this February. The Court held that Navalnys and Ofitserovs right to fair trial was violated and so the applicants were to be compensated legal costs in the respective amounts of 48,000 euros and 22,000 euros, as well as paid just compensation for damages in the amount of 8,000 euros to each applicant.
This May, Navalnys lawyer Vadim Kobzev informed RAPSI that the Russian Federation sought to bring this case before the ECHR Grand Chamber, i.e. insisted on its reexamination.
Pistorius gets 6 years in prison for murder of his girlfriend report
MOSCOW, July 6 (RAPSI) - South African Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius has been sentenced to 6 years in prison for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, CNN reported Wednesday.
The tragedy at Pistorius home took place on February 14, 2013. The athlete killed his girlfriend after he mistook her for an intruder. He fired several shots at a locked bathroom door. The young woman sustained lethal injuries in the head, arms and chest.
In September 2014, a South African court found Pistorius guilty of culpable homicide and sentenced him to five years in prison. A judge ruled that the sprinter had acted negligently but unintentionally when he shot Steenkamp, CNN reported.
In October 2015, Pistorius was put under house arrest. In December, the Supreme Court of Appeals reversed the verdict on prosecutors appeal. The case was remanded for a new trial.
Pistorius a double amputee has won six Paralympic gold metals, and competed in the 2012 London Olympics. He has come to be popularly known as the blade runner due to the distinctive shape of his prosthetic legs.
Russian governor Belykh charged with bribery denied $436,000 bail
MOSCOW, July 6 (RAPSI) The Moscow City Court on Wednesday denied a 28-million ruble (about $436,000) bail to Kirov region governor Nikita Belykh who stands charged with taking bribes, RAPSI reports from the courtroom.
Defense lawyers asked the court to release Belykh but their motion was dismissed. The accused will stay in detention until August 24.
Earlier, defense for Belykh claimed that the case was opened by a senior investigator illegally. According to the lawyers, the case had to be launched by the head of the Investigative Committees Directorate in the Kirov region.
Belykh has been officially charged with taking EUR 400,000 in bribes. Investigators in cooperation with the Federal Security Services (FSB) officers arrested him on June 24 in a Moscow restaurant while he was allegedly accepting EUR 150,000, the third part of the bribe, according to Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin. Moscows Basmanny District Court ordered detention of Belykh.
Investigators believe that Belykh took the money, personally and through an intermediary, in exchange for protection of investment business in the region.
Belykh pleaded not guilty.
Russian court to hear claims to ban online instructions on drug manufacturing
ST. PETERSBURG, July 6 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov) The Sestroretsky District Court in St. Petersburg has set for hearing the lawsuits filed by prosecutors seeking ban on distribution of information about drug manufacturing online, RAPSI learnt in the St. Petersburg Prosecutors Office on Wednesday.
According to court materials, prosecutors have revealed several websites containing video instructions on production of drugs during the inspection.
These are literally step-by-step instructions on ways of home manufacturing of psychotropic medications and directions for the use of drugs. Eight websites have been found, the prosecutors statement reads.
As a result, prosecutors lodged eight lawsuits asking the court to prohibit information distributed on the revealed websites in Russia.
U.S. court passes first sentence in alleged Russian spy Fishenko case
MOSCOW, July 6 (RAPSI) Sevinj Taghiyeva was sentenced last week in a criminal case over illegal export of microelectronic components for use by Russia's military, she left the United States, Sarita Kedia, Taghiyevas lawyer, told RAPSI on Wednesday.
Taghiyeva was sentenced to time served. She voluntary self-deported from the United States last week, according to Kedia.
In October 2012, FBI made public the fact that eight people had been arrested on charges of unlawfully exporting high technologies to Russia for needs of the Russian military and special services. Four employees of Arc Electronics, a private Houston-based company, were arrested alongside the companys co-owner Alexander Fishenko.
The firm took part in transactions aimed to purchase electronic components from US manufacturers and consequently sell these components to Russian firms. As the case material show, the customer of Fishenkos company was Apex System having connections to a number of Russian enterprises.
There are a total of 11 defendants in the case, three of them have been placed on the wanted list. Four of the eight arrested - Viktoria Klebanova, Alexander Fishenko, Alexander Posobilov and Anastasia Dyatlova - have U.S. and Russian passports. According to newspaper Huston Chronicle, Taghiyeva has entered the USA on a student visa to study at the University of Huston.
Fishenko pleaded guilty to the entire indictment in September of 2015. In particular, he agreed in his guilty plea that he violated United States law by selling electronic components to Russia without required licenses. He also pleaded guilty to ancillary money laundering, wire fraud, obstruction of justice and being an unregistered foreign agent.
Fishenkos defense asked him to be sentenced to a prison term not exceeding 50 months (about 4 years), whereas the prosecution demands Fishenko to be sentenced to at least 121 months (about 10 years) in prison.
Russian acting Prosecutor General demands to close case against Domodedovo owner
MOSCOW, July 6 (RAPSI) Acting Russian Prosecutor General has demanded the Investigative Committee to close a criminal case against Domodedovo airport owner Dmitriy Kamenshchik charged in the case over 2011 terrorist attack, RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday.
Acting Prosecutor General Alexander Gutsan has forwarded a demand to the Investigative Committee of Russia to stop the criminal case against Kamenshchik and his two alleged accomplices, the official representative of the Prosecutor Generals Office Alexander Kurennoy said.
According to Kurennoy, the demand may be reviewed before the end of this week.
Earlier, the Prosecutor Generals Office demanded to close the criminal case several times.
On Monday, the Moscow City Court released Kamenshchik from the house arrest, while the Basmanny District Court released two of his alleged accomplices Vyacheslav Nekrasov and Andrei Danilov.
The Domodedovo airport owner Dmitriy Kamenshchik and several other ex-managers have been charged in the case over 2011 terrorist attack. According to investigators, they have not provided sufficient security level that let the suicide bomber freely enter the arrival lounge and set off an explosive.
A suicide bomber detonated a bomb in the Domodedovo Airports international arrivals hall, killing 37 people and injuring 172, on January 24, 2011.
Doku Umarov, Russias most wanted terrorist at the time, claimed responsibility for the attack. Altogether, 28 men connected with the terrorist organization called the Caucasus Emirate were linked to the attack, according to the investigators. Seventeen of them were killed in special operations in 2011, and four were detained.
In November 2013, a Moscow Region court sentenced three men to life in prison and a fourth man to 10 years for their role in the suicide bombing.
People go to farmers markets for many reasons. The jovial, wholesome atmosphere makes people feel good about their communities, and offers an opportunity to catch up with friends, and appreciate the hard work put in by area farmers. And sometimes, we even want to buy a little food. But this is becoming an increasingly rare act, according to a recent Washington Post article.
For some growers, farmers markets just arent what they used to be, notes the headline. Zach Lester, a Virginia grower who sells at D.C.s trendy Dupont Circle market told the Post he was down $50,000 a year from a decade ago, when he did about $200,000 in sales. This decrease comes in spite of the fact that the market is more popular than ever.
The culprit, I assumed, would be the influx of young, hungry farmers stealing market share from the aging lions who built the movement. Indeed, census data from 2012 suggests the sub-population of farmers selling directly to consumers at farmers markets is on the rise despite a decline in the overall farmer population. So I was skeptical about where Lester thought the root of the problem lay.
He didnt blame the competition for his woes. He blamed the hipsters for sucking the oxygen out of the market.
Sipping on their lattes, deep in conversation, they care more about the scene than the cilantro. They might purchase a breakfast taco, but no basil. Maybe a pint of strawberries, but no rhubarb. And in their unhurried schmoozing they clog the aisles like arterial plaque, impeding the flow of serious shoppers looking for actual produce. When you factor in the strollers, sometimes two abreast, and perhaps an impromptu reunion from the previous nights jam band concert, its a recipe for gridlock. And thats if you can even get to the market in the first place, because parking absolutely sucks. The serious produce shoppers, according to the Post, would sooner just go to the store than deal with the festive throng. And the millennials, statistically, are more likely to go out to eat.
The farmers market scene in Missoula provides a laboratory of sorts for testing the idea that hipsters can suffocate a farmers market. For years, the Missoula farmers market was agonizingly strict about which items could be sold. Basically, only raw plants were allowed. No pickles. No hot food. No meat. Not even a hide from a farmers own sheep. Despite these rules it was a nice market, and everyone loved it, even though we all complained about how nice a smoothie would be, or a slab of local bacon, or a tamale.
Being the only game in a decent little town, our little market was booming. It got so big that another one appeared nearby, also on Saturday, to get in on the action.
The new market was billed as an outlet for local meat producers who couldnt sell at the original market. For this reason and not because of the bustling singles scene everyone called it the Meat Market.
From the get-go the Meat Market was a showcase for the free market. The hot food, cold smoothies and frozen meat were seasoned with live bands, decorated with died wool, and graced with the feeling that this was what the old market wanted to become, if only the folks in charge would have let it. At the very least, the Meat Market was everything that we, the shoppers, could have wanted. It was a diverse, festive atmosphere rooted in farm-fresh produce, but not shackled to it.
This left farmers with the decision of which market to sell at. Some jumped ship for the friendly shores of the meat market. Some set up stalls on both shores, while others decided to go down with the ship, rather than join the face-painting crazies down the street.
The once booming plant market was suddenly an empty backwater, while the action shifted to the Meat Market. You could almost hear the cheers and laughter drifting over. The free market had spoken.
Fast forward a few years, and the plant market, amazingly, is still around. I still go there, in fact, to get certain items from vendors Ive long patronized. And Im not alone. The market, which we left for dead 10 years ago, now offered a surprisingly valuable commodity: a peaceful, pleasant shopping experience.
The Meat Market is bigger, with more vendors and a lot more choices of produce and other stuff. But its more crowded. And, especially with kids in tow, more work.
Its more of a social event than a shopping event, agreed one grower at the Meat Market whod jumped ship from the other one. And like many who had done the same, he was questioning his choice.
Another farmer had never heard the word hipster, but thought it was perfect. They are here for the scene, for the coffee and breakfast sandwich or whatever.
His loyal customers had followed him over to the Meat Market, but now he says they have to get there early to avoid the craziness. I walk around and check the market because I have help now. Sometimes you cant move. People with strollers; four people having a conversation, which is fine, but its frustrating. And if youre a customer that wants to go to the farmers market and get some food, youre like, nah.
They hate the crowds. I cant believe how many people bitch about the crowds. The regulars show up early. The casuals go to the Good Food Store.
But aside from such speculation, the proof is in the profits. One farmer, who runs produce stands at both markets, said that he does twice the business at the plant market than he does at the Meat Market.
And every grower I spoke with, at both markets, agreed with Zach Lester that the socialites who treat the market like a Grateful Dead revival tour are bad for business. Unless you happen to be selling donuts or pot.
A fun night of setting off fireworks went bad quickly for a Victor-area family and one of the firefighters who responded to a blaze at their home.
They were setting off fireworks at the end of their driveway, said Victor Fire Chief Scott Hackett. Instead of going up, one of the fireworks went sideways and landed underneath a juniper tree.
The juniper burst into flame. The fire went up the wall, through the soffit and into the attic.
It basically burnt the house down from the top down, Hackett said.
Victor volunteer firefighters were able to vent the fire through the roof, which kept the rest of the house from burning.
The whole top part of the home is shot, Hackett said. There is a lot of water and smoke damage to the lower section.
A fireman was injured when a beam fell on him. Hackett said he was doing better Wednesday.
The good news is about the time the fire was out, we found the owners cat alive and well, he said. It was hiding under a bed.
The call for help at the Mountain View Road home came in at 10:33 p.m. Hackett said he got home at about 4 a.m.
The Victor volunteers were assisted by firefighters from Corvallis, Pinesdale and Stevensville.
Volunteers with the Montana Red Cross were on the scene at about 1 a.m., said Diane Wright, the states director.
The homeowners said they did not need assistance at that point, but Wright said the Red Cross volunteers will check back with them later.
When the shock wears off, people sometimes realize they might need some help, Wright said. When youre forced to escape your house with no warning, you might lose your eye glasses or prescription medicine. Whatever those needs are, we try to help accordingly.
Our volunteers receive calls at all times of the night, she said. What an awesome volunteer group there in Ravalli County, they left their homes in the middle of the night to help.
Hackett said the fire is a good lesson for other homeowners about landscaping.
We think about the forest interface, but no one really talks about the interface between your landscape and home, he said. Junipers are like pouring a can of gas on the side of your home. They burn good green as well as dry.
The fire in Victor wasnt the only call valley firefighters took on July 4.
The Hamilton Volunteer Fire Department responded to a call of a detached garage in flames on Blodgett Camp Road at about 12:30 p.m.
Hamilton Fire Chief Brad Mohn said the building was fully engulfed by the time firefighters arrived on the scene.
It was a defensive fire, he said. It was a complete loss.
On Tuesday morning, Mohn said it wasnt clear on what started the fire.
They were welding earlier in the day in the building, he said. They left and went for lunch. The next thing you know, were being called out to the fire.
Firefighters from Corvallis and Pinesdale helped fight the fire.
On an otherwise calm, blue-sky day, the neighbors in Bluebird Mobile Home Park had what they are describing as a tornado around 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
Michal Gordon lives in the doublewide on the corner. He said he heard what he thought was a door slamming and went to check on his father when he looked out the window at the neighborhood full of debris flying and the roofer on the house two doors down hanging on for dear life.
He was nearly upside down hanging on to the roof as best he could, Gordon said. The wind had pushed his ladder away so I got the ladder and helped him down. Thats when we saw the roof fly off the house across the street. The tornado went from north to south and just kept going.
Mike Mann, doing the roofing for J&M Roofing, is from Oklahoma. He said he was in Oklahoma, when the EF5 hit Moore and Norman a couple of years back.
Ive lived in Oklahoma and Ive lived in Montana for many years and I never seen anything like that, Mann said. I laid down flat on this roof and held onto the ridge. My ladder fell down and this guy got it for me so I could get off the roof. Im shaking pretty good. It was like a funnel and all that insulation blew around the neighborhood.
Mann described it as like a giant dust devil with a measurable tornado intensity.
It was huge and reminded me of an EF1, he said. I couldnt believe it. They are so rare it probably wont happen again, so I got back up on the roof to finish my work.
The main damage happened to the trailer at 109 Oriole Dr.
Rick and Darlene Swanson have lived in Hamilton from 1981 to 1986 and again since 1991. The couple was inside their home when the wind started.
We didnt know what it was, it just sounded like a big windstorm that kept getting worse, Rick said. It tore the roof, fire place and top off.
Darlene said, it was a total dust storm.
We heard the clatter and didnt know what it was, she said. He was going to go out but I said he had better wait. It took off much of our roof and a little bit of hers. It took less than five minutes. It was here and then it was gone. It was just a swirl of wind like the little dirt devils that you see out in the field only stronger. I guess it was just the right conditions.
About 20 minutes after the storm passed, Rick was on the roof adding caulking in case it rains before their roof is repaired.
Darlene was on the phone to her mother and cautiously stepping around the large chunks of roof on their lawn.
Its unbelievable, Darlene said. There is more damage on the other side. It is just unbelievable,
National Weather Service Meteorologist Luke Robinson in Missoula said he was willing to bet it was a dust devil with enough strength to do some damage.
There is nothing on radar, no thunderstorms or rain, so without seeing it with my own two eyes Id say it was a dust devil not a tornado, Robinson said.
The mobile home park is southeast of the Hamilton Marketplace.
Guwahati: The lone Bangladeshi Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus expressed shock at the barbarity of the terrorists, who killed 20 hostages and two Bangladeshi police officers in cold blood at Dhakaas Holey Artisan Bakery on 1 July evening and pleaded for a new world of equality and dignity.
Meanwhile, following the barbaric terror attacks the scheduled 7th social business day to be held in the Bangladesh capital city on 28-29 July has been postponed. Yunus Centre, which functions as Prof Yunus's
secretariat in Dhaka, said in a statement that all activities related to the social business day were cancelled.
'I express my heartfelt condolences to those, far and near, who have lost their loved ones and wish their souls to rest in peace,' said Prof Yunus, the economist turned asocial thinker, who was honoured with Nobel peace award in 2006 along with his creation Grameen Bank of Bangladesh.
The nurturer of micro-finance and the architect of social business initiatives around the globe uttered dismay that asuch attacks taking place in Bangladesha as Prof Yunus aalways believed Bangladesh to be a tolerant liberal country.'
'We must do soul searching on how this breeding of violence began in our country. We want to create a society peacefully shared by everyone, with everyone having their space, having the right for all to express their views freely, without fear or social or official constraints,' asserted Prof Yunus.
Arguing that violence, military or terrorist, can no longer be contained in one country or region, Prof Yunus appealed to all nations to work to bring lasting peace in the Middle East.
'We are seeing this everyday and must wake up to the fact that violence in one place breeds violence even in remotest places of the world,' stated the global social leader adding, 'plead to the powerful nations please overcome differences among yourselves to bring peace in the Middle East so we have better chances of peace in our cities and communities around the world.'
RALEIGH, July 6: Trump, who frequently criticizes U.S. foreign policy under President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is praising Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's ruthlessness.
"Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? ... But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good," Trump told supporters at a campaign rally Tuesday night in Raleigh, North Carolina. "They didn't read 'em the rights, they didn't talk. They were a terrorist, it was over."
Trump has previously said the world would be "100 percent better" if dictators like Hussein and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi were still in power. Prior to the U.S. invasion, Iraq was listed by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terrorism. Hussein suppressed dissent in his country and used poison gas against 5,000 Iraqi Kurds.
Jake Sullivan, a Clinton senior policy adviser, said Trump's "praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds."
Sullivan said such comments "demonstrate how dangerous he would be as commander-in-chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks."
Trump's foreign policy pronouncements have proved controversial, even within the Republican Party that is poised to nominate him for president in a few weeks. He has said the United States is too fully engaged around the world and has questioned the role of NATO and said the United States has been taken advantage of by nations benefiting from its security cooperation and troop presence. Some critics within the GOP have said his policies suggest an isolationist stance in an increasingly dangerous world.
Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, partners among Republican congressional critics of Obama administration foreign policy, carried out a fact-check on Trump's national security statements earlier this year at a Capitol Hill hearing.
On April 19, when the Army general selected to lead U.S. forces in South Korea testified before the committee, McCain seized the opportunity to undermine Trump's suggestion that the U.S. withdraw its forces from the South because Seoul isn't paying enough to cover the cost of the American military presence.
"Isn't it the fact that it costs us less to have troops stationed in Korea than in the United States, given the contribution the Republic of Korea makes?" McCain asked Gen. Vincent Brooks.
Yes, Brooks said, telling McCain the South Koreans pay half, or $808 million annually, of the U.S. presence there.
Two days later, Trump's claim that NATO is irrelevant and ill-suited to fight terrorism came under the microscope. As president, Trump has said he would force member nations to increase their contributions, even if that risked breaking up the 28-country alliance.
In early March, more than 70 conservative national experts, including former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, wrote in an open letter that they have disagreed with one another on a variety of issues but are united in their opposition to a Trump presidency. Chertoff served in President George W. Bush's administration.
sacw.net - 6 July 2016 [updated on 31 July 2016]
[A version of this article has appeared in print and web editions of the Mainstream Weekly, 9 July 2016]
After 1945, in war-ravaged Europe, its economically drained people, saw peace as crucial for democracy; and the route taken was economic integration. The Treaty of Paris was signed in 1951 to set up the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and in 1957 the Treaty of Rome had six countries forming the European Economic Community (EEC). It was a project of the elites to engage in creating economic cooperation, and for social stability, and it took decades to grow into what became the EU of today. European unity, abolition of the borders that separate the peoples of Europe, a European Parliament where directly elected representatives from 28 member states from all political streams from across Europe meet and debate issues of import, are commendable gains made in the EU experiment these are progressive social gains. Why would any sane person or political formation want to roll them back?
For all its early social democratic promise and internationalist virtues, Yes, EUs policies over the past decade or so have become sharply driven by an economic governance model based on austerity and neoliberal policies (what was called monetarism in the 1960s). EU needs democratisation and change.
Britain joined the EEC in 1973, but with reservations and in a halfhearted manner; and even decades on, they did not join the Eurozone, had restrictions regarding the schengen pact, etc. Unlike many other European states, Britain has a long tradition of Euro-scepticism.
Euro-scepticism has been around on the left, and got big with the British Conservatives, particularly after 1988, and Thatcher led the charge; but it had its votaries in the left already in the 1970s. The most adored figure of the Labour left in Britain, Tony Benn, had been an opponent of the EEC (sadly he had even shared an anti-EU platform with Enoch Powell at that time). In 1975, in the United Kingdoms referendum on Europe, 47.5% of Labour supporters voted to leave the EEC at least a third more than in the referendum of 23 June 2016 .
In 2013 David Cameron promised Britons a referendum on whether the UK should remain within the European Union. Euro-sceptic, right-wing United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) won just a single seat in parliament in the 2015 elections, but its influence set the Brexit vote in motion. (UKIP got some 3.8 Million votes in the 2015 elections)
There was a massive campaign by the right in Britain and its simple anti-EU, anti-immigrant props with a nationalist tone had an echo that dragged in a large section of Labour and working class voters to its side. A genie of ugly nationalism got un-bottled. On June 23, 2016, the Leave EU campaign won the referendum.
Brexit is a triumph of national chauvinism and is damaging to the left. We have seen a dramatic spurt in instances of racism all over Britain. All this is a shot in the arm for the far right.
Terror in th Streets 1916 drawing by George Grosz
Europes far-right parties have hailed the UKs vote to leave the European Union as a victory for their own anti-immigrant and anti-EU stance and have vowed to push for similar referendums in their own countries. Marine Le Pen of Frances far right National Front, in an op-ed in the New York Times, described the Brexit vote as a courageous act of the British, and said that now its time for a peoples spring across Europe. Le Pen and her counterparts from far right parties have a big resonance among sizeable sections of the labouring people
The EU has been weakened by the fallouts of the 2007 financial crisis, and now Brexit threatens it in a big way with ricochet effects in different parts of Europe. The EU will be under the huge stress of being pulled apart not by any left-driven idealism of the people but by brute hyper-nationalism and inward-looking politics of fear. The right wing is far better at selling nationalism, and the left shouldnt be playing this game.
International capital and the big banks that face damage will weather this storm. Trade unions will not in any way come out strengthened by Brexit. The EU has been weakened, with a country that was the second largest economy of Europe, contributing 15 per cent of its overall GDP, leaving. Britain lost more money in the 48 hours after the referendum thanA it ever contributed in the past decades when it was part of the EU. The British economy has apparently shrunk to become the 6th largest in the world, ceding its place to France which has now become the 5th largest.
Most disturbing in all this is the unmistakable working-class character of the Brexit vote. Like the Labour Party, the British trade union leaders have shown themselves to be out of touch with the views of their own members. The Labour Party is reeling from the fact that voters in areas that have traditionally voted Labour swung heavily behind Brexit. Labour Partys leader Jeremy Corbyn (he like Tony Blair voted against joining EEC in the referendum of 1975), a long-time Euro-sceptic, has defended his conduct amid criticism of his lukewarm support for the Remain in EU campaign. (Weeks before the referendum a leaked memo from aBritain Stronger In Europe, a group campaigning for the UK to stay in the EU, pointed out that some 50% of the Labour Party supporters didnt know whether their party was for Brexit or was in favour of the EU.)
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EU technocrats running EU affairs far removed from ordinary citizens is a problem, but this is true also of technocrats in national governments and the UN. Ultranationalist parties, far left groups and anti-globalisation movements within Europe have rubbed shoulders at anti-EU campaigns for the past many years, and they share a common repertoire.
The nationalist groups conveniently club together of anti EU-ism with anti-immigrant propaganda, xenophobic fear of migrants giving them a better sales pitch than for the left salesmen. Many on the left denounce racism but have hardly taken this problem head on. Workers and union members, and the unemployed, in large parts of Europe are racist: but unions havent run mass campaigns to address this. Widespread unacknowledged everyday racism exists in Britain. Great Britain is a atoleranta country, immigrants have been tolerated, not really integrated. Britain is divided and ghettoised thanks to institutionalized multiculturalism.
These are dark times in European politics. The backdrop for this crisis dates to the 2008 financial meltdown that affected the world economy and the Eurozone. Across Europe the economic crisis fuelled the rise of quick fix, aanti political and aanti-systemic movements and also of the far right while taking away the sheen of the old established mainstream political parties, leading to loss of influence. Nationalist and far right parties that have been on the margins have been slowly but systematically growingA across Europe. Many of these ultranationalist parties with xenophobic and retrograde social agendas have been getting mainstreamed by repackaging themselves in Europe. Frances National Front was formed in 1972 and was on the margins, but today it has some 30% of the national vote share. In the UK we have had many Euro-sceptic and right wing formations, the fastest growing one being UKIP and aBritain First (emanating from British National Party and the English Defence League). Across the continent, from Switzerland (Swiss Peoples Party), Belgium (Vlaams Blok now Vlaams Belang), the Netherlands (Party for Freedom), right down to the south in Italy (Northern League, Tricolour Flame, New Force etc), Greece (Golden Dawn), the far right groups have crafted a comeback. In the once famous social democratic north from Austria (Freedom Party) to Denmark (Danish Peoples Party) and Sweden (Swedish Democrats), far right parties have made huge forays. In former socialist bloc countries from Poland (Law and Justice party) to Hungary (Jobbik party), and Serbia (Serbian Radical Party) there is a huge resonance of the far right. What was unthinkable a decade ago has come alive even in Germany. An anti immigrant formation called Pegida has drawn thousands to its ranks; even more worriesome is the mainstreaming of Alternative for Germany (AfD), an ultra right wing formation with a presence in a few of the german state parliaments, polls suggest that its vote share is now bigger than that of the leftwing Die Linke.. Memories of Fascism and the terrible price that Europeans paid seem to have been set aside. However corrupted the European Union project was about ensuring free movement of people across Europe, the creation of the schengen and the rollback of borders was indeed a marvellous project. The forces of the left remained in their national cocoons and never really built a cross-border solidarity movement in the past decades. Why should the left in the 21st century oppose European capitalist integration any more than opposing the merger of two companies? Shouldnt they have been arguing for ground level Europeanisation of the union federations? NO, they prefer the prison house of the nation state.
Sections of the British Left Getting a High on Nationalism
In 2009, aNo2EU a left-wing Eurosceptic electoral alliance (Socialist party, Communist Party of Britain and National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT)) was formed in the UK. It participated in the 2009 European Parliament elections and the European elections in 2014 with the party name "No2EU" It campaigned for Britains withdrawal from the EU.
Like the No2EU nuts other reckless fabulists of the British far left pushed aA Left ExitA (Lexit) campaign that was led by the Socialist Workers Party saying that withdrawal from the European Union would strike a blow to the interests of dominant sections of British capital, and to European elites, opening opportunities for workers struggle in the United Kingdom. Similarly there was a Labour Leave campaign from within the Labour Party campaigning for Brexit (it has been revealed that this group was funded by right wing and Conservative Party donors). The left-wing fight against neoliberal globalisation sits neatly juxtaposed to the strategy of right-wing movements and turns the left into allies of Farage (UKIP), Le Pen (National Front), Wilders, et al. Large numbers of Labour voters have voted for UKIP (something similar has been happening in France, where large numbers of socialist and communist voters have switched to the National Front)
A Modern Cross Border Euro-Left
In 1972 Tom Nairn had shown unique moral courage from the new left in critiquing dominant socialist opinion on British entry to the Common Market and argued that the Left was betraying its principles by siphoning discontent into nationalistic opposition to Europeanisation.
Decades on in 2014-2015 the courageous Greek socialists of SYRIZA took the bull by its horns and did not wish to leave the EU; even their left wing never demanded this as an option. The European Central Bank gave the Syriza govt a very tough time by imposing a very hard austerity regime but they stood their ground; there was no Grexit. Thats the kind of forward looking left politics we need despite huge odds in the current day EU that is hollowed out of its social aims. A left of the future has to be open to a European strategy beyond borders and should struggle for democratisation of the EU from both within and outside the EU.
In that tradition a radical challenge to LEXIT-type nationalism (peddling asocialism in one country) should be seen in the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DIEM25) campaign run by Yanis Varoufakis (the former Greek Finance Minister) to promote a radical, internationalist vision of a Europe-wide movement to democratize and transform EU structuresA from within. But it has had few takers in Britain.
a vote to leave the EU in the UKas referendum in June 2016 would lead to the disintegration of the European Union and a return to the xenophobia, racism and ultra-nationalism of the 1930s. - Yanis Varoufakis tells Owen Jones (Guardian Video - 15 April 2016)
EU did some good for the UK
The Jacques Delors Commission played a crucial role in securing the adoption of the Community Charter of the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers in Strasbourg in 1989
The EU has played a limited but crucial role in extending and expanding rights at work in the UK, reversing decimation of industrial relations heralded under the Thatcher government - from protection for part time and temporary workers, protection of workers rights in event of mergers and acquisitions (called TUPE regulations under UK law) to protection from discrimination from rights for working parents to the right to paid holidays and regular lunch breaks, etc.
Though it is widely said in left circles that the European Court of Justice leans towards corporate interests there is a long stream of cases in fields such as equality law, transfer of undertakings law, insolvency law and free movement of workers law in which the [European] Court has leaned in favour of giving as extensive an interpretation as possible to workers rights (see E. Ellis, EU Anti-DiscriminationA Law (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005).
UKs labour market remains one of the least regulated in the developed world, and the limited checks and balances from the EU were good for workers. The exit from the European Union is bound to undermine workers interests in Britain. [The European Trade Union Congress in has already express concern on the situation after BREXIT]
The Irish peace process got support from the European Union. The EU Peace programme provided huge support to Northern Ireland institutions, industry and initiatives such as Inter-trade, Peace and Tourism Ireland, which were successful in bringing together communities both north and south of the border to promote cooperation between contending interests. It helped stabilise the Peace Agreement of 1998. Brexit will mean the creation of an external border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Are people prepared for a border to be back, once a course highly militarized border?
Latent Racism, identity politics, crisis and expanding influence of authoritarianism:
The 2015 British Social Attitudes Survey provided a sense of who would vote for Brexit. aThe 2015 report by NatCen Social Research found the years of austerity since the financial crash of 2008 have entrenched the class divide and hardened attitudes on a range of political subjects, including possible anti-establishment feelings towards bureaucracy and government and also immigration.a
Yes there was a big campaign of fear mongering about a migrant tidal wave and it sold well. Denial of working class racism is irresponsible. Supporting toleration, multi-culturalism keeping differences rather than uniting people on common rights, and jointly fighting racism is not the same thing. The left better wake up, if only to save its ass. A right wing fire storm is starting in Britain and playing identity politics wont douse the flames.
John Pilger prescribes this Brexit style direct democracy and called on socialists to rejoice in it. Peddling this form of plebiscitism is dangerous business. Does he remember the Referendum Party of millionaire right-winger Jimmy Goldsmith ? Referendums are rarely fought on facts, and more often on quick fix slogans. Imagine a national referendum for mass expulsion of migrants from Britain after bombarding the public with anti-immigrant propaganda.
British socialists who supported Brexit have blown up an opportunity to forge alliances with workers from across Europe to fight neoliberal politics by building a pan European network. They have exited the EU but they havent exited capitalism. They would do well to remember that capital on British shores isnt necessarily English, it is multinational; London being the hub of finance capital, Britain will now get into a deeper embrace of unfettered neo-liberalism; there will more cuts and austerity. The Brexiters promised let athe people take control, but they will now see this is as a short-lived orgasm.
France:
While the campaign for Brexit was going on in the past weeks in Britain, there was an unprecedented workers mobilization across the English Channel in France against a change in the labour law supposedly to be in conformity with EU regulations.
Cartoon on Nuit Debout Protests in France by Chappatte from Le Temps, Switzerland
In 2009, a case was opened against France for breaching EU rules which stipulate that its deficit must not exceed 3 per cent of GDP. This excessive deficit procedureA can result in a fine of billions of euros, and in the case of France, a severe loss of face to its EU partners.
The excessive deficit procedureA is in the so-called Six-Pack set of EU rules in 2011 a key part of the austerity-focused economic governance package. The unions have massively challenged this but the sad irony is that vast sections of the French working class which stand for their rights also happen to be voting for the far right parties. Far right parties have become a big pole of attraction for workers in France. Research is beginning to demonstrate that far right parties do very well during times of crisis.
It is important to note that the extreme right formations have very deftly co-opted and absorbed the Left critique of neoliberal policy of European Union technocrats and deployed it in their own discourse and manifestoes. The left continually ties to demarcate itself from the far right but given the similarity of the isolationalist, nationalist stance facts dont seem to matter. The National Front in France is a draw for a lot of workers and what was once a communist audience.
Looking at it from India:
Dont people remember the political language of the Hindutva driven aSwadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM) which used to challenge globalization, foreign direct investment? It was difficult in the 1990s to distinguish between the discourse of the Azaadi Bachao Andolan run by the unorganized left, the reactionary SJM and also that of sections of the organised left. That was some time ago.
Today, the right wing BJP-led government in India has very successfully pushed its hyper patriotic and aspot the antinational politics. The left & progressive forces have their swan song anationalism saying the nationalism of the right is rotten but ours is good;
Do people of the left in India not recall what was the aAdhikari resolution of the undivided Communist Party of India which saw the mass mobilization by the Muslim league for Partition of India where the main message was Hindus and Muslims are separate nations as something worthy? The left very rightly highlights the dirty role played by the Hindutva right but decided to keep silent on its own rationalization of Partition of India. Isnt it time in 2016 to do public self-criticism of its posture on 1947 partition? It is never too late.
Nationalism & Patriotism remainA holy cows; while campaigning and challenging the right wing government, they havent pushed against communalism or identity politics among the labouring poor and working class which are divided along communal lines. Trade unions and mass organisations duck the identitarian and communalism questions. Can anyone tell us if there was a national strike call in India from the Left and the rail, postal, electricity and sea port workers went on strike on Gujarat 2002 pogroms or to call for a no war pact with Pakistan ?
Anti imperialism and nationalism call the shots in the discourse of the left, internationalism is out of fashion. National interest and national sovereignty remain key words in the vocabulary of the Indian Left, which simply does not have a South Asian vision. SAFTA and SAARC were produced by the South Asian political elites, not by any call from the left. The left here that made noise not long ago about the horrors of Syrian refugees fleeing to Europe have all been for closed borders and the deportation of Bangladeshis from India and havent called for the Indian government to accept Rohingyas, Syrians, Afghans, Pakistanis.
This is pathetic aThis doesnt sell politics? Does the left have ambitions to re-invent itself and get into the 21st century mode and take on globalization without getting into the standard defensive nationalist mode? Why cant it drive the creation of the first cross-border trade union in South Asia ? When will it announce a public policy that left run governments in India will provide refuge and shelter to trade unionists, writers, journalists under assault from the far right and fundamentalists in Burma, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri-Lanka or Iraq, Syria and even the UK?
Comrade General Secretaries, please, break free, will you, you have nothing to lose but your chains.
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(Select editorials from daily newspapers Bangladesh, Pakistan, India on the killings of people in a cafe in the Gulshan district of Dhaka are posted below)
The Daily Star - July 04, 2016
Editorial The lessons of this tragedy Wake up to the reality
The Prime Minister has announced two days of national mourning in honour of the 22 victims mercilessly murdered by a terrorist attack on a restaurant in Gulshan. The brutality of the killings and the long wait to see the end of the hostage crisis has left the nation shattered and with a sense of extreme unease.
But as we try to cope with the horror of this attack and show our commiseration for all those families who have lost their loved ones we must also wake up to the ramifications of this tragedy. This attack presents a whole new aspect of terrorism for us. So far we have been confronted with mainly lone targets, with the attackers singling out an individual who, in their minds, fit a certain profile and then carrying out the assassination. This attack focused on a larger target with the goal of causing maximum casualties. The methods employed and the savagery with which the killings were carried out are hallmarks of international terrorist outfits like ISIS and Al Qaida. This is clear. What is not clear is whether, after such overwhelming evidence of their presence, the official line will be one of denial?
It is high time we moved away from debates over whether the terrorists were homegrown or affiliates of ISIS or Al Qaida. We must acknowledge the ground realities that there are groups ideologically linked with such international outfits, the mandate of which is to kill innocents in the name of religion. We must combat this evil not just with more efficient, sophisticated security measures. We must fight this terror ideologically by finding ways to stop our young people from being radicalised and lured into the distorted path of murder and suicide, both acts categorically condemned by the religion they profess to be defending.
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Dhaka Tribune - july 4, 2016
There are no words
Tribune Editorial
There is nothing one can write or say at a time like this, which can do more than sketch the bare outline of the devastation that has been wrought on the families of those killed in the horrific carnage of the night of July 1, a date that will live in infamy in Bangladeshi and world history.
Tragedy has struck Bangladesh in the worst possible way.
By the official count, at least 22 men and women, including two police officers, lie dead in the biggest and most appalling terrorist attack this country has ever seen, and nothing will ever be the same again.
Make no mistake: This was an attack on all of us. This was an attack on Bangladesh itself.
This was an attack on all that we hold to be good and true. This was an attack aimed coldly and calculatedly straight at the nationas heart to inflict the maximum possible amount of terror and pain.
The sorrow and suffering of the families of those killed cannot even be imagined, and we can only stand in support and solidarity with them and mourn with them for the senseless, sickening, and shocking loss of their near and dear.
We are thankful for and proud of the commitment of our law enforcement and military personnel who put their lives on the line to free as many hostages as they could.
And we must take the time to consecrate and reaffirm our belief in this beautiful, brave, unbowed country of ours.
We may have been bloodied, but we have not been beaten, and we never will be.
The terrorists behind this killing have exposed themselves as brutal, inhuman, and unfeeling.
They have laid bare the hollowness of their souls and of their claims to act in the name of God.
At a time like this, we must all stand together as one nation, shoulder to shoulder against the barbarous hordes that seek to tear down our very civilisation and destroy everything we hold dear.
Something like this can never happen again.
And we must vow, individually and as a nation, that we will take whatever measures are necessary to ensure that this scourge is rooted out and banished from the face of the Earth.
This is an existential battle, and nothing less will be enough.
If it wasnat clear to everyone before, it surely must be now.
It is us or them. And this is a battle we cannot afford to lose.
o o
New Age - July 3, 2016
Editorial
Justice must run its course over Gulshan attack
THE terrorist attack apparently by Islamist extremists at an upscale restaurant in the diplomatic neighbourhood of Gulshan in the capital Dhaka left 20 people of various nationalities killed and two police officers shot dead in the evening on Friday. The subsequent commando operation by the countryas security forces resulted in the rescue of 13 hostages, murder of six of the seven reported attackers and one of them being captured alive. The terrorist siege of the restaurant, first of such kind, took place following a series of attacks on individuals over the past couple of years, amidst a shrinking public space for debates, with the ruling quarters and the opposition camp blaming each other for the crimes, and the governmentas repeated denial of the presence of any foreign Islamist group such as ISIS or al-Qaeda.
The gruesome murders in the restaurant at Gulshan and the instant notification of the Amaq, reported to be a news agency of the ISIS, about the events taking place at the venue, which eventually resembled with the facts as established by the armyas commando team, suggests that the ISISas previous claims of responsibility for the machete attacks in Bangladesh was not entirely baseless. The Amaq claimed early Saturday that a20 individuals of varying nationalitiesa were killed while the army at a post-operation press conference on Saturday afternoon also admitted that 20 people had been killed before its commando operation.
However, while it is puzzling to think as how the armed attackers made their way to the restaurant, which is situated in a zone having so many police checkpoints at around, there is reason to admit that the commando operation, codenamed aOperation Thunderbolta, a brief one lasting for less than half an hour, successfully rescued 13 hostages alive. Saving the lives of 13 individuals apart, the most successful component of the aoperationa was to have at least one of the attackers captured alive. The proper interrogation of the attacker in question might reveal the much-required information that the country badly needs to genuinely identify the political colour of masterminds behind the series of attacks.
Under the circumstance, we only hope that we would not hear any government-sponsored story of the captured attacker being killed in acrossfirea, the likes the people of Bangladesh have been hearing for years now, the most recent being the death of a young boy who was caught by the people from the scene of machete attack on a college teacher in Madaripur and handed over to the law enforcement agencies. It is high time that the government initiated a proper investigation of the gruesome attack, arrest the perpetrators and put them on trial in a public court through a transparent legal process. This is much more important for Bangladesh than rhetoric being traded between the opposing political camps, for the country needs to get rid of political extremism most.
o o
Dawn, July 3, 2016
Tragedy in Dhaka
Editorial
ON Friday night, the mass casualty terror strike that many cities globally have experienced in the recent past came to the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka. At least 20 people have been confirmed killed in the terrorist attack, claimed by the militant Islamic State group, targeting a restaurant in Gulshan, an upmarket locality of Dhaka popular with foreigners. Though most victims were foreigners, Bangladeshis were also killed in the assault. It has been reported that most victims of the outrage were hacked to death. Observers had long been warning of a growing militancy problem in Bangladesh; the restaurant attack painfully brings home the fact that religiously inspired militants in the country are well organised to stage large-scale atrocities.
Though this particular attack stands out because of the high death toll and the brutality involved, killings believed to have been carried out by such militants have been occurring with some frequency in Bangladesh over the past few years. More than a dozen people have been hacked to death since April, while over the last three years, 50 victims have been murdered. Liberal and secular Bangladeshis have been among the victims, as have Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Ahmadis. Sufi and Shia Muslims have also not been spared. In fact, earlier on Friday, a Hindu man in the western part of the country was hacked to death. The Awami League-led governmentas response has been a mix of denial a saying IS has no presence in Bangladesh a and knee-jerk reactions a such as cracking down on the opposition. For example, the ban on the opposition Jamaat-i-Islami, and the hangings of its leaders in connection with the tragic events of 1971, have been said to have pushed some opposition supporters and sympathisers towards extremism. Moreover, a round-up of suspects by police last month was said to have disproportionately focused on opposition activists. To prevent further terrorist atrocities, Bangladesh must clamp down on the infrastructure of militancy; the local supporters of IS, and similar groups, must be investigated and prosecuted if found guilty. However, crushing all dissent a including that of non-violent opposition groups a will be counterproductive and violate democratic norms. Dhaka must be clear in its counterterrorism strategy: those planning and supporting acts of terrorism must be targeted, not any and all opposition groups. A myopic strategy to lump together political opponents with suspected militants will fail to tame the beast of militancy in the country.
o o
The Hindu, july 4, 2016
Editorial:
The horror in Dhaka
The attack in an upmarket cafA in Dhaka has left 28 people dead, including six gunmen, and Bangladesh clearly shaken. Over the past three years, the country has seen at least 40 targeted killings by militants, with each new attack raising fears about the growing clout of radicalised groups. The latest represents a marked escalation. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the nearly 11-hour siege. Till now the Bangladesh government has never accepted that the IS operates in the country. Even so, it is clear that IS-style rhetoric against minorities and foreigners and the use of horrifying violence are influencing Bangladeshi militants. Of late, gay rights activists, Hindu priests, secular bloggers and Shia mosques have all come under attack. In the latest, assailants separated foreigners from locals and hacked them to death one by one. The timing of the attack, at the start of the Ramzan holidays, may also be significant. The IS has called upon its supporters to attack acrusadersa and aapostatesa during the holy month of Ramzan.
The Dhaka attack takes the fight to the government of Sheikh Hasina. For months, the government tried to play down the threats from jihadists, saying those were the acts of local groups. Its focus was on weakening the political opposition, including the Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladeshas largest Islamist party. When liberal and secular activists were attacked, the government partly blamed them for ainsulting religious sensibilitiesa . When the IS and al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the murders, the authorities said no foreign terrorist group was involved. It is only recently that the government launched a major crackdown on radicalised groups, but over this period the extremists have grown in strength to carry out mass attacks. The IS and al-Qaeda see Bangladesh as an arena of potential expansion. The IS had released audio propaganda in Bangla. The simmering tensions between the government and the Islamist organisations have lent radicalised groups an opportunity to drive their agenda and find recruits. To address this, the government needs both short- and long-term strategies. The immediate task is of course to address the worsening security situation. The targeted killings started three years ago, and the government has appeared to hold itself back on pursuing the murderers and their handlers. The long-term challenge is to check growing radicalisation. In this context, the ruling Awami League, perceived to be at the liberal end of the political spectrum, must step back and reconsider its high-handedness in dealing with opposition and dissent. If Bangladeshas democracy is hollowed out, only the extremists will benefit.
o o
The Times of India - July 4, 2016
Editorial
Terror strikes Dhaka: Bangladeshi government needs a broad-spectrum approach to fight the menace
The horrific terror attack at the upscale Holey Artisan cafe in the Bangladeshi capital city of Dhaka, where Islamist terrorists took hostages before killing 20 of them, has necessitated a serious re-evaluation of the threat perception. Unlike the machete-wielding murderers of bloggers in Bangladesh, the gun-toting terrorists at Holey Artisan a who were neutralised by Bangladeshi security forces after a 10 hour siege a were well organised. That they chose to target a restaurant frequented by foreigners shows clear objective. The 20 dead include 9 Italians, 7 Japanese, an American and 19-year-old Indian Tarishi Jain. This indicates the terrorists wanted to send out the message that Bangladesh is unsafe for foreigners.
While the Islamic State terror group has claimed responsibility for this attack, hitherto the Bangladeshi government has refused to acknowledge the presence of transnational terror outfits in its country. Instead, it has blamed local extremists. But at this point itas irrelevant to make such distinctions. The terrorists may well be local but they are inspired by a global radical Islamist agenda. For Bangladeshas anti-terror response to be effective, Dhaka must take this into consideration. Focussing solely on local groups wonat do.
Second, Bangladeshas fight against terror has been hobbled by domestic political acrimony. The ruling Awami League and its opponent BNP must work out a modus vivendi to fight the extremists. Otherwise, if Bangladesh falls under the global radical Islamist yoke, the country as a whole will suffer. Dhaka can no longer take a homeopathic approach to fight the Islamist terror virus, which has already infected Bangladeshi society.
o o
The Tribune - July 4, 2016
Editorial:
Nightmare in Dhaka
Is the danger creeping towards India?
Dhaka had a bad night on Friday. Twenty hostages were killed in the most chilling fashion in a downtown cafA. There has never been such an attack in Bangladesh though at least 50 secularists, Hindus, Buddhists and Shias have been hacked to death in the last couple of years. The warring ladies of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina and Khalida Zia, had created a political vacuum in Bangladesh, allowing extremists to set up shop. They thus undid all the splendid work done in the past in routing extremists who had gained enough muscle to simultaneously explode 500 bombs in all but one of Bangladeshs 64 districts. It has been downhill since then for Bangladesh with Sheikh Hasina taking to judicial hangings of several hardline leaders for their complicity with the Pakistan Army in 1971. On a parallel track, the extremists kept on plying their deadly trade.
For India, a big concern will be whether the ISIS threat in the subcontinent is for real or are these disaffected Muslim youths with perverted minds taking to violence? For the uninitiated, the ISIS is a Sunni-only organisation focused on resurrecting the medieval empire of Khorasan consisting of parts of Iraq, Syria and Central Asia. It has succeeded only in places where the authority of the state has withered. Bangladesh on the other hand has a vibrant civil society and a capable army. But the country badly needs political reconciliation to effectively counter the space for politics of violence.
In India, political Hindutvas anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence with the `92 Babri Masjid demolition and the 2002 riots has spawned sporadic counter mobilisation and given grist to the mills of those poisoning young minds in the name of Islam. Besides, Indias population mix with the Sunnis in a minority is not a conducive ground for the ISIS to attempt an Iraq, Syria or a Libya. It appears that like the attacks in the US and Europe, a small section of radicalised Muslim youth in Bangladesh has adopted a similar path. In India, the need is to go beyond beefing up security and rounding up youngsters by stepping up deradicalisation measures.
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The Telegraph, July 4, 2016
Editorial
Look inside
The Holey Artisan Bakery siege places Bangladesh firmly on the global terror map and no amount of wistful denial on its part will change that fact. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, which has claimed credit for the massacre, may not have been in actual control of the operation, as the Sheikh Hasina Wajed government insists. But no government in its right mind would deny its influence in transforming the face of terror, which seems to have happened in Bangladesh as well. The attack on foreigners, in a modus operandi that is distinctly different from the isolated knifings and bombings that Bangladesh has seen previously, places the Dhaka siege in the same league as the terror attacks in many world capitals. Yet, the Bangladesh government seems unwilling to acknowledge that terror in Bangladesh has come of age. To continue to pin the blame on local groups may assuage its sense of guilt, but it does nothing to help its counter-terrorism effort, which has been plagued with innumerable shortcomings. For one, its ineffectuality, which is also the result of its world view. In spite of the growing incidence of attacks - on liberal intellectuals and members of minority groups - the government has not been able to move decisively against terror operatives. It has continued to blame the rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its affiliation with the radical Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami for all that has been plaguing the nation, and has ended up politicizing the counter-terror operation. The fact that the Hasina government finds it unnecessary to detach itself from the same logic while looking at the bakery siege shows that the same attitude might continue and thus stymie Bangladeshs fight against terror.
For India, it is essential that Bangladesh succeeds in this fight. It would find its peace threatened if, like Pakistan to its west, Bangladesh were to become a sanctuary for terror groups using its terrain to direct operations against India. Working in tandem after years, both India and Bangladesh have managed to act against some such groups. This cooperation can persist in countering groups that align themselves with either al Qaida or the ISIS, both transnational groups that require transnational operations to disable them. But Bangladesh has to realize that terror today is no longer the localized phenomenon it wishes it to be. And it is not just political rivals or a clutch of misguided religionists with a grudge against the government who are to blame for it.
o o
see also:
Engineer aged 80 lost his life in Dhaka trying to help the country (THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, July 4, 2016) http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201607040051.html
When it comes to zoning districts in the city of Santa Maria, some projects have faced oppos
The beast that is Fantasia 2016 has awoken. Today brings the program launch and the schedule which is now live on the website. That means that very soon, thousands of film fans will line up around the block of Concordia University's Hall Theatre in Montreal to see the best in current genre film, eat popcorn, and meow --- yes, meow --- when the lights go down.
Many audience members may not know that a film market takes place during Fantasia, and it's called Frontieres. For the past several years, industry pros converge at the market to mix and mingle. Friendships and business relationships are made. For those lucky filmmakers chosen to present at Frontieres, they'll show aspects of preproduction on their project in front of a darkened room full of producers, connectors, consultants, press, and other filmmakers. What often results is a healthy kick-start to these projects, including future work-in-progress spotlights and finished Fantasia screenings in front of a live, meowing audience.
There are already a fantastic amount of projects scheduled in previous announcements, but now we get to see the last wave of exciting future prospects. Included are: a virtual reality partnership between SprectreVision and Ubisoft Montreal; an international spotlight on South Africa and Australia; and my favorite, the works-in-progress presentations. This year, we'll be treated to snippets of The Void, Radius, Inner Ghosts, The Chamber, and The Devil on Wheels.
FRONTIERES@FANTASIA ANNOUNCES FULL SLATE OF PROGRAMMING
After a highly successful Frontieres Day in Cannes, which marked the introduction to the market's new partnership with Cannes' Marche du Film, the Frontieres International Co-Production Market returns to Fantasia for its eighth edition, which will take place July 21st through the 24th.
Frontieres is a four-day industry networking event specifically focused on genre film production and financing. Following the announcement of its main line-up of 20 projects, for the first time Frontieres is pleased to announce international spotlights on projects from Australia and South Africa, in addition to a work-in-progress line-up featuring multiple past Frontieres projects currently in post-production, and a case study panel focusing on the upcoming virtual reality collaboration between SpectreVision and Ubisoft Montreal.
Highlights include a project from director Brandon Cronenberg (ANTIVIRAL) and a first look at the EMAfilms-Epic Pictures sci-fi thriller RADIUS. These projects join a line-up of previously announced titles including projects from director Roxanne Benjamin (SOUTHBOUND) and producer Andy Starke (SIGHTSEERS, THE GREASY STRANGLER).
FRONTIERES CASE STUDY:
The SpectreVision and Ubisoft Montreal Virtual Reality Project
The Frontieres International Co-Production Market is pleased to present a panel discussion with Ubisoft and SpectreVision that will provide a behind-the-scenes look at their collaboration on an upcoming genre-based virtual reality experience, and examine the relationship between genre film and virtual reality.
Frontieres@Fantasia 2016: International Spotlight Projects
AUSTRALIA
KATE KELLY
Director/Writer: Donna McRae
Producers: Liz Baulch (Wild Iris Productions)
LUCID
Director: Brandon Cronenberg
Writer: Philip Tarl Denson
Producers: Raquelle David (Damsel Pictures)
NIGHTFLOWER (Australia/UK)
Director: Eron Sheean
Writer: David Scinto
Producers: Lizzette Atkins, Jasper Graham (Unicorn Films)
SOUTH AFRICA
CORPSEMEN (South Africa/USA)
Director: Brett Simmons
Writers: Brett Simmons, Marc Bloom
Producers: Jonh Volmink, Isaac Mogajane (Diprente), Peter Phok
DURBAN ROAD
Director/Writer: Matthew Griffith
Producer: Rafeeqah Galant (Echo Ledge Productions)
MY DARK HEART
Director: James Adey
Writer: Steven Pillemer
Producers: Issac Mogojane, James Adey (Fiction Films)
WORK-IN-PROGRESS
THE CHAMBER (UK)
Director/Writer: Ben Parker
Producers: Jen Handorf, Paul Higgins (Chamber Films)
THE DEVIL ON WHEELS (Spain/UK)
Director/Writer: Enric Folch
Producers: Roger Allen, Gabriele Stifani, Luca Stifani (The Devil on Wheels Productions)
INNER GHOSTS (Portugal/Brazil)
Director: Joao Alves
Writer/Producer: Paulo Leite (Bad Behavior)
RADIUS (Canada)
Directors/Writers: Caroline Labreche and Steeve Leonard
Producer: Anne-Marie Gelinas (EMAfilms inc.)
THE VOID (Canada)
Directors/Writers: Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillesipe
Producers: Casey Walker (Cave Painting Pictures), Jonathan Bronfman (JoBro Productions)
Frontieres is made possible thanks to the generous support of Creative Europe, Telefilm Canada, and SODEC.
____________________________________________________________
And that's not all --- there's yet another side to Fantasia. Lots of hardworking industry pros take the time to serve on juries to decide the best of the best and recognize the filmmakers. This year's jurors include genre champion Michael Gingold, producer Heather Buckley, author Grady Hendrix, Big Bad Wolf filmmakers Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado, and a host of other impressive critics and festival programmers. Check out the official list below.
INTRODUCING THE FANTASIA 2016 JURIES!
Fantasia is pleased to announce the esteemed jurors for our key international competitions. The complete list of juries, including those for Axis, Sequences, L'Ecran fantastique, the Barry Convex Award for Best Canadian Film, and the Prix AQCC (l'Association quebecoise des critiques de cinema) can be found on our website.
CHEVAL NOIR
JURY PRESIDENTS:
Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado, Israel - Filmmakers
Cyril Despontin, France - Paris International Fantastic Film Festival
George Schmalz, USA - Kickstarter
Justine Smith, Canada - Critic, The Globe and Mail, Vice Canada
Dr. Marcus Stiglegger, Germany - Critic, author, and Cinema Scholar
NEW FLESH AWARD (First Feature Competition)
JURY PRESIDENT:
Michael Gingold, USA - Critic and Screenwriter, Fangoria, Rue Morgue Magazine
Grady Hendrix, USA - Critic, author, co-founder of New York Asian Film Festival
Kate McEdwards, USA - Oscilloscope Laboratories
Nicolas Stanzick, France - Critic, Cahiers du cinema, Reperages
INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM COMPETITION
JURY PRESIDENT:
Chris Oosterom, Netherlands - Imagine Fantastic Film Festival
Heather Buckley, USA - Critic, Graphic Designer, Blu-Ray producer
Peter Kuplowsky, Canada - Producer, programmer at Fantastic Fest, Toronto after Dark, programming assistant at TIFF (Midnight Madness)
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Deep dives into realities of sex offender registries two decades after they started to proliferate | Main | Examining Justice Sonia Sotomayor's unique SCOTUS voice on criminal justice issues
July 6, 2016
Might the Nebraska death penalty repeal referendum in 2016 be even more important symbolically than the dueling California capital initiatives?
As highlighted in prior posts here and here, death penalty opponents and supporters will surely be focused on California during the 2016 election season as voters there will be have a clear capital punishment reform choice between "end it" and "mend it" based on two competing ballot proposals. But this local article from Nebraska, headlined "Death penalty debate heats up," provides a useful reminder that citizens in a very different state will also be voting on the future of the death penalty in their jurisdiction. Here are the basics:
Nebraskans will go to the polls four month from now and vote for an array of issues-one being whether or not to reinstate the death penalty in Nebraska. The legislature voted 30-19 to repeal it in the Spring of 2015, but supporters of capital punishment were able to get enough signatures to get the issue on the November ballot. It's a very complicated system, the system is broken and it doesn't work, said Retain a Just Nebraska campaign manager Darold Bauer [campaign website here]. The repeal of the death penalty was very unpopular across the state, said Rod Edwards, state director for Nebraskans for the Death Penalty [campaign website here]. Those for the death penalty say murder victims families want justice. They want that just penalty for the people who killed their loved ones, said Edwards. However the group Retain a Just Nebraska said the system doesnt work and actually harms murder victims families. Eliminate years and years of appeals, and eliminate the possibility of executing an innocent person, said Bauer. Both sides of this issue are now ramping up their campaigns this summer coordinating their army of volunteers and getting their message out. We are re-energizing those volunteers we are working with our Facebook followers to make sure they get the message out and working with those 166-thousands signature gathers to expand that to an electorate, said Edwards. Even churches are getting involved-handing out materials urging their people to vote for a specific item. This past weekend, some parishioners likely saw a bit of politicking in the pews. We are getting help from a number of different churches and different denominations, we are not turning anyone away, if they believe what we do in eliminating the death penalty, we welcome their support, said Bauer. Both campaigns will start airing ads on TV and radio soon.
Because California has the nation's largest death row (as well as the largest population of any state in the nation), the outcome of the death penalty reform initiatives in that state will, practically and politically, be far more consequential in the short-term than whatever happens in Nebraska. But, as the question in the title of this post is meant to suggest, I think the vote in Nebraska could have more symbolically importance and long-term significance for the future of the death penalty in the United States.
California is, of course, a "deep-blue" state and its quirky and complicated history with the death penalty will make it relatively easy for whichever side that loses in November to claim that the result is not really representative of the views of the national as a whole. But Nebraska is a "deep-red" state, and its legislative repeal of the death penalty was driven by conservative elected officials. If Cornhusker voters embrace capital repeal at the ballot this November, I think death penalty abolitionists can and will assert forcefully that this vote shows that even conservative citizens want to see an end of capital punishment int he US. But if Nebraska voters reject the repeal, and especially if they do so by a large margin, supporters of capital punishment can and still will be able to point to the outcome as proof that most voters in most states still support the punishment of death for some murderers.
July 6, 2016 at 10:34 AM | Permalink
Comments
The Constant Anti Death Penalty Problem
None of the alleged death penalty problems are the fault of the death penalty. They are, as with most issues, the fault of management, primarily the judges, but many others, as well.
For example, Virginia has executed 112 murderers since 1976, after 7 years of appeals, on average.
Such a protocol, possible anywhere, with responsible management, would make all of the alleged "death penalty problems", in
Nebraska go away.
The name "Rertain a Just Nebraska" is also problematic. Nebraska has, right now, an active death penalty statute.
Retention means keeping that statute. Brilliant.
Posted by: Dudley Sharp | Jul 7, 2016 10:50:12 AM
Post a comment
A man who identified himself to police as an employee of Facebook was arrested Tuesday morning, following allegations of a June sexual assault in the suspect's home.
According to a press release from the Palo Alto Police Department, 27-year-old Yue Zhou was arrested at 7:50 a.m. Tuesday at his home on the the 4200 block of Wilkie Way in Palo Alto. At the time of his arrest, reports the Chron, "Zhou identified himself to police as a Facebook employee," an assertion backed up by "postings on social media" that say that he "has worked as a business analyst for Facebook since April."
Palo Alto police say that back on Friday June 24, a woman in her twenties alleges that "after she had gone to dinner with the suspect and other acquaintances, she had dropped the suspect off at his home. When she commented that she was tired, he invited her inside to have a glass of water and rest."
"When she agreed and went inside his home, he forcibly raped her," police say. "After the assault, he prevented her from leaving by holding a knife while telling her she could not go. After several hours had passed, the victim was able to get out of the home and drive away."
Speaking with ABC 7, which describes Zhou as "a Facebook engineer," Palo Alto Sgt. James Reifschneider says that the victim "essentially distracted him momentarily, and she was able to get out the front door to her car." According to Palo Alto police, no additional information on the victim is available for release at this time.
Following an investigation, police determined that the suspect in question was indeed Zhou, who the Chron reports is "is a graduate of Peking University and is the recipient of a masters degree in management science and engineering from Columbia University."
After police "took him into custody without incident" Tuesday, Zhou was booked into Santa Clara County Main Jail for rape by force, sexual battery, and false imprisonment, all of which are felonies. According to a spokesperson with the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department, as of Wednesday morning he remains in custody.
The victims of a Fillmore District mugging got a happy ending Tuesday, when the tracker in their stolen phone led police to their robbers...and reunited them with their stuff.
It was 7:20 Tuesday when an 18 and 19-year-old man were approached by two 18-year-olds near Webster Street and Golden Gate Avenue, according to a report from the San Francisco Police Department.
The approaching teens came up from behind their soon-to-be victims, and snatched one of the men's backpacks from his grasp, police say.
Though the victims argued for a moment, in the end they handed over their property. The suspects fled on foot, stolen cell phone, wallet, and backpack in hand, according to police.
However! One of the victims had a tracking program (like Samsung's Find My Mobile, Apple's Find My iPhone, etc) installed on his device, police say. He used that program to track his cell phone, and reported its location to police, who took off in pursuit.
Police say that officers swiftly found and detained the suspects, who were then positively identified by the victims. The victims' property was also recovered, police say, and was returned to them. The alleged muggers were arrested, and were booked into San Francisco County Jail.
Expand Photos: Maggie Vaughn/Shepherd Express
With only a scant few exceptions, supergroups are often all but guaranteed to be disappointing, if not downright dismal. First off theres the dubious assumption that theyll somehow automatically be more than the sum of their usually past-their-prime parts, as if, already being successful musicians, they can just contrive inspiration and shared vision out of thin air. This tends to lead to inflated expectations from fans, and when you then factor in the big egos and big budgets involved, you have the recipe for a real train-wreck. Throw in a few other hallmarks of quality, like a famous actor dabbling in music and a shitload of nostalgia and you have well, the Hollywood Vampires, a cringe-worthy new project brought to you by the unholy alliance of Alice Cooper, Joe Perry and Johnny Depp.
The band takes its name from a celebrity drinking club, presided over by Cooper during the 1970s, which counted the likes of John Lennon, Harry Nilsson and Keith Moon among its members. This little coterie of Sunset Strip alcoholics ostensibly inspired the concept behind the band as well, which is to pay tribute to (and totally not just cash in on) all of the hard-partying music world luminaries who lost their lives in the 1970s. Or maybe that is since the 1970s, because to be honest the whole things pretty muddled, and wasnt made any clearer by the video that introduced them here tonight, a sort of cross between a tacky funeral slideshow and a corny public-access horror program. It was kind of hilarious, and certainly did not bode well for what followed.
After getting the surprisingly large crowd going with their dumb theme song Raise the Dead, the trio, augmented by a couple guys from Stone Temple Pilots for good measure, mostly delivered 90 minutes of totally uninspired covers, channeling by rote such rock icons as Jimi Hendrix, T. Rex, The Doors, The Who, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, as well as picking over the fresher corpses of Lemmy and Bowie. Interspersed here and there were some boozy anecdotes, a couple Alice Cooper/Aerosmith hits and a mercifully small number of originals that included perhaps the most cliche blues tune ever (which is apparently just called Blues). Beyond the fleeting amusement of watching Captain Jack Sparrow desecrate some of your favorite songs, it was mostly just an embarrassing bore. Actually, make that a super embarrassing bore.
My great-grandpa was born January 10, 1922 in Whitesburg, Tennessee. His given name was Mack Harlow Kenney Jr. His dads name was Mack Harlan Kenney. Their names should have been the same but the doctor who delivered him wrote the name incorrectly on the birth certificate. My great-great-grandma, his mother, discovered the mistake after the doc left the home where he had been delivered. Back then, she knew it was too much of a bother to the doctor if they rode after him, so she left it alone. I have to wrap my brain around that and think about the fact he was born at home, let alone that she considered riding after him. Times have really changed!
His dad set off for Iowa in 1927 to find better farming land. He had to leave his wife and four children at home in Tennessee during this time. It was not uncommon for men to leave and find a better life during that time. While he was gone, my great-grandpa Mack helped his older brothers Red and Willard in the fields and his sister, Maxine helped their mother, Mae, in the house.
Mack was six years old when they took a train from Tennessee to Iowa. It was Macks responsibility to ride in the stock car with the four work horses. When the train made stops, Mack and his brother Willard had to walk the horses, feed them, and get them water before loading them back into the train.
They lived in Whiting, Iowa for a year before they moved to a farm northwest of Sloan. He constantly played games and he would play tricks on his friends and family. (This sounds like my grandpa, his son!) He began his school years in a country school that was only a mile away from his house. The classroom had several grades learning at the same time Grandpa would ride one of the work horses to school, hop off, point the horse towards home and give it a swat on the rump! The horse would trot right back to the barn, get fed, and do a days work in the fields. Grandpa had to walk home after school.
He graduated from the Sloan High School, where he met my great-grandma Gertrude or Gert Rose Clark. Well, he asked her out on a date to go see a very famous movie Gone With the Wind. It was the most watched movie of its time and even the most watched to that point in history. Great Grandma wasnt sure if she liked him at first, but she really wanted to see the movie, so she accepted his invitation.
They were married December 28, 1943 in a church in Sioux City. They were 21 years old. They adopted two children, had six grandchildren, and two great grandchildren.
He was a farmer and farmed hogs, corn, and soybeans up to a year before he died. He was 84 years old.
SIOUX CITY | Are you ready for some grillin' and some chillin'?
Many people take advantage of summer weather by going on picnics. Yet they sometimes forget to include common sense food safety precaution to their menu.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1 in 6 Americans -- or about 48 million people -- suffer from food-borne illnesses each year. The result: approximately 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths.
"Because food-borne bacteria thrive and multiply more quickly in warmer temperatures, food-borne illnesses can spike during summer," said Al Almanza, U.S. Department of Agriculture deputy under secretary.
"This is likely because people are spending more time outside -- away from the sink and equipment in the kitchen that helps consumers keep food safety."
Locally, Renee Sweers, Woodbury County Iowa State University Extension and Outreach nutrition and wellness specialist, said a little planning should keep you and your guests safe this picnic season.
Cleanliness is important when away from home
"Food that is mishandled can easily lead to food-borne illnesses," Sweers said. "Cleanliness is a major factor to prevent such illnesses."
Just like at home, you should always wash your hands with soap and warm water before and after handling food.
"Even when you're in a park, you should make sure there's a way to keep your hands clean," Sweers said.
First of all, find out if there's a source of clean water. If not, bring plenty of water from home, for both cleaning and preparation purposes. Otherwise, clean cloths and wet towelettes should do the trick.
Beware of the 'danger zone'
"The 'danger zone' is the temperature range between 40 degrees and 140 degrees Fahrenheit where food-borne bacteria can grow rapidly to dangerous level," Sweers said.
Without refrigeration or a heat source, foods should never be left out for more than two hours if the outdoor temperature is 90 or below. If it's above 90, food should be returned to the cooler within the hour.
If food goes beyond that point, just discard it.
"Leaving food out for too long is one of the most common mistakes people make in the summer," Sweers said.
Separate, don't cross-contaminate
Sweers recommends separating your food into different coolers.
For instance, cold foods can be kept cold -- below 40 degrees -- in containers with sources like ice or frozen gel packs.
Such food may include potato and pasta salads and even sliced veggies.
Still worried? Packing an appliance thermometer in your cooler will take away plenty of guesswork.
A meaty proposition
Make sure that all raw meat and poultry is securely wrapped, Sweers said. This keeps their juices from contaminating prepared or cooked foods as well as foods that are eaten raw, like fruits and vegetables.
All foods should be cooked thoroughly. Chicken must cook to a temperature of 165 degrees F, while burgers are OK at 160 degrees. Steak and chops, on the other hand, can be cooked to a temperature of 145 degrees.
Avoid platter problems
Sweers said plates and utensils that previously held raw meat or poultry should never be reused for serving.
"Unless the plate's been washed first in hot, soapy water, I'd recommend just getting another plate," she said.
It's cool to stay safe
Nothing hits the spot better than a cold drink in the summer. That's why Sweers said a cooler can be dedicated just for beverages.
"This is a cooler where the lid can be opened frequently," she said. "You don't have to worry about keeping the cold air in or the warm air out."
Made in the shade
"If you're using a cooler, try to keep it out of direct sunlight if possible," Sweers said. "Placing it in the shade or in a shelter is even better."
In other words, summer picnics can be a pretty "chill" time for families and friends.
"With a little common sense and proper preparation, your picnics should be problem-free," Sweers said.
LAKE VIEW, Iowa | A personal watercraft explosion on Black Hawk Lake in Sac County sent two people to the hospital Tuesday.
Chris Forman, 40, and his wife Angie, 41, of Omaha, were operating the personal watercraft when it flipped over. Officials believe gasoline leaked into the engine compartment when the couple was able to get the vessel upright, and caused it to explode around 11 a.m.
The passengers were thrown into the water by the blast and taken to Loring Hospital in Sac City.
No further information on their condition is being given at this time, per request to Loring Hospital.
The Lake View Fire Department, Lake View Police Department and the Sac County Sheriffs Department assisted at the scene.
SIOUX CENTER, Iowa | I stepped into the poultry barn at the Crawford County Fair in Denison, Iowa, last July, observing a space as white and empty as my new notebook.
Three projects occupied 5 feet of space on one table, showing research projects and a sign that read, "Come back next year and see the real deal."
That poultry barn, like all those across Iowa, went featherless in 2015, the result of a ban on poultry shows due to the avian influenza epidemic that swept across the Midwest, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 50 million birds.
I visited Sioux County Tuesday morning to see the 4-H poultry network resuming flight. Kennady Hooyer, 16, explained how she's caring for her ducks, chickens and geese in anticipation of the fair at the Sioux County Fair, which expects to host 250 to 260 poultry entries. The fair check-in occurs on Saturday. Poultry judging happens Monday afternoon.
"I'll water these ducks two times per day the closer we get to the fair," said Hooyer, a junior to-be at Sioux Center High School. "I put liquid bluing in the water, it's a laundry detergent that helps whiten the ducks."
Hooyer and every other poultry exhibitor took a mandatory one-year break from competition in 2015. The ban was announced by the Iowa Department of Agriculture in June as state agriculture and health officials came to grips with an epidemic that ultimately may have cost Iowans a reported $1.2 billion in lost wages and jobs.
The avian flu was thought to have come to Iowa from Minnesota and, before that, Canada and the Pacific Northwest, riding the wings of ducks and geese that migrated south and east in early spring. It took mere weeks for Iowa poultry farmers to lose or euthanize 30 million egg-laying hens and 1.5 million turkeys. No humans were infected.
Humans were affected, however, in lost income and more. The Hooyers saw their avocation grounded for one year.
"We weren't out our livelihood," Brian Hooyer said. "This is our hobby."
Hooyer's streak of county fair poultry participation stopped at 30 one year ago. It was a small price to pay when compared to his corporate neighbors who climbed back after losing millions of laying hens.
"I hope everyone gets back on their feet and that this never happens again," said Hooyer, whose father, Terry Hooyer, will serve as superintendent of the 4-H poultry show at the Sioux County Fair in Sioux Center.
The ban on poultry shows at county fairs in Iowa came as a means to stop the spread of avian flu. When the edict was handed down, Brian Hooyer was disappointed. Kennady wondered if it was a joke. She soon learned this was no laughing matter. There's a strong chance she and other competitors will be asked about it during the showmanship competition next week, an event Kennady Hooyer dearly wants to win.
Father Brian helped bring Kennady and her brothers, Chayce, 15, and Kole, 10, up to speed on this matter, as all three will show poultry at the Sioux County Fair. "Our flocks were tested twice (for avian flu) last summer, in June and in August, and both came back negative," Brian said.
Producers who had even one positive test had to euthanize entire flocks as a way to keep the disease from spreading in what ultimately became the worst epidemic of its kind in U.S. history.
Curiously, the virus left the area as quickly as it came, swept away either by moving fowl, rising temperatures or, in part, via the decision to destroy birds by the tens of thousands, a grueling preventive measure.
As large poultry farms continue to repopulate, children tend to their watering systems and cracked corn feed sources.
Kennady Hooyer, on an acreage west of Sioux Center, peered into a cage of ducks, waiting for her dad to point out how these birds of a feather don't all belong together.
"The ones with rough feathers don't go to the fair," he said.
Those that look best head to town on Saturday, quacking, chirping and carrying on, a cacophony that shows life on one Northwest Iowa acreage, at least, might be back to normal.
SIOUX CITY | After a hot, muggy Tuesday, the heat will again rise to around 90 degrees today, with chances for severe thunderstorm chances moving into Siouxland tonight.
According to the National Weather Service in Sioux Falls, today will be mostly cloudy but gradually become sunny, with a high of 89 degrees.
Showers and thunderstorms are likely tonight, mainly between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. Chance of precipitation is 70 percent, with a low will be 70 degrees.
The National Weather Service in Sioux Falls forecasts a "slight" risk for severe weather activity in much of Siouxland tonight, with projected rainfall maps showing around an inch of expected precipitation in Sioux City and closer to 1.2 inches near Le Mars.
Portions of Yankton, Clay and Union counties in South Dakota are under an "enhanced" risk for severe weather activity.
The main threats for the storm will be quarter-sized hail and up to 60 mph wind gusts.
Thursday's high temperature will be 86, with a 40 percent chance of rainfall.
Thursday night's low will be 63 degrees, with a 20 percent chance of precipitation.
Friday will be sunny and clear, with a high of 84 degrees and a low of 62.
Saturday's high will be 85, with a low around 67.
Sunday will be mostly sunny and 87, with a 40 percent chance of precipitation moving in Sunday night.
Daryl Ingram first thought he won $100 in Monday's Powerball drawing, a total that was exciting enough. After having the ticket scanned where he'd bought it, he realized he'd misread one of the winning numbers and had actually won $1 million.
In his indictment of free trade as virtual economic treason, The Donald has really set the cat down among the pigeons.
For, in denouncing NAFTA, the WTO, MFN for China and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, all backed by Bush I and II, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, Trump is all but calling his own party leaders dunderheads and losers.
And he seems to be winning the argument.
As he calls for the repudiation of "globalism" and a return to "Americanism," a Republican Congress renders itself mute on whether it will even vote on the TPP this year.
On trade, Bernie Sanders is closer to Trump. Even Hillary Clinton has begun to renounce a TPP she once called the "gold standard" of trade deals.
Where have all the troubadours of free trade gone? Why do economic patriots seem ascendant? Is this like the Cold War, where the other side gets up and goes home?
Answer. As Trump pointed out in Monessen in the Mon Valley of Pennsylvania, the returns from free trade are in, and the results are rotten.
Since Bush I, we have run $12 trillion in trade deficits, $4 trillion with China. Once a Maoist dump, China has become the greatest manufacturing power on earth. Meanwhile, the U.S. has lost 50,000 factories and a third of its manufacturing jobs.
Trump is going to start a "trade war," wail the critics.
But the damage wreaked upon U.S. industry by free traders already rivals what Arthur "Bomber" Harris did for German industry in the Ruhr.
In recent decades, every major U.S. trade partner -- China, Japan, Canada, Mexico, EU -- has run annual trade surpluses at our expense. How do 40 years of trade deficits in goods, run by a nation that rarely ran one for a century before, make us stronger or wealthier?
Or is what is best for the world now more important than what is best for America?
And here we come to the heart of the argument.
Washington, Hamilton, and Henry Clay, father of the "American System," and Lincoln and every Republican president up to Eisenhower, crafted trade policies to promote manufacturing to grow the wealth of the USA.
They were patriots, not globalists.
They knew that America's political independence required economic independence of all other nations. They wanted to build an economy where Americans would cut their bonds to foreign lands and come to rely upon one another for the needs and necessities of their national life. They sought to make us independent, so that we could not be dragged by economic ties into the inevitable wars of the Old World.
And they succeeded magnificently.
Britain, which embraced free trade in the 1840s, became so reliant on imports that a few dozen German submarines almost knocked her out of World War I. Protectionist America had to come pull her chestnuts out of the fire.
Free trade ideology is not America-made. It is an alien faith, a cargo cult, smuggled in from the old continent, the work of men Edmund Burke called "sophisters, economists, and calculators."
David Ricardo, James and John Stuart Mill, Richard Cobden, all chatterers and scribblers, none of whom ever built a great nation, declared free trade to be the new New Testament, the salvation of mankind.
These men in whose souls the old faith was dying seized on a utopian belief that world government and free trade would be the salvation of mankind. The Economist magazine was founded to preach the heresy.
Before the modern era, Americans never bought into it. But now, our elites have. And, undeniably, there are beneficiaries to free trade.
There are first the owners, operators and shareholders of companies who, to be rid of high-wage American labor, moved production to China or Mexico or where the costs are lower and regulations near nonexistent.
Transnational companies, their K Street lobbyists, and media that survive on their advertising dollars, are the biggest boosters of free trade, as they are the biggest beneficiaries.
Consumers, too, at least initially, see more products down at the mall, selling at lower prices. Cheap consumer goods are the bribes free traders proffer to patriots to sell out their country and countrymen to capitalists who have no country.
But we are not simply consumers. We are Americans. We are fellow citizens. We are neighbors. We have duties to one another.
When a factory shuts down and a town begins to die, workers are laid off. The local tax base shrinks, education and social services are cut. Folks go on unemployment and food stamps. We all pay for that.
Wives go to work and kids come home from school to empty houses, and families break up, and move away. Social disintegration follows.
"Creative destruction" is the antiseptic term free traders use to describe what they have done and are doing to the America we grew up in.
Southeast of the old Steel City, in the Mon Valley of Pennsylvania, where my mother and her six brothers and her sister grew up, folks describe what happened more poignantly and graphically.
CHICAGO -- Though summer tends to deliver a few opportunities to put our feet up and take it easy, hunger never takes a holiday.
But while many of us serve up juicy hamburgers and barrels of potato salad, more than 48 million Americans won't be getting enough to eat.
That's because summertime is particularly difficult for both people who live with food insecurity and the organizations that help them access free food, according to Feeding America, the nation's largest hunger-relief organization.
Not only are children who are on summer break missing the breakfasts and lunches they would have gotten at school, but parents, who often are subject to the fluctuations of weather for work, struggle to pay for expanded child care and extra food.
Simultaneously, the nation's food banks scramble to staff pantries and events when individuals and groups of volunteers, such as the Scouts and school-based community service organizations, are off on vacation. And food pantries are not immune to the whims of weather.
"Food banks in Arizona and New Mexico just don't do summer feeding because there aren't enough volunteers, there isn't enough food, and not enough money to get food out to the remote rural areas scattered throughout counties," said Ross Fraser, director of media relations for Feeding America. "And I repeatedly hear that in states with drought conditions, fewer crops are being planted, which means less donated fresh fruits and vegetables and more farmworkers who aren't working enough to sustain themselves. Then the farmworkers end up turning to food banks in greater numbers just to get by."
In some places, the need is so great that food banks resort to unconventional ways to get food to the people who need it the most.
For instance, in Las Vegas, an ice-cream-style truck will be delivering 300,000 meals to a variety of locations this summer, serving about 126,000 food insecure kids in the area. Similarly, Vermont has a "Veggie Van Gogh," starry-night motif truck that delivers produce to housing projects, schools and clinics.
Dayton, Ohio, does massive food distributions monthly in arena parking lots that serve thousands of families at a time. So does Fort Smith, Arkansas, with its summertime "Antioch in the Park" event, which distributes food to approximately 1,700 individuals over the course of just three hours.
The Arkansas event is organized by Antioch Consolidated Association for Youth and Family Inc., led by Executive Director Charlotte Tidwell, who told me that the need is so great, and the large donations so plentiful, that it's become necessary to hold events in the park just so there is enough space to accommodate the huge number of volunteers, pallets of food -- and the people arriving to stock up.
"We hold the event in the most low-income area of our community and the area that is most accessible since there is no public transportation [in Fort Smith]," Tidwell told me.
But the park has its own challenges. "Arkansas is very, very hot, it's like the sun only shines on Fort Smith. We've been out on days where it's 100 degrees and it's a real challenge. Not only does the food need to be protected to stay safe, but the elderly come out and stand in the heat for it; people come out with their little children; veterans and other people with disabilities come out and wait in the heat for hours just to get some food," Tidwell said.
"We have to have paramedics, nurses and emergency responders standing by. We have bilingual volunteers going up and down the long, snaking lines of thousands of people handing out cold water and distributing snacks for the kids. And we have volunteers to help those with disabilities transport their food."
Such is the challenge of feeding communities that are in dire need -- communities where those seeking food assistance are likelier than not to be working poor. Research indicates that underemployment is the biggest predictor of food insecurity among people living in the United States -- more than half (54 percent) of Feeding America's client households reported at least one employed person at some point in the past year.
Tidwell says that what local food banks need most is cash donations, because they get plenty of food but need funds to help distribute it to the neediest.
Every dollar counts. If you have a few to spare, consider feeding hungry fellow Americans.
WATERLOO, Iowa | NextGen Climate Iowa was a near-ubiquitous presence in the lead-up to the Feb. 1 caucus.
Its clean energy activists and supporters showed up at candidate stops wearing bright orange shirts and asking questions of the politicians, and the group flooded mailboxes with reminders about the upcoming presidential preference caucuses.
Though the candidates left after their caucus-night speeches, the climate activists stayed.
Their work in the state is far from finished, as they seek to become a part of the community, and work on a goal of registering 8,000 new millennials those younger than 30 to vote in time for the general election.
I dont think NextGen wants to be an organization that comes to a community, in a year or two is gone, and no one remembers who we were or what we did, said Matt Neberman, who is president of the groups University of Northern Iowa chapter and an active volunteer.
Neberman is part of a team based in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls area that is ensuring the groups place in the community. One of its main efforts is joining with a youth work initiative at the Jesse Cosby Neighborhood Center called Youth Empowerment Services.
The YES program seeks to give work and more importantly teach life and work skills to teenagers between the ages of 13 and 15. More than 50 youths have applied, and Jesse Cosby executive director Jesse Henderson hopes to have a place for all of them before the summer program wraps up.
The eight youths working specifically with NextGen are helping the climate change activists achieve their general election goal. NextGen is one of several agencies working with youths as part of the program, including Greens to Go and the Northeast Iowa Food Bank.
But more than reaching that goal, NextGen Iowa state director Zack Davis said the work gives the youths a path to make change in their own communities.
Maybe climate change and clean energy is the issue they get involved with where they learn these skills of how to build out meetings and how to have one-on-one conversations and how to build out a network and do basic organizing, but then they take that and use those skills long after campaigns have gone and really move whatever their issue is forward, Davis said.
Davis said the group works with a variety of other organizations throughout the state to be a part of the community and leaves it largely up to the organizers in the individual communities to reach out to agencies the activists can partner with.
I think its really an investment in people, and empowering them to make a difference in their community, Davis said. Its so much more than just phone calls and door knocks and what you think of (as) typical campaign voter contact, because thats how you build movements. And to me, organizing is just a fancy word for relationship building.
Relationship building has been a focus for NextGen since the caucuses ended. One of the first things the Cedar Valley group did is reach out to Habitat for Humanity and help to build a home for a local family. They also did presentations at the Boys and Girls Club of the Cedar Valley.
The local group found out about the opportunity to partner with the Jesse Cosby Neighborhood Center thanks to the curiosity and research of Ryan Adams, Waterloo/Cedar Falls regional field director with NextGen. In looking up area organizations, the Tennessee native came across the community center and decided to reach out.
It started with some presentations to the senior groups who visit the center daily, but as soon as Adams heard about the YES program, he knew he wanted NextGen to be a part of it. Through a fellowship program NextGen has, the organization also had people who could train and work with the YES students.
Like Davis, Adams saw a potential to help teach organizing skills to a younger generation.
In a way, its almost like a mentorship for those students during the summer, Adams said, pointing to the NextGen fellows who are in high school or college and leading the teens in the YES program. Were really teaching them about community organizing, activism, and the ways they can really change their neighborhood right here.
MASON CITY, Iowa | Jake Shields sensed trouble for American Eagle Flight 3495 when he felt the jet make a series of abrupt turns on the way to Chicago on Tuesday.
I knew something was wrong when we started making extreme turns, said Shields, of Spencer, Iowa. Weird dipping and turning.
Bobbing and weaving, added fellow passenger Shelly Norman, of Milford, Iowa. It was just a little more than turbulence.
Officials say thats because the plane was about to make an emergency landing at Mason City Municipal Airport due to smoke in the cockpit.
Operated by Envoy Air, the jet carrying 45 passengers and three crew members was headed from Joe Foss Field in Sioux Falls to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago.
The plane touched down around 1 p.m. in Mason City without incident. It stopped on the runway facing east.
I thought for two seconds it was going to be in a field, but (the pilot) emergency-stopped it on a dime, said passenger Andrew Orr, also of Spencer.
Passengers were directed out the emergency side exits of the aircraft as soon as it lurched to a halt.
They walked onto the wing, hopped down onto the pavement and then ran to a grassy area a few hundred yards from the plane.
Several local fire departments, including an airport crew, were sent to meet the plane. Multiple police agencies assisted at the scene.
Firefighters did not find any signs of fire or smoke on the plane.
Local officials had an approximately five-minute warning that the plane was experiencing trouble and was coming in for an unplanned landing, said Airport Operations Supervisor Dave Sims.
A Mason City Community Schools bus was brought in to get passengers off the hot runway and into the air-conditioned terminal. Though breezy, the air was humid with a temperature in the mid-80s and a heat index already in the 90s by early afternoon.
American Airlines spokeswoman Nancy Kalin said the company was sending a replacement plane to ferry the stranded passengers to Chicago on Tuesday night. They were expected to arrive around 8 p.m.
American Eagle is a regional carrier for American Airlines, the airline that also services Sioux Gateway Airport in Sioux City.
Flight 3495 passenger Melissa Rosales said she wasnt eager to get back on the plane after the sudden landing.
She, Shields and Norman all co-workers at Polaris in Spirit Lake, Iowa, -- planned to continue on their way toward Huntsville, Alabama. They were fresh off a weekend at home after spending the last month training workers at the new Polaris plant in Huntsville.
The facility makes the companys Slingshot three-wheeled vehicle.
I have reservations, but if I can find a nice cold alcoholic beverage I will probably get back on the plane, said Rosales, of Spencer. Im not gonna lie.
SIOUX CITY | Charles City Hall, on the campus of Morningside College, is older than the college itself.
The place also served as host to President Barack Obama, who made a campaign stop at Morningside College on Sept. 1, 2012.
The three-story structure, made of a purplish Sioux quartzite, was constructed for the University of the Northwest, which lasted from 1890 to 1894, a boom period in Sioux City's history, an era featuring the lavish Corn Palaces, expansion and speculation.
This building, in fact, WAS the University of the Northwest. The hall housed classes and had students sleeping on the top floor each night. It was, it appears, the original "one-stop shop" in education.
"The classrooms were in the building, the lunchroom was in a classroom," said Tim Orwig, a Morningside College graduate who penned a history of his alma mater for its centennial just over two decades ago. "Students stoked the furnace in the basement and slept upstairs."
In 2016, students might still be sleeping upstairs at times, although on a napping level rather than overnighting. A couch serves as a welcoming mat of sorts for students who reach the third floor hallway, an area separating one classroom and the offices of four professors.
For decades, Charles City Hall was home of Morningside's Conservatory of Music, where students participating in the programs of legends such as Leo Kucinski and Paul MacCollin perfected their craft.
Dr. Rudy Daniels taught history here, a class that a young Tim Orwig, a 1977 West High graduate, took. Orwig ended up teaching for 12 years at Morningside. He left the college in 1999 and now teaches architectural and art history at both Northeast University and Boston College.
Orwig notes that the cornerstone for Charles City Hall was laid on July 4, 1890, making this building 126 years old.
"A Methodist bishop spoke (when the cornerstone was laid) and the land around the building was prairie," Orwig said. "The bishop said how proud he was that this would be a college that would educate both men and women."
The structure was completed in 1894, when it became the core of the newly formed Morningside College, which replaced a defunct University of the Northwest.
"The idea, like Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, was that the University of the Northwest would be financed by land sales in the suburb surrounding the college," Orwig said. "That worked fine until a bust hit."
When Bishop Wilson Seeley Lewis came to the college to take it over in 1897, he found this building in the middle of a field, corn planted in all directions. He challenged himself and his staff to work to make the school viable.
Lewis Hall, which stands just south of Charles City Hall, is named for President Lewis, who served the school for 11 years. The foundation of Lewis Hall matches the purple Sioux quartzite found at Charles City Hall.
How, then, did the name come to be Charles City Hall?
"Charles City College (in Charles City, Iowa) was founded by German Methodists," Orwig said. "There were a number of German-speaking Methodist congregations that needed ministers. Charles City College formed in 1891 and in 1914 it closed and merged with Morningside."
When it closed, Charles City College boasted 63 alumni. They immediately became Morningside alumni. The legacy of Charles City College lived on in 1958 when this hall was completely renovated and renamed after the alums of the college in northeast Iowa.
"What's funny is that many times I've heard people say that building was dismantled from Charles City, Iowa," Orwig said. The story lacks one key ingredient: The truth.
"The story makes me smile and take a break before I explain it to them," Orwig said.
Charles City Hall was gutted by a fire in 1914, but was rebuilt, as the durability of the Sioux quartzite became apparent. This site, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was restored in 1989 and now houses classrooms and offices for the departments of history and political science, philosophy, religious studies and theater.
It also housed a sitting U.S. president just over four years ago. In fact, it became "headquarters" for White House staff traveling with President Obama, who entered Charles City Hall that day through a covered entry on the east side of the building, perhaps taking the same steps future leaders took on their way to history class, making local history some 126 years ago.
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed by unanimous consent H.R. 4139, the Fostering Innovation Act. If it becomes law, the bill would extend the current exemption for emerging growth companies (companies with annual gross revenues of less than $1 billion during its most recent fiscal year) from internal corporate financial control requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for an additional five years.
The bill is the result of bipartisan legislation introduced by Reps. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Michael Fitzpatrick (R-PA).
Fostering Innovation Act in Detail
Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 requires a publicly held company to hire an auditor to attest and report on the companys financial management and internal controls.
To help businesses manage the burden and expense of this auditing requirement, Congress passed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (the JOBS Act) of 2012, which exempts certain EGCs making less than $1 billion from Section 404(b)s auditing requirements for up to five years.
According to Rep. Fitzpatrick, this exemption remains critical to ensure startups are not saddled with regulatory burdens they cannot afford during significant periods of financial growth.
Startups and emerging companies need to focus on creating jobs, not navigating red tape, Fitzpatrick said in a prepared statement. This bipartisan, common-sense reform to one-size-fits-all regulations allows growing businesses to compete better in critical research and development.
The one-size-fits-all regulation Fitzpatrick alluded to does not take into account the business model for research-driven companies, particularly those invested in medicine and bioscience.
The nature of the work conducted by these companies calls for longer development timelines and more capital to advance the research, development and marketing of vital products. The alternative is to spend that capital to implement costly and unnecessary auditing procedures to comply with new regulations.
After only five years under the current JOBS Act exemption, these companies simply cannot afford to divert their limited resources and pay upwards of a million dollars to hire auditors to comply with federal regulations, Fitzpatrick said.
He added that the Fostering Innovation Act is a solution that allows Congress the opportunity to remove unnecessary roadblocks that prevent growth and economic certainty for small businesses around the country.
Fostering Innovation Act Support
The bill has received strong support from a variety of advocacy groups, including those in the biotech, venture capital and small business sectors.
Biotech
The JOBS Act has stimulated more than 180 biotech IPOs to date and is currently supporting a wide range of newly public companies for their first five years on the public market, said Jim Greenwood, president and CEO of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) in a press release. The Fostering Innovation Act would build on the success of the JOBS Act by acknowledging that many biotechs will remain pre-revenue even after the five-year EGC clock expires.
Investors
The ability of startups to access the capital markets to grow is critical to the U.S. economy, said Bobby Franklin, president and CEO of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), in a letter of support to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
Franklin went on to say that the U.S. averages less than half the number of IPOs annually since the year 2000 as it did before.
The total number of public companies in America has dropped by half in only twenty years, which is partly due to a dramatic reduction in the number of IPOs, he said. Simply put, the U.S. public capital markets are no longer hospitable to startups seeking capital to scale into the successful firms of tomorrow.
Small Business
Karen Kerrigan, president of the Small Business Executive Council, said in a statement, The Fostering Innovation Act sensibly extends an exemption allowed for in the JOBS Act to growing companies whose business models require more regulatory flexibility, and thus will enable greater success.
Conclusion
Cutting bureaucratic red tape, fostering job growth and making it easier for EGC companies in the medical, bioscience and other industries to focus on research are goals passage of the Fostering Innovation Act will achieve, supporters say.
Perhaps House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) summed up the bills purpose best when he said in a release, I believe most of us would agree that our economy works better for all Americans when small businesses can focus on creating jobs rather than navigating bureaucratic red tape.
Since passing the House, the bill has been received in the Senate and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, for consideration.
Fostering Innovation Act FAQs To what types of small companies does the bill apply? See Also: What Are Richest Fake Companies Worth? The bill applies to a small subset of emerging growth companies, primarily in the medical and bioscience industries, that has conducted an IPO or is in the IPO process. How small are the public companies that this bill affects? EGC companies with an average revenue of less than $50 million and less than $700 million in public float. What kinds of compliance regulations does the bill help ease? The bill extends the current exemption for EGCs, outlined in the JOBS Act, from Section 404(b) auditing requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for an additional five years. Does the bill make it easier for more small businesses to benefit from going public? The bill makes it easier and less costly for new emerging growth companies to enter the market. Rather than spend valuable resources on a costly and unnecessary external audit, EGC companies can focus on product research and development.
Environment, Social Movements July 6, 2016 John Riddell
The first two public consultations on climate action organized by Canadas national government in Toronto, gave strong support to the demands of the Peoples Climate Plan (PCP), an alternative to federal climate-related proposals. The PCPs proposals are listed below.
The two concepts most frequently voiced at the gatherings, held June 17 and June 24, were support for Indigenous rights and opposition to further expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure. Participants listened attentively to the governments presentations but offered no congratulations for its initial proposals.At a related Toronto consultation on June 15 on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, also held by the federal government, was met by sharp and near-unanimous opposition from an audience of several hundred. If ratified, the deal would place further legal barriers in the path of meaningful climate action.
The Peoples Climate Plan is a tool to promote public engagement with these government initiatives and formulation of an alternative. Judging by the first two Toronto consultations, it provides a useful starting point.
A Stifled Conversation
The federal government proposes to hold climate action town halls in individual constituencies across the country. So far, initiatives have been taken in few of the 338 constituencies. The Toronto meetings were announced with only a weeks notice and little publicity apart from Liberal Party email lists. At the first Toronto event, sponsored by three MPs, capacity was limited to 250. Participants had to pre-register, and after a couple of days tickets were unavailable. The second Toronto event, which drew 60 participants, aimed to encompass those excluded from the first.
The standard format excludes plenary discussion. First a government representative presents a slide-show. Then participants are divided into breakout groups to consider questions posed by the ministry. Each group chooses a reporter who has one or two minutes to summarize her groups proposals to the assembly. Finally, a government representative sums up.
The format makes it hard to present a coherent alternative. However, PCP supporters in Toronto had carried out educational and training sessions that prepared them well to make their message heard.
Ottawas Proposals
The climate action town halls are an outgrowth of Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus project of presenting a national plan for climate action by year-end. The government has presented its framework on a federal climate action website, which acknowledges in general terms the facts of climate crisis and the need for action. (For a more satisfactory treatment of these issues, see We Are Not All in This Together by Ian Angus.)
The governments website picks up some concepts of the climate action movement, such as eliminating subsidies to the petroleum industry (albeit gradually) and putting a price on carbon. It proposes that federal, provincial, and territorial governments join to set a truly national target for climate action but does not replace the totally inadequate targets of the previous administration. It does not suggest any restriction on expansion of fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure.
The website invites comments, which the Environment and Climate Change Canada ministry, is diligently recording. But we should not imagine that Ottawas policy decisions will be significantly influenced by such comments in themselves. The National Climate Plan will be shaped mainly by negotiations with provincial governments and business interests. However, strong advocacy of a meaningful alternative to Ottawas proposals helps to build the Canada-wide movement for climate justice. And this movement has a proven capacity to affect government policy, most dramatically by delaying and blocking pipeline construction projects.
The ministrys initial presentation acknowledged the urgency of climate action but was otherwise light on specific commitments. Two statements of Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna in the first assembly were noteworthy:
The government would not address specific targets for carbon emissions reduction. Eighty-five per cent of the scope for emissions reduction lies in provincial rather than federal jurisdiction.
The second point tacitly implied that the Trudeau government intends not to utilize its authority to restrict or halt expansion of pipelines and other forms of fossil fuel infrastructure a major contested issue.
Rallying for an Alternative
The presentations from breakout groups in the two town halls, while brief, hammered at some key points: support Indigenous rights, leave tar sands in the ground, no more pipelines, no subsidies to oil corporations, a just transition for oil workers, and Canadas global climate responsibilities. Mention of these points often sparked applause and cheers. The assemblies became animated rallies for a climate alternative.
In the second consultation, the last reporter from breakout groups wound up by calling for a standing vote of all those who wanted fossil fuels to stay in the ground to stand. Everyone rose amid great enthusiasm.
A listing of the points made at the two town hall meetings is appended below.
Lessons from the Town Halls
The Peoples Climate Plan has proven an effective tool in engaging with the governments moves on climate. Still, experience in the Toronto consultations suggests two topics where there is perhaps something to learn.
For an emissions reductions schedule
The second pillar of the PCP calls for a plan that builds a 100% renewable energy economy by 2050. At the Toronto consultations, this point did not come through strongly. There were only six mentions of some type of prioritization for energy transition.
This may be because the 2050 target is too distant; it does not demand anything of the present government.
The meaning of the renewables goal can be clarified by pointing to the need to adopt specific targets for yearly reductions of at least 5% in total carbon emissions, starting immediately.
Canadas global responsibilities
One of the six most frequently mentioned themes in the Toronto consultations was, Protect victims of climate change worldwide. This concept is not in the PCP. Granted, the PCP consists of only three sentences and cannot say everything. But we can globalize the PCPs scope by inserting four words into this point.
The final phrase of the PCP calls for a climate plan that takes leadership from those hit hardest by the climate crisis. We should amend this by adding the words both nationally and globally.
We should seek opportunities to discuss all global barriers to effective climate action, from militarism and the arms race to global trade pacts.
Next Steps
It is not clear how far the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau will proceed with its town hall project. PCP supporters may wish to call their own events, as in Winnipeg on June 25. When a Winnipeg MP cancelled a consultation at the last moment, PCP supporters held their own town hall at the same time and place. But no matter how the town halls evolve, the next six months will provide many opportunities to present an alternative, including through rallies, union meetings and demonstrations.
More generally, such initiatives form part of building a movement for what the Leap Manifesto calls a great transition to a society based on caring for each other and caring for the planet.
PRINCE FREDERICK, Md.
Disclaimer: In the U.S.A., all persons accused of a crime by the State are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. See: http://so.md/presumed-innocence. Additionally, all of the information provided above is solely from the perspective of the respective law enforcement agency and does not provide any direct input from the accused or persons otherwise mentioned. You can find additional information about the case by searching the Maryland Judiciary Case Search Database using the accused's name and date of birth. The database is online at http://so.md/mdcasesearch . Persons named who have been found innocent or not guilty of all charges in the respective case, and/or have had the case ordered expunged by the court can have their name, age, and city redacted by following the process defined at http://so.md/expungeme.
(July 6, 2016)The Prince Frederick Barrack of the Maryland State Police (MSP) today released the following incident and arrest reports.POSSESSION OF AMPHETAMINES: On June 28, 2016 at 8:14 pm, Trooper First Class Barlow and Trooper Backus stopped a vehicle on Rt. 4 near Bright Rd. in Owings for an equipment violation. A faint odor of raw marijuana was emitting from inside the vehicle. A probable cause search revealed marijuana, Alprazolam pills, Amphetamine/Dextroamphetamine and Vyvanse., was arrested and incarcerated at the Calvert County Detention Center.POSSESSION WITH INTENT TO DISTRIBUTE: On June 29, 2016 at 12:40 am, Trooper First Class Newcomer assisted Corporal Dawson on a traffic stop at Rt. 4 and Plum Point Rd. in Huntingtown., was found to be in possession of 62.4 grams of marijuana and THC oil/wax. Sullivan was arrested and charged with possession with intent to distribute. He was incarcerated at the Calvert County Detention Center.Mariah C. Pierre, 20, of St. Leonard, arrested on 06/27/2016 @ 07:25 am by TFC W. CostelloCarlos D. Palomeque, 26, of Huntingtown, arrested on 07/04/2016 @ 11:35 pm by TFC S. Barlow
PRINCE FREDERICK, Md. (July 6, 2016)A 3 vehicle crash in Dunkirk Tuesday injured a 94-year-old Va. woman who later succumbed to her injuries. The crash occurred at approximately 2:47 p.m. at the intersection of Chesapeake Beach Road (MD Route 260) and Shields Drive in Dunkirk. Police report that the following three vehicles were involved:
a 2009 Nissan Xterra operated by Evelyn Marie Matos, age 20, of Lothian;
a 2014 BMW 325i operated by Sean Thomas Ashe, age 46, of Dunkirk; and
a 2012 Chevrolet Malibu operated by Walter Mark Ryan of Annandale, Va.
Preliminary investigation revealed a 2014 BMW 325i, operated by Ashe, was stopped in the eastbound lane of Maryland Route 260 waiting to make a left turn onto Shields Drive. The 2009 Nissan Xterra, operated by Matos, was traveling eastbound on Maryland Route 260. Matos advised that she didn't see the BMW until the last second and attempted to avoid a collision with it but was unsuccessful. The Nissan struck the rear of the BMW. This collision pushed the BMW into the westbound lane of Maryland Route 260. The 2012 Chevrolet Malibu, operated by Ryan, was traveling westbound on Maryland Route 260 when it was struck by the BMW that had been pushed into the westbound lane as a result of the initial collision. After striking the BMW, the Nissan rolled onto the passenger side and came to rest in the eastbound lane of Maryland Route 260.
The rear seat passenger of the Chevy Malibu, Claire Lereau, 94, of Vienna, Va., was transported to Baltimore Shock Trauma for injuries received during the collision. Lereau succumbed to her injuries at Baltimore Shock Trauma and was pronounced dead by the hospital staff.
All the operators and the other passengers of the vehicles involved declined medical treatment on the scene.
Police say it appears that Matos' failure to control speed to avoid a collision is one of the contributing factors to the collision; however, the investigation is on-going.
The collision remains under the investigation by the Crash Reconstruction Team. Anyone with additional information about the collision is asked to contact Cpl. Phelps of CRT at 410-535-2800 or via e-mail at: phelpsts@co.cal.md.us.
Have you ever stood at the counter at your local coffee shop and just gazed at the work of steaming, creamy art whipped up right there in front of you?
Sharon Stephenson, founder of Blooming Bean Coffee Co., believes brewing the perfect cup of coffee is indeed an art that deserves to be experienced and shared. Beginning on July 16, Stephenson will be offering The Brew Series at Bailey Contemporary Arts (BaCA) in Pompano Beach.
The three-class series will introduce students to different tastes, styles and methods to roast, brew and serve coffee. Each session will involve blind tastings, pairings and detailed discussions about industry issues such as fair trade vs. organic and sustainable production.
My goal is to introduce coffee culture and take participants to the level of coffee enthusiast or even purist, explained Stephenson. They will profile their own noses and develop their own palates through blind tastings.
If the terminology sounds much like wine tasting, it is, she told SFGN. Coffee is an exciting world of tastes, blends and philosophies. And, just like grapes, the character of coffee beans is affected by their terroirthe set of all environmental qualities, soil and climate, where each crop is grown.
Each individuals taste buds process the flavors in different ways, reacting to acidity and varying flavor notes. Most importantly, like good wine, a good coffee is always the one the drinker enjoys most.
Related: Coffee and Conversations A Boom At Pride Center
Each class will include pairings with pastries and desserts by Love Well Bakery. Participants will also take home a package of artisanal roasted coffee.
Coffee is undergoing a renaissance, so to speak, said Stephenson, who rejects the current notion that dark roasting is the preferred method. We have been in the Dark Ages. Weve been sold a bill of goods.were all really tired of being told how to drink our coffee.
A lifelong drinker, Stephenson later developed her passion for coffee during her travels. She and her husband would seek out local roasters and six years ago, decided to begin roasting her own coffee. She married her love for coffee with advocacy work for at-risk youth and victims of child trafficking.
It was the best way to pour into a passion but to mentor at the same time, she said.
Stephenson is also a vocal supporter for the local roasting community, which has grown significantly over the past few years. A barista throw-down challenge was one of the featured events at last months art walk in Fort Lauderdales FAT Village. She can also be found at the many other local roasters like Switchbox in Oakland Park or Alchemist in Wilton Manors, depending on the vibe Im feeling.
On Sept. 10, Stephenson will open her Blooming Bean Coffee Co. shop in BaCA, the thriving cultural arts center in Old Town Pompano Beach. The inaugural celebration will include an appearance by an artist who paints using coffee.
BaCA director Sarah Benichou said, We are thrilled that Sharon is teaching this class. Coffee is so immersed in our culture and our daily routines, gaining a better understanding of how to create a better cup is something we can all appreciate.
Learn the art of coffee at The Brew Series at Bailey Contemporary Arts, 41 NE 1st St. in Pompano Beach, on Saturdays, July 16, July 30 and Aug. 13 at 10 a.m. Each session is $25 with discounts for multiple classes. Seating is extremely limited. For more information or to register, call 954-284-0141 or go to BaileyArts.org.
To learn more about Blooming Bean Coffee Co., go to BloomingBeanCoffee.com.
(PGN) U.S. Sen. Bob Casey said lawmakers could find new ways to push the Equality Act with lessons they learned in recent weeks through a House sit-in on gun reform and a Senate Democratic proceeding involving Judge Merrick Garland, the Supreme Court nominee whom Republicans have refused to consider.
Were getting smarter and more effective at using other strategies that other people have used in years past to create attention and focus, Casey told about 50 LGBT advocates gathered June 27 at the John C. Anderson Apartments.
The senator spent an hour at the LGBT-friendly senior apartments listening to community concerns about LGBT homeless youth, funding for programs and passing nondiscrimination protections at the state and federal levels. Casey wanted to connect with the LGBT community in the wake of last month's shooting at an Orlando LGBT nightclub.
The Scranton Democrat said its critical to get media attention for LGBT bills without being prompted by a horrific incident. He added the Equality Act which would ban LGBT discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations and other areas has not yet had a committee hearing, the first step before it reaches the Senate floor for a vote.
The best way for us to keep the Equality Act in front of people and to really advocate for it is to do things at home, Casey said, to do things in states and congressional districts across the country so people know what were talking about.
Related: The Equality Act Isnt a New Thing
As a lawmaker, Casey pledged to make the case for the Equality Act not just in Philadelphia, but also in places of the state where there is less support.
Part of this is challenging people to disagree, but also engaging them and trying to persuade, he said. Weve got to go to places where theres an argument.
Deja Lynn Alvarez, director of the Divine Light LGBTQ Wellness Center in North Philadelphia, wanted to know what Casey thought of the state legislature pursuing three separate nondiscrimination bills. She said many think the community should settle for antibias protections in housing and employment, but forgo public-accommodations protections.
The trans community will be the ones hit the hardest if public accommodations are not covered, Alvarez said. I find that a little difficult for myself and my community to swallow."
Casey said the federal Equality Act still outlines comprehensive protections from discrimination.
At this time I dont think theres any strategy that would involve truncating it or only focusing on some of the titles in the Civil Rights Act as opposed to others.
In terms of funding for LGBT initiatives, Casey said its been about a decade since legislators were able to earmark small dollar amounts for projects. He said it used to be a way to give a seal of approval to a project in hopes of further government or private funds.
Casey added he would have his staff look into grant options for specific projects. Chris Bartlett, executive director of the William Way LGBT Community Center, wanted Caseys office to guide him and the directors of the seven other LGBT centers in Pennsylvania on applying for federal funds to make their buildings more secure.
We dont want to be fortresses, Bartlett said. But we can look at things that would make the center safer for our community. I think were really finding thats a top priority.
According to FBI data from 2014, hate crimes disproportionately affect LGBT people.
Orlando is a wake-up call, Casey said. Its not some theory. We have numbers that back up that [LGBT people are] a huge target for a lot of hate and a lot of violence. We need to use that as leverage to seek those dollars.
LGBT Democrats and their allies are arriving in Fort Lauderdale Beach this weekend for summer meetings.
U.S. Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney (D-New York) is scheduled to deliver a keynote speech at Saturday nights gala dinner. Maloney, 49, became the second member of Congress to marry a same-sex spouse when he and husband Randy Florke wed in 2014. The couple has three children.
Before he was elected to Congress, Maloney served as White House staff secretary in President Bill Clintons administration.
The Bahia Mar, 801 Seabreeze Blvd., is hosting this weekends proceedings. Floridas LGBTA Caucus is officially chartered by the Florida Democratic Party. Other announced attendees include Hillary for America campaign manager Robby Mook and DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Tickets for the gala are available for purchase until Friday at 5 p.m. To purchase tickets visit www.floridalgbtademocrats.org
How far will a starry-eyed Barbra Streisand fan go to get close to the beloved icon? Jonathan Tolins imagines a hilarious scenario in his hit Off Broadway comedy, Buyer & Cellar, coming to Actors Playhouse in Coral Gables this weekend.
The play chronicles the hilarious experiences of Alex More, a struggling gay actor who lands a job working in the shopping mall Streisand built in the basement of her Malibu compound. After weeks of minding the store, the Lady Herself comes downstairs to shop. But, eventually Alex begins to wonder if the bond he feels in the basement will ever make it upstairs.
Actors Playhouse artistic director David Arisco had been eyeing the show for more than a year. Actor Michael Urie (Ugly Betty) originated the role of Alex and took the play to New York, Los Angeles and London before the rights became available.
I had to keep an eye on its journey, explained Arisco. The question was whether it would be released to regionals. There were other theaters in South Florida that were trying to get it at the same time.
The intimate show offers a stark contrast to the big musicals Arisco typically programs, such as West Side Story, Ragtime, Miss Saigon and 1776.
Related: Broadway's 'Fun Home' Cast to Perform Show in Orlando
Im always looking to create as eclectic a season as I can. I felt we didnt have a lighthearted comedy, he said.
After snagging the rights, Ariscos biggest challenge would be finding an actor who could handle the challenge: This character has to be charming with a capital C, in addition to playing more than a half-dozen roles including Alex, boyfriend Barry, James Brolin, Steisands house manager and, ultimately, Babs herself.
That actor would be Carbonell Award-winner Chris Crawford, a Carbonell winner last year for Murder Ballad at Actors Playhouse.
First and foremost, its a challenge. As an actor, you dream of doing a one-man or one-woman show. Its all me for 40-something pages. This script, in particular, has so much heart. Were all struggling with something and looking for more in our lives, just like Alex, Crawford said.
As a gay man, Crawford particularly relates to his character. He noted a line in the show when Alex first catches a glimpse of Streisands People dress and has a moment. Crawford grew up watching Barbra Streisand concerts on VHS video tapes, but finally had his own moment rehearsing this show.
She had never been the icon to me until I did this show and now Im obsessed. Shes such a fascinating person. Im very much like Alex in that way. Ive always respected that shes a part of gay culture, but now I get it.
Arisco already knows both gay and straight audiences will flock to the show: It is a gay man who is telling a gay mans dream story, but the charm of the character opens the door for the straight community, as well. The jokes wont be lost on them.
See the Florida regional premiere of Jonathan Tolins comedy, Buyer & Cellar, July 13 Aug. 7 at Actors Playhouse, 280 Miracle Mile in Coral Gables. Tickets are $45 53 at ActorsPlayhouse.org.
Antarctica as a test bed for astronaut long duration spaceflight. ESA
ESA has teamed up with the British Antarctic Survey to study how humans survive conditions resembling a long duration spaceflight or staying on the Moon or Mars. Fortunately, there is somewhere on Earth where people are as isolated as astronauts Antarctica.
During Antarcticas long winter, people on the Concordia research station feel as if they are on another planet. There are sub-zero temperatures, it is difficult to breathe inland as the air is so thin, and some parts of the continent are cut off for months on end, leaving people isolated with no way home.
In this film ESA medical doctor, Beth Healey (who spent a year on the continent) uses a video diary format to describe what it was like to overwinter on the Concordia station. The psychological and physiological challenges are similar to those experienced by astronauts on the International Space Station and will help assess how people will perform on future missions to the Moon, Mars or beyond.
Our future in space begins on Earth. Further details can be found here.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The governments of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States welcomed the announcement that Libyas National Oil Corporation chair Mustafa Sanalla and board member Dr. Nagi el-Maghrabi agreed to unify the corporation, according to a joint statement released by the US Department of State on Wednesday.
"Libyas national economic institutions, including the Central Bank of Libya, National Oil Corporation, and Libyan Investment Authority, must remain united under the sole stewardship of the GNA [Government of National Accord] and must use Libyas resources for the benefit of all Libyans," the statement said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) The UK parliament's Defense Committee on Tuesday called for the renewal of EU's anti-Russia sanctions as well as introducing individual sanctions against a larger number of Russian officials. The Committee also called for stepping up NATO deterrence against the perceived threat of Russian militarization in its new report.
"I do not think it is necessary at all, I do not view Russia as a threat," Atkinson said, commenting on the report.
"In our country, we need investment, and if it comes from Russia, that is great, we need all the friends we can get at the moment I certainly would like the UK to have a free trade agreement with Russia. We should be looking at trading, not militarization," Atkinson said.
The veteran Canadian diplomat said that US allies were also reacting to their recognition that the same policies imposed by Washington on many countries and conflicts around the world were having the same results of costly failure, generating widespread suffering and chaos.
"The United States is indeed a mighty power, but its record of foreign policy and war, while immensely destructive, is one of failure and incompetence. Its efforts in East Africa, Libya, Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia: all failures," Armstrong pointed out.
Far from learning from its repeated mistakes, the US government was consistently making them worse, Armstrong noted.
"Each failure sets the opportunity for the next failure. Still worse is the incoherency of Washington's purposes."
Armstrong linked the report to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans attempt to repair relations with Russia by apologizing for shooting down a Russian aircraft last year, and to the failed attack of US-backed rebels against a Daesh position at Abu Kamal on the Syria-Iraq border last week.
"With respect to Syria, just in the last couple of days we have had Erdogan's attempt to repair relations with Moscow and another failure of a US-created moderate rebel force."
Russia, on the other hand, had used the full range of power carefully and skillfully, Armstrong explained.
Russias strategy at the time was based on the legal confirmation of the neutral status of the new Central European democracies, a global partnership with the United States in the sphere of strategic stability and nuclear weapons and building the security system in Europe on the basis of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) mechanisms. NATO's decision to open the doors to countries that were part of this buffer zone would be perceived by Russia as a diplomatic failure and a serious blow to its strategic interests.
The Russian establishment believed that preserving NATO as a relic of the bipolar world despite Russia's multiple concessions would lead to Moscows international isolation, suggesting that NATO should follow in the footsteps of the dissolved Warsaw Pact or transform itself into an open political structure, a subordinate of the OSCE as the only pan-European security organization, in which Russia could participate on an equal footing with NATO member states.
However, the further course of history did not conform with Russias expectations. NATO chose the path of geopolitical consolidation of the outcome of the Cold War, repeating the classic winners mistake humiliation of the weak, similar to the the division of the Ottoman Empire that led to the World War I, the unjust Treaty of Versailles that paved the shortest way to World War II or military action against Yugoslavia that led to the destabilization of Balkans.
The expansion of NATO as a foregone conclusion was first officially announced by US President Bill Clinton during his January Europe tour in 1994. In July 1997, at the Madrid Summit, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary were formally invited to become full-fledged members of the Alliance. The accession of the three former satellites of Moscow was officially formalized on March 12, 1999.
The so-called Vilnius group of NATO-aspiring states, which included the Baltic countries and seven Eastern European states, was formed the following year. On March 29, 2004, seven countries, including the Baltic States, officially became members of the Alliance. Five years later, in 2009, Albania and Croatia also joined the Alliance.
NATO invited Montenegro to join the military bloc in December 2015. It was the Alliances first expansion into Eastern Europe in six years. Montenegro accepted the invitation the following day, which triggered protests in the Balkan nation since more than half of the local population according to polls conducted at the time opposed ascension to the military bloc.
In May, the foreign ministers of the NATO member states signed an accession protocol for Montenegro, granting the Balkan country observer status at Alliance meetings. Montenegro will be granted membership to the Alliance once the protocol is ratified by all 28 NATO member states, which is expected to take place by the end of the year.
No Waves Without Wind
Following Montenegro's invitation to join the Alliance, the 13th Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, said that its accession would demonstrate that the NATO's door remains open despite the aggravating tensions and the painful reaction by the Russian side to NATO enlargement.
Why is extensive growth so important to the NATO establishment? Taking into account pure geopolitical thinking considering natural resources as a key to defining strategic interests and describing the international relations as the growing struggle of "each against all," NATO seeks to maintain Western dominance through the physical expansion of its military presence.
This approach explains not only the organizations constant eastward focus, given the strategic importance of the territory of Siberia and the Russian Far East, but also speculations about Sweden and Finlands potential membership, that came into focus after Russia expressed significant interest in exploring the Arctic region, thought to contain enormous untapped resources of oil and gas.
Moreover, NATO acts as a guarantor of the political survival of regimes in the countries joining the Alliance. The expansion increases the manageability and predictability of the local governments that would be difficult to achieve if they retained a neutral status.
The question of the first post-Cold War NATO expansion was closely linked to the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. One of the main incentives that eventually led to the 1999 enlargement was Resolution 781 of the UN Security Council, adopted on October 9, 1992, that established a ban on military flights in Bosnian and Herzegovinian airspace, which required US military deployment in Hungary.
Thus, it can be concluded that NATO is expanding toward regions considered to be potential trouble spots.
Enlargement Triggers Enlargement
Peripheral NATO member states have proven to be main lobbyist for further NATO expansion, fearing that neighboring countries may become gray zones of instability. Thus, Germany was the main lobbyist of the first NATO expansion, Poland lobbied for the ascension of the Baltic States, Hungary for Slovakia and Romania, the Baltic countries are now lobbying for the accession of Ukraine.
According to Godsiff, the Iraq war led to destabilization in Libya, Syria and Iraq.
"The chaos that exists not just in Iraq at the moment, but in Libya and in Syria is directly attributable to the destabilization of North Africa which began with the invasion of Iraq," Godsiff said.
The United Kingdom was part of a US-led coalition, which also included Australia and Poland, that invaded Iraq in 2003, without a UN mandate, after accusing then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein of possessing weapons of mass destruction, which were never found.
Josefa Dias da Costa, also known as Graciane, became famous after she posted a series of unusual pictures of herself, which she took to cheer up her children, on social networks. As a result, the woman became a popular meme well known throughout Brazil.
Caption: New poses, up high as always!
The 35-years-old mother of four, who lives in Monte das Gameleiras in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, started taking pictures of herself in unusual situations for laughs, in order to cheer up her children.
Of late, it has become increasingly common that the migration board itself notifies the Security Service (SAPO) of suspicious asylum-seekers likely to commit crimes on Swedish soil. This year alone, some 300 cases were reported to SAPO.
"This is a four- to fivefold increase compared to 2014," Oscar Ekblad of the Migration Board told Swedish Radio, citing a possible number of unreported cases due to the high workload, as the board's personnel have been running at maximum capacity since last year's unparalleled influx. "We cannot set up a fine-meshed net to sieve through all the immigrants," Ekblad said.
Usually, suspected asylum-seekers are allowed to stay in Sweden for months without any concern by either the Migration Board or the Security Service. Due to bureaucracy and work overload, an asylum investigation usually begins several months after the person set foot in Sweden.
"It was agreed that if [Yu] paid the sum of $3.7 million [the agency] would provide Megan Fox, Candice Swanepoel and [Yang Ying] as escorts for sexual services," Yu's statement to the court read.
Yu suspected he had been scammed when the Chinese model did not appear at a prearranged rendezvous.
"He wants to recoup the cost and is suing the agency's parent company for breach of conduct, misleading and deceptive conduct, and unjust enrichment," the report states.
The agency has yet to file their defense with the court.
Kamps documented how TEPCO knew about the meltdown from the beginning, and understated the true extent of the damage. "They clearly did conceal the three meltdowns for two months," he said. "They [TEPCO] knew really within the first day or two that they had a meltdown, and they simply covered it up for as long as they could."
Kamps pointed out a recent report in which the company attempted to dodge responsibility for their duplicity. "Whats interesting now is this panel report is trying to shift the blame from Tokyo Electric to the serving government at the time, which was the Democratic Party of Japan. Theyre trying to blame Prime Minister [Naoto] Kan and his chief spokesman Yukio Edano, both of whom have really come out swinging against this report, saying its preposterous [and that] they made no order to TEPCO to not use the word 'meltdown,' but thats what TEPCOs trying to say, thats its the governments fault."
I think there are a number of reasons why there is a potential for a lasting alliance here, he says. If you take these things together, what you see is one cohesive and coherent strategy for the creation of an antidote to the West.
That is to say, he stated, something that balances the unipolar hegemony of the United States and of NATO.
Despite political conflicts between India and Pakistan, a new partnership between the two nations could work to prevent Washingtons ability to meddle in Asia.
Can these seemingly disparate issues be, sort of, coalesced into one formal relationship? Ultimately, thats what would benefit all of these countries, and, in my view, thats what the United States fears more than anything else, Draitser says.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)The airstrike was carried out on Tuesday night in the troubled Kot district of the Nangarhar province, a spokesman for the provincial governor, Attaullah Khoghyani, was quoted as saying by the local TOLOnews broadcaster.
He added that no civilians were wounded in the airstrike.
Afghanistan is in a state of political and social turmoil, fighting the continuing Taliban insurgency, while other extremist groups, such as Daesh, outlawed in many states worldwide including Russia, have expanded their activities in the country.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) The idea of amending Japan's constitution has been supported by a large number of lawmakers, and is likely to be approved by the upper house of the Japanese parliament after the July 10 elections, a poll revealed on Wednesday.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has declared a goal of amending the post-WWII constitution. The constitutional amendments must be debated in the commissions set up in the two chambers of the Japanese parliament. A two-thirds majority in both chambers is required to initiate constitutional change, which would be followed by a nationwide referendum.
According to the poll by the Kyodo news agency, there is a possibility the constitutional revision will be approved, but it is far from certain, as over 40 percent of those polled said they were undecided on either their constituency or proportional representation votes.
NEW DELHI (Sputnik) It is not unusual in India to witness major regig of the council of ministers running the federal government. The country's law permits the prime minister to choose, reshuffle, lay off and expand his cabinet as and when required.
However, Tuesday's cabinet expansion had something new to be recorded in Indian history. Two of the newly inducted ministers chose to cycle their way to the oath-taking venue in a stark contrast to their other colleagues who came in luxury vehicles.
Arjun Meghwal, the new junior minister for Finance and Mansukh Mandaviya, junior minister for Road Transport and Highways, were keenly followed by admirers and the media as they road their bicycles towards the Rashtrapati Bhawan for the oath-taking. Soon, their videos and photos set the social media abuzz.
"That number itself is an estimate, one that is used internally because even Twitter isn't fully sure. That's because it is hugely challenging to tally up China-based users by virtue of them connecting to the service via virtual private network (VPN) software which allows them to use an internet connection outside of China, thus bypassing the country's web censorship system," a media report said on Wednesday.
Chinese netizens' accessing Twitter on a VPN will show up as being located in the US, Britain, Singapore or wherever else their VPN is set to. Those who do not have access to VPNs instead use Weibo and WeChat as alternative local microblogging sites.
NEW DELHI (Sputnik) Ahead of his four-nation Africa visit Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his tour is aimed at enhancing ties with the continent, particularly in the economic sphere and people-to-people contacts.
My Africa tour, aimed at enhancing ties between India & Africa will begin from Mozambique in a brief but key visit. https://t.co/LaOw7lk2fp Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) 6 July 2016
"In a bid to strengthen India-Africa ties, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will undertake his first visit to African mainland between July 7 and 11, covering four countries: Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Vikas Swarup told media.
During the course of interrogation of another Daesh suspect, Mohammad Moshiruddin, alias Musa, the names of those arrested cropped up and police were quick to act and arrest them. It is believed that Musa has revealed more names to the investigating agencies and some more arrests could take place.
Both Seikh Abbasuddin and Saddam Hussain were in close contact with Musa.
Two medical students, identified as Gautam Sudarshan and Ashish Pal, filmed how they had sadistically thrown a dog from the roof of a multi-story building about two weeks ago. The offenders were suspended by their college, arrested and released on bail Wednesday. They were ultimately fined 10 and 50 Indian Rupees (US $0.15 and US $0.74) and served no jail time.
Their canine victim was found alive on Tuesday by animal rights activists with the help of volunteers among residents. The little dog was named "Bhadra," the Hindi word for "blessed." She was injured and unable to walk, but still wagging her tail, according to an animal rights activist Shravan Krishnan. One of her legs was fractured, but vets who treated her said that she is out of danger.
"I think China is well aware of the fact that it has this huge military cache aimed at it, and its at least entitled to say this is an existential threat or a threat to national security," DeBar says.
Increasing military posturing by the Pentagon in the region is seen by some to be a response to concerns that the United States is losing its international influence.
"If you look China and the US in Africa, China and the US in Latin America, at the end of the day, the United States offers people another looting session, and China offers them development," he says. "In terms of geopolitics, the leadership of the United States has to see that their days are numbered, if they dont take some sort of an affirmative step to stop that from maturing."
The European Union bore the brunt of the losses, accounting for nearly 77 percent of all trade losses, the institute said.
"We estimate this loss at US\$60.2 billion from 2014 until mid-2015. Interestingly, we find that the bulk of the impact stems from products that are not directly targeted by Russian retaliations," CEPII said in the Collateral Damage: The impact of the Russia sanctions on sanctioning countries exports report published on Tuesday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Russian-Turkish relations deteriorated following the downing of a Russian Su-24 aircraft by a Turkish F-16 fighter jet in Syria on November 24, 2015. In the wake of the incident, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree imposing economic measures against Ankara.
"The ministry has not offered proposals to lift the restrictions yet," Topilin said, as quoted by his press service.
However, last year the pendulum swung back, as German companies began to regret losing a key market. Furthermore, according to data compiled by Ernst & Young, the biggest source of foreign investment in Russia, about 1.78 billion, turned out to be Germany.
"It clearly shows that confidence in a positive development of the Russian economy and hopes for swift resolution of the current political crisis are returning," Michael Harms, executive director of the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations, said.
According to Die Welt, a number of notable German enterprises, like agricultural machinery manufacturer Claas, major dairy company DMK Deutsches Milchkontor and pharmaceutical giant Bionorica, work on special investment contracts that afford them tax benefits and the ability to bid for government contracts in exchange for investments and a long-term presence in the country.
It should also be noted that the EU leaders decision to extend sanctions against Russia until late January 2017 was not received well by many prominent business officials, including President of the German-Russian Foreign Trade Chamber Rainer Seele.
"Further continuation of the bilateral restrictions complicate the resumption of cooperation between Russia and Europe. Sanctions are a political dead end. We want dialogue and we need it. It is in the interest of Germany and the whole European Union. And, of course, in the interests of the Russian economy," Seele said.
In 2014, relations between Russia and the West deteriorated due to the crisis in Ukraine, as Brussels, Washington and their allies imposed several rounds of sanctions against Moscow, blaming the Russian government for meddling in the Ukrainian conflict. The sanctions target individuals and companies in different sectors of the Russian economy, including the defense, financial and energy sectors.
NEW DELHI (Sputnik) Referred to as Colaba-Bandra SEEPZ Metro-3, the project is 33.5 km long and has been divided into 7 packages for construction purposes. India's Larson & Tubro in collaboration with China's STEC won two packages worth USD 792 million.
The scope of the project includes the design and construction of underground stations and associated tunnels for Package 1 and Package 7 in Line 3 of the Mumbai metro project. The project is scheduled to be completed in 48 months.
The joint venture of Russia's MMS and India's Hindustan Construction Company has been awarded a contract worth USD 379 million, with a total estimated cost of 2723 million dollars. The contract is for the construction of 4,072 meters of the corridor of the underground metro line including four underground stations at Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Kalbadevi, Girgaon and Grant Road and twin bored tunnels with a length of 3,115 meters. This is likely to take 55 months for completion.
In 2002, the governments of the US and the UK claimed that Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed a threat to their security and that of the whole region. The UN Security Council passed Resolution 1441, which called for the government of Iraq to provide "a currently accurate, full, and complete declaration of all aspects of its programs to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons."
In the subsequent months there was much wrangling and backroom dealing with UN member countries to use the resolution (and others) to provide a mandate for war.
In Britain, Tony Blair's government published a dossier of evidence in September 2002, that stated there was evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had "military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons. Some of these weapons are deployable within 45 minutes of an order to use them." The 45-minute claim made all the front pages, with the Sun newspaper proclaiming: "Brits 45 mins from doom".
"We're still grieving families at the end of the day, and the delay to this report has prolonged the pain that we face on a daily basis.
"The only way I'm going to get closure on my son's death is for justice to be sought.
"I understand that the Chilcot Inquiry is not a court of law but I do think he owes the 179 lives some justice," Janice told Sputnik.
How many pages does it take to tell us that the nation & our brave troops were lied to? Blair didn't care then or now! #Chilcot #justice Marcus Harrison (@CelticAngelliss) July 6, 2016
Pulling no punches when asked who she blames for her son's death, Janice names the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
"I blame Tony Blair for my son's death. Tony Blair sent them in, Tony Blair made the agreements, and he sent our kids to the slaughter."
"If Tony Blair's children were sent to the front line like our children, would he have to fight the same fight as us and wait as long as this for a report? I don't think so.
"Why is there one rule for us and one rule for him? What makes him above the law? Blair owes our children an answer and as parents we deserve honesty."
Seven years and millions of pounds later, Sir John Chilcot, who led the Iraq Inquiry, has finally delivered his 2.6 million word report in answer to the question: why did the UK go to war in Iraq in 2003?
Joking aside it is extraordinary that journalists have been given just three hours to read a 2.6m word report #Chilcot James Lyons (@STJamesl) July 6, 2016
However the publication of the report has been met with apprehension from families who lost their loved ones during the invasion of Iraq and who have been fighting for the truth for the past seven years, like Janice Proctor.
"I'm proud of my son for wearing his uniform and fighting for Queen and country but this report will not bring my son back it won't bring the other 178 lives back either," Procter told Sputnik.
"He wanted to wear that uniform and stand proud, he wanted to do his job, but in a legal war, not an illegal one.
"If the war was legal, you could accept that they died for Queen and country, they died a hero's death, but so many areas are not legal, the claims of weapons of mass destruction, the lack of equipment. What we're left with is no one answering questions and no one giving the truth," Procter said.
Blair wanted war. #WMD was the obviously manufactured excuse. MPs knowingly hid behind Blair's lies. All responsible #Chilcot #ChilcotReport Donald Kerr (@DonaldIainKerr) July 6, 2016
"The lies just make our lives harder."
The Inquiry was established by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown in June 2009 to examine the events in the run-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the aftermath.
.#Chilcot Inquiry established with wide terms of ref by #Labour gov under #GordonBrown to hide not reveal the truth #Iraq / Stephen Dedalus (@StFilansDream) August 29, 2015
"All I want is someone, just someone to come down to our level, someone who has a heart and doesn't hide behind a title and say yes, it was an illegal war and you will get justice," Procter told Sputnik.
And it's not just the question why did Tony Blair lead the UK into war with Iraq that the families want to ask but why the Inquiry into the invasion has taken so long to publish
"I would ask Chilcot, why? Why has it taken so long? I'm absolutely appalled. They thought we'd go away and shut up they didn't expect us to fight on and to stand up for justice," Janice Procter says, with exasperated defiance.
"It's not about me. This is our fight for our children. Their voices will never be heard but they'll be heard through us."
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In the first round of voting to choose the leader of the ruling Conservative Party, May gained support of 165 Tory lawmakers, while Deputy Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom gained 66 votes, followed by Justice Minister Michael Gove who secured 48 votes and Labour Minister Stephen Crabb with 34.
"I am pleased with this result, and very grateful to my colleagues for their support today. There is a big job before us: to unite our party and the country, to negotiate the best possible deal as we leave the EU, and to make Britain work for everyone," May was quoted as saying by the Evening Standard daily.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) According to the central bank for the euro, the introduction of a new banknote is a practical measure to protect the euro against counterfeiting.
"The introduction of the new 50 will make our currency even safer. Its state-of-the-art security features help protect our money. It is part of our continued efforts to preserve the euro as a stable currency, a currency that 338 million people across the euro area rely on day by day," Yves Mersch, ECB Executive Board member, was quoted as saying in a statement.
The new banknote will have a special feature called portrait window, the bank specified. Thus, when the banknote is held up to the light, a transparent window at the top of the hologram shows a portrait of Europa, the moon goddess in the Greek mythology.
ATHENS (Sputnik) The Greek TrainOSE railway company, which operates nearly all of the country's railway lines, as well as the ROSCO rail rolling stock servicing and maintenance company, are set to be privatized as part of the Tsipras government deal with international creditors to unlock further funds under the indebted country's third bailout package. The companies will put up for a tender sale on Wednesday.
"The catastrophic infrastructural sell-off is continuing. After the Port of Piraeus, the Ellinikon airport and regional airports, they are targeting public transport starting with the privatization of TrainOSE and the ROSCO rolling stock servicing company. Urban transport is next," POS said in a statement.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) In an interview with the Financial Times, he called on the United Kingdom to exploit low borrowing rates establishing the "Growing Britain" fund worth up to $130 billion.
Javid's plan to bolster the British economy amid fears it could fall into recession also stipulates tax breaks for businesses to encourage investment among other measures.
Pessimism about the consequences of the United Kingdom's voters decision to leave the European Union taken at the referendum on June 23 was aggravated on Tuesday after the Bank of England said that the current outlook for the country's financial stability was challenging.
ROME (Sputnik) All 33 out of 33 council members present at the time of the voting supported the resolution, including representatives of the Democratic Party which holds the majority of seats.
The resolution, adopted in Tuscany, differs from similar documents earlier adopted in other Italian northern regions, including Veneto, Liguria and Lombardy, despite the fact that they are all devoted to the EU-Russia relations and the issue of anti-Russia sanctions. On Tuesday, Lombardy adopted a resolution calling to condemn the EU policy on the issue of Crimea's reunification with Russia and lift the anti-Russia sanctions.
NEW DELHI (Sputnik) Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto has suggested incentivizing Indian companies with operations in the United Kingdom, which may be reassessing their options in light of Brexit, to invest in Hungary.
On June 23, a nationwide referendum was held in the United Kingdom, in which 51.9 percent of voters supported the country withdrawing from the European Union. After the official results were revealed, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who had led the Remain campaign, said he would resign in October.
"We are willing to offer any kind of incentives, assistance or subsidies in case any Indian companies take sovereign decision to leave the UK and come to invest in Hungary," Szijjarto told The Hindu newspaper on Tuesday.
KIEV (Sputnik)Kiev urged Brussels to increase its pressure on Moscow to remove the restrictions on the transit of Ukrainian goods through Russia, Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade Nataliya Mykolska said on Wednesday.
"[Kiev] called on the EU to increase the pressure on the Russian Federation for the immediate lifting of the restrictive measures in respect to the transit [of Ukrainian goods]," Mykolska wrote on Twitter.
On Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an amendment to the decree on economic safety and national interests, in which it was stipulated that Ukrainian goods may only be transported through Russia to Kazakhstan via specific check points and routes and with a special customs convoy. The decree was prolonged until the end of 2017.
Chilcot: Blair government undermined UN Security Council by going to war without its approval Robert Peston (@Peston) July 6, 2016
"The consequences of the invasion are underestimated," Chilcot said at the press conference. However "Saddam Hussein cannot be removed without invasion," he added.
A legal basis for UK military action in Iraq was "far from satisfactory," Chilcot noted.
"Ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair was warned by intelligence that military actions in Iraq would increase the al-Qaeda threat to Britain and British citizens. He was also warned that the invasion may lead to arms ending up in the hands of terrorists," Chilcot said.
#Chilcot: Intelligence services failed to establish WMD danger 'beyond doubt'. Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) July 6, 2016
"It is now clear that policy in Iraq was based on flawed intelligence which was not challenged and should have been," Chilcot said.
Saddam Hussein, the then president of Iraq, posed no imminent threat at the time of the 2003 invasion, Sir John Chilcot said presenting an inquiry on the United Kingdom's role in the Iraq War.
"Military action in Iraq might have been necessary at some point, but in March 2003 there was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein," Chilcot said.
"The strategy of containment could have been adapted and continued for some time. The majority of the [UN] Security Council supported continuing UN inspections and monitoring," he underlined.
Despite promises the cabinet would discuss military options, it was not discussed, Chilcot added. Mr.Blair did not ensure flexible and fully-resourced plans for the invasion that addressed known risks.
Sir John Chilcot said that the UK government of Prime Minister Tony Blair had failed to assess risks associated with invading Iraq in 2003 and that the post-conflict security planning was inadequate.
"The governments preparations failed to take account of the magnitude of the task of stabilizing, administering and reconstructing Iraq, and of responsibilities that were likely to fall to the UK," Chilcot said in a statement on the findings of his report.
"The UK took particular responsibility for four provinces in the southeast. It did so without a formal ministerial decision and without ensuring that it had the necessary military and civilian capabilities to discharge its obligations, including, crucially, to provide security," he continued.
The word "fail" appears 84 times in the #Chilcot report summary alone. Says it all. Sidd Sampla (@ssampla01) July 6, 2016
Failures during the preparations for the military invasion continue affect British life nowadays. People of Iraq suffered greatly, millions of people were displaced.
Chilcot was not asked to give a legal verdict, but comes pretty close to saying that war may well have been illegal Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) July 6, 2016
The UK invasion in Iraq in 2003 ended in humiliating pacts with local militias that were targeting its troops and was far from success, Sir John Chilcot said.
"By 2007, militia dominance in Basra, which UK commanders were unable to challenge led to the UK exchanging detainee releases for an end to the targeting of its forces," he said in a statement about the findings of his report.
"It was humiliating that the UK reached a position in which an agreement with a militia group, which had been actively targeting UK forces, was considered the best option available. The UK military role in Iraq ended a very long way from success," Chilcot continued.
250,000 dead. 2.6 million words. Imagine the unquantifiable grief in the spaces between those statistics #Chilcot Elizabeth Day (@elizabday) July 6, 2016
Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair overestimated his own ability to influence decisions taken by the US authorities in regard to Iraq, Sir John Chilcot said.
"Mr. Blair overestimated his ability to influence US decisions on Iraq," Chilcot said.
"The UK's relationship with the US has proved strong enough over time to bear the weight of honest disagreement. It does not require unconditional support where our interests or judgments differ," he added.
The inquiry was commissioned to Sir John Chilcot, a Privy Counsellor, by then UK prime minister Gordon Brown in 2009, although calls to examine Britains role in the US-led Iraq invasion and its aftermath were made years before.
Labour party leader Tony Blair, who led the UK government at the time of the invasion, pushed back the start of the inquiry, which was to look into the accounts of his sensitive conversations with then US president George Bush.
Blair has been criticized for the United Kingdoms involvement in the conflict that stretched through 2011. The campaign to topple then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein on suspicion that he had weapons of mass destruction killed 179 British troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, many of them civilians.
Calls have been made for Blair to be tried for war crimes, including by Scotlands former First Minister Alex Salmond, although the International Criminal Court (ICC) previously told UK media this was not possible.
The ICC did admit that it will search through the report for evidence of abuse and torture of Iraqis by British soldiers. Families of those who served and died in Iraq will be able to see an embargoed copy of the report on the day of its publication.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) The intergovernmental agreement on the South Stream gas project between Russia and Slovenia is still in force and fully in line with the relevant European Union legislation, Slovenian Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec told Sputnik on Wednesday.
"It goes without saying that all energy projects in the EU must be in line with EU legislation and we are convinced that the intergovernmental agreement on South Stream between Slovenia and Russia, which is still in force, fulfills this obligation," the minister said, asked if it was still possible to revive the South Stream project.
Karl Erjavec also mentioned that Russia "has been a reliable gas provider for Slovenia for decades" and expressed his confidence this would continue to be the case.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) After two years of research, the repository commission presented its 682-page report to the parliament on Tuesday where it called into question an on-time solution to the problem of radioactive storage.
"The German Bundestag is due, according to current estimates, to start searching for an optimal secure place in 2017. Decades will pass before the waste can be buried and possibly more than a century before this process ends," the report predicted.
The German government announced in 2011 it was going to phase out all eight nuclear reactors by 2022, following the Fukushima disaster. The initial plan was to find a suitable place by 2031 where to store highly-radioactive spent nuclear fuel, with the dump scheduled to open in 2050.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Slovenia supports the proposals of the European Commission on the common European policy and migrants distribution, Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec told Sputnik, underlining that solidarity among member states should be the basis for dealing with the matter.
"Slovenia believes that solidarity among member states is crucial. If faced again with high number of migrants or asylum seekers, we too would need help to alleviate our burden. Therefore, we are in favour of the EC proposals," Erjavec said.
He stressed that the European Commission proposal on the refugee relocation scheme "constitutes a fair and sustainable system that would, in case that the number of asylum seekers exceeds the absorption capacity of any given state, redistribute the burden among those who are not confronted with excessive pressure."
This past spring, the government repeatedly insisted that pension reform would not be among the IMF's requirements. Meanwhile, the organization is now demanding a gradual increase in the country's pension age, presently 60 years for men and 55 years for women (the latter is gradually being raised to 60 years).
"For Premier Groisman, the further increase in the pension age is quite a delicate matter," Der Standard noted. Social discontent is expected to increase; even at their present rates, many ordinary Ukrainians find it extremely difficult to survive on their current pensions.
"Groisman is already under severe pressure. His popularity ratings are low, and he stands in the shadow of President Petro Poroshenko," the paper added, citing Kiev-based political analyst Alexander Kawa.
Pointing to reforms resulting in regular increases in utility prices, and the decline in peoples' standard of living over the past two and a half years of reforms, Der Standard warned that the term 'reform' has become a dirty word in the country.
EU 'Pushing Ukraine Away With All Its Might'
Meanwhile, the pro-EU government in Kiev is also facing growing problems in its relationship with Brussels. Commenting on Kiev's refusal to conduct negotiations to change the text of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, political analyst Vasily Stoyakin told Sputnik that Kiev's position was based on the worrying realization that Ukraine no longer poses any interest for the bloc.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Earlier in the day, European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis became the acting head of the EU office for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, after former Commissioner Jonathan Hill, a UK national, resigned in the aftermath of the Brexit vote.
"Our organisations believe that the change of leadership to Europes Commissioner in charge of Financial Stability and Capital Markets Union triggered by the UKs EU referendum could provide an opportunity for a well-needed re-think of the financial sectors direction and purpose," the statement reads.
"We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort."
Chilcot also blamed flawed intelligence for the decision to go to war.
"The Joint Intelligence Committee should have made clear to Mr Blair that the assessed intelligence had not established 'beyond doubt' either that Iraq had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons or that efforts to develop nuclear weapons continued."
"It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged, and they should have been."
He said Blair's cabinet had over-egged Hussein's military capabilities.
"The judgements about the severity of the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction WMD were presented with a certainty that was not justified. Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated. The planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam Hussein were wholly inadequate," said Sir John.
Chilcot said Blair had failed to ensure that military planning for the invasion in which 179 UK soldiers died had been inadequate. Chilcot said:
"[Blair] did not establish clear ministerial oversight of UK planning and preparation. He did not ensure that there was a flexible, realistic and fully resourced plan that integrated UK military and civilian contributions, and addressed the known risks. The failures in the planning and preparations continued to have an effect after the invasion."
Dodgy Dossier
The run-up to the war saw the publication of two dossiers by Blair's Government, which were used to justify the case for war, including claims that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction capable of hitting UK targets within 45 minutes of an order being given.
Like peace itself, the military-industrial complex sees internal stability as bad for business. A new report has exposed the activities of military and security companies that are profiting from the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, which have also successfully lobbied the EU to react by buying their security equipment.
The joint report by the European NGO Stop Wapenhandel and the Transnational Institute (TNI), called "Border Wars: The Arms Dealers Profiting from Europe's Refugee Tragedy," reveals the most prominent winners of security contracts which were issued in Europe as a result of the migrant crisis, and Europe's acquiescent response to their lobbying.
"Some of the beneficiaries of border security contracts are some of the biggest arms sellers to the Middle-East and North-African region, fuelling the conflicts that are the cause of many of the refugees. In other words, the companies creating the crisis are then profiting from it."
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Sanctions imposed by the European Union against Russia and Moscows retaliatory measures negatively affected Slovenian economy with bilateral trade between Ljubljana and Moscow falling by some 27 percent in 2015 in comparison with 2014, Slovenian Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec told Sputnik.
"Of course, restrictive measures have negative influence on the economies of the EU countries including Slovenia's. As a result of current state of relationship between the EU and Russia and the worsening of the economic situation in Russia the trade between Slovenia and Russia in 2015 dropped by at least 27% in compared to 2014," the minister said.
At the same time, he added that the EU restrictive measures were not aimed at destroying the trade and other relationship between EU and Russia.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) A 24-hour strike by Greek railway workers protesting against the government's plans to privatize rail transport paralyzed the country on Wednesday, local media reported.
According to the Ekathimerini newspaper, the rally summoned employees of the Hellenic Railways Organization, the Athens metro and the ISAP electric railway, to be joined by tram staff later in the day.
KIEV (Sputnik) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will visit Norway in October, Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende said on Wednesday.
"We discussed further development of partnership, in particular in the context of the Ukrainian president's visit to Norway and his meeting with Prime Minister [Erna Solberg] in mid-October," Brende said at a joint press conference following the meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Pavlo Klimkin.
According to Brende, Norway is assisting Ukraine in pursuing reforms and has provided financial aid to help with the resettlement of those who left the regions in Ukraine's southeastern that are gripped by conflict.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Sturgeon quoted Blair on Twitter who said the disclosure would finally "lay to rest" accusations that the decision to send UK troops to Iraq to join the US-led war was made in bad faith.
"It does no such thing. On the contrary, in fact," Sturgeon wrote, adding that, "lack of preparation for aftermath and failure to properly equip or support troops for the scale of challenge [was] also appalling."
Ahead of the #ChilcotReport, we should remember all our soldiers and the Iraqi civilians who lost their lives in this disastrous war. Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) 6 July 2016
The Scottish National Party leader condemned the former Labour chief for his "I'll be with you whatever" pledge to then US President George W. Bush, amid concerns that Britain's decision to join the invasion was heavily influenced by the United States.
He added that nothing would threaten safety of Russian tourists attending Abkhazia during the referendum.
"I think that people, who need to come to Abkhazia, they will come, despite the ongoing processes. And I will underline that we have all the capabilities to control the situation in the country," Khajimba said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) The most important thing is to learn lessons for the future from the recently revealed Chilcot Report on the Iraq War, UK Prime Minister David Cameron said during his Question Time in the Parliament on Wednesday.
The most important thing we can do is to really learn the lessons for the future and the lessons he laid out quiet clearly, David Cameron said.
UK Prime Minister said that the country should rely on its intelligence agencies despite Sir John Chilcot's report claiming that UK policy regarding the 2003 invasion of Iraq had been based on flawed intelligence.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)UK opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said Wednesday that national parliament must have the final say in deploying troops abroad, after the publication of the Chilcot inquiry into the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Speaking in parliament after Prime Ministers Questions, Corbyn said the government must "give parliament the decisive say over any future decisions to go to war based on objective information not just through government discretion, but through a war powers act that I hope this parliament will pass."
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Commissions Vice-President Frans Timmermans and its migration chief, Dimitris Avramopoulos, praised the new European Border and Coast Guard agency, replacing Frontex, as a "safety net" that will secure EU borders without encroaching on the sovereignty of the blocs member states.
"If we want to manage migration better and preserve our Schengen area of free movement, we need to strengthen the common management of the EU's external borders. Today's decision by the Parliament is a major step forward in that direction," the joint statement read.
The proposal to create a border guard agency with powers greater than those enjoyed by the obsolete Frontex was floated by Commissions President Jean-Claude Juncker at the height of the migrant crisis in September 2015.
"Eastern and central Europeans are being told that they are no longer welcome here. Ethnic minority Britons have been told to go home' and Muslims and Jews have been abused on the street," the charity states.
"The toxic nature of the Referendum debate has unleashed visceral hatred."
Almost 600 hate crimes have been reported to London's Metropolitan Police since the day the UK voted to exit the European Union and 2 July, double the number reported before the referendum.
A campaign, #MoreInCommon has been launched by Hope Not Hate to neutralize the xenophobic rhetoric that has risen across the UK.
In the coming weeks, #MoreInCommon meetings will be held around the country "to organize our response to this hatred," according to the charity.
Scotland Yard has received an average of 67 allegations of hate crimes each day.
"We can report there has been an increase in hate crime offenses since the UK EU referendum," said Mak Chishty, Commander for Engagement for London's Metropolitan Police Service.
"We are carefully analyzing every incident to see what is happening across London and these figures may change as victims come forward and report incidents to police as soon as possible," Commander Mak Chishty said, adding that people are, "feeling anxious at the perception of increased intolerance against certain communities."
The head of London's Metropolitan Police Service, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe says the Met takes hate crimes "extremely seriously."
Meanwhile, East London has taken a leaf out of Bristol's book, offering a flower for any migrant passing in Hackney, to remind them that they are welcome in the UK.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Failures in the work of French intelligence led to the deadly attack at the Bataclan concert hall, George Fenech, head of the parliamentary commission inquiry into the incident, said Wednesday.
"Were there no intelligence lapses, we could have prevented the attack at the Bataclan concert hall," Fenech was quoted as saying by Radio France Internationale (RFI).
BELGRADE (Sputnik) Budapest stepped up security of the border it shares with Serbia and Croatia on Tuesday, setting up an 8-kilometer (5-mile) security zone.
In addition to the police Hungary is also using helicopters, armored vehicles and dog handlers to locate migrants, the Radio Television of Serbia broadcaster said.
According to Hungary's chief national security adviser Gyorgy Bakondi, the migrants are being returned to transit zones to file asylum applications.
Jeremy Corbyn's statement on Chilcot Inquiry strong and mostly spot on. His stance in this conflict (if not others) vindicated Sunny Hundal (@sunny_hundal) July 6, 2016
The opposition leader added that "there are many lessons that need to be drawn from the Iraq war.
"They include the need for a more open and independent relationship with the United States and for a foreign policy based on upholding international law and the authority of the United Nations."
Corbyn-'those who took the decisions laid bare in Chilcot report must face up to the consequences of their actions whatever they may be. Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) July 6, 2016
Prime Minister David Cameron rejected Corbyn's plea, defending the UK's ties with Washington, often described as a "special relationship."
"I don't believe the United States is always right about everything but I do believe our partnership with the United States is vital for our national security They are always our best partner and we should work with them."
Middle East Destabilization
Corbyn, an anti-war campaigner who voted against the Iraq intervention in 2003, was hugely critical of former Prime Minister Tony Blair's role in convincing parliament to approve intervention, saying that MPs had been "deceived."
He said while the Blair government had "got it wrong" on Iraqi intervention, many others had been right in opposing the war at the time, in a nod to the resignation of then cabinet minster Robin Cook, who delivered a powerful Commons speech against intervention.
Robin Cook's resignation. Greatest parliamentary speech of my lifetime. Oh that they had listened. https://t.co/uqyud6OoCW #Chilcot #Blair James Robottom (@jimrobottom) July 6, 2016
The Labour leader highlighted the "catastrophic" regional impacts of the war in the Middle East, drawing links between the 2003 Iraq invasion, David Cameron's 2011 Libyan intervention and recent terror attacks in Baghdad and Medina.
Cameron Defends Post-Iraq Intervention
Prime Minister David Cameron also took to the Commons to address the release of the Chilcot report, describing it as a "difficult day" while paying tribute to British and Iraqi victims of the conflict.
Responding to criticism of his own military intervention in Libya, which has been described as a hugely destabilizing factor in the Middle East, Cameron said the failures of Iraq should not scar Britain from future military campaigns, arguing that no amount of planning can guarantee success.
Corbyn's calm Chilcot statement probably his best moment in the House. George Eaton (@georgeeaton) July 6, 2016
"I think the most important thing we can do is to really learn the lessons for the future and the lessons he [Chilcot] lays out quite clearly," he said.
"The only point I would make is that there is actually no set of arrangements and plans that can provide perfection in any of these cases.
"Military intervention is always difficult, planning for the aftermath of intervention, that is always difficult and I don't think in this House we should be naive in any way that there's a perfect set of plans that can solve these problems in perpetuity."
"I am thinking particularly of taxation or about the status of expatriates. So I say to major international companies: 'Welcome to Paris! Come and invest in France!'"
Paris' opportunistic reaction to Brexit comes after warnings it sent across the Channel about the consequences of leaving the EU.
A year ago, French newspaper Le Monde warned the British that "Brexit could be your Waterloo," referring to the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 that ended the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, and of the First French Empire.
"Today, we solemnly say to our friends across the Channel: beware, Brexit could be your Waterloo! And to make sure the message is really heard, we have gone as far as to convey it in English."
British Euroscepticism
However, it appears the British were either not listening, or not convinced.
Keith Boyfield, a research fellow at the Center for Policy Studies, told RT that such a campaign from across the Channel was to be expected.
"They'll do everything they can to try and lure people over to Paris, I would have been surprised if they hadn't launched such a bid. I'm not quaking in my shoes, I think we can see off the French without a problem."
A day after the Brexit vote Allister Heath, business journalist and editor of London-based City A.M., wrote in the UK's Daily Telegraph that "there will be some short-term pain but Brexit will make us richer."
"The 28-member EU has proved useless at negotiating proper free trade deals with the rest of the world."
"Nearly all economists opposed Brexit; over the next five years, they will be proved not just a little but completely wrong," he predicted.
Europe's "Vultures are Circling"
Paris is not the only European capital seeking to capitalize on Brexit.
On Tuesday Germany's Freie Demokraten liberal political party hired a colorful van to drive around London, with a slogan on its side urging start-ups to "keep calm and move to Berlin."
Amsterdam is also keen to position itself as a candidate, and two days after the Brexit vote Dutch newspaper Volkskrant reported sources in the city administration, who declared that Asian businesses have already expressed interest in moving there from the UK.
"I won't name names, but a number of Asian companies operating in the finance sector, with offices in London, have made contact with us in recent weeks," the spokesman said.
"They now want to transfer a large part of their activities to Amsterdam, and carry out their operations in mainland Europe from there."
In the wake of the United Kingdoms decision to leave the European Union, there have been calls from Eurosceptic political parties in several member-states, including the AfD, to hold national referendums similar to the one held in the United Kingdom on June 23.
According to many opinion polls, AfD, established just three years ago, is now the third-most popular political force in Germany with some 15 percent of national support. The party is already has seats in eight of the sixteen local parliaments and hopes to enter the federal parliament following the 2017 elections.
Last week, the presidential candidate in neighboring Austria Norbert Hofer from the right-wing Freedom Party suggested that the European Union should return to being mostly an economic union, rather than a political union.
"Yes, he is right; we should go back to the beginning of the EU, which was an economic union, a free trade organization. It had more or less common economic policy, but not common political or military policy," the AfD vice-chairman said when asked whether he agrees with Hofer's thoughts on the future direction of the bloc.
According to a post-Brexit survey by the polling institution Emnid for the N24 news channel, around 62 percent of Germans believe that the country should take some of its powers back from Brussels, although the overwhelming majority, or 75 percent, still want to remain in the union.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)UK Prime Minister David Cameron rejected the idea the all the failures in planning the military operation in Iraq in 2003 were also apparent in the NATO mission in Afghanistan.
"I do not accept that all the same failures are apparent in some way when it comes to planning in Afghanistan. I do not accept that. In Afghanistan there was a very clear connection between the Taliban regime and the goal of government policy, which I supported at that time," Cameron said in the UK parliament on Wednesday.
Cameron's comments came after the publication of the Chilcot Report earlier in the day, which found that the UK government of Prime Minister Tony Blair made a decision to join the Iraq War in 2003 on the basis of false intelligence data and assessments. The consequences of the war, which left hundreds of thousands dead, can still be felt, the report underlined.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Turkish products are unlikely to return to Russian stores in the nearest future, the head of Russia's consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said Wednesday.
"We don't see Turkish products today and it is absolutely clear that we won't see them tomorrow," Anna Popova told RIA Novosti.
"There is no such decision as of today," she added.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) The inquiry into the 2003 Iraq War by Sir John Chilcot found that the UK government based its decision to deploy British troops to Iraq on flawed assessments and underestimated the consequences of the invasion.
"In the lead-up to the Iraq invasion we warned that there could be terrible consequences and tragically we were proved right, with thousands of civilians killed and injured," Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said in a statement.
A great deal rested on the legal advice Blair was given by the Attorney General at the time, Lord Goldsmith. The UN Security Council had passed resolution 1441, which condemned Iraq over its weapons of mass destruction, but there was a huge debate as to whether it gave authority for an invasion.
The Chilcot Report states that Goldsmith said there was a "reasonable case" for saying that if Saddam Hussein had breached resolution 1441, calling him to comply with the agencies inspecting his weapons sites then there could be a case for invasion.
Matthew Rycroft, Blair's Private Secretary for Foreign Affairs on 14 March 2003 two months before invasion wrote a memo saying:
"This is to confirm that it is indeed the Prime Minister's unequivocal view that Iraq is in further material breach of its obligations, as in OP4 of UNSCR 1441, because of 'false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution and failure to comply with, and cooperate fully in the interpretation of, this resolution.' "
The Chilcot report suggests that it was Blair alone without any other backing who deemed there was legal force to go to war. The report states: "It is unclear what specific grounds Mr Blair relied upon in reaching his view." That comment leaves open the question of Blair's possible prosecution.
The Bush administration did have a plan for post-war Iraq but it was a complete failure:https://t.co/L8aOsOyH3G Paul Rogers (@ProfPRogers) 5 July 2016
"Chilcot left open the question about prosecution, rather than closing it up, saying it wasn't appropriate. But there is also criticism of other elements of the establishment. There is an implication that the Chilcot people, believe that people should have stood up to Blair more than they did and maybe even argued with him on the way in which intelligence was being interpreted," Paul Rogers told Sputnik.
"So I think it may well be that when we get a chance to look at the detail of the report there will be major questions over the role of MI6 and particularly the Joint Intelligence staff in the Cabinet Office and the Joint Intelligence Committee, which is made up of the heads of all the security agencies, plus other people," Rogers told Sputnik.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Europe should consider creating a new currency for countries with the same level of economic development, vice-chairman of the right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD) Alexander Gauland told Sputnik on Wednesday.
We can have some sort of north euro or south euro, we can have common fiscal policy with states with the same economic cultural tradition as we have, he said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Russia is not a rival but rather a partner for Germany, as the two countries share a common and peaceful European policy, vice-chairman of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party Alexander Gauland told Sputnik on Wednesday.
"For AfD it is totally clear that Russia is no rival, it is a partner. And we say we have to have a common peaceful European policy and we have to scrap the separation between East and West and to start a new chapter in our relations," Gauland said.
In July, Germany is due to publish an updated white paper on security policy with media speculating that Russia would be named a rival rather than a partner. In particular, the German newspaper Die Welt reported in early June that Russia has allegedly been mentioned among the ten most serious threats to Germany in the updated version of the countrys security policy guidelines.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) The London Assembly has voted against the UK Independence Party's (UKIP) initiative to lower the EU flag after British voters supported Brexit in a referendum, the party said in a statement on Wednesday.
"It is disappointing to see that the London Assembly has voted against lowering the EU flag following the historic referendum result only two weeks ago. Lowering the EU flag and raising the cross of St George outside City Hall would have been a purely symbolic act, but nevertheless an act which would have humbly recognised that the metropolitan elite must begin to listen to the people of the nation," UKIP London Assembly member David Kurten said in a statement published on the party's website.
On June 23, the UK voters took part in the referendum and decided to back the UK exit from the European Union.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland will meet with senior officials of Serbia and Kosovo during her trip to Europe this and next week, the State Department announced in a release on Wednesday.
Nuland is currently accompanying US Secretary of State John Kerry on his visits to Georgia, Ukraine, and Poland.
On July 10, she will travel to Pristina, Kosovo, to meet with senior government officials and civil society representatives on a range of bilateral and regional issues, including progress on Serbia-Kosovo Dialogue implementation, support for Kosovos continued Euro-Atlantic integration, and anti-corruption efforts, the release said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) London Deputy Mayor For Business Rajesh Agrawal said Wednesday that it is necessary to send a message that "London is open for business," following the announcement of the June Brexit vote's results.
"The message is very clear that London is open for business So that rest of the world feels that we are open for business," Agrawal said.
The message is clear London is open for business. #LondonIsOpen Rajesh Agrawal (@RajeshAgrawalUK) 4 2016 .
He added that it was very important to show that London was open for business "both internally and abroad."
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls invoked article 49.3 again to implement reforms to the French Code du travail heavily codified labor laws in an effort to loosen employment restrictions and boost the economy. Politicians on the left attempted to pass a censure motion in protest, but failed to gain enough support for one.
France has been paralyzed by a series of nationwide strikes involving all the major unions as well as students against French President Francois Hollande's proposed reforms to the highly codified French labor laws known as the Code du Travail in order to give employers more flexibility.
The labor reforms were largely directed at making companies take on more workers on permanent contracts, rather than temporary ones, to bring down the unemployment rate from ten percent. The proposals would give employers more scope to lay-off workers and cut costs and allow some employees to work far longer than the current 35-hour week.
BRUSSELS (Sputnik) The Nord Stream 2 company, which is responsible for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, does not perceive any intention by the EU Commission to block the construction of the pipeline, the companys spokesman, Jens Mueller, said Wednesday.
"We do not see the European Unions pressure on the four countries Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Finland, whose exclusive economic zones will be used for the installation of the pipeline. We know that it is necessary to fulfill all the requirements of EU legislation. We do not feel the EU Commissions intention to block the project, only its intention to make it [the project] correspond fully to the [relevant] EU laws," Mueller told RIA Novosti.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) The European Union needs to update its long-term financing plan to cope with new priorities and challenges, such as mass migration, internal security and youth unemployment, members of the European Parliament said Wednesday.
According to the resolution voted by the lawmakers, the European Unions multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2014-2020 should become more flexible and enable the bloc to respond promptly to "unforeseen crises."
"A genuine midterm revision of the MFF is indispensable to enable the Union to respond effectively to a number of challenges it currently faces, while fulfilling its political objectives. We expect the European Commission to table a thorough and honest review and as a consequence, a proposal for a set of qualitative and quantitative changes to the MFF that will allow the EU to adapt to today's situation and attain its political goals. The EU budget must reflect the Union's political commitments," lawmaker Jan Olbrycht said, as quoted by the EU Parliament.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Poland will not put pressure on the UK government to kick-start the procedure of the country's withdrawal from the European Union, Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, the minister attended the Saema European Affairs Committee and provided information on the legal and political consequences of the Brexit referendum.
"We assess the outcome of the referendum in the United Kingdom as a sovereign decision of the citizens of the United Kingdom. We respect this decision, though we would like to continue cooperation with the United Kingdom within the European UnionPoland won't put pressure on the British government to kick-start the procedure of exit from the European Union," Waszczykowski said.
Playwright Harold Pinter spoke to demonstrators and said: "America was a country run by a bunch of criminal lunatics with Tony Blair as a hired Christian thug."
"A hired Christian thug!" ~ How playwright Harold Pinter called British PM Tony Blair in 2003 prior to the inversion of Iraq. Revo (@arbolioto) February 13, 2016
The late Labour politician Mo Molam, told protesters at the gathering in Hyde Park that the Iraq invasion would be, "the best recruiting agent that the terrorists could hope for."
Former US president George Bush and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair justified the war at the time by saying Iraq's dictator Sadam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
But it was clear that there was very little public appetite for a war without evidence of the existence of weapons of mass destruction, not only on the streets of London, but results from an Ipsos Mori poll four years later, in 2007, revealed that 83 percent of those asked opposed the war in Iraq.
Thirteen years later and over half of the British public believe Britain's involvement in Iraq damaged the UK's reputation around the world.
Back in 2007, only 11 percent of people said they supported the Iraq war, on the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq in 2013, a poll by Ipsos Mori showed that 70 percent of people thought Britain was wrong to get involved, with over half of all those surveyed saying they opposed the war all along.
Ahead of #Chilcot report release: How did public opinion of the Iraq war shift between 2003 & 2012? https://t.co/2qtZZ9idJS Ipsos MORI (@IpsosMORI) July 6, 2016
According to Ipsos Mori, opposition to the war was driven by a feeling of being lied to, particularly by Tony Blair and especially on the existence of weapons of mass destruction and events in Iraq was "none of our business."
'Public Were Misled'
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Dutch investigators do not provide the Russian side with the investigation information on the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 crash in Ukraine, Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, Russian Prosecutor General's Office received a group of Dutch prosecutors, who arrived in Moscow to discuss the probe into the MH17 crash.
"However, I should state that transfer of the information related to the plane crash is conducted by the Investigative Committee unilaterally. The Dutch side does not share the data it possesses, with its Russian colleagues, despite the fact that bilateral information exchange would multilaterally speed up the investigation," Markin said.
He said the controversial decision to leave was nevertheless the right one to make because the European project has the same weaknesses as the former Yugoslavia, which fell apart in the early 1990s.
Mencinger pointed out that before the June 23 referendum the UK had already received some exceptions to its status in the Union, which only highlighted the EU's fundamental problems.
"We had the same situation 25 years ago in Yugoslavia, when Slovenians asked for something similar."
Before the EU referendum the UK, which is not a member of the Eurozone, had several special conditions to its EU membership.
These include a rebate to its membership fee (negotiated by Margaret Thatcher in 1984), exemptions from the EU-wide welfare system for migrant workers, and an exemption from the requirement in EU treaties for "ever-closer union" between EU countries, negotiated by David Cameron prior to the referendum in February.
Similar to the UK, Slovenia was one of the more economically developed members of the Yugoslav federation, and despite having access to a free market of almost 24 million people, voters there opted to leave Yugoslavia in a referendum in December 1990.
Mencinger said that giving the UK special conditions only serves to highlight the disparity between EU members, and the futility of the European Union project. Because of that, it is best for the UK to leave.
"The disintegration of the Union was to be expected, and not because of Euroscepticism. From the beginning, the EU was threatened by two things: its ideological construction of reality, and the imposition of uniform rules on very different states."
Mencinger believes that the economic consequences of Brexit are overblown, but that political consequences for UK voters, going against the wishes of elites in Brussels and the UK, could be more severe.
"The hysteria on financial markets will calm down quickly. The reaction of EU 'statesmen' is more worrying, because the British insulted them with their decision, so they need to be punished."
Paris (Sputnik) Frances left-wing opposition lawmakers failed to collect the required number of signatures to endorse a vote of no-confidence to Prime Minister Manuel Valls government, the ruling socialist partys Fronde member Christian Paul told reporters on Wednesday.
According to Paul, the proposal to hold the vote was supported by 56 out of the required 58 lawmakers.
The proposal was voiced after French authorities decided to push through with the unpopular labor reform bill bypassing a parliamentary vote. On Tuesday, Valls used his right to pass the bill through the parliament in the second reading, bypassing a parliamentary vote. The parliament since had 24 hours to collect signatures necessary to endorse a vote of no-confidence to the government.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy will be a better match for the leader of the far-right National Front party, Marine Le Pen, in upcoming French presidential election than his party fellow, former Prime Ministers Alain Juppe, because of his strong stance on migration and renewing Russian ties, a non-attached French member of the European Parliament told Sputnik on Wednesday.
On Saturday, Sarkozy announced he would resign from his current position as the head of France's center-right Les Republicains party and later confirmed his intention to stand in the 2017 presidential election. In November, his party will hold primaries in order to choose a sole candidate to represent the party in the election. Juppe is considered to be Sarkozy's main rival for the nomination, among a field of about a dozen party members.
"I think that Nicolas Sarkozy would be a better competitor than Alain Juppe against Marine Le Pen because Mr. Sarkozy is tougher than Juppe regarding immigration topics and also is in favor of renewing a strong partnership with Russia," Aymeric Chauprade, who left the National Front last year and now is an independent right-wing politician, said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) The Koblenz city prosecutor's office and customs staff raided the offices of the Irish Ryanair airline in six German airports, local media said Wednesday.
According to German Zeit newspaper, the searches took place at the Berlin Schonefeld airport, the Cologne Bonn airport, Frankfurt-Hahn, Karlsruhe-Baden-Baden, Bremen and Weeze. The officers interviewed pilots and confiscated computers, tablet computers, flight schedules and other documents.
Visitors to Madrid's swimming pools will be allowed to bathe there naked after the city administration decided to allow a "Swimsuit Optional Day" this summer, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Wednesday.
The city's ministry for sport made the decision after a request from the Association for the Development of Naturism (ADN). Municipal swimming pools are free to decide if they want to be a part of the action, though one has already announced it will refuse permission for naked visitors.
AND President Ismael Rodrigo told El Pais that his organization took the initiative after the success of a couple of previous naturist days, held at individual pools in Madrid.
MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) Protests took place in the Chilean capital Santiago, as well as in Valparaiso, Temuco, Valdivia and Concepcion, the Vanguardia news portal reported.
Clashes with police resulted in 140 arrests, with some instances of injuries reported, including the beating of one journalist.
Student protest have become increasingly common in the Latin American country since the government announced plans to introduce free education that have been slammed as ill-conceived and discriminatory.
Julio Garro, mayor of the Argentine city of La Plata, has called for the introduction of an array of bizarre taxes , among them those on the use of asphalt by car owners and on banks and their ATMs for the use of public space, local media reported.
Garro insists that the bank branches should pay 30,000 Argentine pesos (about 2,000 dollars) annually for each ATM installed outside, which he said adds to a queue in the street, impeding the movement of pedestrians.
My first piece for @SavoteurCo on a weekend break to the city of La Plata, Buenos Aires https://t.co/UCbqYUKCrG pic.twitter.com/TaB6Zzdt6R Vanessa Bell (@cremetoursBA) 20 2016 .
As for the so-called "tax on the asphalt," it will be paid by those who will buy new and second-hand vehicles and it will total approximately 0.5 percent of the purchase price. The tax will also affect motorcycle owners.
"The situation in the city is very tense, the army and the Kurds imposed a state of emergency, increased the number of checkpoints. There are fears of another terrorist attack, according to our data, [the army and militias] are looking for a bomb-laden car," the source told RIA Novosti.
In June, a similar attack occurred in the neighboring city of Al-Qamishli on the border with Turkey, which left three people dead and five wounded. The city is also considered the capital of a self-proclaimed Kurdish Rojava autonomy, also known as Western Kurdistan.
According to the military, the attackers detonated an explosive device set in a car near the entrance to the base. The attackers managed to make their way to a military facility, where they blew up a second vehicle.
Car explosion targeted Al-Sulaban camp in #Aden's Khormakser district. Car tried to enter camp, stopped, exploded at gate. Gun shootings. Summer Nasser (@ToEducate) July 6, 2016
Yemen has been engulfed in a military conflict between the government and Shiite Ansar Allah movement, also known as Houthi rebels, who have been supported by army units loyal to former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Since late March, a Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes against Houthi positions at the request of Hadi.
BEIRUT (Sputnik) Syrian Armed Forces' command on Wednesday announced a three-day ceasefire regime throughout the country starting from July 6.
"The 72-hour silent period was declared across Syria till July 8 midnight [21:00 GMT on July 7], " the statement said.
The ceasefire in Syria worked out by Russia and the United States took effect on February 27. The cessation of hostilities does not apply to terrorist organizations, such as the Islamic State and the Nusra Front, outlawed in a number of countries worldwide including Russia and the United States.
BEIRUT (Sputnik) Militant shelling of an area in the north of Syria's Aleppo province has caused the deaths of two children, state media reported Wednesday.
According to the SANA news agency, at least two rockets exploded in the Shiite town of Zahraa, northwest of Aleppo.
MOSCOW(Sputnik) Yemeni troops drove extremists out of the military base near the city of Aden and regained control over it, local media reported on Wednesday, citing military base command.
Six militants were killed during the operation, Sky News Arabia said.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The US-led coalition against the Islamic State (ISIL or Daesh) carried out 28 airstrikes against the terror groups positions and infrastructure in Iraq and Syria on Tuesday, the Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve said in a press release.
In Syria, coalition military forces conducted 13 Strikes using attack, bomber, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft against ISIL [Islamic State] targets, the release said. Coalition military forces conducted one strike in Syria in support of Coalition operations using fighter aircraft.
The airstrikes in Syria were waged near Manbij, and destroyed 21 Daesh fighting positions and a tactical vehicle.
MOSCOW, July 6 (Sputnik) US is among global powers that triggers insecurity and terrorism in the Islamic world, Iran's Supreme Leader said Wednesday.
"[World powers are] supporting and fostering terrorism in practice," Khamenei was quoted as saying by the Tasnim news agency, referring to a US policy regarding Syria that turned political turmoil into a civil war, and which, he warned, could lead to the same scenario in Bahrain.
The report, Sputnik France's interviewer recalled, called for the UN Security Council to impose targeted sanctions on the leaders of the armed groups which commit war crimes, but also admitted that countries including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States support these groups.
"This is true," Walch said. "Therefore, the states which make up the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) must put pressure on these armed groups, so that they stop their violence, and respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is also necessary to demand that the supply of arms be stopped to those groups mentioned in the report which commit war crimes."
Asked what it would actually take to effectively put pressure on these countries, Walch reiterated that "given that all these groups work together, those who support them, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, the United States, but also Russia should be actively involved and pose questions regarding detentions, torture and kidnappings."
"So far in Genevathe ceasefire and the humanitarian aspect were the center of discussions, while the topic of detentions, torture and abductions was neglected. I think that if all the countries in the ISSG, including Russia and of course, the United States, join forces and put pressure on all parties to the conflict, this will yield results," she added.
Asked by Sputnik whether it is morally justifiable to conduct negotiations with groups which commit the types of crimes outlined in the report, Walch insisted that the answer to that question was yes. "I think that it is possible, because they are acting on the ground, and in the future they will play an important role in the future of Syria. We cannot but take them into account; these groups also include Syrians. Not all of them commit war crimes. It is necessary to ensure their participation in the negotiations, without forgetting the crimes committed."
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Bou Ali Sina petrochemical complex is located in Petrochemical Special Economic Zone in Mahshahr county.
"If this fire is not extinguished, it might also be spread to other areas," Mahshahr County governor Mansour Qamar said as quoted by IRNA News Agency.
The fire has been most likely caused by the paraxylene, a highly flammable hydrocarbon, leakage. No casualties has been reported so far.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) JCREW is a joint program supporting both Navy and Air Force requirements under the management of Naval Sea Systems Command, according to the release.
"Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., Herndon, Virginia, is being awarded a $103,423,433 modification to previously awarded contract for Joint Counter Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Device (RCIED) Electronic Warfare, Joint Crew (JCREW)," the release, issued on Tuesday, stated.
"CREW systems provide combat troops protection against RCIEDs. CREW systems are designed to provide protection for foot soldiers, vehicles, and permanent structures, the release noted.
KHABAROVSK (Russia) (Sputnik) The Russian Pacific Fleet and the Indian Armed Forces have agreed on the number and type of warships that will be involved in the joint Russian-Indian naval exercises, Indra, in December 2016, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministrys Eastern Military District said Wednesday.
"The Pacific Fleet and the Indian Armed Forces have agreed that the drills will involve a Project 1155 anti-submarine destroyer, a Project 956 fleet destroyer, an anti-submarine helicopter Ka-27, a tanker and a fleet tug from the Russian side. The Indian side will provide for the drills a Kashin-class destroyer, a corvette, a tanker and a shipboard helicopter," Alexander Gordeev told reporters.
He noted that the final composition of forces and means involved in the drills would be specified during the final planning conference, which is scheduled for October.
The multipurpose amphibious assault boats, developed by the concern's subsidiary "Rybinsk Shipyard" were showcased for the first time at the International Maritime Defense Show in St. Petersburg in July 2015.
"Kalashnikov Concern, part of the state corporation Rostec, began serial deliveries of assault landing boats for the special forces of the Russian Defense Ministry," the statement reads.
Defense Minister Ine Eriksen Sreide has been an active campaigner for universal military service. Now she believes the increased number of women in the military is an occasion for celebration.
"Actually, it's sheer madness that we have excluded half the population from important tasks in defense for so long. It will be very exciting to see when the first female conscripts get to proper action," Sreide said.
Last year, a US study concluded that female soldiers are wounded twice as often in conflict and are less accurate at firing than male soldiers. Women were also reported to have greater difficulty in evacuating the wounded. Military units consisting exclusively of male soldiers score higher in 69 percent of the tasks, compared to units with both male and female soldiers. The survey was conducted among 500 marine infantrymen stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, 100 of them female.
Congratulating colonel Ingrid Gjerde with the promotion to BG and the assignment @NorwayNATO https://t.co/yldTtSKVzX pic.twitter.com/4BBwdy1Qxh Norwegian Army (@NorwegianArmy) April 22, 2016
The American study never resonated with the Norwegian Army. Leader of the Norwegian Military Officers' Council Jens Jahren reported "very good experiences with female conscripts and all female cadets."
"I don't know of Norwegian research based on conflict situations, but we know from exercises that women do as well as men in precision and overall effort," Jahren told the tabloid newspaper Verdens Gang.
On Friday night, the NATO leaders' summit party in Poland will feature Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven and Finnish President Sauli Niinisto as special guests, personally invited by NATO Secretary General and former Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg.
"Sweden and Finland are real close friends of NATO. Close friends are invited to dinner and that's what we do," Stoltenberg said at a press conference prior to the summit in Warsaw as quoted by the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.
Norway's former prime minister called Sweden and Finland "very close partners," lauding their contribution to many NATO operations, such as the one in Afghanistan. According to Stoltenberg, Sweden and Finland are crucial in matters pertaining to security and stability in the Baltic region.
According to the retired officer, Russian-Turkish cooperation can be advanced "in every respect. If this occurs, I believe we will be able to solve a number of problems in Europe. In other words, the cooperation between our two countries could make a major contribution to peace, not just in the region but around the world."
As for the prospects for cooperation at Incirlik, Karakus, himself the former commander of a military air base, suggested that "from a technical standpoint there are no problems," even if the political will does not presently exist.
Ultimately, the officer noted, Turkey is "absolutely ready" for expanded military cooperation with Russia. "The potential for cooperation in this area was considered earlier. Specifically, Turkey was interested in the purchase of the S-300 and S-400 air defense systems. Unfortunately, thanks to events [specifically the Syrian crisis], plans to deploy Chinese or Russian air defense systems had to be postponed."
MOSCOW (Sputnik) According to the DPA news agency, German Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel has informed the German parliament on the decision on the issue after a closed-door meeting of the Federal Security Council.
In early 2015, the German Federal Security Council authorized the partial resumption of exports of military equipment to Saudi Arabia, previously suspended due to unstable situation in the Middle East.
Germany's Left party and the Greens have repeatedly voiced opposition to arms sales to Arab countries, saying Germany should not supply weapons to states that systematically violate human rights.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) Despite growing security threats to member countries, most NATO members appear reluctant to boost their own countries military spending.
Only 32 percent of NATO nations think the defense spending should be increased, while 47 percent want it to remain at the current level, according to the survey.
However, 14 percent of the polled said the spending should be decrease.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) The "Integrated Ground Test" conducted by the Israeli Missile Defense Organization (IMDO) and the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) lasted for five days and ended on June 22, the Ynetnews media outlet reported.
"We tested the systems' ability to work in tandem until the point of interception, without launching the missiles. In fact, we had one Israeli eye and one American eye on all of the targets, at the same time, and so we could see and operate better," an unnamed IMDO colonel told the news outlet.
During the drills, the United States and Israel tested real-time communication between six different missile defense systems: Israeli Arrow 2 and 3, David's Sling as well as US Aegis Ships, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and Patriot, according to the news portal.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) The latest round of the Geneva discussions was held in mid-June. The meeting was attended by the Republic of Abkhazia, Georgia, the Russian Federation, the United States and the Republic of South Ossetia, which had also declared independence from Georgia and remains partially recognized by the international community. The participants agreed that the situation in the region remains stable.
"Currently, no bilateral talks are being held," Khajimba said in an interview with the Russian Izvestia newspaper, published on Wednesday.
Venezuelas opposition has blamed Maduro for the economic crisis in the country, having gathered enough signatures in favor of a recall referendum.
Founded in 1991, Mercosur is a sub-regional economic bloc that includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.
"We can well ask whether the United States should see the Daesh, the al-Nusra Front or Jaysh al-Islam as friendly allies."
The al-Nusra Front is the Syrian affiliate of al-Qaeda, which killed more than 3,000 people in its September 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington, DC.
Paul said that far from supporting secular democratic forces in Syria, the US government was arming and financing the most extreme Islamic movements that were determined to exterminate more tolerant ones.
Paul explained the real motivation for US policy in Syria was to maintain and extend its control over valuable energy resources in the region.
"The whole game is an example of geopolitics, a rivalry reflecting the importance of Middle East oil and gas resources."
"Thirteen years since the war began, and seven since Sir John Chilcot launched his inquiry, the families of the 179 service personnel who died will finally get some of the evidence and findings as to why we were taken into this war on false pretences and why the UK government so badly failed to plan for the war or its aftermath," Salmond added.
The former Scottish leader said it would be "a disgrace" if the report proved to be a whitewash "in the long litany of British cover ups from Suez onwards."
"It is a disgrace that Tony Blair who so readily drove us into this foreign policy disaster has seen parts of the report before the families of those who died. It is wrong that Mr Blair has had many months to consult his spin doctors and lawyers, to construct his excuses, and to tour the TV studios denying his guilt, while the families of the dead will get just two hours advance notice."
In an interview with the BBC in May, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair suggested he may challenge the findings of the 2.6-million word report, but said he would issue a formal statement following its publication Wednesday.
"For those expecting answers today we must be clear this report will not provide a verdict, and far from being the final word on the Iraq war it will just be the start of a process providing some of the evidence and findings from which we can then determine those responsible."
Salmond, who Monday suggested Blair could face charges in the Scottish criminal courts added there was a broad political consensus to bring justice "for the lies and failures" surrounding the 2003 Iraq invasion.
"I want to reassure the families of those who died, and everyone living with the consequences of this conflict, that there is renewed cross-party determination to ensure Mr Blair and all those responsible for the lies and failures are held to account."
"Whatever the findings in the Chilcot report we already know the consequences of the Iraq war the innocent men and women killed, a country that lay in ruins and under siege, a region destabilised and a world made more dangerous for us all. Once we have the evidence we must hold those responsible to account."
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) Kirby noted that Kerry offered Saudi Arabia US support and condolences for the recent terrorist attacks.
"Secretary Kerry held an impromptu meeting this afternoon with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir," Kirby stated on Tuesday. "The two discussed the need to combat and defeat Daesh, including in Syria, where the Kingdom has offered to commit troops to the counter-Daesh campaign."
Kerry and the Saudi Foreign Minister also discussed the need for a political transition in Syria, the situation in Libya and efforts to reach a settlement to the conflict in Yemen.
ANKARA (Sputnik) According to the press service, during the summit, the leaders are expected to discuss the implementation of measures agreed at the previous summit that was held in Wales in September 2014, as well as new security measures to be implemented across the member states.
"The president will take part in the NATO summit in Warsaw on July 8-9," the statement said, adding that Erdogan is expected to hold a number of bilateral meetings with MATO member states leaders on the sidelines of the summit.
The participants are also expected to consider the program of financial support to Afghanistans security forces in 2018-2020, among other issues.
The minister also warned that that the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement, or CETA, which stipulates a free trade pact between Canada and the European Union, was also unlikely to be ratified this year, "because there is a lack of trust in internationalization, and a lack of delegation in the management of European security."
Analysts believe that the United Kingdom's vote to leave the EU has significantly complicated TTIP negotiations. Following the Brexit vote, Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, suggested that the vote meant losing one of the trade deal's greatest proponents in the EU.
"As the UK is part of the coalition of liberal trading economies in the EU, the US is losing one of the more like-minded countries from the group in Brussels sitting on the other side of the negotiating table," Bown said.
Meanwhile, John Hilary, the executive director of the War on Want activist group, was more blunt, suggesting in the vote's aftermath that "Brexit may well be the last straw that broke the TTIP camel's back."
ANKARA (Sputnik) Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said Wednesday that a number of states were currently dissatisfied with the Moscow-Ankara political rapprochement, although previously, these states had criticized the bilateral Turkey-Russia tensions, which means they are hostile to Turkey.
"Of course, every state tries to defend its interests. It is normal from the point of view of international law. Turkey seeks to reduce the rate of tensions and develop neighborly relationsIt is interesting that those who yesterday criticized worsening of relations of Turkey with Russia and Israel, today criticize the normalization process. It means that the emphasis is made on a maximum damage for Ankara," Bozdag said, as quoted by the Anadolu news agency.
Bozhag noted that the normalization of the Russia-Turkey relations was profitable for both sides.
"The democracy in EU is merely in empty shell, and the greatest deficit of democracy can be seen in Brussels, where we have a 'government' that was elected by no one and a so-called 'parliament' that has no majority or opposition," he remarked.
And while it is clear that the entire establishment and its media will be against Hofer during the upcoming elections, the chances of him becoming the next president of Austria remain fairly high, according to Hajek.
"What I call 'the revolution of voters' is on the rise in the entire Western world. And, among other things, it offers us hope of restoring normal relations with Russia, which is imperative if we want to maintain peace. But NATO generals and the military-industrial complex dont like that," he added. Austria is not currently a NATO member.
Meanwhile, Hofer himself told Sputnik that he wants to visit Russia as soon as such an opportunity presents itself, and that he considers the policy of anti-Russian sanctions to be counterproductive.
"Im not happy about the sanctions that still exist because, simply put, they have a detrimental effect on the economy. During the last several weeks I met with many farmers who suffer because of these sanctions. So I got to ask, who needs these sanctions?" Hofer said.
On May 22, Austrians voted in the second round of presidential elections, choosing between independent candidate Alexander Van der Bellen and FPO candidate Norbert Hofer, with the former being elected president after the authorities counted postal votes, despite the fact that Hofer was leading in exit polls. Following the announcement of the results, the FPO filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court.
Dr. Ellis suggested that "the fact that this inquiry took the time that it did over 6 years and put together a very significant report and documented it to a significant degreewill provide insight as to the mistakes that were made by the UK government, and for that matter the US government. I think it's a very important inquiry and an important conclusion, but not surprising as to the blame towards Mr. Blair, and former President Bush as well."
Ultimately, the legal expert said that he believes the central lesson to be taken away from the report is that if countries "adhere to international law, [they] will have a much better chance of undertaking military interventionconsistent with international standards. This was the problem of this particular intervention in Iraq. It was clear that the political players had a desire to move into Iraq and to have a regime change, and they did so without following the principles of international law, which would have clearly required the UN Security Council to play a much more important role in authorizing that type of collective action."
Ellis noted that the Chilcot Inquiry is meant to remind international actors that when the question arises of violating another country's sovereignty, there are international legal principles, such as self-defense and UN Security Council authorization, which give countries the moral and legal justification for doing so.
"But what international law does not do is allow states, individually or collectively, to unilaterally decide they're going to intervene, and act in an aggressive way toward another country. That to me is key, and I think this lesson will hold I hope it will hold in future conflicts," the expert concluded.
Nevertheless, the objections of a number of EU countries have not gone entirely unnoticed. Subsequently, last month, German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said that Germany's support for construction was subject to Moscow fulfilling three conditions, namely 1) compliance with German regulations, 2) not threatening ongoing gas transit through Ukraine, and 3) not restricting the supply of gas to Eastern Europe.
Commenting on these requirements in an article for PolitRussia, journalist and political analyst Ivan Shatov recalled that in and of themselves, these requirements were nothing new. "Germany had always said that the pipeline does not fall under the Third Energy Package," (which stipulates that the company that produces gas cannot operate the pipeline), and that "it doesn't conflict with EU law." Moreover, he added, "there was never any discussion on the complete cessation of gas transit through Ukraine some minimum amount would continue to be delivered in any case."
With regard to the project's future prospects, Shatov suggested that German interest was its most important guarantee. Essentially, "the project's implementation will turn Germany into a world-class energy hub in the market for European gas." As a result, the analyst noted, countries like Slovakia, Poland and Hungary "can always voice their objections, but following Brexit, no one will be able to prevent Germany from enhancing its status in the European gas market."
Ultimately, the analyst suggested, it will be very interesting to observe how Washington responds. "As is well-known, the United States has long tried to reduce Europe's dependence on Russian energy, with the UK serving as a lobbyist for US interests on the continent. In this context, Brexit may become a much more important blow to US interests than the shock caused on Wall Street. For Moscow however, such a turn of events can only be seen as beneficial."
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) should recognize that its confrontational measures with respect to Russia will inevitably result in a military and technical response, Grushko added.
"We are offered a confrontational agenda, in which we are absolutely uninterested. NATO must realize that from a military point of view all these measures will only have the opposite effect. Because it is clear to all sensible people (especially in the military) that a military-technical response is bound to come from our side."
NATO Impairs Afghan, European Security by Stopping Cooperation With Russia
NATO damages security both in Afghanistan and Europe by stopping cooperation in the conflict-torn central Asian country, Grushko also said.
"We are not laying down any conditions and are only proceeding from the fact that, by stopping cooperation with Russia on Afghanistan, the alliance seriously impairs the situation in the country."
The envoy reiterated the ripple effect created by NATOs refusal to work with Russia in Afghanistan.
"The terminated cooperation is reflected not only in Afghanistan, but it also damages the security situation in Europe. After all, the Europeans are affected by the flow of drugs and uncontrolled migration, including from Afghanistan."
Russia Concerned by NATO-Trained Ukrainian Forces Deployed to Eastern Contact Line
During the call, the Vice President accepted the invitation of President Vejonis to visit Latvia later this summer, the release said.
Some 200 US soldiers arrived in Latvia last week to join NATO's Operation Atlantic Resolve, according to the defense ministry of the Baltic republic.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) On July 8-9, NATO will hold a Summit in Warsaw, Poland to discuss the mission in Afghanistan, boosting the alliances military presence in Eastern Europe and defense budgeting, among other topics.
"After the conclusion of the NATO Summit, the president [Obama] will also have a quint meeting with President Poroshenko of Ukraine as well," Rhodes stated on Wednesday. "It is an important opportunity [for] expressing our continued determination to maintain sanctions on Russia."
Obama and Poroshenko, Rhodes continued, will also discuss the importance of implementing the terms of the Minsk agreement.
The FBI has announced yesterday that Clinton will not face charges despite saying she was extremely careless in hiding thousands of e-mails on her server, some of which were classified. Did the FBI essentially re-write the law to insure the presidential candidate would be let off the hook?
China has kicked off military drills in the South China Sea the week before a court in the Hague is expected to rule on the territorial dispute with the Philippines. Chinas week long drills started as a state newspaper warned against the U.S. intervening in the region. Becker is joined by journalist Don DeBar to explore if tensions are on the increase and what can be expected from the upcoming court ruling.
Impeachment proceedings are going forward in Brazil despite the Senates own report clearing President Rousseff of the main charge against her. Brazils Senate is questioning President Dilma Rousseffs representative as the coup governments legitimacy continues to erode. Journalist Kim Ives talks with Becker about what's to come to Dilma, former President Lula da Silva, and the crumbling government of Michel Temer.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)Tests of combat robot systems will be carried out in Russia within a year, the head of Russia's Advanced Research Fund told Sputnik.
"The first task which I think we will complete within a year is an assessment and tests through uniform methods," Andrei Grigoriev said.
Future wars will be fought by robots and drones united in reconnaissance and strike systems, and soldiers will become operators, the head of Russia's Advanced Research Fund told Sputnik.
TBILISI (Sputnik)The delegation of 12 French National Assembly and Senate members will visit Crimea on July 28-August 1, French parliament Foreign Affairs Committee member Thierry Mariani, who will lead the delegation, told Sputnik.
The French delegation's visit will take place during the Navy Day in Russia celebrated in 2016 on July 31.
"I usually keep my promises, and that is why we are going back to Crimea. On July 28-August 1, we are planning to visit three cities of the Black Sea peninsula such as Simferopol, Sevastopol and Yalta. The Russian Navy Day we will spend in Sevastopol," Mariani said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) The Kremlin has expressed deep condolences to families of crew members of the Il-76 jet that crashed while on a fire-fighting mission near the Russian city of Irkutsk, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday.
"The Kremlin expresses its deepest condolences to the relatives and friends of the Emergency Ministry's pilots who died during a fire-fighting [mission] near Irkutsk, today is their funeral. They are true heroes, so the Kremlin is grieving together with all the relatives and loved ones of these pilots," Peskov said.
Condolences to families of perished heroes. Long live the memory of @MchsRussia IL-76 pilots who died on duty https://t.co/XWDJgdUd4d Dmitry Rogozin (@DRogozin) 5 2016 .
The plane went missing last Friday after failing to make scheduled contact with rescuers. All ten crew members died in the crash. The last of the bodies were pulled from the charred wreckage on Monday. The black boxes received thermal damage.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) He added that Russia reiterated its readiness to cooperate with Netherlands in the inquiry.
"On July 6, Russian Prosecutor General's Office received representatives on the Dutch Public Prosecution Service to discuss the cooperation within the framework of the criminal investigation into the circumstances of Malaysian Boeing crash on July 17,2014," Kurennoy said.
Flight MH17, with 298 people on board, crashed on July 17, 2014, in eastern Ukraine after being shot down en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, leaving no survivors. Most of the victims were Dutch citizens, and the Dutch Safety Board is heading the international investigation into the incident. The local militias and the Kiev-led forces were fighting in the region at the time of the crash, and trade blame for the incident.
Children at a summer camp in Crimea were treated to a day's activities led by Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Wednesday, who is the first of the camp's "star counselors" to spend a day with the children.
Zakharova said she was proud to be was one of several counselors at the internationally renowned Artek children's center on the Black Sea. The camp was first established in 1925 as a resort for young pioneers the Soviet equivalent of Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts.
"I was a top student, I graduated school with honors, but I never got to go to Artek. So, today is a triumph of justice!" Zakharova said, as reported by Lenta.ru.
According to the Guardians The Counted database of police killings, reporting 550 deaths as of July 5, 95 people were killed by police in the month of June. The Killed by Police (KBP) database has an even higher number, with 596 deaths documented, 100 of which were in June.
June was not the deadliest month according to counts, however. March and February topped that number, with the Guardian reporting 99 in each month and KBP reporting 102 in March and 104 in February.
The KBP totals vary from the Guardians, as they also count incidences of death in police custody, if those deaths are a result of injuries or circumstances caused by law enforcement. KBP is the first database of its kind, launched in 2013, by activists who have chosen to remain anonymous.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) On Tuesday, Comey announced that the FBI would not recommend charges against Clinton based on a criminal probe into her use of a private server and email account. Comey said that while the FBI did not find evidence of criminal wrongdoing, it did find evidence that Clinton and her staff were "extremely" careless in handling highly classified information.
"I dont know where Comey gets off making a characterization other than to say that they [FBI] have deferred [and] have basically decided not to prosecute," Akerman told Sputnik on Tuesday. "I bet you cant find one FBI finding like that."
Comeys remarks about Clintons carelessness in handling information, Akerman noted, were inappropriate and above and beyond what is normally done when the FBI does not find enough evidence to charge someone after an investigation.
"In so doing, he [Comey] has come dangerously close to saying that grossly negligent handling of classified information should not result in serious consequences for high-level officials. In a nation where the rule of law is supposed to matter, this is troubling."
As Americans celebrated the birth of their nation on July 4th, Cruz added, it is incumbent upon the authorities to ensure that the United States remains a nation of laws, and that laws apply equally and fairly to all people.
"Under President Obama, we have seen the most politicized Department of Justice in history; I very much hope that politicization has not similarly corrupted the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
Cruz said he joined his colleagues on the US Senate Judiciary Committee in calling for public transparency of, and full access to, all the information that the FBI gathered and used to reach, as the senator called it the dubious decision.
US Attorney General Loretta Lynch has said she will accept the recommendation of both the FBI and career prosecutors in the Justice Department.
"[B]ecause of our rigged system that holds the American people to one standard and people like Hillary Clinton to another, it does not look like she will be facing the criminal charges that she deserves," Trump stated on Tuesday.
Manning, 28, was hospitalized after a suspected suicide attempt, US officials said. She was later released from the prison hospital, but is being monitored by prison staff.
CNN says US political prisoner Chelsea Manning rushed to hospital after presumed suicide attempt https://t.co/Jb9Vq5sTa5 @xymanning WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 6, 2016
The whistleblower leaked thousands of classified Army documents to WikiLeaks in 2010, including diplomatic cables and airstrike videos, which later became known as the Afghan War Diaries. She was later charged with 21 counts of espionage and sentenced to 35 years behind bars in Fort Leavenworth, the US' only maximum-security military prison.
The president stated that the Afghan military requires the assistance of the US, and that "The security situation in Afghanistan remains precariousIt is in our national security interest, especially after all the blood and treasure weve invested over the years, that we give our partners in Afghanistan the best chance to succeed."
Obama labeled the change in plans an "additional adjustment to our posture," and said the decision was based on advice from the US commander in Afghanistan, Army General John Nicholson, and members of his national security team, including Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"As president and commander in chief, Ive made it clear that I will not allow Afghanistan to be used as safehaven for terrorists to attack our nation again," he stated. "That is why I constantly review our strategy with my national security team."
The US president said the revised troop deployment will serve the dual purpose of giving the next president a "solid foundation for continued progress in Afghanistan," as well as sending "a message to the Taliban and all of those who have opposed Afghanistans progress."
According to Vanda Felbab-Brown, a Brookings Institute analyst with experience in Afghanistan, both the US and Afghan governments acknowledge that narcotics are driving the Afghan economy, but neither has said as much publicly.
She said that while the Afghan government continues to attempt to scale back the poppy trade, "the government is realistic," and understands that the countrys economy is "extraordinarily dependent" on money made from the heroin, an export that accounts for over one third of the countrys gross domestic product.
"No country in history has been as economically dependent on the drug economy as Afghanistan,' said Felbab-Brown, adding, 'Much of the economic and political life of the country depends on it, and that currently, we are in a situation where a worsening insurgency limits action."
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels on Monday that the organizations Resolute Support mission would continue in 2017, and that funding for the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces through 2020 would continue as well. Numbers for the funding havent been announced, with NATO suggesting $5 billion for Afghan police and military, and the Afghan government suggesting that it should be more in the area of $25 billion.
"The mission wasnt successful," a project scientist, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the LA Times. "Did the thruster perform as expected? No, it did not provide the control necessary for a lethal impact of an incoming threat."
A second scientist said that claims of success were "hyperbole, unsupported by any test data."
Other engineers indicated that the faulty thrusters caused the interceptor to miss its target by "a distance 20 times greater than what was expected," the LA Times reported.
The program, known as Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), has cost US taxpayers over $40 billion since 2004. It was designed as a means to prevent a potential nuclear attack, and involves 30 interceptors that can be launched from various terrestrial locations across the United States.
The thrusters have come under scrutiny before. Two unsuccessful tests in 2010 were attributed to the component, and ultimately led to the creation of the latest model. An earlier test of the new thrusters occurred in 2013 and resulted in failure.
McGovern explained that if Marcel Lazar Lehel, better known as Guccifer, a Romanian taxi driver and hacker who claims to have breached Clintons email server could do it, so could anyone and he is certain others have.
Lazar was the first to claim the existence of a Clinton private email account, by hacking an email account used by one of her associates, Sidney Blumenthal.
So, shes guilty as sin and the lawyers are playing games, the fraudulent lawyers, are playing games with the difference between extremely reckless and grossly negligent. Well, what she did was gross negligence, McGovern claims.
While the FBI acknowledged there is evidence that she broke a law, ultimately, they decided not to recommend charges, on the basis that they do not believe that she intended to break the law.
McGovern further stated that CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou had previously been told that intent is not relevant regarding the Espionage Act, yet Comey appears to have rewritten the rules for the Clinton case.
The study not only found that all requests were granted, but that requests are becoming more and more frequent. In 2005, when the study began, 1,774 requests were made. Over ten years, that number has more than doubled, with 4,148 requests made and granted last year.
The number of federal and state wiretaps reported in 2015 increased 17 percent from 2014. A total of 4,148 wiretaps were reported as authorized in 2015, with 1,403 authorized by federal judges and 2,745 authorized by state judges. Compared to the applications approved during 2014, the number approved by federal judges increased 10 percent in 2015, and the number approved by state judges increased 21 percent. No wiretap applications were reported as denied in 2015, the report stated.
Over the entire span of the research, only eight requests were denied, and there were never two request denials in a single year.
The US often touts its vetting process for the foreign organizations it supports, but it appears that Washington often claims that groups are "moderate" when they have been documented as being violent.
Luther implores those in the US, and in other countries that support Syria, to intervene to stop the mistreatment and killing of innocent people. "States that are members of the International Syria Support Group, including the USA, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which are involved in negotiations over Syria, must pressure armed groups to end such abuses and comply with the laws of war," he said. "They must also cease any transfer of arms or other support to groups implicated in committing war crimes and other gross violations."
The report documents, between 2014 and 2015, five cases of people claiming they were tortured by the Nour al-Dine Zinki movement and Jabhat al-Nusra, after being abducted. The report also details 24 cases of abduction by armed groups in Idleb and Aleppo between 2012 and 2016. People were targeted due to their religion, or for being an ethnic minority, or writing articles against the opposition, and even playing music.
NEW DELHI (Sputnik)According to the Dhaka Tribune newspaper, Daesh militants released a video message, reportedly made in Syria's Raqqa, in which three unidentified Daesh members of Bangladeshi origin criticize the country's government and say that the attack in Dhaka was revenge for crimes against Muslims. The militants warned that Daesh jihad would not stop.
On July 1, a group of armed terrorists took dozens hostage inside the restaurant located in a diplomatic quarter of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka. The attack left 20 people, mostly foreigners, dead, while 13 hostages were rescued by the country's security forces.
Islamic State had initially claimed responsibility for the attack, however the Bangladeshi authorities later accused the homegrown group called Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh of the attack.
TOKYO (Sputnik) South Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Hong-kyun will visit Russia on Thursday for political consultations with his Russian counterpart Igor Morgulov, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
"Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Hong-kyun will visit Moscow for the 16th round of political consultations between the Republic of Korea and Russia with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister on Asia and the Pacific Igor Morgulov that will take place on July 8, as well as for holding the 10th meeting on the Russian-South Korean Far East and Siberia matters subcommittee on July 7 with First Deputy Far East Development Minister Alexander Osipov," the ministry said in a statement.
The deputy ministers will discuss collaboration on the Korean peninsula situation with regard to the North Korean nuclear program, the statement added, noting that agricultural and healthcare issues will also be dealt with.
She said that the Left Party does not want such a dangerous development, which is why the party proposes an alternative.
"We stand for the idea once offered by Willy Brandt. This is related to the creation of a collective security system, which will proceed from the assumption that that peace and security in Europe is only possible in cooperation with Russia, not without it," Wagenknecht said.
Asked about how Russia could be integrated into such a system, she called for Russia's full-fledged membership.
"Russia should become a member of this new structure. In addition, the focus should be placed on the peaceful resolution of conflicts through dialogue and discussions, something that runs counter to the policy on Russia pursued by Western countries in recent years," she pointed out, citing anti-Russian sanctions and Russia's exclusion from the G-8 group.
Separately, Wagenknecht mentioned a video earlier posted by the Left Party on YouTube, which drew parallels between NATO and reptiles, a clear reference to the alliance's recent war games codenamed Anaconda.
"Apparently, NATO would like to identify itself as anaconda. And in this vein, the Anaconda drills can be seen as preparation for a possible war, which is provoked by the United States for boosting its clout in Europe," she said.
Wagenknecht added that by calling for the creation of a collective peace and security system, the Left Party wants Germany to do "what France has done for many years, namely, the withdrawal from NATO."
VLADIVOSTOK (Sputnik) Russia's energy giant Gazprom is considering the possibility of direct helium supplies to China via bridges that will cross the Amur River, Andrey Blinov, the head of marketing and export development department at Gazprom Export, said Wednesday.
"Helium from the Amur gas processing plant in the Svobodny settlement will be mostly delivered through a hub. If we have bridges in future and we assume that they will be built, some volumes [of helium] will be delivered to China directly," Blinov told reporters.
The Amur gas processing plant is expected to be operational in 2021.
Following the talks the Prime Ministers signed a spate of agreements on trade and economic, scientific, technological and tourism cooperation. The documents stipulate China investing in Greece's railways, shipbuilding, as well as finance and innovation sectors.
In an interview with Sputnik, Su Hao, Professor in the Department of Diplomacy at the China Foreign Affairs University, said Greek-Chinese relations should be assessed in light of the UK's move to leave the EU.
"After Brexit the status of Greece turned out to be specific. As for China, it wants to see Europe as a single political and economic mechanism. And if Greece can remain in the EU, it will be of great importance. China bolsters political and economic relations with Greece, as well as helps Athens to remain within the EU," he said.
Alexei Maslov, of the Moscow-based Higher School of Economics, for his part, touched upon China's willingness to cooperate with Greece on turning the Greek port of Piraeus into the leading logistics hub of the Mediterranean.
In a separate interview with Sputnik, he said that this project, which may become a major logistic link between Europe and Asia, is of strategic importance to China.
"This is part of a global project developed by China, which sees the project as a mechanism to help control transcontinental maritime shipments. If China injects hefty investments in the project, it will eventually become a maritime part of the Silk Road's economic zone," Maslov added.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Russia's warnings to other countries regarding suspected terrorists are often ignored, and the reported involvement of several Russians in the Istanbul airport attack could be a result of such actions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday.
"Over many years, the Russian side has handed over information through channels in various services, including intelligence services, both to Turkish colleagues and to European colleagues, that persons suspected of intending to join terrorist groups can be hiding on the territory of Turkey, as well as a number of other European countries. Most often, these signals from the Russian side have not received proper attention or any sort of reactions from our colleagues. Unfortunately, these can be the consequences of such disregard," Peskov told reporters.
The spokesman underlined that Russia has consistently called for more cooperation in the counterterrorism field.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)The NATO ballistic missile defense is not directed against Russia and will not undermine its strategic deterrence capabilities, Slovenian Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec told Sputnik.
The Ballistic Missile Defence is not designed or directed against Russia and will not undermine its strategic deterrence capabilities, Erjavec said, commenting on the alliance's decision to open a new missile defense base in Romania, plan to deploy a defense system in Poland and NATO further expansion close to Russias border.
In May, the United States activated its Aegis ashore ballistic missile defense system (BMDS) in Romania and broke ground on another Aegis ashore site in Poland.
He cited a wide array of areas where he said "Washington and Moscow could cooperate [to fight enemies] including Syria/Islamic State [Daesh], North Korea, Iran, China and terrorism."
He was echoed by Professor Andranik Migranyan of the Moscow Institute of International Relations, who underscored the importance of a wider terrorism-related partnership between Russia and the Western countries.
In an interview with Sputnik, he specifically pointed to the deadly terrorist attack in an Istanbul airport on June 28, when at least 44 people were killed and 239 more injured.
"If our Western partners cooperated more with the Russian special services, this terrorist attack on the Istanbul airport could have been prevented," Migranyan said.
For his part, Horst Teltschik, the former national security advisor to former Chancellor Helmut Kohl and former chair of the Munich Security Council, said in a separate interview with Sputnik that he fully supports German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier's stance on Russia.
"Russia plays an important role in ensuring global security, and the West should recognize it," Teltschik said, warning against the deployment of elements of the US missile defense shield in Europe.
According to him, "Russia shows the world that it remains a major a global player, on par with the United States or China."
Last month, Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged Europe, and especially NATO members, to work with Moscow and stop carrying out military exercises close to the Russian border.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)Earlier in the day, the UK government released an report by Sir John Chilcot devoted to the UK role in the 2003 Iraq War. Blair has been criticized for the United Kingdoms involvement in the conflict that stretched through 2011. The campaign to topple then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on suspicion that he had weapons of mass destruction killed 179 British soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, many of them civilians.
"This report confirms the series of serious failures that led to this disastrous war. We know for sure that Government Ministers, including Tony Blair, lied to the public about their reasons for going to war. He said he would support George Bush whatever eight months before the war and thousands of lives were lost because he stuck to that promise despite the evidence in front of him," Lucas said, adding that Blair knew he would never gain parliamentary support "for regime change" in Iraq.
According to Lucas, Blair's claim that it was a war solely to eradicate weapons of mass destruction "is now in tatters" and that is why the ex-prime minister should take responsibility for the consequences of this war.
Yevseyev said that during the Syrian Army's massive offensive, the Daesh terrorists will most likely move toward the Turkish border.
"And there are two options under this scenario. Turkish authorities will either destroy the terrorists near their country's border or prompt them to flee to another location. Most likely, it will be Libya," he said.
Meanwhile, Russian Ambassador to Libya Ivan Molotkov has told Izvestia that the terrorists have already begun fleeing from the Middle East to this war-torn North African country.
"It is open secret that these people have already started to move to Libya from Syria and Iraq, where they no longer feel comfortable, so to speak," Molotkov said, in an apparent reference to the Daesh terrorists.
The US-led coalition of over 60 nations has been conducting airstrikes in Syria and Iraq against Daesh (ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State) since summer 2014. Russia's air campaign against Daesh in Syria was held between September 2015 and March 2016.
"It was the last-moment decision for us as the [Chilcot] report indeed says With respect I did not have the option of that delay, I had to decide," Blair said adding that he took the decision "with the heaviest of hearts".
Blair: I don't think it fair or accurate to criticize armed forces, civil service or intelligence service. It was my decision Robert Peston (@Peston) July 6, 2016
The former prime minister added that there were no reasons to delay the invasion.
"I didn't have the option to delay the invasion in Iraq," he said. "I ask the British people to accept that I took the decision because I thought it was the right thing to do."
Blair noted that intelligence assessments turned out to be wrong, aftermath turned out to be more hostile than imagined. However, he is profoundly disagree that today's terrorism stems are consequences of the invasion of Iraq.
Blair suggests he will publish his own "lessons to be learned" document. norman smith (@BBCNormanS) July 6, 2016
Blair is convinced that the world was and is in a better place without Saddam Hussein and he will not say he regrets getting rid of Saddam Hussein.
"I profoundly disagree that Saddam Hussein should have been allowed to stay in power," Tony Blair told journalists at the press conference after the Chilcot report publication.
In an interview with Sputnik, Polish political scientist Konrad Rekas slammed his country's Minister of National Defense Antoni Macierewicz for making unfriendly remarks about Russia, which he said mirror Poland's push to belittle Russia's growing international clout.
The interview came ahead of the NATO summit, which is due to be held at the National Stadium in Warsaw between July 8 and 9.
During the gathering, NATO is expected to formally approve the deployment of its four battalions in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Discussing ways to deter alleged Russian aggression will also be high on the agenda.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)The United States and Georgia have signed a memorandum on deepening the defense and security cooperation, the US Department of State said in a press release on Wednesday.
"The United States intends to reinforce existing assistance mechanisms to strengthen Georgias self-defense capacity against potential threats," the release stated. "The United States and Georgia intend to increase military cooperation.[and] to strengthen information sharing."
The State Department said the United States will enhance existing assistance mechanisms, and will provide Georgia with defense articles, training and technical personnel.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) President Barack Obama should not remove any US troops from Afghanistan this year given the unertain security situation in that country, US Senator John McCain said in a statement on Wednesday.
"[W]hen the president himself describes the security situation in Afghanistan as precarious, it is difficult to discern any strategic rationale for withdrawing 1,400 US troops by the end of the year," McCain stated.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The United States has imposed sanctions on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and ten more senior officials as well as five entities for their role in human rights abuses, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement on Wednesday.
"The US Department of the Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today designated top officials of the North Korean regime, including North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, ten other officials and five entities for their ties to North Koreas notorious abuses of human rights," the statement said.
The action was the first time Kim had been included in Treasury sanctions. Officials from the North Korean Ministry of Peoples Security and the Ministry of State Security were also included in the sanctions.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The European Union is putting asylum-seekers at risk of harm by allowing Libyan naval forces to intercept migrant boats in the Mediterranean Sea, the rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement on Wednesday.
"The EU isnt sending people back to Libya, knowing thats unlawful, so it wants to outsource the dirty work to Libyan forces," HRW associate director for Europe and Central Asia, Judith Sunderland stated. "The EU soon perhaps with NATOs help is basically deputizing Libyan forces to help seal Europes border."
The European Union is set to discuss NATO participation in the operation at the upcoming summit in Warsaw, Poland on July 8 and 9.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The United States is discussing with Russia and other parties a possible extension of the 72-hour silence regime declared in Syria earlier on Wednesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said.
The Syrian armed forces command on Wednesday announced a three-day ceasefire regime throughout the country effective on July 6.
"We welcome, very much welcome, the Syrian army declaration of a 72-hour period of quiet in celebration of and in honor of Eid," Kerry stated. "And we very much hope that it will be honored by all parties and that it will hold."
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Chilcot report on the UK role in the 2003 Iraq War proves US then-President George Bush, UK past Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spain's former leader Jose Maria Anzar were lying about motives of invasion, member of the European Parliament Marina Albiol told Sputnik on Wednesday.
"[The report] proves that Bush, Blair and Aznar who orchestrated aggression lied about the motives of invasion," Albiol said.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The US State Department declined to comment on the Chilcot report, which concluded that invading Iraq was a mistake, departments spokesperson John Kirby told Sputnik on Wednesday.
The Chilcot Committee was an independent body appointed by the Government of the United Kingdom, Kirby stated. Questions about the inquiry or those who participated should be directed to the Committee.
Earlier in the day, the UK government released a long-awaited report by Sir John Chilcot devoted to the UK role in the 2003 Iraq War.
The report incensed Palestinians, and chief negotiator Saeb Erekat pointed out that the Quartets stated aim is to "equalize the responsibilities between a people under occupation and a foreign military occupier."
One European ambassador criticized the Quartet saying, "Theres just no appetite to go toe-to-toe with Israel and deliver a really harsh indictmentNo one sees the upside to it."
Many European Union member states have legacy relationships with Israel. In the last few years, Israel has relied primarily on Britain, the Czech Republic and Germany for support in the EU. Now Hungary, Italy, Austria, Greece, Cyprus and some others have become willing advocates for the embattled country.
Turkey, long an Israel antagonist, has also decided to reopen communications with Jerusalem, after a six-year hiatus.
Netanyahu has spoken of opening "new horizons" with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Gulf countries, and is currently on a four-day trip to Africa, India and China.
One American official commented that "Israel is effective at pulling the strings. However much frustration you feel on the ground, it doesnt lead to action from the top."
Palestines internal political instability is a hindrance to gaining the kind of international support that Israel has. There are still considerable differences between Hamas, which controls Gaza, and Fatah, the party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas himself has been the cause of some vexation, as the 81-year-old is now 11 years into what was supposed to be a four-year term, and hasnt given any indication of planning an election. According to recent polls, some 60% of Palestinians want Abbas removed from office.
Refreshed by a 30.1 second-quarter breather, Unefoisdansmavie easily thwarted a pair of challengers and scored a front-end victory in Tuesdays $20,000 Filly & Mare Winners Over $10,000 Life Handicap Trot at The Meadows.
Bessie took the first shot at Unefoisdansmavie, a first-over bid that stalled near the three-quarters. Princess Pablano unleashed a more serious threat when she moved three wide down the backside and loomed large in the lane. But Unefoisdansmavie responded to Dave Palones urging and held off Princess Pablano by 1-1/4 lengths in 1:54.4 on a sloppy surface, with Whata Donato third.
Ron Burke trains Unefoisdansmavie, a nine-year-old daughter of Revenue S-Peace To The World who soared over $600,000 in career earnings, for Burke Racing Stable LLC, Weaver Bruscemi LLC and Jack Piatt III.
Elsewhere on Tuesdays card, Rose Run Slider broke his maiden in 1:57, fastest mile this year by a freshman colt trotter on a five-eighths-mile track. Brian Zendt piloted for trainer Bill Zendt, who owns the son of Western Ideal-Alcyon Semalu with Shanamphilaniklou Inc.
Mike Wilder collected three wins on the 14-race card.
Wednesdays program at The Meadows features a $100,000 Pennsylvania Stallion Series Stake for two-year-old pacing fillies. First post is 1 p.m.
(The Meadows)
Two-year-old trotting fillies flocked to Georgian Downs on Tuesday evening to kick off their OSS season in a trio of $70,000 Gold Series divisions, and daughters of Muscle Mass had a productive night.
Winter Sweet Frost captured the opening division in 1:59.3 for driver Doug McNair and trainer Paul Reid. On top through fractions of :30.2, :59.3 and 1:29.4, the daughter of Kadabra-American Frost used a :29.4 closing panel to win by a half-length margin over Lady Justice. Gravitator was third.
She raced good tonight, said driver Doug McNair. The track hasnt been that fast up there, so to go a mile in 1:59.3, I think thats a pretty good mile for a two-year-old trotting fillys first lifetime start.
The main thing about her is shes nice gaited and shes smart, said McNair, who first sat behind Winter Sweet Frost in a spring training mile. You can make a lot of money with ones like that, rather than a high speed one thats half crazy.
Sent off as the 2-5 favourite, Winter Sweet Frost came through on that pari-mutuel promise for owner/breeder Robert Key of Leechburg, PA. The filly is a half-sister to Frost Bites K (1:54 - $440,804).
On A Sunny Day rallied for a 1:59 triumph in the second contest for the duo of driver Sylvain Filion and trainer Luc Blais. The daughter of Muscle Mass-Dicent No left from Post 7 and dropped into the four-hole while Sweet Of My Heart charged to the top and supplied fractions of :29.1, 1:00.2 and 1:30.4. Filion had his charge on the move in first-over fashion as the field went to the three-quarter pole. On A Sunny Days :27.4 closing panel propelled her to the half-length win over Sweet Of My Heart. Im Peekers was a well-beaten third.
She really impressed me, said driver Sylvain Filion. That was the first time I sat behind her, but Luc always told me he really, really liked her and you know what, he was right. She was real impressive tonight.
Her last baby race she came a last quarter in :27.1, added Filion. Shes a handy filly, shes pretty easy to drive, shes pretty mature for her age, and shes got wicked speed, so its a good combination.
Determination of Montreal, QC owns the youngster who was bred by trainer Luc Blais.
Janderson also used come-from-behind tactics to win her division in 1:59.3. Paul MacDonell got away third with the Mike Keeling pupil while Majestic Kat rushed to the engine and threw down fractions of :28.3 and 1:01.3. Mass Psychology put first-over pressure on the leader in the backstretch, and they battled to the three-quarter pole in 1:30.2. MacDonell angled Janderson off the rail nearing the head of the lane and the filly fired home in :29 to win by three lengths over Mass Psychology. Majestic Kat faded to finish third.
The race set up kind of nice for her, she got away third in a nice spot there, and then the first and second horses went at it kind of hard down the backstretch, which kind of made the race for her, said driver Paul MacDonell. In her only qualifier she did have a lot of trot on the end of her mile, so I was a little bit confident."
Hall of Famer Dr. Roly Armitage and James Armitage share ownership on the daughter of Muscle Mass-Gracious Marla, who was a $14,000 purchase from last years Canadian Yearling Sale. Shes the half-sister to Vixen (1:56.2 - $101,225).
The Tuesday evening program also featured a set of Preferred events for trotters, with the $11,000 Preferred 2 going to Platoon Seelster in 1:55 for Team Holliday.
Not even a first-over trip could keep the OSS grad out of the winners circle. Delcrest Massy chopped out fractions of :27, :57 and 1:25.4 before being hauled down by Platoon Seelster and Ryan Holliday in the lane. The winner used a :29 kicker to prevail by 3-3/4 lengths over Delcrest Massy, with Bambino Hall a well-beaten third.
Dave Holliday trains the four-year-old son of Federal Flex-Personal Hanover for Caroline Holliday of Mount Forest and Dennis Hannath of Harriston, Ont. The connections watched the gelding win for the fourth time this season and for the seventh time in his career. The lions share of the loot bumped his bankroll to $288,945.
Domedomedome rallied for a narrow win in the $7,500 Preferred 3 for trainer/driver Jack Moiseyev. The five-year-old daughter of Deweycheatumnhowe-Mojo N The Morning got away fourth before moving first-over and grinding her way to the top. She prevailed by three-quarters of a length over R Choochoo Charlie in 1:55.3. Ill Stay Here rounded out the Triactor ticket.
Sent off as the 3-5 favourite, Domedomedome improved this years record to 5-2-0 from 18 starts for breeder/co-owner Joanne Colville and partner Pam Schmidt. The mare has banked in excess of $60,000 this season and more than $158,000 to date.
(With quotes from OSS)
To view results for Tuesday's card of harness racing, click the following link: Tuesday Results Georgian Downs.
Party Hangover Two captured Running Aces $11,000 Mares Open Pace on Tuesday, July 5, as she out-paced the field over a sloppy track and nailed the wire in 1:58.2.
Party Hangover Two defeated her stablemate, Cheryls Surprise, who finished second in the mile, one and three-quarter lengths in arrears. Both of the mares are trained by Steve Wiseman, who steered the winner in this instance.
Party Hangover Two left alertly from Post 5 in the six-horse affair. She dropped in second behind last weeks winner, Flick A Fly before the opening quarter clock rang to life in :28.1.
The Party Girl swept to the lead just past the quarter pole, and she was never in doubt from there. She paced to the half in :59 and past the three quarters marker in 1:29.3.
Party Hangover Two paced her final quarter in :28.4 and returned $2.60 to win as part of a favoured entry. The mare has now won seven of her 10 races this year.
Running Aces next live card is scheduled for Saturday, July 9. First post on Saturday is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. (CDT).
(With files from Running Aces)
Track record holder Wildwild Men made a triumphant return to the Hippodrome 3R in capturing the third race first division of the opening round of the Breeders Cup Series with a 1:59 victory for driver Robert Shepherd.
The series, for three-year-old trotting colts and fillies, features four weeks of preliminary competition with the top eight point earners returning Sunday, September 4 for their respective $65,000 finals.
It was KFB Amigo Cool and driver Guy Gagnon battling with Shepherd and Wildwild Men for control of the early lead with KFB Amigo Cool winning the early battle to the opening quarter mile in a quick :27.4. Gagnon then backed back the speed, going to the half mile in :59 as Skyflex and driver Rheo Filion came first-over and boxed in Wildwild Men. They raced that way thru the three-quarters in 1:28.1. Then in the stretch, Shepherd moved Wildwild Men to the passing lane and they shot right by KFB Amigo Cool and went on to win by one and one-half lengths with Skyflex second and KFB Amigo Cool third.
It was the first win in five starts this year for Wildwild Men. The gelded son of Muscle Mass is trained by Isabelle Darveau for co-owners Catheline Pelletier and breeder Chantal Gravel of QC. He paid $3.10 to win.
The second colt division was a non-wagering race that saw Chatemup Bill and driver Stephane Brosseau parked out Holiday Party and driver Pascal Berube to the opening quarter mile in :28. But once in command of the race, Berube and Holiday Party held the field at bay, cutting the mile to the half in :58.1 and the three-quarters in 1:29.2 before opening up on the field and scoring an eleven and one-half length romp in 1:59.1. Stablemate Andovers Choice (Guy Gagnon) was second with Chatemup Bill third.
It was the third straight win and fourth victory in eight starts this year for Holiday Party. The Holiday Road gelding is trained by Dany Fontaine for Ecurie Gaetan Bono, Inc. of Montreal, QC.
In the sixth race filly division, Y A Jailhouse Jodi posted her third straight victory, but it was a nail bitter to the wire.
The race started off with SOS Christina and driver Gaetan Lamy parking out Y S Suzanne and trainer/driver Carl Duguay to the opening quarter mile in :29.2 before letting Y S Suzanne take command. They led the field past the half mile in 1:01.1 and then in the backstretch, Stephane Gendron was on the move with Y A Jailhouse Jodi, who settled into second place behind Y S Suzanne to the three-quarters in 1:31.4. Then in the stretch, Gendron and Y A Jailhouse Jodi came after Y S Suzanne and Duguay and those two separated from the field and battled neck and neck, head and head to the wire with Y A Jailhouse Jodi getting up in the final strides to win by a neck in 2:02. Eclair Chocolat (Mario Charron) was third.
Sired by Andover Hall, it was the third win in five starts this year for Y A Jailhouse Jodi. She is trained by Michel Allard for co-owners Yves Sarrazin and Rene Allard of QC and paid $3.00 to win as the betting favourite.
Live racing resumes Sunday at the Hippodrome 3R with the second rounds of the Breeders Cup Series for three-year-old pacing colts and fillies, post time 1:30 p.m.
For a free race program and live video feed of the 3R races, visit quebecjockeyclub.com.
(QJC)
To view results for Tuesday's card of harness racing, click the following link: Tuesday Results Hippodrome 3R.
An Oregon mayor plans to ban camping on Portland streets in the next year and a half. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said the aim is to gradually move people from street encampments to campsites designated by the city. Wheeler said his goal is to open at least three such sites, with the first opening within 18 months of securing funding. It's unclear when funding will be allocated. The sites will initially serve 125 people and provide access to basic services such as food and hygiene. The announcement comes as Portland grapples with a growing homelessness crisis. Wheeler said there are 700 homeless encampments across the city.
The Rev. Harlan Gilliland, whose friendly disposition and patience helped mend a major congregational split at Longview Community Church, died last week at St. John Medical Center. He was 79.
Gilliland became the churchs fifth senior pastor at a moment of upheaval: controversy over a previous pastor led most of the staff and a majority of the churchs members to create a new congregation just months before Gillilands arrival from Spokane in 1987.
Despite the congregational split, there was no division regarding Gillilands appointment. He was approved as the new pastor with a congregational vote of 224-2.
Gilliland served as senior pastor for 15 years at Longview Community, which Longview founder R.A. Long established in vain hopes that it would be the communitys sole Christian house of worship. By the time Gilliland retired in 2002, he had overseen nearly 500 funerals and married nearly 500 couples. And, by his own account, most of the members who had split away in 1986 had returned to Longview Community.
Robert Chace, who joined the congregation in 1986 and served as president of the board of directors from 1991 to 1992, remembers Gilliland fondly.
He was always such a positive person. So outgoing. He loved being with people and talking to people, Chace said Monday
It was during Chaces term as president, in 1992, that the Gillilands eldest daughter, Cindy, passed away.
I was struck by how strong he was in his faith, being faced with that circumstance, Chace said. We went up to the memorial service and just witnessed his strong faith in knowing his daughter was with Christ. That alone was encouraging.
Gillilands encouraging attitude and presence were hallmarks of his time as pastor.
When you talked to him about a particular problem he usually had a pretty good answer for you that you could reflect on, Chace said.
Elizabeth Meharg, director of childrens ministries at the church before Gillilands arrival, pursued her masters in theology under the mentorship of Gilliland. He provided support and encouragement the entire way, Meharg said.
Though obtaining the degree was a struggle for Meharg, Gilliland believed in her.
He kept telling me: Dont give up, Meharg said.
When she became associate pastor in 1991, the two ended up collaborating even more.
Gilliland was creative, said Meharg, always coming up with new ideas for programs and events for the congregation.
He would allow me complete freedom to use my wild side and put together programs, skits, and events for the church, and yet all within the sacredness of who we were as a congregation, Meharg said.
Gilliland knew early on that he wanted to be a minister, referring to himself as a marked person, while he grew up in Seattle.
He attended Whitworth College in Spokane, where he married his high school sweetheart, Shirley. The two then moved to Princeton, N.J., where he attended the Princeton Theological Seminary.
After returning to Washington, Gilliland served at several churches before coming to Longview. He was hesitant to accept the call here, having carved out a comfortable niche for himself and his wife in Spokane. He turned down Longview Communitys offer three times.
He finally gave in, much to the pleasure of the community.
Hes always said, and I will probably agree with him, that when we served together, we had fun together, Meharg said. The best years of being in full-time ministry were under Harlans mentorship.
Longview police are searching for an 83-year-old man who was reported missing Tuesday afternoon.
Edwind Richey was last seen at about 9:30 p.m. Monday, according to Longview police. He left his Longview home to get gas for his 32- to 36-foot Holiday Rambler motor home with Washington disabled plates 67505DP. Richey's daughter, who reported the incident, said he typically fills up at the Safeway gas station on Ocean Beach Highway.
Richey is white, about 6 feet tall and weighs 185 pounds. He is balding and wears eyeglasses. He is on medication and hard of hearing, according to a police Facebook post.
Though he hasnt been diagnosed with memory issues, police said Richey has had seizures in the past, and its unusual for him to not return home after filling up his tank.
If you see Richey or the motorhome, call Longview police at 360-442-5800 and mention case L16-4536. If after hours, call dispatch at 360-577-3084.
A car accident wasnt enough to stop a Seattle man from burglarizing a Longview womans home Tuesday morning, police say.
According to a Cowlitz County Sheriffs Office press release, Christopher Burton, 37, of Seattle wrecked his car in a ditch near the 1000 block of Coal Creek Road in Longview. Burton abandoned the 1989 Nissan pickup at the scene, then walked to a nearby home and broke in.
The homeowner, who was home at the time of the burglary, noticed a door ajar along with a soda bottle by her sink when Burton walked up the stairs from her basement, according to the press release. She yelled at him to leave. Before Burton left, he admitted to talking on his cellphone with his mom and checking Facebook when he wrecked his truck. He asked the homeowner not to call police and to give him a ride to the bus station.
When Sgt. Jeremy Tonissen arrived in the area, he contacted Burton, who denied knowing about the wreck and tried to run, throwing his ID into ditch as he ran, the press release said.
Tonissen and Deputy Jason Hammer gave chase. Burton surrendered after Tonissen threatened to use a Taser. Burton told police he was on his way to California when he wrecked the car.
Police found a large bone-handled knife stolen from the home in Burtons waistband.
He was arrested on suspicion of first-degree burglary, obstructing a law enforcement officer and a hit-and-run involving an unattended vehicle.
Creating cohesion on the Cowlitz PUD board of commissioners could become a family matter.
If elected to the board, Dan Clark would serve alongside his brother-in-law, incumbent Commissioner Kurt Anagnostou. Clark, who is in his early 70s, is married to Anagnostous older sister, Janet.
Although Clark doesnt think his family ties are an election issue, two of his opponents do. They say the connection could raise questions about open meetings laws and whether Clark and Anagnoustou can act independently of each other.
That ought to make for an interesting Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner if he was to be elected, quipped Mike Kayser, who is competing against Clark.
A Castle Rock resident, Clark is one of four candidates campaigning to replace outgoing commissioner Ned Piper. The other candidates are Dave Quinn, Mike Kayser and Lonnie Knowles. The Aug. 2 primary will whittle the number of candidates to two.
In the past, Anagnostou was often at loggerheads with Piper. Clark, though, said he considers Piper a friend and mentor.
Clark said his interest in utilities dates back years before his brother-in-law was elected to the PUD commission in 2012.
I was thinking about this whole electrical thing before this guy (Agnagnostou) ever decided to run for anything, Clark said.
Anagnostou did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
Legally, theres nothing to prohibit in-laws from serving on the same board.
The three-member PUD commission makes decisions based on a majority vote. Even though two people constitute a quorum, that doesnt bar two commissioners from attending social events or other gatherings together, said Nancy Krier, Assistant Attorney General for Open Government.
As long as the two do not discuss PUD business outside of a commission meeting, they would not violate the states open meetings laws. Some observers say that it could present some challenges, though.
Its particularly tough when you have a three-member body. ... Any two of you cant talk about business at all outside of a public meeting, said Toby Nixon, president of Washington Coalition for Open Government.
Nixon said he knows from experience serving in a King County fire district that its very tempting to have those conversations.
All those kinds of social things, the challenge for the public is, how do you know that theyre not actually talking about public business? It does make it hard, but its difficult to say its illegal, Nixon added.
The commissions current president, Dena Diamond-Ott, is not worried about the relationship.
I dont foresee any ganging up or family rivalry. I think were doing very well, so I dont foresee any underhanded business, she added.
Piper said he is neutral on the issue. However, challengers Kayser and Knowles have concerns about Clarks family ties with Anagnostou.
Thats not against the law, but its against the law common sense, Kayser said.
Its going to be viewed negatively, Knowles said.
If Clark and Anagnostou agree too often, they might be accused of working as a bloc; or, on the other hand, family disagreements could disrupt commission relations, Knowles suggested.
Candidate Dave Quinn wouldnt specify what he thought of the family connection.
I do think its important for the board to have diverse opinions and diverse perspectives. And if the opinions get tied too closely together for some reason, that probably takes away from some the strengths the board has. I dont know if thats the case with Dan (Clark) or Kurt (Anagnostou), Quinn said.
Clark said he does occasionally associate with his brother-in-law.
I dont want to create an illusion that we dont talk to each other. Thats not true. We do talk to each other, but we dont talk about PUD. Were more interested in the kids are growing up and graduating, my grandkids are coming, you know, family stuff, he added.
The retired businessman and carpenter said he does not know Anagnostous specific policy opinions. And he believes their 15-year age difference would bring different perspectives.
If the folks out there believe there would be a collusion, then dont vote for me, its a free world, but if you think Im going to go in there as a commissioner-dictator thats wrong, he said. I work for the people, thats what I have to deal with. The people in my district can fire me any day that they think theres something wrong.
A local transient was arrested Monday on suspicion of raping a woman in September at Lake Sacajawea.
Longview Police Sgt. Chris Blanchard said Tuesday that the 27-year-old woman, also a local transient, told police that the 25-year-old man raped her while the two were sleeping together on the lake's bank near St. John Medical Center. (The Daily News does not name suspects in sexual assault cases until a judge finds probable cause to detain them. TDN does not name sex assault victims either.)
According to Blanchard, the woman immediately got a sex assault forensic examination and the test results, received by police a few months ago, corroborated her story.
The suspect denied he raped the woman. There were no witnesses.
The man was booked into the Cowlitz County Jail on suspicion of second-degree rape after he was picked up on a failure to appear warrant at the Go 4th Festival.
Thanks for making Poppy Days a great success
The American Legion Auxiliary, Longview Unit No. 155 offers a very special and sincere thank you to the many volunteers and friends who so generously helped make our Poppy Days no May 27 and 28 a great success.
All contributions are used for our programs to aid veterans and their families.
We extend our gratitude to the following businesses for their encouragement and assistance: the Seventh Avenue Wal-Mart, Safeway on Ocean Beach Highway, Safeway on 15th Avenue, and KapStone Paper and Packaging Inc.
Our sincere thanks, also, to the citizens of our community for their support in wearing the American Legion Auxiliary Memorial Poppy.
Anna Neer, Poppy chairwoman
Longview Unit No. 155, American Legion Auxiliary
Fibre CU raises money for CHHH
Fibre Federal Credit Union staff recently organized an evening of bingo at the Kelso Eagles raising nearly $5,200 for Community Home Health & Hospices (Community) charity care program.
Charity care helps uninsured and underinsured patients needing home health and hospice services, inpatient respite care, telemonitoring, grief support and translation services.
Last year, CHHH provided $663,812 in charity care.
On behalf of families these generous donations will help, we thank Fibre Federal Credit Union and the Kelso Eagles as well as the participants who came out to support those in need.
Michelle Honey, marketing coordinator
Community Home Health & Hospice
Clatskanie Cruisers say thanks
The Clatskanie Cruisers Car Club thanks everyone who attended its 26th annual Heritage Days Car Show on June 25.
The Clatskanie City Park was filled with 272 registered entrants and 28 host cars for a fun-filled day. A special thanks to the following sponsors of our event: A+ Transmission Specialists, Ark Realty, Ashtown Brewery, Athletes Corner, Arts Automotive, Audio Express (Longview), Axiall, Bundys Drive In, Carlas Closet, Carls Towing and Repair, Clatskanie Builders Supply, ClatskanieComputers, Clatskanie Heritage Days, Clatskanie Parks and Recreation, Clatskanie PUD, Clatskanie River Inn, Clatskanie Saturday Market, Clatskanie Shell, Clatskanie Subway, Clatskanie volunteer firefighters, Colvins Pub and Grill, Conestoga Restaurant , Discount and Deals, Estys Auto Center, Evenson Logging Company, Evergreen Paint, Flowers n Fluff, Forever Fit (Longview), Fultanos Family Pizza, Georgia Pacific (Wauna mill), Godfreys Auto Works, Gunners on Commerce Avenue (Longview), Malcolm and Jackie Groulx, Gun and Boot and Gear, Hagerty Insurance, Hi School Pharmacy, Humps Restaurant, Ixtapa Mexican Restaurant, Jims Garage, Joel Avina State Farm Insurance, Johnson Auto Body, Kynsi Construction, Les Schwab Tire (Longview) Longview Sizzler Steak House, Skippers (Longview), Clatskanie Mayor Diane Pohl, Moon Baby Customs, Napa Auto (Longview) OReillys on 15th Avenue in Longview, Pascoes Funky Threads, Quality Auto Parts, Quincy Grange No. 321, Ross Diesel & Auto, Singing Dog Jewelry, Strand Insurance of Columbia County, Superior Tires, Syndicate Firearms LLC, Tan Now (Longview), The Bag Ladies Yarn Shop, The Chief, The Hair Place- Sharon Krause, The Junque Trunque, The Quilted Dandelion, Treasures Within, Tri City Insurance Inc., Uncaged Cycles (Longview), Umpqua Bank (Clatskanie branch), U.S. Bank (Clatskanie branch) and Wauna Federal Credit Union.
Clatskanie Cruisers Car Club members
tech2 News Staff
The battle for VR has been raging since the first specifications for the Oculus Rift were announced. Both AMD and Nvidia, the only companies making graphics cards today, have offerings that claim to bring VR to the masses.
So far, Nvidias been at the helm. Its 970 and 980 GPUs were great, but the recently unveiled 1080 and 1070 simply smoke the competition away. In an attempt to sway things their way, AMD switched to a new microarchitecture (finally) and released the R9 480.
The 480 offered something that Nvidia didnt, a relatively budget-friendly offering that could match the best from Nvidia. In crossfire at least.
The current king-of-the-hill in the GPU space is the Nvidia GTX1080 and it retails for a hefty $499 (though its ridiculously priced at Rs 64,000 in India). AMDs 480 was priced at $200 (starting at Rs 22,000 in India) and AMD claimed that two of them would beat the 1080 with ease, making the AMD 480 the best value-for-money offerings around.
It even seemed like AMD would get away with it, until now. Leaks of what appear to be an Nvidia 1060 have appeared online. The 1060, going by Nvidias naming conventions, is a mainstream card. Rumours put the price at $250, which is about 25 percent higher than that of the 480.
These leaks however indicate that the 1060 trumps the 480 by about 15 percent. Coupled with support for Nvidias Ansel, Simultaneous Multi-Projection and other such features, does that mean that, once again, AMD has been relegated to the also-rans?
If the benchmarks are true, the answer is most probably a yes. The Nvidia 1080 is a beast and two AMD 480s might beat it, but dual-GPU support has always been far from perfect and its simply more efficient to have a single GPU do the job of two separate GPUs.
Squash any plans of pairing two 1060s in SLI though. It appears that the 1060 and cards of its ilk will not support SLI.
Courtesy of WCCFTech, heres what we know of the Nvidia 1060s specifications:
Aditya Madanapalle
The previous telecom minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad has been doing a lot for communications including figuring spectrum pricing, opening up infrastructure sharing, introducing virtual network operators and keeping the telecom service providers on their toes. Here are 10 ways the new telecom minister, Manoj Sinha can keep the momentum going.
Retain new mobile broadband users
Mobile broadband users tend to churn a lot because most of the new users using pre-paid mobile services are either trying out internet for the first time, or are migrating from another service. TRAI can go ahead with its plan to extend validity of prepaid data packs from 90 days to 365 days to counter this, and can take more steps to encourage new broadband users. A framework for allowing free data services without going against the principles of net neutrality is a possible approach.
IT industry body Nasscom has suggested that Trai give full autonomy to apps and service providers to decide on how they offer free data. Savetheinternet.in has suggested a number of mobile plans to Trai that can encourage new users, without the need for service providers to offer zero rated schemes. These include offering a slower data rate for free, and Freemium subscriptions, where a limited amount of data is available for free initially, the consumer has to pay for additional usage.
Improvement in backhaul networks
Backhaul networks funnel the traffic from mobile and wireless broadband users to the national backbone. Improvements in fibre optic and microwave backhaul networks will go a long way in ensuring a better internet service for everyone. There is a need for regulations to allow for the growth of backhaul networks at a municipal level, at the city planning stage, and when it comes to construction of buildings. Highways, roads, drains and rail services can include ducts for telecommunication use, as well as spaces for towers in the planning phase. Currently, only access to fire safety, water and electricity services are mandated, not access to the internet.
Access to backhaul networks is time consuming and requires various permissions from local bodies, which can be a more streamlined process. Development projects also frequently disrupt the fibre cables laid for backhaul networks. Frequent digging and bad planning can lead to more cuts and re-attachments than recommended per length of cable. Better planning of such projects can go a long way in improving both wireless and wired broadband connectivity.
Use Cable Service providers
Digitising cable service providers is acting as a catalyst in increasing broadband penetration. Telecom service providers have tied up with local cable service providers to use their understanding of the local urban and rural features to set up telecom infrastructure. Local cable service providers can be used to provide last mile connectivity, that too with indigenous made equipment. However, cable service providers are regulated mostly by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), and not by the Department of Telecom (DoT). This is a mismatch of interest and a lost opportunity as the MIB has little interest in broadband penetration. Trai is in pre-consultation stage when it comes to introducing broadband over cable services, and of infrastructure sharing of telecom service providers and internet service providers with cable operators.
Using Digital Terrestrial Transmission (DTT) in rural areas
Digital terrestrial transmission is a great way to open up large rural areas to the internet. Live video can be streamed to multiple screens, data can be cast to many devices from a single location, and there is the ability to transmit to moving devices. The public broadcaster can open up ultra high frequency bands to be used by commercial service providers. Shifting regular television content in rural areas from analog terrestrial transmitters to digital terrestrial transmitters will open up spectrum for other uses. This is due to the efficiency of DTT.
Encouraging Virtual Network Operators
The government has recently framed guidelines for VNOs based on recommendations by Trai. These will have the ability to resell bandwidth, with or without value addition, which will increase the competition and reduce the prices for the end user. VNOs can provide services from more than one operator, and consolidate these services for the end user. As this is a new type of service, the DoT can steps to ensure that VNOs can operate free of any sudden steps by the administration that are populist measures taken to "protect consumer interest". Potentially, mobile phone manufacturers can also float VNOs to offer telecom services directly to consumers.
Convergence of telephonic and broadband networks
Data and voice connections can be regulated under a single license to prevent duplication of networks. This will allow for telcos to offer their services as over the top applications, ending the impasse and competition with such services. Trai's consultation paper on VOIP services addresses the issues of interconnection, interconnection charges, allocation of phone numbers and access to emergency services. Such a convergence will also give a boost to the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry, who currently have to duplicate their efforts to create infrastructure for voice and data services.
Regulate mobile towers in urban areas
One of the biggest reasons for call drops and quality of service issues is the haphazard treatment given to mobile towers by local bodies. Local and central bodies have to be contacted separately for licenses. There are no standard rates for urban projects such as building complexes, malls or stadiums to pay telecom service providers, which can be regulated. Radiation fears lead to random takedown of towers as and when the local populations get agitated.
These measures include sealing of towers, physical dismantling or cutting of electricity supply. Once a tower is taken down it can take up to two years for it to be replaced. These problems can be taken care with the implementation of a single national policy for telecom infrastructure in urban areas, along with regulations that allow better use of this infrastructure. One way in which the existing infrastructure can be used more economically is to allow for infrastructure sharing between telecom companies.
Infrastructure sharing for ISPs
Earlier this year, the DoT permitted active infrastructure sharing between telecom operators. The same location cannot have too many cell towers operational, which are at least not aesthetic additions to the environment, even if a banana tree is more radioactive. An artificial barrier is created as only a few operators can be active in some areas, and this can change with infrastructure sharing. Infrastructure sharing ensures optimum use of available resources. In urban areas, infrastructure sharing prevents telecom service providers from entering into agreements with developers, and then install the infrastructure that is most suitable to only one operator.
Allowing ISPs to share infrastructure would bring down the cost of setting up services to new and remote locations, as well as reduce the cost for the end user. This is applicable in areas with low population where services by multiple broadband providers are not sustainable.
Spectrum availability
Spectrum allocated to defense has opened up, but the frequent changes in what spectrum is made available to which operator puts a wrench in the machinations of setting up the network infrastructure by service providers. The DoT can go a long way by providing a roadmap to service providers of which spectrum will be made available when, ahead of making these spectrum bands available for use. Making the spectrum available for license before the auction actually happens can ensure a quick roll out. The government can incentivise the effective use of spectrum for the service providers. The DoT can reduce the burden on the telecom industry by allowing the service providers to pay for the spectrum with a pay-as-you-earn payment model.
Encouraging service providers
Setting up infrastructure is costly, and there are many ways that the government can reduce the financial burden on service providers. The amount of red tape needed at the national, state and local level can be streamlined, instead of multiple levies and duties being charged. There can be a single point for clearances and licenses, which require multiple submissions for various agencies. There can be subsidies for importing of equipment needed for improving broadband infrastructure. The government can take measures to encourage funding for telecom projects, and alternative sources of such funding.
Another possible way to encourage broadband growth is to subsidize the electricity supplied to service providers. Another measure DoT can take is to make sure Trai is clear about the terminology when introducing new regulations. Trai recently introduced a term known as Closed Electronics Communications Network (CECN), which seems to be some kind of intranet on which zero rated schemes are allowed, however, it has not responded to industry bodies seeking clarification on the regulation. All these measures can bring down tariffs for the end user.
hidden
The parent company of infidelity dating site Ashley Madison, hit by a devastating hack last year, is now the target of a U.S. Federal Trade Commission investigation, the new executives seeking to revive its credibility told Reuters. The breach, which exposed the personal details of millions who signed up for the site with the slogan "Life is short. Have an affair," cost Avid Life Media more than a quarter of its revenue, Chief Executive Rob Segal and President James Millership revealed in an interview, the first by any senior executive since the incident.
"We are profoundly sorry," said Segal, adding that more could perhaps have been spent on security. The two executives, hired in April, said the closely held company is spending millions to improve security and looking at payment options that offer more privacy. But it faces a mountain of problems, including U.S. and Canadian class action lawsuits filed on behalf of customers whose personal information was posted online, and allegations that it used fake profiles to manipulate some customers. The site's male-to-female user ratio is five to one, the executives said.
An Ernst & Young report commissioned by Avid and shared with Reuters confirmed that Avid used computer programs, dubbed fembots, that impersonated real women, striking up conversations with paying male customers. Avid shut down the fake profiles in the United States, Canada and Australia in 2014 and by late 2015 in the rest of the world, but some U.S. users had message exchanges with foreign fembots until late in 2015, according to the report.
Another site, JDI Dating, paid $616,165 in redress for similar practices in an October 2014 settlement with the FTC. Avid said it does not know the focus of its FTC investigation. Asked about the fembot messages sent to U.S. customers, Segal said: "That's a part of the ongoing process that we're going through ... it's with the FTC right now." The FTC's consumer protection unit investigates cases of deceptive advertising, including instances when consumers are told that their information is secure but then it is handled sloppily.
Lawrence Walters, a lawyer who represented JDI Dating in the 2014 case, said the FTC will likely look at the hack. "The FTC is very focussed on this data breach issue at this point," he said. "I'm not surprised that they are continuing to look at, possibly, Ashley Madison." An FTC spokesman declined to comment. Ashley Madison got plenty of media attention before the hack, with former chief executive Noel Biderman boasting of a $1 billion valuation.
Segal acknowledged that the company is not worth that much and said Avid still doesn't know how the attack happened or who was responsible. It has hired cyber security experts at Deloitte and expects to reach the first level of Payment Card Industry compliance, an industry standard, by September. "We had to basically reinvent their security posture," said Robert Masse, who leads Deloitte's incident response team. His team, hired by the company in late September, found simple backdoors in Avid Life's Linux-based servers.
Avid Life is on track to record roughly $80 million in revenue this year, with margin on earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization of 35 to 40 percent, said Millership. Its 2015 revenue was $109 million, with a 49 percent margin. The executives said the Ashley Madison name would endure, though they are moving some focus away from infidelity. "We certainly feel that the Ashley Madison brand can be repositioned," Segal said. Millership said they have roughly $50 million to spend on acquisitions or partnerships with like-minded "discreet dating" sites.
Reuters
Naina Khedekar
The tech paradigm has been changing, or at least, we are made to believe so. We are slowly yet steadily moving towards bots, and that doesn't necessarily mean away from apps, not yet at least. Leading tech companies who usually decide tech trends have made it clear at their respective annual tech events that bots are coming!
Chatbots can be described as automated programs to help communicate with businesses, and also make purchases online. With tech businesses' increasing interest in artificial intelligence and machine learning, bots are believed to take the centre stage when it comes to users communicating with said businesses. Some even claim that chatbots are the new apps. They are easy and cheap to deploy and maintain and there's no need for end users to install anything on their systems. The processing and hosting for the service is on the server side. It is the leading tech pack that usually decides the fate of a tech trend. Let's take a quick look at what tech companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Apple are up to.
Microsoft
One of the biggest announcements at the Build 2016 keynote was that Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, is betting big on bots. These bots wont be as racist as Tay, hopefully, but they can be fast, polite, very helpful and, in the long run, better than a human for the same reasons. Basically, they could be on your phone or desktop or other mobile communication devices, helping you book tickets, order pizza, send messages and so on. Nadella clearly put forth his vision on how humans will interact with machines and didnt seem to be mincing words there. He even went as far as to say that bots could replace apps in the future.
And, they weren't just mere words as the software giant announced a developer portal and SDK for building Bots, a Bot Connector service to connect to social channels like Twitter and Slack and an upcoming Bot Directory to discover and use existing bots. The best part? Everyone can start building their own bots here. Besides, the company introduced Skype Bots in order to use Skype to book trips, shop online, and even schedule a meeting. Skype will chat with Cortana to get things done and Cortana can talk to a third-party chatbot. In fact, we've already seen Skype bots for Westin Hotels & Resorts and Dominos Pizza.
The company recently announced that it will start taking submissions from developers for its Bot Directory. In fact, the Directory is claimed to have garnered the attention of over 20,000 developers. Microsoft has also planned a Skype bot hackathon in Palo Alto on 21-22 June.
Facebook
It wouldn't be wrong to say that Facebook is leading the pack, at least for now. It was at F8 in April that Zuckerberg opened up its messenger app to developers to build chatbots. In a short span, Facebook Messenger is now said to have 11,000 chatbots for users to try.
It was around the same time that its Facebook M, an AI powered bot, backed by a team with a customer service background, was launched. It's ability to easily make travel arrangements garnered attention. It was also around this time that the social network teamed up with KLM airline passengers, allowing them to make travel changes, check in, get updates and also talk to customer support reps directly from its Messenger chat app. Then there was Lybrate, a Facebook Messenger chatbot, that answers all your health queries.
Facebook Messenger head, Stan Chudnovsky, recently said that tens of thousands of developers are working on developing rich, interactive chatbots. If Facebook is to be believed then over 10,000 developers are working on chatbots with more than 2500 merchants. The most recent to dive into the testing waters is Yatra, the Indian travel site, that is working on a chatbot for Facebook Messenger.
Google
Ensuring it isn't late to the bots party, Google has revealed that its developing a powerful chatbot that will be able to answer peoples queries and perform certain tasks. The Google Assistant will respond not only to text input, but also to voice queries. "We are working on a comprehensive way by which third-party developers can interact with the assistant, and well be sharing a lot more in the coming months, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai told developers during todays Google I/O keynote.
Then came Allo, a new messaging service that will compete with Facebooks WhatsApp and Messenger products and feature a chatbot powered by the Google Assistant. Allo, like WhatsApp, will also have end-to-end encryption when it is rolled out this summer. Google has two important technologies it is very good at, which developers can use to make bots. TensorFlow is an open source machine-learning platform. Applications made using this platform are very good at natural language communication with humans, and get better with use. Google has one of the most advanced and accurate natural language parser in the world.
However, VentureBeat points out, "With Facebook Messenger and Microsofts Skype, people will be able to interact with a whole lot of bots. There are already Messenger bots for 1-800-Flowers and online retailer, Spring, and there are Skype bots for Westin Hotels & Resorts and Dominos Pizza. In Googles world, there is one lone bot, and that is Google interactions with other services are brief."
Apple
Apple, the promoter of apps, didn't really mention chatbots or anything close to that. They maintain that apps are here to stay. However, a report points out that 'Apple has indeed joined the race but in a manner most of us did not expect'. We know that the company has become more open to third-party developers, and the report further points out, "Apple, with its updates in iOS 10, took an interesting approach of having visual bots and strengthening its audiobot in its ecosystem.
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As consumers wait to see the cheapest smartphone (less than $4) at its scheduled launch in the capital on Thursday, its Noida-based makers have made another pitch for the government's support to make their loss-making venture "work for millions" who don't own such a phone. According to Ringing Bells Pvt Ltd CEO Mohit Goel, he initially faced Rs 930 loss on each handset that cost him Rs 1180 and for which parts were imported from Taiwan.
"I recovered Rs 700-800 from app developers and revenue generated through advertisements on Freedom 251 website. After selling the device for Rs 251 (cash on delivery), the total loss per handset is expected to be in the range of Rs 180-270," Goel told IANS. The first batch of 5,000 'Freedom 251' devices will finally be out for delivery from July 8 and the receiver will have to pay Rs 291 (including Rs 40 as delivery charge) to get the unit, says Goel.
"In order to digitally-empower every Indian, if I can get government support under the Digital India programme, I can ensure timely delivery of 'Freedom 251' phone to all citizens at the same price," Goel said on the eve of the launch event. In a letter written to the Prime Minister's Office dated June 28 asking for a meeting with Narendra Modi, Ringing Bells said: "We have brought 'Freedom 251' which we offer on 'Cash on Delivery' terms but we have a gap between the BOM (Bill of Materials) and the Selling Price. We, therefore, humble request government support to actualise the objective to cascade the availability and usage of smartphones all through the far reaches of our great nation".
Goel's ambition is huge. He says if the government is willing to dole out Rs 50,000 crore, he can ensure that 750 million of India's population would become part of digital India by owning a smartphone at Rs 251. Bringing some modesty into the equation about the enormity of his demand, Goel says that the government need not give his company the money but can get it manufactured by another vendor. "The government can make the phone -- under our Freedom brand -- from some other vendor. I have no objection to it. To make such phone for every Indian citizen, the government needs to allocate funds from its Digital India initiative," he said.
Having learnt his lessens from the controversial February launch when Ringing Bells invited senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, this time, Goel wants to play safe and is not inviting any politician for the launch. "I want to keep this event controversy-free. I have proved that a smartphone is actually possible in this kind of investment. But to fulfil a mammoth handset order that runs in crores, we badly need government's support," he added. To generate more revenue, he plans to go to iCloud (cloud storage and cloud computing service from Apple) and begin a software called "WhiteCloud".
"The aim is to make and provide at least 100 new apps online to 'Freedom 251' owners and charge them bare minimum -- to the tune of Rs 1 to Rs 3 per app -- to generate revenue," he said. After delivering 5,000 phones in the first batch, Goel says he will wait for customers' feedback. "I am ready with 500 service centres pan-India to address people's queries," he claimed. The company will also showcase a 32-inch high-definition LED television -- also called "Freedom" -- at the launch event.
"These will be the cheapest television sets in India and will be available for less than Rs 10,000. Online registration for the TV sets will be open from July 25 with delivery to be made from August 1," Goel said, claiming that the company currently has one lakh such pieces in stock. In comparison, the price of a 32-inch HD LED TV sets normally begins from Rs 13,000 in online markets. In an earlier interview to IANS, Goel had also claimed that they are ready with nearly two lakh 'Freedom 251' handsets. The company had in mid-February this year planned to deliver 25 lakh handsets before June 30. However, it received over seven crore registrations before its payment gateway crashed within three days.
The 3G device has a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory and supports external memory cards of up to 32GB. The company has offered an 8MP primary camera with flash, a 3.2MP front camera and a 1,800 mAh battery. It runs on Android 5.1 (Lollipop). The phone would be available in two colours -- black and white. The device displays the Indian Tricolour when you switch it on. It will incorporate all the basic Google apps in the handset, according to Goel.
IANS
tech2 News Staff
The United Nations Human Rights Commission has passed a non-binding resolution that effectively makes internet access a basic human right. Any country that denies that right is violating the human rights of its citizens.
The resolution was passed with 70 countries signing on as cosponsors. However, 17 countries were strongly opposed to the resolution and one of those countries was India. Joining India in its opposition were Bangladesh, Bolivia, Burundi, China, Cuba, Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Indonesia, Kenya, Qatar, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Vietnam. Thats not a list of countries you want to be on.
The UN states that the goal of this resolution is to increase internet access as it facilitates opportunities and grants access to education and related tools. The UN also adds that today, its impossible to live without basic internet access. The resolution calls for states to address security issues and ensure freedom and security online, that they recognize the importance of privacy and have a system of accountability for human rights abuses. It also calls for states to give importance to the education of girls and women in tech related fields.
The 17 countries that opposed the resolution, India included, are primarily opposed to a clause in the resolution that states that it condemns unequivocally measures to intentionally prevent or disrupt access to our dissemination of information online.
What India and those 17 other countries are effectively saying is that theyre open to the idea of internet access for all, but that they want absolute control over it.
Thomas Hughes, the director of Article 19 says, We are disappointed that democracies like South Africa, Indonesia, and India voted in favour of these hostile amendments to weaken protections for freedom of expression online...A human rights based approach to providing and expanding Internet access, based on states existing international human rights obligations, is essential to achieving the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, and no state should be seeking to slow this down.
Unfortunately, the UN has no power to actually enforce this resolution. Practically speaking, the resolution is a set of guidelines that countries can choose to follow. At the very least, the UN can try to put pressure on governments like ours to change their ways. For whatever good that will do.
Dateline: England
Workers at an animal shelter on the island of Guernsey were surprised and relieved after a dead cat brought in by a local resident turned out to be a dirty hand puppet. According to the Guernsey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a very upset member of the public brought what was believed to be a dead cat wrapped in a blanket in a box after hours. The manager on duty told the person to take a seat and went to examine the body for any identification or a microchip. Upon examination, however, the dead cat turned out to be an equally lifeless hand puppetof a dog, no less. The black and white puppet was washed and all is wellor as the GSPCA put it on the groups Facebook page, dead wet muddy insect-covered cat arrives at GSPCA is revived to a fit & well dog despite a nose injury. Anyone in Guernsey missing a dog puppet is encouraged to contact the GSPCA. On its website, the society went on to cite several other emergencies it has faced that turned out to be otherwise, including an injured crow was a black bag, a hedgehog rescue once turned out to be a pine cone, a call to a sick seal on a beach was in fact a duvet, and also a possible dead dog on a beach was another duvet.
Dateline: The Netherlands
Meanwhile, in Amsterdam, police kicked down the door of an apartment to rescue a woman who turned out to be an inflatable sex doll. Amsterdam Police said in a Facebook post officers were called to the dwelling by neighbors who reported looking into the apartments window and seeing a woman standing motionless for a long period of time. Officers spotted the woman, dressed only in her underwear, standing at the window and not moving despite them ringing the doorbell and knocking on the door. Officers eventually broke through the door and indeed found a lifeless woman, but she was made of plastic and filled with air. According to Amsterdams De Telegraaf newspaper, officers moved the blow-up doll away from the window to prevent further confusion. It was unclear if police actually contacted the resident of the apartment regarding the sex toy.
Dateline: Washington, D.C.
A man under house arrest for gun possession had the perfect alibi when police quizzed him about a murderhe was at home at the time, and his court-ordered ankle monitor proved it. Unfortunately, investigators soon discovered that the mans ankle monitor had been attached to his prosthetic leg. According to authorities, 44-year-old Quincy Green swapped out his prosthetic leg and its attached GPS monitor for a spare limb and left the residence on May 19 to shoot Dana Hamilton. According to the Washington Post, Green was ordered confined to his home in April while awaiting trial on gun possession charges. For reasons still being investigated by authorities, a privately contracted technican placed the GPS monitor on Greens prosthetic limb. A witness identified Green as the shooter in the May 19 incident, but detectives checked with the citys Pretrial Services Agency and learned that Green hadnt left his house in days. Investigators viewed camera footage from the area near the shooting and spotted a gunman with an obvious limp. A police search of Greens home turned up a box in his living room containing his artificial leg with the tracking device still attached to the ankle. A spokesperson for California-based Sentinel Services, which sent the technician to attach Greens monitor, said the technician did not notice Greens leg was fake, telling the Post, We believe it was absolutely human error. Green has now been charged with second-degree murder.
Dateline: Texas
The mayor of White Settlement, Texas, is blaming an anti-cat City Council for evicting a beloved feline from the local library. The White Settlement City Council voted 2-1 at a June 14 meeting to give the White Settlement Public Library 30 days to find new how for Browser, the former shelter cat that has lived at the public facility for about six years. This is not just a cat, its like a family pet, former Councilman Alan Price told the Grizzly Detail newspaper. The former councilman went on to say that supporters will petition for an election if we need towell take this to November. Mayor Ron White described Browsers eviction as petty retaliation for a city employee who was not allowed to keep a puppy at City Hall. Weve had that cat five years, and theres never been a question, White told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. That cat doesnt hurt anybody. ... The Council just went out and did this on their own because they dont like cats. White said he will call for the Council to reconsider its decision at an upcoming meeting. Browser has his own Facebook page and, according to the Grizzly Detail, received an outpouring of support at the last meeting.
Katie Anderson, who was hired in 2011 to clean up Walter Guillorys mess at the troubled Lafayette Housing Authority and was then dismissed at the expiration of her contract on May 31, recently received the Charles L. Farris Award from the National Association of Housing & Redevelopment Officials.
Katie Anderson received the Charles L. Farris Award June 29 from Steve Merritt, national NAHRO president, and Darrin Taylor, the associations regional president.
Katie Anderson, who was hired in 2011 to clean up Walter Guillorys mess at the troubled Lafayette Housing Authority and was suddenly dismissed at the expiration of her contract on May 31, recently received the Charles L. Farris Award from the National Association of Housing & Redevelopment Officials.
On June 29 at NAHROs Southwest Regional Council meeting in Kansas City, Mo., Andersons long career in housing and redevelopment was awarded with the Charles L. Farris Award for 2016 for outstanding contributions toward improving the quality of life in the southwest region, and of unsparing service to NAHRO at the local, state, regional and national levels.
The award again raises questions about why Anderson, who is widely regarded among her peers as an excellent administrator, was fired without explanation from the local housing authority board.
In March, Anderson was informed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that her contract would not be renewed at LHA, which remains under HUD receivership after financial mismanagement led to the dismissal and subsequent conviction of its former director, Guillory, on bribery and bid-fixing charges. Anderson had been working on an annual contract.
HUD spokeswoman Patricia Campbell had little say about the decision to not renew Andersons contract, other than to indicate that a national search for a permanent director would soon begin in hopes of having a new director in place by the time Anderson left. "The goal would be to complete the selection process by the contract expiration date," Campbell told The Independent in a written statement at that time. "The Mayor/President of Lafayette has been informed of the decision and, should the resolution be approved, he or his designated representative will participate on the selection panel. The Mayor has agreed to appoint a new HACL Board of Commissioners by the end of March."
After initially declining to release the names of the board members he planned to appoint, Mayor-President Joel Robideaux confirmed on May 20 (immediately after The IND submitted a public records request) who he was recommending to serve on an advisory board to the LHA:
Mark Becnel, Employee Management Solutions, owner
Kim Boudreaux, Catholic Services of Acadiana, executive director
Shelton Cobb, former member of the Lafayette Parish School Board
Monica Gibbs, Department of Health and Hospitals/Office of Public Health, retired
Polly Williams, Lafayette Parish School System, reading tutor
Three days later, on May 23, The IND submitted a Freedom of Information Request to HUD for the names of the applicants for the local housing authority executive director's position. That request has yet to be fulfilled, despite repeated inquiries to spokeswoman Campbell about its status.
The IND has since learned that Anderson did apply for her old position with the LHA. She's been gone for more than a month now, and no replacement has been named.
Anderson spent most of her career in housing and redevelopment in Louisiana going back to the early 1980s, including a 19-year tenure as the executive director of the DeRidder Housing Authority. She has served on numerous committees at both the state, regional and national level for NAHRO, is a past president of both the Louisiana Housing Council and Southwest NAHRO, and she served on the NAHRO Board of Governors for five years. She has since moved on to Temple, Texas, where she is the housing director for the Central Texas Council of Governments.
Read our original report on Andersons departure from the LHA here and more on the controversial decision to dismiss her here.
Oilfield logistics company Blue Sky Innovations, which was founded in Lafayette in 2006 and grew to more than a dozen work sites from Galveston, Texas, to Venice, La., notified the Louisiana Workforce Commission on June 30 that it will lay off all of its hourly employees (approximately 55) by the end of the month and will eliminate all three of its salaried positions most likely by the end of the third quarter.
The company appears to be calling it quits, attributing the fallout to the loss of its only full-time client, which it did not identify in the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification it sent to the state.
Founded by oil industry veterans Ken Bullard and Randy McCollum, Blue Sky Innovations is a service company offering aviation support services, oil and gas consulting and project management. The owners' backgrounds include logistics, safety management, contract management and contract negotiations.
Some employees may be hired by the company that won the bid, Blue Skys Bullard writes in the notice, also stipulating that Blue Sky will not be offering any severance benefits or transition programs to its laid-off workers. None of the employees are union workers.
Bullard did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment for this story.
Also issuing a WARN, dated July 1, was Dresser Inc., a division of GE Oil and Gas, which is laying off 269 of its approximately 289 manufacturing, sales/service and engineering employees at its union plant in Pineville. This is yet another casualty of falling oil prices, as workers at the plant assemble valve equipment that is used in the oil and gas industry. The layoffs begin Sept. 2 and will be complete by the end of the year.
Companies are required to file WARNs under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act if there is a full plant closure resulting in 50 or more employees losing their jobs in any 30-day period or if there is a mass layoff during any 30-day period. A layoff is considered a mass layoff if it is more than 500 employees or if it is between 50 and 499 employees and comprises 33 percent or more of the active workforce at that particular site.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) The U.S. Justice Department opened a federal civil rights investigation Wednesday into the videotaped police killing of a black man who was shot as officers wrestled with him on the pavement outside a convenience store.
The announcement came a day after the killing of 37-year-old Alton Sterling, who authorities say was confronted by police after an anonymous caller said he had threatened someone with a gun outside the store where he was selling homemade CDs.
In a cellphone video taken by a community activist, two officers had Sterling pinned to the ground, and gunfire erupted moments after someone yelled, "He's got a gun! Gun!" Baton Rouge police have not said whether Sterling in fact had a gun.
"I have very serious concerns. The video is disturbing, to say the least," Gov. John Bel Edwards said in announcing that the Justice Deparment's Civil Rights Division would lead the investigation.
The shooting fueled anger and protests in Baton Rouge, with community leaders and Sterling's family demanding a federal investigation and the firing of the police chief.
Alton Sterling
Facebook
"Mr. Sterling was not reaching for a weapon. He looks like a man that was actually fighting for his life," said state Rep. Edmond Jordan, an attorney for Sterling's family.
Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. said Wednesday that the officers are Blane Salamoni, a four-year member of the department and Howie Lake II, who has been on the force for three years. Both have been placed on administrative leave.
Quinyetta McMillon, the mother of Sterling's teenage son, trembled as she read a statement outside City Hall, where a few dozen protesters and community leaders had gathered. Her son, Cameron, 15, broke down in tears and was led away as his mother spoke.
She described Sterling as "a man who simply tried to earn a living to take care of his children.
"The individuals involved in his murder took away a man with children who depended upon their daddy on a daily basis," she said.
Jordan said police confiscated the store's video surveillance system, but he said the store owner is confident the video shows the entire confrontation and shooting. He said the cellphone video that was posted online "certainly speaks for itself."
"It's a horrible thing. It's a horrible thing to happen to him," said Sterling's aunt, Sandra Sterling. "He didn't deserve that."
The cellphone video prompted hundreds to protest Tuesday night.
In the video, which appears to be shot from inside a nearby parked car, one of two police officers outside the store can be seen tackling a man in a red shirt and wrestling him to the ground. Then the other officer helps hold the man down.
At one point someone can be heard saying, "He's got a gun! Gun!" and then one officer on top of the man can be seen pulling his weapon from his holster.
After some shouting, what sounds like a gunshot can be heard and the camera pulls away. Then four more shots can be heard. At one point, a person in the vehicle asks, "They shot him?" as a woman can be heard crying.
Arthur Reed, the man who shot the video of Alton Sterlings fatal shooting by Baton Rouge police, operates a company that monitors police scanners in an effort to document violent interactions between police and the black community.
At the Wednesday news conference, the head of the NAACP in Baton Rouge called for the police chief to be fired.
"He must step down. We cannot have anybody who allows this type of action to take place," Michael McClanahan said.
State Rep. Denise Marcelle of Baton Rouge, who has been at the forefront of the protests, said the chief told her that body cameras fell off both officers during their "tussle" with Sterling. But Marcelle said she saw no evidence of that on the video.
By dawn Wednesday, protesters and friends had created a makeshift memorial to Sterling on the white folding tables and folding chair he had used to sell homemade music compilations on CDs.
Arthur Baines came by to pay his respects.
"He never bothered nobody. He was just trying to make an honest dollar," Baines said.
Mufleh Alatiyat, a 25-year old employee of the store, described Sterling as generous and said he often gave away CDs or petty cash or bought food or drink for some people.
"He was a very nice guy," he said. "He helped a lot of people."
[Editor's Note: A second video of the shooting death of Sterling shot by store owner Abduallah Muflahi has emerged since this story was first posted Wednesday. It is embedded below and contains graphic footage and profane language.]
President Joe Biden has decided to ban Russian oil imports, toughening the toll on Russia's economy in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine. The United States generally imports about 100,000 barrels a day from Russia, only about 5% of Russia's crude oil exports, according to Rystad Energy. Last year, roughly 8% of U.S. imports of oil and petroleum products came from Russia. Gas prices have been rising for weeks due to the conflict and in anticipation of potential sanctions on the Russian energy sector. The U.S. national average for a gallon of gasoline soared 45 cents a gallon in the past week and topped $4.06 on Monday, according to auto club AAA. Should the US ban Russian oil imports over Ukraine war?
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The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now.
Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market.
In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender.
India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex.
Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted.
But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted?
Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner.
If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems.
I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now.
I want more variation in masturbation
I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own.
If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end.
What is sex toys for Indian?
Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation.
It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms.
They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable.
Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner.
The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner.
It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past.
In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping.
Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order.
In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing.
Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome.
Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own.
But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance.
More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around.
Sextoy situation in India
Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years.
In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India.
Mumbai
Kolkata
Bangalore
Delhi
Chennai
Hyderabad
These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India.
In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well.
If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too.
If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it.
What are Sextoys for beginner?
Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms.
Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy.
I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion.
I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy.
If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma.
Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it.
Advantages of using sextoy for Indians
There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians
You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways.
Can have stimulating sex
Can develop new sexual zones
If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern.
However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways.
You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation.
Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever.
There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure.
This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it.
When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems.
It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms).
For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles
[Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou...
Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India.
Sextoy for beginner men in India
So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners.
For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men!
The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men
Masturbator
Cock rings
Love Doll
Sex Lubricants
Toys for the prostate
Lets check each one in detail.
Masturbator
The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products.
It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands.
Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands.
They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.)
Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much.
Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! !
Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa SEXToys India PR (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018
Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood.
If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here
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Cock Ring
A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis.
It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow.
It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber.
In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection.
Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction.
It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it.
Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time.
Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function.
Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy.
You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect.
[Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat...
Love Doll
Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex.
There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women.
Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price.
The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true.
You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste.
There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice.
You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls.
If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here
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Sex lubricants
Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules.
It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution.
Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse.
There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent.
Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent.
If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here.
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Toys for the Prostate
Another sextoy for men is prostate toys.
The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line.
Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men.
Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men.
What is the prostate?
The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm.
You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus.
By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms.
Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.)
The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation.
Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure.
sextoy for beinner women in India
The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy.
The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy.
Vibrator.
Dildo
Electric Masserger
Lets check out what each one is in detail.
If you want to check out womens toys, click here.
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Vibrators
A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator.
Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy.
It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy.
Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women.
For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators.
Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex.
Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself.
This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual.
Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men.
When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons.
Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most...
Dildo
A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis.
It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass.
A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it.
They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well.
It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device.
A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo.
Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands.
For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis.
This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one.
To learn more about dildo, please click here.
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Electric Masserger
A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores.
It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low.
Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels.
Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation.
It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure.
For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm.
It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out.
If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager?
To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here.
What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th...
How to choose a sextoy for Indian
Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one.
Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points: Does the size fit you (the partner)?
Does the size fit you (your partner)?
Is the environment able to produce sound without problems?
Price range
First of all, the choice of size is quite important.
Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women.
For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage.
Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems.
Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise.
If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level.
Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it.
Finally, there is the price range.
The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest.
Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy.
Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy?
I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance.
For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics.
If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out.
How to buy sextoys in India
The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping.
For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below.
Sextoy is one of them.
Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping.
SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India.
They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry.
Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card.
To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy.
ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal.
Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on.
Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture.
Cautions for Indians using sextoy
When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind
Keep sex toys clean
Watch out for electrical leakage
Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy
As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone.
Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there.
It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case.
In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness.
Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful.
If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it.
You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly.
Summary
What did you think?
In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India.
The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future.
As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values.
However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health.
If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try?
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MARION Tax Increment Financing has been a vital part of Marions growth since 1987, but even the mayor didnt think that one day the city would be sitting on about $7.5 million to spend on capital projects without increasing taxes.
Marion Mayor Bob Butler said the city had a balance of $7,489,000 on May 1 in its tax increment financing, or TIF, fund balance. He said the city has 12 TIF districts, with several redevelopment agreement projects in each district.
Butler said the city has been accumulating about $1.4 million a year from TIF funds.
It is from building up a little bit over time, he said.
He explained that the when the city enters into a redevelopment agreement, typically the agreement designates that the developer will be reimbursed 70 percent of his real estate increment.
For example, Butler said, if the tax on a property is $100, then a developer signs an agreement, makes an improvement, and now the tax bill is $1,000. That would mean the increment is $900. Butler said the agreement would require the developer pay the tax bill in full, but then it would be reimbursed 70 percent of the $900, and the remaining 30 percent would go to the city.
Recent TIF agreements have been IHOP, Culvers and John Browns on the Square. The city has several more developments planned through the next five years with plans to utilize TIF agreements. In the project descriptions, the city could have TIF agreements with all potential projects for about $9.2 million combined.
Between TIF and home-rule," Butler said, "it has been the greatest economic tool for development that we have had available."
About a month ago, the mayor asked his city commissioners to come up with a list of capital projects that they would like to see happen. At the July 11 City Council meeting, the superintendents of each department, along with the commissioners, are supposed to prioritize capital projects.
Butler said the money will be used to provide funds for infrastructure improvements for the street, water and sewer departments.
City Commissioner John Goss is looking at replacing sidewalks in the downtown area and near The Hill.
He plans to replace about 10,000 feet of sidewalk, which will include ramps to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The city hasnt let the project out for bid as of Monday, but Goss said estimates are looking at about $500,000.
He said the plans are to start on North Fifth Street and replace sidewalk to the West Main Street Dairy Queen, then continue down to North Carbon Street.
Goss said the city would also like to install sidewalk near The Hill TIF district. This would give pedestrians staying at the hotels on top of the hill a pathway to walk to the many restaurants in the area, he said. Currently, pedestrians are walking on the street or in the road, which present safety issues because of the high level of vehicle traffic.
Goss said the sidewalk project near The Hill could run the city about $200,000, but that was only his best estimate.
The city also hopes to use to some the tucked-away TIF funds to improve city parking lots, particularly behind city hall and down North Market Street, Goss said, citing there will be additional businesses opening downtown. He said decorative lighting and better parking lots will help those businesses grow.
You have heard of Christmas in July and this is it, Goss said.
City Commissioner Anthony Rinella wants to use some of the funds to improve the citys practices of collecting water data.
Our means of collecting data from our meters and bringing it back to the office for billing purposes is antiqued, he said. It is 20-plus years old and we know we are living on borrowed time.
He estimated at a council meeting in June that it was cost about $440,000 for a new system within the TIF districts. The money generated for TIF funds can only be used within that TIF district, or a contiguous TIF district.
Butler said the funds could be used to re-line sewer lines, and to repaying debt service on a water main bond.
He said there are several projects that the city could choose to do, and it will be making the decision about what projects are most important. He said the city wants to start construction on several capital projects this summer.
There is always going to be something that we can do, Butler said. As long as the money is available, we would be remiss if we didnt do those things.
The City of West Frankfort is working to spur economic development on a few different fronts.
Last year, the city announced its bold decision to buy the Factory Stores of America outlet mall and surrounding property, located across from the Interstate 57 exit ramp. The West Frankfort City Council approved the $1.8 million purchase last August.
Mayor Tom Jordan estimates that the 95,000-square-foot mall, built in 1990, is currently about 55 percent full. VF Outlet is the malls largest anchor store, taking up 55,000 square feet. Advanced Hearing Center and Bon Worth are the shopping centers other main draws.
What were striving for at city level is to try to invigorate some growth, and thats why weve taken some bold steps, Jordan said.
Meanwhile, the city has tentative plans to purchase 10 acres in the West Frankfort Industrial Park to accommodate two manufacturers who have expressed interest in setting up shop in town. The West Frankfort Community Council has committed to working with the city on the deal, which would eliminate another hurdle, Jordan said.
The city is currently in the process of asking the Illinois Department of Transportation for permission to thin some of the trees that obstruct the view of the mall from the interstate.
Thats a tremendous asset, that visibility. You cant even see our sign right now, Jordan said.
Owning the mall gives the city greater ability to bring in new businesses and shorten the negotiation process, Jordan said.
Thats why we bought it, so we would have a seat at the table, Jordan said. When businesses want to move in, we can say, We have a place for you.
SPRINGFIELD Tony Galbo of Monticello hopes that a bill currently sitting on Gov. Bruce Rauners desk spares other families from the kind pain he and his wife, Liz, have gone through since losing their daughter Gabby just over four years ago.
Five-year-old Gabby died May 11, 2012, at the Childrens Hospital of Illinois at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria. She died of septic shock resulting from a case of Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a tick-borne disease that went undiagnosed and untreated by doctors at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana.
Dubbed Gabbys Law, the bill would require every hospital in Illinois to develop evidence-based protocols for the early detection and treatment of patients with sepsis, severe sepsis or septic shock.
Galbo called the legislation a huge supportive measure.
Its going to stop somebody else from having to do what were doing, he said.
Sepsis is the bodys overwhelming and life-threatening response to an infection which can lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and death, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While sepsis can result from any infection, young children, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems are especially susceptible, according to the CDC.
Sepsis kills more than 258,000 people in the United States each year, making it the ninth-leading cause of disease-related deaths.
Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, sponsored Gabbys Law, which was approved unanimously this spring in both chambers of the General Assembly. Rauners office said the legislation, which was sent to him June 22, is under review.
Its frankly amazing how little known this is, and yet it takes so many lives in our country, Rose said, noting that sepsis accounts for more deaths each year than prostate cancer, breast cancer and AIDS combined.
While federal law already requires many hospitals to have sepsis protocols in place, the new Illinois law would make it mandatory for every hospital in the state.
Rose said the bill should increase awareness among both medical professionals and the general public.
Obviously, we wish that this tragedy had never occurred, but this bill is going to save somebodys life, he said, adding, Time is your enemy. Earlier detection is just absolutely imperative.
In addition to working with the Galbo family, Rose collaborated with the Illinois Hospital Association in developing the legislation.
Danny Chun, a spokesman for the association, said that if it becomes law, the proposal will increase patient safety at hospitals statewide.
Sepsis is an ongoing challenge in the health care world, Chun said. This is an important step.
For the Galbos, its just the first step.
Tony Galbo said their next goal is to get a parents bill of rights approved in Illinois. Among other changes, theyd like to see a requirement that doctors review lab test results with parents or caregivers before children are discharged from hospitals.
Had that happened at Carle, he said, they may have caught red flags in Gabbys results before it was too late.
The family and the hospital reached an out-of-court settlement earlier this year.
COLUMBIA -- Chad Anthony Rubin, MD, FACS, 53, died July 3, 2016, after a courageous fight with cancer. He was born Oct. 19, 1963 in Blue Island. He grew up in Carbondale, where he majored in Microbiology at Southern Illinois University - Carbondale. Dr. Rubin then went on to earn his medical degree at Southern Illinois Medical School in Springfield. After performing his surgery residency at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, he began practicing in Columbia, South Carolina.
Dr. Rubin worked the last three years as a general surgeon for Providence Hospital. In May 2016, Providence Hospital inducted Dr. Rubin into the prestigious Society of Saint Luke. This program celebrates and honors physicians for distinguished service.
Along with his surgical practice in Columbia, Dr. Rubin was also involved with the American College of Surgeons on a national level. He was the Chair of the General Coding and Reimbursement Committee.
Dr. Rubin is predeceased by his parents, Angela Therese Battaglia and Harris Bernard Rubin. He is survived by his husband, Charles Michael Sandlin. They were together for 25 years and married last September. Also surviving are his beloved Italian Greyhounds, Leo and Dante. Dr. Rubin is also survived by three siblings, Amy Ralls, Thea Rubin, and Garth Rubin; one nephew, Sidney Rubin; and one niece, Talianna Rubin. Dr. Rubin was also blessed to have many other wonderful family members, friends, and colleagues.
A memorial service will take place at 4 p.m. Friday, July 8, at Shandon United Methodist Church, 3407 Devine Street, Columbia, SC 29205. The family will receive visitors directly after the service during a reception in the church fellowship hall. Dunbar Funeral Home, Devine Street Chapel, is assisting with the arrangements and more information about the service can be found on their website.
In lieu of flowers, memorials can be made to one of these charities of choice: American Cancer Society, Harvest Hope Food Bank in Columbia, South Carolina, and Pawmetto Lifeline Animal Rescue in Columbia, South Carolina.
Please sign the online guestbook at www.dunbarfunerals.com.
WASHINGTON The U.S. will slow the pace of its troop drawdown in Afghanistan, leaving 8,400 troops there when President Barack Obama completes his term, Obama announced Wednesday in a blunt acknowledgment that America will remain entangled there despite his aspirations to end the war.
In a statement at the White House, Obama said the security situation in Afghanistan remains "precarious" and the Taliban a threat roughly 15 years after the U.S. invaded in the aftermath of 9/11. He said he was committed not to allow terrorists to use Afghanistan "as a safe haven for terrorists to attack our nation again."
"It is in our national security interest especially after all the blood and treasure we've invested in Afghanistan over the years that we give our Afghan partners the very best opportunity to succeed," Obama said, flanked by top military leaders.
There are currently about 9,800 troops in Afghanistan, and Obama had planned to pull that back to 5,500 by year-end. But a Taliban resurgence and the Afghan military's continuing struggles have led Washington to rethink its exit strategy.
The numbers reflect a compromise between Obama's original plan and what many military commanders had recommended.
The military has argued to keep closer to the 9,800 troops now there to help assist the Afghans and guard against a Taliban resurgence. Last month, a group of more than a dozen former U.S. ambassadors and commanders in Afghanistan urged him to "freeze" the current level of 9,800 for the rest of his presidency and let the next president make adjustments.
Yet Obama, who had hoped to leave office with the U.S. disentangled from Afghanistan, appeared to settle on a number that would show continued progress toward drawing down without jeopardizing the mission.
As the military has prepared for the planned drawdown, it has become clear the U.S. would likely need more than 5,500 troops in Afghanistan to continue to provide security and logistics support for allies.
Just last month the Pentagon said in a report to Congress that as Afghan battlefield deaths continued to rise and civilian casualties hit a record high, Afghans were feeling less secure than at any recent time. The report cited progress in developing more capable Afghan security forces. But it also said public opinion surveys indicate Afghans don't feel better protected.
Obama has been under pressure from U.S. allies to make a decision following a NATO announcement last month that the alliance would maintain troops in regional locations around Afghanistan.
The president said boosting the planned troop levels would help other countries prepare their own contribution to the fight. The president planned to discuss troop commitments with U.S. allies when he attends a NATO summit later this week in Warsaw, Poland.
He said his decision should help the next president make good decisions about the future of U.S. involvement in the country where America has been fighting since 2001.
"The decision I'm making today ensures that my successor has a solid foundation for progress in Afghanistan, as well as the flexibility to address the threat of terrorism as it evolves," Obama said.
He added, "l firmly believe the decision I'm announcing is the right thing to do."
The Obama administration declared in December 2014 that the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan had ended, but for troops serving there, the dangers have not ended. Obama pointed out that 38 Americans had died in just the past 18 months.
The president said the U.S. mission would remain narrowly focused on "training and advising" Afghan forces and supporting counterterrorism operations against the remnants of al-Qaida, the group that attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11.
"We are no longer engaged in a major ground war in Afghanistan," he said.
To the Editor:
When I was learning about the many harms that result from fracking, one consequence struck a chord with me, the derailment of trains transporting the highly volatile oil from the Bakken. My home in Murphysboro is separated from the union Pacific Railroad tracks by an alley. I have observed tanker cars mixed in with other types of train cars, so I couldn't help but be curious as to the risk of an oil train derailment literally in my own backyard. The tracks also run beside Murphysboro High School, posing a possible risk to those in the building.
As I researched the situation I found out that up to 40 trains a day use that train track, but I was unable to find out what the tanker cars were carrying because the information is protected by the Department of Homeland Security. I checked a website about the blast zone from oil trains, and it indicated that is was unlikely that the Bakken crude makes its way to market via that track, but that would change if horizontal fracking actually takes place in Southern Illinois. In the meantime, 25 million people in the U.S.A. and Canada live in blast zones.
Three years ago a runaway train with 72 tanker cars each carrying 30,000 gallons of the explosive crude oil derailed in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. The resulting explosions and fire that lasted three days killed 47 people and destroyed 115 downtown businesses. Fourteen more oil train fires have occurred since then, the most recent a the Columbia River Gorge on June 3. Something needs to be done about this situations.
Appropriately, July 6-12 is the third annual Stop Oil Trains Week of Action. SAFE, Southern Illinoisans Against Fracturing the Environment, will be hosting an action at the Carbondale Pavilion at 7 p.m. July 6. There will be informational available about the oil train problem, a short video and a vigil for those who perished at Lac-Megantic. Please come educate yourself and learn how you can be part of the solution.
Cindy Parrone
Murphysboro
Its hot and will get even hotter. Temperatures soar into the 90s and above daily. Heat index figures are in triple digits.
People slow down somewhat, but traveling remains a necessity. Children and pets often accompany drivers.
Its time to renew a note of caution.
When its 85 degrees out, the temperature inside a car, even with the windows left slightly open, can soar to 102 degrees in 10 minutes, and can reach 120 in just half an hour. If that doesnt tell you why a child or a pet cannot be left inside a vehicle even for short periods, we dont know why not.
Heatstroke is the leading cause of non-crash, vehicle-related deaths for children. Young children are particularly at risk, as their bodies heat up three to five times faster than an adults. When a childs internal temperature gets to 104 degrees, major organs begin to shut down. And when a childs temperature reaches 107 degrees, the child can die.
Symptoms can quickly progress from flushed, dry skin and vomiting to seizures, organ failure and death. These tragedies are completely preventable. Safe Kids Worldwide is helping educate about how everyone can work together to keep kids safe from heatstroke using the acronym ACT.
A: Avoid heatstroke-related injury and death by never leaving your child alone in a car, not even for a minute. And make sure to keep your car locked when youre not in it so kids dont get in on their own.
C: Create reminders by putting something in the back of your car next to your child such as a briefcase, a purse or a cell phone that is needed at your final destination. This is especially important if youre not following your normal routine.
T: Take action. If you see a child alone in a car, call 911. Emergency personnel want you to call. They are trained to respond to these situations. One call could save a life.
While leaving a child alone at all poses other issues, and forgetting that a child is in a car is as inexcusable as it is unimaginable, the more frequent occurrences that are not often the subject of news stories are people leaving pets.
The Humane Society of the United States advises that a pet can quickly suffer brain damage or die from heatstroke when trapped in high temperatures. Pets arent able to dispel heat as well as humans. Depending on how thick the animals fur is, it can be like a human sitting in a hot car with a winter coat on.
Most people think theyre taking appropriate precautions when they park in the shade and crack the windows so pets can get fresh air. They take their pets with them in the car because they love them and enjoy their companionship and are devastated on their return to find their pets in extreme stress or, even worse, dead.
Again, the deaths are entirely preventable. People must be aware of how quickly closed, unattended cars or trucks can become stifling death traps and be responsible.
WASHINGTON -- The Republican yearning to pin a scandal on Hillary Clinton knows no bounds. Any scandal will do, real or imagined. She must somehow be -- or appear to be -- guilty of SOMETHING.
They tried Benghazi. Boy, did they try Benghazi. House Republicans even put together a special committee, which House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy praised for hurting Clinton's chances of being elected president. "Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?" he said last September. "But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping."
To the GOP's consternation, however, those numbers recovered nicely. According to the Real Clear Politics average of polls, she leads Donald Trump by about 5 points; the most recent Washington Post survey showed her ahead by 12. Adding insult to injury, the Benghazi committee came up empty-handed. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the panel's chairman, has released a final report that found no smoking gun. In fact, it didn't find smoke.
The Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on U.S. diplomatic and intelligence facilities in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans should be blamed on the terrorists who committed the assault -- not on the secretary of state. Even if she happens to be named Clinton.
So if Benghazi isn't the sought-for scandal, what else might be? Trump keeps threatening to relitigate the 1990s by dredging up Bill Clinton's womanizing and even the suicide of Clinton friend and associate Vince Foster. That is a realm peopled mostly by conspiracy theorists wearing tinfoil hats; Trump can go there if he wants, but the rest of the country won't follow.
Let's see, there's the Clinton Foundation and the vast amount of money it has raised, including from foreign governments, potentates and moguls. The problem with this line of attack is that the foundation, by all accounts, does a lot of good around the world. And it generally operates in a way that Republicans should applaud, not simply doling out money but instead boosting the capacity of local governments and organizations to solve their own problems.
What other grist for the scandal mill could there be?
I'm being somewhat disingenuous, of course. There are Hillary Clinton's emails.
As I've written, Clinton was wrong to decline a government email account when she was secretary of state and instead use a private account, run from a server in her house.
What was she thinking? I doubt it was "convenience," as she still claims. I've believed all along that Clinton wanted control. I think she wanted to guarantee that no personal or foundation emails would ever become part of the public record and thus potentially subject to release. It is certainly true that the Clintons have legions of political enemies who would love to root through the family's private affairs. This fact does not, however, make Clinton's actions right.
But were they illegal? And were they criminal?
That's what the FBI and Justice Department lawyers are trying to ascertain. From what is publicly known about the emails, I am unimpressed. The salient issue is whether she mishandled classified material. Clinton's critics note that David Petraeus, a former CIA director and one of the most lauded military officers of his time, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and was hit with a $100,000 fine for that offense. But it seems to me that routing potentially sensitive emails through a private server is different from handing classified information to one's mistress, which is what Petraeus did.
Obviously, I don't know what else the investigators on the Clinton case might have found out. I do know, however, that Bill Clinton isn't doing his wife's legal prospects any good.
At the Phoenix airport last week, the former president learned that Attorney General Loretta Lynch's plane would soon be landing and decided to drop by and say hello. I can't say it's the most inappropriate thing he's ever done, since that's a high bar, but it's up there.
Lynch described the visit as purely social. But to eliminate any hint of impropriety, she pledged to "accept" the recommendation of FBI and Justice investigators on whether Clinton should face any charges.
Prosecutors have enormous discretion. The danger for Hillary Clinton is that if the decision is a close call, Justice Department lawyers might decide that giving her the benefit of the doubt would make it look as if the political fix were in.
Now Clinton has to hope her husband hasn't succeeded, scandal-wise, where Republicans failed.
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Azerbaijan and Iraq have explored ways of deepening relations as Deputy Prime Minister Ali Ahmadov met with Iraqi Charge d`Affairs Fadhil Awad.
Ahmadov said Azerbaijan and Iraq were bound together by ties of history and common values. He noted that Azerbaijan was ready to render every possible support to Iraq to use its potential. Iraq has big economic potential, and we are ready to assist the country in realizing this potential.
Ahmadov expressed grief over the terror attack committed in Baghdad, and stressed the necessity of joining efforts in fight against international terrorism.
Charge d`Affairs Awad said Iraq was keen to develop its relations with Azerbaijan in various fields, including economic and cultural ones.
/By Azertac/
Seychelles will legislate this year for a central registry to record ownership of offshore companies, a move to meet new international standards that seek to counter money laundering, the finance minister said.
In Seychelles, as in many other offshore financial centres, individual corporate agents hold details on ownership of the thousands of offshore firms, known as International Business Companies (IBCs), registered on the Indian Ocean archipelago.
Experts say this can add to the complications facing any investigator seeking to trace ownership, even though agents are required to hand over details at the request of the authorities.
The Financial Action Task Force, a global body that recommends policies to combat money laundering and corruption, has called for nations to make it easier to trace beneficial owners. A central registry is one such step.
Finance Minister Jean Paul Adam told Reuters legislation had been drafted "that makes provision for registry of beneficial ownership" that would go before the National Assembly, or parliament.
"The legislation will be passed before the end of this year," he said, adding that other changes to laws covering all companies in Seychelles, not just IBCs, were also going ahead.
"We want any company that establishes itself in Seychelles to feel confident that it is ... operating in an environment that offers world-class compliance and regulation," the minister said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
The Seychelles has sought to reduce its reliance on tourism by promoting itself as a financial services centre, offering a low-tax environment for companies registered on its territory.
According to OECD ratings in 2014 on compliance on transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes, Seychelles is listed as "Largely Compliant", the same rating as jurisdictions such as Britain and Singapore. Britain said last year it would set up a central register by June 2016.
Executives in the Seychelles offshore industry say that since 1994 about 140,000 firms have been incorporated on the archipelago, which has fewer than 100,000 inhabitants.
But many firms have been struck off since then, they say, either at the request of owners or for failing to pay fees.
The financial services business now accounts for about 5 percent of Seychelles gross domestic product, compared with more than 30 percent for tourism and 10 percent for fisheries.
The minister said financial services would grow but the focus would shift from incorporating companies to more value-added business, such as setting up investment vehicles to channel funds from Asia to Africa.
"The future should very much be about being a gateway between Asia and Africa," he said, adding that Seychelles was focused on "moderate growth" in the industry to ensure standards and regulations kept pace. Reuters
Muslims around the world celebrated the Eid-al-Fitr religious holiday on Wednesday, marking the end of Islam's holy month of Ramadan.
Like the start of Ramadan, during which believers abstain from eating and drinking during daylight hours, Eid-al-Fitr depends on the sighting of the moon and its celebration varies in different countries. The day begins with early morning prayers and then family visits and feasts.
For those displaced by fighting in Syria and Iraq, this Eid was yet another festival marked away from home.
At an informal camp near Lebanon's Bekaa Valley where many Syrian refugees now live, the common sentiment among those who had fled their country was homesickness.
"When we greet each other, we wish we'd return to Syria. I hope we all go back to Syria," said 24-year old Mohammed, who fled Syria some three years ago. "This Eid comes once a year, we are happy for a day, not more."
In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad visited Homs where he joined a congregation for Eid prayers, state TV reported.
Eid was also being celebrated on Wednesday in other Middle Eastern countries as well as nations in Asia and Africa.
In Mogadishu, hundreds gathered in an open air stadium for prayers, while in Addis Ababa, men sang after attending prayers.
In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, thousands of people attended prayers at the grand mosque of Dian al-Mahri in West Java province.
In Karachi, Pakistan, the festival was observed under tight security, with police as well as soldiers deployed around special Eid prayer grounds.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani called for peace in his war-torn country at an official gathering at the presidential palace in Kabul.
Muslims in Kashmir and the southern state of Kerala in India ushered in festivities a day ahead of nationwide celebrations on Thursday. Muslims traditionally shop on the eve of Eid for new clothes and food.
In Bangladesh, people headed to markets and train stations for journeys home ahead of the festival which will be marked on Thursday. However, fears were also high following last week's Islamist militant attack on an upscale restaurant in Dhaka in which 20 people were killed.
"There are fewer customers in the market, and we fear that there could be more attacks like that in the markets so customers are not coming," shop owner Akhtar Hossain said.
In Europe, Muslims wailed in prayer in a basement to mark the end of Ramadan in one of the Greek capital's many makeshift mosques set up in garages or abandoned warehouses. Athens has had no formal mosque since independence from the Ottoman Turks in 1832, but pledged last month to build one for its 200,000 Muslims.-Reuters
Saudi Arabias King Salman warned his country would strike with an "iron hand" against people who preyed on youth vulnerable to religious extremism, a day after suicide bombers struck three cities in an apparently coordinated campaign of attacks.
In a speech marking Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that celebrates the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, King Salman said a major challenge facing Saudi Arabia was preserving hope for youth who faced the risk of radicalization.
"We will strike with an iron hand those who target the minds and thoughts... of our dear youth," Salman, 80, said.
Four security officers were killed in Monday's attacks that targeted US diplomats, Shi'ite Muslim worshippers and a security headquarters at a mosque in the holy city of Madinah. The attacks all seem to have been timed to coincide with the approach of the Islamic Eid holiday.
The U.N. human rights chief on Tuesday described the bombing outside the Prophet Mohammed's Mosque in Madinah as "an attack on Islam itself" and many Muslims expressed shock that their second-holiest site had been targeted.
No group has claimed responsibility but Islamic State militants have carried out similar bombings in the kingdom in the past year, targeting minority Shi'ites and Saudi security forces.
Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and a member of the Jordanian royal family, delivered his remarks via a spokesman in Geneva.
"This is one of the holiest sites in Islam, and for such an attack to take place there, during Ramadan, can be considered a direct attack on Muslims all across the world," he said. "It is an attack on the religion itself."
ATTACK UNNERVES SAUDIS
Militant attacks on Madinah are unprecedented. The city is home to the second most sacred site in Islam, a mosque built in the 7th century by the Prophet Mohammed, the founder of Islam, which also houses his tomb.
Attacks on Makkah, the holiest place in Islam, have been extremely rare. The Al Saud ruling family considers itself the protectors of both sites.
Saudis were rattled by the rare, high-profile attack.
"I apologize to everyone if I don't congratulate you this Eid," Khaled bin Saleh al-Shathri, a Saudi businessman, wrote on Twitter. "I am shocked by the deaths of five of my brothers and the wounding of four others as they guarded the holiest places."
Iran, the region's major Shi'ite power, also condemned the attacks.
Saudi Arabia's crown prince and anti-terror tsar, Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz, sought on Tuesday to reassure Saudis of the country's security.
"The security of the homeland is good, it is at its highest levels and thanks be to God it gets stronger every day," the state news agency SPA quoted him as saying during a visit to some of the wounded in the Jeddah attack.
Prince Mohammed has been credited for ending a bombing campaign by al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia between 2003 and 2006.
Monday's bombings happened days before the end of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn until dusk.
Saudi security officials say Islamic State's supporters inside the kingdom mainly act independently from the group in Iraq and Syria, its main areas of operations.
Salah al-Budair, the imam of the Prophet's Mosque, warned young people about being lured by the "malignant" ideology of Islamic State. "(The bomber) is an infidel who has sold himself to the enemies of his religion and his country," he said. Reuters
Four major US airports plan to speed up security checks by automating the distribution of bins for travelers' carry-on bags, the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and American Airlines Group Inc said on Tuesday.
American's hubs in Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth and Miami will open the automated lanes this fall, which are expected to decrease wait times by 30 per cent, the airline and TSA said in a joint statement.
Long security lines at US airports this spring caused thousands of travelers to miss their flights and prompted criticism of TSA by airlines and other industry groups.
In an interview last month, American's CEO Doug Parker said the world's largest airline was working with airports to roll out the faster lanes, already in place at rival Delta Air Lines Inc's Atlanta hub.
At the four airports, automated conveyer belts will move bins for carry-on luggage through X-ray machines and divert those with suspicious items to a separate area, preventing bottlenecks. After screening is complete, the belts automatically move the bins back to the start of each lane.
American and TSA also said they plan to add computed tomography, or CT, scans for carry-on bags at a checkpoint in Phoenix by year-end.
The technology, currently in use for checked luggage, could allow travelers to leave carry-on liquids and laptops stowed in their bags.
"Think of the time - and bins! - that saves," American's Chief Operating Officer Robert Isom said in a letter to employees on Tuesday, shared with Reuters, noting that the airline is spending nearly $5 million on the new lanes.
"Neither initiative is a slam dunk to solve TSA woes, but they are both huge steps in the right direction," he said.
American has said the TSA must add enough staff to handle checkpoints during peak travel times, without relying on airlines to contract extra airport staff. Earlier this year, TSA projected it will screen 15 percent more people than in 2013, with 12 percent fewer agents.
TSA may deploy CT scans elsewhere if the Phoenix pilot program succeeds, according to the statement. Reuters
Arch Coal has won the backing of creditors previously opposed to the companys reorganization plans, surrendering $6 million in executive compensation in exchange for lenders support of the companys efforts to emerge from bankruptcy.
The deal represents the culmination of months of legal wrangling and puts the St. Louis-based firm in a better position for a court hearing Wednesday, when Archs plans will come up for preliminary review.
Arch offered improved terms to its junior lenders, who were initially given the choice of a 4 percent stake in the restructured company or the value of any assets unspoken for at the end of the bankruptcy.
Under the deal outlined in court papers filed on Friday, junior lenders would receive 6 percent of the new common stock issued in the reorganized company, warrants to buy up to 12 percent in the firm and $30 million in cash.
Archs senior management agreed to forgo $6 million in incentives to help pay for the agreement. The move, Archs attorneys wrote, would facilitate this global settlement and help expedite the path to confirmation for the benefit of all the debtors stakeholders.
The mining firms bankruptcy has featured an array of shifting alliances. Last year, the company sought to prevent a Chapter 11 filing by agreeing to a debt swap with its junior lenders. That proposal was blocked by the companys senior creditors, prompting Arch to file for bankruptcy in January.
Once in Chapter 11, Arch teamed with the lenders who had opposed the companys debt swap. Senior creditors will own the vast majority of new shares issues in reorganized Arch under the terms of its restructuring plan.
Junior lenders found themselves in the opposition, initially challenging the companys restructuring plan. They also filed a lawsuit over the failed debt swap in May. That suit would be settled as part of the deal outlined in court papers on Friday. GSO Capital Partners, which had led a group of junior creditors, will receive a $5 million settlement in exchange for dropping its claims.
The amended restructuring plan repeated Archs earlier statements regarding its $485 million in self-bonds in Wyoming. The company is in negotiations with state regulators over the continued use of such unsecured reclamation bonds.
As it said in a June filing, Archs attorneys wrote the company believes it can afford secured financing to cover its reclamation obligations.
Funding cuts have resulted in less bus service in Natrona County.
Buses operated by the Casper Area Transportation Coalition will travel to Paradise Valley and Sunrise Shopping Center less often. Some bus stops were also eliminated.
The changes are already in effect. On the day after the reductions, buses drove 211 fewer miles than they used to.
Our funding was cut 15 percent, said Marge Cole, executive director of the nonprofit coalition. So we had to look at the least productive routes and identify those stops that didnt get used where we could save money.
The biggest changes are on the yellow and blue routes. Buses on the yellow route will now visit Paradise Valley and Sunrise Shopping Center every other hour, rather than hourly. The blue route, meanwhile, now ends at Blackmore, as opposed to the Holiday Inn hotel near Hat Six Road.
(Our decisions were) based on what places, what stops, are getting used, she said. And the transit development plan that the city recently did has a very precise map and shows basically which stops get used and which stops dont get used.
The transportation organization receives funding from a number of sources, including Casper, Evansville and Mills, the Wyoming Department of Transportation and grants. Casper cut its funding by 15 percent; other municipalities also made reductions.
We cant provide the same level of service without the funding. We dont have the resources, Cole said.
The states economic downturn has prompted local governments to reduce their spending plans. The city of Casper, for example, slashed almost 40 percent of its budget last month, while cutting 23 vacant positions and giving early retirement to 24 employees.
The transportation coalition serves Casper and its suburbs, along with other portions of Natrona County. It operates both fixed-route and door-to-door service.
For more information on the changes, check www.catcbus.com. Bus schedules are available at the CATC office, on buses, and at various locations throughout Casper.
A Casper man who previously faced charges for allegedly raping a woman in a downtown alley is now being accused of attacking an employee at a local coffee shop.
Dillan Scott Beach approached the Man Cave Coffee kiosk on foot and attempted to pull a female employee through the drive-through window, a police report alleges. Beach, 18, is charged with sexual battery and unlawful contact, both misdemeanors.
We have no further recourse under the criminal justice system, Natrona County District Attorney Michael Blonigen said at the time.
Had Beach gone to trial and been found not guilty by reason of mental illness, he could have been placed in a mental health facility, Blonigen said.
We never could get to that point, he said.
The owner of Man Cave Coffee, a standalone hut near Second and Jefferson streets, called police about 4 p.m. Saturday to report the assault, according to the police report. When interviewed by officers, the woman said she saw Beach walk toward the coffee shop and stare intensely at her through the window. She said she locked the door to the kiosk because she was alarmed.
Beach began talking to the woman through the window, telling her she was beautiful and hot, the report states. The employee asked Beach if he was going to purchase anything, and when he said no, she asked him to leave. Beach then repeatedly asked for a hug and the woman denied his requests. When Beach asked for a handshake, the woman complied, hoping it would encourage the man to leave.
When the employee shook Beachs hand, he pulled her toward him and kissed her hand, according to the report. He then tried to grab her by the waist. The woman said she felt the suspect was attempting to pull her through the window to harm me sexually, the report states. She said Beach was growling and clenching his jaw while she struggled to get away. She was eventually able to get free and Beach fled the area. She said the encounter caused her pain and she had a cut on one of her fingers.
Officers reviewed surveillance footage from the coffee shop and were able to identify Beach as the suspect, according to the report. Police found Beach on Monday at the home he shares with his mother. He told officers he had been with his mother all day Saturday and that he had not gone to Man Cave. Beachs mother told police her son had been with her most of the day but had been out of her sight for two minutes to take a pee. She said she picked up Beach in the alley behind Bradleys Sinclair gas station at Second and Jefferson streets.
A Casper family-practice physician in Wyomings crowded race for U.S. House said he is running as a member of the Constitution Party because he envisions an America with smaller government a country without the U.S. departments of Education, Health and Human Services and other agencies.
Daniel Clyde Cummings said he is running to decrease the size of government, to abolish the welfare state and to increase individual liberty.
Cummings, 69, is one of 13 candidates running for the states only House seat, which will be open because U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis is not seeking re-election.
When voters think about the major political parties, they conjure Republicans and Democrats.
But this year in Wyoming, the Constitution Party is also a majority party, and its members will be able to vote in the primary. Minor parties dont have primaries, said Kai Schon, Wyoming state elections director.
The Constitution Party will have a primary this year because its 2014 candidate for secretary of state, Jennifer Young, received 18,918 votes, over 11 percent of the vote, in the general election. For the party to continue to be a major party in future elections, Cummings must receive at least 10 percent of the vote in November.
The Constitution Party narrowly interprets the U.S. Constitution in terms of government power and authority. Cummings referred to Article 1, Section 8, which describes various powers of Congress, including to collect taxes, regulate commerce with foreign countries, to coin money and declare war, among other activities.
If its not on that list, it shouldnt be done, he said. Education, for example, is not on that list. I favor the liquidation of the Department of Education, the selling of all of its property, the dismissal of all of its employees.
With the feds out, education could be left to the states, although Cummings said he doesnt think thats a great idea, either.
Education is too important to be trusted by the government, politicians and teachers unions, he said. However, that is irrelevant for me, running for Congress. Congress in most instances should not be telling states what they should, could, may and must do.
Cummings believes the courts should be reined in.
Our federal judiciary is totally out of control, to the point of upsetting our social institutions like marriage, he said.
Cummings said he believes Article 3, Section 2 gives Congress permission to limit and abolish in some cases federal appellate courts.
I will introduce a bill that withdraws completely and absolutely federal appellate jurisdiction over state marriage and family laws, he said. That will restore to the states their authority to make their own marriage laws as they determine, not to be determined by the federal government. I will include within that withdrawing all appellate jurisdiction for abortion laws and similar matters all to be determined by the states.
Cummings opposes same-sex marriage and abortion. If the states were solely required to regulate such matters, the country would likely become a checkerboard of different laws on social matters. California, for instance, would likely extend marriage to all. Conservative states likely would not.
Some states would make very bad laws, but thats not Congress or the federal judiciary to fix those bad laws, he said.
Cummings said hes traveling the state to debate other House candidates and visit with the media. Word of his candidacy is also spreading from other Constitution candidates for state and local office who are knocking on doors, he said. For instance, Joe Michaels of Guernsey is running for the Wyoming Senate and Joyce Collins of Lovell is running for the House.
Cummings ran for the U.S. House two years ago. He lost to Lummis, receiving just 6,749 votes.
Education about the Constitution Party is a large part of Cummings efforts, he said.
Thats what I feel my campaign is all about: raising the understating of the electorate, helping them understand our present policies are a national suicide pact, Cummings said.
The primary election is Aug. 16 but Wyomingites can vote early starting Thursday, according to the Wyoming Secretary of States office.
Registered voters can cast ballots in person at their county clerks office. Some counties have additional absentee polling places where people can vote in person. Or voters can request clerks mail ballots to them, and those ballots must be returned to the county clerks by 7 p.m. Aug. 16.
A list of county clerks offices can be found at: http://soswy.state.wy.us/Elections/Docs/WYCountyClerks.pdf.
All ballots will be counted on primary night.
Voting is one of the most sacred and important rights we have as citizens of the United States and must not be taken for granted, said Wyoming Secretary of State Ed Murray in a statement. It is our responsibility as good citizens, living in this great land of freedom, to become informed and exercise our right to vote.
CODY Wyoming game wardens are using decoys to trap poachers, luring as many as 10 illegal hunters a day.
Wyoming Game and Fish regional supervisor Scott Werbelow said mule deer and elk decoys made of plastic foam allow game wardens to be at the scene of a crime with no risk to living wildlife.
We hide them a little bit, said Werbelow. Hes going to have to be looking to hunt.
Werbelow recalled one case where he caught a hunter who quickly realized his mistake. Werbelow said the man threw down his rifle and said, I shot the same darned deer last year!
Wardens say it helps them find violators in an area that covers 2,000 square miles, where the law cant be everywhere at once. Authorities want to catch hunters who shoot animals out of season or without licenses, unlicensed outfitters who take out clients and those who spotlight animals at night.
Meeteetse game warden Jim Olson said game taken illegally is often not killed for its meat.
Every one of us has seen a poached animal with its head cut off for the antlers, he said. The rest of the animal is left to rot.
In other cases, Olson said, animals were injured and left to die, including an elk found hung up on a fence.
She had been laying there for four or five days, licking snow for water, said Olson, who euthanized the animal.
The violators were caught, and they lost their hunting privileges and paid fines and restitution, the Cody Enterprise reported.
Olson said violators need to face stiffer penalties, saying they are essentially being allowed to buy their way out of crimes.
To me its fairly heinous, Olson said.
JACKSON Wyoming has cut back on what kind of evidence can be tested in its crime lab, leading to mixed responses from the law enforcement community.
The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation Director Steven Woodson told prosecutors and law enforcement officials that the lab will stop performing hair, fiber, physical match, glass and headlamp analysis.
The lab will also limit what requests it grants for gunshot residue and says those tests will not be a priority.
Woodson wrote that staffers will be focused on clearing out the backlog in the biology and DNA sections, where demand is higher.
Teton County Attorney Steve Weichman said he knows the lab is underfunded but thinks the changes could affect the way some cases are prosecuted.
Paul Manafort, Donald Trumps campaign manager, had a message to deliver.
Hillary Clinton is the epitome of the establishment; shes been in power for 25 years, he informed Chuck Todd on NBCs Meet the Press last Sunday.
When Trump, Manafort added, says hes going to bring real change to the country, voters believe him unlike Mrs. Clinton, who has been saying that for 25 years and in those 25 years, the only changes that have happened have made peoples lives worse.
But then, at the tail end of the interview, Manafort slipped when discussing evangelicals support for Trump. In my 40 years in politics, I have never seen such a broad-based base of support within that community for one candidate.
Forty years in politics? But its Clintons 25 years that make her the establishment?
If that werent enough, Manafort was giving the interview from the Hamptons playground of the Eastern elite.
This is the hypocrisy at the heart of the Trump campaign, now under Manaforts undisputed control. Manaforts inspiration, which Trump has embraced, is to portray Clinton as the embodiment of the establishment. But Manafort (not unlike Trump) has been the voice of the wealthy and the well-connected for four decades, building a fortune by making common cause with the worlds most avaricious.
Among Manaforts boasts: representing kleptocrats Ferdinand Marcos, Mobutu Sese Seko and Kenyas Daniel arap Moi, defending Saudi Arabias interests against Israels and Pakistans against Indias, and making the case for a Nigerian dictator, a Lebanese arms dealer and various and sundry Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs. He successfully lobbied to arm a Maoist rebel in Angola, needlessly extending fighting that killed thousands.
Its Manaforts right to represent dictators and thugs and regimes that torture. He has, for decades, helped autocrats who battle human rights and democracy. But now this man is setting up a general-election campaign that portrays Trump as a man of the people and Clinton as the captive of special interests.
Manafort has been widely credited with last weeks speech by Trump laying out his general-election theme: that Clinton is the defender of the big-money interests and the rigged economy.
Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and even theft. She ran the State Department like her own personal hedge fund, doing favors for oppressive regimes, Trump argued. Hillary Clinton wants to bring in people who believe women should be enslaved and gays put to death. ... Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency of the United States.
And the man who led Trump to deliver such accusations? Heres what my Washington Post colleagues Steven Mufson and Tom Hamburger reported in April:
In one case, Manafort tried unsuccessfully to build a luxury high-rise in Manhattan with money from a billionaire backer of a Ukrainian president whom he had advised.
In another deal, real estate records show that Manafort took out and later repaid a $250,000 loan from a Middle Eastern arms dealer at the center of a French inquiry into whether kickbacks were paid ... .
And in another business venture, a Russian aluminum magnate has accused Manafort in a Cayman Islands court of taking nearly $19 million intended for investments, then failing to account for the funds ... .
Manafort has been a paragon of the Washington Republican establishment for two generations, working on Gerald Fords re-election in 1976 before helping Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole. He started two lobbying firms, and he has used his contacts in attempts to enrich himself. His lobbying firm recruited veterans of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, then lobbied for $43 million in subsidies for a housing project, while holding an option to buy a stake in the project.
Manafort is steeped in the racial politics Trump has exploited. As Franklin Foer writes for Slate, Manafort ran Reagans Southern operation in 1980; the candidate kicked off his general-election campaign outside Philadelphia, Mississippi, scene of the murder of civil rights activists in 1964. Manafort later became a business partner of Lee Atwater, who gained fame for Bushs Willie Horton campaign in 1988.
Introduced to Trump by Roy Cohn, lawyer to Joe McCarthy, Manafort helped Trump fight Indian casinos by alleging that the Native Americans had a crime problem; Trump and his associates paid a $250,000 fine after secretly funding advertisements besmirching the Indians.
Now Trump is engaged in a general-election campaign to portray Clinton as the candidate of the establishment. Fair enough. But the man leading this effort spent a much longer career benefiting the wealthy and powerful, including Trump, at the expense of the poor and weak. Thats rich.
Yeah, the taxes may be low. Labor is cheap. And the state may be getting rid of regulations.
But a study commissioned by Gov. Doug Duceys administration concludes those factors arent ultimately what sells Arizona to businesses and tourists. What closes the deal is the Arizona lifestyle.
So efforts are underway to revamp the message.
The move comes nearly a year after the Arizona Commerce Authority hired the branding consultant, Kathy Heasley, for $250,000.
Her original assignment was to come up with the kind of catchphrase that has helped to define other states, like I (Heart) NY or Dont Mess With Texas.
The idea was to come up with a single selling point for Arizona that would work for everything from promoting tourism to getting companies to relocate here.
But something unexpected occurred when Heasley went out to ask people what they like about Arizona.
Sure, there was the talk about places like the Grand Canyon. But what came across from the open-ended questions were feelings and emotions about the Arizona lifestyle.
In Tucson, for example, people commented about how they love what they do. But I come home and I sit on my back porch and the mountains are all lit up and I have a glass of wine with my wife, Heasley quoted a Tucsonan who was part of a group discussion.
It was a bit different, she said, for those who live in the Phoenix area. But there, too, the things people said they like about Arizona were related to quality of life.
For example, Heasley said, one person commented about getting to live in a major metropolitan area and have a good career. And I can be home in time to hang out with my son, Heasley quoted the respondent.
A lot of those people have come from other places where there is no family life because youre driving two hours, one way coming and one way going, Heasley said.
She said Arizona needs to scrap the kind of advertising that every other state uses to promote economic development all the stuff about a healthy business climate, low costs and a willing workforce and instead sell images, feelings and heart.
She compared it to buying a car. Sure, it may get great gas mileage. And it might have been a fantastic deal. But its gorgeous, Heasley said, with that being the clincher.
And what of the catchphrase the governor originally asked for?
Forget about it, Heasley said, saying it makes no sense to try to distill the essence of the Arizona lifestyle into a single word or phrase.
That, then, goes to the issue of explaining what Arizona is.
Heasley found that the image of the state of people elsewhere largely comes down to three things: retirement, the desert and the Grand Canyon.
But obviously theres a lot beyond that thats changed in the last 30 to 40 years, that were not just a place with retirement communities, said gubernatorial press aide Daniel Scarpinato. People dont necessarily know that who are in Chicago and have never come to the state, or havent been here in a long time.
And they wont know that based on the messages Arizona is now sending out, messages focused solely on the pro-business climate.
Were really not appropriately advertising ourself, Scarpinato said.
This isnt just speculation, Scarpinato said.
The business executives, the people who Kathy talked to who are here in the state ... and also the people we want to attract, for them it was also a lifestyle issue, he said.
And that means getting out the message that, put simply, lifes better here.
Thats the kind of message that is likely to resonate with new firms where the corporate culture includes attracting and keeping good workers, Scarpinato said.
A big part of it is where their employees want to live and what the lifestyles like, he said. So if we can make the case to a business executive that, yeah, taxes are lower and you also can be home at 6 oclock and be with your family then thats a great argument that were positioned to make that some other states arent.
In deciding how best to market the state, consultant Kathy Heasley had to look at how outsiders perceive Arizona and those who live here. And while some of what she found was expected and even flattering her work showed some interesting perspectives.
One person in Chicago, asked to describe what Arizonans are like, found them brave. Why? We deal with scorpions and other desert creatures.
Another said Arizonans have to be rugged because they have to deal with a lot when it comes to their environment.
A New Yorker described Arizonans as pleasant and slower paced.
There was more than one suggestion that Arizonans are laid back, with one speaking of the free spirits that exist here.
More places to buy beer growlers and tougher repeat DWI sentences are among the new statewide rules that went into effect July 1. The laws were passed by the state Legislature during the February 2016 session. These two interesting laws both tighten, and loosen alcohol-related laws.
Get Growling
New Mexico likes its beer, especially its craft beers. In addition, the state is getting to be known for its many excellent microbreweries. According to the New Mexico Ale Trail, there are about 42 microbreweries across New Mexico. This new law makes it possible for licensed liquor stores across the state to sell and fill up carryout growlers from your favorite local brewery. Good news for beer folks who want to try out the many boutique beers being produced around the state in the comfort of their homes.
Bad Boozers
New Mexico tops the nation for DWI related deaths, accidents and other problems. Governor Susana Martinez recently announced the annual summer DWI blitz that includes increased check points, more saturation patrols with officers across statewide jurisdictions on the hunt for impaired drivers.
New DWI laws should give folks something to think about before getting behind the wheel buzzed. The new rules allow for drunk drivers who kill people to be sentenced the same as second degree murder. This brings the maximum penalty for vehicular homicide while intoxicated up from 6 years to 12 years for each person killed.
For those racking up multiple DWIs, it will now be a second degree felony for the eighth or subsequent drunk driving conviction. This will now carry a minimum of 10 years in prison with 12 years possible, with no chance of a suspended sentence.
What To Do?
Summertime brings more opportunities to enjoy a cold beer and other alcoholic drinks. Dont risk hurting someone or yourselfcall a friend, take a bus or call Uber.
But if you are driving, how should you behave during a law enforcement interaction? The American Civil Liberties Union makes its recommendations based on decades of cases interpreting the Constitution. The organization maintains that politely knowing and exercising your rights is the front line to protecting yourself legally and physically. Remember, regardless of your immigration or citizenship status, your rights are protected by the Constitution.
New Mexico tops the nation for DWI related deaths, accidents and other problems. Governor Susana Martinez recently announced the annual summer DWI blitz that includes increased check points, more saturation patrols with officers across statewide jurisdictions on the hunt for impaired drivers.
If you are pulled over, you must show your driver's license, registration and insurance if asked by a police officer to produce them. But you don't have to consent to any search of yourself or your car. If you're given a ticket, you should sign it; otherwise you can be arrested. If you disagree with the ticket, ask for your day in court. Also remember that, in practically any citizen/law enforcement interaction, the officer is just as wary of you as you are of them. You can promote a proactive result by remaining calm and forthright.
If you find yourself at one of the many sobriety roadblocks that pop up just around bar-closing time, remember that refusing to take a DWI testbe it blood, urine or breathmay result in a suspension of your drivers license, and youll be arrested for a higher charge than if youd complied. What if police have a warrant? A warrant means the police are going to enter your owned or rented property, this includes your car, then search and seize thingsincluding you, possibly.
If police have a warrant, they may knock on the door, be professional and courteous, and explain there is a court order allowing a search. Or they may use force that includes paramilitary tactics and dozens of SWAT team members armed with guns and flashbang stun grenades. It is better to comply than to be shot.
With all that in mind, heres a handy Weekly Alibi guide on What To Do If Youre Stopped By The Police:
Be polite.
Think carefully about your words, movement, body, language, and emotions.
Remember, anything you say or do can be used against you.
Keep your hands where the police can see them.
Dont run.
Dont touch any police officer.
Dont resist even if you believe you are innocent.
Dont complain on the scene or tell the police theyre wrong or that youre going to file a complaint.
Do not make any statements regarding the incident.
Ask for a lawyer immediately upon your arrest.
Remember officers badge and patrol car numbers.
Write down everything you remember ASAP.
Try to find witnesses and their names and phone numbers.
If you are injured by police, take photographs of the injuries as soon as possible, but make sure you seek medical assistance first.
If you feel your rights have been violated, file a written complaint with the police departments internal affairs division or civilian complaint board, or call the American Civil Liberties Union hotline, 1-877-6-PROFILE or by reaching out to their New Mexico affiliate at 505-266-5915.
Up on South Mission Road you wouldnt have noticed, but last week the culverts just below the surface of the road were bustling.
It wasnt because of the rain.
The cops came on Monday, June 27 and gave notice to the residents, David Hites and Marie Hayden, that they had to clear out within 72 hours.
That was easier said than done. Over their three years of living in the triple box culvert below Mission, south of West Ajo Way, they had accumulated tons of belongings. Clocks, stuffed animals, gas cans, sinks, figurines.
It just accumulates after a while, Hites told me.
Hey, Dave, you want to give up these gumball machines? Hayden, 42, asked last week.
Hites, 46, smiled and shook his head.
The couple and a friend spent those days going through the painstaking process of finding what was valuable and taking it by flatbed trailer or bicycle trailer to scrap shops. This scrapping used to be enough to eke out a living, but isnt so much anymore.
China quit buying, Hites explained. I still scrap, but instead of making 500-something a month we make a couple of hundred. Thats it.
The home Hites and Hayden have made illustrates a couple of the key problems with Tucsons homelessness problem.
One is the sheer environmental mess of it. To make a home in one of the culverts, Hites has diverted the flow of water to the other two culverts. Hayden walled off the downstream side of that culvert so that nobody could come in. And now all three tunnels are filled with junk.
The problem here is its taking so long to clean the place up, something that desperately needs doing.
In years of reporting on the homeless in Tucson, though, its become clear to me that the authorities only sporadically follow through on threats to eject people from their camps. That, of course, would lead to the next step: bringing in a contractor to clean the place up a pricey prospect in this overwhelmed site.
The other key problem at play: What do we do with these people?
There is a formal system in place for when the authorities want to clear out a camp. They call it the homeless protocol. After police post these warnings to get out, the Primavera Foundation sends representatives down to offer help to the residents.
There are shelters people can go to. Transitional housing is available for some people with an income.
But for people like Hites and Hayden, theres not much.
You can offer them shelter, but people who have been outside often cant make that transition, separated from their partner, said Michele Ream, the Primavera worker who was sent to offer services to Hayden and Hites.
Most shelters separate men and women, and none of them allow dogs, which are indispensable to many people living on the streets. Hayden and Hites have three dogs they do not want to part with.
In Tucson, there are around 380 people living in similar situations, according to a count carried out earlier this year. Thats probably an undercount, but its what local officials and volunteers could come up with to report to the federal government.
The number of dysfunctional people some combination of homeless, transient, addicted, jobless and mentally ill has surprised even new Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus, who arrived from the East Bay city of Richmond, near San Francisco. That city could be considered the capital of homelessness in America, as a new project by the San Francisco Chronicle attests.
Its unclear to me as a newcomer why the problem is at such a significant scale, Magnus told me Tuesday. Unlike some cities, you see examples of this in numerous locations throughout the city. You see it in the washes and the culverts, you see it in multiple parks.
Its not because of the generosity of our social services, contrary to perception. In Tucson, we dont have a whole lot to offer Hayden and Hites. They get food stamps and say thats the extent of regular services they receive. Of course, they cost taxpayers in other ways if they get sick or are jailed, for example.
In San Francisco and elsewhere, studies have repeatedly shown that not housing homeless people costs taxpayers more than housing them does, but providing housing is a more politically difficult sale.
It has taken far too long for our local leaders to find their way toward solutions. As Tom Litwicki, the outgoing chair of the Pima Coalition to End Homelessness, told me, even now the kind of housing we can offer is unsuitable for many chronically homeless people like Hayden and Hites.
Originally from Iowa, theyve lived in Tucson since 2002. Theyve had a couple of permanent homes but mostly have lived in culverts. When I asked Hites where they lived before this culvert, he said theyd moved from up the street in the box culvert up there. Lived there for like seven years.
The sheriff came down and had us move, he said.
There is some movement in local government toward more appropriate solutions for people like them and the problems they sometimes have or cause. Council members Richard Fimbres and Karin Uhlich are planning to put on an agenda for next month the ideas of allowing tiny houses and small-scale camping at dispersed, permitted sites in the city.
The idea is modeled after a program in Eugene, Oregon, under which up to 10 sites in the city can have up to five people camping. Ream herself has been pioneering the homeless hut model, as well, through the group Community Supported Shelters Tucson.
That seems like a very interesting idea and a nice interim step, Litwicki said. Its better than what were doing now.
The key, he said, is understanding that getting people into housing is the first step toward helping the homeless, not the end goal. Being housed helps solve peoples other problems.
Hayden and Hites both were reticent when I asked them separately what they would hope for if they could have a permanent home. At some point, entertaining these dreams becomes painful or pointless, it seems.
A small mobile home would be OK, Hayden told me. Due to arthritis, she said, I dont know if I could hold a steady job any more.
A truck and a piece of property would be pretty cool, Hites said. Where the cops cant come and tell you you got to move.
As of Tuesday, though, the cops hadnt come again Hayden and Hites hadnt moved.
A 19-year-old man was arrested on multiple felony charges twice in six days, in connection with several burglaries on the east side of town, police said.
Gary Duncan was arrested on June 16, then again on June 22, according to a post on the Tucson Police Department's Facebook page.
Police were investigating a string of burglaries that took place between June 8 and 10, in the areas of East Stella Road and South Sarnoff Drive, and East Broadway Boulevard and South Houghton Road, the post said.
Evidence collected from the homes, and serial numbers from stolen items, led police to identify Duncan as a suspect, and he was spotted at a pawn shop on June 16, the post said.
He was arrested and booked into Pima County jail on suspicion of three counts of burglary, three counts of trafficking stolen property and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia- all felonies.
On June 22, after Duncan was released from jail, police were contacted by one of the burglary victims, who said that an unknown man was in their house. The victim took a photograph and passed it along to officers, who located Duncan a short distance away, the post said.
Melissa Larkin wears many hats as a school resource officer working with students at Marana Middle School.
She is a lawyer, a teacher, a social worker and a friend to seventh- and eighth-graders, along with their parents and their educators.
These are among the reasons Larkin, of the Marana Police Department, was chosen as the Arizona School Resource Officer of the Year at a recent conference of the state SRO association in Scottsdale.
I like being the positive face of law enforcement with the kids, and having an opportunity to teach them how to be safe, to know how the law works, and to know their rights, said Larkin, 38, who was hired eight years ago by the police department and has been at Marana Middle for two years.
They see so much on the news and dont always understand what police officers are doing. I try to explain to them what officers are doing and why, said Larkin, who touches base with a student body of about 1,100 students each year.
In addition to being a law enforcement officer on campus, Larkin teaches classes to all the students as part of the federal grant program that funds her position.
Among classroom lessons she teaches at the school, are the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments in the Bill of Rights. The lessons cover searches and seizures, protections against double jeopardy and self-incrimination, and a persons rights in a criminal trial.
Larkin also teaches students about cyberbullying, and how to stay safe when using social media. I try to teach them to think before they post something on the internet that they cannot take back and it can change their lives forever, said Larkin.
If they take an inappropriate picture and put it out there, they lose their privacy. They have to realize that ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends can post images for the world to see, said Larkin, adding that students also learn about the legal ramifications.
They are so young and dont think, said Larkin, who talks to students about the dangers of sexting and using messenger applications that can lead them to connecting with cyber predators.
Talking to strangers online is dangerous, and so many of them dont see it that way, she said, adding that she also talks to parents about the dangers and the importance of them protecting their children.
The officer also gives lessons about substance abuse and next year plans to teach about conflict resolution.
She works to make sure the campus is safe for students, faculty and staff, and when youth or adults report a crime she files police reports.
Larkin received 17 letters of nomination for the state award. The tribute recognizes her dedication and service to the students and community, said Vickie Hathaway, a spokeswoman for the Town of Marana, in a news release.
Larkin collaborates with teachers in establishing curriculum, and she also developed a Police Explorers class, which allows students the opportunity to experience what it is like to be a police officer, said Heather Pletnick, principal of Marana Middle School, in the release.
Pletnick praised Larkin for earning students trust and leaving a lasting impact on them.
Campaign finance reports for the first six months of the year show more than $120,000 was raised and nearly $112,000 was spent in the race for Pima County county attorney and sheriff. Heres what the reports released June 30 show:
Pima County Attorney
In the Democratic primary race for county attorney, incumbent Barbara LaWall raised three times the amount of money as her opponent, Joel Feinman, according to finance reports from Jan. 1 to May 31.
LaWall raised $75,255 in donations this period, and already had $56,364 in her account. During that time, Feinman brought in $25,105, carrying over $71,240 from the previous reporting period, which ended on Dec. 31.
Neither of the candidates took any loans this year, with all of the money raised coming from donations.
Feinman spent more money than he brought in, with $46,000 in disbursements.LaWall spent $60,569, with both candidates money being spent on campaign materials, events and staffing, as well as social media and regular advertising.
As of May 31, LaWall had $71,051 left in her campaign fund, and Feinman had $50,477.
Notable donors to LaWalls campaign this year include Congressman Ron Barber, Arizona state Sen. Andrea Dalessandro, University of Arizona Police captain Brian Seastone, former U.S. Sen. Dennis DeConcini, former Pima County Supervisor Dan Eckstrom and former Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup.
The winner of the primary faces a challenger from the Green Party, but Cyndi Tuell has raised less than $500.
Pima County Sheriff
A significantly smaller amount of money is circulating in the race for sheriff, but the finance reports for both Republican candidates were missing expenses, according to county records.
Terry Staten took in $17,737 during the reporting period, including an $11,000 personal loan to himself and $6,000 in other loans. Only $1,200 of the money he raised came from donations.
He recorded $3,607 in expenses $2,436 of which was paid to his campaign consulting firm and closed out the reporting period with a balance of $14,130.
However, expenses related to his campaign website were not included in the report.
The web expenses were inadvertently left out of the report prepared by his consulting firm, said Marketing Management employee Christina Cruz.
She said that she forgot to include the receipts, and would file an amended report with the Pima County Elections Department on Wednesday.
Mark Napier brought in $4,811, with $4,286 of that coming from donations and $500 from a loan to himself. He spent $1,839 and had a closing balance of $2,971.
Absent from Napiers report were website fees and costs for boosted Facebook posts, which are intended to increase traffic to a users page by promoting it to a larger audience.
Napier said Tuesday that the error in reporting was an oversight.
I established my campaign account, but had not yet received my debit card, he wrote in an email. When I established the domain name and started Facebook boost I used my personal debit card as a temporary measure, because the campaign debit card was not yet available.
He went on to say that he had intended to update the bank account information with the website host and Facebook when the debit card came.
These low dollar charges were inadvertently charged to my personal account and I did not catch it, he said, adding that he contacted the Elections Department to file an amended return.
Finance reports for Sheriff Chris Nanos show a March 22 payment for $113 to GoDaddy for the upgrade, maintenance and launch of his campaign website.
Nanos, a Democrat, doesnt have a challenger for the primary election, but hes still been busy fundraising.
He had $1,787 in his account and raised $10,695 in donations this period, $4,000 of which came from DeConcini and his wife. In addition to the donations, Nanos loaned himself $1,000.
After recording $2,126 in expenses this period, the closing balance on his account was $11,356.
One more finance report will be released before the August 30 primary election, and will cover activity from June 1 to Aug. 18.
A Tucsonan who became a gun-control advocate after surviving the Jan. 8, 2011, mass shooting was arrested while protesting inside the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday.
Patricia Maisch, who is credited with helping to stop Jared Lee Loughner from reloading after he had killed six and wounded 13 others in the Tucson mass shooting, was taking part in a sit-in when she was arrested by Capitol police.
Maisch was part of a small group of protesters who were chanting No bill, no break!, the same slogan used by House Democrats late last month when they staged a sit-in to demand a vote on new gun control measures. A total of six protesters were arrested.
Pima County employees will get a raise, and property owners will see a 10-cent primary property tax cut as part of the countys $1.23 billion budget approved on a 3-2 vote Tuesday.
Supervisors Ray Carroll and Ally Miller were the no votes on the budget, which will cover fiscal year 2017.
County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry proposed a number of measures to pay for the raises, which are estimated to cost $15.4 million over the first year, including defunding some vacant and budgeted positions, budget cuts, and reforms at the jail intended to reduce its population.
However, several proposed changes to employee benefits will have to await separate approval by the board. Those include the county no longer paying into new employees health savings accounts (HSAs); requiring new employees to pay a minimum in premium costs every pay period; and splitting premium increases evenly among all employees and the county.
Under the approved budget, most employees will see raises of between 2 percent and 6 percent, with higher raises going to lower-paid employees. Sheriffs deputies and corrections officers will get raises of between 2 percent and 20 percent to help address so-called wage compression, whereby new employees come in at wages near or equal to the wages of more senior employees.
The Service Employees International Union, which represents a majority of county employees, praised some elements of the plan but said Huckelberrys proposals for health benefits would lead to a two-tiered employee benefit hierarchy and offset real wage growth by imposing significant new health care costs, according to a June 28 letter sent by local SEIU president Art Mendoza.
While saying he supports the vast majority of the administrators proposal, Supervisor Richard Elias said he was concerned about retracting progress that weve made on health insurance for employees.
Elias asked that the motion approving the budget clarify that the board was not implying any level of support for the possible benefit changes.
In a June 22 memo laying out the raises and plans to pay for them, Huckelberry wrote that reducing health benefit costs is necessary for the countys long-term financial stability.
Sheriff Chris Nanos, who had previously submitted a pay plan with larger raises, again described Huckelberrys plan as fair during the meeting but said it addressed only half of the wage compression issue. He suggested that the board look into additional raises in January to get to full decompression, something that Huckelberry said will not happen.
Miller criticized Huckelberrys proposal to get rid of a step system for current sheriffs deputies and correction officers, saying it could set up the county for potential litigation.
After winning a recent lawsuit against the state, the county was off the hook for a roughly $15.8 million liability. That bill was going to be paid with a 10-cent primary property tax hike last year and a proposed 10-cent increase this year. The budget passed Tuesday does not include the latter, but does include a roughly 10-cent cut that cancels most of last years hike, bringing the primary rate down to $4.29 for every $100 of assessed value.
For the average homeowner, the primary rate reduction will save about $16.
While the primary rate is down, the secondary rate increased by 2 cents.
BATON ROUGE, La. Black members of the community where a 37-year-old man was shot and killed by a Baton Rouge police officer on Wednesday called for a federal investigation into the death of Alton Sterling.
Saying they don't trust police, speakers at a news conference said they want answers to why Sterling was shot and killed outside a convenience store where he was selling CDs.
Police say they were called to the store Tuesday after an anonymous caller said Sterling had threatened someone with a gun.
A video that purported to show the killing further fueled public anger about the shooting on Tuesday, prompting hundreds to protest. The protest lasted into the night, with people chanting and holding up signs.
In the video, which appears to be shot from inside a nearby parked car, one of two police officers outside the store can be seen tackling a man in a red shirt and wrestling him to the ground. Then the other officer helps him hold the man down.
At one point someone can be heard saying, "He's got a gun! Gun!" and then one officer on top of the man can be seen pulling his weapon from his holster. After some shouting, what sounds like a gunshot can be heard and the camera pulls away. Then another four shots can be heard. At one point, a person in the vehicle asks "They shot him?" as a woman can be heard crying.
The Associated Press has not been able to authenticate the video. But the appearance of the store in the video matches the front of convenience store where the shooting occurred. The man being subdued by police was wearing a red shirt, matching the description given earlier by police.
At the Wednesday news conference, the head of the NAACP in Baton Rouge called for the police chief to be fired.
"What I'm calling for today is that the chief law enforcement officer to fire the police chief," Michael McClanahan said. "He must step down. We cannot have anybody who allows this type of action to take place."
The Advocate reported the crowd that gathered late Tuesday afternoon at the store where Sterling died grew to more than 200 people. They chanted "black lives matter" and "hands up don't shoot" and waved signs late into the night, according to the newspaper.
By dawn Wednesday, protesters and friends had created a makeshift memorial to Sterling on the white folding tables and fold out chair he had used to sell homemade music compilations on CD's.
Arthur Baines came by to pay his respects. He said Sterling had stayed with his sister at some point.
"He never bothered nobody. He was just trying to make an honest dollar," Baines said. He said he thought Sterling was out late on July 4th because more people were out on the holiday: "That's really how he made all of his money,"
Mufleh Alatiyat, a 25-year old employee of the store described Sterling as generous and said he often gave away CDs or petty cash or bought food or drink for some people.
"He was a very nice guy," he said. "He helped a lot of people."
An autopsy shows Sterling died of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Dr. William Clark said.
Officers responded to the store about 12:35 a.m. Tuesday after an anonymous caller indicated a man selling music CDs and wearing a red shirt threatened him with a gun, Cpl. L'Jean McKneely said.
Two officers responded and had some type of altercation with the man and one officer fatally shot the suspect, McKneely said. Both officers have been placed on administrative leave, which is standard department policy, he said.
The store's owner, Abdul Muflahi, told WAFB-TV that the first officer used a stun gun on Sterling and the second officer tackled the man. Muflahi said as Sterling fought to get the officer off of him, the first officer shot him "four to six times."
The owner said Sterling did not have a gun in his hand at the time but he saw officers remove a gun from Sterling's pocket after the shooting.
McKneely said late Tuesday that he could not confirm Muflahi's description of the event or any other details of the investigation.
Gabina VOA is designed to be an infotainment youth radio show broadcasting to Ethiopia and Eritrea in the Amharic language. The show brings varied perspectives on issues concerning young people in the Horn of Africa region. Gabina in the Amharic language is a front row taxi ridesymbolic of the shows content as a fun ride that takes audiences from point A to point B. Gabina VOAs main goal is Enlightening young people, introducing them to cutting-edge technological innovations, exposing them to new processes and ideas so they can be productive, informed and self-governing citizens.
Even though special master Ken Feinberg, who was in charge of the first federal Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund, distributed $6 billion to the estates of those killed on 9/11 an average of more than $2 million to the nearly 3,000 victims the House of Representatives passed its new Fairness for 9/11 Families Act to allow additional claims for the deaths inflicted by the terrorists and set aside $2.7 billion for them.
Eid al-Fitr prayer
At the end of the celebration, Najib Alghaithi, from Yeman, goes around the room greeting people as everyone congratulates each other on the completion of their fast at the Tucson Convention Center. Eid al-Fitr is the celebration that marks the end of Ramadan where the faithful observe a month of fasting from dawn to dusk. It is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Several thousand attended the Eid prayer.
Federal officials said Tuesday that they are expanding tests to speed up airport lines and improve security.
In a first in the U.S., the Transportation Security Administration said Tuesday that it plans to begin using computed-tomography or CT scanners to inspect carry-on bags at one checkpoint in the Phoenix airport by the end of the year.
CT scanners are already used to screen checked baggage. The process is mostly automated the scanners generate 3-D images that are analyzed by computers. Security workers only check a bag if something is suspicious.
The use of CT technology at airport checkpoints would eliminate the need for screeners to examine X-ray images of every bag. It could also let travelers leave liquids and laptops in their carry-on bags.
TSA said it will work with American Airlines to make other changes to increase automation and speed up screening this fall in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and Miami.
American will spend $5 million on the changes, said the airline's chief operating officer, Robert Isom, in a letter to employees. He said neither the increased automation nor CT scanners will solve TSA's problems, "but they are both huge steps in the right direction."
The changes at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Los Angeles International and Miami mirror a pilot program that TSA is running with Delta Air Lines in two lanes at the Atlanta airport. There, suspicious bags can be sent to a separate area for more screening while other bags on the conveyer belt keep moving. Bins are automatically sent back to the head of the line, and they are given radio-frequency-identification tags for better tracking.
The agency said the scanners and other steps will cut the time travelers spend in line by about 30 percent. Long checkpoint lines have become a nuisance for travelers. Security experts warn that the long lines create targets for terrorists that are outside security checkpoints.
Congress approved the hiring of nearly 800 new screeners and overtime pay for current ones, and TSA has reassigned some officers to the busiest airlines.
PHOENIX Eight people were shot in a mobile home park on the outskirts of Phoenix leaving two adults dead, authorities said Tuesday.
The Phoenix Fire Department previously said six people were shot Monday night, but Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio provided the higher number during a Tuesday news conference.
Arpaio said four children were among the six survivors of the shooting, including a 2 year old. The Fire Department previously said the child was 1.
Authorities said all six survivors have non-life threatening injuries. Their names weren't immediately released.
Sheriff's officials announced Tuesday afternoon that the two dead people have been identified as Armando Cardona, 45, and Naome Innis, 35.
The shooting occurred around 10:30 p.m. Monday when one or more people walked by and fired at the group of eight standing outside the mobile home park in the Laveen area outside Phoenix's city limits.
Authorities don't know the motive or the number of suspects involved. It may have been difficult for neighbors to pick up on the shooting if they confused gunshots with fireworks, according to Arpaio.
"We don't know the motive. We hope to get that as time progresses," Arpaio said. "Unfortunately, because of that evening, either fireworks and everything else, we don't have as of now a witness as to who the assailant is."
Help India!
New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Tuesday awarded compensation of Rs 5 lakh each to the families of the 14 people who were killed in February 2011 in a train accident in Uttar Pradeshs Shahajahanpur district.
A bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit also awarded compensation of Rs 15 lakh to those who suffered permanent disability, Rs 75,000 to those who suffered grievous injuries and Rs 25,000 to those suffering simple injuries.
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The deceased and the injured were returning from an Indo-Tibetan Border Police recruitment camp in the states Bareilly city when the accident took place on February 1, 2011.
Fourteen youth who were travelling on the roof of Himgiri Express were killed after being hit by the low overbridge near Shahjahanpur and one died after he fell from Traveni Express in Hardoi district in Uttar Pradesh.
Pronouncing the judgment, Justice Lalit said that the railway administration must take every care so that such tragedy is not repeated and The first step in that behalf is to have an assessment if any such infringements exist and then to create a road-map to remove such infringements.
The courts order came on a PIL by Anil Kumar Gupta.
The court directed the railways to constitute a committee to be headed by a senior officer and assisted by at least three persons from the administration having technical knowledge and expertise that would make an assessment of all such infringements and to chalk out an action plan to remove such infringements.
It is possible, the court said that in some cases road over bridges may have been built by state governments, municipal administrations or such bodies. Nonetheless, the action plan must contemplate ways and means to deal with and remove such infringements.
Directing that the committee be set-up in four weeks from Tuesday, the court said: We hope and trust that the Committee shall take appropriate steps in collecting data as stated above and creating road map or action plan to remove such infringements, in the shortest possible time.
The court directed the Committee to complete the work as early as possible so that all infringements could be removed in shortest possible time and, in any case, not later than two years.
We direct the Committee to file periodic status Reports every six months in this court, the judgment said.
Directing that the copies of its order be sent to the Railway Minister and the Secretary, the court asked them to ensure the compliance of its orders and directions.
The court further directed that all Central Police Organisations must issue guidelines or Standing Order a ensuring that only 600 candidates or such number of candidates as could easily be managed or taken care of be called in one cycle on a particular day.
It said that the copy of its directions be sent to Union Home Secretary also.
Help India!
By Shafeeq Hudawi, TwoCircles.net
Clerics expressed concern during the Eid prayers in Kerala over the possible move to implement the Uniform Civil Code, saying it was against Muslim Personal Law.
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It is a threat to secular fabric of the country and will deny the rights of minorities. The move is aimed at political gainings, said Palayam Mosque Imam Moulavi V P Suhaib. The cleric was delivering Eid speech after Eid prayers, held at Eidgah in Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram.
Maudani at home with his mother
The clerics, who led the prayers across the state, also came down heavily against the terrorist outfits saying they were acting against the tenets of Islam. They condemned ISIS attacks in Saudi Arabia.
IUML state president Panakkad Syed Hyderali Shihab Thangal called for efforts to strengthen the communal harmony and resist the polarisation.
The end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan was observed with gaiety and religious fervour. Believers, from early morning, flocked to Eidgahs and mosques to perform their special Eid-ul-Fitr prayers.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Governor P Sathasivam extended Eid wishes to Muslims and Malayalis all over the world.
The auspicious occassion would bring in a renewed spirit of love and oneness through its message of self discipline and sacrifice. May Eid-ul-fitr bless us all with a renewed spirit of love and oneness through its unmatched message of self discipline, sacrifice and charity, their Eid messages said.
Eid at home for Maudani after seven years
Abdul Nasir Maudani, the jailed PDP leader, was quite emotional while addressing the gathering at his home town Anvarssery after performing Eid prayers. Maudani took the opportunty to say that that he was innocent in Bangaluru blast case.
Maudani criticised PDP activists for turning violent and attacking office of Indigo Airlines in Kochi. Indigo office suffered losses while PDP activists attacked it after they got agitated by the reports that Indigo Airlines had cited some procedural irregularities and Maudani was unable to travel.
Help India!
By Raqib Hameed Naik, TwoCircles.net
Delhi: Once again, Jamia Nagar in Delhi is going to witness a show of solidarity and unity on eve of Eid Ul fitar when people from Sunni and Shia sects will offer Eid prayers in Congregation at the inner Courtyard, Jamia Juma Masjid of Jamia Millia Islamia.
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Shoulder to Shoulder Movement is an initiative conceived by a group of friends last year in Jamia Nagar, against the back drop of growing hostility between the two sects in Middle east.
Hundreds have been killed across the world by ISIS this Ramadan. There simple objective is to divide humanity and disrupt peace. How can we defeat their objective? It is simple, isnt it? reads the status of Shoulder to Shoulder Facebook page.
Join the # ShoulderToShoulder movement. If you are in Delhi, come and stand together this Eid. Whatever your religion may be.
The group further asks interested people to organize a joint eid prayer in their respective cities.
If you are not in # Delhi, organize a joint prayer in your city as well or just upload your photograph online with a friend from another religion/sect with the hashtag #ShoulderToShoulder, the group writes on its Facebook page.
The prayers will be held on Thursday, July 7, in the Inner courtyard of Jamia Juma Masjid, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi at 7:30 am.
Help India!
By TCN News
Delhi: The Prime Minister, President and the Vice President conveyed their greetings and best wishes on the occasion of Eid-Ul-Fitr.
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My greetings and best wishes on Eid-ul-Fitr. May this special day deepen the spirit of harmony and peace in society, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his message.
President Mukherjee in his message said, On the auspicious occasion of Idul Fitr, I extend warm greetings and best wishes to my fellow citizens, particularly to all Muslim brothers and sisters in India and abroad.
The festival of Idul Fitr marks the culmination of the Holy Month of Ramzan, a month of prayer, blessings and forgiveness. Let us on this occasion rededicate ourselves to the service of humanity and share our happiness with the poor and needy. May the Eid celebrations reinforce the nations commitment to mutual goodwill and inspire each one of us to follow the path of love and universal brotherhood.
Vice President Hamid Ansari said, I convey my heartiest greetings and good wishes to the citizen of our country on the joyous occasion of Id-ul-Fitr.
Id-ul-Fitr marks the culmination of the holy month of Ramzan and signifies the traditional expression of brotherhood and understanding between people. It reaffirms our abiding faith in the spirit of compassion and charity.
May the noble ideals that mark Id-ul-Fitr enrich our lives with peace, prosperity and the spirit of humanity.
Griego Corruption Hearings Begin Former State Senator Phil Griego faces charges including fraud, bribery and tampering with public records in a four-day New Mexico District Court hearing that began Tuesday. Griego plead not guilty to the charges brought against him by prosecutors in Attorney General Hector Balderas office. Prosecutors allege the former senator received a $50,000 dollar broker's fee as part of a real estate deal involving the sale of a state historic site, and that he neglected to disclose this information while state lawmakers voted on the sale in 2014. In March 2015, rather than face disciplinary actions resulting from an ethics investigation of the deal, Griegos resigned from the Senate after holding office for more than 18 years. The case has been plagued with delayseight judges excused themselves from the proceedings, citing possible conflicts of interest, but only specifying other good cause on court recusal forms. Delays also occurred after the Legislative Council Servicethe administrative arm of the New Mexico Legislature questioned whether legislative staffers should have to testify and whether the findings of an internal Senate ethics probe of Griego should have to be turned over to prosecutors. But State District Judge Brett Loveless ordered state lawmakers and their staff at the Legislative Finance Committee to testify at the hearings this week. If convicted of all counts, Griego could face up to 28 years in prison and more than $40,000 in fines.
TheresaMay has won the first round of voting to become the next conservative leader and thus the new Prime Minister for the UK.
Receiving165 votesout of a total of 329 cast by conservative MPs Theresa May comes a clear first. Second was Andrea Leadsom with 66 votes. Third was Michael Gove who received a total of 48 votes.
Coming in forth Stephen Crabb with34 votes, decided to withdraw himself from the race. Liam Foxonlygot16 votes, and so has been droppedfrom the race.
Further voting will now reduce the final three contender down to two; then the conservative party members will vote by postal ballot for either of the remaining candidates; which is due to be taken to members on the 9th of September.
This leaves TheresaMay as the only remainingcontender in the race that campaigned for the UK to remainthe EU. Both Andrea Leadsom and Michael Gove campaigned forthe UK to leave the EU.
Will Theresa May satisfy her criticsIt looks like she is so far.
So looking at the number this means that TheresaMay with 165 votes received 50%, with Andrea Leadsom who came second with 66 votes only secured20% of the vote, Michael Gove with 48 votes received only 15%, with Stephen Crabb getting 10% and Liam Fox only 5%.
This is a huge advantage for Mrs May in the first round of voting and she has promised she will go through with a Brexit plan shouldshe be the next Prime Minister. Socan the UKs brexit be stoppedit doesn't look like it.
Liam Foxhas lost out again for a second time in a conservative leader race, in 2005 he came third in the contest which David Cameron won.
It is thought that while the majority of ConservativeMPs are remain supporters and so back TheresaMay for leadership the wiser party membership may not reflect thatwhich could swing this race in favour of Andrea Leadsom or Michael Gove.
TheresaMay, Andrea Leadsom and Michael Gove are set to face the conservative MPs for the second time on Thursday 7th July. Then the final round will be on the following Tuesday. Thischanges should any candidate drop out of the race at which pointwith only two candidates the leadership campaign will go directly to a postal ballot to the wider conservative party members.
The winner of this race is currently set to be announcedon the 9th of September only time will tell if this is broughtforward.
The #ShutdownZimbabwe and #ThisFlag peaceful protests continue in Zimbabwe. There was speculation ahead of today's Government strikes and mass-action work stay-away that the government would shut down social media. Word went out that people should change over to browsers such as Tor which would mean they could still tweet and Facebook events unfolding in Zimbabwe under a different ISP address. TechZim put up an article earlier today about this but it was taken down, even though the cached version is still available. Sources inside Zimbabwe confirm that this morning WhatsApp was blocked and the #ThisFlag tweets are pushing Virtual Private Network as the phrase of the day.
Bypassing social media shut-down.
One respected Zimbabwean journalist advised her Facebook followers to download CloudVPN so they can stay in touch with the world, especially as it looks like Facebook might be denied the movement for change as well. The #ShutdownZimbabwe2016 hashtag is trending and under that hashtag, it is of interest to note that South Africas Mail & Guardian news article from earlier in June is finding some popularity. The article is entitled Five ways to by-pass social media bans.
Government warns tweeters.
Meanwhile according the government newspaper, The Chronicle, the government of Zimbabwe has warned the people who are tweeting about Zimbabwe that people who send subversive messages on social media will face the full wrath of the Law, Minister of communications, Mandiwanzira has warned that they are able to trace every communication online and that such messages are a violation of the law, as they threaten the State.
Ghost towns.
Newsday reported that downtown Harare is like a Ghost Town and posted up a video. The normally jam-packed sidewalks and streets are almost empty. It has been reported that the stay-away is well supported in cities other than Harare, and that in Bulawayo the town is very quiet with hardly anyone appearing for work.
In the city of Masvingo in the southeast, banks are reported to be closed and shops have shut their doors. Reports are coming in that Government TV and media outlets are under heavy guard by armed soldiers and there is also an unconfirmed report that the Civil Service Commission will be conducting a head-count to find out who stayed away.
Protesters urge the use of socialmedia images.
Public supporters for Shutdown Zimbabwe until they get radical change, are advising everyone to use their mobile phones to capture images of violence perpetrated against the people, and to post them up online.
Say no to police violence. Use your Phones to expose incidents of police violence. #ShutDownZimbabwe2016#ThisFlag pic.twitter.com/lSA1EcBgKw Regime Change Agenda (@maDube_) July 6, 2016
Speculation President puts army on full alert.
The president of the country, Mr.Robert Mugabe was reported by NBSTV to have placed his army on standby.
A rattled President Mugabe places army on standby as fears of social unrest grow in Zimbabwe: local media reports pic.twitter.com/ERICfdBqvT NBS Television (@nbstv) July 6, 2016
International media ignoring protesters.
Among the protesters there is some anger that large international media is not giving their brave stand much coverage. Tweeters are asking why there is no interest in what could be a life-saving mass action for their country. That said, it is remarkably difficult for media to gain access to Zimbabwe, so some commentators suggest that this revolution for change will happen not through television, but through Facebook posts, tweets, and Instagram.
Why the protest?
Asked what the mass protests are about, one source said simply that people want a government that cares about the people, and not a corrupt government who cares little for the masses. The silent Revolution is a follow-on from riots that closed the Beitbridge border last week and general protests on Tuesday over corruption, heavy handed policing and economic mismanagement.
Unibet Poker Launches Summer Bootcamp With More Than 100K Up For Grabs
July 06 2016 Matthew Pitt Editor
Unibet Poker has bucked the trend of online poker sites reducing their promotional offerings during the World Series of Poker by launching the Summer Bootcamp, which has more than 100,000 needing to be one.
Designed for cash game players, the Summer Bootcamp awards players points based on some predetermined targets, with those points being multiplied depending on the stakes being played for.
The top 250 points earners at the end of each weeks promotional period win a share of between 10,000 and 20,000, while the top 500 points earners at the end of the Summer Bootcamp win a share of 20,000.
Summer Bootcamp Targets and Points
NLHE PLO Frequency Achievement Game Type Mulitplier 1 1 Unlimited Win or split any hand from the button All Yes 2 1 Unlimited Reach a flop with at least three other players still in the pot All Yes 2 1 Unlimited Reach the flop in two consecutive hands All Yes 4 2 Unlimited Be dealt 7-2 All Yes 60 20 Unlimited Lose with A-A at showdown All Yes 1500 500 Unlimited Be dealt a straight flush All Yes 50 50 Daily Play at least two cash game tables simultaneously All No 50 50 Daily Reach a 20BB stack in any Banzai cash game Banzai No 500 500 Weekly Reach at least five cash game flops for three consecutive days All No 1000 1000 Weekly Reach at least five cash game flops for seven consecutive days All No
As mentioned, some of your points are multiplied depending on the stakes played when you hit an achievement. The table below reveals those multiplier rates.
NLHE/PLO Banzai Mulitplier NL/PL4 NL1 0.5 NL/PL10 NL5 1 NL/PL25 - 2 NL/PL50 NL20 2.5 NL/PL100 - 3 NL/PL200 - 3.5 NL/PL400 - 4
Each weekly leaderboard pays out the top 250 points earners with prizes ranging from 10 up to a cool 1,000. The final leaderboard pays out the top 500 points earners with between 10 and 2,000, which gives every cash player the chance to boost their bankrolls just for playing their favourite cash games at Unibet Poker.
Eight Weekly Leaderboard Schedule
Dates Prize pool July 1-7 10,000 July 8-14 10,000 July 15-21 10,000 July 22-28 20,000 July 29-August 4 10,000 August 5-11 10,000 August 12-18 20,000 August 19-31 10,000
Claim Your 200 Welcome Bonus Today
All new Unibet Poker customers who download the software via UK & Ireland PokerNews can enjoy a 200 welcome bonus when they create their account.
Cash is released into your account when you hit rake milestones, clearing at rates of between 25 and 50 percent. The first 1 is awarded when you generate only 2 of rake, with an additional 4 awarded when you have raked 10. The table below shows the schedule for the bonus, please be aware that the bonus expires 60-days after your account creation.
Level Rake Cash Reward Reward % 1 2 1 50% 2 10 4 40% 3 50 15 30% 4 150 40 27% 5 588 140 25%
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Global Market Insights Finds Massive Pot of Gold at End of UC Rainbow
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By Steve Anderson
Contributing Writer By Steve AndersonContributing Writer
Growth is the order of the day for the unified communications (UC) market, according to a new report from Global Market Insights. The market that was worth $34.8 billion in 2015 is expected to grow and grow steadily over the next several years, and by 2023, it's expected to reach a whopping $96 billion in overall revenue.
That growth pattern represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.2 percent, which is a substantial growth pattern for most any field. Several factors are said to be driving this growth projection, starting with the growing acceptance of the bring your own device (BYOD) concept, as well as increasing virtualization of business practices. Throw in increasing use of mobile devices overall and it's easy to see where demand for UC tools and services would be on the rise.
Other business developments are driving the UC market forward, including the growing use of video conferencing thanks to its excellent cost savings potential and ability to improve collaboration in an office, no matter how geographically diffuse it may be. The increased use of cloud-based tools has likewise bolstered demand for UC systems.
Naturally, it's not all gain for the UC market; several limiting factors are on hand like high initial costs for installation and daunting levels of complexity in the system. Plus, there's a unclear nature to the return on investmenthow does one measure the profitability of improved collaboration, anyway?that's limiting impact as business cases attempt to quantify the unquantifiable.
The market leader so far has been North America, which contributed the largest share of the overall UC market, thanks to several major industry participants and an excellent reputation for BYOD services so far. However, its impact on the overall market will likely decline as Europe and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) regions step up involvement in the field. APAC's continued growth of infrastructure and interest in modern systems will only help drive that forward thanks to the sheer size of its market.
Basically, the UC market is likely to grow thanks to the result of several intersecting technological trends, ranging from the growth of cloud-based systemswhich have been on the rise in a big way in the last several years, to the point where many even consider these to be safer than the more conventional equivalentsto the growth of mobile devices, whether issued by the company or brought in from outside. It could even be said that the UC market is likely to benefit from its sheer scope; it covers so many different sub-markets at once that it would be hard not to see gain.
The UC market is set for some big gains if Global Market Insights' projections come off, and based on what we know so far, these predictions are fairly likely to hit.
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Edited by Maurice Nagle
Just after 2:45 PM on March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck the eastern coast of Japan. The earthquake the fourth most powerful everrecorded was accompanied by a series of tsunami waves that spread throughout the Pacific Ocean, some reaching heights of 30 feet or greater. Off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture, several such waves overtook the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, flooding the reactors cooling systems and disabling the emergency generators. In the hours that followed, the reactors of the plant went into nuclear meltdown, releasing massive amounts of radioactive material into the Environment.
The event was later classified as the second largest nuclear disaster in history, following the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.
A retrospective.
A paper recently presented by the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) Working Group at the Goldschmidt Conference in Japan (and to be published in the Annual Review of Marine Science later this year) reviewed the findings of over 20 geochemical studies conducted overthe past five years pertaining to the effects of Fukushima radiation on ocean chemistry, marine ecosystems, and human health. The SCOR Working Group, led by Dr. Ken Buesseler of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is comprised of ten scientists hailing from nine countries.
In an article for PBS NewsHour published this past March, Buesseler emphasized the unprecedented dangers that Fukushimas fallout posed to marine life: More than eighty percent of the radioactivity from the damaged reactors [at Fukushima] ended up in the Pacific, he said, far more than reached the ocean from Chernobylor Three Mile Island.
Radiation in marine ecosystems.
The reportdelves more deeply into Buesselers statement, exploring the links not only between nuclear radiation and ocean ecosystems, but between radiation and human health as well.
Humans can be exposed to radiation through direct contact, inhalation, and ingestion of contaminated food. Several studies covered in the review found that the water-soluble radioactive elements released during the disaster had accumulated in the fatty tissues of fish living in Fukushima Bay, a hotspot of the seafood industry.
The majority of aquatic species studied throughout the year-long period following the disaster displayed levels of radioactive cesium approximately ten times Japans regulatory limit for seafood, with a handful of others boasting levels several thousand times the limit. Lower, but nonetheless significant, radioactivity levels were also measured in fish and seaweed species living along the Pacific coasts of the United States and Canada. More recent research has found that while radioactivity levels in fish have decreased considerably, they still remain above pre-Fukushima levels.
Ties to cancer.
While the amounts of radioactivity present in these marine organisms may be relatively low, consumption over a long period of time has the potential to increase an individuals risk of developing cancer.
So far, no human deaths have been recorded as a direct result of radiation exposure, whether through contact, inhalation, or ingestion however, it must be noted that such effects can take decades to manifest. Studies done on Hiroshimasurvivors, for example, revealed that most cases of cancer attributable to radiation emerged approximately 10 years after the bombing.
Looking to the future.
SCOR believes that the physiological effects of exposure from Fukushima have yet to fully emerge, and that the survivors who were youngest at the time of the accident will most likely be affected to the greatest degree. Of course, these predictions are just that predictions. Only time will tell how much of an impact the 2011 Fukushima disaster will have on human health.
An advance version of the review, Fukushima Daiichi-Derived Radionuclides in the Ocean: Transport, Fate, and Impacts, can be accessed via theAnnual Review of Marine Science database.
Ancient Dunhuang inspires cultural exchanges Updated: 2016-07-05 11:02 By Lia Zhu in San Francisco(China Daily USA)
Dunhuang, an ancient Chinese city on the Silk Road that witnessed great cultures and ideas for more than a millennium, continues to inspire.
An exhibition at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China's Silk Road, presents more than 40 original objects from what is known as "Library Cave" and three hand-painted replica caves.
"Dunhuang is in California," said Susan Pertel Jain, executive director of the Confucius Institute at UCLA. She led an educational tour for 17 middle school and high school teachers.
Visitors experience one of the three full-size replica caves, part of the ongoing exhibition Cave Temples of Dunhuang, which runs through Sept 4 at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. The replica caves, created by artists from the Dunhuang Academy's Fine Arts Institute, were constructed through a painstaking, multiyear process. [Lia Zhu / China Daily]
More than 1,000 years ago, in the tiny oasis town in Northwest China, hundreds of cave temples were carved into a giant cliff face and decorated with Buddhist murals and sculptures, known as Mogao Grottoes.
The extensive cave temple complex, a UNESCO World Heritage site, thrived as a center of international trade, cultural exchange, religion and art from the fourth to the 14th centuries.
Jain found something in common between the modern-day Los Angeles and the ancient Chinese town.
"We are a trade center, we are an art center, we are an immigrant center, and our ideas are continuing to shape," Jain said.
The theme of the program is teaching about China as a crossroads linking then and now, East and West. At the end of the program, the teachers will create a lesson about Dunhuang, integrating the culture into art, math, social studies and other subjects, to make connections to the children in California.
Dunhuang not only reflects the creative, intellectual and spiritual environment of early medieval China but also the considerable cultural impact of the transmission of Buddhism along the Silk Road, according to Marcia Reed, chief curator at the Getty Research Institute.
One of the exhibition's galleries focuses on the diversity of languages and religions on the Silk Road, including a Buddhist sutra in Tibetan with commentary in Chinese, a Jewish prayer in Hebrew, and a Christian manuscript in Chinese, all written no later than the 10th century.
A highlight of the exhibition is the Diamond Sutra that dates to the year 868 CE. On loan to the Getty from the British Library, the Diamond Sutra is believed to be the world's oldest dated, complete printed book.
"The scroll is a printed complete book and the woodblock technology was applied long, long before the Guttenberg metal type," said Reed. Guttenberg printed a book around 1457, and "that's a long time before movable metal type for printed books in Europe," Reed said.
"Hidden and coming out in the beginning of the 20th century, it is an amazing story, and a mystery story because we don't know who put the materials in the caves and when exactly it was done," she said. "In a way it also is a to-be-continued story as we learn more. That's fascinating."
The exhibition is also a result of 25 years of collaborative efforts between the Getty Conservation Institute and the Dunhuang Academy on the conservation and management of the site.
The site in China has been widely visited, but it is the first time the Getty has built three full-size replica caves to provide visitors with a deeper understanding of the Mogao site and the scale of the cave temples there.
Reed said it was crucial to design the exhibition in a way to show "respectfulness" for Dunhuang history, Buddhist practice and the artists in colors, wording and the proper spacings.
"I enjoy the calmness and the serenity of the Buddhas - the beautiful ceilings and spiritual Buddha's style and art work are very illuminating," said Rochelle, a visitor at the replica caves.
"It's also very touching to see that they've lasted all these years," she said.
Rochelle said she had never been to Dunhuang herself, but her mother-in-law had been there three times and brought back beautiful pieces of art and antiques.
"I love spiritual research on Buddha, and other parts of art and spirituality. I find this amazing," said Rochelle, who took more than 20 pictures of the caves.
"This is a very positive development because cultural exchange is often a good way for people to communicate and gives us perhaps a bit more stability in how we deal with each other," said Ted Lipman, CEO of The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, which sponsored the Dunhuang exhibition.
liazhu@chinadailyusa.com
Garbage dumping halted at scenic lake Updated: 2016-07-06 07:29 By Cang Wei in Nanjing(China Daily)
Police in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, intercepted eight vessels from Shanghai that were about to dump garbage on the banks of picturesque Taihu Lake in the Suzhou Taihu National Tourism Vacation Zone.
A total of 4,000 metric tons of garbage on the vessels was covered by tarpaulins. It consisted of construction waste and house hold materials.
According to Suzhou Release, the official WeChat account of Suzhou city, more than 10 vessels fled the scene when local maritime authorities arrived.
Since March, vessels from Shanghai have scattered more than 20,000 tons of garbage across 2,400 square meters along banks before being reported by local residents. The company that hired the vessels planned to get rid of 4 million tons of waste over an 18-month period at a cost of 5.4 yuan ($0.80) per ton.
Gu Liming, deputy chief of Suzhou's Jinting township, which has jurisdiction over the vacation zone, said the vessels came from Jiading in suburban Shanghai.
"The local environmental protection bureau conducted tests and confirmed that the water around the dump site has not been polluted," said Gu. "The bureau will strictly monitor the water quality and garbage treatment."
The dump site is 2 kilometers from the water intake for Jinting township and lies near the water intake for Suzhou's heavily populated Wuzhong and industrial park districts.
"My vessel carries 400 tons of garbage a time, and we can earn about 1,000 to 2,000 yuan from that," a vessel owner, surnamed Liu, was quoted by Suzhou Release as saying. He said the waste would be used by a construction firm to pave roads.
Yang Xinhai, chief engineer at Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences, said only part of the construction waste could theoretically be used to pave roads, but only after it is treated.
"The garbage dumped in Suzhou consists of construction waste and household and decoration materials," Yang said. "It cannot be used in construction projects."
According to Yang, it costs about 70 to 80 yuan to treat a ton of household waste in Shanghai.
Ma Jun, director of Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, said rising costs and increasingly strict regulations on garbage treatment stimulate some people to take the risk of dumping trash in other cities.
"Both the construction and household waste pose great danger to Taihu Lake, whose water quality needs to be improved even without new pollution," Ma said, adding that environmental protection authorities must monitor not only garbage from large construction sites but also from other sources, such as interior decoration.
The Suzhou government has ordered the removal of all garbage dumped on the banks of the lake. Some people suspected of arranging and dumping the garbage have been detained as local police investigate the case.
Guo Jun contributed to this story.
Hungary bartender's Forbidden City-inspired cocktails Updated: 2016-07-06 15:03 By Jiang Wanjuan(chinadaily.com.cn)
This cocktail, called "The Forbidden City" and created by Attila Balint, the managing bartender at the China World Summit Wing, features tequila, hawthorn, red berries and brown sugar. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Attila Balint, a Hungarian mixologist who came to work in Beijing three years ago, has a great passion for the Forbidden City and Beijing's local culture.
He has been to the Forbidden City many times and often overlooks it from where he works Atmosphere, Beijing's highest bar on the 80th floor of the China World Summit Wing.
Recently, he has put his knowledge and understanding about the historical attraction into a special cocktail menu of eight cocktails and four mocktails, featuring local ingredients including hawthorn, walnuts and jasmine.
"I always try to learn more and more about local culture, and the people's habits," Balint said. "For example, Jasmine tea is originally from Fujian, but Beijing people like it very much. "
As a tea lover, Balint has traveled to many Chinese cities to learn about tea, including Hangzhou, Fuzhou, Shanghai and Xiamen.
"I like all kinds of tea," he said. "In summer, I prefer to use raw puer, oolong, and Yunnan white tea, something that's refreshing."
Customers will discover Balint's passion for tea in "The Forbidden City", a hawthorn-highlighted cocktail served in a traditional Chinese porcelain tea cup and in "The Beautiful Building", a rooibos tea-based mocktail.
Port investment shows Belt and Road vigor Updated: 2016-07-06 07:12 (China Daily)
Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in Manila, the Philippines on November 17, 2015. [Photo/Xinhua]
Reports that Chinese and Malaysian businesses are researching a port expansion project at Port Klang in Malacca, if confirmed, would suggest another step in advancing the Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to boost trade and connectivity across Asia, Europe and Africa.
Expansion of the port is certainly necessary, as Malaysia's largest port in the Strait of Malacca has seen its handling capacity nearly saturated in its existing port areas.
And cooperation between the two countries on the project would be natural, not only because Chinese technology and expertise in port construction have been outstanding in the global sector, but also because Malacca is a major stop on the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road that China is looking to create with other countries.
Compared with some similar overseas projects that have stalled due to political and social hurdles, the prospects this time would seem brighter thanks to demands from both sides' industries.
A Malaysian newspaper cited the country's Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai as saying that outside businesses are welcome to invest in the expansion project.
Also, there should be a firm foundation of trust, as Port Klang already has well-established sister-port relationships with major ports in China such as Dalian, Ningbo and Guangzhou.
Talk of such cooperation on infrastructure should come as no surprise, as China is now the largest trading partner for some 130 economies, and is on its way to becoming the largest source of outbound direct investment, a big proportion of which is in countries along the routes of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and the Silk Road Economic Belt.
The Belt and Road Initiative, as they are collectively known, has become China's largest diplomatic endeavor, and it has been warmly received by countries along the routes, as it meets the needs of developing countries in their pursuit of economic growth, especially their need for investment in infrastructure.
China's own experience shows a modernity drive will not go far without the infrastructure to support it, and it boasts proven infrastructure building capacity, as evidenced by its high-speed railways, for example.
So far dozens of countries have officially agreed to join hands with China to turn the cross-continent cooperation plan into reality, and the mooted cooperation with Malaysia to expand Port Klang is just the latest manifestation of this common desire for a community of win-win cooperation.
Tribunal ruling will destabilize region Updated: 2016-07-06 07:53 By Aamir Khan(China Daily)
Leading international law experts said any verdict by the Arbitral Tribunal on the South China Sea will be of no legal validity, at a seminar on the South China Sea Arbitration and International Rule of Law in the Hague on June 26. [Photo by Fu Jing/chinadaily.com.cn]
Expected on July 12, the ruling by the Hague-based arbitral tribunal on a case filed by the Philippines in 2013 will be ultra vires. It will also open a can of worms, triggering a floodgate of abusive lawsuits by many countries. It will take the luster off the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea's till-now growing cachet. More alarmingly, it will put peace in the South China Sea at risk, and potentially destabilize the astoundingly successful Asia-Pacific region.
And being ultra vires, the ruling will be null and void. UNCLOS specifically excludes from its jurisdiction all issues of territorial sovereignty and maritime demarcation, restricting itself to interpretation or application of its regulations. That the Philippines has camouflaged its case under the cloak of generation of entitlements to islands does not hide the fact that its dispute with China is indeed about territorial sovereignty and maritime demarcation. Legally speaking there is no dispute as Beijing and Manila have not even formally discussed the specific claims raised in the latter's submission to the tribunal.
Besides, Article 281 of UNCLOS clearly mentions that the convention applies only if the parties have not agreed to seek settlement of the dispute. While the Philippines has not formally discussed with China the claims it has submitted to the tribunal, it has jointly issued a series of bilateral agreements with China and signed the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, affirming that disputes will be settled through negotiations. The tribunal's opinion that the above does not constitute an agreement is deeply flawed.
The above ruling will not help Manila. Beijing has repeatedly made it clear it will neither participate in the proceedings nor accept the ruling. In fact, far from reaching an agreement with China over its disputes, the Philippines will only succeed in plunging its long friendly relations with the economic powerhouse to a nadir and lose the golden opportunity to develop its economy. It will also lose the chance to jointly develop with China many of the disputed areas in the South China Sea.
The ruling will also destabilize the South China Sea by encouraging its militarization. The United States has begun monitoring it with the help of guided-missile destroyers, even as it has deployed two aircraft carriers in the Philippine Sea.
China's Defense Ministry has termed the US' attempt to militarize the region as "miscalculating". There is always a chance of error and history provides ample examples of small incidents leading to major consequences. The Asia-Pacific region, brought to its knees by Japanese aggression in World War II, has taken 70 years to rise again and achieve unparalleled economic growth. It will be heartbreaking to see this reversed.
Manila has strengthened its relations with Washington. But Washington may have its own perceptions and misperceptions, especially in its post-"pivot to Asia" phase, which may not match the long-term interests of the Philippines. China's Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai recently said China's maintaining of its legitimate position has been grossly misperceived as a strategic move by China to challenge US dominance. The US' responses to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road Initiative, the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, are similar examples of misperceived intentions. Cui could have added that misperceptions can turn into self-fulfilling prophecies.
What can be done now? The US' decisions to invade Iraq and Afghanistan and to intervene in Libya and Syria have destabilized the entire Middle East. Its recent egging of NATO to position itself on Russian borders is reckless. And its deployment of THAAD in the Republic of Korea and sending destroyers to patrol the South China Sea will destabilize the Asia-Pacific. Well-wishers of the US will want it to resume the role of a "wise leader" and jointly enact with China crisis management mechanisms and a more inclusive security structure to help maintain peace and stability in the region. And well-wishers of the Philippines would advise President Rodrigo Duterte to withdraw its case before it is too late and return to the negotiating table.
The author is a visiting faculty at Beijing Dublin International College at Beijing University of Technology.
African leader backs Beijing's stance Updated: 2016-07-06 07:28 By Zhang Yunbi and Anbaijie(China Daily)
The Republic of the Congo has joined the list of more than 60 nations that have publicly voiced their support for China in an arbitration case on South China Sea issues.
Meeting with President Xi Jinping on Tuesday, the African nation's President Denis Sassou Nguesso said his country backs China on these issues and will closely coordinate with Beijing on global affairs.
The statement was made ahead of a ruling on July 12 by an arbitral tribunal in The Hague, established without the Chinese government's consent to tackle the case brought unilaterally by the Philippines.
The 60-plus countries that have voiced support for China include India, Russia, Kenya and several regional organizations such as the Arab League.
Beijing has called for bilateral negotiations over the dispute with Manila, and has stated that it will not participate nor accept the arbitration, as the tribunal has no jurisdiction over issues concerning sovereignty and marine demarcation.
The countries supporting the Philippines include mainly the G-7 nations led by the United States, an ally of Manila.
Addressing a daily news briefing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Beijing has noted that an increasing number of countries have supported China's position.
The case triggered controversy in international legal circles after the Philippines sought compulsory arbitral proceedings under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea for establishing the tribunal.
Hong said the tribunal's expansion and abuse of power has led to concerns that it will "seriously impact the order of international law and bring no benefit to efforts in safeguarding peace and stability in the South China Sea region".
Zhu Feng, professor and executive director at Nanjing University's China Center for Collaborative Studies, said the process of establishing the tribunal has led to questions about a range of problems, and political factors are behind the tribunal's expanded jurisdiction.
"There is no ideal condition and climate for the impartiality of such arbitration, as some countries and media in the West are interfering," Zhu said.
New Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday that Manila is ready to talk to China and not go to war after the arbitration ruling.
Hong also referred to calls to fulfill the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, a document signed by China and all 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2002.
Article 4 of the document states commitment to two way settlements of disputes. Hong warned that the arbitration will have a serious impact on cooperation within the framework of the declaration as well as on consultations for formulating the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea.
Contact the writers at zhangyunbi@chinadaily.com.cn
(China Daily 07/06/2016 page3)
Swedish PM looking at tightening laws after festival sex attacks Updated: 2016-07-06 09:44 (Agencies)
A police officer attaches a bracelet to a visitor's wrist, as part of the Swedish police summer campaign to make the problem of sexual harassment among young people visible, at Bravalla Festival in Norrkoping, Sweden July 1, 2016. Five rapes and a number of sexual assaults were reported at the popular Bravalla Festival over the weekend. [Photo/Agencies]
STOCKHOLM - The Swedish government will look into tightening sexual assault laws after a series of attacks at music festivals over the last week, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said on Tuesday.
Swedish television reported the police were investigating 15 allegations of rape and around 40 of sexual assault at two recent music festivals.
"We are going to look at the laws on sex crimes," Lofven told Swedish TV.
"In addition, it is also important that we continue to make sure the police, prosecutors and other authorities get better at investigating these crimes so that we make sure we actually convict the perpetrators."
Mattias Grenestam, who is heading the preliminary police investigation into reported attacks at a festival in Bravalla, about 140 kilometers south-west of Stockholm, said the suspects were individuals of different ages acting alone.
"They can not be identified as part of any group," he told daily Dagens Nyheter.
Police in Karlstad, about 300 kilometres west of Stockholm and where the other music festival took place, initially identified those suspected of the sexual attacks as a gang of seven or eight unaccompanied migrant youths.
However, Karlstad police told Swedish radio that suspects included both migrant youths and others.
"So it is a bit too early to say what the common denominator is," Inspector Urban Bengtsson told Swedish radio.
Swedish police could not immediately be reached for comment.
Earlier this year, police launched an investigation into allegations that officers covered up accusations of sexual assault by mostly migrant youths at a music festival in Stockholm last year.
Sweden faces a backlash among many voters after a record 163,000 asylum seekers arrived last year, boosting support for the far-right Sweden Democrats, which polls show is the third biggest party.
A free clinic offering treatment from traditional Chinese medicine doctors has attracted many residents from the US city of Claremont, about 40 kilometers east of Los Angeles, on July 4. The American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) joined with a number of Chinese medical institutions in China and the US, to select 14 experienced US-based traditional Chinese doctors to teach Americans about traditional Chinese medicine. [Photo/Xinhua]
President Xi's remarks on South China Sea issue Updated: 2016-07-06 14:34 (chinadaily.com.cn)
The ruling in the arbitration case the Philippines unilaterally initiated against China is to be announced on July 12, 2016. China insists the tribunal appointed by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague has no jurisdiction over the issue because it concerns territory and security issues. Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to safeguard national interests at various occasions. Below are some highlights of Xi's remarks on the South China Sea issue.
President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech to celebrate the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China in Beijing, on July 1, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]
July 1, 2016
The Chinese people do not believe in fallacy nor are we afraid of evil forces. Chinese people do not make trouble, but we are not cowards when involved in trouble. No foreign country should expect us to swallow the bitter fruit of damage to our sovereignty, security and development interests.
China will not resort to the threat of force at will, nor will it flaunt its military power on others' doorsteps at the drop of a hat. Flaunting power everywhere will not reflect strength nor will it scare anyone.
A keynote speech to celebrate the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China in Beijing
President Xi Jinping speaks at the opening ceremony of the fifth foreign ministers' meeting of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Beijing on April 28, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]
April 28, 2016
China and ASEAN countries commit to a full and effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), and negotiations on the code of conduct in the South China Sea (COC). China is willing to work with coastal states of the South China Sea to manage disputes through dialogue mechanism and peacefully resolve the disputes through negotiations and consultations.
Speech at the opening ceremony of the fifth foreign ministers' meeting of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Beijing
File photo shows scenery of an island in the South China Sea, on Dec 21, 2015.[Photo/Xinhua]
October 18, 2015
The islands and reefs in the South China Sea are Chinese territory since ancient times. They are left to us by our ancestors. The Chinese people will not allow anyone to infringe on China's sovereignty and related rights and interests in the South China Sea. The South China Sea provides important waterways for China's international commercial exchanges. China needs peace, security and stability in the South China Sea more than any other country. China would not want any turbulence there, still less would it be the party to stir up chaos.
Responds to Reuters interview ahead of Xi's UK state visit
President Xi Jinping meets with US President Barack Obama in Washington DC on Sept 25, 2015. [Photo/Xinhua]
September 25, 2015
The construction activities on the Nansha islands and reefs do not affect or target any other countries, nor with military purpose. The South China Sea has remained stable overall, thanks to the joint efforts of China and coastal states of the South China Sea. Freedom of navigation and aviation has never been a problem and will never be a problem in the future, because first of all China is the one who most needs smooth navigation.
Remarks at a media interview during the US state visit in Washington DC
File photo shows fishing boats alongside the seashore of South China Sea on May 16, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]
September 22, 2015
China's development and maintenance of facilities on some of our garrisoned islands and reefs in the Nansha Islands does not impact on or target any other country, and it should not be over interpreted. These facilities have been built to improve the working and living conditions of the Chinese personnel on the maritime features, provide international public goods and services, and better uphold navigation freedom and safety in the South China Sea.
China more ready for RIMPAC Updated: 2016-07-06 11:29 By CHEN WEIHUA in Washington(chinadaily.com.cn)
The Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy is far more prepared for the Rim of the Pacific naval exercise (RIMPAC 2016) this year than it was in 2014, the first time China participated.
"I think the staff better understood the process and understood what the planning process was and therefore was better prepared for it in 2016 than 2014," said Vice Admiral Nora Tyson, commander of the US Third Fleet, who will serve as the Combined Task Force (CTF) Commander of RIMPAC 2016.
Tyson, the first woman to lead a US Navy fleet, explained that a country is usually invited the first time as an observer and the second time to bring its ships and aircraft.
"Having participated as an observer and having participated bringing ships and aircraft, then they may be considered for a leadership position," she told the opening press conference for RIMPAC 2016 on Tuesday at the S-1 Pier of Pearl Harbor, where the participating navies are assembled.
"You don't want to push nations too early to play too big a role within the structure of the RIMPAC," said Admiral Scott Swift, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, host of this year's exercises.
A total of 26 nations, 45 ships, five submarines, more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel are participating in RIMPAC 2016 in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California. This year is the 25th of exercises in the series, which began in 1971. Denmark, Germany and Italy are taking part for the first time.
The PLA Navy fleet is composed of five ships, the missile destroyer Xi'an; missile frigate Hengshui; supply ship Gaoyouhu; hospital ship Peace Ark; submarine rescue vessel Changdao; three helicopters, a marine squad and a diving squad, including 1,200 officers and soldiers. The crew size is smaller only than those of the US and Canada.
During the RIMPAC 2016 (June 30 to Aug 4), the PLA Navy fleet will participate in drills including gunfire, damage control and rescue, anti-piracy, search and rescue, and diving and submarine rescue.
Wang Sheqiang, commanding officer of the Chinese fleet Taskforce 153, described RIMPAC 2016 as a pageant for the world's navies.
"China's participation this time will help strengthen the professional exchange and practical cooperation between the Chinese Navy and other navies, help enhance the friendship among the participating nations and help build a new type of military-to-military relationship between China and the United States," he said.
Wang said RIMPAC also will enhance China's capability to deal with threats in non-traditional security fields and in ensuring and promoting peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.
Swift dismissed the notion that at invitation to RIMPAC is a reward for a nation. He emphasized the three core elements of RIMPAC: inclusivity, continuity and place.
He said the 26 nations are joined by a shared interest in maritime cooperation in the Pacific, "where we are all locals, all locals here at RIMPAC, and that's regardless of geographic size, military might or economic strength".
Australia and Canada have been in every RIMPAC drill. Their navies are assuming some of the leadership role this time, along with the US and Japanese navies.
Swift said RIMPAC is about the place. "It's about oceans and seas that connect our navies in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, a vast maritime theater that we are all invested in; all the 26 nations participating share a common interest in the global commons that make up the Indo-Asia-Pacific region," he said.
Tyson said the navies call on a wide range of capabilities, from disaster response and maritime security operations, to sea control and complex war fighting.
"Perhaps more importantly, participants build and sustain relations and trust that are critical to ensuring the safety of the sea lanes and security on the world's oceans," she said.
Swift said the biggest challenge for RIMPAC is going to be how to fit more ships into Pearl Harbor when more nations seek to attend. "Here is a headline I foresee in the future: Some countries are being told that they can send fewer ships," he said with a big smile.
Ted Carpenter, senior fellow of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, said China's continued participation in the naval exercises is important. "The exercises also are critical to maintaining the operational dialogue between the Chinese and American naval commands," he said.
Chinese students in UK affected by agency's license woes Updated: 2016-07-06 17:14 By Cecily Liu in London(chinadaily.com.cn)
A UK immigration consultancy had its license suspended which led to 257 Chinese graduates being told to leave the country, drawing attention to visa problems that have harmed the interests of Chinese graduates.
In June, the UK-based Overseas Student Service Centre had its sponsorship license revoked by the British Home Office. As a result, 257 Chinese students sponsored by the group were told to leave the UK within 60 days or make alternative arrangements to stay.
Compliance checks of the consultancy by the government found "significant breaches" of its obligations, according to a Home Office spokesman who requested anonymity. The Home Office deals with the country's internal affairs.
The consultancy's scheme, called the International Student Internship Program, placed eligible graduates in internships at UK-based organizations. It was run in partnership with a UK-based law firm, Denning Legal. The consultancy charged students a fee of 1,200 pounds ($1,570) for the program. It was rolled out under the government's so-called Tier 5 Government Authorized Exchange program, where organizations can sponsor student internships at UK companies
Colin Chen, managing director of the program, cited two main reasons the program was accused of noncompliance by the Home Office: The government thinks interns are taking jobs from Britons by developing business relations with China; and the consultancy failed to track interns' hours and job tasks, as required by law.
Chen said the Home Office of unfairly targeting the consultancy. But the Home Office spokesman said the internship program was found to be out of compliance on many points required for a license.
Chinese student numbers in the UK have grown rapidly. In the 2014-15 academic year, the number of Chinese students exceeded any other nationality, with 89,540 enrolled in higher education.
Yet graduate students' ability to stay in the country has become increasingly difficult since the UK abolished its post-study work visa in 2012. Under the previous visa arrangement, students could stay in the UK after graduation to gain work experience for two years.
Zhang Xueying, Head of China and Far East Desk at Sherrards Solicitors, said the number of immigration agencies focusing on the Chinese graduates' market has rapidly grown rapidly since the abolition of the PSW scheme.
She said it is not uncommon for Chinese students to have their visa applications rejected or be banned from entry for a time, because of the unprofessional practices some of the immigration agents they use.
Contact the reporter on cecily.liu@mail.chinadaily.com
UK criticised for going to war in Iraq before exhausting other options, report finds Updated: 2016-07-06 19:17 By Chris Peterson in London(chinadaily.com.cn)
Demonstrators protest before the release of the John Chilcot report into the Iraq war, at the Queen Elizabeth II centre in London, Britain July 6, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]
The UK government under Prime Minister Tony Blair went to war in Iraq in 2003 before all other options had been exhausted and on the basis of flawed intelligence, the official report into the conflict found.
Blair, who was prime minister from 1997 to 2008, took Britain to war in Iraq as part of a US-led coalition, ostensibly because Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. In the 2003 invasion and aftermath which toppled Saddam, 179 British soldiers were killed.
In the event, no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, a euphemism for chemical or nuclear weapons, was found.
Blair has repeatedly been accused by UK politicians from all parties of being too close to the then US president, George W Bush.
The report, from a team headed by civil servant Sir John Chilcot, found that there had been serious intelligence failures, and a string of bad judgments made by senior officials.
Blair was criticised for being too close to US President George W Bush and for not discussing decisions with his government ministers and the full cabinet.
The decision to go to war was based on intelligence that was presented with a certainty "that was not justified," Chilcot said in announcing his findings.
Blair had written to Bush early on assuring him of his full support ``whatever happens" and Chilcot added "the UK was undermining the UN Security Councils authority by going to war when it did."
"We have concluded that the decisions on the legal justification for the invasion were not satisfactory," he said.
"The case for a threat from weapons of mass destruction was presented with unjustified uncertainty," Chilcot said.
Chilcot said an estimated 150,000 Iraqi people, mainly civilians, had been killed in the invasion and its aftermath, and over 1 million Iraqis displaced.
"The intervention went badly wrong, and its consequences are felt to this day," he concluded.
The report, which took seven years to compiled and consists of 2.6 million words in 12 volumes, is three times as long as the works of William Shakespeare and five times as big as Leo Tolstorys War and Peace.
Contact the reporter on chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com
Cold war mentality lingers in South China Sea arbitration Updated: 2016-07-06 21:23 (Xinhua)
BEIJING - With the Philippines as the leading actor and the United States cheering in the bleachers, the political farce of an arbitral tribunal without jurisdiction over the South China Sea issue has sounded an alarm for the lingering cold-war mentality.
By supporting the Philippines in this action, the United States has regressed from his historical stance of World War II, misleading the world about China's rise in the 21st century.
Few people realize that China is the only one of the five big anti-Fascist countries that has not fully recovered its territory.
That is not because of the cowardice of the Chinese people but the values it uphold in its diplomacy with surrounding countries: always seeking good neighborly and friendly ties.
In a world already accustomed to the law of the jungle and zero-sum games in international relations, China's restraint and kindness are not only difficult for some countries to understand but also result in the mistaken impression that it is a pushover.
Back in 1948 when China officially unveiled the map of the South China Sea to the international community, including the U-shape line after recovering its sovereignty and jurisdiction over the Xisha and Nansha Islands in compliance with the Cairo Declaration in 1946, none of the countries in the South China Sea area raised any objection.
It should be mentioned that the United States, during its rule over the Philippines, never recognized the Nansha Islands as part of the Philippines.
According to evidence presented when the Philippines tried to seize part of the Nansha Islands in 1933 by history professor Hu Deshen, chief of the China Institute of Boundary and Ocean Studies of Wuhan University, the U.S. State Department notified the Philippines that America could not recognize those islands some 200 nautical miles away from the waters of the Philippines as its territory, according to the Spanish-American Treaty in 1898.
In the 1970s, the Philippines illegally occupied China's Nansha Islands again. To cover up its act of aggression, it described the Taiping Dao as a "rock". The truth is that when the Chinese government recovered Taiping Dao after WWII, it found six freshwater wells and lush plants there.
According to Japanese archives, during its occupation of Tailing Dao, Japan exploited phosphates and there were over 600 people living there.
Obviously the Philippines is trying to deceive the international community, but China did not resort to force. Instead, it proposed negotiation, and later suggested "shelving disputes and joint development."
As a country whose people left their footprints on the islands in the South China Sea more than 2000 years ago, China has exercised restraint, not out of fear, but for the good of the region.
Interference by the United States, on the contrary, is not to uphold justice as it has proclaimed, but to contain China and jeopardize regional peace. If Asia is in turmoil, the United States has nothing to lose.
Neither is China the only country refusing to enforce the ruling of an international court with no jurisdiction. The United States is doing just the same. Pressing China to follow the upcoming arbitration result will only attest the country's love of double standards.
Nevertheless, whatever the result is, the real challenge is the obsolete thinking that a rising power is sure to seek hegemony.
If the United States is unwilling to off-load its thinking and try to appreciate China's logic and culture, similar farces will occur again in different forms. Regional peace and shared development will then be a distant memory in Asia.
Ex-official: Philippines 'must be dissuaded' Updated: 2016-07-06 11:04 By Ji Tao and Dong Leshuo in Washington and Li Xiaokun in Beijing(China Daily USA)
Former State councilor Dai Bingguo: 'urgent' need to halt arbitration
The Philippines "must be dissuaded from making any further provocation in the South China Sea, or otherwise China will not sit by idly", a former senior Chinese leader warned on Tuesday.
Former State Councilor Dai Bingguo made the remark in his keynote speech at a dialogue on the South China Sea between Chinese and US think tanks on Tuesday in Washington.
Dai said that "the urgent priority is to stop the arbitration case initiated by the Philippines".
"If the tribunal insisted on its way and produced an 'award', no one and no country should implement the award in any form, much less to force China into implementation," the former top Chinese diplomat said.
Dai became honorary president of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University after retiring from government in 2013.
The dialogue was co-organized by Renmin University's Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Chinese ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai and former US ambassador to China J. Stapleton Roy, as well as experts from China and the US, attended the event.
Dai said that although China possesses the ability to recover the islands that were illegally occupied by other countries, "in the interest of regional peace and stability, China has all along exercised enormous restraint".
The talks on the sea were held as the Arbitral Tribunal in The Hague, established at Manila's unilateral request despite China's objection, was scheduled to announce its ruling on the South China Sea arbitration case on July 12. The US, a major ally of Manila, has publicly pressed Beijing to accept the ruling.
Dai said the South China Sea might sink into chaos, and so might all of Asia, if the momentum of provocation in the region goes unchecked.
Urging the concerned parties to "not allow Asia to become another West Asia and North Africa", the soft-spoken Dai warned that "anyone intent on fueling the flames and unleashing disastrous outcomes will be held accountable by history".
Dai also said that China would not be intimidated by US actions, "not even if the US sent 10 aircraft carriers to the South China Sea".
Former State councilor Dai Bingguo (center) gives a keynote speech at the China-US Dialogue on South China Sea at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Tuesday in Washington. niu yue / for China Daily
"To be blunt, when the US states today that it does not take a position on issues of territory, it actually amounts to backpedaling and defiance of the postwar international order, which the US itself participated in building."
He said that the Xisha Islands and Nansha Islands, illegally occupied by Japan during World War II, were restored to China after the war in accordance with the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation.
"Many of you were probably not aware of this, but China's actions to restore the islands were supported by General Douglas MacArthur," Dai said.
Former State councilor Dai Bingguo (center) and Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai (fourth from right) with Chinese and American think tank experts at the China-US Dialogue on the South China Sea held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Tuesday in Washington. Ji Tao / China Daily
After Japan's surrender, China's military and government personnel were ferried by US-provided military vessels to Xisha and Nansha Islands to hold the restoration ceremony.
"After that, the US filed applications to Chinese authorities on Taiwan to conduct geodetic survey in some of Nansha Islands on many occasions," he said.
"All this shows that the return of Nansha Islands to China is part of the postwar international order and relevant territorial arrangements," Dai pointed out.
Ambassador Roy said there are some very constructive elements in Dai's speech, and he highlighted three points.
"One is both sides try to lower the temperature in the South China Sea, that's very important," he said.
"Secondly, he (Dai) said that territory issues should be resolved peacefully through negotiations, not through the use of force; that's an important part of China's position, and I think we need to pay attention to it," Roy continued.
"The third point was China and the United States should work cooperatively on this issue; that's a very important point also."
Shi Yinhong, an expert on US studies at Renmin University of China, said that if there are provocations from either the Philippines or the US and others after the ruling.
"China will certainly respond, in both diplomatic and military ways".
William Jones, Washington bureau chief for Executive Intelligence Review (EIR), said Dai gave an excellent speech and presentation of the Chinese position.
"I hope it is widely understood and widely read by people in the (US) administration, although sometimes I doubt whether they will change their views," Jones said.
"But I think it's very important because he addressed on one hand the necessity of avoiding a conflict in the region over this issue.
"But (Dai) also criticized the position that China would have to accept what the US has been calling the international law but which many legal scholars and many countries don't consider binding on China."
Myron Nordquist, associate director and editor of the Center for Oceans Law and Policy at the University of Virginia School of Law, said he believes the US is behind the issue "because it wants to get back to the military base it was kicked out of".
Niu Yue in Washington and Chen Weihua in Hawaii contributed to this story.
Contact the writers at lixiaokun@chinadaily.com.cn
Solar-powered visitor begins orbiting Jupiter Updated: 2016-07-06 07:28 By Associated Press in Pasadena, California(China Daily USA)
NASA mission leaders Diane Brown (left), Juno program executive, and Scott Bolton (center), Juno chief scientist, celebrate after the spacecraft entered Jupiter's orbit. Robyn Beck / Afp
Soaring over Jupiter's poles, a NASA spacecraft arrived at the solar system's largest planet on a mission to peek behind the cloud tops.
The final leg of the five-year voyage ended on Monday when the solar-powered Juno spacecraft fired its main rocket engine and gracefully slipped into orbit around Jupiter. NASA mission controllers celebrated when Juno sent back radio signals confirming it had reached its destination.
"We're there. We're in orbit. We conquered Jupiter," Juno chief scientist Scott Bolton said during a post-mission briefing.
In the weeks leading up to the encounter, Juno snapped pictures of the giant planet and its four inner moons. Scientists were surprised to see Jupiter's second-largest moon, Callisto, appearing dimmer than expected.
The spacecraft's camera and other instruments were switched off for arrival, so there weren't any pictures at that key moment. Scientists have promised close-up views of the planet when Juno skims the cloud tops during the 20-month, $1.1 billion mission managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The fifth planet from the sun and the heftiest in the solar system, Jupiter is known as a gas giant - a ball of hydrogen and helium - unlike rocky Earth and Mars.
With its billowy clouds and colorful stripes, Jupiter is an extreme world that likely formed first, shortly after the sun. Unlocking its history may hold clues to understanding how Earth and the rest of the solar system developed.
Named after Jupiter's cloud-piercing wife in Roman mythology, Juno is only the second mission designed to spend time at Jupiter.
Galileo, launched in 1989, circled Jupiter for nearly a decade, beaming back splendid views of the planet and its numerous moons.
UK Iraq report highly critical of Tony Blair Updated: 2016-07-06 23:20 By CHRIS PETERSON in London(China Daily)
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair took Britain to war against Iraq in 2003 on the basis of flawed intelligence and failure to share with his ministers the many personal notes he sent to President George W. Bush, according to a report on Britains role in the Iraq war published on Wednesday, seven years after it was commissioned.
The report, according to analysts, was damning in its criticisms.
There is evidence of gross recklessness, said Philippe Sands, a leading UK human rights lawyer.
The seven-volume report 2.6 million words and three times as big as the complete works of William Shakespeare and five times as large as Leo Tolstoys epic novel War and Peace was ordered in 2009 by Blairs successor as prime minister, Gordon Brown.
As the report was unveiled at a conference center in Central London, several hundred demonstrators from the ``Stop the War movement, which held regular protests before and during the invasion, held a silent vigil in the street, many carrying the movements signature placards, which showed a deliberate misspelling of Blairs name, ``BLIAR.
Blair, who was Labour Party prime minister from 1997 to 2008, took Britain to war in Iraq as part of a US-led coalition, ostensibly because Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. In the 2003 invasion and aftermath which toppled Saddam, 179 British soldiers were killed.
From 2003 to 2014, when US combat units were withdrawn, 4,491 US service personnel were killed.
No evidence of weapons of mass destruction, a euphemism for chemical or nuclear weapons, was found.
Blair has repeatedly been accused by UK politicians from all parties of being too close to the then US president, Bush. The inquiry found that Blair sent 31 private notes to Bush, often without reference to his ministers or senior officials.
Before the various options for dealing with Saddam had been exhausted, Blair wrote to Bush that he was ``with you, whatever, said Sir John Chilcot, the retired civil servant who headed the report.
The report has been delayed because of a rule that anyone mentioned in the report had a right of reply to any criticism, and the protracted process of obtaining Blairs communications with Bush. The US has refused to release Bushs responses to Blairs communications.
The reportfound that there had been serious intelligence failures, and a string of bad judgments made by senior officials.
Chilcot said his investigations and interviews with more than 150 witnesses had concluded that there was a lack of planning for what would happen after the invasion, and ``the consequences of invasion were over-estimated.
The weapons of mass destruction case was presented with unjustified certainty, Chilcot said in his presentation, adding that because Blair and Bush had not waited for a second UN Security Council resolution, the UK was undermining the UN Security Councils authority.
We have concluded that the decisions taken on legal justification were not satisfactory, he added.
Blair reacted to the report by saying his decision to invade along with US-led forces was taken in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country.
But he added in a statement after the report was released: I will take full responsibility for any mistakes.
Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons today, Clearly, we need to learn the lessons of this report.
Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, who in the past has called for Blair to stand trial for war crimes, said the invasion had been on false pretexts, and has long been regarded as illegal. The war fuelled and spread terrorism in the region.
Blair, who has since built up an international consulting firm with many government contacts, including China and Saudi Arabia, said he did not believe the removal of Saddam Hussein is the cause of terrorism we see today.
An estimated 150,000 Iraqis, mainly civilians, were killed in the invasion and its aftermath, and over one million made homeless.
To contact the reporter: chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com
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The Vietnam Glass and Ceramics for Construction Corporation (Viglacera) and Cuba's Geicons Group are set to establish a joint venture producing ceramics sanitary wares and tiles in October. VNA/VNS Photo The Duyet
HA NOI The Viet Nam Glass and Ceramics for Construction Corporation (Viglacera) and Cubas Geicons Group are set to establish a joint venture producing ceramics sanitary wares and tiles.
According to Viglacera, the two sides signed an agreement on the joint venture in April.
The joint venture, once established in October, will contribute to meeting the demand for construction materials in Cuba and the Latin American market.
Viet Nam is the second biggest trade partner of Cuba in Asia, with bilateral trade value exceeding US$207 million in 2014, according to the General Department of Customs.
Viet Nams major exports to Cuba include rice, coal, chemicals, textiles and computers; while Cuba exports pharmaceuticals to Viet Nam, worth nearly $1.3 million.
According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, as of December 2015, there was one Cuban project operating in Viet Nam with a registered capital of $6.6 million. Viet Nam also had one oil project in Cuba. VNS
Vietnamese firms should seek more investment opportunities in Japan, especially in the information and technology (IT) sector. VNA/VNS Photo
HA NOI Vietnamese firms should seek more investment opportunities in Japan, especially in the information and technology (IT) sector, said Shigeki Maeda, vice president of the Japan External Trade Organisation, during a conference held yesterday in the capital.
After investing successfully in Japans IT sector, Vietnamese companies could then expand their investment in other potential markets worldwide, the vice chairman said.
The Japanese Government has made great efforts to attract foreign investors, he said, adding that his organisation has also established a consultancy centre to help foreign enterprises navigate the administrative procedures of investing in Japan, he noted.
o Nhat Hoang, head of the Ministry of Planning and Investments Foreign Investment Agency, said Vietnamese firms have so far pumped about US$9 billion into 1,000 overseas projects, mainly in the agriculture, telecommunications and IT industries.
In Japan alone, domestic firms had 40 projects worth about $7 million. That helped Japan rank 45th among countries and territories that have seen Vietnamese investment, Hoang said.
He vowed that his agency would create the most favourable conditions for local firms to invest abroad, including Japan. VNS
HA NOI The National Assembly, the Government and the offices still have a lot of work to do to put the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement into practice, a government official has said.
They must all create new motivation for the nation during the integration process once the agreement is ratified, the official added.
Speaking at a conference on the TPP and its compatibility with Viet Nams laws on Tuesday, Le Minh Thong, deputy head of the NA Law Committee, stressed the need to have revisions and supplementations to complete the law system and establish a legal corridor that conforms to the TPP.
According to the committee, among the 194 legal documents reviewed, the Justice Ministry proposed that the government amend 34 documents -- 10 laws, 22 decrees and two directives of the prime minister -- and issue nine new documents -- one law, seven decrees and one directive -- and remove one ordinance.
Bach Quoc An, head of the International Law Department under the Justice Ministry, said the TPP contains a mechanism on dealing with competition among investors, which poses numerous challenges for Viet Nam in the process of enforcing the law.
The agreements commitments also involve issues related to labour, corruption and environment, and therefore it is essential to improve the quality of State management officials and the capability of lawyers in international competition-related issues.
Meanwhile, Ngo Quang At, deputy head of the Department on Administrative Affairs under the Ministry of Home Affairs, noted that the TPP requires transparency and equality between State and private enterprises and between domestic and foreign enterprises.
Therefore, incentives for State-owned businesses in Viet Nam and complicated administrative procedures will be obstacles in the implementation of the agreement.
He suggested eliminating more than 3,500 sub-licences, which act as a hindrance to businesses while facilitating operations. The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement may be ratified by the National Assembly by the end of this year.
It brings together Australia, Brunei, Canada and Chile, as well as Japan, Malaysia, Mexico and New Zealand, along with Peru, Singapore, the United States and Viet Nam. Economic ministers of these countries signed the trade pact in New Zealand on February 4, 2016.
The member states now have two years to complete domestic work for the ratification of the TPP. The pact will come into effect once it is ratified by the parliaments of at least six signatory countries, which together must have an overall GDP of at least 85 per cent of all member countries. - VNS
VIENTIANE Vietnamese and Laos businesses were urged to thoroughly study the contents of the trade and border trade agreements signed by the two countries to take advantage of the two deals.
Speaking at a conference to disseminate the two deals in the Lao central province of Savannakhet on Tuesday, Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Cam Tu said the trade agreement was signed in March 2015 to replace an outdated pact adopted in 1998.
The two countries signed the border trade agreement in June 2015, under which they promised to grant special preferences to each other, he added. The official said he hoped the conference will help Vietnamese and Laos enterprises access business opportunities in their respective countries and map out future business strategies.
After the two agreements were signed, leaders of the two countries had informed their business communities of the agreements as a way to facilitate their operation.
The Vietnamese and Laos ministries of industry and trade are always ready to support the two countries firms to elevate trade and investment ties on par with the fruitful bilateral political links, Tu affirmed.
Laos Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce Siaosawat Savengsuksa called on entrepreneurs from the two sides to raise questions regarding the two trade deals, which would be promptly responded to by officials of the two ministries.
Phan Thanh Thu, director of Viet Nams Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group based in the Laos central province of Attapeu, said the two agreements had raised confidence and created momentum for enterprises of the two countries to move forward.
He said the border trade deal had helped remove many obstacles for his companys sugar shipments to Viet Nam.
Kaseumsack Keosayavong, chairman of Laos multi-sectoral Chaleunsap Group in the central province of Bolikhasay, said the deals, especially the border trade agreement, would help facilitate the trading of goods via the common border line between the two countries, thus benefiting businesses.
He noted that the exemption of export-import tax imposed on farm produce in Viet Nam would enable his group to increase its presence in the neighbouring country.
The conference was held by the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Laos Ministry of Industry and Commerce in collaboration with the Vietnamese Consulate General in Savannakhet Province. Some 140 representatives from Laos and from Vietnamese enterprises doing business in the southern and central regions of Laos participated in the conference. VNS
HA NOI TRAFFIC and Intelligentmedia have launched the second phase of its Chi (Strength of Will) initiative, with updated messages and images that continue its mission to instill a zero-tolerance attitude towards rhino-horn consumption.
The Chi message has already reached over 5 million Vietnamese people and has actively engaged 2 million businessmen attending conferences, workshops and other events in Viet Nam, head of TRAFFICs Viet Nam office Madelon Willemsen said at the launch ceremony here today.
The private and public sectors are showing leadership in the fight against wildlife crime, with Chi as the driving force that will instill a zero-tolerance attitude towards illegal consumption of wildlife, added Willemsen.
The initiative is based on the Vietnamese concept of Chi to target the group identified as the primary users of rhino horns: wealthy urban men between the ages of 35 and 55.The overarching message of Chi is that success, masculinity and good fortune come from an individuals strength of character and not externally from a piece of horn. It encourages wealthy businessmen to demonstrate their Chi by becoming leaders in corporate social responsibility endeavours and through wildlife protection.
The new phase of Chi builds on this foundation but drives home an even more powerful message Vuong tu Chi, Lui vi sung which roughly translates as Gain prosperity through inner strength Invite hardship using the rhino horn.
It also calls on individual businessmen to act as leaders in their community and take a stand against the consumption of rhino horns in their personal lives and business networks.In the latest phase, businessman Tran Bao Son joins Khai Silk and other successful business leaders in proclaiming that men should harness their inner strength and character and refute the notion that these traits come from external factors, such as rhino horns.
Demand for rhino horns in Asia is driving the poaching of rhinos in the continent and in Africa, with over 1,000 of them killed illegally each year for their horns, putting their future survival at risk. Rhino horns are mainly used by wealthy individuals as a supposed health tonic and as a means to flaunt their wealth, as the buying and selling of rhino horns is illegal under international law and national legislation in Viet Nam.
The first phase of Chi was launched on World Rhino Day, September 22, in 2014 by TRAFFIC and Save the Rhino International and was funded by the UK government.
TRAFFIC is a non-governmental organisation working globally against the trade in wild animals and plants, in the context of both biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. VNS
Cutting across barriers: Little friends, a photo by Hoang Ngoc Thach.
Viet Nam News
HA NOI The beauty of Viet Nam, from the coastal region to the highlands, is portrayed in photos displayed at the exhibition Viet Nam Today.
Officially launched yesterday, the exhibition is a result of a contest organised by the Viet Nam National Administration ofTourism (VNAT) and Viet Nam Association of Photographic Artists.
Natures art: A tourist joined a buffalo painting festival in Ha Nam Province. The photo was taken by Le Ngoc Huy
The contest was held with the aim to gather photos to promote national tourism and encourage photographic artists to discover the countrys beauty.
It started last December. After six months, the organising board received nearly 5,500 entries including coloured and monochrome photos.
Of those submissions, the 11 best photos were selected and awarded prizes, and nearly 100 entries went on display at the exhibition. Back to Origin, a photo by Nguyen Trang Kim Cuong, received the top prize.
Sharing history: Back to Origin, a photo by Nguyen Trang Kim Cuong, received the top prize in a contest organised by the Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism.
The photos cover several topics, including destinations, historical relics, cultural activities, traditional handicrafts and the exchange between locals and tourists.
The photos all demonstrate high quality, effort and creativity, said Ha Van Sieu, deputy director general of the VNAT.
Smiling eyes: A Dao mother, taken by Vu Manh Cuong.
Full speed ahead: Boat racing in Lan Ha Bay, a photo by Vu Thanh Chung.
The photos depict the beauty of our people, culture and landscape seen through various angles of the photographers, said Sieu.
The photographers put Vietnamese tourism in the spotlight and depict the unforgettable moments tourists experience when they travel to Viet Nam. In these photos, foreigners not only enjoy the pulchritude of nature, but also participate in locals daily lives and cultural activities.
The exhibition of photos selected from the contest will run until Saturday at the Exhibition House, 29 Hang Bai Street, Ha Noi. VNS
President Tran ai Quang (R) receives out-going Belarusian Ambassador Valery Sadokho in Ha Noi yesterday. VNA/VNS Photo Nhan Sang
HA NOI Viet Nam will continue to attach importance to developing friendship and cooperation with its traditional friends, including Belarus, President Tran ai Quang told out-going Belarusian Ambassador Valery Sadokho yesterday.
During their meeting in Ha Noi, the President called on the two countries to effectively actualise the free trade agreement between Viet Nam and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) to which Belarus is a member, together with Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.
The move aimed to increase trade, expand investment cooperation and create more economic cooperation projects between the two countries, he said. Echoing his hosts views, Valery Sadokho said the trade agreement opened up new opportunities for the two sides to step up their economic, trade and investment ties. He added that simplification of visa procedures for the two countries citizens helped raise the number of Belarusian tourists to the Southeast Asian nation by 1.5 times.
Belarus would set up two businesses assembling automobiles and specialised vehicles in Viet Nam in order to meet the demands of the Vietnamese market and regional countries, the ambassador noted. Acknowledging contributions made by the Belarusian Embassy in Viet Nam and Valery Sadokho himself to the time-honoured friendship between the two countries, President Quang noted his hope that the ambassador would contribute more to the relationship. VNS
Vietnamese people living in Cambodia at a meeting to celebrate the Reunification Day. VNA/VNS Photo
HA NOI The Vietnamese Embassy in Cambodia has conducted measures to ensure citizen protection following Cambodian forces arrest of 84 Vietnamese people on July 1.
On the day, Cambodian forces raided several hired houses in Niroth ward, Chbar Ampov district, Phnom Penh, arresting 84 Vietnamese people for illegal residence. They were then brought to the Cambodian General Department of Immigrations Detention Centre for Foreigners.
After being informed of the case, the Foreign Ministry directed the embassy to work with local offices to carry out necessary citizen protection measures.
The embassy requested the general department to free the arrestees as most of them are Vietnamese Cambodians residing legally in the country. As of July 3, all of them were set free.
Meanwhile, on June 26, the Vietnamese Embassy in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) coordinated with local offices to successfully rescue a Vietnamese citizen who was forced into prostitution.
Based on the embassys information, Dubai police arrested 11 people, including four Vietnamese, said to be involved in the case.
In April, the embassy succeeded in rescuing two Vietnamese people kept in detention.
Going forward, the embassy will maintain close cooperation with both Vietnamese and UAE offices to ensure safety for the Vietnamese community there. VNS
Gia Loc
HCM CITY Vocational training schools are revamping their curricula and offering new training majors in an attempt to stem the decline in the number of students applying to the schools.
As of last year, there were 1,467 private and public vocational training schools and more than 1,000 other establishments with vocational training courses, a 3.5-fold increase compared to 2010.
Speaking at a recent workshop on staff for industrial parks and export processing zones, Nguyen Thi Hang, rector of HCM City Vocational College of Technology, said the school had launched a new training major in water supply, sewage and waste water treatment to meet demand of enterprises for qualified personnel.
In 2013, the college invited German experts and HCM City water supply and sewage companies to set up the training major.
Occupational criteria for skills in sewage and waste water treatment were established last year.
Twenty students signed up for the major last year.
To ensure jobs for the students, the college has signed agreements with five water supply and sewage companies in southern provinces, including Binh Duong and ong Nai, as well as HCM City.
Le Anh uc, rector of ong Nai College of High Technology, said the college had plans to offer training in industrial waste water treatment.
We will train students for future jobs. Unnecessary lessons which focus too much on theory will be eliminated, he said.
The college has asked enterprises to assess the quality of the vocational school graduates who are hired.
Staff hired with training at vocational schools will be paid higher salaries than those without training.
This will be an incentive for staff and prospective students to attend vocational school.
Having more enterprises work with us is the best way to advertise the schools brand name, uc added.
About 129 local and foreign enterprises are taking part in the colleges training programmes.
Enterprises provide counselling on what the college should change, and explain their work culture and industrial hygiene requirements.
For electronics, electricity, mechanics and other training majors, companies offer practical courses at company workshops.
The enterprises are members of the colleges eight advisory boards for vocational quality, which are in charge of training assessment.
In 2014, the college was selected to attend a human resource programme for Japanese enterprises at a supporting industry complex in ong Nai Province.
The provinces Technical Human Resource Training Centre, managed by the Export Processing and Industrial Zones Authority, chose the college for the programme, in co-operation with the Kansai Bureau of Economy, Trade and Industry.
The college sent its lecturers to Japan for additional training.
Students are trained in Japanese enterprises work culture, Japanese language, and labour safety, uc said.
The Pacific Resource Exchange Centre in Osaka has helped the college set up flexible training programmes for majors that meet enterprises demands.
The colleges stable enrollment is the result of this collaboration, while other vocational schools and even universities still find it difficult to do, he said, adding that the college enrolled 700 to 1,000 students each year.
Offering tuition assistance has also helped attract students.
In 2013, for example, the Viet Nam National Coal/Mineral Industries Holding Corporation Ltd increased tuition aid to untrained workers to attend the Viet Nam Vocational College of Coal and Minerals.
However, even though their housing and tuition was paid by the corporation, the college still found it difficult to attract enough students because of the fear of accidents and a hazardous working environment.
Nguyen Van Vu, deputy head of the ong Nai College of High Technologys Training Department, said that the college and province had preferential policies on providing tuition for secondary school graduates who have a provincial residential book.
Students with financial difficulties can receive scholarships or tuition exemption.
uc of ong Nai College of Technology said that high school teachers could help students decide on pursuing vocational school or university.
Occupational counselling should be carried out at secondary schools in addition to high schools, he said.
A study conducted by Le Thi Ngoc Thuong of HCM City University of Education found that counselling was offered to 12th graders only.
Agreeing with Thuong, many students who were surveyed said that counselling should be expanded to other grades.
However, a major in occupational counseling is not offered at any university in Viet Nam. VNS
A lime kiln collapsed in Phu Thu Town in the northern province of Hai Duong on Sunday killing five people. Photo nld.com.vn
HA NOI Two recent work-related accidents in which six people were killed were caused by weak management at both central and local levels, said labour experts.
A lime kiln collapsed in Phu Thu Town in the northern province of Hai Duong on Sunday killing five people. Another accident occurred on Saturday in a stone pit in Quan Hoa District, in the central province of Thanh Hoa, killing one person and injuring another.
Nguyen Anh Tho, deputy director of the Labour Safety Department under MoLISA, told the Nong Thon Ngay Nay (Countryside Today) newspaper that the owners of the lime kiln and the stone pit must be the first to bear responsibility for the accidents.
The owners did not supply the necessary tools, and did not provide enough information about work-related risks to their employees, said Tho.
Le inh Tung, deputy director of the Thanh Hoa Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, said that since the beginning of this year, the department had set up inspection teams to check labour safety in different professions.
Last month a team checked labour safety at the Sinh Vuong Trade and Tourism Services Co-operative, which saw an accident with two fatalities on Sunday.
The team discovered multiple faults, such as the co-operative not providing worker safety training, not letting its workers sign contracts and not checking the quality of its machines.
The team asked the co-operative to temporarily suspend its work until it satisfies all worker safety conditions. However, the accident happened after the co-operative restarted work, said Tung.
This Monday, the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA), in co-ordination with the Hai Duong Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, set up an inspection team to investigate the cause of the lime kiln accident.
On the same day, the Hai Duong Peoples Committee issued a warning document to lime kilns and brick kilns in the province.
Phung Huy Giat, an expert from the Vietnam Occupational Safety and Health Association, said that not all managers in wards and communes received labour safety training.
This was the indirect reason behind labour accidents, he said.
The amended Law on Occupational Safety and Health, which was put into effect at the beginning of this month, regulated work safety conditions in agriculture and services. Previously, the country did not have any detailed regulations on the issue, so ensuring work safety in agriculture had met a lot of difficulties, said Giat.
MoLISA promulgated national norms in the stone exploitation sector in 2012, but the norms were not passed on effectively to enterprises, Giat said.
Speaking about reasons behind the two recent accidents, Giat said that one reason was weak management at both central and local levels, not only in the stone processing sector, but also in other sectors.
At present, most management work is done by ward and commune authorities who have little training in worker safety.
Nguyen Quoc Thi, chairman of the Hong Phong Commune Peoples Committee in Ninh Giang District, in the northern province of Hai Duong, said that local authorities regularly gave warnings to enterprises, but they still did not pay enough attention to worker safety. VNS
HCM CITY City authorities are seeking investors for a US$376-million monorail project, which they aim to be included on a list of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects in need of Project Development Facility (PDF) capital.
The city is asking approval from the Ministry of Planning and Investment to include the monorail project on the list.
The 3-line monorail will ensure connections between the urban railway system and other public transport, such as bus, taxi and waterway vehicles.
Ground-breaking is expected to take place in 2019 and be completed in five years.
Monorail No.3, which runs from the Phan Van Tri - Nguyen Oanh crossroads in Go Vap District through Quang Trung Software Park to Tan Chanh Hiep station in District 12, is expected to attract a huge number of passengers.
The 16.5km route, which connects to monorail No.4 (running from Thanh Xuan Hiep Phuoc) at the Go Vap six-way intersection, includes a six-hectare depot in District 12s Tan Chanh Hiep Ward.
A Thai investor has expressed interest in the project, but the city plans to choose the investor by an international tender.
Detailed proposals for the project will be made next year, and a feasibility study, along with land clearance, will occur in the next two years.
The monorail system is expected to ease traffic congestion and pollution, and help reduce the number of accidents.
According to the citys master plan for transport to 2020 approved by the Government, the southern hub will have eight metro lines, six bus rapid transit routes, and three tramway or monorail lines.
The tramway No.1 line, which is 13 kilometres long, will run from Ba Son Shipyard through Ton uc Thang Street, Me Linh Square, Vo Van Kiet Street and Ly Chieu Hoang Street to the Southwestern Region Bus Station in Binh Tan District and Thanh a Urban Area in Binh Thanh District.
Meanwhile, the VN15-trillion monorail No. 2, which will be 27.2 kilometres in length, will start at the Nguyen Van Linh Boulevard - National Highway No.1A - National Highway No.50 intersection in District 8.
It will run through densely populated residential areas in Binh Chanh and Binh Thanh districts as well as districts 2 and 7.
This monorail train is expected to attract many passengers as it passes through a series of populated areas.
Monorail trains have the advantage of being less expensive than other railway systems, including underground railways. VNS
Initial statistics showed that 6,212 households, or 30,450 fishermen, were affected by the environmental incident caused by Formosas waste release in four central provinces of Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien - Hue. VNA/VNS Photo
THUA THIEN - HUE Authorities in Thua Thien - Hue Province have announced that the estimated initial damage of the locality from the mass fish deaths was VN135 billion or US$6 million, following a meeting report released on Monday.
Initial statistics showed that 6,212 households, or 30,450 fishermen, were affected by the environmental incident caused by Formosas waste release in four central provinces of Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien - Hue.
The operation of 2,939 fishing ships was halted, and 136,608 kilogrammes of fish in floating breeding farms were discarded due to the incident.
Participants at the meeting said the province needed further investigation to find out the level of damage to the marine ecosystem in the area. Detailed surveys will be conducted to provide exact statistics of the damage to each economic sector.
Investigation and monitoring work will be carried out in adjacent areas, including lagoons and estuaries.
Thua Thien - Hue was the second locality announcing initial damage from the Formosa poison, after Quang Binh. Experts said that it seems to be too late to conduct this work, as the incident happened in April. VNS
The US Government has provided US$500,000 in additional emergency assistance to people in Mekong Delta provinces as they experienced the worst drought and saltwater intrusion in Viet Nam in the last decade. Photo thanhnien.vn
HA NOI The US Government has provided US$500,000 in additional emergency assistance to people in Mekong Delta provinces as they experienced the worst drought and saltwater intrusion in Viet Nam in the last decade, US Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius announced yesterday.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Viet Nam Red Cross would spend the fund on providing water containers, saltwater filtration systems and water purification tablets as well as helping people to exercise good sanitation and hygiene practices to prevent diseases.
Earlier, in May, the US granted Viet Nam $350,000 to help the countrys response to drought and saltwater intrusion that reportedly hit 22 out of 63 cities and provinces across Viet Nam.
Since 2000, the US, through USAIDs Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance, has provided approximately $12 million in disaster response, preparedness and risk reduction assistance to Viet Nam. VNS
QUANG NINH Two people died due to the heavy rainfall which drenched much of the northern province of Quang Ninh yesterday and this morning.
This was announced by the provincial Office of the Steering Committee for Disaster Prevention and search and rescue teams.
The victims inlcuded Tran Van Thanh, 52, living in Hong Gai Ward, who was killed when a section of the embankment collapsed over him in his houses kitchen.
The other victim was Hoang Thi Kha, 56, who was swept into the sewage system by flood waters in Gieng ay Ward.
Kha was hospitalised immediately at the Bai Chay Hospital but died at 1.30am this morning.
According to reports in the local newspaper, heavy rainfall has damaged the irrigation canal in Tien Yen Ward.
Several roads in Cam Pha City and households in Cam Thach, Cam Phu and Cam Trung are flooded.
Many wards in Ha Long City are also covered in deep water due to the heavy rainfall yesterday and this morning.
Several households in Ha Long and Cam Pha cities are covered with mud.
The newspaper reported that some households were covered in 2m-deep water, causing their furniture to rot.
The floods triggered by heavy rains have affected the movement of vehicles in some areas in the region, such as the Bai Chay tourism site, the Cai Lan industrial zone and Bach ang Ward, and have also led to landslides in the Bai Chay and Hong Gai wards.
At 1am this morning, the water level dropped and traffic returned to normal.
Nearly 100 households in Ha Long and Cam Pha cities have been evacuated to safe places.
Nguyen uc Long, chairman of the Peoples Committee, inspected some flooded areas in Ha Long City.
The chairman asked the heads of some construction projects to stop their work and instead help drain water in the flooded areas.
Long also visited and provided solace to the families of victims, who were killed in the heavy rain yesterday.
The provincial authorities have sent an urgent message to local authorities to implement urgent measures to deal with the aftermath of the heavy rains, landslides and floods.
The provincial Hydro-Meteorology Forecasting Centre has forecast that torrential rainfall will continue for some hours.
Many local residents complained of inadequate construction planning of the city and a poor drainage system that did not match urban development
This was the reason for the floods in Ha Long City following the heavy downpour.
Last August, unprecedented heavy rainfall in the province claimed 17 lives and caused nearly VN3 trillion (US$136.3 million) in damage. VNS
HCM CITY Using information technology in agriculture is imperative for improving productivity and quality and reducing costs to bolster the sectors competitiveness amid the countrys integration, a seminar heard in HCM City on Tuesday.
Tu Minh Thien, deputy head of the Agricultural High Tech Park of HCM City (AHTP), told the seminar organised by AHTP, Quang Trung Software City, and Global CyberSoft Vietnam (GCS) that technology in the sector is developing slower than in other sectors, while the countrys research and development capabilities lag behind others.
With tariff exemption under the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, the agricultural sector would enjoy opportunities to boost exports, Thien said.
But it continues to face shortcomings in terms of strains, production, harvest, post-harvest, and transportation, he said.
Therefore, it needs to develop a hi-tech production chain based on international standards and support farmers access businesses supply chain, he said.
The main tasks are to build and operate a sustainable goods supply chain for both the export and domestic markets, develop links between farmers, co-operatives and other production groups to expand supply between them and distributors to ensure outlets for their produce, he said.
AHTP in collaboration with the Quang Trung Software City and Global CyberSoft Vietnam have piloted the SmartAgri project on cantaloupe at the park since last December.
The project has seen early positive results, with cantaloupe output going up by 10 per cent and their quality and weight remaining consistent, he said.
Tran Kim Vu of Global CyberSoft Vietnam said SmartAgri is an agriculture production management system from the nursery to harvest and preservation.
It is developed based on the most advanced technologies, including the Internet of Things big data analytics and cloud computing.
Traditionally, checking humidity, temperature, and light intensity for plants has been done manually and mainly based on experience, he said.
SmartAgri helps collect and analyse the information about temperature, moisture, light, and pH automatically through sensors.
This ensures standard environmental conditions for the plants.
Its other features include a real-time alert system via SMS, email and alarm and analysis of quantity and quality, he said.
It helps establish an agricultural ecosystem for exchanging information, sharing experience and planning production among farmers, retailers, traders, and enterprises, he said.
It automates crop, livestock and fishery production processes.
The application of this system would help boost both quality and quantity of agricultural produce, decrease costs and improve competitiveness.
It would enable production to conform to VietGap and Global Gap standards to enable more exports to difficult markets like the US, Japan, and EU.
But the model has only been tested in plastic greenhouse cultivation models, and experts would continue research to come up with new applications appropriate for farmers needs, he added. VNS
HA NOI Viet Nams population density of 274 persons per square kilometre is 5.2 times higher than the world average , the Ministry of Healths General Office of Population and Family Planning said yesterday.
As of July 1, there were 91.7 million people in the country, the eighth highest average in Asia and third highest in Southeast Asia, it added.
At a conference to mark World Population Day (July 11), held yesterday in Ha Noi, ang Van Nghi, head of the general office, said the quality of the population increased remarkably when the infant mortality rate for children aged under five and the fatality rate for mothers reduced, while the average life expectancy rate started to rise.
In the first six months of this year, the population and family planning office faced a few challenges. The budget for their programmes was estimated at VN590 billion (US$26.4 million), much lower than the general offices proposal of VN1 trillion ($44.4 billion).
As a result, the national birth rate has increased by 9.9 per cent compared to the same period last year. The rate of using contraception is only 75 per cent compared to the same period last year.
The high density of the population has also put pressure on many other issues, especially the availability of jobs, the average income and social welfare programmes.
In particular, the sex ratio at birth in the country is imbalanced, with 112.8 males for every 100 females.
Foetal sex selection was blamed for the gender imbalance, he said.
Nghi said in the last six months of this year, the general office would focus more on population and family planning programmes. VNS
BAGHDAD Iraqs interior minister submitted his resignation on Tuesday as authorities sought to contain the fallout from a bombing in Baghdad that killed more than 200 people and triggered widespread anger.
Officials, apparently seeking to shore up their image after the attack claimed by the Islamic State group, had already announced new security measures, the execution of five convicts and the arrest of 40 jihadists.
The suicide car bombing ripped through Baghdads Karrada district early on Sunday when it was teeming with shoppers ahead of the holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, sparking infernos in nearby buildings.
"I placed my resignation before the prime minister," Mohammed Ghabban told a news conference, though it was unclear if it would be accepted, and he may yet stay in office.
Ghabban said the explosives-rigged car came from Diyala province north of Baghdad, meaning it likely successfully navigated a security checkpoint on the way into the capital.
He described as "absolutely useless" the checkpoints that are littered throughout capital, which have long been a pillar of government efforts to secure the city.
But he did not directly accept responsibility for the bombing, rather saying the security system was fundamentally flawed and that he could not "be responsible for the blood and responsible for this confusion in this security system."
Ghabban called for a series of changes, including transferring responsiblity for the capitals security from the Baghdad Operations Command to the interior ministry, that would ultimately increase the ministers power.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced changes to security measures following the blast, including scrapping fake bomb detectors that were still in use years after the man who sold them to Iraq was jailed for fraud in Britain.
Authorities also hailed the arrest of 40 jihadists who were said to be connected to planned attacks, while the justice ministry announced the execution of five convicts, linking the timing to the Baghdad blast. AFP
ADEN At least six people were killed in a double car bomb attack Wednesday targeting a military base adjoining Aden international airport in southern Yemen, according to a military source who blamed jihadists.
The attackers detonated a car bomb at the entrance to the base, allowing a second vehicle to drive inside where it exploded, the source said, with at least six dead among the military in an updated toll.
"The attackers were jihadists," the source said.
Clashes then broke out between troops and attackers in the base, which was sealed off by government forces sent as reinforcements, witnesses said.
The attack came as Muslims celebrated the feast of Eid al-Fitr which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
The port city of Aden is under the control of government forces who are struggling to secure it more than a year after it was taken back from Shiite
Huthi rebels who have seized control of large parts of the country.Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has exploited the power vacuum created by civil conflict in the impoverished country to expand its presence in the south and southeast. AFP
India is the fastest growing domestic market but is five times smaller than China and nine times smaller than the United States, in terms of market size, according to an International Air Transport Association report.
Ringing Bells, the firm that promised to come up with the cheapest smartphone more than four months ago, is now preparing to launch a price competitive high definition (HD) LED television. While, its dream project a smartphone priced at Rs 251 (less than $4) is yet to materialise, Mohit Goel, managing director, will be unveiling the new TV and two other smartphones on Thursday.
Also Read: Rs 251 Phones Ready, Will Launch 'Cheapest' HD LED TV: Ringing Bells
The first-of-its-kind auction of properties undertaken by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to recover its dues from the group got underway this week.
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By inducting Republican Party of India (RPI) leader Ramdas Athavale in Wednesdays expansion of Union council of ministers, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has sent a stern message to its ally Shiv Sena to follow alliance dharma in true letter and spirit or it is free to chart its own path. Shiv Sena, which is sharing power at the Centre and in Maharashtra, was not even consulted, leave aside accepting its demand for giving one more Cabinet rank and two ministers of state in the Union Cabinet.
04:41 Higgins speaks out after jury discharged over juror misconduct Former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins spoke outside the courtroom after the jury was discharged in the rape trial of Bruce Lehrmann.
06:44 Pool of conscripts for Putin to draft getting smaller It is estimated that some 700,000 Russians have fled the country since President Vladimir Putin announced mobilisation orders a couple of months...
09:08 Jury discharged in Higgins case after juror misconduct found The jury has been discharged in the trial of Bruce Lehrmann, after it was found there had been juror misconduct during the week of deliberations....
04:34 Government has been sitting on their hands as energy prices rise Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley says when the Labor government came into office, no one imagined energy prices might go up 30 to 50...
02:40 Socceroos speak out against Qatars human rights record The Socceroos, backed by the PFA and Football Australia, have released a powerful statement of protest against the hosts of the FIFA World Cup....
Trump tweet draws GOP fire
WASHINGTON (WP) Donald Trump struggled Tuesday to move past his latest social-media firestorm for the fourth consecutive day, facing a bipartisan scolding for tweeting a controversial image attacking Hillary Clinton that was widely viewed as anti-Semitic.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said in a radio interview Tuesday anti-Semitic images have no place in a presidential campaign. Some leading Jewish Republican donors also voiced concerns about Trumps habit of posting material that originated in racist, white supremacist corners of the Internet.
On Saturday, a tweet from Trumps account showed image with Clintons face next to a Star of David shape on top of a bed of money. Inside the star were the words Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!
The tweet was deleted, and the image was posted again with a circle instead of the star.
Electrocuted cubs fall, ignite fire
BANNING, Calif. (AP) Southern California fire officials say a brush fire was ignited when two bear cubs climbed a power pole, were electrocuted by high-voltage lines and their burning bodies fell to the ground.
Firefighters responded at 1:46 a.m. Tuesday and stopped the fires spread at 1 acres.
Noahs ark ready to open in Kentucky
WILLIAMSTOWN, Ky. (AP) A 510-foot-long, $100 million Noahs ark attraction built by Christians who say the biblical story really happened is ready to open in Kentucky this week.
The ark will open to the public Thursday and its creators estimate it will draw 2 million visitors in its first year, putting it on par with some of the big-ticket attractions in nearby Cincinnati.
The group says the ark is built based on dimensions in the Bible. Inside are museum-style exhibits: displays of Noahs family along with rows of cages containing animal replicas, including dinosaurs.
Orphaned elk nuzzles firefighters
CLE ELUM, Wash. (AP) An affectionate elk paid some Washington state firefighters a visit over the holiday weekend as they worked to tame a wildfire.
The orphaned elk, dubbed Buttons by the locals, is a fixture in Kittitas County, where she took up residence with some cows and goats on a hillside.
She arrived at the scene of the fire Saturday, nuzzling up to everyone in the command post.
Fireworks pipe blast kills man
HAWTHORNE, Fla. (AP) Authorities say a Florida man trying to launch mortar-type fireworks through a PVC pipe lodged in the ground was killed when the pipe exploded.
Darren Lotows wife called 911 Monday night, saying she couldnt reach her 42-year-old husband. Rescue workers responded to the nearby pasture, where Lotows wife said he had been trying to set off fireworks for the Fourth of July. Lotow later died at Gainesville hospital.
300 angered by free house hoax
HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. (AP) About 300 people showed up outside Highland Park City Hall on Monday in hopes of getting a free house and $100,000 in cash. They got neither.
The crowd responded to a post on social media that advertised the giveaways as part of Black Independence Day.
City Hall was closed Monday for the July Fourth holiday. Some in the crowd became upset and clashed with police after learning the offers were bogus.
Second in a series
WATERLOO When Jack Geist was a boy, a local businessman paid his way to attend a YMCA summer camp.
Geist promised if he ever was in a position to do the same for someone else, he would.
He kept his word and then some.
Jack has kept this promise, making his life in Waterloo one with purpose and generosity of his resources, time and talents, according to the Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa, which nominated Geist, 87, for The Couriers Eight Over 80 Award.
Geist and his wife, Shirley, established the John E. and Shirley A. Geist Fund with the Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa.
In establishing the fund, Jack Geist offered some advice: If you have more than what you need, you ought to share it. Make sure that the efforts of your lifetime continue to serve a useful purpose.
Geist was speaking from experience: He was a division leader at the United Way and treasurer for 30 years at the Black Hawk Humane Society. He served on the board for Habitat for Humanity and was a working volunteer, building homes every Monday. He also has been a driver for Covenant Caravan, involved in SHIIP, an organization that gives advice to seniors on Medicare and Medical Supplement Insurance. He also served on the Community Concert Band Board, as well as boards for Community Development and the Community Playhouse. He also was in 12 plays.
Jack believes in serving his community and has done so with common sense and intelligence, said longtime colleague and friend Bob Brown, who won the Eight Over 80 Award in 2011. His motto is stay busy and useful. I firmly believe he is a top-notch candidate for the Eight over 80 Award.
Geist, born the same year of the great stock market crash, described himself as a Depression baby, and he said it contributed to a sense of self-determination he developed over the years.
My parents were good people but impecunious no money, he said. My mother was a good-hearted woman. I can remember as a young man, she had been roaming the neighborhood selling paper flowers that she had made out of crepe paper. So, I had a boyhood without support from anybody else, and I deduced that if I was going to make something of myself it was going to be my own initiative, and it turned out pretty well.
Geist said he learned to set goals and work for them from an early age.
He offers that advice to others.
I guess the best advice I could give them would be to take an appraisal of where youre at right now and look ahead and say, Where do I want to be in my personal life, in my business life? And, what do I have to do to bring that about? he said.
Geist was an avid reader and devoured the Horatio Alger novels about young, impoverished boys who worked their way to success.
Geist achieved some measure of success, going into the insurance business with his brother, Rod, and Brown.
Geist retired from the business Dec. 1, 1988.
Thats the second-most memorable thing in my history, he said. The first one was meeting and marrying my wife, Shirley.
The couple marked their 65th anniversary May 6.
The thing that was good about the insurance business is customers were my friends and they looked at me the same way, Geist said. When I retired, I wanted things to do and I worked a number of different things. I was with Covenant Hospital for 15 years. I was with the Habitat people. When that started, I was on the board. I could see they were construction people and had a little skill. Anyway, it was a worthwhile thing to be involved with.
WAVERLY A defendant in Bremer County on Tuesday decided he needed more time before committing to a plea bargain with the county attorneys office.
Jeffrey Friis, 52, of Sumner, is charged with third-offense possession of a controlled substance, methamphetamine, and eluding, which are both felonies. He also is accused of carrying a weapon, operating while intoxicated and third-degree theft, which are misdemeanors.
A plea change hearing was scheduled in district court, but Friis through his attorney, Mark Milder, asked for a delay.
Friis wants to look at a video that might be introduced as evidence as he considers his options, according to County Attorney Kasey Wadding.
Some of the charges stem from an attempted traffic stop Dec. 20 near Tripoli. According to a criminal complaint, Friis pulled away from deputy Brian Bockhaus on Iowa Highway 93 and exceeded the speed limit by more than 25 mph.
When law enforcement officials searched Friis vehicle, they reportedly discovered meth and a homemade sap, a weighted instrument used as a weapon.
The theft charge is linked to a bad check Friis allegedly wrote to U.S. Cellular in November.
Until mid-May Friis was represented by a court-appointed attorney, Linnea Nicol. In a letter, though, he expressed dissatisfaction with Nicol and asked for a new lawyer.
I also feel from the few times that we have talked and threw (sic) your actions or lack there of (sic) you do not have my best intrest (sic) at heart, Friis wrote.
Judge Peter Newell appointed Milder to replace Nicol on the case.
In a separate, unrelated case, Travis Thompson, 42, of Cedar Falls, recently entered a pair of guilty pleas canceling the need for a criminal trial scheduled Aug. 11.
According to court documents, Thompson admitted assaulting Tricia Osgood in November, impeding her breathing by applying pressure to her neck. He also admitted breaking the windshield on a van owned by Linda Wigant in June 2015.
Authorities initially charged Thompson with second-offense domestic abuse assault, third-offense domestic abuse assault and third-degree criminal mischief.
Terms of the potential plea deal are not available in public records. Thompson, though, acknowledged he understood the maximum penalty is up to five years in prison and a $7,500 fine for the assault and up to two years in prison and a $6,250 fine for the criminal mischief.
Osgood in June asked Judge Newell to drop a no-contact order in place against Thompson. Wadding resisted the idea, and Judge Newell denied Osgoods request citing the best interests of the community.
WATERLOO A homeless sex offender has been arrested for allegedly living near a school.
Waterloo police arrested Jylan Curtis Moore, 19, on June 17 for violation of sex offender registry requirements. He was later released from the Black Hawk County Jail.
Moore was convicted of second-degree sexual assault of a child in Wisconsin in 2012 for an offense committed when he was 14 years old, court records state. The conviction requires him to register as a sex offender in the state where he lives.
In January, Moore registered in Iowa, declaring he was homeless. He was required to undergo increased supervision and keep a log of where he sleeps at night because of his homeless status, according to court records. In his log, reported staying in his vehicle in the area of Eighth Street and Hudson Road in Cedar Falls, which is near Holmes Junior High School, and sheriffs deputies reported seeing his vehicle parked at his uncles home on Florence and his grandmothers home on Independence Avenue in Waterloo, court records state. He had earlier been told he couldnt stay at the Independence Avenue address because of it proximity to a day care, records state.
Moore is also facing sex offender registry charges in Wisconsin, according to court records.
Police also detained Moore on March 30 while investigating a shooting in the 2200 block of West Third Street that left one man with a bullet wound to the stomach. Moores vehicle was seen leaving the area, and police arrested him on drug charges after finding marijuana. Another man who had been in Moores vehicle, Daelin Cole, was arrested in connection with the shooting, court records state.
DES MOINES -- Iowa could be eligible for up to $4 million in federal funding to expand access to opioid treatment under a White House proposal that would allocate $1.1 billion to states to fight the nationwide epidemic.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show opioids including heroin, hydrocodone and oxycodone were responsible for 28,648 deaths in 2014.
In Iowa, 52 people died from opioid overdoses in 2014, with 19 of those dying of heroin overdoses, according to state data.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack said Tuesday on a conference call with reporters the funding potentially could be used to expand a variety of treatment efforts, including drug courts, medication-assisted treatment programs and telemedicine efforts in more rural areas of the state.
The funding is part of a multipronged approach by President Barack Obama and the federal government to combat the issue. Other efforts include new CDC prescription guidelines for physicians, better provider training on appropriate prescribing practices and additional funding to the Department of Justice and Health and Human Services to expand treatment and prevention services.
Congress voted in favor of developing a final bill that provides enough money for prevention, treatment and recovery to address the opioid epidemic, a White House statement said, but it has not agreed on the actual amount of funding to provide.
Thats imperative, Vilsack said. We need resources behind the permission to focus on this.
Patricia Pressley, a Coralville resident whose son died from a heroin overdose in 2015, joined Vilsack on the call, highlighting what she said were addiction treatment gaps in the health care system.
Her son, Nick, began experimenting with drugs when he was 14 years old, she said. He told her he was addicted to heroin when he was 24. And he died at age 31.
Pressley said she and her husband worked hard to get Nick the necessary treatment he went to a 30-day inpatient program in Minnesota, several outpatient clinics and was on methadone for about two years.
But during this time, she said, her family also saw first hand how inadequate the infrastructure to treat substance abuse was. The night Nick admitted he was addicted to heroin, she took him to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics emergency room where her family received little to no help, she said.
He was discharged, she said with no follow-up, no social services and no referrals. A substance-abuse counselor met with him for 15 minutes the following morning, she said, and handed him a list of Narcotics Anonymous meeting places.
This represented the best care UIHC could provide to a young, scared heroin addict? she said.
The funding proposed by the White House would include:
$920 million for states to expand access to medication-assisted treatment, such as methadone or buprenorphine.
$50 million in National Health Service Corps funding to expand access to substance abuse treatment providers.
$30 million to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment programs.
Vilsack said its important those dealing with opioid addiction have access to the right kind of medication-assisted treatment medication to ease withdrawals and curb cravings in addition to counseling services.
In addition, rural states such as Iowa need to work to fill gaps in more rural communities through telemedicine which can be used in a variety of ways, including behavioral counseling or guidance in the hospitals emergency departments.
Communities need to be engaged in supporting those dealing with addiction, he said. We need to create an atmosphere for them to seek help and get through rough patches.
WATERLOO -- The Cedar Valley Chapter of USA Dance will host a dance on Saturday at the Waterloo Center for the Arts.
There will be a beginner workshop on West Coast swing from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., and an intermediate level workshop from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. A general dance will follow until 10:30 p.m.
Everyone is welcome. For more information, call 266-1428 or go to www.usadancecedarvalley.com.
When it comes to trickle-down economics, the Iowa faucet is faulty for nearly a third of all households.
A statewide survey by United Way found 31 percent of all households struggle to afford basic necessities, including 34 percent in Black Hawk County. Twelve percent are below the federal poverty line, while 19 percent are above but struggling one crisis away from poverty.
The ALICE assessment Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed was pronounced in Waterloo at 40 percent, while Cedar Falls, Evansdale and Gilbertville are at or below the county average. Raymond and Hudson are below 20 percent.
All 17 counties in The Courier circulation area are above 26 percent with Benton and Butler at that level, while Floyd matches Black Hawk at 34 percent.
And the 1960s-era federal poverty guidelines are an anachronism, excluding child-care expenses.
Meanwhile, since 2003, median household income increased 26 percent, but was far surpassed by such essentials as medical, 51 percent, and food and beverage, 37 percent.
The United Way survey recommends raising the minimum hourly wage to $11.67 from the federal standard of $7.25 set in 2009 to cover basic household costs.
The left-leaning Iowa Policy Project in a report earlier this year maintained $11.69 is needed for a single person with company-paid health insurance to cover basic costs; $13.16 without health insurance. For families, it advocated $14.37 for each parent with a small preschooler and $17.88 for those with three children, including a preschooler.
Johnson County has approved a two-step boost to $10.10, while Polk County is considering $9-$12. However, cities can opt out.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, as reported by the Des Moines Register, the average hourly wages in Iowa metro areas are:
Cedar Rapids, $18.16.
Des Moines, $17.98.
Ames, $17.95.
Iowa City, $17.75.
Waterloo-Cedar Falls, $15.87.
Dubuque, $15.72.
Sioux City, $15.34.
In Iowa metro areas, 10 percent of all workers make less than $8.95. The median in Iowa is a little more than $16.
Waterloo-Cedar Falls, according to the IPP, has the lowest overall cost of living followed by Davenport, Dubuque and Cedar Rapids due to lower health care and transportation expenses along with moderate rents and child-care costs.
Raising the minimum wage has gone nowhere in the Legislature, last failing in 2015. The Democratic-controlled Senate had approved an increase to $8.75, which was rejected by the Republican majority in the House.
Proponents believed the increase also would bump up other lower-paid workers, while opponents maintain it would cut jobs, particularly among small businesses, and employers would pass costs along to consumers, negating some of the benefits.
The market, they add, should determine the rate. Thats happening in the Des Moines area, where even fast-food employers told the Register $9 or $10 would be below current wages, although many pay teenagers less.
But that isnt likely to happen in less prosperous areas, which also have a higher cost of living because of health care and transportation, according to IPP.
The Legislature needs to act as 29 other states have, including South Dakota and Nebraska rather than having the counties create a nightmarish patchwork system of wages. It can do so creatively to lessen the downside as Minnesota did by indexing different rates for large corporations and small businesses or with tax breaks. A lower rate for teens not primary breadwinners could be factored in.
The bigger issue in an ever-changing economy with a glut of applicants in some professions and shortages in others is matching abilities with business needs.
To do so means making a greater commitment to relevant job-training programs designed to take advantage of a workers skills and aspirations but based on the realities of the job market.
Iowa is not an economic anomaly. Burgeoning debt a byproduct of household struggles shows up nationally.
U.S. consumer debt mortgages, car loans, credit cards and student loans stood at $12.2 trillion in 2015 or $130,992 per household, according to the online site nerdwallet, which extrapolated New York Federal Reserve Board and U.S. Census Bureau figures and commissioned a Harris Poll.
On credit cards alone, more than 160 million Americans owed an average of $15,762.
The Iowa Legislature thankfully removed one albatross from debt-burdened Iowans during its last session, addressing a law that prompted the Iowa Department of Motor Vehicles to suspend drivers licenses for nonpayment of debts half of its 140,000 to 160,000 suspensions annually, according to the Des Moines Register.
A new law effective July 1 enables motorists to retain their drivers licenses if they cant meet fines or court debts but are not a public safety threat by entering into a payment plan rather than paying in full.
Center to mark 50th anniversary
WATERLOO In recognition of the Waterloo Center for the Arts 50th Anniversary, the community is welcome at a celebration from 1-3 p.m. Sunday at the RiverLoop Amphitheatre.
People can enjoy free family entertainment featuring Kud Kolo Bosnian Dance Troupe; Embarc Traditional Burmese Dancers; Cielito Lindo Family Folk Music; and activities including games, art projects, bubbles, balloons and more.
Ice cream and other treats will be available for purchase.
Admission to the Phelps Youth Pavilion will be free.
USA Dance to hold workshop
WATERLOO The Cedar Valley Chapter of USA Dance will host a dance Saturday at the Waterloo Center for the Arts.
There will be a beginner workshop on West Coast swing from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. and an intermediate level workshop from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. A general dance will follow until 10:30 p.m.
Everyone is welcome. For details, call 266-1428 or go to www.usadancecedarvalley.com.
Support group to meet Monday
WATERLOO The Macular Degeneration/Low Vision Support group will meet from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Monday in the board room of the Kimball Ridge Center, Kimball and Ridgeway avenues.
The group meets every other month. All are welcome.
Call Barb at 230-4499 for more information.
Hearst Center to show Potter film
CEDAR FALLS Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will be shown at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Hearst Center for the Arts, 304 W. Seerley Blvd.
The center is showing all the Potter movies this summer. Admission is free, and no tickets are required. The Hearsts film series is sponsored by Far Reach.
KHKE/KUNI friends meeting
CEDAR FALLS The annual meeting of the Friends of KHKE/KUNI will take place at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 11 at Rudys Tacos, 2401 Falls Ave., Waterloo.
The agenda will include the election of directors and any other pertinent business that requires action during the annual meeting of the membership. The meeting is open to all members of Iowa Public Radio.
Klein names committee
WATERLOO Ward 1 City Council candidate, Margaret Klein has announced her campaign committee.
Chris Shimp is serving as the campaign chair, and Ryan England is the campaign treasurer.
Other committee members include Barbara Corson, Leon Mosley, Forest Dillavou, Cindy Wells, Sharon Kersenbrock, Nathan Bolton, Harold Getty, Scott Jordan, Rev. Ed Loggins, Josh Kullen, Joel Harris, Brandon Banker, Steve Kennedy, Leah Morrison, Sonia Johannsen and Maj. Gen. Evan Curly Hultman.
Klein and Tom Powers are candidates in the July 12 special election to fill the council vacancy created by David Jones resignation.
Hydrants to be flushed
WATERLOO The Waterloo Water Works will flush hydrants Thursday in the area from Independence Avenue to Dubuque Road and from Nevada Street to Idaho Street.
Customers living within the area and within several blocks of the flushing area could experience water discoloration.
The water may be brownish during and immediately after the flushing. Customers are urged not to plan wash day on a Thursday. The discolored water is bacterially safe. The discoloration is caused by the accumulation of minerals on the inside of the water mains.
A periodic flushing cleans the mains and helps avoid discolored water problems during normal operation.
WATERLOO A homeless sex offender has been arrested for allegedly living near a school.
Waterloo police arrested Jylan Curtis Moore, 19, June 17 for violation of sex offender registry requirements. He was later released from the Black Hawk County Jail.
Moore was convicted of second-degree sexual assault of a child in Wisconsin in 2012 for an offense committed when he was 14 years old, court records state. The conviction requires him to register as a sex offender in the state where he lives.
In January, Moore registered in Iowa, declaring he was homeless. He was required to undergo increased supervision and keep a log of where he sleeps at night because of his homeless status, according to court records. In his log, he reported staying in his vehicle in the area of Eighth Street and Hudson Road in Cedar Falls, which is near Holmes Junior High School, and sheriffs deputies reported seeing his vehicle parked at his uncles home on Florence and his grandmothers home on Independence Avenue in Waterloo, court records state. He had earlier been told he couldnt stay at the Independence Avenue address because of it proximity to a day care, records state.
Moore also is facing sex offender registry charges in Wisconsin, according to court records.
Police also detained Moore on March 30 while investigating a shooting in the 2200 block of West Third Street that left one man with a bullet wound to the stomach. Moores vehicle was seen leaving the area, and police arrested him on drug charges after finding marijuana. Another man who had been in Moores vehicle, Daelin Cole, was arrested in connection with the shooting, court records state.
July 4 shots hit Waterloo home
WATERLOO Police have seized a number of firearms in connection with the investigation into Independence Day gunfire that damaged two homes.
Details of the seizure werent available, but authorities said several guns were seized during the search of a home stemming from the shooting. No arrests have been made in the investigation.
Neighbors began calling police about 8:35 p.m. Monday after hearing gunfire.
Officers said one bullet struck a home at 803 Marsh St., and a second bullet appears to have grazed 315 Campbell St. Investigators found spent shell casings in the area.
Witnesses told police a person on a motorcycle had fired at a passing car.
Hurled knife injures toddler
WATERLOO A toddler was taken to the hospital Tuesday after being struck by a knife that was allegedly hurled as part of a disagreement among siblings, police said.
Authorities said the three-year-old girl suffered a cut foot.
Officers were called to Unity Point/Allen Hospital when the child showed up at the emergency room about 8:55 a.m.
Authorities said the child had been at home on Wellington Street with her 13-year-old sister and a 16-year-old sibling when an argument broke out between the 13-year-old and the 16-year-old, police said.
The 13-year-old allegedly threw a kitchen knife at the 16-year-old, who was holding the toddler, and the knife struck the toddler, police said.
1 hurt in crash near Hudson
HUDSON -A Waterloo woman was transported to the hospital following a rear-end crash near Hudson on Tuesday morning.
The Black Hawk County Sheriffs Office said a car being driven by Krystal Monroe, 30, of Waterloo, rear-ended a car being driven by Mary Turner, 63, also of Waterloo, at the intersection of Schrock Road and Kimball Avenue.
A passenger in one of the vehicles, Rose Pierce, 85, of Waterloo, received non-life-threatening injuries and was taken to the hospital.
Monroe was ticketed for failing to stop in a clear assured distance.
Q: With the new self-driving cars, wont those be great tools for terrorists?
A: This is a concern of many future-minded security experts. A 2014 Federal Bureau of Investigation report was among several we found warning criminals might use autonomous cars as lethal weapons.
Q: Why did you run an article about the Huey Lewis concert when its sold out?
A: Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center sent out a press release wanting publicity, so perhaps there are still some seats available.
Q: How can I get Mr. Food recipes if I dont have a computer?
A: Try calling KWWL at 291-1240 for help.
Q: Is there any difference between an avenue and a boulevard?
A: Theyre both defined as broad streets; avenues at one time were supposed to be bordered with trees on both sides, while boulevards often had green strips or rows of trees planted down the middle, according on at least one dictionary. But in practical modern use, there doesnt seem to be much difference.
Q: Is Tom Netherton from the Lawrence Welk show married? What is he doing now?
A: No, as far as we can tell, he has never married. He has worked in musical theater and often appears at the Lawrence Welk theater in Branson, Mo.
Q: I see a councilman has been traveling to different businesses with Margaret Klein to promote her campaign. Is this legal on his part?
A: Yes. Existing Waterloo City Council members are free to support, endorse and promote any candidate they choose provided they are not using city resources to do it.
Q: Why did they detour the bike trail 10 miles around to the Canfield blacktop? It has no shoulders and is highly dangerous.
A: When we reported on this issue, Black Hawk County officials said there was not a better option to route cyclists around the closed bridge in La Porte City.
Q: Three Waterloo City Council members had some kind of secret meeting while the mayor was out of town. Doesnt that violate the open meetings law?
A: No. Three council members do not constitute a quorum. If the caller is referencing the Sunday meeting at the Waterloo Center for the Arts, it was posted as a public meeting even though a quorum wasnt present and was hardly secret.
Q: When they finish the stretch of Highway 63 coming into town, will the flooding issue be fixed?
A: The highway, which now goes under the railroad, will go over the railroad.
Q: When is the earliest time for a decision to be made about roundabouts on University in Waterloo?
A: Well let you know. At this point the Iowa Department of Transportation still controls the road. There are plans for the jurisdiction to be transferred to the city of Waterloo. When Waterloo gets the road, a design process would begin. Ultimately, the City Council would be responsible for approving the design. No timeline is set for any of this to happen yet.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff
Jul. 05, 2016 | GRAVES COUNTY, KY
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 05, 2016 | 01:36 PM | GRAVES COUNTY, KY
Kentucky State Police are investigating a dog attack on Saturday that left a Farmington man with life-threatening injuries.
Shortly before 11:00 am, Kentucky State Police Post 1 got a report about a man who had been attacked by two dogs on Dove Road in the Farmington Community. Troopers arrived at the scene and found 22-year-old Mitchell Slayden, of Farmington with multiple lacerations.
Police say their preliminary investigation shows that Slayden was riding a bicycle when he pulled into the driveway of a home on Dove Road belonging to 27-year-old Chris Bouland. Slayden told police he was looking for a man that he believed lived at the home, but the man reportedly no longer lived there. When he entered the driveway, Slayden was confronted by two pit bull dogs, and as he attempted to leave the driveway, the dogs reportedly attacked him.
Slayden was airlifted to Tri-Star Skyline Medical Center in Nashville, TN with lacerations to his face, head, arms, and legs. Both dogs were taken into custody by Graves County Animal Control. Police said the animals will be quarantined and monitored for at least 10 days.
The investigation is on going by Trooper William Propes.
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I am thrilled to be a part of the disciplinary district committee, as it is vital to maintaining the utmost trust in the legal system.
NORFOLK, VA, July 06, 2016 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Personal injury law firm Kalfus & Nachman announced Tuesday that the Virginia State Bar has appointed associate attorney Christopher Jacobs to Section I of the Disciplinary District Committee for the Second District of Virginia. Disciplinary district committees comprise both attorneys and lay members who investigate complaints against lawyers and prosecute disciplinary proceedings as necessary.
"The Virginia State Bar is dedicated to the regulation and improvement of the legal profession," Jacobs said. "I am thrilled to be a part of the disciplinary district committee, as it is vital to maintaining the utmost trust in the legal system."
Jacobs has been appointed to a three-year term with the Second District Committee - Section I. He will be eligible for re-appointment in 2019.
The Second District Committee encompasses the second and fourth judicial districts of Virginia, including the areas of Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Portsmouth. Divided into two sections, the Second District Committee handles disciplinary matters originating from the southeastern portion of the Hampton Roads region.
The 17 disciplinary district committees are part of the Virginia State Bar mission of "regulating the legal profession." This regulatory function is overseen by the Standing Committee on Lawyer Discipline, which monitors disciplinary proceedings and periodically reviews district committee cases to maintain adherence to procedure in the prosecution of complaints.
About Kalfus & Nachman
Kalfus & Nachman has been an ally to injury victims in Virginia since 1979. Working from offices in Norfolk, Newport News and Roanoke, attorneys at the firm represent clients statewide in cases including auto accidents, maritime law, product liability and wrongful death. Kalfus & Nachman also has extensive experience assisting clients with applications for Social Security Disability Insurance and workers' compensation benefits. For more information, visit www.kalfusnachman.com.
Connect with Kalfus & Nachman on social media.
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/VAPersonalInjuryKN
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KalfusNachman
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/116037677107396004023/posts
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kalfusnachman
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We welcome fans attending the Hillsong United concert in Atlanta.
ATLANTA, GA, July 06, 2016 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Fans attending the Hillsong United concert in Atlanta on July 19 will find affordable lodging at the Hampton Inn & Suites Atlanta airport hotel North I-85. The contemporary Christian group from Australia will perform at Lakewood Amphitheatre, a popular outdoor venue. Special guest will be Lauren Daigle. Lawn seating tickets are $20.
"We welcome fans attending the Hillsong United concert in Atlanta," shares Vincent Thomas, General Manager at the Hampton Inn & Suites Atlanta Airport North I-85. "Our hotel is just a short drive from Lakewood Amphitheatre," continues Thomas.
This award winning ATL Airport hotel offers non-smoking guest rooms with free Wi-Fi and Hampton Clean and Fresh Beds . Travelers will appreciate the convenience of an in-room microwave and mini refrigerator. The sparkling outdoor pool is a great place to relax and unwind. Other property amenities include a fitness center, business center, Pavilion Pantry, and a courtesy shuttle to the airport. The complimentary breakfast buffet is the perfect way to start the day. Guests can enjoy a variety of favorites including eggs, waffles, oatmeal, and fresh fruit. On the Run Breakfast Bags are a fast alternative on weekdays. A coffee and tea station is always open in the lobby. The Hampton Inn & Suites Atlanta Airport North I-85 recently won the 2016 TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence for outstanding guest service.
Current lodging deals at this Hartsfield hotel include the Weekend Getaway Package with late checkout. AAA, senior, and military rates are available. HHonors members can earn points toward free hotel nights.
For information and tickets to the Hillsong United concert in Atlanta on July 19, visit http://thelakewoodamphitheater.com/. To book your stay at Hampton Inn & Suites Atlanta Airport North I-85, call 404-767-9300 or visit www.AIRPORTHAMPTONINN.com.
About Hampton Inn & Ste Atlanta Airport North I-85
The Hampton Inn & Suites Atlanta Airport Hotel is just north of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and just southwest of downtown Atlanta. The hotel is two and a half miles from the Georgia International Convention Center, four miles from Atlanta Expo Center, and 15 miles from Six Flags Over Georgia. Other nearby attractions include the Georgia Aquarium, World of Coca-Cola , Underground Atlanta, CNN Center, Georgia Dome and Georgia World Congress Center--all less than 10 miles away from the hotel. The Atlanta Airport hotel also offers a broad range of services and amenities to make its guest's stay exceptional.
For more information visit: http://www.AIRPORTHAMPTONINN.COM
For all media inquiries, please contact:
Allison Reinert
Cardinal Web Solutions
http://www.CardinalWebSolutions.com
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Peter Turchin in Cliodynamica:
A year ago, as the Greek Tragedy was unfolding, I posted on my blog, Is this the Beginning of the End for the European Union? The outcome of the EU membership referendum in UK suggests that the break-up process is gathering steam. I didnt predict a vote of yes in the Brexit referendum (I thought it would be narrowly defeated). But as I pointed out in last weeks post, Will the European Union Survive its 60th Anniversary?, written the day before the referendum, Brexit is only one of many signs of how the political landscape within Europe has been tilting. A disintegrative tendency has been gathering steam over the last 5-10 years, well before UK Prime Minister David Cameron had rashly decided on the referendum on whether UK should leave the EU in motion.
Now, in the aftermath of the referendum, the main question is, whats next? In the following I propose some answers suggested by the new discipline of Cultural Evolution and my research on historical dynamics (Cliodynamics). My proposal is quite radical. Rather than trying to fight the disintegrative trend, we should allow it to run its course, destroying the EU as it is now. But we need a European Union. Thus, what I hope will happen is another integrative project within Europe, one that will learn from the mistakes of the last one.
In other words, the EU is dead; long live a new and better EU.
More here. [Thanks to Omar Ali.]
Yes, the neighborhood's name feels like it's trying a bit too hard to be cool, but the boutique wine tasting rooms, art galleries, eclectic shops, microbreweries, and farm-to-table restaurants here are legit. This is your guide to Santa Barbara's trendiest 'hood.
The Best Restaurants in Santa Barbara's Funk Zone
Lucky Penny
Let the wall covered in copper pennies tip you off to one of the Funk Zone's most popular eating spots. With its tiny interior and a wait for outdoor tables, you might think of Lucky Penny, known for its wood-fired pizzas, as Santa Barbara's answer to Pizzeria Delfina. Be sure to go back for breakfasta fantastic little morning menu tempts with wood-fired baked eggs served with chorizo and fingerlings. // 127 Anacapa St., luckypennysb.com
The Lark
Local, seasonal, and family-style are the watchwords at this ever-so-popular restaurant, located next to Lucky Penny. You'll want to try everything, so bring some friends to share globally inspired dishes ranging from Japanese hamachi crudo to pappardelle with caramelized maitake mushrooms, black truffle butter, delicata squash, and hazelnuts. The craft cocktails and 24-seat communal table feel imported from San Francisco. Reservations are definitely recommended. // 131 Anacapa St., thelarksb.com
Mony's Mexican Food
Mexican food is a must in Santa Barbara, and the Funk Zone happens to have one of the best taquerias in town. Known locally as Mony's Tacos, the place serves delicious tacos and interesting salsas (pistachio?) at wallet-friendly prices. Mony's is no frills, but there's always a wait. // 217 Anacapa St., monyssb.com
Loquita
Round up a group and head to Loquita for paella and hot and cold tapas in a coordinating Spanish style setting. While we love the chic white brick walled and painted tile interior, the delectable dishes including Patatas Bravas, churros, Spanish octopus, and Pan Con Tomate are best enjoyed from the lively outdoor patio with plenty of local and Spanish wines and sangria to go round and heat lamps to keep you cozy on rare chilly evenings. // 202 State St., loquitasb.com
Helena Avenue Bakery
Try and score a coveted seat at one of Helena Avenue Bakery's community or patio tables for the ideal Saturday morning pick me up in the form of an endless selection of freshly baked breads, seasonal pastries, and brunch dishes. In addition to delicious breakfast fare, the bakery also offers gourmet sandwichesthink burrata and bacon, grilled cauliflower salad, and Nashville hot chickenperfect for scarfing down before wine tasting at the adjacent Santa Barbara Wine Collective. // 131 Anacapa St., helenaavenuebakery.com
Shalhoob's Funk Zone Patio
Opened in 2015 by neighborhood mainstay since 1973 Shalhoob Meat Company, this lively barbecue joint has quickly become a neighborhood favorite. Grab a seat on the lively patiobonus points if you stop by when there's live musicand munch on apps including fish tacos and hot wings; meat-centric dishes like pulled pork sliders, fried chicken sandwiches, and bacon jam burgers; and heaping plates of tri tip and pulled pork barbecue with endless sides. // 220 Gray Ave., shalhoob.com
Tyger Tyger
This casual spot opened by Santa Barbara group Acme Hospitality last fall serves up fresh Thai and Vietnamese dishes including bahn mi, vermicelli bowls, and summer rolls in a stylish setting, complete with an outdoor patio. Cereal topped soft serve ice cream served in "taikyaki" fish-shaped waffle cones or mini take out boxes and a hot pink lanterned ceiling guarantee you'll get the perfect 'gram during your dinner. // 121 East Yanonali St., tygertygersb.com
Your guide to the tastiest foodie happenings going down this week. Bon appetit!
A Ramen Summit at J-POP
Exactly how many bowls of ramen can you slurp down in one sitting? There's only one way to find out. Check out the J-POP Summit later this month, where you'll find the latest and greatest in Japanese pop culture including a Ramen Summit, which features small ramen bowls from Bay Area favorites such as Orenchi Beyond, Iza Ramen, and Ramen Taka. You'll also be able to sample ramen from Japan's Hinodeya Ramen Bar and New York's Naruto Ramen. // July 2324, Fort Mason Center's Festival Pavilion at 2 Marina Blvd. (Fort Mason), Get tickets here.
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Zahav Book Signing + Dinner at Camino
James Beard award-winning chef Michael Solomonov of Philadelphia's modern Israeli institution Zahav will be in Oakland this month to sign and discusses his book, Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking. Dinner will follow, featuring dishes from the book cooked in Camino's hearth. // $120, Thursday July 21, 6 p.m.10 p.m., 3917 Grand Ave. (Oakland), Get tickets here.
Courtyard Okonomiyaki at Rintaro
Rintaro is opening up its courtyard this Thursday to celebrate the Star Festival (Tanabata), an ancient Japanese summer festival which celebrates the meeting of the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi (represented by the stars Vega and Altair respectively). According to the legend, the two lovers were separated by the Milky Way and are able to reunite only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. Celebrate with draft beer, hot sake, and delicious okonomiyaki. // July 7, 6 p.m.10:30 p.m., 82 14th St. (Mission), izakayarintaro.com/
(Wood Island Club)
Woods Island Club Opens on Treasure Island
The Woods Beer team will official open their newest project, the Woods Island Club, on Treasure Island's Clipper Clove this weekend. The Island Club will feature a tasting room, barrel aging facility, and an outdoor "beer beach," as well as hosting a rotation of pop-up food vendors. To start, Woods Island will only be open select weekends in July from 1 p.m.5 p.m. // Open July 9, July 30, and July 31, 1 p.m.5 p.m., 440 California Ave (Treasure Island), woodsbeer.com
Whether you're interested in a casual walk along bluffs above crashing surf or a longer excursion into the coastal mountains high above the Pacific, hundreds of miles of serene coastal trails await on the California coastline.
Between the Oregon border and Big Sur alone, outings range from wandering through a fairy-tale land of the giant trees of the Redwood Empire to a multi-day, tide-timed trek along the Lost Coast, to a stroll to a waterfall plunging into the ocean at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park.
Where to start? Use this list, oriented north to south, to help you start exploring some of coastal Northern California's finest.
Lands End Coastal Trail
The 1.4-mile Coastal Trail at Lands End is a favorite among San Franciscans for good reason. It offers spectacular views of the Golden Gate, the Marin Headlands and the waters of the Pacific. Traversing the coastal bluffs above the ocean between Point Lobos and the Sea Cliff neighborhood, the Coastal Trail provides hikers, runners, bicyclists and beachcombers easy urban access to the Golden Gate's rugged southern edge.
PROS: Stunning views of the Golden Gate. Beach access. Easy access within San Francisco.
Stunning views of the Golden Gate. Beach access. Easy access within San Francisco. CONS: Often in fog.
Often in fog. REGION: San Francisco Peninsula + Santa Cruz, CA
San Francisco Peninsula + Santa Cruz, CA CONGESTION: High
High DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: Not Required
Not Required TRAIL USES: Hiking, Biking
Hiking, Biking TRAIL TYPE: There-and-back
There-and-back DOGS ALLOWED: Yes
Point St. George Heritage Area. (Photo by Aron Bosworth)
Pt. St. George Heritage Area
Point St. George Heritage Area, lying just north of Crescent City, is the third westernmost point in the continental United States. The 340 acres of coastal bluffs and rocky shoreline that jut out to sea provide unparalleled panoramas of the surrounding coastline. Panoramic views of Oregon to the north, the Siskoyou Mountains inland, and the forested bluffs of the Redwood Empire to the south make for a spectacular backdrop against the cool blue Pacific Ocean. Walking trails thread the headlands and provide access to the beaches and scenic overlooks before connecting to additional trails that explore the adjacent Tolowa Dunes State Park and a network of coastal lakes and lagoons.
PROS: Stunning coastal panaromas. Point St. George Reef Lighthouse.
Stunning coastal panaromas. Point St. George Reef Lighthouse. CONS: None.
None. REGION: Redwoods + Del Norte Coast, CA
Redwoods + Del Norte Coast, CA CONGESTION: Low
Low DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: Not Required
Not Required BEACH: Open, sandy beach, Pebbly Beach, Rocky Shore
Open, sandy beach, Pebbly Beach, Rocky Shore TIDE POOLS: Yes
Yes WILDLIFE: Seabirds, Harbor Seals, Sea Lions
Stout Memorial Grove. Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park. (Photo by Aron Bosworth)
Stout Memorial Grove
Tucked away from the drive-through limelight of Highway 199, Stout Memorial Grove is out of sight and out of mind for many, if not most, Redwood-bound visitors. Those who do make the side trip down Howland Hill Road to see Stout Grove's magnificent coast redwoods are well rewarded. Stout Grove is arguably the most scenic of the coast redwood groves in Jedidiah Smith Redwood State Park, and the location on the other side of the Smith River from the highway keeps the visitor count down.
PROS: Cathedral-like redwood grove. Few people.
Cathedral-like redwood grove. Few people. CONS: Tougher to find than other nearby groves
Tougher to find than other nearby groves REGION: Redwoods + Del Norte Coast, CA
Redwoods + Del Norte Coast, CA CONGESTION: Low
Low DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: Not Required
Not Required DOGS ALLOWED: No
Mount Tamalpais State Park Established in 1963, Mount Tamalpais State Park is one of the Bay Area's open space treasures. Rising above the Marin Headlands, Mount Tam boasts over 50 miles of hiking trails, campgrounds, and Marin's highest point, East Peak, at 2,571 feet. With a diversity of ecosystems ranging from hill covered grasslands to fog-laden redwoods, the park leaves little to be desired when it comes to natural diversity. Mount Tam is connected to a larger network of Marin County open space areas and shares borders with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Muir Woods National Monument, and the Marin Municipal Water District, offering visitors a nearly inexhaustible swath of open space and trails to explore. PROS: Tallest point in Marin. Vistas. Top-notch hiking trails.
Tallest point in Marin. Vistas. Top-notch hiking trails. CONS: Can get crowded on weekends.
Can get crowded on weekends. REGION: Marin, CA
Marin, CA CONGESTION: Moderate
Moderate DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: State Park Fee ($10.00)
State Park Fee ($10.00) PICNIC TABLES: Yes
Natural Arch on the south end of College Cove Beach. (Photo by Ashley Johnson)
Elk Head Trail
This trail is an easy there-and-back that provides great views and access to College Cove Beach. The trail is easy to follow and clearly marked, and the first portion of the trail provides some great viewing points for looking down on the beach. The coastal spruce forest has a lush understory of ferns, moss, wild flowers; as you approach the open areas, watch for a variety of birds such as common murres, brown pelicans and gray jays. The beach is a local favorite, and the cove provides shelter for safe swimming and surfing in the warmer months. You can see that the beach is actually separated in the middle (access between the two is possible during low tide only), and on the southern end there is a rock formation with a visible natural arch.
REGION: Humboldt, CA
Humboldt, CA CONGESTION: Moderate
Moderate DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: Not Required
Not Required DOGS ALLOWED: Yes
(Photo by Brandon Katcher)
The Lost Coast Trail
The Lost Coast Trail is a wild and unique backpacking adventure along one of the most rugged sections of the Northern California Coast. The King Range area is nearly untouched by civilization, with only a few small towns along the two-hour shuttle from Shelter Cove to the Mattole Beach trailhead to the north. The trail provides incredible views, a variety of wildlife and flora, and a glimpse of some rarely seen California coastal terrain. Keep in mind that portions of this trip take a great deal of effort; the majority of the 25-mile, 3-day trip takes place on sandy beaches, which can be exhausting for legs and feet.
PROS: Beautiful landscape. Only backpackers. Wildflowers. Plenty of water.
Beautiful landscape. Only backpackers. Wildflowers. Plenty of water. CONS: Long shuttle ride. Hard on legs and feet. Many river crossings.
Long shuttle ride. Hard on legs and feet. Many river crossings. REGION: Humboldt, CA
Humboldt, CA CONGESTION: Low
Low PREFERABLE SEASON(S): Spring, Summer, Fall
Spring, Summer, Fall DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED : Not Required
: Not Required DOGS ALLOWED: Yes
Fern Canyon Trail
Not to be confused with Fern Canyon of Russian Gulch Sate Park found only a few miles to the north, this Fern Canyon Trail is tucked away at the east end of Van Damme State Park. The trail is known for it's lush environs, spawning habitat for salmon and steelhead, and as a connector trail to a cypress and pine pygmy forest found a few miles inland.
PROS: Open to hiking and biking. Ferns.
Open to hiking and biking. Ferns. CONS: Bridges crossing Little River are removed during winter.
Bridges crossing Little River are removed during winter. REGION: Mendocino Coast + Clear Lake Area, CA
Mendocino Coast + Clear Lake Area, CA CONGESTION: Moderate
Moderate PREFERABLE SEASON(S): Spring, Summer, Fall
Spring, Summer, Fall DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: State Park Fee ($8.00)
State Park Fee ($8.00) TRAIL USES: Hiking, Biking
Hiking, Biking TRAIL TYPE: There-and-back
There-and-back DOGS ALLOWED: No
(Photo by Aron Bosworth)
Kortum Trail
Approximately 8 miles north of Bodega Bay, a beautiful stretch of coastal bluffs is made accessible by an inconspicuous coastal path known as the Kortum Trail. Connecting Blind Beach near Goat Rock in the north to Wright's Beach in the south, the full length of the Kortum Trail traverses 3.8 miles of Sonoma Coast State Park and offers sweeping views of the great blue Pacific, offshore sea stacks, and access to a fun little climbing crag along the way. The most scenic and interesting part of the trail is the northern section, which starts near the Blind Beach parking area and continues 2.25 miles south to Shell Beach.
PROS: Ocean views. Bouldering rocks.
Ocean views. Bouldering rocks. CONS: Can be windy.
Can be windy. REGION: Sonoma Coast + Napa Area, CA
Sonoma Coast + Napa Area, CA CONGESTION: Low
Low DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: Not Required
Not Required TRAIL USES: Hiking
Hiking TRAIL TYPE: There-and-back
There-and-back DOGS ALLOWED: No
(Photo by Aron Bosworth)
Chimney Rock
Part of the Point Reyes National Seashore, this short hike out to Chimney Rock provides an unparalleled perspective on the beauty of Drake's Bay and the surrounding swath of Pacific Ocean. The Chimney Rock trail traverses the exposed, bluff-lined peninsula that forms the eastern section of Point Reyes, heading out to the tip and an overlook of the ocean, Drakes' Bay, and Chimney Rock. Despite the trail's name, Chimney Rock itself might be the least exciting feature of the hike; rather, views of the unique coastline, marine life, Point Reyes' lifeboat history, and spring wildflowers steal the show.
PROS: Scenic Point Reyes vistas. Wildlife. Unique coastline terrain.
Scenic Point Reyes vistas. Wildlife. Unique coastline terrain. CONS: Often foggy or windy.
Often foggy or windy. REGION: Marin, CA
Marin, CA CONGESTION: Moderate
Moderate PREFERABLE SEASON(S): Winter, Spring, Fall
Winter, Spring, Fall DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: Not Required
Not Required TRAIL USES: Hiking
Hiking TRAIL TYPE: There-and-back
There-and-back DOGS ALLOWED: No
(Photo by Brandon Katcher)
Sky Trail Loop, Bear Valley to Mount Wittenberg
Point Reyes National Seashore is a 70,000-acre outdoor playground about 30 miles north of San Francisco. With ample trails, campgrounds, and beaches, Point Reyes attracts outdoor and nature enthusiasts from around the world. The area has a resident tule elk herd, a huge variety of bird species, and it is a favorite mating spot for northern elephant seals.
PROS: Beautiful forests and views. Various loops and lengths available.
Beautiful forests and views. Various loops and lengths available. CONS: Can be crowded.
Can be crowded. REGION: Marin, CA
Marin, CA CONGESTION: Moderate
Moderate DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: Not Required
Not Required T RAIL USES: Hiking
Hiking TRAIL TYPE: There-and-back/Loop
There-and-back/Loop DOGS ALLOWED: No
Pelican Lake. (Photo by Monica Ralston)
Palomarin to Alamere Falls
The trip to Alamere Falls offers stunning coastal views of Point Reyes National Seashore and a wonderfully unique waterfall. The landscape is varied with coastal scrub pine and oak forests, and there are several lakes along the way. Alamere Falls pours from a rocky cliff onto a long, wide stretch of beach, and it is the perfect place to enjoy a lunch break or an afternoon stroll in the sand.
PROS: Coastal views. Swimming lake. Waterfalls.
Coastal views. Swimming lake. Waterfalls. CONS: Weekend crowds. Poison oak.
Weekend crowds. Poison oak. REGION: Marin, CA
Marin, CA CONGESTION: High
High DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: Not Required
Not Required TRAIL USES: Hiking
Hiking TRAIL TYPE: There-and-back
Muir Woods via Deer Park Fire Road
With nearly one million annual visitors, Muir Woods National Monument can feel like a tourist zoo at times, particularly on weekends. Fortunately, there's a little known back-door entrance, that offers a pleasant hike with coastal views, ridges, and redwood stands via the Deer Park Fire Rd. that is a guaranteed way to avoid the crowds.
PROS: Pacific Ocean views. Back door/less crowded route into Muir Woods.
Pacific Ocean views. Back door/less crowded route into Muir Woods. CONS: Weekend parking and crowds.
Weekend parking and crowds. REGION: Marin, CA
Marin, CA CONGESTION: Moderate
Moderate DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: General Day Use Fee ($5.00)
General Day Use Fee ($5.00) TRAIL USES: Hiking
Hiking T RAIL TYPE: Loop
Loop DOGS ALLOWED: No
The trail toward Tennessee Valley. (Photo by Rini Sugianto)
Coastal Trail, Rodeo Beach to Muir Beach
This section of the Coastal Trail begins not to far from Marin Mammals Center at Rodeo Beach, a unique beach with red and green pebbly chert grains. You'll quickly note the dilapidated military structures that are visible in the distance; in contrast to Rodeo Beach's Fort Barry and Fort Cronkhite, both of which serve as National Park Service facilities, all of the batteries and small gun emplacements on the ridge are empty and abandoned, their walls covered by graffiti.
PROS: Pretty coastal views. Beaches.
Pretty coastal views. Beaches. CONS: Can get foggy. Crowds.
Can get foggy. Crowds. REGION: Marin, CA
Marin, CA CONGESTION: High
High PREFERABLE SEASON(S): Spring, Summer, Fall
Spring, Summer, Fall DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: Not Required
Not Required TRAIL USES: Hiking, Biking, Horseback
Hiking, Biking, Horseback TRAIL TYPE: There-and-back
Marin Headlands While the Marin Headlands may be best known for front-and-center views of the Golden Gate Bridge found at Battery Spencer, there is much to explore beyond this heavily traveled viewpoint. Encompassing 2,100 acres of rugged, hilly landscape overlooking the Pacific, the Marin Headlands have been protected and managed by the National Park Service as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area since 1970, and for good reason. The area is an outdoor recreation treasure trove. With dozens of miles of hiking and mountain biking trails, walk-in campgrounds, a handful of spectacular beaches and numerous historical sites of interest, the viewpoints only scratch the surface of this outdoor playground. PROS: Beautiful vistas. Diversity of recreational actvities.
Beautiful vistas. Diversity of recreational actvities. CONS: Battery Spencer crowds
Battery Spencer crowds REGION: Marin, CA
Marin, CA CONGESTION: High
High DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: Not Required
Steep Ravine Trail to Dipsea Trail Loop
Mount Tamalpais State Park's Steep Ravine Trail is a worthy hike by itself, but when you add the western stretch of the Dipsea Trail to make a loop out of the hike, this becomes one of Mount Tam's most spectacular jaunts. The Steep Ravine Trail follows Webb Creek through a cascading canyon under a canopy of lush redwoods and fern-filled gullies. Pass over a handful of wooden bridges that crisscross the creek, and even scramble up a 10-foot ladder surmounting moss covered boulders. This shaded, verdant oasis feels like Land Before Time territory, and thoughts of urban hustle and bustle float away with the creek's flow.
PROS: Diversity of landscapes throughout loop. Free parking at Whitegate Ranch Trailhead.
Diversity of landscapes throughout loop. Free parking at Whitegate Ranch Trailhead. CONS: None.
None. REGION: Marin, CA
Marin, CA CONGESTION: Moderate
Moderate DAY-USE/PARKING PASS REQUIRED: Not Required
Not Required TRAIL USES: Hiking
Hiking TRAIL TYPE: Loop
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This post was originally published in July 2016
The last time you were in space was 1994, and you were 47 years old. How old is too old for space travel?
There is no too old. One of my role models is former astronaut and Sen. John Glenn. He was 77 the last time he flew in space. Jean-Jacques Dordain, former head of the European Space Agency, and I have a deal: When we turn 77, we're both going to try to travel in space together.
U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly was 51 when he traveled aboard the International Space Station last year, and 52 when he returned 340 days later. Compare your experiences.
I am a space shuttle veteran, a space camper. I'm not sure that I could do what Scott Kelly did and come back like Superman; his condition was incredible after a trip that long. When I flew, we were still trying to figure out how to deal with muscle loss and bone loss, but we're overcoming those things today.
See Also: A Boomers History of Mars
DENVER Colorado officials say homicides increased by nearly 15 percent statewide last year while rapes increased by almost 11 percent.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigations annual crime report released Tuesday said overall reported crimes rose more than 6 percent in 2015 compared with 2014.
The report is based on statistics from 245 law-enforcement agencies statewide. It didnt speculate on the reasons behind any of the trends.
The agency said 172 homicides were reported last year, up from 150 in 2014. It said 72 percent of the victims were males while 77 percent of the offenders were males.
A total of 3,275 rapes were reported last year, compared with 2,961 in 2014.
Robberies rose nearly 10 percent and motor vehicle thefts rose about 28 percent. Burglaries were up about 1 percent.
Recently, I spent the day as a background actor on the set of Longmire, a Netflix series that has been shooting in New Mexico for the last five years.
There are currently eight active TV series and six movies shooting in New Mexico. Clearly, the film industry is working here, even as New Mexicos overall economy is facing difficulties.
There are many conflicting views of the film industry here, so I wanted to see the process for myself.
The first myth that was quickly dispelled was that this is easy work its not.
The second was that most of these jobs are held by out-of-towners they are not.
In fact, the Longmire crew is made up of over 90 percent local New Mexicans who have impressively worked their way up in the industry. This is true for other TV series filmed in New Mexico as well thats a lot of jobs.
I met many of the hundreds of New Mexicans that are employed because of Longmire. I made it a point to ask how the film industry has impacted their lives, and they were excited to point out that they were proud union members and have truly been given a shot at success through the film industry, which provides good wages and benefits.
Just when I thought I was intruding on their time, they graciously thanked me, again and again, for supporting the film industry.
New Mexicans working in the film industry are bright, hard-working, and they are part of the creative sector that diversifies and grows our economy.
From creative positions like writers and directors, to set-builders and truck drivers, the film and television industry offers exciting 21st-century careers that are available today, in New Mexico!
If we are making critical investments in jobs for the future, we need to ensure that we are focused on results that work while concentrating on industries that give New Mexicos young people not only a chance to learn here, but, more importantly, the opportunity to stay here.
Our beautiful landscapes, multicultural population, ideal weather and lighting, unique locations and our storytelling tradition, all enhanced by targeted incentives, will continue to land New Mexico great productions.
This is the type of opportunity for economic growth we should be pursuing; not lowering wages to attract jobs.
As a member of the N.M. House of Representatives, I will continue to support innovative programs that create exciting jobs for New Mexicans, and I hope my colleagues will join me.
P.S.: Keep an eye out for me in one of this years episodes of Longmire!
Study after study has found no common profile of a terrorist. It is hard to explain why, say, almost four times as many recruits leave Sweden to fight with the Islamic State as from neighboring Norway, though Swedens population is only twice Norways.
Pundits and politicians alike speculate on why individuals might embrace terrorism, but such a question risks missing one obvious point: Having a terrorist group around in the first place is one of the most important factors in influencing an individuals choice to join.
Terrorist groups dont emerge out of nowhere, and wars are perhaps the richest soil for seeding and growing violent groups of all stripes.
Without the wars in the Middle East there would be no Islamic State, and it is not the only one: Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and other extremist groups all emerged out of regional civil wars. The formation of such groups is a political phenomenon, and so, too, is the radicalization of foreign fighters from the West.
Terrorist groups are rarely the cause of civil wars. Iraqs civil war began in 2003 after the U.S. invasion and occupation; Syrias civil war began with peaceful protests against a brutal dictator in 2011; and Libyas strife came after a terrorist-supporting dictator was toppled in the same year.
Rather, such wars beget and foster terrorism in several ways. Terror itself is often a tool in war, used to sow an atmosphere of fear and undermine governments. Assassinations of rival political leaders, bombs for police and military recruits and random violence against civilians these are all methods learned from Insurgency 101 .
Groups such as al-Qaida and now the Islamic State exploit new wars wherever they can. Terrorist groups linked to civil wars seek supporters in the United States, Europe and other areas outside the theater for reasons both obvious and obscure and these factors generate more terrorists.
This pull is especially strong when identities cross borders as does a religious identity like Islam and when local ties are weak or the community as a whole is poorly integrated, as the Muslim community is in many European countries.
Foreigners might join these groups for altruistic reasons, to help the genuinely oppressed (the Syrian people facing Bashar al-Assad, or the Afghans facing the Soviets). Yet often the oppression is a myth, or at least greatly exaggerated: One powerful narrative of the Islamic State is that Sunni Muslims are facing a global Shiite conspiracy led by Iran and Hezbollah.
Still others join because they are true believers and want to live the dream.
In different ways, the war takes them out of their humdrum or depressing present, giving them a new life: Im the most content I have ever been in my life, tweeted one young American woman who had gone to live in the Islamic State, ending the tweet with a heart emoji.
Many are merely thugs who spent time in jail or otherwise led delinquent lives: Joining the Islamic State or a similar group gives them a license to kill and torture.
Because there is no single profile, terrorist groups such as the Islamic State seek to appeal to many different ones. Propaganda stresses the good life in the caliphate, the glory of fighting for God, the oppression the community is facing, and glorified ultra-violence.
Religion matters, but only as a badge of meaning and belonging rather than for its specific ideological content. By professing religious beliefs, a young Muslim male can go from marginalized and alienated in his home country to part of Gods army, defending his people with his own sex slaves to boot.
Yet one study of the European foreign fighters found that most were theologically illiterate. Omar Mateen, the Orlando shooter, may not have understood the difference between the theologies espoused by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and Hezbollah.
As long as these wars rage, the problems they generate will not stay confined to the Middle East. Only a fraction of a fraction end up fighting, and even fewer engage in terrorism, but only a small number need to respond for the problem to be serious.
Daniel Byman is a professor at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
I have an idea.
The federal government needs to compile a list of women who shouldnt be allowed to get abortions. The criteria for getting on the list must be flexible. If an official at, say, the NIH or FBI think that a woman should be a mother for some reason or other, he or she can block an abortion. Maybe the woman has great genes or a high IQ or the sorts of financial resources we need in parents. Lets leave that decision where it belongs: in the hands of the government.
Heck, theres really no reason even to tell women if theyre on the no abort list. Let them find out at the clinic. And if they go in for an abortion only to discover they are among the million or more people on the list, there will be no clear process for getting off it, even if it was a bureaucratic error or mistaken identity.
Sound like a good idea?
You probably dont think so, particularly if you took part in the celebratory riot of good feeling in the wake of the Supreme Courts recent decision striking down Texas abortion regulations. In the case of Whole Womans Health v. Hellerstedt, the court ruled that Texas could not raise the required health and safety standards of abortion clinics to match those of other ambulatory surgical centers.
The reforms were implemented in the wake of the Kermit Gosnell scandal in which the Philadelphia abortionists abattoir was revealed to be more like the setting for a Saw movie than a decent medical clinic.
The court held that abortion is such a fundamental constitutional right that minimal health standards are an undue burden on women seeking an abortion, even if they might save womens lives.
Theres a deep and perplexing contradiction here. If abortion is just another aspect of womens health currently the preferred euphemism for the procedure why have higher health and safety regulations for dentists than abortionists?
But thats just the first of many contradictions.
The court allowed Whole Womens Health to sue in the first place, even though the company has no right to an abortion, and third parties arent supposed to have standing to sue for someone elses constitutional rights. The left loves to say corporations arent people unless theyre suing for abortion rights. Then the new mantra is: Corporations are people, but human fetuses arent.
The contradiction I find most glaring and galling is that the euphoric hysteria from the left over the courts decision occurred right in the middle of a conversation about guns and terrorist watch lists.
In that conversation, many of the same voices on the left argued that the federal government can nay, must! have the unilateral power to put American citizens on a secret list barring them from exercising two constitutional rights: the right to bear arms and the right to due process when the government denies you a right. (Both, unlike abortion, are rights spelled out in the Constitution).
Congressional Democrats even staged a tawdry tantrum on the House floor about it.
Never mind that the Orlando slaughter the event that set off the House sit-in would not have been prevented if the Democrats had their way.
Writing for the majority in the Hellerstedt case, Justice Stephen Breyer argued that the Texas statute was unnecessary because determined wrongdoers like Gosnell wouldnt be deterred by new laws given that he was willing to violate existing laws.
Maybe so. But isnt that exactly the NRAs position on gun laws? Murderers, never mind terrorists, by definition dont care about the law.
It gets even crazier.
President Obama, who hailed the courts decision, desperately craves the unilateral power to keep a list of people to whom he wants to deny guns without due process. But he also insists that known terrorists, particularly those held at Guantanamo Bay, have a constitutional right to due process (though presumably not to buy a gun).
Yes, theres a lot of deviltry in the details, but the basic truth is undeniable: Those on the left in all three branches of the federal government, along with their cheerleaders in the media believe that the rights they like are sacred and the rights they dislike are negligible inconveniences at best and outrageous cancers on the body politic at worst.
As Justice Clarence Thomas put it in his Hellerstedt dissent: The Court employs a different approach to rights that it favors.
In this, the court is not alone.
WASHINGTON FBI Director James Comey said Tuesday that he would not pursue criminal charges against Hillary Clinton in her long-running email scandal, even as he rebuked the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee as extremely careless in handling highly sensitive and classified information when she served as secretary of state.
Comeys dramatic announcement covered live from FBI headquarters by all the major television news networks signaled the likely end of Clintons legal problems stemming from the controversy. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who drew criticism for a private meeting with former President Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac in Phoenix last week, said Friday that she intends to accept the recommendations of the FBI and of career prosecutors in the case.
Although she may have escaped a criminal indictment, Comeys scathing criticism of Clintons private email servers and email habits during her tenure as secretary of state provided potent new political ammunition to Republicans hoping to thwart her White House bid.
Comeys decision not to pursue criminal charges showed the world what has long been believed: that Hillary Clinton is above the law, said Republican Party of New Mexico spokesman Tucker Keene. Clinton must be held responsible by the American public for jeopardizing national security, and the voters will reject her history of corruption, negligence, and self-interest.
The state Democratic Party declined to comment and referred to a Clinton campaign statement.
Comeys announcement concluded a yearlong FBI investigation into whether Clinton mishandled classified information, either intentionally or through gross negligence. Investigators pored over tens of thousands of emails, but Comey said they found no proof that Clinton or her aides intended to break laws governing the handling of classified information.
But he said, There is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. Comey said Clinton used multiple private servers and various devices that were not secure, and that she and her staff should have known better.
Explanations debunked
Comey directly contradicted many of Clintons own key explanations for her use of private email servers to conduct official national business, which could reinforce voters concerns about her trustworthiness.
She had said she turned over all her emails and that she had never sent or received any that were classified at the time.
The FBI chief said that in the course of the investigation, 113 emails were determined to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Emails in eight email chains were found to have been classified top secret at the time they were sent or received.
He also said investigators found that several thousand work-related emails were not among the group of 30,000 Clinton turned over in 2014. And he raised the possibility that people hostile to the U.S. had gained access to her personal email account.
Comeys announcement came three days after the FBI interviewed Clinton in a final step of its yearlong investigation.
There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clintons position should have known that an unclassified system was no place for sensitive conversations, Comey said.
Clintons personal email server, which she relied on exclusively for government and personal business, has shadowed her campaign since the Associated Press revealed its existence in March 2015.
Trump rails
GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump said Comeys statement provided more evidence against Crooked Hillary and showed anew that the system is rigged. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said the decision not to prosecute simply defied explanation, while Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., called it ridiculous.
The American people already have lost trust in government and the refusal to prosecute someone who had clear disregard for our national security gives them another reason why, Pearce wrote on his Facebook page shortly after Comeys announcement. Secretary Clinton should not get special treatment. The investigation made it clear that when questioned about her actions, she deceived the American people.
Despite criticizing Clinton, her aides and the State Department for their actions, Comey said that after analyzing similar circumstances in past inquiries, the FBI found no clear evidence she intended to break the law and that he believed no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.
He said, however, that people in similar circumstances face other measures, such as discipline or loss of security clearance
Comey began a 10-year term as FBI director in 2013, which means he will remain in the post if Clinton is elected president.
Brian Fallon, Clintons campaign spokesman, issued the following statement: We are pleased that the career officials handling this case have determined that no further action by the department is appropriate. As the secretary has long said, it was a mistake to use her personal email and she would not do it again. We are glad that this matter is now resolved.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that Republicans had exploited the case for political gain, and that the FBIs findings revealed a need to examine a confusing system of classifying government information.
The efforts by Republicans over the past year to malign Secretary Clinton have been nothing short of shameful, Feinstein said. The email review process was repeatedly distorted by Republicans for political gain with little care for the facts.
Comey said he had not shared the FBIs findings with anyone before his announcement, which came just hours before Clinton traveled to North Carolina with President Barack Obama on Air Force One to campaign with him for the first time this year.
Trump had tweeted over the weekend that no charges would be forthcoming, and the timing of the Obama-Clinton trip on Tuesday drew scorn on social media from conservatives and media pundits who said the optics of Clintons flying to a political event on the presidents jet were unseemly. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the Clinton campaign will pay an ordinary share of the trip, through the Democratic National Committee.
The White House of course follows all of the rules and regulations that apply to presidential travel, Earnest said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A preliminary hearing in the corruption case against former Sen. Phil Griego got underway Tuesday, with the prosecution calling him a sophisticated politician who knew what he was doing and Griegos attorney countering that the Attorney Generals Office was trying to turn a legitimate business transaction into a crime.
Four witnesses took the stand in state District Court as the prosecution began laying out its case that Griego in 2014 pushed the Legislature to authorize the sale of a historic state building, then pocketed $50,000 from the deal.
The San Jose Democrat is charged with 10 criminal counts, including fraud, bribery and tampering with public records.
Seeking to show Griego knew the ethical and criminal implications of profiting from the sale, Assistant Attorney General Zach Jones said Griego was a law school graduate, owned a title company, was a state senator, city councilman and a mayor as well as a real estate broker.
Griegos attorney, Thomas Clark, told the court prosecutors are overreaching. He said Griego did not have a financial interest in the sale until after the legislative session ended, noting that Griego signed a contract with the property buyers, who had been leasing the property for more than a decade, after the session.
Phil Griego exerted no influence, political or otherwise, outside of his job as a (real estate) broker for the Serets, the people who purchased the building, Clark said.
District Judge Brett Loveless, who must decide whether the state has enough evidence to proceed to trial, heard testimony from freelance journalist Peter St. Cyr, who wrote the first stories on Griegos involvement in the deal for the Santa Fe Reporter.
Loveless heard St. Cyrs audio recording of an interview with Griego in which he questioned the longtime senator about his role in the sale and why he didnt tell his fellow legislators that he had a financial interest in it.
Thats just how it is, Griego can be heard saying in the recorded interview that was played in court.
Legislators were busy, no one asked him for his opinion, and he just didnt speak up, the Democrat from San Miguel County is heard saying on the tape.
Griego in the recorded interview also said he never pressured anyone to vote for or against the resolution authorizing the sale, which was sponsored by Rep. Jim Trujillo, D-Santa Fe.
But prosecutors pointed to a chronology of Griegos involvement with House Joint Resolution 8, and claimed Griego had no other interest in the measure except for his personal financial stake.
The building wasnt in Griegos district which encompasses parts of Bernalillo, Lincoln, San Miguel, Santa Fe, Torrance and Valencia counties and he didnt sponsor the resolution. Nevertheless, he presented it to the Senate Rules Committee.
Vote swayed
Bill Brancard, the lead attorney for the states Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, testified that as part of the oversight of the building sale, he attended the Senate Rules Committee meeting.
I was surprised to see Trujillo was not presenting the resolution, Brancard told the court.
Prosecutors also called Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, an Albuquerque Democrat and member of the Senate Rules Committee.
He said information Griego provided at the committee hearing swayed his vote. Prosecutors said in court that Griego was lying at the hearing, exaggerating in claiming that the property needed repairs and was a money pit for the state.
Ortiz y Pino said he was not aware Griego had a financial interest in the property sale, as prosecutors contend. He said that wouldnt preclude a legislator from presenting a bill, but he said, They probably shouldnt vote on it.
He said had he known Griego had a vested interest he wouldnt have voted for the resolution, which passed with only three no votes.
Whether Griego voted on the resolution also was discussed in court. Videotape of the Senates proceedings show him walking off the floor before the show of hands for a no vote was taken.
Broker testimony
Also called Tuesday was Griegos former real estate brokerage colleague, John Mahoney.
Mahoney was Griegos lead broker, which under state law means he would be responsible for Griegos transactions and get a cut of the brokers fee.
He testified that he wasnt concerned after learning of Griegos ethics investigation because the alleged violation happened after Griego had transferred his license to a different lead broker.
But under state law, during such a transfer, the lead broker is to be made aware of pending transactions. Prosecutors and Mahoney said Griego did not provide such a list and did not tell Mahoney that he had been working on the state building sale.
Clark said Griego didnt tell Mahoney about the sale because he hadnt officially been working on it.
Still, prosecutors include Mahoney in the list of alleged victims. He accounts for one of the fraud charges Griego faces.
Prosecutors concluded the hearing Tuesday by saying they plan to call 23 additional witnesses. They include members of the Seret family and legislators, including leaders in both chambers. The preliminary hearing is expected to continue through the end of the week.
Griego faces 28 years in prison if convicted of all charges. He has pleaded not guilty.
Fireworks sparkled in the skies across the city this Fourth of July, but one bright firecracker has flickered out.
Her name was Christy Chavez. She was 42.
You knew her if you have ever believed in the underdog, the downtrodden, the hurt, the forgotten. She had a habit of staying on the front lines of all sorts of causes and campaigns, some of them unpopular. She didnt care what the naysayers said. And then again, maybe she cared too much.
I met her in 2007 when she started barraging me with emails and calls about what she called a matter of life and death the death, in this case, of a Texas prison inmate bound for the execution chamber.
Her anti-death penalty stance wasnt just a cause to her; it was personal. In each case, she searched for both an overlooked detail of vindication and the humanity within the lost soul of the convicted.
I get criticized all the time, she told me then. But everyone is human. Everyone makes mistakes. Some mistakes are bigger than others.
She knew something about mistakes. She was the first to admit that she had not always made the best choices. Maybe thats why she could so easily accept the foibles in others.
It was one of those mistakes that took her life. She drank too much. Her friends say thats because she felt too much and had to numb herself. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and it got banged up a lot.
She also had demons, dark experiences that she shared with others if she thought baring her own scars might help them. Those scars were sometimes ripped open, causing anxiety attacks, depression and then the drinking.
I didnt know about the latter. What I saw was a passionately compassionate woman who seemed always to know somebody involved in Albuquerques latest horrific crime, be it on the victims side or the offenders. And if she didnt know, she would find out.
She was often at protests against police brutality or rallies and candlelight vigils for someone killed violently or far too soon. She raised funds for gravely ill patients, recently shaving her hair in solidarity with a boy battling cancer. She advocated for children in foster care. She collected supplies for fire victims. She railed against domestic violence and fought for prison reform.
One of those in prison became her husband in 2009. Christy, who had an associate degree in criminal justice, had been working on another inmates case when that inmate told Toby Chavez about her, thinking she might be able to help him with his appeal. Chavez was serving a life plus 13-year sentence for a 1999 murder of a tourist.
Even though she knew his past and that there was little likelihood they would ever live together as man and wife, she fell in love. It surprised her.
I thought those women were crazy, she told me about women who marry men in prison. Do they have self-esteem problems? Can they not find a man out here? Then I started to meet some of these women, and I learned how meaningful those relationships are.
That was Christy a woman looking for the meaning behind the madness, the humanity behind the inhumane.
I believe in second chances, she told me. I believe people can change, can turn away from what it was that destroyed them. Everyone, even those we think of as the worst among us, needs to be told they are worth something, that they matter.
Her advocacy started early. She was 15 when she was interviewed for a 1989 newspaper story in Upland, Calif., where her family lived, after the community was rocked by the death of a 9-year-old local boy who had been abducted by a mob of teenagers and his body dumped off a cliff. Christy had taken it upon herself to tie white ribbons on the trees in her neighborhood.
It said that Christy felt she needed to do something just for kids to let them know theyve got to be so careful, her mother, Elizabeth Miller, told me.
I met Miller on Friday at the hospital, where Christy had been since June 29. They had just been told the prognosis was bleak. The drinking had caught up with her. Her liver was shot and her kidneys had ceased to function. She was not a candidate for transplant or dialysis. She was dying.
Im scared, she told me.
That day, Christy saw her only child, Mercedes Harris-Green, get married in a hastily cobbled-together ceremony in the hospital room.
Christy died Monday at her daughters home, a week after entering the hospital. Few of us had known just how sick she was. Like fireworks, she burned brightly and went dark so quickly.
Even the folks at the Department of Corrections, which had often been in her cross hairs, mourn her passing.
Mrs. Chavez was an advocate for her husband, and thats what we ask of family and friends of those incarcerated, Alex Tomlin, deputy secretary of administration, said in a statement. Her role in helping offenders was an important piece of the public safety puzzle and our hearts and prayers are with her family and our community.
There are people you meet who teach you important life lessons. Christy taught those of us who knew her that it is wrong to judge before you know a persons story. She reminded me to seek out those stories. I hope I never forget that. I hope none of us do.
UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
How to help
A GoFundMe account has been set up to help defray funeral costs. Visit A GoFundMe account has been set up to help defray funeral costs. Visit gofundme.com and search for Christy Chavez. Direct link
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Chris Stevens loved science fairs as a kid in third grade, he attached magnets to a skateboard and sneakers to create a new system for locking riders feet.
Our whole idea was that you could teach people to skateboard by allowing them to hold onto the board better, he explained. Of course, magnets are not that strong.
Though the project didnt get off the ground, Stevens never lost his passion.
Now, over a decade later, the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology undergraduate is tackling research with broader applications thanks to an internship with Sandia National Laboratories.
He spends weekends and school breaks assisting Sandia scientist Bernadette Hernandez-Sanchez, who develops novel materials that could be used as anti-corrosion coatings.
Getting to work here helps me see what is going on in industry, Stevens said Tuesday during a luncheon held at the Sandia-UNM Advanced Materials Laboratory to celebrate the internship program.
U.S. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich attended in a show of support for education in science, technology, engineering and math fields that are typically lucrative and stable.
Heinrich, an engineer by training, questioned the six interns about their projects and possible future applications in renewable energy and material science.
I think that you are all at a place that is going to be really exciting in the acceleration of material technology and change over the next few years, he said.
That acceleration and change means the interns skills are in high demand.
Sandia and its neighbor Los Alamos National Laboratory project that they will need to fill up to 5,000 jobs over the next five years, and Udall stressed that he hopes New Mexicans get many of them.
The Sandia internship program is important in that effort, Udall said, because it helps create a jobs pipeline between local universities and the lab.
I feel like this is a very productive, good interaction, he said.
Currently, about 2,400 UNM graduates and another 400 UNM students work at Sandia, which employs about 11,500 people in total and has a budget of close to $3 billion.
In 2015, UNM and Sandia signed a new memorandum of understanding to increase collaboration. The memorandum encourages exchanges and integration of researchers, faculty and students, sharing of offices and facilities and an overall increased presence on each others campuses, according to a Sandia news release.
For the past 14 years, UNM and Sandia have shared the 45,000-square-foot Advanced Materials Laboratory, which houses about 90 staff from the university, Sandia and private companies.
RALEIGH, N.C. Donald Trump praised Saddam Hussein at a campaign rally on Tuesday, embracing the dictator who oppressed Iraq for more than 30 years, aggressively suppressed dissent in his country and was widely considered one of the leading enemies of the United States.
Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. Right? He was a bad guy, really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didnt read them the rights they didnt talk, they were a terrorist, it was over, Trump said as many in his audience of about 2,000 laughed on Tuesday evening. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism. You want to be a terrorist, you go to Iraq. Its like Harvard. OK? So sad.
This is not the first time Trump has praised Hussein or other dictators, although his comments on Tuesday night gathered much more attention than his earlier comments. In October, Trump said that the world would be 100 percent better if dictators like Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi were still in power. In February, Trump said at a political event in New Hampshire that whether you like Saddam Hussein or not, he used to kill terrorists and now Iraq is a breeding ground for terrorists.
Although this stance is not a new one for Trump, some of his Republican colleagues rushed to distance themselves from the presumptive nominee on Tuesday evening. During an interview on Fox News, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, pointed to Husseins record of human rights abuses and distanced himself from Trump without condemning the candidate directly.
He was one of the 20th centurys most evil people. He was up there. He committed mass genocide against his own people using chemical weapons, Ryan told Fox News Megyn Kelly when asked for his reaction. Saddam Hussein was a bad guy.
Ryan dismissed several questions about his past criticism of Trump earlier in the interview, pointing out that he endorsed him last month but that he believes Trump is ultimately far better to be commander in chief than Hillary Clinton in my mind. But he added: When he says things that I dont agree with Im going to speak my mind, he said.
Trump was joined at the Tuesday evening rally by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, the chairman of the foreign relations committee who is on Trumps shortlist of potential running mates.
Hillary Clintons campaign jumped to condemn Trumps comments.
Donald Trumps praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds, said Jake Sullivan, a senior policy adviser, in a statement. In reality, Husseins regime was a sponsor of terrorism one that paid families of suicide bombers who attacked Israelis, among other crimes. Trumps cavalier compliments for brutal dictators, and the twisted lessons he seems to have learned from their history, again demonstrate how dangerous he would be as commander-in-chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks.
Firefighters have made significant gains in their battle with the San Pasqual Fire at the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge, reporting 50 percent of the blaze contained by Wednesday afternoon.
That progress prompted refuge officials to reopen parts of the facility to visitors.
Chris Leeser, visitor services manager at the refuge, about 20 miles south of Socorro, said the refuge visitor center will be open today and that the north portion of the refuge tour loop was opened Wednesday afternoon. The south portion of the tour loop remained closed Wednesday.
Leeser said that although only 50 percent of the wildfire is contained, a fire line had been established around the entire 700-acre blaze.
Crews are taking the hot spots and knocking them down, Leeser said. They are trying to backburn to protect cottonwoods that will be needed to help with regeneration.
Lightning is expected to be the cause of the fire, which started about 4 p.m. Monday. It is burning on both sides of the Rio Grande on the southern side of the refuge, a vital stopping point for migratory birds during the winter and a popular attractions for tourists and outdoor enthusiasts throughout the year. The 57,331-acre refuge is administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Fire crews from Fish and Wildlife, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the Midway Volunteer Fire Department, New Mexico State Forestry and the San Antonio, N.M., and Socorro fire departments have been working the fire. They were aided in their efforts Wednesday by relatively light winds, which Leeser said were out of the south at 5 to 7 mph, gusting to 15 mph.
No structures have been threatened by the blaze, and Leeser said nesting areas for critical bird species such at the Southwestern willow flycatcher and the yellow-billed cuckoo are not located in the part of the refuge that is burning.
He said a large archaeological site is fairly close to the eastern border of the fire.
The site is a village of the Piros, an indigenous people of Rio Grande Valley whose population is estimated to have been between 5,000 and 10,000 people in the early 1600s.
There is some surface scatter, pot shards, at the site, Leeser said. Other stuff is below ground.
He said salt cedar, an invasive and undesirable species, has provided most of the fuel for the fire. Unfortunately, Leeser said, fire will not kill out salt cedar.
The fire has done part of our work, but we are going to have to go in there and take out the salt cedar roots, he said. We are going to have to seek out funds to take advantage of what the fire started.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) An emotional, at times angry, evening unfolded in the working class, predominantly black Louisiana neighborhood where the police killing of a black man was caught on videotape.
Hundreds of mourners, friends and family members of Alton Sterling, 37, gathered Wednesday in Baton Rouge for a second night of protest, prayer and remembrance.
Sterling was shot early Tuesday as he wrestled with two white police officers outside the convenience store where he sold music and movies on compact discs. Police say he was armed.
Cellphone video of the shooting posted online by a community activist set off angry protests, coming at a time when law enforcement officers across the country are under close scrutiny over what some see as indiscriminate use of deadly force against blacks.
Moving quickly to keep tensions from boiling over, Democratic Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards asked the U.S. Justice Department to lead a civil rights investigation into the killing.
I have very serious concerns. The video is disturbing, to say the least, the governor said at a news conference.
Sandra Augustus, an aunt who helped raise Sterling after his mother died, spoke to the crowds Wednesday night with a tearful, broken voice.
She said a second video that emerged showing the moments before her nephew was shot left her angry.
I'm angry, but I'm not angry enough to hurt nobody, Augustus said. I'm not angry enough to go into the street. I'm not angry enough to curse the police out. But I'm angry and I'm mad because they took something from me that I never ever will get back.
Terrance Carter, Sterling's 28-year-old nephew, wore a T-shirt with his uncle's image printed on it. The police, he charged, went way too far.
They did it wrong, he said. They could have handled it better than they did. They didn't have to shoot him!
He said, though, the family was not condoning violent protests.
The family just wants it to be peaceful, he said. I understand right now it's bigger than us, but at the same time we're just trying to work through this and be smooth with it.
In a statement, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called the shooting a tragedy and said trust between police and the communities they serve needs to be rebuilt.
Something is profoundly wrong when so many Americans have reason to believe that our country doesn't consider them as precious as others because of the color of their skin, Clinton said.
A law enforcement official said a gun was taken from Sterling after he was killed early Tuesday. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
It was not clear from the murky cellphone footage whether Sterling had the gun in his hand or was reaching for it when he was shot. A witness said he saw police pull a gun from Sterling's pocket after the shooting.
Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. said Sterling was armed Dabadie didn't specify the type of weapon but that there are still questions about what happened.
Like you, there is a lot that we do not understand. And at this point, like you, I am demanding answers, Dabadie said, calling the shooting a horrible tragedy.
Sterling was confronted by police after an anonymous caller reported being threatened by someone with gun outside the store, authorities said.
In cellphone video, one of the officers tackled Sterling, and the two officers pinned him to the pavement.
Someone yelled, He's got a gun! Gun! and one officer pulled his weapon from his holster. After some shouting, what sounded like a gunshot could be heard. The camera pulled away before more shots were heard.
The officers, identified by the chief as Blane Salamoni, a four-year member of the department, and Howie Lake II, who has been on the force for three years, were placed on administrative leave, standard department procedure.
Lake was involved in another police shooting in December 2014. He told detectives investigating that shooting that he fired six or seven times when a suspect refused to drop his gun, threatened to kill himself and pointed his revolver at officers. The man was wounded by police.
In the shooting Tuesday, authorities would not say whether one or both officers fired their weapons or how many times.
The store owner, Abdullah Muflahi, released a video that he said he shot from a slightly different angle. He said Sterling was not holding a gun during the shooting but that he saw officers remove one from his pocket afterward. His video shows an officer reaching into Sterling's pocket to grab an object.
Muflahi said an officer fired four to six shots into Sterling's chest.
The street protest continued into the night Wednesday. People danced on cars and trucks, blocked traffic, and demanded justice. The protests were peaceful, and there was no sign of police even as the protests blocked a thoroughfare through that section of Baton Rouge.
Kristen George, a 25-year-old restaurant manager, came to the protest with her 2-year-old son Amazen and her wife and her 9-year-old son. George said she wanted to show her children the meaning of a civil rights protest.
It's hard out here for a black man in 2016, she said. I don't want them to feel scared to stand up for their rights.
Nefertiti Queen, a 34-year-old activist, predicted the protests in Baton Rouge would continue and remain peaceful as long as the authorities take the right steps in the investigation.
It's peaceful right now, but if the people don't get what they want, it might get like Ferguson, she said. She said she spent some time protesting in Ferguson, Missouri, after the controversial police shooting of Michael Brown, a black man who was unarmed. People will get frustrated if they don't get answers.
Baton Rouge, a city of about 229,000, is 54 percent black, according to census data, and more than 25 percent of its people live in poverty.
Police said they have dash-cam video, bodycam video and store surveillance footage of the shooting that will be turned over to the Justice Department.
The Justice Department will look into whether the officers willfully violated Sterling's civil rights through the use of unreasonable or excessive force.
Similar investigations, which often take many months, were opened after Brown's shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, and following Eric Garner's chokehold death in New York City.
Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana and Kevin McGill in New Orleans contributed to this report.
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The Corrales Fire Department rescued a horse from an acequia on the southern edge of the town Wednesday morning.
Firefighters used a horse rescue harness to pull a 15-year-old horse named Lieutenant out of a ditch north of Alameda and Corrales Road.
Lieutenants owner Gary Chavez said the horse spooked while on the ditch bank and slid into the ditch. The rescue took about two hours.
Journal photographer Dean Hanson contributed to this report.
CARLSBAD, N.M. Carlsbad police say two people been arrested in a fatal drive-by shooting that stemmed from an earlier fight.
Police say 33-year-old Robert Vargas was arrested on suspicion of murder, conspiracy, tampering with evidence and other crimes related to the fatal shooting early Tuesday of 41-year-old Eric A. Florez.
It could not be immediately determined whether Florez has an attorney who could comment on the allegations.
Police also arrested a 17-year-old boy on suspicion of murder and other crimes. The Associated Press generally does not identify juveniles accused of crimes.
Police also say a third person may face charges in the case.
According to police, other people were in and around a van driven by Florez when it was struck by gunfire.
This is a defining moment for New Mexicos energy future and, if residents dont pay attention, a small but vocal group of special interests could hijack our future and your electric bill.
They would take the state down a path of increased carbon emissions and higher electricity prices, all to further an extremist agenda that has little basis in fact and does not consider the best interests of PNM customers.
PNM delivers energy thats reliable and environmentally sensitive while keeping electric bills low. We have a balanced and increasingly cleaner mix of resources to generate electricity. At the end of next year, the company will retire two of its four coalfired units at San Juan Generating Station, and replace that power with solar, natural gas and existing energy from the Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona. A diverse group of stakeholders, including environmental advocates, agreed that our plan is right for
New Mexico.
PNM customers have received electricity from Palo Verde for more than three decades. It is one of the worlds safest, most reliable nuclear facilities. PNM owns or leases part of all three units, which we need to meet customer demand 24-7.
This year, as we have done previously, we purchased an expiring lease at fair market value to ensure access to this reliable source of energy for years to come.
PNM took this action under authority granted by the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission in previous public hearings. Just as we have done before, PNM now seeks to recover the costs of this power in a rate review pending at the PRC.
Energy decisions require an open and vigorous discussion centered on facts and focused on a clear goal. PNMs goal is to continue providing reliable energy to our customers at low prices while protecting our environment.
Unfortunately, those special interests are attacking every aspect of PNMs request, including Palo Verde, with little regard for reason or fact. They want to deny PNM cost recovery for this critical source of energy and, ultimately, they want all nuclear plants closed.
They claim more renewable energy is the answer, and they twist facts and mislead consumers to promote their narrow agenda.
One only has to look to the state of California to see how special interests can hamper economic growth and hurt working families.
California mandated a huge increase in renewable energy and is closing several of its nuclear plants due in part to similar pressure from special interest groups. How is that going? Californians already pay among the highest electric bills in the country and now theyre facing serious reliability challenges.
Even worse, their carbon emissions are expected to increase, since they will need gas-burning plants to keep the lights on when theres no sun or wind. Hawaii has similar mandates and challenges, and also has some of the highest electricity bills in the nation.
Four of the worlds leading environmental scientists recently wrote that wind and solar energy sources cannot deliver cheap and reliable power at a scale the global economy requires. They say nuclear power has to have a substantial role in addressing climate change.
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told the New York Times, Maintaining the nuclear fleet is really important for meeting our near-term and midterm goals.
For PNM customers, Palo Verde helps keep bills low and reliability high. Currently, New Mexico is on track to meet the Clean Power Plan mandate for carbon reduction, but we wont be able to do that without the ability to buy and pay for energy from Palo Verde.
If PNM is denied cost recovery for purchasing Palo Verde leases, the company wont be able to purchase the next set of leases when they expire and other states would benefit from that zero-carbon electricity. PNM would have to add energy from natural gas, increasing carbon emissions.
Palo Verde may cost a little more in the short term but, without it, the consequences and prices will be much higher, which would impact our economy and hurt working New Mexico families.
Recounts triggered by close vote margins in two New Mexico legislative primary election contests showed no change not even a single vote from Election Day tallies.
As a result, Democrat Mary Hotvedt of Pinos Altos was declared the winner today of a House District 38 primary race, while Republican Vicki Chavez of Deming claimed victory in a House District 32 primary contest.
The results were certified today by the State Canvassing Board, after county clerks in four southwest New Mexico counties conducted the recount last Friday.
Hotvedt won her race by a 29-vote margin over Karen Whitlock of Mimbres, with a total of 3,493 ballots cast. She will face GOP candidate Rebecca Dow in the November general election.
Meanwhile, Chavez will face off in this fall against Democrat Candie Sweetser after defeating Scott Chandler by 16 votes, in a contest in which 1,768 registered voters cast ballots.
The two recounts were triggered by a state law that calls for an automatic, state-paid recount if the vote margin between the top two vote-getters in a legislative race is less than 1 percent.
Chandler, who was the target of a hard-hitting mailers sent out by an outside Super PAC in the run-up to the June 7 primary election, had asked the state Supreme Court to delay the recount until more information about how it would be conducted could be turned over.
After the Supreme Court rejected the request and he lost in the recount, Chandler called this week on Secretary of State Brad Winters office to investigate perceived irregularities in his race.
But there was no discussion of such an investigation at todays State Canvassing Board meeting, which lasted for only about five minutes.
All other primary election results had already been certified by the canvassing board made up of Gov. Susana Martinez, Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Daniels and Winter at a previous meeting.
New Mexico and West Texas oil producers are gearing up for a national effort to draw all major U.S. oil basins into a grassroots movement to restrict crude imports from overseas.
Leaders of the Panhandle Import Reduction Initiative, which launched in April in the Permian Basin, are seeking public meetings and rallies in other oil-producing zones to convert whats now a regional initiative into a national movement, said Daniel Fine, associate director of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy, who is working with local producers.
Those efforts will kick off in September with a presentation at the fourth Southeastern New Mexico Energy Summit in Carlsbad. After that, initiative leaders expect to hold public meetings in other shale oil basins, including the Bakken in Montana and the Dakotas and the Eagle Ford in South Texas.
Well take it to Carlsbad first, and then it goes national, Fine said. We want to organize public rallies with producers and field workers whose jobs are at stake. This is a grassroots effort in the basins where the oil bust has taken place.
The initiative is a reaction to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries aggressive oil-pumping policies since mid-2014, which have helped drive global oil prices to ten-year lows and thrust domestic U.S. production into crisis. Initiative leaders say those policies were a deliberate effort by the mid-Eastern members of OPEC, particularly Saudi Arabia, to drive U.S. producers out of business.
Banning crude imports from overseas would undercut OPECs ability to manipulate prices, they say, and allow U.S. producers to ramp up domestic production to supply the U.S. market.
Today, about 50 percent of domestic demand is supplied by imports from the Mid-East, and foreign control of the market is growing, Fine said. From January-June, imports jumped by 10.5 percent, while domestic output declined by more than 400,000 barrels a day.
Why are we buying imports from the Mid-East when OPEC has launched an offensive to basically shut down our industry? Fine said. Its the same oil were producing in our shale basins where we have great supplies to meet market need. We can be completely self-sufficient, so lets cut off over-supply of cheap imported oil.
Initiative leaders will present their proposal to whomever wins this years elections, asking the new president to use executive authority to cease crude shipped from overseas by March 1. Only imports from Canada and Mexico would be allowed.
It would break OPECs back with respect to price manipulation and lead to market prices set by U.S. supply and demand, said Tom Cambridge, owner and chairman of Cambridge Production in Amarillo, Texas.
The movement has so far garnered support from about 600 producers and other industry sectors in New Mexico and West Texas, Fine said.
By and large, its led by small, independent producers, who are the ones most hurt in the oil bust, said John Yates Jr. of Yates Petroleum in Artesia.
Import reductions would help stabilize the smaller companies and independents who are the most impacted, and it would put a lot of people back to work, Yates said. It would allow producers to make it through the downturn, while helping the state and federal governments with taxes and royalties. Its incumbent on everyone to make sure we survive this.
PORTLAND, Ore. The lawyer for a 13-year-old girl who told police she was groped on a flight to Portland, Oregon, seeks $10 million in a federal lawsuit against American Airlines and the passenger accused of the crime.
Attorney Brent Goodfellow filed the suit Tuesday in Portland, alleging the June incident caused his client extreme fear and psychological trauma.
American Airlines spokesman Matt Miller says the company is reviewing the lawsuit while continuing to cooperate with an FBI investigation.
The suspect, 26-year-old Chad Camp, remains in a Portland jail after pleading not guilty to abusive sexual contact.
Authorities have said an attendant on the Dallas-to-Portland flight was delivering snacks when she noticed Camps hand in the victims crotch area. She saw the girl shed a single tear and quickly separated the two.
A witness said Camp consumed at least four mixed drinks shortly before the flight.
ACAs library of educational tools help members improve their business practices. ACA also holds the most popular industry conferences and offers credentialing for collectors, attorneys, and more. ACAs Training Zone subscription gives agencies access to almost all of our education for one low cost.
The Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants (VSCPA) Educational Foundation recently announced its college scholarship recipients for the 20162017 academic year. The Educational Foundation represents a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting accounting education and encouraging students to pursue careers as CPAs.
This year, the Foundation awarded $50,250 between undergraduate, graduate and doctoral scholarships to 25 accounting students across the state of Virginia.
Scholarship applicants must be currently enrolled or accepted in an accounting program at a Virginia college or University, complete an entry essay, have faculty recommendations, and be in good academic standing.
The 20162017 scholarship recipients are as follows:
VSCPA Minority Scholarship ($1,000)
Mari Baz (George Mason University)
Grishma KC (George Mason University)
Tracey Le (George Mason University)
VSCPA Undergraduate Scholarship ($1,000)
Selma Avdic (University of Richmond)
Courtney Donovan (College of William & Mary)
Brooke Miller (Averett University)
Jessica Miller (George Mason University)
Emma Robinson (College of William & Mary)
VSCPA Graduate Scholarship ($1,000)
Jack Melhorn (University of Virginia)
VSCPA Ph.D. Scholarship ($5,000)
Edward Lynch (Virginia Commonwealth University)
VSCPA Past Presidents/Chair Scholarship ($1,000)
Katherine McVey (College of William & Mary)
Thomas M. Berry Jr. Scholarship ($2,500)
Caitlin Bare (College of William & Mary)
Virginia Tech Doctoral Scholarship ($2,500)
Trent Henk (Virginia Tech)
CST Group Scholarship ($2,500)
Illiana Montoya (George Mason University)
Dixon Hughes Goodman Scholarship ($2,000)
Madeline Cutler (Washington and Lee University)
Maddie Sanford (College of William & Mary)
H. Burton Bates Jr. Scholarship ($2,000)
Bradlee Rogers (Radford University)
Kearney & Company Scholarship ($2,500)
Ameera Choudhury (George Mason University)
Joseph Mills (Virginia Tech)
Michael E. Mares Scholarship ($3,500)
Sayed Akbari (Virginia Commonwealth University)
MJW Scholarship ($3,500)
Ryan Vosburgh (University of Virginia)
Verus Financial Partners Scholarship ($2,500)
Miranda Melton (Lynchburg College)
Wall, Einhorn & Chernitzer Scholarship ($2,250)
Christopher Davenport (Old Dominion University)
Yount, Hyde & Barbour Scholarship ($2,500)
Jason Jones (University of Virginia)
For more on the VSCPA Educational Foundation, head to the Society's site here.
Mountjoy Chilton Medley has expanded its footprint in Cincinnati by adding Top 100 firm Elliott Davis Decosimos practice in that city.
The deal took effect on July 1, 2016. MCM, based in Louisville, Ky., has nearly 300 employees in five offices, including in Cincinnati and Louisville, along with Lexington, Ky., and Jeffersonville, Ind. MCM ranked 94th on Accounting Todays 2016 list of the Top 100 Firms, with $39.1 million in annual revenue. Based in Greenville, S.C., Elliott Davis Decosimo ranked 29th on Accounting Today's 2016 list of the Top 100 Firms, with $117 million in annual revenue.
Elliott Davis announced in October 2014 it was merging in Decosimo to create a large regional firm known as Elliott Davis Decosimo, effective Jan. 1, 2015 (see Elliott Davis Merges with Decosimo to Create Regional Megafirm).
However, the combined firm has since decided to rethink its geographic focus and is shedding the old Decosimo office in Cincinnati. The partners who are joining MCM were formerly with the original firm of Joseph Decosimo & Co., which has been part of the Cincinnati business community since 1985.
MCM, in contrast, has been building its presence in Cincinnati, merging in the firm of Cooney Faulkner & Stephens LLC last year, and moving into its offices in the Hyde Park neighborhood (see Mountjoy Chilton Medley to Merge in Cooney Faulkner).
With the latest deal, MCM anticipates it will become one of the Top 10 CPA firms in Cincinnati, boasting a team of more than 60 professionals and other employees.
MCM has been in Cincinnati for several years, but we are looking to grow the business commensurate with the opportunities we see in this critical market, said MCM managing partner Diane Medley in a statement. Our industry and consulting expertise are great fits for the Cincinnati economy, and by adding new members to our existing team, well be able to provide our clients with more expertise, more capabilities and more resources.
MCM plans to add another 60+ jobs and expand its office space in Cincinnati in the next three years.
Mike Gentry, a longtime Cincinnati partner with Elliott Davis Decosimo and formerly with its predecessor Joseph Decosimo & Co., said he was thrilled to be joining MCM. MCM has a reputation for being a great steward of both its clients and its team, providing a broad-base of high level expertise and service to those it serves, and a Best Places to Work-winning culture to those providing that service, he said. Were very much looking forward to being a part of that.
The Cincinnati office will offer the traditional array of tax, assurance and accounting services, along with specialties in handling investment companies and funds, mergers and acquisitions, international tax, hospitality and nonprofit clients.
Gaana, India's favourite music streaming app, adds a non-music audio show by eminent Indian film actor Ashish Vidyarthi to its Original Programming series "Gaana Specials.
Prashan Agarwal, COO, Gaana said Gaana Specials is our effort to enthrall audience across audio genres including but not limited to music related shows, movie reviews, comedy and story telling. Ashish is well known for his work in Bollywood, Tamil & Telugu movies and has a distinct tone which suits audio presentation. Through this show, called Kahanibaaz, for the first time people will listen to him narrating stories. Each episode in this series is a veritable performance piece, mixed and sound designed like an audio movie.
The show is inspired by stories from all around the world from Alexei Tolstoy to Oscar Wilde to O Henry - which have been brilliantly adapted and reinvented into the Indian context by writer Saurabh Bhramar.
This rich musical narration experience series is now live on Gaana for the listeners. The first season has 10 episodes and every 15 days a new episode will be featured. Apart from the original content audio shows, this meta-story interweaves good music with life experiences, and progresses from episode to episode.
The episodes are mixed and designed like an audio movie. Each episode has around 4 to 5 chunks of talk, each chunk ranging from 5-8 minutes.
Along with the stories that Kahanibaaz narrates, Ashish Vidyarthi threads together his own personal stories. Through this meta-story, the listeners get to know about Ashishs personality, which seems a bit eccentric and strange. The stories for the First Season are in the dark space, featuring horror and morbid tragedies. The mystique of Kahaanibaaz will be revealed in Season 2 only.
The hunt is on for young creative and media minds under 30 years. Brand Equity Young Spikes 2016 competition. Winners get a free trip to Singapore to compete at Spikes Asia 2016. www.etbrandequity.com/youngspikes
How often do we notice the true champs around us? From the autowala to the chaiwala around us, there are many unnoticed individuals, who indeed are champs and play a very important role in our lives. Zimmber, a leading home service provider in Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Navi Mumbai and Pune, recently came up with a unique initiative to identify these champions of our lives. Zimmber also spread the love on social media with the #ThankAChamp hashtag. The campaign was conceptualised by Patronus Creative.
An innovative and a heart-warming method to encourage and usher employees to betterment, they recognise champs and super champs who play some of the most vital roles in our everyday lives. From identifying and rewarding the best of the best, to general spreading of bliss and joy, Zimmber showed people the way to be thankful to the ones who deserve it the most.
Harshit Jain, Senior Marketing Manager, Zimmber, said, The idea was to run the campaign on social media platforms for a week, but the positive impact was such that we are still receiving entries.
Started on June 6, 2016, the campaign rolled out on social media. However, the core thought behind the campaign is big and can be extended to other platforms as well, Jain added.
Speaking more on the insight behind the campaign, Jain said, Zimmber strongly believes in professional equality and dignity of labour. We greatly respect our Champs and the work they do. These people help improve so many lives, and it is only fair that their lives are bettered too.
He further said, By inspiring a vast majority of youngsters to thank the Champs in their lives, we seek to inspire positive change. It is also important to recognize that change is driven not by one person, sections of society that act as one cohesive unit. That is precisely why we went ahead with this campaign.
To create awareness and socially impact the wellness of each and every profession, Zimmber decided to run a campaign thats all about thanking the champs of our lives be it the newspaper delivery boy, the auto rickshaw driver, the milk man, the cook, the neighbourhood restaurant delivery guy, the driver, and many more. Apart from a Diwali or Holi or Eid or New Year bonus, we hardly ever take the time to show our appreciation for these people. #ThankAChamp was all about expressing ones gratitude for no reason and in the process, make another human being feel special and important.
The best way to do this was to crowd source entries from regular people on social media platforms. We asked people to thank the champs publicly on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and any other platform they deemed fit. Users were asked to click a picture with these champs, and describe in a few words what they felt for them. They had to post a picture and description about the champ along with the #thankachamp tag. Selected visitor posts were put up on a frame and published on Zimmber's social media to raise awareness for a good cause, Jain informed.
The power of positive emotion is such that anyone who saw these posts would feel inspired to thank someone in their life. Even if they dont post to us, we will be happy if they just recognise the magnanimity of the thought, and spread the emotion further. Spreading positive vibes was our ultimate objective, and Im very happy to see it worked well, he added.
Agency Speak
Elaborating on the creative thought process behind the campaign, Ayush Mishra, CEO, Patronus Creative, said, In every persons life, there are unsung heroes who go unnoticed every day. Theres the newspaper man, who makes sure you get the daily news by daybreak. Theres the auto rickshaw driver, who ferries people around all day. Theres the milk man, the guy who cleans your car, the lady who cooks for you, the neighbourhood restaurant delivery guy, and so many more. Saying thank you to these people is a matter of a few seconds, but not a lot of us do it. Not because we dont want to, but because in the hustle and bustle of our lives, these things tend to slip unnoticed. Thanking these champs will make them happy, and motivate them to do their best.
To create awareness and socially impact the wellness of each and every profession, we came up with a campaign that's all about thanking these champs. Therefore, #thankachamp, he added.
Shedding light on the execution of the campaign, Mishra informed that crowd sourcing was the underlying concept used for this campaign. Users from all social media platforms were asked to thank the champs who work for them. They were asked to click a picture with these champs and describe in a few words what they felt for them. They had to post a picture and description about the champ along with the #thankachamp tag.
Selected visitor posts were put up on a frame and published on Zimmbers social media to raise awareness for a good cause. Spreading positive vibes was our ultimate objective, and it was achieved to a great extent, Mishra claimed.
Speaking on the brief received from the client, he said, Zimmber is a firm believer in dignity of labour and believes it should be propagated to every avenue of Indian society. They greatly appreciate the hard work their servicemen (Champs) do, and are constantly looking for new ways to show their appreciation. They wanted a way to showcase their ethics and morals, and they believed social media platforms are the way to go.
Thats why Patronus Creative decided to extend this thought to the everyday champs of our life. Dignity of labour is indeed an important discussion in 21st century India, and Zimmber is already a front runner in bringing about change, Mishra concluded.
Although generally small in size and individual cost, the unheralded fastener can be responsible to a manufacturer for inefficiency, underproduction, lost component availability, downtime and no-build conditions that all threaten revenue and profits.
This is especially true at the starting point of design when important decisions on the correct type of fastener selection are made. Quite often, the manufacturer focuses on the functional aspects of their product without consideration being given to the type of fastener that will provide the best opportunity to optimise the assembly process when full production commences
TFC Europe Ltd is one of the leading suppliers of technical fastener components to industry, with an unrivaled reputation for delivering innovative products, supply solutions, and exemplary service, to help customers achieve breakthroughs in product development and new standards of manufacturing efficiency. As a company that has been in existence for over 40 years we recognise early consultation at the design stage allows some significant benefits.
Increased Option Availability the later the assembly method is selected, the fewer options the manufacturer will have leading to more limited, expensive, solutions that may include additional tooling
Standard Solution Selection these are the ultimate preferred fastener solutions for any manufacturer and the earlier the collaboration, the greater the chance we can offer guidance towards a standard solution and avoid the need to supply a bespoke part. We are an independent company with a vast supplier base to hand and we can offer unbiased advice on the best fastener for the job.
Optimised Assembly as a fastener specialist, we have the experience needed to determine if a better alternative solution can be found. Although manufacturers Design Engineers may be experienced in assessing the project from a fastener perspective, they may overlook specific requirements that can impact on the assembly and production.
Joint Consultation working in tandem with a fastener supplier like TFC allows both companies to share relevant information about their respective industries. We can offer new fasteners or joining technology whilst the manufacturer can advise on new industry requirements that may affect assembly methods.
On-Going Improvement by being given first hand access to the production line, manufacturers benefit by being advised on the latest fastening solutions available and how these can be integrated into the production process
Best Practices by working with us we are able to identify which products work best for the manufacturers assembly requirements and these can then be made standard for future designs. In return, assembly costs can be lowered, assembly time cut and inventories reduced.
Product Awareness TFC offer bespoke seminars on a variety of specialist fastener and spring products which raise awareness within the manufacturers design and production staff of the products function, benefits and selection criteria
TFC is a leading supplier of technical fastening solutions employing over 100 staff throughout the UK and Germany. Our field and office based engineers offer a day-to-day consultation service with customers and prospects in order to combine our expertise with their specific skills and provide solutions to fastener problems on a long term partnership basis.
Call or e-mail now for more information.
Reserve C-17 wins best in show at UK air show
As jets thundered overhead, nearly 40,000 people crowded into the small Royal Navy station here in order to get a peek at aircraft from all over the world, including a C-17 Globmaster III from Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina.
Reservists from the 315th Airlift Wing, participated in the annual Yeovilton Air Day on July 2, and they were also awarded the shows top prize, the best static display award.
It felt good to be recognized by the British, said Maj. Ed Sutton, the chief of tactics with the 315th Operations Support Squadron. They were amazing and fantastic hosts who just wanted to see what we do.
Proving to be the most popular display at the show; for most of the day, the wait time to get a tour of the C-17 flight deck at times was almost two hours. We didnt mind waiting, said Donna Speckie, one of the air show attendees. The C-17 is just massive and we dont normally get to see these here in the U.K.
For Capt. Mike Murphy, a traditional Reserve pilot with the 701st Airlift Squadron attending air shows is a common occurrence.
I attend many aviation related events worldwide, but coming as a C-17 crewmember is all about diplomacy, he said. Several thousand people walked through our jet and the image that is imprinted in their minds is both of the magnitude of the C-17 and the crewmembers present. That image is invaluable. he said.
For the C-17 crewmembers, there were multiple reasons for displaying their massive aircraft at the show. For us, training is always important and thats the real reason we were here, Sutton said. We were able to fly overseas sorties with a complicated load with over 16,000 pounds of shoring and some rolling stock vehicles.
Senior Airman Andrew Longaker: Dollars and sense
One of the many stressors military members face when deployed is finances. Managing money while away from home can be a tricky feat if you are not well prepared.
From allotments, to savings plans, deployment entitlements and travel vouchers, the 455th Expeditionary Comptroller Squadron, takes strides to make sure members at Bagram Airfield are taken care of.
One member in particular, Senior Airman Andrew Longaker, has taken his mission as a budget technician for the Accounting Liaison Officer to a higher standard.
My mission is to provide technical support and advice to organizations in regards to making official purchases, said Longaker. I act as a liaison between the purchasing organization, contracting office and the vendor to ensure commodities are purchased in a timely manner.
As a result of his excellent job performance and evoking the whole Airmen concept by self-improvement and community involvement, Longaker earned the Wing Staff Agency Airman Top Performer for the month of June.
I dont really know what to say about winning, said Longaker. I am pretty excited!
Coming from the 96th Comptroller Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, Longaker has learned that it is important to keep your mind strong while deployed to Bagram.
In doing so, he has tapped into all three aspects of the Air Force Warrior Ethos; hardiness of spirit, and moral and physical courage.
While deployed, Longaker has taken advantage of many activities offered here at Bagram to include a Spartan Race.
My most memorable experience here at Bagram was running the Spartan Race with my buds, said Longaker. Ive always loved obstacle races and the challenges they provide, so being able to participate out here has been a great opportunity.
Though Longaker utilizes physical courage and hardiness of spirit to help keep his morale high during his deployment, it is morale courage that has dictated how he serves at his job.
All components of warrior ethos are necessary for a machine to operate smoothly, however, a machine with no direction or purpose is one that becomes useless, said Longaker. I like to think of moral courage as the single most important piece of the puzzle. The ability to know what is good and just and the fortitude to stand up for those beliefs, are the foundation for all other components of Warrior Ethos.
I know that an individual who can make just calls and inspire others to do the same is the epitome of a leader, said Longaker. That is what I strive to be.
The proposed Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ Mumbai Metro Line-3 took a big leap with Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd awarding civil contracts worth over Rs 18,000 crore for the 33.5-km section, an official said here on Tuesday.
The civil works, to be implemented in seven packages, attracted bids from major Indian and international companies, for the project being implemented by MMRCL with loan from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
The Mumbai Metro Line-3 will be a fully underground corridor with 27 stations, including 26 underground and one at grade, or overground, to be constructed by the five contractors.
Their selection was done as per JICA procurement guidelines through international competitive bidding with JICA scrutinizing the processes at all stages.
The Mumbai Metro Line-3 would provide a crucial north-south corridor connecting major central business districts of south Mumbai in Nariman Point with BKC, domestic and international airports, and industrial hubs of MIDC and SEEPZ.
It will also provide rail connectivity for the first time to various parts of the city and suburbs like Kalbadevi, Worli and Prabhadevi.
The line will provide convenient interchanges with Western Railway at Churchgate, Mumbai Central and Mahalaxmi with Central Railway at CST, the Monorail at Mahalaxmi and Metro Line 1 at Marol Naka, besides connecting to the upcoming Line 2.
An estimated 1.40 million commuters are expected to use the line in 2021 when commercial operations are due to start and increase to 1.70 million in a decade.
The Metro Line 3 will operate services at 2.5 minutes headway with a modern rolling stock, platform screen doors, automatic fare collection system and integrated ticketing with other modes, or a Single Card.
Besides a huge reduction in air and noise pollution, the Metro Line 3 will reduce traffic congestion with 456,771 less vehicle trips per day, save 243,390 litres fuel per day with total savings of Rs 15.81 crore daily.
The selected contractors are: Package 1 L&T-STEC joint venture for stations Cuffe Parade, Vidhan Bhavan, Churchgate and Hutatma Chowk, at Rs 2,988.53 crore.
A British inquiry into the Iraq war strongly criticised former Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government on Wednesday, saying they had led the country into war based on flawed intelligence that should have been challenged.
The long-awaited inquiry report also said Britain had joined the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 without exhausting peaceful options, that the legal basis for military action was not satisfactory, and that the planning was wholly inadequate.
Published seven years after the inquiry was set up, the report runs to 2.6 million words about three times the length of the Bible and includes details of exchanges Blair had with then U.S. President George W. Bush over the invasion.
It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged and they should have been, the head of the inquiry, John Chilcot said in presenting its findings.
Iraq remains in chaos to this day. Islamic State controls large areas of the country and 250 people died on Saturday in Baghdads worst car bombing since the U.S.-led coalition toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.
The inquiry rejected Blairs view that Iraqs post-invasion problems could not have been known in advance.
The inquirys purpose was for the British government to learn lessons from the invasion and occupation that followed, in which 179 British soldiers died.
Opponents of Blairs decision to join the war will pore over the report for its judgment on how the Labour leader, who quit in 2007, justified the military action. At the time, he said intelligence showed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction but after the invasion none was found.
I was lied to. The media, the press, the families, parliament, everybody was lied to, Reg Keys, whose son was among the British fatalities and who stood as a candidate for parliament against Blair in the 2005 election, told ahead of the reports publication.
Blair has always rejected any suggestions he acted dishonestly. He was expected to give his reaction to the report later on Wednesday.
The inquiry looked at the reasons for the invasion, the war itself and the aftermath and has taken longer to complete than the British military involvement itself.
Dr. Zakir Naik is a thin person living simple life but very eccentric on his views about Islam. He is a Mumbai-based practicing doctor and president of the Islamic Research Foundation, has been a controversial figure for Muslim theologians for long. Very peculiar thing about Zakir Naik is that he is not a political personality, never endorses any party or leader, never seen him sharing space with any politician. You wont find him attending political rallies and politicians attending his events. This can be seen as the uniqueness of a religious figure in India who is not using his influence in politics. There is a huge list of religious leaders those are either members of parliament or contest on partys tickets or attending political rallies. He hasnt done anything from above. However, he has his own voice and followers, more than any other religious leader in India.
He mesmerizes youth by answering their queries from how right is being suicide bomber to committing suicide, and many other topics. He literally counsels people and convinces them to a large extent by his arguments. What he speaks can be many times misinterpreted or misunderstood, the reason he conveniently explains the query without any caution note. Its very difficult to say, what appeals to the Muslim youth in his speeches but he is heard by many. He has many young admirers, many educated Muslims who respect and follow him. Zakir Naik comes across as a well-educated intelligent rational voice of Islam, and hence people can connect with him. The structure of Sunni Islam is such that not many can claim to be very influential, but yes Naik has few takers. He is refreshingly different from other preachers, who are either busy defending their religion or very tiny trying to ferment some kind of revolutions. He, on other hand, claims to be an expert in comparative religion study and hence they see him countering other religions.
If you visit his social network pages, youth share, comment and interact with this person very religiously. However, it does not mean he has no critics or haters, he is hated by many, large number of Muslims across the country, both Shia and Sunni, earlier demanded that Dr. Zakir Naik should be expelled from the community. He is a staunch Muslim with religious fundaments, and over the years, hes becoming more intolerant and dogmatic, which has unfortunately served only to increase his popularity. He has the right to free speech, so Im not really sure what can be done to curb his influence. Understanding the logical flaws in his seemingly impressive arguments is often too complex a task for his target audience (and possibly, even for him). Apart from this, I personally dont think, he has any capacity or intention to cause any significant harm to the society. If you ask me the Owaisi brothers are much more provocative and dangerous than him.
Many people used to seeing Muslims on back foot defending their religion, find it revolting to see a Muslim heaping criticisms on them and not only that but spitting verses from their books to put forward claims and counter-claims. That can be fun to watch for many Muslims. He is also accused of openly praising Osama bin Laden in his speeches. For Muslims, the most controversial of Dr. Naiks statements, however, relate to Yazid, the quintessential villain in Muslim theology, whose army was responsible for the killing of Imam Husain, the Prophets grandson, in the battle of Karbala in 680 AD. At a conference in December 2007 in Mumbai, he used the expression Radiallah tala anho (May Allah be pleased with him) while referring to Yazid, which outraged his audience. This is not the first time that he came under scanner. Anyways, Naik is in Saudi Arabia, where he has gone for umrah. Naik is popular in Bangladesh for his Peace TV rants. According to a Bangladesh newspaper, militant Rohan Imtiaz, son of an Awami League leader, ran propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Naik. The NIA had earlier this year arrested cleric Abdus Sami Qasmi, a resident of Delhis Seelampur area, for allegedly inciting the youth to join outfits like IS. Sami, who studied at Darul Uloom Deoband, would raise emotive national and international issues such as the Muzaffarnagar riots, Prophets cartoons to incite youths to rise against anti-Islamic forces.
Naik is banned in the UK and Canada for peddling Salafist Islam and hate speech. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia. In India, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) does not provide for banning individuals.
The Dhaka attackers were not the only ones inspired by the controversial speeches of Naik. Islamic States Hyderabad module head Mohammad Ibrahim Yazdani too confessed that his inclination towards violent outfits working to establish Shariah law was also because of Naik. In fact, Yazdani went to Mumbai specially to attend one of Naiks congregations in 2010 as a volunteer and listened to his sermons. Yazdani stayed in Mumbai for the full 10-day camp, organised by Naik-led Islamic Research Foundation. Yazdani (29), who formed the Hyderabad module along with 10 others after coming in touch with Syria-based handlers, he was following Naiks speeches on TV and YouTube since 2004. Ibrahim Yazdanis journey to Ahle-Hadees, a puritanical strain of Islam, actually started only after listening to Naik when he was a teenager.
Anyway, I too saw one of his video on Youtube today, but it did not impress me much. Let the investigating agencies find out the truth, and reason why the youth are getting misguided by his speeches and book him if proved guilty.
(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com)
He came under scanner for his controversial statements on religion.
Shiv Sena has requested the India Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to take stringent action against Islamic televangelist Dr Zakir Naik who was followed by one of the five Bangladeshi militants, who killed 22 people at a restaurant in Dhaka. Naik, in his lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly urged all Muslims to be terrorists. He came under scanner for his controversial statements on religion. Naik is hugely popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, although his preachings often demean other religions and even other Muslim sects. He has already been under police radar for more than a decade. Sena also wanted the government to keep an eye on those who radicalise youth to join terror outfits. Already there have been reports about youth joining terror groups after they are being radicalised through social media.
Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant will urge the Home Ministry to impose a ban on Zakir Naik. He said, People whose language propagates violence against nations unity, they should be banned. I will write to the Home Minister that such people and the youngsters need to be kept a tab on.
We should know the seriousness of this situation. Radicalized minds can now take any step. In the name of Islam, they are slaughtering people who cannot recite verses, Sawant added.
Bangladesh has already sought Indias assistance for tightening investigation against Naik. The Mumbai police have questioned office bearers of Naiks Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) on Wednesday. The government is likely to take action against Naik.
Zakir Naiks speech is a matter of concern for us. Our agencies are working on this. But as a minister, I will not comment what action will be taken, Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju said.
Rijiju said India has good relations and mutual understanding with Bangladesh, especially in the matter of co-operation on fighting terrorism.
Terror can be defeated only through close coordination and by fighting together (against it), he said.
Mahtab Alam, a student of Delhi University said, I think Dr Zakir Naik has nothing to do with these Dhaka terrorists. He not only possesses knowledge of Islam but also is aware about other religions too. Even Ravan was a follower of Lord Shiva so can anybody blame the deity? Due to the presence of 5 per cent bad elements fingers are pointed against the Muslim community.
Nazir Alig a student from Aligarh Muslim University said, I have not heard about any controversial statements issued by Dr Zakir Naik. He is a preacher and wants interreligious unity and peace among all communities. If Dhaka terrorists misinterpret his speech and teaching, how can he be held responsible for that? Moreover, he never motivated people to indulge in violence.
Rais Khan a businessman said, I am unaware about his role in Dhaka attack, whether terrorists get inspired by him or not. But personally I dont listen to him and disapprove of his thoughts and ideas.
The Saudi regime, which executed most Muslims based on its salafist cum Wahabist theology and has destroyed most Islamic monuments across history had bestowed an award on Zakir Naik last year. Same theology is depicted and flows across in ISIS and Zakir Naik in such factual condition what we can expect from him. Now it is the responsibility of NIA to investigate with utmost integrity without any appeasement said Yusuf Khan Vice Chairman atInternational Human Rights protection council Goa State.
Zakir never ever supported terrorism most of the time he quoted Quranic verses. If someone killed one innocent person that means he has killed the whole humanity. I disagree with many points of Zakir but I am sure he cannot support violence, said Nadeem Khan a Muslim think tank.
On the other hand, Naik defended himself and said that the term Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is un-Islamic. He said, By using the name Islamic State, we are condemning Islam They are the anti-Islamic state of Iraq and Syria that has killed innocent foreigners. The name is given by enemies of Islam.
WASHINGTON, July 6, 2016 A hearing of the House Agriculture Committee explored potential errors in policing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, but some Democrats continue to question the motives of the panels oversight.
The hearing was the 16th formal examination of the Past, Present and Future of SNAP, part of a soup to nuts review initiated last year by committee Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Texas. This particular hearing was focused on error rates and enforcement issues surrounding the program, issues that, depending on whom you ask, are either minimal or substantial.
In recent years, the SNAP error rate has been on a mostly downward trend and has reached all-time lows, Kay Brown with the Government Accountability Office said at the hearing. However, (the White House Office of Management and Budget) still considers SNAP a high-error program. Because it is so large, even a 3.7 percent error rate in 2014 resulted in $2.6 billion in improper payments.
SNAP being a battleground issue is nothing new. Democrats and many farm groups were furious when nutrition programs were split off into separate legislation in 2013 farm bill deliberations (the nutrition title was eventually restored in the final farm bill after conference with the Senate). SNAP is easily the most expensive part of the farm bill and a substantial chunk of USDAs budget. This makes the program a frequent target of Republicans wanting to curb government spending and a key program to protect for Democrats.
That in mind, committee Democrats are worried that the committees lengthy examination could lead to drastic changes in the next farm bill. Georgia Democrat David Scott went as far as to say that he thinks the purpose of these hearings is to see if cutting the food stamp program is the answer to the issues of fraud and the error rates. He suggested instead that the program may need more resources for better enforcement.
Still, lawmakers and witnesses at the hearing all seemed to agreed that issues of error and fraud weaken public confidence in the program and can be detrimental to its goals.
Food stamp fraud hardens the hearts of good people and deafens their ears to the sound of hunger, Dave Yost, Ohios state auditor, testified at the hearing. Every dollar wasted or fraudulently spent is a dollar that could be used for its intended purpose to feed the poor.
Yost primarily spoke about the results of an audit of usage data on Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards, which recipients use to spend SNAP funds. He said the audit pointed to several troubling findings such as dead people receiving SNAP funds, excessive card balances, and numerous unusual activities such as perfect dollar amount withdrawals. He cited one case where a recipient made six purchases totaling $1,555 within one hour.
His comments led to a testy exchange with Ohio Democrat Marcia Fudge, who has spoken critically of the hearings in the past. She said Yosts findings did not support his claims of millions of dollars of fraud in Ohios $2.5 billion SNAP program.
You really have no basis to say that, Fudge said, making the case that high card balances and out-of-state EBT card usage doesnt equate to fraud. She also asked Yost if his office had conducted similar reviews of other federal programs, specifically naming crop insurance.
Yost disagreed, pointing to what he said were systemic issues that allowed for numerous improprieties involving EBT cards.
Nobodys looking at this stuff, he said.
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The hearing also touched on a number of potential fixes for enforcement issues, including possibly allowing states to target retailers suspected of SNAP fraud. Retailer fraud is currently handled by USDA while recipient fraud is left to the states.
Vocal opposition to the hearings from Democrats is nothing new, something Conaway alluded to in his closing comments.
My colleagues from time to time on the other side of the aisle gripe about the number of hearings weve had, he said. This is $80 billion a year that we spend on this program, I think its worthy of several hearings to understand whats going on, so Im not embarrassed by it.
Quite frankly, he continued, I have no way to compel them (Democratic lawmakers) to come to these hearings. They show up on their own, so if they dont like it, they can stay home.
Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Conaway didnt rule out further SNAP hearings, and he suggested that there could be more heated discussion when we finish this series up and begin to look at ways to improve the program.
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WASHINGTON, July 6, 2016 - Legislation that will write into law President Obamas Feed the Future initiative and a new food aid program is headed to the White House for his signature.
The House voted 369-53 Wednesday to give final congressional approval to the Global Food Security Act, which would ensure that both Feed the Future and the Emergency Food Security Program extend beyond the Obama administration.
Obama applauded Congress for authorizing Feed the Future, which he called a game-changing development initiative. In a statement, he said the plan has helped increase economic growth and stem the tide of global hunger, poverty and malnutrition over the span of just a few years. While we've already accomplished so much through this collaborative global partnership, I know that with the continued effort and support that this legislation provides, we can achieve what was just a few years ago the unimaginable: We can end global poverty and hunger within our lifetimes.
The Global Food Security Act, which authorizes the programs through 2018, requires the administration to develop a government-wide strategy for addressing food security worldwide and also establishes reporting requirements for Feed the Future, a $1-billion-a-year initiative that the administration has been operating in 19 target countries to improve agricultural production and combat malnutrition and child stunting. The U.S. Agency for International Development would be required to show how the program has affected female and male farmers.
The Emergency Food Security Program (EFSP) is an account that USAID has been using without congressional authorization since 2010 as an alternative to the Food for Peace program, which requires the use of U.S.-grown commodities.
Under rules that the legislation would put into law, USAID uses EFSP to provide electronic vouchers and locally procured commodities to Syrian refugees and hungry people in other distressed areas. Advocates say the approach allows aid to be delivered more quickly than relying on commodities shipped from the United States via Food for Peace.
During debate on the bill Tuesday night, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce assured Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway that the legislation cant be used to force changes in the way Food for Peace operates.
Some supporters of EFSP see it as a model for overhauling Food for Peace, but Royce, R-Calif., said the two programs are intended to operate in parallel. EFSP is meant to complement, and not replace, time-tested approaches to delivering food aid including the Food for Peace program, he told Conaway, R-Texas.
The bill also contains language intended to ensure that the rules for EFSP wouldn't apply to Food for Peace and other existing aid programs.
While the world may be changing rapidly, one thing will never change: The American farmer will always play a significant role in promoting food security at home and abroad, Royce said. U.S. agricultural commodities will always be in demand and will always remain a part of the Food for Peace program.
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A version of the bill passed earlier by the House authorized Feed the Future for just one year and didnt include the EFSP authorization.
USAID has been operating EFSP on its own since 2010 out of a disaster assistance account. The Global Food Security Act also would authorize for the first time the Obama administrations Feed the Future initiative.
The legislation authorizes spending $1.26 billion in 2017 and 2018 for the program, about what will be spent in fiscal 2016. By comparison, Congress appropriated $1.7 billion for Food for Peace for 2016. Much of the EFSP budget comes from Overseas Contingency Operations funding, which is primarily used to pay for military operations.
USAID says the Feed the Future initiative, which the agency coordinates with USDA and other agencies, have helped reduce child stunting as well as rural poverty, and farmers sales in the target countries have grown from $38 million in 2011 to $538 million in 2014.
(This story was updated to include comment from President Obama at 5:20 p.m.)
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WASHINGTON, July 5, 2016 - The Senate could conceivably vote this week to replace ongoing backroom discussions with a formal House/Senate conference to reconcile the two chambers very different energy bills.
A Senate Republican leadership staff member assured Agri-Pulse on Tuesday that the only remaining obstacle to launching the conference is the Senates packed schedule, which leaves little floor time before the body adjourns July 15 for the party conventions and the Senates summer break. The necessary next step is for the Senate to vote to appoint energy bill conferees to meet with counterparts already appointed by the House. So its just a question of when we can slot it, the staffer says. He adds that hes confident that if we had the vote, wed win on it.
On the House side, a Republican aide told Agri-Pulse that the House is equally committed to delivering a comprehensive energy bill that is sufficiently bipartisan to secure President Obamas signature. Anything less, the aide insists, would be a waste of years of bipartisan efforts.
Recalling that the Senates energy bill passed with a solidly bipartisan 85-12 vote in April (with all 12 nay votes from Republicans), the Senate staffer says that Senate Democrats would have a hard time voting against going to conference on something that they all voted for. He explains that since Democrats would have the option of opposing whatever energy bill emerges from the House/Senate conference, I dont see what their concern is about conferencing with the House I just think theyre getting pressured to not have it seem as if the Senate is working again.
One sign of intense pressure on Senate Democrats comes from the June 27 letter from the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) urging senators to Oppose the Motion to Agree to Conference on the House-passed amendment to S. 2012 which would replace S. 2012 with the text of the Houses H.R. 8 energy bill.
Contrasting the separate Senate and House energy bills, the LCV letter charges that While the Senate energy package was a bipartisan compromise and the result of many months of hard work by Senators Cantwell and Murkowski, the House version is a radical giveaway to polluting fossil fuel industries that would also undermine the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, and other bedrock environmental laws.
The LCV letter adds that the House bill:
fails to include the most positive provisions in the Senate energy bill, including the reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), energy efficiency provisions, and needed funding for clean energy,
contains efficiency provisions that would increase energy use and costs to consumers,
allows pipelines to be built on National Park land without the necessary environmental reviews,
could lock in dirty fossil energy for decades to come at a time that we should be investing in cleaner, cheaper alternatives,
weakens environmental review for the hardrock mining industry and jeopardizes the water quality of nearby communities,
would undermine investments in science and federal research and development.
The League of Conservation Voters isnt alone in its environmental concerns. In a June 28 letter, 24 groups including the LCV, 350.org, Food & Water Watch, Greenpeace USA, the Sierra Club, and the Wilderness Society, warn that the House bill contains an energy efficiency title that actually weakens energy efficiency standards, deep cuts to Department of Energy-supported research and development . . . and the rubber-stamping of new pipelines through national parks. The letter concludes: Rejecting a conference with the current House offer is essential to protect against harm to our environment.
Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch who released her Frackopoly book in June, insists that oil and gas industry interests are using their monopoly power economic and political to force public and private investments in infrastructure that will ensure, at least, another 40 years of oil and gas use.
Hauters book argues that rather than follow the House bills plan to build more fossil-fuel infrastructure, there is an urgent need to ban fracking and keep fossil fuels in the ground in order to create a sustainable energy future.
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The nonprofit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), calculates that in contrast to the House energy bill, the Senate bills energy efficiency provisions could deliver $60 billion in direct benefits. Kateri Callahan, president of the nonprofit Alliance to Save Energy, explained in an Environment & Energy Publishing June 23 interview that the alliance itself is opposed to H.R. 8 as it currently stands because it actually rolls back efficiency gains that weve made in this country, and the assessment is that it would cost $20 billion in extra energy costs, wasted energy that we don't need to use, and that translates into a lot more pollution, a lot more energy use.
Despite attacks on the Houses energy bill, including veto threats from the White House, Senate Energy Committee Chair Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told reporters last week that in meetings with Democrats on the energy bill we made significant headway. Dismissing calls for taking controversial House provisions off the table for the House/Senate conference, Murkowski insisted that in the ongoing negotiations Theres nothing that we have singled out and taken off the tree.
One Democratic Senate staff member close to the discussions tells Agri-Pulse that productive and high-level conversations are continuing and are expected to lead to agreement on conferencing with the House. But the staffer indicated that the remaining hurdle is drafting an agreed joint text to be considered by the conference a joint text that somehow would account for the multiple veto threats of the legislative package that the House sent over to the Senate.
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July 5, 2016
BAGHDAD Christian citizens in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq issued complaints in court June 15 that Kurdish residents are attacking and seizing their villages in the provinces of Dahuk and Erbil. They also accused the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of neglecting the crisis and failing to take serious action to resolve an issue that has been going on for some time.
On April 13, the KRG had prohibited residents from eight Christian villages in the Nahla area in Dahuk province from accessing the KRG's headquarters to protest and demand that an end be put to the encroachment upon their land on the part of Kurdish individuals and populations. However, some of them managed to make it to the sit-in location and stage a protest as they held a banner that reflected the deep sorrow plaguing Christians in the region. Our [Christian] peoples lands are encroached upon across the Kurdistan Region, the banner read.
On April 22, a Human Rights Watch report highlighted the hardships facing Christian citizens in the Kurdistan Region amid restrictions by the Kurdish authorities preventing them from peacefully claiming their right to restore these territories.
Kurdish individuals and tribes have been seizing lands and properties belonging to Christians since the 1980s. In 1986, Saddam Hussein's regime demolished these villages, leading to the displacement of the residents. However, as soon as the military operations of the former regime had finished, the Kurds returned to these villages and many seized Christian territory, taking advantage of the residents' forced absence, as per the testimonies of Christian residents of those villages.
What prompted residents of the villages of the Nahla area to protest is a set of new encroachments made by Kurdish citizens on their land. Earlier this year, several houses were built on these lands in the Nahla area.
The director of the Ninevah Studies Center, Michael Benjamin, told Al-Monitor that the KRG is seemingly aware of the problem, as it has put forward several initiatives between 2001 and 2010 to resolve the crisis, but nothing has changed.
Benjamin is an activist interested in the issues of minorities and indigenous peoples, and he relentlessly examines and follows up on the issue of Christian lands in the Kurdistan Region. Benjamin said the seized Christian lands in the various regions, towns and villages of the provinces of Dahuk and Erbil are estimated to measure thousands of acres.
He said, In the Dahuk governorate alone, there is a list of 56 villages where the area of seized land is estimated at 47,000 acres. This list only includes villages whose residents have filed complaints with the relevant courts.
He added, There are villages whose residents were forced to abandon them from the early 1930s onward due to instability, persecution and infringement upon their rights. These lands include agricultural fields, pastures, springs and real estate properties.
Yonadam Kanna, the chairman of the Rafidain Christian parliamentary bloc in the federal parliament, told Al-Monitor, The seizure of Christian lands is part of the process of demographic change.
He said, There are more than 60 Christian villages inhabited by non-Christians across the Kurdistan Region, and this is part of the demographic change. We stressed the need to restore those villages and properties, but the KRG measures were not serious, which delayed the issue."
In this vein, Benjamin pointed to the role of partisan and tribal relations, saying, The rights of small groups and minorities will be undoubtedly violated as they are the weakest link and lack any strong partisan, political or tribal support.
However, Kanna pointed out that a Christian delegation recently met with Iraqi Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani, who asked for details about the issue and promised to restore the Christian lands.
Benjamin said, "The ongoing violation of Chaldeo-Assyrian and Christian property rights for nearly 25 years since the founding of the Kurdistan Region is one of the prime reasons that leads indigenous citizens to feel abused and lose confidence in the government, and this forces them to opt for migration.
Mariwan Naqshbandi, the Ministry of Endowments (Awqaf) spokesperson in the Kurdistan Region, attributed the crisis to migration. He told Al-Monitor, When Saddam bombed areas of the region with chemicals in the 1980s, Christian families fled from their villages and homes. While Muslims returned to the devastated areas, Christians traveled abroad.
Naqshbandi said that even after the change of regime under the US occupation in April 2003 only few Christians returned, thus allowing Muslim families to cultivate and build homes on Christian lands.
He added that Christians returned in the past few years and reclaimed their villages and houses. But Muslims said they would not leave unless they are compensated for their cultivation and development of those lands.
Consequently, after Kurdish citizens clung to the lands they seized, the Ministry of Awqaf was forced to issue a fatwa prohibiting such practices, Naqshbandi said.
However, Mikhail responded to the fatwa by saying, I do not think that this fatwa has helped or will help Christians restore their lands. There are many complicated issues related to several sides and ministries that date back many years. With all due respect, we believe that the fatwa will not be implemented unless the highest authorities have a real political and legal will to enforce the law, bring about justice and ensure the rights of minorities in the region.
The seizing of territories, especially when accompanied by the tribal force that governs social relations in the Kurdistan Region particularly in the provinces of Dahuk and Erbil, where the population is known to hold on to tribal traditions may lead Christians to migrate, as occurred in Baghdad and other provinces in Iraq.
July 6, 2016
Budgets rarely please everyone, but opponents are challenging Egypts recently passed spending plan.
The Egyptian parliament approved the countrys 2016-17 general budget June 29 despite accusations that the legislation violates the constitution and contains figures that are not feasible.
The State Council already had approved the overall budget, set at 936 billion Egyptian pounds ($105 billion), with revenues estimated to reach 631 billion pounds. Egypts fiscal year runs from July through June.
Some members of parliament accused Speaker Ali Abdel Aal and the budgets supporters of knowingly passing a bill that goes against several constitutional passages and sets unrealistic numbers for governmental expenditure rates in the health, education and scientific research sectors.
The constitution says the government must spend at least 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) on health care and at least 4% for primary education, 2% for higher education and 1% for scientific research.
Article 238 of the transitional and general provisions of the constitution passed in 2014 states, The state shall gradually implement its commitment to the allocation of the minimum government expenditure rates on education, higher education, health and scientific research that are stipulated in this constitution as of the date that it comes into effect. It shall be fully committed to it in the state budget of the fiscal year 2016/2017.
According to observers, Abdel Aal ignored the need for a legal quorum in the session for the budgetary vote and relied on hand-raising rather than electronic voting. Consequently, disputes broke out among parliament members and the session was suspended less than an hour after it started. When the vote finally was taken, it was done so in the absence of the Cabinet, which had sent only Minister of Finance Amr al-Garhy and Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Magdy al-Agaty as representatives.
Despite the alleged constitutional violations and manipulation of some numbers and figures in the budget, as per the statements of several parliamentarians who opposed the approval, the parliament sent the bill to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to issue it before July 1 and publish it in Egyptian Official Gazette.
Responding to the people doubting the budgets constitutionality, Abdel Aal said, The State Councils opinion in this regard is enough response to settle the disputes over the budget.
Like the State Council, he said the budget was passed constitutionally and followed all constitutional procedures. He added that the estimates in the budget are technical issues.
Wages constitute 228 billion Egyptian pounds in the budget, while debt service is set at 292 billion pounds and support, including social protection programs, receives 210 billion pounds. These three provisions alone account for almost 80% of the total budget, leaving only around 20% for everything else, including education, health and infrastructure.
A few hours before the budget discussion, several parliamentary parties mainly Al-Wafd and the Free Egyptians reiterated their objections. The head of the Free Egyptians parliamentary committee had officially announced his partys rejection of the general budget and described it as the worst in decades.
But parliament member Sherif Ismail had anticipated the challenge and held an expansive meeting June 28 with the heads of the parliamentary committees to convince them to approve the budget. He also promised that the government would take into consideration some recommendations from opposing party representatives.
Mohammad Fouad, an Al-Wafd member and a member of the parliaments Economic Committee, told Al-Monitor his party now approves of the general budget with all its inclusions. But he noted the need to review the following on a quarterly basis: the revenue amount, which always drops more than the rates set by the government in the budget; tax policies; fiscal deficit; financing the deficit; and spending priorities.
Only the 25-30 Alliance persisted with its rejection of the general budget, and its parliament members held a press conference a few hours before budget discussions began. They emphasized their belief that the budget violates the constitution and the government is manipulating figures to deceive the people.
In this framework, 25-30 Alliance parliament member Haitham al-Hariri asserted during the press conference that the partys rejection of the budget stems mainly from its failure to adequately fund the health and education sectors. He insisted that 96 billion pounds should be allocated for the health sector.
Hariri also noted that, of current allocations, 10 billion pounds is designated for wages. He said the distribution 5 billion pounds to certain sovereign agencies and 5 billion pounds to other governmental employees is unfair and unacceptable.
In a statement to Al-Monitor, Hariri sharply criticized the way the general parliamentary session was mediated during the budget discussion. The three minutes allotted for each parliament member to speak was not enough. He described the discussion as hasty.
He added that he had asked Abdel Aal to conduct an electronic vote on the budget but was refused. Hariri said people have the right to know the vote tally and how parliamentarians voted.
According to Hariri, the budgets of several hospitals that are not accessible to the general public were added to the health budget to manipulate numbers. He cited the police and army hospitals as examples. The constitutional text aims at allowing all Egyptians, without discrimination, access to the health-related budget, he noted.
The Egyptian Institution for the Protection of the Constitution, headed by Amr Moussa, a former presidential candidate and head of parliaments 50-member Constitutional Committee, issued a statement June 22 warning against the unconstitutionality of the budget bill. Though it was not heeded, the institution demanded that the budget appropriate the percentages of funds required by the constitution and that parliament work on providing the necessary resources to ensure complete commitment to the percentages.
July 5, 2016
CAIRO A program that will provide electronic smart cards to Egypts farmers aims to eliminate administrative corruption within the Ministry of Agriculture, prevent its employees from tampering with paper documents and ensure that subsidies reach the proper recipients.
Agriculture and Land Reclamation Minister Essam Fayed said sometimes intermediaries insert themselves between the ministry and farmers, seeking to exploit the latter and intercept their benefits. In some cases, he said, merchants have been known to represent themselves as farmers so they can import large quantities of flour and receive subsidies.
The Agriculture Ministry will start its pilot program in the governorate of Ismailiyah, Fayed told Al-Monitor. The Ministries of Finance and Planning are supplying 357.5 million Egyptian pounds ($40.2 million) for the project. The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology will supply technical consulting, and the Military Production Ministry will provide technical support and communications services, including a 24-hour support line.
The electronic cards will store information including a farmers name, identification number and agricultural land holdings. This will not only help farmers receive the subsidies they are entitled to, but it will also help to establish a vast database and provide precise information for state agricultural planning and design purposes.
The Military and Agriculture Ministries signed a cooperation protocol June 19 agreeing to the project. This comes in the wake of successive crises to hit the Egyptian agricultural sector and its farmers. Among those are the lack of health insurance or social welfare, black market control of fertilizer supplies and the lack of arable lands at reasonable prices. To these might be added of late the irrigation crisis, which portends harsh conditions in a crucial sector that encompasses 52% of the Egyptian labor force.
Ahmad Abu al-Yazid, the head of the services sector at the Agriculture Ministry, told Al-Monitor that providing a precise national database of all agricultural holdings, as well as enumerating and locating agricultural produce during various seasons, will help decision-makers direct the sector. The database also will facilitate adding farmers to the countrys health insurance project.
It is fairly common in Egypt for farmers to rent plots of land, Abu al-Yazid pointed out. In such instances, all the risks and vagaries of farming fall on the renters. This must be taken into account when the new database is drawn up so that the actual farmers' rights are not neglected and the database keeps in step with existing laws concerning non-ownership of land available for agricultural reclamation.
The state previously adopted a similar program for exchanging food supplies but did not involve the Ministry of Military Production. Abu al-Yazid said that this time, the experience and capabilities of the Ministry of Military Production, "in addition to the gravity and secrecy the figures on agricultural land ownership [have for] national security," led the government to choose the military ministry to run the project instead of the private sector.
Farid Wasil, the head of Egypts Farmers Union, told Al-Monitor that electronic information storage helps guarantee farmers subsidies and support. The paper card was an example of this support being squandered at times and not reaching those farmers who were entitled to it, he said. Now, farmers will have more choices about how and when they use their subsidies and the freedom to take any kind of fertilizer or seeds whenever they like and without [letting] this support go to waste.
The card will also benefit the state because the resulting database will keep track of land holdings and the types of cultivated lands, which represents an advancement for Egypts agricultural sector.
The state will have to provide training for farmers and employees, Wasil pointed out. The system will cost millions of dollars, and without the training, the system will fail, he said. The cards cant simply be handed out without first training a cadre of farmers and members of agricultural associations, who need to be assigned beforehand to deal with the cards. The system will require the right tools to tie those associations together and manage them.
Wasil noted that the Agriculture Ministry has agreed to convene an assembly next week to develop administrative procedures for just that purpose.
The cards must serve the purpose for which they were developed, Wasil said, and the ministry will need to help farmers market their produce.
As one example, he said cotton planting this year accounts for only 90,000 acres, compared with 500,000 acres in 2010. He attributed the difference to farmers incurring heavy losses from their inability to market their goods.
The use of modern technology to improve the conditions of the Egyptian farmer is one step on the part of the Egyptian government. Officials hope its a sign that help might also be on the way for many other problems that have nothing to do with smart cards, such as farmers bank debts and the lack of means for selling their crops.
July 5, 2016
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip Controversy has not stopped the Land Authority in the Gaza Strip from proceeding with the second phase of a scheme to hand government-owned lands to Hamas government employees who have not been paid since 2013. Registration for the project's first phase began Dec. 14, and the distribution process took place on June 1-9. In the meantime, registration for phase two began in mid-May, with distribution yet to get underway.
This project was developed as Hamas continued to struggle with a crippling financial crisis, and the Palestinian consensus government, formed in 2014, refused to recognize Hamas government employees in Gaza as civil servants and therefore pay them. Hamas' Change and Reform Bloc from the Palestinian Legislative Council introduced the scheme on March 9, 2015. On Nov. 3, the consensus government weighed in, declaring the distribution of government-owned lands to employees illegal. According to the government in Ramallah, any such act is null and void, does not convey any rights and represents a violation of state property and lands.
In the first phase of the program, 49 plots across Gaza were given to government employees. The size of the parcel received was determined by how much a worker was owed in back pay and the land price per square meter, which varied depending on location.
Jumaa Hassan, a Rafah resident who works in security for the Hamas government, was given a tract of 168 square meters (1,800 square feet) as compensation for the 95,000 shekels ($24,000) owed to him. I am satisfied with the plot handover as compensation for the salary I thought I would never receive, Hassan told Al-Monitor. Today, I can sell it, like some of my colleagues did, and get my past due wages in cash, which I have not received for years.
Mohammed al-Nazli, a resident of Gaza City who works at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, refused to take part in the project. He told Al-Monitor that the scheme promotes divisiveness and further separates Gaza from the West Bank given the disagreement between Hamas and the consensus government over the land distribution project.
My [unpaid] salary is worth $5,000, which is not enough for me to get a 30-square-meter [323-square-foot] plot, Nazli said. I am convinced that we are going through dark times. The distribution of land at this stage, in the absence of Palestinian national unity and in light of the national divide, is contrary to the laws and norms of the state of Palestine.
Nazli said that there is no guarantee that the land will remain the property of the employees in the future. As an employee, I look forward to receiving my salary and past wages, to be able to pay my debts and have a decent life similar to any government employee, he said.
Ibrahim Radwan, the chairman of the Land Authority and Supreme Committee for Land, told Al-Monitor that the project which the Land Authority calls the Low-Income Earners Housing Project is based on laws granting the Supreme Committee for Land the authority to dispose of government property, that is, Law No. 2 of 2015, which is an amendment of Law No. 6 of 1942 on government lands.
It is not the first time that a ruling party in Gaza has disposed of government-owned lands, Radwan said. It has always been the case in the Gaza Strip, starting with the British Mandate, Egyptian rule, Israeli occupation and up to the Palestinian Authority.
Radwan said that the amount of land distributed during the first phase of the project amounted to 1,500 dunams (371 acres). Some 40,000 Gaza government employees are expected to be paid with land. Nearly 13,000 have already received allotments, Radwan claimed.
He noted that according to the mechanism established for implementing the project, plots slated to be used for housing collectives are registered in the names of multiple employees, with a single plot ranging in size from 500 to 1,000 square meters and owned by 10-20 employees.
Lawyer Bakr Turkmani told Al-Monitor that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is the only party with the authority to issue decisions to privatize government-owned lands in the public interest.
According to public property and land laws applicable in Palestine, public lands are state-owned properties and may not be subject to any act whether by takeover or privatization unless by virtue of a law, Turkmani said. The president of the state, head of the government or any party authorized by them is the sole competent authority in this regard.
Turkmani added, We recognize that the Hamas employees in Gaza have the right to be paid their salaries and dues, but said, The problem of accumulated unpaid financial dues will re-emerge. As soon as the affected employees receive land, their unpaid salaries will begin accruing anew.
Moreover, said Turkmani, it is possible that a number of land middlemen and traders will try to exploit the situation of these employees and offer to buy their lands at low prices.
Despite the objections and legal questions surrounding the distribution scheme, the process remains ongoing.
July 6, 2016
Sitting in a brightly lit apartment in Brooklyn, an American hacker who asked Al-Monitor to call him Alex scribbled down a dizzying array of cyberstrikes between the United States/Israel and Iran since 2010. The page was fast being covered in Alexs rushed handwriting, and his eyes glimmered with excitement.
Theyve gotten incredibly sophisticated, he said as he marveled at the speed at which Iranian hackers have been able to create a defensive and offensive arm against Western cyberattacks. Yet, as he neared 2015 on his ad hoc timeline, his pen began to slow.
With the Iran [nuclear] deal, we saw a parallel cooling down of attacks in the cyberworld. The nuclear deal has not only opened discussion with the Iranians on nuclear issues, but it has created a mutual detente in the cyberworld, and thats huge, because cyberwarfare between Iran and the West was getting to really bad levels.
David, an Iranian-American internet security specialist who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, agreed. He said, Before the Iran deal, we were witnessing a heightened level of cyberwarfare between Iran and the US/Israel. It was getting to a very [worrisome] level, as Irans capabilities had increased exponentially in a very short period of time. But the Iran deal has put a halt to all of this. David's employer is one of the leading US firms that monitor Iranian cyberactivity.
Until the 2011 emergence of Stuxnet, a malicious computer worm reportedly built by the United States and Israel to sabotage Irans nuclear program, Iranian cyberstrike capabilities were virtually nonexistent. Until then, the Islamic Republic was focusing on its own citizens. Local hackers contracted by the authorities spent time monitoring domestic netizens. With the advent of the 2009 Green Movement, Iran officially created the Iranian Cyber Army, further tapping into the extensive surveillance network that German firm Siemens had installed in the country. The key stakeholders in the Cyber Army include the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij paramilitary militia. To counter Stuxnet, Iran began pouring cash into both defensive and offensive cybercapabilities. David, the internet security specialist, said in this regard, It wasnt until Stuxnet that Iran realized it could use cybercapabilities as a weapon on such a large scale.
Iran went from being a nuisance in the cyberworld to starting big cyberattacks around the world, Alex, the hacker, said. They began stealing encryption keys and attacking US banks. But the biggest was Operation Shamoon [2012] in which Iranian hackers were able to completely bring down Saudi Aramco, targeting 30,000 Saudi Aramco workstations. The rate at which they were able to expand caused paranoia in cybersecurity circles across the world, but especially in the Gulf countries.
He added, Irans attack against Aramco was no joke it brought down the entire system. Thats huge.
The West and Israel reportedly targeted Iran with four pieces of cyberweaponry between 2010 and 2012: Stuxnet, Duqu, Flame and Gauss. Each time, the Islamic Republic retaliated almost tit for tat, stealing encryption keys and certificates. In 2013, Israel said Iran was constantly attacking its power grid and water systems.
David said, It was with Operation Cleaver [2014] that targeted US defense contractors, energy firms and educational institutions, that the United States began to really look at and study Irans cyberactivities. We concluded that Irans cyberactivities are now on par with China. The FBI issued warnings about Operation Cleaver, which was known to have hit US Navy servers and caused breaches in other major targets.
Unlike the Chinese or Russian cyberarmies which stage massive attacks like a conventional army would in the real world the Iranian Cyber Army works in a much more guerrilla fashion. They work patiently and slowly, and thats why it is much harder to detect their activity until they have completely hacked a system, David said. The Iranian hackers are experts at 'personifying' by creating fake profiles on social media sites and slowly connecting to people. They establish relationships with users on other ends, and after a long period of time they will hack the system. Its ingenious, because there is no way to detect this. They did a hack on Gmail and were able to get a lot of personal information in the same way.
Unlike China and Syria, for instance, where cyberwarriors are official members of their countrys military and intelligence units and report to work every day, Iran keeps a bit of a distance from its hackers. In this vein, the Islamic Republic rather operates along the lines of the US model, in which private companies and hackers are mostly contracted to do the work, according to a 2013 report by California-based cybersecurity firm FireEye Inc. Like the United States and its National Security Agency (NSA), Iran also has cybercapabilities in certain intelligence bodies, but for the most part it relies on outside contractors.
One of those firms is Ajax Security, a private security company in Iran monitored by FireEye. It is thought to be one of the leading enablers of the Islamic Republics quest to enhance Iranian cybercapabilities. Ajax Security is thought to be behind Operation Saffron Rose, a series of attacks that features spear-phishing emails as well as spoofed Microsoft Outlook Web Access and virtual private network pages. The operation also includes trolling for user credentials from defense contractors and other members of the defense industry. Ajax Security is additionally active in helping the Iranian authorities monitor activists by luring them with legitimate anti-censorship tools rigged with malware. According to the FireEye report, Ajax Security has become the first Iranian hacking group known to use custom-built malicious software to launch espionage campaigns.
In a 2014 interview with Reuters, former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden said, I've grown to fear a nation-state that would never go toe to toe with us in conventional combat and that now suddenly finds they can arrest our attention with cyberattacks.
Alex said he agrees with Haydens assessment. Thats why the Iran deal has been so significant. These cyberattacks were happening because the United States and Iran distrusted each other and we were after their nuclear program, so they were retaliating in kind. The Iran deal has slowed all of this down and hopefully will ensure that we dont have to be attacking each other in this fashion, he said.
July 5, 2016
ERBIL, Iraq Often touted as the main beneficiaries of Iraq's post-Saddam Hussein order, the Kurds obtained political recognition for their autonomous region in the country's 2005 constitution and have played what sometimes appears to be an outsized role in Iraqi politics. In key elections in 2005 and 2010, the Kurds' unity landed them the role of kingmakers, deciding who would get to sit in the coveted prime minister's office. Today, however, that unity appears to be history. The Kurds are now so fragmented that they apparently cannot agree on how to deal with the Baghdad government, jeopardizing their stature and position in the country.
An alliance formed in mid-May by two of Iraqi Kurdistan's main parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Gorran, has had the ironic effect of bringing Kurdish differences to the surface. The rifts among the Kurdish groups originally stemmed primarily from disagreement over governance in Kurdistan and the failure to devise a viable power-sharing arrangement. Disappointed by what they viewed as unilateralism on the part of the hitherto dominant Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the PUK and Gorran signed a deal to join forces and form an alliance to be reckoned with in Kurdistan and in Baghdad. The PUK-Gorran bloc, with 30 seats in the Iraqi parliament, is larger than the KDP's, which has 28 parliamentarians 3 of whom represent (Christian and Shabak) minorities.
The growing state of Kurdish division has now given birth to the PUK and Gorran perhaps seeking to assert themselves and their preferences not only in Kurdistan, but also in Kurdish relations with Baghdad. With regard to the latter, the PUK and Gorran are in favor of a more reconciliatory approach, while the KDP whose leader, Massoud Barzani, is the de facto president of the Kurdish region insists that Kurdish-Baghdad relations are at a dead end and the Kurds should part ways with Iraq.
We favor dialogue to resolve the disputes with Baghdad, Shwan Dawudi, a PUK member of the Iraqi parliament, told Al-Monitor. We [and Gorran] will, from now on, work as one bloc. [We] want to move things forward and play a positive role in settling the disputes.
The PUK-Gorran agreement was facilitated by the KDP's humiliating treatment of Gorran. In October 2015, after KDP offices came under attack by protesters in Sulaimaniyah, Gorran's stronghold, the KDP prevented Gorran's Yousif Mohammed Sadiq, speaker of the Kurdistan parliament, from entering Erbil, the Kurdish capital, to carry out his duties. That same month, the KDP also dismissed five Gorran ministers in a Cabinet shuffle.
Furious about the changed circumstances, Gorran negotiated a deal with the PUK, a once-powerful partner in the Kurdistan government and KDP ally. The PUK's popularity had suffered considerably after a group of its leaders split from the party, supposedly because of disagreements over how the PUK was run, to form Gorran in 2009. Now the PUK hopes to regain its past influence by allying with Gorran.
Although fissures in Kurdish ranks are nothing new and the Kurdish parties have had disagreements in recent years over various issues such as dealing with the Syrian crisis, Baghdad and local governance handling Kurdish relations with Baghdad had until recently largely been the domain of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which the KDP dominates. The KRG and Baghdad have been engaged in a longstanding disagreement over the KRG's handling of energy resources and disputed territories scattered over Kirkuk and Ninevah provinces.
Now the KRG is semi-paralyzed, and there is no institution to monitor it after the parliament was rendered dysfunctional by the KDP. Its decisions represent the KDP, and its relations with Baghdad are according to the KDP's interests and preferences, Kawa Mohammed, a prominent Gorran member of the Iraqi parliament, told Al-Monitor. The KDP needs to act wisely and step forward so that Kurdish parties can agree on how to deal with crucial issues, including relations with Baghdad. In addition, given that the International Monetary Fund is expected to give a $5.4 billion loan to Iraq, Mohammed said, the KRG should mend ties with Baghdad so it can receive a portion of the funds to help address its severe budget deficit.
In recent weeks in Kurdistan, however, events took a dramatic turn when Gorran rejected a June 23 call by Barzani for a meeting of all Kurdish parties to discuss preparations for a referendum on Kurdish independence from Iraq. Gorran claims no longer to recognize Barzani as KRG president following the controversial extension of his tenure in August 2015. Meanwhile, the KDP refuses to acknowledge the Gorran-PUK alliance, which it sees as a threat as the largest political bloc in Kurdistan. The KDP has repeatedly said it is willing to sit down with Gorran and the PUK separately, but not a joint delegation.
Trying to assert their newfound weight, members of a Gorran-PUK delegation met with senior Iraqi officials June 25 in Baghdad. The KDP used the opportunity to attack the two parties in the media, accusing them of deviating from the Kurdish position toward Baghdad.
Iraq is in no better shape than us. What would encourage us to go back to Baghdad to seek their assistance? Renas Jano, a KDP member of the Iraqi parliament, said to Al-Monitor. Jano believes internal Kurdish divisions do not justify returning to Baghdad, citing historical examples of previous deals between Kurds and Baghdad that have collapsed.
Acknowledging the current deadlock in Iraqi Kurdistan's politics, Jano believes the KDP should use the Gorran-PUK alliance as an opportunity to work out a new agreement on how to handle various challenges. If the new alliance insists on approaching Baghdad outside KRG official policy, it would effectively split Kurdish decision-making and undermine the Kurds' position vis-a-vis the national government.
As a result of a Kurdish civil war, Iraqi Kurdistan was divided into two separate zones from the mid-1990s to mid-2000s. Thus, the chances of a physical separation cannot be dismissed if the PUK-Gorran alliance and the KDP continue to pull away from each other.
With the Islamic State (IS) on a downward trajectory in Iraq, various actors are vying for influence in the post-IS order. While the Kurds' unity ensured their remarkable gains after the collapse of Saddam's regime, their current fragmentation might adversely affect their standing and gains in post-IS Iraq.
Unless Kurdish leaders set aside their personal egos and rivalries for the sake of a greater Kurdish cause, the post-IS era could be disastrous for the Kurds on the national and international levels, [as] the international community will lose the current level of interest in the Kurdistan Region once IS is gone, Yerevan Saeed, a Kurdish affairs analyst, told Al-Monitor. The Sunnis are crushed in Iraq, and you have powerful [predominantly Shiite] Popular Mobilization Units backed by Iran, and the Iraqi government backed by both Iran and the United States, and they will pose serious threats to the current status of the Kurdistan Region.
July 5, 2016
The reconciliation agreement signed June 27 between Israel and Turkey did not bring about the return of the bodies of two Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, killed in 2014, or the release of two Israeli civilians held by Hamas, Avraham Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed. The agreement did not contribute even one additional piece of information beyond what was already known to Israels defense establishment about the condition of Mengistu and Sayed, who separately crossed the border into Gaza after Operation Protective Edge in 2014 and have since been held by the organizations military wing as bargaining chips, admittedly weak ones, although Hamas views them as a tool of significant pressure on Israel.
The Goldin and Shaul families say that they were promised over the course of the long negotiations that Israel would condition its signing of the reconciliation agreement on the release of the soldiers bodies. These promises were made to the families even though the members of the Security Cabinet who supported the reconciliation agreement, as well as those who opposed it Ministers Avigdor Liberman, Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked knew that the chances were virtually nil of linking the release of the soldiers' remains and the civilians to the agreement with Turkey.
Even if Turkey had exerted all its influence on Khaled Meshaal, head of Hamas political bureau, it wouldn't have altered the fact that Meshaal no longer has influence over the head of the Hamas military wing, which holds the soldiers' bodies and the two civilians. Nevertheless, all the Cabinet members including Liberman who in the past promised to eliminate Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh if he refused when ordered to return the soldiers bodies and release the civilians within 48 hours withheld this information from the families and the public.
Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan, for example, said that it was with a heavy heart that he had voted in favor of the reconciliation agreement. After the Cabinet meeting, he said, I heard the outcries [of the families]. I promised them that when I got to the Cabinet, Id ask the difficult questions before making my decision.
Erdan knew that the answers to these difficult questions have been in the hands of those sitting around the Cabinet table ever since contacts with Hamas began about two years ago, in 2014. Those contacts were facilitated by the mediation of Egypt, Turkey, the European Union and Tony Blair, special envoy to the Middle East for the Quartet, and also via the communications channel between Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad and Israeli Gershon Baskin that led to the 2011 release of abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Even two years ago, the conclusion was that there was no one to talk to about the release of the remains.
Hamas military wing, under Mohammed al-Deifs leadership, is the de facto ruling entity in Gaza today. It has the final say in everything. The leaders of the political wing, including Meshaal and Haniyeh, have become mere marionettes. The heads of the military wing do as they wish.
During the negotiations for Shalit's return, the lone Hamas arbiter had been Ahmed Jabari, head of the military wing. Israel killed him about a year after the deal. Today, the military wing is run by a group of decision-makers, a kind of ruling military junta, consisting of Deif, Marwan Issa and Yahya Sinwar.
Sinwar was released to Gaza as part of the Shalit deal, the highest-ranking prisoner to be freed by Israel in that controversial transaction. Muhammad Sinwar, Yahyas brother and commander of the Khan Yunis area in Gaza, was one of Shalits captors. A major condition for the deal was the release of his brother from prison.
Yahya Sinwar, a founder of Hamas military wing, was given a life sentence for murder during the first intifada, in 1989. While in prison, he was connected to planning the abduction of soldier Nachshon Wachsman. When the prisoners in the Shalit deal were released to Gaza, a black Mercedes waited for Yahya Sinwar at the gate of the Rafah crossing. Thus he was picked up by Hamas' people as befitting one of the organizations top brass.
After Sinwars release, I spoke to him by phone and tried to convince him to give an interview on Israels Channel 10 TV. Sinwar stipulated that the interview be broadcast live, without leaving an opportunity for the Zionists (his words) to edit it. The interview never took place.
At a rally in Gaza after his release, Sinwar took the stage and announced, We will not forget our prisoners who we left behind. He mentioned by name Hassan Salameh and Mahmoud Issa, among the founders of Hamas' Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Sinwar then called on all the armed Palestinian factions to mobilize for the struggle that would bring about the release of their prisoners, which he said were wasting away in Israeli jails.
Sinwar is now viewed as Hamas defense minister. In July 2015, he was given the job of conducting negotiations for the release of Hamas prisoners in Israel in exchange for the bodies of Goldin and Shaul and Mengistu and Sayed. The feelers and contacts never morphed into real negotiations and became even more convoluted and labyrinthine than the prolonged negotiations conducted for the return of Shalit.
From Sinwars point of view, a successful prisoner exchange deal is the key for establishing his stature in the organization. Sinwar views himself as the natural successor to Deif, whose health is failing. Although Israel did not succeed in killing Deif, he suffers from serious injuries. Sinwar knows that a good deal that results in the release of hundreds of Hamas prisoners from Israeli jails with which he is very familiar will garner him seniority in the future. As far as Sinwar is concerned, any compromise would be viewed as betrayal of a principle and of the promise not to forget the prisoners.
Thus in effect, the two civilians and the bodies of two soldiers constitute the key to Sinwars future success and fulfillment of his promise to his friends left behind. The Israeli Cabinet is and was well aware of these details. They were briefed by the heads of Shin Bet and Military Intelligence and knew that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan never held the key to bringing the soldiers bodies to eternal rest or releasing the two civilians, even if Israel had been willing to lift the closure imposed on Gaza.
July 6, 2016
During a speech marking the end of Ramadan, Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei discussed regional events and Irans position with its neighboring countries.
Speaking to officials of the government July 6, Khamenei discussed the countrys position on Bahrain. The Islamic Republic of Iran has not interfered in Bahrain, Khamenei said. But if there is political awareness and wisdom, they should not allow a political conflict to turn into a civil war, and they should not turn the people against one another.
Khameneis statement follows a rare statement in June by Qasem Soleimani, the head of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, against the rulers of Bahrain. Soleimani considered that it would be a red line if Bahrain follows through on a decision to revoke the citizenship of the countrys top Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim, and send forces into his home. A number of other high-ranking military and religious figures also echoed Soleimanis statement and condemned Bahrain for the decision.
This is not the first time that Khamenei has denied Irans military interference in Bahrain. In 2012, just one year after the anti-government protests began in the Persian Gulf country, Khamenei said he hoped the people of Bahrain would be victorious. However, Khamenei said claims by Bahrains government that the protesters are linked to Iran were a lie, saying, Wherever Iran interferes, it will directly state it. Khamenei said that an example of Iran's interference was its military help supporting those fighting Israel and that Iran will continue to support anyone who fights Israel. He said that had Iran intervened militarily in Bahrain, the situation would have been different.
Bahrain first witnessed mass protests in 2011, largely by its Shiite majority population against the Sunni ruling family, which is closely aligned with Saudi Arabia, Irans main regional rival. Under a government crackdown, backed by Saudi forces, the protests have died down. Bahrain's announcement that it was going to revoke the citizenship of Qassim has sparked tensions between Iran and Bahrain once again.
During his speech to government officials July 6, Khamenei also blamed the United States for stoking tensions in the region in order to diminish the issue of Palestine. They want to deny a geography and a nation whereas Palestine has a history of thousands of years and its people are the owners of a land and this reality cannot be denied, Khamenei said. He added that Palestine is an issue that both Islamic and non-Islamic countries will not ignore.
During prayers for the last day of Ramadan, Khamenei also discussed domestic issues. He called the exorbitant salaries of some government officials that have led to resignations and firings of the heads of banks a sin and a betrayal of the values of the Islamic Revolution. He also said that there was negligence that allowed these officials to receive such high salaries and that their cases must be seriously pursued and not forgotten after the current commotion. Khamenei blamed the issue of high salaries as a result of a drunken aristocracy, extravagance and luxury being promoted in society.
July 4, 2016
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip The market share of Islamic banks in Palestine is remarkably low, no more than 11% in 2015. There are only four Islamic banks in Gaza, and the services they provide are limited.
Only two Islamic banks in Palestine are licensed by the Palestinian Monetary Authority (PMA), which acts as a central bank, in addition to two unlicensed others in the Gaza Strip.
In response, some Palestinian businessmen are opening the new Al-Safa Islamic Bank. The first branch is expected to start offering its services by September in Ramallah's Masyoun neighborhood in the West Bank, while another branch is to be opened in the Gaza Strip later on.
PMA Governor Azzam Shawa told Al-Monitor, Two Islamic banks, namely the Arab Islamic Bank and the Palestinian Islamic Bank, are currently operating in Palestine. At the end of 2015, a license was granted to Al-Safa Bank Company.
Shawa added, As of Dec. 31, 2015, the Islamic Bank market share stood at $1.3 billion, corresponding to 10.8% of the total Palestinian banking sector assets, while clients deposits, amounting to about $1 billion, accounted for 11% of the total banking sector.
Abdul Rahim Hassan, speaking for the Safa Bank Public Limited Company, which established the new bank, told Al-Monitor, Although the number of commercial banks in Palestine 14 banks is much higher than the number of Islamic banks, there is a substantial demand for private Islamic banks since we are a Muslim-majority society. This is why we decided to open an Islamic bank whose services are in line with those provided by international Islamic banks.
Hassan confirmed that Safa Bank was incorporated and registered with the corporate comptroller at the Ministry of National Economy at the end of January after obtaining the approval of the PMA. He said, As soon as we obtained the approvals from the relevant authorities, we started a series of procedures and preparations to incorporate the bank before September 2016, when the bank will start offering its services to the public.
Hassan explained that these preparations include contracts with advisory bodies specializing in the legal, computer engineering and banking fields for the necessary guidance and technical and engineering support at the incorporation stage, in addition to the development of operating procedures and organizational framework for staffing the bank. He added that the company concluded a contract with the international company Temenos to buy the Islamic version of the needed software system.
He confirmed that Safa Bank obtained the approval of the Palestinian Capital Market Authority (PCMA) to offer 38 million shares to the public, beginning in June 2016 and continuing until July 26. He said Safa Banks declared capital reached $75 million and the co-founders had subscribed to 37 million shares in this capital.
Hassan pointed out that the minimum number of shares one can subscribe to is 500, with a nominal value of one dollar per share, fully paid to the bank upon demand, provided that the issued shares are registered and listed in the Palestinian Capital Market, noting that the PCMA is the sole authority authorized to transfer the ownership of shares after quotation.
Hassan further explained that Safa Bank will add multiple diverse services to the world of Islamic banking in Palestine. They will include the provision of electronic banking services, issuance and management of all kinds of means of payment and checks, as well as offsetting, settlement, collection and money-transfer services. The bank will also issue and trade Islamic bonds known as Sukuk, which give their owner a share of the profit and not a predetermined percentage of their nominal value.
The bank will also acquire, sell, rent, lease and invest real estate properties in addition to other services and objectives compliant with the provisions of Islamic Sharia.
Hassan explained that according to the company's vision, Safa Bank will become a top choice for clients with its efficient team that uses modern software, techniques and tools. The bank undertakes to find innovative and Sharia-compliant solutions for all clients and financial transactions, locally and internationally.
Mohammed Miqdad, dean of the Faculty of Commerce at the Islamic University in Gaza, told Al-Monitor, Islamic banks in Palestine are divided into two parts. The first includes Islamic banks operating under the Palestinian banking system, which means that they are licensed by the PMA. These are the Arab Islamic Bank, founded in in 1995, and the Palestinian Islamic Bank, opened in 1997. He continued, The second part includes two Islamic banks not licensed by the PMA and which were opened under Hamas' rule, namely the Islamic National Bank, opened in 2009, and Palestine Production Bank, opened in 2013, for purely political reasons."
The Hamas government had established these two new banks when the other Palestinian banks refused to deal with it, fearing international sanctions following the Israeli blockade imposed on Hamas after the movement came to power in 2006.
Miqdad added, The fact that these two banks are not licensed by the PMA negatively affected their transactions with other banks, as well as the transfer of funds to and from Palestine, which undermined their performance compared to other banks. These banks services are limited to the disbursement of the salaries of Gaza government employees and carrying out specific Islamic banking transactions for these employees.
He stressed that he encourages the opening of more Islamic banks in line with the religious beliefs and needs of Palestinians that will contribute to the stability of Islamic economics, whose bases and objectives are different from positive or capitalist economics, pointing out that most of the studies showed that dealing with usurious commercial banks is among the causes of world financial crises. He noted that 95% of total financing of Islamic banks operating in Palestine relies on trade-based Murabaha contracts.
Miqdad explained, Murabaha are sales contracts in which the bank and the client agree on the sale of an item at a price equivalent to the cost price, plus a profit determined at a fixed lump sum or a specific percentage. This means that the bank would buy the item and then resell it to the client at cost price plus an agreed profit, provided the client pays this sum to the bank in accordance with a specified mechanism. This practice is somewhat similar to the work of commercial banks, he observed, adding that Islamic banks prefer Murabaha given its low risk.
He said he hopes that Safa Bank will represent a qualitative leap in the Palestinian Islamic banking sector by expanding the banking services offered to the clients and reducing their financing cost, promote competition between Islamic banks and thus increase their efficiency.
Miqdad said that Islamic banks in Palestine are shareholding companies and can make investments on their own, but the weakness of the [Palestinian banking] market and the economic instability in the Palestinian territories prevent these banks from investing, stressing that the limited market share of Palestinian Islamic banks is due to their restricted number and limited capital compared to commercial banks.
According to Shawas statements, the PMA is exerting efforts to develop Islamic banks activities. He explained that this would be done by enhancing the publics confidence and trust in these banks, providing them with the needed liquidity, strengthening their internal governance and asking them to increase their capital to meet the challenges and risks.
Islamic banks are a glimmer of hope for the Palestinians that the Palestinian economy would improve and investments will increase, especially in light of commercial banks high demand to buy large numbers of shares in Islamic banks.
It is expected that the market share of Islamic banks would rise after the opening of Safa Bank and the introduction of new Islamic products.
July 5, 2016
Throughout the holy month of Ramadan, the Islamic State (IS) and its worldwide followers were especially deadly. The recent attacks in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Jordan, Malaysia, Turkey and Yemen signal shifts in IS strategy toward an accelerated global campaign following the groups loss of Fallujah last month and the ongoing battle over Sirte.
IS campaign to wreak havoc in Saudi Arabia likely reached a new level July 4. IS is suspected of carrying out three separate suicide attacks across the kingdom within 24 hours, including one next to the al-Masjid an-Nabawi (the Prophets Mosque) in Medina following the earlier attacks in Qatif and Jeddah. In total, the explosions killed four (excluding the suicide bombers) a relatively low death toll compared with the 200 dead from IS July 3 blast in Baghdad. Nonetheless, the coordinated strikes demonstrated IS ability to outsmart Riyadhs vigilant security apparatus despite the 2,500 alleged IS members arrested in the kingdom since 2014.
Of course, IS has had its eyes set on Saudi Arabia since an early point in the groups rise to power. In November 2014, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared war on the kingdom in a statement released by al-Furqan Media Foundation. The IS leader called for expanding the caliphate to Saudi Arabia to topple the Al Saud rulers (whom he called the serpents head) of the lands of al-Haramain (two holy places). For nearly two years, IS has been waging terror across Saudi Arabia via networks of local militants operating a network of terror cells. From November 2014 to June 2016, the groups affiliates have carried out 26 terrorist attacks in the kingdom, according to the Saudi Interior Ministry.
Yet the July 4 attacks represent unique and especially grave threats to the kingdom for several important reasons. First, the ruling familys religious legitimacy is based on the Saudi rulers service as a responsible and competent Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques (every Saudi monarchs official title since 1986). There is a widely held perception throughout the Muslim world that since the historic Grand Mosque seizure of 1979, the scores of fires, stampedes, demonstrations and one bombing (1989) have proven that the Al Sauds are unfit to uphold their responsibility. The July 4 suicide blast outside the al-Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina is deeply unsettling for Muslims worldwide who travel by the millions to the holy site each year, and it is damaging to the kingdoms prestige. Unquestionably, the explosion in Medina, an offense to Sunni and Shiite Muslims, will add to this narrative told by many of Al Sauds enemies.
It will be important to monitor the Iranian response. Since last years tragic hajj stampede, in which 464 Iranian pilgrims died (according to Iranian sources), officials in the Islamic Republic have seized opportunities to challenge the Al Saud rulers legitimacy as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, alleging negligence on the part of Saudi authorities. A growing number of Iranian politicians and religious authorities are calling for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to manage the hajj. After news of last years stampede reached Iran, Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani declared, Hajj is not only related to Saudi Arabia, but is connected to all countries. The ones now who have been martyred are from all Islamic countries, not only from Saudi Arabia.
Second, the failure of Saudi security to thwart IS July 4 attacks is costly to Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman and his Vision 2030. On the heels of Mohammeds visits to Washington, California, New York and Paris, in which the young deputy crown prince sought to attract American and French support for his ambitious plans to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil, foreign investors will raise serious questions about security risks of doing business in the kingdom. As Vision 2030 seeks to expand Saudi Arabias tourism sector, the kingdom must sell itself as stable to attract a greater number of foreign visitors. The security apparatuses failure to prevent IS from continuing its campaign of terror in Saudi Arabia will dim such prospects.
Third, IS orchestration of three coordinated attacks across the kingdom within 24 hours is a setback to Crown Prince and Interior Minister Mohammed bin Nayef. Since last year, the Prince of Counterterrorism has been busy leading Saudi Arabias anti-terrorism crackdown public relations campaign. Although the Saudi media has highlighted numerous instances in which security forces foiled IS terror plots and made a major production out of the mass execution of dozens of alleged al-Qaeda members in early January, Nayef must address holes in the kingdoms counterterrorism campaign and pursue new strategies.
The Saudis go to great pains to provide airtight security around the holy sites, having invested billions of dollars in state-of-the-art surveillance. Although the Saudi press heralded the security forces for preventing the suicide bomber from attacking the Prophets Tomb, the mere fact that an IS militant with explosives got so close to al-Masjid an-Nabawi, Islams second-holiest site, is a wake-up call about inefficiencies in security.
It will be interesting to observe any changes in King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Sauds foreign policy priorities. Will Riyadh shift focus from its war against Yemens Houthi rebels and loyalists of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to the battle against Sunni Islamist extremists in the Levant and Libya? Although Saudi officials have vowed to deploy ground forces to fight IS in Syria if backed by Washington, would more attacks by the extremist group targeting the kingdoms holy sites prompt Riyadh to engage in direct military action against IS in Raqqa without US support?
The reaction from the kingdoms religious establishment will be an important indicator of how Saudi Arabia addresses the IS threat. As most of the groups previous attacks in the kingdom targeted security in Saudi Arabias central region of Najd and Shiite gatherings in the Eastern Province, the first IS strike at a holy site carried much symbolism. The Council of Senior Ulema issued a statement declaring that the culprits behind the explosion outside the second mosque built in the history of Islam have no respect for any sanctity and they have no religion or conscience.
Indeed, within the context of Saudi Arabias history of jihadi terrorism, which beset the kingdom from 2003 to 2006, the killing of four security guards and no civilians is a relatively low death toll. Nonetheless, it would be difficult to exaggerate the symbolic significance of the July 4 attack in three Saudi cities. IS is trying to damage the Al Saud rulers capacity to govern the kingdom and the familys religious legitimacy throughout the Muslim world.
The violence illustrates a disturbing reality for the Saudi leadership. Despite the efforts of officials in Riyadh to thwart extremist groups from waging acts of terrorism within the kingdom, IS has further demonstrated its capacity to evade the Saudi security apparatus radar. Dark memories of al-Qaedas campaign of terror in the mid-2000s remain vivid in the minds of many Saudis. A decade later, justifiable concerns about another potential onslaught of jihadi attacks wreaking havoc across Saudi Arabia are growing.
July 5, 2016
WASHINGTON The United States, increasingly concerned about the threat posed by al-Qaedas Syria affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra to US national interests and allies, has discussed with Russia a proposal to target Jabhat al-Nusra as well as the so-called Islamic State (IS), under very strict conditions that Russia should meaningfully restrain Bashar al-Assad's regime for it to observe a partial Syria truce and allow in unfettered humanitarian aid.
In Syria, as [IS] is losing territory in the east, its terrorist rival Jabhat al-Nusra is gaining ground in the west, putting down roots in Idlib province along the Turkish border, Brett McGurk, the US special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter IS, said June 28 in written testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
With direct ties to Ayman al-Zawhiri, Osama bin Ladens successor, Nusra is now al-Qaeda's largest formal affiliate in history, McGurk said. This is a serious concern, and where we see Nusra planning external attacks, we will not hesitate to act.
While largely motivated by counterterrorism concerns, the United States believes the proposed measures could help shore up the cease-fire, reduce violence against civilians and allow more aid in, thus improving the environment for resumed Syria political transition talks, while the Syrian opposition fears weakening Jabhat al-Nusra would enable the Assad regime to make rapid gains on the ground, particularly in the Aleppo area.
The United States and Russia have not yet come to agreement on the proposal, a US official told Al-Monitor on July 5. But they continue to discuss it, including in a call July 2 between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and in meetings in Washington last week between UN Syria special envoy Staffan de Mistura, US National Security Adviser Susan Rice, her deputy Rob Malley and Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
There are only two ways to pressure Assad, a senior US official, speaking not for attribution, told al-Monitor. Directly escalate against him by taking US military action or massively increasing support for the [increasingly extremist] opposition, which would likely make the war worse, cause the Russians/Iran to double down, etc.
The US official said, Or pressure him through the Russians by cutting a deal that serves our own counterterrorism interests."
A US proposal reportedly sent to Russia last week calls for Russia to ground Syrias air force as part of the agreement, The Wall Street Journal citing administration officials reported June 30.
Grounding the [Syrian] air force is possible; restricting its area of activity could be a possibility, a diplomat involved in the international discussions on Syria, speaking not for attribution, told al-Monitor.
Talks between the UN envoys team in both Washington and Moscow in recent days have gone well, and the diplomat was hopeful they might be able to reach agreement eventually.
The intensified US-Russian discussions on how to enforce the Syrian cease-fire and focus more pressure on Jabhat al-Nusra as well as IS come as US officials have started describing Jabhat al-Nusra as a direct threat to US national security.
Weve been clear about Russias obligations to ensure regime compliance with the cessation of hostilities, State Department spokesman John Kirby told journalists at the State Department press briefing June 30. We have also been clear about the danger posed by al-Qaeda in Syria to our own national security. Were looking at a number of measures to address both of those issues while also accelerating the fight against [IS].
Jabhat al-Nusra is establishing schools and training camps, recruiting from abroad, launching major military operations and enjoying a sophisticated online presence, all the while providing safe haven for some of al-Qaedas most experienced terrorists, McGurk told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. To end Nusra as a threat, however, we must find a mechanism to de-escalate and end the Syrian civil war, thereby allowing the moderate opposition to take charge of its own territory without threat of Assads barrel bombs overhead or terrorists down the street.
The administration has explained its concerns about Jabhat al-Nusra, including to members of the Syrian opposition.
The US has info that Nusra is trying to do something against US national interests somewhere in the world, and they are taking it very seriously, a Syrian opposition member, speaking not for attribution, told Al-Monitor July 5. And accordingly, they offered to Russia to work with them on that issue, to weaken and defeat Nusra, with the condition that Russia and the regime should respect the cessation and allow food and material to come into Syria.
This time they [United States] are very strict with their conditions, because it is not just about Syria it is about the US own national security, the Syrian opposition member said, noting Russia has made commitments before about delivering the Syrian regime and has not come through. At least until today, there is no deal with Russia, just ideas.
The US will act with or without Russia, he added. They will try their best to talk with the [more moderate Syrian rebel groups] parties to tell them, this is the situation, you have to split geographically from Jabhat al-Nusra. The Russians are thinking [about it], because the cost is very high.
While US officials have expressed understanding for the Syrian oppositions concerns that more pressure on Jabhat al-Nusra could threaten their position vis-a-vis Assad, the American officials indicate that President Barack Obama feels he has the duty to deal with the threat to US national security interests posed by Jabhat al-Nusra and to do so quickly.
What you are talking about is right, but it takes time, and we dont have time, the Syrian opposition member said, summarizing a White House official conveying Obamas rejection of alternative, proposed ideas for countering the influence of Jabhat al-Nusra.
Former FBI counterterrorism official Matthew Levitt said the Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate is currently the most powerful al-Qaeda affiliate in the world.
I think that there is a sense that Nusra, which is ultimately the beating heart of al-Qaeda today, still has an active element trying to carry out attacks abroad, Levitt, now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Al-Monitor July 5. Nusra has its own issues in Syria, this is a small, dedicated unit to carry out attacks.
Al-Qaeda is desperate for a win, Levitt said. It needs to remain relevant. There are lots of reasons [it may prove to be the] longer-term threat, even if they are playing the waiting game.
July 5, 2016
ANKARA, Turkey In Ankaras Hacibayram neighborhood, young men clad in long gray robes stand out among the locals in the streets. They are sympathizers and former fighters of the Islamic State (IS) who, a couple of years ago, had made Hacibayram one of its main recruitment grounds in Turkey. According to a security official speaking to Al-Monitor, the number of recruits joining IS from or via Turkey has declined over the past year, and militants believed to be defectors from the group both Turks and foreigners have been increasingly sneaking in from Syria.
In Hacibayram, 70 of the estimated 150 young men who had joined IS have returned home, along with seven of the 10 families that had moved to the caliphate, a local official in close contact with residents told Al-Monitor. Observers, however, warn that the decline in recruitment does not mean that IS has lost its popular appeal.
The robe-clad men in Hacibayram refused to answer questions, wary of speaking to the media after police raids in the neighborhood last year. The detainees were eventually released due to lack of evidence, but they remain reticent to speak out of security concerns. According to local residents, however, in private conversations former IS members grumble about the groups tough internal rules, the harsh living conditions in Syria and the decline in the economic benefits they had been promised.
The returnees have been applying for new identity cards because IS used to confiscate the IDs of recruits, the local official told Al-Monitor. Such applications have increased over the past eight months, he said.
According to residents, it all started in 2011 after strangers moved to the neighborhood and began indoctrinating locals. Alevi youngsters, they say, were particularly targeted and brainwashed that their faith was not true Islam and that they should fight for Allah to see paradise. The local official believes some youngsters joined IS to escape trials or convictions for crimes such as drug peddling, theft and armed assaults, while others were tempted by the material benefits the organization promised.
A frequently mentioned name is Oguzhan Gozlemecioglu, described as an active figure in the recruitment effort in 2012. He is said to have become a military outpost commander in Raqqa, going by the name Mohammed Selef. Gozlemecioglus father has spent six months behind bars and remains on trial for aiding IS recruitment.
Al-Monitor paid a visit to the home of Gozlemecioglus, where the father, Eyup, bluntly refused to answer questions because the journalists keep smearing IS. But then his daughter Ozlem intervened and persuaded him to speak, arguing that media interviews might help the family find their younger son, who has gone missing after going to Syria.
Large pictures of the two brothers in Syria were displayed prominently in the familys living room. The oldest of five siblings, Oguzhan, 36, joined IS in 2012, leaving a wife and four children behind. Halil Ibrahim, 29, married with three children, soon followed suit. The family has been told that Halil Ibrahim was taken captive by the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units after being wounded in clashes in Resulain in May 2014. According to the father, a senior Kurdish commander relayed his capture to the IS commander in the region. Since then, however, the family has received no news of their son. And what about Oguzhan? Is he really a military outpost commander in Raqqa? I dont know, the father replied, I guess he was dismissed from that post.
Eyup Gozlemecioglu is a jobless man. Together with his children, he used to deal in secondhand home appliances, but he stopped working after his two sons joined IS, a decision he described as Allahs commandment and sought to justify with verses from the Quran. In the meantime, his wife, Erik, returned home after a working day in the streets, where she sells tissues to help keep the household afloat. Unlike her husband, Erik was averse to her sons jihadi ambitions. According to her, Oguzhan and Halil Ibrahim had no radical religious views and even enjoyed alcohol before being brainwashed to join IS.
She said she communicated with Raqqa-based Oguzhan via WhatsApp but worried about the fate of Halil Ibrahim. To find her missing son, she has sought help from the Foreign Ministry and Turkeys pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party but to no avail. I so wish they come back even if they have to spend the rest of their lives in jail. If nothing else, Id be able to see them in prison, she said.
Hacibayram is an impoverished, squalid area without even a school. Local children go to school more than 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) away after the neighborhoods two schools were demolished under the pretext of urban transformation. For many families, educating their children is already a luxury that they cannot afford. The neighborhood is heavily populated with Syrian refugees, attracted by the low rents of derelict shanty houses. As Al-Monitor bid farewell to the Gozlemecioglu family late in the evening, Hacibayrams steep, narrow streets were alive with unusual car traffic, which the local official linked to people coming to buy drugs, including heroin, after dark.
In remarks to Al-Monitor, Serhat Erkmen, a researcher of radical Islamist movements at Ahi Evran University, said the defections from IS stemmed mainly from the significant losses of territory and power the group had suffered since last year and the deteriorating living conditions in IS-held areas under bombardment. Recruitment, meanwhile, has declined due to tightened border security and increased control of communication means and social media, in addition to the deterring impact of police operations against suspected IS militants. Yet the decrease in the number of people joining IS does not mean that sympathy for the group has completely vanished, he said.
The scholar also noted the returns were not in large numbers yet. Those who have returned do not make even a third [of those who joined IS], and this is true for all countries, he said. According to Erkmen, leaving the group is not easy, stressing that the defectors have to pay hefty sums to human smugglers at the border.
The returns have been brought up in the Turkish Parliament as well. In a written question to the interior minister in late June, main opposition deputy Senal Sarihan stressed that Turkey faced an additional security threat from returnees crossing back from Syria and asked how many of them had sought help with their embassies to return home.
The Turkish and foreign defectors sneak into Turkey from the border regions in the Gaziantep and Kilis provinces. According to the Turkish security official who spoke to Al-Monitor, about 40 militants of various nationalities have been caught in the past 30 days alone while attempting to sneak in clandestinely.
July 4, 2016
AMSTERDAM Pari Ibrahim, 27, was a regular law student in the Netherlands who had a job in a library until she received a phone call at 5 a.m. in August 2014 that would change her life forever. A family member from northern Iraq called to inform her that the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) had invaded Sinjar and had killed the men and kidnapped the women and children. We are being massacred, we are heading for the mountains, the family member said.
Ibrahim, who belongs to the Yazidi community, had fled Iraq with her parents in the 1990s and now lives in the Netherlands. After receiving the phone call, she frantically started searching the internet for information, but was not able to find news. Slowly it became clear what had happened in Sinjar. Thousands of Yazidi men had been killed or disappeared and 6,000 women and children had been enslaved by IS, including 19 females and 21 males who are Ibrahims relatives.
The women and girls, some as young as 9, were traded and sold as sex slaves, the boys were forcibly converted to Islam and were brainwashed to serve as fighters. The men were massacred and dumped in dozens of mass graves. To separate the boys from the men, IS militants looked at their armpits if they had hair, they were killed, Ibrahim explained to Al-Monitor.
From that moment onward, Ibrahim decided to fully dedicate herself to the plight of the Yazidis.
When they suffer, I suffer, said Ibrahim, who immediately quit her job. My parents gave me 300 euros [$332] to start an organization, and I managed to collect 1,500 euros [$1,664] as well. A friend donated 8,000 euros [$8,875] to help me tell the world what had happened.
That was the moment the Free Yezidi Foundation was born. She added, At some point, Gucci found out about our initiative and donated $120,000. This came as a gift from heaven as it allowed us to start various projects, such as opening women and children's centers.
The Free Yezidi Foundation is one of the two leading foundations (the other is called Yazda) founded by the Yazidi diaspora. In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the group opened centers for Yazidi women and children and flew in a trauma specialist to assess future provision of mental health care. The organization also lobbies with governments to raise awareness for the plight of the Yazidis and to lobby for an intervention to save the more than 3,200 women still enslaved by IS. Ibrahim travels the world to tell people what happened to the Yazidis. She spoke at the UN Security Council and the House of Lords and has been interviewed by many media outlets, including the BBC.
Recently, we heard that 19 girls were locked in cages and burned alive for refusing to have sex with IS fighters. We heard this from some locals who phoned their relatives in northern Iraq, although still we do not have the details confirmed, Ibrahim said.
She added, It was a well-planned and well-coordinated attack against the Yazidi people, not against the Kurds. People do not understand that Yazidis are not Kurds, and that Yazidis were murdered and enslaved for simply being Yazidi.
Shortly after the massacre and enslavement, IS released an issue of its online magazine Dabiq in which it explained the enslavement of the Yazidis, whom they call devil worshippers. Enslavement is the appropriate treatment of pagan women, according to Sharia, IS argued.
In a chilling passage, it said, Enslaving the families of the kuffar [unbelievers] and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Sharia that if one were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Quran and the narrations of the Prophet, and thereby apostatizing from Islam.
Together with Yazda, the Free Yezidi Foundation started a mission to ensure justice is served on behalf of the Yazidi community. In September 2015, the organizations delivered a report to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on the involvement of foreign fighters in war crimes and crimes against humanity, such as genocide, sexual slavery and other crimes. Their goal is to prosecute IS, in particular foreign fighters.
Around 6,000 jihadis from Europe have joined IS in Iraq and Syria. A substantial number of them have returned, of whom many have not been prosecuted and are still freely walking the streets. Prosecutors in Europe often face difficulties finding legal evidence that fighters have been involved in war crimes and thus found it difficult to bring cases against them.
According to Ibrahim, there is evidence that foreign fighters have been involved in the crimes of genocide and sexual slavery, as many victims have testified. The Free Yezidi Foundation would like to link testimonies of Yazidi survivors to individual cases of foreign fighters to make prosecution possible. Also, the organizations are working on decoding the IS hierarchy as fighters from the West occupy lower, middle and higher ranks within the terrorist organization.
Ibrahim gave an example: We were able to prove the involvement of three foreign fighters in war crimes, but all three were killed. However, we know that many more have been involved, such as German and French jihadis. And it is a fact that many foreign fighters have returned to the West.
Recently, she was informed that some countries in the West are trying to start a case against their foreign fighters as well. I cant give you the details right now. We will hear more about this in the future, she said. One of the reasons why it is also important to have suspects prosecuted by the ICC instead of national courts is because the Yazidis have little faith in the Iraqi justice system, which, according to Ibrahim, is chronically corrupt. Also, she hasnt heard anything from the Iraqi government yet when it comes to prosecuting foreign IS fighters.
You can buy your way out of jail in Iraq if you know the right people, she added. Yazidis do not trust anyone anymore. Seeking justice for the Yazidis through the ICC is going to be a long and complicated process, which will probably take years. So far, the ICC has not even opened a preliminary investigation, which is needed to open the case. However, the Yazidi community has hope that this will happen.
Even if we manage to convict one person, it will be worth the effort. We want recognition and justice, Ibrahim said.
She added that only two females from her family managed to escape the terror group. The rest of her relatives are still missing.
The women have been sold and traded as sex slaves. We dont know what happened to the men. Maybe they have been killed and dumped in mass graves, or maybe IS took them, she said.
Several thousand Muslims gathered at the BJCC East Exhibition Hall in Birmingham on Wednesday morning to pray and celebrate the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month marked by daytime fasting.
Wednesday marked the festival of Eid-al-Fitr, marked by feasting, social visits and gift-giving.
During Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn to dusk and refrain from sensual pleasures during the day as a spiritual discipline.
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After prayers, Muslims dressed in brightly colored robes and veils filed out onto the sidewalk at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex for family photos.
Women wore their finest dresses. Even the small children wore elaborate, colorful suits.
In many Muslim countries, the Eid-al-Fitr lasts three days and is the largest Islamic holiday. Muslims today wish each other Eid Mubarek. "Eid Mubarek means 'Happy holiday,'" said said Ibrahima Barry, 24, who came to Birmingham in 2007 from the Republic of Guinea in West Africa.
About 80 to 90 percent of people in Guinea practice Islam, he said.
"It's a faith that teaches happiness, joy and mercy," Barry said. He said there is a community of about 200 Guinean immigrants living in Birmingham.
When radical Islamic terrorists launch violent attacks in the world, Barry cannot relate to them and their version of Islam.
"I can categorize two kinds of Muslims," Barry said. "The real Muslims are peaceful, friendly, nice to everyone, care for everyone. We are separate from people who claim they are Muslim but are violent. Maybe they are political. To me, they are not Muslim. Muslims do not kill, they do not blow themselves up."
Ibrahama Barry, 24, came from Guinea, Africa, settled in Birmingham and is a student at UAB.
For Barry, Alabama is now home.
"I came to Birmingham to seek security, peace and love, which I found in Alabama," Barry said. He works at the Hudson News store at the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport and is a student at UAB, studying accounting.
He met his wife, Rabiatou Diallo, after he moved to Birmingham, but she, too, is from Guinea.
Barry's grandmother lives in Birmingham, along with various relatives.
"We're heading to the park to barbecue," Barry said. "We barbecue anything but pork. We don't touch pork."
Wedding
(Evan Forester via Flickr)
Summers in Alabama are a season for three major events: extremely humid weather, beautiful weddings, and beautiful weddings taking place in extremely humid weather.
By and large though, marriages--and therefore--beautiful weddings are taking place less often. If we ask women in Alabama about the primary reason for this decline, many will likely explain that there simply aren't enough educated men to go around.
While it can be easy to dismiss that notion as an urban myth, enrollment numbers suggest otherwise.
Let's set the record straight first before we unveil the numbers. No one should ever feel pressured into getting married, and the meaning of life is certainly not dependent on being married either. However, if getting married is a life goal, the following figures will definitely speak volumes as to why there are so many worthwhile single ladies in our midst.
Name of University Location Type Female % Male % West Alabama Livingston Public 70 30 Montevallo Montevallo Public 66 34 Samford Birmingham Private 65 35 Auburn Montgomery Montgomery Public 63 37 Troy Troy Public 62 38 Alabama State Montgomery Public 61 39 UAB Birmingham Public 61 39 North Alabama Florence Public 59 41 Jacksonville State Jacksonville Public 58 42 South Alabama Mobile Public 56 44 Alabama Tuscaloosa Public 55 45 Alabama A&M Normal Public 52 48 Auburn Auburn Public 49 51 UAHuntsville Huntsville Public 44 56
Using US News data and direct university data, the above chart descendingly ranks each major university in our state by percentage of female students in fall semester 2015.
The University of West Alabama overwhelming leads the pack by having over twice as many female students as male students. The University of Montevallo comes in as a close second.
Meanwhile at the bottom of the list, Auburn University and University of Alabama in Huntsville are the only major universities with more males than females. If any sisters are looking for a mister, these are the two universities that make that task a whole lot easier to accomplish.
Ben Baxter is a Tuscaloosa dweller, a Dothan native, an experienced engineer, and a regular contributor for personal finance and career development topics.
Historical institutions such as orphanages, homes for unwed mothers and reform schools often come with negative stereotypes, thanks largely to books and movies featuring mistreated, motherless waifs. But many well-meaning people in Alabama tried over the decades to ensure children who had no parents, or with behavioral problems, would have a chance for a future.
Although orphan homes existed in Alabama before the 20th century, social reform was slow in arriving in any organized way. For many years, benevolent organizations such as Masons, Knights of Pythias and Odd Fellows operated orphan homes, as did many churches.
In a 1921 newsletter published by Alabama's newly created Child Welfare Department created two years earlier, workers wrote of the difficulties in making progress. "For many years Alabama was known to be one of the most backward of all the states in social welfare work, being one of a group of Southern States that, for various reasons, was slow to awaken to a realization of its duties and responsibilities toward children," wrote the author of "Alabama Childhood: The Official Bulletin of the State Child Welfare Department of Alabama, Volume 1."
The booklet reports that many orphanages and homes were sending children to public schools, while others tried to teach the children themselves while woefully understaffed.
Some examples from the book:
Bathing: "The institutions have grasped the need for regular and frequent bathing and have either installed tubs or shower baths to meet the requirements or are planning to do so. However, one institution has only two bath tubs and no showers for ninety children."
Toiletries: "Very few of the institutions make any attempt to supply the children with individual toilet articles - soap, towels, comb and brush. Tooth brushes are very rare."
Medical Services: "Very few of the institutions employ a physician to visit the children regularly, only calling a physician for special illnesses."
Maternity hospitals, or home for unwed girls: "We have interpreted the law giving the Child Welfare Commission power to license maternity hospitals and to prescribe rules and regulations governing their conduct to mean that children born in such institutions are to be safe-guarded and that traffic in infants is to be prohibited."
In addition to offering homes for children without parents, many children's institutions were used as a means of "hiding away" those who behaved in ways that brought shame to their families. A 1906 newsletter for the Charity Organization Society in New York, called "Charities and the Commons: A Weekly Journal of Philanthropy and Social Advance," reported that a member from Alabama had broached the need of a girls' home in Montgomery. The idea was not well received and the report stated: "... the Conference should have understood that delicacy induced the writer to use 'friendless' as a euphemism for wayward."
A Home for Friendless Girls did exist in Montgomery in 1921, according to the booklet "Alabama Childhood."
Segregation in children's homes
Because the races were segregated even among children, some of the homes in Alabama were established especially for black children. Historical listings of children's homes show that, although institutions for white children were typically segregated by gender, homes for black children often housed both genders.
The Zimmer Memorial Home in Mobile was established for black children by the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth.
A 2003 obituary for Sister Judith Lozowski, a nun who worked with children at Zimmer from 1960-'65 at the height of the Civil Rights movement, recounted this incident: "Sister Judith shared a story about an incident that occurred within days after the desegregation laws were initiated. Sister Judith planned an outing to take the teens and the younger children to the movies at a local theater. Previously, black persons had special showings of movies and could only attend at that time. Sister, however, decided to test the new law and take the group to an afternoon showing. Sister met with much personal difficulty in providing this simple enjoyment to the youth."
After a driver refused to transport the children and a ticket-seller refused tickets, Sister Judith and the children finally gained access, only to have white teens throw popcorn at the older Zimmer Home children. Her obituary said: "Though it was not the most comfortable experience, Sister Judith comforted the older youth afterwards, assuring them of their dignity and equality as children of God, human beings and American citizens, despite the struggles that they experienced and would most probably continue to experience in this new American era."
Why most orphanages closed and a historical listing
The institutional nature of orphan homes - lack of health care, both mental and physical; barracks-like dorms; overcrowding and underfunding - led to their reputations as providers of low standards of care.
The advent of federal- and state-sponsored initiatives such as foster-home programs reduced the need for institutional orphanages. From World War II through the 1960s, most orphanages in the U.S. closed, while remaining ones converted to boarding schools or group homes where children could receive more one-on-one attention. Today, several church-run group homes still operate in Alabama.
For those looking for information for genealogies or family histories, I've listed as many Alabama orphanages, reform schools and maternity homes as I could find, and gave dates if they were available.
Alabama Boys Industrial School. Reformatory school that operated in the East Lake area of Birmingham from 1909-1975.
The Alabama Odd Fellows Home in Cullman. Founded in 1910 by the Rebekah Assembly, International Order Odd Fellows. The building now in use as Childhaven.
Alabama Maternity and Infants Home in Mobile. Run by Sister Cephas of the Little Sisters of the Poor Mobile. Dates unknown, listed in 1921 report "Alabama Childhood."
Alabama Methodist Orphanage opened in 1890 in Summerfield and moved to Selma in 1911. Still operates as United Methodist Children's Home.
Alabama Masonic Home in Montgomery. Opened 1912 by the Grand Lodge, A. F. & A. M. for "indigent master masons in good standing, and widows and orphans of deceased master masons;" both sexes admitted," according to the "History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography, Volume 1."
Alabama Orphans Home of the Synod in Talladega. Dates unknown, listed in 1921 report "Alabama Childhood."
Allen Memorial Home in Mobile. This facility was a home for unwed mothers and orphans and is now a nursing home. According to its website: "The Daughters of Charity served at Allen Memorial Home since 1911, when it began operation as Alabama Maternity and Infant Home on Broad and St. Anthony Streets in the vacated original Providence Infirmary. It served as a maternity hospital for the general public and later became a home for unwed mothers. It was home to numerous orphaned and abandoned children, the first of whom was brought to the Sisters to be cared for on Christmas Eve, 1911." The facility is now located in the former Martin de Porres Hospital at Washington and Virginia streets.
Athenaeum Orphans Home in East Lake. A boarding school for girls built in 1890 became an orphanage when the school closed in 1900.
Catholic Boys' Home in Mobile.
Children's Protective Home. Dates unknown, listed in "Annual Report of the State Department of Public Welfare of Alabama: FY Ending 1935."
Colored Detention Home. Dates and location unknown, listed in "Annual Report of the State Department of Public Welfare of Alabama: FY Ending 1935."
Eliza Pollock Lipe Boys Home in Boaz. Dates unknown; information from post card.
Episcopal Church Home for Orphans in Mobile. Dates unknown, listed in "Annual Report of the State Department of Public Welfare of Alabama: FY Ending 1935."
Florence Crittenton Home in Mobile. Home for unwed mothers. Dates unknown, listed in 1921 report "Alabama Childhood."
Girls' Home for the Friendless, operated in East Lake beginning 1911. Name later changed to the Alabama Home of Refuge, a place for, according to the state Legislature, girls who were orphaned, daughters of alcoholics or prostitutes, who had been arrested or were prostitutes themselves, or who were vagrants. In 1915, the name was changed to the Alabama State Training School for Girls and moved to Pinson in 1918. It operated until 1973.
Home for Friendless Girls in Montgomery. Dates unknown, listed in 1921 report "Alabama Childhood."
Knights of Pythias Children's Home in Montgomery. Dates unknown; information from post card.
Lady Mary Maternity Home in Birmingham. Dates unknown, listed in "Annual Report of the State Department of Public Welfare of Alabama: FY Ending 1935."
Louise Short Baptist Widows and Orphans Home in Evergreen. Operated on Main Street from 1891 until 1923, when it was moved to Troy and called The Alabama Baptist Children's Home.
Lula Foster Home in Birmingham. Dates unknown, listed in "Annual Report of the State Department of Public Welfare of Alabama: FY Ending 1935."
Mercy Home, 11th Avenue and 22nd Street North, Birmingham. Founded in 1891 by the Women's Christian Temperance Union as a "refuge to unwed mothers and their babies, to abandoned babies and deserted or abused children, and to problem children."
Parental Home for Negro Children in Mobile. Dates unknown, listed in 1921 report "Alabama Childhood."
Parental School for Girls in Mobile. Dates unknown, listed in 1921 report "Alabama Childhood."
Presbyterian Children's Home in Talladega. Built for widows and orphans in the wake of the Civil War. The organization still operates and its website says the home provided "food and shelter, an education, and a foundation of faith in God." It opened in 1868.
Protestant Children's Home, also called Orphanage, in Mobile. Operated from 1840-1970 at 911 Dauphin Street, building still stands. It was built for children whose parents died in the 1839 yellow fever epidemic and run by the Protestant Orphan Asylum Society.
Salvation Army Rescue Home for Women. Home for unwed mothers in Birmingham, founded 1903 or 1904. At the home's dedication, Birmingham Judge N. B. Feagan, said: "I learned from Salvation Army officers stationed in Birmingham that during the past few years they have buried fourteen young women, twelve of these having taken their own lives. Of the twelve, I understand that four had begged to be carried to a Rescue Home, but there was no place for them."
St. Mary's Female Orphans Home in Mobile. Founded in 1838 and still operating as St. Mary's Home.
St. Mary's Industrial School and Orphanage for Boys in Mobile. Dates unknown, listed in 1921 report "Alabama Childhood."
Tuggle Institute in Birmingham. Founded by former slave Carrie Tuggle in 1903 for black children.
Wilmer Hall Children's Home in Mobile. Wilmer Hall was started in 1864 by Bishop Richard H. Wilmer, the second bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama. According to WilmerHall.org, "Wilmer saw the plight of Civil War orphans and planned a children's home for them in Mobile, Ala. Originally the home was located in Tuscaloosa, Ala. because of concerns of an attack on the port city from the Union Navy." The home was moved to Spring Hill and is still in operation at 3811 Old Shell Road in Mobile.
The Zimmer Memorial Home in Mobile. Established for black children by the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth.
Join al.com reporter Kelly Kazek on her weekly journey through Alabama to record the region's quirky history, strange roadside attractions and tales of colorful characters. Find her on Facebook or follow her Odd Travels and Real Alabama boards on Pinterest.
The name of a man found shot to death over the weekend in eastern Birmingham has now been released.
The Jefferson County Coroner's Office today identified the victim as Flores Jose Castaneda. He was a 40-year-old transient, authorities said, but had family in Kansas and San Francisco.
Castaneda's body was discovered about 4 a.m. Saturday in the 100 block of Oporto-Madrid Boulevard. Birmingham police Sgt. Bryan Shelton said police received a 911 call about the same time reporting a person had been shot.
No arrests have been announced. Anyone with information on Castaneda's slaying is asked to call Birmingham police at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.
An Alabama mayor and an adult probation officer died this morning in Ozark, Dale County Coroner Woody Hilboldt said.
David Grice, Mayor, City of Clio
Clio Mayor David Grice died at the age of 43 from natural causes, Hilboldt said. He said Grice was pronounced dead at 8:45 a.m. in his downtown Ozark apartment.
Hilboldt said Grice's death is still under investigation by the Ozark Police Department.
Linda Hall and Brendette Brown Green.jpg
Linda Hall, left, and Brendette Brown Green (Photos/Associated Press)
A Jefferson County judge has refused a request by judicial candidate Linda Hall, who lost in the April 12 Democratic Primary, to have ballots unsealed so they could be inspected to bolster her claims that illegal votes were cast in the election.
Presiding Jefferson County Circuit Judge Joseph Boohaker issued an order Tuesday afternoon denying Hall's request for an order directing Jefferson County Sheriff Mike Hale to unseal the ballots pertaining to the election results for the Circuit Judge Place 11 race. He also granted the request of Hall's opponent, Brendette Brown Green, to dismiss Hall's lawsuit.
Boohaker had held a hearing in June.
In his order on Tuesday the judge cited state law that a candidate is entitled to make an examination of ballots case in all election contests "other than political party primaries or runoffs."
"In the action before this Court, there is a specific statutory prohibition, in the context of a political primary run-off election, against the Court's issuing the order to the election officer which Plaintiff seeks," Boohaker wrote.
Hall on April 21 filed her notice of contest of election results with the Alabama Democratic Party. In that document she stated that "upon her knowledge and belief," illegal votes were cast in the runoff in favor of her opponent, Brendette Brown Green. Hall, however, has not said why she believed the votes were illegally cast or how many were cast.
According to official results from the April 12 runoff Green won with 3,883 votes - 243 more votes than Hall got. Hall had led the three-candidate race in the March primary.
Alabama Democratic Party officials had told her they did not have the authority to unseal the ballots.
Green's attorney, Alaric May, said he believes Boohaker got it right; that the judge didn't have the jurisdiction to order the ballots unsealed. He said Green now looks forward to running in the General Election.
Green faces Circuit Judge Pat Thetford, a Republican, in the November election. Thetford, who last year was appointed to fill the unexpired term of Judge Houston Brown, did not face a Republican Primary challenger this year.
A Pike County man has been charged with violation of the Alabama Securities Act after he allegedly made false promises to a Tuscaloosa County church involving $1.5 million in church money.
Terry Earl Hester, 66, of Banks, on June 15 turned himself in to the Tuscaloosa County Jail on charges stemming from a six-count indictment issued in April by Tuscaloosa County grand jury, according to a statement released Wednesday by Lyn Head, District Attorney for the 6th Judicial Circuit, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama; and Joseph Borg, Director of the Alabama Securities Commission (ASC).
Hester was released from jail after posting a $90,000 bond.
Efforts to reach Hester for comment Wednesday were unsuccessful.
The indictment charges Hester with one count of Sale of Unregistered Securities and one count of Sale of Securities by an Unregistered Agent. Each charge carries a range of punishment from one year and one day to 10 years' imprisonment and a fine of up to $15,000 upon conviction. Also the indictment charges Hester with four counts of Fraud in Connection with the Sale of Securities for making untrue statements of, or omitting to state, material facts to an investor; for engaging in an act, practice or course of business which operates as a fraud or deceit upon an investor; and for employing a device, scheme or artifice to defraud an investor. Each of those charges are punishable by not more than 20 years or less than 2 years imprisonment and a fine of not more than $30,000 per charge, upon conviction.
The indictment alleges the incidents occurred between January 2012 and December 2013. During that period, the indictment alleges, Hester sold investment contracts for a "Private Placement Funding Agreement" and a "Standby Letter of Credit" to a West Highland Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa.
Hester, among other things, misrepresented to the church that he could invest their money in these programs to generate $3,000,000 to fund construction of a new church, according to the statement from Head and Borg. Hester convinced the church to appoint him as the finance director, and then obtained two investments from the church, totaling $1,530,000, according to the statement.
Hester promised that $1,500,000 of the invested funds would remain in an attorney trust account in the church's name until the transaction was completed, but they did not, according to the statement. Hester also opened undisclosed accounts in the church's name over which he was the sole signatory and, without informing the church, and spent the church's funds on Hester's personal expenses, according to the statement.
Hester also overpaid a man for services related to the investment transactions, according to the indictment. Hester told the church that he was paying a man $100,000 for the transaction when Hester actually paid the man $300,000, according to the indictment.
Neither Hester nor the investment contracts he sold were registered with the Alabama Securities Commission, as required by the Alabama Securities Act, according to the statement.
A 25-year-old Birmingham man has been indicted in the December slaying of man killed during a burglary of his home.
A Jefferson County grand jury indicted Raymarquail Moore on a charge of capital murder during a burglary. The indictment was handed down June 24, and made public today. Moore has been jailed since his arrest nearly seven months ago.
Cedric Lamar Yarbrough was killed four days before Christmas 2015. The happened at 4:25 p.m. in the 200 block of Sam Pate Drive. Birmingham police officials were dispatched to the scene on a report of someone shot. When they arrived, they found Yarbrough inside his vehicle. He was taken to UAB Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 11:40 p.m.
Police said Yarbrough got a call that his home on Meg Drive was being burglarized. He rushed to the scene, and spotted three black men running away from the home, police said. When he followed them down the street, the suspects opened fire on him.
Cedric Yarbrough
After being shot, Yarbrough lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a house near the intersection of Meg Drive and Sam Pate Drive. Police said the suspects fled the area in a dark-colored sedan.
Just two days later, Birmingham police announced Moore's arrest. "It's unfortunate to have any loss of life in our city but as in this case, we will do everything we can as a police department to get the perpetrator off of our streets,'' Police Chief A.C. Roper said at the time Moore was captured. "This was not a random burglary but the suspect and victim were acquaintances. However; regardless of the circumstances we owe some sense of justice to the family and the community."
No court date for Moore has yet been set.
Remains have been found in the burned minivan of a Bessemer man missing for more than six months.
The van was found Monday by someone riding a four-wheeler in a remote area of the Cahaba River Wildlife Management Area, police announced this morning. This afternoon, authorities said human remains were found inside that van.
James Andrew Morrison, 75, was reported missing Jan. 3. Morrison, who suffers from several illnesses, was last heard from when his daughter spoke with him that day. He was at the Deer Springs Grocery on Highway 11 in Pelham. He was last seen about 8 p.m. near Pelham High School, wearing blue jeans, a plaid shirt and hat that says, "Jesus Loves Me."
His daughter, Frances Gann, has previously said she was supposed to meet her father that night on Shelby County Road 11, but he wasn't there. Investigators say he was last seen near Pelham High School.
Gann said her father went from there to a convenience store off U.S. 280. She said he struck up a conversation with a stranger who gave him $10 for gas. Gann described he father as "old school" and a "very Godly man." She said he's warm but kind-hearted and hard-working.
"There's been so many people that I don't know that have reached out and said 'Hey, we've looked here. We've done this. We've put fliers up.' And that gives you hope and strength as well," Gann has said. "It lets you know there's people out there that care in the community and that makes it easier.
Reached for comment today, Gann said wasn't ready to make a comment yet.
At the time of his disappearance, Morrison was driving a black 2014 Kia Sedona minivan with license number Alabama 4C9F4. He suffers from dementia and diabetes, and did not have his medication with him.
Bessemer Deputy Police Chief Mike Roper confirmed to AL.com this morning that Morrison's van was found Monday in the remote Shelby County location.
Shelby County sheriff's officials this afternoon announced the discovery of the remains. They said positive identification could take some time. "My heart goes out to the Morrison family as they wait on official notification of the van's occupant,'' said Sheriff John Samaniego in a prepared statement. "This is one of those occasions where I know the possible outcome will bring grief to an already grieving family and I wish I had the words to help them with their loss."
Shelby County deputies and Bessemer police officers are working closely with one another and the Shelby County Coroner's Office to try and piece together the events that led to the discovery of Morrison's van.
Anyone with information about this investigation is urged to contact the Shelby County Sheriff's Office directly at (205)669-4181, through the Secret Witness line at (205)669-9116 or through the website at www.ShelbySO.com by clicking on the "Report Criminal Activity" link and choosing the "General Information" category.
Updated to say remains were found inside the burned van.
Last Sunday, a Mountain Brook man found dozens of KKK fliers in his neighbor's yard and on Pump House Road.
The fliers were appalling, Mark Rosse said.
"Its deplorable... For the KKK to be be doing this... this blatant hate is really concerning."
The papers advertised the KKK's stance on transgender people and the controversial debate on transgender bathrooms.
"These freaks are jeopardizing the safety of bathrooms all across the nation for our women and children. This needs to stop," the flier read.
"If your [sic] confused and don't know what sex you are today use a tree out in the back yard."
One Alabama lawmaker is publicly standing up against the group and encouraging them to debate the issue in public.
"Don't terrorize my community in your dresses and then run away... they're cowards," Rep. Patricia Todd said.
"If they want to debate this in a public forum, I'm here."
Todd, an outspoken member of the LGBT community, said that the KKK's views do not represent the majority of Alabamians.
"We're everywhere, and we will stand together against hate," she said.
"Enough is enough... we're not going back in the closet."
Todd also praised Rosse and his actions of calling the police. She said that, although some people will disagree with him, she applauds that he "stood up against hate."
Rosse said that he thinks the person responsible for the fliers threw the papers out the window into the driveway of his neighbor's home, leaving some to fly off in the wind.
Mountain Brook police responded to the incident, but Rosse said that the fliers were still there hours later.
"I'm all for free speech... but don't terrorize my community and expect me to sit there and be quiet," Todd said.
"I'll sit down with anyone and agree to disagree... show us who you are. I just think they're cowardly because they keep hiding."
Since the KKK members, or supporters, usually throw fliers at night or wear masks, Todd believes they are afraid to reveal their identities. She said that Klan members are scared their families, workplaces, and churches will not tolerate their actions.
"They use terrorist tactics," she said about the Klan. "Someone is going to get hurt at some point."
"They've chosen to do their work outside of the Democratic process."
And for those that the KKK targets all across the state?
"I'm right here. Come after me."
[Below: The KKK fliers scattered in Mountain Brook]
Boxer.jpg
This brown and white male Boxer was found severely injured in a ditch by Jefferson County sheriff's deputies on Monday, June 27, 2016. (Jefferson County Sheriff's Office)
(Jefferson County Sheriff's Office)
A reward is now being offered for information leading to an arrest in the case of a Boxer found by Jefferson County sheriff's deputies in a ditch, severely dehydrated and with a chain embedded in his neck.
PETA announced a reward of up to $5,000 today. "This dog likely endured immense loneliness and agonizing pain as he was apparently forgotten and left to rot with a chain around his neck," said PETA Vice President Colleen O'Brien. "PETA is urging anyone with information about this case to come forward immediately so that whoever is responsible for inflicting such misery can be held accountable."
A dog with a chain embedded in its neck was rescued from a ditch by Jefferson County sheriff's deputies, Monday, June 27. About 5:30 p.m. that evening, deputies were responding to an unrelated call in Adger when a woman flagged them down. She told them she was walking down the road when she saw an injured dog lying in a ditch nearby. Chief Deputy Randy Christian said deputies checked, but initially couldn't find the dog.
After finishing another call, they returned to the area to look for the dog and found the brown and white male Boxer in a ditch along Johns Road. The dog had a chain so tightly wrapped around its neck that the skin had grown around it, leaving a deep cut in the dog's neck. He was also severely dehydrated.
Christian said the deputies gave the dog water, and summoned the Greater Birmingham Humane Society Animal Care and Control to the scene. The agency took custody of the dog. He is recovering at the facility, and is expected to survive.
"PETA--whose motto reads, in part, that "animals are not ours to abuse in any way"--reminds guardians that dogs belong indoors with the rest of the family and should never be chained up alone in the yard, where they spend their entire lives eating, sleeping, and eliminating in the same few square feet of space,'' according to a PETA news release. "Dogs left alone outdoors are also defenseless, which makes them easy targets for thieves, dogfighters, and cruel people. In addition, chaining dogs--who are highly social pack animals--deprives them of social interaction, which can make them aggressive."
Anyone with information about the owner or the dog is asked to contact the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office at 205-325-1450 or GBHS Animal Care & Control at 205-591-6522, extension 4.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the convictions of a Huntsville man who pleaded guilty to multiple sex crimes against children in 2014.
Everett Emerson Cornett Jr. pleaded guilty in Madison County Circuit Court on July 23, 2014 to first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, and production of obscene material, according to the Alabama Attorney General's Office.
Each conviction involved a victim under the age of 12. He was sentenced to 40 years for each of the three counts.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals to affirm the conviction in a decision issued on July 1.
The man found dead inside a van parked at Engineered Plastics of Alabama in Huntsville on Tuesday was identified as Randal Bey, 55, of Arab.
Madison County Deputy Coroner Tyler Berryhill said the man, who was a former employee of the company, died on Saturday of a heart attack.
Bey stopped to rest at the business overnight as he was traveling to another part of the state, he said. The owners of the business were aware Bey planned to sleep in his van overnight on Saturday.
Bey's body was discovered by a worker at the business at around 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, according to Huntsville police.
A teen visiting from Missouri will not face charges after walking into multiple Arab businesses and the police department with a weapon that looked like an assault rifle, WAFF reported.
Arab Police Chief Ed Ralston said the 18-year-old is "on the watch list" after he came into the police department with a rifle strapped to his back on Sunday. After he asked officers about Alabama's gun laws, the teen then went to McDonald's, where many scared customers tried to run out of the restaurant.
He also went to Walmart, Tractor Supply, Dollar Tree and Marvin's. Some of the business didn't let him in their facilities.
Police arrested the teen at Foodland. Officers identified the weapon as a loaded 22-caliber rifle with a 30 round magazine.
Ralston said the teen was doing it for attention.
"We think he was doing it just to see the reaction because he would video with his cell phone when he walked into the businesses," Ralston told reporters.
The teen wasn't arrested because he didn't threaten anyone verbally and Alabama is an open carry state, the report stated.
A Russellville man is accused of trying to kill his wife and teenage son on Sunday morning.
Joel Andres-Lopez, 36, is charged with domestic violence first-degree assault and attempted murder, the Times Daily reported. He is being held in the Franklin County Jail on $500,000 bond.
Police said Andres-Lopez's wife, 37, was stabbed 21 times and his 14-year son had cuts to the throat.
The attack occurred at their residence in the 200 block of South Jackson Avenue. It was the boy's 14th birthday.
"The woman was covered in blood and the boy had marks on his throat," Sgt. Jake Tompkins told the newspaper.
The woman and boy were treated at area hospitals and later released.
Police believe the attack occurred because Lopez was jealous and began arguing with her.
"Sometime during the course of the argument, (Lopez) became irate and violent and used a knife to assault his wife," Tompkins said.
"While the assault on the woman was going on, the couple's son came to his mother's rescue and attempted to intervene, and then he was assaulted," he continued.
Capitol mug by Mike Cason.jpg
(Mike Cason/mcason@al.com)
The Alabama Medicaid Agency is reducing some payments to doctors to help address what the agency describes as a "budget crisis."
Beginning August 1, doctors will no longer received enhanced payments for certain primary care visits and services.
The enhanced payments, known as the "bump," raised payments to Medicare levels.
They were originally required by the federal Affordable Care Act and were funded by that law in 2013 and 2014.
Alabama had chosen to extend the enhanced payments to doctors since.
Dropping the payments back to the levels paid before 2013 will save Medicaid an estimated $14.7 million in state dollars, according to the agency.
"This is a difficult, but necessary cut due to the budget crisis the Medicaid Agency is facing at this time," said Commissioner Stephanie Azar.
Gov. Robert Bentley had requested $785 million for Medicaid from the General Fund.
The Legislature appropriated $700 million and passed the budget over the governor's veto.
Bentley issued a statement about the decision to reduce payments to doctors.
"As much as I dislike having to cut our primary care providers, discontinuing enhanced payments to primary care physicians is the only option we have available at this time, due to the inadequate funding appropriated by the Alabama Legislature," Bentley said.
The lower rates apply to pediatricians, family physicians, internists, general practitioners and certain other doctors.
They apply to certain primary care services and some vaccinations.
For example, payment for a 25-minute office visit will drop from $101 to $67. Payment for a 30-minute hospital visit will drop from $100 to $57. Payment for an Hib vaccine will drop from $19.79 to $8.
Bentley said his goal was to maintain the plan to change Medicaid to a managed care program, which has been approved by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
That plan had been scheduled to begin Oct. 1, but has been put on hold indefinitely.
Under the plan, Medicaid recipients would enroll with regional organizations that will receive a defined payment per recipient and be responsible for providing care.
That's a change from the current system that pays providers a fee for every service.
"My goal is to save our Regional Care Organizations so we can continue our efforts in Medicaid transformation by increasing efficiency and improving patient care," Bentley said.
Earlier this year, the Legislature considered plans to use part of a $1 billion oil spill settlement with BP to close most of the $85 million funding gap. But lawmakers could not come to an agreement, and the bills died.
Sen. Trip Pittman, R-Montrose, chairman of the Senate General Fund committee, said there has not been a consensus on how to address Medicaid funding.
The Senate and House budget committees held a series of hearings on Medicaid that included detailed presentations from Azar. Those hearings wrapped up last month.
Pittman said today it remains to be seen whether the fact that cuts are now being felt will advance the debate.
"I'm sure there will be some pressure brought to legislators by some of the providers," Pittman said. "We'll have to see if that changes the mood in order to come up with options to generate more revenue or eliminate certain loopholes or deductions."
More than one-third of dollars in the state General Fund go to Medicaid, making it by far the largest consumer of those dollars.
In 2015, legislators raised the cigarette tax by 25 cents a pack to help fund Medicaid, but have not found consensus on any other changes.
"The people that are paying taxes feel like they're paying all they want to pay," Pittman said. "That's the debate that has to be had."
Updated to add comments from Gov. Robert Bentley and Sen. Trip Pittman. Updated at 8:35 a.m. on July 7 to add some examples of reduced payments.
Alabama is one of 13 states asking a federal court to block the Obama administration's order that public schools allow students to use restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity or risk the loss of federal funding.
Attorney General Luther Strange had announced in May that Alabama was joining other states in suing the Obama administration..
Today, the 13 states applied for a preliminary injunction in U.S. District Court in Wichita Falls, Texas, against the federal departments of Education, Justice and Labor.
Strange said school administrators need clarity on the order as the start of a new school year approaches.
"Alabama and the other states are asking the federal court to grant a preliminary injunction of the transgender restroom edict until the court has reached a decision on its legality," Strange said.
Alabama joined Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin in filing the motion for a preliminary injunction Tuesday.
The federal departments of Education and Justice sent a joint letter on May 13 requiring schools receiving Title IX-linked funding to allow students access to restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.
Title IX is the federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in educational programs that receive federal funding.
In their motion for a preliminary injunction, Alabama and the other states say that Congress did not include gender identity in the law.
Read the states' application for a preliminary injunction.
"The new mandate harms school districts from coast to coast by usurping lawful authority over the regulation of educational institutions and the management of their facilities," the states claim. "It also jeopardizes billions of dollars in federal funding."
The states also claim the federal agencies failed to follow federal law requiring notice and an opportunity for comment before imposing the regulations.
The states are asking the court for a nationwide injunction and ask for expedited consideration of the request because the school year is just weeks away.
Attached to the filing is an affidavit from the Alabama Department of Education describing the federal funds jeopardized by the order, the attorney general's office said.
Alabama has been allocated $2.8 billion in federal funds for education in fiscal year 2016, according to the affidavit.
Updated several times, including at 6:32 p.m. to add more information from the court filing.
After a period of recovery and with prescribed medication, he was able to return to work with light duties.
He had a bowel operation earlier this year and was rushed to hospital in May after experiencing severe chest pains.
Pastor Pomaleu, who was elected president of the Papua New Guinea Union Mission last September, had dealt with a number of serious health issues in recent months.
GEOFFREY Pomaleu, the leader of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Papua New Guinea, has died after collapsing at a camp for pastors children.
Pastor Pomaleu collapsed on Sunday night at a pastors children camp at Gabensis Adventist School near Lae, said Henry Monape, general secretary for the Mission.
I took him to the Lae hospital, where it was discovered that he had a very bad internal infection among other medical challenges.
Pastor Pomaleu died at the Angau Hospital in Lae late on Monday night. Originally from Manus, he was a much-loved leader in Papua New Guinea.
He was the Mission youth director for 10 years and served as secretary and then president of the Morobe Mission before being elected last September as union president.
He was a great family man who, when away from home, would often comment he was thinking of his wife, sons, or daughters, said Glenn Townend, president of the South Pacific Division.
In his work, Geoffrey was a man who listened to people and God before he made a decision, Mr Townend said.
He had the ability to understand the different cultures and angles involved in a situation, but was able to build a team focusing on a clear vision and mission. Geoffrey will be missed.
Pastor Pomaleu is survived by his wife, Jochabed, the childrens ministries director for the Papua New Guinea Union Mission, and their three adult children.
I have prayed for Mrs Pomaleu, for the family, and for the entire church family of thousands of members, Ted Wilson, president of the Adventist world church, said on his Facebook page.
Pastor Henry Monape, who was appointed secretary last year, will serve as acting president until a new president is elected.
Chelsea Manning, the Army soldier who as Bradley Manning was convicted of leaking government secrets to WikiLeaks, allegedly attempted suicide at her Fort Leavenworth cell yesterday, according to multiple reports.
Manning, 28, is currently at the prison hospital where she is being monitored, according to TMZ, which first reported the alleged attempt. According to the reports, Manning attempted suicide - allegedly by hanging - in her cell early Tuesday at the Kansas-based military prison.
Manning, a former military analyst, is serving a 35-year sentence for leaking information to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. She was diagnosed with gender dysphoria and said confusion over her gender contributed to her actions. Manning transitioned from male to female behind bars and legally changed her name from Bradley Edward Manning to Chelsea Elizabeth Manning.
DAVID JAMES | Business Advantage PNG | Edited extracts
PAPUA New Guineas agriculture export income in 2015 was less than half of 2011 levels, according to recent Bank of Papua New Guinea data.
Income from palm oil exports was at its lowest level since 2009, while coffee exports were less than half the value of four years ago and income from rubber exports almost halved in a year.
Some of the decline is attributable to lower export prices. The banks most recent Quarterly Economic Bulletin says in 2015 coffee prices were down from 2014 levels by 1.2%, palm oil prices fell by 18.5%, tea by 5.8% and rubber by 16.7%. Cocoa prices rose by 14.4% and copra by 1.3%.
In a response that defies reason and intellectual integrity, the universitys bosses have conflated student protests with student violence with no hard evidence adduced about who was responsible and no condemnation of the police shootings that transformed a peaceful protest into something far worse.
THE Administration of the University of Papua New Guinea has continued to disgrace itself by abandoning classes for the remainder on 2016 and ignoring the real culprits behind violence at the university police who shot live rounds into a crowd of unarmed students.
This was typified earlier in an emotional comment on PNG Attitude by lecturer John Kamasua who blamed student leader Kenneth Rapa for all the violence without once mentioning the police shootings or the failure of the university administration to effectively manage the issue.
And instead of upholding the finest traditions of universities by holding classes irrespective of student numbers in an effort to restore normalcy, the university bosses have abandoned their duties and shut down the campus for the rest of the year.
It also seems they have behaved prejudicially and undemocratically by acting to dissolve the student representative council and ordering all students to vacate the campus by Saturday irrespective of what contingent problems this may cause.
Speaking without a shred of tested evidence, UPNG chancellor Nicholas Mann said the organisers of the protest had broken the law.
"The rule of law has been replaced by mob rule, intimidation, harassment and violence," he said, conflating peaceful protest with subsequent events and announcing the suspension of the constitution of the student council which organised the boycott, asserting that its activities were illegal.
In a statement, prime minister Peter ONeill, whose own failings triggered the original protest, expressed sadness over the suspension of classes, adding that the government was doing all it can to ensure the academic year is saved.
Student leader Gerald Peni said the students had done the right thing.
"As a patriotic citizen I still feel that it's the right thing to do," he told Radio New Zealand International.
"This was the last defence, the last voice of the country against corruption."
In a related development at Laes University of Technology, chancellor Sir Nagora Bogan said it was sickening to see political leaders blaming vice chancellor Dr Albert Schram and Lae police commander Anthony Wagambie Junior over the death of a student on campus.
Sir Nagora said national leaders from politics, public service, civil society and churches collectively bore responsibility.
The Unitech administration and Lae police had taken a more conciliatory and managed approach to student protests but were blind-sided by what seemed to be an Enga-Southern Highlands dispute that led to the death of a student and the torching of university buildings.
Meanwhile PNG opposition leader Don Polye said there must be a competent and open inquiry into the recent unrest. Mr Polye said the governments commission of inquiry was set up to be expensive, biased and unproductive.
He said the opposition had tried to discuss the issue as a matter of urgent public interest in parliament but ONeill did not want an open discussion and closed the Parliament sitting quickly.
That commission of inquiry appointed by ONeill needs to be made balanced and open enquiry, he said.
In China, addicts face mandatory detention and must contend with the stigma Chinese history has placed on drug use.
Beijing, China She appeared out of the black of an early spring night, wearing a biker jacket and a slicked-back ponytail. One of Beijings biggest commercial areas was only a block away, but instead she turned down a narrow alleyway and into a small restaurant.
She strode past the diners, the cash register too, and pushed open a plywood door. Inside was a small circular table surrounded by low orange stools, sandwiched in a room containing a row of industrial kitchen sinks and a drying rack for dishes.
She sat down, opened her laptop and waited. It was 7:30pm on a Monday. The Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meeting would start once more people showed up. Only two others did, ultimately. Much of China was busy celebrating the yearly Tomb-Sweeping holiday.
But the meeting went ahead as usual. They passed around plastic cups of Coke and laminated reading material, then bowed their heads to pray, as they did at the start of every meeting.
What they were about to share was personal, achingly so, and anonymity was crucial, as the groups name suggests.
Shirley, who asked to be identified only by her English alias, is one of the Beijing branchs founding members. She knows NAs dictates well particularly, that members conceal their identities at the level of press.
Addiction has been part of Shirleys life since she was a teenager, but finding the right treatment took years. Drugs werent the only problem. She also had to contend with the weight of Chinese history, and the acute stigma it has placed on drug use.
Great shame
China is believed to have more narcotics regulations than any other country in the world, with more than 500 laws and guidelines implemented at various levels of government over different periods of time.
These relentless and draconian countermeasures have done little to lessen Chinas drug problem, according to a report released last year by the Brookings Institute, a Washington, DC-based think-tank.
In 2012, the NGO Human Rights Watch included China in its report, Torture in the Name of Treatment. It condemned China, along with several Southeast Asian countries, for cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of drug addicts.
Before Shirley had ever even touched drugs, she knew the stigma that addiction carried.
The Opium War brought great shame to China ... I think the whole nation has been frightened by drugs since then. by Shirley, former drug addict
Even as a young girl, the mere possibility that she might develop a drug habit was a constant source of anxiety for her parents. Her mother had once given her a gold-plated clock, and Shirley remembers coming home from middle school one day to find her parents eyeing the polishing powder she used to buff it.
My parents were terrified. They thought it was drugs, she recalls. They were relieved to hear that it wasnt.
But what they didnt expect is that I became a drug addict in the end anyway.
The story of how she first encountered drugs rings all too common. She says she wanted to hang out with the cool, rich kids in her neighbourhood, so she started binge drinking when she was about 16.
That escalated to heroin, Chinas most popular drug at the time, followed by ecstasy, weed and other banned substances.
It was the 1990s, and a heroin craze was taking off, fuelled by Chinas burgeoning economy.
But Shirley says that part of the blame for her generations addiction problems also lies with the Chinese media.
Fear tactics and intimidation were the tools used to scare young people away from drugs, she says. At school, she was subject to dire warnings: Take drugs, and your family will fall apart. On TV, documentaries like The Chinese Sword (1995) depicted explicit, drug-related violence.
When she first tried heroin, Shirley expected to become addicted instantly, to be sucked into a wormhole of vice and decay. That was what she had learned from the media, but when that didnt happen, she began to wonder: What if Im an outlier? What if Im special somehow?
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Her understanding had been distorted by the media, which in turn had been skewed by Chinas traumatic history with drugs.
The Opium War brought great shame to China, Shirley says. I think the whole nation has been frightened by drugs since then. The reason why drug education is exaggerated stems from this fear.
The opium scourge
Opium, in particular, is blamed for launching a century of national humiliation in China.
It arrived through traders as early as the 7th century, under the Tang dynasty, but it was only in the 18th and 19th centuries that it was identified as a scourge against the Chinese people.
It wasnt as if opiums poisonous qualities were previously unknown. They were. But for several centuries, opium enjoyed a reputation as a pastime for the elite. Its value rivalled gold, and its uses were myriad; it was a medicine, an aphrodisiac and a means of socialising.
Traders from Portugal, Britain and elsewhere saw profit in Chinas opium demand. The ruling Qing dynasty, however, saw a threat. As its power started to collapse, opiums influence expanded, reaching across Chinas social strata.
A succession of emperors, some opium users themselves, would grapple with how best to control Chinas drug use. Under the Qing dynasty, China became one of the first nations to institute opium regulations. Early on, it debated treatment methods and deterrents a debate that still finds resonance today. Governments continue to weigh the merits of drug prohibition and legalisation, just as China did so long ago.
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One 1729 edict, recorded by the British social reformer Joshua Rowntree, proposed a whole series of punishments banishment, beatings and strangulation among them for participants in the opium trade, but not the opium smokers themselves.
A letter to Britains Queen Victoria in 1839 shows a shift in this policy, just over a century later. Lin Zexu, an official in Chinas imperial court, explained: He who sells opium shall receive the death penalty and he who smokes it also the death penalty.
By the dawn of the 20th century, yet another system was put in place. Proven addicts could purchase opium legally with a licence, on the condition that they commit to a detoxification schedule. Government officials, for instance, had only six months to get clean.
As the Communist Party rose to power in 1949, it zeroed in on the remaining vestiges of China's 'shame' - the country's ever-growing addict population. by
The opium trade hit its peak in 1906, with 35,000 tonnes grown domestically and an extra 4,000 tonnes brought in from abroad. By that time, China had lost two wars over opium to barbarians from Europe, and its celestial court was fatally weakened. A whopping 13.5 million Chinese, out of an estimated population of 400 million, were hooked on opium, including 27 percent of the countrys male population.
Only after World War II did the century of humiliation come to a close.
As the Communist Party rose to power in 1949, it zeroed in on the remaining vestiges of Chinas shame the countrys ever-growing addict population. Estimates suggested there were as many as 20 million, or five percent of the population.
Because of the Opium Wars, China was still in a crisis mode, in terms of its political, economic and cultural identity, says Hong Lu, co-author of the book Chinas Drug Practices and Policies. Contemporary drug laws were an opportunity for the new government to reflect upon the shame, the degrading past.
Under the Communist Party, opium fields were razed. As with previous governments, addicts had to subscribe to a detoxification schedule, or else suffer punishment. More than 800 traffickers were put to death, and many more were successfully prosecuted.
A nationwide campaign spread an anti-drug message, and systems of neighbourhood surveillance were implemented to report local drug users.
In 1953, barely five years into the new regime, the Communist leadership made a stunning announcement: China was effectively drug-free. No official statistics were released, but addiction rates are widely believed to have plummeted, thanks to the new measures.
Later, when China started registering drug addicts in the 1990s, it found only 70,000 a dramatic drop compared with the millions four decades earlier. That number, however, would climb as China grew increasingly prosperous.
Mandatory detention
Techniques for treating addiction from the early Communist era survived into modern times.
Shirley encountered the mandatory detention system, a brand of treatment the United Nations denounces the world over. In a 2016 joint letter, several UN bureaus stated that these systems are not scientifically valid. Moreover, they warned that mandatory detention can lead to some of the most egregious forms of human rights abuses.
The Chinese government, for its part, fired back at its critics during a UN special session on drugs this April. In his speech, state councillor Guo Shengkun warned other world leaders not to interfere in other countries internal affairs.
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He said that the country had recorded 1.21 million instances of compulsory isolation for addicts over the past decade. It remains one of the most common forms of treatment.
Shirleys family discovered her drug habit when she was about 22. Her father sent her out of Beijing to stay in a different province for eight months, hoping that the distance would help her get clean.
That was the longest time Id stayed away from drugs, she says.
When she returned home, she dropped to her knees and swore to her father that she would never take heroin again. But then she relapsed.
This time I felt completely crushed, she recalls. It gives you the feeling that the confidence and dignity you harbour inside your heart is collapsing, little by little.
She tried to stop. She even came up with a strategy: For every three days she was using, she would spend three days clean.
During that time, I would stare at the clock every day until the last minute of the third day. Then I would storm out to find drugs, she says. I felt as if my whole body was being torn apart.
She even came up with a strategy: For every three days she was using, she would spend three days clean. by
Her boyfriend, whom she had known since childhood, had been held in custody for drug use, and she arranged to meet him after his release. He was furious to find out that she had been seeing other men in his absence.
Their meeting didnt go as planned. Shirley had come over to resolve their dispute, but the police had arrived too, to check up on her boyfriend. The officers ended up taking them both to the station for drug tests.
It was like a car being side-swiped by another car, Shirley recalls.
Shirley tested positive.
She was sentenced to mandatory detention, in a new programme modelled after Daytop, a therapeutic treatment option founded in the United States.
She was allowed to leave in 2003, after six months of detoxification, but she chose to stay on longer, doing volunteer work for several years. The whole process was a relief, she says.
I felt relaxed from the moment I was caught by the police, Shirley says. There were no more drugs or boyfriends to be bothered with, she explains with a laugh. I felt free.
Re-education through labour
But not everyone who passes through Chinas mandatory detention system has such a good experience.
In 2012, the United Nations released a statement condemning compulsory drug detention worldwide. It said that detainees were denied their legal rights, and that they faced violence, forced labour and heightened health risks while in lock-up.
The system has its share of supporters in China, notably Zunyou Wu of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. He wrote a rebuttal to the UNs statement, saying that the UN focused too much on the individual rights of drug users.
Under some circumstances, the individuals autonomy must be overridden for the sake of the community as a whole, Wu wrote. He also attacked the science behind the report.
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Yunnan-based activist Gao Qiang ended his last stint in detention in 2007, after spending more than a decade in and out of mandatory treatment. Like Shirley, he became addicted to heroin at a young age, 15, without understanding much about drugs.
He was only a teenager in 1992 when he was first arrested and placed in a compulsory treatment centre.
For three months, Gao says that he was locked in a room no bigger than 20 square metres, where he was left to fight his addiction cold turkey.
There was no so-called treatment at all. The only treatment was to lock you up every day, Gao says.
For three months, Gao says he was locked in a room no bigger than 20 square metres, where he was left to fight his addiction cold turkey. by
Multiple relapses forced Gao back into custody several times after that and he soon became intimately familiar with the two institutions China employs for drug treatment: compulsory detoxification centres and re-education through labour camps.
Both systems required detainees to work, Gao says, but they were worse than any normal job. The hours were long, the workloads heavy. He also alleges that police would beat the inmates.
Gao preferred the re-education through labour camps, a system created in the 1950s to hold a range of criminals, including political dissidents, often without trial. There, he farmed sugar cane and rice from 8am to 6pm.
It was an easier schedule than that he faced at the rehab centres, where he says he worked from morning until midnight, with days off only for public holidays. His jobs included manufacturing shoes on an assembly line and making artificial diamonds for clothing.
The shrinking advocacy community
China abolished the system of re-education through labour camps in late 2013. But, human rights activists like Shen Tingting say they just changed the [camps] names. Now theyre simply drug detox centres, too.
Shen, the advocacy director for the NGO Asia Catalyst, does believe the treatment facilities are improving.
The law now acknowledges that addicts should be seen as patients, rather than criminals, and China has built the worlds largest system of methadone therapy to wean users off drugs such as heroin.
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That said, Shen still sees a number of flaws in the system. For instance, law enforcement officials often operate the detention facilities, rather than medical professionals. Shen is also emphatic about the need for more voluntary treatment alternatives, but for these to succeed, the mandatory detention system needs to ease up.
Basically, now, its arrest and detention. I think thats made people really scared, Shen says. Even if you have voluntary treatment, in a system like that, people wont show up.
Its hard for her to be optimistic about change. A few years back, she remembers letter-writing campaigns and advocacy work being done on behalf of drug users. Now its just silence. Theres just no voice at all, she says. I just think the [drug advocacy] community is getting smaller but not stronger.
Part of the dilemma lies with a lack of international engagement, Shen says. As the worlds second-largest economy, China no longer attracts as many donors for its social issues as it used to. And besides, international groups are increasingly met with suspicion. Just this April, China passed a law requiring foreign NGOs to submit to police supervision.
Then theres the issue of stigma. When it comes to drug users, many Chinese still hold staunchly conservative opinions, Shen says.
Shirleys family had trouble accepting her as an addict. While she stayed at the detention centre, an uncle from her mothers side was the only family member to visit her.
Though my family loves me very much, they still think that I, as a drug addict, am a humiliation, she says.
Fractured social credibility
Humiliated was exactly how Gao felt, even after he had finally become clean. Now, at 42, he still remembers his first trip from Yunnan to Beijing. He and a friend visited Tiananmen Square, then he retired to his hotel for a rest. A knock at his door interrupted his sleep.
The police were there with handcuffs, ready to take him to the station for a random urine test, Gao says. He didnt even have time to grab a shirt.
In China, addicts are registered on a police database, unless they can prove that they have been clean for three years. Each time they use their ID cards, like at a hotel, the police are made aware of their whereabouts.
It was like a surveillance camera watching you 24/7, leaving you no privacy at all, Gao says.
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He doesnt deny that addicts need some level of supervision, but he finds the current system excessive.
Gao dedicated himself to learning about Chinese law, to help other drug users overcome addiction and face down discrimination.
You have no social credibility, which makes it almost impossible to make a living. by Gao Qiang, Yunnan-based activist and former drug addict
Many of his friends returned to drugs after confronting the difficulties of life as a registered addict. Their drug histories prevent them from landing jobs and even getting a drivers licence.
You have no social credibility, which makes it almost impossible to make a living, Gao says.
It was a sense of social acceptance that drew Shirley to Narcotics Anonymous. She travelled all the way from Beijing to Shanghai for her first meeting, and left shocked. She had never been among people so tolerant of drug addicts. Thats when she and other NA attendees decided to hold their own meetings in Beijing.
But it hasnt always been easy to cope with her addiction since then, Shirley explains one afternoon at an Italian restaurant.
She is now 38, with two young daughters to take care of.
While she talks, her youngest, a blur of lavender tulle and strawberry hair charms, bounces around the restaurant booths. Her mischievous smile, flashed in a game of peekaboo, reveals two missing front teeth.
Shirley was racked with postnatal depression after her daughters birth. But taking medication was out of the question. She had been clean since 2007 and didnt want to risk a relapse.
Every night after my family fell asleep, there were different voices resonating around my ears, Shirley says.
One voice would remind her of her pain, and another would taunt her: Just die. Everything will be fine after you are dead.
Returning to Narcotics Anonymous after her pregnancy helped Shirley to overcome those suicidal impulses, she says, but she knows its not for everyone.
When it comes to offering treatments, diversity is the word, Shirley says. With more methods, more people will be helped.
Follow Allison Griner on Twitter at @alligriner
Egyptian war correspondent Yehia Ghanem continues his series of stories on the wars he has covered and the people he has met along the way with this account of a meeting with Arab mujahedeen fighting in the hills of Bosnia. Read the rest of his series, Caged, here.
Aside from the growing negativity towards the US in Afghanistan, its role in Bosnia had also come to be viewed suspiciously. In the autumn of 1994, during my coverage of the war there, I received information from a reliable source that bands of Arab mujahedeen had arrived from Afghanistan seven months before. They had been able to keep a low profile as they remained in a part of the country with the lowest number of UN peacekeepers.
They were fighting on the side of the Bosnians, but when the information was later leaked by some Serbian prisoners, the Bosnian government categorically denied it. Their denial made sense: to acknowledge what was, anyway, known by just a few, might have risked the West being even more indifferent to the Serb massacres of Bosnians than they were already perceived to be.
The Arab mujahedeen were known by Bosnian military officials to be top-notch fighters partly because of their previous experience in Afghanistan and within just a few months their presence on the battlefield appeared to be making a significant difference for the embattled Bosnians. The Serbs referred to them as the black death on account of the black fatigues they wore and their ferociousness.
When I learned of their presence, I spoke to the Bosnian leadership and asked to be taken to their primary areas of operation. My intention was not to report on their role there, but to record it for history, I explained. This line of reasoning seemed to work and I was permitted to meet them.
Getting there entailed a long journey out of the besieged city of Sarajevo through a secret tunnel that had been built covertly by the Bosnians. It ran from the Bosnian-held territories on the outskirts of the capital, under Sarajevo airport, to the far side of Igman mountain plateau and then off to the north.
Coffee and the crusades
Once there, I met Abu Al Walid, the Algerian leader of a band of 25 mujahedeen who were fighting in that part of Bosnia. Some of his men were Algerian; others came from elsewhere in the Middle East.
It was an unusually cold autumn night in 1994 and we sat around a fire, drinking strong Arabic coffee, on one of the many hills surrounding the city of Zenica, 70km north of Sarajevo.
Abu Al Walid had a face that looked as though it had been carved from stone. He seemed to be in his early 40s and had spent six years fighting in Afghanistan. He was well-mannered but fiercely disciplined, and his men, who ranged in age from their mid-20s to early 40s, were like copies of their leader.
We spoke animatedly. They were clear about who they considered to carry the ultimate responsibility for the massacres committed by the Serbs in Bosnia: the West, led by the US.
From their perspective, the US could have stopped what they considered to have been a four-year massacre of the Bosnians at the very beginning. Their logic was simple: when the West had wanted to put an end to Serbias war against Slovenia in 1991, it had taken them just a matter of days. It had taken a few months to end Serbias war against Croatia. This, they reasoned, was the West teaching the Croats an overdue lesson for siding with the Nazis during World War II. But, as the Croats were Christians, such a lesson couldnt be permitted to drag on for too long. In contrast, Abu Al Walid argued, the Serbs were given four years to finish off the Bosnian Muslims.
To argue with him or his fighters felt a little like getting into a ring with multiple heavyweight boxers. Id dance around, trying to dodge their punches while occasionally attempting to land with a jab of my own always cautious not to aggravate my opponents and conscious of the fact that I had no support among the audience.
Abu Al Walid concluded his case by reminding me of the Medieval Crusades, talking about them, as so many Arabs do, as though they happened not centuries ago, but mere years. He navigated a path from the brutality Arabs Muslim, Jew and Christian had endured then, to the oppression they continued to experience at the hands of their Western-backed dictators.
Synonymous with death
I raised the complaints Id heard about his men their refusal to bring back prisoners of war for the purpose of gathering intelligence or exchanging them for Bosnian civilians, their decision not to wear Bosnian army fatigues. A smile crept across his face, highlighted by the flames of the fire.
As for being indifferent to bringing back Serb prisoners, it is a calculated policy that aims to deliver a clear message to Serbian soldiers, he explained.
That message?
If they execute their generals orders to massacre Bosnian civilians, they will be ruthlessly butchered once they fall into our hands, he said.
He wanted Serbian field officers and soldiers to think carefully about their superiors orders before acting on them, he continued.
And, he insisted, their approach had paid off. The frequency of massacres committed by Serbian field soldiers dropped drastically, he proclaimed proudly.
As of now, the policy will change, he conceded, his smile growing bigger still. We will bring back military Serb prisoners of war.
What they wouldnt do, however, was abandon their all-black uniform.
Black had become synonymous with death, he explained, thus shaking the morale of the Serb aggressors.
They also refused to follow Bosnian army orders regarding which arms they should use on the battlefield, he added. Their objective, he explained, was often to take control of the enemys arms depots so that those weapons might be supplied to the under-armed Bosnian army. Using heavy arms risked destroying the very weapons they hoped to capture, so they preferred small arms.
We accept risking our lives for the sake of providing arms for the Bosnians, he concluded, putting out the fire.
It was time to hit our beds sleeping bags on the ground in the woods.
My mind buzzed with questions I still wanted to ask him, and I contemplated how I might persuade him to let me speak to one of his Serb prisoners of war. What did they think of these non-Bosnians against which they were now fighting, I wondered?
We fight to live they fight to die
I got my chance to find out the following night when I was able to talk to a young Serbian officer they had captured during battle a few days before. He was soon to be exchanged for Bosnian prisoners. I offered him some cigarettes and asked him why he looked so depressed.
Our commanding officers at the headquarters dont know what we are up against, he told me. I dont fear facing Bosnians in the battlefield for they and I fight to live. However, I am not prepared to face those men in black who fight to die.
At first he spoke hesitantly, looking from side to side, fearful that he might be overheard by some of the mujahedeen. His hand shook as he gripped his cigarette and, although it was cold, he was sweating.
But as we talked and smoked some more, he began to relax.
The chance of getting out of combat with a Bosnian alive is reasonable, he continued. But its almost nil while fighting those lunatics who want to seize martyrdom.
I later asked Abu Al Walid about what the young Serbian officer had told me. Again, he smiled. We are here to support those repressed humans. It would be great if we played a part in achieving victory and stayed alive, he said. But if we die, even better, for in this case we will get the grand prize martyrdom, the long-awaited freedom.
Abu Al Walid and his men searched for their freedom on the battlefield, I concluded, because they saw no peaceful avenue available to them through which to pursue it.
Chronicle of a Caged Journalist is a series of excerpts from a forthcoming book.
The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Wau, South Sudan On the evening before her three-year-old granddaughter was killed by government soldiers, Mariana was adamant that she didnt want to run. Her friends were contacting her to say that people were fleeing her hometown of Wau, in northwest South Sudan. Government soldiers were coming into the town, they warned, killing civilians and looting their homes.
But Mariana didnt want to leave her family home and flee into the unknown.
People were saying they were running out of Wau, she said. I said no, Im not moving.
As the violence escalated in other parts of town, Marianas sister, two of her daughters, and four of her grandchildren came to stay with her. Seeking safety in numbers, Marianas neighbours from both sides came to stay in her house too.
By the next morning, the threat had become more serious. Now it was not just the sound of gunshots that rang across the town, but the boom of heavy artillery. At 7:30am Mariana called another of her daughters, Raja, in South Sudans capital Juba.
She called to say that they had started shooting again, recalls Raja. An hour later she called again to say it was serious, that there were people coming into houses, and that it was not safe to move around town. Then she called a third time to say that she wouldnt be able to call again, because she had to hide.
Mariana heard that people were seeking refuge at the United Nations base in the north of the town. Fearing that their lives were in danger, she and her family decided they would go there too. Someone was going to pick us up to go to the UN camp at 10:30am, she said. But before we could leave the soldiers came.
According to numerous local accounts of events, Sudan Peoples Liberation Army soldiers from the Dinka tribe, the largest in the country and the tribe of President Salva Kiir, came into Wau on June 24. Almost completely unopposed, they began to terrorise members of other tribes in the town, known collectively as Fertit.
Four men broke into Marianas small compound, smashing the gate that divided her property from her neighbours house. Three of them wore the uniform of the government army, the SPLA, and were carrying guns. They entered the house and they started shooting, said Mariana.
The men seized Marianas 33-year-old daughter, Rosanna.
They asked her where her husband was. She told them he was away in Juba and they started to beat her. They kept asking her if she was a Dinka. She said her husband was a Dinka and they said they would call him. They took her phone and all the money she had.
Determined to find money, the soldiers forced their way into a small pharmacy business that Raja had set up in the grounds of the house. They put a gun to Rosannas head and they made her open the pharmacy, said Mariana.
They destroyed everything. They scattered the drugs everywhere. They took some drugs with them, and they were looking for money, but they didnt find any.
Not satisfied, the soldiers continued to search the house, finding Marianas 50-year-old sister sheltering in the toilet. They found her and they took her from there and they beat her, said Mariana. They took her phone and her money too.
It was then that events began to take an even darker turn. As the soldiers went from room to room, more than a dozen young children, relatives of Mariana and her neighbours, were huddled in another building on the grounds.
The children were in another tukul [a traditional local house made from mud bricks and thatch], said Mariana. The doors and windows were closed. There were about 15 children in the tukul hiding under the bed my grandchildren and my neighbours children. They were there with the daughters of my two neighbours, Ria and Suweba.
The soldiers went on to the veranda outside the tukul. Then they started shooting indiscriminately into the building.
They shot inside from the veranda, said Mariana. They shot my three-year-old granddaughter and my neighbours daughter, Ria. After they fired the shots they ran away.
Ria, 48, died immediately from her injuries. We tried to call for help, but nobody came, said Mariana. My granddaughter died about two hours later.
Mariana took the body of her granddaughter to St Marys Catholic Cathedral, which has become one of the main burial sites for victims of the violence in the town.
We buried the baby in our compound, said Father Natale, a priest at the church. We also buried a 12-year-old girl, and 11 others.
St Marys is now providing shelter to Mariana, her family and her neighbours. They are among more than 10,000 people staying at the church.
Humanitarian organisations report that more than 120,000 people have been displaced by the recent violence. By July 3, only nine days after the initial violence in the town, almost 20,000 of them were staying at a camp just outside the UN base, under the protection of UN military.
According to Mariana, aid agencies are helping, bringing medicine and water to the Catholic church. But conditions are tough.
Ive spoken to many people who have lost friends and relatives, she says. We are angry and we are hungry. We are just surviving.
MORE on recent violence in Wau
Chios, Greece A group of Syrian children walk along the pavement and make their way to school. With each coffee shop they pass, they cheerfully shout Kalimera Greek for Good morning in unison.
Several smiling locals wish them a good morning in return.
Across the street, a Romanian coastguard ship part of Frontex, the European Unions border agency creeps across the harbour, patrolling the waters for boats carrying refugees.
The children are heading to Refugee School Chios, a volunteer-run initiative that provides part-time classes for nearly 150 children living in the nearby refugee camp Vial and the informal Dipethe camp, located in a deserted municipal theatre.
Most of the teachers are Syrian, Iraqi and Afghan refugees who used to teach back in their home countries.
Providing kids with two days of school is not a success, the schools Nick Millet, 25, told Al Jazeera.
These kids should be in school five days a week. Some of them have never been to school or have been out for up to three years.
Of the estimated 57,000 refugees and migrants bottlenecked in Greece since Macedonia closed its border in March, more than half are children and women, according to the International Rescue Committee.
READ MORE: Refugees in Chios fear violence from far-right
Since the European Union and Turkey struck a deal in March to halt the flow of refugees to Europe, those fleeing war and economic devastation are left with the options of applying for asylum in Greece or returning to Turkey to continue the asylum and relocation process from there.
More than 8,400 refugees and migrants live in official and impromptu camps on the Greek islands, George Kiritsis, the Greek governments refugee affairs spokesperson, told Al Jazeera
More than 3,000 live in Chios, where a small group of local right-wing activists have protested against and attacked refugees and volunteers in recent months.
Anger has also grown in the camps on Chios as people grow frustrated with the slow asylum registration process. On a handful of occasions, there have been violent clashes between Afghan and Syrian refugees.
They are barred from travelling to mainland Greece without police permission until their asylum process is completed.
Gaza Strip Farah Qanouas first day at school after the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza was a day she will not forget.
On July 23, 2014, 11-year-old Farah saw on the news that Shujayeas primary school, where she attended classes, had been hit by Israeli missiles. Still, what she observed on that first day back was beyond her expectations.
The hateful bombs had showered debris everywhere I moved my eyes that day, Farah told Al Jazeera, noting that the extent of the damage shook her long-established belief that the school was a safe place.
READ MORE: The orphans of Gaza
Her best friend, Qamar Hararh, had been eager for the school year to start again: I was waiting for my school because it still can give me that sense that everything is going well and will be all right, Qamar told Al Jazeera.
While the two friends were happy to see each other again after surviving the war, they have since had to adjust to their badly damaged learning environment. Many of the schools walls collapsed during the war, and windows were smashed. Their classroom ceiling has gaping holes in it, the result of Israeli air strikes.
It serves as a constant reminder of what we experienced, of the deadly escalation in hostilities during the last war, school principal Zakia Abu Hamda told Al Jazeera.
She says she fears the students could be seriously harmed if chunks of concrete, hanging precariously from the ceilings of many classrooms, were to fall on them.
The Israeli onslaught on Gaza in the summer of 2014 claimed the lives of more than 2,200 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to United Nations figures. Several education facilities came under heavy Israeli shelling, sustaining damage estimated to exceed $33.5m.
Ziad Thabet, an official in Gazas education ministry, told Al Jazeera that 187 government schools were damaged during the conflict, three of which were totally destroyed and cannot be used. Another 184 sustained some form of damage.
It serves as a constant reminder of what we experienced, of the deadly escalation in hostilities during the last war. by Zakia Abu Hamda, Shujayea school principal
Rebuilding has not yet begun in many cases owing to Israeli restrictions on raw materials, including concrete, entering the Gaza Strip, Thabet said.
As a result, about 94 percent of Gazas schools have been operating on double-shifts, Thabet said: One group of students goes to class in the morning, while another group goes in the afternoon. Gaza would need to build 130 new schools to meet the local demand, he added.
Back in Shujayea, school secretary Nafeza Yousef told Al Jazeera that the destruction had left the school overstretched and unable to meet its students needs. We had to give up virtually half of our students and place them in three other nearby schools, she said.
Before the war, the school taught more than 750 students from the first to the sixth grades. Today, no more than 430 students from the fourth to the sixth grades can attend. At least nine teachers were transferred from the school because of the lower enrolment.
Yousef said the school lost eight classrooms, which were completely destroyed in the Israeli air strike. This forced them to cram more than 45 students in each classroom, compared with about 38 students per class previously.
The schools administration building which contained data about the students and their photos was levelled and the science laboratory and library were also destroyed.
Students have to rely only on their teachers theoretical explanation, said Abu Hamda, the principal, about the lack of hands-on science education.
Computer teacher Muna Hassan also cited concerns about the lack of facilities. Our lab is [now] used as a warehouse for the school, and the computers are broken, she said.
READ MORE: Strong evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza
The situation is even worse in winter months. During storms that struck Gaza last December and January, teachers draped plastic tarps over the broken walls and windows, but they were no use, Qamar said. The rain still dripped into the classrooms, and strong winds whipped inside the building.
Gazas education ministry does not have stable funding; it is typically supported by profits from school shops or international organisations such as UNICEF. Fawaz Mujahed, the Ramallah-based ministrys head of the school building department, said most interior repairs to schools partially damaged during the war had been completed, but the wholly destroyed schools remained in ruins because of the Israeli restrictions.
Qatar has pledged the needed funds to build four schools which are totally destroyed. We also have our plans to build 40 new schools in Gaza, Mujahed said.
It is not only Gaza that suffers from the lack of funding, he added, but also the occupied West Bank, where more schools are urgently needed to help alleviate overcrowding.
The international communitys response to the education crisis has been inadequate and ineffective, Thabet said, noting pledged funds often fail to materialise in Gaza. The authorities in Gaza have also been unable to pay teachers salaries consistently.
We are not fairly paid, but we continue to commit to our duties towards the [next] generations, Waela Qumbez, a teacher at the school in Shujayea, told Al Jazeera as she prepared her next mathematics class.
Despite the many challenges, Gazas students still cling to education as a source of hope. Farah says she wants to become a dentist when she grows up.
They want us to lose faith, she said. But we never will. We will strive to unlock our potentials and improve our future.
Investigation into police killing of 37-year-old, which was filmed on mobile phones, gathers pace as protests continue.
The United States Justice Department has opened an investigation into the police killing of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man whose death was filmed by bystanders.
Authorities said Sterling, who was killed early on Tuesday, had a gun as he was wrestled to the ground by two white police officers outside a Louisiana convenience store.
Mobile phone footage alleged to be of the incident has prompted hundreds of people to protest and caused outrage online.
Protests lasted late into the night on Tuesday in Louisianas second largest city, Baton Rouge, with demonstrators chanting black lives matter and hands up dont shoot.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards and the US Justice Department announced on Wednesday afternoon that there would be an investigation by the departments civil rights division.
Horrible tragedy
Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. called Sterlings death a horrible tragedy and said there were still questions about what happened.
Community leaders said they did not trust the police and demanded answers as to why Sterling was shot and killed outside the shop where he sold CDs.
The head of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) in Baton Rouge, Michael McCalahan, called for the police chief to be fired.
READ MORE: Up Front Do black lives matter in the US?
We are going to turn the entire case over to the US Attorneys office and the FBI to conduct the investigation from this point, he said, shortly after the announcement.
What were going to do today is root out the one percent of bad police officers that go around becoming the judge, the jury and the executioner of innocent people. Period. But more specifically, innocent black lives, McCalahan said.
Police say they were called to the store on Tuesday night after an anonymous caller said that Sterling had threatened someone with a gun.
Mobile phone footage
The video clip of the moment Sterling was killed, which cannot be verified by Al Jazeera, contains images some readers may find distressing.
The 48-second video shows two police officers pushing Sterling down to the ground. One officer is seen pressing his head against the ground. There are shouts of Get on the f*****g ground! and If you move, I swear to f*****g God!. Then, at least five shots can be heard.
Traffic moving again, as protestors in street yell at drivers to come down to Baton Rouge city hall at 8am tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/mP8JapS0jE Bryn Stole (@brynstole) July 6, 2016
Baton Rouge police spokesman LJean McKneely told local media that officers had responded to an anonymous call that said there was a man in the area with a gun.
McKneely said two officers at the scene had an altercation with a man and one officer fatally shot the suspect.
He said police believed only one officer fired shots, and that the officer has been placed on administrative leave, which is standard department policy.
By dawn on Wednesday, protesters and friends had erected a makeshift memorial for Sterling on the white folding tables and fold-out chair he had used to sell homemade music compilations.
An autopsy showed that Sterling died of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, according to East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Dr William Clark.
The shops owner, Abdul Muflahi, told a local TV station that the first office to arrive to the scene had used a stun gun on Sterling and the second officer tackled the man. As Sterling fought to get the officer off of him, the first officer shot him four to six times.
The store owner said Sterling did not have a gun in his hand at the time, but he saw officers remove a gun from Sterlings pocket after the shooting.
The mother of Sterlings 15-year-old was distraught at Wednesdays news conference.
As a mother, I have now been forced to raise a son who is going to remember what happened to his father, said Quinyetta McMillon.
Report runs to 2.6m words and investigates UKs role in 2003 Iraq War, with Tony Blair under scrutiny.
An official report into Britains involvement in the Iraq war will be published on Wednesday, seven years after the inquiry opened, with the role of former Prime Minister Tony Blair expected to be scrutinised.
Relatives of some of the 179 British troops who died will gather in London for the publication of the Iraq Inquiry, which runs to 2.6 million words more than four times the length of Leo Tolstoys War and Peace.
The report will be launched at 11am UK time (10:00GMT) after which it will be available online
The inquiry, launched in 2009 as the bulk of British troops withdrew from Iraq, was tasked with investigating the run-up to the 2003 US-led invasion and the subsequent occupation.
Anti-war protesters are converging on the conference centre near the Houses of Parliament where civil servant John Chilcot will present his report, to repeat calls for Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed during the war and in the violence that followed.
The country has remained plagued by violence. On Sunday, a car bomb in Baghdad killed 250 people in the worst single attack since the US-led invasion in 2003.
The invasion was deeply controversial at the time as it did not have explicit approval from the UN Security Council, while claims that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction proved unfounded.
READ MORE: Revisiting UK governments role in Iraq invasion
Chilcot was not asked to rule on the legality of the invasion, but some leaks have suggested Blair will be criticised over the decision-making process.
His critics are already lining up against him, with former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond gathering cross-party support to bring legal action or symbolically impeach him.
Blair apologised last year for the fact the intelligence was wrong, and for mistakes in the planning, but said he did not regret removing Saddam Hussein.
Unprecedented scale
We havent set out to criticise individuals or institutions, Chilcot said ahead of the report launch.
However, I made very clear right at the start of the inquiry that if we came across decisions or behaviour which deserved criticism then we wouldnt shy away from making it.
More than 120 witnesses gave evidence during months of public hearings, including Blair, his successor Gordon Brown, spy and military chiefs and ministers.
The inquiry panel one of whom has since died trawled through 150,000 government documents in an investigation Chilcot said was on an unprecedented scale.
Their report was delayed by wrangling over what could be published, from diplomatic notes to records of cabinet meetings, as well as the need to give key figures prior warning.
Among the documents to be published are reportedly 29 letters sent by Blair to US president George W Bush, and some record of conversations between the two.
Bereaved relatives had pressed for the inquiry after criticism of the planning and management of the conflict, and accusations that troops were not properly equipped.
The first winners of the state's Downtown Revitalization Initiative have been revealed.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo appeared inGeneva, Middletown and Plattsburgh Wednesday to announce the cities have won $10 million grants to support downtown revitalization projects.
Geneva beat out municipalities in the Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council to win the grand prize. Each of the state's regional councils were tasked with nominating one city for the $10 million downtown funding.
With the funding, the city plans to renovate buildings, provide greater access to healthy food and boost businesses in the area.
Middletown was selected by the Mid-Hudson Regional Economic Development Council for the award. The city's application focused on its business improvement district and finding a use for a now-closed state psychiatric center.
Plattsburgh competed with other municipalities represented by the North Country Regional Economic Development Council.
The winning proposal submitted by Plattsburgh calls for a new municipal marina and historic building renovations. The city is also planning to expand its farmers' market and add housing and retail space.
"The Downtown Revitalization Initiative will build on that momentum by investing in local assets to attract jobs, private investment and transform downtown areas into vibrant, diverse and economically active hubs," Cuomo said in a statement.
What's not known is when or if Cuomo will visit central New York to announce the region's Downtown Revitalization Initiative winner.
The deadline was June 30 for the Central New York Regional Economic Development Council to nominate one of the four cities in the Downtown Revitalization Initiative competition. The state held off announcing the winners until after Independence Day weekend.
The $10 million state grants for the winners will include up to $300,000 for the cities to hire experts who can help local officials develop a strategic investment plan. The plan will be used to determine how to best invest the funds.
These plans are expected to be completed by early next year.
Inquiry into Britains role finds the consequences of Tony Blairs decision to invade Iraq in 2003 were underestimated.
Britain decided to join the 2003 invasion of Iraq based on flawed intelligence which was not challenged and should have been, a long-awaited report has found.
John Chilcot, the chairman of the Iraq Inquiry and a retired civil servant, said on Wednesday that the invasion went badly wrong.
Military action in Iraq might have been necessary at some point, but in March 2003, there was no immediate threat from [then Iraq President] Saddam Hussein, he said, speaking 30 minutes before the reports offical publication.
The 2.6 million-word Iraq Inquiry, which took seven years to prepare, can be accessed in full online.
It said former prime minister Tony Blair committed to war before peaceful options had been exhausted and that the legality of his case was questionable.
READ MORE: Iraq report brings little solace to war-torn country
Blair set the UK on a path leading to diplomatic activity in the UN and the possibility of participation in military action in a way that would make it very difficult for the UK subsequently to withdraw its support for the US, the report concluded.
Al Jazeeras Neave Barker, reporting from London, said: [Chilcots remarks were] about as damning as you can possibility get without explicitly saying that war in Iraq was illegal.
Responding to the report, Blair, the UK prime minister from 1997 to 2007, said his decision to join the invasion was taken in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country.
In a news conference, Blair he said accept[ed] full responsibility without exception and without excuse, but insisted that the world is in a better place without Saddam Hussein.
He said he made the decision to go to war because it was the right thing to do based on the information I had, adding that his mistake was in the planning and process following the invasion.
Blair lied on every level
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and at least 179 British soldiers were killed during the eight-year conflict.
Investigators also found the planning and preparations for Iraq after Hussein was overthrown were wholly inadequate, said Chilcot, who had not been asked to rule on the legality of the invasion.
The people of Iraq have suffered greatly, Chilcot said.
Speaking from Baghdad, Iraqi political analyst Ahmed Rushdi accused Blair of lying to the British people and the international community.
He lied on every level, Rushdi said. In the end, what happened in 2003, [put] us in a position that Iraqis must take the blame of what happened in 2003.
Rushdi said that it was the responsibility of the invaders to consider the consequences of war.
Its only go to Iraq, invade Iraq, destroy the infrastructure, destroy the nationality of all the Iraqis, without a clear post-war plan, he said.
As Chilcot addressed media at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in west London, anti-war protesters gathered outside.
Before Britain entered the war 13 years ago, at least one million people had marched in the capital against a military invasion.
Current Prime Minister David Cameron, of the ruling Conservative Party, said the government needed to learn the lessons from what went wrong in the build-up to Britains joining the invasion of Iraq. He added that he has put in place steps to avoid similar problems.
Military intervention is always difficult, planning for the aftermath of intervention, that is always difficult and I dont think in this House we should be naive in any way that theres a perfect set of plans that can solve these problems in perpetuity.
Never again
The families of British troops killed in the Iraq conflict said Britain should use the Chilcot report to ensure the country never made such grave mistakes again.
In a statement, a group of families who had access to the reports executive summary said that never again must so many mistakes be allowed to sacrifice British lives and lead to the destruction of a country for no positive end.
READ MORE: Revisiting UK governments role in Iraq invasion
The sister of one killed serviceman, Sarah OConnor, said the report confirmed there was one terrorist that the world needed to know about, and that is Tony Blair.
The military families have long pushed for the inquiry and for those responsible for Britains involvement to be held accountable.
The Iraq Inquiry had previously faced repeatedly delays, in part by wrangling over the inclusion of classified material, including conversations between Blair and former US President George W Bush. Some of Blairs pre-war letters to the US president are published in Chilcots report, but not Bushs replies.
The report was released as Iraq reeled from the deadliest attack since the 2003 invasion.
Early on Sunday, a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-rigged lorry in Baghdads Karada district as it teemed with shoppers before the holiday marking the end of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, sparking infernos in nearby buildings.
At least 250 people died in the blast, including many children and women.
The bombing was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).
Critics of the United Kingdoms role in the United States-led invasion and occupation of Iraq have spoken out in the wake of a report that concluded Britain joined the war on flawed intelligence.
The Iraq Inquiry, which took seven years to prepare and totals some 2.6 million words, was headed by retired civil servant John Chilcot.
Military action in Iraq might have been necessary at some point, but in March 2003, there was no immediate threat from [then Iraq President] Saddam Hussein, Chilcot said.
Former UK prime minister Tony Blair defended his decision to participate in the invasion, saying that he took full responsibility for it.
Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Blairs Labour party, suggested parliament should take action against the former prime minister for misleading it in the lead up to the invasion.
Its led to a fundamental breakdown in trust in politics and in our institutions of government. The tragedy is that while the governing class got it so horrifically wrong, many of our people actually got it right, Corbyn said, referring to massive anti-war demonstrations at the time.
READ MORE: The UKs role in the run-up to ruinous Iraq War
Corbyn also proposed a war powers act to provide expanded parliamentary oversight on future UK military actions. He also called for the use of drones to be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
No significant reform
Legal experts and human rights groups also spoke out following the reports release.
Rebecca Moosavian, a senior lecturer at Northumbria Universitys School of Law, said future prime ministers will continue to exert major influence over taking the country to war because no significant reform to the war power since the Iraq invasion.
The Iraq war strengthened parliamentary involvement in warfare decisions by requiring the prime minister to obtain approval for military action, Moosavian told Al Jazeera.
READ MORE: Chilcot report Tony Blair in focus ahead of launch
However, Iraq also shows that this brake on war may be limited by factors including strong party discipline among MPs and, crucially, governmental control of the information on which parliament decides.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Amnesty International said the UK should comply with international investigations into alleged unlawful killings and torture carried out by British troops during the war.
Wherever there is sufficient admissible evidence, those suspected of criminal responsibility no matter their rank or position must be prosecuted in fair trials, while victims and their families must receive full reparation, said Salil Shetty, the rights groups secretary general.
The UK must also fully cooperate with the International Criminal Courts preliminary examination into alleged crimes by UK nationals in Iraq from 2003 to 2008, including murder, torture and other ill-treatment.
Speaking in London on Wednesday afternoon, Blair said: There were no lies, there was no deceit.
Unanswered questions
Donald Campbell of Reprieve, a UK-based rights organisation, said the Iraq Inquiry left unanswered questions about the depth of British involvement in torture unanswered.
It doesnt get into [torture], he told Al Jazeera. That demonstrates to an even greater extent that we still need a full inquiry into British involvement in torture.
In the lead-up to the invasion, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Saddam Husseins government was supporting al-Qaeda a claim later revealed to be extracted through the torture of Libyan detainee Sheikh Ibn al-Libi.
Blair also repeated Powells claim to British MPs, saying in February 2003 that there was unquestionably a link between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi government.
Shaker Aamer, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who has been released to his home in London, has since said that British personnel were present during Libis interrogations.
Campbell explained that an inquiry into UK involvement in torture moved at a snails pace, and was later shelved and eventually handed over to the parliaments Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC).
The whole problem with the ISC is that its a very secretive body and, in many ways, quite heavily under government control, he said. But there are strong indications that there was political knowledge [of torture].
Additional reporting by Shafik Mandhai: @ShafikFM
At least 10 troops killed and dozens wounded following two explosions in base adjoining Aden international airport.
At least 10 Yemeni soldiers have been killed and dozens wounded in a double car bomb attack at a military base in the southern city of Aden.
The attackers detonated a car bomb near the entrance of the army base in the Khormaksar district adjoining Aden international airport, military sources said on Wednesday.
The first explosion allowed the second vehicle to drive inside where it also blew up.
The explosions were followed by gun battles between troops and about two dozen attackers, witnesses said. The base was sealed off by government forces sent as reinforcements.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
READ MORE: Yemen Pulling the Strings
Yemen has been at war since September 2014, when Iran-backed Houthi rebels and their allies drove the government out of the capital Sanaa and much of the countrys north.
The Houthis controlled Aden, the main city in southern Yemen, for months before government forces backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition pushed them back in July.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has exploited the chaos to expand areas under its control and recruit more followers.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) has also launched several mass-casualty attacks on security forces.
Late last month, fighters pledging allegiance to ISIL claimed responsibility for a wave of suicide bomb attacks that killed 38 government troops in the southern port city of Mukalla.
Accidental explosion of a shell caused the deaths of two peacekeepers during a training exercise in Kidal.
Two Dutch UN peacekeepers have reportedly been killed and one seriously wounded in an explosion during a training exercise in northwest Mali, the Dutch defence ministry said.
During the accident, two of our men lost their lives, The Netherlands Vice Chief of Defence Rob Bauer announced after the incident in the town of Kidal on Wednesday.
Another 23-year-old soldier was seriously wounded, and was operated on in a field hospital and then taken to a military hospital in northern Gao, he said.
The defence ministry named the two men as Corporal Kevin Roggeveld, 24, and Sergeant Henry Hoving, 29.
Officials with the UN mission in Mali said in a statement that an accidental explosion of a shell caused the deaths of two MINUSMA peacekeepers during a training exercise in Kidal.
MINUSMA has launched an internal investigation, while Bauer said: We do not know exactly what happened and we dont want to speculate.
The Netherlands has been taking part in the UN stabilisation mission in the West African nation since April 2014, and has deployed some 400 troops, four Apache helicopters and three Chinooks, the Dutch news agency ANP said.
There are an estimated 12,000 UN troops in Mali.
The UN mission was deployed in Mali in July 2013 as part of an international effort against armed groups, which overran the countrys northern territory.
The north continues to be beset by violence, having fallen under the control of Tuareg-led rebels and groups linked to al-Qaeda in 2012.
Armed groups sidelined the rebels to take sole control, and although they were largely ousted by a French-led military operation in January 2013, they still pose a threat.
The UN Security Council last month decided to send 2,500 extra peacekeepers to Mali, authorising the force to take all necessary means to deter attacks in what has become the UNs deadliest mission.
Voice recording confirms fire on board, but investigators need more time before reaching definitive conclusion.
EgyptAir pilots tried to put out a fire on board a plane that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea in May, investigators have said after analysing a recovered cockpit voice recorder.
The Egyptian-led investigative committee said on Tuesday, though, that the experts needed more time to analyse the information gathered before they could reach very basic conclusions.
The recordings were consistent with data previously recovered from the wreckage that showed heat, fire, and smoke around a bathroom and the avionics area the part of a plane that houses electronic equipment.
The crash killed all 66 people on board. The flight, which was en route from Paris to Cairo, made no distress call, and no armed group has claimed to have brought the it down, deepening the mystery around its fate.
READ MORE: Timeline major air disasters
Oliver McGee, an aviation specialist, told Al Jazeera the new evidence could explain why the pilots did not raise the alarm.
Fire on board is a very critical event, McGee said. It is very difficult for pilots to aviate, to navigate, much less communicate when they are also serving as firefighters on the plane.
The Egyptian investigators said no theories including an attack were being ruled out, especially since it was rare for such a fire to break out so suddenly.
Deep ocean search
EgyptAir Flight 804 disappeared from radar about 2:45am local time on May 19 between the Greek island of Crete and the Egyptian coast.
Radar data showed the aircraft had been cruising normally in clear skies before it turned 90 degrees left, then a full 360 degrees to the right as it plummeted from 11,582 metres to 4,572 metres.
It disappeared when it was at an altitude of about 3,048 metres.
Deep ocean search teams have been recovering human remains and bringing them to Egypts port city of Alexandria.
French authorities opened a manslaughter inquiry late last month, but said there was no evidence so far to link the crash to terrorism.
Death toll rises to 250, officials say, as interior minister offers to resign after massive car bombing in Karada.
A massive suicide bombing in central Baghdad has now become the deadliest attack in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion, with the death toll reaching 250, according to the health ministry.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) claimed responsibility for the devastating blast, which went off early on Sunday in Karada, a predominantly Shia neighbourhood.
A lorry packed with explosives blew up on a crowded shopping street, which was packed with families out socialising after they had broken their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Many of those killed were women and children.
The announcement by the health ministry on Tuesday came as interior minister Mohammed al-Ghabban offered to resign, saying authorities had failed in having the different array of security forces work under a unified plan in Baghdad.
Ghabban called on the government to hand over responsibility for the security of the countrys cities to the interior ministry and described the hundreds of checkpoints dotted around the capital as absolutely useless.
He said the explosives-rigged lorry came from Diyala province north of Baghdad, meaning it most likely successfully navigated multiple security checkpoints on the way into the Iraqi capital.
Responsibility for security in Baghdad is divided between the army, federal and local police. The interior ministry is in charge of the police.
Ghabban handed authority to his deputy, until Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi makes a decision on who will replace him. Abadis office made no immediate comment.
READ MORE: Sorrow turns to anger for Baghdads devastated citizens
Many Iraqis blame their political leadership for lapses in security in Baghdad that have allowed large amounts of explosives to be transported past checkpoints and into neighbourhoods packed with civilians.
A group of protesters marched on Sunday from Karada to Abadis home to show their anger over what they described as repeated security failings.
US invasion left country in ruins, Iraqis say, as protesters gather in London for official report on Britains role.
As anti-war protesters converged in London on Wednesday for the release of the Iraq Inquiry, an official report into Britains involvement in the Iraq war, residents of Baghdad were still mourning the latest violence to grip their country.
The report by British civil servant John Chilcot comes 13 years after the 2003 invasion of Iraq by coalition forces, and just days after a massive suicide bombing killed 250 people in the Karada neighbourhood of Baghdad. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) has claimed responsibility for the blast, which has been described as the deadliest attack in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.
With their country deep in turmoil, average Iraqis told Al Jazeera that the release of the Chilcot report which has spurred fresh calls for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes would provide little consolation.
People around the world are preparing for [Eid al-Fitr] holidays in a cheerful way. They buy new things for their children, new toys and new clothes. But in Iraq, we are buying coffins for our beloved ones, Baghdad resident Mohammad Jawad, 25, told Al Jazeera.
Blair and [former US President George W Bush] are responsible for every life lost in Iraq, from 2003 until now, Jawad added. The invasion has left our country in chaos, and in ruins. They overthrew [former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein]s regime without considering an appropriate political alternative, and now all we have are dead bodies everywhere.
READ MORE: Will Fallujah put an end to ISIL in Iraq?
On March 19, 2003, Bush announced the launch of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger. That night, US and coalition forces began launching missiles and bombs at targets in Iraq; within weeks, the country was under occupation. Saddam was captured in December 2003 and later executed, but the war dragged on for another eight years, giving rise to new internal conflicts.
Thirteen years later, Iraq is far from recovery. Taking advantage of the instability, ISIL has seized swaths of the country, declaring its capital in Mosul. The Iraqi government, meanwhile, is viewed by many residents as weak and unable to restore order.
Iraq as a country has become a battlefield for regional and international powers, and this is one of the most critical consequences of the invasion, Iraqi political analyst Hadi al-Isami told Al Jazeera, noting the Chilcot report will do nothing to assuage the countrys plight.
They by Mohammad
s regime without considering an appropriate political alternative, and now all we have are dead bodies everywhere.]
The Iraqi government, since the invasion, has failed to maintain stability. The coalition has left the country under the control of a new political elite that is consumed by sectarianism and corruption, and no committee can correct that, Isami added. [The] political struggle in Iraq is making the situation even worse. The Sunnis in Iraq are not properly represented, neither in the parliament nor in the government.
Much of the Sunni population considers Iraqs current constitution to be a direct result of the occupation, and they are calling for a new constitution to be adopted.
For the past two years, the Iraqi army has struggled to regain control over vast parts of the country that fell to ISIL even struggling to maintain security in the capital. Baghdad still suffers daily explosions, car bombs and suicide attacks, mainly in crowded areas.
The ongoing fighting between Iraqi forces and ISIL has displaced more than three million Iraqis and left an estimated 10 million in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations. The UN has described the countrys crisis as one of the worlds worst.
In a televised interview last October, Blair offered an apology for using what he described as misleading intelligence, and for failing to prepare for the aftermath of the invasion. Asked whether the Iraq invasion was the principal cause of ISILs rise, Blair said: I think there are elements of truth in that.
WATCH: Did the US occupation create ISIL?
Back in Iraq, resident Hussein Kathim Jassim, 44, complained that the situation in his country has spiralled since the 2003 invasion, with all aspects of daily life getting worse.
Saddam was cruel, he was a dictator, but we knew that. We learned how to survive during his rule; we had at least security in the streets. The law was maintained, Jassim told Al Jazeera.
When the coalition forces invaded Iraq, we thought we would have democracy and dignity. Look at us now; tens, if not hundreds, die every day. We dont enjoy even the basic human rights, he added.
The political parties that took power after the invasion are no better than the Baath party. They are all corrupt. They lead a luxurious lifestyle while Iraqis die every day.
Alfred Nelson-Williams released unharmed five days after his abduction in Nigeria, government officials say.
A Sierra Leonean diplomat who was kidnapped in Nigeria has been freed unharmed five days after his abduction, according to officials from both countries.
Alfred Nelson-Williams, defence attache and deputy head of the Sierra Leonean mission in Nigeria, was abducted on Friday while travelling from Abuja to the northern city of Kaduna.
The diplomat has been reunited with the Sierra Leonean High Commissioner (ambassador) and his family, Don Awunah, Nigerias federal police spokesman, told the AFP news agency on Tuesday.
He is in sound health, Awunah added.
The diplomat was freed as a result of quiet diplomacy, Sierra Leones Deputy Information Minister Cornelius Deveaux said, declining to provide further details.
Sierra Leonean government spokesman Ajibu Jalloh said that Nelson-Williams was released with his Nigerian driver, adding we still have not got all the facts.
No ransom money was paid to the abductors, he said, speaking on national radio.
Further details about the circumstances of the release were not immediately known, though unconfirmed reports in Nigeria claimed that $40m was demanded for the diplomats freeing.
Abductions in Nigeria
Kidnapping for ransom has long been a problem in parts of Nigeria.
Last week, two Indian workers were kidnapped on their way to work in central Benue state.
In late June, three Australians, a New Zealander and a South African were kidnapped along with two Nigerians near the capital of Cross River state in the countrys south.
They were released four days later. Officials did not reveal whether the kidnappers received a ransom.
In April 2014, 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped from their classroom in the remote northeastern town of Chibok by Boko Haram fighters.
The government of former President Goodluck Jonathan was criticised for its slow response to acknowledge the kidnapping and for its inability to find and recover the girls.
US president says he plans to leave 8,400 American troops, instead of the 5,550 he promised in October.
United States President Barack Obama has announced that he plans to leave 8,400 American troops in Afghanistan when he finishes his term an increase from his previous plan, reflecting the difficulty of drawing down the US presence in the war in the country.
Maintaining our forces at this specific level will allow us to continue to provide tailored support to help Afghan forces continue to improve, Obama said on Wednesday from the White House.
I will not allow Afghanistan to be used as safe haven for terrorists to attack our nation again.
Obama had planned to drop troop levels down from 9,800 to 5,500 troops by the end of 2016. But a Taliban resurgence has forced Washington to rethink its exit strategy.
What does a US drawdown mean for Afghanistan?
I strongly believe that it is in our national security interest, especially after all the blood and treasure we have invested in Afghanistan over the years, that we give our Afghan partners the very best opportunity to succeed, said Obama, speaking next to Ash Carter, the US defence chief, and General Joseph Dunford, the top US military commander.
Obama said the narrow missions assigned to US forces will not change, and that they will remain focused on training Afghan forces and supporting operations against al-Qaeda and other armed groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).
In response to Obamas announcement, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told Al Jazeera: Whether the US decides to keep [its] troops in Afghanistan or not, whether the numbers are more or less, we will continue to fight them.
Nothing changes for us and nothing can scare us or stop us in achieving what we have been fighting for the past decade. We are stronger than ever and 8,400 troops cannot stop us. So its basically useless for them to make such decisions, a waste of time.
When Obama first ran for office, he had campaigned for a complete withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, as well as in Iraq.
At the height of the US combat mission, there were an estimated 100,000 troops in Afghanistan.
Appeal to Taliban
Obama heads to Poland on Thursday to attend a NATO summit, where he is expected to lay out his plan on Friday in Warsaw for Afghanistan and the rest of the region.
Al Jazeeras Patty Culhane, reporting from Washington, said the number of troops Obama announced was based on recommendations from military commanders in Afghanistan.
Now he is leaving more troops than he had hoped, Culhane said. He said simply that the Afghan forces are not strong enough.
The numbers reflect a compromise between Obamas original plan and what many military commanders had recommended.
Last month a group of more than a dozen former US ambassadors and former commanders of US forces in Afghanistan wrote to Obama urging him to keep the current level of US troops through the remainder of his term in office.
Armed Taliban fighters have stepped up their nearly 15-year war since NATO pulled most of its forces out of the country at the end of 2014, while a nascent peace process has stalled in Afghanistan, which saw civilian casualties soar past 11,000 last year.
For the first quarter of this year, as many as 600 civilians were killed and 1,343 were injured, according to a United Nations report in April, with the Taliban responsible for six out of every 10 casualties.
The Taliban, who were forced from power by a US-led invasion in late 2001, have been repeatedly blamed by the UN for deliberately targeting civilians in the war-torn country.
In his address on Wednesday, Obama urged the Afghan government and the Taliban to reach a lasting political settlement to end the conflict.
He will aso meet Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah at the NATO Warsaw summit, and said he expects more allies to step up to provide commitments of troops and funds through the end of the decade.
Report says the countrys prison camps commonly subject many of the 120,000 detainees to torture, assault and execution.
The United States government has imposed sanctions for the first time on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, accusing him of being directly responsible for a long list of human rights abuses in his country.
In announcing the sanctions on Wednesday, the US Department of Treasury said Kim and 10 other top officials were behind the killing and torture of political prisoners in the countrys system of political prison camps.
Under Kim Jong-Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labour, and torture, said Adam Szubin, the acting Treasury under-secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
READ MORE: North Korea test-fires Musudan ballistic missiles
The Treasury said Kim, North Koreas Supreme Leader, was responsible for abuses in his roles as head of the countrys Ministry of State Security and Ministry of Peoples Security.
According to officials in Washington, North Koreas Ministry of State Security holds between 80,000 to 120,000 prisoners in political prison camps where torture, execution, sexual assault, starvation and slave labour are common.
The US also alleged that another ministry overseen by Kim runs a network of police stations, detention centres and labour camps, where suspects under interrogation are systematically degraded, intimidated and tortured.
Top officials named
Authorities in Washington for the first time identified other top officials directly involved in rights abuses, including Choe Pu Il, the minister of peoples security, Ri Song-chol, a senior official in the Ministry of Peoples Security, and Kang Song-nam, a bureau director with the Ministry of State Security.
Treasury official Tom Malinowski, who oversees human rights and labour issues, said that many of the people on the list had not been previously known.
This wont bring any sort of dramatic change, but lifting anonymity of these functionaries will make them think twice when they consider and act of cruelty or oppression, Malinowski said.
Another senior US official said that naming the specific officials involved would help strip the anonymity under which they carry out systematic abuses.
US officials said they do not expect immediate consequences from the designations, which freeze the assets on US territory of those named and forbid Americans from doing business with them.
However, they said there is evidence in North Korea that an increasing number of people are aware of the extent of abuses.
They said identifying the abuses and those responsible could encourage North Koreans hoping for a change in the countrys political leadership.
Choking algae inundates Sierra Leone sands, posing a threat to marine life and the tourism and fishing sectors.
A thick carpet of smelly seaweed has smothered beaches in Sierra Leone, threatening marine life as well as the countrys tourism and fishing industries.
Sierra Leones white sand beaches, long admired the world over, used to host around 30,000 tourists a year until the civil war in 1991.
Those numbers dropped considerably after the outbreak of the conflict but the beaches remained the same.
That was until the influx of seaweed a week ago, when a putrid beige carpet began covering the sands.
A daily clearing exercise using dredgers has been under way since, but the seaweed is still collecting in large volumes.
The stench is keeping tourists away and the deposits are affecting the fishing industry.
It is difficult for me to face my family, as I can see the disappointment on the faces of my wife and four children when I return home in the evening without a catch, local fisherman Mustapha Koroma told the AFP news agency.
We cannot even cast our nets as all we fish out are seaweeds with tormenting smells.
This is not the first time Sierra Leone has been inundated by the smelly seaweed. Every summer for the past few years, there has been an influx.
Yet Sierra Leone is not the only country to have been hit by large volumes of seaweed.
Since 2011, many beaches in Mexico, the Caribbean and along the south coast of West Africa have been affected by a mass of it.
The seaweed is sargassum, a brown algae which forms large floating mats. It usually blooms in the Sargasso Sea, a 3m sq km body of water in the north Atlantic, and is a critical habitat for many marine species such as mahi-mahi, tuna, eels and sea turtles.
Sargassum has always washed up along tropical shores in small amounts, but it becomes a problem when it occurs in large amounts.
Severe inundations, known as harmful algae blooms, can wipe out fish populations, harm tourism and cause coastal dead zones.
2011 is thought to be the first time that an inundation happened of such a great scale that beaches from Mexico, the Caribbean and West Africa were all affected.
Since then, however, it has been a recurring problem and 2015 saw a particularly intense inundation.
Jim Franks, a marine scientist from the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory at the University of Southern Mississippi, believes that the seaweed is now proliferating nearer the Equator and is being swept on to beaches on both sides of the Atlantic.
Franks suggests that the change in habitat could be owing to the increase in the temperature of the ocean or perhaps a change in nutrients in dust swept into the sea from Africa.
As scientists race to find the explanation for the blooms, the locals in Sierra Leone are desperately trying to clear the debris.
Ex-Paralympian was convicted of murdering his girlfriend three years ago in case that grabbed world attention.
Paralympian Oscar Pistorius has been sentenced to six years in prison for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp three years ago.
High Court judge Thokozile Masipa said in her ruling on Wednesday that she did not believe the defence witness who said that Pistorius was severely depressed and needed to be treated in hospital rather than sent to prison.
The judge said she understood that members of the public would not like her decision, but the punishment needed to fit the crime.
Public opinion may be loud and persistent, but it can play no role in the decision of this court, she said.
The lawyer for Pistorius later said he would not appeal against the sentence.
WATCH Abled by his abilities: An interview with Oscar Pistorius
Pistorius had been freed from prison in the South African capital of Pretoria last October after serving one year of a five-year term for culpable homicide the equivalent of manslaughter.
But an appeals court upgraded the conviction to murder, which has a mandatory sentence of 15 years.
Pistorius, 29, shot Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentines Day in 2013, claiming he mistook her for a burglar when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet.
Al Jazeeras Tania Page, reporting from Pretoria, said that the judge seemed to have believed that he had shown remorse.
She said he apologised to the family [of the victim], Page said. She believes hed be a good candidate for full rehabilitation.
She also said that Pistorious could only one of the six-year sentence with good behaviour if it was not appealed.
Pay for his crime
Wednesdays sentencing may also not be the end of the saga, as Pistorius or the state could launch a final round of appeals against the length of the prison term.
Judge Thokozile Masipa, who heard the original trial, delivered the sentence three weeks after a court hearing that marked another episode of high drama in the long-running case.
Then, Pistorius, sobbing heavily, hobbled on his stumps across the courtroom to demonstrate his physical vulnerability as his lawyers argued he should not return to jail on account of his anxiety disorder and depression.
But prosecutor Gerrie Nel argued that the double-amputee sprinter should be given a lengthy jail term as he failed to show any remorse for the murder.
Nel also criticised Pistorius for filming a recent television interview, despite claiming to be too unwell to give evidence in court.
In the interview his first since the killing Pistorius said that he believed Steenkamp would want him to devote his life to charity rather than return to prison.
Steenkamps father, 73-year-old Barry, broke down during his testimony at the sentencing hearing as he called for Pistorius to pay for his crime of murdering Reeva, a model and law graduate.
Pistorius, who pleaded not guilty at his trial in 2014, has always denied killing Steenkamp in a rage, saying he was trying to protect her.
The Supreme Court of Appeal in December ruled that Pistorius was guilty of murder, irrespective of who was behind the door when he opened fire with a high-calibre pistol he kept under his bed.
If jailed on Wednesday, he would likely return to the hospital section of Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria, separated from regular inmates.
Pistorius who was born without calf bones had his legs amputated below the knee when he was just 11 months old so he could be fitted with prosthetic legs.
Since his release, Pistorius has lived under restrictions at his uncles mansion in Pretoria.
He became the first Paralympian to compete against able-bodied athletes at the 2012 London Olympics.
Military operations suspended for 72 hours, state media reports, in announcement coinciding with start of Eid al-Fitr.
The Syrian government has violated a three-day ceasefire with air strikes and shelling in the countrys Aleppo province, according to the United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
War planes dropped bombs on the northern Aleppo area on Wednesday, while government forces fired shells in the nearby town of Anadan.
At least two children were killed by rebel forces who shot shells into the town of al-Zahra, the Observatory said.
President Bashar al-Assads government had earlier in the day unilaterally declared the three-day ceasefire, which is set to last until the end of Friday, according to the state-run news agency SANA.
The ceasefire coincides with the start of the Eid al-Fitr festival, marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
A 72-hour regime of calm will be applied across the country until midnight on July 8, the Syrian army said in a statement republished in local media.
In a statement posted online, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel coalition said it agreed to the Eid holiday ceasefire.
Until now, (the government) has not abided by what it has announced, in that it has launched a number of attacks in various areas today, the statement said.
The statement said the rebel alliance welcomed international efforts that had led to the announcement from the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but that attacks had not ceased as a result.
Jaish al Islam spokesman Islam Alloush said: The regime has made this announcement purely to escape international pressure. On the ground, I dont think anything has changed.
Jaish al Islam said in a separate statement that, despite the announced truce, government and allied forces had attacked the town of Maydaa, in the Eastern Ghouta area east of Damascus. Maydaa has been held by Jaish al Islam.
OPINION: How the disunity among UN agencies is failing Syria
A cessation of hostilities brokered by foreign powers in February to facilitate talks to end the five-year civil war has mostly unravelled in areas where it took effect in the west of the country.
That truce was agreed with many opposition militias, but did not include the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).
Since then, the Syrian army and the Russian military, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have announced a number of temporary local truces in areas of intense fighting.
But air strikes and fighting have often continued in spite of the declarations.
Syrias conflict started with largely unarmed protests in March 2011, but it quickly turned into a full-scale civil war. More than 270,000 people have been killed throughout the five-year period, according to the Syrian Observatory.
Reinforcements rushed to the base in Aden and took it back, hours after it was seized by suspected al-Qaeda fighters.
Yemeni government forces, backed by the Saudi-led coalition, have recaptured a key military base in their temporary capital of Aden, after it was overrun by fighters, according to military officials.
Reinforcements were rushed to the al-Solban base near Aden airport and succeeded in recapturing it on Wednesday, hours after it was captured by suspected al-Qaeda fighters earlier in the day, the officials said.
Troops and special forces have regained control of the base after pushing back the jihadists, several of whom were killed in the fighting, base commander General Nasser Sarie told the AFP news agency.
OPINION: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Great Game in Yemen
The troops were backed up by Apache assault helicopters belonging to a Saudi-led military alliance, other officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the dpa news agency.
At least 10 soldiers were killed and seven others injured in the early morning assault, which started when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in explosive-rigged cars at checkpoints guarding the entrance to the base, according to military sources.
Following the two explosions, gunmen believed to belong to al-Qaeda attempted to storm the base and managed to barricade themselves into buildings in and around it.
Death toll not clear
There was no immediate information about the death toll among the attackers or the fate of the rest of the officers who had been inside the headquarters building when it was attacked.
Yemen has been at war since September 2014, when Iran-backed Houthi rebels and their allies drove the government out of the capital Sanaa and much of the countrys north.
The Houthis controlled Aden, the main city in southern Yemen, for months before government forces backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition pushed them back in July.
READ MORE Yemen: Pulling the Strings
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has exploited the chaos to expand areas under its control and recruit more followers.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) has also launched several mass-casualty attacks on security forces.
Late last month, fighters pledging allegiance to ISIL claimed responsibility for a wave of suicide bomb attacks that killed 38 government troops in the southern port city of Mukalla.
Zimbabweans carry out nationwide strike and protests in the capital against the economic conditions in the country.
Police in Zimbabwe have fired tear gas and warning shots at demonstrators as a strike against the governments economic policies closed businesses and crippled public transport.
Wednesdays strike, named stay-away day, followed days of unrest over the governments failure to pay civil servants salaries, a currency shortage, import restrictions and police road blocks that were allegedly extorting cash from commercial drivers.
This is a sign of economic collapse wich has left people with nothing more to sacrifice and nothing to lose, Dumisani Nkomo, spokesman for the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition campaign group, told the AFP news agency.
We are heading towards a tipping point as a country, where citizens will express their pain by any means.
There were few people on the streets of the usually bustling capital Harare after civil society organisations called for the strike to pressure President Robert Mugabe into tackling economic woes.
In some suburbs of Harare, protesters burned tyres and blocked streets to prevent cars from heading into the city centre.
Police fired tear gas at small gatherings of people, the main bus ranks were deserted and commuters stranded.
The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) group said police had arrested at least 20 people across the country.
The police issued a statement condemning violence and Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba said at least 19 people were arrested in Harare.
The commissioner also said that in Bulawayo, Zimbabwes second largest city, a man had been arrested for the possession of homemade petrol bombs.
In Matabeleland North, a western province, at least 17 people were arrested for staging an unlawful demonstration, Charamba added.
One garage owner in Harare told Al Jazeera that police had come to the premises and beat him and his staff with sticks.
Dirk Frey, of the Occupy Africa Unity Square opposition movement, said the protests were a success.
READ MORE: Taxi drivers protest turns violent in Zimbabwe
Despite sporadic incidences of violence, all over the country people have responded to the call. The states crackdown in response, however, is of concern as it is a violent way of silencing people, he said.
The strike was the latest in a series of protests against Mugabes government. Such protests are rare in Zimbabwe.
Additional reporting by Tendai Marima in Harare. Follow her on Twitter @i_amten
Chanel has a history of putting on lavish productions for its fashion shows, whether ready-to-wear or couture.
In recent seasons, creative director Karl Lagerfeld has transformed Paris's Grand Palais into supermarkets, giant fairground carousels, an airport, an art gallery, a casino, and a brasserie (complete with a Chanel-themed plate clutch). For fall 2010, the show featured a 265-ton iceberg imported from Sweden as the centerpiece for its runway.
2010 Eric Ryan
But when the brand presented its fall 2016 couture show yesterday, it eschewed the big production in favor of paying tribute to its atelier and the team of people that makes the clothing come to life.
The label stationed its premieres and 78 petite mains (seamstresses) from its official atelier at a makeshift workshop surrounding the runway. The new workshop (in all its messy glory) featured sewing machines, dress forms, and bolts of fabric imported from the brand's official home at Rue Cambon. The audience, including Jessica Chastain, Will Smith, and the brand's latest muse, Willow Smith, watched the show unfold as the seamstresses draped and sewed new creations on set.
Kourtney, Kim, and Khloe Kardashian have millions of dollars, which means they have access to top-of-the-line (and expensive) beauty products and procedures to prevent any sign of a wrinkle appearing on HD cameras. But not every item the sisters own is costly. In fact, the Kardashians use a very cheap body oil every single night to halt aging.
Yesterday, Khloe shared her anti-aging routine on her website, and among the slew of drugstore products listed (we love when she keeps it real) was Bio-Oil Multiuse Skincare Oil. Her secret? Khloe slathers the $9 oil all over her face every night, and she also dabs Aquaphor on her eyes. This wasn't the first time Khloe has proclaimed her love for the drugstore favorite. In a post last year, she wrote that she "lays this stuff on really thick at night, [goes] to bed, and lets it work its magic." The other Kardashian sisters love Bio-Oil, too. Kim praised the oil in a post on her website last year detailing her nighttime routine: "It's cheap. I put it all over my body." And Kourtney likes to use oil under her eyes instead of a cream. "Kim and I have always used oil on our eyes," she once told Allure. "Instead of using eye cream, we'll put it under our eyes and on our eyelids." Before Kourtney became a spokesperson for Manuka Doctor oils, E! previously reported that she "slathers [the oil] from head to toe."
RELATED: 7 Beauty Products Kourtney Kardashian Is Obsessed With Right Now
So what makes the inexpensive oil the anti-aging product of choice for Hollywood's finest?
Bio-Oil Face and Body Oil When we reviewed it
, the most noticeable aspect of the product was its ability to fade acne scars and stretch marks. The majority of the oil contains vitamin A and E, which work to even out skin tone, and a bevy of floral oils (sunflower, chamomile, lavender, rosemary, and calendula) provide ample hydration. Sounds like Kourtney is really onto something when she uses the oil instead of eye cream.
But the popularity of the oil doesn't stop with the Kardashian clan. Kristin Chenoweth told Allure she relies on Bio-Oil to combat any signs of wrinkles. "For my eyes, I use Bio-Oil," said Chenoweth. "I also put a little bit around my mouth, where wrinkles are starting to show." Word of caution: Bio-Oil may be great, but it does take a while to absorb into your skin. The good news is that you don't have to use a lot: A drop or two around your eyes or mouth will work just fine. Is it time to give up on your fancy eye creams and switch it out for this drugstore pick? We think yes.
2005 ..
As expected, Republicans aren't giving Democratic candidate Colleen Deacon a warm welcome to the 24th Congressional District race.
After Deacon, D-Syracuse, won the Democratic primary last week, the National Republican Congressional Committee criticized her for accepting donations from House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Now they're taking another swipe at Deacon, who is challenging U.S. Rep. John Katko, for her position on the Interstate 81 viaduct project in Syracuse.
On Wednesday, the NRCC accused Deacon of flip-flopping on whether she thinks the elevated portion of I-81 should be replaced with a boulevard.
The claim is based on Deacon's comments at two forums one week before the primary.
At the Time Warner Cable News debate on June 20, the candidates were asked during a "lightning round" whether they support replacing the I-81 viaduct with a boulevard.
The question went to Deacon first.
"It depends on what the analysis tells us," she said before being interrupted by the moderators, who reminded her that it was a yes or no question.
After pausing for a moment, Deacon answered yes.
The next day, Deacon participated in a forum sponsored by the Central New York Alliance for Retired Americans, League of Women Voters and the New York State United Teachers Retiree Council 7. The I-81 topic came up again and this time, Deacon was allowed to provide a more thorough response.
She didn't come out in support of any of the proposals to replace the viaduct rebuilding the elevated portion of the highway and a tunnel option are among other ideas being considered but does think the boulevard is a "great option."
Here's a portion of her response to the question:
"We have an opportunity right now to re-envision and rethink this community, but I think there's a number of options right now on the table and we can't actually make a decision until we have all the analysis and the data completed to decide what is best for this community. I know that the draft IES (sic) will be due in December and there will be another public comment period on that. But until we decide how this is going to affect our street grids and affect our community, I don't think we have all the information available to us to make the decision."
Later she added, "We have to be bold. We have to be visionary. This decision has to be from the bottom up."
Chris Pack, a spokesman for the NRCC, slammed Deacon for what the GOP considers a flip-flop on the I-81 issue.
"Colleen Deacon either has no idea what she is talking about regarding the future of Interstate 81 or she's simply pandering to voters," Pack said. "If Deacon is willing to so quickly change her position on Interstate 81, what else is she willing to change her position on?"
It's not the first time Deacon has been accused of changing her position on the I-81 project. One of her Democratic primary foes, Steve Williams, noted at the June 21 forum that Deacon gave a different response at the Time Warner Cable News debate.
But has Deacon changed her position? Is she guilty of flip-flopping, as the Republicans suggest?
It's not as clear as it may seem.
On the surface, Deacon appears to have flip-flopped if you're only looking at her "yes" response at the Time Warner Cable News debate and then her comments at the forum held one day later.
But there's a big difference between how the questions were presented at the two debates. At the June 21 forum, she was given time to answer a question about a major project affecting Syracuse and all of central New York. At the Time Warner Cable News debate, she was forced to answer yes or no during the lightning round.
The lightning round response aside, Deacon's I-81 position has been consistent. What she said at the June 21 forum has been her stance. She doesn't favor any option over the other.
In fact, her position is similar to what Katko, R-Camillus, has repeatedly said about the I-81 project. At least publicly, he hasn't come out in support of any of the proposals. But he has played a role in trying to move the project along at the federal level.
Debate moderators tend to back candidates into a corner with some of these lightning round questions. It's one thing to ask whether a candidate has attended a concert at the new Lakeview Amphitheater. It's another to demand a yes or no answer to a question about a complex project.
That's not to say the moderators are at fault here. Deacon should've been more firm and more clear about her position. In her case, a yes or no response to this question doesn't give voters an accurate representation of her view on the I-81 project. So don't give a yes or no response, even if the format demands it.
CONCLUSION
Deacon gave Republicans fodder to attack her, but that doesn't mean she's flip-flopped on how the I-81 project should be dealt with. The Time Warner Cable debate question aside, her position has been consistent throughout the campaign.
On her campaign website, Deacon lists I-81 as an infrastructure priority. She pledged to ensure "we have adequate funding for the I-81 project, no matter the outcome of the planning process." The website doesn't say which proposal she supports or if she favors one at all.
Deacon will likely face further criticism from Republicans for her comments. The record, though, is clear. Aside from the lightning round response, her position has been the same.
English News Bengaluru, India: Despite Iraq & S.A. (including Medina) terrorist attack at Dhaka by ISIS (first in SAARC) more serious matter
Alwihda Info | Par Hem Raj Jain - 6 Juillet 2016
Though after Dhaka terrorist attack, two more terrorist attacks were carried out by Jihadis in Iraq and Saudi Arabia (including at Medina) but entry of ISIS in SAARC is a much more serious development for the simple reason that this may culminate into war of civilizations / religion between Hindus and Muslims in SAARC region.
Sub: (i)- ISIS registers its presence in SAARC through Bangladesh (ii)- Sunni Muslims will not rest till come under one military power (iii)- ~ 250 million Muslims (including illegal immigrants) in Hindu majority India bound to be considered hurdle by Jihadis in political unity of Muslims (iv)- Jihadi pincer on India from East and West bound to precipitate show-down (v)- Global Jihadi terrorism can be eliminated by Realizing Common Wealth (vi)- Human rights friendly people in 53 CW member countries should endeavor to Realize CW.
--- Though after Dhaka terrorist attack, two more terrorist attacks were carried out by Jihadis in Iraq and Saudi Arabia (including at Medina) but entry of ISIS in SAARC is a much more serious development for the simple reason that this may culminate into war of civilizations / religion between Hindus and Muslims in SAARC region.
[ISIS does not need to be in physical link with terrorists, who are inspired by blood-thirsty ideology of ISIS. Bangladesh government says that ISIS is not linked to terrorists who carried out July, 1 attack in Dhaka but prominent global media refutes this claim by saying that number of victims and the photo of terrorists were released by ISIS media while operation was on and even before Bangladesh government released these].
First and foremost world-community should understand that Islam is political based religion hence idea of Caliphate will not die down due to fundamental reason that it has touched deepest emotional chord of Sunni Muslims (~ 87 % of global Muslim population). Sunni Muslims only want Caliphate to desist from sexual abuses and unnecessary violence especially against civilians (including women, children and old people).
Out of four major human groups namely Christians (with NATO), Muslims, Chinese and Hindus only Muslims do not have one military authority / organization. Hence solution to even chronic and gory Palestine issue, Kashmir issue etc concerning Sunni Muslim-world are neglected by world community (Even ISIS came into existence out of immense injustice done to Sunnis by Shia regimes in Syria and Iraq). Hence 'human rights friendly Caliphate' is the ardent desire of Sunni-Muslims all over the world [who know that no other Sunni regime (including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt etc) is capable of bringing all Sunnis under one religio-political authority than ISIS like organization] not-withstanding what they and their leaders (Socio-religious, political, economic) say for public consumption.
In a nutshell Muslims of Sunni majority countries will not rest till they usher into a political model where their combined strength gives them political benefit vis-a-vis other communities like Christians, Hindus etc. even Shias. Therefore ISIS / Caliphate phenomenon is not only going to stay but will also culminate into human rights friendly Caliphate sooner than later. And in order to give concrete reality to this aspiration of Sunni Muslims Realized Common Wealth is the only answer. Otherwise it may lead to even nuclear flare-up in SAARC region as explained at http://www.alwihdainfo.com/Bengaluru-India-Routine-response-to-1-7-terrorist-attack-at-Dhaka-will-cost-fatally-heavy-to-India_a36403.html
The Realized Common Wealth will satisfy humane demands of Islam (through employment friendly State policies with health, education and house at nominal cost) due to three reasons (i)- It will be human rights friendly hence will be conducive to brother hood and egalitarian society under democratic compulsions (ii)- Will fulfill the precondition of Islam where saints and warriors will be amalgamated in one. In this case in human rights (religion of modern times) friendly State of CW (iii)- Demands of protection of human rights will be fulfilled because (A)- Institutions of health and education will be run by people themselves (B)- Residential & commercial buildings will be built under unemployment eradication program by deploying State-capital profitably with Rent Commission to decide the rents (C )- Discouraging unbridled usury (and fake money without adequate asset back-up) by sticking to (say) Article 292 & 293 of Constitution and not to unconstitutional FRBM.
Therefore world-community in the interest of peaceful, just and prosperous world should persuade / motivate the people in 53 member countries to launch Common Wealth Parties so that Realized Common Wealth may come in existence without any further delay.
Regards
Hem Raj Jain
(Author of Betrayal of Americanism)
Bengaluru, India
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To overhaul the Dodd-Frank Act, here is a radical and really good idea from House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling.
The Financial CHOICE Act, Hensarling's bill, says to U.S. banks: "Don't like the endless additional regulation imposed on you by the bloated Dodd-Frank Act? Get your equity capital up high enough and you can purge yourself of a lot of the regulatory burden, deadweight cost and bureaucrats' power grabs all of which Dodd-Frank called forth."
This Choice bill (its name is an acronym for Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs) is not an order to increase your capital. Rather, it's offering a logical choice.
Option 1: Put enough of your equity investors' own money in between your creditors and the risk that other people will have to bail them out if you make big mistakes. And you may. Then, the government can't claim you live on the taxpayers' credit, and therefore, can't justify its inherent urge to micromanage.
Option 2: Don't get your equity capital up high enough and live with the luxuriant regulation instead. Think of this scenario as the imposed cost of using the taxpayers' capital instead of your own to support your risks.
Depending on how large the explicit costs and the opportunity costs of the regulation are, you might think that the second option will yield higher returns on equity than option one or you might not. Some banks would choose one option, while some would choose the other.
Different choices would create diversification in the banking sector. They would also create highly useful learning over time. One group would end up sounder and make greater contributions to economic growth and innovation. One group would, over time, prosper more than the other.
Of course, we have to answer: how high is high enough? The 10% tangible leverage capital required to get the deal in the proposed legislation is a lot more than now, but is it even enough?
To consider the matter first in principle: surely, there is some level of equity capital at which this trade-off makes sense, some level at which everyone even habitual lovers of bureaucracy would agree that the Dodd-Frank burdens would be superfluous, or at least, cause costs far in excess of their benefits.
What capital ratio is exactly right can be, and is, disputed. Because government guarantees, mandates and interventions are so intertwined with today's banks, there is simply no market answer available. Numerous proposals, based on more or less no data, have been made. The fact that no one knows the exact answer should not, however, stop us from moving in the right direction.
Among various theories, the economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman proposed a maximum assets-to-capital ratio of 15:1, which means a minimum leverage capital ratio of 6.7%. Anat Admati, a Stanford finance professor, and Martin Hellwig, an economics professor at the University of Bonn, argued for a 20% to 30% leverage capital requirement with no empirical analysis. Economists David Miles, Jing Yang and Gilberto Marcheggiano estimated that the optimal bank capital is about 20% of risk-weighted assets, which in their view means 7% to 10% leverage capital, in a white paper. A group of 20 academics from finance and banking specializations suggested in a letter to the Financial Times a 15% leverage capital requirement. The economists Anil Kashyap, Samuel Hanson and Jeremy Stein proposed 12% to 15% risk-weighted, which means about 6% to 8% leverage capital. Professor Charles Calomiris suggested 10% leverage capital. The economist William Cline estimated the optimal leverage capital ratio at 6.6% to 7.9%. Robert Jenkins, a member of the financial policy committee at the Bank of England, gave a speech to the Worshipful Company of Actuaries entitled "Let's Make a Deal," where the deal was the "rollback of the rule book" in exchange for raising "equity capital to 20% of assets." In my opinion, the 10% tangible leverage capital ratio in Hensarling's bill is a fair stab at it.
In exchange for 10% leverage capital, it is essential to understand that the deal is not to eliminate all regulation. Indeed, there would still be plenty of regulation for banks taking the deal. However, option one is a distinctly better choice than the notorious overreaction and overreach of Dodd-Frank. In exchange for a further move to 20% leverage capital, one would rationally eliminate a lot more regulation and bureaucratic power.
It's also essential to understand that the proposed capital ratio as specified in the Hensarling bill subtracts all intangible assets and deferred-tax assets from the allowable capital and adds the balance sheet equivalents of off-balance-sheet items to total assets. Thus, it is conservative in both the numerator and denominator of the ratio.
In my judgment, the choice offered to banks by Chairman Hensarling's proposal makes perfect sense. It goes in the right direction and ought to be enacted. Even the Washington Post editorial board agrees with this. In an op-ed, the editorial board writes:
"More promising, and more creative is Mr. Hensarling's plan to offer relief from some of Dodd-Frank's more onerous oversight provisions to banks that hold at least 10 percent capital as a buffer against losses such a cash cushion can offer as muchor moreprotection against financial instability as intrusive regulations do, and do so more simply."
Very true!
Alex J. Pollock is a distinguished senior fellow at the R Street Institute in Washington. He was president and chief executive of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago from 1991 to 2004.
HCSB Financial in Loris, S.C., has recruited its third executive since completing a key recapitalization.
The $363 million-asset company said in a press release that it had hired Jennifer Harris as its chief financial officer. She succeeded Edward Loher, who will remain in an advisory role through the end of this month.
Harris previously served as vice president of senior accounting and SEC reporting at Park Sterling in Charlotte, N.C. She has also been a manager of SEC financial reporting at Yadkin Financial in Statesville, N.C., before that company was sold to VantageSouth Bancshares. (VantageSouth took Yadkin's name after closing the deal.)
Community banking HCSB in South Carolina Raises $45M, Names New Chief HCSB Financial in Loris, S.C., said Jan Hollar would become its chief executive after a $45 million recapitalization led by Castle Creek Capital Partners. March 3
Law and regulation Women in Banking: Krawcheck, Lebenthal, Harris on the Move Bank of America's mobile app can do almost everything that used to require a branch visit, says Michelle Moore; Lebenthal and four other women-owned firms land a big deal on Wall Street; Sallie Krawcheck joins the board of Blythe Masters' blockchain startup; Morgan Stanley's Carla Harris says both skills and spirituality contributed to her success. Also, the woman Obama is considering for the Supreme Court seat. March 3
Harris' "financial expertise and banking background will be a great asset to the company's accounting and finance department," Jan Hollar, HCSB's chief executive, said in the release.
Hollar was named HCSB Financial's chief executive in March. Previously she was CFO at Yadkin Financial.
Jack McElveen, a former chief credit officer at Palmetto Bank in Greenville, S.C., was named HCSB's chief credit officer in February.
HCSB completed a $45 million recapitalization in early April, led by the investment firm Castle Creek Capital Partners. Last month it sold about $3 million in stock to existing shareholders and local investors.
Jonah Goldberg recently criticized conservative defenders of Donald Trump for refusing to acknowledge that the 2016 election confronts us with a no-win scenario: "we are being asked what kind of bread our mandatory crap sandwiches shall be served on." The criteria for Goldberg's equivalence between the presumptive Republican and Democratic nominees are "ideas" (by which I think he means "policy ideas") and "character," with particular emphasis upon the latter.
Goldberg intends to muddle through November with a calm conscience by "[saying] Hillary is corrupt, deceitful, and unqualified and [saying] likewise about Trump." That's Goldberg's prerogative, but if he spends the rest of the year writing about the character and qualifications of the individual candidates, he'll just be distracting his readers' attention from the really important stakes.
Hillary Clinton is about to become the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. The critical word here is party. The Democratic Party is a powerful political organization that over the course of more than a century has already substantially shaped the government and culture of the nation that Mrs. Clinton aspires to lead. This party is guided by a fairly coherent and widely propagated ideology, a variant of Marxism that adds to the struggle of labor against capital other putatively inevitable and historically determinative struggles between an oppressor class of white race and an oppressed class of non-white races, an oppressed class of females in struggle against an oppressor class of males, an oppressed LGBTQ class against oppressor heteros, an oppressor human species against the oppressed non-human environment, and an oppressor West against an oppressed global Rest. A corollary to the Democratic Party ideology is a posture of contempt, or worse, for those who remain unindoctrinated. This "progressive" ideology does not reside inertly inside Democratic heads. The Party's numerous adherents derive a sense of deep purpose in advancing the aforesaid struggles wherever the opportunity presents itself to them as individuals.
When a Democrat occupies the White House, that means that the Democratic Party occupies the White House, with its disciplined corps of countless and usually little known activists Jonathan Grubers, Lois Lerners, Eric Holders, etc., etc., etc. The party membership is not even limited to the official branches of government, as it also includes para-governmental affiliates such as the New York Times, the Clinton Foundation, the Tides Foundation, and most universities. Consequently, even when the Democratic Party does not hold the White House, its loss of power is only limited and temporary which, by the way, is why Democratic legislators confidently remain on offense even when an electoral setback puts them in the minority, while their putative opponents often remain timidly on defense even when enjoying legislative majorities.
Since this political organization, the Democratic Party, is what it is, the single most important issue that confronts voters in every American election is the issue of the Democratic Party itself. Its power is immense does it do now, and will it do in the future, great good or great harm? Is it even loyal to the U.S., its citizens, and its laws?
Thus, whether Jonah Goldberg acknowledges it or not, the question he will be answering when he votes in November is whether to support or oppose the Democratic Party's continued hold on the reins of national government. The personal identity of the Democratic nominee for president has little effect on what is at stake. Neither does the personal ethical character of the Democratic nominee. A party that could dismiss, excuse, and cover up the ethical lapses and incompetence of a Hillary Clinton, a Barack Obama, or a Lois Lerner is an ethically corrupt party, and that's much worse than a single ethically corrupt individual in whatever office.
In this light, a voter who understands the damage the Democratic Party does when it holds the White House and even when it doesn't faces an easy choice in the election, because the Democratic Party sets such a low bar for the alternative. Donald Trump, imperfect though he may be, has no trouble clearing it.
In the first place, Donald Trump does not belong to the Democratic Party, and this is evident despite any campaign contributions he may have made in the past or any liberal-like positions he may hold or once have held, because Trump does not read from the playbook of Democratic Party ideology, and he doesn't care what names party propagandists may call him.
So if Trump gains the White House, the Democratic Party loses it. That's good for America. In fact, Trump is not really a Republican, either, so another thing we know about a President Trump is that his official powers will not be fully amplified by a compliant party apparatus (not that the Republicans have much of one anyway). This means that in a Trump administration, the effective powers of the presidential office would almost automatically be reduced from those of the Obama White House. That would be an improvement, even if Trump himself didn't plan it.
A Trump victory in the election, in itself and without regard for the subsequent success of his presidency, would also be a clear win for America, because the voters would at least have stood up to the Democratic Party, while if the Democratic Party retains the White House, its sense of entitlement, unaccountability, and ambition will continue to expand even faster. The only way to throw the bums out is to cast votes to replace them. That's a good reason to vote for Trump.
The relevance of Trump's personal character and temperament is much overblown, especially by Democrats who personally despise and defame every opponent and seek to bully the voters, but also by public conservatives like Goldberg who fear the taint of association with Trump more than they do the systematic destruction of the Constitution (and more) by the Democratic Party.
I agree that Donald Trump is a person of flawed character and uncertain convictions. In the primary campaign, he said a number of malicious things I think a good person shouldn't have and some things that a prudent person wouldn't have. But the harm of Donald Trump's unscrupulous or tactless speech, or of his alleged practices as a businessman, is absolutely negligible compared to the systematic institutional harm that the Democratic Party inflicts silently every day (and, I might add, the harm of Trump's speech would be even less if the Democratic Party media did not deliberately exaggerate it but that's just our world). Trump also may not know much about policy, and he may sometimes contradict himself, but like the proverbial first five hundred people in the Boston telephone directory, he's still a better bet to make good policy than any Jonathan Gruber.
Finally, to give Donald Trump just a tiny bit of credit for personal character, he at least has the common sense and courage, or maybe just the plain nerve, to stand up and yell "Stop" when he's had enough. That, in one word, is what I think millions of voters heard in the Republican primaries.
I was a Cruz supporter, but in the end I had to admit to myself that I heard it, too. It's the "conservative" pundits at National Review who seem to be deaf.
The Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin once said, There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen. He might have been talking of the UK in June 2016 with the events connected with the referendum on June 23, 2016 on Brexit.
Britain has innumerable problems concerning its membership of the EU and the issues of freedom of movement of goods, capital, services, and people, and about the right of EU citizens to live and work in any EU state. Yet, whether voiced openly or not, at the heart of the events is the widespread public concern about the increasing immigration into the country.
Those events resemble a film noir or a Shakespearean play, say, Julius Caesar, with its political turmoil, its incorrect assumptions and unexpected outcome of the referendum, its undisguised ambitions not made of sterner stuff, its intrigues and betrayals of leading political figures supposed to be friends and allies.
Among the star events in this continuing seriocomic drama are the resignation of David Cameron as prime minister, the turmoil for leadership of the Conservative Party, the resignation of Nigel Farage from his position as leader of the anti-immigrant party UKIP (UK Independence Party), and the stubbornness of Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party in refusing to heed the sizable vote of his parliamentary colleagues calling on him to resign.
Yet, all those interested in the present U.S. presidential election should take account of the British events and possible parallel between the two counties. There is a distinct resemblance regarding pertinent issues and popular anxieties. Similar factors are said to trouble citizens: the impact of globalization; the free trade economy; the decline in jobs and wages; the weakening of national dignity and esteem.
In both countries a considerable part of the electorate appears disgruntled, antagonistic to established power institutions, and concerned with what they regard as a decline in the status and popularity of their country. If the disgruntled in the UK want to throw off the shackles of the supposed tyranny of the European Union and the detached bureaucracy in Brussels, supporters of Donald Trump want to end the tyranny of established authorities in Washington, D.C.
There is a similar cry to make their country great again. Both countries exhibit feelings of frustration, the belief that citizens have lost control of their destinies. The attitude is not without its ironies. In Britain, the leader of those advocating Brexit, the army of the discontented, was Boris Johnson, Conservative former Mayor of London, the product of the elitist Eton and Oxford.
It is enticing to contemplate that Donald Trump, looking for a vice-presidential running mate, might consider Boris, who was born in New York City. Boris is no longer a contender to become prime minister since he was betrayed by his supposed ally, Justice minister Michael Gove, partly because Boris appeared to soften his position on relations with the EU when he said that Britain is part of Europe and always will be. Like the nursery poem about the grand old Duke of York, he marched his ten thousand men up to the top of the hill, and he marched them down again.
In Britain as in the U.S., no one factor explains the voting inclinations of citizens, but it is highly likely that the most important issue was immigration. About this, questions arise. Do people lie to pollsters when they refuse to declare that immigration is their main concern? Is there a social desirability bias according to which some people tend to answer questions in a manner that is politically correct or socially respectable by the majority?
The crucial factor is that immigration into Britain continues to increase, especially since eight Eastern and Central states joined the EU, allowing their citizens free movement to other countries. In 2014, 560,000 arrived in UK, while 317,000 left. In 2015 net immigration into UK was 330,000. Half of the immigrants had EU passports. The foreign-born population doubled in two decades: in 2016 it is 8.3 million, and the number of foreign citizens increased from 2 to 5 million. The British population today contains 13 per cent foreign-born and 8.5 percent foreign citizens.
The British population is thus changing. Since 1997 there has been a flow of immigration into Britain from the Caribbean and South Asia, and the share of the populations in England and Wales of ethnic minorities is 14 per cent. Those minorities are largely concentrated in London, south England, and a number of cities in the Midlands. More than 35 per cent of Londoners were born abroad.
Britain at first did not impose limits on immigration in the belief that the numbers would be small. But Britain became a draw for less skilled European immigrants because its labor markets were less regulated than in other EU countries and migrants could find jobs more easily.
The governing Conservative Party has been concerned to reduce the amount of net migration: included in its measures were changes to rules on student immigration, limiting foreign students, family reunion migration, limiting the number of work permits, and in general is considering ending the free movement system of the EU.
It was responding to the political reality that a sizeable majority, 77 per cent, of the public want immigration reduced either a little or a lot.
Interestingly, there are great variations in the citizenry, depending on educational qualification, age, and the issue involved. The more highly educated and younger people, 30-35, take a much more favorable attitude to immigration than the less well educated and older people, especially those over 70.
What is important in Britain, and perhaps also in the U.S., is that, according to surveys of British social attitudes, citizens are more concerned about the impact of immigration on public services than on the impact on the economy or culture. About 42% believe that immigration is good, and 35 per cent think it is bad, for the economy, and about 40 % believe the immigrants enrich cultural life while 40 per cent think the opposite.
Most important, there is widespread public concern about the pressure of immigration on public services, especially the National Health Service and the schools. About 62% express concern about increased pressure on the NHS, and 72% are concerned about the schools.
Not surprisingly, a leading contender for Conservative Party leader, Michael Gove, argues that money saved by leaving the EU would mostly be spent on the NHS. The Brexit campaign to leave the EU had stressed that Britain would spend 350 million a week on NHS, the amount that would have gone to EU.
It remains unclear or uncertain what the impact of Brexit would be in terms of British trade, economic growth, and GDP. What is certain is that limits and more controls on immigration will be imposed, not so much for reasons of racism or xenophobia, or the sacred right of independence, but to sustain social institutions and processes held to be important in British society. American politicians, aware of the controversial medical and educational issues, might take note of this and adjust their policies accordingly.
Hillary Clinton's campaign propagated a prominent web-based banner that urges voters to "Commit to vote for Hillary." Remove the middle three words, and they're on to something.
Like the pot calling the kettle black, Hillary is questioning Donald Trump's temperament. He definitely speaks his mind, sometimes wearing his heart on his sleeve. Hillary has more to hide and is taciturn, but she does laugh openly and improperly, displaying an irritable temperament.
A cunning, Clintonesque lawyer, Hillary obfuscates to protect her intricate web of deceit. We can still gain some insights into her diabolical temperament by looking at her peculiar laughing episodes. It's not easy even for a clever schemer to veil her despicable cogitations, which are manifested in creepy cackles, hysterical outbursts, and ghastly barking.
If the eyes are the window to the soul, then maybe laughter is the periscope of our submerged subconscious. More than a simple response to jokes, laughter is almost always an involuntary (try laughing on command) response. Psychology researcher Robert Provine states that all laughter is unconscious: "[y]ou do not chose to laugh the way you chose to speak."
Laughter reveals uncensored insights into our unconscious, and judging by her impulsive bouts of laughter, Hillary's unconscious is riddled with torment.
At the risk of being reflexively dismissed as sexist, Hillary's laugh is often hysterical. Take a gander at this incongruous performance during the Benghazi hearings. Inappropriate laughter and impulsive mood swings from sullenness to hysterics are symptoms of manic depressive psychoses.
Of course, excessive laughter can be a sign of lying, an attempt to avoid answering questions, as this cackling montage demonstrates. Cacklers are known to rejoice in others' misfortunes. Even the liberal-propagandizing New York Times points out that Hillary often cackles in response to pressure (of her own making). No wonder despite having the vast left-wing conspiracy on her side, her likability is still dreadfully low.
Hillary's malicious laughs also betray her neuroticism. It's just embedded in her brain, erupting when fissures open in her unconscious like toxic ash from an angry, fractured volcano. When she is committed for observation, I think the other asylum patients will avoid her like the plague. Just watch and listen, if you dare, to this shrieking cacophony when she realized that Bernie Sanders was giving her a pass on her "damn emails."
If that's not wicked enough for her confinement, then consider her response when a supporter expressed a warped desire to strangle poor Carly Fiorina. Rather than demonstrate sagacious temperament and equanimity by acknowledging his frustration while repudiating his methods, Hillary laughed.
One common theme to Hillary's laughter is aggression. Aggressive humor is marked by sarcasm and ridicule, behaviors Hillary displayed in abundance in the corridors of the White House, as detailed by ex-Secret Service officer Gary J. Byrne in his book Crisis of Character. But her aggressive humor is uncontrollable and will inevitably spew into the public domain. Consider when she was asked a pertinent question about whether she wiped her email server; her petulant response was to ridicule the reporter by mimicking wiping with a cloth.
As evil as her laugh is, Hillary has deteriorated into even more primal behavior that reveals the depravity of her temperament. Rather than respectful or principled disagreement, she considers Republicans her mortal enemy and barks like a dog while condemning them. Some of her "I'm with her" supporters looked bewildered by this bizarre remonstration. I'd expect better deportment from most of the patients in an asylum.
In my neighborhood, there's a sign proclaiming "Hillary for Prison." Indeed, I bet there are many serving time (or at least who have been professionally disqualified) for less than her surreptitious shenanigans. I also bet she has less sense of propriety than many being treated for mental illness. Her moral compass is askew, and she exhibits the main traits of psychopathy in abundance: immorality, callousness, remorselessness, and cynicism.
Does Hillary really want to raise the specter of temperament? Her heinous hilarity represents subconscious subterfuge to conceal her proclivities toward the Dark Triad of personality traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. A masterful manipulator, she is not seeking election to pursue her principles, but changing her principles to seek election.
Hillary is out for Hillary. Rather than serve the public, rather than be with you, her slogan is "I'm with her." Having avoided accountability for raiding the public and Clinton Foundation coffers all these years, she simply disregards laws and has become divorced from social conventions. As demonstrated by her inexplicable laughter and barking, she's also divorced from reality. She's gone completely mental.
Hillary is more temperamentally suited for institutionalization than the White House. This is no laughing matter: commit Hillary.
The Democrats in the House of Representatives recently staged a theatrical sit-in ostensibly demanding that they, as an oppressed and victimized minority, be allowed to vote on additional gun control measures. This childish attempt to mimic the demonstrations attendant to the union organization drives of the early 20th Century and the civil rights movement of 1960s was produced by myopic fools who do not seem to understand that they have won. They now control virtually all levers of power in the federal government, dominate one major political party and fully intimidate the other, and are successfully altering society as a whole. They have defeated the man.
As long as there was a villain to condemn for all perceived and imagined evils and the bulk of the citizenry kept their nose to the grindstone thus fashioning the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the annals of mankind, the Left need never accept responsibility for their program failures as well as their inane actions and proposals. However, thanks to the past eight years, what was once essentially fun and games for the Left has accelerated into reality.
Thus, after nearly a century, with the implicit abetting by a feckless opposition party over the past 30 years, The American Left has succeeded in breaking nearly everything in the china shop. So, a question for the Left and their tacit allies: now that you own it what are you going to do with it?
You claim a desire to transform America. Transform it into what?
Oftentimes you bandy about the example of Sweden or other Euro-socialist nations as prime models of transformative countries. However, Sweden has 3.0% of the population and 4.5% of the land area of the United States. Further, as is true of virtually all European nations, Swedens entire history (620 years) has been as a monarchy and an all-powerful central government with a compliant and ethnically homogeneous population. Nonetheless, even with these favorable factors, Sweden is currently and desperately looking for ways to get out from under the oppressive weight of their brand of socialism
On the other hand, the United States, that you now govern, is a nation the size of the entire continent of Europe with a population of over 320 million. Further, it stands alone in history as: 1) a nation founded in revolution, 2) a country with a 240-year history of individual freedom and free enterprise and, 3) as a political entity with overwhelming ethnic diversity. Therefore, your challenges are going to be quite different from that of any of your statist idols of the past.
Through your domination of the education establishment two generations have been taught to believe that the United States is a flawed, racist and malevolent country. Over the years you have, in keeping with Marxist strategy, convinced a near majority of the American population that capitalism is the bane of mankind and only empowers the wealthy. Only a powerful central government can assure the equitable distribution of wealth, provide for cradle to grave security, and solve all the ills of mankind.
You have, over the years, taken gradual steps to bring those tenets to fruition. However, under the Obama administration you have dramatically hastened the process.
First, is a rapidly growing and vast regulatory regime overwhelmingly dominated by your fellow leftist bureaucrats. As of today there are nearly 1.1 million federal regulations spanning 186,000 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations coupled with 75,000 pages in the Internal Revenue Code costing the economy over $2 Trillion in annual compliance costs. Your mindless acceptance of global warming or climate change is eventuating in further regulatory chaos and massive economic dislocation that is destroying innumerable jobs and untold billions in wealth creation.
Second, in order to finance the various social programs and debt forgiveness you have promised, you are proposing further confiscatory tax rates on the upper income groups, who are the driving force behind job and wealth creation. Your plan to confiscate up to 60% of all the annual income of the top 5% of earners in the country would fund the government for less than 6 months. While you will succeed in achieving retribution, these people would soon leave for more hospitable climes or drop out of the rat race altogether.
Third, in a sop towards populism and increasing government revenue you are threatening massive new tariffs and potential international trade wars. The nearly 20 million Americans jobs that currently rely on international trade would be in jeopardy. If these policies were enacted, and as someone who has spent over 30 years in the field of international finance, I can guarantee there would be little or no repatriation of jobs to the United States and a depression would be inevitable.
Fourth, in order to finance unbridled government spending you have sanctioned never-ending deficit spending (doubling the debt in 9 years) and to ostensibly spur economic growth the Federal Reserve has resorted to near endless de facto money creation. There is little doubt that there will be another major international financial crisis within the next 12 to 18 months. These interminable policies have exhausted any viable means of coping with the next catastrophe.
Thanks primarily to your desire for unbridled immigration (including legalizing those here illegally), the working age population of this country will increase nearly 20 million by 2030. In order to get back to the level of employment at the turn of this century, over 30 million jobs will need to be created. How do you plan to do that? How are you going to manage to steer the country through the next financial meltdown? What are you planning to do, at a minimum, to maintain the current standard of living of the populace? How are you going to sustain the social spending you have promised to so many?
You have gutted the military and used it as a playground for your pet social theories. What is your game plan in the event this nation is attacked and has to face enemies on multiple fronts throughout a dangerous world? How are you going to finance this eventuality? What will be your rules of engagement?
You have given birth to a generation of young college graduates who are afraid of their own shadows, know nothing of the history of their country, and expect as their birthright guaranteed income and a life without adversity. What are you going to do with these people you defrauded and deluded when reality rears its ugly head?
Under your stewardship the rule of law has been turned on its head. Rather than apply the law equally to all, those who are politically allied with you are invariably exonerated of any wrongdoing, such as Hillary Clinton or the bureaucrats at the IRS or the EPA. Do you honestly believe you will ever be able to re-establish respect for the Law particularly those you pass and attempt to enforce?
Under the false banner of civil rights, you are hell-bent on destroying religious and individual freedom. You are using the courts, which you now control, as a battering ram to eliminate, as a first step, any vestige of Christianity from the public and private square in order to transform the nation into a fully secular state. Thus, in your addled thinking, a population much easier to control.
You are determined, by stealth means, to eventually eliminate the Second Amendment as means of consolidating your power. You worship at the altar of federalism, with the active participation of the courts, is rapidly eroding the rights of the states as spelled out in the Constitution. A document you consider archaic and in need of replacement on your terms.
Little do you realize that you are dealing with a nation and a people with a long history of independence and free enterprise who have been sleepwalking for far too long. What are you going to do when your disastrous policies collapse, American society is on the verge of disintegration and the American populace finally wakes up and sees the turmoil you have precipitated? How are you going to control a country of 3.8 million square miles and 325 million people when they turn on you?
In this current election season, as reality has yet to fully come into focus, the American people are being forced to choose between two remaining candidates for President. Unfortunately, neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton, as progeny of the Left, are capable of or willing to understand the tide that is engulfing this nation. Thus, the Lefts victory is unassailable with an open field ahead of them.
As for this racist, misogynistic, and homophobic old white guy who has been coerced into underwriting the American Lefts fun and games for 50 years, the time has arrived to get off the train and become an interested and active observer either here or from afar. The one thing the Left will quickly learn is that it is not fun and games being the man.
The reporters of the BBC Persian language have been exposing the history of a conspiracy between Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic tyranny in Iran, and President Jimmy Carter, during the 1978-1979 so-called revolution. The CIA documents show how the two men negotiated on terms of agreements for replacing the progressive, secular Shah with the fanatic Islamist Khomeini.
We now know that Khomeini had written a letter to President John F. Kennedy on November 6th of 1963, asking to be considered for establishing an Islamic rule in Iran. According to the documents; Khomeini had promised that he will not oppose American interests in Iran. President Kennedy was assassinated two weeks later and Khomeini was left without response from America.
Khomeini continued his ever louder opposition to the Shah on every progressive action that he took. The documents in the Carter library report that Khomeini was not one of the important members of opposition, though he was the loudest.
Surprisingly, President Carter chose the loudest Islamist, not one of the important secular persons who would have continued the economic progress and modernization taking root in Iran.
The big misrepresentation of American policy has been that U.S. supported the Shah. However, the facts of history prove that U.S. had always supported and helped Iran to become a sovereign nation after over 100 years of Turkish rulers and Shia clerics, maintained by British and Russian colonialist domination; that kept Iranians poor and illiterate.
Despite the fact that former President Carter and his advisors have always denied his betrayal of a strategically important friend, CIA records of the meetings, the policy memos, and the diplomatic messages between the White House and Khomeinis representatives, in a French coffee shop, prove otherwise.
According to these records; Khomeinis attitude has been collaborative. In his secret message of Jan 27th of 1979 he proposed this deal to President Carter: Iranian military leaders will listen to you, he said, but the Iranian people follow my orders. You prevent the military from any coup against my takeover and I will restore stability back to the country, ending the unrest. Khomeini also promised that: America's interests and citizens in Iran would be protected.
According to the BBC reports of the CIA documents, in a personal message to the American president, Ayatollah Khomeini says: "You will see we are not in any particular animosity with the Americans." Pledging his Islamic Republic will be; "a humanitarian one, which will benefit the cause of peace and tranquility for all mankind".
The men involved in the establishment of Islamic regime in Iran were: William Sullivan, the U.S. ambassador to Iran, Cyrus Vance, U.S. Secretary of State, Warren Zimmermann, a political counsellor with the U.S. embassy in France, used as a messenger for the U.S. to Khomeini, and Robert E Huyser, a U.S. Air Force general sent by President Carter on a secretive mission to Tehran in January 1979 to carry out Khomeinis demand of neutralizing the Iranian military opposition, preventing any coup against Khomeinis Islamic regime.
Meanwhile in Tehran, the U.S. ambassador, William Sullivan met with a secret Islamic Revolutionary Council on January 24th. Among them was Ayatollah Mousavi Ardebili -- the future Chief Justice of Khomeinis Islamic Republic, who became the executioner of tens of thousands of political opponents. However, Mr. Sullivans favorable report on him was: the cleric seemed reasonable. He was a more forceful type, but "no fanatic".
According to the reports, President Carter agreed not only remove the leadership, even change the constitution of Iran. It is astonishing that a president of the United States who should believe in separation of religion and state, would install a fanatic religious cleric with a history of opposition to womens equal rights and social and economic freedoms, to take over a secular country that was in process of becoming a progressive democracy.
This unforgivable mistake in foreign policy by an American president is when he follows an ideological view, by ignoring the big picture. The noisy .08% of the population who were paid $15 a person by the Mosque to march, should not be called popular revolution. The 34 million silent majority who were pro their 1906 Constitutional Revolutions goal for Modernity and sovereignty in their homeland should have been respected.
According to the polls, President Carter was opposed by over 50% of Americans at that time. Yet he found the .08% marching opposition in Iran supportable?!
Thirty years later, president Obama embarked on another deal with the same deceitful Islamic tyrants to continue their international terrorism and promotion of their political Islamic ideology. This time negotiations were facilitated by Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman, who had a friendly relationship with Khamenei. Beginning in 2009, before the uprising of the Iranian people against the regime, until 2011- 2013, the negotiations continued and the election of Hasan Rohani was planned.
The meetings between the representatives of the U.S. Department of State and Khameneis representatives were held in the city of Masqat, where President Obama guaranteed that there will be no regime change policy on Iran. Furthermore they agreed to remove the sanctions and pay Khamenei the frozen assets of over $100 billion in exchange for Khamenei to reducing their yellow cake production of nuclear bomb, without any signature or guarantee.
President Jimmy Carter handed Iran over to a 7th-century tyrant without researching his background, and learned a lesson that any Iranian would have told them, had they asked. Do not trust any Islamic cleric.
Thirty years later, President Obama empowers them, aware of their established deception, paying them Billions of dollars by staging an elaborate scheme, to fool America.
Who will be responsible when IRGC tests their first nuclear bomb?
It is galling the day after July 4th to be greeted by yet one more official at the highest level of government, who has declined to respect the rule of law in favor of giving a free pass to the Obama Administration.
FBI Director Comey indicted Hillary Clinton in the court of public opinion by laying out before the TV cameras, step by step, her gross negligence in handling classified material, including Top Secret information that would compromise our national security if made accessible to our enemies. He told us Clinton sent classified information over servers not as safe as a simple gmail account. He told us it is impossible for the FBI to ascertain what foreign hostile actors may have accessed her account, but there is good evidence to believe that the information was hacked.
We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clintons use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clintons personal e-mail account.
He told us that it is a federal felony to mishandle classified information in a grossly negligent way.
He told us a second statute makes it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities.
He then described in clear, specific detail how Sect. of State Clinton knowingly removed classified information from appropriate systems and storage facilities. He concluded there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.
According to former New York Mayor Giuliani the legal definition of gross negligence is to be extremely careless.
The definition of gross negligence under the law is extreme carelessnessthe FBI clearly found a direct violation of 18 United States code section 793 which does not require intent -- it requires only gross negligence in the handling of anything relating to the national defense. It's the first definition that comes up in the law dictionaryIt's the definition the judges give to juries when they charge injuries on gross negligence. Negligence equals carelessness. Gross negligence equals extreme carelessness. So that is a clear absolutely unassailable violation of 18 United States Code, section 793, which is not a minor statute, it carries ten years in prison.
And then, in an act of great cynicism, FBI Director Comey looked the American people directly in the eye and told us that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against Hillary Clinton.
His build up as to why the FBI decided to recommend no criminal charges:
In our system, the prosecutors make the decisions about whether charges are appropriate based on evidence the FBI has helped collect. we frequently engage in productive conversations with prosecutors about what resolution may be appropriate, given the evidence.
This is the tell: We engage in productive conversations with prosecutors about what resolution may be appropriate.
Comey is telling us he spoke to the Obama DOJ about what resolution may be appropriate. It is obvious he was told that no criminal charges would be brought against Hillary Clinton. DOJ refused to even charge her on the misdemeanor level that she did knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities.
Unlike the men we honored the day before, on July 4th, who pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to defend liberty and the rule of law, FBI Director Comey was not willing to put anything on the line. He wanted us to know Hillary was guilty as hell. But he was not willing to pit the FBI against Obamas DOJ, so he let the guilty walk free without even at attempt at insisting she be charged.
Everyone has known from the start Obama would never prosecute Hillary. So Comey looked us in the eye and told us no reasonable prosecutor would take action on the gross negligence and betrayal of our national security that Hillary Clinton ordered as Secretary at State.
It depends on the meaning of reasonable.
See also: Comeys Game
At this very moment, Israel has in the bowels of its prison system one former president, Moshe Katzvav (sexual harassment) and one former prime minister, Ehud Olmert (fraud). In a mind-blowing irony for Americans, yesterday a Muslim judge in the Israeli court system sentenced Dochi Dankner to prison for stock fraud. Dankner is from an old elite family and is a billionaire ruling over a diversified empire.
Major shareholder and chairman of publicly traded IDB Group, Israel's largest diversified business group with assets of more than $30 billion, including interests in in insurance, biotech and finance. Dankner founded the Ganden Group, which holds the controlling interest of IDB. Has served as director and vice chairman of Bank Hapoalim, one of Israel's largest banks. Source: Forbes The Worlds Billionaires Nochi Danker, once one of Israels most powerful businessmen, with holdings ranging from telecoms to insurance, was convicted of stock manipulation by a Tel Aviv court. The former controlling shareholder of IDB Holding Corp., Dankner was charged with improperly influencing IDBs share price days before a planned securities issuance in February 2012, according to an e-mailed statement Monday from the Tel Aviv District Economic Court. The former tycoon could face as much as five years in prison, the Haaretz daily reported.
As we try to absorb the meaning of FBI director Comeys statement on Hillary Rodham Clinton, it is good to have a counterpoint in mind to know that things could be different if we willed it. As a starting point, we can begin to regain America when we have one set of laws for every person, no matter his wealth or pedigree.
The decision by the FBI not to recommend charges against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server doesn't sit well with U.S. Rep. John Katko.
Katko, R-Camillus, said Tuesday that Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, likely acted illegally when she sent classified information using the unsecure email server.
"There was sufficient misconduct alleged by the FBI director which, at a minimum, warranted the presentation of this evidence to a grand jury," said Katko, a former federal prosecutor. "The law should be applied equally, regardless of political status."
FBI Director James Comey said Clinton was "extremely careless" when she used the email server. The agency's investigation revealed that she sent 110 emails that contained classified information.
But the FBI opted not to recommend charges against Clinton. One reason Comey cited is that there wasn't clear "intentional and willful mishandling of classified information."
Katko doesn't agree with that assessment.
"Today's inaction only fuels American distrust in our government and sets a dangerous precedent," he said. "As central New York's representative in Congress, I have worked to reach across the aisle to restore public trust in our government. I believe that today's announcement is a step backward in that effort.
"Any candidate for elected office must stand to answer for the double standard applied today and for the careless manner in which Secretary Clinton handled her classified communications."
Katko wasn't the only Republican to criticize the FBI's decision.
Donald Trump, the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee, tweeted "FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow! #RiggedSystem."
House Speaker Paul Ryan said the FBI's decision "defies explanation."
"No one should be above the law," he said in a statement. "But based upon the director's own statement, it appears damage is being done to the rule of law."
Brian Fallon, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said they're pleased with the FBI's determination and that no charges will be filed against the likely Democratic presidential nominee.
"As the secretary has long said, it was a mistake to use her personal email and she would not do it again," Fallon said. "We are glad this matter is now resolved."
The Quran states unequivocally that Islam is superior to all other religions and must be made dominant over all other religions. This is most evident in three different verses: 61:9, 48:28, and 9:33. Here is the general thrust of all three:
61:9 He it is Who has sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth to make it victorious over all (other) religions even though the Mushrikun hate (it). (Hilali and Khan, The Noble Quran, Riyadh: Darussalam, 1996)
But apart from the explicit command in the three cited verses, the theme of the rightful domination over all other religions and cultures is implicit throughout the post-Meccan Koran, and the imposition of sharia (Gods law) is its greatest triumph. This has not changed one iota. The imposition of sharia is still the aim of the spiritual leaders of Islam.
In the U.S., for example, the spiritual leaders of Islam, the imams, are trained by the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA), and many of them have attained influential positions in universities, Islamic centers, and mosques throughout the United States. It is the premier objective of AMJA to establish sharia in North America, and that includes death for blasphemy.
As al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, wrote: "Jihad is an obligation from Allah on every Muslim and cannot be ignored nor evaded." Added al-Banna: "It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet."
The Jews believe they are the chosen; the Amish believe they are the chosen; the Mormons believe they are the chosen. Such belief is often accompanied by the belief that all others are going to Hell. But Islam is alone in inculcating the belief in its followers that Muslims have the right and duty to shove their religion down everyone elses throat. Muslims are ensnared and mesmerized by the heady belief that they are Gods chosen, whose right it is to rule the world as the Ubermenschen and make serfs of the rest of us. That is a big part of the lure of Islam. The preening infidels are really the pigs and apes. It is the followers of Islam who are the true rulers, and it is their mission and destiny to triumph.
When Muslims have the upper hand, it is by the sword. When they dont, it is by cunning and deception. (E.g., on 9/11, Hillarys Rasputin, Huma Abedin, was working for both Hillary and a Saudi organization with terror links; on January 20, 2002, a few weeks after his arrival in Karachi, Daniel Pearl was lured into a trap and kidnapped. Then his throat was cut, live on videotape, after he had been forced to say, My fathers Jewish. My mothers Jewish. Im Jewish. H is body was then dismembered.)
And for you? Aping the words of President Obama, the Dupe of Islam, you will receive assurances that Islam is a religion of peace and inclusiveness and that sharia is one with the U.S. Constitution, all done with an ingratiating smile.
A substantial faction of the conservative intelligentsia has convinced itself that Donald Trump is so unqualified for the presidency that Hillary Clinton is a better alternative. Some, like George Will, hope for a resounding victory for her, while others living in blue states like New York aver they will write in someone else because their vote is irrelevant anyway.
But now we have stark evidence that Hillary Clinton is not only a flagrant abuser of classified information, but above the law, and she cannot or will not be prosecuted for obvious felonious violations of the law.
A sign of what is to come is an essay at Maggies Farm by Bruce Kessler:
Donald Trump is far from the perfect leader. But, then it takes someone with gumption and determination who will not be intimidated to take on the rot that permeates our government and self-appointed ruling class. And, Trump is the only revolution we have available. Anyone deserves the end of our once-renowned Republic who stays home or turns coat or otherwise fails to stand up for recovering an America with basic laws and justice, an America which is not beholden to those who would exploit the government for self-aggrandizement or profits, an America with justice for all which does not favor the wealthy or powerful sycophants of state power.
Donald Trump is not George Washington. But hes the only revolution we have, and very probably our last chance. I have faith in the American people who will bring us back from tottering over the brink of ruination to make it work when Trump is elected. Get out and work for local candidates and for Trump. Otherwise, be part of the ruination. It's that simple and brutal a truth.
Eyes are opening.
Yesterday, the director of the FBI offered 15 of the most puzzling minutes in the history of American law enforcement. James Comey spent the first 12 minutes or so laying out a devastating case dismantling Hillary Clintons email defense. Then, in a whiplash-inducing change of narrative, he announced that no reasonable prosecutor would bring the case he had just outlined, an assertion that was contradicted within hours by luminaries including former U.S. attorney (and mayor) Rudy Giuliani and James Kallstrom, former head of the FBIs New York office.
How can we possibly explain the FBI director deliberately inducing mass cognitive dissonance?
If, as many on the right fear, the fix was in, Comey did not need to lay out such an overwhelming case that already has provided ample ammunition to refute Hillary Clintons many lies about her email practices.
I think it is possible that Comey was grudgingly complying with the reality that he learned in the wake of the covert meeting between Bill Clinton and A.G. Lynch (that became public only because a Phoenix TV station was doing a story on VIP arrivals at Sky Harbor Airport). I suspect that he learned, directly or indirectly, that no case would be brought against Hillary Clinton. As Karin McQuillan noted today, he provided a tell when he said:
We engage in productive conversations with prosecutors about what resolution may be appropriate.
This would leave him with a decision to respond the hard way or the easy way. I have no idea what the hard way would involve, whether it involved losing positive inducements to cooperate and be a good team member or whether something decidedly unpleasant might happen to him or his loved ones, as has happened to so many people inconvenient to the Clintons, by sheer coincidence, of course. The easy way would be no recommendation for prosecution, allowing A.G. Lynch to keep her promise to follow whatever the FBI recommended. That would call off the dogs.
So did Director Comey cooperate the way American prisoners of war did, when forced to read statements praising their captors, by in effect blinking Morse code? He gave exactly what he was supposed to. But he did it in a way calculated to do political damage to Hillary Clinton.
Then there is the small matter of the ongoing investigation into the Clinton Foundation, and potential quid-pro-quo corruption lining the actions of the secretary of state to donations to the foundation. Comey let us know that quite a few deleted emails were recovered from Hillarys servers but said absolutely nothing about the other investigation.
Yesterday, the director of the once-irreproachable Federal Bureau of Investigation grossly misled the American people. Director James Comey, as regards the Hillary Clinton private server scandal, boldly stated that there was no evidence that anyone deliberately mishandled classified information.
That, my friends, is a bald-faced lie.
As I indicated in a previous article, it is well nigh impossible for the Top Secret-SAP/SAR information to "inadvertently" end up on Secretary Clinton's private server. The only way for this to happen is for someone to execute a series of deliberate actions, each of which is a felony. The very fact that such information existed on Secretary Clinton's server is in and of itself proof of felonious conduct. In short, Director Comey lied.
Director Comey also misled the public when he "assessed" that no prosecutor would pursue such a weak case. Sorry, Mr. Director: although I am not an attorney and haven't ever stayed in a Holiday Inn Express, I could put together the elements of proof to support a successful prosecution of somebody involved in this.
Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation used to be looked upon as the High Priests of Law Enforcement. After today's blatant display of public corruption, I fear that such a high compliment no longer applies.
Mike Ford is a retired infantry colonel.
I just got back from a month in Europe, and I can report that the European press has successfully portrayed Donald Trump as a "crazy man." This phrase I heard from many people of different generations. There is no doubt in their mind. The coverage has been consistent and relentless.
When I assured people that he is not crazy, that in fact he is a successful businessman, they thought about it. When I said, Okay, he's not a politician, but how have politicians worked out?, they came around pretty quickly at least they got off the "everyone knows he's crazy" theme.
Europeans have a lot on their minds, not the least of which is an ongoing invasion of their culture by fighting-age Muslims. Our election is not high on their list of concerns, so they are drawing conclusions based on snippets of snarky elitist commentary. Republicans should be engineering some snippets of their own to create a little pushback.
It doesn't take much commonsense point-making to at least puncture the liberal image. Unfortunately, we are not doing any of that. The presidential race is focused on a few issues, and there does not seem to be anyone, even in the background, addressing the international image of the Republicans' likely nominee.
Remember when Romney went to Europe? He was set upon by snarling harpies. According to the Washington Post:
The assessments of the trip, which saw Romney visit London, Israel and Poland over the past week, ranged from scathing to resigned among the Republican professional political class.
The Post could hardly contain their glee. As further evidence of the Republican failure to think ahead to the prospect of actual governance, the same article noted:
'I find this entire trip borderline lunacy,' said one senior Republican strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly. 'Why on earth is he seeking to improve his foreign policy cred when there will not be a single vote cast on that subject?'
It appears that no one did any advance work, and Romney's party showed disdain for anyone who even thought to do so. They didn't see that lefties would leap on this and manufacture an issue around it. After the left tried to make something out of the "binders of women" statement, what made anyone in the GOP think they would not hungrily consume his apparent rejection by foreigners?
Time magazine cheerfully reported assorted snark from European sources:
...French daily Le Figaro, a militantly partisan supporter of conservatives no matter where they hail from, on Tuesday ran a blog post with the headline, 'Is Mitt Romney a Loser?'
Didn't anyone notice that these elitist rags had been dumping on Romney for months? Have they no contacts? Do they never leave the confines of the Beltway?
Trump is running against a former secretary of state who was a complete, utter failure at the job. She not only failed to do any good, but did actual harm and plenty of it. Trump has had successful international dealings. Isn't it time to give a call to some of those people who profited from their dealings with Trump and get them to make a statement or two? You don't need to turn the campaign around; just have one guy think about it and do something. Get some quotes ready for a counterpunch.
Mrs. Clinton's "experience" is a laughable myth. There are plenty of people who know this, here and abroad. It's time to start talking about Trump's non-politician populist theme. There are plenty of people in the world who have come to realize the dark motives of the "One World" crowd; these people might be receptive to the idea that Trump is not one these globalists, but Mrs. Clinton is.
For example, Trump wants to build a wall to protect us from the surge of migrants of all stripes from the south. This has become the basis of much hand-wringing and moaning from many American quarters. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban did this, with considerable success.
The new border fences, which closed off Hungary from Serbia in September and continued around the border, finally cutting the country off from unwanted incursions from Croatia earlier this month have been so successful the number of illegal migrants has dropped off the charts.
Why not draw a parallel or two? If opponents want to argue about the faults of the comparison, at least they are discussing it, and thereby discussing Donald Trump in an international context, and thereby widening the playing field.
As was the case for many of you, Donald Trump was not my first choice he wasn't even my second or third. But he is the only thing between us and complete corruption of the Supreme Court. It's time to stop whining and try every single avenue of influence.
A refugee activist in Germany admitted to lying to police last January about the ethnicity of the men who sexually assaulted her for fear of fueling racism.
Selin Goren, 24, originally told police that she was robbed by a "mixed group" of foreigners and Germans. But a few hours later, she returned to the police station and admitted she was sexually assaulted by Middle Eastern men.
Washington Times:
Despite the fact that the men were speaking either Kurdish or Farsi, Ms. Goren told officers they were a mixed group of foreigners and locals who were speaking German. After her initial interview, she returned to the police 12 hours later to tell them that she was sexually assaulted by the men. In an interview with Germanys Spiegel magazine published Sunday, Ms. Goren, who has visited refugee camps in Iraq, said she did not want to stoke more hatred against migrants in Germany, according to a translation by the Daily Mail. Ms. Goren, however, urged women not to fear political correctness when reporting crimes. In a Facebook post which she has since deleted from her page, she wrote: What really hurts me is that it is a fact that the sexist and over the line incident that happened to me will inevitably lead to more aggression and racism, the Daily Express reported. I do not believe that you the refugees are the problem, most of you are wonderful people. You have the same rights as everybody else to be safe and free.
I'm trying very hard to feel sympathy for this woman, a victim of a violent assault. But her astonishing disregard for the safety of others in service to her worldview prevents me from feeling much compassion.
The pressure to be politically correct about the refugees must be enormous. Any deviation from the narrative that these are just harmless people who shouldn't be feared, desperate to start a new life, would have her drummed out of the tribe of refugee activsts. Besides that, this challenge to that worldview must have been a huge psychological blow. To find out your entire belief system is wrong through a violent incident must be unsettling.
That she decided to come clean doesn't excuse her original actions. "Fueling racism" or not, she should have told the truth immediately and let the chips fall where they may.
The bigots will hate regardless of what story is told about the refugees. They don't need another story about Muslims raping Western women to fuel their bigotry. But the truth may have made women more cautious when coming into contact with Muslim men. And that's not bigotry. That's common sense.
In recent polls, Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National (F.N.) in France, is holding her own, placing consistently at about 30%, which is at or in the lead for the 2017 French presidential election.
But like other nationalist leaders among the West leading the fight against Islamification, Le Pen has an Achilles heel: the LGBT activists, who have been trying desperately in recent times to influence, and ultimately commandeer, conservative parties, from Donald Trump's campaign (see, e.g., Milo Yiannopoulos) to Canada's federal and provincial conservative parties (i.e., LGBTory.ca and Stephen Harper's "gay mafia" leadership team).
On Saturday, the Gay Pride march in Paris caused a split in the F.N., "with some supporting the parade while others condemned it as 'exhibitionist'."
Le Pen's partner, Louis Aliot, who is also a vice president in the F.N., indicated that "[t]he F.N. does not support the Gay Pride March, an exhibitionist and anti-F.N. symbol of militant communitarianism."
Ms. Le Pen is in a quandary, and largely one of her own making, since one of her deputies, Florian Philippot, was outed as gay by a magazine two years ago, which explains her silence on the furor caused by the latest march in France's capital.
The F.N.'s founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was unwisely expelled from the party last year, has taken the position that homosexuality is "a biological and social anomaly," placing his views more in line with the bulk of the F.N.'s base and much of French society, many of whom do not believe that homosexuality should be accepted and whose views about homosexuality appear to be becoming less tolerant over time, not more.
The "rising star" of the F.N., Marine's 26-year-old niece, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, has also expressed serious concerns that the party "was being taken over by a gay cabal," which places Marine in a difficult position vis-a-vis not only her own party, but also her own family.
In the run-up to France's critical 2017 election, which could provide the opportunity for a Le Pen victory, a subsequent referendum on EU membership, and if successful a rapid Frexit, Le Pen must avoid the same trap that has befallen her North American counterparts namely, sacrificing the large social conservative nationalist vote for the very small amount of LGBT support from liberals and so-called moderates.
The star of the "Jason Bourne" franchise, Matt Damon, said at a press conference in Australia over the July 4th weekend that he wished America would follow the example of Australia and confiscate all guns in "one fell swoop."
Washington Times:
You guys did it here in one fell swoop [in 1996] and I wish that could happen in my country, but its such a personal issue for people that we cannot talk about it sensibly, Mr. Damon said during a promotional engagement in Sydney for the movie Jason Bourne. The action star went on to say people get too emotional when it comes to not selling AK47s to people on terror watchlists.
Yeah, I know what he means. A lot of Americans get emotional when people are denied their Second Amendment rights without due process.
Mr. Damon also discussed the Dec. 12, 2012, massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20-year-old Adam Lanza stole his mothers legal weapons, killed her and then did the same to 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Obviously, mass shootings arent going to do it. There have been so many of them at this point. Sandy Hook, when those children were murdered, if that didnt do it, you know, I just dont know. Maybe we just need to evolve further before we can have that conversation, I dont know, Mr. Damon said, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Sunday.
Unfortunately for the people of Australia, they did not have any constitutional protection of their right to bear arms. The 1996 law that banned most auto and semi-automatic weapons and was fueled by a gun buyback program has not affected the homicde rate, according to a study done by two University of Melbourne researchers.
University of Melbourne researchers Wang-Sheng Lee and Sandy Suardi concluded their 2008 report on the matter with the statement, There is little evidence to suggest that [the Australian mandatory gun-buyback program] had any significant effects on firearm homicides. Although gun buybacks appear to be a logical and sensible policy that helps to placate the publics fears, the reported continued, the evidence so far suggests that in the Australian context, the high expenditure incurred to fund the 1996 gun buyback has not translated into any tangible reductions in terms of firearm deaths.
If you've ever seen the hysterical Trey Parker film Team America: World Police, you know how Damon's intelligence is viewed by his colleagues in Hollywood. All he can do in the movie is keep repeating his name:
So it's not surprising that Damon apparently doesn't understand the Second Amendment and why confiscating guns in "one fell swoop" is not only stupid, but unconstitutional.
They were polite, but said we had to pack up and leave, Kurtis Andrews, the father of the two girls, told the Toronto Star. His offer to pay for a permit on the spot yielded no compromise. For a couple of kids, its kind of intimidating, with the flashing lights and guy in black uniform.
First reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the story made headlines across Canada. Many on social media took aim at Ottawa playfully rehashing the capitals reputation as the city that fun forgot while several Conservative politicians seized on the story as an example of how government overreach can strangle entrepreneurship.
On Monday, the Andrews visited the federal agency to apply for a permit. Perhaps conscious of the many who had framed the girls foray into Ottawas byzantine bureaucracy as a struggle of David against Goliath, an agency spokesperson apologised to the young entrepreneurs and offered to waive the C$35 permit fee.
In a later statement, the agency defended its earlier actions and made it clear that no exceptions would be made for the girls. Given the location of the lemonade stand, the Conservation Officer acted in good faith in applying the federal land use rules in place.
The situation could have been handled differently, it acknowledged. Childrens lemonade stands are a time-honoured summer tradition that contributes to a lively capital and the NCC wants to encourage these activities whenever possible. Officials said the girls permit application would be likely expedited so that they could have the stand up and running by this weekend.
The timeline was questioned by the girls father who pointed to the magnitude of paperwork being demanded for the stand. The girls cant provide proof of insurance. They cant provide a site map. And so on and so forth, he told CTV News. So I expect that theres going to have to be some ... modification of the normal bureaucracy here.
Guess what happens when you go to a ball game and legitimize a Cuban dictator: Raul Castro turns around and gives the Russians a big piece of business the air traffic control system in the island.
This is from Sabrina Martin of the Pan Am Post:
The largest Russian manufacturer of electronic devices for civil aviation will be in charge of creating a new air traffic control system for Cuba. The news comes days after the Cuban government refused visas to US congressmen who were traveling to the island to inspect and certify the conditions of airports before regular flights between Cuba and the United States can resume. The Russian company Azimut signed a contract with the Cuban state company Aviaimport to transfer technology, information, and research in civil aeronautics for air traffic control on the island. The deal includes the delivery of the source-code and the execution of tests. Likewise, the Russian company will offer training for the Cuban employees who will be in charge of the systems operation. The agreement between the state-owned firm and Azimut will last until June 2017 and the system is expected to be implemented in 10 international airports in Cuba. Currently, Cuban airports use an ORACLE-based system, acquired from Canada in 2000, which officials deem outdated. Its worth noting that six airlines were authorized by the US government to operate 155 weekly flights for almost 20,000 passengers between five US cities and nine Cuban destinations.
This is a slap in the face to U.S. businesses who bought into the idea that the Obama-Castro deal would open new markets. At the end of the day, Raul Castro selected the Russians, and all of the potential security challenges that it brings.
He also denied visas to a U.S. House delegation that wanted to check the Cuban airport security systems. Wonder why. The decision to bring in Vlad Putin answers that question!
Russia is back in the Middle East and Cuba. We can thank Obama for that!
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
AUBURN In the early 1970s, Marcellus High School graduate Barbara Perkins had a choice. She could attend a two-year school at a community college to earn a degree in nursing a decision that was becoming more and more popular among young aspiring nurses at the time or she could join a three-year hospital-based program and get a traditional nursing diploma.
Both would qualify Perkins to take an exam and apply for a license as a registered nurse. The question was: Would the extra year be worth it?
Perkins decided it was, and in 1973 she moved into the Morgan Memorial Home for Nurses to begin her studies at Auburn Memorial Hospital's School of Nursing.
"I chose Auburn Memorial Hospital because I felt that it gave us a lot more clinical, hands-on time than some of the other programs I had looked at," she said.
Her first week of class, however, Perkins discovered that future area nursing students wouldn't be able to make the same choice: The board had chosen to close the school. She and the 30 fellow students who graduated in 1976 would be the last class of the Auburn Memorial Hospital School of Nursing.
Perkins and her classmates lived in the dorm on the second and third floors of the hospital. Two days a week, students would attend class on the hospital's first floor or at Cayuga Community College, which was still Auburn Community College at the time.
The other three days, Perkins said, were spent doing clinical rotations in which she and her classmates worked eight-hour shifts in the hospital, observing and treating actual patients.
"We got the benefit of a lot of patient interactions and the amount of time we spent with the patients let us do more procedures," Perkins said. "We had to do rotations in all of the departments... so we really got to be pretty well-versed in all aspects."
But they soon learned their class would be the last, as the hospital's board of trustees announced that, after nearly a century of training more than 1,300 nurses, the School of Nursing would close.
The school opened in 1887 when the hospital then called Auburn City Hospital established the Training School for Nurses. In its first decade, the School of Nursing became the fourth school in the state to register with the New York State Department of Education and Board of Regents, raising the school's standards.
In 1963, the National League of Nursing approved the school, meaning it had met the maximum standards for nursing education. Then, just 10 years later, the board made the decision to close, citing increasing costs of operation and plans for a new nursing education program at Auburn Community College.
"Originally we were told that it would not finish our class and we would have to transfer," Perkins said, noting that she found out the school was closing her first week of class. "But then that changed and they just decided to phase it out over three years."
Over those three years, Perkins practiced alongside professional doctors and nurses. She helped with medication administration and completed rotations in the operating room, recovery and emergency room. And a year before graduating in 1976, she was hired as a nursing assistant at the hospital.
She's been there ever since.
Perkins currently works at what's now Auburn Community Hospital as the director of quality management and the coordinator for emergency preparedness. As such, part of her job is to train staff and make sure the hospital is ready for any emergency-type situation, just like nurses at the hospital once trained her 40 years ago.
"I was sad to see (the school) go because I felt that it was a very high-quality school," she said. "There was no culture shock. We had a realistic view of what we were entering once we got done and I have absolutely no regrets choosing my career at this facility."
The city of Saint Petersburg at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, was once protected by a string of forts across the gulf. Most of these forts were constructed in and around the island of Kotlin which is situated in the middle of the narrow neck of the Gulf at a distance of 30 km from Saint Petersburg proper. Some forts were also built on the shores of the Gulf across the island. Together they offered a formidable defense against enemy attacks from the sea.
Construction of these forts commenced soon after Saint Petersburg was founded, urged by the Great Northern War of 17001721. Over the next two centuries, Russia continued to fortify the area building over forty forts between the southern and northern shores of the Gulf of Finland. Almost half of these were built on artificial islands.
One of the most famous forts in the gulf is Fort Alexander commissioned by Emperor Nikolay I and named after his brother, Emperor Alexander I. It was built between 1838 and 1845.
Photo credit: unknown
Like many forts in the gulf, Fort Alexander was built on an artificial island. The foundation consists of more than five thousand five hundred, 12-meters long piles driven into the sea bed to reinforce the ground. This was then covered by a layer of sand, a layer of concrete blocks, and a layer of granite slabs. Over this, an oval-shaped building with a yard in its center was built. The fort measures 90 meters by 60 meters, with three floors, and room enough to hold a garrison of up to 1,000 men. There are 103 cannon ports with additional space on the roof for 34 guns.
Although the fort never actually participated in any military action, it did play a vital role in the Crimean War when it protected the Russian naval base in Kronstadt against attempts by the Royal Navy and French fleets. Its presence was enough to deter enemies attempting to invade St. Petersburg. However, by the turn of the 20th century, the fort lost its significance in terms of defense against modern artillery and high explosive shells.
In 1897, the fort was converted into a laboratory for research on deadly diseases such as cholera, tetanus, typhus, scarlatina, Staph and Streptococcus infections. But it was particular famous for experiments with Yersenia bacteria that causes bubonic plague. This gave Fort Alexander its second name of Plague Fort. After the Communist takeover in 1917, the laboratory was closed and the fort was handed over to the Russian Navy. The Navy maintained storage facilities in the fort until it was abandoned in 1983. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Fort Alexander became a place for private parties, raves and discos.
Its a popular tourist attraction today.
Photo credit: bsiluxe.ru
Photo credit: mitrofanova-m.livejournal.com
Photo credit: mitrofanova-m.livejournal.com
Photo credit: mitrofanova-m.livejournal.com
Photo credit: mitrofanova-m.livejournal.com
Photo credit: mitrofanova-m.livejournal.com
Photo credit: mitrofanova-m.livejournal.com
Photo credit: mitrofanova-m.livejournal.com
Photo credit: mitrofanova-m.livejournal.com
Photo credit: www.visit-saint-petersburg.ru
Sources: Wikipedia / Russia Beyond the Headlines / ermakvagus.com
The ancient city of Sarai Batu was located on the lower stretch of the Volga River, about 120 km north of the modern city of Astrakhan in present-day Russia. It was the capital of the Golden Horde, the western part of the Mongol empire, which flourished from the mid-13th century to the end of the 14th century. At its peak, the territory of the Golden Horde included most of Eastern Europe from the Urals to the Danube River, and extended east deep into Siberia. On the south the Hordes lands bordered on the Black Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, and the Iranian territories of the Mongol dynasty known as the Il-Khans.
Sarai Batu (meaning Batus Palace) was established in the mid-1240s by the Mongol ruler Batu Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan. At that time, it was quite a large settlement with a population of 75,000, making it one of the largest cities of the medieval world.
A replica of Sarai Batu, built as a set for the movie The Horde. Photo credit: macos.livejournal.com
One 13th century Arab traveller from North Africa described it as one of the most beautiful cities, one which has achieved extraordinary size, filled to overflowing with people, handsome markets and broad streets. The traveller counted thirteen large mosques and thirteen cathedrals, numerous bazaars and bath-houses. Its population was multi-cultural. In addition to Mongol rulers, he saw Russians, Caucasians and many 'merchants and strangers' from as far afield as Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Greece, each nation living in its own quarter.
In the 14th century, for reasons unknown, the city was abandoned and the capital was moved to a new location about 180 km northwest of Sarai Batu. The new city became Sarai Berke or New Sarai.
A city as large as Sarai naturally attracted enemies. Both the old and the new capitals were sacked by the Crimean Khanate in late 14th and early 16th century. The city was eventually destroyed by Ivan IV of Russia in 1556.
This once beautiful city now lives again through the sets of the 2011 movie "The Horde". For filming the historical drama, a Russian production company built an elaborate replica of Sarai Batu. The filming location was chosen very near the actual historic site. After production was over, instead of dismantling the movie sets, the reconstructed capital was turned into a tourist attraction. Although the houses and other structures on the set appears to have been made of clay, its actually made of wood and concrete. The clay layer was added only in the exterior.
Today, the location has developed into a sort of open air museum.
Photo credit: macos.livejournal.com
Photo credit: www.culture.ru
Photo credit: www.culture.ru
Photo credit: rulandinfo.ru
Photo credit: macos.livejournal.com
Photo credit: ekskurs-tur.ru
Photo credit: itravel.livejournal.com
Photo credit: itravel.livejournal.com
Photo credit: itravel.livejournal.com
Photo credit: itravel.livejournal.com
Photo credit: itravel.livejournal.com
Sources: Wikipedia / Britannica / travel30.ru / Russia: By Jonathan Dimbleby
One of the most highly talked about smartphones at the moment is the next Nexus smartphone. More accurately, the next two Nexus smartphones as it commonly believed that following in the steps of last year, two new Nexus smartphone will be released this year. At the moment all the indications do seem to point to HTC being the manufacturer behind both devices and they are currently being identified by the codenames Marlin and Sailfish. Now, we have a reported image of what the two devices will look like.
The image shown comes from Android Police and it does need to be immediately made clear that this is not an official render of either device. Instead, this is a render which has been put together by Android Police off the various information that has come their way via a reliable source. As such, the image should be understood as what the two devices will probably look like and not what they definitely look like. In terms of the main design points being suggested, one of the obvious ones is that the image refers to both Nexus devices, as it is believed that the two will be quite similar in terms of their design. There are also a couple of contentious design issues provided here. The first is that a G logo could be in place on the rear of the handset (as shown in the image) while the second is that there is unlikely to be any manufacturer (HTC) branding at all or Nexus branding. Other notable design elements include the use of an aluminum body, no rear camera hump, available in three likely colors, aluminium with white, black (and/or dark gray) and a blue option which is blue on the rear and white on the front.
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As mentioned, all of the information coming through (including the image) is based on source information and is not necessarily correct, accurate or the most up-to-date. However, as it stands and based on the most current rumors doing the rounds, this is said to be a close interpretation of what should be expected from both Marlin and Sailfish, albeit, with the two models slightly differing in size, with Sailfish expected to come in a 5-inch form and Marlin in a 5.5-inch form.
While the consumer version of Google Glass wont see the light of day anytime soon, the top medical professionals are definitely making use of Googles once highly touted wearable. As Dr. Peter Chai, an emergency physician, toxicologist, and assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School recently explained to CNBC, consumers werent ready for Google Glass, but the medical community has given it a second life. More specifically, Chai explained that numerous medical professionals are using Glass in order to inform specialists of complications with patients in a timely manner.
He gave an example of a patient who overdosed or got poisoned. In that scenario, Chai singled out Glass as the most efficient tool of contacting a medical specialist and giving him or her a live video feed of the situation while simultaneously transmitting all of the necessary and relevant data. As he put it, it means that Googles wearable can be directly responsible for more accurate patient diagnosis. Those arent just subjective claims by Chai, however. The emergency physician has actually recently conducted an extensive research on the matter in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health and its results are extremely encouraging. Namely, while supervisory consultants reported confidence in 59% of cases of diagnosing specific toxins without actually seeing patients, they were confident in 94% of their diagnoses conducted with Google Glass.
Regardless of that, Chai concedes that Glass is not without its problems and believes that wireless connectivity is one that requires immediate addressing. Interestingly enough, he apparently doesnt have a problem with the battery life of the device, which is something most consumers who got a chance to use it were complaining about. Furthermore, the said doctor stated that Glass is potentially a significantly cheaper alternative to traditional telemedicine carts, even when its $1,500 price tag is additionally raised by expensive medical software. Apart from seeming more affordable, Chai also added that many doctors prefer Glass over traditionally used hospital technology due to its simplicity and the fact that it can accomplish the same goals without a lot of complex wiring.
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While Googles wearable failed in its first attempt to enter the consumer electronics market, the Mountain View-based tech giant has already started a Glass revival project dubbed Aura and is hoping to have better luck this time.
Its within the first week of July and that means the Nexus security patches were due to hit the web any day now, and that day is today as Google has just released the patch for all compatible Nexus devices. For those that dont like waiting on the over-the-air updates to hit devices on their own, Google has kept things similar to last month and has released both the factory images and the OTA images on the OTA page, making it possible to flash the software to your device manually. What Google has done a tad bit different this month is split the security patch for July up into two separate groups, one that was released and labeled with the date July 1st, and one that was released and labeled with the date July 5th.
This might cause some confusion for users who are looking to make sure that theyre getting the correct download files for their device, but the good news is that there is essentially not much different about the two groups of patches. When it comes down to it, the July 5th release patch contains everything that the July 1st release patch contains, plus additional fixes for drivers that needed them. Users should end up getting the appropriate patch release for their device, so if it doesnt need fixes for the drivers your device would for example, presumably end up with the July 1st release.
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According to the details, there are a decent number of drivers fixes included in the July 5th patch level, and are meant for Android One devices, the Pixel C, and of course, Nexus devices. The driver fixes will apply to a few different hardware types since the fixes are designed for Android One, Pixel, and Nexus devices, meaning the driver fixes will include chips manufactured by Qualcomm which youll typically find in the Nexus hardware, as well as MediaTek which can be found in Android One devices, and NVIDIA which will be found inside of the Pixel C tablet. As stated users will now be able to flash the OTA and factory images for the July security patch already, or you can simply wait for the OTA to push out to your phone.
The Huawei Mate 8 is still the companys flagship phablet. This device was introduced back in November last year, and since then, the company had introduced quite a few devices, but they did not announce such a huge handset which is more powerful than the Mate 8. Well, a device that is quite similar to the Mate 8 (in terms of the design) has surfaced in China quite recently, and it seems like Huawei will officially introduce it soon, read on.
If you take a look at the gallery down below, youll get to see the upcoming Huawei Maimang 5 handset. This device was revealed via leaked promo materials, youll notice both Huaweis and Sunings branding in the first image down below, which more or less confirms this device will be sold by Suning in China, and based on its naming, the device will be available in China only, unless Huawei plans to re-brand it for other markets. The phone will be unveiled on July 14th, and the poster also shares the not afraid of being young slogan, which essentially means this phone is aimed at younger generations.
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The Huawei Maimang 5 will be made out of metal and glass it seems, and a fingerprint scanner will be placed on its back side. The phone will be fueled by either the Snapdragon 650 or 652 (it seems like well get to variants of the phone), and it will pack in 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The 16-megapixel OIS shooter will be placed on the back of this device, and it will be capable of shooting 4K videos. The phone is expected to cost 1,999 Yuan ($299) at launch, though nothing has been confirmed just yet.
All in all, this seems to be a mid-range offering by Huawei, even though we dont have its full spec sheet just yet. The Huawei Maimang 5 is also expected to ship with Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box, and on top of it, youll be able to find the companys very own Emotion UI (EMUI) skin. Thats more or less it, well let you know as soon as Huawei decides to introduce this handset, stay tuned.
Huawei are one of the largest Chinese smartphone manufacturers in the world. The company has been on something of a charm offensive for the last eighteen months, introducing a number of devices across the world in a serious attempt to sell products outside of the China and other Asian regions. These new products include a range of Honor smartphones, the Huawei Watch, which runs Android Wear, a range of new, powerful Kirin chipsets, courtesy of its semiconductor business, HiSilicon, and the premium Google Nexus device, the 6P. Huawei made its intentions known in early 2015: it wanted to push its technology and products around the world. The company has managed this: Huawei, and its associated brand names such as HiSilicon, Honor and Kirin, are now much better recognized across the world. One of the reasons why Huawei has been able to extend its product family across the world is because it has spent years establishing a patent portfolio with which to defend its technologies. Weve already seen Huawei tackle other smartphone manufacturers in the industry but yesterday, Huawei seemingly raised the stakes and made a complaint about T-Mobile US network.
Huawei is claiming that T-Mobile has used their patented technology, associated with 4G technologies as defined by the 3GPP release 8 and later. This covers all LTE technologies together with the higher performing 3G networking technologies that T-Mobile USA traditionally called 4G, such as DC-HSPA (which allows a maximum data download rate of 42 Mbps). Huaweis filing states that T-Mobile would be unable to operate its core wireless network without the use of Huaweis 4G Wireless Network Essential Patents, which could make things interesting for T-Mobile. You can read the complaint in full at the source link below.
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Huaweis documentation appears to sound as though the Chinese company has explored every other possibility before filing a lawsuit. Huawei state that they first tried to talk with T-Mobile US about their wireless patents a little over two years ago, in June 2014. Huawei tried to enter a non-disclosure agreement with T-Mobile before the discussions, but Americas third largest carrier refused. Earlier in the year, Huawei filed a patent infringement suit against T-Mobile but stated that it wanted to start discussions. At this point, T-Mobile US agreed to enter a non-disclosure agreement. However, Huaweis report states that the manufacturer and carrier then spent five months discussing the terms of the non-disclosure agreement and ultimately the licensing offer, before rejecting Huaweis FRAND offer (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory). Huaweis intention is to persuade the court that it has met its FRAND commitment by offering terms to T-Mobile, and to declare T-Mobile an unwilling licensee. At the time of writing, T-Mobile US have yet to (publicly) respond, but we will keep you notified of any developments.
The Auburn Police Department is encouraging people to check their money after arresting two Auburn men accused of passing counterfeit bills over a period of months.
Police announced Wednesday the arrests of 26-year-old Mathew Danforth, of 131 E. Genesee St., Auburn, and 39-year-old transient Nathan Nolan. A third suspect in the counterfeit U.S. currency scheme is still at large, police said.
APD officers began to look into the counterfeit bills on April 4 when patrol units investigated after a local pizza delivery driver was paid with a fake $100 bill. The bill was allegedly passed to the driver at a Grant Avenue apartment complex near Wal-Mart. And though the driver identified the bill as counterfeit within moments, police said the suspect fled the area.
The next day, authorities said another patrol unit looked into the use of numerous counterfeit $20 bills and three $100 bills at Wal-Mart between April 1 through 4. Auburn detectives investigated the case further, and police determined there were three potential suspects and two had appeared to have worked together.
One of the pair, Danforth, declined to cooperate during an interview at the APD station, police said. After he was identified by detectives, police said Nolan later admitted his involvement during a separate interview. The third suspect is noted as the passer of the false $20 bills and is still unidentified.
Police said Nolan turned himself in to Auburn police on June 14. He was charged with first-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, a felony, and fifth-degree conspiracy, a misdemeanor. He was later arraigned at Auburn court and was released on his own recognizance.
Police executed a warrant on Tuesday for Danforth's arrest at his Genesee Street residence.
He was charged with two counts of first-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument and two counts of felony first-degree falsifying business records as well as one count of petit larceny a misdemeanor and one count of fifth-degree conspiracy.
Police said Danforth was also charged with one additional count of petit larceny for a separate theft from Wal-Mart. Danforth was remanded to the Cayuga County Jail after his arraignment in city court.
Investigators said the investigation remains ongoing with a potential for further charges.
Authorities suspect that it is likely additional counterfeit $100 bills may be still circulating the city. The police department requests that businesses, financial institutions and consumers inspect any suspicious $10, $20, $50 or $100 bills.
For more information, visit the Secret Service website at secretservice.gov.
Nokia was one of the worlds leading mobile manufacturers. The company manufactured a range of devices running various platforms, including the once-market leading smartphone operating system, Symbian OS. However, Symbian OS which itself is related to an old British mobile device operating system, EPOC, developed by Psion was showing its age by the time the first Android smartphones appeared. Symbian OS was designed before many of todays features that we take for granted on even an entry-level smartphone, such as cameras, Bluetooth radios and Wi-Fi. Nokias software engineers built these features into Symbian OS but the platform proved too old to be competitive in the mid to late 2000s. After deliberation, Nokia refused to adopt Googles Android platform or their own internal Meamo software and instead went with Microsofts Windows Phone platform. For a long time, Nokia was the only manufacturer selling a decent number of Windows Phone devices and perhaps because of this, Microsoft bought the mobile hardware manufacturing business from the company, leaving the research, development and mobile networks divisions remaining. As part of this arrangement, Nokia were prevented from selling a smartphone until the third quarter of 2016.
Over the months since the Microsoft purchase of Nokia, weve seen Nokia release an Android-powered tablet, which although availability is limited has been well received. We have also seen a number of what are supposed test models built by Nokia but not for sale. This news in itself is exciting because Nokias reputation for building good-quality, well-designed handsets means that their smartphones had the essentials covered: good signal, good quality voice and as it happens, typically a good camera. Earlier in the year, Nokia started inking a number of deals and collaborations that would allow the company to license its name for use on Android-powered smartphones and tablets. Names linked with this deal included Foxconn, the third party handset manufacturer, and HMB, which is managed by a number of former senior Microsoft mobile division managers and executives.
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Now that the third quarter of 2016 is underway, a press render claiming to show a new Nokia-branded smartphone, which will run Android, has been leaked. This device is to be known as the P1 and as you can see from the image below, will be available in two colors: salmon and blue. The model is reputedly designed by InFocus / Sharp engineers, and Sharp is owned by Foxconn these days, so there is a tenuous link being made here. However, other than the image there is no further information in regards to the size, specification, software, likely availability and price for the Nokia P1. The authenticity of the leaked image cannot be vouched for and caution should be taken that this could be a red (or salmon pink at least) herring. Meanwhile, you can check out the leaked render below.
The OnePlus 3 is the latest flagship smartphone from OnePlus and following in the traditional OnePlus trend, this is a smartphone which looks to offer a very high-spec device at a not so high-spec price. Needless to say, it does already seem to be selling well and attracting a significant amount of attention from the general market. This is also a device which seems to be off to a good start in terms of updates with OnePlus already pushing out updates to fix various issues and add improvements. The latest of which is the OxygenOS 3.2.0 update which started rolling out to OnePlus 3 smartphones yesterday.
That said, it does now look like the update has been temporarily halted. According to the edited OnePlus blog on the update, the update roll out has been temporarily stopped due to some reports of issues while upgrading. OnePlus has not gone into details on what those issues are but have confirmed that they are temporarily stopping the rollout to investigate and will recommence the rolling out as soon as possible.
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While OnePlus has yet to provide details on the reported issue(s), it seems some areas of social media including the OnePlus forums are providing insight into what those issues could be. One particular OnePlus forum thread is stating that after updating, IMEI numbers are being sent over HTTP instead of HTTPS. According to the details, this is happening when OnePlus 3 owners are hitting the Check for updates feature in the settings. As a result and the assumption being made, is that when checking for an update, the IMEI number of the phone checking for the update becomes visible to anyone who is on the same network at the time of update checking. Of course, OnePlus has yet to confirm whether this is an issue at all, or whether this is the issue which has halted the update or whether there are other issues as well. However, those interested in finding out more about the reported IMEI issue or reading the OnePlus updated blog post on the stopping of the rolling out, can do so by heading through the source links below.
Sony Xperia X Performance, 2016 has been a monumental year in many ways, and for Sony Mobile those ways are looking increasingly more grim. Worldwide the Sony Xperia Z lineup did pretty well for itself over the past couple of years, but for a number of reasons Sony seems to have wanted to re-brand its bi-annual flagship series to the Xperia X, and with it completely changed what makes each phone in the series different. Unlike phones in the Xperia Z series, which were sold in different physical sizes but all of which featured the same internals, the Xperia X lineup is sold in 3 different hardware configurations but all in the same 5-inch package. The Xperia X Performance is the top dog in the Xperia X series, and encompasses the latest tech in almost every regard. Does the Xperia X Performance have what it takes to finally get people to notice Sony Mobile in many parts of the world, or has Sony already given up that dream? Lets find out.
Video Review
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Specs
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On paper the Xperia X Performance has everything you could likely want in a $700 flagship smartphone in 2016. Its not millimeter for millimeter the same size as the Xperia X that weve already reviewed, but its so close its basically the same unless you place them side by side. The body measures 143.7mm tall by 70.4mm wide and 8.7mm thick, weighing a relatively hefty 164.4 grams. This all means that its ever so slightly bigger than the Xperia X, about a millimeter thicker and 10 grams heavier too. Whats packed inside feels every bit more premium though, and thankfully so given the price increase. A 5-inch 1080p Triluminos IPS LCD display sits up front, and powering the display and performance youll find a Qualcomm MSM8996 Snapdragon 820 SoC, which packs a dual-core 2.15GHz Kryo CPU with a dual-core 1.6GHz Kryo CPU, as well as an Adreno 530 GPU.
3GB of RAM powers the multi-tasking experience, and 32GB of internal storage keeps things going. If thats not enough theres microSD card support for up to 256GB, and youll also find that a non-removable 2,700mAh battery rests inside the all-metal chasis. A 13-megapixel 1/3 sensor with f/2.0 lens sits up front above the display, while the rear camera is a 23-megapixel 1/2.3 sensor with f/2.0 lens as well. Dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi is supported up to 802.11ac speeds, Bluetooth 4.2 with aptX support and even wireless LDAC high quality audio are here, as well as 24-bit wired audio support too. The Xperia X Performance ships in white, graphite black, lime gold and rose gold colors, and carries the IP68 water resistant and dust proofing standard. Lastly the software side of the house runs Sonys latest minimal UI with lots of extra features atop Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow.
In The Box
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Contents of the box are a neat but light affair. A white top with grey X is pulled up to reveal a much more colorful box underneath, containing the phone atop a smattering of warranty pamphlets and a small manual. Underneath that sits a 5v/1.5a wall charger and its accompanying microUSB to USB Type-A cable. This charger is a bit unfortunate as it doesnt quite meet the Qualcomm QuickCharge 2.0 standard that the phone supports, meaning youll need to buy an additional higher wattage charger to get that fast charging ability. Many of the extras Sony includes are in the form of software rather than hardware goodies or pack-ins, which well cover in the software section.
Display
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Sony has been a large backer of LCD technology in just about every market its in, and the smartphone market plays a key part in that strategy. Sonys Triluminos panels have been around for years now, and generally offer up some good qualities to them, but dont eschew what you would normally expect from an IPS LCD panel. Brightness levels are excellent, and sunlight viewing shouldnt be an issue in all but the absolute brightest of direct sunlight. Viewing angles are superb and dont show much of any dimming at all, even at extreme angles, and the only color shifting occurs on pure whites, which take on a slightly rosy tone to them at extreme angles. White balance, especially when looking mostly straight on, is absolutely excellent, and as a result the overall color balance ranges on perfect in every way.
The less than positive qualities of the display come in the expected black levels, which range from good to poor depending on the brightness of the backlight, but arent out of range for an IPS LCD. Whats not so great or expected is the amount of light bleed from the corners of the panel, especially the top edge and the corners of the display, which look quite bad at angles, especially if the screen is showing something darker on it. The refresh rate of the panel is also pretty abysmal, and exhibits significant trailing and ghosting when scrolling no matter the contrast level of the objects on the screen. This last part in particular makes it feel like a much worse, older display than it would otherwise, and end up dragging the positive notes of the display down a notch or two.
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The digitizer is a particularly important part in any displays quality too, as it encapsulates the entire touch component of the users experience with the phone. Sonys digitizers of late have been a big disappointing for a flagship phone, and this one continues that disappointment. While it didnt have as many problems as the one on the Xperia X, the digitizer on the Xperia X Performance left a little to be desired at various times throughout the day. When typing, particularly fast, I found ghost swipes and other oddities would happen, making the incorrect words or pair of words appear on screen instead of what I actually pressed. This is rather a shame too since the digitizer here has a glove mode, which is unbelievably convenient if you live in a colder climate where youll need to regularly wear gloves during the course of the year, as you wont have to remove them to use the phone.
Hardware and Build
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The Xperia X Performance is a Sony device in every use of the term. Featuring a premium build that feels both heavy and durable, yet elegant and sleek, Sonys Omnibalance design language shines through and through with this flagship. Just as we noted with the Xperia X, the Xperia X Performance shares the same design language as the Xperia Z5. Unlike the Xperia X though, the Xperia X Performance is water and dust resistant to the highest standard, IP68 as most Sony flagships have been for ages now. On the right just north of center sits the recessed power button, which in most markets contains a fingerprint scanner as well. For the US launch Sony has yet again pilfered this scanner from all Xperia X models, including the flagship Performance phone, which makes no sense whatsoever in a market where this has become a standard item. It also means issues with using something like Android Pay in a hassle free way, and will require a PIN any time you need to do such a transaction.
Below the power button sits the volume rocker and dedicated camera shutter button, two things irregular to the market. This position on the phone is certainly an interesting one, and one in which I definitely found myself preferring over a higher positioned one. On the left side of the phone is a sealed dual-SIM/microSD card tray thats removable via a simple slot to stick your fingernail in. The bottom of the phone features a center positioned microUSB port, while the top features a 3.5mm headset jack situated almost all the way to the left. On the back youll only find the camera on the top left, with a single LED flash below it. Up front sits a pair of stereo front-facing speakers both above and below the screen, as well as some sizable bezels around the screen, likely for the water and dust proofing this unit features.
The weight of the phone is slightly heavier than average, but is still light enough to not be a bother, all while retaining plenty of weight to feel solid and quality. While Sony says this is a metal phone, it doesnt really look or feel metal. The rounded edges are strong and sleek, but they dont look or feel any different from plastic ones in my estimation other than feeling maybe a hair more solid. The back of the phone feels similar to the LG G5 in that it might be metal underneath, but the back seems to be coated with some sort of polymer. In addition to this it feels a tad bit hollow and has an unsatisfying sound to it when tapping on the back. Thankfully it looks gorgeous though, especially the rose gold color we have for review, and appears like it would fit in with a premium mindset in every way.
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Performance and Memory
The top class of performance in a mobile device is the Snapdragon 820 SoC, which the Xperia X Performance touts, and it absolutely feels that way in every respect. Apps launch nearly instantly, and both transitions within apps as well as moving between apps only lasts as long as the brief animation between windows. These latest generation of mobile SoCs, especially the Snapdragon 820, are all designed with higher than HD resolution in mind, even though the Xperia X Performance only has a 1080p panel. That means youll likely never see a stutter or drop in framerate or noticeable drop in performance no matter what you do, outside of the rare or weird occasion of course. Gaming on the Xperia X Performance is flawless, and I found frame rates and overall performance to be superb.
Multi-tasking was mostly an excellent experience, although I found that a fair fewer number of apps could fit into memory than I expected. I could go back about 6-8 apps in the Overview carousel before seeing any kind of reloading, which isnt bad by any means, but I expected this number to be well over 10 given that this is only a 1080p display. Display resolution plays a bit part in RAM usage overall, especially ambient usage of the OS, which is why 3GB of RAM should be plenty sufficient for just about anything you need to reopen. Sonys commitment to software navigation buttons also means a quick and easy way to pull up this interface via single button click, and I really never found myself wanting for more in this area in normal day to day use.
VR Performance
Right off the bat there are two big things the Xperia X Performance has going against it in the VR realm. The size of the screen is generally just a hair too small for most phones, and usually a 5-inch or smaller screen will cause eye strain in VR due to the closeness of the double image required for VR immersion. On top of that the display has a rather nasty persistence rate in which pixels trail significantly when movement is on screen. Somehow though Sony has gotten around this when in VR, something that doesnt really make a ton of sense but ends up not resulting in a double negative for the Xperia X performance. The higher persistence rate of the display is definitely noticeable when in VR though, so its entirely likely that folks who get easily motion sick will have issues when using this phone for VR purposes.
Thats a shame too because the 1080p resolution coupled with the incredibly powerful Snapdragon 820 CPU and Adreno 530 GPU make this one of the best combinations of hardware and display for VR performance. In addition to that the front-facing stereo speakers on the Xperia X Performance really help immerse you even further into the VR experience if you dont want to use headphones, and really do a fantastic job of creating a virtual world, especially when that virtual surround sound option is enabled for the external speakers. Overall this is a good VR performer, surprisingly enough given the score of such similar devices on the market, and gets a thumbs up for most cases from us.
Benchmarks
Qualcomms Snapdragon 820 is the fastest and most efficient SoC the company has ever made, and as such youll regularly see devices powered by this chipset sitting at the absolute top of device performance benchmark lists. Sonys Xperia X Performance sits a little lower than most Snapdragon 820 powered phones though, for whatever reason, but that doesnt make it appear any slower in normal day to day usage. See below for all the benchmarks we ran against the phone during our testing period:
Wireless Connectivity
Theres a lot more to a modern smartphone than simple cell network connectivity, and thats why its important to look at all the wireless connectivity aspects of the phone. Dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi support is here, with support for speeds up to 802.11 b/g/n/a/ac. NFC is actually on the front of the device above the screen, which is a peculiar position to place it at for some tasks, but when using the phone to pay for items via Android Pay or another mobile NFC-based payments system, this placement directly correlates to where the fingerprint scanner is located (only in non-US models of course). Theres also the matter of Bluetooth v4.2 connectivity here too, and a built in profile for linking the PS4 DualShock 4 controller to your phone without having to use any crazy dongles or apps.
Cell connectivity is going to be the main concern for everyday communication for most people though, and Im happy to report that all supported GSM LTE networks here in the US worked well on the Xperia X Performance. T-Mobile and AT&T signal strength was excellent, but there doesnt seem to be any native support for Voice over LTE or WiFi calling for these carriers specifically. All models of the Xperia X Performance contain the same radios, and the range of compatibility for this device is incredibly high to say the least. See the list of all supported networks below for the Xperia X Performance, and of course check with your carrier of choice before making the purchase to ensure 100% compatibility.
2G: 850/900/1800/1900MHz
3G: 800/850/900/1700/1900/2100MHz
4G LTE Bands: 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/13/17/19/20/26/28/29/38/39/40/41
Battery Life
Putting a small battery in a modern smartphone is generally only done when a phone needs to be extraordinarily thin, and while the 2,700mAh battery inside the Xperia X Performance is definitely smaller than the average smartphones battery nowadays, the thickness of the phone certainly isnt. Engineering a smartphone is no small feat, but it feels like Sony should have packed in a bit more battery given the relative thickness of the phone, as well as the non-removable nature of the battery. Because of this youre likely going to see less than average battery life on the Xperia X Performance, and I found in my time that it was difficult to achieve even 3 hours of screen on time as well as a full day of use without needing to charge the phone. Using Sonys battery saving features will definitely help you out in this area, and by default the phone will actually warn you at 30% battery rather than Androids standard 15%.
These battery saving modes will do anything from restricting the speed of your CPU and the brightness of your display, all the way to restricting what apps can be used in the case of the extreme battery saving STAMINA mode. Either way we shouldnt have to use these features to get through a full day in 2016, and having something like Qualcomm QuickCharge 2.0 to save the day will only go so far. This technology will charge the battery up to 60% in as little as 30 minutes, meaning if youre low on juice and need to charge up, youre likely to get through the rest of the day on this small top-up. I found that it took significantly longer than that to charge to 100% though, something much closer to the 2 hour range using a certified QuickCharge 2.0 charger, and the one in the box will take even longer thanks to its lower wattage.
Sound
Sound is certainly one of the fortes of Sony as a whole, and especially when it comes to their mobile products. As one of the leading pioneers in the high resolution audio revolution thats taking shape, Sony is pushing its latest Xperia X devices as one of the foremost ways to listen to such high quality music. While weve started seeing many companies like Samsung and HTC push high-res audio out of the box as well, No one has quite as many features for how to enjoy 24-bit audio as Sony does. At this point in time most music is still standard resolution, and even some of the high profile streaming audio services that specialize in higher bit rate or higher quality audio dont stream at the full 24-bit quality that the high-res audio standard demands.
Thankfully for those moments Sony has a great feature called DSEE HX, which interpolates the range of audio thats playing on the phone, no matter if that audio is coming from a video, music or game, and attempts to fill in the gaps to make it sound more like high-resolution audio. In general this does an excellent job and significantly improves audio quality in some situations, although its not going to be right for every situation. If you dont have a high-res audio system you may just want to stick with any of the other settings here, which include ClearAudio+, Dynamic normalizer, virtual surround sound or just try to equalize it yourself using Sonys excellent built-in tools.
Folks who hate wires will be happy to note that Sony is here to offer more ways to stream high quality audio than any other OEM on the market. This doesnt just include the amazing aptX Bluetooth codec that streams significantly higher bit rate audio to your supported Bluetooth device, but also streaming through Sonys own LDAC standard. You can find out more about these technologies on Sonys website, including supported peripherals and where to buy them, but these advances are significant in the quest to remove the 3.5mm headset jack, all while realizing we cant jump full force into this future just yet without proper hardware support.
Lets say youre watching a YouTube video, some other movie or just trying to enjoy some ambient tunes while studying, but dont feel like lugging out that wired or wireless speaker system, or going through the annoyance of putting your headphones on. As Im doing while typing this paragraph, Xperia X Performance users can enjoy their music in nearly as high quality of audio using the built-in stereo speakers found right on the front of the phone. These speakers arent just loud, theyre also clear and have an amazing range of audio. Pair this with the virtual surround feature found in sound options and youll be filling up the room with glorious, wonderful sound every time you walk in to one. These are absolutely superb speakers and make listening to your favorite album as much of a joy as a Bluetooth speaker or other portable sound system would.
Software
Over the years Sony has maintained one of the least intrusive and obstructive skins among OEMs out there, all while still offering tons of features and added value that stock Android doesnt have. This time around Sony is shipping its latest with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, all with Sonys lightest skin yet running on top. Right on the home screen youll find quick shortcuts to the handful of apps Sony has pre-installed on the phone, hoping youll try these services out and stick with as much Sony as you can muster. The Whats New app will pretty much feature everything that Sony has to offer though, and acts as a central hub of sorts for sorting all of the newest Sony content into one place.
From here youll find Sonys own recommendations of apps and games to get, all of which are direct links to their Play Store listings. Sony offers a really interesting feature here called Instant Games, which will use a built-in HTML 5 engine to deliver games to you without having to install them or download the entire thing before playing. Most of these are bite sized little games, but its likely thats just the type of game youd be playing on your phone often anyway. Sony clearly has some deals going on with Spotify, too, as both their music app and the music section in Whats New feature deep Spotify integration, from being able to play music straight from Spotifys service in the music app, to finding trending playlists and new albums in the Whats New app.
Theres also some Amazon partnership here too, as the audio books section of Whats New directs you straight to the Audible website and even gives you a special 2 free books offer if you sign up through the app. Finding new movies is easy through the movies section, and you can even view trailers and film synopsis right through the app too. Lastly, Whats New offers a place to make sure all your Sony apps are up to date if the Play Store isnt doing a good enough job of notifying you, or just letting you know about system updates.
Aside from this there are quite a few apps and services thatll be very familiar to anyone whos owned a Sony smartphone in the past. Lifelog helps keep track of your days and doesnt just log your steps and other health information, it also adds in anything else youve done that day including places youve been, pictures youve taken, phone calls youve made, etc. Its a really cool way to look back at your days and see exactly what youve been up to, and a really fantastic way to tie all those things together in one coherent place. Sony is also very good about building in links to popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter into all their stock apps, allowing you to share things easily. This even includes some of the more media-heavy apps like Movie Creator, Sketch and others.
UI/UX
Sony has long been one of the best OEMs when it comes to sticking to a mostly stock Android look, with a bit of Sony flair thrown in here and there. As HTC tends to do with their skin, Sony mostly just changes the system icons and of course has unique icons for their own apps, but other than this the UI looks essentially stock in every regard. This is excellent for sticking to Material Design standards, and as has been shown in the past it means Sony can get updates out for the next major version of Android quicker than other OEMs too.
There is one big thing that Sony has added to Android that isnt going to be found in a more stock version of the OS; themes. Sonys theme engine is quite powerful, although its not actually customizable. There are hundreds of themes on the Google Play Store, and Sony offers a great UI front-end for finding these themes, which all link directly to their Play Store listings. You wont be able to pick and choose parts of one theme to fit on another though, so its take it or leave it with the entire theme. These themes do theme the entire system though, not just the stock launcher as some OEMs have chosen to do, and plenty of both free and paid versions of themes are available to users. Some of these are gaudy and obviously made by amateurs, but there are plenty from Sony themselves as well as 3rd party designers that look phenomenal.
Camera Software
Sonys camera software has long been one of the weakest points of their mobile experiences, and while there are improvements in this version of the camera software over past Xperia phones, the software itself still leaves a bit to be desired from a design standpoint. As we mentioned in the Xperia X review, Sonys new camera software fully bakes in the industry trend of swiping to move between modes in the camera, with a pop-up listing on the left side of the screen that lets you know which mode youre in. Switching between these modes takes only a fraction of a second, but youll need to swipe through all of them to get from one end to the other if you are looking for settings opposite each other on the listing. This means that if you were in manual mode and wanted to go to the camera apps section, you would need to swipe up 3 times to get there, all while waiting for the phone it change modes in between each setting.
The only quick buttons that are available on the front of the camera interface are toggle flash, switch between front and rear facing camera, and the shutter button. This shutter button is unfortunately a single button and doesnt contain a second shutter or record button, so youll have to switch between these modes to either take a picture or record a video, adding precious seconds to switching modes. Theres no way to quickly adjust things like exposure or white balance without going into the manual mode, and even then you have to open up the adjustment menu to bring it up on screen. Other settings are nested deep within the camera settings menu and are really quite annoying to find, and take way too long to find anyway. Some of these should absolutely be right on the front of the camera UI too, like locking the display to keep it from being pressed when wet. This is obviously an integral part of the camera experience on a phone thats designed to be IP68 water and dust resistant, and otherwise is an excellent way to take pictures and video under water by locking the screen and taking pictures via the dedicated hardware shutter button.
Past Xperia users will find almost all of the aforementioned camera apps here too, which are located in the topmost camera section. This allows Sony to add significant functionality to the camera app without adding to the size of the camera app itself, as each of the individual camera apps are all standalone APKs from the Play Store. Inherently this means some will be free while others will cost money, but most are just a dollar or two and dont amount to a ton of cash. Many of these will have their own interface, but usually play off the usual reference designs the industry uses.
Camera Performance and Results
Just as the camera takes a while to switch between modes because of the poor design of the mode listing, its also not the fastest to launch or capture a shot either. Holding down the camera shutter button, launching from the lockscreen or just from the apps icon on your homescreen will find a full 3 seconds or more before you can even take a shot. While 3 seconds doesnt seem like a particularly long time at all, its nearly 3 times as long as leading flagships in the industry like the Galaxy S7 or OnePlus 3 to name a few. Once in memory the camera software will launch quicker, but it gets booted out of memory quickly because its a large app. On top of this loading time to get into the app youll find that it tries to refocus the shot every single time you press the shutter button, leading to another half to a full second before the shot is actually taken. This caused me to miss shots more than once, and while its not terribly slow it definitely became annoying, especially if youre used to a faster camera experience.
For the most part the shots captured look excellent. The quality of the shots most of the time honestly look like they came from a DSLR camera rather than a smartphone, and I found the color accuracy and overall balance of the shot to be among the finest in the industry. Sonys latest generation 23-megapixel sensor is on board, and while it features some pretty small pixels when compared to the giant ones in the Galaxy S7 or Nexus 6p, youre not likely to notice in most lighting conditions. Particularly in good light, such as sunlight or indoors inside a store, the camera absolutely excels at its job. Dynamic range really phenomenal and doesnt appear to rely on HDR to get the job done, although without an obvious delineation in the software or on the names of the shots its difficult to tell if its using HDR at all during the regular intelligent auto mode.
As you should expect from a 23-megapixel sensor the amount of detail here borders on insane in most lighting conditions. Sonys denoise filter does a great job of clipping out noise while still retaining details, even in relatively lower lighting conditions, and really helps bring out the nitty gritty parts of a picture when zoomed in all the way. There was only one time I caught the camera holding the shutter open too long, when I was trying to get a picture of the flowers of the pink Crepe Myrtle that you can see in the gallery below. I took a number of shots in a row and the one I saved to the Flickr gallery here is the clearest of all the shots, yet its still blurry as all getup even in the middle of the day. This was an oddity, not the norm by any means, and even in low light I didnt have this happen.
Taking pictures and video underwater is nothing short of a surreal experience. Its highly likely that anyone whos going to pay full price for the phone will be more than nervous about taking it underwater with them, but with an IP68 rating signifying that its fully dust proof and can last 1 meter under water for up to 30 minutes, you very much can take it on your next beach trip or in the pool. The best way to take photos underwater is to use the touch block mode, found in camera settings and pictured above, and then use the hardware shutter button on the right side of the Xperia X Performance. This makes it feel like a real camera and works absolutely flawlessly underwater.
Low light was a bit of a mixed bag though, and really low light just isnt going to come out well thanks to the super small pixels on this sensor. Theres just no way to get around physics, and although there are plenty of pixels on the face of the sensor, none of them are large enough to give truly good low light shots without significant visual artifacts. Looking at the night time shots of a neighborhood street youll see lots of blue vignetting around the entire frame of the camera, creating a massively distracting display on the image. Details otherwise are decent, but they dont stand up to the Galaxy S7 or Nexus 6p to name some of the better low light performers out there, and youll likely want to use the flash in these occasions instead.
Video stands up to scrutiny thanks to Sonys excellent Intelligent Active stabilization algorithm that works to keep the image as steady as possible even through heavy movement. Whats inexcusable from a flagship device in 2016 is the complete lack of 4K video, which is beyond bizarre given Sonys massive push into the 4K realm with its TVs and other multimedia equipment. The only options here are 1080p 30FPS and 1080p 60FPS, the latter of which is nice but ultimately disappointing for those hoping to utilize their new Snapdragon 820 powered phone and that massive 23-megapixel sensor. This standpoint makes no sense whatsoever, and at this point in time really hurts the Xperia X Performance in ways that just shouldnt be the case. On top of that theres no super slow motion video either, only 120FPS 720P video, so folks hoping for whats become an industry standard 240FPS 720P experience wont find it here. Check out all our sample shots and videos at the album below and judge for yourself.
The Good
Excellent build quality
IP68 dust and water resistant
Minimalistic UI, yet lots of features
Lots of added value and tie-ins
Superb stereo front-facing speakers
Integral part of a high-resolution sound lifestyle
Good VR performance
Amazing camera photo quality in most lighting conditions
The Bad
No fingerprint scanner on US model
Mediocre display for a 2016 flagship
Less than average battery life
Camera software can be slow
No 4K recording
Low light camera performance is poor
Conclusion
Sonys latest flagship delivers their promise of quality in many respects, paying great homage to Xperia flagships of the past. It falls short in a number of areas though, and for $700 youre absolutely going to find other phones that do just about everything else better that you can think of. Still some master craftsmanship on the build, unbelievable sound quality, world class stereo speakers on the body, some great added value on the software front, as well as a fantastic photo experience help bring some of the biggest positive notes of the Xperia X Performance out in the open for all to see. Its difficult not to be disappointed by poor battery life, lack of 4K recording and an LCD panel with a terrible refresh rate in 2016 though, and its these handful of big negatives thatll make spending $700 on Sonys latest a tough sell when compared to the bevy of good competition on the market. Its very difficult for me to recommend any flagship without a fingerprint scanner too, and while other regions of the world will get one in the Xperia X Performance, US residents get left in the dust yet again. Judge for yourself, but Sonys got an uphill battle ahead of itself with this one, and seemingly with the whole Xperia X series as well.
Later this year Samsung Electronics is expected to launch its next Galaxy Note in the series, and assuming that the rumors so far are correct, the terminal will be released under the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 moniker, despite it being the 6th model in the series. But more to the topic at hand, new evidence now suggests that Samsung could also release a redesigned Gear VR headset to match the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. The mysterious device was recently spotted on the import-export tracking website Zauba in India, where the headset seems to have been shipped for testing and evaluation purposes.
Although several flagship phones launched this year have been equipped with the latest USB Type-C reversible connector, one of the most exciting top-tier smartphones so far did not. Were referring, of course, to the Samsung Galaxy S7 series, which uses a more conventional microUSB port instead. This is because, by the time the Samsung Galaxy S7 lineup was released, the first commercial version of the Samsung Gear VR headset was already on the market. Needless to say, the Samsung Gear VR lacks a USB Type-C connector and relies on microUSB, so one of the main reasons why the companys latest flagship phones have not jumped on the USB Type-C bandwagon was to maintain compatibility with the Samsung Gear VR. However, its logical to assume that at one point in the future, Samsung will have to switch lanes and adopt USB Type-C in both its VR headsets and future flagship phones. That point in the future could arrive along with the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, expected to adopt the newer USB standard. However if this is the case then its also logical to assume that Samsung should be working on a Gear VR redesign for a late-2016 release, otherwise the company would leave the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 out of the VR market. Sure enough, fresh evidence now suggests that Samsung Electronics could have already shipped its redesigned Samsung Gear VR to India for R&D purposes.
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Specifically, a new Samsung device identified by model number SM-R323 was spotted in India, and the model number itself strongly suggests that this is a new Samsung Gear VR headset. This is because the first Innovator Edition Gear VR for the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 was identified by model number SM-R320, whereas the Innovator Edition for the Samsung Galaxy S6 carried model number SM-R321. The ongoing consumer version is known as SM-R322, and so the newly discovered SM-R323 appears to be part of the same line of products. The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 should be officially unveiled in late-August / early-September at IFA 2016 in Berlin, and assuming that the SM-R323 is indeed a redesigned Samsung Gear VR with a USB Type-C connector in tow, then its very likely that the product will be unveiled along with the Galaxy Note 7. However, only time will tell whether or not the headset will offer any other new features aside from a different connector.
The flip phone seems to be a dying breed, and evidently one of the main factors contributing to their decreasing appeal lies in the introduction of full touchscreen devices. However, some markets remain open to the idea of flip phones, and China which is also the largest mobile market in the world is one of them. Over the years Samsung has been supplying this market niche with a couple of clamshell models, and apparently the company is working on a new generation of flip phones for the said region, and possibly others. You may already be familiar with the SM-G1600 which was cleared by the FCC last week, but more recently, a second clamshell phone by Samsung reached the headlines after it was briefly spotted on the Indian import-export tracking website known as Zauba.
The smartphone in question carries model number SM-W2017 and is allegedly known by the codename Veyron behind the scenes. If history is any indication, the device should be a new entry in the Samsung Galaxy Golden series of flip phones. As a refresher, the first Samsung Galaxy Golden model was released in China carrying model number SM-W2014, and was followed by the SM-W2015 (Galaxy Golden 2) and the SM-W2016 which, to no ones surprise, is called the Samsung Galaxy Golden 3. With that in mind, the new piece of the puzzle the SM-W2017 is most likely a new entry in the series, and could be released under the Samsung Galaxy Golden 4 moniker. In any case, the smartphone was spotted in India where it has been shipped for research & development, and the only hardware characteristics revealed by Zauba is the size of the display, which allegedly clocks in at 4.2 inches 0.3 inches larger than the previous model.
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Although no other hardware details have been mentioned, the SM-W2017 is expected to borrow several flagship characteristics, including an Exynos 8890 SoC, a 12-megapixel main camera with Dual Pixel autofocus, and presumably a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. As such and like the previous generations, the SM-W2017 should be a more powerful clamshell compared to the SM-G1600 / Samsung Galaxy Folder 2, which should occupy the mid-range segment. Will these smartphones be the precursors to the so-called Project Valley in 2017, said to feature a clamshell design and a flexible / foldable display? The projects seem unrelated, but then again these (non-flexible) flip phones could remind us that this particular form factor may still have some appeal.
While it could still take years of negotiations and legal formalities before Britain will officially be able to step out of the European Union, many companies operating in the UK have already started to brace themselves for the transition. Some are even said to be considering relocating their offices or EU headquarters to locations such as Paris or Frankfurt. South Koreas premier technology company, Samsung Electronics, is one such firm that was rumored to be considering shifting its European Headquarters from Chertsey, near London, to countries like the Netherlands, Germany or Poland, even as the wind of Eurosceptic politics that has swept up large sections of the British population starts making its presence felt across the continent in the wake of the Brexit result in the EU referendum.
Now, however, in what must be music to the ears of policy-makers in the UK, reports coming out of South Korea early Wednesday apparently claims that for now at least, Samsung Electronics is not considering moving its European operations out of Britain. Sections of the financial media in Samsungs homeland are quoting an unnamed Samsung executive, who seems to have confirmed that Maintaining the current location is the companys official stance. The unnamed company executive apparently reasoned that Brexit will not hamper the company as much as it might affect some other players, as it already operates sales units in many of the EU countries to tailor its products individually for those regions. There is, however, no official statement from Samsung regarding the issue at this point in time.
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Meanwhile, Samsungs operations in the UK are restricted to its sales and marketing departments, as the company does not operate manufacturing facilities in the country. Samsung, however, does run a manufacturing plant in Poland, given the significantly lower overall cost of operations in that country. While Samsung has now seemingly dismissed suggestions of shifting base from the UK, reports from yesterday had indicated that the company had cut over 17,000 thousand jobs across the world last year in places like China, Europe, South America and even its home country of South Korea. The company, however, more than made up for that by recruiting a whopping 325,677 people during the financial year in question, mostly in places like South East Asia and Japan.
Are you frustrated with your smartphones poor battery life and are constantly on the hunt for a power outlet to plug your pocket companion into? Are you dreaming of the day when you wont have to carry a 10,000 mAh power bank with you each time you decide to leave your house for more than a couple of hours? Well, according to latest reports, that goal is closer to being within reach thanks to Sarbajit Banerjee, a renowned chemist from Texas A&M University. Namely, Banerjee and his team of scientists have recently published their latest research in the newest edition of the Nature Communications journal in which they argue that they could potentially create significantly more efficient batteries by addressing the biggest problem of the currently existing ones. As the paper explains, that issue is a result of ions essentially becoming gridlocked, a process which occurs in modern lithium-ion batteries and inhibits both the charging and discharging.
You expect a certain performance from a battery, and you rarely ever get there, states Banerjee, adding that each battery has a completely final lifespan given how it dies a bit each time its used. However, while thats pretty much common knowledge, the Texas-based chemist believes that people dont understand why exactly that is. The study published in Nature Communications attempts to do precisely that. So, using the extremely powerful Scanning Transmission X-ray Microscope (STXM), Banerjee and his colleagues from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory managed to capture and record the aforementioned traffic jam of lithium ions in certain nanowire-based channels of a simulated battery. To put it more simply, electrons linked with lithium ions basically get trapped in these channels and instead of forming a constant flow of charge, they turn into disconnected puddles of charge because they always stop somewhere along the way of getting out of their host, i.e. powering the device. The fact that these traffic jams of ions slow down the process of discharging the battery means that devicesbe it phones, tablets, laptops, or anything elseare unable to exploit their batteries to their full theoretical potential.
According to the scientists responsible for this research, the solution to this issue is designing better logic circuitry which would account for the fact that when left on its own, electrons in lithium ions move in a jerky manner and are directly responsible for the fact that these traffic jams occur. The first step in that endeavor is to develop new materials which will then be used for making better circuits that allow for a better and more consistent flow of energy. While the paper itself doesnt go into great detail regarding this possible solution, Banerjees team still believe it to be seminal as it has managed to identify the root cause of the poor performance of lithium-ion batteries.
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So, to put things more plainly, these scientists believe that the best way to build a battery thats superior to the current crop of electronic device-powering containers is to come up with a better, more efficient way of moving electrons. How does one do that? Banerjee and his team believe there are only two solutions to that challenge. One is designing new materials from which better circuitry can be manufactured, which these scientists are currently trying to accomplish. More specifically, they want to develop a material which wont contain places where electrons tend to stop moving for a while and believe theyll be successful because theyve managed to identify these places while conducting this research. If that fails, the existing lithium-ion battery architectures can theoretically be designed to be smaller becausesimply speakingsmaller stuff moves faster than bigger stuff. However, the team is hopeful that its first idea will bear fruit in the near future as it already has certain materials in mind and is currently in the process of trying to get research on those materials published. While were waiting and keeping our fingers crossed for better and more efficient batteries to finally be developed, the best way to get more kick out of the existing ones is to use some of the many battery-extending apps available for Android smartphones and tablets on the Google Play Store.
Major carriers like Verizon and T-Mobile as well as technology companies Qualcomm have recently expressed their frustrations with the slow progress of the Wi-Fi Alliance in finalizing timelines for initiating LTE-U test plans. While the carriers have maintained that they are ready and willing to deploy LTE-U equipment using licensed and unlicensed spectrum at the earliest, Qualcomm laments that the process has been dragging on for over a year, where it should have in fact been implemented over a year ago. On its part, the Wi-Fi Alliance maintains that there are several issues that remain to be addressed, given that its decisions will be taken on the basis of a consensus between LTE-U and Wi-Fi stakeholders, but hopes that the final test plan will be released by September of this year.
As of now, a major difference of opinion exists in the industry on whether LTE-U, which will thrive on unlicensed spectrum, should be implemented or the industry should wait for LAA, which is based on licensed spectrum and whose standards process is currently being vetted by 3GPP and is not expected to launch until the middle of next year. If Verizon and T-Mobile get to implement LTE-U now, it would give them a head-start over their rivals as LAA is more than a year away from being used. However, their frustrations have not been shared by rival carrier AT&T. AT&T has made it clear that it prefers to wait for the standardized LAA technology rather than implementing LTE-U which may cause possible damage to nearby Wi-Fi systems. Unlike LTE-U, LAA would check on available channels to broadcast and if any channel were used by a Wi-Fi system, then it would transmit on a different channel so as not to damage existing Wi-Fi systems. The Wi-Fi Alliance holds a similar position to AT&T and has urged caution in testing and deployment of LTE-U.
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566 Ventures analyst William Ho believes that implementing LTE-U would not be a good idea due to the fact that devices compatible with the spectrum will not be available until later this year or by sometime next year, and because of this, implementation of the spectrum would be a meaningless exercise. Ovum analyst Daryl Schoolar also said that if they start now, Verizon and T-Mobile will not be able to deploy LTE-U until the end of this year, which would leave a very little gap between the implementation times of LTE-U and the better-regulated LTE-LAA. The Wi-Fi Alliance is not totally averse to LTE-U, nor is the FCC, as Qualcomm was given a temporary license in May to test LTE-U in conjunction with T-Mobile in Bellevue, Washington, Simi Valley in California, Richardson in Texas, and North Las Vegas in Nevada. However, the Wi-Fi Alliance wont allow the final test plan to pass until it sorts out issues like the ability of devices to operate at three different signal levels in the presence of other devices, apart from other work package issues.
The New York State Police arrested a Waterloo man on burglary charges after he allegedly entered a home several times without the homeowner's consent.
After troopers responded to reports of a prowler on Waterloo-Geneva Road, they spotted Douglas Kennerson, 38, of Waterloo, entering a residence which wasn't his.
Authorities say Kennerson allegedly entered the home several times and on one occasion stole a house key. He used the key to make entry into the home, troopers said.
Kennerson has been charged with second-degree burglary, possession of burglar tools and criminal possession of stolen property.
He was arraigned in Waterloo Town Court and remanded to the Seneca County Jail in lieu of $2,500 bail or $5,000 bond.
ACCC invites comments on Metcashs acquisition plans for Home Timber and Hardware
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is inviting comments on a draft undertaking from Metcash which intends to resolve concerns regarding its proposed acquisition of Woolworths Home Timber and Hardware.
The ACCC said some home hardware retailers were worried about the impact the acquisition could have as Metcash already owns Mitre 10. Home Timber and Hardware and Mitre 10 are the only full-service wholesale options for independent hardware and home improvement retailers within Australia.
Roger Featherston, Commissioner of the ACCC, said without the alternative of switching their business to Home Timber and Hardware, many retailers are concerned that Mitre 10 would be able to stop them buying hardware supplies from outside Mitre 10.
So Mitre 10 has offered to undertake not to restrict retailers from acquiring products from such sources, Commissioner Featherston said.
The ACCC said if the acquisition went ahead, Mitre 10 would have an ownership interest in approximately 100 retail stores and that some retailers are stressed that it could discriminate against them in favour for its own stores.
The proposed undertaking is also intended to prevent any such discrimination, Featherston said.
Metcashs undertaking can be read on the ACCCs website and comments from any interested parties will be accepted until 12 July 2016. The ACCC says it will then decide whether to accept the undertaking, ask for amendments or reject it completely.
Our seeking of views on the proposed undertaking, however, should not be interpreted as a signal that the ACCC will necessarily accept this or any amended undertaking on this matter, Featherston said.
The ACCC said it expects to have made a decision by 21 July 2016. It was originally expected to make a decision on the matter by the end of June 2016.
Acquisition proposal follows Masters speculation
In January 2016, Woolworths announced its intentions to sell or shutdown all of it home improvement investments, which include Home Timber and Hardware and Masters. The decision was made with Masters losing more than AUD $600 million for Woolworths across its six years of operation.
Since the announcement, speculation has arisen that South African retail company, Steinhoff International, is interested in acquiring some Masters store sites.
The speculation has not however been confirmed with both Steinhoff International and Woolworths not commenting on the matter.
Bunnings and Brexit
At the same time Woolworths announced its intentions to sell or close its hardware stores, its competitor, Wesfarmers (owner of Coles supermarkets and Bunnings hardware stores) publicly stated it had acquired the UKs Homebase home improvement chain for AUD $705 million.
Wesfarmers now hopes to turn all the Homebase stores into Bunnings branded sites.
The value of the acquisition has however since been questioned by a Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst who wrote to clients saying Wesfarmers could benefit from not investing in growing the chain after Britains decision to leave the European Union (EU). In the note to clients, reported on by The Australian, the analyst said they believe Brexit could result in a UK recession. Wesfarmers did not comment on the analysts note.
Treasury Wine Estates to sell US non-core commercial portfolio
Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) will be selling its US non-core commercial brand portfolio.
The portfolio consists of twelve brands which have not been revealed. There is no known purchaser/s at this stage but TWE says the brands will be sold for book value. The sale will include approximately one million cases of the non-core commercial wine.
Over the past two years, TWE has been taking deliberate action to manage-down this portfolio of brands, TWE said in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX).
TWE said that the divestment will not impact its 2016 financial earnings or any future earnings. The company stated the revenue which the wines have been bringing in will be covered by cost of goods sold savings from its supply chain optimisation initiative and continued strong earnings growth from TWEs international Luxury and Masstige portfolios.
TWE announces expected 2016 financial year earnings
TWE also announced earlier this week that it expects its earnings before interest, tax and self-generating and regenerating assets (EBITS) will be between AUD $330 million and AUD $340 million.
TWE notes recent international events relating to the United Kingdoms referendum decision to exit the European Union and the resulting depreciation of the Great British Pound, TWEs ASX statement said.
TWEs European region represents less than 10 per cent of TWEs EBITS and the Company maintains an active hedging strategy on the majority of its Commercial wine exports to the United Kingdom. Therefore, after adjusting for updated foreign currency movements, TWE does not expect any material change to its F17 earnings expectations.
About Treasury Wine Estates
Treasury Wine Estates is one of the worlds largest wine companies. The company goes back to the establishment of the Lindemans Vineyard in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales in 1843.
TWE brands include Penfolds Grange, Wolf Bass, Yellowglen, Wynns Coonawarra Estate, Rosemount Estate, Rawsons Retreat and Lindemans.
In 2014, TWE rejected a takeover bid from US-based investment firm, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P. (KKR). KKR revised its bid later in 2014, but did not end up proceeding with its offer.
When the Pittsburgh Paid Family Leave of Absence passed in spring 2015, Chuck ONeill assumed the rule granting six weeks of paid leave for public sector employees applied only to mothers.
A few weeks later, he read an article about the policy and realized it included fathers as well.
Holy heck, this is amazing, he thought.
He soon figured paperwork was all that separated him from spending six weeks at his Summer Hill home with his son Mason, who was then a few months old.
ONeill had just begun his job as a fleet contract manager. Thats why he chose to take his leave later in the summer, when hed be settled into his job and his son could go on day care summer recess. On Aug. 1, 2015, ONeill went on paid parental leave.
Across much of the country, a parental leave crisis looms. Only about 12 percent of private sector workers in the U.S. have access to paid family leave through their employers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The 2014 National Study of Employers, a private study of large employers, found 58 percent reported providing some pay during maternity leave, but only 14 percent reported providing some paid paternity leave. A Department of Labor survey shows 9 out of 10 fathers take some time off work for their newborn, but 70 percent take 10 days or fewer.
In Pittsburgh, just nine of 3,377 city employees cited a new child as the reason for taking unpaid leave in 2013.
For many Americans, the costs associated with taking time off of work mean that paid leave a rarity is the only way they can afford to do it.
Having a baby is one of the most financially significant times of your life and can result in serious financial hardship, said Ashleigh Deemer, chief of staff for Pittsburgh Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak. Ms. Rudiak introduced the legislation giving city employees six weeks of fully paid leave. For a lot of people, unpaid leave may not be an option.
A growing number of corporations many of them large have implemented paid leave policies in the past year. Facebook has extended its leave program from four weeks to four months. Amazon is up to six weeks from zero. Twitter has doubled its leave time from 10 weeks to 20.
Yet while the concept of a more balanced work-family life is gaining recognition, the U.S. remains the only developed nation without a federal parental leave policy.
Were very, very behind the 8-Ball in terms of supporting both parents for paid leave nationally, said Beth Brascugli De Lima, CEO of HRM Consulting, a San Francisco human resources consulting firm.
Had the Pittsburgh policy not been passed, ONeill, 36, said he wouldnt have gotten the six weeks with his son that, as he said, changed his life. During their time together, he took Mason, now 20 months old, to the park. They swam in the family pool in the backyard. Instead of waking up at 5:45 a.m. to spend nine hours a day at day care, Mason could sleep in, hang out in his pajamas and play with his dad.
Transfer Balls: Pogba to Manchester United as talks progress
Is Paul Pogba on his way to Manchester United? Jason Burt explores the story with his Telegraph readers:
Big problem for Man Utd with Pogba remains persuading him to leave Juve and come back to them. Plus all the fees.
Its that kind of insight that gets you the top reporting jobs.
The Guardian says United will pay the 84m for Pogba but Real Madrid is the players preferred destination.
Jose Mourinho wants United to agree to Pogbas wage demands and cough up 300,000 (250,000) a week. But get this Juventus, where Pogba plays, say 84m is just the starting point. They want more.
The paper adds that Uniteds clubs chief executive, Ed Woodward, is holding face-to-face talks with the players representatives. No negotiations via fax machines this summer at Joses more determined United.
Marca says United are favourites in the betting markets to land Pogba. So put your shirt on Pogba to Barcelona, then.
The Metro says Paul Pogba is heading to United because he recently followed Memphis Depay, Jesse Lingard and Adnan Januzaj on Instagram. How many of those three will be at United next season is uncertain, but youd not bet on Januzaj and Depay making the cut.
Pogba also follows Justin Bieber. Make of that what you will
Anorak
Posted: 6th, July 2016 | In: Back pages, manchester united, Sports Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
(ANSA) - Berlin, July 6 - German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Wednesday that "as far as I know Italy does not want exceptions with respect to the (banking) rules in force, which include a certain flexibility". He said the Italian government was in touch with the European Commission on its troubled banking sector, which has a high level of non-performing loans (NPLs). According to media reports the Italian banking system has almost 200 billion euros of NPLs which it does not want to write-down and which would require widespread recapitalization to deal with. Italy is also reportedly reluctant to use billions of euros in public support for the banking system which was recently OK'd by the EC.
(ANSA) - Rome, July 4 - Premier Matteo Renzi told a hotly awaited meeting of his centre-left Democratic Party (PD) on Monday that the autumn referendum on his government's reform of Italy's political machinery was a key test of credibility.
"The referendum is not crucial for the destiny of an individual, but for the future credibility of the Italian political class," said Renzi, who has vowed to quit if the Constitutional reform package is rejected.
Because changes to the constitution must be approved by popular referendum, implementation of the reform is pending confirmation by a vote in October. The law would end Italy's unusual system of 'perfect bicameralism' in which the Senate has equal status to the House, reduce the number of lawmakers, contain institutional costs, do away with the National Council on Economy and Labour (CNEL) - a constitutional organ with 64 councillors plus a president - and scrap Italy's 110 provinces.
Renzi noted at the PD meeting that there are 400,000 signatures for the referendum and that about a hundred were still needed for the target. He called for detractors to "have the intellectual honesty to acknowledge" that "since the PD has been in power, some taxes have fallen and some rights have been gained". Leftwing rebels in the party who want him out should call and win a PD congress, he added.
He said opponents who wanted an end to the double post of premier and leader should get a change to the PD statute approved. Renzi also said "with me at the helm, factions will not start ruling the PD again".
He added that the "very complex" results of last month's local elections were difficult to interpret but that the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) had unquestionably seen an impressive win in important cities like Rome and Turin.
On the EU, he added that "(budget) flexibility is not a concession to Italy but a common-sense duty of the EU". He added that "we have said for some time that the EU, as it is, is not OK", and that "at the start of 2016 many papers of the so-called establishment wrote that I, taking on the EU, would end my political experience".
Renzi said that at the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Taormina on May 26-27 next year Italy would try to "launch the values of our culture" in response to extremism "together with the new, I hope, woman president of the US and the G7 countries".
Italian House no to Egypt F16 parts in Regeni case Fi, League, FdI amendment rejected
(ANSAmed) - ROME, JULY 6 - The Lower House on Wednesday rejected an amendment from the Northern League, Forza Italia and Brothers of Italy (FdI) aimed at reintroducing into a decree on foreign missions authorisation to supply spare parts to Egypt for F16 fighters.
The Senate recently voted down the authorisation in a protest against Egyptian foot-dragging in a probe into the Cairo torture and murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni.
On June 30 the Egyptian foreign ministry on said it was unhappy about the Italian Senate's decision. "Egypt is dissatisfied with the Italian Senate's decision to halve the supply of spare parts for the fighter jets against the backdrop of the Regeni homicide," the foreign ministry said. "This is not in line with cooperation between the authorities of the two countries that are probing the Regeni case, nor with the special relationship between our countries. The Egyptian ambassador in Rome has been tasked with delivering an important message to Italy".
Egypt cares very much about preserving "stable bilateral relations in the interests of both countries", the statement said. (ANSAmed).
BERLIN - Germany's central and regional governments have clashed over integration costs for the over one million migrants that have arrived in the country since last year. The 16 regional presidents of different political parties have gone up against Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble for the sake of eight billion euros of additional contributions they want from the central government to cover language, training and professional development courses for the migrants, as well as additional places for children in daycare centers.
The request will officially be presented to the ministry on Thursday during a meeting scheduled weeks ago. Bavarian finance minister Markus Soeder noted that the meeting will be ''anything but easy'', since Schaeuble has said that he will not even consider the additional funding. Federal police have meanwhile said that some 6,000 migrants had voluntarily left the country in the first three months of 2016 from the Frankfurt airport alone. 15,000 had done the same in 2015.
Syrian army declares temporary ceasefire for Eid Until Friday to celebrate the end of Ramadan
(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, JULY 6 - The Syrian government army on Wednesday declared a 72-hour ceasefire staring at 1 AM local time (12 in Italy) until midnight on Friday for the holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The announcement was made on Syrian state television. A statement released by the Chiefs of Staff said that the ''regime of calm'' would be applied across all of Syria. It is not clear whether the ceasefire had been agreed with opposition forces, or with Syrian government allies including Russia and Iran. (ANSAmed).
(ANSAmed) - SANAA - A car bomb on Wednesday exploded in front of a security compound near the airport of Aden, in southern Yemen, killing a reported 10 people, according to local sources.
Right after the car bomb's explosion, which struck security headquarters near the airport, gunmen broke into the compound and a gunfight with soldiers at the site is still reportedly ongoing.
The sources said gunfire and explosions can still be heard and the death toll could go up.
No group has claimed the attack yet, which occurred on the day of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
ROME - The Lower House on Wednesday rejected an amendment from the Northern League, Forza Italia and Brothers of Italy (FdI) aimed at reintroducing into a decree on foreign missions authorisation to supply spare parts to Egypt for F16 fighters.
The Senate recently voted down the authorisation in a protest against Egyptian foot-dragging in a probe into the Cairo torture and murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni.
On June 30 the Egyptian foreign ministry on said it was unhappy about the Italian Senate's decision. "Egypt is dissatisfied with the Italian Senate's decision to halve the supply of spare parts for the fighter jets against the backdrop of the Regeni homicide," the foreign ministry said. "This is not in line with cooperation between the authorities of the two countries that are probing the Regeni case, nor with the special relationship between our countries. The Egyptian ambassador in Rome has been tasked with delivering an important message to Italy".
Egypt cares very much about preserving "stable bilateral relations in the interests of both countries", the statement said.
(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, JULY 6 - Syrian President Bashar al Assad on Wednesday made a rare visit to the central Syrian city of Homs, which was significantly damaged by the war, to be filmed by State television while praying for the festival marking end of the holy Islamic month of Ramadan.
State television early on Wednesday morning broadcast images of Assad praying at the Safa mosque in Homs's Akrama district, controlled by government forces and traditionally a neighborhood of the Alawite community of which the Assads are members, along with other clans who have been in power in Syria for half a century. (ANSAmed)
The school purchased the Light Turboprop version, first of this kind worldwide.
Capt. Erdogan Cabioglu, ER-AH general manager said:We always care about the quality in flight trainings which can be provided only with the correct devices, reliable sources and proficient fleet. With adding ALX to our inventory we have fulfilled an important field in our future training programs where we are providing MCC trainings directly to Airline companies such as Turkish Airlines, Sunexpress Airlines.
ER-AH Flight School, which raised its training quality to international standards by training foreigner students, increased the number of training planes to 16 in 2016 after renovating its fleet with C172 Glass Cockpit planes. ER-AH continues to be the pioneer of industry with its training level and fleet.
Hotels.flydubai.com is powered by Booking.com and is designed to help passengers find the perfect stay that suits their preference and budget from over 954,000 accommodations world-wide. Passengers are able to browse other guests reviews and book flexibly with a range of payment options.
Ramesh Venkat, chief information office, Flydubai, said: With this website, we are able to offer our passengers even more options when travelling with Flydubai, making it easier for them to organise their holidays or business trips. With Booking.com, we will offer one of the largest accommodation databases in the world and we are pleased to be able to extend these numerous opportunities to our customers.
The training increases pilot skills of recognising and avoiding loss of control in-flight (LOC-I) situations, and helps pilots establish upset and recovery training methodologies.
Building upon TGTs existing and extensive portfolio of quality training solutions our comprehensive UPRT course content will provide the fundamental theoretical knowledge to assist with the practical training delivered by a pre-FSTD briefing and ATO Ground School. Part 1 of the course is now available to book, with Parts 2 and 3 soon after, said Debbie Elliott, training manager, TAG Global Training.
YEREVAN, JULY 6, ARMENPRESS. It is a great comfort for the Armenian people that different peoples, states , recognize the Armenian Genocide. The Armenian people are inspired and encouraged by the fact that Pope Francis voiced this truth, Catholicos of All Armenians His Holiness Garegin II said in an interview with Al Mayadeen TV.
It is natural that the church must voice the truth. And we were happy when the Pope delivered a historic speech in Vatican, saying that a wound must be bandaged to stop bleeding. With the same spirit he talked about the Armenian Genocide here in Armenia. We believe that the Popes words will find response in peoples spirits and different peoples, states will come to join the Pope in condemning the Armenian Genocide, as the first crime against the humanity of the 20th century, and by this way preventing similar crimes in the future, which we see in our days against separate peoples, His Holiness Garegin II said.
Touching upon the Popes visit to Armenia, the Catholicos noted that the visit was scheduled back in 2014. It was suggested to hold a joint prayer on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in Vatican, then in Etchmiatsin. He delivered a Mass in Vaticans St. Peter's Basilica and in these days it was possible for the Pope to visit Armenia and raise a joint prayer to God, wishing peace to the whole world.
YEREVAN, JULY 6, ARMENPRESS. National Assembly RPA MP Khosrov Harutyunyan said the reactions over the agreement on forming Air Defense system between Armenia and Russia are emotional in nature. He said he didnt meet any objective interpretation over that agreement.
And the reality is just the opposite. The reality is the following: today we have an air defense system. It is the Armenian air defense system which includes the necessary capacities for ensuring the security of the air space of Armenia and the Nagorno Karabakh Republic. That agreement provides new opportunities for ensuring the security of Armenias air space. Armenia receives an opportunity to use the air defense system of the Russian military base located in Armenia in case of necessity, Armenpress reports, he said to journalists on July 6.
The MP clearly stated that by this agreement Armenias military responsibility of the air defense system doesnt disappear. We will continue making decisions in case of danger by using our own, as well as the measures provided by that agreement. This is the main essence. A question is being raised whether to use this opportunity of making Armenias air space more secure? Of course, yes. Whether these additional opportunities will not increase our chances for ensuring the security of the NKRs air space by our own forces? Of course, they are increasing since we are getting a chance to put additional resources on the defense of the NKRs air space. This is the main meaning of the agreement. I think that we should move forward on being involved in such systems but maintaining our role of responsibility, the MP said.
The Armenian Parliament has ratified the agreement on forming an Armenia-Russia joint Air Defense system on June 30, 2016. 101 lawmakers voted in favor of the agreement, while 8 voted against.
YEREVAN, JULY 6, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan held a meeting with EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia Herbert Salber on July 6, press service of the Presidential administration informed Armenpress.
At the meeting the sides discussed the development process of the Armenia-EU cooperation and relations, as well as they exchanged views over the recent development of the negotiation process on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement, the implementation of agreements reached in the Vienna and St. Petersburg meetings and the prospects of moving forward the process.
The Armenian President said Armenia highly appreciates the EUs commitment on creating favorable environment for the comprehensive settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and the efforts aimed at ensuring lasting peace and stability in the region.
By the guests request, Serzh Sargsyan presented Armenias efforts with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs mediation on reaching the settlement of conflict through the peaceful negotiations, and ensured that the Armenian side is ready to continue the constructive steps and the cooperation for the benefit of the establishment and provision of peace and security in the region.
The sides agreed that the EU-Armenia bilateral relations are dynamically developing, and the bilateral political will and commitment are the driving force of that development.
They expressed hope the negotiations over the EU-Armenia new framework agreement will be successfully completed in the upcoming months.
YEREVAN, JULY 6, ARMENPRESS. On July 6 Prime Minister of Armenia Hovik Abrahamyan received Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Greece to Armenia Ioannis Taghis whose diplomatic mission comes to its end, press service of the Armenian Government informed Armenpress.
The Prime Minister highly appreciated the Ambassadors activity in our country which contributed to the further development and strengthening of political, as well as economic relations between Armenia and Greece. Hovik Abrahamyan attached importance to the development of the economic cooperation and the increase of volumes in trade turnover between the two states for which a great potential exists. In this context, the Prime Minister emphasized the necessity of the active works of the Armenian-Greek inter-governmental commission.
Ioannis Taghis express gratitude to the Prime Minister for the close cooperation and said in recent years the relations between the two states have been developed. The Ambassador ensured that in the future the Armenian-Greek mutual cooperation will also continue developing in different sectors, including several sectors of the economy as well.
In terms of the development of the Armenian-Greek relations, the sides attached importance to the bilateral mutual visits. The sides said there are prospects of expanding the mutual cooperation in the education, defense, tourism, agriculture and other sectors. A number of issues related to the Armenian-Greek relations were also discussed.
At the end of the meeting the Prime Minister wished the Greek Ambassador success in his future activities.
YEREVAN, JULY 6, ARMENPRESS. Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan received on July 6 the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Greece to Armenia H.E. Ioannis Taghis. The meeting took place on the occasion of the Ambassadors completion of his mission.
Welcoming the Ambassador, Minister Ohanyan highly appreciated the formed cooperation in the defense sector with the Greek side and expressed gratitude to the Ambassador for his personal contribution in the development of cooperation.
Ambassador Taghis thanked Minister Ohanyan for the joint work, noting that he will continue being Armenias friend.
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The Sibelius Academy has some features that are unique in the world, says Jasper Parrott, a leading artist agent in London who regularly visits leading conservatories to watch emerging talent. It offers opportunities to work with an orchestra, its own very competent student orchestra. And thanks to Finlands abundance of good orchestras, Sibelius Academy conducting students get professional opportunities even before they graduate.
Israeli plans to build hundreds of new homes in existing settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. US State department: "latest step... in a systematic process of land seizures. Peace Now: Settlement construction is endangering both the possibility for peace; it will not prevent the next victims but rather strengthen the extremists on both sides.
Jerusalem (AsiaNews) - The US, Ngos and international advocacy groups like Peace Now has criticised Israeli plans to build hundreds of new homes in existing settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. State department spokesman John Kirby called the plans the "latest step... in a systematic process of land seizures.
The Middle East Quartet on the peace process also recently criticised Israel's settlement project. In a report published days ago the Quartet -the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations - criticised Israel for building settlements, denying Palestinian development and designating land for exclusive Israeli use, and asked for urgent steps to halt the expansion.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorised the plans on Tuesday, Israeli officials say.
Citing an Israeli official, international news agencies report that the plans include 560 new homes in Maale Adumim, just outside Jerusalem, as well as nearly 200 in the city itself. The plan also calls for more than 600 new homes in an Arab neighbourhood of east Jerusalem, AP says.
Mr Kirby said: "If true, this report would be the latest step in what seems to be a systematic process of land seizures, settlement expansions and legalizations of outposts that is fundamentally undermining the prospects for a two-state solution."
The plans were also sharply criticised by UN chief Ban Ki-moon.
"This raises legitimate questions about Israel's long-term intentions, which are compounded by continuing statements of some Israeli ministers calling for the annexation of the West Bank," Mr Ban's spokesman said in a statement.
Settlement construction is endangering both the possibility for peace and two states and the security of Israeli citizens, Peace Now said in a note. New housing units in the settlements will not prevent the next victims but rather strengthen the extremists on both sides. The real answer to terror is ending the occupation and reaching a negotiated agreement. Meanwhile, Israeli citizens will continue to pay the price of the extreme right wing government's policies.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority spokesman Yousif al-Mahmoud condemned the Israeli governments approval of 800 new settlement housing units, adding that it was part of a recent escalation in Israeli incitement and threats in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Al-Mahmoud called on the international community to urgently take action against Israeli escalations.
About 570,000 Israelis live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The settlements are considered illegal under international law. Israel disputes this and continues an expansionist settlement policy.
Peace talks between the two sides broke down in 2014, leading to a resurgence in violence in the region.
by card. Oswald Gracias
The president of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences spoke on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim month of prayer and fasting. The prelate remembers the Bangladesh victims and encourages religious leaders to build bridges of peace.
Mumbai (AsiaNews) Card Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Mumbai and president of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC), spoke to AsiaNews on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim month of prayer and fasting.
He noted As violence picks up its deadly pace, we can draw strength from God's endless mercy. We are called to face these grave challenges with peaceful solidarity on the part of all people of good will.
Remembering the victims of the Dhaka massacre, Bangladesh, by Islamic terrorists, he said that the whole Church in Asia is mourning the attack, "which struck so close to the end of the Holy season of Ramadan.
Stressing that most of Muslims live in Asia, particularly in the south and southeast, he added that, "together as brothers we must foster a spirit of brotherhood and solidarity." The cardinal's message follows.
We are living in a time of great dangers and great opportunities for humankind and the world, a time which is also of great responsibility for us all. It is essential and urgent that religious leaders, governments and communities work together to build bridges of peace and promote reconciliation.
May no one be tempted to despair by this recent attack. Dangerous forces and powers thrive on the empty hope that terror will blind us to our common humanity, removing one from God and leading to destruction, the dimensions of which at times horrify us.
Let us pray and work for reconciliation, justice, peace and development, and as the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church in Asia, I assure you that the Church wants to continue building bridges of friendship with the followers of all religions in order to seek the true good of every person and of society as a whole.
May Christian-Muslim friendship inspire us always to cooperate in facing these many challenges, thus ensuring that religions can be a source of harmony for the benefit of society as a whole and for the human family.
I send you cordial greetings. May your lives glorify the Almighty and give you joy and peace.
(Nirmala Carvalho contributed to this article)
Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesias largest moderate group, has condemned the recent attacks in the month of Ramadan. Yesterday, a suicide bomber blew himself up in President Joko Widodos hometown. For NU president, Islamic leaders and ulama from around the world have a duty to work together to fight radicalism.
Jakarta (AsiaNews/Agencies) Every terrorist attack "carried out as the result of a violent preaching does not reflect Islam, which is asrahmatan lil alamin (a blessing for the universe), said Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) in an official statement.
NU is Indonesia's largest moderate Islamic organisation. Its pronouncement follows recent attacks carried out during the month of Ramadan, especially the one on Monday (4 July) in Madinah, Saudi Arabia, and the suicide attack that wounded a policeman yesterday in Surakarta (Central Java).
Yesterdays attack was carried out by a man who was able to enter police headquarters on a motorcycle and blew himself up after he was stopped by officers. Other than the attacker who died, only one police officer was wounded.
Surakarta was getting ready to celebrate Eid al-Fitr (the end of the Muslim fasting) and welcome Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who had decided to spend the holiday in his hometown.
NU central committee president Said Aqil Siradj slammed the attacks in the holy month of Ramadan, stating that they are contrary to the true teachings of Islam, which promote peace.
He added that Islamic leaders and ulema from around the world have a duty to work together to fight radicalism, which cannot be defeated by single individuals.
Nu has been working for years to spread a moderate Islam open to religious tolerance, and counter the infiltration by Daesh (Islamic State) propaganda in Indonesia.
On 17 January, NU organised an interfaith meeting to say "no to extremism", attended by representatives of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Indonesia (Konferensi Waligereja Indonesia, KWI) Protestant churches, and the Supreme Council for the Confucian Religion in Indonesia (Majelis Tinggi Agama Konghucu Indonesia, MATAKIN.
The grand imam of Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta echoed NUs statement. In his view, suicide bombing does not belong to Islam.
Mohammed, Nasaruddin Umar said, never forgave such actions. "Attacks in Madinah, Turkey, Afghanistan and Surakarta are a shortcut and are not justified by the sharia".
Islam, he noted, "never teaches his followers to wage war on civilians. War must only be made by armies."
A Christian NGO successfully defended the pastor and 41 members of the Christian Life Ministries, a Faisalabad-based Church, who had been arrested on false charges. Their crime was to have saved two young men from police brutality. Whilst in prison, the pastor and the other men were tortured in an appalling manner. Police are now under investigation for corruption.
Islamabad (AsiaNews/Agencies) False charges of terrorism have been dropped against a group of 42 Christians, and the police who arrested them are now under investigation for corruption, thanks to the British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA), an organisation that defends Pakistans Christian minority.
The Lahore High Court filed a First Information Report (FIR) against the head of the Gulberg police station and other officers who used unnecessary violence and unlawfully arrested Christians under the countrys anti-terrorism laws.
BPCAS lawyer Rana Hafeezhas successfully proved the Christians innocence. The case began in May when some police officers arrested Rev Chaughtai Kamal, a former member of the Punjab Assembly and head of the Christian Life Ministries, a Protestant Church in Christian Town, a Faisalabad neighbourhood, as well as 41 other Christians, on charges of terrorism.
Events had begun a few hours earlier, in front of the church, as a religious service was underway inside. The pastor and his congregation rushed out of the building when they heard the screams of two young men who were being brutally beaten by police.
The Christians stopped the beating but were all arrested and taken to prison, including women and children (pictured). The pastor and the other men were subjected to appalling tortures whilst in custody.
As a result of the beating, the clergyman had to be hospitalised with hypertension for two days. This would not happen in any other country, the pastor said. We simply tried to stop two young men from being killed by police before our very eyes.
Police chief Waheed Shahid and the other police officers tried to clear themselves by claiming that they had gone to search the church because they had been tipped off that illegal alcoholics were being made there.
However, no evidence of illegal alcoholic drink making was produced, and the officers petition for a stay order was dismissed. The Lahore High Court instead ordered an investigation into police conduct.
BPCA president Wilson Chowdhry was happy about the outcome. It is rare for Christians to get justice in a country that considers them pariahs (outcasts, untouchables).
During the court hearing, police officers behaviour was such that now they are under investigation for corruption. The evidence on the excessive use of violence, the absence of equipment to make alcoholic beverages, and the detention of women and children are enough for universal condemnation.
Wenzhou (AsiaNews) Authorities in Chinas coastal Zhejiang province recently demanded that some churches hand all their income, including donations, to the government as part of a movement to implement more official regulations.
Since last year, according to ChinaAid, the Chinese government has been pressuring churches to implement the five transformations, which consist of localizing religion (through adopting local architectural styles for church buildings), standardizing management, indigenizing theology (by contextualizing sermons), financial transparency and adapting Christian teachings, in order to mold Christianity into an institution that reflects the objectives of the Communist Party. As a result, the government established office spaces within churches and assigned officials to closely regulate them.
Government departments implemented new rules for churches in Pingyang County, Wenzhou, including that they must submit all of their donated money to the authorities. A local Christian said that, the government officials will interfere with church affairs, managing our donations and some large-scale projects. We have to obtain their (the governments) permission if we would like to buy equipment or decorate the church. We will have to ask for permission for any expenses more than a few thousand yuan.
In July 2015, the local government began arranging for officials to speak at church services and set up tables for them in the churches. On Aug. 30 of the same year, authorities ordered that government personal supervise every church in Wenzhou.
According to an unconfirmed report, the local government is now requiring churches to fly the official Chinese flag on top of their buildingswhere many of them displayed crosses before the actions of an ongoing cross demolition campaignand place it on their pulpits.
The death toll from Sunday's suicide bombing in Karrada district, center of Baghdad, has risen to 250. Scores of people were also injured but most have been released from hospital. Those critically injured had been sent abroad. Bewildered local residents have held candlelight vigils and prayed for peace. "We call on our Muslim brothers" to "condemn the crimes Chaldean Patriarch said.
Baghdad (AsiaNews) - The death toll from Sunday's suicide bombing in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, has risen to 250, the Iraqi government says, making it the deadliest such attack since the 2003 US-led invasion.
A lorry packed with explosives was detonated in the Karrada district while families were shopping for the holiday marking the end of Ramadan.
So-called Islamic State (IS) has said it carried out the suicide attack.
An earlier estimate for the attack had put the toll at 165.
Iraq remains under an official state of mourning following the bombing.
The destruction of the area was all but complete. Bewildered local residents have held candlelight vigils and prayed for peace.
Scores of people were also injured but most have been released from hospital, according to the Iraqi health ministry.
The ministry said those critically injured had been sent abroad, without giving further details.
The bombing in a mostly Shia Muslim area just after midnight came a week after Iraqi forces had recaptured the city of Falluja from IS.
The Iraqi government has been heavily criticised over the attack, with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi met by angry crowds when he visited the blast site.
On Tuesday, Interior Minister Mohammed Ghabban submitted his resignation but it has not yet been accepted.
He described checkpoints dotted through Baghdad as "absolutely useless", according to AFP news agency.
The government has stepped up security in Baghdad and also said a group of prisoners convicted of terror crimes would be put to death in the immediate future.
Chaldean Patriarch Mar Raphael Louis Sako released a message yesterday for Iraqs Muslims marking the end of the Muslim month of fasting and prayer. On the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, "we call on our Muslim brothers" to ask them to "raise their voices and condemn officially the crimes committed in the name of a distorted and deviant form of religion, like the latest massacre of Sunday 3 July in Karrada, Baghdad, His Beatitude said.
Singapore (AsiaNews/Agencies) From Singapore to Sri Lanka in order to help poor inhabitants of the Country, who has no access to clean water, sanitary facilities and shelters. Ten volunteers from CHARIS (Caritas Humanitarian Aid & Relief Initiatives, Singapore) recently embarked on a journey to teach and build bio-sand water filtration systems and assist in house building efforts in Sri Lanka.
The volunteers, led by Fr Michael Rajendram, went to diocese of Galle (southern Sri Lanka) where they worked with the Diocesan Centre for Social, Economic and Development Education. Projects were run in Deniyaya and Hambantota districts, about three hours drive from the city.
In the district of Hambantota, the volunteers helped teach two villages to build bio-sand filtration tanks, in the hope that they could replicate this system in other villages. The volunteers worked alongside the women, both young and old, in the washing of the gravel and sand. While the process of washing the sand can be tedious, it forms an essential part to the system as the materials form a natural filter in which water is made potable. The community also learnt from the volunteers how to assemble and fit together the bio-sand tank using PVC pipes and a large tank.
The next worksite was in the hilly region of Deniyaya. There, the team helped to build houses and tried their hands at laying bricks for the walls. Every now and then, the team was treated to tea and food, mostly contributed by the locals, who gave much from the little they had.
This trip to Sri Lanka allowed me to witness the universal language of love, said Mr Gabriel Chek, 23, a student at the Singapore University of Technology and Design. He added that it helped him appreciate the blessings which he takes for granted in Singapore, such as clean water and shelter.
Team leader, Ms Sivamalar Kulasegaram, a teacher in her 40s, shared that she was impressed with the gotong royong (mutual aid) spirit among the villagers and the staff of SED Galle, working together to improve the lives of the community. She said she was especially touched by the way Fr Michael dealt with the villagers in a gentle and loving manner.
By Mark Robbins
and Kareem El-Assal
The past 15 years have seen a staggering growth in the demand for higher education worldwide. This demand has been especially strong in Asia, where it vastly overshadows the domestic capacity to educate, resulting in a rapid expansion of the higher education sector.
China, for one, has expanded the capacity of its higher education nearly six-fold in the past 15 years. India's government has recently announced a massive expansion of its higher education system, with the goal of training 500 million people between 2015 and 2022.
These and similar expansions in other Asian countries have been remarkable in their magnitude, and yet demand for higher education continues to outstrip the projected number of available spaces.
To bridge this gap, many Asians are looking abroad for their studies, leading to an unprecedented growth in the number of international students. Much of this demand for education is being satisfied by Western universities, which have a reputation for quality and currently face an oversupply of capacity due to smaller numbers of young people.
On the other side of the coin, Asian universities have been aggressively recruiting top Western professors in order build the capacity of their own higher educational institutions. In this sense, the demand for higher education in Asia represents an opportunity and a threat; Canada either can rise to the challenge of educating the next generation of Asian students or it may see its top talent move to greener pastures as domestic demand stagnates.
The growth of international students in Canada, while significant, represents only a small share of what could be accomplished. In spite of the absolute increase in international students in Canada, Canada is one of only two OECD countries to experience a relative decline its share of international students.
While the total number of international students has grown by 11.4 per cent each year globally between 2000 and 2015, the growth in international students to Canada has only increased by roughly 3.0 per cent per year over the same period. The federal government has responded by launching a strategy to double Canada's international student population by 2022 (to 450,000 up from 239,000 in 2011). This goal is a step in the right direction due to the many benefits international students offer to Canada.
The ability to engage Asian students with Canada is greatly intertwined with Canada's higher education brand in the region, which is fairly weak.
This is partly related to the lack of a Canadian presence in Asia's institutions of higher education; one estimate indicates that more Canadian students study in Grenada or Poland than in India or China.
The Minister of International Trade, Chrystia Freeland, has also recently suggested the goal of sending 100,000 Canadian students to study in China, so there is clearly political will to improve. On both accounts, there must be follow-up in the form of tangible commitments on the part of federal and provincial governments.
Canada needs an initiative at the national level that can act to promote our post-secondary system and improve interconnectivity with counterparts in Asia. When foreign delegations come to Ottawa to make a deal, they are often sent away because the federal government has a lack of capacity to respond since education is a matter of provincial jurisdiction.
Remarkably, international outreach and recruitment efforts are typically not conducted in concert with one another either. In fact, Canada is the only developed country without a central body for higher education.
This lack of centralization inhibits the ability of Canadian institutions to have a vigorous international presence.
Canada's student visa process is equally an important consideration for attracting international students since they must obtain a student visa before they can accept an offer of admission. Processing times have increased appreciably with the rise of Canada's international student population and evidence suggests that Canada lags behind competitor countries. Given the competition for international students, those who are accepted for studies both in Canada and another country may choose the latter based on perceived or real differences in processing times.
Thus, to enhance its competitive standing, Canada will need to continue to work towards quicker processing of study permits.
The steady rise of Asia is shifting the global landscape for higher education and Canada needs to adapt. With a robust higher education system and a relatively weak track record of engagement with Asia, Canada's position is marked both by strength and complacency.
With a reinvigorated focus on Asia and a dedication to continuous improvement in higher education, Canada can take a leadership role and have a meaningful impact on the world stage through its international students. Efforts by the Asia Pacific Foundation to improve Canada's engagement with Asia and raise Canada's 'Asia Competence' are a welcome improvement.
Yet without immediate action and meaningful strides towards improvement from Canada's leadership, Canada risks being a footnote in the Asian century. - Asia Pacific Foundation.
Mark Robbins (BA, MA) is a Research Associate at The Conference Board of Canada who specializes in industry, higher education, international affairs and the Asia-Pacific.
Kareem El-Assal (BA, MA) is a Research Associate at The Conference Board of Canada who specializes in immigration, education, international affairs and the Middle East.
Guest Commentary
By Iglika Ivanova, Michael McKnight and Trish Garner
We are often told that the solution to poverty is for the poor to get a job or for various sectors to create more jobs. But the reality is that a job is not a guaranteed path out of poverty. Many of the new jobs created in BC since the 2008 recession have been part-time, temporary and low paid. The result is a growing group of workers living in poverty, the working poor.
We all know that some jobs pay low wages and dont provide stable hours. At the current minimum wage of $10.45, a minimum wage worker with no dependents working full-time earns less than the poverty line both before and after tax. Recently announced increases over the next year and a half wont change this.
Some people mistakenly believe that low wage jobs are filled mainly by teenagers and youth, and are a rite of passage of sorts while young people still live at home. But most low-wage workers are not kids they have families, and they get stuck in dead-end jobs that keep them in poverty.
Over 100,000 working-age people in Metro Vancouver were working but stuck below the poverty line in 2012, according to a new reportby the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the United Way of the Lower Mainland and the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition. Another 73,500 working poor British Columbians lived outside the Metro Vancouver area. Across Canada, over a million workers aged between 18 and 64 were working poor.
These numbers are conservative estimates, as they dont count post-secondary students or adults living with their parents or other relatives. The true extent of the problem is likely much worse.
Almost two thirds of Metro Vancouvers working poor in 2012 were between the ages of 30 and 54 what economists consider prime working age (61%). Almost half of the working poor had dependent children (42%). In Metro Vancouver, single parents are the most likely to experience working poverty, followed closely by individuals living alone.
While we dont have data on immigrant status and working poverty, a recent Statistics Canada study showed that the poverty rate among Vancouver immigrants who have been in Canada for fewer than 15 years is double the rate of long-term immigrants and Canadian-born citizens.
Among Canadian cities, Metro Vancouver has the second highest rate of working poverty (8.7% of the working-age population), after Greater Toronto (9.1%). The hardship is even more severe in these two regions than the statistics show, since the measure of poverty used in the study does not account for differences in housing costs across the country.
Contrary to stereotypes about poverty being concentrated mainly in Vancouver and Surrey, our study finds the working poor are spread out across the Metro Vancouver region. In 2012, the latest years for which we have data available, rates were highest in Richmond (10.5%), Vancouver (10%), Burnaby (9.4%), Surrey (9.1%), North Vancouver (8.4%) and Coquitlam (8.1%).
What is worse, working poverty rose after the recession in most Metro Vancouver municipalities. The largest increases occurred in the suburbs West Vancouver, Coquitlam, White Rock, Lions Bay and the District of North Vancouver. Growing working poverty truly is a regional problem in Metro Vancouver.
Working poverty is somewhat invisible, even though these workers are all around us. They pour our coffee in the morning and clean our offices at night. They sell us groceries, housewares and clothes, they greet us at reception desks and keep our concerts and public events safe. They cook and serve our food when we are celebrating with a night out and tidy our hotel rooms when we are on vacation.
Metro Vancouvers booming economy relies on these workers but its failing an increasing number of them. Work should be enough to lift a family out of poverty.
Simply creating more jobs wont fix the problem. But the good news is that working poverty can be reduced and eventually eliminated with a combination of labour market reforms, more generous income supports, and better public services.
Every level of government has a role to play, but the provincial government is uniquely positioned to take the lead since it has jurisdiction over the labour market and many crucial social policy areas.
A $15 minimum wage, stronger employment standards, more affordable housing, a $10/day child care program and better access to education and training for low-income earners are key parts of the solution. Ending working poverty can and should be part of a comprehensive poverty reduction plan for BC.
Iglika Ivanova is a senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives BC Office. Michael McKnight is President & CEO of United Way of the Lower Mainland. Trish Garner is the community organizer of the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition. Their organizations co-published the report Working Poverty in Metro Vancouver.
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Photo caption: Rather than complain about Quebec's "sweetheat deal", all provinces should be arguing for the same privileges on immigrant investor programs, writes Don Curry.Photo Credit: Ranjit Bhaskar, @Ranjit17, Toronto
Commentary by Don Curry,
Special to The Post
Critics are looking at Quebecs so-called sweetheart deal on immigrant investors the wrong way.
Instead of complaining about Quebec other provinces and territories should be demanding equality.
A June 23 article by Peter ONeil in the Vancouver Sun noted Quebec struck its deal in 1991, when the sovereignty movement was strong.
Quebec had the bargaining chips, certainly, but what is stopping other regions of Canada that would benefit from an immigrant investor program -- Northern Ontario, the Maritimes and the territories come to mind -- from opening talks with the federal government?
The federal immigrant investor program had its critics, who called it a cash for citizenship scheme, and it was cancelled in 2014. There were also reports of fraud. Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver didnt need the program but it would be a huge economic and social impetus for the regions mentioned above, that are starving for increased immigration and economic investment.
Surely smart bureaucrats could modify the Quebec program so that it fits the needs of other regions of the country.
Regional development
In Northern Ontario, the region of the country Im most familiar with, a program that attracts foreign investors for an $800,000 financial commitment, with a $200,000 down payment, would go a long way toward municipal and regional infrastructure programs.
The Ring of Fire project, long dormant but with billions of dollars worth of metals sitting in the ground, would benefit significantly as a joint regional economic development project.
We are talking billions in investment through such a program. Two thousand immigrant investors for Northern Ontario at $800,000 each is an awful lot of money. Even if some left Northern Ontario to live elsewhere and forfeited their $200,000 deposit, it is still an awful of money.
Bureaucrats and politicians are saying they cant force permanent residents to live in specific regions, because once they have that status they can live anywhere in Canada. But what is stopping them from creating incentives to live in designated areas?
Thats how the prairies were settled.
Housing prices
Insane housing prices in Vancouver are partially blamed on Chinese immigrant investors moving from Quebec.
More to the point, the blame can be laid at the feet of the Vancouver real estate industry and its unscrupulous practices, detailed in a Globe and Mail investigation.
Premier Christy Clark, fed up with 10 years of lack of self-regulation in the industry, has created agovernment oversight body.
Northern Ontario, to name one region, is being short-changed in the number of immigrants landing here and, as a result, the immigrant settlement funds allocated. While almost half of the immigrants to Canada land in Ontario, one-tenth of one per cent landed in Northern Ontario in 2011-12.
Northern Ontario has a higher population than New Brunswick. This statistic is from a 2015 study by Western University professor Dr. Michael Haan and Elena Prokopenko, completed for the Far Northeast Training Board, based in Hearst, Ontario.
Declining populations
While the Greater Toronto Area is bursting at the seams, the northern part of Ontario is experiencing population stagnation or decline. An immigrant investor program would provide a significant boost. Immigrants now in Northern Ontario are secondary migrants from the GTA, mainly, or other parts of Canada.
Immigrant investors would be inclined to stay in the north (North Bay and Sudbury are less than a four-hour drive to Toronto) where opportunities abound, there are good schools and no congestion. A recent phenomenon is immigrant entrepreneurs moving to Northern Ontario to purchase businesses. (I will soon be embarking on a research project to document the movement of immigrant entrepreneurs to nine Northeastern Ontario municipalities.)
There are more than 70 first generation immigrant-owned businesses in North Bay, most of them having moved from the GTA. Once they live here, they stay and raise families. A lasting legacy of former Ontario Premier Mike Harris, who is from North Bay, is a four-lane highway all the way to Toronto.
Call it social engineering if you like, but there has been very little done by the federal government and the provinces to entice immigrants to settle where they are needed. Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa continue to dominate the immigration discussion. We are long overdue for change.
Background: Quebec Immigrant Investor Program
Don Curry is the president of Curry Consulting (www.curryconsulting.ca) He was the founding executive director of the North Bay & District Multicultural Centre and Timmins & District Multicultural Centre and now serves as a board member.
This piece was originally appeared in New Canadian Media (newcanadianmedia.ca). See http://newcanadianmedia.ca/item/37156-let-s-discuss-investor-sweetheart-deals-for-all-provinces
Most BC independent schools have a religious or alternative teaching approach and dont conform to the elite stereotype, finds a new national study of independent schools released by the Fraser Institute.
Many British Columbians believe independent schools are all elite university-prep schools, but thats not the case, said Deani Van Pelt, director of the Barbara Mitchell Centre for Improvement in Education at the Fraser Institute and co-author of A Diverse Landscape: Independent Schools in Canada.
The studythe first of its kindcategorizes independents school in Canada. It finds that 75,402 (or 12.3 per cent) of all K-12 students in B.C. schools attended an independent school in 2013/14.
Fully 188 of B.C.s 340 independent schools have a religious affiliationhalf (50.0 per cent) are Christian (non-Catholic), 42.0 per cent are Catholic, 3.2 per cent are Jewish, 2.7 per cent are Islamic and 2.1 per cent have other religious perspectives.
Of those, 68 independent schools in B.C. are specialty schools, with a special emphasis in the curriculum, distinct approaches to teaching and learning, or an emphasis on serving specific student populations.
New Report Implicates 2,400 Doctors In Massive Sexual Abuse Scandal
Trending News: Blockbuster Report Uncovers Massive Medical Sexual Abuse Scandal
Why Is This Important?
Because this is one of the most far-reaching sexual abuse scandals in history.
Long Story Short
A scathing report by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution implicates some 2,400 doctors in a massive sexual abuse racket. While some have received criminal punishments, most remain free.
Long Story
Probably the most important part of the Hippocratic Oath is the "do no harm" part at the very least, you should leave the doctor's office no worse than you arrived. That kind of trust between a doctor and their patient is vital, but an ominous investigation by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reveals that trust is often violated, and in unspeakable ways: 2,400 doctors from all 50 states have been implicated in a massive sexual abuse scandal and those are just the ones they were able to confirm.
The AJC examined records and found that as widespread as sexual abuse seems to be by doctors, the efforts to cover it up are just as damning and far-reaching, and would appear to rival similar efforts by the Catholic church in the wake of their own sexual abuse scandal. They found that, even in cases where state medical boards found patients' claims to be credible, about half of the doctors implicated were allowed to keep or reapply for their medical licenses.
There appears to be no limit to the depravity of the implicated doctors, many of whom were reported for numerous incidents but were allowed to continue to practice. While some appeared to limit themselves to lewd comments and questionable touching (under the guise of examination, for instance), others some of whom, individually, would be among the nation's most prolific sexual offenders have been accused of multiple rapes and molestations.
For instance one patient, while seeing Dr. Ashok Alur in Kentucky for an abdomen infection, quickly found herself in a perilous situation when the doctor told her she had "sexy underwear" before touching her genitals and then attempting to perform oral sex on her. When confronted, his only explanation was "It was so beautiful. I couldnt resist.
If this is such a widespread problem, why does it continue? The AJC outlines a few reasons. One is that, as with most sexual assaults, many victims simply never come forward. But there also appears to be an institutional aspect. Just 11 states, they note, have laws on the books requiring medical boards to report criminal behavior by licensed physicians. Often time, even when a doctor is disciplined by a medical board, they're able to easily find licensure and work in other states.
There's also a cultural element, one in which we tend to view doctors as above reproach. For one, these cases are "rare," if only in the statistical sense. There are over 900,000 practicing physicians in the US, so the 2,400 (again, that we know of) offenders represent an anomalous blip and the medical community clings to that anomaly whenever a case is made public. And as a society, we invest a lot in our doctors, so there's a vested interest in preserving the profession and "salvaging" doctors who have a "lapse in judgement." The AJC likens the status of doctors to the banks that were "too big to fail" in the midst of the early-aughts recession.
Fortunately, some (although too few) doctors are unable to evade the law when they abuse their power. In Riverside County, California, Dr. John McGuire is being prosecuted for 26 counts of sexual assault, including three forcible rapes.
Own The Conversation
Ask The Big Question
What is it about some doctors that make them so likely to take advantage of their patients?
Disrupt Your Feed
The imbalance of power between doctors and patients is too great; they should have the book thrown at them when they betray their patients' trust.
Drop This Fact
The Association of American Medical Colleges says that the US risks a shortage of about 90,000 doctors by 2025 at the current graduation rate.
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Imagine youre playing video poker and the deal brings two high cards of different suits. Do you pick one to hold or hold both?
Australian lawyer Sara Delpopolo has led the charge to create the International Social Media Association (ISMA) which was officially launched last week in Sydney.
The not-for-profit body wants to globally align legislation and policies on social media to advance, protect and balance the rights of businesses and individuals on digital platforms.
The laws are not serviceable around this and no one is looking at it. We need to make sure we close the gap on the laws governing the digital community, Delpopolo, the new organisations president said.
Delpopolo, the founding principal of Sydney law firm Axis Legal, saw the need to establish ISMA after writing Social Media: Playing By The Rules, a book that discusses legal issues regarding the social media space.
ISMAs board of directors includes Delpopolo, John Holland (treasurer) and Tim Appleby (secretary) of Australia; Lucien Pierce (vice president) of South Africa; Ekaterina Tilling of Russia; Nagaraj Subbarao of India; Eran Presenti of Israel; Wongsuda Supaporn of Thailand; Caroline Berube of China / Singapore; Scott Moran of New Zealand; and Mark Kaufman of the United States.
This board, along with its expert advisors and members, will work on a worldwide coordination of key policies and laws on social media as well as provide advice on the field.
We have international treaties about intellectual property and global treaties that facilitate global commerce, why cant we do this for social media? Delpopolo said at the associations launch.
According to CMO Australia, ISMAs first order of business is to make an interactive digital service out of Delpopolos book.
The association recently released its 2016 Social Media Terms of Service White Paper which revealed that parts of the Terms of Service agreements of many major social media platforms fail legal standards in Australia and can therefore be potentially unenforceable.
ISMA said in a statement about its whitepaper that the most concerning terms are about disclaimers of liability, IP enforcement, privacy and data, consumer laws and minors.
Maori law firm associate Maia Wikaira is Stamford-bound after being awarded the 2016 Fulbright-Nga Pae o te Maramatanga Graduate Award.
Wikaira, who works for Kahui Legal, will head to California to complete a Masters over 9 months, in Environmental Law and Policy, specialising in freshwater law and policy and indigenous rights.
Stanford is home to some of the USAs foremost experts in water law and policy, so I am excited to learn from some of the thought leaders in this area, Wikaira told NZ Lawyer.
I have chosen freshwater law and policy and indigenous rights, to address the place of iwi and hapu rights and interests in ongoing freshwater reform.
California is also facing significant water shortage issues, so I am looking forward to the lessons I can learn from the challenges they are facing.
The program aims to promote mutual understanding through exchanges between the US and other countries, each year selecting number of outstanding NZ academics. Students pursue a tailored course, culminating in a thesis on the subject.
The 9 month programme involves rigorous interdisciplinary training in environmental, energy and resource law and policy, Wikaira said.
Receiving the Fulbright-Nga Pae o Te Maramatanga Scholarship is a huge privilege.
Nga Pae o Te Maramatanga works to promote creative opportunities within indigenous peoples. Wikaira said working with the organisation will enable her to grow her network in the U.S.
I am fortunate to join a strong network of ambassadors for the ideals of both programmes and look to creating connections and fostering understanding during my time in the US, she said.
I am also looking forward to the weather, and enjoying the diverse cultural and outdoor experiences California has to offer.
Stanford University is near San Francisco, and I cannot wait to experience the music, art, theatre and literary events for which the Golden Gate City is so famous.
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Hi,
I have applied for my 574 visa together with for my partner on 16th May 2016. 8th July I received a call from case officer. After that no updates yet. Altogether it was 2 months now. But I am eligible for streamlined process which mentioned visa process with in 21 days.
Have anyone of you applied for 574. Please share experience.
Thanks.
We are talking about a 25.3 mpg fleet average this June, reached after American consumers bought more SUVs and pick-up trucks instead of hybrid cars plug-in hybrids , and even diesel models.Fortunately, the figure only dropped from 25.4 mpg in May, but the average new vehicle sold in the United States of America is still away from the countrys best result, reached in August 2014, of 25.8 mpg.According to the experts at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, average fuel efficiency is still increasing in the USA, and the rate of growth is of 20% since the institute first started tracking these figures, in October 2007.The same average MPG level for new vehicles sold in the USA was previously reached in March 2016, August 2015, September-November 2014, April 2014. The latter was the first month when the value was first reached. We must note that December 2015 and December 2014 had the worst new vehicle mpg average for the United States of America since January 2014s 24.9 mpg.The research institute of the University of Michigan calculated the average new vehicle fuel economy estimate by following the EPA Fuel Economy Guide. For cars that had multiple ratings, the average was used, without regard to sales figures for each particular variation.Low-volume automakers, like Ferrari and Rolls-Royce, were aggregated by brand and received an average fuel economy rating, to simplify the calculations. Moreover, the researchers revealed that the figures are subjective to small changes, as they only considered the most recently available model year of each vehicle, as well as occasionally updated data in the EPA source.The bottom line of this article is that American consumers have returned to their old habits of purchasing cars that are not as efficient as they could have been. The researchers at the University of Michigan hope to see improved figures in July.
More on this:
1 Road Rage: the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde Syndrome Behind the Wheel
2 Mum Tries to Drift 2016 Ford Focus RS, Hilarity Ensues
3 Jay Leno Enjoys Life In the Fast Lane By Driving a 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429
4 Having This Sticker on Your Truck Means You Enjoy Getting Tickets for Free
5 Pickup Driver Hand-Gestures to a Tesla Driver in a Non-Flattery Manner
SUV
While we cannot be sure on the excessive Kool-Aid consumption, we do know that Raul Murillo Diaz has been arrested for arson , and is also investigated by authorities on two other incidents that targeted Googles building in Mountain View, California.According to a report from The Mercury News , the other two episodes involve firearms and a Molotov cocktail. The latter is a glass bottle with a flammable fluid inside, which bursts into flames when it hits its target. Fortunately, the car that Diaz targeted had no humans inside, but it still was damaged by the fire.Police officers managed to link Diaz to his other attacks by monitoring security video footage (someone was watching him, after all).They also noticed his Volkswagen SUV being present in a parking lot near Googles building in Mountain View after the Molotov attack. The same car was spotted after viewing security footage following an attack which involved a person shooting at one of Googles facilities.If this was not enough to convince anyone of Diazs involvement, he was arrested after a traffic stop in his Volkswagennear Googles headquarters, and police found the makings of a pipe bomb, as well as a weapons case in the car. The traffic stop happened shortly after the third attack on the Google campus.Diaz claims to have kept journals in which he wrote whenever he felt that Google was tracking him. Fortunately for everyone else, the attacker did not injure anyone with his actions, but that does not mean he will not be held accountable for his behavior.Whenever you feel like you are being monitored by Google, government agencies, or whatever entity, just make a tin foil hat and have a sip of water. Take a deep breath, and then move on with your life.
House Schiranna joins efforts with specialist travel company Novara Pop Srl, and, with the support of AIAV (the Italian Association of Travel Agents) and De Petri Adventure, comes up with a most promising prospect for the riders. Emotion Road will take groups of enthusiast rider along the most picturesque routes in Italy, with lodging in what MV Agusta describes as the "most exclusive and atmospheric hotels."The true nature of Italy will also unveil itself to the tourist thanks to the very machines that will carry them. Emotion Road participants will be astride one of the latest additions to Schiranna's line-up, the Turismo Veloce 800, a bike that embodies both the spirit of Italian motorcycle-making prowess and the luxury that became a synonym for MV Agusta's machines.So far, there are no less than five routes that can be chosen, each taking the riders to scenic parts of Italy. The list includes the lakes of Piedmont and Lombardy, a tour of the lakes of the northwest, tour of Lake Garda, plus a motorcycle tour of the Alps and Dolomites, and the Italia Bella premium trip.Italia Bella is also the longest adventure, taking the riders in the Lazio, Sardegna, Liguria, Emilia, and Tuscany regions, on a whopping 2,800 km (1,740 miles) journey.These amazing trips will also benefit from the presence and guidance of Alessandro "Ciro" De Petri who participated in the Dakar, and the Pharaons rallies 11 times each. For more info on the Emotion Road tours, please check out the MV Agusta Adventure website.
But first, lets start with the elephant in the room. Fiat Chrysler, as Im sure you know, is miles behind FoMoCo and GM as far as its emissions record is concerned. While competitors got to improve their emissions records with turbocharging, hybridization, and full electrification, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles failed to find the resources to catch up to the competition.Hence, insider talk suggests that the 6.4-liter HEMI V8 and the 6.2-liter Hellcat V8 could kick the bucket in 2019. In their place, FCA is expected to turn to twin-turbocharged powerplants. However, the peeps at Automobile Mag suggest that the next-generation Challenger SRT Hellcat will hold on to the supercharged V8, with at least 750 hp. Call me skeptical, but I wonder how that will fare with the upcoming 2025 Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards.Dodge is expected to replace the ripened Challenger and revive the Barracuda in the 2019 model year and Alfa Romeo is said to be vital for both pony cars. As it was reported last year, the 2019 Dodge Challenger is envisioned to ride on the Giorgio platform that underpins the bite-the-back-of-your-hand pretty Giulia sedan. If this will pan out, then we should all look forward to a much, much lighter and nimbler Challenger.In the case of the 2019 Dodge Barracuda , the long-awaited revival is rumored to be offered exclusively as a convertible. Slated to share almost its entire backbone and powertrains with the 2019 Dodge Challenger, the Barracuda will wear its own sheet metal and will be just a tad smaller than the next-generation Challenger. Now thats something I sure will be waiting for like a pet waits for his owner to return from work.
SUV
This time, we are writing about a Tesla Model X , which has rolled over on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.The car was driven by Albert Scaglione, a Southfield art gallery owner, who was traveling with his son-in-law, an artist named Tim Yanke.The crash took place on July 1, 2016, approximately 107 miles east of Pittsburgh. Fortunately, both occupants survived the accident, and they exited the vehicle without any injuries.According to the Detroit Free Press , the Pennsylvania State Police officer that arrived at the scene, Daly Vukovich, was told that the driver activated the Autopilot feature of the vehicle.The crash report mentioned that the incident took place around 5 p.m, near mile marker 160. Thehit a guard rail on the right side of the roadway, and then crossed over the eastbound lanes, where it hit the concrete median and rolled over.The Tesla Model X came to rest in the middle of the eastbound lane, and the electric SUV struck no other vehicles. Debris hit another car, but the incident did not harm its occupants. As the Detroit Free Press notes, the Pennsylvania Turnpike is known for its narrow shoulders and concrete medians, which leave little margin for error while driving.At this point, there is no indication that the Autopilot system from Tesla had malfunctioned in any way. The company will release the logs of the vehicles operations at the moment to authorities , as they have previously pledged.The accident took place a day after the automaker has announced that the NHTSA is running an investigation on a fatal incident involving a Tesla Model S , which was operating with the Autopilot function activated. Unfortunately for the driver of the electric sedan, the impact with a tractor trailer was fatal, and investigators have yet to determine the precise circumstances of the event.
ARI has been named to IDG's Computerworld's Best Places to Work in IT for the second time. The annual list recognizes the top 100 workplaces in the U.S. for technology professionals.
"ARI has a long history of investing in our people, processes and technology so that we stay at the forefront of our industry and provide an engaging environment for our IT professionals," said Steve Haindl, executive vice president for technology and innovation for Holman, ARI's parent company. "We have created and maintained a workplace that provides our people with the tools, software and support they need to drive innovation. In return, they have developed ground-breaking solutions that have evolved how fleets are managed years before anyone else in our industry."
ARI dedicates 25%t of its annual budget to IT research and development, which allows the company to offer its more than 200 IT team members both the means and opportunity to engage in projects involving the company's advanced technologies. The organization's in-house learning and development program, ARI University, encourages participation in sessions designed to improve individual performance and enables employees to meet professional goals. ARI also offers employees full tuition reimbursement from the first day of employment to support those who may be seeking training beyond what is available through ARI University.
Last month, ARI opened its new Technology and Innovation Center, a 107,000 square foot building designed to help inspire new ideas and solutions for years to come.
"The organizations on this year's Best Places to Work in IT list excel at creating a dynamic and satisfying IT work environment," said Scot Finnie, editor in chief of Computerworld. "In a competitive market for tech talent, these outstanding employers are able to attract highly skilled IT pros by offering great benefits, new learning opportunities, access to cutting-edge technologies and challenging, business-critical projects."
The Best Places to Work in IT list is an annual ranking of the top 100 work environments for technology professionals by IDG's Computerworld. The list is compiled based on a comprehensive questionnaire regarding company offerings in categories such as benefits, career development, training and retention. In addition, Computerworld conducts extensive surveys of IT workers, and their responses factor heavily in determining the rankings.
5 July 2016 18:24 (UTC+04:00)
A soldier of Azerbaijani Armed Forces, Vusal Aliyev, was killed by a sniper shot from the Armenian side July 5 at 12:30 p.m. (GMT + 4 hours), the press service of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reported.
Despite the latest agreement reached at the tripartite negotiations, the Armenian side, having violated the ceasefire, once again committed a provocation on the Azerbaijani-Armenian state border.
The Ministry of Defense said that the responsibility for consequences of these provocations lies on the criminal military-political regime of Armenia.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
6 July 2016 10:02 (UTC+04:00)
By Felipe Calderon
Climate change affects us all, but we still are not acting as quickly as we should to address its causes, mitigate the damage, and adapt to its effects. Many people dont understand the risks climate change poses to global economic and social structures. And, sadly, many who do understand are dismissive of the far-reaching benefits a global shift to sustainability and clean energy would bring about.
According to a recent Pew study, seven out of ten Americans classified as political independents were not very concerned that climate change would hurt them. Worse still, Yale University researchers recently found that 40% of adults worldwide have never even heard of climate change. In some developing countries, such as India, that figure climbs to 65%.
These figures are discouraging, but they can be improved. The Yale study concluded that, educational attainment tends to be the single strongest predictor of public awareness of climate change. By investing in quality education, we can set the next generation on the right path to addressing this global problem.
Education and climate action work together in three ways. For starters, education fills knowledge gaps. Understanding how climate change is already having an impact on ones life can have practical benefits. This is especially true for poor populations that are most vulnerable to crop failures and natural disasters, such as landslides and floods, caused by climate change. Populations that must rebuild from scratch after each new catastrophe miss out on opportunities for rapid development. By understanding that their world is changing and that the likelihood of future disasters is increasing these populations can build resilience and learn to adapt to the sudden and slow stresses of a changing climate.
Second, education challenges apathy. Knowing the measures available to address climate change can open up vast opportunities for economic growth. Global investors should be made to understand that sustainable solutions can increase wellbeing and create additional economic opportunities. To take one example, in Niger, education and improved farming techniques helped double real farm incomes for more than one million people, while restoring huge tracts of severely degraded land. In the US, as of 2014, there were more jobs that depended on solar energy than on coal mining.
Still, many people insist that implementing measures to mitigate the effects of climate change is too costly to our current way of life. According to the Pew study, almost seven out of ten people believe that, given the limitations of technology, they would have to make major lifestyle changes. This does not have to be the case, and education can challenge the kind of skepticism that forecloses opportunities for climate-smart living.
Finally, education furnishes the technical knowledge needed to build a better future through innovation one that includes clean and safe energy, sustainable agriculture, and smarter cities. Broadening access to education would lead to more homegrown innovation entrepreneurs spotting opportunities to address local problems. Globally, we cannot rely on knowledge centers such as Silicon Valley or Oxford to develop a silver bullet to the climate problem. Solutions may come from tech hubs, but they will also come from villages and developing cities, from farmers and manufactures with vastly different perspectives on the world around them. And this will create a virtuous cycle. It is easier for educated people to migrate and integrate into new societies, sharing the knowledge theyve brought with them.
Fortunately, younger generations today are better educated and more committed to reducing their own carbon footprint than previous generations were. They are leading the way and forcing us all to reconsider our own actions. But we must broaden the availability of education worldwide to ensure that their efforts are not in vain.
In recognition of educations importance, the government of Norway, under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Erna Solberg, has established the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity, of which I am a member. We will meet this week in Oslo, and it is my hope that we will confront the challenges of our time and act on the knowledge that education is the best problem-solving asset we possess.
Addressing the dangers of climate change is not only an existential imperative; it is also an opportunity to move toward a cleaner, more productive, and fairer path of development. Only an educated global society can take the decisive action needed to get us there.
Copyright: Project Syndicate: Why Climate Change Is an Education Issue
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6 July 2016 15:12 (UTC+04:00)
By Nouriel Roubini
The United Kingdoms narrow vote to leave the European Union had specific British causes. And yet it is also the proverbial canary in the coalmine, signaling a broad populist/nationalist backlash at least in advanced economies against globalization, free trade, offshoring, labor migration, market-oriented policies, supranational authorities, and even technological change.
All of these trends reduce wages and employment for low-skill workers in labor-scarce and capital-rich advanced economies, and raise them in labor-abundant emerging economies. Consumers in advanced economies benefit from the reduction in prices of traded goods; but low and even some medium-skill workers lose income as their equilibrium wages fall and their jobs are threatened.
In the Brexit vote, the fault lines were clear: rich versus poor, gainers versus losers from trade/globalization, skilled versus unskilled, educated versus less educated, young versus old, urban versus rural, and diverse versus more homogenous communities. The same fault lines are appearing in other advanced economies, including the United States and continental Europe.
With their more flexible economies and labor markets, the US and the UK have recovered more strongly than continental Europe in terms of GDP and employment since the 2008 global financial crisis. Job creation has been robust, with the unemployment rate falling below 5%, even if real wages are not growing much.
Yet in the US, Donald Trump has become the hero of angry workers threatened by trade, migration, and technological change. In the UK, the Brexit vote was heavily influenced by fear that immigrants from low-wage EU countries (the proverbial Polish plumber) were taking citizens jobs and public services.
In continental Europe and the eurozone, however, economic conditions are much worse. The average unemployment rate hovers above 10% (and much higher in the eurozone periphery more than 20% in Greece and Spain) with youth unemployment over 30%. In most of these countries, job creation is anemic, real wages are falling, and dual labor markets mean that formal-sector, unionized workers have good wages and benefits, while younger workers have precarious jobs that pay lower wages, provide no employment security, and offer low or no benefits.
Politically, the strains of globalization are twofold. First, establishment parties of the right and the left, which for more than a generation have supported free trade and globalization, are being challenged by populist, nativist/nationalist anti-establishment parties. Second, establishment parties are being disrupted if not destroyed from within, as champions of anti-globalization emerge and challenge the mainstream orthodoxy.
Establishment parties were once controlled by globalizations beneficiaries: capital owners; skilled, educated, and digitally savvy workers; urban and cosmopolitan elites; and unionized white- and blue-collar employees. But they also included workers both blue- and white-collar who were among the losers from globalization, but who nonetheless remained loyal, either because they were socially and religiously conservative, or because center-left parties were formally supporters of unions, workers rights, and entitlement programs.
After the 2008 financial crisis, globalizations losers started to organize and find anti-establishment champions on both the left and the right. On the left, the losers in the UK and the US, especially young people, found champions in traditional center-left parties: Jeremy Corbyn in the UKs Labour Party, and Bernie Sanders in Americas Democratic Party.
The deepest fault lines emerged among center-right parties. These parties the Republicans in the US, the Tories in the UK, and center-right parties across continental Europe confronted an internal revolt against their own leaders. The rise of Donald Trump anti-trade, anti-migration, anti-Muslim, and nativist is a reflection of an uncomfortable fact for the Republican establishment: the partys median voter is closer to those who have lost from globalization. A similar revolt took place in the UKs Conservative Party, with globalizations losers coalescing around the partys Leave campaign or shifting allegiance to the populist anti-EU UK Independence Party.
In continental Europe, where multi-party parliamentary systems are prevalent, political fragmentation and disintegration are even more severe than in the UK and the US. On the EUs periphery, anti-establishment parties tend to be on the left: Syriza in Greece, Italys Five Star Movement, Spains Podemos, leftist parties in Portugal. In the EU core, such parties tend to be on the right: Alternative for Germany, Frances National Front, and similar far-right parties in Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and elsewhere.
But, despite the growing number, organization, and mobilization of globalizations losers, globalization itself is not necessarily doomed. For starters, it continues to yield net benefits for advanced and emerging markets alike, which is why the losers still tend to be a minority in most advanced economies, while those who benefit from globalization are a large if at times silent majority. In fact, even the losers benefit from the lower prices of goods and services brought about by globalization and technological innovation.
This also why populist and anti-establishment parties are still a political minority. Even Syriza, once in power, backpedaled and had to accept austerity, as an EU exit would have been much costlier. And Spains recent general election, held three days after the Brexit referendum, suggests that, despite high unemployment, austerity, and painful structural reforms, moderate, pro-European forces remain a majority.
Even in the US, Trumps appeal is limited, owing to the demographic narrowness of his electoral base. Whether he can win the presidential election in November is highly doubtful.
This is also why pro-European center-right and center-left coalitions remain in power in most of the EU. The risk that anti-EU parties may come to power in Italy, France, and the Netherlands among others is rising, but still remains a distant possibility.
Finally, economic theory suggests that globalization can be made to benefit all as long as the winners compensate the losers. This can take the form of direct compensation or greater provision of free or semi-free public goods (for example, education, retraining, health care, unemployment benefits, and portable pensions).
For workers to accept more labor mobility and flexibility as creative destruction eliminates some jobs and creates others, appropriate schemes are needed to replace income lost as a result of transitional unemployment. In the continental EU, establishment parties remain in power partly because their countries maintain extensive social welfare systems.
The backlash against globalization is real and growing. But it can be contained and managed through policies that compensate workers for its collateral damage and costs. Only by enacting such policies will globalizations losers begin to think that they may eventually join the ranks of its winners.
Copyright: Project Syndicate: Globalizations political fault lines
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6 July 2016 15:00 (UTC+04:00)
A new company joined to the number of companies working in the construction service area Ay usta Company. The company is preparing to celebrate its one-year anniversary, overcame a lot of problems toward to its realization, because the construction itself is one of the most difficult and involving risks sectors. We are proud to introduce you the team of young people who succeeded with their creative ideas in business and quality service areas in participation to international projects until today. Its very important to be informed about the team, which started with a slogan The real Azerbaijani Quality.
All this happened in one year
The employees who demonstrated excellent results in different areas before continue this tradition worthily today. Looking at the result we can surely say that they could show off excellent stats in one year. It is good to note that the company, which started to work with only three people, nowadays has increased in 5 times, and up to 1000 specialists and repairmen in different areas of service collaborating with the company.
All generated by the need to
We used to face different domestic problems at home. Being a businessman we did not have enough time to find a reliable and professional repairman. This was the main reason to create a national brand with a high quality mark. This is how the founder describes the reason where the idea came from.
Forget about your everyday domestic problems
The company is doing its best to facilitate everyday domestic problems of their customers. Thats why it pays attention even to small problems. As the company cooperates with large construction materials companies, it offers all the materials cheaper than the market prices. There is consultancy service available from professional specialists. Taking into consideration Azerbaijans mentality, Ay Usta is the only company at the market who provides unique service of Lady-Consultancy.
The concept of slave market in Azerbaijan can disappear
The company that develops intensively at the present moment is ready to provide trainings and certificates to anyone who is ready to work for Ay Usta and this can change the process of job hire for specialists and repairmen. The plans of company are to invite experienced specialists from overseas for trainings. However Azerbaijani people will gain the experience and financial profit in their own country. In general we do our best to destroy a slave market term in Azerbaijan.
Why not?!
Its obvious that the company gives a guarantee for its small as well as for the wide-ranging projects. Today we can confidently say that there is no other company like Ay usta of such format in this area at the present moment.
And finally
Its a very pleasant fact that today there is a reasonable price and high quality, young, prosperous kind of service in our country. It is enough to dial *0002 to make sure of quality offering service. Anyway the real result is a good confirmation of our idea.
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6 July 2016 14:01 (UTC+04:00)
By Amina Nazarli
Minsk Bearing Plant (MPZ) is interested in cooperation with Azerbaijani companies and businessmen to export its products, according to the Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO).
MPZ, founded in 1948, is among the ten largest enterprises of Belarus and is one of the largest bearing manufacturers in Eastern Europe and the CIS. The output of bearings at the plant is more than five million pieces a year.
The range of bearings, which are sold under the brand of "MPZ" makes up more than 600 models, here can be found bearings with diameter of 10 mm weighting 19 grams, and 980 mm diameter giants weighting up to 880 kg.
The basis of the production and supplying program of JSC Minsk Bearing Plant is double row spherical roller bearings, share of which in sales is about 65 percent, and in export is about 90 percent. At present time "MPZ" delivers products into 24 countries.
AZPROMO is a joint public-private-initiative, established by the Ministry of Economy and Industry of Azerbaijan in 2003 with the aim to contribute to the economic development through attracting foreign investments in the non-oil sectors of economy. In 2005, its functions were expanded, including the stimulation of country's exports of non-oil goods to the overseas markets.
The Agency assists the companies established in Azerbaijan in their intentions for entering foreign markets. Its wide network of foreign representations and partners offer good opportunity for companies to improve and expand their export capacities.
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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli
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6 July 2016 14:27 (UTC+04:00)
By Rashid Shirinov
Privatization of the state communications operators, namely Baku Telephone Communication and Aztelecom Ltd, is not on the agenda.
The statement was made by Elmir Velizadeh, Deputy Minister of Communications and High Technologies of Azerbaijan, Trend reported on July 6.
Previously, two options for the privatization of these state enterprises were considered. The first one involved a direct sale of state assets, while the second one stipulated pre-capitalization of these companies assets and their merger with further privatization.
The second option was the most acceptable, since the state never directly sells large companies. Therefore, it was assumed that the two companies will be combined, get additional investment and then be put for privatization as a single enterprise.
Inventory of the two companies is held annually. Enterprises have large assets as they own the most extensive telecommunications infrastructure throughout Azerbaijan and possess almost all transmission equipment in the country.
In May, the Azerbaijani president signed a decree on additional measures on improvement of state propertys privatization process. The decree prescribes the Cabinet of Ministers to prepare a new draft law On privatization of state property within two months.
The State Committee for Property Affairs was instructed to suspend the privatization of state property. The State Committee was also given 20 days to submit to the President the list of state property which should have been privatized but the relevant transactions were not implemented yet.
In case the transactions are already finished, the Committee should ensure rapid completion of the privatization process and submit the list of privatized state property to the President within 20 days.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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5 July 2016 16:36 (UTC+04:00)
By Gunay Camal
The April escalation and the acute threat a graver escalation could draw in powerful neighboring countries have focused the much-needed political attention of key international actors and produced an opportunity to find a peaceful solution to a generation-old conflict, often mistakenly called frozen.
International Crisis Group has announced about this in its report on the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict released on July 4.
For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict which emerged over Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions.
Over the entire period of its existence, the OSCE Minsk Group, which acted as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, failed to move forward in resolving the long lasting conflict.
The Group believes it is essential that the parties, urged on by France, Russia and the U.S., as co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, make a decisive push for progress in peace talks.
Resumed military escalation would likely be far more destructive than the April flare-up. There is a serious risk that long-range ground-to-ground missiles would be used and casualties, particularly civilian,be much higher in the effort to gain a decisive ground advantage, according to the report.
The regional context has changed profoundly in the last year, increasing the potential for wide fallout if fighting resumes, the report reads. Iran is still defining its approach to the region but has flagged an interest in a greater role. Russia and the West remain at odds, with differences in Eastern Europe perhaps even greater than in Syria. Interests do align in pushing for progress on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but Moscow, which profiles itself as the key mediator and security guarantor, also seeks thereby to strengthen its strategic stake in a region, considering it a sphere of privileged interest, including by forging a closer relationship with Baku.
The Group is sure that all the Minsk Group co-chairs should engage in the mediation effort at a senior political level in order to lend it the necessary weight and sense of urgency.
The co-chairs should maintain pressure on the sides to offer concessions, specifically on Armenia to hand over the occupied territory of Azerbaijan, and on Azerbaijan to accept strong, internationally-backed security guarantees and an interim status for the Nagorno-Karabakh, the report reads.
The EU should continue to give its strong political support to the Minsk Group, including through its bilateral relations with Baku and Yerevan, experts of the Crisis Group say.
It could make a special contribution, in conjunction with key European Union (EU) member states, particularly Germany the present OSCE chairman-in-office (CiO) and the EU Minsk Group members by putting on the table concrete offers of assistance to bolster security and other CSBMs The OSCE High Level Planning Group should step up preparatory work on a future peacekeeping force, including by exploring possible contributions.
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6 July 2016 11:48 (UTC+04:00)
By Rashid Shirinov
Azerbaijans National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA) announced about detection of seven anti-tank mines in the Ganja region of Azerbaijan.
Four shell craters were inspected in the Chayly village in Tartar region, one unexploded ordnance (UXO) -- the engine of 9M22U Grad rocket was detected and neutralized.
Another shell crater was viewed in the village of Yukhari Kurdmahmudlu of Fizuli region, and PG-7 unexploded grenade was discovered and defused by ANAMA.
A gun projectile of 100-mm caliber was detected and defused on the side of the road in the village of Dagkesaman, Agstafa region.
Moreover, ANAMA found seven anti-tank mines in the Kapaz district of Ganja.
Overall, Azerbaijans National Agency for Mine Action inspected four cultivation areas, eight shell craters, detected and neutralized three UXOs and seven anti-tank mines, inspected and cleansed an area of 25,150 square meters on July 5.
Over the period from April 7 to July 4, 621 houses and household plots, 30 farms, five rural schools, two military units and rural cemeteries, a medical center, metal stock, acreages and winery in Zardab, Tartar, Shamkir, Agjabedi, Agdam, Fizuli, Tovuz, Goranboy, Samukh, Shamkir, Jalilabad, Ujar, Barda, Astara, Agstafa regions, Mingachevir, Ganja, Baku and Sumgayit were inspected by ANAMA. As a result, 1,575 UXOs, 18 anti-personnel and 15 anti-tank mines were detected and neutralized.
Currently, special rapid response teams of ANAMA with minesweeper dogs continue their operations for detecting UXOs in the border settlements.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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6 July 2016 13:07 (UTC+04:00)
By Gunay Camal
The U.S., Russia and France, the three co-chair states of the OSCE Minsk Group, are committed to organizing another meeting between the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue as soon as possible.
The American c-chairman of the OSCE MG, James Warlick made the remark while talking to Trend on July 6.
Warlick further added that there is no date fixed for the next presidential meeting yet.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has met his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan twice in the past month and half first in Vienna in May, and the second time in St. Petersburg in June along with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Experts have positively assessed the intensification of talks, along with the signs of more constructive spirit of the talks.
For over the past 20 years the OSCE-led Minsk Group is dealing with the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which emerged in 1988 as a result of Armenia's illegal territorial claims on Azerbaijan.
As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
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3 July 2016 10:49 (UTC+04:00)
Armenian armed forces have 10 times violated the ceasefire with Azerbaijan on the line of contact over the past 24 hours, said Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry.
Armenian armed forces, stationed in the village of Berkaber of Armenias Ijevan district, opened fire at Azerbaijani positions located in the village of Gizilhajili of Gazakh district.
Moreover, Azerbaijani positions underwent fire from the positions located near the village of Horadiz of Fizuli district and from the nameless heights of Khojavend district.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
3 July 2016 17:26 (UTC+04:00)
The OSCE PAs Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions opened debate on Rapporteur Gordana Comic`s (MP, Serbia) report and draft resolution, introduced by Committee Chair Isabel Santos (MP, Portugal) as part of the OSCE PA Annual Session in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.
The resolution urges a revitalization of the OSCEs commitment to the human dimension of security at a time when a crisis of leadership and ideas is coinciding with a humanitarian emergency related to Europes refugee and migrant crisis.
Proposed by the Azerbaijani parliamentary delegation, a paragraph was added to the draft resolution. The paragraph urges the protection of rights and freedoms of migrant women and children.
4 July 2016 15:25 (UTC+04:00)
The Chamber of Deputies of the Argentine National Congress has adopted a resolution on the establishment of the inter-parliamentary friendship group with Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani Embassy in Argentina reported.
Patricia Gimenez, second Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies will chair the group. Five out of seven MPs of the group are members of "Let's change" influential political bloc which is currently in power in Argentina.
Members of the group will closely cooperate with Azerbaijan and jointly work with the International Relations Committee of the Chamber of Deputies and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship in this regard, the resolution says.
The two countries cooperate successfully in the fields of ICT and agriculture. Argentina's high-technologies company INVAP, engaged in the construction and delivery of complex equipment, does business with Azerbaijans space industry.
The sides are also interested in the joint development of agriculture in both countries. Argentina has recently achieved positive results in agriculture with the aid of modern technologies and intends to share this experience with Azerbaijan.
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4 July 2016 16:00 (UTC+04:00)
By Amina Nazarli
Azerbaijan International Defense Exhibition, ADEX, was displayed at one of the world's largest international land and airland defense and security exhibitions -- Eurosatory.
Held in the French capital Paris from June 13 to 17, the exhibition brought together 1,572 exhibitors from 56 countries.
Caspian Event Organizers (CEO), the organizer of the ADEX exhibition, was the first company from Azerbaijan to participate in Eurosatory in its long history.
The Manager of the ADEX exhibition, Ulker Gasimova, noted that the debut participation of ADEX at the Eurosatory exhibition was a huge success.
Our team was very happy to see the Azerbaijani flag flown among those of the other participating countries. The visitors to the exhibition showed great interest in Azerbaijan and in the ADEX exhibition. There were a lot of useful meetings and negotiations about the participation in ADEX in Azerbaijan. Some 15 to 20 meetings were held daily, and the exhibition brochure was in great demand. We were also able to meet with exhibitors from ADEX 2014 and with this year's exhibitors who are already actively preparing for their arrival in Baku. Now, we will take the Eurosatory stand on the ADEX 2016 exhibition at the Baku Expo Center to be held on September 27-30, she said.
Since 2009, the Defense Industry Ministry has demonstrated its products at international exhibitions and now the ministry is preparing for the second Azerbaijan International Defense Exhibition "ADEX-2016" to be held in Baku. More than 100 international companies have passed registration to participate at the exhibition.
The Azerbaijani Army is one of the strongest, most highly-disciplined armies in the world and the leading in the region. It is equipped with new high-quality weapons made by domestic and foreign military-industrial systems.
Azerbaijans expanded military budget has lifted it to the top among its neighbors in the South Caucasus.
The country manufactures the Istiglal sniper rifle, Mubariz rifle, Orbiter-2M unmanned intelligence drones, Gurza armored patrol car, "Matador" and "Marauder" armored vehicles, anti-tank mines, etc.
Last year, the Defense Industry Ministry accomplished work over the creation of night vision devices, prismatic binoculars with a compass, mine fuses of different types and organized their production.
Azerbaijan, which is in war with neighboring Armenia over the latter's territorial claims during more than 20 years, keeps in focus the armament, working closely with leading companies and firms in various fields of military industry.
Azerbaijans military budget for 2016 is about $1.466 billion. The country's military budget exceeds the overall state budget of occupant Armenia by more than $1 billion.
Azerbaijan, leaves behind many CIS and regional countries to take its place among the first 70 strongest militaries of the world, according to the US-based Global Firepower survey center.
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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli
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5 July 2016 11:42 (UTC+04:00)
By Laman Ismayilova
There is hope for the long-lasting Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to reach a much anticipated settlement as peace process over the problems is gaining new pace.
Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the State Duma committee on CIS affairs, Eurasian integration and relations with compatriots, believes that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict can move from the dead point within a year.
"We hope that in the foreseeable future, perhaps within the next year, some kind of significant actions will be prepared to move down off the ground the bleeding dossier of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, he said at a press conference in Moscow.
This optimistic mood followed the statement of Spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova, who told journalists in Yerevan on Monday that Russia has made huge efforts to resolve the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
"Exactly for this purpose Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov holds bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the CSTO," she stressed, adding that great efforts are made to ensure that the settlement has led to success.
On Monday, the meeting of CSTO Foreign Ministers took place in Yerevan.
Peace process to achieve a decisive solution to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict Nagorno-Karabakh, which lasted for over two decades, has intensified after the recent scaly battles in April.
Long-simmering tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan flared again on April 2 when the Armenian side began to shell the Azerbaijani positions and settlements along the frontline. To protect civilian population, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces launched counter attacks and repulsed the enemy forces back. On April 5, the two sides agreed on a ceasefire.
Baku has repeatedly called on Armenia to abstain from violence, while Yerevan continued ignoring all the appeals.
Lately, the world leaders have accelerated their efforts for peaceful end for the conflict, and achieved to organize a presidential meeting between Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Serzh Sarksyan, of Armenia.
The problem was on focus of talks between President Aliyev and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who mulled the recent work over the settlement of the conflict, putting a particular accent on the dynamics that the recent talks in Vienna and St.-Petersburg generated.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also discussed Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with his French counterpart recently.
Advising President Francois Hollande on the results of the trilateral meeting with the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia Putin said the sides agreed to continue active joint work within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group in this important sphere.
Furthermore, OSCE chairman-in-office, German Foreign Secretary Frank-Walter Steinmeier supported the initiative of holding continuous meetings between the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities of Nagorno Karabakh.
The international community is trying to contribute to the solution of conflict between the two countries, whilst the peace negotiations have not reached any successful result.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts - 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory - are under occupation of Armenian armed forces.
In May 1994, the parties reached a cease-fire under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group and co-chairs Russia, France and the US that are currently holding peace negotiations regarding the issue.
Armenian government has not yet carried out the UN Security Councils four resolutions on the liberation of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.
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5 July 2016 13:25 (UTC+04:00)
Irans President Hassan Rouhani has made a phone call to Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev, said the press service of Azerbaijani president.
Rouhani congratulated Ilham Aliyev on the holy Ramadan holiday and wished welfare and peace to Azerbaijani people.
President Aliyev expressed gratitude to Irans president for the congratulations and attention, congratulated Rouhani on the occasion of Ramadan holiday and wished progress and prosperity to Iranian people.
President Aliyev expressed hope that the expected visit of Iranian president to Azerbaijan in August will give an impetus to the further development of bilateral relations between the two countries.
The two presidents expressed satisfaction with the successful development of friendly relations between Iran and Azerbaijan and expressed confidence that the relations will be strengthened further.
During the phone conversation, the presidents exchanged views on the future of the bilateral cooperation between Azerbaijan and Iran in political, economic, transportation and energy spheres, as well as in the Caspian Sea.
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6 July 2016 11:14 (UTC+04:00)
Azerbaijan and Iraq have explored ways of deepening relations as Deputy Prime Minister Ali Ahmadov met with Iraqi Charge d`Affairs Fadhil Awad.
Ahmadov said Azerbaijan and Iraq were bound together by ties of history and common values. He noted that Azerbaijan was ready to render every possible support to Iraq to use its potential.
Iraq has big economic potential, and we are ready to assist the country in realizing this potential, he said.
Ahmadov expressed grief over the terror attack committed in Baghdad, and stressed the necessity of joining efforts in fight against international terrorism.
Awad said Iraq was keen to develop its relations with Azerbaijan in various fields, including economic and cultural ones.
Cooperation between Azerbaijan and Iraq started more than 40 years ago, and Iraq was one of the first countries that opened an embassy in Azerbaijan.
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6 July 2016 11:58 (UTC+04:00)
By Amina Nazarli
The holy month of Ramadan, which started on June 6, has today ended and Muslims all over the world are marking the Eid Al-Fitr festival.
The Eid al-Fitr prayers in all mosques of Azerbaijan were performed in the early morning of July 6.
Caucasian Muslims Office head, Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazade lead the festive prayers in Tezepir mosque.
Ramadan involves fasting, which is one of the Five Pillars of the religion of Islam and one of the highest forms of Islamic worship.
During Ramadan lasting for 30 days, followers of Islam do not eat or drink or smoke from sunrise to sunset to test their patience and ability to overcome temptations. The people who fast feel happy, blessed and morally appeased.
Ramadan teaches the faithful to love Allah, and of huge importance across the Islamic world to test their will and patience, and to be wiser and more honest.
Ramadan, also known as the Sultan of Eleven Months, brings worshippers closer together around one table, and teaches them love for God, love for life as presented by God to each being, and to share both material and moral wealth.
The holiday marking the end of Ramadan is time of gratitude and festivity, when many observe the holiday in their own ways across the globe.
Traditionally, Eid Al-Fitr is celebrated for two days in Azerbaijan and is an official holiday.
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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli
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6 July 2016 10:19 (UTC+04:00)
A new print edition of the AZERNEWS online newspaper was released on July 6
The new edition includes articles about: Muslims celebrate end of holy month Ramadan, Azerbaijan wins historic European Volleyball League crown, Top official: World saw that Karabakh conflict is not frozen, Ukraine wants more Azerbaijan's oil, gas, etc.
AZERNEWS is an associate member of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).
The online newspaper is available at www.azernews.az.
6 July 2016 13:15 (UTC+04:00)
The Azerbaijan-EU Framework Agreement is included in the agenda of the plenary session of the European Parliament, APA reports. The issue will be mulled in Strasbourg on July 6.
The document was earlier discussed and adopted by the Committee on Foreign Relations on 16 June. Later, it was submitted for discussion at the plenary session of the EP.
The author of the document "Framework agreement EU-Azerbaijan: The main principles of Azerbaijan's participation in EU programmes" is Romanian MP Nicolai Norika.
The basis of the relationship between Azerbaijan and the EU is the Agreement on Partnership and Cooperation (PCA) which was signed in 1996 and came into force on July 1, 1999.
In June 2004, Azerbaijan was included in the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP). In its framework Azerbaijan receives financial and economic support from the EU.
Azerbaijan is a member of the Council of Europe, and therefore is included in the European structures. The parliamentary cooperation Committee between the EU and Azerbaijan, which includes high level politicians, considers the possible join of Azerbaijan to the EU.
Firefighters were on the scene for hours battling a fire at the Landmark Implement building in north Beatrice Tuesday evening.
As daylight faded, smoke began to billow out of the vents and top of the shop area at the John Deere dealership just south of Beatrice Community Hospital. Flames were visible for drivers on the highway as Beatrice Fire and Rescue was dispatched at 8:58 p.m. after receiving reports that the building was on fire, according to the Beatrice Fire department's press release.
At 12:33 a.m., the area was cleared by firefighters.
The Nebraska State Fire Marshal investigated the fire and determined it was electrical in nature and started in the cab of a combine, according to the press release.
Beatrice Fire and Rescue responded, along with three fire trucks and 23 firefighters from Beatrice Rural Fire. One firefighter was transported to Beatrice Community Hospital for heat exhaustion.
We just wanted to thank Beatrice Fire and Rescue and Beatrice Rural Fire for their quick response last night, Justin Bennett, sales manager at Landmark Implement, said Wednesday morning.
To put out the flames the first firefighters at the scene made an initial exterior attack through a window of the shop, according to the press release. After entry was made the hose line was advanced and the fire fighters were able to completely extinguish the fire.
Most of the smoke and flames were contained to the shop area, an area approximately 70 by 200 feet.
A dollar amount has yet to be set for damages, but with combines, tractors, and other equipment housed in the shop area, a significant amount is expected due to the high cost of the equipment and structural damage.
Crews were attempting to clear out the building and storefront Wednesday to get a better idea of the damage caused.
Other agencies that were called to help included Beatrice Police Department, Nebraska State Patrol, Beatrice Board of Public Works, Blacks Hills Energy, and Southeast Communications.
6 July 2016 13:46 (UTC+04:00)
By Amina Nazarli
Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev signed an order on July 5 on rendering financial assistance to the country's religious structures.
To support religious confessions existing in the country and improve their material conditions, 1 million manats (about $ 644,000) will be allocated from the Presidential Reserve to the confessions.
Some 250,000 manats ($161,000) will be allocated to Baku and Caspian Eparchy of Russian Orthodox Church and Baku Mountain Jews community each, as well as 100,000 manats (about $64,000) will be issued to Religious community of European Jews, Apostolic Prefecture of the Catholic Church in Azerbaijan and Albanian-Udi Christian religious community of Azerbaijan each.
Representatives of different faiths and religions live in harmony with each other in Azerbaijan. The country with predominantly Muslim population is tolerant to all other religions flourishing in the country.
Such religions as heathenism, Zoroastrism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and others managed to spread over the country in different periods of time, interacted with one another and formed a specific religious life in the country.
One of the oldest mosques in the world built in 743, is located in the Azerbaijani city of Shamakhi, while one of the oldest churches in the world -- the Caucasian Albanian church located near the other ancient Azerbaijani city of Sheki. Orthodox and Catholic churches, synagogues, temples of fire-worshipers -- all of them are fundamental cultural and historical heritage of the nation.
The government makes everything possible to restore the historical and religious monuments and the construction of new mosques, synagogues and churches.
Currently, the number of religious communities reaches 649 in the country. Representatives of all the nations, all religions, all ethnic groups in the country have equal rights. Religious freedom and support in Azerbaijan is fully provided by the government.
Caucasian Muslims Office head, Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazade, who was talking to reporters on July 6, once again highlighted the tolerant atmosphere of the country.
In Azerbaijan, representatives of the Shiites and the Sunnis occasionally celebrate the holiday on different days. Today, representatives of the two movements prayed together, he said referring to the festive prayers in Teze Pir mosque marking the Eid-al Fitr.
This shows once again that there is no discrimination in Azerbaijan, Pashazade stressed.
We for the first time performed namaz in all the mosques at the same time in accordance with the established time by observatory, which shows our unity. Such unity can not be seen anywhere else in the world. This is an indication of our tolerance. We have an enemy, and have such a big problem as the Karabakh. We will soon liberate our lands from occupation. May Allah grant us this day. We have unity in every issue. Some forces want to prevent it. But no one can break this unity. If Allah wills, Sheikh-ul-Islam noted.
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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli
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6 July 2016 11:08 (UTC+04:00)
The Belarusian Embassy in Azerbaijan held an official reception on the occasion of Independence Day, Azertac reported.
After the national anthems of both countries were performed, Ambassador Gennady Akhramovich addressed the participants.
The ambassador highlighted the history of the Independence in Belarus.
On Azerbaijani-Belarus ties the ambassador said his country attached great importance to the relationship with Azerbaijan.
Deputy Prime Minister of Azerbaijan Yagub Eyyubov congratulated the Belarus nation on behalf of the government of Azerbaijan, and applauded political dialogue between the two countries.
Eyyubov said bilateral trust, respect, mutual understanding security, fraternity lie at the heart of ties between the two countries.
The official further stressed the role of President Ilham Aliyev and President Alexander Lukashenko in developing the bilateral ties between Azerbaijan and Belarus. We have very good relations in trade-economic cooperation. More than 250 companies participate in trade-economic cooperation. We have comprehensive opportunities and potential for further increasing these indicators, said Eyyubov.
Governmental officials, MPs, ambassadors of foreign countries in Baku, representatives of the international organizations and public figures attended the ceremony.
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Suppliers of Waitroses own-label biscuits and cakes could benefit from a new deal between the supermarket chain and international online retailer British Corner Shop.
The online shop serves British expatriates throughout the world and Waitrose is the first UK supermarket to strike a deal with the company, selling its own-label products through the British Corner Shop website. Items from the Waitrose Duchy Organic, essential Waitrose and Waitrose 1 lines will be included.
British Corner Shop managing director Mark Callaghan said: Extending the current British Corner Shop range with over 2,000 Waitrose product lines gives our customers greater choice.
We know the brand will go down well with our British expat customer base, in particular categories such as biscuits and household are in demand, and the Waitrose Duchy Organic brand is often requested.
British Corner Shops ships packages to 138 countries. Waitrose recently added a spiced cauliflower cheese sourdough to its own-brand Waitrose 1 range.
Its hot out. Time to relax.
Go ahead, crack open a brew.
How does a cold craft beer sound? Maybe a Percheron IPA from Ploughshare Brewing in Lincoln, Prairie Fire from Scratchtown Brewing in Ord, or Jug Thumper from Lucky Bucket Brewing in La Vista.
How about popping the cap off one of Blue Blood Brewings 543 Skull Creek Pale Ale? Pour it in a glass. Can you smell that spicy citrus with hints of orange peel and pineapple? That smells there thanks to fresh whole leaf hops picked from a couple acres tended by Bill and Shad Rhynalds near Prague.
There is no smell like it. Its almost addictive, Bill Rhynalds said during a recent interview from his home in Nebraskas Bohemian Alps. Its my favorite smell.
Nebraska is in the midst of a frothy renaissance and now boasts more than 25 craft breweries all in need of ingredients to brew their barley pop.
That need is driving an emergence of a new commercial crop in the state -- hops.
People buy our beer because were local. This whole game is about being local, said Brian Podwinski, the founder and head brewer of Blue Blood in Lincoln.
And buying local means discerning brewers can visit the field, chat with the farmer and watch the hops, which look like small green pine cones, develop on the bine (Thats not a typo. Hops grow on a bine, not a vine).
In a sign of the growing demand, the Nebraska Hop Growers Association within five years has grown from its founding by three families to about 50 members, said Stephen Bowman, vice president of the organization. Nebraska next year will see its first Grower and Brewer Conference and Trade Show Jan. 5-6 at UNLs Innovation Campus (growbrewnebraska.com).
Blue Blood has a handshake deal with the Rhynalds to buy the entire harvest off their two acres for making the Skull Creek Pale ale.
Its enough hops to brew about 1,500 gallons of beer. Podwinski adds whole cones to the boiling wort, which is what you call beer before mixing in the yeast that eats the sugars, converting them to alcohol.
Once the Skull Creek Pale is gone, its gone, at least until after next harvest. That seasonal availability is part of difficulty with sourcing hops locally, but that is changing.
Midwest Hop Producers, a business started two years ago by Bruce and Annette Wiles, is working to develop a regional distribution hub offering to process hops for farmers and connect them with brewers looking to buy.
The husband-and-wife duo began looking to grow hops as a way to supplement and diversify their farm.
And honestly, hops post-production is a lot more fun than corn and beans, Annette Wiles said.
When the Wiles started, they found plenty of demand for their hops, but little in the way of infrastructure to get them processed and to market. Its a niche theyre now working to fill.
Theyre working to develop and build a hop processing facility, including dryers, storage and machines that will grind and turn the hops into pellets that resemble rabbit food. Brewers generally use the pelleted hops for the majority of their beer and only work with the full cone for specialty or seasonal brews.
The Wiles envision Midwest Hop Producers becoming a regional broker, buying, selling, marketing and producing hops, as well as offering processing services to farmers, Annette Wiles said.
Theyve also reached out to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where several researchers are working on different aspects of the hops crop, including cultivation, genetic and disease research, and engineering processing equipment.
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In light of continued developments, primarily since 2008, there exists in these United States a Legal System which operates on a proved Two Tiered approach to justice rendered, which primarily benefits Democratic Elites and Woke Ideological Virtue Signalers, representing their co-dependent wards, to the expressed exclusion of normal hardworking American citizens: What is your suggestion in remedying this widespread injustice and, if not corrected, its existential outcome for our Constitutional Republic?
Complete overhaul of the Department of Justice and their enforcers - the FBI - to reflect a far more honest justice system to keep patriots remaining calm.
Disband the FBI, and request that congress investigate all unethical and non patriotic practices to partially right the wrongs of a distrusted and politically weaponized "Department of Justice."
The St. Petersburg Police Department found the boyfriend of a woman who was set on fire Tuesday. They say they just want to question the man though, not that he's a suspect.
Sheron K. Pasco set on fire at home
Police will question boyfriend, John Riggins
He was found in a vacant house nearby, also burned
Just before 8 p.m. officers say an argument happened inside a home on 24th Avenue South. At some point Sheron K. Pasco, 37, was set on fire.
Pasco's aunt nearby. She quickly placed Pasco into a bathtub to extinguish the flames.
Pasco was airlifted to Tampa General Hospital with severe burns covering her body.
Officersfound her boyfriend John M. Riggins, 37, at a vacant home nearby after searching for a few hours. He was taken to a nearby hospital for burns. Originally we were told he was a suspect, but now police say they just want to talk to him.
Police say no one saw who set Pasco on fire. She denies doing it herself. According to Pasco's uncle, she denied that Riggins did it. However, they were the only two people in the room.
NCDOT approved $100 million subsidy for project
Pictured outside his home near Four Oaks, Randy Johnson, left, opposes a CSX project that would take his home and his family's farmland. Pharmacist Jack Austin, right, is concerned about air pollution from additional diesel engines. (CJ photo by Don Carrington)
Governor rejects Selma
$100 million subsidy
Selma still featured
Four Oaks site
RALEIGH Months after the N.C. Department of Transportation approved a $100 million subsidy for CSX to build an intermodal rail terminal in Johnston County near Selma, the railroad - amid local opposition at every North Carolina location CSX has considered - says it continues looking for sites in North Carolina and other states.CSX approached the Rail Division of the N.C. Department of Transportation in 2014 with a plan to build the rail hub outside Selma, contingent on getting a taxpayer subsidy of at least $100 million.But opposition of the proposed project developed in Selma and at an alternative site near Four Oaks. Opponents of the project from Four Oaks say that when they contacted the governor's office to express their objections, they were told that the Department of Commerce was handling the project. Even so, NCDOT gave initial authorization to the subsidy in April.Carolina Journal asked Commerce spokeswoman Kim Genardo about the status of the project, but she would not acknowledge it existed. "NC Commerce is always looking for opportunities to recruit new companies to North Carolina and work with existing employers on expansion," Genardo said in an email. "However, North Carolina Commerce does not discuss whether it is or isn't working with any company in any capacity. We are happy to provide information if and when a project is publicly announced."While Commerce officials may not want to discuss the project, on April 19 Commerce provided a state-owned aircraft to fly a group of Johnston County business leaders and elected officials to tour a CSX intermodal terminal near North Baltimore, Ohio.In a Jan. 14 press release, Gov. Pat McCrory announced plans for the 450-acre site near Selma, saying he wasTwelve days later, however, after news reports revealed that CSX was prepared to use eminent domain to acquire property from unwilling landowners in order to assemble the property it needed for the project, McCrory reversed his position. He said the Selma plan "does not appear to be a viable option."CSX, based in Jacksonville, Fla., has 1,800 miles of track and employs 1,120 workers in North Carolina. In June 2014 CSX began quietly working on the project with NCDOT's Rail Division. The Rail Division paid $377,413.71 to a consulting firm to evaluate CSX's proposal.Named the Carolina Connector, or CCX, the potential project is still alive. "CSX continues to evaluate a number of sites inside and outside of NC for the proposed CCX intermodal terminal," spokeswoman Kristin Seay told CJ on June 16.One alternative site near (but outside the corporate limits of) the town of Four Oaks has been offered by Four Oaks Mayor Linwood Parker, but it too has generated considerable opposition from landowners who would be affected by the project.CSX says the Selma project would cost $272 million and the company's share would be $150 million. It is counting on taxpayers to make up the difference of $122 million.The transfer station would allow CSX to provide additional shipping options for its customers. More containers would travel using a combination of rail and truck instead of just by truck only.CSX claims there will many tangible benefits. "This critical infrastructure project will bring tangible economic benefits to eastern Johnston County and the state of North Carolina by expanding market reach and reducing logistics costs for existing business and the state's ports," stated information on CSX's website.But like any for-profit company, CSX has a goal of increasing profits. The company competes with Norfolk Southern Railway and trucking companies. In 2015, the company had net earnings of $2 billion from $11.8 billion in revenue.On Jan. 21, CJ reported that CSX's new Ohio terminal did not receive a subsidy from the state and that CSX did not have to use eminent domain to acquire the Ohio property.On April 6, NCDOT released a list of transportation projects it had evaluated through the Strategic Transportation Investments program. The list contained 69 proposed rail projects. The CCX project, including the $100 million cost to NCDOT, scored the highest in all three categories - statewide mobility, regional impact, and transportation division needs.While CSX says it is looking at sites elsewhere, its website continues to feature the Jan. 14 press release announcing the project as planned for the Selma location.the release stated.The release added that CSX officials already had begunOn Feb. 10, CJ reported that CSX had sent letters to some Johnston County landowners canceling purchase agreements that both parties had signed.In addition to the governor, the Johnston County Board of Commissioners dropped its support for the Selma site after hearing from a substantial number of citizens who were opposed to the project. Commissioners later announced they supported a CSX project and would help locate another site within the county.After noting the initial opposition to the Selma location, on Jan. 22 Four Oaks Mayor Parker told reporters he was working with Johnston County to secure another site. Parker proposed a location a mile southwest of Four Oaks and 16 miles southwest of the Selma site.When details of Parker's selected site became public, a group of citizens organized to oppose the project. They set up a Facebook page namedRandy Johnson owns a home and farm that sit in the middle of the area outlined by Parker as the Four Oaks site. Johnson and family members own approximately 200 acres that would be taken for the project.he told CJ.Another outspoken opponent is local pharmacist Jack Austin. His home would not be taken for the project but he told CJ that the increase in train traffic would be very disruptive to the town.he said.he said.
A St. Petersburg couple remains hospitalized Wednesday with serious burn injuries. Now, police are trying to determine what happened.
Pinellas couple remains hospitalized after Tuesday argument
Sheron Pasco, 37, was Bayflited to Tampa Genera
She was severely burned
Police found boyfriend John Riggins, 37, hours later
Just before 8 p.m. Tuesday, St. Pete Police officers say an argument occurred inside a home on 2800 24th Avenue South between Sheron K. Pasco, 37, and John Riggins, 37. The couple resides at that residence with Earnest Neals, Pasco's uncle.
Accorrding to reports, at some point during the argument Pasco's uncle said she became engulfed in flames. While the family was trying to help Pasco, who remains in critical condition, Riggins ran away.
"Seeing her on fire like that," recalled Neals, "thats something unreal, something out of the movies."
After searching for hours, officers found Riggins at a vacant home nearby.
Riggins, who a witness said ran from the home with a gas can, was also taken to a nearby hospital for burns. His condition has not been released.
According to Neals, the couple's relationship had been violent in the past.
"Sometimes it was good, most of the time it was like arguing about being faithful and being unfaithful, Neals said.
Riggins was initially called a suspect, but police now say they just want to talk to him about what happened. Riggins, who has a lengthy criminal record, has not been charged. Reports do indicate, however, that police had been called more to the couple's home more than 20 times in the past year.
Police say no one saw who set Pasco on fire. She denies doing it herself. And, according to Pasco's uncle, she denied that Riggins did it. Neals told reporters it wasn't the first time she's tried to protect Riggins.
"She called the police, Neals said of previous incidents. Then she would reverse everything around. She protected him again then."
Riggins and Pasco were the only two people in the room Tuesday night.
Pasco was reportedly Bayflited to Tampa General Hospital.
The investigation is on going.
As toxic algae blooms inundate residential waterways in South Florida, environmentalists are calling on state leaders to address the crisis by seizing land owned by the politically well-connected sugar industry.
Lake Okeechobee pollution running off into rivers in South Florida
Toxic Blue-green algae blooms
Environmentalists want FL government to buy sugar farm land for the water
The land, which lies south of Lake Okeechobee, could be used to store the polluted runoff causing the health-threatening blooms.
"There's something called eminent domain," Sen. Bill Nelson, D-FL, told reporters during a recent tour of a coastal estuary teeming with algae. Nelson suggests Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet should force the U.S. Sugar Corporation to sell tens of thousands of acres of its land to the state.
South Florida Water Management District officials in May rejected a deal negotiated by former Gov. Charlie Crist to purchase a large swath of U.S. Sugar land and, despite the mounting severity of the algae bloom crisis, seizing the land through eminent domain appears unlikely.
U.S. Sugar is a powerful force in Tallahassee, contributing massive amounts of money to the politicians who shape policies affecting the company's bottom line. On June 10, the company gave Scott's 'Let's Get to Work' political committee $100,000.
Some type of land transfer, however, is possible. Environmentalists view it as the only permanent solution to a problem scientists warn will grow in intensity if left unaddressed.
"It's going to be some sort of middle ground to give the appearance of action, because the politicians, that is how they get re-elected, is showing that they're upfront and on top of an issue, and this issue's right in Florida's face," said Trimmel Gomes, who has followed environmental policymaking as a Florida Capitol advocate.
If a land acquisition is imminent, though, Scott has given no indication of it. He lays much of the blame for the crisis at the feet of the federal government. An aging dike system has been poorly maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers and, he contends, has allowed agricultural runoff to enter canals and estuaries.
"We're going to do our part; the feds need to do their part," Scott said.
On Tuesday, Martin County extended its state of emergency for another week.
Florida Power and Light, meanwhile, has offered a nearby cooling pond as a location to move water from Lake Okeechobee.
South Florida Water Management District will divert 2 billion gallons of water, per month, from Lake Okeechobee to a cooling pond at the FPL power plant in Martin County east of the lake.
FPL said the lake is about 6,800 acres in size. While they dont know how much water the pond can hold, an FPL spokesperson said it was a temporary solution and they were happy to help.
Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection also reports it received 10 reports of toxic algae blooms since opening a hotline for reporting last week. The hotline has taken about 100 calls, but the rest of the calls were comments, questions and technology proposals.
FL DEP officials are also took water samples along Lake Worth Lagoon and in Cape Coral on Tuesday.
Although Donald Trump's schedule posted online ends after a Wednesday night campaign stop, two Florida newspapers are reporting that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee may visit Miami in the coming days.
Reports: Trump to visit Florida in coming days
Florida is a key swing state with 99 delegates
Trump has campaigned in Florida several times
News 13 has reached out to the Trump campaign to confirm the reports from The Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald and is awaiting a response. But it would not be surprising, given that Florida is a key swing state with 99 delegates at stake.
On Tuesday night, Trump held a rally in Raleigh, N.C. before a crowd of more than 2,000. Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduced the GOP presidential nominee.
Corker, along with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, are among potential running mates for Trump. Trump's pick for vice president could be announced in the coming days, prior to the convention, according to multiple news outlets.
The centerpiece of his speech was about Hillary Clinton, or as hes dubbed her, Crooked Hillary.
Trump wasted no time pouncing on news of Clintons email server scandal. The Republican bemoaned the fact that the FBI did not recommend charges against Clinton, even using one of his now-signature phrases to explain: The system is rigged.
Today is the best evidence that weve ever seen that our system is totally rigged. Hillary Clinton put the entire country in danger, Trump stated, continuing, Our enemies may have blackmail files on 'Crooked Hillary,' and this alone means she should not be allowed to serve as president of the U.S.
With their conventions on the horizon, Trump and Clinton are each working to unify their respective political parties.
News 13 and Bay News 9 will be heading to both the Republican and Democratic national conventions.
Trump stopped in the Sunshine State several times in the past few months, heading to Tampa twice and Mar-A-Lago in March.
Oscar Pistorius was sentenced to six years in prison Wednesday for the murder of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, with the judge who decided the punishment calling the double-amputee Olympian a "fallen hero."
Judge describes Pistorius as 'good candidate for rehabilitation'
Pistorius claims he accidentally shot his girlfriend because he thought she was an intruder
Prosecutors wanted to give him at least 15 years in prison
South Africa's minimum sentence for murder is 15 years, but the judge said "substantial and compelling circumstances" existed to give Pistorius a lesser sentence for shooting Steenkamp at his home in 2013.
Judge Thokozile Masipa described Pistorius as a "good candidate for rehabilitation."
Pistorius was asked to stand and face Masipa as she announced his sentence in a courtroom in the South African capital, Pretoria. He was calm after the sentence was announced, embracing his aunt and tearful sister before being led down a courtroom staircase to a holding cell.
Steenkamp's parents, Barry and June, were also present in the courtroom, which was packed with relatives of both Pistorius and Steenkamp, journalists and other observers.
After announcing Pistorius' sentence, the judge ordered a recess to give prosecutors and Pistorius' defense lawyers time to decide they want to appeal the sentence. It was not immediately clear if either would.
Prosecutors had sought at least 15 years in prison for the 29-year-old Pistorius. His defense lawyers had asked for no jail time at all for the athlete, and asked that he be allowed to do charity work with children.
The sentencing is the latest act of a three-and-a-half year legal drama that has often played out on live television and shown the fall from grace of a runner once viewed as an inspiration to many for overcoming his disability. Pistorius had both legs amputated below the knees when he was 11 months old because of a congenital defect.
He made history by running at the 2012 Olympics on his carbon-fiber running blades, and was one of the world's most recognizable athletes.
Pistorius killed Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and reality TV star, in the pre-dawn hours of Valentine's Day in 2013 by shooting her multiple times through a toilet cubicle door in his home. Pistorius maintained he killed Steenkamp by mistake thinking she was an intruder hiding in the bathroom.
Prosecutors charged that he killed her intentionally after the couple argued.
In 2014, Pistorius was acquitted of murder by Masipa following a dramatic seven-month trial. He was instead convicted of manslaughter and served one year in prison.
His conviction was upgraded to murder last year when prosecutors appealed to South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal.
The 10 percent budget [cut] scenario would lead to a loss of the equivalent of 205 positions (120 faculty, 85 staff). To be clear, these would not be current UNC Charlotte employees; rather, the reductions would be made from the open positions that we have held back from allocation to the campus. The current worst-case scenario would result in nine or fewer personnel lay-offs from our existing workforce.
The North Carolina General Assembly's recently released budget for 2016-17 increases University of North Carolina System appropriations by $168 million, $31 million of which will be dedicated to fund projected enrollment increases. At many of the system's 16 universities, however, increased funding for such a purpose is unnecessary.Furthermore, the new state higher education budget, totaling $2.8 billion (the overall budget includes federal funding and amounts to roughly $9.5 billion), demands little in the way of increasing efficiency and reducing administrative bloat, which is a significant cost driver on campuses. But more on that issue later. First, take a closer look at the flawed way North Carolina funds university enrollment.The General Assembly allocates money to the state's universities through a hopelessly complicated, Rube Goldberg enrollment funding formula. The formula takes into account a school's total enrollment, the types of classes students take, and average faculty pay. Other costs are added for institutional support and employee benefits.When enrollment grows, funding grows with it. Unfortunately, lawmakers rarely scrutinize this portion of the UNC budget, considering it an "automatic" way to fund growth. Essentially, universities add up their needs, subtract tuition revenues, and then report the difference to the legislature-which almost always funds the full amount.After funding has been allotted, the General Assembly usually enacts a "management flexibility cut." This year's cut is $62.8 million, small in comparison to the total UNC appropriation of $2.8 billion. Through this process of large increases and small cuts, the system's funding usually grows, although not as much as UNC administrators would like it to.But the "flex cuts" serve a more important purpose than just helping to balance the state budget. They encourage Board of Governors (BOG) members, chancellors, and other administrators to identify and eliminate wasteful and inefficient spending on campus.The BOG allocates the cuts amongst campuses based on previously determined performance parameters. These include retention rates, graduation rates, degree efficiency, compliance with contracts, accounting and financial standards, spending per degree, and schools' proportion of Pell grant recipients.Based on these standards, the cuts are distributed among 12 campuses and the UNC General Administration. (Last year, the General Assembly exempted five campuses from any management flex cuts: Elizabeth City State University, Fayetteville State University, UNC Asheville, UNC School of the Arts, and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.)Once universities know their share of the cut, they identify low-priority positions and programs to eliminate. This is one of the only ways our state universities systematically address administrative bloat-a major driver of cost increases over the last 30 years.As the UNC system's report on last year's cuts indicates, "the majority of the reductions were made to personnel expenditures (44%); reductions to purchased services and supplies made up the next largest shares at 27% and 25% respectively."Although 91 positions were eliminated, very few people lost their jobs. That's because 82 of those positions were vacant. In addition, funding for 2.82 "full-time equivalent" positions was shifted to a non-state source. All in all, just 6.55 filled FTE positions (all at NC State University) were cut.The same thing happened in 2011, when the Great Recession brought large cuts to the UNC system. At the time, UNC Charlotte Chancellor DuBois reassured the campus community:In other words, this year's cuts are relatively small when we account for new appropriations earmarked for enrollment increases, employee raises, and funding for special programs. Some of those programs include support for "part-way home" students, internships for students at historically black universities, and scholarships for future school teachers and principals. UNC employees will receive a 1.5 percent salary increase and a .5 percent nonrecurring bonus.This year's budget will increase university funding by $168 million-and with very little debate on the university's main cost drivers. Until a better formula for growth is adopted, "flex cuts" are the best tool the legislature has to curb university excesses. Such cuts are beneficial because they demand a real examination of performance, efficiency, and growth in the UNC system. Lawmakers should either reform the funding formula or mandate flex cuts every year.
- Former police captain Joanne Pinzario.In its final report on the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Libya, the GOP-controlled House Select Committee on Benghazi failed to provide meaningful answers or accountability on the most serious issues and questions surrounding the attack.Chief among those issues was the Obama administration's bizarre and unconstitutional decision, based on a United Nations resolution, to join with al-Qaida and other Islamists in the war on a former U.S. terror-war ally, Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi. Another crucial issue left essentially unaddressed was the Obama administration's lawless gun-running programs delivering weapons to known terrorists in Libya , and later to dangerous jihadists in Syria While the report did highlight certain blatant lies by the administration - the deliberate lie about a "spontaneous protest" over an "anti-Muslim video," for example - critics blasted the congressional probe as a whitewash and a wasted opportunity. Even some lawmakers spoke out.The same people involved in gun-smuggling to Mexico that became known as the Fast and Furious Scandal, were also responsible for smuggling weapons from Libya to the Syrian terrorists trying to overthrow Syria's Assad Regime, according to information revealed. Obtained documents released by a watchdog group that investigates and exposes corruption and criminal activity by government officials and agencies provides evidence that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other senior officials, as well as President Barack Obama, deceived the American people regarding the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi U.S. consulate massacre. The pages released show that top administration officials were handed intelligence reports within hours of the attack that stated the Islamic terrorists' actions had been planned up to 10 days before the attack and the goal was simply to to assassinate as many Americans as possible.The documents also confirms the suspicions that U.S. government officials were well aware of weapons being shipped from Benghazi to Syria for use by rebel forces against the Al-Assad regime, according to Judicial Watch . In addition, the document-release contains an August 2012 analysis of intelligence that predicted the meteoric rise of al-Qaida in Iraq terrorists who morphed into the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. It also the predicted failure of Obama's foreign policy aimed at regime change in Syria.In an overly redacted copy of a memorandum dated Sept. 12, 2012 - the day after the Bengahzi slaughter of four Americans including a U.S. ambassador - the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reported to Hillary Clinton, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, the White House National Security Council and the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff that the Islamic terrorists planned their attack about 10 or more days prior to the slaughter that occurred on the day the U.S. acknowledged the 11th Anniversary of the attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania that killed about 3,000 people.The terrorists intended to attack the sparsely protected U.S. diplomatic mission and to assassinate as many American officials as possible. The motive for the attack appeared to be revenge for U.S. killing of Abu Yahya al-Libi, a high-level Al Qaida terrorist killed by U.S. drone strikes in North Waziristan.According to Judicial Watch's analysis of the documents , the Benghazi attack was planned and perpetrated by members of the Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman (BCOAR). BCOAR is also responsible for past attacks on the Red Cross in Benghazi and the attack on the British Ambassador, they have approximately 120 members." Rahman [a/k/a "The Blind Sheik"] is currently locked up in a federal prison in New York for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center which killed six people in New York. He is serving a life sentence.The redacted DIA memo identified the leader of BCOAR as being Abdul Baset (AZUZ). The memo reveals that he was sent to Libya to "core" al-Qaida's replacement for Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawhari, to being creating al-Qaeda bases and training camps in Libya. Baset is described as not being "a charismatic leader, but rather just a violent radical." The memo also states that the majority of BCOAR's members areThe DIA reported that BCOAR built their headquarters and a training facility in Libyan city of Derna. "They train in the mountains surrounding Derna where they have large caches of weapons. Some of these weapons are disguised as feeding troughs for livestock. They have SA-7 and SA-23/4 MANPADS, as well as unidentified missiles over two meters in length," the memo states.Judicial Watch, a group that has been successful in breaching the government's "stonewalls," obtained the documents after U.S. District Court Judge Katanji Brown Jackson ordered their release after the watchdog group's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Department of Defense had been denied. Judicial Watch was then forced to file a lawsuit for the requested documents and related material.The documents totally contradict statements made by Hillary Clinton and other national security and diplomatic officials appointed by President Obama about the Benghazi attack.They claims the murder of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, and the destruction of American property was a result of anger by Muslim civilians who were enraged by obscure YouTube video by an American filmmaker that denigrated the Muslim religion.stated Tom Fitton.It wasn't until faced with overwhelming evidence that President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other members of the administration finally conceded that the attack was perpetrated by a group of Islamic terrorists.In response to the documents, Judicial Watch's President Tom Fitton said,stated Tom Fitton.
Sandwich fans in Hardin County will have a new dining option soon, with the opening of a Schlotzsky's Cafe and Bakery in Lumberton.
The Hardin County location will be the second in Southeast Texas for the Texas-based chain. The other is located on Dowlen Road in Beaumont.
A grand jury will decide whether an off-duty security guard who killed a Beaumont woman early Saturday while shooting at an unarmed beer thief should face criminal charges, police said Tuesday.
The guard, who has not been arrested, was firing at the tires of a vehicle occupied by two suspected beer thieves when one of the bullets hit 36-year-old passenger Shalala Fletcher, who had not left the vehicle, said Port Arthur PD Chief Deputy Raymond Clark.
The off-duty guard fired "numerous" times in an attempt to stop the vehicle from leaving the Exxpress Mart on Jimmy Johnson Boulevard in Port Arthur, Clark said.
Police found Fletcher in the otherwise-abandoned car on Turtle Creek Drive about half a mile from the store shortly before 5:30 a.m. on Saturday.
Messages left with Justice of the Peace Tom Gillam III were not returned.
Clark said the guard arrived at the store as the male suspects were running away. Neither of the theft suspects had been arrested as of Tuesday evening, Clark said.
The man who fired the shots was employed as a security guard at Lamar University as of Saturday but was off-duty at the time, university spokesman Brian Sattler said.
The guard submitted a letter of resignation last week, before the shooting, and was no longer a university employee on Tuesday, Sattler said.
Lamar's noncommissioned security guards do not have a state law enforcement license and do not carry a weapon, though they do wear uniforms, Sattler said.
Security guards are assigned to residence hall lobbies to check IDs and maintain visitor logs, Sattler said.
Generally speaking, citizens who are criminally accused of using deadly force must prove their actions were "reasonable" and not reckless, according to an attorney for Texas Shield Law, which represents defendants charged in connection with firing their handguns.
"Our general advice tends to be if you value your life, your freedom and your money, your best course of action is to call the police," said Emily Taylor, the attorney.
EBesson@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/EricBesson_news
After facing financial struggles, Connecticut's co-op, HealthyCT, is under supervision and will start a wind-down process, according to The Hill.
Here are six notes:
1. The state did say although it filed a supervision order, HealthyCT's shut down is not definite, and the co-op may cease being under supervision if it does better financially.
2. Based on HealthyCT's current financial standing, more people cannot sign up for coverage with the co-op, and the state is cautioning existing enrollees to begin seeking new coverage when their plans expire.
3. The state says the ACA's risk-adjustment program is at fault for the co-op's failing financial state.
4. In late June, Land of Lincoln Health, Illinois' co-op, sued the federal government for failing to pay the company nearly $72 million in payments the co-op claimed it was owed under the risk-corridor program.
5. Evergreen Health Cooperative, a Maryland co-op, was the first co-op to file a lawsuit against the federal government, and claims the ACA's risk adjustment program is "dangerously flawed."
6. In a statement, Connecticut Insurance Commissioner Katharine Wade said, "This is not an action that we take lightly but did so in order to immediately protect the company's 40,000 policyholders in Connecticut and make certain that their claims will be paid under the terms of their policies and for the duration of those policies."
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Major insurer UnitedHealth is filing a suit against American Renal Associates in The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida for allegedly submitting fraudulent bills since the beginning of 2016, according to The New York Times.
Here are seven key points:
1. UnitedHealth is claiming nonprofit patient advocacy group American Kidney Fund helped American Renal Associates, a company that operates almost 200 U.S. dialysis clinics, in the billing scheme. In the suit, the payer is seeking to recoup the money it lost in the alleged fraudulent billing worth millions.
2. In the suit, UnitedHealth claims American Renal Associates "earmarked donations" to American Kidney Fund to help pay for coverage, which was in violation of anti-kickback laws. Additionally, the suit claims American Renal Associates did not inform their patients the fund would cease paying their premiums if the patient had a kidney transplant.
3. American Renal Associates Vice President and General Counsel Michael R. Costa said, "At all times, we are dedicated to putting patients first, and we structure all of our relationships within that framework."
The American Kidney Fund did not offer a comment regarding the lawsuit's specific allegations, but did say the fund was "deeply troubled" by UnitedHealth's claims. American Kidney Fund's LaVarne A. Burton, chief executive, said the fund did not recommend specific facilities or payers to its patients, and almost 66 percent of the patients receiving help from the fund were on Medicare.
4. In the suit, UnitedHealth alleges American Renal Associates moved their patients over to private plans by finding poor patients in Florida's rural areas who did not have access to a nearby dialysis clinic within the payer's network. After identifying those patients, American Renal Associates allegedly recommended those patients switch to UnitedHealth plans, and would use American Kidney Fund's program to help patients pay their premiums.
5. American Renal Associates contended it does depend on private payers to pay for treatments. Private payers cover only 13 percent of the treatments clinics provide, yet those payments comprise 40 percent of American Renal Associates' revenue.
6. So far this year, UnitedHealth claims it has paid American Renal Associates nearly $2 million.
7. Various federal and state regulators have voiced their concerns over outside groups making payments to payers whose aim is likely to make huge profits, as opposed to helping patients. A top Idaho insurance regulator said this week payers could refuse outside payments from organizations such as the American Kidney Fund. Dean L. Cameron, director of the Idaho Department of Insurance, said while some companies aim to help people, some payments are worrisome when the funding is directly tied to the physician or facility administering care.
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St. Louis-area hospitals spent 2.1 percent of their operating revenue on charity care in 2014, down from 2.93 percent the year prior, according to a report from the St. Louis Area Business Health Coalition.
Karen Roth, author of the report, told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the Business Health Coalition encourages nonprofit hospitals to spend a minimum of 3 percent of their operating revenue on charity care. However, there are no federal or state requirements regarding how much charity care Missouri hospitals must provide, according to the report.
While charity care levels decreased, hospitals in the St. Louis area saw their profit margins rise to an aggregate of 4.52 percent in 2014, up from 3.85 percent the year prior. Nationally, hospitals posted an 8.3 percent profit margin in 2014, according to the report, which cited data from the American Hospital Association.
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A month after physicians at a Canadian health system returned to using pen and paper to submit orders in the midst of an EHR roll out, health system officials have decided to move forward with the implementation, according to a Times Colonist report.
Vancouver Island Health Authority in British Columbia, Canada, is in the middle of implementing Cerner's EHR, a $174 million project. Three sites went live on the EHR March 19, including Nanaimo Regional General Hospital. But physicians at Nanaimo's intensive care unit and emergency department reverted to submitting orders via pen and paper out of patient safety concerns. Specifically, physicians report the EHR is changing medication orders and physician instructions, sometimes canceling, overriding or doubling orders.
The physicians petitioned for hospital officials to suspend the implementation. Sixty-one members of Nanaimo Regional's Medical Staff Association voted on a "no confidence" motion on the EHR's electronic ordering system.
"Moving to an electronic system should enhance the care we provide rather than jeopardize it," reads a report by the Medical Staff Association obtained by Times Colonist. "We do not feel that it is ethical to put patients at risk using a system that makes it difficult to 'do the right thing' and much easier to make a significant error."
Island Health officials met to discuss the request but ultimately decided to "persevere" through the implementation, Brendan Carr, Island Health CEO, told Times Colonist.
Mr. Carr said officials are confident the system is doing what it is supposed to. "We understand, though, if physicians are not really confident in the use of the system, that can lead to concerns the system could do things that are not the best for our patients not because the system doesn't work, but because they are not using the system perfectly," he told Times Colonist.
Officials have called for several changes to the implementation project, including additional resources to address fatigue in clinical staff, alleviate workload burden, work to improve trust in the EHR and work with clinicians to evaluate further improvements in the EHR, according to the report.
Mr. Carr said the new system does take more time to use, thereby limiting how many patients physicians can see. "We understand that's not good for patient care and it's not good for physicians," he told Times Colonist. "We're very motivated to do what we can to support the physicians and try to change that either by adding more resources or looking at other mechanisms."
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United Medical Center Interim CEO Andrew L. Davis will retire from his position effective July 15, according to the Washington D.C. hospital.
Mr. Davis will be replaced by Luis Hernandez, a member of the senior management team at Veritas of Washington, a consulting firm hired by UMC board of directors in early 2016.
Mr. Hernandez has over 30 years of senior management experience as a healthcare administrator and has served at various hospitals in Atlanta, Queens, N.Y., and Mexico City.
Chris Gardiner, chairman of the board for UMC, commended Mr. Davis on his commitment to providing quality care to the community.
"Mr. Davis provided strong leadership during his tenure," said Mr. Gardiner. "He worked very closely with UMC's Medical Staff and was committed to informing local community leaders and civic organizations about the hospital to help broaden their understanding of the high quality healthcare services provided at the hospital for people who live in Ward 7, Ward 8, and southern Prince George's County."
Thirteen healthcare companies held spots on the Forbes list of 100 most "Innovative Growth Companies" in the world, including one hospital operator, one physician services firm and one EHR company.
The companies on the list earned their spots based on what Forbes calls "the innovation premium," which the authors define as the difference between market capitalization and current net value of cash flows from existing business. The metric is intended to identify companies that are not only innovative now, but are also expected to be innovative in the future.
Here are the 13 healthcare companies that made the list, in descending order of rank.
4. DexCom San Diego-based medical device manufacturing company known for glucose monitoring systems
5. M3 Tokyo-based digital health services company that includes MDLinx, PracticeMatch, The Medicus Firm and others
6. athenahealth Cloud-based EHR and business services company in Watertown, Mass.
15. Searainbow Holding Haikou, China-based medical e-commerce company
27. Asahi Intecc Nagoya, Japan-based medical and industrial equipment development, manufacturing and sales company
57. Sartorius Goettingen, Germany-based laboratory for biotech, pharmaceutical and food industries
64. Elekta AB Stockholm-based clinical solutions company specializing in cancer and brain disorder treatment
65. Mednax Sunrise, Fla.-based physician services
77. IDEXX Laboratories Westbrook, Maine-based developer, manufacturer and distributor of products and services for animal veterinary, livestock and poultry, water testing and dairy market industries
85. Bumrungrad Hospital Bangkok-based hospital operator
87. Bangkok Dusit Medical Services Hospital and healthcare services investor based in Bangkok
92. GN Store Nord Ballerup, Denmark-based telecommunications and hearing instruments firm
99. Alere Waltham, Mass.-based manufacturer of consumer and professional medical diagnostics
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Puerto Rico's crippling debt crisis and population decline is having a domino effect on the healthcare system and causing many physicians to leave the island.
A recent Wall Street Journal report painted a picture of the decline, highlighting that the territory has just 90 obstetricians and 800 pediatricians for a population of 3.47 million. While the population is declining it dropped 9.1 percent over the past decade there are less patients to support the underfunded system, leaving many physicians with nowhere to turn but the mainland. According to WSJ, a pediatrician in Puerto Rico earns roughly $27 for a patient visit, compared to $200 in mainland U.S. states.
Its healthcare system is withstanding blows from all sides. The island was a hotspot for pharmaceutical and medical device makers after World War II when the government provided federal tax credit incentives for such businesses in Puerto Rico. However, those tax credits were ended and most companies have left, according to the report. Roughly half of the island's residents are dependent on the government for healthcare, but the territory's Medicaid grant is on course to run out next year. On top of that, Puerto Rico's Health Insurance Administration hasn't been able to get a bank loan for two years and lost access to loans from the Government Development Bank, according to the report.
Now the burden is falling on the shoulders of physicians, who are forced to work long hours for little pay. Many are leaving the island which could make the economic situation worse.
Read the full article here.
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The following healthcare mergers, acquisitions and general partnerships took place or were announced in the past week.
1. Anderson Hospital affiliates with Community Memorial Hospital
Anderson Hospital in Maryville, Ill., became the corporate parent of 25-bed Community Memorial Hospital in Staunton Ill., under an affiliation agreement signed by the boards of both hospitals.
2. UW Health and UnityPoint Meriter explore joint operating agreement
Leaders from UW Health and UnityPoint Meriter in Madison, Wis., signed letters of intent to explore a joint operating agreement that would deepen their existing clinical collaboration and combine their health insurance businesses.
3. Hallmark Health to join Wellforce
Medford Mass.-based Hallmark Health's board of trustees approved a letter of intent to join Burlington, Mass.-based Wellforce.
4. Prospect's acquisition of Crozer-Keystone clears final regulatory hurdle
The Delaware County Orphans Court approved the sale of Springfield, Pa.-based Crozer-Keystone Health System to Prospect Medical Holdings, a for-profit hospital operator based in Los Angeles.
5. Baptist Health to acquire Floyd Memorial Hospital for $300M
Louisville, Ky.-based Baptist Health moved forward with its purchase of Floyd Memorial Hospital in New Albany, Ind.
6. Kindred Healthcare completes another swap arrangement for hospitals
Louisville, Ky.-based Kindred Healthcare completed the acquisition of an additional long-term acute care hospital operated by Mechanicsburg, Pa.-based Select Medical Holdings Corp. and sold an additional LTAC hospital to Select.
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The U.S. Supreme Court, which just closed for summer recess, issued several important decisions this term through decisions and dismissals that have repercussions in the healthcare industry.
Here are the High Court's healthcare decisions from this term and related reading.
1. Abortion
In two top cases, Whole Women's Health v. Hellerstedt and Zubik v. Burwell, the Supreme Court issued landmark decisions on abortion and contraceptive issues. The Zubik v. Burwell case, which centered on the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate, was ultimately sent back to the lower courts. Here are five things to know about the lawsuit. In Whole Women's Health v. Hellerstedt, the court voted 5-3 to strike down a Texas law that placed a substantial obstacle to women seeking abortions. This decision impacted similar restrictions in Mississippi, Wisconsin and Alabama.
2. False Claims
In Universal Health Services v. Escobar, the Supreme Court limited the reach of the False Claims Act. It imposed limits on liability under the False Claims Act. Here are 9 things to know about the case.
3. Patent law
The Supreme Court upheld changes made by the Obama administration to patent law. At issue was a process for challenging patents called inter partes review, in which an appeals board hears challenges. Generic drugmakers hailed the decision, while brand name drugmakers did not support it because the inter partes review makes it easier to overturn patent challenges.
4. Data reporting
In Gobeille v. Liberty Mutual, the Supreme Court ruled that self-insured health plans could not be forced by a state to report claims information for use in state health pricing databases. The court ruled that a Vermont reporting law creates a burden for insurers with consistent reporting requirements and interferes with federal reporting responsibilities. The ruling affects claims database initiatives in 18 states.
5. Union fees
In Friedrichs v. California Teacher's Association, the justices voted a 4-4 deadlock in the absence of the late Justice Antonin Scalia and said it would not rehear the case. This means the vote defaults to the lower court's decision and only impacts those involved. In this case it means non-union public employees will continue to pay mandatory "agency" or "fair share" fees for collective bargaining costs of public unions. Nurses protested on the court steps in January against making the fees non-compulsory.
6. The ACA
The High Court dismissed a challenge to the healthcare reform law that was considered a long shot. The case, Sissel v. Department of Health and Human Services, centered on the law's individual mandate, which plaintiffs argued was unconstitutional. After dismissing this case, and previously upholding the law twice, a top Supreme Court lawyer said in June he thinks the ACA debate is "effectively over."
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While being treated for complications at birth in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Brookwood Medical Center in Birmingham, Ala., a newborn was given an overdose of insulin. The parents of the child are now suing the hospital, according to WIAT.
Kathryn Hagan, a nurse herself and the mother of the now two-year old Libby Hagan, told WIAT, "She had a high glucose, blood sugar and they gave her an overdose of insulin. It wasn't just an overdose. It was a massive overdoseone hundred times what she should have been given." Ms. Hagan expressed grave concern regarding the error. She told WIAT that insulin is a high alert medication which requires significant safety checks before it can be administered.
According to WIAT, court documents indicate that the hospital admits to the error, but claims the extent of the injuries caused by the error are not known.
When reached for comment, the hospital told KIAT, "Due to pending litigation, Brookwood Baptist Health is unable to discuss this matter outside of the legal process at this time. Further, HIPPA regulations and other statutory requirements prevent us from discussing confidential patient information."
CMS' Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings were supposed to be released in April, but the agency delayed the launch until July after many stakeholders expressed concern with the program. Now, a new analysis of the program conducted by a Georgetown University economist found the program's methodology has "several shortcomings."
Francis Vella, PhD, in Georgetown's Department of Economics in Washington, D.C., came out against the star ratings after conducting an analysis of the program's methodology.
Here are three of the methodology's main shortcomings, according to Dr. Vella's analysis:
1. The overall star ratings attempt to take a complex, multidimensional problem and put it into a simple measure, but Dr. Vella wrote he does "not see the net benefit" of doing so.
2. The methodology focuses solely on quality outcomes while ignoring their social determinants. "I feel ignoring other determinants of quality outcomes (such as location of hospital and patient composition) potentially biases the results," he wrote.
3. Finally, a star-based system can give a sense that a three-star hospital is substantially different from a four-star hospital, for instance, even when they are not that different. "Ranking the hospitals by stars is somewhat misleading as it indicates a qualitative jump as one goes from one category to the other and this may be inconsistent with reality and only reflects the scoring algorithm," Dr. Vella wrote.
Dr. Valla isn't the only person or group to voice opposition to the overall star ratings program. Members from both the House and the Senate sent letters to CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt earlier this year imploring him to delay the ratings, and many hospital advocacy groups did the same in March.
Consumer groups like AARP, on the other hand, have expressed support for the overall star ratings, saying patients need this information to help make smart healthcare decisions for themselves.
However, Rick Pollack, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, asserts the ratings would be a hindrance to patients if released as-is.
"As currently designed, CMS' star hospital ratings program is not up to the task of providing the public with meaningful and accurate assessments of hospital performance," he said. "Patients need reliable information to make important choices regarding their healthcare. And hospitals and health systems need reliable information so that they can continue to improve the quality of the care delivered. CMS star ratings misses the mark on both accounts."
A whistleblower lawsuit filed July 1 by a physician from the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City alleges the chair of the hospital's pathology department misdiagnosed a patient with cancer and covered up the mistake for months after the patient had an essential organ surgically removed, according to KCUR.
Lowell Tilzer, MD, PhD, reportedly filed the suit after the hospital administrators failed to investigate the incident when he brought the matter to their attention. The lawsuit claims the pathology chair added fraudulent reports to the patient's files to conceal the error and instructed others to alter medical records. According to the suit, the unidentified patient may still be unaware of the error.
In a written statement provided to KCUR, the hospital said, "We are not in a position to provide detailed feedback at this time. However, just from a brief review of the allegations made, there is little to nothing in the petition that we believe to be grounded in truth. The patient to whom Dr. Tilzer's petition references was fully informed of the diagnosis and treatment plan after surgery and prior to leaving the hospital and is pleased with the care and clinical outcome."
In a phone interview with KCUR, Dr. Tilzer said Meenakshi Singh, MD, who has chaired the pathology department at KU Hospital since May 2015 when Dr. Tilzer stepped down from the position, was responsible for the error.
The lawsuit is filed under the Kansas Whistleblower statute and does not seek damages, but asks for protection from the court to prevent retaliation from KU Hospital and the termination of his employment.
"I'm not really afraid of being fired but I am afraid if the administration's attitude for helping cover up the misdiagnosis will affect other patients and hurt other people. It's that attitude they've got [that] I'm terribly concerned," Dr. Tilzer told KCUR.
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The Food and Drug Administration is urging blood banks to turn away potential donors at risk for Zika. While the new protocol protects the nation's blood supply from infection, it's also contributing to pressing blood shortages in certain regions, according to Kaiser Health News.
While evidence is limited, health officials believe that Zika normally transmitted through mosquitoes could also spread through blood transfusions. Therefore, blood banks are not letting anyone donate blood for four weeks if they traveled to a country where Zika is being spread or had sex with someone who traveled.
Officials at the American Red Cross issued an emergency call for blood on Tuesday, citing critical shortages in New Jersey and other areas of the U.S. The American Red Cross estimates that so far .11 percent of donors have been turned away due to Zika exposure. However, a spokesperson noted this number does not account for people who would have donated but never came due to the new restrictions.
In California, BloodSource issued a critical appeal Tuesday after its reserves dipped 5,000 pints below inventory levels needed to meet hospital demand. BloodSource centers have enough blood in storage to last about two days if donations stopped entirely, said Chris Gresens, MD, the network's senior medical director and vice president of global medicine, in a Sacbee report.
United Blood Services operates blood banks in 17 states and said its donations are down by 3 percent this year.
Federal officials hope to expand blood testing technology currently used in Puerto Rico and Texas to allow blood banks to collect blood, screen it and discard any samples that test positive for Zika. So far, the FDA has given emergency use authorization to three blood test kits to detect Zika in the blood.
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San Diego-based NuVasive will acquire Biotronic NeuroNetwork for $98 million in cash.
Biotronic is a privately owned company based in Ann Arbor, Mich., that provides intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring services to surgeons and healthcare facilities across the country. The company reported more than $50 million in revenue for 2015.
NuVasive offers intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring services through its subsidiary Impulse Monitoring, headquartered in Columbia, Md.
The company plans to combine the service offerings of Biotronic with Impulse Monitoring to create NuVasive Clinical Services. NuVasive expects the new entity to support more than 75,000 cases annually in the U.S.
The deal is expected to close by the end of July.
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"Having started the ball rolling on this challenge to President Obama's illegal and unconstitutional executive actions granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens including likely Muslim terrorists who have crossed our borders and are here on bogus student visas and other subterfuges, we are thankful that the so-called conservatives on the Supreme Court held fast to the leftists on the High Court. While we have little hope that President Obama will now take action to deport these illegal aliens, particularly since they are a large illegal voting block for the Democrats this fall, this Supreme Court ruling at least tells Obama and his allies that their lawlessness will not be countenanced. Unlike a judge in Arizona who has been presiding over a compromised and ethically conflicted trial of Sheriff Arpaio that also concerns illegal immigrants in Maricopa County, four justices of the Supreme Court did the right thing and shut the door to Obama's lack of respect for the will of We the People. They legally stood up to an out-of-control president who rules like he is King George III in 1776. As bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers in the Constitution, this is the proper role of the judiciary, to serve as a check and balance to government tyranny."
A 4-to-4 tie by the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday morning slapped down President Barack "Pen & Phone" Obama's unilateral immigration revisions to laws that all but legalized millions of illegal immigrants, according to the Homeland Security News Wire (HSNW).Obama had issued his executive order after House Republicans refused to bring to the floor for a vote a 2013 bipartisan Senate legislation which provided a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, HSNW reported.said former police captain, Morris Delvechio.Although the GOP lawmakers in Washington made statements opposing Obama's laws, they did little to try to stop his actions which led to a tsunami of illegal aliens crossing the border into the U.S. Southwest. But 26 states with Republican governors legally challenged Obama's far-reaching executive order,claiming that once again the so-called constitutional scholar had disregarded the separation of powers by granting a blanket deportation deferment to millions of undocumented immigrants without any action by the federal legislature.They went on record as saying that Obama's argument that "his action amounts to nothing more than common prosecutorial discretion was wrong, because such discretion should be applied on a case-by-case basis, not to an entire category of potential law-breakers."A federal court judge in the state of Texas ruled in favor of the 26 GOP governors, and when the Justice Department brought the case to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, those judges upheld the lower court's decision in November 2015. A panel of the 5th Circuit said the program changed the designation for the immigrants which would give the illegal aliens eligibility for federal and state benefits that wouldn't otherwise be available.Meanwhile on Thursday, former federal prosecutor Larry Klayman, who had founded Judicial Watch and is now the founder and president of Freedom Watch, saluted the four originalists on the Supreme Court for holding fast in effectively affirming the decisions by a Texas federal court and the Fifth Circuit blocking President Barack Hussein Obama's executive amnesty for over 5 million illegal aliens. Klayman believes that the decision will prevent likely Muslim terrorists from entering the U.S. as refugees especially since the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation contradicted Obama's claim regarding "the vetting" of asylum seekers from Syria, Iraq and other Muslim nations.Klayman, along with Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, were the first to challenge this unconstitutional executive amnesty but drew an Obama-appointed judge who dismissed the case claiming it was only a political ploy.Later an Obama-packed federal appeals court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, affirmed the lower court's decision, uttering hardly a word about the merits of the case. However, a fine judge, the Honorable Andrew S. Hanen, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas took the correct and legally honest legal path and blocked Obama's amnesty, according to Klayman, who has made a name for himself as a government gadfly.The Obama Justice Department, led by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the president's pliant law enforcement officer, took an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and, in a "slam dunk," quickly lost again.Thursday's Supreme Court ruling not only underscores just how political the High Court has become, but cements Judge Hanen's ruling. The amicus brief filed by Klayman and Arpaio is credited with aiding in achieving the victory, as did their initial complaint before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which was virtually copied by Texas and the myriad of other states that later mounted the court challenge before Judge Hanen.Klayman had this to say for himself and his client, the man known as America's Sheriff Joe Arpaio:
The United States will likely see a physician shortage of between 61,700 physicians and 94,700 physicians over the next 10 years, according to Endocrinology Advisor.
Here are five insights:
1. The Association of American Medical Colleges has called on Congress to boost the number of residency slots by 3,000 over the next five years.
2. The AAMC also recommends lifting the federal cap on residency programs.
3. The industry requires more federal support for enhanced physician training, as well.
4. The AAMC is also focused on expanding telehealth and enhancing technology to better serve a larger population.
5. The organization supports employing nurse practitioners and physician assistants to alleviate the work load.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution conducted a yearlong investigation which found more than 2,400 U.S. physicians were sanctioned for sexual abusing their patients.
AJC analyzed more than 100,000 disciplinary documents and other U.S. records to isolate the cases which potentially involved sexual misconduct.
Here are eight things to know:
1. AJC opted to begin its investigation after learning of a statistic where the state of Georgia allowed 66 percent of physicians disciplined for sexual misconduct to practice medicine again.
2. AJC interviewed various disciplined physicians who had different responses to the sexual misconduct sanctions. While some felt their patients unfairly targeted them to receive money from a lawsuit, others argued their actions were "brief lapses in judgment."
3. AJC's investigation found state medical board permitted more than 50 percent of the sanctioned physicians to keep their licensees, despite the accusations being proven true.
4. Investigators identified more than 3,100 physicians who were publicly disciplined since January 1999 after being accused of sexual infractions. Of those cases, more than 2,400 physicians were sanctioned for violations involving their patients.
5. Leanne Diakov, general counsel for the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure, said medical boards have a balancing act in such cases they have to weigh the state's need for physicians as well as various state laws' limitations. Kentucky law gives physicians with licenses revoked by the medical board legal right to petition for reinstatement two years after the decision.
6. State laws regarding disciplining physicians for sexual misconduct vary in terms of severity. In Minnesota, 80 percent of physicians who were publicly disciplined for sexual misconduct were allowed to return to practice medicine, starkly higher than the aforementioned Georgia statistic.
7. The AJC uncovered various cases where multiple patients accused the same physician of sexual misconduct. One case involved 17 patients alleging one physician engaged in sexual misconduct. While the state medical board initially stated the complaints were credible and revoked the physician's license, the board later changed its stance after the physician was acquitted in one patient's criminal trial case. The physician continues to practice medicine without restriction.
8. Some states discipline physicians in private, including Georgia who often uses private consent orders and private agreements. Robert Jeffery, executive director of the state medical board told AJC, "Sometimes half a loaf is better than no loaf." Mr. Jeffrey told AJC he meant sometimes boards are concerned a public order may not be enough to sanction a physician if that physician fights the order.
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Here are 13 facts and statistics about the Baby Boomer patient population for spine surgeons to know.
1. One in five Americans is projected to be 65 years old or older by 2030. This data is gathered from the U.S. census report, The Baby Boom Cohort in the United States: 2012 to 2060.
2. The demographics for baby boomers in the United States by 2030 includes:
White alone: 48.9 million people, 81 percent of baby boomers
Black alone: 6.5 million people, 10.9 percent of baby boomers
Asian alone: 2.9 million, 4.9 percent of baby boomers
Non-Hispanic white alone: 42.9 million people, 71 percent of baby boomers
Hispanic: 6.6 million people, 11.1 percent of baby boomers
3. While the baby boomer population is large, it will decline as baby boomers age over the next few decades. There were just under 77 million when the first baby boomers turned 65 years old in 2011. By 2030, the number of baby boomers is expected to drop to 60 million when baby boomers will be between 66 to 84 years old, according to the U.S. government census.
4. Around 59 percent of baby boomers rely heavily on Social Security in 2015, up from 43 percent in 2014, according to the Insured Retirement Institute. Around 45 percent report not having retirement savings and 30 percent postponed their retirement, according to the report. Another 30 percent of baby boomers stopped contributing to their retirement.
5. The Urban Institute reported 44 percent of adults 65 years old and older have debt and around 25 percent of all adult retirees entered retirement with mortgage debt. The average debt amount was $24,500 in 2012, according to the report. There are 55.5 million Medicare beneficiaries in the United States, according to 2015 data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. The states with the highest number of Medicare beneficiaries are:
California: 5.6 million
Florida: 4 million
Texas: 3.6 million
New York: 3.3 million
Pennsylvania: 2.5 million
Ohio: 2.1 million
Illinois: 2 million
Michigan: 1.8 million
North Carolina: 1.7 million
Georgia: 1.5 million
New Jersey: 1.4 million
Virginia: 1.3 million
Massachusetts: 1.2 million
Tennessee: 1.2 million
7. According to the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, there were 53.5 million people with Medicare Part A 44.6 million of which are aged and 49.3 million with Part B in 2014. There are 16.2 million people with Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) and 40.5 million with Medicare Part D.
8. The rate for back pain visits in the United States was 40.8 per 100 people among the 65 to 74 year old population. Among the 75 years and older population, 36.8 per 100 people report back pain visits, according to The Burden of Musculoskeletal Diseases in the United States. Around 50 percent of people age 45 to 64 years old with back pain said they lost work days due to spine pain or problems.
9. Around 20.5 percent of people discharged from the hospital with spinal fusions were 45 to 64 years old; 17.4 percent were 65 to 74 years old in 2011, according to The Burden of Musculoskeletal Diseases.
10. In 2012, the population aged 45 to 64 years old self-reporting musculoskeletal conditions reported:
Chronic joint pain: 35.3 per 100 persons
Arthritis: 29.5 per 100 persons
Neck pain: 18.3 per 100 persons
Low back pain: 32.3 per 100 persons
Low back pain spreading below the knee: 13.6 per 100 persons
11. Around 23 percent of low back pain physician visits are from patients 65 years old or older, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Additionally, the National Center for Health Statistics reported more than 750,000 hospital discharges for patients with low back pain over the age of 65 in 2004, as reported by Spine-health.
12. Around 80 percent of the 750,000 vertebral compress ion fractures treated annually, a are treated in patients 65 years and older. Women are diagnosed with VCF 77 percent of the time, according to the Spine-health article.
13. Around 50 percent of the nearly 250,000 decompressive surgical procedures performed each year are performed on patients 65 years old or older, according to Spine-health.
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Erik Estrada, who played the part of a TV motorcycle cop, has now joined a real police force
Actor Erik Estrada, made famous by playing the role of a motorcycle police officer on TV, has been sworn in as a real member of law enforcement.
Estrada found fame in the series CHiPs, about California Highway Patrol officers, playing Frank "Ponch" Poncherello from 1977 to 1983.
The actor, 67, has now become a reserve police officer for the St Anthony Police Department in Idaho after he was sworn in by Mayor Neils Thueson on Saturday.
He tweeted: "At LAX flying to Idaho to become a member of the Saint Anthony Police Dept. A special day for me."
He later updated his followers: " OK fnf's I'm now a police officer with the ST ANTHONY POLICE DEPT" along with a picture of himself in uniform posing next to a white Harley-Davidson motorbike.
He told local news station KPVI he would be starting the force's new Internet Crimes Against Children task force, adding he had wanted to be a police officer before he played one on TV.
He said: " The online sexual predator will take his time to groom a child on the internet. They will send them gifts, they will befriend them, they will be there for them and before you know it, the child has disclosed every bit of information of themselves. Now they know where they live," said Estrada.
Terry Harris, St Anthony's chief of police, said: "As a community it is really hard to imagine, I mean come into a small community in Idaho and have somebody of his stature ... here is, I'm just flabbergasted that he was even willing to come here and do it."
Since his starring role in ChiPs, Estrada has enjoyed acting roles in TV series including Sealab 2021, and played himself in shows and movies including My Name Is Earl and Van Wilder: Party Liaison.
Supermarket shares plunged and g lobal stock markets sank into the red as last week's post-Brexit relief rally unravelled while the pound also fell to fresh 31-year lows against the dollar.
The FTSE 100 Index was down 81.8 points at 6463.6 and there were also hefty falls across European indices amid mounting fears over the impact of the vote to leave the EU.
Sterling slumped below 1.28 US dollars for the first time since 1985 at one stage and also dropped as low as 1.16 euros before paring back losses slightly.
The pound was later down 0.8% against the dollar at 1.29.
The market falls brought an abrupt halt to last week's bounce-back, with moves by fund managers to lock down their commercial property funds fuelling investor fears.
Britain's biggest grocers also took a hammering amid reports that Asda could slash prices over the summer and send profits plunging across the sector.
Tesco was the biggest faller on the London market, tumbling 8% or 14.2p to 161.6p, after HSBC analyst David McCarthy warned that Asda was eyeing a "major price repositioning" that could "seriously damage sector profitability".
Morrisons also came under fire, down more than 7% or 13.4p to 172.4p, while Sainsbury's fell 3% or 8.3p to 214.6p.
HSBC downgraded Tesco from buy to hold and Morrisons from hold to reduce, while also cutting its price target for Sainsbury's from 175p to 165p.
In Europe, Germany's Dax was 1.6% lower and the Cac 40 in France was down 1.8% , with oil prices also dropping in a sign of the market jitters.
Brent crude fell 0.5% to 47.72 US dollars a barrel.
Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA, said: " Negativity finally appears to have gripped investors following a rebound last week that appeared to suggest that Brexit fears were easing.
"These have ramped up this week, with the latest concerns coming from the commercial property sector after funds blocked withdrawals due to a lack of liquidity in the market."
Henderson Global Investors, Canada Life, and Threadneedle became the latest investment firms to put their commercial property funds on lockdown , joining M&G Investments, Aviva and Standard Life Investments, which have all suspended trading in their UK commercial property funds since Monday.
The property woes added to warnings from the Bank of England that Brexit effects were already taking hold, as well as a slew of recent economic figures pointing to a sharp slowdown in growth.
A move by the Bank to help prop up the British economy on Tuesday, by relaxing rules for banks to boost lending by up to 150 billion, failed to halt the pound's slide.
Andy Scott, economist at HiFX, warned there would be further falls for sterling, predicting a drop to 1.25 US dollars and 1.10 euros.
He said the pound would suffer as the "economic outlook significantly worsens and the UK awaits political leadership to provide some certainty".
While the FTSE 100 still remains above its pre-Brexit vote highs, it is a gloomier picture in the FTSE 250 Index, which is more than 10% below its level before the referendum result.
The second tier, which is seen as a more accurate barometer of UK sentiment, was down another 0.4% in the latest sell-off.
Precious metal stocks were in the ascendency as investors headed to safe havens. Silver miner Fresnillo was up 6% or 115p to 2008p, while gold miner Randgold Resources rose 4% or 405p to 9715p.
However, property market fears saw housebuilders endure another session in the red, with blue chips Barratt Developments and Taylor Wimpey dropping by 17.7p to 332.6p and 5.4p to 115.9p respectively after heavy declines on Tuesday.
Fellow builder Redrow dropped 5% or 16.3p to 275.6p in the FTSE 250, while estate agents Savills and Countrywide were also under pressure.
Airlines joined them in negative territory, with British Airways owner IAG down 25p to 353.5p and easyJet off 38p to 1018p.
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 Index were Fresnillo up 115p to 2008p, Randgold Resources up 405p to 9715p, Whitbread up 47p to 3452p, Glencore up 1.8p to 159.7p.
The biggest fallers were Tesco down 14.2p to 161.6p, Morrisons down 13.4p to 172.4p, Lloyds Banking Group down 3.5p to 47.6p, IAG down 25p to 353.5p.
Ryanair boosted its passenger numbers by 11% to 10.6 million last month despite a raft of air traffic control (ATC) strikes in continental Europe that resulted in airlines cancelling hundreds of flights.
Ryanair boosted its passenger numbers by 11% to 10.6 million last month despite a raft of air traffic control (ATC) strikes in continental Europe that resulted in airlines cancelling hundreds of flights.
Another strike by French controllers yesterday - the 13th in 14 weeks - caused more chaos for travellers across Europe. Italian air traffic controllers are due to strike later this month.
Ryanair's June traffic figures were another record for the carrier.
Its load factor, or percentage of available seats filled, climbed one percentage.
It carried 109.6 million passengers in the 12 months to the end of June, a 16% increase on the previous 12-month period.
Chief marketing officer, Kenny Jacobs, said that the numbers were also delivered at lower fares.
Ryanair said earlier this year that the cheaper fuel prices would result in air fares falling across Europe.
Some airlines don't have fuel-hedging policies, and so were able to pass on savings immediately to customers in the form of lower ticket prices.
Mr Jacobs also called for ATC disruption to be tackled.
"We are again calling on the European Commission to urgently take action to reduce the impact of these ATC strikes on Europe's citizens and the single market," he said.
Pressure group Airlines for Europe (A4E), of which Ryanair is a member along with other carriers such as easyJet, Lufthansa, and IAG, yesterday also urged the EC to intervene. A study released by A4E last week showed that between 2010 and 2015, the overall impact of ATC strikes reduced European Union gross domestic product up to 9.5bn (8m).
A4E said that ATC strikes in Greece, Italy, Belgium and France since March this year have resulted in over 3,500 flight cancellations among its member airlines.
The Social Network star Jesse Eisenberg has revealed Daniel Radcliffe turned down the lead role in his play The Spoils, forcing the actor to play the part himself.
Eisenberg said he offered the role to seven actors including Harry Potter star Radcliffe, before reluctantly taking on the part himself.
The Spoils - which has transferred to London's Trafalgar Studios from off-Broadway in New York - centres around bully Ben, who discovers that his school crush is marrying a straight-laced banker and sets out to destroy their relationship and win her back.
The Big Bang Theory star Kunal Nayyar plays his roommate Kalyan.
Eisenberg, who is starring opposite Radcliffe in Now You See Me 2 in cinemas, told the Virgin Radio breakfast show: "It's my third play.
"With all three plays I tried to not act in them, because I wanted to experience being the playwright, but that hasn't happened for various reasons.
"In this play, I offered the part to seven other guys when we were in New York last year and they were all busy, or at least they said they were busy.
"One of them was Dan Radcliffe, who was in Now You See Me 2, and Dan was doing a movie at the time, at least allegedly, so I was kind of forced into it.
"I think it's probably for the best because once I'm doing it I kind of like it, but I just get so nervous going on stage that I feel like I want to avoid the experience of having stage fright for six months. But ultimately, doing it is very rewarding."
The play also stars Game of Thrones actor Alfie Allen in his West End debut.
The Spoils runs until August 13.
The Odyssey Trust has announced plans to spend more than 400,000 on upgrading the congested roads around the venue in Belfast
The Odyssey Trust has announced plans to spend more than 400,000 on upgrading the congested roads around the venue in Belfast.
It is hoped that the project will bring an end to the lengthy tailbacks seen around the attraction, which are particularly bad before and after music concerts at the SSE Arena.
With 1,500 spaces available in the Odyssey car park, motorists and passengers can wait up to an hour to get on to surrounding roads after shows.
However, plans have now been submitted to Belfast City Council proposing the construction of a new roundabout at Queens Quay, in addition to a number of improvements being made to the M3 sliplane.
If permission for the programme of works is granted, the project is expected to begin early next year.
In its submission to planners, the Odyssey Trust said it had brought forward the roadworks to improve access and convenience for patrons going to events at the SSE Arena and to the wider Odyssey complex.
Brian Hughes, operations director of the Odyssey Trust, said: These infrastructure works will provide enhanced access and convenience for patrons attending shows at the SSE Arena or visiting other parts of the complex, such as W5.
We know roads can get incredibly busy when we have a big show at the arena.
By making this investment, the trust has taken responsibility for making patrons experience of the venue even better. In addition to making our own improvements, it was important to the trust that we integrate our plans with Belfast City Councils (BCC) proposals for a bus rapid transit system that connects the site to the city centre.
We held pre-application discussions with the council to ensure there was consistency with BCCs regeneration and investment strategy for a better connected city that promotes sustainable transport.
The roads project is the latest in a string of investments in the complex by the Odyssey Trust, which last year spent around 3m on refurbishing and upgrading the facilities at the SSE Arena.
The proposed roadworks are just the first step of a major redevelopment of the carpark and waterfront sections of the Odyssey site.
Pre-application discussions were held with Belfast City Council and the Department for Infrastructures Transport Projects Division to ensure the conditions of the outline planning permission were satisfied.
Hollie Lewis who along with Carole Daly have settled sex discrimination cases against a government agriculture quango for 47,000.
Carole Daly who along with Hollie Lewis, have settled sex discrimination cases against a government agriculture quango for 47,000.
Carole Daly (left) and Hollie Lewis who have settled sex discrimination cases against a government agriculture quango for 47,000.
Two women who claimed that they were told a man of the same grade in the company where they worked was the top dog have received a sex discrimination settlement of more than 47,000.
Hollie Lewis (31), from Bangor, and Carole Daly (29), from Belfast, were working as assistant scientific officers at the Agri-Food and Bio-sciences Institute.
Hollie claims that her male boss made comments about what she was wearing and said that when she wore bright lipstick she was attention-seeking.
She said: He would have looked me up and down and said things like, What are you doing to these boys Hollie? My appearance should have nothing to do with how I carry out my job.
Hollie had worked for the institute for more than 10 years when she was moved to his laboratory in 2014. She worked alongside Carole, who had joined the laboratory when she returned from maternity leave in 2013. She had worked elsewhere in AFBI since 2009.
Both women claim that they were left out of meetings with senior management but the male ASO of the same grade was permitted to attend and then he would withhold information that meant they could not carry out their jobs properly.
Hollie said that she was told that although he was at the same level as the women, he was the top dog and that his female colleagues were below him.
Carole also said she felt she was singled out because she worked part-time hours and was told that if she did not change her hours to suit her boss, she would lose her job.
The women took their complaints to senior management and their human resources department but said that they felt they were not listened to and nothing was done.
They said they dreaded going to work and were forced to take time off work with stress because of the complaints.
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Carole was eventually moved to another laboratory within the institute but Hollie decided to leave AFBI under a voluntary exit scheme because of the discrimination.
She said: I felt that I had no option other than to leave because of what was going on. I left voluntarily but it wasnt something I had ever wanted. I saw my career there for a long time.
The cases were settled with the assistance of the Equality Commission.
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Whatsapp Hollie Lewis who along with Carole Daly have settled sex discrimination cases against a government agriculture quango for 47,000.
The institute paid 25,000 to Carole and 22,000 to Hollie and apologised for the injury to feelings, upset and distress suffered by the women.
Carole said: Even when theres guidelines set, these things can still be going on and when thats brought to them, they need to be able to deal with it and follow these policies.
I am happy that the case has now been resolved and I am continuing to develop my career with the institute.
Hollie said: They didnt follow guidelines and that made the situation so much worse. It was so institutionalised that a lot of the women that we spoke to accepted what was happening.
I am pleased that the institute has now apologised for the upset and distress I suffered and that it will be reviewing its policies, practices and procedures with the Equality Commission.
AFBI chief executive officer Professor Elaine Watson said: I and my senior colleagues in AFBI regret the circumstances which led to this situation and I can also confirm that, since my arrival [in June 2016], I am committed to driving out any unacceptable behaviour by any member of our workforce.
In this case AFBI failed two of our colleagues and acknowledges that more could have been done to support them. AFBI looks positively towards an opportunity to work more closely with the ECNI to ensure this never happens again.
Shopping centres in Northern Ireland's border areas could be in for a bonanza in the wake of the UK vote to leave the EU, according to a senior Irish civil servant.
Sterling has weakened since the Brexit vote last month, making Northern Ireland more attractive as a destination for shoppers in the Republic to stock up on groceries or other items.
At the time of the vote, 1 bought about 76 pence in sterling. Now it's buying around 83p.
The fall in sterling may well lure shoppers to Northern Ireland, according to John Palmer, Principal Officer at the Republic's Department of Finance.
Shoppers flocked to Northern Ireland in 2009 when the euro neared parity with sterling at one stage - creating havoc for the retail trade in the south and becoming a big political issue.
Yesterday, Mr Palmer expressed concerns that there could be a repeat, with the amount of VAT collected in the Republic plummeting as Irish shoppers cross the border in significant numbers again.
"There will be an impact. What's hard to tell is how much and that's something we'll be looking at in the context of the forecast for the Budget," said Mr Palmer.
"We would expect, later on in the year, and again it depends on the strength of sterling, that we will probably see some linkage across to Northern Ireland in terms of VAT, and people go and shop there."
International research group Kantar Worldpanel also warned that the Republic's grocery shoppers might drift to Northern Ireland due to weakening sterling.
It comes as both the Dublin and Belfast governments have tried to play down the potential impact of George Osborne's plan to cut UK company tax to 15% in efforts to stave off recession in the wake of Brexit.
Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan said the Chancellor had two years ago signalled a phased cut to 17% - and the move from 20% to 15% was not much below that earlier target.
Mr Osborne's move is an attempt to keep investment in Britain after the shock referendum decision on June 23 for the UK to leave the EU.
Speaking after North-South government talks at Dublin Castle, Taoiseach Enda Kenny conceded that the move would have implications for both parts of Ireland. But Mr Kenny said other factors influenced investors decisions and both the North and the Republic had been successful in attracting business investment.
"Obviously, there are implications here both for Ireland and Northern Ireland," Mr Kenny said. But he added that the gap between the Irish and British rates could be influential for business decisions also.
However First Minister Arlene Foster said the move could in fact help Northern Ireland - even if it continued with cuts down to the 12.5% planned for Northern Ireland in spring 2018. This is to match the Irish rate.
Ms Foster said a fully-fledged move for a 12.5% company tax rate all across the UK could save Belfast the expense of taking control of company tax.
Victims of child abuse at residential homes in Northern Ireland have urged the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland to set aside money for compensation.
Archbishop Eamon Martin met campaigners in Armagh yesterday.
The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry is due to report to the Executive next January and could recommend a pay-out for survivors.
Margaret McGuckin from Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse said: It is the responsibility of the Executive to set up a redress scheme for victims of institutional abuse here, but the Catholic Church and religious orders which ran homes where we were abused have a moral and financial responsibility to victims.
We have asked the Archbishop to tell Executive ministers that the Church stands ready to contribute significant funds to a Government-run redress scheme.
Other organisations, private or public, which ran homes where abuse took place bear a similar responsibility.
The Sisters of Nazareth congregation is among religious orders which have admitted physical abuse and apologised.
Jon McCourt from Survivors North West said: Nothing will make up for the damage done to us when we were children, but financial redress is one way for the Church, religious orders and Government to say sorry for what was done to us and to so many others.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland's efforts to trace Dunford were assisted by the National Crime Agency and Spanish police
An on-the-run drug dealer who was captured in Spain has been remanded into custody in Northern Ireland.
Mark Dunford, 41, appeared in court in Ballymena, Co Antrim, following his arrest in Spain on June 25.
He was detained under a European Arrest Warrant.
The absconder, who is originally from Waterford in the Republic of Ireland but had been living in Coleraine, Co Londonderry, failed to appear for a sentence hearing last February having admitted supplying amphetamines.
Dunford, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to involvement in illegal drug supply in Coleraine and Ballymena after police seized almost 900,000 of drugs in September 2012.
During a brief hearing on Wednesday, deputy district judge Laura Levers remanded him in custody to appear before the sentencing judge in a Crown Court on July 27.
Bearded Dunford, wearing a red jacket, blue checked shirt and jeans, replied: "Aye, no bother."
A detective sergeant earlier confirmed the defendant had been detained under the terms of a European Arrest Warrant.
A solicitor for the drug dealer said he had no questions for the officer. He applied for legal aid for his client.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland's efforts to trace Dunford were assisted by the National Crime Agency and Spanish police.
Improving the skills of Northern Ireland's workforce is key to building a globally competitive economy, Simon Hamilton has said.
The country should be vying with small innovative nations like Finland and Singapore for investment, the economy minister added.
"I am convinced that skills are perhaps the single most important building block for constructing a globally competitive economy," he said.
Mr Hamilton was addressing a business breakfast at the offices of Allstate software development in Belfast.
He added: "Our people are what is most impressive about Northern Ireland.
"When you speak to inward investors it is immediately obvious that in no small part why they come to Northern Ireland when they could invest their money anywhere is because of the loyalty, the talent and the inherent hard work of our people."
He said that did not mean good infrastructure and low taxation were not important in attracting overseas businesses.
"But if we consider corporation tax alone, we will not capitalise on the undoubted benefits it will bring if we don't have a suitably skilled labour supply to fill the new jobs that a competitive corporation tax rate will bring.
"I firmly believe that skills are an elevator to economic prosperity and social inclusion and I am determined that we build upon the progress we've been making and use skills to change lives and transform our economy."
DUP MP Sammy Wilson has said that while he loathes Jeremy Corbyns politics, he really likes him personally and believes that he is an honest, decent man.
Mr Wilson made the surprise revelation as the Labour leader fights for his political life at Westminster with the majority of his own MPs demanding he resign.
While the DUP was believed to be universally antagonistic to Mr Corbyn, the East Antrim MP said he had a good personal relationship with him.
And he also disclosed that he is friends with the Labour leaders brother, Piers, a weather forecaster who shares his own scepticism on global warming.
Mr Wilson told the Belfast Telegraph: There is a decency and an honesty about Jeremy Corbyn that I admire. His views on Northern Ireland and his past associations with Sinn Fein at a time when the IRAs murderous campaign was in full swing makes me very angry.
But, on a personal level, I find Jeremy a lovely man. He would never walk past you in the corridor in the House of Commons without saying, Hello, how are you? He has time for people. Hes a true gentleman.
The Labour leader is regularly criticised for his dress with his casual apparel standing out in a sea of Westminster suits. But Mr Wilson said he identified with Mr Corbyns determination to be his own man. I like that rebellious streak in him, he said.
Those with an orthodox view of what a politician should be like try to impose their standards on Jeremy but he resists. He insists on being himself. He wont be cowed by the establishment into appearing or acting in a certain way. Im a bit like that myself. I dont like conforming.
Mr Wilson revealed that, several years ago, Mr Corbyn had invited him to address his North Islington constituency association. The meeting was held in the back of a pub. There were very left-wing views expressed with which I totally disagreed. I argued my corner but the atmosphere was friendly. It certainly wasnt a rough or hostile gathering, he said. The DUP MP believed Mr Corbyn was disastrous for the Labour Party and was unelectable.
However, he reckoned that Mr Corbyn, who is popular with Labour grassroots, would survive the current challenge to his leadership. Last week, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said the DUP had no relationship with Mr Corbyn and the sooner he was deposed, the better.
Mr Wilson said: DUP views are coloured by Jeremys past associations. I havent been shy about viciously attacking him myself over those links but hes never taken it personally and he has still been friendly to me afterwards.
The DUP MP said he had hosted a meeting in Parliament four months ago for Jeremys brother Piers.
Hes eccentric but thoroughly decent. It must run in the family. He is not afraid to deviate from mainstream opinion either. Like me, he doesnt believe that global warming is a man-made phenomenon, he said.
The suspect is being brought to Belfast for questioning.
A 41-year-old man has been arrested in England as part of an ongoing investigation into the supply of Class A drugs into Northern Ireland.
During searches in the Grimsby area, officers from Reactive and Organised Crime Branch working with colleagues from Humberside Police seized an estimated ton of benzocaine which can be used as a bulking agent for cocaine.
Detective Inspector Pete Mullan, from Reactive and Organised Crime Branch, said: Todays arrest is part of an ongoing investigation into the supply of Class A drugs into Northern Ireland. With assistance from colleagues at Humberside Police we have carried out six searches during which an estimated ton of benzocaine has been seized.
"The suspect is being brought to Belfast for questioning.
We are determined to tackle the threat posed to communities by illegal drugs and will work with law enforcement partners across the country to apprehend suspected offenders and help keep people safe.
Three senior care workers were convicted of abusing youngsters at Kincora boys' home in Belfast
A retired MI5 officer has insisted the Security Service would have been duty bound to take action if it uncovered evidence of abuse at Kincora boys' home.
The officer, known as 9347, was giving evidence to the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry, which is examining claims that intelligence agencies covered up the crimes committed by a paedophile ring in the east Belfast home in order to blackmail some alleged high-profile abusers.
Three senior care workers Joseph Mains, Raymond Semple and William McGrath were convicted for abusing boys at Kincora in 1980, but it has long been alleged that other more prominent figures, including politicians, judges, civil servants and police officers, were also involved.
It has also been claimed that McGrath, who had links to a shadowy Protestant paramilitary organisation known as Tara, was working as an MI5 agent.
Officer 9347 was being questioned about a classified MI5 document from 1982 that noted a military intelligence officer who was seeking permission in 1975 to interview a man with alleged links to McGrath and Tara was told he could go ahead, but not to question him about "deviant sexual activity".
The military intelligence officer was Brian Gemmell, who has since gone public with claims MI5 warned him against investigating abuse claims at Kincora.
Mr Gemmell said he was told to stay clear of Kincora after filing a report to a senior MI5 officer on allegations related to the home.
Officer 9347, who succeeded the officer Mr Gemmell claims warned him off, suggested the "deviant sexual activity" referred to claims of homosexuality among Tara members, not child abuse.
Giving evidence via video-link, he said MI5 was not interested in the sexuality of those involved in Tara, but insisted it would have acted if it uncovered claims of sexual abuse.
The officer told the inquiry that "serious criminal activities that appeared in the course of intelligence operations we would be bound to report it to relevant authorities".
He added: "I would have encouraged, indeed insisted, that anything of a serious nature was reported."
The officer said he had never seen any document that suggested MI5 was aware of the Kincora allegations before they became public in the early 1980s.
"I don't remember any (document) of that kind," he told the inquiry.
The retired officer worked in Northern Ireland from 1981 to 1983 and was not involved in the region when the abuse was committed.
He was giving evidence about papers he wrote in 1982 on records he had examined from the mid-1970s relating to Mr Gemmell's activities.
He noted that at the time of writing in 1982 the Army had been unable to find the report Captain Gemmell said he filed on Kincora.
The long-running HIA, chaired by retired High Court Judge Sir Anthony Hart, is examining allegations of child abuse in children's homes and other residential institutions in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 1995.
The inquiry continues.
Solidarity within Northern Ireland's Executive is weak, according to the OECD report
Senior civil servants are risk averse and solidarity within Northern Ireland's Executive is weak, according to a team of international experts.
Making some 30 recommendations for improvement, the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) has called for more collective thinking at the heart of the Stormont government.
Mari Kiviniemi, OECD deputy secretary-general, said: "The Northern Ireland Executive should adopt a more joined up approach that breaks down administrative silos to pursue integrated outcomes for people more effectively and more inclusive growth for the region."
The OECD was commissioned to carry out its review of public sector governance in 2014 by former finance minister Simon Hamilton.
Researchers conducted a series of fact finding missions in Belfast and Londonderry and spoke with representatives from the public sector, business, civil organisations and the academic community.
They focused on assessing reform in three key areas; improving strategic approaches to decision making, improving engagement with people and improving operational delivery to citizens and businesses.
In a 512-page report launched at Parliament Buildings a number of issues around decision making were identified.
It said: "Policy making in Northern Ireland continues to be defined by narrow concerns lodged within departmental silos, with bottlenecks being resolved politically at the Executive table.
"This could also stem from the lack of supportive signals from the Executive itself to work collectively and collaboratively as a single government.
"Solidarity among members of the Executive is evidently weak, which undermines the principle of collective responsibility for decision making and the concomitant role the civil service, notably its senior ranks ought to play in supporting it."
The Programme for Government (PfG), which presents the priorities and initiatives for Executive Ministers, was described as the most important strategic planning document.
And although experts said the draft PfG agreed in May and which is currently out for consultation, was "significantly better" than the previous two, there was still room for improvement with better co-operation between the Finance Department and Executive Office among the priorities.
The review added: "Foremost Northern Ireland must overcome the administrative silos which hamper the ability of the public sector to work horizontally in pursuit of policy and programme design and implementation.
"This will require changes in the way Northern Ireland tackles public policy challenges and considers opportunities."
Meanwhile, experts also looked at the impact of restructuring and concluded it was "too early to say definitively" whether the reduction in local councils and government departments would result in both savings and improvements in efficiency and effectiveness.
However, the transfer of planning powers to local authorities was praised as a positive move.
Other recommendations emanating from the OECD review include strengthening transparency and accountability mechanisms to build trust; investing in skills to support innovation as well as enhancing international engagement in digital government.
The Executive has accepted all but two of the recommendations.
Finance Minister Mairtin O Muilleoir said: "We all share a desire to improve our public services.
"While the report outlines much of what is good in our public sector, it also points to some challenges which will need to be addressed if our public services and wider society are to continue to flourish.
"It is time for action and I am confident that as a united and forward looking Executive we can make real progress in driving forward these recommendations."
DUP Junior Minister Alastair Ross said: "I believe the OECD report allows us to benchmark ourselves against other countries, see what we are doing well and what we need to improve and gives us renewed impetus to work together to deliver these commitments and create a better Northern Ireland for all our citizens."
Ballyclare woman Kirsty Scott, whose son William died of an accidental overdose three years ago
A heartbroken mother has spoken of the devastating moment her autistic teenage son collapsed and died in his brothers arms hours after taking a legal high.
Kirsty Scott was on a family holiday when she was told her youngest boy William had been rushed to hospital after becoming unwell at their Ballyclare home.
The 19-year-old, from Huntingdale Court, died from multiple organ failure on August 31, 2013 after taking what he thought was a legal high.
At the teenagers inquest last week Coroner Joe McCrisken warned that users of legal highs were playing Russian roulette with their lives.
He added that in light of Williams death he would write to Health Minister Michelle ONeill and PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton in the hope of preventing further deaths.
Mrs Scott also warned of the dangers of so-called legal highs.
This could be anyones child, she said.
This is a teenager ordering a legal high off the internet thinking its one thing, but its not, and it killed him in the end.
A toxicology report revealed the substance contained Para-Chloroamphetamine, a class A controlled drug.
At the age of 18, eight months before his death, William was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.
But the teenager struggled to accept his disorder, and turned to drugs for a release.
Mrs Scott explained that William started showing signs of autistic behaviour when he was three.
However, doctors misdiagnosed him with auditory processing disorder a hearing problem that impacts on how the ears and brain co-ordinate.
Mrs Scott was adamant William suffered from Aspergers and began a 15-year battle with health and education authorities to have his diagnosis changed, which would give him access to services.
Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, Mrs Scott said she believed her son would still be here today if that had happened at an earlier stage in his life.
I put up a fight to have William reassessed at the ages of five, 11 and again at 15 but the health trust and education board failed to pick up his condition, she said.
We got him into special school for his primary years but they took him out and put him into mainstream school when he was aged 11.
All the way through primary and secondary school no one picked it up, yet it was so obvious.
No one from either department was looking at Williams files and the lack of communication between the health trust and the education board meant opportunities were missed.
Mrs Scott pushed officials as Williams health continued to deteriorate, and a few weeks before his 18th birthday he was sent to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service.
In January 2013 he was assessed for the final time and a few weeks later his parents were told he had Aspergers.
But William struggled to accept the diagnosis, unable to grasp the meaning of his condition.
The last three months of his life were a nightmare trying to get him help, Mrs Scott said.
He really struggled and drew into himself, and he started getting mental health issues because he hated himself and us.
No one sat him down and explained it all to him.
He was 19 and was thinking: Im never going to get married or have kids, and he thought he was going to be put away. He was so confused.
His mood was so low that he needed a lift.
During this time he asked for his debit card and I didnt want to give it to him because I felt, even though he was 19, he wasnt capable because of his Aspergers. But I didnt have any control over that decision because he was classed as an adult. I was simply trying to protect him.
However, he got his bank card and soon after he admitted he ordered the legal high Midnight Mash online in July 2013 after I found the wrapper.
He said it made him feel very calm and it was the first time in his life he was able to make sense of the world. But he promised he wouldnt do it again and I believed him.
Mrs Scott and her husband Gordon, who died last year, were coming to the end of their holiday when they received a phone call from their son Alex, who was in hospital after he found William seriously ill at their home.
Mrs Scott said Williams death broke her family, particularly his father, who struggled with the loss of his youngest son. In July last year he suffered a heart attack while out on his bike and died.
I lost my son and then my husband in a very short space of time, she added.
Other parents could be going through what I have been through. People need to recognise that legal highs kill you and that vulnerable people are at a higher risk.
I definitely feel William would still be here today if he got the help he needed because he would have been on the correct medication and we would have been able to work on his autism for years.
After his death the Northern Health and Social Care Trust carried out an investigation into the issues raised by the Scott family and admitted there were shortcomings in Williams care.
It said: The trust has met with Mrs Scott and her family on several occasions and has undertaken a comprehensive investigation into the issues raised by the family regarding the tragic death of their son William.
Following further representations, and in line with procedures, the trust commissioned an independent review which was subsequently shared with the family and the trust.
On the back of these investigations the trust has acknowledged and apologised for shortcomings in Williams care and has implemented learning identified in the two reviews.
The trust would once again wish to apologise to Mrs Scott for difficulties she and her family have experienced.
People wishing to sign up for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) in Northern Ireland must call 0845 and 0300 numbers, which can cost more than 50p per minute
Ill and disabled people here are being charged premium rates to access a government service that is cheaper in the rest of the UK, this newspaper has learned.
People wishing to sign up for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) in Northern Ireland must call 0845 and 0300 numbers, which can cost more than 50p per minute.
The same service in England, Scotland and Wales is covered by the cheaper 0345 option.
ESA is a hugely complicated benefit. What you get depends on your individual circumstances, and those people struggling the most may be able to claim 186.90 a week.
You can apply regardless of whether you are working or unemployed by initially phoning an 0800 freephone number from anywhere in the UK.
However, concerns have been raised for cash-strapped Northern Ireland-based claimants who have found themselves hit with substantial bills after making follow-up phonecalls to numbers promoted on the official government website.
A single mother from Carrickfergus, who asked to remain anonymous, said that she had been charged almost 10 for calling an 0845 number for just a few minutes. The NI Direct website gives two numbers for general inquiries or to report a change of circumstance 0845 602 7301 or 0300 123 3012, she told the Belfast Telegraph.
I chose the first option and was on hold for several minutes before I finally got through to an operator, although I didnt think anything of it at the time.
It was only when I looked at my mobile bill that I noticed I had been charged 9 something for the call, and I was really angry about it.
A Department for Communities spokeswoman said it had been gradually phasing out the use of 0845 contact numbers for enquiry lines and moving to services based on 0300 numbers.
For older inquiry services where system constraints have not permitted the full replacement of 0845 numbers, the Department for Communities has introduced additional 0300 numbers to mirror these, the spokeswoman added.
The department makes every effort to process ESA claims as quickly and effectively as possible via a single 0800 number.
Processing changes of circumstances and inquiries via separate 0845/0300 numbers avoids new claims being backed up or delayed unnecessarily.
Citizens Advice said it was time for 0845 numbers to be eradicated. We were very concerned about the financial cost on the public here from calls to the ESA 0845 number to report a change of circumstances, said a spokesman.
As some clients are still using the older high-cost number, we would now welcome further steps from the Government to finally phase out the old 0845 numbers.
Many organisations across the UK use 03 numbers as an alternative to more expensive 08 numbers. These cost no more than calls to geographic numbers (01 or 02).
Ofcoms website indicates that 0345 calls from landlines are typically charged at up to 9p per minute, while calls from mobiles typically cost between 3p and 40p per minute.
Regarding 0300 numbers, telephone calls from landlines are typically charged at around 10p a minute, while calls from mobiles again typically cost between 3p and 40p.
The cost of calling 0843, 0844 and 0845 numbers is made up of two parts: an access charge going to your phone company, and a service charge set by the organisation you are calling.
The service charge for calls to 084 numbers is between 0p and 7p a minute, while the access charge is levied by the phone company. Dialling an 08 number while using O2, which is Northern Irelands biggest provider, will cost the caller a rate of 45p per minute, for example.
A village near Dungannon was in shock yesterday after a body was found in a lough.
The remains of a local woman named as Hilda Kyle from Moygashel were discovered in Black Lough by rescue workers at around 10.15am.
It is understood that the 68-year-old mother-of-four took a taxi to the beauty spot, which is popular with walkers and anglers, just after 3pm on Monday.
Shocked friends and neighbours described her as a very jolly lady, but also admitted that she had been struggling with depression.
It is believed that Mrs Kyle had been diagnosed with cancer in the past and had been in remission until recently.
After she failed to return to her home in Moygashel, she was reported as missing on Monday evening.
Rescue teams working with police began a planned search of the area shortly after 9am on Tuesday.
Two boats and a police helicopter assisted with the operation, and after an hour a body was found in the water on the Eglish Road side of the lough.
Sean McCarry, from the Community Rescue Service, was at the scene of the discovery.
Our thoughts go out to the family, he told the Belfast Telegraph. Were working closely with the police at the moment to make sure that the family and relatives are kept informed of the situation.
Stanley Harvison (63), who lives beside the lough and knew the widow well, said it was a devastating loss.
She would have run about with my sister, and I just heard they found the body, he added. She was a very nice woman. She was jolly at times, but she did also have depression. This has been terrible. We were walking around the lough this morning at around 7am after we heard that she was missing.
She got a taxi over there yesterday. The taxi man didnt know something was wrong. People are just coping as best they can.
Eileen McClean (66), who was close to the victim, last spoke to her on Monday. She was my friend, she explained. I heard that she went to the lough and got a taxi there about 3.15pm. We were very close.
She was a very jolly lady, only she was also a wee bit depressed. She had three boys and a girl. I had seen her in town yesterday morning. I told her Id see her later, but I didnt get seeing her.
Ulster Unionist councillor for the area Walter Cuddy described the widow as a wonderful, friendly woman with a great personality who frequently visited his shop in Dungannon.
Sergio Lobo, who lives facing the lough, added: Its a sad moment for everyone. We dont know anything about her last hours, and its really difficult to know what to say.
I thought that something was very wrong when I saw the police helicopter.
His wife, Mary, said: I just heard that a lady from Moygashel had been found in the water, a local woman. Its very sad for everybody. Im sure that its very difficult for the people who found her too.
A cordon remained in place around the area until 8pm yesterday as the police continued their investigations.
It is understood the family have been informed and that a post-mortem examination will be carried out.
DUP councillor Kim Ashton paid tribute, saying: I would just like to pass on my sympathy to the family. Its a very tragic story that has come from Dungannon today. Id like to let the family know that were all thinking about them as theyre going through what must be a very difficult time.
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this story, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or Lifeline on 0808 808 8000
There is no shortage of activity in the North Carolina General Assembly. While most capitol watchers are focused on the short session's main responsibility, developing and passing a state budget, it's good to remember other significant education legislation has already been passed or continues to work its way through the General Assembly.Here is a quick review of some of the major education bills.- Sponsored by Rep. Jason Saine (R-Lincoln) and Sen. Chad Barefoot (R-Wake), the bill tightens protections on student privacy. The bill further defines what data students can expect to remain private. It also spells out regulations for data collection and how student data can be distributed and used.Status: House: Passed, Senate: Passed; Signed by Governor McCrory 6/8/2016 (S.L. 2016-11)- Sponsored by Sen. Chad Barefoot (R-Wake), the bill compels the State Board of Education to require all candidates for teacher licensure to have a criminal background check. The bill also requires public school personnel and board members of charter schools that are seeking initial approval to also have criminal background checks. The legislation is in response to a much-publicized USA Today story that showed North Carolina school districts hiring teachers who had committed crimes in other states.Status: Senate: Passed; House: In Committee- Sponsored by Rep. Rob Bryan (R-Mecklenburg), the legislation creates a special Achievement School District (ASD) to provide flexible and innovative ways to help turn around some of North Carolina's worst performing schools. ASDs could involve up to five of the lowest performing schools in the state, and would have to be managed by experienced charter school operators and approved by the State Board of Education. ASDs enjoy "charter-like" flexibility and significant top ASD officials have significant control over hiring. LEAs with low-performing schools may also choose to transfer a failing school to the ASD. Schools can also benefit from creation of what are called "Innovation Zones." Such zones are flexible environments where the best practices and innovative techniques are readily applied. Lastly, schools not selected to be part of the Achievement School District would have a number of turnaround models to choose from. One of those would be to employ a turnaround principal to improve academic performance. "Turnaround" principals are given five years, additional resources and flexibility to improve academic performance.Status: House: Passed; Senate: In Committee- Sen. Jerry Tillman (R-Archdale) is the primary sponsor of legislation that offers students the opportunity to choose their math track. The legislation, which is regarded as a compromise between critics and supporters of Common Core, provides students the chance to enroll in the current integrated Math, 1, Math 2 and Math 3, a track which teaches concepts of Algebra 1, Geometry and Algebra II across the three courses. Or they could learn math via the standard Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II sequence, which was the way most math instruction was delivered prior to the imposition of the Common Core math standards. Conservatives should applaud any legislation that provides students an option to Common Core. However, conservatives should also be skeptical of the State Board of Education's (SBE) ability to review the current math standards and develop new standards that are age-appropriate, rigorous and reflect the highest possible standards - a task the Academic Standards Review Commission failed to carry out. The SBE is charged with having new math standards by the fall of 2017.Status: House: Passed, Senate: Passed; Differences Being Reconciled.- Sponsored by Sen. Chad Barefoot (R-Wake), this bill calls for creation of a website to provide prospective students relevant information on North Carolina public and private colleges regarding job market information, labor markets, degree programs, graduation information, median salaries, financial aid and the like. The bill also calls for centralizing questions of residency in one office rather than by individual campuses.Status: Passed Senate, Passed House. Sent to Gov. McCrory for signature.- Sponsored by Rep. John Szoka (R-Cumberland), this legislation would allow charters to receive a greater share of tax money, grant money and federal appropriations currently reserved for traditional public schools. The bill states that gifts or grants expressly designated for a specific school would not be shared with charter schools. However, the bill requests that monies received from indirect costs, reimbursements, sales tax revenue, unrestricted gifts and federal grants and appropriations to LEAs be shared with charter schools. The legislation also lays out penalties for LEAs that fail to comply with the transfer of funds within the required time limits.Status: Passed Senate; Passed House, Differences Being Reconciled.- Sponsored by Sen. Tom Apodaca (R-Buncombe). This legislation freezes tuition for resident undergraduate students for eight semesters for students seeking a baccalaureate degree at UNC institutions. Legislation also rolls back the fee charges 5 percent from their 2015 levels and reduces tuition at all UNC institutions. Tuition would be rolled back to $500/semester at Western Carolina University and UNC- Pembroke. Additional state funds would be provided to make up for the loss of tuition revenue. (Provisions to set in-state tuition at $500 (Out-of-state tuition - $2,500) for Western Carolina University and UNC-Pembroke were added to the Senate Budget Bill. Also included was a provision to include additional funds in the UNC budget to cover the loss of tuition revenue at the two schools. Provisions that guarantee eligible undergraduate students no increase in tuition and a 5 percent decrease in student fees - provisions originally included in SB 873 - are also included in the Senate Budget bill.Status: Senate: In Committee.- Sponsored by Sen. Jerry Tillman, the bill allows school districts to redirect state money originally designated for personnel costs to be used to help pay the costs of long-term leases. The bill is beneficial for cash-strapped rural districts that are downsizing or consolidating, but still need newer facilities. The State Treasurer's Office has come out strongly against the bill, saying it will increase local debt and it puts the interests of developers ahead of taxpayers.
The youngster sent bomb hoaxes through the micro-blogging site
A 16-year-old boy has been warned he faces custody after being convicted of sending bomb hoaxes to American Airlines and Delta Air Lines via Twitter.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, previously admitted carrying out cyber attacks around the world, including on his local police force and SeaWorld.
He targeted websites in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America from his laptop in the bedroom of his home in Plympton, near Plymouth, Devon.
Devon and Cornwall Police's website was affected for 45 minutes while SeaWorld suffered disruption and a loss of earnings, Plymouth Youth Court heard.
The boy admitted carrying out the denial of service attacks but denied two offences under Section 51 of the Criminal Law Act, relating to bomb hoaxes.
But District Judge Diane Baker found the boy had sent tweets to American Airlines, the White House and Delta Air Lines on February 13 last year.
One posted at 6.46pm to American Airlines read: "One of those lovely Boeing airplanes has a tick, tick, ticking in it. Hurry gentlemen, the clock is ticking."
Another, sent six minutes earlier to Delta Air Lines, read: "There's a nice tick, tick in one of those lovely Boeing planes, high quality."
The judge warned the boy, who has no previous convictions, that he could receive a custodial sentence when he is dealt with later this month.
"You may be a young man but you are a clever young man," she told the teenager, who sat next to his mother in the court.
"It is the level of detailed planning, the level of sophistication that there was to hide what had happened and the fact that there were two bomb hoaxes.
"I am aware from the denial of service attacks there was quite a lot of disruption for Devon and Cornwall Police's site.
"There was disruption and loss of earnings in relation to the SeaWorld site.
"It clearly passes the custody threshold and that is something I have to look at."
The boy was charged with the five offences in November and initially admitted the allegations before later insisting he had not tweeted the threats.
He suggested that a remote access trojan (RAT) - in which an attacker controls a computer remotely - could be responsible.
But computer experts found Skype conversations between the boy and an online contact named Whitehat discussing how to carry out the hoaxes.
The judge described Whitehat as "a relatively sophisticated computer operator" who regularly discussed illegal computer misuse.
"I am sure that it was you personally, on the encouragement of Whitehat, who sent both bomb hoaxes," she told the boy.
"You did so knowing how serious such actions would be. The planning involved was both detailed and sophisticated."
The judge adjourned the case until July 20 to allow for reports to be carried out.
Giving evidence during his one-day trial, the boy said: "A large part of the websites that I had taken down were to do with dolphin-hunting.
"I have always been for animal rights and I am really into computers and things so I thought, in protest, and to see what I could do, I would do it.
"I joined up with other people who were doing it. I was fighting for animal rights. I was 14 and 15 then."
He denied sending the tweets, telling the judge: "I feel I could have been stitched up by, I don't know, but I think I could have been disliked by someone in the past and they have done it to me."
The court heard that the teenager had sent tweets to the Operation Zephyr Regional Cyber Crime Unit and an email to the investigating police officer following his interviews.
One tweet said: "To be fair, they caught me red-handed", while a second added: "I still maintain the utmost respect for Zephyr."
The email read: "I can't bear this any longer. I would prefer if you didn't discuss this with my Mum please.
"I have messed up, I know that and I won't do anything so stupid ever again."
Prosecuting, Ben Samples said the FBI was notified of the boy's tweets and senior management at the airlines investigated them.
The threats were viewed as "unspecific" and the matter was referred to the UK authorities, with no further action taken by the airlines.
Investigations from the Operation Zephyr Regional Cyber Crime Unit traced the tweets to a computer used solely by the teenager.
Analysis found he had committed distributed denial of service attacks, which involve sending large quantities of data to specific websites - causing them to crash.
Devon and Cornwall Police's website was attacked on January 26 last year, while SeaWorld in Florida was targeted between October 29 and November 24 in 2014.
The boy carried out attacks on a number of foreign governmental and non-governmental sites between October 12 2014 and January 27 last year.
Detective Sergeant Aled Jones, from the South West Regional Cyber Crime Unit, said the conviction was "the result of a lengthy and wide-ranging investigation" into the boy.
"This result demonstrates that these types of offences are taken seriously and that we do have the capability to identify arrest and prosecute those responsible," he said.
"In this case we worked closely with law enforcement colleagues both in Devon and Cornwall Police and the USA, as well as with the Crown Prosecution Service, to present a compelling case to the court.
"I hope that this case will serve to dissuade other like-minded people from engaging in similar criminal activity."
Speaking after the case, Mr Samples said: "The defendant knew what he was doing was wrong and deliberately targeted a number of websites, causing them to crash temporarily.
"One of those websites was that of Devon and Cornwall Police, making it much harder for the public to access the help and support they needed.
"I hope this will send a message to anyone who thinks they can hide online or use social media to create a climate of fear that they will have to face the consequences of their actions."
Protesters outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London, where the publication of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War is taking place
Protester Michael Culver, 78, stands outside the London home of former prime minister Tony Blair ahead of the publication of the Chilcot report
Protesters outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London, where the publication of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War is taking place
Tony Blair has previously apologised for aspects of the Iraq War, sparking claims of attempted "spin" ahead of the Chilcot Inquiry findings
(FILES) This file photo taken on February 14, 2003 shows United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan (L) and US Secretary of State Colin Powell talking prior to the start of a UN Security Council on the situation in Iraq. The Chilcot inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war reports on Wednesday nearly seven years after it was launched. It is expected to deal extensively with the failures in the military operation, from the planning of the war to the occupation, after which Iraq descended into sectarian violence from which it has yet to emerge. / AFP PHOTO / DON EMMERTDON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images
(FILES) This file photo taken on July 2, 2003 shows the coffin of Corporal Simon Miller, one of six British military policemen killed in action in southern Iraq, carried from an RAF transport plane at Brize Norton. Seven years later, an Iraqi court freed two men accused of being part of a hundreds-strong mob that killed the six British troops in 2003 in the southern town of al-Majar al-kabir, angering the soldiers' parents but drawing smiles from those in the courtroom. The Chilcot inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war reports on Wednesday nearly seven years after it was launched. It is expected to deal extensively with the failures in the military operation, from the planning of the war to the occupation, after which Iraq descended into sectarian violence from which it has yet to emerge. / AFP PHOTO / POOL / DAVID JONESDAVID JONES/AFP/Getty Images
(FILES) This file photo taken on September 6, 2010 shows posters being displayed with the words 'Blair War Crimes' in the window of a building opposite the ITV Studios in London as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrives at the studios for a scheduled interview about hs new book 'A Journey'. The Chilcot inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war reports on Wednesday nearly seven years after it was launched. It is expected to deal extensively with the failures in the military operation, from the planning of the war to the occupation, after which Iraq descended into sectarian violence from which it has yet to emerge. / AFP PHOTO / CARL COURTCARL COURT/AFP/Getty Images
(FILES) This file photo taken on March 24, 2003 shows a British soldier with the 1st Armoured Division guards at a checkpoint on the road to Basra. The Chilcot inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war reports on Wednesday nearly seven years after it was launched. It is expected to deal extensively with the failures in the military operation, from the planning of the war to the occupation, after which Iraq descended into sectarian violence from which it has yet to emerge. / AFP PHOTO / POOL / DAN CHUNGDAN CHUNG/AFP/Getty Images
File photo dated 24/03/03 of members of the Desert Rats - Zulu Company, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, with a portrait of Saddam Hussein taken from the local Ba'ath Party HQ in Basra, Southern Iraq. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Wednesday July 6, 2016. See POLITICS Chilcot PA Stories. Photo credit should read: PA/PA Wire
Composite image of the 179 troops that died during the conflict in Iraq. PA
LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 06: Demonstrators talk on a podium outside the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre on July 6, 2016 in London, England. The Iraq Inquiry Report into the UK government's involvement in the 2003 Iraq War under the leadership of Tony Blair is published today. The inquiry, which concluded in February 2011, was announced by then Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2009 and is published more than seven years later. (Photo by Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 06: Demonstrators talk on a podium outside the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre on July 6, 2016 in London, England. The Iraq Inquiry Report into the UK government's involvement in the 2003 Iraq War under the leadership of Tony Blair is published today. The inquiry, which concluded in February 2011, was announced by then Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2009 and is published more than seven years later. (Photo by Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 06: Anti-war poet, John Poet, dresses as a soldier alongside other demonstrators outside the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre on July 6, 2016 in London, England. The Iraq Inquiry Report into the UK government's involvement in the 2003 Iraq War under the leadership of Tony Blair is published today. The inquiry, which concluded in February 2011, was announced by then Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2009 and is published more than seven years later. (Photo by Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images)
Former Prime Minister, Tony Blair speaks during a press conference at Admiralty House, responding to the Chilcot report (Photo by Stefan Rousseau - WPA Pool/Getty Images)
Former Prime Minister, Tony Blair arrives for a press conference at Admiralty House, to responding to the Chilcot report (Photo by Stefan Rousseau - WPA Pool/Getty Images)
Tony Blair convinced himself with unjustified certainty that Iraqs President, Saddam Hussein, had weapons of mass destruction, when intelligence reports had not established "beyond doubt" that they existed, the long awaited Chilcot report has damningly concluded.
The Prime Minister was so convinced that of the presence of the non-existent WMDs that he sent British troops into Iraq when diplomacy might still have resolved the crisis. But the secret intelligence reports he had been shown "did not justify" his certainty, Sir John Chilcot concluded.
Sir John Chilcot's damning report into the Iraq War also revealed that Blair and US President George W. Bush were made fully aware that Iraq could descend into sectarian chaos after the invasion directly contrary to what Mr Blair told the inquiry.
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The Prime Minister was so convinced that of the presence of the non-existent WMDs that he sent British troops into Iraq when diplomacy might still have resolved the crisis. But the secret intelligence reports he had been shown "did not justify" his certainty, Sir John Chilcot concluded.
Sir John Chilcot's damning report into the Iraq War also revealed that Blair and US President George W. Bush were made fully aware that Iraq could descend into sectarian chaos after the invasion directly contrary to what Mr Blair told the inquiry.
Sir John Chilcot did not use the word lie in fact his report specified that it is not questioning Mr Blair fixed belief - but his damning conclusion is that the former Prime Minister deliberately blurred the distinction between what he believed and what he actually knew.
However, Mr Blair claimed that the 12 volume report proved that, at worst, he had made an honest mistake. He said, in a statement: The report should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit. Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein; I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country.
Sir John also said the risks of internal strife, regional instability and the burgeoning of al-Qaeda in Iraq "were each explicitly identified", yet planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam were "wholly inadequate".
And he criticised intelligence chiefs for allowing the Prime Minister to get away with misrepresenting what they had told him when he presented his now notorious dossier to the House of Commons in September 2002.
Expand Close Sir John Chilcots report into the Iraq war has concluded that Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed to go to war with U.S. President George W. Bush in July 2002 -- before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and that the invasion was based on flawed intelligence and assessments that went unchallenged. to U.S. President George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq in 2003. / Facebook
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Whatsapp Sir John Chilcots report into the Iraq war has concluded that Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed to go to war with U.S. President George W. Bush in July 2002 -- before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and that the invasion was based on flawed intelligence and assessments that went unchallenged. to U.S. President George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The dossier itself, which accurately reflected what the intelligence services knew, came with a foreword signed by Tony Blair, which claimed that tit established beyond doubt that Iraq held WMDs. This was a deliberate selection of a formulation which grounded the statement in what Mr Blair believed, rather than in the judgements which the JIC had actually reached, Sir Johns report concluded.
The judgements about Iraqs capabilities in that statement, and in the dossier published the same day, were presented with a certainty that was not justified, he said.
The Joint Intelligence Committee should have made clear to Mr Blair that the assessed intelligence had not established beyond doubt either that Iraq had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons or that efforts to develop nuclear weapons continued.
But he acquitted Tony Blairs director of communications, Alastair Campbell, of the charge that he sexed up the September dossier to distort the intelligence an allegation aired on the Today programme in May 2003 by the journalist Andrew Gilligan, who claimed to have heard from the weapons inspector Dr David Kelly. There is no evidence that intelligence was improperly included in the dossier or that No 10 improperly influenced the text, the report concluded.
Sir Johns report damningly added that as the prospect loomed that the US was going to invade Iraq whatever the British decided, the intelligence chiefs gave no consideration to the possibility that Saddam Hussein was for once telling the truth when he said that his regime had destroyed all the chemical weapons it possessed and used in the 1980s.
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Expand Close Alastair Campbell, left, vigorously denied he sexed up the intelligence dossier on Iraq handed to then Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2003 / Facebook
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The Iraq government announced in November 2002 - four months before the invasion - that it no longer had any weapons of mass destruction, but Mr Blair refused to believe that. Speaking on the telephone to President George W Bush the following month he said that the Iraqi declaration was patently false and that he was cautiously optimistic that weapons inspector would be able to prove that the Iraqis were lying.
On 18 March, 2003, Tony Blair persuaded the House of Commons to give the go ahead for military action, but at the time of the parliamentary vote, diplomatic options had not been exhausted, Sir John concluded.
It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged, and they should have been."
From September 2002, six months before the invasion, Foreign Office and intelligence reports indicated the war would create an "easier environment for terrorists" and the destabilisation of the country.
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An FCO paper on Islamism in Iraq, shared with the Americans in December 2002, even foreshadowed the rise of extremist groups like Isis which went on to exploit the chaos of post-war Iraq.
It warned that it was likely groups would be looking for identities and ideologies on which to base movements and anticipated that a number of emergent extremist groups would use violence to pursue political ends.
Isis, which 11 years after the invasion declared a caliphate in Iraq, remains in control of vast swathes of the country, including its second city Mosul. The group claimed responsibility for Sundays bombing in Baghdad, the death toll of which has now risen to 250 the worst such attack since the invasion in 2003.
Mr Blair told the inquiry that the difficulties encountered in Iraq after the invasion could not have been known in advance, Sir John said, as he released the report in London on Wednesday morning.
We do not agree that hindsight is required. The risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability, and al Qaeda activity in Iraq, were explicitly identified before the invasion.
Independent
MasterCard said it "firmly disagrees" with the basis of the claim
MasterCard is facing a claim of up to 19 billion in damages in a UK collective action over card charges that were passed on to shoppers.
The claim - led by former financial services ombudsman Walter Merricks, who has instructed US-based law firm Quinn Emanuel - is to be filed under the new Consumer Rights Act 2015, which allows for collective damages claims.
It claims MasterCard set unlawfully high interchange fees - charged to stores when shoppers swipe their debit or credit cards - for 16 years, which were passed on to consumers in the form of inflated prices for good and services.
In 2014 the European Court of Justice declared that such fees were a violation of EU antitrust rules.
On April 29 last year the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union adopted the Interchange Fee Regulation, and caps of 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards came into effect on December 9.
MasterCard said it "firmly disagrees" with the basis of the claim.
Mr Merricks claimed the total damage caused to UK consumers could be as much as 19 billion, equating to hundreds of pounds for each shopper.
He said: "To be clear, there is no question that MasterCard acted illegally in the way it conducted its business, a business that affects all of us. All of us overpaid to the tune of up to 19 billion during a period lasting 16 years.
"Although most of us did not know this, experts who study the retail economy knew it was happening - and so did MasterCard.
"My aim is to get the redress to which UK consumers are entitled and to ensure that MasterCard cannot hold on to the illegal profits it made.
"This case should send a signal to companies that break competition laws at the expense of UK consumers that they do so at their financial peril."
Boris Bronfentrinker, lead partner at Quinn Emanuel, said: "This is precisely the type of claim for which the new collective action regime was established. This is a landmark case where unlawful anti-competitive conduct has harmed UK consumers.
"That harm, likely to be in the hundreds of pounds, is not large enough for any individual consumer to bring their own claim. But by aggregating the claims and bringing them on a collective basis, all UK consumers who lost out will get the compensation they are owed."
MasterCard said in a statement: " Electronic payments deliver real value to people online, in-store and everywhere.
"MasterCard is committed to providing ever more convenient, safe and secure payments to all our customers, including consumers, retailers, governments and banks."
Which? director of policy and campaigns Alex Neill said: "MasterCard has been found to be imposing illegal fees on millions of consumers and businesses across Europe.
"It's now only right that the money is returned to customers that were victims of this practice. This landmark case is using the new consumer law to bring a collective claim on behalf of individuals to get back the money they are owed."
Citizens Advice chief executive Gillian Guy said: " Consumers must be compensated when they are let down by businesses.
"Britain's new class action powers - recently brought in through the Consumer Rights Act - are a major step forward in ensuring customers are properly represented when things go wrong.
"The accusations against MasterCard are very serious. If it is proved MasterCard customers have been ripped off, they should get their money back."
Plans to bar firearms sales to terror suspects are unconstitutional, one of the most powerful politicians in the US has said.
House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan signalled there will not be a vote on proposed Democratic gun curbs, as the election-year clash over firearms showed no sign of resolution.
The House Speaker is second in the US presidential line of succession after the vice president, and met Democrats who are campaigning over the issue, who said they told him: "We're not going away."
Mr Ryan, who represents Wisconsin, said in an interview that Democrats' plans to broaden required background checks for gun buyers and to bar firearm sales to terror suspects were unconstitutional.
And alt hough he did not directly say he would block votes on the proposals, he stressed Republicans had no intention of rewarding Democrats for their lengthy House floor sit-in two weeks ago to demand gun-control votes.
"Win elections and get the majority, then you can set the agenda," he said.
Mr Ryan met two leaders of the sit-in, representatives John Lewis of Georgia and John Larson of Connecticut, in a private session the Democrats described as respectful.
"We wanted action, and we wanted action now," Mr Lewis, the civil rights hero, said of their message to Mr Ryan.
"We're not going away," Mr Larson said. "And we're determined in that effort."
Mr Ryan's spokeswoman AshLee Strong said the two parties "have different views on how to achieve a shared goal of preventing gun deaths" - especially over how to protect gun owners' rights.
The House convened peacefully on Tuesday for its first session since Democrats seized control of the chamber last month with a sit-in that lasted almost 26 hours.
The Republicans h ad planned to approve party legislation this week that would let federal authorities block gun sales to suspected terrorists, but only if they could prove in court within three days that the suspect was planning to engage in terrorism.
That bill, which resembles National Rifle Association legislation that the Senate rejected last month, is considered ineffective by Democrats because they say the mechanism it sets would prove too complicated.
Even so, it reflects the pressure for action the June 12 mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, has placed on Republican leaders, who since the 2012 killing of schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut, have not brought broad gun restrictions to the House floor.
Forty-nine victims were killed in Orlando, the worst mass-shooting in modern American history. It was conducted by Omar Mateen, a gunman who pledged support for leaders of the Islamic State extremist group, according to transcripts of his conversations with authorities.
AP
A mother is suing the Transportation Security Administration after her partially disabled daughter who has cancer was allegedly injured and arrested by security staff at an airport.
Her daughter, 19-year-old Hannah Cohen, was on her way to fly home to Chattanooga, Tennessee, after receiving radiation treatment for a brain tumour at a childrens research hospital in Memphis.
Lawyers say Ms Cohen is limited in her ability to talk, walk, and is partially blind and deaf.
As Ms Cohen and her mother, Shirley Cohen, were walking through the security checkpoint at Memphis International Airport, the alarm went off. The Times Free Press reported that Ms Cohens sequined pattern on her jumper in the shape of an owl might have triggered the alarm.
The 19-year-old reportedly became disorientated by the noise and the security staffs attempts to search her. Her mother tried to explain her daughters condition but she alleged that she was kept away by the police.
The security personnel failed to recognize that she was confused because of her obvious disability and was unable to cooperate with the search, Ms Cohen's lawyers, Kelly Pearson and William Hardwick, claimed.
She's trying to get away from them but in the next instant, one of them had her down on the ground and hit her head on the floor. There was blood everywhere, Shirley Cohen told WREG-TV.
She alleged that the security staff grabbed her daughter from both sides, thrust their knees into her back and put her in handcuffs.
Her daughter was arrested and spent the night behind bars instead of celebrating the end of her treatment after 17 years. A TSA agent reportedly said that her daughter had struck one of them and the agency was going to press charges.
The charges were later dropped, but the younger Ms Cohen has taken a semester off school to recover.
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The family is suing the TSA for $100,000 worth of damages including pain, medical expenses, personal and emotional injury and embarrassment. The Cohens lawyers also argue the TSA and airport police discriminated against Ms Cohen due to her disability and failed to provide appropriate screening measures.
Anybody can file anything, and we don't comment on active litigation, Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority president and chief executive Scott Brockman told The Commercial Appeal newspaper. Clearly there are additional facts in this matter, and we won't comment until we address the litigation.
The TSA could not be contacted immediately for comment.
Benjamin Netanyahu, with his wife Sara, laid a wreath at the memorial to victims of the 1994 Rwandan genocide (AP)
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has toured a memorial for victims of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
His tour is part of the first visit by a sitting Israeli premier to sub-Saharan Africa in three decades.
Mr Netanyahu laid a wreath at the mass graves honouring the 800,000-plus victims of the genocide perpetrated by Hutu extremists against the Tutsi ethnic group and moderate Hutus.
"We are deeply moved by this memorial to the victims of one of history's greatest crimes and reminded of the haunting similarities to the genocide of our own people," he and his wife, Sara, wrote in the visitors' book.
He called genocide "a unique bond that neither one of our peoples will prefer to have" but said both countries have persevered to become "successful states and models for partners."
Mr Netanyahu, who is pursuing closer security and other ties with African nations, has already been to Uganda and Kenya this week and was moving on to Ethiopia later on Wednesday.
In exchange for its expertise in security and other fields, Israel wants African states to support it at the United Nations, where the Palestinians were recognized as a non-member observer state in 2012.
Israel played a prominent role in assisting newly independent African countries in the 1960s.
Those relations crumbled in the 1970s when Arab countries, promising aid, pressured African nations to limit or cut ties with Israel.
African states were also opposed to Israel's close ties to South Africa's apartheid government.
AP
Most of Zimbabwe has shut down due to a job boycott over discontent due to rising economic hardships
A job boycott has shut down most of Zimbabwe as discontent deepens over increasing economic hardships there.
Streets in the capital, Harare, and other cities were deserted on Wednesday as workers, including teachers and doctors, heeded the call by activists on social media with the hashtag #?ShutDownZimbabwe2016.
The internet was down for the greater part of Wednesday morning.
Police detained several journalists and forced them to delete pictures of skirmishes between police and Harare residents.
Acts of defiance and clashes with the police are rare in Zimbabwe, but protests surged in recent weeks over growing economic hardship and alleged government mismanagement.
Government workers who are yet to receive their June salaries boycotted work on Tuesday.
On Monday, police battled rioters protesting against alleged police harassment.
AP
Pope Francis met with the parents of US student Beau Solomon whose body was found in the River Tiber
Pope Francis has met with the parents of a US college student whose body was found in Rome's Tiber river this week, less than 24 hours after the youngster arrived in Italy.
Police are trying to establish if the teenager was murdered after visiting the country for summer classes.
A Holy See statement said Francis expressed to Beau Solomon's parents "feelings of deepest sympathy and compassion, and his closeness in prayer to the Lord for the young man who died so tragically."
The pope held the unscheduled, private encounter shortly before holding an audience with French pilgrims in a Vatican auditorium.
Solomon's roommate told school officials he last saw him early on Friday at a pub popular with US students in the Trastevere neighbourhood of cafes, bars and restaurants near the Tiber.
The 19-year-old, who had just completed his first year of study at University of Wisconsin-Madison, arrived in the Italian capital on Thursday for study at John Cabot University, a four-year, English-language institution not far from the pub.
Preliminary autopsy results indicated that Solomon had suffered injuries consistent with a fall.
On Tuesday, police detained a homeless Italian man they described as being "seriously suspected of murder aggravated by futile motives."
Solomon's body was found on Monday a few miles downriver from Trastevere.
A companion of the Italian, who lived in an improvised camp near the base of one of the river's bridges, told reporters Solomon had descended stairs leading from another bridge, accompanied by some north African men who she claimed had robbed him.
Then, according to her account, her companion, identified by police as Massimo Galioto, 40, scuffled with Solomon. Some witnesses have told authorities the student was pushed into the river.
Solomon's credit cards were used on Friday in Milan, and police are investigating whether other, still unidentified persons, had robbed him.
Across the river on the other bank, a summer-long fair, featuring food booths and artisans' shops, has been drawing thousands of visitors nightly.
It was not clear at what time Solomon was spotted on the river bank.
Authorities hope an autopsy will determine cause of death, as well as whether Solomon was alive when he went into the Tiber.
AP
Yemen has recently been hit by attacks from an Islamic State affiliate
A suicide car bombing has targeted a security compound near the international airport in the Yemeni city of Aden, killing at least 10 people, officials said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack which came as Muslims worldwide celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
Yemen has recently been hit by attacks from an Islamic State affiliate.
The officials said that after the car bomb hit the Central Security headquarters, next to Aden International Airport, militants stormed the compound and clashed with soldiers. Explosions were heard and ambulance sirens wailed in the distance.
A spokesman said the death toll is expected to rise.
AP
This year, Ramadan has been particularly bloody, with attacks that killed 350 people and spread terror across continents.
Yemen, which is in the grip of a civil war and has long battled a potent al Qaida branch known as Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, has also seen an Islamic State affiliate emerge to stage large-scale attacks, particularly in the country's south.
The civil war pits the country's Shiite rebels known as Houthis and their allies against the internationally recognised government, backed by the Saudi-led coalition of mainly Arab states.
Kuwait has hosted peace talks between the warring sides, which have now been suspended until mid-July, to try to resolve the conflict. Two months of negotiations have failed to reach a breakthrough.
The government has demanded the implementation of a UN Security Council resolution calling on the Houthis to withdraw from all towns and cities, including the capital, Sanaa, which they have overrun, and to surrender their heavy weapons.
The Houthis want to form a unity government prior to any changes on the ground, according to the negotiators.
Though a truce came into effect a week before the talks began, the two sides have repeatedly accused each other of breaking it.
The conflict in Yemen has killed about 9,000 people and pushed the Arab world's poorest country to the brink of famine.
AP
Your article 'Mary Seacole statue unveiled in London' (Online, July 1) repeats the standard propaganda of the Seacole campaign.
The Nightingale Society has no objection to a statue celebrating Mrs Seacole's admirable and independent life, but she was not a pioneer nurse and the heroism is a tad exaggerated. She ran a restaurant, bar, store, catering service for officers, not the supposed "clinic" for soldiers. Three chapters of her memoir go to describing her eminent customers and what she fed them.
Yes, she did go on to the battlefield (all of three times, all after battle and after selling wine and sandwiches to spectators).
St Thomas' Hospital, for more than a century, was the home of the first nursing school in the world, founded by Nightingale.
Nurses trained at it, then established the new profession throughout the world - not least in Belfast.
Nightingale mentored the first trained matron of the Belfast Children's Hospital, Jessie Lennox, and Ella Pirrie of the Workhouse Hospital.
The fine statue of Pirrie at Belfast City Hospital has her holding a sheaf of letters from Nightingale - precisely to demonstrate the connection.
The Nightingale Society proposed several appropriate sites in London for a Seacole statue that would not put out the false message that her work was in any way equivalent to, or even like, Nightingale's.
Mrs Seacole was a kind and generous businesswoman, who had nothing to do with founding nursing. She distributed magazines at the hospital near her shop, where Nightingale's nurses did the nursing.
LYNN McDONALD
(Author: Mary Seacole: The Making Of The Myth)
Toronto, Canada
Two weeks ago we visited Belfast as part of a cruise to Iceland.
We just wanted to say how much we enjoyed our day ashore.
Every time we stopped to consult our map a helpful person would appear to assist.
As we waited to get our bus to return to our ship a lady stopped to enquire if we had enjoyed our day - which we had.
It was nice to experience such a warm welcome to your fine city.
The Titanic experience was impressive - as was the grand City Hall.
We shall return at the earliest opportunity.
ADRIAN and KATHLEEN BARRETT
Kingswinford, West Midlands
More than two decades before Richard Dawkins called belief in God a delusion, George H. Smith elucidated the rational critique of religion in his essential book Atheism: The Case Against God. This updated version of his classic sets out to demolish what Smith considers the most widespread and destructive of all the myths devised by human beingsthe concept of a supreme being.
Chapter 1: The Scope of Atheism
. . . even in our hours of most complete and serenest intellectual detachment we cannot escape facing the question whether God can be eliminated from either the natural or the moral world without converting both into an incoherent nightmare.
This image of a godless world is only one among many. Atheism has become so enshrouded with myths and misconceptions that many supposed critiques of atheism are notable for their complete irrelevancy. Some religious critics prefer to attack the unpopular ideas associated with atheism rather than face the challenge of atheism directly. Indeed, it is not uncommon to find entire books with the expressed intent of demolishing atheism, but which fail to discuss such basic issues as why one should believe in a god at all. These books are content to identify atheism with specific personalities (such as Nietzsche, Marx, Camus and Sartre) and, by criticizing the views of these individuals, the religionist author fancies himself to have destroyed atheism. In most cases, however, the critic has not even discussed atheism.
Presenting the atheistic point of view is a difficult, frustrating endeavor. The atheist must penetrate the barrier of fear and suspicion that confronts him, and he must convince the listener that atheism represents, not a degeneration, but a step forward. This often requires the atheist to take a defensive position to explain why atheism does not lead to disastrous consequences. The atheist is expected to answer a barrage of questions, of which the following are typical.
Without god, what is left of morality? Without god, what purpose is there in mans life? If we do not believe in god, how can we be certain of anything? If god does not exist, whom can we turn to in a time of crisis? If there is no afterlife, who will reward virtue and punish injustice? Without god, how can we resist the onslaught of atheistic communism? If god does not exist, what becomes of the worth and dignity of each person? Without god, how can man achieve happiness?
These and similar questions reflect an intimate connection between religion and values in the minds of many people. As a result, the question of gods existence becomes more than a simple philosophical problemand atheism, since it is interpreted as an attack on these values, assumes a significance far beyond its actual meaning. Defenses of religion are frequently saturated with emotional outbursts, and the atheist finds himself morally condemned, diagnosed as a confused, unhappy man, and threatened with a variety of future punishments. Meanwhile, the atheists frustration increases as he discovers that his arguments for atheism are futile, that the average believerwho was persuaded to believe for emotional, not intellectual, reasons is impervious to arguments against the existence of a supernatural being, regardless of how meticulous and carefully reasoned these arguments may be. There is too much at stake: if the choice must be made between the comfort of religion and the truth of atheism, many people will sacrifice the latter without hesitation. From their perspective, there is much more to the issue of gods existence than whether he exists or not.
Where does this leave the atheist? Must he offer atheism as an alternative way of life to religion, complete with its own set of values? Is atheism a substitute for religion? Can atheism fulfill the moral and emotional needs of man? Must the atheist defend himself against every accusation of immorality and pessimism? Does atheism offer any positive values? These questions are not as complex as they may appear. Atheism is a straightforward, easily definable position, and it is a simple task to outline what atheism can and cannot accomplish. In order to understand the scope of atheism, however, we must remove the wall of myths surrounding itwith the hope that the fears and prejudices against atheism will collapse as well. To accomplish this goal, we must determine what atheism is and what atheism is not.
Permission to publish this excerpt from Atheism: The Case Against God is given by Promethus Bookds. George H. Smith is the author of Atheism: The Case against God; Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies; Why Atheism?; and The System of Liberty: Themes in the History of Classical Liberalism. He also writes the weekly essay series Excursions into the History of Libertarian Thought for the Cato Institute.
The video below represents the 15 minute press conference by Director Comey, where he gave his assessment of the L. Hillary Clinton server/email scandal, and then left the room at its scripted conclusion, answering no questions.
Considering that Hillary Clinton, from the recently concluded email investigation, is charged with gross negligence, dereliction of duty, was recommended that she lose her security clearance, while pathologically lying to congress, the press and the American People; and even though she was not referred for indictment because she is a Clinton: Will you? 11.84% Vote for Hillary 78.78% Vote for The Donald 9.39% Vote for none of the above 245 total vote(s) Voting has Ended!
And Now Some other Polls for your Voting Pleasure
Should Americans be thankful for North Carolinians setting precedent in taking a stand for their state's right to manage the safety of their public facilities, where separation of the sexes remains, or should they follow Bruce Springsteen's lead and boycott the state as bigots since they will not allow grown Transgender men to use the same bathrooms /locker rooms as pre-pubescent girls? North Carolina is right to control the separation of the sexes as a matter of decorum and safety. North Carolina is a bigoted state to not require that children of opposite sexes share the same public facilities with adults of the opposite sex, although misidentified - the Transgender. I generally prefer the natural environs of the vacant, although rather public, large tree. 236 total vote(s) What's your Opinion?
poll#95 What should be the priority of the Federal Government after the "Pulse" massacre: Should we turn our attention toward destroying, earadicating ISIS as Candidate Trump suggests, or, as Democrats' President Obama suggests, broaden our efforts to effect stricter Gun Control laws to limit "Gun Violence?" 88.24% After many years of trying to degrade and contain the murderous ISIS, we should make it the nation's policy to destroy ISIS immediately. 3.68% Gun Violence in America can be eliminated by limiting access to guns for all American citizens. 8.09% I don't care either way; I just live here. 136 total vote(s) Voting has Ended!
I borrow mightily from Don Mclean's resonate metaphor at the nexus of his classic anthem "American Pie" , when I beg you to notice the abrupt change in the national wind, a noxious air; so foul that it may forever stain the fabric of our once mighty Republic.Musician /Poet McLean educates a second generation of how what is precious can be lost for good ... or evil. And the sad truth is: Most of those so roundly affected will not know that point when what is so precious, so special, is gone, and ain't coming back. We lost Buddy Holly when he was just a sapling, a beautiful light unto this World; we can just as quickly lose this divinely anointed light upon this chaotic planet, this American Republic;Just when. Is is far off into the future, or is it now; yesterday, July 5, 2016, when FBI Director James Comey made the case that Hillary Clinton had lied to the people of this Republic on multiple occasions about her chronic mishandling sensitive national documents and the illegal disposal of them, which most probably compromised American assets abroad. Director Comey went on to intimate that Hillary Clinton had violated her very special charge as the People's secretary of state through her sloppy, "reckless, obstructive" treatment of classified state department documents, their secrets, that she had violated the spirit of law that she swore to uphold; however, he could not recommend prosecution because he could not (or would not) find firm intent by Madame Clinton to damage the United States, while serving as the most inept secretary of state in the history of the United States.Director Comey then went on to intimate that in future cases, where government employees who similarly violated law, as L. Hillary Clinton, would be summarily prosecuted; however, in this instance regarding the corrupt Clinton, he ironically predicted that "no reasonable prosecutor" would try this case, because: The former secretary of state is a Clinton, and the presumptive Democrat nominee for president; His boss - Democrat Attorney General Loretta lynch - took a prearranged, secret meeting with Hillary's husband, former president Bill Clinton, in the week prior, and promised the former president who appointed her to her last government job that she would protect his Simple wife if she could retain her job as DOJ Attorney General, should Ms. Benghazi be elected; Director Comey's ultimate boss, Hussein Obama, and arguably the most corrupt president in our nation's history, had, weeks earlier, endorsed Ms. Benghazi 's candidacy even though she was under a number of felony investigations, the email scandal /criminal behavior just being one of them; When L. Hillary's corrupt lawyers advised Ms. Clinton about destroying the public record server, on multiple occasions, and in their handling of her attempt to evade detection in her clear Obstruction of Justice activities, they were not thorough in their handling of Hillary's stolen (from the public domain) emails, and permanently destroyed many of them inadvertently' - around 30,000 e-mails, and there were destroyed in the fashion of the DoD.In layman's terms: What we have here is a long line of stupid lawyers helping yet another stupid lawyer, who happens to be the Democrat presumptive nominee for president, and in regards to the Stupid Lawyer conundrum: Where does it end? I just don't think Director Comey wanted that monumental task of unraveling this Gordian Knot of dealing with so many dishonest, mostly Democrat lawyers this close to a monumental, pivotal election, one where he would serve as the kinetic momentum to set the course for this nation possibly for perpetuity. A course that may be one that is irreversible.The problem with dishonest lawyers, and there such a disproportionate number of them, who are, ironically, prescribed to be "the keepers of the law", is that they have a tendency to obfuscate the truth, and I believe Director Comey elected to damn Lying Hillary with the truth, and then "ride off into the sunset" alone, battered but not bowed, and steer completely clear of all the bad lawyers thrown into his path to save yet another Clinton who is above the law.Regardless of Director Comey's intent,was the greatest casualty. No one could have saved Buddy Holly, back in 1959 when he perished in a plane crash over a snowy Iowa along with The Big Bopper and Richie Valens. We can still save our nation if we just keep this incompetent, lying non patriot from serving in the highest office in the land. Maybe, if we can rid our nation's capital of the corruption of Lying Hillary, Hussein Obama and now Democrat Attorney General Loretta Lynch, we my save The Rule of Law, and ultimately, we may save our Republic.
An officer stands guard in front of police headquarters in Solo, Central Java, Indonesia, following a suicide attack, July 5, 2016.
An Islamic State-linked suicide bomber attacked police headquarters in the Central Javanese city of Solo on Tuesday, blowing himself up and injuring an officer, Indonesian authorities said.
The bombing occurred on the eve of the Eid-ul-Fitr holiday in Indonesia that marks the end of Ramadan, and was the first IS-linked attack in Indonesia since an attack killed eight people in Jakarta on Jan. 14, officials said.
Police identified the attacker as Nur Rohman, 31, through an I.D. card found at the scene.
Nur was a member of a local terror cell headed by Indonesian militant Arif Hidayatullah (alias Abu Mushab), National Police Chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti told reporters after inspecting the blast site.
Nur had evaded capture when police arrested Abu in December, Badrodin said. Abu was arrested while on his way to work at an automotive company, police said at the time. He allegedly had a list of IS supporters in Indonesia and a photocopy of a book about explosives.
He learned about bomb making at that time, Badrodin said of Nur, adding that his suicide mission was linked to calls by IS leaders instructing followers of the Middle East-based extremist group to launch terror attacks during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan.
Badrodin said Mushab was part of a network whose members include Bahrun Naim, the man whom Indonesian police claim masterminded the January attack in Jakarta that killed eight people, including four of the perpetrators.
Mushabs role was to recruit Indonesians to join the IS after he received funding from Bahrun Naim, who lives in Syria, Badrodin said.
A Jakarta think-tank, the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) later challenged Haitis assertion, claiming that Naim did not the mastermind the January attack. IPAC instead blamed a local group, Jamaah Anshar Khilafah whose ideological leader is imprisoned Indonesian Muslim cleric Aman Abdurrahman, for being behind the attack.
On June 8, police said they arrested three men who were inspired by IS to carry out terror plots targeting public places and government offices in Surabaya, East Java, during Ramadan. One of the suspects was linked to Abu Jandal, an Indonesian fighting for IS in the Middle East, according to officials.
Whereabouts unknown: in-law
The bomber in Tuesdays attack arrived at the station house on a motorcycle at 7:35 a.m. just before police officers were to hold a meeting there, policemen and witnesses told BenarNews at the scene.
As Nur Rohman tried to enter the compound officer Bambang Adi intercepted him. But Nur detonated the bomb, killing himself and injuring Bambang who sustained facial wounds, police said.
Nur was a resident of Sangkrah village in Solo.
We didnt know his whereabouts, Nurs sister-in-law, Yayuk, told BenarNews, adding that he had left the family about a year ago.
Jokowi urges calm
Ramadan-time attacks targeting the police are not new for Solo, a reputed hotbed for radicalism in Indonesia
Just before Eid-ul-Fitr on Aug. 17, 2012, motorcyclists shot a police security post, injuring two police officers. A day later, motorcyclists threw a grenade into another police post in Solo, but no one was injured.
Despite Tuesdays attack, Solo Mayor F.X. Hadi Rudyatmo said all Eid activities would go ahead as planned.
There is nothing to fear, Rudyatmo told reporters.
Meanwhile, Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo, a native and former mayor of Solo, spoke to the community.
We hope people remain calm on this last fasting day. There is no need to be scared, he told reporters in Padang, the capital city of West Sumatera, where he traveled to celebrate Eid.
I have ordered the National Police chief to search and uncover the networks associated with the suicide bombing, Jokowi said.
As of December 2015, Indonesian officials estimated that about 800 Indonesian radicals were fighting in Syria or Iraq, according to a U.S. State Department report on terrorism released last month.
Indonesian officials identified 284 citizens actively involved in fighting in Iraq and Syria and are investigating another 516, the report said.
Indonesian officials also believe that 52 Indonesian terrorist fighters have died in Syria and estimate that another 60 to 100 have returned to Indonesia.
Tia Asmara in Jakarta contributed to this report.
A Bangladeshi policeman stands guard as Muslims offer Eid al-Fitr prayers in Dhaka, on the same day that militants carried out a deadly attack near a huge prayer gathering in Kishoreganj district, July 7, 2016. (AFP)
Two boys offer prayers on the steps of a packed mosque in east Delhi, India, July 7, 2016. (Kshitij Nagar/ Benar News)
People jostle to shake hands with Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo after Eid prayers at the Great Mosque of West Sumatra in the city of Padang, Indonesia, July 6, 2016. (M. Sulthan Azzam/BenarNews)
Local youths perform fire blowing on the eve of Eid at the compound of the Darussalam Serengan mosque in Solo, Indonesia, July 5, 2016. (Kusumasari Ayuningtyas, BenarNews)
A group of Indonesian Muslims offers morning prayers to mark Eid-ul-Fitr on the grounds of the Hati Kudus Jesus church in Malang, East Java, July 6, 2016. (AFP)
A young Malaysian Muslim girl looks on after prayers at the National mosque in Kuala Lumpur, July 6, 2016. (AFP)
Men in Thailands Yala province give alms to the poor ahead of the Eid-ul-Fitr celebration, July 5, 2016. (Nasueroh/BenarNews)
In Thailand, homes are full of special holiday food to serve family and guests on Eid-ul-Fitr, July 6, 2016. (Nasueroh/BenarNews)
Updated at 12:45 p.m. ET on 2016-07-07
Muslims throughout South and Southeast Asia joined millions of others worldwide to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr, the religious holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
The holiday was not free from violence. Four people, including two policemen died in an attack in Bangladesh on Thursday, as that country was observing the Eid holiday.
The attack followed Ramadan-time attacks in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia, which were linked to the extremist group Islamic State, as well as deadly violence in southern Thailand within the past month that caused many to take a more somber approach to their Eid celebrations.
Eid brings families together after a month of dawn-to-sunset fasting. Many people travel great distances to be with loved ones and celebrate with special prayers, alms-giving, gifts and meals.
In Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population, locals have a name for the mass exodus, mudik. As many as 20 million traveled in preparation for the holiday.
In Malaysia, the faithful opened their homes for the traditional rumah terbuka, welcoming all regardless of religious belief and serving a variety of special dishes.
In Thailand, vendors in the predominantly Muslim Deep South region said that people spent less than usual this year in the days leading up to Eid. But on Wednesday, many Muslims opened their homes to families and guests and others offered alms to the poor as they began their celebrations.
No one has asked my opinion on the FBI director's press conference on July 5, 2016. Since that has never stopped me before, I offer my two cents worth here. Bobby Tony
First, as a non-lawyer, I have no definitive legal opinions on the announcement by the FBI director. I have noticed that in the legal arena there are always two lawyers with opposing views. They argue their case on the minute details of something that should be obvious to a layman. I have long held the opinion that when a non-criminal case goes to court it is because of a lack of clarity in the law or contract. Since lawyers for the most part write and pass the laws, it is no surprise that there is always a "what if" wiggle clause in every law.
In criminal court cases, the burden lies on the prosecutor to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of the defendant's peers the guilt of the accused. This is fundamental to our basic principles of due process. In politics there is always a "What if" component to the situation.
It appears to me that Director James Comey realized that proving the case beyond a reasonable doubt with the current administration in charge of prosecuting Hillary Clinton would be an impossible task. The POTUS was actively campaigning with Hillary at the time of the announcement. The Attorney General Loretta Lynch recently met with former President Bill Clinton director. Regardless of how you characterize the meeting, it occurred between two people of obvious legal and political expertise.
Naturally, the political partisans of both sides have begun the prosecution and defense of Hillary Clinton. It appears that as of now (July 6, 2016) there will be no legal charges filed against Mrs. Clinton on the subject of Emails and National Security.
It also appears that James Comey (Wiki James Comey) has a history of impartial and straightforward strict adherence to the letter of the law. He will be praised and / or vilified depending on the particular political ditch people inhabit. Here is the FBI Transcript of the press conference.
I offer for consideration the view point that James Comey has correctly identified the landscape of the legal minefield ahead. Regardless of the future legal actions, the final decision will be made by some court in future years. It is always the case in large issues of legality that appeals and briefs are offered ad infinitum until finally it reaches the Supreme Court. It is then decided by nine judges who themselves have been appointed and confirmed by a partisan group of politicians.
Perhaps FBI Director Comey has made the determination that we should cut to the chase and let the people of the voting public make the decision. I am trying to resist the temptation to say that the future of the country is on the line because it is always on the line with every election from county commissioner to president of the United States. The decision will be made in November of 2016.
Regardless if you believe the system is rigged, or poisoned by partisan politics, the solution is within our hands in November. His press conference on July 5, 2016. Coming just one day after our celebration of Independence Day, perhaps an extract of the words of the Declaration that started this country is worth consideration. However, instead of only 56 signers, we will have 146,311,000 registered voters who could make the same pledge to take our country back.
Are you prepared to sign on the non dotted line? Unlike the 56 signers, no one will know what choice you made individually but as a group the American public can make the same declaration.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Update July 7, 2016 Wait there is more.
Here is another thought on this issue:
In a town like Washington where leaks are a way of life and there is never an audit trail, is it just possible that both Lorretta Lynch, Bill and Hillary Clinton and President Obama knew what FBI director James Comey would say in his press conference. I am giving Director Comey the benefit of doubt that he knows he is swimming in the deep end of the pool full of sharks.
That would allow them the time to arrange the scenario that has recently played out.
The meeting on the plane between Bill and Loretta was set to create a opportunity for Lorretta to explain that she would follow the FBI suggestion. (She knew the result beforehand) President Obama schedules the campaign trip with Hillary knowing that the announcement would be not to pursue indictment. Director James Comey knowing that his decision was already leaked to the political class decides to lay out the real abuses of Hillary Clinton to get it on the record in a public forum. Lorretta Lynch announced just a couple of days after the FBI press conference that she is good to her word and will follow director Comey's suggestion.No indictment. Everyone knows the Republican Congress will overreact and decided to hold congressional hearings to beat this dead horse to a final death again. Pundits accuse James Comey of being a lapdog of the Democrats and the focus is shifted from Hillary to James Comey. The Democrat talking points resort to the Clintonian defense of "Lets move on, this is old news" Yawn -----The public is sick of the whole debacle and just wishes they could get back to their daily lives and get this damn election over with.
I could be wrong here, because I did not get a program or script when I sat down for this performance. Stay tuned, Director James Comey is scheduled to testify in congress today. I may be able to squeeze just one more update into this article before I go back to sleep.
July 8, 2016 Update
James Comey has testified and now we are left to debate the decision he made. My biggest concern now is that we will focus on my point 6 above as opposed to the Clinton's continued ability to rise above the law.
The keyword here is "REASONABLE" as in:
No "REASONABLE" prosecutor would...
"REASONABLE" people can disagree...
Prove beyond a "RESONABLE" doubt...
Here is the definition:
I kind of like the last one "Satisfactory or not bad." She did not maintain a REASONABLE degree of security with her emails.
Unfortunately, REASONABLE is also a legal term used by lawyers to construct a smoke screen to obfuscate the reality.
"As a legal fiction, the "reasonable person" is not an average person or a typical person, leading to great difficulties in applying the concept in some criminal cases, especially in regards to the partial defense of provocation. The standard also holds that each person owes a duty to behave as a reasonable person would under the same or similar circumstances. While the specific circumstances of each case will require varying kinds of conduct and degrees of care, the reasonable person standard undergoes no variation itself. The "reasonable person" construct can be found applied in many areas of the law. The standard performs a crucial role in determining negligence in both criminal lawthat is, criminal negligenceand tort law.
The standard also has a presence in contract law, though its use there is substantially different. It is used to determine contractual intent, or if a breach of the standard of care has occurred, provided a duty of care can be proven. The intent of a party can be determined by examining the understanding of a reasonable person, after consideration is given to all relevant circumstances of the case including the negotiations, any practices the parties have established between themselves, usages and any subsequent conduct of the parties.
The standard does not exist independently of other circumstances within a case that could affect an individual's judgment." (WIKIPEDIA)
Now, isn't that more clearer?
I am have a quandary about this whole scenario. Is it possible that Hillary Clinton is both the smartest woman in the world and the most ignorant at the same time? Is she ignorant of the security protocols of dealing with classified documents and subjects? I come down on the side of smart (not 'est). One of the underlying Clintonian factors here is that there is never any credible evidence of wrongdoing in anything they do. I have upgraded numerous personal computers during my life and I have never left any credible evidence of my emails on any of the old computers. "Clinton's lawyers cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery".
But in all honesty, reasonable people can disagree (no sarcasm intended) and I urge the readers to make up their own mind on this matter Perhaps you may wish to sign in as a member and make your own comments. It is simple, all you have to do is join as a member and you can make comments or submit articles. Just follow this link to become a participating member of the BCN community. Join as a member here. You will not be inundated with advertisement or solicitations.
For another perspective please read this article recently posted here on BCN. The Fix is in.
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Experts suggest additional moves that could save each household in the state thousands of dollars annually in needless compliance costs
In 1994, the first year records were kept, there were 19,900 rules in the North Carolina administrative code. In 2011 there were 23,940 rules. "We've cut 2,500 of those and expect more cuts as we move forward."
Many of the rules that were eliminated were environmental regulations that hamper development, but those are the measures for which Republican lawmakers "get pilloried in the media."
Between 1900 and 1969, the state added an average of one occupational licensing commission every three years. From 1969 until 2008, the average was one every 10 months. The Republican-led General Assembly was "able to slash about 50 boards" in its first year of majority rule, and has eliminated roughly a dozen more since then. Eradicating those commissions and freeing entry into the market is difficult because the occupations with licensing requirements are loath to allow outsiders who may have fewer professional or educational credentials into licensed professions.
The Mercatus Center has completed a RegData project with software it developed, quantifying the number of regulatory restrictions in the U.S. administrative code. In 2010 there were more than 1 million individual restrictions. A similar study of all 50 states will be conducted in the coming year.
If the federal government had frozen the number of regulations at 1980 levels, there would have been $4 trillion more in the national GDP as of 2012, or $33,000 more per household.
RALEIGH North Carolina was lauded for "impressive reforms" curtailing its regulatory burdens on businesses and individuals, and national policy analysts discussed methods of further reducing costly restrictions during a June 22 teleconference call.said Patrick Gleason, director of state affairs at Americans for Tax Reform.Gleason said.Regulatory reforms at the state level are vital as President Obama's White House continues "looking to use the pen and the phone as often as they can," and amid the backdrop of the Competitive Enterprise Institute's research showing "the federal regulatory burden is now higher than the federal income tax burden," Gleason said.Jeff Warren, senior policy advisor to North Carolina Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said regulatory reform "has become a major platform issue" since Republicans took majority control of the General Assembly in 2011.While regulatory reform generally is viewed as a part of tax reform,Warren said.in the Senate, Warren said. But this year's legislative session ended before any compromise measure could pass the General Assembly.Warren also said:Jon Sanders, director of regulatory studies at the John Locke Foundation, said "the most important" reform North Carolina has passed is a sunset provision that requires the periodic review of regulations to ensure they are working as intended, and allows lawmakers to end those doing more harm than good.About 6,225 rules, or one-third of the total, have been reviewed, and 690 are slated to be removed. Close to 2,000 are subject to re-adoption, which will require another round of vetting. About 58 percent of the regulations will remain in the code.Sanders said North Carolina needs a provision most states have that grants a small business flexibility in meeting regulatory mandates because those concerns often don't have a large company's financial means to hire a legal compliance staff.Oliver Sherouse, regulatory studies analyst at George Mason University's Mercatus Center, said British Columbia, a Canadian province with population about the same as Louisiana, is a model for successful regulatory reform that can be adopted in the United States.From 2001 to today, British Columbia decreased regulatory restrictions by 43 percent. If a new regulation is passed, an existing one must be cut. The province wentSherouse said.British Columbia rose from 2 points below the national average on economic growth to 1.1 points higher than the national average. Its per-person disposable income increased from its previous position of 500 Canadian dollars below the national average, and the number of business incorporations is up about 50 percent.Sherouse also said:Ben Wilterdink, director of commerce, insurance, and economic development at the American Legislative Exchange Council, which hosted the teleconference, said the organization is advocating its Regulatory Review and Recission Act as a model that can be adopted by the states, and tailored to meet their individual conditions and circumstances.The model legislation requires a cost-benefit analysis of any regulation with an impact of at least $500,000 that might act as a barrier to entry into the market.He likened it to a fiscal note that lawmakers often request to determine how much a tax measure or other program will cost. In this case, legislative staff could inform legislators the magnitude of a possible regulation's economic impact at the front end of the debate to enable more-educated decisions about regulations to be made. The legislation also has a three-year post-mortem review allowing a governor to rescind a burdensome rule.
A Montana man accused of sexually propositioning a 12-year-old girl two months after he was granted clemency for a 1979 murder would not have to be convicted or even charged with a new crime for authorities to revoke his probation, according to legal experts and state officials.
The accusation against Barry Beach has been under review by prosecutors and state officials. There have been no charges in the case or any proceedings begun against him.
Beach accuser Daile Claire Kindness filed a report with Billings police in January alleging he made sexual advances on her daughter.
Yet prosecutors also must weigh the credibility of Kindness, currently on probation following a 2012 conviction for felony child endangerment, said University of Montana Law School Professor Andrew King-Ries.
"They'll look at all the facts and say, 'Is this woman credible?'" King-Ries said of prosecutors. "They have a fair amount of discretion over how to proceed."
Beach was placed on probation for 10 years as a condition of the clemency granted him by Montana Gov. Steve Bullock last November. He was convicted in 1983 for killing Kimberly Nees of Poplar when both were 17, but had long denied any involvement.
His campaign to be released picked up support from former and current elected officials including U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, the late Republican U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns and Billings Mayor Tom Hanel.
Because of his probationary status, the state's burden of proof in any proceedings against Beach would be much lower than in a criminal case. Beach declined to comment on the accusation Tuesday but previously told The AP that "it's wrong what's being done here."
Kindness said she's never met Beach, but was familiar with his case through news reports and had been sympathetic to his decades-long drive to be freed.
She said her daughter and three other children were removed from her care in 2008, two years before she was charged in state court in Big Horn County for incest involving her son. The daughter does not share a name with Kindness. The charge was later downgraded to felony child endangerment and Kindness says no incest ever occurred.
She also has several criminal convictions from the 1990s in Utah, including attempted theft, assault by a prisoner, driving under the influence and taunting or teasing a police service animal, according to court records.
Kindness doesn't dispute her criminal record but said it has no bearing on the complaint against Beach.
"That has nothing to do with what Barry Beach did to my daughter," she said, adding that her daughter was still recovering emotionally from being molested earlier in her life. "It's not about me, it's about my daughter."
Kindness said her daughter was picked up by Beach in his vehicle late on Jan. 10 along King Avenue East in Billings, after the girl ran away from a center for troubled youth.
She told police he asked the girl if he could touch her and if she liked performing a sex act. The girl told him no, according to the report, and Beach later dropped her off about a half block from her house, Kindness told The Associated Press.
Last week, Montana Department of Corrections Director Mike Batista asked Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito for his legal opinion on whether grounds exist for revocation proceedings against Beach.
Twito has responded to the request, according to Corrections Department spokeswoman Judy Beck, but she declined to reveal any details of that response, saying the criminal investigation was ongoing.
Twito declined to comment.
City Attorney Brent Brooks said Billings police have received no other criminal offense complaints against Beach since he was freed last year.
Even without charges or a conviction against Beach, Montana law allows prosecutors to take action against him if investigators find evidence that he's violated the conditions of his probation, Beck said.
A final determination would be up to a judge. Potential sanctions could range from stiffer probation conditions or jail time, to a return to prison for Beach to serve out the remainder of his 100-year original sentence, said King-Ries.
He added that last year's widely publicized clemency for Beach and the nature of the latest allegation him against has put the matter squarely in the public eye.
"It's hard to withhold judgment. Those are very powerful accusations to make, but (prosecutors) just have to work through it," he said.
First up, Joe Biden is thinking about dropping tariffs against China. But theres a spy in prison this morning that helps us understand why he shouldnt. Ill explain.
Your second brief, If youre looking for a good paying job, you might consider being a CEO for a health insurance company. One executive made $142M dollars last year. Let's talk about that.
And as always, Im keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. Mexican cartels are grooming American kids online and paying them cash to traffic illegals or run drugs across the border. Ill share details.
If you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief, remember to subscribe and listen daily at podfollow.com/pdb.
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Media Advisory, July 5, 2016 Contact: Tierra Curry, (928) 522-3681, tcurry@biologicaldiversity.org
Jim Scheff, (859) 334-0602, jim@kyheartwood.org
Roger Peet, (503) 753-7027, toosphexy@gmail.com Endangered Species Mural Celebration Set for Sunday July 17 in Berea White Fringeless Orchid Mural Part of National Endangered Species Mural Project BEREA, Ky. The Center for Biological Diversity and Kentucky Heartwood on Sunday July 17 will host a celebration for a new mural in Berea, the ninth in a national endangered species mural project highlighting threatened plants and animals around the country. The project aims to use art in public spaces to increase appreciation for regional biodiversity. White fringeless orchid photo courtesy USFWS. Photos are available for media use. The Berea mural features the white fringeless orchid, a 2-foot tall endangered flower that grows only in forested areas with wet soil. Also called the monkey-face orchid, the elegant flower now survives at fewer than 60 sites in Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee, and has already been lost from North Carolina. In Kentucky the flower is found in Laurel, McCreary, Pulaski and Whitley counties and on the Daniel Boone National Forest. The orchid is pollinated by butterflies, including eastern tiger swallowtails, spicebush swallowtails and silver-spotted skippers, and is threatened by logging, development and climate change. The Centers endangered species mural project is spearheaded by Portland, Ore., artist Roger Peet, who is teaming up with local artists to bring endangered species to public spaces around the country. The projects goal is to promote a deep affinity for the natural world and the wild creatures that help define it, and features species that are special to their regions. What: The celebration will include music by Zoe Speaks, face painting by Jon Clark, craft activities with Sylvia Johnson, and refreshments. Who: Mural artist Roger Peet, Center for Biological Diversity senior scientist Tierra Curry, Kentucky Heartwood Director Jim Scheff, Berea Tourism Director Kerri Lee Hensley. The mural is being painted by Peet and by Tricia Tripp, who are available at the site for interviews by appointment from July 11-16. When: Sunday, July 17, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Where: 123 N Broadway, Old Town, Berea Endangered Species Mural Project Background
Previously installed murals include the mountain caribou in Sandpoint, Idaho; the Arctic grayling in Butte, Mont.; the monarch butterfly in Minneapolis, Minn.; the jaguar in Tucson, Ariz.; the blue whale and yellow-billed cuckoo in Los Angeles; and the pink mucket pearly mussel in Knoxville, Tenn. Upcoming murals are planned of the hellbender salamander in Little Rock, Ark.; and the marbled murrelet, a seabird, in Arcata, Calif. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Optus makes picking the right mobile phone easier for its regional and rural customers.
For years, Telstra has given mobile phones the Blue Tick if they perform well in non-metropolitan areas. Now Optus is coming to the party with its 'Top Pick for our Regional Coverage' badge.
Optus points out that certain handsets can provide an even better coverage experience in regional areas, especially for customers who are not close to the nearest base station. Design features affecting coverage include the built-in internal antenna, material casing and even the phone's size.
The first dozen devices to get the Top Pick badge include phones from Apple, LG, Microsoft, Samsung, Huawei and Oppo.
Specific models include the Apple iPhone 6s Plus, LG G5, Microsoft Lumia 650 and Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge (all available on postpaid plans), and the Huawei Y3II and Oppo F1 (on prepaid).
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One potential issue is that Optus's badge is less conspicuous than its Telstra equivalent, and therefore not so obvious when scanning through the lists of available models.
Another is that we found the Top Pick badges disappeared when we changed the sort order of the phones displayed in Optus's online store.
"Our new device certification demonstrates our commitment to providing regional Australians our best handset choice for mobile coverage in their area to deliver an optimal experience," said Optus acting managing director of networks Dennis Wong.
"Our team will be constantly testing new handsets and we expect the range to grow as manufacturers release new devices."
Optus has been working to improve its mobile coverage of regional Australia, including adding more than 700 regional and holiday towns to its 4G footprint. Earlier this year it spent $196 million on regional 1800MHz licences.
"Once we take full ownership of these new spectrum licenses, we will be in a strong position to further strengthen our coverage footprint across rural and regional Australia," said Wong.
How does a brand miss making a message or brand resonate with its target market or audience? It happens at the most critical aspect that is sometimes overlooked.
At the segmentation and targeting phase. We too often speak of our target market, but sometimes, a true understanding thereof tends to be lacklustre. Segmenting and targeting is the process through which you identify and clearly describe who you wish to speak to or target with your brand messages or marketing efforts. The operative words here being clearly describe.
Segmenting and targeting means the ability to distinguish certain groups of people from the next, using a particular criterion or criteria. The idea of segmenting and targeting is really simple. What isnt simple though, is the process. What makes the process difficult is the desired goal to ascertain those distinguishing attributes. This requires a vigorous effort, free from assuming and stereotyping.
If there is no distinguishing attribute, the result thereof is a generic market with no particular archetype assertion; resulting in generic advertising, marketing or brand messages.
If a target market or audience is well understood you know what makes it tick, then the result will inevitably be refreshing creative communications. When you know people, you are most likely to know what they are feeling, therefore you cant get it wrong.
Novelty in advertising is deeply rooted in how well you understand your people.
The more you know the people you are targeting, the more you will get it right.
Put more effort here. Push back. Question. Challenge.
*Note that Bizcommunity staff and management do not necessarily share the views of its contributors - the opinions and statements expressed herein are solely those of the author.*
Souring consumer sentiment in the second quarter of 2016 could hint at weaker full-year results from SA's top retailers.
Consumer confidence as measured by the FNB/BER survey dropped to a reading of -11 in the second quarter of 2016 from a reading of -9 in the first quarter. Investec economist Kamilla Kaplan said, at this level, confidence remained entrenched below levels last seen during the 2008-09 recession. As a result, there would be dampened activity in the consumption side of the economy, said Kaplan.
Retailers due to release results in August include Shoprite Holdings and Woolworths. These retailers, who sit at opposite ends of the consumer scale, can be seen as a litmus test of how well shoppers are coping in the prevailing environment.
More than 70% of Shoprite Holdings revenue is earned from its supermarkets in SA. The retailer remains the largest in Africa. It has 357 shops in the rest of Africa, and plans to add 58 more by June 2017.
In its interim results for the period ended December 2015, CEO Whitey Basson said the companys operations offshore could possibly offset the weak conditions at home. Shoprite would deliver "reasonable results" in the second half of the financial year, "provided the current economic climate does not deteriorate further".
In the past year, Shoprite Holdings share price has dropped about 2.81%, making it an underperformer in the Food & Drug Retailers index, which has seen growth of 2.56% in the same period.
Woolworthss share price has taken even more of a beating, falling 19.38% in the past year. In the interim results statement for the year to end-December, CEO Ian Moir said as a result of the deterioration in the outlook for the global economy, conditions were expected to be more difficult in its main markets namely SA and Australia.
In March, top executives in the company sold millions of rand worth of Woolworths shares. Moir offloaded shares worth R57m, while Woolworths SA CEO Zyda Rylands disposed of R12m worth of shares.
The hunt is on for Eastern Cape farmers to supply franchising giant Famous Brands' new tomato paste plant at the Coega Industrial Development Zone (IDZ) - a purchase seen as a massive boost for the region.
Lufa Farms via Wikimedia Commons
Famous Brands said it had bought the practically unused R200-million Cape Concentrate plant yesterday, which had gone under about six years after being built. The aim of the purchase was to establish a domestic supplier base and ensure the production of enough tomato paste for the company's network of 2,600 restaurants. The company controls brands like Wimpy, Steers and Mugg & Bean.
It hopes to capitalise on the tomato paste shortage in South Africa, which sees about 35,000 tonnes imported every year. Set to open early next year, the 3,500m plant will take on about 40 permanent employees and an indeterminate number of casual workers that would be dependent on demand.
Famous Brands group strategic adviser Kevin Hedderwick said the group was working with the government and agricultural associations to attract existing tomato farmers or encourage other farmers to venture into tomatoes on state-owned land.
Why import when you can produce locally?
"Famous Brands imports 1,500 to 2,000 tonnes of tomato paste a year for use primarily in our sauce and spice plant, which manufactures products for the group's 2,600- strong restaurant network as well as for our retail trade customers," he said.
"Why should we continue to import, when we can have it locally produced and contribute to the local economy?"
Tomato farmers would have to help produce thousands of tonnes of tomatoes. It takes seven tonnes of tomatoes to produce just one tonne of paste.
Hedderwick would not say how much the plant was bought for but hinted at getting it for a steal. He said it was in immaculate condition. "We have effectively acquired a turn-key facility" at a small percentage of its true value," he said.
"In terms of supply, we are satisfied that we can expediently establish a local supplier network to provide the required raw material volumes." Hedderwick said the plant would be modelled around the Famous Brands Fine Cheese Company "formerly known as Coega Cheese Company" which worked with dairy farmers and increased milk production from 16.5 million litres to 38 million litres a year.
A boost for Eastern Cape farmers
The move is a boost for the region, with black tomato farmers set to benefit from steady contracts.
It comes just weeks after McCain Food SA decided to source 60,000 tonnes of potatoes from Eastern Cape farmers, assisting them with training and mentorship as well as low-interest loans to help them with the resource-intensive farming.
Amadlelo Agri chief executive Jeff Every said with the company looking to attract black tomato farmers, the government would need to make land available for farming. "Tomatoes are traditionally grown in the Lowveld and there aren't a lot in the Eastern Province," he said.
Reindustrialisation revived
Agriculture MEC Mlibo Qoboshiyane said Famous Brands' purchase of the plant would revive the reindustrialisation efforts of small-scale farmers in the province's rural areas.
"Cape Concentrates' liquidation slowed down the reindustrialisation agenda of rural areas. But we are optimistic that Famous Brands is a solid and strong business that understands the needs of the sector, farming and agricultural products," he said. "We have the land, people and a willing government to help."
Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber chief executive Kevin Hustler welcomed the news. "The company has also formed valuable relationships with the dairy farmers in the Eastern Cape and we are excited that this model may be duplicated to benefit local tomato farmers," he said.
Coega Development Corporation spokesman Ayanda Vilakazi said: "This acquisition strengthens the Coega IDZ's agro-processing capability, as this facility will form part of Zone 3's expanding agro-processing cluster."
Source: Herald
Eikendal Estate has committed to donate 5% of its Pinotage 2015 sales from its tasting centre to the Peace Parks Foundation.
The contribution flows from the estate's natural approach to winemaking and sustainable farming practices, as well as sponsorship of organisations including Cheetah Outreach, the Bushveld Foundation and World of Birds wildlife sanctuary.
Pinotage, a uniquely South African grape varietal, has a natural fit with Peace Parks Foundation, which facilitates the establishment of southern Africas transfrontier conservation areas and develops human resources, thereby supporting sustainable economic development, the conservation of biodiversity and regional peace and stability.
The Pinotage 2015 shows composure, elegance and finesse and is ready to be enjoyed immediately, but has good ageing potential up to six years. It retails for R105 per bottle at the cellar door and can be found at selected fine wine outlets and restaurants countrywide.
LONDON - Britain's decision to leave the EU has complicated a slew of deals. In the latest twist, the plummeting pound is creating an unintended 2.4bn premium for a select few shareholders in SABMiller.
A worker inspects Hero lager bottles at SABMillers Onitsha brewery in Nigeria.Picture: Oneredeye
Thats because the slide in the pound has pushed the value of the cash-and-stock mix that two investors will get in Anheuser-Busch InBevs takeover of the company to about 51.50 per SABMiller share 17% above the 44 all-cash offer that the holders of a majority of shares will receive. When the acquisition was announced, the cash-and-stock alternative was valued at 39, a discount to the cash price.
AB InBev designed the so-called partial share alternative as a tax-friendly option for the two biggest SABMiller holders Altria Group and BevCo though the Belgian beer maker failed to include a clause that would limit the impact of currency swings on the 77.8bn deal for the UK brewer.
The catch is, the investors taking the cash-and-stock option have to hold on to their shares for five years, meaning its value could decline again.
"Whether or not theres a threat to the deal in terms of fairness is a fascinating question and for AB InBev to have left that risk open is a surprise," Gardner Russo & Gardners Tom Russo said. Since the takeover was announced, Russo has sold most of his firms SABMiller holding and built an $800m position in AB InBev. "Im pleased we had a chance to redeploy the cash from the deal. As for the specifics of the deals structure, itll be somebody elses problem."
AB InBev shares fell 1.3% to 115.70 at 4.05pm in Brussels on Tuesday. SABMiller dropped 0.3% to 43.47.
AB InBevs takeover of London-based SABMiller set to be the largest corporate takeover in UK history is one of many European deals muddied by the economic uncertainty following the Brexit vote. Whether its Revolution Bars scrapping the purchase of pubs in Scotland, or German regulators who do not want a combined European mega-stock exchange to be based in London, the UKs decision to leave the EU has cast doubt far and wide.
Representatives for SABMiller and AB InBev declined to comment. AB InBev, based in Leuven, Belgium, is on track to close the combination in the second half of 2016, the company said last week, after obtaining approval from SAs Competition Commission.
As part of the offer, AB InBev is willing to issue enough shares to cover the demand from tobacco maker Altria and BevCo, the holding company for Colombias Santo Domingo family, who have a combined 40.4% stake, though any investor can ask for cash and stock. The shares wont be listed on any exchange for five years, and cant be traded or transferred during that period, which may deter most fund managers from choosing the partial share alternative, or PSA.
"Its tough to judge whether the deal structures fair," Thorsten Winkelmann, a fund manager at Allianz Global Investors, said. "An institutional investor managing mutual funds will always find it tough to go for the PSA and the reaction of the pound was surely not in AB InBevs consideration when they struck the deal."
Bloomberg
One of the two men suspected in the death last fall of Clinton Old Bull appeared Tuesday in Yellowstone County Justice Court.
Garrett Lee Crandell, 28, was charged with one count of deliberate homicide after the 25-year-old Old Bull was found shot outside his Billings apartment Oct. 16, 2015.
Justice of the Peace David Carter ordered Crandell held on a $500,000 bond.
Crandell, of Laurel, was arrested at about 5:30 p.m. Friday outside the Laurel Wal-Mart by members of the Montana Violent Offender Task Force.
The other suspect in the shooting, Ross Breshears, was arrested in November 2015 on federal charges, according to U.S. District Court records. Breshears was arrested for being a felon in possession of a firearm and possession of a firearm by someone convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence. He pleaded guilty to the charges on June 6, and his sentencing was set for Oct. 6.
Breshears does not have a homicide charge filed against him at this time. Charging documents for Crandell also name Breshears and indicate both men are responsible for the death because it occurred during the course of a felony offense.
At about 3 a.m. on Oct. 16, Old Bulls body was found by Billings Police officers near a car in the parking lot of an apartment complex at 2316 Sixth Ave. N., according to charging documents. A man and a woman were at the apartment when Billings Police officers arrived. The officers checked on Old Bull, who had a gunshot wound in his abdomen. He was not breathing and was pronounced dead after he was transported to St. Vincent Healthcare.
The woman at the apartment told officers she had seen two men hanging around the complex when she arrived that evening at about 11:30 p.m. She told officers the men made her nervous so she left and warned Old Bull not to return to the apartment. Before returning, the woman picked up another man who was still there when police arrived, according to charging documents.
The woman said when she came back to the apartment Old Bull told her hed spoken to the two men and they had told him they were looking to purchase meth. Old Bull told them to come back later, according to charging documents.
A little later, Old Bull, the woman and the other man were hanging out in the apartment when they heard a knock at the door. Old Bull opened it, and a man with a bandanna over his face and a bald head tried to push his way into the apartment, according to the womans statement. Old Bull and the woman tried to prevent the man from getting in, and in the struggle a gun went off and hit Old Bull.
The man with the bandanna and a second man who was with him ran from the scene, according to the woman.
The woman and the other man in the apartment tried to get Old Bull into a car and drive him to a hospital. A knife and a handgun were found near where the crime occurred, according to charging documents.
Another woman, arrested on Oct. 27, 2015, gave other details about the death. The woman told officers shed purchase meth earlier that day from the woman Old Bull was at the apartment with. She said the woman had not given her the amount of meth she had paid for, according to charging documents.
The woman told Breshears she'd gotten shorted, and Breshears became angry, according to the womans statement.
Breshears and Crandell went to the apartment with the intent to rob the woman dealing meth, witnesses said. Witnesses told police they saw Breshears leave with a 9 mm. Ruger pistol and Crandell leave with a curved knife. The weapon Breshears possessed when he was arrested in November on federal charges was a 9 mm. pistol.
When Breshears returned from the apartment, he appeared shaken. He told the woman who said she was "shorted" that Old Bull had come out of the apartment swinging and armed with a gun, so Breshears had to shoot him. He told other people Crandell was the one who shot Old Bull.
Crandell was being held Tuesday at the Yellowstone County Detention Facility. Breshears was taken into the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service after pleading guilty to the federal charges in June.
On 1 July 2016, Hunter's introduced a new campaign, 'Bring the Heat', which moves the brand away from the desert to the heat of the urban environment, and introduces a new face for the cider.
25-year-old Fezile Mhkize replaces South African actor and television personality, Thapelo Mokoena, who has handed over the torch after nine years as Hunters brand ambassador.
The through-the-line campaign includes a 45-second TV commercial, radio, out-of-home billboards, digital media and trade executions. The concept behind the new campaign taps into a common insight of the hustle of everyday life. South Africans are starting to lose their positive outlook in the face of daily challenges. Hunters urges them to embrace the heat that life brings and simply take it in their stride.
In the 45-second TV commercial, conceived by 140BBDOs team of creative directors Alexis Beckett and Liam Olding, and directed by Peter Pohorsky of Plank Films, the characters take on lifes heat to the tune of Break my Stride, originally made famous by Matthew Wilder.
Distells global marketing manager for Hunters, Maijaliina Hansen, says, Hunters sees its role as helping to give South Africans a refreshed perspective. We want them to take lifes curveballs and remain upbeat and positive.
Commenting on Mhkize as the face of Hunters in this campaign, Hansen added, We are selling nothing but real, natural cider and with that comes real, authentic people. Fez, with his disarming honesty, easy confidence and real and genuine behaviour is as authentic, inclusive and confident as the brand.
He beat out 11 other #BeTheChina finalists and his performance was exactly what the brand wants South Africans to emulate - real, genuine and able to take the heat. In fact, Fezs hand gesture towards the end of this spot is a positive one, one that dares life to bring it on. This gesture and sentiment is used across the campaign to stress Hunters message.
When asked why hed like to be the new China, he responded, Hunters an amazing cider; it is one that resonates globally and hey, I like how it tastes.
Highlights from Mhkizes audition:
Mokoena handing over the refreshment torch to Mhkize:
Bandit groups received gifts of arms and cash from a Chinese mining company and made up to $25,000 per month extorted from local miners during a recent two-year gold boom in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a report from human-rights watchdog, Global Witness says.
Photo: Global Witness
According to the group, up to $17m of gold produced by Chinese-owned company, Kun Hou Mining, went missing and was likely smuggled out of Congo into international supply chains.
At the same time, the Congolese state lost out on tax revenues on up to $38m of artisanal gold produced per year during the gold rush, due to smuggling and misconduct by provincial authorities.
Local authority collusion
The gold rush, focused on the Ulindi River in Shabunda, eastern DRC, reached its peak in 2014 and 2015 and continues to this day. Evidence gathered by Global Witness also shows a provincial authority colluded with armed groups in illegal taxation of miners while another altered official export documents so gold looked as though it was coming from legally-operating mines.
Armed groups, known as Raia Mutomboki, received at least two AK-47 assault rifles and $4,000 in cash from Kun Hou Mining, which operates mechanised gold dredging machines along the river. These armed men taxed the artisanal miners operating locally-made dredgers. Local authorities also collaborated through a tax sharing deal.
Companies must be accountable
There were over 500 cases of malnutrition reported in Shabunda town in 2014 and yet the significant revenues generated by this gold boom benefitted armed men and predatory companies instead of the Congolese people says Sophia Pickles, senior campaigner at Global Witness. The government must enforce its own laws to ensure that companies in its gold sector do not produce or trade gold that has funded armed groups. Any company breaking these laws must be held accountable for their actions. Provincial mining authorities that fail to properly govern the minerals sector must also be held liable.
Global Witness research shows that almost half a million dollars worth of Kun Hous gold was exported to a Dubai company through official channels. The rest of the companys estimated $17m of gold production is likely to have been smuggled out of the country.
Hiding the golds origin
Evidence was also found that mining officials in the provincial capital, Bukavu, deliberately falsified documentation to obscure links to Shabunda. Officials changed the golds origin on official export documents to show instead it came from the handful of legally-operating artisanal mines in South Kivu. This pattern has been repeated with other mines in the province. As a result, it is much more difficult for international buyers to be sure that gold has not funded armed groups.
Provincial authorities overseeing Shabundas boom have, by their actions over the past two years, directly undermined international and the national governments efforts to reform eastern Congos artisanal gold trade, said Pickles. States have a responsibility to ensure that companies do no harm, including checking supply chains for links to conflict and human rights abuses Congo and the United Arab Emirates have dramatically failed in this respect.
Efforts to resolve abuses
In recent years there have been significant international efforts to tackle the link between violent conflict, human rights abuses and the minerals trade in Congo and elsewhere including international supply chain guidance set out by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) five years ago, which has been a legal requirement in Congo since 2012. The US also passed a law and most recently industry supply chain guidelines, based on the OECD standard, were agreed in China. These set a precedent for Chinese companies to recognise and reduce supply chain risks and if adhered to should allow companies sourcing minerals from high-risk areas to do so responsibly.
Kun Hu Mining refused to comment in response to three requests from Global Witness, while the local artisanal support organisation, SAESSCAM, have strongly denied that its agents collaborated with armed groups.
Mining company, Sibanye, has financed and delivered a state-of-the-art, multipurpose hall to the Free State Department of Education (FSDoE) as per its social and labour plan agreements.
Minister of Mineral Resources, Mosebenzi Zwane, hands over the school hall built by Sibanye Gold.
The project is a R6,2m investment that will benefit learners and community members in and around the town of Theunissen in the Free State, and supports the FSDoE strategy of incentivising top performing schools. Taiwe Secondary School has, for the past three years, achieved a 100% pass rate and is one of the beneficiaries of this programme.
Sibanye facilitated the construction of the hall and related facilities, with a seating capacity of 1,200, which exceeds the norms and standards determined by the FSDoE in respect of school halls.
The venue will also be used for the Sibanye Mathematics and Science Programme, which supports over 140 Grade 10 to 12 learners annually from Taiwe Secondary School. The local communities will also be able to utilise the facility for community functions and related activities, which will generate additional income for the school to maintain the facility.
Sibanye believes that education is a critical component of the sustainable socio-economic development of communities around our operations, and as such, we will continue to provide necessary support to education as part of our commitment and contribution to transformation in South AFrica, said Neal Froneman, CEO of Sibanye.
The recent spate of African penguin fatalities occurred during four separate events in the area south of Links Crescent, close to Froggy Pond in Simon's Town. The City of Cape Town has identified the predator by installing trap cameras in the area. The images confirmed the presence of a large caracal.
"We are grateful to the City of Cape Town penguin monitors and TMNP rangers who worked day and night shifts over the past weekend, increasing their patrols and staffing observation posts to deter any further predations by this animal. Although the city welcomes the confirmation of the presence of this naturally occurring predator on our coastline, the African penguin population is under threat and, as such, every breeding pair counts towards the future of the species," said the citys Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Environmental and Spatial Planning Councillor Johan van der Merwe.
Prey not favoured above predator
Natural predation by an indigenous animal is considered part of the natural patterns and processes in the ecosystem and the prey is not favoured above the predator.
However, when a particular predator starts changing normal predation behaviour and kills multiple individuals that is more than what is required for feeding there is cause for concern. More so if the prey species is listed as endangered and the number and frequency of the kills becomes unsustainable in the population. The management authorities are then placed in a difficult position and need to consider the most viable and best option for the ecosystem as a whole.
"In consultation with our partners, namely SANParks, CapeNature, and various caracal experts, we have decided to trap the caracal using standard methods. If successful, the animal will be collared with a radio tracking device and moved away from the penguin colony, but still within its current home range. Concurrently, the city will deploy other passive mitigation measures to discourage the return of the caracal to the Burghers Walk to Froggy Pond area. We will continue with ongoing monitoring in the area by means of camera traps and foot patrols and urge members of the public not to tamper with any of the equipment installed in the area which are intended to deter the caracal.
"Lastly, it must be mentioned that while monitoring the camera traps, officials have noticed that dog walkers are walking their dogs off the leash. We would like to remind all dog walkers in the area to please keep their dogs on a leash. We will ensure that new signs are erected in the area to convey this message," said Van der Merwe.
Members of the public can learn more about caracals and their behaviour on the peninsula at www.urbanCaracal.org.
The city will provide the public with more information as the project progresses.
WDB Investment Holdings (WDB) and venture capital company Grovest have taken 30% and 27,5% stakes respectively in ICT accelerator Seed Engine (incorporating Seed Academy) to develop entrepreneurial businesses.
Ion Chiosea via 123RF
Faith Khanyile, CEO of WDB, says its investment brings together a common concern that these organisations are working to address, the transformation of South Africas economy by developing sustainable entrepreneurial businesses.
We needed a strategic partner that would instantly allow us to scale up our efforts around entrepreneurship in SA, especially amongst women. Seed Engine was one of the first ICT accelerators in this country, and this dynamic for-profit social enterprise is now supporting the entire entrepreneurial ecosystem from startup through to supplier.
Investing in the future
Donna Rachelson, CEO of Seed Engine and Seed Academy, says entrepreneurs are the job creators of the future and these investments have created strategic partnerships that will amplify their training, support and funding mechanisms at every stage of the entrepreneurial lifecycle. It will help unlock well-known barriers the small business sector faces, like access to markets and access to funding.
She continued: Incubation is not producing the results SA needs and entrepreneurs are battling to build and scale their businesses and create jobs. We take a fresh look at our entrepreneurial system and make quick, sustainable changes that result in jobs, wealth and certainty. Through the WDB and Grovest we will be able to tap into corporate and government relationships and networks that will help Seed Engine reach deeper into the communities and sectors that need the most urgent support.
The BEE deals of the past are no longer relevant. We want to create genuine mechanisms to expand SAs missing middle. There is no doubt, that the investment by a black-owned entity focused on impact investments will cement Seed Academys position in enterprise and supplier development in South Africa."
Female entrepreneurship
Khanyile says that the WDBs 25-year track record is aligned with the future vision of Seed Engine. Our investment is likely to increase to 51% and as a womens company, we have an appropriate bias towards empowering female entrepreneurs and being a meaningful active investor. The partnership serves both the business and social agenda of WDB.
Many people in South Africa were not raised in an entrepreneurial environment in which they were encouraged to take an idea and grow a business, says Khanyile. "More than ever before, there is an urgency for young South Africans and female entrepreneurs in particular to be assisted in taking their ideas forward and build businesses. Our young people need jobs, and we need to help them create jobs for themselves, their families, and their communities."
Ernest Pringle, Agri SA's agricultural development policy committee chairperson, says that it has come to his attention that some 13% of agricultural land traded in the open market last year was transferred to black individuals, according to statistics kept by WinDeed
Evelyn Simak via Wikimedia Commons
WinDeed is an online search tool for property information that is used by most conveyancers in South Africa. WinDeed gives access to all of South Africas major registration offices including the Deeds Office, Surveyor General Office, and various Credit Bureaus, as well as information sourced from the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission.
During the period April 2015 to March 2016 some 4,325 agricultural properties were transferred, of which some 576 were transferred to people of colour, said Pringle. The total hectarage transferred to people of colour during this period was 265,257 hectares. Details of the transactions per district, with information on average price and the number of hectares per district are all available on WinDeed. Given the fact that the government has to date, only succeeded in transferring some eight million hectares over a period of 22 years, this illustrates that the market can make a significant contribution to the redistribution of land, said Pringle.
Pringle alluded to the fact that the 87/13% figure is often quoted as if white commercial farmers still own 87% of the land. The Stats SA survey of 2009 indicated that commercial farms cover about 67% of the country. The WinDeed information illustrates that this picture is changing, not only through government-initiated land reform programmes but also as a result of market transactions, Pringle said.
Pringle added that Agri SA has always maintained that the willing-buyer-seller approach was not the restraining factor in land reform, but inadequate budgets and poor implementation of laws and policies. Agri SA will be looking into the possibility of establishing a private development fund to stimulate land reform, he said.
Qantas will be using SnapChat to give users an exclusive view into what goes on behind the scenes at the airline. They will be handing over the keys for the SnapChat account to their employees who will be showcasing what they do on the job every day.
SnapChat users will be able to see a side of flying that people rarely get to see like an A380 wheel change, a day in the life of a cabin crew member, or the perspective from a tug driver who pushes back an aircraft.
We have been encouraged by the results of the TV program Ready For Takeoff and our Roo Tales blog that Australians are interested in seeing behind the scenes of the national carrier. The success of SnapChats live streams shows that they are positioned to continue to grow and become a major player in this space, and we are really keen to get involved early.
Posting every fortnight, Qantas will give SnapChat users a behind the scenes look at the airline from the perspective of its employees from pilots, cabin crew, and engineers to Rockpool mixologists and chefs, lounge employees and more. Our audience will be able to follow our employees journey through our Snap Stories.
Qantas will be the first Australian airline on SnapChat. SnapChat users can now add Qantas as a friend. There are approximately two million active Australian users on SnapChat each month. In the last 12 months, Snapchat usage has increased from 15% to 22%.
SAN FRANCISCO: Google on Wednesday announced a deal to buy Moodstocks, a French startup behind technology that helps smartphones recognise whatever they are aimed at.
Moodstocks caught the US technology giant's eye for its work in computer vision and machine learning, as well for accomplishments in enabling smartphones or other mobile devices to recognise images and objects. Google is among Silicon Valley titans investing in ways to get computers to see and understand the world around them the way people do. Machine learning has been woven into an array of Google offerings, such as its free language translation and photo services.
"There's a lot more to be done to improve machine vision," Google France tech site lead Vincent Simonet said in a blog post. "That's where Moodstocks comes in." The Moodstocks team, described as a small group of researchers and engineers, will join a Google research and development centre in Paris, according to Simonet. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Google and its parent Alphabet are expected to integrate the image search team in artificial intelligence efforts.
Virtual assistants
At its annual developers conference in May, Google unveiled a virtual home assistant device that will challenge Amazon Echo. Google Home, about the size of a stout vase, will hit the market later this year and will incorporate new virtual assistant software. When Home hits, it will challenge Amazon Echo voice-controlled assistants that have proven to be a hit since the Seattle-based online retail colossus unveiled them two years ago.
Many internet companies are exploring the promise of artificial intelligence - for example, smartphone applications that can learn a user's habits and anticipate searches and requests. Microsoft, Apple, and Google have each created their own virtual assistants for users.
Source: AFP
If it's not trending on social media, did an event actually even happen?
Enter OLCaptura, a device quickly gaining attention as the perfect way to encourage social sharing around an event or on-the-ground activation.
Spotting a major gap in the eventing industry, Offlimit Communications, has acquired this innovative solution set to revolutionise the real-time social media experience.
With its slick self-help touchscreen, OLCaptura is simple to use, removing the need for an army of promotional staff walking around with cameras and simplifying the need to manually post or print out those images.
OLCaptura seamlessly searches the assigned hashtag on social media and prints the pictures shared using the hashtag on the spot. This simple mechanic enhances the natural way consumers share on social platforms, not only encouraging sharing in-the-moment but making sure the brand experience follows them home.
Along with branding on the printed photo, the OLCaptura can also be fully branded and includes a full set of user instructions to ensure that event staff can be used more effectively to take care of other responsibilities.
OLCaptura is already proving its trending power. At a recent event for the South African National Blood Service where the OLCaptura was put through its paces, the hashtag #Gazlam trended second in Johannesburg and ninth in South Africa with 23 million top-end impressions.
OLCaptura can be hired from Offlimit Communications for events across South Africa.
For more information contact:
Garreth van Vuuren
Johannesburg
[c]: 076 203 4665
[e]: az.oc.timilffO@hterraG
Janita Naidoo
Cape Town
[c]: 074 408 2431
[e]: az.oc.timilffO@atinaJ
The judges for the 2016 New Generation Awards have been selected. Since inception in 2013, the awards have ensured that at least three or four judges see each entry, which helps create a fairer weighting across all entries.
Judges will measure entries based on innovation, creativity, results, sales, reach, content, strategy, motivation, response time, net new customers and responder user comments, to name a few. Judges do not adjudicate any categories their agencies have entered and all judging is done anonymously online.
The selection included peer and client recommendations; if they were leaders within their fields; what they had achieved within their own industry; and if they were running successful businesses and winning awards. In addition, the following questions formed part of the selection criteria: What portfolios did they manage? What experience did they have across a variety of social media, digital marketing and online platforms? Were they entrepreneurial?
Judges
Alex Honegger - Alex heads up the social media and digital marketing services at Cambial Communications, where he oversees strategy and implementation of digital campaigns and manages clients digital assets. Alex joined Cambial full-time, after working as a consultant for several years. He also has experience in e-commerce management where his management responsibilities spread from product procurement and supply chain agreements with international suppliers, order fulfilment, operational management and marketing. In his spare time, Alex can mostly be found on a golf course.
Astrid Ascar - media personality. She is a digital marketing consultant, strategist and also heads up the IAB (digital industry body for SA) and Education and Transformation Council.
Bokang Mabiletsa - co-founder and CEO of Mind Interactive with over 10 years in the web development industry. Mind Interactive serves clients such as Tiger Brands, Barloworld, Telkom and Bidvest Managing Solutions to name a few.
Desiree Gullan - co-founder and creative director of G&G Digital. Having worked at the Big Three advertising agencies in SA and proving her creative metal abroad, she has won multiple local and international awards for her work - including Cannes Lions and Clios. She believes in the importance of craftsmanship - that its not in the designing, but in the redesigning; not in the writing, but in the rewriting. She is at home in the breakneck creative environment of digital marketing and steers her team to craft breakthrough creative across all mediums. In 2006, she co-founded what is now G&G Digital - the fastest growing digital agency in South Africa
Gillian Findlay - CEO at Cambial Communications and former chairman of the Public Relations Consultancy Chapter - (PRCC).
Jeff Siepman - a multiple award winning designer with 20 years experience in both traditional and digital design. He is creative group head at Promise Digital. Brands serviced include Absa, Barclays, Jaguar Land Rover, Danone, Russell Hobbs, Cadbury and Telkom.
Kenneth Garvie - MD at One over one and a multiple awarded individual, both locally and internationally. He has worked with a multitude of brands and industries, from fashion, FMCG, retail, finance and network providers, to name a few.
Prakash Patel - a seasoned #TraDigitalist, now MD of Fogg Cape Town and previously CEO of Prezence Digital and CDO for FCB. Prior to coming to SA, Prakash was head of a number of leading network agencies in London and has worked extensively with global and local brands for over 20 years across all industry sectors. Prakash would describe himself as a strategist in a suit, an innovator and blue-sky thinker, a creative in disguise and a firm believer that all things are possible using technology as the enabler and creative as the idea-tor. Now trying to keep up with tomorrow today and helping brands add value in today's Digitally Connected Era.
Tara Turkington - founded Flow Communications in 2005. It specialises in social media, content writing and editing, graphic design, web and app development, e-marketing, public relations and media training. Flow is one of South Africas largest communications companies, and today it has more than 150 clients that include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Standard Bank, Hollard, Gauteng Tourism, Nelson Mandela Foundation and Sasol. Flow also has a number of international clients and has completed work in more than 30 countries. In the early part of her career, Tara was a journalist and university lecturer. Her dream is to continue creating meaningful jobs and to further develop Flows brand globally.
Entries to the awards close on 20 July 2016, with the awards gala ceremony on 29 September 2016 at Microsofts head office in Bryanston, Johannesburg. For more information, click here.
PARK CITY Gary Lowman of Park City has been identified by the Stillwater County Sheriff and Coroner Clifford Brophy as the 58-year-old man killed Wednesday morning while riding a bicycle west of Park City.
MHP said Lowman was riding his bicycle with his grandson, 6, on Old Highway 10 west of First Street at about 8 a.m. when he was struck and killed by a car.
The grandson was also hit by the car and taken to Billings Clinic with unknown injuries.
Trooper Bill Bullock said the boy did not appear to have life-threatening injuries. He was alert and speaking before the ride to the hospital
Bullock said speed was not a factor in the crash, but glare from the rising sun might have contributed. Lowman was not wearing a helmet at the time of the wreck, but the boy was, police said.
Old Highway 10 between Park City and Columbus was closed while the crash scene was cleared and was opened for traffic before noon Wednesday, the Montana Department of Transportation said.
Disney on Ice put on a great performance in Joburg with glittering tailored outfits, visually stunning scenery and some of the most memorable songs of Disney's favourite movies.
Children were mesmerised by the songs, magical choreography and special effects, but most of all by the interactive hosts, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy.
Four of our favourite Disney worlds come to life on the ice. Well-loved scenes from Toy Story, Cars, The Little Mermaid and the crowd favourite, Frozen, are included in the show. Elsa lead a chorus of children's voices belting out 'Let it go' almost lifting the roof of Johannesburg's TicketsPro Dome. As my friend and I are both Disney-freaks ourselves, we may have hummed a few bars, though the The Little Mermaid is way more our style. A particular highlight for my four year old boy was Lightening McQueen skidding across the ice and Mator's quirky antics had him giggling away.
All in all, a wonderful experience for all ages. It's very rare to find something fun for kids that is worth the ticket money and occupies them for a whole afternoon of school holidays! Parking was plentiful and efficient, with special parking for certain larger vehicles. Be aware of the stalls selling toys and Disney products once your kid has hold of one, there's no turning back! We attended a midweek show where the crowd was probably smaller than the crowd that would attend on the weekend.
The show ran exactly on time and the intermission was approximately 10 minutes, so be early and anything you need to do, do it quickly! It was a great experience for all who love Disney. The look on your childrens faces as their favourite character comes on stage is priceless!
Disney on Ice now moves to GrandWest in Cape Town from the 6 - 10 July.
SHOW DATES AND TIMES:
Wednesday 6 July to Sunday, 10 July 2016
Wednesday, 6 July at 2pm
Thursday, 7 July at 11am
Friday, 8 July at 10am, 2pm, 6pm
Saturday, 9 July and Sunday 10 July 2015 at 10am, 2pm and 6 pm
Tickets available via Computicket
Images Disney
Miles Ahead, inspired by events in his life, is a wildly entertaining, impressionistic, no-holds barred portrait of one of 20th century music's creative geniuses, Miles Davis. The film features a career-defining performance by Don Cheadle in the title role, who co-wrote the screenplay with Steven Baigelman, and makes his bravura directorial debut.
To make an entertaining, rock and roll movie about a multi-talented musician in a non-traditional, subversive way. To attempt to DO Miles Davis rather than simply chronicle the highlights and low-lights of his life. That process felt like Miles to me. Don Cheadle
In the midst of a dazzling and prolific career at the forefront of modern jazz innovation, Miles Davis (Cheadle) virtually disappears from public view for a period of five years in the late 1970s. Alone and holed up in his home, he is beset by chronic pain from a deteriorating hip, his musical voice stifled and numbed by drugs and pain medications, his mind haunted by unsettling ghosts from the past.
A wily music reporter, Dave Braden (Ewan McGregor) forces his way into Davis house and, over the next couple of days, the two men unwittingly embark on a wild and sometimes harrowing adventure to recover a stolen tape of the musicians latest compositions. Davis mercurial behavior is fueled by memories of his failed marriage to the talented and beautiful dancer Frances Taylor (Emayatzy Corinealdi). During their romance and subsequent marriage, Frances served as Davis muse. It was during this period that he released several of his signature recordings including the groundbreaking Sketches of Spain and Someday My Prince Will Come.
From page to big screen
After several setbacks, including one of the largest recessions in global history, Don Cheadles Miles Ahead finally locked down partial financing before turning to IndieGoGo to raise the funds to make up for the shortfall. It actually felt right that we used a social platform to complete the film, observes Cheadle, Since Miles was someone who made social music.
The stop and start financing, however, was not the only hurdle for the low-budget project. Many of Cheadles co-stars in the film, including Ewan McGregor, Michael Stuhlbarg and Emayatzy Corinealdi, had limited windows of availability before they had to depart for other commitments. We only had Ewan and Michael for three weeks and Emayatzy for three weeks, so we had to complete all their sequences in the film during that period, says Cheadle. We had to get it right the first time. No second bites of the apple.
Though set mostly in New York, Miles Ahead was filmed mostly in Cincinatti, Ohio and Cheadle commends the city filmmaking commission for pulling out all the stops. Only three features have ever been shot there and we were very lucky, because they had recently wrapped Todd Haynes film, Carol, and they were in a good place. Still, there were days when we had two cameras and only one operator available, because the other was working on another project. We also didnt have use of the Steadicam for the first week. But fortunately everyone was totally committed.
In addition to being a first-time director, Cheadle is also in every scene in the film, so his preparation had to be meticulous and he needed a top flight crew, which, in addition to Hirsch and her producing partner Lenore Zerman, included director of photography Roberto Schaefer (Quantum Of Solace, Finding Neverland), production designer Hannah Beachler (Fruitvale Station), costume designer Gersha Phillips (House Of Cards, Life), editor John Axelrad (The Immigrant, Crazy Heart), sound designer/sound editor Skip Lievsay (several Coen brothers movies including No Country For Old Men), and composer Robert Glasper.
Don knew it was going to be complicated, so he arrived well prepared and hired the right team and had a lot of trust in them, says Hirsch. It was a passion project across the board and Don was one hundred percent open to ideas. It was a completely creative environment from top to bottom.
Cheadle and Baigelmans script was visually oriented and keyed to certain music cues, which made for a unique read, according to Hirsch. The script was like a piece of music. I would get calls from crew members telling me that when they read it in conjunction with the piece of music that would be used, it changed the whole experience. It enabled them to visualise the pacing of the script, because everything flowed like a piece of music.
The sound of the film is rich and layered and seamless, says Hirsch. Anytime you have Miles Davis scoring a movie, youre in the hands of a master. In addition to Davis compositions, the underscoring includes original music by Glasper and sound design by Lievsay that flow effortlessly around and through each other.
Says Cheadle: "Ive been steeped in Miles Davis music since the age of ten. He is so many things, not the least of which is an indefatigable symbol of creative energy and power; someone who was never afraid to step out of his comfort zone; someone who was totally uncomfortable with stasis. Over the years I was approached by various people, some of whom were close to Miles and others who just wanted to see a movie about him; and they said that if anyone should play him it was me. Id already been in a number of standard bio-pics and I had no interest in making another since I found them full of contrivances and fabrications. You know, based on a true story. Shortly after Miles was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame I was approached by his family. They pitched me several different takes, but I didnt spark to any of them. To me, they didnt go far enough in trying to capture his enormous creativity and dynamism. So we shook hands and promised to keep in touch. As I pondered it further, I began to imagine a film that would capture Miles as who he was, a man full of drive and forward momentum, but also mercurial and dangerous, the real O.G. original gangsta. And I realised that it would never happen unless I wrote it. So I asked the family if they were okay with that and they said Cool. Do it.
Read Daniel Dercksens full interview with Don Cheadle here.
Over 2,000 classic, veteran, vintage and souped up hot-rods, muscle cars and motorcycles are expected for the 37th Cars in the Park, which will once again be hosted by the Pretoria Old Motor Club at Zwartkops Raceway on 31 July 2016.
The 2016 show coincides with the 50th anniversary of the organising club, the Pretoria Old Motor Club, which will be hosting a special club display in the Zwartkops pit area to commemorate its first half-century. Its members will be displaying the best vehicles in their collections to mark the occasion and also be on hand to discuss any manner of car related topics with the public.
Each year the club also hosts its Special Vehicles display featuring the best cars from all around the country. This year the theme is Pick Up Trucks from the early 1900s to the late 1960s, owing to the vehicle category's popularity with collectors in the fields of veteran, post-war classic and modified street machines.
Over 100 car clubs have booked space on the areas surrounding the track itself, including the likes of Buicks, Cadillacs, Alfa Romeos, MGs, Triumphs, Lotuses, Volkswagens, Datsuns, Mazdas, Cortinas, Muscle cars and Jeeps. In celebration of Jeep's 75th anniversary this year visitors can also expect to see a special display from the Jeep club.
Some time ago the POMC decided that it would admit not only vintage, veteran and classic cars, but all manner of special-interest cars to Cars in the Park. So visitors can expect to see a range of models passing through the gates from 6.30am including Chevrolet Corvettes, DKWs, Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, Jaguar XKs, VW Kombis, Ford Capris Chevrolet Can Ams, Lotus 7s, Cobras, Opels, Vauxhalls, Rileys, Mercedes-Benzes, Porsche 356s and 911s, Cadillac Eldorados, Oldsmobiles.
According to a report via Fin24 , South Africa has joined other nations such as China and Russia in voting against a United Nations resolution on the "promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the internet".
Marc Dietrich via 123RF
The resolution was however supported by countries ranging from Australia, the US, UK, Nigeria, Senegal, and Turkey. The report reveals that the United Nations had held a vote on the resolution, which seeks to bring political commitment from member states to protect human rights online such as freedom of expression and privacy.
According to the report, the resolution additionally seeks to ensure the release of those imprisoned for the legitimate freedom of expression online. As revealed by the report, other key points of the resolution include investigating attacks against bloggers or other internet users, and refraining from preventing access to information online by, for example, shutting down the internet during key times such as elections or terror attacks.
Within the article, it is revealed that Russia and China requested amendments to the draft resolution to remove items such as text on freedom of expression and the shutting down of internet access. However, the amendments werent adopted and most countries voted for the human rights resolution, which will be adopted by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
With the results in, as revealed by the report, nations who had voted against internet freedom have been placed in the spotlight.
Thomas Hughes, the executive director of global free press organisation Article 19 stated within the article that: We are disappointed that democracies like South Africa, Indonesia, and India voted in favour of these hostile amendments to weaken protections for freedom of expression online.
A human rights-based approach to providing and expanding internet access, based on states existing international human rights obligations, is essential to achieving the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, and no state should be seeking to slow this down, Hughes added.
Apart from South Africa, India and Indonesia, other countries that voted in favour of the amendment and against the resolution included the likes of Kenya, Qatar, Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.
Swakopmund, Namibia: Two frequently used roads between Walvis Bay and Swakopmund - the B2 highway and the MR44 behind the dunes - will soon undergo a massive transformation that will see the roads transformed into dual carriage highways.
Hansueli Krapf via Wikimedia Commons
The upgrade of the two roads, which is expected to cost N$958 million, was launched by Minister of Works and Transport Alpheus !Naruseb outside Swakopmund on Thursday. The upgrade will be done in two phases and is expected to be completed within three years.
Phase one will start in the proximity of the junction of the new main road 44 and trunk road 2/2 - east of Swakopmund - and will end at Farm 58, about 6 kilometres from the main road near Walvis Bay airport. Phase two will continue from Farm 58 to the Walvis Bay traffic circle.
Officiating at the ground-breaking ceremony !Naruseb said, as a developing country, Namibia must make continuous efforts to position the country's economy favourably and to make it competitive at both regional and international level. "To do this we have to create and put in place reliable transportation infrastructure that meets the requirement and demands of the 21st century. Thus, a safe and efficient transport sector will offer various opportunities to strengthen our competitive advantage in the region," !Naruseb said.
Namibia a gateway to landlocked countries in SADC
He pointed out that Namibia is strategically positioned as a gateway for import and export to and from landlocked countries in SADC, such as Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
"The fact that Namibia and its neighbouring countries experience continuous economic activity growth add pressure on the existing transport infrastructure and systems. Consistent economic growth requires sufficient investment in order to achieve the full potential and resulting benefits of the sector," the works and transport minister said.
!Naruseb further explained that for this reason, the government is fully committed to ensuring that road network corridors across the country are built to the highest standards and maintained regularly to facilitate commercial trade throughout Namibia and to improve the mobility and safety of all road users.
Harambee Prosperity Plan
The road upgrade is one of the projects outlined in the Harambee Prosperity Plan (HPP), that President Hage Geingob has pledged to implement over the four-year HPP period.
"As stated in the plan, and in view of Namibia's aspiration to become a logistics and distribution hub by 2030, significant investment will have to be made in all four modes of transport infrastructure, namely road, rail, maritime and aviation.
"Development of transportation infrastructure has been prioritised in all national development plans. I am pleased to note that significant progress has been made under our NDP4 (Fourth National Development Plan) with respect to road infrastructure. However, a lot still needs to be done, as the development of road infrastructure is only one of the priority areas," the minister concluded.
On the next Biz Takeouts Marketing & Media radio show on Thursday, 7 July 2016, from 9-10am, show host Warren Harding takes a look at content first digital agency, Barbarossa Media ( @bmcontent ).
Barbarossa Media creates engaging content for brands to connect to their customers in an impactful way. Founding partners Hendri Lategan, CEO, and Kyle Hauptfleisch, COO, join us in studio to look at the start of the agency, the services offered and the upward trend of content marketing. We end off the feature chatting about content measurement, the current state of content marketing in SA, the future of content and the future of the agency.
Check them out here: http://barbarossa.media/ and read An Introduction to Content Marketing by Barbarossa Media.
Tune into Biz Takeouts every Thursday from 9am-10am live from the 2oceansVibe Radio studio in Cape Town as we discuss the topics that matter in Marketing & Media.
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A podcast of the show will be available in the Biz Takeouts special section on Biz later during the week.
Sugars Creative, a design agency based in the Northern suburbs of Cape Town, has created a new corporate identity for blind adventurer, sportsman and motivational speaker, Hein Wagner.
Ive been building my brand for twelve years and felt it was time to give a visual explanation to what it stands for. I am in the process of building my international footprint and feel that I need a strong visual identity. I want the brand to inspire people to reach their full potential and no matter what, rise to the challenges set before them, explains Wagner.
Carla Enslin, Vegas head of strategy and new business development, says, It was a privilege to be involved in the project and a growth experience to develop a brand identity for a person not able to see. My own understanding of personal challenge, perspective and determination was confronted on every level.
Hein is remarkably intuitive as a result, the process of uncovering why and how his person brand matters produced an original and compelling strategic direction. We were able to define his universal belief in the individual power to transform and to achieve what is thought to be unattainable.
As the project evolved from a strategic to a visual platform, we encountered Heins world of touch and feel - he also has synaesthesia, when one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. It was important that his logo was true to his identity authentic, committed and tactile.
Wagner agrees, Carla assisted me so much with what I wanted to achieve with my brand identity. We then approached Sugars Creative and they followed her brief to create the perfect visual identity.
Karen Ehlers, director and business developer at Sugars Creative, loved the challenge. We met Hein and were inspired by his motivation and outlook. We immediately felt that we were up for the challenge to design something that would communicate his charismatic, innovative and inspirational personality.
Her business partner and design honcho at the agency, Sarita Kruger, adds, We wanted to design something that could live in the visual and tangible realm not something we usually consider. It was the first time that we had to design an identity for someone who could not physically see what we designed. We explored the other senses and tried to put ourselves in his shoes. We considered that his fingertips are his eyes and it flowed from there. It is very personal we stylised his fingerprint into an icon that is not only visually appealing, but with print finishing techniques. We can make it tangible. We had all the proposed options laser cut for Wagner to feel the logos and give his input.
We also believe that legs are crucial to any brands identity. Icons and elements of the logo need to be versatile to become design elements. The icon should be strong enough to live on its own and over images, etc. Heins fingerprint does exactly that.
Wagner confirms that a huge part of getting to understand his surroundings is through his fingers. The new brand visuals capture that perfectly. It sends out multiple messages, but the most important one for me is that no matter which one of your senses are the strongest, use them all to help you achieve your goals.
Also, when I leave my finger print on something, I strive to leave whatever that may be in a better state than before I touched it. Tactile is a great guide for the blind and I want my brand to be universally accessible. What Sugars Creative designed will go a long way to help me achieve my international goals. The great thing about the new brand is that I can apply my brand to all sorts of products - be it clothing, perfume, furniture - you name it! I think they did a great job in marrying my world with that of the sighted.
Wagner concludes: I want to thank all involved including Sugars Creative, Carla Enslin and Purple Pine PR for helping me achieve this major milestone. It is no easy task to marry what the blind experience with what the sighted world can see. Ill be spending more time in Europe with my fiance and new-born daughter and hope to take my brand to new and exciting places in the near future.
Operated either autonomously based on a pre-programmed flight plan or by remote control, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), popularly known as drones, are now being deployed in Africa for a variety of missions.
Image by 123RF
Mostly found in military and special operation applications, UAVs are increasingly finding uses in civil and recreational applications. Dating back to the early 20th century, drones initially provided practice targets for training military personnel. Their development moved into high gear for combat missions during the conflicts in Vietnam and the Middle East.
A typical drone weighs no more than 25kg, travels at a speed of 160km per hour and can fly to a height of 150 metres.
Drones are being used in Africa today to track poachers; to gather vital agricultural information to help farmers with their crops; and as an intelligence tool to help the military anticipate and prepare against danger.
For the endangered elephants in the Congo region of sub-Saharan Africa, drones could just help end the current elephant and rhino poaching crisis. In a 2015 test by Air Shepherd Technology, a US-based non-profit organisation, in partnership with the Lindbergh Foundation, drones were found to be effective in spotting poachers and alerting nearby rangers over giant areas of parkland.
About 20,000 elephants were killed in 2014 alone, according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), a non-profit group, and there are fears that the death toll could rise in the coming years. In many areas park rangers are incapable of covering big swaths of the park.
In an article for the magazine National Geographic, Oliver Payne writes that drones can complement the efforts of park rangers and others to provide comprehensive poaching data. New data is acquired daily from drones, tour operators, rangers on patrol, and GPS collars on individual animals. In aggregate, the analytics reveal patterns of poaching attacks and can predict with 90% accuracy where poachers will strike.
In addition to saving the lives of elephants and rhinos, the drone technology is being tested in Uganda and parts of Europe to deliver vital agricultural information to farmers through high-resolution pictures. Such information includes exact acreage of land and what portions of the land are under- or overused.
Although some farmers can also rely on satellite imaging, drones have better capabilities because they fly closer to the land and can bypass visual obstructions such as tree canopies and clouds to get high-resolution pictures.
The International Potato Centre (CIP), a Peru-based organisation that focuses on food security in the developing world, conducted drone tests in January on potato farmlands in Tanzania. The drones captured images of 14 varieties of sweet potatoes, as well as detected diseases that can potentially destroy the crops.
Drones are also increasingly being used to monitor conflict areas around the world. Currently the United Nations plans to use drones for surveillance purposes in war zones in sub-Saharan Africa. Experts believe that drones can identify pertinent information, including the details of tyre treads, license plates and even bullets, all of which are vital for troops operational preparedness.
A UN expert panel on technology and innovation reports, The capacity of aerial visualisation is coming to everyone, in every setting agriculture, disaster response, conflict and we say that the member states need to take a look at empowering peacekeeping missions more broadly as part of an overall orientation towards technology to strengthen their hand.
Despite their often useful purposes, drones come under strict and in some cases prohibitive regulations in Africa. Countries that regulate drones include Kenya, Namibia and South Africa, although the rules are often muddy.
In South Africa, drone rules enacted in 2015 impose a 10-year jail sentence for illegal drone use and are considered by some residents as unfriendly to private development.
A total ban on drones for civilian use was imposed by Kenya in January 2015. In Nigeria, however, the government intends to incorporate drone technology into existing security systems for efficiency, while also seeking the support of the international community to help combat insecurity of the countrys waterways.
It was not long ago that drones were a figment of a science fiction writers imagination, but now they have gained popularity.
Source: Africa Renewal
Working to live, not living to work: new global research from the Sage 'Walk With Me' report throws out conventions on millennials in the workplace.
Anton van Heerden
The highlights of the Sage youth report into the working habits of millennials those currently aged between 18 and 34 years - throws up the following highlights:
Survey from 16 countries shows that millennial entrepreneurs fit into five distinct personas.
Study gives insight into how to hire, engage and do business with these ambitious young people.
61% will sacrifice profit to stay true to their values rising to 78% in South Africa and 83% in Nigeria.
66% in South Africa and 71% in Nigeria say life comes before work.
Doing social good is especially important in South Africa (80%) and Nigeria (80%).
The young entrepreneurs are driven by a desire for independence, a belief in social good and a commitment to employee happiness. The Sage Walk With Me report examines the key characteristics, attitudes and behaviours of millennial entrepreneurs around the world. Despite sweeping generalisations about how this generation behaves, the study shows that these business leaders have diverse traits which align them with five workplace personality types:
The Principled Planners: Extremely methodical in their approach to work, they enjoy carefully planning for success. With an ambitious streak, they never take anything at face value and always ask a lot of questions. The Driven Techies: Love their work and cant bear the thought of sitting around twiddling their thumbs, they trust in the power and efficiency of innovative technology to keep them one step ahead of the competition. They have a strong belief in its ability to accurately target their existing and future customers. The Instinctive Explorers: Cavalier, they love the unknown, as well as exploring uncharted territory. They trust their gut instincts and stick to their guns. A modern image is extremely important to them, as is leaving a legacy behind to be remembered by. The Real Worlders: Resourceful, but likely to say they rely on technology in order to succeed. When it comes to their approach to work and making decisions, they tend to alternate between going on gut instinct and taking a more methodical approach. The Thrill-Seekers: Easily bored and always on the lookout for the next challenge, they couldnt care less about appearances. They work best around others and believe that making a social impact is overrated.
More general trends from the study include a desire to make a difference. Doing social good isespecially important to young entrepreneurs in South Africa and Nigeria (both 80%) compared to other countries. Respondents in South Africa (30%) and Nigeria (46%) say that the way their business reflects their personal success is what gets them out of bed in the morning.
Millennial entrepreneurs have a huge role to play in the start-up economy and are shaping the modern workplace at great pace. In Nigeria, 36% say they started their own business to become masters of their own destiny and 29% to turn an idea into reality. Among South African respondents, 29% started their own business to become masters of their own destiny, followed by to make money (21%) and to turn an idea into reality (21%).
Global comparisons
When it comes to the work life balance, 66% value work over life. For respondents in Brazil (71%), Australia (70%), Belgium (70%), Singapore (73%) and Switzerland (70%), reducing the amount of hours they spend working and retiring early is a key focus for them. Some 66% in South Africa and 71% in Nigeria say life comes before work.
62% believe theyll be a serial entrepreneur, starting more than one than business in their lifetime with 52% saying this is because they have lots of ideas they want to share with the world. In South Africa, 82% respondents aim to start more than one business; among Nigerians, the number is an astonishing 94%.
Kriti Sharma, director: product management, mobile at Sage, explained, As a millennial entrepreneur myself I know first-hand that this business group are shaking things up. Were rejecting established patterns of working and making technology work for us. We see business through a new lens. Were willing to work hard, but want flexibility in how, when and with whom we do business.
The opportunity to foster a new economy, triggered by young entrepreneurs, has never been greater and the way millennials choose to operate in the business world is set to become the new normal, said Anton Van Heerden, EVP and managing director, Sage South and Southern Africa. It is the entrepreneurial spirit that makes the difference all over the world, so policymakers and big business would do well to listen to the voices of the young African entrepreneurs who are inventing our futures.
Millennial entrepreneurs have a huge role to play in the start-up economy and are shaping the modern workplace at great pace, explained Stephen Kelly, Sage CEO. But they cant be grouped together as a homogenous stereotype. Our research shows that they fall into distinct camps with specific hopes, fears, concerns and ways of working. They will be our next generation of business builders, the heroes of the economy, and understanding what makes them tick now stands us all in good stead for the future. Thats true of the people that want to do business with them, buy from them, hire them or create policy that helps them to grow.
The full report, including more stats and a full analysis of the five personas, is available.
We connect brands with the mass market where it matters most-close to home.
Five weeks ago, 10 Montana legislators called for a special legislative session to be held in August, claiming that they wanted to reform state campaign finance laws.
As required by state law, Secretary of State Linda McCulloch polled all 150 state lawmakers on the question and allowed 30 days for them to vote. Her office announced the results Friday: Only 10 other legislators agreed with the first 10; the special session call fell 56 votes short of the 76 needed to actually have a special session.
Few, if any, Montanans expected lawmakers to meet this summer. Probably the 10 making the session call didnt expect it either. But lets consider the repercussions of their political stunt.
The secretary of state office had to send 150 letters to lawmakers and tabulate the 94 votes that were returned. Costs of postage, paper, envelopes, printing and stamps totaled $1,222, according to the SOS office.
If there was a special session, the first day would cost $92,504 and each subsequent day $44,226, according to estimates from the Legislative Services Division.
This call was a waste of time. The 2017 Legislature will convene in the first week of January. Lawmakers then should consider campaign finance reforms that make Montana elections fair and more transparent.
Changing the rules in the middle of an election is a bad idea, and Montana has already had substantial changes this year. The current election cycle is the first in which the 2015 Disclose Act applies. Rules to implement that law were approved late last year. Then a federal judge invalidated the states contribution limits that had been set by a voter initiated law. That judicial action effectively reinstated the old limits, which were higher dollar amounts for most races. Then U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell agreed to the attorney generals request to delay his ruling as it applied to political parties because the old state law set a lower limit on parties, a restriction that would be in violation of the ruling.
The 10 lets-meet-in-August lawmakers each voted against the Disclose Act last year. This new bipartisan law has made campaign reports much more accessible to the public and available more quickly online. The new law also requires third-party political spenders to report that activity when it occurs within 90 days of an election. So a lot of the political flyers that voters get in the mail and on their doorsteps will, for the first time, be reported and identified by the source of the material.
Rep. Daniel Zolnikov of Billings was among the 10 Republicans who called for the special session. Four more Billings lawmakers joined him in voting for an August session: Rep. Clayton Fiscus, and Sens. Doug Kary, Roger Webb and Cary Smith.
Fortunately, most Republicans recognized the foolishness of the idea and either voted no or chose not to vote. No Democrats voted for a special session.
This episode raises questions for the proponents of rushing into a special session:
Why didnt you address the campaign contribution limits in 2015, 2013 or 2011 after Lovells initial ruling invalidating them?
If youre in favor of less government, why propose spending money on a special session to propose new government regulations?
And most importantly, what are your priorities?
House Republicans killed a statewide infrastructure plan by a margin of one vote at the end of the 2015 session. That plan would have infused cash into local economies while upgrading state buildings and local road, sewer and water systems.
But the 10 didnt make a special session call for infrastructure. In fact, Fiscus and Zolnikov voted against that infrastructure legislation sponsored by Sen. John Brenden, R-Scobey. Infrastructure obviously isnt their higher priority.
The impact of Montanas medical marijuana legal situation on 13,000 patients calls for the immediate application of some common sense from our state courts.
First, a brief disclaimer: My daughter and son-in-law own and operate a small medical marijuana dispensary that provides specific help to nearly 100 Montanans just 0.7 percent of the 13,640 patients statewide. She tells me that each of their patients has individualized medical needs that are met by use of medical marijuana in specific forms designed to address their individual problems, ranging from glaucoma to rheumatoid arthritis, cancer to epilepsy, Crohns disease to AIDS.
The U.S. Supreme Court on June 27 said that it would not take up a legal appeal of the Montana legal action, just as it does not consider 97-99 percent of the appeals sent its way. That U.S. Supreme Court rejection throws the legal ball totally back into Montanas court system, where some good government common sense needs to be applied.
Earlier this year, data from the state Department of Public Health and Human Services showed medical marijuana patients ranging from 18 to more than 90 years old, and an average patient age of 47 years from nearly every county. Those patients were served by 471 medical cannabis providers, who had from 1 to more than 700 patients.
The Feb. 25 Montana Supreme Court decision restricted each provider/dispensary to three patients, effective Aug. 31. The most patients the 471 providers in Montana could provide medication to would then be 1,413, leaving 12,227 patients without a provider. Most likely, many providers will have to close down. What business or medical provider could operate with just three patients? So the number of unprotected Montanans will likely be even higher.
Just 70 days later, all Montanans will decide at the ballot box whether to enact a new, improved, responsible and accountable administration of our medical marijuana program. Initiative 182 turned in 42,156 signatures to county clerks the deadline way more than the 24,175 signatures needed and likely to qualify in 40-50 legislative districts (34 districts required). Based upon history (62 percent voted FOR medical marijuana in 2004) and current strong support, its likely that every one of those 12,000-plus Montanans ruthlessly thrown off their medicines Aug. 31 will be able to sign up come November.
Does this life-altering situation for 12,000 Montanans jolting them in and out of their important medical regimes for 70-90 days seem to be the best way? After all, implementation of this draconian three-patient limit has been in limbo for more than five years. Delaying it another 70-90 days to avoid serious disruption in the lives of over 12,000 Montanans seems to be a no-brainer.
Our courts need to enforce the law, but our system has room for the humane administration of justice. District Judge James Reynolds, who now has the case, or the Supreme Court itself, should delay the deadline until after the election. Attorney General Tim Fox ought to also apply common sense and compassion not further appeal anything. In fact, he should remove his objection to the current post-election date appeal and show some respect and concern for the 12,000 Montanans who need his help.
In this case, justice delayed will not be justice denied. It will be the demonstration of compassion and common sense by elected officials who ought to know whats right. There is no reason to subject 12,000 Montanans with cancer and other debilitating diseases to anything but common sense.
A California woman on Wednesday admitted federal drug trafficking in which prosecutors said she was part of group that brought methamphetamine to Montana for distribution.
Roper Ray Blankenship, 22, of Patterson, Calif., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute meth during a hearing in U.S. District Court in Billings. Two other counts are to be dismissed at sentencing under a plea agreement.
Prosecutor Colin Rubich said in court records that Blankenship conspired with co-defendants Michael Vincent Villalobos, Teal Cherie Harris and Devin Allen Mitchell in the meth ring.
In February 2015, Sidney Police Department law enforcement officers pulled over Villalobos and Blankenship, Rubich said. During the execution of a search warrant on the vehicle, officers found 72.3 grams of meth and a .38-caliber revolver.
Through a confidential informant, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration learned that Villalobos had meth mailed to him from California connections and that he regularly sent drug proceeds back to California, Rubich said.
In September 2015, Miles City Police Department officers attempted to make a traffic stop of Villalobos vehicle. When the vehicle stopped, its occupants, including Villalobos and Blankenship, fled the scene.
After getting a search warrant for the vehicle, officers found a backpack with identification belonging to Blankenship, 35.74 grams of meth and a .22-caliber gun.
Officers also found a cellphone belonging to Blankenship. After getting another search warrant for the phones data, officers found Facebook messages in which Blankenship admitted that the meth and guns seized in both traffic stops belonged to her, Rubich said.
Blankenship faces a minimum mandatory five years to 40 years in prison and a $5 million fine.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Ostby said she would recommend that District Judge Susan Watters accept Blankenships plea. A sentencing date has not yet been set.
Villalobos and Harris pleaded guilty to charges and are awaiting sentencing. Mitchell was sentenced to time served of four days and five years of supervised release for her conviction in the case.
First, SourceKnowledge has launched a native ad unit that serves video ads for non-video inventory. The Javascript ads are available for both desktop and mobile devices, and are servable on blog posts, slideshows and other non-video type inventory.
Our native ad unit was developed with consumers need for unique and engaging experiences in mind as this increases conversion for advertisers and better monetization options for publishers, said SourceKnowledge president and co-founder Patrick Hopf. Data driven advertisers know that the way their creatives are delivered determines their impact. Were committed to investing in advertising solutions that meet the create value for all parties advertisers, publishers and end users.
And Kenshoo is now a fully supporter for Googles new Expanded Text Ads (ETAs); they are the first multi-publisher to fully support the units which offer prominent headlines, longer descriptions and the automatic inclusion of URLs.
Kenshoo has held a close-working partnership with Google over the years. Our relationship and deep experience in search optimisation have put us in position to be first to fully support ETAs for our clients. said Paul Vallez, Kenshoos VP, corporate strategy and business development. Research and development represents nearly half of Kenshoos workforce, and we continue to invest heavily in search to keep clients at the forefront of the channel and well ahead of their competitors.
Meanwhile, Swiftpage has announced a subscription option for their ACT! software; the ACT! subscription system includes product updates, web API platform, and technical support.
With this release, we are showing our customers that an Act! subscription provides more than just contact management software to help run your small business, said Lorcan Malone, COO of ,a href=http://www.swiftpage.com>Swiftpage. Not only do users receive updates as soon as they are available along with expert technical support, they are afforded multiple deployment and payment options to fit their unique business needs.
The evacuation warning for the Observation Fire was officially lifted at noon Wednesday.
With some favorable weather coming in and, honestly, some pretty aggressive firefighting tactics by the Forest Service, we feel comfortable about rescinding the evacuation warning, said Ravalli County Undersheriff Steve Holton. Its unlikely anyone will have to evacuate now the firefighters have done a lot of really good work over the last few days.
There has been a stage 1 evacuation alert in place for 203 residences since June 28 for an area that includes everything west of U.S. Highway 93 between Lost Horse Road to the south and the Gold Creek area to the north.
Since the fire is still being fought, Holton urged locals to stay alert for firefighter traffic.
The fire is currently at 1,417 acres and 30 percent contained.
As winds died down and temperatures moderated Tuesday, firefighters were able to construct line right against the fire in places that werent too steep. They also mopped up existing lines, laid hoses and installed temporary water reservoirs along Camas Creek ridge.
A contingency line from Camas Creek trail to the top of the ridge was completed by the heavy equipment group.
Currently there are 607 people assigned to the fire, as well as 16 crews, eight helicopters, 21 engines, 14 dozers and eight water tenders.
Some of the resources may soon be assigned to other incidents.
HELENA The state is expecting oil and gas tax revenues to hit their lowest point in years in fiscal year 2017, but rebound the next year.
According to the 2019 budget outlook prepared by the Legislative Finance Committee, oil and gas tax collections are expected to be $46.7 million in fiscal year 2017, down from $73.2 million in fiscal year 2015. In fiscal year 2014, collections were about $110 million.
Right now oil prices are around $50 a barrel, and the state expects that to go up to $70 by 2019, according to the Legislative Fiscal Division. However, production in Montana is expected to decline since the state has zero drilling rigs.
The drop in tax collections is expected to hit Eastern Montana counties hard.
Next door in Wyoming, Gov. Matt Mead announced $248 million in budget cuts and 700 layoffs "in response to declining revenues from oil, gas and coal, which provide 70 percent of the money in state coffers," according to the Casper Star-Tribune.
A. Doris Banks, left, with her husband and others
[From The Archives]A. Doris Bank Henries was born on February 11, 1913, in Live Oak, Florida and died on February 16, 1981, in Middletown, CT. She was married to Richard Abrom Henries, former speaker of the Liberian House of Representative, who was one of the 13 government officials that were executed on firing squad in the wake of the 1980 military coup in Liberia. Doris Banks Henries graduated from Willimantie Normal School (now Eastern Connecticut State University) with BSc in 1920s; She also attended Connecticut State Teachers College as well as the Yale University in the 1920s; she attended Hartford Seminary in the 1930s as well as the University of Besancon, France in 1930s. She is said to have earned her MA and PhD from Columbia University and was a Methodist.
Though she was born and educated in the United States, it is in Liberia where she made her marks. It is in Liberia where she is remembered as a writer, educator and government official. It is in Liberia where she impacted lives, molded minds of students directly or indirectly. And it is in Liberia where she will always be remembered.
Though she was not a fiction writer, any discussion of Liberian literature will not be complete without mentioning A Doris Banks Henries. She was a prolific writer who wrote many books on Liberia. Among the many books written by A Doris Banks Henries, only three I came across and they were my favorites. Those three books are "Heroes and Heroines of Liberia," "Civil for Liberian Schools," and "Africa: Our History."
I read both of these books in grade school. I wish I have copies of them now so as to understand them from my current adult perspective. I really didn't know she wrote any other books besides the three mentioned above until recently, upon reflection, I googled her name. That's how I discovered she wrote other books besides "Heroes and Heroins of Liberia," "Civil for Liberian Schools" and "Africa: Our History." According to her bio available on line, she is one of Liberias "most prolific authors, having written histories, biographies, essays, and poetry, and produced 27 books on Liberian education. She is said to have "pioneered the collecting of Liberian poetry and folklore." It is also said that her works "emphasized the role of education in promoting African cultural identity for black people around the world."
Of these three books, the one that is mentioned more frequently in most Liberian debate or conversation is "Heroes and Heroines of Liberia." In that book we learnt about the biographical accounts of some of Liberia's historical figures from both the native and settler backgrounds. Among those historical figures featured in this book are JJ Robert, who was born in Norfolk, Virginia, USA and became the first president of Liberia upon independence in 1847; Wilmot Blyden, born in the West Indie, migrated to Liberia and became one of the great intellectuals of the new nation, often refer to as the grandfather of Pan Africanism, John Kizzel who is said to have been an African prince taken into slavery from Shebro Island in what is now Sierra Leone. He is said to have fought on the side of the British during the American fight for independence and later went back to Africa in 1792. He and others that went back to Africa became part of the settlement of Freetown, Sierra Leone. There is also the story of Momolu Duwalu Bukele, the inventor of the Vai Script, King Sao Bosso Kamara, a Mandingo king who helped the settlers to overcome the native resistance to their settlement, Bob Gray the Bassa Chief, who was helpful to the settlers in the establishment of the settlement of Edina in Grand Bassa County, Benjamin Anderson who led the expedition to Musadou, the Western Mandingo country which is located in present day Guinea.
Africa: Our History gives accounts of the pre-colonial and colonial histories of the various countries of Africa as well as the African diasporas of America and the Caribbean. The first time I came across the photos and stories of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Toussaint Louverture was through the pages of that book. For me, that book was an eye opener in understanding the history of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the European colonization of Africa, the heroism of Toussaint Louverture who defeated the mighty French army to gain independence for his country, Haiti.
These three books were primarily for grade schools. Of all the heroic figures in the "Heroes and Heroines of Liberia," the character that seems to be a subject of much controversy is Matilda Newport. According to the narrative in the book, Matida Newport is said to have fired the cannon to repel native attacks against the settlers at the settlement of Cape Mesurado. Her "heroic actions that saved the settlements" of free slaves from "native aggression" earned her a holiday in her honor known as Matilda Newport Day. This holiday was celebrated for many years until it was abolished after the April 12, 1980 military coup.
While Doris Banks Henries might have done her best to document the Liberian experience, there are many critics who think she was biased in her writings, always portraying the settlers heroically at the same time painting negative pictures of native Liberians. Her critics say, instead of representing the totality of Liberian experience from both the native and settler backgrounds, she was one-sided, paying glowing tribute to one group and demonizing the other group. Some have even questioned that Matilda Newport even existed, saying she was a fictional character intended to portray the "bravery of the settlers against the cowardice of the native Liberians."
In a recent Facebook posting, Emmanuel Woods opined that, "Liberian schools were Doris Banks Henries infested. She was biased and not that scholarly. Some folks cry about western scholars on Liberian history but they avoid crying about Doris Banks."
Quite recently I sent out an email on the Liberian group email listing asking of people's views and opinions of the writer and educator. Not many responded but I got an interesting response from Cletus Nah, a Liberian writer based in Europe.
Cletus was mild in his criticism. Here is what he wrote about A Doris Banks Henries: The history of Liberia that we read in grade school is similar, but lacking in details, when compared to the same history of Liberia that one would find in the United States Library of Congress. Why? Because some of the men and women that were written about didn't have the opportunity to tell their versions of the story, or the author decided to omit certain details because, like in the case of John Kezzel was an African, his father was a king,' the synopsis of that timeline of Liberian history was written for children in Liberian primary schools. Thanks, auntie Doris (Banks-Henries)! At least you told me about uncle John and uncle Bob (Gray), and how uncle Elijah (Johnson) didn't allow the British to claim our land by hoisting their flag on our soil. I will forever be grateful to uncle Elijah, no matter what!
That the book Cletus read and many of us read in grade school "lacked details" is understandable because those might have been intended only for grade schools. These might have been done to stimulate the curiosity and interest of young students with the belief that such was just the foundation of understanding the history of our country. As we age along the way, further researches and studies should have led to the writing of books for advanced students that would give further details that were lacking in the books for grade school students.
In another article written by a Liberian political commentator Siahyonkron Nyanseor, A. Doris Banks Henries came under severe criticism for her "biased" portrayer of the Liberian natives. According to Nyaseor, "the story of Matilda Newport was a mixed bag of Americo-Liberian pride, and native-Liberian nightmare, yet successive Americo-Liberian-dominated government found it necessary to honor and celebrate the supposed good deeds of Matilda Newport as a national holiday. And Liberian school children were forced to parade in the streets in celebration of Matilda Newport Day until 1980 when the holiday was abolished by the native-Liberian leaders of the 1980 coup, which displaced the ruling Americo-Liberian leaders of the ruling True Whig Party after 133 years at the helm of power."
According to Dr. Fred PM Van Der Kraaij, a Dutch government leader who spent some years in Liberia teaching at the University of Liberia in the 1970s, "Many Liberian historians and authors of history books have devoted many pages to Matilda Newport, such as Ernest J. Yancy, Richard A. Henries and A. Doris Banks Henries, C. Abayomi Cassell and Nathaniel R. Richardson. The accounts of the Matilda Newport story vary from author to author but have in common that most references to the natives were negative: 'savage, primitive, belligerent people' (A. Doris Banks Henries)."
The Matilda Newport story has also grabbed the interest of many foreign scholars. Among them Jane J. Martin and Rodney Carlisle, "who conducted a study, The Search for Matilda Newport, published in the Liberian Studies Journal in 1975." Another foreign scholar, Svend Holsoe, also did a research paper on Matilda Newport which was presented at the Liberian Studies Conference at Indiana University, in 2007. The title of the presentation was, "Matilda Newport: The Power of a Liberian Invented Tradition."
Whatever a writer's intent may be in his or her writing may differ with how they are interpreted by his or her critics. While many critics have said that her writings celebrated the heroism of the settler class while denigrating the natives, others have said this of her, "Henries writing focused on reestablishing Liberian and African cultural and economic identities."
Accordingly, in an article published in Presence Africaine: Cultural Review of the Negro World in 1977 titled, Black African Cultural Identity, she wrote, the whole continent of Africa has been exploited for centuries to build highly industrialized empires, but enjoys minimal benefits of labor expended in the process of development. Worst of all, the black people of Africa have lost much of their cultural identity through conflicts and domination by outside groups. This has been a dreadful tragedy and handicap to advancement." She went on to say that Under the colonizing powers, African culture has been disrupted by the imposition of European ways of life. Thus, much of the rich heritage of black people has been submerged and a pollution of foreign culture has supplanted the best as well as the worst in social foundations. She then called for the Africanization of the school curriculum and textbooks. It should be the policy of African schools to include in all programs as much literature written by Africans as is available.
The above quote from Ms Henries is in line with the objective of African literature being used as tools to liberate Africa and her people from foreign colonial domination. In this she was certainly in line with her contemporary African writers championing the emancipation of the black race from centuries of lies of European scholars and writers. Why would she be championing the liberation of the black race from European domination while at the same time in Liberia her writing is said to have "portrayed" something negative of native Liberians? If that is a contradiction of A Doris Banks Henries, it is also the contradiction of Liberia as the first black independent republic in Africa.
While Liberia as a nation inspired black people everywhere, especially the help she provided to fellow Africans fighting to get rid of the European colonial regimes, her own dirty secret of segregation against native Liberians was not highlighted. I came across a book many years ago which highlighted this contradiction of Liberia, being a source of pride and inspiration for Africa but at the same time "oppressing its native citizens." This book was written by a proponent of the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Back in those days, no Liberian writer, settlers or natives could write any book, fictional or non-fictional that were critical of the ways things were in Liberia. For Doris, who was married to one of the most powerful men of the regime, one could not have expected her to write any protest novel or collection of poems critical of the system she was part of.
About the author: Nvasekie Konneh is a poet, writer who has written extensively in the Liberian media on art, culture and social political development of Liberia. He's the author of The Love of Liberty Brought Us Together, The Land of My Father's Birth, Going to War for America and currently working on a documentary project on ethnic and cultural diversity in Liberia.Below is the Bibliography of Books Written by A Doris Banks Henries(With Richard Henries) Liberia, the West African Republic, F. R. Bruns, 1950; H. Jaffe, 1968.The Liberian Nation: A Short History, Collier-Macmillan, 1953, rev. ed., 1966.Heroes and Heroines of Liberia, Macmillan, 1962.Development of Unification in Liberia, Department of Education, 1963.(Editor) Poems of Liberia, 1836-1961, Macmillan, 1963.The Life of Joseph Jenkins Roberts, 1809-1876, and His Inaugural Addresses, Macmillan, 1964.(Editor) Liberian Folklore: A Compilation of Ninetynine Folktales with Some Proverbs, Macmillan, 1966.A Biography of President William V. S. Tubman, Macmillan, 1967.Africa: Our History, Collier-Macmillan, 1969.(Editor) Liberias Fulfillment: Achievements of the Republic of Liberia During Twenty-five Years Under the Administration of President William V. S. Tubman, 1944-1969, Banks, 1969.Higher Education in Liberia, Department of Education, 1971.The Role of Women in Africas Evolution, Henries, 1971.Secondary Education in Liberia, Ministry of Education, 1972.(With James A. Benson, et al.) The Status of Literature in Liberia, Society of Liberian Authors, 1972.The Writings of A. Doris Banks Henries, African Imprint Library Services, 1973.(Editor) Education Laws of Liberia, 1926-1974, Monrovia, 1974.The Educational System of Liberia, Ministry of Education, 1974.Higher Education in Liberia: Retrospect-Present-Prospect, Ministry of Education, 1974.Modern Mathematics in Liberia, 1962-1974, Ministry of Education, 1974.PeriodicalsPageant of Modern Africa (poetry), Presence Africaine, 1966.Message from the President of the Society of Liberian Authors, Kaafa: Journal of the Society of Liberian Authors, 1971, pp. 7-16.One Hundred and Fifty Years of Liberian Literature, Kaafa, 1972, pp. 13-21.Liberian Literature, Kaafa, 1974, pp. 1-9.Black African Cultural Identity, Presence Africaine, 1977, pp. 119-128.
MISSOULA A fire caused by fireworks destroyed a house in Victor.
Donna Cronister said she and her husband were setting off fireworks at about 10:30 p.m. Monday when one of the pyrotechnics went off sideways, sending sparks toward their house.
Victor Fire chief Scott Hackett said the firework landed under a juniper bush, causing a fire that spread rapidly. He says the house is a total loss.
The homeowners were not injured but Hackett said a firefighter was injured when an artificial beam in the living room fell on his head.
Cronister says her dog got out of the house and a firefighter rescued a cat that was hiding under the bed.
NMSPs released statement NMSPs released statement
The statement, issued on July 2, asserted that complete inclusion was needed for the national-level conference to succeed and for the establishment of a genuine, democratic federal union enshrining self-determination and nationwide equality.
The NMSP statement also expressed satisfaction with the NLD-led governments hard work towards convening the 21st Century Panglong Conference, a union-level peace event slated for August, and for implementing systemic political changes in keeping with early assurances.
It has been almost 70 years that ethnic armed groups have been engaged in armed resistance and civil war because [the Burma government] did not follow through on promises made in the Panglong Agreement led by General Aung San. We would like to see all ethnic armed groups involved in the upcoming 21st Century Panglong Conference, said Nai Hongsar, vice-chairman of NMSP.
The statement went on to call on the military to strengthen trust by immediately halting all offensive attacks in areas administered by Kachin, Kokang, Palaung, Arakan, Shan and other armed ethnic resistance groups. In addition, it said, the union peace conference must be transparent and held with representatives of a new joint monitoring committee (JMC) established after a genuine nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA), including all groups, is inked.
It is necessary to establish a monitoring group like this that offers the chance to keep an eye on the Burma Army, for ceasefire groups to avoid clashes and to know which group is right or wrong. Monitoring groups are most effective when members come from government, ethnic minority, and mediation groups. If the [monitoring] groups are composed only of members from the government and ethnic armed groups, there is a higher possibility for fighting to break out. Having mediators is the best way, said Nai Hongsar.
The latest state-level Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC-S) was founded on June 30 at the Southeast Command Headquarters on the outskirts of Mawlamyine, formerly known as Moulmein, the capital of Mon State.
An Ethnic Armed Organization Summit for signatory and non-signatory groups will reportedly be held this month in Mai Ja Yang, Kachin State, to address issues surrounding the upcoming conference. The chairman of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) is also scheduled to meet State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Nay Pyi Taw on July 18.
The 4th of July may be Independence Day to the Americans. But to the people of Burma, it is the 4th of January. And on that day in 1958, the constitutional limitation on the right of a state to secede from the Union came to an end.
The 1947 constitution had laid down 4 conditions in the implementation of the Right of Secession in Chapter 10:
Ten years must elapse before the right can be exercised
To implement it, two thirds of the State Council must approve a resolution to secede
The Head of State must notify the Union President of the vote, and the latter must order a plebiscite held in the state under a commission appointed by himself which is composed of an equal number of members from the Union and the state
Only states which are not excluded from using the right may exercise the privilege
In spite of the broad language of the Constitution, only two states the Shan and Kayah are eligible to secede. Two othersthe Kachin and Karenare explicitly denied the right, while the remaining two statesthe Special Chin Division and Burma properare usually considered outside of the discussion because the former is in many ways the appendage of the latter and Burma proper is the nucleus around which all the others cluster. Even though a whole chapter in the Constitution is devoted to describing the conditions which must be fulfilled before a state can withdraw from the Union, in effect, it is applicable only to one of the eligible statesthe Shan State. It alone contains a powerful and articulate minority which is seriously considering the question of secession, according to Silverstein. (See the Secession Issue: To Part or Together, Panglong.org, 14 June 2016)
But granted that the Shan State plebiscite decided to set up its own independent nation, where would it go? The answer seems quite clear if one examines a map of the area, says the author. Because it is landlocked and has no major navigable river to link it to the sea, the state either would have to unify or ally with China, Thailand, or join with another landlocked areaLaos.
Among the three, there seems to be no political or economic reasonhistoric or currentto warrant the creation of a Laos-Shan union. (The author may not be aware of a Laotian resistance movement, Pathet Lao, led by Prince Souphanouvong, that had taken refuge in Kengtung, adjacent Laos, before 1962.)
With the other two countries, the situation is different:
In military terms, it (a merger) would bring China or Thailand into the heartland of the Union, and it would create such an exposed border that defense of Burma would be nearly impossible.
The result was the following excerpt from Prime Minister U Nus speech, delivered on 27 April 1957 in Lashio:
the reason that the United States today is the strongest and most influential nation in the world is due to the fact that Abraham Lincoln prevented the southern States from seceding and thus consolidated the whole country. If only we are united our future is indeed bright. Therefore, it is my constant prayer that this remarkable episode from American history may serve as a very valuable lesson for all of us.
The speech was dubbed a declaration of war by many Shan students and politicians.
The author concludes his paper this way:
In the end, the right must be viewed in two ways: constitutionally, it is exercisable, politically, it is not. So long as the state has the right in reserve, it will continue to give the people a feeling of having a potential choice of either remaining in or leaving the Union. If it attempts to exercise the right it may provoke the Union to act as Lincoln acted, even though the Union of Burmas Constitution includes the right of secession, while that of the United States does not.
Regrettably, Silverstein didnt have anything to say about how the war could be avoided by applying one of the age-old Shan saying: Neither let the lotus blemished or the water turbid (Mo Ya Hai Zam, Nam Ya Hai Khun)
But if he had any advice, it was already too late.
On 21 May 1958, following the Shan State Councils failure to take a vote (according to still living sources, the Council was warned not to) on the question whether or not to exercise the right of secession, the first Shan armed resistance movement, Noom Seuk Harn, was formed.
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A woman admitted federal charges alleging she shot and wounded a man whom she thought had sexually abused her son.
Both the son and the victim denied any sexual abuse had occurred, federal prosecutors said.
Shawna Rae Wilson, 36 of Crow Agency, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Billings on Tuesday to assault with a dangerous weapon for the Nov. 3, 2015, shooting. A second count in an indictment is to be dismissed at sentencing. There was no plea agreement.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lori Suek said that Wilson fired at least six shots from a 9 mm handgun into the victims trailer, where he had run after a confrontation with her outside. The victim, identified in court records as L.W., was hit in the lower leg, she said.
Wilson and her boyfriend then drove away, and Wilson threw the gun out the window of their vehicle. The gun was not recovered, Suek said.
The shooting happened after Wilson and her boyfriend drove to the victims residence at Crow Agency where Wilson accused the victim of sexually abusing her son, Suek said.
The discussion grew heated, and Wilson grabbed a pistol from her vehicle and pointed it at the victim, who ran back into his trailer, Suek said. Wilson then fired the gun.
Witnesses confirmed that the victim did not have a knife or a gun and was on the porch when Wilson started shooting, Suek said.
Wilson turned herself into police and claimed she shot the victim in self defense because he tried to stab her, Suek said. But no other witnesses, including Wilsons boyfriend, confirmed Wilson's account, Suek said.
Wilson said during the hearing that she thought the victim had threatened, not sexually abused, her son.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Ostby said she would recommend that U.S. District Judge Susan Watters accept Wilsons guilty plea. Watters will set a sentencing date. Wilson faces a maximum 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. She remains in custody.
WASHINGTON The Maryland Board of Public Works on Wednesday unanimously approved a $5.6 billion, 36-year contract with a consortium of companies to design, build, operate and maintain a 16.2 mile light rail line that will link two counties in Maryland as well as connect to Amtrak, MARC and local bus services.
At the meeting, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said the P3 agreement meets the conditions he set forth last year: additional support from local governments, reserved federal funding and aggressive pricing from the private partners.
The price tag of the contract for the light rail line has dropped from an estimated $6.2 billion last June. The counties raised their contributions, more federal funding was secured, and the private partners dropped the availability payments the state must make to them once operation of the Purple Line begins, Hogan said.
The Purple Line "will act as an economic development catalyst" for key areas of the state, he said.
Besides Hogan, other members of the state Board of Public Works are Maryland Treasurer Nancy Kopp and Comptroller Peter Franchot.
The construction of the rail line, which will link New Carrollton in Prince George's County with Bethesda in Montgomery County, is expected to begin later this year and is to take about six years. The line is expected to be put into service no later than the spring of 2022. It will have 21 stations.
Ridership on the line is projected to average 58,000 trips per day in the first few years of operation, rising to 70,000 riders per day by 2040.
The contract, which will run from April 7, 2016 to March 11, 2052, is between the Maryland Department of Transportation and the Maryland Transit Authority on one side and the Purple Line Transit Partners on the other.
The private concessionaire is made up of Fluor Enterprises, Inc., Meridiam Infrastructure Purple Line, and Star America Fund GP.
About $1 billion of funding will come from the private partners, including a low cost federal loan under the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, as well as about $330 of private-activity bonds, and private equity.
The net cost to the state is $3.3 billion, with the rest of the $5.6 billion to come from federal, county and state funds, as well as fare revenues.
The state will directly contribute $159.8 million. Montgomery and Prince George's Counties are expected to contribute about $333 million -- $160 million in cash and $173 million in non-cash contributions. In addition, about $933 billion will come from federal funds -- $897 million of Federal Transit Administration capital investment (New Starts) grants and $36 million of formula funds.
During the meeting, Kopp said the contract will comply with the state's capital debt affordability requirements because it will not involve state-supported debt.
Kopp explained that the federal, state and local funds for the program, as well as fare revenues, will be put into a trust account held by a trustee that will be completely separate from any state accounts. The funds will go directly to the private concessionaire for the project.
"It will require monitoring" to make sure the funds aren't mixed with any state tax-supported funds, Kopp said that the meeting.
At a briefing of state lawmakers on Monday, Maryland DOT chief financial officer David Fleming said the Purple Line will draw from MARC commuter line revenues for about 10-15 years until it begins operating and generating its own revenues.
The private partners are to receive three kinds of payments: progress payments during the design phase; two sets of milestone payments, one when service starts, and the second set when the project is completed; and well as availability payments for the rest of the contract. The availability payments are expected to cost $150 million per year and they will cover the costs to operate the rail line, as well as the cost of repairing and replacing escalators, rail cares, rail and station fixtures.
Ownership of the Purple Line will remain with the Maryland DOT and MTA.
The P3 contract allows the state with withhold availability payments if the P3 private concessionaire does not deliver as expected or meet quality standards.
LARAMIE A man accused of striking a child several times with a wooden spoon has denied a felony charge of child abuse.
Joshua David Campbell, 33, pleaded not guilty to the charge last week. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of the crime.
Court documents say Albany County sheriff's deputies responded to Campbell's home in May to conduct a welfare check after social workers reported that a child had bruising from being spanked.
Campbell allegedly told authorities he had spanked the child with a wooden spoon after the child inappropriately touched and hit his sibling.
The child reportedly had multiple bruises or marks on his back.
Authorities found that the child's injuries were "inconsistent with reasonable corporal punishment."
JACKSON A philanthropic partner of Grand Teton National Park is trying to raise money to purchase a square-mile, Wyoming-owned tract of land within the park.
U.S. Department of the Interior officials said half of the money for the $46 million purchase would come from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund. The nonprofit Grand Teton National Park Foundation would provide the balance.
The organization has only a six-month window to raise $23 million. It has raised $5.1 million so far.
The land is a Wyoming trust parcel, which means the cash from its sale would be added to a permanent fund that benefits the state's public schools.
The Minister of Transport and Communications Tshenolo Mabeo this week said his ministry has developed a Broadband strategy in an effort to address poor Internet services in the country.
Addressing parliament this week, Mabeo said this Strategy provides a holistic and coordinated approach to the implementation of the ICTs ecosystem in the country. This strategy has been developed with a view to achieve long term strategic outcomes. The overall vision of the Broadband strategy is to connect every citizen, business, communities to a high speed broadband infrastructure at affordable prices.
Mabeo added that the monitoring of the strategy action plans and deliverables are regularly checked and evaluated. Moreover, he explained that the issue of the quality of Internet service was complex since there were many factors involved. Mabeo said some of these factors included limited data speed and second generation (2G) mobile network, which is widely available through the country. There is also limited coverage of Third generation (3G) and Fourth Generation (4G) mobile networks, which offer a better Internet experience, he said.
Moreover, the Minister added that there was limited access to networks, which connects customer premises to the telecommunication network. Customers (hospitality facilities, residential and other businesses purchase lower data packages and share it among many users. The minister said another reason for this problem is that some Public telecommunications operators and service providers experience congestion in Internet capacity that they have procured from wholesale providers.
In order to keep on monitoring the quality of service to ensure the customer gets value for money the Botswana Communications and Regulatory Authority (BOCRA) has acquired a quality monitoring tool. In addition, Mabeo said operators will use this tool to check the quality of services. BOCRA will also continue with consumer education and awareness on issues of Quality of Services. The minister was responding to questions from the MP for Selebi Phikwe West, Dithapelo Keorapetse who wanted to know whether, Mabeo was aware of concerns over slow and erratic Internet in the country. Furthermore, Keorapetse wanted to know what caused this slow and unreliable Internet and when the issue will be addressed.
LARAMIE Even though thousands of University of Wyoming students have left for the summer, the UW Police Department stays busy.
UW Police Chief Mike Samp said while his officers see fewer alcohol-related crime with students gone, officers get more calls about juveniles.
UW hosts several high school summer camps and schools, and Samp said some of these youths cause trouble on campus.
Samp also said the numerous construction projects on campus also require security.
And the campus still holds summer courses.
But overall, crime reports are down and UW police uses any extra time to conduct training for officers.
CODY Authorities say a southwestern Wyoming woman who drowned in an irrigation canal near Cody may have been trying to rescue her dog.
The Park County Sheriff's Office said in a news release that 26-year-old Christine Fairbourn, of Lyman, was found floating in the canal Saturday night. She was pulled from the water, but efforts to revive her were unsuccessful.
The sheriff's office said guests of a barbecue Fairbourn had attended earlier in the night were the ones who came across her unoccupied vehicle and spotted her body in the canal.
Deputies said Fairbourn had been driving home from the barbecue and that her dog had been running alongside her vehicle.
Authorities found canine and human footprints at the edge of the canal.
The dog had not been located as of Sunday.
Western Cooperative Credit Union, based in Williston, is opening a branch in Tioga.
The new branch will be located in the old business center of the Pinnacle Travel Center.
CEO and President of Western Cooperative Melanie Stillwell said, while they are hopeful the branch will be open by the end of 2016, that will depend on how long design and construction on the branch will take.
We are excited to become a part of the Tioga community and look forward to working with the people in that area, Stillwell said.
Western Cooperative has been considering opening a Tioga branch for years, Stillwell said, and many people in the area are already Western Cooperative members. When the opportunity to house the branch at the Pinnacle opened up, Stillwell said it seemed like a good fit.
Western Cooperative has been in northwestern North Dakota for over 78 years. It has branch locations in Dickinson, Hebron, Beach, Glen Ullin and Ray.
-- Tioga Tribune
MEDORA The possibility of a crude oil-to-gasoline refinery near Theodore Roosevelt National Park took a major step forward Wednesday as the Billings County Commission approved zoning for the location.
The unanimous thumbs-up by the three-man board came after four hours of technical presentations and public testimony, fractured along the line of local control versus preservation of the National Parks ambience.
People who favor it like the 200 good-paying jobs, the $2.7 million in annual property taxes and not being controlled by what they consider outside interest groups. Those who oppose feel it could lead to an industrial complex so huge that the park will be compromised.
Meridian Energy Group wants to build the $900 million, 55,000-barrel-per-day refinery as soon as possible, with groundbreaking this year; but zoning approval is only one of several critical elements that must fall in the companys favor.
Surprising news was the companys revelation that it plans to go after a synthetic minor source air quality permit from the state Health Department. That means it believes it can build the refinery with enough pollution control equipment to prevent it from being in the major source pollution category.
Edward Martinez, president of Zia Engineering and Environmental Meridians design contractor said comparing legacy refineries with this one is like comparing a 1960s Chevy truck with one built today: Its not the same piece of equipment, and its not the same type of plant.
A major pollution source so close to the parks Class I air quality standard under the Clean Air Act would have been a difficult, given how tight the allowable pollution increments are; and its likely the company recognized such a plan would have been dead on arrival.
With this synthetic minor source, they would have major controls on it and these lower emissions would be easier to comply with. If they were a major source that close to the park, I dont think they would get (a permit), said David Glatt, the Health Department's environmental chief. The more effective the controls, the better their chance.
The national park and the Lostwood National Wildlife Refuge have Class I air standards; in North Dakota, all other air falls into the Class II standard.
The air quality permit application, to be submitted late this summer, will require months of review and be open to public comment.
Don Shepherd, who manages air quality issues for the National Park Service, said he was surprised by the companys change of direction to a minor source and by its low projections for some key pollutants. He said the park service will conduct its own air pollution modeling and could declare the refinery permit would create an adverse impact, which would set off its own administrative process.
Martinez said one design aspect thats still not decided is whether the refinerys water will be wet-cooled with a visible plume, or dry-cooled with no plume.
When the commission invited public comment, people spoke for and against the refinery for more than an hour. At least two lamented that the companys choice of location near the park was driving a wedge into public opinion and community relations.
Belfield Public School Superintendent Wade Northrop said the refinery is needed in the area.
Were not a Bismarck or a Mandan," he said. "The park is beautiful, but that doesnt mean we have to stop progress. We need people here.
Former park superintendent Val Naylor, now a consultant, said the park has provided economic benefits for 70 years. She said the refinery and ancillary development could create a corridor of industry leading to the parks entrance.
The park had 600,000 visitors last year and is on track to reach 750,000 this year.
At some point, you reach a tipping point where people just drive on by. We dont want to reach that point," she said.
Commission chairman Jim Arthaud said the national park is near and dear to us, and anyone here who says differently is a hypocrite. But if theres no impact on the park, its hard for me not to support the refinery. Im not going to say there wont be impacts, but I dont think they will be major impacts.
Arthaud led with the motion to approve rezoning for the 740-acre site between Fryburg and Belfield.
The Fine Gael MEP group has today confirmed its opposition to proposals contained in a new EU report, saying it represents a further EU push for tax harmonisation.
Fine Gael MEP Brian Hayes today criticised the final report of the European Parliaments TAX II Committee.
"At a time when the UK government is planning to reduce their corporate tax, it is not in Irelands interest that the European Parliament reheats once again their ambition for corporate tax harmonisation, he said.
That's bad for Ireland, bad for the EU and bad for business certainly.
Brexit has introduced more uncertainty for the Irish economy. We in Ireland need to stay competitive, create new business opportunities and make it clear that our future remains in the EU and in the Eurozone.
We need to remain firm on corporate tax.
"Now is not the time to push for corporate tax consolidation across the EU. Ireland must continue to work within the EU and in the OECD to tackle aggressive tax planning. But that must not mean that we move to a common EU corporate tax rate or consolidation of the EU tax code.
This violates the right of Member States to set their own tax rates; this is a violation of tax sovereignty.
He added: This final tax report includes several harmful positions such as calling for Member States to renegotiate their bilateral tax treaties in favour of EU wide tax treaties.
It recommends the swift introduction of a mandatory CCCTB and calls for Member States to remove differences in their corporate tax systems.
It also calls for a minimum effective taxation clause to be introduced in different Directives; this sets a bad precedent of harmonising tax rates through the back door.
The British Irish Chamber of Commerce has said Ireland and the UK must start thinking now about the deal they will need to continue trading uninterrupted after Brexit.
The organisation's Director General John McGrane has said that any special deal will need the support of the other EU member states.
Trade between Ireland and the UK is worth about 60bn a year and the majority of the North's food exports are to the Republic.
McGrane has said that this healthy trade needs to continue.
Our job as a representative body for business, and the communities they serve, is to help our two governments and their officials to negotiate really well to craft the special deal that is needed between the UK and Ireland because of our unique exposure on the north-western fringes of Europe, said McGrane.
With huge historic ties (between Ireland and the UK) in terms of trade and community, that makes us especially deserving and needful of that special deal.
Meanwhile, Bord Bia has said there is a high level of uncertainty among Irish food and drink exporters after the Brexit vote.
It has said that a lot of the doubt is in relation to the volatility of
Read More:
Bord Bia is briefing exporters today on how they can build on relationships to ensure that the UK remains a key market.
Head of Markets Padraig Brennan has said it would be very difficult to find another country to take 41% of our exports.
The reality is in a lot of categories the UK is not self-sufficient in meat or in diary products, said Brennan.
There is an opportunity there all the time in terms of fulfilling their import requirement. The demand from an Irish point of view is to make sure were in a position to be able to do that and compete in that market on an ongoing basis.
We've never seen a drone used quite like this before.
Cillian Irish of Irish Droneworks recently used his DJI Phantom to rescue a girl who had gotten herself locked in a bathroom - and recorded the aerial operation for posterity.
A Dublin Airport taxi driver has been fined 250 after he was found guilty of failing to take an accountant on the shortest route to his home in Blackrock.
Barry Burns (aged 42) of Bath Road, Balbriggan, Co Dublin, had pleaded not guilty to a taxi regulation charge of not driving as directed by his passenger.
Mr John Conroy told the court that he travelled a lot for work and he gets a taxi from the airport to his home in Blackrock in south Dublin.
He always asked to be taken via the M1 and the fare home was 35 every time, he told Judge Miriam Walsh at Dublin District Court.
However, he claimed, on March 20 last year when he left arrivals and went to take a taxi, the driver, Burns, told him the M1 was closed and did I see the screen in the airport?.
Mr Conroy claimed Burns told him he would have to take an alternative route that would cost 10 or 15 more.
Mr Conroy said he used his phone to search the internet to see if the M1 was blocked while the driver asked him should he go via Finglas or the M50.
He said the driver was talking to him about where he worked and that I would be able to claim the expense in any case.
He said he told him wanted to go via the M1 and claimed the driver told him the M50 would be quickest.
He said he felt under pressure to agree and he put his headphones on because he didn't want to speak to the driver any more.
The witness alleged that when he arrived at his home the fare was 64.40 and he did not have enough so he had to go into his house to money from his father.
He said the driver provided a receipt, which was submitted as evidence and stated M1 closed due to accident.
In cross-examination he told the defence barrister he didn't complain to the driver because the whole atmosphere was not pleasant, that is the way I go, through the tunnel, I felt under pressure, adding, I said: 'Fine, go the M50'.
Mr Conroy rejected claims that Mr Burns took the Leopardstown exit and he said he left the motorway at the Dundrum exit.
He said that during the journey he tried to search the internet to see if the the M1 was blocked but his phone was too slow. When he got home his mother called gardai to check.
I wanted to go the M1 and I was told there was an accident and it was blocked, that was not the case, he said adding he was 100% sure he told the driver he route he wanted.
Mr Burns rejected the allegations and said he let Mr Conroy choose the route. He denied mentioning that there were screens in the airport with traffic information.
He recalled that traffic was heavy and claimed he told Conroy there must have been an accident somewhere and the passenger said he wanted to get home quick.
He agreed with Garda Sgt Michael Higgins there was a quicker alternative route but he claimed the passenger picked the way to go. He also claimed he and Mr Conroy chatted throughout the journey.
He denied that he had issued the receipt shown to court saying it had no identification information and he said the signature was not his.
He agreed that in a statement to Gda Sgt Higgins he said the fare was 64 but he just accepted 60.
In his evidence in court he said that he told Conroy he would take 55 for the run but was given 60.
Judge Walsh said it may be a difference of just a fiver but it was a discrepancy and she found him guilty. The trial heard no evidence of any accident on the M1.
Fining him Judge Walsh noted Burns, who has been a taxi driver for 10 years, had no prior criminal convictions.
She also ordered him to pay 130 in witness expenses.
The Mandan City Commission on Tuesday delayed until January its decision on whether to strike, keep or modify a two-year tax break for the first $75,000 value of a new home or condo.
Commissioners have discussed dropping the incentive because they are faced with declining state funds, but there was a new slate of elected officials considering the exemption.
Mayor Tim Helbling, elected to take the office he left four years ago, said he wanted to wait a few months before making a decision. "We need to get a look at the big picture, not just one thing," he said.
"A lot of my friends used this," he said.
Commissioner Shauna Laber, who first said, "I look at it as a subsidy," said the city should wait until the 2017 budget is decided. She made the motion to wait until January.
Commissioner Mike Braun, who was re-elected, said the new home tax incentive helped him buy a home.
Newly elected Commissioner Scott Davis, who favored affordable housing in his platform, said he supported anything that grew the population, but agreed that the matter needed more study. "I want to see where our budgets are at. ... Anything we can do to move people to Mandan, I am all for that," Davis said.
Dot Frank, executive officer of the Bismarck-Mandan Home Builders Association, said the group backs the exemption because it helps make housing affordable.
"I think it's relevant more than ever," she said. "Pricing can be prohibitive to a homeowner. Any savings they can get to a buyer can help a buyer get into a home."
Frank said it is difficult to track whether more people built homes in Mandan because of the housing tax break.
However, our builders have noted that when deciding where to build or buy new construction, some buyers have been influenced by the tax savings Mandan offers, she said.
Data from the National Association of Home Builders show for every $1,000 increase in cost in North Dakota, 600 more potential buyers get priced out, Frank said.
State law allows the tax break to cap at $150,000. Mandan has made the property tax break of $75,000 available since the early 1990s, Frank said.
"Back then, it was a nearly a full tax exemption on the house based on prices then," said Frank.
According to City Administrator Jim Neubauer, based on the 2015 mill levy and the current 204 active exemptions, the city could receive $46,000 more for its general fund if the tax break ceased. The total property tax revenue increase for all tax entities (school, county, parks and city) would total more than $192,608 per year.
Morton County and Bismarck do not offer the tax break.
Lincoln dropped its $75,000 property tax exemption in 2014 because council members said the growing city didn't need it as a building incentive. All home property values have since returned to the property tax rolls.
Burleigh County increased its tax break to first-time home builders only, raising the cap from $75,000 to $150,000 if a homebuyer participates in the First-Time Homebuyers Program.
County Tax Director Allan Vietmeier said few rural homeowners have participated in Burleigh's incentive because rural lot costs often make housing costs exceed the first-time buyers program limits.
Fianna Fail has denied they are opposing water charges to make them more popular with the public.
The party's spokesman on local government Barry Cowen has rejected claims that they have done a U-turn on the issue.
Details of heartbreaking notes left for Jim Carrey by his Irish ex-girlfriend before she took her own life have emerged, as a coroner ruled her death was suicide.
The body of the Tipperary make-up artist Cathriona White, 30, was discovered at her home in Los Angeles in September.
A report by the Los Angeles county coroner's office found she died after taking a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs.
Ms White and Carrey had broken up a week before her death and she left two notes for the Hollywood star in which she said she was "just not for this world", the report stated.
"I've spent 3 days now in disbelief that you're not here," she wrote.
"I can go on broken-hearted and try to put the pieces back. I could, I just don't have the will this time.
'I'm sorry you felt I wasn't there for you. I tried to give you my best part."
Ms White signed off the note, which was found in a sealed envelope, with the word "Dewdrop", the report said.
A second note, also written to "Jim", asked for "his people" to sell her belongings and give the money to her family.
"'I don't really know about burial or that sort of thing. You are my family so whatever you choose will be fine," she wrote.
"Please forgive me. I'm just not for this world."
Ms White was discovered by two of her friends and Carrey's personal assistant Nicole Montez on September 28 after they went to her home to check on her.
According to the report, Carrey had sent a text message to Ms White a day before her body was found asking where his painkillers had gone from under his sink.
It is understood Carrey was referring to the prescription drugs Ambien, Percocet and Propranolol , made out to the name "Arthur King", which were found at Ms White's home, the report said.
Ms White's cause of death was given as "multiple drug effects" after a toxicology report discovered propranolol, zolpidem, oxycodone and oxymorphone in her system.
The last activity on Ms White's phone was a three-minute FaceTime call with Carrey four days before she was found, the coroner said.
Her friend Dennis Bradshaw told investigators she was "happy and upbeat" but would get "really down" and her friends would not hear from her for a while.
Ms White told Mr Bradshaw she was missing her family in Ireland and she was "madly in love with Jim" but their relationship was a "rollercoaster", he said.
"She tied her identity to him and if she felt he (Jim) was slipping away, she would become depressed," the report said.
Carrey was "reclusive" due to his celebrity status and Ms White would often stay at his home, Mr Bradshaw told investigators.
Another friend, Jenny Burpee, said Carrey had first "unexpectedly" broken up with Ms White in 2013 and she had "not eaten or slept for a year afterwards".
Ms Burpee said she believed Ms White had previously taken an overdose of pills around two years earlier.
Carrey carried the coffin at Ms White's funeral in the village of Cappawhite, Co Tipperary, in October as she was laid to rest beside her late father.
The actor described Ms White's death as like being "hit with a lightning bolt".
Ms White had moved to Los Angeles in 2009 and took roles as an extra on television before working behind the scenes.
The report states that Mark Burton confirmed he and Ms White were legally married at the time of her death.
Update 6.32pm: The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has expressed deep concern after the decision by the HSE to transfer patients out of St Vincents Care Centre in Athlone.
Management have cited health and safety reasons for this decision, indicating that there is an unsafe electrical fire risk involved.
While the provision of safe care is of primacy, we are greatly concerned that a decision was made to move residents at short notice, said INMO Industrial Relations Officer, Anne Burke.
We will be meeting HSE management at the earliest opportunity, where a number of issues will be put, and seeking confirmation that the closure of the centre is only temporary, and that St Vincents will reopen in the shortest possible time.
It would have been appropriate for HSE management to contact the INMO in advance of this in order to arrange appropriate contingencies for all patients and staff, and it is a matter of grave concern that they failed to do so.
INMO will be demanding concrete evidence that such a dramatic disruption to the lives of residents and staff was absolutely necessary when we meet management. This meeting must happen as a matter of urgency.
An INMO members meeting has been arranged for tomorrow evening, and the INMO are scheduling a meeting with management at the earliest possible time.
SIPTU has written to the Health Service Executive (HSE), seeking confirmation of the re-opening date for the centre.
The management of the HSE must provide clear and unequivocal assurances that this is a temporary measure and that it will seek to ensure there is a minimal impact on the residents, their families and the staff providing this vital public service, said SIPTU Health Division organiser, Paul Bell.
The resources for the refurbishment of the facility must be made available as a matter of priority by the Minister of State with responsibility for Older People, Helen McEntee.
The extra staff required to carry out the transfer of these vulnerable residents must be deployed immediately and the residents families provided with certainty concerning the date that their loved ones can return home to St Vincent's.
Earlier:
Residents at St Vincents Care Centre in Athlone are being transferred to alternative accommodation after an electrical report revealed a number of risks.
Minister of State for Mental Health and Older People Helen McEntee confirmed the move today, which will take place on a phased basis over the next couple of days.
The Minister has been reassured by the HSE that this is a temporary measure and that the necessary mitigating actions are being taken including the deployment of extra staff for the duration of the transfer.
Communication with residents and staff began yesterday evening and will continue through the process.
St Vincents Care Centre will re-open as soon as possible once the necessary refurbishment works are completed.
Dublin's latest gangland shooting victim remains in a critical condition in hospital this morning.
The man, named locally as 38-year-old Christopher Maguire, was sitting in a car outside his home on the Dun Emer housing estate in Lusk when he was shot five times yesterday.
He has been linked to the ongoing Kinahan-Hutch feud, which has claimed multiple lives since Christmas.
Gardai are appealing for information on two cars.
One of which was found at the scene and another, thought to be the getaway car, which was burnt out nearby.
Third-level colleges have begun filling courses for the autumn as the first of the record 80,400 applicants receive offers this morning, writes Niall Murray, Irish Examiner Education Correspondent .
The Central Applications Office has offered 6,398 people places on college courses this morning.
While Leaving Certificate students and most others must await their results on August 17, before the main CAO activity, these Round A offers are made each year to applicants from a small number of categories.
They include those who may need to make visa or other arrangements before taking up a college place in Ireland. Course places are also being offered to some people who had deferred a college place they had been offered last year, or some mature applicants.
The CAO has also begun filling nursing and midwifery courses on which places are reserved for mature applicants, aged 23 or over.
Nearly 4,800 of those getting an offer this morning now have a week to accept a place on an honours degree (level 8), while over 2,821 offers are to take part in ordinary degree or higher certificate (level 7 or 6) courses. For 1,215 people, there is a choice to be made from either a level 8 or level 7/6 programme to which they successfully applied.
The offers, available from 6am, have to be accepted by next Wednesday, July 13, at 5.15pm.
This time last year, 8,243 offers were issued to 6,900 people at the same stage, and just under 5,200 of them had taken up an offer by the deadline.
On Thursday, August 4, CAO will make further offers to additional mature applicants, deferred and access applicants, as well as those seeking entry to medical degrees as postgraduates, or who have applied based on further education to courses with places reserved for holders of such qualifications.
In 2015, that early August round added around 1,800 people offered third-level places, and resulted in over 7,000 of the 47,000 places eventually filled by the CAO being taken up before school leavers applications were considered.
Before those stages commence, students or aspiring students who may require grant support have been reminded to apply by this Friday.
Anybody who does so after that could face delays in decisions and payments later in the year.
Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) has already received 80,000 of the 110,000 applications it expects to assess for the forthcoming academic year.
While it will continue to accept applications after Friday, those received before the deadline will get priority as the grant-processing work continues over the coming months.
Around 10,000 applications have come in over the past week, with students and their families being reminded they can submit their details before knowing whether they have a course, or which college they will be attending.
On this basis, SUSI has already approved 39,000 students for grants in 2016/17, most of them applicants who have sought to renew payments for which they were already qualified last year.
However, under new procedures in place this year, the grants body can provisionally allocate a grant to applicants based on the course they have identified on their application.
The details can be amended later if a student ends up registering on a different course.
Using this revised system, 10,000 students who were not in receipt of SUSI support over the past year have been approved. Around 2,000 of those approvals have been made in the last week alone.
Martin McGuinness has said that Sinn Fein will veto Brexit if the party can find a legal method to do so.
The North's Deputy First Minister said that the British Government does not care about people in Northern Ireland.
A selection team will be sent to Lebanon to select an additional 260 refugees under the Refugee Resettlement Programme, Tanaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality, Frances Fitzgerald confirmed today.
"I am pleased to confirm that the Refugee Resettlement Strand of the Programme has seen significant progress," the Tanaiste said.
"Two hundred and seventy three refugees have already arrived from Lebanon and the remainder of the 520 refugees we committed to resettle in Ireland in 2016 will be here by the autumn.
"This is in advance of the EU deadline and clearly demonstrates Irelands continued proactive approach to resolving this unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
"Yesterday I informed the Government of my decision to send a further mission to Lebanon in the autumn to select an additional 260 refugees to be admitted in Spring 2017."
The decision by the Tanaiste to increase the number of refugees to arrive in Ireland under the Resettlement Strand of the IRPP takes account of the slower than anticipated arrival of asylum seekers from Greece and Italy as a result of administrative issues in those countries.
"My decision reflects the Government's commitment to welcome vulnerable refugees fleeing war and conflict and is another positive step towards delivering on Ireland's overall commitment to accept 4,000 persons," she said.
"Once in Ireland, these refugees will have access to vital health and education services. Our focus will be on helping them to rebuild their lives here in Ireland."
She added: "A further 28 Syrians arrived in Ireland in the last couple of weeks under relocation from Greece.
"I am aware that progress regarding the relocation of persons from Italy and Greece has been slower than we would have wanted but this should not be taken as any diminution of our commitment to delivering on this part of the programme.
"The delay has been largely outside of our control and my officials have been working closely with their Greek and Italian counterparts on this issue.
"The Greek authorities have now agreed that they will double the numbers available for transfer to Ireland to 40 persons every four weeks with the prospect of this number increasing further later in the year. In effect this means that the relocation strand will now be fully operational."
Police have been questioning family members of five attackers who stormed an upmarket restaurant in Bangladesh, killing police officers and hostages.
The incident in Dhaka's diplomatic zone over the weekend resulted in the five attackers being fatally shot by security forces, a police officer said.
The officer said parents and relatives of the five men were questioned on yesterday and some again today.
The officer also said authorities have freed three of five former hostages they had been holding for questioning. Authorities were looking into the backgrounds of these people and questioning their families and friends.
Police have eight people in custody, including one described as an attacker, but no one has been arrested as a suspect.
Two police officers and 20 hostages - nine Italians, seven Japanese, an Indian and three students at American universities - were killed.
Thirteen hostages were rescued when security forces stormed the restaurant on Saturday morning. Authorities said security forces, civilians and some hostages were injured.
Meanwhile, Imtiaz Khan Babul, a politician in the ruling Awami League party whose son Rohan Imtiaz was one of the Bangladeshi attackers, said many other young Bangladeshi men have been missing like his son was for several months before carrying out the attack.
Mr Babul said the missing men are from educated families and are sons of serving and retired government employees.
He urged the government to take these cases seriously and give them importance.
"Those who have recruited them have done it with a target," said Mr Babul, referring to their family backgrounds.
"Their (parents) are not speaking to the media, fearing their sons might be killed, leaving them in great torment."
He said his son had not changed his behaviour notably or become more religious before he went missing in December.
"It did not happen that all of a sudden he changed himself. He did not start going to the mosque suddenly," he said.
He noted that his son's room was not isolated but was near the rooms of the rest of his family.
"We often visited his room, but did not find any (religious) books. We did not see any souvenirs, magazines or related Islamic books," he said.
Mr Babul said of his son's participation in the attack: "It is very shameful for us - it's humiliating, disparaging and sad.
"It's painful and embarrassing. I am a forlorn father, a failed father. I seek pardon to all through you ... seek pardon to the nation."
The hostage siege was the worst recent militant attack in Bangladesh.
Previous killings were carried out by young men wielding cleavers and machetes and targeting atheists and other individuals accused of being enemies of Islam.
The escalation has raised global concerns about whether the South Asian country can cope with increasingly strident Islamist militants.
Bangladesh police have said they are investigating whether the attackers had links to the Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility.
However, the government has blamed domestic militant organizations bent on imposing Islamic rule.
Former UK prime minister Tony Blair his insisted his decision to commit British forces to the invasion of Iraq was taken "in good faith" but he would "take full responsibility for any mistakes".
Mr Blair was severely criticised by
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He added that his decisions were taken "in what I believed to be the best interests of the country" and added that he still believed "it was better to remove Saddam Hussein".
Chilcot's report said the circumstances in which Mr Blair and Attorney General Lord Goldsmith decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action in Iraq were "far from satisfactory".
He also said there was "no imminent threat" from Saddam at the time of the invasion and the intelligence about his weapons of mass destruction was "flawed".
But Mr Blair said the report found there was "no falsification or improper use of intelligence", "no deception of Cabinet" and "no secret commitment to war" was given to US President George Bush.
He said the report "does not make a finding on the legal basis for military action but finds that the attorney general had concluded there was such a lawful basis" by March 13 2003.
Mr Blair said: "The report should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit. Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein; I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country."
He acknowledged the Chilcot report made "real and material criticisms" of "preparation, planning, process and of the relationship with the United States".
Mr Blair, who will set out a full response to the report later, said: "I will take full responsibility for any mistakes without exception or excuse.
"I will at the same time say why, nonetheless, I believe that it was better to remove Saddam Hussein and why I do not believe this is the cause of the terrorism we see today whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world.
"Above all I will pay tribute to our armed forces. I will express my profound regret at the loss of life and the grief it has caused the families, and I will set out the lessons I believe future leaders can learn from my experience."
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Four months after James "Tony" Scott was fatally shot by a Bismarck police officer, the investigation into the use of force is ongoing.
The Bismarck police chief and the Burleigh County state's attorney said they do not know when the investigation will wrap up.
The North Dakota Attorney General's office, which is responsible for the investigation and review of potential charges against the officer, declined to comment on the status of either.
"I haven't heard anything," said Burleigh County State's Attorney Richard Riha.
On March 6, a Bismarck officer fired his gun at Scott after he allegedly threatened a man with a shotgun. Scott left the shotgun inside a building before he ran, though police might not have known he was unarmed at the time.
It's very difficult to have that sitting out there," Bismarck Police Chief Dan Donlin said of the unfinished investigation Friday.
The officer involved, whose name has been withheld for the course of the investigation, is on restricted duty within the police station, Donlin said.
"Thats another spot that we dont have in the field doing the job that needs to get done," he said. "But we want to make sure they do a thorough job."
The March incident was the third officer-involved shooting of the year. The other two cases were resolved with no charges filed against the officers.
The first investigation concluded after about three months. The second was wrapped up in about two and a half.
"I'd just like to know why they're sitting on it for so long," said Jamie Scott, the wife of Tony Scott.
She said she is taking life "a day at a time."
Unable to afford their Mandan home on her own, she has moved to a small apartment in Bismarck. But she said she is moving out of state once the investigation is completed. She's gotten a lot of criticism and unwelcome feedback from people in the area.
"I want to start over," she said.
The long-awaited official report into Britain's involvement in the Iraq War has delivered a scathing verdict on UK government ministers' justification, planning and conduct of a military intervention which "went badly wrong, with consequences to this day".
The inquiry panel agreed unanimously that, while military action in Iraq "might have been necessary at some point", at the time the invasion was launched, there was "no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein", "the strategy of containment could have been adapted and continued for some time" and "the majority of the Security Council supported continuing UN inspections and monitoring".
Former British prime minister Tony Blair presented the case for war in 2003 with "a certainty which was not justified" based on "flawed" intelligence about the country's supposed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) which was not challenged as it should have been, found report author John Chilcot.
John Chilcot speaking at the QEII Centre in London where he presented his inquiry's report into the Iraq War. Picture: PA.
Unveiling his 2.6 million-word report into the UK's most controversial military engagement since the end of the Second World War, Chilcot said: "We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort.
"We have also concluded that the judgments about the severity of the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction - WMD - were presented with a certainty that was not justified.
"Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were under-estimated. The planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam Hussein were wholly inadequate. The government failed to achieve its stated objectives."
Chilcot said Mr Blair was wrong to claim that the risks of instability following the invasion could not have been known in advance.
Although he made no judgment on whether military action was legal, Chilcot's seven-year inquiry found that UK Attorney General Lord Goldsmith's decision that there was a legal basis for UK involvement in the US-led invasion was taken in a way which was "far from satisfactory".
The report does not support the claims of Blair critics that the former UK prime minister agreed a deal "signed in blood" to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein when he met George Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002.
But it reveals that in July that year - eight months before UK Parliament approved military action - Mr Blair committed himself in writing to backing the US President over Iraq, telling him: "I will be with you whatever."
The report found that the use of force to remove Saddam was undertaken at a time when he posed "no imminent threat" and in a way which undermined the authority of the United Nations Security Council.
The risks of a hastily-prepared military mission to invade and occupy four provinces of southern Iraq were not properly identified, leading to shortfalls in key equipment such as helicopters and surveillance gear.
Britains ministry of defence was "slow" to respond to the threat from insurgents' roadside bombs, resulting in delays in the supply of armoured vehicles to protect troops which "should not have been tolerated".
And the Blair Government's "wholly inadequate" preparations for the aftermath of war "failed to take account of the magnitude of the task of stabilising, administering and reconstructing Iraq".
Mr Blair himself over-estimated his ability to influence US policy at a time when ministers were aware of the "inadequacy" of Washington's plans.
The report acknowledged that the initial campaign to overthrow Saddam was successful and praised the "great courage" of service personnel and civilians involved during and after the invasion, which led to the deaths of more than 200 UK nationals and at least 150,000 Iraqis.
But it found that Britain's military role "ended a very long way from success" and it was "humiliating" that the UK was reduced to doing deals with a local militia group in Basra, releasing captured militants in return for an end to attacks on British forces.
The report was critical of intelligence agencies, which were working with an "ingrained belief" that Saddam retained chemical and biological warfare capabilities which he was hiding from UN inspectors and that he was determined to acquire nuclear weapons.
The UKs Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) should have made clear to Mr Blair that its suspicions about WMD had not been established "beyond doubt" prior to his publication in September 2002 of a dossier setting out the supposed threat from Saddam, Chilcot found.
As late as March 17 2003 - three days before the invasion began - JIC chairman John Scarlett continued to advise the PM that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and the means to deploy them.
But Chilcot said: "It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged, and they should have been."
The findings of the 2004 Iraq Survey Group into Iraq's WMD capabilities were "significant" but did not support pre-invasion statements by Mr Blair and then foreign secretary Jack Straw, which warned of vast stocks of weapons and an urgent and growing threat.
Mr Blair's response that Saddam retained "the intent and the capability" to develop and use WMD did not match the justification for military action given before the conflict, said Chilcot.
The report found that Mr Blair urged Mr Bush in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks in 2001 not to take "hasty" action against Iraq.
But it said by the time of the Crawford meeting, there had been a "profound change" in his thinking, with the UK government stating openly that Iraq was a threat that had to be dealt with, and the JIC privately concluding that Saddam could not be removed without an invasion.
The British government's insistence that Iraq must disarm or be disarmed implied the readiness to use force if Baghdad did not comply, and contingency planning for an invasion had indeed begun, the report found.
In his July 28 letter, Mr Blair told Mr Bush that a coalition for military action would be dependent on the authority of the UN, and a resolution was passed by the Security Council in November 2002 giving Iraq a final opportunity to disarm to avert war.
But Chilcot found that by December, Mr Bush had decided military action would take place anyway in early 2003 - a timetable which Mr Blair accepted at the end of January.
Although Mr Blair and Mr Straw subsequently blamed France for the failure to secure a resolution backing war and claimed to be acting to uphold the authority of the Security Council, the report found that "in the absence of a majority in support of military action, we consider that the UK was in fact undermining the Security Council's authority".
The circumstances under which Lord Goldsmith provided a legal justification for UK involvement were "far from satisfactory", the report found.
Having initially advised Mr Blair in January 2003 that a second UN resolution was necessary, he later produced written advice that there was a "reasonable case" that the November resolution alone was sufficient.
On March 14, he asked Mr Blair to confirm that Iraq had breached the terms of the first resolution, which required Baghdad to provide access to UN weapons inspectors.
The precise basis on which Mr Blair gave that crucial confirmation "is not clear", said the report, which added that the issue should have been discussed by Britains cabinet.
The report dismissed Mr Blair's argument that the emergence following Saddam's fall of a violent insurgency against occupying allied forces could not have been foreseen.
"We do not agree that hindsight is required," stated Chilcot. "The risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability and al Qaida activity in Iraq were each explicitly identified before the invasion."
Mr Blair "did not establish clear ministerial oversight of UK planning and preparation, he did not ensure that there was a flexible, realistic and fully-resourced plan that integrated UK military and civilian contributions and addressed the known risks".
Volumes of the Iraq Inquiry Report due to be presented by John Chilcot at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster, London. Picture: PA.
Chilcot acknowledged the "deep anguish" of the families of those killed and injured in Iraq, many of whom were present in London to read his report for themselves.
And he said the people of Iraq had "suffered greatly" from the failure to deliver on the vision of a peaceful, secure and democratic Iraq set out by the US and its allies in the eve-of-war summit in the Azores. At least 150,000 and probably many more had died, and one million had been forced from their homes.
The UK took responsibility for south-eastern Iraq without a formal ministerial decision and "without ensuring that it had the necessary military and civilian capabilities to discharge its obligations, including, crucially, to provide security", found Chilcot.
"The scale of the UK effort in post-conflict Iraq never matched the scale of the challenge. Whitehall departments and their ministers failed to put collective weight behind the task. In practice, the UK's most consistent strategic objective in relation to Iraq was to reduce the level of its deployed forces."
The MoD was slow in responding to the threat from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) used by insurgents to inflict multiple casualties on occupying forces.
And from 2006, when UK troops were deployed in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, the armed forces were conducting two campaigns without "sufficient resources" to do so.
Decisions on resources for Iraq were affected by the demands of the operation in Afghanistan, with a "material impact" on the availability of essential kit like helicopters and surveillance equipment.
John Chilcot has unveiled his scathing report into the Iraq war.
UK ministers from former British prime minister Tony Blair downwards, Whitehall mandarins and senior army officers all came in for criticism in Chilcot's
Donald Trump has again praised former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's ruthlessness, saying he killed terrorists "so good".
The Republican presidential candidate was speaking in North Carolina when he discussed the former Iraqi leader.
Donald Trump has praised the late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's ruthlessness.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who frequently criticizes US foreign policy under President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said: "Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? ... But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good."
Mr Trump made the statement to supporters at a campaign rally last night in Raleigh, North Carolina.
He told his audience: "They didn't read 'em the rights, they didn't talk. They were a terrorist, it was over."
Mr Trump has previously said the world would be "100% better" if dictators like Saddam and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi were still in power.
Prior to the US invasion, Iraq was listed by the US as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Saddam suppressed dissent in his country and used poison gas against 5,000 Iraqi Kurds.
Jake Sullivan, a Clinton senior policy adviser, said Mr Trump's "praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds."
Mr Sullivan said such comments "demonstrate how dangerous he would be as commander-in-chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks."
Mr Trump's foreign policy pronouncements have proved controversial, even within the Republican Party.
He has said the United States is too fully engaged around the world, has questioned the role of Nato and said the United States has been taken advantage of by nations benefiting from its security cooperation and troop presence.
Some critics within the party have said his policies suggest an isolationist stance in an increasingly dangerous world.
Italian authorities have arrested 11 people in a probe of corruption linked to the Sicilian Mafia and construction contracts for Milan's Expo 15 fair.
Milan Judge Maria Cristina Mannocci wrote that company administrators, consultants and accountants closed their eyes to corruption and mob links relating to the fair that was a point of pride for premier Matteo Renzi.
Prosecutors told reporters in Milan they seized 5m in assets, including 400,000 in cash found in a truck travelling from the Milan area to Sicily.
Anti-Mafia prosecutors allege that the cash was being laundered.
Among the alleged crimes are false bookkeeping, tax evasion, money-laundering, embezzlement and, for two of the arrested suspects, helping Cosa Nostra.
According to prosecutors, false expense receipts were issued to cover illicitly gained cash in need of laundering.
Prosecutor Francesco Greco said much of the money was laundered abroad, and an investigation of that angle was still ongoing.
Authorities suspect corruption tainted the awarding of some sub-contracts for the construction of some Expo pavilions.
Prosecutors have warned for years that mobsters from the Calabria-based 'Ndrangheta syndicate are infiltrating businesses in northern Italy, the country's industrial and financial heartland.
Milan prosecutor Ilda Boccassini said this probe also revealed that the Sicilian Mafia, known as Cosa Nostra, was active in the north. Investigators cited suspects' intercepted phone conversations.
She stressed that investigators found no wrongdoing by top administrators of Expo's or Milan's industrial fair organization.
In an unrelated scandal in Rome, opposition party leaders in Parliament demanded the resignation of interior minister Angelino Alfano, whose centrist party belongs to Mr Renzi's governing coalition.
Mr Alfano's father is reportedly involved in a probe of alleged kickbacks, embezzlement and favouritism in hiring for Italy's postal agency.
Update 9.35am Oscar Pistorius has been sentenced to six years in prison for the murder of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Pistorius stood and faced Judge Thokozile Masipa as she announced the sentence in a Pretoria courtroom.
He was facing a possible 15-year jail term for shooting Steenkamp through a toilet cubicle door at his home in 2013, but Judge Masipa said substantial and compelling circumstances existed to give him a lesser sentence.
Pistorius was initially convicted of manslaughter in 2014 and served one year in prison. An appeals court then overturned that decision and convicted him of murder.
Steenkamp's parents, Barry and June, were in the courtroom, which was packed with relatives of both Pistorius and Steenkamp and other observers.
In reading out the sentence, Judge Masipa said Pistorius was a "fallen hero".
Judge Masipa agreed that Pistorius should not be judged as the man who won gold medals but as the vulnerable man without prostheses.
Pistorius the Paralympian and Pistorius without his legs were two different persons and ignoring this fact would lead to an injustice, said the judge.
The judge ordered a recess to give prosecutors and Pistorius's defence lawyers time to decide if either wanted to appeal against the sentence.
Update 9.25am Judge Masipa has said that Oscar Pistorius is good candidate for rehabilitation.
However, she added the rehabilitation programmes may not be sufficient now that Pistorius conviction has been upgraded to murder, as he completed them while serving his sentence for culpable homicide.
Update 9.15am The judge has found there are mitigating circumstances in the case, which will see Oscar Pistorius get a sentence of less than the standard 15-year minimum for murder.
Judge Masipa said that in her judgement, Pistorius was "genuinely remorseful" for Reeva's killing.
She said she disagreed with the State's contention that he showed no remorse.
The judge said he apologised in court, having previously and unsuccessfully trying to contact the Steenkamp family privately, more than once.
She interprets this as undermining any notion that he apologised as a ploy, and said he would only persist in his efforts to apologise to the family because he was genuinely remorseful.
Judge Masipa has said public indignation must be based on facts, she says wrong perceptions exist in this case and the court to must correct it to prevent unjustified outrage from the public.
Earlier Oscar Pistorius will be sentenced for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp today.
The athlete shot Steenkamp on Valentine's Day three years ago, however he argues that had mistaken her for an intruder.
He has already served a year behind bars for culpable homicide - but South Africa's Supreme Court upgraded his conviction.
Steenkamps father Barry spoke in court last month, and believes Pistorius should go back to jail.
Its been very difficult for me to forgive, said Mr Steenkamp at the time.
But, I feel the same that Oscar has to pay for what he did.
Families of some of the 179 Britons killed during the Iraq war have been reacting after the long-awaited report into the conflict was published today.
Several grieving mothers, fathers, partners and other family members streamed into the Queen Elizabeth II centre in London where they were given an early glimpse of the 2.6 million-word, 12-volume tome.
In it, report author John Chilcot criticised Tony Blair - the British Prime Minister in 2003 who presented the case for war and led the invasion - for committing to backing US counterpart George W Bush over Iraq.
It also criticised British government ministers' justification for, planning and conduct of a military intervention which "went badly wrong, with consequences to this day".
Several military operations were described in the report as "hastily prepared" and led to equipment shortages for British personnel - an issue which several victims' families have long campaigned over.
However, the report stopped short of making a judgement on the legality of the war.
Eddie Hancock, from Wigan, whose 19-year-old son Jamie Hancock was a kingsman with the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment when he was killed in Basra in 2006, said: "First of all, Chilcot's report ... he's done exactly as he said he would - it wasn't a whitewash by any means. He's fulfilled the promises that he made in 2009.
Eddie Hancock from Wigan, whose 19yo son Jamie was killed in Basra in 2006. His #Chilcot reaction here: pic.twitter.com/nEkINNJzYc Ryan Hooper (@RyanJHooper) July 6, 2016
"Obviously, some people will never be happy unless there's a rope there.
"But, what he has actually said is that (Tony) Blair undermined the United Nations.
"Now, if somebody does that, you would think that the act was illegal. He's also misled parliament, he's fabricated facts and misrepresented them.
"I hope and I would like to call on all politicians in this country that for the grievous damage this man has inflicted on this nation, on its armed forces, that he be banned from any form of public office for life. At the very least."
The parents of Alec MacLachlan from Llanelli, who served in Iraq and returned to the country as a private security guard in 2006 where he was kidnapped and killed, said it was clear from the report that Mr Blair was "George Bush's poodle".
As he left the QEII centre, father Peter MacLachlan told the Press Association: "The report was very factual. And it didn't hold anything back."
He said he did not think the war was based on a lie but added "in the future they should think of the consequences for a lot longer".
Ronnie Barker, whose son, Private Lee Ellis, died in 2006, said she broke down in tears when reading the report.
Pte Ellis was 23 when he was killed by a roadside bomb along with Captain Richard John Holmes when a home-made bomb exploded under their vehicle.
Ms Barker said the report found the vehicle he was travelling in was "not fit for purpose".
She said: "We went in thinking it was going to be a whitewash but I actually cried."
Asked what she wanted to happen next, Ms Barker said she "would like to see Tony Blair sent to court".
Roger Bacon's son, Major Matthew Bacon, died when a roadside bomb exploded, hitting the vehicle he was travelling in, near Basra.
He said: "Never again must so many mistakes be allowed to sacrifice British lives and lead to the destruction of a country for no positive end.
"We were proud when our husbands, sons and daughters signed up to serve our country. But we cannot be proud of the way our government has treated them.
"We must use this report to make sure that all parts of the Iraq War fiasco are never repeated again. Neither in a theatre of war, nor in the theatre of Whitehall.
"We call on the British Government immediately to follow up Sir John's findings to ensure that the political process by which our country decides to go to war is never again twisted and confused with no liability for such actions."
The families' lawyer, Matthew Jury, said: "The families have waited a long time for today to come. They have acted with patience, courage and dignity throughout this entire process."
Lawyer Matthew Jury says three hours is not long enough for families to take in 2.6m words of #Chilcot report https://t.co/QXaMjBX41Z Sky News (@SkyNews) July 6, 2016
He added: "In the coming days and weeks, the families will undertake a full and forensic review of the report's content and conclusions.
"If state officials are determined to have acted unlawfully or in excess of their powers then the families will then decide on whether to take any necessary and appropriate action at the proper time. All options will be considered.
"Just as importantly, as well as examining the culpability of individual state officials, we must also look at the process that led to the war so that we never make such grave mistakes with such tragic long-term and far-reaching consequences again."
Nine men have been jailed after a teenager in local authority care was subjected to a "horrifying" catalogue of sexual abuse, some of which was streamed live on the internet.
Alan Priest, 63, was jailed for life and eight other men received sentences ranging from 11 to three years for offences against the boy, who was "sold like goods" in Birmingham's red light area during 2009 and 2010.
A three-month trial at Warwick Crown Court also heard that the teenager was stripped, beaten with a stick, and raped by two of the defendants.
Passing sentence on the boy's abusers, Judge Sylvia de Bertadano told the defendants: "Each of you in your own way exploited this vulnerable boy.
"Therefore you are each partly responsible for his situation as a young man who is struggling to get his life back together and finds himself unable to escape from the legacy you have left him."
The victim, who complained to West Midlands Police in 2009 and 2010, had been let down by the authorities, the judge said.
The judge told the defendants: "The victim complained to the police very early on, before he met many of you who sit in the dock now but his complaints were not followed up.
"When he complained he found he was sent to a secure care home which he hated."
The victim, who had felt understandably aggrieved and confused at his initial treatment by the authorities, had shown "incredible courage" in giving evidence after making a further complaint to the police in 2012, Judge de Bertadano said.
Opening the case against the defendants in February, prosecutor Rosina Cottage QC said the complainant, now aged in his early 20s, had absconded from a care home and was first spoken to by police in 2009.
Ms Cottage said of the victim: "Regrettably his contemporaneous complaints were not fully investigated by West Midlands Police in 2009 and 2010.''
But during a subsequent inquiry in 2012, the teenager, who cannot be identified, was able to point police towards those involved in his exploitation.
The youngster - who was raped by Priest and the convicted sex offender's former partner, 25-year-old Ashley Sherrington - was described in court as having a troubled family background.
Priest, of Mucklow Hill, Halesowen, West Midlands, was jailed for life with a minimum term of seven years after being convicted of two rapes and one count of sexual activity with a child.
Sherrington, 25, of Dawlish Drive, Stoke-on-Trent, was imprisoned for nine years for two counts of rape.
Robert Bailey, 27, of Watt Road, Erdington, Birmingham, was handed a seven-year sentence after being found guilty of arranging or facilitating child prostitution, engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child, sexual activity with a child, and making indecent photographs.
The judge passed an 11-year custodial sentence on Michael Godbold, 57, of Uxbridge Rd, Shepherd's Bush, London, after he was convicted of sexual activity with a child, engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child, arranging or facilitating child prostitution, and possession of controlled drugs.
Tahir Hussain, 34, of St Josephs Road, Ward End, Birmingham, was said by the judge to have "relentlessly groomed" and abused the victim after giving him drugs and using expensive cars to impress him.
Hussain was jailed for seven years after being found guilty of two counts of sexual activity with a child.
Peter Joynes, 59, of Canberra Way, Highgate, Birmingham, was given a four-year term for arranging or facilitating child prostitution and sexual activity with a child.
Stephen Kelly, 40, of Elm Road, Bournville, Birmingham, was jailed for eight years after being found guilty of two counts of arranging or facilitating child prostitution and one of engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child.
Ian Prestleton, 54, of High Haden Road, Cradley Heath, West Midlands, received a three-year sentence after being convicted of sexual activity with a child.
Kevin Tudor, 55, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty before the trial to two counts of sexual activity with a child and facilitating prostitution.
He was jailed for nine years and handed an extended eight-year licence period, which will start after his initial sentence has been served.
The inquiry into the teenager's ordeal also led to the identification of a second victim of a similar age, who was indecently assaulted by former Special Constable Ronald Potter about 15 years ago.
Potter, 79 and from Tippers Hill Lane, Fillongley, near Coventry, was jailed for three years for abusing the under-age boy.
Jailing Potter, Judge de Bertadano accepted that the pensioner was previously of exemplary character, having lived as a family man while forging a successful business.
The judge told Potter: "I don't doubt that these proceedings have caused you very considerable stress.
"You were effectively leading a double life which few of your friends or family knew about or even suspected."
State regulators approved a second large wind energy project in southwest North Dakota Wednesday, doubling the potential energy capacity the company looking to develop in the region hopes to provide.
The proposed $250 million Brady II Wind Energy Center is to be located in Hettinger County with a total capacity of 150 megawatts of wind energy which will be sold to Basin Electric Power Cooperative. North Dakota Public Service Commission members unanimously gave their approval for up to 72 wind turbines to be constructed over a more than 17,600-acre area.
Brady Wind, LLC, an indirect subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, based in Wilton, Conn., submitted its proposal in January.
The smallest turbines would have the capacity to produce 1.79 megawatts of electricity and the largest 2.1 megawatts. Some underground collection lines and cabling leading to the project would be placed in southern Stark County.
Commissioner Brian Kalk said the approved siting permit includes strict turbine setbacks of 2,000 feet from homes in the project area and 2,640 feet from homes owned by those not participating in the project. He said the setbacks were negotiated based on county standards and standards the PSC follows.
This is the most restrictive the commission has ever done, Kalk said, adding that the PSC tries to work closely with counties to respect their requirements if theyre more restrictive than the states.
Commission chairwoman Julie Fedorchak said the order included that Brady Wind install a new lighting system that would make blinking lights on the towers only turn on at night when passing aircraft are detected. The company must do so by Dec. 31, 2018.
She said this newer technology, which is subject to FAA approval, has been required in recent wind projects that have come before the commission. Fedorchak said it addresses concerns by landowners over the lights' impact on the view of the night sky.
This will be the new standard, Fedorchak said.
The project will be adjacent to another wind farm of similar size. Last month the PSC approved an up to 87 turbine, 150-megawatt capacity facility in Stark County to be located about 15 miles south of Dickinson.
North Dakota is going to continue to be a major energy developer, Kalk said.
The incident prompted ACT Corrective Services to conduct an internal review into the circumstances surrounding Barker's escape from the unit's external courtyard.
He was captured after a member of the public found him in Braddon about 8.45am the next day and phoned police.
Ned Ian Barker, 26, was on the run for about 18 hours when he ran from ACT Corrective Services staff at the hospital about 2.15pm on April 12 as he believed he didn't need treatment for his mental illness.
A prison detainee who scaled a wall and fled Canberra Hospital's mental health unit has escaped more time behind bars.
Barker pleaded guilty to the escape, as well as minor theft and trespass, in the ACT Magistrates Court a week after his arrest.
The other charges related to an incident where Barker, who was drunk at the time, had stolen a $100 shirt from Country Road in the Canberra Centre before the store fully opened one morning in December.
He returned to court for sentencing before Magistrate Robert Cook on Wednesday.
Barker's Legal Aid lawyer said he had already spent more than seven months behind bars at the Alexander Maconochie Centre and there had been concerns over his mental health at the time that weren't always acknowledged by the offender.
He said Barker had no real connection to the ACT and wanted to be released as soon as possible so he could move closer to supportive family and friends in Sydney.
The Canberra Liberals may bear the cost of federal campaign advertising that pictured ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr alongside Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, urging voters not to "risk a Labor double whammy".
ACT Electoral Commissioner Phillip Green said the advertisement, which linked a federal Labor government to an increase in ACT land rates, was arguably designed to influence the October election.
Liberal Party advertisement during the federal election, targeting ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr
The money was spent in a bid to re-elect Senator Zed Seselja but will be considered as territory campaign spending, which limits the amount political parties can spend on advertising before the October election.
Spending on ACT election messaging is capped at $40,000 per candidate, which means major parties can spend up to $1 million should they field 25 candidates in October.
First they put the call out for models, now Fashfest is looking for filmmakers.
The team is looking for people to create six short-films that will accompany each show at the late-September event.
The final night of Fashfest 2015 at the National Convention Centre. Credit:Graham Tidy
It's the first year they've put out a public call for the films, and will accept entries from anyone Australia-wide, with a preference for those from the Canberra region.
Visit fashfest.com.au to register your interest, and you will be given a theme to then create a concept. Final concepts and ideas are due by July 18.
A Kaleen man who allegedly threatened and raped a woman in an inner-city apartment has been investigated for a string of similar attacks on other female sex workers, a court has been told.
Mohammed Alabbasi, 21, claims his brother was responsible for the violent encounter after he borrowed his phone to arrange a meeting with a sex worker.
Mohammed Alabbasi's third bid for bail was denied in court on Wednesday. Credit:Graham Tidy
Alabbasi pleaded not guilty in the ACT Magistrates Court to two counts of sexual intercourse without consent, third degree sexual assault, unlawful confinement, and attempted aggravated robbery using force.
Documents previously tendered in court stated the sex worker met the accused at the hotel in Braddon after a man, who identified himself as "Ali", booked a half-hour service on May 10
Landholders along the ACT border roads want Yass Valley Council to enforce planning regulations before a growing number of Canberra haulage trucks hit children getting off school buses.
"If something happens it will be an absolute disaster," says activist Geoff Gorrie. President of the Mount Spring Association. He says the council's engineering and planning chiefs must deal with "Canberra trucking companies destroying community roads".
Geoff Gorrie says the council must deal with "Canberra trucking companies destroying community roads". Credit:Rohan Thomson
The council says truck companies are exploiting a loophole in the law, but Mr Gorrie wants tighter policing of the trucks.
"They are not supposed to be operating in certain hours to avoid school buses. People out here have photos showing kids coming off buses and trucks careering by," he said.
Ensuring the places where people want to grow old promote the best quality of life is crucial is to developing age-friendly communities, a leading British expert says.
Governments need to start bringing age-friendly policies into all aspects of decision making and creating communities where older people can fully participate should be seen as an intergenerational issue, according to professor of sociology and social gerontology, Chris Phillipson, from the University of Manchester.
Studies have shown older people want to stay in their homes and communities. Credit:Glenn Hunt
Professor Phillipson shared his insights on how to develop age-friendly communities at a Council on The Ageing ACT forum in Canberra this week.
"The key issue here is to view this as an intergenerational issue, bringing current as well as future generations of people into the debate about what type of society we want to build to support ageing populations," he said.
A number of public servants were evacuated after threats against several government departments were received on Wednesday afternoon.
Staff were allowed back to work later in the day after the threats were deemed not to be credible.
Police said a number of threats were emailed to government departments on Wednesday afternoon. Credit:Georgia Matts
ACT Policing said an unspecified number of government departments were emailed the threats anonymously.
Do you know more? Email online@fairfaxmedia.com.au.
The Mandan City Commission Tuesday delayed its decision on whether to strike, keep or modify a two-year tax break for the first $75,000 value of a new home or condo until January.
Commissioners have discussed dropping the incentive because they are faced with declining State Aid Revenue funds, but there was a new slate of elected officials considering the exemption.
Mayor Tim Helbling, re-elected to take the office he left four years ago, said he felt comfortable getting a better scope of all the incentives for the city before taking action and wanted to wait a few months before making a decision. "We need to get a look at the big picture, not just one thing," he said.
"A lot of my friends used this," he said.
Commissioner Shauna Laber, who first said "I look at it as a subsidy," said the city should wait until after the 2017 budget is decided and made the motion of waiting until January.
Commissioner Mike Braun, who was re-elected, said the new home tax incentive helped him buy a home.
Newly elected Commissioner Scott Davis, who favored affordable housing in his platform said he supported anything that grew the population, but said he agreed with the mayor that the matter needed more study. "I want to see where our budgets are at. ... Anything we can do to move people to Mandan, I am all for that."
Dot Frank, executive officer of the Bismarck-Mandan Home Builders Association, said the group backs the exemption because it helps in making housing affordable.
"I think it's relevant more than ever," she said. "Pricing can be prohibitive to a homeowner. Any savings they can get to a buyer can help a buyer get into a home."
Frank said it is difficult to track whether more people built homes in Mandan because of the housing tax break.
However, our builders have noted that when deciding where to build or buy new construction, some buyers have been influenced by the tax savings Mandan offers.
Data from the National Association of Home Builders show for every $1,000 increase in cost in North Dakota, 600 more potential buyers get priced out, Frank said.
State law now allows the tax break to cap at $150,000. The city has made the property tax break of $75,000 available since the early 1990s, Frank said.
"Back then, it was a nearly a full tax exemption on the house based on prices then," said Frank.
According to City Administrator Jim Neubauer, based on the 2015 mill levy and the current 204 active exemptions, the city could be receiving an extra $46,000 in tax revenue for its general fund if the tax break ceased. The total property tax revenue increase for all tax entities (school, county, parks and city) would total more than $192,608 per year.
However, his memo to city commissioners also notes the $75,000 incentive might make home builders choose Mandan over Bismarck.
Morton County and Bismarck do not offer the tax break.
The Lincoln City Council also dropped its $75,000 property tax exemption in 2014 because members said the city didn't need it as a building incentive in the growing city. All home property values have since returned to the property tax roll.
Burleigh County upped its tax break to first-time home builders only, raising the cap from $75,000 to $150,000 if a homebuyer participates in the First-Time Homebuyers Program.
County Tax Director Allan Vietmeier said few rural home property owners have participated in the county's incentive because high rural lot costs often make housing costs exceed the first-time home owner loan program limits.
Coal miners in the Hunter Valley face stricter limits on their groundwater extraction, after the New South Wales government introduced new rules.
New groundwater sharing plans for the northern coastal regions of the state were introduced on July 1, and an extraction limit has been set for each water catchment for the first time.
Concerns have been expressed that the stricter rules could make it harder for miners to deal with their variable water needs each year. Credit:Dado Galdieri
Previously water users, including many coal miners, were able to apply for extra licences if they needed more water in a particular year, but they will have less flexibility to access extra water under the new regime.
The new rules apply to 13 groundwater catchments, including the Gloucester and Sydney groundwater catchments which host coal mining.
The ease of doing business in Australia, with its stable and transparent regulatory and legal system, strong ethical governance and high professional standards, has led to a significant rise in foreign capital inflows for the residential and commercial sectors, according to JLL.
The world's 10 most transparent markets account for 75 per cent of global direct investment into commercial real estate and are home to nearly half the world's 2000 largest public companies. Australia has moved up one notch to second place.
The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the United States hold the top positions, while the low transparency and opaque categories are dominated by parts of Africa, Asia and South and Central America, which are deemed "development" economies.
The desire for countries that offer good business conduct was borne out by the recent revelations of the Panama Papers, which, property agents and investors say, have led to mounting pressure for greater real estate transparency.
Woolworths' strategy to cut prices and improve service has failed to lure customers back to its aisles, increasing the likelihood it will resort to a desperate price war against Coles, a report suggests.
Brokerage firm UBS surveyed 58 supermarket suppliers last month, who said Woolworths had improved its fresh food offering and marketing.
However, Woolworths' overall average score fell and it trailed Coles in all 26 categories for the first time in the survey's 20-year history.
The fact Woolworths was taking longer than expected to turn its business around heightened the chance it will launch a price war to improve sales, UBS analyst Ben Gilbert said.
Gave up and bought a cheaper trolley at their competitors where I was served immediately (saved over 10 per cent). As is currently the case with the election results, both Masters and the staff will whinge, pointing to many factors as to why the firm closed but conveniently miss their client service as a very significant issue. The message is for firms to focus on the person with the cash, and for politicians to focus on the person with the vote (not the cash). Dr Tony Martin, Duffy AirServices essential AirServices Australia works on a cost-recovery basis. R.S. Gilbert (Letters, July 4) expects it will make a loss this year and calls this a "subsidy" from all Australians to air travellers. This, he says, should end (the profit last year he calls inadequate). Air navigation aids, air traffic control, fire services and the other activities of AirServices Australia aren't a private benefit for each air traveller. Safety and proper conduct of air transport of people and cargo alike benefit all of us, not just this traveller or that consigner of cargo. Air operators don't like meeting high, and universal, standards. But we all prefer a low risk of planes falling from the sky whether we are in them ourselves or not. We want fast handling of any fires at airports, whether in planes or otherwise; and we want safe operation of air traffic.
We could privatise air services and standards (if we ignore our international agreements). The privatised certifiers of amusement rides allowed the recent disaster in Adelaide. The privatised certifiers of buildings have allowed appalling construction faults, so much so that legal recourse by apartment owners has been wound back and largely precluded, in the interests of shoddy developers. Good air services are a public interest and balance the commercial risk taking we would otherwise see. Let's keep them and let the public's AirServices Australia protect the public interest. And let those services still be provided generally, effectively, and at cost rather than for profit. Christopher Hood, Queanbeyan, NSW
ABC axings flawed So the ABC's "push into digital commentary has been criticised by commercial media outlets, who said it was crowding out the private sector and straying from its core business" (The Drum site axed as ABC cuts online opinion, July 6, p5). I understood that the private sector was all about competition. If people are turning to the Drum instead of to poorly researched commercial talk-back radio, maybe it's time for those programs to lift their game instead of trying to stifle debate. I can't believe that the ABC is axing its Fact Check service and the Drum at a time when our debates about vital issues like climate change are being hijacked by irresponsible shock jocks. An essential part of democracy is to enable an increasingly educated public to understand the issues of the day and to openly discuss them. The ABC and SBS play a crucial role in this process. What a pity that the same can't be said of many private media outlets. We love democracy on Anzac Day and Remembrance Day but when it comes to actually standing up for it today, axing Fact Check and the Drum suggests that we are weak and uncommitted.
Rosemary Walters, Palmerston Co-operation works Peter Hartcher's provocative article "Do we need government?" (Times2, July 6, p1) ends with the words "The political parties need to jolt themselves out of their self-involved partisan games or, eventually, a crisis will do it for them". A crisis of international proportions was Hitler's invasion of Poland in September 1939, igniting World War II. Winston Churchill formed a coalition government whose membership depended on merit and common purpose rather than political or factional allegiance. Australia is nervous about not forming a government within a few days of an election, yet Hartcher refers to Belgium, which took 589 days to form a government following its 2010 election, thereafter becoming the most successful nation in Europe. Commentators declared "In mature democracies a power vacuum is taken care of in a constructive, creative and responsible way". Although sometimes bothersome, combining co-operation with competition is preferable to tyranny. Churchill stated in a House of Commons address in November 1947 "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time".
Bryan Furnass, Hughes Quality control issue for driverless cars I look forward to the dominance of driverless cars but the initial analysis of the first fatality ("Fatal Tesla crash on autopilot sparks investigation", July 3, p13) makes little sense. How can Tesla claim to know what the dead driver noticed? How can a laser scanning the topography be fooled by either camouflage or a trailer with high clearance? This technology has been driving massive trucks in open-cut mines. I suspect the real reason relates to quality control in mass production. It's more likely the vehicle was a defective unit. Peter Robinson, Ainslie Plebiscites are crude
Paul Burt (Letters, July 4) asks about how our representatives discover the views of their electorate. Plebiscites are a crude way to do this. Many ways exist to allow informed deliberative citizen participation in advising our representatives, or even sharing more in the decision-making. These range from consultative inquiries through 'town hall' meetings to citizens' juries and even parliaments. ParticipediaNet has many examples. Last year, the Melbourne City Council engaged ratepayers in a participatory budgeting process. In 2009, the NewDemocracy Foundation ran a Citizens' Parliament to look at how Australian democracy could be improved. In the federal electorate of Indi, Cathy McGowan engages with voters via community summits. Many of these methods could be used in Canberra. All help build open, informed, ongoing relationships between the voter and representative. Peter Tait, O'Connor Words of mice, men
Graham Macafee (Letters, July 5) quotes Robert Burns: "The best-laid plans of mice and men oft gang awry". The message is right, but the words are wrong. What Burns wrote was "The best-laid schemes o' mice and men, gang aft a-gley". Ed Highley, Kambah Previous hung parliament proved most productive in our history "Hung parliament" is a typical Anglo-Saxon expression. This expression, which Australian journalists love so much, is used to strike fear into the hearts of the population, as it conjures up images of total chaos. In continental Europe, parliaments meet, form coalitions, elect a Prime Minister, debate and pass legislation. In my lifetime we have had only one parliament in Australia where issues were really debated that was during the last so-called "hung parliament".
This parliament, which was presided over by the Gillard government, was the most productive parliament in Australian history. A "hung parliament" can also be called a "cooperative parliament". The opposite of a "hung parliament" is a rubber-stamp parliament, which journalists apparently consider to be the ideal state of affairs. Peter M. Hill, Broulee, NSW Negotiate with Labor Should the Coalition form government, I would like to see them negotiate with Labor whereby policies are exchanged and implemented in the best interest of the country. For example: Adoption of Labor's NBN proposals in exchange for passage of the ABCC Bill; Adoption of Labor's proposed cut to the capital gains discount to enhance revenue; both parties agree to develop a bipartisan plan and costing for the implementation of the many infrastructure projects promised.
There are many other negotiations that could be made that would protect the living standards of the less well off and at the same time encourage "jobs and growth" and address the urgent need to reduce debt and safeguard Australia's credit rating. The closeness of this election suggests that the voters want the best of both worlds and are demanding that all parties work together for the sake of the country. Tom Cooke, Pearce Goebbels on the big lie Joseph Goebbels, German propaganda minister, in 1941 wrote, "The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous."
This propaganda technique is called the "Big Lie". Seventy-five years later, Bill Shorten used this technique with great success, wiping out the LNC's big advantage in the House of Representatives by claiming, with no evidence whatsoever, that the government intended to privatise Medicare. Even after being called out over his scare campaign by the ABC's Leigh Sales, of all people, Shorten stuck to his story and at time of writing the election result was still up in the air. To paraphrase P.T. Barnum, nobody ever lost an election by underestimating the intelligence of Australian voters, or at least that is what Shorten staked his political future on. D. Zivkovic, Aranda Medicare message
While the result of the election remains in doubt, one thing is very clear, the Australian public want Medicare retained as their universal health system. For this to be achieved however, funding needs to be available to support an ever increasing call on the public purse, with the cost of services continuing to rise exponentially as our population ages, our life expectancy increases and medical technology advances. The most obvious source of these further funds is an increase in the Medicare levy from its current two per cent of taxable income and dedicating these additional funds directly to the operation of Medicare. In recent times, many Australians have indicated they are prepared to pay increased taxes if this funding is used specifically for that particular service. Given the overwhelming support shown for Medicare, surely this is one of those occasions.
This additional impost should not be borne solely by those currently in the workforce but rather include a contribution by retired people who are in a financial position to pay their share. It would seem reasonable that self-funded retirees, with an annual income above $75,000, should be subject to the levy. Given that both major parties have pledged their irrevocable support to the maintenance of Medicare, one can only hope that an increase in the levy designed to protect the scheme well into the future, will receive bipartisan support, regardless of which party has formed government. Ian De Landelles, Murrays Beach, NSW Party focus on values
As a campaign volunteer, I offer an alternative to the often cynical analysis of the successful Labor election campaign. Labor was able to mobilise large numbers of highly motivated volunteers because it focused on values that are important to them and it clearly articulated policies consistent with those values. Party members and affiliated unionists will work long and hard for a Labor campaign based on fairness, equality of opportunity and support for people who are doing it tough. It's that simple. Tony Judge, Woolgoolga, NSW Votes of lesser value The close election result should again have Labor kicking itself for not securing a third House of Representatives seat for the ACT while it was in government.
Having had a third seat (Namadgi) between 1996 and 1998, the ACT has been reduced to two. These are by far the most populous seats in the country. That makes our individual votes of lesser value than elsewhere in Australia. We get two House seats for a total enrolment of 282, 000 voters. The Northern Territory gets two for less than half that: about 132,000.Tasmania has five seats with an average enrolment of only 74,000. These gross distortions could all be addressed by a simple legislative amendment. It does not require Constitutional change. Prime Minister Howard no flies on John Winston managed to get the NT's second (and sometime Coalition ) seat guaranteed by legislation an exemption to the standard formula derived from section 24 of the Constitution. Why not a similar provision for Canberra? Bob Bennett, Wanniassa
TO THE POINT NOT ANOTHER ONE "We may need another election Sinodinos" (July 4, p1). Brilliant. So we keep voting until we get it right, do we? We didn't like their policies the first time, but we'll like them the second time, will we? Give me a break. Walter Steensby, Scullin
IMPLODING PARTIES So the 2019 election result will be determined in the next six months by "which party implodes first" according to a nameless conservative MP ("Anger as voters' rebuke sinks in", July 4, p2). Gee, that inspires confidence. Little wonder that the general population holds politicians in such low regard. Janet Cossart, Stirling GENDER DIVIDE Irrespective of the federal election outcome, I call on the prime minister in the next government to appoint 50 per cent females and 50 per cent males as ministers, to reflect our community composition.
N.L. Scherger-McCullough, Red Hill BANKER ARROGANCE Bendigo Bank CEO Mike Hirst is displaying typical banker arrogance in declaring gratification that the Coalition will not hold a royal commission into bank thuggery ("No royal commission good news for everyone", BusinessDay, July 4, p9). Diverse cross-bench senators seem more than enthusiastic about investigating multiple forms of bank corruption. Bankers beware! Albert M. White, Queanbeyan, NSW CHOPPING UP PARKS
Should we really offer another term to a government that hacks off chunks of a central park for developers? Gone forever! Keith Hammond, Campbell BALLOT QUEUES I endorse Craig Gamack's gripe (Letters, July 5) re queues. With a reported three million more voters at this election, change to voting regulations, and reduced funding, is there any logic left in this great country of ours. Ken Wood, Holt
As the Parliament had been elected only the year before, and was not yet halfway through its term, the request was refused. The opposition leader, George Reid, with Deakin's connivance, was commissioned. A year later, he too suffered the same fate, sought a dissolution and was refused, and once again Deakin was prime minister. The scenario would continue to play out this way until the election of Andrew Fisher's Labor government in 1910, the first majority government.
The vice-regal reasoning in refusing a dissolution in each case was that other alternatives were available and had to be explored before imposing an election on the country.
The first early election and also the first double dissolution came in 1914, a year after Joseph Cook's Liberal Party won a single-seat majority in 1913, but faced an unremittingly hostile Senate in which the government had just seven members against Labor's 29. As such, it proved unworkable, the Governor-General was persuaded accordingly, and an early poll was called, which Cook lost.
In a more recent case, the Coalition government of Robert Menzies suffered a setback with its majority cut from 17 to seven and Labor winning more than half the vote. A year later, with Labor in trouble over fallout from the Petrov spy issue, Menzies was able to take advantage of the situation by persuading the Governor-General to grant an early dissolution not on political grounds but on the very plausible one that 1954 had been a house-only election, and to save the trouble of a Senate-only poll, it was desirable for both houses to be brought back into line.
Should Malcolm Turnbull be defeated when Parliament returns and he goes to Yarralumla to seek a fresh election, Sir Peter Cosgrove would be within his rights to sound out the options, including Bill Shorten, or perhaps, someone else who might be able to garner a workable majority.
One of the outcomes of Saturday's federal election is that Victorians now have as one of their 12 representatives in the Senate a man who has over the past 30 years been to jail twice and fined $100,000 for breaching court orders, and who has been roundly criticised by the High Court for undermining the right of an accused person to a fair trial. We are talking about broadcaster Derryn Hinch.
While Hinch is not disqualified under the constitution from being a candidate for the Senate because he is not serving or waiting to serve a sentence for an offence under Commonwealth or state law punishable by a prison sentence of 12 months or more, the broader question is whether a person with Hinch's record is fit to hold the office of a legislator whose role is to ensure that laws are enforceable and that the rule of law is upheld?
Incoming senator Derryn Hinch has been to jail twice and fined $100,000 for breaching court orders. Credit:Scott Barbour
It is worth providing a brief outline of Hinch's offending record. In 1986 Hinch was jailed for 15 days and fined $15,000 by the Supreme Court of Victoria for contempt of court. Hinch had used his 3AW program to publish the prior conviction of Michael Glennon, a former Catholic priest, who was facing sexual assault allegations. Hinch campaigned against Glennon on his radio program. In 1992 the High Court said of Hinch's conduct in Glennon's case: "Clearly, the three broadcasts on a popular Melbourne station, in a context where specific reference was made to the pending criminal proceedings against Glennon in a Melbourne court, constituted one of the most serious cases of contempt of court, involving the public prejudgment of the guilt of a person awaiting trial, to have come before the courts of this country."
In 1992 Hinch was charged again, this time for revealing on Channel Ten the name of a child victim in a sex abuse case. And in 2011 Hinch was sentenced to five months' home detention after he defied court orders and named two sex offenders at a rally in 2008. Then in 2013 the Supreme Court of Victoria again dealt with Hinch for breaches of court orders, this time concerning Adrian Bayley, subsequently convicted of the murder of ABC journalist Jill Meagher. Hinch had revealed highly prejudicial information about Bayley before Bayley pleaded guilty. On this occasion Hinch apologised but the sincerity of this apology was undermined by his telling the media he was a scapegoat and a whipping boy. The court fined Hinch $100,000. He refused to pay it and went to jail for 50 days.
Peta Credlin says Malcolm Turnbull broke Liberal Party hearts by losing Tony Abbott's majority, and sheets all the blame home to Malcolm Turnbull. Perhaps she has forgotten that the electorate had well and truly turned against Abbott (and his advisers) because of his broken promises on health, education, the ABC and SBS, and then of course the infamous 2014 budget. Tony Abbott was then already politically cremated, dead and buried. Turnbull's error of judgment came in simply staying with the Abbott policies, and hoping that a fresh face and some optimistic slogans would be enough to revive the government's fortunes. Tony had set a course that would run the LNP ship aground, and Malcolm didn't have the political nerve to make a captain's call and change that course. George Palagyi, Saratoga After an unexpectedly poor performance last weekend, when many of their key acrobats had spectacular falls because of poor poles, the Coalition Circus is licking its wounds. The Ringmaster, fending off suggestions he should take over testing for the guillotine act, admitted he had failed to foresee the Opposition Circus releasing their rogue lion Meddie in the ring ("as bad an example of lion as you could find") to cause an unnecessary scare. Meanwhile the performers, including many of the jugglers and clowns, sit idly by as uncertainty continues over who will run the Big Top for the coming season. Doug Walker, Baulkham Hills That he only now said he accepted full responsibility for the Coalition's election battering and misery shows, if anything, Mr Turnbull is not the smartest person in the room. Otherwise, he would heed Churchill's advice that "one must look at facts, because they look at you".
Steve Ngeow, Chatswood Having had his hour in the confessional, Malcolm Turnbull should consider his penance. An appropriate act of contrition would be to lift the freeze on the Medicare rebate and to restore the bulk-billing subsidy on X-rays and blood tests. Only then can he hope to achieve absolution. Garth Clarke, North Sydney Malcolm Turnbull undoubtedly has his faults, but at least he didn't make the Queen a dame. Coralie Button, North Epping
Mr Turnbull no doubt has presided over many applicants for jobs in his various companies. He need no more than apply these skills. Instead of exposing his glass jaw, put himself in the position of job applicant. Would you hire a potential manager who blamed the previous manager? Would you hire this person if he could only talk about the other potential applicant's dirty tricks? I think he would have hired the person who told him how he was going to improve the management of the company, and how he was going to promote greater profits for the company. The LNP are past masters of scare campaigns. It's your watch, get on with it and stop whingeing and blaming. Wayne Hamilton, Strathfield Healthcare needs a shakeup and levy might be the way Thank you, Ross Gittins ("The real winners of Labor's Mediscare", July 6) for another clear outline of the issues associated with Medicare. But what both he, and politicians from both sides, have missed is the one obvious way to fund, in a fair way, our universal healthcare scheme an 0.5 per cent increase in the Medicare levy. Unlike Abbott's $7 co-payment which would hit the rich and poor alike, the Medicare levy is progressive and can be structured to ensure that low-income people are not adversely affected. Elizabeth Elenius, Pyrmont
Ross Gittins is right. The only winners from the current Medicare model are the doctors, many of whom make millions annually, even with the freeze on rebates. Fee-for-service is the elephant in the room, but neither of the major political parties has the gumption to take on the doctors and force the implementation of a more cost-effective model of patient care. And perish the thought that the system would be better nationalised, with doctors put on salaries. Jane Dargaville, Forster We now know the difference between an ordinary scare campaign and one that is based on an outrageous lie. If it is undertaken by the opposition and it is effective it's the lie (privatise Medicare). If it is undertaken by the government and is ineffective (negative gearing removal will cause a crash in house values) then it's just another scare campaign. Darryl Kite, Killara Shorten's nonsense claims on Hanson
Mr Shorten asserts that because the Greens supported democratic Senate voting reform, the party is responsible for the election of Pauline Hanson to the Senate ("Hanson will hurt our brand: Carr", July 6.). The claim is nonsense. Under the old discredited Senate Group Voting Ticket system a number of extreme right-wing candidates were elected, including a One Nation candidate in 1998 in a half Senate election. Pauline Hanson would have been elected in 2016 with or without Senate voting reform, and whether or not it was a double-dissolution election. The fact is she polled exceptionally well in the Queensland Senate election. Her One Nation party polled 9.1 per cent of the vote which was an 8.5 per cent increase.
This time on the upper house ballot paper above the line, it was not just the name "One Nation" appearing, or Pauline Hanson just having a blank box above the line with her name being buried with dozens of other candidates below the line. What was presented to voters above the line was the name "Pauline Hanson's One Nation". That made it much easier for the potential Pauline Hanson/One Nation demographic to vote for them. The Greens were right to back Senate voting reform. The changes have improved democracy as now voters determine who wins. There are a number of factors that have contributed to Pauline Hanson's election, but Senate voting reform is not one of them. Senator Lee Rhiannon, Surry Hills Pauline Hanson can only damage Australia's image overseas if the media continues to supply her with highly disproportionate attention. She has every right to be heard in Parliament but unless we also have every opinion and statement of all other newly elected members reported as thoroughly, Hanson will be getting far more than her fair share of oxygen. Peter Russell, Coogee
Pauline Hanson is entitled to her views and democracy is a wonderful feature of Australia. But I would love Pauline Hanson to spend a day with Muslim people, visit their homes, visit a mosque and hear what they think. I guarantee that she would change her mind on Islam and Muslims. Ignorance and fear can be replaced by knowledge and respect. Education about Islam for our young people will bring peace to this country. I applaud the many teachers and schools who are educating our young Australians about Islam. Patrick Dell, Kincumber When George Brandis was serving up nonsense like "People do have a right to be bigots you know", I am sure he wasn't thinking that some of those people might be joining him in the Senate. Better we look at commentary from Tim Soutphommasane ("Hansonism might be winding back the clock, but society has moved on", July 6) on how to deal with Pauline Hanson's vile diatribes. "If people don't want to be called a racist or a bigot, they can start by not expressing a racist or bigoted opinion". Time to call it for what it is plain and simple. Chris Andrew, Turramurra Howard has no shame
Did John "children overboard" Howard really say "I don't think we should be defeatist in the face of the dishonourable things Labor did in this campaign" ("Keep calm and carry on", July 6). This is the same man who assured us Saddam not only had WMDs but a people shredder. The man has no shame. Tony Walbran, Dee Why Ignorant comments I read with much amusement (or was it bemusement?) the article on One Nation candidate Malcolm Roberts, on teaching climate scepticism in schools ("Teach climate scepticism in schools", July 6). It reminded me of a poster in our staffroom that stated "If you think education is expensive try ignorance". So true. Ken Pares, Forster
No Abbott for defence If as expected the LNP is able to creep over the line and form government, I implore Malcolm Turnbull to not make the mistake of giving Tony Abbott his reported preference of defence minister in the new cabinet. Abbott has runs on the board to deter even Turnbull from making such a mistake. Abbott's reported knee-jerk reaction to attempt to send a thousand Australian soldiers to the Ukraine after the downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17 indicates his total unsuitability for this position. Norman Pollock, Bellmere (Qld) Done deal blow for Turnbull Chris Henning nails it with his commentary on Turnbull's deal with the devil of the Natural Party of Government ("Turnbull was set up for his downfall", July 6) the conservative rump with a "right to rule" mentality. I've never voted Coalition in my life but on the day he ousted the arch-conservative Abbott and made a great speech about moving to a broad and progressive agenda I was sorely tempted. He would have won a landslide if he had stuck to his own credo.Instead, he let it all slide to nothing in the done deal.
David Morrissey, Haberfield Rarely have I read a column with as much insight. Chris Henning has nailed it. The Liberal Party's approach of presenting a leader with a history of support for certain issues, some of which were clearly at odds with majority party support (read effective action on climate change), was akin to Basil Fawlty's "Don't mention the war". Ted Keating, Tallai Time for a new coalition Malcolm Turnbull has regularly called for innovation. The election results offer him the perfect chance to practise this simply by suggesting a coalition with the ALP. It would meet the needs of an indecisive nation that sees the parties as much the same. On many issues the ALP is closer to the Liberal Party than its existing coalition partner, the National Party. The two parties have much the same policies on foreign affairs, defence, border protection, transport and infrastructure provision while both leaders even agree on a republic, constitutional recognition of Aboriginals and same-sex marriage. They would, however, have to work on housing, education and health, and more effective environmental policies, but Australia can only benefit from consensus on such vital areas. Both parties could then ignore their own extremists, while allowing conscience votes Bring on creativity.
John Connell, Bronte Scrutineers should be due a back rub During this waiting period, spare a thought for the scrutineers, with all that bending over tables, or hunching over, flicking through ballot papers, concentrating all the time ("Scrutineers take a seat, it's going to take time", July 6). I hope their work contract includes a relaxing massage. Joan Brown, Orange Brave the elements
With a hung parliament, Senator Lambie will be in her element. Emmanuel Valaris, Fingal Bay Make a quick Quexit There are many parts of Queensland I love. So, no, John Duruz (Letters, July 6), not Quexit but Ipswexit. Tim Schroder, Gordon
Fewer wet blankets In my experience, bedwetters tend not to drink much before bed and attend to their dirty laundry quietly and in private the next day (Letters, July 6). Perhaps we need more bedwetters in politics. Christine Cupitt, Kurnell Mother of disillusion Lately I've been critical of some media commentators for mispronouncing "dissolution" (as in double dissolution) as "disillusion". But now it seems they were correct. As far as the LNP is concerned, this dissolution is really a disillusion.
We think that "one person, one vote" is the hallmark of any democratic election. However, the EU referendum and the Australian election suggest that, in the interest of democracy, we should grant more votes to younger citizens, and fewer to older ones.
Although official data is unavailable, a demographic analysis of the vote shows that, throughout Britain, places with lots of older citizens voted for Brexit, while places with younger voters ticked the "Remain" box. But the latter voters, not the former, will bear the brunt of Brexit: they are the ones for whom it will be harder to study or work in Europe, to make experiences overseas and to broaden their skills. The tens of thousands of pensioners, who, on the other hand, voted for Brexit, will have much less to lose from leaving the EU. Is it fair they all had the same say in such decision?
Or consider the case of Australia. As we witnessed yet again on the lead-up to this election, the two major parties tend to ignore the interests of young voters in favour of those of the older ones. Younger voters are less concerned with "economic management", superannuation, border protection, and are interested in rising university fees, job insecurity, unaffordable housing. Not only does this disparity impact negatively on their engagement with politics; it is seriously unfair. Younger voters should rather receive more attention from politicians, because they will have to live longer with the consequences of the electoral outcome.
Now that populist rebellions are taking Britain out of the European Union and the Republican Party out of contention for the presidency, perhaps we should speak no more of left and right, liberals and conservatives. From now on the great political battles will be fought between nationalists and internationalists, nativists and globalists. From now on the loyalties that matter will be narrowly tribal Make America Great Again; this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England or multicultural and cosmopolitan.
Well, maybe. But describing the division this way has one great flaw. It gives the elite side of the debate (the side that does most of the describing) too much credit for being truly cosmopolitan.
Genuine cosmopolitanism is a rare thing. It requires comfort with real difference, with forms of life that are truly exotic relative to ones own. It takes its cue from a Roman playwrights line that nothing human is alien to me, and goes outward ready to be transformed by what it finds.
The people who consider themselves cosmopolitan in todays West, by contrast, are part of a meritocratic order that transforms difference into similarity, by plucking the best and brightest from everywhere and homogenizing them into the peculiar species that we call global citizens.
This species is racially diverse (within limits) and eager to assimilate the fun-seeming bits of foreign cultures food, a touch of exotic spirituality. But no less than Brexit-voting Cornish villagers, our global citizens think and act as members of a tribe.
They have their own distinctive worldview (basically liberal Christianity without Christ), their own common educational experience, their own shared values and assumptions (social psychologists call these WEIRD for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic), and of course their own outgroups (evangelicals, Little Englanders) to fear, pity and despise. And like any tribal cohort they seek comfort and familiarity: From London to Paris to New York, each Western global city (like each global university) is increasingly interchangeable, so that wherever the citizen of the world travels he already feels at home.
Indeed elite tribalism is actively encouraged by the technologies of globalization, the ease of travel and communication. Distance and separation force encounter and immersion, which is why the age of empire made cosmopolitans as well as chauvinists sometimes out of the same people. (There is more genuine cosmopolitanism in Rudyard Kipling and T.E. Lawrence and Richard Francis Burton than in a hundred Davos sessions.)
It is still possible to disappear into someone elses culture, to leave the global-citizen bubble behind. But in my experience the people who do are exceptional or eccentric or natural outsiders to begin with like a young writer I knew who had traveled Africa and Asia more or less on foot for years, not for a book but just because, or the daughter of evangelical missionaries who grew up in South Asia and lived in Washington, D.C., as a way station before moving her own family to the Middle East. They are not the people who ascend to power, who become the insiders against whom populists revolt.
In my own case to speak as an insider for a moment my cosmopolitanism probably peaked when I was about 11 years old, when I was simultaneously attending tongues-speaking Pentecostalist worship services, playing Little League in a working-class neighborhood, eating alongside aging hippies in macrobiotic restaurants on weekends, all the while attending a liberal Episcopalian parochial school. (Its a long story.)
Whereas once I began attending a global university, living in global cities, working and traveling and socializing with my fellow global citizens, my experience of genuine cultural difference became far more superficial.
Not that theres necessarily anything wrong with this. Human beings seek community, and permanent openness is hard to sustain.
But its a problem that our tribe of self-styled cosmopolitans doesnt see itself clearly as a tribe: because that means our leaders cant see themselves the way the Brexiteers and Trumpistas and Marine Le Pen voters see them.
They cant see that what feels diverse on the inside can still seem like an aristocracy to the excluded, who look at cities like London and see, as Peter Mandler wrote for Dissent after the Brexit vote, a nearly hereditary professional caste of lawyers, journalists, publicists, and intellectuals, an increasingly hereditary caste of politicians, tight coteries of cultural movers-and-shakers richly sponsored by multinational corporations.
They cant see that paeans to multicultural openness can sound like self-serving cant coming from open-borders Londoners who love Afghan restaurants but would never live near an immigrant housing project, or American liberals who hail the end of whiteness while doing everything possible to keep their kids out of majority-minority schools.
They cant see that their vision of historys arc bending inexorably away from tribe and creed and nation-state looks to outsiders like something familiar from eras past: A powerful castes self-serving explanation for why it alone deserves to rule the world.
So what happened? Malcolm Turnbull during a press conference in Sydney. Credit:Andrew Meares "No one believed us!" a senior Labor Party strategist says, insisting he warned journalists they were writing off Bill Shorten too soon. "We were projecting a confidence that many people thought was bravado. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten takes a selfie with media on the campaign bus. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
"The commentariat fell into a bubble and were reflecting what each other thought. "A narrative caught hold and everyone started reporting it." Malcolm Turnbull strolls the press gallery at Parliament House in Canberra. Credit:Andrew Meares I was struck by how everyone was so wise after the event and so all-knowing With hindsight, there's much to support this .
As Leonardo DiCaprio's character Dom Cobb says in the film Inception: "What is the most resilient parasite? A bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm?" Many talk now as though Malcolm Turnbull's catastrophic descent into hypocrisy was patently preordained. Credit:Andrew Meares No. It's an idea. "Once an idea has taken hold of the brain," he says, "it's almost impossible to eradicate". Several ideas took hold quickly in the gallery's collective brain. That Australians don't kick out a first term government (despite this happening recently at a state level). And that Malcolm Turnbull's personal popularity was a decisive advantage against the less prime ministerial Shorten.
During the campaign, several events became seen as "turning points" for the Coalition despite the polls never really budging. Labor's admission it would increase the budget deficit over the next four years was one. So was the UK's departure from the European Union. The Australian Financial Review's Laura Tingle spoke for many in the gallery in mid-June when she wrote that "the sense that Labor is a serious challenger has faded". And The Australian's Dennis Shanahan on the day before election day: "Malcolm Turnbull is coming home with the wind in his sails, Bill Shorten is running out of puff. The Daily Telegraph, already foreshadowing a challenge to Shorten's leadership, reported on Friday that Malcolm Turnbull was on the "brink of victory". Fairfax Media highlighted a 50-50 poll result but with an unusually strong emphasis on voter expectations that Turnbull would win. Leading commentators on Sky News predicted between 80 to 85 seats for the Coalition, with Peter van Onselen saying he would quit in the event of a hung parliament.
Many had picked up a "vibe" in the community that voters were disappointed in Turnbull, but not sufficiently angry to remove him. There was also the confidence exuded by Turnbull and his advisers. Many of us even convinced ourselves that the low-energy, small-target campaign was a clever way of "boring" voters into backing the Coalition. "You got the impression they were confident and confident for a reason," former Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes says of the coverage. "There was very little scepticism of what was behind that". But if the media were wrong they were hardly alone. Two days before election day the bookmakers - often hailed as more accurate than pollsters - had Labor at $8 and the Coalition narrowing to a near guarantee of $1.08. Many political insiders, too, were surprised by the scale of the swing.
Strategists from both sides agreed early on that Labor would pick up 12 seats at best. A week before polling day Labor strategists were telling reporters they expected to pick up eight to 10 seats. They picked up 14 seats, and may win up to 16. Meanwhile, the Coalition was talking up gains in seats such as Werriwa (easily held by Labor). So, as Insiders host Barrie Cassidy asked, were journalists shown to be "gullible"? Or were they being lied to? Neither, a Coalition strategist says. "Everything I heard indicated the swings for Labor were not happening where they needed to be," the insider says.
Serious questions are now being asked in the Liberal Party about the accuracy of its polling and who had access to it. But Holmes says the media shouldn't let themselves off too easily. "There is certainly a lesson for the gallery about whether they should be less credulous when it comes to internal polling," he says. Particularly when it is being briefed anonymously. Margaret Simons, Director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism at University of Melbourne, says: "I was struck by how everyone was so wise after the event and so all-knowing. "It's easy to write in retrospect where everything went wrong but I didn't see many people pointing it out as the campaign was happening."
Simons offers the example of the eight-week long election double dissolution election campaign itself. Originally hailed as a political masterstroke, it was only after Saturday that many commentators started questioning how wise the decision was. "Journalists," Simons concludes, "were too quick to become part of Malcolm's fan club." In preparing this piece, I asked readers on Twitter and on Facebook for their views of the coverage. Some dominant criticisms emerged: An insistence the Coalition was on track to win (despite the polls predicting a tight result) and a consistent under-estimation of Shorten's performance;
Overly "insular" coverage dominated by conversations with political insiders and other journalists rather than voters
Coverage that was too "presidential", with an intense focus on daily movements of both leaders;
Too much focus on the colour and movement of campaigning rather than the policy offerings of the two main parties;
A lack of co-ordination by journalists, especially in the travelling media pack, to demand answers from the leaders;
More focus on campaigning techniques by third-party groups such as GetUp!
Crossbenchers past and present believe Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is a more skilful negotiator than Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and would be better equipped to navigate the fractured and volatile new Senate.
While it appears Mr Turnbull will be able to hold on to government after a number of cliffhanger seats starting to go the Coalition's way on Wednesday, he will find it very hard to legislate even with a lower house majority.
While the final Senate result will not be known until later this month, it is expected to boast more crossbenchers than ever before, with populist Nick Xenophon and right-wing firebrand Pauline Hanson set to be dominant forces.
He's known as the "mad hatter" of Australian politics: an eccentric and unpredictable septuagenarian who loves guns, hates bats and once claimed there were no gay people in his huge electorate.
But Bob Katter could soon be a very powerful man.
The Queensland rural independent is considered one of the crossbenchers most likely to help the Coalition form a minority government if it falls short of the seats it needs to govern in its own right. He's already said to be drawing up a list of demands.
Two sources allege Labor's head office spent only $50,000 on Linsday, or up to one-tenth of what the party might spend on a hardcore marginal seat battle, after one early poll showed the party was down 56-44. Labor sources say money instead went to four Labor-held seats in which the party eventually cruised home: Greenway, Kingsford Smith, Barton and Werriwa. Even less money , the critics say, was spent on the NSW South Coast (Gilmore) and Sydney's west (Banks) where current counting has the Liberal lead shredded to 700 and 1800 votes. "Money was being completely wasted," said a campaign source. But a source in Ms Murnain's camp flatly denied the criticism: "Lindsay was one of the seats they invested the most of all [into]. This sounds like sour grapes."
A union, the CEPU, is understood to have injected more than $100,000 into the Lindsay campaign. As is usual party figures will not talk on the record about team decisions. But Ms Murnain's campaign has been widely praised by the media and Labor figures and also backed by Labor veteran Bruce Hawker. Laurie Ferguson, the long-serving and outgoing MP for Werriwa, said a popular Liberal candidate had presented a genuine threat to the seat despite Labor's eventual strong showing. "I don't think we got $1 million, or anything out of the ordinary like that," he said. "But I wouldn't know." Mr Ferguson, who praised Ms Murnain's campaign, queried whether the Lindsay campaign was under-resourced but also whether Kingsford Smith or Barton would ever have been considered in doubt by the party.
Lending credit to some of the detractors' claims are leaked screenshots obtained by the Buzzfeed website in late June, showing where Labor's doorknocking and phone-call efforts had been directed across Australia and NSW. Kingsford-Smith was the second-most heavily door-knocked and telephoned electorate in NSW and third most door-knocked in the nation in that week, a fortnight out from polling day, the report said. Lindsay did not figure in the top 10, nor did Gilmore and Banks. Key Labor gains such as Macarthur and Macquarie were high on the list. Kingsford-Smith, occupied by former NSW General Secretary, Matt Thistlethwaite, was a marginal Labor seat at 2.7 per cent, its 13th least-secure in Australia. That margin more than tripled on Saturday. Mr Ferguson noted that local campaign may reflect Mr Thistlethwaite's personal organisational efforts rather than head office decisions.
Ms Murnain declined to comment. Mr Hawker said that Labor's NSW campaign was among the best organised in decades. "The proof is in the pudding. "People forget sand-bagging seats is part of what you're doing in campaigns," said the long-time Labor strategist. "You could equally also say that if Labor had done a bit more of that in Victoria [where Chisholm, a key Labor marginal seat appears likely to fall] the result might also have been different. "There are always critics with the benefit of hindsight for a variety of reasons. But none of the briefings I received or the polls I saw suggested Labor was going to have the result that it did."
This campaign has demonstrated that many television and internal party polls got the results disastrously wrong in several key seats. Liberal and Labor internal polling variously had Werriwa and Barton pegged as tight races despite thumping results for Labor on election day. Ms Murnain took over as campaign director at the beginning of a year where party headquarters was rocked by instability. Previous general-secretary Jamie Clements was ousted in January. Other organisers left in his wake. At the time Ms Murnain took over the campaign many key decisions, such as candidate preselections, were already made, Mr Clements' supporters have noted.
Indigenous broadcaster Stan Grant has warned against shutting out extreme views from national debate after the election of what looks certain to be a polarised parliament.
As of Wednesday, One Nation's Pauline Hanson who actively opposes constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians has secured at least one Senate seat.
But Grant, who has been appointed to the Referendum Council on recognition, said he did not believe such voices should be silenced.
"It's not about shutting anyone down, it's not about being afraid of that. If we're going to successfully prosecute a case for a referendum then you need to look at the political reality and you need to be able to build a case that is persuasive and inclusive."
"Take a social time out," another said, a sentiment echoed by media personality Meshel Laurie who told her to "just switch it off for a while, babe". "You have won:" Her tweet echoed that of the late Charlotte Dawson. Credit:Sam Frost/Twitter But it seems that Frost, 27, cannot log out as she spruiks her trip to Indonesia with boyfriend Sasha Mielczarek, marking their vacation with plenty of loved-up snaps alongside promotional tagging. Southern Cross Austereo also followed up on their duty of care for their employee, reaching out to Frost with support after her distressed message. 'You win:' After a spate of harassment in August 2012, Charlotte Dawson tweeted the above before taking a cocktail of prescription drugs and alcohol. Credit:Charlotte Dawson/Twitter
"SCA has been in touch with Sam. We wholeheartedly support and adore Sam and we don't give online trolls any oxygen," a spokeswoman said. It's not the first time Frost has slammed online bullies. Charlotte Dawson was the victim of online bullying for years. She committed suicide in February 2014. Credit:Getty Images In an open letter published in March, she said she gets called "fat and ugly on a daily basis" and encouraged people to be kinder to one another and to "think before they post which could save a life". Frost may have been hinting at the high-profile suicide of Australia's Next Top Model judge Dawson, who suffered at the hands of anonymous trolls for years.
The Bachelorette star Sam Frost with her now ex-boyfriend Sasha Mielczarek. Credit:Getty Images After a spate of harassment on Twitter in August 2012, Dawson tweeted, "hope this ends the misery" and "you win", before taking a cocktail of prescription drugs and alcohol. Dawson recovered from that suicide attempt, and would take on her online bullies in subsequent years, retweeting and responding to their vile messages. She was found dead in her Woolloomooloo home in February 2014 at the age of 47. Dark side of fame Negative online comments are increasingly the dark side of fame for celebrities who are active on social media, the unsavoury flipside to public success.
Frost has offered up her private life twice as public fodder, getting engaged to and then dumped by Blake Garvey on The Bachelor in 2014 and finding "the one" on The Bachelorette in 2015. Some might say it's hypocritical for her to lambast intrusion into her "personal life" as someone who regularly courts fame, posting constantly about her relationship, talking intimately about her sex life and even going as far as to take a pregnancy test live on air last month. But abuse, in any form, should not be tolerated, according to author and UNICEF ambassador Tara Moss. "We have normalised online abuse, and in doing so many of us have decided that nothing can be done. This idea has disturbing shades of the more toxic assumptions about offline abuse: women just get hit; gays just get bashed. That's life. Besides, that's what they get for being female, being gay, being online," she told Sunday Life in March. "This abuse, it must be stressed, is not a matter of free speech. It is a matter of public safety and law."
There have been calls for Frost to name and shame her trolls, as ABC journalist Leigh Sales did last week when the 7.30 host made public the disturbing online abuse directed at her during the election campaign. Describing the Twitter trolling as "a river of disgusting, sexist and relentless abuse", the TV host shared tweets depicting her and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in bed. Inspired by Sales' actions, News Corp political reporter Annika Smethurst decided to also share abuse sent to her and colleague Ellen Whinnett. Smethurst and Whinnett were called "skanks" in offensive pornographic tweets from one Twitter user. Another by the name of Elms_Kevin referred to their appearances and spoke disparagingly about their children. Daily Life columnist Clementine Ford created headlines in December when hotel worker Michael Nolan was sacked by his employer The Meriton Group after she shared his abuse with her 126,000 Facebook followers.
As someone who is regularly on the receiving end of online abuse, Ford had some sound advice for Frost. "[Do] not feel obliged to give them a platform on their terms. Reply to them, but publicly. Laugh at them. Tease them and make everyone else realise how ridiculous they are. And above all, remember that she's better than them because she doesn't spend her life trolling people online," she said. Columnist Kerri Sackville, who started the #endviolenceagainstwomen campaign, suggested Frost should choose to "ignore". "She could engage with the trolls, like Charlotte [Dawson] did and like Clementine Ford is famous for doing. The upside of engaging is that you name and shame, and the trolls may be publicly rebuked," Sackville said.
"However, the vast majority of trolling is done anonymously, and naming does not shame because they are anonymous and there is no accountability. In fact, these anonymous trolls thrive on the attention and enjoy being retweeted/reposted. "The other school of thought is to block and ignore. That's what I do. Once you block and ignore, the trolls cease to exist." A survey by internet security company Norton shows almost half of all Australian women (47 per cent) experience online harassment. That rises to 76 per cent for women under 30. Seventy per cent of women believe online harassment is a significant problem and 60 per cent believe it has got worse in the past year. "I have long believed and stated that social media platforms need to do more to prevent and address online abuse," Sackville said. "If there were no anonymous accounts, or more accountability for anonymous accounts (for example, if you had to provide personal details to the platform to acquire an anonymous account) social media abuse would plummet.
The number of students enrolled in government-funded vocational education in NSW has plummeted by 86,300 in the past year, new research from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research has revealed.
NCVER found that nationwide about 200,000 fewer people had participated in government-funded skills training in 2015, with the largest decline in students aged 15-19.
The dive in participation could entrench a national shortage of apprentices, as unions warn of a skills shortage in core trades that could drive up costs for businesses and home owners.
Frank Dalziel, the youngest son of WWI Victoria Cross winner Harry Dalziel, never thought of his dad as a hero when he was a boy.
"I lived with it from day one," Mr Dalziel, now 70, said during a family pilgrimage to the Australian War Memorial on Monday to mark the 98th anniversary of his father's act of heroism. "It took me quite a while before I even knew it was important."
Frank Dalziel, youngest son of "Harry" Dalziel VC, visits his father's medal group at the Australian War memorial. Credit:Karleen Minney
Henry "Harry" Dalziel received the 1000th VC to be awarded after storming a German machine gun post wielding two revolvers and a captured enemy dagger on July 4, 1918, during the Battle of Hamel.
While he never spoke of the war to his children, he did write an account of the events of that day many years later.
Happily, the conversation about what Wyoming students should be expected to learn in science class is different in both substance and style than it was two years ago.
That was the year the Next Generation Science Standards, which deal with climate change, were met with heated animosity. It was also one year after lawmakers stripped then-Superintendent of Public Instruction Cindy Hill of her power in a bill that was eventually ruled unconstitutional. Chaos reigned in the department, with many employees resigning and complaining of a hostile work environment.
All that seems far away now. A new set of standards, which are similar in content to the Next Generation standards, is approaching the finish line for adoption in the states schools. Gov. Matt Mead and the state Board of Education will review comments before ultimately deciding in the fall whether to OK the standards or change them.
This statewide dialogue, however, has lacked the bitterness and rancor that characterized the conversation two years ago.
The state has a more transparent process to thank for that. The public had multiple opportunities to offer input on the standards, and the members of the group that developed them are a fair representation of Wyomingites, including people from both education and the energy industry.
Another calming influence is Jillian Balow, the states schools chief. Balow, a Republican, has offered full support for the standards as well as the transparency of the process. However, she has also championed the industry, noting that energy taxes have supplied more than $3 billion for education since 2003. She has maintained a delicate balance between ensuring that Wyoming children receive fact-based science lessons and supporting an industry that employs sometimes-controversial science while it plays a huge role in supporting state schools.
All this civility has allowed science to lead the way a difficult line to walk in energy-centric Wyoming. It has offered a too-rare demonstration of what happens when people balance a variety of priorities to ensure our students receive the best education possible. Political affiliation isnt the beginning or end of this discussion, and the leaders involved have realized that.
Hopefully, we in Wyoming will see more of this type of decision-making open, transparent and most of all, productive.
Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune
Should landlords still have the power to tell renters they can't get pets?
Should they face some restriction on the number of times the rent can be increased each year?
Or should tenants be able to refuse to allow landlords to take photos of their living rooms, if those landlords want to rent those living rooms to someone else?
These are some of the issues that the NSW government looked at in a review of tenancy legislation but, to the disappointment of tenancy advocates, decided not to change.
A son accused of killing his father in a daylight one-punch attack in the Brisbane CBD will undergo a mental health assessment after facing upgraded charges.
Appearing in court for the second day in a row, Morgan Alexander Isles-English was clearly agitated but seemed calmer than on Tuesday, when he sobbed throughout the hearing.
Varri Telfer is grieving the loss of her partner, Mark English, who died after an alleged one-punch attack in the Brisbane CBD.
His father, Mark Bradley McGrice, also known as Mark English, died in hospital on Tuesday following the alleged attack, prompting police to upgrade a the son's charge to unlawful striking causing death.
Outside court, a homicide victims campaigner described the death as heartbreaking.
BlackBerry will no longer manufacture the BlackBerry Classic, a beloved, updated model of the original that made the company a smartphone leader before Apple and Samsung dethroned it.
Chief executive officer John Chen introduced the Classic after joining the company in 2013, bringing back the raised-button keyboard that BlackBerry enthusiasts loved, and which his predecessor, Thorsten Heins, let fall by the wayside with his push to full touch-screen devices.
Bye bye BlackBerry Classic.
The decision to end production of the Classic is one step further toward eliminating the BB10 operating system, which will now only be running on the Passport model, in a pivot to newer phones running on the Android platform. Chen is also increasingly focused on software as revenue from handsets has declined over the past two years. In the latest fiscal quarter, BlackBerry sold 500,000 devices, compared with 600,000 in the previous quarter.
"The Classic has long surpassed the average lifespan for a smartphone in today's market," Ralph Pini, general manager for devices and chief operating officer, said in a blog posting. "We are ready for this change so we can give our customers something better."
Google probably knows you better than your closest friends and family. With every search you make or YouTube video you watch, the search giant is quietly collecting information for a personalised profile it uses to serve you targeted ads. But a new tool called My Activity makes it easier than ever to see what information that Google is stockpiling about you - and delete things you'd rather it forget. Here's what you need to know about this new tool and how it can help you manage your privacy.
So what exactly is My Activity?
We've all Googled things we probably don't want other people to see. Credit:Rob Homer
It's basically a timeline that shows you what Google has saved about your online activities going back as far as Google has been tracking them. You can find it by going here. (Note: You'll probably be prompted to re-enter your password as a security measure.) Once you've made it in, there should be a big chronological list of things you've done using Google's services - the searches you've made, videos you've watched on YouTube, and so on (assuming you haven't already used Google's privacy controls to block the collection of certain information, of course).
You can even search through the data trove to look up a specific record or activity Google has saved -- like maybe the time you searched for a home remedy for plantar warts -- or filter the timeline by date or type of activity.
About 800 people and 40 organisations were consulted for the plan, many of whom stressed that people want access to palliative care in their homes and local areas.
The state government will on Thursday release a new framework for end-of-life and palliative care, and commit $7.2 million to immediately begin integrating, training and expanding the sector to give Victorians more options towards the end of their lives.
More Victorians would be able to die at home under an ambitious government plan to overhaul the state's strained and fragmented palliative care system within two years.
A recent parliamentary end of life choices review found that although most people want to die at home studies suggest up to 80 per cent only 14 per cent do, with most dying in hospitals. It also recommended a doctor-assisted dying scheme.
The government plans to introduce laws to protect patient's end-of-life wishes, ensure their preferences are discussed, develop and test new models of home-based care and create a state-wide standard.
"Many people who currently die in hospitals would have much preferred to have died at home, so many people that are trying to provide good palliative care at home could do with additional support," state government Minister for Health Jill Hennessy said.
The initial $7.2million will be used for training to expand specialist palliative care services, support GPs in local areas to assist people at home, and to develop a standardised care model, she said.
"I feel optimistic that in the next 12 months we will have in place a proper model of care that will significantly increase the options for more people to die at home in an environment that is medically safe, compassionate and supportive for patients and families."
If the gang that killed Graham Kinniburgh did the deed in a green Hyundai, why did they pause 10 minutes later to torch a different, unrelated car one that on first inspection contained no evidence linked to the case?
And why is there no DNA, fingerprint or identification evidence linking the man charged to the crime?
Graham Kinniburgh was killed in Kew in 2003. Credit:Andrew De La Rue
These are the questions raised by the legal team representing Stephen Asling, 55, who stands charged with the murder of Graham 'The Munster' Kinniburgh.
Asling will face a directions hearing in the Supreme Court later this month for Kinniburgh's murder. He has pleaded not guilty.
If you've begrudgingly paid a parking fine in the City of Perth recently, you're not alone.
The local council was projected to net more than $10 million from parking fines in the 2015-16 financial year - a figure requiring around 100,000 people, or 275 people a day, to receive the dreaded slip on their vehicle windscreen.
Revenue from the parking fines, issued by the city's 32 parking inspectors, is nearly five times more than that of its nearest competitor, the City of Vincent, which issued $2.11 million worth of fines in 2015.
The $10 million projected figure is $3 million more than what the City of Perth netted from parking fines in 2014-15, when it nabbed 97,000 drivers at a total cost of $7.64 million.
MINER COUNTY With his scratched arms cradled around the lively, belly-up bird, Rocco Murano clenched his pliers down on a shiny new band.
The states senior waterfowl biologist loves this time of year, despite the annoying goose hickies that come with the work.
They can getcha, said Murano, referencing the lacerations where Canada geese had clawed, scraped and chomped him.
During a recent June morning, Murano and 10 other South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks Department employees corralled a gaggle of geese on a wetland in Miner County.
As part of collaborative research in the Central Flyway, GF&P staff have increased efforts to track Canada geese through banding since 2012. In that time, GF&P has banded 8,375 Canada geese in South Dakota, and Murano said his department will band about 1,500 more this year.
Banding is the process of capturing a bird and putting a small metal band with a tracking number around one leg. Murano and GF&P staff conduct banding efforts from late-July until mid-September on different species of birds. The purpose is to calculate survival and harvest rates, along with population estimates.
To coordinate these banding efforts is quite a treat for Murano, as it was about 20 years ago that Canada geese numbers were down significantly, when the species was in a restoration phase.
Since the late 90s, we went out of restoration phrase, and now the population has increased very dramatically, Murano said. Things have changed a lot in a relatively short period of time. Its a great success story.
The process
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates there were 155,000 resident Canada geese in South Dakota in 2015, and that number was as high as 270,000 in 2012.
While this years population estimate will be available later this month, 50 geese were slowly pushed toward an area of caged netting on June 22 in Miner County on one of many days Murano conducted banding work.
To do it, GF&P employees surrounded a large wetland and enticed the geese toward a funnel of nets that were set up and led to a trap.
Murano said its this time of year adult geese drop their flight feathers during an annual molting, and that's when banding occurs. He explained Mother Nature times it so the adult birds are growing their new feathers out as the baby geese get bigger and feathered, and they're learning how to fly.
To push the geese toward the nets, there were people in boats, others were in kayaks and some were hiding along the shore. Then, when the birds reached the netted area, the geese were fenced in and the banding started.
Hannah Leeper, 22, of White Bear Lake, Minn., was hired this summer as a seasonal employee with GF&P.
The only woman of the group, she said the hands-on style of work was what she loved about the job. The previous day, the group banded about 180 geese.
We got a lot of practice really fast, she said. And I feel really comfortable handling wildlife.
Properly banding the geese meant first determining the sex and age of the bird. Murano split the birds into four categories -- immature male and female and adult male and female -- to track with differing numbered bands.
The birds are really far along this year, Murano said. We had an earlier hatch, which is good for banding.
With a Canada goose cradled and the wings tucked back, the bander holds a leg and squeezes a loosely fit band to the birds leg with a pliers. Then, the goose is released back to the wetland after noting its age and sex.
American Band Co. in Kentucky makes the bands, but theyre ordered out of the bird banding lab in Laurel, Md., where lucky hunters who harvest banded geese call to report their numbers.
Thats where all the data goes, Murano said.
To report a band, hunters can call 800-327-BAND or go online to www.reportband.gov.
Early hunting seasons
When Murano graduated from high school in Huron in 1997, it was not legal to shoot a Canada goose in Beadle County because there were so few.
Thats changed dramatically, as the past several years there have been extremely liberal bag limits and early hunting seasons to help control populations.
In 2010, GF&P initiated an attempt to alleviate local agriculture depredation issues and reduce giant Canada goose populations by starting a special August Management Take. At the time, there were in excess of 200,000 Canada geese in South Dakota, well beyond the population objective of 80,000 to 90,000 breeding birds.
Some counties in South Dakota have held an early September Canada goose hunting season each year since 1996, but then populations exploded to kick off the August take.
These birds have very high survival rates for a game bird, and they have four to six goslings annually, Murano said. Populations of any species can increase quickly with those factors.
Murano explained this is the first year since 2010 that eastern South Dakota will not hold an August Management Take for Canada geese.
From 2010 to 2015, hunters have harvested 145,500 Canada geese during the August Management Take, which is only for counties in which Canada geese have proven to be nuisances on crops, mainly eastern and northeastern South Dakota.
Harvest and hunting participation were low last year, and they had been declining for the past three years, Murano said. We heard a lot of negative comments from hunters, which is one of the main reasons the department called to bring it forward to eliminate it. Were going to find out through efforts such as banding whether we actually see a reduction in harvest or if it stays the same. Theres a possibility the harvest rate stays the same because folks will only shoot so many geese, whether its August or September.
Instead, South Dakota hunters will begin to hunt Canada geese starting on Sept. 3 this year.
A coordinated effort
While Murano and his GF&P banding crew are on the latter half of their efforts with Canada geese this year, theyll continue on other species for several weeks.
Geese are typically banded in late-June through July; mourning doves are banded in July; and ducks are banded in mid-August until early-September.
Last year, GF&P banded 1,279 ducks in South Dakota and Murano said the goal each year is to band as many as we can get.
Some years well band 500 and some years 1,800, and we target primarily mallards, he said. It makes for a full summer.
This is the fifth year in a coordinated effort across the Central Flyway to band Canada geese. The Central Flyway includes 10 states ranging north from Montana and North Dakota south to New Mexico and Texas and some Canadian provinces.
Murano said its the first time ever theres been a coordinated banding effort in the Central Flyway. Once completed, the analysis of band recoveries will aid in the understanding of an indirect population estimate of the species in the Central Flyway along with learning regionalized survival estimates.
We want to see if South Dakota has a lower survival rate, which it likely does, because we have a lot of hunting pressure up here, Murano said.
South Dakota is also reconsidering its objective population goal of Canada geese to be increased from 80,000 to 90,000 resident birds to 125,000 to 175,000, a range that was agreed upon by a stakeholder group through research and population estimates.
The stakeholder group was sportsmen, farming groups, GF&P agencies, and we all came together because we recognized the old objective was probably unattainable, Murano said. Hopefully this fall, well get it finalized for the next five years.
GF&P commissioners, the governing body of the department, will discuss the objective goal at their August meeting. They could finalize the objective in September.
The point of the objective is to help determine hunting limits, whether they should be liberal or conservative. Its also to find a compromised number of Canada geese for sportsmen and landowners, Murano said.
Thats where banding comes in.
This is an operational thing and a commitment moving forward, Murano said. We may not band at this level, but well band geese each year. I always look forward to it. It gets me out of the office.
If you've made plans this weekend in Perth, you may want to pack an umbrella with rain and possible thunderstorms predicted for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Bureau of Meteorology spokesman Neil Bennett said the wet weather will start on Thursday afternoon, with the worst coming through on Saturday morning.
"It is going to be pretty chilly - there's a frontal feature to move up during Friday and into Saturday and in behind that is some very cold air," he said.
"Saturday will see showers on and off, probably the heaviest during the morning when we're likely to see thunderstorms and the possibility of hail.
An elderly North Coogee resident has lost $25,000 in cash after mistakenly donating the cushions she stored it in to charity, according to reports.
The 76-year-old returned to the South Fremantle Salvation Army store last month after realising her mistake, the Community Newspaper Group reported on Wednesday, but the two pale printed cushions were gone.
Someone bought a lot more than cushions when the Salvos got a deceptively small donation. Credit:File Image
"I've got a little bit of money in the bank which I use to pay my bills but this money was my security to help my kids if they needed anything desperately," she told the Cockburn Gazette.
She said keeping a portion of her money out of the bank was something she had done since the global economic crisis.
London: Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he would make the same decision again to join the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, after he and other officials were accused of misleading the public and Parliament over the intelligence used to justify the invasion.
Mr Blair, appearing tired and at times emotional, presented a two-hour defence of his conduct in light of the inquiry report that said Britain had decided to invade Iraq before exhausting peaceful options, used intelligence presented with a "certainty that was not justified", and undermined the authority of the United Nations.
"We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted," said John Chilcot, the lead author of the 2.6-million-word report, which presented the results of an inquiry that took seven years to complete.
She said that there was no indication at all that the deceased was in an abusive relationship with Pistorius. Judge Thokozile Masipa has faced a criticism over the sentence. Credit:Getty Images She also said there was no evidence there had been a row between Pistorius and Ms Steenkamp before her death, as suggested by the prosecution. Carl Pistorius, brother of Oscar, praised the judge.
But the sentence sparked shock and dismay among many observers, including the Women's League of the ruling African National Congress (ANCWL), who told Reuters the sentence was too soft. "First five years, now six years? [the judge] is an embarrassment to the justice system," ANCWL spokeswoman Jacqueline Mofokeng said. "It is an insult to women in this country." The state and large sections of the South African public had demanded a 15 year jail term, the prescribed minimum term for murder, saying he had shown no remorse for the 2013 killing. Paul Hoffman, a lawyer and director of rights group Accountability Now told AAP the reduction in the minimum sentence sought from 15 to 6 years, "seems to me to be unduly generous to Oscar."
"It's quite possible that having invested so much effort in the prosecution ... that (state prosecutor) Gerrie Nel will saddle up again and ride out in an effort to get a bigger sentence," he said. The sentencing also angered many users on social media, some of whom argued his race, and the fact that his victim was his partner, contributed to short sentence.
Pistorius says he fired four shots into the toilet door at his luxury Pretoria home in the mistaken belief that an intruder was hiding behind it. His defence argued that his disability and mental stress that occurred in the aftermath of the killing should be considered as mitigating circumstances to reduce his sentence.
Pistorius, who stood impassively as the sentence was read out, hugged members of his legal team and chatted briefly with his sister Aimee before being led away by police. It was unclear whether the state, which has two weeks to appeal, would accept Wednesday's sentence. Pistorius' defence team said he would not appeal and that their client would be able to apply for parole after serving half to two-thirds of the sentence. The track star, who had the lower part of his legs amputated when he was a baby, was freed from prison last October after almost a year behind bars. He was to serve the remainder of his five-year term under house arrest at his uncle's house in a wealthy suburb of the capital. Pistorius has been living with his uncle since.
Ms Steenkamp's father Barry had made an emotional statement to the sentencing hearings. Barry Steenkamp gives emotional testimony at Pistorius' sentencing hearing in June. Credit:AP "I personally think that there was an argument," Mr Steenkamp told the court in June. "She must have been in so much fear and pain, that is what I think of all the time, I visualise that I can see it myself. It must have been absolutely and utterly awful." On Wednesday though he declined to comment on the prospects for an appeal. "We'll leave that to the state," he told reporters.
Women are coming out on Twitter as proud to be "difficult" in support of Theresa May, one of two female candidates likely to become the next British prime minister when incumbent David Cameron steps down.
After a senior Conservative politician Ken Clarke, 76, was caught on camera describing Mrs May as "bloody difficult", the Twittersphere did what it does best: it went into overdrive, mocking his views. #Bloodydifficultwoman became one of the hottest trends on Twitter on Wednesday (Australian time).
Mr Clarke, a lawmaker for 46 years, was a minister in the governments of Conservative leaders Mr Cameron, John Major and Margaret Thatcher.
A 300-page report by the committee after a five-month inquiry into the Paris attacks highlighted poor co-ordination by French police and intelligence services, and among the 26 countries in the Schengen area.
It also called for a shake-up of the six intelligence services operating in France and recommended merging them into a single counter-terrorism agency.
Paris: Potential terrorists can move too freely in the European Schengen open-borders area and member states should flag up suspects more systematically on a shared police database, a French parliamentary committee said on Tuesday.
One of the Paris attackers, Samy Amimour, was able to leave France in 2013 and travel to Syria, via Italy and Turkey, despite having been placed under judicial supervision a year earlier. Belgium's failure to pass on information about Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged ringleader of the terror cell that killed 130 people in Paris on Nov 13 last year, allowed him to escape arrest in Greece, 10 months earlier.
Police officers patrol outside the Bataclan concert hall after the attack. Credit:Getty Images
The committee chairman, Georges Fenech, said French and European counter-terrorism services badly needed an overhaul.
"We have structures that date from the 1980s, when terrorism was not what it is today. We must be much more ambitious - to reform our intelligence-gathering and truly coordinate it at the European level," Mr Fenech said.
He said all three of the attackers at the Bataclan concert hall were previously known to security services, and yet their trace was lost.
Latest News ANZ to launch digital home loans Full-year results show loan turnaround times 'back to normal'
ASIC appeals dismissal of petition against CBA and Colonial First State The case is over allegations of breached conflicted remuneration laws
Major debtor finance company Scottish Pacific has extended its local presence in South Australia.In a move which the company says will benefit South Australian SMEs, seven new staff have joined Scottish Pacifics South Australian team, which opened a larger office in Adelaide this week to grow the business in the state.Scottish Pacific CEO Peter Langham said 2016 had been a major year of growth for the specialist funder, which has more than 1,600 clients in industries including manufacturing, labour hire, wholesale, import and transport.To provide improved funding options for SMEs in South Australia, we have added to our local team. This gives businesses in the state better access to flexible facilities, unsecured to real estate, and with a local team in place for fast funding decisions, he said.General manager of the South Australian office, Gary Green, added: Our local business development manager Greg Hardiman has forged excellent bonds with South Australian SMEs and we look forward to our seven new team members working closely with clients to help grow their businesses.Our clients in South Australia range from family quarrying companies to exporting paint manufacturers, from start-ups to iconic SA companies, and we are delighted to be able to offer them a strong local team to help them reach their business aspirations.
Latest News ANZ to launch digital home loans Full-year results show loan turnaround times 'back to normal'
ASIC appeals dismissal of petition against CBA and Colonial First State The case is over allegations of breached conflicted remuneration laws
The South Australian state government has ruled out imposing extra surcharges on foreign investors in the state.The announcement means South Australia will not be joining New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria who all recently announced tax surcharges on foreign investors as a part of their state budgets.Property Council of Australia SA executive director, Daniel Gannon, said he is pleased with the outcome. He said imposing extra charges is a big risk to the property market.Slapping counter-productive taxes on foreign investment is a great big risk for housing supply in our major capital cities.What we're seeing in Queensland, Victoria and NSW is a race to the bottom on populist taxes that fail to address housing supply or improve affordability.Gannon said the South Australian governments decision will boost investment in the state.In shaping a thriving future for South Australia, we need to create a business environment that turns our state into a hub of innovation and investment. Lowering our tax regime and cutting red tape will help attract investment and lift productivity.The State Government's commercial stamp duty changes, once phased in by July 2018, will make our economy one of the most competitive places in Australia to do business.That will create the boost to business confidence that we need and send a strong message to foreign investors.According to research from the Property Council of Australia, property is the largest single industry contributor in South Australia, paying 56.6% of state taxes, local government rates, fees and charges. It accounts for 10.8% of the state's economic activity and is the largest private sector employer.The message to investors is now very clear: if you want to pay lower taxes on property transactions, then invest in South Australia, Gannon said.
FARGO Emergency crews have responded at least twice since a Homeless Jesus statue was set up about a month ago in front of First Lutheran Church in downtown Fargo.
The bronze depiction of Jesus huddled on a bench looks so much like a sleeping homeless man that passers-by have notified church staff and emergency crews, reporting that the person needed medical help.
Fargo Fire Department crews have responded at least once to the statue at 619 Broadway Ave. N. since it was installed June 4.
Battalion Chief Dane Carley said emergency crews treat every call as an emergency, even if they think theyre being sent to a statue.
Theres a fairly high percentage of calls downtown that turn out to be someone taking a nap, Carley said.
Fargo police Sgt. Kevin Pallas said the police department has responded to at least two calls, one on Sunday, July 3, and another the week before.
Its not a common call. It just shows we have concerned citizens who are willing to make the call, he said. Thats encouraging.
The Rev. Laurie Neill said the churchs staff was expecting a few 911 calls about the statue based on similar calls in other cities where the statue has been installed.
A cast of the statue in Hamilton, Ontario, prompted some 911 calls.
Thanks to those who reported someone laying out in the cold, thankfully it's the Homeless Jesus statue, Hamiltons paramedic service tweeted in January.
Neill said the day after First Lutheran unveiled Homeless Jesus, a Sanford Medical Center employee walked by and asked a church employee if they were aware there was a homeless man sleeping on your bench.
She said the churchs staff was told another time that there had been a dead man on the bench on its front lawn for a few days.
I wish I could hear their reactions when they find out its a depiction of Jesus, Neill said.
Carley said receiving calls about people lying down in public areas is fairly common. He said people sometimes dont check to see if who theyre calling about actually needs help because theyll be driving by without having time to stop.
Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz, who designed the statue, installed the first one at the University of Toronto in 2013. Casts of the statue have been installed in other cities, including Dublin and Detroit.
Pope Francis blessed the art in Rome in 2013, and officials in London rejected an application to install a cast of it near Westminster Abbey in April.
Neill said people have largely understood that the statue is meant to ask people if this depiction of Jesus would be welcome, and to challenge how people think about homelessness. She said one person left an anonymous note tucked underneath the statues head, a thank you note to Jesus, she said.
Weve had very, very positive comments, Neill said.
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Its a case of Sea-Doos and sea donts.
The city must protect Brooklyn swimmers from devil-may-care personal watercraft riders, recreationists are demanding. The inconsiderate Jet Skiers buzz dangerously close to back-stroking locals, who say theyre now afraid to go into the water.
Im terrified to be honest, Im terrified just to go swimming, said Lyn Goldsmith, member of the Coney Island Brighton Beach Open Waters Swimmers organization. I had one very close call where I almost got hit. I felt the spray when I turned my head to breathe, and when I looked up, I saw the Jet Ski take off.
Parks Department rules prohibit all personal watercraft in the waters right off Coney Island Beach from W. 37th Street to Brighton 15th Street and its up to the police departments Harbor Patrol Unit to enforce those rules and issue the $50 fine, a spokeswoman said.
But littoral law enforcement is lax at best, according to natators who claim they rarely see police off the shore.
The reality is they should be patrolling it very frequently, and they are not not enough, said avid swimmer Mark Heller. And I think if they were patrolling more frequently that itself would be a good shield its the presence.
Swimmers who try to warn the scofflaw seamen to back off are met with a salty salute, another bather said.
I was swimming along with a friend, and a jet ski came right between us we were very close to the jetty and she said to him, Youre in way too far, and he just gave her the finger and took off, said Goldsmith.
If police wont enforce the rules, then the Parks Department should at least drop buoys to let riders know off-limits areas something it did in years past, according to another seafarer who said the floating markers were enough to keep her at bay.
I was a prominent Jet Skier, I obeyed the regulations, said swimmer Lesa Fishman. There used to be a white buoy floating clearly, and if we dared to go inside, we would get pulled over by the marine police, and we would be fined. I never ever came inside those zones.
But the Parks Department wont even go that far, because buoys actually endanger weak swimmers by enticing them to paddle out too far, said a spokeswoman.
Parks does not install lines or buoys to delineate boundaries for Jet Skis, as they tempt swimmers to swim beyond their limits and end up in distress, she said.
The Parks Department could not provide any studies citing this trend, and the New York City Harbor Unit did not return a request for comment.
A father and son died in a personal watercraft collision in New Jersey on July 3.
Reach reporter Julianne Cuba at (718) 2604577 or by e-mail at jcuba @cngl ocal.com . Follow her on Twitter @julcuba.
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Superhero empire Marvel Comics is installing a massive bronze statue of Captain America in Prospect Park next month to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the Brooklyn-born character but some fans say the timing couldnt be worse.
The comic is currently in the midst of a controversial story arc in which the super soldier has joined the evil Hydra organization a criminal network with origins in the Nazi party and aficionados say it isnt exactly a period many would like to see memorialized.
For much of Hydras past, they were explicitly a fictionalized Nazi group, said Tea Fougner, a former Prospect Heights resident who dresses up as the character. While Steve Rogers is definitely a symbol for an open, accepting, and loving America over 99 percent of the time, the fact that the statue is being announced during that less-than-1-percent when he isnt necessarily, that is dampening excitement over the statue for a lot of people.
The one-ton, 13-foot-tall likeness of Steve Rogerss super-powered alter ego, arriving in Brooklyns Backyard on Aug. 10, will be inscribed with Im just a kid from Brooklyn a quote from the 2011 film Captain America: The First Avenger according to Marvel.
But even that could cause some controversy, according to local geeks in the comics, Rogers grew up in Manhattan, and his Brooklyn heritage only dates back to the recent films.
Im sure there will be some backlash, said Hank Kwon, owner of Bulletproof Comics in Flatbush. People do know that when it goes to the big screen they will take some liberties and tweak the characters origins, or tell the same origin with a little twist, but Im sure there will be that one guy.
Marvel is staying tight lipped about where exactly and for how long the statue will be in the park, but a source close to the project said it is tentatively planned to appear near the carousel by Flatbush Avenue, where it will stand for two weeks as a beacon to fans borough wide.
After that, the statue will embark on a yearlong tour of several key locations, according to a company spokeswoman, although our source claimed that the city is in talks with the comic juggernaut to make the statue a permanent fixture in Brooklyn.
Borough President Eric Adams, who worked with Marvel to bring the statue to Kings County, did not respond to questions about Caps Nazi or outer-borough affiliations by press time, but said in a statement that he is thrilled to have the justice seeker back in his sort-of native borough.
Captain America was always more than just a kid from Brooklyn, said the statement. The epic story of this paragon of patriotism, told over decades of crime-fighting, has inspired millions of comic lovers across our nation. I am thrilled to be working with Marvel to bring Captain America home on his 75th anniversary.
And even Fougner says she is still stoked to see a Captain America statue a common fixture of fans stories and artworks in the real world.
Statues of Steve Rogers are such an ubiquitous part of the fictional landscape for every Marvel fan, she said. They exist within Marvel canon, and in so many fan fictions, fan arts, and fan-comics, and the idea of having a real one is such great ignition of the imagination!
Reach reporter Colin Mixson at cmixs on@cn gloca l.com or by calling (718) 260-4505.
News / National
by Staff reporter
Business activity and confidence levels in Zimbabwe has taken a knock as protests over import restrictions and unrest in the public transport sector takes a toll on an already struggling economy, executives and economists said.Zimbabwe is bracing for civil service protests after unions gave notice to strike over delayed pay on Tuesday. The government said salaries for the month of June would be delayed and instead offered a $100 advance allowance.But this has not gone down well with the government workers and the situation has worsened by violent protests that erupted at the Beitbridge border with Zimbabwe over the weekend. As many as 70 people had been arrested over the protests, which resulted in service delivery disruption at the port of entry.Business leaders told Fin24 on Tuesday that the economy was taking a further pounding from the civil unrest and protests by workers. They said "escalation of the situation might force businesses to close down operations" as infrastructure and equipment could be destroyed."Businesses in the affected areas such as service stations, shops and other companies had to partially close down yesterday because of the protests by the public transport operators. For the transport industry this has been a major disruption because there was no business on Monday," said a business and industry leader, declining to be named.Zimbabwe is facing constraining cash shortages that have affected business operations. With the economy now mostly informal, business has also been affected by import restrictions imposed by the government.Zimbabwe Industry Minister Mike Bimha has however insisted that the restrictions will remain in place despite the protests at Beitbridge over the weekend. The Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) on Monday said it would deal with the protesters.Zimbabwe's economy is expected to decline further this year amid slowing productivity in industry, manufacturing and mining where companies are in distress. The United States issued a caution over the protests in Zimbabwe while tourism industry players say the resort towns have not yet been affected."The Zimbabwe Republic Police would like to warn all those who are inciting and engaging in violence that such misconduct will be severely dealt with," said Charity Charamba, police spokesperson and a senior assistant commissioner.Civil servants had given notice that they would strike on Tuesday, but most offices were open. However, some teachers and nurses were reported to be on a go-slow, according to Fin24 witnesses.Acting Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Supa Mandiwanzira was quoted by state media on Tuesday saying the government was facing a "desperate situation" regarding payment of the civil servants.Social media platforms have also been spreading word that all workers in Zimbabwe will down tools on Wednesday in protest over corruption by government officials, delayed salaries and the current cash shortages. The police force however says it is aware of those behind the civil unrest and that these would be arrested.Another business leader said the import restrictions had been cut by more than half the revenues that the government was getting from import duties. He said "the government will run out of money and this situation of delayed salaries for public workers will worsen".The introduction of local bond notes in October is also fuelling a decline in business confidence in Zimbabwe, according to economists. The bond notes will be paid out as incentives to exporters, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said on BBC's Hard Talk on Tuesday."Exporters are not complaining (about the local currency bond notes) because this is to benefit exporters and we want to incentivise bond notes," Chinamasa told the BBC.
PATCO track tragedy took the lives of two family men
NTSB: PATCO track 'had not been taken out of service' when workers were hit on Ben Franklin Bridge tracks
Limited is likely to be the second Hyderabad-based company actively looking at acquiring the 'overlapping products' from Israeli generics drug major Teva, this time in Europe.
"Wait for some time," a senior management official of Aurobindo told Business Standard in response to a query on Tuesday's Bloomberg report, which stated that the company was among other players considering bids for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited portfolio of drugs in the UK, Ireland and Iceland.
The official, however, refused to elaborate any further, though his crisp response makes Aurobindo's interest in Teva's product sale in Europe very clear.
Bloomberg report also said, quoting an unnamed source, that Aurobindo would finance the deal with a loan of more than $1 billion. No final decision has been made, and the company could still decide against a bid, same sources told the agency.
Earlier this year Teva won a conditional European Commission approval for the takeover of Irish company Allergan after allaying regulators' concerns with concessions, including the sale of "the great majority" of the subsidiary's U.K. and Irish business.
Last year Teva signed a definitive agreement to acquire Allergan's generics Actavis business for $ 40 billion while agreeing to sell the overlapping products to comply with the anti-monopoly laws in the US and Europe.
In June, Dr Reddy's Laboratories announced the acquisition of eight such abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) from Teva for $350 million. Cadilla Healthcare acquired two ANDAs.
In the race for buying Teva's European products on offer include big names like Maylan NV and Novartis AG among others according to the earlier reports. Incidentally Maylan resisted an earlier bid for acquisition by Teva.
Private equity firms including Apollo Global Management LLC and Cinven Ltd are also weighing bids for the business, which could fetch $1.5 billion to $2 billion, Bloomberg said quoting people in the know.
Aurobindo, which was able to stabilise the contribution of its European formulations business at around 22 per cent of its total revenues, is said to be betting on the European Commission 's preference for a strategic buyer with experience in the European generics market.
In 2015-16 Aurobindo achieved a revenue of Rs 3,130 crore from the formulations business in Europe, which is 28 percent of the total formulations business of of Rs 11,166 crore. Together with the API business the company had achieved a top line of Rs 13,896 crore in the last financial year. For Aurobindo, Europe is the second most important market after the US for the formulations as well as the
The company had got the highest number of product approvals from the USFDA last year as it has set out to achieve a target of $3 billion revenues by 2017-18. In May the company managing director N Govindarajan told analysts that he would not rule out capital raising for strategic purposes. Late last year the company had decided to seek shareholder approval for an enabling resolution to raise up to $600 million.
As at the end of March, 2016 the company has a gross debt of Rs 4,708 crore. However it has a cash balance of Rs 840 crore bringing down the net debt to marginally lower levels compared to the previous year. It had raised loans in the recent past to fund the acquisition of US-based nutraceutical company Natrol and Actavis Plc's loss making commercial operations in Europe.
Earnings of Sensex are expected to drop 2 per cent led by telecom, energy, automobile and banking sectors, during the first quarter of 2016-17 over the same period a year-ago, says a report.
According to Kotak Institutional Equities, net profit of under BSE-30 index for April-June quarter would decline by 2 per cent year-on-year, while it would plunge by 6 per cent on quarter-on-quarter basis.
However, excluding energy sector, the net profits of Sensex would rise marginally by 0.9 per cent for the first quarter ended June 2016, compared to the year-ago period.
The same would decline by 6.8 per cent on quarter-on-quarter basis.
"For the BSE-30 Index, we expect net profits to decline 2 per cent year-on-year and 6 per cent quarter-on-quarter," the report said.
Earnings for telecom companies in the BSE-30 index are likely to decline 28.2 per cent followed by 13 per cent dip in energy sector, on year-on-year basis, data compiled by Kotak Institutional Equities showed.
Besides, profits would fall for automobiles (11.2 per cent) and banking (10.4 per cent).
Profits of utilities sector is expected to grow 26.8 per cent, followed by 23.6 per cent growth for pharmaceuticals.
Infrastructure (14.4 per cent), Industrials (15.7 per cent) and consumer product sector (12.8 per cent) would also see rise in earnings, for period under review.
The report noted that sales for the BSE-30 companies are expected to grow 4 per cent for the first quarter compared to the same period a year-ago, led by infrastructure, technology and pharmaceutical sectors.
Swedish fashion retailer H&M plans to have 1,000 employees in India by the end of the year, a senior executive of the company has said. H&M, which has six stores across the Delhi national capital region, Bengaluru and Mohali, currently has around 800 employees in the country.
Swedish fashion retailer H&M plans to have 1,000 employees in India by the end of the year, a senior executive has said. H&M, which has six stores across the Delhi-National Capital Region, Bengaluru and Mohali and around 800 employees in the country.
L&T Infotech, a midsize information technology (IT) services company and a subsidiary of Larsen and Toubro says that it would continue to hire freshers from campuses even though there will be a significant focus on improving the quality of hiring. This is predominantly happening because of the shift in the client environment with demand and supply mismatch which is making the clients to look for best talent to work for their projects, according to Sanjay Jalona, CEO and MD of .
In June this year, the Mumbai-headquartered company had revoked the selection of hundreds of campus recruits after they failed to qualify a subsequent round of test even after obtaining their offer letters. The company subsequently had clarified that these campus recruits were given letter of intent and not offer letters, and the changes were made due to a demand supply mismatch that it did not anticipate earlier.
A former government official of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation accused of accepting bribes and kickbacks from a construction contractor has pleaded guilty to federal charges in North Dakota. Randall Phelan was an elected representative of the governing body of the Three Affiliated Tribes from the end of 2012 to the middle of 2020. Investigators say Phelan used his official position to help the contractors business by awarding contracts, fabricating bids and managing fraudulent invoices. His trial had been scheduled to begin Tuesday. Phelan and two others were originally charged with receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from the bribery scheme on the oil-rich Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The contractor has pleaded guilty to bribery.
Five bidders who submitted their final bids for Lafarge India's 11-million tonne (mt) cement business have been called to London for last leg of discussion starting Thursday. Foreign bidders including Mexico's Cemex and China's Anhui Conch Cement Company are believed to have bid aggressively to get an entry into the country. Domestic bidders including the Ajay Piramal Group, Nirma and Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Cement also submitted their bids on Monday.
With the reshuffle over, day two was about why a certain minister was moved out and another brought in. Ravi Shankar Prasad, whos lost the high-profile portfolio to Manoj Sinha, was one such.
A minor accused in the case has been granted bail, an official said on Wednesday.
The minor was lodged in a juvenile home. Another minor accused was bailed out a month ago by a court.
A mob had lynched 52-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq and injured his son Danish after dragging them out of their home in Bishada village of Gautam Budh Nagar district on September 28, 2015, following rumours that they had slaughtered a cow and consumed beef.
A total of 19 persons were accused in the case. Of these, one was given a clean chit by police and let off. Sixteen accused are still lodged in jail.
A petition has been filed in court seeking their discharge. The hearing has since been completed and the court has reserved its order.
Shiv Sena student wing has threatened mass self-immolation by its workers if the case against the accused was not withdrawn by July 15.
Aimed at combining the ancient knowledge of water harvesting with the latest technology, a water research institute will be established in Odisha by the Art of Living, the organisation's founder Sri Sri Ravishankar has said.
At the India Water Summit 2016 held in the Silicon Valley on Tuesday, Ravishankar said his organisation will also be taking up rejuvenation of 25 rivers in the next few months.
This is in addition to 19 rivers already being undertaken by the Art of Living, he said.
Inaugurating the conference organised by the Overseas Volunteers for a Better India with support from TiE charter members, Ravishankar said the fully-dedicated water research institute will be established in Odisha to combine the ancient knowledge of water harvesting with the latest state-of-the-art technology.
The water summit brought together policymakers, scientists, geologists, entrepreneurs and technocrats from across the US, who shared the best practices and technology solutions to implement sustainable holistic strategies for solving India's water crisis.
Venktesh Shukla Chair, TiE Global along with other TiE charter members attended the conference and pledged to give their support by motivating their friends in the charter member community worldwide to join the cause.
The Indian Consul General at San Francisco Consulate Venkatesan Ashok called upon the NRI community to join hands and support the "impactful noble initiative".
Bill Croyle, Deputy Director for Statewide Emergency Preparedness and Security at the California Department of Water Resources underscored that for the effective policy implementation it is very critical to measure and study the statistical usage of water.
He stressed the need of inter-disciplinary collaboration amongst various agencies namely agriculture, water, forest afforestation to create effective water management policies.
A huge congregation of devotees, estimated at over half a million, thronged the temple town of Puri to witness Rath Yatra, the annual car festival of Lord Jagannath despite drizzle and humid weather.
Bollywood superstar is often dubbed 'controversys favourite child.' On Tuesday, the Supreme Court officially admitted a plea challenging Salman's acquittal in the 2002 hit-and-run case, where his lawyer Anand Desai said that the superstar himself wanted the Supreme Court to hear the case against him on merit.
Even as the Union Cabinet has given its 'in-principle' approval for setting up a major port at Enayam near Colachel in Tamil Nadus Kanyakumari district, questions are raised related to the economic feasibility of the Rs 25,000-crore project.
The Delhi government's salary and pension budget is likely to go up by around Rs 2,000 crore if it increases the salaries of its employees in line with the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission.
The government on Wednesday said the concerns raised by central government employees unions on the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission would be examined by a high-level committee of secretaries.
The two new ministers of state in the finance ministry expressed hope that the goods and services tax (GST) Bill would be passed in the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament.
Newly appointed junior ministers in the finance ministry expressed hope that the constitution amendment Bill on the goods and services tax (GST) will be passed in the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament and they will look at ways to accelerate economic growth, currently pegged at 7-7.75% for 2016-17.
The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has stated that the inference drawn by a report published in Business Standard on July 2 ("Govt cancels Rs 200-crore green fine on Adani") is not correct.
A top-ranking central government official is set to get an average salary hike of 23 per cent, thanks to the Seventh Pay Commission, but there are some state government employees who still draw wages equivalent to Fourth Central Pay Commission.
Last week, the Centre accepted the recommendations of the Seventh Central Pay Commission, which had suggested 23.5 per cent hike in salary and allowances, and 24 per cent hike in pension of central government employees. The focus has now shifted to states - whether they would implement a similar pay hike for their employees or not. However, financial as well as political dynamics of each state are different, writes, Ishan Bakshi.
While the exact quantum of state-wise hike and its impact on state finances is not known, a YES Bank study on the potential impact of Pay Commission hikes on state finances suggests that Kerala and Punjab are the most vulnerable to such revisions. On the other hand, Gujarat and Jharkhand are likely to have the least difficulty in bearing this extra financial burden. West Bengal and Maharashtra, despite having fewer public sector employees, are likely to face a higher burden of salaries and pensions.
According to the study, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha have asked the Union government "to go slow on the implementation of the Seventh Central Pay Commission recommendations, so that they get more time to equip themselves with resources to meet higher salary bills." Business Standard takes a detailed look at the impact of the Central Pay Commission hikes on 12 key states.
States with over 2.5% fiscal deficit
The government announced a committee to examine the feasibility of having a new financial year. It will be headed by former chief economic advisor Shankar Acharya.
Among many political, administrative and ideological messages in the changes in the council of ministers that Prime Minister Narendra Modi carried out, the most important was the unambiguous stamp of his office.
After two years of deficit, Indias pulses output is likely to rise 18 per cent to around 20 million tonnes (mt) in 2016-17, which could ease the pressure on prices.
The on Wednesday provided the right emphasis on performance and sent out a clear message that needless controversies would not be tolerated, CEOs said. CEO is chief executive officer.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi has rewarded those who stayed out of controversies and those who believe in teamwork," said Harsh Goenka, chairman of the RPG Group. "Another interesting aspect of the reshuffle was it had the stamp of (BJP or Bharatiya Janata Party president) Amit Shah all over it," he added.
Biocon Chairman Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said moving Jayant Sinha from finance to civil aviation was unexpected. Others said Modi was looking at the big picture of upgrading government service delivery by bringing in fresh faces in ministries like rural development and agriculture.
"Almost 40 per cent of Modi's tenure is over and with elections in key states due in a few months, it will soon be time for the government to showcase its success stories. The government should work on passing the Goods and Services Tax Bill and roll out the tax by next year," said the promoter of a large company, asking not to be named.
CEOs said they were surprised ministers like Piyush Goyal and Dharmendra Pradhan were not promoted to Cabinet ranks, despite their good work in the past two years. They are still MoS or ministers of state (independent charge) after the . Smriti Irani's movement did not come as a surprise; in a survey by this newspaper of 50 CEOs, she received the highest votes for non-performance.
With chief executives demitting office at the end of June, two weak public sector lenders -- Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) and United Bank of India (UBI) -- are without a full-time person at the helm.
Appointment in United Bank of India as PO shall be only after completion of 1 year Post Graduate Diploma in Banking & Finance course in tie-up with NIIT-Institute of Finance, Banking & Insurance Training Limited.Through this partnership, selected candidates can avail a loan for the course & also get an officer job.
United Bank of India has joined a growing list of banks like Bank of Baroda, Andhra Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank & Federal Bank for PO training cum recruitment programme. The important thing, here is the scores of IBPS bank PO exam are not required to take part in this selection.
All those who successfully complete the course shall be awarded Post graduate diploma in Banking & Finance & appointed as Probationary Officer (PO scale I) in United bank of India.
Vacancies & Payscale
The bank has planned to admit one batch comprising of 100 students for the PG diploma course in NIIT university, under the payscale of Rs.23,700 42,020 with the total emoluments including all allowances, benefits etc at a total of Rs.6.50 lakhs/ annum.
Dates to Remember:
Registration of online applications & fee payment June 26 to July 12, 2016
Online examination on August 7th
Who are Eligible:
The eligibility conditions to apply for united bank of india NIIT university PO recruitment programme are very simple.
Applicants must satisfy each one of the conditions below,
Age to be within 21 30 yrs as on 1.06.2016 (+3yrs for obc & +5 yrs for sc/st)
Should be a graduate (any degree) with as on June 1
Individuals who are waiting for results OR currently in their final year/ semester are not eligible to apply.
About UBI PO Recruitment, PG Course & Job Assurance:
The PG diploma course duration is 12 months which is also your training period.It involves two stages,
9 month classroom training at NIIT university, Bangalore with stipend of Rs.2500/ month
3 month internship in United bank of India (stipend of Rs.12,000/ month)
On completion of 12 months training, the trainees shall be awarded Post graduate diploma in banking & finance along with their appointment letter to work as PO in UBI
The important features of this programme are:
1) The cost of undergoing this course at NIIT university is Rs.3.20 lacs which will can be financed by availing an educational loan from united bank of india.
2) The EMI repayment for this loan shall begin after you join as officer.The amount would be deducted from your salary for 60 months.
3) Service Bond: Selected candidates must sign a bond agreeing to serve the back for a minimum of 2 years from date of joining as PO.
Incase of quiting before end of bond period, the individual must repay the entire stipend amount + outstanding loan balance including interest + Rs.2 lakhs towards training cost.
4) Incentive & Bonus: At the end of 5 years of your service, bank shall refund the entire loan amount & additional incentive may be paid after completing 7 years with them as loyalty bonus.
How to apply:
The application fee of Rs.700 (gen/obc/exsm) & Rs.100 (sc/st/pwd) must be paid while filling the online application form before July 12.
Before registering for United Bank of India (UBI) & NIIT university's PO recruitment cum training programme, read their official notification from their website here & online application can be accessed from here till July 12, 2016
Source: BankExamsIndia.com
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
PM's greetings on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr
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The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has conveyed his greetings and best wishes on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr. Prime Minister also spoke to many Heads of State and Government and greeted them on this auspicious occasion. .
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"My greetings and best wishes on Eid-ul-Fitr. May this special day deepen the spirit of harmony and peace in society. .
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Extended Eid greetings to HM King Salman, HH the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, HH the Emir of Qatar. .
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Spoke to President Rouhani, President Ghani, PM Nawaz Sharif, PM Sheikh Hasina and President Yameen and greeted them on Eid", the Prime Minister said. .
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PM's statement prior to his visit to Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.
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Following is the text of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modis statement prior to his departure for Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya..
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On Thursday, 7th July I will be in Mozambique. The aim of my visit is to increase cooperation and boost cultural linkages. I will meet President Filipe Nyusi and hold extensive talks with him. .
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My other programmes include a meeting with Ms. Veronica Macamo, the President of the National Assembly and a visit to the S&T Park, Maluana where I will interact with students. .
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I will also interact with the Indian community briefly. .
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On the evening of 7th July, I will reach Pretoria in South Africa. South Africa is an important strategic partner, with whom our ties are historical and deep-rooted. My programmes in South Africa will span across Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban and Pietermaritzburg. History is witness to how Mahatma Gandhis stay in South Africa impacted him and the history of the world. He went to South Africa as a lawyer seeking work and returned to India as a strong voice for humanitarian values, who would go on to shape the history of humankind. .
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I will have the honour to visit Phoenix Settlement and Pietermaritzburg Station, two places very closely associated with Mahatma Gandhis stay in South Africa. A visit to South Africa is incomplete without remembering the beloved Madiba. I will also be honoured to visit the Constitutional Hill and Nelson Mandela Foundation where I would pay my tributes to an icon of human history, who made his country and the world a much better place. .
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During my visit, I will meet President Zuma. I will also be meeting Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa, the Deputy President. .
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In an effort to boost our economic ties, I will speak at the India-South Africa business meet.
Other programmes include a meeting with the Alumni Network in Durban and a reception hosted by the Mayor of Durban, at Durban City Hall. .
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South Africa is home to a vibrant Indian community, that has made South Africa their home for years. I will interact with the Indian community a programme in Johannesburg on 8th July. I invite you to share your ideas and inputs for my speech, through the Narendra Modi Mobile App. .
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On Sunday 10th July I will be in Tanzania for a brief but crucial visit to give an impetus to ties with Tanzania, a valued friend in Africa. .
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There will be extensive talks with President Dr. John Magufuli where we will chalk out the road ahead for bettering India-Tanzania relations in a wide range of areas. I will also be meeting Solar Mamas, a group of rural women solar engineers from Africa who have been trained under GOI-supported programmes to fabricate, install, use, repair and maintain solar lanterns and household solar lighting systems in their villages. .
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I will interact with the Indian community as well. .
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I will begin my Kenya visit on the evening of 10th July. India-Kenya ties have stood the test of time. Both our nations have had very strong people-to-people ties and both nations have successfully fought colonialism in the previous century. .
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My deliberations with President Uhuru Kenyatta will revolve around how India and Kenya can grow their bilateral cooperation. I envision better trade, commercial and cultural exchanges between India and Kenya. The potential is immense and together we seek to harness it. .
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In Nairobi, I will offer floral tributes to Mahatma Gandhi, who is widely revered in Kenya. I shall also pay tributes to Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya and a towering political figure of Africa. .
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The meeting of the India-Kenya business forum will be an important forum to elaborate more on the economic aspect of our relationship with Kenya. .
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A programme that I am keenly looking forward to join is an interaction with students at the Nairobi University. .
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In order to deepen ties with the diaspora, I will address a community programme on 10th July. There is also a meeting with Bharatwallah Alumni Association during the visit. Another programme is the handing over of ambulances and a model of Bhabhatron." .
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President of Indias greetings on the eve of Idul Fitr
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The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee has greeted fellow citizens on the eve of Idul Fitr. .
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In his message the President has said, On the auspicious occasion of Idul Fitr, I extend warm greetings and best wishes to my fellow citizens, particularly to all Muslim brothers and sisters in India and abroad. .
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The festival of Idul Fitr marks the culmination of the Holy Month of Ramzan, a month of prayer, blessings and forgiveness. Let us on this occasion rededicate ourselves to the service of humanity and share our happiness with the poor and needy. May the Eid celebrations reinforce the nations commitment to mutual goodwill and inspire each one of us to follow the path of love and universal brotherhood". .
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Shri Ajay Tamta takes charge as Minister of State, Textiles Shri Ajay Tamta took charge as Minister of State, Ministry of Textiles today. Shri Tamta is a Lok Sabha MP from Almora constituency, Uttarakhand, and a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Prior to his election to the 16th Lok Sabha, Shri Tamta has served as a member of the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly, from 2007 to 2012 and again from 2012 to 2014. He has also served as a Minister in the Government of Uttarakhand, as Cabinet Minister during 2008 2009 and as MoS during 2007 2008. A more detailed profile of the Minister is given here. Later in the day, Smriti Zubin Irani took charge as the Union Textiles Minister.
The two Ministers greeted each other in the Cabinet Ministers chamber, and also interacted with members of the media fraternity.
Shri C.R Chaudhary, newly appointed MOS Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution has said that to ensure availability of essential commodities at reasonable prices, we shall have to create balance between consumers and farmers interests. Referring distress sale and wastage of onions, tomatoes and other agriculture commodities at the time of plenty, he said proper marketing mechanism is the need of hour to save farmers from losses and to pass on benefits to consumers. He was speaking to media persons after assuming charge of his office here today. Shri Chaudhary said that providing food security to the masses is the priority of his Government, states shall have to play a very active role in this venture. .
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Born on March 01, 1948, Shri Chaudhary is the former bureaucrat and represents Nagaur constituency from Rajasthan in Lok Sabha. He was Chairman of Rajasthan Public Services Commission during 2008 to 2010. A post graduate from Rajasthan University, Shri Chaudhary is honorary chairman of Veer Teja Mahila Shikshan Evam Shodh Sansthan that helps provide free or affordable" education for girls. He is trained in rural development works from the United Kingdom. .
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In the wake of a series of terror attacks in Turkey, Bangladesh, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, US Defense Secretary was closely monitoring the situation, the Pentagon has said.
"The (Defence) Secretary is closely monitoring the aftermath of the brutal terrorist attacks over the past few days in Turkey, Bangladesh, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Responsibility for these attacks has not been established in all cases, but speculation has centered on ISIL," Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook told reporters at a news conference yesterday.
These tragic events, he said, highlight why it's so important to accelerate the coalition campaign to deliver ISIS a lasting defeat in Iraq and Syria to further limit the group's ability to carry out attacks in other parts of the world and to do all we can to prevent the spread of its hateful ideology.
"The attacks come as the counter-ISIL coalition has made progress in eroding ISIL's so-called caliphate, recapturing key terrain including major cities, infrastructure and economic nodes that provide ISIL with revenue and fuel its claims of legitimacy," he noted.
Cook said ISIS has lost the city of Fallujah, from which it has controlled much of western Iraq and launched attacks into Baghdad.
Iraqi security forces are making progress in clearing key terrain on the way to Mosul. Manbij, the final way station between ISIS's so-called Syrian capital and the Turkish border, is surrounded by a tightening cordon of Arab troops, he said.
"At the same time, ISIL's affiliates in places such as Libya, Afghanistan and East Africa are under intensifying pressure. This is notable and important progress from a year ago or six months ago, but as the tragedies in Turkey, Bangladesh, Iraq and Saudi Arabia demonstrate, there is still much work left to do," Cook said.
In fact, the military defeat of ISIS, while absolutely necessary to protect innocent lives from ISIS's brutality, is only one part of a strategy that calls for defeating ISIS in its parent tumor in Iraq and Syria, targeting its cancerous spread elsewhere in the world and strengthening security in the homeland against attacks planned or inspired by ISIS, he observed.
Cook said this week, NATO nations will convene in Warsaw, where discussions among the leaders assembled will include discussions on how to strengthen the campaign against ISIS. The meeting would be attended by President Barack Obama and Carter.
Later this month, Carter has convened fellow defense ministers from counter-ISIS coalition nations here in Washington to assess the campaign's progress and how to further accelerate it.
"Every day, the brave men and women of our armed forces are working alongside partner forces to end ISIL's ability to threaten innocent lives in the Middle East and around the world. And we remain committed to that mission," he said.
A Belgian court has sentenced a group of Islamic State suspects up to 16 years in jail for last year's that left more than 130 persons dead.
The three main defendants at the trial, Marouane El Bali, Schofield El Abdi and Mohamed Arshad were found guilty of belonging to the IS militant group and were sentenced on Tuesday to 16 years in prison.
The fourth, Omar Damache, was sentenced to eight years, Xinhua news agency reported.
Prosecutors said the men standing trial had returned from fighting with the IS in Syria and were in constant contact with the group through the leader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud.
Abaaoud was killed in a November raid in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis.
The cell had intended to target Zaventem airport in Brussels on March 23 this year, a judge said.
The terrorist cell was dismantled by police during a raid on January 15, 2015 in Verviers, an eastern Belgian town close to the German border.
A total of 16 suspects were charged in connection with the raid, but nine remain at large.
During the operation, police found "ingredients" to manufacture six kilogram of explosives.
A suicide car bomber struck a military and security compound adjacent to the airport in southern Yemeni port city of Aden today, killing at least 10 people. The incident set off clashes with soldiers, medical and security officials said. .
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which came as Muslims worldwide celebrated the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. This year, the holy month has been particularly bloody, with attacks that killed 350 people and spread terror across continents.
Yemen, which is the grips of a civil war and has long battled a potent Al-Qaeda branch known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has also seen an Islamic State affiliate emerge to stage large-scale attacks, particularly in the country's south.
In today's attack, the officials said that after the car bomb hit the Central Security headquarters, next to the Aden Airport, militants stormed the compound and were clashing with soldiers. Explosions were heard and ambulance sirens wailed in the distance.
The death toll was expected to rise further, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.
Yemen's civil war pits the country's Shiite rebels known as Houthis and their allies against the internationally recognised government, backed by the Saudi-led coalition of mainly Arab states.
Kuwait has hosted peace talks between the warring sides, which have now been suspended till mid-July, to try and resolve the conflict. Two months of negotiations have failed to reach a breakthrough.
Yemen's internationally recognised government has demanded the implementation of a UN Security Council resolution calling on the Houthis to withdraw from all towns and cities, including the capital, Sanaa, which they have overrun and surrender their heavy weapons.
The Houthis want to form a unity government prior to any changes on the ground, according to the negotiators.
Though a truce went into effect a week before the talks began, the two sides have repeatedly accused each other of breaking it.
The conflict in Yemen has killed an estimated 9,000 people and pushed the Arab world's poorest country to the brink of famine.
Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign today slammed presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for praising former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, saying such comments "demonstrate how dangerous he would be as Commander-in-Chief".
"Donald Trump's praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds," Jake Sullivan of the Clinton campaign said in a statement after Trump praised Hussein during an election rally in North Carolina.
Trump, he said, has "applauded the strength China showed in the Tiananmen Square massacre, offered admiration for Kim Jong-un's murderous consolidation of power in North Korea, and consistently lavished praise on Vladimir Putin."
"Tonight, Trump yet again lauded Saddam Hussein as a great killer of terrorists, noting with approval that he never bothered to read anyone their rights," Sullivan said.
"Trump's cavalier compliments for brutal dictators, and the twisted lessons he seems to have learned from their history, again demonstrate how dangerous he would be as Commander-in-Chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks," Sullivan said.
Trump praised Hussein's ruthlessness during the rally, saying he killed terrorists "so good."
"Saddam Hussein was a bad guy...Really bad guy. But you know what? He did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn't read them the rights. They didn't talk. They were terrorists. It was over Over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism," Trump said.
Trump's own party leaders also did not agree with him.
"Hussein was one of the 20th century's most evil people," the House Speaker Paul Ryan told Fox News in an interview.
In the wake of bomb blasts in Saudi Arabia by terrorists, including one outside Masjid-i-Nabwi in Madina, the second-holiest site in Islam, has renewed its security assurance to the kingdom nation.
According to Dawn, the government "reiterates its abiding commitment to the safety, security and territorial integrity of Saudi Arabia," the Foreign Office said in a statement on terrorist attacks in Madina, Qatif and Jeddah.
The Jeddah attack was carried out by a Pakistani expat whereas the attacks in Madina and Qatif were reported to have been executed by Saudi nationals.
The Foreign Office renewed the security assurance after a telephonic conversation between Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif and Saudi Defence Minister Prince Muhammad bin Salman.
"The COAS sympathised with affected families of attack victims and said we stand shoulder to shoulder with our Saudi brothers in fighting the menace of terrorism," the ISPR said in a statement.
has a longstanding agreement with Saudi Arabia guaranteeing the kingdom's security, however, it came into question when did not send troops for joining the kingdom's invasion of Yemen.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sharif, in a statement issued by his office, called for unity among Muslim countries in the fight against terrorism and extremism.
"Ummah in particular needs to forge unity at this critical moment to foil the nefarious designs of enemies of humanity and Ummah. We need to renew collective efforts to fight the menace of terrorism," Sharif said.
Emphasising the unity in the fight against terrorism, he recalled the attacks by militants, mostly belonging to the Islamic State group in Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh during Ramazan.
The statement said that Sharif had emphasised on unity in counter-terrorism efforts "in the wake of increasing acts of terrorism and extremism across the continents."
The UK joining the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 to oust dictator Saddam Hussein was not used as a "last resort" and was based on "flawed intelligence," an inquiry into the war on Wednesday said in a damning indictment of then Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to go to war.
The UK did not exhaust all peaceful options before joining the invasion of Iraq, John Chilcot, the chairman of the official inquiry into the war, said on its release.
He also said judgements about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction "were presented with a certainty that was not justified" and post-war planning was "wholly inadequate".
His 12-volume report on the Iraq War comes more than seven years after the inquiry began.About 180 British soldiers were killed in the Iraq war from 2003 to 2009.
Delivering a crushing verdict on Blair who was prime minister when the UK decided to go to war alongside the US to unseat Hussein as president of Iraq, Chilcot said, "When the potential for military action arises, the government should not commit to a firm political objective before it is clear it can be achieved. Regular reassessment is essential.
"The UK's relationship with the US has proved strong enough over time to bear the weight of honest disagreement. It does not require unconditional support where our interests or judgments differ," it said.
Chilcot's long-overdue report spans almost a decade of UK government policy decisions between 2001 and 2009.
It covers the background to the decision to go to war, whether troops were properly prepared, how the conflict was conducted and what planning there was for its aftermath, a period in which there was intense sectarian violence.
In reference to the now-notorious "dodgy dossier" which had reportedly claimed Iraqi dictator Hussein, who was eventually killed during the conflict, had a stash of weapons of mass destruction, the report finds that intelligence had "not established beyond doubt" that Hussein continued to produce chemical and biological weapons.
The inquiry set out a note sent by Blair to then US President George W Bush on July 28, 2002, months before the invasion of Iraq, which indicates how early on the decision to go to war had begun to be crystallised.
Blair wrote "I will be with you, whatever. But this is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties. The planning on this and the strategy are the toughest yet."
Meanwhile, Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament after the report was released that lessons must be learnt from the UK's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 to ensure that war is always the last resort.
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National Financial Holdings Company (NFHCL) had its fourth anniversary earlier this month.
In early 2012, in his last Budget speech before becoming the country's president, then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee spoke about forming a financial holding company, which could be used as a vehicle for capitalisation of public sector banks. Soon after, the Union cabinet cleared a proposal to wind up the Specified UndertakingUnit Trust of India (Suuti).
Four years on, NFHCL is far from taking wings even though the government had incorporated it, with Rs 1 crore as capital, in June 2012. To date, no Suuti assets have been transferred to NFHCL as planned. The story of Suuti, since then, remained chequered.
Akshay Kumar, who is known for his razor-sharp and honest replies, has recently revealed that taking up a role is nothing like it is portrayed by some of the actors.
"When you see interviews of different actors who say, 'the role was very difficult. I shut myself for two days and rehearsed for the role.' I will tell you, all are lying. Don't trust anyone. I am telling you, there's nothing as such. It's just acting. How difficult can it get? It just takes about 10 to 15 minutes and you are back in some other role. That is what acting is all about," he told in a live Facebook chat from New York.
The 48-year-old actor, who has recently released the trailer of his upcoming movie 'Rustom,' said so when he was asked how difficult it is to switch genres.
"For me, it has never been difficult to switch genres. I just keep on doing it. I just get into the role and that's it. It's not a rocket science or anything like that," he added.
Akshay has time and again proved his versatility as before the 'Rustom' trailer, the 'Khiladi' actor was seen in a comedy flick, 'Houseful 3.'
The actor has 'Jolly LLB 2' and 'Robot 2' in the pipeline.
A court in Noida will today hear the petition seeking registration of an FIR against the family members of Mohammad Akhlaq, who was lynched nine months ago on suspicion that his family stored and ate beef at their house.
The police had earlier filed its report in the court stating that 'no FIR' on charges of cow slaughter and animal cruelty had been lodged against Akhlaq's family.
The petitioner had urged the court to direct the police to register an FIR against Akhlaq's family members on charges of cow slaughter and animal cruelty.
The petition claims that two villagers from Bisada namely Ranvir and Jatan, saw Akhlaq and his son Danish beat up a calf on September 29 last year.
Akhlaq allegedly told them that since the calf was attacking the people, he was going to tie up the animal at his brother Jaan Mohammed's house.
The petition said another villager Prem Singh while passing by Akhlaq's house saw the latter holding the calf down while his brother Jaan Mohammad was slitting the animal's throat.
According to the petitioner, Akhlaq was on the night of September 28 stopped near Bada transformer by some residents, while others reached his house and found a vessel with remains of some animal and meat.
The petitioner claimed the mob got out of control and beat up Akhlaq and his son Danish. Akhlaq was beaten to death.
The petitioner had also cited forensic report by the Mathura forensic lab, which said the meat samples was of an animal of the cow progeny.
The Tibetans in-exile will celebrate the 81st birthday of their spiritual head the 14th Dalai Lama today.
This year the Dalai Lama will attend the birthday celebrations at Tibetan settlement in Mundgod.
However, the celebrations will be held at different places including the exile head quarters at Dharamsala here.
Spokesperson of Tibetan government in-exile, Tashi Phungstok said, "There will be few prize distributions and book release. There will also be dances by different schools. The celebration will be attended by the Sikyong, who is the leader of the Central Tibetan Administration Sikyong and speaker of Tibetan parliament in-exile."
Expressing happiness, Lhakpa Tsering, a retired Tibetan official said Dalai Lama's 81st birthday is being celebrated at Tibetan settlement called Mundgod and that is also one of the biggest settlements.
Born on July 6, 1935 in Taktser, China, the 14th Dalai Lama, is one of the longest serving Dalai Lama's of the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism.
Dalai Lamas are important monks of the Gelug school, the newest school of Tibetan Buddhism which is nominally headed by the Ganden Tripas.
The Dalai Lama has been conferred the Noble Peace Prize, the Templeton Prize and many honorary degrees and other awards.
Taking a strong exception to the media reports on the possibility of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra leading the poll campaign in Uttar Pradesh, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday said it makes no difference if the face of the election is Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi or Priyanka, as the Congress Party has lost its relevance now.
BJP leader Dinesh Sharma told ANI that the Congress won't get much in Uttar Pradesh and they have nothing to lose as well.
"Now this is their next trump card. First Sonia ji failed, then Rahul ji came. Now if Priyanka ji comes, then it means the Congress thinks Rahul ji is a failure. The Congress is living with a hope, but I think it will only get disappointment in Uttar Pradesh," he added.
Escalating his attack on the grand old party, Sharma said there is nothing left for the Congress in Uttar Pradesh.
"Where were they all this while if they cared so much about Uttar Pradesh? It is Congress' right to bring whom they want. But, the Congress has lost its identity in the Lok Sabha and the Vidhan Sabha elections. Earlier, people used to call it a party, but now I think it has become a local party," he added.
Echoing similar sentiments, another BJP leader Nalin Kohli questioned the role of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh.
"In Uttar Pradesh, do they have any relevance.because they have already ousted themselves from the politics of Uttar Pradesh?" he told ANI.
He said the Bharatiya Janata Party's agenda is what Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government does.
"We are on the agenda of development and performance. The Congress cannot bring anyone but it's always funny to find that the media will keep discussing it because some people will keep throwing it in the media. Why do they keep introducing? If they want to bring someone, they should bring," he added.
Congress general secretary and party in charge of the Uttar Pradesh Affairs Ghulam Nabi Azad yesterday slammed media reports on the possibility of Priyanka leading the poll campaign in the state, where assembly elections are due in early 2017.
"I don't understand who gives such news to television and newspapers. No discussion has taken place in this regard. Reports of her becoming the chief of the Uttar Pradesh Poll Campaign Committee are wrong. If she campaigns during the election, its different thing but news of her becoming the chairman of the campaign committee is entirely wrong," Azad told ANI.
Reports in a section of media claimed that Priyanka Gandhi will lead the Congress' election campaign in the Uttar Pradesh election, while former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit is likely to be projected as the Chief Ministerial candidate.
At least four people were killed in a suicide attack in Afghanistan's northern Sar-e-Pul province today.
The incident took place in Sancharak district after the suicide bomber targeted a former Jihadi leader Rahim Ayoubi.
Provincial governor Mohammad Zahir Wahdat said Ayoubi survived the attack unhurt but four members of his family were killed, reports Khaama Press.
The victims include two sons and two nephews of Ayoubi and another member of his family was wounded.
Wahdat said that that Ayoubi had left his family members inside his vehicle as he was visiting a cemetary when the suicide bomber targeted the vehicle.
So far, no group including the Taliban militants has claimed responsibility behind the incident.
Former England batsman Kevin Pietersen has labelled the South African court's decision of handing Oscar Pistorius a six-year jail term for killing his girlfriend as 'pathetic' and 'shambles'.
While delivering her decision in a story that has attracted intense worldwide attention, Judge Thokozile Masipa said she had considered both aggravating and mitigating factors, such as rehabilitation and murder, and concluded that the latter outweighed the former.
Judge Masipa cited this factor as main reason for deviating from the prescribed 15-year sentence for murder. She also observed that a court should not be swayed by public opinion but added that punishment must also reflect the seriousness of the offence.
However, the latest ruling didn't go down too well with the South African-born batsman, who has been vocal on his desire to see the convicted Paralympics runner punished with a harsh sentence, Sport24 reported.
"Judge Masipa should have left her chair, walked down to #OscarPistorius, shook his hand & given him a hug too! #Pathetic #Shambles," a visibly miffed Pietersen wrote on Twitter.
Pistorius, famously known as the Blade Runner, was released on parole in October 2015 and has been placed under house arrest since then at his uncle's house after serving almost a year in prison of his five-year sentence.
But the double-amputee athlete was found guilty of murder after the Supreme Court overturned his previous culpable homicide conviction in December following the state's successful attempt in challenging the verdict.
Pistorius has always denied deliberately killing his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013 and claimed that he mistook her for an intruder before shooting her dead with four bullets fired through a closed toilet door.
Following the ruling, the 29-year-old was taken immediately to jail. Both the prosecution and defence can appeal.
Nepali Congress General Secretary Shashank Koirala's has been admitted to Chabahil town's Om Hospital in a critical state.
A statement issued by Om Hospital, where Koirala was admitted last night with abdominal discomfort, cough and shortness of breath said the leader's health condition is critical, reports the Kathmandu Post.
He has been kept in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the hospital.
Medical reports confirmed pneumonia in Koirala's left lung.
Senior leaders, including Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba reached hospital to take stock of Koirala's health condition.
Deuba even proposed Koirala be flown to New Delhi in an air ambulance.
However, doctors declined Deuba's proposal saying that Koirala's health condition was not stable enough for him to be flown to Delhi.
On the auspicious occasion of Id-ul-Fitr, Lt.Gen. D S Hooda, Army Commander, Northern Command, extended his warm greetings to the all Army personnel and people of Jammu and Kashmir.
Lt.Gen.Hooda said that the joyous celebrations of Id-ul-Fitr marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan would bring with it happiness and a feeling of brotherhood. On the occasion of this holy festival, he looked forward to the strengthening of peace, cohesion and prosperity in the state.
July is a particularly auspicious month for the Kashmir Valley since it is witnessing celebration of Id-ul-Fitr and the pilgrimage to the holy shrine of Shri Amarnath ji.
Both religious festivals are going on simultaneously with active participation of one and all. Terrorists had attempted to derail the festivities by threats and some incidents of violence, but they have been unsuccessful due to the enhanced security vigilance and the unflinching faith of the people.
It is mainly the local Muslim community that provides administrative support to the Shri Amarnath Yatra terms of food, shelter, ponies and even bearers. There would be many who have kept the Ramzan fast and are still putting in the extra effort required to ensure successful conduct of the pilgrimage.
The enthusiasm with which the Army in Kashmir celebrates both festivals is a yearly ode to its secular credentials. Not only the Army Commander, each soldier posted in the Valley goes forward to extend good wishes and celebrate Eid with the Muslims who are in touch with him and his establishment. Units and organizations organize special functions to mark the holy occasion.
Similarly, for the Amarnath Yatra the army not only provides security but extends all sort of administrative support including free kitchens, medical aid, casualty evacuation, lost and found cells and other emergent requirements that come up from time to time.
"The spirit of brotherhood and secularism prevalent in the Kashmir Valley at the auspicious occasion of Id-ul-Fitr and the pilgrimage to Shri Amarnath shrine is truly exemplary," says Dr. Simrit Kahlon, an academician and columnist who takes active interest in affairs of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Obama administration has offered to extend all possible help to Bangladesh to investigate last Thursday's brutal terror attack in national capital Dhaka, which left at least 20 persons dead, including one Indian.
United States Secretary of State John Kerry wasted no time in offering help to Bangladesh to investigate those behind the killing at a Dhaka restaurant on the holiest day in the Islamic calendar.
The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack within hours of the massacre and posted pictures of five grinning fighters with the IS flag in the background. However, Dhaka was equally quick to deny IS the glory by insisting that the massacre at the Holey Artisan Cafe was the doing of local militants who had no affiliation with international terror groups.
Think tanks that study terror attacks around the globe say that the answer lies somwhere in between. First, Dhaka would need to conduct an unbiased, clinical and thorough investigation about who the gunmen were and what was their motivation before believing the ISIS claims or the too quick denial by the ruling party.
Second, there is no denying the fact that the western has by and large ignored the festering radicalism in Bangladesh with its large Muslim population and fractured polity.
As was evident within hours of the attack, American television could barely manage to get half-a-dozen terror experts to lucidly explain the make up of Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh, its position in the Indian subcontinent, its complicated relationship with Pakistan, links with Wahabi groups and more.
But there is a consensus that even if the IS did not plan, plot and execute the massacre, terror outfits in Bangladesh now have a common cause with the IS and the like. The pan-Islamic Hizb-ut-Tehrir has been active in Bangladesh seeking to overthrow the secular government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hassina and establish Islamic rule in its place. It found common cause in 2012 with a disgruntled Bangladeshi Army officer Major Syed Zia-ul-Haq who plotted a coup against the Awami League government.
When the coup was unearthed with the help of Indian intelligence agencies, Major Zia went underground but has been de facto head of another militant outfit known as the Ansar Bangla Team or ABT.
The ABT has been recruiting youth for arms training and inspiring lone wolves to attack atheist bloggers and people from the minority community. The ABT has ideological links to the Al Qaeda and political affiliation to the Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami party led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia (no relation to Major Zia).
Bangladeshi authorities have been trying to trace links that Major Zia has with a Bangladeshi national Mohammad Ishraq Ahmed, suspected to have links with both Pakistani and Chinese intelligence, and who they say is providing funding for overthrowing the democratically-elected government.
Bangladesh intelligence is seeking cooperation from western intelligence organisations to trace both Mohammad Ishraq Ahmed and Major Zia, the money trails and their locations. The U.S. administration is understood to have agreed to assist the Bangladesh Government in locating these two fugitives.
The Awami League leaders speaking to media in Dhaka say they are not very hopeful of finding these two men as they travel often between Pakistan and Hong Kong with the active help from establishments in both those countries. The ball now rests with US state department, if it will actively use its negotiation powers with foreign governments to help in cracking the case of the Gulshan cafe massacre.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Just hours after FBI Director James Comey brutally slammed Hillary Clinton's State Department email practices, President appeared onstage with his former rival to back her as the next US President.
According to CNN, Obama appeared onstage with Clinton in Charlotte after lending her a ride from Washington on Air Force One and sought to confer his popularity on a candidate still struggling to gain voters' trust.
"I came away from that primary admiring her even more because during that year-and-a-half, I had a chance to see up close, just how smart she was and just how prepared she was, especially since I debated her a couple dozen times. I saw how even when things didn't go her way, she'd just stand up straighter and come back stronger," he said.
Without taking Trump's name, the President repeatedly slammed the billionaire by going after his "tough talk" and "phony bluster."
"I know the other guy talks about making America great again. America's really great. This is a choice between whether we are going to cling to some imaginary past or whether we're going to reach for the future."
When the crowd here began to boo at Obama's mention of Trump's policies, the President urged: "Don't boo. Vote!"
Clinton, too, reflected on her first failed campaign against Obama and thanked him for the support.
"I also know him as the friend that I was honored to stand with in the good times and the hard times. Someone who has never forgotten where he came from," she said.
Taking a jab at Trump and the conspiracy theories he has espoused about Obama's birthplace, Clinton said: "And Donald, if you are out there tweeting, it is Hawaii."
With polls suggesting that more Democrats trust Obama than Clinton, the President will no doubt be one of Clinton's most powerful surrogates in the general election.
Pakistan is celebrating Eid-ul-Fitr today with joy and fervor after the central moon-sighting committee announced that the Shawwal crescent has been sighted in different parts of the country.
Central Ruet-i-Hilal Committee Chairman Mufti Munibur Rehman announced the sighting of the Shawwal crescent, saying Eidul Fitr will be celebrated across the country on Wednesday, reports the Express Tribune.
The announcement was made by Mufti after chairing a meeting of the Central Ruet-i-Hilal Committee at Aiwan-e-Auqaf in Lahore.
He said the chances of sighting the crescent moon was equally divided because of its short life.
The announcement was made well past 9 p.m. local time.
While Gulf Arab countries on Monday announced that the Eid-ul-Fitr will be celebrated today, few Muslim countries will be celebrating it on Thursday after sighting the moon.
Muslims in Turkey and Russia celebrated the festival on Tuesday, 5 July.
The starting day of Eid varies every year and from country to country depending on geographical location.
The crescent for the month of Shawwal marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
A South African high court on Wednesday will pronounce its order on the quantum of sentence for convicted Paralympics runner Oscar Pistorius, who killed his model girlfriend Steenkamp in 2013.
According to Sport24, a lawyer not involved in the case said that Judge Thokozile Masipa could deviate from giving the minimum of 15 years for murder considering factors such as Pistorius' disability and the year he has already spent in prison.
Earlier in December, the double-amputee athlete was found guilty of murder after the Supreme Court overturned his previous culpable homicide conviction following the state's successful attempt in challenging the verdict.
Pistorius, famously known as the Blade Runner, was released on parole in October 2015 and has been placed under house arrest since then at his uncle's house after serving almost a year in prison of his five-year sentence.
According to the South African law, the minimum sentence for murder is 15 years in prison.
Last month, the 29-year-old, in his first interview since his girlfriend's death, had expressed that he didn't want to go back to jail while adding that he 'would like to help the less fortunate' if he was given the 'opportunity of redemption'.
Former South African Paralympics runner Oscar Pistorius has been sentenced to six years in jail for the murder of his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013, the High Court in Pretoria ruled on Wednesday.
Pistorius, famously known as the Blade Runner, was released on parole in October 2015 and has been placed under house arrest since then at his uncle's house after serving almost a year in prison of his five-year sentence
But the double-amputee athlete was found guilty of murder after the Supreme Court overturned his previous culpable homicide conviction in December following the state's successful attempt in challenging the verdict.
While delivering her decision in a story that has attracted intense worldwide attention, Judge Thokozile Masipa said she had considered both aggravating and mitigating factors, such as rehabilitation and murder, and concluded that the latter outweighed the former, Sport24 reported.
Judge Masipa, who heard the original trial, cited this factor as main reason for deviating from the prescribed 15-year sentence for murder.
Pistorius has always denied deliberately killing his girlfriend and claimed that he mistook her for an intruder before shooting her dead with four bullets fired through a closed toilet door.
The 29-year-old was taken immediately to jail. Both the prosecution and defence can appeal.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday paid homage to veteran leader Babu Jagjivan Ram on his death anniversary.
"I bow to the great Babu Jagjivan Ram ji on his Punya Tithi. He constantly worked for the welfare of the underprivileged & marginalised," he tweeted.
A host of dignitaries and common man are paying their respects to the great freedom fighter and administrator at Samta Sthal near Rajghat in the capital.
Throughout his political carrier spanning over 50 years, Jagjivan Ram strove for a just and egalitarian society.
His political legacy reminds us of the fervour, idealism and indomitable spirit of India's political leadership that not only fought and won freedom for the country but also led the firm foundation for a modern democratic polity.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on a four-nation tour to Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya today in a visit, which is aimed at shoring up economic ties, firm up maritime security and counter balance China's growing influence in the resource-rich continent.
On the first leg of his visit, the Prime Minister will reach Maputo, the capital Mozambique tomorrow morning.
He will be the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Mozambique in 34 years.
The Prime Minister will meet the Mozambique president Filipe Nyusi, and will also visit the Mozambique parliament.
In the later part of the day, he will interact with local students who studied in India and Before leaving Maputo, the Prime Minister will attend a reception organized by Indian Diaspora.
Indian High Commissioner to Mozambique Rudra Gaurav Shresth told the media that the successful India Africa Forum summit, which was hosted by India in October, was the event which signalled Africa is really important for Indian foreign policy. and the present visits are continuation of the interest that New Delhi expressed during the summit.
Shresth also mentioned that, the signing of Memorandum of Undertakings (MOU's) on Government to Government Purchase of Pulses and on Civil Aviation Co-operation will be taking place during the official meeting.
He further stated that the MoU on purchase of pulses will help Mozambique boost its agriculture production and India will be able to meet shortage of pulses in the country.
Apart from the agriculture and food, deepening cooperation in areas of hydrocarbons, maritime security, trade and investment will also be major focus areas of the Prime Minister visit.
Mozambique is the third-largest exporter of natural gas, after Qatar and Australia, and a number of Indian companies, including ONGC, have invested heavily in the hydrocarbons sector in this country.
One fourth of Indian Investment in East Africa is in Mozambique.
The Trade with Mozambique has gone up 5 fold in last 5 years and presently stands around 2 billion dollars per year, and India till now has extended around 640 million dollars as line of credit (LOC) to this country alone out of its total LOC of 2 Billion dollars to Africa.
Culturally also India shares historic relationship with Mozambique, as the Portuguese, the colonial masters of Mozambique ruled it for more than 200 years from Goa.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday wished the nation on the occasion of Rath Yatra.
"On the occasion of Rath Yatra, my warmest greetings to you all. May Lord Jagannath continue to shower his blessings on everyone," he tweeted.
"May the blessings of Lord Jagannath lead to development of villages, well-being of poor & farmers and take India to new heights of progress," he added.
The world famous Rath Yatra or chariot festival of Lord Jagannath will begin today at Puri in Odisha amid tight security.
The three gigantic colourfully decked up wooden chariots of Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra and Devi Subhadra have been kept ready near the Jagannath temple to be pulled by ropes by thousands of devotees.
Rath Yatra is an annual celebration, marking the annual journey of the deities from the 12th century Jagannath Temple in the chariots to the temple of Devi Gundicha, their aunt.
The celebration ends nine days later with Bahuda Yatra or return journey to their temple, which will take place on July 14.
Meanwhile, in Ahmedabad, the 139th edition of Lord Jagannath's rath yatra began today amid tight security.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah offered his prayers at the Jgannath Temple here.
The rath yatra, having chariots of Lord Jagannath, his brother Balbhadra and sister Subhadra, will roll out from the 400-year old Jagannath temple at Jamalpur in Ahmedabad.
As the procession will pass through some communally sensitive areas, more than 18,000 security personnel of local police and para-military forces have been deployed at strategic locations along the route.
The celebration of the holy Hindu festival is done in a grand manner in the Jagannath Puri temple, one of the four Hindu shrines, in Odisha.
Hundreds of devotees flock to the beach town during the celebration.
The festival is a celebration of Lord Jagannath travelling with his siblings, Lord Balbhadra and deity Shubhadra, to the temple of Queen Gundicha.
Famous sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik has created 100 sand chariots for setting a new record on the occasion of Jagannath Rathyatra at Puri Beach in Odisha.
The police have confirmed that a black man was shot and killed following a confrontation with officers outside a Baton Rouge convenience store.
According to the Baton Rouge Police Department, the deadly encounter took place early Tuesday when officers responded to the scene receiving a disturbance call from an individual who said of being threatened by a man with a gun, reports abc News.
Police have so far confirmed that the incident resulted in shots being fired and 37-year-old Baton Rouge resident Alton Sterling dying at the scene.
As the per the department's standard procedure, two officers have been placed on administrative leave while the incident is being investigated.
An autopsy showed Sterling, died on Tuesday of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, said East Baton Rouge parish coroner Dr. William Clark.
Last night protesters took to the streets of Baton Rouge chanting "Black Lives Matter" and "No justice, no peace" and blocked street traffic.
The protesters said they would hold a rally outside city hall on Wednesday.
As the epic saga is set to unfold with the release of Salman Khan's much awaited next 'Sultan', Shekhar Tolani of Sahib Realtyand and Rahul Kanal of I Love Mumbai Foundation will be organizing a special screening of the movie for kids from Ashraya Initiative for Children.
Over 100 underprivileged kids will witness a 40 year old wrestler from Haryana take on his opponents in the ring and the love story between Sultan Ali Khan and Aarfa, a female wrestler who tackles opponents with raw energy and strength.
'Sultan' will be releasing on the occasion of Eid and is expected to break all records this year.
"Like every year, we have taken this initiative to spread happiness among kids on this auspicious and holy day of Eid. All the kids will be sporting a customized t-shirt with 'Sultan' written on it as they cheer for their favorite Bollywood actor Salman Khan," said Founder and Director of Sahib Realty, Shekhar Tolani.
"We have been doing this every year and it has become a kind of a tradition for us. Last year we had taken kids for the screening of 'Bajrangi Bhaijaan' and there was a wave of joy and enjoyment on their faces. The excitement among kids keep us motivated to arrange for such special screening," added Shekhar Tolani.
The Ashraya Initiative for Children (AIC) is dedicated to improving the lives and shaping the futures of vulnerable children in India by advancing educational opportunities, nurturing holistic development and building healthy empowered communities.
Kids from Ashraya Initiative for Children will be enthusiastically watching 'Sultan' at Movietime Suburbia in Bandra at 3.30 pm on July 6th.
Shekhar Tolani has been involved with various social activities in the past for the development of poor and heads a company called Sahib Realty. The brand operations encompass various aspects of real estate development, such as land identification and acquisition, project planning, designing, marketing and execution.
At present, its focus is on the development of projects in Mumbai (Khar and Bandra) but aims to expand its operations throughout the spectrum of real estate across the town and beyond.
In the brutal murder case of software engineer S.Swathi, the prime accused Ramkumar's bail plea hearing has been adjourned by the Chennai High Court to July 15th.
An advocate has filed a bail petition for Ramkumar claiming that police had foisted the case against him.
While the bail petition claimed that police personnel caused the injuries on Ramkumar's neck, the advocate Krishnamurthy, who filed the petition said he was yet to speak to Ramkumar, on behalf of whom he filed the bail petition.
In his bail application filed before the principal district sessions court, Ramkumar claimed that he did not kill Swathi, nor did he attempt to slit his throat and alleged that some persons who accompanied the police during his arrest had assaulted him with a blade and then made up the suicide story.
Earlier, City Metropolitan Magistrate Gopinath visited him at the hospital and recorded his statement about the gruesome killing of the Infosys staff on 24th last month at Nungambakkam railway station.
The accused was brought from Tirunelveli to Chennai on Monday morning and was admitted into the Royapettah Government Hospital as he allegedly slit his throat in an attempt to commit suicide before he was arrested from his hideout in the Meenakshipuram village near Sengottai in Tirunelveli on Saturday.
The Dean of the Royapettah Government Hospital certified that the accused is fit to talk to the Magistrate.
Meanwhile, Ramkumar continues to undergo treatment in the hospital amidst heavy security.
Ramkumar was nabbed from Tirunelveli on Friday last after a manhunt that lasted a week.
In wake of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar's five-day police custody, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday asked what did Kumar have on the Delhi Government that would probably be harmful to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that it is fighting tooth and nail to protect him.
"Now they are fighting tooth and nail to protect him or to give him a certificate of honesty. What is it that Rajendra Kumar knows that will probably be harmful to them if it comes out in the open space? Why are they so keen to protect someone that the court is finding evidence to put him in judicial remand?," BJP leader Nalin Kohli told ANI.
Kohli asked as to what was the value of the AAP's claims of honesty when Narendra Tomar's fake degree row made headlines.
"Who are they and what is the value of their certificate? What is their certificate of honesty? In the case of Tomar, did he not have a false degree? Was that the certificate of honesty? What about all the questions that were asked by the colleagues who left their party in terms of the internal mechanism?" he added.
He said the certificate of the AAP was only a certificate of convenience, especially for those who meet their political ends.
Kohli stated there were enquiries against Rajendra Kumar by the vigilance and complaints had gone to the Chief Minister, yet Kejriwal chose to keep him in his office.
Escalating his attack on the Delhi Government, Kohli said the AAP tries to corner the Prime Minister, as they have nothing else to show.
"They can't match the work of the Central Government and they certainly have no agenda of work. So it's part of their allegation and accusation policy," he added.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court yesterday remanded all five accused, including Rajendra Kumar, to five-day police custody in a corruption case to the tune of Rs. 50 crore.
The CBI had sought 10-day police custody of Rajendra Kumar and four others in connection with this case.
Kumar and others were arrested by the CBI yesterday evening.
According to CBI sources, Kumar has been charged with abusing his official position to award contracts to M/s Endeavour Systems Pvt. Ltd. and securing government tenders worth Rs. 9.5 crore between 2007 and 2014 for the company.
Kumar has been booked under Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The CBI sources said Kumar emerged as the kingpin of the 50 crore scam, which first started activity in 2006.
The CBI had in December last raided Kumar's office at the Delhi Secretariat in this connection.
Kumar had moved an appeal before a special court in March this year seeking the release of his laptop, iPad and cash seized by the CBI.
A trial court had in April also ordered the de-freezing of two bank accounts of M/s Endeavour Systems Pvt. Ltd.
The Delhi High Court had then stayed the trial court's order allowing for de-freezing of accounts of M/s Endeavour Systems Pvt. Ltd.
The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given its 'in-principle' approval for setting up a Major port at Enayam near Colachel in Tamil Nadu.
A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) will be formed for development of this Port with initial equity investment from the three Major Ports in Tamil Nadu i.e. V. O.
Chidambaranar Port Trust, Chennai Port Trust, and Kamarajar Port. The SPV will develop the port infrastructure including dredging and reclamation, construction of breakwater, ensuring connectivity links etc.
At present, there are only a few ports in India that have sufficient draft and can match global cargo handling efficiencies. Currently, all of India's trans-shipment traffic gets handled in Colombo, Singapore and other international ports. Indian port industry loses out upto Rs 1,500 Crores of revenues each year.
Establishing this Major port at Enayam will not only act as a major gateway container port for Indian cargo that is presently trans-shipped outside the country, but also become a trans-shipment hub for the global East-West trade route.
Enayam will also reduce the logistics cost for exporters and importers in South India who currently depend on trans-shipment in Colombo or other ports thus incurring additional port handling charges.
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Three police officers, including a station in-charge, in Bhopal were suspended for assaulting two journalists, police officials said on Wednesday.
A First Information Report (FIR) was also registered against them. The Awadhpuri station in-charge was removed from duty in this connection.
"The three police officers who assaulted the journalists are placed under suspension and the Awadhpuri station in-charge, Shikha Vais, has also been removed from duty. An FIR has also been registered against them," Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Raman Singh Sikarwar told reporters.
On Monday night, two journalists of a renowned newspaper were returning home from work when they were beaten up by PCR van police personnel. The journalists were dubbed as Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) terrorists, following which they were taken to the police station and assaulted.
The two journalists -- Vijay Prabhat Shukla and Krishna Mohan Tiwari -- are undergoing treatment in a local hospital.
State Home Minister Bhupendra Singh on Wednesday visited the hospital and enquired about their welfare.
--IANS
pauranik-ask/rn/dg
Sometimes predicting the future is difficult (ask anyone who thought wed have flying cars by now). But sometimes foreseeing what is going to happen at least to a high degree of probability is all too easy.
For example, its fairly simple to ascertain that sometime in 2017 or 2018 we will see a huge spike in the unemployment for the working poor and increasing the replacement of low-skilled jobs with automation (i.e., robots). The reason: the $15 minimum wage.
Earlier this year the first and fourth most populous states in the U.S. California and New York adopted the increase to $15. Numerous cities have also adopted the higher wage floor. But perhaps the most significant step forward for the Fight for $15 movement is that it is being adopted by the entire Democratic Party.
On Friday, the Democratic National Committee released a draft of the proposed party platform that includes a number of economically destructive proposals, including a federal minimum wage of $15:
Democrats believe that the current minimum wage is a starvation wage and must be increased to a living wage. No one who works full time should have to raise a family in poverty. We believe that Americans should earn at least $15 an hour and have the right to form or join a union. We applaud the approaches taken by states like New York and California. We should raise and index the minimum wage, give all Americans the ability to join a union regardless of where they work, and create new ways for workers to have power in the economy. We also support creating one fair wage for all workers by ending the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers and people with disabilities. Democrats support a model employer executive order or some other vehicle to leverage federal dollars to support employers who provide their workers with a living wage, good benefits, and the opportunity to form a union. The $1 trillion spent annually by the government on contracts, loans, and grants should be used to support good jobs that rebuild the middle class.
If you wanted to create a proposal that would harm the poor while giving the appearance of helping them (in order to win their votes), it would be difficult to improve on this approach.
As Ive written before, increasing the minimum wage to $15:
Additionally, ending the sub-minimum wage will almost completely eliminate an entire sector of jobs for people with physical and mental disabilities.
If I were cynical Id assume that the drafters of the DNC platform had nefarious motives. But I dont really believe that. I assume that they are merely deeply and profoundly ignorant about economics (even economists on the left recognize the harms of the policy).
Unfortunately, economic ignorance is rather widespread in America, which is why the draft will likely pass when its voted on later this week by the 187-member platform committee.
Its also likely to be adopted by the next president. Since the GOP will be nominating the deeply unpopular and economically illiterate Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton is all but assured a victory in November. While she may have a difficult time getting the minimum wage increase through Congress (assuming the Republicans dont lose the House and Senate along with the presidency), she will be able to sign the model employer executive order on her first day in office.
Such an executive order would give preference for federal contracts to companies that are unionized, pay $15 minimum wages, have paid leave, health care for their workers, etc. Not only would this require taxpayers to pay more for goods and services bought by the government, it would incentive cronyism and corruption.
For those of us who truly care about the poor and disabled (and not just the appearance of caring) and who oppose fraud and waste in government, the near future looks bleak. The best we can hope for is that the implementation of these policies will be limited and their destructive outcomes so obvious that even the Democrats wont be able to overlook the harm theyve caused.
A 66-member team of Congress leaders will discuss with Vice President ways to revive the party in Kerala where it lost power in May, a party leader said on Wednesday.
Among those reaching Delhi are former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, state party President VM Sudheeran, opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala, Lok Sabha members, legislators and those who lost the assembly polls.
"This is a meeting to decide how to strengthen the party at all levels," Sudheeran told reporters here before leaving for Delhi.
The Congress contested in 87 assembly seats in Kerala but could win only 22. Many of its seasoned leaders were defeated.
At a meeting of the state party executive this month, several leaders blamed Sudheeran. Since the electoral rout, Chandy has declined to take up any party post and remains just a legislator.
The Congress-led UDF has 47 seats in the 140-member Kerala assembly.
"If the party has to make a return, Sudheeran has to go. You just wait and see," said a Congress leader who did not wished to be identified.
While some leaders want the next president of the party in Kerala should be elected, others feel that no one should be thrust by the "high command" even if someone is nominated.
Since Vayalar Ravi defeated AK Antony in 1991 to become the state president, all subsequent state presidents have been nominated by the Congress "high command".
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, in a series of posts on Twitter and Facebook, said that his five-day four-nation African tour starting from Thursday is aimed at enhancing ties between India and Africa.
"My Africa tour, aimed at enhancing ties between India & Africa will begin from Mozambique in a brief but key visit," Modi tweeted ahead of his first official visit to continental Africa.
Apart from Mozambique, he will also visit South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.
Elaborating on Facebook, he said his visit to Mozambique was aimed at increasing bilateral cooperation and boosting cultural linkages.
"I will meet (Mozambican) President Filipe Nyusi and hold extensive talks with him," Modi stated.
"My other programmes include a meeting with Ms. Veronica Macamo, the President of the National Assembly and a visit to the S&T Park, Maluana where I will interact with students," he said, adding that he would interact with members of the Indian community as well.
The Prime Minister said his programmes in South Africa, where he would be reaching on July 7 evening, would span across Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban and Pietermaritzburg.
"South Africa is an important strategic partner, with whom our ties are historical and deep-rooted," he stated.
"History is witness to how Mahatma Gandhi's stay in South Africa impacted him and the history of the world. He went to South Africa as a lawyer seeking work and returned to India as a strong voice for humanitarian values, who would go on to shape the history of humankind."
Modi said he would be visiting Gandhi's Phoenix Settlement and Pietermaritzburg railway station, two places very closely associated with Mahatma Gandhi's stay in South Africa.
"A visit to South Africa is incomplete without remembering the beloved Madiba (Nelson Mandela). I will also be honoured to visit the Constitutional Hill and Nelson Mandela Foundation where I would pay my tributes to an icon of human history, who made his country and the world a much better place," he stated.
Apart from South African President Jacob Zuma, the Prime Minister said he would also be meeting Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.
He said to boost economic ties, he would speak at an India-South Africa business meet.
Other programmes, he said, include a meeting with the Alumni Network in Durban and a reception hosted by the Mayor of Durban at Durban City Hall.
"South Africa is home to a vibrant Indian community, that has made South Africa their home for years. I will interact with the Indian community at a programme in Johannesburg on 8th July," he stated.
After completing his engagements in the twin cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria on July 8, Modi will travel to Durban on July 9.
Durban is home to 800,000 of the 1.2 million Indian-origin people in South Africa.
The Prime Minister, who would reach Tanzania on July 10, described that east African country as "a valued friend".
"There will be extensive talks with President Dr. John Magufuli where we will chalk out the road ahead for bettering India-Tanzania relations in a wide range of areas," he said.
"I will also be meeting 'Solar Mamas', a group of rural women solar engineers from Africa who have been trained under GOI (Government of India)-supported programmes to fabricate, install, use, repair and maintain solar lanterns and household solar lighting systems in their villages."
Modi will also interact with members of the Indian community in Tanzania, which numbers around 50,000.
The Prime Minister, who will reach Nairobi on July 10 evening on the fourth and final leg of his visit, said that "India-Kenya ties have stood the test of time".
"Both our nations have had very strong people-to-people ties and both nations have successfully fought colonialism in the previous century," he stated.
He said his talks with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta would revolve around how India and Kenya could grow their bilateral cooperation.
"I envision better trade, commercial and cultural exchanges between India and Kenya. The potential is immense and together we seek to harness it," Modi said.
He said he would offer floral tributes to a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, who is widely revered in Kenya.
"I shall also pay tributes to Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya and a towering political figure of Africa," he said
There would also be a meeting of the India-Kenya business forum which, the Prime Minister said, would "be an important forum to elaborate more on the economic aspect of our relationship with Kenya".
"A programme that I am keenly looking forward to join is an interaction with students at the Nairobi University," he said, adding that he would address a community programme on July 10.
"There is also a meeting with Bharatwallah Alumni Association during the visit. Another programme is the handing over of ambulances and a model of Bhabhatro"," Modi stated.
--IANS
ab/bg
A senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Chief Minister of the Indian state of Uttarakhand Bhagat Singh Koshyari has admitted that he had a meeting with Nepal's deposed king Gyanendra Shah in Kathmandu recently.
Koshyari, who is also member of the Nepal-India Eminent Persons Group, is a frequent traveller to Nepal since the BJP came to power in May 2014 and enjoys good relations with senior Nepali politicians.
During an interview with BBC Nepal Service, Koshyari said he held a meeting with Gyanendra Shah during his last visit to Nepal in the third week of June.
He was in Nepal then to take part in the first General Convention of the Terai Madesh Loktantrik Party.
Koshyari, who is in Nepal to participate in the first meeting of the EPG, said he has no plans to meet with Gyanendra this time.
After abolishment of the 240-year-old monarchy in 2008, Gyanendra, the last king of the Shah dynasty, moved to a bungalow on the north-western outskirts of Kathmandu in Nagarjuna Hill. He keeps coming to his old address in the heart of Kathmandu, Nirmal Niwas, which was his address when he was junior prince.
"I do not think it was a crime to meet the former king. He is like a citizen now and if he wants to meet me, what's wrong," Koshyari said.
Koshyari, who has a wide range of contacts among the political fraternity in Nepal, said: "Is there anything written in Nepal's Constitution that someone who comes from India should not meet with the former king. If so, I will not meet him from next time."
"I am meeting with all political leaders here. Sometimes, I visit them and some time they invite me," he added.
He clarified that it was Gyanendra who invited him for the meeting. Koshyari said that since Gyanendra keeps visiting India frequently, "I told him to become the token of unity of both sides."
BJP leaders have made statements to the effect that they would like to once again see Nepal as a Hindu state.
After the EPG's two-day meeting ended on Tuesday, Koshyari was still in Kathmandu and meeting various political leaders here.
(Anil Giri can be contacted at girianil@gmail.com)
--IANS
giri/rn/dg
The Union Home Ministry has sought a report from the Manipur government on the recent killings of former insurgents in the state who had joined the national mainstream.
According to informed sources, the central government is concerned that these killings may derail the peace process in the state.
In the latest incident, Hmar National Army Chairman Lalthanshang Hmar was gunned down near his house on Tuesday in Churachandpur district. Earlier, Jamkholal Zou, a self-styled captain of the United Kuki Liberation Front, was hacked to death in Chandel district.
On April 21, former PREPAK Chairman Ningombam Nabachandra and his driver were shot dead in their 'safe house' inside the camp of 7 Manipur Rifles in Imphal East district. The killers escaped unnoticed.
Some other former insurgents also had been gunned down in separate incidents in the state.
With such killings on the rise, at least one militant outfit in Imphal West district has taken up arms once again, even though it had suspended operations.
Police sources said the development has vindicated those militant groups that did not suspend their operations.
The peace process in Manipur began in May 2000 when the army reached an agreement on suspension of operations with some tribal outfits. However, the state government remained non-committal, observers here pointed out.
Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh, who also held the home portfolio then, told IANS that his government was not taken into confidence over the suspension of operations.
Despite the agreement, police and paramilitary forces continued to arrest and kill some of the former insurgents. It was then that the Union home ministry stepped in.
Eventually, another agreement was signed in August 2008 -- this time taking the Manipur government into confidence. "Fifteen tribal and three non-tribal underground organisations joined the national mainstream after signing the agreement. They have been placed at different designated camps since then," an official told IANS.
But some leaders of these outfits are not happy because of the meagre stipend they get. Moreover, no political dialogue has been initiated for a settlement. The former insurgents, who have been disarmed, are also in constant fear of being killed.
Villagers have been protesting the government plan to set up designated camps for former militants in the close vicinity.
Referring to reports of some inmates indulging in unlawful activities, Manipur Home Minister Gaikhangam said: "The government shall come down heavily if the inmates violate the ground rules of the suspension of operations".
Police had arrested some inmates on the charge that they were involved in extortion bids.
(Iboyaima Laithangbam can be contacted at imphalreport@gmail.com)
--IANS
il/bim/vt
US Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump said on Wednesday Hillary Clinton's use of private email had put the "entire country in danger".
The FBI's decision not to recommend criminal charges against Democratic presidential hopeful Clinton is the greatest example yet that the system is rigged, BBC reported.
Clinton and Trump were their party's likely choices to battle for the White House in November. They are expected to be made the official nominees later this month.
Clinton had been careless in how she handled sensitive information but there was no case to bring criminal charges because there was no evidence of intent, FBI Director James Comey said.
Trump disagreed and said the system had been set up to protect the Clintons -- she had put the "entire country in danger" and had probably been hacked.
"Her judgment is horrible," Trump said, adding that "she will be such a lousy president, folks."
The New York businessman said Attorney General Loretta Lynch had been bribed, being promised she would keep her job in return for allowing Clinton to escape prosecution.
Trump offered qualified praise for former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
"Saddam Hussein was a bad guy," Trump said. "But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn't read them their rights," he added.
Other Republicans were also critical of the FBI decision. House Speaker Paul Ryan said it "defied explanation".
"Declining to prosecute Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent," he said.
At a press conference in March 2015, Clinton acknowledged that she had exchanged about 60,000 emails from her private account during her stint in the Obama administration, among which about half were personal and thus deleted.
In response to requests from the State Department, the Clinton camp turned over the other half, roughly 30,000 emails in total, to the State Department in December, 2014.
--IANS
ask/py/vm
The Congress on Wednesday attacked the BJP-led government in Assam for hiking fuel prices and VAT on essential items and withdrawing partial subsidy on domestic LPG cylinders.
"Within one month of coming to power, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has increased the prices of petrol and diesel, increased VAT by 1 per cent and has withdrawn partial subsidy on domestic gas cylinders," Congress leader Ripun Bora told the media here.
"This has affected all sections of people in the state," he said.
Effective from July 4, sales tax on petrol in Assam was hiked by 73 paise and on diesel by Rs 1.62 while VAT on 127 items has been increased from 5 per cent to 6 per cent.
Partial subsidy of Rs 14 on domestic LPG cylinders has been withdrawn.
"The assembly session is due to start on July 18. Had they taken the assembly into confidence, it would have been a more democratic process," he said.
The Congress leader said prices of students' stationery and all medicines have also shot up in Assam.
He said people voted the BJP to power on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's promise that Sarbananda Sonowal would bring "sarbananda" (happiness to all).
"Instead, he has become a 'bipod' (danger) to the state," he said.
Bora assumed charge as the Acting President of the Congress in Assam on July 2 following the demise of incumbent Anjan Dutta last month.
He admitted prices went up during UPA rule too. "At that time there were protests by the BJP all over," he said.
"If there was a rise in petrol price, BJP workers protested by using bullock carts and cycles; if there was a rise in the price of onions, they protested by wearing garlands of onions. Now we want to ask the BJP, where have the protests gone?"
--IANS
ab/mr
Members of the Panchshila Club on Wednesday demanded strict action against Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief Swati Maliwal for acting in connivance with a 52-year-old woman complainant in a case of alleged sexual harassment registered against former Delhi Chief Secretary Omesh Saigal.
The club's response came after a case of sexual harassment under Section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of the Indian Penal Code was registered against Saigal on Saturday after the complaint of a woman was forwarded to the Delhi Police by the DCW. The charge was denied by Saigal.
Coming out in support of Saigal, the Managing Committee members of Panchshila club, in a statement said: "We do not support the complaint made by the former club member. We strongly denounce same as false, frivolous, malicious and malafide.
"And the act and the conduct of Maliwal is equally condemnable, hence we call for a stricter action against her for abuse of her office for this unlawful, vindictive act," the club members added.
According to police, the alleged incident took place on June 18, when the woman went for swimming in the pool at Panchshila Club, of which Saigal is also president, in south Delhi. In her complaint, she mentioned that Saigal blocked her way while she was swimming.
The complainant, who approached the DCW on June 23, claimed that Saigal had on earlier occasions also deliberately blocked her way while swimming which led her into arguments with him.
DCW chief Swati Maliwal took strong note of the suspension of club membership of the complainant and her husband.
"Instead of forwarding the complaint to the Local Complaints Committee under the Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Work Place Act, 2013, the complaint was heard by a sub-committee set up by the Management Committee of the club. Also, subsequently, in blatant disregard of the act, the club membership of the complainant and her husband was suspended," the DCW said in a notice to the club.
Saigal, meanwhile, told IANS: "Charges against me are absolutely false."
"I have also filed a defamation case against the woman in Saket court and a notice was served to her on June 22," he added.
--IANS
aks/rn/dg
The West Bengal government has urged the central government to take up with the Nepal government the issue of "barriers in elephant-migration route" so that the jumbos can move unhindered along the India-Nepal border.
"The migratory pattern there was from east to west... along our border with Nepal, the elephants would cross over, spend two months in Nepal and then come back. Since last year on the Nepal side, they have put up 18-km-long electric fence which is preventing the elephants from going there," Chandan Sinha, principal secretary, forest department, West Bengal, told media here.
"This is creating problems on our side. We have taken up the issue with the government of India and we hope something will be done. We have requested them to take it up with the Nepal government," Sinha added.
--IANS
sgh/lok/dg
Raqqa (Syria), July 6 (IANS/AKI) A barrage of fresh terror attacks will target Bangladesh and elsewhere until an Islamic caliphate prevails worldwide, the Islamic State group has warned in a new video.
The slaughter of 20 hostages in a Dhaka bakery was a mere "glimpse" of things to come, it said.
"What you witnessed in Bangladesh ... was a glimpse. This will repeat, repeat and repeat until you lose and we win and Sharia law is established throughout the world," says a Bangladeshi fighter in the video, quoted by the respected US-based terrorist tracking group SITE intelligence.
The video begins with images of recent attacks claimed by IS in Paris, Brussels and in Orlando in the US. IS also claimed the assault on Dhaka's Holey Artisan cafe.
"I want to tell the rulers of Bangladesh that the jehad you see today is not the same that you knew in the past," said the fighter, speaking from a bustling street in its stronghold of Raqqa in northern Syria.
"The jehad that is waged today is a jehad under the shade of the Caliphate," the fighter says, speaking in Bengali and English.
Bangladesh blamed Friday's attack by gunmen on a domestic militant group, Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh (JMB), and denied IS's claim of responsibility.
Twenty hostages died in the assault, most of them foreigners, as well as two Bangladeshi policemen, a bakery chef and the five Bangladeshi gunmen.
The attack came after a spate of murders of secular bloggers, gay activists, academics and members of religious minorities -- all blamed on Islamists.
--IANS/AKI
mr/
As consumers wait to see the cheapest smartphone (less than $4) at its scheduled launch in the capital on Thursday, its Noida-based makers have made another pitch for the government's support to make their loss-making venture "work for millions" who don't own such a phone.
According to Ringing Bells Pvt Ltd CEO Mohit Goel, he initially faced Rs 930 loss on each handset that cost him Rs 1180 and for which parts were imported from Taiwan.
"I recovered Rs 700-800 from app developers and revenue generated through advertisements on Freedom 251 website. After selling the device for Rs 251 (cash on delivery), the total loss per handset is expected to be in the range of Rs 180-270," Goel told IANS.
The first batch of 5,000 'Freedom 251' devices will finally be out for delivery from July 8 and the receiver will have to pay Rs 291 (including Rs 40 as delivery charge) to get the unit, says Goel.
"In order to digitally-empower every Indian, if I can get government support under the Digital India programme, I can ensure timely delivery of 'Freedom 251' phone to all citizens at the same price," Goel said on the eve of the launch event.
In a letter written to the Prime Minister's Office dated June 28 asking for a meeting with Narendra Modi, Ringing Bells said: "We have brought 'Freedom 251' which we offer on 'Cash on Delivery' terms but we have a gap between the BOM (Bill of Materials) and the Selling Price. We, therefore, humble request government support to actualise the objective to cascade the availability and usage of smartphones all through the far reaches of our great nation".
Goel's ambition is huge. He says if the government is willing to dole out Rs 50,000 crore, he can ensure that 750 million of India's population would become part of digital India by owning a smartphone at Rs 251.
Bringing some modesty into the equation about the enormity of his demand, Goel says that the government need not give his company the money but can get it manufactured by another vendor.
"The government can make the phone -- under our Freedom brand -- from some other vendor. I have no objection to it. To make such phone for every Indian citizen, the government needs to allocate funds from its Digital India initiative," he said.
Having learnt his lessens from the controversial February launch when Ringing Bells invited senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, this time, Goel wants to play safe and is not inviting any politician for the launch.
"I want to keep this event controversy-free. I have proved that a smartphone is actually possible in this kind of investment. But to fulfil a mammoth handset order that runs in crores, we badly need government's support," he added.
To generate more revenue, he plans to go to iCloud (cloud storage and cloud computing service from Apple) and begin a software called "WhiteCloud".
"The aim is to make and provide at least 100 new apps online to 'Freedom 251' owners and charge them bare minimum -- to the tune of Rs 1 to Rs 3 per app -- to generate revenue," he said.
After delivering 5,000 phones in the first batch, Goel says he will wait for customers' feedback. "I am ready with 500 service centres pan-India to address people's queries," he claimed.
The company will also showcase a 32-inch high-definition LED television -- also called "Freedom" -- at the launch event.
"These will be the cheapest television sets in India and will be available for less than Rs 10,000. Online registration for the TV sets will be open from July 25 with delivery to be made from August 1," Goel said, claiming that the company currently has one lakh such pieces in stock.
In comparison, the price of a 32-inch HD LED TV sets normally begins from Rs 13,000 in online markets.
In an earlier interview to IANS, Goel had also claimed that they are ready with nearly two lakh 'Freedom 251' handsets.
The company had in mid-February this year planned to deliver 25 lakh handsets before June 30. However, it received over seven crore registrations before its payment gateway crashed within three days.
The 3G device has a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory and supports external memory cards of up to 32GB.
The company has offered an 8MP primary camera with flash, a 3.2MP front camera and a 1,800 mAh battery. It runs on Android 5.1 (Lollipop).
The phone would be available in two colours -- black and white.
The device displays the Indian Tricolour when you switch it on. It will incorporate all the basic Google apps in the handset, according to Goel.
--IANS
na/hs/bg
A day after she was shunted out to the Textiles Ministry, Union Minister Smriti Irani on Wednesday said her stint as the HRD Minister was "satisfactory and fruitful".
"I am glad that I have been part of the process of formulating the National Education Policy after 30 years, and that the honourable Prime Minister gave me such an opportunity," Irani said, addressing the media here.
She said it was during her tenure that the Human Resource Development Ministry deliberated with "every state and every village" and incorporated their inputs in the New Education Policy.
"This has been done for the first time in the history of India," she said.
On her replacement, Irani said she is "glad that Prakash Javadekar is going to take the PM's vision further".
"Thanks to Prakash ji who publicly praised my work and spoke of taking it forward," she said.
On her new assignment, Irani said that textiles is one of the most important sectors that has the potential "to employ and skill and to scale up the Prime Minister's dream of Make in India".
"I know that the Prime Minister wants to give a boost to the Textiles Ministry and the new package announced for the sector indicates as much. I am happy that I have been given this opportunity to implement the roadmap that was projected through the cabinet for textiles sector," she said.
On persistent questioning from the media about her being moved out of the HRD Ministry, Irani said, "There have been so many questions and so many things being said. I would only say that 'Kuchh to log kahenge, logon ka kaam hai kehna' (People will talk, it is their business)."
--IANS
mak/rn/vt
The government on Wednesday indicated it was contemplating action against controversial Indian Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, who was followed by militants who killed 20 persons in Dhaka's Holey Artisan Bakery on July 1.
It was a "matter of law" and the agencies concerned will take "appropriate action", Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju told reporters here.
"We will give all kind of support, whatsoever, in matters related to terrorism," he said.
Asked if the government planned to ban the preacher, as some other countries have already done, the minister said: "It's not wise on part of the minister to make announcements about actions likely to be taken."
Naik, founder of Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation, is banned in the United Kingdom and Canada for his hate speeches aimed against other religions.
--IANS
sk/tsb/vt
In what can be called symbolic of its "neighbourhood first" policy, India has offered to link its growth story with southern neighbour Sri Lanka.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said this during a meeting with Sri Lankan Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade Malik Samarawickrama during his visit to New Delhi on July 4-5, it is reliably learnt.
According to sources, discussions between Sushma Swaraj and Samarawickrama focussed on the "neighbourhood first" policy of India .
"External Affairs Minister reiterated that India would like its economic growth trajectory to also lead to growth for Sri Lanka," the sources said on Wednesday.
"Discussions with the External Affairs Minister reviewed the implementation of decisions taken at the ninth India-Sri Lanka Joint Commission meeting for furthering trade, investment and developmental linkages between India and Sri Lanka," the sources said.
India is assisting Sri Lanka in a number of development projects, including health and education.
"There was agreement on creating an enabling environment for Indian industry to invest in Sri Lanka," the sources said.
It is learnt that both Sushma Swaraj and Samarawickrama agreed to encourage further momentum on projects between the two countries.
"The two ministers reviewed various projects, including the Sampur power plant, rehabilitation of Palaly airfield and Kankesanthurai harbour," the sources said.
Sushma Swaraj also emphasised on the urgency of finding a permanent solution to the fishermen issue, recommended by the Joint Commission Meeting in February this year.
On Wednesday, Sri Lanka arrested 17 Indian fishermen for fishing in its maritime territories.
The sources said both sides agreed that a meeting between the fishery ministries of the two countries should be held at the earliest.
--IANS
ab/pgh/
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday lashed out at some Western countries for "raising" terrorism in the Muslim world.
"Unfortunately, the Eid ul-Fitr in some of the Muslim countries this year was turned into mourning ceremonies by the terrorists who want to introduce fake Islam as the real Islam," Khamenei said while leading morning prayers in Tehran.
"Such crimes are the results of raising terrorism by the intelligence services of the US, Israel and Britain," Xinhua news agency quoted Khamenei as saying.
However, the creators of terrorism will not remain secure from the repercussions of terrorist acts either, he warned.
In the early hours of Wednesday, the Iranians attended the mosques and holy shrines across the country to celebrate Eid ul-Fitr which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
The Congress on Wednesday said that replacement of Union Human Resource (HRD) Minister Smriti Irani by Prakash Javadekar was aimed at accelerating the pace of saffronisation and commercialisation of education system to benefit private sector.
In a major rejig of the Narendra Modi government on Tuesday, Smriti Irani was made the Textiles Minister in place of Santosh Gangwar, who will be now be the Minister of State for Finance. Jawadekar is the new HRD Minister.
"It was due to saffronisation. May be the pace of saffronisation was not to the satisfaction of the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) and, therefore, you have an incumbent who possibly will accelerate that pace," Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari told the media here.
"Given the fact that there is a clear attempt to try and commercialise the education system in India so as to hand over the sector to private interests and also the manner in which some decisions were taken in the Environment Ministry, especially the withdrawal of Rs 200 crore fine imposed on a particular corporate house considered very close to powers that be, the appointment becomes all the more ominous and sinister," Tewari said.
The Congress had earlier accused the Modi government of giving concessions to Adani Port and SEZ Ltd., alleging it had withdrawn the Rs 200-crore fine imposed on the company for 'environmental damage' caused during the construction of the Mundra port in Gujarat.
Tewari took a dig at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for calling a meeting of Vice Chancellors in Chhattisgarh to review the education system in the state.
Questioning the locus standi of RSS in the matter, Tewari said: "This is not saffronisation of education. This is far more sinister. This is fascistising education."
"A very systematic attempt has been made to completely emasculate India's public education system and hand over everything over to the private sector," he added.
He said the previous United Progressive Alliance government had increased the budgetary allocation to the HRD Ministry from Rs 11,000 crore to Rs 82,000 crore.
"The moment this government came into office, they rolled it back to about Rs 69,000 crore. In the last fiscal, there is an increase by 4.8 per cent, taking the figure to Rs 72,394 crore," said Tewari.
"The University Grants Commission budget was slashed by 55 per cent from Rs 9,315.45 crore in 2015-16 to Rs 4,286.94 crore in the current fiscal," the Congress leader added.
--IANS
sid/tsb
Internationally acclaimed actor Irrfan Khan, who is awaiting the release of his forthcoming film "Madaari", will meet RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and interview him during his visit to Bihar capital Patna on Thursday.
"Nor is the world awake, nor is it laughing. The world's sense of humour is dying out. But there is this one politician, whether he answers questions or not, he hasn't lost his sense of humour. I am going to meet Shri Lalu Prasad Yadav. Let's see what happens," Irrfan said in a statement.
Irrfan's interview with Yadav will be shown live on the actor's Facebook handle.
Directed by Nishikant Kamat, "Madaari" is set to release on July 15 and Irrfan has been going all out to promote the movie.
--IANS
sas/rb/bg
The suicide note of Cathriona White, actor Jim Carrey's former girlfriend, who took her own life shortly after they broke up last year, has emerged.
The Irish make-up artist passed away in her home here last September after overdosing on prescription medication and was found with a suicide note for the actor.
The suicide note details how White felt after she and Carrey ended their relationship, reports tmz.com.
She also apologized to him, saying she had "tried to give you my best part", and let him plan her funeral.
"I have spent three days now in disbelief that you are not here. I can go on broken-hearted and try to put the pieces back. I could, I just don't have the will this time," she wrote in the letter. "I'm sorry you felt I wasn't there for you. I tried to give you my best part".
She asked him for forgiveness, writing "I'm just not for this world".
Prior to the split and her death, White and Carey were reported to be dating on and off throughout their three-year relationship.
A toxicology report said that four prescription drugs were found in her system when she died.
Some of the drugs appeared to be Carrey's because police found on her phone at the time a text message from the actor, who asked her if she knew "where his painkillers went from under his sink".
--IANS
ank/nn/mr
The Karnataka government has declared a holiday on Thursday for Eid-ul-Fitr, a festival celebrated at the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting, an official release said on Wednesday.
"The central moon committee has decided to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr on July 7 instead of July 6 due to non-sighting of the new moon on July 5," the Karnataka State Board of AUQAF said in a statement here.
State government offices, schools and colleges and all other establishments will remain closed on Thursday to celebrate the festival.
Eid is, however, being celebrated on Wednesday in the state's coastal region, including Dakshina, Kannada, Udupi and Uttara Kannada districts, with traditional gaiety and fervour.
State governor Vajubhai Vala and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah greeted the people on the occasion.
--IANS
fb/lok/bg
World 1,500-metre champion Asbel Kiprop of Kenya has promised to run his best as he returns to the Monaco Diamond League meeting on July 15.
However, Kiprop, who has two important assignments lined up -- one to win a berth in the explosive Kenyan trials this weekend in Eldoret, and second to try and reclaim his Olympic title in Rio -- has ruled out going for the world record, reports Xinhua.
"It is not the record that interests me now. I want to win at the Rio Olympics and that will have a big impact on how I run in Monaco, where I target fast time," he said.
Kiprop, three-time world 1,500m champion, will contest his specialist event. Having recorded his season's best at this meeting over the past four years -- the slowest of which was 3:28.88 and the fastest being his personal best of 3:26.69 -- the Kenyan will attempt to break his own meeting record which he established last year.
His 3:26.69 solo run in Monaco last year moved him up to third on the world all-time list and was just 0.69 shy of the world record. Only two other men Hicham El Guerrouj (Morocco) and Benard Lagat (US) have run faster.
Wayde Van Niekerk will be making his debut in Monaco in the 400m race. The South African won the world title in Beijing last year in an African record of 43.48, moving to fourth on the world all-time list.
Three-time Diamond Race winner Piotr Malachowski will also be in Monaco. The world discus champion from Poland was victorious in Monaco in 2014, the last time the discus was held at the Stade Louis II.
Canada's world high jump champion Derek Drouin will be competing at Herculis for the third time in his career.
The 26-year-old finished fifth at the 2014 edition where the meeting record was upped to 2.40m, the same height as Drouin's lifetime best.
--IANS
tri/vt
West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee has congratulated Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare S.S. Ahluwalia on his new assignment and both leaders assured cooperation to each other, Ahluwalia said on Tuesday.
"As elected member from West Bengal after my swearing-in on Tuesday, I had made a courtesy call to her. She was not there. Then she returned my call to congratulate me," Ahluwalia told reporters soon after assuming office as the new Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare in Krishi Bhavan here on Wednesday.
Both the leaders discussed developmental works in the state, he said.
During the telephone talk, Ahluwalia asked about a July 12 event at Darjeeling that President Pranab Mukherjee is expected to attend.
"On the July 12 event, Mamata Banerjee asked me to go. I told her as a Union Minister and MP I can go only when invited. Then she assured me that invitation would be coming," said the Darjeeling MP, who has often during the past two years engaged himself in verbal duel with Trinamool Congress members in the Lok Sabha.
"If invited, I will go," said Ahluwalia, who is also Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs.
On his role as floor manager for the government, Ahluwalia, a seasoned lawmaker mostly in Rajya Sabha since 1986, said, "Every day is a challenge. When you go out to the market for shopping, that's also a challenge."
Ahluwalia took office in the presence of Union Minister Radha Mohan Singh, who said the former's long experience in and administration would help run the Agriculture Ministry better.
Ahluwalia said accelerating the development of agriculture sector and reaching out to the poorest among farmers will get priority.
President Mukherjee is to preside over a function in Darjeeling on July 13, the birth anniversary of Nepali poet Bhanubhakta Acharya.
The BJP won two seats in West Bengal, Ahluwalia is the second minister from the state after Asansol MP Babul Supriyo.
--IANS
nd/rn/vt
Kansai Mazda, a subsidiary of the Japanese automaker Mazda Motors Corporation on Wednesday admitted that it had charged two clients with over 2,000 items of non-existent car maintenance fees over the past 10 years, amounting to around $1.09 million.
Kansai Mazda said one of its store in Osaka sent non-existent maintenance fees bills to two car-renting companies between June 2004 and December 2015, Xinhua news agency reported.
The car-renting companies submitted their doubts about the bills to Kansai Mazda in October 2015.
The motor company then conducted investigations within the company and found out the misbehaviour.
Kansai Mazda said it had returned the falsely charged fees to the two car-renting companies.
Mazda is one of the largest automakers in Japan, with its revenue reaching record high in fiscal 2015, amounting to $33.9 billion.
--IANS
ask/py/vt
A Spanish court on Wednesday sentenced FC Barcelona's Argentine star Lionel Messi and his father to a prison term for tax fraud committed between 2007 and 2009.
The Barcelona Provincial Court ruled that Messi and his father, Jorge Messi, had committed three counts of tax fraud that were punishable with 21 months (one year and 9 months) in prison, reports Efe.
In Spanish law, it is not mandatory for a first offender to go to prison if the sentence is under two years.
The court also fined Messi two million euros ($2.21 million) for evading income taxes in 2007, 2008 and 2009, while his father was fined 1.5 million euros ($1.66 million) for the same offence.
During the trial, the public prosecutor only accused the five-time Ballon D'Or winner's father, demanding 18 months in prison.
However, the state attorney asked for 22 months and 15 days in prison for both father and son, accusing both of willfully evading 4.1 million euros ($4.54 million).
The sentence can be appealed before the Spanish Supreme Court.
--IANS
tri/vt
Militants on Wednesday killed at least four Iranian security forces personnel in Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan province, a media report said.
"Three soldiers and a sergeant were killed," Ali Asghar Mir Shekari, Deputy Governor of Sistan and Baluchestan province, told Iranian Tasnim news agency, reported the semi-official Mehr news agency.
The Deputy Governor did not identify the affiliation of the militants, but said the details will be announced soon, Xinhua news agency reported.
--IANS
ss/lok/dg
Prime Minister Narendra Modi left for a five-day tour of Africa early Thursday that will take him to Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.
"The Prime Minister emplanes for a vital four-nation Africa tour. The first nation he will visit is Mozambique," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted.
This is Modi's first official visit to continental Africa. He had earlier visited the island nations of Mauritius and Seychelles.
Modi will arrive in Maputo, Mozambique's capital, on Thursday morning.
This will be the first prime ministerial visit from India to the southeast African nation in 36 years since the visit of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1982.
After concluding his engagements in Mozambique, he will leave for South Africa on Thursday evening.
His engagements in South Africa will span across Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban and Pietermaritzburg on Friday and Saturday.
Following this, he will leave for Dodoma, Tanzania's capital, from Durban on Saturday evening.
After completing his engagements in Dodoma, Modi will leave for Nairobi, Kenya, on Sunday evening.
Ahead of his departure, the Prime Minister tweeted on Wednesday that his visit was aimed at enhancing India-Africa ties.
--IANS
ab/pgh/
The North India versus South India divide doesn't just end with roti or idli. Even when it comes to buying diamonds, there is a marked difference between the tastes of buyers from North India and South India, according to Tehmasp Printer, managing director of the International Gemological Institute.
While North Indian buyers prefer size above anything else while purchasing diamonds, South Indian buyers are more conscious about the quality of the stone, Printer told IANS, adding that the artificial diamond, though cheap, can never replace the value and worth of a natural diamond, both as an ornament and as an investment.
"Generally, buyers in the northern region of the country prefer larger diamonds and opt for diamonds which will add to their status. Southern buyers opt for quality over size. They'd buy a smaller diamond without compromising on the quality of the stone," said Printer.
"The eastern region is a mix of the above. The western region is completely a diverse market," added Printer who was in Goa to participate in a buyer-seller meet organised by the IGI in South Goa.
Printer also said that gems and jewellery trade accounts for around 6-7 per cent of the country's Gross Domestic Product and India accounts for 95 per cent of the world's diamond export, according to statistics released by the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council.
"India is one of the largest exporters of gems and jewellery and the industry is considered to play a vital role in the Indian economy as it contributes a major chunk to the total foreign reserves of the country," Printer said.
"The UAE, the USA, Russia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Latin America and China are the biggest importers of Indian jewellery," he added.
According to Printer, the gems and jewellery market in India is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 15.95 per cent over the period 2014-2019.
During the period from April to December 2015, India imported US$17.33 billion worth of raw material for gems and jewellery and with an eight per cent share in polished diamonds, India has become the world's third largest diamond consumer, Printer said.
When asked if the central government's crackdown on black money would be a deterrent to the growth of the gems and jewellery market, Printer said: "I don't think so. We Indians have survived and persevered through many challenges we have faced. The diamond trade will survive and flourish nevertheless."
The IGI official also dismissed the challenge posed by cheaper synthetic diamonds to its natural counterpart, claiming while the artificially created diamond was "a diamond in every sense of the gemology," in terms of value and investment the natural diamond could not be compared with.
"A synthetic diamond is a diamond produced in an artificial process, as opposed to natural diamonds, which are created by geological processes. Today synthetic diamonds are much cheaper. However, the value that a natural diamond has in the consciousness of the customer cannot be denied. Natural will always be preferred over synthetic," Printer said.
"Due to advancement of technology, a synthetic diamond is available at half the price of a natural diamond. Technology will continue to progress. In the future, the same synthetic diamond which a customer purchased today, say, for Rs two lakh, may be available at Rs.one lakh. So where is your investment?" he said.
Printer also said there was a basic difference in which a domestic consumer viewed diamonds, as compared to one in a foreign market where the aesthetic value of the stone comes at a premium.
"Often in India, when it comes to purchase of gold jewellery, consumers enquire about the gold content, making charges and the like. The contents are stripped down. Aesthetics of the jewellery are not valued. But one can't do that at a Cartier or Gucci store," he said.
"But that's how the domestic market works where consumers often purchase gold as an investment. The export market works differently. A client abroad may order a large consignment from a manufacturer and will accept it if it is IGI certified. This offers the manufacturer an ease in business transactions leading to increased profits," Printer said.
(Mayabhushan Nagvenkar can be contacted at mayabhushan.n@ians.in)
--IANS
maya/bim/ky
The High Court in Pretoria on Wednesday handed down a six-year sentence to Paralympian Oscar Pistorius for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Reading out the judgement, Judge Thokozile Masipa said the trial of murder-convicted Pistorius had many mitigating factors, reports Xinhua.
"In the result, the sentence I impose on the accused in terms of murder dolus eventualis, is six years imprisonment," Masipa said.
She said a long term of imprisonment will not serve justice in this matter.
The accused has already served 12 months, he is a first offender and he is not likely to re-offend, Judge Masipa said.
"Punishment is not what you choose to do. It is something that is imposed on you. By it's nature it is unpleasant, uncomfortable and painful," said the judge.
"Recovery is possible. It will depend mostly on the accused's attitude to the punishment imposed on him."
The life of the deceased will never be brought back, the judge noted, adding that the facts considered are the gravity of the offence, the interests of society, and the rights of the deceased and the accused.
"The life of the accused also has changed forever," she said.
Judge Masipa said she has considered all the evidence, submissions and case law.
Last month, Pistorius's legal team argued for a non-custodial sentence citing his physical and emotional vulnerability as mitigating factors.
But the state was seeking the minimum sentence of 15 years to be imposed, arguing that Pistorius failed to show remorse for his actions.
The Paralympic sprinter was convicted of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at his home on February 14, 2013. Pistorius insisted in trial that he mistook her as an intruder and his life was in danger when he fired at the door of the bathroom.
--IANS
tri/vt
The High Court in Pretoria on Wednesday handed down a six-year sentence to Paralympian Oscar Pistorius for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Reading out the judgment, Judge Thokozile Masipa said the trial of murder convict Pistorius had many mitigating factors, reports Xinhua.
"In the result, the sentence I impose on the accused in terms of murder dolus eventualis, is six years imprisonment," Masipa said.
Last month, Pistorius' legal team argued for a non-custodial sentence citing his physical and emotional vulnerability as mitigating factors.
--IANS
tri/bg
Maharashtra's temple town Pandharpur is all set to get the world's biggest toilet facility to serve to the needs of over three lakh pilgrims who throng the shrine to seek the blessings of Lord Vitthal, the state's presiding deity, here.
Giving a boost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious 'Clean India Campaign', NGO Sulabh International has constructed a cluster of eight mega toilet complexes -- comprising 1,417 toilet units -- in the vicinity of the temple in Pandharpur.
"So far, we have completed first two phases and by the end of next year there will be total 2,858 toilet units," Sulabh International founder Bindeshwar Pathak said on Tuesday.
"This will be the largest toilet facility as before this China had the largest toilet facility having 1,000 toilet units. But now we have outnumbered them," he added.
Pandharpur is famous for the temple of Lord Vitthal or Vithoba and his consort Rakhumai -- manifestation of Lord Vishnu's incarnation Krishna and Rukmini. Millions of devotees, who are known as Varkaris, congregate here throughout the year for pilgrimage. The largest annual congregation is around the Ashadhi Ekadashi -- the 11th day of the Hindu lunar month of Ashadh.
With the opening of the eight three-storeyed mega toilet buildings, over 1.5 lakh persons will be able to use the toilets daily.
The toilet complexes also comprise bathing facility for several hundred persons simultaneously. The project was financed and supported by the Maharashtra government.
Four buildings were operational for the last one year and now four more such structures will be operational ahead of the pilgrimage.
With the completion of the mega toilet blocks, Sulabh International claims "the project has attained the status of largest toilet facility of the world".
Each of the newly built complex consists of 282 toilet and bath compartments and provides facility of lockers as well as changing rooms for devotees.
Pathak supported the ongoing campaign of the Prime Minister to make India Open Defecation Free.
He said that to make India free of open defection by 2019, funds are needed and nearly 12 crore toilets are required to be built by 2019 to realize the dream of the Prime Minister.
"This is a big task, but together we can do it and Non Resident Indians can play a pivotal role in this," Pathak said.
Locals appreciated the cause, saying it would help in reducing the number of people going out for defecation.
A resident of Pandharpur, Rahul Jadhav says that open defecation has always been a problem in the city. During pilgrimage the problem used to aggravate because of lack of toilets. Pilgrims would be forced to opt for open defecation.
"With the construction of toilet complexes, the number of people opting for open defecation will certainly go down," Jadhav told IANS.
July month attracts a crowd of over a million people in Pandarpur for "Pandharpur Wari" -- the 22-day long annual pilgrimage that dates back to 800 years.
During the pilgrimage Varkaris' take out 'Palki' or palanquin of Lord Vitthal and revered saints Dnyaneshwar and Tukaram from the place of their 'Samadhi' or the place they received enlightenment at. The spiritual pilgrimage and fest ends on Ashadhi Ekadashi, which falls on July 15 this year.
(Ashish Mishra can be reached at ashish.m@ians.in)
--IANS
am-kd/rn/vt
A South African court on Wednesday sentenced Olympic athlete to six years in prison for the murder of his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp.
Pretoria High Court judge Thokozile Masipa said in her ruling that Pistorius is "not a violent person" and had shown remorse and inclination to perform social work.
Masipa's previous ruling and conviction for culpable homicide had been overturned last year by the South African Supreme Court of appeal.
"He is a fallen hero, who has lost his career, and been ruined financially," the judge argued to justify a sentence that was considerably lower than the 15-year mandatory minimum sentence the public prosecutors had demanded. "He can not be at peace," she added.
In her decision, Masipa said Pistorius was a "good candidate for rehabilitation," as he had proven during the 10 months he spent in prison before being eligible for parole under house arrest.
He also "successfully" took part in various reintegration programmes.
"His disposition towards social work is a noble gesture," the judge added.
Masipa said she had considered both mitigating and aggravating circumstances, concluding that the former outweighed the latter.
For example, Pistorius "immediately took steps to try to save the deceased's life" and seemed "genuinely remorseful."
Pistorius shot his girlfriend four times through the bathroom door of his Pretoria residence on February 14, 2013.
The paralympic athlete claimed he had mistaken her for an intruder and panicked.
Masipa accepted this account and sentenced him to five years in prison for a crime of culpable homicide.
The country's Supreme Court of appeal overturned this sentence, considering there had been a clear intent to kill, regardless of Pistorius' knowledge of the victim's identity, and declared him guilty of murder.
Wednesday's sentence adds one year to the initial sentence and rejects the 15 years demanded by the public prosecution.
Pistorius' defence team said that they will not appeal a six-year sentence given to the Paralympian by the high court.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday reviewed the functioning of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in view of BRICS Heads of Anti-Drug Working Group meeting here on July 8.
BRICS comprises five major emerging national economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
NCB chief Rai Bhatnagar informed the minister about the steps taken by the agency to tackle the drug menace in India.
He said the NCB undertook a large number of operations in coordination with other countries leading to the unearthing of as many as 29 international drug syndicates.
An NCB drive was also undertaken to identify the areas where illicit cultivation of opium and cannabis was undertaken and these crops destroyed in coordination with state governments.
Increased surveillance by the Border Security Force and other agencies on the international borders also helped reduce smuggling of heroin and other opiates into India.
--IANS
sk/tsb/dg
Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant on Wednesday demanded an immediate ban on Islamic preacher and scholar Zakir Naik, who is under scanner after the Dhaka terror strike.
In a letter to Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Sawant said the youths who perpetrated the Bangladesh terrorist acts have claimed they were inspired by the teachings of the Mumbai-based Naik.
Despite repeated attempts by IANS, Naik and his spokesperson were not available for their comments.
"This is not the first incident that terrorists have named Naik for such inspiration. The boys who joined ISIS from India have also made the same statement," Sawant informed Singh.
He urged the home ministry to put a ban on Naik's movements in the country, investigate thoroughly his activities and his affiliated organisations and institutes and their funding.
In addition to a ban on him, Sawant sought restrictions on Naik's private television.
Born and living in Mumbai, the 50-year-old Naik is a qualified doctor who left the medical profession to set up the Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), which runs the Islamic International School and NGO United Islamic Aid for the poor and destitute.
--IANS
qn/mr
Seven patients at a government-run eye hospital here are in danger of losing vision as a solution used during surgeries was found contaminated, officials said on Wednesday.
A total of 13 patients, who underwent cataract surgery last week at the Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital, developed post-operative complications but doctors are confident five to six of them would get back their vision.
The incident has sent shockwaves among patients, whose relatives staged protests at the hospital demanding action against those responsible.
Hospital authorities seized all bottles of the solution and stopped further surgeries as a precaution. The Telangana government has ordered a probe.
The hospital's Deputy Superintendent, Rajendar Gupta, said investigations revealed that the solution used on June 30 was contaminated.
"The solution was tested positive for klebsiella. It is a very notorious organism which is resistant to all drugs except two. We have given these two drugs to all the patients," he said.
He claimed that five to six patients showed improvement and they are "definitely going to get vision". For the remaining cases, the doctors are repeating the injections and waiting to see the results.
Gupta said two of these seven cases may get back the vision with keratoplasty (corneal transplantation).
"We have tried all possible means (to restore vision). We have given injections and cleaned the internal chambers," he added.
He said the hospital gets the solutions from a government drug store. The drug inspectors have already sealed the bottles for further tests.
The Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital at Mehdipatnam is the biggest government-run eye hospital here. About 40-50 patients from poor and lower middle class families undergo surgeries every day.
Meanwhile, the health department of Telangana has ordered an inquiry. A Hyderabad district blindness control officer, Ravinder Goud, has been named the inquiry officer.
Goud said there was no negligence on the part of the doctors or other staff at the hospital as the solution was contaminated.
--IANS
ms/mr
The Sri Lankan Navy and Coast Guard on Wednesday arrested 17 Indian fishermen for poaching in Sri Lankan waters, officials said.
Two Indian fishing trawlers were also seized when the fishermen were arrested near Point Pedro in the island's northern seas. reports Xinhua news agency.
The navy said the fishermen and their fishing trawlers were handed over to the Jaffna Fisheries Inspectorate.
Sri Lanka frequently arrests Indian fishermen fishing in its waters. India and Sri Lanka are divided by a narrow strip of sea.
--IANS
mr/
The situation in Tibet and the implications of environmental degradation on the Tibetan plateau were among the issues which figured in the talks between US President and the Dalai Lama, the central Tibetan Administration said on Wednesday.
"Obama in his meeting with His Holiness at the White House on June 15, discussed the critical political situation of Tibetans inside Tibet and the implications of environmental degradation on the plateau," said a statement by the Tibetan Cabinet to mark the pontiff's 81st birthday.
According to the statement, Obama encouraged a meaningful and direct dialogue between the Dalai Lama and his representatives with Chinese authorities to lower tensions and resolve differences.
"Obama also welcomed His Holiness' leadership on climate change issue and expressed support for his efforts in raising awareness of the importance of limiting global warming, including to protect the Himalayan glaciers and the environment on the Tibetan plateau."
Emphasising his strong support for the preservation of Tibet's unique religious, cultural and linguistic traditions, the Tibetan Cabinet or the Kashag said the US President lauded the Dalai Lama's commitment to peace and non-violence.
"We remain firmly committed to the 'middle-way' policy and will take concrete measures to ensure that dialogue with China takes place in the near future," said the cabinet, headquartered in this northern hill town Dharamsala.
Over the last few decades, the pontiff has visited 67 countries, spanning six continents, and authored over 100 books, advocating global peace and harmony.
Meanwhile, morning prayers for the well being and long life of the Dalai Lama were held here on his birthday on Wednesday.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner was not present here and attended celebrations in Mundgod in Karnataka.
Large crowds began to assemble on Wednesday morning at the Tsuglagkhang temple, close to the official palace of the Dalai Lama at McLeodganj, to join the celebrations.
Born on July 6, 1935 at Taktser hamlet in northeastern Tibet, the Dalai Lama was recognised at the age of two as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama Thubten Gyatso.
He fled Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, basing his Tibetan government-in-exile here that never won recognition from any country.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his non-violent campaign for democracy and freedom in his homeland. Since fleeing to India, he has spent his time in exile pushing for autonomy for Tibet.
India is home to around 100,000 Tibetans.
Two men were killed when their light aircraft crashed and caught fire at the Cuatro Vientos (Four Winds) airport near Spanish capital Madrid, the emergency services reported on Wednesday.
The accident happened at around 9.30 a.m. local time as the two pilots were practicing take-offs and landings, reported Xinhua news agency.
Their aircraft, a modern SR22, crashed into the fire station at the airport.
The cause of the accident is still being investigated.
--IANS
ss/lok/bg
US-based global technology company Cisco, that arrived in India in 1995 and has created thousands of jobs since then, says it is committed to the Make-in-India programme and will continue to be generous in nurturing start-ups.
Reiterating Cisco's commitment to align with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious Digital India and Smart Cities initiatives in a free-wheeling interview to IANS, Amit Phadnis, President, Engineering and India Site Leader, said the time is ripe to begin a manufacturing unit in the country.
"We are very committed to make the manufacturing happen here. The commitment is very firm. Our teams are working towards realising this goal. We have also identified the place but there is still some time to go public on this," a cheerful Phadnis told IANS at Cisco's sprawling campus located at Cessna Business Park here.
With 11,000 people working in India, the $143 billion company is reported to set up a manufacturing base in Pune -- a city where it recently opened its second Global Delivery Center, the other being operational in Bengaluru. However, the specific details are yet to emerge.
Phadnis, who last week initiated 'LaunchPad', an open innovation initiative to help startups, authorised channel partners and developers scale their solutions, address new markets and build digital businesses in India, is confident that the initiative will first digitally empower the few millions in our country before digitising the next three billion globally.
"Till date, we have committed nearly $280 million towards the start-up community in India. If more funding is required, our CEO John Chambers and the top management will be more than open to look into it, but in reality, $280 million is a good beginning to nurture start-ups," he added.
Via Launchpad, Cisco teams will mentor startups and developers on how to help create digital solutions to enable enterprise customers, service providers and other enablers in the public and private sphere.
"We will create an ecosystem where companies can actually succeed to a point where they actually tap into the funds. The challenge that however remains for a start-up is how to succeed with that kind of money," Phadnis explained.
Here is how Launchpad will work.
"First of all, We will run a selection process. The parameters are going to be simple like what are the qualities of the founding team, the technologies the team is working on, is it really a rejuvenating start-up?, etc," Phadnis said.
He believed that great ideas falter because they are not able to scale and solve the larger problems and take to the market. "We are trying to recreate larger construct and we want to solve larger digital solutions. At the end of the day, we want the startup to succeed and we want Cisco and a partner to succeed too, creating a solution which will be useful for society," Phadnis explained.
"From a start-up's perspective, if I get into Launchpad, it gets me Cisco technology, mentorship and connects to the partner's community. Most importantly, it gives me visibility of what are the real solution that can be taken to the market and it gives me the power of the Cisco market engine globally to literally use the wings to fly the globe," he said.
The initiative will initially focus on manufacturing, retail, transportation, education and the healthcare sector.
To succeed in education, defence or health sectors, multiple technologies from across the domain are required. "We need portfolio of technologies that are going to be important from the innovation point of view. You need to map multiple technologies to one solution and create a go-to-market engine around it," Phadnis emphasised.
Launchpad is not just limited to Bengaluru or Pune. "We are ready to bring the capabilities that we have bulit in engineering and services pan-India. We are not restricted to any specific city," Phadnis noted.
Security is the next big thing and for Phadnis, Cisco is ready with a decated security line-up for its customers. "Security is one of the biggest focus in the company at the moment and for us, it is about networks, computer infrastructure, internet of things (IoT), governance, e-governance, cyber security -- you name it," he said.
Last month, Cisco acquired cloud security company CloudLock Inc. for nearly $300 million to provide companies a secured, hacker-free cloud experience. Cisco and French electronics group Thales have also announced a new cybersecurity partnership to develop cyber detection and counter-attack solutions.
"We are taking a holistic view of what does it take to secure an entire infrastructure, whether networking or non-networking, at Cisco," Phadnis said.
(The writer's visit to Bengaluru was at the invitation of Cisco. Nishant Arora can be reached at nishant.a@ians.in)
--IANS
na/vm/tb
New Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave, a known environmentalist, took charge of the ministry on Wednesday that also happens to be his birthday. Dave said he would continue with "his hobby" but within the constitutional framework.
"Earlier, my environmental work was a hobby, now I would try to do the same in the framework of the Constitution," Dave, who has worked on conservation of Narmada in his home state Madhya Pradesh, said on being asked about his plans for river rejuvenation.
Taking charge in the presence of his predecessor and now the Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister, Prakash Javadekar, Dave praised him and echoed his words that development and ecological conservation go hand in hand.
"Development and environment go together; they are not against each other," Dave said.
His predecessor Javadekar, who was often criticised for diluting green norms for pro-industry policies, too advocated the drafting of environment policies while keeping development in mind.
"Projects initiated by Prakash Javadekar will go on," Dave said.
Asked about his strategy, the river conservationist replied, "It will take me one week of time to understand the priorities and challenges of the department. Then I will set priorities about which direction we shall move."
Asked about the water projects and the river linking project over which the Environment Ministry had an ideological conflict with the Water Resource Ministry, especially in the case of the Ken-Betwa river link project, he replied, "Every river must flow."
A Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Pracharak, a trained pilot and three-time Rajya Sabha MP from Madhya Pradesh, Dave was also a member of the Parliamentary forum on global warming and climate change.
Dave was given Independent charge of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in a major expansion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet on Tuesday.
Dave started working right away. He held a meeting with senior officers to see the functioning of departments and discussed the current challenges being faced by his ministry.
--IANS
kd/rn/bg
A young man's battered body was found on Wednesday in West Bengal's Howrah district.
The body was found lying near a park in Bantra police station area by morning walkers.
"The face and head of the body have been badly smashed, the identity of the victim is yet to be established," said a police officer.
The discovery of a blood stained heavy stone near the body has created a panic among the locals who fear the return of the stoneman, an unidentified serial killer who murdered over a dozen people in Kolkata during 1989.
"I have read about the stoneman killings. The killing has been done in the similar fashion," said one of the locals.
--IANS
and/lok/vt
French billionaires are circling like flies round honey. Less than a year after Vincent Bollore's Vivendi took effective control of Telecom Italia, Xavier Niel's Iliad is setting up a new mobile operator. Iliad disrupted the French market when it burst onto the scene in 2012 but may struggle to make the same splash in Italy.
With reference to the editorial, "A major expansion" (July 6) the recent Union Cabinet expansion had its pluses and minuses. For starters, it is no longer "minimum government, maximum governance" now that the number of ministers in the Cabinet is 80, just two short of the prescribed limit of 82.
GRENADA, Miss. -- A Grenada County man who left his daughter in a hot car by alleged accident was indicted by a Grenada County Grand Jury on Tuesday.
Joshua Blunt was indicted Tuesday afternoon for leaving his 8-month-old daughter, Shania Rihanna Caradine in a hot car in May.
Blunt reported to jail on Tuesday evening under a $15,000 bond and according to Moore, family members were trying to raise the money to have Blunt released.
Blunt was charged with culpable negligence and if convicted, he potentially faces a one year prison sentence.
Moss Point native and attorney Carlos Moore expressed his displeasure with Tuesday's ruling.
"We are extremely disappointed in the criminal justice system," Moore said. "It just seems time and time again that the justice system is not alive or fair in Mr. Blunt's case."
According to Moore, Blunt decided to pick up an extra shift at work and was supposed to drop his daughter off at his grandmother's house, but realized he had not when he and his coworker stepped outside and saw Shania was still in the car.
Coworkers according to Moore placed cool towels on Shania to cool her down until the ambulance arrived. Shania was later transported to University of Mississippi hospital in Grenada and after numerous attempts to resuscitate her, she was later pronounced dead. Blunt was subsequently arrested.
Blunt was incarcerated after originally being charged with second degree murder in his daughter's death. According to Moore, the city at the time agreed the charge should be amended from second degree murder to culpable negligence manslaughter.
Initially, bond was set at $250,000, but Blunt was later released under his own recognizance by Judge Rusty Harlow in May.
While Blunt has been indicted, Moore is wondering why there has yet to be an indictment brought forth in the case of Amy Bryant, the Madison, Miss., mother who left her 2-year-old in a hot car.
"Apparently, there are two sets of rules in Mississippi and America," Moore said.
On May 11, Amy Bryant of Brandon, Miss., went to Little Footprints Learning Center to pick up her daughter. After daycare workers told her she had not dropped her daughter off that morning, Bryant immediately ran to her car and found her daughter in the back seat, deceased.
Bryant is yet to have a day in court and charges have not been filed.
"I want America to get to the point where there is one set of laws for all Americans, no matter if you are red, white, black or brown, I want there to be one set of laws and for everyone to be treated fairly," Moore said. "Race or color should not factor into the equation."
With reference to Devangshu Datta's piece, "Tightrope walk for next RBI governor" (July 4), barring a few - say, the likes of former chief election commissioner T N Seshan and Raghuram Rajan, the outgoing governor of the Reserve Bank of India - all others have been unable to make people understand the importance of their posts. Their impact was deep, hence, they became the talk of the town.
Smriti Iranis removal from the prestigious HRD ministry was one of the major casualties of the Cabinet reshuffle that took place on Tuesday. She will now take over as the textiles minister, while Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar will replace her in the key portfolio.
Amid all the media attention on the likes of Smriti Irani and Venkaiah Naidu being shunted out of HRD and Parliamentary Affairs respectively, people almost missed the announcement that Arjun Meghwal and Santosh Gangwar had been made the new Ministers of State for Finance, replacing Jayant Sinha, who has been appointed Minister of State for Civil Aviation.
The Dutch government says two Dutch UN soldiers have been killed in an accident with a mortar during a training on a firing range in Mali, and a third soldier was wounded in the same incident.
Rob Bauer, acting commander of the Dutch armed forces, identified the victims as a 24-year-old corporal and a 29-year-old sergeant who were killed today near Kidal.
The UN had already said two of its soldiers were killed but had not revealed their nationality.
There are some 400 Dutch troops in Mali who are part of the 12,000-strong UN mission Minusma. Last March, another two Dutch soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash near Gao.
The 33rd Tri-Services Commanders' Conference will be hosted by South Western Air Command (SWAC), at Air Force Station Jodhpur from July 7 to 8.
"The objective of the two days Tri-Services Commanders' Conference is to strengthen and promote coordination amongst the three services," Defence spokesperson Manish Ojha said today.
The concept of operations in a network centric warfare scenario and exploitation of newly inducted weapon systems for enhancing operational capability in a synergisedtri-service environment would be the focus of the conference.
Matters related to Joint Operations and tactical issues related to Southern region will also be discussed.
The Tri-Services Commanders' Conference of Southern Region is an annual feature amongst the seven Commanders' of the Army, Navy and the Air Force.
Four Iranian border guards were killed today in a clash with armed rebels near the Pakistani border, Iranian media reported.
The fighting occurred in the Rask region in the southwestern Sistan-Balochistan province, Iranian media said without giving further details.
Last month, state television reported the death of a police officer and five "terrorists", said to be members of the Jaish al-Adl jihadist group, in the nearby Khash region.
Jaish al-Adl is thought to be behind a number of attacks in Sistan-Balochistan in recent years, and Tehran accuses it of ties to Pakistan-based Al Qaeda cells.
Ninety percent of Iran's population is Shiite, but the country has significant Sunni populations in its restive border regions, notably Kurdistan in the northeast, and Sistan-Balochistan and Khuzistan in the southwest.
There has been a recent uptick in violence in Iranian Kurdistan, with local media reporting the death of 33 rebels and six members of security forces since mid-June.
Drug addicts in Punjab are gradually getting attracted to medicine-based drug concoctions following stepped-up clamp down on peddling of traditional narcotics, Home Minister Rajnath Singh was told today.
At a review meeting with Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) here, the Home Minister discussed the narcotic scenario in Punjab and steps taken to check the incidents of drug abuse.
NCB Director General Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar apprised Singh about the changing drug abuse pattern in Punjab and stressed that the "increase in street price of opiates due to less availability as a result of increased enforcement activities by drug law agencies are making addicts shift to pharmaceutical preparations like Tramadol, Buprenorphene etc," an official statement said.
Listing the steps taken to tackle the drug menace in Punjab, Bhatnagar told the Home Minister that the state police, BSF, Customs and NCB have taken various steps.
BSF has augmented its manpower in border areas and increased its vigil by deploying improved technical aids. The exchanges of fire in the border and recovery of drugs have also acted as a deterrent against traffickers.
Punjab Police has established a State Narcotic Control Bureau and an apex committee under the Chief Minister for holistic tackling of the problem. The Customs has also made recoveries of drugs in the border, he said.
The review meeting was in view of the BRICS heads of Drug Control Agencies 2nd Working Group Meeting scheduled to be held on July 8 here, the statement said.
The DG NCB made a presentation on the functioning of NCB, general drug scenario in the country and the ways and means for strengthening the drug law enforcement machinery.
He apprised the Home Minister that apart from traditional drugs like heroin and cannabis, newer drugs which are synthetic in nature are also entering the market.
Along with this, pharmaceutical drugs which are easily available and cheaper are now being abused widely. However, they do not fall under the purview of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS) Act, the statement said.
(Reopens DEL42)
The NCB DG also told the Home Minister that NCB undertook a drive to identify the areas of illicit cultivation of opium and cannabis and has destroyed these crops in coordination with state governments.
During the first six months of this year, a record destruction of 5601 acres of opium cultivation was ensured, he added. He said that the government has also banned the sale of opium husk in 2016, which has led to reduction of availability of opiates.
Increased surveillance by BSF and other agencies in the borders has also reduced the inflow of heroin and opiates, he said.
Informing the Home Minister about the functioning of NCB in the last two years, Bhatnagar said the Bureau has undertaken a large number of operations in coordination with other countries leading to the unearthing of 29 international drug syndicates.
He said the diversion of licit precursor chemicals into illicit market for production of synthetic drugs is also emerging as a major challenge for all drug law enforcement agencies.
A total of 1900 units producing precursor chemicals have been registered with NCB and these companies are now filing quarterly return on a regular basis and being monitored by NCB for domestic control.
These steps have effectively controlled the diversion and trafficking of precursors, he said.
With an aim of avoiding return of seized drugs into the market, the Supreme Court recently issued guidelines to dispose off all seized drugs at the earliest by all agencies, the NCB DG said.
Bhatnagar said the government has welcomed the guidelines and NCB has undertaken a drive to dispose off the drugs at the earliest. In this regard, he said that during last year, 2511 kgs of seized drugs were disposed off and in the first five months of this year, 1732 kgs have been disposed, marking a pro-rata increase of 75.85 per cent.
The Home Minister expressed his satisfaction on the steps being taken to tackle this menace by different drug law enforcement agencies. He also asked the agencies to ensure that all necessary steps be taken to further improve the situation, the statement said.
Ahead of his departure, Prime Minister on Wednesday said his four-nation tour of African countries is aimed at enhancing ties with that continent, particularly in the economic sphere and people-to- people contacts.
Modi will begin his five-day tour with Mozambique and then travel to South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.
Focus of the visit will be on deepening cooperation in areas of hydrocarbons, maritime security, trade and investment, agriculture and food.
"My Africa tour, aimed at enhancing ties between India & Africa will begin from Mozambique in a brief but key visit," he tweeted.
"My programmes in South Africa will span across Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban & Pietermaritzburg," he added.
"In Tanzania I will hold talks with President Dr John Magufuli, meet 'Solar Mamas' & interact with Indian community," Modi added.
With regard to his visit to Kenya in the last leg of his visit, he tweeted, "Talks with President @UKenyatta, deliberations on economic & people-to-people ties will be focus of my Kenya visit."
Giving details in Facebook posts, the Prime Minister said the aim of his visit to Mozambique is to increase cooperation and boost cultural linkages.
"I will meet President Filipe Nyusi and hold extensive talks with him," he said.
Other programmes include a meeting with Veronica Macamo, the President of the Assembly and a visit to the S&T Park, Maluana, where he will interact with students. He will also interact with the Indian community briefly.
On Thursday evening, Modi will travel to Pretoria in South Africa, a country he described as an "important strategic partner, with whom our ties are historical and deep-rooted."
He said, "History is witness to how Mahatma Gandhi's stay in South Africa impacted him and the history of the world. He went to South Africa as a lawyer seeking work and returned to India as a strong voice for humanitarian values, who would go on to shape the history of humankind," Modi said. "I will have the honour to visit Phoenix Settlement and Pietermaritzburg Station, two places very closely associated with Mahatma Gandhi's stay in South Africa."
"A visit to South Africa is incomplete without remembering the beloved Madiba (Nelson Mandela). I will also be honoured to visit the Constitutional Hill and Nelson Mandela Foundation where I would pay my tributes to an icon of human history, who made his country and the world a much better place," he said.
During his South Africa visit, he will meet President Jacob Zuma as also Cyril Ramaphosa, the Deputy President.
"In an effort to boost our economic ties, I will speak at the India-South Africa business meet," he said.
Other programmes of the Prime Minister in Durban include a meeting with the Alumni Network and a reception hosted by the Mayor.
"South Africa is home to a vibrant Indian community, that has made South Africa their home for years. I will interact with the Indian community a programme in Johannesburg on 8th July," the Prime Minister said and invited ideas and inputs for his speech through the ' Mobile App.'
On July 10, he will be in Tanzania for a "brief but crucial visit" to give an impetus to ties with Tanzania, a valued friend in Africa, Modi said.
"There will be extensive talks with President Dr John Magufuli where we will chalk out the road ahead for bettering India-Tanzania relations in a wide range of areas," he said.
He said he will also be meeting 'Solar Mamas', a group of rural women solar engineers from Africa who have been trained under GOI-supported programmes to fabricate, install, use, repair and maintain solar lanterns and household solar lighting systems in their villages. He will interact with the Indian community as well.
Modi will then visit Kenya on the evening of July 10.
"India-Kenya ties have stood the test of time. Both our nations have had very strong people-to-people ties and both nations have successfully fought colonialism in the previous century," the Prime Minister said.
"My deliberations with President Uhuru Kenyatta will revolve around how India and Kenya can grow their bilateral cooperation. I envision better trade, commercial and cultural exchanges between India and Kenya. The potential is immense and together we seek to harness it," he said.
In Nairobi, Modi will offer floral tributes to Mahatma Gandhi, who is widely revered in Kenya. He will also pay tributes to Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya and a towering political figure of Africa.
"The meeting of the India-Kenya business forum will be an important forum to elaborate more on the economic aspect of our relationship with Kenya," he said.
"A programme that I am keenly looking forward to join is an interaction with students at the Nairobi University," he said.
"In order to deepen ties with the diaspora, I will address a community programme on 10th July. There is also a meeting with Bharatwallah Alumni Association during the visit. Another programme is the handing over of ambulances and a model of Bhabhatron," he said.
Prime Minister left for a four-nation tour of African countries on Thursday, aimed at enhancing ties with that continent, particularly in the economic sphere and people-to-people contacts.
Modi will begin his five-day tour with Mozambique and then travel to South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.
Focus of the visit will be on deepening cooperation in areas of hydrocarbons, maritime security, trade and investment, agriculture and food.
"My Africa tour, aimed at enhancing ties between India & Africa will begin from Mozambique in a brief but key visit," he tweeted ahead of his departure.
"My programmes in South Africa will span across Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban & Pietermaritzburg," he added.
"In Tanzania I will hold talks with President Dr. John Magufuli, meet 'Solar Mamas' and interact with Indian community," Modi added.
With regard to his visit to Kenya in the last leg of his visit, he tweeted, "Talks with President @UKenyatta, deliberations on economic & people-to-people ties will be focus of my Kenya visit."
Giving details in Facebook posts, the Prime Minister said the aim of his visit to Mozambique is to increase cooperation and boost cultural linkages.
"I will meet President Filipe Nyusi and hold extensive talks with him," he said.
Other programmes include a meeting with Veronica Macamo, the President of the National Assembly and a visit to the S&T Park, Maluana, where he will interact with students. He will also interact with the Indian community briefly.
Tomorrow evening, Modi will travel to Pretoria in South Africa, a country he described as an "important strategic partner, with whom our ties are historical and deep-rooted."
He said, "History is witness to how Mahatma Gandhi's stay in South Africa impacted him and the history of the world. He went to South Africa as a lawyer seeking work and returned to India as a strong voice for humanitarian values, who would go on to shape the history of humankind."
"I will have the honour to visit Phoenix Settlement and Pietermaritzburg Station, two places very closely associated with Mahatma Gandhi's stay in South Africa.
"A visit to South Africa is incomplete without remembering the beloved Madiba (Nelson Mandela). I will also be honoured to visit the Constitutional Hill and Nelson Mandela Foundation where I would pay my tributes to an icon of human history, who made his country and the world a much better place," he said.
During his South Africa visit, he will meet President Jacob Zuma as also Cyril Ramaphosa, the Deputy President.
"In an effort to boost our economic ties, I will speak at the India-South Africa business meet," he said.
On July 10, he will be in Tanzania for a "brief but crucial visit" to give an impetus to ties with Tanzania, a valued friend in Africa, Modi said.
Modi will then visit Kenya on the evening of July 10.
"India-Kenya ties have stood the test of time. Both our nations have had very strong people-to-people ties and both nations have successfully fought colonialism in the previous century," the Prime Minister said.
The government will work towards farmers' welfare and make Indian agriculture globally competitive, new Minister of State for Agriculture, S S Ahluwalia today said.
The 65-year old Ahluwalia, an MP from Darjeeling in West Bengal, today took charge of the office in the presence of Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh and secretaries.
"The challenges that our agriculture sector faced in the past and now are different. I have been given an opportunity to work in this sector. The emphasis will be on farmers' welfare and making our agriculture globally competitive," Ahluwalia told reporters.
There was a time when India had a "ship-to-mouth" existence, but the country has now become a net exporter because of farmers' efforts, he said.
The emphasis has always been on agriculture welfare and not on farmers, who are the key drivers of the sector, he said, adding that the efforts would be made to improve farmers' welfare.
Ahluwalia, who has also been given charge of Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for giving him the opportunity to work in this crucial sector.
"In the next three years, we will implement what we had promised in 2014 elections," he added.
Welcoming the new minister, Radha Mohan Singh said that induction of three ministers of state for agriculture will help speedy implementation of various agricultural programmes.
Ahluwalia was a member of Rajya Sabha representing Bihar and Jharkhand in 1986-1992, 1992-1998, 2000-2006 and 2006-2012. He was Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha from June 2010 to May 2012.
He has been member of various Parliamentary Committees and held various portfolios in the past including Minister of State for Urban Affairs and Employment and Parliamentary Affairs.
GULFPORT, Mississippi -- Police have arrested a 30-year-old Gulfport man and charged him with aggravated domestic assault after investigators say he stabbed his ex-girlfriend multiple times.
According to Gulfport Police Sgt. Damon McDaniel, police responded to an assault call in the 2700 block of Pine Avenue around 8:33 a.m. Tuesday. After arrival, officers found an adult female who appeared to be suffering from stab wounds to the upper torso.
The victim was transported by ambulance to an area hospital for treatment of non life-threatening injuries.
Investigators learned the victim had been involved in an argument with her ex-boyfriend -- identified as Merlin Kent Williams. During the argument, Williams brandished a knife and stabbed the victim multiple times before fleeing the scene on foot.
Based on the information gathered, a warrant for Williams' arrest was issued and he was entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) as a fugitive.
At approximately 7:41 p.m., police located Williams at the residence of a family member in the 11300 block of New Orleans Avenue. He was taken into custody without incident.
Williams was transported to the Harrison County Adult Detention Center and is being held under a $100,000 bond set by Justice Court Judge Louise D. Ladner.
University of Hyderabad's Joint Action Committee (JAC) has alleged the bust of dalit icon B R Ambedkar was "removed" from the shopping complex area in the varsity at the behest of Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao Podile, a claim denied by the administration today.
Yesterday, a group of students and teachers of the varsity, also known as Hyderabad Central University (HCU), held a protest on the campus over the issue and decided to lodge a police complaint in this regard.
"The Deans Committee recommended removal of tents and structures, named 'Velivada' besides the bust of Ambedkar from the shopping complex on the campus. These structures reflected the struggle for self respect...Removal of bust of B R Ambedkar is insult to Dalits," said D Prashant who has been leading the JAC's protest over the suicide of dalit Ph.D scholar Rohith Vemula in January.
He alleged the bust was removed "at the behest of" UoH Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao Podile "in nexus with other accused against whom a police case was registered in the wake of Vemula's death".
Categorically denying any role in the matter by administration, UoH Pro Vice-Chancellor Vipin Srivastava today said, "the University has not issued any orders - written or oral - for the removal of Dr B R Ambedkar's bust from the shopping complex area in the University campus.
"While the students told media, and also the security officer (on Monday afternoon) that the bust in question was removed, allegedly at the behest of the varsity administration, on the intervening night of Sunday and Monday, (i.E. July 3 and July 4) they did not even mention this, let alone protest about it, in their meeting with the newly-joined Registrar on July 4," Srivastava stated in a release.
The Pro VC stated that as soon as the students reported the matter to Security Officer on July 4, he checked with two security guards, who were on duty in shopping complex on the night of July 3, and was informed that the bust was there for sure around 6 AM of July 4 when their shift got over.
Srivastava further said, "if the university receives any complaint, efforts will be made to get the complete details in this incident through an appropriate inquiry".
Vemula's suicide on January 17 had sparked massive protests in the varsity as well as outside resulting in a fierce political slugfest, with a string of political parties and dalit organisations siding with students and accusing the BJP and varsity administration of being anti-dalit.
After Vemula's death, students had set up tents and installed a 'Rohith Smaraka Stupa' at the shopping complex.
UoH has been witnessing sporadic protests since the dalit scholar's death demanding Podile's dismissal.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu tonight hosted a dinner for Governor E S L Narasimhan at his riverfront residence at Vundavalli near here.
The Governor arrived in Vijayawada this evening from Hyderabad and was welcomed at the Gannavaram Airport by Agriculture Minister P Pulla Rao and DGP J V Ramudu.
Later, the Chief Minister called on the Governor and held discussions with him for about 20 minutes before driving to his residence for dinner.
What transpired at the meeting was not revealed but it was assumed that the ongoing controversy over the division of the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad was one of the issues that came up for discussion.
Two cadre of the hill-based Thadou People Liberation Army (TPLA) were apprehended by the army on July 2 last, said a press release issued by the PRO today.
The cadre were arrested from Motbung village in Senapati district, said the release.
The apprehended duo have been identified as Lilen Lhouvum (40) and Rilkam Khongsai (28), said the release.
Two 9 mm pistols with magazines, seven live rounds of 9 mm arms, two mobile phones along with four SIM cards were recovered from the arrested duo, said the release.
Further investigation revealed the two militants were involved in various nefarious activities including extortion and kidnapping.
Urging the Centre to take steps to secure the release of 80 Indian fishermen arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today said the root cause of the frequent arrests of the fishermen was the "unconstitutional" ceding of Katchatheevu to the Island Nation.
"The historic rights of our fishermen to fish in the traditional waters of Palk Bay are being continuously denied and the root cause of the problem is the unconstitutional ceding of Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka under the Indo-Sri Lankan agreements of 1974 and 1976," she said in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
She urged the Centre to take steps to secure the release of 80 fishermen arrested by the Lankan Navy, including 23 fishermen arrested on July 4 and 5, besides 101 boats seized by them.
"It is the stand of government of Tamil Nadu that the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) with Sri Lanka cannot be treated as settled as the matter is sub-judice.
"I reiterate that only the retrieval of Katchatheevu will ensure the restoration of the peaceful pursuit of their traditional livelihood by our fishermen in the Palk Bay," Jayalalithaa said.
Urging the Centre to impress upon the Sri Lankan government to release the fishing boats that were already in custody, she requested Modi to direct the External Affairs Ministry to initiate earnest efforts in finding a "permanent" and "pragmatic" solution to the livelihood issue of fishermen.
"I request you to direct the Ministry of External Affairs to secure the immediate release of our fishermen and their fishing boats," she said.
On July 3, Jayalalithaa had written to Modi, urging him to take steps to secure the release of five fishermen arrested by the Lankan navy on the same day on charges of fishing in its territorial waters.
Newly-appointed Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale today came down heavily on Congress, saying the party used him with an eye on Dalit votes but it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who realised his worth and made him a central minister.
Stating that he will campaign for BJP in Uttar Pradesh, which goes to polls early next year, the minister added that he is in touch with BSP "dissidents" and senior leaders, some of whom had recently quit the party.
"Congress was benefited by Republican Party of India (A) in Maharashtra and in several other states. In fact, Sonia Gandhi would admit that Congress could clinch power with the support of RPI. Had we not supported Congress in 1990, Shiv Sena and BJP would have come to power in early 1990s.
"Congress never valued me and never understood my power. It gave assurances on several occasions to induct me in the government but never did so. Narendra Modi realised my value and my power," Athawale said as he took charge of his post.
He also charged the Congress president with sharing stage with him to woo Dalits before elections in Maharashtra but denying him his dues after victory.
Asked if he would campaign for BJP in UP, the Dalit leader said he would definitely try to "snatch the elephant" from the Mayawati-led BSP.
"Elephant was the symbol of Republican Party of India, but was later given to Mayawati's party. She is not doing any substantial work for the Dalits, so we will try to snatch the elephant from BSP," he said.
He claimed that BSP's core vote bank of Dalits in UP is shrinking which was evident from the results of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and said his party intends to contest on 20-25 seats in the state and is in touch with BSP dissidents and senior leaders some of whom had recently quit the party.
Athawale further said he is the first leader who believes in the ideology of RPI to have become Union Minister after Dr BR Ambedkar, who was a Minister in the first Cabinet headed by prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. It was Ambedkar who had mooted the idea of RPI before he passed away in 1956, he added.
Athawale, who is yet to be allotted a ministerial office, said he will assist Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thaawarchand Gehlot in carrying out the welfare activities to fulfil Ambedkar's vision.
He said Dalit welfare is the priority of the government and he will work to ensure that funds under SC sub plan is utilised in a timely manner.
Bangladesh asked India to examine the speeches of controversial Islamic preacher after reports that his 'hate speech' inspired one of the five Bangladeshi militants, who hacked to death 22 people at an upscale cafe in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave last week.
"Already there are certain complaints from the Maulanas of Bangladesh that his (Naik) teachings are not in line with the Quranic teachings and Hadith," information minister Hasanul Haq Inu said.
"How much Naik's teachings influenced the terrorists that is to be investigated. We are investigating the whole matter," he said.
Requesting the Indian government to examine the teachings of controversial preacher, Inu said: "I also request the Indian government and information minister that they also examine the context of Dr Naik's teachings."
One of the Bangladeshi attackers, suspected to be Rohan Imtiaz the son of a politician of Bangladesh's ruling Awami League ran a propaganda on Facebook last year quoting 50-year-old Naik, a Mumbai-based doctor and an Islamic televangelist, Bangladeshi newspaper 'Daily Star' reported.
Naik, in his lecture aired on Peace TV, an Islamic channel, had reportedly "urged all Muslims to be terrorists".
Naik, a popular but controversial Islamic orator and founder of Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation, is banned in the UK and Canada for his 'hate speech' aimed at other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia.
He is hugely popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, although his preachings often demean other religions and even other Muslim sects, the report said.
Islamist gunmen had stormed the upscale Holey Artisan cafe popular with foreigners in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave last Friday, killing 22 people.
Belgium has handed over to France two men believed to have helped a key suspect in the November 13 Paris attacks flee to Brussels, Belgian federal prosecutors said today.
Mohamed Amri and Ali Oulkadi are suspected of helping Salah Abdeslam in the crucial hours after massacre, which left 130 dead and hundreds wounded.
The pair allegedly worked with Hamza Attou, who has already been extradited.
"Within the framework of the Paris attacks of November 2015, Mohammed A. And Ali O. Have been surrendered to the French authorities today," a statement said, referring to the men only by their initials.
Amri and Attou are suspected of accompanying Abdeslam back to Brussels, getting him past three police checks in France before crossing the border into Belgium.
Oulkadi is thought to have then driven Abdeslam across Brussels on November 14, the last place the top suspect was traced before his capture in the Belgian capital four months later.
Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the 10-man jihadist team that attacked Paris, was extradited to France in April.
Attou told Belgian investigators that Abdeslam called him and Amri late on November 13 to ask them to come for him "because he had had an accident," according to a source close to the case.
He claimed that they did not know of Abdeslam's involvement in the attacks until after they joined him in Paris.
The source quoted Attou as recounting that Abdeslam said he was "the sole survivor of these attacks" and that "they would pay for my brother's death".
Abdeslam's brother Brahim blew himself up outside a Paris cafe during the attacks.
Once in Brussels, Attou said he took Abdeslam to a market to buy new clothes and to get a haircut before taking him to Oulkadi, who showed him to a safe house in the city's Schaerbeek area.
Amri and Attou were arrested on November 14 in Brussels' Molenbeek district -- where Abdeslam grew up -- and charged in Belgium.
Belgium agreed to extradite Attou to France earlier this month but on condition that he serve any jail time in Belgium.
Bharat Financial Inclusion Ltd, formerly known as SKS Microfinance, may raise Rs 10,000 crore during the current fiscal to meet the lending requirements, a top executive of the micro-lender said today.
The company aims to clock nearly 50 per cent growth in Profit After Tax (PAT) to Rs 450 crore this year against Rs 303 crore during the last financial year, BFIL president SK Dilli Raj said.
"Last year, we raised incremental debt(fresh borrowings) of Rs 7,000 crore. This year we plan to raise Rs 10,000 crore. Out of this Rs 10,000 crore, roughly 35 per cent, that is Rs 3,500 crore, would be from securitisation, somewhere around Rs 1,100 crore from business correspondents arrangements, and around Rs 1,000 crore from money market instruments and the rest is from bank borrowings," Dilli Raj told PTI.
With about 5.6 million members (excluding Andhra Pradesh and Telangana ), BFIL had cumulative disbursement of Rs 52,040 crore as on March 2016, the company had earlier said.
"Last year, we completed a disbursement of Rs 12,088 crore. This year we plan to disburse Rs 15,500 crore. The assets under management last year was Rs 7,677 crore. This year we expect it to go up to Rs 11,000 crore, almost about 45 per cent growth," he further said.
BFIL's net profit stood at Rs 303 crore in last fiscal against Rs 188 crore in the previous year, due to the efforts put in to reduce operational costs and lower cost of funds, the annual report said.
"PAT for last year was Rs 303 crore. We are guided to Rs 450 crore. That is almost 50 per cent growth. For 2015-16, we have grown at 85 per cent, therefore growing at 45 per cent will not be a challenge for 2016-17," he further said.
Replying to a query, he said the company has no plans to expand its footprints to new geographies. It currently operates in 16 states (except Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and seven North Eastern states).
The company was an applicant for SFB (Small Finance Bank) license but did not receive in-principle approval from RBI. The company believes SFB license is a missed opportunity but not a setback, BFIL annual report said.
Subhash Ramrao Bhamre, an oncologist and a first-time MP from Maharashtra, today took over as the Minister of State for Defence.
He replaced Rao Inderjit Singh who has been made Minister of State for Planning (Independent Charge) and Urban Development, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation following the Cabinet reshuffle yesterday.
63-year-old Bhamre's induction into the government is being seen as an attempt to compensate Maharashtra for the exit of Raosaheb Danve, who resigned as a central minister after being appointed the president of BJP's state unit.
It is also an effort to humour BJP supporters in Jalgaon- Dhule belt, who are apparently unahppy over the exit of party heavyweight Eknath Khadse from the Devendra Fadnavis ministry in the wake of accusations of wrongdoing in purchase of Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation land.
Bhamre, born on September 11, 1953, defeated Amrish Patel of Congress to enter the Lok Sabha in 2014 election from the Dhule constituency, bordering Gujarat. His constituency adjoins Jalgoan, the home turf of Khadse.
He has been offering free treatment to cancer patients.
He has conducted free multiple medical camps and surgeries. He organised public education speeches for cancer awareness and its early detection and prevention.
Bhamre is also known for visiting houses of financially weak cancer patients, who couldn't afford to visit hospital for diagnosis and treatment.
The BJP MP is a Member of the Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare and also a Member of the Consultative Committee, Ministry of Railways. He is also a member of the Committee on Welfare of Other Backward Classes.
Bhamre was among the 'non-political' personalities fielded by BJP in 2014 polls and registered a convincing victory over Patel as the Modi wave swept the constituency.
During his college days, Bhamre was the vice captain of Mumbai University's chess and basket ball teams.
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.
Chaudhary Birender Singh today assumed charge as the Steel Minister at a time when the sector is passing through a "stressful" phase.
Singh has taken over from Narendra Singh Tomar who has been made the Rural Development Minister.
Handing over the charge, Tomar said: "I welcome Mr Singh to the ministry and I am sure his long innings in public life and politics will help enrich the steel ministry."
"Steel is an important sector. It gives direct employment to about 4-5 lakh people and indirect to about 40 lakh and plays a crucial role in a country's journey from developing to the developed," he added.
At present, the sector is going through a "stressful time" globally as well as in India but the government is alert and has taken several measures to protect domestic industry, Tomar said, adding that the result is now started showing and the sector is moving towards better times.
Singh said he is a result-oriented person and expertise in a sector depends on the person's willpower to deliver results.
"I feel it can be any ministry or any kind of work, but what works is common sense in the interest of the country. Mr Tomar said that sector is passing through stress and I feel we will look at the ways that we can employ to come out of these times.
"I have never looked back. Today I have handed over the charge of rural Development Ministry to him and now my concentration is on steel. I'm result oriented and I will work towards making the sector better," he added.
Singh's term in the steel ministry comes at a time when the industry globally is going through one of its worst phases marked by overcapacity and flagging demand.
In India too, the sector is facing strong headwinds due to cheap imports from China, Korea, Japan, Russia among others, which has impacted the sales and margins of domestic firms.
Himachal Pradesh BJP today hit out at Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh over his reported remarks that "contractors and not officers" are running the PWD and said it only lends credence to its allegation that "contractor mafia" is active in the state.
"The reportedremarks of chief minister at a function at Rohroo in Shimla yesterday that contractors are calling the shots and not the engineers in the Public Works Department (PWD) are endorsement of allegations of the BJP, and only demonstrate the helplessness of the government to rein in the erring contractors", state BJP chief Satpal Singh Satti alleged.
In a statement, he said, the "situation was more worrying" as the chief minister is himself holding the department.
"The portfolio of Public Works Department is with the chief minister himself and if his remarks are true, it only demonstrate lack of will on the part of the government to crack down on erring contractors", he claimed.
Satti further alleged Singh might have "given such statement to project his clean image but it was a known fact that such loot by contractors was not possible without the protection of the government."
On the other hand, the chief minister today lauded the engineers for their role in development of the state and said that they work in tough terrain under hostile conditions for development of the state and it is due to their hard work that Himachal was a model of hill development for other states.
Addressing the 26thGeneral Seminar of Junior Engineers Association here today, he said, civil, mechanical and electrical engineers in various departments were instrumental in achieving the targets and taking the state ahead.
Today, there is close network of35,000 kms of roads compared to 288 kms when Himachal Pradesh was formed.
All the villages had been electrified and there were hardly any habitations which were bereft of drinking water facility, Singh claimed, adding, "I have mostly kept with me the PWD, Education and Finance departments in all my tenures as these were the backbone of development of the state".
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Vijender Gupta on Wednesday raised questions over the quality of services at Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government's mohalla clinics by alleging that a pregnant woman was tested positive for Thalassemia at one such clinic but the results were later found negative at a private pathology laboratory.
"The pregnant woman, Mausam Kumari, visited the mohalla clinic at F Block in Rohini along with her husband Mukesh on April 24, where tests were done. The report revealed that she had Thalassemia," he claimed.
The tests were then done at a private pathology laboratory where it was found that she was not suffering from the disease. The doctor at the laboratory said the mohalla clinic lab report was "incorrect" and "technically wrong", the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly claimed.
Mukesh claimed that he had lodged a complaint with the Delhi Health minister and officials of the department but no action was taken.
There were also some other cases of "negligence and wrong reports" at mohalla clinics and its laboratories but people are not coming out with their complaints, the BJP leader claimed.
He also alleged at a mohalla clinic in Nihal Vihar, a person was transfused blood of another group due to the wrong blood group test report, endangering the life of that person.
Claiming that people are reluctant to report these cases for different reasons, Gupta alleged, "The mohalla clinics and pathological labs are substandard," and appealed people to reveal cases of wrong treatment and tests to make others aware about it.
The government should "stop playing" with the lives of people with "negligent and substandard" health services at these clinics and labs, he demanded a probe into the case of Mausam Kumari and other such incidents.
The AAP-led Delhi government, working on neighbourhood clinic concept, has opened 100 Mohalla Clinics in different parts of the national capital. It aims to increase the number of these clinics to 1,000 by the end of this year.
BJP MLA Vijender Gupta today raised questions over the quality of services in the city's mohalla clinics alleging that a pregnant woman was wrongly diagnosed to have Thalassemia, a claim rejected by Delhi government.
"The pregnant woman, Mausam Kumari, visited the mohalla clinic at F Block in Rohini along with her husband Mukesh on April 24, where tests were done. The report said that she had Thalassemia," he claimed.
The tests were then done at a private pathology laboratory where it was found that she was not suffering from the disease. The doctor at the laboratory said the mohalla clinic lab report was "incorrect" and "technically wrong", the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly claimed.
A government spokesperson described the charge as a "deliberate attempt" to defame the concept of mohalla clinics, a flagship initiative of the AAP government.
Mukesh claimed that he had lodged a complaint with the Delhi Health minister and officials of the department but no action was taken.
There were also some other cases of "negligence and wrong reports" at mohalla clinics and its laboratories but people are not coming out with their complaints, the BJP leader claimed.
He also alleged at a mohalla clinic in Nihal Vihar, a person was transfused blood of another group due to the wrong blood group test report, endangering the life of that person.
Claiming that people are reluctant to report these cases for different reasons, Gupta alleged, "The mohalla clinics and pathological labs are substandard," and appealed people to reveal cases of wrong treatment and tests to make others aware about it.
The government should "stop playing" with the lives of people with "negligent and substandard" health services at these clinics and labs, he said and demanded a probe into the case of Mausam Kumari and other such incidents.
The AAP-led Delhi government, working on neighbourhood clinic concept, has opened 100 mohalla clinics in different parts of the national capital. It aims to increase the number of these clinics to 1,000 by the end of this year.
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The Delhi government spokesperson said, "This seems to be a deliberate attempt to defame mohalla clinics which are doing a great job in public health."
"As per the reports of Lal Pathlabs, the department has seen, they did not conduct the gold standard test for Thallesemia. Haemoglobin electrophoresis biorad D-10 is the gold standard test done by AAMC. The report only said it can be a likely case of Thallesemia. However, the department is looking into the matter and will investigate the case," the official said.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair claimed that an official inquiry into his decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 released today absolves him of any "lies or deceit".
The Labour party stalwart, 63, who was in charge when the UK joined US forces to invade Iraq in 2003, said he will take "full responsibility" for any mistakes made but stressed that John Chilcot's 'Iraq Inquiry' makes clear there was no "falsification or improper use of intelligence".
"I will take full responsibility for any mistakes without exception or excuse. I will at the same time say why, nonetheless, I believe that it was better to remove Saddam Hussein and why I do not believe this is the cause of the terrorism we see today whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world," Blair said in a statementin response to the report.
"The report should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit. Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein; I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country," he added.
The inquiry was chaired by Chilcot and supported by a four-member committee, which included Indian-origin House of Lords member Baroness Usha Prashar.
It had been set up by former prime minister Gordon Brown in 2009 in the aftermath of widespread criticism of the grounds on which Britain decided to go to war over 13 years ago.
"We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort," the former senior civil servant led committee told reporters in London on Wednesday.
Blair now faces the prospect of impeachment in Parliament under a 19th century law being contemplated by Scottish National Party (SNP) MPs and also possible legal action by relatives of the 179 British soldiers who died in the war.
Many of them had gathered outside his home in London and near Parliament Square where the Chilcot inquiry report was being unveiled.
The sister of one of the soldiers killed in the conflict called Blair "the world's worst terrorist".
"The terrorists took my brother - and in that sentence of terrorists I include Mr Blair - took my brother and took my family. But you won't take me. I'm going nowhere. I'm going nowhere Blair," Sarah O'Connor, whose brother Sergeant Bob O'Connor died in Iraq in 2005, said as she fought back tears.
A bootlegger, who smuggled illicit liquor in his car, was today arrested by police near Moti Lal Nehru College here.
The police, helped by an informer, had laid a trap near the college on Benito Marg where Nand Ram (35) arrived in a Honda City car around 6 AM. He was overpowered by the police.
A search of the car yielded 28 cartons of illicit liquor marked for sale only in Haryana. The accused was arrested after the recovery.
He was previously arrested in May for the same offence.
Ram, who belonged to Jaipur, had shifted to Delhi last year and had purchased the second-hand car to supply illicit liquor.
Ahead of the July 11 strike called by the central government employees' unions against the 7th Pay Commission's recommendations, representatives of various unions today met Home Minister Rajnath Singh for talks which were termed as "positive" by the government.
Sources said the unions and the government evolved a "broad consensus" and arrived at an understanding that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley would make a statement on the issue soon.
Today's was the second meeting the employees' unions had with the government on the issue. Earlier, they had met the Group of Ministers chaired by Singh on June 30.
The National Joint Council of Action (NJCA) of central government employees' unions including Railways, Post & Telegraph and Defence have announced an indefinite strike from July 11 against the "unilateral" announcement of the Central government on implementation of 7th Pay Commission's awards.
A number of employees' unions have extended support to the proposed strike call by NJCA.
The unions have said the recommended pay hike was the lowest in the last 70 years. They have also accused the government of announcing the awards "unilaterally" without any consultation with them.
The Central Trade Unions will be meeting tomorrow to chalk out an action plan and express their solidarity with the government employees.
RSS affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) and other trade unions have rejected the recommendations, contending that it would increase disparity between the minimum and maximum pay.
Maintaining that the government has "disappointed" the employees, BMS has announced country-wide protests on July 8 against the decision and warned implementation of the 7th pay commission's recommendations may lead to industrial unrest.
Amid global concern over overcapacity in China's steel industry, the world's largest steel producer today reported improved profits at USD 1.31 billion in the first five months of this year mainly by reducing output and stabilising prices.
China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) said major iron and steel enterprises raked in 8.736 billion yuan (USD 1.31 billion) in the January-May period, up over 700 per cent year-on-year while fewer firms reported losses.
The improvement was a result of the rational response to overcapacity in the sector, as most large iron and steel plants reduced their output in the first five months and tried to stabilise product prices, CISA head Liu Zhenjiang said.
Data from National Bureau of Statistics showed total steel production in the first five months dropped 1.4 per cent year-on-year.
The world's largest steel producer plans to cut steel capacity by about 10 per cent - as much as 150 million tonnes of steel - in the next few years, with funds set aside to help redundant workers.
Earlier Chinese officials said over 1.8 million jobs were expected to be lost due to overcapacity in coal and steel sectors.
Last month, US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew asked China to reduce its excess steel capacity. He said the Chinese steel overcapacity was distorting global markets.
Lew said the overcapacity could have a "corrosive" impact on the Chinese economy.
China has been accused of selling products below market prices.
Federal civil rights investigators were called in today to probe the fatal police shooting of a black father of five in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as the US city's mayor and police chief faced angry calls to resign.
The death of 37-year-old Alton Sterling outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge was captured on cell phone video, triggering protests in the city and outrage nationwide as the United States struggles to respond to alleged police brutality against black suspects.
It came on the eve of a closely watched trial in Baltimore for an officer charged in the death of Freddie Gray, a black man whose spine broke last year while he was transported in a police van.
Sterling was fatally shot in the early hours today after an anonymous caller told police they had been threatened by a man with a gun, according to a police statement.
His family's lawyer said Sterling was merely selling CDs outside the Triple S store, with the permission of the shop's owner.
In Baton Rouge, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards promised a full investigation into the "disturbing" incident, with the Department of Justice civil rights division taking the lead, assisted by the Louisiana US Attorney's office and the FBI.
"I have very serious concerns," Edwards told a conference. "The video is disturbing to say the least."
"I have full confidence this matter will be investigated thoroughly, impartially and professionally, and I will demand that that's the way it's conducted."
At an emotional press conference held earlier with relatives of the victim, the head of the civil rights group NAACP in Baton Rouge, Michael McClanahan, called for the resignations of the police chief and mayor.
"What we are going to do today is rule out the one per cent of bad police officers that go around becoming the judge, the jury, the executioner of people period but more specifically, innocent black lives," he said.
Edmond Jordan, an attorney representing Sterling's family, had demanded the investigation be carried out by an neutral third party "to ensure that there is no cover-up."
"We are praying that the truth ultimately comes out from this. We think with an independent investigation we can get down to that.
Australian lawyers plan to lodge class action on behalf of tens of thousands of defrauded Indian investors with the Pearls Group demanding to freeze 100 million dollars worth of the prime Gold Coast real estate.
The investors with the Pearls Group were asking the court to freeze 100 million dollars worth of the real estate which they claim was bought with misappropriated funds, ABC reported a day ahead of the case being lodged in a Australian federal court.
"They're trophy properties that were bought by the operators of the scheme in India - the Sheraton Mirage Gold Coast and a 5 million dollars luxury Gold Coast mansion at Sanctuary Cove," said Alex Moriarty from Shine Lawyers,who represents the defrauded Indian investors.
The class action case was set up by former Australian Securities and investment Commission (ASIC) investigator Niall Coburn, who was made aware of the scam, the report said.
"It was clear to me that no one was going to do anything in this kind of investigation - it was all too hard," Coburn, who hadvisitedIndia to offer to help investors chase Pearls assets in Australia, said.
It is reported thattens of thousands of investors have signed upthrough a local support group.
"At the moment we are representing more than 45,000 Indian investors who collectively invested over 10 million dollars," Moriarty said, adding "But a class action can grow as more people join it."
TheAustralian government body Austrade introduced Pearls to aGold Coast businessmen in 2009 as an approved investor.
According to report, a Pearls company, Pearls Infrastructure, infused100 million dollars into an Australian company that went on to purchase the Sheraton Mirage for 62 million dollars.
However, four Indian Pearls director were arrested after theSupreme Court foundthePearls investment scheme wasa sham and appointed acommittee to seize itsassets, the report said.
The owner of the Sheraton Mirage is the Australian company MiiGroup which reportedly saidthatits involvement with Pearls was approved by both the Reserve Bank of India and Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board.
The company argued the Australian action was unnecessary, as they had already agreed to fully co-operate with authorities in India.
"It is a rogue, opportunist action," MiiGroup said in a statement.
Lawyers acting for Indian investors argued any sale would make recovering the money difficult, so they had to act fast.
"It's not a rogue opportunist action," Moriarty said adding"We're acting directly for the people who have been defrauded, many of these people have lost their life savings.
The political dual between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump today reached the Atlantic City - a casino city on east coast - with the former top American diplomat accusing the real estate tycoon of playing with the lives of innocent workers.
"He calls himself a king of debt. And he earned that title right here in AC," Clinton told her supporters in the casino city in New Jersey where Trump has had several properties including Taj Trump.
Trump from the Republican party and Clinton from the Democratic party face each other in the November presidential elections.
Attacking Trump's business legacy, Clinton said that many of these businesses went bankrupt thus putting tremendous strain on innocent workers.
Trump, however was quick in denying these allegations.
"I have built a tremendously successful business, which has created tens of thousands of jobs. Out of the hundreds of businesses I have owned over the decades, and hundreds of deals and transactions, I have used the chapter laws of our country in four instances, much as many of our country's elite business people do (but nobody cares about)," Trump said.
"It is an effective and commonly used practice in business to use bankruptcy proceedings to restructure a business and ultimately save jobs. Nobody understands the economy like I do and no one, especially not Crooked Clinton, will do more for the economy than I will," Trump said.
Trump's statement came moments after Clinton made a scathing attack on him for his alleged failed businesses.
In her speech, Clinton alleged that Trump's record in Atlantic City is a disaster.
She made the case that Trump is unfit to serve as President in the wake of destruction his business dealings have caused in the seaside town and for businesses and families across the country.
In her remarks Clinton highlighted Trump's history in Atlantic City of multiple bankruptcies, stiffing contractors and spurring hundreds of job losses while pocketing cash for himself.
She said that Trump's promise that he would "do for the country what I did for my business" is a clear threat, and a major reason why voters cannot allow him to endanger our economy from the White House.
"He doesn't default and go bankrupt as a last resort. He does it over and over again on purpose. Even though he knows he will leave others empty-handed while he keeps the plane, the helicopter, the penthouse," Clinton said.
The high-profile Communications and IT Ministry has been split with Manoj Sinha today taking the charge of the telecom ministry, which is all set to conduct the largest-ever spectrum auctions in the country.
Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad, who is the new Minister for Law and Justice, will continue to look after Department of IT and Electronics. So far, Prasad was handling both Communications and IT portfolios.
"I will share my views (on telecom) day after tomorrow," Sinha told reporters after assuming the charge at his new office as Minister of State (Independent Charge).
He is a Lok Sabha MP from Ghazipur constituency of Uttar Pradesh.
Sinha, an M Tech in civil engineering, will have his hands full as the new minister for the telecom sector which boasts of the world's second largest mobile subscriber base and the lowest tariffs, and where the biggest corporate houses - RIL, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular - are slugging it out for market dominance.
While on the one hand, Telecom Department is gearing up for the mega spectrum auction, where airwaves worth Rs 5.66 lakh crore will be up for bidding, on the other, Sinha will have to address issues such as call drops wherein the Supreme Court has struck down telecom regulator Trai's plans of making operators compensate mobile phone users for call drops.
In fact, to check call drops, Trai has demanded more teeth, including imposing fine of up to Rs 10 crore on operators and jail term of up to two years for their executives, prompting the telecom companies to term such powers as 'draconian'.
Sinha will also have to handle framing of regulation on the much-debated net neutrality issue, where battlelines are already drawn between telecom operators and internet based content providers. As such, Trai has started pre-consultation process on net neutrality, and has already got written comments from industry stakeholders and members of civil society.
Former telecom minister Prasad had earlier said that the government will take a view on net neutrality after receiving Trai's recommendation.
Sinha will have the challenging task of protecting consumer interest for affordable telephony services while maintaining investor confidence in the sector.
The IT-BHU pass-out Minister will also look after the Department of Posts which is undergoing massive reforms to start 650 payments bank branches by September 2017.
It is after 20 years, the telecom ministry has been handed over to an MoS (Independent Charge). Before this, former telecom minister Beni Prasad Verma, also from UP, handled the ministry with independent charge between 1996-98.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today accused Congress and AAP of inciting communal tension in the state ahead of the assembly polls next year.
"Congress has been a pursuer of the divide and rule policy and AAP is no exception. Because of their lust to capture power in the state, they are tying to incite communal passions," he said told public meetings at Vihra and Fatehgarh Churian.
"Congress has a poor track record of fuelling communal hatred for votes and now AAP is following suit," Badal alleged.
He also alleged AAP was suffering from an "anti-Punjab syndrome" as it discontinued teaching of Punjabi language in schools in Delhi, did not observe a holiday on the occassion of Baisakhi, demolished a water kiosk outside Gurdwara Sisganj Sahib and submitted an affidavit in the apex court against the state on the SYL issue.
He said his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal has "failed miserably" to deliver on the promises he made to the people in the national capital and was now trying to "befool" voters in Punjab.
Asked if Punjab was facing any terror threat, he said the state police was fully vigilant and capable of thwarting terror attacks.
The DGP of Punjab Police has been directed to enhance vigil in the state and his government was fully committed to protect the borders, he said.
Badal also urged the Centre to deploy more BSF personnel on Punjab's border with Pakistan.
"Punjab share the international border with Pakistan. Concerted efforts must be made to strengthened security in the state," he said.
Attacking Congress' state unit chief Amarinder Singh, Badal said he harbours false hope of forming government in the state and is holding "darbars".
In a reply to another query, the Chief Minister said the state government has started a major recruitment drive to fill up more than one lakh posts in its various departments.
Former Punjab Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Rajinder Kaur Bhattal today said Congress is fully united and is whole-heartedly supporting Amarinder Singh as the party leader in Punjab.
Talking to media Bhattal said Amarinder Singh has wide following and popularity in Punjab and claimed that Congress would come back to power in the next assembly elections.
Launching a blistering attack on AAP she said Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has "no presence or any face" to lead them (AAP) in Punjab.
AAP would bite the dust in state assembly elections which is due to be held in early part of 2017, she claimed.
She said AAP party has tendency to "playing to gallery for cheap political gains" rather than doing anything worthwhile for common man.
She alleged that AAP which came to power in Delhi after making huge promises has failed to deliver it after formation of its government there.
Cubans face tough times in the energy sector in the coming months, official media has warned amid orders from authorities to implement power-saving measures and some state-run entities reducing hours of operation.
Tourism Ministry official Yamila Rombaut said fuel allotments for the agency's vehicles had been cut in half. "The outlook is tight," Rombaut said yesterday. "These will be difficult months."
Speaking to members of parliament, Marino Murillo, Cuba's vice president in charge of economic matters, said Monday that the country's financial situation has been hurt by falling prices for nickel, a key export; missed production targets in the sugar industry; and problems in other unspecified sectors. The Communist Party newspaper Granma reported that Murillo said the energy problems will require strict savings and efficient use of energy and fuels.
The goal of the measures is to "avoid blackouts for the population and hits to basic services," Granma quoted him as saying.
Some Cubans who work for the government are now being told to go home early to save energy.
A senior official at the Center for Marti Studies, part of the Culture Ministry, said the workday now ends at 12:30 pm and employees must turn off air conditioning units by 11:30 am. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly and agreed to talk about it only on condition of anonymity, said the policy took effect July 1 and will be in place through the end of August, spanning the two hottest months of the year when power consumption typically spikes. The official said each government entity is making its own decisions about how best to save energy.
Phone calls by the AP to other ministries to ask about their hours of operation revealed that a shortened workday is not in place across all government entities. Bank and currency exchange house workers said their vehicle fuel allotments had been cut and they are using air conditioning just three hours during the eight-hour workday.
Some government workplaces have suspended bus service for employees and reassigned drivers to other tasks.
There have been rampant rumors and concerns about belt-tightening recently among Cubans, fed by sporadic power outages and a lack of official information before Murillo's comments.
The 81st birthday of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama was celebrated with artists and school children presenting cultural shows at the main Tibetan temple Tsuglagkhang in Mcleodganj here.
A large gathering of Tibetans, foreignersand Indians were present at the temple to mark his birthday.
"Every Tibetan should not only pay heed to His Holiness' precious advice but also channel it into action. Now that the dust has settled, let us take a moment to look forward to our future with a renewed sense of conviction, purpose and action," Home Minister (Kalon) Sonam Topgyal Khorlatsang said.
Both the Kashag (cabinet) and the Tibetan Parliament in exile in their statement extended their gratitude to India and its people for their hospitality and support towards the Tibetan people.
"His Holiness chose this place since it is the Dev Bhumi. Therefore, we should all work together to make it a global center of religious meetings and conferences. I urge Tibetans to preserve the unique culture and traditions," Ajay Singh Mankotia, President of Indo-Tibetan Friendship Association said.
A Hindi version of the comic book 'Dalai Lama: Soldier of Peace' by Vijay Kranti and a book (in Chinese) on the life of former political prisoner Lobsang Tenzin was also launched at the event.
The Dalai Lama, who is currently in Mundgod, celebrated his birthday at the Drepung Monastery today. He is scheduled to give a teaching on July 13 in Rewalsar (Tso Pema).
He was born in Taktser in China on July 6, 1935 and is the 14th Dalai Lama.
China said that the should "give up" attempts to divide the country and asked him to come back on the "right track" as the Tibetan spiritual leader turned 81on Wednesday.
" has been engaging separates activities," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a media conference here reacting to Dalai Lama's comments advocating "middle path" policy of providing more autonomy to Tibet as a solution to the Tibetan issue.
"We hope that the can give up his attempt to divide China and it is never too late for him to come back to the right track," Hong said.
The Chinese government, which in the past held talks with the Dalai Lama representatives views the autonomy demand as a ploy for separation.
Chinese officials in the recent past have said that the Dalai Lama's demand to unify all the Tibetan prefectures with the Tibetan Autonomous Region and provide greater autonomy is unacceptable to Beijing.
There were no talks between the two sides in the last few years.
When President Xi Jinping took over power in 2013, the Tibetan spiritual leader recalled his association with Xi's family and hoped that the dialogue would be resumed.
Over 120 Tibetans committed self immolations in recent years calling for the return of the Dalai Lama from his exile in Dharamshala in India.
In order to ensure time-bound delivery of its services, the Social Welfare Department of Delhi government has decided to implement the ambitious e-office project.
A senior government official said the department has directed its officers to send files through e-office later this year so that public-related works could get nod at the earliest.
"The e-office project will soon be implemented by the Social Welfare and Women and Child Development Departments. Under e-office, officers will be required to send new files through online," the official said.
The AAP government aims at making departmental work "paperless".
In August last, the Delhi Cabinet had given its approval for implementing the e-office system in every department.
Development and environment go together and are "not against" each other, newly appointed Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave said today as he took over from Prakash Javadekar during whose tenure activists had raised apprehensions about dilution of green norms.
Speaking in the presence of Javadekar, who now has the Human Resource Development portfolio, Dave said all projects undertaken by his predecessor will continue although he would take a week's time to understand the functioning of the department.
On how he would maintain a balance between environment and development, he said, "Development and environment go together. They are not against each other. We need to look at the issue in this manner."
With the Environment and Water Resources Ministries at loggerheads over the construction of hydel projects in the upper reaches of Ganga, Dave, who has been actively involved in Narmada conservation said, "Every river should flow".
On the odd-even scheme of Delhi government to curb air pollution, Dave, who took charge of the Ministry on his birthday today, said, "Although there is a need to learn from experiments, politics and experiments should be kept separate."
"First, I will try to understand the department and its priorities and challenges. It will take me one week's time. After that we will decide with regard to environment, forest and climate change, in what direction should we move forward.
"Prakash Javadekar has done a great job and most of his projects will continue. Allegations and praise will always be there. In the last two and half years, the government has done a splendid job and I will try to move in that direction," he said.
Asked if he had any special plans for cleaning and rejuvenation of rivers since he has worked on Narmada, Dave said while earlier he was doing the work as a hobby, now he would try to do the same work under the framework of the Constitution.
In a major expansion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet yesterday, Dave was inducted as a Minister of State and given the independent charge of Environment Ministry.
Javadekar, during his two years in the Environment Ministry, had approved over 2,000 projects involving an investment of Rs 10 lakh crore that were pending for years.
With the Environment Ministry being criticised by green
activists, Dave said that praise and criticism "will continue as they have been there for thousands of years".
"One should always (move ahead) with the right intention, right action and in the right direction. This should be kept (in mind) without thinking of criticism."
Asked about the tussle with the Water Resources Ministry and its Minister's letter, Dave said he would only be able to comment once he understands the issue.
On the odd-even scheme, he said, "There is no harm in experimenting. It should be in done correctly in the right direction. We have to learn from experimenting. All experiments are welcome. Experiment and politics should be kept separate," when asked about the odd-even scheme.
On his plans following Congress' threat to launch an agitation after reports that the Environment Ministry was diluting forest rights of tribals, he said such policies are part of a continuous process undertaken by successive governments.
"Whether it is a Congress or UPA government or NDA or BJP government, it is a continuous process. One should not see it in a compartment. If some commitment is done by ex-minister or government, the government of India is bound by it. It is a continuous process and in this process, one should think of going in the right direction," he said.
Dave, who was one of the MPs to cycle to Parliament, said he did not do so to get praise or a photograph in a newspaper.
"I have done it by choice. When I was a nobody, I was using it and in future also I will do it," he said.
Earlier, in an event organised by the Environment Ministry to welcome him and bid farewell to Javadekar, Dave described himself as a "soft and accessible person" and said starting from a guard to a secretary, anybody can contact him.
On the changes in the government, Dave said it is a regular process.
"If someone sees it as promotion or demotion, it is not right. This is no promotion or demotion. If somebody cooks food at home, it is small work and somebody goes to office, it is big work? It is not like that. House is run by all. All work is equally important. Prakash Javadekar is going to a major department and he has big challenges," he said.
(REOPENS DEL17)
Dave later held a meeting with senior officials to
understand the functioning of various departments in the Ministry. He also discussed the challenges being faced by the Ministry.
There are over 76 million acres of national wildlife refuges in the state of Alaska, and they are home to wolves and other species whose survival has time and again been compromised by reckless killing and management. Photo by Alamy
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The battle over protecting wolves continues to rage in Congress, with anti-wolf lawmakers attaching riders to major bills to try to undo federal court rulings and put Congress in charge of deciding which species warrant endangered species protection and which do not. The Obama Administration, and its director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, oppose these overreaching attempts to undo judicial review of listing and delisting actions.
But lawmakers doing the bidding for the trophy hunting and trapping lobbies, at the state and federal level, continue to play fast and loose with the facts.
Last month, in response to an attack on livestock that was actually confirmed to have been caused by coyotes, Wisconsin state Senator Tom Tiffany loudly declared enough is enough and demanded that the state be returned the authority to manage its wolf population. Also in northern Wisconsin, a sheep farmer recently lamented to a local TV station the loss of 17 of his herd to wolves, and speculated that the wolves had killed the sheep just for the fun of it (which wolves do not do). It turns out this farm raises bighorn sheep for Western captive hunting ranches, had substandard fencing, and had not installed electric fencing provided by the U. S. Department of Agriculture to protect its animals from wolves and other native carnivores, and kept its livestock guard dogs tethered away from the very animals they were there to protect (because one of the dogs had allegedly killed a sheep).
And in Michigans Upper Peninsula, one cattle farm continues to be a flashpoint for wolf conflicts, and its caretaker continues to refuse to allow the use of non-lethal measures to protect his cattle from native carnivores even though other farms in the area and the states Department of Natural Resources have reported tremendous success with providing relatively simple deterrence methods like fencing, guard animals, and noisemaking and fladry devices to protect their livestock.
But the facts on these incidents do not seem to deter anti-wolf zealots from attempting to gin up an atmosphere of fear, hysteria, and resentment over the recovery of wolves in the region, as a means of giving life to riders to the pending legislation dealing with energy policy and also funding of the Department of the Interior.
In truth, the number of confirmed wolf conflicts with livestock in Michigan in 2015 continues to be minuscule. For every 10,000 livestock in the states Upper Peninsula, there may be five dead or missing livestock, or .0005 percent confirmed deaths caused by wolves.
The real issue is scapegoating of the wolves as a bit of a cover-up and a bait-and-switch for poor oversight over domesticated dogs and farm animals. In two recent incidents, one in the Thumb area of eastern Michigan and one in the Traverse City/Kalkaska areas of northern Michigan, domestic dogs got loose and killed large numbers of livestock. In the Thumb the dog allegedly killed 280 chickens. In just those two incidents over a short period of time (and possibly many more that go unreported), these domestic dogs have nearly caused more damage to livestock than wolves have caused in the past two decades in Michigan.
Meanwhile, as the media and members of Congress are trumping up charges against wolves alleging threats to pets, livestock, hunting dogs, and the deer population factual reports and peer-reviewed scientific studies continue to pour in and debunk these accounts and claims. One recent study out of the University of Wisconsin found that allowing public hunting of wolves actually increases poaching. And Wisconsin deer numbers are rebounding. The Michigan DNR recently reported that its 2015 whitetail deer hunt was successful and garnered high hunter satisfaction. A Michigan DNR/University of Notre Dame study outlined the benefits of wolf recovery on vital plants and trees in northern Wisconsin and Michigan.
I urge members of Congress to disregard the stories of the Big Bad Wolf coming from special interest groups, and to instead heed the science and stick with the facts when considering these and other harmful riders in the Energy and Interior bills.
Rajya Sabha member and Group President, Corporate Affairs at Reliance Industries, Parimal Nathwani today paid rich tributes to Reliance Group's founder Dhirubhai Ambani on his 14th death anniversary.
Remembering the late business tycoon, the independent MP from Jharkhand said, "Dhirubhai never used to give lectures or advice to anybody. His behaviour and actions used to teach a lot. His life has taught a lot. He gave practical knowledge, which can be used for decades."
Ambani, who was awarded 'Padma Vibhushan' posthumously, passed away on July 6, 2002.
Employees of RIL Group of Industries gathered at their respective offices in Jamnagar, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Dhej, Mumbai and paid floral tributes to Ambani.
Meanwhile, Nathwani also extended greetings to the Kutchi community across the world on the occasion of 'Ashadhi Bij' and the Kutch New Year.
Nobel laureate and eminent economist Joseph Stiglitz on Wednesday said the difficulties faced by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating in India and the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) controversy put the country in the same group of nations like Egypt and Russia and can have a negative effect on foreign investors.
"One big concern is the difficulties of NGOs operating in India. It puts India in the same group of countries like Egypt and Russia," he told reporters here in an interaction organised by Azim Premji University here.
"The other thing is obviously without my knowing all the details of controversy ... The closing down action in any university puts you in a small group of same countries. Turkey is another country. Most of these countries are authoritarian in nature ... That kind of thing can have very negative effect on foreign investors," he added.
He said organisations like Ford Foundation had played an important role in the development of India for decades and it should be a concern that NGOs as such are being subjected to conditions that make it difficult for them to function.
"There is a broad understanding of the importance of civil societies in the functioning of democracies across the globe," he added.
Stiglitz said if India, which is a part of global community, wants to grow as an open economy, it should address these issues.
He also said if these issues are right or wrong, it is for India to do a better explanation on and NGO controversies.
"This is purely a statement without having evaluated the validity of those (issues)... I think - if those are wrong it is important for India to do better job of explaining and if they are right it is important for India to make sure that it is not doing those jobs," he said.
Asked whether capitalism has failed, economist Branco Milanovic, who accompanied Stiglitz, said this is the first time in history capitalism is dominating in practically the entire economic world.
"Earlier, we had different systems like socialism. Now it is only capitalism. So it is all about the different forms of capitalism. One has to acknowledge that we have never had a situation that we have now, that is private ownership is the means of production," he said.
Joining the issue, Stiglitz said the US economy has not done enough for their citizens, but the market economy cannot be blamed for this.
The Commerce and Industry Ministry has asked all the states and the Union Territories to set up 'Startup Hub' as well as incubators to help budding entrepreneurs.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has already set up the hub, which was operationalised since April. It helps in resolving queries and provides handholding support to startups.
The hub has been able to resolve 12,290 queries received from startups through telephone, email and twitter, the DIPP said in a status report on 'Startup India'.
"DIPP has requested state governments and administration of UTs to set up Startup Hub as well as incubators to help startups during various stages of development," it said.
It also said that the department will write to top companies requesting them to support the initiative by setting up new incubators or scale up existing incubators in collaboration with educational institutes.
Further, it said that seven proposals for Research Parks, 16 proposals for TBIs (technology business incubators) and 13 proposals for startup centres have been recommended by the National Expert Advisory Committee formed by the HRD Ministry.
"These proposals shall be implemented in the current financial year," it added.
All these steps are part of the Startup Action Plan announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January.
The government unveiled a slew of incentives to boost startup businesses, offering them a tax holiday and inspector raj-free regime for three years, capital gains tax exemption and Rs 10,000 crore corpus to fund them.
India has the third-largest number of startups globally.
Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has asked the finance ministry to consider raising tax holiday for startups to seven years to encourage budding entrepreneurs.
Danish offshore wind farm operator Dong Energy is to build two offshore wind farms off the Dutch coast where it has pledged to produce the world's cheapest offshore wind energy.
The projects would be built for 72.70 euros per megawatt- hour, significantly below the group's 2020 target of bringing costs below 100 euros per megawatt-hour over the life of a project.
"This demonstrates the great potential of offshore wind," Samuel Leupold, Dong's head of wind power, said in a statement.
The Borssele 1 and 2 wind farms would be build 22 kilometres off the Dutch province of Zeeland and would be completed by mid-2020, according to the country's Ministry of Economic Affairs.
"One million households will be provided with electricity generated by the 700 megawatt wind farm off the coast of Borssele," the Dutch government, which will subsidise the project for the first 15 years, said in a statement.
Including the cost of grid connections, experts estimated the price for the projects would be 87 euros per megawatt- hour, which wind industry trade group WindEurope described as being "beyond even the most optimistic expectations in the market."
"It now puts offshore wind in the same cost range as conventional power generation," WindEurope chief executive Giles Dickson said in a statement.
The previous record was held by Sweden's Vattenfall, which last year won a tender for a wind park off Denmark for 103 euros per megawatt-hour excluding grid connections.
Government-controlled Dong said factors allowing it to cut costs included improvements in the design of wind turbines and blades, better foundation designs, higher cable capacity and "a growing and competitive supply chain".
"In addition, the Dutch sites offer good seabed conditions as well as good and stable wind speeds, which contribute to high output from each turbine," it said.
Dong Energy, the world's largest operator of offshore wind farms, last month made its stock market debut in Copenhagen after selling coal-fired assets in recent years and transforming itself into a global renewable energy leader.
Essar Steel has claimed to have become the first domestic company to launch high performance bullet proof steels largely used in defence sector.
The company said it has developed high performance bullet proof steel and become part of an elite club to produce this grade.
There is good and growing potential for this product as it can be used in light armoured vehicles and protective shields or structures. The steel is ideal for bullet proofing of civilian vehicles and for security personnel, it said.
"The company is known for developing high grade import-substitute steel products. The development of high performance bullet proof steels is a proof of the organisation's commitment towards government's 'Make in India' campaign," Essar Steel Executive Director (Strategy & Business Development) Vikram Amin told PTI here.
The government has emphasised indigenisation of the defence sector and involving private players under the banner of 'Make in India', he said.
Today, manufacturing bullet proof steel is a highly specialised technology. In India, such steels have either been manufactured under the restrictive technology transfer agreements with foreign countries, or simply imported.
The newly developed bullet proof steel at Essar absorbs the impact of bullets travelling at speeds of 700 m/sec with barely a dent on the surface. This steel has hardness levels above 500 (Brinell hardness number) BHN and is extremely tough.
Ballistic performance of this product was successfully tested in India and in Germany, at the Gujarat Forensic Science Laboratory (GFSL), as well as at IABG, an internationally renowned German laboratory.
ESIL is not a new entrant in defence segment. It had been supplying DMR 249A grade, a special steel for building warships, from its hot strip mill since 2001.
After commissioning of its 5 metres wide plate mill with sophisticated heat treatment facilities in 2009, several new grades were developed and the product range for the existing grades were enhanced.
The Essar team had collaborated with the defence sector to produce grades like CDA-99, EN10025-6-S690QL, very tough steels used in heavy armoured vehicles.
However, the crowning glory has been the production of DMR-1700, an ultra-tough steel of yield strength 1,500 Mega Pascal designed by Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO). All of these products had been stabilised and commercialised through the dedicated in-house R&D and operations efforts of its engineers, Amin said.
A 28-year-old son of a retired police inspector was shot dead allegedly by three unidentified assailants in Ganganagar area here, police said today.
The incident occurred around midnight when three car-borne assailants shot Ankur while he was returning to his home from market, they said.
Homeguard Sanjay Kumar Sharma who came to victim's help was also shot at and injured by the attackers, SHO Anangpal Singh said.
Police have registered a case of murder against the three unidentified persons.
Investigation is underway and efforts are on to nab the accused, who are absconding, Singh said.
Family of a 24-year-old youth, who was declared brain dead following a road accident, today donated his organs and saved four lives by cadaver transplant.
Naveen Meena, a student of a private college who also worked part time, was injured in a road accident on Saturday and admitted to SMS government hospital.
He was declared brain dead on Monday after which counseling of his parents were conducted to donate the deceased's organs, Vinay Tomar, coordinator of organ transplant, said.
He said that the kidneys were transplanted to two patients at the SMS hospital, liver was transplanted to a patient at a private hospital and heart was taken by a team of a private hospital from Delhi by air.
"My son has given life to four people and I am proud of that," the deceased boy's father Shankar Lal Meena said.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Rajendra Rathore paid floral tributes to the deceased at the hospital and consoled his family.
He also thanked the team of an NGO who requested and convinced the family members to donate organs to save others' lives.
Later, the minister reviewed the progress in cadaver transplants and gave necessary directions to officials and doctors to start liver transplant in the hospital in next one month.
He also directed the officials to provide free medicines and necessary testing free of cost for brain dead patients.
A Mississippi man has been indicted on a manslaughter charge several weeks after his 8-month-old daughter died in his hot car while he worked.
Joshua Blunt's attorney says Blunt was notified of the indictment yesterday and appeared before a judge in Grenada County to plead not guilty.
Attorney Carlos Moore says Circuit Judge George Mitchell set a USD 15,000 bond for the 25-year-old Blunt, and Blunt was returned to the Grenada County jail yesterday evening. Moore says people close to Blunt were trying to raise money to post bond to get him out.
Blunt's baby, Shania Rihanna Caradine, died May 19, eight days after another young child died in a hot car in another Mississippi county. The mother in the other case was not arrested and has not been charged.
The highly anticipated sequel to "Fifty Shades of Grey" just wrapped filming in Vancouver.
Author EL James who helped with the adaptation of the film, as well as "Fifty Shades Freed", which was shot simultaneously, posted on Instagram yesterday to share the exciting .
"And that's wrap Vancouver," wrote James. Alongside she also added a photo of herself and director James Foley.
"Thank you to the most fantastic crew and production team. You are all amazing," she wrote.
Film's leading stars Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan still need to complete shooting some scenes in Paris.
"With that happy tidbit in mind, we thought we'd revisit some scenes that we just can't wait to see played out on the big screen for 'Fifty Shades Darker'," James further wrote.
German investigators have searched Ryanair offices at six airports across the country, including Berlin and Cologne, as part of an investigation into possible tax evasion, prosecutors said today.
State prosecutors and customs officials also searched several pilots' homes as part of the raids on Tuesday, Hans Peter Gandner, senior prosecutor in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, told AFP.
The searches were part of an investigation into two British temp agencies that supply self-employed pilots to Ryanair and not directed against the airline itself, Gandner said.
The temp agencies stand accused of tax evasion and withholding salaries, while several pilots are suspected of being complicit in the scheme and of fraud against the social security system.
Ryanair "has met the German tax authorities and agreed to support them in their inquiries into a few contractor pilots," airline spokesman Robin Kiely said.
Egg-laying hens are stuck in cages for 12 to 18 months. When theyre no longer productive, theyll be manhandled and jammed into small boxes, stacked onto a truck, and sent to slaughter. Photo by The HSUS
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Step into a smallish elevator. Have a dozen others file in and fill it up, so much so that shoulders are pressed against one another from wall to wall.
The elevator breaks down. The lights go out. Panic sets in.
Ive got to get out of here! thats the sequence of words racing through the head of every person trapped in that box.
Thats an image from television and online advertising were doing to represent the unending living conditions for hens caught up in battery cages on Americas factory farms, crammed together and denied even the ability to extend their wings.
While the fire department will rescue the people trapped in the fictional elevator, no one is on the way to help the hens, whose circumstances are all too real. Theyre stuck in cages for 12 to 18 months not for a few minutes or a couple of hours, but for a year and more. When theyre no longer productive, theyll be manhandled and jammed into small boxes, stacked onto a truck, and sent to slaughter.
This must change this disgraceful system of egg production must be ripped up from the ground and the hen cages ripped apart.
On this blog, Ive delivered much good news to you on the progress weve made working with companies to eliminate their use and sale of eggs from caged chickens. Weve worked with everyone from McDonalds to Dennys to Nestle to Walmart to enact exclusive cage-free egg policies that have timelines attached.
In any issue related to animals however, whether its the last state to ban dogfighting, or the last province or nation to defend seal clubbing, theres always a holdout. Somebody, or some entity, on the wrong side of history.
Publix has become that holdout on cage confinement. It is the only grocer among the 25 largest that refuses to enact a timeline to go 100 percent cage-free.
What makes the situation more exasperating is that company spokespersons claim our plan to transition to cage free isnt workable even as every other top grocer has concluded otherwise. Weve reached out, yet the folks there are not engaging, making me skeptical of public pronouncements that theyre taking a careful look at the idea of cage-free.
Today, Vampire Diaries actor Paul Wesley sent a letter to Publixs CEO, asking him to commit to going cage-free. In it, Paul describes the conditions for these poor animals as each caged chicken is provided less space than this very sheet of paper on which to live for her entire life. Shes nearly immobilized, unable to spread her wings, and is prevented from engaging in behaviors that allow even a remotely decent lifelike walking, perching, scratching, dust bathing, and laying eggs in a nest.
Just reading that depiction pains the heart of any caring soul. And we cant sit and just wait for policies to be put in place to remove animals from situations characterized by extreme neglect and suffering. We have to speak out publicly and call out those who prefer the status quo rather than change in response to the ever-growing consumer demand that all animals, including those in food production, deserve protection from cruelty.
Please visit our CagedForPublix website to see how you can help.
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Irate that Hillary Clinton will not face criminal charges over her emails, House Republicans are summoning FBI Director James Comey to Capitol Hill to answer their questions.
Comey will testify tomorrow before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the panel's chairman, Jason Chaffetz of Utah, announced today.
The announcement came a day after Comey rebuked Clinton for "extremely careless" behavior in her handling of classified emails as secretary of state, but declared that "no charges are appropriate" in the case.
"There are a lot of questions that have to be answered. And so we're going to be asking those questions," House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters, adding that it looked like Clinton had gotten preferential treatment.
"We have seen nothing but stonewalling and dishonesty from Secretary Clinton on this issue, and that means there are a lot more questions that need to be answered."
Ryan said Clinton should be barred from receiving classified briefings in the course of the campaign. He said he would be looking into whether Congress could take action to enact such a prohibition. And asked whether a special prosecutor should be appointed in the case, Ryan said he wouldn't "foreclose any option."
Ryan's comments reflected widespread anger, even disbelief, among Republicans over Comey's announcement. Comey delivered a stinging assessment of Clinton's handling of classified emails, saying she should have known not to have sensitive discussions on an unclassified system and that she sent and received emails that were classified at the time, contrary to her claims. But he followed up by saying no reasonable prosecutor would bring charges in such a case, partly because his investigators found no intentional or willful mishandling of classified information.
"The FBI's recommendation is surprising and confusing," Chaffetz said. "The fact pattern presented by Director Comey makes clear Secretary Clinton violated the law. Individuals who intentionally skirt the law must be held accountable."
Democrats were furious over Chaffetz's decision to haul Comey before his committee.
"Republican after Republican praised Director Comey's impeccable record of independence right up until the moment he issued his conclusion," said the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland. "The only emergency here is that yet another Republican conspiracy theory is slipping away.
The government today indicated taking action against a controversial Indian Islamic preacher, who was followed by one of the five Bangladeshi militants, who killed 22 people at a restaurant in Dhaka.
"Zakir Nayek's speech is a matter of concern for us. Our agencies are working on this. But as a minister, I will not comment what action will be taken," Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju told reporters here.
Rijiju said India has good relations and mutual understanding with Bangladesh, especially in the matter of co-operation on fighting terrorism.
"Terror can be defeated only through close coordination and by fighting together (against it)," he said.
Bangladeshi newspaper 'Daily Star' had reported that militant Rohan Imtiaz, son of an Awami League leader, ran a propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Nayek.
Nayek, in his lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly "urged all Muslims to be terrorists".
Nayek, a popular but controversial Islamic orator and founder of Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation, is banned in the UK and Canada for his hate speech aimed against other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia.
He is hugely popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, although his preachings often demean other religions and even other Muslim sects, the report said.
Another Dhaka attacker Nibras Islam used to follow two alleged suspected recruiters of Islamic State -- Anjem Choudary and Shami Witness -- on Twitter in 2014.
Shami Witness is the Twitter account of 24-year-old Mehdi Biswas, who is facing trial in India for running propaganda for terror group Islamic State (ISIS). He was arrested in December 2014 following an investigation into his Twitter account, which was last active in August 2014.
Biswas was charged with operating the "single most influential pro-ISIS Twitter account".
Choudary, a Pakistan-origin British citizen, is now facing a trial in England for breaking the British anti-terrorism law. His Twitter account turned inactive since August 2015 after terror charges were brought against him.
Keeping its promise to provide succour to from neighbouring countries, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is contemplating to amend the Citizenship Act so that Hindus and Sikhs, who had entered India without valid documents could be granted Long Term Visa and citizenship.
The issue was discussed threadbare at a high-level meeting chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh and attended by Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar besides others.
There are thousands of Hindus and Sikhs who have entered India after facing religious persecution in countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan without any valid document.
These have been facing difficulty in getting Long Term Visa (LTV) or Citizenship and the existing law does not allow anyone granting Indian nationality if he or she can not show proof of documents on country of birth.
"Hence, the government plans to amend the Citizenship Act so that such could be granted LTV and citizenship without any hindrance," a Home Ministry official said.
In its election manifesto before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had declared India as "a natural home for persecuted Hindus" who "shall be welcome to seek refuge".
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during the campaigning in 2014 had made a distinction between Hindu and Muslim refugees from Bangladesh and arguing that the former should be accommodated.
"We have a responsibility towards Hindus who are harassed and suffer in other countries. India is the only place for them. We will have to accommodate them here," Modi had said.
Ever since the Modi government came to power, several concessions have been offered to the persecuted Hindus and Sikhs of the neighbouring countries that include issuing LTV, allowing such people to buy residential properties, procuring PAN cards, Aadhar card, driving licence, opening bank accounts, lowering of visa fees besides others.
Besides, the Home Ministry also organised special camps at district level in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and NCT of Delhi for granting LTV and citizenships.
Children of refugees on LTV are allowed to take admission in schools/ colleges/ universities/ technical and professional institutions under foreigner quota without permission from the state government/ UT administration.
State governments/ UT administration are empowered to grant permission to such people to engage themselves in employment of purely private nature.
State governments/ UT administration delegated powers for services like grant of visit to additional places, grant of No Objection to Return to India (NORI) and grant of permission to change in mode of travel and port of exit.
Haryana is mulling to constitute 'Gau Rakshak Task Force' on the pattern of Home Guards to ensure strict enforcement of the stringent cow protection law in the state.
"It is being considered to constitute Gau Rakshak Task Force (Cow Protection Task Force) on the pattern of Home Guards so that the Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan Act, 2015 could be strictly enforced," Chairman, Haryana Gau Seva Ayog Bhani Ram Mangla said here today.
For "protection and upkeep" of cows, Haryana Assembly had in March 2015 passed the Bill which clamps a complete ban on cow slaughter in the state and provides for a rigorous imprisonment ranging from three years to ten years for killing the animal.
Mangla said cow smuggling in Yamunanagar, Panipat, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Gurgaon and Rewari districts was posing a challenge.
Special teams have been constituted to put a check on cow smuggling and cow slaughter in which 62 gazetted officers and 240 other rank police personnel have been included, he said.
"In case anyone receives information about cow smuggling and cow slaughter, he can pass on the same on mobile number 8284030455. On getting the information, police team would reach the spot within half-an-hour and arrest the accused," he said, according to an official release here.
Mangla said at present there were more than 1.17 lakh stray cows in the State.
"As announced by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, it has been decided to set up 'gau abhyaranyas' (cow sanctuaries) at five places in the State. A proposal has been received to set up such sanctuaries over an area of 200 acres in Panipat and 50 to 100 acres in Hisar, Sirsa and Bhiwani.
Cow sanctuaries would be set up in each district in the state in a phased manner," he added.
He said a workshop would soon be organised in all districts of the state to apprise police and district administration officials with minute details of Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan Act, 2015.
The Haryana government had yesterday entrusted senior IPS officer Bharti Arora, the task to supervise and monitor the functioning of teams constituted in all districts to effectively check slaughter and smuggling of cows.
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Under a special campaign launched by the Haryana
government, more than 200 stray cows in district Faridabad have so far been sent to the Gaushalas (cow sanctuaries), Mangla said.
In case their owners stake claim on these cows, they will be charged Rs 5100 as fine and Rs 150 per day for fodder.
He also informed that a scheme is being prepared to make the Gau-shalas self-reliant.
He said biogas-based electricity would also be produced in the Gaushalas in Public Private Partnership mode. Apart from this, organic manure and phenyl would be prepared from cow urine.
Mangla also suggested some measures to the government for strengthening the financial condition of Gau Seva Ayog.
Meanwhile, Haryana's Animal Husbandry and Dairying Minister O P Dhankar today gave directions to make available land for cow sanctuaries in Hisar and Bhiwani.
Dhankar, who was presiding over a meeting to review various schemes being implemented for conservation of livestock by the department here, asked the officers to send a proposal for the same.
He also issued directions for constituting a committee for the purpose of land availability for developing cow- sanctuaries in Panipat and Yamunanagar. The committee would submit its report within a week, he added.
The Madras High Court has directed the Central and State Governments to increase the allocation of funds to Tamil Nadu Judiciary.
In its interim order, the court said "Tamil Nadu is a large state with various Court complexes and a number of them have aged, requiring repairs and expansion as per the current needs. It would be appropriate that the Central Government considers a larger allocation for the year 2016-17."
The court, after perusing the affidavit filed on behalf of the State Law Secretary, said "We have perused the affidavit of the respondent. The issue of utilization certificate, for the full amount of funds both for the Central Government and State Government contribution for the year 2013-2014 is over. Apart from this for the year 2016-2017, a sum of Rs.50 crore has also been released, to be utilized for the state centrally sponsored scheme."
While referring to the funds transferred from the state to the central pool as it was not utilized for year 2015-16, the court, in its order, said a pragmatic view ought to be taken for release of those funds or in the alternative, they can be made up through an additional allocation in 2016-2017 depending on the requirements or the financial arrangement.
The bench expressed concern over poor allocation of funds by the central government to the state for improving judicial infrastructure facilities.
It urged the central government to increase the allocation of funds for improving judicial infrastructure in the state and observed that the state government should understand the requirements of the judiciary while allotting funds.
The First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R. Mahadevan, then posted the matter for further hearing to August 3.
The bench gave the interim order when a PIL filed by an advocate seeking a direction to the state and central governments to comply with Supreme Court guidelines with regarding to infrastructure facilities to the Courts came up for hearing on Monday.
Heavy metal bands from across the country are set for a face-off at the upcoming G-Shock Waken Metal Battle, that seeks to promote the best of metal music bands of the country and bring life to the genre.
G-Shock has partnered with one of the country's biggest heavy metal festival the 'Bangalore Open Air 2016' and held competitions in eight cities - Guwahati, Kolkata, Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad.
Shortlisted metal bands include Godia, Gaia's Throne, Corpulent Deformity, Vidyut, Jammers Graveyard, Rectified Spirit, Godless and Kryptos who are scheduled for the final leg of the battle on July 8 at Vapour, Bengaluru, with the winner scheduled to be announced at the Bangalore Open Air Festival (BOA) on July 9.
The event is backed by Casio India Private Limited.
The ultimate winner will get cash prize from Casio which will associate with the band for the next one year. The winners are also set to represent India at the 'Wacken Open Air' (WOA), one of world's biggest heavy metal festivals held annually in August in the north German village of Wacken. The WOA sees participation from 30 countries.
Meanwhile, this year the BOA sees participation from metal acts from world over including Polish Death/Thrash Metal band Vader, Swedish melodic metal group Soilwork, Canadian band Skull Fist and Egyptian American band, Nader Sadek along with Indian metal bands.
Established in 2011, the BOA attracts all kinds of metal music fans including Black Metal, Death Metal, Power Metal, Thrash Metal, Gothic Metal.
Inspired by 'Wacken Open Air', BOA was conceptualised to promote the budding talents of the country, create the largest platform for international bands to rock the India metal music fans.
India was the 27th country to be a part of the Wacken Metal Battle where bands vie to showcase what metal is about in their home country.
The metal scene has been growing in India over the recent years. In the year 2011 the first Indian Metal battle band played at Wacken Open Air. The band called Eccentric Pendulum from Bangalore emerged winners of the competition after competing with over 130 bands across the country
In the year 2012, Zygnema from Mumbai won the 2nd edition of the Wacken Metal Battle and in 2013, devoid from Mumbai won the 3rd edition, while in 2014, Plague Throat from Shillong won the 4th edition.
For the benefit of untrained and
unskilled employees and youth, the Hydro Power Development Cooperation of Arunachal Pradesh Limited (HPDCAPL) and Power Sector Skill Council (PSSC) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the National Capital.
PSSC is the sector skill council established as per guidelines framed by National Skill Development Council (NSDC) for the power sector in India.
The MoU was signed considering the shortage of skilled and certified manpower in the power sector of the state.
The MoU was approved by Chief Minister Kalikho Pul which was executed by HPDCAPL Managing Director Toko Onuj and PSSC CEO Vinod Bihari in presence of Hydro power Parliamentary Secretary Phusom Khimhun yesterday, an official release said today.
With the MoU, the HPDCAPL would be a nodal agency of skill development training of the power sector in the state including electricity, transmission, distribution and renewable energy and power equipment and manufacturing sector.
The general purpose of the MoU is to increase the skilled labour pool in power sector in order to achieve the goal. The parties would cooperate based on principles of mutual benefit.
Hundreds of people today held a vigil at UC Berkeley campus in California to remember Indian student Tarishi Jain who was killed along with 22 others in the gruesome Dhaka terror attack.
18-year-old Jain's friends from her dorm, classes and campus groups of UC Berkeley remembered her as a young woman who was sweet, generous, altruistic and intelligent.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Nick Dirks and several of Jain's friends spoke next to an enlarged photograph of the smiling Jain, a large bouquet of white flowers and Indian, American, and Bangladeshi flags.
"We have lost a precious member of our community, and we are so much the poorer because of it," Dirk said.
Her friends and teachers appealed to the crowd to remember her for all her accomplishments and friendships, not for her brutal death.
"She was one of the sweetest and most sincere people I had ever met," Jain's friend Mackenzie Monroe was quoted as saying by the Berkeleyside.
Jain graduated from the American International School in Dhaka and had joined University of California, Berkeley in 2015.
Daughter of a garments manufacturer with business interests in Bangladesh, she was in Dhaka on a vacation when the attack took place.
Islamist gunmen stormed a popular restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave late on Friday and killed 22 people, most of them foreigners from Italy, Japan, India and the US in an attack claimed by the Islamic State terror group.
India and Bhutan today agreed to extend the Agreement on Trade, Commerce and Transit, which is expiring on July 31, for one more year.
The existing agreement was signed on July 29, 2006, for a period of ten years.
Officials of both the countries held discussions here to finalise the text of the draft new agreement.
Till the finalisation of the new draft, both the sides agreed that "in the interim, to prevent disruption of trade, the existing agreement may be extended for a period of one year or till the date of coming into force of the new agreement, whichever is earlier," the commerce ministry said in a statement.
The visiting Bhutanese delegation led by the Secretary, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Bhutan discussed the issue with Indian officials here.
"After deliberations, it was agreed that the new agreement may be signed at the earliest, after obtaining the internal approvals by both the sides, and it would be made effective from a mutually agreed date," it added.
The major items of imports from Bhutan include electricity, metals, minerals, alcoholic beverages, chemicals, cement, timber and vegetables. The major exports from India are petroleum products, minerals,machinery, automobiles, chemicals, wood, plastic and rubber.
The bilateral trade between the countries stood at USD 721 million in 2015-16 as compared to USD 483.81 million.
Indian and Pakistani border guards today exchanged greetings and sweets along the along Indo-Pak border in Jammu and Kashmir on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr.
"Border Security Force and Pakistan Rangers greeted each other and exchanged sweets at seven places on International Border of Jammu in Hiranagar, Samba, Ramgarh, RS Pura and Pragwal Sectors on the festival of Eid," a BSF spokesperson said.
They committed each other to maintain peaceful atmosphere and harmonious relation between two Border Guarding Forces, he said.
Members of all community in Border Security Force celebrated the end of Holy month of Ramzan with Muslim brothers, the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, the General Officer Commanding in Chief (GoC-In-C), Northern Command, Lt Gen D S Hooda greeted the people of Jammu and Kashmir and all Indian Army personnel and their families on the occasion.
Gen Hooda said the joyous celebrations of Eid-ul-Fitr, marking the end of the holy month of Ramzan, bring with it unity, happiness and a feeling of brotherhood.
He wished that the festival will strengthen our faith and usher lasting peace, cohesion and prosperity in the state.
The country's digital advertising market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 35 per cent to reach Rs 7,044 crore by the end of this year, an IAMAI-IMRB report said today.
The digital advertising market was pegged at Rs 5,200 crore at the end of December 2015, accounting for about 12 per cent of the total advertisement spends in the country, the report titled 'Digital Advertising in India' said.
It has grown steadily from Rs 1,140 crore in 2010-11 fiscal to Rs 2,260 crore in 2012-2013 and further Rs 5,200 crore in 2014-15, it added.
In terms of volume, e-commerce led the digital advertisement spends with Rs 1,040 crore followed by telecom (Rs 780 crore), banking, financial services and insurance (Rs 728 crore) and FMCG (Rs 676 crore), the report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International said.
In 2015, the education sector spent Rs 312 crore, while travel and auto verticals spent Rs 572 crore and Rs 540 crore, respectively, on digital advertising.
However, banking, financial services and insurance sector spent a higher share of its advertisement expenditure on digital compared with other verticals with 40 per cent of its overall advertising spends going towards digital.
This was followed by e-commerce (26 per cent), telecom (25 per cent) and travel (25 per cent).
Companies spent about Rs 1,488 crore on search, while close to Rs 940 crore was spent on social media in 2015.
Expenditure on video ads such as on YouTube also showed huge gains in 2015, accounting for 17 per cent of the overall advertisement spends in the digital space, the report added.
This has been driven by higher internet speeds available to the consumers coupled with an increase in mobile advertisements.
"As these trends continue, video advertisement is expected to gain further in 2016," the report added.
India witnessed the fastest domestic air passenger growth at 18.8% in 2015, way ahead of neighbouring China and the United States, according to International Air Transport Association (IATA).
The said airlines worldwide carried 3.6 billion passengers and 52.2 million tonnes of cargo worth $6 trillion last year.
Among the world's largest domestic aviation markets, said India had the fastest domestic passenger growth in 2015.
"With annual growth of 18.8% (in a market of 80 million domestic passengers), India's performance surpassed that of Russia (11.9% growth, in a market of 47 million domestic passengers)," it said in a release.
China witnessed 9.7% growth in a market of 394 million domestic passengers while the US saw 5.4% rise in a market of 708 million local fliers.
Last year, carriers flew 3.6 billion passengers on scheduled services, an increase of 7.2% compared to 2014.
According to IATA, airlines in the Asia-Pacific region carried the largest number of passengers.
In terms of regional ranking, based on total passengers carried on scheduled services by airlines registered in that region, Asia-Pacific had 34% market share followed by Europe (26.2%) and North America (24.8%), among others.
"Last year, airlines safely carried 3.6 billion passengers, the equivalent of 48% of the Earth's population, and transported 52.2 million tonnes of cargo worth around $6 trillion.
"In doing so, we supported some $2.7 trillion in economic activity and 63 million jobs," IATA's Director General and CEO Tony Tyler said.
American Airlines came on top in terms of total scheduled passengers carried, domestic as well as international. Others in the top five were Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines, China Southern Airlines and Ryanair in 2015.
Controversial Indian Islamic preacher Zakir Nayek, whose 'hate speech' is reported to have inspired one of the five Bangladeshi militants involved in the Dhaka carnage, may face action even as Shiv Sena today demanded a ban on his organisation.
"Zakir Nayek's speech is a matter of concern for us. Our agencies are working on this. But as a minister, I will not comment what action will be taken," Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju told reporters in Delhi.
The new Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu when asked about Naik's speeches said, "We have time to study all these aspects".
Rijiju said India has good relations and mutual understanding with Bangladesh, especially in the matter of co-operation on fighting terrorism.
"Terror can be defeated only through close coordination and by fighting together (against it)," he said.
Bangladeshi newspaper 'Daily Star' had reported that militant Rohan Imtiaz, son of an Awami League leader, ran a propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Nayek.
Nayek, in his lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly "urged all Muslims to be terrorists".
Nayek, a popular but controversial Islamic orator and founder of Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation, is banned in the UK and Canada for his 'hate speech' aimed at other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia.
He is hugely popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, although his preachings often demean other religions and even other Muslim sects, the report said.
Sena MP Arvind Sawant said he had written to the Union Home Minister, demanding a ban on Naik and Islamic Research Foundation, in the country's interest.
"People whose language propagates violence against nation's unity should be banned," Sawant said in the letter.
"Islam teaches love and peace. But everyday is a day of high alert now. I appeal to the Home Minister that action needs to be taken," he said.
"How do young children in our country join the ISIS? So maybe we are failing somewhere....We should know the seriousness of this situation. Radicalised minds can now take any step. In the name of Islam, they are slaughtering people who cannot recite verses," Sawant added.
Mansoor Shaikh, the manager of Islamic Research Foundation, denied that Nayek had endorsed terrorism in his speeches.
Islamist gunmen stormed a popular restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave late on Friday and killed 22 people, most of them foreigners.
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Nayek on his part asserted that his speech on Islam and terror has been taken out of context and claimed that he had only said muslims should terrorise anti-social elements.
Nayek while stating this to TV channels said no muslim should terrorise any innocent person.
The preacher further claimed that he had spoken to Bangladesh Prime Minister's adviser and that he was told that authorities there did not agree that his speeches had radicalised the attackers.
Bangladesh Information Minister Hasan-Ul-Haq, however, said no clean chit has been given yet to the Indian preacher.
Nayek said it is known that the attackers were his fans and for that matter most of the Bangladeshis are his fans.
"That doesn't mean I have inspired them. I have inspired them to come closer to Islam. But to say that I have inspired them to do radical act of killing innocent people is totally false," he added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Rwanda today, a highly symbolic part of an "historic" African tour, boosting ties between two countries with a history marked by genocide.
Netanyahu, welcomed at the airport by Rwandan President Paul Kagame, later visited the Kigali Memorial Centre, where more than 250,000 victims of the at least 800,000 victims of the 1994 genocide are buried in mass graves.
"The Rwandan government felt a real affinity with Israel for obvious historic reasons," said Phil Clark, a Rwanda specialist at London's SOAS university.
"Israel was seen as a small country in a very hostile neighborhood; a country with very few resources but which had recovered from its genocide very quickly and very impressively," Clark said. "So Israel was an obvious place for Rwanda to look to for inspiration."
From a pragmatic point of view, Israel is seen by Rwanda as an alternative partner amid increasingly strained relations with traditional allies such as the United States or Britain.
In 2014, when Rwanda sat on the UN Security Council, Kigali abstained from a resolution -- ultimately rejected -- advocating the end of the occupation of Palestinian territories.
Netanyahu's visit to Rwanda is part of a four-nation Africa trade and security tour aimed at boosting ties.
On the eve of Netanyahu's tour Israel announced a relatively modest USD 13 million aid package to strengthen economic ties and cooperation with African countries.
Israel's business with Africa constitutes only two per cent of its foreign trade, leaving plenty of room for growth while demand for its defence expertise and products is rising.
It also sees African countries as potential allies, particularly at the United Nations and other international bodies, where it is regularly condemned over its occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza Strip.
On Monday, Netanyahu visited Uganda to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Israeli raid on Entebbe airport in which his brother Yonatan was killed rescuing hostages held by German and Palestinian hijackers.
Yesterday, he visited Kenya, and will end his tour on tomorrow in Ethiopia.
Eid-ul-Fitr is being celebrated across Kashmir today as men, women and children dressed in their best thronged mosques, shrines and Eidgahs across the Valley for special prayers to mark culmination of the fasting month of Ramzan.
Muslims from all walks of life started making a beeline to the Eidgah (prayer ground) or a mosque for offering the Eid prayers as a thanksgiving for the month-long fasting.
Ramzan, the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, is observed as a fasting period by Muslims the world over who abstain from food and water during the period extending from 30 minutes before the sunrise to sunset.
The biggest gathering of Eid prayers was witnessed at Hazratbal shrine where more than 50,000 faithful offered the Eid prayers, officials said.
The second largest gathering was held at Eidgah in the old city where more than 40,000 people offered prayers.
Big gatherings of Eid prayers were also reported at TRC and Polo ground in the heart of the city and other shrines of the city, they said, adding similar gatherings were held at all districts headquarters and major towns of the Valley.
Barring few incidents of stone-pelting after the prayers, the situation in the Valley remained peaceful.
Six persons including two policemen -- an additional Superintendent of Police and a constable -- were injured in the clashes between protesters and law enforcing agencies at various places in the Valley.
The authorities had placed top separatist leaders, including Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik under house arrest, fearing their presence at large Eid gatherings could spark violence, the officials said.
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In Jammu also, Eid-ul-Fitr was celebrated with traditional fervour and gaiety here as people of all ages thronged mosques and shrines and greeted each other.
Main function was held at an eidgah in Jammu, where prayers were offered and people of different communities also exchanged greetings.
More than 5,000 faithful offered the Eid prayers, officials said.
The festival was celebrated peacefully in various parts of Jammu region and there was no incident reported from anywhere.
The K M Mani-led Kerala Congress today continued its tirade against state Congress leaders over the bar bribery scam, calling them "betrayers" who played "Koodiyattam" (an art form) on the issue.
An editorial in the latest issue of 'Prathichaya', the official organ of Kerala Congress (M), lashed out at senior Congress leaders, including former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Ramesh Chennithala, for attending the betrothal of Biju Ramesh's daughter recently.
The editorial said Ramesh was the "source" behind the bar bribery allegations targeting its veteran leader Mani.
It noted that the presence of "some leaders" in the ceremony held at Biju Ramesh's residence recently underlined the fact that they have not given much importance to "political decency, political ethics and political honesty".
"Otherwise they would not have attended the engagement of Biju Ramesh's daughter," said the mouthpiece of Kerala Congress (M), a key partner in the Congress-led UDF.
"He (Biju Ramesh) was not alone (in levelling bar bribery allegations)," the editorial claimed, adding, a group of people operated behind the scenes to strengthen his hands.
The Kerala Congress (M) fired a fresh salvo at state Congress leaders, two days after the party's youth wing wrote a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi alleging that then Home Minister Chennithala and his colleague Revenue Minister Adoor Prakash had played a role in targeting Mani, who was Finance Minister in the Oommen Chandy-led Cabinet, in the bar bribery scandal that led to the UDF regime's downfall.
Equating the Congress leaders with Shakespeare's Brutus who stabbed Roman general-politician Julius Caesar in the back, the editorial said Mani, in his first reaction when the bar scandal issue came up, had said the allegation against him was a "political conspiracy."
"The vigilance probe into the bar bribery allegations was ordered by those who had maintained that Mani is not involved in the scam. Later, they trapped him in the case forcing him to quit as minister," said the editorial "Ottukaarude Koodiyattam' (play of betrayers).
The rift in Congress-led UDF in Kerala over the bar bribery scandal has been all-pervasive with various organisations affiliated to the state Congress, including Kerala Youth Front (M) directly accusing senior party leaders of bringing discredit to its leader Mani during UDF rule.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Ashish Khetan, under fire for equating the party's 'Youth Manifesto' for Punjab polls with religious books and using the image of Golden Temple on it, today met Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal here.
AAP's Punjab in charge Sanjay Singh and senior leader Ashutosh were also present in the meeting.
However, the party maintained that the meeting had got nothing to do with the controversy.
While Khetan has already tendered an apology, saying he did not intend to "undermine any section of the society", a case was registered against him in Amritsar today for allegedly hurting religious sentiments.
When contacted, a senior party leader said the meeting was "informal". The leader criticised the opposition for "communalising" the issue despite Khetan tendering apology.
"The opposition is just trying to whip up communal sentiments. Khetan has already apologised and the party's Punjab unit has also done the same," the leader said.
While Kejriwal, who was recently on a three-day tour of Punjab, has kept mum on the issue, he shared videos of Khetan's apology on Twitter.
The opposition led by BJP-SAD pounced on AAP after Khetan had reportedly compared the manifesto with "the Bible, Gita and Guru Granth Sahib" to underline the party's commitment to it during its launch in Amritsar.
Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal had attacked AAP, saying its act amounted to "desecration" of the holy book and sought an apology from AAP chief Kejriwal.
Facing criticism after Ashish Khetan allegedly compared party's 'Youth Menifesto' for Punjab with religious books, the Aam Aadmi Party today said he never made the comparison and that some "language problem" led people to interpret his remarks "wrongly".
AAP's Punjab convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur sought to clarify the issue, saying Khetan did not intend to hurt religious sentiments of any community.
"We also heard saying this...He had said it (manifesto) was as sacred for him as Guru Granth Sahib, Gita. But he never compared it with religious books. He meant to say that manifesto was pious for him," he said.
"There was some language problem and people interpreted it wrongly...This issue is now being given wrong colour (by political parties)," Chhotepur said.
The AAP leader said Khetan tendered his apology with "folded hands" when he "realised his mistake" and therefore "he should be forgiven".
He urged opponents not to fuel the issue in the larger interest of the state and fight with them on political battleground.
He cited a 2014 incident ahead of 2014 Lok Sabha polls when Punjab minister Bikram Majithia had allegedly distorted a hymn (shabad) of 10th Sikh Guru Gobind Singh while seeking votes for Arun Jaitley, BJP candidate from Amritsar.
"But we never politicised the issue," he said.
Asked to comment on FIR registered against Khetan, Chhotepur said, "We will face the law."
Khetan had allegedly compared the party's Youth Manifesto for Punjab Assembly election with Guru Granth Sahib and other religious books while launching it in Amritsar.
The manifesto had the image of Golden Temple on its cover.
Later he had said the party never "intended to undermine any section, community or any individual" and tendered an apology.
Meanwhile, Shiromani Akali Dal today rejected the apology tendered by Khetan and sought apology by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
"If anyone needed to apologise for this sacrilege it's AAP Convenor and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal," the party said in a statement.
SAD MP and secretary general Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa alleged
the "blasphemy" was committed in front of Kejriwal during a recent function held at Amritsar to release the party's 'Youth Manifesto'.
"Kejriwal did not protest against the blasphemy then or even later giving a clear indication of the respect he has for the holy book of the Sikh community. Now it is incumbent on him to seek apology from the Sikh Sangat as well as take strictest action against Khetan. This is necessary to assuage the hurt feelings of the entire Sikh community".
Dhindsa said Khetan had displayed a "mentally sick disposition". "There is no other explanation for the cruel manner in which he insulted the Guru Granth Sahab ji", he said.
Newly appointed Ministers of State for Health Faggan Singh Kulaste and Anupriya Patel today assumed charge.
Both the ministers were welcomed by Health Minister J P Nadda who said they would work together in the service of the nation.
Kulsate and Patel thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the responsibility and said they would work to increase the reach of healthcare to the common masses.
The target of the government and the Prime Minister is to provide healthcare to each and every human being.
"Making this our priority, we would try to take this to every common man of the country," Kulaste said after assuming charge.
Nadda also thanked Modi for "assigning" two Ministers of State.
"I welcome my colleagues MoS Sh.Fagan Singh Kulhaste & Smt.Anupriya Patel as they assumed their assignments in MOHFW.
"I thank respected PM @narendramodiji for assigning two MOS to the Health ministry. Jointly we will work together in the service of nation (sic)," he said in a series of tweets.
In a major reshuffle yesterday, Patel and Kulaste were inducted into the government.
The 35-year-old Patel is a Lok Sabha member from Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh. She won on a ticket of Apna Dal, a party founded by her father and Kurmi leader Sonelal Patel which later split, with the larger faction siding with her mother, who expelled her from the party.
Kulsate is an Lok Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh.
is likely to set up a truth-seeking commission this year to probe rights abuses by the army during the civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Foreign Minister said on Wednesday and asserted that the country will keep its pledges to achieve reconciliation with the minority Tamils.
"We are conscious on the need to retain goodwill by keeping to our pledges to achieve reconciliation," Mangala Samaraweera told reporters here after returning from the 32nd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva.
He said the commission is likely to be established by September after wide consultations with "all stake holders."
"We have laid the foundation for all required mechanisms. We have to make correct assessments of the past events. We have to deliver reparation and justice," he said
At the United Nations meeting, High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein expressed concern over the Sri Lankan government's slow progress in implementing its pledge to probe allegations of human rights violations and war crimes.
Samaraweera said as agreed in the October 2015 UN resolution would try those responsible for war crimes -- blamed on both the government troops and the LTTE.
"We have to restore the good name of our troops. We will find out the chain of command if any abuses had taken place," he said.
He said that the government will also set up a permanent and independent Office on Missing Persons, widely seen as an essential component of the truth-seeking process.
He said that while the war was won in 2009 little was done to win peace but the current government is taking measures to ensure that the reconciliation process goes forward.
"People in the south and the north (Tamil regions) have rejected extremists at elections. It was the moderates of two sides who won," Samaraweera said the electoral defeats of the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
He appealed to the Tamil diaspora to visit the country and support concerns they have related to human rights with facts.
has faced criticism over its handling of the investigation into the alleged rights abuses during the final phase of the civil war that ended in 2009 with the defeat of the LTTE.
The army has been accused of committing war crimes during the final stages. According to UN estimates, nearly 100,000 people were killed in the 26-year-long war.
Seventeen fishermen from Tamil Nadu, who were arrested by Sri Lankan naval personnel for allegedly fishing in their territorial water, were today remanded to judicial custody till July 20 by a court in the island country.
The fishermen from Nagapattinam had set out for fishing in two mechanised boats and they were arrested yesterday off Neduntheevu in Sri Lanka, according to Nagapattinam Fisheries Joint Director Subburaj.
They were today taken to a court which remanded them to judicial custody, he said.
They have been lodged in a prison at Jaffna, Subburaj said.
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Meanwhile, several fishermen staged a protest in this town, condemning the attack, and resolved to go on an indefinite strike.
Fishermen here have decided to boycott fishing from today, said General Secretary of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry Fishermen Association, MJ Bose.
Prime Minister David Cameron today said that lessons must be learnt from Britain's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 to ensure that war is always the last resort following a report that found fault with the country joining the US-led invasion.
Cameron was addressing the House of Commons after the release of an official inquiryby John Chilcot earlier todayinto the bloody and controversial conflict to remove Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
"There are some lessons that we do need to learn and frankly keep on learning. Taking the country to war should always be a last resort, and should only be done if all credible alternatives have been exhausted," Cameron told MPs as he announced a two-day parliamentary debate next week on the report's findings.
In reference to Tony Blair, who was prime minister during the war and who has been severely rebuked in the report, Cameron admitted the Labour leader had given commitments to then US President George W Bush that were not discussed openly in Cabinet.
"However,at no stage does he (Chilcot) explicitly say that there was a deliberate attempt to mislead people," Cameron notes.
He also stressed the importance of the UK's close relationship with the US and warned, "It is wrong to conclude that we should not stand with US allies when our common interest is threatened. Britain has no greater friend or ally in the world than America".
The opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn told the Commons in his reaction that "by any measure, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been, for many, a catastrophe".
"We now know that the House was misled in the run up to the war, and the House must now decide how it should deal with it 13 years later...Going to war without UN authorisation was profoundly dangerous," he said.
The report, which is estimated to have cost over 10 million pounds of taxpayers' money, has been chaired by former senior civil servant Chilcot and has taken seven years to complete.
It has been described as one of the most highly anticipated inquiries launched by the UK in recent times.
As part of its model hunt for upcoming Lakme Fashion Week's Winter/Festive season in August this year, the cosmetics brand held its first ever auditions in the country's north east region.
According to organisers, the auditions which were conducted in association with the Northeast Fashion and Design Council, were an attempt to nurture and cultivate fashion talent in the region.
"Our country has such beauty in our diversity. I am thrilled to bring the model auditions for LFW to Guwahati for the very first time and see these gorgeous faces make their debut at India's premier fashion platform," Purnima Lamba, Head of Innovation, Lakme said.
The contest held here recently which saw over 100 models showcasing their best, was presided over by a jury that comprised several renowned faces from the fashion fraternity including popular fashion designer Atsu Sekhose, supermodel Sonalika Sahay and Assamese actress Barsha Rani Bishaya among others.
The semi-finalists, who walked the ramp in the creations of three local couturiers - Payal Chadha, Mitrani Kakoti and Kashmiri and Jyoti Kumar Nath - donned specially curated traditional Mekhela Chadors replete with intricate embroidery, motifs and vibrant colours in a bid to celebrate traditional heritage of the region.
Following three competitive rounds, the panel of judges settled on two brand new faces from Guwahati - Suzzane Baker and Jahnabi Deori - to be a part of the gala fashion event from August 24 - August 28 in Mumbai.
"The models from this region have always been exotic and stunningly unique. At the auditions, we discovered some striking new faces who can sashay the ramp with poise and elegance," Sahay said.
Popular actress and theatre artist from the region Bishaya said that North Eastern India has a hoard of talent that still remains untapped.
She said, "I believe the region has an undiscovered oasis of talent!"
Seconding her, designer Sekhose said, "The first thing that comes to mind when you say North-East India, is its beauty and I am very happy that LFW has conducted its first ever female audition here.
"There is a lot of talent and beauty yet to be discovered and this is a wonderful opportunity for all the aspiring girls from this region to come forward and make it big!"
LFW, which is organised by Lakme and IMG Reliance, has in the past introduced faces like those of Deepika Padukone and Katrina Kaif, who went on to become leading Bollywood actresses and continues to serve as a foundation for new and emerging runway talent with its model auditions.
The 139th edition of Lord Jagannath rath yatra passed off peacefully in the city today amid tight security arrangements with lakhs of devotees thronging to catch a glimpse of the deity and even people from minority community giving a warm welcome to the procession.
The chariots of Lord Jagannath, his elder brother Balbhadra and their sister Subhadra commenced their journey this morning on the 15 kilometer route here after Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel performed 'Pahind Vidhi'- a symbolic ritual of cleaning way for the Raths, at 400-year-old Jagannath temple in Jamalpur area.
BJP chief Amit Shah also visited the temple at around 4 am and took part in the 'Mangla Aarti'.
The procession that stretches up to 1.5 km, comprised 18 decorated elephants, 101 trucks, around 30 religious congregations and around 20 singing troupes followed by three chariots.
The rath yatra moved through some communally sensitive areas like Jamalpur, Kalupur, Shahpur and Dariyapur throughout the day and finally came back to the temple late evening after almost 12 hours.
Displaying the spirit of brotherhood and communal harmony, minority community welcomed the chariots on various points of the city in Muslim dominated areas with garlands and other offerings. Hindu devotees also greeted Muslims on the occasion of Eid.
As part of the tradition, chief priest of the Jagannath temple Dilipdasji Maharaj was offered a shawl at Dariyapur by local Muslim leaders. In return, the mahant, who is equally revered by local Muslims, gave a donation of Rs 3,100 for a local mosque in Dariyapur.
"This tradition was set by the very first mahant of Jagannath temple as a mark of brotherhood and harmony. Today, Dilipdasji gave us Rs 3,100 as his donation to the local mosque, while we greeted him with a shawl, a practice followed by almost five generations of this area," local corporator of Dariyapur, Hasan Pathan, said.
This time, a tableaux featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi caught everyone's attention, as the entire truck was covered with life-size photos of Modi shaking hands with various heads of state, including Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and many others.
Elaborate security arrangements were made by police to avoid any untoward incident during the yatra.
Joint Commissioner of Police, city crime branch, J K Bhatt said 18,000 security personnel, including of police, state reserve police and central para-military forces, were deployed at various locations along the route.
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The entire route was monitored by police through a
network of CCTV cameras, connected with two control rooms, one in the city and another in Gandhinagar.
Nine IG and DIG level officers, 33 Superintendents of Police (SPs), 81 Deputy SPs, 250 Police Inspectors, 900 Police Sub Inspectors, 8,000 constables, 5,600 homeguards and 1,500 recruits undergoing training were deployed during the rath yatra.
Outgoing RBI governor Raghuram Rajan also found his fan following in the yatra. A youth, who was part of the procession, bid Rajan farewell in advance by painting a message on his body, which read "Raghuram Rajan, one of the wise RBI governors, we will miss you".
The same youth, though his body painting, also expressed disappointment over the issue of non-payment of loans by beleaguered businessman Vijay Mallya.
Political parties made their presence felt through posters and banners put up on route of the rath yatra.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had put up a stall at Jamalpur locality, where its volunteers were seen distributing water and prasad to devotees during the procession.
Along the route, banners from local leaders from BJP, Congress and NCP were seen welcoming devotees.
One Kalubhai Rawal, a septuagenarian in traditional Rajasthani outfit with red turban, led the procession for some distance on his bicycle.
Rawal plans to cover the country on his cycle and spread the messages of "Clean India" and "Save Girl Child," which were also the theme of several other tableau, banners and stalls that were seen during the procession.
One arrest has been made after The Band Perry cancelled their concert in Selbyville, Delaware over the weekend due to security threats.
One of the men making the threatening comments at the Americana Bayside Welcome Center where the band was supposed to perform has been charged, reported Ace Showbiz.
35-year-old Selbyville resident Dzmitry N Papou turned himself in on Monday night, July 4 after police released photos of him and another suspect.
Papou was charged with felony terroristic threatening and ordered to make no contact with the Americana Bayside. He has since been released on a USD 20,000 unsecured bail.
The second man making the threats has also been identified but he hasn't been arrested. Investigation is still ongoing.
The comments that the two men made were not shared to public, but they're alarming enough that the Band Perry called off their gig only a few minutes before opening act Melissa Alesi was to take the stage.
"Due to heightened security concerns, and for the safety of our fans, the show has been rescheduled for August 17. While we are sad we don't get to see you tonight, we love you and consider your wellbeing and security our top priority. We'll see you soon," the band said in a statement.
A fraudster carrying a reward of Rs 50000 on his arrest has been held in connection with insurance policy frauds in Hyderabad and Delhi, police said today.
A team of Crime Branch arrested Alok Sharma on specific input from Mahanagar in Bareilly. Sharma was a member of a gang whose another member Gyaneshwar was arrested previously, said Ravindra Yadav, Joint Commissioner(crime) of Police.
At least 10 cases involving nine insurance policy holders in Hyderabad and one in Delhi, have been solved with arrest of the duo, he said.
The gang used to procure data of insurance policy holders through Gyaneshwar who worked as insurance broker. The potential targets were approached through a telecalling facility in Moti Nagar Industrial area.
The police got wind of the gang following an FIR registered on a complaint of Anand Gyanchandani at Paschim Vihar police station. The complainant was cheated to the tune of Rs 23 lakh on the promise of big bonus.
The gang used to demand a processing fee of Rs 25,000 and later kept on asking for more to speed up the process of bonus payment.
A medical student, who hurled a dog from a terrace, and his friend, who filmed the incident, were today arrested after the shocking video went viral drawing outrage, but the duo was soon released on bail, while the dog was now undergoing treatment and "doing well".
"We arrested Gowtham Sudarshan and Ashish Pal today and they were produced before Sriperumbudur Judicial Magistrate court," Kundrathur Police Inspector Ruban said.
"The duo were granted bail by the court," he told PTI.
The dog was taken to a veterinary hospital for treatment and is doing well, police said.
Gowtham Sudarshan, a final year MBBS student of a private medical college, flung the dog from the terrace of a building here and the act was video allegedly recorded by his friend Ashish Pal.
After the video went viral, animal welfare activists, including Antony Clement Rubin and Jennifer Jacob, lodged a complaint with police which registered an FIR and launched a search for them.
The duo were booked for cruel treatment meted out to an animal under IPC sections 428 and 429 and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (Sec 11 (1-a). Subsequently, they were arrested today.
Rubin said the dog luckily survived and was taken to a veterinary hospital. "It has suffered fractures in its front and rear legs. It is being treated."
"It is nothing short of a miracle that the dog survived," he added.
"People should come forward to lodge police complaints if they come across acts of cruelty against animals without waiting for activists to step in," he told PTI.
Rubin said the dog has been named 'Bhadra' after goddess Bhadrakali.
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Meanwhile, police said the private medical college today suspended Gowtham Sudarshan and Ashish Pal, both MBBS final year students.
The college has also formed a panel to look into the allegations against its students.
College authorities were unavailable for comment.
Several ministers including Smriti Irani, who was shunted out from HRD to Textiles ministry, today took charge of their new ministries and promised to work for development, streamlining justice delivery system, early passage of GST bill and ensuring speedy implementation of projects.
Apart from Smriti, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Ananth Kumar took over as Law and Parliamentary Affairs ministers respectively.
Prakash Javedekar, the lone promotee who was given HRD ministry in the reshuffle of the Council of Ministers by Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday, is scheduled to take up his new position tomorrow. Talking to reporters here, he asserted that dialogue is the key to avoid agitations and that education is not a subject for party politics.
"I am a product of student agitation, so we will always talk with everybody. So with dialogues in place, there will be no necessity of agitation," Javadekar said.
Putting up a brave face, Irani, whose shifting is being seen as demotion, played down her portfolio change with a popular line of a Hindi movie song, "Kuch toh log kahenge, logon ka kaam hai kehna."
"I am happy that I have been given an opportunity especially when a special package (of Rs 6,000 crore for the apparel segment) has been announced for the sector. This signifies that my party and especially the Prime Minister has faith that I have the capacity to implement the roadmap that was projected through the Cabinet for the rest of the country," Irani said.
Taking up his new assignment, Prasad emphasised that he will strive to find a "common ground" between the government and the judiciary on the issue of appointment of judges to the Supreme Court and high courts.
The remarks assume significance in the backdrop of government making efforts to iron out differences with the Supreme Court collegium on the memorandum of procedure (MoP) -- a document which guides the appointment of judges to the higher judiciary.
"We will be consulting, we will be meeting in an effort to find a common ground on the issue of judicial appointments... There is need to work in harmony...We respect the independence of the judiciary," he told reporters here.
Other ministers included M J Akbar, Anil Madhav Dave and Santosh Gangwar, Rajen Gohain who assumed office as Ministers of State for External Affairs, Environment, Finance and Railways respectively.
Taking over as Information and Broadcasting minister from
his Cabinet colleague Arun Jaitley, M Venkaiah Naidu justified the latest expansion of Union council of ministers, saying 78 ministers for a country as large and diverse as India is certainly not large, rebutting opposition's charge of "maximum government, minimum governance".
Lauding Modi, Naidu said he is the "hope of the nation" and after long time there is a combination of stable government and able leader.
Claiming that the whole country is in favour of GST, Ananth Kumar, who has got Parliamentary Affairs ministry in addition to existing Chemicals & Fertilisers portfolio, said passage of this "very important" bill will be his priority for which government will talk to all political parties.
"GST is a very important bill. The whole country is in favour of passing this bill as early as possible. We will talk, discuss and request all political parties that this bill should be passed in this session (Monsoon), so that it can be implemented as early as possible," he told reporters after assuming his new charge.
Gangwar too expressed confidence of getting the much- delayed GST Bill passed in the upcoming Monsoon session of Parliament.
Gangwar, who was yesterday shifted from the Textiles Ministry to the all-important Finance Ministry, assumed charge along with Arjun Ram Meghwal, who has also been made a Minister of State in the Finance Ministry.
Asserting that development and environment go together and are "not against" each other, Dave said all projects undertaken by his predecessor will continue although he would take a week's time to understand the functioning of the department.
Gohain, who is among the new faces in the Union government, said safety and security of passengers as well as expansion of rail connectivity in the entire North East will be his top priority.
"I am from North East region. These states are hilly region. So getting rail connectivity in the region is a difficult task. But our government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to provide rail connectivity to all states of North East by 2020 and we will work towards the goal," he said.
S S Ahluwalia, the new Minister of State for Agriculture
and Farmers Welfare, said his focus will be to accelerate development of agriculture sector and reaching out to the farmers. He also took charge as Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs.
Jayant Sinha, who was shifted from Finance Ministry, also took charge as Minister of State for Civil Aviation.
Narendra Singh Tomar, after taking charge as Minister for Rural Development, Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water, said the real development of India is closely linked to the development of rural India.
Tomar said he will make all efforts to give concrete shape to Prime Minister's dream of inclusive development. He was earlier Minister of Steel and Mines.
Piyush Goyal, who has been given charge of Mines Ministry, also took charge of it. This is in addition to Goyal's current charge as Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy.
Newly appointed MoS in HRD ministry Mahendra Nath Pandey said his priority was on making quality education accessible to all the citizens of India.
After assuming charge as new Minister of State in the Law Ministry, PP Choudhary, said it will be an opportunity for him to work for the common man in ensuring timely justice.
Rajya Sabha MP from Maharastra, Ramdas Athawale, who has been appointed as Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, said ensuring welfare of Dalits will be his priority.
Ajay Tamta also took charge as Minister of State for Textiles while Vijay Goel assumed charge as Minister of State (Independent Charge) of Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs.
Interacting with the media, Goel said he will work round-the-clock for promotion of sports and welfare of sportspersons.
He said, efforts would be to generate interest among youth for participation in sports in a big way so that youth energy is channelised in the right direction.
Another Minister CR Chaudhary, appointed MOS Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, said proper marketing mechanism was the need of hour to save farmers from losses.
Moderate Hurriyat Conference leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq today denounced the terror attack at the Prophet's Mosque in Medina in Saudi Arabia and said "such elements" have nothing to do with Islam and its teachings.
Addressing an Eid gathering at Eidgah over telephone, the Mirwaiz, who is the religious head of Muslims of Kashmir Valley, asked the Muslim leadership across the world to stand united against the menace of terrorism and extremism.
"Such elements who carry out these attacks in the name of Islam have in fact nothing to do with the religion and its teachings," the Mirwaiz, who is under house arrest, said.
Four security officers were killed in Monday's attacks that targeted US diplomats, Shia Muslim worshippers and a security headquarters at the Prophet's Mosque in the holy city of Medina.
Though no group claimed responsibility for the attack, ISIS terrorists have carried out similar bombings in the past targeting minority Shias and Saudi security forces.
In his address to the congregation at Eidgah, the Mirwaiz said there is no option for the state but to address the Kashmir issue.
The Mirwaiz pitched for a meaningful and result-oriented engagement between India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir issue with the participation of the people of the state.
As the Mirwaiz remained under house arrest, a statement was issued by the Hurriyat Conference, a conglomerate of separatist parties, condemning the action of the state government which it termed as "blatant and shameless denial of his human and religious rights and duties".
Mizoram government will soon initiate talks with the militant outfit Hmar People's Convention (Democratic), state Home Minister R Lalzirliana said today.
"The government will soon communicate with the HPC(D) leaders so that we can begin negotiations expeditiously," Lalzirliana told reporters here.
Unlike the previous parleys, the government wanted sincere talks to solve the political problems of the Hmars tribe and expected that the militants would also come forward with open arms.
The talks with the HPC(D) fizzled out in August 2013 over disagreement on the extension of the Suspension of Operations (SoO).
Good Wednesday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
We are under-caffeinated and seriously behind this morning, so we're going to dispense with the pleasantries and get right into it.
With a new week well underway and no final state budget deal in sight, here's your clip-and-save guide to where things stand with the fiscal 2016-17 spending plan.
1. Nope, no revenue deal yet: Having suddenly come to the realization that one cannot have a finished budget without having the money to pay for it, revenue talks continued on Tuesday. Leaders from the four legislative caucuses met Tuesday lunchtime with no firm results. Still, "last year at this time, nobody was even talking, let alone having a spending plan in place," House Majority Leader David Reed, R-Indiana County, reminded reporters Tuesday. "I'd say we're light years ahead of where we were." Which, in Harrisburg, is something approximating progress.
2. So did we mention that 'other' deadline?: Someone with an eye toward the calendar pointed this out to us over the weekend. Without a gubernatorial signature (which Gov. Tom Wolf says he's withholding until there's a solid revenue deal in place), the $31.5 billion spending bill will lapse into law of its own accord. So, y'know, no pressure. House and Senate backbenchers remain on a 6-hour call while the alleged grown-ups try to figure things out.
3. No, not that revenue: Wolf (with the support of some Republicans) has shot down a House GOP plan to tap $200 million or more from a workmen's compensation insurance fund. The latest proposal would have borrowed the money from roughly $1.5 billion in booked assets held by the State Workers' insurance Fund. The fund, managed by the state Department of Labor and Industry, provides workers' compensation coverage to high-risk employers, including those that have been refused policies by private insurers. Sometimes called the insurer of last resort, fund currently serves 22,070 businesses (See also, "Gimmicks, one-time, or Mirrors, Smoke-and-").
4. About that gross receipts tax on natural gas?: As the Inquirer reports, that proposal, which has Wolf's support, along with some GOP senators, has hit a roadblock in the state House, where it's viewed as a tax on consumers. The proposal would raise about $500 million. Reed has said he doesn't have the votes to get it passed, although some Republicans have privately said that the floor leader hasn't actually done the head count to make such an argument. Nor has he tried to convince them that it's necessary to get a deal, The Inquirer reported.
5. Sen. Scott Wagner continues to say things: And, no surprise here, he'll be a 'No' vote on any tax increases included in any putative revenue plan. "I am fairly sure that next week everyone in the House and Senate will have to cast votes on tax increases," he wrote in an email to supporters last week. "I will be a 'no' vote."
And now you're up to date. See you all back here in a bit.
Marking the culmination of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, Muslims in Kerala today celebrated Eid-ul-Fitr offering prayers and giving alms to the needy and exchanging greetings and gifts.
Faithfuls thronged in mosques in large numbers across the state to offer special prayers and namaz to mark the auspicious day.
In Thiruvananthapuram, Palayam mosque Imam led the prayers at the Chandrasekharan Nair stadium.
Clergies and scholars urged the devotees, who took part in the prayers, to dedicate themselves to Islamic tenets of peace, harmony and brotherhood.
Traditional delicacies were prepared at the Muslim houses especially in the Malabar region (north Kerala) as part of the festivities.
Individuals, families and outfits organised Ramzan charity programmes also in various places where new clothes, food packets and gifts were distributed to the poor and needy.
Kerala Governor Justice Retired P Sathasviam and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan were among those who greeted Keralites on the occasion.
In his Eid message, Vijayan said "may this Eid day ensure togetherness of all minds through its message of brotherhood and humanity.
Millions of Muslims today celebrated the festival at the end of the holy month of Ramzan, marked this year by a series of deadly jihadist attacks.
The three-day Eid al-Fitr festival traditionally means family gatherings and the exchange of gifts and sweets after a month of fasting from dawn until dusk.
But a wave of attacks in Muslim countries -- from Turkey and Bangladesh to Iraq and Saudi Arabia -- have made this year's Eid a sombre occasion.
Tens of thousands of worshippers gathered for Eid prayers at Islam's second-holiest site, the Prophet's Mosque in the Saudi city of Medina, just two days after a suicide bombing that killed four security guards in a nearby carpark.
Addressing the crowd, Sheikh Abdelbari al-Thabiti said the bombing was an "odious crime" carried out by "a group that no longer respects the rites of Allah or the sanctity of the Prophet's Mosque."
In Baghdad, Eid was overshadowed by a massive suicide car bombing on Sunday that ripped through the Shiite-majority Karrada district and left at least 250 dead.
Today Iraqis placed thousands of candles along sidewalks and in the charred remains of a building at the site of the blast.
Some prayed or read the Koran; others laid flowers and Iraqi flags or hugged and wept.
If it were a normal Eid "people would be happy and this street would be open, and people would be walking on it," Mohammed Al Sultan told AFP at the site of the bombing.
Across the border in war-torn Syria, the army said it would observe a 72-hour nationwide ceasefire coinciding with Eid.
Many of the attacks throughout Ramzan were claimed by or blamed on the Islamic State group.
Analysts fear that defeats in its Syrian and Iraqi strongholds are pushing the group to launch more attacks further afield.
In Bangladesh today, an eerie silence pervaded the diplomatic quarter of Dhaka five days after the IS-claimed killing of 20 hostages at a popular cafe.
The run-up to Eid usually sees malls packed with shoppers. But today many of the area's popular restaurants and shopping centres remained closed.
In Pakistan, thousands of worshippers attended Eid al-Fitr prayers at a mosque in Karachi.
Hundreds also gathered at an open-air mosque in the Nigerian capital Lagos to pray.
A seven-year insurgency by Islamist group Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria has left at least 20,000 people dead and more than 2.6 million homeless.
About 150,000 people also attended morning prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in annexed east Jerusalem, according to the Islamic Waqf organisation which is responsible for the mosque compound, the third-holiest site in Islam.
In a bid to bolster its anti-doping programme, the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) has signed a two-year memorandum of understanding with its Australian counterpart and its international parent body, the WADA.
A detailed project plan has been established among the three parties -- the NADA, the Australian Anti-Doping Agency (ASADA) and World Anti-Doping Agency -- to ensure India implements a more effective anti-doping programme that is fully compliant with the WADA Code. The MoU was signed yesterday.
WADA's role is to oversee the partnership, including the timeline set for the project, and to assist with the implementation of the work required.
The scope of the agreement includes the need for improvement of key aspects of NADA's programme, including testing and results management structures, more timely appeals processes, and a review of the agency's structure to confirm that the current structures enable autonomous operational decision making.
"We are happy to have the Australian Anti-Doping Agency on board to assist us with strengthening our anti-doping program, as we look to further protect the rights of clean athletes," NADA Director General Navin Agarwal said in a WADA release.
"We fully recognise some of the shortcomings our program has had in the past, and that is why we will cooperate wholeheartedly with ASADA and WADA to ensure that we make the changes needed and, in doing so, give athletes full confidence in the Indian anti-doping system," added Agarwal.
ASADA Chief Executive Officer Ben McDevitt said, "We look forward to sharing our expertise and experience with India as they strive to improve their anti-doping capacity."
"In the lead up to the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, this partnership will be an important component to strengthening the anti-doping capabilities of Commonwealth nations," he added.
Nagaland has rolled out National Food Security Act from this month across all districts, taking the total number of implementing states and union territories to 34.
Only two states -- Tamil Nadu and Kerala -- are left where the food law is yet to be implemented.
Under the law, passed by Parliament in September 2013 during the previous UPA regime, the government provides legal entitlement to 5 kg of subsidised foodgrains per person every month at Rs 1-3 per kg to two-third of India's population.
"Nagaland government is implementing Food law in all districts from this month. Only two states are left now. Kerala has committed to implement, but we have not yet got positive response from Tamil Nadu," Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan told reporters.
The Supreme Court has given a direction that this law has to be implemented and no state is above the law, he added.
Speaking about direct benefit transfer of food subsidy, Paswan said this is being implement fully on a pilot basis in Chandigarh, Puducherry as well as Dadar and Nagar Haveli.
"Though some states are keen to implement DBT, but we want to do it carefully. There are 3-4 problems that we are trying to sort out," he said.
The minister said the beneficiaries might face problems in withdrawing money from banks for purchase of grains in the open market.
Both the state and banks should take proactive measures to address these hurdles, he added.
On allocation of PDS foodgrains to states, Paswan said the Centre has decided to be flexible in allocating wheat or rice in a ratio that is required by those states which procure more than their PDS requirement.
For instance, the Centre had recently allocated 85 per cent of rice and 15 per cent of wheat for PDS distribution to the Odisha. Earlier, the state was getting rice and wheat in 60:40 ratio.
On cane arrears, Paswan said it has come down to Rs 3,838 crore so far in 2015-16 marketing year that will end in September. Out of which, Rs 1,963 crore pertains to Uttar Pradesh.
NATO will hold fresh talks with next week, just days after a landmark alliance summit endorses a major military revamp to counter a more assertive Moscow, secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said today.
"We have decided together with to hold a meeting of the NATO- Council (NRC)... The meeting will take place on 13 July at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, shortly after the NATO summit in Warsaw," this Friday and Saturday, Stoltenberg said in a statement.
The NRC brings together ambassadors from the 28 NATO member states and Russia, and met regularly until the Ukraine crisis plunged relations with Moscow into the deep freeze.
Russia's ambassador to NATO Alexander Grushko told AFP, "The main focus will be on the military security in the wake of decisions to be taken at the NATO summit in Warsaw. We hope for a frank and serious dialogue on the issues related to the increased NATO activities near Russian borders and their impact on the security and stability in Europe and its regions."
"We will also continue the exchange of views on the situation in Ukraine and Afghanistan," he added.
In April this year, the NRC held its first meeting since June 2014 but the talks ended in "profound disagreements" over Ukraine and other issues despite hopes they could ease tensions.
Germany led calls for the council to meet before the Warsaw summit but NATO diplomatic sources said Russia had appeared reticent, apparently preferring to see the outcome of the gathering before agreeing to talks.
Stoltenberg said the council "has an important role to play as a forum for dialogue and information exchange, to reduce tensions and to increase predictability".
"Our discussions will focus on the crisis in and around Ukraine and the need to fully implement the Minsk (cease-fire) agreements," he said.
NATO suspended all practical cooperation with Russia following its shock 2014 annexation of Crimea but kept channels of communication open, with Germany and several other member states stressing that in a crisis situation, it would be wrong to close the door completely.
NATO leaders gathering in Warsaw will sign off on the alliance's biggest military revamp since the end of the Cold War largely driven by Russia's intervention in Ukraine.
A day after the Women and Child Ministry stepped in to protect women from online trolls and asked National Commission for Women to monitor such cases, NCW Chairperson Lalitha Kumaramangalam raised strong objections and asked how could one police the net.
"You can't police the net. It is an open space, it is like a galaxy almost. There are billions of twitter accounts and no organisation can keep an eye on twitter. It is not physically possible for anybody to say we are following everybody's twitter...
"The problem with cyber crime is also that it is a very specialised crime. It can be dealt with by experts. Only the police can actually take action on this", Kumaramangalam said.
However, the day after Maneka Gandhi announced that victims of online abuse and troll could file a complaint by sending her an e-mail at gandhim@nic.In, her inbox was swamped with several grievances.
The ministry introduced #IamTrolledHelp so women could raise an alarm on Twitter apart from e-mailing complaints. The hashtag was one of the top twitter trends through most of the day.
The ministry will now have its own women cyber cell and a Joint Secretary has been designated to look into such complaints.
"This morning, I received several complaints through e-mail. So, we have decided that we will have a women cyber cell where each complaint will be looked into," Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said.
She will be having a joint meeting later this week with representatives from Twitter, Facebook as well as police department to work out a strategy to address complaints of online abuse.
Maneka said "we are talking to both Twitter and Facebook but mostly Twitter because of the sheer number of abuse and foul language used on this forum. We will have a discussion with Twitter, Facebook and police to develop a strategy".
Last month, the Ministry for Communications and Information Techonolgy, at the behest of Maneka Gandhi, issued mandatory guidelines for matrimonial websites to check harassment of women on such sites.
Nepal is selling thousands of tonnes of rice donated by China and Bangladesh to help earthquake victims, an official said today, despite aid agencies warning that survivors remain at risk of food shortages.
Nearly 9,000 people lost their lives when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake ripped through the Himalayan nation in April 2015, destroying more than half a million homes and leaving thousands without food or shelter.
Initial estimates by the World Food Programme (WFP) said that around 1.4 million people were in urgent need of emergency food supplies, prompting governments to spring into action to help the desperately poor country.
According to the state-run Nepal Food Corporation (NFC), Dhaka and Beijing donated around 11,200 metric tonnes (11,020 tons) of rice, only 20 per cent of which was distributed by the government to quake victims.
"The remaining rice has been sitting in our godown (warehouse) for 10 months and now that Bangladesh has donated even more rice to us, we don't have enough space to store it all," said Pawan Kumar Karki, NFC spokesman.
"So we started selling the rice last month and will deposit the proceeds in a fund operated by the government," Karki told AFP.
No further details about the fund were available.
Kathmandu stopped distributing rice across quake-hit districts last June, just weeks after the disaster, according to Karki.
Yet more than a year later, disaster victims continue to be at risk of food shortages, aid officials told AFP.
"We were distributing rice, lentils and other supplies right until February... While there have been improvements, there are still pockets of food insecurity among households headed by single mothers or belonging to marginalised communities," said a WFP spokeswoman.
The NFC's Karki said that authorities also plan to dispatch 3,400 metric tonnes of donated rice to the remote Karnali region following last year's poor monsoons and a prolonged winter drought, but no supplies had been sent yet.
With an estimated four million people still living in temporary shelters, Nepal has asked for USD 8.4 billion in aid to help rebuild the country.
But delays in formulating a reconstruction plan mean Kathmandu has received just USD 1.6 billion so far, around 40 per cent of the USD 4.1 billion pledged by international donors.
Stung by criticism, the government has vowed to kickstart the rebuilding of schools and hospitals and speed up the distribution of a USD 2,000 payout to homeless households.
China today asked the Dalai Lama to give up his bid to divide the country and said it was "never too late" return to the "right track" as the Tibetan spiritual leader turned 81.
"Dalai Lama has been engaging separates activities," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a media conference here reacting to Dalai Lama's comments advocating "middle path" policy of providing more autonomy to Tibet as a solution to the Tibetan issue.
"We hope that the Dalai Lama can give up his attempt to divide China and it is never too late for him to come back to the right track," Hong said.
The Chinese government, which in the past held talks with the Dalai Lama representatives views the autonomy demand as a ploy for separation.
Chinese officials in the recent past have said that the Dalai Lama's demand to unify all the Tibetan prefectures with the Tibetan Autonomous Region and provide greater autonomy is unacceptable to Beijing.
There were no talks between the two sides in the last few years.
The Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in Dharamsala since a failed 1959 uprising in Tibet, has called for more Tibetan autonomy rather than independence.
China maintains he is a "wolf in monk's clothing" and is against foreign leaders meeting him in any form.
When President Xi Jinping took over power in 2013, the Tibetan spiritual leader recalled his association with Xi's family and hoped that the dialogue would be resumed.
Over 120 Tibetans committed self immolations in recent years calling for the return of the Dalai Lama from his exile in India.
Born on July 6, 1935 in Taktser, China, the 14th Dalai Lama, is one of the longest serving Dalai Lama's of the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
Pulling up the city horticulture department for failure to plant 2,000 saplings for cutting down 216 trees in a Northeast Delhi colony, the National Green Tribunal has slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 each on two officials for non-compliance of its orders.
A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar, which had ordered the department to plant 2000 trees in Yamuna Vihar here on May 5, slapped the fine on the chief engineer and director of Delhi government's horticulture department to be recovered from their salaries.
"We may notice that chief engineer had made a statement that he would plant 2,000 trees and accordingly order was passed on May 5, 2016. However, nothing has been done so far.
"We impose costs of Rs 10,000 each upon chief engineer and director of the horticulture department. The cost shall be recovered from their salary of month of July," the bench said.
During the hearing, the Executive Engineer gave an undertaking that it would plant 2,000 trees within two weeks and its videography would be carried out.
The matter was then listed for next hearing on August 1.
The tribunal had earlier restrained the city government from felling trees till further directions and directed filing of a contempt petition against it for defying its orders.
The direction came during the hearing of a plea by advocate S D Windlesh who had alleged that in a service lane of four square metres in a Yamuna Vihar colony, the PWD had cut nearly 400 trees without permission to widen the road.
The plea had said the service lane had a 15 metre-long lush green belt of trees which attracted residents in the mornings for walking, jogging and enjoying fresh air, but all of it was detroyed.
US President Barack Obama today greeted Muslims across the world on the occasion of Eid-al- Fitr and prayed for those killed in recent terrorist attacks during the month of Ramzan in places like Orlando, Istanbul, Dhaka, Baghdad and Medina.
"This past month, our country and the world endured challenges and senseless violence that broke our hearts and tried our souls. Our prayers are with the hundreds of innocent lives, many of them Muslims, taken during the month of Ramzan in places like Orlando, Istanbul, Dhaka, Baghdad, and Medina," Obama said in a statement issued on the occasion of Eid.
For Muslim Americans, Eid is an opportunity to reflect on the 30 days spent fasting and to recommit to values of gratitude, compassion, and generosity, he said.
"Here at home, we've also seen a rise in attacks against Muslim Americans. No one should ever feel afraid or unsafe in their place of worship," he said.
Many Americans have shared in the experience of Ramzan by volunteering in community service efforts to assist those in need and even fasting a few days with their fellow Muslim American co-workers, he added.
"In the face of hate, it's our American values and strength that bring us together to stand in solidarity and protect one another-thereby, making our nation stronger and safer," Obama said.
"Muslim Americans have been part of our American family since its founding. This Eid, we recommit to protecting Muslim Americans against bigotry and xenophobia, while celebrating the contributions of Muslim Americans around the country, including one of our finest, the People's Champion Muhammad Ali, to whom we bade farewell this Ramzan," Obama said.
The President and the First Lady would host an Eid celebration at the White House later this month.
The Every Student Succeeds Act was supposed to help states move on from the No Child Left Behind Act, in part by offering fewer and better tests. And to help states with the better part of that equation, the new law allows them to try out competency based assessments and performance tasks through an Innovative Assessment pilot . The goal is to experiment with new forms of testing on a small scale that can eventually be used statewide.
So how exactly will that pilot, which is open to up to seven states, work initially?
The U.S. Department of Education Wednesday sketched some preliminary rules of the road (draft regulations, in federal speak) on that subject. They address, among other things, what states need to do to be ready to apply for the pilot, and how states can figure out if these brand-new tests are comparable to their state assessments. (Fact sheet on all this here , and more on the specifics below).
Separately, but at the same time, the department also officially released its proposed assessment regulations for ESSA, which actually were hammered out during a negotiated rulemaking process earlier this year. They touch on computer-adaptive tests, how tests for English-language learners and students in special education should work, how high schools can offer local assessments instead of state exams, how advanced math testing for 8th graders should work, and more.
And if the official Federal Register version of these broader assessment rules makes your eyes glaze over, no worries. We wrote a cheat sheet on the assessment rules which you can check out here.
Heres the big-picture take on both piecesthe negotiated rules and the innovative assessment pilotfrom U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King, Jr.
Essentially, hes saying that the department is trying to walk a delicate line here, between giving states room to try new things and getting rid of redundant tests, while also making sure that provisions aimed at equity for all kids are preserved.
Our proposed regulations build on President [Barack] Obamas plan to strike a balance around testing, providing additional support for states and districts to develop and use better, less burdensome assessments that give a more well-rounded picture of how students and schools are doing, while providing parents, teachers, and communities with critical information about students learning. King said in a statement.
King is doing a round table with teachers on testing Wednesday. You can watch it here .
Innovative Assessments
As we explained in this cheat sheet on the Innovative Assessment pilot , the flexibility is aimed at helping states test drive the next generation of assessments in a handful of districts, before going statewide with it. The pilot builds on work in New Hampshire, which is trying out a new form of performance assessment in a small number of districts .
Importantly, ESSA already has a ton of requirements around the pilot, aimed at making sure the tests are of high-quality and can gauge how all different types of students learn. Specifically, ESSA calls for states to make sure their tests: are valid and reliable, can be compared district to district and to the state assessment, are tested on a group of students that has similar demographics to the rest of the state, and can eventually be scaled statewide.
Adding Clarity
The proposed regulations add some new information and clarify a few things, according to department officials. For instance:
States could pick a grade or subject. The draft regulations make it clear that states that want in on the pilot dont have to come up with a new system for every subject and every grade, like New Hampshire is doing. They can do that, of course. But they can also go for something more limited, using a more innovative format just for science tests, for instance, or just for 3rd grade math, or just for all their middle school tests.
The goal is one system eventually. The draft regulations make it clear that states are supposed to come up with one system that can eventually be scaled statewide, even though two different systems could exist in the state for quite a while, up to seven years under the law. That is in the law already, but the proposal underscores it.
Districts could try a handful of schools at first. The proposed regulations would allow states to try out a new innovative assessment in part of a district to begin withit doesnt have to be all at once everywhere. That would mean that if, say, New York City wanted to be part of the pilot, it could do so just in a handful of schools at first, instead of all 1 million students at once.
Comparability. The draft regulations also make some proposals on a tricky part of the pilot: what exactly it means for tests to be comparable. This can be a really hard thing to prove. In fact, Nebraska used to do local tests under the previous version of the law, No Child Left Behind, but the state stopped in part because it was so hard to meet NCLBs comparability bar.
The department essentially wants to give states four options to show that these new systems produce comparable results. They could:
Keep giving the state test once in each grade span where there is an innovative test, like New Hampshire is doing.
Keep giving the state test in certain grades, alongside the innovative assessment. But states wouldnt have to give both tests to everyone; they could save the state test just for a representative group of kids.
Have a lot of the same questions or items on both the state test and the innovative test.
Come up with something equally rigorous.
Those options all are intended to link up with the state assessment, which is arguably the test states are trying to move on from with this innovative pilot. Department officials, though, noted that ESSA says these local, innovative tests need to be comparable to the one the rest of the state takes. Notably, the department isnt sure if this was the right way to go on comparability and is specifically looking for feedback here from experts.
Additional Proposals
Selection criteria. The department lays out a bunch of criteria states will be evaluated on in their innovative pilot applications. States will have to write a narrative to show where they hope this new assessment system will take them; show that their plans have support from the field and that educators have the capacity to implement them; describe their budget and timeline; explain how they plan to evaluate and keep improving their systems; and detail their plan to support teachers and students in using these new tests. These selection criteria will help the department figure out which states are ready to go on the pilot and which still need to think some things through. And if more than seven states apply, it could help officials figure out who is most ready to go.
No planning year. Some folks had suggested that the department might want to give states a planning year before they dive right into the pilot. Thats not in this proposal, in part because the department wants states to be ready to participate when they apply. The department will provide help and assistance for states that arent quite ready, but want to think through their options.
Peer review. One wonky but important point: The tests that states develop through the pilot will eventually have to go through the rigorous federal peer review process. At the outset, states will be evaluated on their plans. States dont have to submit their actual testing systems for peer review until they are ready to take them statewide, so they could have up to seven years to prepare for the final process.
And a lot is still to be determined. The proposed regulations dont lay out things like a timeline for applications, for example. That will be decided later, probably by the next education secretary and their team.
Feedback: Got a take on either the innovative tests proposed rules or the general regulations on tests? You have 60 days to comment on them.
OIL-IOC-BPCL combine's $2.02 billion deal to acquire 23.9 per cent stake in Russia's Vankor oilfield has spoilt Ltd's chance of negotiating down the price for additional 11 per cent it is buying in the same field.
OVL, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), had in September last year bought 15 per cent stake in Russia's second biggest oilfield of Vankor for $1.268 billion.
In March this year, Rosneft agreed to sell another 11 per cent to OVL. Simultaneously, it struck a deal to sell 23.9 per cent in Vankor to a consortium of Oil India Ltd (OIL), Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and a unit of Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL).
Sources said the board of OVL wanted the price of the additional 11 per cent stake to be renegotiated downwards.
Going by the September 2015 agreement, OVL would have to pay about $930 million for the additional stake. But the company board was of the opinion that since it was picking up a sizeable stake in the field operated by US-sanctioned company, the asking price has to be renegotiated.
But as OVL sought renegotiations, the OIL-IOC-BPCL consortium last month signed definitive agreements for buying 23.9 per cent stake in Vankor for $2.02 billion.
OIL-IOC-BPCL consortium has also agreed to pay interest to Rosneft till such time the deal is closed and all payments made, which is likely by September 30.
Sources said Rosneft is now arguing that when the buyer of larger 23.9 per cent stake is willing to pay a price in line with the September 2015 deal, there remains no scope for negotiating it with a buyer who is picking up less than half, about 11 per cent.
After all deals close, Indian state firms will have 49.9 per cent stake in Vankor, entitling them to 220,000 barrels per day (11 million tons a year) of oil production.
Vankor field, located in East Siberia, is Russia's second largest field by production and accounts for around 4 per cent of Russian production and currently producing about 422,000 barrels of oil per day.
It is the largest of the fields, discovered and commissioned in Russia during the last 25 years and is located in the North of Eastern Siberia in Turukhansk district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, 142 km away from Igarka town.
The recoverable resources of the Vankor field as of January 1 stood at 361 million tonnes of oil and condensate and 138 billion cubic meters of gas.
The 23.9 per cent stake would be split in the ratio 33.5-33.5-33 between IOC, OIL and Bharat PetroResources Ltd (a subsidiary of Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd) -- IOC and OIL will take 8 per cent stake each while the remaining 7.8 per cent stake would go to BRPL.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan will not allow anyone to use its soil to attack Afghanistan, but Kabul must also ensure its territory is not used against Islamabad, army chief General Raheel Sharif said today.
Addressing troops in North Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan, Gen Sharif said Pakistan was fully committed to peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan.
"As consolidation goes on and operational dividends optimised for Pak-Afghan border region, Pakistan will not allow anyone to use its soil against Afghanistan," he said during his address in Shawal area - once controlled by al-Qaeda linked militants, where he had gone to celebrate the Eid festival with the soldiers.
He asked Afghanistan to stop attacks from its soil against Pakistan.
"Our efforts for peace in Afghanistan have been acknowledged. While we are committed to facilitate the reconciliation process with sincerity, commitment and resolve, we expect that Afghanistan's territory will not be used against Pakistan," he said.
He said "peace and stability" along the Pak-Afghan border was a priority and asserted that border management and dignified repatriation of Afghan refugees were important for lasting peace.
There are about 3 million Afghan refugees -- 1.5 million registered and about as many undocumented -- in Pakistan.
Gen Sharif said the military commanders, intelligence and law enforcement agencies should work together to make the border stable and stop violations.
All Jammu Kashmir Panchayat Conference (AJKPC) today said it will launch a state-wide agitation at panchayat and block levels to urge Jammu and Kashmir Governor NN Vohra to return the bill allowing indirect election of sarpanches by panches.
"We will launch a state-wide agitation at Panchayat and block levels if the state government does not make a request to the Governor for returning the bill for reconsideration when it's sent to him (Governor) for his assent. He should return the bill," Anil Sharma, state president of AJKPC, told reporters here.
The AJKPC is a frontline organisation of elected sarpanches and panches fighting for empowerment of panchayati raj institutions in Jammu and Kashmir.
On July 2, amid protests and walkout by the Opposition parties, Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Council passed an amendment to Panchayati Raj Act, allowing indirect election of sarpanches by panches instead of a direct election.
Women members of Panchshila Club today alleged that DCW chief Swati Maliwal "abused" her office in a case of alleged sexual harassment against the club's president and former Delhi Chief Secretary Omesh Saigal and demanded strict action against her.
Terming the allegations against Saigal as "false, malicious and mala fide", the members have written to the Delhi Police Commissioner urging him to cancel the FIR in the matter.
Delhi Police have registered a case under Section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of the Indian Penal Code against Saigal on Saturday after a complaint of a 52-year-old woman member of the club was forwarded by DCW.
The charge was denied by Saigal.
"We do not support the complaint made by the former club member. We strongly denounce same as false, frivolous, malicious and mala fide. And the act and the conduct of Maliwal is equally condemnable, hence we call for a stricter action against her for abuse of her office for this unlawful, vindictive act," the club members said in the letter.
According to police, the woman alleged that the accused harassed her by frequently bumping into her while swimming in the pool of the club.
The woman had also filed a complaint in the club register and the issue was taken up by the managing committee of the club which further formed a sub-committee to look into the allegations. But, as per her complaint, the committee instead of taking action against Saigal, suspended her and her husband from the club. The woman then approached DCW.
Saigal had countered allegations against him, claiming it was a "minor incident" and the complainant tried to convert it into a "major" issue.
"It was a minor incident which she tried to make into a major issue. There are two swimming lanes and she complained that my hand touched her. I have written to the Deputy Commissioner of Police explaining the whole thing," he said.
British Prime Minister David Cameron once gleefully offered to "roll out the red carpet" for French executives wanting to escape staggering wealth taxes.
Now, with London's red carpet fraying after the vote to leave the European Union, Paris is stepping in to welcome bankers, investors and businesses who may want to escape the uncertainty hanging over the City's role as a global finance hub.
"In this new environment which is taking shape, we want France to be attractive," Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Wednesday.
As competition grows among Europe's capitals to benefit from the financial fallout of Brexit, Valls unveiled a series of measures to boost the allure of Paris.
Notably, he confirmed plans to cut France's corporate tax rate to 28 per cent from 33 per cent, a move previously announced by President Francois Hollande.
Britain's vote to leave the European Union "created shockwaves, for all European citizens but also, in a very concrete manner, many businesses settled in the United Kingdom," Valls said.
Valls said he wanted to improve the tax and legal framework to "welcome even more companies (and) make Paris the capital of smart finance."
The prime minister announced a tweak to a system allowing foreign employees to benefit from tax reductions, making it applicable for eight years instead of five.
Beyond these fiscal measures, the government also plans to put in place a "single entry point" to facilitate administrative matters for foreign companies seeking to set up shop in France -- where red tape can be a nightmare to navigate.
This service will help companies with questions about real estate, residency permits, schools and other issues.
Valls said France would open "as many sections as needed in schools" to allow children of foreign employees to be taught in their mother tongue.
The vote has several European capitals clamouring to take London's spot as a major finance centre, such as Frankfurt, Luxembourg and Dublin.
France is traditionally perceived as "anti-business", with its inflexible and hard-to-understand labour code.
According to the World Bank's 2016 "Ease of Doing Business" report, France ranks 27th out of 189 countries, while Britain comes in sixth.
The Socialist government came into power in 2012 promising as 75 per cent "supertax" on top earners -- which sent the rich fleeing -- and became another symbol of France's opposition to big business.
India's biggest gas importer Ltd has plans to set up a Rs 5,000 crore LNG import terminal at Kutubdia islands in Bangladesh as it looks to build terminals to feed demand in neighbouring countries.
"We have proposed to construct a 5 million tons per annum capacity liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal at Kutubdia islands off Cox's Bazar," Petronet Managing Director & CEO Prabhat Singh told PTI here.
The terminal will be besides 3.5 MT terminal at Bangladesh is looking to set up, for which Petronet is one of the firms that has been shortlisted.
"Bangladesh has huge unmet gas demand particularly to power generation. So during the recent visit of Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to Dhaka, we proposed to set up a 5 million tons capacity terminal on government-to-government basis," he said.
Initial response from Bangladesh, he said, has been encouraging and the company would be visiting Dhaka again this month to make a presentation on its plans.
"While we will source gas (from international market) and supply (to utilities in Bangladesh), we are seeking some kind of payment assurances to cover for our investments in an event where we have to pull out of the country," he said.
Besides Bangladesh, Petronet has also proposed to set up 1 MT LNG terminal in Sri Lanka to meet local demand.
Singh said Kutubdia islands has a natural harbor with good draft and a natural breakwater, idle for setting up LNG terminal.
The proposed terminal is besides the one Bangladesh is looking to set up at Matar Bari in Moheshkhali Island of Cox's Bazar district or Anwara, Chittagong. The terminal, to be set up on the build-own-operate basis, will supply gas to power plants.
Petronet is one of the five global energy firms shortlisted for setting up this LNG import terminal. The others shortlisted include Anglo-Dutch super-major Shell, China's Huanqiu Contracting & Engineering, Tractebel Engineering of Belgium and Japan's Mitsui.
Bangladesh is looking at importing gas to ease its energy crisis in southeastern Chittagong region, which was once almost self-reliant in natural gas but started facing a supply crisis in 2006 as output diminished from the Sangu gas field.
The country's sole offshore gas well, Sangu-11, was permanently closed in October 2013. As a result, some plants are running below the capacity and a few have been shut due to non-availability of gas.
Sources said the LNG terminal will supply gas to a proposed 1,000 MW combined cycle power plant as well as the existing power plants in Raozan and Sikalbaha through a planned pipeline.
Bangladesh is also looking at setting up a floating LNG import facility in Bay of Bengal. The Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU) of 500 million cubic feet a day capacity can however meet only a part of the growing demand for gas in power, fertiliser, factory and industry.
Preetom Saikia was today appointed chairperson of Assam State Film (Finance & Development) Corporation by the state government.
According to an official release, Saikia, who is currently the commissioner and secretary of cultural affairs department, has been appointed to the post with immediate effect as it was lying vacant.
TV personality and Congress member Bobeeta Sarma was holding the position before the Assam assembly polls.
She had resigned to contest the assembly polls from Guwahati East constituency.
Local people and some organisations today staged a protest here, alleging delay by police in taking action on a complaint filed by Mysuru Deputy Commissioner C Shikha against a politician accusing him of intimidating her.
The protest was held in front of Nazarbad police station where the complaint is lodged, demanding action against former Zilla Panchayat President Mari Gowda. They alleged that police are under pressure because Gowda is said to be a confidant of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
Gowda had allegedly stopped the DC's car recently seeking to know why a Tahsildar was not relieved from duty despite his transfer, while she was returning after meeting the Chief Minister.
Calling it an administrative matter on which he had no business to question, the DC had filed a complaint on Sunday.
Responding to reporters, the DC said it was not fair on her part to comment as the case is under investigation.
"Law will take its course," she said.
Declining to divulge any details, Mysuru Police Commissioner B Dayananda said a case has been registered in Nazarbad police station and it is being investigated by ACP.
Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said "DC has filed a complaint, police are investigating..
Opposition BJP and Congress today hit out at Aam Aadmi Party and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal accusing them of "rousing religious passions" in Punjab where Assembly election is scheduled for early next year.
"AAP is trying to rouse religious passions in Punjab with an eye on Assembly election, which portends dangerous consequences," Delhi Congress chief spokesperson Sharmishtha Mukherjee said in a statement.
Delhi Congress "condemns" AAP leader Ashish Khetan's alleged statement equating AAP's 51-point Youth Manifesto with with the Holy Guru Granth Sahib, she said.
The party has also demanded Kejriwal remove Khetan from the Delhi Dialogue Commission.
Delhi BJP President Satish Upadhyay said the incidents involving Khetan and Naresh Yadav have shown "how low" AAP and Kejriwal can "stoop" for political mileage.
"The leaders of Aam Aadmi Party have no consideration towards the religious sentiments of the people," he said in his statement.
Facing criticism for using the image of the Golden Temple on the cover page of its 'Youth Manifesto' for Punjab Assembly polls, AAP today tendered an apology, saying it did not intend to "undermine any section of the society".
Khetan said the party never "intended to undermine any section, community or any individual".
Khetan had reportedly compared the manifesto with the Guru Granth Sahib ji and other religious books while launching it in Amritsar.
Homegrown auto major Mahindra & Mahindra is restructuring its two-wheeler business after the division failed to meet its expectations and has given voluntary retirement scheme to 250 workers as part of the process.
"It is one vertical which has not met expectations last year. We are currently in the process of deciding the way forward for our two-wheeler business," Mahindra & Mahindra Executive Director Pawan Goenka told reporters here.
While he did not share details, Goenka further said: "A formal announcement will be made in the next couple of months."
Explaining the rationale behind taking such a step, he said: "Volumes were not as we planned."
On the implications of the restructuring, Goenka said: "We have right sized...We have given VRS to 250 people."
When asked if Mahindra will exit the two-wheeler business, which it had entered in 2008 after acquiring assets of then Kinetic Motorc Co, he said "It is unlikely that we will exit."
In 2015-16, Mahindra Two Wheeler saw sales declined by 12.7 per cent at 1,33,355 units.
So far this fiscal, it has sold a total of 13,549 units in the April-May period, down 38.21 per cent from 21,930 units in the year-ago period.
The company's scooter sales were at 9,609 units in the April-May period, down 19.24 per cent from 11,899 units in the same period last fiscal.
Its motorcycle sales also declined by 60.72 per cent to 3,940 units from 10,031 units in the same period last fiscal.
The company's scooters business has fared better with its models such as Gusto, Rodeo and Duro than the motorcycles segment, where it currently sell the Mojo and Centuro models.
Goenka said the company's plans is to focus on the Mojo motorcycle and the scooter model such as Gusto 125 which is doing reasonably well.
Commenting on M&M' other plans, he said currently the company is working with Italian design Pininfarina, which it had acquired last year to develop a new vehicle, without sharing details.
Pininfarina is also helping M&M's other products, including the compact SUV, TUV300.
On the preparations for the upgradation to BS VI emission norms from BS IV, Goenka said a total of 30 models, including variants of the company has to be upgraded and homologated with the per unit cost of it Rs 95,000.
He also said the company is working on development of petrol engines and by 2020 all the company's mainstream models will have petrol options.
On tractor, he said sales have grown owing to a good monsoon and the industry is likely to clock around 5.5 lakh units in the year.
Heres the bad news for education funding advocates: The House committee that oversees education spending released legislation Wednesday that would cut the U.S. Department of Educations overall budget by $1.3 billion overall, or nearly 2 percent.
But theres also good news for at least some advocates: The legislation would provide a whopping $1 billion for the Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants, aka the big giant block grant in the Every Student Succeeds Act that can be used for everything from education technology to school counseling to college and career readiness. Thats $700 million more than the Senate version of the legislation, and double the $500 million that President Barack Obama asked for.
The spending bill, which is slated for committee consideration Thursday, would provide $67 billion overall for the department, compared to $68.3 billion currently, for fiscal year 2017, which starts on Oct. 1. That money will largely finance the first year of ESSA implementation, the 2017-18 school year.
Unsurprisingly, the bill does not create the $120 million Stronger Together program that Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. pitched in his budget to encourage socioeconomic diversity in schools.
And in another key policy twist, the bill would stop the department from moving forward on new teacher preparation regulations that rely in part on student test scores.
The legislation would also provide $12.4 billion for special education state grants, an increase of $500 million over current levels. And it would finance Impact Aid, which helps school districts make up for a federal presence, at $1.3 billion, a $23 million increase.
Were still digging through the bill, and will update this post when we find more. Notice something we missed? Email aklein@epe.org or aujifusa@epe.org .
Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
Human Rights Watch warned today that European Union measures on curbing the flow of migrants from Libya to the bloc risk condemning asylum-seekers to "violent abuse" by armed groups in the North African nation.
In a new report, the New York-based rights group said the migrants had faced abuses, including "torture, rape and killings in squalid detention centers" before setting off on their perilous journey.
The migrants told HRW they faced abuse at the hands of Libyan government officials, smugglers, militiamen and criminal gangs.
The violence and lawlessness of Libya has pushed many who had initially planned to work in the oil-rich nation to attempt the dangerous sea crossings to Europe.
The report said some migrants had been detained after being intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guards at sea.
Last month, the EU expanded its anti-smuggling operation in the central Mediterranean to include training Libyan coastal and naval forces, which are intercepting boats and returning migrants to Libya.
The EU is also asking NATO to help in the operation a topic that will likely be on the agenda at the military alliance's summit in Warsaw that starts on Friday.
"The EU isn't sending people back to Libya, knowing that's unlawful, so it wants to outsource the dirty work to Libyan forces," said Judith Sunderland, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The EU - soon perhaps with NATO's help - is basically deputising Libyan forces to help seal Europe's border."
The HRW report is based on interviews conducted with 47 migrants in June on the Italian island of Sicily.
While men reported being beaten and tortured at various stages of the journey, women shared stories of sexual violence at formal detention centers in Libya or while held by smugglers.
The report quotes a 31-year-old Gambian who said criminals had raped his wife: "In Libya, they do whatever they like because there's no law, no nothing," he told HRW.
Since the 2011 ouster and killing of longtime Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, the country has sunk into lawlessness and chaos, facing a myriad of militias vying for influence and an emerging Islamic State affiliate.
On the political front, the North African country became split between two different parliaments, each with their own government. A new, UN-brokered unity government established this year in the capital, Tripoli, is trying to overcome those divisions.
A sub-inspector of Gurgaon police was arrested here by a Special Investigation Team of Mumbai police in connection with the alleged fake encounter of suspected gangster Sandeep Gadoli in Andheri, police said.
Pradhuman Yadav, Sub-Inspector of Gurgaon Police, was arrested in a raid conducted at his house last night at Old Gurgaon, Sanjay Saxena, Joint Commissioner of Mumbai Police, Crime Branch said, adding, more people are likely to be apprehended.
Two Special Investigation Teams (SIT) of Mumbai police Crime Branch, camping in two hotels at Mahipalpur and old Gurgaon in Rajokari area from March 27, were monitoring the activities of Yadav, who was changing his location to escape arrest, Saxena said.
Acting on a tip-off that Yadav was hiding in a house in Old Gurgaon, the teams raided the premised and arrested him.
"We have arrested him on charges of murder, attempt to murder, Arms Act, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence," the Joint Commissioner of Mumbai police said.
A team headed by Praful Bhonsle, ACP-Crime Branch, Mumbai police accused the Gurgaon police personnel of evading probe and not submitting blood samples of the accused policemen despite repeated reminders.
Meanwhile, Gurgaon police claimed it has no information about Yadav's arrest.
"We do not know that our sub-inspector has been arrested by Mumbai police. They did not approach or inform us. We are looking into the matter," Hawa Singh, PRO, Gurgaon police said.
Earlier, Gurgaon Police had assured Mumbai Police of extending all possible support during the course of investigation.
Pradhuman Yadav, sub-Inspector in Gurgaon crime branch was leading a team of five policemen that gunned down alleged gangster Sandeep Gadoli on February 7, inside Hotel Airport Metro in Andheri.
The team led by Yadav claimed that Gadoli, an alleged gangster from Haryana, was shot in retaliation after he fired at them to avoid arrest. His relatives alleged that it was a fake encounter and filed a police complaint.
Interrogation is on in the case to ascertain the sequence of events, Saxena said, adding, more arrests are likely to be made in the case.
Nearly 600 reports of hate crimes were made to police in London in the immediate aftermath of the UK's referendum vote to leave the European Union, according to Scotland Yard.
Figures show 599 incidents of hate crime were reported to Scotland Yard between June 24, the day the result was announced, and July 2.
There had been a 75 per cent increase in arrests related to such crimes over the past few weeks, Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe told senior Indian-origin MP Keith Vaz, the chair of the home affairs committee.
The Home Affairs Select Committee (HAC) announced an investigation into hate crime yesterday and has begun the information gathering process.
"You can't escape the conclusion of the cause and the effect. My analysis is that there seems to be an impression that those involved in this sort of behaviour have permission to behave this way," London mayor Sadiq Khan told the London Assembly today in reference to the latest figures.
"You've got to report it. The police want to hear from you. This police service that polices our city now is different to those in the past. From the top to the bottom they care about this," he urged victims.
The Met Police, which is the UK largest police force, usually averages between 20 and 50 reports of hate crime a day.
The force claimed that it had received at least eight allegations that Polish or other European communities had been targeted in the British capital soon after the Brexit vote.
Police have already said the aftermath of the referendum produced a five-fold increase in reports to a special hate crime reporting website, with 331 received by last Wednesday.
Police today stepped up security here and patrolled in minority-dominated areas to ensure peaceful celebration of Eid tomorrow.
Security forces have been deployed in all sensitive areas of the districts, District Magistrate Vimal Kumar Sharma said.
Forces will remain alert in densely-populated old towns, colonies and municipal wards, he said.
City Superintendent of Police Salman Taj Patil said police will be on the alert in thickly-populated minority colonies adjoining Hindu-dominated colonies in Sahibabad area.
Three UK commercial property funds suspended trading today on a wave of redemptions triggered by the Brexit vote, amid a fierce leadership battle to succeed to Prime Minister David Cameron.
Henderson Global Investors, Columbia Threadneedle and Canada Life made their announcements, bringing the total number of suspensions to six after similar moves by M&G Investments, Aviva Investors and Standard Life Investments earlier this week.
Together the funds manage assets totalling around 15 billion pounds (USD 19.4 billion).
Clients have been rushing to exit the funds against a backdrop of tumbling share prices for property builders since Britain voted June 23 to exit the European Union, plunging the country into unprecedented political and economic turbulence.
The turmoil on the commercial property sector comes a day before ruling Conservative Party lawmakers select the two candidates to replace Cameron, who will then be voted on by the party's 150,000 members.
Interior minister Theresa May is the clear favourite.
Despite campaigning for Britain to stay in the EU, she has said she will now push for Brexit but is not planning to invoke the formal Article 50 procedure for doing so "before the end of the year".
Stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown said more than half the UK property fund sector had now been suspended.
"Clearly there has been a knee-jerk reaction to Brexit in the commercial property sector, which may moderate over time," said Hargreaves senior analyst Laith Khalaf.
Khalaf added that the companies' funds were "likely to be closed for weeks and months rather than simply a matter of days".
In a statement, Henderson said its decision to suspend two funds was owing "to exceptional liquidity pressures... As a result of uncertainty following the EU referendum and the recent suspension of other direct property funds".
Columbia said the temporary suspensions "allows sufficient time for the orderly sale of assets."
It added that the suspended funds have invested in UK commercial property such as warehouses, shopping centres, high street shops and offices.
But it noted there was "minimal exposure to large central London properties where international demand is focused, particularly offices".
Occupancy of offices could suffer also should Britain fall into recession, as many experts have warned, or if banks and other businesses look to move staff abroad.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls earlier today unveiled a series of measures to boost the lure of Paris after the Brexit vote raised doubts about London's future as a European finance hub.
Barely a month after he took charge as the Chief Minister of Assam, Sarbananda Sonowal's effigies were today burnt at many places for hiking VAT on essential items and raising the prices of LPG, petrol and diesel.
Sonowal's effigy was burnt in his constituency Majuli by some local organisations, who along with All Assam Students Union (AASU) also took out a protest march.
His effigy was burnt in Golaghat too by All India Students Federation, who held a protest against hiking of VAT, its state secretary Madhurjya Baruah said.
AASU took out a torch light march in many districts this evening against the price hike.
People of Assam voted BJP expecting 'poriborton' (change) for better days, AASU General Secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi told PTI.
"This is not the better day for which people voted. They (BJP) promised to control price rise. But just after a month since forming the government, they have added to the burdens of the common people," he said.
AASU will organise protest demonstrations across all subdivisions on July 8 against price rise, he added.
Criticising the price hike, former chief minister Tarun Gogoi said, "Common people are already suffering from price rise. On top of it, now this VAT hike. Is this the achche din? Is this the poriborton that the BJP had promised to the Assamese people?"
CPI(M) took out a protest march here against the government's decision to hike tax rates.
All the organisations demanded immediate revocation of the increase in VAT and petro products.
Assam government has raised the price of LPG cylinder by Rs 14 by withdrawing "partial subsidy". The decision, along with some others on price hike, was taken during the first cabinet meeting of Sonowal government on June 27 but was kept under wraps.
The new tax structure was notified on July 2 but was made public on July 4 in the form of three gazette notifications, which were uploaded in the official website of Commissionerate of Taxes.
The government hiked the rates of petrol and diesel 76 paise per litre and Rs 1.67 a litre respectively by hiking the tax rates in the state.
VAT on 127 items under Second Schedule were also raised to six per cent from five per cent making price hikes imminent for scores of items of like medicines, milk, edible oil, meat, footwear, sweets, baby products, fish, ghee, spices, fruits, garments, soap, honey, gold items, bamboo goods, paper, X-Ray, CFL bulbs and medical tools.
A suicide car bomber struck a military and security compound adjacent to the international airport in southern Yemeni port city of Aden today, killing at least 10 people and setting of clashes with soldiers, medical and security officials said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which came as Muslims worldwide celebrated the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. This year, the holy month has been particularly bloody, with attacks that killed 350 people and spread terror across continents.
Yemen, which is the grips of a civil war and has long battled a potent al-Qaida branch known as Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, has also seen an Islamic State affiliate emerge to stage large-scale attacks, particularly in the country's south.
In today's attack, the officials said that after the car bomb hit the Central Security headquarters, next to the Aden International Airport, militants stormed the compound and were clashing with soldiers. Explosions were heard and ambulance sirens wailed in the distance.
The death toll was expected to rise further, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.
Yemen's civil war pits the country's Shiite rebels known as Houthis and their allies against the internationally recognised government, backed by the Saudi-led coalition of mainly Arab states.
Kuwait has hosted peace talks between the warring sides, which have now been suspended till mid-July, to try and resolve the conflict. Two months of negotiations have failed to reach a breakthrough.
Yemen's internationally recognised government has demanded the implementation of a UN Security Council resolution calling on the Houthis to withdraw from all towns and cities, including the capital, Sanaa, which they have overrun and surrender their heavy weapons.
The Houthis want to form a unity government prior to any changes on the ground, according to the negotiators.
Though a truce went into effect a week before the talks began, the two sides have repeatedly accused each other of breaking it.
The conflict in Yemen has killed an estimated 9,000 people and pushed the Arab world's poorest country to the brink of famine.
Suspected terrorist Mohammed Mosiruddin received several phone calls from Syria, Iraq and Bangladesh, investigators have claimed citing details of the call list on his mobile phone.
"It was quite surprising to see so many calls on the suspected terrorist's mobile phone made from foreign countries. After checking the numbers we have found that a few calls were made from Syria, some from Iraqi numbers while some were made to and received from Bangladesh also," a CID officer told PTI.
"There were calls made and received from other states of the country also. We are verifying them and trying to find out who and why the calls were made to Mosiruddin," he said.
Asked whether any documents related to Mosiruddin's link to Islamic State (ISIS) and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) were seized, the officer said, "We will not be able to divulge that but I can confirm that we have got definite clues relating to Mosiruddin's links to the terror groups."
It was learnt that during a joint grilling session by CID, National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) sleuths, Mosiruddin has said a list of top IPS officers in the country including from West Bengal were being prepared.
"But he was mum when asked for what purpose the list was getting prepared ... We are checking whether he (Mosiruddin) was lying to confuse us or not," he said, adding the suspected terrorist has claimed to have downloaded images of several IPS officers from the Internet also.
Questioning Mosiruddin, it was found that he was back in West Bengal and was heading to his native place Labhpur in Birbhum district after six years on an "assignment" to kill someone there.
CID today arrested Kallu Sheikh and Amin Sheikh who were waiting for Mosiruddin at Burdwan station and were detained along with him on Monday night. It was being suspected that the two men were working for one of the two terror groups and were recruited by Mosiruddin.
Mosiruddin gave out names of a person, who he claimed was
his handler in Hyderabad.
On the suspected terrorist's return to Bengal, the CID officer said, "There were two purposes for which he has come back after so many years. One was to spread the tentacles of the IS and other to murder someone and for that purpose he had bought that sharp knife."
Mosiruddin was first detained by CID officers who were following him at Amadpur in Burdwan district inside Viswabharati Fast Passenger train and then arrested at Burdwan station for his alleged links to ISIS and JMB.
A 13-inch-long knife, an improvised small firearm and three rounds of bullets were seized from him.
Mosiruddin was produced at a Howrah court today and charged under the Arms Act and also with sedition. He was remanded in police custody for 14 days.
Kallu and Amin were also charged with sedition.
Mosiruddin was residing in Tamil Nadu's Tirppur district with his wife and two children for over six years. He was running a grocery shop there.
He got down at Howrah station, went to Esplanade where he bought a sharp weapon and returned to it to board the train to return to Labhpur, the officer said.
Acting on an information that he was returning to Kolkata on Tuesday, CID had kept a track of his movements in the city and arrested him from Burdwan station.
CID sources said NIA sleuths had been keeping an eye on Mosiruddin for quite some time.
Burdwan district entered the terror map in October, 2014 when two suspected JMB terrorists were killed while making improvised explosive devices (IEDs) at a rented house at Khagragarh.
The NIA arrested a mechanical engineering student on suspicion of being a terrorist from Durgapur in March. Another person, suspected to be a Bangladeshi militant, was also arrested from Asansol later.
Telangana lower court judges, who had gone on a mass leave last month to protest against the suspension of 11 subordinate court judges by the High Court, today returned to work.
The Telangana Judges Association (TJA) had yesterday called off the mass leave protest at an 'extraordinary general body meeting' held here, following appeals made by the Chief Justice of India, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Governor and the Acting Chief Justice of the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad.
"Yes, the judges have rejoined duties from today," a senior judicial officer told PTI, adding that the matter with regard to their demand seeking revocation of suspension of 11 judicial officers will be "taken care of by the Chief Justice".
The judicial employees, who had stayed away from work protesting appointment of the judges who hail from Andhra Pradesh to the courts in Telangana, had also called off their agitation yesterday and they also resumed their duty today.
President of the Federation of Bar Associations of Telangana G Jithender Reddy had yesterday told PTI that the agitation would continue. He had also said the federation would hold a meeting at Warangal after Ramzan to discuss future course of action.
Around 200 judicial officers, working in various capacities in courts across the state, had gone on mass leave on June 28 amid the agitation against appointment of judges from Andhra Pradesh to the Telangana courts.
The Hyderabad High Court -- which is common for AP and Telangana -- had suspended 11 judges on disciplinary grounds for taking part in the agitation over allocation of judges.
On June 26, over 100 judges under the banner of Telangana Judges Association had taken out a procession and submitted a representation to the Governor, protesting allotment of judges who hail from Andhra Pradesh to the subordinate courts in Telangana. This had led to HC's action of suspending 11 judges.
Jammu and Kashmir Congress Chief GA Mir today expressed deep sorrow and serious concern over recent suicide bombing outside the Prophet's mosque in the Saudi city of Medina, terming the attack as "highly painful".
"We strongly condemn the shameful act in which many precious lives were lost. We express serious concern and deep sorrow over the bombings in Madina Sharief," he said.
The attack in Medina is tantamount to attacking world peace. The world should get united against the perpetrators of terror and defeat the designs of anti-peace forces vitiating atmosphere of friendship to serve their vested interests, said the PCC chief.
He said the terror attack has the hurt sentiments of entire Muslim world.
While offering condolences, he expressed heartfelt sympathies for the bereaved families who lost their dear ones in the terror attack.
Last year, it looked like the Clark County School District, the nations fifth-largest school system, was going to be broken up into a number of smaller districts.
But a legislative panel tasked with carrying out Assembly Bill 394the Clark County reorganization bill that passed in the 2015 sessionapproved a proposal last week that would keep the Clark County school district as one entity, but shift power from the central office to the principals who run the districts 357 schools. Under this new proposal, the principal would be responsible for the entire school operation, but that responsibility would come with greater accountability.
This is not the final step in the reorganization process. The proposal approved on Friday will be subjected to six community hearings before it is adopted. By law, the final reorganization plan has to be approved by Jan. 1 2017.
Under the proposal , principals will have decision-making authority over budgeting, staffing, and purchasing equipment and supplies. The district will retain control over negotiations related to salaries and benefits for teachers and administrators. It will also continue to be responsible for payroll, accounting, setting measures of student outcomes, and creating policies for the school board to consider.
School funding will also be allocated on a per-pupil basis, with a weighted funding formula used for students with special needs, including low-income students, English-language learners, and students with disabilities.
Shift in Power and Accountability
But the real power will lie with principals and the schools, which will be known as local school precincts.
The proposal will create local school organizational teams, which will be made up of the principals and at least two teachers, at least two other school employees, and at least two parents or legal guardians of students.
The principal will be a non-voting member of the committee. The other members will be elected, and they will not be paid for their time on the teams. The organizational committees will give assistance and advice on the development of a school operation plan, and, when principal vacancies arise, help prioritize the types of traits to look for in a new school leader, according to draft regulations.
The local school precincts will be overseen by a newly-created position of school associate superintendent, who will be in charge of no more than 25 schools. Part of the school associate superintendents duties will include supervising and training principals and approving the principals school operation plans.
The proposal also called for annual surveys of students, employees, parents and for the survey results to be made public.
What Happens Next?
The timeline for the proposals implementation is quite aggressive. Michael Strembitsky, the consultant hired to develop the new model, hopes for training on the new plan to start this school year and for the plan to be in place by the 2017-18 school year. Thats earlier than the legislature anticipated.
The district had floated a counter-proposal, which would have kept the district intact, but created seven instructional precincts, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. That plan did not gain traction.
District Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky will now work with Strembitsky to move along the new proposal.
Strembitsky has said that the reorganization plan will be cost-neutral to the district, but there will be yet-to-be-determined transition costs, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The broad contours of the proposal approved last week are similar to strands in a plan that was put forward by the Clark County Education Association, which represents the districts teachers union.
John Vellardita, the unions executive director, said the original attempt to break up the district started with the notion that a big bureaucratic entity such as Clark County was failing at its core mission: improving student outcomes.
Hence, the idea to break it up made sense, he told Education Week in an interview. But as talks progressed, the conversation zeroed-in on what was the best education model for students and their parents. That led to a focus on the school site as the primary hub of the delivery system, he said.
Vellardita said that if schools are given decision-making powers, adequate resources, and had teacher, student, parental, and community engagement, they improve. He also stressed that training in the new model, particularly for principals who were being asked to do more than had been required of them in the past, was critical for the plan to succeed.
The unions proposal had included providing a stipend for parents serving on the school organizational committee as a recognition of how challenging it can be for some in urban areas to take time off from their jobs to serve.
At a June hearing, some parents had expressed concerns about the reorganizations impact on special-needs children, including students with disabilities and English-language learners, and wanted more assurances from the committee.
Principals will have to be trained in budgeting and other areas. While the proposal emphasizes the need for training for things to run smoothly, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that two principals testified at the hearing on Friday that while the success of the plan rested on their profession, principals were not part of the process. (A principal was part of the reorganizations Technical Advisory Committee, the paper reported.)
Image source: Proposed reorganization plan for the Clark County School District courtesy of the June 16, 2016 meeting of the Advisory Committee to Develop a Plan to Reorganize the Clark County School District.
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Son of a TMC councillor in Kalyani in Nadia district was today arrestd after he allegedly abused and assaulted junior doctors at a hospital here, police said.
Goutam Roy, son of local councillor Amar Roy of ward 13 of the Kalyani Municipality, was charged under various sections of the IPC for "pointing a gun" at a junior doctor the JNM Hospital, police said.
He was produced today in Kalyani court and released on bail, they said.
Late last Monday some junior doctors at the JNM Hospital had been assaulted allegedly by some local medical shop-owners around midnight, as a fallout of doctors' protest over an alleged drug racket running in and around the hospital.
According to the principal of the Kalyani Medical College Shantanu Bannerjee, the existence of the drug racket was challenged by the setting up of the fair price medicine shop.
"All medicines are available here with a discount of about 60 to 70 per cent on MRP. But it obviously put the drug racket in a tight spot. So, the racketeers abused, threatened and in some cases even beat up the junior doctors," he alleged.
A meeting was held among the college authority, the local police and the local administration, which was attended by SDPO, Kalyani, Kaustovdipta Acharjee and SDO, Kalyani, Swapan Kumar Kundu.
Tamil Nadu Governor K Rosiah and Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa among other leaders extended their Ramzan greetings today.
"On the holy occasion of Ramzan, I extend my warm Eid-ul-Fitr Greetings to Muslim brethren in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and all over the country," Rosaiah said.
The Holy Quaran emphasises on belief, Prayer, charity and good deeds, he said in a Raj Bhavan statement.
"Let us resolve to promote brotherhood, unity, peace, love and compassion and join hands to create a harmonious world," he added.
Ramzan is being celebrated tomorrow in the state.
Jayalalithaa recalled that Muslims fast for 30 days during the Ramzan season and celebrate it by holding special prayers in mosques and spending time with friends and relatives.
She pointed out at her government's various welfare measures meant for the Muslim community, such as provision of rice to over 3000 mosques to make gruel during the Ramzan season.
"Let love and peace be all over the world on this day and I extend my Ramzan greetings to my Muslim brothers and sisters," she said in a statement.
In his Ramzan greetings, DMK President M Karunanidhi hailed the principles of Prophet Mohammed.
PMK founder S Ramadoss and the AAP state unit also extended their Ramzan greetings.
Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu Thouheed Jamaath celebrated Eid today across the state with scores of Muslims holding prayers in different parts.
Film & Television Institute of India (FTII) today said noted actor Tom Alter, who had resigned as the head of the Acting department last month, has taken back his resignation.
"I was given the responsibility by academic council to persuade him to take his resignation back and now he has taken his resignation back and will continue as head of the Acting department," said Bhupendra Kainthola, Director, FTII.
Alter was a very fine and veteran actor and the institute needed him, Kainthola said.
While resigning, Alter had said his other commitments prevented him from devoting time to the FTII assignment.
However, FTII sources said that a strained relationship with the students had also contributed to Alter's decision.
In a first, Japanese scientists have used a computer programme and a touch screen device to encourage a paralysed chimpanzee to walk again, showing that euthanasia need not be the only option for animals injured in captivity.
Researchers of the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University in Japan use chimpanzees' interaction with computers and touch screens to study the cognition and perception of these primates.
When Reo, a male chimpanzee, was paralysed from the neck down, dedicated staff put this technology to further use by encouraging the animal to walk again.
This is the first case in which a paralysed chimpanzee has been rehabilitated through such a dedicated programme.
When Reo was 24 years old in 2006, he suddenly became paralysed when a portion of his spinal cord became inflamed. For the first ten months thereafter, the chimpanzee was severely disabled, lying on his back.
He gradually recovered enough to sit up, and could later pull himself upright by using suspended ropes.
Intensive physiotherapy over a period of 41 months followed, after which he was able to climb about again using only his arms.
To aid Reo's ultimate integration back among the other twelve animals held at the institute, his carers decided to try to get him walking again.
They incorporate a computerised task in this process. This was considered an option because in his youth Reo had learnt how to perform cognitive tasks on a touch panel, and in doing so had become used to receiving food rewards whenever he succeeded at tasks presented to him.
A computer-controlled monitor was therefore placed on one wall, and cognitive tasks were again put to him.
It was not plain sailing at first, and the research team had to adapt their ideas seven times before they received any cooperation from a somewhat fearful Reo.
Thereafter, whenever he completed a task successfully, a food reward was placed on a tray on the opposite side of the room. This meant that Reo had to move at least two meters to reach it.
To busy himself at the screen again to start a new task, he had to make the two meter return journey.
At first he did so using a rope for assistance, but gradually he started travelling in an upright seated position which resembled the side-to-side manner of a penguin walking on land.
The rehabilitation sessions encouraged him to increase his movements considerably, and he started walking up to five hundred meters in a two-hour session.
"Cognitive tasks may be a useful way to rehabilitate physically disabled chimpanzees, and thus improve their welfare in captivity," said Yoko Sakuraba of Kyoto University, adding that euthanasia need not be the only option for animals injured in captivity.
The research was published in the journal Primates.
Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's four-nation tour of African countries, Assocham today said trade agreements at bilateral and multilateral levels along with investment and capacity building cooperation are needed to fructify unity between the two regions.
"No fruitful trade relationship with African nations can be built without supplementing and complementing it with an equally organic and trustworthy investment relationship where capital can flow into key African development sectors seamlessly and only then mutual economic benefit can be derived," Assocham Secretary General D S Rawat said.
Ahead of his departure, Modi today said his four-nation tour of African countries is aimed at enhancing ties with that continent, particularly in the economic sphere and people-to-people contacts.
Modi will begin his tour with Mozambique and then travel to South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.
Focus of the visit will be on deepening cooperation in areas of hydrocarbons, maritime security, trade and investment, agriculture and food.
Rawat outlined sectors like pharmaceuticals, capital goods, automobiles and spare parts are areas offering new trade opportunities that need focus to enhance trade relations between India and Africa.
"Consumer goods, wholesale and retail, construction, housing, telecom, financial and banking services are the sectors where India can engage itself with African nations at various levels," he said.
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, raised $51 million in June for his campaign, an improvement over his May collections but still much less than his Democratic party opponent Hillary Clinton's June haul.
Of these $51 million, $26 million were raised through digital and small donations. Another $25 million came through 22 fund-raising events throughout the country.
This includes the last week of May, when Trump officially kicked off his fund raising efforts.
Trump, the billionaire from New York, had self-funded his campaign during the primary elections.
According to the Trump campaign, the donation of $26 million was made possible with over 400,000 supporters.
As many as 94% of the supporters donated under $200, the Trump campaign said.
"The first email solicitation, which contained an unprecedented $2 million match from Donald Trump, exceeded our goal, collecting over $3 million in contributions in one day," the campaign said.
In addition, Trump personally contributed $3.8 million to the campaign this month.
"The results from this month show the enthusiastic movement the campaign has created. People want to invest in a better future for America and make America great again! The campaign very much appreciates the broad support," said the Trump campaign in a statement.
"We just started our fund-raising efforts in the last week of May and we are extremely pleased with the broad-based support in the last five weeks for the Trump Campaign and Trump Victory. We want to thank our many volunteers and contributors that are committed to electing Trump as President in November," said Steven Mnuchin, Trump for President Finance chairman.
The June collections of Trump campaign saw a dramatic uptick over May when the Trump campaign was able to raise a meagre amount of $3 million and the Republican National Committee raised about $11 million.
In comparison, Clinton raised almost $70 million in June for her campaign and Democratic partners, her campaign announced last week.
Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz today said presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump "is certainly a very big risk for the global economy".
"I certainly think he is a very big risk for the global economy. I think the damage he has done already by raising the spectre...Represents a force of instability in global financial and trade system," he told reporters ahead of an interactive session organised by Azim Premji University here.
He was asked whether Trump could be the biggest risk to the global economy following his hostility towards free trade, including North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and his repeated comments labelling China as a currency manipulator.
Many economists and experts on financial matters in the US have come out openly, saying if Trump wins the election, his hostile attitude to free trade would alienate Mexico and China in particular, resulting in escalation of trade war.
Stiglitz said all presidential candidates have come out against the new trade agreements, including Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and these are not good for American citizens and Europe.
"All the presidential candidates have come out against the new trade agreements - TTIP and TPP. Those new trade agreements are not very good for American citizens and I don't think they are very good for Europeans," he said.
Stiglitz said most of the aspects is not about trade, but about the investment and intellectual property provisions.
The real concern, however, would be if India goes back on its longstanding view on intellectual property provision that has access to generic medicines, which is important, he said.
"India has a long standing view that it has an IP provision that has access to generic medicines. That's very important. It will be very bad if India went back on that long standing position on access to generic medicines," he said.
Stiglitz said TPP and TTIP is an attempt to make generic medicines less accessible.
He alleged India was under pressure from US to follow he same tradition, but it's important for the country not to give in to it, "which comes totally from big pharmacompanies which does nor represent the interests of the American people."
Stiglitz said Hillary Clinton of the Democratic Party had already expressed opposition to TPP which includes these provisions on generic medicinesand investments.
Asked if TPP was mainly aimed at containing China, he said, "One of the arguments put forward in the US is about maintaining American hegemony in Asia."
"President Barack Obama said who is going to write the rules of trade in Asia? The response of Asia should be Asia should be writing their own rules, not the US," he said.
US President Barack Obama has thrown his weight behind Hillary Clinton as he likened the presidential race between the former Secretary of State and real estate tycoon Donald Trump to a choice between "future and imaginary past".
"This is a choice between whether we are going to cling to some imaginary past or whether we're going to reach for the future," Obama said in his maiden campaign rally in support of Clinton at Charlotte in North Carolina yesterday.
"This November, in this election, you are going to have a very clear choice to make; between two fundamentally different visions of where America should go. And this isn't even really a choice between left and right or Democrat or Republican," he said in his address to thousands of Clinton supporters.
"This is about whether we have an America that works for everybody, or just a few people," Obama said making a passionate plea to the countrymen to support his former Secretary of State for the next presidential elections on November 8.
In his address, Obama made no mention of the FBI decision not to recommend charge sheet against Clinton. Obama said he values Clinton's experience and judgement.
In 2008, Obama created history by becoming the first non-White male to be elected as the president of the US. If elected, Clinton would be the first woman to be elected as the president of the US.
"Hillary is not somebody who fears the future. She believes that it is ours to shape, the same way it's always been. Hillary understands that we make our own destiny as long as we're together, as long as we think of ourselves not as just a collection of individuals or a collection of interest groups or a collection of states, but as a United States of America," Obama said.
"She knows that. She knows that when it comes to our economy. Because she knows our economy works best not when it only benefits a few at the top, but when everybody's got a fair shot at success," he said.
Without naming Trump, Obama lashed out at the Republican presidential nominee. "A bunch of phony bluster doesn't keep us safe. And she understands that we can't retreat from a world that needs American leadership," he said.
"That's why she offers a smarter approach that uses every element of American power to protect our people and to protect our allies. She is and will be a stateswoman who makes us proud around the world," Obama said.
Obama was formally endorsed by Clinton last June and they were scheduled to kick off their joint rally from Wisconsin. However, that was cancelled because of the shooting at an Orlando gay club. The US Vice President Joe Biden would join Clinton on the campaign trail on Friday.
"I agree with Hillary that our democracy works best when there are basic bonds of trust between us, when we recognise that every voice matters. The people who disagree with us most strongly love our country just as much as we do. You've never heard Hillary Clinton demonize other people," he said.
In an apparent dig at Trump, Obama said this is not a reality show. "This is not entertainment, this is real. This is not a reality show, this is reality. And being President of the US means you have to deal with reality," he said.
"When a crisis hits you can't just walk off the set. You can't fire the scriptwriter. You can't be reckless. You don't have the luxury of just saying whatever pops into your head. You've actually got to know what you're talking about," Obama said.
"You've actually got to do your homework. You can't just kick out reporters. You can't go to another country and if they ask you a question you don't like just kick them out. Because you're in another country," he added.
Two narcotics smugglers were arrested along the Indo-Pak border in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district, police said today.
Navjot Singh and Swaran Singh were apprehended last night by Hiranagar police on a highway during routine checking, a police officer said.
The duo, who were coming from Jammu, tried to speed away but the police intercepted their motorcycle and overpowered them, he said.
During checking, a packet of narcotic substance, weighing 500 grams, was recovered with grey colour plastic tape on it, the officer said.
It has been established that both of them are Heroin smuggler and they are active since long, he said.
The duo revealed during interrogation that it was their third consignment of contraband narcotic (heroin) being delivered to Punjab (Amritsar) from Jammu-based smugglers, the officer said.
Police have registered a case and investigation into the matter is underway.
The UK joining the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 to oust dictator Saddam Hussein was not used as a "last resort" and was based on "flawed intelligence," an inquiry into the war today said in a damning indictment of then prime minister Tony Blair's decision to go to war.
The UK did not exhaust all peaceful options before joining the invasion of Iraq, said John Chilcot, the chairman of the official inquiry into the war set up in 2009.
"We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort," the former senior civil servant told reporters.
He also said judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction "were presented with a certainty that was not justified" and post-war planning was "wholly inadequate".
His 12-volume, 2.6-million-word report on the war on Iraq 13 years ago comes over seven years after the inquiry was ordered by then prime minister Gordon Brown.
About 180 British soldiers were killed in the Iraq war from 2003 to 2009.
Delivering a crushing verdict on Blair who was prime minister when the UK decided to go to war alongside the US to unseat Hussein as president of Iraq, Chilcot said, "When the potential for military action arises, the government should not commit to a firm political objective before it is clear it can be achieved. Regular reassessment is essential.
"The UK's relationship with the US has proved strong enough over time to bear the weight of honest disagreement. It does not require unconditional support where our interests or judgments differ," it said.
Chilcot's long-overdue report spans almost a decade of UK government policy decisions between 2001 and 2009.
It covers the background to the decision to go to war, whether troops were properly prepared, how the conflict was conducted and what planning there was for its aftermath, a period in which there was intense sectarian violence.
In reference to the now-notorious "dodgy dossier" which had reportedly claimed Iraqi dictator Hussein, who was eventually killed during the conflict, had a stash of weapons of mass destruction, the report finds that intelligence had "not established beyond doubt" that Hussein continued to produce chemical and biological weapons.
The inquiry set out a note sent by Blair to then US President George W Bush on July 28, 2002, months before the invasion of Iraq, which indicates how early on the decision to go to war had begun to be crystallised.
Blair wrote "I will be with you, whatever. But this is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties. The planning on this and the strategy are the toughest yet".
Meanwhile, Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament after the report was released that lessons must be learnt from the UK's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 to ensure that war is always the last resort.
Blair said getting rid of Hussein was "the right thing to
do," adding "He is a potential threat. He could be contained. But containment is always risky. His departure would free up the region. And his regime is brutal and inhumane".
The inquiry notes that the former Labour party leader had in fact been warned that military action against Hussein would "increase the threat from al-Qaeda to the UK and to UK interests".
"He had also been warned that an invasion might lead to Iraq's weapons and capabilities being transferred into the hands of terrorists," it finds.
Chilcot, however, does not pass judgement on whether the war was legal.
But it says the way the legal basis was dealt with before the March 20, 2003 invasion was far from satisfactory.
The report also demolishes Blair's claim made when he gave evidence to the inquiry in 2010 that the difficulties encountered by British forces in post-invasion Iraq could not have been known in advance.
"We do not agree that hindsight is required. The risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability, and al-Qaeda activity in Iraq, were each explicitly identified before the invasion," it said.
By July 2009, at least 150,000 Iraqis had died and more than 1 million were displaced.
The report says that in future, all aspects of any such intervention need to be calculated, debated and challenged with rigour.
High school students are becoming less and less interested in becoming teachers, a trend thats picking up speed at an alarming rate, the ACT said Wednesday.
An ACT survey of high school graduates who took its college-entrance exam shows that in the class of 2015, only 4 percent said they planned to become teachers, counselors, or administrators . In 2014, 5 percent said they had such plans, and in 2010, 7 percent did. Twenty years ago, 9 percent of high school students who took the ACT said they were planning education careers.
Since the 1960s, the Iowa-based testmaker has surveyed the college and career plans of students who take the ACT and go on to graduate from high school. About 1.9 million such students are represented in the most recent survey, of the class of 2015. Only 87,653 said they were aiming for careers in education.
The ACT found a continuation of another disturbing trend in the survey as well: The students who plan to become educators are lower-than-average achievers. That finding is based on the proportion who met its college-readiness benchmarks, ACT scores that correlate with a good chance of getting at least Bs or Cs in college courses.
At a time when good teachers in the STEM field are in great demand, the students who took the ACT and said they aspired to be educators were particularly weak in math and science, the ACT report found.
Taken together, the findings are an ominous sign for the teaching pipeline, ACT Chief Executive Officer Marten Roorda said in a statement released with the report. Combined with the fact that a teacher shortage already exists in many states and subject areas, these figures are very sobering, the ACT report said.
Interest in teachingat least among students who took the ACTvaried by state. Looking only at states where more than half of the students took the ACT, Louisiana, Hawaii, Florida, and Arizona were particularly low: Only 3 percent of high school grads who took the ACT said they planned education careers. Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, and West Virginia came out on the top end, with 8 percent of ACT-taking graduates saying they planned to enter an education field.
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Photo credit: Getty
A UN panel says has arbitrarily detained an American woman in violation of human rights norms, bringing her case back into public attention ahead of a visit to Beijing by UN Secretary General Ban Ki- moon this week.
business consultant Sandy Phan-Gillis, 56, has been in detention in for more than a year, accused of stealing state secrets.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention says she hasn't been brought before judicial authorities or given access to legal assistance, in an opinion released last week.
The San Francisco-based human rights group The Dui Hua Foundation said yesterday that it was the first time that the working group in its 25-year history had deemed an American citizen to have been arbitrarily detained by .
A detention is deemed arbitrary if it has no legal basis or legal rights are ignored.
Ban is scheduled to meet President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday and Premier Li Keqiang on Friday, though it isn't clear if Ban plans to raise Phan-Gillis' case in talks with the leaders.
The UN working group says that the Chinese government told it that Phan-Gillis is charged with "assisting external parties to steal national intelligence." The UN group called for her to be released or given proper assistance by a legal counsel.
China's foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei, in a faxed response to questions, said: "All of Sandy Phan-Gillis' rights have been fully guaranteed, and she has been treated well."
He urged the UN working group to "perform its duties impartially, respect China's judicial sovereignty and stop groundless accusations against the relevant Chinese authorities' lawful handling of the case."
The US Embassy in China had no immediate comment.
Phan-Gillis, a Vietnamese-American of Chinese descent, often worked as an intermediary in ventures between Chinese and US business interests.
She was detained in March 2015 during a visit to China as part of an American trade delegation that was promoting business opportunities in her hometown of Houston, Texas.
She disappeared from the rest of her group in the southern city of Zhuhai at the border crossing into Macau.
Congress on Wednesday claimed that under Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar, a "systematic attempt to hand over everything" in public education system to the private sector would gain momentum and appealed to progressive and nationalist forces to come together to counter the trend.
Party spokesman Manish Tewari said apprehensions arose over Javadekar's track record of being "kind" to private institutions during his tenure in the Environment Ministry.
Recalling that the minister had waived a fine of Rs 200 crore on an influential industrialist accused of environmental degradation, he said in this backdrop Javadekar taking charge of the HRD Ministry was "all the more ominous and sinister".
Taking a dig at Smriti Irani, whose tenure in the HRD Ministry was marred by several controversies, he wondered what would happen in Textiles Ministry, where she was shifted in Tuesday's expansion of the Union Cabinet.
Accusing the government of making a "systematic" effort to "emasculate" India's public education system and "handing over everything to the private sector", he said such attempts would be more harmful for the poor.
Tewari also took exception to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) calling a meeting of Vice-Chancellors in Chhattisgarh recently to review functioning of the education system in the state.
Questioning the locus standi of RSS in the matter, he said, "This is not saffronisation of education. This is far more sinister. This is fascistisation of education."
Alleging that the government was systematically attempting to "subvert and dismantle" the public education system of this country, he said, "What is scarier is the frontal assault by the HRD Minister on the autonomy of public universities."
Claiming that the University Grants Commission has now even "taken away" from public universities the right to frame their own syllabi, he said the protests by teachers and professors across the country had no impact on the government.
He said while the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) had raised the budget of HRD Ministry from Rs 11,000 crore to Rs 82,000 crore "the moment the Modi government came to office, it rolled it back to Rs 69,000 crore. Last year, it marginally increased it to Rs 72,394 crore".
He said the University Grants Commission (UGC) had its budget reduced by 55 per cent and such a "huge slash is absolutely unprecedented".
"It is time that all progressive and all nationalist forces got together to protect the public character of India's education system," he added.
Senior BJP leader and former Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Bhagat Singh Koshyari today said that it was up to the people of Nepal to decide whether they wanted the Hindu Kingdom to be reinstalled in the Himalayan nation.
Koshyari, who was in Kathmandu to attend the first meeting of the eminent persons group from India and Nepal, told the Himalayan Television that "it is up to the people of Nepal to decide whether they wanted Hindu Kingdom to be reinstalled in the country."
"India does not have any say about that," he said.
Nepal was converted into a secular state from a Hindu state in 2008 through a Parliament declaration following the abolition of the 240-year-old monarchy.
The Maoists came to power that year after winning the general election and Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' became the prime minister. But they were ousted in 2013 in the constituent assembly polls.
According to official figures, over 81 per cent of Nepal's nearly 28 million people are Hindus, followed by 9 per cent Buddhists, 4.4 per cent Muslims and 1.4 per cent Christians.
In another interview to the BBC Nepali service, Koshyari admitted that he met Nepal's deposed king Gyanendra Shah last month during a visit to the country.
Koshyari said he met Shah in the third week of June.
"I dont think meeting former king is a crime," he said.
"(Shah) is a citizen of this country and if someone wants to meet me, then it's my duty to meet that person," he said.
Koshyari said he told Shah: "You have so many relations in India, our people directly contact you in case they need any help for marriage etc and you also visit there."
"You have become a basis for unity, you continue to play that role," the BJP leader said of his meeting with Shah.
Koshyari, however, said he has no plans to visit the former king this time.
Shah, the last king of the dynasty, ruled Nepal from 2001 to 2008. He took charge of absolute power in February 2005 that lasted for 13 months.
The Shah dynasty rulers were revered as incarnations of Lord Vishnu and performed public rituals during festivals.
To a question Koshyari said, Nepalese people "are more flexible."
"Even the Communist leaders of Nepal visit Tirupati Balaji temple, when they come to India, but the Maoist leaders of India do not visit Pashupatinath temple, when they come to Nepal," he said.
Koshyari is a frequent traveller to Nepal and enjoys good relations with Nepalese politicians.
NHIDCL, a government company mandated to fast-track highway projects, today said it will ensure urgent repair of highways on Assam-Tripura border to improve connectivity to Tripura.
National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (NHIDCL) which has been asked to repair roads and bridges there, has already invited tenders for the work.
Last week, the Tripura government sought the Centre's help to repair the highway stretches to ensure supply of essential commodities to the state, following which Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari reassured that repair work would be taken up on a "war footing".
"We are ensuring urgent repair of the 17.95 km road section from Chandkhera to Kurti Bridge on NH-208A in Assam, besides stretches on NH 44 in Tripura . We have already rushed our teams there for the repair, restoration and upgradation work," NHIDCL MD Anand Kumar told PTI.
Kumar said that given the hardships faced by the people there, NHIDCL has started urgent repair work.
"Under medium term-strategy, NHIDCL has invited short-term tenders for repair while for long-term repair, which includes black topping etc of the highways, bids are being invited," he said.
Last week, Gadkari has said, "I have instructed officials to work on a war footing to fix NH-44 so as to improve connectivity to Tripura."
The NH-44 constitutes Shillong-Passi-C288 Badarpur- Agartala Sabroom Shillong-Nongstoin section.
"I would be monitoring the progress of this highway on a fortnightly basis," the minister had said.
Earlier, Tripura PWD minister Badal Chowdhury had urged the Centre and the Assam government to take immediate repair of highways in Assam as thousands of trucks carrying essential commodities to Tripura were stranded.
A long stretch of the Assam-Agartala section at Lowerpoa in Karimganj district of Assam has remained badly damaged for about a year and about 10-15 km stretch is unfit for movement of vehicles for the past three months, Chowdhury had said.
On several occasions in the past, commodities were transported to the state from Kolkata port by using water ways of Bangladesh through the Ashuganj river port on Meghna.
San Diego police are on the lookout for a man thought to be responsible for a series of gruesome attacks on homeless people, two of whom have died.
The latest assault took place yesterday when witnesses reported seeing someone crouched over what they initially thought was a burning heap of clothing in the California town.
A bystander then realized that a person was actually on fire and ran over and pulled a burning towel off the victim, captain David Nisleit, of the San Diego homicide unit, told reporters.
The man was rushed to hospital with critical injuries to his upper torso.
Nisleit said investigators believe that whoever carried out the attack was also behind three similar attacks since early Sunday that have left two other homeless men dead and one severely injured.
"I can tell you we are absolutely convinced these cases are linked, and we will continue to work them as a series," Nisleit said.
"This is a person that we need removed from the community as fast as we can," he added, noting that the attacks appeared random.
The first victim was found on Sunday morning after witnesses reported seeing a man on fire running down train tracks.
Witnesses reported seeing a man fleeing the scene carrying a gas canister.
Early Monday, a second homeless man was found bleeding from stab wounds and was hospitalized in critical condition. Shortly thereafter another transient was found dead about three miles away.
Nisleit advised the city's homeless population to remain vigilant and avoid sleeping alone.
He said the attacks had been extremely unsettling for the homeless population as well as police.
The US has provided duty-free access to travel goods from Nepal under its annual trade preference programme, which provides opportunities to many of the world's poorest countries to use trade to grow their economies and climb out of poverty.
The Annual Product Review under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) programme was announced by the United States Trade Representative's (USTR) office.
The measure adds new duty-free status for travel goods such as luggage, backpacks and handbags for Least Developed Beneficiary Developing Countries (LDBDCs), including Nepal.
The new rule makes these products eligible for duty-free status beginning July 1.
"This is a tremendous opportunity for Nepali businesses to expand their exports to US markets," said the US Ambassador to Nepal Alaina B Teplitz.
"A strong commitment to open-market policies, a stable and transparent legal environment that secures property rights, policies that foster dynamic entrepreneurial activity, and strategic infrastructure investments will help Nepal make the most of this opportunity," she said.
In 2015, Nepal ranked second, after Cambodia, of all LDC exporters of luggage products to the US. Its exports of these products have grown 7 per cent since 2014, totaling USD 1.8 million last year.
US imports of travel and luggage goods products totaled almost USD 10 billion in 2015.
US trade preference programmes provide opportunities for many of the world's poorest countries to use trade to grow their economies and climb out of poverty.
About 5,000 products from 122 beneficiary developing countries and territories, including 43 least-developed countries, are eligible for duty-free treatment when exported to the US under the GSP programme, which is a 40-year-old trade preference programme.
US Secretary of State John Kerry began a two-day visit to Georgia and Ukraine today to reassure NATO's eastern friends they will not be abandoned to face Russia alone.
Georgia's President Giorgi Margvelashvili and Ukraine's Petro Poroshenko will attend the Atlantic alliance's summit in Warsaw on Friday, but as partners not as full members.
With large chunks of both countries already occupied by Russian forces, there is no prospect of either former Soviet republic joining NATO's mutual defence pact soon.
Washington, however, is keen not to cede any more ground to President Vladimir Putin's newly assertive Russia, and Kerry's visit to Kiev and Tbilisi is more than a symbol.
US and Georgian officials will sign a bilateral security agreement aimed at strengthening the small republic's defences, a senior State Department official said.
"These are important members of the alliance, partners whose security means a lot to the United States," she said.
"Their security interests and Euro-Atlantic aspirations - their aspirations to get closer to the European Union and NATO - matter to us," she added.
Asked how the Kremlin might see such a visit ahead of the NATO summit, she smiled and said: "Russia can take whatever message it likes from this."
During this week's NATO summit, billed as the most important in a quarter century, member states are expected to re-endorse Georgia's eventual membership.
"We stand by what NATO said in Bucharest in 2008," the US official said, recalling the meeting when Georgia was told it could join at some point but was not formally put on the path to membership.
"We do see their future with NATO, but there's more work to be done," she admitted.
David Bakradze, Georgia's Minister for European and Euro- Atlantic Integration, told AFP that the visit will take ties with the US "to a qualitatively new level" and help to bolster Georgian security and economic and democratic development.
Since a brief war in 2008, Russian troops have tightened their grip over the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, putting them 20 minutes drive from the vulnerable capital.
Under the NATO treaty, members have an obligation of mutual defence and few Western capitals want a direct stand- off with a nuclear-armed Russia.
Putin's army has also occupied Ukraine's Crimea region, and he has backed pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country, creating another headache for NATO planners.
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has said the country must boost its military might, as he fends off attempts to remove him from office.
"Military power has to keep growing," Maduro yesterday said at a military parade in Caracas to mark Venezuelan independence day.
He said was fighting an "unconventional war" -- an apparent reference to what he frequently alleges are capitalist efforts to oust him.
is suffering a deep recession driven by falling prices for its oil exports. The crisis has sparked food shortages and deadly looting.
The political opposition blames the socialist president's economic management and is pushing for a referendum to remove him from office.
Maduro regularly accuses the business elite of waging an "economic war" against him by hoarding supplies to aggravate the crisis.
Missiles and tanks rolled by and jet fighters flew overhead at yesterday's annual parade.
Maduro has mounted the latest in a series of legal challenges against the opposition efforts to get rid of him. He has challenged their referendum proceedings in the Supreme Court.
The opposition MUD coalition says the court and electoral authorities are stacked with Maduro's allies.
"If the Supreme Court intends to trample on the Venezuelan people's efforts... That will throw petrol on the fire," said senior leader Henrique Capriles yesterday.
Maduro broke with tradition this year and avoided attending a session in the legislature on independence day.
The opposition took control of the legislative National Assembly in elections in December.
Maduro's popularity is low, according to opinion polls. But so far the military command has publicly backed him.
Henry Ramos Allup, the opposition speaker in the assembly, and Capriles have alleged that not all of the military may support him, however.
"The lawmakers are backed by the votes of the people," Ramos said.
Haryana's Health Minister Anil Vij today raised objection over the tender issued by Ambala Municipal Corporation for the maintenance of Mahavir Park at Ambala City.
He also wrote a letter to Local Bodies Minister Kavita Jain in this regard today.
"It has come to my notice that Municipal Corporation, Ambala had floated a tender for maintenance of Mahavir Park, Ambala City on December 4, 2015, amounting to Rs 39,500 per month on trial basis.
"But the same tender with same terms and conditions was later allotted to someone at the rate of Rs 99,000 on January 19, 2016. The difference between the two amounts is huge and it shows that there is some irregularity," Vij wrote.
Vij, the Ambala Cantt MLA, told reporters that in the tender, it had been clearly mentioned that maintenance of all existing lights, swings will be done by party concerned at the original cost at which the tender was floated.
He said inspite of that the light inspector had again taken approval of Rs 40,618 for repairing of lights of Mahavir Park which was contrary to tender's terms, indicating that there was some irregularity.
Vij said he has also attached all the relevant documents along with the letter to the minister concerned and demanded a high-level inquiry.
Imprisoned transgender soldier was briefly hospitalized this week, the US Army said today amid media reports the famous intelligence leaker had attempted suicide.
Manning's legal team, however, was unable to contact their client to ascertain the circumstances surrounding her visit to the hospital.
Army spokesman Colonel Patrick Seiber told AFP that Manning had been taken to a local hospital in Kansas's Fort Leavenworth area yesterday morning.
"She was returned to the disciplinary barracks yesterday morning," Seiber said, without providing any information on Manning's medical condition.
Celebrity news site TMZ.com cited an unnamed source saying Manning had tried to hang herself and was currently being monitored.
And CNN, citing an official who also spoke anonymously, said Manning was hospitalised after an apparent suicide attempt.
Manning's lawyer Nancy Hollander reacted furiously to the apparent disclosure of medical information to the media, noting she'd had no word from the Army about Manning's condition.
"We're shocked and outraged that an official at Leavenworth contacted the press with private confidential medical information about Chelsea Manning, yet no one at the Army has given a shred of information to her legal team," Hollander said in a statement.
The attorney said she had been due to call Manning yesterday only to be told by Army officials that the call "could not be connected."
"The Army has told (Manning's) lawyers that the earliest time that they will accommodate a call between her lawyers and Chelsea is Friday morning," Hollander said.
"Her lawyers and friends who care deeply about her well-being... Are profoundly distressed by the complete lack of official communication about Chelsea's current situation," she added.
Army officials did not immediately respond to a request for response on Hollander's comments.
Originally called Bradley, Manning was convicted in August 2013 of espionage and other offenses after admitting to handing classified documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
After sentencing, Manning announced she identified as female and later obtained legal authorization to change her name and receive hormone therapy.
She remains, however, in a men's military prison in Kansas, where she is appealing a 35-year sentence.
Child nutrition groups and Democrats in Congress say a proposal to offer blanket block grants to fund school meal programs in up to three states may threaten equity and lead to inadequate nutrition for low-income children who often rely on school food more than their wealthier peers.
The House plan to reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act , which sets rules for school meals, would offer the block grants in exchange for lifting federal meal program rules in participating states. In exchange, the states, which would have to apply to participate in the block grant option, would have to offer at least one affordable meal a day. Supporters of the plan, including sponsor Rep. Todd Rokita (R-Ind.), say it would allow for flexibility at the state and local level and allow for innovative use of federal funds to feed students.
But anti-poverty groups, House Democrats, and the School Nutrition Association have vowed to fight the proposal, which is not included in the Senates Child Nutrition Act bill . Heres why.
School Lunch Funds Would Be Limited Under Block Grants
Under block grants, participating states would receive a fixed pot of funding for school lunches and breakfasts on an annual basis. That differs from current funding methods, under which schools can receive additional funding throughout the year to cover the costs of changing circumstances, such as an influx of low-income students.
A block grant would make federal spending more predictable and would allow states more freedom to design programs suited to local needs, the Congressional Budget Office said in a 2015 analysis cited by the School Nutrition Association . However, block grants that are smaller than the funding that current legislation would provide would probably eliminate access to nutrition programs for some children and reduce it for others. Such grants would also leave the programs unable to respond automatically to economic downturns.
Participating States Would Miss Out on Some School Lunch Funding
Under the plan, block grants would be based on the total fiscal 2016 reimbursements participating states received for school lunches and breakfasts. Not included in that total? The six cents per lunch schools receive for complying with heightened federal nutrition standards and the 29 cents per meal served to students who do not qualify for free and reduced-price meals, the School Nutrition Association says. Those cuts could add up to serious shortfalls for nutrition programs that already operate on tight margins, advocates say.
A Lack of Uniformity and Consistency in School Meals
Block grants void federal rules that ensure the uniformity and consistency of school meal programs across the nation, the School Nutrition Association says. States could set their own rules on which children are eligible for free or reduced price meals, restricting access for low income children currently enrolled in the program. States could abandon all federal nutrition mandates, and under the proposed pilot, states would be required to only serve one affordable meal a day to students, threatening recent national progress in expanding student access to healthy school breakfasts.
So, while supporters of the House bill say it would save money and allow for innovation, opponents are circulating infographics like this one.
Related reading about school meals:
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Asserting that dialogue is the key to avoid agitations, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar today said education is not a subject for party politics, as he replaces Smriti Irani who had a controversy-ridden tenure.
Speaking to reporters here, Javadekar said he was open to suggestions and consultations with everyone. He lauded the "good initiatives" taken by Irani and said he will also speak to her to take them forward.
"I am a product of student agitation, so we will always talk with everybody. So with dialogues in place, there will be no necessity of agitation," Javadekar said.
Irani's tenure was marked by controversies including JNU row and protests in Hyderabad University following dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's death. There have also been allegations by opposition parties of saffronisation.
"I accept this (new) responsibility humbly and I will talk to our earlier minister Murli Manohar Joshi," he said.
Joshi, a former BJP president, is now part of Margdarshak Mandal.
The HRD minister said he believes that education should be student-centric and encourage innovation.
On the new education policy, which is being formulated by the HRD ministry currently, Javadekar said it needs to become more relevant and "we have to make our education system more innovative".
He emphasised that standard of education has to be raised.
Asked about his elevation as a Cabinet minister, Javadekar said that for taking the responsibility of HRD ministry, "you need to have a Cabinet minister. So o its a technical requirement."
Speaking about his handling of the Environment and Forests Ministry, Javadekar said that he had always worked to empower tribals and any criticism on these aspects is misplaced.
Asked about reports of Congress' planned agitation on the alleged dilution of Forest Rights Act, Javadekar retorted with an apparent jibe at Rahul Gandhi, asking "Has their leader returned? I don't know. That is their internal issue."
He added that while political parties have a right to put forth their views and agitate, but "there is no case for any agitation (on this issue) as of now".
(REOPENS DEL12)
Javadekar was present today when his successor Anil Madhav Dave took charge of Environment Ministry.
The officials of the Ministry had organised an event for Javadekar's farewell and to welcome the new minister.
"We work passionately. This is not giving any number to any minister. The whole team led by Narendra Modi called Team India is passionate and has brought a change in governance of the country. As HRD ministry requires Cabinet rank, that's why I was promoted," he said.
Javadekar said that he was part of JP movement and had gone to jail.
"I was also a member of the senate of Pune University for 12 years while as deputy chairman of state planning commission in Maharashtra, I had laid emphasis on education," he said, adding, "I have passion for education and have worked in it."
Asked about controversies surrounding the HRD Ministry, he said that education is a national agenda and not a party agenda and everybody will work together for it.
He said that the main priority for him would be to improve the quality of education and termed it as a challenge.
A 22-year-old woman was today allegedly shot dead by her jilted lover in Kotwali area of Unnao district here, police said.
Islam wanted to marry Gulapsa, but she rejected his proposal. Angry with her refusing his proposal he allegedly shot her dead, police said.
Islam has been arrested, police said, adding the murder weapon has been recovered from his possession, he said.
Congress today took a dig at Arun Jaitley, who had held the Information and Broadcasting portfolio, over the controversy surrounding Indian Islamic preacher Zakir Nayek whose 'hate speech' is reported to have inspired one of the five Bangladeshi militants involved in the Dhaka carnage.
"If a platform (channel) has been violating the programme code and has been allegedly putting up stuff which is inflammatory, then I am surprised as to why the Ministry of I&B has chosen to remain silent till this point in time.
"This is just yet another example of the inefficiency of the previous incumbent of this Ministry," party spokesman Manish Tewari told reporters, without naming Jaitley.
Jaitley, who is the Finance Minister, was divested of the I&B portfolio in yesterday's reshuffle. It has now gone to M Venkaiah Naidu.
Tewari, who is a former I&B Minister, said if there is a "nexus" between an alleged provocative statement and a violent act that definitely qualifies for legal action.
Nayek, in his lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly "urged all Muslims to be terrorists".
"Insofaras the platform is concerned, under the Cable Television Regulation Act 1995, there is a Programme and Advertising Code every TV channel is supposed to follow. It is a part of their licensing condition," Tewari said.
He said that if a particular TV channel is violating the code and is inciting or allegedly inciting hatred or making inflammatory programming, then the I&B Ministry should have acted. "Why have they not acted till now?" he asked.
Tewari's remarks came close on the heels of Union Minister of state for Home Kiren Rijiju, saying Nayek's speech is a matter of concern.
Replying to questions at the Congress briefing regarding performance of Jaitley as Finance Minister, Tewari was sharply critical of him.
He accused the Finance Minister of "destroying" the Indian economy which he claimed was having a growth rate of a mere five per cent as against 7.5 per cent stated by the government.
Zeta, an emerging player in the space of mobile and digital payments, today launched 3 new digital solutions in the employee tax benefits and rewards space.
Zeta provides corporates a single digital interface for paperless reimbursements. It has already launched enterprise cloud solutions for HR managers that entail end to end management of employee tax benefits that are run digitally.
"Employee benefits and rewards as a space has remained the same for decades. Companies are forced to use age-old practices for the lack of a wholesome and better solution. This space was waiting for a disruption and Zeta is ushering in this revolution by being the first such solution in this space in India," Zeta Co-Founder & CEO Bhavin Turakhia said.
Zeta provides an end-to-end solution for companies to manage their employee tax benefits and rewards programmes electronically. Using a single web-based interface, an HR Manager is connected to every employee's mobile phone. With a click of button, HR Managers can send grants of meal vouchers, medical reimbursements, gifts etc to all their employees, across cities, instantly.
Zeta's solution can be used by any corporate irrespective of the employee strength or location and an HR Manager can set up Zeta in under 5 minutes.
Ramki Gaddipati, Co-founder and CTO at Zeta adds, "Zeta's technology is cutting edge. We have built this system to be intuitive and intelligent. Zeta also brings down the allowance claim process timeline from weeks to just a few minutes. We use machine learning and image processing technologies which helps us achieve a reduction in both, time and cost of processing bill claims."
Earlier this year, Zeta introduced its electronic meal voucher solution - Zeta Meal Vouchers. This solution has seen rapid acceptance in the market with over 200 plus corporates across industries already using this product.
Employees do not have to carry bulky booklets or count coupons during payment as Zeta vouchers are always available on their phones.
The company has signed with top 200 corporates having 10,000 employees in the country and hopes to sign with 100 more corporates in the near future, Turakhia said.
Zeta's parent company Directi is a conglomerate of tech companies having a presence in India, US, China, Dubai and Europe.
By Marcy Nicholson and Jan Harvey
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Gold pared gains after rising to the highest in more than two years on Wednesday, as U.S. equities reversed early losses, Treasury yields turned higher after hitting record lows and investors bought bullion as a haven from risk.
Equities and some bond yields were weak earlier as fears about the impact that Britain's vote to leave the European Union will have on economic growth gripped global markets and underpinned demand for safe-haven bonds.
Gold prices largely shrugged off the minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve's June meeting that showed widespread unease over the so-called Brexit vote, which took place after the meeting.
"Generally the Fed is out of the spotlight while Brexit progresses," said Miguel Perez-Santalla, vice president of Heraeus Metal Management in New York.
Spot gold was up 0.6 pct at $1,363.36 an ounce by 2:59 p.m. EDT (1859 GMT) after reaching a peak of $1,374.91, its highest since March 2014.
"The minutes are consistent with our forecast for a rate hike around the end of the year, with Brexit related uncertainties likely taking earlier meetings off the table," said Royce Mendes, director and senior economist at CIBC Capital Markets in Toronto.
U.S. gold futures for August delivery settled up $8.4, or 0.6 percent, at $1,367.10 per ounce.
"I think this run higher is going to continue for a while, as long as expectations for Fed (rate hikes) are not going up, and you have uncertainty over Brexit," ABN Amro analyst Georgette Boele said.
Gold priced in sterling rose to its highest in over three years, touching a high of 1,069.36 pounds an ounce.
As well as investors shaken by stock market volatility fleeing to the safety of gold, the earlier drop in bond yields has cut the opportunity cost of holding bullion.
The world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, SPDR Gold Shares , posted the biggest one-day surge in its holdings in more than six years on Tuesday. They jumped 28.8 tonnes to 982.72 tonnes, their highest since June 2013.
"We continue to expect U.S. real rates to fall from here and ultimately for equilibrium real rates to settle lower and have limited upside," UBS said in a research note. "These factors justify strategic gold allocations across different types of investors."
Silver was up 0.7 percent at $20.05 an ounce, while platinum was up 1.12 pct at $1,084 an ounce and palladium was up 1.37 pct at $606.20 an ounce.
(Additional reporting by Vijaykumar Vedala and Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by William Hardy and Andrew Hay)
LONDON (Reuters) - The British government's offer of financial aid to potential buyers of Tata Steel's UK assets is still on the table, business minister Anna Soubry said on Wednesday, despite Britain's shock vote last month to leave the European Union.
Seeking to avoid thousands of job losses, the government had offered potential buyers millions of pounds in support. It also pledged to take up to a 25 percent equity stake in Tata Steel UK and reform the British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS).
Speaking at a special steel enquiry in parliament on Wednesday, Soubry said: "There is no change, (the offer) is still there."
Reforming the deficit-laden BSPS, which has some 130,000 members, is a major stumbling block for any buyer of Tata Steel's UK assets, and Soubry said reforms will take time.
The business minister, who opposed Britain leaving the EU, said she was still confident a buyer could be found, even as some MPs referred to reports that Tata Steel had put the sale process on hold.
"The relationship we have with Tata, we should not be pessimistic. We turned them round from their position in March, which was they were going to close Port Talbot," she said.
Tata Steel will hold a board meeting on Mumbai this week, and Soubry said business secretary Sajid Javid may fly to Mumbai to talk with the board about the sale.
Tata Steel, Britain's biggest steelmaker, put its UK assets up for sale in March. Up to seven parties have submitted bids or expressed an interest, though some bidders are getting cold feet after the referendum.
Soubry said the government would still consider the option of nationalising the business, which includes the giant Port Talbot steelworks in Wales, if no buyer could be found.
"We have looked and will continue to look at all options," she said.
(Reporting by Maytaal Angel; editing by Susan Thomas and David Evans)
High profile Smriti Irani was on Wednesday shifted from the key HRD ministry to less significant Textiles portfolio and replaced by the newly elevated Cabinet minister Prakash Javadekar after an expansion of the Union Council of Ministers and reshuffle in which Finance Minister Arun Jaitley shed the additional I&B portfolio.
The shifting of Irani, whose two-year tenure in the Human Resources Development(HRD) Ministry was marked by controversies over dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide in Hyderabad and the JNU row, triggered speculation whether it was a tactical move to give a less important portfolio or to be left free to be the face of BJP campaign in UP Assembly polls due in 2017.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inducted 19 new faces, including BJP leaders S S Ahluwalia, M J Akbar and Vijay Goel, while elevating Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar in the second expansion of his government ahead of political battles in Uttar Pradesh and other states. Akbar will be the second Minister of state for External Affairs along with V K Singh.
Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu gets Information and Broadcasting portfolio but loses the Parliamentary Affairs which has been given to Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Ananthkumar
The reshuffle also saw D V Sadananda Gowda being relieved of the Law and Justice portfolio which goes to Information Technology(IT) Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. Gowda has got Statistics and Programme implementation.
Jayant Sinha has been shifted from Finance to Civil Aviation in the minister of state rank, a post held by Mahesh Sharma, who will now look after only Culture and Tourism.
Five ministers of state were dropped in the second exercise undertaken by Modi in a little more than two years since he took over in May, 2014 which saw a number of dalit and OBC leaders being given ministerial positions apparently with an eye on assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand next year and Gujarat later.
After the dropping of five ministers, today's expansion took the total strength of the Council of Ministers to 78, just keeping it under the constitutionally allowed maximum.
On June 20, around 3 pm, a tweet from the Twitter handle of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) made a big claim - India has become the most open economy in the world for foreign direct investment (FDI). Around the same time, officials of the commerce ministry were organising a hurried press conference to provide the finer details of the tweet. India had just announced its latest round of FDI reforms and the officials, and Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman herself, took pains to elaborate what it would mean for India's economic growth. Incidentally, the annual update brought out by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on FDI - the World Investment Report 2016 - also being released the same day, put India in the 10th position in terms of global FDI inflow in 2015. It also stated that multinational enterprises perceive India to be the third best country after the US and China in terms of investment attractiveness.
Earlier during the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had convened a meeting of some of his Cabinet colleagues and senior officials from the ministries of finance and commerce, and key stakeholders like representatives of government think-tank Niti Aayog, to further liberalise the rules governing FDI inflow. The key sectors were defence, civil aviation, pharmaceuticals, retail, food products, animal husbandry and private security industry. Modi himself had tweeted the decision as "a measure to boost employment, job creation and benefit the economy".
Ever since India decided to take the path of economic liberalisation in 1991, successive Central governments have been easing FDI norms in various sectors. While the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) governments have been credited with some reforms, the NDA governments - earlier under Atal Behari Vajpayee and now under Modi - have been more enthusiastic about FDI reforms. Modi, who has visited close to three dozen countries in the past two years, has always considered inbound FDI as part of his agenda. Hence, even if one questions India's claim to be the most FDI-friendly economy in the world, the fact that India has been one of the most attractive FDI destinations globally ever since the Modi government took charge two years ago cannot be ignored. The $55.46-billion inflow in 2015/16 was the highest ever, and the $45.15 billion in 2014/15 was the second highest. True, approximately one-fifth of these inflows during both the years were re-invested earnings of foreign companies operating in India (as India's FDI figure is a combination of all types of foreign investments including remittances from non-resident-Indians), but the trend pretty much remains the same.
The reforms in the defence sector were a direct improvement on what the government had announced last November - foreign investments that add up to 49 per cent in defence without a need for government approval (through automatic route) and a higher level of investment with government permission if it results in transfer of 'state-of-the-art' technology. The current revision, however, makes it easier for companies to invest even in mundane technologies. In other words, the prerequisite of 'state-of-the-art' is gone. In addition, the 'small arms and ammunition segment' was also opened up for FDI. Since India has so far attracted just $5.12 million as defence sector FDI, the latest reform could be seen as the government's last-ditch effort to bring in FDI to the defence sector. The problem is, for the reforms to catch the attention of foreign investors, there should also be an assured market for defence products. Either the companies should be able to supply to the sole Indian buyer - the defence sector - or find an economically viable way to export it. And if that happens, the sector will certainly have the potential to create new manufacturing capacities, new jobs and boost the economy.
The second major policy shift is in food products. The government has now allowed 100 per cent FDI, with government approval, in trading, including e-commerce, of food products manufactured in India. While some call it an attempt to allow backdoor entry of multi-brand retail outlets such as Walmart, questions remain over the attractiveness of large-format retail chains that handle exclusively India-made food products. Walmart's India chief Krish Iyer told Business Today that the company is waiting for the policy document before it can make any commitment. "It is not practical. The consumer pattern in India is changing. They want products that are of international standard. It would not make sense for me to not to keep those products," says Vaibhav Singhal, MD & CEO of Savemax, a wholesale and retail chain.
Even if the changes in FDI policy are not to have an impact on the brick-and-mortar retail business, it has the potential to bring in new players in the online food products and perishable business space in future.
Diluting the local sourcing norms for bringing in FDI in single-brand retail companies - yet another decision taken by the government that can have an impact on the entry of global single-brand retail giants like Apple or IKEA - are also awaiting clarity at the moment. "The government has said that the local sourcing norms for products that are cutting-edge and state-of-the art will be applicable only after eight years. But the government is yet to define what is cutting-edge," says a stakeholder who did not wish to be identified. The local sourcing norms for single-brand retail companies, in general, also have a three-year relaxation in the current FDI norm revision. Easing the FDI restrictions on sectors such as animal husbandry and private security industry are also capable of adding jobs, though the FDI inflow may not be significant in value terms.
The Tweaks
Then come a set of reforms that can primarily attract financial investments, but offer very less scope for job creation - pharmaceuticals, for instance. Since the existing policy already allowed 100 per cent FDI through automatic route for greenfield projects, the only change that could have happened was in the case of brownfield assets, where government clearance was needed on a case-by-case basis. The latest amendment relaxed that condition by allowing foreign companies to acquire up to 74 per cent in existing Indian pharmaceutical companies without any government nod. Beyond that, it continues to remain in the approval route.
Since the change only impacts brownfield projects, what can happen will be easy takeover of Indian companies. "A sticky issue for M&A deals has been the non-compete issue, as non-compete proposals were not permitted without approval. The press release (government FDI policy announcement) is silent, but one would hope that every aspect of the deal, including non-compete clauses, should be under the automatic route so long as the investment is 74 per cent or below," says Rajat Mukherjee, Partner, Khaitan & Co. The government's decision to make takeover of domestic drug companies easy has been criticised by civil society groups that depend on India's low-cost generic supply to carry on with their global humanitarian programmes. "By allowing 74 per cent FDI in pharma under the automatic route and by progressively removing the conditions that FDI be linked to technology transfer and local production (greenfield investments), India has undermined a key component that contributed to the development of the generic industry," says Leena Menghaney, Head, South Asia, MSF (Medicines Sans Frontieres) Access Campaign.
In some cases, though, even investments seem unlikely. Take, for instance, the decision to allow 100 per cent FDI through automatic route in sectors such as broadcasting carriage services and civil aviation. These sectors had seen FDI norm relaxation in November 2015 itself and a further tweak in seven months seems to indicate that the earlier efforts did not bring in desired results. "We are unlikely to see investors suddenly rushing to invest in airlines just because the cap of 49 per cent has been removed," says Peeyush Naidu, Partner, Deloitte India. "Also remember that investment by foreign airlines is still capped at 49 per cent."
Global Pressure
UNCTAD's World Investment Report 2016 says that global FDI, which jumped 38 per cent to $1.76 trillion, its highest level since the global economic and financial crisis of 2008-2009, was driven by developing countries of Asia. Three quarters of the total inflows into developing Asia went to Hong Kong (China), China, Singapore and India. With competition rising among countries to attract more FDI, reform is more of a compulsion, it hints. "In 2015, 46 countries and economies adopted 96 policy measures affecting foreign investment. Of these measures, 71 related to liberalisation, promotion and facilitation of investment, while 13 introduced new restrictions or regulations on investment. Nearly half (42 per cent) of all policy measures were undertaken by Asian developing economies," it adds.
UNCTAD reveals that India and China were among the most active emerging economies in Asia to open up various industries. "China allowed foreign companies to set up bank card clearing companies and loosened restrictions on foreign investment in the real estate market. It also allowed full ownership of e-commerce business and designated Beijing for a pilot program for opening up certain service sectors," the report said. China also revised its 'Catalogue for the Guidance of Foreign Investment Industries' to prune the sectors where FDI is prohibited.
It is too early to say whether the latest round of FDI reforms will result in investments that augment existing manufacturing or service capacities of Indian industry. In fact, there is a weak correlation between India's GDP growth and growth in FDI inflow. Hence, the decision may certainly result in acquisitions and takeovers in at least some sectors like pharma. Promoters will gain and, statistically speaking, India will be seen as a country that has successfully attracted more foreign funds. However, FDI reforms, unless followed up with a series of industry-specific reforms, may not attract investments that create jobs. If the government's prime objective in attracting FDI is job creation, a lot more needs to be done.
With inputs from Anilesh S. Mahajan
Domestic stock, debt and currency markets are closed on Wednesday to observe Eid. Trading will resume on Thursday.
Snapping six-session long gaining spree, the S&P BSE Sensex on Tuesday settled the day 112 points lower, while the broader Nifty50 closed below its key 8,350-mark.
The headline indices slipped as investors paused ahead of major central banks announcements this week, including the minutes of the US Federal Reserve meeting in June.
The 30-share index ended the day at 27,166, down 111.89 points, while broad-based 50-share index quoted 8,335, down 34.75 points at close.
The benchmark 10-year bond fell 3 basis points to 7.39 per cent, from its previous close, while the rupee ended weaker at 67.455/465 from 67.265/67.275 previously.
A new $38 million education funding bill in Kansas will equalize state aid to rural and urban schools in Kansas by providing more money to districts that struggle to raise local contributions, reports The Wichita Eagle.
Lawmakers passed the bill during a special session after the states Supreme Court threatened to cut all funding for schools if a new school funding plan was not created. Earlier this year, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the states funding plan was inequitable and unconstitutional because property-rich districts could raise more money for schools than other districts. The court gave lawmakers until the end of June to develop a more equitable plan.
The new plan will provide more funds for districts with low property values, since those districts cannot raise as much money in local funds as property-rich districts. The $38 million in aid was cobbled together from various sources, including money from Kansas settlement with tobacco companies during the 1990s and motor vehicle fees, according to The Holton Recorder. Nearly 60 percent of Kansas school districts will see additional funding from the new bill, and 27 percent will lose state aid. The remaining districts will see no change in funding. The Associated Press reported that the new law could impact rural districts in different ways . Some small, rural districts will see decreases in tax levies while others may see increases in property taxes. One rural district, for example, has a new oil pipeline running through the area, which has increased local property values. Under the new funding plan, that district will not receive as much state aid as rural districts with low property values.
More than 64 percent of school districts in Kansas are small and rural, and they serve 28 percent of students in the state. Kansas teachers who work in rural districts have one of the lowest average salaries compared to rural teachers in other states. Like rural districts nationwide, Kansas struggles to recruit and retain teachers , which means there is an overreliance on substitute teachers and fewer course offerings. Several rural districts in the state have consolidated in recent years in an attempt to save money and offer more programs to students.
"There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live," said John Adams, one of the founding fathers of the United States.
For years, the education sector in India has been characterised by traditional ideals and goals, but limited by inadequate state funding and the restricted reach of not-for-profit system. Even today, the government resource allocation is insufficient to meet its own targets (30 per cent Gross Enrolment Ratio or GER by 2020), falling from a high of 1% of Gross National Product (GNP) in 1950s to nearly half of that in recent times with much of it going to fund primary and secondary education. Despite a substantial rise in allocation to about $18.8 billion in the 11th Plan (2007-12) from $2.1 billion in 10th Plan, funding needs remain much higher to achieve the set GER targets and it might take a good decade or two thus leaving quality education out of the reach for a majority of youth in the current generation.
India is no stranger to the capability and success of private sector participation in many sectors. If we draw a parallel to the liberalisation of healthcare, telecom, banking and insurance, the government did realise its capabilities and has rightly let the private sector flourish, under the vigilance of credible industry regulators. Particularly in healthcare, it is interesting to see the boom of private sector participation in the last decade, so much so that it has become one of India's largest sectors - both in terms of revenue and employment. The private sector provides the majority of secondary, tertiary and quaternary care institutions with a major concentration in metropolitan, tier-I and tier-II cities. That's why we have a serious case to endorse the 'for-profit' education system in India, which can effectively draw abundant resources, contemporary management ideas and more advanced products and services.
With our emotional resistance to the for-profit education system, we are keeping away the abundant private resources for making a similar impact on the state of education in the country. Even the worst critics of for-profit education agree that it induces cost and resource efficiency, better usage of teaching faculty and a greater window of opportunities. Profit incentivises more investments in any industry; when educational facilities thrive, they also enhance the universal access to education.
Enrolment in for-profit institutions is up across the world and India is no exception as more students today value efficiency of the unaided private institutions than ever before; figures showing a 50 per cent to 60 per cent spurt in enrolments every year, speak for themselves. Studies confirm that China and Brazil have induced better enrolment by opening up education to the for-profit segment. Since 2000, millions of Americans have improved career prospects using advanced and updated courses from for-profit institutions.
A qualitative differentiator could be in teaching where for-profit colleges link performance with the output of teachers, as gauged by test scores or even absenteeism. Experts say for-profit institutions use capital more efficiently by optimising the size of batches or shifts. Even their students are known for higher employability, enabled with essential vocational and technical skills in line with the industry needs.
Globally, investors acknowledge modern education as the sole opportunity for innovation and social up gradation among vast underprivileged sections hence are increasingly outlining capital investments. In fact, India had toyed with the idea of permitting higher education institutions to be run for profit in the 12th Plan as the demand-supply gap in higher education and skill training continued to be wide. Given its tremendous demographic dividend, India can't afford to miss the emerging prospects as more advanced countries are aging and seek workforce from outside. However, a recent report by research firm, Ambit Capital points out that even as India's demographic profile today is similar to that of the US in 1960s, a demographic dividend is very unlikely to accrue anytime soon since a large chunk of its youth today lacks education and job opportunities.
At the outset, India needs to liberalise its outlook and rules of engagement for the education sector, making it easier to attract investments. It may then build adequate monitoring to allow private institutions to complement the existing education mechanism. The biggest criticism about the for-profit, at least in the West, is around the student default rates and unrealistic employment prospects offered.
Particularly in India, there is a big question about the efficiency of for-profit higher education institutions, particularly in engineering and management institutes. This is reflective of the fact that out of the 600,000 fresh engineers produced annually in India; only 18.43 per cent are employable for the Software Engineer-IT services role, while a dismal 3.95 per cent are appropriately trained to be directly deployed on projects. In the absence of a firm regulatory mechanism, the quality of education imparted in these institutes is being compromised.
To increase job-readiness in today's learners, we must focus on three fundamental areas - firstly, the 'recognition of prior learning' process to evaluate skills acquired by an individual outside the formal learning system. Secondly, imparting concrete skills through 'competency-based learning' model and lastly, implementing the 'Badging' system to seamlessly integrate learning in formal, vocational and professional environment by attaching credits to each phase. This system can only be scaled-up with the investments from the private sector.
India can also learn much from the Brazilian experiment which worked commendably to attract quality capital in higher education to meet the growing demand. The issues like higher tuition fees and aggressive marketing strategies will get rationalised as the competition becomes intense, forcing market players to offer more innovative products at reasonable prices to ensure higher enrolment. In India, the segment might mature faster, leading to the exit of non-serious players.
As the father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi once said, "True education must correspond to the surrounding circumstances or it is not a healthy growth." A good education must ensure jobs, social status and dignity. The consistency with which the enrolment in for-profit colleges is growing since 2010 indicates that people are willing to pay for quality and employability of such an education.
The author is Managing Director, Pearson India and can be reached at deepak.mehrotra@pearson.com.
Delhi-based tractor maker Escorts Limited, one of India's leading tractor manufacturers, unveiled 13 new tractors in the 12-110 horse power (HP) range, as part of its ambitious global campaign to expand market under the flagship Farmtrac, Powertrac, and Euroline Series brands, which are designed, developed and manufactured in India.
Part of Escorts' new strategic approach of 'Global Transformation Vision 2020' to strengthen its trans-continental markets, the international portfolio will comprise an all-new global product line. It has carved out a separate 'International Business' division to cater specifically to requirements of global customers across its global markets.
Escorts Agri-Machinery CEO Ravi Menon said: "We are witness to the transforming agricultural ecosystem since seven decades and understand the evolving needs of the farmers worldwide. The new products are the promise to innovate and creating value with bouquet of machines customised to farmer needs in the popular 12 to 110 HP range. We already have a strong foothold across continents like North Africa & South Africa, America, Europe, and the ASEAN region, and the new range would reinforce our market position."
The new tractor range, part of its long-term product development, is aesthetically superior, fuel efficient, and comes with CRDi engines, meeting all international emission and statutory norms.
The Escorts Group, which also operates in construction equipment, auto and railway components, is driving the change in the Indian market by leading in agriculture mechanisation and its supplementary industries. It is amongst the top five tractor manufacturers in the country, which is currently dominated by Mahindra & Mahindra and TAFE.
Bharat Financial Inclusion Ltd, formerly known as SKS Microfinance, may raise Rs 10,000 crore during the current fiscal to meet the lending requirements, a top executive of the micro-lender said on Wednesday.
The company aims to clock nearly 50 per cent growth in Profit After Tax (PAT) to Rs 450 crore this year against Rs 303 crore during the last financial year, BFIL president SK Dilli Raj said.
"Last year, we raised incremental debt(fresh borrowings) of Rs 7,000 crore. This year we plan to raise Rs 10,000 crore.
Out of this Rs 10,000 crore, roughly 35 per cent, that is Rs 3,500 crore, would be from securitisation, somewhere around Rs 1,100 crore from business correspondents arrangements, and around Rs 1,000 crore from money market instruments and the rest is from bank borrowings," Dilli Raj told PTI.
With about 5.6 million members (excluding Andhra Pradesh and Telangana ), BFIL had cumulative disbursement of Rs 52,040 crore as on March 2016, the company had earlier said.
"Last year, we completed a disbursement of Rs 12,088 crore. This year we plan to disburse Rs 15,500 crore. The assets under management last year was Rs 7,677 crore. This year we expect it to go up to Rs 11,000 crore, almost about 45 per cent growth," he further said.
BFIL's net profit stood at Rs 303 crore in last fiscal against Rs 188 crore in the previous year, due to the efforts put in to reduce operational costs and lower cost of funds, the annual report said.
"PAT for last year was Rs 303 crore. We are guided to Rs 450 crore. That is almost 50 per cent growth. For 2015-16, we have grown at 85 per cent, therefore growing at 45 per cent will not be a challenge for 2016-17," he further said.
Replying to a query, he said the company has no plans to expand its footprints to new geographies. It currently operates in 16 states (except Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and seven North Eastern states).
The company was an applicant for SFB (Small Finance Bank) license but did not receive in-principle approval from RBI. The company believes SFB license is a missed opportunity but not a setback, BFIL annual report said.
Indian banks will require around USD 90 billion (around Rs 6 lakh crore) to meet the capital requirements under the Basel III norms, of which 80 per cent would have to go to PSU banks, Fitch Ratings said today.
More than 50 per cent of the requirement have to be met via core equity and the rest largely via additional Tier 1 debt capital instruments, it said.
"Fitch Ratings expects Indian banks to require around USD 90 billion of capital to meet new Basel III capital standards that will be fully implemented by the financial year ending March 2019," it said.
The capital needs of public-sector banks form about 80 per cent of the system total, it added.
The government has announced Rs 70,000 crore capital infusion for 22 public sector banks by March 2019. Of this, Rs 25,000 crore has already been injected and the government plans to infuse as much during the current fiscal.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said the government is willing to provide more funds to PSBs if required.
"However, the government or other related entities is likely to have to inject more funds so that the banks continue to lend while managing pressures on asset quality, resolution of problem loans and elevated credit costs," Fitch said.
The capital needs have come down due to weak loan growth, but they are onerous for the banks, given weak asset quality and internal capital generation.
"The sharp rise in their non-performing loans and resultant losses have weakened the banks' core capital buffers, which will be further stretched when adjusted for a higher 70 per cent provision cover on problem loans," Fitch said.
The viability ratings of these banks will be under more pressure if capital levels are not addressed, either by the government or the market.
"Resolving the asset quality and capital issues will be important for some banks to regain market access, which is now difficult for the majority of state banks.
Power Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday announced that the government will provide assistance of Rs 1,800 crore to IIT-Bombay for its Solar Urja Lamp (SoUL) programme.
Started in 2014, IIT Bombay's one million Solar Urja Lamps (SoUL) project aims to improve education through localization of solar energy, where local villagers are trained to assemble, campaign, distribute and service the solar lamps.
Under this scheme, more than one million solar lamps have already been distributed. With Rs 1800 crore funding, the government plans to scale this program by disseminating 100 million solar lamps to school children across the country.
Prof. Chetan Solanki, who is leading SoUL project believes it is a game-changer as it contributes to both 'Make in India' and 'Skill India' initiatives of the government. "We have created a model which can be replicated across the country. It could take around 3 years to scale this up to 100 million households. The idea is to not only provide these lamps but to maintain them as well."
This self sustainable model generates rural employment, provides skills to the local population and can help create a wider solar market in the country, adds Solanki.
The project has so far reached 97 blocks in states such as Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Orissa.
Lalita Joshi, who works as senior research manager for SoUL, says, the project is about advocating 'right to clean light' for villages which are yet to be electrified. "The uniqueness of this project is that it employs locals for assembly, distribution and service of these solar lamps. Most of the villages where we have distributed these lamps are educationally backward and predominantly tribal."
These solar lamps are distributed among school children, and can be charged using sunlight during day time.
"We have partnered with local NGOs having considerable experience in development work. These NGOs identify the local workforce and people are recruited from different clusters so that a cross-section of villages are represented," adds Lalita.
According to 2011 census, 40 per cent families in India use kerosene as the main source for lighting. These lamps can keep children away from hazardous kerosene fumes and help prevent fire accidents in rural households.
The team behind this project had surveyed around 2300 electrified rural households in six states. They found out that the intensity of light on floor where children usually study is around 10-20 lux which is way below the recommended intensity of 150 lux.
To make it more affordable for underprivileged rural households, these solar lamps are priced at Rs 120 which is way below its production cost of Rs 500. The cost of these solar lamps is being subsidized by the funds received from the government, philanthropists and CSR initiatives of various corporates.
Telecom regulator Trai today proposed to increase validity of mobile recharge voucher for internet services from maximum of 90 days to 365 days to enhance usage by marginal consumers.
"After examination of various aspects of the issue, the Authority feels a longer validity of 365 days instead of the current 90 days could be beneficial for marginal consumers, first-time users and price-sensitive consumers," Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said in a statement.
At present a company can issue recharge voucher which can be valid for maximum of 90 days. If a consumer has failed to consume mobile internet data quantity purchased through the voucher then the unused data lapses.
The regulator said that it has received requests seeking longer validity for data-packs primarily to address the concern of marginal consumers of wireless Internet who prefer lower denomination data packs with longer validity.
The regulator has sought comments from public on the proposal by July 26 on proposed amendment in existing rules.
Buying a smartphone can be challenging these days. Not because you don't have options to choose from because today you have a plenty of options to choose from. There has been a lot of action in the sub Rs 15,000 price category as not only the Chinese smartphone players but also Indian manufacturers are focusing on this price category and have launched some great devices in the market. Here is our pick of the top five smartphones under Rs 15,000 in no specific order.
Redmi Note 3: Rs 9,999/Rs 11,999
After keeping quiet for a few months, Xiaomi launched the Redmi Note 3, which is a fine piece of hardware. With a metal body and curved edges, the Remdi Note 3 has got a 5.5inch full HD display which offers great coloured reproduction. It is available in two variants - 2 GB RAM along with 16 GB of internal storage and 3 GB RAM with 32 GB storage. The former is priced at Rs 9,999 and the latter configuration comes at Rs 11,999. Both the variants are powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 chipset. It features a 16-MP rear camera and a 5-MP front facing camera. This is a dual-SIM phone and connectivity options include Wi-Fi, LTE and more. It packs in a 4,050-mAh battery that can easily last a day. There is also a fingerprint sensor at the rear where the hand rests naturally and it is quick to unlock the phone.
LeEco Le 2: Rs 11,999
LeEco, yet another Chinese brand, entered the Indian market in January this year. It's LeEco 1s was in direct competition to the Redmi Note 3. Just six months down the line, the company has introduced the successor to the Le1s, Le 2. Having a same metal body with curved edges, the Le 2 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor and is paired with 3 GB of RAM. It runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system and is a dual SIM smartphone. Even one this one packs in a 16-MP rear camera with features such as HDR, auto focus, face detection, etc. It is equipped with an 8-MP front facing camera.
Motorola G Plus: Rs 14,999
Motorola's Moto G smartphones gave a new lease to mid-budget segment when launched in India in 2013. Since then, it has been the favorite mid-budget smartphone for many. While the company might be losing to the competition on the specification war, the overall built quality and hardware is worth praising. Ther Moto G Plus looks identical to the Moto G 4th generation and has got a fingerprint sensor. It features 5.5-inch full HD display and comes with Snapdragon 617 processor. The Plus model is available in 32 GB storage paired with 3 GB of RAM for Rs 14,999. There is also a 16-GB variant with 2 GB of RAM. It features a 16-MP rear camera with a 5-MP front facing camera and has a 3,000-mAh battery onboard.
Samsung Galaxy J7: Rs 13,500
After facing heat from the Chinese players, Samsung is also focusing on the mid-budget smartphone space and the Galaxy J7 is the company's best offering at this price. It is powered by Samsung Exynos Octa-core processor and is paired with 1.5 GB of RAM. It features a 5.5-inch display and has a 13-MP rear camera a 5-MP front facing camera. It has a 3,000-mAh battery onboard.
Lenovo K4 Note: Rs 10,999
It has been some time since this device was launched but the K4 Note is the best offering from Lenovo till date. It is powered by Mediatek Octa-core processor with 3 GB of RAM and 16 GB of expandable memory. It runs on Android 5.1 operating system and packs in a 3,100-mAh battery. It is a dual-SIM device with a 5.5-inch full HD display with Gorilla Glass 3 protection. There is a 13-MP rear camera and a 5-MP frontfacing camera. The device has decent build quality.
Bord Bia are today holding a post BREXIT briefing to outline the organisations measures for supporting companies as they navigate the new trading environment.
The purpose of the briefing is to explore and begin to understand the implications of BREXIT for a market that takes 41% of our food and drink exports, valued at 4.4 billion.
Over 180 Irish food and drink exporters and experts from the UK food retail market have been brought together for the event.
The Irish companies, who had highlighted the need for information in Bord Bia`s post-BREXIT survey, received insights from experts on current UK and EU market conditions and currency management.
The ensuing panel discussions were designed to help exporters identify future pressure points in their business models that may require attention.
Two discussion panels concentrating on the UK retail market and on Irish exporters` challenges provided a forum for a high level of engagement with the audience.
The UK perspective was examined by James Walton, IGD, Joanna Walker, former retail buyer in the UK and Jon Copestake, Editor and Chief Retail & Consumer Goods Analyst, The Economist.
The Irish industry panel then put the exporters` view of the implications of BREXIT with contributions from Larry Murrin, Chief Executive, Dawn Farm Foods, Paul Finnerty, Chief Executive, ABP Food Group and Eoin Donnelly, Managing Director, Lily OBriens.
Conscious of possible pressure on the home market from imports from a weaker Sterling, Bord Bias market development activities on the Irish market are also being reviewed.
An Origin Green public engagement campaign is also scheduled from October to December, to highlight the unique commitments being made by Irish farmers and the wider food industry in sustainability.
Chief Executive at Bord Bia, Aidan Cotter commented this morning, "Our hope is that today`s event may advance all of our deliberations and if we can`t resolve the uncertainty, and clearly we can`t, that at least we can now begin to learn how we can deal with it and live with it. The learnings from today and our ongoing close contact with our clients will inform our future supports for the sector."
Source: www.businessworld.ie
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The French government pledged on Wednesday to make its tax regime for expatriates the most favourable in Europe in a landgrab for London banking business displaced by Britain's decision to quit the European Union.
"We want to build the financial capital of the future," Prime Minister Manuel Valls said at a hastily arranged visit to the annual conference of France's financial industry lobby Europlace. "In a word, now is the time to come to France."
France's financial sector has often complained of government ambivalence towards the industry, which is subject to high taxes and sometimes hostile remarks from politicians.
But Paris sees an opportunity in last month's Brexit vote, the regulatory implications of which place a huge question mark over London's place as the centre of Europe's banking business.
"We are bringing solutions today to companies that are asking questions and expecting answers to prepare for the future," Valls said to enthusiastic applause from the audience of senior bankers and finance chiefs.
He said France's already favourable tax regime for expatriates and French nationals returning from stints abroad would in future be applicable for their first eight years in France, up from five currently.
The scheme includes deductions for non-salary perks like employers paying for employees' children's school fees and for revenue earned on capital held abroad.
Valls said the government would also set up a one-stop administrative point for foreign firms seeking a foothold in France with service in languages other than French.
Meanwhile, for the benefit of expat families, schools would open as many classes for foreign children in their native language as necessary.
For his part, Bank of France governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau promised French regulators would quickly examine applications from any financial institutions licensed in Britain that might seek to set up shop in France.
"We are not in a war with London... but there is competition and we want to make Paris Europe's top financial centre," the head of the wider Paris region, Valerie Pecresse, told bankers.
Though often neglected in the past, the industry's proposals for making Paris more attractive internationally are no longer falling on deaf ears.
Socialist President Francois Hollande said last week tax regulations needed to be adapted to make Paris more attractive, in a stark contrast to his description of the finance industry his main enemy during his 2012 election campaign.
Finance Minister Michel Sapin turned the tables on outgoing British Prime Minister David Cameron, who had offered to "roll out the red carpet" for French firms when Hollande took office in 2012. The day after the Brexit vote, Sapin told reporters: "The red carpet can be used both ways".
Paris is already the biggest centre for many markets in the euro zone, including corporate bond issuance and investment management, with 3.6 trillion euros of assets under management.
Other financial centres in the 19-country currency bloc got an early start on Paris in lobbying London financial firms ahead of the vote on Britain's EU membership vote last month.
Madrid said on Monday it was considering granting tax breaks to attract banks and international firms looking to move operations away from Britain after its vote to leave the European Union.
France and other EU countries argue that British financial firms should not be able to keep the "passport" which allows them access to EU markets unless Britain accepts the free movement of people, which Brexit campaigners oppose. (Reuters)
Source: www.businessworld.ie
Washington
The question I tend to get most often from observers following along with EdWeeks National Education Association coverage is ... what do all the unions new business items actually do?
After all, discussion of these takes up the bulk of floor time at the convention. And its where the NEAs headline itemslike its decision to call for former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncans removal in 2014 tend to emerge.
The first thing to understand is that an NBI does not supersede the NEAs policy resolutions or statements, which are separately drafted and modified. An NBI directs the union to do something for a year, but isnt a permanent statement of belief. (NBIs are occasionally even removed from consideration because they conflict with the unions existing policies.)
Second, it takes only 50 delegates to move an NBI to the floor of the representative assembly, as the convention is known. This means a whole variety of topics and proposals, from the very specific to the grand and sweeping, can be debated. This year, for instance, one proposed NBI called on the union to donate money to a specific education rally; another would direct the union to defend public schools by fighting privatization.
Finally, even items that generate a lot of controversy among delegates when theyre being debated or modified dont always end up doing a whole lot in the long run once theyre passed. The report that the union issues on last years new business is enlightening in this respect.
For example, among a swath of anti-testing items in 2015, delegates passed an item requiring the NEA to campaign to end the common-core-aligned tests put out by the two federally funded testing consortia. But the report on last years NBIs says only this about that particular item: NEA is coordinating with organizational partners to develop materials calling for testing audits, and to highlight efforts to fight the impact of high stakes standardized testing.
And there were three different items last year touching on the testing opt-out movement; NEA appears to have deemed them all completed by putting up this portal on its website.
Some new business never gets implemented at all.
One 2015 NBI referred to the unions executive committee asked it to oppose the proficiency-score designations on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. But NEA leaders didnt follow suit: "...The NEA Executive Committee decided that NEA will take no action on this NBI. ... If we do not use proficiency levels, it is significantly more difficult to identify and address significant gaps between student sub-groups, the report states.
Given that possibility, its reasonable to ask: Why are these measures such a big deal? Why do state caucuses make entire lists of how they want delegates to vote? Why do delegates engage in floor strategy (voting blocs and getting pro-and-con speakers in front of the mics) over new business?
Over the years, Ive reached the conclusion that debate over new business is probably more important in building the NEAs culture than for what a particular NBI does or doesnt accomplish.
After all, the NBI process gives every delegate a chance to put a topic before the 7,000 member assembly, and to hear it debated for pros and cons. It also gives members in, say, Virginia a chance to hear what issues are bubbling up in Arizona or California or New Hampshire. It allows delegates let off steam, even if ultimately not much changes on the topic in question.
I asked NEA President Lily Eskelen Garcia about this, and she said that new business is an important part of the unions cherished democracy-with-a-small-D. Any delegate can speak on an NBI thats under debate; each is free to vote his or her own conscience, regardless of the position state leadership takes on the item; and its not that hard to round up enough delegates to submit one to the RA.
Fifty delegates? she said. You can get that in the line for the bathroom.
So it comes down to this: The NEAs NBI process is complicated, messy, sometimes a bit embarrassing, and occasionally contested. But its all part of how the NEA makes even the newest member or delegate feel empowered in the union.
It is almost certain that some companies will move out of Britain as a result of last month's vote to leave the European Union, the head of the Irish state agency competing to win foreign investment said on Wednesday.
While Ireland's economy is among the most vulnerable to the impact of Britain's decision to quit the bloc, the possibility that firms keen to stay in the EU could choose Ireland as their new home has been identified as one potential upside.
"There has been a heightened level of activity in the past week-and-a-half post-Brexit. There will be newly mobile investment out of the UK, that's almost certain," IDA Ireland chief executive officer Martin Shannahan told a news conference.
Drawing investment from major multinationals such as Pfizer and Apple has been a cornerstone of Irish economic policy for decades and is directly responsible for around 190,000 jobs or almost one in every 10 workers across the country.
Investments announced in the first half of the year will add another 9,100 jobs, IDA Ireland said, up a touch on the same period in 2015, which was a record year for foreign investment.
Shannahan said the level of additional opportunities arising from Brexit was impossible to identify but it would most likely occur in the first instance in international financial services, particularly in the funds industry, and in technology.
He also said that Britain's plans to cut corporation tax to less than 15% and closer to Ireland's ultra low 12.5% rate would not give their rival any advantage.
"Adjusting your corporation tax rate does not mitigate against uncertain access to the European market. One doesn't compensate for the other," Shannahan said.
"It isn't just about taxation, it's about everything else. As I listened to (British finance minister) George Osborne and (Bank of England Governor) Mark Carney making their respective speeches, I can tell you now I am much happier going out and selling Ireland over the next few weeks and months." (Reuters)
Source: www.businessworld.ie
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It was announced today that the BDO Development Capital Fund is co-funding a 19.5m investment in Netwatch Group, the Irish high tech security specialists.
It is the largest funding round in Netwatch to date. The BDO Development Capital Fund is providing 9 million, the largest of its five investments so far.
The BDO Development Capital Fund forms part of the Governments Development Capital Scheme, an initiative under the Action Plan for Jobs through which a total of 225million is being made available to mid-sized Irish companies with significant growth potential.
As part of this Scheme, 75million in funds from the Department of Jobs through Enterprise Ireland will be matched with 150million of private sector funding for investments in Irish companies through a series of different funds.
The funds will be used to support Netwatchs international growth strategy. New customer acquisition in the US and the UK markets is a key aspect of the investment.
Netwatch was incorporated in Carlow in 2003 by co-founders and joint owners of the Company, David Walsh (CEO) and Niall Kelly (CTO).
The company deploys the most advanced video processing technologies to proactively monitor and protect their clients assets. This involves installing high quality security cameras coupled with its intelligent software to detect suspicious events at its customers sites.
Intervention Specialists direct operations remotely from the Netwatch Communication Hub, visually verifying the intruders and intervene as soon as security is breached by verbally alerting the intruders they are being watched with a personalised warning.
Netwatch Group Chief Executive, David Walsh says, "In the middle of the recession, we focused on research and development and expanding the business internationally. This funding announcement is validation of that decision and also lays the ground work for the next three years."
He added, "The Netwatch value proposition is well received in the USA and this investment will enable us to capitalise on the great opportunity that the US presents. We are confident that we can double the size of the company over the next three years."
Source: www.businessworld.ie
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Irish logistics company, Interflow, have today announced that this year saw the biggest number of attendees to date for the global IELA Congress, the first time it ever took place in Ireland and now in its 31st year.
The purpose of the IELA Congress is to provide a networking platform for those professionals and companies who are members of the association and engaged in the international exhibition freight forwarding business. It ran last week from 26th June for five days at the DoubleTree by Hilton, Burlington Road.
The companys CEO, Niall Thompson, estimated that the Congress brought in approximately 3 million to the Irish economy.
The International Exhibition Logistics Association (IELA) Congress was brought to Ireland following a competitive bidding process, which was won by Interflow, an Irish logistics company.
Interflows CEO Niall Thompson, with the support of Failte Ireland, succeeded in pitching for the Congress to be brought to Ireland having been up against a number of other countries, including Portugal.
A record breaking 400 attendees representing 220 companies in 55 countries descended on the city to make it the biggest IELA Congress to date.
The Congress has been hosted all over the world and last year was held in Singapore. Next year it will be held in Prague, and the following year in San Francisco.
CEO of Interflow, Niall Thompson commented, "I am delighted to say that the 31st IELA Congress was a massive success and a wonderful event to host in Dublin. After two years of planning, its safe to say all the hard work really paid off."
He added, "It has been a great week for business and was an honour to host the worlds best exhibition freight forwarders in Ireland and welcome all our industry friends and partners to show them all that Dublin and Ireland has to offer."
Source: www.businessworld.ie
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It was announced today that the Granahan McCourt / enet consortium led by David McCourt, Chairman of enet and Founder of Global telecoms investment specialists Granahan McCourt Capital (Granahan McCourt), has been included in the shortlist of candidates being considered to develop the Irish Governments National Broadband Plan (NBP).
Alongside Granahan McCourt and enet, the consortium brings together leading companies in telecoms, infrastructure, power and Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), including John Laing, 3i Infrastructure, Berkshire Hathaway Energy and the Kelly Group.
The NBP represents the latest bid in a strong heritage of PPPs from Granahan McCourt Capital, whose work with state bodies, semi-state bodies and other public affiliates, including enet itself, is well known.
The firm also recently announced a joint venture in Saudi Arabia, recognised as the first PPP following the states Vision 2030 reform plans which aim to open up opportunities for outside investment and partnerships to help the Kingdom compete on the world stage with new technological developments.
The NBP is a major landmark in the development of telecommunications in Ireland that aims to radically transform the countrys broadband landscape. The project will ensure that all homes and businesses have access to high-speed broadband regardless of location, and will be accomplished through a combination of commercial and state-led investment.
David McCourt today commented, "The Granahan McCourt / enet consortium welcomes the Departments decision recognising our commitment and expertise to deliver Irelands National Broadband Plan."
He added, "We have built a unique team of industry specialists with global resources and experience which is matched with local knowledge and trust. Our promise is to deliver world-class high speed broadband to every home, farm and business in the intervention area, which covers much of Irelands most rural regions."
Source: www.businessworld.ie
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Britain's business minister Sajid Javid said the government should introduce a raft of corporate and personal tax cuts to soften the blow from an expected slowdown in the wake of Britain's vote to leave the European Union.
Javid told the Financial Times newspaper the government needed to switch its focus from reducing the deficit to stimulating economic growth.
Finance minister George Osborne last week dropped his policy of turning Britain's budget deficit into a surplus by 2020 and Javid said on Wednesday that it was now hard to predict what would happen to the deficit.
Javid said he did not think it could be brought down to zero by 2020.
"Does it mean 3% becomes 4% or 5%? I don't think anyone can say at this point." (Reuters)
Source: www.businessworld.ie
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Slovenia: No Country For Young Men
Published on July 6, 2016
Story by Cafebabel
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Slovenia used to be considered "top of the class" in former Yugoslavia. In the 90s, as war raged in the Balkans, the country developed an economy in which many companies became privatised. Yet since 2008 Slovenia has been struggling with an economic crisis, largely affecting young people. In Maribor formerly a working class town new ideas are turning the city into a social and cultural lab.
After completing his studies in art history in Ljubljana, Simon Zlahtic, 28, returned to his hometown of Maribor and went looking for work at the job centre. The social worker glanced at him from across the table and asked: "Do you speak German?"
"Yes," he replied.
"Theres nothing for you here. Go across the border to Austria youll find work there."
Simon speaks not only German, but also English, French, Croatian, Latin and perfect Slovenian. He has a driving licence and an abundance of professional experience. He is a restaurateur, curator, and farmer. An expert in permaculture and vegan cuisine, it's just as easy to talk with him about industrial architecture in Yugoslavia as it is about indigenous plants. He knows how to bake pizza in wood-fired ovens and how to shear sheep, and reads archival documents with great passion.
Still, there is no work for Simon in Maribor. Statistically, he belongs to the 18.4% of people under 30 years of age in north-eastern Slovenia who are unemployed a demographic released by the country's Statistical Office. And of those who are employed, 27.2% work abroad, commuting daily across the border into Austria.
Maribor, the former "Yugoslavian Manchester" in dire straits
The city of Maribor, having approximately 100,000 citizens, is the second-largest Slovenian city, well known for its strong working class. Due to its flourishing industry, it was dubbed the "Yugoslavian Manchester" of the former communist state. The textile, metal, and car industries represented the pillars of the city's social life for decades. Troubles began when Yugoslavia collapsed, and the city's industries lost access to the Balkan market. From 1992 to 2009, 257 Maribor companies were closed and thousands of workers lost their jobs. Today, 16% of the local population live below the poverty line. "Most families have at least one family member working outside of Slovenia," says Simon. "The proximity of the border provides a sense of security to many families and individuals. On the other hand, it doesnt solve regional and city problems."
After the fall of the major industries in Maribor, everyone was pressed to find alternative means of earning a living, not just young people. Some people hoped that Maribor becoming the European Capital of Culture for 2012 would help boost the citys image, thereby improving its tourism industry. Massive sums of money 21.9 million euros were invested in cultural development and expensive theatre productions, concerts, and exhibitions. In total, more than 405 projects and 5,264 cultural events took place in the city. However, despite the 4.5 million visitors who came to Maribor that year, it had little effect on the economy.
Frustrated, Maribor's citizens become angry about the inefficiency and corruption of politicians, who seemed unable to tackle real issues. By the end of 2012, the mayor's decision to install a large number of traffic control radars ignited a large wave of protests. Civil disobedience later spread throughout Slovenia, where the general population was already fed up with the government's ineffective policies and grim economic perspectives.
"The economic situation here is bad. We are trying to resolve it by applying the 'bottom-up' solution [through which workers, as opposed to executives, dictate the structures of their companies, ed.]," says social activist Karolina Babic. She is one of the founding members of CAAP (Centre for Alternative and Autonomous Production), which was established in 2011 and whose aim is to gather ecological and social ideas "under one roof". By the end of 2013, Karolina was made aware of an abandoned, six-floor building in the heart of the city centre. What was formerly a pharmaceutical laboratory soon became the headquarters of her organization: Tkalka (the Weaver).
After thousands of volunteer hours, they turned this ruin into a shared office space, much like in Berlin or London. Facing a lack of life-long job stability, which had existed in communist Yugoslavia, many citizens of Maribor have turned to alternatives such as the one Karolina offers. "Europeans know of shared office spaces in the context of creative industries primarily. But Maribor doesnt have enough critical mass for something like this," she explains. "At Tkalka, there are people from creative industries, but also people in technological fields, like bricklayers, machinists, biologists, and ecologists, among others. People from the Roma community also work here, in addition to people with PhDs in the sciences."
Today, Tkalka hosts more than 45 different organizations employing more than 140 individuals. The maintenance costs run between 60,000 and 70,000 euros annually, which members split evenly amongst themselves. "Most of the organisations and individuals live off the activities they perform here."
Direct democracy and plenums
But in Karolina's eyes, "Social processes, such as plenums and direct democracy, are the most important legacy of the 2012 protests." After the protests, the people of Maribor started to more actively participate in local political life, through a system of direct democracy relying on "plenums." Plenums were directly inspired by the global Occupy Movement and the idea of horizontal democracy, with the aim of giving everyone the same power in the decision-making process. Starting in 2013, the citizens of Maribor began meeting in regular neighbourhood meetings, which were facilitated by "neutral" moderators. People jointly decide on public and mutual issues.
Simon, who runs a farm with his friends, thinks that the image of Maribor as a place where nothing gets done and no one can succeed has changed since 2012. "TV Slovenija aired a story about events in 2012 in Maribor, saying that the people of Maribor responded to the lack of culture with culture. That isnt true we just wanted jobs."
The slow reconversion of Maribor as a political experiment and a social laboratory in response to the economic crisis didn't stop horizontal democracy. Since then, dozens of new social initiatives have been launched in the city. Many people have squatted in a large number of vacant industrial spaces, turning them into shops, cafes, and galleries, which today form the bedrock of life in Maribor.
Besides having empty industrial spaces, Maribor is also known for its rural surroundings. Food cooperatives link small farmers with consumers in the city, creating new jobs in nearby rural areas and providing the city with locally and sustainably produced food. The cooperative Dobrina, which is also a part of Tkalka, has brought more than 60 small farmers together, each of which have between three and 15 hectares of land, who now jointly sell their produce in food markets in Maribor, selling their products to hospitals, schools, kindergartens, and individuals. Dobrinas shop is also a part of Tkalka. Anything from local varieties of carrots and apples, to bread, oils, and handmade wool socks can be bought there.
New economy is an organic process
Marko Brumen, a cultural producer working in the public institution Narodni Dom, considers the flourishing of independent initiatives in Maribor to be a sort of "organic process". Although the authorities still don't apply the principles of direct democracy, progress is still visible. For instance, the municipality has established the first formal participatory budget. "The principal is simple," says Brumen. "It is up to the local community to decide how a portion of their budget will be spent. Everyone can propose a project, which is put up to a vote. Citizens can have a direct impact on how public funds are spent, whether in the form of playgrounds, roads, or street lamps."
Narodni dom operates out of Vetrinjski dvor, the building in which the European Capital of Culture directorate formerly had its headquarters. Hidden behind its large medieval iron gates is a white two-storey building overlooking a cobblestoned inner courtyard. On the first floor, spacious, bright rooms house local NGOs, which rent their shared office spaces for the duration of three years at a time. Two art residences welcome both Slovenian and international artists.
On Friday evenings, however, the streets of Maribor seem unusually empty. This is because, as some people tell us, "it's winter" and, "the students havent yet returned." Still, the city bustles to the sound of swing music in the Salon uporabnih umjetnosti (Salon of Applied Arts). Like most of Maribor's new initiatives, the Salon is a sort of cafe, design shop, bookstore, and bar all in one, in what was formerly an abandoned space. A sign hanging above the cafes bar is all that is left of the casino that once existed here. Handmade bags, clothing, and books appear in the windows and on the shelves between tables. The Salon has quickly become the hotspot for local bohemians. On "swing night", you can see older and younger generations dancing together. For the young, Salon is a new, hip place to socialise, for the older generation it is a place to "relive memories..."
According to Miha Horvat, an independent artist and a member of the art collective Sonda, Maribor "has the potential" to become an art mecca. According to him, Maribor is just the right size, "I tend to say that Maribor is both too small and too big, because, although the city is small in reality, it has large ambitions." The slogan "Maribor is the future", which adorns a wall near Tkalka, is Sonda's brainchild.
Miha believes in this future. He explains how his project, GT22, grew out of an art project into an initiative bringing together 80 people in the fields of theatre, photography, radio, and visual arts. According to Miha, artists should be more politically involved, in order to create other similar initiatives in the future. "If I pay my taxes and give something to the state, then I want to feel empowered. Our industry has collapsed, but the people here are competent, our location is interesting historically, and all the art here, both amateur and professional, works somehow. I believe we need to keep following this path. In my mind, Maribor could be the perfect social laboratory."
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Text: Natasha Kramberger
Photo: Jelena Prtoric
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Beyond cliches. Beyond hate. Beyond the past. 25 years after the start of the Balkans War, cafebabel Berlin's Balkans & Beyond editorial project, showcases original stories that beautifully illustrate life and politics in Bosnia, Macedonia, Croatia, Kosovo, Slovenia, Serbia, and Montenegro. It's financed by Allianz Kulturstiftung and Babel Deutschland with moral support from the Babel International network.
Story by Cafebabel
Stalking Requires Intent to Cause Emotional Suffering, Federal Court Rules
Intent is an important element of criminal law and most crimes have an intent element, called mens rea. This refers to a defendant's mental state.
A defendant must have the requisite intent to be convicted of a crime -- an act alone will usually not suffice. So if you shoot someone with no intent to kill, that is not murder. The requisite mental state, coupled with the defendant's actions, is needed for a conviction for most crimes, and a statute that fails to articulate a defendant's mental state may be challenged.
That is what happened to stalking laws in Illinois, which were recently found unconstitutional.
Necessary Elements for Stalking
Illinois stalking laws were challenged before and they survived. But in a recent case, arising from alleged physical and electronic stalking, an appeals court found a key ingredient was missing. The state's stalking laws lacked a necessary intent element.
In Illinois v. Relerford a defendant was accused of stalking for repeated contacts with a woman at a Christian radio station where he wanted to be an intern. Based on the evidence revealed in the case, the accused was not trying to frighten the woman, although he did not always communicate appropriately.
Criminal Intent vs. Victim's Feelings
The problem with the Illinois stalking law, the defendant argued, was that he was being convicted based on the victim's feeling about his communications rather than his intentions with respect to her. Relerford did not have to actually intend to cause emotional suffering to another person with the activities. Instead, Illinois law demanded only that the defendant "know or should have known" his actions would cause a reasonable person to suffer.
If that seems like a small point that doesn't matter much and you don't understand the fuss, you're probably not alone. But the difference does matter quite a lot. Relerford was convicted based on the victim's feelings and not based on the intention of the accused to hurt her.
The Illinois Appeals Court wrote, "Accordingly, we hold that ... the general stalking statute, of which defendant was convicted and sentenced, lacks a mens rea requirement and is therefore facially unconstitutional under the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment." The stalking statutes will now no doubt need to be rewritten.
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Where Can I Get My ISIS Hunting License?
In Missouri, if you're interested in supporting Eric Greitens's gubernatorial campaign. The Republican candidate and former Navy SEAL officer is selling "ISIS hunting permits" to raise money for his campaign.
So how many ISIS can you bag under this (fake) permit? And will the scolds down at the fish and game office really be out tracking this season?
Bag 'Em and Tag 'Em
Hunting is deeply woven into the fabric of American culture. Fathers teach their sons how to hunt, one generation to the next. And every generation looks forward to the opening of ISIS season as an annual rite of passage, when enough ISIS can feed a family all winter.
But that history, and the God-given right to commune with nature and shoot it dead, must be balanced with an interest in conservation and wildlife management. Hence the bagging limits imposed by most hunting licenses. But Greitens's ISIS licenses expressly state there is no bagging or tagging limit, and they don't expire until "we defeat this evil," not unlike Florida's annual python hunt.
Great ISIS Challenge
Missouri is home to large herds of wild ISIS, which are considered an invasive species, displacing native animal populations. Wildlife officials blame the spike in ISIS numbers on careless consumers thinking an ISIS would make a good pet, then releasing it into the wild when it gets too big. The hope is that Missouri hunters can tamp down the wild ISIS population and lessen the impact on native species.
This year, like hundreds before it, Missourians will be able to take part in the time-honored tradition of a good ISIS hunt. Just make sure you do it legally -- with a license. If you pay $100 for one, you can even get it autographed by a former Navy SEAL who claims he killed Osama bin Laden.
On a serious note, Muslims in Missouri are reportedly concerned for their safety over the talk of ISIS hunting licenses. A spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations worries, for example, that locals may see Muslim women around town and confuse them for people associated with ISIS. Perhaps local hunters are better off sticking to hunting ducks this season. Also, for that matter, it should be emphasized that the ISIS hunting permits are fake.
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Sunshine Johnston squeezes a bit of oil from a cannabis bud to smell for quality.
A chance to take a more realistic approach on marijuana laws quietly passed last week.
An effort failed 6,000 signatures short last week of gathering enough names to put a measure on the November ballot that, if approved, would have had police issue citations for possession of small amounts of marijuana.
The city's police chief says his force has the option of issuing citations instead of arresting now but that what is need is coordinated policies with other parts of the law enforcement system.
Issuing citations would be a more enlightened approach than the more than 1,000 arrests that were recorded for possession in 2015 in the city.
Is such a change getting soft on drugs? Would this open the door for potheads and Mary Jane addicts? That's what some on the City Council thought earlier this year. I don't think so, but I understand that it takes a great leap of faith to do anything else but to continue something that hasn't worked.
A local group of citizens who advocated for an ordinance that would change how marijuana possessions are treated by police didn't even get the courtesy of a vote in February when the issue came up.
The only other option for advocates of an ordinance change was to gather enough signatures on a petition to the measure on the November ballot.
After months of the effort, supporters gave it up last week. They had garnered about 3,000 signatures. They needed almost 10,000.
Kyle Hoelscher, leader of the local chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, says the group will refocus its efforts on the Texas Legislature. One goal would be to lower the penalties for recreational marijuana use.
Too bad the local effort failed. The change would have been a small step to rethinking just how we want to deal with the drugs that plague Americans. We've been waging a "war on drugs" in the United States since the days of Richard Nixon.
As Dr. Phil would ask, how is that working out for you?
We've incarcerated hundreds of thousands of Americans, left countless families bereft of parents, scarred the careers of a whole generation of young people, by putting so many low-level lawbreakers in prison cells with the hard-core we've immersed them in criminal worlds, all to no purpose.
But we have accomplished this. We've made millionaires out of drug merchants. We've enabled the growth of criminal organizations that encompass private armies, transportation networks that span international borders and corruption that has threatens the viability of nations.
Thousands of families in Mexico alone have lost family members to kidnapping, abductions and lawlessness. It is Mexico and other Latin American countries that have paid the steepest price for America's "war on drugs."
Of course there is the money. I reject the notion that the possession of a small amount of marijuana is a victimless crime. It doesn't take the accumulation of many small amounts to total tons of marijuana and that means millions, if not billions, of dollars. It is those dollars that feed the murder and the terror that pervades much of our southern border.
In a perverse way, clamping down on illegal drugs actually raises the price. It's the law of supply and demand.
But if we started down the path of citation instead of arrest, of decriminalizing its possession, channeling its users into health programs, if we started to drain the swamp of illegal drugs of a great deal of lucre, then we might begin to shrink the drug monster.
Issuing citations in Corpus Christi for possession of small amounts, less than four ounces, of marijuana may not greatly damage the economics of illegal drugs. But the change might begin to alter the balance of how we treat drugs, not as a criminal problem but as one that is about public health.
In Corpus Christi, in 2015, police made 1,100 arrests for misdemeanor possession of marijuana. Now, using marijuana isn't the smartest move anyone ever made. But the reality is that many people, especially young people, are users.
These young people may be doing something stupid as young people are prone to do. They may be harming their health. They may be thoughtless about their job prospects; always remember that there is a pee cup out there somewhere in the future.
But they are not criminals who deserve arrest.
Nick Jimenez has worked as a reporter, city editor and editorial page editor for more than 40 years in Corpus Christi. He is currently the editorial page editor emeritus for the Caller-Times. His commentary column appears on Wednesdays and Sundays.
Associated Press photo
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By Jamil Oakford, jamil.oakford@caller.com
As temperatures soared into the 100s, three incidents of immigrants abandoned by smugglers cropped up over the weekend.
A news release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection said agents found 9 immigrants who were separated from and abandoned by smugglers guiding them through brush near Kingsville, Falfurrias and Raymondville.
In Kingsville, several 911 calls were made, painting a picture of people lost in the brush. When Border Patrol agents in Kingsville responded, they found separately found seven immigrants at different times and locations. According to the news release, the immigrants told the agents that they couldn't keep up with the smuggler.
Because of the heat, all of the immigrants needed medical attention.
In Falfurrias, emergency dispatchers received an emergency call from an immigrant who needed medical attention. With the help of a U.S. Marine helicopter and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Air, they were able to locate the caller and provide aid.
The Guatemalan consul also requested help to find a missing immigrant child. The child went missing north of Raymondville. After coordinating, the news release states the child was found and taken to the hospital for treatment.
As of Tuesday afternoon, all who were admitted to the hospital were released, Customs and Border Patrol supervisor Marlene Castro said.
She also said that while this seems to be a common occurrence, the number of rescues has increased and the percentage of deaths has decreased over the last year.
"We do have more personnel assigned to areas where we see these incidents," Castro said.
The news release states that rescues have risen 54 percent and deaths have fallen 3 percent. Castro said that U.S. Customs and Border Patrol has performed 776 rescues from October 2015 to present day.
Twitter: @Caller_Jamil
When is hurricane season? Here's what you need to know in South Texas
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Three cheers to the Caller-Times for their series, "Behind Broken Doors": The Toll of Domestic Violence.
If two men hit each other, it is called assault. If reported, you are immediately risking criminal prosecution. But if it's a man hitting a woman, we have to call it something else? If you see a man push a woman, do you look the other way? Is it just a LOVER'S SPAT?
The Huffington Post reports that the number of American troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2001 and 2012 was 6,488. The number of American women who were murdered by male current or ex-partners during that time was 11,766. That's nearly double the amount of casualties lost during war. This doesn't include the recent deaths that we have had in Corpus Christi in the past year and even the past week. And the battle against domestic violence is just that A WAR!
The 2014, Mary Kay's "dontlookaway" survey showed that 57 percent of domestic abuse victims wait up to six or more months before getting help. Law enforcement needs to realize that when a woman comes to them for help, she has already been abused for a while and now fears for her life. In the NIJ Journal 250, it was quoted that in 70-80 percent of intimate partner homicides, no matter which partner was killed, the man physically abused the woman before the murder. That number is from 2003.
The nonprofit Texas Council on Family Violence issued a report in 2014 Honoring Texas Victims: Family Violence Fatalities. Highlights from the report:
132 women were killed in 59 Texas counties in 2014, compared with 119 in 2013.
43 percent of the women killed had ended their relationship.
67 percent of the killers used a firearm.
90 was the age of the oldest victim.
This is not acceptable.
The first time someone is arrested for domestic violence is, unfortunately, not the last. Bail conditions need to be more stringent, and in the case of habitual offenders, denied. A person's life is at stake.
This is also not a whodunit. You know who the victim is and who the offender is. Mary's Law, enacted in 2009, enables courts to order a domestic violence offender to wear a tracking device as a condition of bail or when a protective order is ordered before trial. But, as is in most legal matters, the devices are expensive. If a defendant has the means to pay for the device and monitoring, they will have to foot the bill. The price tag is about $300 a month for one person. But the majority of inmates are indigent and can't afford the payments. Then it falls on to the county to provide them.
Diane Rosenfeld, director of the Gender Violence Program at Harvard Law School, has been working for almost a decade to more widely implement the use of GPS tracking on convicted domestic violence offenders think ankle bracelet, but more advanced. "It's an ankle bracelet with a phone in it so a probation officer or police department can speak to the offender," she explains. Say Mr. Jones, a convicted domestic violence offender, traveled outside his designated boundaries. The device might say, "Mr. Jones, you're out of your zone," says Rosenfeld. "He could say he was lost, but the GPS shows he's going toward his ex-wife's house. We would be able to alert the survivor immediately and tell her not to open the door and, simultaneously, send information to the police."
Rosenfeld says this GPS technology is used in 23 states and that 11 more states have pending legislation to put it in place. On the forefront of that movement is Connecticut, one of the first states to use GPS tracking on high-risk domestic violence cases since 2004. Rosenfeld, working with the Greater Newburyport High Risk Case Management Team, implemented GPS tracking as part of an overall containment model. And it worked. "They have had no domestic violence-related homicides in the areas they've served in 11 years. It can really save lives."
When my daughter Jennifer Cave was murdered and dismembered in 2005, one of the hardest things for me to understand was that desecrating a corpse was just a misdemeanor. In 2007, the Jennifer Cave Act was implemented to make desecration of a corpse a second-degree felony. Local legislators and I did not work for this act to be purely on the books. It was to be used! In the case of Noemi Villarreal, whose body was found burned, I cannot think of a more apt time for this to be used for a capital murder charge. It is time for local and state officials to take a hard look at domestic violence and implement and change the laws to protect these victims.
U Zaw Htay, spokesperson for the Presidents Office said that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi suggested finding the means for participation of all political parties in the peace conference and that the National Reconciliation and Peace Centre-NRPC is set to handle international funds of the peace process.
Dr Tin Myo Win, chairman of the preparatory committee was quoted as saying that talks remain to be held with three of the 21 ethnic armed organisations regarding the new governments peace policy.
A delegation led by military lawmaker Thein Zaw will soon go to Minela Township in eastern Myanmar for talks with the three groups that were excluded from the NCAthe Arakan Army (AA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and the Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA), according to a Radio Free Asia report.
The Union Peace Conference, or 21st Century Panglong, is due to be held in August.
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A primary head whose school is the first official sign up to the News' Sing for Your School competition has hailed the contest as a good opportunity" to get youngsters excited about music.
However it's not just the musical abilities of Harston and Newton Primary School pupils which will be put into practice, with hopes high that taking part will also give their literacy a boost.
The trailblazer school's involvement with the competition comes as pupils prepare for another special musical effort a performance at the Royal Albert Hall later this week.
Headteacher Siobhan Rouse said: We have a strong tradition of music already but this was a new opportunity to develop music and literacy because the children are asked to write their own songs.
Music is such an important part of many people's lives but particularly young people writing lyrics will motivate them to write and think about the power of words and how you use them.
It's a good opportunity and the more schools that work together on it the more we will benefit."
The competition, which is open to schools across Cambridgeshire, was launched in May and will offer youngsters the chance to write and record their own songs through a series of workshops.
Once songs have been rehearsed and recorded they will be uploaded on to an online chart for a panel of judges to listen to and decide a winner.
Siobhan Lihoreau, who leads music at the school, comes from a secondary school background but said the competition offered a great opportunity to get younger pupils excited about music.
They take great delight in producing something from nothing that's completely their own," she said.
There's an incentive as well because there's a competitive element involved."
Mrs Lihoreau called on teachers to get involved and added: School teachers are often overloaded with work but I think this will support them rather than add to their workload.
The children will love it and get a lot out of it school is about making memories and music is a great way of making memories."
Sing for Your School will culminate in a celebration event at the Cambridge Corn Exchange on March 2, where a number of schools will take to the stage to perform their songs.
| BY Lynchy |
Following a rigorous round of online judging by 120 industry experts, The Communications Council has announced 92 finalists from 32 agencies on behalf of 43 clients have made it into round two of the Australian Effie Awards.
Leading the agency pack is CB Agency of the Year The Monkeys with 11 finalists, followed by Leo Burnett, J Walter Thompson and BMF with eight apiece and Whybin\TBWA with seven. Finalists now compete for effectiveness awards across 22 categories, assessed by a team of 50 senior marketers, consultants and researchers.
Says Effies chairman Anthony Freedman: Congratulations to all of our finalists each of these cases have demonstrated great results against challenging goals an impressive achievement! The next round will be what distinguishes great from outstanding. Good luck in the next phase!
Adds chairman of Judges, Colin Wilson-Brown: Id like to thank the first round judges for their time, insights and scrutiny. To see such a high number of finalists progress sends a strong message around the value of the work being delivered by our industry. The next round takes that further, with cases and results assessed by panels of senior marketers, providing a client perspective on how agency work is driving business performance.
The Effie winners, Effective Agency of the Year, Advertiser of the Year, and Grand Effie will be announced at a presentation in Sydney on Thursday 8th September.
The Effies are jointly presented by The Communications Council and the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA). For further information about the Effie program visit effies.com.au
| BY Lynchy |
The fancifully-told story of a lottery win has become a 2016 Cannes Cyber Grand Prix win for Passion Pictures.
Night Shift, created for the Spanish lottery and directed by Againstallodds (one half of which is Melburnian Derek Picken, pictured below left, with co-founder Niklas Rissler), was awarded the Grand Prix in the Cyber category. The charming animated film tells the story of a night watchman (Justino) at a mannequin factory, who leaves messages for his daytime co-workers (with whom he never interacts) through the comical posing of the otherwise inanimate figures.
The story of Justino was described by Jury President Chloe Gottlieb (co-executive creative director of R/GA U.S) as both at the level of Pixar, and not a TV spot put on YouTube. The film itself was supported across multiple digital channels, with each piece of the puzzle tailored exclusively to optimise each medium.
With more than a million views in its first 24 hours, Justinos story was literally an overnight success. Its was ably backed by a deft and responsive social media campaign, which stayed abreast of trending topics such as the black and blue or white and gold dress debacle (the dress was featured on one of the mannequins), and the Star Wars: The Force Awakens premiere (Justino featured costumed as Darth Vader).
Passion Pictures are naturally thrilled to have been part of a project which has been touted by the BBC as ad that won Christmas. Says Passion Pictures Melbourne EP Katie Mackin: Its heartening to see beautiful storytelling being awarded, and so amazing to see the added dimension and depth the various digital channels can provide.
| BY Lynchy |
Bringing to life Hondas Power of Dreams, Leo Burnett Melbourne has created a campaign for the new Honda Civic that shows that anything is possible when youre bold enough to chase your dreams.
The campaign features a launch film directed by Goodoils Nathan Price. It tells the story of a determined reporter who has ambitions beyond the small-time dog show story she is covering. When opportunity strikes in the form of a meteor hurtling towards the earth, she chases after it in the Bold New Honda Civic to realise her dream. Backed by the iconic song Dreamer, the action-packed spot features everything from a bumbling news crew, to a fallen forest and an unexpected crater. All visual effects were completed by Alt.vfx.
The launch film is part of an integrated campaign that includes cinema, outdoor, online, radio, social and dealer communications.
Says Honda Australia GM of Customer and Communications, Scott McGregor: The Bold New Honda Civic is ready to shake up the small car segment. Chase It is the third execution in Hondas strategy to engage and entertain our customers, and follows on from highly successful campaigns for HR-V and CR-V. The Honda R&D team chased their dream to create the boldest Honda Civic ever, and we think theres a strong parallel between this and the dreams that our customers chase every day.
Adds Leo Burnett Melbourne chief creative officer, Jason Williams: The Power of Dreams is behind everything at Honda. This campaign aims to inspire current Honda drivers, and Honda drivers of the future.
Agency: Leo Burnett Melbourne
CCO: Jason Williams
Senior Creatives: Alex Metson / Blair Kimber / Joe Hill / Garret Fitzgerald
Senior Agency Broadcast Producer: Cinnamon Darvall
Group Account Director: Chris Ivanov
Senior Account Director: Jaime Morgan
Integrated Account Director: Nick Bennett
Account Executive: Alex Cusworth
Director of Integrated Strategy: Ilona Janashvili
Strategy Planner: Emily Gould
Senior Digital Strategist: James Duthie
Senior Digital Producer: Charles Crang
Associate Digital Creative Director: Tim Shelley
Digital Designer: Matthew Caminiti
Technical Director: Luke Torney
Senior Back-end Developer: Ken Chen
Front-end Developer: Rami Yahya
Print Producer: John Trifonopoulos
Social Media Team: Chris Steele and Josh Popow
Production Company: Goodoil Films
Director: Nathan Price
Producer: Andrew McLean
Executive Producer: Juliet Bishop
DOP: Ginny Loane
Production Designer: Guy Treadgold
Editor: Jack Hutchings The Butchery
VFX & Supervisor: Colin Renshaw ALT VFX
Sound Engineer: Sam Hopgood SoundLounge
Soundtrack: Roger Hodgson (Dreamer)
Media: Zenith Optimedia
Client: Honda Australia
General Manager, Customer & Communications: Scott McGregor
Brand Communications Manager: Ben Familton
Brand Communications Specialist: Melissa Altarelli
| BY Lynchy |
Moth Projects has signed top photographers Christopher Polack, Sam Wong and Dakota Gordon.
Says EP Jonathan Samway This is an expansion of our creative reach in adding these incredibly talented stills photographers to our team. Each brings a unique perspective to their work and each is a talent to watch. Moth remains committed to identifying and representing brilliant storytellers, whatever the medium.
Christopher Polack lives between Melbourne, New York and London and has worked with some of the biggest names in Australian fashion. He was recently selected by Alessia Glaviano (photo editor at Italian Vogue) as one of her stand out photographers from the recently completed Mastered mentorship program with Nick Knight. Christopher has executed editorials for international fashion magazines including 10 Magazine Nu-Mode Magazine, Schon Magazine, Syn Magazine and is currently collaborating with Nick Knight on a book project to be released at the end of the year. Technically self taught in photography, he also studied motion and has worked amongst the likes of George Lucas and Baz Lurhmann, which taught him valuable skills in storytelling. His growing client base includes Nike Red Bull, Carharrt, Vans & Guinness.
Sydney based Dakota Gordon shoots exclusively on film. Having been published in Oyster, Dazed and Confused, Highsnobiety, and PITCH, and frequently shooting for street-wear brands like ONLY, Well Dressed Vandals, and Forty Thieves, her work shows a detail-oriented, minimalist aesthetic often featuring a pastel colour palette. She recently held an exhibition at Goodspace Gallery in Chippendale titled Jane Doe which is inspired by the figure of the final girl, aka the one girl in countless horror movies who manages to escape the killer and lives to tell the tale.
The meeting brought together state government officials led by Chief Minister U Min Min Oo and nine group representatives at the Mon State government office on July 1.
When we asked the state chief minister to add Mon language to entrance and road signs, [he] said that he had already talked to the municipal department about that. He gave his informal approval to use Mon, Myanmar and English on signs, said Nai Tala Nyi, a member of the Mon National Priorities Implementation and Negotiation Group.
In addition to his role as chief minister, U Min Min Oo also co-manages departments for state municipal development and construction.
Both sides also agreed to return the statue of a Bop Htaw, a golden bird and national symbol for ethnic Mon people that was taken down by the military government in 2007, to its former perch in a roundabout at the citys main entrance, according to U Min Min Nwe of the Mon priorities group.
A replacement Bop Htaw statue is still being sculpted. It will be done within two months.
U Min Min Nwe added that Fridays meeting participants also agreed to work together towards the establishment of teaching committees tasked with ensuring Mon language instruction in state schools.
The 9-member Mon National Priorities Implementation and Negotiation Group, founded to advocate for projects on behalf of the Mon public, was created on June 24 at Mon Hall in Mawlamyine, the capital of Mon State, formerly known as Moulmein.
M16 Artspace: Painting the Town by Night. Artist Julie Spencer presents works exploring her fascination with the urban experience. The 2nd Edition. Six graduates of the ANU School of Art Printmedia and Drawing department present their first exhibition together since graduation. Score No. 0013: Emotion Ensemble. A colour/audio projection work by Shags. Magic Lines. Works featuring words as graphic elements, using a variety of media and letters. All until July 24. Open Wednesday to Sunday, noon-5pm. 21 Blaxland Crescent, Griffith. Ph: 6295 9438 or see: m16artspace.com.au
But the ACT also had fewer voting options than in many other states, and more than 100 staff from the AEC were still counting just fewer than 6000 postal votes in each of Canberra's two electorates.
The same is true with the second component, which is multi-party representation in the Senate, denying either major party control of the upper house. This has been the case for almost 40 years now yet prime ministers on both sides cannot help themselves when they choose to inflame the situation. They all do it yet it is a natural consequence of a bicameral system mixed with a diverse society. Paul Keating condemned the Senate as "unrepresentative swill" and Abbott described it as "feral". The upper house is nothing of the kind, and plays an important if evolving democratic role.
Gus the hacker puppeteer writes, "While looking for Google-autocompleted questions about the media to answer on The Media Show, we started typing 'how do cell phones' and Google came back with 'distract students.'"
As someone who spent seven years doing graduate work on education and technology, questions like these drive me crazy. The worst questions people ask about ed tech are ones I think of as "cave-man questions." They tend to be shaped bluntly, and be about crude, one-sided value judgments: I tend to sum them up by grunting "IS VIDEO GAME DO BAD TO CHILD?!!!1" We've parodied this before in our episode "Is The Internet Good Or Bad?" (another search which shows up on Google autocomplete, and which we hope was not spurred by terrible school writing assignments).
Societies have been asking these questions about new media at least as far back as the dawn of radio and comic books, which were also seen as potentially damaging to children. Heck, our professors at Teachers College taught us that Victorian educators were worried that chalkboards would cause disruption in the classroom. And among the ancient Greeks, there was some concern that learning to write would hurt young people's memory! On the flip side, there have been waves of positive hype about how closed-circuit TV channels, video games, and, most recently, virtual reality would transform education forever.
My gut reactions to the question "How do cell phones distract students?" were, "well, what are they doing on their phones? How do we know it's bad? What if they're actually doing something worthwhile, and by taking away their phones we're wasting their time?"
So here is The Media Show's fantasia on what a cell-phone-enabled classroom could look like at least once someone develops Uber for teachers.
The Chilcot Report on the UK invasion of Iraq has finally been released, seven years after it was announced, and many years after its completion (it was delayed for years over the release of government documents and memos that were contained in its pages).
It's safe to say that no independent entity or news agency has read the whole report yet (though the Guardian has a clever crowdfunding effort to comb through its pages). But from the outset, one thing is clear: Tony Blair had no real basis to take the UK into war, and his decision resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, the displacement of more than a million people, and set the stage for the current ISIS crisis in the region.
Incredibly, Blair has argued that the report exonerates him.
One of the most damning soundbites from the report was a memo from Blair to GW Bush reading, "I will be with you whatever," which is a part of a series of communications between the two leaders in which they start from the conclusion that they want to invade Iraq and topple the Saddam Hussein government, and work backwards to figure out how to present the evidence that will make the case that they have no choice but to do this.
The Guardian has a must-read tick-tock of the aftermath of the report, as various UK political figures weigh in (Jeremy Corbyn, the embattled left wing Labour leader who comes from the opposite side of the party to Blair, has suggested that Parliament could take action against Blair based on the report).
The report also bitterly criticises the way in which Blair made the case for Britain to go to war. It says the notorious dossier presented in September 2002 by Blair to the House of Commons did not support his claim that Iraq had a growing programme of chemical and biological weapons. The then Labour government also failed to anticipate the war's disastrous consequences, the report says. They included the deaths of "at least 150,000 Iraqis and probably many more most of them civilians" and "more than a million people displaced". "The people of Iraq have suffered greatly," Chilcot says. Chilcot does not pass judgment on whether the war was legal. But it says the way the legal basis was dealt with before the 20 March invasion was far from satisfactory. The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, should have given written advice.
The Iraq Inquiry
Help us report on the 2.6m word Chilcot report
[Crowdsourced/The Guardian]
Chilcot delivers crushing verdict on Blair and the Iraq war
[Luke Harding/The Guardian]
The Balmuda "transforms store-bought bread into something that smells, tastes and feels like it popped out of a baker's oven," says Reed Stevenson of Bloomberg. The company is making 10,000 units a month, and there's a 3 month waiting list. It's available in Japan only.
The idea of reinventing the toaster came from an equally unlikely source: Terao, a high-school dropout who spent his college funds (a life-insurance payout after his mother died) trekking across Spain, Morocco and the Mediterranean. He returned to front a rock band called the Beach Fighters, which broke up after nine years; they had a record contract, but never made it big. To make ends meet, Terao worked at a pachinko parlor (a pinball-style gambling hall) while figuring out his next move.
"I was reading Forbes when I was in the band," the 42 year-old said. "And like music, I wanted to create something that I liked, and find out if people liked that too."
Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact.
Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here.
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You are our people. You Care. We Care2.
The Guardian's Frankie Boyle is on fire in his new column on the post-Brexit machinations in the UK Conservative Party, where the hardline, ultra-authoritarian elements of the party are splitting their time between knifing each other in the back and planning to eliminate the few remaining environmental, safety and finance regulations that have not been shredded since the first David Cameron government in 2010.
Boyle rounds up the current crop of potential leaders and their ghastly history, and as bisto sums up the infighting in the Labour party in a few devastating sentences ("They say they need a leader who knows how to oppose, albeit primarily their own party membership. The idea is that Corbyn is unelectable, and it's just one of life's sad ironies that none of the people who believe this will be able to beat him in an election").
Stephen Crabb has come under fire for links to a group that claims it can cure homosexuality, and, having had a quick look at him, he's definitely cured me: his beaming face is like a grim party game where blindfolded children have to try to place the eyes on to an identikit photograph of a murderer. The frontrunner, Theresa May, communicates something horrifying, not through her appearance, but rather her unique expression of unwavering, furious disgust. It is the expression some nameless, pitiless archon will wear 50 years from now as it signs a contract to rent out our city centres to pharmaceutical companies so they can crop-spray viruses and harvest antibodies from any survivors. It is the expression Lucifer wore when the other angels attempted an intervention. Surely May, of all people, could make a positive case for migration just by saying: "If you can't see the potential of a free-moving workforce, simply imagine how great it would be if I fucked off somewhere else." Bizarrely, it looks like she'll be involved in a runoff against Andrea Leadsom, who was created by Nazi scientists as a response to Dame Vera Lynn. Michael Gove needs to get 50 signatures, but at the moment he doesn't look like he could persuade his mother to sign him off a cross-country run after a leukaemia diagnosis. And then there's Liam Fox. I seem to remember some sort of opprobrium being attached to him. Whatever it was, no doubt there can't have been much to it (even though he was forced to resign or something) or it wouldn't be getting comprehensively buried every news cycle by Jeremy Corbyn not indicating when leaving a roundabout or something.
The Tory leadership election is a sort of X Factor for choosing the antichrist
[Frankie Boyle/The Guardian]
(Thanks, Alice!)
(Image: Rt Hon Theresa May MP, Home Secretary, at 'The Pioneers: Police and Crime Commissioners, one year on', Policy Exchange, CC-BY)
The fractured Democratic Party is turning to rapper and outspoken video game/marijunana enthusiast Snoop Dogg to reunite them! Snoop will be performing at their post-convention unity party.
No wonder people fought so hard to become delegates!
Via Politico:
Barely a week after it emerged that Teslas Autopilot system played a role in a fatal Model S crash, an owner of the latest Model X has asserted that his Autopilot system caused his car to crash in Pennsylvania.
Last week, the car was involved in an incident on the Pennsylvania Turnpike after hitting a guard rail before rebounding into the median barrier and flipping onto its roof, Freep reported.
The driver, Albert Scaglione, a well-known local art dealer, was hospitalized alongside his son-in-law following the crash before both were soon released after treatment.
Tesla meanwhile is refusing to accept blame for the crash, claiming in a statement that it has been unable to find any evidence if Autopilot was or wasnt activated, due to the antenna being damaged in the crash.
We received an automated alert from this vehicle on July 1 indicating air bag deployment, but logs containing detailed information on the state of the vehicle controls at the time of the collision were never received. This is consistent with damage of the severity reported in the press, which can cause the antenna to fail, the electric automaker said.
While the investigation continues, this is undoubtedly another PR blow for Tesla and its autonomous driving technologies.
PHOTO GALLERY
Weve seen plenty of crossover between the automotive and aerospace industries, from Saabs being born from jets to Lamborghini and Boeing partnering to develop carbon composites together. But as much as they may use them, automakers dont typically run their own airlines. So what would it be like if they did?
Thats what Caterham is amusingly hypothesizing in this latest video. Now if youre thinking that a Caterham airplane would probably be lighter and easier to repair than most, youre on the same page as we are. And the company was linked to Air Asia when its owner Tony Fernandes bought the British automaker as well. But we may be overthinking things here.
The video more lightheartedly envisions a theoretical Caterham Airways, where smoking (tires) is encouraged and there is no overhead storage. It looks like a decidedly more enjoyable way to travel, if less comfortable and convenient. But given the choice between flying skywards or riding sideways in a Seven, we know which wed choose.
VIDEO
As far as animation experiments go, Swedish animator Emil Gustafsson Ryderup undertook an ambitious one: remaking an entire film trailer.
Ryderup redrew the teaser for Batman: The Killing Joke to see if he could recreate the visual style of John Higgins vibrant, high-contrast pulp coloring in the original 1988 graphic novel. Its an interesting experiment partly because the illustrator of the comic, Brian Bolland, disliked Higgins garish color job and re-colored the comic in a subdued palette for the 20th anniversary re-release of the comic. The new film, directed by Sam Liu and Bruce Timm, appears to stick with the muted approach preferred by Bolland.
Ryderup also created this video comparing his version to Warner Bros. official trailer, as well as showing the original comic panels that inspired his fan trailer:
Photo: Contributed
Announced just three months ago, a second Centre of Gravity festival to be held in Ontario is now cancelled.
Scheduled for Aug. 19 to 21, organizers announced they are not going ahead with the Wasaga Beach COG festival.
On the COG website organizers apologized to everyone affected by the decision, which included fans, artists, industry partners, the venue and the community of Wasaga Beach.
The event was anticipated to draw a crowd of 8,000 that would have featured much of the same line-up as Kelownas festival this weekend. Ice Cube was scheduled to play, along with several electronic dance music DJs.
Kelowna's COG event is ready to go, rain or shine, starting on Friday.
The Wasaga Beach festival would also have included beach dodgeball, beach volleyball, and an urban zone featuring BMX riders.
Ticket purchasers and holders are expected to get a full refund.
In a release, the Town of Wasaga Beach explained it was advised that this business decision was made at the discretion of the event organizers after consideration of a number of factors.
The town was acting in an event hosting capacity and has been working with the event organizers over the past year to bring the festival to Wasaga Beach, stated Jenny Legget, Communications with Wasaga Beach.
Council gave final approval for the festival on June 28.
Photo: Getty Images
By Deani Van Pelt and Derek J. Allison
Many British Columbians likely believe that private schools are exclusively for elite families in major urban centres.
This misperception of independent schools (a more accurate term to describe non-government schools) impedes honest debate about the benefits of independent schools in the province.
A recent Fraser Institute study based on provincial ministry data of every independent school in Canada found that rather than conforming to the dominant stereotype of the traditional private school (St. George's in Vancouver, for example), independent schools actually come in a wide variety of types and serve many educational preferences.
In 2013-14, British Columbia was home to 340 independent schools with 75,401 students, which accounted for 12.3 per cent of all school enrolment in the province. In other words, one of every eight students attends an independent school in B.C.
Contrary to the "urban" stereotype, more than two of every five independent schools (42.9 per cent) in B.C. are located in rural or small/medium-sized population centres.
And more remarkably, only five per cent conform to the image of the traditional "elite" stereotype, which leaves 95 per cent of independent schools outside the "elite" sphere.
There are two major types of independent schools in B.C. schools with a religious orientation and specialty schools.
More than 55 per cent of the province's independent schools have a religious orientation. Exactly half (50.0 per cent) are Christian (non-Catholic) schools, 42.0 per cent are Catholic, 3.2 per cent are Jewish, 2.7 per cent are Islamic and 2.1 per cent have other religious perspectives.
The vast majority of independent school students in B.C. (70.4 per cent) attend a religious-based school an important fact since government-run schools in the province do not offer any religious alternatives like in other provinces. Subsequently, parents wanting a religious education for their children must rely on the independent school sector.
The other major type of independent school provides a unique approach to teaching (Montessori, for example), an emphasis on special needs students, or a specialized focus on distinct content. Sixty-eight such schools exist in B.C., representing 20 per cent of all independent schools in the province.
Contrary to the "elitist" caricature of private schools, independent schools in B.C. offer diverse approaches to education, particularly religious-based education and alternative pedagogies. It's time we recognize the "other 95 per cent" of independent schools in B.C. and the value they provide to students and parents across the province.
Deani Van Pelt and Derek J. Allison are co-authors of the recently released study A Diverse Landscape: Independent Schools in Canada, available at www.fraserinstitute.org.
Troy Media
A North Okanagan group has a new take on the flash mob.
Local residents have plans for a 'splash' mob on Kalamalka Lake in an effort to bring attention to their concern over the possible invasion of quagga and zebra mussels.
A gigantic human circle, made up of boats and other watercraft, is planned for the lake with an overhead drone shooting footage.
If enough people show up then that's a statement. It says, 'we area very concerned about this,' said filmmaker Brynne Morrice, the event's senior planner, who is hoping several hundred people show up.
We will be close enough to Kal Beach (in Coldstream) that even people on a water mattress or a floaty can take part. We don't want people to not come because they don't have a boat.
Last year, Morrice produced a six-minute documentary on the invasive species and the ramifications to B.C. waterways called Mussel Threat. It can be found on YouTube.
He said the splash mob idea came up before the provincial government announced plans to spend $2 million for five mussel inspection stations along the B.C.-Alberta border and three along the B.C.-United States border during this year's boating season.
The government is doing more, but we're still a long way from where we need to be, said Morrice.
The splash mob is planned for Sunday, July 24, at 10 a.m. in the waters off Kal Beach. To sign up or for more information, go online.
"We're doing a Kickstarter to raise funds for the expenses," said Morrice. It can found here.
Photo: ghosttoursofvernon.com
Residents will not have to travel far to get their fill of haunted houses, monsters, gruesome murders, paranormal anomalies and macabre historical oddities.
Once again, Gabriel David Sumegi Newman the 2nd will lead people through downtown Vernon with stories of ghastly goings on during the Greater Vernon Museum and Archives Ghost Tours event.
Newman, a professional storyteller and performer, created the ghost tours as a way of combining the art of storytelling with local history.
"You come for the ghosts, which there are many of, but you leave with a new understanding and appreciation for the history of the region," said Newman.
Starting from the steps between the Vernon Museum, 3009-32nd Ave., and the former library, the tour will run every night from July 24-30 beginning at 9 p.m.
It is an outdoor walking tour that runs rain or shine so participants are encouraged to dress appropriately. The tour will run approximately one hour and 21 minutes.
Tickets are $10 for ages 13 and up, and $5 for those 12 and under (cash only).
No reservations are necessary.
Photo: Greater Vernon Chamber of Commerce.
The Greater Vernon Chamber of Commerce has a new director on its board.
Ben Robinson, a business banking advisor with Valley First Credit Union, will take on the new role immediately.
Robinsons financial background will be an asset to the board as the chamber grows and develops new programs to better serve members and the areas business community, according to chamber president Tracy Cobb-Reeves.
An Okanagan College graduate with a diploma in Financial Services, Robinson is currently working on a Bachelors' degree in Business Administration.
Bens enthusiasm for business combined with his community involvement makes him a great fit for the Chamber and we look forward to his contributions, said Cobb-Reeves.
I have been impressed with the work of the Chamber and excited as a volunteer to join the board and help our members grow and prosper, said Robinson. Im eager to work with chamber members and the business community to help make Vernon the best place to live and do business in the Okanagan.
As an appointee, Ben will serve on the board until the end of the current year, but will be eligible to run again in the elections held as part of the Chambers annual general meeting in October.
Photo: Getty Images
RCMP are debunking some of the 'myths' surrounding impaired driving in an effort to reduce the number of people injured and killed by drunks behind the wheel.
According to police, impaired driving is a leading cause of collisions in the province of B.C. During the summer months (June to September) 36 people are killed in crashes involving impaired driving nearly half (46 per cent) of all impaired driving fatalities in a year.* Those are some sobering statistics and thats why this months five on the fifth focusses on debunking impaired driving myths.
Myth 1: I cant do anything to prevent impaired driving collisions
Fact: By planning ahead and pledging not to drive impaired or to get in a vehicle with an impaired driver you can reduce impaired driving collisions. Most impaired-related crashes (59 per cent) occur on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. So, if you are going out, plan ahead for a safe ride home. Organize a designated driver, put money aside for a taxi or know your public transit options.
Myth 2: Coffee, a cold shower or a hamburger will sober you up.
Fact: Nothing but time will help you wear off the drugs or alcohol you consumed.
Myth 3: Ill be OK to drive in the morning.
Sleeping may make you feel better, but it doesnt mean that the alcohol or drugs are out of your system.
Myth 4: Smoking pot makes me a better driver.
Studies show stoned drivers can be as dangerous as drunk drivers. Depending on what they've smoked, swallowed or injected, their impairment could range from slowed reflexes and flawed depth perception to hallucinations, psychosis and seizures.
Myth 5: I only took over-the-counter medications for my cold/allergies. Im OK to drive.
Photo: CTV
Police are responding to an incident at the Pacific Highway border crossing in Surrey Tuesday afternoon.
The Canadian Border Services Agency says someone didn't stop at the border while heading into Canada from the U.S.
A witness from told CTV News it looked like police were chasing a Volkswagen Jetta, southbound on the Canadian side towards the border near the same time.
CTV News captured helicopter footage of police surrounding a Volkswagen.
It is unknown if any suspects are in custody at this time.
With files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: The Canadian Press
A British Columbia judge says a camp that's been occupied by 100 homeless people in Victoria since last fall must be shut down.
Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson of the B.C. Supreme Court says the camp is unsafe for people living there and for neighbours and businesses.
Hinkson says residents of the so-called tent city on the lawn of the city's court house must leave as soon as they can and move into housing made available by the province.
He has ordered that all fences and obstructions at the camp be removed.
The judge says that in the next three days, anyone without a place to live must identify themselves so they can get help accessing alternate housing.
The province applied for an injunction to shut down the camp after failing in an earlier attempt.
Photo: Getty Images
Intelligence and creativity are wonderful qualities to find in another person.
These traits tend to shine through in conversation on any number of topics and are not necessarily tied to educational achievement.
So what is behind general intelligence and creativity?
Observation has long suggested intelligence involves a combination of knowledge and experience. Many well-known creative thinkers talk about this interplay and the importance of experience to connect the dots between different pieces of knowledge.
Several studies in brain activity seem to corroborate this theory. In a 2010 study from the California Institute of Technology, IQ and brain imaging data from more than 200 patients with brain injuries was examined to produce a map of brain regions involved in intelligence.
Not surprisingly, researchers found general intelligence was not tied to one particular part of the brain, but was determined by a network of regions across both sides of the brain.
This finding is consistent with results of intelligence testing. People tend to have similar scores on many different kinds of tests either scoring generally high or low across the board.
This doesnt mean intelligence is tied strictly to general whole brain functioning. Rather, it bears out a theory called parieto-frontal integration theory, which says general intelligence depends on the brains ability to integrate several different kinds of processing such as working memory.
So our brains need to have high-functioning areas as well as the ability for those areas to communicate well with one another.
Alongside these physical characteristics, the intelligent or creative thinker needs to have a good variety of knowledge and experiences from which to make these connections.
Here is where education and life experiences come in handy. The more curious we are to learn about a broad array of subjects, the more raw material we have at our disposal and the more varied our building blocks for creative thought.
Thats another great reason to keep learning new things, read a lot, and get out of the house and experience the world around us.
Although many creative people will tell you that nothing is truly new, we do have the potential for creative contributions because of our unique combination of knowledge and experience.
This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
Photo: CTV
Justice officials in Saskatchewan say a teenage girl accused of killing a baby boy had escaped custody the day before the death.
The teen was arrested after officers found the injured six-week-old infant at a Saskatoon home on Sunday morning. The baby died in hospital.
Ministry of Justice spokesman Drew Wilby said the girl was seen leaving an open-custody youth facility at about 1:45 a.m. on Saturday. Saskatoon police were notified just over an hour later.
"So there was about 30 hours where she was out of our care and before she was rearrested by the police," Wilby said Tuesday in Regina.
In Saskatoon, where the girl appeared briefly in court on charges of second-degree murder and escaping lawful custody, the infant's relatives cried out for help.
The boy's maternal grandfather said his daughter met the girl downtown and realized that she had nowhere to go. He said the teen was "lost to society and the world," so his sympathetic daughter brought her home.
"I raised my children with respect, to help out people in need," he said outside the courthouse.
The grandfather can't be named because doing so could identify the baby. The child's parents have not given explicit consent to having his name used.
"All I wanted to say was let there be justice served for my grandson," the grandfather said as he choked back tears.
"He was sadly taken away from us, for what, I don't know."
The grandfather said no one in the family knew the girl.
Wilby said open custody means doors cannot be locked and staff can't physically stop young offenders from leaving. But if they do, they are breaking the law.
"Young offenders under an open-custody sentence are able to leave under their own accord, in accordance with the Youth Criminal Justice Act," he explained.
"Once they leave the facility, they're now guilty of another offence."
The girl was sentenced last December to 10 months in open custody for break and enter, arson, assault causing bodily harm, assault with a weapon and robbery with a weapon. She was also to serve five months of community supervision after her time in custody.
The teen first escaped in February, was caught and sentenced to 60 days secure custody, which she served at a facility in Regina. She was returned to open custody in Saskatoon in April.
The teen cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
Photo: The Canadian Press
Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan will shed some light on how the government plans to replace Canada's aging fighter jets in an address to defence and aerospace industry officials Wednesday.
The much-anticipated update will not include an announcement on what aircraft will replace Canada's CF-18s, said Sajjan's spokeswoman, Jordan Owens. The minister will instead lay out what "short-term next steps" the government intends to take on the file.
The Liberals have been under pressure to say something about the replacement plan since reports last month that they were considering buying Boeing Super Hornet fighter jets without a competition.
The government has insisted no decision has been made, but it also says new warplanes are urgently needed to address a "gap" in the air force's fighter jet capabilities. In particular, the Liberals have said there aren't enough CF-18s to meet all of Canada's defence commitments.
Critics, however, have pointed to Royal Canadian Air Force commander Lt.-Gen. Michael Hood's comments to the Commons defence committee in April as proof the Liberals are manufacturing a crisis.
Hood said the CF-18 fleet should be able to operate through 2025 thanks to a $500-million upgrade ordered by the Conservatives in 2014. Twenty-six out of 77 CF-18s have already undergone structural work to fly through the mid-2020s, and electronic upgrades are planned.
Owens said Sajjan's speech will provide more detail on the current state of the CF-18 fleet. The minister will also talk to industry representatives about other military procurement projects, many of which are facing delays and other problems.
The Liberals promised during last year's election that they would hold an open competition to replace the CF-18s. At the same time, they promised not to buy the F-35. This, however, created a potential legal situation if the government was seen to discriminate against the stealth fighter.
The F-35 has previously won competitions in South Korea, Japan and Denmark.
Postmedia reported in June that the government was considering whether to use an exemption in federal procurement laws to buy Super Hornets as an "interim" measure to address the capability gap. That would let it to sole-source the planes without fear of a lawsuit.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in the House of Commons last month that the F-35 "does not work and is far from working." A few weeks later, he refused to say whether his government remains committed to holding an open competition to replace the CF-18s.
"We are working very, very hard and thoughtfully to ensure that we deliver to our forces the right jets the right way at the right price," he told reporters at the time. "That's what Canadians expect of us, and that's what we are going to be doing."
The previous Conservative government announced in 2010 that Canada would be buying 65 F-35 stealth fighters without a competition. The Liberals, who at the time were in third place in the House of Commons, were critical of not holding a competition.
Both Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the U.S. defence giant behind the F-35, have engaged in fierce lobbying and public relations campaigns to convince Canadians and politicians that their fighter jet is best for the country.
Residents in and around the Okanagan wouldnt have the services they do today if it wasnt for the tireless efforts of one man.
Dr. Dick Hooper arrived in the Okanagan 20 years ago with a vision of creating a comprehensive cardiac centre outside of the Lower Mainland. Now he is being recognized for his contributions to Interior Health, as Kelowna General Hosptial names the lobby in the Interior Heart and Surgical Centre (IHSC) after the doctor.
Kelowna-Mission MLA Steve Thomson says the facility wouldnt exist if it wasnt for vision and advocacy of Hooper.
Dr. Hoopers passion to help others and his desire to bring care closer to the residents of the south and central Interior were instrumental in helping create the Interior Heart and Surgical Centre.
Hooper was tired of seeing patients who were waiting to go down to the coast, patients who were in desperate need of care care he could provide given the right facility.
Often they would wait up to three weeks to go down, an enormous financial cost, Hooper explained. We realized we could probably save close to $25 million a year by doing it here and avoid the human cost of doing it.
Hooper would use pictures of ambulances stuck on the Coquihalla highway in the dead of winter with patients waiting to get to the Lower Mainland for treatment as an opportunity to lobby the government into action.
Norm Letnick, Kelowna-Lake Country MLA, says it was thanks in part to Hoopers hard work and passion for improved health care that around 1,000 coronary angioplasty and surgery procedures are performed in Kelowna each year.
Born and raised in Vancouver, Hooper attended medical school at the University of British Columbia. After completing his residency training in internal medicine and cardiology at McGill University in Montreal, Hooper returned to Vancouver to join the cardiology department at St. Pauls Hospital.
Eventually moving to the Interior with his wife, who was from the Okanagan, he became aware that patients from rural locations in the B.C.s south and central Interior needed improved access to cardiac services closer to home.
Since the IHSC has opened, the rate of dying from a heart attack has been cut in half, he says. Its extraordinary, probably 2,000 heart surgeries and probably 4,000 or 5,000 angioplasties since the program began all right here, where it is meant to be.
In 2009, Hoopers efforts paid off when KGH became the first hospital outside of the Lower Mainland and Victoria to perform percutaneous coronary interventions, or angioplasties.
Another milestone occurred in 2012 when construction began on the IHSC at the KGH campus and the first open heart surgery procedure was completed at Kelowna General on Dec. 3.
Not slowing down by any means, Hooper and his wife have been traveling for the last four years to other areas of the province to provide cardiac care to those who cannot make it to KGH.
Photo: Kate Bouey
The price of renting a room in a boarding house in Vernon is now just as expensive as the Lower Mainland, said Barb Levesque, executive director of the John Howard Society for the North Okanagan-Kootenay. We have just been notified by the rooming houses."
In Vernon, to rent a room in a rooming house with a shared bathroom and a shared kitchen is $525 a month, said Levesque. It is comparable to Vancouver and Victoria. There is no difference.
Levesque said the housing crisis on the Lower Mainland was just as acute in the North Okanagan for the working poor and people on welfare and disability allowances.
There is a housing crisis. We have exactly the same problems here.
She said the $525 cost leaves a person on welfare with $75 left to live on per month, while taking more than half the $900 monthly allowance of a person on disability.
We should think about students and people making the minimum wage. What is a single parent with a child to support to do?
Meanwhile, there is a growing list of people applying for 39 low-income housing units at the former Journey Inn Motel on 28th Avenue.
We have 200 people on the waiting list, said Levesque.
However, power to the building is turned off. Eight people who had been living in the units were moved out this week to allow final renovations and some electrical work in the downtown to be completed.
Levesque said the old motel, to be known as the Blair Apartments, should be ready for people to move into by the end of August.
Photo: The Canadian Press
Canadians who could not get enough of William and Catherine, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the last time they were here might get another chance to see them soon.
And this time, their young children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, are welcome to join them.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has sent an official invitation to the royal couple and their family to visit Canada whenever their schedules permit.
A spokeswoman says the dates are not yet confirmed.
William, the eldest son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana, and his wife Kate Middleton, last visited Canada on their first official tour as newlyweds in 2011.
They visited four provinces and the Northwest Territories, and made a stop in Ottawa to celebrate Canada Day on Parliament Hill.
Photo: Contributed
Vancouver police are warning motorists they've launched a new blitz focused on excessively loud motorcycles and cars.
The campaign began Monday and runs through the summer months.
The aim is to try to cut down on unnecessarily loud motorcycle and car exhaust that can disturb the peace, enjoyment and quality of life of residents and tourists including those in the downtown core.
Police are reminding drivers that unnecessary noise from a vehicle's engine, tires, brakes, or exhaust may result in a violation ticket worth $109 plus 3 driver penalty points.
Photo: Getty Images
A Manitoba First Nation that declared a state of emergency after six suicides and more than 140 attempts this spring has been promised a new health centre.
Health Minister Jane Philpott announced Tuesday in Norway House that $50 million will go towards building new health centres in Pimicikamak, also known as Cross Lake, as well as Gods Lake Narrows, Lac Brochet and Red Sucker Lake First Nations.
In March, Pimicikamak band council asked Ottawa for at least six mental-health workers and round-the-clock counsellors after the suicides and attempts.
Philpott also announced that Health Canada will fund six new mental wellness teams based in communities within the next three years to support Manitoba First Nations.
As well, she said a mental health crisis response team will be dedicated to First Nations in Manitoba.
"Seeing the state of community health infrastructure and hearing concerns firsthand enables me to appreciate the tremendous value investments in health infrastructure upgrades will bring to their lives," Philpott said in a news release.
"Meeting with youth in Manitoba First Nations also helps me to better understand their perspectives, as well as how Health Canada programs might be adapted to better meet their needs. I am confident additional mental wellness teams will help address ongoing challenges in First Nations communities in Manitoba.
Philpott also announced that the federal government will spend $382 million on a new way to implement Jordan's Principle that she says will enhance service co-ordination and ensure service access resolution so that childrens needs are assessed and responded to quickly.
Jordan's Principle holds that no aboriginal child should suffer denials, delays or disruptions of health services available to other children due to jurisdictional disputes.
Jordan Anderson was a Cree boy from Norway House, Man., who died in hospital in 2005 after such disagreements kept him from spending his last years in home care.
"This approach will put the needs of children first and ensure that First Nations children living on-reserve receive the health and social services they need in a timely manner," Philpott said.
The money will allow First Nations organizations to hire a regional service co-ordinator to assess needs, facilitate early intervention, develop integrated care plans and connect the child and family to needed services, she said.
Photo: Contributed
Elders from the Splatsin First Nation near Enderby will be putting pressure on the chief and band council to reclaim an ancestral burial ground.
The band will be going to referendum July 16 to decide if they will accept a $300,000 offer in exchange for land that the band claims was illegally taken from them.
Speaking on behalf of the elders, Jody Leon said the band council and chief must not accept the offer. Instead, chief and council should demand the land be protected.
The ancient cemetery is currently under a farmer's field.
In 1877, the Splatsin Chief told the Government of Canada about this oldest ancestral Splatsin graveyard and there was an agreement that it be designated within the boundaries of Splatsin reserve land. This agreement was not honoured and the land was illegally transferred. This land is a sacred place. Neither the Heritage Act nor the Cemetery Act has protected this graveyard from being farmed or built on, said Leon.
The Elders are calling on their fellow band members to vote 'No' and send a message to Splatsin chief and council, that the ancestors' bones are not for sale. The Elders want a full archaeological study done to identify all of the ancestors' bones in the cemetery. They also want the land purchased back by the federal and provincial governments who allowed the cemetery to be ploughed under. In addition, they want the land fenced and memorialized with a monument and a ceremony.
Leon said the band's eight oldest members wrote a letter to the band council asking them to cancel the referendum.
In 2008 we rejected that offer. What this is about the government is trying to make the exact same offer, said Leon. Our people never agreed with the band council that they could enter into negotiations with the government because the offer was rejected.
Our ancestors are not for sale at any cost. All the elders will be gathering together. They want the band council to go back and ask for very specific things for protection of the ancestors.
The Elders will meet at the Splatsin Community Centre on Thursday, July 7 at 1 p.m. and invite all supporters to attend.
Photo: Wikipedia
The City of Vancouver says there has been a diesel spill in False Creek.
The city sent a series of tweets Tuesday night saying the coast guard was on the scene of a spill near the Burrard Street bridge.
The messages say the coast guard had determined the fuel was likely diesel and its source is not known.
It's unclear how much fuel leaked into the water.
The city says the diesel cannot be recovered and will dissipate on its own.
The coast guard will continue to monitor the spill.
Photo: The Canadian Press
An affectionate elk paid some Washington state firefighters a visit over the holiday weekend as they worked to tame a wildfire.
The orphaned elk, dubbed Buttons by the locals, is a fixture in Kittitas County, where she took up residence with some cows and goats on a hillside.
Kittitas County Fire District spokeswoman Richelle Risdon says she arrived at the scene on Saturday to see the elk nuzzling up to everyone in the command post area and resting her head on people's shoulders.
Risdon snapped photos of the animal getting up close and personal with the crew and posted them on the fire district's Facebook page.
She says she hopes with all the attention the photos are getting online, hunters will know to steer clear of Buttons.
An Ohio sheriff's anti-drug message in a video that plays off the "most interesting man in the world" beer campaign has been viewed tens of thousands of times.
Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones posted the video to his Facebook page last week declaring himself "the most interesting sheriff in the world." It's inspired by the popular Dos Equis beer advertising campaign that ended earlier this year.
The video features clips of Jones and a voiceover saying he won the Tour de France on a stationary bicycle and gave John Wayne his blessing to play a sheriff.
Jones says in the video that he loves snitches and asks residents to turn in drug dealers.
He says heroin is "killing us" and hopes social media users will continue sharing the video.
Photo: Disney
A man has been accused of groping six people, including teenagers, at Disney's Typhoon Lagoon water park in Florida.
According to news reports, one of the victims told Orange County Sheriff's deputies she and 27-year-old Aman Bhatia were in the wave pool Sunday. She says that as waves crashed over her, she felt Bhatia's hands all over her body.
Another victim says she was in the wave pool when Bhatia grabbed her waist from behind. She was able to break loose from his grasp, but he grabbed her again.
Four others reported similar incidents to authorities.
Bhatia told officers he had broken his glasses and couldn't see clearly, causing him to unintentionally touch people. It's unclear if he has an attorney.
Bhatia was arrested and faces several charges. Disney has banned him from the park.
Photo: The Canadian Press People cover their bodies with theatrical blood to protest against bull runs in Pamplona, Spain.
Thousands of people are singing and dancing in the streets of this northern Spanish city to celebrate the start of the Pamplona's famed San Fermin running of the bulls festival.
The festival started Wednesday with the traditional midday launching of a firework rocket known as the "Chupinazo" from Pamplona's town hall balcony.
Thousands of people jammed into the square down below, immediately began jumping and screaming "Viva San Fermin!" Others doused themselves in fake blood to protest the annual event and the bullfights that follow.
The nine-day, street-partying fiesta was immortalized in Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises" and attracts thousands of foreign tourists.
The "Chupinazo" takes place a day before the first of eight 8 a.m. bull runs, in which daredevils test their speed and bravery by racing with six fighting bulls along a 850-metre street course to the bull ring.
Photo: Contributed
Inside a warehouse in a secluded part of Vancouver, engineers and fabricators are building a two-storey tall, 3.5 tonne racing robot with four steel legs and a massive battery pack in its belly.
But unlike robots in science fiction, this mechanical beast won't be autonomous. "Prosthesis: the anti-robot" needs a human inside to operate its colossal limbs.
Its creator, Jonathan Tippett, views Prosthesis as a metaphor for the importance of keeping people at the heart of technology.
"Visually and physically it's this fragile human in the centre of this super-powerful, monstrous machine that is completely dormant without the pilot's will, which I think is how our relationship should remain with our technology," said Tippett, 42, a mechanical engineer and sculptor.
When Prosthesis is complete, it will look like a hefty, animal-shaped cage that could have featured in the blockbuster "Avatar." A person will strap into a harness inside its enormous torso and move their arms and legs to manoeuvre the exoskeleton as an extension of themselves.
Prosthesis will offer a "new human experience" and serve as a counterpoint to the trend of automating everything from vacuums to weapons of war, Tippett said.
"This machine is completely immobile unless you pilot it. It has no self-awareness," said Tippett, explaining that the pilot will squeeze grips to operate its hydraulics.
"You would stand up two storeys in the air and do a little squat jump and leap into the racetrack ahead of you, and become completely responsible for every move."
Tippett was inspired by an art installation he spotted 13 years ago at the Burning Man festival in Nevada, a pair of giant dinosaur legs made of welded car parts. The idea got him hooked on building a walking machine he could control with his body.
He drew a first sketch in 2006 and launched the project in 2010. Since then, hundreds of people have been involved in every stage of the design, testing and construction, which Tippett almost solely funded himself.
Engineering students at the University of British Columbia have also contributed as their capstone project.
Tippett's core team is now building the final machine slated to be unveiled in January after spending four years developing a prototype of its leg that is scaled to two-thirds of its full size.
The wearable machine is the antithesis of the kind of robots that leading scientists have warned against as they worry about an arms race in artificial intelligence. Scientist Stephen Hawking and Tesla founder Elon Musk were among hundreds of scientists and tech experts who last year signed an open letter arguing against autonomous weapons, fearing they would fall into the hands of terrorists, dictators and warlords.
Futurist Nikolas Badminton said Prosthesis demonstrates how humans enhance technology.
"I always say that your car isn't really anything to you until you give it a name, and then you remember every adventure that you have in it," Badminton said. "You jump in Prosthesis and together you are what that machine is. That symbiotic relationship is really important going forward."
He fears the sprint for progress means researchers are brushing aside conversations about how much faith humanity should put in technology. In Prosthesis, the individual is not only master but its "ethical barometer," said Badminton.
"Whether we have household robots of autonomous cars, it's going to be important to give them some of our personality," he said. "Or we're going to actually lose that element of humanity ... and we end up becoming the machine ourselves."
Tippett also hopes society will reject the seductive promise of an effortless life through artificial intelligence.
"Even if it's not the rise of the machines like in Terminator, it will be the withering of the human spirit, because there is nothing left for us to do," he said. "There are so many ways to fulfil yourself as a human being. Most of them revolve around earned experiences that have challenges."
Photo: The Canadian Press
Jim Mansfield thought he'd hooked bottom as he fished for cod off Newfoundland until his handline yanked back, and hard.
"Oh my God," he said of his "up close and personal" encounter early Saturday with the sharp-toothed maw of a two-metre porbeagle shark.
"Did it ever fight. I'd get it up probably six or eight feet with a really hard, hard struggle and then it would just tear the line right back through my hands again and go back down."
Mansfield was fishing off New Melbourne in Trinity Bay with his buddy Glenn Rideout when he hooked the shark in tough skin at the side of its mouth. A few great tugs from below led to a 20-minute skirmish as the two men worked to free it. They were in a small, open fishing boat with a motor. Their unexpected visitor had clamped on to an unbaited single red hook.
"He was a fat shark," Mansfield said Tuesday with a laugh. "You could see the belly on it was really huge.
"It was a big, big, big fish."
The men and another man in a nearby boat managed to take a few pictures before they pulled the hook free and the shark swam off, unbloodied.
"We never really had time to be scared," Mansfield said. "I've often wondered what it would be like to catch one, you know? I've heard tell of people often seeing them out there."
Porbeagles are related to larger great whites and can reach up to about four metres in length and 135 kilograms. The Nature Canada website describes them as curious creatures and opportunistic hunters who will chase hooked fish as they're drawn to the surface.
"No porbeagle has ever been incriminated in unprovoked attacks on humans probably because it lives in such cold water but as a relative of the mako and great white sharks it is among the fastest swimmers in the sea," it says.
Almost as excited as Mansfield was marine biologist Carolyn Miri of Fisheries and Oceans Canada in St. John's.
She said the department doesn't have funding for a delegated inshore survey and is asking anyone who sees or hooks sharks to contact her at the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre. Federal researchers have been satellite tagging sharks in the area since 2013 to help fill data gaps.
Mansfield said the porbeagle he caught appeared to have a tracker.
He and Rideout did everything right to release the accidental catch as quickly and humanely as possible, Miri said in an interview.
"He never tried to bring it aboard. And that's the best thing. People should never try to bring a shark onboard their boat. As well, they should not try to immobilize it in the water beside their boat because that also increases the stress level of the animal."
Porbeagles arrive off Newfoundland at this time of year, followed by blue sharks when the water temperature warms above 10 C, Miri said. Harmless but massive basking sharks, which are filter feeders, can grow 10 metres in length and may also appear.
And then there's Lydia. She's a great white shark with her own Twitter account and a dorsal fin satellite tracker that recently indicated she's somewhere off the Bahamas. She is billed as the first great white ever recorded to cross the Atlantic. She has also repeatedly traced a pattern from the southeastern U.S. up to the waters off southern Newfoundland before heading out into open sea.
Researchers with the non-profit group Ocearch share details of her movements on social media as Lydia offers scientists first-ever details about how the apex predators live, travel and cope with myriad threats. It's hoped that information will ultimately guide conservation efforts to protect great whites as a crucial part of ocean ecosystems.
As for Mansfield and his friend, he said they finished their time on the water Saturday with a successful cod catch five "nice fish" each.
Photo: The Canadian Press
UPDATE: 1:15 p.m.
A busy highway running beside Burns Bog in Delta was reopened on Wednesday as crews fully contained a wildfire in the unique peat bog.
Delta's Emergency Operations Centre says traffic was moving again on Highway 17.
The route had been closed since Sunday when a wildfire broke out in the bog, scorching 78 hectares.
The blaze also threatened a nearby industrial park, prompting an evacuation that was rescinded Monday night.
The cause of the fire remained under investigation, but fire Chief Dan Copeland said earlier this week that weather was not considered a factor. It could be several weeks before the cause is determined, he said.
Officials had expected Highway 17 and several surrounding streets would remain closed until later this week, but they say quick response to the blaze helped reduce the length of the closure.
"These strategic closures were key in the quick containment of the fire and ensuring that the fire did not impact Tilbury Industrial Park (or) any other critical infrastructure," Delta Mayor Lois Jackson says in a news release.
The release says Metro Vancouvers scientific advisory panel has been contacted and officials in Delta are trying to arrange a site visit and a meeting to discuss the recovery of the environmentally sensitive bog.
Burns Bog was taken over as a conservation area between 2001 and 2004 by the municipality, the province, the federal government and Metro Vancouver, a regional government made up of local mayors, Jackson said. Delta is responsible for fire and maintaining the water table at the bog.
Most of Burns Bog is closed to the public, but an area of about 60 hectares called the Delta Nature Reserve is open for viewing.
Eliza Olson, founder of the Burns Bog Conservation Society, has said about 90 per cent of the peat bog is expected to regenerate in the coming years, but it could take a century before the entire area recovers.
Olson estimated the 30-square-kilometre nature reserve, which is a migratory route for a variety of birds, is believed to be the largest undeveloped urban wilderness area in North America.
The bog's acidic, peat-forming ecosystem includes rare plants, such as cloudberries and velvet-leafed blueberries, along with two species of dragonflies among its diverse inspect species, Olson said.
ORIGINAL
Weather is not considered a factor in the cause of a wildfire at a unique peat bog in Delta as crews contained about 60 per cent of the blaze on Tuesday, the fire chief says.
Dan Copeland said investigators arrived on the scene of the 78-hectare fire in Burns Bog on Tuesday morning but it could be several weeks before its cause can be determined.
A light drizzle was helping firefighters on Tuesday as they worked to fully contain the blaze, which started Sunday, by the end of the day, he said.
Highway 17, a major thoroughfare in the community south of Vancouver, is expected to reopen by Friday. An evacuation order affecting about a dozen businesses at the Tilbury Industrial Park was lifted Tuesday.
Mayor Lois Jackson said it was a "scary moment" when the fire jumped the highway into the industrial area, which includes a forest products company and a chemicals business.
"We didn't really say that in the beginning because I didn't think it would be a positive thing to do," Jackson said. "But that industrial area is full of many things and we were very concerned at the time that that was happening."
She said the fire burned an area where containers were stored but crews were able to save businesses.
Delta remains under a state of local emergency so first responders can get access to private land, Jackson said.
She said Burns Bog was taken over as a conservation area between 2001 and 2004 by the municipality, the province, the federal government and Metro Vancouver, a regional government made up of local mayors. Delta is responsible for fire and maintaining the water table at the bog, Jackson said.
"The one thing we do not want to happen is have people in the bog," she said. "Usually where people go, you can find fire. It is a place for creatures and flora and fauna, but it's not a place for people."
Most of Burns Bog is closed to the public, but an area of about 60 hectares called the Delta Nature Reserve is open for viewing.
Delta plans to consult with Metro Vancouver's Burns Bog scientific advisory panel for guidance in the recovery of the nature reserve, Jackson said.
Eliza Olson, founder of the Burns Bog Conservation Society, has said about 90 per cent of the peat bog is expected to regenerate in the coming years, but it could take a century before the entire area recovers.
Olson estimated the 30-square-kilometre nature reserve, which is a migratory route for a variety of birds, is believed to be the largest undeveloped urban wilderness area in North America.
The bog's acidic, peat-forming ecosystem includes rare plants, such as cloudberries and velvet-leafed blueberries, along with two species of dragonflies among its diverse inspect species, Olson said.
Burns Bog is one of North America's largest peat bogs and flames can sink under the dry peat, where they burn out of sight.
But fire officials have said ground conditions and a quick response from firefighters kept the flames from burrowing beneath the peat, where the blaze would have the potential to burn for weeks.
Photo: CTV
The roles of president and CEO of Torstar Corp. and publisher of the Toronto Star will be amalgamated into one position, the company said Wednesday as it announced David Holland would retire this fall.
Holland is retiring after 30 years with the company, including seven years as president and CEO of Torstar.
The announcement comes two months after John Cruickshank stepped down as publisher of the company's flagship newspaper. Holland had assumed the publisher's duties on an interim basis.
A search is underway to fill the new joint position.
The choice to combine the roles came down to "economic efficiencies," said Bob Hepburn, director of Torstar's community relations and communications.
Torstar and other media companies have been struggling in recent years as consumers and advertisers shift towards online and digital alternatives and away from conventional newspapers, television and radio.
For its first quarter of its 2016 fiscal year, Torstar reported a $53.5-million loss as it transitioned to more digital media, like its Toronto Star Touch application, and saw revenue fall at its traditional newspaper business.
The company has banked on its Star Touch app to attract a younger audience, as well as small digital ventures like its investment in VerticalScope, to help offset declining print advertising revenues.
"The business landscape has continued to evolve rapidly and I am very proud of the efforts made and underway across the company to adapt to that changing environment," Holland said.
Torstar reports its second quarter financial results July 27.
The company holds an investment in The Canadian Press as part of a joint agreement with a subsidiary of the Globe and Mail and the parent company of Montreal's La Presse.
Photo: Contributed
The country's trade deficit plunged to a record in April and stayed near that level in May, Statistics Canada said Wednesday, raising concerns that economic weakness in the second quarter could be worse than initially feared.
The federal agency said the trade deficit in May was $3.28 billion as exports of crude oil and bitumen grew despite the wildfires in Fort McMurray, Alta., that forced several oilsands operations to shut down production. By some estimates, more than one million barrels per day of crude production was knocked offline about 40 per cent of all Canadian oilsands output.
Economists had expected a trade deficit of $2.7 billion for the month, according to Thomson Reuters.
Based on preliminary evidence, Statistics Canada said refinery activity slowed in May, freeing up oil for export, and the remaining shortfall in crude production was largely offset by a reduction in Alberta oil inventories.
Exports of crude oil and bitumen were up 10.5 per cent at $3.8 billion, as prices were up 9.9 per cent and volumes rose 0.6 per cent.
Overall, exports fell 0.7 per cent to $41.1 billion in May, while exports excluding energy products declined 1.8 per cent. Imports slipped 0.8 per cent to $44.4 billion.
The result from April was also revised to show a historic trade deficit of $3.32 billion compared with an initial estimate of a $2.94 billion deficit.
Bank of Montreal senior economist Benjamin Reitzes called the trade report "very downbeat."
"The string of declines in export volumes is a worrying sign that the transition away from energy sector-driven growth might be stalling," Reitzes wrote in a report.
"Add on the uncertainty surrounding the global economic outlook following the Brexit vote and Canadian trade will likely have trouble gaining meaningful traction in the near term."
The trade figures offer the first glimpse of how the economy weathered the Alberta wildfires, which forced the evacuation of the city of 80,000.
Photo: Google Street View
A gas leak forced evacuation of Natural Factors in Lake Country Wednesday morning.
Employees were out of the building for about two hours before being allowed back to work sometime after 9 a.m.
The original call came in shortly after 7 a.m., when a gas line was apparently hit by crews working on a nearby building.
According to fire department officials, the line was hit at a shallow depth. It was a 1-1/2 inch line, a significant line.
Intakes were shut off and employees evacuated to a safe distance.
Photo: Okanagan College
With more than two decades of experience under his tool belt, a local construction business owner and Okanagan College alumnus is giving back to support future tradespeople.
John Bachelder, owner of Bachelder Construction Ltd., has pledged $20,000 toward the Bright Horizons Building for Skills Campaign in support of the new Trades Training Complex at Okanagan College.
This is an incredible facility that really honours tradespeople, said Bachelder. Im excited to be a part of that. I imagine students are going to feel very proud to learn here and proud of the career path theyve chosen.
Bachelder moved to the Okanagan in 1970 when he was 14 years old, and said the trades have always been an important part of his life from an early age. He studied commercial transport at the college in 1985 before going into the construction business in 1993.
Ive been around the housing industry for most of my life, said Bachelder. And there has always been the challenge of finding enough skilled people. We need to stay ahead of the curve and that begins with supporting and encouraging the next generation of tradespeople.
Among that next generation is Bachelders son, Brady, who also trained at Okanagan College earning red seals in carpentry and welding and has gone on to be successful right out of school.
The trades are becoming increasingly technical, which is why education and training is so important, noted Bachelder.
His wife, Cynthia, and daughter, Anna-Leigh, are also college alumni, having completed the early childhood education and human service work diploma programs in recent years.
In addition to his philanthropic activity with the college, Bachelder is also a member of the Kelowna chapter of 100 Men Who Give a Damn.
I like to support things that tug on the heart strings a little, and were lucky to have a place like the College in the region, it creates a lot of opportunities for students.
The college recently completed construction on its new and expanded trades training complex a $33-million project. More than $6.2 million has been raised from local industry and individuals to top up the provinces $28-million investment. The fundraising campaign goal is $7 million, which includes $5 million for capital construction and $2 million for program and student support. An official grand opening is being planned for the fall.
According to Bachelder, becoming a donor has afforded him the chance to build a stronger connection with the college and to others in his industry who have supported the recent trades expansion project.
Bachelder reconnected with his alma mater during a dinner hosted by two of his fellow home builders Lambert Schmalz and Gord Wilson. Both men have contributed to the fundraising campaign for the project and have invited other builders to support their future workforce.
Its been great re-connecting with the college, and meeting with others in the industry to hear what theyre doing to support the next generation. Its great to see that there is a growing number of us who believe in supporting the future of our industry.
As a sector, local homebuilders have contributed more than $500,000 to the project.
We greatly appreciate the support our local homebuilders have shown for the project, said Steve Moores, the colleges Dean of Trades and Apprenticeship. This gift from John Bachelder is very generous, and once again demonstrates for our students that local employers value the training being offered at the college."
More information about the new building, the fundraising campaign and opportunities to get involved is available at okanagan.bc.ca/campaign.
Photo: The Canadian Press - File photo
A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ruled that surviving passengers of a horrific plane crash in Richmond can take the airplane owner to court.
The group of six petitioners were headed to Kelowna en route to Vernon's Sparkling Hills Resort to attend an annual retreat hosted by a corporation called The Executive Committee Canada Ltd.
The 'CEO peer-advisory group' and a spouse consisted of the Ruben Cohen, Carolyn Cross, Kelly Jablonski, Jeffrey McCord, Cameron Sobolik and Troy Zanatta.
They departed Vancouver airport on October 27, 2011, on a charter flight with Northern Thunderbird Air Inc.
Shortly after departure, pilot Luc Fortin, a 44-year-old father and husband from North Vancouver, believed the aircraft was facing minor troubles and turned the flight around.
Moments later a terrifying scene unfolded inside and outside the Beechcraft King Air 100.
The plane plummeted too early, clipping a car and crash-landing on its belly, bursting into flames on Russ Baker Way in Richmond.
A mad scramble ensued as good Samaritans and emergency workers risked their own safety to help the victims.
Fortin died hours after the crash of fire-related injuries. His co-pilot Matt Robic, 27, died from his injuries three weeks later.
Eight others survived the crash, but suffered injuries including burns, spinal fractures and one mild brain injury.
More than a year after the crash, the Transportation Safety Board determined a series of pilot errors and an improperly secured engine oil cap caused the crash.
TSB spokesman Bill Yearwood said in 2013 that the oil cap was left unsecured during routine maintenance, but the problem wasnt detected because there was no pre-flight inspection of the aircraft.
Following lawsuits from six of the surviving passengers, lawyers for Northern Thunderbird Air applied for the B.C. Supreme Court to overturn a decision by the Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal that declared the passengers injuries were not work-related.
Northern Thunderbird Air hoped to prove injuries and losses were sustained in the course of the passengers' work duties to save itself from pending lawsuits.
If the lawyers had been successful, and the court had determined the injuries were suffered in the course of their work, the six petitioners would be barred from suing the owner of the airplane.
However, Madam Justice Baker agreed with the decision of the Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal, that the flight to the executive retreat in Vernon was not in the course of their work duties.
Baker would have had to determine that the WCAT decision was 'patently unreasonable' to overturn the decision, which she did not, denying Northern Thunderbird Air's request.
Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer
The Ronald Teneyke case continues to move slowly through the court system.
The South Okanagan man who is facing several charges stemming from a series of incidents in the Oliver area last summer, appeared by video Wednesday in Penticton court to a fix date.
But Crown counsel Kurt Froehlich said he and Teneycke's lawyer Michael Welsh had spoken about putting the matter over to July 13 to await completion of an assessment of the accused.
In June, a judge granted an extension on the assessment ordered in April for Teneycke.
Froehlich argued in Penticton court at the time that the 30-day extension was needed because further records are being gathered that need to be provided to the forensic service.
Teneycke entered guilty pleas in April to charges of robbery, discharging a firearm with intent to wound and disfigure and flight from a peace officer, all tied to the incidents in the Oliver area.
Following the pleas, Crown counsel Murray Kaay made an application for Teneycke to be assessed for long-term or dangerous offender status, with earlier psychological testing showing he had a high risk to re-offend in the future.
Teneycke was the subject of a massive manhunt in the South Okanagan last summer after a robbery and shooting.
On July 16, 2015, just after 10:15 a.m., the RCMP received a call of an armed robbery at the East Side Grocery.
The clerk said a man entered the store and selected several items. He then produced a gun and directed the clerk to open the till. He left the store with merchandise and $195, taking a pair of sunglasses on his way out.
Police later obtained surveillance video of Teneycke from a gas station he stopped at.
On July 22, Oliver resident Wayne Belleville was heading out to collect some wood on McKinney Road when he came across a man walking.
Belleville said he would come back and give him a ride and when he returned three hours later, Teneycke who was carrying a rifle, got in his truck.
When Teneycke told him his name, Belleville asked him to get out and Teneycke threatened to shoot him.
As Belleville ran toward the bush to escape, he was shot in the back.
Teneycke held the gun to Belleville's head, demanded his keys and threatened to kill him. However, Teneycke fled when another vehicle came along the road.
Belleville was taken to hospital.
Police were unable to find Teneycke on July 22, but the next day he was seen at about 10:20 a.m. in a white pickup truck. He headed toward an orchard in Cawston and tried to escape, before doubling back and running into an emergency response team.
He then made his way to an orchard, where his truck was rammed by police vehicles.
Officers fired rounds into the truck and Teneycke surrendered. A rifle and crystal meth were also found in the vehicle.
Teneycke will appear by video at 10:30 a.m. on July 13 in Penticton court.
Photo: Contributed
What was supposed to be a relaxing getaway has turned into a nightmare for a Vernon family.
Mike and Tanya Gauthier were camping near Lumby on the Canada Day long weekend when tragedy struck.
According to a Go Fund Me page, Mike went for an ATV ride with a friend while Tanya stayed back at camp with their four young children.
Gauthier did not return from the ride.
The ATV he was riding flipped on top of Mike, landing full force on his head. Mike was wearing a full helmet and we know it saved his life, according to the Go Fund Me page.
Even with the helmet, Gauthier sustained serious injuries, losing his left eye and severely damaging his other eye. He will likely never see again, said an explanation on the page.
Because the accident happened in such a remote area, rescue crews had to be taken in by ATV. The victim was then loaded onto a stretcher and carried down to a waiting air ambulance.
He was flown to Kelowna General Hospital, but his injuries were so severe he was transferred to a larger hospital in Vancouver.
He has under gone testing to make sure his spine and internal organs are fine, which miraculously they are. But he has been left with traumatic, life-changing injuries. Mike has severe facial fractures that will likely require multiple facial reconstructive surgeries. He has a compromised air way, which required a tracheotomy to maintain his breathing. He has three small bleeds in the brain membranes. He has suffered a total loss of his left eye and likely the complete loss of vision in his right eye, and is expected to be fully blind, according to the Go Fund Me page.
Gauthier's recovery is expected to be long and intensive. Tanya Gauthier has taken an undetermined amount of time from work to be by his side.
Donations to support the family can be made online.
The Maple Leaf Forever is a nursery rhyme, set to a pleasant nursery rhyme tune. Leave it at that.
We have a stirring, appropriate, National Anthem leave it at that, just as it now is!
Ken Sinclair
Photo: The Canadian Press
More and more, it is obvious that Americans will have to choose between dumb and dumber when they elect a new president.
Tuesday, FBI Director James B. Comey announced the outcome of an in-depth investigation of Hillary Clintons email during the time she was secretary of state.
He found there was no basis upon which to recommend charges against her, but said she was extremely careless in using her private email address and server to do the governments business.
Its not impossible that hostile actors were able to get into her account, he said, but theres no evidence she messed up intentionally.
Her opponent, Donald Trump, quickly condemned the investigation as rigged. Anything, it seems, that doesnt go his way is rigged. In his view, its all a conspiracy against the people.
Its an outrageous thing to say, from a man who says outrageous things every day. But how on Earth could Clinton be so dumb that she saw no risk in the way she used email while she was in the second-most important job in the United States?
On the one hand, we have a candidate who is insensitive, insulting and just plain makes stuff up. On the other, we have a candidate who lacked the common sense to take basic precautions in her communications.
Is there no one in that great country that would provide those unfortunate voters south of the border with an alternative who is credible, experienced and possessing basic common sense?
Subhash Ramrao Bhamre, Minister of State for Defence. Photo: india.gov.in.
NEW DELHI (PTI): Subhash Ramrao Bhamre, an oncologist and a first-time MP from Maharashtra, was on Tuesday appointed as the Minister of State for Defence.
He replaced Rao Inderjit Singh who has been made Minister of State for Planning (Independent Charge) and Urban Development Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation.
Bhamre, born on September 11, 1953, defeated Amrish Patel of Congress to enter the Lok Sabha in 2014 elections from the Dhule constituency, bordering Gujarat. His constituency adjoins Jalgoan, the home turf of Khadse.
He has been offering free treatment to cancer patients.
He has conducted free multiple medical camps and surgeries. He organised public education speeches for cancer awareness and its early detection and prevention.
Bhamre is also known for visiting houses of financially weak cancer patients, who couldn't afford to visit hospital for diagnosis and treatment.
The 63-year-old BJP MP is a Member of the Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare and also a Member of the Consultative Committee, Ministry of Railways. He is also member of the Committee on Welfare of Other Backward Classes.
Bhamre was among the 'non-political' personalities fielded by BJP in 2014 elections and registered a convincing victory over Patel as the Modi wave swept the constituency.
During his college days, Bhamre was the vice captain of Mumbai University's chess and basket ball teams.
News / Local
by Staff Reporter
There are reports that WhatsApp in some parts of Zimbabwe is not working this morning as the whole country participates in #ShutDownZim #ShutDownZimbabwe2016 campaign.Yesterday they were reports that the government of Zimbabwe was planning to ban social media in the coming days in a bid to block messages about protests from spreading.In April, the President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, said the government was looking to learn from China's Great Firewall in restricting access to certain websites.If you are in Zimbabwe how is this affecting you? #shutdownzimbabwe2016 TweetsMore follow...
CDC Awards $30 Million to 23 state injury and violence prevention programs
Media Advisory For Immediate Release: Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Contact: CDC Media Relations
404-639-3286
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced today it will award $30 million to 23 state health departments over the next five years as part of the Core State Violence and Injury Prevention Program (Core SVIPP).
The funds will support states comprehensive strategies addressing critical injury and violence issues such as child abuse and neglect; traumatic brain injury; motor vehicle crash injury and death; and intimate partner/sexual violence.
The enormous number of lives lost and the high costs of injury and violence underscore the need for effective prevention, said Deb Houry, M.D., M.P.H., director of CDCs National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (Injury Center). Core SVIPP will help states implement evidence-based programs and policies to prevent injuries and violence and the considerable cost to society. This has the potential to touch thousands of lives.
The program helps states share lessons learned on these issues, highlight successful strategies, and bring together partners to prevent violence and injury.
Awarded through a competitive application process, Core SVIPP strategies include educating health department leaders and policy makers; engaging stakeholders; developing evaluation plans; disseminating surveillance; and conducting evaluations for continuous quality improvement.
The 23 states that will share in the five-year grant are: Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Surveillance Quality Improvement(SQI) and Regional Network Coordinating Organization (RNCO) are two optional enhanced components. Four of the 23 states (Colorado, Kentucky, Maryland and Massachusetts) received SQI funding and five of the 23 states (Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Washington) received RNCO funding.
CDCs Injury Center is committed to working with its partners to promote action that reduces injuries, violence, and disability by providing leadership in identifying priorities, promoting prevention strategies, developing useful tools, and monitoring the effectiveness of injury and violence prevention program activities.
For additional information about Core SVIPP, please visit www.cdc.gov/injury/stateprograms.
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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICESexternal icon
News / National
by Thobekile Zhou
Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa has claimed that there was no looting of diamonds in Zimbabwe.Instead he said the 'missing' $15 billion in revenue was a result of mis-pricing of the gems.He said the country was "caught sleeping".Chinamasa made the claims during British Broadcasting Cooperation (BBC) Hard Talk show.He is currently in London."On the $15 billion we are essentially saying over the years there has been an economic loss arising from trade mis-pricing" he said."It's not looting but mis-pricing. There has been under invoicing of commodities over a period of time."In that case we were caught sleeping. But the truth of matter is that it arose from mis-pricing and its an issue which we are now interrogating with the view of coming up with necessary systems row prevent that happening in future".In March, President Robert Mugabe shocked the country when he publicly announced that a staggering $15billion diamond revenue is missing.However, no one has need arrested.Zimbabwe is ranked as the eight world diamond producing country.Chinamasa said the missing revenue is an economic loss.He said there is a possibility that revenue could have been lost in other minerals due to mis-pricing."It's an economic loss that we have suffered not just in terms of diamonds probably across a wide spectrum of minerals".Last week, Zanu-PF political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere claimed that Zimbabwe People First president Joyce Mujuru smuggled diamonds to Kenya.
News / National
by Thobekile Zhou
Zanu-PF government led by President Robert Mugabe is not to blame for current socio-economic meltdown.The culprits are Western countries led by Britain which imposed a cocktail of economic sanctions, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa has said.Chinamasa made the claims during British Broadcasting Cooperation (BBC) Hard Talk show."Zimbabwe up to the sanctions was able to meet its international obligations."We had a functioning economy by that functioning economy was undermined by the sanctions which crippled our capacity to honor our international obligations" he said.The West imposed the sanctions in 2003, reacting to allegations of gross human rights abuses and electoral fraud levelled against Mugabe's administration.Zimbabwe is re-engaging international financial institutions to tap into cheap lines of credit needed to reboot the economy.A team from IMF was in the country last month to discuss the current economic situation and solutions.Zimbabwe has an external debt of over $10 billion which has militated chances of accessing cheap lines of credit.The country has presented term sheets on how it would clear its combined $1,8 billion debt to the three preferred creditors IMF, World Bank and the African Development Bank.Clearing the debt would be the first step in the country's plans to liquidate its total external debt.According to Chinamasa who is cue in London, Zimbabwe's standoff with the west arose from the fast-track land reform programme.Hundreds of white commercial farmers where violently removed from their farms.The land was parcelled out to mostly Zanu-PF supporters who are struggling to fully utilise the land.
News / National
by Stephen Jakes
A commentator Hidzo Musarurwa has advised the ruling Zanu PF that people have a right to protest peacefully but police brutality is not acceptable.This comes after indications by the ruling party officials that they will not tolerate any civil unrest.The government through the police has since threatened to crack down on any would-be protesters and told the people not to take part in the protest.Sam Jimmy Mukuna said God's intervention is needed at the moment."We are lost, we must seek him (God) and everything shall be given to us," he said.
News / National
by Staff reporter
ZIMBABWE People First leader Dr Joice Mujuru has joined her compatriots in the opposition ranks supporting hooligans who engaged in violent activities that affected parts of Harare and Beitbridge.On Monday, MDC-T spokesperson Mr Obert Gutu praised the hooligans, adding that his party was in support of the violence.Addressing journalists at her residence in Harare yesterday, Dr Mujuru said people had a constitutional right to demonstrate."Police should protect the demonstrators, the demonstrators are the people, don't forget those demonstrators are government, that the police and other security agents should be protecting," she said."I am sure we heard from ZimEye the message from Commissioner General (Dr Augustine Chihuri) himself when he was cautioning (the police) that they should not do what is not necessary because they are dealing with people who are angry."Theirs is just to keep peace not to start problems."Some of the brutalities which they are showing are not supposed to be started at all," she said."So you can imagine, even the Commissioner General himself is looking forward to a peaceful demonstration hence we are also calling for a peaceful demonstration."Dr Mujuru, however, did not mention that some of the people whom she referred to as peaceful demonstrators brutally attacked two police officers in Epworth on Monday.She claimed that the demonstrations were evidence that people were not happy with Government. As such, she said President Mugabe, who was resoundingly elected in 2013 should step down and call for fresh elections.Dr Mujuru, who served for two terms as Vice President, condemned Government for import controls saying the local industry was failing to meet demand.She gave a long list of known problems affecting the country, but failed to pronounce how her party intended to address them.She did not rule out a possibility of a coalition with the MDC-T ahead of the 2018 harmonised elections.
News / National
by Staff reporter
MDC-T senator Sithembile Mlotshwa has blasted Local Government Minister Saviour Kasukuwere for making efforts to buldoze the shoddy local government Bill into law with only the zeal to have Harare Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni removed from the post just because he is from the opposition patty.Speaking in the senate when Kasukuwere tabled the bill for discussion, Mlotshwea said it is not a problem to look at the Constitution Chapter 146, the provision that gave the President to recall them from recess."When I look at this provision, it shows very well that the Executive does not take Parliament seriously because when they want to fast track whatever they want, they know they can recall us at any minute and we come and rubber stamp Bills like this one," she said."Madam President, I want to implore the Minister to avoid things that divide Zimbabwe. Things like this one divide Zimbabwe because when you go to the Bill of Rights, you will understand that if people speak about issues, if they are not happy about issues it means that the one that is appointed like the Minister should listen to what people are saying because there can never be stability in a country when people are opposed to what one individual wants to do.""We very well know that these clauses that are being put to amendment today by the Minister are clearly "the Manyenyeni must be fired clauses". These are the Clauses. There is nothing else and the fast track is only because Manyenyeni must go according to the Minister. So it is a violation of our Constitution to have the Minister manipulating the laws and fast tracking sections in a Bill and amendments so as to carry forward on issue about one man in one town."She said it is very clear ngeSiNdebele kuthiwa, ucatsha ngomunwe meaning you are hiding using something that will not cover the whole body."Maybe you are only covering the eyes but people can easily identify the other parts of the body that it is you, so ukucatsha ngomunwe that is what it means. We know very well that the Minister here according to how he is pronouncing the benefits of the amendments, that he is now on the gear being the Political Commissar for the forthcoming 2018 elections," she said."It is very difficult to accept one person to have powers to detect whereas Zimbabwe has millions of people around who can do the job equally as well. If you look at the sections, it shows very well that all the other people are being ignored. I do not know when the other people are supposed to participate in the processes of the country."Mlotshwa said in other countries people are busy talking about improving participatory governance."We must improve that, show the democracy and evolve power so that other people sit and talk about the issues that affect them. If now the Bill is not talking about the Preamble, Chapter 14 where there is devolution and involvement of other people, then it only talks about the Minister suspending, the Minister appointing a Tribunal, the Minister doing this and that, when are other people going to participate?" Mlotshwa fumed."Really, I think that the Executive and Ministers are taking us as Members of Parliament too much for granted in that you see it because you can see that the other side is not even debating. Maybe they belong to the same party as the Ministers, so they do not want to debate. But I think if we are people, we should listen to each other, debate, differ and come up with something."
News / National
by Staff reporter
The Trustees of the Reformed Church in Zimbabwe (RCZ) has taken President Robert Mugabe and Lands minister Douglas Mombeshora to the High Court seeking the upliftment of a caveat placed on the church's land in Masvingo which was acquired by the government through the land reform programme.Through its general secretary Charles Juro, the church said its 428, 2590 hectares Riebeek Farm was compulsorily acquired in 2001.In his founding affidavit, Juro said the church was seeking the removal of the caveat, to enable it to build a university on its farm which was unlawfully acquired by the government.Juro also argued when the government took over the land, it placed two caveats, namely number XN110/2001 and XN96/2001, but did not publish a preliminary notice in the Government Gazette as is required by-law, a move which was unlawful.But, his averments were dismissed by Mombeshora who, in his affidavit, confirmed the government erred in compulsorily acquiring the farm as it was indigenously owned, but the same had been published in a preliminary Gazette."The second respondent (Lands minister) did publish a Government Gazette on June 15, 2001 under General Notice 307 of 2001. However, the same has since expired subsequently leaving the farm in question not acquired. The land is indigenously owned by a church," Mombeshora said.The minister said it had been the policy of the State since inception of the land reform that in the late 1990s rural agriculture land owned by indigenous persons would not, whenever possible, be acquired for purposes of resettlement as this would defeat the spirit and purpose of the exercise."It was not possible in all cases to determine whether any such land was indigenously owned, or where it was possible to do so to determine that such ownership was bona fide. Consequently, such land was then acquired in error in violation of the policy aforesaid," Mombeshora said.The minister said he was not opposed to the order being sought by the church. The matter is set to be heard today.
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News / National
by Staff reporter
ZIMBABWE faces a virtual standstill today, with civil servants and other workers expected to stay away from work in what has been termed a "national shutdown".There was a heavy police presence in Epworth yesterday as the State beefs up security around the country amid fears of worsening social unrestThere was a heavy police presence in Epworth yesterday as the State beefs up security around the country amid fears of worsening social unrestCivil servants embarked on a nationwide strike yesterday in protest against the government's unilateral decision to delay payment of their salaries.Pupils at most schools were yesterday sent back home, as teachers were not taking classes, while the country's main referral hospitals reported they were working with skeletal staff and only attending to emergencies.Zimbabwe Teachers' Association (Zimta) secretary-general John Mlilo confirmed they were downing tools, but said it was not a strike, but "incapacitation"."We have decided to call it incapacitation because workers have obligations, they have taken out loans to augment their salaries that government has since failed to pay on time," he said."By failing to pay, the government has negatively affected the routine in which these workers pay back their debts little by little. At the end of the day, the worker is the ultimate loser because those that give them loans will just add interest."A Zimta circular despatched to members last Tuesday read: "Following the unilateral shifting of pay dates and the subsequent consultative meeting held on July 2 by all civil servants, it was resolved that owing to incapacitation, our valued membership will not be able to report for duty from July 5 until the impasse is resolved."All civil servants stay at home from July 5 to July 7. All civil servants heed this call, no one will be victimised, our demands will be met," the teachers' body, normally accused of being in bed with the Zanu-PF government, said.Nurses and doctors at Harare Central Hospital, Mpilo Central Hospital and United Bulawayo Hospitals downed tools yesterday, with skeleton staff only attending to emergencies."Please note that due to the unfortunate industrial action by some members of the team, the hospital will attend to emergency cases only. All elective lists have been cancelled until further notice," an S Ngwenya from the office of the clinical director said in a memorandum to staff at Mpilo Central Hospital.To alleviate the effects of the strike, Health and Child Care secretary Gerald Gwinji on Monday enlisted the services of the military to help at hospitals."Assistance is required from the defence forces to augment coverage for emergency services, especially in central hospitals in Harare and Bulawayo," he said in a statement."The requested staff includes nurses, doctors and medical laboratory scientists."Groups of activists last week began campaigning for a nationwide shutdown beginning today "until (President Robert) Mugabe goes" and the build-up has since seen violent clashes between police and protesters, first in Beitbridge and then in parts of Harare on Monday.Opposition parties have urged their members to join the protest action being co-ordinated by groups such as #ThisFlag #Tajamuka /Sijikile and vendors. #ThisFlag campaign leader, Evan Mawarire, yesterday called for non-violent protests. His call for peaceful protests came as police spokesperson, Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba, threatened to clamp down on the organisers of the protests.As tensions rose over the planned mass action, the effects are being felt in neighbouring countries, where caution is being advised before travelling to Zimbabwe.A memorandum by the South Africa's International Cross-Border Traders' Association called on the group's members to "cancel all trips to Zimbabwe"."There should be no loading of buses and trucks that will fail to complete the trips on July 5, 2016 midnight. The Musina Taxi Association will be monitoring the movement of vehicles at Beitbridge," the association said, adding this was part of a process to force the government of Zimbabwe to reverse its ban on the movement of mainly foodstuffs between the two countries.Elsewhere, United Kingdom-based Zimbabwean demonstrators yesterday door-stepped Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa for the second time inside two days as he arrived for the fundraising conference at Chatham House international affairs think-tank in London and heckled him for nearly two hours.The protesters quizzed Chinamasa over the missing $15 billion diamond revenue before British police intervened and escorted him away.They were later joined by former Finance minister and opposition People's Democratic Party leader Tendai Biti, who is also attending the conference.
News / National
by Staff reporter
FORMER Vice-President and leader of the opposition Zimbabwe People First (ZimPF), Joice Mujuru, has thrown her weight behind calls for a nationwide stayaway today to protest against a myriad of problems facing the country.Addressing journalists at her Chisipite home in Harare, Mujuru said President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF government had dismally failed to deliver on their 2013 election promises and should allow citizens to demonstrate without fear of being brutalised by State security agents."Instead of repressing and suppressing the popular sentiment among the people manifesting in demonstrations, government has to address the causes of the myriad of problems facing the country," she said."Police should protect the demonstrators. The demonstrators are the people, don't forget those demonstrators are the government that the police and other security agents should be protecting."Several other opposition parties have come out in support of today's planned work stoppage, which coincides with a civil servants' strike over unpaid June salaries.In the past weeks, Zimbabweans from different walks of life have held spontaneous demonstrations, culminating in the violent protests that occurred at Beitbridge Border Post last Friday, where angry cross-border traders burnt down a Zimbabwe Revenue Authority warehouse in protest against a recent ban on the importation of basic commodities to safeguard local manufacturers.The riots later spread to Harare, where on Monday, police and residents fought running battles, culminating in the arrest of over 90 people.Mujuru said the decision to ban the importation of basic goods was ill-timed and aimed at enriching a few Zanu-PF bigwigs, who had obtained the required import permits.She said if government was genuine in promoting local industry, it should ban people from seeking medication and treatment outside the country and prop up the collapsing local health delivery system."If indeed we are genuine in protecting local industry, why are we not extending the ban to all sectors of the economy including access to foreign medical facilities and services? The local health system has collapsed. It needs the same kind of support," Mujuru said.She said since Mugabe had failed, he must step down and call for fresh polls so that ordinary people are allowed to determine their future."In view of this myriad of problems, we challenge Robert Mugabe to call for fresh elections now to get a new mandate if he thinks people have forgotten his promises of two million jobs," Mujuru said.War veterans also urged government to lift the import ban, saying the decision had robbed the majority of unemployed citizens of their source of livelihood.In an interview with South Africa's Africa News Network7 (ANN7), Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association secretary-general Victor Matemadanda said they supported cross-border associations like many other citizens"Our livelihood is coming from cross-border activities and when you close that without even prior notice, that is disastrous to us. How can we support our own killing? We are being killed," he said."People should be given time and there must be alternatives. There is no industry that is running, there is no employment."They (people) are crying because there was no consultation, no alternative means of living. It's like we have decided to kill ourown people, but people will not die easily. They will resist, they are resisting and if I was asked who I should support, I will support my wife because she must bring food home."
The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) announced on Wednesday that the organization will be donating $10,000 to the Tennessee Aquarium to create and install interpretive signage at the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute. Funding for this project was made possible through the sponsorship of the Chickamauga Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution in Chattanooga.
"We are grateful for such a generous donation from the DAR to help us celebrate the cultural significance of this site," said Dr. Anna George, director of the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute. "Healthy rivers have always been essential to thriving communities -here in the Moccasin Bend/Williams Island area of the Tennessee River Valley and around the world. Reflecting on how our history was shaped by rivers reminds us of the importance of protecting our natural heritage for future generations." "We are grateful for such a generous donation from the DAR to help us celebrate the cultural significance of this site," said Dr.Anna George, director of the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute. "Healthy rivers have always been essential to thriving communities -here in the Moccasin Bend/Williams Island area of the Tennessee River Valley and around the world. Reflecting on how our history was shaped by rivers reminds us of the importance of protecting our natural heritage for future generations."
The DAR grants program was started in 2010. Funding is awarded to support projects in local communities which promote the organization's mission areas of historic preservation, education and patriotism.
The DAR receives hundreds of grants applications each year, making competition high for the funding through the non-profit organization. Interested groups must be sponsored by a local DAR chapter, submit a copy of their public charity 501(c)(3) IRS documentation, and include a narrative describing the need and urgency of the project as well as planned activities and benefits to the community which will result from the grant.
The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in 1890 to promote patriotism, preserve American history, and support better education for our nation's children. Its members are descended from patriots who won American independence during the Revolutionary War. With 178,000 members in approximately 3,000 chapters worldwide, DAR is one of the world's largest and most active service organizations.
Miller & Martin attorney, John R. Bode, has been elected chair of the Tennessee Bar Association's Labor & Employment Law Section for 2016-2017.
The Labor & Employment Section is one of the largest groups in the TBA, with approximately 700 members. It focuses on all traditional labor relations issues and matters arising in individual employment rights.
Mr. Bode has devoted more than three decades to the exclusive representation of management in labor and employment disputes. He has served as lead trial counsel in numerous cases before state and federal agencies and courts, including the National Labor Relations Board. He also has extensive experience representing many prominent national, regional and Tennessee employers in union organizing campaigns, collective bargaining, arbitrations, strikes, decertification petitions, wage and hour and other state and federal audits.
His professional accomplishments include, multiple recognitions in Chambers USA: Americas Leading Lawyers for Business; Best Lawyers in America; Lawyer of the Year by Best Lawyers and Mid-South Super Lawyers. Mr. Bode was inducted into the Class of 2015 Fellows of the Chattanooga Bar Foundation and was recently named Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
Tennessee Department of Education Commissioner Candice McQueen announced Wednesday that the department intends to award Questar, a national leader in large-scale assessment, a contract to develop and administer Tennessees annual state assessments for the 2016-17 school year.
In addition, Ms. McQueen announced that Tennessee will phase in online administration over multiple years to ensure state, district, and vendor technology readiness. For the upcoming school year, the state assessment for grades 38 will be administered via paper and pencil. However, the department will work closely with Questar to provide an online option for high school End of Course exams if both schools and the testing platform demonstrate early proof of successful online administration. Even if schools demonstrate readiness for online administration, districts will still have the option to choose paper and pencil assessments for their high school students.
Questar will develop and administer the 2016-17 assessments as part of the states Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP). Similar to the design of the 2015-16 assessments, next years tests will continue to feature multiple types of questions that measure the depth of our state academic standards, specifically students problem solving and critical thinking skills. The department also plans to reduce and streamline state tests and will communicate additional specifics in the comings weeks.
Students, teachers, and parents deserve a better testing experience in Tennessee, and we believe todays announcement is another step in the right direction, Commissioner McQueen said. We are excited to move forward in partnership with Tennessee teachers, schools, and districts to measure student learning in a meaningful way and reset the conversation around assessment. Educators across the state have shared how having an assessment aligned to what students are learning every day has improved their instruction. Its also critical that we continue to look for ways to streamline and reduce testing in our state.
Questar currently develops and administers large-scale annual assessments for other states, including Indiana, Missouri, Mississippi, and New York. Questar has partnered with Indiana on End of Course exams for 14 years and with Missouri for five years. The department issued the official letter of intent to Questar today. Pursuant to state contract procedures, after a minimum seven-day period, the contract will be finalized and fully executed.
During the vendor selection process, the department surveyed industry leaders in large-scale assessments, vetting vendors that have successfully developed and administered large-scale assessments across the country. After researching multiple vendors, the department determined that Questar has a proven track record of excellence in statewide testing, administering large-scale assessments via paper and online, and developing a high quality test quickly, which makes it particularly well suited for Tennessee at this crucial time. This past school year, Questar administered the New York grade 38 assessments to more than 1.3 million students. In 2015, Questar also developed the Mississippi annual assessment on a timeline similar to Tennessees.
Questar has recent experience developing a large-scale test thoughtfully and urgently, Commissioner McQueen said. We believe it is the right partner to collaborate with as we continue to develop assessments that are meaningful and measure what our students truly know and understand.
Questar was also recently named as the states vendor for an optional second-grade assessment. This assessment will replace the states previously administered optional K2 (SAT-10) assessment.
More information about next year's test will be available after the department finalizes the remaining details with Questar. After the contract is executed, the department will share final details about the structure for next years state assessments, including administration time and dates.
Following that, the department will work with Questar to refine and finalize the assessment blueprints, which outline the number of questions devoted to various groups of standards. Those will be released later this summer. Additional resources, including sample test questions and resources that will help educators, parents, and students to become more familiar with the assessment, will be available this fall.
Professional Educators of Tennessee COO Audrey Shores said, "It is imperative the state get this selection right. We look forward to learning more about Questar and their ability to deliver for Tennessee students and educators. As always we want to see less standardized testing, and more educator input in the process. It is encouraging to learn that the department has listened to feedback from educators and district leaders and will be phasing in the transition to online testing more slowly and deliberately. Our experience with Commissioner McQueen is that she will exercise due diligence. We at Professional Educators of Tennessee stand ready to work with her moving forward."
Retire Tennessee, the states retiree recruitment program under the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development, announced the addition of Campbell, Henderson, Monroe and Washington counties , bringing the total number of active Retire Tennessee counties to 23.
We are very pleased to expand this important program for Tennessee, Commissioner Kevin Triplett, Tennessee Department of Tourist Development said. These four new counties, bringing the total to 23, have so much to offer those making retirement decisions. Tennessees low cost of living, no state income tax, low property taxes, four mild seasons, incredible quality of living and breathtaking scenic beauty offer an ideal package for retirees looking to relocate.
Additional official retiree counties include Anderson, Carter, Cumberland, Franklin, Hamblen, Hamilton, Hardin, Jefferson, Loudon, Maury, Putnam, Rhea, Roane, Robertson, Sullivan, Sumner, Unicoi, Warren and White.
Now in its tenth year, Retire Tennessee inspired more than 8,000 inquiries from potential retirees last year. Tennessee is one of only four states with retiree recruitment as a formal program and continues to gain momentum as a potential retirement destination for more than 78 million baby boomers. Tennessee was recently ranked No. 4 in the 10 Best States for Retirement 2016 by Kiplinger.com, the popular personal finance and business publication.
Ramay Winchester, director of tourism initiatives, has managed the Retire Tennessee program since its inception and has seen firsthand the effects of the program on each of its communities.
The success of this program is evidence of Tennessees remarkable quality of life. Our Retire Tennessee counties are the crown jewels in attracting new residents that bring even more value to our state, Winchester said. Active retirees relocating to these communities help stimulate the economy , while bringing their knowledge and time to invest in their new community.
Retirees have recognized tremendous value along the Norris Lake shoreline and along Tennessees Cumberland Mountain Range for decades, Campbell County Mayor E.L. Morton said. It is fitting that we nest our value, easy I-75 access and attraction qualities within the strength of the Retire Tennessee brand. It represents a growth opportunity for our community and our commitment to continue to create unmatched retirement living value; a natural and ready fit.
Henderson County is excited about participating in the Retire Tennessee program, said Henderson County Mayor Dan Hughes. This gives us the opportunity to showcase our cities and county. From our seven lakes to the state's largest park to an antigenic Civil War battlefield to a way of life people yearn for daily. We are located on I-40 in West Tennessee.
We are excited for Monroe County to be a part of the state sponsored Retire Tennessee program. Monroe County is nestled between Knoxville and Chattanooga and is known for its friendly atmosphere, mild climate, unmatched beauty and unique historical sites, Monroe County Mayor Tim Yates said. Monroe County has an abundance of commercial properties and expanding businesses and the economic growth is stronger than ever. If you love being outdoors we have the Cherohala Skyway which you can bike, hike or just site see in the Cherokee National Forest. Monroe County also has a very low tax rate which makes it a desirable area to relocate, with a vibrant retirement community.
The characteristics and amenities of our community are attractive to many potential retirees. Having the Retire Tennessee designation will enhance our efforts to attract those planning to relocate and looking for a new community to call home, Washington County Mayor Dan Eldridge said.
The numbers of inquiries to Tennessee from advertising and expos were at a high this past year. The attendance at the Ideal Living Resort & Retirement Expos set new records. Carefully chosen expo locations in New York, New Jersey, Illinois and greater Washington, D.C. were the best attended. Interest in Tennessee is up 22 percent compared to 7 percent eight years ago.
News / National
by Staff reporter
Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa is the best candidate to succeed President Robert Mugabe, who can still be removed through a no-confidence vote by the ruling party's central committee, former Zanu-PF Mashonaland West provincial chairman Temba Mliswa has said.Mliswa told a group of European Commission representatives at a meeting in Brussels this week that the best way out of Zimbabwe's current problem was for Mugabe to step-down and allow for Mnangagwa to take charge."The current economic situation can only be resolved if Mugabe steps down and Mnangagwa takes over. If Mugabe goes, the world is willing to support any leader in Zimbabwe."Mnangagwa has been at the centre of power for a long time and was the first chairperson of the Joint Operations Command (JOC), even so he knows his way around the corridors of power. Mnangagwa is a good and decisive leader, but as regards marketing himself that should be his problem."Before we seek money from Europe and other multilateral institutions, Zimbabwe must return to the Commonwealth," Mliswa said.The former Hurungwe West lawmaker was kicked out of the ruling party in 2014 as part of an internal clean-out spurred by factional fights over Mugabe's successor. Mliswa now heads a group known as Youth Advocacy for Reform and Democracy (Yard) that he says might turn into a political party ahead of the general elections in 2018.He told the European Union commissioners that First Lady Grace Mugabe was effectively in charge of government, but was meeting stiff resistance in her bid to control Zanu-PF."The First Lady is the de facto President of Zimbabwe working with a group of young leaders known as G40 in a bid to control the current State machinery which has proven very difficult. She has met with resistance from the war veterans and the country's security who are still loyal to an ex-combatant."The war veterans and security sector are very clear that Mnangagwa is their man. In terms of the Unity Accord, Mnangagwa will take over from Mugabe which makes Zipra's nominee Phelekezela Mphoko second VP. Whether we like it or not, he (Mnangagwa) is going to take over and this is in terms of the Zanu-PF constitution," Mliswa added.He said the opposition would need to rally together and take advantage of former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's urban power base, while ex-Vice-President Joice Mujuru needed to concentrate on the rural vote."There is no need to fish in the same pond. The 2008 figures can show you that indeed Tsvangirai has the numbers in urban areas. Now Mujuru needs to focus on the rural vote and my group, Yard, could help. I have experience having been a legislator in one of these constituencies," Mliswa said.He said former Cabinet ministers and now opposition leaders Tendai Biti (People's Democratic Party), Elton Mangoma (Renewal Democrats of Zimbabwe) and Welshman Ncube (MDC) would need to coalesce around Tsvangirai to have any chance of forming the next government.
This atomic force microscopy image of the grainy surface of a perovskite solar cell reveals a new path to much greater efficiency. Individual grains are outlined in black, low-performing facets are red, and high-performing facets are green. A big jump in efficiency could possibly be obtained if the material can be grown so that more high-performing facets develop.
Scientists from the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered a possible secret to dramatically boosting the efficiency of perovskite solar cells hidden in the nanoscale peaks and valleys of the crystalline material.
Solar cells made from compounds that have the crystal structure of the mineral perovskite have captured scientists' imaginations. They're inexpensive and easy to fabricate, like organic solar cells. Even more intriguing, the efficiency at which perovskite solar cells convert photons to electricity has increased more rapidly than any other material to date, starting at three percent in 2009 -- when researchers first began exploring the material's photovoltaic capabilities -- to 22 percent today. This is in the ballpark of the efficiency of silicon solar cells.
Now a team of scientists from the Molecular Foundry and the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, both at Berkeley Lab, found a surprising characteristic of a perovskite solar cell that could be exploited for even higher efficiencies, possibly up to 31 percent.
Using photoconductive atomic force microscopy, the scientists mapped two properties on the active layer of the solar cell that relate to its photovoltaic efficiency. The maps revealed a bumpy surface composed of grains about 200 nanometers in length, and each grain has multi-angled facets like the faces of a gemstone.
Unexpectedly, the scientists discovered a huge difference in energy conversion efficiency between facets on individual grains. They found poorly performing facets adjacent to highly efficient facets, with some facets approaching the material's theoretical energy conversion limit of 31 percent.
The scientists say these top-performing facets could hold the secret to highly efficient solar cells, although more research is needed.
"If the material can be synthesized so that only very efficient facets develop, then we could see a big jump in the efficiency of perovskite solar cells, possibly approaching 31 percent," says Sibel Leblebici, a postdoctoral researcher at the Molecular Foundry.
Leblebici works in the lab of Alexander Weber-Bargioni, who is a corresponding author of the paper that describes this research. Ian Sharp, also a corresponding author, is a Berkeley Lab scientist at the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis. Other Berkeley Lab scientists who contributed include Linn Leppert, Francesca Toma, and Jeff Neaton, the director of the Molecular Foundry.
A team effort
The research started when Leblebici was searching for a new project. "I thought perovskites are the most exciting thing in solar right now, and I really wanted to see how they work at the nanoscale, which has not been widely studied," she says.
She didn't have to go far to find the material. For the past two years, scientists at the nearby Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis have been making thin films of perovskite-based compounds, and studying their ability to convert sunlight and CO 2 into useful chemicals such as fuel. Switching gears, they created pervoskite solar cells composed of methylammonium lead iodide. They also analyzed the cells' performance at the macroscale.
The scientists also made a second set of half cells that didn't have an electrode layer. They packed eight of these cells on a thin film measuring one square centimeter. These films were analyzed at the Molecular Foundry, where researchers mapped the cells' surface topography at a resolution of ten nanometers. They also mapped two properties that relate to the cells' photovoltaic efficiency: photocurrent generation and open circuit voltage.
This was performed using a state-of-the-art atomic force microscopy technique, developed in collaboration with Park Systems, which utilizes a conductive tip to scan the material's surface. The method also eliminates friction between the tip and the sample. This is important because the material is so rough and soft that friction can damage the tip and sample, and cause artifacts in the photocurrent.
Surprise discovery could lead to better solar cells
The resulting maps revealed an order of magnitude difference in photocurrent generation, and a 0.6-volt difference in open circuit voltage, between facets on the same grain. In addition, facets with high photocurrent generation had high open circuit voltage, and facets with low photocurrent generation had low open circuit voltage.
"This was a big surprise. It shows, for the first time, that perovskite solar cells exhibit facet-dependent photovoltaic efficiency," says Weber-Bargioni.
Adds Toma, "These results open the door to exploring new ways to control the development of the material's facets to dramatically increase efficiency."
In practice, the facets behave like billions of tiny solar cells, all connected in parallel. As the scientists discovered, some cells operate extremely well and others very poorly. In this scenario, the current flows towards the bad cells, lowering the overall performance of the material. But if the material can be optimized so that only highly efficient facets interface with the electrode, the losses incurred by the poor facets would be eliminated.
"This means, at the macroscale, the material could possibly approach its theoretical energy conversion limit of 31 percent," says Sharp.
A theoretical model that describes the experimental results predicts these facets should also impact the emission of light when used as an LED. Linn Leppert, Sebastian Reyes-Lillo, and Jeff Neaton performed this particular work.
Haphazardly arranged graphite flakes in a conventional anode (above left and center): lithium ions attempting to dock or return to the cathode are forced to take detours (above right). But if the graphite is subjected to a rotating magnetic field (below), the flakes in the suspension align themselves vertically in parallel formation. They keep this orientation after they have been dried (below centre). The ions have shorter paths (below right).
Materials researchers at the Swiss Paul Scherrer Institute PSI in Villigen and the ETH Zurich have developed a very simple and cost-effective procedure for significantly enhancing the performance of conventional Li-ion rechargeable batteries. The procedure is scalable in size, so the use of rechargeable batteries will be optimized in all areas of applicationwhether in wristwatches, smartphones, laptops or cars. Battery storage capacity will be significantly extended, and charging times reduced.
Its not necessary to re-invent the rechargeable battery in order to improve its performance. As Claire Villevieille, head of the battery materials research group at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI says: In the context of this competitive field, most researchers concentrate on the development of new materials. In cooperation with colleagues at the ETH in Zurich, Villevieille and co-researcher Juliette Billaud took a different approach: We checked existing components with a view to fully exploiting their potential. Simply by optimizing the graphite anode or negative electrode - on a conventional Li-ion battery, researchers were able to boost battery performance. Under laboratory conditions, we were able to enhance storage capacity by a factor of up to 3. Owing to their complex construction, commercial batteries will not be able to fully replicate these results. But performance will definitely be enhanced, perhaps by as much as 30 50 percent: further experiments should yield more accurate prognoses.
Researchers point out that in terms of industrial implementation, improving existing components has the great advantage of requiring less developmental input than a new battery design using new materials. As Villevieille says: We already have everything we need. If a manufacturer were willing to take on production, enhanced batteries could be ready for the market within one or two years. The procedure is simple, cost-effective and scalable for use on rechargeable batteries in all areas of application, from wristwatch to smartphone, from laptop to car. And it has the additional bonus of being transferable to other anode-cathode batteries such as those based on sodium.
Arranging the flakes
In this case, changing the way anodes work was the key to success. Anodes are made from graphite, i.e. carbon, arranged in tiny, densely packed flakes, comparable in appearance to dark grey cornflakes haphazardly compressed, as in a granola bar. When a Li-ion battery is charging, lithium ions pass from the cathode, or positive metal oxide electrode, through an electrolyte fluid to the anode, where they are stored in the graphite bar. When the battery is in use and thus discharging, the lithium ions pass back to the cathode but are forced to take many detours through the densely packed mass of graphite flakes, compromising battery performance.
These detours are largely avoidable if the flakes are arranged vertically during the anode production process so that they are massed parallel to one another, pointing from the electrode plane in the direction of the cathode. Adapting a method already used in the production of synthetic composite materials, this alignment was achieved by Andre Studart and a team of research experts in the field of material nanostructuration at the ETH Zurich. The method involves coating the graphite flakes with nanoparticles of iron oxide sensitive to a magnetic field and suspending them in ethanol. The suspended and already magnetized flakes are subsequently subjected to a magnetic field of 100 milliteslaabout the strength of a fridge magnet. Andre Studart explains that by rotating the magnet during this process, the platelets not only align vertically but in parallel formation to one another, like books on a shelf. As a result, they are perfectly ordered, reducing the diffusion distances covered by the lithium ions to a minimum.
Shorter paths for the ions
Evonik signed a purchase agreement for acquisition of the probiotics business of the Spanish company NOREL, a global supplier of animal feed ingredients. The agreement sees Evonik acquiring NORELs probiotics product portfolio as well as the companys site in Leon (Spain). The business will be integrated into Evoniks Animal Nutrition Business Line. The parties have agreed not to disclose details of the transaction.
Evonik is currently expanding its portfolio of sustainable and healthy solutions in the field of animal nutrition and striving to provide innovative solutions for antibiotic-free livestock management. Food safety and quality are increasingly important to end consumers. There is great awareness for the relevance of animal feed quality for sustainable livestock management, as it influences both animal and human health, says Dr. Emmanuel Auer, head of the Animal Nutrition Business Line of Evonik.
For Evonik, probiotics play a key role as a possible alternative to the use of antibiotics and antibiotic growth promotors. Probiotics are living microorganisms and have a positive effect on the gastro-enteric system of animals, as scientific studies have shown. In particular, they play a key role in maintaining the gut health of animals. The full benefits of probiotics as well as their potential positive impact in other health areas, however, have not yet been fully exploited.
For us, this acquisition marks an important step into the probiotics market. By combining the technologies of NOREL and Evonik we can create a platform for the development of new customer solutions, which are built around probiotics product families and application services, says Auer. We want to position Evonik as an innovative solution provider in the field of antibiotic-free livestock management. NORELs portfolio includes a range of probiotic products for application in poultry and pigs, as well as in aquaculture, and whose effects have been scientifically proven.
For the last 25 years we have worked on probiotic products and taken these from their development stage straight through to commercialization. Products such as Ecobiol and Fecinor are already available in many markets. Thats something were very proud of, and we are pleased that our probiotics business has found a new home and future within Evonik, says Francisco Moral, managing director of NOREL.
NORELs probiotics business gives Evonik access to this product range and to more than 20 markets including the European market. Our aim is to be able to provide the most comprehensive and effective solutions possible in the field of animal nutrition in order to contribute to the sustainable nutrition of a growing world population, stresses Auer.
Celebrating jailhouse recovery Audio Article Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle Sears paid a visit to the Chesterfield County Jail last week, meeting with over 50 of the men and women participating in the HARP (Helping Addicts...
An icons legacy memorialized Audio Article Enon Library was dedicated in memory of the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker on Friday, Oct. 21. Board of Supervisors Chair Chris Winslow, right, was joined by Walkers daughter, Patrice Walker...
News / National
by Staff reporter
A RATTLED President Robert Mugabe has reportedly put the country's military apparatus on standby, as fears of social unrest grow in Zimbabwe, NewsDay has learnt.The country's security chiefs were reportedly in panic mode and late on Monday went into a closed-door session to devise a plan to deal with expected protests by pro-democracy groups beginning today.Zimbabwe's securocrats and the Cabinet security cluster, comprising of ministers responsible for Home Affairs, State Security and Defence, reportedly held an emergency meeting of the Joint Operations Command (JOC) on Monday, as fears of unrest grew.Highly-placed government sources told NewsDay that the meeting "was a special one to specifically come up with strategies to deal with recent protests and planned ones".JOC normally holds its weekly meetings every Thursday."The police and the intelligence departments gave detailed reports on what happened in Beitbridge and how they contained the situation. During the presentation, it was noted that police officers, through their intelligence units, were aware of the planned (Beitbridge) demonstrations, but did nothing to contain the issue."State Security minister (Kembo Mohadi) raised questions why police did not prevent the protests by arresting the instigators," a senior official, who attended the meeting, which lasted over four hours at Chaminuka Building, said.Mohadi reportedly blamed the police's inertia for the destruction of property that saw a Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) warehouse going up in smoke, as unrest hit the border town late last week.Although acting Information minister Joseph Made refused to comment directly on the emergency meeting, he said government had put measures to ensure business would not be disturbed."We are appealing to our civil servants not to take heed of the proposed stay-away. Government is aware of those who are plotting to cause chaos in the country and the security departments will deal with them if they want to cause disharmony in our country," he said.Another government official, who attended the meeting said: "It was resolved to trace those who are suspected to be instigating the anarchy, with prime targets being Stern Zvorwadza (leader of the National Vendors' Union of Zimbabwe), Tajamuka's Promise Mkwananzi, Patson Dzamara of Occupy Africa Unity Square, Evan Mawarire, who leads #ThisFlag , the MDC-T leadership and diplomatic missions, particularly those of the United States and Britain, to see their involvement in these latest protests."The official added: "The meeting also resolved to deal with civil servants' union leaders who are pushing for government workers not to go to work this Wednesday (today)".Apex Council, a body representing government workers, urged civil servants to go on strike from yesterday, demanding their June salaries.Mawarire's #ThisFlag movement has also called for a total shutdown of the country today to force government to deal decisively with the deteriorating economic situation as well as corruption.The JOC meeting, sources said, decided security details would be deployed in the country's potential hot-spots and monitor leading figures in the anti-Mugabe demonstrations.Police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba said: "We are aware that criminal elements are instigating and inciting members of the public to engage in lawlessness such as burning of shops, tyres and any other forms of mischief. Police will be deployed to ensure safe passage to work."
INDIANAPOLIS A U.S. District judges decision to block a new Indiana abortion law from taking effect was a setback for anti-abortion activists who backed the push to tighten restrictions on the procedure that are already among the most strict in the country.
Provisions put on hold a day before they were to take effect Friday would have banned abortions sought because of a fetus genetic abnormalities, such as Down syndrome or because of the race, gender or ancestry of a fetus, and required that aborted fetuses be buried or cremated.
Abortion foes say other laws adopted by the Republican-dominated legislature have helped spur a nearly 20 percent decline in the number of abortions performed in Indiana between 2010 and 2014.
At issue
Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky and the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana sued in federal court to block the law adopted by the General Assembly in March, arguing that it was unconstitutional and violated womens privacy rights.
Attorneys for the state maintained that the law was a response to DNA testing advances and that the state has an interest in preventing discrimination against fetuses based on screening for genetic defects or to determine their gender.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt said in her decision that the law would go against U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have declared states may not prohibit a woman from seeking an abortion before a fetus is able to live outside the womb.
It is unclear what impact, if any, the restrictions would actually have on abortions, as women could cite other reasons or not give any for seeking an abortion.
Political impact
Republican Gov. Mike Pence faced a barrage of criticism after signing the bill, with hundreds of abortion rights supporters attending a Statehouse rally and activists organizing an online Periods for Pence campaign encouraging women to call the governors office to update him about their menstrual cycles.
Pence, who was a prominent abortion rights opponent while serving in Congress before being elected governor in 2012, has maintained his support for the measure. Pence is facing a tough re-election campaign against Democrat John Gregg and will be counting on a strong turnout from his evangelical base in November.
Gregg had positioned himself as a social conservative during his time as Indiana House speaker, but said he would have vetoed what he called an unnecessary, irresponsible, poorly thought-out law.
Whats next?
The judge issued a temporary injunction, meaning the challenged provisions cant be enforced by Indiana officials. The state can continue to defend the law and seek to have it ultimately upheld.
The anti-abortion group Indiana Right to Life called on the state to appeal the judges decision. The state attorney generals office said it would review the ruling before deciding how to proceed.
Indiana University has filed a separate federal lawsuit challenging a section of the new law making it a crime to sell or acquire fetal issue. The school argues the provision would illegally interfere with work by its scientists, such as Alzheimers disease research using cell cultures derived from fetal tissue.
Attorneys for the university and the state have agreed to put enforcement on hold until the universitys challenge is resolved.
Abortion decline
Federal courts have rejected Indianas attempts in recent years to prohibit entities that perform abortions from obtaining state funding, and to end the distribution of abortion pills at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Lafayette by requiring it to meet the same standards as surgical abortion clinics.
But the number of abortions performed in Indiana has dropped from 10,031 in 2010 to 8,118 during 2014, according to the most recent reports from the state health department. Abortion opponents attribute that decline, in part, to laws adopted in recent years requiring that pregnant women be given an opportunity to view an ultrasound image and hear the fetal heartbeat before an abortion.
Abortions in the state are now only available at six clinics in Indianapolis, Merrillville, Bloomington and Lafayette since a doctor stopped performing abortions at clinics he operated in Fort Wayne, South Bend and Gary in the past two years.
Texas ruling impact?
The U.S. Supreme Courts June 27 ruling against Texas regulation of abortion clinics isnt having any immediate impact on similar Indiana laws.
The court struck down Texas requirements that doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and clinics to meet hospital-like standards for outpatient surgery. Indiana law says doctors performing abortions must have hospital-admitting privileges, but lets them reach an agreement with another doctor who does.
Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky President Betty Cockrum said the groups three surgical abortion sites already meet the states surgical clinic and doctor admitting-privileges requirements.
The discussion weve had so far is that weve been in compliance for however long theyve been on the books, she said. It might be a little difficult to argue that they are unduly burdensome.
Ethan Renaldi, left, inspired his father John Renaldi, Jio co-founder and CEO, to create a device to help parents keep track of their children. (Mindy Garfinkle)
Why would Jio, the stealthy hardware startup founded by Motorola Mobility veterans, join an accelerator?
Jio, which is quietly working on a miniscule device that can help parents keep track of their children, is in the latest Techstars Chicago class.
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The company, which recently raised $1.2 million, has 12 employees in Chicago and Palo Alto almost all of whom worked at Motorola Mobility at some point.
John Renaldi, Jio's CEO and co-founder, said after the accelerator approached him in January about joining, it quickly became clear that Techstars wouldn't be able to help with engineering the product.
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"But what I had never done before was start my own business," Renaldi said. "I came from the corporate world. I had kind of been an entrepreneur within a corporation, but that's a lot different than starting your own company."
Where Techstars could help, he said, was in helping grow the fledging company as it moves closer to manufacturing and selling its product for the first time.
Renaldi acknowledged that he has a broad network after spending more than 11 years at Motorola. He also picked up connections at Google and Lenovo which both owned the mobile phone maker in recent years along the way. That helped him put together a six-person advisory board, but Renaldi said he still wanted to have someone to focus on the business.
"We were considering finding a third co-founder just for this purpose," Renaldi said. The company planned to find a co-founder in Silicon Valley who could help with fundraising and build a team there. But when Renaldi and his co-founder and chief technology officer, former Motorola Mobility director of engineering Roger Ady, managed to do that on their own, the need for such a person "fizzled out."
They decided to go the relatively cheaper route of joining an accelerator and giving up 6 percent equity for $20,000 and the option of a $100,000 convertible note. The formal, 90-day program offers free office space, access to mentors and instruction in sales and marketing.
"You kind of have the third co-founder there, but you don't need to necessarily cut him in at the huge equity that a normal co-founder would require," Renaldi said.
Later on, if Jio grows big enough, Renaldi said the company would consider hiring someone full-time to run the business side of things. But for now, he said Techstars provides adequate support and community to get them to the next phase.
aelahi@tribpub.com
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Dot Foods, a food redistribution company, will close an existing facility in Joliet as it moves into a $20 million regional distribution center in south suburban University Park, company executives said Tuesday.
The 50 or so people who work at the Joliet facility have been offered jobs at the 191,000-square-foot University Park facility, where another 150 or so people will be hired in the coming year, said Jim Tracy, senior vice president and general counsel for Dot Foods. Sales volume has been quickly growing for Dot Foods, prompting the need for more warehouse and distribution space in the Chicago area, Tracy said.
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On Wednesday morning, Tracy and other Dot Foods executives will hold a news conference at the site alongside University Park officials. The plant will be the 10th regional distribution center for Dot Foods, which does business in all 50 states.
"It gives us more capacity so we can continue to grow. And we'll be looking for a lot of good employees up there," Tracy said.
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Dot Foods bought the University Park facility and land from Rosemont-based Reinhart Foodservice, Tracy said. The $20 million cost includes the purchase and planned additions to the building. The deal has closed, the move is in process and the distribution center should be "up and running" in the next 30 days, Tracy said.
Dot Foods was founded in 1960 by Robert and Dorothy Tracy, Jim Tracy's parents, who had 12 children, seven of whom are still involved in the business. The company's still headquartered in Mount Sterling, Ill., which is about 250 miles southwest of Chicago.
Dot Foods is the 68th largest private company in the U.S. with $5.5 billion in sales, according to Forbes 2015 rankings of the largest American private companies.
As a redistribution company, Dot Foods buys product from manufacturers, stores the food in distribution centers, then resells to food service and retail distributors, as well as convenience stores, Tracy said.
Representatives of the Northern Illinois Food Bank are also scheduled to be on hand at Wednesday's presser at 251 Central Ave. in University Park. Dot Foods is donating a refrigerated trailer to the food bank.
gtrotter@tribpub.com
Twitter @GregTrotterTrib
A customer of Carbon Live Fire Mexican Grill has sued the Bridgeport restaurant after being sickened by E. coli in an outbreak Chicago health officials say affected at least 25 Chicagoans and sent at least five of them to the hospital.
The plaintiff, Chicago resident Melissa Andrews, ordered three chicken tacos from Carbon through GrubHub on June 22 and became ill four days later, according to the lawsuit. After suffering symptoms including bloody stools and abdominal cramping, she sought medical care June 28 and was hospitalized overnight. She was released July 1 when she was able to tolerate solid food, according to the complaint, which adds that Andrews "continues to slowly recover." Andrews' suit seeks damages of more than $30,000 but did not specify a specific dollar amount.
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The restaurant at 300 W. 26th St. closed last week, and Chicago public health officials opened an investigation into the outbreak. The restaurant is also no longer participating in Taste of Chicago.
The incubation period for the strain of E. coli found in the outbreak is usually three to four days. The Chicago Department of Public Health encouraged people who ate at the restaurant and had symptoms of E. coli, including diarrhea and abdominal pain, to seek immediate medical attention.
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A spokesman for the health department didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. There was no answer at the restaurant on Wednesday.
sbomkamp@tribpub.com
Twitter @SamWillTravel
Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas are building a new $20 million training facility in Little Village that will provide training annually for 1,600 natural gas utility workers and will partner with Chicago Public Schools to prepare high school students for field jobs. (Jose M. Osorio, Chicago Tribune)
With more than half of their field workers nearing retirement and massive modernization projects underway, Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas are building a new $20 million training facility in Little Village that will feature the largest "mock gas city" in the state.
The center, to be located at 4228 W. 35th Place, will provide training annually for 1,600 natural gas utility workers and will partner with Chicago Public Schools to prepare high school students for field jobs.
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A groundbreaking at the site, on a vacant lot owned by Peoples Gas, is planned for Wednesday afternoon. The center is expected to open in the latter part of next year.
Peoples Gas is opening a new training center in Little Village. (Handout)
Charles Matthews, president and CEO of Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas, said Tuesday that the existing training site at 1250 S. Karlov Ave. is more than 30 years old and isn't capable of adequately training the workforce needed. The old facility will close when the new one opens.
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In addition, more than half of the 1,500 field employees working for Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas will become eligible for retirement within the next five years, during a time of labor-heavy projects. Peoples Gas is in the midst of replacing about 2,000 miles of century-old piping in Chicago, at a cost of $250 million to $300 million annually for the next 10 to 20 years, and is using about 1,500 contractors to help.
"We know a substantial (number of workers) will decide to retire, but certainly we hope that not all of them will," Matthews said. Retirement eligibility at the companies is based on a combination of age and service time, so some workers with 35 years at the company are eligible to retire at age 50, he said.
Peoples Gas, which serves the city, and North Shore Gas, which serves the suburbs, are owned by Milwaukee-based WEC Energy Group.
The new training center, which will contain more than 100,000 square feet, will feature a mock gas city with a fully functioning natural gas delivery system to 20 mock homes and businesses. There, employees of Peoples Gas, North Shore Gas and their contractors will practice installing and servicing natural gas pipes and meters, conducting safety inspections, locating pipelines, investigating leaks and responding to emergencies. It will be the largest of its kind in Illinois, the companies said.
The main building will house classrooms, hands-on training areas, a computer simulation laboratory and a meeting room for local communities to use.
Ujamaa Construction, a minority-owned general contractor, was awarded the $13 million construction contract. Peoples Gas said 85 percent of subcontractors also will be minority-owned businesses, and of those 85 percent, 40 percent will be Hispanic-owned and 10 percent will be from the Little Village community.
"I represent a working-class neighborhood that has a ton of talent," said Ald. Ricardo Munoz, 22nd, whose ward includes Little Village. "If there's a company that needs brickwork, we've got bricklayers. If you need plumbing, we've got plumbers."
The center will employ 90 full-time staff, including 75 operations and maintenance employees.
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In partnership with Chicago Public Schools, the training center will expose high school students to careers in the natural gas industry through field trips and internships.
Interested high school seniors can take part in an after-school training program and upon graduation qualify to apply for jobs as utility workers, operations apprentices or temporary project workers who typically work nine months during construction season. The jobs require some additional training in skills like customer service but do not require a college degree, Matthews said.
The center will work with Little Village Lawndale High School in Little Village, Christian Fenger Academy High School in Roseland and Dunbar Career Academy High School in South Commons. Dunbar in April announced that it would establish a citywide construction trades program for the coming school year.
Peoples Gas participates in other programs to attract new workers, including one through the gas workers union that trains military veterans, but it has had less success with high school students because it hasn't had the structure in place to offer them the right support, Matthews said. It also has partnered with ComEd and Nicor Gas to recruit more minority candidates to utility careers, but the program is not large enough or specific enough to meet the company's needs, he said.
"We're excited to get an updated training facility, to do it in conjunction with a community that we have been a part of for a long time and to have added another plan in place to replace a retiring workforce," Matthews said.
aelejalderuiz@tribpub.com
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Twitter @alexiaer
Pfizer, the world's second-largest drug company, has agreed to a written code of conduct for the marketing of opioids that some officials hope will set a standard for manufacturers of narcotics and help curb the use of the addictive painkillers.
Though Pfizer does not sell many opioids compared with other industry leaders, its action sets it apart from companies that have been accused of fueling an epidemic of opioid misuse through aggressive marketing of their products.
Pfizer has agreed to disclose in its promotional material that narcotic painkillers carry serious risk of addiction even when used properly and promised not to promote opioids for unapproved, "off-label" uses such as long-term back pain. The company also will acknowledge there is no good research on opioids' effectiveness beyond 12 weeks.
The terms of the agreement were reached with the city of Chicago, which two years ago sued five other opioid manufacturers over alleged misleading marketing of opioids. An announcement of the agreement is expected Wednesday. Pfizer has also been aiding the city's investigation and lawsuit.
Stephen Patton, Chicago's corporation counsel, called Pfizer "a company that has agreed to embrace what we think are the common-sense proscriptions that we are seeking as part of our lawsuit. We hope that this trailblazing agreement ... will set the bar for others in this industry."
Pfizer released a statement saying that it is "pleased to work with the city of Chicago to help address the serious problem of prescription opioid abuse. We support efforts that encourage the safe use and appropriate prescribing of opioids." The company said it already follows many of these rules voluntarily.
But Adriane Fugh-Berman, an associate professor of pharmacology and physiology at Georgetown University School of Medicine, and director of Pharmed Out, which advocates rational prescribing practices, said she saw limited value in the agreement.
"Maybe it's a first step, but I think counting on pharmaceutical companies to get us out of this opioid mess is not likely to be successful," she said.
Aggressive, sometimes fraudulent marketing of OxyContin by Purdue Pharma, one of the targets of Chicago's lawsuit, is widely blamed for the rapid growth of painkiller use across the United States. Around the turn of the 21st century, the company mounted an aggressive campaign, initially claiming that the long-acting formulation reduced the risk of abuse and addiction.
The company swarmed primary care physicians, who had little expertise in pain management, in their offices and at company-sponsored conferences, at a time when the medical profession was concerned that it was not treating pain aggressively enough. Subsequent research has shown that the effort helped achieve stunning growth in the use of the painkiller, which was developed for severe pain after surgery and end-of-life care.
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In 2007, Purdue pleaded guilty to criminal charges of misleading physicians, regulators and the public about the drug's addictive qualities.
Nearly 165,000 people have died from overdoses of prescription narcotics since the turn of the century, in what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called an epidemic of opiate use. The government estimates that 2.1 million people are addicted to prescription painkillers.
In its lawsuit, Chicago contends that in 2009, about 1,100 emergency room visits were the result of opioid misuse or overdose. The city also said it paid out $12.3 million in insurance claims for painkiller prescriptions between 2008 and 2015.
This year, the federal government has redoubled its efforts to address the crisis. The CDC released new guidelines that call on doctors to sharply curtail the use of narcotic painkillers. The Food and Drug Administration required that its strongest warning on immediate-release opioids include information about misuse, abuse, addiction, overdose, death and risk of neonatal withdrawal syndrome. The House and Senate each have approved bills that address the drug crisis.
Patton said Chicago filed the lawsuit because it believes that opioid manufacturers have continued to use deceptive tactics in the years since Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty, but are doing so more subtly, often through third parties or front groups. The agreement with Pfizer requires the company to ensure that third-party materials "fairly and accurately describe the risks and benefits of opioids."
Other cities and states, including Santa Clara and Orange counties in California and the state of West Virginia, have also sued pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors for stoking the opiate epidemic.
New York City-based Pfizer actively promotes only one opioid painkiller, Embeda, which it acquired when it bought King Pharmaceuticals in 2011. A spokeswoman said she had no separate total for its sales, but a first- quarter report for 2016 shows that it is part of an "other" category of drugs that brought in $171 million worldwide.
Purdue's blockbuster OxyContin, by contrast, produced $3.1 billion in revenue in 2010. So many opioids are sold, however, that the drug has never made up a large share of the opioid analgesic market. Last year it accounted for just 2 percent of the market, according to the company.
Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies adhere to voluntary standards last updated in 2009 by their trade association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
The 36th annual Taste of Chicago kicked off in Grant Park on this lovely 90-degree Wednesday, a temperature that brought on all kinds of uncomfortable sweats as we ate every rib, burger, hot dog, empanada, turkey leg and cheesecake smoosh in sight.
Now that we're back in air conditioning, we bring you our thoughts on what was good, what was great and what simply wasn't worth the money all to help you spend more smartly when you make your annual trek.
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Taste wouldn't be complete without the reliably humongo portion of pad thai from Star of Siam and a slice of deep-dish from Lou Malnati's, but organizers have taken care the past few years to introduce new options too. Highlights this year include a row of "pop-up" booths (which simply means restaurants will swap in and out, depending on the day), featuring quite a few first-timers to the fest; today, we tried dishes from BRGRBELLY, Pastoral and Rojo Gusano. All tasty.
Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 44 A Taste portion of bacon on a stick from Bobak Sausage Company (Booth 35). (Louisa Chu / Chicago Tribune)
The best and worst of everything we tried, decoded below:
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Save the first till last: The legendary Abundance Bakery (Booth 1) welcomes everyone, right near the entrance of the festival. The spot is new to Taste, but it's no wonder that classic, sticky Uncle Villy's Upside Down Caramel Cupcake (5 tickets) has pleased the taste buds of so many since 1990. The cupcake is soft and light, dressed in a golden, flared caramel skirt. No shame in licking your fingers for that last bit of caramel.
Just about right crisp and zing: Ricobene on 26th Street (Booth 2) is well-known for its Italian breaded-steak sandwich, but the workers at the booth suggested their favorite, boneless Buffalo chicken. Nine tickets for 3 strips of chicken dipped in Buffalo sauce? Well, wait till you put them in your mouth. Underneath the crispy layer of bread comes the soft, white meat, with just the right amount of zingy and spicy sauce.
Thirsty no more: It's hot and steamy out, Chicago. If you want to quench your thirst with something Taste-worthy, La Mexicana's (Booth 3) paletas will do. The colorful fruity bars come in watermelon, mango, lemon-lime and strawberry flavors. If you are feeling really hot and thirsty, get the full-size one for 5 tickets. If you are looking to only cool off your mouth, take the mini watermelon or strawberry paleta (3 tickets). Be patient with ripping off the plastic wrap. You will soon be refreshed.
The classic cheezborger: The famous Billy Goat Tavern & Grill's (Booth 4) cheeseburger is back at Taste. The 1/2 Cheeseburger (4 tickets) is a well-priced investment to maintain your loyalty to Chicago (single cheeseburger: 8 tickets). If you like a meaty burger, the double cheeseburger costs 11 tickets. But remember, burgers call for commitment, and a single patty of this cheezborger is enjoyable in itself.
A spot to cool off: The Italian beef (8 tickets, Taste portion 5 tickets) was dry and lacked any kick, but Frannie's Cafe Inc. (Booth 5) serves up lemonade Italian ice (6 tickets) that provides some much needed relief in the stifling summer humidity and heat. Sit on the corner under a tree, and share with a friend, or keep it all for yourself. We won't judge.
Summer fun stop: If you think watermelon is synonymous with summer fun, Farmer's Fridge (Booth 6) is your destination. The chili lime watermelon (5 tickets, 3 for a Taste portion) starts off a tad spicy, then trails off as natural flavors of the freshest watermelon rise. Squeeze the lime on top and enjoy a sweet summer treat that tempts even those who swear they don't eat the fruit.
No salt, please: Someone behind the stand at Texas de Brazil (Booth 7) was heavy-handed with the salt. The upscale Brazilian eatery's garlic steak with a roll (16 tickets) had potential. The three hunks of beef were well-cooked and tender, but every bite left us licking our lips, searching for water. The salt overpowered the meat's other spice elements. The roll, however, was lightly buttered and fluffy soft.
Feeling adventurous? Stop by Chicago's Dog House (Booth 8) for the smoked alligator sausage (16 tickets) or rattlesnake and rabbit sausage (16 tickets), or try a sample of both for 10 tickets. The spicy and tender smoked alligator is served with caramelized onions in a sweet chili sauce that will make you happy you took the loud man behind the counter's dare to try the odd meats. The smoky rattlesnake and rabbit is a bit tougher and served with barbecue sauce, cheddar cheese and hot giardiniera peppers. If you can only pick one, choose the alligator.
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Bite-size fried snack: Mini doughnuts are ideal for this event, allowing you to pop a few freshly fried bites in your mouth and keep moving. Go with the sample size (5 tickets) at Dinky Donuts (Booth 9), and treat yourself to the hot and ever-so-crisp offerings. The only choice is whether to top the doughnuts with cinnamon sugar, dark chocolate sugar, old fashioned sugar cream pie, powdered sugar or the "ancho mamma's chile."
Puerto Rican sandwich stop: If you've never tried a jibarito, the Chicago original featuring fried plantains instead of bread, you're in luck. La Bomba (Booth 10) serves up one of the best versions around, with delicately crisp plantains surrounding steak, cheese and a healthy slather of mayo. The half portion (5 tickets) is a healthy serving, while the full jibarito (16 tickets) also comes with a side of arroz con gandules (rice with pigeon peas).
Pillowy Polish dumpling snack: Pierogies served at festivals are often dry and tough, but the specimens at Kasia's Deli (Booth 12) were the opposite. Each little package of tender dough gave way to a super soft and fluffy mashed potato. Though it sounds bland, they were buttery and distinct. The sampler (5 tickets) is a truly ample portion, so don't worry about the larger size. Oh, yeah, sour cream is a must.
Cool chocolate treat: The Fudge Pot (Booth 13) offers chocolate covered strawberries, chocolate covered Oreos and a frozen s'more cup. But considering its name, why not just cut to the chase and get the creamy, dark fudge? The fudge sampler (3 tickets) is small but rich, making it a cheap no-brainer order. There are three flavors, including chocolate walnut, maple and plain chocolate, which is what we ordered. You can't go wrong.
Grilled African specialties: You can smell the grilled meat cooking even far away from Vee Vee's African Restaurant (Booth 14). But while the sampler of red beans and rice with jerk chicken (5 tickets) is good, why not really go big with the sauteed goat with jollof rice (12 tickets)? The tender chunks of goat are covered in a heavily seasoned tomato sauce, which is all soaked up by the soft rice. Some Sriracha is on the side if you want to spice things up.
Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 23 Chance the Rapper performs with Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment at Petrillo Music Shell at Taste of Chicago in Grant Park Wednesday. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)
Barbecue is always a good idea: Robinson's No. 1 Ribs (Booth 15) does not play. Allow yourself to be lured in by its olfactory equivalent of a siren song pungent smoke billowing off fire-kissed ribs and you'll be rewarded with arguably the messiest dish in the festival. These ribs are visceral, and they will end up all over your face. Sorry, not sorry. A full portion of the tender meat lollipops known as rib tips (16 tickets), with their tangy, peppery barbecue sauce, will easily feed two people, but a Taste portion (5 tickets), won't disappoint.
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Your sweet tooth will thank you: If you're looking to promenade around Taste for a while, save Eli's Cheesecake Co. (Booth 16) for last, but if you're looking for the food equivalent of Ambien, you've come to the right spot. Consuming somewhat dense cheesecake during summer may sound off-putting, but that's because you haven't had Eli's Cookie Cheesecake Smoosh (9 tickets). Between the chocolate crust, cookie crumbles, hidden Oreo and drizzle of Hershey's chocolate, this is a chocoholic's dream.
Pasta dreams versus pasta realities: While we'd never met a pasta we didn't like, the toasted ravioli (5 tickets) at Tuscany (Booth 17) are at best unmemorable. Sure, you're still getting cute pockets of cheese-filled pasta (three, in fact), but the texture around the edges is tougher than the interior of the square, which makes for an off-putting bite. Then again, it's still pasta, so ...
Fish'n for compliments: If you're not stopping by BJ's Market & Bakery (Booth 18), you're doing something wrong. The coating of the mustard-fried catfish (5 tickets) is impressively crunchy, while the flesh itself is flaky and flavorful. A healthy dose of honey mustard or the sharp, vinegary hot sauce (available at the counter) ups the ante, offering a boost of flavor with each crispy bite. Get this fish.
Fight the heat: Taste invariably falls on some of summer's hottest days. Cool off your palate with a stop at Franco's Restaurant (Booth 19), which offers up Italian ice (lemon and watermelon) and a sea salt and caramel gelato, also available in a brioche sandwich (9 tickets). While the brioche sandwich could be softer and easier to eat, the single-scoop taste of watermelon ice (5 tickets) is a cool hit of sweet and juicy fruit with a hint of acidity, enough to perk you up for another round of bites.
Thai me up: Not all fair food is created equal. While many of the foods at Taste come in convenient-to-eat stick form all the better for the Snapchat selfie Star of Siam (Booth 20) offers up what is probably the best value. The Taste portion of pad thai (5 tickets) comes densely piled on a flimsy paper tray, covered with scallions and a sweet-ish chili sauce.
Pizza perfection: Visitors have to try Chicago-style pizza, right? And their curiosity is rewarded at Lou Malnati (Booth 21); the company drags out its Blodgett ovens and cooks their deep-dish pizza on-site. Whether you get the cheese pizza or cheese with sausage (8 tickets apiece), you'll be happy even if the pizza might be too hot to eat at first.
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You come from where? Oak Street Beach Cafe (Booth 22) cannot be found on Oak Street nor any beach; it's actually a restaurant in Midway Airport. At Taste, you won't need a boarding pass for a skewer of five grilled shrimp with garlic butter (9 tickets), nor our favorite, the two bourbon-chicken sliders (two for 12, one for 5) with a side of garlic potatoes (full portion only).
No fear factor: Jin Ju (Booth 23), at Taste only on Wednesday, seems determined to make some friends and no enemies. Its Korean offerings all tend to the mild side, ideal for first-timers. The chap chae (10 full, 5 Taste portion), gently seasoned vermicelli noodles, is ideal for a hot day. Good-size portion too.
Esqui-sit: The Korean BBQ taco (10) at pop-up Rojo Gusano (Booth 24) is good, but what curled our toes was the esquites (7 tickets full size, 5 Taste portion), that addictive street food of corn and seasoned mayo. It comes in a tiny Chinese takeout container, perfect for strolling.
Tako-liciuous: Arami (Booth 25), at Taste for just Wednesday, serves up a trio of octopus fritters (not too generous with octopus meat but tasty) for 8 tickets.
Taste of Wisconsin? The beer-battered cheese curds (12 tickets full portion, 5 for Taste portion) at Pastoral (Booth 26) are delicate and only slightly chewy, abetted by a nice dill creme fraiche. Too bad they're only here through Thursday (buy something, and you'll get a 15 percent coupon for a store visit).
Burger bites: BRGRBELLY (Booth 27), at Taste on Wednesday and Thursday, offers a pair of mini, foil-wrapped burgers (10 tickets) or a single mini (5). The Easy Rider (cheddar, bacon and barbecue sauce), however, is the only style offered as a Taste portion (even if you ask nicely; we tried). And the Old Time Religion burger (goat cheese, arugula, tomato, truffled aioli) was our favorite.
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Tamales with spark: A brightly flavored tomato sauce, a Cuban fricase, enrobes the Cuban pork tamale served in a corn husk at Dia de los Tamales (Booth 28). There's pork here, but it's that sauce and the nicely textured masa that stand out. A whole tamale is 10 tickets, a half portion is 5 tickets. The booth also sells a Buffalo chicken tamale, a vegetarian roasted pepper and goat cheese tamale, and a vegan spicy black bean and corn tamale.
A portable empanada: The early bird does not always get his chosen worm. At the Beat Kitchen (Booth 29), the beef and chorizo empanadas (two for 9 tickets) weren't ready early Wednesday apparently. But the mole chicken was. (A single empanada is 5 tickets.) The sturdy orange-gold pastry held a soft slightly sweet filling laced with threads of chicken. It's a thick filling, so no worries about dribbles if eaten on the run. If empanadas (a veggie option is posted) aren't your thing, Beat Kitchen offers a veggie burger and tots too.
Cheese? Please! Lots of stringy melted cheese is the hallmark of the deep dish sausage pizza slice from Connie's Pizza (Booth 30). The high-collared crust is golden and reasonably crisp on the bottom, given the humidity. The sausage chunks have a pleasantly meaty flavor and a coarse texture that contrasts with the crust's pillowy interior. You can get a Taste slice for 5 tickets, but the bigger portion, 10 tickets, has a robust appearance that's hard to resist. Chow down on this early, perhaps. Besides slices of cheese and sausage pizza, there are meatball sandwiches and chocolate covered frozen bananas.
Go all in: A Chicago-style hot dog with the works ain't nothing like it. Which may explain the line at Gold Coast Dogs (Booth 31). Half a dog is 5 tickets but, honestly, why? The whole dog is much prettier at 10 tickets and is a reasonable bite. We're glad there's a photo chart of what makes a Chicago dog on the counter. Good reminder of what's coming a mild frank enhanced by all the tangy condiments and a soft poppy seed bun. Love the pickle; the tomato slice is OK.
Where there's a smoky flavor: Getting the last of the batch of jerk chicken at Iyanze (Booth 32), is a good thing, we guess. There's no wait, but really, the portion is less than grand, and there was not one of the advertised plantains. Still, the chicken is moist and toothsome and offers a subtle smoky heat. The chicken is also on the bone, so take care. The red rice and beans is well done with a nice smokiness.
A classic leg up: Never had the Taste classic of a whole turkey leg? Maybe this year. Miller's Pub (Booth 33) is serving it for 14 tickets. A foil collar around one end holds the massive drumstick that has to be eaten with the hands. (The puny plastic sporks are no help.) The optional barbecue sauce gives color and a mildly tangy/sweet flavor. What makes the turkey leg a must-do are tradition and its massive size. Two strangers sitting at our table commented on it, and a guy passing by asked where to get it. We told him but felt rather like a bashful Fred Flintstone.
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All ears: You know the Celtic Corn on the Cob (5 tickets) at O'Briens Restaurant & Bar (Booth 34) is roasted from the husk's charred edges, which are pulled back to make nature's perfect festival food handle. Revealed is a kaleidoscope of yellow kernels, tender, crisp and sweet. They'll ask if you want butter, so make sure they hear your, "Oh, yes, please." Remember: You shake the Spice House seasoned Celtic salt yourself, so do it and hard.
Bacon, bacon, BA-CON: Bobak Sausage Co. (Booth 35) calls it the Mini Hunter Bacon on a Stick (Taste portion: 5 tickets), but there is nothing mini about this hunk of hot pork. If you want pure unadulterated thick cut, fatty roasted bacon, then you have come to the right place. If you are afraid of biting into a mouthful of fat, then keep walking, or run while you still can.
There will be blood orange: Pro tip: when there is blood orange anything, get it. Vivid, tart and refreshing, the blood orange sorbet cup (Taste portion: 5 tickets) at Caffe Gelato (Booth 36) is just sweet enough for the kids but best appreciated by the grown-up palate.
One does not have just one fried Oreo: You may have to wait for your quartet of golden, crunchy deep-fried Oreos (6 tickets), finished with a dusting of powdered sugar, at Punky's Pizza & Pasta (Booth 37), but that's the only way to have them. The hidden cream filling melts just enough to flood around the chocolate cookies. Nothing says American fair food like this.
Here's a tip, a rib tip: The chili flakes forward, spice rubbed and smoked rib tips (14 tickets) at Porkchop (Booth 38) are some of the meatiest you'll ever find in our fair city. Make sure to get sauce on the side for dipping.
Wanting more: Sure the cinnamon sugar churritos (miniature churros) at Churro Factory (Booth 39) are freshly fried and beautifully encrusted with shimmering cinnamon and sugar. And that may be all you want and need. But this taste (four churritos for 4 tickets) seems a little tiny, though they are cute.
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Reported and written by Louisa Chu, Bill Daley, Joseph Hernandez, Joanne Yj Kim, Nick Kindelsperger, Phil Vettel and Nicholas Wooten.
Do you realize that The Flaming Lips and Few Spirits are teaming up for a $124.99 whiskey? (I was going to attempt a pun referencing "Psychiatric Explorations of the Fetus with Needles" instead, but it proved too complicated.)
Due in October, Evanston-based Few will release Brainville Rye Whiskey (named for a Flaming Lips song), which Few founder Paul Hletko said will be "a little spicier and more assertive" than the standard Few rye.
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"The Flaming Lips do big, bold music, so we'll try to do a big bold whiskey," Hletko said.
Hletko said the project came together via Justin Helton, a Knoxville, Tenn., artist who designs visuals for The Lips as well as bands like Phish, The Avett Brothers, My Morning Jacket, Ween and The Black Keys. Helton reached out last year to propose a collaboration in which Few made the whiskey and Helton designed the label to evoke the Lips' motif, Hletko said.
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The Lips a fairly incredible Oklahoma City psychedelic rock band that has been making music for 30 years didn't have a role in the conceptualization or production of the whiskey, but frontman Wayne Coyne still weighed in with a statement: "Whiskey it's such a volatile drink. Upon pouring a drink it's like accepting that you may become a werewolf And really ... Who doesn't want to become a werewolf ??? Ha."
Brainville Rye will be limited to 5,000 bottles, about one-fifth of which will be sold in the Chicago area. Hletko said he expects the whiskey to sell well despite the steep price because it will be limited ("Once it's gone, it's gone") and some people really like The Flaming Lips.
Hletko said he hopes the band will join him when to blend Brainville later this summer.
jbnoel@tribpub.com
Twitter @joshbnoel
Sherry adds life to cocktail recipes, like this Sancho Panza, which mixes manzanilla sherry with mezcal, lime juice and ginger and sage syrups. (Michael Tercha / Chicago Tribune)
Expressive and seductive, sherry is in the midst of a revival. Once known as the beverage of choice by your grandmother, the Spanish fortified wine has piqued the interest of modern mixologists who admire its versatility.
Sherry ranges from dry manzanilla and fino to aged oloroso. Its minerality allows bartenders to add a rich umamilike depth of flavor to cocktails. The earthy, oaky notes give a deep base tone to such spirits as whiskey, bourbon, mezcal and gin. The rounded sweetness is also a bonus. It's increasingly popping up as a mixer in refreshing summer cocktails.
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Anne Marineau, bar manager at Black Bull, a Spanish tapas eatery in Wicker Park, has one of the largest sherry programs in Chicago, with more than 30 cocktails and 40 by-the-glass or bottle options. "I love working with sherry because it's so versatile," she says. "We use it to make syrups, as the modifying ingredient or as the base ingredient," Marineau says. "It's one category that gives you hundreds of options to work into a cocktail."
When she looks for a sweetening agent with more body and dimension than sugar, she uses Pedro Ximenez, the rich dessert sherry. Alternatively, to balance a sweet-leaning cocktail, Marineau reaches for manzanilla "because it will help dry out the sugar, while the briny, salty quality brings out the natural flavors of the other ingredients," she says. One of her favorites: The Sancho Panza.
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Kelly Peterson Bates, beverage director at the Boarding House in Chicago says her Midnight Manhattan cocktail is the restaurant's biggest seller. "We wanted the layers of flavor that a sherry provides a cocktail, so we added fino sherry into a somewhat classic Manhattan," she says. "It actually adds a bit of acidity to the drink, rounding out the other ingredients and creating balance, while contributing a subtle nuttiness."
Whether you are rounding off the sweetness of your cocktail or looking to impart a subtle dimension, sherry offers a multitude of options.
Laura Levy Shatkin is a freelance writer.
Sancho Panza
Makes: 1 drink
From Anne Marineau of Black Bull.
2 tablespoons coarse salt
1 tablespoon ground sage leaves, plus fresh leaves for garnish
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1 1/2 ounces manzanilla sherry
3/4 ounce blanco mezcal
3/4 ounce lime juice
1/4 ounce ginger syrup
1/2 ounce sage syrup
1 Crush the salt and sage leaves together with a mortar and pestle. Use to coat half the rim of a cocktail glass, wetting the rim then dipping it into the mixture.
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2 Shake the remaining ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker; strain into the glass over crushed ice. Garnish with sage leaves.
Syrups: For the ginger syrup, heat 1/4 cup water to a boil in a saucepan. Add 1/4 cup finely diced ginger and 1/4 cup sugar. Stir until sugar dissolves. For the sage syrup, use 4 sprigs fresh sage to 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup sugar. Allow to steep off the heat until infused, 1 hour or more.
Midnight Manhattan
Makes: 1 drink
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From Kelly Peterson Bates of the Boarding House.
1 1/2 ounces bourbon
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1 ounce amaro, such as Amaro Nonino
1/2 ounce fino sherry
2 drops Fee Brothers Old Fashion Aromatic Bitters or another bitters
1 brandy-soaked cherry
Stir all the ingredients except the cherry together in a mixing glass; strain into a rocks glass over ice. Garnish with the cherry.
News / National
by Staff reporter
Government has so far issued over 3 100 import licences for goods worth around $23 million since June 20, three days after gazetting of import control regulations on various grocery and building material products.On June 17, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce gazetted statutory instrument 64 of 2016 which featured products drawn from across the industry.The products included Cremora Coffee Creamers (which is made by the local Nestle), Camphor creams, white petroleum jellies and body creams, plastic pipes and fittings, bottled water, mayonnaise, salad cream, peanut butter, jams, Maheu, canned fruits and vegetables, pizza base, yoghurts, flavoured milks, dairy juice blends, ice creams, cultured milk and cheese.The Government also put controls on woven fabrics of cotton, fertilisers (urea and ammonium nitrate) compounds and blends. Tile adhesive and tylon, Shoe polish, Synthetic hair products. Second hand tyres have now been put under control after companies such as National Tyre Services had already lost market share to the cheaper alternatives.Certain builderware products have also been added to the list and these include wheelbarrows, flat-rolled products, metal clad insulated products.However the removal of the goods from the Open General Import Licence has been misconstrued as a ban on the importation of the products, triggering violent protests from cross-border traders and South African businesses who are resisting its implementation.Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha reiterated that the intended purpose of the measures is not to ban the importation of the listed products but to regulate their influx into Zimbabwe."Importation will still be allowed where local production is not adequate to meet national demand. However where the local industry is producing adequate quantities, import licences will not be issued and companies will therefore be encouraged to source from local manufacturers."The SI is an interim measure meant to boost recovery of the local manufacturing sector which is under siege from imported products. This measure is expected to give the sector time and space to retool and boost production capacity."He added that the Ministry can only regulate but cannot ban imports."In actual fact, the products can still be imported but under an import licence."According to information availed to this publication shows that since June 20, 2016 up to date, the Ministry has issued more than 3 100 import licences for goods worth 47 228 923.20 South African rand and US$19 896 741.16.The ministry facilitated the issuance of permits for importation of products that were already at the borders and those which had been procured and paid for prior to the enactment of SI 64 of 2016.Minister Bimha also emphasised that the SI is not intended to affect individuals importing small quantities for personal use, inheritance goods and goods for returning residents."ZIMRA will provide communication and notices to this regard to ensure uniformity of application at all border posts."Minister Bimha said the products were placed under control after widespread consultations with industry."The Ministry established that the local industry has adequate capacity to produce the majority of the products which are being imported in large quantities such as mineral water, maheu, mayonnaise, canned beans and vegetables, jams, yoghurts and peanut butter."A monitoring and evaluation committee, whose members are drawn from both public and private sector has been put in place and held its inaugural meeting on June 24, 2016 where it was agreed that a monitoring and evaluation framework be developed.
"My greatest work, Oscar Holly Marmet. Picture by my friend @shannonleeimages. Sorry I didn't talk about being pregnant. Wanted to keep it all for myself," Tunney, 44, posted on Instagram.
Tunney, who grew up in Palos Heights and attended St. Ignatius College Prep on the Near West Side, appeared in the Netflix series "Love" this year. She starred on "The Mentalist" from 2008-15.
Tunney, whose cousin is Ald. Tom Tunney (44th), and interior designer Marmet have been engaged since December 2012. Their baby was born in late June, according to a photographer pal.
"The Legacy of Manifest Destiny" by Marcos Raya is part of the "Nuestras Historias exhibition at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago. (Diane Laux)
There are many good reasons to visit the National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen this summer.
The most economic is that the museum, which was founded three decades ago by a group of teachers to counteract the absence of Mexican art in local institutions, is free to all.
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The most cathartic is to spite Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president who has called Mexicans rapists and killers, who believes a wall should be built between the two countries, to be paid for by Mexico, and that eating a taco bowl is a fitting way to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.
In between, as usual, is what's really important. At the NMMA right now is "Nuestras Historias," a lively exhibition of the permanent collection spanning 3,000 years of cultural production, from ceramic dignitaries and ceremonial masks to politically-charged paintings in the style of the Mexican muralists and the darkly comic porcelains of Rodrigo Lara Zendejas, the up-and-coming Mexican-born artist who lives in Chicago and seems to have a show up everywhere these days. Recent additions include an unnerving 12-foot long serpent carved by Jose Luis Rivera Barrera from a single piece of mesquite, and the Galeria Cardenas, a new gallery-within-the-gallery, fronted by a blaring neon sign that announces what could be the museum's motto: Galeria Sin Fronteras.
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"Estampas de la Raza," a traveling display of contemporary prints organized by the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, showcases bold graphics by artists of Mexican descent. A caustic remake of the Sun-Maid raisins box by Ester Hernandez swaps the "M" for an "R" and that winsome farm girl for a smiling skeleton. Rolando Briseno's poignantly domestic take on biculturalism sets a table half with floral oilcloth, half blue-and-white gingham. Pleasurable, if predictable, are iconic images of Frida Kahlo that make a multicultural update of the Andy Warhol template. (Yes, there's more than one. She wouldn't be an icon otherwise.)
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A small gallery in the middle of these two larger exhibitions further proves the point about the significance of the in-between. There sits "Brown Brilliance Darkness Matter," an exacting show by the artist Maria Gaspar. Gaspar, who was born in 1980 and recently won a fellowship from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation for her work about the Cook County Jail, grew up in Little Village, not far from the museum. In a place full of artworks whose every square inch radiates overlapping pattern, color and figure from ancient bas-reliefs unearthed in the Yucatan to Santos de la Torre Santiago's vast interconnected cosmos made of 1.5 million chaquira glass beads to Pilsen muralist Marcos Raya's whirlwind record of public protest Gaspar's may be the most sublime. It's definitely the most subtle.
The difference begins with color. "Brown Brilliance Darkness Matter" has only four: black-and-white checked fabric hung from the ceiling; leggy modernist chairs and side tables animated in turquoise; and glossy brown clay sculptures, small and indistinct, that sit on the furnishings as if they were pedestals.
That's one color for each word of the title, and it merits trying to match them up, one for one. Also worth playing out are the title's linguistic suggestions: What is the difference between dark matter and darkness matters? If Black Lives Matter, where does brown go? Can dark colors be brilliant?
"Brown Brilliance Darkness Matter" is a bit like one of those the-artist-selects exhibitions, where an artist is invited to curate a show of their choosing from an institute's collection. Plenty of museums organize these, and they can be wonderfully idiosyncratic, since artists tend to proceed on an individualistic basis rather than an art historical one. Given full access to the NMMA's archives and collection vaults, however, Gaspar has done something else entirely.
The first clue is a framed gallery guide listing every "Constellation" in the exhibition each scrim, each sculpture-furniture pairing and detailing its materials and identification, complete with museum accession numbers and other ultimately unsatisfactory details. Everything is stated simply enough the fabric is printed from collages the artist made by weaving together slivers of museum postcards and old family photographs; the furniture is called Acapulco; the sculptures are based on items from the collection but nothing is clear.
How to look at sprawling, translucent images that have so many bits and pieces missing and recombined, with recognizably human faces belonging to members of the artist's family interwoven with monolithic ancient sculptures and giant whirling dancers? What's the origin of iconic modernist furniture named for a resort in southern Mexico, inspired by thousand-year-old Mayan hammocks produced by local craftsman since the 1950s, and now also handmade in Brooklyn? What to do with objects equal parts precious and turd, some of which prompt naming grimacing baby, braid of hair, snake eating its tail and others best described as flat or chunky?
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Neither Mexican nor Mexican-American are simple identities or cultures, despite what some politicians may claim. No amount of wall labels or filing systems or lists of raw materials can achieve that purity, just as no extra border patrols or foreign worker restrictions or racial profiling can clear a path to security.
Nothing is clear because being brown isn't.
Indeed, clarity may be overrated.
"Brown Brilliance Darkness Matter" runs through July 31; "Estampas de la Raza: Contemporary Prints from the Romo Collection" runs through Aug. 14; and "Nuestras Historias: Stories of Mexican Identity" is on permanent display at the National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St. Free; 312-738-1503, www.nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org
Lori Waxman is a freelance critic.
ctc-arts@tribpub.com
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Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 126 Woody introduces the gang to a homemade spork toy with self-esteem issues in "Toy Story 4." Read the review. (Pixar / AP)
New crime fiction books to check out are Collecting the Dead by Spencer Kope, The Crow Girl by Erik Axl Sund, and Charcoal Joe by Walter Mosley. (Chicago Tribune)
"Collecting the Dead" by Spencer Kope, Minotaur, 320 pages, $25.99
Magnus "Steps" Craig, the FBI tracker introduced in Spencer Kope's auspicious debut, "Collecting the Dead," was born with a gift that guaranteed his future. He can see the "shine" left behind by serial killers "every touch, every footfall, every cheek on a pillow, every hand on a wall" and has used his secret talent to stop no less than 17 such monsters in the last five years. His failed efforts haunt his dreams, and tromping through darkened forests would give him the willies even if he wasn't searching for bodies.
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But the emotional attachment to the victims he develops keeps him going. And when he uncovers the names of young women being targeted by the prolific Sad Face a new threat who leaves behind finger drawings of downturned mouths Steps becomes obsessed with preventing their killings. Fortunately, he has in Special Agent Jimmy Donovan a partner who provides the anchoring presence he needs to get the job done.
He also can take a break from his visions by donning special glasses that nullify his powers. Kope, a working crime analyst for a county sheriff in Washington State, avoids the histrionic low road of serial murder fiction, using his experience to enliven the plot with the intricacies of profiling and detection. We get schooled on such concepts as "overclocking" when the brain detects the surreal, the dangerous, the shocking." Kope's dry, unexcitable style, with its streaks of offbeat humor, further raises expectations for a "Collecting the Dead" sequel.
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"The Crow Girl" by Erik Axl Sund, Knopf, 784 pages, $29.95
Swedish crime novels in the post-"Dragon Tattoo" era have offered a full slate of grotesque sex crimes, murder, torture and other precipitous drops into the human void. But there's been nothing with the cracked intensity or wild ambition of the pseudonymous Erik Axl Sund's 800-page event, "The Crow Girl."
Arriving here six years after becoming a Swedish-language hit in Europe, the book unfolds in kaleidoscopic fashion, making obvious and surprising connections between past and present atrocities in places ranging from Stockholm to war-torn Sierra Leone. Child abuse is the main offering: fathers committing unspeakable things with underage girls, young boys getting mutilated, grown-up victims or the split personalities they have developed to deal with the trauma carrying out graphic acts of vengeance.
The two central figures are Jeanette, an unhappily married Stockholm policewoman probing the dismemberment of a boy injected with anesthetic, and Sofia, a psychiatrist specializing in abuse victims to whom Jeanette turns for assistance. About Victoria, an abuse victim whose oral journals Sofia compulsively listens to, the less said the better.
Sund is relentless in scraping away at both physical and psychological wounds, leaving us with scenes and images that may make you leave the room: "the wave of sour sweat as his pants fall to the floor." Ultimately, "The Crow Girl" the first entry, I hasten to point out, in a trilogy is unable to keep up with itself. Various stretches sag. But fired up by moral concerns, this book's engine never stops humming.
"Charcoal Joe" by Walter Mosley, Doubleday, 320 pages, $26.95
In "Charcoal Joe," the 14th installment in Walter Mosley's incomparable Easy Rawlins series, it may seem like the L.A detective is not in quite as driven a state as he is in some of the previous installments.
"I had built the kind of life I wanted," says Easy, who with his cash fallout from "Rose Gold" runs a three-man detective firm in a building he owns, has gotten his daughter Feather into a private school in a white section of Los Angeles and is counting on his girlfriend, Bonnie, saying yes to his marriage proposal.
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But though the year is flower-powered 1968, or 20 years removed from the life-threatening scuffles of "Devil in a Blue Dress," life is no less easy for a black man in L.A. to "pass from white dreams into black and brown realities."
Hired by the feared black fixer Charcoal Joe to clear the name of his friend's son a brainy black Stanford student arrested for the murder of two white guys after he reported the killings Easy quickly finds himself in a mess of complicated connections. His trigger-happy friend Mouse and the imposing Fearless Jones are in the picture, so you know that violence or the threat of it will play a key role.
But as ever, Easy finds a way to rise above such circumstances and the heartbreak of losing Bonnie to a marked-for-death African royal who needs her more than he does and cling to his sense of decency.
Lloyd Sachs is a regular contributor to Printer's Row. His book, "T Bone Burnett: A Life in Pursuit," will be published in October by the University of Texas Press.
The Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago hosted its 13th annual benefit June 30 at The Ritz-Carlton with over 350 guests in attendance. "Celebrate Scarlett" honored award-winning actress Scarlett Johansson with the prestigious Renaissance Award and included a lively Q&A conducted by film critic Richard Roeper. The announcement that same day that Johansson was the highest-grossing movie actress in history added even more excitement to the evening.
The 31 year-old honoree, who sparkled in a pale blue Oscar de la Renta dress, spent time with reporters in the press line while guests mingled in the reception area before dinner. She shared what she loves most about Chicago, "its house music, art scene, architecture and people" and that her favorite role so far is playing Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, in the Marvel Comics film series.
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Scarlett Johansson shared what she likes best about Chicago and her reaction to being named the highest grossing movie actress of all time during a benefit for the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago June 30, 2016. (Candace Jordan/Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune)
After partygoers filed into the Grand Ballroom, Jean de St. Aubin, the film center's executive director, welcomed guests and introduced a video that described the center as "Chicago's world class cinematheque dedicated to showcasing emerging artists, international cinema and independent filmmakers."
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Ellen Sandor, film center advisory board chair, presented Walter Massey with the inaugural Illustrious Leader Award on his last day as president of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. "We have to say goodbye to a scientist, a leader and to somebody who literally increased enrollment by 30 percent," she said.
Co-chairs Marlene Iglitzen and Ellen Kollar shared a video of past Renaissance Award recipients Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr. congratulating Johansson. In a humorous clip, Downey (who appeared with his wife, Susan) teased the honoree saying, "And all this without a social media presence."
Roeper said of the star: "She's a throwback. I think she's one of the few actresses we have today who would've been an old-time movie star in any era. She has that 'it' quality," he said.
Scarlett Johansson revealed her favorite film role during a benefit for the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago June 30, 2016. (Candace Jordan/Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune)
A retrospective of film clips from a few of her 54 screen roles accompanied the conversation and included "Lost in Translation," "The Horse Whisperer," "Girl With a Pearl Earring," "Match Point" and "The Avengers." She has won a Tony, four Golden Globe nominations and a BAFTA, a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award.
Johansson has appeared in three Woody Allen films and said, "It's that dream call you get as an actress. ... I always told Woody I would do his food service if he asked me to. There was something in the cosmos that just brought us together." She added, "My job blows my mind all the time."
Over $400,000 was raised to support the Gene Siskel Film Center's curated film programming, lecture series, discussions with visiting scholars and filmmakers, and outreach programming for students and the community.
Freelance writer Candace Jordan is involved with many local organizations, including some whose events she covers.
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Find more photos and events at www.chicagotribune.com/candidcandace. Visit Candid Candace's website at www.candidcandace.com, or follow her on Twitter @CandidCandace.
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Melissa Clark hit rock bottom.
She was paranoid, hearing voices and fighting with other detainees in Cook County Jail, where she would spend 18 months behind bars. She had been arrested after a scuffle with a security guard who caught her trying to shoplift at a Whole Foods store in Chicago.
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The Peoria native, who has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, turned to drugs during her teen years and into her 20s to cope with her confusion, anger, delusions and despair.
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Today Melissa, now 27, is out of jail, undergoing treatment and trying to pull her life together. But her family has not forgotten the challenges they faced trying to get psychiatric and substance abuse services for her during and after her incarceration. The Tribune reported on Melissa's plight in 2011 and 2012.
"I was in pretty bad shape in so many ways," she said during a visit with her mother over the Memorial Day holiday. "I think I did what I did because I felt there was no choice and I had to."
Brandon Clark, who visited his younger sister at the jail and in the jail's medical facility, said he got a close-up look at how the criminal justice system often fails people who are mentally ill. He felt an obligation to help other families, he said.
He recently teamed up with brothers Mark and Matt Wilke to form the nonprofit Pariah Foundation to raise money to aid people living with mental illness.
"The experience with my sister," he said, "was motivator No. 1."
A recent fundraiser brought in about $16,000 for its first project: purchasing a transport van to donate to the Cook County Sheriff's Department. The idea for the van came during a meeting with Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, who told Clark and Matt Wilke that former detainees often need transportation to court hearings, probation meetings and treatment sessions. Missing those appointments can greatly complicate their legal and psychiatric problems.
A recent fundraiser brought in about $16,000 for the Pariah Foundation's first project: purchasing a transport van to donate to the Cook County Sheriff's Department. (Brandon Clark / )
Some detainees don't have a ride home or to a shelter or treatment facility after they are released, Dart said. Funding for transportation for detainees after they leave custody is not allocated in his budget.
"It's amazing that something so small," Brandon Clark said, "can be so impactful."
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The dark blue van was delivered in June. The purchase of additional vans could follow.
"Their generosity is amazing," Dart said. "The compassion is incredible. Very few people become engaged in criminal justice as a result of (the incarceration of) a family member. Usually families want to hide from it."
Clark met the Wilkes through volunteer work they did with a charity created by former Chicago Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall, who was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in 2011. A Wilke family member also has struggled with mental illness.
Mark Wilke said the Pariah Foundation will focus on small projects that can ha
ve a big impact.
"The van is going to be used almost immediately and will be helping people helping them stay out of jail, get the therapy they need and hopefully get their lives to a place where they feel they can contribute to society and to their loved ones," he said.
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Before her illness took over, Melissa was a high school cheerleader, a fan of '60s rock and a ravenous reader of fiction and biographies, who enjoyed drawing.
She completed an 18-month probation following her conviction and now lives in a Chicago intermediate care facility that provides psychiatric and other services. She was floored when her brother said he planned to form a foundation to help other people living with mental illness and that she was the inspiration for it.
"I was so taken aback," she said in May, after grilling a meal of fish, burgers and vegetables with her mother. "It's a good idea that they'll have a van because I saw a lot of people in jail for missing court dates."
A beaming Melissa attended the foundation's first fundraiser in May. It was there that she met Dart for the first time, a moment that brought her life-changing experience full circle. Three members of Dart's staff also attended the event, including Elli Petacque Montgomery, a jail official and licensed social worker who had advocated for her in court.
"Part of what we're trying to do is not be ashamed or hide, and a lot of the details (of Melissa's downward spiral) are not very pretty," said Carla Clark, Melissa's mother. "The foundation gives her situation purpose. As a family that has seen the problem from the inside, we are uniquely equipped to help in this battle against criminalization of the mentally ill."
Melissa has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, which shares symptoms with a number of mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
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"There are constant reminders that mental illness lingers throughout a person's lifetime," her brother said. "It has its ups and downs and never goes away. Medication treats the symptoms but does not completely eliminate them."
During Melissa's incarceration, the family reached out to Dart's staff and the National Alliance on Mental Illness Chicago, which offered guidance and support. The Clarks see their efforts as a way to give back.
After the van is put to use, the sheriff's department plans to collect data to keep track of how many people were helped, as determined by a decrease in missed appointments, for example. Having measurable results, Brandon Clark said, is a core value of the foundation.
The Clarks and Wilkes also want to encourage others to get involved in efforts to improve the lives of those living with mental illness. The foundation's first project, Clark noted, was not difficult or expensive.
Alexa James, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Chicago, applauded the two families for their commitment but said the need for a foundation to provide funding to fill service gaps highlights a major failing of the mental health system.
"What makes me sad is that there is an infrastructure in place to help people," she said. "Assertive community treatment makes sure people get their medication and rides to appointments Thresholds and other agencies do it. If those agencies had appropriate funding, more people would not miss appointments and fall through the cracks and end up in jail."
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She said the foundation is helping to address a serious logistical issue, exacerbated by misplaced funding priorities and the state's budget quagmire.
"A lot of people are getting treatment for the first time while they are incarcerated because we have an underfunded mental health system," James said. "The sheriff's office is doing a great job, but people should not have to re-engage with the jail to get services."
Deborah Shelton is a freelancer.
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On the heels of Independence Day, the FBI gave America a belated 240th birthday present: Hillary Clinton won't be going to prison over Emailgate.
Haters, get over it.
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The anti-Hillary crowd has been poking us with that stick during her entire presidential campaign, casting doubt on her viability, planting innuendo about her character and working nonstop to make us think that they somehow knew something the rest of us didn't.
Tuesday, investigators announced that Clinton did nothing criminally wrong by using her personal email account while handling classified information as secretary of state. It removed a potentially damaging legal barrier from the campaign trail and cleared a pile of rubbish from her path to the White House. And it happened just in the nick of time.
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Think of it this way: A President Hillary Clinton is the only thing standing in the way of a President Donald Trump.
This isn't necessarily the gift that everyone had hoped for. And it didn't come wrapped in a tidy, cheerful package. It fact, it was handed over to us in a rather messy heap. No one expects every American to be excited about it. But over time, many of us likely will come to appreciate it.
The email scandal was supposed to be the smoking gun in the Republicans' two-year Benghazi probe. As it turned out, the conspiracy theories cracked wide open under the microscope and exposed the Benghazi inquest for exactly what it was an $8 million taxpayer-funded Republican campaign to derail Clinton's presidential prospects.
As hard as they tried, congressional Republicans couldn't come up with a strand of proof that Clinton had been derelict in her duties as secretary of state concerning the 2012 attacks in Libya that killed four Americans. There was nothing in their 800-page report issued last week that proved she engaged in professional misconduct.
Still, the Republican smear campaign has caused major collateral damage, most notably among Democrats. Some in her own party have bought into Trump's "crooked Hillary" hype and have done their fair share of spreading the venom.
So far, former Bernie Sanders supporters can't seem to muster any enthusiasm for Clinton, the person most likely to be at the top of the Democratic ticket in November. And by refusing to throw his own support behind the presumptive nominee, Sanders, in effect, is telling them that it's OK.
The next president of the United States isn't going to be Libertarian Gary Johnson or the Green Party's Jill Stein. A vote for either one of them is nothing less than a vote for Trump.
So in the words of Queen Elsa, it's time to let it go.
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Sanders supporters fought a good fight. But in the end, he just couldn't convince enough Democrats that he could ever get his pie-in-the sky agenda through our polarized Congress.
We get it that many Americans are tired of the Washington establishment and want to see real change come about in America. Sanders supporters opted for idealism, romanticism, a crusade.
The rest of us Democrats were seeking someone with experience, a proven track record and enough political stamina to trample Trump in the general election.
Trump has made attacks on Clinton's character the centerpiece of his presidential campaign. And though Sanders supporters insist that they despise him, some of the most vile criticism of Clinton has come from them.
A friend told me the other day that while she can't vote for Sanders in November, she would never "ruin my life's integrity" by voting for Hillary Clinton. She detests Clinton's "lack of character, her lies, her cold manipulations, her obvious phony demeanor."
Specifically, she is convinced that Clinton manipulated primary votes, enticed the media to underreport Sanders' widespread support among constituents and only cares about minorities and issues such as poverty, education and crime when it's politically expedient.
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This particular friend is both smart and politically savvy but she has convinced herself that her single vote for a third-party candidate won't make any difference in the November election.
The problem with that rationale is that she's not the only person thinking that way. There could be lots of votes thrown away on candidates who can't win, and the majority of those ballots would hurt Clinton.
Those of us who actually like Clinton and believe that she is the most qualified presidential candidate America's had in a long time are tired of the smear tactics. But that doesn't mean she shouldn't have to answer tough questions.
Another friend told me that until she explains how a major Clinton foundation donor with no foreign policy experience ended up appointed to the International Security Advisory Board that he would have to "hold his nose" to vote for her.
No one understands the challenges that lie ahead better than Clinton. On a recent stop in Chicago, she acknowledged that after "25 years' worth of wild accusations," she's got to earn voters' trust. It's time we give her a chance.
We don't expect Trump to let up on Benghazi. Remember that he and other birthers refused to acknowledge that President Barack Obama was born in the United States, even after he presented his birth records.
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But we should expect better from those who share our political values. If Democrats aren't careful, we could end up with a family of Trumps in the White House.
While we're engaged in our family feud over whether Hillary Clinton is a liar, the Trump team is huddling on the sidelines, waiting for a chance to steal.
dglanton@tribpub.com
Twitter @dahleeng
Norma "Dee" Stukenberg was a charter member of the first learning disabilities advocacy group in the state. (Provided by family)
As the young mother of a son with learning disabilities in the early 1960s, Norma "Dee" Stukenberg began organizing meetings in her Chicago home with other mothers like herself with one goal in mind: to get their children the best education possible.
These children, like Stukenberg's son Richard, struggled with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, and auditory and visual processing problems many of them learning disorders not widely known at that time.
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"These were kids without any of the outward physical characteristics of children with special needs, but that were failing in school," said another son, Dennis.
In 1967, Stukenberg became a charter member of the Chicago Association for Children with Learning Disabilities. It was the first learning disabilities advocacy group in the state and is now known as the Learning Disabilities Association of Illinois. The nonprofit group promotes networking among parents, educators and professionals to work on behalf of children with learning challenges.
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Stukenberg, 93, died June 29 in her home in Leaf River, Ill., of complications related to a recent stroke. A former longtime Beverly neighborhood resident, she was the past president of the Chicago Association for Children with Learning Disabilities, and later LDA/Chicago South Area.
"She was a leader in the original group of parents in Illinois that did everything they could to fight for the rights of their children with disabilities," said Pat Glatz, a retired special education teacher who is on the board of directors of LDA/Illinois and LDA/Chicago South Area. "Our movement was formed by educators, psychologists, social workers, legislators and many other professionals. But it's the parents like Dee that were the primary force behind much of what we've achieved today."
In a 1996 interview with the Daily Southtown newspaper, Stukenberg recalled when children with special needs were separated and put into rooms wherever schools had the space, "where my son's first classrooms were next to the boiler room in the basement."
"There was no network, there were no services at that time," she told the Daily Southtown.
The mother of four grown children, Stukenberg and her late husband adopted a son, Richard, and two daughters who are both hearing impaired. Over the years, she worked in leadership positions with LDA, helping to pass special education laws and pushing for regulations that require specific training for special education teachers.
"She was a remarkable mother," her daughter Nancy wrote in an email to the Tribune. "She taught my sister and me how to speak and sign. She had her hands full. I remember going to some of these board meetings with her, where she would sign to let us know what the meeting was about. To this day she kept us in the loop."
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Born Norma Ruth Mason in Readstown, Wis., Stukenberg was a graduate of Pecatonica High School, about 15 miles west of Rockford. She moved to Chicago in 1951 after marrying Ellis Stukenberg, a well-known orchestra drummer who played with performers such as Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. He died in 2008.
"They met after my mom went to see him in a show in Rockford," said her son Dennis. "She became his biggest fan."
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While raising her children, Stukenberg worked as a receptionist in an optometrist's office in Evergreen Park and Chicago. She later returned to school, earning a bachelor's degree in education from National Louis University in 1990, and an online master's degree in developmental remediation and behavioral sciences from Norwich University in 1992.
"She was a warm, welcoming and wonderful lady that worked hard so that children with learning disabilities received what they needed to be successful in life," Glatz said.
Other survivors include a daughter, Sandra Wehrmeister; and a granddaughter.
Services will be private.
Giangrasse Kates is a freelance reporter.
Attorneys for a Chicago police officer facing first-degree murder charges in the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald want access to juvenile records detailing the teen's chaotic history as a state ward.
The move drew outrage from some child welfare advocates, but legal experts defended the action by Officer Jason Van Dyke's lawyers, saying the defense has a duty to pursue all possible evidence in preparation for trial.
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Still, some lawyers doubted the judge presiding over Van Dyke's case would allow the defense at trial to delve into McDonald's troubled past.
The court-ordered release of a video showing Van Dyke shooting McDonald 16 times has caused a firestorm of controversy in Chicago and led to calls for major police reforms amid a U.S. Justice Department investigation of the Police Department's practices.
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Cook County Judge Patricia Martin, who presides over the juvenile court's child protection division, will decide on the request by Van Dyke's lawyers for access to the court files.
The state's Juvenile Court Act governs who may review these typically confidential court files. The Tribune was granted access to read the voluminous records several months ago for a story on McDonald's tragic young life.
But it is rare for nonjournalists, particularly defendants in criminal cases, to seek access to another person's juvenile records, according to child welfare advocates. Just last month, however, a judge in Missouri allowed lawyers representing the city of Ferguson to inspect the juvenile records of Michael Brown, the black teen whose fatal shooting by a white police officer in August 2014 touched off riots and a national debate on police use of lethal force against minorities.
The judge overseeing a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Brown's family set strict rules for how information from Brown's juvenile history could be used. The teen's parents had opposed giving town lawyers any access to the records.
Attorneys for Van Dyke declined to comment about their reasons for seeking McDonald's juvenile records, saying the judge presiding over the officer's criminal case imposed a "gag order" preventing them from discussing the case publicly. In a written request filed last month, the attorneys said only that their inspection of the court files was necessary as they prepared to defend Van Dyke.
In the past, Daniel Herbert, the officer's lead attorney, has said Van Dyke feared for his safety and that of other officers when he opened fire at the knife-wielding teen that night in October 2014. At issue at trial will be whether that fear was reasonable.
The officer did not know anything about McDonald's background including his name or age before he opened fire.
But veteran criminal defense lawyers with no connection to the case said the judge still has the discretion to allow some of McDonald's history into evidence at trial if it is deemed relevant.
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"When self-defense is properly raised, the defendant can present evidence of the victim's violent and aggressive prior behavior to support the defendant's version of events when there are conflicting accounts," said attorney Steven Greenberg. "The defendant does not have to have personal knowledge of these other incidents."
However, Terry Ekl, another longtime attorney, said it was a long shot for the defense to win the judge's approval to air McDonald's troubled past at trial.
"I don't fault them for looking under every rock to see if they can find something, but when you look at it objectively, I don't see how it would be admissible at trial," he said.
Kendall Marlowe, executive director of the National Association of Counsel for Children, a nonprofit based in the Denver area that works to improve the quality of legal representation of children, lashed out at the request as an attempt to shift blame onto the troubled slain teen.
"We keep child abuse records confidential to protect victims," he said. "Those records weren't created to serve the interests of perpetrators. For a defense attorney to mine the history of a child's victimization, to paint the child as a violent sociopath who deserved to die is the very definition of why these records should not be disclosed."
Bruce Boyer, a Loyola University clinical professor who directs the Civitas ChildLaw Clinic, called the defense effort a "fishing expedition" aimed at "knocking down doors to this boy's privacy rights."
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"This case should turn on what happened on that street on the day Laquan died what the officer knew, what he saw, and how he acted or reacted," Boyer said. "I'm trying to imagine a legitimate argument that a defense counsel would make that would explain why this history impacted the officer's conduct, and I just don't see it."
Police have said that McDonald, who had PCP in his system, ignored repeated commands over several minutes to stop walking and drop the knife after officers responded to complaints that the teen had broken into vehicles in a South Side trucking yard. Within seconds of arriving at the scene, Van Dyke opened fire, emptying his weapon.
More than a year passed before he was charged last November, hours before a judge ordered the release of police dashboard camera video that showed Van Dyke shoot McDonald as the teen walked briskly away from police with a knife in his hand.
The video contained no discernible audio but belied the written accounts of other officers at the scene that McDonald had lunged with the knife before Van Dyke opened fire.
Van Dyke, 38, has been suspended without pay. He has pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murder charges.
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Herbert has argued that Van Dyke was overcharged for political reasons.
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In an exclusive interview a few months ago, his wife told the Tribune her husband is traumatized that he took a life, especially of a boy who had just turned 17 weeks earlier. She and other supporters said the public perception of Van Dyke as a trigger-happy racist cop was unfair. This was his first shooting in 12 years patrolling many of the city's most violent neighborhoods.
The documents obtained by the Tribune in juvenile court files chronicled McDonald's difficult childhood as well as his arrests. He became a second-generation state ward at a young age when authorities twice took him into protective custody over allegations of abuse and neglect. He found stability in his great-grandmother's home, but McDonald grew into an often angry teen who embraced the drugs and gangs that saturated his West Side neighborhood, the records showed.
He had learning disabilities and was diagnosed with complex behavioral and mental health problems. He had three psychiatric hospitalizations by 13 as well as repeated school suspensions, expulsions, truancies and several drug possession arrests, according to the documents. McDonald was placed on long periods of probation, often with electronic monitoring, mandatory school, community service, mental health and other treatment services. When he violated probation or failed to show up for court, McDonald ended up back in a juvenile detention center.
Seven months before he died, while again locked up in a juvenile detention facility for drug possession, the teen told a court clinician he could not recall a single happy memory from his childhood, the court records said. McDonald said his life had been "hell," and he was ready for a change. In response to questions about his goals, McDonald said he wanted to go to college and become a nurse.
cmgutowski@tribpub.com
Twitter @christygutowsk1
Police investigate the scene where a 24-year-old man was shot to death at about 2:20 a.m. at 84th Street and Buffalo Avenue in The Bush neighborhood on July 7, 2014. (E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune)
For 10 minutes, it seemed like the shooting was everywhere in the South Chicago neighborhood.
It started when someone shot and wounded a couple, then two people fired at the shooter, then there was a chase and shots exchanged and a man sitting on a porch was hit. Responding officers kept cutting each other off on their radios as they reported other gunfire in the area late Sunday night and early Monday morning.
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Then the heavy equipment rolled in: A helicopter and SUVs packed with lockers of rifles. SWAT teams in green coveralls patrolled the streets with uniformed officers.
It was just one of dozens of shooting scenes across Chicago over the long Fourth of July weekend. In all, at least 82 people were shot, 14 of them fatally, since Thursday afternoon when two woman were shot as they sat outside a two-flat within a block of Garfield Park.
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Five of the people were shot by police over 36 hours on Friday and Saturday, including two boys 14 and 16 who were killed when they allegedly refused to drop their guns.
Many of the long weekend's shootings were on the South Side, clustered in the Englewood, Roseland, Gresham and West Pullman neighborhoods that rank among the most violent in the city.
The victims ranged from the 14-year-boy shot by police in the Old Irving Park neighborhood to a 66-year-old woman grazed in the head as she walked up the steps of her porch on the Far South Side. Most victims were in their late teens and 20s.
Each night of the long holiday weekend, at least a dozen people were shot in the greatest burst of gun violence Chicago has seen this year.
From Thursday night into Friday, three people were killed and 10 others wounded. An attack outside a West Englewood salon left two men dead and an East Garfield Park shooting took the life of a 21-year-old woman.
From Friday afternoon into Saturday, 20 people were shot, one fatally. The man who died had been flashing gang signs in a parking lot in the Clearing neighborhood when someone told him to stop. When the man didn't, he was shot, police said.
From Saturday night into Sunday morning, four people were killed and another 10 wounded.
The bloodiest stretch of the weekend was a 13-hour period between 2:30 p.m. Sunday and 3:30 a.m. Monday when four people were killed and at least another 26 wounded, many of them in critical condition. And the most chaotic scene was in South Chicago, where three people were wounded during a running gun battle.
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The shooting started around 11:20 p.m. Sunday when someone opened fire at two people who just left a store on Exchange Avenue south of 80th Street. A 25-year-old man was taken in critical condition to Northwestern Memorial Hospital and a 19-year-old woman was stabilized at Advocate Christ Medical Center.
While the man was firing, two people on the street shot at him and a chase ensued, with the three exchanging gunfire through a vacant lot west toward Escanaba Avenue, police and neighbors said.
The three didn't hit each other but a 48-year-old man was caught in the crossfire while sitting on the porch. He was wounded in the ankle and taken to Jackson Park Hospital.
The shooting kicked off an hour of occasional chaos as responding officers kept hearing gunfire, first the exchange between the three, then an apparently unrelated volley of shots a few blocks west on Muskegon Avenue where police found shell casings on a porch.
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A 10-1 -- a call for an officer in distress -- was broadcast across the city because the shots were so close to police.
Officers from across the South Side responded, including tactical teams who had been ordered to wear their uniforms instead of plainclothes for the holiday weekend.
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Police were radioing about hearing gunfire all over the neighborhood, and a district lieutenant ordered a perimeter over a three-block-by-four-block area. No one was taken into custody.
As a helicopter circled overhead, someone shot up a house a few blocks south on Exchange Avenue, just outside the perimeter, around midnight. The gunfire was called over the police radio before any 911 calls were received, and officers ran down the street toward where the gunfire came from.
The house that was hit by gunfire, in the 8400 block of South Exchange, was near where a teen had been shot earlier in the day and police had responded to a call of a gang disturbance. A group of gang members had been hanging out outside and someone wanted them removed, police said.
About half an hour later, the neighborhood had finally quieted down. "Release the perimeter," the lieutenant ordered, though he asked that patrol cars keep a watch on the four crime scenes.
pnickeas@tribune.com | Twitter: @PeterNickeas
Opinion / Columnist
"Former vice president and opposition leader Joice Mujuru has called for fresh elections amid public anger and protests over the country's deteriorating economic situation," report VOA"Mrs. Mujuru told a news conference held at her Harare residence Tuesday that President Mugabe should dissolve government to pave way for fresh elections to contain the coun-try's economic crisis."This is the kind of knee-jerk reaction one would expect from someone like Mai Mujuru she is certainly not one of the bright stars on the Zimbabwean political stage. The last thing we would want to do right now is to be stampeded into fresh elections that produce cosmetic changes and nothing more. What we need is substantial political changes to end the dictatorship and lay the solid foundation of a healthy and functional democracy to last this generation and posterity.Calling for fresh elections without making sure everything is done to ensure every sector and section of Zimbabwe society is freed from influences of the Zanu PF dictatorship will, at best, produce a new government with reduced Zanu PF influence. But, given time, the party will re-build and bounce straight back as we have seen happen in 2013.We need to implement ALL the democratic reforms properly and make sure the next elections are free, fair and credible.It is doubtful if Mai Mujuru understands what people mean by free, fair and credible elections, much less know what it will take to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship to create a democracy. She has been in government for donkey years and should have seen the rot in Zanu PF; if she did, then it has never sunk in. It would be irresponsible and reckless of us to let someone like her have a say in what the nation should do at this critical hour in our history.In 1980, we had our first golden opportunity to build a free, just and prosperous Zimbabwe most of our people dreamt of during the bitter war of independence. Sadly it was not to be because Mugabe and his cronies, including Joice Mujuru, betrayed the nation. They systematically un-dermine the country's democratic institutions and denied the people their freedoms and rights to create this corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship for the sole purpose of gratifying their insatia-ble appetites for absolute power and the world pleasure influence and money brings.We had our best golden chance to end Mugabe corrupt and tyrannical rule during the GNU when Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends were tasked to implement the democratic reforms designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship. Not even one reform was implemented in five years and Mugabe rigged the July 2013 elections to remain in State House causing the political chaos and economic misery we are seeing today.Mugabe thought he could rig economic recovery just as easily as he had rig the 2013 elections. He failed to do so because the economy is made of stern stuff than the likes of Mai Mujuru or Tsvangirai the dictator was able to cheat and bamboozle with ease.Zimbabwe is facing a serious economic meltdown pushing unemployment to 90% plus, 76% of the people are now living in abject poverty, regime is failing to pay civil servant wages to say nothing of essentials like medicines, etc. Meanwhile the ruling elite's insatiable has soared into the stratosphere with Mugabe himself admitting that $15 billion in diamonds was looted in the last six years alone. Six months latter not even one person has been arrested, proof of the re-gime's laissez faire attitude to corruption and all the other problems fuelling the country's wors-ening economic meltdown.Mugabe was warned economic hardships caused by the worsening economic meltdown were socially and politically unsustainable and, since he had failed to address the root causes, he must resign. He had the choice to step and allow peace change or risk violent change to force him out of office if he tried to hang on. The rioting and protests sweep the nation are a conse-quence of his refusal to step down. Now that the fire of violent rebellion has been lit there is no putting it out until the whole regime is burn to ashes if it tries to hang on to power.What this nation needs is not just to see the back of Mugabe and his cronies but that we lay a solid foundation for free, just and prosperous Zimbabwe we dreamt of before independence. 36 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule resulting in the deaths of over 30 000 innocent Zimbabwe, the political chaos and the economic hardship was not the Zimbabwe we dreamt of in 1980. This should have never happened; still, we are where we are.The very least we must do now is to learn from the mistakes of the last 36 years that got us into this mess and take a solemn oath to never make the same mistakes ever again. Surely allowing Mugabe and his cronies so much political room for them to establish this corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship was one big mistake. Our starting point today must be to make sure the dictator-ship is totally dismantled and not be just content with removing the dictator and a few of his immediate cronies.We must implement all the democratic reforms to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and re-place it with well-grounded and robust democratic institutions and then hold the nation's first free, fair and credible elections. We wasted the golden opportunities to build a free, just and prosperous Zimbabwe in 1980 and then in 2013; we must not waste this opportunity this time.If there is ever going to be something crying out for this generation to do and do right it is creat-ing a political system that will deliver freedom, peace, justice and economic prosperity for not just us but for posterity. It should be the fervent hope of us all that we will not be found wanting in carrying out this task; not this time!
A federal judge sanctioned the city once again this week, making it the sixth time since 2011 that Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Law Department has been punished for not turning over potential evidence in a police misconduct lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin granted attorney's fees to Whitley Klingler, who has filed a lawsuit alleging she was injured in a confrontation with an unknown member of the Emerald Society police bagpipe band on St. Patrick's Day 2014. She accused the Police Department of failing to investigate the alleged altercation, which took place at the now-demolished McDonald's restaurant near Wrigley Field, because it involved a fellow officer.
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Klingler filed a complaint with the Independent Police Review Authority, the city agency that investigates allegations of officer misconduct, shortly after the incident. The agency investigated but quickly closed the case after determining the bagpiper was a Will County sheriff's deputy and not a Chicago police officer.
But the IPRA file and therefore the bagpiper's identity was not disclosed to Klingler's attorney during discovery, a formal process in which both sides exchange potential evidence. Kenneth Battle, the outside lawyer hired by the city to represent it in the case, told Durkin he requested all IPRA documents related to the incident through the Police Department's Office of Legal Affairs, but he was told none existed.
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While saying it wasn't Battle's mistake, Durkin said the city has to do a better job of collecting relevant documents in these cases.
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"There's got to be a better response," Durkin said, according to a transcript of Tuesday's proceeding.
The amount of Klingler's attorney's fees has not yet been decided, but the city will have to pay them because of its failure.
Durkin's decision comes less than a week after another federal judge said sanctions against the city could be in order after its attorneys failed to disclose that a police officer being sued for using a Taser on a pregnant woman also was involved in a fatal shooting in 2014 and was twice found unfit for duty.
The ruling follows a Tribune investigation into failures in the office of Corporation Counsel Stephen Patton to turn over evidence in lawsuits involving Chicago police officers. In an analysis of nearly 450 cases alleging police misconduct since Emanuel took office, a federal judge has had to order the city to turn over potential evidence in nearly one in every five cases. Patton told the Tribune last month that he had instituted several reforms to ensure better discovery practices including a new policy in which attorneys will deal directly with IPRA instead of going through the police department.
"The judge is correct that a mistake was made here, and we will determine the cause and take appropriate action," Law Department spokesman Bill McCaffrey said. "The Law Department recently implemented a number of reforms that will prevent mistakes like the one that occurred here from being repeated in the future. These reforms include a requirement that the city's counsel directly request and obtain all documents from IPRA. Such a direct and specific request should have resulted in the city's outside counsel being aware, and receiving a copy, of the investigation in question."
sstclair@tribpub.com
Twitter @stacystclair
A worker in a Family Dollar store on the South Side was shot and killed when he confronted a suspected shoplifter, according to Chicago police.
The suspect had entered the store in the 7900 block of South Ashland Avenue in Gresham around 5 p.m. Tuesday and was soon approached by the worker, 30, according to Officer Kevin Quaid, a police spokesman.
The robber shot the worker in the chest and ran off, Quaid said. The victim was pronounced dead at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.
No one was in custody Wednesday morning.
Investigators were looking into whether the suspect robbed several other Family Dollar stores on the South Side this year, according to a law enforcement source.
The worker was among at least 12 people shot in Chicago since Tuesday afternoon, police said.
Around 1:05 p.m., a 25-year-old man died after being shot in the 8100 block of South Burnham Avenue in the South Chicago neighborhood, police said.
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Officers found the man with a gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to South Shore Hospital, where he died. Police were not releasing any details.
The man was identified as Laron McCoy, of the 9700 block of South Luella Avenue. He was pronounced dead at 1:38 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.
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Other shootings:
-- Around 7:25 a.m. Wednesday, a 24-year-old man was critically hurt in a shooting in the Bush neighborhood on the South Side, police said.
The man was in the 8400 block of South Mackinaw Avenue when he suffered multiple gunshot wounds. He was taken in critical condition to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, said Officer Bari Lemmon, a police spokeswoman.
-- Shortly before 7:30 a.m., a 27-year-old man was shot in the leg in the 8900 block of South Chicago Avenue in the city's South Chicago neighborhood. He was taken in serious condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, said Officer Ana Pacheco, a Chicago police spokeswoman.
-- Around 1 a.m., a 19-year-old woman was wounded in the Gage Park neighborhood on the South Side, police said.
The woman was walking with a friend in the 5300 block of South Rockwell Street when a vehicle pulled up and someone inside fired shots, striking her in the left leg. Police said the woman might not have been the intended target. She as taken to Holy Cross Hospital, where her condition stabilized, police said.
-- About 12:10 a.m., a 25-year-old man was wounded in the Longwood Manor neighborhood on the South Side, police said.
The man was standing outside in the 9700 block of South Green Street when a black Kia drove past and someone inside fired shots. The man was shot in both legs and was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center, where his condition stabilized, police said.
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-- Around 11:35 p.m. Tuesday, a 22-year-old man was wounded in the 4800 block of South Winchester Avenue in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the South Side, police said.
The man was shot in the left leg and was taken to Holy Cross Hospital, where his condition was stabilized, police said. The man told police he was standing outside when an attacker wearing a white T-shirt fired shots from 49th and Winchester, striking him, police said.
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-- Half a mile away, at about 11:05 p.m., a 17-year-old girl was shot in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, police said.
The girl was walking south in the 4500 block of South Hermitage Avenue when a green minivan drove up and someone inside fired shots, striking her in the right leg, police said. The van fled west. The girl was taken to Stroger Hospital, where her condition was stabilized.
-- About 9 p.m., a 23-year-old man was wounded in a shooting in the 6800 block of South Throop Street in the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side, police said. The man was shot in the right leg and managed to get to Holy Cross Hospital, where his condition stabilized, police said.
-- About 8:30 p.m., a 61-year-old man was wounded in the Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side, said Officer Veejay Zala, a police spokesman.
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The man was in his home in the 3100 block of West Fillmore Street when someone outside fired shots, Zala said. The bullets pierced the walls and grazed him in the head, Zala said.
The man was taken in good condition to Mount Sinai Hospital.
-- Shortly before 5 p.m., two men were shot in the Humboldt Park neighborhood. In the 3800 block of West Augusta Boulevard, a 23-year-old man was shot in the leg and a 30-year-old man was shot in both legs. Both victims are in good condition, said Officer Thomas Sweeney, a police spokesman.
Angelica Chancellor was walking into the Family Dollar store Tuesday evening, like she does about every day, when she saw the manager confront a man who had a gun and a bag of chips in his hand.
"I was walking in and all I seen was a guy pull out the gun with chips in his hand," said Chancellor, 29, who has lived in the Gresham neighborhood near the store for a year.
"I guess the store guy was trying to stop him from stealing," she said. "(The suspect) said it wasn't worth going to jail so he turned around and shot him."
The gunman fled and the manager, identified by family as JQuinn McCune, 30, was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
JQuinn McCune (inset), a Family Dollar store manager, was shot and killed while trying to stop a suspected shoplifter at the store, in the 7900 block of South Ashland in Chicago's Gresham neighborhood. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune, Family photo)
McCune had approached the man soon after he entered the store in the 7900 block of South Ashland Avenue around 5 p.m. Tuesday, apparently thinking he looked suspicious, according to a law enforcement source.
McCune may have asked the suspect to go through his pockets, and the suspect pulled out a gun and shot McCune, the source said.
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Investigators are looking into whether the gunman has robbed several other Family Dollar stores on the South Side this year. In those incidents, the robber wrapped a bandanna or towel over his face or around his head, the source said.
Police have released no detailed description of the gunman, and no one was reported in custody.
Police gather at the scene of the shooting of JQuinn McCune, a manager at a Family Dollar store in Gresham, after a suspected shoplifter shot him to death July 5, 2016. (WGN-TV/Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune)
Chancellor said she spoke to McCune every day and described him as friendly and nice. "For that man to die over a bag of chips is sad. It's pathetic," she said. "I hope they catch that guy."
Chancellor said she's looking to move out of the neighborhood because of recent crimes in the area.
"What are we to do out here?" she asked. "So many crimes happening up and down 79th and 84th. People getting robbed every day."
Latasha Washington, 36, taped a condolence card to the store's wall Wednesday. She said McCune was an amazing and generous person. He even gave her a pair of blue prescription glasses two weeks ago after learning she had broken hers.
"I don't understand why the good ones have to go. I'm really gonna miss coming in here and seeing him. He was an amazing person."
She said she comes in three or four times a week, and noticed he was usually off by 3:30 pm.
"I was praying it wasn't him. He should've been gone by then," she said.
"I don't know what his life was outside of work. But coming into Family Dollar, all I saw was sweetness," Washington said. "You never got attitude out of him, he was always in good spirits."
Bystanders are surrounded by police swarming the area at Cermak Road and Spaulding Avenue in search of a male who may have been armed in the Little Village neighborhood on July 3, 2016. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)
A Hanover Park man has been identified as the victim who was fatally wounded Sunday night in a shooting in the city's South Lawndale neighborhood.
Travon Clemmons, 24, of the 1700 block of DeForest Lane, was pronounced dead at 11:30 p.m. at the scene, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.
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Clemmons was shot multiple times about 10:50 p.m. in the 2200 block of South Lawndale Avenue, officials said.
At least five people were shot to death and 61 others were wounded over the Fourth of July weekend between 3 p.m. Friday and 6 a.m. Tuesday, according to statistics kept by the Tribune.
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Clemmons' name has been corrected in this story following the release of corrected information by the medical examiner's office.
A 42-year-old man was shot to death late Tuesday evening in Merrillville in northwest Indiana.
Charles D. Montgomery was shot multiple times at his home in the 5400 block of Fillmore Street, according to a statement from the Lake County coroner's office.
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He was pronounced dead at 12:15 a.m. Wednesday, and his death was ruled a homicide, according to the coroner's office.
Authorities are still investigating, and no other information was immediately available.
An 18-year-old man was critically hurt and a 16-year-old girl was injured in a stabbing early Wednesday morning in the Gresham neighborhood on the South Side.
The man and the girl were in the 8800 block of South Emerald Avenue around 2 a.m. when they became involved in a verbal and physical fight with an attacker, said Officer Veejay Zala, a Chicago police spokesman.
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The fight escalated, and the attacker pulled out a pocketknife and stabbed the man and girl.
The man was stabbed in the neck. He was taken in critical condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Zala said.
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The girl suffered a cut to her right shoulder, and she was taken to Roseland Community Hospital in good condition, Zala said.
Police are still investigating. No other information was immediately available.
An Algonquin man got two years of probation and time served for the overdose death of his girlfriend, but he must testify against the alleged drug dealer involved.
Cody Hillier admitted to possessing and delivering heroin to his girlfriend, which authorities said killed her. He will be released Tuesday from McHenry County Jail.
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In May, Hillier, 24, of Algonquin, pleaded guilty to unlawful possession and delivery of a controlled substance for his part in the fatal overdose of 21-year-old Danielle Barzyk.
The judge told Hillier he must testify in the trial of the alleged drug dealer, and in addition to probation sentenced him to 180 days in jail. Hillier has been in custody since Feb. 1, 2015, and received day-for-day credit, so he would be freed with time served.
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At his sentencing hearing, Hillier apologized to authorities, his family and Barzyk's family, who sat quietly weeping in the courtroom.
"I have made bad choices in my life," Hillier said, adding that Barzyk's death "will haunt me the rest of my life."
Addressing the Barzyk family, he continued: "There is nothing I can do or say to ease the pain of their loss."
Police said about 1:30 a.m. Jan. 31, 2014, Barzyk and Hillier had been together ingesting heroin. When it appeared Barzyk was not breathing, Hillier drove her to the Algonquin Police Department, where he told police she was having an asthma attack.
Algonquin police Sgt. James Sowizrol testified Tuesday that when he arrived, Barzyk was on the ground and "had a bluish tint to her face and did not appear she was breathing."
Sowizrol said after Hillier told him she was having an asthma attack, and he saw an inhaler nearby, he began rescue breathing, but she did not respond.
After about 10 minutes, Hillier told him Barzyk had ingested 10 hydrocodone pills. Authorities have said, and Sowizrol testified Tuesday, that she died from a heroin overdose. The Kane County coroner also determined she died from a heroin overdose.
Sowizrol said had he known she ingested an opioid he could have "immediately" administered naloxone, a substance used to reverse the deadly effects of opioid drugs.
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In asking for a prison sentence, Assistant State's Attorney Randi Freese said Hillier's actions that night "were the ultimate act of selfishness."
Barzyk had struggled with drugs and had just days prior to her death completed probation on theft charges in Kane County. The probation involved a drug and alcohol program, which Hillier knew, Freese said.
"(Barzyk) was someone he's supposed to care for and someone he's supposed to love and he had one piece of information that could have helped those officers and he withheld that," Freese said. He may be showing "remorse" in the courtroom but "it was her action and his inaction that killed her," she said.
Freese said that at the time of Barzyk's death, Hillier was on probation on felony charges out of Lake County.
She asked the judge to hand down a sentence that would send a message to drug dealers in McHenry County.
"Danielle Barzyk is a victim," Freese said. "Her family are victims of what the defendant did."
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Hillier's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Rick Behof, said he felt horrible about Barzyk's "unfortunate" death but said Hillier tried to get her help and she made the choice to ingest the drug.
"They both purchased the heroin, they both used it," Behof said in asking for probation. He also said Hillier truly thought Barzyk was having an asthma attack.
"The county has a (heroin) problem, but throwing (Hillier) in jail won't help that and won't bring her back," Behof said.
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McHenry County Judge Sharon Prather agreed with Freese on the deadly impact heroin has had on the county and warned Hillier to stay away from drugs and get his life together.
"Heroin is a bad problem in this county," Prather said. "I see it on a daily basis ... I yell at (defendants), I get angry. I sanction them and they walk out and later (I hear) they died of an overdose."
She ordered Hillier to seek drug and alcohol counseling and "give truthful testimony on anyone else involved in this case."
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Authorities said Hillier bought heroin in Zion from James Linder. Linder, 36, is charged with drug-induced homicide and is in custody at McHenry County Jail. He is set to appear in court July 13.
"This is the absolute last chance you have with the courts," Prather said to Hillier. "If you don't get off drugs you either end up dead or spending a lifetime in and out of prison. Do you understand that?"
"Yes, I do, your honor," Hillier said.
Amanda Marrazzo is a freelance reporter.
Ald. Ariel Reboyras, 30th, chairman of the Public Safety Committee, will hold hearings July 6-7, 2016, on the Chicago Police Department oversight agency. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)
Welcome to Clout Street: Morning Spin, our weekday feature to catch you up with what's going on in government and politics from Chicago to Springfield.
Topspin
Aldermen will hold hearings Wednesday and Thursday to take testimony on proposed changes to oversight of the Chicago Police Department, amid calls from some critics for more community input on the new rules Mayor Rahm Emanuel hopes will help restore the public's badly shaken trust.
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Emanuel is seeking to craft an ordinance to replace the city's beleaguered Independent Police Review Authority. A joint meeting of the council's Public Safety and Budget committees will meet at City Hall at 1 p.m. Wednesday and 10 a.m. Thursday to consider the particulars of the much-anticipated package.
It remains to be seen how much input aldermen and other attendees will get on the new oversight plan. Consider the notice from committee chairmen and Emanuel allies Ald. Ariel Reboyras, 30th, and Ald. Carrie Austin, 34th. It says the meetings are simply "to receive input from members of the public, our colleagues, and subject matter experts to assist in the formulation of an ordinance necessary to revamp Chicago's police accountability structure."
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The meetings come about a month after Lori Lightfoot, whom the mayor picked to chair his Police Accountability Task Force, said Emanuel was not doing enough to get community feedback before putting together the ordinance.
Lightfoot was joined by the president of the Chicago Urban League and representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups at a news conference where she said City Council hearings aren't sufficient, and called for aldermen to have "actual, meaningful engagement with the community and subject matter experts before the ordinance is drafted."
Taking testimony early on weekdays at City Hall will make it harder for people affected by police misconduct to attend, possibly sparing aldermen some of the rancor they would have encountered at evening forums in city neighborhoods where the Laquan McDonald shooting video and other recent high-profile incidents have damaged the relationship between residents and police.
IPRA has become known for sluggish investigations that rarely lead to discipline of the city's police officers. The Tribune reported last month that an investigation of nearly 700 complaints upheld by IPRA found the agency routinely obscured its findings and misled the public about how its investigations played out, often giving victims of police misconduct a false sense that they had prevailed. Indeed, the agency's already low record of finding allegations credible -- 3.8 percent of all cases closed by the end of last year -- provides a skewed picture of its work. Nearly 300 of the cases upheld -- about 43 percent -- were resolved through mediation, an opaque process akin to plea bargaining.
The mayor has said he'd replace it with a civilian oversight agency at the recommendation of the Police Accountability Task Force but offered no specifics of how the agency would operate. Emanuel had said he would introduce the ordinance in June. But after Lightfoot had her City Hall news conference and delivered a letter to the mayor's office calling for more input and deliberation, Reboyras announced the hearings for this week, pushing the introduction of the plan at least until the July 20 City Council meeting. (John Byrne)
What's on tap
*Mayor Rahm Emanuel will attend the groundbreaking of a training center for natural gas companies in Little Village.
*Gov. Bruce Rauner's public schedule was not available. On Tuesday, he apparently hit a Galena brewpub after stops in Rockford and Moline.
*Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle will talk about the launch of the county's new website.
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What we're writing
*Abner Mikva, congressman, judge, presidential adviser, dies at 90.
*New top cop Johnson breaks with McCarthy, acknowledges possibility Chicago needs more cops.
*Three children among 66 shot over holiday weekend in Chicago.
*City's O'Hare jet noise plan to start Wednesday.
*Free ride over as tolls now collected on Elgin-O'Hare Expressway.
*Business owners cope as Chicago's minimum wage hits $10.50 an hour.
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*Autism advocates hope new state budget will restore services.
What we're reading
*N.J. student loan program is "state-sanctioned loan-sharking."
*The craziest political convention moments you've never heard of.
*Taste of Chicago starts Wednesday; here's a preview.
From the notebook
*Veto session: State lawmakers are away from the Capitol until after the Nov. 8 election. The fall veto session dates are posted. The House and Senate are scheduled to be in Nov. 15-17, take a break for Thanksgiving week, then return Nov. 29-Dec. 1.
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While Gov. Rauner said he hoped something could get done after the election, that two-week window in the fall isn't when big things tend to get done in Springfield. That comes in early January. It's that magical time when a bunch of lame-duck lawmakers about to leave due to retirement (or voter-imposed retirement) might be more willing to cast tough votes. That's when Democrats muscled through the temporary state income tax in 2011. So if the thus-far-very-elusive "grand bargain" on Rauner's "turnaround agenda" and a tax hike were to materialize, this is when it probably would come up for a vote.
*Endorsement help: Chicago City Clerk Susana Mendoza threw her support behind a former colleague from her time in the Illinois House, endorsing Democratic state Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia as she runs for mayor of Aurora.
The move also is a way for Mendoza to try to gain some name recognition in the suburbs as she runs for state comptroller against Republican Leslie Geissler Munger, who Gov. Bruce Rauner appointed to the position following the death of former Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka.
Chapa LaVia hailed Mendoza as a "rising star in the Democratic Party," in a statement announcing the endorsement. Mendoza in turned noted Chapa LaVia's service in the U.S. Army and her record on veterans and education issues.
Longtime Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner isn't seeking re-election. Other announced candidates include Richard Irvin, an at-large alderman, and Weisner aide Rick Guzman. The election is next year, either late February or early April, depending on whether there are enough candidates for a primary. Chapa LaVia is unopposed for re-election to the Illinois House in November. (Monique Garcia)
*Bobbled?: Presented without comment.
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Someone gas GOT to give @HillaryClinton an alternative maneuver to the bobblehead nod. Especially when she is being lavishly praised! David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) July 5, 2016
Follow the money
*The end of June campaign fundraising reports continue to roll in. Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan reported collecting $60,500 at a $2,500 maximum.
*The Illinois Sunshine folks say state campaign contributions have reached $80 million this year.
*Track campaign contribution reports in real time with this Tribune Twitter account: https://twitter.com/ILCampaignCash
Beyond Chicago
*FBI recommends no charges against "extremely careless" Hillary Clinton in email probe. Read Comey's comments.
*Hours later, Obama campaigns with Clinton in Charlotte, N.C. Suboptimal optics.
*But then Trump suggested Clinton offered "bribe" to AG Lynch, said Saddam Hussein was good at killing terrorists.
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*Iraq's interior minister resigns after Baghdad bombing that left at least 175 dead.
Opinion / Columnist
The spirited search for Lucifer and other expelled angels has taken Zimbabweans so many years. And cost them many lives and lots of spirit, energy and property. The Zimbabwean economy and polity have for so many years been defined by pain, suffering and death. Slowly looked at, the lucifer is not hiding anywhere behind dark clouds or somewhere in the dingy caves and fierce forests. The evil that is punishing Zimbabweans is in the open, in the thoughts and actions of visible and audible, tangible even, politicians.I write this article to warn the protagonists and antagonists in Zimbabwean politics (ruling party and opposition) against the carelessness of allowing the present situation to degenerate into a civil war. I also write to warn Zimbabweans against semi-blind excitement about disorder, chaos and anarchy under the mistaken thinking that it will get our favourite leader to State House the following morning. From the Hammurabi Code in 1792 to 1750 Before Christ, through the Divine Right of Kings era, Platonism of 427 to 347 Before Christ, and our own heritage from the ancient African sages, good politics are those that preserve rather than imperil lives.My previous article, which warned about civil war, delved on the various enemy groups in Zimbabwean politics. Recent events have seen ordinary men and women, informal traders and hawkers slowly but shockingly realizing their power, discovering that an angry and hungry populace can defeat the police and overpower the army. Poverty, pain, suffering and death have brought into the streets Zimbabweans who don't aspire for political office or support any party, but simply aspire for food, water and oxygen, basic bare life. And that is the danger. This danger proceeds as politicians in the ruling party and opposition pretend that everything is under control.Bishops, Pastors and the many Prophets see visions and perform miracles and wonders but are blind to the most obvious evil that is ballooning towards explosion in the villages and streets of Zimbabwe. Our present thoughts and actions as Zimbabweans are not in any way informed by a true understanding of the true cost of war. The history of humanity is littered with stories of foolish men and women who propel themselves to war, winning or losing it, seeing the costs of it, get humbled and wise and run to negotiate, a little too late. Common wisdom and simple intelligence suggests that we look at the cost of war in advance, humble ourselves before we are humbled by the cost of defeats and the price of victory: Lost peace, lost property, lost happiness and many lives lost, and the death of a country.Politicism and EgopoliticsAs used in this article, politicism refers to the careless and unwise thinking amongst politicians in power and outside that every problem is a political opportunity. In the populace, the media and the academy, the same politicism applies when we simply think chaos and war will catapult our preferred leader to power by the next morning and we will be happy ever after. Egopolitics is also the simple and simplistic thinking amongst the gladiators in the ruling regime and the opposition that if chaos and war ensures our own group will emerge the victor.Identifying victory with ourselves and loss with others only. Politicism and egopolitics as attitudes and frames of thinking tend to ignore the unhygienic business of war. Politicism and egopolitics are illiterate of the true costs of war. The supposed foremost technician of power and war in the world, Niccolo Machiavelli, in the classic Art of War, counselled that "It is no mistake to take a position with words rather than deeds, because a mistake made in words will be corrected without loss and injury, the one made in weapons, ends with the peril, even of the commanders."Including myself, Zimbabweans are justifiable angry after many years of misrule by the incumbent regime and poor leadership by the opposition, impotency and inability to deal death to the regime. At this highest point of our anger, we need method and wisdom most. A warrior spirit, pure rage, is blowing across the country. Everybody, in the ruling regime and the opposition, is ready for true rampage and havoc. Victims cannot wait for the moment of bloody and sweet revenge. The paradox of the present warrior mood in Zimbabwe can be summarized in the irony of Mao Tse-Tung:"Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent." Each group smells long awaited victory, sees light at long last in the tunnel, but the light could be a consuming inferno of fire and the victory our own crucifixion and burning at the stakes. Picture a flock of chickens celebrating the coming of Christmas, the day on which they will be slaughtered in numbers, cooked and eaten with sharp objects and hot spices.It is important to formulate a problem statement and problem question to the present condition of Zimbabwe. In the ruling party itself, the opposition, civil society and the general populace, there is resolve, expressed and unexpressed that the regime must fall for positive change to be realised. The fall of the regime will cost us the courage to face the very very few but dangerous remaining armed loyalists of the regime.Further, there are many other factions and groups, all with access to money and arms that are spiritedly waiting to go for each other in iron and blood. There are also gun runners, black marketeers and mercenaries that are waiting to do war business in Zimbabwe. In justice, how do we change Zimbabwe for the better without going through the shadow of death, paying the dear price of war? Put in another way, that Robert Mugabe must go, is a matter on which both Lucifer and the Christ might be found in agreement, but if he must go, why should he go with many young lives, with the little remaining infrastructure, and with the country even?The Geography of WarMany of us who believe that chaos and war, the excellence of disorder under the heavens, are the way to go, do so in lack of appreciation of the cuts and curves of a true civil war situation. If a civil war starts in Zimbabwe, there would be no two sides but many sides going for each other at once. Police stations and the courts will disappear and the rule of the jungle will proceed. Every man or woman with a gun will become a police officer, a prosecutor, a magistrate, a judge and an executioner folded in one terrible body.With the law of the jungle in place, a civil war situation is that situation where the criminal who had always wanted to rob and steal, but feared the law and order, can now do so under the cover of a war. The sociopaths and the psychopaths, the murderers and the rapists that have always wanted to rule the hood, suddenly appear to rape, rob, murder and burn the communities, in the name of the war. Little bands of soldiers, police officers and intelligence details suddenly turn into true terrorist groups that plunder and pillage, armed men who answer to no constitution and are not held by any ethics.This is when mothers hear that an entire pre-school has been held by many strange and drunk gunmen who will keep the kids in their custody until their commander who was captured yesterday by another unknown group is released, when he is already dead. Civil war is irrational. Schools will turn into refugee camps and students in their numbers drafted by force into lawless militias. Civil war burns innocence. Refugees will flood out of the country on foot, buildings will burn and limbs and bodies of the dead will litter the streets, with dogs and other scavengers feasting on human flesh in day light.Those who saw Gukurahundi at its thickest, will remember the sights of the family dog coming into the homestead clutching between its jaws a bleeding liver, not that of a bush buck or a goat, but of the father of the family in the next homestead, who lies unburied because the situation is too dangerous even for funerals. Towns will smell and death itself will walk on two legs it the towns. Families, clans and other groups will be slaughtered in genocidal fashion.International mediation and intervention will come but too late. Bodies of big political leaders, those who do not flee, will be dragged in the streets by maniacally laughing and screaming hooligans of war, children of previously powerful leaders and their wives will be mobbed and beheaded in the streets. There will be nothing called home or family anymore. It would take another forty years to restore Zimbabwe to normalcy after a civil war. South Africa and Botswana, already hosting more than enough Zimbabweans, will be force to host many more millions. It is not worth it; life and the world are waiting for much better from Zimbabweans than a senseless sleep-walk into war. After the genocidal civil war, all who remain alive will be humbled, turned into fanatics of peace. The makeup and the geography of war, especially a civil war, is that of mass death taken to its limits. It is not as it happens in the movies.The wisdom of Political HumilityBefore every war there is excitement. The protagonists and antagonists and other agitators all speak from positions of excitement and sweet smell of victory at long last. But this is the time in Zimbabwe to abandon politicism and egopolitics and think and act from a position of vulnerability. Zimbabweans, especially the political leaders in the ruling party and the opposition should urgently be humbled by the prospect of war than wait to be humbled by the war itself. Before genocide breaks out, African leaders should by now be speaking to Harare in clear tones.The ruling party should lead by mobilisig the opposition into urgent talks, time is not on our side, and these talks should produce a team of sober Zimbabweans who will work with Zimbabwe, Africa and the world in getting emergency economic and political help for the country that is already burning. The angry Zimbabweans that are already in the streets do not want to hear anymore speeches but want to see and feel hope now, or else the country burns, starting with very important people who are impervious to wisdom even as it knocks hard, through signs of chaos and disorder in the streets. Talks of parties, elections and power should immediately be suspended, that is the food of politicists and egopoliticians, what Zimbabwe needs now are humble servants, saviours and true liberators who pay the price of war before it comes. Politicism and egopolitics must fall!!------------------Dinizulu Mbikokayise Macaphulana is a Zimbabwean Political Scientist and Semiotician who lives in South Africa. dinizulumacaphulana@yahoo.com.
Seaman James "Derek" Lovelace, a Navy SEAL trainee, died during his first week of basic training in Coronado, Calif. (Naval Special Warfare Center )
His lips turning blue and his face purple, the Navy SEAL trainee dressed in full gear was struggling to tread water in a giant pool when his instructor pushed him underwater at least twice actions a medical examiner ruled Wednesday made his death a homicide, not an accident.
The homicide ruling on the May 6 drowning of 21-year-old Seaman James Derek Lovelace raises questions about the safety of the grueling training that produces the U.S. military's most elite warfighters. It also raises questions about where the line is drawn between what is considered to be rigorous training designed to weed out the weakest and what is abuse that leads to a homicide.
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Lovelace, of Crestview, Florida, was in his first week of a six-month program in Coronado, near San Diego. An autopsy found he drowned. The report noted he also had a heart abnormality but said the problem was only a contributing factor.
The homicide ruling does not necessarily mean a crime occurred, and the instructor has not been charged.
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The medical examiner said some may consider the death an accident, especially in a "rigorous training program that was meant to simulate an 'adverse' environment."
But "it is our opinion that the actions, and inactions, of the instructors and other individuals involved were excessive and directly contributed to the death," the report said.
Instructors are supposed to create adverse conditions by splashing, making waves and yelling at the students, but they are reportedly advised not to dunk or pull students underwater, according to the report.
The drowning marked the third death of a SEAL trainee this year, including one who committed suicide after dropping out of the training and another who was killed in a car accident.
It's highly unusual for a training death for any service branch to be classified a homicide.
The Navy is investigating and has assigned the instructor to administrative duties. Officials said they want to ensure investigators will carry out a thorough probe and declined to release any details on the instructor.
Former Navy Capt. Lawrence Brennan, an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School who served as a Navy judge advocate, said the investigation's outcome could lead to the instructor facing a number of military charges from dereliction of duty for not following safety procedures all the way up to homicide.
He said the ruling could impact SEAL training.
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"I think it's sort of a warning to revisit training procedures and make sure they are fully understood and implemented," he said.
But he said the harsh trainings help create a fighting force to carry out missions in the world's most deadly places.
"Waterboarding has been done on aviators going into combat because it was expected the enemies could do this to them in combat," he said.
SEAL basic training starts with candidates running up to two miles in the sand and culminates with "Hell Week" in which candidates spend five-and-a-half days of running, climbing, swimming in frigid waters, and other drills getting a total of four hours of sleep.
On average, 75 percent of trainees fail to make the cut.
Lovelace was only beginning what was to become an increasingly difficult program to form the world's top warfighters.
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Lovelace showed signs he was having difficulty treading water in fatigues, boots and a dive mask filled with water in the heated pool, which ranged in depth from four-to-15 feet. While struggling, he was seen on surveillance video being dunked at least twice by an instructor, the report said.
He also slipped underwater several times as the instructor followed him around, continually splashing him for about five minutes, the report said. Several other instructors also splashed him.
At one point in the training, a fellow trainee tried to help Lovelace keep his head above water. Video appears to show the instructor dunking Lovelace and later pulling him partially up and out of the water and then pushing him back, the autopsy report said.
Multiple people stated that his face was purple and his lips were blue, according to the report. One individual was even considering calling a "time-out" to stop the exercise, the report said.
Shortly after being pulled from the pool, Lovelace lost consciousness and was taken to a civilian hospital, where he died.
The Navy briefly paused its training to review safety standards, such as how to recognize when someone is in trouble, but it has not changed its pool exercises, Navy spokesman Lt. Trevor Davids said.
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Lovelace, who had an abnormal enlargement of the heart and a year ago was prescribed medicine used to treat asthma, was reportedly not a strong swimmer, according to the medical examiner. He had joined the Navy about six months before his death.
Several former SEALs told The Associated Press the instructor's actions did not strike them as unusual.
Former Navy SEAL Keith David doesn't remember whether instructors ever dunked him in the pool exercises, but he said they were tough and there was intense pressure not to give up. During an exercise that tested the stamina of trainees to stay underwater, he recalled, "guys pushed themselves so hard to stay down, they would force themselves to black out, but instructors would be ready to bring them back to consciousness."
Dan O'Shea, a former Navy SEAL commander, said the program is designed to push men to the limit and beyond so they are prepared to take on any challenge. O'Shea is concerned the ruling could force changes.
"Changing standards would mess with a process that has proven its mettle since 1962 and produced the most elite fighting force on the planet, one that took out Osama Bin Laden. Why mess with perfection?" he asked.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON President Barack Obama scrapped plans Wednesday to cut American forces in Afghanistan by half before leaving office, a dispiriting blow to his hopes of extricating the U.S. after 15 years of fighting. He said he'll leave 8,400 troops to address the country's "precarious" security situation.
Obama's new drawdown plan, announced alongside top military leaders, reinforced the likelihood that the U.S. will remain entangled in Afghanistan for years to come as America works to suppress a resurgent Taliban and train a still-struggling Afghan military. Indeed, Obama said his goal was to ensure the next president has the foundation and flexibility to fight terrorism there "as it evolves."
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Obama acknowledged that few Americans might have expected U.S. troops would still be in Afghanistan this long after the 2001 invasion following the 9/11 attacks. But he said perseverance was needed to prevent al-Qaida from regrouping and the Islamic State group from spreading. He said if terrorists regain control of territory, they'll try to attack the U.S. again.
"We cannot allow that to happen. I will not allow that to happen," he declared.
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Obama, who had revised the exit plan several times before, had most recently expected to leave 5,500 troops when his term ends in January, down from roughly 9,800 there currently. His move to slow that withdrawal reflected the Afghan military's continuing inability to secure the nation independently, demonstrated by escalating Taliban attacks that have killed scores in recent weeks.
The new plan, announced the day before Obama attends a NATO summit in Poland, marked the culmination of a delicate debate within his administration about how many troops to pull out if any.
Though U.S. officials said Obama had accepted the Pentagon's formal recommendation of 8,400 troops, top military leaders had urged the White House to stay closer to the current 9,800. In an unusually public lobbying campaign, last month more than a dozen former ambassadors and commanders urged him to "freeze" the current level for the rest of his term
In the end, Obama appeared to settle on a number that would show continued progress toward drawing down without jeopardizing the mission.
Elected after vowing to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama has struggled to deliver a legacy of leaving the U.S. less encumbered by foreign conflicts than he found it. Although he's declared U.S. combat operations over in both countries, the U.S. is still deep in conflict in both, plus major new fighting that has emerged in Syria and Libya since he took office.
In Congress, Republican leaders who favor a larger force said Obama's new plan was preferable to the old one, but they criticized him for not keeping the full 9,800. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the partial drawdown would increase the dangers for remaining troops, calling it "more a political decision by President Obama than a military one."
Yet some Democrats, frustrated by the inability to fully end the war, said they were disappointed for the opposite reason.
"Today, the longest war in American history just got longer," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.
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Ultimately, it will be up to the next president to decide the level of U.S. involvement. Democrat Hillary Clinton has aligned herself with Obama's handling of Afghanistan, while Republican Donald Trump has remained vague and has criticized Obama for revealing too much publicly about deployment decisions.
In Kabul, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani applauded Obama's decision. A brief statement from his spokesman called it "a sign of continued partnership between our nations to fight our common enemy and strengthen regional stability."
But the Taliban said the U.S. action would only prolong the war.
"What Obama could not do with 149,000 troops, he will not be able to do with 8,400 troops," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said on Twitter.
At the peak, in 2010, U.S. troop levels surged to 100,000, fighting alongside forces from U.S.-allied countries.
The president said the U.S. is "no longer engaged in a major ground war," and insisted the mission remains narrowly focused on "training and advising" Afghan forces and counterterrorism operations against the remnants of al-Qaida. Yet just last month, the White House gave the military expanded authority to conduct airstrikes against the Taliban in support of Afghan troops.
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Though Obama touted progress in Afghanistan, including better-trained security forces, the situation remains perilous, with Afghan battlefield deaths rising and civilian casualties hitting a record high. Last month the Pentagon told Congress that Afghans were feeling less secure than at any other recent time. Obama also pointed out that 38 Americans had died in the past 18 months.
Associated Press
Pope Francis meets Nick, left, and Jodi Solomon, the parents of Beau Solomon, a U.S. college student whose body was found in Rome's Tiber river this week, during private encounter shortly before holding an audience with French pilgrims in a Vatican auditorium on July 6, 2016. (AP)
ROME Pope Francis met on Wednesday with the parents of a U.S. college student whose body was found in Rome's Tiber river this week, after apparently either being pushed or tumbling into the murky waters less than 24 hours after arriving in Italy for summer classes.
A brief Holy See statement said Francis expressed to Beau Solomon's parents "feelings of deepest sympathy and compassion, and his closeness in prayer to the Lord for the young man who died so tragically." The pope held the unscheduled, private encounter shortly before holding an audience with French pilgrims in a Vatican auditorium.
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The mother, Jodi Solomon, appeared to be crying as her husband, Nick Solomon, put an arm around her while Francis tried to comfort the couple. Francis raised his hand in blessing.
Solomon's roommate has told school officials he last saw him early Friday at a pub popular with U.S. students in the Trastevere neighborhood of cafes, bars and restaurants near the Tiber.
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The 19-year-old Solomon, who had just completed his first year of study at University of Wisconsin-Madison, had arrived in the Italian capital on Thursday for study at John Cabot University, a four-year, English-language institution not far from the pub.
Initial autopsy findings indicated there was water in the young man's lungs, meaning Solomon would have been alive when he ended up in the water, the Italian news agency ANSA said.
Police on Tuesday detained a homeless Italian, Massimo Galioto, 40, whom they described as being "seriously suspected of murder aggravated by futile motives."
Solomon's body was found on Monday a few miles down river from Trastevere.
A female companion of the Italian, who lived in an improvised camp set up along the Tiber's banks and near the base of one of the river's bridges, has said the American fell into the water after a shoving match with Galioto. The woman, Alessia Pennachioli, has described Solomon as being drunk and tumbling into the water.
Pennachioli told Italian RAI state TV that Solomon had been robbed by two Moroccan men, and that after he descended a staircase leading from a bridge to one of the Tiber's banks, he was "agitated, and had a fight" with Galioto, whom she referred to as Max. "It ended badly," she said on RAI.
Solomon "pushed, Max pushed back. He pushed a second time. Max pushed again," Pennachioli said. Solomon was "drunk and tumbled over" into the water, the woman said.
Some witnesses have told authorities the student was pushed into the river.
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Although most of the river winds through the city placidly during summer, just downstream where the alleged scuffle took place is a small rapid, and concrete and rocks line much of the Tiber's banks.
Solomon's credit cards were used on Friday in Milan, and police are investigating whether other, still unidentified persons, had robbed him.
Across the river on the other bank, a summer-long fair, featuring food booths and artisans' shops, has been drawing thousands of visitors nightly.
It wasn't clear at what time Solomon was spotted on the river bank.
Associated Press
Donald Trump praised Saddam Hussein at a campaign rally on Tuesday, embracing the dictator who oppressed Iraq for more than 30 years, aggressively suppressed dissent in his country and was widely considered one of the leading enemies of the United States.
"Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. Right? He was a bad guy, really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn't read them the rights -- they didn't talk, they were a terrorist, it was over," Trump said as many in his audience of about 2,000 laughed on Tuesday evening. "Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism. You want to be a terrorist, you go to Iraq. It's like Harvard. OK? So sad."
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This is not the first time Trump has praised Hussein or other dictators, although his comments on Tuesday night gathered much more attention than his earlier comments. In October, Trump said that the world would be "100 percent" better if dictators like Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi were still in power. In February, Trump said at a political event in New Hampshire that "whether you like Saddam Hussein or not, he used to kill terrorists" and now Iraq is a breeding ground for terrorists.
Although this stance is not a new one for Trump, some of his Republican colleagues rushed to distance themselves from the presumptive nominee on Tuesday evening. During an interview on Fox News, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, pointed to Hussein's record of human rights abuses and distanced himself from Trump without condemning the candidate directly.
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"He was one of the 20th century's most evil people. He was up there. He committed mass genocide against his own people using chemical weapons," Ryan told Fox News' Megyn Kelly when asked for his reaction. "Saddam Hussein was a bad guy."
Ryan dismissed several questions about his past criticism of Trump earlier in the interview, pointing out that he endorsed him last month but that he believes Trump is ultimately "far better to be commander in chief than Hillary Clinton in my mind." But he added: "When he says things that I don't agree with I'm going to speak my mind," he said.
Trump was joined at the Tuesday evening rally by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, the chairman of the foreign relations committee who is on Trump's shortlist of potential running mates.
Hillary Clinton's campaign jumped to condemn Trump's comments.
"Donald Trump's praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds," said Jake Sullivan, a senior policy adviser, in a statement. "In reality, Hussein's regime was a sponsor of terrorism - one that paid families of suicide bombers who attacked Israelis, among other crimes. Trump's cavalier compliments for brutal dictators, and the twisted lessons he seems to have learned from their history, again demonstrate how dangerous he would be as commander-in-chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks."
At the same rally Trump also accused Clinton of bribing Attorney General Loretta Lynch following a report that said Clinton would consider keeping Lynch if she's elected president.
"It's a bribe!" Trump declared at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, Tuesday, hours after the FBI said it wouldn't recommend charges against Clinton over her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
Trump was referring to a story in The New York Times that quoted "Democrats close to" Clinton saying she may decide to rehire Lynch.
Trump said Lynch may have believed that, if she let Clinton off the hook, she'd have four more years on the job.
"It's a disgrace, it's a disgrace!" Trump said.
Trump said the FBI's decision is the greatest example yet that the system is "rigged."
Clinton put the "entire country in danger," Trump said, insisting she was likely hacked.
"Her judgment is horrible," Trump said, adding, "She will be such a lousy president, folks."
Trump also had harsh words for President Barack Obama, arguing he should be at the White House working to defeat Islamic State militants and dealing with other issues instead of joining Clinton on the campaign trail.
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He said Obama seems to be having too much fun, adding, "it's like a carnival act."
Sen. Bob Corker joined Donald Trump onstage at the rally amid speculation about the Republican candidate's vice presidential deliberations.
Trump introduced the Tennessee senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as "somebody respected by everybody."
Corker said he'd had a "pretty remarkable day" with Trump, spending time with his grown children and watching how he treats the people who work for him.
He told the enthusiastic crowd packed into Raleigh's Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts that "the reason that you love him so much is because he loves you."
The pair hugged before Corker left the stage.
Washington Post and the Associated Press contributed to this report
The last time I saw my friend Chris Stevens was at the Benghazi Airport as his body was being transferred to the plane to begin his last journey back to the United States. The great, honorable, gentle man I welcomed to Benghazi only two days earlier now lay lifeless before me on the same tarmac.
Chris had arrived in Benghazi on Sept. 10, 2012, for five days of meetings and to inaugurate an American cultural center at an English-language school under my care. A Libyan by birth and lifelong resident of Benghazi, I had for years taught English and facilitated cultural exchanges with the United States and, upon the resumption of diplomatic relations, served as an adviser and cultural interpreter for U.S. officials especially Chris. I was also the one charged with coordinating his fateful visit to Benghazi.
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U.S. ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens gives a speech on August 26, 2012, at the U.S. embassy in Tripoli, Libya. Stevens was killed on Sept. 11, 2012, in an attack in Benghazi. (Madmud Turkia / AFP/Getty Images)
I learned that I had been targeted that night and it was no longer safe for me to remain in Libya. I arrived in the United States two months later. Upon my arrival I was dismayed to find that the public conversation here had veered from memorializing a slain hero to hijacking his legacy for naked political agendas. Yet I maintained faith that, over time, the country would settle its discord, heal its wounds and return to honoring Chris Stevens, his life's work and the noble mission for which he died.
We all know this has not happened, but not everyone will understand why. Yet I have had a front-row seat. For months, I have been approached by people seeking to persuade me to publicly endorse their false version of events that night, namely that Chris was taking part in secret weapons smuggling and that the secretary of state was responsible for letting him die.
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But they do not need to pay me, threaten me, or persuade me to tell my story. I have already told the full truth, first to U.S. law enforcement, then to the State Department's Accountability Review Board and again to the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Now, the repeated attempts to get me to endorse unfounded theories and the fact that politicians and others continue to revive false narratives and accusations have pushed me to step out from the shadows. The American people, to whom I owe such a debt of gratitude as one of the Libyans whom their country saved, deserve to know the truth and that there are people who are actively seeking to mislead them.
The truth is that Chris's mission was to help build a partnership between the United States and the Libyan people and to help rebuild the country. That's what brought him to Benghazi, first as a special envoy in 2011 and then as ambassador in September 2012. He knew the dangers better than anyone else, yet he believed his mission was too important not to carry out to the fullest of his abilities. The attacks that claimed his life and those of three other brave Americans were crimes and tragedies of the greatest magnitude. The blame rests entirely and unquestionably on those who carried out the attacks.
The promotion of utterly false conspiracy theories are offensive, to me, to the truth and to Chris' memory. The political attacks based on the events of that night portray Chris not as the hero and leader that he was but as the pawn and the victim of incompetence or worse in Washington.
Chris does not deserve to have his legacy undermined in this way. The mission of the United States in Libya in 2011 and 2012 was noble, and Chris was its most lovable and effective champion. That the attack created chaos on the ground in Benghazi I know first-hand. It also left Libyans with a crisis of faith in our own politics and society. The loss of Chris was a blow to both our countries.
To allow a cloud of false and misguided allegations to remain over Chris would be to compound that loss. His memory and mission must be given the true honor and recognition they deserve.
Washington Post
Bubaker Habib was a local contractor for the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.
LAS VEGASThe trial for War Machine, aka Jonathan Koppenhaver, has been postponed until February, when he will face charges that he tried to kill his ex-girlfriend Christy Mack and her friend Corey Thomas.
Koppenhaver had been scheduled for trial July 11 on 34 felony charges including attempted murder, battery, sexual assault and coercion during the attack in August 2014 at Mack's home in Las Vegas.
The 34-year-old Koppenhaver, a former porn performer and mixed-martial-arts fighter, is already in a Nevada prison, serving 1 1/2 to four years on a probation revocation in a prior felony attempted battery case, according to the Associated Press.
Koppenhaver could face life in prison if hes convicted on the most serious charges.
The former porn star Mack said she suffered a broken nose, missing teeth, fractured eye socket, leg injuries and a lacerated liver among other injuries, while Thomas said Koppenhaver broke his nose and dislocated his shoulder and threatened additional harm if he went to the police.
Almost 400 years after the death of Pocahontas, we continue to abuse her identity. Almost all of the ideas Americans have about her are fantasies, revealing much more about how we view race relations and women's rights than anything about the young Powhatan woman.
The repeated use of "Pocahontas" by Donald Trump as a racially misogynistic slur, meant to cast doubt on the trustworthiness of Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, only adds to the pile.
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The actual Pocahontas was sexually appropriated by Capt. John Smith from the time they met, in 1607, when she was no more than 11 years old. Smith portrayed her as a "nubile and sexy" teenager in his writings, titillating English appetites for stories of adventure and sexual conquest, according to her biographer, Camilla Townsend. Smith's mischaracterizations prevent historians from verifying the central event in the lore he fostered: the moment when Smith said she prevented his execution at the hands of her father, the leader of the Powhatan Confederacy.
We do know that she was kidnapped at 17 by Capt. Samuel Argall to be used as leverage against her father; that she converted to Christianity a year later; and that she married a wealthy Virginian, John Rolfe, only to die in England, at 21, in 1617. Her husband died soon thereafter. Their child, Thomas, came to know his maternal relatives but identified as English. He was among the first of countless Americans with mixed heritage who sided with the colonists, thereby denying his descendants a claim to tribal citizenship.
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More than 90 percent of native people, including the Powhatans, would, like Pocahontas, succumb to European disease between 1492 and 1800. Their complex and harrowing lives were far more interesting than the Walt Disney Co. or the presumptive Republican presidential nominee could imagine.
While Disney adapted Capt. Smith's tale to project a fanciful, feel-good message about cross-cultural love and understanding, Trump's cynical effort to deflect criticism from his Democratic heckler-in-chief reaches back to the patriarchal, racialized politics of America in the 19th century.
These appeals reinvigorate sinister claims on our collective identity: Do we Americans belong to the culturally plural, multiracial democracy President Abraham Lincoln envisioned when he fused the hopeful Declaration of Independence to the restrictive U.S. Constitution? Or is our democracy a racist enterprise, meant to foster and protect the interests of white property owners, as President Andrew Jackson advocated when he forced Native Americans from their homelands, saying "they and my white children are too near each other to live in harmony and peace."
With the Indian Removal Act of 1830, Jackson ethnically cleansed the eastern half of North America. Tens of thousands of people were removed to what was then called Indian Territory. Thirty-one of the federally recognized tribes in present-day Oklahoma joined eight native tribes whose lands were already being carved up and claimed by whites.
Government-funded assimilation programs reached their apex between 1892 and 1907, when Elizabeth Warren's grandfather, Harry Reed, lived in the territory's Cherokee Nation. Tribal governments were dissolved, and discrimination and violence were constant concerns. "Competency" a legal term enabling American Indians to sell their own land, run a business or simply be left alone was initially determined by the degree of Indian blood in a person's veins.
For these and many other reasons, it would only be logical if Reed denied his Native identity and passed as white, so that he might prosper as a carpenter. And, while Warren and some of her cousins have recalled being told their grandfather had Cherokee and Delaware blood (the Delaware Tribe of Kansas was consolidated into the Cherokee Nation after the Civil War), it should surprise no one that other Reed descendants deny this.
Now another Warren opponent and Trump surrogate, former Republican Sen. Scott Brown, who lost his Senate seat to Warren in 2012, says Warren should prove her heritage through a DNA test. But Native American identity is multifaceted, and genes capture even less of it than fixed ideas about pre-colonial culture.
Regardless, we should all be aware of the real message behind Trump's use of Pocahontas as a demeaning label, one that blends racial animus with assertions that women are inferior. Our society cannot afford to return to the racism and misogyny of the 19th century.
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Alternatively, we might embrace the real Pocahontas: kidnapped, sexually appropriated and ultimately killed amid the trauma of colonialism. By choosing nonfiction over fiction, reality over rhetoric, we Americans might finally come to terms with, and repudiate, this terrible legacy.
Stephen Warren is an associate professor of history and American studies at the University of Iowa.
In the best of all possible worlds, the U.S. presidential election would feature a pair of candidates who don't engage in juvenile insults or racially charged rhetoric, don't provoke the Federal Bureau of Investigation to offer proof of serial dishonesty and have no history of bankruptcy or complicity in White House scandals. Ideally, these two nominees would distinguish themselves with their integrity, coherent policy views and ability to address important issues in fresh, substantive and truthful ways.
Millions of Americans have been queasy contemplating the choice of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. You may think voters are never happy with their options was anyone thrilled by John Kerry vs. George W. Bush in 2004? but this year is notably worse than the norm. The sorry arc of Trump's bloviation, and now the FBI's detailed demolition of Clinton's repeated untruths about her recklessness with classified U.S. information, only compound the plight of many American voters.
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"Negative views of Mrs. Clinton are at least 12 percentage points higher than those of any of the four Democratic nominees since 1992," reported The Wall Street Journal about recent poll results. "Negative views of Mr. Trump are at least 14 points worse than those of any of the last five GOP nominees." That was before FBI Director James Comey called Clinton's behavior "extremely careless" and Trump offered peculiar praise to Saddam Hussein as a prolific slayer of terrorists. (Trump didn't mention that Hussein also was adept at slaying his own people.)
In short, our normally polarized politics are more polarized than ever. Only 1 in 6 white males had a positive opinion of Clinton, while only 1 in 10 African-Americans looked favorably on Trump. Much of the support each candidate has is really withering contempt for the other.
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Well, American voter, things are not as bad as you may think. You have not one respectable alternative to these candidates but two. They are Gary Johnson, nominated in June by the Libertarian Party, and Jill Stein, who is expected to be chosen at the Green Party national convention next month. Thanks partly to the major party nominees, these two (who won the same nominations four years ago) are gaining the kind of attention that minor party candidates rarely get. Though neither is likely to be on the ballot in all 50 states, they will be options for the vast majority of voters.
Jill Stein, left, is the Green Party presidential nominee, and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson is the nominee for the Libertarian Party.
RealClearPolitics reports that in recent polls featuring all four candidates, Johnson averages 7 percent of the national vote and Stein 4 percent. Those are impressive numbers, given that in 2012, neither broke the 1 percent threshold. It's not hard to imagine them rising this fall as Trump and Clinton savage each other's records.
Stein, a Massachusetts physician and native of Highland Park, offers herself as the logical choice for supporters of Bernie Sanders, who shares her progressive views on many issues single-payer health insurance, green energy, raising taxes, campaign finance regulation, military intervention abroad and more. Back in April, she went so far as to invite the Vermont senator to work with the Green Party to "ensure the revolution for people, planet and peace will prevail."
Republicans dismayed that Trump wouldn't promote free trade, cut federal spending, reform immigration or curb entitlements will be cheered by Johnson's platform. A former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, he compiled a record to back up his promises. With a Democratic legislature, the conservative National Review raved, "Johnson's main impact was in vetoing an astonishing 739 bills over his eight years in office."
The existing two-party system has been the mainstay of American politics for a century and a half. But the discontent felt this year among Democrats as well as Republicans suggests there is an opportunity for the Greens and the Libertarians to establish themselves in the national consciousness in a lasting way.
Can either win? Not this time. But that's no reason Americans disgusted with the major party choices have to settle on either. It's not "wasting your vote," as the old bromide says, to cast a ballot for a long-shot candidate because he or she offers something valuable that mainstream candidates don't. Attracting voters is how small parties get bigger.
A strong showing by Stein, Johnson or both might not transform America's political landscape. But it could push a reassessment of old policies that have acquired immunity from reform. It could put provocative new ideas on the national agenda.
It also could force the major parties, which have disappointed voters so badly this year, to do better in 2020 and beyond. If so, Democrats and Republicans might thank Stein and Johnson for running.
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Chicago's architectural acumen is known around the world, but it's not just about Louis Sullivan and the birth of the skyscraper. Chicago endures as a City of Neighborhoods, and in those neighborhoods churches serve as anchors. They're houses of worship, of course, but they also help frame a neighborhood's identity. They can be a community's town hall, even its heartbeat.
And in many cases, they are architectural gems.
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One of those gems is St. Adalbert Roman Catholic Church, a breathtaking expression of Renaissance Revival architecture built by Polish immigrants in 1912 in the West Side's Pilsen neighborhood. The church's Polish origins are evident all over its basilica-inspired interior in the red-and-white painted walls, in the stained glass windows that depict Polish patron saints.
St. Adalbert's fate has been teetering since February, when the Archdiocese of Chicago announced it was one of many churches that would close as part of a reorganization of parishes. As many as 100 churches could close by 2030. Archdiocesan officials say the move is driven by an expected shortage of priests in years to come, coupled with the worsening physical condition of many of the churches. The price tag to renovate St. Adalbert's two 185-foot towers enshrouded in scaffolding: $3 million.
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There may be a way out for St. Adalbert, however. The archdiocese has begun talks with the Chicago Academy of Music about turning the church into a venue for concert performances. Its convent could become a dormitory for academy students. Meanwhile, a group of parishioners has appealed to the Vatican to keep the church open as a place of worship.
It'd be ideal if somehow the building could continue functioning as a church. That said, turning the building into a wellspring for music works as a Plan B. And it's something else. It's an innovative approach toward preservation that also works as a template to save other aging, architecturally significant churches.
The advocacy group Preservation Chicago, which helped broker talks between the archdiocese and the academy, says there are at least 20 other Chicago churches with enough architectural and historic value to warrant rescue. Preserving churches by finding alternate uses for them is one solution, but the group also advocates protection through landmark status.
That approach has a snag, however. A 1987 amendment to the city's Landmarks Ordinance exempts houses of worship from being landmarked unless the owner consents. Religious leaders sought the amendment because they didn't want constraints placed on property they own.
That's the crux of the argument in many debates over whether a building should be designated a landmark. The preservationists and politicians who want to save these gems are well-intentioned, but their efforts would force owners who have no practical use for the property to come up with the money to repair and maintain them.
The archdiocese decided to close St. Adalbert and dozens of other churches in part because of the expected shortage of priests but also because it lacks the money to revamp churches that need big makeovers, and would rather devote its resources to other priorities. The city shouldn't force the archdiocese to shoulder the cost of wholesale rehab, and it also shouldn't put that yoke on taxpayers.
Preservation Chicago wants the 1987 amendment rescinded so that churches can be landmarked and saved. It suggests that the city's "Adopt-a-Landmark" Fund could be tapped to renovate landmarked churches. That fund is fed by fees paid by developers in exchange for the right to add more square footage to their projects.
The better approach, we believe, is the tack that Preservation Chicago, the archdiocese and the Chicago Academy of Music have taken with St. Adalbert: consensus-reaching dialogue between owner and prospective buyer aimed at safeguarding the future of a neighborhood and city treasure.
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HOLLYWOOD, Calif.Hall Of Fame adult star Briana Banks will make her first ever Exxxotica signing appearance in Chicago. Fans of porn star Briana Banks have an opportunity to get up close and meet the award-winning actress. July 8 through 10, Briana will be appearing at the show to sign autographs, pose for pictures and have her collectible merchandise available for purchase.
Getting to meet the fans that have supported my career is very important to me, said Briana. I enjoy meeting guys that have followed me from my first Vivid video to newer fans who are just being introduced to my work. Exxxotica is a perfect opportunity for me to get out and connect with the public.
Exxxotica Chicago is set to take place at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, located at 9291 Bryn Mawr Avenue in Rosemont. Ticket and other event information can be found on the shows website.
Englands Daily Sport kicked off summer with a scorching hot feature on Briana. The popular publication interviewed the sexy star and discussed her career and triumphant come back. Along with revisiting her history, Briana provided hints of what fans can expect from the Hall of Fame performer. The Daily Sport interview with Briana Banks can be read here.
For more Briana Banks, visit her network here and here.
For pictures of Briana Banks, please click here.
Briana Banks is represented by OC Modeling; to hire her for content production, email [email protected] or call (818) 298-6939.
The Arlington Heights Village Board voted unanimously this month to grant a liquor license to a private restaurant that caters exclusively to the 1,500 backstretch workers and their families at Arlington International Racecourse during the summer racing season.
Scruffy's Kitchen, Inc., also known as Backstretch Kitchen, was granted a Class E liquor license, allowing the business to serve alcohol to seasonal workers and their families at the venue, located at 2200 W. Euclid Ave.
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John Gurhy, the new owner of the restaurant, said about 98 percent of his customers are Latino families who work at Arlington International during the summer racing season, before heading to jobs at Hawthorne Racecourse in Stickney/Cicero in the fall.
Arlington International backstretch workers and their families receive free on-site housing during the summer racing season, Gurhy said, but the employees are prohibited from cooking hot meals in the dormitory-style lodgings due to fire safety codes.
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The track has operated a restaurant for backstretch employees for decades, Gurhy said, but his recent acquisition of the venue required that he apply for a new liquor license.
While Trustee Thomas Glasgow voted in favor of granting Gurhy's establishment a liquor license, he questioned the prices and general affordability of the restaurant's menu.
"I see you charge $2 for oatmeal and $8.50 for a steak and egg dinner, so when you add in drinks you're up to $50," Glasgow said. "How are these families supposed to pay for that?"
But Gurhy said if a family were to order four $7 chicken dinners, without any alcoholic beverages, the tab would be closer to $28.
Trustee John Scaletta expressed concerns about the roughly 90 police reports recorded from March 20, 2015, through July 4, 2016.
"We need to make sure that this business operates professionally, and that minors are not served, and that no one is over-served, Scaletta said.
Village Manager Randall Recklaus said the 90 calls for service from the racetrack to the village's police and fire departments over the roughly 15-month period were for the entire racetrack property, including the track, parking lot and backstretch area, with the exception of Ditka's restaurant and the Off-Track Betting facility.
The reports, which included traffic accidents, as well as calls to the fire department, also included one report of a death investigation on April 27, 2015, but no foul play was suspected, Recklaus said.
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Gurhy, who said his establishment also offers games for the backstretch workers' children who visit with their families, said alcohol sales at the venue will end at 9 p m. each evening, with the business closing at 10 p.m.
"These workers typically go to bed early, because they have to be up by 4:30 a.m. the next morning to feed the horses," Gurhy said.
While the private dining establishment is popular with the roughly 1,100 adults and 400 children who live in the track's 540 dormitory units during the summer racing season, officials at Arlington International said the backstretch community also has access to refrigerators and microwave ovens in the dormitories, as well as barbecue grills outdoors.
"The stable kitchen is not a cash cow, and there are many people here bringing in their own food, or meals that have been prepared off-site," said Tony Petrillo, Arlington International's general manager.
The track's backstretch workers are hired and paid by the individual horse owners and trainers, and are not employees of Arlington International, Petrillo said.
"I think there's a misconception about many of the backstretch workers, but these folks can earn salaries of $36,000 a year and up," Petrillo said. "Some of them have apartments in other towns, and when they're living here during the season, they can get another source of income by sub-leasing their own places."
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The historic racetrack got off to a rough start this season, with track officials and the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association agreeing to a new contract in late April that paved the way to reopening the track's shuttered backstretch, just days before the start of the summer racing season.
The 2016 racing season has been well-attended, track spokesman Howard Sudberry said, with officials now gearing up for the biggest race of the summer, the Arlington Million on Aug. 13.
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Twitter @kcullotta
Five people were injured in four 4th of July weekend shootings on Aurora's Near East and Near West sides, police said Tuesday.
Aurora police said they continued to investigate all of the shootings late Tuesday afternoon, and they do not know if any are related, according to a press release.
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The first weekend shooting was about 2:30 a.m. Sunday on the Near East Side, according to police. Two people walked up to a driveway in the 300 block of Grant Place and began firing while standing behind a vehicle, then ran from the area. A 19-year-old Aurora man, sitting with several others around a bonfire in the backyard, was shot in the leg, according to police. Police said nothing else appeared to be hit by gunfire, and the man was taken to a hospital for treatment.
Monday night, two people were injured in a shooting on the Near East Side, according to police. Officers responded to the 1300 block of Grand Boulevard about 10:45 p.m. but, before arriving, learned that two 32-year-old Aurora residents were on their way to an Aurora hospital. The residents, a man and a woman, were sitting in a parked car on Calhoun Street just south of Grand Boulevard when a silver SUV with tinted windows pulled up and someone inside began shooting, according to police. The man flagged down a passing vehicle, which took the pair to the hospital.
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The man was treated and released for a gunshot wound to his chest, and the woman was admitted to the hospital for a gunshot wound to her neck, according to police. Police said the car in which the two were sitting appeared to be the only other thing hit by gunfire. Police had no other information about a suspect late Tuesday afternoon.
Around 2:40 a.m. Tuesday, officers responded to a call from a 21-year-old Aurora man who said he had been shot near North and Rosewood avenues on the Near East Side. Officers found him walking in the area with a single gunshot wound to his upper body, police said in the statement. The man said he was walking west on North Avenue near Rosewood when another man got out of a vehicle and approached him, asking a gang-related question. That scared the 21-year-old man, so he began to run, according to police. He heard several shots and the sound of the vehicle leaving the area.
The man provided no additional information and was largely uncooperative, police said. Nothing else appeared to be hit by gunfire, they said.
Later Tuesday morning, around 3:22 a.m., a 39-year-old Aurora woman was shot once in the leg as she sat on a porch on the Near West Side, according to police. The woman was sitting with a 28-year-old Aurora man in the 500 block of Iowa Avenue when the two were approached by at least one man, who suddenly began firing, police said in the statement. The woman is being treated at an Aurora hospital. Police said the gunman is described as about 20 years old with black hair and a stocky build. Nothing else appeared to be hit by gunfire.
None of the injuries are believed to be life-threatening, police said in the statement.
Police asked anyone with information about the shootings to call investigators at 630-256-5500, contact Aurora Area Crime Stoppers at 630-892-1000, or submit tips through the Aurora Police Department app.
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CHICAGOVNA Girls Carmen Valentina and Cleo announce they are hosting the highly popular three-day VNA Girls wrestling/catfight exhibition at the upcoming Exxxotica Chicago this weekend, Friday-Sunday, July 8-10, at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, 9291 Bryn Mawr Ave., Rosemont, IL 60018. It is the first time the duo have taken their popular wrestling show to Chicago (having performed in Los Angeles, Texas & New Jersey).
The exhibition will take place at the VNA Girls booth. Cleo and Carmen will be doing two shows Friday and Sunday and three on Saturday. The girls promise that the wrestling/catfight is 100 percent fan interactive. Fans are invited to get on the mat with the girls and to have pictures taken in the ring.
Carmen was nominated this year by AVN for Most Epic Ass & Social Media Star, and in March of this year, she took home an Alt Award for Sexiest Cam Model. She was nominated by AVN in January for Favorite Cam Model.
Carmen Valentina stated, "The wrestling a very popular event. The ring is always crowded with fans. It's the first time we have ever performed in Chicago so it should be a blast. I hope anyone who likes seeing girls trying to pin each other... and fans... gets to one of the shows."
Cleo added, ''Carmen and I always have a lot of fun with the fans. We are always surprised just how popular the event is now that we are going to different parts of the country. It seems to get bigger and better every year. If you live in or close to Chicago, come on down and get on the mat with us.
The wrestling/catfight ring will be located at the VNA Girls booth, with other stars such as Vicky Vette, Sunny Lane and Lauren Phillips also making appearances.
Fans who cannot make it to the convention can watch the wrestling live streaming on CarmenValentina.com, ItsCleoLive.com and the VNALive.com websites (where the shows will be streaming free for members).
Two Aurora men are charged with having loaded guns around the same East Side neighborhood days apart last week, according to Aurora police and Kane County records.
Both now face felony weapons charges.
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At about 8:05 p.m. June 28, an Aurora police Special Operations detective on patrol working with an Illinois State Trooper noticed a Dodge Durango that had been used for drug dealing in the past and began to follow it southbound on Liberty Street near North Union Street, according to Aurora police.
The Durango driver accelerated, ran through a stop sign at Beach Street and Claim Street and suddenly turned into a driveway on the 800 block of Beach Street, according to a statement shared by the police department on Facebook.
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The driver then got out of the car and tried to run away, but was quickly taken into custody, according to police.
Police searched the man and found a loaded handgun in his pants pocket that they later found out was stolen out of Joliet, according to the statement. Officers also found Oxycodone inside the Durango, according to the statement.
Damore A. Beverly, 28, of the 1300 block of Fifth Avenue, was charged with felonies including armed violence, unlawful use of a weapon by a felon and unlawful possession of a controlled substance. Beverly was also charged with resisting police and cited for several traffic violations, including the illegal transport of alcohol, Kane County records show. He is in Kane County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail, scheduled for a preliminary hearing July 27 at the Kane County Judicial Center in St. Charles.
Beverly last appeared in court June 16 for an April 2015 charge of unlawful contact with a street gang member while on parole, which is still in pre-trial, records show.
Beverly pleaded guilty in September 2008 to manufacturing or delivering between 30 and 500 grams of marijuana and was sentenced to 30 months in state prison, Kane County records show.
He also pleaded guilty in July 2006 to criminal trespass and was sentenced to 12 months probation, according to Kane County records.
Later in the week, Aurora police, with help from the Kane County Sheriff's Office, arrested another Aurora man with a loaded gun a few blocks away, according to the statement.
At about 7 p.m. Friday, a sergeant patrolling the area near Front Street and North Union Street saw an 18-year-old man he recognized appear to run away after noticing the sergeant. The man ran through backyards in the 400 block of North Union Street, according to police. When the man emerged from the backyards, the sergeant called out and questioned him, according to police. The man was sweating and acting nervously, so the sergeant thought he might have ditched something in one of the yards, according to police.
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The sergeant and several other officers searched the backyards in the area and didn't find anything. They let the man go at the scene, but several of the officers hid near the yards in case the man came back to retrieve something, according to the statement.
Several minutes later, the man returned. One officer heard him moving around behind a garage. The officers chased the man, who held his waistband as he ran away and jumped a fence. Police caught up with the man, tackled him and recovered a loaded pistol, according to the statement.
Jose Barragan, 18, of the first block of North Anderson Street, Aurora, was charged with three counts of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and two counts of unlawful use of a weapon. Barragan is currently in Kane County Jail in lieu of $60,000 bail and scheduled to appear in court next July 15.
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A memorial on the site of a triple homicide in the 2400 block of Crescent Drive in Hazel Crest on July 7, 2016. The victims were identified as Dionus M. Neely, 39, Elle Neely, 10, and Endia Neely, 3, their mother is Erin Ross. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)
Loud gunfire woke Erin Ross as she slept near her 1-year-old child in the early morning hours Saturday.
Ross said she found 39-year-old Dionus Neely and two of their children, Elle Neely,10, and Endia Neely, 3, limp inside the same living room inside their Hazel Crest home where they had all fallen asleep.
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Family and friends of the Neely family pleaded through the media for anyone who knows about the shooting deaths to come forward to police.
"Our family is messed up now because you all did not give a damn about what you were doing," Ross said. "You just don't have a heart, to take my family away from me."
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Hazel Crest police have not announced any arrests in the days following what Chief Mitchell Davis III said over the weekend was a "targeted act" by someone of "pure evil."
Officers responded to a report of shots fired at about 2:20 a.m. Saturday and found the three people injured inside the home in the 2400 block of Crescent Drive, Hazel Crest police said. Police have released few other details about the incident and the investigation by the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force.
Neely was a loving father who took care of his family, Ross told reporters Tuesday at a news conference outside the home.
"That's all he wanted to do, was make sure we were good," she said.
Ross said she didn't know where the gunshots came from and didn't see the shooters. At least three bullet holes are visible on the front, outside wall of their home.
According to court records, Neely's criminal record includes convictions on drug charges for cases from 1998 and 2008, receiving four years in prison for the latter charge. A judge found him not guilty in a 2014 drug case.
Activists and Neely's family members on Tuesday asked the community to look beyond his past and, instead, help catch those responsible.
Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >
"This is what matters, these kids' lives matter," said Chicago activist Andrew Holmes. "Everybody is looking and seeing these, but when it comes down to who took the lives of somebody, nobody sees nothing."
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"When these gunshots went off, what did you see, what did you hear and what do you know?" Holmes continued.
Holmes said that this wasn't a random attack, "this was torture."
Martina Patterson, Elle and Endia's aunt, said her two nieces meant the world to her. The two girls would come running up to her car after she pulled into the Crescent Drive home's driveway, she said.
They were loving children, Patterson said. She called Endia her "mini me" because the child look just like her.
"We're all hurting, but we just want justice at the end of the day," she said.
Nick Swedberg is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
Two men were charged with robbery in connection with an incident Friday in Tinley Park that led to a high-speed chase in which two suspects were killed and four Chicago police officers were injured.
Bail is set at $500,000 for Michael Cokes, 26, of Alsip, according to the Will County sheriff's office. Isiah Stevenson, 24, of Matteson, was scheduled to appear in Will County bond court Wednesday. Bail information for Stevenson wasn't immediately available, but records indicate he was also being charged with violating parole.
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The two men, who were injured in the crash, face one count each of felony robbery, according to the Will County sheriff's office. Cokes was charged Friday, authorities said. Stevenson was released from the hospital Tuesday and booked.
Jimmy Malone, 26, and Ronald Arrington, 22, of the 12400 block of South Union Avenue, Chicago, died in the Friday morning crash at 125th Street and Union Avenue, authorities said.
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The four officers were taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn for treatment of injuries that were not life-threatening, according to Chicago police. One officer suffered a broken arm and another officer suffered a broken leg. Both are believed to have been released from the hospital.
Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >
An occupant of the house struck by the suspects' vehicle was transported to Metro South after complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath, Chicago police said.
The chase began in Tinley Park, authorities said. Officers from Chicago and Illinois State Police were assisting with the pursuit when the suspects' car collided with the Chicago officers' vehicle. The driver of the suspects' vehicle was killed in the crash.
The incident started at 10:56 a.m. when a manager at Arby's, 7220 191st St., was pulled to the ground by a man as she walked to the nearby Bank of America to make a deposit, Tinley Park Police Chief Steve Neubauer said.
The woman suffered abrasions when she tried to fight off the man, but the assailant grabbed the bank deposit bag, hopped into a vehicle and drove off, Neubauer said.
A state trooper on Interstate 57 spotted the suspects' vehicle, which took off when the officer tried to stop it, Neubauer said.
The incident remains under investigation, Neubauer said. Cokes is due July 26 in Will County court.
Nick Swedberg is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
Orland Park Police Chief Tim McCarthy, pictured, will serve as the village's interim village manager while a search for a new manager is under way. (HANDOUT)
Longtime Orland Park Police Chief Tim McCarthy will serve as the village's interim village manager while a search is under way for a replacement for Manager Paul Grimes, who leaves later this month.
The village made the announcement Wednesday. Grimes' last day as manager will be July 18, and he will start Aug. 1 as city manager in McKinney, Texas, about 40 miles north of Dallas. McCarthy starts July 19.
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Orland Park Mayor Dan McLaughlin, in a statement, said that he and village trustees will interview search firms and select one to conduct a nationwide search for a new manager.
Grimes is the village's longest-serving village manager and has been with Orland Park since the summer of 2008. Prior to coming to the village, he worked as a business development manager for United Healthcare in Rhode Island. He worked previously as director of administration in Cranston, R.I. Grimes also spent eight years in the Navy.
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In naming McCarthy as interim manager, McLaughlin said the chief knows the village and how it operates.
"He holds a deep, passionate commitment to serving the people of Orland Park and has demonstrated this every day during his 22 years as the village's chief of police," McLaughlin said.
mnolan@tribpub.com
A state flag flies in front of the Illinois Capitol building on May 14 in Springfield. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)
SPRINGFIELD My disgust with our state's politicians both Republicans and Democrats reached a climax this past week as I watched lawmakers and the governor congratulate themselves for doing next to nothing.
They passed a six-month budget that spends too much and puts off the decision on raising taxes until after the November election.
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Folks, when taxes are left in the hands of a bunch of lame ducks, expect to be goosed.
The temporary budget is the prelude to what will be one of the largest tax hikes in the state's history. Oh, the lawmakers aren't saying it but the numbers in their budget tell the story: It spends more than the state takes in. Of course this act of political cowardice is being repackaged by spin masters as a "bipartisan compromise." The only thing being compromised is our state's future.
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A lot of people have suffered over the past year and one has to ask: For what? For the first time in the state's 198-year history, Illinois went an entire year without a budget. The fiscal year ended June 30 with state government hanging together with a patchwork of court orders, an education bill, chewing gum and bailing wire.
Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >
A year ago, no one thought Gov. Bruce Rauner could keep state government running a full year without a budget, but he did it. College kids didn't receive financial aid, social service agencies struggled, state universities cut positions and just about anyone who did business with the state waited months to get paid. But schools continued to operate, state workers continued to be paid, inmates continued to be locked up. And state workers continued to get their pensions.
If you believe we will see meaningful pension reform in 2016, you probably also believe in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus.
Rauner and House Speaker Mike Madigan were at loggerheads. Rauner said he would not support raising taxes unless the legislature first passed business and political reforms. Madigan just wanted to raise taxes. The speaker's minions passed a budget that spent billions more than the state had. Rauner vetoed it. And the two spent a year trading political punches.
Then Madigan raised the specter that maybe schools wouldn't open this August. His daughter, the attorney general, pondered whether to go to court and keep state workers from being paid. And folks in the administration wondered if there would be money to feed prison inmates. The state was on the brink of moving from crisis to calamity. Madigan smelled weakness and pounced.
Madigan extracted a pledge of $250 million more in local and state dollars to fund that mismanaged sump hole called Chicago Public Schools. And Rauner got a face-saving fig leaf that Chicago wouldn't get all of that money unless the legislature enacted pension reform after the election.
If you believe we will see meaningful pension reform in 2016, you probably also believe in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. It needs to happen. But I don't see it happening this year. Illinoisans have suffered this past year. And we don't have a single reform to show for it.
I keep looking for heroes in Springfield, but I just can't find any.
Scott Reeder is a veteran statehouse journalist. He works as a freelance reporter in the Springfield area and can be reached at ScottReeder1965@gmail.com.
I think that people need to stop complaining about the police not doing anything about the fireworks. Yes it's illegal but you can't expect everyone to be spoken to. Look at the size of Tinley and Orland, that's a lot of people using fireworks. By the way, it happens all over the state, not just Tinley so stop whining. Illinois should legalize fireworks for the one day and collect taxes on the sale of fireworks instead of losing out on all revenue to Indiana and Wisconsin.
KH, Tinley
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Funny to see a commercial for CBS news where it touts words like: Honesty and Integrity! Based on the screaming liberal bias of CBS, I'd say those words are hardly appropriate.
Tom, Evergreen Park
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Evert in Oak Lawn apparently doesn't like being referred to as a potential terrorist but common- sense gun laws recognize that handguns are necessary for self protection and are used for sport and target shooting. Rifles and shotguns are for hunting and target or skeet shooting. A semi-automatic is only good for killing large numbers of people quickly. If you own one, what do you plan to do with it? And don't tell me that you use the AK-47 for hunting, because you shouldn't be allowed in the woods for your own safety if you need that kind of firepower.
Al, Tinley Park
According to a comment from Evergreen Park, evidently it's perfectly alright to kill 49 people in a club like what happened in Florida, because it isn't as bad as killing nearly 3,000 with airplanes like 9/11. I just seem to think that both things are wrong. Maybe I'm goofed up.
I'm totally flabbergasted that the United States of America, with all the intelligent men and women that we have in our immense government positions, ended up with two losers going for the presidency. Presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is a complete mess, and she's been caught lying dozens of times. Some of her lying and incompetence has cost many of our military loss of lives. Just look at her. I wouldn't want her to be in charge of my outhouse. Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump is a nut case and we don't want him on our nuclear system button. How could this happen in a country noted for its intelligence? God bless us. We will need it.
Joe, Alsip
I'm a 70-year-old senior citizen and a veteran. I see where Social Security's going to go up .02 percent. We print money to make war yet you can't give the seniors and the people on Social Security a decent raise? That's disgusting. This country is disgusting. I am fed up.
Mike, Crestwood
Fact: President Barack Obama released prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Fact: Our president starts a relationship with Cuba. You know what I think? I think he's going to give back Guantanamo Bay to the Cubans. He wants everybody to play nice. It's just a thought.
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John, Bridgeport
Wow. What a deal. They're going to give a raise of $2 a month for people on Social Security. I'm not voting Republican after hearing U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan's idea of what to do with health care. He wants to change Medicare, let us pay certain things and give us vouchers to buy insurance. How does he think people on Social Security are going to have money to pay for drugs and insurance on $2-a-month raises? I'm sorry, Ryan. We don't have silver spoons in our mouths like you do. The only thing I can say is the best option is presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump's an idiot, a hothead and a liar.
Amanda
To Kay in Mokena: The U.S. Constitution and amendments were written to keep government at bay and allow citizens the liberty and freedom to live under such conditions. The Second Amendment keeps us safe. The places with the greatest issues with guns are places that have the strictest gun control like Chicago or Paris. Those places have the sign on the door saying, "No gun." It's a screaming sign that really says, "Come and get us." Pay attention to safety and security. Read the history of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. He promised that without guns everyone would be safe. He looked at all the registrations and went after all those people. Then the killing and annihilation began. History repeats itself.
Orland Park
I agree with the commenter Judy in regards to the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. I, too, do not want the museum in our state. Why should we have this man's museum? He was the worst president in history. He messed up our health care system, kept us in a war, ruined our immigration system and God knows what else. Why would we want a reminder of the man in this state? Don't we have enough problems in this state? Please put that museum elsewhere. I hope something happens and we can't have it because I certainly don't want to honor that man. He should be impeached instead of honored.
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Sara
Reading Illinois Policy Institute writer Austin Berg's columns in the Daily Southtown, I get the feeling that the State of Illinois and the Democrats are doing the same thing here that the Republicans have been doing to the federal government for the last 20 years or more stopping everything. So it doesn't seem to me to be OK for the feds to do it and the state to do it. Nobody seems to want to have a moderate view of anything and really run the business of the country, so maybe Mr. Berg should get on the federal government also. Of course he's a Republican, so that's OK with the feds.
Maybe Jake Arietta should have kept his clothes on because he cant seem to pitch anymore. Hmmm, and I thought Ron Santo selling pizzas in 1969 was bad at least he kept his clothes on.
For all those who are saying they will be forced to vote for Delusional Donald because they won't vote for Hillary, there is another choice. I'm not talking about the Libertarian or Green Party candidates. It is totally permissible to not vote for an office. Don't like the candidates running for an office, just don't vote for any of them. No law says you must vote in every race on the ballot.
Red, Chicago
Well, U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk has done it again with a vote that absolutely means nothing at all because he knows that there are enough votes to go the Republican way, so he voted for gun control because he knew there was no way that it was going to pass. Now he wants to be patted on the back for doing the right thing. This guy only votes the right way on votes where his vote will not matter.
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It's funny that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump calls presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton a world-class liar yet fact-checking website PolitiFact.com went back and looked at all the statements both candidates made throughout the campaign to this point and found that the Donald lied four times as much as Hillary did.
Rick, Monee
In reply to the commenter who says don't vote for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, I can say the same thing: Don't vote for presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. Do we want this maniac yelling? Also, he's a disgrace. He would make this country a disgrace in the whole world. He is not presidential. He doesn't have common sense. His temper is too quick. He'd bankrupt the country. Hillary might not be perfect but she's got the experience and I feel much safer with Hillary than I do with Donald. Donald, go back and play with your companies and do your Chapter 11 bankruptcies. Leave the running of the country to somebody who knows what they're doing: Hillary.
Amanda
In the United Kingdom, there are only 6.5 guns for every 100 people. However, in the good ol' United States of America there are 101 guns for every 100 people. It's really all you have to know about gun control.
Tom, Markham
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Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's way of doing business is to do a project, skim all the profit off it and then file bankruptcy for the rest of it. It's actually his business model. It's not the same as some person that goes broke and has to file bankruptcy. Donald does it to make money. If you can't see that, I feel sorry for you.
If tinted windows are against the law then why is the State of Illinois allowing car dealerships to manufacture glass windows that you can't even see through? Some of them are so dark that you don't know when you're driving up against a car if the people inside are going to pull a gun out on you or if they're flipping you off. I think the State of Illinois and specifically Tinley Park, Orland Park, Mokena and Frankfort need to start getting on these people and giving them all tickets for having a vehicle with illegal windows that you can't see in. Maybe they can start making some of this revenue money back.
I see where Chicago Police are working overtime, a lot of overtime. Kind of bad to be away from your family for the holiday. I'm sure the citizens of Chicago really care about that. But, then again, guess who is paying the tab?
Oak Forest
Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >
I do not live in Oak Forest and don't know much about Mayor Kuspa, except a couple of goofy things he's done, one of which is attempting to annex the bar on 135th & Harlem into Oak Forest. Two words for the mayor: Due diligence It is good that the residents are keeping an eye on him. It seems like he's either naive or a Slick Willy.
If the millennials would stay off Facebook, You Tube and the other basically dumb and useless forms of social media, and spend this time looking for a job, they might actually find one, and one in their field. Thirty years ago, unemployment for college grads was very low, probably because job seekers didn't have a cell phone stuck in their faces 24 hours a day communicating with their friends on 200 different web sites. Try putting the cell phone and computer away (except for sending out resumes) until you get a job. You may be pleased with the result.
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There were very few American flags flown on Memorial Day and on Flag Day. Patriotism appears to be dying in America. In the future, Americans might be told what flag they can fly and what flag they can't fly.
Well, thank you. I just put my magnifying glass away because I was trying to read the TV listings and they stink. I can't even read them, and how come you have only just from such a time to such a time? It used to be from 6 p.m.-midnight. I do not like the new format. You putting that thing in from the editors? It stinks.
Emily, Tinley Park
What's Speak Out?
Speak Out allows readers to comment on the issues of the day. Email Speak Out at speakout@southtownstar.com or call 312-222-2427. Please limit comments to 30 seconds or about 120 words and give your first name and your hometown.
HOLLYWOOD, CA Cindy Starfall heads to Oklahoma City for a set of special appearances. July 7 - 9, Starfall will be performing at the Little Darlings and Deja Vu Gentlemens clubs. For fans who really want to get up close and personal, she will be available for private lapdances. Joining her will be adult stars London Keyes and Marcia Hase.
Its going to be a hot set of shows, said Cindy. We have an exciting group of girls that love to get naked, tempt and tease. I'll be there and looking out for my Club Starfall members to make sure they get special treatment.
Fans can become Club Starfall members by signing up for her special VIP social group. Benefits include personal phone messages, special web store offers, merchandise discounts, and more. Information on Club Starfall can be found on CindyStarfall.net.
Deja Vu Showgirls is located at 1540 SE 59th St in Oklahoma City, with Little Darlings adjacent at 1500 SE 59th St. More information on Deja Vu can be found at DejaVuOKC.com and Little Darlings at LittleDarlingsOKC.com.
I really am not all that enthused about presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for president, but I do realize that if we put a Republican in the White House, we might as well kiss everything goodbye. The Republican U.S. House of Representatives is being led by U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan and his crazy budget ideas, enriching the 1 percent even more and taking it from the regular people. It's enough to ruin the country. Also, all these old white guys voting Republican will regret that they voted Republican when the chickens come home to roost. I happen to be an old white guy on Social Security, and I'm highly concerned about what the Republican Party has been doing.
To Joe from Oak Lawn who came back from Vietnam with only one arm: I am so sorry to hear that, Joe. I, like you, am a Vietnam War veteran and I was not as unfortunate. I would like to thank you for your service to our country. However, in presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's eyes you are no hero. Donald's heroes come back with both arms.
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Dave, Oak Lawn
What the white man did to the Native American is a well-documented abomination. Probably the greatest quote was from Pontiac, the Ottawa Indian chief, who said this: "They came with a Bible and their religion. They stole our land and crushed our spirit, and now tell us we should be thankful to the Lord for being saved."
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Billy, Lockport
I don't know why retired Gen. Colin Powell hasn't run for president of the United States. He's a true American. He's been through it all, and he's about No. 1 with a level head. He should have ran. It would have been a complete washout for everybody.
RC, Oak Lawn
Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >
I'm a disgusted grandmother. To Lincoln-Way Community High School District 210 Superintendent Scott Tingley: Principal Mark Cohen spent a year preparing his Lincoln-Way North High School students for their transfer to Lincoln-Way East High School in Frankfort. The students were well-prepared and moving graciously. It's too bad the L-Way East people didn't prepare their students to welcome the students coming to join them. There's a lot of animosity floating around out there, not only among the students but a little bit of faculty. This was witnessed by two grandparents on a recent morning and we didn't like it. I hope you can do something to remedy the situation with your students at L-Way East. Make them a little more welcoming.
Tinley Park
Well, the talking heads and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel have come up with another way of messing with the taxpayers of Chicago. We got a notice that we're going to have residential parking only but to park by your own house, you're going to need a sticker. Of course, the stickers going to cost you money. So that means now we have to pay to park by our house on a street that we paid for with our taxes in the first place. Way to go, Rahm. Way to go, talking heads in the Chicago City Council.
Pete, Chicago
I'm getting sick and tired of watching these advertisements for Walgreens and others saying, "With card, with card, with card." What happened to just money, just money, just money? Actually, I'm waiting for the day you go to a funeral parlor and they won't accept you unless you have a card. It's really stupid. You can't even buy a car without a card. I'm exaggerating, but who knows? You go in a place like a restaurant and they say, "Oh, do you have a card?" You get gasoline and they ask, "Do you have a card?" You can't have things unless you have a card. It's kind of stupid. What's wrong with money? That's what makes the world go 'round.
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What's Speak Out?
Speak Out allows readers to comment on the issues of the day. Email Speak Out at speakout@southtownstar.com or call 312-222-2427. Please limit comments to 30 seconds or about 120 words and give your first name and your hometown.
For all you supporters out there of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton: It isn't enough that President Barack Obama ruined this country for nearly eight years. You guys are going to go vote for her? You need a mental health examination.
President Barack Obama has had nearly eight years to stop the immigrants who are here illegally and the foreigners that were entering the United States of America. He also had nearly eight years to ban war weapons and automatic weapons. He has done zero to stop the terrorist people from illegally entering the United States of America. Now this latest slaughter in Orlando, Florida, is just the tip of the iceberg. It has been nearly eight years wasted. Nice going, Prez.
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Joe, Alsip
I find the Southtown comic section no longer comical. I always looked forward to reading the funny pages, but the funny cartoons have been eliminated and replaced with junk. What brainiac make these executive decisions, as they have no sense of humor whatsoever.
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Bob, Homer Glen
It would be hard to believe the vitriol coming from many Speak Out commenters in regards to Muhammad Ali, until you realize that bigots often make fools of themselves. Yes, he has been ranked as the greatest boxer of all time by many experts and polls, not just something he and/or the liberal media has said. His name was Muhammad Ali, the name he chose and legally changed. Too bad if that offends you, but his right to do so. And dodging the draft during the Vietnam conflict? A constitutional right that he was willing to go to prison for, and a "war" we should have all resisted. Ali was one of the bravest men in my lifetime.
Denny, Orland Park
We've been subscribing to the Southtown since back when it was single-fold. We do not like the most recent changes made. Please bring back the original Southtown comics, especially "Pickles," "Stone Soup" and "Marmaduke." Eliminate the ones that aren't really funny. Also bring back a crossword puzzle on Sunday.
Ken and Peg, Chicago
Why is it that Social Security and Medicare are always going to run out of money, but other programs such as food stamps, refugee resettlement, Medicaid, Obamacare and foreign aid to countries that hate the United States are always fully funded?
Rick, Evergreen Park
Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >
What's up with the Metra tracks on Ridgeland in Chicago Ridge? They are just horribly bumpy and they are not that old. Surely they can be fixed better.
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Burbank
More from a concerned citizen about Democrats having to compromise: I went to school in 1940 during the war. I lost my father during the war. We struggled all our lives. We never were on public aid. We're proud Americans, not like these deadbeats now. We didn't get anything for nothing. We grew up. I've got successful children. This country stinks. President Barack Obama and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton are the bottom. Even in the Republican Party, you've got one that's no good. The only one I like is Trump. He thinks the same way me and my senior friends think. You, the press, are as bad and part of the problem. Wake up before it's too late.
To Dave B. from Orland Park: Thank you for calling me a goof. It's not fair what's happening because you don't agree with my statements. Many people wouldn't agree with you. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump opens his mouth and tries to retract his statements later. Do we want this for a president? Imagine him with North Korean nut Kim Jong-un. That'll be a race to see who blows up who first. As far as Trump's casinos and businesses declaring bankruptcy and how everybody does it, would you like the United States to do that? Also, if his wife, Melania, is so intelligent, why does she pose nude and in her underwear? Maybe you better think your statements over.
Emily
What's Speak Out?
Speak Out allows readers to comment on the issues of the day. Email Speak Out at speakout@southtownstar.com or call 312-222-2427. Please limit comments to 30 seconds or about 120 words and give your first name and your hometown.
Backyard chickens will not be making their debut in Sleepy Hollow.
At Tuesday's board meeting, trustees sided with the Zoning Board's recommendation not to change the village's ordinance to allow for them.
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The vote was 4-3, with trustees Don Ziemba, Jeff Seiler, Scott Finney and Village President Stephan Pickett casting the nay votes. Trustees Dennis Fudala, Russell Getz and Joe Nemec voted against prohibiting them.
Pickett, who cast the tie-breaking vote, said during the Zoning Board's public hearing a few weeks ago several residents spoke out against the proposal. He also had residents contact him personally saying they did not want the village to change its ordinance.
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"They felt it didn't fit the character of the village. That we're rural and not agricultural," Pickett said.
The proposal to allow for backyard chickens was brought up by a resident at a board meeting in May. Frank Redisi, executive chef at Elgin's Cafe Roma, told trustees he spoke with a village official in January who said having a backyard chicken coop would not be an issue. An opportunity arose for him to acquire the Bresse breed of chickens, which are French in origin, and because Redisi was told they were allowed in Sleepy Hollow he got them and invested in an incubator for his basement.
Redisi said he then received a call saying the village's ordinance does not allow for them. He asked the village to reconsider.
East Dundee officials approved changing its ordinance to allow for backyard hens last September. Earlier this year Elgin opted to continue its program that started in 2015 which allows a select number of homeowners to keep backyard chickens.
Erin Sauder is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
Isaac Okaa of Chicago is a student and employee at Triton College. Okaa has returned to Chicago after living in several different places around the world.
Q: Where did you grow up?
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A: I grew up a bit in Nigeria and then the United States. I also lived in London for a little bit. When I lived in the United States, I was between New Jersey and New York.
Q: What's one thing that people should see when they go to London?
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A: They have to go see a soccer game!
Q: Where were you born?
A: I was born in Chicago. My mom was a diplomat, so we moved to a lot of places. I came back here because I was born here. This is my city!
Q: When did you come back to Chicago?
A: I came back here in 2011.
Q: What's your position at Triton College?
A: I work in the financial aid office. I'm part the program board, the organization in charge of campus events. I'm also in TCSA and student ambassadors.
Q: What do you do in the financial aid office?
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A: With the financial aid office, we help students through the process of paying for their classes. We help them with their documents.
Q: What do you like the most about working at Triton?
A: The people. The people are always willing to help you out. They're willing to bring out the best in you.
Q: What are your plans this summer?
A: I'm taking a Spanish class and a sociology class. It's keeping me busy. I'm going to figure out where I'm going to transfer after Triton College.
Maryann Pisano is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
The trial for a man accused of a 2013 child kidnapping and sexual assault in Mundelein has been put off just two days before jury selection was to begin.
Jose Reyes, now 30, of Chicago, is charged with predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, aggravated kidnapping and possession and production of child pornography. If convicted, he faces a minimum sentence of 24 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections and could be sentenced to life in prison.
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Prosecutors allege Reyes kidnapped the child, sexually assaulted her and had images of her on cell phones allegedly in his possession when he was arrested.
On Wednesday, Circuit Court Judge Mark Levitt rescheduled the trial, which has been delayed in the past, to Oct. 17 because of witness-availability, Assistant State's Attorney Fred Day said.
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"We wanted it to be resolved this month," Day said of the trial, which is expected to last two weeks and include 23 witnesses. Jury selection was to have been held Friday with the trial starting Monday.
Day said that while witness subpoenas had been issued, availability conflicts still arose involving potentially key witnesses. He said steps are being taken to ensure the same problem doesn't arise in October.
At the request of defense attorneys, a psychological evaluation was ordered for Reyes in 2014 and he was found mentally fit to stand trial.
Reyes, who had worked in Libertyville, was arrested Oct. 2, 2013, for the alleged abduction of the 3-year-old girl Sept. 30, 2013, near the entrance to a condominium complex on Deepwoods Drive in the village.
According to police, the toddler was walking with her mother, who was carrying an infant son, and her older sister to a building in Diamond Lake Condominiums just prior to the abduction.
She was missing for about 30 minutes before she was returned to the area.
Reyes is being held in the Lake County Jail in lieu of $5 million bond.
jrnewton@tribpub.com
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Twitter @jimnewton5
Market Square in Lake Forest celebrates its centennial anniversary this year and local historians are working to make sure current residents are aware of its historic importance.
While the square now has sections listed on the National Register of Historic Places, when first built it was considered to be on the cutting edge of municipal planning.
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"It was the first town center planned around motor vehicles," said Arthur Miller, a retired archivist and librarian at Lake Forest College and an authority on Lake Forest history. "It was the beginning of a particular architecture type which is the mall. In a lot of places they didn't have cars. They were all rich people in Lake Forest and they had cars."
In honor of the anniversary, the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Historical Society has created individualized panels showcasing the previous occupants of every store since 1916. The panels, which are located in store windows and also at the east train station, will hang until September.
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Before Market Square was built, there were businesses located along Western Avenue near the train station, however they were of a slightly different variety.
Lake Forest's Market Square pictured in 1917. (Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Historical)
"Behind the frontage was a kind of alley with barns, the town dog pound," said Laurie Stein, a curator at the historical society. "Some of the Lake Forest Improvement Trustees described the appearance as an older western town. There were some brick buildings and some wood. Some of the wood buildings had false fronts like you see in the old west. It was not planned in any way. It developed piecemeal."
The early 1900s were a time of major growth in Lake Forest, Stein said. The wealthy were building estates and immigrants came to Lake Forest to work on those estates. Both needed goods and services.
"When Lake Forest was founded, business was something that was conducted in Chicago," Stein said. "Once Lake Forest had grown by the turn of the century, that kind of needed to be changed. Other prominent town buildings city hall, the new train station - were giving a more civic appearance to the downtown area."
A group of residents decided it was time to build a shopping area. The group included architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, Cyrus McCormick of International Harvester and Chicago real estate developer Arthur Aldis, among others.
"It took them a while to get organized," Miller said. "There were no tax deductions back then. Rent would pay the bills. They sold stock and raised the money to build it."
World War I had recently started in Europe, which made it difficult or impossible for Europeans to raise crops and animals for food. Businesses in the United States, particularly in the Chicago area, were selling pork and crops to Europe.
"That helped them to finally fund Market Square," Miller said. "Fortunately they got it done before the U.S. entered World War I because everything stopped then."
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It cost the businessmen who formed the Lake Forest Improvement Trust $229,000 to buy the property and another $520,000 or so for construction, Stein said. Construction began in the fall of 1915 and was largely completed by the summer of 1916.
Cristina Badea, of Highland Park, walks with her children Madison and Dublin Badea-Boffeli, past one of the history posters in the window of a Market Square shop. (Rob Dicker / Pioneer Press)
Once Market Square was built, there were still challenges. One was the unusual design that resulted in many of the shops being set far back from Western Avenue.
"It raised some concern among future tenants, this U-shaped design," Stein said. "Some stores would be in the back. Some of those tenants needed reassurance."
The trustees managed to bring in First National Bank of Lake Forest, now Northern Trust, and a post office.
"Having the bank and post office in the back of the square meant people would have to go there," Stein said.
The first tenant was a barber, Charlie Paulson, Stein said. In the early years there was a plumber, hardware store, grocery store, a shoe store, a tire shop and a real estate firm.
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Some businesses were a bit more reminiscent of the time. There was the short-lived A.L. Lachman Scientific Massage, which offered special treatments for reducing weight including, "medical gymnastics and electrical treatments" according to an advertisement from the early 1920s.
There was also a men's clothing store owned by Meyer Kubelsky, who was the father of comedian Jack Benny.
"Benny would sometimes come to visit and sign autographs," Stein said.
The Great Depression proved difficult for Market Square and some businesses didn't last. Owners had to lower rents for much of the 1930s, Stein said. By the 1960s and 1970s, some of the original architectural features had become somewhat rundown, Stein said.
The Lake Forest Improvement Trust owned Market Square until 1984, paying dividends to stockholders the entire time, Miller said. The trust sold the square to Broadacre Management, which completed a major restoration.
Broadacre sold to L3 Capital in 2013 for $35.5 million. That firm recently conducted a $5 million renovation.
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mlawton@pioneerlocal.com
Twitter: @reporterdude
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif.Each year, the AW Awards celebrates the most influential companies and top talent in the live cam industry, and at their recent AW Awards show in Romania, Flirt4Frees top model and affiliate Stefano won the award for 2016 CamBoy of the Year.
In June, Stefano celebrated his 12-year anniversary on Flirt4Free, and continues to be one of the most recognizable and highest earning male models on the site. His popularity in front of the camera is due in part to his unique performance aesthetic, gorgeous looks, and ability to connect with his fansall of which provide a true example of what models and performers in the industry should strive to be.
Fans are the key to success, and Stefano boasts a loyal following. "Stefano is truly in a league of his own, stated Gregory Clayman, Flirt4Frees company president.
His accomplishments include several Hall of Fame titles on the site such as Most Contests Won, Most Distinct Spenders (of all time), as well as the recipient of Flirt of the Week several times over.
There are very few that will ever come close to what Stefanos accomplished, and were proud that hes a member of the Flirt4Free family, said Clayman.
His performance abilities and success both on and off the site place Stefano in a league of his own. He is the #1 male model of all time on Flirt4Free, as well as a very successful longtime affiliate.
The AW Summit in Mamaia was simply brilliant. said Stefano. It was an amazing experience to meet people from industry, have fun at everyday events, and surprisingly win best male model prize.
When asked to share a few thoughts about winning the award, Stefano replied, I want to thank my fans for the votes, my friends, and also Flirt4free for being my site and keeping me happy and comfortable from day one, over 12 years ago.
I also want to congratulate Flirt4free for winning Best Boys/Gay Camsite of the Year. Stefano added. We rock the male part of industry!
Naperville police wrote 130 tickets and made seven DUI arrests over a stepped-up, 12-day law enforcement crackdown for the Fourth of July holiday period. (handout / Naperville Sun)
A four-hour dragnet and a 12-day traffic law crackdown ended with 130 tickets being issued and seven people being busted for DUI in Naperville.
The citations handed out as part of the Fourth of July holiday enforcement effort conducted from June 22 through Sunday bested last year's tally of 123 citations, which were issued over a 10-day period between June 24 and July 3, 2015, said Sgt. Derek Zook, supervisor of the police department's traffic division.
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This year's total included 35 issued during a "roadside safety check" police conducted between 10:30 p.m. June 24 and 2:30 a.m. June 25 at Fifth Avenue and Washington Street, north of the city's downtown.
Four of the seven driving under the influence arrests made during the enforcement effort occurred during the roadside check, Zook said. Police records identified those drivers as Anthony J. Hegger, 23, of Lisle; Jonathan M. Kuthe, 31, of Wood Dale; Ivan A. Perez-Garcia, 21, of Romeoville; and Christian K. Taylor, 22, also of Lisle.
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Last year's Fourth of July holiday roadside check was conducted June 26 at All Saints Catholic Academy, 1155 Aurora Ave. Zook said 46 tickets were issued during that effort, which included four DUI arrests.
In addition to the seven DUIs, this year's enforcement effort saw 40 tickets issued for seat belt violations, 25 for speeding and 22 to people using their cell phones while driving, Zook said.
The total also included eight tickets to motorists driving without insurance, four to drivers with open containers of alcohol in their vehicles, three for marijuana and drug paraphernalia violations and one motorist who was driving with a suspended or revoked license, he said.
"In 2014, on average, one person was killed every 53 minutes in a drunk-driving crash in the United States," Zook wrote Wednesday in a statement. "That means there was a total of 9,967 drunk-driving fatalities that year in America."
"These enforcement crackdowns are vital because too many people are not heeding the message: Drunk driving is deadly and illegal," Zook said. "Alcohol not only dangerously impairs your driving skills, it impairs your judgment. Anytime you see a friend drinking alcohol, make sure they don't plan to drive home."
The Naperville law enforcement efforts were part of the statewide "Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over" and "Click It or Ticket" campaigns, which are funded with federal traffic safety grants through the Illinois Department of Transportation.
wbird@tribpub.com
Some of the smaller visitors to this year's Ribfest had a little help getting around courtesy of strollers -- and mom. (David Sharos / Naperville Sun)
Pleasant weather, good food and popular musicians drew what is expected to be a record-breaking crowd to this weekend's Ribfest, hosted by the Exchange Club of Naperville.
Only one person was arrested over the long weekend event, organizers said, which ran from Friday through Monday.
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"I would argue it's one of the biggest turnouts we've ever had over four days," Naperville Police Sgt. Steve Schindlbeck said. "The weather played a big part in that."
Schindlbeck estimated at least 200,000 people, or about 50,000 per day, passed through the entry gates at Knoch Park. "I think 200,000 is conservative," Schindlbeck said.
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The lone arrest was of a 32-year-old Orland Park man who was charged with trespassing and being an intoxicated pedestrian in the roadway, Schindlbeck said.
Ribfest is the biggest fundraiser for the Exchange Club of Naperville, with proceeds going to help victims of child and domestic abuse. The amount raised will not be tallied for another month or so, chairwoman Jennifer Cavalier said.
Temperatures hovered in the mid- to upper-70s during the day and the 60s at night for most of the July 4 holiday weekend, with overcast skies making it appealing to those who prefer not to sweat while sampling their ribs or enjoying a night of live music. There was no rain.
The musical headliners 3 Doors Down, Sheryl Crow, Lee Brice and Gin Blossoms and Tonic proved to be big draws as well.
"Saturday and Sunday, with the talent we had, it was hard for people to find a spot on the grass" where they could sit and listen, Cavalier said.
An unexpectedly popular attraction was the amateur corn-on-the-cob eating contest, sponsored by Challenge Butter, Cavalier said. At the beginning of the weekend competitors needed about a minute to finish an ear of corn, she said. By Monday, a teenager downed it in 37 seconds.
Ribfest spokesman Ray Kinney said a stage filled with Chicago blues musicians not only proved quite popular Monday, but helped spread out the crowd.
"It was a good way to split the crowd," Kinney said. "All signs indicate we had a very successful year."
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Naperville City Councilman Kevin Coyne said he, his wife and their young daughter were at the festival every day, either volunteering or eating and enjoying the music.
"It seemed a little crowded, but not uncomfortable crowded," said Coyne, whose favorite musical act was the Gin Blossoms.
Coyne said he ate ribs every day of the festival.
"I won't need to eat ribs again for awhile," he said.
Gbookwalter@tribpub.com
Twitter @GenevieveBook
Naperville Township's highway commissioner will learn Friday if a DuPage County judge will reinstate the budget he said he needs to continue providing road services and pay staff.
"She could give me the whole budget, she could give me last year's budget, she could give me no new budget," Stan Wojtasiak said. "Everything circles around Friday."
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DuPage County Circuit Judge Bonnie Wheaton has scheduled a Friday hearing in the lawsuit Wojtasiak filed in May after the Naperville Township Board cut his roads budget by more than $540,000. The amount slashed was equal to the cost savings officials estimated could have been achieved if the township agreed to an intergovernmental agreement in which the city of Naperville would maintain the township's 16 to 20 miles of road.
Wojtasiak was incensed by the board's action, and charged it was "retaliation" for his decision to reject the city's offer.
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The suit asks for a preliminary injunction that would restore the cut funding until a final decision is made in court. Without the money, Wojtasiak said, he will not be able to pay salaries and will be forced to lay off employees.
Township Supervisor Rachel Ossyra and trustees Janice Anderson and Kerry Malm are named as defendents because they voted to alter the budget; the remaining trustees did not.
Attorney Steve Adams, representing Naperville Township, has asked the case be thrown out.
Ossyra defended the board's action Wednesday and called it "an important first step toward establishing a smarter, sustainable and more cost-effective service delivery model for our residents."
Initially, Wojtasiak and his attorney, Rick Tarulis, said some staff would be let go June 30 if the budget was not restored. That action was postponed, Tarulis said, because Wojtasiak was able to dip into money earmarked for snowplow driver overtime.
Wojtasiak also said he could ask for township board permission to transfer money between funds to help cover worker salaries.
Naperville Mayor Steve Chirico said he predicts the case will set a precedent for Illinois township law.
"I expect whoever loses to appeal," he said.
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City officials first broached the idea of taking over unincorporated road maintenance in February, estimating the city could save taxpayers about $700,000 a year over what the township was paying. Unincorporated residents and those who live within the Naperville city limits both pay for township roads and both would benefit financially from the switch, officials said.
After Wojtasiak rejected the city's offer, the Naperville City Council approved placing two nonbinding referendums on the November ballot. One asks if Naperville voters support the city to taking over maintenance of township roads. The other asks if voters support the dissolution of townships within city limits.
gbookwalter@tribpub.com
Twitter @GenevieveBook
Fight for $15 protesters gather at McDonald's, 111 W. Madison St., in Oak Park, before the July 5 village board meeting. The group is seeking a $15 an hour minimum wage throughout Chicago's suburbs. (Steve Schering / Pioneer Press)
Though Oak Park is seeking to establish a minimum wage for its village employees and contractors, officials still left a room full of vocal Fight for $15 protesters disappointed.
Before the July 5 meeting, dozens of Fight for $15 protesters gathered at McDonald's, 111 Madison St. They then entered the board room across the street. The group has been seeking a $15 an hour minimum wage for Chicago and its suburbs, and it touted Chicago's recent minimum wage increase to $10.50.
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Village staff, however, said it is their belief the state does not allow municipalities the right to set minimum wages, which led to the recommended increase for village employees and certain contractors only.
"There's a body of law that provides municipalities cannot pass a body of law that touches upon a matter of statewide concern," village attorney Paul Stephanides said.
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Stephanides cited the Bernardi vs. City of Highland Park case, in which Highland Park attempted in 1983 to award a public works contract without complying with provisions of the Illinois Prevailing Wage Act.
"The [Illinois] Supreme Court said Highland Park cannot do this," Stephanides said. "The same principal would apply to a minimum wage ordinance that would be a matter of statewide concern."
Trustee Colette Lueck, along with Trustee Adam Salzman, brought the matter before the board and asked why Chicago was able to increase its minimum wage on July 1.
"To date, Chicago has not been legally challenged on its minimum wage ordinance," Stephanides said. "Right now, it stands without a legal challenge. It is susceptible to challenge, though."
The explanation left many in the audience disappointed and angry, with some trustees sharing their frustrations.
Fight for $15 protesters enter the Oak Park Village Hall before the July 5 village board meeting. The group is seeking a $15 an hour minimum wage throughout Chicago's suburbs. (Steve Schering / Pioneer Press)
"It's not the answer you want to hear," Lueck said. "It may not be the answer some of the board members want to hear, but it's the answer we have. I totally appreciate the upset, the sentiment, but it doesn't change what I can do. I have to follow the legal advice we get as a board."
Among the protesters at the meeting was Maria Torres, who through a translator shared her story of working at Oak Park's McDonald's for the past eight years.
"I only make $9.75 an hour," Torres said. "[The ordinance] is a good step forward, but we are here to insist all workers in Oak Park need $15. The minimum wage in Chicago went to $10.50 last week, but it's still $8.25 in Oak Park and the suburbs. This isn't fair. The workers and our families and our communities are being left behind."
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The matter of a living wage ordinance in Oak Park dates to a November 2008 non-binding referendum in which voters support a living wage in Oak Park. Numerous meetings were held to discuss the matter, but a village board vote failed in 2010.
With support for increasing the minimum wage growing again, the village board decided to look at the matter once more. Salzman and Lueck asked village staff on May 2 to place the item on a future agenda for discussion.
Ultimately, the village board unanimously asked staff to prepare an ordinance establishing a minimum wage of $12 per hour for Oak Park village employees and certain employees of contractors/grantees of the village government with contracts for services in excess of $25,000 per year. The motion is expected to be a phased implementation beginning in 2017 and 2018, with a review taking place in July 2018 for future rates.
As many left the board room disappointed, trustees said the proposal is a good step toward an ultimate goal.
"I share the frustration of everybody in this room," Salzman said. "I understand this ordinance might not be everything we all hoped it would be. At the same time, let's not lose sight that it represents a step forward and a step ahead towards economic justice. I look forward to the opportunity to review it and discuss how we can get the most impact from it."
sschering@pioneerlocal.com
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Twitter: @steveschering
The village of Oak Park has awarded Robinson's No. 1 Ribs a $100,000 grant to complete improvements at its new location at 848 Madison St. (Steve Schering / Pioneer Press)
The Oak Park Village Board has awarded a $100,000 grant to Robinson's No. 1 Ribs to assist the business in completing its new location on Madison Street, though one trustee expressed her concerns about the deal.
According to a village memo, the original Robinson's Ribs location at 940 Madison St. has been owned and operated by the Robinson family since 1982.
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In December 2015, Robinson's signed a 10-year lease to move to a vacant space at 848 Madison St., the former site of Leona's Italian Restaurant. While planning the move, the restaurant sold its former location to the village for $495,000. The village hopes to redevelop the former Robinson's parcel along with the neighboring District 97 Administration Building once school officials vacate it later this fall.
"As I read this, it looked like we had an agreement with Robinson's. They're moving forward, their costs exceeded what they anticipated by $100,000 and they came back to the village and asked for that money," Trustee Colette Lueck said at the July 5 village board meeting. "Then my question would be, anybody opening a new business on Madison would therefore have the right to come to the village and say, 'I have unexpected costs that I'd like paid out of the [Madison Street tax increment financing district].' "
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Village staff, however, said Robinson's chose to ignore other offers while selling its former property to the village. Staff felt the grant was fair.
"They made the case they had foregone other offers for that property in order to help the village being able to attain the two properties together," development customer services director Tammie Grossman said. "When they were looking at rehab expenses in the new building, they identified a $100,000 shortfall, and because of their willingness to work with the village on the sale price, the Oak Park Economic Development Corporation felt it was appropriate for them to work out the grant and stay on Madison Street."
According to a letter from Economic Development Corporation Executive Director John Lynch, the combination of the old Robinson's location along with the District 97 building will allow for maximum redevelopment of both properties.
In his letter, Lynch estimates the village can build 21 new town homes on both sites, which have the potential to generate $200,000 per year in property taxes, or a new retail building with potential to generate approximately $250,000 in combined sales and property taxes.
"In the end, it's going to end up paying for itself and a lot more when these two pieces of property are assembled in that particular location," Mayor Anan Abu-Taleb said. "So it's a very appealing investment for the taxpayers."
Lueck said her issue was more with the process of the deal, and Lueck cast the lone dissent as the village board approved the grant by a 6-1 vote.
"If I were sitting out in the audience, it would look to me they essentially came back for another bite at the apple," Lueck said. "I have no issue with the agreement at all. It's a very legitimate way to advance economic development in Oak Park. My disagreement is with how this appears to the public when they're reading this writeup."
Trustee Adam Salzman suggested creating a procedure for businesses who are seeking a similar village grant to avoid any future concerns.
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"Going forward, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to discuss if people want to improve their properties and want to get a grant in order to improve their properties in a TIF district," Salzman said. "We should have a process around that."
sschering@pioneerlocal.com
Twitter: @steveschering
A measure adopted by the Indiana State Board of Education on Wednesday may pave the way for Gary's Theodore Roosevelt Career and Technical Academy to make the transition into a transformation zone/innovative school network.
The board approved a recommendation to hire a liaison and a program manager. The consultants will work to help the Gary Community School Corp. and EdisonLearning Inc. hammer out an agreement as well as reach out to stakeholders in the community. Board spokesman Josh Gillespie said the consultants will hopefully have an agreement in place by winter, with approval before the state board coming in the spring.
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Gillespie said the consultants will be paid by the state with one-year vendor contracts. The project manager will be paid $55,000 and the liaison $75,000. The state will start the interview and hiring process next week.
EdisonLearning has operated Roosevelt as a turnaround academy for the past five years. In April, the board approved an additional year for EdisonLearning at the helm with the condition that it make changes in partnership with Gary Community School Corp.
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Roosevelt became a turnaround academy in 2011 after it received a grade of F for six straight years. Student achievement has increased by 26 percent in math and 12 percent in English, but its letter grade is still an F.
Under the transformation zone reform model, students from low-performing schools would be grouped together, fed into Roosevelt and receive extra support. The innovative school network gives schools autonomy to create charter-like innovations in order to improve struggling schools.
Gillespie said it's the first time that an Indiana school has tried the transformation zone/innovative school network model.
Gary and EdisonLearning officials said they are seeking funding for the initiative from state, federal and private sources.
The state board also approved withholding more than $2.53 million in district funds and directing them to Roosevelt through the end of 2016. The funds will be used to raise test scores, transform instruction and adjust school climate. Roosevelt received $2.36 million for the same period in 2015. The payments begin July 15. They are based on a 650-student population, but that could be adjusted based on student head count in September.
Gary Superintendent Cheryl Pruitt signed a document, dated June 21, acknowledging the payments.
Charter funding
Two local charter schools Gary's Steel City Academy and Merrillville's Heritage Institute of Arts & Technology were awarded $1 million loans by board vote. The payments come from monthly state tuition support grants.
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Both schools are scheduled to open in August. The loans will be used for startup costs, including facilities improvement, instruction, administrative, technology and debt service.
Educator training accreditation
The board also approved the accreditation of Purdue University Northwest's College of Education through the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. A site visit was conducted last fall, and Purdue was recognized for having no "areas for improvement relative to any of the standards."
cnance@post-trib.com
Edward Schroeder, 42, of Starke County, participates in the Porter County Jail's Therapeutic Community drug treatment program. He would like to see federal funds for combating heroin and opioid abuse used for treatment programs. (Amy Lavalley / Post-Tribune)
Edward Schroeder is in Porter County Jail for possessing a syringe.
Schroeder, 42, of Starke County, said the needle was for injecting heroin, an addiction that started when he was 22. It all started for him, he said, after being prescribed opiates after a back injury. Within a few years, he said he was addicted to heroin.
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He could post bond to get out of jail but told his attorney he'd rather stay to complete the jail's new Therapeutic Community drug treatment program, which started June 13.
"I chose to stay here to get treatment," he said. "I get more help in this pod than I ever could outside."
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President Barack Obama is asking Congress to approve $1.1 billion for a multi-faceted approach to address what the administration calls the prescription opioid and heroin epidemic that includes expanding access to treatment, among other points.
If approved, Indiana would be eligible for up to $19 million over two years to expand access to treatment.
According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided by the administration, Porter County had an average drug poisoning death rate of more than 15 deaths per 100,000 people from 2010 to 2014.
Lake County, by comparison, had an average of five to 10 deaths.
"To me, it's a real no-brainer. I would like to see a long-term treatment facility," with detox, said Porter County Coroner Chuck Harris, adding Porter County has no such facility now.
"Right now our largest treatment facility is the jail, and it's better than nothing," he continued, adding that last year, a woman died of a heroin overdose while her husband was in the room. Harris said the man wasn't arrested and died a few days later of an overdose. "If he'd gone to jail, at least he'd have been alive."
For the first five months of 2015, Harris said Porter County saw 10 total deaths from opioid use, including four from heroin. During the same period this year, there were 19 opioid deaths in Porter County, 10 of which were from heroin.
Even though a growing number of the county's first responders carry naloxone, an opioid antidote, the number of deaths from the drugs continue to rise, Harris said, though numbers last year were down a bit from naloxone use.
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"It's kind of misleading in that people don't think heroin is a problem in Porter County and that's just not the truth," he said, adding heroin deaths will continue to rise even with naloxone. For all of last year, 23 people died from opioid overdoses, 12 of which were from heroin.
For Porter County Sheriff David Reynolds, tackling the county's drug problem requires a three-pronged approach of education, law enforcement and treatment, and if Porter County were to receive its share of federal funds, he would like to see them used for all three tactics.
Last year, he and Harris put together a video on heroin addiction with jail inmates from Porter County. The video has garnered more than 80,000 views on YouTube and been shown to thousands of middle and high school students in the county.
The county also has started a Heroin Overdose Response Team that responds to all overdoses, fatal or not, to gather evidence including phone records "so we can connect the dots," Reynolds said.
Additionally, 95 percent of the inmates at the jail have a substance abuse problem. "If we can work with inmates in the jail, they won't victimize us when they get out," he added.
That's where Therapeutic Community comes in. The 12-week pilot program, run by Porter-Starke Services, provides a holistic approach to drug addiction. Inmates are screened for the program, which also includes the opportunity to earn a high school equivalency diploma and career planning.
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The jail also offers a chemical dependency and addictions program but Therapeutic Community is more intensive, said Gwen Schilling, an addictions therapist. The program has 15 inmates living in a pod together.
"This is lifestyle," she said, adding inmates who participate cannot have a history of violent crime; must have committed a low-level felony that will keep them in jail to complete the program; and undergo an interview process with jail administrators.
With additional funding, the program could be expanded for more inmates and could grow to include women, said fellow therapist Dennis Mallonee.
Joe D., 39, of Valparaiso, who declined to give his last name, landed back in jail when he violated his probation for dealing heroin, after serving a prison term. He was clean for several years when a series of events, including a divorce, surgery and a financial crisis, led him back to drug use and the arrest that put him in jail, he said.
"I had to start over," he said, adding Therapeutic Community is structured with morning and afternoon classes, and evening meetings and guest speakers. "When I heard about this program, I felt it was meant to be."
Amy Lavalley is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
We've discovered director Hayley Rice's secret but we're not telling. We will reveal that it has to do with the fairies in her production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for First Folio Theatre and that it's a very clever concept.
"It's going to be set in what one would consider a very traditional manner of staging Shakespeare. A lot of it's set in the Renaissance, Shakespeare's time," Rice said of her concept. "With the fairies, things get a little weirder." Yes, indeed.
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The always mischievous fairy Puck is played by Sydney Germaine.
"I think Puck is a combination of Narcissus, from the Greek story, and a little bit Deadpool, from the recent movie," Germaine said. Also thrown into the mix is Ursula Zandt, from the "Watchmen" comic book series. "She was this rebellious, mischievous lesbian character," Germaine said.
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This is the first outdoor performance for Germaine, but they previously played Ariel in a production of "The Tempest" so this role shouldn't be much of a stretch.
Johanna McKenzie Miller spends time in both the real world as Hippolyta and the realm of the fairies as Titania.
"It's fun to get to be these two women who are very different yet they have quite a few similarities," Miller said. "They're both queens and they're both powerful. They both know what they want. They just have different ways of going about getting what they want."
There are other differences. Hippolyta, who is an Amazon queen, "has a quietness and a strength about her. She is in this relatively new relationship with Theseus, the Duke of Athens. It's not necessarily a love match. It's more of a political connect."
Titania differs from Hippolyta because, "She's magical," Miller said. "She has powers to do fairy-like things and, because she's without the constraints of society and some people would argue morality she can behave however she likes. There's no fear of consequences."
Actor Michael Joseph Mitchell also straddles two worlds in the play as Theseus and as Oberon, king of the fairies.
"Theseus is quite a successful conqueror of both other city-states and various paramours," Mitchell said. "He's a smart guy. He's quite a mensch. He does the right thing. When he realizes there's a dispute between these young lovers, he tries to fix things. He's a good guy but I think he's a little inept in relationships."
Mitchell praised the manner in which Rice is dealing with the fairies. The actor laughingly described Oberon as "a mix of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. He's kind of old. He's kind of tired of all this running around."
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Like Theseus, Oberon is a womanizer. "He and his queen have had tons of affairs," Mitchell said. "They're always seducing some mortal. He's very much a powerful baby in his emotional maturity."
Rice is convinced the venue will add immeasurably to the experience for audiences. "It's a play that takes place at night in the woods," the director explained. "I feel the audience can't help but lose themselves in the production. It makes everything richer being out there on a summer night."
'A Midsummer Night's Dream'
When: 8:15 p.m. Wednesdays-Sundays, July 9-Aug. 14; previews July 6-8
Where: First Folio Theatre, Mayslake Peabody Estate, 1717 W. 31st St., Oak Brook
Tickets: $29-$39; $22 previews
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Information: (630) 986-8067; www.firstfolio.org
Larsen painting back home in Oklahoma after 10-year hiatus
CONTRIBUTED BY Gene Lehmann, Media Relations.
This article appeared in the July 2016 edition of the Chickasaw Times
OKLAHOMA CITY Mike Larsens eyes poured over two huge acrylic paintings he created 21 years ago.
This painting of an Arapaho holy man and his people brings back many emotions, Mr. Larsen said. It was painted right after the Oklahoma City bombing. Two of our children are included and the others are close friends. Many of them now gone.
After 10 years in Kansas City, the Chickasaw artists two-panel painting Cloud People is back in Oklahoma. It was relocated to Kansas City in 2006 when the Oklahoma City Federal Reserve branch moved into a new office without the capacity to properly display it.
Im glad its back home where it belongs, Mr. Larsen said.
A world renowned painter and sculpture who has been honored with induction into both the Chickasaw and Oklahoma halls of fame. The Oklahoma City Federal Reserve branch commissioned the painting after the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed in 1995.
The two 7x6 paintings were first envisioned as part of a project in 1994 by Mr. Larsen and his wife, Martha.
The Larsens were researching and capturing images of holy men often called shamans from each of Oklahomas 39 federally-recognized tribes.
A few of the tribes no longer had living holy men, so 36 paintings were completed, Mr. Larsen said.
Cloud People is the largest painting in the series.
Mr. Larsen was approached by the Oklahoma City Federal Reserve branch in summer 1995. They made it clear that, in some way, they wanted to pay tribute and honor people who had lost their lives on April 19 of that year, the artist told a gathering of Oklahoma City and Kansas City Federal Reserve staff and executives June 2. Additionally, officials wanted to honor all of the families that were so affected.
We had not yet painted a work on the Arapaho, Mr. Larsen said. When I presented the idea of an Arapaho holy man wrapping his cloak around an extended family in an act of comfort and protection, it proved to be exactly what the Federal Reserve wanted. This painting expresses what we all were looking for a little piece of mind.
DUAL PROJECTS
The Larsens are a team.
While Mr. Larsens work paintings and sculptures are located throughout the world, Mrs. Larsen plays an important role in the success of each project the couple launches.
The Larsens have two volumes of work honoring Chickasaw elders.
We visited them, Mr. Larsen said. We got to know them. I took my sketch pad and Martha shot an average of 300 photographs per elder. We used two photographs to create each portrait.
The culmination of the effort was two books They Know Who They Are and Proud to Be Chickasaw featuring portraits of almost 50 Chickasaw elders painted by Mr. Larsen. Each is accompanied by a story written by Mrs. Larsen and award-winning Chickasaw artist Jeannie Barbour.
The portraits are displayed at Chickasaw Nation Headquarters in Ada and at the Chickasaw Nation Cultural Center in Sulphur. The books are available at Amazon and at the Chickasaw Press.
Larsen was commissioned by the State of Oklahoma to paint a 26-foot-long mural five internationally prominent Native American ballet dancers, all born in Oklahoma. The depiction was for the Capitol Rotunda.
He has painted eight murals for the Oklahoma Art Institute and six murals for the University of Oklahoma Donald W. Reynolds Performing Art Center and School of Dance.
The next project for the Larsens is in the planning stage. Its focus is Oklahoma history.
There have been a lot of books and things like that on the history of Oklahoma, but we havent done them, Mr. Larsen said. We think it will be extremely interesting to explore all the differing perspectives of the topic artistically.
By Cameron Turnbull
Advances in mobile technology and mobile app development have given rise to a new business model that has already had a profound effect on the transportation, e-commerce, and lodging industries. The sharing economy refers to third party online service providers that help businesses and individuals turn excess supply into revenue by linking them to consumers via various online platforms. With high levels of mobile use and a rapidly expanding consumer class, China has been quick to adapt to the sharing economy, presenting tremendous opportunities for those who embrace new technology and business models.
An Introduction to the Sharing Economy
Enterprises in the sharing economy create value by monetizing surplus resources. Take Airbnb for example: the San Francisco-based startup quickly became a global phenomenon simply by providing a platform where users could earn extra income renting out their unused rooms. The company identified an underserved market in the budget traveler, and linked them to a previously under-utilized group of suppliers.
Also known as crowd-based capitalism, companies active in the sharing economy take many different forms, but all take advantage of similar crowd-based networks and mobile/online technology to operate. They exist in a unique sphere of the market economy that sits somewhere between personal and professional, work and leisure, employee and entrepreneur. While this ambiguity largely benefits the users of sharing platforms (both suppliers and customers) it has drawn the ire of tax authorities and traditional transportation and lodging companies in many countries.
Sharing economy enterprises often come under fire for a lack of responsibility. Ubers policy to not count their drivers as employees but rather as independent contractors is an example often cited by critics. While an employee typically requires basic employee insurance, benefits, etc. supplied by the company (depending on location, of course) independent contractors do not. Many people feel that Uber essentially enjoys the full time labor of their drivers, without taking full responsibility for their well-being.
Furthermore, with companies such as Airbnb insisting that they are simply a communication platform, they often absolve themselves of responsibility when users experience problems related to quality or safety. Taxi companies, hotel chains, and other companies that operate in the more traditional sphere of the service economy feel that it is unfair that sharing platforms get to participate in the industry without incurring the same costs brought about by safety regulations.
The ambiguity that is presented by many sharing platforms has caused headaches for policy makers around regulation and taxation. Some new business models presented by the sharing economy can come into conflict with existing regulatory frameworks. For example at what point should traditional bed & breakfast regulations apply to an Airbnb host? Does it depend on the number of days the guest stays? The amount of revenue generated? The services provided? Furthermore, politicians in the U.S. and Canada have accused sharing platforms of giving entrepreneurs an unfair advantage over traditional service providers.
RELATED: Business Advisory Services from Dezan Shira & Associates
Chinas Sharing Economy
While the original concept and pioneers of the industry originated in the U.S. and Europe, the sharing economy has yet to become fully accepted by both consumers and authorities in the western world. Meanwhile, China is emerging as a leader in the sharing economy. In March, Chinas National Information Center published a comprehensive report on the current condition and future development of the Chinese sharing economy. This is significant for two reasons.
First there is the sheer size and success of the sharing economy China. As of 2015, the sharing economy in China is valued at US $299 billion (RMB 1.956 trillion) and is expected to grow 40 percent over the next five years, eventually making up 10 percent of Chinas total GDP. Several of the biggest sharing economy success stories have come out of mainland China, such as Didi Kuaidi, which has been valued at U.S. $7 billion in 2015. The report further indicated that in the near future, 5-10 new large scale sharing economy companies on par with Didi Kuaidi or even Alibaba will be developed in China.
Secondly, the report is significant because it is a symbol of the Chinese central governments willingness to embrace the sharing economy and actively play a role in its development. While western governments have seen the development of the sharing economy as a challenge to be controlled, it would appear that Chinese authorities view the sharing economy as a tool for economic development.
This report shows initiative on the part of the authorities to get out ahead of the economys development in terms of policy. Reports have suggested that China could be one of the first countries to establish consistent and appropriate tax codes for the sharing economy, as well as create legislation for tracking and punishing abuses related to consumer safety and fraud, such as the 2015 report by the Ministry of Transport regarding ride sharing services. Large companies also stand to play a role in developing the Chinese sharing economy, with Tencent, Lenovo, and LinkedIn all recently indicating their support for the Commission on the Sharing Economy in China (CSEC).
Opportunities for Foreign Companies
Pony Ma, the founder of Chinese online leader Tencent, has recently pointed out that Chinas sharing economy may be on the verge of a golden age. He very well may be right, as the Chinese sharing economy is filled with potential. China is home to 620 million cellphone users, and when surveyed, 94 percent of people said they are willing to share online the highest rate among all countries surveyed. The Chinese economy still has many new consumers entering the middle class for the first time who do not have to readjust from a traditional ownership-based consumption model. This represents a very fertile environment for the growth of the sharing economy.
As the Chinese sharing economy matures and receives continued government support to develop, it is very possible that we will see more and more resources becoming sharable. Once you start looking for it, excess supply is everywhere. Recently Lenovo has expressed interest in creating a sharing platform that would utilize the companys facilities and distribution channels to help start-ups in their product development. Baidu CEO Robin Li also has spoken about sharing the firms AI technology and big data capabilities with other firms to fuel tech development.
New technology and applications are a constant threat to disrupt the sharing economy, and the regulatory landscape can change rapidly. As such, foreign firms need to be keenly aware of the development of the sharing economy, and consider how they can use the various sharing platforms to their advantage.
About Us Asia Briefing Ltd. is a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. Dezan Shira is a specialist foreign direct investment practice, providing corporate establishment, business advisory, tax advisory and compliance, accounting, payroll, due diligence and financial review services to multinationals investing in China, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, Singapore and the rest of ASEAN. For further information, please email china@dezshira.com or visit www.dezshira.com. Stay up to date with the latest business and investment trends in Asia by subscribing to our complimentary update service featuring news, commentary and regulatory insight.
China Investment Roadmap: the e-Commerce Industry
In this edition of China Briefing magazine, we present a roadmap for investing in Chinas e-commerce industry. We provide a consumer analysis of the Chinese market, take a look at the main industry players, and examine the various investment models that are available to foreign companies. Finally, we discuss one of the most crucial due diligence issues that underpins e-commerce in China: ensuring brand protection.
Selling, Sourcing and E-Commerce in China 2016 (First Edition)
This guide, produced in collaboration with the experts at Dezan Shira & Associates, provides a comprehensive analysis of all these aspects of commerce in China. It discusses how foreign companies can best go about sourcing products from China; how foreign retailers can set up operations on the ground to sell directly to the countrys massive consumer class; and finally details how foreign enterprises can access Chinas lucrative yet ostensibly complex e-commerce market.
Establishing & Operating a Business in China 2016
Establishing & Operating a Business in China 2016, produced in collaboration with the experts at Dezan Shira & Associates, explores the establishment procedures and related considerations of the Representative Office (RO), and two types of Limited Liability Companies: the Wholly Foreign-owned Enterprise (WFOE) and the Sino-foreign Joint Venture (JV). The guide also includes issues specific to Hong Kong and Singapore holding companies, and details how foreign investors can close a foreign-invested enterprise smoothly in China.
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A-list star Chen Kun and Taiwan actress Kwai Lun-mei play man and wife in an upcoming film "Mei Hao De Yi Wai" literally translated as Beautiful Accident.
A finalized version of a poster for the upcoming movie Beautiful Accident was released on July 7, 2016 in Beijing at a promotional press conference in Beijing.[Photo: CRIENGLISH.com]
In the film the couple have two children, who are portrayed by 15-year old cellist Ouyang Nana and William, son of Huayi Brothers' founder Wang Zhonglei respectively.
The movie Beautiful Accident tells a story about Li Yuran, a successful lawyer, who encountered a traffic accident and is then forced to take on a new role as a housewife.
The movie is Chen Kun's first portrayal of a father. According to Ouyang Nana, she has an intimate relationship with men in the film.
"I need to establish an intimate contact with boys, which is a special acting experience for me and would be a thrill for moviegoers."
Meanwhile, the film also marks the second collaboration between Veteran Chinese actor Wang Jingchun and actress Kwai Lun-mei after the Golden Bear award-winning film "Black Coal, Thin Ice" in 2014.
This romantic comedy, Beautiful Accident, directed by Ho Wi-ding, a Malaysian-Chinese director, is due for release on August 12th.
The Beijing Intellectual Property Court rejected the appeal of former producers of "The Voice of China" on Monday night and ruled that they cannot produce further episodes under the brand.
A new poster for "Sing! China" [Photo / China.org.cn]
Based on the original "The Voice of Holland," the show (known in Chinese as "China's Good Voice") has become one of the most popular reality television singing competitions in China with the highest TV rating. In 2012, Canxing Productions acquired the rights of the show from Talpa Holding, the owner of the show's format and franchise, and made 4 seasons under the franchise since then, which was broadcast on Zhejiang Television.
However, in 2016, contractual disputes arose between Talpa Holding and Canxing Production, and negotiations fell apart for further cooperation. Talpa then inked an exclusive deal with another Chinese producing company, the Zhejiang Talent Television & Film Company Limited, to produce the upcoming seasons of the show from Jan. 28, 2016 to Jan. 28, 2020.
But Canxing still used same Chinese brand name (literally "China's Good Voice") to produce and promote a new show and started nationwide campus auditions. Talent filed a complaint to the court in early June to stop it and later the court ruled in favor of Talent on June 20.
Canxing argued that "China's Good Voice" was the name approved by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of China to be used for Zhejiang Television production and broadcast. It also stressed in its appeal that they have changed the name into "Good Voice 2016" (with the English show title to be "Sing! China") and made a different format for the show, which will be a brand new and original show.
The Beijing court reviewed the case and ruled to sustain the original verdict, forbidding Canxing to use names such as "China's Good Voice" and "Voice of China" as well as relevant trademarks in promotion, audition, advertising and show production.
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Recently, under a loan provided by the Bank of China's Polish branch, China Everbright International Limited acquired Poland's biggest solid waste disposal company, Novago, for 123 million euros (137 million U.S. dollars).
The acquisition marks the largest sum of a single project in Poland by a Chinese enterprise.
The purchase was one of many made by Chinese banks in Poland to promote the "Belt and Road" initiative.
Poland, a crucial node in the "Belt and Road" initiative, due to its strategic location and good investment environment, has become a center of attention for many Chinese institutions and businesses. Numerous Chinese banks have opened branches in Poland, putting down roots in the Polish market, and providing financial support for Chinese enterprises.
Director of the Bank of China Polish branch, Xia Bin, told Xinhua that for Chinese banks in Poland, entering the mainstream local market and expanding the influence of brands is regarded as a core business development.
As the first Chinese bank officially opened in Poland, the Bank of China Polish branch has entered the Polish financial market, offering loans, trade financing, guarantees, deposit, and wealth management business for Chinese-Polish commercial circles, providing a comprehensive service both for financial and individual clients.
Since its opening in June 2012, the Bank of China Polish branch has already "won" a number of important projects in Poland, including providing 140 million euros of refinance credit support to the Capital Park Group, investor of the Eurocentrum Office Complex; involvement in a wind power loan project with Polish Energy Group POLENERGIA as one of the leading banks, and participation in the real estate credit project of Polish Blue City Group.
Xia said all of these enterprises cooperated with international banks and financing institutions. The fact that Polish branches of the Chinese bank can participate in these projects and ventures proves the Chinese banks have already entered the Polish market and gained the trust and approval of the local companies.
With the advance of the "Belt and Road" initiative, Chinese banks are seizing upon strategic opportunities, gradually putting roots down in the local market, and observing the accompanying increase in profits.
According to the data provided by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Poland branch, until May 2016, the total assets of the bank were 2.0 billion U.S. dollars. Since opening in December 2012, the accumulated after-tax profit reached 17.15 million dollars, and counting from the first full fiscal year in 2013, the assets reached an annual growth rate of more than 50 percent with an annual after-tax profit growth of 100 percent.
On one hand, the Chinese banks provide help to "Belt and Road" initiative implementation, promoting cooperation between Poland and China in the fields of resources, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, as well as production capacity.
On the other hand, they enhance the level of overseas financial advising services to help Chinese enterprises.
Bank of China's Poland branch also provided 260 million zlotys (about 65 million euros) for the core financing project of the China Three Gorges Corporation's holding company EDPR Group, supporting the group's investments in the Polish wind power sector.
Xia said Chinese banks should grasp the "Belt and , One Road" strategic opportunity and strive to build its financial artery, adhere to both local business and service aimed at the Chinese enterprises. Chinese banks should also fully bring into play the international, diversified, professional advantages, and further promote exchanges and cooperation between China and Poland.
Photo taken on Aug. 1, 2015 shows steel tubes at a dock in Lianyungang Port, east China's Jiangsu Province. [Photo/Xinhua/Wang Chun]
The Chinese government has been discouraging iron and steel exports in the midst of lackluster demand in the global market, the Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday.
"China's iron and steel output primarily meets domestic demand. The Chinese government has taken measures, such as increasing the export tariffs on some products, to control exports," said Shen Danyang, spokesman for the ministry.
Shen said the tax refund rate for iron and steel exports is lower than the 17 percent value-added tax rate. The percentage of exports, Shen added, is very low compared with total output.
In the first five months of the year, China's exports of iron and steel increased by 6.4 percent year-on-year, stirring further concerns that the global supply will further outstrip the demand.
"In the first five months in 2015, iron and steel exports increased by 50 percent compared with the same period the previous year. The growth rate this year has fallen by around 22 percentage points," said Shen.
"This has shown that China has restrained its exports to maintain the stability of the world's iron and steel market."
According to a report by zgw.com, an iron and steel trading platform, the export growth of Chinese iron and steel in 2016 will fall significantly. It does not rule out the possibility of negative growth.
On the other hand, as China's exports of iron and steel enjoy the advantage of favorable prices and good quality, total export volumes will still be at a relatively high level, the report said. It is estimated that this year's total exports will be no less than 80 million metric tons and will likely surpass 100 million metric tons.
Shen has said previously that the global economic slowdown was the main cause of iron and steel overcapacity. The Chinese government has been making efforts to keep the production capacity down.
The State Council has issued a plan to reduce crude steel output by 100 to 150 million metric tons within five years starting from 2016.
"At the moment, one of the biggest advantages of China's iron and steel product in the global market is its high quality-price ratio," said Chen Jingfu, analyst at Shanghai-based Mysteel Research Institute.
"But in the future, it should stand out more in quality, service and brand building."
According to Chen, China's iron and steel industry has a priority of meeting domestic demand in the long term. China's growth, which has become more innovation driven, needs large quantities of iron and steel with higher added value. High-tech and environmentally friendly products are going to be in huge demand, Chen added.
China's state lenders, including the Agriculture Bank of China and China Everbright Bank, were found to have lent a total of nearly 20.8 billion yuan (US$3.1 billion) to unqualified borrowers, and cut credit for small and middle-sized firms, the nation's auditor said amid pressure of rising bad debts and a cooling economy.
Six local branches of AgBank were found to have broken rules when they falsified materials to lend around 18.23 billion yuan from 2010 to 2014, the National Audit Office said in a statement on its website on Tuesday. Everbright Bank lent 2.56 billion yuan to projects without proper documents between 2011 and 2014.
The NAO focused its inspection last year on violations in the approval, allocation and management of public funds, state-owned assets and resources, it said in the statement.
The office said it found the lenders had discriminated against small firms by extending fewer loans to small-capital companies and charging higher fees for extra services.
"The violations would add operational burden on enterprises," the statement said. "They raise the cost for the real economy to borrow."
China's banking system has been blamed for favoring big companies and ignoring small firms. With economic expansion slowing to a 25-year low and profit growth weakening in state-owned enterprises, banks also performed poorly and had to balance between lending cost and risk control.
The Hualing Free Industrial Zone in Kutaisi, Georgia. [File photo]
A Chinese private company has signed a preliminary agreement on the acquisition of the Bank Republic in Georgia on Tuesday, the Chinese company's spokesperson confirmed.
After the purchase, the Xinjiang Hualing Industry & Trade (Group) Co. Ltd. will merge the bank with the Basis Bank, which itpurchased in Georgia in 2012, to create a new universal bank, said Wang Shengxin, head of the Hualing Group's Georgian arm.
The new bank is expected to be the third largest in Georgia.
After the merger and acquisition, the Hualing Group will hold the majority of the new bank's shares, while the Societe Generale Group and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the two previous majorowners of the Bank Republic, will hold 8 percent and 3.9 percent of the shares of the newbank.
Established in 1988 in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the Hualing Group is a private conglomerate active in a diversity of sectors, such as commercial services, foreign trade, livestock husbandry and banking.
In 2012, the Hualing Group purchased more than 90 percent stake in Basis Bank with US$98 million and later acquired ownership. In 2014, it became the largest foreign investor in Georgia with a total investment of nearly US$500 million. In 2015, the Hualing Free Industrial Zone in Kutaisi, Georgia, was put into operation.
According to China's Ministry of Commerce, China is Georgia's third-largest trading partner globally and second-largest source of imports.
Premier Li Keqiang visits a flooded area on Tuesday in Yueyang, Hunan province. He urged local governments in areas that he toured to protect local people's safety and property during flood season. [Photo provided to China Daily]
Premier Li Keqiang called on local authorities to make the best use of flood control facilities and prepare for further downpours along the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers following recent deluges.
Li visited flooded areas in Anhui and Hunan provinces on Tuesday, checking flood control facilities and disaster prevention work.
He emphasized the importance of such facilities in dealing with floods and urged local governments to protect local people's safety and property during the heavy rain and flood season.
The premier visited Wangjiaba township in Fuyang, northwestern Anhui, a key point along the 1,000-kilometer-long Huaihe River.
He also toured embankments along the Yangtze River and around Dongting Lake, China's second-largest freshwater lake, in Yueyang, Hunan.
Flooding caused by torrential rain that began on Thursday has left 29 dead and two missing in Anhui, with 713,000 residents relocated from their homes, the provincial Department of Civil Affairs said on Tuesday.
The premier urged local governments of the provinces to fully prepare for foreseeable deluges after checking real-time monitoring of the water levels of the Huaihe River at the Wangjiaba Hydrological Station, a key national monitoring facility in the township.
The station is near Wangjiaba Gate Dam, which was built to reduce the river's water level if necessary.
In extreme cases, floodwaters will be diverted through the dam into the Mengwa Flood Retention Basin, which was completed in 1953 to cover 180 square kilometers, including 12,000 hectares of farmland that feeds nearly 180,000 people.
The basin has admitted water from the Huaihe River 15 times, ensuring the safety and property of millions of people living in downstream areas in Anhui and Jiangsu provinces.
Li also inquired about food and medical supplies that had been prepared for residents in Mengwa.
Zheng Jizhou, a 56-year-old farmer in the basin, said local officials helped him harvest wheat before the rainfall. He said he was confident he could withstand flooding because proper preparations had been made.
Zheng also said the local government has reinforced the basin embankment, and the highland where his house was built has been buttressed to withstand flooding.
Premier Li said, "Local people have sacrificed a lot to ensure safety of downstream areas, and we won't open the gate dam to admit water until we have to. Safety will be ensured when we have to do so.
"But flood retention cannot worsen people's livelihood here, and we must work together to lead a better life," he added.
According to the National Meteorological Center, the upstream areas of the Yangtze will see continuous downpours until Friday, increasing the risk of flooding in downstream areas along the country's longest river.
Ai Wanxiu, chief expert of the climate service department at the National Climate Center, said this year's rainfall so far is 28 percent more than the average amount in the Yangtze River area, and 11 percent more along the Huaihe.
As of Monday, 32.8 million people in 1,192 counties had been affected by flooding, leaving 186 dead and causing direct economic loss of 50.6 billion yuan (US$7.6 billion), according to the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.
In the past decade, the most popular jobs taken by ex-public servants are in the financial sector or with law firms, according to a LinkedIn report.
The report examined job hopping trends for China's civil servants from 2006 to 2015. It found that the top industries sought by former government employees are finance, law, accounting, consulting, social organizations, the internet and real estate.
By years of experience, 37 percent of the former public servants had worked for government bodies less than three years, while 23 percent had worked from three to six years. The majority of public servants who quit their jobs - 53 percent - had been employed at low-levels of the government.
Leaving the perceived shelter of a government job and jumping into the private sector has been a growing trend for at least a decade, except in 2008 and 2014 when the macroeconomic situation was not positive. In those years, public servants tended to be conservative and restrained about job hopping.
"At the beginning of reform and opening-up, there was a trend called 'diving into the sea' which meant civil servants quit their government jobs to engage in business," the report said. "However, 30 years ago, the main choice for ex-civil servants was to start a business with high risk. Now, they have more promising choices than before."
What's more important, the report said, is that the qualifications a person acquires working for government bodies are accepted in the private sector. LinkedIn found that job seekers with senior titles within government bodies tend to hold positions in upper management, such as company president.
Zhang Yingqian, 29, worked for a provincial procuratorate for seven years before quitting and joining a law firm.
"Working for a procuratorate and law firm requires the same skills. So my experience with the procuratorate makes it very easy to fit into my new job," Zhang said. "Ex-civil servants with experience in organs of public security, procuratorates and courts are always welcomed in law firms."
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At least three were killed and dozens were injured after an elders care center caught fire in Taiwan early Wednesday, said rescuers.
The fire broke out at about 7 a.m. on the eighth floor of a building in Xindian District, New Taipei City, trapping about 40 people in the center.Fire fighters put out the blaze in 40 minutes.
Three were killed. Thirty others, including four in critical condition, have been rushed to hospitals.
The cause of the fire is currently unclear.
Police in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, intercepted eight vessels from Shanghai that were about to dump garbage on the banks of picturesque Taihu Lake in the Suzhou Taihu National Tourism Vacation Zone.
Left: Vessels from Shanghai that tried to dump garbage on the banks of Taihu Lake were detained by police. Right: More than 20,000 metric tons of garbage had been scattered along the lakeshore as of Monday. Photos By Zhou Ti / For China Daily
A total of 4,000 metric tons of garbage on the vessels was covered by tarpaulins. It consisted of construction waste and house hold materials.
According to Suzhou Release, the official WeChat account of Suzhou city, more than 10 vessels fled the scene when local maritime authorities arrived.
Since March, vessels from Shanghai have scattered more than 20,000 tons of garbage across 2,400 square meters along banks before being reported by local residents. The company that hired the vessels planned to get rid of 4 million tons of waste over an 18-month period at a cost of 5.4 yuan ($0.80) per ton.
Gu Liming, deputy chief of Suzhou's Jinting township, which has jurisdiction over the vacation zone, said the vessels came from Jiading in suburban Shanghai.
"The local environmental protection bureau conducted tests and confirmed that the water around the dump site has not been polluted," said Gu. "The bureau will strictly monitor the water quality and garbage treatment."
The dump site is 2 kilometers from the water intake for Jinting township and lies near the water intake for Suzhou's heavily populated Wuzhong and industrial park districts.
"My vessel carries 400 tons of garbage a time, and we can earn about 1,000 to 2,000 yuan from that," a vessel owner, surnamed Liu, was quoted by Suzhou Release as saying. He said the waste would be used by a construction firm to pave roads.
Yang Xinhai, chief engineer at Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences, said only part of the construction waste could theoretically be used to pave roads, but only after it is treated.
"The garbage dumped in Suzhou consists of construction waste and household and decoration materials," Yang said. "It cannot be used in construction projects."
According to Yang, it costs about 70 to 80 yuan to treat a ton of household waste in Shanghai.
Ma Jun, director of Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, said rising costs and increasingly strict regulations on garbage treatment stimulate some people to take the risk of dumping trash in other cities.
"Both the construction and household waste pose great danger to Taihu Lake, whose water quality needs to be improved even without new pollution," Ma said, adding that environmental protection authorities must monitor not only garbage from large construction sites but also from other sources, such as interior decoration.
The Suzhou government has ordered the removal of all garbage dumped on the banks of the lake. Some people suspected of arranging and dumping the garbage have been detained as local police investigate the case.
China's Ministry of National Defense confirmed on Tuesday that the Chinese navy will hold training exercises in the South China Sea that will include fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and other equipment.
The exercises will be held between Hainan Island and the Xisha islands "in the first 10-day period of July", according to a release posted on the ministry's website, which did not specify the astart and ending dates.
"The training activity was a routine arrangement made in accordance with the annual training plan of the Navy, and it aims at promoting the capability of the troops tackling security threats and fulfilling missions and tasks," the ministry said.
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A soldier carries a sandbag to reinforce the Dadao dyke of Baidang Lake in Tanggou Township of Zongyang County, east China's Anhui Province, July 6, 2016. Over 260 soldiers were dispatched to reinforce the dyke. [Photo/Xinhua]
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) and armed police will send more troops to support flood control and disaster relief on the direct orders of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
While praising the role of the military in recent disaster relief, Xi, also chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), urged the CMC to immediately send troops to the affected areas.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs said on Tuesday that five days of heavy rain along the Yangtze River and its tributaries had left 128 people dead and 42 others unaccounted for.
The rain has led to the collapse of 41,000 houses and forced the evacuation of more than 1.34 million people. Nearly 600,000 people are in urgent need of basic living assistance.
Following Xi's order, the PLA Rocket Force Command College immediately dispatched a rescue team with 183 servicemen and 16 pieces of rescue equipment.
After hours of work in torrential rain, the rescue team prevented a dike breaching in Daokou Lake, Qingshan District of Wuhan City, capital of central China's Hubei Province.
Armed police in Anhui, Hubei, Jiangsu, Jiangxi and other areas also took part in the work.
The last 15 years have witnessed China playing a new constructive role in the Middle East within the new regional context.
China's policy toward the Middle East is always discussed on different occasions. Though China has contributed many efforts to the resolution of major regional conflicts, it seems that China's role has never been sufficiently recognized. While American scholars would like to describe China as a free rider, analysts in the region would regard China as a business seeker. The reasons are actually very complicated.
The last 15 years have witnessed China playing a new constructive role in the Middle East within the new regional context. In September 2002, China appointed Ambassador Wang Shijie, a senior diplomat, as its first special envoy of Middle Eastern affairs. Since then, China has regularized its appointments of special envoys in the region. Until now, China has appointed four Middle East special envoys. The other three are Ambassador Sun Bigan, Ambassador Wu Sike and Ambassador Gong Xiaosheng.
In addition to envoys of Middle Eastern affairs in general, China also appointed special envoys for specific Middle Eastern issues. For instance, in 2007, 2014 and 2016, China appointed Ambassador Liu Guijin (& Ambassador Zhong Jianhua), Ambassador Sun Yuxi and Ambassador Xie Xiaoyan as special envoys respectively for the Darfur issue, Afghanistan issue and Syrian issue.
The above-mentioned appointments themselves indicate that China does attach great importance to regional issues, and does play significant roles in various regional issues though the effects might be different in different cases. In the Palestine-Israel conflict, China's role might be modest, but it does represent strong political support for the peace process. And China's mediating efforts in the Darfur issue paved the way for the soft landing of the crisis. China's special envoy on the Afghanistan issue also played a significant role in promoting relevant dialogue and reconciliation processes.
What's more, China also contributed to the Middle East economically as China has become a major economic partner of the region. China also provided military and security resources for the region in the form of UN missions.
So, why were China's efforts not sufficiently recognized? Or to put it another way, why is China's role not visible enough? The first reason should be the Western media's selective coverage of China's role in the region. Western media, particularly those of the United States, play leading roles in shaping global public opinion and even have strong influence in academic circles. Though they might be working for peace and stability in the region, their coverage remains biased.
They would like to cover more about the actions and behaviors of Western countries rather than those of non-Western countries, although it is not necessarily all positive. They have strong interest in covering the military actions of the West in the region while having little interest in reporting China's soft presence in the region despite the fact that China's economic contribution and mediating efforts do contribute to regional stability. What is even worse is that Western governments unfairly blame China for its reluctance to participate in military actions.
China's low level of visibility in the region can also be attributed to its unintentional and intentional low profile policies. Low profile policies have always been part of China's political culture. And the most famous motto in this regard should be the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping's warning in the early 1990s that China should be modest and prudent, keep a low profile and never seek hegemony.
It has already been a quarter century since Deng issued this warning, but it is still one of the major principles guiding China's overall policies, and China's policy toward the Middle East should be no exception. Though some scholars argue that China should take a more proactive policy as a result of its power increase, very few argue that China should give up its low profile policy in the Middle East.
To keep a low profile might also be China's policy option under the framework of the new type of relations among major countries. The new type of relations among major countries proposed by President Xi Jinping stands for non-confrontation among major countries at a strategic level, particularly between China and the United States.
China could be very easily regarded as an assertive or aggressive player by the United States in the Middle East if it keeps a high profile, despite the fact that the U.S. would always like to label China as a free rider. By the way, it is always difficult to please a leading power. It can easily find trouble with you whether you keep a low profile or high profile. A high profile can be regarded as a challenge while a low profile can be blamed for lacking initiative.
Though China will have to face up with blame and accusations no matter what it is doing in the region, Beijing might reasonably regard it as a cheap price to pay to keep a low profile. A higher price will always be waiting if someone is regarded as a potential challenge.
All in all, China's low visibility in the region is actually because of various complicated reasons. However, despite its low visibility, its contributions should not be neglected for any reason.
Dr. Jin Liangxiang is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/jinliangxiang.htm
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
Flash
Philippine President Rodrigo R. Duterte said Tuesday he is willing to grant amnesty to the leftist rebels if they surrender to the government.
The Duterte administration has been talking with the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) for the resumption of the formal peace process, which has been stalled since 2013 under the Aquino administration.
"We can grant amnesty but they have to lay down their arms," Duterte said during the anniversary of the Philippine Air Force in northern province of Pampanga.
He said that it was good that his government has been talking with the leftist rebels.
"It's been doing well and we hope to have a firm agreement by the end of the year," Duterte said.
The president said he is ready to give safe conduct pass to some leftist leaders, such as their founding chairman Jose Maria Sison.
However, he added that he was not ready to release all the political prisoners as requested by the CPP-NPA-NDF.
The leftist rebels have been waging war against the government for over four decades.
Flash
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gestures as she campaigns at East Los Angeles College in Los Angeles, the United States, May 5, 2016. (Xinhua file photo/Zhao Hanrong)
U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday showered praise on Hillary Clinton's judgement and toughness hours after FBI Director James Comey blasted the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for being "extremely careless" in handling classified information.
"I'm here today because I believe in Hillary Clinton," said Obama during his 2016 debut on the campaign trail at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina. "There has never been a man or woman more qualified for this office than Hillary Clinton. Ever. And that's the truth."
Speaking to a roaring crowd of Clinton supporters, Obama reminded them and TV viewers across the country of his bitter experience of competing against the strong-minded former first lady in the 2008 primary season and of Clinton's "grace and the energy with which she threw herself into my campaign."
"I came away from that primary admiring her even more, because during that year and a half, I had a chance to see up close just how smart she was and just how prepared she was," said Obama who hailed Hillary in first joint campaign appearance.
While slamming Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, for his "tough talk" and "phony bluster", Obama lauded Clinton's past record as his top diplomat as evidence of her exceptional judgement and toughness.
"My faith in Hillary Clinton has always been rewarded. I have had a front-row seat to her judgement and her toughness and her commitment to diplomacy. And I witnessed it in the Situation Room where she argued in favor of the mission to get Bin Laden," said Obama.
Obama's praise of Clinton's judgement came just hours after FBI chief Comey criticized her for her private email setup during her stint at the State Department, describing her and her senior aides as being "extremely careless" in handling sensitive information.
Comey said federal investigators found that 110 emails in 52 email chains had contained classified information at the time they were sent or received and that eight of those 52 chains "contained information that was top secret" when they were sent.
Apart from the approximately 30,000 work-related emails Clinton turned over to the State Department in 2014, investigators later discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not among the group of 30,000 e-mails, Comey told a press conference in Washington, D.C.
"With respect to the thousands of e-mails we found that were not among those produced to the State Department, agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received; one at the secret level and two at the confidential level," he said.
However, the FBI would not recommend criminal charges against Clinton for her use of a private email server as secretary of state, said Comey, adding that here was no clear evidence that Clinton and her aides intended to violate the law.
The FBI's recommendation on Tuesday immediately drew criticism from Republicans, with House Speaker Paul Ryan questioning whether "damage is being done to the rule of law" in the case.
"No one should be above the law," said Ryan in a statement. "Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent."
Meanwhile, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Tuesday said in a statement that the FBI decision was rigged.
"This is grossly negligent conduct on the part of Hillary Clinton and her aides, but as the Obama Administration has repeatedly shown throughout this process, they were never going to prosecute Clinton's criminal behavior because they are counting on her to deliver their failed agenda a third term," said the statement.
Comey has in the first place defended the FBI investigation as being done "honestly, competently and independently."
"I know there were many opinions from people who were not part of the investigation, including people in government. But none of that mattered to us," said Comey. "No outside influences of any kind was brought to bear."
Early this year, U.S. President Barack Obama weighed in on Clinton's intent of using a private email setup during her stint at the State Department.
He told Fox News in an interview that he believed that Clinton did not intentionally endanger national security in her handling of classified information.
The remarks immediately raised concerns that the federal investigators could be swayed by the president's view on the issue.
The FBI announcement also came a week after former U.S. President Bill Clinton had a private meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
The 30-minute meeting on June 27 at the Phoenix International Airport in Arizona, which Lynch described as primarily social, raised concerns about a potential conflict of interests.
According to ABC News who first disclosed the meeting, Mr. Clinton waited for Lynch's arrival after being notified that she would be arriving at the same airport. Mr. Clinton approached Lynch and initiated the unplanned chat.
Speaking on Friday at Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado, Lynch indicated her regrets about not having turned down the former president.
She also announced that she "fully" expected herself to accept recommendation by FBI investigators on whether to bring charges related to Hillary Clinton's personal email setup.
Lynch said her decision to accept FBI recommendation was made long before her impromptu chat with Mr. Clinton.
Flash
U.S. FBI Director James Comey said on Tuesday his agency would not recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server as secretary of state but called Clinton and her team "extremely careless" in handling sensitive information.
The announcement, which came only about 72 hours after FBI agents interviewed Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for the 2016 presidential election, dispelled a huge legal cloud over her campaign.
Comey said federal investigators found that 110 emails in 52 email chains had contained classified information at the time they were sent or received and that eight of those 52 chains "contained information that was top secret" when they were sent.
Apart from the approximately 30,000 work-related emails Clinton turned over to the State Department in 2014, investigators later discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not among the group of 30,000 e-mails, Comey told a press conference.
"With respect to the thousands of e-mails we found that were not among those produced to the State Department, agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received; one at the secret level and two at the confidential level," he said.
However, Comey said there was no clear evidence that Clinton and her aides intended to violate the law.
"Although there is evidence of potential violation of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case," said Comey.
The Clinton campaign immediately welcomed the announcement, saying it was pleased with the FBI decision. But it also admitted that Clinton had made a mistake by relying solely on a private email setup to deal with work-related emails.
"As the Secretary has long said, it was a mistake to use her personal email and she would not do it again," said the campaign in a statement.
As for the several thousand additional work-related emails not handed over to the State Department by Clinton in 2014, Comey said the FBI found no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them in some way.
"Our assessment is that like many e-mail users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted e-mails or e-mails were purged from her system when devices were changed," said Comey.
The controversy surrounding Clinton's email practices again burst into public view in August 2015 after the inspector general for the intelligence community revealed that two of the thousands of emails held by Clinton contained top-secret information.
Clinton first acknowledged that her use of a private email system while helming the U.S. State Department was a "mistake" in September, six months after her practice was disclosed by a Republican-controlled Congressional committee which investigated events leading up to the 2012 Benghazi attacks that claimed four American lives, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.
The FBI's recommendation on Tuesday immediately drew criticism from Republicans, with House Speaker Paul Ryan questioning whether "damage is being done to the rule of law" in the case.
"No one should be above the law," said Ryan in a statement. "Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent."
Comey has in the first place defended the FBI investigation as being done "honestly, competently and independently."
"I know there were many opinions from people who were not part of the investigation, including people in government. But none of that mattered to us," said Comey. "No outside influences of any kind was brought to bear."
Early this year, U.S. President Barack Obama weighed in on Clinton's intent of using a private email setup during her stint at the State Department.
He told Fox News in an interview that he believed that Clinton did not intentionally endanger national security in her handling of classified information.
The remarks immediately raised concerns that the federal investigators could be swayed by the president's view on the issue.
The FBI announcement came just hours before Clinton's first joint campaign appearance with President Obama and only about a week after former U.S. President Bill Clinton had a private meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
The 30-minute meeting on June 27 at the Phoenix International Airport in Arizona, which Lynch described as primarily social, raised concerns about a potential conflict of interests.
According to ABC News who first disclosed the meeting, Mr. Clinton waited for Lynch's arrival after being notified that she would be arriving at the same airport. Mr. Clinton approached Lynch and initiated the unplanned chat.
Speaking on Friday at Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado, Lynch indicated her regrets about not having turned down the former president.
She also announced that she "fully" expected herself to accept recommendation by FBI investigators on whether to bring charges related to Hillary Clinton's personal email setup.
Lynch said her decision to accept FBI recommendation was made long before her impromptu chat with Mr. Clinton.
In March 2015, Clinton acknowledged that she had exchanged about 60,000 emails from her private email account during her stint in the Obama administration, among which about half were personal and thus deleted.
All emails were sent and received via a private email server based at Clinton's home.
In response to requests from the State Department, the Clinton camp turned over the other half, roughly 30,000 emails in total, to the State Department in December 2014.
Flash
British Home Secretary Theresa May remained frontrunner to replace Prime Minister David Cameron Tuesday as one of the five Conservative leadership contenders dropped out of the race and another withdrew hours later.
In a ballot of Conservative members of the Parliament (MPs), ex-Defense Secretary Liam Fox notched up the lowest number of votes, 16, compared to May who won the backing of 165 MPs. He was immediately eliminated from the leadership race.
Just two hours after a vote by Conservative MPs at Westminster had finished, the man who came fourth, Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb, who won 34 votes, announced he was withdrawing, and backing May.
Of the 330 Conservative MPs in the House of Commons, all voted apart from the Prime Minister whose resignation after the EU referendum triggered the contest.
The result makes it almost certain that May, a Remain supporter in the referendum process, will be one of the two candidates to go forward to the final stage when thousands of party members across the country decide who they want at 10 Downing Street.
Pro-leave Andrea Leadsom, the energy and climate change minister, came second in Tuesday's ballot, with 66 votes, followed by Justice Secretary Michael Gove, who won 48 votes.
A second ballot Thursday will decide which two of the three will go to a national ballot of all Conservative Party members.
May is virtually guaranteed a place, meaning Thursday vote will effectively decide whether her challenger will be Leadsom or Gove.
Gove has faced criticism from many within the party for treachery after he decided to stand, knowing that former mayor of London Boris Johnson had already set his sights on moving to 10 Downing Street.
The two men were both in the forefront of the leave campaign. Gove faces being punished by some MPs for the way he allegedly "stabbed Boris in the back." Gove had justified his last minute decision to stand by insisting Johnson was not up to the job of being PM.
Johnson shocked the country with a speech saying he would not stand in the leadership contest.
The result of the ballot of the final two candidates will be announced early in September.
While MPs were busy at Westminster trying to pick the next prime minister, behind-closed-doors talks were taking place over the civil war in the main opposition Labour camp.
Tough-talking union leader Len McCluskey from Liverpool, was attempting to broker a peace between estranged party leader Jeremy Corbyn and the vast majority of his own MPs who have disowned him.
McCluskey, from Britain's biggest union Unite, held separate talks with Corbyn as well as the party's deputy leader Tom Watson.
Buoyed by massive grass-roots support, Corbyn has steadfastly refused to resign, and is likely to face a challenge to the leadership within the next few days if he insists on hanging on.
And while the politicians were busy with their woes at Westminster, the governor of the Bank of England fired off a missile that sent the value of British pound spiral, again, to its lowest level against the U.S. dollar for over 30 years.
Mark Carney delivered a message to reassure the city that measures were being taken to minimize the impact of the Brexit vote.
But most of the commentaries zoomed into the negative parts of his speech, "evidence that some risks of a leave vote have begun to crystallize" and "the current outlook for UK financial stability is challenging," Carney said in his speech.
The headline announcement had been that the Bank of England on Tuesday took steps to ensure British banks can keep lending in the Brexit aftermath. Carney said the bank would lower the amount of capital banks are required to hold in reserve, freeing up an extra 195 billion U.S. dollars for lending.
The political warring may take a back seat Wednesday when MPs study the long awaited Chilcot Report into Britain's involvement in the Iraq War of 2003.
Flash
A heated session in the European Parliament on Tuesday saw insults and recriminations traded between members of European Parliament (MEPs) as they debated the implications of the Brexit referendum vote.
MEPs gathered ostensibly to discuss the conclusions of the European Council meeting of June 28 and 29, which was held to coordinate a response among the other 27 member states to Britain's vote to leave the European Union.
After an opening statement by Council President Donald Tusk, the debate quickly descended into angry claims and counter-claims about where the responsibility lay for the vote and the future direction of the EU itself.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said leading Brexit figures who recently quit were "retro-nationalists, not patriots."
"A patriot would not leave the boat when the situation becomes difficult," he said.
Manfred Weber, leader of the center-right European People's Party group, warned that the other 27 member states should not allow themselves to become "hostages to the political chaos in London."
Representing the Socialist group, Italian MEP Gianni Pitella was one of many parliamentarians who insisted that if Britain wanted to retain full access to the EU Single Market, it had to respect the free movement of people within the Union.
Liberal group leader Guy Verhofstadt said: "The rats are fleeing the sinking ship," referring to departing Brexiteers. He called on the EU Council to "stop sleepwalking to a disaster."
"A loose federation of states cannot work. Either the EU will change, or it will die. The Council needs to recognize that citizens are not against Europe, but against this Europe," he said.
Syed Kamall, leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists group, said the referendum result was a "wakeup call" for the EU. He warned against continuing as usual or putting too much pressure on Britain.
"EU leaders should instead use the current situation as an opportunity to reconnect with people, make the EU more transparent and focus on citizens' legitimate concerns, such as creating growth and jobs," he said.
"We in the Parliament should put aside the language of conflict and work together to get the best possible deal for both sides," said British MEP Paul Nuttall from UKIP. "I want us to be good neighbors and trading partners," he added. Enditem
Flash
The following is the full text of a speech delivered by former State councilor Dai Bingguo at China-US Dialogue on South China Sea between Chinese and US think tanks on Tuesday in Washington.
Former State councilor Dai Bingguo delivers a speech at the China-US Dialogue on South China Sea between Chinese and US think tanks in Washington on Tuesday. [Photo/China Daily]
I am delighted to attend the China-US dialogue on South China Sea between Chinese and US think tanks jointly organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University and meet with old and new friends. I would like to take this opportunity to thank both organizations for putting this dialogue together and my sincere thanks go to all of you here who have for long cared for and supported the development of China-US relations.
I became honorary president of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University after retiring from government. In this sense, I can also be counted as a think tank scholar. I very much look forward to having candid and in-depth exchanges with all of you for mutual enlightenment.
Since the door of communication between China and the US opened more than 40 years ago, China-US relations have come a long way despite twists and turns and produced tremendous and extraordinary outcomes. This has not only benefited the people of China and the US,but also the whole world. Fast growth of relations between these two major countries in a short span of 40 years can be described as nothing short of a miracle in the history of major-country relations.
Three years ago,in June 2013, President Xi Jinping and President Obama held a successful meeting in Annenberg, Sunnylands. Since then,guided by the strategic consensus of no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation,the two countries have continued to make important progress in the building of a new model of major country relations. China and the US have joined hands in promoting progress in a wide range of fields in bilateral relations and addressing major issues bearing on mankind's future and destiny. Their trade volume and two-way investment have both scaled new heights. The two countries have stepped up macro-economic coordination which effectively facilitated world economic recovery and growth. China and the US have signed 3 joint statements on climate change, playing a crucial leading role for reaching the Paris Agreement on climate change. The two sides continued to broaden practical cooperation in military-to-military, law-enforcement, energy, and cultural and people-to-people exchanges. They have conducted close coordination and cooperation on international and regional hotspot issues and major global issues such as Iranian nuclear issue, Korean nuclear issue, Syria, Afghanistan, peacekeeping, international development and global public health. Such cooperation has benefited both countries, and bolstered international confidence in the continued growth of China-US relations.
China and the US are two major countries with very different histories,cultures,social systems and values and at different levels of development. As such, it is only natural that they would encounter differences and challenges in their relations. What's important is to increase strategic communication in a candid way and handle and manage differences in a constructive manner. Furthermore, we should endeavor to transcend differences by focusing on and expanding cooperation. The South China Sea could well have been an example of this approach.
For a period of time, the South China Sea which used to be a rather quiet place has become not so quiet. The situation there has heated up to a quite unusual degree,drawing extensive international attention. What has really happened there? I noticed that reports and comments on this issue tend to take a static view from a certain angle, and thus have not shown the full picture of the South China Sea issue. In my view, to study an international hotspot issue, it is necessary to seek truth from facts by fully considering the relevant international background, tracing the historical development, and thoroughly reviewing how the concerned parties have interacted on this issue. Only in this way can one see the whole picture, tell right from wrong and draw the right conclusion. In this vein, I would like to focus my speech on the historical facts of the South China Sea issue and China's policy on this issue. And I will endeavor to view and handle the South China Sea issue from the perspective of China-US relations and explore ways to genuinely cool down this issue and restore calm to this part of the world.
1. Nansha Islands are China's Integral Territory
Historical materials of China and many western countries corroborate the fact that it was the Chinese people who were the first to discover, name,develop and administer the islands in South China Sea, and that the Chinese government was the first to peacefully and effectively exercise continuous sovereign jurisdiction on South China Sea islands. During the Second World War, Japan illegally invaded and occupied China's South China Sea islands, which were restored to China after the war. Pursuant to Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation,which were cornerstones of the post-war international order, Japan shall return the stolen Chinese territory to China. Following the end of the war, China restored Taiwan, Penghu Islands, Xisha Islands and Nansha Islands illegally occupied by Japan.
Many of you were probably not aware of this, but China's actions to restore the islands was supported by General Douglas McArthur. China's military and government personnel were ferried by US-provided military vessels to Xisha and Nansha Islands to hold the restoration ceremony. After that, the US filed applications to Chinese authorities on Taiwan to conduct geodetic survey in some of Nansha Islands on many occasions.
All this shows that the return of Nansha Islands to China is part of the post-war international order and relevant territorial arrangements. For a long time since the end of the War, the US has recognized and in reality respected China's sovereignty over Nansha Islands. China's sovereignty over South China Sea islands, as part of the post-war international order, is under protection by the UN Charter and other international law. To be blunt, when the US states today that it does not take a position on issues of territory, it actually amounts to back-peddling and defiance of the post-war international order, which the US itself has participated in building.
There are sufficient grounds to state that on the South China Sea issue, China is completely at the receiving end of encroachments. For a long time, the South China Sea had remained trouble free and calm. But since the 1970s, the Philippines, Vietnam and other countries have illegally occupied 42 islands and reefs in China's Nansha Islands by force, which gave rise to disputes over territory in these islands and reefs. Over several decades, the Philippines and Vietnam carried out large scale construction and deployed armaments on them and continued to take provocative actions at sea. These illegal occupations and provocations are violations of international law and the UN Charter, and should be universally condemned. The world can see that on the South China Sea issue, China is by no means a wrong-doer or trouble maker, but rather a victim. According to international law, China has every right to self preservation and self-defense. It possesses the ability to recover the above-mentioned islands and reefs. However, in the interest of regional peace and stability, China has all along exercised enormous restraint, and sought peaceful settlement through negotiations. In recent years, China has taken actions only as compelled response at a minimal level to unbridled encroachments by certain countries on China's rights and interests. Stand in China's shoes for a moment, if it was the US who was challenged with such provocation, it would have long resorted to force to recover the illegally occupied islands and reefs.
2. China remains committed to peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea through negotiations and consultations with countries directly concerned.
The Chinese government was the first to propose and has consistently followed the position of "shelving disputes and pursuing common development." Its consistent position on the South China Sea issue includes the following three elements:
--Disputes should be settled peacefully through negotiation and consultation, and managed through rules, norms and operating mechanisms;
--Shared interests should be expanded through joint development and cooperation;
--Freedom of navigation and overflight should be upheld and peace and stability maintained.
These are both China's basic policies and solemn pledges on the South China Sea issue. For the past several decades, the South China Sea region has maintained stability on the whole, and the relevant disputes have been kept under control. Southeast Asia has been able to achieve robust growth, and is seen as an example of peace, stability and prosperity and a magnet of cooperation in the eyes of many countries and regions. This is a great contribution China and its neighbors have made to the international community.
As the biggest coastal country of the South China Sea and a country dedicated to peaceful development, China sees peace and stability of the South China Sea as bearing on its vital interests. That is why China will never resort to force unless challenged with armed provocation. Despite the negative impact of factors both within and outside the region, China has not lost confidence and will stick to its policy of seeking peaceful settlement through bilateral negotiation and consultation, for the following reasons.
First, peaceful settlement of disputes through negotiation and consultation best reflects adherence to international law and the basic norms of international relations. According to the UN Charter and the Declaration on Principles of International Law, negotiation is the primary way for peaceful settlement of international disputes. The UNCLOS stipulates that countries concerned should settle maritime delimitation disputes through negotiations as the first recourse, and China and ASEAN countries also made such solemn commitment in the DOC. The fact is, China has benefited from the existing international order, and has firmly observed and upheld such order. China will continue to honor its due obligations, earnestly fulfill international and regional responsibilities, uphold the integrity and authority of the UNCLOS and other international law, and safeguard the rule of law.
Second, to settle disputes peacefully and through negotiations has been a successful practice of China in implementing international rule of law. Back in the 1950s, China has proposed addressing historical boundary issues through consultation under the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence. In the following decades, China has resolved its boundary questions with 12 out of 14 land neighbors through negotiations. They have surveyed and demarcated around 20,000 kilometers of boundaries, about 90% of China's land boundary. China and Vietnam have delimited maritime boundary at the Beibu Gulf through negotiation. Of all boundary talks, those between China and Russia lasted for over 40 years, between China and Vietnam on land boundary over 30 years, and on Beibu Gulf over 20 years. I personally have participated in some of the boundary talks, and I believe that peaceful negotiations can best reflect countries' own will and sovereign equality and have unique strength and efficacy in addressing complex territorial and maritime disputes. There is no reason why disputes in the South China Sea cannot be resolved through peaceful negotiations.
Third, peaceful settlement of disputes through negotiation and consultation is the only viable way to manage and resolve the South China Sea issue. The truth is, the parties concerned in the South China Sea issue have all along been working in this direction, which is also a clear provision in the DOC. The parties have established mature and effective mechanisms to this end, and the COC consultation has been making notable progress. Despite all this, the Philippines went on a pervert course of initiating arbitration without prior consultation with China. This is nothing but an act of imposition by the Philippines on China, and a culmination of the Philippines' actions to advance its illegal claims. The truth behind the arbitration case is political intrigue, whereby certain countries have been deliberately provoking problems and stirring up tensions, eager to see turbulence in the South China Sea. The arbitral tribunal has no jurisdiction over this case. By making a so called "award", it has wilfully expanded its power, which is against the UNCLOS and is null and void.
By taking a position of not participating in or accepting the arbitration, China is upholding its own rights and interests under international law and safeguarding the integrity and authority of the UNCLOS. We hope that the US side will take an objective and fair approach regarding the arbitration, rather than criticizing China for upholding the UNCLOS from the position of a non-state party. The final award of the arbitration, which will come out in the next few days, amounts to nothing more than a piece of paper. China suffered enough from hegemonism, power politics and bullying by Western Powers since modern times. The Versailles peace conference at the end of World War I forced a sold-out of Shandong Province. The Lytton Commission, sent by the League of Nations when Japan invaded China's northeast provinces, only served to justify Japan's invasion. Even the US-led negotiations on San Francisco Peace Treaty excluded China. These episodes are still vivid in our memory. That is why China will grip its own future on issues of territorial sovereignty, and will never accept any solution imposed by a third party.
3. The situation in the South China Sea must cool down.
The temperature of the South China Sea is now high enough. Some people even clamored for "fight tonight". If such momentum went unchecked, accidents could happen and the South China Sea might sink into chaos and so might the entire Asia. Should that happen, it will be countries around the South China Sea, the Asian countries and even the US itself that will suffer. We must not let this happen, and not allow Asia to become another West Asia and North Africa. Anyone intent on fueling the flames and unleashing disastrous outcomes will be held accountable by history.
Cooling down temperatures in the South China Sea requires concrete efforts by all countries concerned.
First, the urgent priority is to stop the arbitration case initiated by the Philippines. If the tribunal insisted on its way and produced an "award", no one and no country should implement the award in any form, much less to force China into implementation. And the Philippines must be dissuaded from making any further provocation. Otherwise, China would not sit idle.
Second, China and the US have neither disputes over even one inch of territory nor fundamental clash of interests in the South China Sea. The South China Sea issue should not be allowed to define China-US relations. Rather, this issue should be put in perspective against larger bilateral relations and be transformed into an area of cooperation rather than arena for confrontation. We must forestall undue disruptions or damages to the overall China-US relations as a result of differences over this issue. The people of China and the US will not forgive us, if we let the basically sound China-US relations cultivated by both sides over the past forty years be ruined by mis-judgment and mishandling over this issue.
I have made China's position and views clear. Let me conclude with a few more personal observations.
First of all, even if the US is unable to go back to its position of recognizing China's sovereignty over the Nansha Islands, it should honor its stated position of not taking sides on issues concerning territorial disputes. If the US is truly committed to peace and stability in the South China Sea and the wider Asia-Pacific and a rule-based order, it should judge the issue on its merits, respect facts, oppose or restrain provocations by certain countries against China and encourage countries directly concerned to settle the disputes peacefully through negotiation and consultation and implement the DOC fully and effectively.
Second, one should not be too ready to frame the South China Sea issue as a strategic issue or interpret and predict China's behavior by drawing from western theories of international relations and history. It would be nothing but baseless speculation to assert that China wants to make the South China Sea an Asian Caribbean Sea and impose the Monroe Doctrine to exclude the US from Asia or that China is trying to compete with the US for dominance in the South China Sea, Asia and even the world. Unlike traditional western powers, China, an oriental civilization that goes back five thousand years, has distinctive culture, values, political thinking and view of the world. For China, the South China Sea issue is all about territorial sovereignty, security, development and maritime rights and interests. It is all about preventing further tragic losses of territory. China's thinking is as simple as that. And there is no other agenda behind it. We have no intention or capability to engage in "strategic rivalry" with anyone. We have no ambition to rule Asia, still less the Earth. Even in the context of the issue in question, we have never claimed we own the entire South China Sea. We only have one ambition, which is to manage our own affairs well and ensure a decent life and dignity for the nearly 1.4 billion Chinese people. China's right to rise peacefully and deliver a better life for its people should not and will not be taken away by anyone.
Third, the US's heavy-handed intervention in the South China Sea issue needs to be scaled back. There is deep concern about the US continued reinforcement of its military alliances in the Asia-Pacific and forward deployment of its military assets. Since last year, the US has intensified its close-in reconnaissance and "Freedom of Navigation" operations targeted at China. The rhetoric of a few people in the US has become blatantly confrontational. How would you feel if you were Chinese and read in the newspapers or watch on TV reports and footages about US aircraft carriers, naval ships and fighter jets flexing muscles right at your doorstep and hear a senior US military official telling the troops to be ready "to fight tonight"? Wouldn't you consider it unhelpful to the US image in the world? This is certainly not the way China and the US should interact with each other.
Having said that, we in China would not be intimidated by the US actions, not even if the US sent all the ten aircraft carriers to the South China Sea. Furthermore, US intervention on the issue has led some countries to believe that the US is on their side and they stand to gain from the competition between major countries. As a result, we have seen more provocations from these countries, adding uncertainties and escalating tensions in the South China Sea. This, in fact, is not in the interest of the US. The risk for the US is that it may be dragged into trouble against its own will and pay an unexpectedly heavy price. Hopefully, the countries, whose recent course of action has been driven by reckless impulse, will engage in some cool-headed thinking and realize that China has been living alongside them peacefully as a friendly neighbor for several thousand years. Neither had this neighbor invaded anyone nor interfered in any country's internal affairs. Neither is this neighbor pursuing any regime change nor building confrontational political or military blocs. All China's endeavors are focused on protecting its sovereignty, security and development interests and it has no intention to seek dominance or hegemony. Those countries will eventually see that it is the friendly China that will remain their neighbor for generations to come instead of some faraway superpower that is, for the moment, their ally.
Fourth, China and the US need to find ways to manage their differences constructively. As I said, the South China Sea issue boils down to disputes between China and a few other littoral states. Given that these disputes are not going to be settled any time soon, the key question is how these disputes should be managed pending final resolution. Should parties provoke each other over these disputes, aggravate tensions and encourage confrontation? Or should they downplay the disputes, shelve their differences and expand cooperation? The answer is apparent. China has all along been committed to resolving the disputes peacefully through negotiation and consultation. Even though the South China Sea is clearly not an issue between China and the US, China is willing to maintain communication with the US on maritime issues and work with the US and all other parties to keep the situation under control, considering our shared interest in peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific. Our two sides may work together to find ways to jointly promote regional peace and stability through constructive dialogue on matters such as regional confidence-building, effectively managing disputes and advancing maritime practical cooperation.
Fifth, China and the US need to expand their positive maritime agenda. Both countries support freedom of navigation and overflight. As long as the US does not use that as a pretext to challenge China's sovereignty and security interests, the two countries can cooperate on a global level to safeguard such freedom. Closer cooperation is also called for in a wide range of ocean-related fields such as marine environmental protection, marine science and research and maritime law-enforcement to give a stronger boost to China-US interaction at sea.
I was born at the height of the Second World War, and as a 75-year-old man, I either lived through or witnessed the evolutions of relations between some major countries. I have studied the Korean War, Vietnam War and Iraq War and how these wars took a heavy toll on the US. Since the turn of the century, I had the further privilege to chair China's strategic dialogues with the US and some other major countries, which were of great depth and quality and helped produce common thinking between our two countries on building a new model of major-country relationship. I love my country and people and have nothing but profound goodwill towards the American people. I wish for the best of China-US relations and for both our countries. We must work together to avoid strategic mistakes pushing us into conflict or confrontation. Some of my remarks today might sound a little bit harsh, but I said them with the best of intentions. You may consider them words spoken from the heart of a friend of the US.
Wang Anshi, a famous Chinese poet who lived in the Northern Song Dynasty wrote, "We should not be afraid of the clouds blocking our view, because we already are at the highest elevation." It means that only by adopting a strategic vision and minimizing distractions can one understand where the trend is moving. In a globalized world full of opportunities and challenges, as the biggest developing and developed countries and the world's two largest economies, China and the US shoulder more common responsibilities and face more common challenges in driving world economic recovery and promoting international peace and security. There is so much potential of cooperation yet to be tapped. What we need is not a microscope to enlarge our differences, but a telescope to look ahead and focus on cooperation. Both Chinese and Americans are great nations with insight and vision. As long as the two sides work for common interests, respect each other, treat each other as equals, have candid dialogue, and expand common ground, China and the US will be able to manage differences and find the key to turning those issues into opportunities of working together. I have no doubt that China-US relations will embrace a great future.
To conclude, I wish the dialogue a full success.
Flash
A Belgian court on Tuesday sentenced a group of terrorist suspects linked to last year's Paris terror attacks up to 16 years in jail.
The three main defendants of the trial, Marouane El Bali, Schofield El Abdi and Mohamed Arshad have been found guilty of belonging to the terrorist group Islamic State (IS) and were sentenced to 16 years in prison. The fourth, Omar Damache, was sentenced to eight years.
Prosecutors said the men standing trial had returned from fighting with IS in Syria and were in constant contact with the group through the leader of the Paris attacks Abdelhamid Abaaoud.
Abaaoud was killed in a November raid in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis.
Pierre Hendrickx, the judge in the case, said the cell had intended to target Zaventem airport in Brussels as early as 2015. The airport ended up being one of the targets of the March 22, 2016 attacks in Belgium.
The terrorist cell was dismantled by police during a raid on Jan. 15, 2015 in Verviers, an eastern Belgian town close to German borders. A total of 16 suspects were charged in connection with the raid, but nine remain at large.
During the operation, police found "ingredients" to manufacture 6 kg of explosives.
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China on Tuesday offered to help the Republic of Congo in Central Africa to accelerate industrialization to diversify an economy heavily dependent on oil.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (2nd R), his wife Peng Liyuan (1st R) pose for a group photo with Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso (2nd L) and his wife Antoinette Sassou Nguesso(1st L) outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, July 5, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]
China will support the development of a special economic zone in Pointe Noir to speed up bilateral industrial cooperation, Chinese President Xi Jinping said when meeting with Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso.
China is willing to expand partnership with the Republic of Congo in agriculture and aviation, Xi said, adding that exchanges in culture, education, youth, media and other areas are also welcome.
During the talks, the two countries upgraded their relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership. Xi stressed enhancing mutual trust through exchanges between governments, ruling parties, legislative bodies and local affairs.
China is ready to communicate and coordinate with the Republic of Congo on peace and security in Africa, climate change and other major international and regional affairs, Xi said.
Sassou Nguesso congratulated Xi on the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China and hailed the remarkable bilateral cooperation in infrastructure, hydropower and health.
Applauding China's positive role in Africa, Sassou Nguesso said the Republic of Congo is ready to take the upgrading of bilateral relationship as an opportunity to promote bilateral cooperation as well as China-Africa cooperation.
Sassou Nguesso said his country looks forward to more partnership with China in special economic zones, industrial production capacity, trade and culture, welcoming Chinese businesses to increase investment in the country.
Sassou Nguesso said the Republic of Congo backs China's stance on the South China Sea and will work closely with China in international affairs.
Also on Tuesday, China's top legislator Zhang Dejiang met with Sassou Nguesso.
Zhang, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, said the NPC is ready to further strengthen friendly ties with the Republic of Congo's Parliament to provide legal guarantee for bilateral trade, investment and people-to-people exchanges.
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The Japanese and U.S. governments announced Tuesday that they have agreed to narrow the scope of U.S. military base workers protected by the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), a bilateral pact that gives U.S. servicemen and civilian workers in Japan privileged legal status.
Commander of the U.S. military in Japan Lt. Gen. John Dolan (4th L), U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy (3rd L), Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida (1st R) and Defense Minister Gen Nakatani (2nd R) hold talks in Tokyo, Japan, July 5, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]
Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and Defense Minister Gen Nakatani, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy and Lt. Gen. John Dolan, commander of U.S. Forces in Japan, made the announcement Tuesday in Tokyo.
Under the 1960 pact, the U.S. justice system, instead of Japanese courts, has the primary right of jurisdiction over crimes committed by U.S base service members and their "civil component" if the accused was "acting on official duty," which is often criticized as overprotective of U.S. Base workers and giving them immunity from Japanese law.
Another controversial issue about the pact is the term "civil component," which was formerly defined as "civilian persons of U.S. nationality who are in the employ of, serving with, or accompanying the U.S armed forces in Japan," but did not specify the employment conditions or arrangements.
The revised version of the pact narrowed the scope of "civil component" by restricting it to four categories: civilians paid by the U.S. government to work for the U.S. military in Japan; civilians working on ships and aircraft operated by the military; civilians working for the U.S. government and staying in Japan for official purposes related to the military and technical advisers and consultants staying in Japan at the invitation of the military.
U.S. civilians who are not in the above four categories are thus excluded from protection of the pact, including Kenneth Franklin Shinzato, a former Marine who worked at an Internet-related company in Kadena Air Base and was arrested for allegedly murdering and abandoning the body of a 20-year-old local woman in April.
The revision came as anti-U.S. sentiment in Okinawa, which hosts some 75 percent of U.S. bases in Japan, has been on the rise following a series of crimes committed by U.S. military-linked personnel including murder, rape, assault and a series of drunk driving cases.
Rallies have been held across the island prefecture, protesting against the crimes and demanding overhaul of the SOFA as well as removal of the U.S. military bases.
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Flash
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he wants to talk with China over the South China Sea issue after the ruling from an international tribunal.
During a speech before the Philippine Air Force on Tuesday, the president said he wants friendly relations with China and reiterated that he was against any armed conflict.
Duterte had previously said he was open to talks with China, and even joint ventures to share resources in the sea.
But Tuesday's comments were the first since he became president confirming he was open to talks.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration is to announce its final decision on the case next Tuesday.
China has repeatedly said it would reject the ruling and refused to recognize the court's jurisdiction over the issue.
Beijing has insisted the issue should be resolved through direct talks with Manila.
Flash
NASA celebrated a key triumph yesterday as its US$1.1 billion Juno spacecraft successfully slipped into orbit around Jupiter on a mission to probe the origin of the solar system.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, erupted in cheers as the solar observatory entered its aimed-for orbit around the biggest planet in our cosmic neighborhood.
"We are there. We are in orbit. We conquered Jupiter," said Scott Bolton, NASA's principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.
"It is almost like a dream coming true."
Juno launched five years ago from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and has traveled 2.7 billion kilometers since then.
Its arrival marks the start of a 20-month mission during which scientists hope to find out more about how much water Jupiter holds and the makeup of its core to figure out how the gas giant and other planets including Earth formed billions of years ago.
"This amazing universe that we see, how does that work and how did it begin?" said NASA project scientist Steve Levin. "That is one of the amazing things about working for NASA and working on big projects. You get to answer big questions."
The spacecraft is equipped with nine science instruments, including a camera, which prior to orbit captured a video of Jupiter and its moons gliding around it at different speeds.
"In all of history we've never really been able to see the motion of any heavenly body against another," said Bolton, after showing the video during a post-orbit press conference for the first time.
It can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjfQCTat-8s.
"This is the king of our solar system and its disciples going around it," he said.
"To me, it is very significant. We are finally able to see with real video, with real pictures, this movement and we have only been able to imagine it up until today."
All non-essential equipment was turned off for the approach, but the first post-orbit pictures from the spacecraft's on-board camera should arrive in a few days, NASA said.
"The spacecraft worked perfectly, which is always nice when you're driving a vehicle with 1.7 billion miles on the odometer," said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager.
Juno's inaugural lap around the solar system's most massive planet will last 53 days. Subsequent orbits will be shorter, about two weeks each.
The first mission is designed to see beneath Jupiter's clouds. Juno is named after the Roman goddess who was the wife of Jupiter, the god of the sky in ancient mythology.
The spacecraft orbits Jupiter from pole to pole, sampling its charged particles and magnetic fields for the first time and revealing more about the auroras in ultraviolet light that can be seen around the planet's polar regions.
Juno should circle the planet 37 times before finally making a death plunge in 2018.
Although Juno is not the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, NASA says its path will bring it closer than its predecessor, Galileo, which launched in 1989.
That spacecraft found evidence of subsurface saltwater on Jupiter's moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto before making a final plunge toward the planet in 2003.
Juno's orbital track is closer than Galileo's this time within 5,000 kilometers above the cloud tops.
With an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium, Jupiter is known for its Great Red Spot, a storm bigger than Earth that has been raging for hundreds of years.
On Monday, Heidi Becker, senior engineer on radiation effects at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, described the close approach as going "into the scariest part of the scariest place ... part of Jupiter's radiation environment where nobody has ever been."
A leading concern has been radiation levels as high as 100 million X-rays in the course of a year, she said.
Those high-energy electrons, moving at the speed of light, "will go right through a spacecraft and strip the atoms apart inside your electronics and fry your brain if you don't do anything about it," she said.
"So we did a lot about it," she added, describing the thick layer of titanium that protects the electronics in a vault to bring the radiation dose down.
Flash
The United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Syria has expressed alarm over reports of deteriorating humanitarian conditions and urgent medical evacuation needs in the towns of Madaya, Foah, Zabadani and Kefraya, where more than 62,000 people are besieged.
In a statement, Yacoub El Hillo, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria, called for the parties to the "Four Towns Agreement" to allow for immediate and unconditional access for humanitarian actors.
"While parties to the agreement had committed to ensure humanitarian assistance to civilians trapped in the Four Towns, we have not been able to do so since April," said Mr. El Hillo.
"We all remember too well the disturbing images of starving children in Madaya earlier this year, many of whom have died even after aid was finally allowed in. We are calling on all parties involved to ensure this doesnt happen again. Immediate and unconditional humanitarian deliveries to the four towns must take place now," he added.
Despite approval granted in May and June by the Syrian Government for the UN and humanitarian partners to provide assistance to besieged civilians in the four towns, access has not been possible because of tension among parties to the agreement, aerial bombardment in Idleb, and shelling on Foah and Kefraya, the Humanitarian Coordinator said.
Yesterday, the Government of Syria authorized "yet again" the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the four towns under the July plan, allowing the UN and partners a "unique opportunity" to reach besieged people with aid during the upcoming holy days of Eid al-Fitr, Mr. El Hillo said.
The Humanitarian Coordinator emphasized that the UN is equally concerned over the delays in conducting urgent medical evacuations from the four towns.
"Our teams stand ready to proceed with the medical evacuation of the sick and wounded. We ask the parties to let us help the most vulnerable, and put an end to the tit-for-tat approach of the agreement that does not allow for emergency life-saving responses when urgently needed," he said.
Across Syria, about 5.5 million people are in need in hard-to-reach and besieged areas with limited access to basic life-saving assistance and protection. Of that number, close to 600,000 are in 18 besieged areas including the four towns.
"The United Nations is once again calling for the immediate lifting of all sieges of civilians in Syria. Using besiegement that results in starvation as a method of warfare is a crime under International Humanitarian Law," Mr. El Hillo emphasized.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, a follow-up convoy to besieged East Harasta went ahead with food, medicines and other essentials for 10,000 people. This area was last reached by a UN inter-agency convoy on 18 May, the office of the spokesperson for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted in a statement briefing.
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Dai Bingguo, China's former state councilor in charge of foreign affairs, on Tuesday called on related parties to cool the unreasonably hot South China Sea issue, warning of its potential dangers.
"If such momentum goes unchecked, accidents could happen and the South China Sea might sink into chaos and so might the entire Asia," Dai said in a keynote speech at a forum held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a U.S. think tank, one week before an expected arbitral ruling over the issue.
"Should that happen, countries around the South China Sea, the Asian countries and even the United States itself will suffer," Dai told a group of Chinese and U.S. experts on international law and foreign relations.
He said all countries concerned should make concrete efforts to let off the heat over the issue.
Arbitration result no more than "a piece of paper"
With regard to the expected ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on July 12, Dai said it will be "nothing more than a piece of paper" and warned against any attempt to enforce the ruling in any form.
He stressed that the Philippines, which initiated the arbitration case against China, must be dissuaded from making any further provocation. "Otherwise, China will not sit idle," he said.
China has made its stance clear that it does not accept the arbitration and therefore has stayed away from the proceedings.
China has said that the arbitral tribunal has no jurisdiction over sovereignty issues which should be resolved by the two claimants themselves.
Dai noted that China's territorial claims to the South China Sea are based on abundant historical evidence and documents.
He said the United States recognized and respected China's sovereignty over the islands when China recovered them from Japanese occupation after World War II, and provided military vessels to ferry China's military and government personnel to Xisha and Nansha Islands to hold the restoration ceremony.
The islands' return to China is part of post-WWII international order and relevant territorial arrangements, Dai stressed.
Commitment to peaceful resolution
The current U.S. stance of taking no position on the dispute "actually amounts to back-pedalling and defiance of the post-war international order, which the United States participated in building," he noted.
He pointed out that China, in fact, has been "completely at the receiving end of encroachments" in the South China Sea, as the Philippines, Vietnam and other countries have illegally occupied 42 islands and reefs in Nansha Islands by force.
He said that although China has the capability to recover the islands and reefs, it has all along exercised enormous restraint and sought a peaceful settlement through talks.
More constructive U.S. role called for
Dai said differences between China and the United States over the South China Sea issue should not be allowed to define the China-U.S. relations as these two countries have neither territorial disputes nor a fundamental clash of interests in the South China Sea.
Washington should honor its promise not to take sides over the dispute, and stop speculating that China is trying to compete with it for dominance in the region, Asia and the world as a whole, Dai added.
"We have no intention or capability to engage in 'strategic rivalry' with anyone. We have no ambition to rule Asia, still less the Earth," he said.
Dai urged Washington to scale back its "heavy-handed intervention" in the South China Sea issue through reinforcing military alliances, the forward deployment of military assets, and increasing close-in reconnaissance and the so-called "Freedom of Navigation" operations targeted at China.
Otherwise, it might fall into trouble against its own will and pay an unexpectedly heavy price, as certain countries stand to gain from great-power rivalry, he warned.
Dai said that as China and the United States have shared interests in peace and stability in Asia Pacific, they should find ways to manage their differences constructively and maintain communication on maritime issues.
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At least eight soldiers were killed and 10 others wounded Wednesday when two car bombs went off at the main gate of a military base in Yemen's temporary capital of Aden, a government official told.
The government source based in Aden said that the latest reports indicate that eight soldiers were killed and more than 10 others wounded by the massive blasts of two car bombs that targeted a military base in Aden's district of KhorMaksar.
The double suicide attacks targeted the Sulaban special forces camp located near Aden's airport and followed by heavy clashes that continued for about one hour.
An army source told Xinhua that "scores of assailants wearing Yemeni army uniforms launched an a well-planned attack on the military base after the two suicide bombings."
"The terrorist attackers used rocket-propelled grenades RPGs and attempted to storm the military base from different directions," the army source said.
Witnesses told Xinhua that Saudi-led helicopters intervened and air-covered security forces during the armed confrontations with the terrorist attackers.
The two massive blasts set fire to some army vehicles inside the brigade and caused partial damage to nearby residential buildings, the source added.
Medical sources said that the toll could rise as ambulances and police vehicles were evacuating victims to the nearby hospitals and medical centers in Aden.
The Yemeni government forces launched anti-terror offensives and drived out scores of gunmen linked to the al-Qaida and the Yemen-based affiliate of the Islamic State (IS) from key neighborhoods and government compounds in Lahj and Abyan provinces in the last two months.
The pro-government forces backed by UAE warplanes continued to make significant gains and recaptured key areas from al-Qaida militants in the country's southern provinces and in southeastern province of Hadramout during the past weeks.
However, Yemen's temporary capital of Aden and other provinces controlled by the internationally recognized government are still witnessing a state of chaos and lawlessness that resulted in the assassinations of several high-ranking security and military officials.
The turbulent and complicated security situation in Aden and neighboring southern provinces of Lahj and Abyan is one of the biggest challenges for the Saudi-led Arab coalition forces operating in Aden.
The Saudi-led Arab 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-Qaida insurgencies in the Middle East and the affiliate of IS.
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Britain on Wednesday published the long-awaited inquiry into the Iraq War, concluding that Britain went to war before all peaceful options had been exhausted, according to the Chairman of the UK's inquiry John Chilcot.
In a statement, Chilcot said military action was not a last resort in the Iraq war.
The inquiry has also found the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the then U.S. President George Bush he would be with him "whatever" in regards to Iraq, several months before they launched the Iraq invasion.
Chilcot also said the legal basis for British military action in Iraq was "far from satisfactory," stressing that British policy on Iraq was made on the basis of "flawed intelligence and assessments".
He noted that Blair was warned that military action in Iraq would increase the threat of al Qaeda to Britain, but war risks were not "properly identified".
In March 2003, there was "no imminent threat" from Saddam Hussein, according to Chilcot.
Britain military role in Iraq went "badly wrong" and "ended a long way from success', he said.
In the statement, Chilcot also revealed that Blair "overestimated his ability to influence U.S. decisions on Iraq".
Flash
Former British prime minister Tony Blair said he will "take full responsibility for any mistakes without exception or excuse" over the Iraq war, after the publication of a long-awaited inquiry into the war on Wednesday.
Speaking before the publication of the report, the chairman of the inquiry John Chilcot said Britain went to war before all peaceful options had been exhausted.
He also said that the legal basis for British military action in Iraq was "far from satisfactory," stressing that British policy on Iraq was made on the basis of "flawed intelligence and assessments."
In the report, finally published seven years after the inquiry began and 13 years after British and U.S. troops invaded Iraq, Chilcot concluded that Britain's military role in Iraq went "badly wrong" and "ended a long way from success."
He noted that Blair was warned that military action in Iraq would increase the threat of al Qaeda to Britain, but war risks were not "properly identified."
In March 2003, there was "no imminent threat" from Saddam Hussein, according to Chilcot.
In response to the publication of the report, Blair said "the report does make real and material criticisms of preparation, planning, process and of the relationship with the United States."
"These are serious criticisms and they require serious answers," he said in a statement.
He also announced that he will respond in detail to the criticisms later on Wednesday.
"I will at the same time say why, nonetheless, I believe that it was better to remove Saddam Hussein and why I do not believe this is the cause of the terrorism we see today whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world," he added.
However, Blair defended his "good faith" in his decisions to go to war in Iraq.
"The report should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit. Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein, I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country," he said.
Blair said that in the report there was no falsification or improper use of intelligence, no deception of Cabinet, and no secret commitment to war whether at Crawford Texas in April 2002 or elsewhere.
"The inquiry does not make a finding on the legal basis for military action but finds that the Attorney General had concluded there was such a lawful basis by March 13, 2003," he explained.
Blair paid tribute to British Armed Forces, saying: "I will express my profound regret at the loss of life and the grief it has caused the families, and I will set out the lessons I believe future leaders can learn from my experience."
A girl buying an ice cream cone on a hot day during the Ice Cream Festival in Moscow, Aug 2, 2014. [Photo/IC] Chinese consumers take a shine to greater variety of tummy-friendly desserts
The pleasure of enjoying a scoop or two, or a cone or a tub, of ice cream is often accompanied by the guilt of consuming too much fat and sugar.
As summer's intense heat approaches, more and more consumers must balance the temptation to gorge on ice cream with personal health concerns.
Many consumers refuse the indulgence of ice cream to remain fit but sometimes pleasure can exist without guiltin recent years, healthier alternatives have become a trend in the market.
Vivienne Li, the owner of Vivi Dolce, which is one of the most successful gelato studios in Beijing, said she has noticed a shift in Chinese preferences toward a greater, healthier variety of ice cream.
"As consumers upgrade their consumption habits, new types of ice cream are made from organic and natural ingredientssuch as gelato, sorbet, and other reduced fat products," Li said. "(They) are certainly becoming more popular."
According to a 2015 report by research firm Mintel, more ice cream5.9 billion litersis consumed in China annually than anywhere else in the world.
Thibaud Andre, senior consultant and marketing manager at Daxue Consulting, said the average amount of ice cream consumed per person annually in China is about 4 liters.
Many brands have introduced low-sugar, low-calorie or low-fat products in China. For example, a number of gelato boutiques have appeared throughout China, allowing customers to finally indulge in the frozen low-fat Italian delight.
Andre said the markets in China for ice cream and healthier alternatives have each been expanding and trending upward, emphasizing the promise of frozen yogurt specifically.
"A trend has been that the ice cream industry is trying to get health-friendly, with low calories and low-carb options, but it is playing catch-up to frozen yogurt," Andre said. "Besides health concerns, two more innovations in the frozen yogurt industryon-site consumption and the ability to add your own flavors and toppingsmay give it a slight advantage in growing popularity, but both markets are growing relatively nicely."
Andre credits those innovations to frozen yogurt's marginally greater success than ice cream in spreading health consciousness among consumers. Furthermore, he suggested a greater variety of local brands and thus competition in the ice cream market has made it difficult for more traditional Western brands to capture the market.
One foreign frozen yogurt brand that has found success in China is the California-based Menchie's. In its 14 years operating in China, it has expanded to five stores and without detailing specifics, said Frank Fan, director of operations of Menchie's China. The brand is planning an expansion in China, he said.
Fan further said Menchie's success is due to its specially designed special flavors such as durian and matcha that appeal to Chinese consumers, along with the ability to dine-in after purchasing a la carte a personalized assortment of toppings.
"I'm very optimistic about frozen yogurt in China," Fan said. "For now, fro-yo is not a popular product, but more and more brands are targeting the Chinese market."
Although China is now the largest ice cream market in the world, there is much catching up to do on a per-person basis compared to its Western counterparts, giving firms like Menchie's even more hope for expansion.
Andre said besides 4 liters of ice cream, a Chinese consumer savors 4 to 5 liters of frozen yogurt on average annually. That is still four times less than the corresponding figures in the United States.
According to Mintel, although China overtook the US as the world's largest ice cream consumer, the latter with far fewer people still managed to consume 5.8 billion litersjust 1 million liters less than China last year.
Ni Yuchen and Wyatt Bush contributed to this story.
Workers load steel products at a logistics park in Yichang, Hubei province. [Photo/China Daily]
The Chinese government has been discouraging iron and steel exports in the midst of lackluster demand in the global market, the Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday.
"China's iron and steel output primarily meets domestic demand. The Chinese government has taken measures, such as increasing the export tariffs on some products, to control exports," said Shen Danyang, spokesman for the ministry.
Shen said the tax refund rate for iron and steel exports is lower than the 17 percent value-added tax rate. The percentage of exports, Shen added, is very low compared with total output.
In the first five months of the year, China's exports of iron and steel increased by 6.4 percent year-on-year, stirring further concerns that the global supply will further outstrip the demand.
"In the first five months in 2015, iron and steel exports increased by 50 percent compared with the same period the previous year. The growth rate this year has fallen by around 22 percentage points," said Shen.
"This has shown that China has restrained its exports to maintain the stability of the world's iron and steel market."
According to a report by zgw.com, an iron and steel trading platform, the export growth of Chinese iron and steel in 2016 will fall significantly. It does not rule out the possibility of negative growth.
On the other hand, as China's exports of iron and steel enjoy the advantage of favorable prices and good quality, total export volumes will still be at a relatively high level, the report said. It is estimated that this year's total exports will be no less than 80 million metric tons and will likely surpass 100 million metric tons.
Shen has said previously that the global economic slowdown was the main cause of iron and steel overcapacity. The Chinese government has been making efforts to keep the production capacity down.
The State Council has issued a plan to reduce crude steel output by 100 to 150 million metric tons within five years starting from 2016.
"At the moment, one of the biggest advantages of China's iron and steel product in the global market is its high quality-price ratio," said Chen Jingfu, analyst at Shanghai-based Mysteel Research Institute.
"But in the future, it should stand out more in quality, service and brand building."
According to Chen, China's iron and steel industry has a priority of meeting domestic demand in the long term. China's growth, which has become more innovation driven, needs large quantities of iron and steel with higher added value. High-tech and environmentally friendly products are going to be in huge demand, Chen added.
Pharmaceutical tablets and capsules are arranged on a table in a photo illustration shot September 18, 2013. [Photo/Agencies]
China companies have announced more than $3.9 billion of overseas acquisitions in pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical healthcare so far this year, which is expected to surpass the record high of last year, and ten times that of 2012, Bloomberg reports.
It's attributed to asset diversification of Chinese enterprise given domestic economic slowdown and updating the "Made in China" brand plan initiated by the government, the news agency said.
Success overseas would allow them to expand their portfolios, find new areas of growth and provide an entry into developed markets that have high regulatory standards.
Beijing-based investment company Creat Group Corp agreed in May to acquire Bio Products Laboratory Ltd, a maker of human blood plasma products in the UK, for $1.2 billion from Bain Capital LLC and UK Department of Health.
It is the largest international pharmacy acquisition by a Chinese company, according to the Bloomberg-compiled data.
Also in May, Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co, backed by billionaire Guo Guangchang, one of China's best-known entrepreneurs, made a non-binding proposal to buy 96 percent of India's Gland Pharma Ltd, which is focused on injectable drugs.
Last year, Fosun Pharmaceutical was also part of a consortium that acquired Ambrx Inc, a protein therapeutics R&D company in the US for an undisclosed amount.
While Chinese companies are emerging more often on the list of bidders for healthcare businesses, they also face fierce competition for prime assets, Bloomberg said.
In March, people familiar with the matter said Luye Group Ltd was among bidders for French pharmaceutical company Ethypharm SA. Ultimately, another bidder, European private equity firm PAI Partners ended up agreeing to buy the French drug maker.
Also, in July last year, people familiar with the matter said the China Grand group was among bidders for Belgium's UCB SA's US generics business. However, UCB eventually sold the business to US-based Lannett Co.
Chinese companies can fit in very well when there's no big logical strategic player and buyers are down to private-equity firms in an auction, Bloomberg said quoting George Lin, head of Asia consumer, retail and healthcare investment banking at Bank of America Corp.
"The really attractive products, the biotech products, those are going to be highly sought after by the mega caps," said Lin. "So the Chinese are not going to be competitive."
Agencies contributed to this story.
China CITIC Bank Corp Ltd announced on Tuesday the launch of a service to help its debit and credit cardholders with visa application to visit more than 70 countries.
The embassies of eight of the 70 countries, namely the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Brazil, South Africa, Singapore, New Zealand and Israel, have authorized China CITIC Bank as the sole financial institution in the country to provide visa application fees payment and drop-off visa services. Within 15 working days, the bank can help its clients receive a visa that is valid for two to 10 years after they submitted application documents as required.
"Our bank provides seven types of overseas financial services targeting students, businessmen, tourists and immigrants abroad, including cross-border settlement, foreign exchange related services, bank references and global asset allocation," said Guo Danghuai, vice-president of China CITIC Bank.
It also launched a program to help realize millions of dreams of going abroad, together with UnionPay International Co Ltd, China Eastern Airlines Corp Ltd and Brand USA - the destination marketing organization for the US aiming to increase international visitation. The program will award a total of 20 China CITIC Bank cardholders with an eight-day free trip to the US.
"In 2014, 2.2 million Chinese tourists visited the United States, which was a staggering 21 percent increase over 2013. Industry forecasts expected the number of Chinese tourists traveling to the US will maintain a 20 percent annual growth through 2020. By 2018, China will become the third largest international market for visitors to the US," said Bradley Parker, economic/political section chief of the US Consulate General Guangzhou.
According to a report published by the United Nations World Tourism Organization in May, China continues to globally lead the number of outbound travelers after double-digit growth in tourism expenditure every year since 2004. Spending by Chinese travelers increased 25 percent in 2015 to reach $292 billion, as total outbound travelers rose 10 percent to 128 million.
China Vanke Co Ltd's largest shareholder has nudged up its stake after a setback in its efforts to oust the property developer's board, fanning speculation of a rare hostile takeover bid for a Chinese mainland company.[Photo/VCG]
HONG KONG - China Vanke Co Ltd's largest shareholder has nudged up its stake after a setback in its efforts to oust the property developer's board, fanning speculation of a rare hostile takeover bid for a Chinese mainland company.
Adding to that speculation was a report that firms owned by the shareholder, financial conglomerate Baoneng, had applied to issue up to 23 billion yuan ($3.4 billion) in debt which would follow recent approval for a 5 billion yuan bond.
The report by Chinese business magazine Caixin quoted an unidentified source close to Baoneng as saying that the funds would be used to help finance the acquisition of shares in other companies.
Baoneng built up a holding of about 24 percent last year and fearing a hostile bid, Vanke's management last month announced a $6.9 billion deal with white knight Shenzhen Metro Group, which would dilute Baoneng's holding.
The high-profile corporate power struggle has given rise to much uncertainty over who has the upper hand. Both Baoneng and Vanke's second-biggest shareholder China Resources oppose the Shenzhen Metro deal, but China Resources did not back Baoneng's recent call to oust Vanke's board.
Baoneng now holds 24.972 percent of the company, an increase of 0.7 percent, Vanke said in a brief statement late on Tuesday.
"Baoneng bought some more shares last night, which naturally leaves investors wondering whether its next step will be to buy more," said Liu Junhai, a professor of business law at Renmin University of China in Beijing.
Baoneng, a conglomerate backed by billionaire Yao Zhenhua and with interests in insurance, property and logistics, did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. China Resources, which owns 15.2 percent of Vanke, also did not respond to a request for comment.
Liu said that if Baoneng increases its stake to 25 percent, it will have to disclose that under Chinese rules for listed companies. If its holding rises to 30 percent, then it will have to make a general offer to other shareholders.
The struggle for control has also drawn the scrutiny of regulators. The market is now keen to see if the Shenzhen bourse will approve the Shenzhen Metro deal. Some analysts have also said the bourse could still rule that Baoneng and China Resources are working in concert, which would trigger a mandatory buyout offer.
"There are too many developments in different directions. It's hard to predict what will happen next," said Conita Hung, director of Amicus Asset Management in Hong Kong.
The increase in Baoneng's stake initially sent Vanke's Hong Kong-listed shares surging 5 percent higher but they later pared gains to trade flat. The broader market was down 1.3 percent.
A middle school teacher contacts parents of his students in Beijing. The number of fixed-line phone users is decreasing fast due to the popularity of smartphones. [Photo/China Daily]
An increasing number of Chinese enterprises have become aware that good post-sales service is the key for sustainable business growth. But, this is not a task that some service firms do well.
Take, for example, my landline telephone operator.
On the evening of June 7, the phone was suddenly offline with no signal. I dialed the service hotline of the company right away and was told by the hotline attendant that a technician from her company would contact me within eight hours. I was happily telling my wife, "Look! Eight hours is not a long time for such a big company to handle a customer's problem".
However, I was wrongwe didn't receive any call from the telephone operator for 24 hours after my call for help. So, I kept calling the hotline every day, asking when my telephone problem could be handled. They always gave me the same answerthat the relevant technician would contact me very soon. After three weeks, my home telephone eventually returned to normal without any technicians coming to my home.
I've paid more than 150 yuan ($23) on average monthly to the telephone operator for more than 10 years for use of the fixed-line telephone. But when I got a problem with my phone, I felt I was being ignored.
The telephone company, which asked to be anonymous, is one of the big three telecom operators, which have no competitors in China's telecoms market because they enjoy strong policy and financial support from the central and local governments. The other two are mainly engaged in mobile and internet communications.
My boss said that he also had a similar experience in his community. He tried to apply for a telecom company's internet broadband service, but was told by his property company that the only provider he could choose was from another firm designated by the property company. Obviously, the community's telecom service was being monopolized. So, my boss asked, how could the telecom service be as good as he hoped and expected?
My telephone operating company's official website commits to a round-the-clock customer service hotline, providing services such as inquiry, consulting, failure reporting, handling of complaints and suggestions, business transactions and recharge service. Proactively, the hotline also calls customers for feedback and sends greetings.
The company might have a special reason for not keeping its customer service commitment to me. But, shouldn't I at least receive a call from the hotline to explain what was going on over there? I think I should. I believe my experience is not unique among the country's 231 million fixed-line telephone subscribers.
Even in such a monopolized market, post-sales service has, to some extent, affected the business revenue of the fixed-line telephone operator. In 2015, the company's annual revenue fell to 277.05 billion yuan, down 4 percent year-on-year.
Another reason for the company's business revenue shrinking was the decrease in fixed-line telephone subscribers nationwide due to the strong challenge from mobile services. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, more than 18.43 million users scrapped their contracts with fixed-line telephone operators in China in 2015.
I really hope the current decrease in fixed-line users does not become an excuse for my telephone operator not to provide a quality post-sales service to its customers. Bad service is a double-edged sword that hurts both customers and the company's reputation.
A model displays an NEC notebook computer at an industry expo in Tokyo. [Photo/Agencies]
The company will continue its PC-centric strategy
Lenovo Group Ltd, the world's largest personal computer maker, will spend about $195 million to acquire its PC joint venture with the Japanese company NEC Corp.
The deal highlights the Chinese tech giant's determination to rely on the PC business for growth, despite the continuing decline in global PC shipments.
Lenovo will buy a roughly 44 percent stake in Lenovo NEC Holdings BV, a joint venture established five years ago, NEC said on its official website. NEC will retain about 5 percent of the ordinary shares.
The venture has helped the Beijing-based company become the biggest PC maker in Japan.
Kanae Maite, a Japan-based principal analyst at Gartner Inc, said Lenovo owns 25 percent of Japanese PC market in 2015. "Its strong performance in both the consumer and the business PC arenas is a good reason for this deal."
Lenovo has a Japan R&D center that leads the design of the ThinkPad brand, which is a key for the company to maintain profit margins in high-end markets, he added.
The move is also in line with Lenovo Chairman Yang Yuanqing's strategy that the PC unit will continue to be the company's pillar business. "The global PC market won't go down forever. I believe it will maintain at about 250 million units a year," Yang said last month.
Financial reports showed that Lenovo derived 66 percent of its 2015 revenue from the PC business, but the profit margin was low. Other PC makers such as Dell Inc and HP Inc are scrambling to diversify their business into cloud computing and other areas. Lenovo also made similar moves, putting forward the devices plus cloud strategy.
But in Yang's view, hardware is the company's core competitiveness. "Cloud computing can generate some revenue, but it will be less than that from selling hardwares and devices," he said.
In the first quarter of 2016, worldwide PC shipments totaled 60.6 million units, marking a year-on-year decline of 11.5 percent. Lenovo performed better than the average, with a shipment of 12 million units, a decline of 8.5 percent, data from International Data Corp showed.
Jason Liu, an analyst at IDC China, said that despite the poor performance of the PC industry as a whole, niches such as laptop-tablet hybrid products are growing rapidly. "The future trend lies in leveraging cloud computing to connect smartphones, PCs and tablets," Liu added.
Lenovo to launch bendable smartphone
Lenovo Group Ltd aims to revive its faltering smartphone business with a handset that can wrap around a user's wrist.
The flexible device may come to market in the next five years, Lenovo's co-head of mobile business told broadcaster CNBC in an interview.
The Beijing-based company unveiled a concept smartphone, CPlus, last month. Its 4.26-inch display is bendable.
The move is Lenovo's latest push to differentiate its smartphones in a crowded market where products look and work mostly the same.
"It's hard to put an exact time frame on it. I think this is a product that could come to market in the next five years," said Aymar de Lencquesaing, co-president of Lenovo's mobile business group.
According to de Lencquesaing, one of the keys to commercialize CPlus will lie in how to achieve a balance between its "technology, novelty and price point".
In the first quarter of this year, Lenovo dropped outside the global top five smartphone vendors for the first time in four years, while smaller local players Oppo Electronics Corp and vivo Mobile Communication Technology Co Ltd are leaping forward.
Di Jin, research manager at IDC China, said flexible displays are likely to be a trend in the smartphone sector, given the rapid development of new materials.
An employee uses an Apple iPhone to demonstrate to reporters how to pay using the Apple Pay service at an Apple store in Beijing, Feb 17, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]
The performance of Apple's iPhone in China has worsened to 11 percent market share in May 2016 with its ranking dropping from third to fifth in the first quarter, according to a report from TechWeb.com.cn, citing a latest research from analyst firm Counterpoint Technology Market Research.
TechWeb said that Apple Inc's revenue in Greater China region fell 26 percent last quarter (as of March 26), in which the company suffered its first-ever quarterly corporate revenue decline since 2003.
The second quarter witnessed Apple's revenue decline 13 percent year-on-year and plunge to $50.6 billion. Its net profit decreased by 23 percent year-on-year to $10.5 billion.
Hong Shibin of Internet Society of China is an Internet marketing expert. Hong says Apple's biggest weakness is its product.
"Compared with the classic iPhone 4S and 5S, the iPhone 6S and iPhone SE lack innovation highlights," said Hong.
By comparison, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd's market share continues to grow, ranking first in China's smartphone market.
In addition, Chinese domestic smartphone manufacturers Huawei, Xiaomi Corp, Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications Co Ltd and Vivo Electronics Corp together captured 53 percent share of the overall Chinese smartphone market.
Chinese super model Liu Wen attends the Chanel show at the 2016 Autumn/Winter Haute Couture Paris Fashion Week, July 5, 2016. [Photo/IC]
Beijing included smog as a meteorological disaster in its draft of a new prevention and control regulation that was under review on Thursday.
Listing smog in the regulation would require the capital to improve urban planning - including better design of green zones and corridors - to reduce damage from smog.
Liu Zhengang, chief of the Beijing Legal Affairs Office, said on Thursday that it's appropriate to make the inclusion since smog and its negative effects have grown into a major concern for the government and public.
Neighboring Tianjin and Hebei province have already listed smog in their regulations, so Beijing should take the same step to better coordinate air-pollution control, he said.
Nationally, the State Council has yet to list smog as a meteorological disaster.
The draft of the Beijing Meteorological Disasters Prevention and Control Regulation defines a meteorological disaster as damage mainly caused by haze, torrential rains, blizzards, sandstorms, drought or freezing conditions.
To reduce damage from smog and improve air quality, the municipal government needs better urban planning, like rearranging green zones, rivers and roads, and building corridors to disperse air pollutants, the draft said.
The Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau said the capital had a 46 percent reduction in the concentration of PM2.5, fine particulate matter that poses health risks, in 2015, compared with 2013.
But the concentration still exceeded the national health standard by 1.3 times last year, and residents saw 46 days of hazardous pollution.
Liu said the capital has been prone to meteorological disasters, which can cause huge economic losses accounting for 1 to 3 percent of GDP.
"About 70 percent of the natural issues hitting the capital were meteorological ones," said Zhou Heping, deputy director in charge of rural affairs of the Standing Committee of Beijing Municipal People's Congress.
Research by the congress showed that from 2001 to 2014, meteorological disasters caused 111 deaths and 22.5 billion yuan ($3.43 billion) in direct economic losses.
These disasters are intertwined with urban problems like traffic congestion and pollution.
They have become thorny problems for the city, Zhou added.
zhengjinran@chinadaily.com.cn
Most provinces have performed well, according to assessment, but Beijing faces tough challenge
A majority of Chinese provinces have performed well in reducing airborne pollutants and have a good chance of reaching the targets set in the national action plan by 2017, according to an assessment by the Chinese Academy of Engineering that was released on Tuesday.
However, Beijing appears to have a tough challenge ahead, according to the assessment.
China has been engaged since 2013 in a national campaign against smog. The Action Plan on Air Pollution Prevention and Control set emission reduction targets to be met by 2017.
The plan said all cities should cut their PM10 levels by 10 percent, and that three major zonesBeijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Deltashould cut PM2.5 by 15 to 25 percent. PM2.5 and PM10 refer to hazardous particulate matter.
To assess the midterm performance of the action plan, the Ministry of Environmental Protection authorized the engineering academy to conduct the assessment.
"Most provinces have finished the major tasks, and reduction of particulate matter has reached or surpassed the midterm targets, which puts the 2017 goals in reach," said Hao Jiming, an environmental studies academician at Tsinghua University who led the assessment.
The assessment said major airborne pollutants including PM2.5 and sulfur dioxide have been reduced greatly, and the days with good air quality have increased nationwide.
But the assessment also exposed some problems. For example, seven provinces, including Liaoning and Jilin, not only failed to reduce PM10 concentrations but saw increases.
Beijing, which has faced a tough challenge in meeting the 2017 goals, was supposed to reduce PM2.5 to 60 micrograms per cubic meter on average, but its concentration last year averaged 80.6.
"The current control efforts in Beijing were not strong enough to facilitate such a large cut in PM2.5," said He Kebin, dean of the School of Environment at Tsinghua University.
Beijing plans to replace coal consumption for winter heating with electricity, which generates less pollution, in its rural areas and some areas of neighboring Langfang and Baoding cities, as well as some cities in Hebei province within 18 months, He said.
The reduction of coal burning is one of Beijing's difficult challenges, but success would enable the capital to reach its 2017 goals, He said.
Civil servants who leave their jobs are being welcomed in private sector
Yang Xingqiao decided to commemorate 10 years of being a public servant in a unique wayquit public service and join an internet giant as director of government affairs.
It was not a desperate choice, and Yang did not blame the anti-corruption campaign, underpayment or the slim hope of promotion.
"I was very happy with a government position, but I'd love to explore something new, somewhere else, and find a better me for the next 10 years," Yang said.
The career transition went smoother than expected. It turns out that private employers are eager to take on ex-public servants.
Yang was one of 12,000 civil servants who quit their jobs in 2015.
After years of offering secure lifelong jobs known as "iron rice bowls", China's civil service is losing some of its recruits, if not facing an actual brain drain.
Many blame rising public criticism of civil servants and a widening pay gap with the private sector.
According to a report by LinkedIn.cn, the Chinese language portal of the professional networking site, civil servants have stopped treating government jobs as a lifelong career.
"Driven by social and economic reform, as well as the movement toward entrepreneurship and innovation in China, more promising job vacancies are popping up from mature private firms and multinationals," the report said.
"China's recruitment and promotion procedures for civil servants have become more meritocratic. Now civil servants are a well-educated group of people with diverse backgrounds instead of plodding, inflexible ones," the report said.
"Companies hope to improve their government relations and better understand and follow China's policies and regulations by recruiting more of China's civil servants," it said.
One human resources staff member with a foreign-invested enterprise who wished to remain anonymous said an employee with experience in government can help a company take root in the Chinese market and better compete with local counterparts.
"We have paid much more attention to government affairs that have a direct effect on market entry, product registration and bidding," said the staff member. "For example, we are facing much more competition from innovative local players than before. Unhealthy government relations would put us in an adverse situation."
Wang Yixin, a senior consultant at human resources website Zhaopin, said most people working in the public sector have a skill set that is transferable and have a lot in common with their private-sector counterparts.
The central government and the Hong Kong special administrative region agreed to improve the crossborder police notification system after the first round of discussions on the issue in Beijing on Tuesday.
Amendments to the process under which central government authorities notify Hong Kong authorities when a Hong Kong resident is arrested or detained on the mainland, and vice versa, will focus on four areas. They will deal with the time frame under which notification is made, the information that both parties need to share, the range of cases that will be reported and the channel for notification. Such improvements are expected to better safeguard the legal rights of people from both sides, facilitate the fight against cross-border crimes and maintain social prosperity and stability, under the "one country, two systems" principle, according to both sides.
The meeting on Tuesday was arranged after Leung Chun-ying, the Hong Kong SAR's chief executive, wrote to the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council last month. He relayed the concerns of people in Hong Kong on incidents involving the arrest of Lam Wing-kee, the owner of a bookstore in Causeway Bay, and proposed reviewing the notification procedure.
Minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun said the central government has attached great importance to Leung's request.
Guo said mainland and Hong Kong police have experienced fruitful cooperation in law enforcement while meticulously following laws, regulations and institutional arrangements.
The SAR's Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen Kwokkeung and Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok led the Hong Kong delegation. They expressed their gratitude to the central government and said they hoped the review of the process will take a frank and pragmatic approach.
The two-way notification process between mainland public security authorities and Hong Kong police has been in use since January 2001.
Under the process, the liaison officer of the Ministry of Public Security is responsible for notifying the Liaison Bureau of the Hong Kong Police Force upon the arrest or detention of Hong Kong residents by mainland public security authorities or customs authorities and the unnatural death of Hong Kong residents on the mainland.
In the past 15 years, the arrests on the mainland of 6,172 Hong Kong residents have been reported to the SAR government, while the SAR has reported the arrests of 6,934 mainland residents in Hong Kong.
Song Sio-chong, a professor at the Research Center of Hong Kong and Macao Basic Law at Shenzhen University, said the notification process has played an important role in safeguarding the public interest of both sides. However, uncertainties exist because the process is not mandatory, he added.
During Tuesday's meeting, more details came to light about the case of Hong Kong bookseller Lam.
Lam, 61, is suspected of illegal trading in books on the mainland, according to the public security authority in Ningbo, Zhejiang province.
Ningbo police said they tracked the books, which were banned on the mainland, to Lam and his girlfriend.
In October last year, Lam was arrested at the Lo Wu checkpoint in Shenzhen on suspicion of operating an illegal business and was put under residential surveillance. Lam was released on bail in March 21 this year.
He was allowed to return to Hong Kong in June. After his return, he claimed he was detained illegally and tortured by mainland law enforcement officers. He also claimed that he refused to go back to the mainland.
An air quality monitoring station is seen in Anyang, Henan province, in April. Zhu Xiang / Xinhua
Performance in dealing with environmental issues has become the major criteria for the selection and appointment of officials in Henan province, according to the provincial government.
Under a policy released by the government on Monday, local officials seeking promotion will be rejected if their cities or counties are ranked in the bottom 10 five consecutive times in monthly air quality assessments, or if they were responsible for damaging environmental resources.
Xie Fuzhan, top official of Henan, said air pollution has become a major bottleneck that hinders the province's economic and social development.
Government officials have responsibility for development not only in the economy but also in environmental matters, Xie said.
The province is aiming for more than 190 days of fairly good air quality this year, and 200 days in 2017.
Zhengzhou, the provincial capital, was ordered to raise its environmental ranking on a list of 74 major cities nationwide. The city ranks 70th among the cities last year.
The government said it will weed out small coal-fired boilers in its counties, and focus on completing a plant to treat volatile organic compounds.
The government has also issued a regulation to enhance enforcement of measure to clean up the air.
The government has the duty to ensure that the annual average concentration of PM2.5 is reduced each year. If not, it will be fined 400,000 yuan ($60,000) per microgram, the document said.
PM2.5 is a class of airborne particles 2.5 microns or less in diameter that cause serious harm to humans.
"Such measures will make officials pay greater attention to the environment, and I think some related supervision systems should also be followed," said Zhengzhou resident Wang Lin.
Public awareness has been increasing, he added. "The more we know, the more measures come out from the government to curb deteriorating air quality," he said.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection has started to use biological indicators, such as butterflies and birds, to monitor and predict nationwide environmental changes.
The program will involve the participation of 53 colleges and institutes across the country, and the statistics collected will be used to analyze climate change and its impacts on vegetation.
"The biological indicators, including certain kinds of insects and birds, feed on just one kind or a few kinds of plants," said Li Zhaohui, director of Nanjing Xiaozhuang University's Institute for Applied Ecology.
"By monitoring their numbers and migrations, we can better understand changes in vegetation and the biological environment," Li said.
Zhu Shude, a professor of entomology at Yangzhou University, said butterflies were particularly sensitive to their environment, making them an ideal biological indicator.
"Only flowers, grasses and trees can attract butterflies. They are a widely recognized biological indicator that don't live in empty fields or on crops."
According to Li, Britain started programs using biological indicators as early as 1976. Similar programs have also been adopted elsewhere in Europe, North America, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
"The Chinese mainland has piloted the program in some provinces, including Jiangsu and Guangdong, since 2009," Li said. "The government is paying greater attention to biodiversity and environmental protection as it starts to adopt new methods to monitor the environment."
According to Li, who is also an expert in the China Butterfly Observation Program, there are more than 16,000 kinds of butterflies in the world, and about 10 percent of them are found in China.
Dozens of observation centers have been established in Jiangsu province to monitor the insects, and elementary school pupils have been encouraged to get involved.
Encouraging students to participate can also increase environmental awareness in society, Li said.
Ma Fangzhou, an assistant researcher at the Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences, suggested that China learn from developed countries that use unified methods to make their observations more scientific.
Guo Jun contributed to this story.
Police in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, intercepted eight vessels from Shanghai that were about to dump garbage on the banks of picturesque Taihu Lake in the Suzhou Taihu National Tourism Vacation Zone.
A total of 4,000 metric tons of garbage on the vessels was covered by tarpaulins. It consisted of construction waste and house hold materials.
According to Suzhou Release, the official WeChat account of Suzhou city, more than 10 vessels fled the scene when local maritime authorities arrived.
Since March, vessels from Shanghai have scattered more than 20,000 tons of garbage across 2,400 square meters along banks before being reported by local residents. The company that hired the vessels planned to get rid of 4 million tons of waste over an 18-month period at a cost of 5.4 yuan ($0.80) per ton.
Gu Liming, deputy chief of Suzhou's Jinting township, which has jurisdiction over the vacation zone, said the vessels came from Jiading in suburban Shanghai.
"The local environmental protection bureau conducted tests and confirmed that the water around the dump site has not been polluted," said Gu. "The bureau will strictly monitor the water quality and garbage treatment."
The dump site is 2 kilometers from the water intake for Jinting township and lies near the water intake for Suzhou's heavily populated Wuzhong and industrial park districts.
"My vessel carries 400 tons of garbage a time, and we can earn about 1,000 to 2,000 yuan from that," a vessel owner, surnamed Liu, was quoted by Suzhou Release as saying. He said the waste would be used by a construction firm to pave roads.
Yang Xinhai, chief engineer at Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences, said only part of the construction waste could theoretically be used to pave roads, but only after it is treated.
"The garbage dumped in Suzhou consists of construction waste and household and decoration materials," Yang said. "It cannot be used in construction projects."
According to Yang, it costs about 70 to 80 yuan to treat a ton of household waste in Shanghai.
Ma Jun, director of Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, said rising costs and increasingly strict regulations on garbage treatment stimulate some people to take the risk of dumping trash in other cities.
"Both the construction and household waste pose great danger to Taihu Lake, whose water quality needs to be improved even without new pollution," Ma said, adding that environmental protection authorities must monitor not only garbage from large construction sites but also from other sources, such as interior decoration.
The Suzhou government has ordered the removal of all garbage dumped on the banks of the lake. Some people suspected of arranging and dumping the garbage have been detained as local police investigate the case.
Guo Jun contributed to this story.
Guo Yonghong receives guests in a pearl-white hall lined with glass showcases, exhibiting one of Huichang county's most famed food products - rice noodles, or mifen, a popular staple in South China and Southeast Asia. Guo, the general manager of Jiangxi Wufeng Food Co, has worked in the industry for more than 27 years.
Under her leadership, the company has turned two decades of innovation and hard work into commercial success, with its rice noodles now being sold in the United States, Canada, France, the United Kingdom and 20 other countries and regions.
Guo began her career as a quality-control operative in a sugar factory in Jiangxi province, before moving to work in a State-owned rice noodle factory in Huichang in 1989.
"The noodles tasted bad, and sometimes they contained sand," said Guo, describing the factory at that time as "half dead".
Along with her colleagues, Guo decided to try and find a way of improving the noodles' taste. They discovered it was crucial to make them al dente, which means they are cooked to be firm to the bite.
"We tried many different things, including covering the noodles with a quilt to maintain the temperature, soaking them in hot water and combing them like hair," Guo said.
"I worked 17 hours a day in the factory and had little time to spend with my daughter in kindergarten who often slept in my office till dawn."
After three years of trial and error, Guo and her team finally hit upon a method of preparing the perfect rice noodle. In 1991, they brought the product to a food expo in Hainan province and won the gold medal. Orders started to fly in from all over China. In 1992, Guo developed a production line and exported the first 100 boxes of rice noodles to Canada.
In 1996, the Jiangxi Wufeng Food Co was established, and Guo continued to develop new products with different flavors and types of packaging. In 2008, Guo and her team dispatched tons of rice noodles to the earthquake-hit Wenchuan in Sichuan province.
Now, the company has 800 employees and an annual production capacity of 30,000 tons, translating into sales of 200 million yuan ($30 million) a year.
Guo does not own the company, which is a subsidiary of leading food enterprise China Resources Ng Fung Limited, but she does not see herself merely as an employee. "I have given my whole life to it," she said.
Workers at Song Ruisen's dried tofu factory in Huichang county, Jiangxi province. Photos By Zhang Xiao / China Daily
Cattle, medicinal herb and dried tofu companies offer county's residents employment and wealth
Editor's Note: With preferential policies and financial support from the central government, some business-savvy residents in Huichang have started their own businesses to help not only themselves but also their fellow Huichang people alleviate poverty. Below we interview three of these entrepreneurs.
Fu Jianrong will never forget the night his wife, having just given birth to their third child, fell sick and he had no money to take her to hospital.
It was in the late 1970s in a village in Huichang, the southernmost county of South China's Jiangxi province.
Fu, desperate to find his wife treatment, borrowed 10 yuan ($1.50) from his cousin. But just as he set out to take his wife to a clinic, his cousin stopped him and asked for the money back, saying that his wife was mad at him for lending the money to Fu.
No one else would lend Fu the money, so he went home and burst into tears.
He did not give up, however. That night, he caught a bag full of pond loaches, which a doctor at the clinic accepted as a fee for treating his wife.
"I swore to myself then that nothing like that would happen to me again," said Fu, 63, now the owner of a medicine factory and cattle business.
"For a county struggling with poverty for generations like Huichang, whose young people are desperate to leave, the old people left behind have neither the motivation nor ability to make any change."
Since the 1990s, Fu has been collecting herbs to sell to wholesale vendors and medicine factories. This proved so successful that he eventually set up his own medicine company, to exploit the huge potential market value he discovered in a particular type of citrus rind.
He also imported Simmental cattle from Switzerland, which he uses to help villagers in Huichang lift themselves out of poverty.
"For instance, if a village has land and labor, I offer them cut-price calves and buy the cattle back at market price; if a village has only old people, I employ them to work in my farm or teach them to grow fodder," Fu said.
In recent years, he has turned his attention to promoting tourism and developing other medicinal plants that take a long time to grow, but have a higher economic return.
"This business might not make a profit for three or four decades. I am doing something that will outlive me, but it's worth doing for the future of the people," Fu said.
Huichang, a traditionally agricultural county, has an area of 2,700 square km and a population of 520,000. Many there survive by growing rice, vegetables and citrus trees. It is State-supported and poverty-stricken.
The mountainous county featured in a poem written by Mao Zedong in 1934, praising the beauty of its unique landscape.
It was also home, for 10 months in 1932, to Deng Xiaoping, China's former leader who initiated the country's process of reform and opening-up.
In 1977, Song Ruisen and some local officials went to Beijing for a national convention. They wanted to bring Deng Xiaoping some dried tofu, a local snack that has been made and eaten in the county for hundreds of years.
"We had yet to leave our province and the dried tofu had already gone bad. It was so embarrassing," Song recalled.
"Travelers and guests from outside liked the special taste. Almost every family here cooks it, but we had no idea how to keep it fresh and make money from it."
Determined to make a business out of the local delicacy, in the early 1990s, Song and his friend Jiang Chi co-founded a food company to produce dried tofu.
"Two decades ago, Huichang had no modern production lines, processing and packaging technology, or skilled workers," he said.
The pair visited big cities such as Shanghai and learned new production and sales techniques.
They designed special equipment to process the dried tofu and with the help of special poverty-support loans, they bought machines and hired workers.
Now their company's annual revenue is 15 million yuan and their dried tofu is sold across the province and in neighboring areas.
In the next issue, we will report on the 42-square-km swathe of undulating topography in Huichang county and the Meilin Temple on the Panshan Mountains, another major tourist attraction in the county.
Hundreds of residents in Shaziling village in Central China's Hubei province were trapped in floodwaters after a nearby river swelled and breached the dyke under torrential rains on the night of July 4. Rescuers rushed in to help villagers and pulled them to safety.
State Council appoints officials (Xinhua) Updated: 2016-07-06 13:40
BEIJING - The State Council, China's cabinet, has appointed several senior officials, according to a circular issued on Wednesday.
-- Zhao Long was appointed vice minister of the Ministry of Land and Resources. Wang Shiyuan no longer holds the post.
-- Huang Shouhong was appointed director of the State Council Research Office.
-- Zhao Xiangeng and Tian Hongqi were nominated vice directors of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
-- Li Xiaohong continues to be president of Wuhan University in central China's Hubei Province.
-- Liu Haiquan no longer holds the post of assistant commerce minister.
Xi orders more troops to join flood control
BEIJING - Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the armed police force to send more troops to support flood control and disaster relief in areas battered by rainstorms.
Premier Li Keqiang visits Wuhan's Yangtze River embankment on Wednesday, July 6, 2016. [Photo by Pang Xinglei/Xinhua]
Premier Li Keqiang visited Wuhan's Yangtze River embankment on Wednesday after the city was devastated by recent deluges, leaving traffic suspended in many places.
The premier rushed to Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei province, after another visit to Wangjiaba on Tuesday morning. The latter, in the Anhui province, is a key point along the 1000km Huaihe River. On Tuesday afternoon, he visited the Yangtze river embankments as well as areas around the Dongting Lake, China's second largest freshwater lake, in Yueyang, Hunan province.
On Tuesday night, the Premier chaired a meeting in Yueyang on river flood control in the Yangtze, Huaihe and Yellow rivers. The meeting was originally scheduled for Wednesday morning.
SHIJIAZHUANG - When Lyu Zhenqian arrived in Chengde last year to fill a high-ranking government post, he knew little about the northern city that was once a summer resort for China's emperors.
"Before I came, my knowledge of Chengde was no better than that of an average tourist," said Lyu, 34, who has worked in government for a decade and was previously a policy researcher in Beijing's Fengtai District.
He was among 200 officials from Beijing and neighboring Hebei Province asked to swap jobs for a year, often leaving their families behind, as part of the efforts to advance regional integration.
Last July, Hebei and Beijing each sent 100 people as part of the government switch-up to help officials understand other cities across the sprawling region. The program will continue until 2020, with 200 civil servants trading places every year. Officials from nearby Tianjin Municipality are also expected to join the program.
The officials are assigned posts in another city based on their expertise, and in some cases, jobs are created for them. The exchanges last at least a year, and participating officials can apply for extensions.
BRIDGING THE MEGALOPOLIS
China rolled out the integration plan for Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei in 2015to address urban problems such as traffic and air pollution and seek balanced development of the region.
Under the plan, Beijing will act as the political and administrative center, while Tianjin will be a hub for R&D and shipping and Hebei will serve as an industrial zone and ecological buffer area.
Zhang Gui, an expert on Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integration at Hebei University of Technology, said officials who participated in the first year of the exchange have been enthusiastic about the program.
"The officials have served as bridges, connecting different departments and industries and improving cooperation," said Zhang.
"Many program participants said they have a deeper understanding of what needs to be done to achieve integration," he said.
BIGGER PICTURE
"Changing posts has helped officials see the bigger picture and reach beyond city divides," said Zhang.
As deputy director of Chengde's development and reform department, Lyu Zhenqian has spent a lot of time visiting the 11 districts and counties under the city's jurisdiction.
According to the regional integration plan, Chengde, located a three-hour drive northeast of Beijing, will play an important role in water conservation for the urban cluster. The city's Chaohe River supplies water to the Miyun Reservoir, Beijing's largest water source.
Lyu helped Chengde secure more than 22 million yuan (3.29 million U.S. dollars) from Beijing's water resources fund, about four million more than the year before. The money will be used to fund irrigation facilities, village landfills and reforestation programs in Chengde.
Lyu has also helped the city develop industry, such as agricultural processing, to create jobs without damaging the environment.
"I came to realize that though Beijing is the capital, it should not siphon away all the resources and stand on its own if it wants clean air, clean water and a well-functioning metropolis," he said.
IMPROVING INFRASTRUCTURE
Liang Zhonglin, vice mayor of Zhuozhou, a small city in Hebei, has been enjoying his new gig in Beijing's Zhongguancun, often called "China's Silicon Valley." As a human resources official on the Zhongguancun Management Committee, he has gotten to know some of China's most talented tech experts.
"Zhongguancun is a well of innovation, but many of its creations are taken to cities in the Yangtze River Delta, or further down south to the Pearl River Delta, which have better industrial infrastructure to turn ideas into products," he said.
"Hebei needs to increase its appeal to innovators," he said.
In January, Zhuozhou and Zhongguancun signed an agreement to support entrepreneurship.
Changes have already been happening in Zhuozhou and further east. Caofeidian District, an industrial zone near the Bohai Sea, is expanding quickly with new companies, hospitals and schools.
Shui Yong, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Investment Promotion Bureau, has been assigned to serve as vice mayor of Tangshan City and chief coordinator for Caofeidian District as part of the exchange.
In 2015, Caofeidian signed 75 deals with Beijing and Tianjin, with total investment of more than 245 billion yuan, he said. Construction has also started on a new campus of Jingshan School, one of Beijing's best middle schools.
"The integration plan is not new. It was first talked about 20 years ago, but it was never real like it is now," said Wang Yukai, professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance.
"The three regions differ in their stages of development. Integrating them is a tough job, but clearly, people are making a difference," he said.
BEIJING - Mainland police passed on the details of their handling of the case of bookseller Lam Wing-kee to a Hong Kong delegation on Tuesday while discussing a mutual notification system between police.
Lam Wing-kee, 61, was detained last year in the mainland for running an illegal book selling businesses. At a press conference in Hong Kong on June 16, Lam, on bail at the time and accompanied by local legislator Albert Ho Chun-yan, claimed that he was mistreated, banned from meeting relatives and refused a lawyer while under alleged house arrest.
He also accused mainland police of breaking the "one country, two systems" policy.
His remarks stirred debate across China and internationally.
Hong Kong and mainland agreed to meet and discuss improving the current notification mechanism.
APPREHENDED FOR SUSPECTED ILLEGAL BUSINESS OPERATIONS
In the first half of 2015, police in the eastern city of Ningbo found that books produced outside the Chinese mainland were illegally sold to the city.
Investigation led police to a woman surnamed Hu, purportedly Lam's girlfriend, in southern Guangdong Province, who was suspected of mailing a large number of books to Ningbo and other parts of the mainland. Some buyers told police that they had bought books from Hong Kong's Causeway Bay Books store managed by Lam and provided payment details. In September 2015, Ningbo police began a formal investigation into the involvement of Lam and others.
Between Oct. 17 and 24, 2015, suspects including Lam and Hu were detained in cities including Shenzhen and Dongguan and later placed under surveillance.
As early as in September 2012, Lam was penalized by customs authority in Shenzhen for bringing illegal publications to the mainland.
After that, Lam and his accomplices attempted to elude regulators with fake book covers and either mailed books directly to mainland buyers or used intermediaries like Hu. Buyers made payments totaling more than 400,000 yuan (60,000 U.S. dollars) into relevant mainland bank accounts.
According to Lam, most of the books were filled with "made-up stuff."
"The more horrifying the titles are, the more readers they draw, the better they sell. The content is mostly fabricated out of stories from the Internet or magazines. It takes about a month to put a book together," Lam told investigators.
After confessing, Lam said he was elderly, in poor health, and fully understood his mistakes.
"I hope to be given leniency," he said, promising never again to engage in illegal bookselling.
In March, Lam was released on bail. Upon his request, police helped him find a residence and a job in Guangdong. On June 2, Lam asked for permission to return to Hong Kong for personal reasons and, pledging to abide by all the rules of his bail, his request was approved.
TELLING LIES TO THE PRESS
What Lam had said at his press conference has been met with astonishment by many of the major players.
His girlfriend Hu, 37, said Lam had "brainwashed" her into sending books by courier, but he had never told her it was illegal. She also repudiated Lam's claim that he had been forced to sign a document waiving his right to a lawyer or speak with members of his family.
According to Hu, they were both told of their right to contact family and hire lawyers but gave up the right because they did not want their families to know they were having an affair, a statement confirmed by police.
Video records provided by Ningbo police show that Lam was well treated during his stay in the mainland. Police sent him fruit, took his blood pressure every day and arranged for him to have his hair cut.
Chen Weiqing, curator of a library in Guangdong who gave Lam a job, was angered and shocked upon hearing Lam's "lies."
"Lam claims he was confined in Shaoguan. That is totally inconsistent with the facts," said Chen. On the contrary, Chen offered him a job to show sympathy given his age. Everyone at the library can attest that during his stay at in Shaoguan he was in good shape and even gained weight, said Chen, adding they traveled together to local resort and had many pleasant chats.
"As a facility open to the public, Lam came and went as he pleased, working and reading. How can he claim that he was not free? Is the library a prison?" said Chen.
"In my mind Hong Kong is a society championing rule of law, but why has it allowed Lam to tell overt lies to the world?" asked Chen, believing that Lam had been coerced into doing so.
According to the police, by declaring his intention not to return to the mainland, Lam has violated the terms of his bail. Ningbo police urged Lam to return to the mainland, otherwise they will be forced to take other legal measures.
'ONE COUNTRY, TWO SYSTEMS' REMAINS INTACT
"The Lam Wing-kee case had been handled in accordance with the law from the beginning to the end. The process respected the HK judicial system, strictly adhered to the stipulations of 'one country, two systems,' and there was no so-called 'cross-border law enforcement' nor tracking or control of the suspect," said a Ningbo police statement.
Law professor Song Xiaozhuang from Shenzhen University believes mainland police have jurisdiction over Lam's case, as the acts and consequences of his crime occurred in the mainland. Moreover, the freedom of speech claimed by Lam should also be enjoyed within a legal framework, therefore, mainland police have not violated the "one country, two systems" policy.
Song suggested mainland and Hong Kong establishing a mutual judicial assistance mechanism on criminal cases between, which was also echoed by Liu Cheng, associate law professor with Sun Yat-sen University.
Liu insists that the judicial assistance agreement should be based on the "one country" principle.
"When people stress 'two systems,' they often neglect the 'one country' aspect of the premise," said Liu. "Hong Kong people are, of course, Chinese people. 'One country' is the bottom line of the agreement, under which authorities will only consider the facts of a criminal case rather than whether the suspect is located in Hong Kong or the mainland."
Communique of Civil Society 20 China 2016
Qingdao, China
6 July 2016
1. We, representatives from 54 countries and regions attending the Civil Society 20 (C20) China 2016, gathered in Qingdao, China on 5 and 6 July 2016 for candid and in-depth discussions on the theme of "Poverty Eradication, Green Development, and Innovation: Role of Civil Society". We share the view that, the world economy currently remains sluggish and growth lacklusterMajor economies lack sufficient coordination in policies and develop on different tracks; in some countries, inequality and imbalance in all their forms are increasingly prominent as unemployment rates remain high. Poverty eradication, green development and innovation are essential to the achievement of a strong, inclusive and balanced growth of the world economy and that of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. There is no development to talk about without the eradication of poverty. There is no guarantee for sustainability without green development. Yet, both poverty eradication and green development need innovation as the driving force. We urge the G20 Summit and governments of all countries to take speedy and concrete actions in the above-mentioned fields, including the formulation of national "action plans" to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. International cooperation shall be carried out in an active manner with the supportive role of multilateral financial institutions brought into fuller play in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Civil society organizations shall, in this process, make their contribution by offering advice and suggestions. We set great store by the long-term trend of the Chinese economy, in anticipation of its success development and its leading role in injecting new momentum and propelling a stable recovery and sustainable development of the world economy through the implementation of the "Belt and Road" Initiative.
2. We commend the positive contribution of the previous three C20 meetings in the above-mentioned fields. By focusing on green development and presenting a series of valuable insights on poverty alleviation and innovation, the previous three C20 meetings thus serve as the basis for deliberations at C20 China 2016.
Poverty Eradication and Shared Development
3. To end poverty, the impoverished population must be empowered to expand their knowledge, learn new skills, build up physical strength, be informed of their rights and interests and be guaranteed of such rights and interests. We need to further eliminate gender discrimination and improve both the quantity and quality of jobs available to the whole society. We call upon all governments to approach poverty eradication from broader perspectives of safeguarding world peace and social stability and improving the well-being of each and every individual, share experiences of poverty reduction, intensify international development cooperation and extend stronger support for developing countries in poverty eradication.
4. Criteria for poverty reduction shall be further refined and a multi-pronged assessment system shall be established. Besides economic indicators, social indicators shall also be incorporated. In addition to meeting the minimal needs of the low-income population for food and clothing, the most basic security shall be provided in their education, healthcare and housing.
5. The advocacy of equality and sharing shall be promoted through the creation of a generally enabling social and policy environment for poverty reduction. Basic means of production and livelihood shall not be concentrated in the hands of a few. To mobilize adequate resources, governments shall create a level playing field through taxation and investment, launch anti-corruption campaign and narrow the income gap by expanding such public services as education and healthcare. There is a need to establish fair tax systems and intensify international cooperation in cracking down illicit capital outflows and tax havens and regulating and stopping the spread of tax evasion and avoidance. Developed countries shall, by means of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), reinforce the developing countries' efforts in seeking growth.
6. A development-oriented approach shall be advocated in poverty alleviation. Various causes of poverty shall be addressed by stepping up supporting infrastructure construction, increasing input, reforming tax systems, improving public services and providing basic social security. Special emphasis shall be laid on tackling the lack of capacity to shake off poverty on the side of the impoverished and make them more incentivized and capable. There shall be precision poverty alleviation initiatives for the implementation of programs tailored to the specific circumstances of underdeveloped localities including the development of specialty industries.
7. Efforts shall be made to put in place a multi-actor system built and shared across the entire society to encourage participatory poverty alleviation. In this regard, governments shall create favorable policy environment to support and encourage the private sector and the civil society to play a greater role in poverty alleviation. The civil society shall strengthen cooperation and make joint efforts to eradicate poverty.
Nanjing to collect historic photos from public about massacre (XInhua) Updated: 2016-07-06 19:01
NANJING -- The Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders has begun collecting historic photos about the Nanjing Massacre from home and abroad.
Zhang Jianjun, curator of the memorial hall, said the memorial hall wants to commemorate the victims for the 80th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre next year by collecting and exhibiting photos.
According to Zhang, a photo exhibition on the theme "mark of history" will be held at the memorial hall in the next year.
Photo collection will end on December 31.
From Dec. 13, 1937 to January 1938, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers were killed in the massacre carried out by Japanese invaders after the city fell into the hands of the Japanese army.
Premier Li Keqiang called for better scientific planning and a greater sense of responsibility in flood prevention and control during a meeting with provincial leaders of flooded areas.
Premier Li Keqiang chairs a meeting on flood prevention on Tuesday night in Yueyang city after inspecting flood-control work in the flooded areas of the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers during the day. Photo provided to China Daily
Li chaired a meeting on flood prevention on Tuesday night in Yueyang city, central China's Hunan province, after inspecting flood-control work in the flooded areas of the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers during the day. The meeting established plans for flood prevention and control, emergency response and disaster relief.
According to a report presented at the meeting by the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, the early arrival of heavy rainfall has led to the flooding and parts of the country face extremely difficult conditions of rain and flooding this year.
Premier Li Keqiang chairs a meeting on flood prevention on Tuesday night in Yueyang city after inspecting flood-control work in the flooded areas of the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers during the day. Photo provided to China Daily
Water levels have crossed the warning mark in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the Dongting and the Poyang lakes, as well as more than 200 rivers, damaging middle- and small-sized flood control facilities.
Li said that water conservation and flood prevention and control have always been of utmost importance to the stability of the country and well-being of people.
"We must, first and foremost, ensure the safety of the people as well as the security of major embankments and major facilities. Second, we need to focus our efforts on preventing basin-wide floods and secondary disasters," he said.
Premier Li Keqiang instructs local government officials during his visit to flooded areas in Wuhan, Hubei province, on Wednesday. The heavy rain has caused water levels of the rivers, lakes and reservoirs of the city to rise alarmingly.[Photo by Pang Xinglei/Xinhua]
Wearing a camouflage raincoat to protect him from the downpour, Premier Li Keqiang called on soldiers and rescuers to secure the embankments along the Yangtze River on Wednesday morning.
During a visit to Wuhan, capital of Hubei province and a crucial point along the 6,300-kilometer-long Yangtze River, Li toured a site where floodwaters had burst through from beneath the embankment, inundating a neighborhood in the citys Qingshan district.
The premier encouraged soldiers rushing to help to fulfill their duty to protect people.
"A small leak can sink a ship, and the leaking point has sent a warning to us, as its only 400 meters outside the main structure," Li said. He added that if the floodwaters were to breach the embankments, the lives of millions of people would be in peril.
"I hope you can guarantee the embankments integrity," he told the soldiers.
The premier also urged local authorities to make full efforts to protect the lives and property of people who live near the embankment.
The Yangtze Rivers banks are now much stronger than in 1998, when an unprecedented deluge devastated the region, but no leaking or holes can be neglected, the premier said.
He also reiterated that flood control must achieve the two purposes of ensuring peoples safety and safeguarding the banks of major rivers such as the Yangtze, Huaihe and Yellow rivers.
As of Wednesday, downpours in Hubei had left 61 people dead and 24 missing, with 511,000 people being relocated to safe locations, the provincial government said. The point of the leak was blocked as a result of 300 soldiers efforts on Wednesday afternoon.
Li also visited workers who were buttressing other sections of the embankment.
"Flood control depends on the structure and the people who detect and eliminate dangers to protect your own families along with millions of others. I am confident you will overcome these difficulties," Li told the workers.
He rushed to Wuhan after his visit on Tuesday to Wangjiaba, a key point along the 1,000-km-long Huaihe River in Anhui province, and Yue-yang in Hunan province, where he toured the banks of the Yangtze and Dongting Lake, Chinas second-largest freshwater lake.
On Tuesday night, he presided over a meeting in Yue-yang on flood control for the Yangtze, Huaihe and Yellow rivers. At the meeting, originally scheduled for Wednesday morning, Li urged officials at all levels to remain alert for all dangers, including flooding and landslides.
President Xi Jinping has ordered the Peoples Liberation Army and the Armed Police Force to send more troops to support flood control and disaster relief in areas battered by rainstorms, Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday.
Heavy rain since June 30 has left at least 186 people dead and 45 others missing across China, according to the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.
Rescue workers save a pregnant woman from a flooded area in Tongren, Guizhou province, on Monday. Heavy rainstorms have caused flooding and landslides in the city's six districts and counties. Ke Youchuan / For China Daily
Flooding and deadly landslides closed highways and interrupted train and air travel as heavy rain in central and eastern China further raised the levels of the Yangtze River and its tributaries on Monday.
The middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze could see water levels surpass warning levels, with rainstorms continuing to batter the river basin areas, according to the forecast by flood control authorities in Hubei province on Monday.
China Three Gorges Corp, which runs the world's largest hydropower station, is fully prepared for possible challenges and flooding that might occur along the upper reaches of the Yangtze, said Wang Yuhua, deputy chief engineer at the company's cascade dispatch and communication center.
"Due to the heavy rainfall this year, we need better prediction of weather conditions well in advance so we can better rearrange work to deal with the flooding," he said. "Normally, the longer the period in which we are able to forecast, the better we can schedule the reservoirs."
The situations in the middle and lower reaches of the river were still serious.
The rainstorms have triggered landslides as well as flooding in Anhui, Hunan, Hubei and Guizhou provinces, forcing railway companies to cancel at least 53 scheduled trains, according to railway bureaus in Chengdu, Wuhan, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
The cancellations stranded thousands of passengers at railway stations in Huaihua and Xiangtan in Hunan province, as railway companies were forced to close the lines due to damage from the rainstorms.
The heavy rain also triggered a number of landslides in Anhui, Hubei and Guizhou provinces.
In Hubei, a landslide hit a village in Qichun county on Monday morning, burying four people. Rescue efforts were hampered by blocked roads, which made it difficult for large machinery to enter the affected area.
In Tongcheng, Guizhou, a landslide hit five houses early on Monday morning and buried seven people.
In Anhui, landslides triggered by rainstorms had killed at least six people in Jinzhai county as of Sunday evening, local media reported.
Hou Liqiang, Lyu Chang and Zhou Lihua contributed to this story.
Contact the writers at xuwei@chinadaily.com.cn
The CPC has a long history of sending officials abroad to learn from foreign expertise, and the latest move is designed to boost the economies of the country's two poorest provinces. Fu Jing reports from Brussels.
Editor's note: This is the last in a series of articles in which China Daily has marked the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China by examining its structure, history and influence.
In terms of poverty levels, Guizhou province is little different to many African countries, but Chen Min'er, the provincial Party chief, set the ball rolling to improve living standards when he visited Switzerland in November 2014.
During his trip, Chen, who was governor of the southwestern province at the time, set the goal of catching up with Switzerland, one of the world's wealthiest and most dynamic countries, which has parallels with Guizhou as both are landlocked and boast unspoiled picturesque scenery.
The plan is now being put into action after leading politicians, including President Xi Jinping and Ueli Maurer, former president of the Swiss Confederation, greeted Chen's idea with enthusiasm.
As a result, the Communist Party of China's Central Committee's Organization Department, which is responsible for the allocation of the Party's human resources, is now working with officials from the province and its Swiss partners to ensure the success of the project.
"We are now implementing an exciting 'action-learning' program to bridge the gap between Guizhou province and Switzerland," said Guido Palazzo, professor of business ethics at the University of Lausanne, who is in charge of operations for the program.
Pragmatic models
Palazzo said the one-year program targets China's two poorest provinces - Gansu, in the northwest, and Guizhou - with the aim of introducing pragmatic Swiss development models. In Guizhou, the tourism industry will be the main focus, while Gansu's main growth engine will center on the construction of industrial parks.
"The two provinces present their main ideas and send the officials in charge to Switzerland to learn (how to implement them)," Palazzo said, in a phone interview with China Daily. "And then we send our experts to the sites (in China) to help deliver the knowledge and put the ideas into action."
He praised the officials, saying they are "highly motivated" and "eager to learn and change".
Palazzo's program is a typical demonstration of how China's leadership has followed the examples set by other countries.
Switzerland provides an excellent role model for China, which is at a crucial stage in the process of transforming its economic development model from export-driven to one led by domestic demand and has pledged to improve the environment.
This is particularly vital after Xi, who became general secretary of the CPC Central Committee in 2012, upheld the governance concepts of ecological civilization, sustainable development and a "beautiful China".
Training overseas is not a new development, though. Since the early years of the CPC in the 1920s, the Party has established branches overseas and sent members to study in Western countries. The policy echoes the early education of leaders such as Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, who both studied in France as young men.
Overseas education played an important role when the CPC was implementing market-oriented reform and opening-up policies. It allowed officials to learn the foreign techniques and management expertise that helped the country along the path of development and economic growth.
In the late 1970s and early 80s, the CPC sent high-level delegations to countries in Central, Eastern and Western Europe to conduct onsite research. Xi's father, Xi Zhongxun, led one of the task forces.
Harvard University [Photo/VCG]
Chinese philosophy has become the third most popular course at Harvard University, behind Intro to Computer Science and Intro to Economics, according to the New York Times. The English version of The Poetry of Du Fu is widely read by students there and Du Fu is referred to as "Oriental Shakespeare".
Michael Puett, a professor of Chinese history at Harvard University, said some ancient Chinese philosophy was embraced as "philosophy of life" by Americans. As early as 2006, when Puett was giving lectures on Chinese philosophy, the course was already popular among students. The second time he offered the class the following year, the class was so full some students could only sit on the stairs and along the hallway. The class had to move to Sanders Theater, the biggest venue on the campus.
The related reports have shown that the number of students who choose to study humanities has decreased sharply in recent years. Thus, the popularity of the Chinese philosophy course is quite eye-catching.
Decisions are made from the heart. During Professor Puett's course, he requires students to closely read Confucius's The Analects, The Mencius, and The Daodejing and then put the teachings into practice in their daily lives. This includes understanding how your emotions affect you and people around you, how you feel after a relaxing run, a pleasant chat with your friends or feeling anger triggered by other people's bad behavior.
A report from the Atlantic Monthly has shown that the Chinese philosophy can help 18 or 19 years olds reflect on how to grow into a good person and create a better society.
Americans tend to believe that people can make sensible decisions using their brains, while the Chinese word for "mind" and "heart" are the same, and the two are inextricably linked. Some scholars say that if you combine your mind and heart and consider things rationally and emotionally at the same time, people can make better decisions, just like ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi's view to be a "spontaneous" person.
By reviewing his teaching experience over the past 10 years, Puett noticed changes among his students after studying Chinese philosophy. He said more and more students were setting special plans for their future careers, which were rarely seen before. To benefit more students, he summarized the core points from his course and created a book manuscript, of which the copyright has been bought by publishers from 25 countries.
Not only has Chinese philosophy become popular in Harvard, but so too has the literature. The first complete translated English version of The Poetry of Du Fu was published two months ago. The official website of Harvard University called the ancient Chinese poet Du Fu "a Chinese Shakespeare", as Du Fu's works cover a wide range of topics, and his poetry has various styles with no fixed format.
From philosophy to literature, ancient Chinese scholars are influencing young Americans.
Yang Tze. [Photo provided to China Daily]
Throughout his life, Chilean painter Jose Venturelli (1924-88) appealed for freedom and expressed a deep concern for the grass-root people in his artworks.
A retrospective exhibition now in Beijing shows his 40 paintings, sketches and lithographs, including dozens of works he created when living in China from 1954 to 1965.
The exhibition, Masters of Latin America: Jose Venturelli, is held at the art museum of Central Academy of Fine Arts, as part of the 2016 China-Latin America and Caribbean Cultural Exchange Year backed by the Ministry of Culture of China.
Born in Santiago, Venturelli sought to reflect humanities against dramatic social changes through working with various mediums, including frescoes, glass, posters and stage setting. In his works, Venturelli embraced a strong feeling for the landscapes and people of Chile and appraisal for those at the bottom of social class who bravely fight for oppression.
During his stay in China, Venturelli taught oil painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and befriended with prominent artists such as Qi Baishi. He thus was greatly inspired by classical Chinese painting of which a simple color scheme, open composition and delicate lining influenced his creations made at that time.
He once said, "Art is the greatest fortune of people. It helps us understand the past, and the sensitive relationships between the human and nature, society and history."
The exhibition runs through July 21, and will tour Nanjing and Shanghai.
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President-elect Rodrigo Duterte speaks during a news conference in his hometown Davao City in southern Philippines, May 16, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]
In his inauguration speech on Thursday, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte played down his country's South China Sea dispute with China and said he wanted to avoid a head-on conflict.
His words will help ease tensions with China, but the message should be stronger and more unambiguous.
For example, Duterte said the Philippines will hold talks with China only after the ruling made by the arbitration tribunal on July 12 is implemented. And the Philippines Foreign Ministry has said it hopes the international community will help Manila implement the ruling.
With such an ambiguous stance, the Philippines is trying to use international opinion to pressure China into accepting the arbitration ruling, which is expected to go in its favor, while at the same time, also wanting to improve ties with China to boost its economy.
It will be difficult for the Philippines to strike a balance between these two policies.
Meanwhile, the United States has been encouraging the new government in the Philippines to take a tougher stance toward China and turn the South China Sea into an arena for the US' power game with China.
The new Philippine government has shown little appetite to following US orders, however, and the majority of the other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations also hold a cautious attitude toward the US' intentions so it will be difficult for it to realize its aims.
As the US is a non-signatory to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, it is unreasonable and also detrimental for the US to increasingly expand its presence in the South China Sea and stir up regional turbulence.
Countries in the region should jointly stand up against the interventions of outside forces in regional affairs and their attempts to sabotage regional peace and prosperity in their own interests.
The new Philippine government should send a more explicit signal of its willingness for talks with China on the South China Sea issue to end the meddling of outside forces.
--People's Daily Overseas Edition
Ling Jihua, the former vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, attends a meeting during this 2013 file photo. [Photo/Agencies]
The First Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin Municipality sentenced Ling Jihua, the former deputy head of China's national political advisory body, to life imprisonment on Monday, after he was found guilty of taking bribes, illegally obtaining State secrets and abusing power. The case shows the commitment and determination of the ruling Party to advance the rule of law. Xinhua News Agency filed an article from People's Daily on Monday:
The entire process of Ling's trial, from investigation to sentencing, was handled in accordance with the law.
Ling was sentenced to life imprisonment after he was found guilty of accepting bribesboth personally and through his familytotaling over 77 million yuan ($11.6 million).
His trial demonstrates that the anti-corruption campaign is being conducted based on facts and the law, and that those who violate the law and Party rules, no matter how senior their positions, will be punished accordingly.
The Communist Party of China must be managed and governed in a strict manner as it has over 88 million members and rules a country with a population of 1.3 billion people.
All Party members should learn the lessons from Ling's case, and exercise their power in line with Party discipline and the law, and restrain their family members or staff from taking advantage of their connections to power.
A clean party with strict discipline and a clean working style is, and will always be, invincible.
Two men act as human traffic signals on October 26, 2015 at an intersection in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province. [Wang Yongbo/China Daily]
Nearly 50 people have lost their lives in the past 11 years while crossing a road in Cangzhou, North China's Hebei province, due to the absence of traffic lights at some 20 crossroads. China Youth Daily commented on Tuesday:
Members of the local political advisory body have more than once proposed equipping the dangerous roads with more traffic lights, even speed bumps, however, none have been installed. The Cangzhou traffic administration authorities say they cannot install them, because the provincial transport bureau is yet to approve their application.
Local residents are right to blame the procedural red tape and the provincial transport officials for exhibiting a lack of respect for life.
While the installation of traffic lights on provincial roads is restricted according to the relevant traffic regulations, there are feasible alternatives, such as speed bumps and overpasses, that would guarantee the safety of pedestrians.
That the Cangzhou traffic administration officials have refrained from employing such alternatives, may constitute willful dereliction of duty. It is true that some pedestrians do not bother to abide by traffic rules, which to some extent exposes them to danger, but that does not absolve the officials of their responsibilities.
It was not until a year later that the Cangzhou authorities began to discuss the proposal made by members of the local political advisory body. As of now, they claim to have submitted an application to the provincial transport department, which has failed to say why it has not yet been approved. Such routine equivocation makes no sense and should be replaced with timely, straight responses.
Tourists take a photo in front of a gate of Wang's courtyard in north China's Shanxi province. [Photo provided to Chinadaily.com.cn]
For many foreigners residing in China, a question arises constantly: what are the timeless sources of inspiration and guidance of China? Behind this question looms a second one, how this country works?
For a long time, rather impatient, sometimes confused, I tried to get an answer, I mean, the right answer.
I spent years strolling out through the cities or along the woods and rivers, talking with thousands of people, but there was still a missing link, an unknown secret beyond the walls.
Someday, some favorable winds took me to Shanxi. As it happened, among a group of gifted photographs and journalists originating from the whole world, I was the only one afterthought, not more than a mere spectator.
On the way to the Shanxi province
Contrary to a popular belief, the travel to Shanxi by train is not unhampered by overcrowded cities but by a majestic landscape. It mainly consists of gently rolling hills that descend to densely treed plains. Everything is gigantic, and as far one can see, there is nothing but the untouched beauty of nature.
Close your eyes and picture yourself in a serene setting that soothes you like catching a breathtaking view from a speedy train.
Here, we are in Shanxi, the cradle of the Chinese civilization!
I would say that the early impression is crucial if not the right one.
Mianshan Mountain
The route to the Mianshan Mountain crosses one breathtaking mountain pass after another. At the end, a dangerous road leads to a magnificent natural rock. In this wild, mountainous area, it's all about highs, lows and humbling views. I felt suddenly dwarfed and shy by the vastness and beauty of the site.
Colorful Taoism temples are recessed into the mountain as they had always been there from immemorial time.
During their visit, I ventured alone at the top floor. I have too much respect for the religious beliefs that I walked slowly, discreetly. Behind three demigods, in a hallway, a very soft and filtered light slid onto scrolling lines on the wall.
In a surprising way, the writing was in the language of Shakespeare.
I opened my eyes, deciphering, and line after line. What brought my attention is a word that came up again and again, once prevalent: Harmony .
Harmony between nature and humans; harmony between humans; harmony between sky and earth and so on.
I realized that this somewhat magic word runs through the today official Chinese speeches as the motivating force of the nation. Incidentally, two days ago, I read in a newspaper an article about the environmental issue in Shanxi. The key phrase rings into my head. The people of China are entitled to a healthy life in harmony with nature .
As the magnificent scenery of the Mianshan Mountains suggested, China is always pegged on its five-thousand-year heritage, the harmony between its past and nowadays.
File photo of South China Sea. [Photo/Xinhua] Its involvement in the regional dispute is distracting international attention from the campaign against the Islamic State
The frequency and destructiveness of terrorist attacks has increased. The world was still reeling from the devastating Istanbul airport attacks which killed at least 43 people on June 28 when just a few days later, Baghdad became the target of terrorists again as suicide bombings killed some 250 people and wounded 200 more.
The Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, which is rampant in Iraq and Syria and responsible for a great number of terrorist attacks across the globe this year, has claimed responsibility for both.
At present, IS has replaced Al-Qaeda at the core of international terrorism and the sole instigator behind large-scale terrorist attacks. It has also become a major disseminator of extremist ideology worldwide, and the rallying point for extremist groups around the world to pledge loyalty to.
A stronger political will and greater cooperation from the international community have become the only hope for the world to eliminate IS, or at least to keep its threat at bay.
Last month, Iraqi officials announced they had retaken the city of Fallujah from IS fighters after a month-long military operation backed by US-led coalition airstrikes. The battle marks a turning point in the international campaign against the terrorist group.
In Syria, progress has also been made, although not as much as in Iraq, supported by the Syrian governments efforts to reduce the sphere of influence of IS.
Yet, recent events reveal the hard truth that although IS terrorists may be contained in Iraq and Syria, they are capable of wreaking havoc elsewhere and sowing the seeds of fear and panic in many places around the world.
The following is the full text of a speech delivered by former State councilor Dai Bingguo at China-US Dialogue on South China Sea between Chinese and US think tanks on Tuesday in Washington.
Former State councilor Dai Bingguo delivers a speech at the China-US Dialogue on South China Sea between Chinese and US think tanks in Washington on Tuesday. [Niu Yue/For China Daily]
I am delighted to attend the China-US dialogue on South China Sea between Chinese and US think tanks jointly organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University and meet with old and new friends. I would like to take this opportunity to thank both organizations for putting this dialogue together and my sincere thanks go to all of you here who have for long cared for and supported the development of China-US relations.
I became honorary president of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University after retiring from government. In this sense, I can also be counted as a think tank scholar. I very much look forward to having candid and in-depth exchanges with all of you for mutual enlightenment.
Since the door of communication between China and the US opened more than 40 years ago, China-US relations have come a long way despite twists and turns and produced tremendous and extraordinary outcomes. This has not only benefited the people of China and the US,but also the whole world. Fast growth of relations between these two major countries in a short span of 40 years can be described as nothing short of a miracle in the history of major-country relations.
Three years ago,in June 2013, President Xi Jinping and President Obama held a successful meeting in Annenberg, Sunnylands. Since then,guided by the strategic consensus of no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation,the two countries have continued to make important progress in the building of a new model of major country relations. China and the US have joined hands in promoting progress in a wide range of fields in bilateral relations and addressing major issues bearing on mankind's future and destiny. Their trade volume and two-way investment have both scaled new heights. The two countries have stepped up macro-economic coordination which effectively facilitated world economic recovery and growth. China and the US have signed 3 joint statements on climate change, playing a crucial leading role for reaching the Paris Agreement on climate change. The two sides continued to broaden practical cooperation in military-to-military, law-enforcement, energy, and cultural and people-to-people exchanges. They have conducted close coordination and cooperation on international and regional hotspot issues and major global issues such as Iranian nuclear issue, Korean nuclear issue, Syria, Afghanistan, peacekeeping, international development and global public health. Such cooperation has benefited both countries, and bolstered international confidence in the continued growth of China-US relations.
China and the US are two major countries with very different histories,cultures,social systems and values and at different levels of development. As such, it is only natural that they would encounter differences and challenges in their relations. What's important is to increase strategic communication in a candid way and handle and manage differences in a constructive manner. Furthermore, we should endeavor to transcend differences by focusing on and expanding cooperation. The South China Sea could well have been an example of this approach.
For a period of time, the South China Sea which used to be a rather quiet place has become not so quiet. The situation there has heated up to a quite unusual degree,drawing extensive international attention. What has really happened there? I noticed that reports and comments on this issue tend to take a static view from a certain angle, and thus have not shown the full picture of the South China Sea issue. In my view, to study an international hotspot issue, it is necessary to seek truth from facts by fully considering the relevant international background, tracing the historical development, and thoroughly reviewing how the concerned parties have interacted on this issue. Only in this way can one see the whole picture, tell right from wrong and draw the right conclusion. In this vein, I would like to focus my speech on the historical facts of the South China Sea issue and China's policy on this issue. And I will endeavor to view and handle the South China Sea issue from the perspective of China-US relations and explore ways to genuinely cool down this issue and restore calm to this part of the world.
BEIJING -- The South China Sea arbitration unilaterally initiated by former Philippine President Benigno S. Aquino III has not only soured China-Philippines ties, but also undermined international rule of law and regional stability.
The arbitration was a bad idea from the beginning for one simple reason: it is detrimental to the interests of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that groups 10 member states, including the Philippines.
Firstly, the integrity of ASEAN is at stake. The United States, a close ally of the Philippines, has long interfered in the region and is using the arbitration to widen divisions and undermine mutual trust. ASEAN members have differed on the South China Sea issue, the arbitration, as well as external intervention by non-regional countries.
Secondly, the arbitration compromises existing ASEAN rules of conduct. For more than half a century, ASEAN member states have emphasized a spirit of equality, consensus and cooperation.
For example, the dual-track approach, originally thought up by ASEAN and supported by China, advocates that disputes should be resolved peacefully through negotiations between parties directly concerned. It further calls on China and ASEAN to work together to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea.
The dual-track approach is the most pragmatic way to manage maritime and territorial disputes in the South China Sea. It is also in full compliance with the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), signed by China and all ASEAN members in 2002.
However, the unilateral arbitration against China completely disregards the DOC, denies the double-track approach and ignores ASEAN's many past achievements in using negotiation as a tool to resolving disputes.
Thirdly, regional security is at risk. The frequent visits by aircraft and warships from countries outside the region are a deep concern for ASEAN and could spark an arms race. Some external countries having a hidden agenda are repeatedly muddying the waters, leaving regional countries to bear the brunt of any consequent instability.
More importantly, arbitration isn't a panacea to solving disputes. Instead, it more likely creates more disputes and stokes regional tensions, doing harm to the fundamental interests of peoples in the region.
With regard to the so-called arbitration, China has repeated its stance of non-acceptance of third-party dispute settlements or any imposed solution.
The disputes between China and the Philippines can only be solved via bilateral negotiations on the basis of fully respecting historical facts and in line with international laws.
Since winning election, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has made a string of overtures on Philippines-China relations, with his spokesperson Ernesto Abella having said that Duterte wanted a "conversation" with China on the South China Sea to work out a "win-win relationship" with the country.
If Duterte is serious about solving the South China Sea issue properly and about bringing the China-Philippines ties back on track, it is time for him to act as a responsible player and make the right choice to eliminate the advance effects caused by the arbitration farce as soon as possible.
WASHINGTON - Dai Bingguo, China's former state councilor in charge of foreign affairs, on Tuesday called on related parties to cool the unreasonably hot South China Sea issue, warning of its potential dangers.
"If such momentum goes unchecked, accidents could happen and the South China Sea might sink into chaos and so might the entire Asia," Dai said in a keynote speech at a forum held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a US think tank, one week before an expected arbitral ruling over the issue.
"Should that happen, countries around the South China Sea, the Asian countries and even the United States itself will suffer," Dai told a group of Chinese and US experts on international law and foreign relations.
He said all countries concerned should make concrete efforts to let off the heat over the issue.
Arbitration result no more than "a piece of paper"
With regard to the expected ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on July 12, Dai said it will be "nothing more than a piece of paper" and warned against any attempt to enforce the ruling in any form.
He stressed that the Philippines, which initiated the arbitration case against China, must be dissuaded from making any further provocation. "Otherwise, China will not sit idle," he said.
China has made its stance clear that it does not accept the arbitration and therefore has stayed away from the proceedings.
China has said that the arbitral tribunal has no jurisdiction over sovereignty issues which should be resolved by the two claimants themselves.
Dai noted that China's territorial claims to the South China Sea are based on abundant historical evidence and documents.
He said the United States recognized and respected China's sovereignty over the islands when China recovered them from Japanese occupation after World War II, and provided military vessels to ferry China's military and government personnel to Xisha and Nansha Islands to hold the restoration ceremony.
The islands' return to China is part of post-World War II international order and relevant territorial arrangements, Dai stressed.
Commitment to peaceful resolution
The current US stance of taking no position on the dispute "actually amounts to back-pedalling and defiance of the post-war international order, which the United States participated in building," he noted.
He pointed out that China, in fact, has been "completely at the receiving end of encroachments" in the South China Sea, as the Philippines, Vietnam and other countries have illegally occupied 42 islands and reefs in Nansha Islands by force.
He said that although China has the capability to recover the islands and reefs, it has all along exercised enormous restraint and sought a peaceful settlement through talks.
More constructive US role called for
Dai said differences between China and the United States over the South China Sea issue should not be allowed to define the China-US relations as these two countries have neither territorial disputes nor a fundamental clash of interests in the South China Sea.
Washington should honor its promise not to take sides over the dispute, and stop speculating that China is trying to compete with it for dominance in the region, Asia and the world as a whole, Dai added.
"We have no intention or capability to engage in 'strategic rivalry' with anyone. We have no ambition to rule Asia, still less the Earth," he said.
Dai urged Washington to scale back its "heavy-handed intervention" in the South China Sea issue through reinforcing military alliances, the forward deployment of military assets, and increasing close-in reconnaissance and the so-called "Freedom of Navigation" operations targeted at China.
Otherwise, it might fall into trouble against its own will and pay an unexpectedly heavy price, as certain countries stand to gain from great-power rivalry, he warned.
Dai said that as China and the United States have shared interests in peace and stability in Asia Pacific, they should find ways to manage their differences constructively and maintain communication on maritime issues.
A woman talks with a British university's representative at an education exhibition in Beijing in this file photo. [Photo/VCG]
A UK immigration consultancy had its license suspended which led to 257 Chinese graduates being told to leave the country, drawing attention to visa problems that have harmed the interests of Chinese graduates.
In June, the UK-based Overseas Student Service Centre had its sponsorship license revoked by the British Home Office. As a result, 257 Chinese students sponsored by the group were told to leave the UK within 60 days or make alternative arrangements to stay.
Compliance checks of the consultancy by the government found "significant breaches" of its obligations, according to a Home Office spokesman who requested anonymity. The Home Office deals with the country's internal affairs.
The consultancy's scheme, called the International Student Internship Program, placed eligible graduates in internships at UK-based organizations. It was run in partnership with a UK-based law firm, Denning Legal. The consultancy charged students a fee of 1,200 pounds ($1,570) for the program. It was rolled out under the government's so-called Tier 5 Government Authorized Exchange program, where organizations can sponsor student internships at UK companies
Colin Chen, managing director of the program, cited two main reasons the program was accused of noncompliance by the Home Office: The government thinks interns are taking jobs from Britons by developing business relations with China; and the consultancy failed to track interns' hours and job tasks, as required by law.
Chen said the Home Office of unfairly targeting the consultancy. But the Home Office spokesman said the internship program was found to be out of compliance on many points required for a license.
Chinese student numbers in the UK have grown rapidly. In the 2014-15 academic year, the number of Chinese students exceeded any other nationality, with 89,540 enrolled in higher education.
Yet graduate students' ability to stay in the country has become increasingly difficult since the UK abolished its post-study work visa in 2012. Under the previous visa arrangement, students could stay in the UK after graduation to gain work experience for two years.
Zhang Xueying, Head of China and Far East Desk at Sherrards Solicitors, said the number of immigration agencies focusing on the Chinese graduates' market has grown rapidly since the abolition of the PSW scheme.
She said it is not uncommon for Chinese students to have their visa applications rejected or be banned from entry for a time, because of the unprofessional practices some of the immigration agents they use.
Contact the reporter on cecily.liu@mail.chinadaily.com
File photo of China's vice foreign minister Fu Ying. [Photo/Xinhua]
The South China Sea issue has become one of the major irritants in the China-U.S. relations in recent years, over which the public opinion in the two countries is very critical of each other. There are even frictions in the sea between the two navies.
The South China Sea seems like an outlet for the rivalry and confrontation that are building up of late between China and the US. As a result, the two sides seem to be reassessing each other's intentions on a strategic level.
The latest rhetoric is about "militarizing the South China Sea", and on the part of the U.S., announcements to carry out "freedom of navigation operational assertions".
Hawkish voices are growing louder in both sides of the Pacific. Such frictions surrounding the South China Sea are leading to further strategic mistrust and hostility.
The American scholar David M. Lampton was straightforward when he observed worriedly in reference to the existing situation, "A tipping point in the U.S.-China relations is upon us". It is obvious that the South China Sea issue is a major catalyst for the troubled China-U.S. relations, if not the key contributing factor.
Opinions diverge in both countries on what has led to the current situation in the South China Sea. In China, it is widely believed that it is the U.S.'s Asia-Pacific rebalance strategy, its taking sides on disputes in the South China Sea, and its direct intervention that have escalated the tensions and made the issue more complicated.
In the U.S., accusations are strident of China's defiance of international law, coercion of smaller neighbors by force and attempted denial of access to the U.S., in its bid to gradually take control of the South China Sea using a salami-slicing strategy and to eventually turn it into a Chinese lake.
It is obvious from the incidents and events that have unfolded in the South China Sea over the years that all disputes are centered on sovereignty and rights over the Nansha Islands and their surrounding waters.
In fact, such disputes were not uncommon in third world countries in modern history, including during the Cold War era. But the discovery of abundant oil reserves in the Nansha waters in the late 1960s and the introduction of international arrangements concerning the EEZs or the continental shelf, such as the Convention on the Continental Shelf and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, provided fresh incentives for other claimants to covet and grab China's Nansha Islands.
The disputes then spilled from those islands and reefs to wider maritime areas, but without spinning out of control. A good proof was the "golden era" of the China-ASEAN relations from 1991 to the end of 2010, during which bilateral cooperation flourished and trade ballooned nearly 37 times, from no more than 8 billion to $300 billion. During this period, China's GDP rose rapidly, and most Southeast Asian economies expanded more than five-fold.
Tensions started to build up in 2009 and have escalated since 2012. How have things festered against a backdrop of peace of development, and following a sustained period of regional cooperation?
It is obvious that no single event or cause could have escalated and changed the situation in the region. So it is worth examining the incidents and behavior that have happened, the reactions they triggered, and the consequences incurred, in the leading up to the current state of affairs.
This paper provides an overview of the chain of events contributing to the escalation of tensions in the South China Sea, as well as the context in which they occurred and potential connections they have.
It is hoped this paper will help those concerned about the disputes see the bigger picture and get to the heart of why things have happened that way.
It also serves as a warning against further deepening of misunderstanding and spiraling of tensions for all countries concerned.
WASHINGTON -- China and the United States need to manage their differences over the South China Sea issue, as they are bracing for an arbitral court's ruling, experts said Tuesday.
One week ahead of the July 12 ruling over the South China Sea case initialed by the Philippines, a group of former Chinese and American officials and experts on international law and foreign relations held a dialogue in Washington to discuss the ruling's legality, possible reactions and its implications on the China-US relations.
In a keynote speech at the dialogue held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Dai Bingguo, former Chinese state councilor in charge of foreign affairs, reiterated that China will not accept the ruling because the tribunal under the Permanent Court of Arbitration has no jurisdiction over the case.
Noting the rising tensions in the South China Sea as the United States steps up its pressure on China to abide by the ruling, Dai issued a call for cooling down the issue, warning otherwise it could lead to unexpected accidents and even chaos in the region and Asia.
At the same time, Dai bluntly warned any party against trying to enforce the court ruling or force China into its implementation. Particularly, the Philippines should be dissuaded from making further provocations.
Dai also urged China and the United States to manage their differences constructively, demanding Washington scale back its "heavy-handed intervention" in the South China Sea issue.
He reaffirmed that, despite all the negative factors, China remains committed to peaceful settlement of the South China Sea disputes with concerned parties through negotiations.
COOLING DOWN TEMPERATURE OF SOUTH CHINA SEA
Most experts attending the dialogue praised Dai's speech for clarifying China's position ahead of the court ruling, while echoing Dai's call for cooling down the temperature of the South China Sea for the sake of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.
The speech "certainly reinforces a very clear position that China has taken on the issue for a while, (and) there is a continued offer for cooperation," said Rodger Baker, vice president of strategic analysis at the Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence firm.
Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a US think tank, said it "is the time for diplomats and politicians to exercise cool judgment and try to find ways to keep the issue from exploding into something more dangerous."
Paal told reporters that both China and the United States can do a lot more to cool things down and related parties in the dispute can "find ways to manage the arbitration award, and to keep it from becoming a source of additional tensions and conflicts."
Stapleton Roy, former US Ambassador to China and a senior fellow at the Wilson Center, told reporters that Dai gave a "very detailed and comprehensive statement of China's view on the issues in the South China Sea."
He agreed with Dai's call for cooling down the situation, noting it's important to resolve territorial issues peacefully through negotiations instead of threats or use of force.
"China and the US should work collaboratively on this issue. I think that's very important point also," Roy commented on Dai's remarks.
Brendan Mulvaney, associate chair of the Languages and Cultures Department of the US Naval Academy, told Xinhua that he did not expect the US reaction to the court ruling to be very aggressive because it is not a claimant to the territorial dispute.
At the same time, he expected China and the United States not to take "any super aggressive steps" to worsen the situation.
US President George W. Bush (L) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair walk together from their meeting at the US Embassy in Brussels, February 22, 2005. [Photo/Agencies]
The then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair took Britain to war against Iraq in 2003 on the basis of flawed intelligence and failure to share the many personal notes he sent to President George W Bush with his ministers, according to a massive report on Britain's role in the Iraq war published on Wednesday, seven years after it was commissioned.
The report, according to analysts, was damning in its criticisms.
"There is evidence of gross recklessness," said Philippe Sands, a leading UK human rights lawyer.
The seven volume report, 2.6 million words long and three times as big as the complete works of William Shakespeare and five times as large as Leo Tolstoy's epic novel War and Peace, was ordered by Blair's successor as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown in 2009.
As the report was unveiled at a conference center in Central London, several hundred demonstrators from the "Stop the War" movement, which held regular protests before and during the invasion, held a silent vigil in the street, many carrying the movement's signature placards which showed a deliberate misspelling of Blair name, "BLIAR."
Blair, who was Labour Party prime minister from 1997 to 2008, took Britain to war in Iraq as part of a US-led coalition, ostensibly because Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. In the 2003 invasion and aftermath which toppled Saddam, 179 British soldiers were killed.
From 2003 to 2014, when US combat units were withdrawn, 4,491 US service personnel were killed. In the event, no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, a euphemism for chemical or nuclear weapons, was found.
Blair has repeatedly been accused by UK politicians from all parties of being too close to the then US President Bush. The inquiry found that Blair sent 31 private notes to Bush, often without reference to his ministers or senior officials.
Before the various options for dealing with Saddam had been exhausted, Blair wrote to Bush that he was "with you, whatever," Chilcot said.
The report has been delayed because of a rule that anyone mentioned in the report had a right of reply to any criticism, and the protracted process of obtaining Blair's communications with Bush. The US has refused to allow Bush's responses to Blair's communications to be released.
The report, headed by civil servant Sir John Chilcot, found that there had been serious intelligence failures, and a string of bad judgments made by senior officials.
Chilcot said his investigations and interviews with over 150 witnesses had concluded that there was a lack of planning for what would happen after the invasion, and "the consequences of invasion were over-estimated."
"The weapons of mass destruction case was presented with unjustified certainty," Chilcot said in his presentation, adding that because Blair and Bush had not waited for a second UN Security Council resolution, "the UK was undermining the UN Security Council's authority."
"We have concluded that the decisions taken on legal justification were not satisfactory," he added.
Blair reacted to the report by saying his decision to invade along with US-led forces was "taken in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country."
The former prime minister also said he would take full responsibility for any mistakes. Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons today "Clearly, we need to learn the lessons of this report."
Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, who in the past has called for Blair to stand trial for war crimes, said the invasion had been on "false pretexts, and has long been regarded as illegal. The war fuelled and spread terrorism in the region."
Blair, who has since built up an international consulting firm with many government contacts, including China and Saudi Arabia, said he did not believe the removal of Saddam Hussein "is the cause of terrorism we see today."
But he added in a statement after the report was released: "I will take full responsibility for any mistakes."
An estimated 150,000 Iraqis, mainly civilians, were killed in the invasion and its aftermath, and over one million made homeless.
To contact the reporter: chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com
US President George W. Bush (L) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair walk together from their meeting at the US Embassy in Brussels in this February 22, 2005 file photo. [Photo/Agencies]
The then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair took Britain to war against Iraq in 2003 on the basis of flawed intelligence and failure to communicate with his ministers, according to a massive report on Britain's role in the Iraq war published on Wednesday, seven years after it was commissioned.
The seven volume report, 2.6 million words long and three times as big as the complete works of William Shakespeare, was ordered by Blair's successor as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown in 2009.
Blair, who was Labour Party prime minister from 1997 to 2008, took Britain to war in Iraq as part of a US-led coalition, ostensibly because Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. In the 2003 invasion and aftermath which toppled Saddam, 179 British soldiers were killed.
In the event, no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, a euphemism for chemical or nuclear weapons, was found.
Blair has repeatedly been accused by UK politicians from all parties of being too close to the then US president, George W. Bush.
The report, headed by civil servant Sir John Chilcot, found that there had been serious intelligence failures, and a string of bad judgments made by senior officials.
Blair reacted to the report by saying his decision to invade along with US-led forces was "taken in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country."
Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons today "Clearly, we need to learn the lessons of this report."
Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, who in the past has called for Blair to stand trial for war crimes, said the invasion had been on "false pretexts, and has long been regarded as illegal. The war fuelled and spread terrorism in the region."
Blair, who has built up an international consulting firm with many government contacts, including China and Saudi Arabia, said he did not believe the removal of Saddam Hussein "is the cause of terrorism we see today".
But he added in a statement after the report was released: "I will take full responsibility for any mistakes."
An estimated 150,000 Iraqis, mainly civilians, were killed in the invasion and its aftermath, and over one million made homeless.
Contact the reporter on chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com
BEIJING - With the Philippines as the leading actor and the United States cheering in the bleachers, the political farce of an arbitral tribunal without jurisdiction over the South China Sea issue has sounded an alarm for the lingering cold-war mentality.
By supporting the Philippines in this action, the United States has regressed from his historical stance of World War II, misleading the world about China's rise in the 21st century.
Few people realize that China is the only one of the five big anti-Fascist countries that has not fully recovered its territory.
That is not because of the cowardice of the Chinese people but the values it uphold in its diplomacy with surrounding countries: always seeking good neighborly and friendly ties.
In a world already accustomed to the law of the jungle and zero-sum games in international relations, China's restraint and kindness are not only difficult for some countries to understand but also result in the mistaken impression that it is a pushover.
Back in 1948 when China officially unveiled the map of the South China Sea to the international community, including the U-shape line after recovering its sovereignty and jurisdiction over the Xisha and Nansha Islands in compliance with the Cairo Declaration in 1946, none of the countries in the South China Sea area raised any objection.
It should be mentioned that the United States, during its rule over the Philippines, never recognized the Nansha Islands as part of the Philippines.
According to evidence presented when the Philippines tried to seize part of the Nansha Islands in 1933 by history professor Hu Deshen, chief of the China Institute of Boundary and Ocean Studies of Wuhan University, the U.S. State Department notified the Philippines that America could not recognize those islands some 200 nautical miles away from the waters of the Philippines as its territory, according to the Spanish-American Treaty in 1898.
In the 1970s, the Philippines illegally occupied China's Nansha Islands again. To cover up its act of aggression, it described the Taiping Dao as a "rock". The truth is that when the Chinese government recovered Taiping Dao after WWII, it found six freshwater wells and lush plants there.
According to Japanese archives, during its occupation of Tailing Dao, Japan exploited phosphates and there were over 600 people living there.
Obviously the Philippines is trying to deceive the international community, but China did not resort to force. Instead, it proposed negotiation, and later suggested "shelving disputes and joint development."
As a country whose people left their footprints on the islands in the South China Sea more than 2000 years ago, China has exercised restraint, not out of fear, but for the good of the region.
Interference by the United States, on the contrary, is not to uphold justice as it has proclaimed, but to contain China and jeopardize regional peace. If Asia is in turmoil, the United States has nothing to lose.
Neither is China the only country refusing to enforce the ruling of an international court with no jurisdiction. The United States is doing just the same. Pressing China to follow the upcoming arbitration result will only attest the country's love of double standards.
Nevertheless, whatever the result is, the real challenge is the obsolete thinking that a rising power is sure to seek hegemony.
If the United States is unwilling to off-load its thinking and try to appreciate China's logic and culture, similar farces will occur again in different forms. Regional peace and shared development will then be a distant memory in Asia.
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair took Britain to war against Iraq in 2003 on the basis of flawed intelligence and failure to share with his ministers the many personal notes he sent to President George W. Bush, according to a report on Britains role in the Iraq war published on Wednesday, seven years after it was commissioned.
The report, according to analysts, was damning in its criticisms.
There is evidence of gross recklessness, said Philippe Sands, a leading UK human rights lawyer.
The seven-volume report 2.6 million words and three times as big as the complete works of William Shakespeare and five times as large as Leo Tolstoys epic novel War and Peace was ordered in 2009 by Blairs successor as prime minister, Gordon Brown.
As the report was unveiled at a conference center in Central London, several hundred demonstrators from the ``Stop the War movement, which held regular protests before and during the invasion, held a silent vigil in the street, many carrying the movements signature placards, which showed a deliberate misspelling of Blairs name, ``BLIAR.
Blair, who was Labour Party prime minister from 1997 to 2008, took Britain to war in Iraq as part of a US-led coalition, ostensibly because Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. In the 2003 invasion and aftermath which toppled Saddam, 179 British soldiers were killed.
From 2003 to 2014, when US combat units were withdrawn, 4,491 US service personnel were killed.
No evidence of weapons of mass destruction, a euphemism for chemical or nuclear weapons, was found.
Blair has repeatedly been accused by UK politicians from all parties of being too close to the then US president, Bush. The inquiry found that Blair sent 31 private notes to Bush, often without reference to his ministers or senior officials.
Before the various options for dealing with Saddam had been exhausted, Blair wrote to Bush that he was ``with you, whatever, said Sir John Chilcot, the retired civil servant who headed the report.
The report has been delayed because of a rule that anyone mentioned in the report had a right of reply to any criticism, and the protracted process of obtaining Blairs communications with Bush. The US has refused to release Bushs responses to Blairs communications.
The reportfound that there had been serious intelligence failures, and a string of bad judgments made by senior officials.
Chilcot said his investigations and interviews with more than 150 witnesses had concluded that there was a lack of planning for what would happen after the invasion, and ``the consequences of invasion were over-estimated.
The weapons of mass destruction case was presented with unjustified certainty, Chilcot said in his presentation, adding that because Blair and Bush had not waited for a second UN Security Council resolution, the UK was undermining the UN Security Councils authority.
We have concluded that the decisions taken on legal justification were not satisfactory, he added.
Blair reacted to the report by saying his decision to invade along with US-led forces was taken in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country.
But he added in a statement after the report was released: I will take full responsibility for any mistakes.
Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons today, Clearly, we need to learn the lessons of this report.
Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, who in the past has called for Blair to stand trial for war crimes, said the invasion had been on false pretexts, and has long been regarded as illegal. The war fuelled and spread terrorism in the region.
Blair, who has since built up an international consulting firm with many government contacts, including China and Saudi Arabia, said he did not believe the removal of Saddam Hussein is the cause of terrorism we see today.
An estimated 150,000 Iraqis, mainly civilians, were killed in the invasion and its aftermath, and over one million made homeless.
To contact the reporter: chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com
The Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy is far more prepared for the Rim of the Pacific naval exercises this year than it was in 2014, the first time that China participated.
Vice-Admiral Nora Tyson, commander of the US Third Fleet and the Combined Task Force commander of RIMPAC 2016, said she believes that China's second participation shows better preparation.
"I think the staff better understood the process and understood what the planning process was, and therefore was better prepared for it in 2016 than 2014," she said.
The PLA Navy fleet for RIMPAC 2016 is composed of five ships: the missile destroyer Xi'an, the missile frigate Hengshui, the supply ship Gaoyouhu, the hospital ship Peace Ark and the submarine rescue vessel Changdao. Three helicopters, a marine squad and a diving squad are also participating, with 1,200 officers and soldiers taking part.
The size of the crew is smaller than only those of the United States and Canada among the 26 nations participating in the exercises.
Wang Sheqiang, commanding officer of the Chinese fleet Task Force 153, described RIMPAC 2016 as a pageant for the world's navies.
"China's participation this time will help strengthen the professional exchange and practical cooperation between the Chinese Navy and other navies, help enhance the friendship among the participating nations and help build a new type of military-to-military relationship between China and the United States," he said.
During the exercises, which began on June 30 and will conclude on Aug 4, the PLA Navy fleet will participate in drills including gunfire, damage control and rescue, anti-piracy, search and rescue, and diving and submarine rescue.
RIMPAC also will enhance China's capability to deal with threats in nontraditional security fields and to ensure and promote peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, Wang said.
Vice-Admiral Tyson, the first woman to lead a US Navy fleet, said a country is usually invited the first time as an observer, while the second time it brings its ships and aircraft.
"Having participated as an observer and having participated by bringing ships and aircraft, then they may be considered for a leadership position," she told the opening news conference for RIMPAC 2016 on Tuesday at S-1 Pier of Pearl Harbor, where the participating navies have assembled.
Admiral Scott Swift, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, host of this year's exercises, agreed. "You don't want to push nations too early to play too big a role within the structure of the RIMPAC," said Swift.
He said the participating nations are joined by a shared interest in maritime cooperation in the Pacific, "where we are all locals, all locals here at RIMPAC, and that's regardless of geographic size, military might or economic strength".
A total of 45 ships, five submarines, more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel are participating in the exercises in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California.
Xinhua photo
BEIJING -- The South China Sea used to be a peaceful region before the United States poked its nose into the area. Instead of its "Rebalance to the Asia-Pacific" strategy, what the United States really needs is to "rebalance" its attitude toward the issue.
Small frictions in the South China Sea date back to the late 1960s when some American scientists reported the discovery of rich gas and petrol resources in the region. Some coastal countries started to occupy the islands for that reason since then.
Fortunately, in the following years, China maintained overall peace in the waters via constant and friendly negotiations with concerned countries, and reached the Declaration on the Conduct (DOC) of Parties in the South China Sea with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries in 2002.
Taking no sides on the South China Sea issue was the US position in the past.
However, the Obama administration launched the Rebalance to the Asia-Pacific strategy in 2009 and started to brazenly meddle in the area, which is far from US shores.
In 2010, then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said openly that her country "has a national interest" in the South China Sea. This May, Secretary of State John Kerry warned that China's action could create a "tinderbox" in the region, ignoring other countries' provocative actions a long time ago.
Freedom of navigation, respect for international law and strategic security are the terms most frequently used by the United States to disguise its private interests in the region.
The freedom of navigation in the South China Sea has never been a problem as nearly a hundred thousand boats freely sail across the waters every year, making up the majority of global maritime trade.
However, since 2015, US warships and military aircraft have repeatedly approached the Nansha Islands without Chinese permission. This in fact reveals provocation and hegemony behind the US claim of navigational freedom.
Calling for respect of international laws, the United States on the contrary hasn't ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the prestigious international treaty over the use of the world's oceans.
Private firms are competing to add more fiber to Chattanooga's already robust network.
The City Council on Tuesday night approved a request by Zayo Group of Boulder, Colo., to add fiber mainly in existing conduits.
Dylan Davito of Zayo said the work will focus on downtown, but will be added in many other parts of the city.
He said the fiber will allow existing cell towers to gain much more band width and help prevent the construction of more towers that are often unpopular.
Mr. Davito said it also will provide better cell service for the multitudes who constantly use their cell phones.
The initial work will be for Verizon, he said.
Assessor of Property Bill Bennett on Wednesday released a statement endorsing Rep. Mike Carter for reelection.
"Today Im proud to endorse State Rep. Mike Carter in his reelection bid in District 29," said Mr. Bennett. "Ive known Mike for many years, from his time as county attorney for the Hamilton County Sheriffs department, through his years as Sessions Court judge. Mikes proven himself to be a hard worker who listens to the people of Hamilton County and the 29th District.
"As your state representative, Mike has kept his promises. He was a leader in ending forced annexation in Tennessee, a practice that allowed cities to annex a citizens property without permission from the property owner. For his efforts he was named best legislator of the 109th General Assembly and co-legislator of the year by Americans for Prosperity Tennessee.
"He voted to eliminate the Hall Income Tax and to lower taxes for veterans and seniors. He will continue with the efforts he began in 2014 toward making high speed internet available to citizens in his district that currently have no access.
"Mikes leadership has been critical to the success of Hamilton County and I enthusiastically endorse Rep. Mike Carter for continuing his service as state representative for District 29."
Early voting is July 15-30 and the general election is Aug. 4.
Mipso will be in concert at the Camp House on Saturday, July 16, at 7 p.m. The Camp House is at 1427 Williams St. Admission is $10 in advance and $15 day of the concert. The show is appropriate for all ages.
For more information call 702-8081 or visit http://www.thecamphouse.com
Review for Mipso:
North Carolina-based band Mipso recently announced their headlining 2016 Summer Tour that brings their distinctive and stirring indie folk sound to over 25 cities across North America. The tour, which launched mid February, has already seen sold out shows at such venues as City Winery in N.Y., Creative Alliance at The Patterson in Baltimore, Md., One Longfellow Square in Portland, Me., Lost Lake Lounge in Denver, Co., and others. The tour continues next in cities throughout the Midwest, California, and the South.
Following their critically acclaimed debut record, 2013s Dark Hollar Pop, Mipso released Old Time Reverie in fall 2015 to rave reviews from critics and fans alike. The record shot up the Billboard charts, where it landed at #1 on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart and in the Top 25 of the Billboard Heatseakers Chart. With songwriting hailed as smartly written, hewing surprisingly close to gospel and folk while still sounding modern and secular. (Acoustic Guitar), Mipsos Old Time Reverie was named among the Best Records of the Year byThe Guardian - for the bands aptidude for stunning harmonies and for its lush and moving songs that feel as fresh as a warm spring rain.
With over 400 shows under their belt so far, and the permanent addition of band mate Libby Rodenbough, Old Time Reverie is a reflection of Mipsos musical and personal growth. Their gripping, mature sophomore release finds the quartet expanding their sonic resources while doubling down on their experimentation with string band tradition.
Influenced by the contradiction of their progressive home of Chapel Hill, N.C. and the surrounding rural southern landscapes, Mipsos Old Time Reverie dips in, explores and mixes the complexities of traditional bluegrass with modern instrumentation and smart pop melodies. The result is an intoxicating, distinctly unique blend of modern day Americana.
Mipso is: Jacob Sharp (mandolin, vocals), Wood Robinson (bass, vocals), Joseph Terrell (guitar, vocals), Libby Rodenbough (fiddle, vocals).
(Photo : Getty Images) A general view of rising flood water in Liuzhou, China.
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Millions of people have been displaced, thousands of homes destroyed, and hundreds are left unaccounted after torrential rains led to deadly floods across China.
After over two weeks of heavy rain and flooding, the death toll has been raised to 186, while 45 people are reportedly missing. According to the South China Morning Post, eight of those deaths were caused by collapsing factory walls which buried workers alive in Wuhan, Hubei province.
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The heavy rain flooded 1,200 counties in 26 provinces and municipalities, with the provinces of Anhui, Chongqing, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, and Zhejiang being the most affected. An estimated 1.5 million people have been relocated, while 56,000 homes were destroyed. The economic loss is estimated to amount to 50.6 billion yuan ($7.6 billion), according to the provincial civil affairs department.
Meanwhile, the heavy downpour also resulted in key rail networks being washed off. Major roads were also shut down. A total of 45 roads were closed and are impassable to cars.
The rainy weather is forecasted to persist until Wednesday in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the Huai River area, and the western and southern parts of China.
"Our country's flood control work has entered a critical stage. For the next step, the state authorities will make plans based on the most adverse situation," the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said in a statement.
"Combatting the floods [in small rivers] over the weekend was just a beginning for us. We will meet bigger challenges soon," Jiang Yansheng, deputy chief engineer of Hubei's flood control office, said.
Tropical storm Nepartak is also forecasted to hit southeastern China in the coming days.
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Tagsrain storm, landslide, flood, china, Nepartak, tropical storm, weather disaster
Chattanooga now has a creperie among its culinary options, with the opening of Adelles Ice Cream Creperie at 400 East Main Street. Inspired by crepes typically offered in Europe, Adelles is filling a niche with its small but interesting menu of both sweet and savory crepes, along with a line of natural ice creams, shakes, floats and sundaes.
Adelles is located within The Granfalloon and co-owned by Carla Pritchard and her 12-year-old daughter Adelle, who was also the inspiration and the creative force behind the operation. Demonstrating an early interest in food, Adelle has been preparing dinner and desserts for family and friends for some time. Indeed, it was her idea to open a small restaurant and, with strong involvement in the selection of everything from the decor to the menu, this creperie truly is Adelle's.
Although currently in operation, the official Grand Opening for Adelles Ice Cream Creperie is Saturday, during its regular hours of 7 a.m.-2 p.m. Special live music will be performed by local musicians from 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m.
Owners said, "With European flare and style, Adelle's will soon become the favorite stop for breakfast, lunch or afternoon meetings. Only the freshest, finest quality ingredients go into these made-to-order crepes. House recipes, sauces and even the ice creams at Adelles put a priority on quality, using almost exclusively non-processed and natural ingredients, with all meats being free of hormones and antibiotics."
There are five suggested combinations for both savory and sweet crepes, with the option of Create Your Own for both, where patrons can choose their three favorite ingredients from a tempting list. Otherwise, the menu for savory crepes include The Crowd Pleaser with ham, egg and Swiss cheese and a drizzle of Hollandaise, The Roma with turkey, tomato, pesto and Havarti cheese with special Adelle sauce, or a vegetarian option such as Lean, Bean & Green with sauteed mushrooms, onions, black beans and spinach, garnished with vine ripe roasted tomato, just to name a few. All savory crepes come with a fresh salad of mixed spring greens, toasted almonds and house vinaigrette or a side of fruit such as strawberries, bananas and pineapple topped with a spoonful of house strawberry jam (or other seasonal fruit).
However, savory crepes are just half of the fare. Delicious sweet crepes make the perfect ending to a meal, an afternoon snack or anytime you want a bite of something wonderful. Try getting Nuttin' but Nutella, Bee's Knees (Nutella, banana and honey), the Miss American Pie or the traditional English crepe London's Calling with just sugar and fresh lemon on your crepe, for instance.
Specials, which are not included on the regular menu, will also be featured on a frequent basis. Locally roasted Mayfly Coffee is offered hot, as well as in cold brew.
Adelles Ice Cream Creperie is open Monday through Saturday, from 7 a.m.- 2.p.m. Convenient and dedicated free parking is available. More information can be found by calling 423 531-2222.
(Photo : Getty Images) Retired Chinese men sit on a bench outside an apartment complex for pensioners on the second day of the Golden Week holiday in Beijing, China.
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Beijing's government proposed a trial scheme last month to give subsidies to elderly people who decide to move away from the city into nearby care homes in Tianjin and Hebei province.
Based on the details of the plan provided, necessary arrangements will be made to ensure that public medical insurance will cover their expenses in the two districts.
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Although details have not been finalized yet, the scheme will use a government and private co-funded home near the border between Beijing and Wuqing, an official from the district civil affairs bureau told the South China Morning Post.
Also, the government wants to make use of the elderly homes in Hebei and Tianjin since well-managed elderly care homes in Beijing have been closed to most general bookings. At the moment, they only accept applications from senior citizens who have government support, or are disabled, over 70 years old and have no children.
However, some senior citizens have not welcomed the idea. "I still prefer Beijing because there are so many good hospitals here," one elderly person commented.
Meanwhile, Lu Jiehua, a professor from Peking University's sociology department, admitted to having little confidence in Beijing's plan as neighboring cities are not equipped with the necessary resources and the air in these areas are just as bad as it is in Beijing.
She suggested that instead of the relocation plan, the government could gain better results if it shifts its focus on differential care. For instance, some could go to a center during the day time to have some company over meals, while others could avail of home services.
She further added that merely luring elderly people to move away from the city with subsidies is not convincing enough.
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TagsBeijing, Elderly population
(Photo : YouTube Screenshot) Huawei will unveil its latest flagship smartphone next week.
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Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei is slated to take the wraps off its latest flagship device this month, the Honor 8. However, there are indications that Huawei is planning to unveil another new smartphone in the near future.
A handful of tech websites have reported that Huawei is planning to release the second device following the scheduled release of the Huawei Honor 8. The still unnamed device has a model number EDI-DL00 and was recently spotted in a TENAA filing. TENAA os China's regulatory board that reviews and certifies telecommunications equipment.
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Huawei has kept silent about this second device. However, there are rumors that it will be called the Honor 8 Max and will probably be an upgraded model of the Honor 8.
According to Tech Spot, the Huawei Honor 8 Max is expected to have a 6.6-inch display with a 2560 x 1440 resolution. At its heart is the octa-core Kirin 950 system-on-chip with a processor speed of 2.3GHz and 3GB of memory. The storage space is reported to be 32GB with possible support for expandable storage.
While the dual camera setup is slowly getting traction in the smartphone world, this setup is not expected on the Huawei Honor 8 Max. Instead, the device will have a 13-megapixel rear facing shooter and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera.
A leaked photograph believed to be that of the Honor 8 Max shows that the device has a fingerprint scanner sensor. This leak also indicates a that the device will run on Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
If rumors are true, the Huawei Honor 8 Max, once released, will go head-to-head against the Xiaomi Mi Max. The entry level model is believed to be priced around $230, while the high-end model will have a price tag of $300.
According to BGR, Huawei is slated to unveil the Honor 8, and possibly the Honor 8 Max, on July 11.
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TagsHuawei, Huawei Honor, Honor 8, Huawei Honor 8 Max, Honor 8 Max, Honor 8 Max specs, Honor 8 Max price, Honor 8 Max release date
(Photo : YouTube Screenshot) Xiaomi is scaling up production of the Mi Band 2 to meet the high demand.
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Xiaomi will be doubling the production of the Xiaomi Mi Band 2 starting next month to meet the high demand. The smart band is currently being sold for 229 yuan ($34).
According to Gizmo China, Huami Chief Executive Officer Huang Wang confirmed that the company is doubling the production of the Mi Band 2, but this is still not enough to meet the high demand. To those who are not aware, the Chinese wearable device maker Huami produces the smart band and is Xiaomi's fitness wearables partner.
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Xiaomi founder and Chief Executive Officer Lei Jun confirmed Huang's statement. He admitted in a post on his Weibo account that the company repeatedly increased production, but the high demands have not been met.
The Mi Band 2 was released in June after a long wait for the price of 149 yuan ($22). The release date of the device was reportedly postponed because the company wanted to ensure that the Mi Band 2 meets the demand for a smart band. The release date was allegedly also postponed several times to shore up stocks.
The Mi Band 2 comes with a wide array of features and an affordable price tag. It has an OLED display and a touch panel to give access to important data such as time, distance covered, body temperature, and heart rate, South China Morning Post reported. It can function both as a fitness tracker and a wristwatch with smart technology that is sensitive to movements. The current time can be displayed by just raising one's hand.
The Mi Band 2 follows Xiaomi Mi Band, which has a compact size and cheap price tag, making it the world's most successful smart band product. The Mi Band was launched in 2014 with a drab aluminum module and a 30-day battery life. A heart rate sensor was added to it last year.
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TagsXiaomi Mi Band 2, Xiaomi, Mi Band 2, Huami, Huang Wang, Lei Jun, Xiaomi Mi Band, Mi Band
(Photo : Getty Images) SMRT is reportedly shipping back 26 China-made trains to CSR Sifang due to structural defects.
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Public transport operator SMRT Corporation is allegedly shipping back 26 out of the 35 China-made trains it is using due to structural defects.
The issues, which were found in 2013, were revealed after a Hong Kong news outlet reported that trains were "secreted" away to be sent back to its manufacturer. Furthermore, a crowd-funded news site called FactWire revealed that the defects were apparent after it began operating on the North-South and East-West lines.
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The issues cited include repeatedly shattering glass panels because of shoddy workmanship and exploding China-made uninterruptible power supply batteries during repairs. These batteries have been reportedly replaced with Germany-made batteries.
Meanwhile, the Land Transport Authority told TODAY that the issues "are not safety-critical and do not affect the train's systems or performance."
Lee Ling Wee, SMRT Train's managing director, on the other hand, told the press that "our engineers discovered that 26 out of the 35 trains delivered by the manufacturer had cracks in the structure connecting the car body and the bogie after they were delivered in 2013."
He added that they have been closely working with the Land Transport Authority and the manufacturer. The trains will be repaired by the manufacturers since it is still under warranty, and all the 26 defective units will be fixed by 2023.
When prompted about passenger's safety, Lee said they have been closely monitoring the defects, noting that "a monthly safety assessment is conducted by the LTA and manufacturer before the train is put into service."
The C151A-model trains, which are less than five years old, were made by China Southern Railway (CSR) Qingdao Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock Company in collaboration with Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries.
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(Photo : Getty Images) President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin (R) meets with President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping in Ufa during the BRICS/SCO Summits - Russia 2015 in Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia.
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Chinese firms have invested a total of 16 billion yuan ($2.4 billion) in development projects in Russia's Far East, Aleksandr Galushka, the regional development minister, revealed on Monday.
In a statement, Galushka said that the new Far East development mechanisms, including the Advanced Development Territories, the Vladivostok free port area, the Far East Development Fund, and targeted infrastructural project support, have already attracted a total investment of 1.1 trillion rubles ($17.1 billion).
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"All these mechanisms are popular with Chinese businesses. The volume of Chinese investments came to 163 billion rubles ($2.4 billion)," he said.
Chinese investments have also gone into projects outside the Russian Far East's special zone. Some 7 billion rubles ($109 million) have been put in a timber plant in Khabarovsk territory's Berezovyi village.
Furthermore, about 80 billion rubles ($1.24 billion) generated by Russia and China from a joint agroindustrial development fund is also ready for investment and will be presented at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok this September, according to Sputnik News.
Russian and Chinese firms will have a slate of projects in Russia's Far East in the energy, trade, and cross-border tourism industry. One of the biggest upcoming projects is the Power of Siberia pipeline that will deliver 38 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas to China every year.
In May, a source from the Russian Far East Development Ministry told Sputnik News that over 31 agreements have been signed with Chinese firms. Furthermore, in March, Chinese companies reportedly invested a total of over $1.9 billion into developmental projects in the Russian Far East, including an oil refinery, a logistical center, a cement factory, and q plant for ferrous scrap metals.
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Tagschina, Russia Far East, Aleksandr Galushka, Far East development mechanisms
(Photo : Getty Images) Silvio Berlusconi has agreed to sell off AC Milan to a Chinese consortium.
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Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has sold club AC Milan to a Chinese consortium, he told the press on Tuesday.
"Milan has now embarked on this path towards China," he said in a video posted on La Gazzetta dello Sport's website. "It's an important decision to give AC Milan to someone able to make it be a protagonist in Italy, Europe and globally."
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The 79-year-old business mogul refused to divulge the investor's identity but hinted that it was "a Chinese company with public capital."
The Chinese consortium is set to acquire 80 percent of the club's shares before they eventually take over the remainder.
Berlusconi said that he "gave up all claims to the price... [and] accepted what was offered." But, he demanded that the Chinese consortium invests about $450 million over the next two years, valuing the Serie A team at an estimated $828 million including debts, according to BBC.
Meanwhile, the terms of the deals are still being finalized.
Bloomberg reported that two insiders familiar with the matter said the agreement is unlikely to be finalized until next week at the earliest, as there are still some other details that need to be finished.
The deal comes just weeks after a 70 percent stake of local rival club Inter Milan was sold to Chinese electronics retailer Suning Commerce Group Co. Ltd.
In June 2015, Thai businessman Bee Taechaubol attempted to purchase 48 percent of AC Milan's stake. However, Bee failed to find financing after China's Citic Group Corp. pulled out.
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(Photo : China Photos/Getty Images) Customers wait to enter a new IKEA store in Nanjing of Jiangsu Province, China. Chinese consumers are asking for a recall of Ikea's chests and dressers recalled in North America.
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Chinese consumers are calling on Swedish furniture maker, Ikea, to recall its dressers and chests shipped to the country after the company announced a recall of the same products in the United States and Canada.
Around 36 million chests and dressers were recalled after the products were linked to the deaths of six children. However, the fact that the recall is limited to North America has caused Chinese consumers to complain about being excluded from the matter. The New York Times reported that the recall order was issued in North America after children were crushed to death when the furniture fell on them.
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Customers who bought the furniture after the year 2002 are eligible for a partial refund. Ikea has argued that the dressers and the chests are safe when anchored to a wall as per the instruction. The refund could amount from $70 to $200, Women of China reported.
The decision for the recall came after the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission called on the furniture manufacturer to abide by the voluntary industry standards concerning the stability of free-standing clothing storage products.
On the popular Chinese social media platform called Weibo, many netizens have complained about the recall being limited to Canada and the United States. A person said that the limit discriminates against the Chinese people while another suggested that Ikea should be boycotted.
China is Ikea's fastest-growing market as sales in the country last year reached $1.55 billion. The demand for a recall in China has also led people to question the country's safety standards. One Weibo user said that the country's safety standards are too low not only in furniture but also in terms of manufacturing, health, cars, food hygiene, agriculture, among many others.
Ikea has argued that it limited the recall to North America since the products it sells meets the safety standards of China and other countries.
Ikea's spokeswoman for China, Xian Jiaxin, said in a statement, "The chests and dressers conform to all local regulations and standards. This model is sold not only in China, but also in other regions outside the United States. It's also sold in European Union countries. This product meets the mandatory safety requirements of EU and our country."
The Shenzhen Consumer Council has also released a statement calling for equal consumer protection. A part of the statement reads, "If products publicly recalled in North America are still being sold on the Chinese market, the Ikea Group must unconditionally recall these products." Ikea is yet to comment on the statement.
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TagsChinese consumers, china, IKEA, Swedish furniture maker, dressers, chests, Recall, North America
(Photo : Photo by Anthony Kwan/Getty Images) Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee takes part in a protest in Hong Kong.
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A Hong Kong bookseller, who was freed recently after eight-months in detention, has been ordered to travel back to China to face penalties for violating the terms of his parole.
The Ningbo Public Security Bureau urged the bookseller, identified as Lam Wing Kee, to return to China for investigation, Hong Kong Free Press reported. This comes after Hong Kong officials visited Beijing to talk about the communication mechanism for Hong Kong people detained in the mainland. The bureau added that Lam's statements and actions after being free violated the bail laws in China.
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"If he refuses to return, the bureau will amend the criminal compulsory measures in accordance with the law," the bureau said.
The request for Lam to return to China comes after he said that he was kidnapped in Shenzhen and was held in Ningbo. The condition for his freedom was reportedly that he would hand over customer information about Chinese citizens who bought books that are not allowed to be sold in China.
The books are said to have been discovered after being posted online back in 2015. Authorities found out that the books were from Lam's bookstore called Causeway Bay Books. More booksellers were arrested in October last year. Others have been freed but have not issued detailed statements like Lam after returning to Hong Kong. One more bookseller remains in police custody.
The bureau stated that Lam accrued over 400,000 Chinese yuan ($60,000) from selling 368 books shipped into China, The New York Times reported. He was also reportedly provided with livelihood assistance by Chinese authorities after Lam claimed that he does not have a good relationship with his family. He also reportedly promised to return to China after posting bail.
Lam is said to be in a safe house in Hong Kong and is with his lawyers. They have not yet responded to China's latest request.
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TagsHong Kong Bookseller, china, Lam Wing-Kee, eight-month detention, penalties, parole violation, Ningbo Public Security Bureau, Hong Kong, bail laws
(Photo : YouTube Screenshot) A comparison between the filters on Snapchat and South Korea-based Snow.
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Snow is a trending app in China right now. However, its designs and features appear to have been ripped off from Snapchat.
Snow bears a striking resemblance to the image messaging and multimedia mobile app Snapchat, which is currently banned in China. Like the US-based app, Snow also has a slate of filters to choose from; could send short, self-destructing messages; and could transform people into animals, police officers, and other figures.
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Snow became an instant hit in Asia. It has been downloaded more than 30 million times after it made its debut in September 2015.
According to the Times, a spokesperson for Snow "acknowledged it was similar to Snapchat, but said Snow had unique features like video chat."
Snapchat, on the other hand, has refused to comment on the issue and declined to provide details about whether it has plans to pursue legal actions against Snow's parent company Naver.
Meanwhile, Ivy Zhou, a student at a university in Hong Kong, said that although Snapchat's social network is more vibrant than Snow, the South Korean version of Snapchat could somehow fill the gap for Chinese netizens since they cannot access Snapchat from the mainland.
Furthermore, "With the rise of China and China's infatuation with Korean culture, it's breathed new life into Korean start-ups and founders," Tim Chae, a partner at 500 Startups that focused on Korean start-ups, said.
"This is a market that happens to be a lot bigger than the U.S., that seems to be more welcoming for Korean technology and culture than the Western world ever was."
Currently, Snow is China's most downloaded photo/video app in Apple's Chinese version of the App Store. Furthermore, according to research firm App Annie, it ranked 19th on the most downloadable free app overall on the iPhone in China. Its Facebook page now has more than 1.2 million likes.
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Tagssnow, snapchat, App, Smartphone Apps
(Photo : Getty Images) India led China in terms of pharmaceutical exports in 2015.
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India maintained a lead in pharmaceutical exports over China in 2015, the country's commerce ministry said in a statement.
"India's pharmaceutical exports continued its lead over China in 2015 ... India maintains its supremacy over China in pharmaceuticals," the ministry said in a statement.
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Although India's pharma export grew by only 7.55 percent year on year to $12.54 billion in 2015 from $11.66 billion in 2014, it is still ahead of China with a 5.63 percent growth to $6.94 billion from $6.59 billion over the same period.
"India moved ahead of China in all important markets such as the US, Africa and the European Union," it continued.
India's exports to the United States grew by nearly a quarter (23.4 percent) to $474 billion in 2016, while China's exports to the US only jumped by 15 percent to $1.34 billion.
Aside from the United States, India also managed to beat China in terms of growth in the European Union and Africa with $1.5 billion and $3.04 billion, respectively. On the other hand, China reported declining trend in both markets.
Despite India's win over China, India is still dependent on China for the import of APIs, which are vital raw materials needed for medicines. The Indian government and agencies have expressed concern over India's continued dependence on China for APIs.
In related news, India's pharmaceutical exports are poised to be worth $20 billion by 2020, up by $6 billion from 2016, a joint research by Assocham and TechSci revealed.
However, the export growth may be chopped down to almost half - from 15 percent compounded annual growth rate between 2010 and 2014 to eight percent from 2015 to 2020 - because of the delay in regulatory approvals in the United States, Russia, Africa, and other locations.
"Consolidation of pharmacy players is leading to an increase in pricing pressures for generic companies existing in the US market which is expected to result in a decline in year-on-year growth of pharmaceutical exports from India over next five years," the research said.
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TagsIndia, china, pharmaceutical exports
(Photo : Getty Images) China has said it is willing to work with ASEAN countries to safeguard the peace and stability in the South China Sea region.
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China's Foreign Ministry has downplayed comments by the state media that Beijing should prepare for "military confrontation" over the disputed South China Sea.
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hong Lei on Tuesday said that China would work with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to safeguard the peace and stability of the South China Sea.
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Hong's remarks comes a day after the state-owned Global Times newspaper warned about potential military confrontation over disputed territories in the South China Sea and suggested that Beijing must be ready for war.
"China hopes disputes can be resolved by talks, it must be prepared for any military confrontation," the newspaper said in its editorial. "Even though China cannot keep up with the US militarily in the short-term, it should be able to let the US pay a cost it cannot stand if it intervenes in the South China Sea dispute by force," it further added.
State-owned news agency Xinhua in another editorial on Tuesday said that the United States should change its strategy aimed at rebalancing the Asia Pacific.
China is carrying out military drills around Paracel Islands in the disputed South China Sea despite opposition from its neighbors. The military exercises started days after the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration declared that it would issue a final ruling on the South China Sea case on July 12.
The Philippines government in questioning Beijing' claim to the South China Sea in its case at the international tribunal. China, on the other hand, has said it does not recognize the jurisdiction of the tribunal and continues to maintain that it has ''sovereignty" over the disputed region.
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TagsSouth China Sea, State Media, china, Beijing, Foreign Ministry
(Photo : Getty Images) China Resources Beer is looking to raise $1.2 billion by selling rights shares.
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China Resources Beer is looking to raise $1.2 billion by issuing rights shares.
China's biggest beer maker, in a statement issued on Wednesday, said that it would raise HK$ 9.5 billion ( approx. $1.2 billion) via rights shares to buy the remaining stake of its Snow beer joint venture with SABMiller Plc.
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The proceeds of the rights shares would enable the company to buy the remaining 49 percent stake in the joint venture. "The company will provisionally allocate one rights share for every three existing shares held by each qualifying shareholder," the company said.
China Resources Beer's chairman Chen Lang said that the company would continue to explore business expansion opportunities through both organic growth and acquisitions. "To capture these growth opportunities, we consider the rights issue to be in the best interests of the company and its shareholders as whole," he said.
The Hong Kong stock market immediately responded to the announcement as China Resources Beer's shares fell to a two and half month low.
The state-supported brewer recently decided to purchase SABMiller' 49 percent stake in their Chinese joint venture.
China is the biggest producer and consumer of beer globally. The country produced around 47 billion liters of beer in 2015. The per capital consumption of beer ( 35 liters) is much more than global average. China is also one of the largest beer markets in the world. China Resources Snow Breweries, Yanjing Beer, Carlsberg, Tsingtao Brewery and Anheuser-Busch InBev are the five major players in the industry.
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Tagschina, China Beer, China Resources Beer, Snow Beer, SABMiller
(Photo : USMC) US and Philippine Marines during an amphibious assault exercise in the Philippines in 2015.
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The U.S. Navy and its naval infantry, the U.S. Marine Corps, will launch their first large-scale amphibious landing exercise over the past few decades during the ongoing RIMPAC or Rim of the Pacific naval exercise, the world's largest involving warships from 26 countries led by the United States.
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Brig. Gen. Ray Descheneaux, commanding general of Fleet Marine Forces for RIMPAC, noted that exercises like RIMPAC allow the U.S. military services and their allies to prepare for large-scale amphibious missions in the future.
He said Marines haven't carried out a large-scale amphibious landing in decades. There's still a need to train for these missions, especially as Marines test new high-tech tactics and gear, he said.
RIMPAC 2016 began June 30 and will end August 4. It will cover a vast area extending from Hawaii to the U.S. West Coast.
It involves 45 warships; five submarines; over 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel from 27 countries, including China and the Philippines, which are engaged in a diplomatic war of nerves over China's claim to own most of the South China Sea.
Also of keen interest to foreign navies will be the interaction between the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and the U.S. Navy, which is also involved in the dispute over the South China Sea.
Experts, however, are concerned the PLAN will use its participation at RIMPAC to spy on other nations, especially the U.S., using electronic warfare, military intelligence and radar and electronic warfare
"You can tweak and modify ships to do information gathering if you've got the phased arrays, you certainly have the ability to emit signals and if you have the right antennae, you can certainly collect signals," said Dean Cheng of the Heritage Foundation in Washington.
RIMPAC 2016 is the first time Marines will practice simultaneous amphibious operations in Hawaii and Southern California, said Maj. Timothy Tiller, Marine Forces Pacific lead RIMPAC planner.
Men of the 3rd Marine Regiment will lead a multinational force in a large amphibious training exercise around the Hawaiian Islands. The other Marine units taking part are the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines; Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463 and Combat Logistics Battalion 3.
Training missions will include amphibious assaults, helicopter raids and combined arms operations ashore. The 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment will contribute half of the troops for the ground combat element.
This type of training at RIMPAC will integrate joint and combined capabilities to conduct amphibious, offensive, defensive, and stability operations.
The 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit will lead a second multinational force training off Southern California's coast along with elements of 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines; Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 369 and Combat Logistics Battalion 15.
The Marines and other troops will complete amphibious assaults, raids, non-combatant evacuation operations, and combined-arms training at ranges at Camp Pendleton and San Clemente Island. There will also be artillery and small-arms live-fire events.
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TagsU.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, Brig. Gen. Ray Descheneaux, RIMPAC 2016, Dean Cheng
(Photo : Reuters) Tencent is seeking partners to fund its acquisition of Supercell.
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Chinese tech giant Tencent is reportedly looking for interested investors to fund its $8.6 billion acquisition of Finnish game developer Supercell. Inside sources have revealed that there are ongoing talks with possible investors including China Investment, Hillhouse Capital Group, and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
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Tencent is looking to acquire Supercell's 84.3 percent stake from Softbank, as well as stakes owned by some of the company's current and former employees. In a statement acquired by Telecom Paper, Tencent said that it is in the process of negotiating with investors "in the consortium who are interested in participating in the long-term success of Supercell."
Tencent is reportedly still in the process of shortlisting possible participants in the consortium. There are reports that the current list of potential co-investors could change.
The Supercell buyout is one of Tencent's biggest acquisition to date. A third of the buyout will be financed through debt, while the rest will be split between Tencent and other investors. Sources said that the company is yet to decide whether to launch an Initial Public Offering (IPO) for Supercell. This is because important strategic decisions, such as an IPO, would require approval from Supercell's founders.
Once the deal is completed, Tencent is expected to control at least a 50 percent voting interest in the consortium. According to the Wall Street Journal, firms that opt to participate in the Supercell consortium would be expecting an average annual return of 36 percent over the span of the next four years.
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TagsTencent, Tencent acquisition, supercell, Supercell buyout, Tencent acquisition news, Tencent co-investors, Tencent investors, Supercell investors
(Photo : China.org) Hangzhou Economic and Technological Development Area in China
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Pfizer, Inc., the American giant that is one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, is investing some US$350 million to build a Global Biotechnology Center at the Hangzhou Economic and Technological Development Area (HEDA) in China.
The Hangzhou facility will be Pfizer's third biotechnology center globally and the first in Asia. HEDA is located in the eastern urban area of Hangzhou City, on the north bank in the lower reaches of the Qiantang River.
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Pfizer said the biotech hub will produce high-quality and affordable biosimilar medicines for China and the world. Biosimilar medicines, which are not the same as generics, refer to generic versions of drugs where the active ingredient is made only by an engineered organism.
The Hangzhou facility will focus on producing biologic drugs, or those made from living micro-organisms rather than chemically synthesized, and lower-cost biosimilars of generic versions of biologics.
It will house Pfizer China's Biosimilars and Biologics Quality, Technical Service; Logistics and Engineering divisions and commercial manufacturing. It will also serve as a process development and clinical supply site. It will also include an advanced modular facility by GE Healthcare.
The facility is expected to be completed in 2018. When operational, it will represent Pfizer's further investment in R&D and clinical research across China, and will create some 150 jobs.
The Hangzhou facility should "help support China's aim to increase the complexity and value of its manufacturing sector by 2025," said John Young, group president for Pfizer's essential health division.
He said Pfizer would "work closely" with local regulators to bring the drugs "to market as soon as possible."
China's overall healthcare spending is estimated to rise to $1.3 trillion by 2020, but drug market growth has slowed as branded generics have lost their popularity.
Pfizer develops and produces medicines and vaccines for a wide range of medical disciplines, including cardiology, immunology, oncology, diabetology / endocrinology and neurology.
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TagsPfizer, Inc., Global Biotechnology Center, Hangzhou Economic Development Area
(Photo : NASA) Russia's Nauka module that will form the basis of the new Russian station named ROS.
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Russia's announcement it plans a new space station called the Russian Orbital Station, or ROS, to replace the International Space Station (ISS) confirms the ISS won't make it to the 30th anniversary of its existence in 2028.
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It also seems to confirm the United States will exit from the ISS consortium of countries to focus its limited funding on its deep space programs such as landing humans on Mars by 2035. The U.S.' "ISS-xit" comes despite Russia's insistence the ISS will operate until 2024 and that Roscosmos and NASA "do not rule out that the station's flight could be extended." NASA has never confirmed its support for Russia's statement, however.
RKK Energia, the major Russian contractor for the ISS and now ROS, said plans call for ROS to initially include three modules with two more probably added in the future.
Construction of ROS will begin with the separation of Russia's Multi-Purpose Module or Nauka from the rest of the ISS in mid-2020s. Nauka is scheduled for launch in December 2017. Two more modules will be added to Nauka before ROS is built, however.
One will be the Node Module that can connect to six other modules and other elements while the other will be the Science and Power Module (NEM), a new science lab. The launch of NEM, probably by 2019, will begin the construction of ROS and give the Russian segment of the ISS the capability to function as a separate space station. It will mean ROS will be in business.
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TagsRussian Orbital Station, ROS, Russia, RKK Energia, Nauka, Multi-Purpose Module
Jason Van Dyke's Attorneys Want Laquan McDonald's Juvenile Records
By Stephen Gossett in News on Jul 6, 2016 7:25PM
Jason Van Dyke / Photo: Scott Olson / Getty Images
In a rare and controversial move, defense attorneys for Jason Van Dyke, the officer facing first-degree murder charges in shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, are requesting access to the victim's juvenile records, according to the Tribune.
The move is under fire from child legal advocacy groups. Kendall Marlowe, executive director of the National Association of Counsel for Children, criticized the move as a victim-blaming obfuscation tactic. He told the Tribune:
"We keep child abuse records confidential to protect victims. Those records weren't created to serve the interests of perpetrators. For a defense attorney to mine the history of a child's victimization, to paint the child as a violent sociopath who deserved to die is the very definition of why these records should not be disclosed."
Terry Ekl, an attorney not connected to the case, told the paper it was not likely that a judge would approve such a request: "I don't fault them for looking under every rock to see if they can find something, but when you look at it objectively, I don't see how it would be admissible at trial," she said.
Cook County Judge Patricia Martin, the presiding judge of the Cook County Child Protection, will make the determination. Attorneys for Van Dyke did not comment about their motives.
McDonald was shot 16 times by police on October, 20 2014. The video was released to the public over a year later, in November 2015, immediately prior to Van Dyke being charged. The video prompted a wave of public protest, demands for reform and an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Tribune received access to McDonald's juvenile records last year and the portrait of McDonald that emerged was a sympathetic one of great hardship: his father abandoned the family; and he was in and out of foster care and protective custody following separate abuse allegations against his mother and her boyfriend. McDonald was enrolled at the Sullivan House Alternative School at the time of his fatal shooting.
The City Council scheduled hearings for Wednesday and Thursday to gather testimony on proposed changes to Chicago Police Department oversight procedures. Protestors demanding elected accountability council demonstrated ahead of the hearings on Wednesday.
Film will offer immersive, virtual reality view of life of Christ 05 July, 2016 by Gregory Tomlin , |
HOLLYWOOD (Christian Examiner) Producers of a new film are promising viewers an immersive look into the life of Jesus Christ and, this time, the viewer gets to be in every scene "virtually" speaking.
Variety reports that Autumn Productions has prepared a new virtual reality depiction of the gospel story to be released during the Christmas 2016 season.
Jesus VR The Story of Christ is unlike any film ever made about Jesus Christ, the producers claim, because it won't be shown on the big screen.
Instead, it will reach users through the use of personal virtual reality (VR) headsets. Normally, the headsets allow a user to insert a cell phone as the screen. The film will be formatted for all of the leading VR devices, including Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift, Play Station VR, the HTC Vive and others.
The film is anything but an amateur production. Enzo Sisti, who worked with Mel Gibson on The Passion of the Christ in 2004, is leading the project as executive producer. Father William Fulco, who also worked on Gibson's depiction of Christ's suffering, is serving as the film's religious adviser no doubt giving it a very Catholic feel.
According to Variety, photography for Jesus VR was completed in October last year. It was shot "entirely in 360-degree 4K video on location in Matera, Italy, the ancient village that was also the setting for The Passion of the Christ."
In other words, the VR film experience will allow viewers to turn and look in any direction, including up, and walk among Jesus's disciples.
"Producers promise a you-are-there VR experience for the entirety of Jesus' life and death, from his baptism to the Sermon on the Mount, and from the Last Supper to his crucifixion," the magazine reported. It did not say whether or not the film included a resurrection scene like the one Gibson added to his film after principal photography was completed, and after he discussed the importance of the resurrection scene with evangelical viewers.
Gibson is reportedly toying with the idea of another project focusing on the ministry of the resurrected Christ and the growth of the early church.
David Hansen, the film's director and producer, said viewers "truly feel there are there with Jesus and his disciples. This is the most powerful story of all time and virtual reality is the perfect way to tell it."
Sisti agreed.
"I am beyond thrilled to be a part of this groundbreaking project. It's as exciting a take on the story of Christ as I've ever seen and its production values will absolutely set a new benchmark for virtual reality," Sisti said.
Autumn Productions is the same production company behind the recent films, Elvis and Nixon, starring Kevin Spacey and Michael Shannon.
Jordan: No more religion on ID cards 06 July, 2016 by Gregory Tomlin , |
AMMAN, Jordan (Christian Examiner) It was a small change in policy, but one that could reverberate across the Middle East. Jordan, which leans toward the West, has dropped its citizens' religious affiliation from its national identity cards.
Al Bawaba reports that, instead, the country will issue smart IDs, which can be used as a national identification card (and also an ATM bank card). According to the report, the new cards will contain "digitized information" that can only be read by scanners. That doesn't mean the holder's religion will be unknown though.
That tidbit of data will still be embedded, but it won't be visible to others especially to Islamic State terrorists who sometimes use ID cards of the people they capture to single out victims.
Jordan has taken a step that Egypt is now debating, as well. In mid-June, supporters of an initiative to remove religion from that country's national ID card gathered the signatures of 60 members of Parliament, enough to have the bill introduced for discussion.
The article in the citizenship bill stated, "The religion field shall be abolished from identification cards and all official documents. No citizen may be compelled to disclose his/her religion unless doing so where necessary to determine the legal premise of matters such as inheritance and marriages."
Supporters of the bill claim the change in Egyptian law will help create a homogeneous society where people see themselves as Egyptian first. Opponents claim maintaining the Muslim identity of Egypt is more important, and the ID card designation contributes to that identity.
In 2009, a group of Baha'i won the right to have their actual religion included on the state ID card in Egypt, which each citizen must obtain at age 16. Prior to that time, the card only listed one of three religions Muslim, Christian or Jewish.
In Jordan, Marwan Qutaishat, head of the country's passport authority, argued that the presence of the citizen's religion on the card does nothing to advance or demonstrate a faith. He argued for equal protection under the law.
"Religion cannot be expressed with a written word or a beard," Qutaishat said.
There are some opposed to the move in Jordan, claiming it violates the country's constitution, which cites Islam as the national religion. As in Egypt, opponents argue that the religious identification is essential in governing civil transactions, such as marriage.
Little steps like the one Jordan is taking are not without precedent. In 2009, Lebanese nationals were allowed to remove their religious identity from state ID cards. In light of the country's past, marred by civil war, that step was seen as a positive one.
Slap in the face: Iraqi police march over, burn U.S. and Israeli flags 06 July, 2016 by Gregory Tomlin , |
BAGHDAD (Christian Examiner) Police in the predominantly Shiite city of Basra in southern Iraq on July 1 celebrated Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day by marching over U.S. and Israeli flags and burning others.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which translates Arab media from the region and around the world, cited several reports that said the police were joined by members of the Shiite militia from the town. The fighters, more loyal to Iran than Iraq, chanted the slogan "Death to America" during the parade and flag burning, the accounts said.
Muhammad Al-Basri, director of the Center for Iraqi Political Studies, told Al-Arabi Al-Jadid a London-based newspaper that the participants in the parade, which commemorates the fall of Jerusalem to the Jews in 1948 and Muslims' desire to recapture the city also carried images of "non-Iraqi religious leaders."
The paper noted, "Most security forces in Basra were trained by Americans, and this event indicates the failure of the American plan [to influence Iraq] and affirms [the claim] that the Iranians have appropriated this plan."
While the police in Basra were praised by the city's residents, some Iraqis condemned the anti-American protest. A columnist for the Iraqi daily Al-Mada reminded readers that the U.S. had overthrown Saddam Hussein, who killed hundreds of thousands of Shiites. Another writer in a Kurdish newspaper condemned the event.
The events in Basra, less than 20 miles from the border with Iran, were noticed in Saudi Arabia, which sees the growing influence of Iran in both Iraq and Yemen, where Houthi rebels, backed by the Shiite regime in Tehran, are fighting against Sunni Muslims.
The Saudi daily Elaph.com called the Al-Quds protest evidence of Iran's "deep infiltration" of Iraq after the U.S. withdrew combat troops. The online newspaper said the city had also renamed one of its streets in honor of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeni, founder of Iran's Islamic Revolution.
Elaph.com also claimed that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki attended an official state function an iftar (a Muslim's evening meal breaking the fast of Ramadan) at the Iranian embassy. The paper criticized the meeting where no Iraqi flags were present.
Iraq's interior minister reportedly has said that the incident is being investigated and punishments could be handed down because police and soldiers are not allowed to participate in political events and protests.
Woman Says Pirates Player Sexually Assaulted Her After Cubs Game
By Stephen Gossett in News on Jul 6, 2016 4:05PM
Jung Ho Kang / Photo: Stephen Brashear / Getty Images
Chicago police are investigating Pittsburgh Pirates infielder Jung Ho Kang for criminal sexual assault over an incident that occurred when the team was in the city last month. No charges have been filed yet.
A 23-year-old woman reported on June 17 that she had been sexually assaulted at approximately 10 p.m. in a hotel room in the 900 block of N Michigan Ave., police told Chicagoist.
The Pirates said in a statement that they are cooperating with authorities.
Pirates president Frank Coonelly:
"=We have been made aware of the allegation that has been made against Jung Ho Kang. We take allegations of this type extremely seriously. Pursuant to the Joint MLB/MLBPA Policy on such matters, this matter is exclusively before the Commissioners Office at this time. We have and will continue to cooperate fully with the Commissioners Office. As a result of the ongoing police investigation, we cannot comment further at this time. We have also advised our staff and our players that they should not comment on the matter either. We all need to be respectful to the police investigation of a very serious allegation.
The investigation is ongoing, police said.
Kang and the 23-year-old woman met through the dating app Bumble, according to media reports. Kang invited the woman to his room at the Westin Hotel after the Pirates had lost a day game to the Chicago Cubs.
The woman said she blacked out 15 to 20 minutes after Kang gave her a drink; she said she then drifted in and out of consciousness as Kang assaulted her, according to reports. She told police she did not regain full consciousness until she was on her way home in a taxi. The woman went on June 19 to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where a rape kit examination was conducted.
Kang signed a four-year contract with the Pirates in 2015. The Cubs visit Pittsburgh on Friday to begin a weekend series.
I had the privilege or reading a pre-release version of "God Shines Forth: How the Nature of God Shapes and Drives the Mission of the Church." Here are 20 quotes from the book, which you should pick up.
ChristianMingle.com will open its 16 million-member site to gay and lesbian users following an anti-discrimination lawsuit.
According to a settlement approved by a California judge last week, the countrys most popular Christian dating site will offer options for same-sex matches, rather than limiting searches to a man seeking a woman or a woman seeking a man, the Wall Street Journalreported.
The plaintiffs in the case sued ChristianMingle in 2013 for violating a California civil rights law requiring all business establishments of every kind whatsoever to offer full accommodations regardless of a persons sexual orientation (among more than a dozen other protected classes).
A spokesperson for ChristianMingles parent company, Spark Networks Inc., said in an email to CT that they recognize this is a divisive issue and hope that the greater good of our mission is what people appreciate about us.
ChristianMingle, known for its commercials ...
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Liberty Counsel Files Motion to Dismiss SMUG Case
SPRINGFIELD, Mass., July 6, 2016 / Christian Newswire / -- Liberty Counsel filed a motion for summary judgment in a lawsuit filed by Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) against Pastor Scott Lively, in which SMUG seeks to silence and impose significant financial penalties against Lively for speech about homosexuality in Uganda. The motion contains 198 pages of facts and legal argument.
In the suit, SMUG alleges that Lively committed "crimes against humanity" in violation of "international law"akin to genocide and war crimesby simply sharing his biblical views on homosexuality during three visits to Uganda in 2002 and 2009. The suit makes the sensational claim that Lively's visits were part of a "conspiracy" to "persecute" the LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex) population of Uganda. SMUG alleged Lively orchestrated rampant "discrimination" and even violence against the LGBTI community, leading to the death of SMUG leader David Kato.
Four years, 100 hours of depositions, and 40,000 pages of documents later, SMUG failed to produce a shred of evidence of any conspiracy or persecution by Lively. The evidence shows that Lively, in a country where homosexuality has been illegal for decades, urged treatment of LGBTI people with respect and dignity, and the liberalization of Uganda's laws against homosexuality, even as he spoke in favor of biblical sexual morality and against the LGBTI political agenda. SMUG also admitted it knew all along that its leader, Kato, was murdered by a homosexual prostitute whom Kato refused to pay, and admitted that it was wrong to suggest otherwise in its lawsuit.
The lawsuit is based upon the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), but the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that this law cannot be used to sue U.S. citizens alleging violation of international or foreign law. Neither Ugandan nor U.S. law provide a cause of action for SMUG, so SMUG is trying to create new precedent to punish speech. Following the Supreme Court opinion on the ATS, court after court dismissed pending suits in a wide variety of cases, but the federal court hearing the SMUG case refused to dismiss.
"The suit is an attempt to silence Pastor Scott Lively because of his speech about homosexuality and pornography. The implications of this suit are frightening because SMUG is trying to punish a U.S. citizen for constitutionally protected speech under some vague and undefined international law," said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. "From the beginning this case had no merit, but we have had to spend four years and countless hours defending an innocent pastor against a lawsuit designed only to intimidate. This case is a direct assault on the supremacy of the United States Constitution," said Staver.
Liberty Counsel is an international nonprofit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics.
home World 1 million Muslims reached by united prayers of Christians worldwide as Ramadan ends
The united prayer campaign of Christians worldwide already reached at least a million of the targeted Muslims, according to a report.
CBN News reported that the global prayer effort of the ministries across the United States, Europe, and Middle East already achieved a supernatural reach of at least one million Muslims.
CBN News joined 838 Ministries, Voice of the Martyrs, Iran Alive, Crescent Project, Global Hope, and IsAk Abla Ministries in a prayer campaign that started June 26 and ended on Tuesday, July 5. The 10-day ministries held during the last 10 days of Ramadan invoked Christ to visit Muslims worldwide through dreams and visions.
"Ramadan is the perfect season to pray that Muslims will experience the forgiveness of Christ, and even forgiveness from those they persecute," wrote Jason Peter, associate vice president of Connection for The Voice of the Martyrs.
Peter added, "Our Christian family is being persecuted today. We will not let them suffer in silence. We will not let them serve alone."
In an interview with The Christian Post in May, Albert W. Hickman of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary shared that the number of Muslims converting to Christianity may be "underestimated" because of the difficult task to keep track of these Christian converts with Muslim backgrounds.
He explained that Muslims who leave their Islam faith face more persecution and consequences as compared to Christians who convert to Islam.
"As a result, many Muslim converts to Christianity keep their conversions secret," said Hickman.
One such secret Christian believer in Southeast Asia who granted an interview with Open Doors on conditions of anonymity revealed that he has no choice but to pretend to fast during Ramadan in order to avoid suspicion.
"To do otherwise would result in suspicions and questionings," he said. "Many secret believers like me dare not reveal our faith because if we are caught we will be sent to Islamic rehabilitation centres."
home Faith Christians and Londoners protest surge in racism and hate crimes since Brexit referendum vote
Christians and Londoners took to the streets Monday, July 4 to combat the surge of racism and hatred that resulted from the nation's historic vote to leave the European Union.
London Citizens, the London's branch of Citizens UK, organized Monday's coordinated demonstrations between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. outside the tube and train stations across London. Charities, unions and schools are members of the coalition but majority of its members are Christian groups and churches including Black Majority Churches, Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, Salvation Army and Independent churches.
The demonstration's message "Love London. No Place for Hate" aims to curb the upsurge of hate crimes since the U.K. announced the EU Referendum result June 24. The members handed out stickers with love hearts, cards and instructions on how to report incidences of hate crime.
"We're here to show that a tiny minority are not going to spoil it for everyone. London is diverse and we want to show love and hope for our community," curate at St. Paul's Shadwell, Rev. Alexandra Lilley, told Christianity Today.
Priest-in-charge at St. George-in-the-East, Canon Dr. Angus Ritchie, also urged individuals to report cases of hate crime to authorities.
"London has a strong tradition of welcoming people from all backgrounds which we continue to champion," said Canon Ritchie on the coalition's website.
He added, "As London Citizens we are clear that there is no justification for hate crime, and our members wish to show that love will always trump hate."
London's first elected Muslim mayor and also one with an ethnic minority background, Sadiq Khan, praised the group's effort. He also shared his aim to take a "zero tolerance approach" to hate crimes and stepped up efforts with the Met Police.
"London doesn't just tolerate difference, it celebrates it," said Khan.
While Christian members of the coalition took it upon themselves to combat the xenophobic crimes, the dean of Exeter Cathedral, the Very Revd. Dr. Jonathan Draper, took it upon himself to apologize in behalf of majority Christians who voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU.
A poll result revealed that only 42 percent of Christians voted Remain in EU while 46 percent of Jewish voters and 70 percent of Hindu and Muslim voters supported the Remain campaign.
Revd. Draper tweeted, "As a Christian I am embarrassed and apologise."
home US Megachurch Pastor Dave Ferguson on how Jesus would choose a president
Jesus showed how He handled politics in three-ways and these are predictive and instructive of how Jesus would have chosen a president, said megachurch pastor Dave Ferguson.
Ferguson said Jesus handled politics three-ways by refusing these three factors: political simplicity, political complacency and political primacy.
When the two of the competing political parties joined together "in an alliance to challenge Jesus," they presented Him with a tricky question that required a yes or no answer.
"Rather than label Himself in any one political position, He acknowledged both sides of arguments and even the gray area of tough topics," said Ferguson on how Jesus refused to get trapped with a simple answer.
He then proceeded to explain why this makes it wrong to assume that Jesus supports only a particular party or candidate.
"We must not do to Jesus what He didn't do to Himself," emphasized Ferguson.
The pastor said Jesus also exemplified how He "weighed in with real wisdom" and so Christian groups must take His example of engaging in political discussions rather than steering clear of them.
Finally, Ferguson reminded his viewers in a political sense, "Your first allegiance is to Him."
He instructed Christians to allow love for God to take precedence over love for one's country and love for others to take precedence over love for oneself. This, Ferguson believes, is how Jesus would base His vote if were He an American of this time.
"If Jesus were American...Jesus would choose with love," he concluded. "He would make a choice that is a clear reflection of His love for God but also His love for His neighbors."
The lead pastor of the multi-site Community Christian Church in Naperville, Il., spoke in a video message "Choose Your President" released Sunday, July 3 that ran almost 18 minutes and featured different political locations in Washington, D.C.
Other personalities also previously weighed in on the hypothetical question of who Jesus would vote for in this season's presidential election.
Norwegian actor of "God's Not Dead" Kevin Sorbo told TMZ that it would probably be Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, "the lesser of two evils," while astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted in March it would be the Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders.
"Who would Jesus vote for?" tweeted Tyson. "To him walls, wealth and torture are non-starters, so probably the Jewish New Yorker from Vermont."
home World London church takes in 'most disenfranchised' men, releases them ready to work and be independent
A church in Tottenham, London has served as a home to hundreds of "the most disenfranchised" men in society, including those that even charities won't help, and has helped them get back on their feet.
Highway House provides more than just shelter. It provides food, counseling and employment training, and it helps connect people with the right jobs.
The shelter started when Alex Gyasi, pastor of Highway of Holiness church in London, and his wife Dorcas saw two homeless men and invited them over for dinner.
The two men knocked on their door days later. Gyasi and his wife decided to have them over for dinner three nights a week. A few weeks later, the two men showed up with 20 other homeless men.
"We soon decided to turn one of the toilets into a shower, so the men could wash, change, feel fresh and clean. The change in their confidence was enormous and soon the men were feeling more positive," Gyasi wrote on the church's website.
They also became more sociable, and they were able to report for job interviews looking decent.
After a few setbacks in Highway House's early days, it now provides a range of public services. London's major hospitals, charities, other churches and the police refer homeless men they can't accommodate to the shelter for help.
Gyasi said he receives at least three calls a day for such referrals.
A study released in December 2015 showed that for every 1 invested into Highway House, society gets a 5 return "in the form of savings to the public sector."
"Any investment in Highway House that may help it to grow and provide a service to a larger number of people will yield a larger SROI ratio and return to the public," study author Marcello Bertotti wrote.
The study results have encouraged Gyasi, as the shelter is completely dependent on donations for its operations.
Today, the shelter is home to 50 people, some of whom have struggled with drug and alcohol abuse. Many of them have lost contact with their loved ones.
The shelter has helped them "rebuild their lives, rebuild their confidence and rebuild themselves." Plans for expansion are being considered so the shelter can accommodate women, too.
However, the shelter is not without problems, as it sometimes gets "burglars, rapists and murderers."
"It's not smooth sailing: we do get violence," Gyasi said, according to The Guardian.
The congregation also faced a challenge; some members left because "they didn't want to share their church with alcoholics and drug addicts."
However, when the congregation began to see how people's lives were transformed at Highway House, how marriages and families were restored and how people with substance addiction were set free, they understood that the shelter has a long-term impact, and that is "priceless."
home US Millennials do not favor abortion, but prefer not to be labeled 'pro-life', says report
Millennials are increasingly becoming anti-abortion, according to a new survey conducted by the Institute for Pro-Life Advancement.
In 2012, only 44 percent of the millennials said they were against abortion, but this year's survey showed that 53 percent of them said they were anti-abortion, showing a nine-point rise in four years, The Washington Times reported.
However, even though majority of the millennials identified themselves as anti-abortion, only 36 percent of them were willing to label themselves as pro-life.
Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins said the problem stems from the public attaching negative ideas to the pro-life brand, not with the pro-life movement itself.
"Over the past 10 years, the image of the pro-life movement has trended younger and more mainstream, but the 'pro-life' brand still carries an image which many people don't want to associate themselves, despite their views on abortion," Hawkins said in a statement.
Hawkins added that Planned Parenthood is giving the false impression that young women are standing by it in its pro-abortion stance, but this is not true.
To attract more women to the pro-life movement, pro-life activists are now marketing the movement as pro-women. This new campaign focuses on the harm that abortion inflicts on women. It also seeks to unveil more of the negative practices of Planned Parenthood, such as the selling of fetal body parts.
"So we know that our message going forward must be pro-woman. We know that pro-lifers and individuals on the fence will come together to oppose injustice against women," the researchers said in the report. "But we must contend with the glaring hurdle in our path: the abortion movement already laid claim to the woman-focused brand."
The survey also found that of the 53 percent who identified as anti-abortion, 36 percent said they were in favor of abortion for cases of rape and incest and if the mother's life is at risk, while 17 percent said abortion should not be done at all for any reason.
The survey further showed that only 17 percent of the respondents agreed with Cecile Richards' and Hillary Clinton's stance regarding abortion.
home World Syria military declares 72-hour truce, but fighting continues
The Syrian military has declared a 72-hour "regime of calm" covering all of Syria from 1 a.m. on Wednesday (1800 EDT Tuesday), a military source told Reuters, although fighting and air attacks have been reported since then.
The military high command said in a statement that "a regime of calm will be implemented across all territory of the Syrian Arab Republic for a period of 72 hours from 1 a.m. on July 6 until 2400 on July 8, 2016".
The Syrian government uses the term "regime of calm" to denote a temporary ceasefire.
The truce covers the three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday celebrated by Muslims to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. There was no indication that it had been agreed with any of the myriad groups opposing the government.
Syrian rebel group Jaish al Islam said in a statement that, despite the announced truce, government and allied forces had attacked the town of Maydaa, in the Eastern Ghouta area east of Damascus. Maydaa had been held by Jaish al Islam, which is part of the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) representing the opposition at international peace talks.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday that government and allied forces had taken almost complete control of Maydaa and that fighting continued. Syrian state media said the army and its allies had taken ground from "terrorists" in the area. The Syrian government describes all groups fighting against it as terrorists.
The Britain-based Observatory, which monitors the Syrian conflict, also said there had been rebel and government shelling in areas around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, and air strikes had hit towns in the northern Aleppo countryside on Wednesday.
Syrian state media also reported army operations against Islamic State militants across the country on Wednesday.
A ceasefire brokered by foreign powers in February to facilitate talks to end the five-year civil war has mostly unraveled in areas where it took effect in the west of the country.
That truce was agreed with many opposition militias, but did not include the al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front or Islamic State.
Since then, the Syrian army and the Russian military, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have announced a number of temporary local truces in areas of intense fighting, for example in the city of Aleppo or near the capital Damascus.
But air strikes and fighting have often continued in spite of the declarations.
home World Muslims kill Christian woman for refusing a mosque to be built on her property in Uganda
A group of Muslims killed a Christian woman from Naigobya village in eastern Uganda because she refused to allow her property to be used for a mosque.
Muslim relatives and some imams had asked Efranse Kadondo, a Catholic, in March to donate part of her property for a mosque. A relative named Zainabu Kasubuza led the group in forcefully trying to convince her, according to a local source.
The 50-year-old woman refused to give in to the pressure.
"I told Zainabu that if I have to surrender part of my land, then I will give it to the Catholic Church," the source quoted Kadondo as saying, as reported by Morning Star News.
Her answer angered Kasubuza, who, along with the imams, chased her away from her property.
Kanondo stayed with a relative in another village. On June 17, she went to the police in Lakabuku and reported that her property had been illegally seized.
Six days after she filed the report, Kanondo was found dead in her home.
A parish priest in Kiroba said Kanondo attended an overnight prayer meeting before she was killed. She left at around 4 a.m. that day.
The relative she was staying with said she never made it home that morning, but she saw some Muslims near her house on the evening that Kanondo was in church.
"The next morning, Efranse did not show up, so I decided to go to her house, only to see police around the house the evening of June 23 with Shaban and a number of people," the relative told Morning Star News.
Kanondo's body was found in a pool of blood in her own house. Her hands were broken and there were bruises around her neck. Her attackers reportedly had planned to bury her secretly but did not succeed.
Autopsy reports showed that Kanondo was murdered.
Six men suspected of being involved in the crime were arrested. Kasubuza, the relative who wanted Kanondo to donate her property for the mosque, fled the village.
The Uganda population is comprised of 85 percent Christians and 11 percent Muslims. However, eastern Uganda has a high percentage of Muslims, making it a place of great persecution for Christians.
Last month, a boy was beaten and burned by his father for having converted to Christianity.
The boy was caught eating during the daytime Ramadan fast. His father tied him to a banana tree and beat him with wood that was taken from the fire. Some parts of the banana tree caught fire and burned the boy until neighbors came to rescue him.
And just a few days before Kanondo was found dead, a Muslim woman in the same village poisoned her grandchild because her daughter-in-law fed the baby girl during Ramadan.
A painting from the collection of American actor Johnny Depp, 53, fetched $6.8 million to top a London auction on Wednesday night.
Pork, by Jean-Michel Basquiat. [Photo provided to China Daily]
Pork is one of the eight paintings and drawings of American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat that were offered by Depp for Christie's sale of post-war and contemporary art. It was executed in 1981, and was acquired by Depp from gallery chain Blum & Poe's space in Los Angeles.
Jean-Michel Basquiat transformed from a street graffiti artist to a celebrity figure in the art community, known for his highly personalized and primitive painting style. He died prematurely at age 27 because of heroin overdose.
Basquiat's 1982 canvas, Untitled, was sold for $53 million to Japanese collector Yusaku Maezawa in a Christie's sale in May in New York. It sets an auction record for the artist.
home Faith Underground churches prefer printed Bibles over Bible apps
A nonprofit organization found out that even with so many Bible apps available, members of underground churches in different parts of the world prefer to have printed versions of the Bible.
Wycliffe Associates has been translating Bibles for decades. They are also helping local churches translate Bibles into their own languages.
With the help of technology, the organization has been able to accelerate its Bible translation work. However, when they asked underground churches whether they wanted a digital or print copy of the Bible, they were taken by surprise.
There are specific reasons why Christians in restricted countries prefer a printed Bible over the digital version.
"They can have it in their hands, it doesn't require any power. It doesn't need to be recharged, and they can hide it in various locations," David Reeves, tech specialist for Wycliffe Associates, said.
However, printing Bibles presents a problem, especially in countries that are hostile to Christianity. Reeves said local believers need to translate and print the Bibles on their own and in secret.
"They've got to do it themselves quietly back someplace where no one's aware of it."
Wycliffe Associates created a printing machine that's small enough to transport easily without being seen, yet able to print thousands of Bible copies without a problem.
The system has worked successfully, and believers in places where it would be very difficult to bring in Bibles are able to enjoy their own copies that are printed locally.
However, the project has not been without a risk. In March, four Bible translators were killed in the Middle East after the project was discovered.
Bruce Smith, president and CEO of Wycliffe Associates, said radical militants stormed the place where the translation was being done and killed two men with guns.
"As they ran out of ammunition, they then began beating the others that survived," Smith said.
This caused the death of two others. The lead translator survived, but only because the two men shielded his body with theirs.
Churches are aware of these risks and are willing to take them, Reeves said. He added that the organization will replace the old system in the Middle East because "they wanna keep printing."
Reeves asked believers to pray for the organization's projects, especially for logistics and safety of everyone involved.
"We have staff traveling literally around the globe, 24/7 almost, helping keep all this moving forward and responding to new opportunities," he said.
Answers at last? Chilcot Report to be published today
The inquiry into the Iraq War delivers its long-awaited report today, with critics of the invasion hoping it will condemn former Prime Minister Tony Blair while some families of slain soldiers fear it may be a whitewash.
To be published seven years after the inquiry was set up when the last British combat troops left Iraq, the report runs to 2.6 million words about three times the length of the Bible.
Iraq remains in chaos to this day. Islamic State controls large areas of the country and 175 people died on Saturday in Baghdad's worst car bombing since the US-led coalition toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.
The inquiry's purpose was for the British government to learn lessons from the invasion and occupation that followed, in which 179 British soldiers died.
But opponents of Blair's decision to join the war will be poring over the report for its judgment on how the Labour leader, who quit in 2007, justified the military action. At the time, he said intelligence showed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction but after the invasion none was found.
"I was lied to. The media, the press, the families, parliament, everybody was lied to," Reg Keys, whose son was among the British fatalities and who stood as a candidate for parliament against Blair in the 2005 election, told Reuters TV.
Blair has always rejected any suggestions he acted dishonestly, and a spokeswoman for him said she would not comment until the report was published.
The inquiry, headed by former civil servant John Chilcot, looked at the reasons for the invasion, the war itself and the aftermath and has taken longer to complete than the British military involvement itself.
Public hearings, including two appearances by Blair, ended in 2011 but since then the writing of the report has been dogged by rows over the release of secret government files and the contacts between London and Washington. It will include details of notes from Blair to Bush and quotes from more than 130 records of their conversations.
Critics believe Blair, who sent 45,000 British troops for the invasion, gave Bush an unconditional promise that Britain would join military action and that he then distorted intelligence to back this up and put pressure on government lawyers to give the invasion legal approval.
Keys noted that Chilcot had said the inquiry would not play the blame game. "But I certainly hope it points the finger of accountability in the direction of the former prime minister who was the key player with all of this deceit," Keys said.
However, he said he feared the report might be watered down as those facing criticism have been allowed to respond prior to publication.
Chilcot played down this risk in a BBC TV interview on Tuesday. "I made very clear right at the start of the inquiry that if we came across decisions or behaviour which deserved criticism then we wouldn't shy away from making it," he said.
"Indeed, there have been more than a few instances where we are bound to do that. We are not a court not a judge or jury at work but we've tried to apply the highest possible standards of rigorous analysis to the evidence where we make a criticism."
His report is expected to be released sometime after 11 am.
Blair's apology
Blair has apologised that pre-war intelligence had been wrong and for mistakes in planning, but not for getting rid of Saddam.
He also accepted the war had played a role in the rise of Islamic State but believes it was far from the only factor.
"I've said many times over these past years, I'll wait for the report and then I will make my views known and express myself fully and properly," he told Sky News on Sunday.
MPs led by the Scottish National Party are considering invoking an ancient law, last used in 1806, to impeach Blair in parliament.
"You cannot have a situation where this country blunders into an illegal war with the appalling consequences and at the end of the day there isn't a reckoning," the SNP's Alex Salmond told Sky News.
The Sunday Times also reported that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn whose own position is in jeopardy after Britain voted last month to leave the European Union was simply hanging on because he wanted to "crucify Blair".
Archaeologists dig up Christian grave marker that pinpoints site of first Lindisfarne monastery
A crowd-funded archaeology dig has uncovered evidence of the lost medieval monastery where the Lindisfarne Gospels were written.
The exact location of the Anglo-Saxon monastery on Lindisfarne has remained a mystery ever since it was destroyed by the Vikings, according to DigVentures, who raised 25,000 through crowdfunding to finance the dig.
A rare grave marker dug up in "Trench 2" in "Sanctuary Close" of the dig has turned up an Anglo-Saxon burial marker, commonly known as a name stone and dating from the mid seventh to eighth century, the period of Lindisfarne's first monastery.
The first monastery on Lindisfarne, a tidal island off the north-east coast of England, was ransaked by the Vikings just a century after it was founded by King Oswald in 635 CE.
It was rebuilt, but the original site has never been uncovered.
The stone is of a style of grave marker found on Lindisfarne and also near Hartlepool, the archaeologists say. Just 13 have been found previously on the island.
"Intricately carved with parts of a cross and an inscription, the cross terminals end in small simple circles with a very elegant 'B' and possible 'A' clearly visible on either side of the top arm of the cross. Below these a name that looks to end in 'FRITH', a common element of Anglo-Saxon names, has been carved. The sunken central cavity between the cross-arms might possibly have held a relic or a jewel. In its complete form it would have been more or less oblong in shape, standing a foot or so above the ground," the archaeologists report in their dig diary.
"The stone's presence amongst the rubble structures and human burials strongly suggests that we've found part of the monastic complex we've been looking for," they add.
The famous gospels are believed to have been written by a monk, Eadfrith, later Bishop of Lindisfarne, who used an intricate and beautiful combination of Celtic, Mediterranean and Anglo-Saxon designs.
The monks left after the Viking raid, taking the gospels with them. They are currently in the British Library.
Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, is designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is popular with tourists and pilgrims.
According to Dr David Petts, of Durham University, who is the academic lead on the dig, the find is "stunning" and is "unimpeachable" evidence for Anglo-Saxon activity.
Archbishop of Canterbury wishes 'Eid Mubarak' to Muslims: 'We rejoice with you'
The Archbishop of Canterbury has wished Muslims "Eid Mubarak" as the Islamic fast in Ramadan comes to an end and the celebrations begin.
Justin Welby said his prayer for Muslims was that they were "filled afresh with being able to share with and support one another". The greeting means "a blessed Eid" or "happy Eid" and is used to mark the beginning of the Eid al-Fitr celebrations at the end of the fast.
In a video statement Welby spoke of the "great confusion" and "uncertain times" in the UK and assured Muslims they were "very much part of our community".
Wishing #EidMubarak to everyone celebrating in the UK and around the world!https://t.co/e4YeoivCys Justin Welby (@JustinWelby) July 6, 2016
An Eid address has become a habit for the Archbishop in recent years as he forges links across faith communities. This year's statement comes after a speech in the House of Lords on Tuesday where he condemned the "poison and hatred" that he said emerged during the referendum campaign. He urged political leaders to tackle the "xenophobia and racism" seen since the UK's vote to leave the European Union.
Welby told Muslims in his address on Wednesday that language had been used "to condemn those who have come to live in this country" even if they have been here for 40 or 50 years. "We pray that you will be assured of your welcome and that you are loved and valued," he said.
"The capacity to party as well as to pray is very good news indeed,"he added.
Eid al-Fitr is a major festival in the Islamic calendar and comes at the end of Muslims' holy month of Ramadan. The celebrations focus on prayers, the exchanging of gifts and thanking Allah for helping Muslims complete their fast.
It is the only day of the year Muslims are not allowed to fast and there is an obligation to make a donation to charity and celebrations with family and friends.
Britain's Methodist Church to consider same-sex marriage
British Methodists may decide to allow same-sex marriages in their churches after a vote at the denomination's annual conference yesterday.
The Methodist Conference sets policy for the entire British Methodist Church. After a report from a task group on Marriage and Relationships the Conference agreed it would "revisit" its definition of marriage it currently says it is between a man and a woman as part of a wider review of its teaching on marriage and family life.
While the commitment to revisit its position does not necessarily mean the Church will decide to sanction same-sex relationships, many contributors to the debate expressed the hope that it would.
The report was commissioned in 2014 and around 8,000 Methodist Church members have taken part in discussions on its contents.
A previous official position statement was agreed in 1992. However, the Church agreed that this needs revising in the light of changes in society and in the law. Among other issues, the report looks at transgender and intersex people and calls for Methodists to work on including them in the life of the Church.
At the gathering at Methodist Central Hall Westminster, some spoke movingly about their personal circumstances, with one contributor saying he had come out as gay to his family but had never told his church, his "second family". Other participants expressed their opposition to any move to legitimise same-sex marriage in the Methodist Church. However, the vote in favour of revisiting the definition was overwhelmingly carried.
Among those who contributed to the debate was Church of England representative Dr Rachel Jepson, who reflected on the forthcoming debates in the General Synod next week. She said: "Please may I ask you to hold us and those conversations in your prayers. We are on this journey together."
As well as discussing whether to revisit the definition of marriage, the Conference agreed on a definition of homophobia, saying it includes "physical violence or emotional or psychological abuse" and "applying stereotypes and assumptions to people based on their sexual orientation". It also defines what homophobia is not, saying it is not wrong to disagree on matters of scriptural interpretation or to hold or express the view that same sex activity is wrong.
A task group has been appointed to carry out the work on marriage and the family, which is expected to take at least two years.
Task group chair Rev Graham Carter said: "It is essential to take time over this issue because the process of finding a way forward is as important as reaching a decision. Enabling people in the church to talk openly about their differing convictions and value their common commitment to Jesus Christ is key to what it means to be a Christian community.
"The decision of the Conference to establish a working party on the matters of marriage and relationships is an important step which comes from a widespread conversation in which people have listened, respected each other's position and engaged in deep reflection together. The conversations will continue and we will go on responding to the challenges of interpreting God's love for today's society."
Chilcot: Iraq invasion agreed before peaceful options exhausted
Sir John Chilcot has said that Tony Blair's government agreed to the invasion of Iraq before "peaceful options...had been exhausted" and that military action was "not a last resort".
Sir John's statement to launch his 2.6 million word report, which has been seven years in the making, was met with applause after he also criticised the use of intelligence, the lack of Cabinet consultation and inadequate post-invasion planning.
"We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted," Sir John said. "Military action at that time was not a last resort."
The comments appear to undermine the validity of a statement made by Blair in February 2003, a month before the invasion when the then prime minister said: "I detest [Saddam's] regime, but even now he could save it by complying with the UN's demands."
On the supposed threat posed by Saddam's Iraq, Sir John said: "It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged - and they should have been'.
Sir John added: "In the absence of a majority in support of military action, we consider that the UK was in fact undermining the [UN] security council's authority."
Sir John also criticised the "wholly inadequate" planning for the period after the invasion, which saw 179 British troops being killed by February 2009, 4,491 US service members killed by 2014, and countless Iraqis since 2003.
He went on: "The UK's military role in Iraq ended a very long way from success."
Although the inquiry has not expressed a view on whether or not military action was legal, Sir John added: "We have however concluded that the circumstances on which it was decided there was a legal basis for UK military action were far from satisfactory".
Sir John said that Blair presented the intelligence findings against Saddam "with a certainty that was not justified". He went on: "There was an ingrained belief in the UK policy and intelligence community that Iraq had retained some chemical and biological capability and was determined to preserve and, if possible, enhance them, and in the future to acquire a nuclear capability, and was able to conceal its activities from the UN inspectors...The judgements about Iraq's capabilities in [a House of Commons] statement and in the dossier published the same day were presented with a certainty that was not justified. The Joint Intelligence Committee should have made clear to Mr Blair that the assessed intelligence had not established beyond doubt either that Iraq continued to produce chemical and biological weapons, or that efforts to develop nuclear weapons continued."
The full report can be read here. Tony Blair is expected to hold a press conference later today.
Chilcot: Tony Blair must accept that Iraq was a calamity of his making
Amid the fallout from the Brexit decision and the internecine battles for leadership in both the Conservative and Labour parties, it would be easy to underplay The Chilcot Inquiry, or to wonder why it is necessary. Don't be fooled, though, it may be more necessary now than ever. Chilcot said this morning, "We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted," a damning statement.
Though it is the third official British Inquiry into the events surrounding the Iraq War of 2003, it is the first which has been given the remit to properly investigate how the UK became embroiled in one of the most calamitous foreign policy decisions of the last 70 years.
The Suez Crisis is seen as the benchmark for disastrous foreign interventions since World War Two. Anthony Eden's hubristic decision to ally with France and Israel to invade Suez and ignore American advice ended in humiliation. Militarily, the operation could have been a success, but the impact it had on Britain's standing in the world was severe.
Less than 10 years later, Harold Wilson was Prime Minister of the UK. With American forces swarming into Vietnam under Lyndon Johnson, it would have been easy for the British establishment to look to re-ingratiate itself with the US and send troops to Vietnam, as indeed it had done a decade earlier in Korea. While Wilson didn't actively oppose the Vietnam War when he became Prime Minister in the way he had beforehand, he ensured that British forces were never sent to Vietnam and the UK was not bogged down in the horrific quagmire in South East Asia.
What the Chilcot report offers is the chance to assess where some of the responsibility lies for the decision to invade Iraq a decision even more disastrous than Suez and why Blair didn't steer the more sensible course of his predecessor Wilson. We already know why, fundamentally. As my colleague James Macintyre writes, "9/11 is the crucial context to the Iraq war because it is believed that Blair decided on that day to commit to doing whatever Washington wanted, effectively handing British foreign policy to the US. Initially the British prime minister sought a second UN resolution and pushed for Europe to come on board but when it became clear this was not possible he pressed ahead anyway."
There are two related but distinct ways in which the 2003 Iraq war was an unmitigated disaster. The first pertains to the victims the Iraqi people and coalition troops the second to the impact on British politics since then.
Having been under the iron fist of Saddam Hussein since the 1960s, the Iraqi people had suffered a great deal. A cruel dictator who infamously slaughtered his own people, Saddam's war against Iran in the 1980s saw him cast as a friend of the West. This changed when he threatened Western oil supplies by attacking Kuwait in 1990. The First Gulf War swiftly pinned Saddam's forces back and left Iraq to fester under sanctions for the next 12 years.
Though they had already experienced hard times, the invasion saw internecine conflict claim life and limb on an unprecedented scale. There is no way of knowing how many people died because of the war. There are, however, various estimates. A report in 2013 suggested over half a million Iraqis had perished because of the US/UK incursion and occupation. An earlier report published in The Lancet suggested 655,000 civilians had died in the war and its aftermath. Another report offered a lower figure of 116,000 civilian deaths.
What is clear is that immense suffering has been endured in the aftermath. The failure to secure the country after the invasion and the calamitous decisions to disband the Iraqi Army and dismiss Ba'ath party members from public roles were among the contributory factors to the chaos.
What the figures above don't take into account is the impact of the bloody civil war which has been intensified in the past few years by ISIS. Just this week over 200 people were killed in a major bomb attack in Baghdad the gaping chasm of leadership and security left by the removal of Saddam led directly to the civil war which has raged ever since.
Without Saddam's removal in 2003, it is extremely unlikely ISIS would have developed as rapidly as it has
Make no mistake, Saddam was a brutal dictator but without his removal in 2003, it is extremely unlikely ISIS would have developed as rapidly as it has. Before 2003, Al-Quaeda had little presence in Iraq. After a war that was supposed to make us safer, Al-Qaeda was rampant there. Before 2003 Sunni-Shia conflicts were acrimonious and sometimes deadly, afterwards, it was all out civil war between them.
Along with the war in neighbouring Syria, the conflict in Iraq has not only cost countless Iraqi lives, it has contributed to widespread instability in the region which has created the refugee crisis and emboldened terrorist attackers in Western cities.
The 2003 invasion was also the start of an almost unprecedented exodus of Christians from Iraq. In 2003 there were 1.5 million Christians there. Now there are fewer than half a million. That this tragic situation was precipitated by two Christian leaders (Blair and Bush) is a grim irony. Read the stories of some of those forced to flee with family members dead and maimed. Weep that this war turned into a war on Christians.
The impact on the Iraqi people has been vast, but the impact on British and American service personnel has also been profound. 179 British troops were killed. Help for Heroes suggests there are 75,000 personnel recovering from injuries sustained in Iraq as well as Afghanistan. The US bore the brunt of the deaths and injuries, with over 4,400 killed and over 30,000 injured. For every one of these statistics, there is a person dead or injured, a family bereaved or altered significantly.
If the first colossal impact of the war was on the Iraqi people (and coalition troops), the second was on the British political scene. This impact too, was profound. While Labour won the first General Election after the invasion, in 2005, it has not done so since. The Party, torn apart by many differences, has fixated on Iraq and its legacy. While some still believe invading Iraq was the right thing to do, others abandoned the party almost immediately. The various tribes which make up Labour are more divided than ever as the recent attempt to remove anti-Iraq War leader Jeremy Corbyn has shown. There's a chance he wouldn't even have been in control of the party, were it not for festering sentiment over the war, which powered the movement which swept him to office.
British involvement elsewhere in the world has been seriously affected by the disastrous impact of Tony Blair's decision to invade Iraq. David Cameron's 'hit and run' approach to Libya in 2011 showed that he'd learned the lesson that British troops on the ground would be very unpopular. So Colonel Gaddafi was removed simply by air power. There was another lesson of Iraq that hadn't been learned, though a lack of planning for the aftermath means Libya remains in a state of chaos a breeding ground for ISIS and a starting point for many dangerous refugee journeys.
Reluctance to see British troops involved in Syria can be directly traced to the unpopularity of the Iraq War. Humanitarian intervention of the type championed by Blair in Sierra Leone would be incredibly hard in the post Iraq climate. In short Iraq has poisoned the national debate over whether it's ever right to commit our troops into harm's way, because of the cavalier way they were deployed in Iraq without a plausible exit strategy and without a proper mandate. Chilcot said today that war was "not a last resort". The UK decided to invade before the peaceful options had been exhausted.
Hundreds of thousands of people are dead. The Middle East is in flames and there seems little prospect of Iraq or Syria becoming calm any time soon. The concept of humanitarian intervention has been dealt a possibly fatal blow. Pre-war claims have been exposed as foolish. Post-war fragments of a country are shattering into smaller, even more brittle pieces. Blair and Bush let slip the dogs of war. What followed was sheer havoc.
Evangelical pastor 'hacked to death' in Nigeria
A pastor has been hacked to death by armed Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria's central state of Nasarawa, according to World Watch Monitor (WWM).
Rev Joseph Kurah, with the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) in Obi town, was reportedly killed on 30 June after going to his farm at around 7pm to cut down trees for roofing wood.
Kurah, who was accompanied by three other people, was then ambushed by two other men who appeared behind the group, local witnesses told WWM.
The semi-nomadic herders apparently chased the group and surrounded Kurah while his three companions escaped without harm. Kurah's body was found to be severely mutilated later on at the scene.
WWM spoke to local sources who said that the attackers spoke Fulani and were dressed as Fulani herdsmen, with tribal marks visible on their cheeks.
There had earlier been a dispute with a local Muslim over ownership of the land, according to members of the church at Obi. WWM reported that many local Christians suspect that the Muslim hired the Fulani herdsmen to carry out the murder.
A man who identified himself as Kurah's nephew posted graphic photos on Twitter, saying: "They attacked him on his farm, cut off his arms and legs; then they chopped his head with a machete. I received a call on Thursday evening that my uncle, a pastor with ECWA was killed by Fulani herdsmen." He called on the authorities to find the killers: "All I want is justice to be done. Nasarawa State and the Federal Government must find the killers of my uncle. Whoever is close to Governor Al-Makura of Nasarawa State should please inform him that we demand the perpetrators should be brought to book...We have become preys that are hunted by marauding beasts in our land. I will keep shouting till justice is done. For how long will we suffer? He has left a very young family; three of his children are currently in the university. No one is saying anything about the clandestine killings by Fulani herdsmen happening almost every day."
The state government has so far remained silent on the matter but there were mixed accounts on whether or not the killers had been arrested.
Kurah left behind a wife and seven children. His body was buried on 5 July by the ministers of the Evangelical Church Winning All.
Police WeChat accounts for foreigners that offer exit-entry policy information and community news, as well as answer questions about a range of matters affecting expatriates are attracting more and more subscribers, operators told Shanghai Daily yesterday.
Expats turn to WeChat for help
WeChat, an instant messaging mobile application with a large number of Chinese users, is very popular among expats as well.
In Pudong, where there are about 80,000 foreign residents, the WeChat account "pdjwryfwz" hosted by the district's exit-entry authorities and foreigners service station staff has over 300 followers nine months after being launched.Gu Zhudan, an employee at the Weifang Community Foreigners Service Station, said: "We hoped to offer expats one place for answers to all the most constantly asked questions because we found that some people had to come to us several times."
The English-language account enables readers to access information by simply entering key words such as "registration."
Updated at least once a week, the account, edited by Gu and his fellow staff, also carries news of community events such as parties and art lectures. Gu said: "Some expats told us that they want to join their Chinese neighbors in those events."
Gan Mengsheng, deputy office director of the exit-entry administration in Pudong, said many expats seek information regarding temporary residence registration and visa issues.
"Sometimes expats entrust those matters to agents who charge them excessive amounts of money, but through this account all of the necessary information is readily available," he said.
"And when they have further requests, they can send text or voice messages to get answers right away."
In Minhang District, the WeChat account "hongqiaopolice110" has attracted over 200 subscribers since late 2014.
In pictures: Muslims celebrate Eid al-Fitr around the world
Muslims in the UK begin their celebrations on Wednesday to mark the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting.
Eid al-Fitr is one of the biggest festivals in the Islamic year and millions of Muslims around the world will be joining the party together. Because it is based on the lunar calendar, Eid falls at different times in different countries. In the UK, US and Canada the Eid celebrations will go on between 6-8 July. But in other countries the festival lasts much longer and in many Muslim countries is granted several days of public holiday.
The first day of Eid al-Fitr is the one day of the Islamic year that Muslims cannot fast on. Typically this is marked with a small sweet breakfast such as a date before the special Eid prayers known as Salat al-Eid.
Here is a snapshot of the Eid al-Fitr being observed around the world:
Special prayers are said during Eid known as Salat al-Eid. These are marked to thank Allah for helping them to complete the fast.
Men and women pray seperately. Here thousands of Muslim women attend Eid al-Fitr prayers in Srinagar, India.
The day is marked with an obligatory donation to charity. A girl outside the Blue Mosque, in Taguid, Philippines, waits for the gift box.
For many Muslims around the world Eid al-Fitr is not a time of rejoicing. Here a Palestinian woman prays next to the grave of her relative at a cemetery on the first day of Eid al-Fitr celebrations in Gaza City.
And here in Greece, a makeshift room is all that these Muslim men can find to offer their Eid prayers.
But generally Eid is a time of great celebration and festivity.
Here Muslim men in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, sing after attending Eid al-Fitr prayers.
And Afghan youths ride on swings during the first day of the public holiday of Eid al-Fitr, in Kabul, Afghanistan.
For more information about what happens at Eid al-Fitr and why it is celebrated click here.
And for more details about when it is observed in different parts of the world, click here.
Israel: Archaeologists uncover extremely rare biblical mosaics in ancient synagogue
Archaeologists in Israel have uncovered two mosaics that show extremely rare biblical scenes.
The two scenes were found on a dig at a Roman-era synagogue at Huquq, a site on a hill above the Sea of Galilee, north Israel. One shows Noah's ark and the other shows the parting of the Red Sea.
Excavation director Jodi Magness, from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill said: "You can see the pharaoh's soldiers with their chariots and horses drowning, and even being eaten by large fish."
Magness only knows of two other scenes of the parting of the Red Sea in ancient synagogues, according National Geographic. "One is in the wall paintings at Dura Europos [in Syria], which is a complete scene but different from ours no fish devouring the Egyptian soldiers," she said. The other is at Wadi Hamam [in Israel], but that's very fragmentary and poorly preserved."
The same is true of the equally rare scene of Noah's Ark: Magness only knows of two others.
The dig began at the synagogue's eastern aisle where some more unusual scenes were unearthed. One impressive three-tiered mosaic showed the first ever non-biblical scene found in an ancient syngogue. It depicted the meeting of two important male figures, one of whom was ready for battle.
The excavation then re-started this season in the nave, the largest part of the synagogue where the two rare scenes were found.
"This panel is exactly as it should be," says Magness. "It's facing north, so people could see it as they entered from the south" where the main door would normally have been located.
Israel criticised by US, UN and EU for plans to extend settlements
The US has criticised Israel for its plans to build hundreds of new homes in Palestinian territory.
John Kirby, a spokesman for the US state department, called the move the "latest...in a systemative process of land seizures". The building will extend existing settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
According to Associated Press, the plans announced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday include 560 new homes in Maale Adumim, just outside Jerusalem plus almost 200 inside the city. There is also a proposal to build 600 new homes in an Arab district of East Jerusalem.
Kirby said: "If true, this report would be the latest step in what seems to be a systematic process of land seizures, settlement expansions and legalizations of outposts that is fundamentally undermining the prospects for a two-state solution."
The US condemnation of the plans comes after criticism from both the UN chief Ban Ki-moon and the Middle East Quartet on the peace process.
"This raises legitimate questions about Israel's long-term intentions, which are compounded by continuing statements of some Israeli ministers calling for the annexation of the West Bank," Mr Ban's spokesman said in a statement.
The Quartet is a four-way group of nations and international entities consisting of the UN, the US, the EU and Russia. It was established in Madrid in 2002 and has recently criticised the Israel for building settlements on Palestinian land, for denying Palestinian development and for seizing land for Israeli use only.
Jason Sheats finds strength in Jesus after watching wife snap and gun down their 2 daughters in Texas
Finding strength in Jesus Christ, Jason Sheats is starting to recover from the unimaginable horrors that he witnessed ironically on his birthday on June 24.
That day, the 45-year-old husband saw how his wife Christy, 42, snapped and repeatedly shot dead their two daughters Taylor, 22, and Madison, 17 in their home in Katy, Fort Bend county, Texas. Responding police officers then gunned down Christy after she refused to drop her gun following the shooting.
The traumatised Jason was left speechless for a few days after the tragedy. But last Tuesday, Jason broke his silence as he talked to investigators, telling them that he is being supported by his family and his faith, Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls told People.
"He was obviously in a lot of shock out at the scene," Nehls said.
On Wednesday, Jason posted a message on his Facebook page, quoting Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
He also posted a photo collage of his daughters in happier times. The image of his late wife was visibly missing.
Both Madison and Taylor were laid to rest after a funeral at the Shelton Funeral Home in Decatur, Alabama, on Saturday, July 2. It was unclear when and where Christy was buried.
Jason told police that his marriage to Christy began to unravel in 2012 when she suffered from depression following the death of her grandfather, according to The Christian Post.
While she was on medication, she tried taking her own life three times, Jason said. They got separated on few occasions and had just reunited days before the tragedy.
That fateful Friday, Jason told investigators that he returned home from work to tell his wife in their backyard that he wanted a divorce.
"This would be the last birthday that you are going to ruin," Jason told Christy.
Christy then called their daughters Madison and Taylor in their living room for a family meeting.
Jason told the investigators he thought they would be discussing the divorce.
This didn't happen, according to Nehls. "She immediately pulled the weapon out and pointed it at Mr. Sheats and wanted to blame him: 'You made me do this, you're making me do this,'" the sheriff said.
"We asked Mr. Sheats for a motive in his own words," Nehls said, according to NBC News. "He stated that he felt Christy wanted him to suffer."
According to the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office, the shooting happened about 5 p.m. Friday. After Christy drew her gun and began shooting, "Jason Sheats and both daughters managed to get out of the house by going through the front door," the sheriff's office said in a press release on June 27. "Madison collapsed and died. Jason ran to the end of the cul-de-sac. Taylor ran into the street and Christy Sheats followed, shooting Taylor again. According to a witness, Christy Sheats went back inside the home to reload the gun. Christy Sheats returned and shot Taylor once more."
It's not clear if she fired at her husband, police said.
Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole new album 2016 release date: Lamar's world tour has probably pushed it back further
The highly anticipated Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole album is drawing farther away from the grasp of excited fans as both rappers continue to reap the fruits of their growing stardom.
Lamar will be particularly busy in the months to come as the "How Much A Dollar Cost" hitmaker starts his world tour with concerts one after the other set in different cities.
The month of July will be extremely hectic for Lamar seeing that he will perform five shows in Ireland and Spain in the coming weeks and will cap off the month with a three-day show in New York City.
Lamar's next concert after that will be in Los Angeles scheduled by the end of August. The week starting Sept. 30, he will please his legion of fans in Texas.
The world tour will conclude in the first week of October, although by and large, the schedule of the world tour won't be as packed, which might give Lamar some legroom to do other projects as well.
However, there's no assurance he will use that free time on his much-awaited album with Cole. Both rappers haven't given any update on their album, or if it will happen.
Because the lack of solid details about the Lamar-Cole joint album, the hope of fans that it will ever see the light of day continue to dash.
The purported Lamar and Cole album has been in the works since 2012 and Lamar even teased that they will release it without warning.
However, it looks like Lamar and Cole have been too busy with their individual careers ever since that they can't manage to get back on it.
Lamar and Cole's fame meant a busier timetable for the two and it might have gotten tougher to meet up and just get some work done on the album because of their respective schedules are already full.
At the moment, it is unknown if the Lamar and Cole album is still on the table.
New Archbishop of Kenya will fight for the future of his church, his country and its young
The new Archbishop of Kenya is spoken of by friends and admirers with not so much shock as a considerable amount of awe.
One reason is because this large, strong and unqestionably holy man is from the influential Masai tribal group - a warrior tribe which the charisma of the new primate's presence personifies. His mother was the seventh of his wealthy father's 11 wives.
But his father died when the young Sapit was four and the younger wives were sent away, meaning he spent the rest of his childhood in poverty.
He was saved by the charity World Vision which sponsored him through his education.
So this Masai has known life at both ends of the social spectrum. And as Archbishop, he will be fighting not for land, or property - but for the young people of his country, for justice and compassion, and for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Dr Jackson Ole Sapit will be part of the primates' council of the conservative Global Anglican Futures Conference, or Gafcon, but he has made his position significantly clear.
In common with most of the African Anglican provinces, he will maintain an orthodox stance on issues such as marriage.
But he will not support any move, however slight, to leave or break apart the Anglican Communion.
"He has presence, great personal warmth, courage and is genuinely godly and not a political operator," said one English church leader who knows the Archbishop and province well.
Like the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who was among thousands who travelled to All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi for his enthronement, Archbishop Sapit will use his position to forge greater unity around the disagreement that all accept will exist for the forseeable future.
Archbishop Sapit, former Bishop of Kericho, who in 2002 moved to Reading in the UK for a year to study for an MA social development and sustainable livelihoods, spoke at his enthronement of the importance that the Anglican Church in Kenya remain true to her calling.
"A lot of questions are being asked about the role of the church in the world today. If Christians form 80 per cent of our population, why the corruption, the environmental degradation?"
"These vices compromise our future as a church. We need to reach out to the poor and outcasts and help them meet their various needs because this is the essence of mission and the core business of the church."
Before creating a robust strategy for mission, the church must redefine its role and also look at its capacity for mission," ACNS reported.
The church has huge numbers of people. "Taking stock of this manpower is key for us to utilise it," he said.
He urged the Kenyan President to consciously work out the kind of country they want to work towards. "Only then will our beloved country be healed and cry no more."
Archbishop Welby said: "In the world we live in there is tribulation, and as Archbishop you will find tribulation from the world around you, and one which this country is very familiar with suffering, terrorism, cruelty and brutality. But you're the voice of peace and hope against such troubles, and we are of much cheer because Christ has overcome the world."
Earlier, the new Archbishop told Zimbabwe journalist Bellah Zulu that his journey to becoming Archbishop of Kenya began as a young man, when he met a missionary from England who was running a mobile clinic and set up a small Anglican church." He became her interpeter and also started cattle trading, walking animals from the village to Nairobi, a journey that would take us about seven to eight days.
He also joined a group that invited the government to establish a school in my community which gave him an opportunity to teach young Masai warriors how to read and write when they were back from herding cattle in the evening. "This was the beginning of my passion to see other people grow and improve."
Children and the youth will be key areas of his focus as Archbishop, because of his passion for a better future for this country and the world.
"If we're to create that future, we need to pay special attention to our children through moulding and training. Young people in this country and the world at large are facing a lot of challenges such as alcohol and drug abuse which is ruining the fabric of our society. In addition the emergence of other cultures due to globalisation entail a growing need to come up with programmes which give young people proper focus in life. After all, they're the leadership in waiting and our future depends on how we mentor them."
He believes God is going to do greater things. "This is a journey of growth and faith. I want us to grow from where the church is, to a greater church of love and faith. A church that's going to love and care for the community, and also one that will be passionate about moving our country forward in terms of mobilising communities for social development."
Oscar Pistorius sentenced to six years for murder
Oscar Pistorius has been sentenced to six years in prison for the murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.
The Olympic and Paralympic athlete was immediately taken from the dock to prison after a re-trial found he had committed murder, and not manslaughter.
The six-year sentence, of which 50 per cent must be served, is much less than the 15-year minimum sentence proscribed for murder under South African law. But in an hour-law session, Judge Thokozile Masipa said circumstances such Pistorius' rehabilitation and remorse outweighed other factors.
The prosecution and the defence can appeal and Judge Masipa said she would wait to hear if either side wanted to appeal. Some journalists at the court suggested the state prosecution may appeal for a harsher sentence.
The SCA has corrected Judge Masipa once before. Fully expect the NPA to appeal this and for the SCA to correct her a second time. Mandy Wiener (@MandyWiener) July 6, 2016
#OscarPistorius has been escorted down to the cells, family crying. We will wait to hear of state will appeal. Don't imagine they're happy. Pumza Fihlani (@Pumza_Fihlani) July 6, 2016
Pistorius, 29, shot his girlfriend Steenkamp through a locked toilet door in February 2013. He had admitted shooting her but said he mistook her for an intruder.
He has already served one year in prison but that time will not count against his new sentence, according to the BBC's South Africa producer. He must serve three years of his new sentence before he is eligible for parole.
The athlete famous for his "blade-runner" prosthetic legs, hugged his family before being led straight to a cell.
Steenkamp's parents were in the courtroom for the sentencing. Her father, Barry, has previously said because of their Christian faith, he and his wife June have forgiven Pistorius. But he must still pay for his crime, said Barry.
"June [Reeva's mother] is a Christian, so am I but I don't really go to church. June has forgiven. She feels it's right in her heart to forgive Oscar," he told the court in mid June.
"But...forgiving like that, it still does not exonerate you from the crime that you committed. He has to pay for that.
"It's been very difficult for me to forgive. But I feel the same, that Oscar has to pay for what he did. He has to pay for it. And that's all I can say.
"Most probably the time will come when I want to talk to Oscar, in private, not now, at a later stage, I would like to talk to him, yes."
Pistorius made history when he became the first amputee to compete in the Olympics. He ran in London 2012 using his prosthetic blades which replaced his legs below the knee.
The six most damning words in Chilcot: 'I will be with you, whatever'
When the Hutton inquiry into the death of weapons inspector Dr David Kelly was published in January 2004, it was widely dismissed as a 'whitewash'.
The same cannot be said of the report launched today by Sir John Chilcot, who this morning said that Tony Blair signed up to the 2003 invasion before "peaceful options...had been exhausted" and that military action was "not a last resort".
Earlier this week, Christian Today speculated on why Blair joined forces with the US in authorising the Iraq war, emphasising that Blair took the decision early: "9/11 is the crucial context to the Iraq war because it is believed that Blair decided on that day to commit to doing whatever Washington wanted, effective handing British foreign policy to the US."
As it happens, I wondered whether the word "whatever" was unfair. Well, now we have it from the horse's mouth. The Chilcot report reveals a note written by Blair to President George W Bush some eight months before the war saying:
I will be with you, whatever.
Arguably, these are the most damning six words of the 2.6 million in the report.
There is an almost infinite amount to absorb, but here we will focus on Blair's communications with Bush freshly unveiled by the inquiry.
In the six-page memo marked 'secret and personal' written on July 28, 2002, Blair also warned Bush: "In Britain, right now I couldn't be sure of support from parliament, party, public or even some of the Cabinet".
This echoes the 'Manning memo' of 14 March 2002, already in the public domain. A full year before the invasion and eleven months before Blair still claimed Saddam Hussein could avoid war his foreign policy advisor David Manning wrote to Blair after dining with Condoleezza Rice, Bush's National Security Adviser: "We spent a long time at dinner on Iraq," he wrote. "It is clear that Bush is grateful for your support and has registered that you are getting flak. I said that you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different than anything in the States."
A more surprising line in the newly revealed memo comes when Blair does what we knew Bush, Bush's Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney had been doing since 9/11: playing up the false link between Al Qaida and Saddam's Iraq. "If we recapitulate all the WMD evidence; add his attempt to secure nuclear capability; and, as seems possible, add on al-Qaida link, it will be hugely persuasive over here. Plus, of course, the abhorrent nature of the regime".
Sir John Chilcot's report is broken down into different stages and in it, 9/11 is clearly the turning point. The day after, on 12 September, Blair wrote to Bush calling for tough action which, he says, "some will baulk at".
Blair: "There will be many who ask: what is the next stage of this evil?...What of [the terrorists'] capacity to get hold of WMD? We know there are countries and individuals trading in WMD. We need a range of sanctions and pressures to stop this...Some of this will require action that some will baulk at...But we are better to act now... than let the day be put off until some further, perhaps even worse catastrophe occurs. I believe this is a real possibility."
And although Blair apparently made some attempts to delay a confrontation with Saddam in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, it is clear from the notes revealed in Chilcot that he was onside, saying, "No doubt we need to deal with Saddam".
On October 11 2001, four days after the first strikes on Afghanistan, Blair writes: "No doubt we need to deal with Saddam...But if we hit Iraq now, we could lose the Arab world, Russia, probably half the EU... I am sure we can devise a strategy for Saddam deliverable at a later date."
Also revealing is a phone call between Blair and Bush on 3 December, 2001 about "how the next phase might proceed". He emphasised that "contrary to press reporting" he was not opposed to removing Saddam. "It would be excellent to get rid of Saddam," he said, but "there [needs] to be a clever strategy for doing this... An extremely clever plan would be required."
The following day [4 December 2001], Blair wrote a note to Bush entitled, 'The War on Terrorism: The Second Phase'. Despite later suggesting they "add on the al-Qaida link" to the sense of a threat from Saddam, he acknowledges in this memo that Saddam's threat has "tenuous" links to 9/11. Therefore, he suggests "softening up" public opinion and calling for a "strategy for regime change that builds over time... until we get to a point where military action could be taken if necessary."
The report says that Manning then delivers the note in person and reports back that Bush is "open to Mr Blair's ideas".
In Blair's July 2002 memo which says "I will be with you whatever", Blair makes it clear that he is onside with war within months. "A strike date could be Jan/Feb next year. But the crucial issue is not when but how."
On January 30, Blair writes a personal note to Bush entitled "Countdown," making it clear that Blair knew was is coming, a month before he said publicly that Saddam could still stay in power.
Finally, a worried Blair writes to Bush after the invasion on 5 October 2003: "By this time next year it better be going right, not wrong. For us and for the world!"
According to Chilcot, who can be praised for today producing the opposite of a whitewash, "it" went very wrong indeed, for Blair, and for the world.
Tony Blair and Iraq: The world is better off without Saddam Hussein
The morning after Labour's landslide victory in the 1997 general election, I was dispatched by The Times to interview Peter Thomson, the Australian Anglican priest who was at St John's College Oxford with Tony Blair and was regarded widely as a key influence on the faith and spirituality of the future Prime Minister.
We chatted over Thomson's kitchen table in London, him looking slightly stunned as he sat bathed in a glow of unexpected victory. Thomson rarely spoke publicly about Blair after that, until his death in 2010.
The phrase that stands out in my memory, and on which he placed most emphasis, was that Blair was "for real". He said he could be trusted. The wholesome image, the fine words, the sentiments and principles that had carried him to Number 10 as the youngest Prime Minister since 1812, were all completely genuine, Thomson said. Blair was the real deal. He told the truth, and everything he said, he meant.
This was from an ordained priest, a man who gave much of his subsequent life to anonymous but relentless hard work helping some of the most deprived communities in London. Thomson acted on his principles, and this was what he urged his spiritual protege to do. There was no reason to doubt him then, and I see no reason now.
Another source, again a committed Christian, who was once reasonably close to Blair spoke to Christian Today. "He believed his actions were good and right. He believed Saddam Hussein was bad, and so did the Iraqi people."
There was a view that even without WMDs, Hussein's slaughter of the Kurds alone was enough to justify intervention.
The failure came in the lack of understanding of the consequences, in terms of sectarian division and the lack of an adequate post-conflict plan.
As the man who pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein has lamented, then there was just one tyrant. Now there are a thousand.
The source added: "I thought Blair was treated quite harshly at the time but when we look back now, it is a terrible legacy. I'm not a huge enthusiast either of the number of homes he owns or the fortune he has made. He does not live now like a socialist."
Perhaps it could be possible for a moment to take a step back, and look afresh at the event of Iraq from that perspective.
The reputation of the Labour Left as champion of the stop-the-war movement is what dominates public consciousness now, and has done for years, from the last days of the war in Iraq through the regrettably long process of getting Chilcot from the table to the page.
But there is another narrative, and this is the rise of the Saddam Hussein from the 1968 coup that brought his Ba'ath Party to power in Iraq and his subsequent ruthless reign as vice-president to al-Bakr. We must just never forget the absolutely terrible suffering of the Shi'a people and the minority Kurds, Saddam's poisonous hatred for the US, his attack on Kuwait, his scud missile assaults on Israel, a dictatorship in which hundreds of thousands of his own citizens were murdered by horrific methods. Britain's Labour Party had a long history on the left of opposition to his Ba'ath Party. He was an evil monster and the world needed to be rid of him.
We can't by definition know what would have happened in the world had there been no invasion, had Saddam Hussein been allowed to remain in power. But we can speculate in an informed way that the consequences of failing to act would have been serious on many fronts, especially if Saddam Hussein had been able in the end to pursue his ambitions to manufacture WMDs.
The Labour Party tradition that Blair inherited in the post-war environment was that intervention should not be demurred from by default. Supporting intervention in Korea in the 1950s was an example. It's been a real cornerstone of Labour's international mission that it is a good job well done if a tyrant is dethroned.
This informed Labour policy not just towards Iraq but Libya as well.
The outcomes in both cases have not exactly been brilliant, it goes without saying, but we cannot know how much worse they might have been.
As in Iraq, in Libya, much responsibility for the disasters now unfolding, as evidenced by the flood of refugees and the accompanying humanitarian tragedies, can be placed as much at the door of inadequate post-conflict planning as at the interventions themselves.
WASHINGTON Senate Democrats blocked two immigration bills on Wednesday, including a measure by Texas Republican Ted Cruz to increase penalties for people who repeatedly enter the country illegally.
Cruz's bill, dubbed "Kate's Law" would have raised mandatory minimum sentences to five years for any illegal reentry. It was named for Kate Steinle, the 32-year-old woman who was shot and killed by an undocumented immigrant in San Francisco.
The other bill, by Republican Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania, would have defunded so-called sanctuary cities that don't enforce federal immigration laws.
Both measures failed to garner the 60 votes needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster. Both also were rejected by the Senate last year.
Cruz invoked Steinle's death at the hands of a criminal who had several felony convictions and had been deported five times. "The truth is Kate should be alive today," Cruz said in a Senate speech, "but she isn't because the federal government failed her."
Toomey's bill also was inspired by the Steinle death, which came at the hands of a shooter who had been released by San Francisco authorities despite a request by federal immigration agents that he be detained.
The incident sparked a nationwide debate about federal and local immigration policies, particularly in cities that bar police officers from enforcing federal immigration laws in some cases.
Some Democrats argued that turning local police into immigration agents could be counterproductive because it could make undocumented immigrants afraid of police and reluctant to report crimes. Republicans argued that stronger immigration laws would serve as a deterrent to crossing the borders illegally.
"This vote ought to be an easy decision," Cruz said of his "Kate's Law," which was heavily promoted by Fox News television personality Bill O'Reilly. "This should bring us all together."
With kids across the country loose from school on summer holidays, now is the time that everybody talks about leaving town, or the country. In fact, the annual family summer tour is now so obligatory that we almost forget that it is a fairly recent import.
If I choose to go to work by bus in the morning, I have to walk through the large Wusheng Road bus parking lot near Shanghai Museum. I have to prepare myself for the overwhelming smell of exhaust from so many buses ready to take holiday-makers to small-time destinations.
There is an obvious air of excitement among travelers busy identifying their tourist guides, usually by a small flag raised aloft. Everybody is in a hurry, and seems delighted by the idea of escape. These short-distance travelers consist mainly of local retirees and kids.
Many younger parents and children often head for domestic or overseas destinations that entail greater investment of money and time.
But if you ask your children what they might prefer, many would just as soon stay at home with their grandparents. They are as bored by the milling crowds at tourists sights as their parents, but they are more honest about how they feel.
Prearranged satisfaction is often elusive and self-defeating.
Organized travel strictly scripted, carefully planned and precisely executed has taken much of the joy out of exploration. If you look at the great journeys of the past, you find that they were generally not pursued for the satisfaction of travel per se.
Columbus did not know where he was going when he started, nor how far he had gone when he arrived, nor where he had been after his return. He achieved a discovery solely motivated by the desire to strike it rich.
With a map and Google Earth before us, and in the presence of so many GPS-enabling gadgets, it is no longer possible to derive the kind of satisfaction available to Columbus, or to Xuan Zang (born Chen Yi, c. 602-664), a Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler and translator.
Concerned about the incomplete and misinterpreted nature of the Buddhist texts that existed in China in his time, Xuan Zang decided to visit India, and started the journey when he was 26.
One can only imagine the intensity of the zeal that sustained this young man through his journey across some of the most hostile and inclement regions on earth. He went through Turpan, Karasahr, Kucha and Aksu before crossing the Tianshan's Bedel Pass into modern Kyrgyzstan. He then skirted Issyk Kul, continuing west and then southwest to Tashkent, and from there crossed the desert further west to Samarkand and modern Afghanistan and India.
He was not the first nor the last to attempt such a trip in ancient times, but I doubt if any of my contemporaries could be capable of this feat. We have many advantages, but we lack the devotion that empowered Xuan Zang.
A 30-episode documentary series tracing the Silk Road (made by NHK in the 1980s) affords a glimpse into the kind of hardships Xuan Zang might have undergone, particularly in traversing the snow-covered Pamirs that took a month to cross.
No pains, no gains
In Wu Cheng'en's "The Journey to the West" a fictionalized version of Xuan Zang has a magical fixer in the form of the all-powerful Monkey King.
But how did the real Xuan Zang manage the trip without such help? Where did he sleep? What did he eat? We have no clue today.
As a matter of fact, if you look through Xuan Zang's "Great Tang Records on the Western Regions," you find the text restricted mostly to observations of Buddhist interests, with few mentions of the personal hardships he experienced.
For Xuan Zang, satisfaction came from Buddhism and the over six hundred volumes of Buddhist sutras he brought back to China and then had translated.
I was enchanted by the sights and people Xuan Zang might have encountered in his journey. When one of the NHK crew's trucks got stuck in snow in a Tibetan village in Ladakh in Kashmir, a group of local children volunteered to help push it out. The crew discovered that all the children had small hand-held baskets with coal burning underneath their robes. The simple children all had smiles so pure and angelic that you begin to understand why in Buddhism the Pamirs are said to be a land with the purity of white lotus flowers.
It was also consoling to learn from the series that a village in Leh showed no visible changes compared with a drawing made by Sven Hedin (1865-1952) in 1906. By contrast, lacking faith and dependent on modern amenities, modern people take too seriously their petty gains and losses and fancy themselves "too smart" for any hardships that do not "pay." They have been enslaved by the comforts they take for granted.
In out consumerist society, the rise of organized tourism has ensured that tourists are insulated from the unexpected or the unscripted. Nothing is going to happen that is not scheduled to happen. Nothing is left to chances and everything is under control.
Ironically, when our inner light is dimmed, however eagerly we pursue exoticism and excitement as an antidote to our workaday conventionality, our actual satisfaction is often little more than the kick from a roller-coaster ride in an amusement park.
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Super K-9s
Watch the DISCfunctional K-9s dogs catch frisbees and do tricks, and learn about vet medicine and responsible pet ownership at the Banfield FutureVet program, presented by the Children's Museum.
When: 11 a.m. Saturday
Where: 1500 Binz
Tickets: $12; cmhouston.org
Tanabata Japanese Star Festival
The Children's Museum of Houston and the Consulate General of Japan at Houston invites everyone to celebrate the Make a Wish! Tanabata Japanese Star Festival. Enjoy a day of traditional Japanese dance, story times and learn about Japanese culture.
When: 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Thursday
Where: 1500 Binz
Tickets: $12 ; cmhouston.org
Dino-mite!
Go back in time as you tour the Houston Zoo's dinosaurs exhibit and feast your eyes on these extinct beasts that move their heads, arms, tails and even spit water. Also, a screening of "Jurassic Park."
When: 5-10 p.m. Friday
Where: 200 Hermann Park Drive
Tickets: $13-$9; houstonzoo.org
Christmas in July 5K
Bring the whole family out to celebrate Christmas in July by running (or walking) in this festive 5K through downtown. Proceeds benefit the Salvation Army.
When: 7 a.m. Saturday
Where: 1500 Austin
Tickets: $25-$15; christmasinjuly5k.com
Eye Shine & Ice Cream
Join the Houston Arboretum for an ice cream social and a fun lesson about how animals see at night, then come on a walk in the woods to look for eye shine.
When: 8-10 p.m. Saturday
Where: 4501 Woodway
Tickets: $15-$45; houstonarboretum.org
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While everyone was tweeting pictures of barbecue, patriotic fashions and flags, Christian rapper and Houston native, Lecrae tweeted out a picture that has the Internet up in arms.
The tweet features an image of slaves picking cotton and is captioned "My family on July 4 1776."
Many of his followers immediately took offense to the tweet.
One fan tweeted "done supporting you bro. You make everything a race issues lately instead of a gospel issue. You promote guilt instead of love," as a response to the picture.
CELEBRATE: Houston flaunts its country at Freedom Over Texas
Another said that Lecrae was simply "stirring the pot."
Hate poured in, but as all Internet controversies go, so did the support of other fans who felt he did nothing wrong.
One said "so many white folk who have celebrated @lecrae really do want him to pretend he's not Black. Read the comments."
READ MORE: Gap Kids ad sparks a racial uproar on Twitter
Other fans felt his tweet was a reminder of our county's history, and while that meant freedom for some, slaves still faced incredible hardships.
Lecrae clearly remained unfazed by the situation. The following day he tweeted "got up this morning still loved, still a child of God, and still woke."
This Houstonian may have lost some supporters, but other locals are still going strong.
Take a look through the gallery to see who are the best Houstonians to follow on Twitter.
You can always count on Claudia Schmuckli to challenge you with confounding art, then explain it with absolute intellectual clarity, in context with the canon of art history.
She has made sense of exhibitions that seemed to have little in common, from the near-nothing sculptures the late Tony Feher fashioned from found objects to the complex polemics of the Eurasia-focused collective Slavs and Tatars to the mythical film installations of Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler.
Soon she'll be doing all that and more in California. Schmuckli is leaving her post as the director of University of Houston's Blaffer Art Museum to begin a new job as curator-in-charge of contemporary art and programming at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco on Sept. 1.
Schmuckli, a native of Switzerland, said leaving Houston was bittersweet she just bought a condo that she had planned to move into on Sept. 1 but the job was "too exciting a challenge to turn down."
She will be tasked with building a new department for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, an organization that encompasses two encyclopedic museums, the De Young and the Legion of Honor. That involves acquiring a permanent collection of contemporary works, organizing temporary exhibitions and staging contemporary art "interventions" at both museums to redefine their visitors' engagement with contemporary art, she said.
One of Houston's most sophisticated contemporary art thinkers, Schmuckli joined the Blaffer's staff in 2004 and has directed the museum since 2009, forging a reputation as a pivotal figure in the presentation of contemporary art.
Schmuckli also oversaw the award-winning 2012 renovation of the Blaffer by WORK Architecture Company (WORKac). The most significant facility improvement in the Blaffer's 43-year history, that project transformed and expanded the interior spaces and added an entrance with a glowing facade that boosted the museum's visibility and visitor accessibility.
In 2015, under Schmuckli's watch, the museum received the largest gift in its history, a $1 million bequest from longtime benefactor Jane Dale Owen (1942-2014). Schmuckli has also played a key role in planning the University of Houston's new College of the Arts, which is set to launch on Sept. 1.
"Given how far Claudia has advanced the stature of Blaffer Art Museum's exhibitions and programming within the University of Houston, the greater Houston arts community, and the international art world over the past seven years, it's not surprising that an institution of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco's caliber came calling," said Andrew Davis, acting dean of the College of the Arts. "We will miss her and the valuable role she has played in helping plan the new College, but we heartily congratulate her on this well-deserved appointment."
Schmuckli has known Max Hollein, the new director of Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, since the late 1990s, when they both began their careers at New York's Solomon R. Gugenheim Museum.
Hollein said Schmuckli's experience in a variety of museum environments and her pioneering expertise in the contemporary field makes her a "perfect match" for his organization.
"With our broad and diverse collections and multiple platforms for programmatic exchange from exterior courtyards and major galleries to theater spaces the de Young and Legion of Honor offer a wide range of possibilities for a unique contemporary program in the Bay Area," he said.
Schmuckli will return, briefly, for the opening of her next Blaffer exhibition, "Analia Saban," on Sept. 23. And she's far from finished in Houston. She has shows scheduled through 2018. She is curating shows by The Propeller Group and Julia Brown for next year, and the Blaffer co-commissioned a video installation by Hito Steyerl that is currently in the Berlin Biennial and will come to the Blaffer in 2018. She has also planned a new iteration of the Houston Area Exhibition, which will have a new name and a guest curator in 2018.
The University of Houston College of the Arts, which oversees the Blaffer, will conduct a national search for Schmuckli's replacement.
Illumination Entertainment and U
THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS: A terrier named Max finds his life turned upside down when his owner adopts a poorly behaved dog named Duke. They find themselves bound for the pound when a rabbit rescues them, but at a price. (PG)
MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES: Two brothers (Zac Efron, Adam Devine) try to find respectable dates to their sister's wedding in Hawaii, but fail in extraordinary fashion. (R)
While many people in Houston were making their big Fourth of July plans, health inspectors were on the prowl, checking in on some of the city's favorite eateries.
In this week's report of restaurants with health inspection violations, inspectors observed fish in an open container of water with dead flies at Hartz Chicken Buffet #186 (7590 N Wayside Dr.). Gross. It goes without saying, that food was condemned.
Authorities have identified another of the three men killed in a shooting during a July Fourth celebration Monday night in an historic neighborhood near downtown.
The shooting happened about 10:30 p.m. in the 1300 block of Robin in the Fourth Ward, according to the Houston Police Department.
Harris County Public Health has recently sent letters to some residents who live near the San Jacinto Waste Pits warning them not to drink their tap water due to the discovery of highly toxic chemicals in local wells.
The letter, which was dated July 1, said levels of dioxins had been found that "may exceed safe drinking water levels." However, because of a laboratory error, the water will need to be retested, local health officials wrote.
In the meantime, local health officials advised residents to drink bottled water until a second test is concluded.
It was immediately unclear how many residents were advised not to drink their water. Roughly 100 wells were recently tested near the waste pits, a submerged repository of years of industrial, toxic runoff.
Texas officials discovered the waste pits in 2005 along the San Jacinto River, between Channelview and the small town of Highlands. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined that tugboats pushed barges of waste sludge from a Pasadena mill to the pits for offloading and storage in the 1960s.
The EPA identified several hazardous substances in the pits, including dioxins - carcinogens linked to numerous potential health effects including birth defects.
In 2008, the EPA named the area a Superfund site, a designation for the country's most contaminated land and environmental emergencies.
Last month, the state announced - and Harris County commissioners endorsed - $10 million worth of projects to be funded by a settlement agreement over the river's waste pits. Decades ago the area was used by industrial paper mills to dispose of waste, including highly toxic dioxins.
The EPA is nearing a decision about how to manage the site. One proposal calls for leaving the buried waste there.
Jacquelyn Young, who grew up near the pits and now runs the San Jacinto River Coalition, said the discovery of dioxin in groundwater wells is further proof the waste should be completely removed from the site.
She received a copy of the warning letter from the widow of a man who lived near the site and died of cancer at age 39.
"She said all of her worst fears are coming true," Young said of the widow.
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Direct flight between Afghanistan and northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is to resume in mid July after a three-year hiatus, officials announced Monday.
The air route is the only air link between the two countries.
Maiden flight will be carried out by Ariana Afghan Airlines on July 13 from the Afghan capital of Kabul to Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, and return the next day.
At a resumption ceremony, Chinese Ambassador to Afghanistan Yao Jing hailed the move as a big step forward for bilateral ties.
China and Afghanistan have been good neighbors since ancient times, and the resumption of the direct flight will further promote cooperation, trade and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries, Yao said.
The direct flight will also facilitate the implementation of the China-proposed Belt and Road initiative and help boost Xinjiang's economic development, the ambassador added.
Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah said in a congratulatory message that the resumption of the air route will strengthen bilateral cooperation in economy, trade and security, and promote cultural and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.
Arguing that allowing guns in classrooms "chills their First Amendment rights," three University of Texas at Austin professors have filed a lawsuit over the state's new campus carry law.
Jennifer Lynn Glass, Lisa Moore and Mia Carter want a federal judge to block a new Texas law that would allow people to carry concealed handguns throughout college campuses beginning August 1. They are suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, UT Austin President Gregory Fenves and the UT regents to do so.
READ MORE: University of Houston board chair: Campus carry a 'non-issue'
"Compelling professors at a public university to allow, without any limitation or restriction, students to carry concealed guns in their classrooms chills their First Amendment rights to academic freedom," the professors argue in the lawsuit filed in U.S. district court in Austin on Wednesday.
The professors also say the campus carry law violates their second and 14th Amendment rights.
READ MORE: UT regents question campus carry rules, but put off vote on changes
The new law is deeply unpopular at the flagship university in Austin -- and at public universities across the state, including the University of Houston. Faculty have fought to keep guns out of classrooms since the law passed last year. The three professors, whose courses touch on "volatile topics" such as abortion, LGBT culture, imperialism and power structures related to sexuality and gender, say that with the possibility of students carrying guns in their classrooms, they'll have to change what they teach.
"As part of the learning process, they sometimes have to engage in difficult discussions of controversial, emotionally-laden topics," according to the suit. "It is inevitable that they will have to pull back, consciously or subconsciously, at important junctures in classroom exposition and discussion."
READ MORE: Campus carry group wants to reward UT students that point out "gun-free" offices
Supporters of the new campus carry law have said the professors fears are overblown.
"It's an absolutely unfounded fear," Jacob Smith, who teaches courses at UH as he works toward a doctorate in economics, said in February when many UH professors protested the law. Like many supporters of the new law, Smith said he wants to be able to protect himself. He noted that he regularly receives alerts from UH about armed robberies and break-ins.
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Barry Klein, a retired Realtor and eternal activist, still keeps a worn photocopy of the Houston Chronicle article folded in his wallet, a report on the last time the city voted on a comprehensive zoning ordinance nearly a quarter-century ago The proposal failed, 52 percent to 48 percent, and a subsequent charter amendment made the chances of another vote extremely challenging.
"Now in the future if they want to bring that idea back, they have to go through the entire expensive, time-consuming, controversy-generating process of writing the ordinance, doing the map, having the hearings, and then finish it and give us six months of study," says Klein, whose Houston Property Rights Association still hosts free-market speakers every Friday. "So that's a high barrier."
Houston remains the only major city without a zoning ordinance to regulate which pieces of land can be used for what purposes, despite three major attempts over the past century to bring it in line with the rest of urban America.
That difference has made for a city that's more jumbled, with isolated office towers and shops tucked seemingly at random into residential neighborhoods. And for almost the entirety of Houston's history, its residents have waged bitter battles over whether to impose more order on the heterogeneous landscape.
More Information History of zoning - or not 1916: New York City passes its first comprehensive zoning ordinance. 1922: Mayor Oscar Holcombe appoints first City Planning Commission. 1927: The Texas Legislature passes a law allowing municipalities to pass their own zoning ordinances. 1929: The first Houston zoning proposal is tabled under pressure from real estate interests. 1937: Deed restrictions expire in Montrose, generating renewed interest in a zoning plan. 1943: Houston passes a "Major Street and Thoroughfare Plan." 1948: The first referendum on a zoning ordinance fails, 69-31. 1962: The second referendum on a proposed zoning ordinance fails, 57-43. 1989: Activist Rosie Walker runs for mayor on a pro-zoning platform. 1993: The third referendum on a zoning ordinance fails, 52-48. 2015: Houston adopts a City Plan, containing nonbinding goals and strategies. See More Collapse
At the outset, zoning was a reaction to chaos.
That sense of urban disorder, and its remedies, took several forms. In New York, residents grew alarmed by the mass of certain downtown buildings and passed laws mandating setbacks from the street. With the birth of mass transit, people no longer needed to live within walking distance of their work. Codes breaking land down into residential, office, retail and recreational areas began to proliferate across the United States.
Houston started down the zoning road in the 1920s, when Mayor Oscar Holcombe appointed a City Planning Commission to come up with a plan for major parks, thoroughfares and land uses. It did, but the plan was stymied by big landowners who saw it as an infringement on private property rights.
The city's tremendous growth after World War II, however, fed a desire for stronger planning once again. Some neighborhoods had protected themselves through deed restrictions, which limit the changes future buyers can make to properties. But deed restrictions can be ineffective, if a neighborhood lacks the resources to enforce them in court. So civic associations, labor groups, the American Institute of Architects and League of Women Voters started pushing for a comprehensive set of rules.
As the city's first vote on zoning approached, real estate and oil interests organized against it. They derided land-use regulations as "un-American and German" - a serious charge in the years following the fall of the Third Reich. With only 65,000 property owners eligible to vote, the proposal failed by a ratio of 2-1.
The story essentially repeated itself in 1962, with civic groups and even some local chambers of commerce supporting a new zoning plan. But Realtors, smaller businessmen, and right-wing political groups remained united in opposition, this time playing on the geopolitical fears of the day by calling land-use restrictions "socialistic and communistic."
Zoning failed again - albeit by a slimmer margin, 57 percent to 43 percent. "Foes stressed that zoning was an attack upon individual freedom, private property, capitalism, economic growth, and the American way of life," wrote historian Barry Kaplan in a 1980 essay in Southwestern Historical Quarterly.
The argument would be used again.
The oil bust of the 1980s brought the zoning debate around one more time. As foreclosed homes were snapped up and turned into fast-food restaurants and auto body shops, neighborhoods sought additional tools to protect their quality of life. Rice University political science professor Bob Stein found that support for zoning was rising, from a slim majority to 65 percent.
In 1991, the City Council passed a resolution for a zoning plan, setting in motion two years of hearings and consultations. Mayor Bob Lanier endorsed the proposed ordinance, but anti-zoners raised more than three times as much money as proponents, spending it on television and print ads raising the specter of a vast government apparatus intruding on citizens' lives. Barry Klein's group even paid Baptist ministers to spread literature in the black community calling zoning a tool of segregation.
It was the closest vote of the century, but anti-zoners triumphed again.
No serious attempts to pass a zoning plan have come since that 1993 election, and these days, even Houston's planners defend the city's approach, saying the idea of separating incompatible types of development never needed zoning anyway.
"What we've found is that our system actually works fairly well," says Houston Planning Director Pat Walsh. "A developer doesn't want build a single family house next to an industrial facility, and the market prevents that from happening."
Pride in the city's laissez-faire approach seems encapsulated in a slogan Houston adopted a few years ago: "The city with no limits." But just because Houston has no zoning doesn't mean it has no rules.
In fact, stymied by the referendum process, the city has created more rules than ever: parking requirements, minimum lot sizes, height restrictions, historic preservation districts and bans on sexually-oriented businesses. Some are created at the request of neighborhoods; others apply citywide. It amounts to what South Texas College of Law professor Matthew Festa calls "de facto" zoning, creating a city that increasingly looks like any other in America.
Walsh says some of those zoning substitutes have even gone too far. A rule requiring buildings to be set back 25 feet from the street can cause builders to put parking lots in front of them, creating an unfriendly environment for pedestrians. High parking requirements for developments also raise costs for builders and dampen demand for public transit, since residents figure they'll never have a hard time driving their cars.
These things are in the city's power to change, as preferences shift toward a living environment that doesn't require 100 percent dependence on private vehicles. In 2015, the city passed a long-range plan that contains a number of "goals" and "strategies" for priorities like "enjoyable, vibrant activity centers" and "an affordable, multi-modal transportation network."
Zoning it's not. But over the long term, it might achieve some of the same things that the pro-zoners always wanted.
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Paul Mitchell the School students recently coordinated more than a dozen hairstyle and makeup sessions for Assistance League of the Bay Area's Operation Cinderella.
Operation Cinderella provides dresses, shoes and jewelry to young women who might otherwise not be able to attend prom. For information, visit www.bayarea.assistanceleague.org or call 281-554-2594.
Museum free to military personnel
The San Jacinto Museum of History, One Monument Circle in La Porte, is offering free entrance to active-duty military personnel, including National Guard and Reserve, and their families through Sept. 5.
Call 281-479-2421 or visit www.sanjacinto-museum.org for details.
Fishing tourney nets $76,000 for nonprofits
CenterPoint Energy's recent 12th annual Charity Saltwater Fishing Tournament at the Doyle Convention Center in Texas City raised $76,000 in donations for Kids Unlimited Inc. and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
"It was amazing to see the turnout for the tournament given the adverse weather conditions," said John Kellum, division vice president of high-voltage power delivery for CenterPoint Energy and executive sponsor of the tournament.
More than 300 individuals participated. To learn more, visit www.CenterPointEnergy.com/Community.
Friendswood garners multiple accolades
The city of Friendswood has received recognition recently as one of the best suburbs in the Houston area and one of the safest cities in Texas.
Niche ranked Friendswood as the 11th Best Suburb to Live in Houston Metro, based on crime, public schools, cost of living, job opportunities and local amenities data from a variety of government sources.
Friendswood also moved up to No. 10 (from 14 last year) on Safewise's 2016 Safest Cities in Texas list, based on the most recent FBI Crime Report statistics and population data.
"It is a privilege to credit our city staff, especially the police department, along with business leaders and the hundreds of citizens who volunteer to make Friendswood so deserving of these rankings," Friendswood Mayor Kevin Holland said.
Visit www.niche.com or www.safewise.com for details.
Sculpture trail gains sponsorships
The Pear-Scape, a public art sculpture trail project in Pearland, is taking shape with nearly half of sponsorship opportunities secured. The initial roll out for 20 pears 4 feet in height announced early this year by the Pearland Convention & Visitors Bureau has garnered the interest of sponsors and local artists, according to Kim Sinistore, executive director of the PCVB.
Gold-level sponsors committed to the project at the $4,000 level include: Omkar Enterprise Management, Pearland Animal Hospital, King's Biergarten & Restaurant, Kroger, Pearland Medical Center and Grand Cornerstone Development.
Additionally, green-level sponsors at the $2,000 level include: Comfort Suites Pearland and Keep Pearland Beautiful.
Thirty-two local artists submitted applications with 80 design submissions for review. The review committee culled the entry submissions to the final 60 designs for sponsor selections.
Sponsorships are still available. Local businesses and individuals also can become a sponsor of the Community Pear by donating a minimum of $50 and a maximum of $1,000. This Community Pear will be placed adjacent to City Hall.
For more information about the Pear-Scape project including sponsorship levels, locations and details, go to - http://visitpearland.com/pearscape/ or call Sinistore at 713-436-5595.
New fire truck arrives in Galena Park
Galena Park Volunteer Fire Department has purchased a new tender with a $218,000 grant from Texas A&M Forest Service's Rural Volunteer Fire Department Assistance Program.
"This truck will provide much needed support in their area as it will improve water availability, and the new (compressed air foam) system will greatly help them in their firefighting efforts," Texas A&M Forest Service regional fire coordinator Jeremy Wagner said.
"This is a new addition to our fleet and will be used as our first out vehicle," Galena Park VFD Chief Paul Gregory said. "The city provided all new equipment for it so we didn't have to strip our reserve truck."
Visit www.texasfd.com to learn more.
Freeport LNG contributes $100,000
Freeport LNG Development and Michael Smith, its chairman and chief executive officer, have announced plans to contribute $50,000 each to flood relief in Brazoria County.
The contribution will benefit nonprofit organizations providing assistance to victims of the recent flooding along the Brazos River. The largest beneficiary will be the United Way of Brazoria County Flood Recovery Fund, followed by contributions to the Homeland Preparedness Project, Brazosport Cares Food Pantry, The Dream Center of Brazoria County and the Brazoria County SPCA.
"This money will be put to good use to assist our Brazoria County residents and neighbors get back on their feet," said Jenna Masters, executive director for United Way of Brazoria County. "There are many who have lost everything, and the devastation is catastrophic. People are becoming antsy and impatient wanting to get back to their property. Those who are back want resources and need them quickly. These funds will help."
Periscope connects citizens and city
In line with its commitment to engage citizens in innovative ways, the city of Pearland has broadcast recent special events, ribbon cuttings and public meetings using the live-streaming smartphone application Periscope.
The approach provides real-time information and a behind-the-scenes look at city services.
"Digital platforms such as Periscope provide citizens with a front-row seat for our special events, and moving forward, we are looking to expand how we use similar technologies to better engage Pearland residents, businesses and stakeholders in the environment that is most convenient for them," said Sparkle Anderson, director of communications.
To tune in, download the free Periscope application to an Apple or Android device and "follow" the city of Pearland.
Author shares postcard collection
Author E. Barry Gray will present "Greetings from Galveston: A History from the 1870s to the 1950s Through Postcards," 7 p.m. July 7 at the Friendswood Public Library, 416 S. Friendswood Drive.
Using vintage postcards, Gray will guide the audience through the Victorian streets of old Galveston. Call 281-482-7135 or visit www.friendswood.lib.tx.us for details.
Historical museum to feature author
Join the Brazoria County Historical Museum, 100 East Cedar Angleton, on Thursday, July 14th, at 6:30 p.m. as it hosts author Andrew J. Torget, for his book "Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands 1800-1850." Free admission. Visit www.bchm.org or call 979-864-1208 for details.
Microsoft has invited Harris County Public Health to participate in Project Premonition, a research project aimed at reducing mosquito-borne diseases using cutting-edge technology.
Project Premonition has been piloted outside the United States, but this is the first time a U.S.-based mosquito control program will test the computerized mosquito traps.
The traps are able to detect and transmit a range of data, such as the time each mosquito was trapped, as well as the temperature, barometric pressure and humidity at the moment of capture. The system will allow Harris County Public Health entomologists to track specific mosquitoes that could carry harmful diseases.
"This will allow us to proactively fight disease-carrying mosquitoes in a targeted manner, increasing our capability to protect our residents from mosquito-borne illnesses like Zika," said Dr. Umair A. Shah, executive director of Harris County Public Health.
Ten traps were placed in the Houston and Harris County area in June. The project team also will be working on ways in which drone technology can be used to detect mosquito hotspots as well as deploy and collect the traps.
For information, visit www.hcphtx.org.
Citizen police training to begin on Aug. 11
Residents can gain a working knowledge of the Jersey Village Police Department by participating in its Citizen's Police Academy program, 6:30-9:30 p.m. Thursdays beginning Aug. 11.
This free, 10- to 12-week series of classes includes discussions and hands-on activities.
For information or to register, contact Maria Turnbull, 713-466-2119.
Organization expands sexual assault services
Northwest Assistance Ministries has added a sexual assault services coordinator to its Family Violence Center services.
Kelly Carlson will work with victims, providing case management, counseling, legal support and community referrals.
Visit www.namonline.org or call 281-885-4610.
The Houston Heights Association and the Urban Forestry Committee have secured Houston's first protected Green Corridor designation along Yale Street in the Heights.
City Council voted June 22 to grant the designation to a 1.6 mile stretch of Yale, stretching from Sixth to 19th streets, which would protect trees that measure 15 inches or more in diameter.
An official dedication ceremony for the Yale Green Corridor is scheduled Sept. 18, to coincide with the annual Gift of Trees Sunday event, held 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the historic Houston Heights Fire Station at 12th and Yale.
Jonathan Smulian, a 30-year resident of the Heights with a background in urban planning, and who was part of the HHA and community representatives who helped bring the Yale Green Corridor to fruition, said that the designation is not only important on a neighborhood level, but also for the entire city as the first pathway to designation has laid groundwork for others to follow.
More Information Save the dateWhat: Gift of Trees Day & Dedication of the Yale Green Corridor Where: Heights Historic Fire Station, 107 West 12th St. When: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sept. 18 Details: Free 3-gallon and 5-gallon trees given to those who RSVP to urbanforest@houstonheights.org See More Collapse
"I have worked in 32 countries, and I can say that Houston is one of the greenest cities, in terms of trees, in the world," he said.
Anne Culver, is president of Scenic Houston, a nonprofit group dedicated to encouraging the development of streetscape "character" around the city.
"This is a great demonstration project of how this could be employed to other appropriate stretches around Houston," Culver said. "We are highly supportive."
The city had previously offered protection for trees 20 inches or more, so the special designation as a Green Corridor extends the protection measures for specified treescapes along Yale. The protection does not apply to single family properties.
The road to the Yale Green Corridor began in late 2015 when HHA members discovered in the Houston Code of Ordinances, Sec. 33-104 "How to Designate and Green Corridor."
The ordinance had been laid out in 1991, but never applied.
The group thought Yale Street would be a prime candidate for the first application of the ordinance, a tree-rich business-lined thoroughfare thanks to a 500-tree planting initiative in the 1980s commissioned by Trees for Houston and the Heights Chamber of Commerce.
As part of that effort many trees were planted along Yale, which have now reached maturity 36 years later.
HHA members say it is the iconic canopies which define the character of the Heights neighborhood.
Following Code of Ordinance guidelines, the HHA submitted a letter of intent to apply for Green Corridor status to the City Secretary on March 23, which began the 90 day deadline to achieve designation.
The HHA confronted confusion over the never-before-used ordinance, and followed the code outlines as they pushed onward with their efforts.
They grappled with reaching out to absentee business owners - some as far away as China, Smulian said.
Within that 90 day period the HHA gathered a petition of business property owner signatures along the proposed corridor.
The City Codes outlined that 75 percent of the frontage on the proposed corridor must be represented by supporting signatures, and the HHA was able to secure 76 percent, once they narrowed the corridor from the initial Fifth to 24th streets to Sixth to 19th.
On April 27, the HHA and Urban Forestry Committee presented their plans to the Mayor's Quality of Life Committee, who gave support for the effort contingent on all outlined requirements being met by the petitioners. A public hearing on the Green Corridor was held on June 8, though two City Council members voiced late-coming concerns; Michael Kubosh, at-large Position 3, and Brenda Stardig of District A.
Kubosh said that he wanted time to make sure the petition signers were actually businesses along the proposed stretch, and Stardig said she did not feel the public was given sufficient notice of the hearing.
Mayor Sylvester Turner, who had expressed support for the resident-driven initiative in earlier meetings, granted the requested delay and on June 23 the matter was put to vote, with no known objections, and was adopted by the City Council members.
"This has not been driven from the top down, this has been driven from the community up," Turner said.
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Teens in foster care recently visited more than 12 area businesses as part of Child Advocates of Fort Bend's Wings summer program.
"Wings focuses on helping youth in foster care acquire life skills, plan educational goals, develop a transitional living plan and create a support system of positive adults outside of the foster care system," program director Metoyer Martin said.
The program began with a visit to the Houston Alumni and Youth Center and Preparation for Adult Living program. Youths also visited the University of Houston to learn about college opportunities.
Visits to AT&T, Nan Ya Plastics and Nalco offered information on career opportunities, resume writing and interviewing. Dr. Ivan Mefford and representatives from the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office talked to the teens about careers in the medical field and law enforcement, respectively.
Visits to Wells Fargo and CarMax addressed financial literacy and car buying, leasing and maintenance. In addition, the youth visited Depelchin to learn about the agency's transitional living housing program and Darling Homes to learn about home buying and leasing.
They learned how to plan, budget, shop and prepare a meal at the H-E-B in Telfair.
For more information or to become a volunteer, visit www.cafb.org or contact Karen Jordin at kjordin@cafb.org or 281-344-5258.
Academy honors law enforcement graduates
The Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office recognized the 32nd class of the Gus George Law Enforcement Academy during graduation ceremonies June 23 at the Rosenberg Civic and Convention Center.
The class included 17 graduates, each of whom passed the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Peace Officer Examination on their first attempt.
Christopher R. Reed accepted the Academic Achievement Award. Van M. Tran won the Physical Fitness Award. Jonathan S. McCoy claimed the David Braunholz Top Gun Award. Matthew Schmidt took the Precision Driving honor.
Real estate agency expands in Katy
Realtor Albertha Casimere has joined the sales team at Wiechert Realtors-Wayne Murray Properties, 23501 Cinco Ranch Blvd.
Casimere will serve home buyers and sellers throughout Katy, west Houston, the Energy Corridor and Cypress. For information, visit www.waynemurray.net. Casimere can be reached at 281-394-5202.
Humble City Council has passed policy changes regarding social media.
The city previously had no social media policy.
"We just hadn't had any issues," said City Manager Darrell Boeske. "It has been brought to our attention that there were possibilities, which made us think we should enact one and head it off at the pass."
The guidelines say employees must refrain from engaging in remarks, statements, or opinions that are illegal, harmful, false or defamatory toward the city and its employees.
The new policy also advises employees and staff to refrain from using social media while on work time or on city equipment, unless it is work related or is authorized by an immediate supervisor, or is consistent with the city's Internet usage policy.
"This includes everyone, including policy makers," Boeske said. "These were just general rules we needed to put in place to protect everybody from doing something that could be construed as inappropriate or illegal."
Boeske said city staff have been made aware of the new policy, which went into effect on June 23.
In other city news
The city added two key personnel to both serve as assistant city managers.
Jason Stuebe, who has served as city secretary since 2014, will serve jointly with Aimee Phillips, who was formerly an auditor with Houston-based CPA firm Fitts Roberts & Co., who was working as the city's finance director.
"They have both done a great job," said Humble Mayor Merle Aaron.
Boeske said they will have different duties, which should help streamline the process of city administration.
Phillips' duties will center on finance and human resources, while Stuebe's duties will focus on economic development and planning.
"At the current time, I find myself not being able to be involved in some of these meetings, so we are trying to streamline that operation," Boeske said.
Both Stuebe and Phillips assumed their new positions immediately.
The city will look to fill the vacancies resulting from the promotions before the new fiscal year budget is in place this fall, Boeske said.
The city also clarified it's leave of absence policy, mostly because of insurance issues, Boeske said.
"We will be tweaking a lot of our policies as we move forward," he said. "As we weed through these issues in our personnel policies that are old or outdated, or not compatible with current laws, we will do some tweaking so we can bring things to how they should be operating. Things are not broken, so you don't try and fix them, but at the same time you might see some glaring loopholes in your policy that need to be closed because it could cause us some grief if we don't."
Details: www.cityofhumble.com/
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Montgomery County Crime Stoppers sought nearly 30 fugitives between June 10 and July 1 on charges ranging from murder to indecency with a child.
In Montgomery County, authorities release a list of highly sought suspects, termed "featured felons."
RELATED: More than 40 charged with felony DWI in Houston
Tipsters with information about these suspects are asked to call 1-800-392-STOP (7867). All callers will remain anonymous, and tipsters may be eligible for a $5,000 reward.
See the photos above for more information on the specific charges against these suspects.
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The Wuyi Mountains are a mountain range located at the prefecture Nanping, at the northern border of Fujian province with Jiangxi province, China. The mountains cover an area of 60 km. In 1999, Mount Wuyi entered UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites, both natural and cultural. It is the most outstanding biodiversity conservation zone of Southeast China. Numerous types of tea are produced around Mount Wuyi; it is the origin of the real Da Hong Pao tea and Lapsang souchong, further described in Wuyi tea. [China.org.cn]
Flash
Yushu County in Qinghai Provinceis projected to be a pilgrimage site for self-driving travelers. [Photo by Wang Haibin/China.org.cn]
Seven sightseeing routes that crisscross in Yushu, Qinghai Province are expected to open soon to self-driving travelers who visit there in hopes of having a look at the natural, cultural and religious sights on the remote plateau, far away from city's hustle and bustle.
Those routes were mapped out to give a boost to local tourism six years after the devastating earthquake which jolted the land and claimed more than 2,000 lives. Holding back their tears and leaving their grief at the bottom of their hearts, people in Yushu have been moving on towards the future.
Home to the starting points of China's three major rivers, namely, the Yellow River which is the cradle of Chinese civilization, the Yangtze River and the Lancang River, Yushu has joined other cities to promote three routes along the rivers for self-driving tours.
To better preserve the natural species and resources of the three headstreams, a state natural conservancy was established recently with the approval of the central government. In March, Chinese President Xi Jinping asked the Qinghai delegation to carefully protect the local ecological environment at the panel discussion during the National People's Congress early this year.
"The beauty of nature and simplicity in Yushu can not be ruined or occupied by anyone," said AxiaYonghong, head of the Yushu Tourist Administration.
"So, we need to learn from the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park to unveil the true history and culture of Yushu to travelers," he added.
The other four routes for self-driving travelers were made up by the itineraries zigzagging through the Kekexili, the four Legendary Mountains, the Tang-Tibet Ancient Road and Kamba Town.
Preferential policies, such as, edifying reckless driving but charging no fines, presenting Buddhist relics of local monasteries, offering discounts and providing free oxygen-supply equipment, have been launched for members of the Three Headstreams International Self-Driving Association when at least 50 of them travel to Yushu in no less than 20 vehicles for self-driving tours.
The Yushu Tourism Administration has also been working with China Central Television (CCTV) to produce a documentary chronicling the search for the roots of Chinese civilization at the origin of the Yellow River which happens to be in the county.
"Tourism is an important aspect of life," said Bian Baochen, the editor in chief of the documentary from CCTV. "People can live with few regrets when they have the chance to see the panoramic views of the three headstreams in Yushu."
Flash
China and the United States need to manage their differences over the South China Sea issue, as they are bracing for an arbitral court's ruling, experts said Tuesday.
One week ahead of the July 12 ruling over the South China Sea case initialed by the Philippines, a group of former Chinese and American officials and experts on international law and foreign relations held a dialogue in Washington to discuss the ruling's legality, possible reactions and its implications on the China-U.S. relations.
In a keynote speech at the dialogue held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Dai Bingguo, former Chinese state councilor in charge of foreign affairs, reiterated that China will not accept the ruling because the tribunal under the Permanent Court of Arbitration has no jurisdiction over the case.
Noting the rising tensions in the South China Sea as the United States steps up its pressure on China to abide by the ruling, Dai issued a call for cooling down the issue, warning otherwise it could lead to unexpected accidents and even chaos in the region and Asia.
At the same time, Dai bluntly warned any party against trying to enforce the court ruling or force China into its implementation. Particularly, the Philippines should be dissuaded from making further provocations.
Dai also urged China and the United States to manage their differences constructively, demanding Washington scale back its "heavy-handed intervention" in the South China Sea issue.
He reaffirmed that, despite all the negative factors, China remains committed to peaceful settlement of the South China Sea disputes with concerned parties through negotiations.
COOLING DOWN TEMPERATURE OF SOUTH CHINA SEA
Most experts attending the dialogue praised Dai's speech for clarifying China's position ahead of the court ruling, while echoing Dai's call for cooling down the temperature of the South China Sea for the sake of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.
The speech "certainly reinforces a very clear position that China has taken on the issue for a while, (and) there is a continued offer for cooperation," said Rodger Baker, vice president of strategic analysis at the Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence firm.
Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a U.S. think tank, said it "is the time for diplomats and politicians to exercise cool judgment and try to find ways to keep the issue from exploding into something more dangerous."
Paal told reporters that both China and the United States can do a lot more to cool things down and related parties in the dispute can "find ways to manage the arbitration award, and to keep it from becoming a source of additional tensions and conflicts."
Stapleton Roy, former U.S. Ambassador to China and a senior fellow at the Wilson Center, told reporters that Dai gave a "very detailed and comprehensive statement of China's view on the issues in the South China Sea."
He agreed with Dai's call for cooling down the situation, noting it's important to resolve territorial issues peacefully through negotiations instead of threats or use of force.
"China and the U.S. should work collaboratively on this issue. I think that's very important point also," Roy commented on Dai's remarks.
Brendan Mulvaney, associate chair of the Languages and Cultures Department of the U.S. Naval Academy, told Xinhua that he did not expect the U.S. reaction to the court ruling to be very aggressive because it is not a claimant to the territorial dispute.
At the same time, he expected China and the United States not to take "any super aggressive steps" to worsen the situation.
U.S. HAS TO TAKE LEAD IN REDUCING TENSIONS
On how to cool down the situation, Huang Renwei, vice president of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said the United States should take the lead because it is the most powerful nation in the region.
Then the Philippines should refrain from taking any actions after the court ruling next week, otherwise it will surely trigger off counter moves, Huang told Xinhua.
At the same time, other outside parties such as Japan and Australia should avoid stepping into the troubled waters in the South China Sea, he proposed.
Huang said China will not be the sole party that will endure loss if anyone tries to forcibly enforce the court ruling, as all related parties will have to pay a price.
Zhu Feng, director of the China Center for Collaborative Studies of the South China Sea at Nanjing University, told reporters that one of the major factors behind the rising tensions in the South China Sea is overreaction from the relevant parties, especially from the United States.
Zhu said it is impossible to enforce the upcoming arbitration ruling on the South China Sea case either by the United States or the Philippines.
He added that the core issue in cooling down the tensions is to conduct a serious review of the differences between China and the United States and try to find practical ways to narrow the gap.
Baker believed that the immediate reaction to the court ruling from the United States could be talking immediately with the Philippines on the next step for Manila to take.
He proposed the related parties first change the tone of the discussion right now in order to lower the tensions.
He noted some cooperation between China and the United States despite their differences. For example, China's Navy was invited to this year's multi-national RIMPAC naval exercises, a move that could lower the tensions by creating a set of understandings at the lower level.
SIT DOWN TO MANAGE DIFFERENCES
The experts said the South China Sea issue is only part of the broader relationship, so the two sides should manage their differences through talks to prevent it from leading to strategic rivalry or confrontation.
"I think one of the most important things would be sit down and have discussions about how we're going to manage conflicts, specifically, on intended or unplanned conflicts," Mulvaney said.
He believed that the two powers will not just focus on the single issue of the South China Sea, because "it's not one of our central focus points."
Huang said one of the major mistakes made by the United States is siding with its allies no matter what they do, while criticizing China for whatever it does.
"I often tell the Americans, if you keep taking a biased position, the U.S. leadership will naturally be weakened," Huang said.
Zhu said the two countries should find a way of compromise and cooperation on the South China Sea issue from a long-term perspective, because neither side wants to turn the region into a battlefield.
"A military confrontation will benefit neither side, as it will be a disaster to the regional and global economy," he said.
Huang said despite all the differences, Beijing and Washington do have a consensus, that is, neither wants an all-out confrontation in the West Pacific. This is evident in the progress being made in improving the military-to-military cooperation and crisis management mechanisms.
"The South China Sea issue is only part of the overall China-U.S. relationship, which should never be kidnapped by the dispute," he added.
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BEIJING (AP) A U.N. panel says China has arbitrarily detained an American woman in violation of international human rights norms, bringing her case back into public attention ahead of a visit to Beijing by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week.
International business consultant Phan "Sandy" Phan-Gillis, 56, of Houston has been in detention in China for more than a year, accused of stealing state secrets.
The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention says she hasn't been brought before judicial authorities or given access to legal assistance, in an opinion released last week.
The San Francisco-based human rights group The Dui Hua Foundation said Tuesday that it was the first time that the working group in its 25-year history had deemed an American citizen to have been arbitrarily detained by China. A detention is deemed arbitrary if it has no legal basis or legal rights are ignored.
Ban is scheduled to meet President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday and Premier Li Keqiang on Friday, though it isn't clear if Ban plans to raise Phan-Gillis' case in talks with the leaders.
The U.N. working group says that the Chinese government told it that Phan-Gillis is charged with "assisting external parties to steal national intelligence." The U.N. group called for her to be released or given proper assistance by a legal counsel.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei, in a faxed response to questions, said: "All of Sandy Phan-Gillis' rights have been fully guaranteed, and she has been treated well." He urged the U.N. working group to "perform its duties impartially, respect China's judicial sovereignty and stop groundless accusations against the relevant Chinese authorities' lawful handling of the case."
The U.S. Embassy in China had no immediate comment.
Phan-Gillis, a Vietnamese-American of Chinese descent, often worked as an intermediary in ventures between Chinese and U.S. business interests.
She was detained in March 2015 during a visit to China as part of an American trade delegation that was promoting business opportunities in her hometown of Houston, Texas. She disappeared from the rest of her group in the southern city of Zhuhai at the international border crossing into Macau.
For the first six months she was held under residential surveillance a coercive measure that allows for people suspected of endangering state security to be held at an undisclosed location. Then she was formally arrested and moved to a detention center in the southern city of Nanning.
The U.N. report included submissions from an unnamed source, who alleged that Chinese authorities flouted the country's own laws, including failing to notify Phan-Gillis' family that she had been detained.
The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention "has, over the years, ruled that the Chinese government has arbitrarily detained scores of its own citizens, but this marks the first time it has ruled that agents have arbitrarily detained an American citizen in violation of international human rights law," John Kamm, executive director of The Dui Hua Foundation, said in a statement.
Thousands of Muslim believers descended on NRG Center on Wednesday morning for a prayer service on Eid, the day that ends Ramadan the holiest month in Islam.
The fasts are over. The families were together. The colorful, crisp attire worn by people from across the globe and with international ties added to the festive nature of the day and visually punctuated Houston's celebrated diversity. The anticipation of feasts and fellowship for lunch and beyond was prescient.
A speedster is all smiles in her arrest photo after leading officers on a chase Sunday through Houston.
In a release from the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable's Office, 26-year-old Yvette Balderas has a wide smile, as if she's taking a school photo rather than being arrested.
Tuesday evening, about 100 people came together to pay their respects for the three men who died during a Fourth of July celebration in the Fourth Ward, especially for Charles Jackson, a father of three, church volunteer known as "Screwball."
Virtually everyone could recall where they were that night, when their neighbor was shot and killed in the street. Standing under the shade of three trees in a fenced off lot at the corner of Wilson and Robbin, families sat in lawn chairs and listened as Pastor Elmo Johnson led them in prayer.
The FBI is searching for a man who robbed a bank inside a Kroger store in northwest Houston on Wednesday.
According to the FBI's Houston field office, the robber stole an undisclosed amount of money from First Convenience Bank inside the Kroger at 8550 Texas 6 North. The robber was given the cash after handing the teller a threatening note. He then fled. No one was injured, according to the FBI.
A man was left bleeding after someone attacked him with a machete early Wednesday morning in northwest Houston, according to the Houston Police Department.
The incident occurred about 2 a.m. in the 7400 block of West Gulf Bank near Vanwood, Lt. Larry Crowson said.
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Police are searching for two suspects who robbed a man at gunpoint after one of them asked him for help earlier this year in southwest Houston.
The robbery happened about 7 a.m. on May 16 in the 6400 block of Bankside Drive, according to the Houston Police Department.
The robbery victim received a telephone call from a person he knew only as J.T. asking him for help. When the victim drove to where J.T. had asked to meet him, a second suspect shoved him into the backseat of the victim's car and J.T. climbed behind the steering wheel.
In the backseat, the suspect sitting with the victim pulled out a gun and robbed the man. The victim later managed to snatched the gun away from the suspect and jump out of the car safely.
The suspects sped away in the man's 2009 gray Jaguar XF with paper license plate 53L1476.
The suspect known as J.T. is described as being between 22 years old and 25 years old. He is about 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs about 150 pounds. He wore a black, hooded sweatshirt, blue shorts and black shoes.
No description of the other suspect was available.
Anyone with information about the case is urged to contact Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS or online at www.crime-stoppers.org. Tips may also be sent by a text message. Text TIP610 and tips to CRIMES.
Crime Stoppers will pay up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest of the suspects or charges being filed against them.
All tipsters remain anonymous.
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A Kingwood man has pleaded not not guilty to charges stemming from a crash during a June 19 police chase that left the pursuing officer and an innocent 11-year-old dead. (See full story here.)
Garrett William Nee, 29, is charged with murder, two counts of manslaughter and six counts of felony assault. Montgomery County prosecutors allege that he fled Patton Village police Sgt. Stacey Baumgartner, initiating a 6-mile chase on a semi-rural two-lane highway that ended with the crash at Texas 242 and FM 1485.
Baumgartner entered the intersection with his lights and sirens activated after Nee ran the red light, police said. A Chevy Suburban carrying seven members of the Hilario family then T-boned Baumgartner's cruiser. Adan Hilario Jr., 11, was declared dead at the scene; Baumgartner was declared dead en route to the hospital.
A DPS investigation released Friday concluded that Baumgartner failed to slow as he entered the crossing or to look out for oncoming traffic.
District Judge Phil Grant appointed Conroe attorney E. Tay Bond, to represent Nee at trial. Bond's appointment was ordered June 29, according to court documents, and the plea was entered the same day.
Nee received a court-appointed attorney because he said he could not pay for his defense. His wife works part-time as an apartment manager, earning $1,400 a month. Nee reported his assets as $90 in a bank account and his wife's car, valued at $6,000. He has one small child and cares for another, his attorney said.
On Tuesday afternoon, Bond confirmed the plea of not guilty. He said he has visited Nee in jail.
"Mr. Nee has expressed remorse, and sadness for the families that have been affected by this, including his own," Bond said.
The next hearing in the case is scheduled for 9 a.m. Friday.
andrew.kragie@chron.com
A former north Texas high school drama teacher who exchanged videos and photos with a Michigan teenage boy he planned to visit has been charged with receipt of child pornography.
According to court documents filed Friday in federal district court in Fort Worth, 24-year-old Matthew Keller of Watagua considered the teenager to be his boyfriend and was in contact with him for 18 months, starting when the boy was 13.
RELATED: Tip in Australia leads to Texas teacher's child porn arrest
Authorities learned about the relationship after one of the boy's parents alerted police in Eastpointe, Michigan, on June 7. Eastpointe, which borders Detroit. The boy was 15 years old when his parent contacted police.
According to court documents, the teenager's parent learned Keller was planning a trip to meet with him in Michigan, prompting the parent to contact police.
The Macomb County Sheriff's Office in Michigan contacted Keller using the teenager's phone after receiving permission from the boy's parent. Court documents say Keller was skeptical and wanted to video chat with the teenager to prove it was him. Keller ultimately decided not to fly to Detroit because he thought he would get arrested, according to the court documents.
SEE ALSO: Homemade explosives found during child porn investigation
When a sheriff's office investigator made a direct call to Keller, court documents say he admitted to meeting the boy online about two years ago. Keller told the investigator the teenager sent him approximately 25 nude photos and 25 nude videos.
The teenager told authorities that Keller sent him pictures and photos and told him to delete them afterward, according to the court documents.
The website where Keller met the teenager was not disclosed in the court documents.
Keller told authorities he was a drama teacher at Southwest High School in Fort Worth.
On June 28, a Tarrant County criminal investigator and forensic examiner contacted the federal Homeland Security Investigations' Dallas Child Exploitation Group to execute a search warrant at Keller's Watauga home. Watauga is about 14 miles northeast of Fort Worth.
RELATED: Man gets 22 years in child porn case
Federal agents seized a computer that had a video from late November 2014, which showed the naked teenager in handcuffs, the court documents read.
Keller remains in federal custody and was scheduled to have a detention hearing Wednesday in federal court in Fort Worth, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
If convicted, Keller could face between five and 20 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine and a lifetime of of supervised release, according to the justice department.
Court documents do not state when Keller was released from his teaching role.
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The multi-millionaire founder of Macaroni Grill and Fuddruckers is being sued for inappropriately grabbing an employee, according to media reports.
RELATED: Police: Texas man pretends to be cop in hopes of receiving Fuddruckers discount
Phil Romano, who also owns Eatzi's Market & Bakery based in the Dallas-Forth Worth Metroplex, was sued by Ichel Cook, an assistant manager at one of the bakery's locations on April 7 after he allegedly walked behind her and "inappropriately grabbed (Cook's) buttocks with a grin on his face," according to WFAA. Cook is seeking at least $1 million.
The lawsuit states the entire incident was caught on video. Cook told WFAA, "Phil walks into the market, turns his hand like this, grabs me, laughs, takes a few more steps, stops, turns around and stares at me for at least five seconds," as she watched the video.
RELATED: City settles suit in alleged rape by San Antonio police officer
Cook "immediately turned around to face her attacker" and "became mortified and turned away to avoid escalating the situation in public," according to the suit. Later, when Cook confronted Romano, he said he "just thinks of me like one of the guys, and didn't think that this would upset me," according to Cook.
Romano's attorney Michael McCabe told WFAA in a statement that, "While we cannot discuss the details of this ongoing case, we will vehemently defend our client against these accusations and demonstrate that the case should be dismissed."
RELATED: Romano's Macaroni Grill HQ to relocate to Denver
Cook, who will continue to work at Eatzi's, said that with the video, "There's not questions about what happened."
The assistant manager requested a restraining order against Romano but was denied last week.
kbradshaw@express-news.net
Twitter: @kbrad5
A Harlingen preacher was arrested Friday on a theft charge after he allegedly rented a car and never brought it back.
George Osborne Merrill was booked around 6:30 a.m. Friday when he turned himself in to the Harlingen Police Department. He faces a state jail felony charge of theft, which poses a maximum sentence of two years in prison.
>>MORNING LEDE: "Family and friends help Ken Paxton pay his legal bills," by the San Antonio Express-News' David Saleh Rauf: "Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton collected close to $330,000 from wealthy donors and friends last year to help pay for his legal defense against felony securities fraud charges, according to a state filing made public Tuesday.
"Paxton's personal financial statement shows for the first time how the embattled attorney general is funding a high-profile criminal defense team expected to cost millions of dollars and who is putting up the money.
"It also highlights how a carve-out in Texas' bribery law that has allowed state officials to reap a long list of gifts over the years is being used by Paxton to tap an assortment of donors and close friends for seemingly unlimited sums of cash to pay his lawyers."
LOCKUP ISSUE: Stuck in limbo: "Feds say jails need separate housing for youngest inmates, " by the Houston Chronicle's St. John Barned-Smith: "The Harris County Sheriff's Office has run afoul of a federal law aimed at reducing sexual assaults in jails, leaving 17-year-old inmates with virtually no place to go while awaiting trial in adult court.
"The county's jail doesn't have room in its overcrowded facility to carve out a separate space for inmates under 18, who must be housed separately from older inmates under the Prison Rape Elimination Act. Efforts to transfer the youthful offenders to other counties have fallen through, officials said.
"Jails are facing similar problems across Texas and in six other states, where 17-year-olds are considered adults in the criminal justice system. Federal law and the remaining states consider 18 to be the age of adulthood."
BREXIT NEXT UP: "Texas vs. the U.K.: Not as easy a sell as Gov. Abbott thinks," by the Houston Chronicle's Lydia De Pillis: "Over the weekend, Texas' economic development arm -- never one to miss a promotional opportunity -- ran ads on British websites like the Financial Times and Daily Mail targeting companies that might be persuaded to move to or invest in Texas. Most featured Gov. Greg Abbott in leader-y poses, and encouraged viewers to "declare independence from high taxes."
"Independence Day is the perfect opportunity for Texas to launch this campaign in the U.K. to highlight how Texas offers companies the freedom to prosper and is a beacon of opportunity," said Tracye McDaniel, head of the Texas Economic Development Corporation, in a statement announcing the ad buy. The agency declined to disclose how much the ads cost.
"The ads didn't mention the United Kingdom's recent vote to leave the European Union, which could be especially disruptive to industries that rely on cross-border trade. Still, the message was clear: The Lone Star state won't pull a fast one on you like British voters did. There are few situations in which, given a choice between what's good for business and some other priority, Texas wouldn't choose the former."
FOSTER CRISIS: "Pay Caseworkers and Fosters More, New Chief Says," by Texas Tribune's Edgar Waters: "The new commissioner of the state's embattled child welfare agency wants lawmakers to make a sizable investment in Child Protective Services and the state's foster care system.
"Caseworkers will make higher salaries and the families and organizations that care for foster children will be paid more for their services if Hank Whitman, the agency's leader, gets his way when state lawmakers draw up their two-year budget in 2017.
"Whitman, a former chief of the Texas Rangers who was appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott to his new post in April, sat down with The Texas Tribune to discuss the problems facing the Texas Department of Family and Protective services and how he thinks a police officer's perspective can help fix them."
INSURANCE SHOWDOWN: "Texas insurance chief to hear debate on Farm Bureau's arbitration plan," by the Austin American-Statesman's Tim Eaton: "The head of the Texas Department of Insurance, Insurance Commissioner David Mattax, is scheduled to hear comments Wednesday on a plan by the Texas Farm Bureau's insurance division that could lead to endorsements for mandatory mediation-arbitration on some of the insurer's homeowners' policies.
"The company wants to avoid lawsuits by offering some of its customers premium discounts if they agree to settle any disputes through a mandatory mediation-arbitration process. Executives with the insurer said mandatory mediation-arbitration is needed for Farm Bureau to continue writing policies in some parts of the state.
"The insurer's plan has drawn criticism from governmental and private-sector consumer advocates."
SPEED READ
Dallas County confirms 12th case of Zika virus, NBCDFW.com
2 former Texas school board members sentenced for extortion, Associated Press
Texas researchers' findings factor into abortion ruling, Associated Press
Fight over Obamacare helps lead to Parkland's $100M budget shortfall, officials say, Dallas Morning News
Texas Announces Hundreds of Schools Receiving Pre-K Grants, Texas Tribune
Computers, not humans to scan carry-on bags in TSA test, Associated Press
Big Oil Finding Money for Biggest Projects, Wall Street Journal
U.S. tops in recoverable oil, study says, Houston Chronicle
Questions raised over state's deal with developer for public housing, Galveston Daily News
Judge: 22 BP fraud charges against lawyer duplicate others, Associated Press
QUOTE TO NOTE
"Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? He was a bad guy, a really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists." -- Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, underscoring U.S. policy mistakes in the Mideast.
BIRTHDAYS: Former President George W. Bush turns 70. Belated: State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, turned 45 on July 1.
RACE TO THE WHITE HOUSE
CLINTON DECISION: "F.B.I. Director James Comey recommends no charges for Hillary Clinton on email," by The New York Times' Mark Lander and Eric Lightblau: "The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, on Tuesday recommended no criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her handling of classified information while she was secretary of state, lifting an enormous legal cloud from her presidential campaign less than two hours before she boarded Air Force One for her first joint campaign appearance with President Obama.
"But on a day of political high drama in Washington, Mr. Comey rebuked Mrs. Clinton as being "extremely careless" in using a private email address and server. He raised questions about her judgment, contradicted statements she has made about her email practices, said it was possible that hostile foreign governments had gained access to her account, and declared that a person still employed by the government Mrs. Clinton left the State Department in 2013 could have faced disciplinary action for doing what she did.
"To warrant a criminal charge, Mr. Comey said, there had to be evidence that Mrs. Clinton intentionally transmitted or willfully mishandled classified information. The F.B.I. found neither, and as a result, he said, "our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case."
DEBATE CONTINUES: "Hillary Clinton's email problems might be even worse than we thought," by The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza: "Here's the good news for Hillary Clinton: The FBI has recommended that no charges be brought following its investigation of the former secretary of state's private email server.
"Here's the bad news: Just about everything else.
"FBI Director James B. Comey dismantled large portions of Clinton's long-told story about her private server and what she sent or received on it during a stirring 15-minute news conference, after which he took no questions. While Comey exonerated Clinton, legally speaking, he provided huge amounts of fodder that could badly hamstring her in the court of public opinion."
TRUMP 'TRAGEDY': At N.C. Rally, Trump Calls FBI Decision a 'Tragedy,' Accuses Clinton of Bribery, by NBC News' Ali Vitali: "Donald Trump shared the battleground state of North Carolina with Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama on Tuesday and the presumptive Republican nominee used the proximity to take potshots at the Democrats on a day that provided ample ammunition.
"Rousing an already boisterous crowd, Trump lambasted the FBI's recommendation not to pursue criminal charges against Clinton from her time as secretary of state, questioning "how can you possibly say no charges" to what Trump called the "Enron-style purge of her emails.
"Trump called Tuesday morning's announcement a "tragedy" and seized on FBI Director James Comey's allegations that Clinton was "extremely careless" in decisions regarding her emails and server."
OBAMA HANDOFF: 'Ready to pass the baton': Obama campaigns with Clinton, by the Associated Press' Julie Pace and Kathleen Hennessey: "President Barack Obama vigorously vouched for Hillary Clinton's trustworthiness and dedication Tuesday, making his first outing on the campaign stump for his former secretary of state just hours after his FBI director blasted her handling of classified material.
"Shirt sleeves rolled up in campaign form, Obama declared, "I'm ready to pass the baton."
"The energetic Obama-Clinton appearance in North Carolina was a show of Democratic unity in a state Clinton is hoping to put back in the party's column. But the moment wasn't what her campaign and the White House imagined during the long primary season."
TRUMPING HOUSE: "Democrats bet the House on Trump," by Politico's Edward-Isaac Dovere: "As part of an effort to nationalize the November elections by tying Republicans to their lightning-rod presidential nominee, House Democrats have begun collaborating with Hillary Clinton's campaign to build what they're calling their "Trump model" of persuadable voters.
"With Donald Trump heading to Washington to meet with the House GOP Thursday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is also preparing to go up on television in districts earlier than in any previous cycle with an ad campaign designed to buttress the Trump-centric messaging guidance that's already emanating from Washington all built around a "party over country"-themed plan of attack for the fall.
"The hope is that a combination of Democrats riled up by Trump, moderate Republicans and independents turned off to the party brand, and disaffected Republicans staying home will accelerate blue shifts in marginal districts to start their long road back to the majority. But more immediately, they're hoping to pick off enough moderate Republicans to leave House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) squeezed by the Freedom Caucus come January, which they believe will neutralize him both in Congress and as a potential 2020 challenger to Clinton."
TICKER
Five takeaways from Clinton's email reprieve, Politico
In a Tiresome and Frustrating Election, I'm with ... Her?, Texas Observer
A new chapter of the gun-control showdown coming to the House this week, The Washington Post
Ryan: Clinton's handling of emails 'disqualifying, Politico
An American man was arrested last Friday in connection to New Zealand's biggest cocaine bust when 35 kilograms of the drug, worth an estimated $10 million in New Zealand, was discovered in a jewel-encrusted horse head by customs officers, according to police.
Two men, a 44-year-old from Mexico and a 56-year-old from the United States, were arrested and charged with importing and possession for supply of a class A drug, namely cocaine, July 1 at Auckland International Airport as they were trying to catch a flight to Hawaii.
The summers final Live on the Waterfront concert was held Wednesday evening at Prince Arthurs Landing. The popular series in Thunder Bay has completed nine weekly shows that began on July 13. Wednesdays concert was unique as it was held one hour later in the evening to mesh with the 10 p.
Warriors end season with win over Rebels SIOUX RAPIDS - The Alta-Aurelia football team traveled to face Sioux Central for their final game of the season and...
Cherokee takes down Generals to finish season CHEROKEE - The Cherokee football team hosted Sibley-Ocheyedan on Friday and won 35-28 to finish out their season. The...
Warriors suffer heartbreaking end to season ALTA - The Alta-Aurelia volleyball team hosted Lawton-Bronson last Wednesday and suffered a nail-biting 3-2 loss to end their season....
Unity ends Cherokee volleyball season ORANGE CITY - Out of sync early, Cherokee's volleyball squad fell hard in the first set 25-8 to ranked Unity...
EAU CLAIRE Shania Rose Felton, 20, of Eau Claire and Taylor Ann Thompson, 3, of Eau Claire, daughter of Jake Thompson and Shania Felton, both passed away unexpectedly Saturday, July 2, 2016, and Friday, July 1, 2016, respectively, at HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital, Eau Claire, as a result of an automobile accident.
Shania was born May 8, 1996, in Eau Claire, to Brad and Ann (Moyer) Felton.
She was raised and attended school in New Auburn. The family later moved to Hallie, where Shania attended, and graduated from, Chippewa Falls High School Chi Hi where she obtained a scholarship. She worked at Menards Truss Plant full time and used her scholarship to put herself through a dental assistant program in Appleton. Shania was employed at Kristo Orthodontics.
Shania was a loving and caring mother.
Shania loved the outdoors, bow hunting, and shooting archery with Jake. She enjoyed taking Taylor Ann to the park with Jake. She also loved hanging out with her family.
Shania is survived by the love of her life, Jacob Thompson; parents, Brad and Ann (Moyer) Felton; brother, Brenden (Taya Wathke); grandparents, Janet Heister, Donald Felton, Jim and Mary Metz.
She was preceded in death by her grandfather, Harry O. Moyer.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be given, in Shanias name, to the family. An account will be set up at a later date to establish a scholarship to assist a student attending Chippewa Valley High School/ Alternative School.
Sweet little Miss Taylor Ann Thompson was born Jan, 4, 2013, at HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital, to Jacob Thompson and Shania Felton. Taylor lit up the room with her energy and bright smile. She loved her Oreos, and going fishing with her family. She brought a sparkle to everyones eye. Taylor was a true gift from God.
The loss of Shania and Taylor, although very tragic, brought hope to others in need though the gift of organ donation.
Funeral services for Shania and Taylor will be 11 a.m. Friday, July 8, at Jacobs Well Church, 3211 50th Avenue, Chippewa Falls, 54729 (Just east of the Highway 53 bypass and Melby Street exit). Pastor David Benson will officiate. Visitation will be 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday, at the church, and 10 a.m. until the time of services, Friday. Burial will follow the service in Rest Haven Cemetery, Washington, Wis.
Two Beautiful For Earth. Rest My Angels
Fuller Speckien Hulke Funeral Home, 3209 Rudolph Road, Eau Claire, is assisting the family with arrangements.
Friends and family may offer condolences online at www.fullerspeckienhulke.com.
Violence in Chicago is reaching epidemic proportions. In the first five months of 2016, someone was shot every two and a half hours and someone murdered every 14 hours, for a total of nearly 1,400 nonfatal shooting victims and 240 fatalities. Over Memorial Day weekend, 69 people were shot, nearly one per hour, dwarfing the previous years tally of 53 shootings over the same period. The violence is spilling over from the citys gang-infested South and West Sides into the downtown business district; Lake Shore Drive has seen drive-by shootings and robberies.
The growing mayhem is the result of Chicago police officers withdrawal from proactive enforcement, making the city a dramatic example of what I have called the Ferguson effect. Since the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, the conceit that American policing is lethally racist has dominated the national airwaves and political discourse, from the White House on down. In response, cops in minority neighborhoods in Chicago and other cities around the country are backing off pedestrian stops and public-order policing; criminals are flourishing in the resulting vacuum. (An early and influential Ferguson-effect denier has now changed his mind: in a June 2016 study for the National Institute of Justice, Richard Rosenfeld of the University of MissouriSt. Louis concedes that the 2015 homicide increase in the nations large cities was real and nearly unprecedented. The only explanation that gets the timing right is a version of the Ferguson effect, he told the Guardian.)
Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel warned in October 2015 that officers were going fetal, as shootings in the city skyrocketed. But 2016 has brought an even sharper reduction in proactive enforcement. Devastating failures in Chicagos leadership after a horrific police shooting and an ill-considered pact between the American Civil Liberties Union and the police are driving that reduction. Residents of Chicagos high-crime areas are paying the price.
Felicia Moore, a wiry middle-aged woman with tattoos on her face and the ravaged frame of a former drug addict, is standing inside a Polish sausage joint on Chicagos South Side at 10 PM. Asked about crime, she responds: Ive been in Chicago all my life. Its never been this bad. Mothers and grandchildren are scared to come out on their porch; if you see more than five or six niggas walking together, you gotta run. The violence claimed her only son last year, she says, just as he was being drafted by the Atlanta Hawks. Moore is engaging in some revisionist history: her son, Jeremiah Moore, was, in fact, killed with a shot to his headbut in 2013, a little over a year after he was released from prison for shooting a mother at a bus stop; the Atlanta Hawks dont enter into it.
Felicia Moores assessment of the present crime situation in Chicago, however, is more reality-based. Through the end of May, shooting incidents in Chicago were up 53 percent over the same period in 2015, which had already seen a significant increase over 2014. Compared with the first five months of 2014, shooting incidents in 2016 were up 86 percent. Certain police districts saw larger spikes. The Harrison District on the West Side, encompassing West Humboldt Park, for example, had a 191 percent increase in homicides through the end of May. Shootings in May citywide averaged nearly 13 a day, a worrisome portent for summer.
A man who calls himself City Streets is standing in a ragtag group of drinkers and hustlers outside a liquor and convenience store on the South Side. They pass around beer, cigarettes, and cash and ask strangers for money. A young woman shoves her boy along, oblivious to the late hour. Its terrible out here. Someone gets shot every day, City Streets tells me. It aint no place to hang, he adds, ignoring his own advice.
Social breakdown lies behind Chicagos historically high levels of violence. Fatherlessness in the citys black community is at a cataclysmic levelclose to 80 percent of children are born to single mothers in high-crime areas. Illegitimacy is catching up fast among Hispanics, as well. Gangs have stepped in where fathers are absent. A 2012 gang audit documented 59 active street gangs with 625 factions, some controlling a single block. Schools in gang territories go on high alert at dismissal time to fend off violence. Endemic crime has prevented the commercial development and gentrification that are revitalizing so many parts of Chicago closer to downtown; block after block on the South Side features a wan liquor store or check-cashing outlet, surrounded by empty lots and the occasional skeleton of a once-magnificent beaux-arts apartment complex or bank. Nonfunctioning streetlights, their fuse boxes vandalized, signal the reign of a local gang faction.
But disorder, bad before, seems to be worsening. The night after my conversations with Felicia Moore and City Streets, dozens of teens burst into the intersection of Cicero and Madison on the West Side, stopping traffic and ignoring the loud approach of a fire truck. They hold their cell phones high, the new sign of urban empowerment. Earlier that day, a fight involving at least 60 teens took over a nearby intersection, provoking a retaliatory shooting two days later at a local fried-chicken restaurant. On May 14, a 13-year-old girl stabbed a 15-year-old girl to death in a South Side housing complex; the murderers mother had given her the knife. In the summer of 2015, wolf packs of teens marauded down Michigan Avenues Magnificent Mile, robbing stores and pedestrians. The phenomenon started even earlier this year. A couple strolling on Lake Shore Drive downtown on Memorial Day weekend were chased by more than a half-dozen young men, at least one armed with a gun. The two tried to escape across the highway, the teens in hot pursuit. A pickup truck hit the couple, killing the female. A police officer flashed his emergency lights at the teens, and they fled. If it wasnt for the police being there at the time, I dont know where I might be now, the surviving man told the Chicago Sun-Times. Six feet under?
Public-order infractions, otherwise known as Broken Windows offenses, abound. Stand just a few minutes on a South or West Side thoroughfare, and someone will stride by hawking bootleg CDs or videos and loose cigarettes. Oliver, a 34-year-old with a Bloods tattoo and alcohol on his breath, has just been frisked by the police in a West Side White Castle parking lot around 9:30 PM. The police are assholes, he says. I know my rights; Im selling CDs, so I know Im doing something wrong, but they werent visible in my bag. Oliver then sells two loosies to a passerby, laboriously counting out change from a five-dollar bill.
Oliver, a 34-year-old with a Bloods tattoo, has just been frisked by cops in a West Side White Castle parking lot.
Some law-abiding Chicagoans blame the rising violence on just such street disorder. After a woman and four men were shot at a bus stop on the South Side in May, a local resident complained about the illegal vending. This sort of congregation of people who meet at this space dealing drugs and selling loose cigarettes . . . is despicable, he told the Chicago Tribune. The drug trade is less overt but more ubiquitous than the trafficking in CDs and loosies. As I approach a Jamaican jerk restaurant on the West Side, the young men in front melt away. You saw what happened when you pulled up hereeveryone disappeared, a middle-aged man tells me. They sell drugs everywhere.
The majority of victims in the current crime wave are already known to the police. Four-fifths of the Memorial Day shooting victims, for example, were on the Chicago Police Departments list of gang members deemed most prone to violence. But innocents, like the Lake Shore Drive robbery victims, are being attacked as well: a 59-year-old Pakistani cabdriver, fatally shot in the head in February by a 19-year-old passenger; a DePaul student brutally beaten in April on the subway while other passengers passively looked on; a 49-year-old female dispatcher with the citys 311 call center, killed in May while standing outside a Starbucks a few blocks from police headquarters; a worker driving home at night from her job at FedEx, shot four times in the head while waiting at an intersection and saved from death by the cell phone at her ear; a trucker shot in the face in May on the Dan Ryan Expressway; three eighth-graders robbed at gunpoint outside their school in May; a six-year-old girl playing outside her grandmothers house in June, shot in the back and lung; a man stabbed in the stomach by a felon, who said: I hate white people. Give me your money.
The murder that shook the city to its core was the assassination of nine-year-old Tyshawn Lee. He was playing in a park on November 2, 2015, when a 22-year-old gangster, Dwight Boone-Doty, lured him into an alley with the promise of chips and candy. Boone-Doty fatally shot the boy, then fled with two accomplices, bleaching the getaway car and dumping it in Dalton, Illinois. Boone-Dotys original plan, according to a police source, was to kidnap Tyshawn and send his ears and fingers to his mother. Tyshawns father was a member of the gang believed responsible for shooting the brother and mother of one of Boone-Dotys accomplices a few weeks earlier. After the shooting, local schools went on lockdown, terrified that the children of gang members were now fair game for execution.
Officers who try to intervene in this disorder face a virulent street situation, thanks to the current anti-cop ideology. People are a hundred times more likely to resist arrest, an officer who has worked a decade and a half on the South Side informs me. People want to fight you; they swear at you. Fuck the police, we dont have to listen, they say. I havent seen this kind of hatred toward the police in my career.
Antipolice animus is nothing new in Chicago, of course. An Illinois state representative, Monique Davis, told a Detroit radio station in 2013 that people in her South Side community believed that the reason so few homicide cases were solved is that it was the police who were killing young black males. Davis later refused to repudiate her statement: We cant say that it is not happening. The no-snitch ethic of refusing to cooperate with the cops is the biggest impediment to solving crime, according to Chicago commanders. But the Black Lives Matter narrative about endemically racist cops has made the street dynamic much worse. A detective says: From patrol to investigation, its almost an undoable job now. If I get out of my car, the guys get hostile right away and several people are taping [with cell phones]. Bystanders and suspects try to tamper with crime scenes and aggressively interfere with investigations. Additional officers may be needed during an arrest to keep angry onlookers away. Its very dangerous out there now, a detective tells me. In March 2016, then-chief of patrol (now superintendent) Eddie Johnson decried what he called the string of violent attacks against the police after an off-duty officer was shot by a felon who had ordered him on the ground after robbing him. The previous week, three officers were shot during a drug investigation.
This volatile policing environment now exists in urban areas across the country. But Chicago officers face two additional challenges: a new oversight regime for pedestrian stops; and the fallout from an officers killing of Laquan McDonald in October 2014.
In March 2015, the ACLU of Illinois accused the Chicago Police Department of engaging in racially biased stops, locally called investigatory stops, because its stop rate did not match population ratios. Blacks were 72 percent of all stop subjects during a four-month period in 2014, reported the ACLU, whereas whites were 9 percent of all stop subjects. But blacks and whites each make up roughly 32 percent of the citys populace. Ergo, the police are racially profiling. This by-now drearily familiar and ludicrously inadequate benchmarking methodology ignores the incidence of crime. In 2014, blacks in Chicago made up 79 percent of all known nonfatal shooting suspects, 85 percent of all known robbery suspects, and 77 percent of all known murder suspects, according to police department data. Whites were 1 percent of known nonfatal shootings suspects in 2014, 2.5 percent of known robbery suspects, and 5 percent of known murder suspects, the latter number composed disproportionately of domestic homicides. Whites are nearly absent, in other words, among violent street criminalsprecisely whom proactive policing aims to deter. Whites are actually over-stopped compared with their involvement in street crime. Nearly 40 percent of young white males surveyed by Northwestern University criminologist Wes Skogan in 2015 reported getting stopped in the previous year, compared with nearly 70 percent of young black males. Statistically, age is the strongest correlate of being stopped, says Skogannot race.
Despite the groundlessness of the ACLUs racial-bias charges, thenpolice superintendent Garry McCarthy and the citys corporation counsel signed an agreement in August 2015 allowing the ACLU to review all future stops made by the department. The agreement also created an independent monitor for police stops. Why McCarthy agreed to put the ACLU in charge is beyond us, says a homicide detective. McCarthys signing of the stop agreement was indeed ironic, since he had encouraged a dramatic increase in stops. They rose 50 percent in his first two years, ultimately reaching about 700,000 a year, more than the NYPD performed at the height of its own stop activity, even though the CPD is about a third the size of the NYPD.
On January 1, 2016, the police department rolled out a new form for documenting investigatory stops, developed to meet ACLU demands. The new form, traditionally called a contact card, was two pages long and contained a whopping 70 fields of information to be filled out, including three narrative sections. (Those narrative sections were subsequently combined to try to quiet criticism.) The new contact card dwarfs even arrest reports and takes at least 30 minutes to complete. Every contact card is forwarded to the ACLU. Stops dropped nearly 90 percent in the first quarter of 2016. Detectives had long relied on the information contained in contact cards to solve crimes. When 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton was killed in January 2013, days after performing with her high school band in President Barack Obamas second inaugural, investigators identified the occupants of the getaway car through descriptions of the vehicle in previous contact cards. Now, however, crime sleuths have almost nothing to go on. Earlier this year, a detective working armed robbery had a pattern of two male Hispanics with tattoos on their faces sticking up people in front of their homes. But virtually no contact cards had been written in the area for three months. So he made car stops in the neighborhood himself, coming across the stolen car used in the robberies and the parolees responsible for the crimes. This is not a maximally efficient division of labor.
Criminals have become emboldened by the police disengagement. Gangbangers now realize that no one will stop them, says a former high-ranking police official. And people who wouldnt have carried a gun before are now armed, a South Side officer says. The solution, according to officers, is straightforward: If tomorrow, we still had to fill out the new forms, but they no longer went to the ACLU, stops would increase, a detective claims.
But a more profound pall hangs over the department because of a shockingly unjustified police homicide and the missteps of top brass and the mayor in handling it. On the night of October 20, 2014, a report went out over the police radio that someone was breaking into cars in a trucking yard in the southwest neighborhood of Archer Heights; the vandal had threatened the 911 caller with a knife. Two officers found 17-year-old Laquan McDonald a block away; he punctured a tire on their squad car and struck its windshield with his three-inch blade. The cops trailed McDonald, who was high on PCP, for nearly half a mile while waiting for backup units with a Taser. Two additional patrol cars pulled up as McDonald strode along the middle of Pulaski Road, energetically swinging his right arm, knife in hand. One car parked behind him; its dashboard camera recorded the subsequent events. The other car stopped about 30 yards ahead. The officers in that forward vehicle jumped out, guns pointed at McDonald, commanding him to drop the knife. Less than ten seconds after exiting, Officer Jason Van Dyke began shooting. McDonald spun 360 degrees under the impact of the first bullets and dropped to the ground. Van Dyke continued shooting, emptying his cartridge into McDonalds crumpled and gently writhing body.
The new contact card takes at least 30 minutes to complete. Every contact card is forwarded to the ACLU.
The shooting, pitiable to watch, represented a catastrophic failure of tactics and judgment. Some police use-of-force experts claim that a suspect armed with a knife can rush and slash an unprepared officer if the assailant is within 21 feet. Even if that so-called 21-foot rule applied here, Van Dyke and his partner had no need to exit the car and put themselves within possible reach of McDonald. If they were in any imminent risk of lethal harm, they created that risk themselves. But even then, McDonald did not appear poised to attack, despite his failure to drop the knife. He was on a slight rightward trajectory away from Van Dyke, who was on his left, before the shooting began.
What followed the homicide was almost as shocking. Five officers at the scene all told variants of the same tale in their written reports: that McDonald had been advancing toward Van Dyke, aggressively raising his knife as if to attack. Once on the ground, McDonald tried to get up, they said, continuing to point his knife at Van Dyke. None of those claims is borne out by the video. McDonald displayed no aggressive behavior toward Van Dyke. It is true that for two strides immediately before the first bullets hit him, McDonalds trajectory had minimally shifted to the left so as to be perpendicular to Van Dyke rather than veering diagonally away. But that modest and likely unconscious alteration of trajectory does not rise to the level of lethal threat. And having made the mistake of opening fire in the first place, Van Dyke should at least have stopped shooting once McDonald fell. Had McDonald had a gun, capable of striking from a distance, rather than a knife, the analysis might have been different.
A police-union spokesman at the scene of the killing told reporters that McDonald had been threatening Van Dyke. The police department press release a few hours later essentially echoed that account, stating that McDonald continued to approach the officers after being warned. Superintendent McCarthy viewed the video the next day, without retracting the departments press release, explaining later that he was too busy trying to learn what had happened. From then on out, officials made no effort to countermand the McDonald attack narrative. (A rumor that cops destroyed a video of the incident taken at a nearby Burger King, however, proved not to be true.)
McCarthy immediately stripped Van Dyke of his police powers and forwarded the case to the civilian board that reviews police shootings, the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA). The case also went to the Cook County state attorneys office, the U.S. attorneys office, and the FBI. In April, the mayors corporation counsel, Stephen Patton, attained city council approval for a $5 million settlement with the McDonald family, conditioned on the continued non-release of the video. Later that month, the detectives bureau cleared and closed the case, astoundingly concluding that the recovered in-car camera video was . . . consistent with the accounts of the witnesses and that Van Dykes use of deadly force was within bounds of CPD guidelines.
By then, the Chicago press was clamoring for the videos release, but it was not until November 24, 2015, that the video came out, under a judges order. The reaction was understandably explosive; weeks of angry protests denouncing alleged police racism and brutality followed.
The Cook County state attorney announced first-degree murder charges against Officer Van Dyke on the day that the McDonald video was released. Mayor Emanuel fired McCarthy a week later and appointed the Police Accountability Task Force, dominated by critics of the police. That task force issued a report in April 2016, claiming that the Chicago Police Department is shot through with racism. Emanuel is now genuflecting to the citys activists. He has adopted many of the reports most sweeping recommendations, including the appointment of a costly and unnecessary inspector general for the department (that will come on top of the independent monitor for investigatory stops), the replacement of the IPRA with a new entity, the Civilian Police Investigative Agency, and the creation of the Community Safety Oversight Board. All these additional layers of oversight will only complicate chains of command and further discourage proactive policing.
McCarthy defends his decision not to release the video or to correct the record early on the ground that he didnt want to compromise the integrity of the investigation. He did not have the legal authority to comment once the case went to federal agencies, he says. Those protocols may be appropriate in the case of an ordinary police shooting, but this was no ordinary police shooting. Allowing a fabrication about a very bad shooting to stand, especially during the current era of fevered antipolice sentiment, is guaranteed to amplify the demagoguery against the police. McCarthy, an able and accomplished police executive, should have at least called in the investigating bodies in emergency session and worked out with them a way to counter the false narrative without jeopardizing their work. The Emanuel administration also bears enormous responsibility for the crisis in legitimacy that now afflicts the department. Emanuel has praised himself for being the first Chicago mayor to acknowledge an alleged police code of silence, but he knew about the shooting, and his aides had seen the video early on. City hall was already in damage-control mode by February 2015, as Emanuel faced a tight runoff election. It is irresponsible for Emanuel to scapegoat McCarthy when his own administration also failed to set the record straight.
The damage to the Chicago police and to policing nationally from the mishandling of the McDonald homicide is incalculable. The episode can now be invoked to confirm every false generalization about the police peddled by the Black Lives Matter movement. Yet the shooting was a tragic aberration, not the norm. A New York Times Magazine article in April 2016 tried to establish the departments racially driven malfeasance by citing the absolute number of fatal police shootings in Chicago: from 2010 to 2014, Chicago police killed 70 people, more than any other police agency. The Times article neglected to reveal that Phoenix, Philadelphia, and Dallas all lead Chicago in the per-capita rate of such fatal shootings. Chicagos rate of police shootings is nearly 50 percent lower than Phoenixseven though its murder rate is twice as highand 35 percent lower than Philadelphias.
The number of armed felons that the citys cops confront dwarfs the number of officer-involved shootings. No other police department takes more guns off the street. In the first nine months of 2015, the CPD recovered 20 illegal weapons a day. From January 2007 to November 30, 2015, the police made 37,408 arrests of an armed felon, or roughly 4,670 a year. Each of those arrests could have turned into an officer shooting. But in 2015, even as crime was increasing under the Ferguson effect, the Chicago police shot 30 people, eight fatally. Those fatal shootings represent 1.6 percent of the 492 homicides that year. Nationally, police shootings make up 12 percent of all white and Hispanic homicide deaths and 4 percent of all black homicide deaths. Chicagos ratio of fatal police shootings to criminal homicide deaths is less than the national average.
The Emanuel-appointed Police Accountability Task Force claimed that police shooting data give validity to the widely held belief that the police have no regard for the sanctity of life when it comes to people of color. The task force pointed to the fact that of the 404 individuals shot by the police between 2008 and 2015, both fatally and nonfatally, 74 percent (or 299) were black, and 8 percent (or 33) were white. Predictably, the task force said not one word about black and white crime rates, which were even more disproportionate in 2015 than in 2014. In 2015, blacks were 80 percent of all known murder suspects and 80 percent of all known nonfatal shooting suspects. Whites made up 0.9 percent of known murder suspects in 2015 and 1.4 percent of all known nonfatal shooting suspects. And blacks were overwhelmingly the victims of criminal shootings as well. In 2015, 2,460 blacks were shot lethally and nonlethally, or nearly seven blacks a day. By contrast, roughly 30 blacks were shot lethally and nonlethally by the police in all of 2015. Those 2,460 black victims of criminal shootings constituted nearly 81 percent of all known shooting victims. Seventy-eight whites were shot in 2015, or one white every 4.6 days, constituting 2.5 percent of all known shooting victims. If 74 percent of police shootings have black subjects, that is because officer use of force is going to occur most frequently where the police are trying to protect the law-abiding from armed and dangerous suspectsand that is in predominantly minority neighborhoods.
Emanuel is disbanding the IPRA because it found that of the 404 police shootings between 2008 and 2015, only two were unjustified. The mandate of its replacement body will be clear: penalize more cops. But absent an examination of each of those cases, no conclusion can be reached about whether the low number of findings of misconduct represents a miscarriage of justice. The IPRA has been understaffed over the years, but its fundamental design is strong. The fact that it has not found many bad shootings most likely means that they are rare. The IPRA released more than 100 files of police misconduct cases in early June, as part of a new policy of increased transparency. Prediction: the press will find few cases of clear wrongdoing.
The CPDs critics are right about one thing, however: the cumbersome disciplinary process makes it too hard to fire officers found guilty of wrongdoing. And Chicago has had some truly bad cops over the yearsmost infamously, Jon Burge, a detective who tortured suspects from 1972 to 1991 to obtain false confessions. But the vast majority of officers today observe the law and are dedicated to serving the community; what they need is more tactical training, adequate staffing and equipment, and better leadership from an ingrown, highly political management cadre. As for the alleged blue wall, or code, of silence, it is hard in any department to crack the defensive solidarity among officers, who feel that they are facing an uncomprehending and often hostile world. Even now, a few of the officers I spoke with will not pass judgment on the McDonald homicide, on the ground that they were not there. Such solidarity is understandable, but commanders need to stress that when it results in distorting the truth, not only will the officer be severely punished; he is also making todays anti-cop environment all the worse.
Despite the activists charge that the Chicago police are intent on killing black males, its easy to find support for the cops in crime-ridden areas. Mr. Fisher, a 55-year-old sanitation worker at a West Side bakery, is waiting for his wife outside Wileys Soul Food and Bar-B-Que on the West Side. Fisher was pulled over earlier in 2016 for a missing light on his license plate. The officer was courteous, he says. I aint trying to buck them, I aint trying to disrespect them, I aint trying to give them a hard time, because I love my job. Its not them, its the younger generation thats got us messed up. Civilians provoke confrontations with cops, not vice versa, Fisher says: I seen a lot of people disrespect them, cussin and fussin. If a cop was to get out of his car here, someone would run. To me, if youre not doing anything, why would you run? (Such commonsensical hypotheses have been ruled illegal by many courtsif a cop makes them.) Melissa, a 24-year-old outside D & Js Hair Club on Pulaski Road, says that she has no problem with the police. They doing they job. I dont give them no reason to talk to me. The problem is crime, she says: I feel unsafe here. It just gets worse and worse.
Sometimes support for the cops comes from unexpected places. In May 2016, a 38-year-old drug trafficker named Toby Jones received a 40-year federal prison sentence for repeatedly trying to gun down a federal informant, in the process shooting three people. He told the judge: Even with all the latest police shootings on minorities in Chicago, I dont blame these cops one bit for most of their decisions in the field. And the black community has to first come to grips with why these cops are so afraid, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Stories of heroic cops go untold, Jones said, but as soon as a black kid gets shot, everyone is in an uproar.
Activists and politicians are proposing the usual root causes solution to the current crime wavemore government programsas well as less usual ones, such as abolishing the police department. The mayors Police Accountability Task Force wants the mayor and Cook County to implement programs that address socioeconomic justice and equality, housing segregation, systemic racism, poverty, education, health and safety. Such top-down spending ignores the normative breakdown that renders government social services largely futile. The bakery where Fisher works has been hiring for the last five years; he tells the young brothers about the jobs. Half of them dont show up; the others have drugs in their system. Half want to hang out and make the fast money that can get you in jail, Fisher observes.
But the Chicago violence is also undermining the politically correct consensus about crime and policing. The Chicago Tribune has called for the police to make more traffic stops to quell the highway shootings; it points out that the Illinois vehicle code offers plenty of reasons to stop drivers, whether for a broken taillight or an expired registration sticker. Traffic stops are, of course, a prime target in the specious campaign against racial profiling; the mayors Police Accountability Task Force blasted the CPD for its allegedly biased stop rates, ignoring differential rates of vehicle and moving violations.
Police superintendent Eddie Johnson wants three-strikes-and-youre-out-type sentencing laws for repeat felons. Chicagos criminal-justice system fails to hold these individuals accountable and allows them to bring . . . violent acts into our neighborhoods, he said in March 2016. Stricter sentencing for repeat offenders is also a prime target for Black Lives Matter protesters. A few days after Johnsons plea, anti-law-enforcement activists assailed former president Bill Clinton for having signed the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which lengthened federal sentences for repeat felony offenders. Such sentences, protesters charged, resulted in mass incarceration for blacks. And an Illinois bill mandating stricter sentencing for illegal gun possession was blocked by the black caucus in Springfield in 2013, on the ground that it would have a disparate impact on blacks.
Some people in the community, however, are demanding even stronger measures than Johnson calls for. After a 15-year-old car passenger was killed in a drive-by shooting on June 1 on the South Side, a friend of his family told the Chicago Tribune, We need martial law. Period. If its to protect our children, then so be it.
Such calls will undoubtedly multiply this summer, since the violence shows no signs of abating. It may not be time to call out the National Guard yet. But it is time to reinvigorate the Chicago Police Department. With the Police Accountability Task Force charge of endemic racism and the ACLU straitjacket depressing morale, and with resistance of lawful authority growing, that will be no small task. City leaders will need to show that they understand and will support officers like the cold-case homicide detective who told me, in reaction to the task-force report: Never once has anyone complained to me that Im racist. Im in it to do whats right.
Top Photo: Police stops, like this one, have become increasingly rare. (RALF-FINN HESTOFT/CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES)
Ruth Marcus, the reliably liberal Washington Post columnist, wrote a piece the other day that came close to being brave. Given the source, for much of the papers readership its very headline was surely a stunner: TRUMP IS RIGHT: BILL CLINTONS SORDID SEXUAL HISTORY IS FAIR GAME. Yes, Marcus noted, Trump may be everything progressives say he is, racist, sexist, narcissist, for starters . . . . But he has a point about Clinton playing the womans card, and about the male behavior thats more concerning: her husbands . . . . (I)n the larger scheme of things, Bill Clintons conduct toward women is far worse than any of the offensive things that Trump has said . . . . Trump has smeared women because of their looks, Clinton has preyed on them, and in a workplace setting where he was by far the superior. Ordinarily, she added, I would argue that the sins of the husband should not be visited on the wife . . . . But Hillary Clinton has made two moves that lead me, gulp, to agree with Trump on the fair game front. She is (smartly) using her husband as a campaign surrogate, and simultaneously (correctly) calling Trump sexist.
Whats the problem with such a piece? It is at its essence a dodge, an attempt to avoid a far more serious indictment by copping to a lesser charge. In fact, Bill Clinton was not just a workplace harasser, or even a serial adulterer; he was, and remains, someone credibly accused of sexual assault. And what goes unmentionedfor this obviously could be catastrophic for Hillarys campaignis that she has been his willing cohort, the energetic enabler who sought to destroy his accusers to protect their joint political and financial interests.
In this regard, the piece is emblematic of what the Clintons have done to their fellow liberals and Democrats, in the media and beyond, over the past couple of decadesthey turned them into serial equivocators and liars. Never mind that progressives continue to see (and often define) themselves as morally and ethically superior: in the fight to save Bill Clintons presidency there could be no adherence to larger truths, or moral consistency, or commitment to time-tested standards; all were sacrificed in defense of Clintons political survival.
Indeed, in key ways, America pre-Sexgate was a very different country from the one we live in today, immeasurably more innocent and less jaded; still respectful of values now widely seen as antique. This is why, in bien pensant quarters, the lead story in the Washington Post of January 21, 1998CLINTON ACCUSED OF URGING AIDE TO LIEproduced a tidal wave of angst and disorientation not unlike that brought on by a sudden presidential death. In that different moral universe, there was every reason to believe Clintons presidency was finished. Even more calamitous than the allegation of presidential perjury was what the president had lied about: Starr Probes Whether President Told Woman to Deny Alleged Affair to Joness Lawyers, as the Posts subhed had it.
Every sentient being in America would soon know that the woman in question was White House intern Monica Lewinsky, who might have been more appropriately termed a girl. Shed been just 21 when the soon-to-be-exposed liaison began, with a childish, wide-eyed crush on her boss. Little wonder that the news hit especially hard in the nations newsrooms, longtime hotbeds of Clinton support. The press had excelled at covering up/rationalizing Clintons indiscretions since his appearance on the national scene (most notably the one involving longtime Arkansas squeeze Gennifer Flowers). But this was different. Not even proudly enlightened progressives could in good conscience see this as anything but sexual exploitation. In any case, and perhaps more to the point, they realized that the vast majority of Americans out therethe hicks in flyover countrywould see it that way. Hopelessly naive in that peculiarly American way, ordinary citizens actually expected more of their president.
God knows the media had done its best to bury the story. In fact, it had first surfaced several days earlier, on a fledgling blog run by the unknown Matt Drudge on the still-new Internet. Drudge hadnt reported the details of the story itself, only that Newsweeks Michael Isikoff had the story but the magazine was refusing to run it. Newsweeks publishing partner, the Post, was forced to acknowledge the storys existence. Once it broke, even outlets that otherwise reflexively rallied behind a beleaguered liberal leader quickly took up what amounted to a death watch. Did the president encourage a former intern to lie about their alleged affair? demanded the Miami Herald in an editorial the day after the Washington Post report. If that assertion is proved true by credible evidence, then the president would have suborned perjury and obstructed justiceboth felonies. Strong censure, including possibly an effort to impeach him, would be likely. ZIPPERGATE COULD BE END FOR CLINTON PRESIDENCY, ran a headline in the liberal Cleveland Plain Dealer the next day. I would probably guess that what Congress would do is find urging perjury to be an impeachable offense, echoed Geraldine Ferraro, as the first female candidate for vice president, a full-fledged Democratand feministheroine.
Among the presidents loyalists, there is bitterness, observed the Washington Post in a piece on the Lefts angst. Especially betrayed are the baby boomers: They all want 21-year-old interns, too, but they know not to touch them. . . . At liberal institutions, a pall set in. At People for the American Way, workers got an e-mail from the boss instructing them not to contribute to the rumor-mongering, and the honchos were talking about scrapping a planned radio campaign in support of the presidents push to get his judicial nominees confirmed by Congress. For Washington veterans, there was a familiar feeling about this day, a stomach-flipping sense of deja vu, a realization that even in this era of cheap scandals and easy outrage, some events have the power to halt a nation in its tracks.
Not even The New York Times could summon up so much as tepid support for the beleaguered president, noting that while there is a general reluctance to have the private life of any President become a matter of public inquiry and that Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel, has a vendetta against Clinton, this Administration repeatedly forces its supporters to choose between loyalty and respect for the law. . . . Mr. Clinton has denied the charges, and on the surface they seem so tawdry, the alleged impropriety so avoidable by a mature leader, that it is hard to comprehend their potential impact.
Of course, Clinton did deny the charges, in those early days lying and spinning ferociously, the desperation evident in his look and timbre; driven by both the desertion of his allies and growing signs of cratering public support. According to a USA/CNN poll taken late that first week, An overwhelming majority, 72%, say they would find it relevant to his performance as president if Clinton participated in an effort to obstruct justice by urging her to lie under oath. Nearly as many, 67%, say it would be relevant if Clinton lied under oath about the affair. Insisting to PBS that he did not ask anyone to tell anything other than the truth, and there is no improper relationship, Clinton appeared a trapped and doomed man. A few days later, on January 27, he dug himself in even deeper when he infamously declared, jabbing a finger toward the camera: I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. Im going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people.
How did he in fact did survive? More than anything, it had to do with the identities of those who rallied to his defenseabove all, his wife. It was the very next morning, January 28, that Hillary appeared on NBCs Today, expressing absolute faith in her husbands credibility and blaming the crisis on a vast right-wing conspiracy, led by Starr. As David Maraniss characterized her appearance in the Washington Post, she assumed a familiar and crucial role as Bill Clintons first defender. She said she knew him better than anyone in the world, still loved him, and fully believed his denial of allegations that he had entered into a sexual relationship with a White House intern and had urged the young woman to lie about it. . . Her words at once established a clear line of counterattack for Clintons loyalists . . . The decision to transform Clintons public defense into a rhetorical war with Starr and the political right wing was made at the White House in a series of meetings over the past four days, according to several administration sources. In every discussion in which she participated, the first lady was a leading advocate of an aggressive strategy attacking Starr, but it was not until her remarks yesterday morning that they realized that counterattacking was their most effective choice, and that she was their most effective weapon.
Its now clear that from the earliest days of Bills public career, it had been Hillary taking the lead in tamping down the bimbo eruptions, as Clinton insiders termed them, which threatened their joint enterprise. According to Flowers, whose revelation of her 12-year affair with Clinton led to a sympathetic interview with both Clintons on 60 Minutes in which they asserted the strength of their marriage, the notion Hillary didnt know about the affair is beyond ludicrous. I think she has always known everything about him, concurs Juanita Broaddrick, the Little Rock nursing home executive who charged Clinton raped her 1978. In an interview with Aaron Klein, she recalled being told personally by Hillary in 1978 to keep quiet about the episode. I think they have this evil compact between the two of them that they each know what the other does and overlook it. And go right on. And cover one for the other. She enabled his behavior, says alleged Clinton sexual assault victim Kathleen Willey flatly. Its as simple as that.
The Clintons have systematically attempted to blacken the accusers names and otherwise destroy their credibility. Yet, at the height of the 1998 crisis, Hillarys pose as the aggrieved yet forgiving wife allowed the Clinton partisans, starting with those in the media, to push the line that this was a private matter, unworthy of the attention it was receiving. After all, if his wife didnt care, why should anyone else? The other pivotal point came on March 22, when Americas leading feminist gave Clinton a total pass. In a New York Times op-ed, Gloria Steinem declared that while he may be a candidate for sex addiction therapy, the President is not guilty of sexual harassment. Why not? Because his accusersshe mentioned only Paula Jones (to whom he had exposed himself and to whom he would pay an $850,000 out-of-court settlement) and Kathleen Willey (whom he had groped when she was reeling from the suicide of her husband)were supporters from whom he eventually took no for an answer. (Broaddrick, whose contemporaneous corroborating testimony in support of her rape allegation lent vast credibility to the charge, had not yet come forward publiclybut to this day there is no record of Steinem or any other leading figure in the sisterhood supporting her, either.) In any case, wrote Steinem, what ultimately mattered most were the presidents policy positionsespecially his solid support for abortion.
As Clintons prospects for survival brightened, his Democratic colleagues likewise rallied to his support, even as many privately expressed deep contempt for his behavior. Indeed, it was already becoming clear that the Clintons scorched-earth campaign for survival would impose steep and long-lasting costs on the quality of the nations civic life. It is no accident that the campaigns rallying cry, Lets Move On, would be the genesis of MoveOn.org, which continues today aggressively to push the Lefts agenda and eviscerate those on the other side.
There were other costs, too. Here are just a handful of the jokes which became ubiquitous on late-night TV, circa 1998:
Q: What is Bills definition of safe sex?
A: When Hillary is out of town. Q: What is the difference between Clinton and the Titanic?
A: Only 200 women went down on the Titanic. Q: How does Bill keep Monica Lewinsky away from the White House?
A: He keeps offering to send Ted Kennedy over to give her a ride. Q: How can a woman tell shes just had sex with Bill Clinton?
A: Shes got French fries in her hair, and Vernon Jordan is handing her a job application.
Little wonder that through it allfrom the initial word of the presidents affair with Lewinsky to the revelations about cigars and the semen on the blue dressthere were reports on the difficulties American parents were having trying to explain to their young children things they wished they didnt have to. Nor, from this distance, is there much doubt that those times had a deep and lasting impact on American mores. Is it coincidence that millions of Millennials maintain, along with the president of their formative years, that fellatio does not actually constitute sex? If America has indeed lost much of its former innocence, who can doubt that the 42nd president accelerated the process?
We will of course hear little of that during the upcoming campaign, at least from the liberal media. Stalwart as they were in serving as Barack Obamas Praetorian Guard in 2008effectively scuttling their candidates decades-long relationships with his racist, America-hating minister and an American terrorist as campaign issuesthey may be faced with an even more difficult task this time. Things arent looking good for Hillary, joked Jay Leno in 1998. Like a lot of women in Washington, I think shes just starting to realize she may have slept with Bill Clinton for nothing. But Hillary has always gotten plenty from her husband, and bereft of accomplishments of her own, she is now more dependent on his record, and his fabled charisma, than ever before. That will not be easy to square, however, with the fact that she is running, above all, as a bearer of two X chromosomes, someone who is actually on the record proclaiming that Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported.
Already, prompted by GOP frontrunner Donald Trumps aggressively bringing the subject to the fore, the media obfuscation and minimizing have begun in earnest. For all its seeming candor, Ruth Marcuss piece was part of that effort. So, too, was CNNs Don Lemons declaration that Hillary was not responsible for Bills misbehavior and that the matter had already been fully litigated, before cutting off conservative commentator Kurt Schlichters mic when he refused to drop the subject. So, too, was Todays Savannah Guthries delicate reference to Bill Clintons alleged affair with Monica Lewinsky. Perhaps most egregiously, the International Business Timess Abigail Abrams made a heroic attempt to distinguish the ex-presidents behavior from that of the disgraced and newly indicted Bill Cosby. Unlike Cosby, Abrams wrote, Bill Clintons most well-known extramarital activities were consensual.
Its not the reality of Clintonian sexual misconduct that will be at issue in this election, nor Hillarys role in savaging Bills accusers, nor even the remarkable lengths to which the press will go to protect them both. All of that has by now been established beyond question, for those willing to see. The real issue in this election is how much of this history the American people will be willing to ignore, shrug off, or decide doesnt matter. The real question will be how much the Clintons have changed America.
PHOTO BY JOHN MOORE/GETTY IMAGES
In the hours after Omar Mateens June 12 attack on the Orlando, Florida, nightclub Pulse, digital journalists flooded social media with various memes and tweets designed to shut down debate over whether he was motivated by his Islamic beliefs to murder gays and lesbians. Mateen, they said, was simply a closeted gay man whose internalized homophobia caused him to lash out. People came forwardsecret lovers, Pulse regularsto back up the story. Even after 911 transcripts demonstrated that Mateen considered himself a Muslim who was carrying out an attack in the name of Allah and ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, plenty of commentators continued to refuse to see a link between the Orlando massacre and Islam. Killers like Omar Mateen arent actually real Muslims, they said, because Islam is a religion of peace.
Its true that many Muslims across the globe work for peace, and categorically reject violence in the name of their faith, as a recent global Pew survey makes clear. But the same survey paints a more nuancedand disturbingpicture of global Islam. For example, at least 10 percent of Muslim respondents in more than ten countries said that suicide bombing in defense of Islam is sometimes or often justified. This number rose to almost 40 percent in Afghanistan, where Mateens parents were born and where the maximum sharia punishment for the crime of homosexuality is death.
The best question Ive seen asked since Orlando comes from the wall of one of my Facebook friends, a Muslim professor at a state university. He wrote that he found it curious that so many Muslims, in reaction to Orlando, took to social media to claim that Islam doesnt teach violence against gay people. Do me a favor, he wrote. Wait for a month or two, let the media coverage of the Florida shooting die down, then ask your Imam what is the sharia punishment for homosexual acts between consenting adult homosexuals. The answer, of course, is death. Homosexuality is punishable by death in ten countries, and all are majority Muslim. The professors point wasnt to bash Islam, or to demonize his fellow Muslims, but to encourage them to reflect deeply about the way their faith speaks of gay people. Reforms are long overdue, he concluded.
Theres a divide in this country when it comes to questions, with the Right usually wondering whats wrong with asking them and the Left usually shouting down any that might come off as offensive. Donald Trumps meteoric rise has been powered in part by his knack for asking questions, no matter how outrageous and unspeakable they seem to coastal media elites. One way the Left could weaken Trump would be to take away his monopoly on questions. To do that, though, the Left would also have to surrender its habit of reacting with outrage every time some well-meaning person asks a question that contains a politically incorrect word or phrase.
Mateens access to guns doubtless played a role in his massacre, as did his homophobiabut it shouldnt be off-limits to ask whether it was a homophobia learned from and nourished by the conservative Islamism of his Afghan father. Homophobia comes in many forms, wrote Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the Wall Street Journal recently. But none is more dangerous in our time than the Islamic version. Shes right. In the twenty-first century, Islamic homophobia certainly seems different than Christian homophobia. The extremist, antigay Westboro Baptist Church celebrates the deaths of fags and those who enable them, but so far they havent murdered any LGBT people.
Rather than jumping to distance Islam from homophobia, we should encourage Muslims to challenge their communities, especially those in the gay-friendly West, to reconsider their religions ancient prohibitions. Weve been encouraging Christians and Jews to have these conversations for years; Islam shouldnt get a pass. Plenty of people in the Western world are bigoted against Muslims, of course, and we shouldnt pretend otherwise. Nor should we pretend, however, that every attempt to look at Islam critically is an instance of Islamophobia.
Photo by Norbert Schiller/Getty Images
Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, by Peter Schweizer (Harper, 256 pp., $27.99)
George Washington Plunkitt, a late- nineteenth-century New York State legislator, made his extra money in a straightforward way. I seen my opportunities and I took em, he said after people criticized him for patronage, corrupt land sales, and other business-as-usual Tammany Hall goings-on. But Plunkitt distinguished between honest graft and the regular kind. It was okay to steal if the stealing was part of a project for the public goodtaking a kickback on, say, building a firehouse. By contrast, it wouldnt be okay to steal at the expense of the publicsay, taking a bribe from someone selling poisonous medicine. Bill and Hillary Clinton are good students of Plunkitts first lesson, according to Peter Schweizers new bestseller, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. Since Bill left the presidency, the Clintons seen a lot of opportunitiesand took em all.
Last year, Hillary confessed her and her husbands chief motive over the 14 years since they left the White House: money. She told Diane Sawyer that the family was dead broke in 2001 when Bills presidency ended. In the White House, she said, we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, and for daughter Chelsea to begin attaining her four college degrees. After the White House years, you know, it was not easy. Bill has worked really hard . . . . He had to make double the money because of, obviously, taxes . . . and get us houses and take care of family members.
Looking for a way to stay on top, the Clintons perfected a modern private-public business model: the Clinton Foundation, a charity with the noble-sounding goals of making people around the world healthier and of slowing global climate change. Running a charity, much less a charity operating in Africa, South America, and other global trouble spots, is complicated work, and the Clintons had no experience. No matter: hundreds of millions of dollars poured in. Donors gave to the foundation itself and to Bill directly for making speeches. Between 2001 and 2012, Bill made $105.5 million in such speeches.
During those 12 years, Hillary served her country, first as senator from New York and later as secretary of state. No one has even come close in recent years to enriching themselves on the scale of the Clintons while . . . a spouse continued to serve in public office, writes Schweizer. As Hillary moved from Capitol Hill to Foggy Bottom, Bills fees went up, especially from governments and business leaders overseasboth prohibited from donating to American candidates or political parties.
Reputable investors shy away from getting involved in places like Nigeria, Russia, Colombia, and Kazakhstan, seeing too much corruption. Not the Clintons. Bill flew around the world making speeches, Schweizer writes. Very often on these trips he was accompanied by close friends . . . who happened to have business interests pending in these countries . . . . Meanwhile, bureaucratic or legislative obstacles were mysteriously cleared or approvals granted with the purview of his wife. The happy ending? Huge donations . . . flowed into the Clinton Foundation while Bill received enormous speaking fees underwritten by the very businessmen who benefited.
Lets take the most egregious example, which New York Times reporters independently verified. In 2009, Rosatom, a state-owned Russian nuclear company, started buying up Uranium One, a Canadian firm that owned significant uranium assets in America, thanks to deals that several longtime Clinton associates from Canada had put together in the early 2000s (another interesting story that Schweizer tells). Uranium is an ingredient in nuclear weapons; Russia buying up American uranium is a big deal for several reasons, one of which is that Moscow provides Iran with nuclear materials and technology. The Rosatom deal required State Department approval, through the secretarys position on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. In 2010, Hillarys State Department helped wave the Russians through. A few years earlier, she had condemned the George W. Bush-era committee for approving the United Arab Emirates purchase of American ports. As Schweizer paraphrases her thinking, there is a significant difference between a private company and a foreign government entity buying American assets.
Follow the money trail to see Hillary evolve from being a hawk to a dove here. Several multimillion-dollar Clinton Foundation donors were at the center of the Uranium One sale, Schweizer writes. Over the years, people involved in the deal had given or would give more than $145 million to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium Ones chairman, Ian Tefler, a Canadian, indirectly gave more than $2 million when Hillary was secretary of state. The Obama administration likely never knew about it, though, despite the Clintons pledge to disclose key foreign donations to the State Department. Tefler, a Canadian, made the donation through Fernwood, his own foundation, but Fernwoods disclosures to Canadian tax authorities dont jibe with those made by the Clinton Foundation.
It gets worse. Between 2010 and 2012, the Clinton Foundation and Bill himself took $2.6 million in donations and a speech fee from Salida Capital Foundation, another Canadian entity. Salida itself had just received a $3.3 million anonymous donation. Schweizer uncovered a subsidiary of Rosatom called Salida Capital. If it were the same firm, Schweizer writes, an entity owned and controlled by Rosatom funneled millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation at the very time Hillary would have been involved in deciding whether to approve Rosatoms purchase of Uranium One.
As Hillarys State Department was deciding whether to approve the deal, Bill showed up in Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin and to give a half-hour speech there, his first in five years. His fee was $500,000, paid by a company called Renaissance Capital. The Clintons told the State Department that RenCap is an investment bank, but they failed to note that, since Putin took over Russia in 2000, RenCap has become populated by former Russian intelligence officers with close ties to Putin, as Schweizer writes. One Putin associate held two jobs from 2006 to 2009: domestic-intelligence officer and RenCap first vice president.
It is hard not to conclude that Hillary Clinton took money from Putins Russian spies just as the State Department that she controlled had a key role in approving Russias purchase of key American nuclear assets. The money just took a circuitous route. The Uranium One deal fails Plunkitts honest graft test. As Schweizer writes, the Russian purchase of a large share of Americas uranium assets raised serious national security concerns.
In 2010, Haiti suffered a catastrophic earthquake. The impoverished nation would require billions in foreign donations to rebuild. Who got himself put in charge of directing those donations? Bill Clinton, as co-chairman of the Interim Haitian Relief Committee. Where would much of the relief money come from? Hillary Clinton, via the U.S. Agency for International Development, a State Department arm. USAID approved cash for a mobile money initiative run by Irelands Digicel, whose owner, Denis OBrien, is a key Clinton patron. Bill and Hillary, directly or indirectly, also approved Haiti contracts for companies controlled by Clinton sponsors in housing reconstruction and economic development. The housing contractors performed poorly. Here, too, its hard to avoid concluding that the Clintons took money out of the hands of Haitian earthquake survivors. The money again took a circuitous route.
From Kazakhstan to Nigeria, from logging endangered forests to exporting gold, the pattern continues: the Clintons side with oligarchs and their favored politicians over powerless people, animals, and trees. In 2005, Bill traveled to Kazakhstan and stood with that countrys dictator, Nursultan Nazarbayev, a human-rights violator. Just before a sham election, Bill gave [Nazarbayev] the international credibility he craved, writes Schweizer. Clinton praised Nazarbayev for opening up the social and political life of your country. The year before, Hillary, as senator, had condemned Nazarbayevs record. But in 2008, she was a no-show for Senate hearings on that record. In between, a friend of Bill who had secured lucrative Kazakh mining concessions began giving the Clinton Foundation tens of millions of dollars.
Schweizers deliberate writing style strengthens his case. Theres no sex and few women. The author relies almost entirely on public documents, from State Department cables via Wikileaks to global tax records to foreign-language press accounts. When he isnt sure of something, he says so. This is no breathless, Clinton-hating book dependent on third-hand speculation. Even Schweizers subtitle is careful: foreign governments and businesses helped make Bill and Hillary rich, he says. They didnt do it all.
Media Matters, a watchdog over conservative causes, has blasted Schweizer for errors. Some are genuine mistakeshe cites as a source a fake press releasebut much of Media Matters criticism dings Schweizer for a key point he preemptively conceded in the book: he cannot prove any explicit quid pro quo, and he cannot prove that Hillary directly intervened in many State Department matters. Media Matters critique depends, too, on a recent interview that ABCs George Stephanopoulos did with Schweizerin which Stephanopoulos failed to disclose that he, too, had donated heavily to the Clinton Foundation.
If, to defend Hillary, you must rely on debating whether the secretary of state indeed has control over the State Department, or, alternatively, if you must whine that Republicans behave badly, too, you have a weak case. With months worth of warning, the Clintons have not answered the overriding question: Why take this money and create even the appearance of a scandal? Do they need the millions that badly?
Hillary, now a presidential candidate, participated in actions that seem little different from the alleged actions that got both the New York State Senate leader and the New York State Assembly leader indicted this yearessentially, bribery. Outside of New York, the abuses of these state officials wont matter much. It matters a lot, however, that the Russians control much of our uranium. That foreign dictators and oligarchs now believe that the American government is biddable matters, too. Ultimately, American voters will have to decide how much. If Americans elect Hillary president, they cant blame her or her husband for continuing to hold them in contempt.
Photo by Steve Pope/Getty Images
BNM anunta concurs pentru postul vacant de expert consultant responsabil de dezvoltarea procesului de raportare catre BNM
Zozan Qerani, 23, a Yazidi Kurd from Iraqs Sinjar region, had just shared with me her medical records, in which a Greek doctor diagnosed her with depression, anxiety, and episodes of conscious psychosis, when she fainted and then started convulsing. This was three weeks ago at a Greek refugee camp. I was talking with Qerani about psychological services for residents when the seizure hit. Later, doctors confirmed that the stress of the interview had likely provoked it.
As the ongoing refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe stretches into its second year, it is nearly impossible to cover the story without talking to sources who are under enormous stress. That often means diagnosing someones fitness to speak safely, a role for which most reporters arent trained.
But if we dont ask people like Qerani to talk frankly, and on the record, then the story of more than 600,000 people estimated to be suffering serious mental trauma, including suicide risk, and the strain theyve placed on medical systems across the continent, quickly becomes impossible to cover. Lacking the kind of eyewitness evidence refugee testimonies provide, theres nothing to report, and editors and readers will tire of the story.
The scope of the mental health problems among refugees is staggering: at least half of the more than 1.2 million new refugees to Europe needed treatment for depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a September study by Germanys Federal Chamber of Psychotherapists.
Faced with a 50 percent chance that a source may be grappling with a stress disorder, reporters covering the refugee crisis face a number of ethical quandaries, foremost the need to consider a sources health, the meaning of consent given by someone grappling with mental anguish, and the accuracy of firsthand accounts from people still traumatized by the events they are describing.
What weve learned about people experiencing trauma is you cant take what they say at face value, Mike Jempson, director of MediaWise, a UK media watchdog that often works with reporters and sources on covering trauma, told me by phone after Id returned from Greece.
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It happens every day, her husband Atoo said matter-of-factly amid her seizure, and Zozan confirmed this later.
In Zozan Qeranis case, I was asking a person diagnosed with a profound stress disorder to talk about the emotional, violent events that caused that stress. I found myself wondering if a reporters standards were enough, or whether my lack of psychological training would cause me to miss something important in the conversation. You cant be sure that what youre hearing is strictly, factually accurate, Jempson says.
Then I had to verify those events, or at least verify that she believed them enough to cause herself harm. Even more than most people, trauma sufferers painful connection to an event can cause them to leave important details out, often without realizing it, even if the subject is not intentionally lying, Jempson says. You either have to not do the interview, or you have to circumscribe what they say.
Consent to share information, and communicating what consent means, is also a common problem for those covering the vast refugee story. In a recent summary of its coverage of the migration story, Covering a Crisis, Magnum Photo devoted a section of the project website to Theory and Practice, discussing the particular challenges of telling these stories. The package quotes the director of Amnesty Internationals program on refugees and migrants, Steve Symonds: Were very cautious at Amnesty to avoid the use of images where we think peopledead or aliveare robbed of their agency and presented merely as victims. It becomes extremely difficult to engage with someone about what the consequences of giving their image or story might be before they have got to a destination, before they have resolved the circumstance that has driven them to be on the move.
In Lesbos, the terms of my interview had been established before beginning. I told them I was writing for TakePart, a website published in Los Angeles. Qerani and her husband Atoo, 28, who translated his wifes Kurdish, are unofficial leaders of a small Yazidi community in a camp of about 900 people. Both had experience speaking to international press, and they knew I intended to ask personal questions, publish their answers, and that a photographer would take pictures of them. They said okay.
Qerani rests as she recovers from her seizure on June 16. (Photo: Maro Kouri)
But I soon had second thoughts. A few minutes into the discussion, Id noticed a four-inch scar on Qeranis wrist, which she had not advertised but also not hidden. She confirmed that it was from a recent suicide attempt. (A doctor familiar with her case, speaking on background, would later confirm the attempt was life-threatening, and not her first.)
Do you stop the interview right there? I felt my questions grow vaguer. But Qerani stuck with it, speaking in detail of her anxiety attacks, and claiming theyd begun after shed witnessed war crimes in northern Iraq, where her Kurdish town fell to ISIS militias in 2014.
Then, about a half hour into the discussion, she fainted, broke into convulsions, wailed wrenchingly, and tried to strangle herself with her own hands, which her husband pried back one finger at a time.
Who decides who is fit to speak to the press? Even after the seizure, which lasted about 15 minutes, she once more confirmed she wanted to be on the record, agreed I could describe the seizure in the story, and let the photographer shoot pictures of the aftermath of the attack.
Later, the photographer and I talked about how to balance Qeranis diagnosis of frequent psychotic breaks with her ability to consent, her own agency and right to make decisions for herself, and the incidents role in the story. Could we leave her out and still report the story?
The value of her story was clear to me. Other than the now nine-month-old German study, which predated the peak of last falls refugee flows through Greece, few health statistics exist for Europes massive refugee community. Swedish research this past March reached conclusions similar to those of the German investigation, and with nothing new to say, generated less press. The lack of data has made firsthand testimonials by sufferers like Zozan Qerani essential to reporting the ongoing story. We decided to use it.
Even with consent, focusing the story on Zozanthe bridge figure approach, in which a single persons dramatic experience is used to capture a broader problemgave me pause.
Even so, it was important to know whether Qerani had really thought through her yes, when I asked permission to publish private details of her medical condition on a website with a monthly readership of about 10 million, in a language she doesnt understand. I was also concerned about the fact that her husband, surely not a disinterested party, had acted as her translator and might have downplayed the potential significance of the interview when asking for her consent.
Concerned that shed regret her decision, I got in touch with the husband Atoo, who speaks English, by instant message. I explained to him once more that I was going to write about Zozans illness and detail the attack wed witnessed.
Atoo said hed check with her again, and later replied that shed said she understood and was fine with it. I had to trust him, and I did. I wrote the story, leading with Qeranis depression after her flight from Iraq.
Even with consent, focusing the story on Zozanthe bridge figure approach, in which a single persons dramatic experience is used to capture a broader problemgave me pause. Explaining the vast PTSD crisis through one persons life has become a trope in coverage of refugees and mental health. Its the only clear way to address a story too serious to ignore, but one that hasnt changed much in the nine months since the landmark German study, and is a tough sell to editors without a dramatic hook.
The risk of relying on the oft-repeated narrative trick of a sympathetic individual is that it can, paradoxically, dehumanize the problem. A fill-in-the-blank anonymous refugee facing depression becomes, rather than a person, a bleak cliche:
Like many other refugees, Mustafa experienced traumatic events before fleeing his homeland of Syria, begins a January Al Jazeera America item datelined Berlin, focusing on an anonymous case. The previous October, Vice focused on an unnamed Kurdish man in a Milan resettlement camp, leading with images of a gruesome hanging archived on his cell phone. A June 8 Guardian story on PTSD diagnosis for refugees led with a generalized list of traumatizing refugee experiencesdrownings off Greece, torture at home, limbo in Europe introducing an anonymous man who speaks in horrible detail of his two children drowning off Turkey.
Those anecdotes, while powerful, are weakened by the vagueness of their sourcing, and all go on to say essentially the same thing: the crisis continues. But to the best of my knowledge, the sources in those stories were also more protected than Zozan Qerani, who went on the record but collapsed.
Is it up to the reporter to decide who is really fit to tell their own story? It happens every day, her husband Atoo said matter-of-factly amid her seizure, and Zozan confirmed this later. But in hindsight, if youd told me what would happen, Id have skipped the interview. Thats not because of guilt. I dont feel guilty. I feel unsure whether Im qualified to judge if the experience of the interview harmed her health.
The migration story continues. Reporters are going to keep encountering people like Zozan Qerani. A one-in-two chance exists that tapping a shoulder in a refugee camp means a reporter blundering untrained into a therapists role. But Im sure my editor would not have liked how hard I tried to dissuade Qeraniwhod offered precisely the story Id flown a long way to get, and felt was important, and already largely writtenfrom letting me use her as a character.
Qeranis collapse became the focus of a 5,000 word feature about a crisis in mental health services for refugees, which included three photographs of her in distress. After writing the story, I contacted the Qeranis again to confirm their participation a third time. Id heard from a photographer still in the camp that Zozan had been involved in a security incident the day after Id left. Shed had another seizure.
Atoo replied quickly: When you write about my wife, think that she represents two or three thousand Yazidi woman, he said, repeating something hed said to me a week earlier at the camp. That wasnt a winning argument, I thought; I wasnt there to advance his cause. I asked him to think it over with Zozan once more, and asked how she was doing.
The husband again asked his wife again for her consent, which she again gave, he IMd back. I trusted their answer, and we published the story. I sent it to him. He wrote back effusively that Zozan liked it.
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The Supreme Court on Thursday placed new limits on state laws that make it a crime for motorists suspected of drunken driving to refuse alcohol tests.
The justices ruled that police must obtain a search warrant before requiring drivers to take blood alcohol tests, but not breath tests, which the court considers less intrusive.
The ruling came in three cases in which drivers challenged so-called implied consent laws in Minnesota and North Dakota as violating the Constitutions ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. State supreme courts had upheld the laws.
While drivers in all 50 states can have their licenses revoked for refusing drunken driving tests, the high courts ruling affects laws in 11 states that go farther in imposing criminal penalties for such refusals.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said breath tests do not implicate significant privacy concerns. Unlike blood tests, breathing into a breathalyzer doesnt pierce the skin or leave a biological sample in the governments possession, he said.
Alito compared blowing into a breath test machine to using a straw to drink beverages, which he called a common practice and one to which few object. He noted that the high court has previously declined to require a warrant for collecting DNA samples by rubbing a swab on the inside of a persons cheek or scraping underneath a persons fingernails to find evidence of a crime.
Six justices agreed with Alitos opinion on breath tests, though Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately to say he would have found both tests valid without a warrant under the Constitution. Thomas called any distinction between breath and blood tests an arbitrary line in the sand.
Other states that have criminalized a drivers refusal to take alcohol blood or breath tests include Alaska, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Nebraska, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia.
In all three cases before the high court, the challengers argued that warrantless searches should be allowed only in extraordinary circumstances. They said routine drunk driving stops count as ordinary law enforcement functions where traditional privacy rights should apply.
State officials called the testing a legitimate condition on the privilege of using state roads. Prosecutors argued that it was too burdensome for police to obtain a warrant every time a driver refused a test because some rural areas have only one judge on call late at night or on weekends.
But during oral argument, some of the justices pointed out that even in rural states police can call a magistrate and get a warrant over the phone in just a few minutes.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wrote a separate opinion saying she would have gone further and required search warrants for both breath and blood alcohol tests. She said said no governmental interest makes it impractical for an officer to get a warrant before measuring a drivers alcohol level.
The Fourth Amendment prohibits such searches without a warrant, unless exigent circumstances exist in a particular case, she said.
The states garnered support from Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which argued that public safety is a compelling reason that justified the laws. But civil liberties groups said states cant criminalize the assertion of a constitutional right.
Adam Vanek, national general counsel for MADD, said his group was pleased that the court recognized public safety concerns far outweigh the minimal privacy concerns when it comes to a breath test. Vanek said the group was hopeful that the courts decision would encourage other states to implement similar laws punishing refusal to take a breath test.
Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
In 2011, the Justice Departments Office of Civil Rights (OCR) issued a Dear Colleague letter to all colleges and universities receiving federal funding, which is most of them. The essence of this letter was to compel the schools to employ a bureaucratic bulldozer against anyone accused of an assault. The stated basis for this mandate from the ORC was Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972.
In May of this year, the OCR, together with the Department of Education, issued another Dear Colleague letter. The topic this time was transgender students. This letter defines gender identity as something based only on the internal sense of the individual, not to be confused with the sex assigned at birth. If a biological male declares that he is actually a female, he must be allowed access to womens showers, womens locker rooms and, of course, womens bathrooms. Separate facilities are not acceptable, and any right to privacy of the vast majority of students is to be subjugated to the rights of any transgender person.
And by what authority was this letter issued? Once again, Title IX.
Here is what Title IX says: No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance... Following this sentence there are a myriad of exceptions.
This statute has nothing to do with assaults or gender identity, and its use is nothing more than a pretext.
Instead of just lighting off fireworks this year, we should dust off and read the Declaration of Independence, as was done in years past, and seek to understand the reasons for celebrating Independence Day. This isnt 1776, but injuries and usurpations by government are not just things of the past, nor is tyranny. We are living under them now.
Though families use the Fourth of July weekend to reconnect at picnics and barbecues, cargo thieves are expected to take advantage of the long three-day weekend by stealing truckloads of nonalcoholic beverages, major appliances and copper. Thats according to CargoNet, a Verisk Analytics business, which analyzed 2012-2015 cargo theft data in the United States and Canada between July 2-July 9 and found those were some of the most popular theft categories.
During that period, 119 incidents were reported with 81 categorized as involving cargo theft. Food and beverage was the primary target of thieves, though household goods and electronics were also popular. Metal theft surged in 2014, but there was just one reported theft of metals in 2015. During the same period, 70 semi-tractors and 64 semi-trailers were reported stolen.
The company estimated $10.63 million in losses between 2012-2015 as a result of cargo theft.
Scott Cornell, a transportation crime and theft specialist with Travelers, explained that food and beverage has been the number one cargo theft commodity since 2010 because its consumable, not easily tracked, easy to sell and not likely to remain in backlog.
Anytime the value is high on anything youre going to see it as a targeted commodity. In addition to that, its very easy to move, explained Cornell.
According to CargoNet, the top four states for cargo theft during the analyzed period were:
California (21) Texas (19) Florida (15) Georgia (15)
High-theft metropolitan areas include Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta and Miami.
Sitting Cargo Vulnerable
Though its widely known that cargo theft spikes during holiday weekends, CargoNet expects this year to be worse since July 4th falls on a Monday. According to the national cargo theft database host, the three day weekend means many trucks will be parked for the entire weekend and remain unchecked until truckers return to them on Tuesday.
An alert issued by FreightWatch International, a logistic securities services firm, noted that holiday weekends pose high risk for manufacturers and logistics-related organizations because unattended shipments combined with the long weekend give cargo crooks ample opportunity to stage crimes.
In 2015, FreightWatch Internationals Supply Chain Intelligence Center recorded an average loss value of $1.1M over the holiday weekend, which it noted was six times higher than the average loss value over the entire year.
As a result of the high value losses associated with it, cargo theft is a primary focus of legislation in a number of states, including Mississippi, New Mexico and Alabama, according to Alan Haskins, director of government affairs for the National Insurance Crime Bureau. In a recent podcast interview with Claims Journal, he said a cargo bill was passed in Alabama and bills expanding existing cargo theft law passed in California and Florida.
According to Cornell, cargo theft falls into two key categories: straight theft and strategic theft.
Straight theft involves a criminal going out and physically stealing cargo at a truck stop or drop lot. Strategic cargo theft methods involve criminals using methods to trick companies into giving them cargo. These methods include using fictitious pickups, double brokering scams, blind shipment scams, false companies and ghost truck methods.
Cornell said the shift to strategic cargo theft has really picked up since 2011.
I can list off 12 to 15 different strategic cargo theft methods, Cornell said.
Thieves are also embracing technology to carry out their crimes.
For example, sniffers and jammers are increasingly being used to thwart covert trackers used by trucking companies.
Over the last year or two weve started to see the use of that technology primarily in the Southeast, said Cornell.
Cyber-related methods are being used on the strategic side of cargo theft, he explained. Criminals may infiltrate databases to get details on future shipments so that they can intercept pickup information.
CargoNet and FreightWatch International compiled a list of noteworthy thefts from prior July 4th holiday weekends:
$2,000,000 of cell phones (Florida)
$1,300,000 of apparel and accessories (Tennessee)
$659,090 in cash and other valuables (Texas)
Fictitious Pickup of Produce (no value reported) (California)
Fictitious Pickup of Cash-in-Transit (no value reported) (Oklahoma)
Full Truckload of Cell Phones, $5,700,000 (Washington)
According to FreightWatch, covert GPS tracking and active monitoring of high-value shipments is recommended, since they offer the most effective way to mitigate in-transit theft and facilitate successful recovery of stolen product.
Cornell recommended that trucking companies have plans in place to monitor cargo during long weekends. He also advised companies to quickly respond and report any incidents to assist in the investigation and potential recovery of stolen cargo.
The longer they have to hide cargo the less chance youre going to have of getting it back, Cornell said.
Peter Mills sees an inconsistency. One arm of the U.S. Department of Transportation is recommending two-person crews be required for freight trains as another plans to spend billions to help develop driverless technology for long-haul trucks.
Anything that tilts the competitive playing field concerns me, said Mills, chief executive officer of Indiana Rail Road. Were very truck-competitive.
The Federal Railroad Administration has proposed the mandate for two operators in many freight-train locomotives, which would lock in an imperative unions have negotiated in contracts. According to rail carriers, it would also prevent them from taking full advantage of systems for remote oversight that theyre installing, at a cost of about $10 billion and on the order of Congress.
There were two crew members in each of the cabs of BNSF Railway Co. trains that collided in Texas on Tuesday. Of the four employees, one was injured, two were killed and one is missing.
Lawmakers passed a law demanding the remote-oversight systems after a 2008 commuter-train accident in California killed 25 people. Once operational, they may allow all locomotives to operate safely with one person in the cab or eventually to be fully automated, said Lance Fritz, CEO of Union Pacific Corp., the largest publicly traded railroad. We should allow technology to take us where it will.
Fritz called it pretty ironic that the government seems to be doing that when it comes to the trucking industry. The National Highway Safety Transportation Administration has embraced autonomous vehicles, including trucks hauling freight, and plans to spend $3.9 billion over a decade to foster the technology.
Reducing Risks
If thats happening in one mode, why are they coming out with the regulation that locks us into two people in the cab? said Ed Hamberger, president of the Association of American Railroads.
The governments support of autonomous technologies is designed to reduce risks across all modes of transportation, said Clark Pettig, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, in an e-mailed response to questions. Our bottom line is ensuring that the people and goods traveling on our nations roads and rails get where theyre going safely.
The last time the U.S. angled the field in favor of trucks with the interstate highway system beginning in the late 1950s the rail industry almost went bust within a couple of decades. Congress rebalanced things with the 1980 Staggers Act, deregulating rail-freight rates and allowing carriers to close unprofitable lines.
Fewer Accidents
The FRA plans to hold public hearings on the proposed regulations on July 15. Many local governments support them. The Georgia Municipal Association said in public comments that mandating two-person crews, with exemptions for smaller railroads, will be an important step to enhance safety along rail lines that go through Georgias cities.
The freight-rail industry contends theres no data linking the numbers of operators in the locomotives with safety. Train accidents have dropped 78 percent since 1980 as carriers have stepped up spending on track maintenance and technology, according to the rail association. During that time, locomotive crew sizes have been whittled down from as much as five.
Many European freight railroads use one-person crews, and Rio Tinto Plc in Australia is experimenting with autonomous trains. Indiana Rail Road, which operates 250 miles of its own track, has run trains with one person since 1997. The single-crew trains have had only one incident with enough damage that required notification to regulators, compared with 26 for two-person crews. If we thought that single-man crews were unsafe, we wouldnt use them, Mills said. Weve proven that theyre not unsafe.
Union Vote
Because Millss company is a small railroad, it would be able to operate with a single operator under the new rules though at a reduced speed. That, Mills said, would negate the benefits of having a smaller crew.
John Risch, national legislative director for the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation union, has a 17-point list of why a freight train shouldnt be helmed by one person. Crews can be called up at odd hours and often work 12-hour shifts, making it important to have someone double-check work and help keep colleagues alert, Risch said, and some functions, such as backing up a train, cant be performed by just one person. Ive worked as an engineer for 30 years and there aint no way Im going out there by myself.
Union Pacifics Fritz said his railroad isnt ready yet to go to one-person crews, though that could change after the carrier begins to operate in 2018 with its $2.9 billion remote safety system. Its not something that railroads can do by fiat, he said. We still will have to negotiate with our labor unions who are represented in the cab.
In 2014, BNSF, owned by Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway Inc., tried to change the locomotive status quo, sealing a deal with labor leaders on one-person crews. Union members overwhelmingly voted it down.
Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.
Attorneys for Cinemark want victims of a 2012 shooting at a Colorado movie theater to pay nearly $700,000 in legal fees after they unsuccessfully sued the theater chain.
The companys lawyers told a judge they need the money to cover the costs of preserving evidence, retrieving and copying records, travel and other expenses, according to court documents filed this month.
A judge didnt immediately rule on the request. But Colorado courts allow the winning side of a court case to recover legal fees.
Jurors in May ruled in Cinemarks favor over 28 victims and their families who argued the nations third-largest theater chain should have done more to prevent the attack that killed 12 people and left more than 70 others injured. They sued in state court, saying security lapses allowed for the July 20, 2012 attack at a midnight premiere of a Batman film.
A judge last week dismissed a similar lawsuit in federal court, saying Cinemarks lack of security was not a substantial factor in the deaths.
In both lawsuits, victims cited a lack of guards and no alarm on an emergency exit door that would have sounded when James Holmes slipped into the crowded theater and started shooting.
Cinemark argued it could not have foreseen the attack, and nothing could have stopped the heavily armed Holmes. Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the state case have said they are considering appealing the verdict.
Holmes is serving a life sentence after a different group of jurors could not unanimously agree on whether he deserved to die.
Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The U.S. government has advised owners of 313,000 recalled Honda and Acura vehicles to replace their Takata Corp.-made airbags immediately after testing showed theres as high as a 50 percent chance of rupture in a crash.
These vehicles, from the 2001 to 2003 model years, have a manufacturing defect that greatly increases the risk of rupture, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a statement. Eight of the 10 U.S. deaths caused by Takata airbags where the inflator breaks apart and sprays metal and plastic shards at vehicle occupants occurred in these models, the regulator said. The high-risk models are part of about 1.1 million vehicles Honda recalled from 2008 to 2011.
These vehicles are unsafe and need to be repaired immediately, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in NHTSAs statement. Folks should not drive these vehicles unless they are going straight to a dealer to have them repaired immediately, free of charge.
Takatas rising death and injury toll raises legal liability risk and complicate the airbag makers search for investors to overcome the biggest recall in the auto industrys history. Honda said earlier this week it was investigating a third fatal rupture in as many months in Malaysia, potentially raising to 15 the number of motorists who have been killed worldwide by Takatas safety devices.
Lab Tests
In laboratory tests, airbag inflators in the Honda models its warning against have rupture rates as high as 50 percent, especially when exposed to heat and humidity, NHTSA said. Takata airbags that dont have the same manufacturing defect ruptured less than 1 percent of the time, according to the agency.
Vehicles in Texas, Florida and the Gulf Coast are most susceptible due to high humidity in those areas, the safety agency said.
The models affected are:
2001-2002 Honda Civic 2001-2002 Honda Accord 2002-2003 Acura TL 2002 Honda CR-V 2002 Honda Odyssey 2003 Acura CL 2003 Honda Pilot
Hondas repair completion rate for the vehicles in the U.S. is more than 70 percent, compared with 99.6 percent in Japan, according to spokeswoman Nao Uzawa. The company doesnt have the data for other markets, she said.
The automaker will continue reaching out to owners by phone and mail and via online marketing as soon as possible, Uzawa said. NHTSA said the agency and Honda are trying to alert owners to avoid further deaths or injuries.
Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.
The Stillaguamish Tribe is fighting off suggestions by the state Attorney Generals Office that it might face liability for the devastating Oso landslide, which wiped out a rural neighborhood and killed 43 people in 2014.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle last week, the tribe said the state has been sending letters arguing the tribe could face liability because of work it performed along the Stillaguamish River where the hillside gave way. The tribe is seeking a ruling from the court that would protect it from having to pay.
Thirty-nine victims, victims estates and residents whose property was damaged have sued the state, Snohomish County and logging company Grandy Lake Forest Associates over the landslide. A three-day mediation session this past week held just after a judge on Monday seriously limited the plaintiffs case failed to yield a settlement.
The state is seeking to have the tribe or its insurers assume at least some of the responsibility for any payout, the tribe said in its complaint. In a letter June 9, the state cited $12 million as a conservative estimate of the amount of damages potentially due to the plaintiffs, the complaint said.
The dispute over the possible liability stems from work the tribe performed to improve salmon habitat by installing a crib wall to help control sediment in that part of the river. The work was done with the help of a $497,000 grant from the state.
The Attorney Generals Office declined to comment on the lawsuit. But according to the tribe, the state is claiming that in the agreement for the funding, the tribe waived its sovereign immunity from lawsuits and said it would indemnify the state against any lawsuits arising from its work.
The Stillaguamish disagree, saying that Pat Stevenson, the tribes environmental manager, had no authority to sign the deal and that even if he had, the waiver of sovereign immunity would only apply to lawsuits brought by the state to enforce the funding agreement not lawsuits from third parties.
The Tribes official records demonstrate that the Tribes Board of Directors passed no resolution delegating authority to anyone to sign the Agreement on the Tribes behalf, the complaint says. There is no evidence of the Board ever considering the Agreement at all. Without a Board resolution approving the Agreement or authorizing anyone to sign it on the Tribes behalf the Tribe could not have waived its inherent sovereign immunity for claims arising out of the Agreement.
The landslide occurred on March 22, 2014, when the river undercut a hillside soaked with heavy winter rains. The plaintiffs have argued that county officials knew about the landslide danger, based partly on a 1999 study that warned of potential catastrophe if not a disaster approaching the magnitude of the 2014 slide. While Snohomish County held a public meeting for local residents in 2006 to advise them about landslide and flooding dangers, it didnt make clear how dire the risk was, they argue.
They have also argued that logging at the top of the slope may have increased the landslide risk.
The defendants have argued that they did nothing to increase the danger of a landslide.
King County Superior Court Judge Roger Rogoff last Monday limited the plaintiffs case against Snohomish County and the state. He ruled that while Snohomish County had no legal duty to warn anyone about the danger, once it voluntarily did so, at the 2006 meeting, it had an obligation to do so responsibly that is, to provide the information in a way that did not make the residents situation worse, such as by suggesting they were safe or giving a false sense of security. Taking the plaintiffs evidence as true, he said, the governments actions may have been negligent.
But only those plaintiffs who were aware of what was said at the meeting and relied on that information have viable claims, the judge ruled. Attorneys for Snohomish County have argued that just a handful of the plaintiffs or victims in the case attended the meeting or learned of what was presented during it.
Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
AKRON, Ohio - An Akron woman has been arrested and charged after she drove her car into Summit Lake with her young daughter inside, police said.
Dee'Andra McGhee, 24, is charged with attempted murder, child endangering and criminal damaging, Akron police said Tuesday. She remains in Summit County Jail.
Akron police responded about 6 p.m. Monday to the 1500 block of Manchester Road. Officers said McGhee put her 2-year-old daughter into her 2007 Chevy Cobalt and drove into Summit Lake in an attempted suicide.
Two bystanders jumped into the lake and rescued the mother and daughter, police said. McGhee and her daughter were taken to the hospital for treatment for non-life-threatening injuries.
McGhee was released and taken to jail. The toddler is currently in the custody of a family member, police said.
McGhee is scheduled to appear for arraignment 9 a.m. Wednesday in Akron Municipal Court, court records show.
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The Lorain County prosecutor will decide whether charges will be filed against an Avon hotel clerk who led police to arrest an Emirati man last week.
(File photo)
AVON, Ohio -- The Lorain County Prosecutor's Office will decide whether to file charges against an Avon hotel clerk whose family called police on an Emirati businessman last week.
A decision could come by the end of the week, Avon police Lt. Dan Fischbach said Tuesday.
Alexis Silva, 22, of Lorain told police Wednesday that Ahmed Almenhali of The United Arab Emirates "freaked her out" at the Fairfield Inn and Suites on Colorado Avenue.
Officers responding to 911 calls from Silva's father and sister about "a male in a headdress with multiple disposable phones was pledging his allegiance to ISIS" wrestled the man to the ground and handcuffed him outside the hotel.
Silva told police Almenhali never mentioned ISIS after the arrest.
Almenhali was undergoing stroke treatment at Cleveland Clinic and was trying to check into the hotel, according to police.
He grabbed his head and collapsed to the ground after the arrest. Emergency medical technicians who were already on scene rushed him to a nearby hospital.
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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A national wave of Islamophobia stoked by Donald Trump and Republican leaders came to a head last week when armed Avon police wrestled an Emirati businessman to the ground after a hotel clerk thought he was a terrorist, local Muslim leaders said.
The incident happened less than two weeks from the start of the Republican National Convention in nearby Cleveland.
"A lot of this hysteria is from the national elections; this is the mantra coming from Trump," Palestinian community spokesman Abbas Hamideh said Tuesday.
Police tackled and handcuffed Ahmed Almenhali of The United Arab Emirates at the Fairfield Inn and Suites on Colorado Avenue last Wednesday.
They were responding to calls from a hotel clerk's father and 17-year-old sister. The sister told a dispatcher that the clerk sent a text message that "a male in a headdress with multiple disposable phones was pledging his allegiance to ISIS" and to call police.
The clerk, 22-year-old Alex Silva, of Lorain, told police after the arrest that the man never mentioned ISIS. The Lorain County Prosecutor's office will decide whether to file charges against her.
Almenhali was undergoing stroke treatment at Cleveland Clinic and was trying to check into a room.
The incident prompted the The United Arab Emirates on Sunday to warn its citizens against wearing traditional garments when traveling abroad.
"She didn't hear anything about ISIS," Amir Khalid A-Samad, CEO of the Islamic Shura Council of Cleveland said. "She made that up because she heard those voices of division, racism, polarization and demagoguery that will be coming here in the next two weeks."
Julia Shearson, Executive Director of the Cleveland Chapter of CAIR-Ohio Muslim-American community group, called the RNC a "$50 million festival of hate."
"They should have turned their backs to this and not allowed this to happen in the city of Cleveland; to have people coming here with a plank that is going to say we are going to ban Muslims from coming here to America," Shearson said. "This is out of control and we as a community need to say enough is enough."
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Avon police officers used "excessive" force when they pointed assault rifles at an Emeriti businessman and tackled him to the ground after receiving calls about a man pledging allegiance to ISIS, a policing expert said.
(Patrick Cooley, cleveland.com)
AVON, Ohio -- Law enforcement experts are mixed on whether Avon police officers acted reasonably when they approached an Emirati businessman with their guns drawn after receiving calls that the man pledged allegiance to ISIS in a hotel lobby.
But the three experts contacted by cleveland.com agreed that had 911 call-takers sought more information or even tried to call the hotel to confirm the second-hand information, the entire encounter and the international scrutiny that followed could have been avoided.
"The on-the-ground perspective from calling the hotel could have been invaluable here," said Seth Stoughton, a former police officer and professor of law at the University of South Carolina.
The dispatcher, who identified himself as a sergeant, didn't ask two 911 callers if the man had a weapon before officers stormed toward Ahmed Almenhali of The United Arab Emirates outside the Fairfield Inn and Suites last Wednesday.
911 Avon police
The officers were responding to calls from the father and 17-year-old sister of the clerk working the front desk. The sister told a dispatcher that the clerk sent her a text message that "a male in a headdress with multiple disposable phones was pledging his allegiance to ISIS" and to call police.
The clerk, 22-year-old Alex Silva, of Lorain, told police after the arrest that the man never mentioned ISIS. Silva told her sister that she was concerned "because of everything that's going on with ISIS," Silva said in an interview with police that was captured by a body camera.
The Lorain County Prosecutor's office will decide whether to file charges against Silva.
Police Policy Studies Council executive director Thomas Aveni said that the 911 call-taker should have asked the callers if the man was armed. The same goes for the first officers who arrived at the hotel.
"Police had second- or third-hand information that wasn't credible, and there was no mention of a weapon," said Aveni, a use-of-force expert who has studied the issue for more than two decades. "With that type of information, their response was extreme."
Julia Shearson, executive director of the Cleveland Chapter of the Muslim-American community organization CAIR-Ohio, agreed.
"If he had moved improperly, he probably would have been killed," Shearson said. "There were at least five fully loaded assault rifles pointed directly at him."
Stoughton said he couldn't fully evaluate the response because Avon police have not released the full body camera video that starts when officers first approached Almenhali or the recorded dispatch tapes between 911 call takers, police dispatchers and police officers.
But, based on what has been released, Stoughton said the call-taker should have asked a few pointed questions to the caller to see whether the man was actually pledging allegiance to ISIS or just speaking Arabic.
Further, the call-taker or dispatchers could have tried to call the hotel and talk to Silva or another employee to get more detailed information about the man's behavior, Stoughton said.
Jerry Staton, a former SWAT police officer who now runs a police training firm in Austin, Texas and is an expert witness in use-of-force cases, said the officers' response was "totally reasonable."
Fischbach could not provide a written policy.
The incident also hits on the bigger issue where immigration politics, civil rights and policing collide.
Almenhali identified himself in broken English as a tourist as police handcuffed him on the ground. As a result of the encounter, the UAE warned its citizens Sunday against wearing the traditional Middle-Eastern garb if they traveled abroad, because it could make them a target of the heightened suspicion in the wake of high-profile terrorist attacks waged in the name of ISIS.
Police agencies must consider that someone who dressed like Almenhali is likely to elicit more calls for suspicious activity than a man in a business suit when deciding how to respond to a call for suspicious activity, Stoughton said.
Much like calls police receive to report a young black male walking in an upper-middle-class white neighborhood as "suspicious," it's a police department's job to determine that the subject of a 911 call is actually behaving suspiciously before police get involved, Stoughton said.
And that issue underscores the importance of a call-taker's role in shaping how police respond to an incident, Stoughton said.
"I have no doubt that the clerk and her family honestly viewed this individual as suspicious in some way," Stoughton said. "But isn't it the job of the police to be able to assess that view and respond appropriately?"
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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- When downtown Cleveland was picked two years ago as the site for the Republican National Convention, many predicted that downtown businesses would be forced by the Secret Service to shut down, or limited to vital personnel only.
That's not quite how it's playing out.
In fact, no large employers in downtown Cleveland have been told they must limit their workforce during the week of the convention, which starts July 18.
However, because of numerous road closures, security perimeters, congestion from 50,000 visitors and possible unrest, many major employers have encouraged their employees to work at home that week or, even better, take a vacation.
At KeyCorp, one of the nation's 20 largest banks with its corporate headquarters in downtown, the company started planning months ago for alternate arrangements for its 2,400 downtown employees in case the bank was required to limit workers or if the company just wanted to make life easier for the staff.
Its downtown offices and branches sprinkle the security perimeter. But all will be open as usual during the convention, said spokeswoman Drez Jennings. Some downtown employees are based out of Key Tower on the northern side of Public Square; others are based out of the Higbee building. It also has branches at Tower City and Key Tower.
"Given anticipated traffic congestion and limited parking, Key started connecting with employees on ways to limit the convention's impact on their daily routines," Jennings said. Employees have worked with the managers to decide where they'll work that week -- downtown, from home or another Key location outside of downtown. Key has a large facility at Tiedeman and 480, as well as nearly 100 branches in Greater Cleveland and Akron.
"We are working with employees to be sure they have an alternate work site," Jennings said. "Employees are able to work from home or other alternate locations."
About 60 percent of the downtown employees will work at alternative locations that week, she said.
Arrangements haven't been quite as easy at Medical Mutual of Ohio. The health insurer has about 1,000 employees at its downtown office, which is on the northern border of the security perimeter, at E. 9th and Prospect.
Because many employees may deal with or have access to customers' health insurance records, the company can't allow employees to work just anywhere. Most employees can work only on secure, company-issued computers. About 540 people, or 53 percent of downtown workers, have company-issued laptops and can work at home that week with approval from their manager, said spokesman Don Olson.
Like other companies, Medical Mutual long ago encouraged people to schedule vacations during that week. But for those who aren't off and can't work at home, the company is making special arrangements, Olson said.
One of the garages used by Medical Mutual employees, Gateway East, will be off-limits that week. The other will have restricted access because large sections of E. 9th St. will be closed. To combat the traffic and parking headaches, Medical Mutual has arranged to shuttle employees from locations in Beachwood and Strongsville. There are five staggered departure times in the morning from each location. Same thing with return trips in the afternoon. So far, about 135 workers have signed up for the shuttles.
In addition, if employees choose to take public transportation that week, Medical Mutual will reimburse them, Olson said. For those workers who normally park at the Gateway East garage, the garage is providing parking at the Municipal Lot on the Shoreway at no cost, and will be running trollies to the Gateway area.
Huntington Bank also has a regional headquarters and operations in the heart of the RNC madness, with its regional office on Public Square and two branches, at Public Square and E. 9th St. and Euclid.
The offices and branches will be open for business as usual, said spokesman Brent Wilder. When possible, the company's 200 downtown employees will be allowed to adjust their schedules to avoid traffic. In other cases, "workers who can work remotely can do so, but it won't be required," he said, adding that there were "definitely no limitations imposed on us by the government."
Both of the downtown branches, however, are expected to close a little early, since much of the RNC activity will be in the evening. The hours haven't yet been determined; ATMs will still be open 24 hours.
Sherwin-Williams Co.'s corporate headquarters is on West Prospect, on the western security perimeter, just across from Quicken Loans Arena. Some employees will be working at the headquarters office, others will work from other Sherwin-Williams locations and still others will work from home that week, said spokesman Mike Conway.
The story is much the same at Fifth Third Bank. The Cincinnati-based bank has its regional headquarters on Superior Avenue -- a couple of blocks north of the security perimeter, but in the heart of the mess because it's right in between Quicken Loans Arena and the Huntington Convention Center.
Some of Fifth Third's 150 downtown employees will work that week from branches or training facilities, said spokeswoman Laura Passerallo. In addition, the downtown branch will close at 1 p.m. every day that week.
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Ohio and most counties in Northeast Ohio create new businesses at a rate below the national average, according to a recent report by the Economic Innovation Group or EIG, a think tank based in Washington, D.C.
(Jo Ellen Corrigan, The Plain Dealer)
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Ohio's and Northeast Ohio's rate for creating new businesses during the recovery has been below the national average, according to a recent analysis by a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
The analysis was conducted by Economic Innovation Group, or EIG, and was based on government data. Perhaps even more troubling is that the rate of business formation in the U.S. during the first five full years of the recovery - 2010 to 2014 - has also been dismal. (The Great Recession ran from December 2007 to June 2009.) The formation of new business establishments helps foster job growth.
Here is a glance at new business formation rates between 2010 and 2014:
In the U.S. the business formation rate was -0.5 percent
In Ohio it was -1.8 percent
In Northeast Ohio it was -0.9 percent. This ranged from a high of 1.1 percent in Portage County to a low of -2.3 percent in Lake Count.
The EIG data -- taken from the organization's recent report, "The New Map of Economic Growth and Recovery" -- compares new business formation and job creation during this recovery with that of the two previous recoveries. The recovery periods covered are 2002 to 2006 and 1992 to 1996.
"Hundreds of thousands of new businesses are missing from this economic recovery, which has seen just a 165,000 net rise in new establishments, compared to approximately 400,000 in past recoveries during the 1990s and 2000s," states an EIG release. "The collapse is not due to a spike in business closures but a steep fall-off in the creation of new startups across wide swathes of the country--most notably outside a handful of major metropolitan centers."
John Lettieri, EIG co-founder and senior director for policy and strategy, said new business formation and employment gains have also been far more concentrated geographically during this recovery than they had been during the previous ones. The Midwest has all but been left out.
"Only 20 counties accounted for half of all new businesses and 73 counties produced half the net increase in jobs in the 2010s," he said.
Lettieri said 17 of those 20 counties were in Texas, Florida and New York. Only one - Cook County, Illinois -- was in the Midwest.
The report uses the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau's County Business Patterns program. The EIG report also includes population by county during all three recoveries to show whether changes in population could have potentially influenced new business creation.
Lettieri said there is a reason new business, or establishment, growth has lagged in this recovery when contrasted with the two previous recoveries.
"Millennials are the least entrepreneurial of the preceding generations," he said. "Student loan debt could be one of the things holding back them back."
There are other factors as well. Small-business owners often rely on the equity in their homes to help in financing startups. The fallout from the housing crisis, which has included high foreclosure rates, diminished housing values and upside down mortgages, has lessened the opportunity for doing so.
The Great Recession caused many Millennials, even those who are educated, to get a late start landing a decent or good-paying job, thereby making it difficult for them to save to start a business. Additionally, many experienced workers, who were laid off during the recession, have only been able to find jobs paying less than what they previously made. This has made it difficult for them to get funding to launch a business.
Lettieri offered detailed information about how Cuyahoga County has fared during the current and two previous recoveries.
From 2010-2014, Cuyahoga saw a 5.6 percent increase in employment, but a -1.9 percent change in new business establishments.
From 2002-2006, Cuyahoga saw both negative employment (-1.7 percent) and new business creation growth (-2 percent). The county experienced a 4 percent decrease in population.
From 1992-1996, Cuyahoga saw a 4.6 increase in employment and a 2 percent increase in new business establishments.
For Lettieri, the contrast between the growth rate of new business establishments in the 1990s recovery with what occurred in the two recoveries this century is disquieting.
"The mid-2000s downturn hit Cuyahoga County hard," he said. "I would argue that Cuyahoga hadn't recovered (from the early 2000s recession), when the Great Recession occurred."
Most of Northeast Ohio has also been struggling, according to the EIG analysis. Portage was the only county to have a new business growth rate above the national average. Portage, at 1.1 percent, along with Medina, at 0.3 percent, and Geauga, at 0.1 percent, were the only local counties not to post negative job growth rates.
Northeast Ohio isn't alone in its new business creation struggle.
"The U.S. is entering an era in which growing geographic disparities and a missing generation of new enterprises could threaten access to opportunity for millions of Americans," Lettieri said.
Plain Dealer Reporter Jo Ellen Corrigan contributed to this article.
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Chefs Jonathon Sawyer and Ashley Pado at the "Chopped Grill Masters" watch party at Greenhouse Tavern Tuesday.
(Laura DeMarco, The Plain Dealer)
CLEVELAND, Ohio - "If I leave a champion, I'm going to cartwheel all the way back to Cleveland."
Let the cartwheeling begin.
Cleveland chef Jonathon Sawyer was the winner on the Food Network's "Chopped Grill Masters Napa" premiere episode Tuesday.
Sawyer competed against chef Bryan Moscatello (Napa, California), chef Chad Rosenthal (Philadelphia) and chef Ashley Pado (Wooster, Ohio) on "Grill Masters' " premiere episode. The judges were chefs Michael Chiarello, Amanda Freitag and Marc Murphy.
"Chopped Grill Masters Napa," hosted by Ted Allen, was filmed outdoors in the Beringer Vineyards in Napa Valley. Each chef had access to an outdoor kitchen of ingredients, charcoal and propane grills, as well as a smoker.
Both Sawyer and Pado, an executive chef at Certified Angus Beef in Wooster, watched the show with about 100 fans at a party at Sawyer's Greenhouse Tavern on East Fourth Street Tuesday night. Attendees were treated to cocktails from Columbus' Watershed Distillery and brews from Cleveland's new Goldhorn Brewery and Platform Brewery, along with small plates inspired by the dishes Sawyer created on the show.
"It seems like Cleveland can't lose this summer," said Sawyer near the beginning of Tuesday's episode. He was right. Sawyer was triumphant through three rounds that saw him making Agave Wood-Fired Octopus with Pork and Fruit Pop Salsa Verde; Oaxacan Block Party Veal Chop; and Hot and Spicy Pineapple with Cannoli Cream and Almond Crumble.
Pado only made it to the second round, but judges were kind in her disqualification.
"We're very impressed with your work; you clearly have a great future in front of you," said Freitag.
It was a stellar night for the young chef from Wooster who extolled the virtues of "beef and butchery" for other young female chefs. She received a rousing round of applause from the audience -- and a proposal on bended knee from her boyfriend.
Sawyer's final triumph came over chef Chad Rosenthal of Philadelphia. Using the basket ingredients of honey gelato cones, petimezi, pineapple and Anaheim chiles, he created a crunchy pineapple dish he described as a "high-class cereal."
The judges loved it.
"He has that mad scientist way about him, he's an artist," said Freitag of Sawyer in their final choice of the winner.
Tuesday wasn't the conclusion of "Chopped Grill Masters" for the 2015 winner of the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef Great Lakes.
Sawyer will compete again in the finals of the five-part themed tournament on Tuesday, Aug. 2, for a grand prize of $50,000. He won $10,000 on Tuesday's episode, filmed last September.
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Bill Wills of WTAM 1100 and I talk about what beers to bring to Blossom Music Center (shown), what to drink when you're out of town, and Crack One Open, which this week is on a special 12-pack from Sierra Nevada.
(Goldfarb Weber Creative Media)
WTAM's Bill Wills and I chat about beer each week, and we're never at a shortage of topics.
This week we discuss tips on bringing beer to Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls to hear the Cleveland Orchestra. (Think: Cans, lower-alcohol brews, and don't forget water.)
If you're traveling this summer, there's no better way to gauge how good the breweries in Northeast Ohio are than by trying craft beer in out-of-town cities. Drink indigenously!
This week, our Crack One Open features Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.'s Beer Camp, a tasty assortment from the California brewery. It's crafted in conjunction with regional collaborations throughout the country.
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Santa Claus and an array of festive lights and events, will welcome visitors to the Akron Zoo during the holidays.
(Akron Zoo )
AKRON, Ohio - The Akron Zoo will have an extensive holiday light display this year after a 16-year hiatus.
Wild Lights will run from 6 to 9 p.m. on Nov. 25-27, Dec. 2-4, 9-11, 16-18, 22-23 and 26-30.
Nearly the entire zoo will be decorated with a mix of lighted wildlife and traditional holiday displays, officials said.
The event will include:
A light show focused on animals near the zoo's carousel.
Santa Land, where people can visit with Santa and have their pictures taken.
A S'mores station.
Up-close animal encounters.
Dinner at the zoo's restaurant.
Many of the zoo animals on exhibit.
On the nights that the zoo is open for Wild Lights it will be closed during the day. Regular winter hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
"We are excited to bring this event back to our community and foster memorable experiences for families, as well as educate and inspire people to take an active role in conservation," zoo president Doug Piekarz, said in a statement. "We are fulfilling the request from our community to bring this event back, some of whom came as kids and now wish to bring their kids to Wild Lights."
The zoo had hosted Holidays Lights from 1987 to 2000 and decorated the zoo with a half a million lights. More than 300,000 people visited the event during the 14 years.
The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo offered ZooLights from 1990 to 2005. Zoo officials decided to cancel the event because it lost money and never drew the hoped-for crowds. Officials also said weather affected attendance.
General admission for the Akron Zoo's Wild Lights will be $15 for adults and $10 for children. Akron Zoo members will pay $12 for adults and children are $9.
Discounted admission and early entrance at 5:00 p.m. is available for those who buy tickets in advance: General admission will be $12 for adults and $9 for children. Akron Zoo member advance purchased tickets will be $9 for adults and $8 for children.
The zoo is also offering companies the opportunity to host their holiday party during Wild Lights. Companies can rent out the entire zoo on an evening when Wild Lights is not open to the public, or people can choose to have a smaller party at the zoo during the event. For more information about hosting a party at the zoo call 330-375-2550 ext. 7251.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A 31-year-old shot in a drive-by Tuesday crashed his car into an East Side church before he died, police aid.
Maurio Ayers, 31, of Cleveland died in the shooting that happened about 8:40 p.m. in the 900 block of Thornhill Drive, the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office said.
Ayers drove to a 38-year-old man's home and parked on the street, according to police. The two men knew each other, police said.
The 38-year-old man was on his porch when a dark colored vehicle with three people inside pulled up and fired several shots at Ayers, according to police.
One bullet hit Ayers in the chest and another hit the 38-year-old in the foot.
Ayers tried to drive off after being shot. He hit a car stopped at a traffic light at Thornhill and Arlington Avenue.
He kept driving, hit a utility pole across Arlington and eventually crashed into the side steps at the Historic Greater Friendship Baptist Church, according to police. Ayers was taken to University Hospitals, where he died.
Cleveland homicide detectives are investigating the shooting. No arrests have been made.
The crash caused minor damage to the steps, which a church maintenance worker said had been re-built about two years ago. Glass and other debris from the car still lined the sidewalk leading up to the stairs on Wednesday morning.
A 31-year-old man crashed into the Historic Greater Friendship Baptist Church after being shot in the chest.
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Cleveland City Hall in Cleveland
Cleveland city officials on Tuesday made the case for a proposed income tax increase.
(Plain Dealer file photo)
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Improved programs for senior citizens, a comprehensive violence prevention strategy and more housing inspections are just a few of the enhanced services that Cleveland officials say the city could afford if a proposed municipal income tax increase comes to pass.
Officials on Tuesday made their pitch to members of City Council, outlining each city department's "wish list" and making the case for just how far the extra $83.5 million annually could go.
Mayor Frank Jackson announced in February that he would seek a tax increase from 2 to 2.5 percent to plug a multi-million dollar shortfall in the city's budget next year, improve city services and pay for reforms to the city's police department. Council immediately introduced legislation to put the tax increase on the ballot, though it's unclear if voters would decide the issue in November or next May.
Council members have said they have mixed feelings about the increase, and some expressed those reservations Tuesday, at the first of two hearings scheduled on the proposal.
Here are some of the highlights from the hearing, which is set to continue at 1 p.m. Wednesday:
How did the city get to this point?
Jackson is calling for the tax hike, in part, to make up for $111 million in state cuts to local governments since 2011.
And Finance Director Sharon Dumas painted a grim picture of the city's financial outlook Tuesday.
State policy has ravaged local governments, redirecting money to a state surplus from the cities that need it most. Cleveland has lost $30 million a year in local government funding since before the recession took hold in 2008. And the city has lost millions more with the abolition of the tangible personal property tax, commercial activity tax and estate tax.
Budget projections for 2016 show the city barely breaking even, with a little more than $722,000 in the coffers by year's end. Services already are cut to the bone, vital city jobs have gone unfilled to save money, and ever-increasing expenses leave nothing to carry over toward an expected shortfall in 2017.
Among the new expenses this year in the city's $566.7 million budget are newly negotiated union wages and retroactive pay increases and healthcare coverage. Dumas, however, gave the unions credit Tuesday for agreeing to 10 unpaid days and "conservative bargaining that will allow the city to operate effectively without losing more employees."
The city also has been responsible for upfront costs of hosting the Republican National Convention later this month, and the daunting $11 million first-year expenses of the consent decree governing police use of force.
What's on the wish list?
Jackson has said he expects the income tax increase to improve services -- not just maintain the status quo.
Toward that end, Community Relations Director Blaine Griffin told members of council that he hopes for $263,000 of the new revenue to fund several positions - a grant writer, project coordinator, crisis intervention specialists and an outreach worker proficient in multiple languages - to work on the city's newly drafted comprehensive youth violence prevention strategy.
Director of Aging Jane Fumich said an additional $252,000 would greatly serve the city's 69,000 senior citizens - 22 percent of whom are living at or below the poverty line. Hiring a new administrative manager and program coordinator would improve the city's home repair, bed bug assistance and lawnmowing programs for seniors, and an additional social worker would ensure more people get the help they need to remain safely in their homes as they age, she said.
The department also would seek to hire a full-time grant writer. Currently, Fumich said, she and her staffers trade off grant writing responsibilities while tending to their other full-time work.
Building and Housing Director Ronald O'Leary said his department would request nearly $2 million to hire more personnel, including 13 residential building inspectors to focus on rental properties, with an eye toward identifying and remediating lead paint hazards.
When the special team of inspectors identifies peeling paint in rental units, they would automatically assume it contains lead, O'Leary said. The owner then would have to fix the problem and hire a private inspector to give the property a "lead maintenance certificate," stating that it is being maintained in a lead-safe manner, he said.
O'Leary said he would also hire more electrical safety inspectors, plumbing inspectors, elevator inspectors and a number of support staff, to perform the clerical and legal functions currently handled by the inspectors, themselves. The net effect: more predictable follow-up inspections on violations, speedier board-ups and an increase in cases filed in housing court for prosecution, he said.
But council members, who have long accused the understaffed Building and Housing Department of letting blight fester in the city, were skeptical.
Councilman Michael Polensek said the number one complaint of residents in his ward is building and housing code enforcement. He complained that the department's wish list doesn't suggest that additional residential inspectors will be added to the wards.
O'Leary said that beefing up the staff in general will allow the inspectors assigned to the wards to be more productive.
But Polensek said he wants guarantees.
"When you're riding through these wards, it's in your face," Polensek said. "The condition of the housing stock is disintegrating out there. And these slum landlords have destroyed our neighborhoods. ... I personally don't believe this is on the administration's radar screen - basic code enforcement. If it were, we wouldn't see what I see every day in this city."
Joshua Mascol
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Huron man is charged in connection with the fatal shooting of a Marine veteran during a drug deal at a downtown hotel.
Jack King, 52, is charged with aggravated murder. A warrant was issued Tuesday for his arrest.
King is the second person to be charged in Joshua Mascol's death. Donald Nemeth, the brother of WWE wrestler Dolph Ziggler, was arrested in May and charged with aggravated murder.
The shooting happened Jan. 23 at the University Hotel and Suites on Euclid Avenue.
King and Nemeth met Mascol, 34, at the hotel to complete a drug deal, court records say.
Nemeth tried to rob Mascol and the two fought. Nemeth pulled out a gun and shot Mascol three times. Paramedics found Mascol shot in a seventh-floor hallway.
Cleveland police in February released surveillance photos hoping to identify the two assailants.
Police obtained an arrest warrant charging Nemeth April 26. He was arrested two days later. A grand jury indicted him May 6 on charges of aggravated murder, felonious assault and kidnapping. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
King spent one year in prison after pleading guilty to having sex with a 14-year-old girl at her home in Berea.
King, who was 35 at the time, had sex with the girl. The girl's mother walked into the home and caught the two. King ran from the home naked and was arrested by police at the home.
King pleaded guilty to corrupting a minor in that case and was adjudicated a sexually oriented offender. He had to report his address to the county sheriff for 10 years following his conviction.
He was also convicted of robbing someone with a shotgun in 1987. He was sentenced to serve between eight and 28 years in prison.
To comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comments section.
The new iPhones will start at 32GB, not 16GB, The Wall Street Journal reported. Google parent Alphabet, which owns Apple's rival Android platform, saw its shares dip very briefly after hours.
Check out the companies making headlines after the bell Tuesday:
Shares of Comcast slid after the company announced Xfinity's top-watched On Demand programming for the week ending June 26. HBO's "Game of Thrones" topped the list, the company said in a release. It came after reports that Netflix would be coming to Comcast's set-top box.
Energy companies like Diamond Offshore stumbled after U.S. oil settled nearly 5 percent lower. Worries that Britain's exit from the European Union would slow the global economy, paired with persistent signs of abundant supply, weighed on oil, Reuters reported.
Starbucks shares inched higher in light volume, recovering the day's losses after the company announced that it had inadvertently instituted an up to 30 cent price hike earlier than expected. The company has since repaired the glitch.
Tesla Motors shares fell slightly in light volume after a report of a Tesla Model X that crashed in Autopilot mode. The Pennsylvania Turnpike accident came after regulators issued a report on a fatal crash involving Tesla's self-driving setting.
Disclosure: Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC and CNBC.com.
An employee at a research lab at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research campus in Shanghai, China.
China has revised up the size of the world's second-largest economy by adding research and development (R&D) spending into its calculations for gross domestic product, the statistics bureau said on Tuesday.
The move will help bring China's calculations for the value of its goods and services more in line with global standards set by the United Nations and other world organizations, amid widespread investor skepticism about the accuracy of the country's official data.
The new method has increased the value of GDP but has only slightly affected annual growth rates, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on its website. Growth for 2015 was amended marginally, but basically remained at 6.9 percent, the slowest in a quarter of a century.
The value of 2015 GDP was revised up by 1.3 percent to 68.55 trillion yuan ($10.3 trillion) from the previously announced 67.67 trillion yuan, the bureau said.
"Rapid growth of R&D spending and activities have played an increasingly important role in promoting economic growth, but the traditional accounting method cannot fully reflect such an impact," the bureau said.
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Sometimes all it takes is a scary stock rotation to fuel a rally, Jim Cramer says. "When money is flowing into stocks, with the mutual funds buying in endless waves and the hedge funds desperate to own stocks rather than shorting them, then you're in the land of the thousand bull dances and you don't have to worry about where the fuel for a rally is going to come from," the "Mad Money" host said.
When no money is flowing into the market, that is when powerful moves in stocks and sectors can occur, Cramer said. This is because when investors are reluctant to invest, money will be pulled out of the least exciting groups of stocks and rotate into sexier names with more lift. But here is the problem with rotations: without new money flowing in, gains often become zero-sum and will run out of fuel. The leaders will run out of steam with nothing to drive them higher. That is when the worst possible rally can occur a rally in the wrong stocks. These "wrong stocks" names are those that signal a slowdown or recession. Areas like food and drug stocks become the new market leaders. "You never really want to see any of the consumer staples roaring higher in a sustained advance because it means people think the economy's going to either get worse or simply stay in awful shape for a long time to come," Cramer said. Cramer considers seeing a stock like Altria , PepsiCo or General Mills spark a powerful rally one of the most horrifying things in the stock market. Often that can cause an immense amount of damage, unless there are vast sums of money coming in from the sidelines.
Thomas Barwick | Getty Images
One of the worst myths out there, according to Cramer, is that the market is always rational and makes sense. This is not true. On any given day, the market can be totally wacky for reasons that do not make sense. Sometimes stocks go up when they should have gone down, and sometimes entire sectors move for ridiculous reasons.
"Never assume that just because something happened it has to make sense because the market is always supposed to make sense. That's nonsense," Cramer added. So, when everything in the market or in a particular sector goes down, instead of assuming that the issue pertains to the fundamentals of the underlying company, Cramer suggested to ask yourself if it could have been caused by an out of control hedge fund or Wall Street money management. Then realize that the market's irrationality can be your opportunity to profit.
Cramer's motto in a downturn is to buy broken stocks, not broken companies. When there are huge losses on the market, he said, investors have the opportunity to buy good companies with stocks that have taken a beating because of the market. There is a huge difference between a broken company and a broken stock, and being able to thrive in a sell-off requires knowing the difference. That is why Cramer said the first thing to do amid a market-wide sell-off is look at the companies that caused it. They are probably broken. "If you're looking at a company that is part of the reason for a correction, you're looking at a broken company. Those are directly in the blast zone and certain to be obliterated," the "Mad Money" host said.
BernardaSv | Getty Images
"If you're looking at a company that is part of the reason for a correction, you're looking at a broken company. Those are directly in the blast zone and certain to be obliterated," the " Mad Money " host said.
That is why Cramer said the first thing to do amid a market-wide sell-off is look at the companies that caused it. They are probably broken.
There is a huge difference between a broken company and a broken stock, and being able to thrive in a sell-off requires knowing the difference.
When there are huge losses on the market, he said, investors have the opportunity to buy good companies with stocks that have taken a beating because of the market.
For instance, in 2007, there were multiple sell-offs related to a weak real estate market and tons of bad subprime and regular loans. Anything that touched housing, mortgages or any kind of lending would have been considered a broken company.
Cramer also reminded investors that a company does not break just because its stock goes lower. Investors saw this in 2012 when domestic companies were brought down just because of turmoil in Europe. How could a Mexican restaurant chain like Chipotle take a hit because of Italian bonds? It happened.
Stocks like Chipotle went down because all stocks were going down at the time, not because it had a connection to the sell-off.
"To put it another way, you don't want to buy the stocks that are leading the decline when you're looking for opportunity in a sell-off. You want to look for stocks in areas that are independent of what's ailing the market," Cramer said.
Once a company breaks, it is very difficult to put it back together again. The same goes for sectors, which control half of a stock's movement.
So, in a sell-off, some stocks will have a clear reason for going lower, and others will just be sold off with everything else. The first stocks to be sold will be the broken companies which Cramer said to avoid at all costs and the second group will be broken stocks. Those are the stocks to gobble up quickly.
After those steps are covered, it's time to get into the nitty gritty of the specific types of stocks that Cramer scoops up during a downturn. The good news is that the more brutal the sell-off is, the more attractive these stocks will look.
"A correction is just a megasale on stocks, no different than what you might find on all kinds of things at your Sam's Club any day of the week," the " Mad Money " host said.
In order to conquer a sell-off, he said, investors must first circle the wagons around the stocks in their portfolio that they really like and leave the weak ones in the dust.
In his more than 30 years of investing, Jim Cramer has witnessed even the best investors in tears after a market-wide decline.
I know dividend investing isn't sexy, but believe me when I tell you that nobody ever woke up unhappy the next morning after bringing home a stock with a big dividend.
His first approach is to look for stocks that have pulled back from their highs during the sell-off. The new-high list is always a great place to start looking. Stocks on that list also tend to be expensive, which is why a big decline may be an opportunity.
Specifically, he looks for the stocks that were knocked off the new-high list and are trading a couple of percentage points from their 52-week high. Those will be the money magnets of the market.
However, Cramer warned that not all of it will be worth buying. Some may come off the list because they are damaged goods. So, homework is still important.
The second kind of stock that Cramer looks for during a gigantic sell-off is the type with dividends that become more attractive as their share prices go lower. Just as the 52-week high list is useful for stocks on a downturn, also keep a shopping list of stocks to buy if only their dividends were a little higher.
What does a market correction have to do with a dividend or yield?
When a market correction occurs, the price of the stock goes down and the yield goes up. Cramer loves it when a sell-off is so severe that an "accidental high-yielder" is created.
He refers to those stocks that didn't intend on being a dividend play, but have fallen so hard that the dividend yield has suddenly become meaningful or a way for the stock to have a quick bounce back.
"I know dividend investing isn't sexy, but believe me when I tell you that nobody ever woke up unhappy the next morning after bringing home a stock with a big dividend," Cramer said.
So, for those that are more conservative, Cramer says the best bet is to go for stocks that will practically guarantee money accumulation. That is exactly what a dividend does.
Cramer considers a sell-off as an opportunity to buy some of the best stocks out there, especially those that have just pulled off their highs and stocks that have fat yields thanks to the decline. Those are the best places to bargain hunt in a decline.
Gold is likely to head back to its lows, even after starting the year off with a bang, according to Wells Fargo's head of real asset strategy, John LaForge.
His argument hinges on commodities trends that date back all the way to 1800 and show what he calls "commodity bear super cycles," each of which lasts about 20 years. During the bearish of these cycles, commodities like gold will tend to suffer poor performance, even as they retest recent highs and lows, according to LaForge.
He believes that a commodity bear super cycle began in 2011. So while gold shot up to a two-year high of $1,357 on Tuesday, LaForge believes that the rally was predictable, and it is equally predictable that a downturn is on its way.
"We'd been down for four years straight, so we needed a bounce," he said Tuesday on CNBC's "Trading Nation." "But the reality is that gold is a commodity, and commodities have entered a long bear market."
"Historically speaking, what typically happens when you enter these long bear markets for commodities is they will go back and retest their lows off of the first move down," LaForge said.
For gold, that means that the metal is likely to retest its December 2015 lows around $1,050, according to LaForge. At that level, it could be an attractive buy.
That reflects the approach LaForge would take when it comes to a bevy commodities, including oil.
"Oil is also stuck in this long super cycle," he said. "So I don't expect oil to go up much higher than $60."
Gold is up 28 percent in 2016, while WTI crude has risen 26 percent.
Within the real-asset universe, LaForge would turn away from these big bouncers and instead favor real estate investments, given that "trendwise, they're doing the best."
The "Fast Money" traders debated a slate of transportation companies, after a slew of bad news pressured the stocks.
Trader Steve Grasso remains skeptical of Tesla Motors , after the company missed its delivery target for the second consecutive quarter and remains on track to miss its annual target.
"They couldn't produce one vehicle and they can't produce three any quicker or any more effectively or efficiently," Grasso said, adding that if an investor wants to own the stock, they should keep an eye on the near-term highs and lows.
Shares of Delta Air Lines closed 3 percent lower on Tuesday, after the company lowered its outlook for passenger unit revenue and profit margins. Trader Tim Seymour said, however, he thinks that the market move is primarily due to valuation.
"There's a lot of waste and fat and headwinds into this number," Seymour said. He added that he got out of the stock last week, but would get back into it if there was a major sell-off from this level.
Trader Brian Kelly said that he is "staying away from the airlines altogether" because the price action in Delta is "symptomatic of what's going on in the airline space." Kelly said that if he wanted to be invested in the sector, he'd rather own Boeing .
Trader Guy Adami said that the transportation sector in general is in a down trend. He pointed to the iShares Transportation Average ETF , which is down 8 percent in the past year.
A Louisiana police officer shot and killed a man following a confrontation outside a Baton Rouge convenience store, authorities said.
An autopsy shows Alton Sterling, 37, of Baton Rouge, died on Tuesday of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, said East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Dr. William Clark.
Officers responded to the store about 12:35 a.m. Tuesday after an anonymous caller indicated a man selling music CDs and wearing a red shirt threatened him with a gun, said Cpl. L'Jean McKneely.
Two officers responded and had some type of altercation with the man and one officer fatally shot the suspect, McKneely said. Both officers have been placed on administrative leave, which is standard department policy, he said.
The store's owner, Abdul Muflahi, told WAFB-TV that the first officer used a Taser on Sterling and the second officer tackled the man. Muflahi said as Sterling fought to get the officer off of him, the first officer shot him "four to six times."
The owner said Sterling did not have a gun in his hand at the time but he saw officers remove a gun from Sterling's pocket after the shooting.
McKneely did not immediately respond to an email and phone call about Muflahi's comments.
The next iPhone could reclaim its place on the best-smartphone throne, the The Wall Street Journal reports, thanks especially to one special feature: More storage.
The new starting point for storage on the new entry-level iPhone will be 32GB, up from 16GB, sources told the Journal..
The move puts Apple on par with other high-end smartphone makers like Samsung, the Journal reports. But as the Journal has reported in the past, the move interferes with the big upgrade offer to 64GB that had bolstered Apple's margins.
Apple's next iteration of the iPhone, likely to come in September, is rumored to have substantial changes to the flagship devices, such as the removal of headphone jacks, better cameras and better battery life. Wall Street is watching Apple's profile, after the company saw its first year-over-year quarterly sales drop since 2003 in the second quarter as users seem to keep their phones for longer.
Apple declined to comment.
For more on the new iPhone's potential upgrades, see the full story at WSJ.com.
In this Tuesday, July 5, 2016 photo made from video, Alton Sterling is held by two Baton Rouge police officers, with one holding a hand gun, outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, La. Arthur Reed | AP
The U.S. Justice Department will lead a civil rights investigation into the death of a black man shot multiple times by police during a confrontation at a Louisiana convenience store. Graphic cellphone video circulating online, recorded by a witness early Tuesday, appears to show Alton Sterling, 37, being tackled and shot as two cops pin him to the ground before he is killed. Authorities said he was armed. His death sparked protests against police brutality in Baton Rouge, and family members and the local NAACP branch called for an independent outside review of the police department. "I have full confidence that this matter will be investigated thoroughly, impartially and professionally," Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said at a news conference Wednesday. Edwards, a Democrat, said the investigation into the use of unreasonable or excessive force will be assisted by the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI in the state. The Justice Department confirmed the opening of the case, but declined to comment further.
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Edwards said he has "very serious" concerns after watching the cellphone video, which he said was "disturbing, to say the least." At a separate news conference Wednesday, officials identified the officers, both of them white, as Blane Salamoni, a four-year department veteran, and Howie Lake II, a three-year veteran. Officials wouldn't detail the "altercation" between the officers and Sterling or whether a Taser was reportedly used, but they said police body cameras, dashcam video and any other video from the scene would be part of the investigation. Baton Rouge police said earlier in a statement that uniformed officers responded to a call after midnight Tuesday involving a black male in a red shirt who was selling CDs outside the Triple S Food Mart. Police said the caller claimed Sterling was acting threatening with a gun.
The video footage released today of the shooting of Alton Sterling... was deeply troubling Rep. Cedric Richmond D-Louisiana
The officers "made contact" with the 5-foot-11 Sterling in the parking lot, and an altercation ensued, police said. "Sterling was shot during the altercation and died at the scene," the statement said. It wasn't clear whether both officers shot Sterling or which one fired the fatal shot. They have been placed on administrative leave, "per standard procedure," police added. Sterling died from multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner William Clark said. He wouldn't immediately confirm reports that Sterling was shot seven times. The national president of the NAACP, Cornell Brooks, called the video hard to watch but "far harder" to ignore. "Get on the ground, get on the ground" is heard before two officers confront a man in a red T-shirt. One officer tackles the man, throwing him on the hood of the car and onto the ground. The second officer climbs on and helps hold him down. One officer appears to shout a warning: "He's got a gun! Gun!" While the man is on the ground, one officer pulls out his gun. He holds it to the back of the man's head or neck. Shouting is heard, and then two pops as the camera quickly cuts away. At least two more pops are heard. Background voices are heard saying "Oh, my God," and "They shot him?" and "They killed this boy." "Oh, my God," a woman's voice shrieks.
As a convicted felon, Sterling wouldn't be permitted to have a gun. But those who knew him said he kept one to protect himself from robbers. A Sterling family attorney, state Rep. Edmond Jordan, said that whether Sterling had a firearm was irrelevant because, at the moment he was pinned, the video didn't appear to show him wielding a weapon or pulling one out. Sterling's sister, Mignon Chambers, said something "needs to be done" in wake of the shooting. "There's no reason for you to handle him the way that you did," she said. "It wasn't right." Quinyetta McMillon, the mother of Sterling's 15-year-old son, said officers handled the incident "unjustly" and told reporters Wednesday that they killed a man who was "simply trying to earn a living and take care of his children." "I, for one, will not rest or ... allow him to be swept in the dirt," McMillon said as her son sobbed behind her. Sterling had recently been residing in a transitional living center, according to The Advocate newspaper. Mufleh Alatiyat, an employee of the Triple S Food Mart, told The Associated Press that Sterling was generous, often giving away CDs and buying food or drinks for other customers.
I, for one, will not rest or ... allow him to be swept in the dirt Quinyetta Mcmillon mother of Sterling's 15-year-old son
Some lawmakers said Sterling's family deserves answers for what happened. State Rep. Ted James called the shooting a "murder," saying in a statement that it "has made me question what it really means to be land of the free and home of the brave." James also demanded an independent investigation and scrutiny of the police department's body camera policy. At Wednesday's news conference, officials said there was body camera video from the officers, but Baton Rouge Police Lt. Jonny Dunnam said it "may not be as good as we hoped for." During the altercation, the body cameras became dislodged from the officers, but they remained activated, he added. State Rep. C. Denise Marcelle, who sponsored the bill to equip Baton Rouge officers with body cameras, said at Wednesday's news conference that she wants police to stop using those cameras in favor of ones that don't seem to fall off so easily. Mike McClanahan, president of the Baton Rouge chapter of the NAACP, said at the same news conference that the two officers should be arrested and that both Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. and Mayor Kip Holden need to step down. "This is a new day," McClanahan said. "We will not have anybody who allows this type of action to take place."
People protest after Alton Sterling, 37, was shot and killed during an altercation with two Baton Rouge police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on July 5, 2016. Bryn Stole | Reuters
Italy's banking sector is looking increasingly vulnerable and analysts are starting to fear that the euro zone's third largest economy could "go under," warning of the potential for bank runs, credit rating downgrades and the threat to the wider European banking system. "Italy could be a bigger threat to euro zone stability than Brexit," Andrew Edwards, chief executive of London spread better ETX Capital said in a note on Tuesday. "The nation has a creaking banking sector that could undo all the European Central Bank's efforts to save the euro if not handled correctly." "Unlike other countries, Italy did not carry out a full spring clean of its banks post-Lehmans and there is trouble brewing with the country's banks holding 360 billion euros ($400 billion) in non-performing loans (NPLs) - a third of all the euro zone's bad debt and about a fifth of all consumer loans in Italy," Edwards noted, highlighting the extent of Italy's banking vulnerabilities.
Rome, Italy Giorgio Cosulich/Getty Images
While most market attention and turmoil has been focused on the fallout of the U.K.'s vote to leave the European Union (EU) a few weeks ago, Italian banking stocks have been on a roller-coaster ride since the vote. Stocks plunged further on Monday after Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS) , Italy's oldest bank, disclosed that the ECB warned it that it had to cut its bad debts by 40 percent over three years. Despite the brief reprieve for Italian banking stocks on Wednesday, after an Italian market regulator banned the short-selling of BMPS shares, now attention has focused on how Italy's banking sector and its wider economy can be saved.
'Bail-in' then a bank run?
Earlier this week there were reports that Italy could be ready to break new EU banking regulations by using state funds to bail out its most troubled lenders although an Italian government spokesman dismissed such speculation. EU banking union rules mean that depositors, rather than taxpayers, have to bear the brunt of any bailout.
But such a scenario is unpalatable for Renzi given the extent of Italian households that could be affected by a "bail-in." Italian households hold about 29 billion euros ($32.17 billion) worth of bank-issued bonds that are subject to being written down or converted into equity in case those banks need to be rescued, according to an April report from the Bank of Italy. If a "bail-in" appeared to be on the cards, however, Edwards warned that Italy could see a run on the banks similar to that seen in Greece and Cyprus where depositors rushed to get their money out before capital controls were imposed at the height of their financial crises. "A bailout that meets current rules would likely mean haircuts for depositors and a potential run on banks that Rome wants to avoid at all costs," Edwards said. The alternative was to use public finances to prop up the banks, defying EU banking rules that are designed to instil global confidence in Europe's banking system.. "Italy could bail out its banks and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has hinted he is willing to use public funds to do so, in breach of EU rules if necessary. But such a clear intervention would deliver a major blow to new European banking rules and undermine what's still a fragile system," Edwards said. Reluctant to ask for a bailout from its euro zone partners, Italy has tried to shore up its banking system already this year by designating a near-$5 billion rescue fund (the Atlante fund) to recapitalize Italy's weakest banks but it is seen as far too small by some analysts to cover the NPLs held by Italian banks. Still, Edwards said that a compromise was needed between Italy and the rest of Europe to prevent another euro zone economy from collapse. "Ultimately a solution should be found quickly or the world's oldest bank could fail and bring down the rest of Europe's embattled banking sector with it. The EU needs to show flexibility or Italy could go under."
'Too big to bail out'
The possibility of companies and jobs relocating to stay within the European Union has become a concern following the U.K. referendum in June in which the country chose to leave the EU.
The German Free Democratic Party (FDP) paid for the billboard to drive around the streets of the U.K. capital this week in order to encourage start-up companies to move to Germany.
In an initial sign that European countries may try to tempt businesses in Britain to relocate because of Brexit , a billboard advising start-ups to move to Berlin has been spotted in London.
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The move by the FDP also aims to promote the party ahead of a September election in Berlin for seats in the state parliament.
"In light of Brexit, the FDP is asking the Senate to at last reduce the hurdles for start-ups in Berlin," Sebastian Czaja, secretary general of the Berlin FDP, said in a press statement last September. "Berlin must become the new home for those that want to build a business in Europe."
The consequences of Brexit are currently uncertain, but companies are concerned about how it might affect their business.
"We currently have three offices in major capital cities Stockholm, London, and New York," Karl Rosander, co-founder & president of Swedish podcasting platform Acast, told CNBC via email in May, prior to the referendum.
"If a Brexit occurred, we wouldn't necessarily feel the need to relocate, but there is a worry that it could have a negative effect on our ability to redeploy our staff across markets, be they British nationals, EU citizens, or from further afield."
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Bob Corker has taken himself out of consideration to be Donald Trump's running mate, NBC News confirmed Wednesday.
The senator from Tennessee's withdrawal from the running was first reported by The Washington Post. Corker hit the campaign trail with Trump on Tuesday and was seen as lending the businessman foreign policy chops.
Corker, 63, serves as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee and was first elected to the Senate in 2006. He told Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, about his decision Tuesday, the Post reported.
"There are people far more suited for being a candidate for vice president and I think I'm far more suited for other types of things," Corker told the newspaper.
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A long-awaited U.K. inquiry into the Iraq war has slammed the invasion in a report that is heavily critical of former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair. Military action in Iraq in 2003 was not used as a "last resort," said John Chilcot, who led the so-called Chilcot Inquiry, on Wednesday. Speaking at a media conference, Chilcot said Britain chose to join the U.S.-led invasion before diplomatic means to disarm Iraq had been exhausted. "Military action in Iraq might have been necessary at some point, but in March 2003 there was no imminent threat from Hussein," Chilcot said. He added that Blair overestimated his ability to influence the U.S, then led by George Bush, despite Britain's joint occupation of Iraq after the war. "The U.K. was fully implicated in the authorities' decisions, but struggled to have a decisive effect on its policies," Chilcot said.
George W. Bush shakes hands with Tony Blair. Mario tama | AFP | Getty Images
Plans for stabilizing, administrating and reconstructing Iraq were inadequate, he added, and the war and its aftermath allowed Islamist extremist groups like al-Qaeda to flourish.
"The scale of the U.K. effort never matched the scale of the challenge In practice the U.K.'s most consistent strategic objective was to reduce the level of its deployed forces," Chilcot said. "The U.K. military role in Iraq ended a very long way from success This is an account of an intervention that went generally wrong," he added. The Chilcot Inquiry was established seven years ago, when the last British troops left Iraq. Blair responded immediately on Wednesday to the report. "Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein; I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country," he said in a statement published online. "The inquiry does not make a finding on the legal basis for military action, but finds that the Attorney General had concluded there was such a lawful basis by 13th March 2003 However, the report does make real and material criticisms of preparation, planning, process and of the relationship with the United States," he later added.
People gather at the site of a suicide car bomb in Baghdad, Iraq July 3, 2016. Khalid al Mousily | Reuters
Blair has been vilified by some U.K. politicians including those in his own Labour Party for entering Iraq. The Sunday Times reported this weekend that Jeremy Corbyn planned to "cling on" as Labour leader until the report's publication in order to "crucify" Blair. The newspaper claimed Corbyn was prepared to join a cross-party effort to make Blair stand trial as war criminal at the International Criminal Court, citing unnamed officials in Corbyn's office.
Current U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron spoke in parliament after the Chilcot Inquiry was published. "Taking the country into war should always be a last resort," he said on Wednesday.
"It would be wrong to conclude we should not stand with our American allies when our common security interest is threatened it remains the case that Britain and America shares the same fundamental values," Cameron later added.
Corbyn spoke after Cameron, saying the U.K.'s participation in the Iraq war had increased the threat of terrorism in Britain. "Military action in Iraq not only turned a humanitarian crisis into a disaster, it also convulsed an entire region," he added.
The left-wing politician suggested the House of Commons should take action against Blair for misleading it in the run-up to the war, according to the Guardian newspaper. The Chilcot Inquiry comes at a sensitive time for Anglo-American relations, following the U.K.'s vote to leave the European Union and ahead of the possible presidential election of Donald Trump.
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Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) today released A Love Story, an original, animated short film that follows the story of two young entrepreneurs, Ivan and Evie, and the escalating rivalry that leads them to build competing fast food empires.
Chipotle Mexican Grill emerged from the shadow of a string of high-profile foodborne illness outbreaks on Wednesday with a brand new advertisement that took aim at rival fast food chains.
In an effort to get back to its roots, the company released a new short film showcasing its commitment to using quality, fresh ingredients and keeping a simple menu rather than resorting to slick deals and gimmicks.
This isn't Chipotle's first foray into animated film production that criticizes restaurant industry practices. The company has released two other short films: "The Scarecrow" in 2013 and "Back to the Start" in 2011. Both of those short films depict big-scale factories mistreating animals and producing low-quality products.
The latest short is a dig at rival fast-food chains like McDonald's and Burger King, which, like many in the industry, have doubled-down on quirky limited-time offers.
In the new four-minute video, two young children operating rival lemonade and orange juice stands compete for foot traffic and revenue. Their competition soon gets out of hand.
"'A Love Story' illustrates how competition propelled these two once-simple concepts to become something neither of their founders envisioned reliant on limited-time offers, vast menus and heavily processed food," Mark Shambura, director of brand marketing at Chipotle, said in a statement.
The pair realize that they have lost their way and close down their operations to open a taco stand that only uses fresh ingredients.
Hillary Clinton traveled down to the shore Wednesday to bash Donald Trump's business record in the shadow of one of his old properties, and in the backyard of one of his closest allies.
Speaking in Atlantic City, New Jersey in the state of close Trump adviser and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie she focused her energy on Trump's record, but did not spare Christie any words.
"If your governor would start doing his job instead of following Donald Trump around holding his coat, maybe we could really get New Jersey's economy moving again," Clinton said towards the start of the speech.
Standing near the former Trump Plaza Casino and Hotel, which Trump no longer owns, Clinton said that "Trump once predicted it will be the biggest hit yet. ... When this casino collapsed because of how badly he managed it, hundreds of people lost their jobs." After hammering Trump's other business dealings in the city, she sought to tie it to her broader message.
"What he did here in Atlantic City is exactly what he will do if he wins in November," Clinton said.
Throughout the speech, Clinton tied her message to support for workers and small businesses, while highlighting the numerous lawsuits and bankruptcies Trump has endured.
Trump's campaign issued a statement Wednesday defending his record in the city: "I created thousands of jobs and made a lot of money in Atlantic City, which was what, as a businessman, I am supposed to do for my company and my family."
Trump's business record has come under intense scrutiny this cycle, particularly in Atlantic City. The New York Times reported last month that Trump profited from his casinos there, even as some of the businesses themselves went through bankruptcy. Clinton's campaign also released a video Wednesday morning highlighting Trump's failures in the city, evidence her campaign sees Trump's travails in the city as a way to discredit his reputation as a successful businessman.
Seeking to preemptively combat and deflect Clinton's attack, Trump sent a series of tweets Wednesday morning, writing that he "made a lot of money in Atlantic City and left seven years ago, great timing (as all know)."
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Her boardwalk speech came as she sought to refocus the spotlight on her opponent after FBI Director James Comey yesterday criticized Clinton and her team's handling of classified information as "extremely careless" even as he recommended Clinton not be prosecuted.
Clinton's speech in Atlantic City came after her campaign unveiled a new education plan earlier Wednesday that would eliminate tuition for families with incomes of up to $125,000 at in-state public institutions.
Hillary Clinton's newly unveiled higher education plan would eliminate tuition for families with incomes up to $125,000 at in-state public colleges and universities.
That proposal, a keystone of her plan announced Wednesday to reduce student debt and the burden of student loans, is also a victory for her primary rival Bernie Sanders, who campaigned on a platform to make tuition free at public colleges and universities. Indeed, the proposal drew praise from Sanders, who wrote on Twitter that he applauded Clinton's "very bold initiative for the financing of higher education."
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Clinton's plan to eliminate tuition at in-state public institutions of higher education would begin immediately for families earning $85,000 or less, and would expand to families earning up to $125,000 over five years. In a release, the Clinton campaign claimed this would cover more than 80 percent of families.
The "debt-free college plan" would also impose a three-month moratorium on federal student loan payments via executive action, to allow borrowers to refinance their loans.
"College is a great investmentfor students and our economy. But it's a major expense that holds many Americans back well into adulthood," the Clinton campaign wrote on its website. "The graduating class of 2016 is slated to be the most indebted in U.S. historyand loan balances are disproportionately high for low-income students, including students of color."
The Clinton campaign's higher education plan, while not a full adoption of Sanders' proposal, points to a trend of the Democratic party adopting elements of the Vermont Senators' progressive platform, which attracted a groundswell of support. Last week, the Sanders campaign won a fight to include a $15 minimum wage on a draft of the Democratic party's platform.
This start-up is taking the mystery out of mystery meat by letting beef lovers crowdsource a live cow directly from ranchers.
"Our customers purchase into a live animal, see the pastures it grazed and the family who raised it, and even know the pedigree of their steak," said Hannah Raudsepp, founder of Honest Beef Company.
Raudsepp, a Nebraska native who grew up on an Angus cattle ranch eating beef every day, told CNBC, "misperceptions about beef production are rampant, in order to fully understand and trust our food, we need to be closer to its source. "
So in February 2016 she launched Honest Beef Company, an online platform where consumers can purchase a share of a live animal directly from American ranchers and have premium beef delivered to their doorstep nationwide.
"Crowdsourcing beef is one way to offer the transparency consumers deserve, and to give beef producers an equal snapshot into where their beef goes and who it nourishes," said Raudsepp.
The start-up's website offers a variety of pre-selected beef cuts that can be bought in shares, from New York Strip shares, to single-animal burger shares, and even bone marrow shares. Selections range from $75 to $160 depending on the cut.
When a steer or heifer is fully funded, or "tips," Honest Beef Company purchases it directly from a humane rancher and coordinates the butchering and aging of the animal.
According to Raudsepp, the company's prices are 25% lower than the leading online beef retailers. "Honest Beef has eliminated over 60% of the conventional beef supply chain, meaning we can offer a top quality product with granular transparency, for a lower price. Additionally, because we have cut out the middle men, we are able to offer our ranchers more for their efforts."
Since its launch the start-up has sold 1,500 lbs of beef, and is in the process of crowdsourcing its third animal.
Darktrace's solution sits in the middle of an organization's computer network and can detect cyber-threats in real-time, allowing the company's security team or the software to take action to protect the system.
Existing investor Summit Partners contributed while new investors TenEleven Ventures and SoftBank joined the round. The British start-up is also backed by Autonomy founder Mike Lynch's Invoke Capital and London-based venture capital firm Hoxton Ventures.
Darktrace, a U.K. cybersecurity firm that positions its software as the "human immune system" for networks, has raised $65 million in a funding round led by U.S. private equity giant KKR , the start-up said on Wednesday.
The Darktrace cybersecurity software demonstration showed how a global problem (instrusion) can start with just one employee's work station.
The start-up has been developing its machine learning capabilities advanced algorithms that can adapt and learn. Darktrace says that its machine learning techniques are based on the "biological principles of the human immune system".
Hackers pose a huge threat to businesses with cyber-crime forecast to cost businesses over $2 trillion by 2019, according to Juniper Research. Some of the biggest organizations in the world have been victims of cyber-attacks and this has meant cybersecurity companies have gained traction.
Start-ups like Darktrace are attempting to challenge established players such as FireEye and Symantec . And as cyber-attacks get more sophisticated, machine learning solutions are becoming increasingly important.
A new threat identified by Darktrace is the ability for hackers to program machines to carry out attacks. In this way, machines are attacking machines, something that can be hard to stop as computers are able to adapt their own attack methods.
Ransomware is another attack that has been on the increase which involves hackers locking a person's files and then demanding something in return for unlocking them.
To combat these threats, Darktrace released a product called Antigena, which the chief executive describes as "machine fighting machine tech". Antigena allows a business's network to battle back against invading threats.
"We have some early customers using Antigena, and what we have seen as the first use case is slowing down the attack, allowing humans to catch up. One example of that would be Ransomware. We could detect ransomware as soon as it hit the machine, slow it down and stop it getting to the back-up servers," Nicole Eagan, CEO of Darktrace, told CNBC in a phone interview on Wednesday.
The start-up was founded in 2013 and has already grown to 300 employees and claims to have over 1,000 customers on board. Darktrace said it has achieved over 600 percent revenue growth in the latest financial year.
Cybersecurity has been one of the hottest sectors in the start-up world for investment and Darktrace faces competition from a number of players. Last month for example, cybersecurity start-up LightCyber raised $20 million. LightCyber has a product which it calls a "behavioral attack detection" platform capable of fighting against threats that have got past traditional security controls.
Eagan said that the $65 million funding will help Darktrace expand further into the U.S. and Asia as well as into new markets such as Latin America, hiring employees, opening offices on the ground and improving its technology.
"We are going to continue to invest in R&D. The initial Darktrace product is fully developed with a lot of the focus on machine fighting machine and the new wave of artificial intelligence attacks, so we will continue to build out our machine fighting machine tech," Eagan told CNBC.
Correction: This story was updated after Darktrace corrected the figure it raised to $65 million
WATCH: How the dark web became the platform for all things illegal
U.S. cancer drug company Medivation is discussing opening its books to Sanofi after the French pharmaceutical company sweetened its $9.3 billion acquisition offer, people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
The talks come after Medivation rejected Sanofi's $52.50 per share cash offer in April, prompting Sanofi to embark on a campaign to convince Medivation shareholders to oust Medivation's board of directors and replace them with its nominees in a so-called written consent process.
Medivation is negotiating the terms of a confidentiality agreement with Sanofi that would allow the two companies to engage in deal negotiations, the people said.
Medivation has already signed confidentiality agreements to discuss a potential sale with other companies, including Pfizer and Celgene , the people added.
President Barack Obama said Wednesday the U.S. will keep 8,400 troops in Afghanistan through the end of the year, more than originally planned.
"Maintaining our forces at this specific level, based on our assessment of security conditions and the strength of Afghan forces, will allow us to continue to provide tailored support to help Afghan forces continue to improve," Obama said.
"The decision we made today can help our allies and partners align their own commitments," he said.
Originally, Obama was considering whether to move ahead with a scheduled reduction in the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan from about 9,800 currently to 5,500 by the start of 2017.
Elon Musk, chairman and chief executive officer of Tesla Motors, exits the Model X sport utility vehicle during an event in Fremont, California, Sept. 29, 2015.
Regulators are looking in to a Pennsylvania crash of a Tesla Motors vehicle.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is collecting information on whether a Tesla Model X was using automated functions at the time of a crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike last week, officials told CNBC on Wednesday.
The news came after a separate investigation was announced in connection with a fatal crash involving a Tesla Model S in "Autopilot" mode.
Tesla said it received an automated alert from the vehicle on the day of the crash indicating airbag deployment, but that the severity of the crash may have cause the antenna to fail, as logs containing detailed information on the state of the vehicle controls were never received. Tesla said it had been unable to reach the customer.
Pennsylvania State Police told the Detroit Free Press that the driver in Pennsylvania had activated the Autopilot feature, when the car hit a guard rail around 5 p.m. and hit a concrete median and rolled into its roof.
Tesla said: "Based on the information we have now, we have no reason to believe that Autopilot had anything to do with this accident."
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
Reporting by CNBC's Phil LeBeau and Meghan Reeder.
Apparently a group of researchers thinks it is a good idea to teach robots how to hunt.
They say teaching robots how to act like predators is a needed step in getting machines that can work with humans in everyday life, according to new research described in Vice's Motherboard.
The team, whose members hail from University of Zurich and the University of Ulster, are part of the European Commission-funded VISUALISE project. The project's goal is to build hardware that mimics the features of animal eyes for various purposes.
For this study, the researchers trained a robot to see objects on its own and pursue them. In a paper uploaded to the arXiv.org server, the scientists describe a "neuromorphic" camera mounted on a robot that mimics some of the capabilities of an animal's eye.
The predator robot processes information from its environment through the eye-like camera in a "deep neural network," in this case a software program that uses algorithms to tell the robot how to orient itself and how to move.
The idea of predatory robots may sound terrifying, but the technology's actual applications could be far more innocuous, and more wide ranging, as researcher Tobi Delbruck told Vice's Motherboard.
"Following [in large groups of self-driving cars or drones] is the obvious application, but one could imagine future luggage or shopping carts that follow you," Delbruck, told Motherboard in an email. "This way, the problem is less like a predator and its prey and more like herding, or a parent and child."
Here is a demonstration of the predator and prey robots at work:
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Singapore is the country seen as benefiting the most from the investments it has made into technological innovations, according to a report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Wednesday.
The country topped the WEF's "networked readiness" index for the second year in a row. The index analyses how prepared countries are to benefit from emerging technologies and opportunities created by digital innovation, which the WEF calls the fourth industrial revolution.
Other top countries listed in the Global Information Technology Report 2016 included Finland, Sweden and Norway. The U.S. is placed fifth in the rankings.
Network readiness is important because it allows for new forms of innovation, according to the report. For instance, the digitization of products or "uberization" of services are examples of tech-based innovations.
Margareta Drzeniek, lead economist at the World Economic Forum, explained why Singapore was able to top the rankings.
When firefighters are battling flames on a roof, sometimes their entire bodyweight rests on the head of an axe. And when things go wrong, accidents can be deadly. That's part of what pushed 47-year-old Boston firefighter Rob Duffy to create the Quick Step Anchor, a mobile safety platform for firefighters operating on steep roofs, which he demonstrates in the above video. "About 14 years ago, a friend of mine fell off a roof," Duffy told investors on the most recent episode of CNBC's reality pitch show "West Texas Investors Club." "We were at a fire, and he sustained some pretty serious injuries. He was in the hospital for a while."
47-year-old firefighter Rob Duffy created the Quick Step Anchor that is intended to secure users to a steep roof and provide support for vertical ventilation operations while firefighting. Source: CNBC
Duffy came on the show to pitch his product to investors Butch Gilliam and Rooster McConaughey. He was seeking an investment of $250,000 for a 25% stake in his company, and while he didn't walk away with quite that much, he did secure a deal of $50,000 for 15%. He explained that firefighters carry the device with a safety lanyard, and after cutting into the roof with a chainsaw, they insert the board for a secure footing. The lanyard acts as a carrying strap that secures firefighters to the device, in case of a fall. "Typically, we're not going up there in ideal conditions," Duffy said. "We're going up there at 2 o'clock in the morning after an ice storm, and you know, there's a raging fire underneath you." "There had to be a better way to get some footing on a roof," he said.
Boston firefighter Robert Duffy created the Quick Step Anchor, a rooftop firefighting tool, after a fellow-firefighter was injured in the line of duty. Source: CNBC
The idea for the invention came to Duffy one night six years ago, while he was lying in bed. Since then, he's sold about 125 units for $1,100 each.
Still, the business hasn't taken off, and he came on the show hoping an investment would help move it forward. While the investors saw promise in the technology, they scoffed at the ask. "Rob don't need no quarter million dollars to get this thing off the ground," McConaughey said. He and Gilliam did see some easy fixes Duffy could make to help his company expand. They recommended two strategies: First, lower the price. Second, create a team of knowledgeable salespeople that would work on commission.
Firefighter and entrepreneur Rob Duffy accepts an investment offer of $50,000 for 15% of his company Quick Step Anchor from West Texas Investors Club hosts Rooster McConaughey and Butch Gilliam. Source: CNBC
Duffy agreed to the deal and hopes he can reach some of the nearly 165,000 fire trucks in the U.S. "I'm very happy to be in business with Butch and Rooster," Duffy said. "It's a bad feeling when you have the idea and you can't progress forward because of money. So to run into guys like this, that can allow you to achieve the goals that'll help and save lives, it's unbelievable."
Donald Trump's candidacy has scrambled traditional political coalitions, both in support of and opposition to his campaign, particularly when it comes to foreign policy.
Trump's aggressive and at times shifting proposals to wall off Mexico and intervene directly in Syria, mixed with his opposition to the Iraq War and seeming embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin, have united the Republican Party's foreign policy establishment against him while drawing a unique mix of supporters to his side.
When Brent Scowcroft, a former national security adviser to Presidents George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford, endorsed Hillary Clinton in late June, it marked the latest GOP foreign policy leader to come out against his party's own standard-bearer. However, Scowcroft was certainly not the first.
An open letter published online in early March and signed by 121 GOP national security leaders announced the group was "united in our opposition to a Donald Trump presidency" despite previous internal disagreements over issues like the Iraq War and Syrian intervention.
"His vision of American influence and power in the world is wildly inconsistent and unmoored in principle. He swings from isolationism to military adventurism within the space of one sentence," the letter noted as one of the group's objections. "We commit ourselves to working energetically to prevent the election of someone so utterly unfitted to the office."
The letter was coordinated by Eliot Cohen, a former State Department counselor under George W. Bush, and Bryan McGrath, a defense consultant and former naval officer.
McGrath called Trump dangerous as a candidate, and said his foreign policy "attempts to relearn all the old lessons that we thought we'd learned about how great powers act in a multipolar world." However, he predicted that over time more Republicans will publicly align themselves with Trump, though it won't be a "tidal wave."
As of now, Trump has drawn a small and enigmatic group of Republican foreign policy thinkers to his side. McGrath said that traditional categorizations like "hawk" or "dove" do not apply when it comes to Trump's candidacy.
"They don't work with him, he has no principles, he has no set positions. Everything is negotiable, and this is the essence of his danger," McGrath said. "The bottom line is that no matter where you are on the ideological scale if you wait long enough he'll say something that appeals to you."
When Trump first listed a handful of foreign policy advisors in an interview with The Washington Post's editorial board, it left many experts puzzling over the lower-profile names. The list included people like Walid Phares, a regular contributor to Fox News who has advocated for greater intervention in the Middle East, and Carter Page, an investment banker who supports closer ties with Russia,
Other people have also voiced approval for the New York real estate tycoon, like John Bolton, an outspoken hawk and former ambassador to the United Nations under George W. Bush. Even Rand Paul, the Kentucky senator who has advocated for a reduced role for America on the world stage, offered his tacit support in April.
Paul Vallely, a retired major general in the U.S. Army, also said he is supporting Trump and advocates for a more proactive approach against Islamic extremism and cooperation with Russia.
Vallely called classifications like hawkish and dovish "outdated."
"Hawkish and dovish don't mean anything," Vallely said. "Trump, whether people believe it or not, is really looking at it through the reality prism."
But Julian Zelizer, a political historian at Princeton and a CNN contributor, said that he does not think the effect Trump has had on the Republican foreign policy thinkers has rendered the hawk and dove divide outdated. Rather, his wide-ranging and at times contradictory opinions make it unsurprising that leading Republicans in the foreign policy community have not embraced him, Zelizer said.
"They are more than anyone scared and upset about him," Zelizer said. "Overall, the Republican foreign policy community has been I think pretty silenced, if not like a [Brookings Institution fellow and neoconservative] Robert Kagan, pretty hostile."
Wal-Mart shoppers no longer need to carry their wallets to check out at one of its 4,600-plus U.S. stores.
The world's largest retailer on Wednesday announced that it has completed the nationwide rollout of its Walmart Pay system, which it began testing in December as an add-on to its mobile app.
After slowly rolling out the feature to stores in its test markets, the company in May did its first scaled launch at 750 locations. It completed the rollout last week.
To use the three-step payment system, shoppers link their chosen payment method to their Walmart.com account, open the camera on their smartphone and snap a photo of a QR code at the register. That notifies the app to process the customer's payment.
Shoppers can link their credit or debit cards, prepaid accounts or Wal-Mart gift cards to their payments; however, they still cannot use Apple Pay. When it was introduced in December, the retailer's executives said Walmart Pay was built so that Apple Pay or a similar system could be integrated in the future. But it also said there were no immediate plans to do so.
In a call with the media Wednesday, Daniel Eckert, senior vice president of services for Wal-Mart U.S., said that the company can't speak to any progress on negotiations with third-party wallets. But discussions are ongoing, he said.
The company declined to share data on how many users have tested the payment solution so far, saying it's too early to do so. And while it hopes Walmart Pay will persuade new shoppers to download its app, it's also too early to tell if that is happening in earnest, Eckert said.
Wal-Mart did say that upon completion of the system's rollout last week, the number of transactions completed through Walmart Pay has increased 45 percent compared with the week prior. Of all transactions on the platform, 88 percent are coming from repeat users.
Now that the payment system has been rolled out nationwide, Wal-Mart will put more muscle behind marketing the service to shoppers across the U.S.
"We want to make every day easier for busy families," Eckert said.
Walgreens Boots Alliance executives say they are confident about the second half of the year, despite the uncertainty raised by last month's Brexit vote, and the ongoing regulatory review of their pending $9.5 billion acquisition of rival Rite Aid .
The deal remains on track to close at the end of the year, Executive Vice Chairman and CEO Stefano Pessina said on the pharmacy chain's earnings conference call.
"Our lawyers are telling us that we don't have any negative signal, and so we are operating on the hypothesis that we will do the deal," he explained. "We are trying to find the right buyers for the pharmacies that for sure we will have to divest."
Pessina estimated that the combined company will have to sell roughly 500 stores in order to gain regulatory approval from the Federal Trade Commission, which is overseeing the antitrust review of the merger.
Investors have at times been uneasy about the deal, says Evercore ISI analyst Ross Muken, after the FTC opposed retailer Staples ' acquisition of rival Office Depot , as well as a number of hospital-care mergers in recent months.
"There's nothing that has come up so far that would make us believe that [the Rite Aid deal] is not going to close, but it's been very difficult to predict the FTC for some time," said Muken.
Walgreens is the first major U.S. firm with British exposure to report earnings results since British voters elected to leave the European Union last month. As a result of its 2014 acquisition of the U.K.'s Alliance Boots chain, Britain represents the company's second largest market by sales.
"The situation, it's very volatile at this time. For sure, the period of uncertainty will be quite long, whatever happens," said Pessina, adding that it's too soon to know what impact it will have on the chain. "We have seen in the stores very good days, very bad. In a few months, probably, we will be able to say something."
That said, Co-Chief Operating Officer Alex Gourlay expressed confidence the chain is well-positioned to weather the Brexit uncertainty, even if it leads to an economic downturn.
"Historically, Boots has been very solid through difficult times, but it tends to overperform the market during recessions or slowdowns because it's got a very strong beauty business and people still buy into beauty even in tough times," he said.
Still, Walgreens international sales were a weak spot in the company's third-quarter earnings report. On the bottom line the firm reported adjusted profits of $1.18 a share, four cents better than the Factset analyst consensus. Revenue of $29.5 billion was below expectations, hurt in part by weaker international sales due to the strong dollar.
In the U.S., the chain's pharmacy sales rose 6 percent during the quarter, driven by growth in Medicare Part D prescription volume, though new federal reimbursement rates weighed on margins.
"Earnings in retail are solid and somewhat of a relief, given the fact that the new Medicare Part D rates went into effect [Jan. 1] and this quarter reflects the full impact of that incremental volume," wrote Leerink analyst David Larsen in a research note to clients.
Non-prescription retail sales were flat, up just 0.1 percent after two quarters of declines. The company says it is investing more on expanding its Boots No. 7 beauty brand nationally in the U.S., in order to drive more traffic and higher spending in its retail business.
Still, Evercore's Muken sees the potential for greater sales and margin expansion.
"If they're able to get the Rite Aid deal closed they continue to cut costs this company's growing earnings in the teens. That's quite attractive in this market," he said.
Walgreens has already raised the capital it needs to fund the completion of the Rite Aid merger. The company was asked on the call what kind of plans it has in the event regulators block the deal.
Pessina, who is known as a dealmaker, replied, "We would have lots of ideas."
Walgreen shares fell as much 3.5 percent, but were recently trading down 2.4 percent at $81.54. Rite Aid shares were recently up nearly 2 percent on the day at $7.44.
Democratic insiders close to President Obama tell CNBC the president is excited to get out on the campaign trail for presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Flying Air Force One is not cheap. According to a Freedom of Information Act letter obtained by the nonprofit Judicial Watch, it costs $206,337 every hour Air Force One is in flight.
With that lofty price tag in mind, CNBC asked the Federal Election Commission, the organization that governs the financing of federal elections and enforces the campaign finance laws, who will be footing the bill: the American taxpayer or the Clinton campaign?
Q: When Obama campaigns for Clinton, how will Air Force One or any kind of the government travel and Secret Service associated with the president's campaign work be paid for? Is it the Hillary Clinton Campaign? Is it considered an in-kind contribution? A donation?
FEC: While in office, the president, vice president and first lady each may engage in official, political and campaign-related activities, either separately or in combination. Official expenses are paid by the U.S. government; the costs of political activities are paid by the national party committee and campaign expenses are paid by the candidate's campaign committee.
The party or campaign committee that pays for the political or campaign-related expenses must disclose its payments on reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.
The White House evaluates travel by the president, vice president and first lady to determine whether it is official or political in nature. Consideration is given to their official duties. Federal laws mandate Secret Service protection and other forms of assistance for all of their travel, including political travel. The costs of these services are assumed by the various government agencies providing them.
To distinguish campaign or political travel from official travel, one must examine the purpose of the trip and the nature of the events or activities at each stop.
Q: So all of the July travel involving the president campaigning for Clinton and her traveling on Air Force One should be itemized in the July FEC filings we will see in August. We will then know how much the campaign has paid back to the government for such use?
FEC: The party or campaign committee that pays for the political or campaign-related expenses must disclose its payments on reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Q: There was some chatter about Clinton traveling on Air Force One with President Obama being unprecedented. No candidate either Democratic or Republican have ever travel on Air Force One to campaign. This is not your average first-class ticket. How does she itemize that cost? Is it considered a charter?
FEC: If a federal candidate travels on a government-owned aircraft, including Air Force One, for campaign purposes, then his or her campaign committee must reimburse the government for the cost of the travel.
The reimbursement rates for government-owned aircraft are specified at 11 CFR 100.93(e), which provides that the government entity providing the aircraft must be reimbursed at one of two rates: (a) the "pro rata share per campaign traveler of the usual and normal charge for the flight on a comparable aircraft of sufficient size to accommodate all campaign travelers" or (b) the "private traveler reimbursement rate." If both rates are available, the traveler may choose which rate to use.
The "pro rata" rate is based on what it would cost to charter a plane with comparable amenities/service/crew, and that is large enough to accommodate all campaign travelers (not only the candidate himself, but also anyone traveling on his behalf, such as campaign staff).
However, the regulation provides that the "comparable aircraft" used to determine the reimbursement rate would not have to accommodate any "government-required personnel and equipment" (for example, Secret Service or National Security Agency officers provided to protect the candidate) or government-required equipment (e.g., bulky security or communications devices provided for the national security or communications needs of the candidate).
The "private traveler reimbursement rate" refers to rates published by some government entities for private travel on government-owned aircraft by members of the public. We do not know whether there is a private traveler reimbursement rate for travel on Air Force One.
Q: What if Obama combines official work with campaigning in one trip?
FEC: When a plane is used for both official and campaign stops, the campaign may therefore pay for the entire trip, or the expenses may be allocated between the campaign and the government entity proportionally, according to formulas set forth in the regulations.
These provisions require costs to be allocated between the two proportionally (i.e., according to how much of the mileage/time is related to each type of travel), rather than equally. These regulations pertain to costs of "travel" generally, so they would cover both the means of transportation and the accommodations.
CNBC will review the Clinton campaign July report filing to check the costs associated with the president's campaigning for Secretary Clinton as well as how much Clinton paid for her travels on Air Force One. A source with the Clinton campaign said, "As is the standard practice, the campaign will cover its portion of the costs."
FBI Director James Comey makes a statement at FBI headquarters in Washington, Tuesday, July 5, 2016. Cliff Owen | AP
In the process of essentially exonerating Secretary Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email system, FBI Director James Comey nevertheless slammed the State Department's email security and handling of classified documents. People who spoke to CNBC said that State has, for a long time, shown a disturbing lack of seriousness about information security. While some of this can be attributed to the nature of the agency's mission "We're required to be outward-facing, we're required to communicate, we're required to foster dialogue," said agency spokesman John Kirby other patterns of behavior are less explicable, they said. One former government employee told CNBC the problem is endemic.
"I completely agree that the State Department has a lax approach to security," said a former U.S. federal employee who worked with the State Department on classified things and spoke to CNBC.com on condition of anonymity. "I experienced it several times myself in terms of their handling of classified information both in print and in speech." At a meeting at a major State Department facility, he asked what level of classification the group could speak to different rooms are approved to handle different levels of classification and nobody knew. "It was not something that anyone at the State Department even thought about," he said. "It is just how the place runs not how it runs under Clinton or under [Condoleezza] Rice, it is just how the place was run since forever." The State Department on Tuesday vehemently denied that a lackadaisical approach to security was endemic. Despite Clinton's email practices at the State Department, many people followed the rules, said Kirby. "We don't share the broad assessment that there is a lax culture here at the State Department when it comes to dealing with classified information. In fact, quite the contrary; we take it very seriously," he said.
We're required to be outward-facing, we're required to communicate, we're required to foster dialogue. John Kirby State Department spokesman
Government employees are approved to discuss matters at different levels of classification from "confidential" to "secret" and "top secret." It was not uncommon for State Department employees not to check into the classification of information before speaking about it, the former employee said. The perception is pervasive enough that the intelligence community is skeptical about working with State Department employees, he said. There were some parts of the agency that were known to be trustworthy, such as its internal intelligence analysis team, and others they preferred not to work with. "The average foreign service officer, the average State Department employee, is viewed cautiously," he said. "I would not say that it is a huge monkey wrench in the whole operation, you just have to be circumspect."
Other security experts, who have worked within government and as government contractors, reinforced the FBI's finding that the State Department's practices were not up to snuff. Ben Johnson a former NSA employee ranked the NSA, CIA and FBI above the State Department in terms of cybersecurity. "The ones that are really into more of the espionage lines of business are typically more secure, because that is what their main focus is, the gathering of intelligence or the protecting of intelligence," said Johnson, now chief security strategist of cybersecurity firm Carbon Black. Johnson cited a lack of confidence in the security of the systems they are using as one reason employees might decide to "blaze their own path." "There are two sides to this employees trying to circumvent the system there because they do not think there is enough security, or because there is too much security and it is hurting their productivity," he said.
Vinny Troia spent eight years working for the Department of Defense as a security architect and now runs his own security firm, Night Lion Security. Troia said he understands why Clinton and her team opted for convenience over security. The DoD's security policies are among the most stringent and, at times, hampered productivity, he said. "Having to deal with all the security procedures is incredibly inconvenient, but that is the whole point," he said. "It is not supposed to be this free and open system."
In general, government agencies have been moving in the right direction when it comes to improving security, said James Scott, a senior fellow with the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, a technology and cybersecurity think tank. That makes the FBI's findings in this case particularly shocking, he said. "When you are not using the layered security required for mitigating the elevated risks that come with a high-profile job, you are compounding the likelihood that those adversarial forces trying to hack you will be successful," said Scott.
Having to deal with all the security procedures is incredibly inconvenient, but that is the whole point. Vinny Troia Night Lion Security CEO
The State Department's Kirby highlighted the agency's dual email system two separate networks for email traffic set up to handle various degrees of sensitive information. He also outlined the training employees are subjected to regarding security and the handling of sensitive information. "I don't think it's useful to compare each and every federal agency with the way they do this, because each of them have different responsibilities in terms of the information environment," he said.
watch now
Promotional signs display the price of merchandise as shoppers browse goods inside an Asda supermarket, operated by Wal-Mart Stores in London.
Supermarket retailers in the United Kingdom might be forgiven for thinking a price war truce might be overdue, but HSBC believes a fresh battle may be just around the corner.
In a note published Wednesday, the bank's food and retail analysts said Wal-Mart International CEO David Cheesewright, had been clear that subsidiary grocer Asda is set to prioritize sales over profit.
"We believe this suggests Asda may be preparing a major price repositioning. If Asda does reposition fundamentally, then it could seriously damage sector profitability," said the note.
In the 12 weeks to 19 June, Asda sales dropped 5.8 percent according to figures from Kantar Worldpanel.
HSBC said Asda needs to gain price leadership as prioritizing margins will only lead to further loss of its deal hungry customers.
HSBC also stated the message on price was intended for shareholders and any inaction from Wal-Mart International now would be interpreted as an absence of conviction.
The analysts also suggested the comments serve as a warning to what discounters can expect in the U.S. market.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has awarded Syracuses Hancock International Airport a federal grant of $720,000 to buy snow-removal equipment.
North Country airports in Watertown, Potsdam, Malone, and Plattsburgh will also use federal grants for upgrades.
Hancock Airport will use its funding to purchase critical snow-removal equipment, U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer (DN.Y.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (DN.Y.) said in a news release that Schumers office released Tuesday.
The new equipment will enable Hancock to keep the airport serviceable during snow periods and help in the efficiency and safety of operations, the lawmakers added.
In addition, the Watertown International Airport will use more than $91,000 to conduct a pavement-management program study, Schumer and Gillibrand said in a June 29 news release announcing the grants.
The effort will evaluate current pavement conditions and identify areas for maintenance.
Maintaining and inspecting airfield pavements is an everyday job. This grant will help with our pavement-maintenance program and ensure the pavement remains in serviceable condition for years to come through targeted preventive maintenance, Grant Sussey, manager at the Watertown International Airport, said in the lawmakers release.
In addition, the Potsdam Municipal/Damon Field Airport in St. Lawrence County will utilize more than $212,000 to purchase vital equipment needed for snow removal during the winter months.
The FAA also awarded Malone-Dufort Airport in Franklin County a grant of nearly $435,000 to reconstruct 5,000 square yards of the airports aircraft-parking apron pavement, which has reached the end of its useful life, the senators said.
The Plattsburgh International Airport in Clinton County will use $47,500 to design new perimeter fencing and make other security enhancements on its premises.
The FAA administers the airport-improvement program (AIP), which awarded the funding to all the airports.
The AIP provides grants to public agencies for the planning and development of public-use airports that are included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems. Funds obligated for the AIP are drawn from the airport and airway trust fund, which user fees, fuel taxes, and other similar revenue sources support.
Keeping our airports in top-notch shape is crucial to attracting business and tourism to the region, Schumer said. This federal funding will allow four vital North Country airports to make critical infrastructure upgrades that will enable safer, more efficient service for the passengers and pilots who fly in and out of the region every day.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
Syracuse University lists the Hall of Languages among the on-campus building that will be benefit from a $9 million investment in classroom and technology upgrades. The renovation work is part of the universitys campus framework plan. (Eric Reinhardt / BJNN file photo)
SYRACUSE, N.Y. Syracuse University announced it is investing more than $9 million in classroom and technology improvements as part of its campus framework plan.
The university contends a recent news release that todays classrooms need to be interactive, flexible and ready for collaboration.
Crews are already working on technology-upgrade projects in classrooms, study spaces, and teaching laboratories this summer, the school said.
Combined, the Division of Information Technology Services (ITS) and Campus Planning, Design and Construction (CPDC) are working to update technology and academic spaces in more than a dozen buildings on the Syracuse University campus.
They include Carnegie Library, the Center for Science and Technology, Crouse Hinds Hall, Eggers Hall, Flint Hall, Hall of Languages, Haven Hall, Heroy Geology Building, Link Hall, Lyman Hall, MacNaughton Hall, the Nancy Cantor Warehouse, the Physics Building, the Shaffer Art Building, Slocum Hall, and White Hall.
Syracuse University every summer dedicates tremendous resources, in dollars and personnel, updating the campus before students and faculty return in the fall, Michele Wheatly, vice chancellor and provost, contended in the schools release.
Providing a high-caliber environment that fosters learning, teaching and innovation is not only consistent with our Academic Strategic Plan, its also critical to attracting and retaining high-achieving students and world-class faculty scholars, said Wheatly.
The work includes improvements for the federal Americans with Disabilities Act; audio and visual system upgrades; the installation of new smart-teaching stations; complete technology overhauls; classroom and auditorium renovations; furniture replacements; classroom-seating replacements; and the creation of new seminar rooms, meeting rooms, and classrooms.
New smart-teaching stations allow faculty members to present materials in a variety of ways, with the use of such equipment and technology as smartboards, projection screens, speakers and USB ports.
Pete Sala, VP and chief facilities officer, says many of the projects will help Syracuse advance its academic and research offerings.
For example, CPDC is currently constructing a new space in the Heroy Geology Building that will house the new National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Traineeship (NRT) Program, the university said.
Syracuse University is using a $3 million NSF grant awarded in April 2015 on the Education Model Program on Water-Energy Research, also known as EMPOWER.
EMPOWER involves faculty from the Department of Earth Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences; the College of Engineering and Computer Science; the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs; and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, according to the news release.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
Original images courtesy of the Department of the Treasury.
Rosie Rios is stepping down July 8 as the 43rd treasurer of the United States. While serving as treasurer, she had oversight of the U.S. Mint and Bureau of Engraving and Printing, among other duties.
Rosa Gumataotao "Rosie" Rios' final day as the 43rd treasurer of the United States will be July 8, ending a nearly seven-year stint as one of the U.S. Treasury's top officials and one of the paper money collecting hobby's most recognizable public figures.
Rios first assumed office on Aug. 6, 2009.
The treasurer of the United States has direct oversight over the U.S. Mint (including Fort Knox) and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and is a key liaison with the Federal Reserve. In addition, the treasurer serves as a senior adviser to the secretary of the Treasury in the areas of community development and public engagement.
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Additional job responsibilities can be found on a link from the Department of the Treasury website here.
The resignation of a treasurer like Rios could lead to changes on U.S. Federal Reserve notes that would be notable for collectors of paper money.
How Rios' resignation might affect U.S. paper money
Rios' departure from the presidentially appointed post could possibly prompt a series modification to Federal Reserve notes. A suffix letter is often added to the series issue, depending on denomination, upon a change in U.S. treasurers. A change in Treasury secretaries could result in a change in the series year designation.
Also, collectors who value signatures of U.S. Treasury officials on their notes will also be affected.
During her tenure, Rios attended many major coin shows across the United States, often placing her autograph below her facsimile signature on Federal Reserve notes.
At some point in the near future, there will be a new signature collectors will be seeking out.
Life before the U.S. Treasury
Before becoming U.S. treasurer, Rios had been managing director of investments for MacFarlane Partners, a real estate management firm based in San Francisco.
After her work on the Latino vote in Virginia during President Obamas first presidential campaign, Rios took a leave of absence from MacFarlane Partners to serve as a member of Obamas Treasury/Federal Reserve Transition Team.
At the time of becoming U.S. treasurer, Rios already had more than 20 years of real estate and community development experience.
Before joining MacFarlane Partners, Rios was a principal with Red River Associates, a consulting firm specializing in providing development, project management and executive management services for municipalities.
Rios received her bachelors degree in sociology and romance languages and literature from Harvard University.
A native of Hayward, Calif., Rios is married with two children. She is the sixth of nine children. Both of her parents are from Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
British Proof sets were also hotly contested in the auction. A 1911 Proof set from the reign of George V realized 16,800 with the buyers fee.
Another 1927 pattern coin of the Irish Free State, a silver threepence, realized 7,200, including the buyers fee, in the Dix Noonan Webb auction.
An Irish Free State pattern halfcrown from 1927 realized 13,200 including buyers fee during Dix Noonan Webbs June 8 and 9 auction in London.
Two rare pattern coins that were submitted as entries in the competition to select the Irish Free States new money in 1927 excited bidders at Dix Noonan Webb's June 8-9 auction of coins, paper money, tokens and historical medals in London.
A pattern halfcrown, estimated at 4,000 to 5,000, fetched more than twice that, selling for 13,200 including seller's fee, while a threepence expected to sell for 2,800 to 3,200 made 7,200 including seller's fee.
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The entire auction roster realized 774,072.
The two bronze Irish coins were designed by Italian sculptor Publio Morbiducci (1889 to 1963) as part of his successful entry in the competition to design the newly-independent nations currency.
The great Irish coin collector and expert Gerard Brady described them as having an ageless character and beauty with a rearing horse on the halfcrown and a hare on the threepence.
They were bought by two different private collectors.
What is a pattern coin?
Pattern coins are not struck for regular circulation. Instead, they are meant to serve as test coins so that a particular design could be judged.
The Irish coins that headlined the Dix Noonan Webb are indeed pattern coins, not approved for release and produced for the purposes of evaluating a proposed coin design.
How did they get into private hands?
The two coins were given by Morbiducci to the sellers grandfather in Italy before World War II and passed down through the family.
It is not known how many of these coins, struck by the Milanese medallists Lorioli Castelli, have survived.
In the 1970s Brady said that he knew of only one halfcrown, then in a private collection in Dublin, and four threepences.
Dix Noonan Webb described both coins as being of the highest rarity, their attractiveness increased by the fact that the condition of both was virtually as struck.
Other auction highlights
Proof sets of British coins fetched strong prices at the auction with a Victorian 1887 set in an unofficial leather case selling for 31,200, in line with its 24,000 to 30,000 estimate.
A 1911 set from the reign of George V fetched 16,800, against an estimate of 12,000 to 15,000.
The two principal collections in the auctions were English hammered coins, the property of a Cambridge scholar, which sold for a total of 159,348, and British milled coins, the property of a gentleman, which made 68,916.
I study magazine writing at the Missouri School of Journalism, and I am also working towards an environmental science certificate from MU. I am a student reporter for the Columbia Missourian during the summer, and I hope to go into science journalism.
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Eli Drinkwitz revealed the condition that's sidelined Chance Luper
Drinkwtz said that Luper is currently on blood thinners and that he will be reevaluated in three months. He will miss the rest of the regular season.
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July 6, 2016 - A trailer in the parking lot of a former full-service gas station serves as the temporary facility for the Goodwill donation center on Central Avenue while the station undergoes work to become the center's permanent location. (Brandon Dill/Special to The Commercial Appeal)
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By Thomas Bailey Jr. of The Commercial Appeal
A 92-year-old former service station gets new life while retaining its vintage appearance, Midtowns Central BBQ apparently gets room to grow, and Memphis Goodwill gets to stay on a block that has long been successful for the not-for-profit organization.
A domino-like row of real estate moves has tumbled within a tight spot on Central Avenue between East Parkway and Cooper, and it appears most everyone benefits.
Memphis Goodwill has operated a donation center at 2235 Central next door to its landlord, Central BBQ successfully for years; the site performs in the top third of Goodwills 38 attended donation centers in Shelby County, Tipton County and North Mississippi, said Dave Leutwyler, chief operations officer.
The organization employs more than 800 people by collecting used clothing and household items at the donation centers and selling them at 17 retail locations.
So when Central BBQ informed Goodwill several months ago that the restaurant owners would not renew Goodwills lease, the organization focused on moving as close by as possible.
Mission accomplished: Goodwill has signed a long-term lease for the former Autobahn auto repair building at 2218 Central.
Thats across the street and west, 170 feet away.
Fortunately for (Central BBQ), their business continues to grow and they needed to reclaim that building to expand their own operations, Leutwyler said.
We absolutely wanted to maintain a presence in that area.
The property sold recently for $335,000 to David V. Couch, who is renovating the building and leasing it to Goodwill.
Jess Ossorio of Crump Commercial and CORFAC International represented Couch and Tucker Beck Crye-Leike Commercial represented the sellers.
The building was erected in 1924 as a full-service gas station. The structure still features a swooping service canopy that cars once pulled under.
The intent is to maintain the building as it is, Leutwyler said. It is just a very unique building. We really appreciate the look of it.
The renovation plan even calls for reopening one of the old stations boarded up garage doors that faces Cox. Well use it for our trucks to come and pick up the donations that are brought on the Central side, Leutwyler said.
The renovation should be finished in two to three months, he said. Meanwhile, a truck is temporarily parked there to receive donations.
As it turns out, the new site will be better than the old one, which had access only to Central and was often jammed with big crowds at the neighboring barbecue shop.
Its a much better location for donors to access, Leutwyler said, referring to the corner lot. You can access it from Central and exit on Cox and go (north) to Union or onto Central.
The owners of Central BBQ did no respond to telephone calls.
Jim Strickland
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By Sydney Neely, commercialappeal.com
Those interested in doing business with the City of Memphis may attend the first We Mean Business symposium, Mayor Jim Strickland announced Wednesday.
The event will be 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. July 26 at the Cook Convention Center.
Hundreds of small and minority businesses are expected to attend the symposium to learn about certification, registration and contracting opportunities available in each division of city government.
This is the first time the City of Memphis has demonstrated this type of intentionality and transparency in proactively communicating available opportunities in city government, Strickland said in a release.
Too often Ive heard minority and small business owners say they knew nothing, received nothing and heard nothing about opportunities available with the city, Strickland said. Through the symposium, we seek to provide current and potential vendors an opportunity to become familiar with the citys diversity programs and projects for which a wide range of skill sets can be used.
Wednesdays announcement came the same day that Maria Contreras-Sweet, administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, was to visit small businesses in Memphis as part of her five-day Delta Region Main Street Road Tour.
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By Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY NETWORK Tennessee
Hermitage Precinct detectives Wednesday morning charged a Memphis man with criminal homicide and evidence tampering in connection to the overnight apparent stabbing death of a woman found inside an inn near Percy Priest Lake in Nashville.
Ben Austin Bolton, 22, was arrested in the slaying which detectives say took place inside a room he rented at the Lotus Inn on Percy Priest Drive, Metro police said.
Officers were dispatched about 10 p.m. to inn near Stewarts Ferry Pike after the woman's body was inside.
The victim is believed to be an 18-year-old Memphis woman, police said. Detectives and the Medical Examiner are working to confirm her identity.
To read more on the story, go to Tennessean.com.
Gleyse Kelly da Silva holds her daughter Maria Giovanna as she sleeps in their house in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Brazilian officials still say they believe there's a sharp increase in cases of microcephaly and strongly suspect the Zika virus, which first appeared in the country last year, is to blame. The concern is strong enough that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month warned pregnant women to reconsider visits to areas where Zika is present. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
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By Tom Charlier of The Commercial Appeal
Using newly announced federal funds, Shelby County health officials plan to expand their efforts to educate residents on threats posed by the Zika virus the mosquito-borne pathogen that already has sickened three international travelers in the Memphis area.
Money for the effort will come from the $377,376 awarded to Tennessee this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The funds are part of $25 million provided nationally by the CDC to fund preparedness efforts against Zika.
Health Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Hart said once they're ready, details of the planned effort will be submitted to the state for approval. It's unclear how much of the money for Tennessee will go to the county.
"We're looking to increase the education and outreach in the community, making sure people know what Zika is, where they can travel, what precautions to take," Hart said.
The virus, which has spread throughout much of Latin America and the Caribbean, is associated with serious birth defects primarily microcephaly, distinguished by small heads among babies born to infected mothers.
Two cases of Zika have been confirmed in Shelby County both involving residents who were infected while traveling to countries most affected by the outbreak. This week, Mississippi officials announced that a case had been confirmed in neighboring DeSoto County involving a resident who had traveled to Jamaica.
The Memphis area is home to one of the specific mosquito species Aedes albopictus, also known as the Asian tiger known to transmit Zika.
Whenever a case is confirmed in the county, the Health Department's vector-control crews use hand-held sprayers to kill mosquitoes in the vicinity of where the infected person lives as part of an effort to prevent further transmission. Unlike other mosquito species for which the department sprays, the Asian tiger is most active during the day, but doesn't fly very far.
In awarding the funds, CDC officials said states and local communities need help in strengthening their education and response plans.
"Although the continental United States has not yet seen local transmission of the Zika virus, mosquito season is here, and states must continue to both work to prevent transmission and prepare for their first case," Dr. Stephen Reed, director of CDC's office of Public Health Preparedness and Response.
President Barack Obama has asked Congress for $1.9 billion to fund comprehensive efforts to combat Zika.
RALEIGH, NC - JULY 5: Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump stands next to Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) during a campaign event at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts on July 5, 2016 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Earlier in the day Hillary Clinton campaigned in Charlotte, North Carolina with President Barack Obama. (Photo by Sara D. Davis/Getty Images)
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By Michael Collins of The Commercial Appeal
WASHINGTON Sen. Bob Corker removed himself from consideration as Donald Trump's running mate Wednesday but said he would be open to serving in Trump's administration should the presumptive GOP nominee win the presidency.
Corker, a Tennessee Republican who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he informed Trump and his campaign team during a series of meetings Tuesday that he was taking himself out of the running for vice president.
"I feel like there are people better suited for that role, and I'm better suited for other kinds of roles," Corker said in an interview.
"When it comes to being a vice president, it's a highly, highly political role," Corker said. "I view myself as sort of a policy person."
Corker, 63, said his decision to withdraw from consideration as vice president opened up "a candid conversation" with Trump and his team about policy and other roles he might play. He would not say whether they discussed the possibility of him serving as secretary of state.
Asked if he would consider working in a Trump administration, Corker said he shares the same philosophy of public service as Howard Baker Jr., a former Tennessee senator who served as President Reagan's last chief of staff and, later, as U.S. ambassador to Japan.
"If the president calls you to serve, certainly it's your responsibility to sit down and strongly consider that," Corker said. "But to try to respond to conjecture (about a specific position) at this point is just not appropriate."
Corker, Tennessee's junior senator and a former Chattanooga mayor, was often mentioned as a possible running mate for Trump, partly because of the foreign policy experience he would bring to the ticket.
Speculation that he might be in the running for No. 2 spot on the GOP ticket started shortly after he told USA TODAY in early May he had offered to help Trump develop a foreign policy platform and stood ready to assist the presumptive nominee in the general election.
Later that month, Corker had a private, hour-long meeting with Trump at Trump Tower in New York City. Corker described the meeting as a chance for the two to get to know each other better and said they talked about foreign policy.
Corker said he agreed to undergo a preliminary vetting for the vice presidency with the understanding he would eventually sit down and talk further with Trump about the job.
That sit-down discussion happened Tuesday, when Corker spent the day with Trump, his family and members of his campaign team at Trump Tower. Corker said he began each of his meetings by saying he didn't think he was suited to be vice president.
Later Tuesday, Corker flew with Trump to a campaign rally in the swing state of North Carolina, where Trump introduced him to the cheering crowd as "a great friend of mine, somebody respected by everybody."
Corker said his day with Trump, his family and work associates gave him a better appreciation of the billionaire real-estate mogul.
"To see the relationship between Mr. Trump and the people that worked there, from the most senior levels to the most junior, and the respect they have for him and vice versa, he's a gentleman," Corker said. "He's very considerate."
Corker said he doesn't yet know if he will be making other campaign appearances with Trump.
"We'll see," he said. "I've got a job to do here. I've got things to do back home. But I will say yesterday was a very enjoyable day, and it certainly was a privilege to be in the position to see the internal workings of the campaign, but also to witness Trump in person and see what has been happening and to see (the crowd's) response."
Corker said he has been offered a speaking role at the Republican National Convention that begins July 18 in Cleveland, but that details still are being worked out.
Trump is expected to pick his running mate before the convention. Others in the running for the job include former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
The Commercial Appeal files The Masonic Temple, shown here in July 1899, is one of four buildings to occupy the northeast corner of Second and Madison. The building occupied the site from 1879 until 1913. Work started on the building in 1872, but was not completed until 1879 because of the yellow fever epidemic. From 1880 to 1885 the Post Office was temporarily housed within the building, and in 1891, James S. Robinson's Apothecary located within the temple building. The building that preceded the Masonic Temple on the site housed the first session of the 84th state General Assembly in 1861-62 and in 1865 the county court clerk's office was housed within the building.
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July 6
25 years ago: 1991
KNOXVILLE The University of Tennessee's efforts to reduce administrative costs apparently have had little effect on top administrators' salaries. Gov. Ned McWherter chided fellow members of the UT board of trustees a week ago for the number of university salaries paying $100,000 or more. Twenty-four professors and administrators on the main Knoxville campus earn more than $100,000. McWherter said he will ask the Tennessee Higher Education Commission to freeze for six months any state employee salary of more than $100,000. He said he also might propose legislation to cap state salaries.
50 years ago: 1966
Enthusiastic supporters of Gov. Frank G. Clement produced an overflow crowd at the Balinese Room of the Claridge yesterday in an effort to shake the hand and hear the voice of the man they want for United States senator. The Governor opened his Shelby County campaign headquarters to the tune of praise sung by Dr. C.C. Humphreys, president of Memphis State University, who broke his school's precedent by introducing a candidate for statewide office.
75 years ago: 1941
A new $100,000 cotton compress and warehouse with a 100,000 bale capacity will be built in West Memphis in time to handle some of this fall's crop, if plans announced for the project yesterday are carried out in full.
100 years ago: 1916
G.A. Macon, one of the best known men in Memphis and Shelby County, last night announced his candidacy for he office of tax assessor of Shelby County. Mr. Macon has lived in Memphis 15 years as one of the proprietors of a well known business college.
125 years ago: 1891
"The people of Arkansas are preparing to make an exhibit at the World's Fair," said Judge W.P. Grace of Pine Bluff last night. "The Legislature failed to make an appropriation but the people are going to make an exhibit through private subscription."
A crowd listens to Stacy Hollander, center, curator of the American Folk Art Museum, speak June 30 about items in "American Made: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum" at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark. An exhibit of material from everyday craftsmen is on display through mid-September. (AP Photo/Kelly P. Kissel) (AP Photo/Kelly P. Kissel)
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By Kelly P. Kissel, Associated Press
BENTONVILLE, Ark. Since its debut five years ago, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has showcased works by well-known American artists like Georgia O'Keeffe and Andy Warhol. Now the Arkansas museum founded by a Wal-Mart heiress is turning its attention to ordinary objects made by unsung craftsmen, quilters and painters.
The new show, "American Made: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum," features a collection that includes weathervanes, shop signs and spinning toys called whirligigs. The show opened during the Independence Day weekend and remains on view through Sept. 19.
The exhibition draws from the collection of the American Folk Art Museum in New York, billed by a curator there as America's "alternative art history."
While an occasional folk art piece may have been included in previous special exhibits, the new show is the museum's first dedicated entirely to the genre.
"These are truly their treasures which they entrusted us with," said Mindy Besaw, Crystal Bridges' curator. "What you will get to see is the best of their collection."
Items range from 4-inch paper figurines depicting horses and soldiers in the post-Revolutionary War era to an 8-foot, hollow copper weathervane featuring a Delaware Indian leader named Tammany.
"There are a few icons in the collection that I wanted to be on the checklist pieces that haven't traveled or haven't traveled in a very long time: the Tammany weathervane, the man on a bicycle trade sign, pieces that are monumental in scale, or are so unique that you want them to be a part of the show," said Stacy Hollander, chief curator and director of exhibitions at the American Folk Art Museum.
Though many of the objects are decorative or aesthetically appealing, their original purpose was mostly functional: decoys to attract ducks, amusements for children or advertising from a period when images were needed because literacy rates were lower.
"A weathervane is a practical form of sculpture, but it has to work. If it doesn't work, it is not successful," Hollander said. For its size, "it is surprisingly light."
The decoys, on the other hand, are just as functional if they aren't painted, she said.
"They just need to appear fowl-like to other birds," Hollander said. "The silhouette is significant. The painted embellishment, that is an individual's creativity coming into play."
Crystal Bridges opened in 2011, founded by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton as a showcase for American masters. The museum is located in Bentonville, the same town as Wal-Mart corporate headquarters. Regular admission to the museum is free, with the cost covered by Wal-Mart, but there is a $10 charge to see "American Made."
Urban Child Institute/ Google maps
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By Kayleigh Skinner of The Commercial Appeal
The board of the Urban Child Institute is considering selling its office to save money. It's the latest development in a series of changes at the nonprofit that has included a number of leadership changes in recent months.
The institute is currently in talks with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare Services for the purchase of UCI's property at 600 Jefferson Ave, said board chairwoman Jill Crocker.
"One thing we have discovered is Urban Child Institute, we're not in the business of real estate," Crocker said. "Acting as a landlord to tenants, that's not something that UCI does that well."
Crocker said UCI owns the entire 69,280-square-foot office building, but the space is not necessary given the institute's size. Built in 1975, the building was appraised this year for more than $4.1 million and the 2.3 acres of land it sits on was appraised for $439,300.
"Our offices are there, but especially with a smaller staff and not having executive positions, we don't even take up the whole floor," Crocker said.
Methodist Healthcare spokeswoman Mary Alice Taylor said she was not aware of the proposal; she added that the organization routinely looks for available space and reevaluates where its services are located to make sure it is using resources effectively.
If Methodist does purchase the building, it would provide that organization with extra office space and free UCI of maintenance costs associated with owning the building, Crocker said. UCI's office would remain on the property, and the board would work out a rental agreement with Methodist, she said.
"We'd much rather spend our money in the community on the kids," Crocker said.
The decision reflects a shift in the focus of the institute. Last month, the board reduced its staff size and let go of consultants to direct more money into future investments that further UCI's goal of improving the lives of Memphis and Shelby County children from birth to 3 years old, Crocker said.
The board is actively searching for its next director. Former president and CEO Gene Cashman retired Jan 1. Henry Herrod the board's former secretary, stepped in soon after as interim president, but resigned April 8. Board member and Le Bonheur Children's Hospital CEO Meri Armour has taken his place while the search continues for a permanent president.
The board has received at least 12 applications and expects to have a new CEO "in the next month or so," Crocker said. Whoever they choose can expect to be paid less than the $649,046 Cashman earned in 2014. UCI has been criticized in the past year for paying its leadership six-figure salaries, compensation that's higher than what executives at other large nonprofit groups in Memphis receive.
"We are focused on making sure all applicants know this is going to be a very good job, but equitable and fair in this market," she said.
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Linda Lanier
Memphis
Id like to thank U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen for participating in the recent House sit-in on gun control. I am for gun control, and am also a gun permit carrier, after being held up a gunpoint by two 14-year-olds, threatened with a knife getting out of my car in my driveway, and successfully escaping a convicted rapist who tried to break into my home.
I went through the requisite safety training, background check and fingerprinting. I dont understand why those against gun control think the rest of us are completely against owning guns and why they continue to insist that Democrats and anti-NRA citizens have a deep, dark plan to take guns from everyone.
We are responsible gun owners who also believe in the Second Amendment, and just want the same rules to be applied to everyone. We dont believe the Second Amendment gives us the right to own an assault weapon with a magazine large enough to outshoot the police and do battle in the streets. We are the public who for decades have professed our desire for stricter gun control to include closing loopholes at gun shows and private sales, and who want to prevent gun ownership by convicted felons, people on the do-not-fly list, the mentally ill and people with active protection orders.
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By Albert R. Hunt
The FBI was right to recommend that no criminal charges be filed against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server while Secretary of State. But she still needs a cure for the reckless arrogance she displayed, an attitude that could produce more disasters if she reaches the White House.
To protect herself as president, and to protect her presidency, Clinton needs a Dr. No. That's somebody more powerful than the smart loyalists she surrounds herself with, somebody with the stature to say: "Ma'am, you cannot do that."
Donald Trump and a chorus of Republicans will scream that the long Federal Bureau of Investigation inquiry that's now finally over was fixed, and that she should have been indicted. That's partisan demagoguery.
The decision was made by FBI director James Comey, a man of impeccable integrity and bipartisan credibility. He didn't even inform Attorney General Loretta Lynch, whose impromptu private meeting with Bill Clinton last week gave fodder to critics, even though both Lynch and Clinton said they didn't discuss the case.
Comey said that there was evidence that classified material was mishandled, but not in a way that was prosecutable. Parallels to other cases were flawed. Gen. David Petraeus, for example, was sentenced to probation and fined for deliberately giving classified material to a former lover while he was director of the CIA. Intent was clear, as it was not in the Clinton case.
Secretary Clinton used the private server to prevent critical Republicans those she once called the vast right-wing conspiracy from rifling through her emails and thoughts. It was not for convenience, as she claimed.
The bad faith of her enemies was real enough, but the way she dealt with it was beyond careless. Using private email was systematic and against Obama administration policy. For other officials it could have been a dismissible offense.
It also says something disturbing about Clinton's relationship with a loyal and able staff: No adviser, it seems, is empowered to tell the boss when she's wrong.
What Clinton needs, and probably will resist, is a forceful peer who prizes the public interest over personal loyalty. Only that kind of person could have told her, "Madame Secretary, you cannot use a private email server; it violates the spirit of what's required even if not the letter of the law."
That same person also would have said: "Mrs. Clinton, if you want to give speeches to big Wall Street firms, then fine. But you're a multimillionaire, and it simply isn't acceptable to take 275 grand for a short speech; it's also unwise politically."
Dr. No might have also told Bill Clinton: "You cannot have a sit down with the attorney general of the United States while she's presiding over a sensitive case involving your wife."
The Clintons have rejected good advice before. On the final evening of the Bill Clinton administration, Chief of Staff John Podesta left the White House in the wee hours of the night convinced that the president was not going to pardon a sleazy convicted fugitive, Marc Rich. When he returned several hours later, the ill-advised pardon had been granted.
It's not that Mrs. Clinton's fear of her enemies is baseless. Look at the wasteful House Benghazi inquisition, or the effort now to smear Planned Parenthood. There will be right-wing witch hunts if this Clinton gets to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
But if she responds by trying to avoid accountability, as she did in setting up the email server, there will be more self-inflicted wounds.
Albert R. Hunt is a columnist for Bloomberg View.
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By Clarence Page
I like Bill and Hillary Clinton, but they don't make it easy.
For more than a quarter century I have watched them slip in and out of scandals, most of which were either generated or exaggerated by their Republican rivals.
We've all learned to expect scandals by now. What irritates me is to see the Clintons slip and slide into a scandal that could have been avoided and can't honestly be blamed on anyone other than themselves.
The latest example is tarmac-gate, so named because it occurred on one of former president Bill Clinton's favorite places to schmooze with VIPs: an airport tarmac amid the VIPs' private planes.
Clinton was preparing to fly out of Phoenix during a seven-state fund-raising swing for his wife's campaign when he learned that Attorney General Loretta Lynch was in another nearby plane, according to reports.
He decided to say hi. Clinton has known Lynch since at least 1999 when he named her to serve as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. With Phoenix boiling at 103 degrees, he climbed aboard her air-conditioned plane.
The chat lasted 20 minutes and also included Lynch's husband, Secret Service agents and several staff members.
Fine. But Lynch is still the nation's top cop. She oversees the FBI, which has been investigating whether Bill Clinton's wife or any of her associates broke laws in using an unauthorized private email server for her when she was secretary of state.
Now that the FBI has decided against filing criminal charges against Hillary Clinton, her husband's visit with Lynch taints that decision with a cloud of suspicion. Republicans howl about the appearance of impropriety. Populists charge that the system is rigged. Democrats ask how the former president and current attorney general could have been so stupid.
Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart cleaned that up later by asking Lynch a question at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado that virtually everybody wanted to ask: "What on earth were you thinking?"
Lynch maintained her cool but admitted: "It's painful to me. I certainly wouldn't do it again."
Good. But watch out, Madam Attorney General. You can be pulled into the Clinton web of high-risk shenanigans before you know it. The Clintons are smart people, but they're also drama junkies.
That's what in today's psycho-babble you call people who cause problems, actively or passively, because they find it easier than avoiding problems.
For example, a normal non-drama junkie might ask, why did Hillary Clinton need to have an unauthorized private email server anyway?
In her case, she has claimed, it was merely a matter of convenience. She didn't want to have to carry two Blackberries or switch between two accounts -- one personal, the other government-issued and therefore more secure against hackers.
But wasn't convenience a small prize for the huge toll that now has been taken on her credibility? You might think that, if you were not a drama junkie.
She and her husband are both smart, Yale-educated lawyers. But they also seem to share the lawyerly belief that they can argue their way out of anything, tough or teeny.
And sometimes they seem so battle-hardened from surviving their conservative rivals' and critics' relentless assaults that they no longer worry very much about the appearance of impropriety. There always seem to be bigger crises to face.
As a result, the prospect of yet another scandal seems to bring little more than a yawn from the Clinton camp, as long as their polling numbers are up.
I'm hardly the first to notice. "Scandals don't weaken Hillary Clinton," said comedian Bill Maher on his HBO show "Real Time" back in 2013. "They only make her stronger."
That was before House Republicans held highly-touted hearings into the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi that resulted in the death of four Americans.
House majority leader Kevin McCarthy admitted in a later burst of televised candor that the Benghazi hearings actually aimed to sink Hillary Clinton's presidential election chances in 2016. Right. And the committee's 800-page report makes a nice doorstop.
Obviously whether scandal makes the Clintons stronger or not, they have been helped enormously by the shortcomings of their Republican rivals. Donald Trump, the Grand Old Party's presumptive nominee, could hardly do a better job of alienating people if he was on the Clinton's payroll.
That leaves us, the voters, to choose between two of the most disliked presidential candidates in the history of polling -- also known as two drama junkies running against each other.
Clarence Page is a columnist for the Tribune Content Agency. Contact him at cpage@tribune.com.
Someone at Google really likes sneakers: The company has just bought a French machine-learning startup that taught a computer how to recognize 15,000 different types of them.
Paris-based Moodstocks builds image and object recognition software using deep learning techniques, and offered an Android app and visual search API that could recognize certain kinds of objects. By analyzing video from a smartphone camera, and correlating it with accelerometer readings to determine how the camera is moving around, the software is able to infer information about the three-dimensional shape of objects in the video, facilitating their recognition.
In February 2015 the company demonstrated its ability to identify sneakers through its app. Three months later, after training the software using 15,000 photos of shoes from an online retailer's website, Moodstocks claimed to be able to shop online for all the sneakers on sale in a Macy's store.
Google has been introducing elements of machine learning into its existing online services, including Google Translate and Inbox, a next-generation interface for Gmail.
Its online photo archival service, Google Photos, uses machine learning to identify categories of photo, such as parties or beach scenes, to make it easier to search.
But there's still a lot of work to be done in this field, according to Google's blog post (in French) announcing the acquisition of Moodstocks.
Google said the Moodstocks team will join its existing research and development operation in Paris.
There, they will develop image-recognition tools for use in Google services, the Moodstocks team wrote on their own site.
Meanwhile, Moodstocks will discontinue its own image recognition services, although paying subscribers will have access until their subscriptions run out, the post said.
Google didn't put a price on the Moodstocks acquisition, but it's unlikely to be as high as the $500 million it reportedly paid in 2014 for the much larger DeepMind, the London-based developer of the Go program that beat top player Lee Se-dol in March.
Ive come across a compelling story that shows how Apple Watch can make a huge difference to enable deafblind people to live more independent lives.
It's all available in this extensive post written by Usher Syndrome sufferer, Lady Usher. The author is London-based and gets around with the aid of a cane, a guide dog and an iPhone, but Apple Watch is transforming her life.
Empowerment
My new Apple Watch has made things so much easier, she writes. I simply key in my route on my phone, pop it in my bag and the watch, hidden safely on my wrist, vibrates to tell me to go left and right using two different tactile pulses. Another signal lets me know when I have arrived at my destination. It is such a simple idea and so damn enabling.
Just three weeks after I got the watch, my guide dog and I entered a month-long team steps challenge at my work place. Together, we walked almost 200 miles through the busy streets of London, simply by following the vibrations of the AppleWatch and the simple on screen instructions. For the first time ever, it felt like we owned the streets. The whole of London has opened up to me for the first time since I lost my sight.
Apple Pay has enabled her to pay for items in the shops, while timers and apps such as the famed boiled egg timer app help her prepare food, which is way more difficult to do when you cant hear or see.
The Molly Watt Trust
The Apple Watch was provided by the Molly Watt Trust, a small charity that helps Usher syndrome sufferers, the syndrome is an inherited condition characterized by hearing impairment and progressive vision loss. The Trust is currently campaigning to raise funds to provide an Apple Watch to Usher Syndrome sufferers.
The charity explains its decision to provide Apple Watch is based on the fact that most of the people it seeks to help already use an iPhone in preference to other smartphone brands because of its amazing built in accessibility features. Apple leads in terms of including accessibility inside its products -- its recently announced wheelchair-focused Activity app for Apple Watch is just one of many examples.
Another accessibility tool you can look forward to in watchOS 3 is custom made for VoiceOver users, where, Apple added Taptic Time allowing you to silently feel the time instead of hearing it. Its available with three time telling options including Digits, Terse and Morse Code, a source said.
The future of accessibility
The Apple Watch has the ability to enhance a life and also to allow independence, the Molly Watt Trust explained. Along with these amazing features it also has great connectivity and the ability to control certain hearing aids which then allow more enhancement to everyday life.
The extensive post also discusses other ways in which technology could potentially make life easier for deafblind people, from notions of sending tannoy announcements and platform changes directly to the Watch to haptic navigation of indoor spaces.
Life in future is set to get a lot easier for a deaf person who is going blind. The AppleWatch may well be a game changer for deafblind people, the blogger explains.
In many ways much of the key enabling technologies in development today will transform lives. Autonomous vehicles, wearables, virtual reality, beacons-based mapping systems, artificial intelligence, all these technologies should enable levels of autonomy you just dont enjoy today if you happen to be physically disadvantaged.
We are on the verge of great technology breakthroughs that will help to level the playing field even for those who are both deaf and blind, she writes.
With Activity, Health, ResearchKit, CareKit, Breathe and organ donation solutions, Apples focus on health will continue to transform lives.
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Shocking, I tell you, it's shocking. After only 18 months, BlackBerry is stopping production of its BlackBerry Classic smartphone -- you know, the one that still has a physical keyboard. Who would have guessed there wasn't a market for that?
In IT Blogwatch, we sound the death knell.
Want the background? We read the obit in RIP: BlackBerry kills its Classic phone:
Handheld phone, loved for its...keyboard and hated for its terrible web browser, dies at age 20. Was once the go-to device of millions...It was a good run. But the BlackBerry that you...knew and loved has passed away.
...
BlackBerry announced on Tuesday...it would no longer make the BlackBerry Classic -- a model that used the old QWERTY keys and was popular before the age of touchscreen smartphones.
...
The Canadian tech company formerly known as Research in Motion has been struggling for years due to increased competition from Apple...Samsung and other companies.
Wait, smartphones with actual keyboards are still around? Don't feel bad if you didn't know -- few people did. Catherine Piner explains Blackberry's reasoning for having a phone with a QWERTY keyboard this day and age:
In 2015, BlackBerry made a retro reversal, releasing a new, familiar-looking model called the Classic. This throwback offered a physical keyboard and a slightly slimmer but still-clunky look...eyeing an older business crowd that missed the precision of a keyboard...and sturdiness of the old phones black synthetic material, the company made a leap to see if there was a market that it was missing.
...
Suffice it to say, the market wasnt there. So once again, the BlackBerry Classic is disappearing.
So what's BlackBerry's next move? Ralph Pini, COO and GM for devices at BlackBerry, clears everything right up:
We are committed to the success of both BlackBerry 10 and Android devices. To keep innovating and advancing...we are updating our smartphone lineup with state of the art devices.
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The Classic has long surpassed the average lifespan for a smartphone...We are ready for this change so we can give our customers something better -- entrenched in our legacy in security and pedigree in making the most productive smartphones.
Great, but what does that actually mean? Jacob Siegal spills the beans:
BlackBerry...is planning one Android phone every quarter for the next three quarters.
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The first, codenamed Neon...is expected to go on sale in July or August at a budget price...Argon, the second phone, has significantly more impressive specs...Sources believe it should launch some time in October.
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Mercury, the third and final phone...has fairly moderate specs, but the big news is that this 2017 device has been said to include a physical keyboard.
At least one person, at least, is upset over the demise of the BlackBerry Classic. Richard Quest wears his emotions on his smartphone:
Noooo @BlackBerry announced the death of the Classic. The end of civilisation.
Flashback to the early 1980s, when this IT pilot fish is working on a system for monitoring oil pipelines in Venezuela.
And that does mean in Venezuela. "A small team of us were sent to the western part of the country to install systems out in jungle, spread out over 20 miles," says fish.
"In the middle, the Venezuelans built a concrete bunker for our central computer, which every few seconds gathered data to monitor the whole spread-out system."
Aside from that, infrastructure is in short supply -- for example, the closest phone lines are in a nearby town, a total of three pay phones guarded by a soldier.
So to send data back to the server in the bunker, the pipeline-monitoring computers each have a radio with an antenna pointed at the bunker's radio tower.
But it's impossible to see the radio tower from 10 or 20 miles away in order to aim the antennas. And though fish and his crew are promised handheld radios, they don't show up either, no matter how many times fish's team repeats the request.
"So the chief engineer went into the little nearby town and had a guy build him a 'mortar' from a reinforced metal tube and make some some 'rounds,'" fish says.
"The idea was to shoot off a round from the central site, so that someone at the top of a remote tower could see approximately where the central computer was, to crudely aim their antenna at it."
There are a few problems with this plan. For one, the remote towers are nothing like sturdy -- they're basically vertical ladders held in place with guy wires, and not exactly safe for observers.
For another, the pipelines themselves carry a mixture of oil, water and natural gas. Sending up what are essentially fireworks near the spot where all the pipelines come together is not exactly the safest practice so near to a highly explosive gas.
Fortunately, if anything does go wrong, there's a fire-suppression system -- fed by a huge tank that supplies all water for the bunker. "That tank had to be refilled by tanker trucks bringing in water," says fish. "One day the toilets didn't work, because that big tank had run out and not been refilled. Until it was, that also meant the fancy fire-suppression system was also useless.
"I do remember seeing the mortar and the homemade rounds to be used in it, but I don't recall seeing it actually used. Most likely the Venezuelans gave us the radios at that point, to avoid blowing up their brand-new central monitoring station, freshly carved out of the jungle."
It's an IT jungle out there. Tell Sharky about it. Send me your true tales of IT life at sharky@computerworld.com. You'll snag a snazzy Shark shirt every time I use one. Add your comments below, and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.
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Google released a new batch of Android patches on Wednesday, fixing over 100 flaws in Android's own components and in chipset-specific drivers from different manufacturers.
Android's mediaserver component, which handles the processing of video and audio streams and has been a source of many vulnerabilities in the past, is at the forefront of this security update. It accounts for 16 Android vulnerabilities, including 7 critical flaws that can allow an attacker to execute code with higher privileges.
The bugs can be exploited by sending specifically crafted audio or video files to users' devices via the browser, email or messaging apps. Because of the repeated mediaserver flaws, Google Hangouts and the default Android Messenger applications no longer pass media to this component automatically.
Another critical vulnerability was fixed in the OpenSSL and BoringSSL crypto libraries that are bundled with the Android OS. This flaw can also be exploited through a specially crafted file to execute code within the context of the affected processes.
This month's security bulletin was split into two parts: one with patches that apply to all Android devices, and one with patches that apply only to devices that contain the affected chipset drivers.
Phone manufacturers will have the option to upgrade their phones to one of two patch levels: 2016-07-01, which includes device-agnostic fixes, and 2016-07-05, which includes the 2016-07-01 fixes plus the device-specific ones.
The patch level, expressed as a date string, is displayed in Android's settings under "About phone" and indicates that the firmware contains all Android security patches up to that date. It only exists in newer versions of Android.
The 2016-07-01 patch level includes fixes for 32 vulnerabilities: 8 rated critical, 15 of high severity and 9 moderate.
The 2016-07-05 security patch level includes additional fixes for a whooping 75 vulnerabilities that are marked as device-specific. Twelve of these vulnerabilities are rated critical and are located in highly privileged components such as the Qualcomm GPU driver, the MediaTek Wi-Fi driver, the Qualcomm performance component, the NVIDIA video driver, the kernel file system, the USB driver and other unspecified MediaTek drivers.
Because these drivers are loaded inside the kernel, the most privileged area of the operating system, the vulnerabilities can lead to a permanent device compromise that can only be fixed by reflashing the firmware.
Most of the other 54 high-severity flaws were also in various chipset drivers and can also lead to a complete device compromise. The difference is that the attacker needs to already have access to a privileged process in order to exploit them.
As usual, Google released firmware updates for all of its supported Nexus devices and will release the patches to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) over the next 48 hours. Manufacturers and carriers that are Google's partners were notified about the patches included in this bulletin on June 6 or earlier.
Apple is including the iPhone and iPad Pro in this year's back-to-school promotion because the company must manage a slumping smartphone as well as a stuck-in-decline tablet market, an analyst said today.
Apple kicked off its annual back-to-school sales campaign last month, handing over Beats headphones to buyers of most Macs, all models in the 2015-2016 iPhone 6 and 6S series, and any iPad Pro.
The inclusion of the iPhone (6, 6 Plus, 6S and 6S Plus) and the iPad Pro (9.7-in. and 12.9-in.) was notable because Apple's smartphones and tablets were not eligible purchases for 2015's back-to-school promotion.
That, said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst with Creative Strategies, was easy to explain: In 2015, iPhone sales were up dramatically in the June quarter. Apple hadn't yet come to grips with the fact that the iPad, already in decline for five quarters, was not going to bounce back.
A year later, things are different.
"The reality of iPad sales really had not sunk in [then] as much as it has now," Milanesi said in an interview, referring to Apple's insistence in 2015 that iPad sales would return to growth. "Apple thought that the iPad's lifecycle was a bit longer than the iPhone, and that eventually customers would upgrade," she added. "That hasn't happened." The tablet replacement cycle simply doesn't resemble the smartphone cycle, with either very long intervals between upgrades, or in some cases, buyers who have no intention of upgrading from their first purchase.
More recently, iPhone sales also turned down. During the quarter that ended in March, Apple sold 51.2 million iPhones, a 16% reduction from the same period in 2015. iPhone revenue was off 18%, or $7.4 billion, year over year.
To drive sales of the iPhone and iPad Pro, Apple put them in the promotional bucket.
"Apple enters Back to School 2016 in a very different market dynamic and the promotions reflect that," Milanesi wrote in an analysis published Wednesday on Tech.pinions.
Customers who purchase an eligible iPhone or iPad Pro through Sept. 2 will receive either a pair of Powerbeats2 wireless headphones -- Apple applies an $199.95 credit to the order for a zero balance -- or a pair of Beats Solo2 wireless headphones. The Solo2 lists for $299.95, so the buyer pays $100 out of pocket for that option.
Consumers who buy an iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air or Mac Pro receive a pair of Beats Solo2 wireless headphones and are credited the full price of $299.95 on their order.
Educational discounts also apply to the iPad Pro and Mac lines, ranging from $20 on an iPad Pro, to $50 on a MacBook and MacBook Air, to $100 on a MacBook Pro. The discounts top out at $300 on the most expensive Mac Pro.
Back-to-school sales are important for technology vendors, including Apple, Milanesi said. Most experts consider the summer promotions as the second-most important season after the end-of-year holidays. "It does matter for PC vendors [in general], but it is also a big deal for Apple," she said. "This is also a difficult [period] for Apple -- June, July and August -- because everyone is waiting for the new iPhone."
Milanesi also implied that the inclusion of the iPad Pro in this year's back-to-school deal fit with Apple's recent arguments that the tablet, when paired with a keyboard, was appropriate to replace a traditional laptop.
While parents may view the laptop as the productivity answer for their children, students are much more likely to lean toward the tablet, Milanesi said. But the generational differences may be moot at this point. "In the past, you couldn't get an iPad [for school and schoolwork] because you needed Office and a keyboard," she said. "That doesn't hold anymore."
Office 365, Microsoft's subscription service, is key to that scenario, for it gives customers the right to run the iOS Office apps on an iPad Pro. Students can piggyback on their parents' subscription -- $100 annually for five users -- purchase the college-specific Office 365 University, a four-year subscription for $80, or in many cases, acquire the apps free of charge through their school's over-arching Office 365 Education plan.
A tablet-keyboard combination is also less expensive than a traditional laptop. A 9.7-in. iPad Pro equipped with Apple's Smart Keyboard costs $728 with the educational discount, or 81% of the lowest-priced 11-in. MacBook Air.
"I'm not saying that the iPad Pro is the solution for everybody," Milanesi said. "Things are so much cheaper on the Windows side," she continued, referring to notebooks powered by Windows 10. "But if you look at the 9.7-in. iPad Pro, it's a very powerful machine. If you are OK with a smaller screen, you're golden. There are no issues from a performance point of view, and in Office, you won't notice a difference."
Apple's promotion covers devices purchased between June 2 and Sept. 5. The deal's terms and conditions can be found on Apple's website.
Remembering Elie Wiesel
Wiesel spoke at Palmer Auditorium in 1990 to commemorate the establishment of the Elie Wiesel Chair in Judaic Studies.
Connecticut College Religious Studies Professor Sharon J. Portnoff recalls Elie Wiesel, who died Saturday at his home in Manhattan at the age of 87, as not just a witness to genocide, but also as a storyteller whose own experiences inspired others to follow his humanitarian ideals.
Portnoff, the Elie Wiesel Professor of Judaic Studies, described the power of Wiesel's storytelling through her own experience in one of his classes at Boston University in the 1990s.
"Storytelling was the foundation of his teaching because, through the telling of stories, he could speak directly to his listeners' humanity, to their sense of being part of a human community and to the responsibilities that entails. He liked to say that 'to listen to a witness is to become a witness,'" Portnoff said. Portnoff was interviewed by The Day for an article on Wiesel's connection to New London.
Wiesel survived imprisonment at the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps as a teenager and went on to become a professor, a writer, a Nobel Laureate, and a human rights activist, among other achievements.
The Elie Wiesel Chair in Judaic Studies is a senior appointment in the Department of Religious Studies reserved for a distinguished scholar committed to advancing Judaic Studies within the liberal arts. The endowed position was established in 1990 by a generous gift from alumna JoAnn Hess Morrison '67. Wiesel delivered a lecture at the College to commemorate the professorship that year.
Portnoff is the second faculty member named to the Elie Wiesel Chair in Judaic Studies after Roger Brooks, former dean of the faculty, who held the chair from its inception to 2014. Brooks is now the president and CEO of Facing History and Ourselves, a global organization in Brookline, Massachusetts that educates people about antisemitism, racism and prejudice. Brooks said Wiesels legacy to the world lies in the power of his words.
"The absence of Elie Wiesel's voice will be a challenge for us all," Brooks said. "Our call to action should be to read his writings again and again as they will help us grapple with future problems of meaning."
Wiesel is perhaps best known for his work "Night," which retells his harrowing experience as a prisoner at Auschwitz and Birkenau. Portnoff, who teaches "Night" in her class on the Holocaust, said Wiesel had the ability to impact people toward ethical and humanitarian action. She described his passing as "the loss of a moral conscience for the world."
"Just the fact that he was here in the world, inspired peopleeven those who had never read his booksto rise to ethical action. So it is truly a great loss."
Portnoff said her students are often reading "Night" for the second time in her classes, because the book is so widely studied in high school. Yet on a second, closer reading, students can often gain deeper insight than the initial shock of war.
"It speaks to you no matter what age you are, no matter how much of a background you have. Because it was done through storytelling, people could read it, and suddenly they start to understand something about the people that were lost.
"They become aware of what was lost," she continued. "One of the things in Holocaust studies, on the simple level when you're teaching it, is to make sure that theres emphasis not just on war and horror, but on the individual people and what their lives were like."
Portnoff has been inspired to incorporate storytelling in her own teaching, especially when about the Holocaust, to make a direct and visceral connection with students.
"Storytelling brings in the individual and humanizes the victims," she said.
Portnoff first meet Wiesel in the early 1990s when she attended his class on Hasidism at Boston University. Wiesel spoke of being a child in his village of Sighet and visiting a rabbi with his mother. Wiesel did not hear the private blessing given to his mother, and his mother would not tell him. She died at Auschwitz.
It was through a chance meeting years later with a woman from Sighet who survived the genocide that Wiesel finally learned what the rabbi had said to his mother: Wiesel would one day do important things.
"He wanted, through stories, to touch listeners directly," Portnoff told The Day. "He hoped to make the listeners of his stories into witnesses."
July 6, 2016
Chilcot overshadowed everything. The mood in the House was sombre, even funereal, and there was a general tendency to refrain from playing the subject for partisan advantage.
So in his reply to David Camerons statement on the Chilcot report, Jeremy Corbyn avoided mentioning Tony Blair by name.
Mr Corbyn instead praised the late Robin Cook, who resigned in protest against the Iraq War, and said at the time in a few hundred words what has been confirmed in the report in more than two million words.
But though one may approve Mr Corbyns restraint, one cannot pretend he himself managed, in a few hundred words, to be in the slightest bit memorable. This was not a performance which forced one to recognise him as a more formidable figure.
Angus Robertson, leading for the Scottish Nationalists, took the chance at PMQs so before Mr Camerons statement to quote Mr Blairs message to President George W. Bush: Well be with you, whatever.
Mr Cameron said he did not wish to pre-empt what he himself was about to say, but added that no set of arrangements and planscan provide perfection.
Peter Lilley later contended, from the Conservative backbenches, that if you actually read the dodgy dossier put out by Number Ten, you could tell from its contents that there were no weapons of mass destruction.
So what was needed, Mr Lilley suggested, was an improved ability by both politicians and journalists to evaluate evidence.There too is a sombre lesson for us all.
Before PMQs, Kenneth Clarke and Sir Alan Duncan could be seen exchanging jokes, but the evidence does not unfortunately exist to know what these were, though one may suppose they had some reference to Mr Clarkes brutally dismissive comments about the various Tory leadership contenders, caught the day before on a Sky News microphone.
During PMQs, Nick Boles could be seen trying to bend the ear of Jeremy Hunt as they both stood at the far end of the Chamber from the Speaker. Here too, one may guess some reference was made to the Tory leadership race.
But in the public exchanges, Sir John Chilcot set the tone, and was treated with almost perfect respect: a singular achievement.
Broadly, UKIP has so far had three ages in its 23-year history.
The first, lasting from its foundation in 1993 to its entry into the European Parliament in 1999, was its infancy. It slowly built its membership and activist base, experienced a bitter parting of the ways with Alan Sked, its founding leader, and first started to wrestle with the twin problems of appearing to be a single issue party and having to rely entirely on voluntary donations.
The second age of UKIP began in June 1999 with the election of Nigel Farage, Jeffrey Titford and Michael Holmes as MEPs. The party could legitimately claim to have scored a surprise electoral success, and it now had a more reliable (if not always sufficient) financial and organisational basis thanks to the allowances secured from Brussels. It still wasnt a peaceful time Holmes was overthrown as leader a few months later, his successor served for just over two years, and there was the famous row with Kilroy-Silk, too but it was a period of growth nonetheless. In 2004 they won ten more EP seats and saw their vote jump above 16 per cent nationally. The membership grew steadily, the cadre of experienced activists developed, new donors appeared and the twin messages of robust common sense and irreverent, alcohol-tinged heckling of mainstream politics grew into the popular consciousness particularly in Farages first leadership stretch from 2006 to 2009. However, their progress was still slow they only added 0.4 percentage points in the 2009 European elections and, with Lord Pearson as their well-intentioned but ineffective leader, their 2010 General Election share was just over double their 2001 total.
Arguably, the insurgent partys third age began on the morning of General Election day 2010, when Farages plane crashed. The UKIP leaders first two brushes with death first in a car accident and then with cancer had taught him, as a young man, to enjoy life. But the third left him re-assessing his mission was he making the best use of his time? Was all the effort hed expended on fighting the EU worth it? He has since spoken of how it made him fearless, and led him to resolve that he would give his absolute all to the campaign against the EU. It was a moment that would have a major impact on British history by November he was back as UKIP leader, and proceeded from one success to another. By 2013, they were breaking through in the local elections, they won the 2014 European Election outright and picked up two MPs through defections, holding one in 2015. Their membership had more than doubled, and Farage himself had become the iconic image of his party, posing with a cigarette and a pint in pubs across the country. The referendum result was the victory he, and his colleagues, had been hoping for for more than 20 years.
Now, UKIP is embarking on a fourth age, triggered by Farages resignation as leader on Monday. The self-styled Peoples Army has a big choice to make: what will its future look like? There is evidently a watchdog role, holding feet to the fire to ensure the Leave vote is honoured, but its members and would-be leaders hope for much more. Their message, their target voters, their objectives and, of course, their eventual fate will be decided by what happens next.
At the end of 2014, I wrote about the Five Tribes of UKIP, the competing factions and traditions within the party. Its worth revisiting that now to see which of those is in the running to take over.
Bright Purple UKIP the optimistic, broadly libertarian, subculture still exists. Indeed, its principle champion, Douglas Carswell, is the entirety of the UKIP parliamentary party. But he is not going to stand, and Farages dislike for him has taken a deep root in the membership he will fight on from his Clacton fortress, but he wont be the next leader.
Grey UKIP and Blue UKIP, the traditional older, often ex-Tory core groups who played a major part in the partys foundation and early years, have seen their influence recede as the Peoples Army has grown and changed. The closest they might have to a leadership candidate is Suzanne Evans, an ally of Carswell and former Conservative councillor. But her suspension, at the behest of the Faragistes, for six months looks likely to stand, preventing her from doing so. Neil Hamilton, now in the Welsh Assembly, is also a prominent voice from this tradition he isnt a feasible leadership candidate, but as a popular voice in the grassroots he may yet wield some influence.
So its left to the final two factions, the Peoples Army tendency and Red UKIP, to decide the future of their party. As it happens, they have a lot in common. They are both fiercely anti-establishment, strongly anti-Conservative, deeply sceptical of big business and the leftist culture which dominates from quangos to the BBC.
The two traditions also point to very similar electoral strategies: where UKIP was once stereotyped as the party of retired colonels and disaffected Home Counties Tories, they instead argue that its natural voter is working class, on a low income and disillusioned with the economic and social direction of the country. In short, they are more likely to appear in a snobbish Emily Thornberry tweet about England flags than in a Farage-style covert coat.
That thinking is bolstered by the referendum result. While a majority of Conservatives voted Leave, Labour appear to offer the most vulnerable supporter base. Labour seat after Labour seat voted to Leave, and in the areas which did not it was often the supposedly safe Labour wards which formed the core of the Leave minority. Corbyns disastrous tenure as leader from the Hard Left tradition offers little to naturally small-c conservative working class voters, who already felt that their historic party had lost touch with their concerns particularly on immigration.
Given that opportunity, its unsurprising that the more left-wing and more working class-focused tribes are at the front of the pack. The interesting question will be what mix of each ends up represented in UKIPs leadership. The current favourites Paul Nuttall and Steve Woolfe are both from working class backgrounds in the North West, miles and years from Farages upbringing. Nuttall has over the years developed a robust message: heartily sceptical of sharia courts, vocally critical of political correctness, a supporter of the death penalty and a pro-life activist. Woolfe, a former City lawyer, is a somewhat less radical voice he has been a strong immigration spokesman for his party, and an enthusiastic voice for lower taxes, but even when working alongside Patrick OFlynn on the economics brief he never seemed comfortable with more headline-grabbing attacks on business and the free market. Each would mark a distinct new direction for their party.
The decision will be heavily influenced by a third man: Arron Banks. As the largest UKIP donor and the founder of Leave.EU, with its mailing lists and social media outlets, he sees a prominent role for himself in UKIPs future. He has hinted that he might stand for leader (though given that he holds no elected office that would be an odd decision) but if he does not then he certainly has a chance to act as king-maker. Conveniently, only a few days before Farages departure he laid out a vision of root and branch reform, changing UKIP into a more online, bottom-up movement akin to Italys Five Star insurgency. He intends to get what he wants, regardless of the route it would be an unwise leadership candidate who ignores his threat to set up a whole new party if UKIP does not prove to be the appropriate vehicle.
The question, then, is what kind of UKIP Banks would like. He is no leftist, and is unlikely to be a fan of any attempt to pursue the big-state nationalisation policies some on Red UKIPs fringes have floated. Rather, hes so Peoples Army hes practically wearing camouflage paint a former Conservative, he prides himself on his denunciations of what he sees as self-interested, untrustworthy and posh Tories, and also on his gut feelings about what real people think and like. He isnt particularly strategic in his campaigning, but he feels he can afford to rely on his instincts and whims to guide him to an effective platform they regularly get him into bother, which he shrugs off as irrelevant media fuss, but theyre certainly popular among a sizeable minority of the electorate.
Whether UKIP can prosper with that approach remains to be seen, as does how far it can take them, but Banks means to find out. The figurehead could be Nuttall or Woolfe or a less prominent figure if they dont fit the bill. Whoever the new leader may be, if they want to differ from that line they may have trouble changing it.
Rules attached to federal victims assistance dollars are causing a couple of area counties to give up the funding.
Colfax and Butler counties have decided not to apply for the grant money for the upcoming year, although both counties will continue to offer the services that range from helping property owners get graffiti cleaned up and accompanying people to court hearings to finding temporary housing for victims of domestic abuse and assisting with protection orders.
Colfax County Attorney Denise Kracl, whose office houses the victims assistance program, said the county is giving up the funding, at least temporarily, to see whether they can provide better services once the federal strings are disconnected.
The oversight has increased significantly, she said of the program created by the Federal Victims of Crime Act (VOCA).
Federal VOCA dollars are funneled through the Nebraska Crime Commission to individual counties and entities, such as Center for Survivors, that use the money to assist victims of any crime, from criminal mischief to sexual assault and attempted murder. The money is approved through a grant process then reimbursed as expenses are incurred.
Colfax County currently partners with Platte County to offer the victims assistance program. Three staff members two full-time and one part-time are based in the Columbus office with an advocate sent to the Colfax County Attorneys Office to handle cases there.
The problem, Kracl said, is the victims assistance advocate is currently the only bilingual employee in her office, and the grant stipulations dont allow that person to assist with any matters not directly related to the program.
Colfax County plans to end its partnership with Platte County starting Oct. 1, and the county will foot the entire bill for the victims assistance advocate at an estimated cost of $27,000 annually.
With VOCA reimbursements, the countys current expenses for the position are about $5,500 annually, according to Kracl, although Colfax County is still waiting for nearly $20,000 in payments.
Kracl said she appreciates the federal funding, but added that theres a balance between the benefits and restrictions that come with the money.
By paying for the victims assistance position without federal reimbursement, that employee can assist any person who walks through the county attorneys office doors without limitations.
Kracl said she plans to review the program before deciding whether to reapply for VOCA funding next year.
We need to get statistics to make sure that we can justify applying for the grant, she said.
Another hang-up with the federal funding is the amount of time it takes to complete the reporting and application processes.
Larger counties with more victims assistance employees can handle the workload, but it can be burdensome for smaller counties.
In Butler County, which decided to cut off its federal funding effective July 1, the program is handled by a single employee.
Linda Vandenberg, an office manager at the Butler County Sheriffs Office who recently took over the program, said the federal money was previously used mainly for administrative costs such rental expenses for an office, wages and utilities.
When the former victims assistance advocate retired at the end of May, the program was shifted to the sheriffs office, which eliminated those additional costs. Butler County previously received $29,000 in annual VOCA funding, with the county required to provide at least a 20 percent match.
Vandenberg said funding the program through the county a move thats not expected to increase local costs will cut down on the amount of time filling out paperwork and free up more time to work directly with crime victims.
We still wanted to make sure services were provided and that the program didnt go away, said Vandenberg, who is splitting her time between the sheriffs office and victims assistance program that also serves Polk County.
Vandenberg said her familiarity with the sheriffs office, which provides also law enforcement services for David City, and location within the Butler County Courthouse are other benefits stemming from the move.
We already have a common ground. We already know each other, she said of the sheriffs deputies and other courthouse employees who can be involved in victims assistance cases.
Traci Nelsen, who oversees the victims assistance program in Platte County, admits a lot of time goes into managing the grant money. But she believes its worth the effort.
The impact that VOCA has had is huge. It is a great program, said Nelsen, a salaried employee who routinely clears 50 hours a week.
The Columbus office, which serves Platte and Colfax counties, was approved for $106,030 in VOCA funding for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. Thats 80 percent of the offices $132,538 annual budget.
The VOCA funds are what runs this office, said Nelsen, who works with two advocates who are both bilingual.
From Jan. 1 through March 31, the local office served 617 victims, including 387 people who had never used the program before.
Its a great program and were lucky to have the funds we have, Nelsen said.
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COLUMBUS Some area residents were still without electricity Wednesday evening after a powerful thunderstorm hammered the city the previous night, toppling trees, downing power lines and keeping emergency personnel busy until the early morning hours.
The fast-moving storm struck shortly before 9 p.m. Tuesday, delivering a strong blow to Columbus with straight-line winds estimated at 70-80 mph.
That was the story tonight, David Pearson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Valley, said of the wind gusts, which were measured at 78 mph when the same storm reached Tekamah in far eastern Nebraska around 10:15 p.m.
The strongest reading at Columbus Municipal Airport was 59 mph around 9 p.m., but Pearson said 70 mph is a reasonable estimate for the area.
Platte County Emergency Manager Tim Hofbauer agreed.
Basically, it was severe thunderstorm wind gusts. There was no rotation that showed on radar, said Hofbauer, who noted that reports of funnel clouds in the area were actually turbulence in the air created by the strong winds and instability.
The National Weather Service didnt receive any reports of confirmed tornadoes with the storm system.
Still, the winds were powerful enough to uproot large trees, snap thick branches that landed on roadways, homes and vehicles and litter streets with debris.
Theres a lot of tree damage, said Hofbauer, who wasn't aware of any injuries related to the storm.
Wayne Glinsman was watching reports of the oncoming storm on television, thinking Columbus was on the edge of it and would be getting strong winds and some heavy rains.
I saw it coming and all of a sudden we were right in the middle of it, said Glinsman, who along with his wife listened to the tree branches cracking and coming down outside his home at 2702 20th St.
Glinsman watched through a window on his porch as a neighbors tree came down and blocked 20th Street. He and another neighbor hooked up a vehicle to the fallen tree and lugged it away to keep it from blocking the street.
Just two doors down, a sport utility vehicle and van were under a large tree that toppled and closed 20th Street to traffic. A tree in the yard of a home at the corner of 28th Avenue and 20th Street was uprooted and resting on the roof of the neighboring house at 2714 20th St.
It was like a war zone around here, said Glinsman, who did some cleanup Wednesday morning before heading off to work at a local implement dealership. Ill finish cleaning up later.
Reports of downed trees and power lines began flooding into the police department dispatch center shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday and continued until well after midnight. The damage started southwest of the city and continued northeast through Columbus, Schuyler, North Bend and into western Iowa.
Hofbauer said the roof was blown off a house along U.S. Highway 81 south of Columbus and a fallen tree caused a gas leak in the Wagner Lakes area.
A semitrailer was also knocked onto its side near Columbus, according to a storm chaser's report, and a large tree uprooted at Countryview Estates then crashed through a trailer owned by Peggy Garcia, who was in Kansas City at the time.
Her daughter, Heather Gilbert, was notified by relatives and went to check on the damage at the trailer court near East 42nd Avenue and 23rd Street.
"I started bawling. If she'd been home, she would be sitting at that window and my son would have been on that couch," Gilbert said, pointing to the rubble.
Family friends started a GoFundMe page to help pay for the repairs.
Within the city limits, trees landed on vehicles, homes and power lines, causing outages across much of Columbus that lasted into Wednesday evening.
Emergency personnel were still answering calls shortly before 2 a.m. Wednesday as transformers exploded and power lines fell, igniting small fires and knocking out power in numerous areas.
Columbus Fire Chief Dean Hefti said the department responded to 53 calls in five hours following the storm. Eighteen firefighters manned six trucks to get to all the reports while three full-time employees staffed the rescue unit.
We had all kinds of volunteers coming in, Hefti said of the storm response.
Loup Public Power District and city crews were dispatched after the storm passed to begin restoring power and cleaning up roadways.
The local utility brought in additional employees from the Albion and Fullerton offices to assist with work in the Columbus area as an estimated 75 percent of the city lost power at some point following the storm.
As of 2 p.m. Wednesday, 527 customers of Loup Power were still without electricity, but Neal Suess, the utility's president and CEO, said power was restored to a number of those people later that afternoon.
Suess expected most of the outages to be resolved by Wednesday night, however, he noted that some may continue into Thursday since the utility must work with electricians to restore power at some properties.
"As you can imagine, the electricians in town are also very busy responding to these outages," he said in an email.
Cornhusker Public Power District reported that approximately 3,000 customers in Platte and Colfax counties were affected by outages.
Crews from Columbus, Fullerton and Albion were working Wednesday to restore power in the area.
Zjon Braziel and his wife were shopping at Wal-Mart when the storm hit. Their teenage daughter and her siblings were at home as winds gusting as high as 70 mph and heavy rains pounded their home at 2322 Seventh St.
The Braziels were greeted by two toppled trees one leaning on the roof of their home and a second draped across the front porch when they returned home. The kids were safe after heading straight for the basement to wait out the storm.
Our daughter stayed calm and kept her siblings calm. She was very responsible, Braziel said.
Wednesday morning, Braziel was busy taking pictures of the storm damage, most of which appeared to be confined to the residences siding and gutters.
We were fortunate, it could have been much worse, Braziel said.
Meanwhile, he was awaiting a visit from a local tree service crew.
For some reason, theyre a little busy, he said with a laugh.
Don Geu was out first thing Wednesday morning pulling down broken branches and tossing them into a trailer hitched to his pickup in front of an apartment building he manages at 1453 32nd Ave.
The powerful thunderstorm left the two-story buildings front yard littered with branches.
I think Im going to need a bigger chainsaw, joked the apartment manager as he got back to the task of cutting up the downed limbs.
A stretch of 83rd Street near Lakeview Junior/Senior High School was closed Tuesday night by a downed power pole and trees on the road, and additional damage was reported north of the city.
Loup Public Power closed the trails and parks along Lake Babcock and Lake North until debris in the area can be cleaned up. Quail Run and Van Berg golf courses, Columbus Bark Park and Columbus Cemetery are also closed until further notice, and Pawnee Plunge Water Park was forced to lock it doors Wednesday after a power outage.
The public was also asked to avoid areas of Pawnee Park near the Andrew Jackson Higgins Memorial and west shelter because of downed power lines.
City street department employees were busy Wednesday removing branches from the right of way, a task that's expected to last until Friday afternoon.
Local property owners can take tree debris to the yard waste site near the transfer station, 250 S. 14th Ave., at no charge through July 16.
Those dropping off trees and branches will be required to weigh in at the scale, and contracted tree and yard waste providers must pay normal drop-off fees. The tree dump site is open until 5 p.m.
Although Columbus avoided the hail threat with only small stones falling briefly Hofbauer received a report of 3/4-inch hail south of the city Tuesday night.
The National Weather Service warned of the potential for severe storms earlier in the day as hot, humid conditions converged with a front moving through the area.
There was just an incredible amount of instability in the atmosphere, Pearson said of the severe weather setup.
The moons aligned a little bit, he added.
The storm also brought a brief period of heavy rainfall, with a half-inch of precipitation measured at the Columbus Powerhouse.
But the biggest concern was the wind, which will have area residents cleaning up for days to come.
Donald Trump at a rally in Ohio. (Photo: Patrick Semansky, AP)
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History and polls speak doom for his campaign, but he'll leave an indelible mark on the party.
By Christian Schneider, Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY Network
Amid the incessant din of election-year punditry and prognostication, one fact reigns supreme: Republicans vote for Republicans and Democrats vote for Democrats.
It is an inescapable truth that informs 90% of races; the more members of one party that reside in any given state or district, the better chance a politician of that party will win. It is why America is freckled with "red" and "blue" states and "safe" congressional seats. It is also why American presidential races are typically close, regardless of who the candidates may be.
But 2016 is no typical year. Republicans have nominated a candidate who is only recently and tangentially Republican, and whose staunchest supporters are left to argue he is fit for the presidency only because his Democratic opponent is more unfit.
It has long been clear that 's party fluidity almost certainly will spell doom for Republicans in November. Trump hurdled the GOP primary field because he said things politicians could never say and now Republicans are going to learn the hard way why politicians never say those things. Trump is now the character in "The Sixth Sense": his candidacy is dead, he just doesn't realize it yet. (Sorry for the spoiler, but c'mon it's been 17 years.)
The myriad ways Trump's candidacy will fail provide a Rashomon-style buffet of scenarios to contemplate. Even if "Generic Republican" were on the ballot, he or she would be at a distinct electoral disadvantage Trump's repulsiveness simply accelerates that disadvantage. (If anyone has a black and white "Generic Republican" yard sign, decorated with a UPC bar code, I will happily purchase one.)
As of the Washington Post frequently points out, given the GOP's built-in underdog status, only needs to win every state Democrats have won in every presidential election since 1992, then add Florida, and she is the winner.
Perhaps you enjoy talk of battleground states. Well, there's a scenario for you, too. First, pick the six "closest" swing states (VA, NH, IA, OH, FL, NC). Got it? Now understand that New Hampshire excepted, Clinton only has to win one of them in order to reach the requisite 270 electoral votes to win. (Optional third step for Republicans only: start shotgunning and don't stop until November.)
Lest any Trump supporters seek solace in poll numbers, recent polls have Trump sliding further behind in all the relevant swing states. According to a battleground poll released last week, Trump trails by 14% in Florida, 4% in Iowa, 10% in North Carolina, 9% in Ohio, and 7% in Virginia.
And what will Trump do to turn these numbers around? Maybe his vice presidential pick will make a big splash?
Not so fast. Trump is reportedly considering names such as former Speaker of the House and New Jersey Gov. as his running mate meaning the sole qualification Trump seeks in a VP is how much of Trump's boot polish the pick has on his sleeves. Both Gingrich and Christie are among the least popular politicians in America picking either of them to resurrect a campaign is like going to a doctor for pinkeye and the doctor suggesting you contract jock itch to take your mind off your conjunctivitis.
This is why some Republicans could make a move to oust Trump at the party's national convention in Cleveland this month, in a desperate attempt to salvage the party's chance at winning in November. But at this point, Trump isn't really a candidate. He is an idea, an ethos. Trump is a primal scream against politicians who didn't listen to voters who now want payback.
Thus, even if the GOP were able to boot Trump from the top of the ticket, "Trumpism" would remain, poisoning the party and dividing its voters. As once said of banning communism, "you can't shoot an idea with a gun." And in 2016, Republicans found a way to commit suicide using only the ballot box.
is a columnist and blogger for the , where this column first appeared. Follow Christian Schneider on Twitter: @Schneider_CM
SHARE Photo Courtesy Sara Keys Keys bakes her sourdough bread in preheated dutch ovens to get a fast oven spring and the perfect crust. Aimee Blume / Special to The Courier & Press Now that's a reuben: thick sliced sourdough rye bread from Slow Rise Bread Company with real long-simmered corned beef brisket, kraut and Emmental Swiss cheese. Photo Courtesy Sara Keys Sara Keys offers her slow rise bread and pastries at the Historic Newburgh Farmer' Market on Saturday mornings. She and partner Sydney Zeigler bring crusty breads, pastries and sandwich loaves of different types, all risen with a natural sourdough starter.
By Aimee Blume
Bread can take many forms. It began with the simplest, earliest recipes containing mashed grain and water baked on hot stones and grew into the elaborate industrial concoctions of the 20th century. Many people think there is a middle ground in bread that is best, and it usually falls on the side of simplicity.
Sara Keys of Newburgh absolutely believes simpler bread is better bread. She just graduated from the Signature School and in August is heading to Indiana University for a degree in Chemistry with an emphasis on food. In the meantime, she's created Slow Rise Bread Company and is baking pure and simple, old fashioned breads you can find at the Historic Newburgh Farmers Market.
"I was looking at the summer and thought, 'Gosh, what am I going to do all summer?'" said Keys. "I decided on making bread because I had got into sort of the conspiracy theory of bread making. I love to research and watch documentaries, and I read about a fiasco in the 20s and 30s when the FDA had to change the definition of bread to be inclusive to all the major corporations that were popping up and selling a 23-ingredient bread. I'm not gonna lie, I kind of like Wonder Bread, but the more I researched it, the more it freaked me out what was in the bread we know and love and make grilled cheese on."
This, decided Keys, is not the way bread is supposed to be. Stabilizers and dough conditioners and preservatives for long storage in plastic don't belong in your grilled cheese. She wanted to bring back a bread so old-fashioned she wouldn't even use commercial yeast.
"The research I did told me that a slow rise with the acids and enzymes and bacteria found in natural sourdough actually tempers the gluten in bread and makes it and the carbs much easier to digest," she said. "I like to read studies and fact check and cross check, and I found that when you eat sourdough bread the complicated digestion of carbs and gluten is reduced by about 90 percent. There is a little emerging research that when you put gluten through a sourdough fermentation process it gets broken down by the lactic and acetic acids which are formed and keeps the bubbly texture but becomes a different protein complex; but there is only a little information on that so far."
Keys and her partner Sydney Zeigler carefully put together their sourdough starter using only King Arthur unbleached and unenriched flour, water, yeast gathered from the air, time and scientific principals. To keep the starter lively and working properly, they must be very conscious of the temperature of the mixture, the pH level and the flour to water ratio. This also goes for the fermenting dough after it is mixed.
"I prefer a mixture of 50 percent whole wheat to 50 percent bread flour for baking bread," said Keys. "For pastries I use 50 percent bread flour and 50 percent white whole wheat because it's finer. We maintain that 50 percent ratio in the starter as well and keep it at 100 percent hydration which is half water and half flour. We have to feed it every day, day in and day out, like a little child or else it will whine and die really quickly. I'm always in a panic that the starter will die."
The baking itself is no less scientific. Keys autolyzes the dough by mixing the flour with all the water the formula requires and permitting it to hydrate for an hour before adding the starter and salt. Then the dough is kneaded by hand, 20 loaves at a time, in a big tub.
"My forearms are amazing," laughed Keys.
The gluten in the dough is allowed to develop naturally without too much kneading for about seven hours. When the dough is smooth and stretchy enough that you can see light through it when stretched thin, it is shaped, allowed to rest on the counter for 20 or 30 minutes to relax, then shaped into the final loaves. These go into proofing baskets in the refrigerator for 8-12 hours to retard the yeast action while the aforementioned acids and bacteria form and grow and do their thing, forming a wholesome, easily digestible bread with amazing flavor.
"The best bread is not convenient," said Keys, shrugging. "You work around its schedule, it doesn't work around yours."
The actual baking takes place in cast iron Dutch ovens preheated to 525 degrees for an hour. The dough is turned into the pot, quickly but carefully slashed, covered with the hot pot lid, and into the oven it goes. The sudden high heat causes the dough to quickly warm and rise into an "oven spring" which gives the interior a bubbly texture and causes the slashes to open up to permit expansion. The lid holds in steam, so there is no need to spray the dough or introduce water into the oven.
"I can only bake four Dutch oven loaves at a time in my home oven," said Keys, "partly because I only have four Dutch ovens. Each batch takes about 35 to 40 minutes to bake. I've been doing more sandwich loaves too, because the sandwich loaves bake in loaf pans and I can do 12 at a time."
At their first week at the Newburgh Market, Key and Zeigler, who handles marketing for the business, sold 60 loaves of bread between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., so they've been trying to up their loaf count.
"I've been trying to bring more pastries and things that look good to get people over to the booth," said Keys. "The crusty bread has to be packaged in paper, so you can't see the loaves. If you put it in clear plastic it gets tough and awful. The pastries and sandwich breads can be in clear packaging so you can see them. Now we make at least 65 or more loaves a week of different types of bread."
Keys and Zeigler have all kinds of exciting things planned for July and August. They are looking into finding a commercial kitchen to work in and up production. Keys is experimenting with a new starter containing hazelnuts, and in August the pair will be making and serving food at the Bloomington Pride Summerfest, where they anticipate 10,000 participants.
The booth does sell out of some merchandise fairly quickly, so feel free to pre-order your favorite loaves. Find Slow Rise at the Historic Newburgh Farmers' Market on Saturday Mornings from 8 a.m. to noon and on Facebook at facebook.com/slowrisebreadco. Email at slowrisebreadcompany@gmail.com or call 812-453-9828.
Classic Reuben
Makes 1 Sandwich
INGREDIENTS
Sauce (optional)
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon ketchup
teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon minced onion
1 teaspoon pickle relish
2 thick slices sourdough rye sandwich bread
1 tablespoon butter, room temperature
5-6 ounces sliced corned beef brisket
3 ounces sauerkraut
2 slices Swiss cheese
DIRECTIONS
1 Heat a wide skillet to medium heat. Spread 2 slices of bread with butter.
2 On the unbuttered side of one slice of bread, place half the sauce if using, the corned beef, sauerkraut, and cheese. Top with remainder of sauce if using. Top with second slice of bread, butter side up.
3 Carefully place sandwich in the skillet. Turn heat to medium low, place a lid on the skillet, and toast the sandwich until it is golden on the bottom, being careful not to burn it. Turn and brown the other side. The interior should be hot and cheese melted.
4 Serve with pickles.
Braised Garlic Bread Dipper
Serves 10 as a bread accompaniment
INGREDIENTS
1 cup peeled garlic cloves
2/3 cup olive oil
2/3 cup dry white wine
1 sprig rosemary
1 sprig thyme
Salt to taste
abundant coarse pepper
DIRECTIONS
1 Place all ingredients into a small sauce pan. The garlic should be completely covered by the wine and oil. Bring to a simmer and cook over medium heat until the wine has completely evaporated and the garlic has turned golden in the oil.
2 Remove herb sprigs and serve the soft garlic cloves and some of the oil as bread dippers.
Cheese and Garlic Bread
Serves 6
INGREDIENTS
1 cup shredded Asiago or Parmesan-Reggiano cheese
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons fresh herbs of your choice, minced
6 slices crusty bread
DIRECTIONS
1 Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a mixing bowl, combine the cheese, garlic, mayonnaise and herbs. Spread generously on the bread slices. Place on a sheet pan.
2 Bake 5-7 minutes or until the cheese is melted and bubbly. Serve warm.
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By Andrew Vailliencourt, andrew.vailliencourt@courierpress.com
The Castle High School Marching Knights will be hosting a blood drive in partner with the Indiana Blood Bank on Saturday, July 9.
The blood drive will be held at the north side of Castle High School from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The bloodmobile will be parked outside the band room.
The Indiana Blood Bank is hosting its "Battle of the Bands" where the band with the most blood donors in a single day will get an expense paid trip to Indianapolis to perform during the half-time of a Colts pre-season game at Lucas Oil Stadium.
The Colts have two home pre-season games in August. On August 20, they play host to the Baltimore Ravens, and on August 27, they play the Philadelphia Eagles. If the band is the top donating band, it would perform at one of these two games.
Blood donations are needed more often in the summer months, and the Blood Bank wants to make sure the Tri-State area is well prepared. By donating, you'd be helping the community and helping the band reach its goal of playing in Indianapolis.
If the band recruits 51 or more donors, the Marching Knights will receive $10 per donor to go towards band funds. The band says its goal is to bring in 200 donors.
Donors are asked to sign up ahead of time. You can sign up by emailing Greg Fleck at gfleck@wowway.com or Todd Glass at tig@wowway.com.
The donation process takes less than one hour, and donors are encouraged to have a light snack before donating. There are very few causes for deferral and very few medications that are not acceptable.
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By Zach Osowski, zach.osowski@courierpress.com
INDIANAPOLIS Questions about faculty diversity in Oakland City University's education department derailed an accreditation hearing with the Indiana State Board of Education Wednesday.
The university will now have to wait until at least August to learn if its state accreditation will be renewed before it expires at the end of the 2016-17 school year. Two separate motions to extend the school's state accreditation came up short.
There are nine professors or associate professors of education listed on the school's website, as well as several more adjunct professors and faculty. All are white.
Approval from the state board is generally a formality. A school receives approval from the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education School. Oakland City University got the national approval, but an area of concern from the national council caught the eye of Indiana board member David Freitas.
He asked school provost Daniel Dunivan about faculty diversity at Oakland City. Dunivan said two of the three candidates for a current opening are minorities, and that improving the faculty's diversity is a priority.
Freitas proposed to approve the small, Gibson County college's accreditation, with the caveat that the state check back in three years.
"The importance of diversity is so important to our schools," Freitas said. "It's something we take as a high priority."
His proposal did not receive the six votes necessary to approve an action. Only eight of 11 board members were present.
Board member Vince Bertram, a former Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. superintendent, voted against Freitas' proposal, saying he was uncomfortable holding accreditation over a school's head. Bertram argued that finding qualified, diverse candidates in an area such as Gibson County can be difficult.
"I'm concerned to what extent we hold a university responsible for who wants to live in a certain county," Bertram said. "I feel like we're dictating, to some degree, who they hire."
The U.S. Census Bureau's 2015 population estimate for Gibson County showed 77 percent of its population is white.
Bertram was also concerned about the precedent the board may set if it refuses to grant accreditation to a school until it fixed something specific, such as diversity. He made a motion to grant accreditation with no strings attached for the usual 7 years, but that motion also failed to garner the necessary votes.
State Superintendent Glenda Ritz decided to move on and revisit the issue at the board's Aug. 10 meeting.
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Visitors to Indiana State Parks this year can play the Centennial Geocache Challenge for a chance to win prizes.
The Centennial Geocache Challenge is a self-guided activity to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Indiana State Parks in 2016.
A Centennial Cache is located at each state park. Participants can download a Centennial Geocache Passport at INStateParks100.com. The passport is a game card that resembles a bingo card with park names inside each square. When participants find a Centennial Cache, they stamp the square for the corresponding park using a property-specific stamp inside each cache.
Completing five parks in at least one row on the passport makes the participant eligible for prizes. Completing more rows increases a player's entries into the prize contest. Twelve entries are possible per passport.
Prizes include a 2017 Annual Entrance Permit, $50 camping gift card to state parks, $50 DNR Inns gift card, $25 gift card to Cabela's and Indiana State Parks Centennial Coins.
Information on the caches is at geocaching.com, where you can search by property name or by property ZIP code.
Caches can be found and documented through Oct. 30. Passports must be mailed or scanned and emailed to the challenge organizers at Indiana Dunes State Park by Nov. 6. The mailing address is Indiana Dunes State Park, 1600 N. 25 E., Chesterton, IN 46304. The email address is dunesnc@dnr.IN.gov. Learn more about geocaching and how caches can be placed on DNR properties at geocaching.dnr.IN.gov.
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By Shannon Hall of the Courier and Press
Two Libertarians filed at the eleventh hour in Vanderburgh County to be candidates for coroner and a County Council at-large seat, respectively.
William Maxwell III and Austin Knapp filed last week for the general election Maxwell for coroner and Knapp for County Council. No one else, aside school board candidates, can file after Tuesday's deadline.
Maxwell, 34, said he thinks now is a "neat opportunity" to run for office.
Maxwell has worked with American Medical Response for five years, and has built relationships with local first responders. He said he's never worked in a coroner's office.
"I think that gives me a unique advantage over the two competitors," he said. "There's been shots fired for all the internal politics."
Maxwell will face Democrat candidate and current chief deputy coroner Steve Lockyear and Republican candidate Brian Claspell, who previously worked at the Vanderburgh County Coroner's Office. Claspell resigned in September 2013 after Coroner Annie Groves alleged he lied about a victim's personal property.
"The position is an elected administration job," Maxwell said. "The less you know about how the internal working work ... the better you can do that job. You're not doing the on-the-ground work; you're administrating the office."
He said he doesn't know anyone in the office, which will help remain unbiased.
Knapp will try to snag one of three County Council at large seats. He said one reason he wanted to run was to get involved with the community. He previously ran for German Township Advisory Board in 2014 and got about 7 percent of the votes.
"I felt the need to give the people another option besides the two-party system that's going on right now," Knapp said. "I wanted there to be another choice because I don't really feel like the Democrats and Republicans adequately represent most of the public nowadays."
Knapp currently works at Touch Point Food Service.
Knapp will face Republicans Joe Kiefer, Angela Koehler Lindsey and Nicholas Wildeman and Democrats Ed Bassemier and Mike Goebel.
For more information about Vanderburgh County elections, go to courierpress.com/electioncenter/.
FILE - In this May 11, 2016 file photo, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, alongs with his wife Karen, right, launches his campaign for re-election during an event in Indianapolis. Republican Donald Trump has narrowed down his vice presidential shortlist to a handful of contenders. While the presumptive GOP nominee is known for throwing curveballs, he is said to be considering: Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie, Mike Pence, and others. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)
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By James Briggs and Stephanie Wang, IndyStar / USA TODAY Network
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is widely regarded as the best choice to become Donald Trump's running mate, several Republican strategists told IndyStar, and his recent visit with Trump signals he is willing to join the ticket.
But Pence's future and the state's gubernatorial race could depend on whether the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is listening to anyone other than himself.
"The Republican Party has a deep bench of qualified vice presidential candidates," said Michael Caputo, a former Trump adviser. "Some of them ring certain bells, and others ring other bells. I think Mike Pence rings the most bells of all."
Pence, Caputo said, would bring executive experience, a respected congressional record and reassurance to conservatives who may be wary of Trump's positions on several issues.
Caputo worked as Trump's communications director for the GOP convention until June 20, when he resigned after posting a tweet that celebrated the firing of former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Caputo was not privy to Trump's vetting process for running mates but said he considers Pence to be the best choice in an eight-person field. Other options include U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
"Trump wants to choose somebody who has experience to get things done in Washington," Caputo said. "Not only was (Pence) in Congress, he was a leader in Congress at a time when Republican leadership of Congress was still highly regarded. So that, plus being CEO of a company called Indiana, that means something to Donald Trump."
Yet Trump also values unpredictability. That's why Susan Del Percio, a Republican strategist in New York, thinks Trump is likely to pass over Pence despite what she regards as the Indiana governor's upsides.
"Governor Pence would be an outstanding VP choice for any Republican candidate," Del Percio said. "I don't believe it's the way Donald Trump is going to go. I think he looks at this more as a casting call how a VP candidate will look during his speeches and he wants someone he can send out and who will do what he asks."
Del Percio thinks Trump will select former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown or another wild card who isn't being discussed. Although Del Percio said she thinks Trump met with Pence in earnest, "at the end of the day, I think he's running a completely different strategy."
That might not be a bad thing for Pence, she added.
"The other thing, when you ponder a VP candidate for Donald Trump, is who is going to be willing to pin their future on a run with him, especially if he loses," Del Percio said. "Governor Pence has a very bright future."
When asked June 30 whether he would accept an invitation to become Trump's running mate, Pence said he "wouldn't speak to a hypothetical." By declining to rule out joining the Trump campaign, though, Pence has signaled he is weighing his political future in Indiana against national aspirations.
His re-election bid for governor is no sure thing. A May poll showed Pence leading Democratic challenger John Gregg 40 percent to 36 percent, a virtual tie when factoring in the poll's 4 percent margin of error. Pence defeated Gregg in the 2012 gubernatorial race by 3 percentage points.
From every indication, hes in a real serious race for governor, and hes going to have a tough re-election," said Republican pollster Christine Matthews, president of Bellwether Research and Consulting. "So, if hes up for that, then good for him. If he wants some relief from that, then I could see the appeal of hopping on a Trump ticket.
Pence campaign spokesman Marc Lotter said the gubernatorial race had nothing to do with Pence's meeting with Trump.
"Governor Pence has consistently been leading in this governor's race," Lotter said. "I've never seen any information that would suggest otherwise."
Lotter added that Pence and Trump aren't scheduled to talk again until the Trump campaign hosts a July 12 fundraiser in Indianapolis. If Pence were to join the Trump campaign, he would have to withdraw from the gubernatorial race by July 15 to let the Indiana Republican Party select a replacement to face Gregg.
David Payne, a Republican strategist and partner at Washington, D.C.-based VOX Global, said enlisting Pence as running mate would be a "coup for the Trump campaign." In addition to nearly four years as governor, Pence proved to be a skilled legislator and fundraiser during 12 years in the U.S. House, Payne said, including two years as chairman of the House Republican Conference. That's valuable experience considering Trump raised just $3.1 million in May.
"Trump has been unable so far to raise money, and this is a huge problem," Payne said. "You cannot field a proper campaign in 2016 without at least a billion dollars, possibly a lot more."
Yet, Payne said, while Pence could bring professionalism to the Trump campaign, his reputation also could be tarnished if he becomes Trump's running mate.
"There's risk," Payne said. "If you hitch your wagon to the wild horses of the Trump campaign, there's a definite possibility that your own personal brand could suffer if Trump doesn't figure out how to run for president."
Caputo, the former Trump adviser, said he thinks Pence already has indicated he'd accept an invitation from Trump to run as the vice presidential nominee.
"I think Mike Pence already voted with his feet by going to visit with Mr. Trump," Caputo said.
The question is whether Trump will settle on Pence. Caputo thinks people close to Trump are advocating for Pence, but it's not clear whether Trump can be persuaded.
"There's only one person who knows who's going to be vice president," Caputo said. "Donald Trump's going to make the decision."
Gov. Mike Pence
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By James Briggs And Stephanie Wang, USA TODAY NETWORK Indianapolis Star
Gov. Mike Pence is widely regarded as the best choice to become Donald Trump's running mate, several Republican strategists told IndyStar, and his recent visit with Trump signals he is willing to join the ticket.
But Pence's future and the state's gubernatorial race could depend on whether the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is listening to anyone other than himself.
"The Republican Party has a deep bench of qualified vice presidential candidates," said Michael Caputo, a former Trump adviser. "Some of them ring certain bells and others ring other bells. I think Mike Pence rings the most bells of all."
Pence, Caputo said, would bring executive experience, a respected congressional record and reassurance to conservatives who may be wary of Trump's positions on several issues.
Caputo worked as Trump's communications director for the GOP convention until June 20 when he resigned after posting a tweet that celebrated the firing of former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
Caputo was not privy to Trump's vetting process for running mates, but said he considers Pence to be the best choice in an eight-person field. Other options include U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
"Trump wants to choose somebody who has experience to get things done in Washington," Caputo said. "Not only was (Pence) in Congress, he was a leader in Congress at a time when Republican leadership of Congress was still highly regarded. So that, plus being CEO of a company called Indiana, that means something to Donald Trump."
Yet, Trump also values unpredictability. That's why Susan Del Percio, a Republican strategist in New York, thinks Trump is likely to pass over Pence despite what she regards as the Indiana governor's upsides.
"Gov. Pence would be an outstanding VP choice for any Republican candidate," Del Percio said. "I don't believe it's the way Donald Trump is going to go. I think he looks at this more as a casting call how a VP candidate will look during his speeches and he wants someone he can send out and who will do what he asks."
Del Percio thinks Trump will select former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown or another wildcard who isn't being discussed. Although Del Percio said she thinks Trump met with Pence in earnest, "at the end of the day, I think he's running a completely different strategy."
That might not be a bad thing for Pence, she added.
"The other thing, when you ponder a VP candidate for Donald Trump, is who is going to be willing to pin their future on a run with him, especially if he loses," Del Percio said. "Gov. Pence has a very bright future."
When asked June 30 if he would accept an invitation to become Trump's running mate, Pence said he "wouldn't speak to a hypothetical." By declining to rule out joining the Trump campaign, though, Pence has signaled he is weighing his political future in Indiana against national aspirations.
His re-election bid for governor is no sure thing. A May poll showed Pence leading Democratic challenger John Gregg 40 percent to 36 percent, a virtual tie when factoring in the poll's 4 percent margin of error. Pence also faced Gregg in the 2012 gubernatorial race, which Pence won by 3 percentage points.
"From every indication, he's in a real serious race for governor, and he's going to have a tough re-election," said Republican pollster Christine Matthews, president of Bellwether Research and Consulting. "So, if he's up for that, then good for him. If he wants some relief from that, then I could see the appeal of hopping on a Trump ticket."
Pence's campaign spokesman Marc Lotter said the gubernatorial race had nothing to do with Pence's meeting with Trump.
"Gov. Pence has consistently been leading in this governor's race," Lotter said. "I've never seen any information that would suggest otherwise."
Lotter added that Pence and Trump aren't scheduled to talk again until the Trump campaign hosts a July 12 fundraiser in Indianapolis. If Pence were to join the Trump campaign, he would have to withdraw from the gubernatorial race by July 15 to let the Indiana Republican Party select a replacement to face Gregg.
David Payne, a Republican strategist and partner at Washington, D.C.-based VOX Global, said enlisting Pence as running mate would be a "coup for the Trump campaign." In addition to nearly four years as governor, Pence proved to be a skilled legislator and fundraiser during 12 years in the U.S. House, Payne said, including two years as chairman of the House Republican Conference. That's valuable experience considering Trump raised just $3.1 million in May.
"Trump has been unable so far to raise money and this is a huge problem," Payne said. "You cannot field a proper campaign in 2016 without at least a billion dollars, possibly a lot more."
Yet, Payne said, while Pence could bring professionalism to the Trump campaign, his reputation also could be tarnished if he becomes Trump's running mate.
"There's risk," Payne said. "If you hitch your wagon to the wild horses of the Trump campaign, there's a definite possibility that your own personal brand could suffer if Trump doesn't figure out how to run for president."
Caputo, the former Trump adviser, said he thinks Pence already has indicated he'd accept an invitation from Trump to run as the vice presidential nominee.
"I think Mike Pence already voted with his feet by going to visit with Mr. Trump," Caputo said.
The question is whether Trump will settle on Pence. Caputo thinks people close to Trump are advocating for Pence, but it's not clear whether Trump can be persuaded.
"There's only one person who knows who's going to be vice president," Caputo said. "Donald Trump's going to make the decision."
(Photo: Karen Bleier / AFP/ Getty Images)
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By Sara Salinas, IndyStar / USA TODAY Network
A Beech Grove Facebook page at the center of a civil rights lawsuit will be taken down at noon Wednesday, according to a post on the page.
"Unfortunately we will be losing a most effective tool for sharing information with the citizens of Beech Grove," the post on the city of Beech Grove page says, citing advice from legal counsel as reason for deactivating the site.
The American Civil Liberties Union in Indiana is suing the city of Beech Grove in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis on behalf of two women who claim their comments on the Facebook page were removed. The allegations spurred questions of free speech and a government body's right to monitor content.
Both women claim after their comments were removed, they were subsequently blocked from posting on the page entirely.
"When a government entity opens up a space for public comment, it cannot regulate those comments based upon someone's viewpoint," said Jan Mensz, ACLU of Indiana staff attorney, in a statement. "By giving itself unbridled discretion to determine what comments it deems acceptable, the city of Beech Grove has put all public speech on its social media sites at risk of further censorship."
The post on the Beech Grove Facebook page encouraged residents to visit BeechGrove.com for the information that used to be posted on the Facebook page.
IndyStar reporter Madeline Buckley contributed to this story.
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Here's the campaign bumper sticker you won't see: "Clinton in '16 Because No Charges Were Recommended."
FBI Director James Comey announced Tuesday that, having completed its investigation, his agency will not recommend to the U.S. Department of Justice that Hillary Clinton face criminal prosecution for mishandling sensitive emails when she was secretary of state. No reasonable prosecutor would take up this case, Comey said.
That decision is an enormous relief to Clinton, and an artful escape. The presumptive Democratic nominee for president no longer has to worry about the presumptive part. It looks like she'll get the nod at the National Democratic Convention. If the FBI had concluded that Clinton likely broke the law, the bumper sticker of the day would have nixed her name and instead featured Joe Biden's.
Let's leave the cheerleading to her campaign staffers, though. This is a political disaster for Clinton. Relying exclusively on a private email server to do the public's work as America's top diplomat was foolish and reckless. Comey, in a surprise televised statement, rendered a two-word judgment that may never be forgotten: "extremely careless."
Specifically, Comey said: "Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information." He continued: "There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation."
Parsing that statement, the phrase that sticks out is "any reasonable person," as in: You'd think the barest qualification for being secretary of state or becoming president is the ability to use reasonable judgment. Clinton, the FBI director asserted, failed that test. It's not going too far to say that what she did could be a firing offense, if she were still on the job. Getting the ax would be the likely fate of any high federal official who showed a willful lack of respect for handling U.S. secrets. But set aside government protocols and politics. Imagine the phrase "extremely careless" stamped on your own performance evaluation by the boss. What might the consequences be?
Damning details of Clinton's exclusive use of a private email server were confirmed in a May report by the inspector general of the State Department: That report made clear that she violated department policy, imperiled national security and lied about it. The FBI spent a year trying to learn whether she mishandled classified information, intentionally or through gross negligence, to the extent that she committed a felony.
After poring through thousands of emails, Comey said, the FBI found 110 emails in 52 chains that contained classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight chains contained "top secret" information, 36 had "secret" info. The FBI also tracked down emails Clinton's team did not turn over. They included a few of the secret ones, but Comey said investigators found no evidence any were intentionally deleted.
As for damage to national security, Comey said Clinton sent and received work-related emails while traveling abroad "in the territory of sophisticated adversaries" (Chinese spies? Russians?). The FBI found no evidence of a hack, but then again, Comey noted, sophisticated hackers don't leave fingerprints. Contrast those disturbing facts with Clinton's insistence that any classified material on her server was categorized as such retroactively. As Clinton told NBC News over the weekend: "Let me just repeat what I have repeated for many months now. I never received nor sent any material that was marked classified."
Without reading the email chains (they're secret, after all), we don't know how much of Clinton's carefully worded denial collapses in the wake of the FBI investigation, but it looks dubious. Comey stated: " seven email chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received (our italics). These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending emails about those matters and receiving emails from others about the same matters."
Justice likely will accept Comey's recommendation, because Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Friday she would accept what the FBI and career prosecutors decide. It's a judgment call. We can't dispute it; the evidence isn't public.
But this we know: Hillary Clinton chose to keep her official emails under her own control, in violation of State Department rules, propriety and common sense. Would Americans trust her as their president? That judgment comes in November.
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A Nebraska strip club owner suffered another legal setback last week when a federal judge recommended against letting him refile a lawsuit against Hall County.
U.S. District Judge John Gerrard dismissed Shane Harrington's suit in April in part because Harrington didn't have an ownership interest in property affected by Hall County ordinances.
Gerrard said Harrington could refile if the amended suit took into account the reasons the judge threw it out.
On July 1, U.S. Magistrate Judge Cheryl Zwart recommended against allowing Harrington to amend his lawsuit, saying he failed to address the relevant legal issues.
In May, Harrington sued the Hall County Board of Supervisors and opponents to his plan to open a strip club, seeking $110 million. In the suit, he alleged defamation, interference with business relationships, antitrust violations and constitutional violations regarding free speech, equal protection and due process. He also sought a judgment against restrictions for sexual-oriented businesses in the Hall County zoning resolutions.
Harrington recently announced on Facebook that he plans to open a club in Grand Island on Friday. He also operates Paradise City in Elm Creek and Midwest Girls Club in Hastings.
Executive Summary
While attention has focused on northern Mali, armed violence is escalating at an alarming rate in the centre of the country, long neglected by the state. The management of natural resources has given rise to multiple conflicts that the government and local elites are unable to control. For the past several months, a jihadist uprising has capitalised on the states lack of legitimacy and extended its influence. State representatives are being chased out of rural areas. Yet, violence also stems from settlings of scores, banditry and a growing number of self-defence militias. The peace agreement signed in Bamako in June 2015 applies primarily to northern regions and disregards the centre of the country. Malis government and its principal partners should renew their efforts to restore the states authority and legitimacy among all the communities of the area. Absent appropriate action, central Mali an area more densely populated than the north and vital to the economy risks becoming a source of protracted instability. The centre has long not been involved in the armed rebellions of the north, but has suffered from its consequences: banditry has surged and weapons have become more readily available since the 2000s. Marginalised groups, in particular some nomadic herding communities, see taking up modern weapons as a way to challenge existing hierarchies, and to contest the privileges of urban elites and traditional local aristocracies. The state, plagued by corruption and discredited by acts of brutality by the security forces, is struggling to retain its ability to mediate between all sides. In the circumstances, ethnic communities are closing ranks, particularly the Fulanis, who see themselves as victims. The 2012 crisis was a turning point for the central regions when it was partly occupied by armed groups. State authority weakened as civil servants fled, abandoning large swathes of territory. The insecurity made some of the population seek protection or justice from militias, including radical groups. The French military operation Serval chased out these groups in 2013, but when state security forces returned they committed abuses, particularly against nomadic Fulani and Tamasheq communities. Locals were also angered when corrupt civil servants regained posts. The states return neither restored security nor improved relations between its representatives and the regions inhabitants. A radical group has thrived on this fertile ground, dubbed the Macina Liberation Front by the media and linked to the jihadist group Ansar Eddine. Little is known about its exact nature and some even question whether it really exists, but it demonstrated its presence with deadly attacks against security forces in several places in the central regions since early 2015. The groups leader is reportedly Hamadoun Kouffa, a Fulani Muslim preacher famous for his strong criticism of the state and local elites. Since the groups emergence, state representatives have become targets of its actions and rhetoric, and have again abandoned their posts; violence has increased. It is difficult to distinguish between banditry, local vendettas and the actions of radical groups in this area. The latter form a determined core, even though they are in the minority, less structured, less well armed, and with fewer links to trafficking than radical groups in the north. They are taking root in rural areas, profiting from the states lack of credibility and from some inhabitants frustrations and fears. Until now the government has favoured a security-focused approach, which has yielded some results. But it has not allowed state authorities to regain control over the entire central territory and its brutality has widened the disconnection between the government and the local population. Political responses have lacked clarity and ambition. The area was largely absent from the Algiers peace talks that led to the signing of the Bamako peace agreement in June 2015. Most of Malis international partners have had little involvement in the centre, are predominantly based in Bamako and more involved in the north. Some authorities and local elites are tempted to try to improve security by supporting the creation of community-based self-defence militias. These militias cannot constitute a lasting solution to the real problem of local insecurity, and even less as a means to reverse the way the state has been discredited in the central regions. With inter- and intra-community tensions running high, militias have fuelled sporadic and worrying surges of violence, including between Bambara and Fulani armed groups in May 2016, which may have killed more than 40 people. Central Mali has entered a volatile period, but heeding early-warning signals and taking preventive action could still stop the growth of radical groups. As Crisis Groups report Exploiting Disorder: al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (14 March 2016) emphasised, preventing crises will do more to contain violent extremists than countering violent extremism will do to prevent crises. The governments response should not focus exclusively on counter-terrorism operations, which contribute to a rejection of the state by the people, especially when accompanied by abuses. On the contrary, the government, in coordination with local elites, civil society and external partners, should demonstrate a greater ambition to reestablish public services in these long neglected regions. To do this, and to demonstrate its utility and impartiality, it should plan its actions carefully, rank its priorities and recognise that restoring its authority is not only a question of keeping order, but also rests on its capacity to deliver effective justice and education.
Recommendations
To prevent the security situation deteriorating further in the central regions and enable the state to reestablish its presence and regain legitimacy there To the Malian government: Develop a strategy to ensure the effective return of the state and the restoration of its legitimacy among all parts of the population. This should include:
Reform of the local police, taking a lead for instance from recent projects in Niger; in particular, security forces should recruit women and men from different ethnic groups to enable the effective carrying out of their duties, including in areas lived in by nomads.
A plan, developed through inclusive dialogue, to coordinate the states efforts in the centre and to identify priority actions, specifically in the justice, education and natural resources management. Work on the latter should establish mechanisms to enable herders and farmers to live together more peacefully.
Naming a high representative for the central regions to embody the states commitment to them, to work in consultation with local communities and civil society groups, and to ensure coordination with newly active donors.
Avoid using community self-defence groups, and strengthen the capacity of the security services while severely and publicly punishing security service abuses against civilians. To elites representing local communities: Take on the crucial role of mediating between citizens and the state, and in doing so, set aside intercommunal divides and individual disputes in order to cooperate with new representatives of local peoples, notably nomad chiefs and religious leaders, even those who have sympathised with armed groups since 2012.
Avoid supporting armed movements and self-defence groups, which are only a short-term response to insecurity and could, in the long run, dangerously fuel intercommunal violence in the centre of the country.
Conversely, promote in partnership with the state the development of a local police force that serves local people and whose composition is representative of the central regions diverse ethnic groups and both women and men.
Support local conflict resolution initiatives, specifically inclusive forums in which the local populations diverse age, ethnicity, socio-economic status and gender groups are sufficiently representative of the peoples of central Mali. To Malis main partners, in particular the European Union: Assist the state to redeploy at the local level through programs aimed at supporting the development of public services in the central regions.
Make the Mopti region a pilot site to test cooperative policies aimed at improving local security and specifically reforming the local police lessons drawn from here could serve other regions of the Sahel and northern Mali in particular. To the UN Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA): Extend the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) program so that it benefits both the north and the central regions without straying from the stipulations of the peace accord, making sure to link DDR to local police reform and avoid fuelling the creation of self-defence groups that are not strictly regulated by the authorities.
Support the restoration of state authority over Malis whole national territory according to MINUSMAs mandate and, in order to do so, prioritise an approach that aims to restore public services, including those of the police, as much as seeking to reinforce the international military deployment. Dakar/Bamako/Brussels, 6 July 2016
I. Introduction
While the Bamako peace agreement was signed in June 2015 and international forces have been deployed in the country for more than three years, the crisis in Mali is far from being resolved. Armed violence is escalating in some areas. Since the start of 2015, unidentified armed groups, some of which claim to be jihadist, have attacked several towns in the centre of the country. This was surprising, all the more since almost all armed incidents had until then been concentrated in the north. Following these attacks, many civil servants fled from their posts in several prefectures of the centre. Local communities feel that the Malian state has abandoned them to their fate. Radical groups are taking advantage of the situation to establish themselves and disseminate messages hostile to the government and Malis foreign partners. As efforts are still focused on the north, the centre of the country remains largely neglected by the Bamako agreement that resulted from inter-Malian peace talks.
This report analyses the dynamics behind the extension of the areas of insecurity in central Mali and describes the groups that are responsible for this development.
This report analyses the dynamics behind the extension of the areas of insecurity in central Mali and describes the groups that are responsible for this development. The centre of the country is dominated by the Inner Niger Delta, a territory subject to flooding which is particularly fertile and therefore coveted; the land is shared by farmers and herders. This report focuses on the areas most affected by armed violence, namely, the administrative region of Mopti, mainly the circles (administrative division) of Tenenkou, Youwarou and Douentza, and the north of the Segou region, close to the border with Mauritania. It warns of the dangers that threaten this part of Mali and formulates practical proposals to stop the spread of armed violence. It is based on several series of interviews with the main political and military actors, diplomats, members of civil society and religious leaders in Bamako and the Mopti region in February and October 2015 and January and March 2016.
II. Fertile Ground: Escalating Armed Violence in Central Mali
Unlike the countrys northern regions, there were no armed rebellions in central Mali in the 1990s and 2000s. However, the area has suffered the consequences. Banditry has increased and automatic weapons have become more readily available; meanwhile, cattle theft have been recurrent, especially in border areas; the Nterere, cattle thieves of Fulani origin, have become increasingly professional over the years. These developments have affected all herding communities, which are mostly Fulani in the centre.
For some years now, central Mali has experienced a worrying increase in social and political tension, punctuated by repeated episodes of collective violence.
Some of them, particularly the Fulanis, felt that successive peace agreements did not take their interests into account and compensated those who had stolen their herds. Shortly after the signature of the National Pact in 1992, establishing special status for northern Mali, the president of an association of victims of the rebellion in the Mopti region, whose cattle had been stolen, asked the Malian state for compensation. Many similar demands have been expressed but never fulfilled, strengthening among the Fulanis the sense of impunity, injustice, and animosity toward the Tamasheq nomadic communities with which they frequently compete for the control of the same territory. For some years now, central Mali has experienced a worrying increase in social and political tension, punctuated by repeated episodes of collective violence. It is a fertile agricultural area. The exploitation of natural resources arouses envy and causes disputes, a situation aggravated by significant pressure on the land. There are frequent clashes between herders and farmers in this area. Herders, often Fulani, claim that agricultural land is expanding at the cost of land dedicated to herding. Inversely, farmers accuse herders of not respecting agricultural cycles and of not using the cattle trails (burti) that protect fields from trampling by the herds. Most of these disputes are resolved peacefully. However, some of them cause a worrying level of violence that the security forces, either absent or ineffective, are unable to contain. For example, in May 2012, a land dispute led to the massacre of sixteen Fulani herders by Dogon farmers in Sari (Koro circle), where no police officer was stationed. This violent episode, which has remained unpunished, has played a direct role in the decision by nomad Fulani groups to arm themselves; that same year, some of them joined the radical movements that were occupying Gao. In the Inner Niger Delta, Fulani herders sometimes clash among themselves over access to pastures. The conflict between herders from the villages of Sosobe and Salsalbe, which has been going on since at least the colonial period, resurfaced in the 1990s, causing 29 deaths on 8 December 1993. As a local security expert said, people still get killed in disputes over access to the bourgoutieres. These disputes are aggravated by the lack of legal clarity regarding land rights and by the diminishing capacity of traditional authorities to settle disagreements. They have become considerably more lethal following the increased availability of weapons since the 1990s. Quarrels are now resolved with Kalashnikovs rather than with clubs or knives. This has encouraged an arms race and the hiring of professional armed men who can help gain the upper hand in disputes. Some of the current violence, hastily attributed to jihadist groups, is in fact the result of land disputes, including when the victims are state officials. These episodes of local violence increase against the backdrop of a profound crisis of confidence in the state, whose representatives are often accused of corruption and predatory behaviour toward local communities, particularly herders. The latter have mobile capital in the form of cattle, which is easier to cash in than the land on which peasants work. Some groups, in particular nomadic herders, also criticise the government for being manipulated by local urban elites, which allegedly use public administration resources to retain their disputed privileges. At a forum organised in Mopti in January 2016 under the supervision of the national reconciliation ministry, participants, mostly local prominent figures and civil society activists, pressed the authorities to respect the principles of impartiality and neutrality [of the state] and enjoined them to avoid acts of violence against the populations. In Mopti, all the people Crisis Group interviewed criticised the government for its inadequate performance and the corruption of state officials: If the government does nothing for us, it might as well leave us alone. A growing minority see the government as a nuisance that they would like to get rid of. This is especially true in some communities, for example, nomadic Fulanis or slave descendants, who feel particularly underrepresented in the government and its administration. They welcomed the departure of state officials following attacks on towns at the beginning of 2015. Finally, the climate of tension in central Mali also results from a growing sense of ethnic victimisation among the Fulanis. Some of them feel stigmatised and attempt to organise and defend their interests along ethnic lines. Some Fulani elites and intellectuals, especially in the centre, say that the state treats their community unfairly in a way that reduces them to second-class citizens. In fact, racism, partly inherited from the colonial period, is still strong in Mali and Fulanis are seen as a category apart. Fulanis say the increased terrorist threat has worsened the situation because authorities often associate them with terrorism. Fulani public figures emphasise that there are no Fulani terrorists, there are only angry Fulanis, while warning that if the Tamasheq were the first to rebel, the Fulanis could be the second. In doing so, they point out that their people are becoming increasingly aware of their ethnic identity. Although Fulani mobilisation in West Africa as a whole remains timid and is sometimes confined to the realms of fantasy, it worries governments, anxious to avoid the export of violence to their territory. In central Mali, the sense of stigmatisation is coupled with the impression that the modern state is responsible for destroying old hierarchies to the detriment of the Fulanis and conducting an aggressive policy toward nomads, of which the Fulanis make up a large proportion. Since the 1990s, ethnic-based cultural associations have emerged and played an important political role, especially in conflict management. For example, Tabital Pulaaku is a Fulani association created at the beginning of the 1990s, and Ginna Dogon, formed in 1992, recruits among Dogon communities in central Mali. Often headed by urban elites, they try to bridge the gap between local structures and the central government. They are testimony to the trend for communities to organise politically along ethnic lines. In the wake of the 2012 crisis and rising insecurity, some local figures asked Tabital Pulaaku to organise a response, including the creation of self-defence groups. Some Fulani intellectuals say their communities should take up arms to defend themselves and gain the respect of the government and rival communities. However, this ethnic-based mobilisation faces several challenges. First, some acts of violence result from internal tensions among the Fulanis rather than from tensions between ethnic groups. Indeed, there is a feeling of distrust toward urban elites, which are suspected of playing the ethnic card to build up a client base and preserve their positions within the state apparatus. Second, religion and jihad today compete with ethnicity as a driving force for identity-based mobilisation. The two forms of mobilisation are not necessarily incompatible but their agendas and actors are different. In central Mali in particular, ethnic-based mobilisation takes place within the framework of negotiations with the government over access to representation and resources. Jihadist mobilisation, for the moment, takes place either outside or against the state.
III. Central Mali in Crisis (2012-2013)
Central Mali, which separates the north, occupied by armed groups, and the south, which has remained under government control, was affected by the 2012 crisis. Parts of the Mopti region, such as the Douentza circle, were occupied by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (known by its French acronym, MNLA) and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA), although neither group managed to establish a solid presence outside the urban centres located on the road between Mopti and Gao. The rebels did not occupy the rest of the centre, but state officials and some locally elected representatives fled in 2012 because of insecurity and sporadic attacks. The tourism industry, which had been flourishing for twenty years in Mopti and on the Bandiagara plateau, collapsed. The situation became particularly uncomfortable for most inhabitants of central Mali. They have lived under the threat of occasional attacks, while at the same time being suspected by the security forces of colluding with the rebels.
A. Recruitment to the Armed Groups
In 2012, central Mali was partly occupied by armed groups from the north. They recruited on site to form small local contingents or encouraged these new supporters to go on military training in Gao and Timbuktu, particularly with the MOJWA and Ansar Dine, which held these towns at that time. Conversely, the pro-government militias from the north, especially Gao, found refuge in central Mali, near Sevare, an area under government control where Ganda Izo and others recruited locals. Most of these combatants were young men tempted by adventure and attracted to armed groups by either conviction or opportunism. Armed bandits in the area also rallied to the rebel groups: for example, the Nterere from Macina joined the MNLA and later the MOJWA in the Lere region. Finally, in response to insecurity, some communities in central Mali lined up under the banners of armed groups to obtain protection or arms, sometimes after having unsuccessfully requested the government to provide them with weapons. Nomadic Fulanis from the Douentza region joined MOJWA training camps in Gao in search of military training and protection against MNLA Tamasheq groups that were harassing their camps. They were also seeking to gain the upper hand against the sedentary Dogons in conflicts over land. The MOJWA traded or offered protection in order to attract new recruits. Meanwhile, some young men left their homes and fully embraced the jihadist cause. But the majority seem to have adopted an opportunist approach, joining up in order to obtain protection or arms and have a say in local conflicts.
B. Renewed Tension with the Government
In January 2013, the advance of radical groups toward Konna and Diabaly in central Mali led to a new round of violence in the area. Operation Serval repelled the offensive but the Malian army returned in the wake of the French and committed abuses against local populations, including an unknown number of summary executions. These events exacerbated the distrust between people, particularly some Fulanis, and the security forces. As of spring 2013, the Malian administration redeployed in the Mopti region more quickly than in the northern regions, which were still occupied by armed groups. Despite optimistic official figures, absenteeism was nonetheless common within the civil service. The states return provoked tension with local populations. The security forces recovered small arms that some groups, including Fulani nomads, had acquired to protect themselves. This led to arms dealing, abuses and incidents, particularly in the Douentza circle. Some inhabitants of central Mali had welcomed the governments retreat in 2012, which they perceived as a temporary relief from taxation and a whole range of predatory acts. Others had got used to it despite feeling that they had been abandoned at a difficult time. In many areas of central Mali, the governments return in 2013 did not therefore help to restore security for people and goods. On the contrary, people have claimed that the security situation was better under the jihadists or when the state was absent in 2012. Indeed, serious episodes of collective violence took place following the latters return. In March 2013, in Doungoura, at least twenty people, mainly Fulani, were killed and thrown down a well. This case was never clarified or solved. Although representatives of the victims quickly contacted them, Malian authorities waited for more than a year before sending a delegation to support the investigation mission of the UN Stabilization Mission in Mali (known by its French acronym, MINUSMA) human rights office. With persistent insecurity since 2013, non-state armed groups such as former Nterere, and even jihadist elements, rather than Malian security forces, have offered their support to Fulani herders to protect the transhumance from predatory acts. In this context, the states return to central Mali after 2013 seems more theoretical than real. Its presence is weak throughout large grey areas. Moreover, following the crisis in Kidal in 2014, part of the region has again fallen under the control of armed groups, such as eastern Douentza. It is all the more worrying as the main actors in charge of Mali are neglecting this area and concentrating mainly on the northern regions.
IV. Toward a New Insurrection?
At the start of 2015, a series of attacks against Malian security forces stationed in small towns in the centre of the country once again attracted attention to the area. Subsequently, chronic low intensity violence appeared in rural areas. State officials and civilians said to be close to the authorities were threatened or killed. Some attacks targeted MINUSMA convoys. Armed groups occupied unprotected villages and small towns for a few hours, time enough to preach sermons and broadcast messages, including calls for jihad.
It is often difficult to distinguish between acts of banditry, local vendettas and attacks by radicalised groups.
The Malian and international media frequently attribute these acts of violence to the Macina Liberation Front (MLF), created in January 2015 and reportedly led by a radical Fulani preacher, Hamadoun Kouffa. On the ground, the situation is confused. The perpetrators of violence have various motives and the degree of coordination between groups is uncertain. It is often difficult to distinguish between acts of banditry, local vendettas and attacks by radicalised groups. Armed groups seem to be trying to use the endemic insecurity, local tensions and the deep distrust toward the government to achieve various objectives.
A. Elusive Perpetrators
Hamadoun Kouffa is a relatively well-known Fulani preacher in Macina. After having, in his youth, recorded love poetry on cassettes, he became a preacher in the Mopti region. In the 2000s, he became known for his sermons on the Quran in the Fula language, broadcast on local radio stations. He denounced the corruption of morals and state officials, the regions major Marabout families, parliamentarians who supported the new Family Code and President Amadou Toumani Toure (ATT), whom he nicknamed the Pharaoh of Koulouba. Between 2009 and 2011, he joined the Tabligh Jamaat, a preaching movement born in Pakistan and known locally as Dawa. He became its spiritual leader in the Mopti region, alienating Marabout families and some followers who began to criticise his radical choices. At the time of the 2012 crisis, his group was in decline. He then allegedly went to Timbuktu to support Ansar Dine. He was reportedly seen encouraging the population of Konna during the armed groups offensive but all trace of him was lost as the French strikes began. His name reappeared in January 2015 when his links with the MLF, to which most of the armed attacks in the Macina have been attributed, were demonstrated. Unlike the armed groups in northern Mali, the MLF has no known military or political chain of command. The armed groups that temporarily occupy towns in central Mali and preach there do not claim allegiance to any particular movement. The leaflets distributed or displayed in the mosques in the Mopti region are not signed by the MLF but by Ansar Dine, or use the name of Dina, a Fulani theocracy in the nineteenth century. The only video posted on the internet by a group active in central Mali, which dates from 18 May 2016, was also signed by Ansar Dines Katibat Macina. The MLF, if it really exists, has claimed responsibility for few actions other than two major attacks on a hotel in Sevare in August 2015 and on the Hotel Radisson in Bamako in November 2015. Finally, it is unclear whether Kouffa survived the French bombardments of Konna in January 2013. Dead or alive, his sermons continue to circulate and influence people. Little is known about the people who have rallied behind Kouffa or have been fighting in his name. His network reportedly attracts individuals from disadvantaged social backgrounds and Fulanis from the plains, seduced by his critique of traditional landowners in the Niger Delta. The financing of the movement seems largely local and to owe much less to the major trafficking networks than that of the armed movements in the north. Several local sources now doubt that the MLF exists or deny it is solely responsible for the violence that has affected the centre of the country since the beginning of 2015. It is clear that no single group can be considered as the perpetrator of all the attacks against the state and its allies. Neither are the different entities that have been implicated clearly unified in a movement with a common agenda. The name Macina Liberation Front, popularised by the media, does not adequately reflect the nebulous nature of this assortment of small groups with uneven structures. Armed violence in the area has complex roots and involves many protagonists; the MLF label simplifies this reality.
B. A Juxtaposition of Armed Groups
Security sources say that several groups, rather than a single organisation, target the state. These groups do not necessarily coordinate their agendas even though they are in contact with each other. The attacks on towns in central Mali at the beginning of 2015 were reportedly carried out by a group that came out of Ansar Dine and was formed along Malis border with Mauritania. It allegedly includes Fulani and Tamasheq combatants, some of which are officers close to Iyad ag Ghali. It planned to carry out a series of operations designed to impress the population and terrify the authorities, probably to facilitate the establishment of a new movement recruiting locally. This group then apparently withdrew to the border area (perhaps dispersing toward several destinations, such as Lere, Malian refugee camps in Mauritania and Wagadou Forest). It may be in the process of reactivating under the name of Katibat Macina of Ansar Dine and broadcast its first video in May 2016. A second group was formed in the aftermath of the February 2015 attacks. Mainly active in the Tenenkou and Youwarou circles, it has recently recruited locally but also includes combatants who probably joined MOJWA or Ansar Dine during the crisis in 2012. Less well-armed and less well-versed in the tactics of war than the first group, it has not yet managed to take control of any town defended by the army. It is quite active in rural areas, spreading its message among the local communities and harassing government informers and security forces convoys. Further to the east, a similar group is active, some members of which joined the MOJWA during the 2012 crisis. It is growing in the Douentza circle, to a lesser extent in the Bankass circle, and occasionally spills over the border into Burkina Faso, especially in the northern and Sahel regions. It is mainly formed of nomadic Fulanis, namely the subgroups Seedoobe (from Mali), the Djelgobe (from Burkina Faso) and especially the Toleebe (from Niger). This group has links with others that are active in Macina and along the border with Mauritania, although it is difficult to determine the extent and solidity of these contacts. In 2015, military sources estimated that each of these groups had a few dozen members. The degree to which they coordinate their activities remains uncertain. Local and French security sources say a total of 150 to 200 men have basic military equipment: Kalashnikovs, grenade-throwers, motorbikes, a few 4x4 vehicles with heavy machine guns stolen from Malis armed forces (FAMA), and the capacity to use landmines or improvised explosive devices. Nothing like the columns of 44 vehicles mounted with machine guns, mortars and sniper rifles commonly used in the north. This is because there is a stronger and older warrior culture in the north, the purchase of military equipment is funded by trafficking and more arms are available from Libya and stocks of weapons stolen from the Malian army in 2012.
C. The Multiple Reasons for Violence
The violence affecting central Mali involves movements inspired by the jihad, but is also the product of local disputes. The fight against terrorism should not therefore be the only response to this multifaceted violence. Armed bandits are responsible for many incidents, notably attacks on fairs and markets, wrongly attributed to jihadist groups. Jihadist and armed gangs occupy the same territories. There might be some contact between them and they may even cooperate at times, but they are very different in nature. Armed bandits have an ambiguous status in local society: some communities see them as a shield against government abuses or rival communities, while others denounce them as mere predators. In addition to banditry, settlings of scores contribute to the increasing insecurity. In certain cases, local people seeking revenge for abuses by the porteurs duniformes (men in uniform), rather than jihadists, are responsible for the harassment and sometimes killing of public officials. This reveals a local desire to chase the government out, which deliberately or not converges with the jihadist agenda. Distinguishing between local settlings of scores and jihadist actions is therefore difficult. However, some violent incidents are due neither to banditry nor settlings of scores. The destruction of the Hamdallaye mausoleums on 3 May 2015 and sermons hostile to the authorities and foreigners clearly denote a jihadist agenda. In the villages they visit, Kouffas followers call on communities to close French schools, veil women and insist that mens trousers do not hang below their ankles. In Hayre and around Tenenkou, similar groups ban celebrations at major social ceremonies like, for example, costly weddings. Their discourse is never exclusively religious. Its social, political and economic dimensions help gain local support. Kouffas criticisms of prominent Marabout families, who are large landowners, can appeal to some youths and the less well-educated population, although these families remain well-respected. For example, economically marginalised groups support Kouffas challenge to the Dioko customary rights to exploit natural resources. The radical religious discourse resonates with older protests against the local political and social order. Generally speaking, local concerns are used to justify the call to jihad. What is at stake differs from one area to another and there is not necessarily any interest in pursuing a common agenda. And at the individual level, it is difficult to say at what point interest in the jihad prevails over more local concerns.
V. Make Central Mali Secure: Military Operations, Political Dialogue and Self-defence Groups
The governments response has so far focused on security. Although this has had some results, violence continues to spread. Communities are taking up arms to defend themselves, probably with the support of sectors of the Malian security forces. Armed militias are undeniably becoming stronger and there is a danger that a major wave of violence will unfold.
A. The Security Response and Its Limits
Following attacks against them in February 2015, the security forces strengthened their positions in the main towns of the countrys centre, particularly Sevare, Tenenkou and Douentza. This has allowed them to hold these small cities and avoid further defeats. However, armed groups continue to harass them in rural areas. In response, Operation Seno produced some results in autumn 2015 in the Bankass circle. But this type of intervention aims to contain the expansion of armed groups rather than to deal with the causes of insecurity. Like Seno, search-and-sweep operations organised by the FAMA lead to arrests. Carried out following denunciations, they are sometimes based on false information. This causes tensions with the population and some serious abuses have been reported. Malis military partners are thin on the ground in the centre. MINUSMA has a limited presence but a new mandate, voted on 29 June 2016, provides for reinforcements. However, there is a risk of reproducing the situation prevailing in Gao and Kidal a larger force focused on self-protection, holed up in a fortified stronghold in town and incapable of restoring order to neglected rural areas. Meanwhile, Operation Barkhane does not cover the area, even though its soldiers have intervened to support Malian forces during a few joint operations. It did not participate in Operation Seno, widely seen as a test for the Malian army, currently going through a process of reconstruction. More recently, when clashes with armed groups threatened to become more intense, as in the Douentza circle and along the border with Mauritania, it provided temporary operational support. From 22 February to 6 March 2016, Operation Gabi mobilised Malian, Burkina and French forces. The results were limited: armed groups avoided combat and went into hiding during search operations. Armed groups in central Mali, less structured than the political-military groups in the North, often avoid direct confrontations. The FAMA and their allies do not manage to be effective against this diffuse threat.
B. An Area Neglected by the Algiers Talks
The peace process has ignored central Mali. As a participant in the inter-Malian negotiations that took place from June 2014 to February 2015 in the Algerian capital said: in Algiers, we did not see many Fulanis from the centre. None of the armed movements main representatives were from this area. Some public figures from the area approached MINUSMA to try and negotiate the official inclusion of their group in the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) process. Underrepresented in the armed movements that signed the Ouagadougou (2013) and Bamako (2015) agreements, they have been sidelined from the peace process. The peace agreement signed in June 2015 in Bamako applies to the northern regions and contains only rare references to the centre. Many public figures there, particularly Fulani, feel that history is repeating itself: peace is being built without them if not against them. Many believe that you need to take up arms to be heard. Some of them argue that the armed network that supports Kouffa has emerged precisely because there was no local armed group to bring the area into the spotlight. In this context, calls for the creation of self-defence groups are becoming increasingly common.
C. The Temptation to Form Militias
The nomadic populations of central Mali have been tempted to resort to arms for some years now. The absence of government combined with insecurity during the occupation in 2012 accelerated this dynamic. In Bamako, some members of the elite close to the government supported the idea of arming and supervising local self-defence groups. The transitional authorities were reluctant to do this because the regular army lacked equipment and because they feared they might lose control over these groups. While the return of public officials to central Mali is most often theoretical, persisting insecurity is currently reviving the wish of some communities to form self-defence groups. In the Macina, Fulani village chiefs have been meeting since 2013 to raise funds, mobilise young people and raise awareness to the idea among the elite in Bamako in order to obtain government support. MINUSMA mediated to bring them together in Bamako in May 2014, which temporarily helped to reduce tensions without resolving the issue of local security. In May 2015, a delegation of village chiefs again went to Bamako to demand steps to ensure the security of people and their goods in the central Niger Delta. They publicly supported the creation of local self-defence brigades. They held meetings to pass on this message in the centre. Some prominent individuals, concerned that taking up arms would aggravate local tensions and fuel criticism against existing power structures, expressed scepticism. Some Malian officers and politicians favour the formation of self-defence groups in the centre of the country. Security forces are divided about whether it is useful to use paramilitary groups as local intermediaries for their operations. Meanwhile, MINUSMA is uncertain about the capacity of the elites in the centre, particularly Fulani representatives of the Tabital Pulaaku Association, to reach agreement among themselves on a joint project to achieve security. It also doubts that they are representative and capable of mobilising trained combatants, which they have lacked so far. As a member of MINUSMA said: the Fulanis have not found their Gamou, the name of the Malian general viewed as the main defender of the Tuareg Imrad cause in Mali. Members of the elite from Central Mali do not share a common agenda or vision to form a unified self-defence group. Some of them believe that forming self-defence groups may help fill the vacuum left by the FAMAs inability to make the area secure: they would go where the regular security forces are unable to go for lack of resources. Others seek to use these groups to build a local political support base or attract aid funds (DDR, funding for peace). Still others believe that the fight will be more long term: Fulani communities in the centre of the country should form a common front in order to establish a position of strength with which to regain their place in the Malian mosaic. These agendas are not necessarily contradictory but they do not serve the same interests and do not share the same vision of local security. Worryingly, even the more peaceful elements now seem resigned to the emergence of self-defence groups to try and contain the violence. Faced with the gradual expansion of the centres insecure areas, the government is hesitating about what response to make. At the start of 2016, members of the Fulani elite in Bamako acted as intermediaries at meetings between senior government officials and political-military leaders of small armed groups active in the centre of the country. Shortly afterwards, the Malian press announced, with customary exaggeration, that several hundred elements of the MLF were in the process of joining the DDR program. Lists of combatants were produced and centralised by members of the elite in Bamako who met with the MINUSMA in February and March 2016. Negotiations also took place to enable these groups from the centre to join the Coordination of Azawad Movements (known by its French acronym, CMA) and the Platform, the two coalitions of armed groups that signed a peace agreement with the government in 2015, and therefore benefit from MINUSMA-led DDR process. However, the control of these groups and the issue of their affiliation generate worrying tensions. It is unlikely that the elements concerned are the most committed militants of the Kouffa network. The initiative may nonetheless help to put a brake on recruitment by radical groups and encourage the more opportunistic elements, who are responsible for some of the violence in the centre, to turn away from them. But there is a risk it will cause a misunderstanding: some sectors see this initiative as an opportunity to extend DDR to the centre and begin to buy local peace by distributing funds; others are concerned that it constitutes a kind of recognition that will only encourage militias to form. In Mopti, in January 2016, a meeting of representatives of different communities supported by the national reconciliation ministry repeated an appeal to create monitoring units composed of young people and hunters in every part of the country or, if that is not possible, to create vigilance brigades in sensitive municipalities (where access is difficult and the army cannot intervene quickly). In May 2016, violent clashes between armed Bambara and Fulani groups resulted in the death of at least 30 people and hundreds of nomads fled to Mauritanias refugee camps. Members of the security forces allegedly helped to arm traditional Bambara hunters in order to halt the advance of jihadists in the centre. Shortly afterwards, armed Fulani elements, reportedly close to the jihadists, gathered near Malis border with Mauritania, raising fears they would reinforce jihadists in the area. In Bamako, the authorities are concerned and have revived the idea of forming Fulani self-defence groups distinct from the jihadist groups as a way of reducing the attraction that the latter are exercising over Fulani nomads. The current rise in tensions is leading to the constitution of armed groups that are more or less controlled by the authorities. Without efficient action to reduce tensions, the centre could quickly become the new epicentre of violence in Mali. Jihadist elements gain from these troubles by making themselves useful to some communities and consolidating their own positions. However, tension originates less from the supposed radicalisation of any community than from the governments lack of legitimacy and the inability of the authorities to peacefully regulate local conflicts to secure the area.
VI. Looking Beyond the Security Challenge: A Test for Crisis Prevention and Management Policies
Some groups affiliated to terrorist movements already exist in central Mali, but their numbers remain small and it is difficult to ascertain to what extent they coordinate their activities. Policies designed to combat violent radicalisation should not focus on anti-terrorist operations led solely by the security forces, especially as their methods are partly to blame for local people rejecting the government. They should take into account the broader context that is fuelling the increase in armed violence, as described in this report. As Crisis Group recently highlighted, resolving local conflicts will do more to contain violent extremists than countering violent extremism will do to prevent crises. Without the armed violence that has again affected the north since 2012, it is unlikely that resentment in the centre of the country would have so quickly resulted in political-military mobilisations. The two regions are undeniably connected but there are also major differences between them. For example, joining armed groups as a form of social integration and the criminalisation of the economy, especially drug trafficking, are much less developed in the centre. Specific responses must therefore be designed in each region. The Malian government should design a special plan to respond to the specific problems and forms of violence affecting the centre. This would avoid losing too much energy trying to extend to the centre the benefits of the peace agreement negotiated for other regions by their own representatives.
A. The Objective: A Government with Renewed Legitimacy in the Territories
The danger of increased armed violence in central Mali results less from the action of terrorist organisations than from years of negligence by the authorities and what are viewed as their unfair policies. The priority for the government, with the aid of Malis partners, should therefore be to restore its presence in the area in order to build good relations with the local populations. It must first understand the extent of rejection of the state by local people and rebuild its legitimacy not by returning to repressive, partial and authoritarian policies but, on the contrary, by playing its role of regulator, guaranteeing access to basic services and being on hand to help the people, including nomadic groups. This requires results in areas where work has already begun. Justice, which is too often corrupt and at the service of the powerful, must be independent and autonomous from those who hold political and economic power. The government must guarantee the populations access to basic services. In addition to justice and security, which are priority fields for intervention, the government must also invest in education and natural resources management. It should rethink its presence among the population, including nomadic groups. In todays world, it is essential, for example, to intensify efforts to create nomadic schools. In terms of security, the government must reassure citizens and restore public order. As Crisis Group emphasised: Jihadists ability to offer protection is usually more central to their success than ideology. The government must again prove it has the capacity to protect. That requires, firstly, that the security forces regain credibility in the eyes of the populations. To break the cycle of predation by the porteurs duniforme, senior officers must punish abuses in a conspicuous way. The government must also start working on local security as soon as possible. The Malian security forces are currently too few in number to cover the entire territory. A territorial or communal police force, funded by regional or local authorities, should be put in place. It would ensure security in places where other security forces only rarely venture. It could take responsibility for affairs that are under the remit of the police. The army, which has no investigative capacity, currently secures the area, but that is not its role. In addition, local recruits to a territorial police force would further reconciliation between local populations and the forces responsible for ensuring their security. Their powers and recruitment procedures should be clearly defined. The aim is to create representative police forces that serve local people and not communal militias that serve particular communities or interest groups. Finally, the government should try to end divisions between local elites, by encouraging them to take part in the political debate rather than resorting to arms to resolve their differences and rivalries. It is necessary to prevent political competition from leading to the formation of the kind of armed militias present in the north. Moreover, the stigmatisation of some nomadic elites because of their recent association with groups such as MOJWA is counterproductive in the long term. It is essential to avoid a situation in which some communities, feeling excluded, would be tempted to join radicalised groups to make their voice heard. In partnership with the government, local elites can play a central role. They should accept their share of responsibility for the current turmoil and stop blaming each other and manipulating desires for vengeance.
B. A Realistic Approach in Accordance with Government Resources
The hope that the 2012 crisis would provide a wake-up call to the nation and lead to ambitious governance reform has been largely disappointed. Public resources often continue to disappear before reaching intended beneficiaries. Development partners have been largely unable to reform aid policies. Worse, because of the insecurity, it has become more difficult for development aid to reach the more remote areas. The government remains constrained by limited budgetary resources. Investments in social services suffer as a result of the priority given to defence and security. In this context, recommendations to reform public administration in central Mali do not have much chance of success. A realistic approach is needed, one that carefully assesses what can be done in a situation suffering from such constraints. Rather than designing major new reforms, which rarely get much further than the ministries and departments in Bamako, the government should concentrate on practical action in the field. It must identify and work with all local actors, including members of civil society and those who, by necessity, made a pact with jihadist groups. The priority now is to invest in the neglected regions of the centre. Given the extent of the needs in different parts of this still fragile country, the centre must find its champions, for instance a consensual figure able to win the support of the local people. The government could appoint a high representative for the central regions responsible for coordinating initiatives and preparing a special plan. The peace agreement has disregarded the centre so much that it cannot be implemented there. The different sectors of civil society in the centre, not only armed groups or those in power, must be closely involved in the preparation of such a plan, to ensure that the elite will not take the lead. The peace agreement signed in Bamako, rather favourable to the armed movements, was not the product of an inclusive process. Only the DDR program, which pre-existed it, could be extended to the centre of the country, along the lines provided for in the agreement, to facilitate disarmament and reduce the increasingly worrying availability of war weapons. Malis partners should allow those in their ranks who have a more detailed knowledge of these regions (European Union, Netherlands, etc.) to take responsibility for dealing with matters relating to central Mali. Duplication and pointless competition should be avoided. Together, the government and involved partners should identify and focus on priority causes: security, justice, education and natural resources management are probably among the areas requiring immediate strategic intervention. It is less a question of developing the economy of regions that are rich in natural resources than of rebuilding the ability of the authorities to regulate conflicts and guarantee access to basic services. Finally, it is necessary to stop prioritising security solutions in the fight against radical groups. Military efforts are certainly useful but they must not be the main response. The challenge is to restore the states presence and ensure that the population recognise its legitimacy.
VII. Conclusion
Sydney, Nova Scotia, is another Canada/New England port looking at an expanding cruise portfolio.
"There is an interest in the development and construction of a second berth," said Bernadette MacNeil, manager, marketing and development, Port of Sydney. "We are optimistic."
This year is seeing a small dip in ship calls for what MacNeil called logistical reasons, but, as ships get larger, passenger count is more or less flat with 2015.
2017 will see traffic built to over 80 calls for the port, with additional visits by Holland America and the return of Royal Caribbean International.
"Most of the traffic is in the fall," said MacNeil. "There is little room for growth (then)."
Thus, prompting the second berth discussions, MacNeil said the area was "shovel-ready" and construction would take 16 months once an announcement is made.
"The funding is waiting on all three levels of government," she added.
The 11th annual China Cruise Shipping (CCS) conference and trade show will be held in Tianjin, September 23-25. CCS is hosted by the China Communications and Transportation Association (CCTA) and organized by the China Cruise and Yacht Industry Association (CCYIA).
This years theme is The Development and Cultivation of Asian Cruise Tourism Destinations.
Since 2006, the event has been held in six cities, including Beijing and the port cities of Shanghai, Xiamen, Sanya, Shenzhen and Tianjin.
2015s event was a gathering of the whos who of the major cruise lines in Shanghai, along with suppliers and ports.
There are panel discussions and forums over the first two days in Tianjin, offering a unique speaker lineup.
On the trade show floor, international and Chinese suppliers will be looking to do business with both major cruise lines and new Chinese startups.
The show aims to promote the development of the Chinese cruise industry, bringing together leaders from various government bodies and ports in China with cruise line executives and suppliers.
The show also aims to promote Chinas industry-related policies.
It has become the stage for industry players and the Chinese government to announce key cruise developments and policies. It also aims to nurture domestic cruise tourism and bring Chinas vast industry potential to the world.
Market Potential
With a quickly growing Chinese source market and with all major cruise lines homeporting in China and most building new ships for the market, transit ports need to keep pace with the industrys growth.
Chinas growing homeport business faces huge limitations in terms of ports of call, said Weihang Zheng, vice president and secretary (the de-facto CEO) of the CCYIA. Currently, destinations are limited to Japan and Korea, and to a smaller extent, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam.
He cited some potential areas of expansion. Japan has many potential ports. We are now limited mainly to Kyushu. We can also go south, to Southeast Asia for week-long cruises. Another potential is to go north, to Russia. There is a lack of awareness and marketing so more can be done in this area.
The show plans to address the need for more ports and destinations for ships sailing from China.
It will take two to three years to see progress and results, Zheng said. But if we do not address them now, it will become a crippling bottleneck.
Conference Program
CCS will be anchored by its industry leaders forum, focus-ing on the future of the big companies in Asia. Last years top speakers are expected to be back, including Arnold Donald, Adam Goldstein, Frank Del Rio and Gianni Onorato.
There will also be a government and cruise line round-table to discuss growing the industry in China.
Brand management for the Chinese market will also be in attendance and will have its own dedicated panel discussion.
There is also a cruise destination forum, featuring port executives as well as a cruise city forum, talking about tourism and shore excursion resources.
The Japanese governments Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism announced in April the establishment of a Cruise Revitalization Office under the Ports and Harbor Bureau that will be responsible for attracting cruises and improving ports.
Including Japan and Korea, there is a lack of ports that can accommodate cruise ships, said Zheng. But the new office by the Japanese government is an excellent step forward, and these positive developments are the result of a collaborative effort by the industry, CCYIA and other parties. In contrast, government-to-government interactions are still lagging behind.
Part of the Japanese effort is a no-rejection policy, meaning if one port is booked, they will find an alternative berthing location.
Cruise-ship building will also be discussed at CCS with a shipbuilding panel.
China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) has made significant progress in this area, added Zheng.
Another panel will focus on repair. as there is a significant lack of cruise drydock experience in the region.
In addition there will be a cruise tourism development forum that will include a 2017 market analysis, exploring different cruise sales models, as well as announcing the results of a cruise consumer survey that CCYIA will conduct over the summer.
China is also building up its efforts in procurement, as a clear tangible benefit from more ship calls, and similar to last year, there will be a procurement forum to explore the supply-chain side of the industry.
Finally, there will be a recruitment forum to discuss educa-tion options, focusing on training crew for ships sailing in China.
Trade Show
Held concurrently with the conference each year is a growing trade show. This years show will include four key exhibition areas with a heavy focus on suppliers, food and beverage, cruise ship building and repair, and ports and destinations. Over 2,000 visitors are expected.
According to the organizers, the show expects more port and destination exhibitors to attend, as well as suppliers, recruitment agencies and travel agents.
Zheng said he also expects more suppliers because Chinese shipbuilding and ship repair facilities are developing.
News Expected
The CCS has been a hotbed of news items in recent years, and 2016 will be no exception with major announcements expected from CSSC and a number of cruise lines. Also in the works is a China Cruise Travel Agency Alliance.
Tianjin last hosted the CCS show in 2014. Tianjin is the port to Beijing and is part of the new Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei collaborative development to jointly grow the northeastern triangle of China with a population of 110 million. Though its cruise business only started in 2010, Tianjin has become the second largest cruise port in mainland China, after Shanghai, with 93 calls and 431,000 passengers in 2015. Its Tianjin Inter-national Cruise Terminal (TICT) has expanded rapidly and can now berth three megaships at once.
Hybrid clouds enable companies to use the most appropriate cloud technology public or private for each application they support. As such, hybrid cloud presents an opportunity to dramatically improve the delivery of IT services while keeping costs under control.
To take full advantage of this opportunity, however, companies need to put proper security policies in place to ensure their data and other digital assets remain protected, regardless of where they live. Here are three core principles for developing sound security policies that accommodate hybrid cloud environments.
1. Contain shadow IT
Across your organization, groups outside of IT are very likely signing on for cloud services without ITs knowledge. , just 8% of companies claimed to know the scope of these shadow IT activities at their organization. This trend is perhaps the biggest security threat that the cloud models present. If the service falls outside of the traditional IT identity and access management (IAM) system and policies, for example, company data may be at risk.
The early response to this trend was to lock down on unauthorized cloud purchase and mandate that no group other than IT can sign on for any cloud service. But the ease in which business users can procure and deploy new cloud services makes it difficult to enforce such a strict approach. While IT doesnt want to be seen as the no can do department, its critical for IT to ensure that SaaS applications and other cloud services are properly secured. This requires IT to build strong bridges with various business departments, to get them on board with the idea that strong security is good for the company.
The most realistic policy is one that requires IT to vet all services before purchase. IT can aid this process by providing a list of sanctioned cloud services. Among other security benefits, this enables IT to incorporate SaaS applications into the enterprise IAM solution. IAM integration is crucial because it presents a single, centralized point of control over application and data access. It also benefits users of the application by letting them use familiar sign-on routines for new cloud applications. (For more on using IAM to prevent unauthorized access to cloud applications and data, see 5 Steps for Enhanced Security of Applications in the Cloud.)
2. Apply consistent monitoring and logging
Companies routinely monitor their own environments for suspicious activity and keep detailed logs of all events. The same sort of monitoring and control should extend to public cloud environments.
Consider the Intel IT group. We have a security business intelligence (SBI) platform that we use as the focal point for logging, monitoring, alerting, and responding to security violations. Cloud-based applications are no exception. We collect logs and alerts from our cloud providers and feed them into the SBI platform, where they are correlated and monitored for anomaly detection alongside data from all other applications.
With this approach, we can detect when a user uploads or downloads an unusual amount of data, for example, or logs in from two different locations in a timeframe that would be unrealistic or impossible. Either instance would be an indication of suspicious activity that should result in an alert to the security team.
3. Secure all new virtual machines
The speed at which users can spin up new virtual machines is a major benefit of private or public cloud models. But that same benefit can make it difficult to ensure the growing number of VMs are properly protected.
Its good policy, then, to use preconfigured templates for new VMs to help mitigate risks. These templates should take into account issues such as how data is protected as its moves to and from your data center and a cloud provider. Your templates should also address compliance issues around where, geographically, certain private data can legally be stored an especially thorny issue for global companies that must adhere to the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework.
Automated workload-provisioning systems can help with the process, ensuring appropriate security policies are applied to each new VM by taking into account the type of data it will be handling.
Dont let security be a stumbling block to your organizations desire to capture the benefits of hybrid cloud technology. And dont be afraid to push your cloud providers to give you the security policies you need to protect yourself.
To learn more about how Intel IT addresses security for SaaS environments, download our free white paper, SaaS Security Best Practices: Minimizing Risk in the Cloud.
If you're looking for a good lesson in enterprise security, there might be a few sitting in the parking lot. The automotive field is a glaring example of "worst practices" in security, say several automotive experts. And, the problem is only getting worse, not better.
Over the past few years, the cars have come under fire for many things -- constant recalls, safety hazards, and diesel-engine tricks to name a few-- but security experts have noticed a disturbing trend.
While it might be hard to break into a BMW unless you have a rock handy, there hasn't been as much effort in protecting wireless signals, establishing standards, creating new regulations and laws, and patching much more aggressively.
Experts tell CSO that the automotive field needs to address some of these issues, especially as cars become more high-tech and start connecting to the infrastructure around us, road signs, and to each other. It also shows how security has to keep pace with innovation.
[ ALSO ON CSO: Once your car's connected to the Internet, who guards your privacy? ]
Most importantly, those who work in enterprise security should start paying attention to see how the problem is resolved, because changes will be coming soon.
The problem is getting worse
It's easy to see how far car technology has advanced. Google has been able to let a car drive on its own in traffic. In Michigan, there's a test underway where cars can communicate with each other. Tesla has built a massive electric car charging infrastructure.
Yet, as Dave Sullivan with the automotive analyst firm AutoPacific points out, there are constant signs of trouble. Nissan made an app for their Leaf electric car but then found it was easily hackable and promptly removed it. "This is a whole new world for automakers," says Sullivan.
"They are venturing into an area that is still very new and very fresh with the inability to update security vulnerabilities quickly. This can easily be patched on say a smartphone."
[Automakers] are venturing into an area that is still very new and very fresh with the inability to update security vulnerabilities quickly.
Dave Sullivan, automotive analyst, AutoPacific
Instead of aggressive patch schedules, automakers tend to test longer and adhere to rigid safety standards, but don't follow the smartphone model. Sullivan says this needs to change, that automakers should be paying ethical hackers a bounty to try and break the wireless security in a car and then issue patches. This is far less expensive, he says, than a recall.
Diogo Monica, a security researcher and chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Public Visibility Committee, told CSO there's hasn't been much progress.
He says car companies are too cavalier about penetration testing. He agreed with Sullivan that this leads to massive recalls because, given the patch cycles for cars, it's often too late when they add a new app or some communication feature in the car and a vulnerability is found.
Enterprise security lessons
You may have noticed already there are many lessons to learn.
Ironically - given their brilliant automotive innovations - one example of good security for phones is Google. Sullivan noted how Google aggressively patches the Nexus line. With Chrome OS and the Chrome browser, the Internet giant puts automakers to shame as well. Google updates its software in the background and patches constantly, but the end-user barely notices. Your typical Ford or Buick has nowhere near that level of sophistication for security.
Another lesson is related to openness. Monica noted how the automakers do not report on vulnerabilities as thoroughly and tend to hide behind a curtain, which creates a vicious cycle -- ethical hackers do not get any credit if they find a problem so they lose all incentive to help.
"They rely too much on security-through-obscurity," says Monica.
"They rely on the fact that it is hard to inspect what software is actually running inside of the car to provide security. This has been proven to be the wrong way to do security, and cars are the perfect example of it."
For the enterprise, it's much better to come clean about vulnerabilities when they occur and tap the security community for help, then to be more aggressive about including security experts in penetration testing rather than trying to obscure the process for them.
Monica has another good example of what's broken. Researchers have been able to consistently break into the key fob used for unlocking cars. Automakers tend to make their own software for this and reinvent the protocols, but Monica said they do a poor job. If it was a more open process, one that tapped existing expertise, the security would improve. For enterprise managers, this is a lesson in collaboration and involving outside experts.
What should be done
Inaction is not a good approach in this case. Monique Lance, a spokesperson for Argus Cyber Security, a company that works in the connected car field, says best practices in cybersecurity need to be injected into every stage of the manufacturing process, not as an afterthought.
[ MORE: Will your next car steal itself? ]
Lance says there is very little regulation when it comes to car security, although that is changing--slowly. The Spy Car Act of 2015 calls for new federal standards for car security. In Michigan, there's a Life Imprisonment Bill that would lock up car hackers for life. The SEA-issued J3601 guideline injects security practices into the manufacturing process.
The most important lesson? Do something. With security, letting a sleeping giant stay dormant and looking the other way is never a good approach.
Andy Gryc, a spokesperson for the auto industry and for what is now known as AutoMobility LA (instead of the LA Auto Show), told CSO that steps are being taken. For example, car makers are starting to phase out the older bus architecture (known as the Controller Area Network or CAN) used in cars in favor of a more secure architecture called E-AVB (Ethernet Audio Video Bridging Solution). "Techniques like white-box encryption or code obfuscation are just starting to get traction, and have mostly been absent from vehicle software designs," he added.
Sadly, Gryc said these changes take time to implement. There isn't enough momentum in an industry that is all about horsepower and automated driving. In enterprise security, there are some clear lessons, even if the automotive field hasn't learned any of them.
Perhaps nowhere in business, and certainly nowhere in IT, does optimism abound more than it does in a discussion about moving to the cloud. Clouds arent always puffy, white cottony things dancing against an azure sky. Sometimes they are terrifying storms that have catastrophic affects.
IT professionals know that systems will eventually fail or get hacked and therefore almost always have back up servers and back up data thats ready to restore after a failure. Somehow though, this diligence frequently dissipates when planning to move to the cloud.
Remember, The Cloud is a marketing term. There is no cloud, it is just somebody elses servers. If youre thinking of moving your applications or data to the cloud, or even if you already have, you should consider these things:
1. Read your T&Cs: Your cloud provider is probably not responsible for any consequences of a loss of service. If your customer database is (for example) in Microsofts Azure cloud services, and something goes wrong, then by the Microsoft online Services Agreement, the most you can collect from Microsoft is what you paid for the service and, of course, they are not liable for any costs you may incur from losing the service.
2. Backup like you werent in the cloud: Clouds fail. If you think that once you are in the cloud that you are protected, think again. A group at the University of California Berkley are so keenly aware of cloud fragility that they have proposed Failure As A Service (FAAS) to test large scale outages of cloud services. As they point out, the computing forecast for tomorrow is cloudy with a chance of failure. The internet abounds with stories of epic cloud failures. Azure was down for 12 hours once on Feb. 29, 2012. Cloudflare, a SaaS company, went down for an hour on March 3, 2013 and took 785,000 client websites with it. It happens, and your business continuity plan needs to cover it.
3. Encrypt everything. What do you really know about where your data is stored and how protected it is from others? A Ponemon Institute report on data breaches revealed that 66 percent of the respondents of the 613 IT practitioners questioned believed that their organizations use of cloud resources diminished their ability to protect confidential or sensitive information. Interestingly enough, the same investigation reveals that 51 percent of the same respondents said that their in-house IT was equally or less secure than cloud-based services. In other words, they werent satisfied with their in-house IT security, but felt even worse about security in the cloud.
4. Be aware of the Cloud Multiplier: The same Ponemon report suggests that there is a Cloud Multiplier effect to the cost of a data breach. Their research shows that the cost of a breach of 100,000 records from the cloud would almost double to $5.32 million versus an average cost of $2.37 million for the same size data breach from in-house servers. A separate report by Ponemon identifies extensive cloud migration as a contributing factor to the cost of data breaches.
5. Move routine data to the cloud keep sensitive data in-house. No one cares about protecting your sensitive and confidential data and your trade secrets as much as you do. Dont delegate protection of company critical information to someone else.
6. Use cloud services for back up. The cloud is a perfect back up location, especially when you need backups in a hurry (like when your system is hit by ransomware), but make sure that your data is encrypted before it is moved to the cloud and make sure your keys are accessible without your primary system being online.
The conveniences that cloud services bring to industry mean that it is here to stay, but those of us that are responsible for the security of our businesss data should be aware of the unique risks of cloud use and make plans for mitigating those risks. Like almost everything that provides convenience in our lives, an over reliance on that convenience can create even greater hardships during emergency situations.
A modern, urban bar based out of Texas known for its signature martinis, cocktails and made-from-scratch American-style food, Bar Louie has a new home at the Connecticut Post mall in Milford. It is its second location in Connecticut.
The chain, with 113 locations nationwide, is still new to the state after opening in West Hartford in mid-May. Bar Louie joins several other restaurants in the Milford mall including Buffalo Wild Wings and Carrabbas.
General manager Kevin Zdanowicz, a Milford resident, said the goal is to stand out from the local competition and to bring great food and great drinks to Milford.
Were not a typical franchise, he said. Were not here to turn tables. Were here to make relationships.
The Milford location opened on June 21, and will be hosting a grand opening party on July 14 and 15. During the two days, the restaurant will offer $2 martinis as well as free appetizers for everyone that comes through the doors, according to Zdanowicz.
Bar Louie is open seven days a week at 11 a.m., closing at 2 a.m., with happy hour Monday through Friday from 4 to 7 p.m.
Its debut follows the April opening of World of Beer, also in the mall.
World of Beer is known for their beer, said Danielle Consiglio, the malls marketing director. (Bar Louie) is more of an eclectic location. I think they will play off each other well.
Consiglio said that the Connecticut Post mall has made a concerted effort to grow and bring in quality businesses.
Right now were always looking for new tenants, Consiglio said. We will be definitely having new announcements.
Along with a knowledgeable staff and an inviting appearance, Zdanowicz said that the next step will be to expand the impact that the business will have in the community, with the hope that the people will respond in a positive manner.
We want to be the place everyone goes to, Zdanowicz said.
AJohnson@hearstmediact.com
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BRIDGEPORT Having listened to speaker after speaker tear into Mayor Joe Ganim about their higher tax bills, Mary Erkan figured it was time for Bridgeports chief executive to have his say.
She asked Ganim to address the furious crowd of 400 plus that packed City Hall and turned Tuesdays regular City Council meeting, run by the mayor, into a rowdy tax protest.
Just a minutes worth of something, Erkan urged Ganim.
But the mayor, whose personal communications skills, political savvy and hustle last year returned him to City Hall after 12 years, declined. He told those in the audience it was their night to speak.
Garrulous Ganim gone
In fact for the bulk of the recently concluded budget and property revaluation season, Ganim, observers say, has seemed unusually quiet and disconnected, setting the stage for Tuesdays three-hour venting session.
He should have set up an open meeting in every district in the city. Advertise it. Encourage people to come, said Lisa Parziale, a council president during Ganims first administration, which ended in 2003. The old Joe would have been in every single district and so charming and so mesmerizing.
Judging from the outrage on display Tuesday, a little charm during the spring budget process might have gone a long way. The $552 million fiscal plan the mayor and City Council approved in early May jacked the mill or tax rate from 42.1 mills to 54.37 mills, pummeling certain neighborhoods with higher taxes.
The administration has blamed the increase on an inherited $20 million deficit and a state-mandated property revaluation that reduced the grand list the total amount of taxable property by $1 billion. But as a result of the latter drop in real estate values, the mayor and his staff have claimed around 60 percent of homeowners received a tax cut.
But Ganim on the campaign trail left the impression he would not raise taxes, period. His lawn signs read, Stop Raising Taxes! Vote Joe Ganim. They did not specify for some property owners.
So it was a lot to explain to the average voter who might not pay attention to the budget and revaluation until their tax bill arrives in the mail.
Its not exactly the most straightforward process to somebody on the outside looking in, said state Rep. Steven Stafstrom, a former councilman who represents many of the Black Rock and Brooklawn homeowners who stormed City Hall Tuesday night.
We were doing a lot of pro-active communication, insisted Av Harris, Ganims spokesman.
Through press interviews and press releases. In contrast, Ganims predecessor, ex-Mayor Bill Finch, would propose a budget in early April, then hold a handful of neighborhood forums to explain and sell it to residents. A few times his staff even organized telephone conferences with constituents.
DIY taxpayer outreach
The taxpayer outreach this year came from Citizens Working for a Better Bridgeport, the political action group which organized Tuesdays tax protest and funded robo-calls encouraging residents attend.
Joe Ganim is very knowledgeable about the city and the finances, said former Mayor John Fabrizi. I just think that if hed used a different strategy, the backlash and outrage wouldnt be as great as it is today.
Stafstrom said it is always better for elected officials to engage the public and meet them at places that are convenient to them.
Harris said Ganim appreciated the opinions expressed Tuesday and will get out in the community.
He enjoys the give and take with people, Harris said.
Until then frustrated taxpayers will have to be satisfied with the letter the mayor enclosed in their bills.
No one budget or few months in office can accomplish the big goals that we have for our great city, Ganim wrote. However, I am confident that with a consistent and dedicated effort, we will work to make Bridgeport a better and safer place to live.
HARTFORD Two Bridgeport schools and one in Norwalk get to stay in the Commissioners Network an additional year, but they must individually go before a state Board of Education committee to spell out their priorities and progress.
And they will get a fraction of the additional state funding they used to enjoy.
When Curiale School in Bridgeport entered the program in the fall of 2012, it received $1.2 million in extra funding. This year it will get $200,000.
Dunbar School received $1.2 million its first year, 2013, and this year will get $230,000.
Norwalk Pathways Academy, meanwhile, started out at $626,775 three years ago and in 2016-17 will get $120,000.
Commissioner of Education Dianna Wentzell said the state has refined the Commissioners Network program since it was started and is much more consistent now in its approach. There is an insistence that sustainability be built into the plans so that districts eventually pick up the cost of any new positions or programs.
The strategies are much more valuable than the money, Wentzell told the state school board on Wednesday.
When the network was created in 2012 by the governor and Legislature, the idea was to provide intensive support to the states troubled schools. The plan was for them to stay in the network for at least three years and up to five.
Some board members seem troubled with the fact that a five-year stay now seems to be a given, and that improvement has been incremental at best.
I am not saying schools should be taken out of the ... network, but if their program isnt working, they should redo it, board member Joseph J. Vrabely Jr. said.
He suggested some of the money would be better spent on the states technical high schools, which are nursing a multi-million-dollar budget cut.
But it was pointed out that the $12 million set aside for the network by the Legislature cant be spent on anything else.
There are 18 schools now in the network, and with the boards action on Wednesday, 11, moved into their fourth or fifth year. Schools are invited into the network based on low academic performance as well as both high absentee rates and discipline rates. They each come up with an improvement plan that is approved by the state, and they receive extra funding. The funding decreases each year the school is in the program.
Desi Nesmith, who was put in charge of the states turnaround office this year, said five years in the program is not a given. He also said he remains confident that schools exiting the program will be at a better place than when they started.
At Curiale, a K-8 school which has seen improvement in school climate, Nesmith said the focus will be on improving math and reading achievement.
Theresa Hopkins-Staten, vice chairwoman of the board, wondered if the schools arent spreading their extra funds so thin they arent doing anything well.
It would be helpful to see the budgets, she said.
Robert Trefry, an ex-officio member of the state board and onetime chair of the Bridgeport Board of Education, said he would hate to see the state pull away from the program too soon.
We need the opportunity to see what works, Trefry said. The achievement gap is still there.
Board member Terry Jones of Shelton agreed.
I wouldnt give up on this yet, Jones said, adding that Curiale, a big school, has gotten some measure of stability in leadership through the network.
After a revolving door of principals, Brett Gustafson has been in charge of the school since 2012.
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HARTFORD When Capital Preparatory Harbor Charter School in Bridgeport opens this fall, its management firm may get 10 percent off the top.
That is the proposed fee under a contract now before the state Board of Education.
At 250 students and a state allocation of $11,000 each, that would put Capital Preparatory Schools Inc. in line for some $275,000 of a $2.75 million budget for 2016-17.
On Wednesday, the state went over two proposed agreements, one for Capital Prep and one for Achievement First Hartford. The process, as it turns out, took longer, than members anticipated and approval was tabled.
The board indicated it would revisit the agreements at a special meeting over the summer.
Steve Perry, who runs the management firm in charge of Capital Prep, was at the state meeting but left without comment once it was clear the matter would be delayed.
We had questions, Theresa Hopkins-Staten, vice chair of the board, said of the contract reviews. One of the issues I raised was why one of the agreements went into detail about students with special needs and the other just alluded to it.
Another question was on how consistent the management fee would be. Both of the proposed pacts presented Wednesday were at 10 percent.
Based on the counsel we received, (the 10 percent) felt reasonable and fair, Hopkins-Staten said. I am relying on their research.
Going over contracts between charter schools and the management firms that run some of them is new territory for the state board.
A 2014 charter school scandal, uncovered by the Hartford Courant, led the legislature to clamp down on the over site on charter school management firms. Family Urban Schools of Excellence, a Hartford-based charter management firm that also ran a public school in Bridgeport was found to be run by someone who lied about his credentials and hired individuals with criminal records to work with children.
The firm was also reluctant to make its records public.
Under a state law passed in 2015, the agreements prohibit charter management firms from reducing the power or responsibility of the charter schools governing council. The firms must also follow Freedom of Information laws and conduct background checks on all employees.
The contracts also must spell out the firms roles and responsibilities. Most hire the staff and provide training.
The state approval process allows the district where the charter school is located to weigh in on the plan. Bridgeport offered no comment, according to Robert Kelly, charter school program manager for the state, in his report to the board.
lclambeck@ctpost.com; @lclambeck
Did Fleet Street cause Brexit?
Translation: Do British newspapers deserve credit or, if you prefer, blame for the vote in the United Kingdom in favor of Britains exit from the European Union?
It sure looks that way. Newspapers are having their problems in the UK and almost everywhere else. Print circulation has plummeted. Advertising has plummeted.
But Fleet Street (slang for the national newspapers because thats where they once were located) can still have enormous influence. UK newspapers routinely slant news coverage to fit the views of the top editor or the owner.
In the United States, almost all newspapers separate opinion from straight news and confine it to editorials and commentary by columnists. At least, thats the theory. Its on our cable television news channels that news and opinion are mixed together.
For years, most of the so-called popular newspapers in the United Kingdom campaigned in news stories, as well as opinion pieces, against the European Union and its relaxation of borders between member countries.
By doing so, they showed their solidarity with older, lower-income, less-educated, native-born Britons who resented immigrants and elites. (Sound familiar?)
Unchallenged by the popular press were questionable assertions by the anti-EU forces. For example, the claim that departure from the EU would free 350 million pounds a week for the National Health Service was a mistake, a pro-Leave leader admitted immediately after the vote.
Leading the fight against the EU were The Sun and the Daily Mail, the two biggest selling British newspapers.
In February, a headline on the front page of the Daily Mail asked, Who will speak for England?
Shortly before voters decided whether to Leave or Remain, a headline on the front page of The Sun urged readers to BeLeave in Britain. (Get it?)
Other major newspapers - such as the Telegraph and the Express also supported Leave.
Most of the so-called quality newspapers such as The Times, The Guardian and the Financial Times were in favor of Remain. But their total circulation is much less than that of the popular press.
Turnout was high 72 percent for the referendum June 23. In London, a majority of voters supported Remain even though the national newspapers are based there. But England as a whole supported Leave, as did Wales.
A majority in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the other parts of the United Kingdom, supported Remain as better for their economies.
Will Brexit lead to the breakup of the United Kingdom? Thats a good topic for future consideration.
Both The Sun, which is aimed at the working class, and The Times, the voice of The Establishment, are owned by Rupert Murdochs News Corp.
Murdoch sided with Leave and no surprise so did The Sun and The Sunday Times, also owned by News Corp. But he allowed The Times to side with Remain.
The Daily Mail, and The Mail on Sunday, both owned by the same trust, took different sides. Although the Daily Mail supported Leave, The Mail on Sunday (known as MOS), supported Remain.
The editor of each is allowed to set the tone for his newspaper, and the two of them agree on hardly anything.
By law, the broadcast media had to remain neutral. For every talking head from Remain they were requited to put on one from Leave.
So newspapers were able to tip the scale of public debate in favor of Leave and against Remain.
That seems to be why Brexit won 52 percent to 48 percent.
Paul Janensch, of Bridgeport, was a newspaper editor and taught journalism at Quinnipiac University. His weekly Memo on the Media can be heard on wqun.com. Email: paul.janensch@quinnipiac.edu.
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Windber-Portage renew rivalry in Week 10 Heritage-WestPAC crossover
Check out what to watch on Friday night in Somerset County as the high school football regular season comes to a close in Week 10.
I-75 crash kills three in south Marion County
First responders said multiple vehicles were involved in the crash, which killed three people on I-75 near the Marion County and Sumter County line.
Opinion Wordle
The next day I woke to find myself in a WhatsApp group titled Quordle is Awesome!! A small group of three. There was no getting out of it now.
A teacher who was stabbed in the classroom by a 14-year-old pupil has recalled the horrific moment he was wounded with the six inch knife.
Vincent Uzomah, 51, from Leeds, was working as a supply teacher at Dixons Kings Academy, in Bradford, when the shocking attack took place in June 2015.
Speaking to Leah Green on a new 5Star documentary airing this week, Vincent said he has been unable to return to work since the terrifying incident and is still struggling to understand why he was targeted.
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Vincent Uzomah recalls his stabbing ordeal in a new 5Star documentary airing on Wednesday
Recalling what happened on the fateful day, he said: 'I trying to write down the register and I noticed he stood up and walked to the door which was close to my right.
'I beckoned him to go back to his seat, he ignored me, when I turned to write he was behind me.
'Then all I noticed something hit hard on my tummy. I turned around and he had his arm out, that is when I saw the long knife - almost six inches long - in his hand covered in blood. I looked down he was standing facing me with the knife in his hand.
'I said "did you stab me?" and he ran out of the class.'
The young offender, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was jailed for 11 years last August after pleading guilty to GBH with intent at Bradford Crown Court.
Christian father-of-three Vincent said he thanks god that he is still alive after the knife attack.
'He was standing behind me, he didn't know where the knife would go, it could have gone to my heart or kidney,' he said. 'I thank my god that the knife did not destroy major organs.'
The teacher illustrates how long the knife was which was plunged into his stomach by a 14-year-old pupil
Vincent tells 5Star presenter Leah Green he feels lucky to be alive as he thought of his fellow Yorkshire teacher Ann Maguire after he was attacked. She died as a result of a stabbing by a pupil
He said his faith has enabled him to forgive the boy for what he did, although he is still struggling to understand why it happened.
'The question I asked the most was "why? Why?",' he said.
In court it was revealed the boy was motivated by racial hatred.
The question I asked the most was "why? Why?"
'He was telling his friends he had this black teacher he was going to stab,' Vincent said.
'He never called me names to my face but the police interviewed other kids and when they were testifying they said he was boasting in their presence, calling me racist names.'
The father-of-three said after he realised he had been stabbed, he immediately thought of teacher Ann Maguire, who had died after being stabbed by a pupil at a school in his home town of Leeds the year before.
'It was strong in my mind,' he said of Ann's death. 'I was thinking this is my time now, my turn to die likewise.'
The attack on June 11 last year took place at Dixons Kings Academy in Bradford (pictured)
On When Kids Kill, presenter Leah investigates what drove schoolboy William Cornick, then 15, to fatally stab Ann, 61, pictured inset, seven times in the back in April 2014 in front of his horrified classmates
Vincent spoke to Leah on the show When Kids Kill, a documentary investigating what drove schoolboy William Cornick, then 15, to fatally stab Ann, 61, seven times in the back in April 2014 in front of his horrified classmates.
He was later sentenced to life in jail after he admitted murder.
The documentary spoke to people who worked on Cornick's case, including leading psychiatrist Dr John Kent, prosecuting barrister Paul Greaney QC and Peter Mann, head of the complex case unit from Leeds CPS, to try and make sense of the horrific crime and ask if British schools are safe from a similar attack happening again.
Peter said the psychiatric evaluation on Cornick, who came from a 'decent' middle-class family, revealed he was a unique case.
He said: 'I have not come across a case quite like this before. When I read the report of Dr Kent and saw some of the comments Will had made, that he had pride in what he done and a compete absence of remorse, it was very chilling.
'I have never seen that in a previous report on anyone, let alone a 15-year-old boy.'
Dr Kent, who concluded that the schoolboy had a personality disorder with marked psychotic traits, said on the documentary that Cornick's 'lack of compassion was remarkable'.
Experts say Ann's murderer Cornick, right, was unique his 'lack of compassion was remarkable'
He said of the premeditated attack on his Spanish teacher: 'This isn't someone who is confused or befuddled, drugged up or drunk, this was something that happened by someone who was thinking clearly about what was going on.
'He said of the murder "everything is fine and dandy, I am glad I killed her, I wouldn't do anything differently".
'In clinical practice I have rarely see this level of callousness and coldness and almost this enjoyment of what happened.'
While Dr Kent said his evaluation of Cornick revealed he was a uniquely troubled individual, he said it was thanks to the gun laws in place in Britain that further bloodshed didn't occur, like that seen at mass shootings in the U.S.
He said of Cornick: 'This boy remarked "things would have been so much easier if I had a gun", he couldn't get a gun. There may have been a different outcome.'
According to the 5Star documentary, each year nearly 20,000 teachers are attacked by their pupils in the UK.
Tributes to Ann poured in after her death shocked the nation. It was the first killing of a teacher in a UK school since Dunblane in 1996
In 2014, almost a thousand pupils - the youngest of whom was eight - were caught by police in school with weapons including a taser, a meat cleaver, and a cut throat razor.
But Ann's death was the first killing of a teacher in a UK school since Dunblane in 1996, and the first murder of a teacher by a pupil in the UK inside a school.
Leah concluded: 'The murder of Ann was unique. Our schools are not likely any time soon to suffer from an American style massacre.
'But security, education and mental health provision for young people all need to improve.
'The increasing number of incidents of violence in the classroom experienced by teachers and pupils can't be ignored.'
When Kids Kill: Schoolboy Slayer is on 5Star Wednesday at 9pm
Would you put your baby to sleep in a cardboard box protect them from SIDS?
Finland introduced the idea of putting babies in boxes in the 1930s to lower their infant mortality rate from cot deaths, and the country now has one of the lowest rates in the world.
And last month, two London hospitals, Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospitals, introduced the baby boxes to new mums in a pilot program.
Edwina Lucas, founder of the Australian branch of Baby Box Co. based in Melbourne, told Daily Mail Australia they are currently working on getting the same pilot program in Australia.
Happy baby: The Baby Box Company hopes to start the same program in Australia like the one in place at Queen Charlotte's and the Chelsea Hospital in London
Cute: The founder Edwina Lucas says the boxes are about giving all parents an even playing field when starting their parenting journey
'The Baby Box doesn't target at particular part group of society. It's about starting the parenting journey on an even level playing field and not excluding anyone,' Ms Lucas said.
It's not just about the box - each of them contain a firm foam mattress and baby goods inside such as a sleeping sack, onesies, teethers, bath supplies, and organic wash and burp clothes.
'Everything that we put into the box has a purpose, we done a lot of research behind our products to help facilitate the need for the need of the community,' she said.
Ms Lucas said she has had an overwhelmingly positive response from parents who have the box, which are available online starting from AUD$99.
Wrapped up: The adorable baby pictured sleeping on the firm mattress that's provided with the box
Essentials: The Joey Box (left) comes with all baby essentials parents need and the Dreamtime Box (right) comes with all the same products doubled up
She has even used the box herself while pregnant with her now one-year-old son Tobias saying they really utilised the box and the products included.
Ms Lucas added that other parents have used the box as playpen, keepsake or a toy box.
The box is a way to to get mums involved with the medical services available in society such as pre-natal services,' she added.
The company also has a charitable component that donate boxes to not-for-profit organisations helping vulnerable families who need help welcoming a new born in Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia.
There is also an educational component with the comes with the box called Baby Box University which is an online community that can help address many questions new parents have.
Cosy: Ms Lucas says that everything in the box has a purpose and plenty of research has gone into finding the right products to help new parents
Founder: Edwina Lucas, pictured with her two children Mathilde, three-and-a-half-years-old, and Tobias, one-year-old, runs the Australian Branch of the Baby Box Company
HOW TO PUT YOUR BABY TO SLEEP SAFELY: 1. Sleep from birth, not on the tummy or side 2. Sleep baby with head and face uncovered 3. Keep baby before birth and after 4. Provide a safe sleeping environment night and day 5. Sleep baby in their own safe sleeping space in the for the first six to twelve months 6. Breast feed baby Source: SIDS and Kids Advertisement
Jill Green the general manager of research, advocacy and change of SIDS and Kids said since starting their Safe Sleeping Campaign in 1991, there has been an 80 per cent reduction in SIDS (sudden infancy death syndrome).
Ms Green said that no formal research has been done on the baby boxes.
'What we (SIDS and Kids) believe is that parents should make the based for them when buying any baby product,' she said.
She added that parents need to think about whether the product they want to buy meets with Australian and New Zealand standards, and if it can withstand different climates around the country.
Ms Green said: 'For parents they need to make an informed choice and look at things economically.'
'But with all products they need to decide is it safe for their baby and to talk to their health professionals,' she added.
Australia's last recorded statistic for infant mortality rate which was in 2012 and found 3.3 infant deaths per 1,000 live births according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Sleep: Jill Green general manager of research, advocacy and change of SIDS and Kids said there has been an 80 per cent reduction SIDS since the start of their Safe Sleeping program in 1991
Finnish-style 'baby boxes' will be given to new mothers in England for the first time as part of a pilot aimed at reducing levels of cot deaths in the UK
The UK has some of highest rates of infant mortality in Europe, ranking 22nd out of 50 European countries, with 4.19 deaths per 1,000 births.
Dr Karen Joash, the consultant obstetrician at Imperial College Healthcare Trust, who is leading the London baby box trial, said: 'For too many years the UK has fallen behind its European counterparts when it comes to reducing infant mortality.
'These boxes and the education resources that sit alongside them have been proven to help reduce the infant mortality rate in Finland.
'We hope these results could be replicated in the UK.'
The sturdy cardboard boxes come complete with a foam mattress, waterproof mattress cover, cotton sheet and other baby essentials and are designed to be a baby's bed up until they are eight months old
In Finland, the baby boxes were introduced in the 1930s when cot deaths were high - and it is thought their introduction contributed to the reduction in the infant mortality rate in the country
Jennifer Clary, CEO of The Baby Box Co, which is supplying the baby boxes for free said: 'We are delighted to provide the baby boxes to the Trust for UK parents and look forward to the results of the trial.'
The introduction of baby boxes in Finland in the 1930s is thought to have contributed to the reduction in the infant mortality rate in the country.
Initially the boxes were only given to low income mothers - before the scheme was expanded to include all families.
Customization is perhaps the hottest trend of summer 2016, and with brands inviting you to put your personal touch on everything from beach bags to swimsuits why wouldn't you?
Celebs like Kylie Jenner, 18, Nicky Hilton, 32, and Shay Mitchell, 29, have all been spotted sporting sassy bespoke items.
FEMAIL rounded up the five fashion ways you, too, can make a splash at the beach and beyond this season.
1: BEACH BAG:
Totes love their bags: While Shay Mitchell carried a customized Misa basket bag on vacation, Nicky Hilton strolled the streets of Los Angeles with her Skipping Girl personalized bag
Shay's hand woven straw bag by Los Angeles based company, Misa, has her name all over it literally!
The cheerful accessory (pom pom tassle included) adds the perfect amount of pop to the Pretty Little Liar star's pool side outfit.
All Misa baskets are individually handcrafted in Morocco and customized in Los Angeles. Just choose a word (1-6 letters), and you'll be toting your belongings like a Hollywood actress in 7-10 days tops.
Love: Customize up to 6 letters Marrakesh bag with Milla Pom Pom by Misa, $135; misalosangeles.com. Right: Love Marrakesh Bag by Misa, $108;misalosangeles.com
Nicky's martini patterned bag by Skipping Girl, is just one of the many kitschy designs the Australian brand has to offer.
Hand woven with re-purposed fishing twine by artisans in India, the bags are one of a kind, eco-friendly and super sturdy making it no surprise that the Hilton heiress isn't the only celeb to be toting one of them.
Skipping Girl carryalls have been seen swinging from the arms of style icons such as Gwen Stefani, Poppy Delevingne and Claire Danes, to name a few.
Click here to order a customized bag like Nicky's. The turn around time is 4-6 weeks. Can't wait to get your hands on one? Purchase a pre-made style like the options below.
Left: Palm Bag by Skipping Girl, $120; skippinggirl.com. Right: Martini Bag by Skipping Girl, $90; skippinggirl.com
Left: Cherry Bag by Skipping Girl, $90; skippinggirl.com. Right: Lips Bag by Skipping Girl, $120; skippinggirl.com
Looking for something a little more classic? Florida based designer, Mariella Vilar, paints prep-like monograms on chic French style baskets.
The bags are handwoven in Morocco and customized by Mariella here in the United States. Prices include a three letter monogram, but for those wanting a little more flair additional characters and pom poms can be purchased.
Personalized bags are made to order, allow up to seven business days for your basket to ship.
Left: Braided Handle Monogram Bag, $60; mariellavilar.com. Right: 10 Pom Pom Basket Medium by Marie Llavilar, $60; mariellavilar.com
2. BATHING SUIT:
Kylie Jenner took to Instagram to show off her 'King Kylie' suit from the Kendall and Kylie collection.
Kylie Jenner took to Instagram to show off her 'King Kylie' suit from the Kendall and Kylie collection.
A full one-piece bathing suit is like a blank canvas. To take it from simple to standout, add a word, any word.
Just order a cute suit emblazoned with your name or spirit animal by Shop Private Party or Bruna Malucelli, strike a sexy pose, and watch your social media following climb.
Left: Panda Swimsuit by Shop Private Party, $99; shopprivateparty.com. Right: The Bay My Name Swimsuit by Bruna Malucelli, $249; brunamalucelli.com
3. HATS:
Left: Monogrammed Narrow Stripe Sun Hat by Marley Lilly, now $14.99; marleylilly.com. Right: Monogrammed Derby Hat by Marley Lilly, now $24.99; marleylilly.com
Left: Custom made Women Summer Hat, I am busy, by Panmilli, $70; etsy.com. Right: Monogrammed Hat by In This Very Room, $19; inthisveryroom.com
For a day the beach or pool, you want to shade yourself from the sun's harmful UV rays. The easiest way to do this is with a wide-brimmed hat.
Make sun protection look it's best with a bespoke style topper that displays your favorite off-duty phrase, name or monogram, like the above.
Headpieces are an affordable and quick way to personalize your warm-weather look, with most styles taking less than a week to receive.
4. TOWELS:
All Mine! Personalized Beach Towel by Personalization Mall, now $20.95; personalizationmall.com
Whether you're shoreside, poolside, or lakeside, a personalized beach towel is the easiest way to give your outdoor activities a style upgrade.
In just 1-2 days you can be wrapping yourself in a custom printed beach blanket featuring your name in all caps and alternating colors by Personalization Mall.
5. SUNGLASSES:
Left: Wayfarer Folding by Ray-Ban, $205; ray-ban.com. Right: Original Wayfarer by Ray-Ban, $205; ray-ban.com
Beyond bathing suits and beach towels, sunglasses are essential for a relaxing day at the beach.
Prolonged exposure to sun can lead to a variety of ailments, so opt for a pair of shades with 100% UVA and UVB protection.
When Paris Hilton launched her first fragrance, Paris Hilton, in 2005, Sidekicks were the must-have phone, The Simple Life was must-see TV and 'That's Hot!' was the catch phrase du jour. A lot has changed since then; what hasn't, is the 35-year-old's ability to sell perfume.
This weekend, the entrepreneur debuted her 20th fragrance, Gold Rush, on HSN.
'Ive been in this business so long, Im a pro at it. I know what the consumer wants, and I know what I want. I always want to do something different from the last one,' she told WWD at a party celebrating Gold Rush in Beverly Hills last week.
What also hasn't changed since the socialite began her fragrance empire is her tradition of bringing her perfumes to life by choosing outfits inspired by the bottle designs. After releasing her 18th scent last year, Paris told Elle.com, 'I always try to dress like the theme of my fragrance'.
Let's take a look at the evidence, shall we? Below, FEMAIL looks back at each of Paris' fragrances and her best twinning moments with them.
2005
After releasing her debut fragrance, Paris Hilton by Paris Hilton, the mogul-in-the-making swiftly followed it up with two related versions (a lighter kind and a men's option) of the ultra-sweet scent.
To launch the original perfume, she wore a pale pink dress with satin detailing that mimicked the cylinder bottle's curved stripes. Later that year, she took a cue from the men's bottle, wearing a blue and dark grey striped dress during an appearance in Japan. Then, to celebrate Paris Hilton Sheer, she represented with a breezy, all-pink ensemble.
That same year, she wore another head-to-toe pink outfit to launch Just Me, a second fruit-focused fragrance in a pink bottle.
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Shop Paris Hilton's first fragrance: Paris Hilton by Paris Hilton Eau de Parfum Spray ($17.50, target.com)
Shop Paris Hilton's second fragrance: Paris Hilton for Men Eau de Toilette Spray ($23.50, target.com)
Shop Paris Hilton's third fragrance: Paris Hilton Sheer Eau de Toilette Spray ($14.85, overstock.com)
Shop Paris Hilton's fourth fragrance: Just Me by Paris Hilton Eau de Pafum Spray ($18.60, amazon.com)
2006
Paris expanded her line in 2006 with a masculine take on her Just Me fragrance. Instead of pink, the scent comes in a grey ombre bottle, and she fittingly wore silver to the launch.
Next up, came Heiress, a passion fruit and champagne scent, and its men's counterpart, Heir. Seemingly taking inspiration from the duo's sparkling scents and flashy packaging, that same year, she stepped out in a pink slip dress with hot pink and gold sequins on her 25th birthday, and a blue, sequin-encrusted dress to attend an Oscars party.
Shop Paris Hilton's fifth fragrance: Just Me for Men by Paris Hilton Eau de Toilette Spray ($23, target.com)
Shop Paris Hilton's sixth fragrance: Paris Hilton Heiress Eau de Parfum Spray ($21.87, walmart.com)
Shop Paris Hilton's seventh fragrance: Paris Hilton Heir Men Eau de Toilette Spray ($21.70,overstock.com)
2007
In 2007, her fragrance collection took a fantastical turn, and her corresponding ensembles did not disappoint.
Promoting Can Can in New York, for example, the socialite opted for a delicate pink dress and a string of pearls to play off of the feminine, pink-accented bottle.
Shop Paris Hilton's eighth fragrance: Paris Hilton Can Can Eau de Parfum Spray ($24, target.com)
2008
Fairy Dust, a delicate scent with notes of pink peony and orange blossom, followed.
On the packaging, she poses as a sexy Tinkerbell of sorts (perhaps a nod to her beloved, late Chihuahua of the same name) and in true Paris fashion, she continued the theme at the perfume's launch, albeit in a slightly less revealing outfit.
Shop Paris Hilton's ninth fragrance: Fairy Dust by Paris Hilton Eau de Parfum Spray ($24, jet.com)
2009
Paris paid tribute to another mythical creature, the mermaid, for her next fragrance, Siren in 2009.
The hotel heiress must have really been feeling gold that year, because she appeared in a glittering champagne-colored gown reminiscent of the tropical scent's bottle several months before it officially hit shelves, and then stuck with the aesthetic for several more public appearances throughout the year.
Shop Paris Hilton's tenth fragrance: Siren by Paris Hilton Eau de Parfum Spray ($16, target.com)
2010
Paris had a Marilyn moment in 2009 with her 11th fragrance, Tease.
The campaign for the product featured Paris dressed up like the screen siren, and at a celebration of the release, it looked as though she had stepped out of the black and white image.
The mogul then shifted gears, launching a trio of destination-themed fragrances. Showing off the additions at Macy's in Los Angeles, she appeared with sun-kissed skin and a bright pink, vacation-ready dress.
Shop Paris Hilton's eleventh fragrance: Paris Hilton Tease Eau de Parfum Spray ($49.50, target.com)
Shop Paris Hilton's twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth fragrances: Paris Hilton Passport Three Piece Coffret Set ($11.24, perfumania.com)
2012
'Feeling dazzling, special and on top of the world isn't about material things, for me, it comes from within,' Paris said of her fragrance, Dazzle.
That didn't stop the now DJ from dazzling on the red carpet at a Grammys after party that year wearing a sparkle-encrusted dress not unlike the perfume's luxe bottle.
Shop Paris Hilton's fifteenth fragrance: Paris Hilton Dazzle Eau de Parfum Spray ($22.22,amazon.com)
2014
Paris rebooted her Moulin Rouge-inspired Can Can fragrance, which first launched in 2007, with a pinker bottle and even more feminine notes.
Just around its debut, the former reality star stepped out in Hollywood in an ombre fuchsia get-up resembling the bottle's design. Instead of a feather necklace, however, she opted for a tiara.
Later that year, she wore a red gown and red lipstick to pose with a cardboard cut-off of herself wearing the same head-turning hue to promote her campaign for With Love, a sensual fragrance with woody accords.
Shop Paris Hilton's sixteenth fragrance: Paris Hilton Can Can Burlesque Eau de Parfum Spray ($30,perfumania.com)
Shop Paris Hilton's seventeenth fragrance: Paris Hilton With Love Eau de Parfum Spray ($45,beauty.com)
2015
Paris got dolled up for the FIFI UK Fragrance Awards last year in a glitter-dotted number and carried her tenth anniversary scent, which is dotted with crystals, as an accessory.
Shop Paris Hilton's eighteenth fragrance: Paris Hilton Anniversary Edition Eau de Parfum ($52,perfumania.com)
2016
We're only halfway through 2016, but Paris has already launched two new fragrances: a limited-edition version of her 2006 scent, Heiress, and Gold Rush, perhaps her most elevated offering yet.
'My fragrances in the beginning were more girly, almost Disney fantasy like with characters in fairy dust and me dressed as a fairy. Now, with Gold Rush, it is more mature and very sophisticated. Its a completely different scent,' Paris told WWD.
To pay tribute to the fruity oriental scent, she wore a form-fitting gold gown a la the dress-shaped bottle, and topped it off with red lipstick and elegant waves.
Shop Paris Hilton's nineteenth fragrance: Paris Hilton Heiress Limited Edition Eau de Parfum Spray ($65, perfumania.com)
Like most girls her age, Izzi Dymalovski spends most of her week at school.
However the 14-year-old's after-school routine is completely different to her friends, because she has a business to run.
The young entrepreneur from Melbourne is the founder of skincare company Luv Ur Self, and began creating her beauty range close to six years ago.
Her products are already being sold in Priceline Pharmacies across the country, and on Tuesday the year nine student officially launched her range, saying her success had been a long time coming.
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Excited! Izzi Dymalovski has created her own skin care business called Luv Ur Skin targeted at teenagers
Making waves! The 14-year-old launched her venture on Tuesday after close to six years of hard work
'It definitely hasnt been an overnight success, it has been a lot of hard work,' Izzi told the media.
'Getting people to listen to a kid (has been difficult), because no one takes kids seriously.'
The idea for her burgeoning business began at the tender age of eight, when Izzi's mother Sonja wouldn't let her use adult make up remover.
'She was like, "Use baby products", but I was like "Im not a baby, I dont want to use baby products",' Izzi told the Today Show.
Work-life balance: The teenager has recently signed a deal to sell her products at Priceline Pharmacies, a move that she says has lessened the load on her shoulders
She's a big deal! The youngster has worked with Australian business leaders including Janine Allis and Andrew Banks since starting her business and selling her products in Priceline
'Mum was like "Just go make your own stuff" and she didnt realise how seriously I would take it.
'And here we are today!'
Featuring a variety of moisturises, face wash, nail polishes and body lotions, the Luv Ur Skin range is targeted at teens and tweens.
But being a fresh face in the business arena, growing her brand has been a hard sell for Izzi.
However after appearing on Channel Ten's entrepreneurial show Shark Tank, the youngster made connections with some of Australia's business leaders.
Young gun! The idea came about when Izzi's mum wouldn't let her use adult makeup remover and jokingly told her to make her own version for kids... a comment she took seriously
Booming business: 'It definitely hasnt been an overnight success, it has been a lot of hard work,' Izzi said
She has since spent time working with Boost Juice founder Janine Allis, while prominent businessman Andrew Banks helped organise the deal with Priceline.
Despite all her success, the young businesswoman still has her feet planted firmly on the ground.
'One of our most recent successes is that our products Luv Ur Skin are now in over 370 stores in Priceline nationwide so that was crazy,' Izzi said.
She shared photos of herself and the other women, calling
Aiisha Mehajer, the sister of former deputy mayor of the Auburn City Council, Salim Mehajer, is preparing for the final of Australia's Pageant of the World competition.
Since announcing that she was going to be one of 20 contestants in Friday night's final, the glamorous blonde has been sharing proud snaps of herself in her Miss Lebanon sash.
And among them are countless photos that show her cosying up to her fellow dolled up competitors, who are also in the running to take out the title of 'Woman of the World'.
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Very friendly competition: Aiisha Mehajer (right), the sister of former deputy mayor of the Auburn City Council, Salim Mehajer, is preparing for the final of Australia's Pageant of the World competition
#Twinning: Since announcing that she was going to be one of 20 contestants in the final, the glamorous blonde (right) has been sharing proud snaps of herself and her fellow competitors (pictured with Miss Turkey)
Keep your competition close: She also shared a snap of herself and Miss Philippines, Gabby Escubio (left)
'#Twinning,' she wrote next to a photo of herself and Miss Turkey representative, Derya Aksu, on Tuesday evening, after sharing an earlier snap of herself and Miss Philippines, Gabby Escubio.
She has also shared photos alongside her 'sisters' Miss Kurdistan, Nena Murad, Kim Kardashian lookalike Miss Armenia, Ani Smsarian and Miss South Sudan, Nyanar Muan.
Earlier this week, the blonde shared a photo of herself in a mermaid-like sparkling gown and a selfie urging her followers to vote for her online, and thanked them in advance for their 'continuous love and support.'
Pouting pals: Aiisha snapped a casual selfie alongside Miss South Sudan, Nyanar Muan
New friends: Aiisha also posed a picture of herself and Kim Kardashian lookalike Miss Armenia, Ani Smsarian (left)
Each of the women in the final have a running vote count beside their name on the Pageant of the World website - and Aiisha has a fair way to go if she hopes to catch up to frontrunner Miss Nepal, Junita Lama, who has close to 59,000 votes.
Aiisha is yet to reach 900.
As part of the event, Aiisha has also been hitting the streets and beaches of Sydney for a series of photo shoots with her fellow contestants.
One photo showed the contestants in fluorescent active wear during a group workout on Bondi Beach, while another showed Aiisha and her pouting pals at a Sydney bar.
Glam: Earlier this week, the blonde shared a selfie urging her followers to vote for her online
Dolling up: She also shared a photo at the Dollhouse trying on a green mermaid-like gown
In an Instagram post showing her proudly showing off her sash, Aiisha said how excited she was to be in the competition.
She wrote: 'I feel so honoured and proud to be selected to represent my mother country, Lebanon.
'For those of you asking, yes, you can come down and show your support at the pageant on the 8th of July at Town Hall.'
'I feel so honoured': In an Instagram post showing her proudly showing off her sash, Aiisha said how excited she was to be in the competition
'It welcomes all sectors of the society': On their website, organisers describe the Pageant of the World as aiming to 'conquer the Beauty of Culture across Australia and the World'
On their website, organisers describe the Pageant of the World as aiming to 'conquer the Beauty of Culture across Australia and the World.'
'It aspires to outgrow and radically veer away the traditional notion of beauty pageant per se, by modernising and enlarging the concept into an integrated health, beauty, charity and socio-economic deeds.
'It welcomes all sectors of the society locally and overseas, fostering harmony, community engagement and social cohesion.'
Confident: Aiisha's profile describes her as 'energetic and outgoing' with an 'anything is possible attitude'
Strict rules: Candidates must be 'at least 150 centimetres in height with proportional weight,' be 'single and never married or pregnant,' be under the age of 30 and have no tattoos
Candidates must be 'at least 150 centimetres in height with proportional weight,' be 'single and never married or pregnant,' be under the age of 30 and have no tattoos.
Aiisha's profile describes her as 'energetic and outgoing' with an 'anything is possible attitude'.
The profile reads: 'Currently undertaking her Masters of Secondary Teaching, Aisha is energetic, outgoing, loving, caring and a social person.
'She finds great satisfaction in knowing she was able to help people in need.'
Pageant prep: As part of the event, Aiisha has also been hitting the streets and beaches of Sydney for a series of photo shoots with her fellow contestants
All glammed up: Aiisha has posted a number of glamorous snaps and videos to her Instagram account of her proudly showing off her competitor's sash
Dancing their way to the title: Aiisha and her 19 fellow contestants are pictured practicing their dance routines in the lead up to the competition's finale on July 8th
Aiisha was also named Miss Personality in the Miss Lebanon Australia pageant in 2015.
Aiisha's sister, Mary Mehajer, was named Miss Lebanon Australia earlier this year.
Mary was surrounded by controversy after she won the competition, as her brother Salim was a major sponsor and there were allegations that votes were rigged.
Mary, 18 and the youngest of the Mehajer siblings, defended her title, saying she won the pageant 'fairly' and rejected suggestions the contest was rigged.
Pageantry is in the family: Aiisha's sister, Mary Mehajer, was named Miss Lebanon Australia earlier this year
Controversal: Mary was surrounded by controversy after she won the competition, as her brother Salim was a major sponsor and there were allegations that votes were rigged
Fair Trading NSW announced they would be investigating after another contestant lodged a complaint questioning how Ms Mehajer won the title despite entering just three weeks before the competition.
One of the five pageant judges Dr David Carr said he did not pick Mary in his top five.
'I certainly didn't rate her and I felt there were far better contestants but then my count is only one fifth of the count so who knows?' Dr Carr said, according to News Corp.
We've all felt that pang of jealousy when boarding a plane, watching those lucky few turn left into first and business class, while we're doomed to the crowded confines of economy.
But what if it's your husband that's heading off to a seat with extra legroom, a delicious meal with proper cutlery and unlimited top-ups to his wine glass leaving you in cattle class?
One can imagine it would test any marriage to breaking point. But, astonishingly, an increasing number of men are insisting on taking a business class seat whether they've been awarded an upgrade by their employer or have forked out for it themselves with little thought for their wives sitting behind them on the plane.
Tina Kumar, 30, who lives in Wimbledon, is one such neglected economy class wife. Her husband, Arrun, 38, who runs his own natural stone business in Croydon, South London, regularly travels in business class while she languishes in the cheap seats a decision she has come to accept because, she says, her husband is 'the definition of a walking, talking workaholic'.
Tina Kumar, 30, (right) who lives in Wimbledon, is one such neglected economy class wife. Her husband, Arrun, 38, (left) regularly travels in business class while she languishes in the cheap seats
Apparently, he needs his posh plane ticket to allow him to work on board, as well as to sleep properly in preparation for his many international business meetings. For whenever Arrun travels long distance for business, the couple travel together, tagging on a holiday at the end.
'I'll often accompany Arrun on flights to longhaul destinations such as India and Brazil because we'll have a holiday afterwards,' says Tina. 'But I'm always on my own in economy.'
Tina, who designs kitchens and bathrooms made from natural stone and works on the retail side of Arrun's business, admits her husband's flying habits have attracted attention from their friends. 'Whenever I recount a funny incident on one of the flights I've taken with Arrun, he'll often attempt to interject but everyone cuts him off saying: 'How would you know? You're in business while Tina is stuck in economy!' He gets a lot of ribbing for it.
'And the first question people ask is always the same: 'Has your husband ever offered to change seats with you?' Hand on heart, he hasn't ever suggested it.
'It really used to bother me did he think his comfort was more important than mine? What did it say about how much he respected me? I've got used to it, though.'
Tina, who met Arrun in 2009 while visiting a stone quarry in Verona, Italy, doesn't believe her husband's actions are down to stinginess.
'He's not tight with money. But when there's a choice between a 3,500 ticket for business compared with 600 for an economy ticket for me to join him, it's difficult to justify it. Do I need the extra legroom? No I'm only 5ft 3in.'
Arrun, meanwhile, justifies his astronomically expensive ticket to his wife by saying he's travelling in such luxury only because 'his business can afford it. His attitude is: 'Why shouldn't I travel like this?', says Tina.
So, why doesn't she kick up more of a fuss?
'While I've loved the rare times I've flown with him, it's difficult to justify it financially. After all, it's his company, his profits. That's why we end up buying me an economy ticket. Sometimes I get upgraded. Usually I don't.'
Once onboard, the couple, who married in 2011, don't see each other. 'We won't go to each other's respective sections on the flight,' says Tina. 'In the early days I did, but it got too awkward. I'd get stopped by cabin crew demanding to know where I was going.
'The only time we've ever flown together in economy was on a flight to Egypt. It should have been a five-hour journey, but it was delayed and ended up taking eight hours.
'It just didn't work. I wanted to chat, while Arrun was totally preoccupied with his work. He had to ask me to be quiet. It felt very awkward.'
And the division between them doesn't end there, as Tina admits, in what for many wives would be the final straw. 'Even when we get off the plane we're like strangers to each another. Arrun will have a chauffeur waiting for him. The car whisks him straight to meetings.
Sarah-Jane Killick (right) admits that, despite his professional success and homes dotted across the globe, her other half 'can be the tightest man on Earth'. Little wonder, then, that she has frequently found herself stuck in economy, while Philip (left) has been sequestered in luxury
'I have to find myself a taxi. At least he does text me to check I'm en route to our hotel.'
Arrun is unashamed about his love for business class travel without his wife.
'I love travelling this way. I dine well and always get a good night's sleep,' he says.
'No, I don't mind that we travel in different classes though Tina has used my Air miles on a couple of occasions to upgrade. Generally, though, I prefer to keep them to bring down the costs of my hotels.'
Seemingly unaware of how much he may infuriate his wife, he says: 'In my opinion, everyone should travel this way. Why doesn't Tina? Well, it's just not something she's particularly concerned about. But I think first-class is really rather wonderful the only way to fly.'
As for ever-patient Tina, even she sometimes gets lonely in economy.
'When we go to romantic destinations such as Italy or Sri Lanka, the plane is always full of couples. I do observe them rather wistfully.
'The husband will help his wife with placing her bag in the overhead locker. He'll make sure she is comfortable, too. I do miss that. It's moments like that when I think I'd love for us to be together.'
In well-to-do circles, it's long been the case that the nanny and children are relegated to economy, while Mummy and Daddy fly in business. But today, some brave husbands send their wives and children to cattle while they enjoy the benefits of travelling like a toff.
Michelle Sedgemore, 49, endures this fate when her husband, John, who works in IT, leaves her to look after their two children, Alexander, 13, and Saskia, nine, while he swans off to business class.
John claims that his height he's 6ft 5in and the fact he hates sitting in close proximity to others make it impossible for him to travel economy.
And as much as Michelle, a housewife who lives in Sunningdale, Berks, would love to experience the joys of business class, she actually prefers to have her husband travelling separately to her and their children.
'John finds economy unbearable,' she says. 'He doesn't like the chatter, hates that too many people are in close proximity and can't bear being crammed into his seat.
Michelle Sedgemore, 49, endures this fate when her husband, John, who works in IT, leaves her to look after their two children, Alexander, 13, and Saskia, nine, while he swans off to business class
'I discovered this when we went on our honeymoon to the Maldives in 2001 our first long-haul journey together since we began dating two years before.
'But the 12-hour flight was a disaster. John didn't stop moaning and grumbling. I had to have a few glasses of wine to try to drown out his whingeing.
'Eventually, the cabin crew found us two other seats with more legroom. But it was too late for me I refused to move with him. I'd had enough of his dramatics and didn't want to spoil the remainder of my flight.
'After he left, the stewardess promptly delivered me a toppedup glass of wine. I needed it.
'Thankfully, when we got to the Maldives we had a fabulous time, but it was a hard lesson.' Then , when the couple went on holiday to Barbados in 2004, they decided to make flying together a thing of the past.
'Our son Alexander had arrived a year earlier,' says Michelle. 'I'd decided not to take him with us, leaving him with my mum, as I was worried he was too small to cope with a long-haul flight.
'But what about John? In some ways, he was just as ill equipped to fly for such a long time.
'So I bit my tongue and booked him a business class seat, leaving myself in economy. Sadly, we couldn't afford two posh seats, as much as I would have loved it. But I just couldn't bear his moaning.
'We left home as a couple, checked in our luggage together and went hand-in-hand to departures.
Then, when we boarded the plane, we parted, saying: 'I'll see you when we get there.'
'We had a lovely fortnight together in Barbados. John was especially attentive perhaps he was a little guilty.'
John though, insists, he's not niggled by his conscience while he's stretched out in a super-comfy seat, with hot and cold running aperitifs.
'Do I feel guilty? Not at all!' he says. And ever since, for the family's annual holiday, John has travelled in business class while Michelle and the two children have been in economy something many of their fellow travellers find surprising.
'Whenever people ask me where my husband is and I tell them he's in business class, there is the inevitable shocked silence.
'We don't visit each other on board. I can't bear the disapproval of the air hostesses or 'wagon dragons' as I call them when you pass from economy into business.
'We go to Barbados or Portugal every year. And each time, John is in business class with a ticket that has a four-figure price tag, while I sit with the children.
'Some mums would see that as the final straw he's sipping drinks up front while I'm minding the kids! I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been irritated at times. After all, like all children, they're excitable when we travel.
'But, thankfully, I know how to manage them. And they don't seem to notice or mind that their father doesn't sit with us. I suspect they've got used to it after all these years.
'Anyway, I'm more interested in getting to the destination. For me, that's when the holiday starts.'
As for John, he admits he's got the better deal: 'Yes, I get treated very well in business class. And if, one day, we can afford it then I'd love for the whole family to join me there.'
Money plays a big part in the travelling arrangements of Sarah-Jane Killick, 51, a student who lives in Faversham, Kent, and her partner, Philip, 68, who works in shipping.
Sarah-Jane admits that, despite his professional success and homes dotted across the globe, her other half 'can be the tightest man on Earth'.
Little wonder, then, that she has frequently found herself stuck in economy, while Philip has been sequestered in luxury.
'Once, he tried to cheer me up when we were flying to his home in Switzerland.
He was in business, courtesy of a ticket from his employers, and sent an air hostess to economy with a gift for me.
'It was a bit alarming at first she handed me a sick bag! But inside was a small bottle of fizz and chocolates.
It was a nice thought. But a business class ticket would have been better.'
The pair met on a blind date in 1999 when Sarah-Jane's hairdresser fixed them up. 'She was fed up of hearing stories of me dating much younger, and to her mind, inappropriate men.
Philip sweetly came into the shop I was running at the time and asked me on a date,' says Sarah-Jane. But the course of true love soon hit some turbulence, as Sarah-
Jane confesses. 'I split up with Philip a week after we'd started seeing each other. I was overwhelmed. 'Philip had three children from his first marriage, as well as properties all over the world homes in Brazil, Switzerland, flats in London, a farmhouse in Kent.
'I was single and living in a tiny flat in Canterbury without children. I'd built up my successful business running an upmarket clothing agency. Did I want all of this? I wasn't so sure.
An increasing number of men are insisting on taking a business class seat whether they've been awarded an upgrade by their employer or have forked out for it themselves with little thought for their wives sitting behind them on the plane
'We did get back together, though, and within six months of meeting Philip I was on a plane to Brazil with him. It sounds all very glamorous, doesn't it? Not from economy class it wasn't.
'For the next ten years, two weeks of every four was spent flying here, there and everywhere, supporting Philip in Brazil or whichever country he was visiting. He was in business or first. Meanwhile, I was bought a cattle- class ticket.
'Sometimes I could upgrade it, other times I couldn't. Most of the time I would just hope that, because
Philip was so well known [because of his constant travelling], the staff would upgrade me.
'He was revamping an ocean-going vessel in Rio at the time, so many of our flights were to Brazil.
'Then, in 2007, I eventually sold my studio flat in Kent and bought a five bedroom house outside Rio in the mountains. It was cheap and somewhere I could call home while we were out there.'
Then Sarah-Jane became pregnant and their son Bertie arrived in 2008. It was only with a baby that she found herself permitted to buy a posh ticket of her own for their travels.
'Despite Philip's instinctive frugality, he eventually caved in. He would allow me to buy an upgrade because I was travelling with his baby. But, to make up for the cost, he wouldn't buy one for himself.
'Thankfully, Bertie was as good as gold on the plane despite the sniffy looks of the passengers.
'It's quite something to realise your son's first long-haul flights were all in first class.'
All too soon, however, Sarah-Jane and Bertie were relegated to economy, while Philip persists in travelling like a lord, something he admits is a 'great pleasure'. As for his family?
'Sitting separately from Sarah and Bertie is not a major problem. My main aim on an intercontinental flight is to get as much sleep as possible, so maybe I am not the best company anyway.'
When people made passing comments to Daegan Coyne that her baby bump was 'way too small', she started to wonder if everything was okay.
The Gold Coast mum-to-be is pregnant with her first child, and despite being told by doctors her baby's size is in fact above average, peoples comments had her scared.
The experience prompted her to speak out and say there is no 'one size fits all' when it comes to pregnancy, and told Daily Mail Australia women should not compare their bump with others.
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Speaking out: Gold Coast mum-to-be Daegan Coyne is 30 weeks pregnant and said people often commented on her 'tiny' bump
All pregnancies are different: She said as a first time mum the comments scared her and made her question whether everything was okay with her pregnancy
Mrs Coyne, 30, is an IFBB (International Federation of Body Building) bikini competitor and lawyer from the Gold Coast.
She is an advocate for health and fitness, and her Instagram has amassed more than 26,000 followers.
There she has shared progress photos of her pregnancy, and used the platform to share her message on motherhood.
All different: Mrs Coyne said there is no 'one size fits all' when it comes to pregnancy
Individual: The fitness advocate wants other mothers to not compare their bumps with those they see on Instagram
Nothing to worry about: Mrs Coyne said doctors told her her baby girl is bigger than average
'I have had pregnant friends called out for being "too big", others "far too muscly" and myself, the "you're way too small",' she said.
'Given I am yet to see one lady carry their pregnancy shape and size the same as another, I believe it's safe to assume peeps [sic] that there is no "one size fits all" pregnancy.
'I know heaps of the comments aren't meant to be hurtful or upsetting by any means, but we all have enough to worry about being a new mum ... let alone whether you are the size you are "expected" to be.'
Not alone: Instagram star and CrossFit trainer Revie Jane Schulz spoke out on the same issue after people said she had a large baby bump
Baby on board: She said at 24 weeks pregnant she 'looked like a lot of people's full term' and would receive many comments about her size
Mrs Coyne is friends with fit mums Revie Jane Schulz and Chontel Duncan, who both attracted comments about the size of their bumps during pregnancy.
On Tuesday Revie shared a throw-back photo to when she was 24 weeks pregnant, where she said she: 'looked like a lot of people's full term'.
She said people regularly told her her bump was 'huge', and the comments made her want to hide away and at times reduced her to tears.
Compare the pair: Chontel Duncan's photo compared her bump at 21.5 weeks pregnant with her friend Nat's who was four weeks further along
Chontel Duncan made headlines for having abs while pregnant, and a photo that compared her bump at 21.5 weeks to that of a friend's four weeks further along in their pregnancy went viral.
Mrs Coyne said women should not compare their own baby bumps to those they see on Instagram, and there is no perfect size for all pregnant women.
'We want to make it known that every single person carries their pregnancy differently,' she said.
Mum to be: 'We want to make it known that every single person carries their pregnancy differently,' she said
Not intentional: She said people did not mean to be hurtful when they commented on her bump size
'You aren't expected to look like everyone else on Instagram.
'I think there's this unrealistic expectation, but I don't think anyone really knows what that expectation is.'
Mrs Coyne said earlier on in her pregnancy, many people commented that she didn't even have a bump and asked if she was sure she was pregnant.
She said while no one intended to be mean with their comments, she urged people to think before they speak.
Some might say the Duchess of Cambridge's feet haven't touched the ground since she married Prince William back in 2010.
An image from last week's 100th anniversary celebrations of the Somme appears to show Kate, 34, looking like she's levitating.
The photo sees Kate striding alongside Prime Minister David Cameron but, disconcertingly, there appears to be plenty of fresh air between her sharp black court shoes and the gravel path below.
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Can Kate fly? The Duchess of Cambridge appears to have several inches of fresh air between her feet and the ground while walking at last week's 100th anniversary celebrations to mark the start of the battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Memorial in Thiepval, France
Camera trickey: Closer inspection reveals that it's just an optical illusion and the 34-year-old royal has her feet firmly on terra firma
Zoom in on the image however and it seems Kate's not quite so magical as she might appear.
A closer look at the photograph, taken by Chris Radburn, reveals her heels are firmly planted on the ground.
A lack of shadow and the fact that the image puts the French and English Prime Ministers' feet at the fore of the shot helps to create the illusion.
The 34-year-old was at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Memorial in Thiepval, France on Friday.
Some 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated there
Kate had joined Prince William and Prince Harry, as well as David Cameron and French president Francois Hollande, for the centenary commemorations. Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall were also in attendance.
Striding forth, with both feet on the ground: The Duchess of Cambridge looked chic in a bespoke cream lace peplum dress as she joined William at a service to mark the 100th anniversary the battle of the Somme
The mother-of-two looked smart and chic in what appeared to be a bespoke lace peplum dress with a black underlay, cream lace overlay and Peter Pan collar.
Kate offset the figure-hugging gown with her trusty black court shoes and a black recycled Lock & Co hat and wore a poppy and cornflower on her gown. The cornflower like the poppy grew in the trenches and was the only visible sign of life in the devastated area.
Veterans, servicemen and members of the public gathered across the country to observe two minutes' silence in tribute to men who lost their lives in the Battle of the Somme, marking the moment whistles were blown and some 120,000 men went 'over the top' on the first day of the battle - the bloodiest single day in British military history.
Pipes played out over the Lochnagar crater near the French village of La Boiselle, which marks the site where a mine was detonated in the first hours of the campaign. Paper poppy petals were released into the crater, representing the thousands who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
Commemorations started last night with a moving service at Westminster Abbey that was attended by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. The Queen then took the first post in an overnight vigil held at the Grave of the Unknown Warrior, honouring the unknown dead of the First World War.
The mother-of-two looked smart and chic in what appeared to be a bespoke lace peplum dress with a black underlay, cream lace overlay and Peter Pan collar. She completed her look with a chic black hat
Prince Harry, the Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke of Cambridge paid their respects at the service to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the battle of the Somme
(From second left) French President Francois Hollande, Prime Minister David Cameron, the Duke and the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry arrived at the service together
France's President Francois Hollande, left, greets Britain's Prince William and his wife Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, as they arrive in Thiepval, northern France, to attend the Somme centenary commemorations
Irish President Michael D Higgins, his wife Sabina Coyle (back left) and Prince Harry (back right) follow the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge following the service
The Prince of Wales, French President Francois Hollande, Prime Minister David Cameron, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry amongst VIPs at the event
Prince William, left, and his wife Kate, are introduced to French officials as they arrive in Thiepval, northern France
Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, wait to greet guests during the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry (left) take their seats during the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial in Thiepval, France, where 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave are commemorated
Prince Harry, the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, during the service to mark the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme
French President Francois Hollande greets Prince William and his wife Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge
On Thursday night Kate looked smart in a monochrome coat dress with a striking zig-zag pattern from Missoni as she joined her brother-in-law and husband at a vigil.
William, 34, read a passage by author Sebastian Faulks, while Harry, 31, recited Before action, a poem written by Lieutenant WN Hodgson of the Devonshire Regiment.
The Duke also spoke of European governments 'including our own' who failed to 'prevent the catastrophe of world war'.
In an address written by Birdsong novelist Sebastian Faulks, William highlighted the almost 60,000 British and Commonwealth casualties of July 1 1916, the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army.
William told the assembled guests: 'We lost the flower of a generation; and in the years to come it sometimes seemed that with them a sense of vital optimism had disappeared forever from British life.It was in many ways the saddest day in the long story of our nation.
'Tonight we think of them as they nerved themselves for what lay ahead. We acknowledge the failures of European governments, including our own, to prevent the catastrophe of world war.'
The Thiepval Memorial pays tribute to the 72,000 'missing' Allied soldiers who have no known grave.
On July 1, 1916, following a seven-day British bombardment, British, French and Commonwealth troops were sent into a battle that many believed would herald the end of the First World War.
But those men who bravely clambered from the trenches were met with a hail of German machine-gun fire that mowed down half of them. With 20,000 dead and 40,000 wounded, it was the bloodiest single day in British military history.
By the end of the four-month battle, more than a million soldiers on both sides had been killed and wounded. Their sacrifice is remembered with moving services in France and Britain.
Rumours have been rife over who will be the next Bond ever since Daniel Craig announced he was hanging up his tuxedo for good last year.
But while everyone from Idris Elba to Tom Hardy has been in the running in recent months, a new frontrunner has now emerged in the form of Happy Valley hunk James Norton.
The British actor, who most recently stole hearts as Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky in the BBC adaptation of War and Peace, appears to be the new favourite after bookies slashed odds of him playing the famous spy to 1/3 yesterday.
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James Norton appears to be the new favourite to play Bond, after bookies slashed odds of him donning a tuxedo to 1/3 yesterday. He has now leapt ahead of Tom Hiddleston, Idris Elba and Damian Lewis
The news may come as something of a shock to fans, as the actor was previously considered a rank outsider with odds of 25/1.
But a flurry of new bets - coupled with the news that former favourite Aidan Turner has signed up to a new series of Poldark - prompted his odds to tumble, according to Paddy Power.
Norton has now leapt ahead of Tom Hiddleston, Idris Elba and Damian Lewis to replace Daniel Craig in the franchise based on the novels of Ian Fleming.
A spokesperson for Paddy Power said yesterday: 'Weve barely had any bets on Norton to be the next Bond, so we thought the first (bet) this morning was like a hopeful roulette spin in Casino Royale.'
But the sudden influx of bets over a period of just a couple of hours prompted suspicions of insider knowledge, they added - and made Norton the 'clear favourite'.
Norton has now leapt ahead of Aidan Turner (left) and Tom Hiddleston (right) to replace Daniel Craig in the franchise based on the novels of Ian Fleming
Idris Elbra was considered a frontrunner at one point, but the Luther actor's odds are now at 10/1
The current Bond's four-movie contract came to an end with the release of 2015 blockbuster Spectre, after which he bluntly announced that he was 'over it' and would rather 'slash my wrists' than reprising the role for a fifth time.
'Were done,' he told Time Out last year. 'All I want to do is move on.'
However, any of the frontrunners looking to Craig for approval may be disappointed, as the star made it quite clear that he didn't care who his successor was.
'I dont give a f***,' he added. 'Good luck to them! All I care about is that if I stop doing these things weve left it in a good place and people pick it up and make it better. Make it better, thats all.'
In fifth and sixth place are Damian Lewis with odds of 11/1 (left) and Jamie Bell (right) with odds of 12/1. Bizarrely, also in the running is Nigel Farage, who quit as leader of UKIP this week and is priced as 500/1
Daniel Craig's four-movie contract came to an end with the release of the 2015 blockbuster Spectre (pictured), after which he said he was 'over it' and would rather 'slash my wrists' than reprising the role for a fifth time
Bizarrely, also in the running is Nigel Farage, who quit as leader of UKIP this week and is priced as 500/1.
Earlier this year, Norton - who has become something of a hit with female fans thanks to his many shirtless scenes in Happy Valley, War and Peace, and Grantchester - admitted he struggled with his newfound heartthrob status.
Speaking on The Jonathan Ross Show in January, the 30-year-old said: 'Phwoar and Peace, you cant really pay attention to it, I dont think.
'There was a lot of talk before we even did the show about the character being the Russian Darcy and I was like, "Thanks" to Andrew Davis who described him as that because the pressure is already there.'
The British actor most recently stole hearts as Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky in the BBC's recent adaptation of War and Peace. However, he recently admitted that he struggled with the heartthrob status
WHO WILL BE THE NEXT BOND? 1/3 James Norton 7/4 Aidan Turner 9/2 Tom Hiddleston 10/1 Idris Elba 11/1 Damian Lewis 12/1 Jamie Bell 12/1 Tom Hardy 25/1 Michael Fassbender 50/1 Gillian Anderson 500/1 Nigel Farage Source: Paddy Power Advertisement
But he admitted that not everyone agrees with his dreamboat status: 'I have this great aunt, Great Aunt Grania,' he said.
'Shes 91 and she sat opposite me at lunch recently and she looked at me in this quizzical puzzled way and went "I dont understand how you can look so good on telly because youre so bland in normal life."
'So what I mean is, its all the big breeches and the big floppy hair.'
He also discussed his role in ITV detective drama Grantchester, which returned to screens earlier this year.
The hunky star plays Sidney Chambers in the show and explained: I got mistaken for being a vicar a couple of times.
A new show which claims to 'strip back' the lives of six people by making them give away all of their worldly possessions - including their clothes - got short shrift from viewers.
The first episode of Channel Four show Life Stripped Bare looks at minimalist living, encouraging the half a dozen participants to declutter their lives.
However, many of those watching took to Twitter to claim that the show focused too much on the nudity of the contestants rather than the show's actual concept.
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Life Stripped Bare (C4) was supposed to be a show about getting rid of all the extraneous possessions and needless tat in our lives but some viewers said the nudity was humiliating
Happy go lucky Heidi plucked rhubarb leaves from a neighbour's patch to preserve her modesty
No nudity please: Many viewers felt the participants should have at least been allowed pants to wear
The six participants, who live in three households, are challenged over three weeks to give away their possessions including clothes.
Every day over the 21-day period, they then were allowed to take one item back. While they can buy or borrow food and drink, they're not allowed to do the same with material possessions.
Says one of the contestants in the social experiment, Heidi, 29, ' I feel like my stuff defines me. I really want to see whether I actually need all of the things that I think I need to make me who I am.'
However, while the show was billed as a documentary, the nudity was just too distracting, as viewers quickly took to Twitter to say.
@Philippa_Perry took to Twitter to express her thoughts, saying: 'the potentially humiliating nudity detracts from what we might learn from being separated from our stuff'.
Heidi bids goodbye to her underwear in the documentary and described the experience as'weirdly refreshing'
The housemates, including fashion photographer Laura, who opted to get her onesie back as soon as she could
@greg_jenner added: 'The nudity is mildly amusing, but the show is 28 minutes in and the challenge hasn't started yet. Silly.'
@CruisingTheCut agreed: 'Delighted as I am to see naked young women on telly, I do think the folks on #LifeStrippedBare should have been left at least their pants.'
@_Jess_Rabbit also waded in: 'Did they really need to leave them buck naked though? And not even give them a blur for modesty? Hummmm come on now.'
@lizschofieldmay argued: 'Good concept, ruined by stupid execution. No need for them not to have access to basic clothes'
@JamesAALongman liked it, saying: 'Wow, #lifestrippedbare is amazing. Can someone tell this woman these crates are not hiding her in any way whatsoever?'
Heidi's homemade socks were a huge hit with viewers tuning into the social experiment
Heidi the heroine! The 29-year-old described her experience as 'weirdly refreshing'
Others however took to social media to celebrate the creativity of the participants, particularly Heidi who fashioned a pair of shoes from fabric.
@GemmaAnneStyles wrote: 'Catching up on #lifestrippedbare - how has this magical creature made actual shoes from random strips of fabric?
@mrjohnnymac18 added: 'A bed, duvet shoes and Dominos pizza - isn't that all any of us really need? Heidi's got life nailed.'
@the_workoutlife added: 'Heidi is very resourceful, her fabric shoes are amazing!'
@JoeR92 agreed: 'Heidi is so happy go lucky haha! "Shouldn't you get shoes?" "I have shoes!"'
The show's conclusion? Most of us can't live without our smartphones; you can survive sleeping in a parka coat for 16 days (as Heidi did); and there's an exhibitionist in all of us.
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She is the flamboyant fashionista known for a quirky, sexy style that combines fashion with rock 'n' roll and now Donatella Versace is bringing her trademark style to Dubai.
The 61-year-old, who is Vice President of the Versace Group, as well as its chief designer, has lent her design expertise to an opulent new hotel.
Billed as 'the most luxurious hotel in the Middle East', the five-star Palazzo Versace Dubai is meant to look like a 16th-century Italian palace with subtle traces of Arabian architecture and vaulted ceilings hand-detailed in gold.
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New images have been unveiled of Donatella Versace's opulent new Dubai resort - and the 16th century Italian palazzo-inspired design is surprisingly classy
Despite the designer's penchant for over-the-top glitz and glamour, her latest offering is surprisingly classy.
The 215 room hotel, which is the designer brands second high-end hotel, boasts swanky suites, a bar designed by a music legend, and exclusive fabrics from the international fashion house.
The hotel is one of Dubais newest openings and whilst it's still in soft-launch period and isn't set to be unveiled officially until the end of this year, Donatella has certainly put her own design stamp on it.
The hotel is homage to the Versace brand, combining old school glamour and elegance with the finest hospitality. Alongside their property on Australias Gold Coast, this is Versaces first foray into the hotel industry and, as you would expect from one of the world's most renowned designers, every one of Donatella Versace's details is exquisite.
The hotel, which was first unveiled at the end of last year, is getting set to launch Versaces very first spa, as well as a second Imperial Suite - a superb 1,200 sq m penthouse with 180 views of Dubai.
With rooms starting from 430 a night, Palazzo Versace Dubai offers views of Dubai Creek (pictured) or the Culture Village development
The hotel is one of Dubais newest openings and whilst it's still in soft-launch period and isn't set to be unveiled officially until the end of this year, Donatella has certainly put her own design stamp on it
The Italian designer brand's second high-end hotel has eight restaurants and bars, including the luxurious Vanitas restaurant
The hotel is homage to the Versace brand, combining old school glamour and elegance with the finest hospitality, they say
Palazzo Versaces interior is truly one of a kind, as every piece of furniture and fabric in its rooms and suites, and 169 private residences was designed and made by House of Versace exclusively for the hotel.
Seven categories of accommodation from deluxe rooms starting from about 430 ($650) a night to the imperial suite boast terraces and views of Dubai Creek or Culture Village, and reflect the true essence of the Versace brand, according to the hotel, a joint venture between the fashion house and real estate firm Enshaa Group.
With classic Italian designs, the rooms and suites are furnished with items from the Versace Home Collection in colours of turquoise, blue, beige, gold and salmon, and boast timber parquet flooring, and white and cream boiseries. The textiles are decorated with peacocks, falcons and horses.
The bathrooms have Carrara marble tiling and hand-crafted mosaic wall decor, rainfall showers.
Touted as the perfect illustration of grandeur and opulence, the luxe imperial suite a two-bedroom duplex on the top floor measures nearly 13,000 square feet, with a private terrace, outdoor pool, Jacuzzi and skyline views.
Guests who stay in the hotels suites have access to its executive lounge and all its perks, including limo transfers to and from the airport, 24-hour butler service, afternoon tea and a two-hour happy hour.
As you would expect from one of the world's most renowned designers, every one of Donatella Versace's details is exquisite
Billed as the Middle East's most luxurious hotel, the Palazzo Versace Dubai is meant to look like an Italian palace (pictured: main lobby)
For dining and drinking, Palazzo Versace has eight restaurants and bars, including the luxurious Vanitas, an Italian seafood restaurant, the avant-garde restaurant Enigma, and the over-21 Qs Bar, a lounge and supper club created by music producer Quincy Jones.
Other highlights include a full-service spa, three outdoor pools and reflection ponds.
Versaces first hotel opened on Australias Gold Coast in 2000 and has become a magnet for celebrities, including Beyonce, Jay Z, Jennifer Lopez and Rod Stewart.
It plans to open a five-star, 20-storey hotel tower in the Chinese gambling mecca of Macau.
Musing on Versace's latest offering, Interior Designer, Victoria Gimson, said: 'This is everything you would expect from a glamorous design matriarch like Donatella.
'Versaces signature style of dramatic prints and bold colours is engrained throughout the property, giving a nod to the highly acclaimed fashion brand.
'The design beautifully showcases detailed Italian hand craftsmanship, successfully fusing it with Middle Eastern opulence and grandeur to successfully create perfect balance.
'Its also great to see that Donnatella has embraced current interiors trends, for instance in the Giardino Restaurant with her nod to the botanical movement that has proved so popular.
'Versaces designs translate so well into home interiors that I think it would be great to see a Versace Home range in the very near future.'
Palazzo Versace Dubai's 1,000 square foot executive suites have a spacious living and dining area, king size bed and walk-in wardrobe
The five-star hotel's grand suites have a super king size bed and a uniquely designed dressing area with a Hollywood-style vanity table
When it's time to relax, guests at Palazzo Versace Dubai can retreat to three outdoor pools, a full-service spa or reflection ponds
A photographer's portrait of a nude couple in their 70s has taken the internet by storm as thousands have been moved to tears by the image, which perfectly captures the remarkable love they have for each other.
Photographer Jade Beall from Tucson, Arizona, captured Gerry, 75, and her longtime love Darwin, 70, as they bared their bodies for the stunning shoot, which sees them holding each other in a warm embrace.
Gerry and Darwin, who have been in love for more than 20 years, proudly leave their wrinkles and sagging skin on display as they hold each other in the heartwarming image that is meant to inspire self-love and challenge society's definitions of beauty.
Heartwarming: Photographer Jade Beall from Tucson, Arizona, captured Gerry, 75, and her longtime love Darwin, 70, as they bared their bodies for a shoot celebrating their self-love - and their love for each other
In one black and white photo of the interracial couple, Gerry has her chin on her partner's chest while he happily rests his cheek on the top of her head.
Their legs are entangled and their arms are comfortably wrapped around each other in the moving portrait celebrating their love.
More than 34,000 people liked the image, which Jade shared on her Facebook page on June 24.
'I refuse to accept the wide spread (mostly Western) human belief system in regards to what is beautiful, especially when it comes to the sacred vessel we call our body,' she wrote.
'Why do we accept to believe that one thing must be more beautiful than another? Why cannot we embrace a million-billion definitions of beautiful?'
Perfect fit: Gerry and Darwin have been in love for more than 20 years, and thousands of people were brought to tears by their moving portraits
Look of love: Gerry revealed that it took years for her to learn to love her body, and she never imagined when she was younger that she would find a love like the one she has with Darwin
The photographer, who is known for her candid and unedited nude photos of men and women of all ages, races, and sizes, explained that Gerry and Darwin's portraits are part of her new series showcasing the bodies of people who are over the age of 60.
'Many from my human tribe and other humans who wish to sell me things "that will hide the evidence that I am growing older" tell me that as I grow older, I am worth less and less and that elder bodies are anything but beautiful,' she explained.
'These elder bodies: the temples to decades of wisdom, heartbreak, strength, failure, triumph, thriving. How, I wonder, could they be anything but beautiful?'
Gerry and Darwin admitted to Jade that they have their own insecurities about their bodies, however, that doesn't stop them from feeling comfortable and happy in their own skin.
'I love my body. I use a cane, I am having vision problems and my breasts reach to my waist, but you know what? I like me!' Gerry told Jade, while Darwin added: 'I still have body issues. I would love to lose some weight.'
Only a number: Jades photos of Gerry and Darwin are part of her new series showcasing the bodies of people who are over the age of 60
Amazing memory: Three generations of women are posed on the bed of the newborn's great-grandmother in this photo taken by Jade
But it is their self-love and love for each other that drove the shoot, and many of those who were moved by Gerry and Darwin's portrait took to the comments section of the Facebook post to praise them and Jade for creating such powerful images.
'They look so happy. Even if you didn't find those bodies beautiful (and they are!) how can you not be moved to tears seeing the love that flows between them?' Magnolia Morrigan wrote.
Meanwhile, Amy Miner Rutherford added: 'I look at the whole picture but my eyes are continuously drawn to their faces. They are so in love. With each other. With themselves. This made me teary eyed. It is so beautiful.'
After the photos of the septuagenarians became an online sensation, Jade returned to Facebook to share more images from their shoot and share the beautiful letter Gerry had written to her.
Gerry began by explaining that she and Darwin will 'treasure' the photos and their experience in Jade's studio forever. She went on to note that their are too many adults and children who are unhappy with the appearance of their bodies.
Wise words: Jade explained that the portraits are meant to inspire others to love themselves and their aging bodies
Expanding society's views: The photographer said that she refuses to accept the the wide spread belief in regards to 'what is beautiful'
'We are afraid we cannot be loved as we are because we dont love ourselves as we are. The real truth is that we cannot love or be loved if we try to be anyone else!' she wrote.
Gerry said that she is 'most grateful and humbled' by how many people left comments that reminded her 'how much richness' she and Darwin have in their love and how 'blessed' they are in their bodies.
'I am thrilled that so many people responded to these photos with hope for their own lives,' she said. 'Its why we agreed to uncover for the camera. We wanted to show that wrinkles and aging, sagging body parts are not barriers to love unless you let them be.
'Like fine wine or good cheese, we are more fully ourselves and more full of love in our 70s than we ever were in our 30s and 40s which were more painful, growing years.
Gerry admitted that she was 'without hope for so long' because she didn't think she could ever be happy or have a love like the one she shares with Darwin.
Taking a stand: Jade noted that society tries to tell people that as she gets older that she is 'worth less', but she refuses to believe that
Paying tribute: 'These elder bodies: the temples to decades of wisdom, heartbreak, strength, failure, triumph, thriving. How, I wonder, could they be anything but beautiful?'
'Body-shame was a huge part of that,' she admitted. 'I wont say its gone altogether, but I am at home in my body now, and I like myself in the body Im in.
'I actually smile at myself in the mirror. When you can love yourself in the body you are in, you are confident, graceful and joyful. And beauty comes from that inner glow not from youthful promise.
'You can focus on love flowing out instead of looking for love to come in to make up for that shame. that is the secret to happiness.'
Gerry went on to reveal that she was 'deeply depressed' and 'frequently suicidal' for years before she met Darwin.
It took hospitalization, therapy, medication, and a 'spiritual awakening', for her to love herself and the body that she is in.
'Although I was not ugly earlier in my life as I look back at photos today, I thought I was,' she wrote.
A New Jersey teen who had recently revealed to her parents that she was gay was surprised by her supportive family with a rainbow-themed coming out party.
Kinsey Ratzman, 17, of Mercer County had, like most gay teens, stressed over revealing her sexual orientation to her family. But while, she said, their initial reaction was 'awkward but sweet', she would soon find out just how enthusiastically her family embraced her true self.
Her parents told her Saturday they were planning an early Fourth of July party and sent Kinsey to the mall with her cousin.
Out and proud: Kinsey Ratzman, a 17-year-old from Mercer County, New Jersey, recently came out to her parents, revealing that their reaction was 'awkward but sweet'
Surprise! Soon after coming out to her family, Kinsey was tricked into leaving the house, only to return and find a rainbow-themed party waiting for her at home
When she came back to the house, she found an incredible sight: the house was decked in rainbow decorations and there was a table packed with a rainbow-themed spread of food.
Among the items were rainbow vegetable skewers, rainbow pasta salad and even a multi-layered rainbow cake.
Paper rainbow plates, plastic cups and napkins all bearing the word 'pride' were also stacked ready for guests at Kinsey's surprise coming-out party.
The whole spread: The party included rainbow decor and rainbow-colored food, including vegetable skewers and pasta
Sharing the news: Kinsey was so touched by the gesture that she shared photos from her party on Twitter
Having a slice: Also at the party was a delicious iced cake with multi-colored layers inside of it
Shortly after coming out to her family, she had also declared her news on Twitter, saying: 'I think I wanna come out on Instagram today... Imma be like "a year ago today I found out I'd be able to get married in my own country."'
Overwhelmed by the wonderful gesture by the family, Kinsey also shared photos of her party on Twitter, including the cake, veggies and rainbow decor.
'My family threw me a surprise pride party because I came out to all of them!' she said.
All of the details: Even the paper plates, cups and napkins were adorned with rainbows and 'pride'
A tasty celebration: Kinsey's photos of the party were quickly shared all over social media, with more than 11,000 retweets
Such support: Kinsey said she was proud that she and her family were able to bring 'a little joy and hope' during a pride month that has been tough on the community
Since she posted the tweet on July 2, it has been shared more than 11,000 times and like more than 30,000 times.
Kinsey has been blown away by the support she has received online since sharing the photos.
'I love being a part of such a caring and awesome community,' she told BuzzFeed. 'The best part is seeing how happy the party has made everyone.'
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The Duchess of Cambridge showed her daring side tonight in a sexy off-the-shoulder cream jersey dress.
Kate, 34, sported the 1,580 gown by relatively unknown Brazilian-born, London-based designer Barbara Casasola - who studied at Central Saint Martins - for an awards ceremony at the Natural History Museum in London.
The mother-of-two vamped up the look even further with voluminous hair and towering 140 pink suede heels.
The Duchess of Cambridge was met on the steps by Ken Olisa Lord Lieutenant, left, and Sir Michael Dixon, Director of the Natural History Museum, right, at the Natural History Museum
Kate stands backdropped by Rankin photographs ahead of the ceremony. She sported the 1,580 gown by relatively unknown Brazilian-born, London-based designer Barbara Casasola - who studied at Central Saint Martins - for an awards ceremony at the Natural History Museum in London
Kate has been on the receiving end of criticism from fashionistas for her rather safe choice of outfits and was clearly determined to prove them wrong with her vampish new look. Her pink heels were so high that onlookers said she wobbled in them.
The midi dress is described as part of the designers minimalist spring collection and is cut from figure-sculpting stretch-jersey with sheer mesh pannelled inserts for a sporty feel.
Part of the designer's minimalist Spring '16 runway collection, the dress is currently on sale from Net-a-Porter with 30 per cent off.
The Duchess was presenting the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2016 prize at a dinner hosted at the Natural History Museum.
Prior to dinner, she was introduced to representatives from the five museums shortlisted for the award by Art Fund director Stephen Deuchar.
The Art Fund Museum of the Year prize is awarded annually to one outstanding museum which has shown exceptional imagination, innovation and achievement in the preceding year.
Kate has been on the receiving end of criticism from fashionistas for her rather safe choice of outfits and was clearly determined to prove them wrong with her vampish new look
Kate smiles as she arrives for the awards ceremony and chats to Stephen Deuchar, right, Director Art Fund The Art Fund Prize for Museums and Galleries. The Art Fund Museum of the Year prize is awarded annually to one outstanding museum which has shown exceptional imagination, innovation and achievement in the preceding year
The Duchess was presenting the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2016 prize at a dinner hosted at the Natural History Museum. Kate enjoyed an asparagus and quail's egg starter and a main course of sea bream, courgette flowers and crushed potatoes but left before the meringue and blood orange desert
The prize of 100,000 is presented each year at an awards dinner attended by some of the UKs leading figures in the arts and culture sector with a shortlist including the Arnolfini, Bristol, Bethlem Museum of the Mind, London, and York Art Gallery.
The Art Fund is the national fundraising charity for art and over the past five years has given 34 million to help museums and galleries acquire works of art for their collections. It also helps museums share their collections with wider audiences by supporting a range of tours and exhibitions, and makes additional grants to support the training and professional development of curators.
Kate, 34, will be presenting the prize at the glitzy event attended by the UK's leading figures from the arts and culture industry where she will be joined by artists Antony Gormley, Grayson Perry, Michael Craig-Martin and Cornelia Parker.
Nearly 400 guests will enjoy a dinner in the central Hintze Hall, with tables set around 'Dippy' the dinosaur - the museum's famous Diplodocus skeleton.
At the event Kate revealed that her two-year-old son, Prince George, loves sculpture. And she said he loved visiting London's Natural History Museum to see the dinosaur models.
Nicky Wilson, from Jupiter Artland in West Lothian, said: The Duchess said George comes here a lot. We were talking about children interacting with sculpture and contemporary art and he loves doing that.
The Duchess of Cambridge is greeted by Sir Michael Dixon, left, the Director of the Natural History Museum and Stephen Deuchar, right, the director of the Art Fund as she arrives to present the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2016 prize
The Duchess of Cambridge walks with Stephen Deuchar the director of the Art Fund backdropped by Rankin photographs
Kate, 34, presented the prize at the glitzy event attended by the UK's leading figures from the arts and culture industry where she was joined by artists Antony Gormley, Grayson Perry, Michael Craig-Martin and Cornelia Parker
He loves 3D three dimensional sculptures. He does come here [the NHM] quite often.
Kate was met on the steps of London's Natural History Museum by Ken Olisa Lord Lord Lieutenant, Stephen Deuchar director of the Art Fund and Sir Michael Dixon director of the Natural History Museum.
Inside, she was greeted by former culture secretary Lord Chris Smith, chairman of the Art Fund.
Lord Smith said: It was the first time I had met the Duchess and she was utterly charming. She is an art-lover and recognises the importance of museums, both as a resource and their importance to young people.
It's fantastic to have her presenting the Art Fund for this year and supporting the great work of all these museums.
She also chatted to Caroline Smith, from Bethlem Museum of the Mind in London.
Caroline said: We talked about how our museum is on site and we use the collections to challenge people's perceptions to mental health which is a cause very close to her heart.
Kate enjoyed an asparagus and quail's egg starter and a main course of sea bream, courgette flowers and crushed potatoes but left before the meringue and blood orange desert.
Kate takes the stage fro the presentation. The Art Fund is the national fundraising charity for art, and in the last five years has given 34 million to help museums and galleries acquire works of art for their collections
Art lover Kate, who is also a patron of the Natural History Museum, was chosen to present the awards on Wednesday
The Duchess, who is patron of the Natural History Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, applauds as she presents the award
The Duchess of Cambridge listens during the acceptance speech of Germany's Martin Roth, the Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum
The Duchess, who is patron of the Natural History Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, presented the award to the Victoria and Albert Museum who were one of five organisations on the shortlist - the Arnolfini in Bristol, London's Bethlem Museum of the Mind, Jupiter Artland in West Lothian; and the York Art Gallery.
The Art Fund is the national fundraising charity for art, and in the last five years has given 34 million to help museums and galleries acquire works of art for their collections.
Kate is known for her love of art and photography and is also the patron of The Art Room, a charity that works with children to increase their self-esteem through art.
In May, she visited the National Portrait Gallery to view portraits of herself in the Vogue 100: A Century of Style exhibition.
Tonight's dinner marks the Duchess' second public engagement so far this month.
Last Friday, Kate attended a service to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the battle of the Somme, along with Prince William and Harry.
She wore a bespoke cream lace dress by Jenny Packham for the occasion, teamed with her trusty black court shoes and a black recycled Lock & Co hat.
Kate talks to Michael Dixon, right, the Director of the Natural History Museum and Stephen Deuchar, left, the director of the Art Fund as she leaves after announcing the Victoria and Albert Museum as the winner of the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2016 prize
She said she wants men like him to 'stop f***ing with women's minds' and abandon the sexist talk
Fellow actress Rose, 42, called out Owen for participating in the 'harassment and abuse' of women
Last week, Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman focused an article on her face and worried that it fell victim to the 'Invasion of the Face Snatchers'
Since 2014, tabloids have been speculating about whether Renee Zellweger, 47, has had surgery or injections
Renee Zellweger has come under frequent attack for the seemingly changing quality of her face over the past few years, but while the 47-year-old has kept mostly mum about the less-than-nice things people say about her, she now has a very vocal and ticked off defender.
In a new essay for The Hollywood Reporter, Charmed actress Rose McGowan, 42, has lashed out at a film critic named Owen Gleiberman, who penned his own essay for Variety last week, coming down hard on the Bridget Jones star.
After Owen made some critiques of Renee's face but not, notably, her upcoming Bridget Jones sequel Rose pointed out that no such comments would be made about a man, and it's about time sexist language like this is quieted.
The issue: A recent article made unflattering remarks about Renee Zellweger's changing face; the 47-year-old is set to star in Bridget Jones' Baby this summer
The defender: Rose McGowan, 42, was upset by the article and called out the writer for sexist behavior
Slide me Moving on: Renee, pictured left in 2014 and right in 1998, has certainly changed over the years
Most of Owen's piece was about cosmetic surgery in Hollywood in an abstract sense, but the article titled Renee Zellweger: If She No Longer Looks Like Herself, Has She Become a Different Actress? included several nuggets about the Oscar winner.
Though he complimented her acting, he also noted that watching the trailer for the as-yet-to-be-released Bridget Joness Baby left him disappointed because, he said, Renee no longer looked like Bridget Jones.
'I just hope it turns out to be a movie that stars Renee Zellweger rather than a victim of "Invasion of the Face Snatchers",' he concluded.
But while Renee herself hasn't fired back at the writer, Rose has taken up her cause, penning a brutal take-down of Owen for his 'indefensible' article.
'Renee Zellweger is a human being, with feelings, with a life, with love and with triumphs and struggles, just like the rest of us,' she chastised. 'How dare you use her as a punching bag in your mistaken attempt to make a mark at your new job. How dare you bully a woman who has done nothing but try to entertain people like you.
Another voice: The writer, a film critic, was only the latest person to question whether the star had had work done
Aging: He said that in a new movie trailer, Renee (pictured in 1996) no longer looks like Bridget Jones
Not a fan: Rose (pictured in 2007) said she herself has been on the receiving end of sexist comments and behavior
'Her crime, according to you, is growing older in a way you dont approve of. Who are you to approve of anything? What you are doing is vile, damaging, stupid and cruel. It also reeks of status quo white-male privilege.'
She went on to accuse him of endorsing 'what is tantamount to harassment and abuse of actresses and women', noting that she has been personally affected by such behavior in the past.
'I've withstood harassment on a level you cant comprehend, Owen,' she wrote.
Rose used increasingly strong language to condemn Owen and men like him, who allow for this kind of behavior to go on and don't speak up on behalf of women who are subjected to it.
She particularly took issue with the last line of the article, calling it a 'mind f***' and proclaiming: 'It is time to stop f***ing with women's minds.'
To further highlight her point, Rose replaced Renee's name in the article with those of male actors, demonstrating that such sentences would never be written about men like Leonardo DiCaprio or Johnny Depp, whose faces have also changed as they've gotten older.
'A spirit reflected, at least in the first two movies, in the slightly slovenly doughy-cuddly perfection of ANSEL ELGORT's face. Yes, he gained weight for the role, but the added weight was still him,' she edited a line that had originally been about Renee.
Pay attention! The actress spoke out earlier this year about a 'sexist' ad for X-Men: Apocalypse
Poor choice: The ad which appeared on billboards and major signage had come under fire on social media because it focused purely on a woman being choked
Weird: The scene, which shoes Jennifer Lawrence's character Mystique being attacked by Oscar Isaac's character Apocalypse, was strangely picked out of the whole film as the 'best' promotional shot
Vocal: Rose called out 20th Century Fox after sharing an angry Facebook post
Rose has been a vocal objector to sexist messages in the media in the past. Earlier this year, some fans took issue with a poster for X-Men: Apocalypse, in which Apocalypse is choking Jennifer Lawrence's character, Mystique, and the actress chimed in.
After several tweeted about the ad, with one California woman,Kelly Morgen, writing a Facebook post saying that she felt 'angry, uncomfortable, and shocked to see a frightened woman choked by a man'. She added that it was 'jarringly out of place'.
'There is a major problem when the men and women at 20th Century Fox think casual violence against women is the way to market a film. There is no context in the ad, just a woman getting strangled,' she told the Hollywood Reporter
'The fact that no one flagged this is offensive and frankly, stupid. The geniuses behind this, and I use that term lightly, need to to take a long hard look at the mirror and see how they are contributing to society. Imagine if it were a black man being strangled by a white man, or a gay male being strangled by a hetero? The outcry would be enormous.
'So lets right this wrong. 20th Century Fox, since you cant manage to put any women directors on your slate for the next two years, how about you at least replace your ad?' she went on, highlighting another area in which there has been public outcry about this particular studio.
So now we know. Theresa May is a bloody difficult woman. This is according to Ken Clarke, the former chancellor who was accidentally recorded gossiping with Sir Malcolm Rifkind in a television studio this week.
As usual, Ken looked like a crumpled Buddha whod just woken up on a park bench following a three-hour lunch at the Garrick.
Through the ruddy fog of his self-satisfaction, it was clear he was a grudging admirer of Mrs May - but being a fully paid up member of the Manocracy, he had to couch his timorous esteem in deprecating language. Why? As every successful female knows, thats just the law of the he-jungle.
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Theresa May was described as a bloody difficult woman by Ken Clarke earlier this week
Theresa is a bloody difficult woman but you and I worked with Margaret Thatcher, he said to Rifkind, as both men chortled nervously at the memory.
He continued: I get on all right with Theresa and she is good. Shes been at the Home Office far too long, so I only know in detail what her views are on the Home Office. She doesnt know much about foreign affairs.
If Mr Clarke had been hoping to perfectly evince the kind of casual, avuncular misogyny that runs through many Tory grandees like true blue veins in a Stilton cheese, he almost succeeded.
His aim was to praise the Home Secretarys capabilities but at the same time undermine and infantilise her as the kind of tantrummy pest who kicks up a fuss for no good reason.
The kind who makes a chaps daily life blimmin complicated, when all a chap is trying to do is sail his little tug of ambition from brekker to supper with as little aggro as possible.
Most importantly, this sly, low blow against a female colleague gave him the upper hand when it came to establishing supremacy and influence.
The former chancellor was accidentally recorded gossiping with Sir Malcolm Rifkind in a television studio
Or did it? No. On closer examination, his attack had all the force of a gummy old werewolf suddenly rearing from the shadows, but failing to connect fang to neck.
For to be described by a man like Ken Clarke as a bloody difficult woman is not an insult or a putdown or something to faint and cry into a pomander over.
On the contrary, it is high praise indeed, a tacit acknowledgement of a womans power. It means: I cant control her. It means: She wont do what I tell her to do. It means: To be honest, I am a little bit scared of her.
Difficult women are formidable women. You dont forget them in a hurry. They make their mark on history, they leave a lipstick trace on the collar of our consciousness.
Consider Cleopatra (I will not be triumphed over). Admire Joan of Arc (I would rather die than do something which I know to be a sin.) And marvel at Miss Piggy (Im not being difficult, Kermy, Im just being right.) Ultimately it is difficult women rather than the meek supplicants who will triumph in the end.
But Jan Moir says that difficult women are formidable women. From Madonna to Agatha Christies Miss Marple, she says Ken Clarke has reminded us all that being a difficult woman is a wonderful thing to be
Of course, there are degrees of obstinacy and being difficult does not mean being a diva.
Yet from Madonna (Im tough, Im ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, OK), to Agatha Christies dignified yet unyielding Miss Marple (If you imagine that Im going to sit back and let everyone regard me as a dotty old maid, youre very much mistaken), what Ken Clarke has done is to remind us all that being a difficult woman is a wonderful thing to be.
Behold me, Im a difficult woman! It should be celebrated, inked on a badge, printed on a T-shirt and emblazoned on your mug for coffee - which a difficult woman takes black, sugared with the satisfaction of knowing that she does not have to seek the approval of men from the Cabinet of has-beens or the cupboard of yesterday to succeed.
Difficult women stand up for themselves and what they believe in. Difficult women get things done. They are a positive force for society. They contribute to the greater good and they are not afraid of the consequences of their actions.
They will speak their minds and do what they think is right. They are most emphatically not the little man-worshipping toadies who only look out for themselves and their own comfort. Above all they are free and have agency over their souls - because they dont care whether you like them or not.
Ultimately it is difficult women rather than the meek supplicants who will triumph. Pictured is Miss Piggy
Men often say women are being difficult when in fact the woman concerned is just standing up for herself and what she believes in.
In the workplace, I have quietly disagreed with a male bosss opinion, only to have my views dismissed as hysterical - and I bet Theresa May has, too.
Despite - or perhaps because - of their experience with Margaret Thatcher, politicians of Ken Clarkes generation still hold deeply ingrained prejudices about women in power.
They think women can never, ever be as good as men. Even worse, they will disparage the kind of qualities in a woman - conviction, toughness, resilience - that they so admire in themselves and each other.
And of course, there is no such thing as a difficult man. Instead, men are mavericks! They are copper-bottomed heroes! They are mercurial, tough, demanding, visionary, authoritative, tenacious and willing to fight their corner. They are never, ever plain old difficult like that annoying woman in the leopard-print heels.
Actress Kate Beckinsale recently noted: 'You rarely hear a man described as difficult, which a woman is if she has an opinion that is not popular'
In Hollywood, the British actress Kate Beckinsale recently noted that women in her business have to filter and package their opinions in a way that the men in control will find palatable.
You rarely hear a man described as difficult, which a woman is if she has an opinion that is not popular, she said. Well, copy that. And to the list we can add mad, bad and deranged - all arrows from the quiver of insults routinely fired at independent-minded women - and rarely, if ever, by other women.
Really difficult women are women like Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany since 2005 and the European Unions longest-serving head of government.
For her troubles, Merkel has had to suffer unspeakable insults from men like the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and various enraged Greek politicians who see her defiance and strength as the ultimate betrayal of her sex.
Hillary Clinton is another politician who is always described as polarising - which, roughly translated, means shes too tough to flirt with any individuals who cross her path.
Hillary Clinton is another politician who is always described as polarising - which, roughly translated, means shes too tough to flirt with any individuals who cross her path
She does not wear pretty frocks. She probably wouldnt curtsey on demand. Her personality and behaviour make a lot of people uncomfortable, but Hillary doesnt care.
Once I saw her give a speech at a gathering in Washington, where she shimmered with a kind of visceral power and a supreme sense of self that was once a male- only prerogative.
The world has changed for women, difficult or otherwise. Our parameters are no longer all about animal skins and pots on the fire.
We are not suspended in bafflement, famished for compliments, just waiting for male benediction and approval.
These days, a difficult woman isnt looking for a knight in shining armour, she is looking for a sword. And such women are everywhere.
Really difficult women are women like Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany since 2005 and the European Unions longest-serving head of government, Jan Moir says
She is the woman at the bus stop who asks the tattooed youths to stop swearing. She is the bereaved mother who seeks justice for her son, illegally killed in the Iraq war. She is the granddaughter who starts an inquiry into the treatment of patients in a care home. She is the NHS whistleblower who wants to end incompetence and wrongdoing.
She is the awkward everywoman who tries to make a difference, even a very small one, when it would have been easier for everyone if she had just kept quiet.
So lets all hail the difficult woman, for we live in a golden age of her triumphs.
The next Prime Minister of the UK looks as though it will be either Theresa May or Maggie lookalike Andrea Leadsom.
HERE'S FIVE MORE OBSTINATE INSPIRATIONS ANNE ROBINSON Presenter for many years of Watchdog, the longest-running consumer series on British TV, and later The Weakest Link, thanks to her acerbic manner and cutting putdowns. She says about herself: I knew Id conquered America when Mike Tyson told me I was one mean lady. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE Founder of modern nursing, shes lauded as the saintly, iron-willed Lady With The Lamp who fought tenaciously for hygienic conditions, especially for wounded British soldiers in the Crimean War. But she was notoriously difficult to work with, and said: I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse. ANNA WINTOUR The first British and longest-serving editor of US Vogue, with 28 years under her Prada belt. The most powerful woman in fashion. Her glacial reputation has earned her the nickname Nuclear Wintour. She says: If one comes across sometimes as being cold or brusque, its simply because Im striving for the best. KATHARINE HEPBURN Most prolific Oscar- winning actor of all time. She wore the trousers - literally - long before it was fashionable. She said: I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. Ive just done what I damn well wanted to, and Ive made enough money to support myself, and aint afraid of being alone. MARY WHITEHOUSE Her tireless TV morality campaigns led to the setting up of the Broad-casting Standards Council in 1988. Her chief target in the Sixties was the BBC under the director general Hugh Greene. She said the corporation sent out the propaganda of disbelief, doubt and dirt ... promiscuity, infidelity and drinking. Advertisement
UKIPs Suzanne Evans is favourite to take over from Nigel Farage. Angela Eagle is on track to become the next leader of the Labour Party and Nicola Sturgeon is still in charge in Scotland, still plotting an exit from the UK and still being as difficult as it is humanely possible for a woman to be.
In the meantime, I do hope Theresa May becomes the next leader of the Conservative Party. Mostly because I very much look forward to this bloody difficult woman taking charge and then quietly, efficiently mopping up the mess that the boys have left behind.
Of course, she is a difficult woman. For a start, she has had to succeed in a mans world where no quarter is given or expected.
She has run the Home Office for six years, longer and more successfully than all her recent predecessors put together.
She is stubborn, unclubbable, unimpeachable, not frightened by the will of others, quietly determined.
In February the hospital told patients to go home unless they were dying
Staff said they were worried about patient safety due to ability of doctors
CQC inspectors say there aren't enough doctors available to meet demand
Hospital staff failed to notice a patient had been dead four and a half hours, a damning report has revealed.
North Middlesex University Hospitals A&E department - where the incident took place - has been ordered to improve by inspectors after they found there were not enough doctors to meet demand.
Its urgent and emergency care services have been rated as 'inadequate' following a surprise inspection in April.
Today, a spokesman for the hospital apologised for the standard of care given to the unnamed patient.
A tannoy announcement made in February telling patients to go home unless they were dying, prompting a visit from Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors.
North Middlesex University Hospitals A&E department - where the incident took place - has been ordered to improve by inspectors after they found there were not enough doctors to meet demand
Staff at the hospital told inspectors they were worried about patient safety because of the competency of middle grade doctors.
These doctors were often left in charge of the emergency department overnight - with no consultant presence in the department after 11pm, inspectors were told.
In some cases, emergency patients were forced to wait until morning to find out whether they were to be admitted or sent home because doctors were 'unable or unwilling to take decisions', the report says.
'Members of staff told us there was a culture of not calling consultants out at night.
'They said that middle grade doctors seemed to assume that it was acceptable to leave patients in ED (emergency department) overnight, thus treating it as if it were a hospital ward,' the report adds.
The hospital's chief executive, Julie Lowe, has quit after the damning inspection on her department.
CCQ inspectors have judged the urgent and emergency care services of the hospital to have been falling since 2014 months after the controversial closure of the A&E at nearby Chase Farm Hospital.
Sir Mike Richards, CQC chief inspector of hospitals, said: 'People going to the emergency department at the North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust are entitled to a service that provides safe, effective, compassionate and high quality care.
'When we inspected we found that patients were waiting for a long time to be seen, without being assessed by a doctor in the first place.
Staff at the hospital told inspectors they were worried about patient safety because of the competency of middle grade doctors while a hospital chief executive has quit following the damning inspection
'North Middlesex University Hospital is one of the busiest A&E departments in London - so it is worrying that we found that there were not enough experienced doctors on call to deal with demand.
'We have strongly encouraged the trust to engage with other organisations across the local health and social care system to resolve this challenging issue.
'GO HOME UNLESS YOU'RE DYING' Patients at North Middlesex University Hospital were told over the loudspeaker to go home and come back in the morning unless they were dying after a massive influx. The message was broadcast on the tannoy system where 450 patients had arrived that day. It asked all patients who did not have a life-threatening illness to go home, despite the fact that some had already been waiting in the stretched department for hours. An eyewitness said they saw more than 100 people in the waiting room that day, reports the Sunday People, when the hospital admitted to being 'under pressure'. The message was broadcast at around 11pm when it became apparent that the waiting time for doctors was eight hours for adults and six hours for children. Advertisement
'We have already seen some progress since that original inspection. A new leadership team is in place in the emergency department, there are moves to appoint more senior doctors - and I note that the trust is calling on consultants from other departments within the hospital to provide the routine daily support to A&E which is so badly needed.
'The evidence from our latest inspection last week is that North Middlesex's emergency department has turned a corner, but there is still much more that needs to be done. We will be watching their progress very closely.'
Last year there were three deaths at the hospital due to blunders in the A&E department.
In 2014, MP David Burrowes nearly died from a burst appendix when he was left on a trolley for 13 hours.
North Middlesex University Hospital medical director Dr Cathy Cale said: 'We are extremely sorry for the current problems in A&E and for the long waiting times for some patients.
'We are committed to getting back to the standards that we and our patients expect and, working with our health partners, are taking all the necessary steps to address the concerns raised, particularly the shortage of doctors which lies at the heart of it.'
A spokesman for North Middlesex University Hospital said: 'We are very sorry about the standard of care of this patient.
'We are determined to do better and following our own investigation have introduced new procedures to ensure all patients are checked regularly on the hour, even at the busiest times.'
Staffs failure to undertake hourly rounds led to fears that dozens of patient deaths may have been due to neglect.
Patient safety was being compromised through omissions in risk assessments and through inconsistences and inaccuracies in completing care records.
In 2014, MP David Burrowes nearly died from a burst appendix when he was left on a trolley for 13 hours by staff at the hospital
Food and drink werent being given out correctly, and trained staff were not following the medication policy put in place.
In a joint statement, Niall Dickson, chief executive of the General Medical Council, and Professor Ian Cumming, chief executive of Health Education England, said: 'Significant concerns have been raised about the care provided in the emergency department at North Middlesex University Hospital Trust and about the lack of proper support for and supervision of doctors in training.
'We are pleased to see that a number of key improvements have already been made and a programme of further measures is being put in place over the next few weeks.
'This includes the recruitment of a new clinical director, additional medical staff and other changes to relieve the pressure on the department and support doctors in training.
'There is more to be done to make sure that the improvements can be sustained and that the department can cope in the long term with the extra pressures it faces.
'In the meantime the GMC and HEE - the two organisations responsible for postgraduate medical training - have placed conditions on the continuation of medical training posts in the emergency department and the situation will be closely monitored with daily rigorous checks.
A woman who died for five minutes told of how she woke from a coma to discover doctors had amputated her leg.
Ivy Daniels, 27, went into cardiac arrest due to a diabetic low, on January 8 this year.
Feeling panicked when he walked into her room and saw her lying motionless, her boyfriend Jonathan Dios, 28, did his best to perform CPR, while on the phone to paramedics, who resuscitated her when they arrived.
But, after being rushed to hospital, medics discovered that Miss Daniels had suffered a blood clot in her right foot and two days later, her leg began to turn black.
Ivy Daniels, 27, went into cardiac arrest due to a diabetic low. Family and medical staff had no choice but to agree to a below the knee amputation (right), but now she has learnt to love her prosthetic leg (left)
Family and medical staff had no choice but to agree to a below the knee amputation, while she was still in a coma.
When she woke up to see her missing limb, she screamed in horror.
Now, however, she has learnt to love her prosthetic leg and even prefers it to her real one.
'I survived death,' Miss Daniels said. 'I consider myself an epic superhuman. A lot of amputees hate their prosthetic limbs, but I love mine.
'I feel like I'm half a strong terminator. I'm part robot now it's really cool.'
Over the years, Miss Daniels, from New York, has battled a string of different health conditions.
She was born with Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome (BWS), an overgrowth disorder, meaning her left leg was always slightly longer than her right and she walked with a limp.
This condition also meant her breasts grew unevenly, and at age 14 she had an operation to resize her D and A cup chest to a C.
As a child, she also overcame Wilms' tumours - a type of kidney cancer- three times when she was three, five and seven, and underwent 21 months of chemotherapy before getting the all clear.
On top of this, she has lived with type 1 diabetes since she was 14 and is insulin dependent.
Earlier this year, her photographer boyfriend arrived at her flat to find her lying still in her room.
At first, he thought she was napping - but quickly realised she was not breathing and did not have a heartbeat.
Now, the 27-year-old from New York has learnt to love her prosthetic leg and even prefers it to her real one
She was born with Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome (BWS), an overgrowth disorder, meaning her left leg was always slightly longer than her right and she walked with a limp
He immediately phoned an ambulance, which arrived within minutes.
Paramedics managed to revive her, but doctors later said she had been dead for about five minutes.
Recalling the terrifying incident, freelance photographer Mr Dios said: 'I stepped out of the bedroom to let the paramedics work and sat in the living room, cuddling our kitten and started to pray.
'One of the paramedics came out of the bedroom and told me that they got her heart to start working but that she was still unconscious, and that she could be brain dead.'
Miss Daniels, who has no memory of that day, was rushed to Mount Sinai Queens hospital where she was put into an induced coma.
Just 48 hours later, doctors noticed that the bottom half of her right leg was purple and black, due to a blood clot in her foot.
As Miss Daniels was in a coma she could not be part of the decision to amputate her leg - but doctors said they needed to amputate as soon as possible or the situation would deteriorate and she could face a full leg amputation.
When she finally awoke on January 14 and saw her missing limb, she screamed in shock - completely devastated.
Miss Daniels was rushed to hospital where she was put into an coma after her boyfriend tried to perform CPR while on the phone to paramedics (pictured right with her boyfriend before amputation, Jonathan Dios)
'I was screaming and freaking out,' she said.
'The nurses had to hold me down and calm me. I had no recollection of anything and had an anxiety attack.
'I got really depressed and felt angry for the first couple of weeks.'
Soon after, Miss Daniels took to reading about inspiring amputees online, and slowly began to accept her situation.
She said she realised she was not alone, and was helped by her sister Aimee Daniels, 24, who sent her links to stories of amputees who were 'rocking the world'.
She was also motivated by the hope that she could one day walk again with the help of prosthetics.
She remained in hospital for two weeks, and did a further fortnight of physiotherapy rehabilitation at the Northern Dutchess Hospital in Rhinebeck, New York.
Then on June 8, she got her new prosthetic leg - and decided she liked it more than her real one.
Speaking of the first moments trying out her new limb, she said: 'I just put one foot after the other and found that walking came naturally to me.
'For the first time in my life, now my legs are the same length. I feel differently-abled rather than disabled.
A rare disease has left an 11-month-old girl with a tumour covering half of her face.
Chingrung Mro, from a remote area of Bangladesh, was first admitted to hospital at nine months and diagnosed with a ganglioglioma cyst - a rare slow-growing tumour.
Since birth, it has been growing consistently bigger and could be fatal for the little girl if left untreated.
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A rare disease has left 11-month-old girl Chingrung Mro with a tumour covering half of her face. Her family, from Kanchi in Bangladesh, were unable to afford treatment but a social media campaign has changed her life
However, her family were unable to afford treatment in her hometown due to the expense.
But a social media campaign launched by social worker Fabian Gomez is set to change her life.
Mr Gomez's Facebook campaign caught the attention of Bangladeshi minister Obaidul Quader, who arranged for Chingrung to be treated at Dhaka Medical College.
He said: 'Many people tried to help by raising funds, but we wanted to provide her with better treatment because she's a baby.
The campaign caught the attention of Bangladeshi minister Obaidul Quader, who arranged for Chingrung to be treated at Dhaka Medical College by a team of surgeons
Chingrung's father Singrao Mro (pictured) hopes the treatment will give his daughter a new chance at life
'We contacted the minister and after the meeting we asked him to provide the baby with good treatment.'
GANGLIOGLIOMA CYSTS Ganglioglioma is rare brain tumor that commonly causes seizures, usually in the form of a cyst. They can occur anywhere in the brain, mostly in the temporal lobes - the area located on the sides of the brain by the ears. CT scans are often used to provide pictures of the brain to help diagnose the tumour. More than 95 percent of gangliogliomas are low grade and tend not to recur after removal. Advertisement
The team at Dhaka Medical College have put together a board of surgeons - including a neurosurgeon, paediatric surgeon and a plastic surgeon - and they will soon operate on Chingrung to reduce its size.
Samanta Lal Sen, the plastic surgeon, is feeling positive and hopes to remove the tumour and cover the defect with plastic surgery.
Chingrung's adoring father Singrao Mro hopes the treatment will give his daughter a new chance at life.
He said: 'I hope my daughter will improve in this hospital and I want to thank everyone that helped her.'
Mr Hunt said the new contract will be phased in starting in October
Jeremy Hunt has told MPs the public needs certainty, describing it as 'a difficult decision'
The Government will impose a contract on junior doctors across England, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has told MPs.
It comes the day after junior doctors and medical students voted to reject a deal between the British Medical Association (BMA) and the Government.
Mr Hunt said it had been a 'difficult decision' to take but the NHS needed certainty, including in light of the UK's decision to leave the EU.
In a Commons statement, Mr Hunt said: 'In May, the Government and NHS Employers reached an historic agreement with the BMA on a new contract for junior doctors after three years of negotiations and several days of damaging strike action.'
He said the contract was seen as a good deal by Dr Johann Malawana, who was then chairman of the BMA's junior doctors' committee, and was endorsed by royal medical colleges.
He added: 'Unfortunately because of the vote we are now left in a no-man's land that, if it continues, can only damage the NHS.
'An elected government whose main aim is to improve the safety and quality of care for patients has come up against a union which has stirred up anger amongst its own members it is now unable to pacify.
'I was not a fan of the tactics used by the BMA but to its credit their leader Dr Malawana did in the end negotiate a deal and work hard to get support for it. Now he has resigned it is not clear that there is anyone able to deliver the support of BMA members for any negotiated settlement.
'Protracted uncertainty at precisely the time we grapple with the enormous consequences of leaving the EU can only be damaging for those working in the NHS and the patients who depend on it.'
Mr Hunt said the 'only realistic way to end this impasse' is to bring in the contract that was agreed with the BMA in May, with the phasing in starting in October.
He added: 'This is a difficult decision to make. Many people will call for me to return to negotiations with the BMA and to them I would like to say this: we have been talking or trying to talk for well over three years.
'There is no consensus around a new contract and after yesterday's vote it is not clear that any further discussions could create one.'
Yesterday, in a blow to the BMA, which had encouraged doctors to agree the new terms, 58 per cent voted against the proposed contract while 42 per cent voted in favour.
The vote followed five rounds of industrial action which saw junior doctors in England walk out of UK hospitals.
They also stopped providing emergency care for the first time in NHS history during their most recent walkout, which went on for two days at the end of April.
In the last strike alone, more than 125,000 appointments and operations were cancelled and will need to be rearranged.
This was on top of almost 25,000 procedures cancelled during previous action.
Johann Malawana, Chair of the Junior Doctors Committee of the British Medical Association (BMA), and Kevin Courtney, Deputy General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), lead the junior doctors' march from St Thomas' hospital to the Department of Health during the first all-out strike
On the day after junior doctors went on the first all-out strike in the history of the NHS, 6,000 patients were stuck in hospital, official figures have revealed
It is currently unclear what will happen now regarding future action - but a spokeswoman for the BMA said it has no plans for future strikes.
Last month a damning report revealed the junior doctors' strikes caused the highest level of bed blocking ever seen.
Nearly 6,000 patients were stranded in hospital on April 28 - the day after junior doctors' staged the first all-out strike in the history of the NHS.
JUNIOR DOCTORS 'REJECTED CONTRACT DUE TO CONCERNS OVER UNSAFE WORKING HOURS' Junior doctors and medical students chose to reject the proposed contract because it did not address some key concerns about unsafe working hours, one doctor has said. GP trainee Dr Francesca Silman, from London, said she voted against the new deal because of worries over working hours. She said the new deal also did not do enough to ensure staff are retained or encouraged to go into difficult specialties. Dr Silman, who is part of the campaign group Justice for Health, said: 'We are currently working in an underfunded, understaffed NHS, where unnecessary risks are taken on a daily basis due to lack of staff to provide the care our patients need. 'We need a contract that ensures staff are retained, and encouraged to enter some of the most difficult specialties such as emergency medicine. 'We need a contract that ensures that doctors are not working unsafe hours. 'I did not see these concerns addressed by the contract, whose premise is to stretch a workforce even further to provide the Government's manifesto of a seven-day NHS. 'For this reason, I felt there was no alternative other than to reject the contract. 'This is a pivotal moment for the NHS, and I strongly feel that if doctors do not fight for a sustainable workforce, the whole system is on the brink of collapse.' She added: 'Moving forward, the Government must now acknowledge that it is not possible to provide a seven-day NHS without extra staff and funding. 'That it is not possible to create a contract that doctors feel is safe, by stretching the current workforce. 'Once this is acknowledged, then perhaps some solutions can be found, and a further contract can then be negotiated that is acceptable to everyone.' Meanwhile Dr Mark McInerney, who will be starting emergency medicine specialist training in London in three weeks' time, said he rejected the terms of the new contract because of a number of concerns. He said he had concerns over whistleblowing protection and a new 'guardian' role proposed under the deal. And the new contract offered a 'very complex' pay scale, he said. Dr McInerney added: 'I am so disappointed that the Government made me strike on this issue, or at least backed me into that corner. 'I'd be prepared to strike again, as I want fairer conditions for my female colleagues who often work less than full time compared to males. I also want 100% whistleblowing protection. 'The current significant under-staffing in the NHS means that many of the possibly good elements of the contract are completely undermined and mean nothing.' Advertisement
The 'bed-blocking' crisis caused 655,377 days of hold-up between the beginning of January and the end of April this year.
The figures reveal a 16 per cent rise from 563,165 days in the same period last year.
NHS bosses said that pressures on care homes and community care is 'spilling over' into hospitals.
Today, the BMA revealed some 68 per cent of those eligible turned out to vote on the deal - 37,000 junior doctors and medical students.
Commenting on the news, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said it was 'extremely disappointing' that junior doctors had voted against a proposed contract 'which was agreed with and endorsed by the leader of the BMA junior doctors' committee'.
Indeed, following the result, Dr Johann Malawana, head of the BMA's junior doctors' committee, announced his resignation. A new chair will be elected in the coming weeks.
In May, it looked as though a breakthrough had been reached in the dispute after both sides agreed to a new deal.
Under it:
* Saturdays and Sundays would attract premium pay if doctors - the vast majority of whom are expected to - work seven or more weekends in a year.
* Doctors would receive a percentage of their annual salary for working these weekends - ranging from 3 per cent for working one weekend in seven to up to 10% if they work one weekend in two.
* Any night shift - on any day - which starts at or after 8pm and lasts more than eight hours, and which finishes at or by 10am the following day, would also result in an enhanced pay rate of 37% for all the hours worked.
* The deal also set out payment for doctors who are on call, and agreed a basic pay increase of between 10 per cent and 11 per cent.
In his resignation letter, Dr Malawana said he believed continuing in the job 'would be dishonourable and untenable'.
He said after forcing the Government 'back to the negotiation table twice, I was hopeful that the resulting contract would be acceptable to our amazing membership.
'However, I believe the fundamental breakdown in trust caused by the government's actions over the last five years has resulted in a situation where no solution is possible, particularly when a Government is so keen to declare victory over frontline staff.'
This month, junior doctors in England who are members of the BMA, and final and penultimate year medical students in England who are also members, voted in a referendum on whether or not to accept the contract.
This followed a series of more than 130 roadshows that took place across England, where doctors and medical students were provided with details of the new contract.
Commenting on the result of the referendum, Dr Malawana said: 'The result of the vote is clear, and the government must respect the informed decision junior doctors have made.
'Any new contract will affect a generation of doctors working for the NHS in England, so it is vital that it has the confidence of the profession.
'Given the result, both sides must look again at the proposals and there should be no transition to a new contract until further talks take place.'
He added: 'Having spoken to many junior doctors across the country in recent weeks it was clear that, while some felt the new contract represented an improved offer, others had reservations about what it would mean for their working lives, their patients and the future delivery of care in the NHS.
'There was also considerable anger and mistrust towards the government's handling of this dispute.
'These concerns need to be fully addressed before any new contract can come into effect and, in light of the result, I believe a new chair will be better placed to lead on this work.
'There is much to do to in order to rebuild the trust that has been eroded over the last year.
'The government must now do the right thing, accept the outcome of this vote and work constructively with the BMA to address junior doctors' concerns with the new contract.'
The vote followed a series of more than 130 roadshows that took place across England, where doctors and medical students were provided with details of the new contract
WHAT IS THE ROW BETWEEN THE BMA AND GOVERNMENT ABOUT? What is the row about? The Government is intent on introducing a new contract for doctors working up to consultant level to replace one it says is outdated. Discussions surrounding the contract, for junior doctors in England, started in 2012 but broke down in 2014. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt wanted to cut the number of hours over a weekend for which junior doctors can claim extra pay, offsetting this with a hike in basic pay. This has been a major sticking point in the dispute. In December, junior doctors had planned to stage industrial action but it was called off at the last minute as the British Medical Association (BMA) entered talks with the Government and NHS Employers. However, the talks ended with no resolution. Between January and the end of April, junior doctors staged five rounds of industrial action. During the most recent walkout they stopped providing emergency care for the first time in NHS history. Overall around 150,000 operations and appointments were cancelled and needed to be rearranged as a result. In May, the BMA agreed to re-enter talks with the Department of Health and a deal was reached after 10 days of intensive talks. Wasn't there something about death rates? Yes. Jeremy Hunt angered junior doctors by repeated references to higher death rates for patients in NHS hospitals at weekends. While the research does suggest higher mortality rates following admission at weekends than during the week, researchers have been cautious about suggesting staffing issues are to blame. Doctors accuse Mr Hunt of conflating the arguments by saying that unless contracts are reformed immediately, patients will continue to die. What are the terms of the new deal? Saturdays and Sundays will attract premium pay if doctors - the vast majority of whom are expected to - work seven or more weekends in a year. Doctors will receive a percentage of their annual salary for working these weekends - ranging from 3 per cent for working one weekend in seven up to 10% if they work one weekend in two. Any night shift, on any day of the week - which starts at or after 8pm and lasts more than eight hours, and finishes at or by 10am the following day - will also result in an enhanced pay rate of 37 per cent for all the hours worked. The deal also sets out systems of payment for doctors who are on call. This allowance is applied as 8 per cent of basic pay over and above any weekend allowance. Across the board, there will be an average basic pay increase of between 10 and 11 per cent, down from the 13 per cent put forward originally by the Government. There are also new agreements aimed at reducing discrimination against anyone who takes leave to care for others, such as new mothers or those on parental leave. This includes accelerated training support to enable people to catch up, such as mentoring and study leave funding. Wasn't a deal reached? The BMA reached agreement with the Government and put it to a ballot of junior doctors and final and penultimate year medical students who are BMA members. What was the result? There was a 68 per cent turnout with 42 per cent voting in favour of the contract and 58 per cent voting against. What happens now? In the immediate future, the BMA will be seeking a new head for its junior doctors committee after current chairman Johann Malawana announced he will stand down following the result of the referendum. Dr Malawana said: 'Given the result, both sides must look again at the proposals and there should be no transition to a new contract until further talks take place.' The Government has said it will 'consider the outcome'. Advertisement
Junior doctors' NO vote sparks mixed reaction
There has been mixed reaction to news that junior doctors have rejected a proposed contract between the Government and the British Medical Association (BMA).
Alex Wild, research director at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'This dispute has gone on for far too long and it's patients who have been paying the price.
'Neither the government nor the BMA have covered themselves with glory, but the leak of thousands of messages from BMA leaders confirmed what many suspected all along - for them the dispute was all about pay, and they intended to draw it out for as long as possible.
'The government has made significant concessions and, after two years of negotiations, must continue with implementation of the contract for the sake of patients and hard-pressed taxpayers.
'This whole episode should prompt a rethink about how negotiations are handled in the future.'
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said rejection of the contract was 'extremely disappointing'
Professor Neena Modi, president of the Royal College for Paediatrics and Child Health, said: 'The RCPCH respects the decision reached by the junior doctors in this difficult situation.
'We are committed to helping them reach an agreement with Government that addresses their legitimate concerns.
'A contract is needed that does not disadvantage those in less than full-time training or taking time out of training for parental leave, and maintains pay parity between specialities.
'This dispute has been deeply damaging. We will continue to call on Government to recognise the dedication of junior doctors who spend long years in training and upon whom the UK health services of the future depend.
'We hope Government and BMA swiftly re-enter meaningful negotiations based upon an honest understanding of the pressures facing UK health services.'
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: 'Clearly, we are very disappointed that the ballot of junior doctors has resulted in a rejection of the new contract, and that this may lead to further uncertainty for patients and NHS trusts.
'We recognise that there are still wider non-contractual issues that have contributed to low morale among junior doctors, leading to this outcome.
'The NHS and its workforce are under considerable pressure from rising demand, deteriorating finances, and the uncertainty caused by the result of the EU referendum. A situation of further uncertainty over the contractual status of junior doctors, who are a key and valued part of the NHS workforce, is something we had hoped to avoid.
'We urge all those concerned to work together to try and find a way forward so that the care NHS trusts provide for patients is not compromised.'
Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers said: 'I am profoundly disappointed the BMA has rejected the proposed new contract for junior doctors.
'It is imperative that patients will not be made to suffer any further impact as a result of the rejection of the contract.'
Professor Jane Dacre, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said: 'I am disappointed that we have still not reached agreement on the junior doctors' contract, a situation which is causing uncertainty for junior doctors, patients and the wider NHS.
Locals Tuesday afternoon welcomed 28 children from New York City who will be staying with them for the next week or two as the kids leave behind city streets for the Midstate.
The opportunity for the children and families comes through the non-profit organization Fresh Air Fund, which matches host families with low-income inner city youths to provide them with a country experience.
Roberta Popp, Harrisburg fund representative, said the families waiting in the parking lot of the Park Inn, 5401 Carlisle Pike, Mechanicsburg, for the bus filled with the children, were all excited.
Most of the families even brought handmade signs welcoming the child they were matched up with.
This is my 35th year, Popp said. Most of our families they invite the same children every year. We had Alex (the child she had hosted) for 11 years.
When he (Alex) got married, we were there.
13-year-old Telleea Roaye has been involved in the program since she was 8. She arrived to hugs from her host, Heather Barrick of Carlisle, and Barricks four small children.
Its fun, Roaye said about her annual Midstate stay.
Karen Mallah and her husband, Paul Moore, said this year was the first time theyve participated in the program, and were very excited to meet the child theyd be hosting: Isaiah Bady from Brooklyn.
They decided to join at the behest of their daughter Eliana Mallah, who waited excitedly for Bady to step off the bus with a sign the family had made to welcome the boy.
It provides a good opportunity for a kid to get out of the city, Moore said.
Were going to get together with the other boys in the neighborhood, Mallah said, in reference to what activities the family plans on doing with Bady.
They also said they plan to take him to the local pool, park and the picnic event Fresh Air Fund will throw Thursday at Lower Allen Park.
Royal Free Marsden passed on files of 1.6 million patients to Google in May
But campaigners feared sensitive information would fall into wrong hands
Officials wanted to upload it where it would be
Ministers are scrapping a controversial scheme to harvest the personal files of millions of patients.
The announcement is a victory for the Mail which had long warned the drive was a dangerous invasion of privacy.
Launched in 2014, the Care.data project aimed to extract details from every patients GP file including records of previous illnesses, medications and minor surgery.
Officials planned to upload it onto a giant database where it would be analysed by researchers and private firms, in the hope of improving care.
But campaigners and senior doctors feared the sensitive information would be passed on to insurance firms, hackers or leaked onto the internet.
The Royal Free in North London admitted to giving Google the files of up to 1.6 million patients
And the only way patients could stop their details from being automatically harvested was by making a special request with their GP.
The Government had initially planned to start extracting the data from Spring 2014 but it was put on hold, amid widespread concern from medical professionals.
Then the Life Sciences Minister George Freeman announced the entire project had been ditched completely.
The decision follows a nine-month review into the NHSs handing of patients private information by the national data tsar, Dame Fiona Caldicott.
This exposed how NHS staff are routinely leaving medical files on trains, in cafes and sending sensitive emails and faxes to complete strangers.
Mr Freeman said: In light of Dame Fionas recommendations, NHS England has taken the decision to close the Care.data programme.
However, the Government and the health and care system remain absolutely committed to realising the benefits of sharing information, as an essential part of improving outcomes for patients.
Officials had planned to harvest the details of every patient in the country unless they specifically opted-out, by making a request to their GP.
But the vast majority of the public had no idea that the scheme was about to go ahead and campaigners suspected officials were deliberately keeping them in the dark.
Some GPs were so opposed to the scheme they opted-out all patients on their lists, only to be told by NHS bosses they may lose their jobs.
The NHS has so far spent 8 million on the scheme even though it was never properly launched and this money has all been wasted.
As part of her review, Dame Fiona made a series of recommendations to protect patients private information and maintain their trust.
Officials planned to upload patient files onto a giant database where it would be analysed by researchers and private firms, in the hope of improving care. But campaigners feared sensitive data would be leaked
Crucially, this included obtaining their permission before passing details on to other NHS trusts, academics or private firms.
She said: My recommendations centre on trust.
Building public trust for the use of health and care data means giving people confidence that their private information is kept secure and used in their interests.
Citizens have a right to know how their data is safeguarded. They should be included in conversations about the potential benefits that responsible use of their information can bring.
They must be offered a clear choice about whether they want to allow their information to be part of this.
Although this particular scheme has been scrapped, the NHS is already passing on patients personal details to private firms without their consent.
In May, one of the largest hospitals in the country the Royal Free in North London admitted to giving Google the files of up to 1.6 million patients.
The trust said the internet search engine needed the information to help develop an app to monitor patients at risk of kidney infection.
But not one of the patients was asked beforehand and experts feared the arrangement would set a precedent.
The Government believes that the information contained in patients medical files could be used to identify poor care, spot trends in diseases and potentially unlock new cures.
Water and sweat resistance was the most common factor missed out on
Most of the product reviews focused on their smell not their SPF factor
Your sunscreen may smell nice, feel smooth, and have stellar reviews on Amazon.
But a new study warns some of the most popular creams do not meet all the guidelines recommended by the American Academy of Dermatology.
The AAD stipulates that sunscreen meet three basic criteria: protects against UVA and UVB rays, has an SPF above 30, and is water-resistant.
However, a study carried out at Chicagos Northwestern University found consumers seem more concerned with cosmetic factors when writing their highly-influential reviews of the product online.
And worryingly, 40 per cent of the top rated sunscreens fall short of the AADs criteria.
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Not all the same: Some of the best-rated products don't meet federal guidelines, a study has found. Aveeno's SPF 15 moisturizer (left) is highly-rated but falls short. However, L'Oreal's SPF 50 is highly-rated and delivers
While Neutrogena's highly popular oil-free moisturizer (left) does not provide adequate water resistance, the brand's equally popular face & body stick sunscreen SPF 70 (right) meets all AAD guidelines, the study says
Dr. Steve Xu, a dermatology resident at Northwestern, analyzed the top-rated one per cent of Amazon.coms 6,500 sunscreens.
All of the 65 products he tested had a minimum rating of four stars out of five, with a minimum of 150 reviews.
Twenty-six of those products failed to meet the three criteria.
Water and sweat resistance were the most common factors brands failed to deliver on.
The most-reviewed product on Amazon, which is also one of the best rated, EltaMD UV Clear SPF 46, did not meet the AADs criteria.
Despite getting an average 4.4-star rating among 1,792 reviews, the product is not water resistant. It is also one of the most costly, at $13.38.
Another highly-rated product - Blue Lizard Australian Sunscreen, Sensitive SPF 30+ - fell short due to lack of water resistance, despite earning a 4.5-star rating.
Worringly, one of the most popular products on the site is Zinc oxide powder, an alternative form of protection that does not have any registered sun protective factor.
It is cheap, at $1.35 per ounce, and has an astonishing 4.9-star rating. But it falls short on all three of the AADs basic requirements.
Neutrogena Sunscreen Ultra Sheer Stick SPF 70 is one of the best ones on the list, according to Dr Xus study, meeting all requirements.
FIVE THAT DO MEET CRITERIA 1. Neutrogena Sunscreen Ultra Sheer Stick SPF 70 2. L'Oreal Paris Sublime Sun Advanced Sunscreen SPF 30 Crystal Clear Mist 3. Thinksport SPF 50 Plus Sunscreen 4. EltaMD SPF 50 UV Sport Water-resistant Sunscreen 5. Australian Gold SPF 30 Spray Gel Advertisement
...AND FIVE THAT DON'T 1. Eucerin Daily Protection Moisturizing Face Lotion 2. Blue Lizard Australian Sunscreen, Sensitive SPF 30+ 3. Neutrogena Oil Free Moisture SPF 35 4. Aveeno Active Naturals Ultra Calming Daily Moisturizer, SPF 15, 4 Ounce 5. EltaMD UV Clear SPF 46 Advertisement
Eucerin Daily Protection Moisturizing Face Lotion (left) does not meet AAD criteria. Thinksport SPF 50 Plus Sunscreen (right) does
Blue Lizard Australian Sunscreen, Sensitive SPF 30+ (left) was not deemed adequate by the study. Whereas EltaMD SPF 50 UV Sport Water-resistant Sunscreen (right) meets all AAD criteria
However, Neutrogenas roll-on Oil Free Moisture SPF 35 did not make the grade.
Reflecting on his findings, Dr Xu told Daily Mail Online that it is as important for medical professionals as consumers.
As dermatologists, one of the most important questions we get asked is what sunscreen should I be using? he said.
Oftentimes we dont understand exactly what our patients really like about these products. I can recommend a high SPF but it might not be the nicest smell or smoothest feeling.
The importance of sunscreen cannot be understated.
So it is important that we understand the different factors that patients want so we can give them different options if youre looking for something cheap, Id recommend this, or this one is popular because of its smell and it meets AAD criteria.
When you're trying to conceive a baby, timing is crucial.
But women are best off not telling their partner they are at their most fertile day of the month because this can cause him 'performance anxiety', a leading fertility expert has warned.
Allan Pacey, professor of andrology at Sheffield University, said many women track their fertility across the month on apps and spreadsheets to calculate the ideal 24-hour window to conceive.
Couples should not plan when to have sex as this could lead to performance anxiety, according to Allan Pacey, professor of andrology at Sheffield University
Others use gadgets that can test hormone levels, and monitor temperature.
But he said too much planning can kill the mood for many couples and put the man off sex which may lower the chances the woman will become pregnant.
Professor Pacey said: 'One of the biggest issues, I think, is men suffering from performance anxiety, or just being turned off, when women are fixated on a time or a date, a day or night which she has decided is the best time to try [for a baby].
'There's no problem with women using data if it helps them plan things better, but you don't want to undo that benefit by sharing too much of that with him, and risk putting him off.' Speaking at the annual meeting of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology, in Helsinki, Finland, he added: 'The single biggest idea I hear when couples are talking is that they have got to monitor ovulation and they've got to save it up.
'So you have a disconnection between couples, where the man is told you can't ejaculate for a fortnight because, two weeks on Tuesday, she reckons she is going to ovulate. The next thing that happens is he's at work, all stressed and she sends him a text saying, 'You've got to come home now.'
'He gets wound up in the traffic, he bursts through the door and she's on him like a panther, and it just is not conducive to healthy relationships and he's not allowed to have a drink in all this either.'
Research presented at the meeting showed that couples who undergo IVF suffer a marked deterioration of quality in their sex life
Professor Pacey continued: 'So what I say in all the talks that I give is, 'Ladies you are far cleverer than that. Buy your kit from Boots, plan your evening, but just don't tell him about it. Get him home. Curry on. Beer. Then jump on him and you'll get what you want and he won't know any different.' He said 'beer and curry' were optional, adding: 'It's whatever tickles his fancy.'
Professor Pacey continued: 'I think this whole fixation on sex frequency and positions and vitamins and ovulation detection just causes strain and strife.'
Other research presented at the meeting showed that couples who undergo IVF suffer a marked deterioration of quality in their sex life.
The researchers, who interviewed 132 women and 60 men, said frequency of sex decreased in 46 per cent of couples while sexual desire fell in 20 per cent.
Breast implants were once again at the centre of a safety scare last night after health watchdogs said there was a clear link between them and cancer.
The warning was issued by the French medicines regulatory agency, which has given manufacturers 12 months to prove their products are safe or face having them banned.
British plastic surgeons urged women to be vigilant for signs of the disease and the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said it was analysing the French data.
However, the British agency stressed that the link with cancer has not been confirmed.
UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said it was analysing the French data about breast implants and their links to cancer
The alert will alarm many of the 29,000 women in the UK who have breast implants each year.
It also raises concerns about the regulation of the multi-billion-pound cosmetic surgery industry, which is still reeling from a scandal in which one type of implant made by the French firm PIP was found to be filled with industrial-grade silicone meant for use in mattresses.
The latest fears apply to implants more generally and surround a blood cancer called anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL).
It occurs when diseased white blood cells multiply rapidly, building up in the neck, armpit or groin. The cancer grows quickly and, while it is often easily treated with chemotherapy, it can kill.
There are fears that it can be triggered by bugs that cling to implants, meaning that women who have had breast enlargement surgery are at higher risk of it than usual.
It usually develops after women have had the implants for several years, with the main symptom a painless swelling of the breast.
There have been an estimated 250 cases in women with breast implants worldwide, including 18 in France, and eight deaths.
While admitting occurrences of the illness are rare, Frances National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety said there is a clear link with implants and called for more research and better warnings.
It added there have been shortcomings in data provided by manufacturers and has ordered those that sell implants in France to demonstrate the safety of their products within 12 months. If they do not, they risk having their implants removed from the market.
The agency said all data obtained would be shared with other European health authorities as part of a wide-ranging action plan.
In a recent statement, its US counterpart, the Food and Drug Administration, said: All of the information to date suggests that women with breast implants may have a very low but increased risk of developing ALCL.
Britains watchdog the MHRA said: We are currently analysing the [French] findings but it is important to state that we do not see the same trend in the UK.
Anaplastic large cell lymphoma is a very rare tumour in the breast, which is believed to have an incidence of between one in 300,000 and one in a million.
Although a cause and effect relationship has not been established, a very low number of cases of ALCL have been reported in women in the UK who have had breast implants and we wish to continue to monitor carefully.
British surgeons said women with implants should look out for signs of the disease while carrying out regular checks on their breasts.
Rajiv Grover, past president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, said it is important women are made aware of the link, but normal breast cancer is 40,000 times more common.
The surging demand for breast implants is among factors leading to a boom in the UKs plastic surgery market. According to the BAAPS, the value of the industry grew from 720million in 2005 to 2.3billion by 2010, the latest figures available.
The number of breast implants was 17,000 in 2006, compared with an expected 29,000 this year.
Viral hepatitis has become one of the leading causes of death and disability across the world, new research today reveals.
The disease kills at least as many people each year, as TB, malaria or HIV/AIDS, experts warned.
Viral hepatitis exists in five forms - A, B, C, D and E.
It is transmitted via bodily fluids, or, in the case of A and E, through food or drink contaminated with faeces.
Scientists at Imperial College London and the University of Washington examined data from 183 countries collected between 1990 and 2013.
Viral hepatitis has become one of the leading causes of death and disability across the world, new research today reveals. The disease kills at least as many people each year, as TB, malaria or HIV/AIDS, experts warned. Pictured, hepatitis B illustrated in the blood stream
A majority of the deaths - 96 per cent - were due to hepatitis B and C which cause liver damage (cirrhosis), and liver cancer.
Symptoms include fatigue, jaundice and nausea, however in many people the infection is symptom-less - and so an individual may not know they are infected until they develop serious complications.
The researchers, who published their findings in journal The Lancet, found that viral hepatitis deaths increased by 63 per cent over the 23-year period.
The study, which was co-led by scientists at the University of Washington, found deaths from viral hepatitis were higher in high and middle-income countries than lower income countries.
The authors say the overall disease burden is now more evenly divided between higher and lower income nations.
The team say we now urgently need international measures to address this crisis.
Dr Graham Cooke, from the Department of Medicine at Imperial, who led the research at Imperial said: 'This is the most comprehensive analysis to date of the global burden of viral hepatitis.
Although there are effective treatments and vaccines for viral hepatitis, there is very little money invested in getting these to patients
'And it reveals startling findings - showing the death toll from this condition is now 1.45 million.
'Whereas deaths from many infectious diseases - such as TB and malaria - have dropped since 1990, viral hepatitis deaths have risen.'
Dr Cooke added: 'Although there are effective treatments and vaccines for viral hepatitis, there is very little money invested in getting these to patients - especially compared to malaria, HIV/AIDS and TB.
'We now have a viral hepatitis global action plan approved in May by the World Health Assembly, and we now need to implement it.'
In the study, the team analysed data from the Global Burden of Disease study - an ongoing project that collects data from around the globe.
The researchers assessed deaths from the four major viruses - A, B, C and E (hepatitis D only infects people already infected with hepatitis B).
The researchers found deaths from acute infection, cirrhosis and liver disease caused by viral hepatitis had increased by 63 per cent from 890,000 in 1990 to 1.45 million in 2013.
By comparison, in 2013, 1.3 million people worldwide died from AIDS, 1.4 million from TB, and 855,000 from malaria, according to a 2015 study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
In the current study, most hepatitis deaths were found to occur in East Asia, and the majority of global deaths were due to hepatitis B and C.
One potential reason for the high number of deaths from hepatitis B and C, explained Dr Cooke, is these strains cause long-term infections with very few immediate symptoms.
They can therefore progress silently until they trigger serious liver damage or cancer.
He added: 'Although we have had an effective hepatitis B vaccine for some years, there is still a large proportion of the world which is unvaccinated.
'We have no similar vaccine for hepatitis C.'
In addition to hepatitis-related deaths, the researchers estimated years of life lost.
This is calculated by subtracting the age at death from the longest possible life expectancy for a person at that age.
The team found that years of life lost in 2013 exceeded 41 million.
deaths from acute infection, cirrhosis and liver disease caused by viral hepatitis had increased by 63 per cent from 890,000 in 1990 to 1.45 million in 2013. By comparison, in 2013, 1.3 million people worldwide died from AIDS, 1.4 million from TB, and 855,000 from malaria
Furthermore, there were more than 870,000 years in which people lived with disabilities related to hepatitis.
Assistant Professor Jeff Stanaway, from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, explained that viral hepatitis is unusual amongst leading communicable diseases because it is evenly divided between higher and lower income nations.
He said: 'We explored the relationship between the burden of viral hepatitis and economic status.
'Viral hepatitis has consistently been ranked as a leading cause of mortality in upper-middle income countries, but a relative rise in mortality in lower-middle income countries has been associated with a narrowing in the rankings by 2013.
'Our results suggest that an evolution in funding structures is required to accommodate viral hepatitis and allow effective responses in low and low-to-middle middle income countries.'
Dr Cooke added: 'We have tools at our disposal to treat this disease - we have vaccines to hepatitis A and B, and we have new treatments to C.
'However the price of new medicines is beyond the reach of any country - rich or poor.
In common with other newspapers, we carried an agency report on June 6 which said that great-grandmother Joyce Wathes had queued for a log flume ride at Drayton Manor only to be told she could not go on it for health and safety reasons.
We have been asked to make clear that in fact the family were made aware of the restrictions in advance of their trip and that Mrs Wathes did not queue for the ride.
If you wish to report an inaccuracy, please email corrections@dailymail.co.uk.
To make a formal complaint under IPSO rules please go to www.dailymail.co.uk/readerseditor where you will find an easy-to-use complaints form.
Every year, senior leaders from across the political spectrum throw iftar parties to mark the breaking of the fast, at the time of the call to prayer.
Over the years these iftar parties allow friends and foes to come together and take stock of the ever-changing political landscape.
This years iftar season has been no different, and even saw Lalu Prasad Yadav making a clever move to bring Nitish Kumar and Jitan Ram Manjhi back together.
At his iftar, Lalu (left) played the perfect peacemaker by seating Manjhi (centre) between himself and Nitish
The RJD president attended Manjhis iftar along with his minister son, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, the other day, where they talked about his old association with the Hindustani Awam Morcha founder.
Manjhi reciprocated the gesture two days later by attending the RJDs iftar, where he came face to face with Nitish.
The pair had not been on speaking terms since Nitish ousted Manjhi as chief minister over controversial remarks he made in February last year.
However Lalus bash has helped the pair thaw their once-frosty relationship.
Lalu played the perfect peacemaker by making Manjhi sit between Nitish and him to ease the palpable tension between them.
Lalu has since called for Manjhi's inclusion in the Narendra Modi government in the place of Lok Janshakti Party president Ram Vilas Paswan.
CM Nitish Kumar had not been on speaking terms with Jitan Ram Manjhi before the iftar
This has raised the hackles of the BJP leaders, who have accused the RJD president of trying to divide the National Democratic Alliance.
In the run-up to the 2015 state assembly elections, Lalu was initially opposed to the removal of Manjhi by the JD(U), and had tried his best to sort out their differences.
He realised that replacing the mahadalit chief minister with Nitish would send the wrong signal to the underprivileged communities at large.
He made fervent appeals to Manjhi not to forge an alliance with the BJP, but to no avail.
Manjhi has been firing salvos at the Grand Alliance leaders since then, but the latest gesture by Lalu to bring him face-to-face with Nitish at an informal gathering is being seen as a considered move to pave the way for the Mahadalit leaders return to the secular front.
Lalu has been trying to unite all anti-BJP parties on a common platform.
Even though Manjhis outfit had performed disastrously in the assembly polls last year, he cannot be considered to be a spent force given his new-found popularity among the Dalits in Bihar.
Since Janshakti Party president Ram Vilas Paswan broke off his ties with the RJD and joined the NDA, Lalu has been on the lookout for a Dalit leader to fill the void. Manjhi apparently fits into his scheme of things.
Though the Janata Dal-United has ruled out the possibility of Manjhis return to the party, saying he had stabbed Nitish in the back after being selected as the chief minister, the Mahadalit leader feels that Lalu and Nitish can mend broken fences.
He also acknowledges Nitishs greatness in making him the chief minister in the same breath.
As an ally, Manjhi may not have been able to win more than one seat for the NDA in the last assembly polls - but he had turned a sizeable section of mahadalit voters against the Grand Alliance.
Moreover, he remains one of the few NDA leaders from the state who has the experience to take on Lalu and Nitish with gusto and chutzpah.
It would therefore be unwise to write him off on the basis of his partys performance in one election.
The HAM president had managed to carve out a niche as a formidable Mahadalit leader during his nine-month-long tenure.
It is probably this realisation that prompted Lalu to build bridges with Manjhi and leave the door of the Grand Alliance ajar for his return.
The BJP needs to keep a close watch on the growing bonhomie between Lalu and Manjhi.
'Topper-gate' girl moved from central jail to remand home
Ruby Rai is believed to have fraudulently 'topped' the Bihar BSEB exam this year
After spending several days in Beur central jail, Ruby Rai, the "fall girl" in Bihars infamous topper-gate scam, will now be shifted to a remand home in Patna.
Since the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) scam had not produced her age certificate in court after her arrest, she was sent to jail, though she was stated to be a minor on the basis of her matriculation certificate.
This caused outrage among child rights activists, who believe that Ruby did not deserve to be lodged in an adult prison.
Ruby had topped the Intermediate Arts examination conducted by the BSEB this year, before her merit came into question due to her inability to answer simple questions in a television interview.
For instance, she had referred to political science as prodigal science and believed it to be a subject related to the art of cookery.
Her result was subsequently cancelled when she failed to pass a re-test recently.
Many believe that Ruby, a simple village girl, had little idea of the alleged conspiracy underway to have her pass the examination at such a high level, and by fraudulent means.
Filmmakers offered Rs 3 crore to film in Bihar
The Bihar State Film Development and Finance Corporation Ltd (BSFDFCL) has waited a long time for a boost to its regional cinema industry.
But now, things appear to be looking up.
The corporation has offered filmmakers a subsidy of Rs 3 crore to promote Bihar as a possible shooting destination.
It has also taken steps to set up a film city in the picturesque town of Rajgir in Nalanda district.
Bollywood actor Priyanka Chopra co-producing a Bhojpuri film was a major boost for The Bihar State Film Development and Finance Corporation
The corporation has launched a programme called Coffee with Cinema, during which an acclaimed movie is shown in the open-air theatre on the last Friday of every month at a heritage building near Golghar.
The corporation was also boosted by Bollywood actor Priyanka Chopra co-producing a Bhojpuri film.
The Jammu and Kashmir government on Tuesday approved the withdrawal of 104 cases of stone-throwing against police and paramilitary forces, involving 634 people.
The decision was taken a day after Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti called for faster reviews of cases where young people were booked for stone-throwing.
In the first phase, 104 cases registered against 634 people during Omar Abdullahs six-year-rule will be withdrawn.
Intervention: Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had called for faster reviews of cases where young people were booked for stone-throwing
However, the parents of the accused, and the accused youths themselves, will have to give an undertaking that they will not indulge in any such activities in future.
The decision was taken after a high-level committee headed by the DGP of the state submitted its recommendations to the Chief Minister, who also holds the charge of Home Department.
The committee proposed that the cases from 2008 to 2014 should be segregated and recommended for withdrawal in a phased manner.
The committee has been given a mandate to review the cases registered against young people for stone-pelting from 2008 to 2014, when Omar Abdullah was ruling the state as chief minister.
Arvind Kejriwals Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar can be charged with cheating and forgery over the suspicious awarding of Delhi government contracts between 2007 and 2015, the CBI has argued.
Seeking custody of Kumar and four others, including Deputy Secretary Tarun Sharma, the agency told a Delhi Court it has evidence to press new charges, over and above the earlier allegations of corruption.
The court has ordered a five-day remand for all five accused.
The CBI has told a Delhi Court that Arvind Kejriwals Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar (centre) can be charged with cheating and forgery in the awarding of Delhi government contracts
The CBI told the court that Kumars arrest was triggered by charges that he tried to intimidate and influence witnesses.
The agency has registered a case naming him as an accused, stating that he awarded undue favours to win contracts for the Delhi government.
The agency further alleged that there was a nexus among the arrested men, and that Kumar was well acquainted with all of them.
Observing that the money trail has to be ascertained, the CBI said it has the audio tapes of conversations between Kumar and other accused people.
Opposing the application for CBI remand, senior advocate Mohit Mathur, who appeared for Kumar, said no ground has been mentioned in the agencys plea which reflects that the CBI remand was required.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar was originally charged with corruption, but that charge has now been upgraded to cheating and forgery
He said there was no paper on record suggesting that his client had any relationship with the others arrested.
Mathur also argued that there was no allegation against Kumar for causing wrongful loss to anybody.
Senior advocate Ramesh Gupta, who appeared for Sharma, said his client had cooperated in the probe and there were no grounds to arrest him.
Similarly, the other three accused said they had also participated in the investigation and hence there was no need to arrest them.
Dinesh Gupta, who is one of the accused, alleged during the hearing that he was beaten black and blue and is being pressured by the investigation agency to become an approver, or face dire consequences.
The charges pressed by the CBI are under Sections 120- B of IPC (criminal conspiracy), and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act relating to criminal misconduct for allegedly favouring a private company in bagging five contracts.
The clock kept ticking toward decision day for Gov. Tom Wolf on budget legislation that lacks the money to finance it as negotiators stayed quiet Wednesday about their private discussions.
The Capitol was empty, Pennsylvanias Republican-controlled Legislature wasnt in session again and few, if any, lawmakers were in the building.
Wolf stayed out of sight, while his press secretary said there is still time and hope to reach an agreement with lawmakers on a revenue package that can fill a $1 billion-plus hole in the states deficit-riddled budget plan.
I still think we have time to reach agreement and that is our hope, press secretary Jeff Sheridan said Wednesday.
Under discussion are higher taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products, a huge expansion of casino-style gambling, increasing taxes on banks and extending the states 6 percent sales tax to digital downloads.
Wednesday was the sixth day without state spending authorization in place for the 2016-17 fiscal year, and Wolf could be left with the decision to veto hundreds of millions of dollars in spending items before signing budget legislation.
The absence of a budget as the new fiscal year began was not expected to have an immediate effect on services because agencies can tap surpluses and special funds.
Senators were told that they would not be in session Thursday or Friday, and a weekend session remained a possibility, Senate GOP majority spokeswoman Jennifer Kocher said.
Were getting closer and closer, Kocher said of negotiations.
On Wolfs desk is the main appropriations bill in a $31.5 billion budget package approved by lawmakers last week. But Wolf has said he would not sign it without sustainable revenues to fund it, and part of the package spending bills authorizing nearly $600 million for Penn State, Temple, Pitt, Lincoln and Penn were still pending in the House.
Wolf has until midnight Monday to make a decision on it before it becomes law without his signature.
On Wednesday, Sheridan said the governor had not decided how to handle the budget bill. Should no revenue package make it through the Legislature before Monday night, Wolf could be left to veto hundreds of millions of dollars from the main appropriations bill to ensure it balances.
The gambling legislation that passed the House last week would make Pennsylvania the fourth state to legalize internet gambling, while negotiators have released no specifics on how high taxes would rise on tobacco products, including cigarettes.
Republicans have all but killed any election-year consideration of increasing taxes on income, sales or Marcellus Shale natural gas production.
Right-wing Muslim group the Muslim Rashtriya Manch (MRM), which has liaised with the pro-Hindutva RSS of late, has raised a controversy amid the Eid celebrations.
The MRM has alleged that Jammu and Kashmir and Kerala celebrated Eid-ul-Fitr on July 6, a day before the rest of India would mark the end of Ramzan, in order to coincide with celebrations in neighbouring Pakistan.
The concept of Eid is that it will not be observed until the moon is sighted. If Eid has to be celebrated after 29 days of Ramzan then the sighting of the crescent is necessary. Otherwise, if we observe a 30- day roza then the sighting is not necessary, said MRM national coordinator Mohammad Afzal.
Pictured: Muslims offer Eid-ul-Fitr prayers at a mosque in Karachi, Pakistan. Members of the right-wing Muslim Rashtriya Manch have accused some Indian states of deliberately knocking a day off Ramzan to coincide with celebrations in Pakistan.
Date controversy: Kashmiri Muslim women offer Eid al-Fitr prayers in Srinagar, in J&K
This Ramzan began on June 7 across India, therefore Eid should have been celebrated throughout the country, but no. Muslims in Kerala and Jammu and Kashmir celebrated Eid today, on Wednesday, when the festival was being marked in Pakistan, he added.
Meanwhile, a Muslim cleric who did not want to be named defended the two states launching their Eid celebrations, saying Muslims in these places had started roza a day in advance, and thus celebrated Eid on July 6.
The MRM accused the political and religious leadership in these states of having misled the entire community, as it alleged that the move had been made for political reasons.
We believe that certain Muslim leadership in these states have misled the Muslim community and have un-Islamically tried to delete one roza from the holy calendar of Muslims, which is a serious crime. This has been done under political motivations and the political leadership of these states is equally to blame, said Afzal.
After the arrests of the Islamic State (ISIS) terror suspects in Hyderabad, an Indian daily wrote in its editorial of July 1: Though security agencies have provided counselling to de-radicalise many such suspects in the past, the internet remains the biggest source of indoctrination for Muslim youth suffering from a feeling of persecution.
But while the internet has indeed emerged as a possible conveyor of jihadist content, it is not the primary source of radicalisation.
Noted social reformer Sultan Shahin has pointed out that nearly a century ago, when there was no internet, about 18,000 Muslims left their homes and jobs in India to fight for the Ottoman Caliphate in Turkey.
A Dhaka cafe popular with foreigners was recently attacked by Jihadist extremists
Persecution
The feelings of persecution, siege mentality and exclusion from the mainstream among Indian Muslims are created not by the internet, but by a section of Islamic clerics and Urdu publications. The same goes for intellectual environments that nurture jihadist attitudes.
Lets examine how the Urdu dailies are doing this. On June 23, several Urdu dailies in India celebrated Ghazwa-e-Badr, the first war of Islam against Kufr (unbelief) led by Prophet Muhammad on the 17th of Ramzan in the second year of Hijri, corresponding to 13 March 624 CE.
Since the 17th of Ramzan fell on June 23, Roznama Sangam, an Urdu daily published from Patna, wrote an editorial praising Ghazwa-e-Badr (the Battle of Badr).
This is the great memorable day when the first decisive war between Islam and Kufr (unbelief) was fought, it noted, and reminded its readers that a handful of 313 Muslims forced the army of the infidels of Mecca to lick dust in the field of Badr. This first battle is the point of the beginning of the philosophy of jihad.
It observed: 1,400 years have passed since the War of Badr but its memory refreshes the faith and belief of Muslims even today.
Pictured: Omar Mateen, who butchered innocent men and women at a gay club in Orlando. After the shooting, Urdu newspaper Roznama Sahafat published an article which called it a conspiracy to make Donald Trump the US President.
Roznama Sahafat - an Urdu newspaper published from Lucknow, Delhi and Mumbai - carried a half-page article in praise of Ghazwa-e-Badr by Allama Pir Muhammad Tabassum Bashir Owaisi.
Among the most objectionable points, the author cited Islamic jurists as arguing that for Muslims the most legitimate halal source of income is maal-e-ghanimat (goods seized from non-Muslims), followed by profits from trade, followed by profits from farming, followed by income from work done by ones own hand - the last being the lowest in importance.
While the Prophet Muhammad was fighting against the Meccans, partially in response to their mistreatment of Muslims, Allama Pir Muhammad Tabassum Bashir Owaisi nevertheless argued that fighting against non-Muslims is mandated by Allah.
He observed: Otherwise too, the infidels are enemies of Allah and their properties are Halal (permissible as per Shariah) for Allahs friends, in other words, for Muslims.
To radicalise Muslims, he wrote an Urdu couplet: Create the environment of Badr, because the angels for your aid will come down, in rows after rows even now.
Influential
Roznama Inquilab, an Urdu newspaper influential in Maharashtra, also published an article to celebrate Ghazwa-e-Badr. The article, written by Kamran Ghani Saba, preached jihad and suicide attacks. It justified fighting against family members to advance the cause of Islam.
Saba noted that Muslims fought against extremely close relatives at the Battle of Badr.
Praising the spirit of jihad, the writer noted an incident in which a companion of the Prophet, Umar bin Jam, was eating dates when he heard the Prophets call to fight and plunged headlong into a suicide mission, saying to himself: Wow, wow, between me and paradise, the only time (left to elapse is the period before) they kill me.
Conspiracy
After the June 12 shooting at the gay club in Orlando, Roznama Sahafat of June 22 published an article which argued the attack was a conspiracy to make Donald Trump the US President, and said the American intelligence agencies carried out the attacks on 9/11.
Delhi-based Urdu weekly Nai Duniya of June 27-July 3 argued that Mir Siddiqui, the father of Omar Mateen, the shooter, is a CIA agent because he ran a YouTube channel.
Ordinary Indians know that a YouTube channel can be opened by anyone with a smartphone.
In its issue of May 25-31, 2015, Nai Duniya justified the killing of 700-900 Jews of Banu Quraiza, despite that they had surrendered, offering to leave behind their properties.
When Hindu groups began ghar wapsi (reconversion) programmes, the Mumbai-based Urdu Times of December 26, 2014 wrote that apostates (Muslims leaving Islam) should be beheaded.
It noted: The first interpreter of the Quran, Prophet Muhammad, has clearly ordered the killing of a person becoming apostate.
While social media can certainly be misused, the time has come to recognise the offline problem and stop blaming the internet for the radicalisation of Muslims.
The writer is Director of South Asia Studies Project at the Middle East Media Research Institute, Washington DC.
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An arrested member of al Qaedas India wing has been in touch with Pakistani jihadi outfits since the mid-1990s, and was aware of Jaish-e-Mohammeds plan to free terrorist leader Maulana Masood Azhar from jail, a Delhi Police charge-sheet says.
The operative, Mohammed Abdul Rehman, was told by a Pakistani terrorist in 1999 that 10 JeM members were in Nepal, ready to strike to secure Azhars release.
Days later, the Indian Airlines flight IC 814 was hijacked from Nepals Kathmandu city and taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan.
In 1999, Mohammed Abdul Rehman, one of the arrested members of a busted al Qaeda module, got hints from a Pakistani terrorist about the Jaish-e-Mohammed strike on Indian Airlines flight IC-814. (Pictured: Taliban militia ride towards the hijacked Indian Airlines plane at Kandahar airport.)
The Indian government was forced to swap the JeM boss with the passengers who had been taken hostage.
Intelligence agencies remained clueless about Rehman and several others like him, who had a free run for nearly two decades. Giving Indian sleuths the slip, they travelled to Pakistan for terror training, returned, and got involved in radicalising and influencing youths for jihad.
Some of them also played host to Pakistani extremists who had come to carry out strikes.
The syndicate was finally busted last year. While five of those involved are in custody, 12 are still on the run. Sources say many of them may be running other al Qaeda sleeper cells, while some are suspected to be in Pakistan and Afghanistan - including Sana Ul Haq, the modules leader.
The reports come in the same week that al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) urged Indian Muslims to carry out lone wolf attacks to kill government and security officials.
The AQIS is trying to attract South Asian youths while competing with Islamic State, which claimed last weeks deadly attack on a restaurant in Bangladesh.
Members of al Qaedas India wing had been in touch with Pakistani terror outfits since the mid-1990s, the police charge-sheet reveals. (Picture for representation.)
The charge-sheet filed by Delhi Police last month on the suspected AQIS cell reveals that the members were veterans who attended terror training in Pakistan and were indoctrinated to carry out jihad.
Indian agencies went into a frenzy in April 2014 when al Qaeda announced its mission to spread its network in India, and planned a massive recruitment drive across the country.
A video showing the groups top leader Ayman Al Zawahiri urging the outfit to expand its fight to India, Myanmar, and Bangladesh shook the security establishment, prompting the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to sound a countrywide alert that led to the busting of the terror ring in December 2015.
The charge-sheet says Rehman completed a PhD in Uttar Pradeshs Deoband city in 1994, in Arabic and Hadees. He then started giving lectures on jihad, and was in touch with terrorists from across the border.
He was arrested once in Cuttack in 2001 for getting into a quarrel, but escaped the police since there was no record of his terror activities.
In 2015, he visited Pakistan, was assisted by an ISI agent, and met 26/11 Mumbai attack plotters Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Hafiz Saeed.
During his discussions, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi enquired about the conditions of Muslims in India including Muzaffarnagar, UP, and motivated him to lead jihad against the Indian government and State. Zaki-ur-Rehman had told him that it was the right time for Ghazwatul Hind (The War on India), says the document.
The charge-sheet also mentions that a Pakistani terrorist, Salim, who got in touch with Rehman in the 1990s, dropped hints about the IC-814 hijack.
Salim told him that he had been sent to India to take revenge of Babri Masjid demolition and was planning an attack in Ayodhya. Rehmans brother Tahir assisted Salim for recce of Ayodhya and other places in India, the document reads.
Blue-blooded private bankers Hoare & Co, Britains oldest bank, has appointed former Treasury boffin, Sir Nicholas Macpherson, as its new chairman.
Tousled Sir Nicholas, 57, succeeds another retired Sir Humphrey, Lord Wilson, in October.
Havent crafty Whitehall officials done well out the City?
Combustible ex-Treasury minister Baroness Vadera, 54, aka Shriti the Shriek, is chairman of Santander where she receives 650,000 a year.
Sir John Majors dry biscuit adviser Lord Blackwell, 63, pockets 700,000 as chairman of Lloyds. Another Treasury mandarin, bookish Sir John Kingman, 47, recently took up the 340,000 chairmanship of Legal & General.
Former Barclays director Andrea Leadsoms Prime Ministerial bid remains dogged by claims her City CV is over-egged.
Talking up her qualifications on Newsnight, campaign manager Tim Loughton said: Shes widely respected.
'She was highly involved in the financial crisis in 2008 working alongside [Bank of England Governor] Eddie George.
Really? Lord (Mervyn) King was governor in 2008, so thats cobblers. Ex-fund manager Loughton is confusing Leadsoms claim to have advised George during Barings Banks collapse in 1995.
But since convivial, chain-smoking Steady Eddie is sadly no longer with us, we may have to take her word for it.
Argos owner Home Retail Group spent a ludicrous 2million on public relations during its 1.4billion takeover by Sainsburys, after being advised by city spinners Finsbury.
Sainsburys spent 600,000 with rival firm Brunswick. Talk about money for old rope. Wonder what the 600-odd staff Sainsburys are now preparing to lay-off make of it all?
Update on Topshop tycoon Sir Philip Greens yet-to-be delivered 100million yacht, Lionheart, which I reported remains moored in the Italian port of Livorno.
A reader enjoying a cruise spied the sprawling monstrosity from his cabin window yesterday.
Several engineers were moping about on board, taking it for a brief chug around the harbour. Meanwhile, Green, 64, was spotted in Jersey this week, casually perusing a BHS window display.
Tough-talking health club mogul and Dragons Den judge Duncan Bannatyne, 67, whose miraculously bristled thatch is the result of a painful, strand-by-strand hair transplant, shares a picture on Twitter of him scuba diving in Ibiza.
Thousands of investors were trapped in a growing range commercial property funds today after three more investment giants suspended trading.
In scenes reminiscent of the financial crisis, when retail investors were also locked into commercial property investment vehicles, Henderson Global Investors, Canada Life, and Threadneedle brought the number of asset managers to take this step to six in the wake of Brexit panic.
As the vote has seen investors rushing to pull money out of commercial property, M&G Investments, Aviva and Standard Life Investments were the first to lock investors into their funds.
Together the six funds are worth more than 14billion.
Henderson Global Investors, Canada Life, and Threadneedle brought the number of asset managers to take this step to six in the wake of Brexit panic.
Their suspension has fuelled investor jitters over the fallout from Brexit, sending the FTSE 100 Index tumbling by around 1.6 per cent, and sparking hefty share falls among housebuilders.
Markets were also sharply lower across Europe and on Wall Street as the post-Brexit vote relief rally ground to an abrupt halt.
Henderson said it halted dealing in its 3.9billion Henderson UK Property PAIF & Henderson UK Property PAIF Feeder Fund due to 'exceptional' pressures on liquidity - meaning it did not have cash to repay investors, as funds are tied up in commercial properties.
Investors are now restricted from buying or selling shares in the funds.
It said: 'The portfolio remains well positioned in core properties with high quality tenants, with the managers continuing to focus on delivering an attractive income stream.'
Canada Life said it suspended dealing in four property funds totalling 450million to 'protect the interests of all investors in the property funds'.
In a statement it said: 'Following last month's vote to leave the European Union, a combination of uncertainty around the pricing of commercial property assets and the recent rise in requests to withdraw from property funds, has meant Canada Life taking the decision to immediately defer requests for withdrawals'.
Canada Life said it would be deferring requests for withdrawals from its commercial property fund from 3pm on Tuesday, for up to six months.
Threadneedle's 1.4billion UK Property fund has also been suspended.
Other firms are expected to follow suit as the investor exodus picks up.
Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown said more than half of the property fund sector was 'now on ice' and will remain that way until managers raise enough cash to meet redemptions.
'To do that they need to sell properties, and as any homeowner knows, that is not a quick or painless procedure.'
He added: 'These funds are therefore likely to be closed for weeks and months rather than simply a matter of days. Clearly there has been a knee-jerk reaction to Brexit in the commercial property sector, which may moderate over time.'
Five women say they were raped at Sweden's biggest music festival - on the same weekend as a mob of 'foreign youths' sexually assaulted 35 females, one as young as 12 at another concert.
Alleged victims at the Bravalla music festival told police groups of men attacked them while others complained that they were filmed while using the toilets.
Two teenage girls said a man carried out a sex act in front of them.
Popular: Five women say they were attacked at the Bravalla festival, the largest in Sweden, attracting some 52,000 revellers
Crowded: Police have come under fire for failing to protect festival-goers, as campaigners insist that the wristbands are not strong enough to prevent attacks
As well as reports of rape at the festival - headlined by Mumford and Sons - there was one report of attempted rape and 15 cases of sexual assault.
Two of the victims, most of whom were girls under the age of 18, said a man masturbated in front of them, while others said they had been filmed while using the toilets.
Police in Sweden have faced criticism for failing to do enough to protect the 52,000 festival goers.
Police spokesman Thomas Agnevik, who was also at the festival near to Norrkoping, said he 'understands the criticism'.
'If a crime is being committed obviously not enough has been done,' he said. 'Nobody should have to go to a concert and leave as a rape victim.'
But he added said that police are almost powerless to protect festival-goers, as most of the attacks happen among crowds of people and often after dark, making it is 'very difficult' for them to spot those responsible.
'Two of the rapes happened in front of the stage in the crowd, another was in a tent and another in the public bathroom,' he added.
Complaints: Police spokesman Thomas Agnevik, who was also at the festival near to Norrkoping, said he could 'understand the criticism'. Pictured, file image of the festival from 2015
Campaign: Police have handed out wristbands with 'Don't molest' written on them, in an attempt to crackdown on sexual assaults at festivals. Pictured, National Police Chief Dan Eliasson wearing one of the bracelets (left)
But he added: 'A handful of men have been taken in to be questioned as suspects. The victims are mostly young women under the age of 18.
'I won't comment about their background but they are young boys aged between 15 and 25.'
Two of the rapes happened in front of the stage in the crowd, another was in a tent and another in the public bathroom. Police spokesman Thomas Agnevik
Mumford and Sons said they would not play at the festival again until they receive assurances from police and organisers that they are doing something to combat 'disgustingly high' rates of reported sexual violence.
They said in a statement: 'We're appalled to hear what happened at the Bravalla Festival last weekend. Festivals are a celebration of music and people, a place to let go and feel safe doing so. We're gutted by these hideous reports.'
It comes after 35 girls aged between 12 and 17 reported being attacked at the 'Party in the Park' festival this weekend in Karlstad, Varmland County.
Some of the alleged victims reported being 'kissed and groped' in scenes similar to the Cologne New Year attacks, in which dozens of women reported being assaulted.
One victim Alexandra Larsson, 17, waived her right to anonymity to tell MailOnline she was molested on Friday night having been looking forward to attending the festival for months.
'I do not know what to think, it is so wrong. Everyone thinks it's wrong but nothing happens,' she said.
'There are large festivals with several thousand people and these mass incidents create a powerlessness for both the police, security guards and especially for visitors who become victims.
'The perpetrators will be so anonymous in the audience that they will get away with sex crimes. That is the main problem, that the perpetrators get away with it.
Trauma: One victim Alexandra Larsson (pictured) told MailOnline she was molested on Friday night having been looking forward to attending the festival for months
Challenge: Police said that many festival sex attacks happen in areas where police have limited access, such as the crowd in front of the stage and the camping areas
'It's not okay. I should be able to go to festivals and have fun like everyone else without being afraid. It is wrong, really wrong, but that's the feeling I have after yesterday. It's damn hard that ordinary people who just want to have fun should have to suffer just because someone thinks it's fun to violate.'
Swedish police launched its new campaign a week ago, in an effort to crackdown on sexual assaults at festivals.
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Many people turned to exploring local nature paths for their daily exercise when lockdown closed gyms and group sports took a hiatus amid the pandemic.
Amateur photographers who captured stunning images of animals in their natural habitat were quick to submit their snaps to Weekend magazine's annual Wildlife Photography Challenge in the hopes of winning a package worth over 1,000.
The entrants were split into five categories - Birds; Mammals; Insects; Under-18s; and Reptiles, Fish, Amphibians & Molluscs.
While each category winner received a Nikon mirrorless digital camera kit and a year's subscription to Nikon Owner magazine, the overall winner also received a trip to the Camargue with wildlife photographer Simon Stafford, courtesy of Create Away, for a four-night masterclass in photographing the region's wild horses, flamingos and bulls.
Judges David Suchet, Clare Balding, Lucy Cooke, Steve Brown, Kelly Brook and Michael Eleftheriades were impressed with Lee O'dwyer, 67, a retired engineer from Lancashire, who was awarded the overall winner for his shot of a long-tailed tit.
These runner-up snaps taken by talented amateur photographers prove choosing an overall winner was a tough decision...
BIRDS
PUFFIN: Taken by Joseph Bristow, 23, a retail supervisor from Llantwit Major. 'Arriving at 3am and queueing for the 6am ticket office to open. First in line I caught the boat over to Skomer Island. With only a few hours permitted on the island I had no time to waste. Surrounded by the Puffins was an amazing spectacle and allowed me to capture some amazing photos. I found this one puffin who seemed very tame and loved posing for the camera. As he stared down the barrel of my lens I took my shot and was pleased with the result. I found the black background really provides a provocative and striking image highlight the vibrant colour of the Puffins.'
KESTREL CHICKS: Taken by Jayne Kirkby, 20, from Braintree, Essex. 'Beautiful pair of Kestrel chicks, taken at Wrabness on 20th June 2020.'
KINGFISHER: Tim Clifton, a 59-year-old from, St Leonards on Sea, snapped this captivating photo of a kingfisher hunting for small fish
MALLARD: William Watson, 64, a semi retired HGV driver from East Dunbartonshire. 'Taken on the Forth & Clyde canal (December '19') Bishopbriggs, As I went to take this photo of this female Mallard it stretched creating a nice reflection....'
INSECTS
BUTTERFLY: Adam Lane, a 27-year-old host at Legoland, from Slough, captured a butterfly perched on a purple flower in specular detail
WASP: Shelia Moth took this captivating photo of a wasp on a thistle, capturing the insect and plant in immense detail
SPIDER: Taken by Geoffrey Wells, 67, a maintenance caretaker from North Yorkshire. 'This picture was taken in my back garden during the recent lockdown.'
REPTILES
MATING FROGS: Taken by Steve Jellett, 64, from Essex, who is retired. 'Taken in small garden pond when 21 frogs descended to mate.'
MAMMALS
ROE DEER: Tim Cliffton, a 75-year-old from St Leonards on sea, took a photograph of two roe deer spotted in a field
MOUSE: Taken by Cameron Parfitt, 20, a student at the University of Brighton, from Worthing. 'I would love to highlight that even in your back garden there are images to be had. This image is of a cheeky wood mouse that keeps stealing food from what we have now dubbed the mouse feeder. It's not unheard of for this little guy to be found inside the feeder without a care in the world stuffing himself with the bird seed.'
JUNIORS
FOX CUB: Billy Evans-Freke, 15, a secondary school student from East Sussex. 'It wasn't a long wait in the hide before the first fox cub woke up from its nap and came out into the open. It was soon followed by another cub. At first they stayed in the shadows of the bushes near the den. But once they gained their confidence they started coming closer. This cub in particular was very curious and came very close to the hide.'
A white Louisiana police officer shot and killed Alton Sterling (pictured) following a confrontation outside a Baton Rouge convenience store
A white Louisiana police officer shot and killed a black man following a confrontation outside a Baton Rouge convenience store, authorities said.
The altercation, which played out in the early hours of Tuesday, was captured on video shortly after the officers had pinned Alton Sterling to the ground.
Shocking footage - taken from inside a car just a yard away - shows Sterling being wrestled and thrown on to the ground by officers who then hold him down as he attempts to struggle.
Taser shots can be heard and the officers push Sterling's head down on to the concrete after shouting: 'He's got a gun.'
One officer then appears to draw what looks like a gun and points it at Sterling's head.
Within seconds gun shots are heard, the woman filming screams and the man next to her shouts 'Oh shit!', as more shots are heard.
The screen then goes black and a woman begins hysterically crying as the man asks her: 'They shot him? Oh my f***ing goodness.'
'They killed him! Oh my god!' wails the woman, while someone in the background simply says 'why'.
An autopsy shows Sterling, 37, of Baton Rouge, died Tuesday of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, said East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Dr. William Clark.
Scroll down for video
Shocking footage - taken from inside a car just a yard away - shows Sterling being wrestled and thrown on to the ground by officers who then hold him down as he attempts to struggle. Gun shots are then heard.
Officers responded to the store about 12:35 a.m. Tuesday after an anonymous caller indicated a man selling music CDs and wearing a red shirt threatened him with a gun, said Cpl. L'Jean McKneely.
Two officers responded and had some type of altercation with the man and one officer fatally shot the suspect, McKneely said. Both officers have been placed on administrative leave, which is standard department policy, he said.
A protest was held just hours after the fatal shooting, with crowds gathering at the site of the incident and shouting: 'Black lives matter.'
The Advocate reported a crowd of people protesting the shooting gathered late Tuesday afternoon at the store where it took place.
The group grew to over 200 people, who chanted 'black lives matter' and 'hands up don't shoot' and waved signs late into the night
Family and friends of Alton Sterling protest in the parking lot of the Triple S Food Store, in Baton Rouge, where he was shot dead
Sandra Sterling, an aunt who raised Alton Sterling after his mother died, speaks on the phone, while family and friends of his protest in the parking lot of the Triple S Food Store
Sterling's cousin Jakayla Sterling, foreground, protests. The group chanted things including 'hands up, don't shoot!'
An autopsy shows Sterling, 37, of Baton Rouge, died Tuesday of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back
The store's owner, Abdul Muflahi, told WAFB-TV that the first officer used a Taser on Sterling and the second officer tackled the man. Muflahi said as Sterling fought to get the officer off of him, the first officer shot him 'four to six times.'
The owner said Sterling did not have a gun in his hand at the time but he saw officers remove a gun from Sterling's pocket after the shooting.
Muflahi told the Daily News that Sterling, who has been friends with for six years, bought the firearm days earlier to protect himself after hearing CD sellers had been robbed close by.
His hand was not in his pocket, nor did he have the gun in his hand, he said.
David Solomon, 60, and Calvin Wilson, 56, told The Advocate they lived with Sterling at the Living Waters Outreach Ministry Drop-In Center, and don't believe he carried a gun.
David Solomon, 60, left, and Calvin Wilson, 56, right, say they lived with Alton Sterling at the Living Waters Outreach Ministry Drop-In Center, and don't believe he carried a gun
Protestors climbed on cars as they gathered at the intersection of N. Foster and Fairfields,
Sterling was sentenced to five years in jail for marijuana and weapon possession in 2009 and has reportedly been arrested several times over the past two decades.
Baton Rouge police spokesman Cpl. L'Jean McKneely told The Advocate that the officers were wearing body cameras during the shooting but the recording devices apparently came loose during the incident.
U.S. Congressman Cedric Richmond, a Democrat who represents Baton Rouge, said the video footage was deeply troubling and has understandably evoked strong emotion and anger in our community.
I share in this anger and join the community in the pursuit of justice. My prayers and thoughts are with Mr Sterling's family as they deal with this tragedy, he said.
Congressman Richmond called the US Department of Justice to conduct a full and transparent investigation into this incident.
His family and the citizens of Baton Rouge - especially the citizens of North Baton Rouge - deserve answers and that is what we will seek in a fair, thorough, and transparent way, he said.
The crowd gathered late Tuesday afternoon at the store where the fatal shooting took place
The group grew to over 200 people, who chanted and waved signs late into the night
Officers responded to the store about 12:35 a.m. Tuesday after an anonymous caller indicated a man selling music CDs and wearing a red shirt threatened him with a gun outside a Baton Rouge convenience store (pictured)
Firefighters responding to a call about a burning mannequin near a South Florida craft store discovered a burning body instead.
Authorities said someone called 911 just before 7am on July 4 to report the fire outside a Michaels store.
When firefighters arrived, they found the body of a black male who was deceased, according to CBS Miami.
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Firefighters responding to a call about a burning mannequin on July 4 near a South Florida craft store ended up finding a burning body instead, police said. Authorities pictured at the scene above
The charred spot on the ground is where the body was discovered. When firefighters arrived at the scene, they reportedly found the body of an unidentified black man who was deceased
Video courtesy of WTVJ
Police said the incident is being investigated as an undetermined death.
'When the fire department arrived, they realized that it wasn't a mannequin, that it was actually a human being who was deceased,' Pembroke Pines police spokesman Al Xiques told the station.
'They extinguished the fire and when police arrived, they initiated an investigation into what may have occurred.'
The victim has not yet been identified and circumstances surrounding his death and the fire remain under investigation.
Police said the exact cause of death will be determined by the Medical Examiner's Office, pending an autopsy report.
Pembroke Pines police spokesman Al Xiques (picutred) said the incident is being investigated as an undetermined death
The victim has not yet been identified and circumstances surrounding his death and the fire remain under investigation. the scene of the crime is sealed off, pictured above
Xiques said authorities do not have specific information at this time that would determine whether or not the man was dead prior to the fire.
He also told local television stations that no vehicle was in the parking lot of the strip shopping center near Pembroke Lakes Mall.
Police said at this time the incident does not appear to be criminal in nature based on information and evidence gathered so far.
The investigation continues and police have offered no further details.
The posting in Arabic is chilling. A girl for sale: 'Virgin. Beautiful. 12 years old.... Her price has reached $12,500 and she will be sold soon.'
The advertisement, along with others for kittens, tactical gear and weapons, appeared on an encrypted Telegram app and was shared with The Associated Press by an activist with Iraq's persecuted Yazidi community, which is trying to free an estimated 3,000 women and girls still held as sex slaves by ISIS extremists.
As ISIS loses control of one city after another in its self-styled caliphate, it is tightening its grip on its captives, taking the Yazidis deeper into its territory and selling them as chattel on popular encrypted apps such as Telegram and WhatsApp, The Associated Press has found.
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Lamiya Aji Bashar, 18, described how ISIS raided her village abducting her along with her sisters and brothers and passing her around from militant to militant. While making her escape, a mine exploded, killing two girls fleeing with her and leaving the teenager's face scarred and blinding her in one eye
Yazidi woman, Nuri Murat, described how ISIS killed her husband before abducting their daughter who was just 16 at the time
ISIS took this photo of Yazidi girl Nazdar Murat, as part of a database the militants have put together of Yazidi girls and women they have enslaved
The extremists are targeting smugglers who rescue captives for assassination and are deploying a slave database with captives' photos and owners' names to prevent escape through checkpoints.
Thousands of Kurdish-speaking Yazidis were taken prisoner and thousands more were massacred when ISIS fighters overran their northern Iraqi villages in August 2014.
Since then, as the Yazidi captives have been conscripted into sexual slavery, smugglers have managed to free 2,554 women and girls.
But by May, an ISIS crackdown reduced those numbers to just 39 in the last six weeks, according to figures provided by the Kurdistan regional government.
The AP has obtained a batch of 48 head shots of the captives, smuggled out by an escapee. The portraits appear to be the same as those used in a database to prevent the captives from slipping past checkpoints, or for barter and sale on popular apps.
Mirza Danai, founder of the German-Iraqi aid organiSation Luftbrucke Irak, said the slave database documents the captives as if they were property.
Ordeal: Lamiya Aji Bashar, an 18-year-old Yazidi girl, managed to escape her ISIS group enslavers
Barbaric: ISIS regularly offer women and children for sale using mobile telephone apps and have a database of their slaves
'They register every slave, every person under their owner, and therefore if she escapes, every Daesh control or checkpoint, or security force - they know that this girl ... has escaped from this owner,' said Danai, using a common acronym to refer to ISIS.
One of those girls is Lamiya Aji Bashar, who in March made her fifth attempt at escape, running to the border with ISIS fighters in pursuit.
A land mine exploded, and two Yazidi girls who were accompanying her were killed. The bomb left Lamiya blind in her right eye, her face scarred by melted skin.
Speaking from a bed at her uncle's home in the northern Iraqi town of Baadre, the 18-year-told AP that despite being disfigured, she did not regret her perilous escape from her jailers.
'Even if I had lost both eyes, it would have been worth it,' she said, 'because I have survived them.'
The Yazidis have been targeted by ISIS because they practice an ancient faith combining elements of Islam, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, and the Sunni extremists view them as infidels.
The Yazidis' pre-war population in Iraq was estimated at 500,000. Their number today is unknown.
An activist looks at an ISIS marketplace on the encrypted app Telegram, advertising a 12-year-old Yazidi girl as a slave for the price of $12,500
U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby told the AP that the U.S. continues 'to be appalled by credible reports that Daesh is trafficking in human beings, and sex slavery in particular.'
'This depravity not only speaks to the degree to which Daesh cheapens life and repudiates the Islamic faith, it also strengthens our resolve to defeat them,' he said.
The photos obtained by AP depict girls dressed in finery, some in heavy makeup. They stare somberly at the camera. Some are barely teenagers. Not one looks older than 30.
Nazdar Murat is among them. She was about 16 when she was abducted along with more than two dozen girls and women who fled their home in Iraq's Sinjar area when IS took over.
Inside an immaculate tent outside Dahuk, Nouri Murat, Nazdar's mother, said her daughter managed to call once, six months ago for a few seconds.
Bread crumbs kept by a Yazidi girl while in ISIS captivity, in Dahuk, northern Iraq. Some 2,500 Yazidi women and girls have escaped ISIS slavery through paid smugglers, but the numbers of those reaching freedom is dropping as militants tighten their grip on their sex slaves
An activist documenting ISIS crimes against Yazidis arranges the pages of a diary written by a Yazidi girl while in ISIS militant captivity
'We spoke for a few seconds. She said she was in Mosul,' said Murat, referring to Iraq's second-largest city. 'Every time someone comes back, we ask them what happened to her and no one recognizes her. Some people told me she committed suicide.'
She is not sure whether to believe them.
Hussein Koro al-Qaidi, head of the Yazidi assistance committee in the northern Iraqi city of Dahuk, said no one has stepped up on the Yazidis' behalf. And money to pay for smugglers or ransoms is now running out, according to the Kurdish government and organizations working to save the women and children.
'Neither the Iraqi government, nor the international charities or other countries are helping us to save the Yazidi girls,' said al-Qaidi.
Contraband photos of captives offer families a thread of hope that they might see them again. But they are also used by IS to sell them on Telegram and, to a lesser degree, WhatsApp and Facebook, according to an activist who asked to remain unnamed for fear of his safety.
The activist, showed AP negotiations for the captives in real time on WhatsApp and Telegram, in private chats that cannot be read by outside eyes.
Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Telegram use end-to-end encryption to protect users' privacy.
Both have said they consider protecting private conversations and data paramount, and that they cannot access users' content.
Telegram says it will remove illegal public content 'when deemed appropriate.' WhatsApp can, under its terms of service, ban a phone number if it believes the user has submitted illegal content.
'Telegram is extremely popular in the Middle East, among other regions,' said Telegram spokesman Markus Ra when asked about ISIS use of its app.
The sun sets as women visit a Yazidi shrine overlooking at Kankhe Camp for the internally displaced in Dahuk, northern Iraq
Clothing worn by a Yazidi girl enslaved by ISIS militants, collected by a Yazidi activist to documentcrimes against the community
'This, unfortunately, includes the more marginal elements and the broadest law-abiding masses alike.'
He said the company is committed to prevent abuse and routinely removes public channels used by IS that have been reported by users.
Mark Steinfeld, a spokesman for WhatsApp, said, 'We have zero tolerance for this type of behavior and disable accounts when provided with evidence of activity that violates our terms. We encourage people to use our reporting tools if they encounter this type of behavior.'
The captives' odds of rescue grow slimmer each day.
Even when ISIS retreats from towns like Ramadi or Fallujah, the missing girls are nowhere to be found among the thousands of newly liberated civilians.
Kurdistan's besieged regional government has slowed reimbursement to families who have paid off smugglers or ransom demands, Andrew Slater of the Yazidi advocacy group Yazda said.
A senior Liberal party official reportedly warned Sky News that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull would never appear on the Pay-TV news channel if former Tony Abbott chief of staff Peta Credlin remained on its payroll.
Ex-John Howard media adviser Tony O'Leary, now a strategist with Mr Turnbull's team, is believed to have told the station's political reporters that the PM would not accept future debate invites.
According to a report in The Australian despite an apology and a guarantee from the Prime Minister's communications team that there was no ban, Mr Turnbull did not respond to repeated invitations by the channel.
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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull would not appear on Sky News while Peta Credlin was on the channel, according to former John Howard adviser Tony O'Leary
Tony Abbott's former chief of staff Peta Credlin pictured during the Sky News coverage on election night. She says Prime Minister Turnbull 'broke the Liberal Party's heart'
There were apparent suggestions from his media advisers that the PM preferred forums like Facebook because the audience watching Sky News was 'too small'.
Peta Credlin joined the Sky News political commentary team in March and labelled Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull 'the man who broke the Liberal Party's heart'.
Tony Abbott's former chief of staff delivered a scathing commentary on Mr Turnbull's election campaign on The Bolt Report and its impact on the Liberal Party.
Among her criticisms, she called Mr Turnbull's advisors a 'hapless group of bedwetters'.
Then Prime Minister John Howard pictured in 2004 reading papers handed to him by his chief press secretary Tony O'Leary (right). Mr O'Leary is now a strategist for Malcolm Turnbull
Peta Credlin was former Prime Minister Tony Abbott's chief of staff and joined the Sky News political commentary team earlier this year
Ms Credlin pictured while in the role of chief of staff to former PM Tony Abbott - she joined Sky News this year
Sky News' political reporters were apparently 'warned' in June that if Peta Credlin was on air that Malcolm Turnbull would not accept invitations to appear on the Pay-TV station
Tony Abbott, the former Prime Minister. Peta Credlin was his chief of staff before joining Sky News
She added that while she'd been criticised for the advice she provided Mr Abbott 'at least he won an election'.
Her dissatisfaction with the outcome of Mr Turnbull's campaign added to an increasing backlash against his party.
Despite all that Ms Credlin believed he could still win - although he'd have to face challenging dealing with others to form a government.
CCTV footage has caught a suspected thief using a childs scooter for her getaway ride after raiding an unlocked van.
The video shows the woman nonchalantly scooting down Camden Street in Mossley, Greater Manchester, before opening the door of a white Vauxhall Astra.
A security camera catches her in the act around 4.15am on Sunday, July 3, reports the Manchester Evening News.
Getaway vehicle: The bizarre moment a suspected thief uses a child's scooter as her getaway vehicle
The alleged crook, wearing a black tracksuit, rifles around inside the motor.
The brown-haired woman then picks up the childs scooter and rides off around the corner on her unusual getaway vehicle of choice.
Alerting another man to the unlocked van she returns.
The duo conduct a thorough search of the Vauxhall and leave with sunglasses and electronics.
Van 'raider': The alleged crook, wearing a black tracksuit, rifles around inside the vehicle before scooting off
Back again: She returns with an unknown male to thoroughly search the white Vauxhall Astra in Manchester
Casually the pair stroll off up the road, leaving the scooter behind them.
The suspected thieves also broke into several other cars that morning.
Michael Gove, pictured, remains confident he can win the Conservative leadership race despite finishing third in the first round of voting
Michael Gove last night brushed aside controversy over his knifing of Boris Johnson and insisted he could still win the Tory leadership.
The Justice Secretary came third in yesterdays ballot with 48 votes miles behind Theresa May on 165, but within sight of Brexit rival Andrea Leadsom on 66.
A campaign source said: Were in business. As memory of the events with Boris starts to fade, people will start to focus on who they want to be prime minister who has got the experience and the vision. That means Michael.
But the decision of Stephen Crabb to pull out of the race last night means Mr Gove now has just 36 hours to gather the support needed to overhaul Mrs Leadsom.
Mr Gove, who angered many Tory MPs with his betrayal of Mr Johnson, last night insisted he could still win.
He contrasted his 20-year opposition to Britains membership of the EU with the record of Mrs Leadsom, who faced allegations of hypocrisy at the weekend after it emerged she warned just three years ago that leaving the EU would be a disaster.
Mr Gove, who repeatedly said he would never stand to be prime minister before his U-turn last week, acknowledged Mrs May was a formidable rival.
But he added: I am delighted by the support I have received from colleagues. It reflects the optimistic message that Ive been putting forward.
Now that Britain has voted to leave, I think the country deserves to have a leader who believes in Britain outside the European Union and who also has experience at the highest level of government.
I hope that in the days to come, Ill be able to convince my colleagues that I should be one of the candidates that Conservative Party members can choose from.
'I think they should have a choice between two candidates of experience, two candidates who have delivered in government departments.
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The Justice Secretary, left, angered many MPs by withdrawing his support from Boris Johnson, right, last week, reportedly just two hours before the latter was due to announce his leadership bid
Mr Gove, right, is behind Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom, left, and has just 36 hours to find the extra support to make it into the top two
Speaking in the immediate aftermath of last nights vote, Mr Goves supporters said they had high hopes of picking up votes from the supporters of both Liam Fox and Stephen Crabb.
Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, who is backing Mr Gove, said he had exceeded expectations in the first round.
Its been a difficult week, but to get 48 colleagues is more than anyone was predicting, she said. He can absolutely overhaul Andrea from here.
Justice Minister Dominic Raab, a Gove supporter, said: The longer this contest goes, the more support we will build. Were the underdog in the race fighting for the underdog in society.
Asked if Mr Gove could catch Mrs Leadsom, he said: Catch Theresa May, thats what were going to do.
Mr Gove later suffered a double blow when both Dr Fox and Mr Crabb declared they will now support Mrs May.
He had originally planned to back Mr Johnsons campaign after the pair succeeded in leading Britain out of the EU.
But in a dramatic move he withdrew his support just two hours before Mr Johnson was due to launch, saying he no longer believed the former London mayor was fit to be PM.
A man in the Northern Territory called the police on his father after he destroyed his stash of cannabis plants.
Officers were called to a home in Humpty Doo, about 40 kilometres from Darwin, after the pair had a fight at the family home.
'As retribution his father burnt the sons prized cannabis plants in a bonfire on the property,' Duty Superintendent Louise Jorgensen said.
A man in the Northern Territory called police on his father for destroying his cannabis plants (stock image)
Tensions had been running high between the father and son since the younger man had moved interstate recently.
'The son was indignant and enraged,' Duty Superintendent Jorgensen said.
Police also said the son was not concerned about dobbing himself in for possessing cannabis, but 'He seemed to believe that the destruction of the same was far worse than the possession'.
As the cannabis was destroyed when it was thrown into the bonfire, no charges have been laid.
'The evidence has been destroyed. Along with his reputation,' Duty Superintendent Jorgensen said.
The son has now moved out of the family home to live with relatives.
Dementia patients are being given their meals on yellow plates to encourage them to eat bigger portions.
A trial found that using the bright canary-yellow plates at meal times made patients more likely to finish their food and put on weight.
Experts said the crockery will boost nutrition rates amongst patients, many of whom are elderly and frail.
Dementia patients are being given their meals on yellow plates to encourage them to eat bigger portions (stock image)
Research has shown dementia patients experience difficulties with their sight and perception and may fail to properly recognise food on white plates.
But contrasting colours, such as a yellow plate on a white tablecloth, help sufferers to distinguish between the objects.
A successful pilot scheme on the dementia ward at Furness General Hospital, in Barrow encouraged patients to eat 10 extra grams of their meal when served on the brightly coloured plates compared to plain alternatives.
Patients with dementia often forget to eat and drink, which can increase delirium and lead to rapid weight loss.
Three hospitals will now benefit from the innovative scheme which uses the advanced colour psychology to encourage eating.
Dianne Smith, the matron for dementia at the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, said: People with dementia often experience visual problems, including not being able to distinguish between different colours.
Studies have shown that this can compound difficulties at mealtimes.
If the crockery is a similar colour to the food being served then a person with dementia may not be able to see the contrast and recognise the food that is there to be eaten.
Experts said the crockery will boost nutrition rates amongst patients, many of whom are elderly and frail (stock image)
The new plates and bowls, called the freedom range, are specially designed to have high sides to make it easier for people to eat while they are ill.
They are also being used in the public canteens.
Sue Smith, the trusts executive chief nurse, said: Some patients find mealtimes harder than others so the new crockery will help those patients who may need additional support.
The use of colour in crockery also helps stimulate interest in patients with dementia, enhances food presentation but it also encourages appetite.
On behalf of the trust, Id like to thank the RVS for their incredibly generous gift which allows us to continue to improve our support for those patients with dementia and is another example of our trusts continuing commitment to improving patient care.
Colour contrasting is used throughout some dementia wards, where colours are used to highlight objects, such as a toilet door and toilet seat.
Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb pulled out of the Tory leadership race last night and urged the party to unite behind Theresa May.
Mr Crabb, whose campaign was backed by Business Secretary Sajid Javid, had run on a blue collar ticket emphasising Tory values of aspiration and opportunity.
But, after attracting just 34 votes last night, and with little prospect of picking up support from Brexit-backing rivals Andrea Leadsom and Michael Gove, he announced he was throwing in the towel.
Work and pensions secretary Stephen Crabb has pulled out of the Tory leadership race after gaining just 34 votes in the first round
He said: I entered this leadership race with the intention of putting two things at the heart of the debate unity and opportunity, particularly from disadvantaged communities.
Ive seen the result, and it is important to recognise that there is only one candidate in any kind of position to unite our party and provide the strong cohesive government that is needed at this very serious time. That candidate is Theresa May.
Mr Crabb said he had met Mrs May after the result was announced, saying: I congratulated Theresa. I asked for nothing, she offered nothing.
Although he campaigned against Brexit he had attempted to map out a route for leaving the EU, including the creation of a 100 billion infrastructure fund to boost productivity.
But he faced constant questioning about his attitude to gay rights. Yesterday he hit out at rivals for spreading complete falsehoods about his views
Mr Crabb has come under fire from some gay rights campaigners for voting against same-sex marriage a stance he defends on the grounds of his Christian beliefs.
But he has also faced a backlash on social media over claims that he supports controversial theories that gay people can be cured.
Mr Crabb yesterday said the claims had been entirely fabricated in order to damage him.
I dont believe that being gay is a sin, he said. I dont believe its something to be cured. Ive never said anything like that.
I have never said anything at all to suggest I have ever believed or endorsed gay cure therapy. This is a complete falsehood spread by political opponents.
Critics point to Mr Crabbs past use of interns funded by the organisation Christian Action Research and Education (CARE), which once sponsored a conference on homosexuality that included a session on mentoring the sexually broken.
Mr Crabb, right, and his supporter Business Secretary Sajid Javid, left, have both thrown their support behind Theresa May
Asked about his links to the group, Mr Crabb told BBC Radio Fours Today programme: MPs from all political parties over the years have participated in (this) intern scheme.
I dont know whether it (gay cures) is a view that CARE holds. If it is I dont agree with it.
'I find the idea that being gay is something to be cured is repugnant. It has never been part of anything Ive believed and it is certainly not part of my Christian outlook.
The 2013 vote on gay marriage split the Conservative Party down the middle. Mr Crabb and fellow former leadership candidate Liam Fox voted against the move, while Theresa May and Michael Gove voted in favour.
He says he'd sue, but the Mexican courts are too weak to do anything
They say he owes them money and they want to 'ruin his reputation'
In reality he's being pranked by a group of former friends in Mexico
The New York Times even included him in an Orlando memorial video
He also 'died' in the Istanbul airport attack and the Orlando Pulse shooting
'Alfonso' was said to have been killed on the EgyptAir crash
He died in the EgyptAir crash. Then again during the Orlando shooting. And last week 'Alfonso' from Mexico was tragically killed a third time in the bombing at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul.
At least, that's what you might be led to believe if you followed news reports and social media scuttlebutt about these high-profile tragedies.
But the truth is, the man identified as a victim in all three attacks is still alive - and the victim of a ongoing revenge prank by former friends who say he owes them money, France24 reported.
Pranked: This is the man who has been reported dead in news and social media on three occasions in the past two months - thanks to prank Tweets like these. This one was made after the EgyptAir crash on May 19
Tragic: The crash claimed the lives of 66 people - none of whom were the man pictured in the Tweet - leading to vigils such as this one. This wasn't the only time the man, identified as 'Alfonso,' was pranked, however
After EgyptAir Flight 804 plunged into the Mediterranean sea on May 19, a now-infamous picture of 'Alfonso' - his real name is unknown - cheerfully grinning in front of a wall of photos began to spread across Twitter.
'@EGYPTAIR my brother traveled there,' wrote @sidaxmejicano. 'I'm scared for her (sic) life. Please help me.' The BBC noticed the sick prank and even wrote a story about misleading Tweets.
But the following month it happened again, as 'Alfonso' was identified as one of the victims in the massacre at gay club Pulse in Orlando, Florida on June 12.
That message can't be found, but his photo appeared in a New York Times memorial video among pics of the real victims in the attack, France24 reported. The video was edited to remove the photo Tuesday.
And on June 28, the day that Istanbul Ataturk Airport suffered a vicious terrorist attack, user @marty_batiato posted a different picture of the same man.
'#help my brother Alfonso was on #Ataturk Airport and we dont (sic) know anything about him, help please help #Turkey' he wrote.
The man was also identified on Mexican social media as the official who ordered Mexican police to open fire on people protesting for education reform in June.
So what did this man do to become a target for the vicious jokers?
If the people behind it are to be trusted - and to be fair, they're mostly notable for telling lies - it's because he conned them out of money.
Sick joke: 'Alfonso' - his real name remains unknown - was also claimed as a victim in the Ataturk Airport attack last week. The people behind the sick joke say they're his ex-friends and want to 'ruin his reputation'
Disaster: The former friends claim that 'Alfonso' cheated them out of money and attaching him to disasters such as the terrorist attack at Ataturk Airport is their revenge
'This man used to be my friend but hes cheated money out of at least four people who I know,' one of the gang told France24.
'I lodged both civil and criminal complaints against him, but because the legal proceedings are dragging on and he still hasnt given us back our money, we decided to punish him by posting his photo online.
'Our goal is to ruin his reputation,' they added. 'We want the whole world to recognize his face.'
France24 managed to track down the man, whom they left unidentified. He said: 'My photo is everywhere because of someone who started it as a prank after a legal dispute.'
He continued: 'Now my photo has appeared in several stories that were widely shared on Twitter. I contacted several media outlets like the BBC and the New York Times and asked them to delete my photo but they never responded.'
Under Mexican law, a person can receive a prison sentence of six months to two years for 'slander, calumny and defamation to the prestige of an organisation or the honor or dignity of an individual.'
But Alfonso hasn't bothered taking his persecutors to task because he doesn't think there's much point.
'I never reported the people who did this to me because, in Mexico, nothing ever happens in these kinds of cases,' he said.
So until the dispute is resolved, 'Alfonso' can expect to see his image cropping up again - and so can he.
Caught on camera: The New York Times was taken in by the tricksters and included a photo of the man in a video round-up (pictured) of victims from the Orlando shooting in June. He's since been edited out of the clip
Top Tory backbencher Graham Brady the Prince Andrew lookalike from Altrincham & Sale West entered committee room six at 6.27pm.
He cleared his throat, announced the vote result and concluded: Dr Liam Fox has been eliminated.
Crumbs. I know the Conservative Party is ruthless but they had eliminated him! Eliminated said Brady, from the ballot. Phew. Even so, the Fox had been shot.
There were about 100 of us, MPs and scurvy reporters, in the high-ceilinged, river-view Palace of Westminster room.
Dr Liam Fox, left, and Stephen Crabb are both out of the Tory leadership race after being eliminated and dropping out respectively
Its walls were lined with mint-coloured, Pugin-designed silk wallpaper and a vast Hickel oil painting of William Pitt addressing the Commons after France declared war on us in 1793. Little changes.
Dr Fox had managed just 16 votes and Stephen Crabb a mere 34. Gove on 48 had done better than expected but had Theresa May (165 votes) and her supporters lent support to Gove to increase the pressure on Andrea Leadsom (66), whom the May camp may regard as the greater threat?
Theories, theories. Tory leadership elections are rife with theories.
Most of Foxs people will come to us, I hope, said a Leadsomite. Crabbs stuffed, said another man. A dressed Crabb, surely.
If the activists see and hear Andrea, she can beat Theresa, though the time-scale is tight, ran another theory.
A Fox supporter Scarboroughs Robert Goodwill stood glumly by the door, looking as though someone had just stepped on his ping-pong ball.
A couple of MPs from other camps shuffled beside him, trying to look sympathetic. Poor little Goodwill. Someone will scoop him up but he will be wary of backing another loser.
All day the committee corridor had shimmered with intrigue and sideways glances.
The corridor is about 300 yards long and the electorate (all Tory MPs) could be seen approaching the polling station from afar.
Theresa May, left, is the frontrunner while Andrea Leadsom, right, is early favourite to join her in the final two
This gave tellers from the various candidacies time to assemble appropriate expressions to their faces.
An MP who had promised to vote their way? A wink or a comradely, affirming nod.
The art of parliamentary politics is to make them feel embraced but not quite owned.
Or was it an MP who had been feeble and indecisive? Time for a last pleading stare, a flirtatious smile.
All MPs bar one (David Cameron, it seemed) cast a vote.
There were no spoilt ballots. Boris Johnson, no longer in the running, voted mid-afternoon and said democracy has been served.
Boris missed Michael Goves arrival perhaps just as well.
How did you vote? I voted for a Scotsman, replied the Aberdonian. Maybe he voted for Fox, then.
Later, Boriss former campaign manager Ben Wallace (Wyre & Preston N) strode towards us, still powered by steam after the Gove treachery.
Wallace is the one who said he would cut off Goves goolies. I asked if he had brought his blade.
Never take a knife to a gunfight, growled the ex-Army officer.
Simon Hoare (N Dorset) had been first to vote in the morning. He had been queuing like a biddy at the sales.
Michael Gove, pictured, polled 48 votes, and has 36 hours to find the support to put him above Mrs Leadsom
One of the last MPs to enter committee room seven, where the voting happened, was demure Nicola Blackwood, the amateur soprano from Oxford W & Abingdon.
She slipped in with ten minutes to go. Voting closed at six oclock and then Mr Brady and fellow members of the 1922 Committee, which organises the Tory backbench MPs, got down to counting and verifying the 329 votes.
After 20 minutes the campaign managers were called in to be given the verdict. The corridor swelled with rubberneckers, journos and, for all I know, a few of those undertakers you get in cowboy films when there is about to be a shoot-out.
Havants Alan Mak, Westminsters worst greaser, sidled by, a mollusc in search of a rock. Michael Gove hove into view but melted away.
And in room seven, Iain Duncan Smith did impressions of Ken Clarke making a fool of himself on Sky News.
Labour MP Naz Shah, who was suspended after she made racist online posts about Jews on Facebook has been let back into the party
A Labour MP suspended after she made racist online posts about Jews has been let back into the party.
Naz Shah shared a graphic on Facebook of Israels outline superimposed on to a map of the US.
The picture had the headline: Solution for Israel-Palestine Conflict Relocate Israel into United States, with the comment: Problem solved.
Days after the party published a report concluding that Labour and the Left had not taken anti-Semitism seriously for years, Miss Shah was told her suspension had been lifted after just ten weeks.
The Bradford West MP was stripped of the Labour whip in late April and barred from party activity pending an investigation of her behaviour which David Cameron at the time branded racist.
Miss Shah also quit her role as a parliamentary assistant to the Shadow Chancellor, telling MPs she deeply regretted the hurt caused by the posts and wanted to work with Jewish groups to bolster understanding.
She was elected as an MP last year. Her re-admission comes a week after the shambolic publication of a report into Labour anti-Semitism, at which Jeremy Corbyn was accused of comparing Israel to Islamic State and a Jewish MP ran out in tears following abuse from a far-Left Momentum activist.
Yesterday the partys leadership crisis continued, with Mr Corbyns spokesman insisting there will be no resignation after talks with union power broker Len McCluskey.
Mr McCluskey, the general secretary of Unite, held meetings with both Mr Corbyn and deputy leader Tom Watson, who has called for the embattled leader to go.
But the talks between Mr Watson and Mr McCluskey, which also involved Parliamentary Labour Party chairman John Cryer and Chief Whip Rosie Winterton, failed to produce a breakthrough.
A Labour source said there were useful exploratory talks between Mr Watson, Mr Cryer and Miss Winterton and the Unite chief.
Former shadow business spokesman Angela Eagle and ex-shadow work and pensions spokesman Owen Smith are both considering a challenge to Mr Corbyn if he continues to resist calls to go.
Naz Shah shared a graphic on Facebook of Israels outline superimposed on to a map of the US in 2014. The picture had the headline: Solution for Israel-Palestine Conflict Relocate Israel into United States, with the comment: Problem solved
Both are thought to have agreed to hold back while there was still a chance of a negotiated settlement which would see Mr Corbyn finally walk away.
After her 2014 social media posts were published by the Guido Fawkes website in April, Miss Shah, 42, said: Anti-Semitism is racism, full stop.
As an MP I will do everything in my power to build relations between Muslims, Jews and people of different faiths and none.
But the website also pointed to another post made before Miss Shah was an MP, which used the hashtag #IsraelApartheid above a quote saying: Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
Mr Corbyn has faced criticism for his handling of Labours anti-Semitism rows.
Asked/Answered is a weekly feature for reader-submitted questions. Follow the blog online at www.cumberlink.com:
What is the Voter Participation Center?
In June the Cumberland County Bureau of Elections sent out a notice that a letter distributed to residents from the Voter Participation Center was not affiliated with the county.
The letter, which included a valid Pennsylvania voter registration form, was sent to residents in all 67 counties in the state and referenced the accuracy of registration records, according to the Bureau of Elections.
The Voter Participation Center (VPC) is a research-driven, nonprofit and non-partisan organization dedicated to increasing the participation of unmarried women and other historically underrepresented groups in our democracy, according to the groups website.
The website states the group aims to increase voter registration and turnout for unmarried women, people of color and millennials, who they say make up nearly 57 percent of the countrys voting age population.
The group is based in Washington D.C. and raised more than $14 million during its 2014 fiscal year, according to records filed with the U.S. Department of Treasury.
In the same fiscal year the group spent more than $10 million on voter mobilization efforts that included mass marketing and direct mailings, as well as conduct research on how to better mobilize their target group.
About 85 percent of the voting age population in Pennsylvania was registered to vote during the last presidential elections, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State.
This is up from less than 65 percent registered in 1988. However, less than 68 percent of all registered voters turned up at the polls in 2012, according to the Department of State.
The Cumberland County Bureau of Elections said it expected the Voter Participation Center to send out another round of letters in September in a run up to the November general election.
For more information about the group, visit voterparticipation.org
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A little boy has held up a powerful sign asking the Fair Work Commission to not 'bully' grandad during a protest about wage cuts while wearing a unionist black hoodie.
A union representing maintenance workers at Griffin Coal mine south of Perth, Western Australian, on Tuesday managed to convince the commission to put on hold a decision that would slash their pay by 43 per cent.
Wayne Chappell brought his grandson James along to the protest and the toddler quickly drew attention with his handwritten sign reading: 'Don't bully my grandad'.
The little boy also wore a black unionist hooded jumper emblazoned with the phrase 'solidarity is strength'.
A little boy has held up a powerful sign asking the Fair Work Commission to not 'bully his grandad' during a protest about wage cuts
Wayne Chappell (pictured) brought his grandson James along to the protest and the toddler quickly drew attention with his handwritten sign reading: 'Don't bully my grandad'
The Commission terminated the enterprise agreement for the mine workers last month after hearing the company was unprofitable and only surviving with the financial support of the parent entity, India's Lanco Infratech.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union appealed the decision and asked the commission to issue a stay order preventing the workers' wages reverting back to the old enterprise agreement on July 10.
The stay application on Tuesday was successful while the commission has reserved its decision on the appeal.
The union and company will meet on Thursday to recommence negotiations.
AMWU state secretary Steve McCartney said the workers were prepared to co-operate and compromise, given the dire economic situation at the mine.
The little boy also wore a black hooded jumper emblazoned with the phrase 'solidarity is strength'
A union representing maintenance workers at a coal mine south of Perth, Western Australian, on Tuesday managed to convince the commission to put on hold a decision that would slash their pay
'But to date the very best offer made to our members was a 27 per cent pay cut and six extra hours worked every week for free, with a roster change that would kill local sport and community events on weekends,' Mr McCartney said.
The company says terminating the agreement will make jobs more secure.
SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE: Dan Snow, historian and heart-throb, is no stranger to the camera. Its in the blood his father is veteran broadcaster Peter Snow, and his cousin Jon presents Channel 4 News
Dan Snow, historian and heart-throb, is no stranger to the camera. Its in the blood his father is veteran broadcaster Peter Snow, and his cousin Jon presents Channel 4 News.
But he has just been roundly denounced by a rival academic.
Esteemed military historian Professor Gary Sheffield made the outspoken attack at yesterdays Oldie literary lunch at Simpsons- in-the-Strand.
It was prompted by Dans documentary last week on the Battle of the Somme, to mark the anniversary of the biggest disaster in British military history made by the Discovery History.
His progamme on the Somme was terrible and is a classic case of dumbing down, says Sheffield, who is Professor of War Studies, University of Wolverhampton. Im sure hes a nice chap but it was lightweight and superficial.
Sheffields criticism is not reserved just for Snow. I found all the BBC coverage of the centenary very strange. Why didnt they ask me to get involved?
In the past few weeks Ive given nine talks and attended the official Somme commemorations with the Queen at Westminster Abbey and also the service at Manchester.
The BBC does tend these days to underestimate the public, adds the professor .
Snow, 37, who is married to Lady Edwina Grosvenor, daughter of the Duke of Westminster, once disclosed his big television break came about after a telephone call to his father.
Esteemed military historian Professor Gary Sheffield made the outspoken attack at yesterdays Oldie literary lunch at Simpsons- in-the-Strand
He recalled: Someone rang up my father and said, Why dont we get you doing a programme with your son?
His response was, initially, No, its a silly idea Im a serious broadcaster.
But they asked again, and both of us thought: Actually, this is quite cool.
NOW BATTLING BERCOWS ARE ALL SMILES ON ROMANTIC STROLL
Commons Speaker John Bercow was putting on a united front with his erratic wife Sally as they walked arm-in-arm through Kensington on Monday night.
After her public affair with his cousin last year, Sally, 46, and John, 53, have being doing their utmost to patch up their marital difficulties.
Sally had a dalliance with Alan Bercow while John was campaigning ahead of last years General Election.
She admitted to being very naughty, telling me: I do feel awful, and I was very bad, but none of us is perfect.
He has forgiven me, and were working hard on our marriage.
Commons Speaker John Bercow was putting on a united front with his erratic wife Sally as they walked arm-in-arm through Kensington on Monday night
MEDAL HONOUR FOR LAST OF BATTLE OF BRITAIN'S FEW
Already one of our most decorated RAF pilots, 96-year-old Tom Neil scarcely has room on his cluttered chest for another medal.
But tomorrow, the last surviving fighter ace of the Battle of Britain a double winner of the Distinguished Flying Cross and holder of the Air Force Cross will receive one more gong. And deservedly so.
Last year, when the two met at Goodwood to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, the Prince insisted Neil take his place in the Spitfire for the flypast
At an RAF Club ceremony, Neil will be presented with one of Frances highest accolades, the Legion dHonneur, along with two other D-Day veterans, in recognition of his service in Normandy.
Neil is believed to be the first Allied fighter pilot to land in France after the landings in June 1944.
No one will be more pleased for him than Prince Harry.
Last year, when the two met at Goodwood to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, the Prince insisted Neil take his place in the Spitfire for the flypast.
Indeed, the whole day left such a deep impression on the Prince that for his 2015 Christmas card he chose a touching photo of himself with Neil.
Prince Philip does not usually attend funerals but he made an exception for his long-term friend and courtier Sir Brian McGrath, who died last month aged 90.
The Duke of Edinburgh was among the mourners at St Barnabas Church in Peasemore, Berkshire, for the service at which other members of the Royal Family were represented by courtiers.
Sir Brian was a former vintner who became an integral part of Philips working and social life for 34 years.
His importance was illustrated by the fact he was the only member of the royal household allowed to bring his beloved dog into work.
The number of migrants reaching southern Europe by sea has soared by more than 60 per cent in a year, figures show.
An estimated 227,316 migrants arrived on the continent from Africa and the Middle East during the first six months of 2016.
This is an increase of around 85,000 60 per cent on the 141,969 who made the trip during the same period last year.
In the first six months of 2015, 1,838 migrants died attempting the journey to Europe by boat, according to the figures from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM)
In the first six months of 2015, 1,838 migrants died attempting the journey to Europe by boat, according to the figures from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
So far this year, the death toll is 2,920.
Yesterday alone, at least 4,500 migrants were reportedly rescued from rubber dinghies and a wooden boat off the coast of Italy, as the Mediterranean calmed after a rough weekend. The IOM said 67,000 migrants have tried to reach Italy alone by boat so far this year.
More than 30 rescue operations have been carried out by the coastguard and Italian navy, as well as vessels working for EU border agency Frontex and aid organisations.
Although the number of refugees trying to reach Italy is slightly down on the same period last year, the IOM said the death toll has risen.
Last week, ten women were found dead in the bottom of a rubber boat off the coast.
Last week, ten women were found dead in the bottom of a rubber boat off the coast. Above, an Italian rescue operation of migrants and refugees at sea, off the coast of Libya, on June 30
The IOM, which works with 162 member countries on migration issues, said 383 died in the Mediterranean in June nearly 13 a day and the highest total for that month in three years.
The main departure point for those looking to reach Europe is Libya, followed closely by Egypt, the report added.
Many migrants aim for southern Greece, which saw 87 arrivals in just three days this week.
On Monday, an Eritrean former people smuggler told the Italian authorities that migrants unable to pay for their journeys across the Mediterranean were being sold to organ traffickers.
Andrea Leadsom's backers were accused of having made claims about her career in the City that do not stand up to scrutiny.
An investigation by The Times has found that the energy minister has no experience as an investment banker, even though her supporters have claimed she managed billions of pounds' worth of funds.
The second-placed candidate, who has never held a cabinet role and has only been a minister since April 2014 and an MP since 2010, has placed her experience in the City at the centre of her candidacy to become Prime Minister.
Andrea Leadsom's backers were accused last night of having made claims about her career in the City that do not stand up to scrutiny. The Tory MP, pictured today, is the second-placed candidate in the leadership race
She has described her 25 years in financial services and running 'enormous teams' as evidence of her suitability for the roles.
Prominent supporter Bernard Jenkin has cited her senior position at 'a large investment firm where she was responsible for managing hundreds of people and billions of pounds'.
But the Times said that during ten years at the investment fund Invesco Perpetual, from 1999 to 2009, she did not have any role in managing funds or advising clients.
Despite the title 'senior investment officer and head of corporate governance', she only held approval from the financial services regulator which is required for any roles dealing with funds or clients for a three-month period from December 2002 to February 2003.
The Times claims were today dismissed by supporters of Mrs Leadsom, who said they were attempts to tarnish the MP's 'stellar' career in the financial industry.
A spokesman for Mrs Leadsom acknowledged that the first part of her job title could be misleading.
Mrs Leadsom's spokesman said she had no involvement with investments at Invesco Perpetual and that 'job titles can convey misapprehensions'. Pictured, Mrs Leadsom with Boris Johnson, who is backing her bid
Meanwhile Robert Stephens, a former colleague, said that throughout her time at Invesco Perpetual 'she did not manage any teams, large or small, and she certainly did not manage any funds'.
CAREER OF ANDREA LEADSOM 1984-85 Canadian/Chinese corporate finance company: junior support 1985-87 Mrs Leadsom becomes one of the few women on a trading floor in the City as a trainee trading metals at EF Hutton. 1987 Andrea Leadsom graduates from Warwick University with a degree in Political Science and begins working as a debt trader for Barclays de Zoete Wedd, the investment arm of Barclays bank. 1993 She becomes the youngest director of Barclays at the remarkable age of 32, when she was appointed head of UK banking. 1997 Mrs Leadsom leaves her role as director of the financial institutions group with a pay-off after reportedly clashing with Bob Diamond, then head of investments. Along with husband Ben, the father of her three children, Mrs Leadsom sets up buy-to-let property business Bandal Limited. The company has assets worth 1.6m at the end of 2015. This business is not listed on the CV released today by Mrs Leadsom's team. 1997-1999 She becomes the managing director of an investment fund run by her brother-in-law, De Putron Fund Management Ltd. The Times reports that Mrs Leadsom held the position of marketing director for 13 months from 1998. 1999 Mrs Leadsom starts at investment fund Invesco Perpetual, where she remains for 10 years. Backers have claimed the MP 'was responsible for managing hundreds of people and billions of pounds' at the fund. Her spokesman has acknowledged that the job title 'senior investment officer and head of corporate governance' could be 'misleading' as Mrs Leadsom only handled funds and clients over a three-month period. Advertisement
Mr Stephens also claimed that Mrs Leadsom had until recently listed her job title on sites including Wikipedia, as Chief Investment Officer of Invesco Perpetual, which he described as being 'obviously incorrect'.
Writing on the Reaction blog, he added that Mrs Leadsom did not have anyone reporting to her in the role and so the terms 'senior' and 'head' in her job title were 'superfluous'.
Mrs Leadsom's spokesman said she had no involvement with investments at Invesco Perpetual and that 'job titles can convey misapprehensions'.
A former colleague said that Mrs Leadsom had allowed the impression to arise that 'she has finance management skills and experience which qualify her for senior posts in government'.
He said that her actual job was to work (sometimes part-time) on 'special projects', mostly for the chief investment officer.
These included for example negotiating pay terms for senior fund managers.
The colleague said: 'We probably all at different times in different circumstances describe ourselves in particular way which might be interpreted by somebody as stretching the point.'
Mrs Leadsom is set to release a copy of her CV later today.
The politician started her career as a trader at Barclays de Zoete Wedd, the investment arm of the bank, after studying Political Science at Warwick University.
In 1993, she married Ben, a businessman, and after a rapid rise through the ranks, she became the youngest director of Barclays at the remarkable age of 32, when she was appointed head of UK banking.
Mrs Leadsom left the bank after reportedly clashing with Bob Diamond, then head of investments, over when she should return to work after giving birth.
She then set up a company with her husband to invest in buy-to-let properties. The company has assets worth 1.6m at the end of 2015.
The politician started at Invesco Perpetual in 1999, where she remained until 2009.
LEADSOM'S ALLIES DEFEND MP AMID 'BOGUS' CAREER CLAIMS Support: Defence minister Penny Mordaunt Allies of Andrea Leadsom this morning defended the MP following reports that her 'stellar' career in the City had been exaggerated. The energy minister's campaign team published a summary of her CV detailing her background in the financial services sector, including senior roles at Barclays and Invesco Perpetual. Defence minister Penny Mordaunt claimed there was a 'concerted effort' being made to cast doubt on the Tory leadership hopeful's background but she was the 'strongest candidate on the economy'. The Times reported comments from former colleague Robert Stephens on the Reaction website suggesting that, while at Invesco Perpetual, 'she did not manage any teams, large or small, and she certainly did not manage any funds'. Ms Mordaunt, who campaigned for Brexit with Mrs Leadsom, said the 'bogus' story overlooked her years at Barclays. 'This is a concerted effort to rubbish a stellar career and imply that she was just making the tea,' she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. At Barclays 'she was running a fund, she was also managing the global banking network', Ms Mordaunt said, adding: 'Andrea's stock is high in this area.' It comes amid speculation that Mrs May's supporters could be encouraged to back Michael Gove in the next round of voting in an effort to prevent the formidable Mrs Leadsom from making the shortlist. Ms Mordaunt urged colleagues to remember they were picking the next occupant of Number 10. She said: 'I would say it is absolutely vital for our party membership and the country - this is the prime minister we are picking here - that we put forward the best candidates. 'I would say to all my colleagues on Thursday, if you are voting for a candidate who you do not think is the best person to lead this country, you are doing something wrong.' A spokesman for Mrs Leadsom said: 'It is both surprising and disappointing that The Times based a significant part of a leading article on a single, uncorroborated letter without giving Mrs Leadsom the opportunity to respond to the allegations made in that letter.' Advertisement
Harriet Wran, the daughter of former NSW premier Neville Wran, placed two triple-zero calls in the moments after her boyfriend and his friend stabbed a drug dealer, court documents reveal.
Wran pleaded guilty on Wednesday in the NSW Supreme Court to a murder accessory charge over the death of a small-time drug dealer Daniel McNulty in Redfern two years ago.
The 28-year-old also pleaded guilty to robbery in company after prosecutors dropped the murder charge against her.
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The Crown has dropped a murder charge against Harriet Wran, the youngest daughter of former NSW premier Neville Wran, over the death of Redfern drug dealer Daniel McNulty
An agreed statement of facts tendered in court reveal Wran (pictured leaving court on Wednesday) didn't know her then-boyfriend Michael Lee was armed with a knife before she lured Mr McNulty to his door in August 2014
An agreed statement of facts tendered in court revealed Wran did not know her then-boyfriend Michael Lee had armed himself with a knife before she lured Mr McNulty to the door of his unit in August 2014.
It also revealed Wran did not know Lee's friend Lloyd Edward Haines had donned a balaclava.
Wran also placed two emergency calls in the moment after Mr McNulty and his housemate were fatally stabbed.
She pleaded guilty to a charge of harbouring, maintaining or assisting her then-boyfriend, as well as a charge of robbing Brett Fitzgerald of $650 at Redfern on August 10 that same year.
Her guilty plea came after prosecutors dropped the murder charge against her.
Wran was set to face a judge-alone trial this week before Justice Ian Harrison.
Wran, 28, was set to face a judge-alone trial in the NSW Supreme Court this week over the death of Redfern drug dealer Daniel McNulty
Jill Wran, the mother of Harriet Wran, was pictured arriving at the NSW Supreme Court on Wednesday where the Crown dropped the murder charge against the 28-year-old
As she was arraigned before on Wednesday, it became clear she would no longer be prosecuted in relation to allegations that she murdered Mr McNulty as part of a joint criminal enterprise in August 2014
But as she was arraigned in court on Wednesday, it became clear she would no longer be prosecuted in relation to allegations that she murdered Mr McNulty as part of a joint criminal enterprise in August 2014.
Her co-accused Lee and Haines have already pleaded guilty to murder.
In the moments before Wran was led back down to the cells, she appeared to mouth the words "love you" to her mother Jill Hickson, who has attended court to see her daughter at every opportunity in recent weeks.
Ms Hickson told reporters outside the court: "I couldn't love her more".
Wran, who has already spent almost two years behind bars, will face sentencing proceedings on July 14.
Wran appeared to mouth the words 'love you' to her mother Jill (pictured), who has attended court to see her daughter at every opportunity in recent weeks
Hollywood star Jim Carrey sent a text message to his ex-girlfriend asking where his missing prescription painkillers were just hours before her lifeless body was found following a massive drug overdose.
According to a bombshell LA Coroner's report - obtained by Daily Mail Online - Cathriona White had taken Carrey's anti-inflammatory pills along with a cocktail of other drugs to end her life.
The Irish beautician and make-up artist was found dead in her rented LA home on September 28 last year after ingesting a cocktail of prescription drugs including Zofran, propranol, Percocet and Ambien.
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Tragic: Irish beautician and makeup artist Cathriona White (left) deliberately overdosed on a cocktail of pills after breaking up with actor Jim Carrey (right), including some she had stolen from under his sink
Funeral: Carrey (pictured second from right) was a pallbearer at her funeral in Tipperary, Ireland. Her body was found on Sept 28 last year, four days after she committed suicide
Home: This is the LA home in which White lived alone - and where her body was found. Before ending her life she packed up belongings and wrote a letter to Carrey saying she was 'brokenhearted' about their break-up
White, who lived alone at her home on Briarwood Drive in the LA suburb of Sherman Oaks, had broken up with actor Carrey days before.
The report shows that White had told friends prior to her death that she was 'madly in love' with Carrey and that their relationship was a 'rollercoaster'.
It states that she tied her identity to Carrey's and that if she felt he was 'slipping away' from her she would become 'depressed'.
According to the report White's lifeless body was found in her bed dressed in a red T-shirt and black underwear surrounded by prescription bottles. She had a cell phone in her hand.
The pretty brunette had penned a suicide note and a longer letter in the hours before her death and carefully laid out her wishes.
Wrestling with her emotions she left the note and the letter, which she placed in an envelope addressed to 'Jim Carrey co/Nicole (Montez, Carrey's personal assistant)' on the dining room table.
White wrote to the actor: 'I've spent 3 days now in disbelief that you're not here. I can go on brokenhearted and try to put the pieces back. I could, I just don't have the will this time.
'I'm sorry you felt I wasn't there for you. I tried to give you my best part.'
Discussing details of her funeral, she said matter-of-factly: 'I don't really know about burial or that sort of thing. You are my family so whatever you choose will be fine.'
She added, asking for forgiveness: 'Please forgive me. I'm just not for this world.'
White also asked for her belongings to be sold and given to her family.
She signed off the note with 'Dewdrop' - presumably a pet name given to her by Carrey.
Before taking her life, White also carefully packed up items belonging to her ex-husband, Mark Burton, and marked the box as being his property.
Investigator Kelli Blanchard said in her report that White did not have any other injuries and her body showed early signs of decomposition - suggesting she had been dead for a number of days.
Last contact: In the hours before her death White held a three-minute FaceTime talk with Carrey. Earlier that day he had texted to ask where his pills had gone, but she had ignored his message
Close ties: Friends said that White had tied her identity to Carrey's and would become depressed if she felt him 'slipping away'. She had stopped eating altogether during a temporary break-up in 2013
Depressive: Friends said White had 'depressive qualities' and may have attempted to overdose on pills around two years before
The report states that she had no known mental health issues in the US but that friends said that she did have 'depressive qualities' and may have attempted to overdose on pills around two and half years before.
Friends initially became worried when White, originally from County Tipperary, Ireland, 'signed off' on her Twitter account on September 24, four days before her body was found, and wasn't heard from afterward.
That same day she sent what would be her last text message - a request asking if Carrey was awake, and if so whether he could call her.
White and Carrey had a three-minute FaceTime call a couple of hours later. That was the last activity on her phone.
It appears that following that call White slumped into a deep depression and locked herself away in the home.
In what now seems like a grim warning, an investigator found a text message sent by Carrey the day before White died asking if she knew where his painkillers were, as he couldn't find them under the sink.
It stated that there was a full prescription under an assumed name, 'Arthur King', with anti-inflammatories for the star's back and that the bottles were no longer there.
White never replied.
Family: White - pictured with brother James and mom Brigid Sweetman at sister Lisa's wedding in 2013 - called Carrey her 'family' and said that she didn't care what he did with her body
According to the report, her body was found by friends who had gone to her residence after a third party told them she had broken up with Carrey the week before.
Dennis Bradshaw and his wife Lena had gone to the home with Montez after not hearing from White after the split.
They tried to gain entry through the front door, but found it locked. They eventually managed to gain entry through a side door, after calling her cell phone and hearing it ring inside.
Dennis Bradshaw found Carreys number on White's phone and called him to tell him the woman was dead.
One friend, Jenny Burpee, told police that White had 'depressive qualities,' and that when she and Carrey had broken up in 2013, White had 'literally' not eaten or slept for a year afterwards.
White got back to her usual self in the six months after that; Carrey reconnected with her and they started dating again in 2014, Burpee said.
She also recalled how White had overdosed on pills around two to two-and-a-half years ago and had been found by another assistant of Carrey's at the time.
The document confirms that White was previously married to Mark Burton who said that he was aware that his former wife suffered with depressive episodes and had spoken about suicide.
If you need to speak to a counselor, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by calling 1 (800) 273-8255.
A racing car driver is suing the Commonwealth on claims he was detained, interrogated and searched more than 30 times by Customs officials at international Australian airports.
Gregory Martin Holloway has successfully argued Border Force (ABF) officials need to hand over CCTV footage and documents so he can respond to the Commonwealth's defence in the Supreme Court.
Mr Holloway, a racing car driver and businessman, claims he's been detained at Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane airports more than 30 times since June 2011, a recent judgement from Justice John Dixon shows.
Gregory Martin Holloway (pictured) has successfully argued Border Force (ABF) officials need to hand over CCTV footage and documents so he can respond to the Commonwealth's defence in the Supreme Court
Mr Holloway, a racing car driver and businessman, claims he's been detained at Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane airports more than 30 times since June 2011
ABF officials detained, interrogated, searched, and one occasion did an external strip search of Mr Holloway.
Mr Holloway is seeking both aggravated and exemplary damages
On each of the occasions, he was released without charge, investigation or any subsequent action.
He also claims Customs officers read his personal diary and mocked him when he was detained for two hours on returning from Austria, Herald Sun reports.
He was called a liar and mentally ill on another occasion, according to his statement of claim.
Mr Holloway claims the Commonwealth caused him loss or damage including loss of liberty for extended periods, fear, anxiety and panic attacks, and loss of income and opportunity from his business.
He claims the actions were all unlawful exercise of authority and constituted false imprisonment of himself or trespass to his property, or both.
The Commonwealth denies the allegations and unlawfully detaining him under authorisation of the Customs Act.
Pictured: Dashboard footage of Mr Holloway racing in his car at the Skip Barber at Road America in 2012
The Commonwealth claimed 'his own conduct' and answering 'yes' on questions on his incoming passenger cards led them to question and search his luggage.
Mr Holloway claims the officials 'exceeded the statutory power authorised by' the Act because the officers 'had no reasonable belief that the plaintiff was in possession' of prohibited goods.
He is seeking both aggravated and exemplary damages.
Last month, Justice Dixon ordered Border Force hand over unredacted CCTV footage and documents, including incoming passenger cards, training materials, policy statements and identification of ABF officers.
Justice Dixon provided few exemptions where the Commonwealth could redact information, mostly based on irrelevance to the civil case.
'I am persuaded that the plaintiff has properly identified a legitimate forensic purpose for each of the categories of documents and, mostly, for the information that has been concealed by redaction,' he said.
The Commonwealth denies the allegations and unlawfully detaining him under authorisation of the Customs Act
He said the documents, footage and identities of ABF officers was central to Mr Holloway's claim, and required the unredacted versions to properly ascertain the basis for the Commonwealth's defence.
'In particular, I accept the plaintiff's submissions that it will be relevant and probative for the plaintiff to prove in respect of the conduct alleged against ABF officers whether there is in fact a system for selecting certain passengers for particular treatment, what the system is, how it operates, and whether it was complied with on the pleaded occasions,' Justice Dixon said.
The proceeding has been adjourned for the Commonwealth to file a further defence with unredacted documents and allow for Mr Halloway to inspect it.
A spokesperson for the Department of Immigration and Border Protection told Daily Mail Australia the department 'does not accept the claims that have been made and will be defending this matter before the Supreme Court'.
'As the query relates to a matter which is subject to court proceedings, no further comment is appropriate at this stage.'
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Greg Holloway for comment.
Donald Trump blasted Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama Tuesday night in his first public speech since the FBI's director announced that the former secretary of state should not be prosecuted for her classified email scandal.
Obama, he said, put on a 'carnival act' in his first joint campaign appearance with Clinton. And his likely opponent in the general election, he claimed, lied to the American people and offered Attorney General Loretta Lynch a 'bribe' by floating the idea of keeping her in the presidential cabinet next year.
'To have what happened today,' Trump mused on stage in Raleigh, North Carolina, 'where essentially, I thought everybody thought based on what was being said, she was guilty! She was guilty!'
Clinton 'put the entire country in danger,' he claimed, by exposing state secrets to the prying eyes of hostile foreign governments.
'And it turned out that we're not going to press charges. It's, it's really amazing,' he said. 'But I'll tell you, I'll tell you, look, we have a rigged system, folks.'
Trump was merciless, bashing Clinton has he claimed she orchestrated a cover-up of financial crimes with her private email arrangement and then deleted the evidence in an 'Enron-style purge'.
LETTING IT ALL HANG OUT: Donald Trump was merciless in his first public remarks after the FBI's director announced that Hillary Clinton wouldn't face charges for mishandling classified documents
SCOT-FREE: Trump said Clinton has 'erased so many emails that we'll never find out' her motives
BRIBERY? The billionaire suggested that Attorney General Loretta Lynch was essentially bribed to let Clinton 'off the hook' by the promise of a job in her administration
'The question really has to be asked is this: What is Hillary Clinton's motive? And to that, I'm even gonna say: Who cares? She's put us in danger,' Trump said to wild applause.
'And some people say that it's corrupt financially. I don't care what her motive is. All I know is she had a motive, but she's erased so many emails that we'll never find out, okay?'
'Bill and Hillary Clinton raked in millions of dollars from foreign governments, special interests and international corporations in exchange for favors, folks! For favors!' he yelled.
'She's crooked Hillary! Don't you understand that? This is one of the most crooked politicians in history!'
'The FBI today talked so horribly about this person,' he added later, 'to the point where you say, how can we possibly be talking about no charges?'
Trump said on a half-dozen occasions that Clinton had 'lied' to the American people.
'We now know that she lied to the country when she said she did not send classified information on her server,' Trump blasted. 'She lied!'
'She sent vast amounts of classified information, including information classified as Top Secret. Top Secret!'
Clinton is 'grossly incompetent,' he claimed. 'She would be such a lousy president, folks.'
Trump appeared at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in Raleigh, North Carolina, a modernist theatre that seats about 2,200 a smallish crowd by Trump standards.
He said he 'always thought Hillary Clinton would escape charges for her dangerous and criminal behavior,' explaining that 'our system is totally rigged' in favor of powerful plutocrats.
'It's corrupt, it's rigged, it's disgraceful,' he said, renewing a well-worn campaign theme and pledging that he would reverse the country's course and unlike Clinton take the government's thumb off the scale.
'Hillary can't keep her emails safe. And you know what, folks? She sure as hell can't keep our country safe,' he sniffed.
CAPACITY CROWD: Trump spoke at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in Raleigh, North Carolina
COULD BE: Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker (right) spoke for a minute and traveled with Trump on Tuesday; he's rumored to be on the vice presidential short-list
Trump pushed another familiar argument, that rank-and-file government employees and military servicemembers have been prosecuted for lapses in handling classified information on a scale far smaller than Clinton's.
'Other people have been so badly hurt by doing things so much less than crooked Hillary Clinton. So much less,' he said.
But in a new twist, he asked how the U.S. should treat those convicts in the light of the FBI's decision.
'Does that mean that we have to exonerate everybody? We have to take back the punishment that we gave them? Because we have a country that's supposed to be fair,' he said.
Trump said Clinton should be held criminally responsible for the thousands of emails on her unsecured private server that contained classified material including more than 100 that FBI Director James Comey siad Tuesday morning were classified on the date Clinton sent or received them.
He insisted the former secretary of state's data security arrangement was a conscious effort to mask her activities in office.
'I don't hapen to believe that it was stupidity,' he said. 'But even stupidity is not a reason that you're going to be innocent.'
Trump also said Clinton offered Attorney General Loretta Lynch 'a bribe' on Tuesday because news reports described Democratic aides saying said she would consider re-appointing her to run the U.S. Department of Justice if she were to win the White House.
Lynch is still technically in control of her case, and could theoretically overrule the FBI and decide to prosecute her under the U.S. Espionage Act. That law sets a low bar for criminality, requiring only 'gross negligence' in the handling of classified material.
'She said today that we may consider the attorney general to go forward. That's like a bribe, isn't it?' an incredulous Trump asked. 'Isn't that sort of a bribe? I think it's a bribe!'
EMOTIONS: As top Trump policy director Stephen Miller said Clinton put Americans' lives at risk, a man inthe crowd yelled repeatedly: 'Hang that b**ch!'
'The attorney general's sitting there saying, "If I get Hillary off the hook, I'm gonna have four more years, or eight more years, but if she loses, I'm out of a job",' he added.
'It's a bribe! It's a disgrace. It's a disgrace. She's laughing at the stupidity of our system; she is laughing and so is her husband Bill.'
Trump also said he believes President Obama, who campaigned with Clinton in Charlotte, North Carolina just hours after Comey made his announcement, was aware ahead of time that the FBI would take steps to exonerate her.
'This was set up a long time ago, and he knew that the FBI was going to do this,' Trump said. 'Because it would have been very uncomfortable for him to campaign with her actually, if they didn't take a pass on crooked Hillary.'
'So they take a pass, they announce they're not going to press charges. Lo and behold a few hours later, "Let's have a press conference! Let's do a speech together".'
'By the way,' he snarked, 'her speech her speech was terrible. I watched it.'
Trump bashed Obama's performance as the kind of theatrical production that Democrats frequently say is Trump's own hallmark.
'I watched him today. It's like a carnival act. Lot of fun!' Trump boomed. 'Moving around, he has the whole thing. You know, great, great, great. I'm saying, this is a president?'
'We have a president who's out campaigning for crooked Hillary Clinton, and he should be home working on ISIS where the threat is getting worse and worse,' Trump complained.
'He should be working on trade. He should be working on the borders.'
BACK ON THE TRAIL: Trump will continue campaigning in Cincinnati, Ohio on Wednesday
LOST THE FBI PRIMARY: Trump said Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Democrats' second-place finisher, was the big loser in the FBI's decision because it cleared a path for Hillary Clinton to claim the nomination
Trump said the big loser in the FBI's decision was Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who he believed was refusing to concede the Democratic nomination to Clinton out of a slim hope that an indictment would be render her unelectable.
'He was waiting for the FBI primary. And he lost today!' Trump said of Sanders.
'He lost the FBI Primary! I feel so bad for Bernie. But a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters are going to vote for Trump.'
The billionaire also predicted disaffected Sanders supporters would turn out in force to complain outside the Democratic National Convention this month.
'I have a feeling they're going to have a lot of people marching in Philadelphia. Let's see what happens,' he said.
Trump traveled to North Carolina with Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker, who is rumored to be on his short list of potential vice presidential nominees.
Corker praised him as a genuine family man who had avoided other politicians fate of becoming 'caricatures of what the media makes them.'
Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Miller wound up the audience as Trump posed for pictures backstage.
Clinton, he said, 'hid her emails because she knew that what she did every day could never survive public scrutiny.'
'Imagine what would happen in your life if you did one one-thousandth of the thingds that Hillary Clinton did. You could lose your home, you could lose your job, you could lose everything that is near and dear to your heart.'
As he claimed her mishandling of state secrets put Americans' lives at risk, a man in the audience yelled: 'Hang that b**ch!' multiple times.
Trump's other warmup acts included Diamond and Silk, two boisterous black women whose YouTube channel is a monument to Trump-train enthusiasm.
DIAMOND & SILK: 'We are not letting a crook off the hook!' the YouTube-sensation pair of Trump fans said
SHREDDER? Trump accused Clinton of carrying out an 'Enron-style purge' of her emails in order to hide her activities as secretary of state
'It just really bothers me when I see that the President of the United States is here in North Carolina campaigning for a crook,' said Diamond while Silk, her cackling but wordless sidekick, yukked it up.
'We are not letting a crook off the hook!' Diamond said.
And she suggested Bill Clinton cut a deal with Attorney General Loretta Lynch during an airport tarmac meeting last week.
'This is what we call in the hood: "Kick-back, paddy-whack, give a dog a bone",' she said. 'We wonder who was giving the bone not to indict Hillary Clinton? Who was giving that bone?'
'Hillary? Where you at girl? Listen to me!' she yelled. 'If the Justice Department don't want to indict you, the American people will indict you!'
As the restless Trump fans weathered repeats of his pre-show playlist including Luciano Pavarotti singing an aria from Puccini's 'Turandot,' dozens of restless souls started a chant.
'Tell the truth! Tell the truth! Tell the truth!' they screamed until Pavarotti's tenor was replaced by Trump's jock-jams intro music.
It turned out they were targeting a television reporter one they considered anti-Trump in the middle of a live shot with her network.
Customers at Commonwealth Bank will be charged more for making withdrawals and cashing cheques from next month.
A fee increase of 50 cents - from $2 to $2.50 - will apply to withdrawals made over the counter and with an operator via telephone. Cheques cashed with tellers will be subject to the same charge.
Customers who want a clerk to write a personal cheque will pay $1.50, up from $1.
Customers at Commonwealth Bank will be charged higher fees for withdrawals from August 1
Tom Godfrey, from consumer advocacy group Choice, said the bank had gone on a 'fee frenzy'.
'It's another cynical cash grab from a bank that consistently delivers multibillion-dollar profits,' he told the Herald Sun.
Commonwealth Bank (CBA) - Australia's biggest lender - made a record $4.8 billion cash profit in the half year to December 31 2015.
A CBA spokesperson said the increase in charges was the first in more than 14 years.
'Customers with special needs, pensioners and youth are already and will continue to be exempt from these fees,' the spokesperson said.
The bank made a record $4.8 billion cash profit in half year to December 31 2015
'We also appreciate that some customers have unique circumstances and always encourage them to speak to us about their individual circumstances.'
The bank has seen a decline in customers who request assisted withdrawals, and said there were a number of fee-free alternatives available to withdraw money.
Another day and another suicide bombing, this time in Turkey.
It seems we havent had time to clean up after one terrorist attack before the next one. In fact, CNN reports that in the two years following its inception, the Islamic State has conducted or inspired at least 90 terrorist attacks in 21 countries (other than Iraq and Syria, where its carnage has taken a much deadlier toll) with nearly 1400 dead and more than 2000 injured.
When we read daily headlines, its easy to think that peace on Earth is slipping from our hands and theres nothing we can do. Those in leadership who couldve done something against ISIS initially, didnt, and could do more than token airstrikes now, but wont.
As I write, Fox News online reports that an innocent little girl living in a West Bank settlement was killed when a Palestinian attacker broke into the one place a girl should feel safe, her bedroom, stabbing her to death while she was sleeping. Its hard to comprehend that kind of hate, and its obvious our prayers for peace in the Middle East wont be answered without divine intervention from the Prince of Peace.
Until then, we are left to our own devices like the poor police chief in Sweden whos trying to stop Swedens out-of-control sexual assault problem with wristbands imprinted with the slogan: Dont touch me. Police hope the wristbands will help to fix a problem statistics show has increased a thousand-fold since the country first opened its doors to massive immigration from Muslim countries, the Daily Caller reports. While Sweden gets a thumbs-up for its big heart, they get two thumbs-down for not protecting their girls.
In another part of the world, the Jerusalem Post reports: Two boys under the age of 18 were crucified by Islamic State in the streets of the Syrian city of al-Mayadin. Apparently, they got caught eating during Ramadan. The Post also reports that ISIS leaders encouraged followers to escalate attacks on Christians, Shiites and Sunnis fighting with the US-led coalition, asking jihadists to turn Ramadan...into a time of calamity for the infidels, and become exposed to martyrdom.
Some would say that mission was accomplished in Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the jihadists who bombed the Istanbul airport were going straight to hell for the hell on Earth they caused.
Amidst all the killing and chaos, its easy to think that the hope for peace on Earth is dead as did Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. During the Civil War, Longfellow temporarily lost all hope when his son was severely wounded at, of all places, the Battle of New Hope Church. His wife had passed away in a fire, not long before.
As we all know, lifes circumstances can steal away our hope and suck the joy out of living if we allow it. That stark reality was accurately reflected in the poem, Christmas Bells, penned by a deeply grieving Longfellow on Christmas Day, 1863.
The initially joyful poem realistically transitioned just like life sometimes does from: I heard the bells on Christmas Day their old, familiar carols play, and wild and sweet the words repeat of peace on earth, good-will to men!
To: Then from each black accursed mouth, the cannon thundered in the South, and with the sound the carols drowned of peace on earth, good-will to men...And in despair, I bowed my head; There is no peace on earth, I said; For hate is strong, and mocks the song of peace on earth, good-will to men.
Thankfully, his poem didnt end there, nor should ours, despite current events. Be encouraged, because the One that Longfellow knew who is not dead nor doth he sleep will one day cause the wrong to fail and the right to prevail, with peace on earth, good-will to men.
Susan Stamper Brown lives in Alaska and writes about culture, politics and current events. She was selected as one of Americas 50 Best Conservative writers for 2015. Her columns are syndicated by CagleCartoons.com.Email her at writestamper@gmail.com.
Aidan Turners legions of admirers have more reason to rejoice, as the broadcaster has commissioned a third series of Poldark before the second has made it to air
Hes had female fans swooning since he first hit our screens as the dashing Ross Poldark in the hit BBC drama.
Now Aidan Turners legions of admirers have more reason to rejoice, as the broadcaster has commissioned a third series of Poldark before the second has made it to air.
Turner, 33, will continue in his role as the dashing title character in the drama based on the novels of Winston Graham, set in the 18th and 19th Century.
The first series, seen by audiences of more than 9.5million, propelled Irish actor Turner from a relative unknown into a TV star.
And the seriess success has now been recognised by the BBC, who have confirmed a third series before the second, ten-part series returns to the nations screens in September.
BBC executives said yesterday that the third series would begin filming in the autumn.
The cast and crew who have featured in the eight episodes of series one and the soon-to-be aired series two will stay on for the third, which will cover the fifth and sixth novels in the Poldark series, adapted for the screen by Debbie Horsfield.
Executive Producer Elizabeth Kilgarriff told the Daily Mirror: Series two promises to take the audience on another fantastic rollercoaster ride and were thrilled to know that the story wont end there.
Turner, 33, will continue in his role as the dashing title character in the drama based on the novels of Winston Graham, set in the 18th and 19th Century
Series one saw British Army officer Poldark return from fighting in the American War of Independence to his native Cornwall.
But on his return he found his ex-fiancee Elizabeth Chynoweth about to marry his cousin while his estate lay in ruins following the death of his father.
Turner, who appeared in the three Hobbit films, based on J R R Tolkiens novels, also starred in BBC3 supernatural drama Being Human before his numerous topless scenes in Poldark saw him light up living rooms during the shows Sunday night slot.
Zaal modified his backpack with velcro to hold the camera lens upwards
A 49-year-old man has pleaded guilty to filming up the skirts of several woman in shopping centres.
Fredericus Hendrikus Zaal was arrested at Hyperdome shopping centre in Tuggeranong, south of Canberra in December last year.
Zaal was caught after he attempted to film up the skirt of a woman with two young girls who was browsing the cosmetics aisle in Big W, Canberra Times reported.
Fredericus Hendrikus Zaal was arrested at Hyperdome shopping centre in Tuggeranong and now faces more than a dozen charges of intimate observation
The woman became suspicious after she noticed a black unzipped backpack between her legs.
Looking to see who it belonged to she noticed Zaal who apologised before picking it up and walking away.
The woman informed a male she was shopping with after she noticed Zaal watching a video on his phone nearby.
The man confronted the offender and called the police who later found fifteen video files of indecent footage - some clearly showing Zaal's face.
Zaal was caught after the woman informed a male she was shopping with about the incident. He contacted the police which led to Zaal's arrest (stock photo)
The defendant was found to have modified his backpack with Velcro allowing a phone to be placed low with the camera lens facing upwards, court document said.
Zaal appeared at ACT Magistrates Court on Tuesday to face more than a dozen charges of intimate observation.
The 49-year-old was remanded on bail and will be sentenced in September.
A Gold Coast hairdresser who had a blood alcohol reading of almost 10 times over the legal limit has avoided jail.
Angela Bisson, 42, walked free from Southport District Court on Tuesday after Judge Clive Wall found she had only travelled 60 metres while under the influence.
Judge Wall had requested Bisson and her lawyer to draw a picture of the distance she had driven from the liquor store to her workplace.
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Angela Bisson, 42, walked free from Southport District Court on Tuesday after Judge Clive Wall found she had only travelled 60 metres while under the influence (Ms Bison pictured leaving court earlier this year)
'Here we have at the most 60m of driving, all on the same side of the road,' the judge said, according to the Gold Coast Bulletin.
'There's no evidence that any other vehicle or person was put at risk.'
Bisson had been sentenced to two months prison after she pleaded guilty to driving with a blood alcohol reading of 0.48 percent, which was described by the magistrate as 'abominable'.
She appealed the jail term and Judge Wall handed down his decision on Tuesday, which also saw the period of her licence disqualification reduced by six months to two years.
Judge Wall asked Bisson and her lawyer to draw a picture of the distance that she had travelled from the liquor store to her workplace
The Gold Coast mother and hairdresser (left) pleaded guilty in April
Bisson's lawyer Paul Hamilton said his client was pleased with the outcome and was 'looking forward to getting on with her life'
Instead of prison, Bisson will be on two years' probation.
In his ruling, Judge Wall said the sentencing magistrate did not take the proper steps to determine the 'nature and extent of the driving' undertaken by Bisson.
The judge also said her early guilty plea was also not taken into account during sentencing.
Bisson's lawyer Paul Hamilton said his client was pleased with the outcome and was 'looking forward to getting on with her life'.
The hairdresser was found slumped over the wheel of her car in October by paramedics after drinking almost half a bottle of vodka mixed with lemonade.
Previously her lawyer argued Ms Bisson should not be handed a jail sentence because she had an 'exceptionally good' traffic history as she had only three previous speeding offences.
Ms Bisson, pictured right, was found by paramedics slumped over the wheel of her car in October last year
Bisson, pictured with a client in her hair salon, recorded a blood alcohol level of 0.48 which traffic police estimated was a Queensland record
He also argued Bisson suffered from 'chronic and major depression, and she had developed an alcohol problem when her marriage broke down and she lost custody of her two-year-old son to her ex, The Courier Mail reported at the time.
She has since sought treatment for her condition, the court previously heard.
Following her arrest, Bisson's reading shocked traffic police who declared it a Queensland record, with the legal limit being 0.05.
Bisson's title as one of Australia's drunkest drivers was overshadowed after a 52-year-old woman scored the highest ever blood alcohol reading in NSW at 0.486 near Coffs Harbour on the NSW Mid North Coast.
Queensland University professor Jake Najman told Daily Mail Australia most drinkers would pass out at 0.3 and would be comatose and at risk of dying by 0.4
Queensland University professor Jake Najman told Daily Mail Australia most drinkers would pass out at 0.3 and would be comatose and at risk of dying by 0.4.
'One of the effects of alcohol is it is a respiratory depressant,' he said.
'So you stop breathing you start to lose consciousness by 0.3, by 0.4 you should be well and truly unconscious.
'After 0.4 that's unknown territory.'
Ms Bisson has operated Mane Hair & Beauty near the beach at Runaway Bay for six years.
She previously ran hairdressing salon Silver Scissors, which had once been owned by her mother, Marilyn Zavattin.
The highest-ranking officer who was charged for his alleged role in the Freddie Gray case will stand trial.
Prosecutors could have an uphill battle trying Baltimore Police Lt Brian Rice, 42, in the death of Gray, the 25-year-old black man whose broken neck after his arrest caused civil unrest in Baltimore.
The judge said they can't use 4,000 pages of Rice's training records as evidence because they didn't turn copies over to the defense in time.
Highest-ranking officer, Baltimore Police Lt Brian Rice (pictured), who was charged for his alleged role in the Freddie Gray case will stand trial
Prosecutors could have an uphill battle trying Rice in the death of Freddie Gray (left and right in the hospital), the 25-year-old black man whose broken neck after his arrest caused civil unrest in Baltimore
The judge said they can't use 4,000 pages of Rice's training records as evidence because they didn't turn copies over to the defense in time
Judge Barry Williams will begin trying Rice Thursday on charges of manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in Gray's death.
Prosecutors say they only recently acquired the records from police, but the judge said they should have used subpoena power to get them months ago.
The 42-year-old previously asked for his case to be dismissed arguing a 'defect in the institution of prosecution', according WBAL.
Rice sought for the charges to be dismissed along with the three remaining officers in the case, Officer Garrett Miller, Officer William Porter and Sgt Alicia White.
The officers filed motions that they were not given due process, after Baltimore City Sheriff's Major Sam Cogen said the warrants and charges for arresting the six officers were drafted by the state's attorney's office, according to Patch.com.
And Baltimore Police Detective Dawnyell Taylor testified that she was given a script to read before a grand jury by prosecutors, the website reported.
The judge refused the defense's request to dismiss the case entirely.
Rice, like two other officers tried before him, waived his right to a jury, putting his fate in the judge's hands instead.
He is free on $350,000 bail.
Rice's most serious charge against him is his alleged failure to secure Gray with a seat belt when he helped put him in the police van, according to ABC News.
The judge will determine whether Rice is criminally liable for Gray's death for not properly fastening a seat belt on him and for not seeking medical attention for Gray when he asked for it.
Last month, Williams acquitted Officer Caesar Goodson, saying he saw no evidence that a crime was committed in Gray's death.
Officer Edward Nero was also acquitted in May.
A mistrial was declared for Officer William Porter in December 2015.
Judge Barry Williams will begin trying Rice Thursday on charges of manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in Gray's death. Video footage from Gray's arrest showed him appearing to be dragged by officers. Lt Rice is pictured left
Rice's most serious charge against him is his alleged failure to secure Gray with a seat belt when he helped put him in the police van. The judge will determine whether Rice is criminally liable for Gray's death for not properly fastening a seat belt on him and for not seeking medical attention for Gray when he asked for it
Six officers were charged in Gray's death, but only driver, Goodson, was accused of murder after Gray's death. Pictured are Caesar Goodson (top left), Garrett Miller (top center), Edward Nero (top right), William Porter (bottom left), Brian Rice (bottom center) and Alicia White (bottom right)
Six officers were charged in Gray's death, but only driver, Goodson, was accused of murder after Gray's death.
Prosecutors say that Goodson failed to put a safety belt on Gray, whose hands and feet were bound, which would have kept him from slamming into the van's metal walls.
They claimed that the officer had intentionally given him a 'rough ride' - a form of police brutality where an officer drives aggressively so that a restrained suspect is thrown around in the back of a cop car and injured.
But Williams today acquitted Goodson after hearing five days of testimony in the non-jury trial.
He also found Goodson not guilty of manslaughter, assault, misconduct in office, and reckless endangerment.
Gray's neck was broken after officers left him handcuffed and shackled but unrestrained by a seat belt inside a metal transport compartment in Goodson's van
He died in April 2015, a week after he suffered a critical spinal injury while in police custody. Protests and rioting after Gray's death last year set the city on fire, forcing Maryland to bring in the National Guard
The unrest forced the city's mayor to abandon her re-election campaign, and the Department of Justice opened an investigation into allegations of widespread police abuse. Pictured is Richard Shipley, Gray's stepfather (left), and Gray's mother Gloria Darden (center) along with lawyer Bill Murphy (right)
'The state failed to prove the defendant knew or should have known that Mr Gray needed medical care,' the judge said.
Gray's neck was broken after officers left him handcuffed and shackled but unrestrained by a seat belt inside a metal transport compartment in Goodson's van.
He died in April 2015, a week after he suffered a critical spinal injury while in police custody.
Protests and rioting after Gray's death last year set the city on fire, forcing Maryland to bring in the National Guard.
The daughter of former prime minister Kevin Rudd has become a popular Chinese mummy blogger and baby formula businesswoman.
Jessica Rudd, a lawyer, author and former columnist for CLEO magazine, sells shiploads of organic products to China, where she used to live.
Her export company Jessica's Suitcase hawks paw paw ointment, coconut oil, sunscreen, mosquito repellent, baby toys and goat's milk infant formula on a top Chinese website.
'I know what it's like to be a mum in China,' Ms Rudd said in a smiling promotional video spoken in both English and Chinese.
'I lived there for five years, my little girl is three. And I was worried when I looked outside at the pollution.'
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Mother-of-two Jessica Rudd is pictured with her daughter, Josie, in a promotional video for her company
Ms Rudd runs a business through major Chinese online retailers where she sells popular Australian products
Ms Rudd has more than 20,000 followers on the Chinese social media website, Weibo
Rubbing shoulders: The businesswoman is seen with Jack Ma, the founder of Chinese retail behemoth Alibaba. She sells her products on an Alibaba site called TMall Global
The country's former 'first daughter' is using Chinese social media - such as the website Weibo and a 'mummy blog' on major online retailer JD.com - to hawk her wares to millions of consumers.
The enterprise apparently sells thousands of tubes of paw paw ointment each month as well as organic infant formula and tampons.
It appears to be going well, with Jessica's Suitcase cracking $100,000 in sales in its first month alone, according to The Australian Financial Review.
CT Johnson, managing director of Cross Border Management, said many organic companies have turned to China because of the popularity of Australian pharmaceutical and healthcare products.
'Australia has a very clean, green and high quality reputation when it comes to these kinds of goods,' Mr Johnson said.
'China itself has a very bad reputation around producing those things. They've had a number of scandals', including the 2008 baby formula contamination crisis where six babies died.
Jessica Rudd's fledgling business reportedly made $100,000 in its first month of sales alone
Ms Rudd, with husband Albert Tse, lived in Beijing for five years between 2009 and 2014
Ms Rudd regularly posts pictures of her family to her Chinese social media account, which has 20,000 followers
Ms Rudd regularly posts about her two children, Josephine and McLean (left). The mother and her daughter spend time together on right
Family: Ms Rudd is the daughter of former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd - the country's first Mandarin speaking leader - and his millionaire businesswoman wife Therese Rein
Ms Rudd (centre) with daughter Josephine, husband Albert Tse and parents
Ms Rudd lived in Beijing with her husband Albert Tse from 2009 to 2014, and the couple had a baby, Josie, during that time.
She launched the business in mid-2015 with the support of Mr Rudd, who cheered the company's arrival to his considerable Weibo following of 600,000 people.
In the few interviews she has conducted about the business, Ms Rudd has spoken of how she grew up with Chinese culture in her life - her father being the first Australian leader to speak Mandarin.
Ms Rudd apparently had the idea when she noticed how her Chinese friends were always interested in the products she brought home with her from Australia.
And with the advice of her entrepreneurial mother, Igneus founder and millionaire Therese Rein, she runs the business from home.
Speaking to the blog ChinaBites last year, Ms Rudd said: 'We want to earn the trust of the Chinese customer.'
Oscar Pistorious could be freed from jail within a year, despite being sentenced to six year's jail for murdering his girlfriend, according to a leading defence lawyer.
The family of Reeva Steenkamp said they would not launch an appeal over her killer's six-year jail sentence insisting 'nothing will bring her back'.
Fallen superstar Pistorius was sent to jail over the murder this morning - but could be eligible to be considered for parole after serving just half of the sentence.
And one leading defence lawyer, who was on the shortlist to defend Pistorius following his arrest, said Pistorius could actually be freed after just one year.
Mike Hellens - who is the South African equivalent of a QC - explained that because the judge did not specify that she had taken into account the year he has already spent behind bars, Pistorius' lawyers could successfully argue for that time to be deducted from the six year term handed down, making him eligible to be considered for parole in two and a half years.
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Fallen superstar Oscar Pistorius could be free in 2019 after a judge sentenced him for six years for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp
Arnold Pistorius (left), uncle of Oscar Pistorius, walks in front of the stand as Reeva Steenkamp's weeping cousin Kim Martins is comforted by Reeva's mother June andr husband Barry
Oscar Pistorius holds his sister Aimee Pistorius as he leaves the High Court after he was sentenced to six years for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp
Pistorius, 29, shot Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine's Day in 2013, claiming he mistook her for a burglar when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet
Mr Hellens added that South Africa's sentencing laws empowered prison bosses would be be free to approach a judge to have Pistorius released into house arrest after just one more year behind bars.
Mr Hellens said: 'The judge was not clear in her judgment, but there is an argument that the Supreme Court of Appeal set aside his earlier conviction and the sentence.
'So, his lawyer could argue that he has done one year already and then he could be out in two and half years on straight parole.
'Or, according to this law, the prisons authorities could approach the judge in one year from now and ask her to reconsider the sentence and release him on correctional supervision, or house arrest.'
The one-time Olympic icon clutched at his family as he was led down to the cells to await his return to prison after being sentenced by Judge Thokozile Masipa.
At the same time, Reeva's parents June and Barry maintained a dignified silence and comforted the model's cousin Kim Martins as she wept in court.
Dup De Bruyn, solicitor for the Steenkamp family, said afterwards: 'The law has run its course, nothing will bring Reeva back.'
Although the state were given the opportunity to announce an appeal against the decision, they declined to do so.
The 29-year-old runner's sister Aimee, wept loudly - her hands clasped to her face as she watched her older brother descend into the bowls of Pretoria's High Court where the latest chapter of Pistorius' extraordinary life has played out for the last two years.
Jenna Edkins, the double amputee's former girlfriend, who has reportedly moved back in with him to provide comfort during his last few weeks of freedom, whispered to him and held his sleeve as he passed slowly.
The grief-stricken parents of 29-year-old Reeva maintained a dignified silence as Judge Masipa sealed Pistorius' fate, and appeared to accept that the killer was shown great mercy by the judge, who could have jailed him for 15 years.
Judge Masipa, whose earlier decision to acquit the double amputee of murdering his lover was overturned by appeal judges, took an hour to read her lengthy judgment before ordering Pistorius to stand as she handed down his final punishment.
Mrs Steenkamp (left) lowered her eyes and shook her head in disagreement when the judge told the court that she did not consider the dead woman to have been in 'an abusive relationship'
Pistorius hugged family members as he was led away following the dramatic sentencing hearing this morning
Describing the accused as a 'fallen hero' who 'cannot be at peace' the judge told the court that a lengthy spell behind bars 'would not serve justice in this matter'
Journalists crowd around a van believed to be carrying Olympic and Paralympic track star Oscar Pistorius after his sentencing at the North Gauteng High Court
Pistorius was driven from the court after the dramatic sentencing this morning as he started his jail term
Lawyers for the defence looked relieved at the decision, although prosecutor Gerrie Nel looked uncomfortable.
The judge briefly adjourned the court enabling the lawyers to discuss the decision, but at this stage the state appears to be prepared to let it go unchallenged.
The statutory minimum for murder in South Africa is 15 years, however, the Judge found that Pistorius' disability, the context of the killing, the 12 months he has already spent behind bars during which he completed a raft of rehabilitation courses provided 'compelling' reasons to show mercy.
SENTENCING HIGHLIGHTS - Runner sentenced to six years in jail - Must serve half before parole or house arrest can be considered - Could be back home by July 2019 - Waiting to hear if state will appeal - Family and supporters of the runner wept - The quietest people in the room were the parents of Reeva Steenkamp - Pistorius, 29, could be out by the age of 32 Advertisement
State prosecutor Gerrie Nel had called for the double amputee to serve the minimum sentence for firing four expanding bullets at his victim at close range as she cowered behind a locked toilet door.
And Barry Steenkamp, Reeva's devastated father, also asked the judge to ensure that his daughter's killer should 'pay for his crime'.
But in her judgment, the judge made it clear she had accepted arguments made by Pistorius' lawyers that the statutory minimum sentence was not appropriate in the case, despite the overwhelming tide of hostile public opinion against the runner.
'Public opinion may be loud and persistent but it can play no role in this case,' she told the packed court.
She rejected the 'misperception' of Reeva's parents, Barry and June Steenkamp, that there was a violent argument between the lovers before the fatal shooting.
Mrs Steenkamp lowered her eyes and shook her head in disagreement when the judge told the court that she did not consider the dead woman to have been in 'an abusive relationship'.
The judge accepted the defence's argument that there were 'two Oscars' one a powerful athlete, the other a vulnerable man with a profound disability.
'It is easy to see we are dealing with two different people,' she said.
Citing Pistorius as a 'good candidate for rehabilition' she concluded that the fact that he is known to have a 'quick temper did not make him a violent person. '
The sentencing may also not be the end of the saga, as Pistorius or the state could launch a final round of appeals against the length of the prison term
Judge Thokozile Masipa, who heard the original trial, handed out a six-year sentence three weeks after a court hearing that marked another episode of high drama in the long-running case
As he moved slowly along the bench towards the dock, where he spent months on trial for murder, Pistorius sought to make eye contact and greet the parents of his 29-year-old victim as he passed in front of them
As the judge read out her judgment, the body language of Reeva Steenkamp's family became increasingly uncomfortable as the realisation dawned on them that her killer would be shown mercy by the court.
Describing the accused as a 'fallen hero' who 'cannot be at peace' she told the court that a lengthy spell behind bars 'would not serve justice in this matter'.
Dup De Bruyn, solicitor for the Steenkamp family said: 'The law has run its course, nothing will bring Reeva back.'
The law has run its course, nothing will bring Reeva back Dup De Bruyn, solicitor for the Steenkamp family
There have been conflicting interpretations by lawyers about when Pistorius could be eligible to be considered for parole - ranging between one-sixth and two-thirds of his sentence.
Any challenge by the prosecution to the Supreme Court of Appeal would be another blow to Judge Masipa, who issued the original culpable homicide verdict that was later overturned.
Many legal experts said they had expected a term of between 11 and 14 years.
Jacqui Mofokeng, spokeswoman of the ruling ANC party's women league, told AFP after the sentencing: 'We are very disappointed... from five years that we fought against, and now it is six, what is that? It's an insult to the women of South Africa.'
The roads around the High Court were blocked by police as a prison van, carrying Pistorius, and police outriders swept up from the court's cells in a blaze of sirens and flashing lights.
The convoy arrived at Kgosi Mampuru II jail only a few minutes later where Pistorius will be processed before being led back to the hospital wing where he spent little under a year for manslaughter.
Oscar Pistorius was handed a six-year jail term for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp - but could be out in 2019 after a judge outlined his 'special circumstances'
Oscar Pistorius is flanked by guards as he arrives at court (left). Reeva Steenkamp's mother June and her father Barry ahead of the hearing (right)
South African Paralympian Oscar Pistorius (pictured arriving at court this morning) was freed from prison last October after serving one year of a five-year term for culpable homicide, the equivalent of manslaughter
The runner will once again be given a schedule of rehabilitation programmes to complete while he serves his time which will count towards any consideration to give him parole, which could be considered by prison bosses in three years' time.
Outside court, where crowds had gathered for a glimpse of the famous prisoner, many observers were critical of the judge's decision.
The National Prosecuting Authority have two weeks to announce an appeal against the sentence - sources have said that prosecutor Mr Nel would not accept any jail term under eight years.
However, with the family of the dead cover girl appearing to resign themselves to the punishment, the decision by the judge may go unchallenged.
After the sentencing, the runner's brother, Carl Pistorius, took to Twitter to reveal his 'utmost respect for Judge Masipa' calling her a 'remarkable woman'.
In a second tweet, he wrote: 'The record has been set straight and justice done. The truth will always prevail.'
Pistorius' father Henke added: 'Obviously I am sad to see my son going back to jail and this is not what I had wanted. I suppose we must see if Nel will appeal it, I hope not.
'But at least the judge today spelled some things out that we believe - that Oscar is remorseful and has tried to apologise repeatedly, and that all the headlines about him being violent are not true. For that, at least, I am happy.'
Legal observers across South Africa took to social media to express surprise at how lenient the judge had been with Pistorius - adding only a single year to the sentence she had originally handed down to him for manslaughter. Many predicted prosecutors would be considering an appeal.
Oscar Pistorius will serve his sentence in the Kgosi Mampuru Correctional Facility in Pretoria, South Africa
The convoy arrived at Kgosi Mampuru II jail only a few minutes later where Pistorius will be processed before being led back to the hospital wing where he spent little under a year for manslaughter
And twitter lit up to highlight a string of much harsher sentences which had been handed down in South Africa, for far less serious crimes, such as theft.
A recurring theme was that if Pistorius had been poor and black - and not rich, famous and white - he would now be facing a far longer stretch behind bars.
Reeva's best friend Gina Myers was in court with her sister, Kim and their mother, to hear the judge's decision. She refused to comment to journalists, but her later tweet expressed her frustration. She wrote '5forCulp6ForMurder'.
Top South African defence lawyer Mike Hellens said he did not think that Gerrie Nel would be wise to appeal as it would have little chance of success in extending Pistorius' time behind bars.
An appeal would have to show that the sentence handed down was 'shockingly inappropriate' or 'there had been an error in reasoning and there was any mis-direction', Mr Hellens added.
'I didn't hear any misdirection in the judgment, and although Gerrie Nel will be disappointed with the sentence, I don't think any appeal would find it to be 'shockingly inappropriate'. I think once Gerrie Nel has calmed down a bit, he should see that he wouldn't get anywhere with an appeal and this should be the end of the matter, once and for all.'
After the sentencing, the runner's brother, Carl Pistorius, took to Twitter to reveal his 'utmost respect for Judge Masipa' calling her a 'remarkable woman'
In a second tweet, he wrote: 'The record has been set straight and justice done. The truth will always prevail'
Reeva's best friend Gina Myers was in court with her sister, Kim and their mother, to hear the judge's decision. She refused to comment to journalists, but her later tweet expressed her frustration. She wrote '5forCulp6ForMurder'
Pistorius shot Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine's Day in 2013, claiming he mistook her for a burglar when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet.
The athlete looked pale, drawn and hollow-eyed as he arrived at court this morning.
He spent several minutes hugging his family, friends and legal team who gathered in large numbers to support him.
Fans bearing wrapped gifts lined up to hug their fallen hero as he picked his way through the packed court on what was likely to be his final walk as a free man.
As he moved slowly along the bench towards the dock, where he spent months on trial for murder, Pistorius deliberately sought to make eye contact and greet the parents of his 29-year-old victim as he passed in front of them.
Jenna Edkins, the double amputee's former girlfriend, who has reportedly moved in with him to provide comfort during his last few weeks of freedom took her seat behind Pistorius, flanked by his sister Aimee and uncle Arnold.
He then took his seat and was seen tapping on his mobile phone.
Steenkamp's parents, Barry and June, sat on the other side of the courtroom, which was packed with journalists and other observers.
Shown to the world with her parents' blessing: A judge has agreed to release shocking pictures of Reeva Steenkamp's gunshot injuries after her father begged for the 'world to see' the pain Oscar Pistorius had inflicted on his daughter when he shot her dead three years ago
Pistorius shot the model with three military-grade Black Talon bullets that are designed to expand upon impact, wreaking devastating damage to the flesh it strikes. Six images were released after her parent chose which ones they wanted to be shared with the public
Due to his time already spent in jail and mitigating factors such as his disability, he could be given a lesser term and some legal experts believe he could even be free in three and a half years
Pistorius was freed from prison in the South African capital Pretoria last October after serving one year of a five-year term for culpable homicide - the equivalent of manslaughter
Reeva Steenkamp's father Barry arrives at the High Court in Pretoria, for the hearing of Oscar Pistorius
Judge Thokozile Masipa said her sentence would consider a variety of factors, including the interests of society and those of the victims, as well as crime deterrence and rehabilitation.
Masipa asked Pistorius to sit on his wooden bench in the Pretoria courtroom on Wednesday while she explained the reasons for her decision.
Earlier, Stephan Terblanche, a law professor at the University of South Africa, had told AFP: 'It is very difficult to predict what sentence it is that will be imposed... This a fairly unique situation.'
Legal expert Llewellyn Curlewis, chair of the Law Society of the Northern Provinces, told the agency that he expected a sentence of between 11 and 14 years.
But leading defence lawyer, Mike Hellens, who was on the shortlist to represent Pistorius following his arrest for the Valentine's Day murder in 2013, had also warned against the judge 'over compensating' after her manslaughter conviction of the runner was overturned by superiors last year.
Mr Hellens, who has known Judge Masipa for many years, earlier said he thought she would ignore the minimum sentence guideline for 'significant and compelling reasons' and jail the 29-year-old for 'between seven and 10 years' which would mean the runner could be free in three and a half years.
Mr Hellens predicted 'an immediate appeal' by the state if the judge who was demonstrably moved by the disabled athlete's emotional outbursts in court jailed him for any less than seven years.
South African paralympian Oscar Pistorius (C) shot his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine's Day in 2013, claiming he mistook her for a burglar
The 29-year-old Paralympian looked pale, drawn and hollow-eyed as he arrived at court this morning
Olympic and Paralympic track star Oscar Pistorius arrives for sentencing at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria
Legal expert Llewellyn Curlewis, chair of the Law Society of the Northern Provinces, told AFP that he expected a sentence of between 11 and 14 years
Judge Masipa, who heard the original trial, delivered the sentence three weeks after a court hearing that marked another episode of high drama in the long-running case.
Pistorius, sobbing heavily, hobbled on his stumps across the courtroom to demonstrate his physical vulnerability as his lawyers argued he should not return to jail on account of his anxiety disorder and depression.
But prosecutor Gerrie Nel argued that the double-amputee sprinter should be given a lengthy jail term as he failed to show any remorse for the murder.
Nel also criticised Pistorius for filming a recent television interview, despite claiming to be too unwell to give evidence in court.
In the interview, he said he believed Steenkamp would want him to devote his life to charity rather than return to prison for killing her.
'I don't want to go back to jail,' he said. 'If I was afforded the opportunity of redemption, I would like to help the less fortunate.'
I would like to believe that if Reeva could look down upon me that she would want me to live that life.
OSCAR PISTORIUS: FROM OLYMPIC GLORY TO SIX-YEAR JAIL SENTENCE Oscar Pistorius, the South African double-amputee sprinter who shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013, was sentenced on Wednesday to six years in prison. In December, the country's Supreme Court of Appeal threw out his earlier conviction of the lesser crime of culpable homicide, for which Pistorius had served one year of a five-year jail sentence. Here is a snapshot of events that began with the shooting on Valentine's Day 2013. 2013 February 14: Police arrest the double-amputee Olympic sprinter for killing Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, who was shot four times at his Pretoria home. February 15: Pistorius bursts into tears as he is charged, denying murder 'in the strongest terms'. February 19: Pistorius claims in an affidavit he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder. He fired through a locked bathroom door in what prosecutors term 'premeditated' murder. February 22: Pistorius is granted bail. The sentencing may also not be the end of the saga, as Pistorius or the state could launch a final round of appeals against the length of the prison term 2014 March 3: The trial opens in Pretoria before an army of journalists from around the world, with the testimony of a neighbour who tells the court she heard 'terrible screams' from a woman. Ten days later, Pistorius vomits when a picture of Steenkamp's body is flashed on the court's television screens. April 7-15: Pistorius takes the stand and begins with a tearful apology to Steenkamp's family. This is followed by five days of often intense cross-examination, marked by bouts of tears and breaks in the session. Pistorius steadfastly denies any intention to kill Steenkamp. June 30: After a six-week break, a panel of three psychiatrists and a psychologist conclude that Pistorius does not suffer from mental illness. September 12: Pistorius is found guilty of culpable homicide or manslaughter. October 21: Judge Thokozile Masipa sentences Pistorius to a maximum of five years in jail. The athlete is immediately taken to Pretoria prison. 2015 October 20: Pistorius is allowed out of prison after just one year to spend the remainder of his sentence under house arrest. December 3: The Supreme Court of Appeal convicts Pistorius of murder, saying his testimony was 'vacillating and untruthful'. December 8: Pistorius is released on bail pending sentencing, and remains under house arrest. 2016 January 11: Pistorius makes last-ditch attempt with South Africa's top court to overturn his murder conviction. March 2: Pistorius loses his final bid to appeal his murder conviction. July 6: He is sentenced to six years in jail for the murder. Advertisement
Steenkamp's father 73-year-old Barry broke down during his testimony at the sentencing hearing as he called for Pistorius to 'pay for his crime' of murdering Reeva, a model and law graduate.
Last month a judge has dramatically agreed to release graphic pictures of Steenkamp's gunshot wounds after her parents begged for the 'world to see' the pain Oscar Pistorius has inflicted on their daughter.
Some of the pictures show her hair matted with blood and severe bruising around her eye which a pathologist said during his trial was caused by the impact of the bullet on her skull.
MailOnline chose to publish some of the pictures, which were muzzed, but the others were far too graphic to show.
Pistorius, who pleaded not guilty at his trial in 2014, has always denied killing Steenkamp in a rage, saying he was trying to protect her.
The Supreme Court of Appeal in December ruled that Pistorius was guilty of murder, irrespective of who was behind the door when he opened fire with a high-calibre pistol he kept under his bed.
If jailed on Wednesday, he would likely return to the hospital section of Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria, separated from regular inmates.
Pistorius - who was born without calf bones - had his legs amputated below the knee when he was just 11 months old so he could be fitted with prosthetic legs.
Since his release, Pistorius has lived under restrictions at his uncle's mansion in Pretoria.
He became the first Paralympian to compete against able-bodied athletes at the 2012 London Olympics.
The 'broke and broken' Olympian who went from international sports stardom to a prison cell
At the 2012 London Olympics, before 80,000 roaring fans and a constellation of camera flashes, it took Oscar Pistorius 45.44 seconds to become a global icon.
The South African's sprint around the 400m track was the first time in history that a double-amputee had raced at the Olympic Games.
The race capped an Olympian triumph over adversity for Pistorius. His journey from disabled child to world-class athlete seemed to embody the very best of sporting endeavour and the human spirit.
The South African's sprint around the 400m track at the London 2012 Olympic Games was the first time in history that a double-amputee had raced at the Olympic Games
The 2012 Olympics capped a triumph over adversity for Pistorius. His journey from disabled child to world-class athlete seemed to embody the very best of sporting endeavour and the human spirit
Then on Valentine's Day in 2013 his achievements were just as quickly demolished.
In the early hours of the morning at his upmarket Pretoria home, he shot and killed his 29-year-old model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, later saying he believed her to be an intruder.
At his trial in 2014, he sat for months in a windowless courtroom, and watched as his world was washed away.
His sparkling career was cut short, sponsors dumped him and he was forced to sell his homes in the face of mounting legal bills.
His conviction for manslaughter put him in jail for a year but his crime was upgraded to murder on appeal and on Wednesday he was sentenced to six years, less than half the minimum term of 15 years for the charge.
The athlete had sobbed, shaken and vomited in the dock as details of his lover's brutal death were examined in excruciating detail during his trial while the eyes of the world were transfixed.
In the early hours of the morning at his upmarket Pretoria home, Pistorius shot and killed his 29-year-old model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp (pictured), later saying he believed her to be an intruder
The 'Blade Runner' - an epithet earned for his trademark prosthetic legs that powered him to fame as a Paralympic gold medallist - became the 'Blade Gunner.'
'He's not only broke, but he is broken, there is nothing left,' lawyer Barry Roux told his sentencing hearing last month.
Time and again during his trial, the court was told about 'two Oscars' - one a hero, the other a victim.
But the high-profile proceedings also exposed the 29-year-old's darker side: offering glimpses of a dangerously volatile man with a penchant for guns, beautiful women and fast cars.
In 2009, he spent a night in jail after allegedly assaulting a 19-year-old woman at a party in a case that was settled out of court.
Two years later, he was accused of firing a gun through the sunroof of an ex-girlfriend's moving car, although a court found there was not enough evidence to convict him on that charge.
Weeks before he shot Steenkamp, he discharged a gun by accident at a Johannesburg restaurant.
'Oscar is certainly not what people think he is,' ex-lover and trial witness Samantha Taylor has said.
Pistorius has long been open about his love for guns. The sprinter slept with a pistol under his bed at his home in a high-security estate for fear of burglars.
Once held in Amsterdam after gunpowder residue was detected on his prosthetics, he also took a New York Times journalist interviewing him to a shooting range.
Pistorius (right with Steenkamp) has long been open about his love for guns. The sprinter slept with a pistol under his bed at his home in a high-security estate for fear of burglars
The runner's sparkling career was cut short, sponsors dumped him and he was forced to sell his homes in the face of mounting legal bills
The writer described him driving at 250 kilometres (155 miles) an hour, double the speed limit, and referred to Pistorius as having 'a fierce, even frenzied need to take on the world at maximum speed and with minimum caution'.
His passion for motorbikes, adrenaline and speed is well documented. 'He likes fast cars. He is just built for speed,' his trainer Jannie Brooks told AFP.
He also crashed his boat on a river, breaking two ribs, an eye socket and his jaw. Empty alcohol bottles were found in the boat.
He once owned two white tigers but sold them to a zoo in Canada when they became too big.
Born in 1986 in Johannesburg without fibulas (calf bones), his parents decided when he was 11 months old to have his legs amputated below the knee so he could be fitted with prosthetic legs.
This allowed him to play sports while growing up. He excelled in many, concentrating on running only after fracturing a knee playing rugby.
Born in 1986 in Johannesburg without fibulas (calf bones), his parents decided when he was 11 months old to have his legs amputated below the knee so he could be fitted with prosthetic legs
'It was never made an issue. My mother would say to my brother, 'You put on your shoes, and Oscar, you put on your legs, then meet me at the car,' Pistorius said in a 2011 interview.
A middle child whose parents divorced when he was six, he has a problematic relationship with his father Henke, but is close to his siblings who were at his side in court.
His mother died when he was 15 and the date of her death is tattooed on his arm.
In 2004, just eight months after taking to the track, he smashed the 200m world record at the Athens Paralympics.
Next up was the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games where he took the 100m, 200m and 400m sprint titles and launched a battle to take part in able-bodied athletics, overcoming arguments that his custom-built carbon-fibre running blades gave him an unfair advantage.
In 2011 he made history by becoming the first amputee to run at the World Championships, where he took silver with South Africa's 4x400m sprint team.
'You're not disabled by your disabilities but abled by your abilities,' he told Athlete magazine in an interview that year.
In 2012 he again made history by becoming the first double-amputee to compete at both the Olympics and Paralympics.
'He is the definition of global inspiration,' Time magazine proclaimed in its 2012 list of the world's most influential people.
Telstra customers have been targeted by a convincing phishing scam email to trick customers enter their bank details to 'claim a refund after overpaying their bill'.
Sent out on Thursday, the email and linked website were almost identical to the legitimate Telstra site, 'making it extremely difficult for recipients to identify', email security service MailGuard said.
The email told the customers Telstra had reviewed its payment server and found the customer's monthly bill balance was paid twice.
Scammers have sent out a phishing scam email to trick customers to enter their bank details (pictured: a recent similar scam email imitating Telstra)
'In order to receive your charge back you are requested to visit your account immediately and complete the claim. Then we will refund you the second charge of 202.42 AUD to your bank account,' the email said.
The email appears to have been signed by Telstra executive Gerd Schenkel.
It included a link to a phony Telstra's My Account page, where the customer could log in and would then be asked to punch in bank details, billing address and date of birth.
Though it was a convincing phishing scam, MailGuard said there were a couple of clues the email and website were bogus.
The email was not personally addressed to recipients, and instead merely said: 'Dear Customer.'
The website's URL said 'testra' close enough to 'Telstra' to convince customers it was a legitimate site.
MailGuard said to delete any emails from well-known organisations which are not addressed to you by name or include poor grammar.
The email included a link to a phony Telstra's My Account page (the fake website is pictured), where the customer could log on
The fake landing page was remarkably similar to the legitimate Telstra My Account page (legitimate website is pictured)
You should also be weary of emails offering money or rewards but require you to hand over personal details.
Emails which ask for personal information the company should already have access to should also raise suspicion.
A spokesperson for MailGuard told Daily Mail Australia the cyber criminals steal credentials through the phishing technique.
It was a small phishing run, MailGuard said, but: 'Typically a small run is a precursor to a much larger attack.'
A Telstra spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia the company first saw identical emails 12-months-ago.
'Phishing emails are designed by cyber criminals who target consumers and large enterprises around the world, including Telstra and our customers,' the spokesperson said.
'These emails look very authentic, often including company logos and slogans, to trick you into opening them and disclosing your personal details, including your name, address and personal banking details.'
A Telstra blog-post from last year advises customers on how to avoid being tricked.
Customers can report phishing emails to Telstra on its feedback and complaints page or to the Australian Competition and Consumer Competition (ACCC) online or by calling 1300 795 995.
Once customers logged in to the phony Telstra My Account page, it referred them to a page (pictured) asking for their bank details, billing address and date of birth
Latest counting estimates from Saturday's federal election have Malcolm Turnbull forming a Coalition government.
Projections have the Coalition claiming 72 seats including the key South Australian seat of Grey, which at one stage looked set to be snapped up by Nick Xenophon's team.
Six seats are still in doubt according to the breakdown by Fairfax Media and it may be several days before they can be declared.
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Reason to smile? Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull looks favoured to lead a minority Coalition government
According to the Fairfax report, three Queensland seats (Capricornia, Forde and Herbert), and one each in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia remain on a knife-edge.
The Coalition holds a lead in three of those seats and Labor also three.
Full results may not be known until July 15 - the deadline for postal votes set by the Electoral Commission - but the current overview suggests 72 to the Coalition and 67 to Labor with those six in doubt.
But with the Coalition edging ever closer to forming a minority government Mr Turnbull said he had taken 'full responsibility' for the disastrous campaign after failing to secure a landslide majority in the federal election.
The Prime Minister admitted he needed to listen to Australia's concerns as the results of Saturday's election remained uncertain.
He insisted he still had the skills to lead despite repeated blows from Opposition leader Bill Shorten who made the bold suggestion that Mr Turnbull would call for a snap election.
Malcolm Turnbull has gained some ammunition to fight off any talk of a challenge with a new poll showing he's more popular than Bill Shorten and far more popular than Tony Abbott.
The latest Morgan poll following the weekend election, showed 51 per cent regard Mr Turnbull as better prime minister, just ahead of Opposition Leader Bill Shorten on 47 per cent.
That's a decrease of six percentage points in a month for Mr Turnbull and a 23 point increase for Mr Shorten in the same period.
The Prime Minister is looking likely to form a minority Coalition government according to latest projections
Opposition leader Bill Shorten (pictured with federal candidate for Longman Susan Lamb) had claimed the Prime Minister would call a snap election
But Mr Turnbull is clearly preferred as Liberal leader over Tony Abbott by 71 per cent to 25 per cent.
But when only those who identify as Coalition voters are asked who they would prefer as party leader, the result becomes closer - 60 per cent for Mr Turnbull and 38 per cent for Mr Abbott.
Labor infrastructure spokesman Anthony Albanese is actually slightly ahead of Bill Shorten - 49-48 per cent - as preferred opposition leader. But when Labor voters are asked, Mr Shorten is clear favourite - 64 per cent to 35 per cent for Mr Albanese.
Meanwhile Mr Shorten claimed the Prime Minister could call for a snap election after failing to secure a safe majority on Saturday.
'There is a very real chance that Malcolm Turnbull's is considering calling a snap election in the mistaken belief that this will sort out his own problems.,' he said.
'Mr Turnbull gave us the instability in his own party and the instability in this Senate.
'He now needs to genuinely concentrate on making the 45th Parliament work.'
Former Prime Minister John Howard encouraged Liberal MPs not to 'slit their throats'.
In a message aimed at disgruntled members of the party, he said senior figures should not be chastised for the fall out of the campaign.
'People shouldn't start slitting their throats. They should remember the character of their party.'
Attorney-General George Brandis earlier implored MPs to support the Prime Minister, saying: 'Stability is always better than instability, discipline is always better than indiscipline, playing a team game is always better than self-indulgence.
'It is not helpful for anyone on the coalition side to be engaging in the kind of public criticism which might potentially weaken Mr Turnbull's bargaining position,' he said.
'The surest way to lose the next election is for us to commence the new parliament with an entrenched culture of infighting.'
Soon to be Senator Pauline Hanson has slammed media outlets for what she claims is unfair and sensational reporting.
In a video posted to her Facebook on Tuesday, the leader of the One Nation Party said the media see her 'as a punching bag.'
'Let's have a swipe at her, let's have a go, oh lets sensationalise a story, we'll use Pauline Hanson, all the tags that are associated with it. Well guys, I'll tell you something not interested and neither is the public,' she said.
Outspoken politician Pauline Hanson (pictured) slammed media outlets in a video posted to her Facebook on Tuesday, accusing newspapers of using her as a 'punching bag' and sensational reporting
The soon to be senator threatened to stop all interviews during her possible six years in parliament (pictured on election night after she won a seat in parliament)
The controversial politician said 'it is no wonder' newspaper sales have dropped.
'No one wants to know what you have to say because you can't tell the truth. People are over it,' she said.
'This is why I have a rapport with people, directly they can hear straight from my mouth. So I'm telling people now, unless you see me live on TV or hear me live in the radio don't believe a thing you read in the newspapers,' she warned her social media followers.
She didn't specifically mention any publications but did refer to Newzulu, a citizen journalism app.
'It may be the way to go and you guys may be out of a job,' Ms Hanson.
The controversial politician said 'it is no wonder' newspaper sales have dropped
'no one wants to know what you have to say because you can't tell the truth. People are over it,' she said
She then asks the media 'to get [their] act together' and threatened that she would withhold interviews.
'I wouldn't mind a working relationship with you but if you're not going to give me a fair go, don't come knocking on my door cause you ain't going to get an interview out of me,' she ended her rant.
The outspoken politician is no stranger to controversy and has publicly spoken about her list of anti-Muslim policies she wishes to bring to parliament.
At her first major press conference since the election, Ms Hanson said Islam was not a religion of peace, but rather an ideology.
The outspoken politician is no stranger to controversy and has publicly spoken about her list of anti-Muslim policies she wishes to bring to parliament
She wants a royal commission into Islam, and says hatred has been preached in mosques. Her party also wants surveillance cameras in all mosques and Islamic schools.
The flame-haired Queenslander also said some Australians were now seeing she was right almost two decades ago when she used her maiden speech in federal parliament to warn Australia risked being swamped by Asians.
Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane said he fears Pauline Hanson could create a new wave of racially fuelled hatred and division.
'There's great potential for harm to be done when you're talking about inflammatory rhetoric or appeals to xenophobia,' he said.
'They make a sure recipe for hate and division. Australian racial tolerance and community harmony will not be served by an indulgence of such kind.'
Controversial One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has been caught out on social media using Coles brand milk.
In a video posted to her Facebook page on Monday the newly-elected senator was seen making a cup of tea as she spoke to the camera.
Despite her comments earlier this year slamming the big supermarkets for not supporting Australian dairy farmers - she herself appeared to be using their cheaper brand of milk on Monday.
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Pauline Hanson has been caught out using Coles brand milk in her tea during a video posted online
The One Nation leader touts herself as a long-time supporter of Australian farmers and local industries
In May she demanded a full investigation into the prices dairy farmers were receiving from the big chains, after suppliers slashed gate prices throwing the industry into turmoil.
'When you can pay $3.50 for half a litre of water and you're paying $1 for a litre of milk it doesn't make sense but this has gone on for so long it's ridiculous,' she told Queensland Country Life.
'I would pay another 50c a litre for my milk, if it went straight to the dairy farmers.
'Unless we start supporting our dairy farmers we won't have them anymore and where will our milk come from then?,' Hanson added during the interview.
A number of eagle-eyed commenters intially pointed out Monday's milk gaffe, however a moderator on the Pauline Hanson's Please Explain page did not respond to the comment as they had to other posts.
It comes just months after a movement to support the dairy industry by buying branded milk
Many of Hanson's policies outlined on the One Nation website focus on supporting Australian farmers, or assisting Australians to buy homegrown and made products and produce.
The far-right politician is also vehemently opposed to multiculturalism and holds strong views against Islam, halal certification, and Muslim Australians.
Earlier on Wednesday she even took a swipe at the media, blaming them for using her as a 'punching bag'.
In a separate video posted to her Facebook page the One Nation leader ranted about how she was being treated unfairly.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Pauline Hanson for comment.
Union Cabinet approves MoU between India and Mozambique in the field of Drug demand reduction and prevention of illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs
Published: July 5, 2016
The Union Cabinet has given its approval for signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and Mozambique on Drug demand reduction and related matters.
The MoU also envisages prevention of illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and precursor chemicals.
It also aims to enhance mutual cooperation between the two countries in combating illicit trafficking in Narcotic drugs, Psychotropic substances and their precursors through exchange of expertise, information and capacity building.
Month: Current Affairs - July, 2016
Topics: Cabinet Decisions India-Africa India-Mozambique Narcotic Drugs National
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Jockey Chris Meehan (pictured in hospital) fell from his horse before an ambulance sent to help him ran over his leg
When jockey Chris Meehan fell from his horse and was kicked in the face by a flying hoof, he probably thought his day at the office couldn't get much worse.
But the young rider was soon to realise his luck was well and truly out when the ambulance sent to tend to him reversed over his outstretched leg and broke it.
The bizarre double injury occurred as Northern Irish horseman Mr Meehan, 22, was thrown from his mount during a race at the Merano track in Italy on Sunday.
He was subsequently kicked in the face with the blow initially knocking Mr Meehan out cold.
It later emerged the strike had broken his nose and caused a gash so severe it would require 27 stitches.
But somehow, worse was to follow when the ambulance arrived.
'The starter came over to help me because I was on my back and choking on my blood,' he told The Racing Post from his hospital bed.
'He put me in the recovery position, with my right leg out straight.
'As if that wasn't bad enough, the racecourse ambulance came up alongside us and reversed up on to my leg. They stopped it on top of my leg so I started screaming; it broke it straight away.
'Everyone around me had to push it off me. You have to laugh really.'
Mr Meehan, who has had 13 winners in his career, now faces at least two months on the sidelines.
He had been nearing the end of a summer stint racing in Italy when the accident occurred but will now return to Northern Ireland for surgery on his face and leg.
The bizarre double-injury occurred as Northern Irish horseman Mr Meehan, 22, was thrown from his mount during a race at the Merano track in Italy on Sunday. He was subsequently kicked in the face with the blow initially knocking Mr Meehan out cold
Fortunately, the jockey from Crossgar, Co Down, saw the funny side, adding: 'What makes it worse is my father, brother, auntie - they're all ambulance people!
'My father actually teaches most people in Northern Ireland and England how to drive the ambulance! It's bizarre, you couldn't make it up.'
A sniper deployed during the 2014 Lindt Cafe siege in Sydney says he had a chance to shoot at gunman Man Haron Monis but didn't because he 'wasn't posing a threat at the time'.
The senior constable codenamed Sierra 3-3 is the first of three snipers to give evidence at the inquest into the Martin Place stand-off.
He revealed that he was never confident of being able to take a successful kill shot and also doubted the legal justification.
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A sniper codenamed 'Sierra 3-3' told the inquest that while he was able to observe Monis at various times in the Lindt Cafe from his vantage point he never had a clear shot
CCTV shows the moment police storm the Lindt Cafe at Martin Place after Tori Johnson was shot
He said that while he was able to observe Man Monis at various times from his vantage point at the Westpac building opposite the Lindt Cafe, he never had a clear shot.
Asked on Wednesday by counsel assisting the coroner, Sophie Callan, if he had formed a view on the night of the siege of the viability of there ever being a shot, the Tactical Operations Unit officer, responded: 'It wasn't great.'
'Having two mediums of glass to get through, the potential hazards that would cause if the shot was missed, the risk to those inside; all of those things greatly reduced our confidence,' the officer said.
Snipers were deployed to three locations during the 17-hour siege in December 2014, at Westpac, the Channel Seven building directly opposite the cafe and at the Reserve Bank.
He said a sighting of Monis through a window between 5pm and 5.30pm prompted a discussion among the sniper team at the Westpac building about whether a shot could be taken.
'At the end of the day it wasn't an option both for justification reasons and ... not knowing what was behind him,' the officer told the inquest.
Monis was killed by police, while hostage Katrina Dawson died after being hit by fragments from police rounds
Hostages flee the Lindt Cafe: ASydney siege sniper says he had the chance to shoot gunman Man Monis - but didn't take the shot because he 'wasn't posing a threat to anyone'
Snipers were deployed to three locations during the 17-hour siege, at Westpac, the Channel Seven building directly opposite the cafe and at the Reserve Bank
'I was quietly confident it was him,' he said referring to Monis, but he could not be certain.
In terms of a legal right to shoot and kill Monis, or render him to a state of 'flaccid paralysis', the officer said the gunman 'wasn't posing a threat to anyone at that time'.
Asked earlier about the legal justification for taking a shot, he said: 'I'm no more justified in firing my firearm than a general duties officer on the street.'
He also described the moment he witnessed hostage Tori Johnson on his knees, followed by a muzzle flash, and the Lindt Cafe manager then falling forward.
'I just said `white window two hostage down'. I said that twice,' he told the inquest.
Police stormed the building after Mr Johnson was killed, bringing an end to the siege
A sniper deployed during the Sydney siege has described the moment he witnessed hostage Tori Johnson (right) on his knees, followed by a muzzle flash. Katrina Dawson (left) was killed when hit by bullet fragments
The sniper codenamed 'Sierra 3-3' told the inquest that while he was able to observe Monis at various times from his vantage point at the Westpac building diagonally opposite the Lindt Cafe, he never had a clear shot
He said it was a matter of 30 seconds to a minute between when he saw Mr Johnson on his knees and the flash.
That is now known as the moment gunman Man Haron Monis executed the cafe manager at about 2.13am on December 16, 2014.
The senior constable became emotional as he described Mr Johnson's final moments.
'I was trying to look for Monis at the time as there'd been a shot fired,' he said, referring to the escape of six hostages 10 minutes earlier.
'My focus was drawn on what I thought was Tori.
'It appeared to me he'd taken a lower profile because I could only see him from the waist up which made me think he was on his knees.
'I saw what I thought was a muzzle flash then I saw Mr Johnson fall forward.
'I couldn't see him after that.'
Police stormed the building after Mr Johnson was killed, bringing an end to the siege.
Donald Trump raised eyebrows and Democratic hackles on Tuesday night with a well-worn campaign stump line about Saddam Hussein that paints the infamous Iraqi dictator as tough on terror.
'Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. He was a bad guy, a really bad guy,' Trump said during a campaign stop in Raleigh, North Carolina.
'But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn't read 'em the rights. They didn't talk. They were a terrorist? It was over.'
Trump was criticizing the Obama administration for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq with advance notice, creating a vacuum that al Qaeda in Iraq later rebranded as the ISIS terror army rushed to fill.
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Donald Trump (left) raised eyebrows on Tuesday night with a well-worn campaign stump line about Saddam Hussein (right) that paints the infamous Iraqi dictator as tough on terror
'Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism,' Trump scoffed. 'You want to be a terrorist, you go to Iraq. It's like Harvard, okay?'
House Speaker Paul Ryan was in the midst of a live interview with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly when she told him what Trump had said.
A shocked Ryan replied that the Iraqi strongman 'was one of the 20th century's most evil people. He was up there.'
'He committed mass genocide against his own people using chemical weapons,' Ryan continued. 'Saddam Hussein was a bad guy.'
The U.S. government considered Hussein one of the world's biggest state sponsors of terrorism throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
That designation was among the rationales cited by the George W. Bush administration to defend its decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
And much of Hussein's reputation for killing 'terrorists' stemmed from his brutal crushing of opposition groups, whose dissenters he would execute and label as terrorists for propaganda purposes.
It was this habit that earned him his nickname: 'the butcher of Baghdad.'
Trump (above, on Tuesday) was criticizing the Obama administration for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq with advance notice, creating a vacuum that al Qaeda in Iraq later rebranded as the ISIS terror army rushed to fill
Trump had offered him backhanded praise during at least six previous campaign appearances often in nearly identical language but the comments were often lost in the static of a fierce Republican primary battle between the billionaire and 16 other contenders.
Now that the presidential race is a two-person contest, the pronouncement immediately caught the attention of reporters on a day when Hillary Clinton faced a torrent of partisan wrath over her classified email scandal a day that would ordinarily have been a series of victory laps for her Republican opponent.
Hours earlier FBI Director James Comey had declared that despite a litany of offenses that conformed to the definitions of criminal conduct, the U.S. government would likely not prosecute her.
But the shift of focus to Trump's seeming enthusiasm for Hussein will likely take pressure off of Clinton on Wednesday.
In October 2015 the billionaire told a CNN audience on the Sunday 'State of the Union' program that the Middle East would be a more stable place if Hussein and Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi were still in power.
'Look at Iraq. Iraq used to be no terrorists. He would kill the terrorists immediately, which is like, now it's the Harvard of terrorism,' Trump said of Hussein.
'If you look at Iraq from years ago I'm not saying he was a nice guy, he was a horrible guy but it was a lot better than it is right now. Right now, Iraq is a training ground for terrorists.'
A month later during a speech in the 'Politics and Eggs' series at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, Trump
Whether you like Saddam Hussein or not, he used to kill terrorists. Terrorists did not have fun in that country. Now, that's the Harvard of terrorism. When you want to become a terrorist, you go to Iraq. It's like a catastrophe.'
The 70-year-old presidential candidate signs a copy of Playboy magazine at a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday
And during a February 15 press conference this year in South Carolina, Trump told reporters: 'You know, Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, but one thing about him: He killed terrorists. Now, Iraq is Harvard for terrorists. You wanna become a terrorist? Go to Iraq.'
Clinton's senior foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan fired back Tuesday night with force.
Statement From Jake Sullivan On Donald Trumps Praise For Saddam Hussein
Tuesday, HFA Senior Policy Adviser Jake Sullivan released the following statement in response to Donald Trumps praise for Saddam Hussein:
'Tonight, Trump yet again lauded Saddam Hussein as a great killer of terrorists,' Sullivan said in a statement, 'noting with approval that he never bothered to read anyone their rights.'
'In reality, Hussein's regime was a sponsor of terrorism one that paid families of suicide bombers who attacked Israelis, among other crimes.'
A beauty salon employee was sentenced to ten days in jail after pleading guilty to poisoning her co-worker.
Luz Lemonfield, 28, was caught on surveillance footage dumping a skin care drying lotion into the victim's water bottle, according to WJLA.
The incident took place in October 2015 at Blue Mercury Spa in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
Victim, Sophia Santa Cruz, had to seek treatment from the hospital after drinking the water.
Beauty salon employee, Luz Lemonfield, 28, was sentenced to ten days in jail after pleading guilty to poisoning her co-worker, Sophia Santa Cruz, with a skin care drying lotion
Lemonfield was caught on surveillance footage (pictured) dumping a skin care drying lotion into the victim's water bottle
Cruz immediately felt a burning sensation in her throat after taking a swig of her Fiji water during her shift at the spa.
The beauty consultant could not breathe as she ran to the bathroom and uncontrollably vomited, knowing that her drink had been spiked.
Lemonfield's attorney told WJLA that his client was not trying to kill her co-worker, she was just trying to get back at her over an apparent month-long fight.
The day before the incident Lemonfield blamed Cruz for spitting in her food, according to the station.
In retaliation, Lemonfield dumped the product into the victim's water.
'It was wrong and stupid. She admits it. but she did not mean to kill her or to cause serious physical injury. She just wanted to get back at her,' Jim Shalleck, Lemonfield's attorney told WJLA.
After the judge made his decision, Cruz told the station that she was disappointed.
Lemonfield also received 18 months probation.
Ramon Korionoff, of the Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office told WJLA that if the judge 'saw fit that sending a message with some jail time with the ability of this young woman to move forward with her future was the right way to go, I'll have to accept that'.
Sofia Santa Cruz's (pictured) immediately felt a burning sensation in her throat after taking a swig of her Fiji water. She then had to seek treatment from the hospital. She said she was disappointed at Lemonfield's sentencing
Lemonfield (pictured being arrested) was charged with assault, reckless endangerment and attempted poisoning, charges that carried a maximum sentence of 20 years
The surveillance footage taken inside the store appeared to show Lemonfield unscrewing the cap of her colleague's bottle of water and pouring in another liquid.
According to WJLA, Lemonfield, allegedly laced the drink with a chemical-based facial lotion while Ms Santa Cruz was doing her mother's make-up.
Lemonfield had been charged with assault, reckless endangerment and attempted poisoning, charges that carried a maximum 20-year sentence, according to the station.
The poisoned worker accused her colleague of trying to kill her but said she did not know why.
At the time, Cruz said: 'I ingested poison. Somebody put something in my drink.'
'As I took the bottle of water and started drinking, I just felt an entire burn in my throat, all the way down. I felt it and I couldn't breathe.
'There was sulfur, glycolic acid, solicic acid and alcohol. It was basically a drying lotion, which means it dries an area of your face from acne.
'So imagine pouring that into your system, you're drying your throat, your entire throat up, and your stomach too. She tried to kill me, that's all I know.'
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Damning: Sir John Chilcot has said that Tony Blair chose to invade when there was still peaceful ways to continue and ignored warning of the consequences
Tony Blair was blind to the consequences of the Iraq War despite 'explicit warnings' as he doggedly pursued an invasion with US president George W Bush, the Chilcot Inquiry revealed today.
Mr Blair's planning for the occupation of four provinces in south-eastern Iraq following the 2003 war was found to be 'wholly inadequate' by the seven-year investigation into the conflict and its aftermath.
The inquiry's report rejected then prime minister Tony Blair's argument that the threat of armed insurgency and terrorism causing instability following the invasion could not have been known in advance.
It also blamed ministers for not seeking a viable plan for rebuilding Iraq despite having information that gave a 'clear indication' that extremist violence - including sectarian bloodshed and the fostering of al Qaida would be a risk of occupation.
Sir John Chilcot concluded: 'The government, which lacked both clear ministerial oversight of post-conflict strategy, planning and preparation, and effective co-ordination between government departments, failed to analyse or manage those risks adequately.'
Mr Blair gave evidence to the inquiry that it was not possible to foresee at the time of the invasion Iraq's post-war collapse into sectarian fighting, insurgency and violence, much of it stirred up by neighbouring Iran and the al Qaida terror group.
But Sir John said: 'We do not agree that hindsight is required. The risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability and al Qaida activity in Iraq were each explicitly identified before the invasion.'
The report found that Britain attempted to persuade US president George Bush that the United Nations should lead the interim post-conflict administration to govern Iraq after Saddam's removal.
After Washington rejected this option, the Government succeeded only in the 'less ambitious goal' of getting White House agreement to accept UN authorisation of a coalition-led administration.
'Mr Blair, who recognised the significance of the post-conflict phase, did not press President Bush for definite assurances about US plans, did not consider or seek advice on whether the absence of a satisfactory plan called for reassessment of the terms of UK engagement and did not make agreement on such a plan a condition of UK participation in military action.'
He said Saddam Hussein was 'undoubtedly a brutal dictator' but the 'UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort.'
He added: 'It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged, and they should have been'.
In 2003 Mr Blair had said that Iraq's dictator could strike with weapons of mass destruction, and potentially hit the UK, but Sir John said: 'There was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein'.
Mr Blair also 'overestimated his ability to influence US decisions on Iraq', Sir John concluded.
And he said that the war had gone 'badly wrong' and the consequences continue in Iraq today, with hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens having been killed.
Families of the 179 soldiers killed in the conflict are now set to take legal action against the former prime minister as the report revealed he had twisted evidence to build his case for war.
Conspiracy? Families want to know once and for all if Tony Blair did secretly agree to invade Iraq in 2002 (pictured together at Camp David that year) and then build a case towards war
Tony Blair has said that his decision to take military action against Saddam Hussain was taken 'in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country'.
But he said the report there 'was no falsification or improper use of Intelligence', 'no deception of Cabinet' and 'no secret commitment to war whether at Crawford Texas in April 2002 or elsewhere'.
In its damning report the inquiry panel found:
There was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein in March 2003 and Mr Blair took us to war 'before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted'. Sir John said: 'Military action at that time was not a last resort.
Mr Blair, his then foreign secretary Jack Straw and the government presented judgements about intelligence on the threat posed by Iraq's WMD with a 'certainty that was not justified'.
Attorney General Lord Goldsmith only agreed that the invasion would be legal based on assurances from Mr Blair that Iraq had committed 'material breaches' of UN resolution 1441. But the inquiry said it was 'unclear' what evidence Mr Blair had for this and branded the process 'far from satisfactory'.
Mr Blair, who has been frequently criticised for his 'sofa government' style, repeatedly failed to involve his whole Cabinet in key decisions.
The inquiry dismissed the ex-PM claims that he could not have known how difficult the post-invasion situation would be.
The government were aware that the US had 'inadequate' plans for stabilising Iraq but had little influence over key decisions such as dismantling Hussein's Ba'ath party and security services.
The Ministry of Defence was slow to respond to the threat from Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), and delays in providing more heavily armoured patrol vehicles for personnel were 'intolerable'.
The 'most consistent strategic objective' in Iraq was to reduce the number of troops it had deployed there, particularly after operations in Afghanistan became more intense.
One symptom of the failures was that UK forces had to strike a 'humiliating' deal with militia in Basra to swap prisoners in return for an end to deadly attacks on soldiers.
Tony Blair has said that his decision to take military action against Saddam Hussain was taken 'in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country'.
Presenting a summary of his inquiry's findings, Sir John Chilcot hit out at the 'wholly inadequate' planning for the period after the fall of Saddam, which saw British troops involved in a prolonged and bloody occupation.
The former Whitehall mandarin was setting out the findings of his inquiry into the UK's most controversial military engagement since the end of the Second World War.
Although his inquiry did not express a view on whether the invasion was legal, Sir John criticised the way in which Mr Blair and his attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, had reached their decision on the legal basis.
He added: 'In the absence of a majority in support of military action, we consider that the UK was in fact undermining the security council's authority.
'Second the inquiry has not expressed a view on whether military action was legal. That could of course only be resolved by a properly constituted and recognised court. We have however concluded that the circumstances on which it was decided there was a legal basis for UK military action were far from satisfactory'.
Sources close to Mr Blair said today he will say that 'the intelligence we received was wrong' as his reputation was badly damaged by Sir John's report.
Facing the music: A grim-faced Tony Blair leaves his London mansion today as his part in bringing about the Iraq War was laid bare by Sir John Chilcot
Judgement day: Sir John Chilcot, left today clutching his speech, finally revealed the findings of the 10m Iraq Inquiry, seven years after it began, in which Tony Blair, right, is criticised
Families of British soldiers killed in the conflict, which started 13 years ago, have instructed solicitors to examine the report and consider dragging the former PM through the courts.
Since the invasion and toppling of Saddam Hussein tens of thousands of Iraqis have died in the civil war that followed with 250 being killed in a Baghdad car bomb on Sunday, the worst bloodshed since 2003.
John Miller's son, Simon, was one of six military policemen murdered in Iraq in 2003, and today he said of Mr Blair: 'There's got to be some kind of court case, be that In The Hague or elsewhere. I want to see him in the dock'.
Master Engineer Gary Nicholson, 42, from Hull, was one of 10 servicemen who died when their Hercules C-130 aircraft was shot down in 2005.
His mother Julia is boycotting the event and said: 'It will be a whitewash. I'm absolutely disgusted. I'm not going because it will be a whitewash. Tony Blair has got blood on his hands. He will have covered his back and (George) Bush's back'.
The families believe Mr Blair is guilty of 'malfeasance in public office' because he misused his constitutional powers which led to mass casualties. They could also seek to sue him for damages and secure compensation from his estimated 60million wealth.
Blair's former foreign secretary Jack Straw, pictured today, also faces criticism for his role in the conflict
Hopes Mr Blair could face a war criminal trial were dashed because Sir John said he could not rule on whether the invasion in 2003 was 'legal' and he was 'not judge and jury' of a court.
But to the fury of families it has emerged that prosecutors in The Hague have indicated they will pore over the 2.6 million-word report for evidence of war crimes by British troops.
The report, believed to have cost around 10million to produce, is published amid calls for former prime minister Tony Blair to be held to account for 'misleading the public and Parliament' when taking the UK into the conflict.
Among the most explosive revelations are the details of 29 secret letters, notes and conversations between Mr Blair and former US President George W. Bush in the run-up to war.
The leaders are alleged to have 'signed in blood' an agreement to oust Saddam Hussein in secret talks at the President's ranch in Texas a year before the March 2003 invasion without telling MPs or the public a claim denied by Mr Blair.
Tony Blair advised George W Bush in the hours after the 9/11 attacks he should immediately tackle states and individuals with weapons of mass destruction and justify it later, it was revealed today.
In a private note to the US President on September 12, 2001, Mr Blair both offered support to bring to justice the hijackers who destroyed the Twin Towers and looked ahead to the 'next stage after this evil'.
In documents revealed for the first time by Sir John Chilcot's Iraq Inquiry, Mr Blair said some would 'balk' at the measures necessary to control 'biological, chemical and other WMD'.
But he urged the President: 'We are better to act now and explain and justify our actions than let the day be put off until some further, perhaps even worse catastrophe occurs.'
Mr Blair gave evidence to the inquiry that it was not possible to foresee at the time of the invasion Iraq's post-war collapse into sectarian fighting, insurgency and violence, much of it stirred up by neighbouring Iran and the al Qaida terror group.
But Sir John said: 'We do not agree that hindsight is required. The risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability and al Qaida activity in Iraq were each explicitly identified before the invasion.'
The report found that Britain attempted to persuade US president George Bush that the United Nations should lead the interim post-conflict administration to govern Iraq after Saddam's removal. After Washington rejected this option, the Government succeeded only in the 'less ambitious goal' of getting White House agreement to accept UN authorisation of a coalition-led administration.
As the military action began, ministers and officials were working on the assumption that there would be 'a well-executed US-led and UN-authorised operation in a relatively benign security environment'.
But the inquiry found that ministers should have been aware of a 'significant risk' that this would not be the case.
Its report stated: 'Before the invasion of Iraq, ministers, senior officials and the UK military recognised that post-conflict and military operation were likely to be the strategically decisive phase of the coalition's engagement in Iraq.
'UK planning and preparation for the post-conflict phase of operations, which rested on the assumption that the UK would be able quickly to reduce its military presence in Iraq and deploy only a minimal number of civilians, were wholly inadequate.
'The information available to the Government before the invasion provided a clear indication of the potential scale of the post-conflict task and the significant risk associated with the UK's planned approach.'
Ministers were 'aware of the inadequacy of US plans and concerned about the inability to exert significant influence on US planning' but Mr Blair 'over-estimated' his ability to influence US policy, the report found.
'He did not establish clear ministerial oversight of UK planning and preparation,' said Sir John. 'He did not ensure there was a flexible, realistic and fully resourced plan that integrated UK military and civilian contributions and addressed the known risks.
'The failure in the planning and preparations continued to have an effect after the invasion.'
The inquiry examined the so-called notorious dossier published by the government on September 24, 2002, as Mr Blair started to lay the ground for a potential move on Iraq.
It claimed that Hussein's regime had the ability to launch a WMD strike within 45 minutes.
Mr Blair told the House of Commons the same day that the threat from the dictator was severe and would become a reality at some point in the future.
But Sir John said: 'The judgements about Iraq's capabilities in that statement, and in the dossier published the same day, were presented with a certainty that was not justified.'
Anger: Protestors unfurled a giant banner outside Tony Blair's central London home today calling for him to face a criminal trial
Protests: Several demonstrators were wearing Tony Blair masks and painted blood on their hands as they called for Mr Blair to be prosecuted
Movement: More than a million people marched in 2003 to protest against the war and many returned to central London today to repeat their concerns about what happened
Uproar: Protesters have returned to Whitehall to protest over the war afresh today after the report slammed the way it was planned
Under pressure: Mr Blair, pictured with troops in Iraq in 2003, has been accused of 'misleading Parliament and the public' in taking the UK into the Iraq War and is facing calls for criminal action
The report criticised the 'ingrained belief' among UK policy formers and intelligence services that Iraq had retained WMD.
It said the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) had agreed the content of the dossier itself, and there was 'no evidence' that evidence was improperly included or that Downing Street influenced the text.
But the JIC was rebuked for not ensuring that its real assessment that it had not been established beyond doubt that Hussein's regime was still producing WMD was not clear.
And the report said the way a foreword written by Mr Blair had been attached to the dossier would have given MPs and the public a different impression.
'In the foreword, Mr Blair stated that he believed the 'assessed intelligence' had 'established beyond doubt' that Saddam Hussein had 'continued to produce chemical and biological weapons, that he continues in his efforts to develop nuclear weapons and that he had been able to extend the range of his ballistic missile programme'.'
The report went on: 'The Inquiry is not questioning Mr Blair's belief, which he consistently reiterated in his evidence to the Inquiry, or his legitimate role in advocating Government policy.
'But the deliberate selection of a formulation which grounded the statement in what Mr Blair believed rather than in the judgements which the JIC had actually reached in its assessment of the intelligence, indicates a distinction between his beliefs and the JIC's actual judgements
'The assessed intelligence at the time had not established beyond doubt that Saddam Hussein had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons.'
While stressing that it did not have a remit to decide whether the invasion had been legal, the inquiry panel said they had 'concluded that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action were far from satisfactory'.
In mid-January 2003 Lord Goldsmith, the government's chief law officer, told Mr Blair that a further Security Council resolution would be needed to provide a legal basis for action.
By the end of February the peer had told Mr Blair that although a second resolution would be preferable, a 'reasonable case' could be made under the existing UNSC 1441.
He put that advice in writing in on March 7.
However, after the military and civil service asked for more clarity he then stated that the 'better view' was that the legal basis was secure.
Peter Brierley, left, whose son Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley was one of the first soldiers to be killed in the conflict, claimed Mr Blair 'ordered young men and women to be killed on the basis of a lie'
The inquiry began when Gordon Brown, right, was prime minister and has heard extensive witness reports from the then government, including Mr Blair, left
On March 14, Lord Goldsmith asked Mr Blair to confirm that Iraq had committed further 'material breaches' of UNSC 1441, saying that was an essential part of his justification.
Mr Blair's office responded that it was the PM's 'unequivocal view' that there had been further breaches of the resolution.
But the report said: 'It is unclear what specific grounds Mr Blair relied upon in reaching this view.'
THE CHILCOT REPORT IN NUMBERS 7 - Years since the Chilcot Inquiry was launched. 2,579 - Days between June 15, 2009, when the inquiry was announced on by then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and July 6, 2016, when the report is expected to be ready for private inspection and security check. 3 - Foreign secretaries to have been in the post since the inquiry was launched - David Miliband under Mr Brown, and William Hague and Philip Hammond under David Cameron. 2.3 million - Words estimated to be included in the report, making it almost four times longer than Leo Tolstoy's epic War and Peace. 10 million - Estimated cost, in pounds, of the inquiry as of January this year. 179 - UK military personnel that died during the Iraq war. Advertisement
Sir John said: 'Given the gravity of the situation, Lord Goldsmith should have been asked to provide written advice explaining how, in the absence of a majority in the Security Council, Mr Blair could take that decision.'
Sources close to Mr Blair said today he will say that 'the intelligence we received was wrong' as his reputation is likely to be lacerated by Sir John's report.
Families of British soldiers killed in the conflict, which started 13 years ago, have instructed solicitors to examine the report and consider dragging the former PM through the courts.
John Miller's son, Simon, was one of six military policemen murdered in Iraq in 2003, and today he said of Mr Blair: 'There's got to be some kind of court case, be that In The Hague or elsewhere. I want to see him in the dock'.
Master Engineer Gary Nicholson, 42, from Hull, was one of 10 servicemen who died when their Hercules C-130 aircraft was shot down in 2005.
His mother Julia is boycotting the event and said: 'It will be a whitewash. I'm absolutely disgusted. I'm not going because it will be a whitewash. Tony Blair has got blood on his hands. He will have covered his back and (George) Bush's back'.
The families believe Mr Blair is guilty of 'malfeasance in public office' because he misused his constitutional powers which led to mass casualties. They could also seek to sue him for damages and secure compensation from his estimated 60million wealth.
Since the invasion and toppling of Saddam Hussein tens of thousands of Iraqis have died in the civil war that followed with 250 being killed in a Baghdad car bomb on Sunday, the worst bloodshed since 2003.
Hopes Mr Blair could face a war criminal trial were dashed because Sir John said he could not rule on whether the invasion in 2003 was 'legal' and he was 'not judge and jury' of a court.
But to the fury of families it has emerged that prosecutors in The Hague have indicated they will pore over the 2.6 million-word report for evidence of war crimes by British troops.
A British soldier dives from a burning tank which was set ablaze in the southern Iraqi city of Basra in 2005. Critics have slated Mr Blair for starting a war, pictured, which killed 179 UK soldiers, claiming it contributed to the rise of ISIS
Sir John said families of soldiers were at the forefront of his mind during the inquiry and that there would be no 'whitewash'. A British soldier looks through the scope of his rifle after a roadside bomb attack that targeted their convoy in Basra, 420 km (260 miles) northeast of Baghdad September 12, 2008.
ANTI-WAR DEMONSTRATORS TO TAKE TO THE STREETS DEMANDING 'TRUTH AND JUSTICE' OVER IRAQ CONFLICT Anger: Michael Culver, 78, stands outside the London home of former Prime Minister Tony Blair today Anti-war campaigners will stage a demonstration in Westminster today as Sir John Chilcot presents his long-awaited report on the UK's role in the Iraq war. Leaders of the Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and other groups will demand 'truth and justice'. There will also be calls for former prime minister Tony Blair and others involved in the conflict to face the full force of the law. It comes as the report, which has taken seven years to produce, is expected to criticise Mr Blair's role in the war, although it will not question its legality. Kate Hudson, CND general secretary, said: 'The Iraq war was a disaster, a disaster that began with a lie. 'If Tony Blair and other politicians responsible had told the truth it would never have happened. A country was destroyed, millions of innocent Iraqis were killed, British soldiers were killed, and terrorism has spread across the Middle East. Those responsible must now be brought to justice. 'We seek from the Chilcot Inquiry an accurate reckoning of the factors involved and finally to get clarity from the British state about this disastrous war. But it must not end there. 'The anti-war movement will gather in Westmister to demand truth and justice. It comes down to a principle - where individuals, no matter how lofty, are found to be responsible for crimes, they should face the full force of the law. No-one is exempt from justice.' Chris Nineham, of the Stop the War Coalition, said: 'What the majority of people want from the next few days is an open admission that the war on Iraq was disastrous, illegal and wrong in itself, and that those who took us into it, led by Tony Blair, did so knowingly and by lying to people and Parliament. 'Anything short of this will surely confirm people's suspicions that the Chilcot circus has been yet another convoluted attempt at a cover-up. 'Over the next few days, and for as long as it takes, Stop the War will be campaigning for the truth about Iraq to be publicly acknowledged. 'Many people also want to see that being a public figure and extremely rich doesn't exempt you from being held accountable when you commit crimes.' Advertisement
Among the revelations of the report will be details of 29 secret communications between former US president George Bush, left, and Mr Blair, right, in the run-up to the war
Families of the 179 dead say the report, which will be released this morning, must answer these questions:
The report, believed to have cost around 10million to produce, is published amid calls for former prime minister Tony Blair to be held to account for 'misleading the public and Parliament' when taking the UK into the conflict.
BAGHDAD HIT BY ISIS BOMB KILLING 250 IN WORST BLAST SINCE 2003 Crowded: The suicide bombing killed at least 250 people An ISIS suicide attack that ripped through a packed Baghdad shopping centre has claimed the lives of at 250 people. The bomb blast in Iraq's capital is the deadliest attack in the country since the Iraq War started in 2003. Some families have lost up to four relatives in the bombing, including four-year-old Ruqaya Al-Issa, who was killed alongside her shopkeeper father Hassan and two brothers, Hadi, 15, and Zaid, 17. The family were among the hundreds of shoppers at the mall preparing for Eid festival when a truck laden with explosives was blown up outside by an ISIS suicide bomber. 'We found Hassan's daughter, Ruqaya, [but] her body was burnt and very difficult to identify,' her distraught uncle, Ghader Al-Issa, told MailOnline. 'I have lost four of my relatives. We could not find the rest of them and their bodies, but we know they are dead. 'They could not have survived that devastation.' Rescuers are continuing their gruesome task of searching for more victims of Saturday night's attack, which was the single deadliest incident in Iraq's war-weary capital in years. Many of the victims' bodies are so badly damaged that the task of identifying them presents an enormous challenge for authorities. Advertisement
Among the most explosive revelations are the details of 29 secret letters, notes and conversations between Mr Blair and former US President George W. Bush in the run-up to war.
The leaders are alleged to have 'signed in blood' an agreement to oust Saddam Hussein in secret talks at the President's ranch in Texas a year before the March 2003 invasion without telling MPs or the public a claim denied by Mr Blair.
But there are concerns that large swathes of the report will focus on reprimanding senior military figures for not standing up to Number 10 before the conflict.
It came as families of soldiers who fought and died in the war said servicemen and women should not be made scapegoats for political failures, days after the International Criminal Court (ICC) said its prosecutors would comb through the 2.3 million word report for evidence of war crimes committed by British troops.
The families are set to clamour for some form of legal action against the former prime minister if - as many expect - he is strongly criticised by Sir John and his inquiry panel.
Karen Thornton, whose son Gunner Lee Thornton died in 2006 after being shot while on patrol in Iraq, said she wanted Mr Blair to face war crimes charges if it is proved he lied.
'I just think it was all based on lies, I think everything that comes out of that man's mouth has been a lie regarding Iraq,' she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
'I think the people who lied should be held to account for what they have done,' she said. Asked what that would mean, she said: 'Charged with war crimes. They are responsible for the deaths of so many people.'
The parents of Senior Aircraftsman Peter McFerran, 24, from North Wales, who was killed in southern Iraq in 2007, arrived shortly before the report was released to families at 8am.
The couple had travelled to London from Flintshire and wore 'Justice for Peter' T-shirts.
Mr McFerran's mother Ann, 64, said she was 'apprehensive' and 'didn't know what to expect'.
She said it was her husband Bob's 73rd birthday and added: 'The right outcome would be a good birthday present.'
Asked what that outcome would be, she replied: 'Justice for Peter.'
Sarah O'Connor, whose brother, Sergeant Bob O'Connor, was killed when his Hercules plane was shot down in 2005, said the length of time it had taken to complete the report made 'a mockery of the inquiry system'.
Speaking from London, she said: 'For many people this has been - from the first knock on the door - that next step. But it has taken so long.
'At the beginning, Sir John came around to the families and said we were at the forefront of the investigation. I had such faith in this process.
'But it has been like the toner cartridge in a printer. What has started off strong and bold has now become just a faint line.
'The length of time it has taken to get this has made a mockery of the inquiry system - for Iraq, for Rotherham ... anybody who has found themselves on either side of the scales, this has taken too long. It's been a farce.'
The inquiry is thought to have cost 10million so far, running to 12 volumes and a summary containing a total of 2.6 million words.
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said: 'Tony Blair knowingly lied to the public to justify this war, and his actions have damaged public trust, damaged the UK's standing in the world and crippled the ability of the UK to make humanitarian interventions. It is time he accepts responsibility and acknowledged his catastrophic mistake.'
The Chilcot Inquiry, set up in 2009, is looking at the UK's decision to take part in the invasion which toppled Saddam Hussein, whether troops were properly prepared, how the conflict was conducted and what planning there was for its aftermath.
Issues covered will include the diplomatic build-up to the invasion following the September 11 attacks in 2001 through to the end of UK combat operations in 2009.
It will look at equipment failures, amid evidence British troops were not given adequate protection, and the descent of Iraq into bloodshed and violence since Saddam Hussein, which has led to the
'Better to act now and explain later': Blair's private message to Bush on WMD nearly TWO YEARS before Iraq invasion
Tony Blair advised George W Bush in the hours after the 9/11 attacks he should immediately tackle states and individuals with weapons of mass destruction and justify it later, it was revealed today.
In a private note to the US President on September 12, 2001, Mr Blair both offered support to bring to justice the hijackers who destroyed the Twin Towers and looked ahead to the 'next stage after this evil'.
In documents revealed for the first time by Sir John Chilcot's Iraq Inquiry, Mr Blair said some would 'balk' at the measures necessary to control 'biological, chemical and other WMD'.
But he urged the President: 'We are better to act now and explain and justify our actions than let the day be put off until some further, perhaps even worse catastrophe occurs.'
Messages which passed between Tony Blair and George W Bush in the build-up to the Iraq war have been published today
The memo from September 12 makes no reference to Iraq specifically but warns: 'We know that there are countries and individuals trading in WMD and/or trying to acquire them. We need a range of sanctions and pressures to stop this.'
The Iraq Inquiry today published for the first time a raft of private correspondence sent by Mr Blair to Mr Bush from the period before, during and after the 2003 invasion.
In the months and years ahead of the March 2003 attack, the revelations expose efforts by Mr Blair to both support and exert influence over the US President.
In late 2001, Mr Blair was encouraging Mr Bush to focus on the campaign in Afghanistan and not mix the two objectives.
By July 2002, Mr Blair had told the President 'I will be with you, whatever' - but warned him the planning of war would be the 'toughest yet' and was more difficult than Afghanistan, Kosovo or the 1991 Gulf War.
In the final weeks before the 2003 invasion, Mr Blair's notes focus on pushing Mr Bush to pursue a second UN resolution explicitly authorising war.
But in his conclusions, Sir John said the UK took 'false comfort' from its perceived involvement in US decision making. The Inquiry does not reveal Mr Bush's replies.
The detail of the 2.6 million word report recounts that after attending a memorial service for the British victims in New York on September 20, 2001, Mr Blair travelled to Washington for a meeting with President Bush.
The inquiry reveals the record, noted in a letter by Britain's US Ambassador Sir David Manning, shows Mr Blair assured the President he believed Saddam was evil and told him: 'Before any action was taken against him, we would need to be very sure indeed there was compelling evidence.
'It would be best to deal with Afghanistan initially and then take our time to see whether we could build up the case against Iraq or other countries.'
Around three weeks later, Mr Blair appears to be attempting to rein in the president's immediate ambitions to take on Iraq - but indicates support for action against Saddam 'at a later date'.
The messages reveal the Prime Minister told Bush after the September 11 attacks that they should go after states with weapons of mass destruction
On October 11, 2001, in a section of a note entitled 'extending war aims', Mr Blair said there was a 'real willingness in the Middle East' to remove Saddam but warned him of 'total opposition' to doing so in connection with operations in Afghanistan.
Mr Blair said he 'no doubt we need to deal with Saddam' and added: 'But if we hit Iraq now, we would lose the Arab world, Russia, probably half the EU.
'I am sure we can devise a strategy for Saddam deliverable at a later date.'
Mr Blair visited Washington again on November 7 for talks with Mr Bush about the Afghanistan campaign.
But the Inquiry uncovered a private note handed to Mr Bush by the PM which under a section on 'international initiatives' referred to the need for a new UN resolution on Iraq and a wider 'WMD agreement'.
The public record of the talks makes no mention of Iraq.
Government records show a further telephone call between the two leaders five days later, on November 12 but no official record of the conversation has been found. The inquiry said other sources indicate the subject was Afghanistan.
The inquiry concluded that in December 2001, Mr Blair did not have 'military action of any sort in mind' but did note Mr Blair was prepared to militarily support a rebellion in Iraq were one to occur.
Bush and Blair in the White House in July 2003. Blair both supported and exerted influence over the US President in the build-up to war, the emails reveal
However, after Mr Bush named Iraq in his 2002 state of the union address as a 'regime that has something to hide from the civilised world', Mr Blair and Mr Straw began to argue in public that Iraq had to be dealt with.
Mr Blair then discussed the issue with Mr Bush in Crawford, Texas, on April 5 and 6, 2002, and agreed a partnership based on an ultimatum to Iraq over the readmission of weapons inspectors. Mr Bush agreed to consider the idea.
Cabinet Office papers report Mr Blair told the President at the Crawford meeting that the UK would support military action if certain conditions relating to a coalition, the Israel/Palestine crisis and UN weapon inspectors were met.
By July 2002, Mr Blair wrote to Mr Bush to set out the framework for the partnership and told him: 'I will be with you, whatever.
'But this is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties.
'The planning on this and the strategy are the toughest yet. This is not Kosovo. This is not Afghanistan. It is not even the Gulf War.'
He urged him the military part of the plan was 'hazardous' but said getting rid of Saddam was 'the right thing to do', adding that 'containment is always risky'.
The Inquiry said the note reflected Mr Blair's own views and said they had not been discussed with colleagues in the Cabinet.
Weeks later, President Bush addressed the UN General Assembly on September 12, 2002, to set out the 'grave and gathering danger' posed by Saddam in Iraq, challenging the UN to stand up to Iraq if it refused to meet its obligations.
Mr Bush said the 'first time' the world may be certain of Saddam's possession of nuclear weapons is 'when he uses one' and told the UN: 'We owe it to all our citizens to prevent that day from coming.'
In a handwritten note to the president the same day, Mr Blair said it was a 'brilliant speech' that 'put us on exactly the right strategy to get the job done'.
He said: 'The reception has been very positive with everyone now challenged to come up to the mark. Well done.'
In the next item of private correspondence, around three months before the invasion, Mr Blair warned the President on January 24, 2003, that if UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix could not find a 'smoking gun' there was a risk 'the thing drags on forever until we give up or get distracted'.
He said: 'The world is in contradiction. No one is really prepared for war, except us.
'But equally no one believes Saddam is telling the truth. In part we are victims of our own success.
'Your strength has forced Saddam to let inspectors back in; has made him seem weak and back in his box. So everyone asks: why bother?'
Mr Blair used the note to press the case for a second UN resolution, insisting it would be 'the best protection' for a 'military hitch' or protracted campaign.
He told the President delay was not necessary for military preparation but the extra month could help find the smoking gun, make Saddam 'crack' and build political support at home and abroad.
In a subsequent phone call, Mr Blair proposed setting a deadline of a month later and told Mr Bush: 'If this were not achievable, military action would follow anyway.'
In a note entitled 'countdown' on January 30, 2003, Mr Blair advised the President he believed more time would bring public and international opinion around to military action without a smoking gun.
The note set out a timetable for action, anticipating further reports from Mr Blix on February 14 and 28 that were each 'harder on non-co-operation' than the previous document.
It said the timetable could be 'shortened if either dramatic find by Blix or 14 February report sufficiently hard; lengthened but not beyond end March if resolution takes more time'.
At a meeting the following day, Mr Blair assured Mr Bush he was 'solidly with the President and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam' after Mr Bush agreed to support a second resolution.
Talk of going after countries with WMDs started between the pair the day after terrorists attacked the World Trade Centre
It was clear at the meeting military action had a narrow window and could begin 'around March 10'.
In the press conference which followed the meeting, the position was left publicly ambiguous but a clear message was given that Saddam was running out of time.
The Inquiry concluded that while Mr Blair's strategy was discussed in general by the Cabinet on January 30 there was no 'detailed and in depth analysis' of it it and no alternative options were considered.
In a further note on February 19, 2003, Mr Blair told the President that public opinion was 'not against conflict in all circumstances.
'What they fear is we are hell bent on war, come what may, that we don't really want the UN to succeed'.
The PM insisted this fear was 'absurd' and said the heart of the issue was a 'confusion between active and passive cooperation' from Saddam.
Mr Blair warned the French-German view was to give inspectors time to 'sniff out' weapons but said this could take 'months or years'.
He told Mr Bush: 'Our view, which is correct, is that time is irrelevant unless he is cooperating fully and actively. If he isn't, the time needed is just the time necessary to make a judgement as to his cooperation: is it full or not.
'And actually no one is seriously suggesting Saddam is cooperating fully.'
Mr Blair said the 'trick' was to re-focus debate onto 'full co-operation'.
And he told Mr Bush he would speak to Mr Blix the following day to try and 'tie' him to the proposed timetable.
Mr Blair said there was a risk Saddam 'might conceivably fully comply' but that this was unlikely and delaying military action by a week might increase the 'very slim' chances of securing a second resolution by the end of February.
He told Mr Bush: 'A successful second resolution would be an enormous success for your diplomacy over the last few months.'
In a phone call the same day, the two leaders agreed on a draft resolution and Mr Blair said it was a 'defining moment'.
Mr Blair told the President winning nine UN votes for the second resolution was vital to him securing Parliamentary approval.
But within days, the attempt to secure a second UN resolution would collapse but Mr Blair tested the House of Commons anyway on March 18, 2003.
Mr Blair won the vote and told President Bush British forces would join the invasion when it began the next day.
WHO'S WHO IN THE CHILCOT INQUIRY: THE LEADING FIGURES IN THE BUILD-UP TO THE IRAQ WAR Tony Blair Elected as Prime Minister with a landslide in 1997, Blair became the strongest ally of the US after the 9/11 attacks, regularly meeting George W Bush and forming a close friendship. Having supported military intervention in Kosovo and Sierra Leone earlier in his premiership, he became a strong advocate of so-called 'humanitarian intervention'. He made the case for invading Iraq in 2002 on the back of a dossier in which he claimed intelligence had 'established beyond doubt' that Saddam Hussein was producing chemical and biological weapons. The war and the implosion of Iraq since the invasion have become the defining events of Blair's term in power and claims he should be tried for war crimes have dogged his work since he resigned in 2007. Tony Blair (left) and George W Bush (centre) made the case for war. Lord Goldsmith (right) was the UK government's main legal adviser George W Bush Elected US President in January 2001, he was only eight months into his first time when the September 11 attacks took place, rocking the US and shocking the world. The son of former president George HW Bush, who had overseen the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein in 1991, George W Bush launched the 'War on Terror' in response to 9/11, which included large-scale military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. After the swift collapse of Hussein's regime, Bush made a speech on board a US aircraft carrier in May 2003 beneath a banner proclaiming 'Mission Accomplished'. Following his re-election in 2004, Bush faced increased criticism as the situation in Iraq deteriorated and went on to claim the lives of more than 4,000 US servicemen and women. Lord Goldsmith As Attorney General at the time of the invasion, he was the main legal adviser to Tony Blair and the government. Lord Goldsmith advised on the legality of going to war and initially said a second UN resolution was necessary authorising force if necessary. However, he changed his opinion in March 2003 after meeting with US officials. He then said that UN accords on Iraq from the 1990s justified an invasion. The 66-year-old, who resigned as Attorney General in 2007, has denied his the change in his views was due to political pressure. Jack Straw Straw was Blair's foreign secretary during the Iraq war and once said that Britain would not have joined the conflict if he had opposed the war. The former minister was involved in gaining legal backing for the invasion after rejecting advice from Foreign Office advisers that the war would be illegal. Straw, now 69, has since described going to war as 'the most difficult decision I have ever faced', but has insisted Britain's involvement was 'justified'. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw (left), spin doctor Alastair Campbell (centre) and MI6 boss Sir Richard Dearlove (right) were also involved Alastair Campbell Campbell was Tony Blair's director of communications between 1997 and 2003, managing the government's internal relationships and handling the media. He was heavily involved in the campaign behind making the case for war in 2002 and 2003, but has denied claims he 'sexed up' the second dossier of intelligence, often called the 'dodgy dossier'. He told Chilcot: 'I defend every single word of the dossier.' Campbell resigned in August 2003 during the Hutton Inquiry into the death of weapons expert Dr Kelly. Sir Richard Dearlove As head of the MI6 - a position known as 'C' - between 1999 to 2004, Sir Richard and his agents were responsible for the intelligence reports which were used to justify the invasion. His role in build-up to war is disputed but he is understood to have warned ministers that intelligence was being 'fixed around policy' by the US. There have been claims that Sir Richard was too close to Blair and Campbell and helped in the alleged 'sexing up' of the dossiers, which all three men deny doing. Much of his evidence to Chilcot was redacted for security reasons, but it is known he branded claims he was too close to Blair 'complete rubbish'. Dr David Kelly A distinguished government scientist who was a former UN weapons inspector and had worked in Iraq. He became the centre of the argument over the invasion of Iraq when he gave a briefing to a BBC journalist which led to a report that claims about Hussein's weapons had been 'sexed up'. After Dr Kelly was outed as the source of the story he was found dead in woodland near his Oxfordshire home. It is understood he felt his reputation had been tarnished and his death was ruled a suicide. Hans Blix The Swedish diplomat was chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq in the build-up to the war and his views on the extent of tyrant's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) became of huge importance. In 2002, he said he believed the Iraqi regime did have such weapons but by 2003 he said his inspectors had not found any. He urged Western powers to give him more time before launching an invasion. Blix has said he believes the invasion of Iraq was illegal and has accused the Pentagon of smearing him to help justify the war. Dr David Kelly (left) took his own life after he was outed as a source of a story criticised the case for war. UN weapons inspector Hans Blix (right) was in charge of looking for chemical and biological weapons in Iraq during the build-up to war Advertisement
179 dead: The brave British servicemen and women who lost their lives in the Iraq War
The six-year Iraq War claimed the lives of 179 British servicemen and women before the conflict came to an end in May 2009.
According to a study of the war-torn nation, an estimated 461,000 Iraqis were also killed between March 2003 and June 2011 as a direct or indirect result of the fighting.
Here are the faces of the British men and women who died for their country:
(left to right top row) Captain Philip Guy, Naval Rating Ian Seymour, Warrant Officer 2nd Class Mark Stratford (Silhouette), Marine Sholto Hedenskog, Lance Bombardier Llywelyn Evans, Colour Sgt John Cecil, Major Jason Ward, Sergeant Les Hehir, Lt Philip Green, Lt Tony King; Lt James Williams, Lt Philip West, Lt Marc Lawrence, Lt Andrew Wilson, Flight Lt Kevin Main, Flight Lt Dave Williams (Silhouette), Sapper Luke Allsopp, Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth, Sergeant Steven Roberts, Lance-Corporal Barry Stephen;
(left to right second row) Corporal Stephen Allbutt, Trooper David Clarke, Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull, Royal Marine Christopher Maddison, Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley, Major Stephen Ballard, Staff Sergeant Chris Muir, Lance Corporal Karl Shearer, Fusilier Kelan John Turrington, Lance Corporal Ian Malone, Piper Christopher Muzvuru, Lt Alexander Tweedie, Lance Corporal James McCue, Private Andrew Kelly, Gunner Duncan Pritchard (Silhouette), Corporal David Sheppard (Silhouette), Leonard Harvey, Sergeant Simon Hamilton-Jewell, Corporal Russell Aston, Corporal Paul Graham Long;
(left to right third row) Corporal Simon Miller, Lance Corporal Benjamin McGowan Hyde, Lance Corporal Thomas Keys, Captain James Linton, Private Jason Smith (silhouette), Captain David Jones, Major Matthew Titchener, Warrant Officer Colin Wall, Corporal Dewi Pritchard, Fusilier Russell Beeston, Sergeant John Nightingale, Corporal Ian Plank, Private Ryan Thomas, Major James Stenner (Silhouette), Sergeant Norman Patterson (Silhouette), Lance Corporal Andrew Craw, Rifleman Vincent Windsor, Sapper Robert Thompson, Corporal Richard Ivell, Fusilier Gordon Gentle;
(left to right fourth row) Flight Lt Kristian Gover (Silhouette), Private Christopher Rayment, Private Lee O'Callaghan, Private Marc Ferns, Lance Corporal Paul Thomas, Fusilier Steven Jones, Corporal Marc Taylor, Gunner David Lawrence (Silhouette), Private Kevin McHale, Staff Sergeant Denise Rose, Private Paul Lowe, Sergeant Stuart Gray, Private Scott McArdle, Private Pita Tukatukawaqa (Silhouette), Sergeant Paul Connolly (Silhouette), Squadron Leader Patrick Marshall, Flight Lt David Stead, Flight Lt Andrew Smith, Flight Lt Paul Pardoel, Master Engineer Gary Nicholson;
(left to right fifth row) Chief Technician Richard Brown, Flight Sergeant Mark Gibson, Sergeant Robert O'Connor, Corporal David Williams, Acting Lance-Corporal Steven Jones, Private Mark Dobson, Guardsman Anthony Wakefield, Lance-Corporal Alan Brackenbury, Signaller Paul Didsbury, 2nd Lt Richard Shearer, Private Philip Hewett, Private Leon Spicer, Fusilier Donal Meade, Fusilier Stephen Manning, Major Matthew Bacon, Captain Ken Masters, Sergeant Chris Hickey, Sergeant John Jones, Lance Corporal Allan Douglas, Corporal Gordon Pritchard;
(left to right sixth row) Trooper Carl Smith, Captain Richard Holmes, Private Lee Ellis, Lt Richard Palmer, Flight Lt Sarah-Jane Mulvihill, Wing Commander John Coxen, Lt Commander Darren Chapham, Lt David Dobson, Marine Paul Collins, Private Joseva Lewaicei, Private Adam Morris, Lt Tom Mildinhall, Lance Corporal Paul Farrelly, Corporal John Cosby, Corporal Matthew Cornish, Gunner Samuela Vanua, Gunner Stephen Wright, Gunner Lee Thornton, Lance Corporal Dennis Brady, Lt Tom Tanswell;
(left to right seventh row) Kingsman Jamie Hancock, Staff Sergeant Sharron Elliott, Warrant Officer 2nd Class Lee Hopkins, Marine Jason Hylton, Corporal Ben Nowak, Sergeant Jonathon Hollingsworth (Silhouette), Sergeant Graham Hesketh, Sergeant Wayne Rees, Kingsman Alex Green, Private Michael Tench, 2nd Lt Jonathan Bracho-Cooke, Private Luke Daniel Simpson, Rifleman Daniel Coffey, Private Jonathon Dany Wysoczan, Kingsman Danny Wilson, Rifleman Aaron Lincoln, Corporal Kris O'Neill, Second Lieutenant Joanna Yorke Dyer, Kingsman Adam James Smith, Private Eleanor Dlugosz;
(left to right eighth row) Colour Sergeant Mark Powell, Sergeant Mark J McLaren, Corporal Ben Leaning, Trooper Kristen Turton, Kingsman Alan Joseph Jones, Rifleman Paul Donnachie, Major Nick Bateson, Private Kevin Thompson, Corporal Jeremy Brookes, Corporal Rodney Wilson, Lance Corporal James Cartwright, Major Paul Harding, Corporal John Rigby, Corporal Paul Joszko, Private Scott Kennedy, Private James Kerr, Rifleman Edward Vakabua, Lance Corporal Ryan Francis, Corporal Christopher Read, Aircraftsman Peter McFerran;
(left to right ninth row) Senior Aircraftsman Matthew Caulwell, Senior Aircraftsman Christopher Dunsmore, Lance Corporal Timothy Darren 'Daz' Flowers, Corporal Steve Edwards, Private Craig Barber, Leading Aircraftman Martin Beard, Lance Sergeant Chris Casey, Corporal Kirk Redpath, Sergeant Eddie Collins (Silhouette), Sergeant Mark Stansfield, Lance Corporal Sarah Holmes, UNIDENTIFIED(Silhouette), Trooper Lee Fitzsimmons, Guardsman Stephen Ferguson, Sergeant Duane 'Baz' Barwood, UNIDENTIFIED(Silhouette), Lance Corporal David Kenneth Wilson, Corporal Lee Churcher (Silhouette), Private Ryan Wrathall.
HOW BRITAIN AND US BROUGHT WAR TO IRAQ AND THE SEVEN LONG YEARS WAITING FOR CHILCOT INQUIRY TO END A statue of Saddam Hussein is toppled in Baghdad in April 2003. The optimism at his overthrown turned to horror as the country descended into bloody civil war with opposing militias and terror groups killing tens of thousands THE PATH TO WAR 2001 September 11 - Suicide attacks on New York and Washington spark international crisis as US and its allies declare war on terror - and those who harbour terrorists. 2002 April 6: Blair heads to the US to meet George W Bush in Texas where the president is said to have demanded Blair's assurances he would back an Iraq war stance on Iraq 'tightened' and it is claimed he gave an 'undertaking in blood' to support a US invasion. July 24: Attorney General Lord Goldsmith tells Downing Street self-defence and humanitarian intervention are no basis for war. Warns Blair in writing he can't agree to war with U.S. without UN support September 24: Labour government publish their first dossier, which contains claim Saddam Hussein had ability to set off weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes. November 8: UN Security Council pass Resolution 1441 declaring Iraq in 'material breach' of its obligations and need for weapons inspectors to return 2003 January 14: Tony Blair given draft advice saying another resolution authorising use of force is needed. Legal advice continues to say that war would not be legal without it. January 30: The so-called 'dodgy dossier' is published, but later emerges it was based on internet research February 27: Lord Goldsmith tells No10 he's changed his mind, giving 'green light' for war March 18: MPs vote to back war by 412 to 149 March 20: Invasion begins. THE CHILCOT REPORT Evidence: On an extraordinary day Tony Blair is forced to give evidence to the inquiry but insists he did not go to war on the basis of a 'lie' and has no regrets over removing Saddam Hussein 2009 June 15: Prime Minister Gordon Brown announces that a panel of privy councillors led by Sir John Chilcot will conduct an inquiry of 'unprecedented' scope, covering the lead up to the invasion from summer 2001 to the withdrawal of the main body of British troops earlier that year. July 30: Sir John says late 2010 is 'probably the earliest possible' date for his report to be published. November 11: The first public hearings take place. 2010 January 29: Tony Blair makes his long-awaited appearance before the inquiry and insists he did not go to war on the basis of a 'lie', has no regrets over removing Saddam Hussein and would do the same again. Audience members shout 'liar' and 'murderer' as he leaves. March 5: Prime Minister Gordon Brown defends his decision to curb defence spending after the Iraq invasion and tells the inquiry he provided money every time defence chiefs asked for new equipment. Days later he admits he was wrong to claim the defence budget had risen in real terms every year under Labour and will clarify his evidence. 2011 November 17: The Iraq Inquiry says its report will be delayed by six months because of wrangling over the release of secret documents. 2012 July 16: Sir John writes to David Cameron alerting him to a further delay and revealing letters to people who were set to be criticised would not start to be sent until the middle of 2013. 2014 May 16: Mr Cameron says he is frustrated by delays, but hopes the report will be published by the end of the year. 2015 August 13: Families of soldiers killed in the Iraq War threaten legal action if a publication date for the report is not set within two weeks. August 26: In the face of mounting criticism over delays in publishing the report, Sir John issues a statement saying he understands 'the anguish of the families of those who lost their lives in the conflict', but adds 'it is critically important that the report should be fair'. October 25: Mr Blair apologises for aspects of the Iraq War, sparking claims of attempted 'spin' ahead of the Chilcot Inquiry findings. The former prime minister uses a US television interview to express regret over the failure to plan properly for the aftermath of the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein and the false intelligence used to justify it. 2016 May 6: The chairman of the inquiry writes again to the Prime Minister, this time confirming a date for publication of July 6, 2016. July 6: The inquiry committee intends to publish the Report of the Iraq Inquiry. It will include all but the most sensitive information which could threaten national security. Parliament will then debate the findings. Family members of some of the victims are expected in London for the findings, with a protest planned by Stop The War Coalition. Advertisement
It's feared a number of patients who underwent cosmetic treatments with an unregistered Sydney practitioner may be infected with blood-borne viruses.
NSW Health is urging anyone who received treatments from a business run by Ms Pu Liu, or Mabel Liu, in Sydney's inner west to see their GP for blood tests.
Ms Liu, who performed the procedures in an apartment at 14/239 Great North Road in Five Dock, used injectable drugs not approved for use in Australia, NSW Health said.
A legitimate cosmetic business operates in a shop on the ground floor of the same building as Ms Liu and is not associated with Ms Liu.
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Patients of unregistered cosmetic surgeon Ms Pu Liu (pictured) in Sydney's inner west are being urged to see their general practitioner for a blood test because they may be infected with blood-borne viruses
Ms Liu used injectable drugs not approved for use in Australia, NSW Health said (stock image)
Ms Liu, also known as Mabel Liu, performed the procedures in an apartment at 14/239 Great North Road (pictured) in Five Dock
There's a risk her equipment and medications may have also been contaminated because of poor hygiene and lack of sterilisation of the equipment used on clients.
'Client records are not available from Ms Liu to identify people at risk, so we are urging anyone who used her services to see their GP for advice and to seek tests for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV as a precaution,' NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said on Wednesday.
Public health officers raided Ms Liu's business this year following a complaint from one of her clients.
The woman claimed that she was left with scarring, bruising and damaged eyelids after undergoing a double eyelid suture performed by Ms Liu, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
NSW Health said they also fear that her equipment was unsanitary (stock image)
Public health officers raided Ms Liu's business this year following a complaint from one of her clients
Ms Liu was issued with two prohibition orders from the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, including a ban on providing anymore cosmetic and medical procedures or possessing any drugs used for cosmetic treatments such as botox or dermal fillers.
No criminal charges have been laid against Ms Liu as her business is still being investigated by the HCCC, a NSW Health spokeswoman said.
Dr Chant meanwhile asked Ms Liu's patients to undergo a blood test.
'An infection may not present with symptoms right away, so the only way to know if you are at risk (of blood-borne viruses) is to have a blood test,' she said.
Ms Liu was issued with two prohibition orders from the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission (stock image)
The HCCC last week issued a warning about cosmetic services being offered by unregistered practitioners through social media sites such as WeChat (stock image)
She's also urged anyone considering having a minor cosmetic procedure to make sure they check a practitioners credentials before undergoing treatment.
The HCCC last week issued a warning about cosmetic services being offered by unregistered practitioners through social media sites such as WeChat - a popular platform in the Chinese community.
The grandmother went back a couple of weeks later but they
A grandmother who forgot she had hidden $25,000 in a set of pillows accidentally donated them to charity and lost the cash.
The 76-year-old woman had stashed the cash in the two pale printed pillows a year before she dropped them off at the Salvation Army in South Fremantle, south west of Perth's CBD, in May.
The grandmother, who asked not to be identified, realised a couple of weeks later and rushed back to the store but the pillows and the wads of hundred dollar bills had already been sold.
A grandmother who forgot she had hidden $25,000 in a set of pillows accidentally donated them to the Salvation Army and lost the cash (stock image)
The woman said she did not want to keep all her money in the bank after the global financial crisis and put the cash in the pillows in case of an emergency.
'I've got a little bit of money in the bank which I use to pay my bills but this money was my security to help my kids if they needed anything desperately,' she told the Cockburn Gazette.
'I never ever touched it. It was there more like an inheritance really.'
The woman said she is hoping that someone will notice her error and return the money.
A reward is on offer and the Salvation Army have urged the buyer to come forward.
Cory Bernardi is in talks about leaving the Liberal Party to form a new conservative movement just days after lashing out at Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a cliffhanger election result.
'Bernardi is actively seeking this job,' a Liberal source told Fairfax Media.
In his latest blog post, the South Australian conservative senator described the result from Saturday's federal election as a 'disaster' in reference to the Rudd-Gillard Labor Party.
The Liberal senator claimed that an implication of a hung parliament has placed Australia 'right back where we were in 2010' as the latest vote count on Wednesday shows Mr Turnbull could be forced to form a minority government.
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Senator Cory Bernardi is in talks about leaving the Liberal Party to form a new conservative party
Just days ago, the conservative senator lashed out at Malcolm Turnbull over a cliffhanger election result
'In my youth I was told that the definition of madness was doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That axiom has borne out once again,' he wrote on his blog on Wednesday.
'However, the votes have been cast and there isn't much we can do about it now except learn from the experience.
'As of writing, over 1.7 million votes were cast for right-of-centre or conservative parties rather than the Liberal Party. From my perspective, that was the Liberal base expressing their unhappiness with past events.'
Senator Bernardi said a 'formalisation' of his new party, the Australian Conservatives, will 'help change politics
MR BERNARDI'S POLITICAL VIEWS - Called for the banning of the burqa in the public in an opinion piece written in 2010 - Is a climate change sceptic, said the Earth's climate had always changed during an appearance on Q&A in 2013 - Said legalising same-sex marriages would lead to legalised bestiality and polygamy - Said there were times when it was okay for a man to put his partner in a headlock during a domestic violence inquiry in 2014 - Against 'Safe Schools' program and said it bullies heterosexual children - Wrote that 'Same-sex relationships are not the same as marital relationships and to treat them the same is to suspend common sense' Advertisement
Senator Bernardi said a 'formalisation' of his new movement, the Australian Conservatives, will 'help change politics and to give common sense a united voice'.
'It's more important than ever that we unite Australian Conservatives, who share many views, regardless of their party affiliation,' he continued.
'If you believe in limited government, traditional values, defending our culture and heritage, lower taxes, a stronger nation, a stronger economy and plain old common sense, then you have a lot in common with millions of others.
'It's the next step in making sure our voice is never taken for granted again.'
Islamic leader Samier Dandan told the gathered crowds he was worried about the rise of Islamophobia in Australia
The end of Ramadan means the beginning of the 'festival of breaking the fast,' Eid al-Fitr, which lasts for three days
The Lebanese stalls served camel burgers, tandoori chicken kebabs, corn on the cob, paratha and knafeh
The June Ramadan celebrations left Lakemba town centre transformed with food stalls for Iftar in the evenings
The Mosque was full by 6am on Wednesday and thousands prayed on the street to mark end of 30-days of fasting
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A senior Muslim leader is concerned about the rise of Islamophobia and hate speech in politics
He's voiced his worries as more than 50,000 Muslims closed the streets around Sydney's biggest mosque to celebrate the end of Ramadan and 30-days of fasting.
Lebanese Muslim Association president Samier Dandan told the crowds: 'It cannot be emphasised enough just how disappointing it is to see individuals who preach hate and bigotry gaining power', The Daily Telegraph reported.
'Their increasing influence is a reflection of the critical mass of support public Islamophobia is currently enjoying.'
He said anti-Muslim sentiments shouldn't split the country.
'Their bigotry will not install hatred in us. We Australians are better than that.'
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More than 50,000 Muslims have gone to Lakemba Mosque (pictured) in Sydney's south-west to celebrate the end of Ramadan and 30-days of fasting
Lakemba Mosque was full by 6am on Wednesday, leaving thousands to place their prayer rugs on Wangee Road (pictured)
Following the mass prayer, thousands of people streamed out of the Lakemba mosque
Muslim families will now begin to celebrate the three-day 'festival of breaking the fast,' Eid al-Fitr
WHAT IS RAMADAN? Ramadan is the ninth month in the Islamic calendar and is four weeks of fasting and prayer. Muslims spend the day fasting, before having their first meal, known as Iftar, at sunset. After Ramadan, the three-day 'festival of breaking the fast,' known as Eid al-Fitr begins at the official sighting of a crescent moon. It is an official holiday in all Muslim countries. Advertisement
Lakemba Mosque was full by 6am on Wednesday, leaving thousands to place their prayer rugs on Wangee Road while their morning prayers were broadcast over loudspeakers.
The Ramadan celebrations left the Lakemba town centre transformed with food stalls for the evening meal, known as Iftar, serving camel burgers, corn on the cob, tandoori chicken kebabs, paratha flatbread and the cheese dessert Knafeh.
New South Wales Premier Mike Baird arrived in Lakemba in the morning to address the service as Muslim families now begin to celebrate the three-day 'festival of breaking the fast,' Eid al-Fitr.
'We must stand up against any form of racial vilification,' Mr Baird told the crowd from a podium on the stairs of the mosque, The ABC reported.
For 30-days food stalls have lined Haldon Street in the town centre from 4pm until 3am each night as thousands of Muslims enjoyed their first meal of the day.
Non-Muslims travelled to Lakemba to visit the marketplace and try traditional meals such as the famous camel burger, SBS reported.
More than 400 of the burgers were sold each night.
'This is the Mecca you might say of Muslim activity at this time of year,' Canterbury Mayor Brian Robson said.
'The shops are open virtually all night, and the streets as you can see are just full of people who are shopping and enjoying themselves.'
For 30-days food stalls have lined Haldon Street in the town centre from 4pm until 3am each night
Both New South Wales Premier Mike Baird (right) and Labor Party representative Tony Burke (left) addressed the crowd on Wednesday
More than 50,000 Muslims have lined the streets at Lakemba Mosque (pictured) in Sydney's south-west to celebrate the end of Ramadan and 30-days of fasting
Children carried balloons and locals watched the sea of people from their balconies
'Their bigotry will not install hatred in us. We Australians are better than that,' Mr Dandan said
Lakemba Mosque was full by 6am on Wednesday, leaving thousands to place their prayer rugs on the street while their morning prayers were broadcast over loudspeakers
Non-Muslims travelled to Lakemba to visit the marketplace and try traditional meals for Iftar such as the famous camel burger
The holy month comes to an end at the official sighting of a crescent moon
President of the Lebanese Muslim Association, Samier Dandan (pictured), addressed the crowd on Wednesday, saying the 'divisiveness' of 'bigotry' in Australia will not 'break' them
'The past couple of months, and even the past couple of days, have been difficult and critical for the Australian Muslim community,' Mr Dandan said
Volunteer Hajj Jasim helped to clean the Lakemba mosque overnight in preparation for the celebration on Wednesday morning
The Imam of Lakemba Mosque, Sheikh Yahya Safi, delivered the Eid al-Fitr sermons on Wednesday
The prayer were read to the thousand of Muslims by leaders over a microphone and broadcast to those on the street
The holy month comes to an end at the official sighting of a crescent moon.
President of the Lebanese Muslim Association, Samier Dandan, addressed the crowd on Wednesday, saying the 'divisiveness' of 'bigotry' in Australia will not 'break' them.
'Their bigotry will not install hatred in us. We Australians are better than that,' he said.
'The past couple of months, and even the past couple of days, have been difficult and critical for the Australian Muslim community.
'The continued rise of islamophobic discourse in the public, in addition to a number of toxic policies have only exacerbated negative sentiments to the Australian Muslim community'.
'This is the Mecca you might say of Muslim activity at this time of year,' Canterbury Mayor Brian Robson said
Hundreds inside the mosque stood in silent prayer early on Wednesday morning
The Imam of Lakemba Mosque, Sheikh Yahya Safi, delivered the Eid al-Fitr sermons on Wednesday
The holy month comes to an end at the official sighting of a crescent moon, marking the start of Eid al-Fitr
President of the Lebanese Muslim Association, Samier Dandan, addressed the crowd on Wednesday, saying the 'divisiveness' of 'bigotry' in Australia will not 'break' them
This is the terrifying moment a group of youngsters cheat death after the makeshift dance floor they are strutting their stuff on plunges 30ft to the ground.
The eight teenagers were showing off their dance moves on a platform in the air during a carnival in Mexico.
Footage taken by an onlooker showed the platform, mounted above the crowds using specialist lifting machinery, veering from one side to another before it collapsed.
Revellers at a carnival in Mexico were showing off their dance moves on a raised platform when it fell
These stills from the video show the moment the platform lurched and then started to crash forward
Three of the youngsters, who included a boy and a girl aged just 14, were still 'serious' in hospital last night following the Sunday evening accident, although their lives are not thought to be in danger.
They are said to have suffered multiple injuries including broken bones.
Officials said the platform was not designed to support the weight of so many people
The platform operator, a 51-year-old named as Pablo Martinez Vazquez, was arrested on Monday on suspicion of negligence.
Terrified screams of those on the platform and people on the ground are heard as the stage crashed to the floor in Mexico
A local paper printed a picture of him being sat in the back of a police truck in handcuffs by an armed officer.
The near-tragedy occurred in the town of Cuitlahuac near Veracruz on Mexico's east coast.
It was celebrating its annual carnival at the time.
The three youngsters still in hospital are a 14-year-old girl and two 17-year-olds.
Union Cabinet approves setting up a Major port at Enayam near Colachel in Tamil Nadu
Published: July 6, 2016
The Union Cabinet has given its in-principle approval for setting up a Major port at Enayam near Colachel in Tamil Nadu. On completion the port will become countrys 13th major port.
The Enayam Major Port project seeks to make India a trans-shipment hub for the global East-West maritime trade route.
Enayam Major Port project
For development of this port, a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) will be formed with initial equity investment from the three Major Ports in Tamil Nadu.
They are V.O.Chidambaranar Port Trust, Kamarajar Port Limited and Chennai Port Trust.
The SPV will develop the port infrastructure including construction of breakwater, dredging and reclamation, ensuring connectivity links etc.
Key Facts
Major port at Enayam will act as a major gateway container port for Indian cargo that is presently trans-shipped outside the country.
It will help to reduce the logistics cost for exporters/importers in South India who currently depend on trans-shipment other foreign ports, incurring additional port handling charges.
The Enayam port has a natural deep draught of about 20 metres which makes it feasible for larger vessels.
It has 10 million TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units) capacity and later can be expanded to 18 million TEUs.
Background
At present, there are only a few ports in India that have sufficient draft and can match global cargo handling efficiencies.
Currently, around 78% of the marine traffic from the east coast ports of India is trans-shipped to Colombo, Singapore and Klang (Malaysia).
The traffic is transhipped form India as there are only a few ports in south India that have a draught to match global cargo handling efficiencies and function as a trans-shipment hub.
Due to this diversion, Indian port industry is losing out up to 1,500 Crores Rupees of revenues each year.
Note: India has 12 major ports at present. They are Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT, Marmugao, New Managlore, Cochin, Chennai, Ennore, V.O. Chidambarnar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia).
Month: Current Affairs - July, 2016
Topics: Cabinet Decisions Enayam Port National Places in News Ports Tamil Nadu TNPSC Transportation
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Chris Evans appeared to be all smiles today as he had breakfast with James Corden and Danny Baker, despite reports that former staff from The Big Breakfast had been questioned by police over allegations the host exposed himself and grabbed a colleague's breasts.
Police confirmed earlier this week that Evans, 50, who quit his role on the BBC's Top Gear on Monday, was being investigated over claims he sexually assaulted a woman in the 1990s.
And as part of the investigation, officers are understood to have spoken to at least one television producer who worked with Evans on the Channel 4 morning show, which he starred on between 1992 and 1994.
Chris Evans appeared to be all smiles today as he had breakfast with James Corden this morning
The pair were joined by Evans's long-term friend, Danny Baker as they enjoyed their meeting at a London cafe
But despite the allegations, and the announcement that he was leaving Top Gear after just one series, Evans appeared in good spirits as he dined with Corden and long-term friend Baker at a cafe in London, following his Radio 2 show earlier this morning.
According to website Business Insider, police spoke to a television executive at Bethnal Green Police station, and have also spoken to other former colleagues of the presenter by telephone.
A complaint was made to police on May 23 - six days before the latest series of Top Gear made its debut in May.
But police only confirmed that the star was being investigated on Monday, just hours before he announced on Twitter that he was quitting the BBC motoring show.
A spokesman said: 'An allegation of non-recent sexual assault was made to police on May 23,' a police spokesman told MailOnline.
The star pictured with his friend Danny Baker, leaving the BBC Radio 2 studios today. They later went to have Coffee with James Corden
'The allegation was made by a woman against a man, and relates to incidents in Tower Hamlets in the 1990s.
'There have been no arrests and no person has been interviewed under caution.'
The Big Breakfast was filmed in Bow, which falls within the east London borough.
Police have not commented on any individuals who may be involved in the case, or any lines of inquiry.
Evans presented The Big Breakfast from 1992 until 1994. He is pictured with co-hosts Paula Yates, Gaby Roslin and Bob Geldof and guest Joanna Lumley after the first broadcast
The Big Breakfast was filmed at this house in Bow in the east London borough of Tower Hamlets
Evans and the BBC, who also employ Evans as a presenter on Radio 2, are also yet to comment, although he has denied recent claims of bullying behind the scenes on Top Gear, calling them a 'witch-hunt'.
In May, speaking ahead of the Top Gear relaunch, he told the Daily Mail: 'Yes, I lose my rag. But not like I used to. I used to be a big shouter and screamer. But I don't bully people. And I didn't get my willy out. I wouldn't be showing it off like a megalomaniac I wish I had reason to.'
The married father of three, who has not been arrested, is now likely to be questioned by detectives over the allegations against him. Yesterday evening, a police car was photographed driving away from Evans's mansion in Berkshire.
A police car was today photographed driving away from Chris Evans' mansion in Berkshire yesterday evening - one day after officers confirmed they would be questioning him about an alleged sexual assault
The alleged victim has accused Evans of sexually assaulting her when they worked together while he was one of Britain's biggest television stars and the host of Channel 4's The Big Breakfast and BBC Radio 1's breakfast show.
In a newspaper interview, she said: 'Chris wanted an affair with me but I didn't want to because he was with someone else at the time. So he sent me to Coventry. He told colleagues not to talk to me. It was bullying behaviour.
Former staff from Chris Evans's show The Big Breakfast have reportedly been questioned by police over allegations the host exposed himself and grabbed a colleague's breasts. He is pictured today, leaving the BBC Radio 2 studios
'He often said I was c**p at my job and would sometimes grab my breasts. I became totally desensitised to his behaviour. He would scream, shout and swear at me.'
She told the Heat Street website her complaints were ignored by his production team at the time, leaving her traumatised and on anti-depressants.
She added: 'He used to get his penis out every time I saw him. He'd either just get it out, or he'd walk into a room naked. It was pretty much every single day. It was relentless.'
The woman said she made a statement about Evans's behaviour to a lawyer five years ago. But she reported the matter to police only on May 23 after the article appeared in a national newspaper on May 8.
She added: 'In my experience, sometimes he exposed himself in front of other people. With me, he would do it practically every single day.
'He'd torture people who didn't do what he wanted them to do. Looking back I should have left sooner but I stayed because I had to pay the rent.'
Evans has previously admitted exposing himself during meetings of his company Ginger Group Media. He said in 2005: 'I haven't done it for a while, but I will do it again... If you get your willy out, it's the funniest thing in the world.'
Sources have suggested that Evans's departure from Top Gear was not linked to the investigation, but rather to him feeling 'overwhelmed' by his workload, and negative stories about the show, which has suffered declining ratings, in the press.
The decision to stand down was apparently Evans's but a BBC source said discussions on the matter began last week.
Evans reportedly told BBC bosses he was thinking of quitting was told to make a quick decision, and urged not to hang on like under-fire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
A source told The Sun: 'When Chris said he had doubts about staying on, they reminded him of the current political situation and told him, "Dont be a Corbyn".
The presenter, 50, revealed on Twitter that he would not be returning to the revamped motoring programme
He added: 'Full steam ahead then with Radio 2, CarFest, Children In Need, 500 Words and whatever else we can dream up in the future'
'It was obvious something needed to change and those in charge werent willing to convince him to stay.'
His departure from the programme after only one year of a three-year deal means it will be up to former Friends star Matt LeBlanc to save the show.
Sunday's series finale drew an all-time low of 1.9million viewers, far below the average audience of 6.49million during the last series with Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.
A friend told The Telegraph: 'Every single day he has been accused of a different thing, all of which have been completely untrue.
'In the end you just think, "f*** off and die".
'If the show had done better, perhaps the battering would have been less bad. But he just thinks doing this will make him and his family happier. It is as simple as that.'
Evans's departure from the programme after only one year of a three-year deal means it will be up to former Friends star Matt LeBlanc (right) to save the show
Announcing his departure, Evans wrote on Twitter: 'Gave it my best shot but sometimes that's not enough. The team are beyond brilliant, I wish them all the best.'
He said he would continue to present his Radio 2 breakfast show.
In a statement, Evans added: 'I have never worked with a more committed and driven team than the team I have worked with over the last 12 months. I feel like my standing aside is the single best thing I can now do to help the cause.
'I remain a huge fan of the show, always have been, always will be. I will continue to focus on my radio show and the allied events that it encompasses.'
Yesterday on his radio show he used his opening segment to pay tribute to those he worked with during his brief stint at the wheel, adding that today's broadcast was 'dedicated to all the Top Gear gang
Distraught: Yacht owner Mark Wynter
The sailor who destroyed a 30,000 yacht after steering it into a wreck during a race off the Isle of Wight had borrowed the vintage vessel from a sailing club commodore, it has been revealed.
Andrew Talbot is understood to have been at the helm of the beautiful wooden yacht, the Alchemist, when it crashed into the remains of a sunken ship in the annual Round the Island race.
The collision caused serious damage to the bow of the 30ft Dubois half-tonner, causing it to slip into the choppy sea just minutes after it started taking on water.
The yacht belonged to retired accountant Mark Wynter, commodore of the Island Sailing Club, who has spent decades racing the vessel after having it built in the 1970s.
He is understood to have lent the yacht to his helmsman, Mr Talbot, for the race over the weekend.
Speaking today from the home he shares with his wife on the Isle of Wight, Mr Wynter, 68, described the sinking of his cherished yacht as 'dreadful'.
His wife added that he is 'very upset' about the incident.
Members of the yachting community described the vessel as a 'work of art'.
Dramatic footage of the crash, captured on the helmet camera of an RNLI crewman, shows a nearby lifeboat crew rushing to the stricken vessel following the crash.
The crew tossed the shocked mariners a pump in a futile attempt to offload the water but that was ditched after just 30 seconds.
As it became obvious the yacht was about to sink an RNLI officer ordered the two remaining men, who were both wearing lifejackets, to abandon ship and jump onto the lifeboat.
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Stricken: The 30,000 yacht was steered into a wreck near the Isle of Wight during the annual race. An RNLI crew (seen in the red boat) were able to rescue the sailors moments before the yacht (just seen) sunk
Rescue: Moments before the yacht went down, two sailors (one pictured) were rescued by RNLI volunteers
Treasured: The vintage yacht, pictured, was owned by Mark Wynter, who had lent the vessel to a friend
The helmsman can be heard shouting: 'I think it's going. Come on off.'
The yacht plunged into 55ft of water bow-first and disappeared so fast it sank beneath the feet of a lifeboatman who had stepped onboard to help, leaving him bobbing in the sea.
The sailors, believed to be in their 50s, were transferred to a marine police boat, which had already taken four other crew off the sinking craft, and taken to Yarmouth Harbour in the Isle of Wight.
According to The Times, Mr Talbot was the skipper during the race.
Yacht designer John Corby, of Cowes, said the yacht is a great loss.
He said: 'I remember it being built at the boatyard in about 1977. Seeing it under construction was one of the things that made me want to build boats.
'Mark Wynter had it built and has owned it from new. At the time it was the very latest thing, a full-on modern racing boat, now it's more of a classic.
Rescue: Helmet-cam footage from the RNLI shows the yacht rapidly taking on water after the crash
Tragic loss: The Alchemist, seen above the water, sunk beneath the choppy waters within seconds
'I raced on it in 1984 in the Round the Island Race, it's very sad to hear about the sinking.
'Hopefully it can be recovered but it's pretty deep there and the issue is whether it's worth repairing. It's a great shame.'
More than 1,700 yachts took part in this year's Round the Island Race, which is organised by the Island Sailing Club in Cowes.
The 55-mile race was held in strong winds gusting more than 45 knots - just over 50mph.
The Alchemist hit the remains of the SS Varvassi, a Greek cargo steamer that ran aground near the Needles lighthouse in 1947 and sunk within minutes.
Seconds from disaster: The sailors were rescued just moments before the yacht sunk completely. Pictured, the RNLI rescue boat (in red), the sinking yacht, and a RNLI crewman bobbing in the water nearby
At low tide the remains of the ship are perilously close to the surface, and it has become one of the most notorious wrecks in the area for yachtsmen.
However the 200ft passage between the wreck and the lighthouse is one often used by competitors trying to secure a lead in the race.
A spokesman for Solent Coastguard said: 'Yachts cut the corner there: they're not supposed to and it's a well-known wreck, but people will do anything to save a few seconds.'
An RNLI spokesman said: 'On arrival the crew found two crew on board the stricken vessel. The remaining occupants asked for a pump although the Alchemist was already very low in the water.
Beautiful: Mr Wynter, a Cambridge graduate in his 60s, had the yacht, pictured, built from new in 1977
Collision: A map showing The Needles where where the yacht hit the wreckage of the SS Varvassi
'We soon realised that the vessel was sinking fast and took the two remaining crew off the vessel just before it sank completely - leaving our own crewman in the water, who we immediately recovered.
'We then transferred the casualties to the police vessel who had taken four other crew off the sinking craft.'
The father-of-three then attacked the officer in his car, according to police
The devastated family of a man shot dead by an off-duty police officer in front of his horrified girlfriend and children have threatened to 'hunt him down' if he is not charged with the killing.
Officer Wayne Isaacs killed Delrawn Small, 37, after a near-miss crash in Brooklyn.
Small's niece, Zoe Dempsey, 23, told the New York Post: 'We will seek our justice' and get violent if necessary.
'This is war. I'm from Brooklyn. This is our neighborhood.'
Small and Issacs' cars almost collided on Atlantic Avenue and Bradford St. in Cypress Hill around midnight on Sunday.
The slain father got out of his Kia EX and approached the cop car and punched the officer repeatedly in the head through an open window, according to police.
Delrawn Small, 37, was shot dead after a road rage confrontation with an off-duty police officer. His girlfriend, Zaquanna Albert, wrote on Facebook: 'My heart aches for this Man and my son who will never remember his Dad and a Great dad he was to my Baby.'
The officer, who had just finished his shift and was on his way home in his own car, pulled out his service weapon and killed Small, authorities said.
But another account told by a witness claims it was the officer who was the aggressor.
Construction worker, Lloyd Banks, 43, told The Daily News: 'Delron and the cop's car almost hit each other. And Delron got out of the car and the cop just jumped out and started screaming.
'He just shot him right there on the street. Delron was unarmed. His wife and kids were still in the car. They saw everything.'
Small's girlfriend, Zaquanna Albert, wrote on Facebook: 'Words can't begin to explain. The pain I feel right now. I appreciate all the prayers and well wishes. But my heart aches for this Man and my son who will never remember his Dad and a Great dad he was to my Baby.'
Small was pronounced dead at the scene but his body remained on the street covered in a plastic sheet for around four hours after the shooting.
A law enforcement official who has viewed a security videotape from the scene said it shows an unarmed motorist exiting his car at a stoplight and leaning into the vehicle of an off-duty officer before the officer shot and killed.
Small's partner was riding with him and their two children, ages 5 months and 14 years, when he was shot
The video has emerged as key evidence in a review by the New York Police Department and the state attorney general's office into the shooting of Small.
Officer Wayne Issacs was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation, police said.
While investigators were certain the killing of Small was the result of a traffic dispute and suspect he accosted the patrolman, police Commissioner William Bratton has called it 'much, much too early' to say whether it was justified.
Police said the incident unfolded shortly after Isaacs ended his shift at a Brooklyn precinct and drove away in his civilian clothes. It wasn't unusual that he was armed: The NYPD allows off-duty officers to carry weapons and to take police action if they encounter criminal activity.
Police say a woman who was riding with Small and their two children, ages 5 months and 14 years, told investigators that he became enraged after he thought the officer cut him off, then followed the officer's car to the stoplight despite her pleas to calm down and let it go. They say there was no was back and forth that would have made Isaacs aware that he was being pursued or that Small knew he was an officer.
The video shows Small walking around the front of the officer's car and leaning through the driver's window, the official said. Small then 'nearly instantaneously' stumbles back and ends up collapsing behind the officer's vehicle as it lurches forward, the official said.
Two cars almost collided on Atlantic Ave. and Bradford St. in Cypress Hill around midnight on Sunday. The incident ended with Delrawn Small (pictured) being shot dead
As described by the official, the tape contradicts a news report quoting a man claiming he saw Isaacs get out of his car and shoot Small. Investigators believe Small had punched Isaacs with the officer still seated behind the wheel before the officer fired three times, leaving behind shell cases found inside the car.
Police have declined to release the video. The official, who wasn't authorized to publicly discuss it, spoke on the condition of anonymity.
After the shooting, the woman in Small's car started to drive away with her children before returning to the scene, police said. Isaacs, who was not in uniform and waited until patrol officers arrived, was taken to a hospital for treatment of minor injuries, they said.
Small, 37, got out of his Kia EX and approached the other car involved, a Nissan Altima, in this area
State Assemblyman Charles Barron said Tuesday that he was working with Small's family to demand that authorities hold the officer accountable. The Brooklyn Democrat and frequent NYPD critic said the officer should have taken steps to defuse the situation with warnings or simply by driving away.
'Even if there was a punch, there's no justification zero for the use of deadly force,' Barron said.
The police union that represents Isaacs declined to comment on Tuesday.
Small's brother Ali found out about the shooting from Banks and a second brother, Bryan Williams.
'My little brother was driving in the car with his family on his way to see me,' the 43-year-old said, identifying the children as two teenage girls and a newborn son.
NYPD's Force Investigation Division is reviewing the shooting. Officers are still stationed outside the hospital as detectives continue their work in the area pictured
Speaking to NBC, he said witnesses told him the officer shot 'on impulse.' He also defended his brother, saying that he left his car because he didn't want to argue in front of his family.
'The only reason he got out of the car was because the family was in the car. He was concerned. He wanted to question the guy, like, what's your angle?' Small said.
'And that was his angle... he killed him.'
Small's family held a news conference later Monday demanding a full investigation.
The father was from Jersey City but grew up in East New York. The New York Post reports he had previously been arrested 19 times.
A senior civilian navy official is under investigation for pulling a gun on a group of young men who were sitting in a car outside his home.
Karnig Ohannessian, who is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Environment was filmed by a group of men who were parked outside his home in Fairfax County, Virginia, ordering them to leave.
The men complained they were sitting on a public street, while Ohannessian, who took up his post in January, pointed his gun at them and said: 'I can shoot the f*** out of you guys right now.'
Karnig Ohannessian, pictured facing the camera, pointed a gun at the group of young men outside his home; the decorated civilian in the Department of the Navy ordered the men away from his house
Ohannessian, pictured, was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Environment in January
At one stage, a woman, believed to be Ohannessian's wife moves his hand to stop him from pointing the black handgun in an effort to defuse the hostile situation.
The Navy official accused the young men of being drunk outside his home, which is in the Washington suburbs, on the Virginia side of the Potomac river.
Ohannessian orders the men to get into their car and leave.
During the bad-tempered exchange, one of the men claims: 'You're pointing a gun at my friend. This is a criminal offense, so please stop it.'
Another warns, 'Be thankful you have that gun, man. It shows what kind of a f*** you are.'
One of the young men's mothers filed a complaint against Ohannessian with Fairfax County Police Department, who are investigating.
According to CBS News, the Department of the Navy has been aware of the incident, although no charges have been filed against Ohannessian.
The young men complained they were not doing anything wrong as they were on a public street
Ohannessian is the top policy advisor to the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Navy on the environment.
He is one of the most senior civilian officials in the Department of THE nAVY.
He spent 13 years working in the private sector before joining the department and trained as a chemical and civil engineer.
He has received two Department of the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Awards.
Grammy-winning Mumford and Sons have boycotted a Swedish music festival over what they call its disgustingly high rate of sexual violence.
The British band headlined Bravalla festival in Norrkoping on the weekend, but have vowed not to return after music lovers reported five rapes and a number of sexual assaults.
On their official Facebook page, the band announced it would not be returning to Sweden, adding: 'We're appalled to hear what happened at the Bravalla Festival last weekend...We're gutted by these hideous reports.'
It follows 35 sexual assaults on girls aged between 12 and 17 at the country's Putte i Parken festival in Karlstad Friday and Saturday including Alexandra Larsson, who spoke exclusively to MailOnline.
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Grammy-winning Mumford and Sons have boycotted a Swedish music festival over what they call its disgustingly high rate of sexual violence
A police officer helps with security in the campsite at Bravalla Festival in Norrkoping, Sweden, on Saturday. Swedish police told the media that they are investigating five cases of alleged rape and more than a dozen suspected sexual assaults committed at the Bravalla Festival over last weekend
Melissa Horn performs at the Bravalla music festival in Norrkoping, Sweden which is the biggest music festival in Sweden where Mumford and Sons would later headline
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven described the situation as 'totally unacceptable' and said that laws on sexual assault would be tightened
The British band headlined Bravalla festival in Norrkoping on the weekend, but have vowed not to return after music lovers reported five rapes and a number of sexual assaults
Swedish fans could be waiting a while for the return of Mumford and Sons, who took a stand against the festival and its molesters, saying: 'We're appalled to hear what happened at the Bravalla Festival last weekend.
'Festivals are a celebration of music and people, a place to let go and feel safe doing so.
'We're gutted by these hideous reports.
'We won't play at this festival again until we've had assurances from the police and organisers that they're doing something to combat what appears to be a disgustingly high rate of reported sexual violence.'
The band signed the post off with the letters M, W, B and T - the initials of the groups' members Marcus Mumford, Winston Marshall, Ben Lovett and Ted Dwane.
Several Swedish artists also hit out after the police reports emerged over the weekend.
Zara Larsson, who configured with David Guetta for the official Euro 2016 song, angrily tweeted, 'Damn you who shamelessly rapes a girl in the audience. You deserve to burn in hell. I hate you guys.'
Fy fan for er killar som far tjejer att kanna sig osakra nar de gar pa festival. Jag hatar killar. Hatar hatar hatar. Zara Larsson (@zaralarsson) July 1, 2016
Fyfan for dig som helt skamlost valdtar en tjej i publikhavet. Du fortjanar att brinna i helvetet. Zara Larsson (@zaralarsson) July 1, 2016
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven described the situation as 'totally unacceptable' and said that laws on sexual assault would be tightened.
'We are in the process of reviewing them,' he said in a speech at a political seminar.
'It's also important that we continue to ensure that police, prosecutors and other officials are better equipped to investigate such crimes and actually catch the perpetrators.'
Police handed out anti-groping bracelets ahead of the festival season in Swedish aimed at raising awareness and quashing sexual harassment, but the efforts were in vein and campaigners are calling for more to be done.
Swedish police press spokesman Thomas Agnevik, who was present at the Bravalla festival, told The Local: 'I can understand that criticism.
'As long as these serious crimes are happening, of course not enough has been done.
'Nobody should have to go to a concert and leave as a rape victim.'
Alexandra Larsson (pictured) told MailOnline she was molested on Friday night having been looking forward to attending the festival for months
A 17-year-old told MailOnline of her ordeal after a mob of 'foreign youths' sexually assaulted dozens of females at a Swedish music festival.
At least 35 aged between 12 and 17 reported being attacked during the 'Party in the Park' festival in Karlstad, 250 miles from Stockholm in Sweden's Varmland County on Friday and Saturday night.
Some of the alleged victims reported being 'kissed and groped' in scenes similar to the Cologne New Year attacks, in which dozens of women reported being assaulted.
Police say the attacks happened during the 'Party in the Park' festival (pictured) in the city of Karlstad, 250 miles from Stockholm in Sweden's Varmland County on Friday and Saturday night
Alexandra Larsson, who waived her right to anonymity, she was molested on Friday night having been looking forward to attending the festival for months.
She said: 'Everything was okay at the beginning of the evening. But things got out of hand during the last concert with John de Sohn that started at midnight.
'At first we were pushed right up against the stage by the massive crowd. Everyone around us behaved really badly and my friends told a couple of boys to quieten down.
'They were then threatened by the boys who said 'you will die, b***h'. But the verbal abuse was just beginning. It would become much worse.
'We managed to walk away from those boys after a while and started watching the concert. That was when I felt the first touch against my bottom.
'Then someone took the liberty of grabbing my butt really hard. I turned away and said to the group of boys behind us that this was not okay, but I did not know who had done it. After a while, I felt someone running his fingers between my legs touching my genitals. Luckily, I had jeans on me.'
After the harassment, she turned around and said to the group of young men standing next to her that they should stop what they were doing. But everyone around her claimed to be innocent.
About 20 000 visited the festival every day during the three-day festival which was free. The majority of the visitors were teenagers
It then happened again, she said.
'I turned around and screamed right out that 'whoever it was - you're a pig!' I told my friends what had just happened and they were all shocked. Me and my girlfriends decided to leave the concert, because we could not see who it was. It was just a sea of people.'
Ms Larsson described a feeling of powerlessness as the festival she and her friends had been looking forward to was completely destroyed.
'It was creepy. Someone stood around me and groped me and I had no idea who it was. It was sick. We had come there to have fun, but the festival only lasted 20 minutes for us because it was so uncomfortable.
'The groping was at first a bit innocent. Just a touch on the bottom. Something that you can do by mistake in a big crowd of people. But it became worse and worse after that. The one touching me was becoming more and more rough every time.
She said that the boys around them were about 17 or 18-years-old but 'those standing behind me were not from a Swedish background.'
'They were probably immigrants. I hate to say it. But it is the truth,' she said.
'I have reported this to the police, but it feels like a drop in the ocean. I saw girls that came crying from the audience, including an old childhood friend who is two years younger. She cried so much that it broke my heart.
'The same thing had happened to her in front of the stage. A bunch of teenagers hidden in the crowd had grabbed her bottom, breast and genitals .
'I think that at least hundreds were molested at the festival. There are probably loads of unrecorded incidents. Girls who have a low self esteem might think that it is their fault - that perhaps they did something wrong to provoke it. But they are wrong. Nobody gets to touch a woman without her own permission.
At least 35 girls aged between 12 and 17 have reported being sexually assaulted by 'foreign youths' at a Swedish music festival, it has emerged (file picture)
'I have heard of others who had been grabbed during previous festivals. But it was sick being subjected to it myself, especially because it was so rough. It was like a punch in the face that it actually happened.
'I could see crying girls everywhere around me when I left the festival. I don't know if they all had been groped, but most of them probably had been violated in front of the stage.
Ms Larsson said that she was 'strong and could cope with it' but added: 'When a 14-year-old girl who is not as strong becomes a victim, she can be completely destroyed. That is what is so sick. It happens all the time but we can not do anything about it.
'I do not know what to think, it is so wrong. Everyone thinks it's wrong but nothing happens. There are large festivals with several thousand people and these mass incidents create a powerlessness for both the police, security guards and especially for visitors who become victims.
'The perpetrators will be so anonymous in the audience that they will get away with sex crimes. That is the main problem, that the perpetrators get away with it.
'It's not okay. I should be able to go to festivals and have fun like everyone else without being afraid. It is wrong, really wrong, but that's the feeling I have after yesterday. It's damn hard that ordinary people who just want to have fun should have to suffer just because someone thinks it's fun to violate.
She said that she believed the problem was spreading 'because attackers know they will not get caught'.
But she added that police took it 'really seriously' when she reported the incident and is hoping that this will lead to something.
'I will not visit the festival again. It was so uncomfortable, I do not want to risk that happening to me one more evening.
'I talked about this with my father and my three brothers. They were all devastated when they heard about what had happened. Especially my father who told me that normal men know that they are not allowed to touch women who do not want to be touched. He cannot understand what kind of moral guidance these boys must have.'
The touring 'Party in the Park' festival had about 20,000 visitors every day between Thursday and Saturday
The touring festival had about 20,000 visitors every day between Thursday and Saturday.
It was free and the majority of the visitors were teenagers. The bands playing were mostly Swedish and 1980s act 'Europe' were headlining.
Police reported that the perpetrators linked to the assaults were 'young men, who are foreigners'.
They have arrested two boys, both living at a nearby asylum centre for unaccompanied refugee children.
Meanwhile the tabloid Expressen has talked to a concerned mother who said that the security guards' response when her daughter reported that she had been molested was 'that is just something that happens when you are at a festival'.
Her daughter described what happened to her, adding: 'I was standing up and danced when a guy came from behind and held me down and started humping against my body. It was horrible.'
Breitbart reports that the promoter of the Putte i Parken festival said he found the behaviour of his staff unacceptable and that they should lose their security licences.
Up to 24 of the reports related to alleged assaults during the festival while a further 11 happened afterwards, according to Breitbart.
Expressen said one victim had been at the festival with six young friends - five of whom were also molested.
The incidents happened about a week after the Swedish police started its new campaign against groping.
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Military rescue crews from Australia and the Unites States have joined forces for a major air and field exercise in north Queensland.
More than 300 personnel from the Australian Army and Air Force and the United States of The United States National Guard and Air Force have converged in Queensland's Townsville for Exercise Angel Reign.
The exercise focuses on Air Force led field rescue operations involving helicopters and military planes, with images showing army aircraft taking to the skies for the exercises as soldiers take aim below them.
Members of the United States Air Force 129th Pararescue Squadron (pictured) take aim at simulated enemies during a drill at Exercise Angel Reign
A United States Air Force HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter flies over the site of a drill at the major air and field exercise
More than 300 personnel from the Australian Army and Air Force and the United States of The United States National Guard and Air Force have converged for the drill
Dramatic images show United States Air Force 129th Pararescue Squadron members rescuing soldiers during simulated Improvised Explosive Device strikes.
In other images, green and purple plumes of smoke are seen rising into the air from smoke grenades used in the dramatic rescue exercise.
The exercise hones a range of skills from helping rescuing lost hikers to saving injured pilots trapped behind enemy lines, reports ABC.
Royal Australian Air Force Group Captain Mark McCallum said Angel Reign was intending to co-ordinate a diverse range of teams.
'The aim of the exercise is to increase our interoperability with our US partners but also to look at inter-agency cooperation, civil agencies, water police, the Australian Maritime Safety Agency and the Coast Guard,' he said.
United States National Guard Colonel Taft Aujero said the execrcise had the added benefit of enabling the American and Australian militaries to build relationships.
'Being in Australia builds international partnerships and being able to take our craft we've honed in the United States and to interact and train with the Australian forces side by side makes us a better team when we have to go rescue someone anywhere in the world.'
Exercise Angel Reign will run for for two weeks.
Green and purple plumes of smoke are seen rising into the air from smoke grenades used in a dramatic rescue drill
The exercise hones a range of skills from helping rescuing lost hikers to saving injured pilots trapped behind enemy lines
The exercise focuses on Air Force led field rescue operations involving helicopters and military planes
Exercise Angel Reign is the largest Air Force led field exercise in Australia this year. Pictured: An injured soldier is carried to safety
Members of the United States Air Force 129th Pararescue Squadron assist and carry simulated dead soldiers to a waiting helicopter
Royal Australian Air Force Group Captain Mark McCallum said Angel Reign was intending to co-ordinate a diverse range of teams
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Around 80,000 Muslims flocked to a park in Birmingham today to celebrate Eid, joining millions across the world who have marked the end of Ramadan with prayers, feasting and family time.
Tens of thousands of Muslims took part in morning prayers and sermons at Small Heath Park, Birmingham, today as part of Europe's largest Eid celebration.
Now in its sixth year the festival has seen growing numbers since its inception in 2011 with over 60,000 attendees taking part in 2015.
With an emphasis on community and family, Eid al-Fitr is an important religious holiday which concludes the Islamic holy month of fasting, Ramadan.
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Thousands of people descended on Birmingham's Small Heath park today for prayers, funfair rides and entertainment to celebrate Eid
Europe's largest Eid celebration is being held in Small Heath Park, Birmingham, with an estimated 75,000 people expected to take part
Tens of thousands of Muslims took part in morning prayers and sermons at Small Heath Park, Birmingham, today as part of Europe's largest Eid celebration
A young boy plays with soap bubbles as the Birmingham Muslim community celebrate the festival of Eid in Small Heath Park
A young boy plays with soap bubbles as the Birmingham Muslim community celebrate the festival of Eid in Small Heath Park, Birmingham, West Midlands
Members of the Somali community share tea as they picnic and celebrate the festival of Eid in Small Heath Park, Birmingham, West Midlands
Youngsters enjoy a Sumo wrestling game they celebrate the festival of Eid in Small Heath Park, Birmingham, West Midlands
But in too many places, a dark shadow stretches over those celebrations as people try to come to terms with the horror that has befallen them over the past few weeks.
In Baghdad, thousands gathered in the burnt out ruins of a shopping centre destroyed by ISIS on Sunday, lighting candles and remembering the 250 people who died in the worst violence to hit the Iraqi capital since 2003.
In Yemen, another car bomb took 10 lives on the day itself - with the death toll expected to rise. The evening before, a motorcycle bomber killed 16 in Hasakeh city, Syria.
ISIS had promised Ramadan would be a 'month of pain for infidels': with the number of people murdered by the extremists in the last four weeks now close to 1,000, spanning from a gun attack in Orlando to executions in the Philippines and mass murders in Iraq, it appears they have delivered.
And it is fellow Muslims who have suffered the most at the hands of ISIS's warped followers.
In Dhaka, where the streets and shopping malls usually overflow with people in the run up to the biggest festival in the Muslim calender, there is an eeire silence.
The Bangladeshi capital is still in mourning for the 22 people who died a violent and bloody death at the hands of ISIS-affiliated extremists as they enjoyed an evening at the Holey Artisan Bakery on Friday.
People light candles inside a mall at the scene of a massive truck bomb attack in Karada neighborhood as they prepare to celebrate Eid
The death toll in Baghdad now stands at 250, making the ISIS attack the worst to hit the city since the 2003 Iraq War
Rescue workers are still recovering bodies from the ruins, which had been full of people when the extremists struck with deadly force
Iraqis take part in a prayer vigil at the site of the attack on Wednesday - the first day of the Eid celebration
Fears are mounting that the attack may herald an escalation of violence in Bangladesh: many restaurants remain close, and locals speak of being scared to leave their homes.
Turkey's thoughts were also with those who lost their lives in the attack on Ataturk Airport eight days ago - the start of an apparent escalation in violence ahead of Eid.
'Using sacred Islam's name, exploiting it, this terrorist group which spills Muslim blood has gone as far as attacking the town where the mosque and blessed remains of our Prophet are located,' President Recep Erdogan said in a speech on Tuesday, the day before Ramadan came to an end.
'Daesh is a dagger plunged into the chest of Muslims. Whoever gives support to this group, whether out of sectarian fanaticism or another motive, commits the same sin,' he added, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
In other places though - far away from the major attacks which have left eight countries counting their dead, and the daily horrors of living under ISIS rule - there were smiles and brightly coloured parades.
There were happier scenes in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, where children paraded through the streets to mark the end of Ramadan
Eid is a time when Muslims in countries around the world spend time with family, offer gifts and often give to charity
Street vendors carry dozens of brightly coloured balloons to sell to people after prayers at a mosque in Karachi, Pakistan
A street vendor blows soap bubbles to attract Eid customers at a local market ahead of Eid al-Fitr in Srinagar, in northern India
Filipino Muslims participate in morning prayers as they celebrate Eid al-Fitr on the grounds of Luneta Park in the capital Manila
Pakistani passengers travel on the rooftop of the train as they travel to their home towns to celebrate the Eid with their loved ones
In Dhaka, Bangladesh, people scramble on board a train to get home for Eid just a few days after 22 people were killed in a popular cafe
In Yogyakarta, Indonesia, children dressed in gold and red, holding brightly-coloured fans, paraded down the streets, much to the delight of those watching.
A man carrying dozens of balloons was pictured selling them to people after prayers in Karachi, Pakistan, while Muslims gathered for prayers in the shadows of ancient temples in Bali.
Thousands gathered for prayers at the National Mosque in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, just over a week after the country suffered its first attack at the hands of ISIS-affiliated groups.
On Tuesday, June 28, a grenade was lobbed at a bar outside Kuala Lumpur as patrons watched Euro soccer matches, wounding eight people.
The attackers reportedly received orders from a Malaysian man fighting alongside the group in Syria.
Malaysian Muslim women offer Eid al-Fitr prayers at the National mosque in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday
Thousands of Egyptians attend Eid al-Fitr prayers in a public park, bringing their prayer mats outside al-Seddik Mosque in Cairo, Egypt
Muslims at prayers in Malaysia, which suffered its first ISIS attack on June 28 - the same day as three suicide bombers hit Turkey
Pakistan Muslims offer Eid al-Fitr prayers at a mosque in Karachi after a month of fasting from sunrise to sunset
Muslims perform Eid al-Fitr prayer at Ahmet Hamdi Akeseki Mosque in Anakra, eight days after the attack on Istanbul's airport
More than 50,000 Muslims have gone to Lakemba Mosque (pictured) in Sydney's south-west to celebrate the end of Ramadan
Men and women in Srinigar pray - the men separated from the women by a temporary cloth wall, which can be seen in the background
Indian Muslims perform a special prayer outside the Jamek mosque during Eid-Fitri celebrations on July 6 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
In Russia, worshippers spilled out onto the streets of Moscow after the Central Mosque ran out of space to hold them all
In Berlin, refugees came together to celebrate the end of the holy month - many for the first time in their new country, after Angela Merkel opened its doors to people fleeing ISIS and the oppression of the Syrian government.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier wished Muslims around the world a blessed feast, especially pointing out that more and more Muslims were also celebrating in Germany.
'Violence and war are forcing many people on an escape and an insecure journey which often means risking their lives,' Steinmeier said. 'We're especially thinking of these people during these days.'
Sydney's biggest mosque welcomed 50,000 worshippers, who spilt out into the street as morning prayers were broadcast over loudspeakers.
A young Muslim girl with hands decorated with henna looks on after Eid al-Fitr prayers at the National mosque in Kuala Lumpur
Muslims wait for pray to celebrate Eid ul-Fitr on in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, in the shadow of an ancient temple
Mehandi (Henna) is applied on the hands of a Kashmiri Muslim girl as she prepares for the celebration in northern India
A man clutches onto his balloons as a motorcycle passes by on Wednesday in Karachi, Pakistan
A Muslim man performs ablution before the morning prayers s for Eid al-Fitr celebrations in Colombo, Sri Lanka
A Hello Kitty balloon floats above Muslim women praying in Bali, Indonesia, early on Wednesday morning
Indonesian Muslims release lanterns during parade ahead of Eid Al-Fitr celebrations on Tuesday evening
A Muslim girl looks up at her balloon as she joins her family for prayer to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan in Manila, Philippines
In Syria - ravaged by a civil war which has raged for five years - President Bashar al-Assad joined Eid al-Fitr prayers at a mosque in the city Homs.
Large parts of Homs were once under the control of rebels fighting to overthrow Assad's regime but since May 2014 they have been confined to a single besieged neighbourhood in the city's outskirts.
The Al-Safa mosque, where Assad joined worshippers, is in Akrama, a loyalist neighbourhood which has been hit by repeated attacks by the Islamic State group and its jihadist rival Al-Qaeda.
Pakistani women share greeting after offering Eid al-Fitr prayers at the historical Badshahi mosque in Lahore, Pakistan
Children along and their relatives attend Eid al-Fitr prayers at a square in Sana'a, Yemen. The country is one of the latest to be hit by a suicide bomber, killing at least 10 people as the celebrations began
Indonesian muslims perform Eid Al-Fitr prayer on 'sea of sands' at Parangkusumo beach in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Iranian Muslim women perform Eid al-Fitr prayers in western Tehran as they mark the end of a month of fasting
Men attend Eid al-Fitr prayers at Jamia Masjid in Rawalpindi, Pakistan
A man holds a selfie stick and pose for photos after prayers during Eid al-Fitr celebrations in Nairobi, Kenya
Egyptian Muslims attend the morning prayers for Eid al-Fitr celebrations Eid al-Fitr, Cairo, Egypt
Egyptian woman attends the morning prayers for Eid al-Fitr celebrations Eid al-Fitr, Cairo, and captured moment on selfie stick
Refugee children from Afghanistan, and European volunteers of NGOs, dance to celebrate Eid Al-Fitr, the end of the holy month of Ramadan, at a camp for refugees in the Hockey stadium of Athens, Greece
Festive Ramadan lights reflect in the window of a pastry shop in Kafer Batna, Syria
A Palestinian boy holds a balloon near the Dome of Rock at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam's third most holy site, in the old city of Jerusalem during Eid al-Fitr
People pray as they celebrate the festival of Eid al-Fitr at Southwark Eid Festival in Burgess Park in London
Iraqis take part in a prayer vigil at the site of a suicide truck bomb attack in Karada district in central Baghdad, Iraq
Thousands of Pakistani Muslims offer Eid al-Fitr prayers at a mosque in Karachi, Pakistan
A young Malaysian Muslim girl looks on after Eid al-Fitr prayers at the National mosque in Kuala Lumpur
Children parade on the streets as Muslims celebrate Eid Al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan
Pakistani passengers travel on the rooftop of the train as they travel to their home towns to celebrate the Eid with their loved ones ahead of the Eid al-Fitr festival at Shahdara Railway Station
A Palestinian butcher waits for customers to buy lamb for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr in the market in Bethlehem, West Bank
A boy looks on as other pray during the morning prayers for Eid al-Fitr celebrations, to mark the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, in Colombo , Sri Lanka
Indonesian Muslims gather to pray outside the overpacked Al-Mahsun mosque in Medan to mark the Eid al-Fitr in Medan
Indonesian Muslim women attend Eid al-Fitr prayers near Mount Sinabung as its spews volcanic ash at Guru Kinayan Village in Karo, Indonesia
Indonesian Muslim women attend Eid al-Fitr prayers near Mount Sinabung as its spews volcanic ash at Guru Kinayan Village in Karo, Indonesia
Afghan Muslims hug each other after offering prayers at the start of the Eid al-Fitr holiday which marks the end of Ramadan, at the Shah-e Do Shamshira mosque in Kabul
Pakistani men sell balloons after Eid al-Fitr prayers at a Mosque, in Karachi, Pakistan
Hossain was among 20 other victims of the attack
His family have since received his body and they say there are injuries that show he fought back against the ISIS terrorists
The Emory student was home visiting his family when the attack happened
When Faraaz Hossain's family received his body after the deadly siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka, Bangladesh, they noticed the palm of his right hand had been sliced clean through.
The wound suggested the 20-year-old Faraaz, the family's beloved youngest child, had grabbed the attacker's sword and tried to fight back.
'There were a lot of visible signs on his body that he fought hard,' Zaraif Hossain, Faraaz's brother, told The Associated Press.
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This May 26, 2016, photo, provided by the Hossain Family shows Faraaz Hossain, left, mother, Simeen, center, and brother, Zaraif, right, in Moscow, Russia
Faraaz, a student at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, was visiting family back home in Bangladesh when he was caught up in the 10-hour hostage crisis on the evening of July 1.
By the time the attack was over, Faraaz was among 20 hostages and two police officers who had been slaughtered. Six attackers also were killed, according to authorities.
Faraaz was home to visit family before leaving for an Eid holiday to mark the end of Ramadan, his brother said. A recent photo shows the two brothers and their mother in the middle looking relaxed during a family trip to Moscow.
When his family learned about the hostage-taking, they called Faraaz repeatedly, but he didn't pick up the phone. Zaraif also sent Facebook messages, which were marked as 'seen' until about 12:30 or 1am.
But then Faraaz either stopped receiving or seeing the messages.
Hossain was offered the chance to leave the cafe since he was Bengali native, but he refused to leave his two friends behind: Abinta Kabir (left) and Tarishi Jain (right)
Zaraif believes that must have been around when his brother was killed.
'He was our baby,' Zaraif said, remembering a boy who was so gentle as a child that he didn't want to wrestle with him.
'I couldn't even play fight with my brother because he was so fragile,' Zaraif said. 'But I guess he was far from fragile and the strongest of us all.'
Previous reports line up with this same story of heroism.
Hossain's (pictured) brother says that there are wounds on his body suggesting he fought back against the alleged ISIS terrorists during the siege
The group of terrorists reportedly offered Hossain the opportunity to leave the cafe during the siege, because he was a Bengali native. But he died after refusing to leave two of his female friends, who were from India and the United States.
He and Abinta Kabir, 18, who was also enrolled at Emory, and Berkeley student Tarishi Jain, 19, were among the 20 people hacked to death inside the blood stained cafe.
'We will not kill Bengalis. We will only kill foreigners,' one of the terrorists is said to have shouted as customers and staff trembled with fear, trying desperately to stay out of sight.
After almost a 12-hour stand-off, the gunmen released a group of women dressed in traditional Islamic hijabs and gave Hossain the chance to leave because of his Bengali ancestry, his nephew told the New York Times.
He refused after the terrorists denied his friends the same opportunity.
One of his slain friends, Jain, made a haunting phone call to her father as the three friends cowered in a toilet cubicle.
With gunfire in her ears and sheer panic in her voice, she called her father to say: 'I am very afraid... I'm not sure whether I will be able to come out alive.'
'They are killing everyone here... I think we will be killed one by one,' she added in the heart-breaking call, made just before 6am in the morning as round after round of gunfire rang out just outside the toilet doors.
They would often hang out at the Holey Artisan Bakery, famed for its bagels, croissants and coffee, the India Times reported.
Witnesses told of how seven Islamist terrorists stormed the cafe armed with assault weapons, pistols and sharp objects before taking more than 30 people hostage.
Hossain (center) had studied at Emory's Oxford, Georgia campus, the same one attended by Kabir, then joined the business school after graduating
They yelled 'Allahu Akbar!' as they fired indiscriminately inside the busy bakery, sending customers scurrying for cover underneath tables and chairs, CNN reported.
One of the survivors, waiter Diego Rossini, ran upstairs and jumped from a second floor window onto the roof of a neighboring building. Other staffers survived by hiding out in an overheated, claustrophobic restroom which was being used to store flour and yeast.
Inside the bakery - chaos and cruelty ensued. The gunman are said to have split up non-Muslims from Muslims. who were given food and water.
Gruesome: This is one of the images that was released by ISIS' media agency Amar, purportedly showing victims inside the Dhaka restaurant which was taken siege by Islamist militants on Friday night
The terrorists hacked 20 people to death inside the bakery (pictured), sparing only those who could recite the Koran, before engaging police in a 12-hour standoff
Bangladeshi officials carry a body bag at an upscale cafe in Dhaka after the bloody siege at the restaurant came to an end early in the morning
They ordered staff to make food for the Muslims so they could eat before starting their Ramadan fast, which requires them to abstain from food and drink during sunlight hours.
One of the cafe's bakers tried to escape but the terrorists caught him, strapped him to a chair and tied bombs and gas canisters to his body.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks, releasing photos of the grinning killers, but Bangladeshi authorities have denied the despotic terror group was responsible.
Emory sophomore Kabir, was from Miami, Florida, while Hossain was born in Bangladesh and Jain was of Indian origin.
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Hollywood star Sir Patrick Stewart is selling his stunning 'bolt hole' home for a whopping 535,000 in the idyllic British countryside.
The 75-year-old Star Trek actor's Grade II listed house set in 1.6 acres of grassland boasts four bedrooms, two bathrooms and an ultra-modern loo -almost resembling something out of a sci-fi scene itself.
Estate agent Dale Eddison described Scar Top House in Hebden, North Yorkshire, as a 'very special home'. It only went on the market on Saturday but the phone hasn't stopped ringing since.
Sir Patrick Stewart bought Scar Top House (pictured above) in Hebden, North Yorkshire, 25 years ago and is now selling the large 19th century farmhouse for a staggering 535,000
The Star Trek: The Next Generation's remote property boasts an ultra-modern toilet in the bathroom, four bedrooms, a kitchen, three reception rooms and two grand staircases. The estate agent says it has already received numerous calls from interested parties keen on buying the retreat
The estate agent's brochure describes the charming house as a 'wonderful and historically interesting grade II listed detached house of considerable character, enjoying a truly splendid setting with spectacular bird's eye views all around'
Sir Patrick splits his time between his home in Brooklyn, New York, he bought for 1.9million ($2.5million) in 2012 and his 2million ($2.6million) property in the Cotswolds and has now decided to say goodbye to the secluded Yorkshire home he bought 25 years ago.
The actor, who found fame as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, said: 'Part of me is scared of saying goodbye to the house as I know it will be wrench. It was my bolthole, my retreat.'
The house, which dates back to 1860, is one mile up an unmarked track and has provided Sir Patrick with the perfect hideaway from the pressures of Hollywood.
Locals have even protected his privacy and staff at the village post office tell curious visitors the celeb 'doesn't live around here'.
Sir Patrick, brought up in a tiny terraced house in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, certainly had room to spare at Scar Top House.
Often alone there, Sir Patrick enjoyed the historic features including an inglenook fireplace with original cooking recesses, mullioned and chamfered windows and exposed beams.
The house has three reception rooms including a sitting room with the magnificent inglenook fireplace.
Sir Patrick Stewart has been dividing his time between luxurious properties in Brooklyn, New York, the Cotswolds and Scar Top House (above), a Grade II listed house set in 1.6 acres of grassland
The veteran actor, grew up in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, said Scar Top House, about one mile up an unmarked rural track, has been his 'bolthole and retreat' for 25 years
Sir Patrick would fly from Los Angeles to London before taking a plane to Leeds Bradford Airport and a taxi to Hebden - just to spend a day at his bolthole in the countryside, which has four bedrooms
The property's historic features include an inglenook fireplace with original cooking recesses in the kitchen (pictured above), mullioned and chamfered windows and low exposed beams
While Sir Patrick enjoyed the historic features, the father-of-two also made many adjustments to the property. He insulated the roof, furnished the interior with oak furniture and converted a barn into a garage
A landing leads to the four bedrooms and a walk-in shower room. Accessed by two staircases, one of the bedrooms has a priest hole cupboard.
The brochure describes the house as a 'wonderful and historically interesting grade II listed detached house of considerable character, enjoying a truly splendid setting with spectacular bird's eye views all around'.
Dad-of-two Sir Patrick has made many improvements since buying the house. He has insulated the roof, furnished the interior with oak furniture and converted a barn into a garage.
Sir Patrick starred as Captain Jean Luc Picard (pictured, left) in science-fiction action thriller: Star Trek: Nemesis in 2003 and was captured by Tom Hardy's character Praetor Shinzon (pictured, right)
Sir Patrick is famed for being in Star Trek: The Next Generation series, which ran from 1987 to 1994 and was viewed by more than 27 million at times. The veteran actor has since starred in other TV dramas and sitcoms, including Blunt Talk in 2016
Part of me is scared of saying goodbye to the house... It was my bolthole, my retreat Sir Patrick Stewart
He has spoken of how the Yorkshire Dales captured his heart when he was young.
At the height of his Hollywood fame Sir Patrick would flee Los Angeles for the tranquillity of the Dales.
He would fly from LA to London before taking a plane to Leeds Bradford Airport and a taxi to Hebden - just to spend a day at his bolthole. He admitted it was 'madness' but the pull of the Dales was so strong.
'Early vacant possession' is available but Sir Patrick plans one last stay at Scar Top when he returns to Yorkshire to star in Harold Pinter's No Man's Land at Sheffield's Lyceum Theatre in August.
A British man is due to appear in court later accused of trying to grab a police officers gun in a bid to kill Donald Trump.
Michael Sandford, 20, allegedly attempted to snatch the weapon during a rally at Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas on June 18.
He later told police he had travelled to the Nevada city to kill Mr Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the US presidential election, according to court documents.
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The mother of Briton Michael Sandford, 20, who is accused of trying to assassinate Donald Trump says she fears her son might kill himself if he's jailed in the US. He is pictured being detained at a rally in Las Vegas
Sandford, pictured being led away from the rally will appear in court in Las Vegas at 3pm local time
Worried: Lynne Sandford (pictured) said: 'I have been told through reading the Press he faces 30 years in prison and ridiculous amounts of fines and there is no way he would be able to cope with that'
Sandfords mother has voiced fears that her son, who faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted, may try to take his own life in a US jail and called for him to be returned to the UK.
Lynne Sandford told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire: 'I would like him to be deported so he can be back in the country and can get psychiatric help and that way he could see the family that still adore him.
'Jail is no place for him. He needs help, but not prison.'
Mrs Sandford said her son had been diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome when he was 13 and he had previously tried to kill himself. He had to be sectioned as a teenager after suffering from anorexia, she added.
Sandford, from Dorking in Surrey, has been charged him with one count of impeding or disrupting government business and official functions and two counts of being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm.
According to Nevada court documents, Sandford told a policeman at the rally that he wanted Mr Trumps autograph before he attempted to seize the officers gun.
During a police interview, when asked why he attempted to grab the weapon, Sandford replied: 'To shoot and kill Donald Trump,' the document showed.
He had driven to Las Vegas from Californa on June 16, and went to a shooting range the next day, where he said he learnt how to use a gun for the first time, it is claimed.
Ms Sandford told the Victoria Derbyshire programme (pictured) her son had never spoken to her about politics
She said her son had been diagnosed with Asperger's when he was 13 and had to be sectioned as a teenager after suffering from anorexia. Ms Sandford added that he had previously attempted to end his own life
Sandford - who had been living in the US for around 18 months - told investigators he expected to die in the attempt on June 18, which he had been planning for a year.
He also claimed to have booked tickets for another Trump rally in Phoenix, Arizona, in case he was unable to attempt to take the billionaires life in Las Vegas, the documents said.
Sandford, who is in custody, is due to be arraigned when he appears at the Lloyd D. George federal district courthouse in Las Vegas at 3pm local time.
She told the programme that Sandford had never spoken to her about politics.
'As I have said he is a very gentle, very calm, person by nature and he would see there was no point,' Ms Sandford said.
'Why would he live the next 30 years in these situations? So yes, I think he would attempt to commit suicide again.'
She added: 'I would like him to be deported so he can be back in the country and can get psychiatric help and that way he could see the family that still adore him.
'Jail is no place for him, he needs help. But not prison.'
She said her son had been diagnosed with Asperger's when he was 13 and had to be sectioned as a teenager after suffering from anorexia and coming close to dying. She added that he had previously attempted to end his own life.
Ms Sandford said her son was being held in isolation for 22 hours a day in a medium-secure facility with 1,100 other people. He is pictured as a teenager with X-Terminator - a Robot Wars machine he bought with his father
Ms Sandford said her son had been visited in the US following his arrest by his father who spoke with him via video link.
She said Sandford's father had told her their son had appeared 'bewildered and disorientated' and that he 'didn't seem to know what was going on around him or what the consequences were going to be'.
Ms Sandford said the 20-year-old was being held in isolation for 22 hours a day in a medium-secure facility with 1,100 other people.
Last month, US Attorney Daniel Bogden said a grand jury had charged him with disrupting an official function and two firearms counts.
Ali Abbas, now 25, lost his parents and his arms in the 2003 invasion
The orphan who became a symbol of the Iraq invasion after he lost both arms in a bomb blast today said, 'I would like to see Tony Blair going to Iraq and telling the people that he would "do it again"'.
The ex-PM sparked fury during his grovelling apology for the Iraq war today despite insisting he firmly stands by the decision he made in 2003.
But Ali Abbas, who was just 12-years-old when he lost his parents and both of his arms in a horrific bomb blast told MailOnline people in Baghdad regard Mr Blair as a war criminal.
'Maybe he should come with me when I visit Baghdad. He can speak to people who hated Saddam Hussein but preferred living under his regime than the war torn country that Iraq has become and all because of Bush and Blairs invasion,' he said.
Ali Abbas will never be allowed to forget the suffering caused by the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the publication of today's long awaited inquiry still doesn't give him any answers.
Mr Blair dismissed questions today about whether Iraqis would agree with him that their country was safer today that before the 2003 war.
'Does he think people should view him as a war hero? Is that what he is asking? More like a war criminal I think,' Ali told MailOnline.
'A lot of the main points of the report do not come as a shock. We knew there were no weapons of mass destruction. We knew there was no real plan once occupation started.'
But, today, as Sir John Chilcot's long-awaited report into the Iraq war is published, this remarkable young man refuses to let pity reign.
Ali tells MailOnline: 'These findings are not going to change anything in Iraq or for me.
'It is about past events. I need to look to the future. I am trying to find a job. That's what I need to put my energy into.
'I came to Britain for treatment when I was 12-years-old. I am now 25 and I want to find a job that I can do despite my challenges. But I lack so much confidence because I don't have arms.
'My life changed forever when Iraq was invaded.'
Ali is often asked if he feels bitter.
But he says: 'I'm not sure that it is bitterness or even hatred I feel. I feel terribly sad that life as I knew it was taken from me that night.
'My mother was putting me to bed. My father was killed too. My arms were placed in their grave.
'I miss my family and the memories that get cloudier as time goes on. And the regrets, the regrets that I didn't have longer growing up as a normal Iraqi child.'
My mother was putting me to bed. My father was killed too. My arms were placed in their grave. Ali Abbas
He says he is interested to know from the Chilcot report more about Tony Blair's claim of Weapons of Mass Destruction and about his plans to rebuild Iraq once occupation began.
'The reasons they invaded were economical reasons, nothing to do with all these claims about weapons. They just did not exist. The British people were told lies. Now the situation is so much worse,' he says.
'There are weapons on the streets, there are no police, no laws.
'Hundreds of people have been killed in suicide bombs in just the last few days alone. My country has been destroyed.
Disappointment: Ali, now 25, is not bitter but is devastated at the long term impact on his country, telling MailOnline: 'Hundreds of people have been killed in suicide bombs in just the last few days alone. My country has been destroyed'
Agony: Ali Abbas was 12 when he was wounded during an airstrike during the 2003 invasion of Iraq
'I met Tony Blair once, at a charity event. I didn't know what to say to him really. I was just young, maybe 14. Now, I might have a few questions though, like - 'Do you regret going to war?'
'I love Britain and I am so grateful for the kindness that so many people have shown me since 2003. But it should not have come to this.
'Tony Blair and George Bush should not have gone to war.
'Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, a dictator, but removing him did not mean all was then good in Iraq.
'Everyone I know has a friend or relative that has been killed. Funerals are a normal part of life now.
Recovery: Ali Abbas, right and Ahmed Hamza, left, were flown to Britain for treatment after the US missile attack in which he lost his arms
Therapy: Ali Abbas, pictured aged 14, settled in to life in Britain and is now 25 and looking for a job
Energy: Despite the horrific injuries he suffered, Ali was pictured playing football and and thrived at school in Wimbledon
'Saddam was bad but now so many Saddam's have been created and it is so much worse than it was under his rule.'
In military jargon Ali Abbas and his family are collateral damage.
A US missile slammed into their home in Baghdad, an unintended target. It was the 11th night of the Iraq war.
Saddam was bad but now so many Saddam's have been created and it is so much worse than it was under his rule. Ali Abbas
He says: 'Our house was on fire. There was screaming. I was literally burning. Our neighbour found me. I was the only one alive.'
He suffered burns to 60 per cent of his body and was trapped in a dilapidated Baghdad hospital besieged by looters.
He would almost certainly have died but was airlifted first to Kuwait and then to London for treatment.
When Ali arrived in the UK he spoke little English.
But the headmaster of a private school in south London heard of his plight and offered him a free place.
Bright: Ali, who has a verbal reasoning IQ of 140, soon integrated into British life despite speaking little English when he arrived
Ali, who has a verbal reasoning IQ of 140, soon integrated.
He has embraced British culture without forgetting his roots.
He never misses a Manchester United game but prays every day. And he is as happy to tuck into fish and chips as a halal chicken kebab. He is now the proud holder of both British and Iraqi passports.
Ali was fitted with prosthetic limbs but he finds them cumbersome and heavy and prefers, most of the time, to try and use his feet.
He is an expert at using his feet for tasks such as cleaning his teeth, painting and using the phone and computer.
He says: 'I do have skills to offer and I'm sure there is a job out there for someone like me.
'An apology from Bush and Blair would be nice but I can't see that happening and it won't bring back my parents or my arms. My focus needs to be on the future now.
A young journalist covering severe flooding in Mexico has been fired after she was photographed being carried over puddles by two local people to avoid getting her expensive shoes wet.
Lydia Cumming was fired by TV Azteca, who accused her of lacking professionalism, but the story soon overwhelmed the internet, inspiring dozens of memes.
The young reporter was sent to city of Puebla in central Mexico, which was inundated with floodwater.
Seemed like a good idea at the time: Cumming later said she thought she would sound rude if she turned down the couple's offer to carry her over the puddle
The image spawned dozen of internet memes, like this one which had her fleeing a scene from Star Wars
Lydia Cumming (right) had earlier interviewed the couple in their home. She posted the video of the interview on her Twitter profile to 'clarify the context'
As reported in Buzzfeed, she said two local residents told her an elderly neighbor in a wheelchair who had been badly affected by the floods and they offered to carry her to the lady's home.
She told El Pais: 'I try to maintain a good relationship with people and I was afraid I would sound rude if I turned down the favor. They carried me two seconds and after I asked them to put me down.'
But it was too late.
The image was catnip for the producers of internet memes, like this one mocking the final scene in Titanic with Lydia Cumming being carried over the Atlantic Ocean
Another journalist had taken what he thought was an innocent snap of Cumming being carried, like a princess, through the deluge.
A local man holds one of her legs and a middle-aged woman holds the other leg as Cumming, in her fashionable jacket, jeans and oh so dry shoes, is carried regally over the puddles, keeping her mic in her right hand and her press pass around her neck.
Cumming explained: 'Reporters tend to make fun of what happens to us during coverage as a way to relax.'
The image was soon being mocked in dozens of memes (left) but it was no laughing matter for Cumming (right) who was promptly fired and forced to apologize
The journalist posted the image on Cumming's Facebook page but it was then discovered by Jose Daniel Hernandez.
He tweeted it, with the caption: 'Shameful. Lydia Cumming, reporter with TV Azteca Puebla, calls for a lift to avoid getting wet.'
The story was picked up in the Mexican capital and within minutes was trending as #LadyReportera on Twitter, with jokers using the image in a number of memes, ranging from Star Wars and Game Of Thrones to Titanic.
Internet pranksters had no end of fun with the image. Memes included a parody of Jean-Claude Van Damme's Netflix ad (left) and one showing Lydia Cumming being carried on the Moon
TV Azteca was not amused.
Many people laid into Cumming on Twitter.
Capitan_Oski tweeted: 'What a total lack of professionalism. She should be fired for this.'
And within hours Juan Carlos Valerio, her boss at TV Azteca Puebla, announced in a tweet that she had been sacked.
He said: 'She was fired yesterday. I'm sorry for what happened. Her attitude is regrettable and for this we sacked her.'
It may be a while before Cumming sees the funny side of it but the incident has spawned dozens of internet memes.
The hard-left Momentum group must be probed by the elections watchdog over claims it has breached spending limits, a Labour MP has said.
Emma Reynolds, MP for Wolverhampton North East, wrote to the Electoral Commission over concerns it had failed to declare donations as it raises support for Jeremy Corbyn in an imminent leadership contest.
Organisations such as Momentum must declare any donations or gifts equivalent to more than 7,500 and earlier this week boasted that its donations had surged by 11,000 a day.
In her letter to the chief executive of the Electoral Commission Ms Reynolds noted that Momentum had taken up expensive central London office space - received as donations in kind.
Emma Reynolds, MP for Wolverhampton North East, wrote to the Electoral Commission over concerns Momentum, which has organised frequent rallies (pictured) to support Jeremy Corbyn in the last week, had failed to declare donations as it raises support for an imminent leadership contest
Jeremy Corbyn (pictured leaving his north London home this morning) is still refusing to stand aside as leader despite 172 MPs signing a vote of no confidence in the leader
It had also reportedly received cash gifts and piles of leaflets it has produced in its efforts to prop up Mr Corbyn's leadership.
Ms Reynolds told The Times: 'I am concerned about the donations that have been given to Momentum and I want to make sure that they are operating according to the rules.'
In the past week - as more than 60 Labour MPs resigned from Mr Corbyn's frontbench in protest at his refusal to stand down after being blamed for losing the EU referendum - Momentum has mobilised its supporters and doubled its membership to 12,000.
Momentum said yesterday its average donation was 7.30 and had come from 'thousands of donors' - claiming it did not therefore breach donation rules.
A spokesman for Momentum said: 'We have no major financial backers and have not received any loans or donations above the 7,500 reporting threshold since we began operating in autumn 2015.'
Momentum also came under fire from former Cabinet minister Dame Tessa Jowell, who accused the group of harassing MPs and staff.
Emma Reynolds, MP for Wolverhampton North East, wrote to the Electoral Commission over concerns it had failed to declare donations as it raises support for Mr Corbyn in an imminent leadership contest
She told the Daily Politics yesterday: 'Under the influence of Momentum, activists and members of parliament and their staff are facing day in, day out harassment, and in some cases intimidation.'
But Momentum hit back, saying: 'It is a shame that Baroness Jowell should make unsubstantiated allegations against thousands of Labour Party members who form the mainstream majority of the party.'
Mr Corbyn is still refusing to stand aside as leader despite 172 MPs signing a vote of no confidence in the leader.
Only 40 MPs backed him, but Mr Corbyn insists he has the overwhelming backing of the party's membership after having won more than 60 per cent in last September's leadership contest.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell told a National Union of Teachers rally yesterday: 'Jeremy Corbyn will not resign - he is staying in position.
But talks are ongoing over securing a solution to the impasse over his leadership after Mr Corbyn could only find 25 MPs to serve in his Shadow Cabinet, despite previously having 31 positions.
Tom Watson will hold another meeting with Unite union chief Len McCluskey - a close ally of Mr Corbyn - today.
They met yesterday, along with other union leaders and the Labour Parliamentary Party chairman John Cryer, in what Mr Watson had described as 'the last throw of the dice' in attempts to persuade Mr Corbyn to quit.
The deputy leader is determined to agree a settlement with Mr Corbyn and his team rather than resorting to a leadership challenge.
But if no resolution is found Angela Eagle, the former shadow business secretary, or Owen Smith, former shadow work and pensions secretary, are set to launch a challenge to Mr Corbyn's leadership.
A contest would then take place over the summer, with the party's members and 3 supporters voting, but Mr Corbyn's team is confident he would triumph again.
Meanwhile one of Labour's biggest donors Dr Assem Allam, who has given more than 500,000 to the party, has offered millions of pounds to rebels to set up a new party.
He told the Daily Telegraph the party had become a 'joke' and said Labour MPs should split from Mr Corbyn in an echo of 'the Gang of Four' - referring to the Labour moderates Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams who quit Labour to found the SDP in 1981.
Dr Allam told the Daily Telegraph: 'I will offer finantial help to get things on the right track. Anything other than a joke opposition.
'If there is any defection from the Labour Party like what we had before remember how we started the Lib Dems? The Gang of Four?
Aman Bhatia, pictured, has been charged with two counts of battery and four counts of lewd and lascivious molestation
A man has been accused of groping six people, including teenagers, at Disney's Typhoon Lagoon water park in Florida.
One of the victims told Orange County Sheriff's deputies she and 27-year-old Aman Bhatia were in the wave pool Sunday, reports said.
She says that as waves crashed over her, she felt Bhatia's hands all over her body.
Citing a Sheriff's Office report, Click on Orlando reported that Bhatia was accused of getting in front of the victim again.
Another victim says she was in the wave pool when Bhatia grabbed her waist from behind.
She was able to break loose from his grasp, but he grabbed her again.
Four others reported similar incidents to authorities.
Bhatia allegedly pinched one female victim and left a red mark on her skin, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
Some victims were between the ages of 12 and 15, according to the newspaper.
Bhatia told officers he had broken his glasses and couldn't see clearly, causing him to unintentionally touch people.
An arrest report obtained by the Sentinel said: 'Mr. Bhatia said everyone was bumping into each other and having fun but he never intentionally touched anyone or grabbed any ladies breasts or buttocks.'
Bhatia was arrested, and Disney has banned him from the park.
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Aman Bhatia is seen leaving jail after he was arrested for groping six people at the Florida water park
When confronted by cameras he retreated back into the jail. Bhatia was charged with two counts of battery and four counts of lewd and lascivious molestation
Authorities have charged Bhatia with two counts of battery and four counts of lewd and lascivious molestation, Click on Orlando reported.
He posted bond early Wednesday, exited the county jail, was accosted by a photographer and returned to the jail lobby, leaving when he was picked up several hours later, according to the TV station.
Sydney University does not report almost two out of three campus rape and assault cases to police, according to freedom of information documents.
Documents obtained by Tom Joynor, the editor of Sydney University student newspaper Honi Siot, shows that there were 17 such incidents reported on campus between May 2011 and May 2016.
Of those incidents, six were taken to NSW Police.
But according to a different and recently released paper by Sydney University, for every one rape case that gets reported to authorities there are an estimated 99 that do not.
Sydney University (pictured) does not report almost two out of three campus rape and assault cases to police
According to freedom of information documents, there were 17 such reports across the last five years (stock)
The university paper the 'Creating a Safer Community for All: Sexual Harassment and Assault on Campus' survey asked respondents about their experiences over the duration of their time at the University.
While the paper did not report figures over a specific period of time, when taken into consideration with figures from the freedom of information documents, it suggests there could have been as many as 1,700 campus rape or assault cases over the five year period, or 340 a year. That breaks down to a potential rate of incidents of nearly one a day.
The sobering statistics indicate that a large portion of sexual assault and indecent assault claims presented to the university each year may not make their way to the police.
A spokesperson for Sydney University said the freedom of information documents and university survey data which together suggest a culture of under-reporting rape, were two completely separate papers which cannot be brought together to suggest any particular incident frequency.
'The two datasets are entirely discrete and therefore no specific conclusions can be drawn from a comparison,' the spokesperson told Honi Soit.
'The University recognises that there is a general trend of under-reporting (and) encourages students to report all incidents so the appropriate support and care can be provided to students, and disciplinary action taken.'
In spite of the figures, the University was adamant it took all issues of sexual harassment and assault seriously. 'We are committed to fostering a culture that prevents and rejects any form of unacceptable behaviour,' it was claimed.
Since receiving the survey results, the same spokesperson insisted that 'substantial improvements' had been made to boost the Universitys related systems.
'This includes inviting independent colleges affiliated with the University to work with former sex discrimination commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick AO, to address concerns about our culture,' flagged the spokesperson.
But according to a recently released paper released by the Sydney University, for every one rape case that gets reported to authorities there are an estimated 99 that don't (stock image)
Nigel Farage today pledged to use his time to help other European nations 'get their independence back' after quitting as Ukip leader.
He said last month's shock Brexit result offered a 'beacon of hope' for movements across the EU and said he will be working with parties from various member states wanting to hold their own referendum on cutting ties with Brussels.
Mr Farage announced his resignation as Ukip leader on Monday and said this morning he found himself 'freer'.
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Outgoing Ukip leader Nigel Farage (pictured in Strasbourg today) said he is now 'freer' to work with parties and political movements across Europe to help 'get their independence back too'
Holding a press conference in Strasbourg, France, this morning to deal with the 'huge demand' for interviews, with journalists across Europe, he pointed to opinion polls in Denmark, Netherlands, Czech Republic and Italy suggesting rising demands for their own votes on leaving the EU.
There were several 'big red letter days' coming up, such as Hungary's referendum on October 2 on migrant quotas and the re-run of Austrian's presidential election taking place on the same day.
The far-right Eurosceptic candidate narrowly lost out to the former Green leader Alexander Van der Bellen earlier this year but the result was annulled last week after a legal challenge.
Mr Farage was also given a chance to reminisce about his 17 years serving as an MEP in the European Parliament, saying: 'I've had an absolute whale of a time.'
He also said he'll miss being 'the pantomime villain' in Brussels, joking: 'Ive just so enjoyed them all booing at me and shouting at me, its been wonderful. So that part of it Ill miss.'
Nigel Farage (pictured giving a press conference in Strasbourg, France, this morning) said last month's hock Brexit result offered a 'beacon of hope' for movements across the EU and said he will be working with parties from various member states wanting to hold their own referendum on cutting ties with Brussels
Holding a press conference in Strasbourg, France, this morning to deal with the 'huge demand' for interviews, with journalists across Europe, Nigel Farage (pictured) pointed to opinion polls in Denmark, Netherlands, Czech Republic and Italy suggesting rising demands for their own votes on leaving the EU.
Nigel Farage (pictured in the Strasbourg Parliament yesterday) said he couldn't believe he had risen to seat number 20 in the plenary after sitting as an MEP for 17 years
He added: 'If you'd said to me that I'd come to the European Parliament in the first place, for this ridiculous little party called Ukip that nobody had ever heard of, that would have shocked me and indeed the day I was elected here I simply couldnt believe it.
'But to think that at the end of my time here they had given me seat number 20 in the plenary and dear old Juncker sits in seat 21, I mean you couldnt make it up, really.
'So I shall miss the theatre and I shall miss the drama that theres been inside the European Parliament.
'But what I wont miss and what none of us will miss is the travelling to get here.'
Asked how he will use his time now he had stood down as Ukip leader, Mr Farage said: 'I do find myself freer and I will be working with parties and political movements across the rest of Europe who are looking to get their independence back too.'
Nigel Farage and Jean-Claude Juncker embraced in Brussels last week before the outgoing Ukip leader gloated about the Brexit vote, drawing boos from fellow MEPs
Nigel Farage (pictured) was booed and heckled by EU lawmakers in Brussels last week as he gloated about Britain's historic vote to leave the EU the previous week
Mr Farage was booed and heckled by EU lawmakers in Brussels last week as he gloated about Britain's historic vote to leave the EU the previous week.
The Ukip leader told fellow MEPs 'you're not laughing now' and accused the EU of being 'a political project in denial'.
As he stood up to speak to a hostile reception in the European Parliament building this morning, he joked: 'Thank you for the warm welcome' before telling them they were also 'in denial' about the euro crisis and immigration.
Earlier in the session he clashed with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, who asked the Ukip leader: 'Why are you here?'
But there was a moment of respite in the hostilities before the debate today when Mr Juncker embraced Mr Farge, but the Ukip leader looked uncomfortable as the European Commission president went in for a kiss.
WHO'S IN THE RUNNING TO REPLACE NIGEL FARAGE AS UKIP LEADER? DEPUTY LEADER PAUL NUTTALL THE EARLY FAVOURITE AFTER FARAGE SAYS THE PARTY'S 'GREATEST POTENTIAL' LAY IN ATTRACTING LABOUR VOTERS Paul Nuttall (left) and Steven Woolfe (middle) would both fit Nigel Farage's preference for his successor after he said this morning that the party's 'greatest potential' lay in attracting Labour voters, but Diane James (right) has also been tipped as she might be a less divisive figure Nigel Farage's resignation has sparked a leadership contest, with the new Ukip chief to be announced at the party's annual conference at the end of September. The early contenders are: Paul Nuttall, the deputy leader, is the early favourite and was quick to appear on TV channels shortly after Farage's resignation. He insisted today was a chance to pay tribute to Farage's achievements but the North West England MEP has been tipped as someone who can make progress on Ukip's success in Labour strongholds across northern England. Steven Woolfe, Ukip's immigration and financial affairs spokesman, has been a rising star in the party and a confident media performer. He is also an MEP for North West England, where Ukip has performed strongly in Labour heartlands in recent elections. Woolfe and Nuttall would both fit Farage's preference for his successor after he said this morning that the party's 'greatest potential' lay in attracting Labour voters. Suzanne Evans, is a close ally of Ukip's only MP Douglas Carswell, who has already ruled himself out of running for leader. She said this morning she 'would very much like to stand' to be the new leader but after being suspended for six months earlier this year for speaking out against homophobia in the party she will need the party's ruling NEC to overturn her suspension. She served as deputy leader until her suspension this year and is the party's Parliament spokesperson and as a former journalist she is a regular and confident media performer but she will be opposed by Farage. Arron Banks, the multi-millionaire businessman who has bank-rolled Ukip over the last few years, has revealed he is considering a leadership bid. He will meet Mr Farage, a close ally, in the coming days to discuss his leadership ambitions. Diane James, joint deputy Ukip leader and MEP for the South East of England played a prominent role in the EU referendum and could be the least divisive figure for leader. Reacting to Farage's resignation today James, Ukip's home affairs and justice spokesperson, congratulated Farage on winning Brexit and said it was 'time for a holiday' and a 'deserved rest'. Patrick O'Flynn, MEP for East of England, is another former journalist who like Farage is confident in front of the camera but has also fallen out with Farage in the past. Peter Whittle stood for Ukip in May's London mayoral elections but managed to pick up just 3.6 per cent of the votes. But he broke through for Ukip in the capital by winning a seat on the London Assembly along with David Kurten. Each candidate hoping to take part in the leadership contest must receive the backing of at least 50 fully paid-up members of Ukip drawn from at least 10 different constituency associations or branches. Suzanne Evans (left) said this morning she 'would very much like to stand' to be the new leader but after being suspended for six months earlier this year for speaking out against homophobia in the party she will need the party's ruling NEC to overturn her suspension. Patrick O'Flynn (pictured middle), MEP for East of England, is another former journalist who like Farage is confident in front of the camera but has also fallen out with Farage in the past. P eter Whittle (right) stood for Ukip in May's London mayoral elections but managed to pick up just 3.6 per cent of the votes What's the process for picking a new Ukip leader? Members who are facing disciplinary action are excluded from taking part, so Suzanne Evans will be barred from standing unless the NEC overrule her suspension. All candidates receiving the required nominations will then be put forward to a ballot of all paid-up members of the party who have been signed up for at least 14 days before the deadline for the receipt of ballot papers. The winner of the contest - and the new leader - will be the candidate who wins a simple majority of the votes cast. If there is only one leadership candidate they automatically become the new leader. In the event of a contest, the winner will be announced at the Ukip annual conference in September. Advertisement
Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage accused of 'leaving the boat' after winning EU referendum as tetchy EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker lashes out at 'sad Brexit heroes'
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has lashed out at Brexit campaigners Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage for 'leaving the boat' after winning the referendum vote on withdrawal from the EU.
Addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Mr Juncker said Mr Johnson, who has pulled out of the Tory leadership race, and Mr Farage, who quit as Ukip leader, were 'not patriots'.
He accused the two 'sad Brexit heroes' of walking away the moment things became difficult and said he could not understand why the Leave camp did not have a properly worked-out plan for pulling out of the EU.
Jean-Claude Juncker (pictured) is under mounting pressure to quit as European Commission president after a growing number of member states have blamed him for Brexit and a number of other crises
'The Brexit heroes of yesterday are now the sad Brexit heroes of today. Those who have contributed to the decision in the UK have resigned - Johnson, Farage and others,' he said.
'They are, as it were, retro-nationalists. They're not patriots. Patriots don't resign when things get difficult - they stay.'
He strongly criticised calls from some on the Leave side to delay invoking Article 50 - which triggers the start of the formal two-year withdrawal process - warning there would be 'no negotiation before notification'.
'I could understand why the Remain camp needs weeks to reflect but I don't understand that the Brexit camp needs months before knowing what to do,' he said.
'I would have thought they would have had a plan. Instead of developing a plan, they are leaving the boat.'
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has lashed out at Brexit campaigners Boris Johnson (pictured right with fellow Tory MP Stephen Hammond yesterday) and Nigel Farage (pictured in the Strasbourg European Parliament today) for 'leaving the boat' after winning the referendum vote on withdrawal from the EU
He said that if Britain wanted to continue to have free access to the EU single market it would have to accept the free movement of labour.
But Mr Juncker is under mounting pressure to quit as European Commission president himself after a growing number of member states have blamed him for Brexit and a number of other crises.
Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, could move against the arch-federalist as Europe plots major reforms to cope with Britain's withdrawal and fights to stop the contagion of Brexit spreading.
A German government minister said yesterday said she could move to oust the unpopular Mr Juncker as early as next year.
Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands have now been joined by Czech Republic and Polish governments expressing concerns and the foreign ministers from the two eastern European countries have called on Mr Juncker to resign.
Slovakia, which currently holds the rotating six-month presidency of the EU, will put the powers of Mr Juncker and the European Commission at the centre of their summit of 27 EU heads of states on September 16 when they meet informally without Britain to plot a new way forward.
European leaders blame Mr Juncker for failing to respond to the Greek debt crisis and the refugee crisis that engulfed the continent last year and some believe he made both situations worse.
An anonymous German minister told the Sunday Times: 'The pressure on him [Juncker] to resign will only become greater, and chancellor Merkel will eventually have to deal with this next year,'
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Tony Blair's reputation was today lacerated by the damning Iraq War report as it revealed he told George W Bush they should 'act now, explain later' in a secret memo sent two years before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The former prime minister was also accused of twisting intelligence about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein to justify the war that led to the deaths of 179 British soldiers and left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead - but Mr Blair insisted this afternoon: 'There were no lies - there was no deceit'.
After seven years of deliberations, the Chilcot report found that the former prime minister overplayed evidence about the dictator's weaponry and ignored peaceful means to send troops into the country.
In a devastating set of conclusions, Sir John found Blair presented the case for war with 'a certainty which was not justified' based on 'flawed' intelligence about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
It also said Blair had 'overestimated' his ability to influence US president George W Bush and the way the legal basis was established was branded 'far from satisfactory' and bypassed the UN and undermined the international system.
And Blair was not prepared for the consequences of Iraq War despite 'explicit warnings' as he doggedly pursued an invasion, Sir John's report said.
29 secret letters Mr Blair wrote to George W Bush were published for the first time today and in July 2002, eight months before MPs voted to back an invasion, Mr Blair had told the president: 'I will be with you, whatever'. On the day after 9/11 he told President Bush: 'Act now, explain later'.
But after Sir John published his report today Tony Blair gave a 45-minute speech where he said Sir John proved 'there were no lies, Parliament and the Cabinet were not misled, there was no secret commitment to war, intelligence was not falsified and the decision was made in good faith'.
And in a message to the families of the 179 servicemen and women who died in the Iraq War - who say Chilcot shows him to be 'the world's worst terrorist' and he should be prosecuted - Mr Blair told them: 'I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe.'
He added: 'I can look those families and the country in the eye and tell them I did not mislead them. What I cannot do, and will not do, is say that the decision was wrong. I think the world is a safer and better place because of it. I cannot accept that they (British soldiers) died in vain'.
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A grim-faced Tony Blair leaves his London mansion before his part in bringing about the Iraq War was laid bare by Sir John Chilcot today in a excoriating report on his mistakes before and after the war
Judgement day: Sir John Chilcot delivers his speech this morning. Tony Blair, right, was heavily criticised over his planning of the war but he still denies he lied
Special relationship: George W. Bush greets British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2004 - Mr Blair had told him after 9/11: 'Act now, explain later', a secret memo revealed
Mr Blair told the President in July 2002 'I will be with you, whatever' - but warned him the planning of war would be the 'toughest yet' in a lengthy memo weeks after discussing Iraq with the president at his ranch in Crawford, Texas
Unveiling his 2.6 million-word report into the UK's most controversial military engagement since the end of the Second World War, Sir John said: 'We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort.
'We have also concluded that the judgments about the severity of the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction - WMD - were presented with a certainty that was not justified.
'Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were under-estimated. The planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam Hussein were wholly inadequate. The Government failed to achieve its stated objectives.'
Among the main conclusions in the 2.6 million word report are:
Message: Mr Blair was emotional as he told the families of the 179 British war dead: 'I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe' - but maintained the decision was made in good faith
There was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein in March 2003 and Mr Blair took us to war 'before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted'. Sir John said: 'Military action at that time was not a last resort'
Mr Blair, his then foreign secretary Jack Straw and the government presented judgements about intelligence on the threat posed by Iraq's WMD with a 'certainty that was not justified'.
Attorney General Lord Goldsmith only agreed that the invasion would be legal based on assurances from Mr Blair that Iraq had committed 'material breaches' of UN resolution 1441. But the inquiry said it was 'unclear' what evidence Mr Blair had for this and branded the process 'far from satisfactory'.
Mr Blair, who has been frequently criticised for his 'sofa government' style, repeatedly failed to involve his whole Cabinet in key decisions.
The inquiry dismissed the ex-PM claims that he could not have known how difficult the post-invasion situation would be.
The government were aware that the US had 'inadequate' plans for stabilising Iraq but had little influence over key decisions such as dismantling Hussein's Ba'ath party and security services.
The Ministry of Defence was slow to respond to the threat from Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), and delays in providing more heavily armoured patrol vehicles for personnel were 'intolerable'.
The 'most consistent strategic objective' in Iraq was to reduce the number of troops it had deployed there, particularly after operations in Afghanistan became more intense.
One symptom of the failures was that UK forces had to strike a 'humiliating' deal with militia in Basra to swap prisoners in return for an end to deadly attacks on soldiers.
Tony Blair has said that his decision to take military action against Saddam Hussain was taken 'in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country'.
He said: 'I can look those families and the country in the eye and tell them I did not mislead them. What I cannot do, and will not do, is say that the decision was wrong. I think the world is a safer and better place because of it'.
Sir John said Mr Blair was wrong to claim that the risks of instability following the invasion could not have been known in advance.
Although he made no judgment on whether military action was legal, Sir John's seven-year inquiry found that Attorney General Lord Goldsmith's decision that there was a legal basis for UK involvement in the US-led invasion was taken in a way which was 'far from satisfactory'.
Previously unseen letters sent from Mr Blair to Mr Bush also show that nearly two years before the invasion the PM was suggesting they needed to 'act now and explain and justify later' to stop the spread of WMD.
Delivering the report's damning findings which will inevitably spark renewed calls for action against Mr Blair - Sir John Chilcot said: 'The evidence is there for all to see. It is an account of an intervention which went badly wrong, with consequences to this day.'
Announcing the dramatic conclusions today, Sir John said: 'More than 200 British citizens dies as a result of the conflict in Iraq. Many more were injured. This has meant deep anguish for many families, including those who are here today.
'The invasion and instability in Iraq had, by July 2009, also resulted in the deaths of at least 150,000 Iraqis and probably many more most of them civilians. More than a million people were displaced.'
Damning: Sir John Chilcot slammed the former PM for misrepresenting intelligence, dodgy legal advice, hubris, and failing to protect troops - and says we did not need to invade
Bereft: Dawn Holmes, the heartbroken mother of L Cpl Sarah Holmes, who died in Iraq, cries as she clutches a picture of her child after the Chilcot report was released while Sarah O' Connor, whose brother Sergeant Bob O'Connor also died, kisses his picture
Huge: After seven years the inquiry, whose 2.3million words of evidence and conclusions filled 12 volumes, tore apart Mr Blair's invasion plans and revealed the problems it caused
Fighting back Tony Blair said that his decision to take military action against Saddam Hussain was taken 'in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country'.
He also insisted it was still 'better to remove Saddam Hussein' than allow the tyrant to continue in power, adding the inquiry proved there 'was no falsification or improper use of Intelligence', 'no deception of Cabinet' and 'no secret commitment to war whether at Crawford Texas in April 2002 or elsewhere'.
In a grovelling apology for his decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and its bloody aftermath today he described the decision to invade Iraq the 'most difficult of my career' and accepted the 'serious criticisms' made of how his government went about making the decision.
Responding to the publication of the Iraq War report, his voice cracked as he said: 'For all of this I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe.'
But he claimed the Iraq Inquiry proved 'there were no lies' from him over the justification for invading Iraq in March 2003 and showed neither Parliament nor Cabinet were misled.
As he fought to save his reputation after being savaged by Sir John Chilcot's long-awaited report on the Iraq War, the former prime minister insisted his decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein was taken 'in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country'.
He vowed to take 'take full responsibility for any mistakes' made in Iraq but insisted it was still 'better to remove Saddam Hussein' than allow the tyrant to continue in power.
In a defiant statement issues minutes after the Chilcot report was published, Mr Blair said it had proved he did not act in 'bad faith' or 'deceit'.
Shadow Commons leader Paul Flynn said the Chilcot Report amounted to an 'utter condemnation' of Mr Blair's 'terrible' decision to commit British troops to the US-led invasion.
But he said the whole of Parliament was 'on trial', because it voted in favour of military action on the eve of the 2003 invasion.
Mr Flynn, who was one of 139 Labour MPs to vote against war in the crucial division, said Mr Blair had only 'slight and sporadic' evidence of the threat Saddam Hussein posed and indulged in 'definite deception' to win Parliament's support.
He told BBC2's Daily Politics: 'I'm afraid this is an utter condemnation of that terrible decision to go to war that resulted in immediate deaths and injuries to our troops and the 150,000 deaths of Iraqis and the chaos that country is in.
'I think there should be serious consideration of him being prosecuted for this.'
But Tory stalwart David Davis suggested Tony Blair may have lied to the House of Commons over why Britain went to war in Iraq.
In a now infamous claim, Mr Blair told MPs Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and later said intelligence showed the Iraqi tyrant could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes.
Mr Davis, a longstanding critic of the Iraq War, said: 'The Prime Minister referred to the cause or the aim of this war as weapons of mass destruction, but if I can bring his attention again back to the document from Tony Blair to the American president.
'It goes on later, after it says 'I'll be with you whatever', later on in that document it says 'the reason for this is getting rid of Saddam Hussein is the right thing to do.' Regime change - not WMDs.
'And this fact, and the fact that as Sir John Chilcot says Blair's commitment made it very difficult for the UK to withdraw support for military action later on, this actually amounts to a deceit and a misleading of this House of Commons'.
Britain's only Green MP said Tony Blair is a 'war criminal' and laws should be changed so he can be punished as such.
Caroline Lucas said everything she'd read in the Chilcot Report implies that Iraq 'was an illegal war', adding: 'He lied when he said the threat from Weapons of Mass Destruction was growing when he knew they was no evidence to make that case.
'We are right to say that he should be held to account at the highest possible level'.
Tony Blair's former Chief Whip today said it was the right of the people to try and bring the ex-PM to trial if that is what they want, but Chilcot offers no more evidence for them to use against him.
Baroness Armstrong, compared the Iraq war to the Syrian conflict, saying 'not taking the decision has as much impact as taking the decision, if not more.'
Anger: Protestors unfurled a giant banner outside Tony Blair's central London home today calling for him to face a criminal trial
Grief: Families of the war dead at the Chilcot launch today - Mr Blair said that he would not apologise over the decision and said their lives had been given for the right cause
Anger: Families have said they were given no real time before today's announcement to read the full the report, which runs into 12 volumes and 2.6million words - and is three times longer than the complete works of William Shakespeare
FURY AS 'DAMNING' CHILCOT AS BLAIR WENT UNCHALLENGED Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted that the report was 'damning', adding: 'War not last resort, based on flawed, unchallenged intel and unsatisfactory legal decisions.' Sir John's report revealed that eight months before the UK Parliament approved military action in Iraq, Mr Blair had committed himself in writing to backing then US president George Bush over Iraq, telling him: 'I will be with you whatever.' Ms Sturgeon said that comment 'suggests pre-determination and lack of proper decision making'. She added that the 'lack of preparation for aftermath and failure to properly equip/support troops for scale of challenge also appalling'. Her predecessor Alex Salmond said: 'It is now clear from the report that military action was not the last resort as Blair stood in Parliament on March 18 2003 to ask MPs to support his case for war.' Mr Salmond, now the SNP's foreign affairs spokesman at Westminster, added: 'In the days, weeks and months ahead, the intimate detail of this report will only implicate further a former prime minister who recklessly committed the country to war without collective judgement, and personally failed to ensure there was a plan for delivering a future for the people of Iraq. 'After such carnage, people will ask inevitable questions of was conflict inevitable and worthwhile? The answer from Chilcot is undoubtedly no. And who is responsible? The answer is undoubtedly Tony Blair. There must now be a consideration of what political or legal consequences are appropriate for those responsible.' Advertisement
The inquiry examined the so-called notorious dossier published by the government on September 24, 2002, as Mr Blair started to lay the ground for a potential move on Iraq.
It claimed that Hussein's regime had the ability to launch a WMD strike within 45 minutes.
Mr Blair told the House of Commons the same day that the threat from the dictator was severe and would become a reality at some point in the future.
But Sir John said: 'The judgements about Iraq's capabilities in that statement, and in the dossier published the same day, were presented with a certainty that was not justified.'
Former Downing Street director of communications Alastair Campbell said the Chilcot report is the fourth inquiry to clear him of 'sexing up' a Government dossier on Iraq's supposed arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
While acknowledging that the report had uncovered 'many mistakes' in the preparation for war, Mr Campbell said its core findings had 'laid to rest' a string of allegations made by Tony Blair's critics, including the claim that the former PM secretly pledged to join the US in military action at a 2002 meeting with president George Bush in Texas.
In a staunch defence of his former boss, Mr Campbell rejected claims that Mr Blair was 'cavalier' about military action, insisting that he did everything he could to prevent war and agonised ceaselessly about its possible consequences.
In a blog released shortly after the publication of the Iraq Inquiry report, Mr Campbell said: 'That is four inquiries now which have cleared me of wrongdoing with regard to the WMD dossier presented to Parliament in 2002.
'I hope that the allegations we have faced for years - of lying and deceit to persuade a reluctant Parliament and country to go to war, or of having an underhand strategy regarding the respected weapons expert David Kelly - are laid to rest.'
Sir John's report, which is five times longer than Leo Tolstoy's 'War and Piece' and three times longer than the complete works of William Shakespeare, criticised the 'ingrained belief' among UK policy formers and intelligence services that Iraq had retained WMD.
It said the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) had agreed the content of the dossier itself, and there was 'no evidence' that evidence was improperly included or that Downing Street influenced the text.
But the JIC was rebuked for not ensuring that its real assessment that it had not been established beyond doubt that Hussein's regime was still producing WMD was not clear.
And the report said the way a foreword written by Mr Blair had been attached to the dossier would have given MPs and the public a different impression.
'In the foreword, Mr Blair stated that he believed the 'assessed intelligence' had 'established beyond doubt' that Saddam Hussein had 'continued to produce chemical and biological weapons, that he continues in his efforts to develop nuclear weapons and that he had been able to extend the range of his ballistic missile programme'.'
The report went on: 'The Inquiry is not questioning Mr Blair's belief, which he consistently reiterated in his evidence to the Inquiry, or his legitimate role in advocating Government policy.
'But the deliberate selection of a formulation which grounded the statement in what Mr Blair believed rather than in the judgements which the JIC had actually reached in its assessment of the intelligence, indicates a distinction between his beliefs and the JIC's actual judgements
'The assessed intelligence at the time had not established beyond doubt that Saddam Hussein had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons.'
While stressing that it did not have a remit to decide whether the invasion had been legal, the inquiry panel said they had 'concluded that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action were far from satisfactory'.
In mid-January 2003 Lord Goldsmith, the government's chief law officer, told Mr Blair that a further Security Council resolution would be needed to provide a legal basis for action.
By the end of February the peer had told Mr Blair that although a second resolution would be preferable, a 'reasonable case' could be made under the existing UNSC 1441.
He put that advice in writing in on March 7.
However, after the military and civil service asked for more clarity he then stated that the 'better view' was that the legal basis was secure.
Families say the report reveals Tony Blair did secretly agree to invade Iraq in 2002 (pictured together at Camp David that year) and then build a case towards war. Mr Blair denies this.
Under pressure: Mr Blair, pictured with troops in Iraq in 2003, has been accused of 'misleading Parliament and the public' in taking the UK into the Iraq War and is facing calls for criminal action
Protests: Several demonstrators were wearing Tony Blair masks and painted blood on their hands as they called for Mr Blair to be prosecuted
Movement: More than a million people marched in 2003 to protest against the war and many returned to central London today to repeat their concerns about what happened. Mr Blair wrote them off as 'fatuous'
Uproar: Protesters have returned to Whitehall to protest over the war afresh today after the report slammed the way it was planned
REVEALED: WHAT SECRET MESSAGES BETWEEN BLAIR AND BUSH TELL US ABOUT THE BUILD UP TO WAR IN IRAQ September 12th, 2001 Blair urged Bush to act on weapons of mass destruction in the hours after the 9/11 attacks. He told Bush in a note on September 12 that while some might 'baulk' at the necessary actions, they should be carried out and then justified Hours after the 9/11 terror attacks, Blair called for tough action which 'some will baulk at'. 'There will be many who ask: what is the next stage of this evil?' 'What of (the terrorists') capacity to get hold of WMD? We know there are countries and individuals trading in WMD. We need a range of sanctions and pressures to stop this. 'Some of this will require action that some will baulk at. 'But we are better to act now... than let the day be put off until some further, perhaps even worse catastrophe occurs. I believe this is a real possibility.' October 11th, 2001 On October 11, 2011, Blair wrote again to Bush to warn against trying to expand the war in Afghanistan to take out Saddam in Iraq at the same time. He said he would help 'devise a strategy for Saddam deliverable at a later date' One month after 9/11 and four days after air strikes against Afghanistan have begun, Blair urges Bush to focus on the Taliban and 'deal with' Iraq later. He added: 'No doubt we need to deal with Saddam'. 'But if we hit Iraq now, we could lose the Arab world, Russia, probably half the EU... I am sure we can devise a strategy for Saddam deliverable at a later date.' December 3rd, 2001 The Iraq Inquiry reported a phone call between Blair and Bush from December 3, 2001, where the PM told the President 'it would be excellent to get rid of Saddam' with the use of a 'clever strategy' In a phone conversation Blair on 'how the next phase might proceed'. 'It would be excellent to get rid of Saddam.' But, he added: 'There needed to be a clever strategy for doing this... An extremely clever plan would be required.' December 4th, 2001 By December 4, 2001, Blair was advising Bush on how to build momentum to the point 'military action could be taken if necessary' via renewed weapon inspections and the UN route. The Inquiry concluded at this point Blair had not set his course on an Iraq war Blair sends Bush a paper setting entitled 'The War on Terrorism: The Second Phase'. Iraq is a threat because 'it has WMD capability' but most countries will be 'reluctant' to back an invasion. Blair wants to 'soften up' public opinion which requires a 'strategy for regime change that builds over time... until we get to a point where military action could be taken if necessary.' 'We need to be clear that if an uprising occurs, we are willing to act militarily in support,' he wrote. July 28th, 2002 Blair tells Bush, 'I will be with you, whatever.' 'The planning on this and the strategy are the toughest yet. This is not Kosovo. This is not Afghanistan. This is not even the Gulf War. The military part of this is hazardous.' 'We would support in any way we can... On timing, we could start building up after the break. A strike date could be Jan/Feb next year. But the crucial issue is not when but how.' The former PM says getting rid of Saddam is 'the right thing to do' because 'his departure would free up the region'. He 'couldn't be sure of support from Parliament, Party, public or even some of the Cabinet'. On Saddam being issued tough deadlines: 'It would be 'take it or leave it'. If he did say yes, we continue the build-up and we send teams over and the moment he obstructs, we say 'he's back to his games. That's it'. 'In any event he probably would screw it up and not meet the deadline. And if he came forward after the deadline we could just refuse to deal.' To win over the public they must 'recapitulate all the WMD evidence, add his attempts to secure nuclear capability and - as seems possible - add on the al-Qaida link.' January 24th, 2003 On January 24, 2003, Blair - in an extract printed in the Iraq Inquiry report - wrote to Bush about the problems of delay and the risk of Saddam dragging the coalition backed 'into a game of hide and seek' but warned at the time there was not support for a second UN resolution 'In the US/UK view the failure fully to co-operate is enough now (to invade) and technically we are right. But we won't carry other people. However if Blix carries on reporting non co-operation, makes increasing demands, and hardens his findings with each stage, I think we will carry people even without the smoking gun shortly'. On casualties in an invasion 'doing this in the context of international opposition would be very tough'. On the prospect of civil war: 'They are perfectly capable, on previous form, of killing each other in large numbers.' Then Britain and US 'would need the backing of the international community and preferably the UN to handle it' or we would 'get the blame for any fighting'. January 30th, 2003 Blair outlined a 'Countdown' to war in a memo sent to Bush on January 30, 2003. His proposal was predicated on a succession of reports from weapon's inspectors to illustrate the refusal of Saddam to co-operate with a view to securing a second UN resolution before invading. Blair's timetable was accurate to within days as the invasion eventually began on March 20 A letter entitled 'countdown' Blair sets out 'military questions' and 'aftermath questions such as a new Iraqi Government or US-run?' It said the timetable could be 'shortened if either dramatic find by Blix or 14 February report sufficiently hard; lengthened but not beyond end March if resolution takes more time'. At a meeting the following day, Mr Blair assured Mr Bush he was 'solidly with the President and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam' after Mr Bush agreed to support a second resolution. February 19th, 2003 In another letter quoted by the inquiry, dated February 19, 2003, Blair blasted an 'absurd' fear of countries opposed to the invasion that the US was 'hell bent' war. He urged Bush to help him make the case Saddam was failing to 'fully cooperate' with the UN inspectors People 'are not against conflict in all circumstances. What they fear is that we are hell bent on war, come what may - that we don't really want the UN to succeed.' 'No-one is suggesting Saddam is co-operating fully. My faith in Blix is somewhat shaken, but he is key.' 'We have to find a way of re-focusing the issue on the absence of full co-operation and do so in a way that pulls public opinion and the UN Security Council waverers with us.' March 26th, 2003 In a major memo on the 'fundamental goal' of the US-UK alliance on March 26, 2003, Blair told Bush he agreed with his 'big' ambition to assert a new world order based on freedom and security but warned there was a communications problem which meant there was a 'ludicrous view of US ambitions Blair says the 'fundamental goal' of the war is to create a new 'world order'. He writes: 'This is the moment when you can define international priorities for the next generation the true post-Cold War world order.' 'Our ambition is big to construct a global agenda around which we can unite the world.' The war will 'spread our values of freedom, democracy, tolerance and the rule of war' across the globe, he says, adding: 'That's why, though Iraq's WMD is the immediate justification for action, ridding Iraq of Saddam is the real prize.' June 2nd, 2003 On June 2, 2003, shortly after the fall of Baghdad, Blair wrote to Bush that the task of rebuilding in Iraq was 'absolutely awesome' and warned him it was 'worse than re-building a country from scratch'. He said the coalition was starting from a 'really backward position' and warned while it could be sorted out 'we're going to get there but not quickly enough' 'The task is absolutely awesome and I'm not at all sure we're geared for it.' 'This is worse than re-building a country from scratch.' 'We start from a really backward position. In time, it can be sorted. But time counts against us.' 'My sense is we're going to get there but not quickly enough. And if it falls apart, everything falls apart in the region.' October 5th, 2003 Blair warned on October 5, 2003, the coalition had to make the occupation work because 'if we lose this battle the world will be less safe' and said those who would have left Saddam in power would have appeared 'morally superior' to those who removed him Blair urges Bush to keep making the case that 'Iraq is better without Saddam'. He said Iraq on the ground was 'tough' and warned the public was questioning 'whether it was all worth it'. 'By this time next year it better be going right, not wrong. For us and for the world!' But he said: 'Let us be very clear: If we lose this battle the world will be less safe.' Blair added: 'My worry now is that the world thinks: well Iraq was a tough deal, so they won't try that again. 'I think we have to be absolutely unapologetic. This is the security threat. We must deal with it.' February 1, 2004 In a memo written for the sight of Bush in February 2004, alarm was clearly growing at the failure to unearth weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Blair said he was 'surprised' at the failure to find them - but insisted it was genuine surprise and warned there were lessons to be learned about the 'difficulties of gathering intelligence in these situations' By February 2004, alarm was growing at the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In a memo written to be seen by Bush, Blair said: 'We know Saddam had WMD. We know the ISG has not yet found weapons, though it has found evidence of programmes. 'The truth is that we anticipated finding the weapons during or shortly after the conflict. So to say we are surprised at the ISG's findings is no less than the truth. 'The issue of US/UK good faith can be laid to rest. We received the intelligence. We honestly believed it.' Blair said there was clearly a 'legitimate issue about the accuracy of the intelligence' but insisted: 'I don't concede there are no weapons'. April 26, 2004 In April 2004, Blair sent a new memo to Bush warning him of the collapse happening in Iraq. He warned the country was 'awash with weapons' and the culture was violent. He pleaded with the American President to ensure 'literally everything possible is being done to succeed' In April of 2004, Blair admitted Iraq was 'awash with weapons' but insisted there was a 'reassuring truth' that 'Iraqis ultimately want what we want'. In a memo to Bush, the Prime Minister said there was an urgent need to get the civil defence and police forces into shape, while providing security for domestic journalists to ensure messages could be transmitted to the Iraqi public. Blair warned of a gap between spending that had been pledged and money that was actually being spent. In a pleas to the president to help do more, Blair said: 'There is no doubt we can get there. But I just think in some of these areas... we need to satisfy ourselves that literally everything possible is being done to succeed. 'This is a race against time.' May 18, 2004 The note of alarm in Blair's memos was growing by the spring of 2004. In May, he insisted he remained 'optimistic' but warned Bush about the risks of only 'sort of' fixing the country. He made an 11-point plea for greater assistance, including on rebuilding the police and warning off Iran and Syria from 'causing trouble; Blair is issuing memos to president which are becoming more blunt. The Prime Minister sent Bush an 11 point update on the aftermath, urging more action on the handover of power, protection of oil and power supplies and the creation of an intelligence network inside the broken Iraq. Blair said it was 'more and more clear' to him was a complete lack of indigenous Iraqi leadership in the absence of Saddam. He said the coalition needed its own figure on civilian casualties to rebut the 'gross over estimate' circulating via the NGO known as Iraq Body Count. And Blair urged Syria and Iran were 'both up for causing trouble and need to be warned off'. He said: 'We have an opportunity to pull this back round. I remain, in the end, optimistic. 'But we need to turn it round quickly and the danger is we ''sort of'' fix things, not really fix them properly. Advertisement
Peter Brierley, left, whose son Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley was one of the first soldiers to be killed in the conflict, claimed Mr Blair 'ordered young men and women to be killed on the basis of a lie'
Evidence: The inquiry began when Gordon Brown, right, was prime minister and has heard extensive witness reports from the then government, including Mr Blair, left, which found his plans were filled with mistakes
On March 14, Lord Goldsmith asked Mr Blair to confirm that Iraq had committed further 'material breaches' of UNSC 1441, saying that was an essential part of his justification.
THE CHILCOT REPORT IN NUMBERS 7 - Years since the Chilcot Inquiry was launched. 2,579 - Days between June 15, 2009, when the inquiry was announced on by then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and July 6, 2016, when the report is expected to be ready for private inspection and security check. 3 - Foreign secretaries to have been in the post since the inquiry was launched - David Miliband under Mr Brown, and William Hague and Philip Hammond under David Cameron. 2.3 million - Words estimated to be included in the report, making it almost four times longer than Leo Tolstoy's epic War and Peace. 10 million - Estimated cost, in pounds, of the inquiry as of January this year. 179 - UK military personnel that died during the Iraq war. Advertisement
Mr Blair's office responded that it was the PM's 'unequivocal view' that there had been further breaches of the resolution.
But the report said: 'It is unclear what specific grounds Mr Blair relied upon in reaching this view.'
Sir John said: 'Given the gravity of the situation, Lord Goldsmith should have been asked to provide written advice explaining how, in the absence of a majority in the Security Council, Mr Blair could take that decision.'
Sources close to Mr Blair said today he will say that 'the intelligence we received was wrong' as his reputation is likely to be lacerated by Sir John's report.
Families of British soldiers killed in the conflict, which started 13 years ago, have instructed solicitors to examine the report and consider dragging the former PM through the courts.
John Miller's son, Simon, was one of six military policemen murdered in Iraq in 2003, and today he said of Mr Blair: 'There's got to be some kind of court case, be that In The Hague or elsewhere. I want to see him in the dock'.
Master Engineer Gary Nicholson, 42, from Hull, was one of 10 servicemen who died when their Hercules C-130 aircraft was shot down in 2005.
His mother Julia is boycotting the event and said: 'I'm not going because it will be a whitewash. Tony Blair has got blood on his hands. He will have covered his back and (George) Bush's back'.
The families believe Mr Blair is guilty of 'malfeasance in public office' because he misused his constitutional powers which led to mass casualties. They could also seek to sue him for damages and secure compensation from his estimated 60million wealth.
Since the invasion and toppling of Saddam Hussein tens of thousands of Iraqis have died in the civil war that followed with 250 being killed in a Baghdad car bomb on Sunday, the worst bloodshed since 2003.
A British soldier dives from a burning tank which was set ablaze in the southern Iraqi city of Basra in 2005. Critics have slated Mr Blair for starting a war, pictured, which killed 179 UK soldiers, claiming it contributed to the rise of ISIS
Sir John said families of soldiers were at the forefront of his mind during the inquiry and denied it was a 'whitewash'. A British soldier looks through the scope of his rifle after a roadside bomb attack that targeted their convoy in Basra, 420 km (260 miles) northeast of Baghdad September 12, 2008.
Secret: Among the revelations of the report are details of 29 communications between former US president George Bush, left, and Mr Blair, right, in the run-up to the war, which revealed Mr Blair's constant support for an Iraq invasion
BAGHDAD HIT BY ISIS BOMB KILLING 250 IN WORST BLAST SINCE 2003 Crowded: The suicide bombing killed at least 250 people An ISIS suicide attack that ripped through a packed Baghdad shopping centre has claimed the lives of at 250 people. The bomb blast in Iraq's capital is the deadliest attack in the country since the Iraq War started in 2003. Some families have lost up to four relatives in the bombing, including four-year-old Ruqaya Al-Issa, who was killed alongside her shopkeeper father Hassan and two brothers, Hadi, 15, and Zaid, 17. The family were among the hundreds of shoppers at the mall preparing for Eid festival when a truck laden with explosives was blown up outside by an ISIS suicide bomber. 'We found Hassan's daughter, Ruqaya, [but] her body was burnt and very difficult to identify,' her distraught uncle, Ghader Al-Issa, told MailOnline. 'I have lost four of my relatives. We could not find the rest of them and their bodies, but we know they are dead. 'They could not have survived that devastation.' Rescuers are continuing their gruesome task of searching for more victims of Saturday night's attack, which was the single deadliest incident in Iraq's war-weary capital in years. Many of the victims' bodies are so badly damaged that the task of identifying them presents an enormous challenge for authorities. Advertisement
Hopes Mr Blair could face a war criminal trial were dashed because Sir John said he could not rule on whether the invasion in 2003 was 'legal' and he was 'not judge and jury' of a court.
But to the fury of families it has emerged that prosecutors in The Hague have indicated they will pore over the 2.6 million-word report for evidence of war crimes by British troops.
Among the most explosive revelations are the details of 29 secret letters, notes and conversations between Mr Blair and former US President George W. Bush in the run-up to war.
The leaders are alleged to have 'signed in blood' an agreement to oust Saddam Hussein in secret talks at the President's ranch in Texas a year before the March 2003 invasion without telling MPs or the public a claim denied by Mr Blair.
It came as families of soldiers who fought and died in the war said servicemen and women should not be made scapegoats for political failures, days after the International Criminal Court (ICC) said its prosecutors would comb through the 2.3 million word report for evidence of war crimes committed by British troops.
Karen Thornton, whose son Gunner Lee Thornton died in 2006 after being shot while on patrol in Iraq, said she wanted Mr Blair to face war crimes charges if it is proved he lied.
'I just think it was all based on lies, I think everything that comes out of that man's mouth has been a lie regarding Iraq,' she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
'I think the people who lied should be held to account for what they have done,' she said. Asked what that would mean, she said: 'Charged with war crimes. They are responsible for the deaths of so many people.'
Relatives said they had not had enough time to fully take in the report by Sir John Chilcot, having had just '180 minutes, one for every death' to read it, but would be undertaking a forensic analysis of the findings, and reserved the right to take any further action necessary.
And at an emotional press conference following the report's release held by some of the relatives of the 179 Britons killed and their lawyers, Sarah O'Connor, whose brother, Sergeant Bob O'Connor died in the conflict, said Blair should 'look us in the eye', as she described him as 'the world's worst terrorist'.
A tearful Ms O'Connor, who sat next to Rose Gentle, the mother of teenage soldier Gordon who was killed at just 19, and gripped her hand tightly slammed the time it had taken for the report to be released, and said her overwhelming response was 'anger'.
'That healing that 11-and-a-half years I was working for,' said Ms O'Conner, whose brother died when his Hercules plane was shot down in 2005. 'I have gone back to that time when I learned my brother had been killed.
'There's one terrorist that the world needs to be aware of and his name's Tony Blair. The world's worst terrorist.'
Demanding that the former Prime Minister face the families, furious Ms O'Connor said: 'Look me in the eye. Why is he not here? Look at our eyes and our faces. Look me in the eye.'
She added: 'When he gave his evidence it was definitely the Tony Blair show. He thinks he's the puppet master pulling the strings.'
'The terrorists took my brother - and in that sentence of terrorists I include Mr Blair - took my brother and took my family. But you won't take me. I'm going nowhere. I'm going nowhere Blair.'
She added that she had apologised to Sir John for criticising the time he took to deliver the report: 'I thanked him for justice that he has given those names that are on the wall at the National Memorial Arboretum and all those named that aren't included on there that need to be remembered, the non-combat deaths, the civilians, the Iraqi civilians.
'And then look at how our Government treated those Iraqis that worked for us, they leave them there to rot and be killed and the wave of destruction continues.'
Streams of family members, who had long pushed for the report, had filed into the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in central London shortly before 8am to be appraised of Sir John Chilcot's historic findings, hours before they were presented to the public.
Speaking after the report was released they thanked Sir John and said they were 'pleased' with the way the investigation was conducted, but Roger Bacon, whose son Major Matthew Bacon was killed in 2005, said they could not be proud of the way their loved ones were treated by the government.
He said: 'Never again must so many mistakes be allowed to lead to the sacrifice of so many British Lives, and the destruction of a country with no aim.'
'We were proud when our husbands, sons and daughters signed up to serve our country. But we cannot be proud of the way our government has treated them.
'We must use this report to make sure that all parts of the Iraq War fiasco are never repeated again. Neither in a theatre of war, nor in the theatre of Whitehall.
'We call on the British Government immediately to follow up Sir John's findings to ensure that the political process by which our country decides to go to war is never again twisted and confused with no liability for such actions.'
'I will be with you, whatever': Blair's fawning messages to George W Bush reveal how the two plotted to come up with a 'clever plan' to 'deal' with Saddam
The fawning letters sent by Tony Blair to George W Bush in the build-up to the Iraq war show the chummy relationship between the President and the Prime Minister, who signs off one hand-written letter 'Yours ever, Tony'.
One message shows that - as soon as the day after the 9/11 attacks - Blair told Bush they should immediately tackle states and individuals with weapons of mass destruction and justify it later.
In another six-page memo to Bush - sent when Blair was telling the British public that no decision to go to war had been made - the then-Prime Minister said he would do 'whatever' it took to remove Saddam Hussein.
In one of the earliest notes to be released, a private letter to the US President on September 12, 2001, Mr Blair both offered support to bring to justice the hijackers who destroyed the Twin Towers and looked ahead to the 'next stage after this evil'.
In documents revealed for the first time by Sir John Chilcot's Iraq Inquiry, Mr Blair said some would 'baulk' at the measures necessary to control 'biological, chemical and other WMD'.
But he urged the President: 'We are better to act now and explain and justify our actions than let the day be put off until some further, perhaps even worse catastrophe occurs.'
Messages which passed from Tony Blair to George W Bush in the build-up to and aftermath of the Iraq war have been published today by the Iraq Inquiry convened by Sir John Chilcot. Blair's notes are mostly unredacted but the replies from the White House are excluded
Mr Blair told the President in July 2002 'I will be with you, whatever' - but warned him the planning of war would be the 'toughest yet' in a lengthy memo weeks after discussing Iraq with the president at his ranch in Crawford, Texas
In a handwritten letter sent by Tony Blair to Bush after his address to the United Nations General Assembly in September 2002, the former PM complements the president on a 'great speech' which 'puts us on exactly the right strategy'
The memo from September 12 makes no reference to Iraq specifically but warns: 'We know that there are countries and individuals trading in WMD and/or trying to acquire them. We need a range of sanctions and pressures to stop this.'
The Iraq Inquiry today published for the first time a raft of private correspondence sent by Mr Blair to Mr Bush from the period before, during and after the 2003 invasion.
In the months and years ahead of the March 2003 attack, the revelations expose efforts by Mr Blair to both support and exert influence over the US President.
In late 2001, Mr Blair was encouraging Mr Bush to focus on the campaign in Afghanistan and not mix the two objectives.
By July 2002, Mr Blair had told the President 'I will be with you, whatever' - but warned him the planning of war would be the 'toughest yet' and was more difficult than Afghanistan, Kosovo or the 1991 Gulf War.
In the final weeks before the 2003 invasion, Mr Blair's notes focus on pushing Mr Bush to pursue a second UN resolution explicitly authorising war.
But in his conclusions, Sir John said the UK took 'false comfort' from its perceived involvement in US decision making. The Inquiry does not reveal Mr Bush's replies.
The detail of the 2.6 million word report recounts that after attending a memorial service for the British victims in New York on September 20, 2001, Mr Blair travelled to Washington for a meeting with President Bush.
The inquiry reveals the record, noted in a letter by Britain's US Ambassador Sir David Manning, shows Mr Blair assured the President he believed Saddam was evil and told him: 'Before any action was taken against him, we would need to be very sure indeed there was compelling evidence.
'It would be best to deal with Afghanistan initially and then take our time to see whether we could build up the case against Iraq or other countries.'
Around three weeks later, Mr Blair appears to be attempting to rein in the president's immediate ambitions to take on Iraq - but indicates support for action against Saddam 'at a later date'.
Ten months before the invasion, Blair admitted in July 2002 he was struggling for support at home - confessing that even Cabinet members were against him. The warning came in the same memo as the PM telling the President 'I am with you, whatever;
In a note sent on March 26, 2003, soon after the coalition bombing started, Blair dismisses the millions of people protesting as a 'fatuous irony'. He said the US had a flawed communications strategy that had left people with 'wholly warped views' of American politics and the ambitions of the Bush administration. Blair used the note to press for a new presentation of the existing policy
On October 11, 2001, in a section of a note entitled 'extending war aims', Mr Blair said there was a 'real willingness in the Middle East' to remove Saddam but warned him of 'total opposition' to doing so in connection with operations in Afghanistan.
Mr Blair said he 'no doubt we need to deal with Saddam' and added: 'But if we hit Iraq now, we would lose the Arab world, Russia, probably half the EU.
'I am sure we can devise a strategy for Saddam deliverable at a later date.'
Mr Blair visited Washington again on November 7 for talks with Mr Bush about the Afghanistan campaign.
But the Inquiry uncovered a private note handed to Mr Bush by the PM which under a section on 'international initiatives' referred to the need for a new UN resolution on Iraq and a wider 'WMD agreement'.
The public record of the talks makes no mention of Iraq.
Government records show a further telephone call between the two leaders five days later, on November 12 but no official record of the conversation has been found. The inquiry said other sources indicate the subject was Afghanistan.
The inquiry concluded that in December 2001, Mr Blair did not have 'military action of any sort in mind' but did note Mr Blair was prepared to militarily support a rebellion in Iraq were one to occur.
A message sent soon after the invasion shows Blair calling for a PR campaign to show the post-invasion Iraq in the best possible light
In a message sent in October 2003, Blair tells Bush that 'this time next year, it better be going right, not wrong. For us and for the world!'
However, after Mr Bush named Iraq in his 2002 state of the union address as a 'regime that has something to hide from the civilised world', Mr Blair and Mr Straw began to argue in public that Iraq had to be dealt with.
Mr Blair then discussed the issue with Mr Bush in Crawford, Texas, on April 5 and 6, 2002, and agreed a partnership based on an ultimatum to Iraq over the readmission of weapons inspectors. Mr Bush agreed to consider the idea.
Cabinet Office papers report Mr Blair told the President at the Crawford meeting that the UK would support military action if certain conditions relating to a coalition, the Israel/Palestine crisis and UN weapon inspectors were met.
By July 2002, Mr Blair wrote to Mr Bush to set out the framework for the partnership and told him: 'I will be with you, whatever.
'But this is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties.
'The planning on this and the strategy are the toughest yet. This is not Kosovo. This is not Afghanistan. It is not even the Gulf War.'
He urged him the military part of the plan was 'hazardous' but said getting rid of Saddam was 'the right thing to do', adding that 'containment is always risky'.
The Inquiry said the note reflected Mr Blair's own views and said they had not been discussed with colleagues in the Cabinet.
Weeks later, President Bush addressed the UN General Assembly on September 12, 2002, to set out the 'grave and gathering danger' posed by Saddam in Iraq, challenging the UN to stand up to Iraq if it refused to meet its obligations.
Mr Bush said the 'first time' the world may be certain of Saddam's possession of nuclear weapons is 'when he uses one' and told the UN: 'We owe it to all our citizens to prevent that day from coming.'
In another message between the pair from July 28 2002, Blair says he thinks few other European countries will join a coalition without UN authority. He warned public opinion in the US was 'simply on a different planet' from that in the United States
In another message, Blair gives his views on North Korea, branding the regime 'mad and bad'. He says they should be 'brought into' a deal
A message sent on January 30 2003, less than two months before the invasion, sets out a 'Countdown' based on escalating weapon inspection reports but asks 'what happens immediately' in the aftermath of any invasion
In a message sent in on March 26, 2003, just days after the two countries went to war, Blair sets out his vision for a 'true post-cold war world order' but warned there was a 'ludicrous and distorted view' of US ambitions
A message from April 2004, a year on from the fall of Iraq to coalition forces, shows Blair again setting out his idea for a new world order in which he and Bush 'construct' an anger for 'tackling terrorism, rogue states with WMD and the underlying causes of them'
In a handwritten note to the president the same day, Mr Blair said it was a 'brilliant speech' that 'put us on exactly the right strategy to get the job done'.
He said: 'The reception has been very positive with everyone now challenged to come up to the mark. Well done.'
In the next item of private correspondence, around three months before the invasion, Mr Blair warned the President on January 24, 2003, that if UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix could not find a 'smoking gun' there was a risk 'the thing drags on forever until we give up or get distracted'.
He said: 'The world is in contradiction. No one is really prepared for war, except us.
'But equally no one believes Saddam is telling the truth. In part we are victims of our own success.
'Your strength has forced Saddam to let inspectors back in; has made him seem weak and back in his box. So everyone asks: why bother?'
Mr Blair used the note to press the case for a second UN resolution, insisting it would be 'the best protection' for a 'military hitch' or protracted campaign.
He told the President delay was not necessary for military preparation but the extra month could help find the smoking gun, make Saddam 'crack' and build political support at home and abroad.
In a subsequent phone call, Mr Blair proposed setting a deadline of a month later and told Mr Bush: 'If this were not achievable, military action would follow anyway.'
In a note entitled 'countdown' on January 30, 2003, Mr Blair advised the President he believed more time would bring public and international opinion around to military action without a smoking gun.
The note set out a timetable for action, anticipating further reports from Mr Blix on February 14 and 28 that were each 'harder on non-co-operation' than the previous document.
The messages reveal the Prime Minister told Bush after the September 11 attacks that they should go after states with weapons of mass destruction
It said the timetable could be 'shortened if either dramatic find by Blix or 14 February report sufficiently hard; lengthened but not beyond end March if resolution takes more time'.
At a meeting the following day, Mr Blair assured Mr Bush he was 'solidly with the President and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam' after Mr Bush agreed to support a second resolution.
It was clear at the meeting military action had a narrow window and could begin 'around March 10'.
In the press conference which followed the meeting, the position was left publicly ambiguous but a clear message was given that Saddam was running out of time.
The Inquiry concluded that while Mr Blair's strategy was discussed in general by the Cabinet on January 30 there was no 'detailed and in depth analysis' of it it and no alternative options were considered.
In a further note on February 19, 2003, Mr Blair told the President that public opinion was 'not against conflict in all circumstances.
'What they fear is we are hell bent on war, come what may, that we don't really want the UN to succeed'.
The PM insisted this fear was 'absurd' and said the heart of the issue was a 'confusion between active and passive cooperation' from Saddam.
Mr Blair warned the French-German view was to give inspectors time to 'sniff out' weapons but said this could take 'months or years'.
He told Mr Bush: 'Our view, which is correct, is that time is irrelevant unless he is cooperating fully and actively. If he isn't, the time needed is just the time necessary to make a judgement as to his cooperation: is it full or not. And actually no one is seriously suggesting Saddam is cooperating fully.'
Mr Blair said the 'trick' was to re-focus debate onto 'full co-operation'.
And he told Mr Bush he would speak to Mr Blix the following day to try and 'tie' him to the proposed timetable.
Talk of going after countries with WMDs started between the pair the day after terrorists attacked the World Trade Centre
Mr Blair said there was a risk Saddam 'might conceivably fully comply' but that this was unlikely and delaying military action by a week might increase the 'very slim' chances of securing a second resolution by the end of February.
He told Mr Bush: 'A successful second resolution would be an enormous success for your diplomacy over the last few months.'
In a phone call the same day, the two leaders agreed on a draft resolution and Mr Blair said it was a 'defining moment'.
Mr Blair told the President winning nine UN votes for the second resolution was vital to him securing Parliamentary approval.
But within days, the attempt to secure a second UN resolution would collapse but Mr Blair tested the House of Commons anyway on March 18, 2003.
Mr Blair won the vote and told President Bush British forces would join the invasion when it began the next day.
'I didn't lie!' Defiant Tony Blair claims Chilcot report proves he didn't act in 'bad faith or deceit' and declares his decision to go to war in Iraq was in the 'best interests of the UK'
Tony Blair claimed today the Chilcot report proved he didn't lie over the justification for invading Iraq in 2003.
As he fought to save his reputation after being savaged by Sir John Chilcot's long-awaited report on the Iraq War, the former prime minister insisted his decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein was taken 'in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country'.
He vowed to take 'take full responsibility for any mistakes' made in Iraq but insisted it was still 'better to remove Saddam Hussein' than allow the tyrant to continue in power.
In a defiant statement issues minutes after the Chilcot report was published, Mr Blair said it had proved he did not act in 'bad faith' or 'deceit'.
Tony Blair (pictured leaving his house this morning) said he will take 'take full responsibility for any mistakes' made in Iraq but insisted it was 'better to remove Saddam Hussein'
As he fought to save his reputation after being savaged by Sir John Chilcot's long-awaited report on the Iraq War, the former prime minister Tony Blair (pictured leaving his London home this morning) insisted his decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein was taken 'in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country'
His reputation was lacerated in today's report - published this morning seven years after it was launched.
Sir John delivered more severe criticisms of Mr Blair than many expected, with the former premier accused of twisting intelligence about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein to justify an invasion.
The Chilcot report, which runs to 2.6 million words, found that the former prime minister overplayed evidence about the dictator's weaponry and ignored peaceful means to send troops into the country.
In a devastating set of conclusions, Sir John found Mr Blair presented the case for war with 'a certainty which was not justified' based on 'flawed' intelligence about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
It also said Blair had 'overestimated' his ability to influence US president George W Bush and the way the legal basis was established was branded 'far from satisfactory' and bypassed the UN and undermined the international system.
But Mr Blair, issuing a statement minutes after Sir John had finished delivering a press conference, insisted the report 'should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit' against him.
In his statement in response to the long-awaited Chilcot inquiry, Mr Blair promised to issue the lessons he believes can be learned by future leaders from his experience in Number 10.
A defiant Mr Blair wrote: 'The report should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit.
'Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein; I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country.'
Current prime minister David Cameron said future governments will learn all the lessons from the Chilcot inquiry but insisted we should 'not conclude that intervention is always wrong'.
In a statement in response to the Chilcot report in the House of Commons this afternoon, he told MPs: 'If we are to take difficult decisions to intervene in other countries, then proper planning is vital.'
Sir John Chlicot (pictured) delivered more severe criticisms of Mr Blair than many expected, with the former premier accused of twisting intelligence about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein to justify an invasion
Sir John's report said the circumstances in which Mr Blair and Attorney General Lord Goldsmith decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action in Iraq were 'far from satisfactory'.
He also said there was 'no imminent threat' from Saddam at the time of the invasion and the intelligence about his weapons of mass destruction was 'flawed'.
But Mr Blair said the report found there was 'no falsification or improper use of intelligence', 'no deception of Cabinet' and 'no secret commitment to war' was given to US President George Bush.
He said the report 'does not make a finding on the legal basis for military action but finds that the attorney general had concluded there was such a lawful basis' by March 13 2003.
Mr Blair said: 'The report should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit. Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein; I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country.'
He acknowledged the Chilcot report made 'real and material criticisms' of 'preparation, planning, process and of the relationship with the United States'.
Mr Blair, who will set out a full response to the report later, said: 'I will take full responsibility for any mistakes without exception or excuse.
'I will at the same time say why, nonetheless, I believe that it was better to remove Saddam Hussein and why I do not believe this is the cause of the terrorism we see today whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world.
'Above all I will pay tribute to our armed forces. I will express my profound regret at the loss of life and the grief it has caused the families, and I will set out the lessons I believe future leaders can learn from my experience.'
'I WILL TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY MISTAKES WITHOUT EXCEPTION OR EXCUSE:' TONY BLAIR'S FULL STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO CHILCOT Minutes after Sir John Chilcot published his long-awaited report into the Iraq War Tony Blair issues a statement vowing to take 'full responsibility for any mistakes'. The report savaged the former prime minister's legacy as it delivered a devastating set of conclusions. Here is Mr Blair's full response: 'The report should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit. Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein; I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country. 'I note that the report finds clearly: - That there was no falsification or improper use of Intelligence (para 876 vol 4) - No deception of Cabinet (para 953 vol 5) - No secret commitment to war whether at Crawford Texas in April 2002 or elsewhere (para 572 onwards vol 1) 'The inquiry does not make a finding on the legal basis for military action but finds that the Attorney General had concluded there was such a lawful basis by 13th March 2003 (para 933 vol 5) However the report does make real and material criticisms of preparation, planning, process and of the relationship with the United States. 'These are serious criticisms and they require serious answers. 'I will respond in detail to them later this afternoon. 'I will take full responsibility for any mistakes without exception or excuse. 'I will at the same time say why, nonetheless, I believe that it was better to remove Saddam Hussein and why I do not believe this is the cause of the terrorism we see today whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world. 'Above all I will pay tribute to our Armed Forces. I will express my profound regret at the loss of life and the grief it has caused the families, and I will set out the lessons I believe future leaders can learn from my experience.' Advertisement
'Tony Blair is the world's worst terrorist': Tearful families of those killed in the Iraq War plan to take legal action against former PM as they demand he 'look us in the eye'
The sister of one of the soldiers killed in the demanded that Tony Blair 'look me in the eye' as families revealed they plan to take legal action against the former prime minister, following today's long-awaited report into the conflict.
Relatives said they had not had enough time to fully take in the report by Sir John Chilcot, having had just '180 minutes, one for every death' to read it, but would be undertaking a forensic analysis of the findings, and reserved the right to take any further action necessary.
And at an emotional press conference following the report's release held by some of the relatives and their lawyers, Sarah O'Connor, whose brother, Sergeant Bob O'Connor died in the conflict, said Blair should 'look us in the eye', as she described him as 'the world's worst terrorist'.
Rose Gentle, whose son Gordon, 19, was killed in Iraq holds the hand of Sarah O'Connor, whose brother Bob also died in the conflict
At an emotional press conference following the report's release held by some of the relatives and their lawyers, Ms O'Connor said Blair should 'look us in the eye', as she described him as 'the world's worst terrorist'
A tearful Ms O'Connor, who sat next to Rose Gentle, the mother of teenage soldier Gordon who was killed at just 19, and gripped her hand tightly slammed the time it had taken for the report to be released, and said her overwhelming response was 'anger'.
'That healing that 11-and-a-half years I was working for,' said Ms O'Conner, whose brother died when his Hercules plane was shot down in 2005. 'I have gone back to that time when I learned my brother had been killed.
'There's one terrorist that the world needs to be aware of and his name's Tony Blair. The world's worst terrorist.'
Demanding that the former Prime Minister face the families, furious Ms O'Connor said: 'Look me in the eye. Why is he not here? Look at our eyes and our faces. Look me in the eye.'
Ms O'Connor, pictured holding a photograph of herself and her brother, demanded of Blair 'look at our eyes and faces. Look me in the eye'
Victoria Jones, sister of Leading aircraftman Martin Beard who was killed in the Iraq war, holds a copy of the Chilcot Report as she is comforted by a friend
Family members leave the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre after reading the report. They have said they need to analyse the findings further before deciding what action to take
Streams of family members had filed into the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in central London shortly before 8am to be appraised of Sir John Chilcot's historic report, hours before it was presented to the public.
Speaking after the report they thanked Sir John and said they were 'pleased' with the way the report was conducted, but added in a statement: 'Never again must so many mistakes be allowed to lead to the sacrifice of so many British Lives, and the destruction of a country with no aim.'
They said they reserve the right to call 'specific people' to answer for their actions in court, after they have fully analysed the findings, adding: 'All options will be considered.'
The families' lawyer, Matthew Jury, said: 'The families have waited a long time for today to come. They have acted with patience, courage and dignity throughout this entire process.'
He said those who were criticised in the report 'knew what was coming' and had time to prepare statements and defences.
Relatives of military personnel killed in the Iraq war listen to the emotional press conference following the release of the report
The families thanked Sir John and said they were 'pleased' with the way the report was conducted, but added in a statement: 'Never again must so many mistakes be allowed to lead to the sacrifice of so many British Lives, and the destruction of a country with no aim'
In a statement, Mr Jury said: 'The three hours the families were given this morning is not long enough for anybody to properly take in two and a half million words, or even a 150-page summary.
'Today is a day the families should be at the forefront of everybody's minds. But so too should be the thousands of British soldiers wounded in Iraq, the tens of thousands of British veterans who served there, and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians who died during the conflict and since.
'The families are pleased that the inquiry has discharged its duties without fear, favour or prejudice. However, they are of course saddened that it appears to have been confirmed that their loved ones died unnecessarily and without just cause or purpose.
'In the coming days and weeks, the families will undertake a full and forensic review of the report's content and conclusions.
'If state officials are determined to have acted unlawfully or in excess of their powers then the families will then decide on whether to take any necessary and appropriate action at the proper time. All options will be considered.
'Just as importantly, as well as examining the culpability of individual state officials, we must also look at the process that led to the war so that we never make such grave mistakes with such tragic long-term and far-reaching consequences again.'
ANTI-WAR DEMONSTRATORS TAKE TO THE STREETS DEMANDING 'TRUTH AND JUSTICE' OVER IRAQ CONFLICT Anger: Michael Culver, 78, stands outside the London home of former Prime Minister Tony Blair today Anti-war campaigners staged a demonstration in Westminster today as Sir John Chilcot presents his long-awaited report on the UK's role in the Iraq war. Leaders of the Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and other groups will demand 'truth and justice'. There will also be calls for former prime minister Tony Blair and others involved in the conflict to face the full force of the law. It comes as the report, which has taken seven years to produce, is expected to criticise Mr Blair's role in the war, although it will not question its legality. Kate Hudson, CND general secretary, said: 'The Iraq war was a disaster, a disaster that began with a lie. 'If Tony Blair and other politicians responsible had told the truth it would never have happened. A country was destroyed, millions of innocent Iraqis were killed, British soldiers were killed, and terrorism has spread across the Middle East. Those responsible must now be brought to justice. 'We seek from the Chilcot Inquiry an accurate reckoning of the factors involved and finally to get clarity from the British state about this disastrous war. But it must not end there. 'The anti-war movement will gather in Westmister to demand truth and justice. It comes down to a principle - where individuals, no matter how lofty, are found to be responsible for crimes, they should face the full force of the law. No-one is exempt from justice.' Chris Nineham, of the Stop the War Coalition, said: 'What the majority of people want from the next few days is an open admission that the war on Iraq was disastrous, illegal and wrong in itself, and that those who took us into it, led by Tony Blair, did so knowingly and by lying to people and Parliament. 'Anything short of this will surely confirm people's suspicions that the Chilcot circus has been yet another convoluted attempt at a cover-up. 'Over the next few days, and for as long as it takes, Stop the War will be campaigning for the truth about Iraq to be publicly acknowledged. 'Many people also want to see that being a public figure and extremely rich doesn't exempt you from being held accountable when you commit crimes.' Advertisement
Tony Blair called the million-man march on London's streets against the Iraq War 'fatuous' and a defence of the 'most illiberal' regime on earth
Tony Blair blasted the biggest protest march in British history as 'fatuous' in a memo to George W Bush days after the UK and US launched the Iraq War.
In a note titled 'The Fundamental Goal', Mr Blair told the US President a poor communications strategy ahead of the war had left 'wholly warped views' of American politics in Europe and elsewhere.
The then-Prime Minister advised him to 'keep the policy' of tackling terror and weapons of mass destruction but to 'change the presentation'.
More than a million people marched on Parliament on February 15, 2003, in an attempt to persuade MPs not to back the invasion but Tony Blair said it was 'fatuous'
In an extract from his memo to Mr Bush, Mr Blair blamed 'wholly warped views' for inspiring 'fatuous' protests
Mr Blair said Mr Bush was right to want to spread freedom by delivering security and told him: 'That's why, though Iraq's WMD is the immediate justification for action, ridding Iraq of Saddam is the real prize.'
But spelling out the problem of securing support, he told him: 'The problem is that a ludicrous and distorted view of the US is clouding the enormous attraction of the fundamental goal.
'In other words, rational people are behaving very stupidly. Europe is the immediate focus of this problem. But it is not confined to Europe.
'The problems is we're not communicating with the rest of the world in a way they understand.
'They get wholly warped views of the so-called right in American politics, played back through their media; until we end up with fatuous irony of millions of liberal-minded people taking to the streets effectively to defend the most liberal regime on earth.'
In the note, dated March 26, 2003, and published for the first time by the Chilcot Inquiry today, Mr Blair said people 'want to feel and see the US reaching out, explaining, trying to seek a collective way through'.
Mr Blair, seen today leaving home, made the claim in a memo to George Bush called 'The Fundamental Problem' days after the 2003 invasion began
And he advised: 'We need a strategy for this after the conflict is won. Doing it now would look like weakness.
'Afterwards it will look like magnanimity, from a position of strength, recognising the past months have not been as we wanted it.'
Mr Blair told his closest ally it was still possible 'to get the international community to accept your agenda' even after the controversial war had begun.
The exposure of the claims is likely to further enrage critics of the former prime minister in the wake of the damning Chilcot Inquiry.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reflected today on the vast protest march in February 2003, just weeks before a Commons vote gave the green light for British involvement in the Iraq War.
179 dead: The brave British servicemen and women who lost their lives in the Iraq War
The six-year Iraq War claimed the lives of 179 British servicemen and women before the conflict came to an end in May 2009.
According to a study of the war-torn nation, an estimated 461,000 Iraqis were also killed between March 2003 and June 2011 as a direct or indirect result of the fighting.
Here are the faces of the British men and women who died for their country:
(left to right top row) Captain Philip Guy, Naval Rating Ian Seymour, Warrant Officer 2nd Class Mark Stratford (Silhouette), Marine Sholto Hedenskog, Lance Bombardier Llywelyn Evans, Colour Sgt John Cecil, Major Jason Ward, Sergeant Les Hehir, Lt Philip Green, Lt Tony King; Lt James Williams, Lt Philip West, Lt Marc Lawrence, Lt Andrew Wilson, Flight Lt Kevin Main, Flight Lt Dave Williams (Silhouette), Sapper Luke Allsopp, Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth, Sergeant Steven Roberts, Lance-Corporal Barry Stephen;
(left to right second row) Corporal Stephen Allbutt, Trooper David Clarke, Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull, Royal Marine Christopher Maddison, Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley, Major Stephen Ballard, Staff Sergeant Chris Muir, Lance Corporal Karl Shearer, Fusilier Kelan John Turrington, Lance Corporal Ian Malone, Piper Christopher Muzvuru, Lt Alexander Tweedie, Lance Corporal James McCue, Private Andrew Kelly, Gunner Duncan Pritchard (Silhouette), Corporal David Sheppard (Silhouette), Leonard Harvey, Sergeant Simon Hamilton-Jewell, Corporal Russell Aston, Corporal Paul Graham Long;
(left to right third row) Corporal Simon Miller, Lance Corporal Benjamin McGowan Hyde, Lance Corporal Thomas Keys, Captain James Linton, Private Jason Smith (silhouette), Captain David Jones, Major Matthew Titchener, Warrant Officer Colin Wall, Corporal Dewi Pritchard, Fusilier Russell Beeston, Sergeant John Nightingale, Corporal Ian Plank, Private Ryan Thomas, Major James Stenner (Silhouette), Sergeant Norman Patterson (Silhouette), Lance Corporal Andrew Craw, Rifleman Vincent Windsor, Sapper Robert Thompson, Corporal Richard Ivell, Fusilier Gordon Gentle;
(left to right fourth row) Flight Lt Kristian Gover (Silhouette), Private Christopher Rayment, Private Lee O'Callaghan, Private Marc Ferns, Lance Corporal Paul Thomas, Fusilier Steven Jones, Corporal Marc Taylor, Gunner David Lawrence (Silhouette), Private Kevin McHale, Staff Sergeant Denise Rose, Private Paul Lowe, Sergeant Stuart Gray, Private Scott McArdle, Private Pita Tukatukawaqa (Silhouette), Sergeant Paul Connolly (Silhouette), Squadron Leader Patrick Marshall, Flight Lt David Stead, Flight Lt Andrew Smith, Flight Lt Paul Pardoel, Master Engineer Gary Nicholson;
(left to right fifth row) Chief Technician Richard Brown, Flight Sergeant Mark Gibson, Sergeant Robert O'Connor, Corporal David Williams, Acting Lance-Corporal Steven Jones, Private Mark Dobson, Guardsman Anthony Wakefield, Lance-Corporal Alan Brackenbury, Signaller Paul Didsbury, 2nd Lt Richard Shearer, Private Philip Hewett, Private Leon Spicer, Fusilier Donal Meade, Fusilier Stephen Manning, Major Matthew Bacon, Captain Ken Masters, Sergeant Chris Hickey, Sergeant John Jones, Lance Corporal Allan Douglas, Corporal Gordon Pritchard;
(left to right sixth row) Trooper Carl Smith, Captain Richard Holmes, Private Lee Ellis, Lt Richard Palmer, Flight Lt Sarah-Jane Mulvihill, Wing Commander John Coxen, Lt Commander Darren Chapham, Lt David Dobson, Marine Paul Collins, Private Joseva Lewaicei, Private Adam Morris, Lt Tom Mildinhall, Lance Corporal Paul Farrelly, Corporal John Cosby, Corporal Matthew Cornish, Gunner Samuela Vanua, Gunner Stephen Wright, Gunner Lee Thornton, Lance Corporal Dennis Brady, Lt Tom Tanswell;
(left to right seventh row) Kingsman Jamie Hancock, Staff Sergeant Sharron Elliott, Warrant Officer 2nd Class Lee Hopkins, Marine Jason Hylton, Corporal Ben Nowak, Sergeant Jonathon Hollingsworth (Silhouette), Sergeant Graham Hesketh, Sergeant Wayne Rees, Kingsman Alex Green, Private Michael Tench, 2nd Lt Jonathan Bracho-Cooke, Private Luke Daniel Simpson, Rifleman Daniel Coffey, Private Jonathon Dany Wysoczan, Kingsman Danny Wilson, Rifleman Aaron Lincoln, Corporal Kris O'Neill, Second Lieutenant Joanna Yorke Dyer, Kingsman Adam James Smith, Private Eleanor Dlugosz;
(left to right eighth row) Colour Sergeant Mark Powell, Sergeant Mark J McLaren, Corporal Ben Leaning, Trooper Kristen Turton, Kingsman Alan Joseph Jones, Rifleman Paul Donnachie, Major Nick Bateson, Private Kevin Thompson, Corporal Jeremy Brookes, Corporal Rodney Wilson, Lance Corporal James Cartwright, Major Paul Harding, Corporal John Rigby, Corporal Paul Joszko, Private Scott Kennedy, Private James Kerr, Rifleman Edward Vakabua, Lance Corporal Ryan Francis, Corporal Christopher Read, Aircraftsman Peter McFerran;
(left to right ninth row) Senior Aircraftsman Matthew Caulwell, Senior Aircraftsman Christopher Dunsmore, Lance Corporal Timothy Darren 'Daz' Flowers, Corporal Steve Edwards, Private Craig Barber, Leading Aircraftman Martin Beard, Lance Sergeant Chris Casey, Corporal Kirk Redpath, Sergeant Eddie Collins (Silhouette), Sergeant Mark Stansfield, Lance Corporal Sarah Holmes, UNIDENTIFIED(Silhouette), Trooper Lee Fitzsimmons, Guardsman Stephen Ferguson, Sergeant Duane 'Baz' Barwood, UNIDENTIFIED(Silhouette), Lance Corporal David Kenneth Wilson, Corporal Lee Churcher (Silhouette), Private Ryan Wrathall.
WHO'S WHO IN THE CHILCOT INQUIRY: THE LEADING FIGURES CAUGHT UP IN THE BUILD-UP TO THE IRAQ WAR Tony Blair Elected as Prime Minister with a landslide in 1997, Blair became the strongest ally of the US after the 9/11 attacks, regularly meeting George W Bush and forming a close friendship. Having supported military intervention in Kosovo and Sierra Leone earlier in his premiership, he became a strong advocate of so-called 'humanitarian intervention'. He made the case for invading Iraq in 2002 on the back of a dossier in which he claimed intelligence had 'established beyond doubt' that Saddam Hussein was producing chemical and biological weapons. The war and the implosion of Iraq since the invasion have become the defining events of Blair's term in power and claims he should be tried for war crimes have dogged his work since he resigned in 2007. Tony Blair (left) and George W Bush (centre) made the case for war. Lord Goldsmith (right) was the UK government's main legal adviser George W Bush Elected US President in January 2001, he was only eight months into his first time when the September 11 attacks took place, rocking the US and shocking the world. The son of former president George HW Bush, who had overseen the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein in 1991, George W Bush launched the 'War on Terror' in response to 9/11, which included large-scale military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. After the swift collapse of Hussein's regime, Bush made a speech on board a US aircraft carrier in May 2003 beneath a banner proclaiming 'Mission Accomplished'. Following his re-election in 2004, Bush faced increased criticism as the situation in Iraq deteriorated and went on to claim the lives of more than 4,000 US servicemen and women. Lord Goldsmith As Attorney General at the time of the invasion, he was the main legal adviser to Tony Blair and the government. Lord Goldsmith advised on the legality of going to war and initially said a second UN resolution was necessary authorising force if necessary. However, he changed his opinion in March 2003 after meeting with US officials. He then said that UN accords on Iraq from the 1990s justified an invasion. The 66-year-old, who resigned as Attorney General in 2007, has denied his the change in his views was due to political pressure. Jack Straw Straw was Blair's foreign secretary during the Iraq war and once said that Britain would not have joined the conflict if he had opposed the war. The former minister was involved in gaining legal backing for the invasion after rejecting advice from Foreign Office advisers that the war would be illegal. Straw, now 69, has since described going to war as 'the most difficult decision I have ever faced', but has insisted Britain's involvement was 'justified'. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw (left), spin doctor Alastair Campbell (centre) and MI6 boss Sir Richard Dearlove (right) were also involved Alastair Campbell Campbell was Tony Blair's director of communications between 1997 and 2003, managing the government's internal relationships and handling the media. He was heavily involved in the campaign behind making the case for war in 2002 and 2003, but has denied claims he 'sexed up' the second dossier of intelligence, often called the 'dodgy dossier'. He told Chilcot: 'I defend every single word of the dossier.' Campbell resigned in August 2003 during the Hutton Inquiry into the death of weapons expert Dr Kelly. Sir Richard Dearlove As head of the MI6 - a position known as 'C' - between 1999 to 2004, Sir Richard and his agents were responsible for the intelligence reports which were used to justify the invasion. His role in build-up to war is disputed but he is understood to have warned ministers that intelligence was being 'fixed around policy' by the US. There have been claims that Sir Richard was too close to Blair and Campbell and helped in the alleged 'sexing up' of the dossiers, which all three men deny doing. Much of his evidence to Chilcot was redacted for security reasons, but it is known he branded claims he was too close to Blair 'complete rubbish'. Sir John Scarlett Senior intelligence official John Scarlett was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) which produced the so-called 'dodgy dossier' on Iraq's supposed WMDs. The former MI6 officer, who had served for years overseas, had been in charge of the committee before the September 11 attacks and his role was thrust into the spotlight in the build up to the Iraq war. Sir John has been criticised for allowing Tony Blair to write a foreword to the report and to work closely with Blair's PR chief Alastair Campbell. Sir John Scarlett (left) was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee. Dr David Kelly (left) took his own life after he was outed as a source of a story criticised the case for war. UN weapons inspector Hans Blix (right) was in charge of looking for chemical and biological weapons in Iraq during the build-up to war Dr David Kelly A distinguished government scientist who was a former UN weapons inspector and had worked in Iraq. He became the centre of the argument over the invasion of Iraq when he gave a briefing to a BBC journalist which led to a report that claims about Hussein's weapons had been 'sexed up'. After Dr Kelly was outed as the source of the story he was found dead in woodland near his Oxfordshire home. It is understood he felt his reputation had been tarnished and his death was ruled a suicide. Hans Blix The Swedish diplomat was chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq in the build-up to the war and his views on the extent of tyrant's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) became of huge importance. In 2002, he said he believed the Iraqi regime did have such weapons but by 2003 he said his inspectors had not found any. He urged Western powers to give him more time before launching an invasion. Blix has said he believes the invasion of Iraq was illegal and has accused the Pentagon of smearing him to help justify the war. Advertisement
The shambles of Britain's military equipment revealed: Government failed to act after soldiers were killed in 'mobile coffin' Land Rovers by IEDs, Chilcot finds
Military and political leaders failed to act quickly enough to counter the threat from Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and provide better armoured vehicles to British forces occupying Iraq, today's Chilcot Inquiry found.
Sir John Chilcot's long-awaited report said the Ministry of Defence (MoD) was 'slow' in responding to the potential for casualties from the home-made bombs, which became an everyday problem faced by British personnel in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
He laid into delays in providing an additional type of Protected Patrol Vehicles (PPVs) which was not ordered until 2006, after ministerial intervention, despite initial work on sourcing it starting 'before 2002'.
The widespread use of the light 'snatch Land Rover' during the conflict has long been criticised by many families of those killed in the conflict. Soldiers reportedly nicknamed the vehicles 'mobile coffins' because of the limited protection they gave to roadside IEDs
The widespread use of the light 'snatch Land Rover' during the conflict has long been criticised by many families of those killed in the conflict.
Soldiers reportedly nicknamed them 'mobile coffins' because of the limited protection they gave to roadside IEDs and families of several of those killed are suing the MoD over their use.
Forces taking part in Operation Telic, as the invasion and occupation was known, also suffered from a shortage of helicopter support and equipment for what is known as Istar - intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance, the report found.
Sir John's report said: 'Between 2003 and 2009, UK forces in Iraq faced gaps in some key capability areas, including protected mobility, Istar and helicopter support.
'It was not sufficiently clear which person or department within the MoD had responsibility for identifying and articulating capability gaps.
'Delays in providing medium weight protected patrol vehicles (PPVs) and the failure to meet the needs of UK forces in MND (SE) (Multi-National Division South East - the British sector of Iraq) for Istar and helicopters should not have been tolerated.
'The MoD was slow in responding to the developing threat in Iraq from improvised explosive devices. The range of protected mobility options available to commanders in MND (SE) was limited. Although work had begun before 2002 to source an additional PPV, it was only ordered in July 2006 following ministerial intervention.'
The report added that, while there were no funding barriers to introducing a new PPV, it criticises the Executive Committee of the Army Board for instead concentrating on its Future Rapid Effect System programme, which was focused on bigger armoured vehicles.
It added: 'The decision to deploy troops to Afghanistan had a material impact on the availability of key capabilities for deployment to Iraq, particularly helicopters and Istar.'
HOW PRIVATE PHILLIP HEWETT WAS KILLED IN A SNATCH LAND ROVER - ONE OF MANY VICTIMS OF BRITAIN'S INADEQUATE MILITARY EQUIPMENT The 1st Battalion Staffordshire Regiment soldier Private Phillip Hewett (pictured) was killed when the Snatch Land Rover he was in struck a bomb near the town of al-Amarah on July 16, 2005. He was 21 Eight years ago, Private Phillip Hewett died on a dusty battlefield in Iraq. The 1st Battalion Staffordshire Regiment soldier was killed when the Snatch Land Rover he was in struck a bomb near the town of al-Amarah on July 16, 2005. He was 21. The 'Snatch', originally used to grab rioters in Northern Ireland, weighs 3.5tons and has a 3.5-litre V8 engine. Costing 60,000, it has become notorious for its lack of protection against roadside bombs and 37 UK personnel have been killed in them. Since his death, Private Phillip Hewett's mother Sue Smith has fought her own battle with the Ministry of Defence. She argued that the Government breached his human rights by negligently failing to provide adequately armoured vehicles. MoD chiefs insisted that they could not be held liable because the troops died on the battlefield and not on a British army base or in the UK. She took her fight to the High Court and the Appeal Court without success but finally triumphed two years ago. The UK's highest court said the Government owed a duty of care to properly equip and train troops sent to war, but Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said he was 'concerned' that it could make it 'more difficult for troops to carry out operations'. Private Philip Hewett was one of three of the men were killed when their controversial Snatch Land Rovers were blown up by roadside bombs. The poorly protected vehicles nicknamed 'mobile coffins' because of their vulnerability to blasts were finally replaced in 2008. Private Lee Ellis, 23, of Wythenshaw, Greater Manchester, was killed in February 2006; and Lance Corporal Kirk Redpath, 22, of Romford, Essex, died in August 2007. Advertisement
EXCLUSIVE - 'The British people were told lies... now my country has been destroyed': Orphan who became symbol of invasion after losing arms in Iraq bomb blast demands answers from Tony Blair but REFUSES to be pitied
Ali Abbas, now 25, lost his parents and his arms in the 2003 invasion
Ali Abbas will never be allowed to forget the suffering caused by the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Ali was orphaned, lost both of his arms and suffered horrendous burns. He was just 12-years-old and his plight came to symbolise the terrible cost of the war.
But, today, as Sir John Chilcot's long-awaited report into the Iraq war is published, this remarkable young man refuses to let pity reign.
Ali tells MailOnline: 'These findings are not going to change anything in Iraq or for me.
'It is about past events. I need to look to the future. I am trying to find a job. That's what I need to put my energy into.
'I came to Britain for treatment when I was 12-years-old. I am now 25 and I want to find a job that I can do despite my challenges. But I lack so much confidence because I don't have arms.
'My life changed forever when Iraq was invaded.'
Ali is often asked if he feels bitter.
But he says: 'I'm not sure that it is bitterness or even hatred I feel. I feel terribly sad that life as I knew it was taken from me that night.
'My mother was putting me to bed. My father was killed too. My arms were placed in their grave.
'I miss my family and the memories that get cloudier as time goes on. And the regrets, the regrets that I didn't have longer growing up as a normal Iraqi child.'
He says he is interested to know from the Chilcot report more about Tony Blair's claim of Weapons of Mass Destruction and about his plans to rebuild Iraq once occupation began.
'The reasons they invaded were economical reasons, nothing to do with all these claims about weapons. They just did not exist. The British people were told lies. Now the situation is so much worse,' he says.
'There are weapons on the streets, there are no police, no laws.
'Hundreds of people have been killed in suicide bombs in just the last few days alone. My country has been destroyed.
Disappointment: Ali, now 25, is not bitter but is devastated at the long term impact on his country, telling MailOnline: 'Hundreds of people have been killed in suicide bombs in just the last few days alone. My country has been destroyed'
Agony: Ali Abbas was 12 when he was wounded during an airstrike during the 2003 invasion of Iraq
'I met Tony Blair once, at a charity event. I didn't know what to say to him really. I was just young, maybe 14. Now, I might have a few questions though, like - 'Do you regret going to war?'
'I love Britain and I am so grateful for the kindness that so many people have shown me since 2003. But it should not have come to this.
'Tony Blair and George Bush should not have gone to war.
'Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, a dictator, but removing him did not mean all was then good in Iraq.
'Everyone I know has a friend or relative that has been killed. Funerals are a normal part of life now.
Recovery: Ali Abbas, right and Ahmed Hamza, left, were flown to Britain for treatment after the US missile attack in which he lost his arms
Therapy: Ali Abbas, pictured aged 14, settled in to life in Britain and is now 25 and looking for a job
Energy: Despite the horrific injuries he suffered, Ali was pictured playing football and and thrived at school in Wimbledon
'Saddam was bad but now so many Saddam's have been created and it is so much worse than it was under his rule.'
My mother was putting me to bed. My father was killed too. My arms were placed in their grave. Ali Abbas
In military jargon Ali Abbas and his family are collateral damage.
A US missile slammed into their home in Baghdad, an unintended target. It was the 11th night of the Iraq war.
He says: 'Our house was on fire. There was screaming. I was literally burning. Our neighbour found me. I was the only one alive.'
He suffered burns to 60 per cent of his body and was trapped in a dilapidated Baghdad hospital besieged by looters.
He would almost certainly have died but was airlifted first to Kuwait and then to London for treatment.
When Ali arrived in the UK he spoke little English.
But the headmaster of a private school in south London heard of his plight and offered him a free place.
Bright: Ali, who has a verbal reasoning IQ of 140, soon integrated into British life despite speaking little English when he arrived
Ali, who has a verbal reasoning IQ of 140, soon integrated.
He has embraced British culture without forgetting his roots.
He never misses a Manchester United game but prays every day. And he is as happy to tuck into fish and chips as a halal chicken kebab. He is now the proud holder of both British and Iraqi passports.
Ali was fitted with prosthetic limbs but he finds them cumbersome and heavy and prefers, most of the time, to try and use his feet.
He is an expert at using his feet for tasks such as cleaning his teeth, painting and using the phone and computer.
He says: 'I do have skills to offer and I'm sure there is a job out there for someone like me.
'An apology from Bush and Blair would be nice but I can't see that happening and it won't bring back my parents or my arms. My focus needs to be on the future now.'
A factory that ordered Eastern European workers to speak English at work has scrapped the scheme amid complaints of discrimination.
Bosses at Orchid Orthopedic Solutions, which makes medical equipment, introduced the measure at the factory in Sheffield in a bid to reduce divisions between English employees and those from Poland and Slovakia, who often spoke to each other in their mother tongues.
Staff complained about the policy, branding it 'unfair and discriminatory', adding it had fueled tensions between different ethnic groups on the factory floor.
Language scheme: Bosses at Orchid Orthopedic Solutions, pictured, introduced the measure at the factory in Sheffield in a bid to reduce divisions between English employees and those from Poland and Slovakia
Chiefs have now scrapped the policy, apologising for any 'confusion' over the 'well intentioned' scheme.
According to the Sheffield Star, the policy was reportedly introduced after an employee complained after working with a team of Polish colleagues who spoke to each other in their own language.
Employees are also understood to have complained over feeling 'isolated and intimidated' by non-English speaking co-workers.
The policy was introduced as part of the company's updated company rules, called 'Toolbox Talk', which all employees were required to sign.
At the time, the company said the policy was decided to create 'harmony' in the workplace. It added that speaking in another language would not be treated as a disciplinary issue.
However there was reportedly a 'ruckus' in the factory when the document was presented, with one source telling the Sheffield star that Polish workers felt discriminated against.
Scrapped: Staff complained about the policy, branding it 'unfair and discriminatory', adding it had fueled tensions between different ethnic groups on the factory floor. Pictured, the estate where the factory is located
Staff later complained about the policy, saying it was 'unfair and discriminatory'.
One employee said instead of reducing division in the factory, the rule change had increased tensions.
The worker, who did not want to be named, said: 'I feel the company has escalated the problem and turned a small situation into a big one rather than assessing the cause of the problem.
'If two Polish guys are conversing it's going to be much quicker for them to get their job done. There's a lot of Polish and Slovakian workers - I find it unfair and discriminatory.'
A spokesman for Orchid said: 'We have rescinded this request with immediate effect and are preparing a new instruction that is intended to make everyone feel welcome at Orchid while accommodating the language needs for effective business communication.
'We apologise for any confusion our well-intentioned policy may have caused.
WHAT THE MESSAGES BETWEEN BLAIR AND BUSH TELL US ABOUT THE BUILD UP TO AND THE AFTERMATH OF WAR IN IRAQ: FROM REASSURANCE AND SUPPORT, TO EXPECTION MANAGEMENT TO PLEAS FOR MORE TROOPS IN THE 'BATTLE OF IDEAS'
September 12th, 2001
Blair urged Bush to act on weapons of mass destruction in the hours after the 9/11 attacks. He told Bush in a note on September 12 that while some might 'baulk' at the necessary actions, they should be carried out and then justified
Hours after the 9/11 terror attacks, Blair called for tough action which 'some will baulk at'.
'There will be many who ask: what is the next stage of this evil?'
'What of (the terrorists') capacity to get hold of WMD? We know there are countries and individuals trading in WMD. We need a range of sanctions and pressures to stop this.
'Some of this will require action that some will baulk at.
'But we are better to act now... than let the day be put off until some further, perhaps even worse catastrophe occurs. I believe this is a real possibility.'
October 11th, 2001
On October 11, 2011, Blair wrote again to Bush to warn against trying to expand the war in Afghanistan to take out Saddam in Iraq at the same time. He said he would help 'devise a strategy for Saddam deliverable at a later date'
One month after 9/11 and four days after air strikes against Afghanistan have begun, Blair urges Bush to focus on the Taliban and 'deal with' Iraq later. He added: 'No doubt we need to deal with Saddam'.
'But if we hit Iraq now, we could lose the Arab world, Russia, probably half the EU... I am sure we can devise a strategy for Saddam deliverable at a later date.'
December 3rd, 2001
The Iraq Inquiry reported a phone call between Blair and Bush from December 3, 2001, where the PM told the President 'it would be excellent to get rid of Saddam' with the use of a 'clever strategy'
In a phone conversation Blair on 'how the next phase might proceed'. 'It would be excellent to get rid of Saddam.'
But, he added: 'There needed to be a clever strategy for doing this... An extremely clever plan would be required.'
December 4th, 2001
By December 4, 2001, Blair was advising Bush on how to build momentum to the point 'military action could be taken if necessary' via renewed weapon inspections and the UN route. The Inquiry concluded at this point Blair had not set his course on an Iraq war
Blair sends Bush a paper setting entitled 'The War on Terrorism: The Second Phase'.
Iraq is a threat because 'it has WMD capability' but most countries will be 'reluctant' to back an invasion.
Blair wants to 'soften up' public opinion which requires a 'strategy for regime change that builds over time... until we get to a point where military action could be taken if necessary.'
'We need to be clear that if an uprising occurs, we are willing to act militarily in support,' he wrote.
July 28th, 2002
In July 2002, Blair vowed to Bush that 'I will be with you, whatever' but warned him planning for the Iraq War would be the most difficult Western invasion yet
Blair tells Bush, 'I will be with you, whatever.'
'The planning on this and the strategy are the toughest yet. This is not Kosovo. This is not Afghanistan. This is not even the Gulf War. The military part of this is hazardous.'
'We would support in any way we can... On timing, we could start building up after the break. A strike date could be Jan/Feb next year. But the crucial issue is not when but how.'
The former PM says getting rid of Saddam is 'the right thing to do' because 'his departure would free up the region'.
He 'couldn't be sure of support from Parliament, Party, public or even some of the Cabinet'.
On Saddam being issued tough deadlines: 'It would be 'take it or leave it'. If he did say yes, we continue the build-up and we send teams over and the moment he obstructs, we say 'he's back to his games. That's it'.
'In any event he probably would screw it up and not meet the deadline. And if he came forward after the deadline we could just refuse to deal.'
To win over the public they must 'recapitulate all the WMD evidence, add his attempts to secure nuclear capability and - as seems possible - add on the al-Qaida link.'
January 24th, 2003
On January 24, 2003, Blair - in an extract printed in the Iraq Inquiry report - wrote to Bush about the problems of delay and the risk of Saddam dragging the coalition backed 'into a game of hide and seek' but warned at the time there was not support for a second UN resolution
'In the US/UK view the failure fully to co-operate is enough now (to invade) and technically we are right. But we won't carry other people. However if Blix carries on reporting non co-operation, makes increasing demands, and hardens his findings with each stage, I think we will carry people even without the smoking gun shortly'.
On casualties in an invasion 'doing this in the context of international opposition would be very tough'.
On the prospect of civil war: 'They are perfectly capable, on previous form, of killing each other in large numbers.'
Then Britain and US 'would need the backing of the international community and preferably the UN to handle it' or we would 'get the blame for any fighting'.
January 30th, 2003
Blair outlined a 'Countdown' to war in a memo sent to Bush on January 30, 2003. His proposal was predicated on a succession of reports from weapon's inspectors to illustrate the refusal of Saddam to co-operate with a view to securing a second UN resolution before invading. Blair's timetable was accurate to within days as the invasion eventually began on March 20
A letter entitled 'countdown' Blair sets out 'military questions' and 'aftermath questions such as a new Iraqi Government or US-run?'
It said the timetable could be 'shortened if either dramatic find by Blix or 14 February report sufficiently hard; lengthened but not beyond end March if resolution takes more time'.
At a meeting the following day, Mr Blair assured Mr Bush he was 'solidly with the President and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam' after Mr Bush agreed to support a second resolution.
February 19th, 2003
In another letter quoted by the inquiry, dated February 19, 2003, Blair blasted an 'absurd' fear of countries opposed to the invasion that the US was 'hell bent' war. He urged Bush to help him make the case Saddam was failing to 'fully cooperate' with the UN inspectors
People 'are not against conflict in all circumstances. What they fear is that we are hell bent on war, come what may - that we don't really want the UN to succeed.'
'No-one is suggesting Saddam is co-operating fully. My faith in Blix is somewhat shaken, but he is key.'
'We have to find a way of re-focusing the issue on the absence of full co-operation and do so in a way that pulls public opinion and the UN Security Council waverers with us.'
March 26th, 2003
In a major memo on the 'fundamental goal' of the US-UK alliance on March 26, 2003, Blair told Bush he agreed with his 'big' ambition to assert a new world order based on freedom and security but warned there was a communications problem which meant there was a 'ludicrous view of US ambitions
Blair says the 'fundamental goal' of the war is to create a new 'world order'. He writes: 'This is the moment when you can define international priorities for the next generation the true post-Cold War world order.'
'Our ambition is big to construct a global agenda around which we can unite the world.'
The war will 'spread our values of freedom, democracy, tolerance and the rule of law' across the globe, he says, adding: 'That's why, though Iraq's WMD is the immediate justification for action, ridding Iraq of Saddam is the real prize.'
June 2nd, 2003
On June 2, 2003, shortly after the fall of Baghdad, Blair wrote to Bush that the task of rebuilding in Iraq was 'absolutely awesome' and warned him it was 'worse than re-building a country from scratch'. He said the coalition was starting from a 'really backward position' and warned while it could be sorted out 'we're going to get there but not quickly enough'
'The task is absolutely awesome and I'm not at all sure we're geared for it.'
'This is worse than re-building a country from scratch.'
'We start from a really backward position. In time, it can be sorted. But time counts against us.'
'My sense is we're going to get there but not quickly enough. And if it falls apart, everything falls apart in the region.'
October 5th, 2003
Blair warned on October 5, 2003, the coalition had to make the occupation work because 'if we lose this battle the world will be less safe' and said those who would have left Saddam in power would have appeared 'morally superior' to those who removed him
Blair urges Bush to keep making the case that 'Iraq is better without Saddam'.
He said Iraq on the ground was 'tough' and warned the public was questioning 'whether it was all worth it'.
'By this time next year it better be going right, not wrong. For us and for the world!'
But he said: 'Let us be very clear: If we lose this battle the world will be less safe.'
Blair added: 'My worry now is that the world thinks: well Iraq was a tough deal, so they won't try that again.
'I think we have to be absolutely unapologetic. This is the security threat. We must deal with it.'
February 1, 2004
In a memo written for the sight of Bush in February 2004, alarm was clearly growing at the failure to unearth weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Blair said he was 'surprised' at the failure to find them - but insisted it was genuine surprise and warned there were lessons to be learned about the 'difficulties of gathering intelligence in these situations'
By February 2004, alarm was growing at the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
In a memo written to be seen by Bush, Blair said: 'We know Saddam had WMD. We know the ISG has not yet found weapons, though it has found evidence of programmes.
'The truth is that we anticipated finding the weapons during or shortly after the conflict. So to say we are surprised at the ISG's findings is no less than the truth. 'The issue of US/UK good faith can be laid to rest. We received the intelligence. We honestly believed it.'
Blair said there was clearly a 'legitimate issue about the accuracy of the intelligence' but insisted: 'I don't concede there are no weapons'.
April 26, 2004
In April 2004, Blair sent a new memo to Bush warning him of the collapse happening in Iraq. He warned the country was 'awash with weapons' and the culture was violent. He pleaded with the American President to ensure 'literally everything possible is being done to succeed'
In April of 2004, Blair admitted Iraq was 'awash with weapons' but insisted there was a 'reassuring truth' that 'Iraqis ultimately want what we want'.
In a memo to Bush, the Prime Minister said there was an urgent need to get the civil defence and police forces into shape, while providing security for domestic journalists to ensure messages could be transmitted to the Iraqi public.
Blair warned of a gap between spending that had been pledged and money that was actually being spent.
In a pleas to the president to help do more, Blair said: 'There is no doubt we can get there. But I just think in some of these areas... we need to satisfy ourselves that literally everything possible is being done to succeed.
'This is a race against time.'
May 18, 2004
The note of alarm in Blair's memos was growing by the spring of 2004. In May, he insisted he remained 'optimistic' but warned Bush about the risks of only 'sort of' fixing the country. He made an 11-point plea for greater assistance, including on rebuilding the police and warning off Iran and Syria from 'causing trouble;
Blair is issuing memos to president which are becoming more blunt.
The Prime Minister sent Bush an 11 point update on the aftermath, urging more action on the handover of power, protection of oil and power supplies and the creation of an intelligence network inside the broken Iraq.
Blair said it was 'more and more clear' to him was a complete lack of indigenous Iraqi leadership in the absence of Saddam.
He said the coalition needed its own figure on civilian casualties to rebut the 'gross over estimate' circulating via the NGO known as Iraq Body Count.
And Blair urged Syria and Iran were 'both up for causing trouble and need to be warned off'.
He said: 'We have an opportunity to pull this back round. I remain, in the end, optimistic.
'But we need to turn it round quickly and the danger is we ''sort of'' fix things, not really fix them properly.
June 16, 2004
By June 16, 2004, Blair wrote to Bush to say he was 'deeply concerned' by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction because it would a 'real trust/truth' issue would linger
Worry about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction grew further and Blair wrote to Bush to say he was 'deeply concerned'.
He told the President: 'The public need an explanation and there will linger a real trust/truth issue
'At present the public debate lurches between the two extremes: pro-war people insist the intelligence was right, but the plain fact is no WMD has been found; antiwar people claim it was all a fraud, as if Saddam never really had any WMD, which is plainly fatuous.'
Blair said the US and UK should argue 'some of the intelligence upon which we acted was wrong; but nonetheless the threat was there as was the breach of UN resolutions.'
January 10, 2005
In January 2005, Blair wrote another note for Bush warning that 'all the problems go back to security' and pressed him to support four actions
Blair wrote another note for Bush warning that 'all the problems go back to security' and pressed him to support four actions - the Iraqiisation of security forces, spending money more quickly on reconstruction, ensuring elections went ahead and signalling withdrawal of coalition troops - 'but only when we can point to real indigenous Iraqi strength'.
Blair said he had authorised another $78million of Ministry of Defence cash, admitting: 'Can I be sure it is essential? No. But I'll take the risk rather than find out six months later it was.
In a video conference the following day, Blair told Bush everything possible had to be done on the election security but added: 'But we also had to be very clear that where turnout was low, this was because of intimidation and terrorist violence, and did not undermine the legitimacy of the elections.'
June 6, 2005
In June 2005, Blair struck a tired note on Iraq in a further note to Bush. He admitted 'we all now know' the cost of military action and complained the international community was not urging on the coalition forces
In June 2005, Blair struck a tired note on Iraq in a further note to Bush.
He admitted 'we all now know' the cost of military action and complained the international community was not urging on the coalition forces.
By mid-2005, Iraq was in flames and at a White House meeting the following day, Blair again pressed the case to improve security in a bid to rescue the situation.
June 27, 2005
Blair urged Bush to take a personal interest in the human rights of detainees after his human rights envoy reported the new Iraqi government was struggling badly. In a note sent on June 27, 2005, Blair said the numbers had to be reduced dramatically
Blair struck an urgent tone about the human rights of prisoners after a report from Ann Clwyd, his human rights envoys, following a fact finding trip.
The PM told Bush they both needed to personally 'keep a close eye' on the situation because the issues would need 'careful handling over the coming months'.
Blair told him: 'Ann is concerns the Iraqis are in no shape to take responsibility for large numbers of detainees. So we need to get numbers down to a level they can cope with as soon as possible and certainly by the end of the year.
'A carefully managed process of releases could help our Sunni outreach efforts.'
The memo on the human rights of detainees makes no reference to the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.
August 2, 2005
In his most forward-looking note to the president in several months, Blair in August 2005 wrote to Bush about how the Islamic world was stirring and the West faced a 'battle of ideas' with radical Islam
Blair sent an extensive note to Bush about projects requiring 'urgent' attention from the coalition - particularly in reference to the election.
But in contrast to earlier memos released by the inquiry, Blair also looks to the future, noting the 'Islamic world is stirring'.
After talks with the King of Jordan, he told Bush: 'It is now very plain that without Islam confronting its own demons and without better co-operation between Islam and the West, we are going to fight an uphill battle, however good our security measures.
'I have spoken at length to King Abdullah... it did clearly lay down a series of principles for legitimate Islam which if established would be very helpful, ie, it seems to establish a clear and unified religious authority for Islam.'
Blair said he and the King had discussed a 'gameplan' which included linking mainstream Arab Islam to mainstream Western Islam.
Blair concluded: 'This battle increasingly reminds me of righting revolutionary communism. Ultimately victory lies in the triumph of ideas.'
December 23, 2005
In December 2005, Blair told Bush it was 'make or break' time and the pair of them had to be the 'guides' in creating a hands-on unity government to try and rescue Iraq from its bitter civil war
Blair tells Bush it is 'make or break' time, warning the President the coalition had to be 'hands on' in the effort to create a unity government.
Mr Blair said: 'Part of the whole business is about communication.' He considered that in Iraq there was still a 'massive level of misunderstanding' of coalition motives.
Blair proposed that as soon as possible after a new government had been formed 'we publish a roadmap or forward vision' as the joint work of the Iraqis and the coalition, endorsed by the UN.
April 1, 2006
Perhaps acknowledging his own political mortality, Blair admits to Bush he would like to visit Washington to discuss Iraq but says he is unable to do so because of the 'political context'. In the April 2006 note, he tells Bush it is 'time we started to take risks' to reverse the collapse of the country
Four months after elections for a new unity government, Blair complained to Bush about a weight of 'propaganda' that had pulled down an 'inherently strong case'.
Blair admitted he would have liked to discuss the issues face to face but facing growing trouble with his premiership acknowledged: 'I don't think the political context quite right just now, to come to the US and make the speech I wanted to give'.
Blair insisted people considered the coalition 'right in theory' but said sectarian violence meant 'the facts on the ground beat the argument'.
He told Bush: 'We can't afford for this to continue. I think it is time we started to take risks. We need to put Iraq in a different place and then build out from there. I want to suggest a strategy.'
May 22, 2006
Extraordinarily, in May 2006 Blair appeals to Bush for a 'clear plan' that can be 'properly executed'. Writing to the President after visiting Iraq for himself, Blair said he was 'more optimistic' and said all sides wanted the coalition to stay and finish the job
After visiting Iraq for himself, Blair writes to Bush that is 'more optimistic, not less'.
He told Bush: 'If we have clear plan, properly executed and communicated to Iraqi people, we will succeed.'
But he said: 'Now for the challenge: the nature of the insurgency is changing; we do not, on our own, have the force capability to defeat it; as the Sunni become convinced we are non-sectarian, they welcome it and conversely as the more extreme Shia come to the same conclusion, they don't.
'Hence Basra becoming a problem. In addition, very simply put: the security is so bad in and around Baghdad for ordinary folk, that it stops improvement in services, we get blamed (in part) and people start looking to militias to protect them.
'Al Qaida kill Shia. Shia kill Sunni, and sectarian violence increases.'
INovember 9, 2006
In Novemner 2006, shortly after mid-term elections in the United States, Blair admits to Bush their 'foreign policy is so joined' defeat for one is defeat for the other. He vows to never 'cave in' to political pressure
Blair vows to Bush he will never 'cave in' to political pressure because the pair's 'foreign policy is so joined' that a defeat for Bush to the Democrats is seen also as a defeat for Blair.
In a new note, he said: 'We should lead the consensus not simply follow it.
'Our danger is either being seen for political reasons, to 'cave in', which we will never do; or have to be told the answer because we can't think of it.
'Actually our strategy is already evolving.'
December 20, 2006
Blair visited Iraq again in December 2006 to see British troops in Basra. He reported to Bush that British soldiers had 'surprisingly high morale' - and believed Iran was responsible for stirring up trouble
Following another visit to Iraq, Blair appeals to Bush more troops may be needed in Baghdad, advising him it would be would a 'sensible short term measure' with a view boosting Iraqi capability.
But he added: 'My point is simply: whatever you do, the only ultimate solution is Iraqi.'
Blair reported Prime Minister Maliki is 'doing what he can' and said British forces in the south had 'surprisingly high morale'.
He said: 'They are convinced that ordinary Iraqis don't buy into the extremism. Each time they get reconstruction going, there is an inevitable shift in Iraqi buy-in to us.
'The militias have to be taken on. They are in no doubt Iran is the major player behind the violence.'
May 3, 2007
In a final note to President Bush weeks before he left Downing Street, Blair warned the coalition was 'not losing' but was 'not really able to move forward at the moment'. Blair told Bush: 'Iraq has to be bigger than just Iraq. It has to be part of a more profound and wider picture. People have to see it as a frontier in a battle across the region and the world. That is a battle, as you always rightly say, between freedom and extremism, democracy and terror.'
Around six weeks before he left office, Blair wrote one last time to Bush to warn: 'Everywhere in the region at present, we are pinned back. We remain strong. We are not losing. But we are not really able to move forward.'
Returning to his theme of a 'battle of ideas', Blair told him: 'People start to think this is a fight we cant win; when in reality it is a fight we have to win.'
Blair added: 'For example, in Iraq, we fight on three fronts: the Sunni insurgency; Al Qaida; Iranianbased Shia militia.
'I asked our top people the other day: if you took Al Qaida and Iran out of the situation, ie the external extremists, would Iraq be manageable?
Undoubtedly, they said But whilst we fight on all three fronts, the Sunni insurgents provide a justification for Shia death squads, and reinforce the Iraqi Governments fears of a Baathist return; Al Qaida can claim to be counterattacking the Shia; and everyone, of course, can blame it on us.'
He urged Bush to 'get back on the front foot politically' and said: 'Iraq has to be bigger than just Iraq.
'It has to be part of a more profound and wider picture. People have to see it as a frontier in a battle across the region and the world.
The couple who killed toddler Moko Rangitoheriri, three, while they were supposed to be caring for him had a criminal record 14 pages long.
In June, Tania Shailer, 26, and David William Haerewa, 43, were sentenced to 17 years in prison each for manslaughter for the boy's horrific death in 2015.
It's now been revealed the pair, who were being paid by his mother to look after him, had extensive criminal histories - Haerewa had 109 convictions alone, Radio New Zealand reported.
Four of the former gang member's convictions were related to domestic violence and two to aggravated robbery.
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Tania Shailer, 26, (left) and David William Haerewa, 43, (right) were supposed to be caring for Moko
Moko (pictured) was subjected to a 'campaign of violence' by his killers before it eventually led to his death
Moko's mother, Nicola Dally-Paki, who had left her son in the care of Shailer and Haerewa while she looked after another of her children who was in hospital in another city
Moko's father, Jordon Tawa Rangitoheriri, who said after his son's killers were sentenced: 'at the end of the day, justice will prevail'
Shailer (pictured) repeatedly stamped on Moko's stomach, one of the many acts of abuse she committed against him
Shailer had six convictions for shoplifting, it was reported.
Court documents released on Wednesday also revealed Haerewa was violent to Shailer, causing her depression and potentially post-traumatic stress disorder, too.
Moko's mother, Nicola Dally-Paki, had met Shailer at a childcare centre when the killer-to-be was 16 and working as a caregiver, according to the New Zealand Herald.
They became friends and eventually Shailer took care of Moko and his older sister while their mother was away in Auckland, with another of her children who was sick and in hospital, and she left Moko in their care in Taupo, south of Auckland, in June last year.
Shailer and Haerewa's dislike for Moko (pictured) had intensified while caring from him and they were routinely abusing him
Ms Dally-Paki reads her victim impact statement in court on Monday, where Moko's killers were sentenced. She said they reminded her of evil
Ms Dally-Paki pictured earlier in 2016, as she recalled how her daughter told her about the abuse Moko suffered
Radio NZ reported Ms Dally-Paki paid Shailer and Haerewa more than $1000 to care for her children.
When Moko died he was covered in injuries from head-to-toe after suffering multiple blunt force traumas.
He'd been subjected to a 'campaign of violence', a judge said.
Moko Rangitoheriri, who died in 2015 aged three
About five days before his death, the abuse that would kill him began.
Shailer repeatedly stamped on his stomach and he lost control of his bowels - it was later revealed his bowel had ruptured, causing septic shock.
His face was swelling, he had internal bleeding and a swollen brain, and was left like that for days.
There was evidence Moko had been smothered, it was reported.
He had bite marks, bruises, cuts and other injuries to his face, torso, arms and testes.
There were even injuries to his eyes, gums and ears and blood clots under his scalp.
He received a fatal head injury which caused facial bruising and began vomiting.
The couple locked him in his room and ignored his repeated pleas for water. When given a shower he could hardly stand.
It wasn't until after a raft of other instances of abuse that emergency services were called and told Moko had fallen from a wood pile.
He was taken to hospital and died about 10pm on August 10, 2015.
Afterwards, Moko's seven-year-old sister, who'd also been staying with Shailer and Haerewa, revealed she'd tried to stop the abuse, but was subjected to it as well.
Signs outside the Rotorua High Court where Moko's killers Tania Shailer and David Haerewa were sentencedin June
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A new mother suffered horrific injuries after she was battered by her boyfriend as their three-week-old daughter lay in a pram just feet away.
Ashley Gebbie, who weighed just six stone, was left with extensive bruising to her face after she was repeatedly punched by Alan Crozier at their home in Wishaw, Lanarkshire, in July last year.
Crozier, 33, only stopped the vicious attack when Miss Gebbie picked up their newborn daughter. He fled the family home, threatening to kill himself, and was arrested by police days later.
Victim: New mother Ashley Gebbie, pictured with the horrific injuries she suffered in the attack at home
Crozier admitted attacking Miss Gebbie, his girlfriend of 13 months, at Hamilton Sheriff Court last month and is awaiting sentencing.
Photographs of Miss Gebbie's injuries were posted online by family members in response to claims that Crozier was a 'nice guy' who had been unfairly convicted of assault.
The pictures were shared on Facebook with the message: 'Please share and let everyone know what a violent, low-down scumbag Alan Crozier is.
'Violently attacking and causing serious injuries to Ashley while their three-week-old daughter was present.'
A family member of Miss Gebbie added: 'What kind of guy does this to a tiny 6 stone girl 3 weeks after giving birth by cesairian section, I know what kind but sadly there are those who do not believe the evidence.'
Hamilton Sheriff Court heard that Crozier attacked Miss Gebbie after she asked him where he had been when he came home in the early hours of July 18 - more than 17 hours after he left for work.
Vicious: Crozier, 33, only stopped the vicious attack when Miss Gebbie picked up their newborn daughter
He grabbed her hair and pushed her to the ground before punching her repeatedly in the head. She then ran to another room in an attempt to escape but he seized her by the neck.
Fiscal depute Callum Forsyth told the court that Miss Gebbie bit Crozier and ran from the bedroom into the living room, where she picked up their daughter in a desperate bid to stop the beating.
Miss Gebbie called police and Crozier left, saying he would kill himself and would never come back.
The new mother was taken to Wishaw General Hospital, where she was treated for extensive bruising to her head and neck and a damaged eye socket.
Crozier was arrested days later at a relative's home in Glasgow.
Defence lawyer Diarmid Bruce told the court that Crozier had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but had not taken his medication for two years as he had been in 'a good place' in his relationship.
Distressing: These photographs of Miss Gebbie's injuries were posted online by family members in response to claims that Crozier was a 'nice guy' who had been unfairly convicted of assault
Crozier, who was remanded in custody, is due to be sentenced for the assault this month.
A Police Scotland spokesman said: 'The incident was an unprovoked violent attack on Ashley, who had recently given birth to the couple's child.
'She was left with significant injuries. Ashley's bravery in contacting police immediately led to Alan Crozier being swiftly arrested and subsequently convicted for serious assault.'
Wishaw MSP Clare Adamson condemned domestic abuse. She added: 'It is an abhorrent and largely hidden crime in our communities.'
Margaret Anne Jones, of Motherwell Women's Aid, said there are still too many beatings.
A man has been charged with the alleged torture and assault of a seven-week-old baby boy.
Police said the infant was taken to the Biloela Hospital in Queensland on May 24 after suffering a number of injuries, including several fractures, prompting a police investigation.
Late on Wednesday, detectives from the Gladstone Child Protection and Investigation Unit said a 22-year-old Biloela man had been charged with six counts of assault occasioning bodily harm and one count each of torture and failing to provide the necessities.
Police said the infant was taken to the Biloela Hospital (pictured) in Queensland on May 24 after suffering a number of injuries, including several fractures
The baby has since been released from hospital and he's understood to be in the care of the Department of Child Safety (stock image)
He is due to appear in the Biloela Magistrates Court on July 20.
The baby has since been released from hospital.
He's understood to be in the care of the Department of Child Safety, The Brisbane Times reported.
Police ask anyone with information which could assist with the matter to contact Crime Stoppers anonymously via 1800 333 000 or crimestoppers.com.au.
Fury: Mrs Rowland, from Crayford, south-east London, was disgusted to receive the CD last month. She said: 'These people care more about making money rather than people's emotions'
A grieving widow has claimed EDF Energy tried to get her to pay a bill by sending her a CD on which was a recording of her dead husbands voice
Scholasticah Rowland had been married to her 57-year-old husband Robert for 17 years when he died last August.
Ever since his death, Mrs Rowland, 54, has been fighting EDF Energy over an unpaid bill of 292.
The mum-of-three from Crayford, south-east London, claims her husband always paid for energy bills and said she wanted the last one written off as a gesture of goodwill.
Mrs Rowland alleges EDF Energy tried to get her to pay the money back by sending her a CD featuring a recording of her dead husband's voice as evidence she was also responsible for the bills.
The recording, EDF Energy confirmed, was from the telephone conversation Mr Rowland had to add his wife to the account.
Mrs Rowland said: 'Last month EDF sent me a CD with a recorded message of my husband's voice from July last year.
'The only reason why he phoned them was to put my name in our account because it only used to be in his name.
'These people care more about making money rather than people's emotions.'
Mrs Rowland hasn't even listened to the recording all the way through yet because it is too upsetting.
She said: 'Instead of mourning my husband's death, I'm constantly thinking of EDF.
'It's like cutting my wound which is already open. I can't carry on like this.'
The bereaved mum, who changed her energy supplier in December as she believed the bills were too expensive for her to pay, added: 'I'm so distressed because this is killing me.
'To them he was just a customer but to myself and my family he was a family man who we mourn and miss.
'I never denied being jointly responsible for the account, all I asked was for the final bill to be written off as a gesture of goodwill for the distress EDF has put me through during this difficult time.
Tragic: Mrs Rowland's husband of 17 years Robert died in August last year and the mum-of-three says she has been battling EDF Energy ever since
'When I received the CD, it was psychological and mental torture - I'm having sleepless nights.'
EDF Energy has since agreed to credit Scholasticah's account with the full amount owed for the bill.
A spokesman for the firm said the Ombudsmen has reviewed the case and agreed Mrs Rowland was liable for the outstanding balance.
He said: 'We are very sorry for Mrs Rowlands loss and understand that this is a difficult time for her.
'A recording of the call where Mr Rowland and Mrs Rowland spoke to us to add Mrs Rowland to the account was sent, as instructed by the Ombudsman, after Mrs Rowland asked for evidence about agreeing to be jointly responsible for the account.
Matt Damon will return to the big screen as trained assassin Jason Bourne later this month, and while promoting the new film in Australia over the weekend called for a ban on guns in the United States.
In an interview with a reporter from the Sydney Morning Herald, Damon said: 'You guys did it here in one fell swoop and I wish that could happen in my country, but it's such a personal issue for people that we cannot talk about it sensibly. We just can't.'
Damon made these comments at the red carpet premiere of the new Bourne movie, a film series in which he has killed at least 10 people with a firearm.
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Thoughts: Matt Damon called for a ban on guns in 'one fell swoop' while promoting his new Bourne film in Australia over the weekend (above on red carpet)
Locked and loaded: Damon carries firearms in his latest Bourne film, Jason Bourne (above)
Armed and ready: Damon has killed at least 10 people and made over $50million for his work as the gun-toting assassin Jason Bourne (left in 2002 film The Bourne Identity, right in 2007 film The Bourne Ultimatum)
Damon went on to say in his interview: 'People get so emotional that even when you make a suggestion about not selling AK47s to people on terror watch lists, that's a non-starter. I don't know what needs to happen.
'Obviously mass shootings aren't going to do it. There have been so many of them at this point. Sandy Hook, when those children were murdered, if that didn't do it, you know, I just don't know.
'Maybe we just need to evolve further before we can have that conversation, I don't know.'
Australia passed the National Firearms Agreement in 1996 just 12 days after what became known as the Port Arthur massacre.
In that mass shooting, a 28-year-old man opened fire at the popular Port Arthur tourist destination killing 35 people and wounding 23 others.
John Howard, Australia's prime minister at the time, proposed the new bill within days and it received immediate bipartisan support from the country's politicians.
Australians are now restricted from owning semi-automatic weapons and there is a a 28-day waiting period on all weapons. Buyers must also be at least 18, have a storage locker for their gun and give a valid reason for purchasing the firearm.
Since its passage there has not been a single mass shooting in Australia.
Damon noted that in his interview, saying: 'It's wonderful what Australia did because you guys haven't had a mass shooting since you went, "No, we're going to be sensible about this." And nobody's rights have been infringed, you guys are fine.'
He then added: 'I wish we could be sensible like that but I don't think that's going to happen in my lifetime.'
Point and shoot: He is also pictured on movie posters for all four Bourne films holding a firearm (The Bourne Supremacy left, Jason Bourne right)
Another gun: Damon with a firearm in hand in a still from the 2007 film The Bourne Ultimatum (above)
More guns: Damon has also used firearms in many of his other films, including Green Zone (left) and Elysium (right)
Damon, who has reportedly made over $50million for his work in the four Bourne films, has also had no issue with using weapons in other films.
The 45-year-old actor has also carried firearms in his movies The Departed, Green Zone and Elysium, to name just a few.
Business Insider revealed in the wake of the massacre at Orlando gay club Pulse last month which left 49 dead and another 53 injured that of the 100 top grossing Hollywood films in 2015, 18 of them featured guns on their movie poster.
Damon is pictured holding a gun on movies poster for all four of his Bourne films.
There are some Hollywood celebrities who have made a point of not using guns in their films, most notably Drew Barrymore who revealed prior to the making of the first Charlie's Angels film that she and co-stars Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu would not use firearms of any kind in the movies.
Dustin Hoffman also famously spoke out against the use of guns in films after the Sandy Hook massacre, saying he made a point throughout his career to never do films that required him to use a weapon.
'I have always felt passionate about the fact that the audience is identifying [with movie violence] in a very fraudulent way,' said Hoffman in an interview with NPR.
'I don't find anything interesting about a gun. A gun is there to threaten or kill. ... A gun is rarely used in film in a way that feels like ... life.'
Jeremy Corbyn tore into Tony Blair today after the Chilcot report delivered a devastating verdict on the Iraq war.
The Labour leader said the invasion was an 'act of military aggression launched on a false pretext' and argued that it had been illegal.
In a second speech to activists and victims' families, Mr Corbyn made a fulsome apology for Labour's role in the conflict.
The veteran left-winger and CND member, a long-time opponent of the war, also hinted that he could support further repercussions against the former PM.
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Jeremy Corbyn, pictured responding to the Iraq Inquiry report this afternoon, branded the invasion an 'act of military aggression launched on a false pretext' and argued that it had been illegal
But he was heckled by his own MPs, with Ian Austin branding him a 'disgrace' and telling him to 'shut up'.
Mr Corbyn said: 'There are no more important decisions a Member of Parliament ever gets asked to make than those relating to peace and war,' he told MPs.
'The very least that MPs and the country should be able to expect is rigorous and objective evidence on which to base their crucial decisions.
'We now know that the House was misled in the run-up to the war and the House must now decide how to deal with it 13 years later, just as all those who took the decisions laid bare in the Chilcot Report must face up to the consequences of their actions, whatever they may be.'
The Labour leader, who highlighted the anti-war protests including the massive march in London in February 2003, said the evidence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was 'flimsy and confected'.
The September 2002 dossier, which warned of weapons that could be made ready in 45 minutes, was 'the only most notorious of many deceptions'.
Mr Corbyn said the Chilcot Report highlighted a 'litany of failures' in planning for the aftermath of the war.
'But the reality is it was the original decision to follow the US president into this war, in the most volatile region in the world, and impose a colonial-style occupation, that led to every other disaster,' he said.
In his apology today, he said: 'I now apologise sincerely on behalf of my party for the disastrous decision to go to war in Iraq in March 2003.
'That apology is owed first of all to the people of Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost and the country is still living with the devastating consequences of the war and the forces it unleashed.
'They have paid the greatest price for the most serious foreign policy calamity of the last 60 years.
The Labour leader - who may yet not see out the week in his post - fulfilled a promise made during last year's leadership election to apologise on behalf of the Labour Party for Tony Blair's actions as Labour leader
'The apology is also owed to the families of those soldiers who died in Iraq or who have returned home injured or incapacitated.
'They did their duty but it was in a conflict they should never have been sent to.
'Finally, it is an apology to the millions of British citizens who feel our democracy was traduced and undermined by the way in which the decision to go to war was taken on the basic of secret ''I will be with you, whatever'' understandings given to the US president that have now been publicly exposed.'
Meanwhile, David Cameron said lessons needed to be learned and it was 'unacceptable' that troops were sent to war without the right equipment to protect them.
The PM also slammed the 'culture' Mr Blair created that meant senior officials could not raise concerns.
'This is difficult day for all of the families who last loved ones,' he said. 'They waited for this report for far too long.'
A British soldier dives from a burning tank which was set ablaze in the southern Iraqi city of Basra in 2005. Critics have slated Mr Blair for starting a war, pictured, which killed 179 UK soldiers, claiming it contributed to the rise of ISIS
The inquiry began when Gordon Brown, right, was prime minister and has heard extensive witness reports from the then government, including Mr Blair, left
The Commons exchanges came after the excoriating review of the 2003 conflict was published, seven years after it was first commissioned.
Chairman Sir John Chilcot said the severity of the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction 'were presented with a certainty that was not justified' by Mr Blair.
Although Saddam Hussein was 'undoubtedly a brutal dictator' the 'UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted'.
'Military action at that time was not a last resort,' he added.
'It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged, and they should have been'.
In 2003 Mr Blair had said that Iraq's dictator could strike with weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes, and potentially hit the UK.
But Sir John said: 'There was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein'.
Mr Cameron said steps had already been taken to bolster the process for producing intelligence dossiers
Peter Brierley, left, whose son Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley was one of the first soldiers to be killed in the conflict, claimed Mr Blair 'ordered young men and women to be killed on the basis of a lie'
Mr Blair also 'overestimated his ability to influence US decisions on Iraq', Sir John concluded.
He said that the war had gone 'badly wrong' and the consequences continue in Iraq today, with hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens having been killed.
Families of the 179 soldiers killed in the conflict are now set to take legal action against the former prime minister as the report revealed he had twisted evidence to build his case for war.
Mr Blair has said that his decision to take military action against Saddam Hussain was taken 'in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country'.
But he said the report there 'was no falsification or improper use of Intelligence', 'no deception of Cabinet' and 'no secret commitment to war whether at Crawford Texas in April 2002 or elsewhere'.
In its damning report the inquiry panel found:
There was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein in March 2003 and Mr Blair took us to war 'before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted'. Sir John said: 'Military action at that time was not a last resort.
Mr Blair, his then foreign secretary Jack Straw and the government presented judgements about intelligence on the threat posed by Iraq's WMD with a 'certainty that was not justified'.
Attorney General Lord Goldsmith only agreed that the invasion would be legal based on assurances from Mr Blair that Iraq had committed 'material breaches' of UN resolution 1441.
But the inquiry said it was 'unclear' what evidence Mr Blair had for this and branded the process 'far from satisfactory'.
Mr Blair, who has been frequently criticised for his 'sofa government' style, repeatedly failed to involve his whole Cabinet in key decisions.
The inquiry dismissed the ex-PM claims that he could not have known how difficult the post-invasion situation would be. The government were aware that the US had 'inadequate' plans for stabilising Iraq but had little influence over key decisions such as dismantling Hussein's Ba'ath party and security services.
The Ministry of Defence was slow to respond to the threat from Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), and delays in providing more heavily armoured patrol vehicles for personnel were 'intolerable'.
The 'most consistent strategic objective' in Iraq was to reduce the number of troops it had deployed there, particularly after operations in Afghanistan became more intense.
One symptom of the failures was that UK forces had to strike a 'humiliating' deal with militia in Basra to swap prisoners in return for an end to deadly attacks on soldiers.
Tony Blair has said that his decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein was taken 'in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country'.
Presenting a summary of his inquiry's findings, Sir John Chilcot hit out at the 'wholly inadequate' planning for the period after the fall of Saddam, which saw British troops involved in a prolonged and bloody occupation.
The former Whitehall mandarin was setting out the findings of his inquiry into the UK's most controversial military engagement since the end of the Second World War.
Mr Corbyn seemed in a good mood as he arrived for the PMQs session today and debate on the Iraq inquiry report
Although his inquiry did not express a view on whether the invasion was legal, Sir John criticised the way in which Mr Blair and his attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, had reached their decision on the legal basis.
He added: 'In the absence of a majority in support of military action, we consider that the UK was in fact undermining the security council's authority.
'Second the inquiry has not expressed a view on whether military action was legal. That could of course only be resolved by a properly constituted and recognised court. We have however concluded that the circumstances on which it was decided there was a legal basis for UK military action were far from satisfactory
David Cameron said lessons had to be learned as he gave the government's response to the Chilcot Inquiry report today
'I will be with you, whatever': Tony Blair's fawning messages to George W Bush
The fawning letters sent by Tony Blair to George W Bush in the build-up to the Iraq war shows the chummy relationship between the President and Prime Minister, who signs off one hand-written letter 'Yours ever, Tony'.
One message shows that, in the hours after the 9/11 attacks, Blair told Bush they should immediately tackle states and individuals with weapons of mass destruction and justify it later.
In a private note to the US President on September 12, 2001, Mr Blair both offered support to bring to justice the hijackers who destroyed the Twin Towers and looked ahead to the 'next stage after this evil'.
In documents revealed for the first time by Sir John Chilcot's Iraq Inquiry, Mr Blair said some would 'baulk' at the measures necessary to control 'biological, chemical and other WMD'.
But he urged the President: 'We are better to act now and explain and justify our actions than let the day be put off until some further, perhaps even worse catastrophe occurs.'
Among the revelations of the report are details of 29 secret communications between former US president George Bush, left, and Mr Blair, right, in the run-up to the war
Messages which passed between Tony Blair and George W Bush in the build-up to the Iraq war have been published today
The memo from September 12 makes no reference to Iraq specifically but warns: 'We know that there are countries and individuals trading in WMD and/or trying to acquire them. We need a range of sanctions and pressures to stop this.'
The Iraq Inquiry today published for the first time a raft of private correspondence sent by Mr Blair to Mr Bush from the period before, during and after the 2003 invasion.
In the months and years ahead of the March 2003 attack, the revelations expose efforts by Mr Blair to both support and exert influence over the US President.
In late 2001, Mr Blair was encouraging Mr Bush to focus on the campaign in Afghanistan and not mix the two objectives.
By July 2002, Mr Blair had told the President 'I will be with you, whatever' - but warned him the planning of war would be the 'toughest yet' and was more difficult than Afghanistan, Kosovo or the 1991 Gulf War.
In the final weeks before the 2003 invasion, Mr Blair's notes focus on pushing Mr Bush to pursue a second UN resolution explicitly authorising war.
But in his conclusions, Sir John said the UK took 'false comfort' from its perceived involvement in US decision making. The Inquiry does not reveal Mr Bush's replies.
The detail of the 2.6 million word report recounts that after attending a memorial service for the British victims in New York on September 20, 2001, Mr Blair travelled to Washington for a meeting with President Bush.
In another message between the pair, Blair says he thinks few other European countries will join a coalition without UN authority
The inquiry reveals the record, noted in a letter by Britain's US Ambassador Sir David Manning, shows Mr Blair assured the President he believed Saddam was evil and told him: 'Before any action was taken against him, we would need to be very sure indeed there was compelling evidence.
'It would be best to deal with Afghanistan initially and then take our time to see whether we could build up the case against Iraq or other countries.'
Around three weeks later, Mr Blair appears to be attempting to rein in the president's immediate ambitions to take on Iraq - but indicates support for action against Saddam 'at a later date'.
On October 11, 2001, in a section of a note entitled 'extending war aims', Mr Blair said there was a 'real willingness in the Middle East' to remove Saddam but warned him of 'total opposition' to doing so in connection with operations in Afghanistan.
Mr Blair said he 'no doubt we need to deal with Saddam' and added: 'But if we hit Iraq now, we would lose the Arab world, Russia, probably half the EU.
'I am sure we can devise a strategy for Saddam deliverable at a later date.'
Mr Blair visited Washington again on November 7 for talks with Mr Bush about the Afghanistan campaign.
But the Inquiry uncovered a private note handed to Mr Bush by the PM which under a section on 'international initiatives' referred to the need for a new UN resolution on Iraq and a wider 'WMD agreement'.
The public record of the talks makes no mention of Iraq.
Government records show a further telephone call between the two leaders five days later, on November 12 but no official record of the conversation has been found. The inquiry said other sources indicate the subject was Afghanistan.
The inquiry concluded that in December 2001, Mr Blair did not have 'military action of any sort in mind' but did note Mr Blair was prepared to militarily support a rebellion in Iraq were one to occur.
However, after Mr Bush named Iraq in his 2002 state of the union address as a 'regime that has something to hide from the civilised world', Mr Blair and Mr Straw began to argue in public that Iraq had to be dealt with.
Mr Blair then discussed the issue with Mr Bush in Crawford, Texas, on April 5 and 6, 2002, and agreed a partnership based on an ultimatum to Iraq over the readmission of weapons inspectors. Mr Bush agreed to consider the idea.
THE CHILCOT REPORT IN NUMBERS 7 - Years since the Chilcot Inquiry was launched. 2,579 - Days between June 15, 2009, when the inquiry was announced on by then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and July 6, 2016, when the report is expected to be ready for private inspection and security check. 3 - Foreign secretaries to have been in the post since the inquiry was launched - David Miliband under Mr Brown, and William Hague and Philip Hammond under David Cameron. 2.3 million - Words estimated to be included in the report, making it almost four times longer than Leo Tolstoy's epic War and Peace. 10 million - Estimated cost, in pounds, of the inquiry as of January this year. 179 - UK military personnel that died during the Iraq war. Advertisement
Cabinet Office papers report Mr Blair told the President at the Crawford meeting that the UK would support military action if certain conditions relating to a coalition, the Israel/Palestine crisis and UN weapon inspectors were met.
By July 2002, Mr Blair wrote to Mr Bush to set out the framework for the partnership and told him: 'I will be with you, whatever.
'But this is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties.
'The planning on this and the strategy are the toughest yet. This is not Kosovo. This is not Afghanistan. It is not even the Gulf War.'
He urged him the military part of the plan was 'hazardous' but said getting rid of Saddam was 'the right thing to do', adding that 'containment is always risky'.
The Inquiry said the note reflected Mr Blair's own views and said they had not been discussed with colleagues in the Cabinet.
Weeks later, President Bush addressed the UN General Assembly on September 12, 2002, to set out the 'grave and gathering danger' posed by Saddam in Iraq, challenging the UN to stand up to Iraq if it refused to meet its obligations.
Mr Bush said the 'first time' the world may be certain of Saddam's possession of nuclear weapons is 'when he uses one' and told the UN: 'We owe it to all our citizens to prevent that day from coming.'
In a handwritten note to the president the same day, Mr Blair said it was a 'brilliant speech' that 'put us on exactly the right strategy to get the job done'.
He said: 'The reception has been very positive with everyone now challenged to come up to the mark. Well done.'
In the next item of private correspondence, around three months before the invasion, Mr Blair warned the President on January 24, 2003, that if UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix could not find a 'smoking gun' there was a risk 'the thing drags on forever until we give up or get distracted'.
He said: 'The world is in contradiction. No one is really prepared for war, except us.
'But equally no one believes Saddam is telling the truth. In part we are victims of our own success.
'Your strength has forced Saddam to let inspectors back in; has made him seem weak and back in his box. So everyone asks: why bother?'
Mr Blair used the note to press the case for a second UN resolution, insisting it would be 'the best protection' for a 'military hitch' or protracted campaign.
He told the President delay was not necessary for military preparation but the extra month could help find the smoking gun, make Saddam 'crack' and build political support at home and abroad.
In a subsequent phone call, Mr Blair proposed setting a deadline of a month later and told Mr Bush: 'If this were not achievable, military action would follow anyway.'
St Clair Mansbridge, 38, stole the two Cartier watches after asking staff for a glass of water and being left alone
A thief distracted staff at a high-end jewellery store by asking for a glass of water - then snatched watches worth 10,000 when he was left alone.
Father-of-three St Clair Mansbridge, 38, took the two 5,000 Cartier timepieces from Parkhouse jeweller's in Cardiff city centre on April 20.
His barrister Peter Harding-Roberts claimed Mansbridge was a dedicated parent who resorted to stealing when he needed money for family events.
'This time he was foolishly influenced by a birthday which was coming up,' he told Cardiff Crown Court
The court heard Mansbridge, from Ely, Cardiff, walked into the shop and asked to look at a number of Cartier watches and then decided he wanted a glass of water from a carafe.
'He didn't think he would ever be left in a position where he could run off with one Cartier watch - let alone two', said Mr Harding-Roberts.
'But to his surprise he was left in just that position and he took the opportunity.'
A police officer immediately recognised Mansbridge from CCTV but the defendant denied it was him until his fingerprints and DNA were identified.
The watches were never recovered.
Mansbridge, a serial thief with a criminal record stretching back 20 years, pleaded guilty to theft.
The court heard that since his arrest in April he had twice gone into House of Fraser and stolen handbags worth 500 - one an Armani.
The two watches were taken from Parkhouse jewellers in Cardiff. They were worth 10,000 in total, but Mansbridge sold them for 1,000 and they have never been found.
Magistrates jailed him for six months for those thefts in June and, when he appeared at court this week, Recorder of Cardiff Judge Eleri Rees jailed him for a further nine months for the watch thefts.
'You went into a different league here,' she told him.
'The watches were worth 10,000 and you admitted you sold them for 1,000.'
A group of killers gunned down a man they believed to be a witch doctor having failed on four previous occasions to murder him.
Chhem Yin was killed by his fellow Cambodian villagers because they were convinced he was spreading illness through their community with black magic.
They thought the 34-year-old's father had taught him sorcery, so shot him dead with an AK-47 assault rifle in their fifth assassination attempt in the Pursat province on Monday.
Chhem Yin was killed by his fellow villagers because they were convinced he was spreading illness through their community with black magic in Cambodia, famous for the ancient Ankor Wat temple pictured here
Local police described the attack as a revenge killing, and told The Cambodia Daily villagers had filed complaints that the man had used sorcery to make people ill.
Keo Sokunthea, the local deputy provincial police chief, said: 'He was not a bad guy, but most people in the village did not like him because they believed he was taught black magic by his father.
'I have heard unidentified suspects attempted to kill the victim previously, but no one knows who they were.'
Many people living in rural Cambodia and further afield believe in black magic, and it is not uncommon for suspected witch doctors to be hunted and threatened with violence and death.
Last year, traditional healer Pak Sophea, 53, was beheaded in the country because people in his community thought he was a sorcerer.
And in China, a man allowed his wife to be steamed alive by witch doctors in an attempt to 'rid her of ghosts' in the Sichuan province.
Evil spirits: A woman in Sichuan province was steamed to death during an exorcism in Sichuan province
Steamed to death: Two witch doctors were hired by the woman's family to rid her of evil spirits
Another member of the local police force Srey Chhumneth said: 'This murder is revenge because villagers believed he was a sorcerer.
'Our police are searching to arrest the murderer who escaped from the scene,' he added.
FBI director James Comey, who had Hillary Clinton's fate in his hands as the person who led the determination of whether to recommend prosecution, now will have to answer for his decision before Congress.
The House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing Thursday where Comey will testify, the panel announced.
And Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who has said she 'fully' anticipates she would yield to the FBI's guidance, is scheduled to testify next week before the House Judiciary Committee.
She has been under fire since it was revealed she held an unannounced 30-minute meeting with Bill Clinton on an airplane in Phoenix as the FBI's investigation was reaching its conclusion.
'It is uniquely troubling in light of Attorney General Lynch's secret meeting with former President Bill Clinton. No one is above the law and the American people need to know that federal law enforcement is taking this misconduct seriously,' said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert Goodlatte, Politico reported.
TESTIFY: FBI director James Comey will appear before the House Oversight committee Thursday
Attorney General Loretta Lynch is scheduled to testify next week, after taking criticism for meeting privately with Bill Clinton as the investigation wrapped up
House Speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday night that, 'We're going to have hearings' into the matter.
'There are a lot of unanswered questions here ... that need to get answers,' he told Fox News' Megyn Kelly.
'He shredded the case she had been making all year long,' Ryan continued. 'I think we need to know more, quite frankly.'
Ryan, who as Mitt Romney's vice presidential running mate in 2012 got classified briefings, said Clinton should have her access to classified information stripped because of her actions.
'Comey said short of prosecution some kind of administration action should occur bringing consequences. I think the DNI, the director of national intelligence, should block her access to classified information given how recklessly she handled this during the presidential campaign,' Ryan said.
'She becomes president that's one thing. But I don't think she should get classified information and I think the DNI should block it given how recklessly she handled this.'
'What bothers me about this is that the Clintons really are living above the law,' Ryan said. 'This is one of the reasons why people are so dissatisfied, so upset about government. They think that people live by a different set of rules, and the Clintons, they take the candle on this one.'
Paul Ryan wants hearings to answer 'unanswered questions' about how Clinton got off
'Congress and the American people have a right to understand the depth and breadth of the FBI's investigation,' said Utah representative Jason Chaffetz, who will conduct the Oversight hearing.
Republican senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who supports Donald Trump, said told 'CBS This Morning' that 'The system is rigged if Hillary Clinton faces no conseuences whatsoever.' He noted that normally, a person who engaged in mishandling of classified material would be subject to 'security or administrative sanctions.'
Cotton said that in 'plain English' this means 'they would loose their job and lose their security clearance.'
Comey said Tuesday when he rocked the presidential campaign with his announcement that the 'security culture' at the State Department was found to be 'lacking,' as he chided Clinton for 'extremely careless' behavior that nevertheless likely wouldn't get prosecuted.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said refused to answer Tuesday whether Clinton or aides with whom she transmitted classified information over a private server retained their security clearances. He said State doesn't comment on individual security clearances.
'The department will determine the appropriate next steps following a decision by the Department of Justice,' he said.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said the FBI's decision not to recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton 'defies explanation.' Republican-controlled committees are in a position to push for answers and keep the controversy in the s
Comey, in his announcement, said that although the bureau didn't determine that Clinton got hacked, some of the people she communicated with who had private accounts had been hacked.
The loss of a security clearance is sometimes a sanction in serious cases of mishandling of government information.
On the Senate side, senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, is preparing to renew his push for answers.
'Senator Grassley would expect that questions that have been posed over the last several years that have not been addressed by the administration will now be fully answered,' an aide to the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman told DailyMail.com.
Panel chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah told Fox News host Sean Hannity a hearing featuring director Comey was a 'possibility.'
The State Department's inspector general found Clinton broke federal recordkeeping rules, and FBI director Comey noted 110 instances where classified information was found on Clinton's private email server.
Until now, the administration has been able to fend off questions about Clinton's conduct by noting that an FBI investigation was underway. That will soon no longer be the case.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz chairs the House Oversight Committee, which will hold a hearing with FBI Director James Comey Thursday
Attorney General Loretta Lynch is scheduled to appear before House Judiciary Committee chairman Robert Goodlatte's panel next week
Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa plans to renew his push for answers into the email controversy
Ryan issued an angry statement Tuesday saying FBI Director James Comey's announcement that the bureau won't recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton for her email scandal 'defies explanation.'
Ryan, the highest ranking Republican, blasted the decision not just for letting off Clinton who Comey said engaged in 'extremely careless' practices but for setting a bad precedent for future conduct by government officials.
'While I respect the law enforcement professionals at the FBI, this announcement defies explanation,' Ryan said in a statement.
'No one should be above the law. But based upon the director's own statement, it appears damage is being done to the rule of law.'
'Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent,' Ryan continued.
Ryan has clashed at times with Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump, but is nevertheless supporting him as he says he has an obligation to as party leader.
Ryan also said 'more information' was needed about how the FBI reached its decision an indication that the issue is far from over that raises the possibility of a congressional role into the matter and even possible hearings.
'The findings of this investigation also make clear that Secretary Clinton misled the American people when she was confronted with her criminal actions,' Ryan continued.
'While we need more information about how the Bureau came to this recommendation, the American people will reject this troubling pattern of dishonesty and poor judgment,' he concluded.
Comey stunned the political world when he delivered a surprise statement at FBI headquarters Tuesday and announced he would not recommend charges be brought.
Comey also catalogued a series of missteps by Clinton, noting that there was no 24-hour security on her unusual private server, that she used the account when overseas and at risk of intrusion, and that people she communicated with got hacked.
'Although we did not find clear evidence that secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws,' Comey said, 'there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.'
Comey said the FBI determined that before Clinton deleted tens of thousands of her 'personal' emails, her attorneys deleted several work-related messages. The lawyers didn't read them all but searched keywords to determine which of them might qualify as government records.
GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump blasted the move as part of a 'rigged system'
Talkin' bout a resolution: Clinton's camp called the matter 'resolved'
Ryan's statement about 'more information' being needed is a start contrast to the statement put out by Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon, who declared the situation 'resolved.'
'As the Secretary has long said, it was a mistake to use her personal email and she would not do it again. We are glad that this matter is now resolved,' Fallon said.
Although Comey didn't recommend prosecution, he noted that under ordinary circumstances, there would be 'consequences' for similar behavior.
'To be clear this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions, but that's now what we're deciding now,' he said.
A one-armed pensioner who shot his dementia stricken wife in a care home said he was 'dying anyway' moments after pulling the trigger, a court heard today.
Ronald King, 87, admitted killing his 81-year-old wife Rita at De La Mer House in Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex, on December 28 last year, but denies murder.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard today that Mr King was 'devoted' to his wife of 50 years and had kissed her goodnight in the days before the killing.
'Sad and tragic': Ronald King, 87, right, has admitted killing his 81-year-old wife Rita, pictured left, at De La Mer House in Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex, on December 28 last year, but denies murder
The couple had enjoyed breakfast together moments before Mrs King was shot at point-blank range in the lounge of the home, where King was staying with his wife for the week, it was heard.
Giving evidence today, a care worker described how King said he was 'dying anyway' as he was disarmed by another employee. He later admitted to police that he had killed his wife.
The jury was also told that while Mrs King had suffered from dementia for a number of years, she was still capable of making simple decisions and looked forward to visits from her husband.
King allegedly shot his wife with an antique revolver he had taken from his father-in-law as she sat in a wheelchair in the lounge of the care home before turning the gun on himself.
Care home manager Julie Curtis was able to disarm King and phone the police. Two elderly residents were in the room at the time.
King admitted the killing in police interview, but has denied murder.
Taking the stand at Chelmsford Crown Court today, care home worker Pura Marsh wept as she described the moments after the fatal shooting.
'I saw Mr King, come out of the lounge toward us holding a gun,' she said. 'He was holding it by his chest.
'He was walking casually towards us. He said exactly. "I just shot my wife, she had just suffered a lot already". [Mrs Curtis] embraced Mr King and took the gone from him. She passed the gun to me.
'He said: "I shot her, I'm dying anyway".'
The shooting happened at De La Mer House in Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex (pictured in stock image)
Mrs Curtis told the court yesterday: 'He was shaking head to foot, I have never seen anyone shaking so much.
'He said "I can't pull the trigger, I can't pull the trigger" then he mumbled "I have killed my wife". I remember thinking, "if you don't get this right, it is going to go terribly wrong".'
She added: 'When he heard me asking for an ambulance, he said "she's dead isn't she?". He said: "She's had enough, she has had enough, she doesn't want to be here".'
Mental Health nurse Denise Cracknell told the court today that Mrs King had been diagnosed with mixed dementia in 2013. She was moved into a care home in March 2015.
The court heard that an assessment taken on December 10, just weeks before her death, was difficult as Mrs King was 'unaware of why she was being seen'.
Opening the case yesterday, prosecutor Andrew Jackson said that King and his wife had initially moved into the care home together but King moved out after just two days, saying it 'wasn't for him'.
He asked to spend a week in the care home in December 2015 to be with his wife over Christmas, it was heard.
Holding a crutch and clad in a blue T-shirt King - who also wore thick black glasses - had to wear a hearing aid to understand proceedings and appeared to shake as the jury were sworn in.
The prosecution argued that Mrs King's mental state had deteriorated so significantly that she was in no condition to 'enter into what is commonly known as a suicide pact'.
Mr Jackson said the case was 'extremely sad and tragic' and that there is 'no doubt that prior to the killing Mr and Mrs King had been a devoted couple.'
He said: 'Ronald King admitted that he shot his wife dead, there is no dispute about that. In a taped interview in the presence of an independent person he admitted to police that he did that.
'The prosecution puts forward that this amounts to the offence of murder.'
He continued: 'He has been charged with murder of his wife to who he was devoted to for many years, however Mrs King was being cared for and looked after by the staff of De La Mer House.
'It is a terrible tragedy since even though although she suffered from dementia for a little over two years she still knew and recognised her husband and looked forward to his visits, that made her happy. She was able to make to simple choices and her life was ended prematurely.
'Many people have to and do cope the consequences of a loved one suffering from dementia. People express this by loving and caring and by expressing these emotions, wether that is at home or in a care home.
'Tragically say the prosecution that Mr Ronald King took a different and wholly unlawful approach to take his wife's life at a time when she looked forward to seeing him.'
King was originally from from North-east London before moving with his wife. The couple had no children but King was one of 15 siblings.
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A derelict two-bedroom cottage for 9.1million may seem a high price to pay but the views from this estate make it worth every penny.
The Glen Massan estate in Scotland is set in 8,000 acres of land, with lochs, mountains and forest surrounding a small cottage on the west coast.
The property is described as 'semi-derelict' and any buyer will need to be ready to roll up their sleeves to embark on some serious renovation work as it has fallen into a state of disrepair after the previous owner's death.
The eye-watering pricetag also includes a ready-made forestry business and the opportunity to set up a traditional sporting estate.
Renovating the derelict property will be well worth it to wake up to these incredible views every day
The sprawling estate is located between Loch Fyne and Loch Long on the Cowal Peninsula on the west coast of Scotland. Pictured: Garrachra, the uninhabited two-bedroom cottage on sale
The Glen Massan estate is bordered on three sides by sea lochs and, in the north, by mountain, forest and glen
The small home, which is currently uninhabited after the owner's death, has two bedrooms, with a converted attic space, which has been used as a third bedroom.
But if the views were not enough, there is a four-bedroom holiday let on offer too, which has been recently renovated and can be rented out for up to 1,000 a week.
The four-bedroom property sleeps eight people, with a modern kitchen, dining room and living room.
As well as being a great investment, the sprawling property offers seclusion in spectacular surroundings for anyone looking for an escape from the rat race.
The 8,000 acre Glen Massan estate enjoys the ultimate seclusion surrounded by lochs and mountains in west Scotland. Pictured: the Garrachra cottage, which is uninhabited
There is a ready made forestry business and the opportunity to set up a traditional sporting estate as well, which Bidwells has described as 'rare'
A deer manager currently works on the estate to look after the wild animals that roam the land
The two-bedroom cottage already has planning permission to transform it into a spectacular home or a traditional shooting lodge.
The estate covers a substantial part of the Cowal Peninsula, which is bordered on three sides by wonderful sea lochs and, in the north, by mountain, forest and glen.
The rugged mountainous landscape and mild west coast climate of that part of Scotland has created an incredible conifer forestry - with 1,660 hectares of forestry and associated open grounds.
There is also challenging surroundings for red and roe deer stalking and trout fishing on the River Massan.
The Corrie Massan cottage boasts a new kitchen with everything needed for a self-catered holiday in a stunning location. The existing furniture is available to buy for a separate quotation
Hiring the holiday home currently starts from 613 for a seven-night stay. Visitors would enjoy views along the Cowal Peninsula
The holiday home sleeps up to eight people across four bedrooms and allows up to three pets to come along for the trip
Property consultants Bidwells are handling the sale following the death of the owner.
Raymond Henderson from the company said: 'Glen Massan is a large, very private estate with excellent accessibility and real commercial prospects.
'It is not just a stunning landscape to be enjoyed but is a sound commercial proposition with the majority of its value being in really prime quality conifer forestry.
'Buying big chunks of ground on the west coast of Scotland is generally fairly difficult. It's unusual to get this much commercial forestry.
'But it's also in a part of Scotland renowned for its exceptional scenic beauty and the pictures don't lie.
'This really is a top end property.
'We're expecting it to appeal to lots of people, both in the UK and abroad.
The sprawling property offers seclusion in spectacular surroundings for anyone looking for an escape from the rat race
The stunning estate is located to the west of Glasgow, and southwest of the Trossachs national park near Loch Lomond
'Some might be looking at it as a straightforward investment but it's also somewhere that would really appeal to people who would like to change lifestyle.
'The three-bedroom semi-derelict cottage is in the most stunning position, with a man-made loch in front of it and views right down the glen. It is the most beautiful place.
'The loch was only put in about five years ago but it's lovely and it has fish and wild fowl.
Tony Blair blasted the biggest protest march in British history as 'fatuous' in a memo to George W Bush days after the UK and US launched the Iraq War.
In a note titled 'The Fundamental Goal', Mr Blair told the US President a poor communications strategy ahead of the war had left 'wholly warped views' of American politics in Europe and elsewhere.
The then-Prime Minister advised him to 'keep the policy' of tackling terror and weapons of mass destruction but to 'change the presentation'.
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More than a million people marched on Parliament on February 15, 2003, in an attempt to persuade MPs not to back the invasion but Tony Blair said it was 'fatuous'
In an extract from his memo to Mr Bush, Mr Blair blamed 'wholly warped views' for inspiring 'fatuous' protests
Mr Blair said Mr Bush was right to want to spread freedom by delivering security and told him: 'That's why, though Iraq's WMD is the immediate justification for action, ridding Iraq of Saddam is the real prize.'
But spelling out the problem of securing support, he told him: 'The problem is that a ludicrous and distorted view of the US is clouding the enormous attraction of the fundamental goal.
'In other words, rational people are behaving very stupidly. Europe is the immediate focus of this problem. But it is not confined to Europe.
'The problems is we're not communicating with the rest of the world in a way they understand.
'They get wholly warped views of the so-called right in American politics, played back through their media; until we end up with fatuous irony of millions of liberal-minded people taking to the streets effectively to defend the most liberal regime on earth.'
In the note, dated March 26, 2003, and published for the first time by the Chilcot Inquiry today, Mr Blair said people 'want to feel and see the US reaching out, explaining, trying to seek a collective way through'.
Mr Blair, seen today leaving home, made the claim in a memo to George Bush called 'The Fundamental Problem' days after the 2003 invasion began
And he advised: 'We need a strategy for this after the conflict is won. Doing it now would look like weakness.
'Afterwards it will look like magnanimity, from a position of strength, recognising the past months have not been as we wanted it.'
Mr Blair told his closest ally it was still possible 'to get the international community to accept your agenda' even after the controversial war had begun.
The exposure of the claims is likely to further enrage critics of the former prime minister in the wake of the damning Chilcot Inquiry.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reflected today on the vast protest march in February 2003, just weeks before a Commons vote gave the green light for British involvement in the Iraq War.
A Facebook employee is in jail after allegedly raping a friend at knifepoint late last month.
Yue Zhou, 27, was arrested at his home in Palo Alto, California, on Tuesday and charged with rape, sexual battery and false imprisonment.
The alleged victim, a woman in her 20s who is not being identified, came forward to police the day after the incident last month.
She told police that she went out to dinner with Zhou and other friends the night of Friday, June 24, and that she dropped Zhou off at his home after the meal.
Facebook employee Yue Zhou, 27, was arrested on Tuesday at his home in Palo Alto, California, on charges of raping a friend
When she complained about being tired, Zhou invited her in to rest and have a glass of water.
Once inside the residence though, Zhou 'raped her (and) prevented her from leaving by holding a knife,' Palo Alto police said in a statement.
Several hours later, she was able to escape the house on the 4200 block of Wilkie Way and drive away.
'She essentially distracted him momentarily, and she was able to get out the front door to her car,' said Palo Alto Sgt. James Reifschneider.
The female friend told police that Zhou invited her into his home after dinner and then held her at knifepoint and raped her. Zhou pictured above in photos posted to Facebook (left and right)
Zhou, a Chinese national and Columbia University graduate, is being held without bond. He has worked at Facebook as a business analyst since April, according to his profile on the social networking site
The following evening, around 7.30pm, the victim informed Palo Alto Police of the alleged crime and they started their investigation.
Police found enough evidence to arrest Zhou on Tuesday at his home. He was taken into custody around 7.50am without incident.
He is currently being held on $500,000 bail at the Santa Clara County Jail. His next court appearance is scheduled for Thursday.
According to his Facebook profile, Zhou has worked as a business analyst at Facebook since April. The Beijing, China native graduated from Peking University before pursuing a master's degree in management science and engineering from Columbia University in New York.
A 31-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after a newborn boy was found abandoned in the toilets of a hospital.
The infant was discovered unconscious by security staff in the women's toilets of the A&E department at the Royal Albert Infirmary in Wigan, Greater Manchester, shortly after midnight.
Doctors worked quickly to resuscitate the baby and he is now 'doing well' in hospital, police said.
A 31-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after a newborn boy was found abandoned in the women's toilets of the A&E department at the Royal Albert Infirmary in Wigan (pictured)
Greater Manchester Police were called to the hospital shortly after the tragic discovery. Officers are understood to have spoken to the newborn's mother to offer support but she has not been arrested.
A 31-year-old man is currently in custody being questioned over the incident.
Detective Inspector Martin Reddington, of Greater Manchester Police, said: 'This is an awful situation, I am just so happy I am able to say that the baby boy is doing well.
'We have made an arrest and we will be thoroughly investigating how this happened.'
Police and hospital chiefs also praised the 'heroic' actions of hospital staff who saved the life of the newborn baby.
The hospital's Accident and Emergency department was closed overnight but has since reopened.
Officers are appealing for anyone who was in the department on Tuesday evening and saw a man and a woman in and around the toilets to come forward.
Doctors worked quickly to resuscitate the baby and he is now 'doing well' in hospital, pictured
The hospital has a maternity unit where more than 3,000 babies are born each year.
Det Insp Reddington said: 'We are appealing for anyone who may have been in the A&E department between 7pm and midnight and perhaps saw a man and a woman in and around the toilets or saw anything unusual to get in touch with police as soon as possible.
'I would like to take this opportunity to praise the staff at the Royal Albert Infirmary, without doubt their heroic actions saved the life of this new born baby.'
Andrew Foster, chief executive of Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust, also praised the worker who found the baby.
He said: 'I would like to thank all staff who were involved for their professionalism and calmness during the incident, particularly the diligent member of staff who discovered the baby and raised the alarm.
'I'm very proud of the way our staff worked, their quick response without doubt saved the baby's life.'
A head cleaner at a train station used his position to secretly film women in toilets for five months and later claimed it was because he was 'addicted to upskirting'.
Michael Szafranek, 53, worked at Sydney's Rockdale train station, where he committed the offending until he was caught in February.
He'd been recording the videos at a rate of about one per week for five months, using each for sexual gratification before deleting it, A Current Affair reported.
Michael Szafranek, 53, has pleaded guilty to two charges of filming a person's private parts without consent
Szafranek attempts to hide his face from cameras. He's to be sentenced in August on two charges of filming a person's private parts without consent
Szafranek has pleaded guilty to two charges of filming a person's private parts without consent, but not before telling a court of his supposed addiction.
The claim was thrown out.
When he was caught on February 16, he'd told a woman to use a disabled toilet at the train station.
But inside, she found a cardboard box full of disposable gloves and an iPhone set to record.
Michael Szafranek had been the head cleaner at the Rockdale train station (pictured) in Sydney
Szafranek had used his white iPhone to record women in the toilets at the train station (stock image)
She took photos for evidence and took the phone to the station manager.
However, Szafranek broke into the conversation, took his phone and deleted the video.
He also removed the box of gloves from the toilet, A Current Affair reported.
Acting Superintendent Michael Haddow said police took such crimes 'very seriously'.
'Whilst this offence doesn't involve the physical touching of a person necessarily, offences like this can have a significant impact on a person's life.'
Szafranek is to be sentenced in August.
Szafranek had been placing his iPhone inside toilet stalls to record women when they used them
Trump is campaigning with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich today in Cincinnati; New Jersey governor Chris Christie is still under consideration
Tennessee senator Bob Corker is no longer in the running to be Donald Trump's vice presidential running mate, saying on Wednesday that the job is too 'highly political' for a policy-oriented statesman like him but should go to Trump's eldest daughter.
"His best running mate by the way would be Ivanka. Shes most impressive,' Corker told CNN.
'There are people far more suited for being a candidate for vice president, and I think Im far more suited for other types of things,' Corker had told The Washington Post, while praising Trump as a strong candidate.
Corker told CNN that he would consider serving a Trump administration as secretary of state, and will likely accept a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention. Trump said Wednesday that the list of speakers would be unveiled Thursday.
Tennessee Republican Bob Corker, 63, met with Donald Trump on Tuesday and decided before appearing with him at a North Carolina rally that he doesn't want to be Vice President of the United States
MADAME VICE PRESIDENT? Corker said Ivanka Trump, shown speaking at a February rally in Iowa, would make an ideal running mate for her father
Trump campaigns with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich Wednesday
Corker told the Post that he spoke with Trump aboard the billionaire's personal Boeing 757 plane on Tuesday, saying he's not cut out for making rousing speeches or becoming the real estate tycoon's election-year attack dog.
The two were en route to a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina where Corker spoke for barely a minute about Trump's family and employees but didn't delve into either government policy or presidential politics.
'It's a highly political job, and thats not who I am,' Corker told the Post. 'We had a very open conversation about that, and actually, we have been very candid about it from the very beginning of our meetings.'
'I left there feeling very good about him as a person but also realized that at age 63, I know the things Im good at doing and knowing what a candidate for vice president has to do. It's just not the right thing for me, and I dont think its the right thing for them.'
'So, I'm going to move on,' Corker said. 'I am very positive about him as a person. It was incredible to be with him in Raleigh and see the way people react to him. Theyre so excited, and I truly believe he has such an opportunity ahead.'
Corker was touted as a seasoned foreign policy voice who could help sell Trump's vow to crush the ISIS terror army, take on China, and roll back illegal immigration.
As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he had submitted formal vetting materials to the Trump campaign, NBC News reported.
Corker had private meetings with Trump and campaign staff in New York Tuesday before the campaign trip to North Carolina.
Like Trump, Corker made big bucks in real estate.
But he's also a soft-spoken, folksy voice on foreign policy, even as he has attacked the Obama administration over its Iran policy and other matters.
His selection might have soothed members of the GOP foreign policy establishment, some of whom have backed away from Trump and even said they may support Hillary Clinton.
He had joined a list of vice presidential finalists that included former House Speaker New Gingrich, who appears with Trump at a campaign rally in Cincinnati today.
New Jersey governor Chris Christie is also being vetted, although Christie, who is advising Trump on a presidential transition, is also mentioned as someone who could play a chief of staff type of role.
Trump met with Indiana Governor Mike Pence, who said nice things about Trump even as he endorsed Ted Cruz shortly before the Indiana primary, on Saturday. Iowa senator Joni Ernst had a meeting with Trump on Monday.
Word of Corker's presence in the final circle of potential running mates came amid reports that Trump will announce his selection next week. The Republican National Convention is set to begin July 18.
Arkansas senator Tom Cotton says he's not being vetted
Trump tweeted about meeting with Indiana governor Mike Pence
Trump also met with Iowa senator Joni Ernst
Republican senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a first-term senator considered a fresh face in the Republican Party, told CNN Wednesday, 'I am not being vetted' for the VP job and said he has 'no reason to believe Id be selected.'
CNN reported that Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and campaign chairman Paul Manafort were both in on the meeting with Ernst. A source told the outlet the meeting was to discuss whether Ernst wanted to be vetted for the job.
The New York Post on Tuesday floated the name of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Robert Sheets pleaded guilty to a trespassing citation and a misdemeanor drug charge in the bizarre June 21 incident
A central Pennsylvania man has pleaded guilty to trespassing in a woman's house and falling asleep - after leaving her a note telling her not to be alarmed.
Online court records show 28-year-old Robert Sheets, of Holtwood, pleaded guilty to a trespassing citation and a misdemeanor drug charge in the bizarre June 21 incident.
That's when police say the woman arrived at her Conestoga Township home to find a note on the door saying, 'Don't be scared when you come in, Bob is here'.
She discovered Sheets asleep on the living room sofa, Southern Lancaster County Regional Police said in a news release.
Authorities wrote: 'Officers arrived and after several attempts were able to wake the male who was identified as Sheets.
'He was found to be under the influence of a controlled substance and in possession of several prescription pills not prescribed to him.
'Upon investigation if was found that the victim's boyfriend knows Sheets, however not that well.
'He had not spoken to him for some time, does not know how Sheets found out where he lives and never gave him permission to be on the property or in the house.'
Lancaster County authorities dropped a felony trespassing charge against Sheets in return for Tuesday's guilty pleas.
He was fined more than $500.
Masha has been granted permission to sue Mancuso by a federal court
Mancuso was jailed for 15 years in 2004 after a federal plea arrangement
For the next five years Mancuso filmed the abuse of Masha until 2003
A Pittsburgh pedophile who adopted a young girl from Russia and abused her for years can by sued for $200,000, a federal court has ruled.
Michael Mancuso, who is serving a 15-year federal sentence following a plea deal in 2004, adopted Masha Allen when she was five-years-old and posted footage of the abuse online, leading her to be known as 'Internet Girl'.
Following his arrest in 2003, Masha tirelessly campaigned on behalf of the victims of child sex abuse.
Masha Allen, who was adopted by Pittsburgh pedophile Michael Mancuso, right, has been granted permission by a federal appeals court to sue the millionaire businessman for at least $200,000
Congress passed 'Masha's law' in 2006 which allows child sex abuse victims to sue anyone who had exploited them for at least $150,000.
Victims, under the legislation, can even sue anybody who viewed images or videos of the abuse online.
After serving his 15-year federal jail term, Mancuso, who is a wealthy businessman, is also due to serve several lengthy jail terms at state level.
However, the US Third Circuit Court ruled the existence of 'Masha's Law' does not negate the victims' ability to seek civil damages.
Mancuso's lawyer, Stanley W. Greenfield, said he will consider asking the full circuit to hear an appeal of the issue.
Mancuso, an engineer in his mid-40s, repeatedly raped and sexually abused Masha on camera, sometimes during trips to Disney World.
The victim, then known as Masha Allen, changed her name after testifying before Congress about the online exploitation and appearing on 'Oprah'. She is now about 23.
'She is doing as well as can be expected given what happened to her,' said her lawyer, Leighton Moore of Peachtree, Georgia.
Mancuso filmed his abuse of Allen, center, and posted the footage on the internet for other pedophiles
Her rescue began when Chicago Police Sergeant Mike Zaglifa, who had been posing as a pedophile online noticed a new batch of child pornography appear - which was Allen.
He struck up an online conversation with a child pedophile with the handle, 'NkdSister' and realized as a gut feeling that this individual might be the source of Allen's graphic imagery.
Sgt. Zaglifa informed the FBI and on May 27th, 2003, two federal agents went to Mancuso's Pittsburgh home to investigate.
Immediately, the agents knew that Mancuso was not happy to see them and they separated Allen from her adoptive father.
The agents quickly found computer disks with child pornography and then suddenly, 10-year-old Allen asked the agents, 'Is this about my secret?'
Indeed, after Mancuso's arrest it was discovered that Allen was not his first victim.
That unfortunate title belonged to his 28-year-old daughter, Rachelle.
'I feel so much guilt for what happened. When I first found out that he adopted a little girl I should have spoke up, I should have said something. I feel somehow responsible,' Rachelle said to ABC News in 2005.
Mancuso pleaded guilty to producing child pornography and was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison from which he will be freed and then begin serving a state prison term in Pennsylvania for child rape.
Dugard no longer sees that 'ugly broken child', simply 'the beauty in me'
She says he forced her to dress up and wear make up for his own fantasies
Mother-of-two admits her own sense of beauty is 'tainted' by Garrido
Dugard says she has been inspired by her daughters who are both dating
Doesn't feel too 'damaged' and hopes 'when time is right' she'll find love
The 36-year-old revealed in her new memoir that she's never been on a date
She gave birth to two daughters in captivity before escaping in 2009
Jaycee Dugard was 11 when she was kidnapped by Phillip Garrido in 1991
Jaycee Dugard has revealed she's never had a date but says she is finally open to finding love after her 18-year kidnapping and rape nightmare.
The 36-year-old wrote in her second memoir, featured in People magazine, she does not feel 'so damaged' by her horrific ordeal that she will let it stop her having a relationship 'when the time is ready.'
And while she has no plans to start signing up for dating sites any time soon, she said she feels 'totally capable of having a relationship one day.'
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Jaycee Dugard (pictured recently, left, and shortly after her escape in 2009, right) has revealed she has never had a date but is finally open to finding love after her 18-year kidnapping and rape nightmare
Dugard was abducted in June 1991 on her way to school in South Lake Tahoe, California.
Then 11, she was held until by Phillip and Nancy Garrido and was raped and drugged repeatedly over the course of 18 years. While in captivity, she gave birth to two daughters fathered by Garrido.
Garrido was sentenced to 431 years to life for the kidnap and rape of Dugard. His wife Nancy was sentenced to 36 years to life.
Seven years after her escape, Dugard is enjoying her freedom and is intent on catching up on all the experiences she missed in the 18 years she spent as the Garridos' prisoner.
'There is life after something tragic happens. Life doesn't have to end if you don't want it to. It's all in how you look at it.'
'Somehow, I still believe that we each hold the key to our own happiness and you have to grab it where you can in whatever form it might take.'
Monsters: Phillip Garrido (behind) and his wife Nancy (front) are serving 431 years and 36 years respectively for abducting Dugard and hiding her in the backyard of their home. Dugard had two children by Phillip Garrido
Staggering: Tarps, tents and a wooden structure are seen in the backyard of alleged kidnapper Phillip Garrido August 28, 2009 in Antioch, California. Jaycee Lee Dugard was allegedly kidnapped by Phillip Garrido nearly two decades ago and was forced to live in tents and sheds behind Garrido's home with two of her children that were fathered by Garrido
After writing a best-seller, My Stolen Life, about her 18 years in captivity, Dugard publishing her second memoir about the joys and challenges that followed.
'I have never even been on a date before!' she writes in her second memoir, Freedom: My Book of Firsts, due out July 12.
'The only boy ever to ask me out was ten, and I was nine,' she continues. 'I didn't really know what to say so I turned him down. I kind of regret that now, but who knew it would be my only opportunity.'
Something terrible happened to me, but I'm not going to let it ruin the rest of my life
Dugard says her two adult daughters, who were fathered by Garrido and spent their childhoods in his home, have been an inspiration to her.
'I see my daughters have relationships and I feel like one day when the time is right I will meet the right person for me,' she wrote.
They give her enough hope to dare to dream about her own future.
Although she admits she has high standards.
'I like romance and fairytale junk so my expectations are pretty high nowadays,' she said. 'So unless you ride a beautiful white stallion, can stand with me to slay all our dragons, and make me a princess, you are pretty much out of luck.'
Dugard also described the joys of being able to choose her own meals for the first time after surviving on nothing more than junk food while she was held captive.
Although occasionally, it means she's in for a surprise. The first time she had gazpacho, she thought the chef had made a mistake.
'Cold soup!' she wrote. 'What trickery is this?'
Failed by the system: Jaycee Dugard was 11 when she was kidnapped by a convicted rapist who was on parole
She was abducted in June 1991 on her way to school in South Lake Tahoe, California
Hand in hand with her new found love of food is her love of exercise, something she says has helped ward off depression.
'I never want to be that person I was in the backyard that hardly ever moved. Granted it was not a choice that was mine to make. I was a prisoner.'
Far more difficult to overcome, is the memories of being forced to dress up to fulfill her rapist's fantasies.
Dugard admits her own sense of beauty has been 'tainted' by the experience.
I like romance and fairytale junk so my expectations are pretty high nowadays
'When a psycho grown-up man, that has kidnapped yo and taken you away from everything you have known and loved, forced you to 'dress up' and put on makeup for his personal fantasies of having sex with a child - a very scared and afraid child I might add, your view point can change.'
She described one such evening when she was so terrified she could not stop crying.
Garrido, who was becoming agitated that she was ruining her makeup, could not understand the problem.
'I remember he looked at me and said, "You look beautiful."
'I don't doubt he thought I was pretty that night. His creation. The girl he took from a bus stop. A girl he controlled and could be anything he wanted.'
She said that he was unable to see what she so clearly could: a small, frightened girl, with mascara streaming down her face and 'the saddest face I had ever glimpsed staring back at me.'
After writing a best-seller about her 18 years in captivity, Dugard publishing her second memoir Freedom: My Book of Firsts about the joys and challenges that followed. The story is being featured in PEOPLE magazine
'When I look in the mirror now, I don't see the ugly broken child I was, and who Phillip tried his best to create because he thought that was beautiful.
'I just simply see the beauty in me.'
Dugard is still adapting to life after those terrible 18 years at the hands of pedophile Garrido. But the resilient mother-of-two refuses to let the experience define her.
Far from being terrified to go out in her backyard after being trapped her captor's for so many years, Dugard describes her own as a 'sanctuary.'
'Something terrible happened to me, but I'm not going to let it ruin the rest of my life,' she insisted.
Over the past seven years, Jaycee has given interviews recalling the horror she faced as Garrido's prisoner.
In an emotional 2011 interview, Jaycee fought off tears as she described the overwhelming feeling of hope after giving birth to a baby girl in her kidnappers squalid back yard.
At only 14, little Jaycee had already been a prisoner of predatory pedophile Garrido for three years by the time she gave birth in August 1994.
Speaking to ABC's Diane Sawyer, Jaycee described the traumatic, but ultimately uplifting effect the birth of her first child had on her frightened 14-year-old self.
Describing the birth as 'painful', Jaycee said: 'But then I saw her,she was beautiful.
'I felt like I wasn't alone any more. I had somebody who was mine. I wasn't alone.'
Jaycee continued: 'And I knew I could never let anything happen to her. I didn't know how I was going to do that, but I did.'
During the broadcast, Miss Dugard described how Garrido abducted her, shooting her with a stun gun and pulling her into his car before driving her to his home in Antioch, California.
'I still believe that we each hold the key to our own happiness': Kidnap survivor Jaycee Lee Dugard announced that her second memoir, Freedom: My Book of Firsts, will be released July 12
Dugard's first book, A Stolen Life (left), sold 1.5 million copies in the US following its release in 2011. She is pictured right with Oprah Winfrey at the Diane von Furstenberg Awards in New York in 2012
Sawyer told Jaycee: 'I am trying to imagine what it is like.'
Jaycee, confidently answered: 'I don't know, I can't imagine being beaten to death, and you can't imagine being kidnapped and raped.
'You just do what you have to do to survive.'
Dugard was rescued in 2009, when two female police officers became suspicious of Garrido, a convicted rapist, and summoned him and his family to a parole meeting.
Garrido went to a parole office in Cincord and was accompanied by his wife, the two young girls and a woman who turned out to be Dugard.
During the meeting, Dugard broke down and managed to tell police who she really was.
Now 36, she and her two children have received a $20 million settlement from state of California.
During an interview with ABC News in 2012, Jaycee said she was appreciative of 'just being free to do what I want to do, when I want to do it'.
She added of her daughters, who are now in their late teens: 'I want my girls to have a normal life as much as possible.'
In the same year, she was honored at the Diane von Furstenberg Awards in New York.
During the ceremony, Oprah Winfrey, who was also honored at the event, said in her speech of Dugard: 'I am so proud of you, your courage, your ability to press onward toward the future.'
At of the release of her last book, Dugard was living in seclusion in Northern California with her daughters and mother, Terry Probyn.
In the years since, she has slowly used her ordeal to become a spokesperson for abuse.
Dugard is the founder of JAYC Foundation (Just Ask Yourself to Care), which aims to empower victims of sexual abuse.
Military and political leaders were too slow in replacing Land Rovers dubbed 'mobile coffins' because they were so inadequate at protecting troops, the Chilcot Inquiry found.
Sir John Chilcot's long-awaited report said the Ministry of Defence failed to act fast enough in responding to the casualties from home-made roadside bombs - IEDs - which became an everyday problem faced by British personnel in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
He laid into delays in providing better vehicles, which were not ordered until 2006, despite an initial need for them being investigated 'before 2002'.
The widespread use of the light 'snatch Land Rover' during the conflict has long been criticised by many families of those killed in the conflict.
The widespread use of the light 'snatch Land Rover' during the conflict has long been criticised by many families of those killed in the conflict. Soldiers reportedly nicknamed the vehicles 'mobile coffins' because of the limited protection they gave to roadside IEDs
The report also criticised the lack of helicopter support for some of the troops. Chilcot found the fact that some resources were sent to Afghanistan further hampered forces in Iraq
Soldiers reportedly nicknamed them 'mobile coffins' because of the limited protection they gave to roadside improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and families of several of those killed are suing the MoD over their use.
Forces taking part in Operation Telic, as the invasion and occupation was known, also suffered from a shortage of helicopter support and equipment for what is known as Istar - intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance, the report found.
Sir John's report said: 'Between 2003 and 2009, UK forces in Iraq faced gaps in some key capability areas, including protected mobility, Istar and helicopter support.
'It was not sufficiently clear which person or department within the MoD had responsibility for identifying and articulating capability gaps.
'Delays in providing medium weight protected patrol vehicles (PPVs) and the failure to meet the needs of UK forces in MND (SE) (Multi-National Division South East - the British sector of Iraq) for Istar and helicopters should not have been tolerated.'
The report continued: 'The MoD was slow in responding to the developing threat in Iraq from improvised explosive devices. The range of protected mobility options available to commanders in MND (SE) was limited.
'Although work had begun before 2002 to source an additional PPV, it was only ordered in July 2006 following ministerial intervention.'
The Chilcot report also found that troops had been stretched by the military carrying out concurrent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly in regards to helicopters.
British forces prepare to go into Iraq in 2003. The Land Rovers used have been criticised by soldiers' family
Chilcot found the military was too slow in eventually bringing in Protected Patrol Vehicles to stop soldiers dying
The report stated: 'In deciding to undertake concurrent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the UK knowingly exceeded the Defence Planning Assumptions. All resources from that point onwards were going to be stretched.'
'In any future operation the level of force protection required to meet the assessed threat needs to be addressed explicitly.'
Speaking ahead of the report this morning, Captain Doug Beattie, who was a Regimental Sergeant Major in the Royal Irish Regiment, said: 'Our military leaders were too eager to please and they allowed themselves to be taken to war even though they didn't have the capacity or the capabilities or the very most basic of equipment.
'We didn't have body armour, we didn't have clothing, we didn't have desert boots, we didn't have ammunition for some of our weapons systems, our signals equipment was old and didn't work.'
MILITARY EQUIPMENT: HOW BRITISH TROOPS WERE FAILED The MoD took too long to bring in vehicles which better protected soldiers from roadside bombs.
Fighting wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq at the same time meant there were not enough helicopters to support troops on the ground.
Spy equipment, such as surveillance balloons, were also stretched between the two conflicts, leaving what the report called 'capability gaps'.
Troops complained that they had to wear army issue boots which melted in the heat. The report found: 'Stocks for desert clothing were insufficient to support a large scale deployment in the time available.'
Soldiers said they had to take the bullet-proof plates out of their body armour to give to other units. The report found the body armour bought by the Army 'was insufficient to equip all British troops deployed'.
The speed at which the war was organised meant 'significant risks' were taken by military chiefs. Chilcot found the lack of systems for checking troops had the right equipment made the problems worse. Advertisement
Another soldier involved in the conflict, Lance Corp Iain McMenemy, told how his men were asked to take the bulletproof plates out of his armour so they could be handed to men from another unit.
Roger Bacon, whose son Major Matthew Bacon died when a roadside bomb exploded next to the vehicle he was travelling in, slammed the way troops were treated today.
He said: 'Never again must so many mistakes be allowed to sacrifice British lives and lead to the destruction of a country for no positive end.
'We were proud when our husbands, sons and daughters signed up to serve our country. But we cannot be proud of the way our government has treated them.
'We must use this report to make sure that all parts of the Iraq War fiasco are never repeated again. Neither in a theatre of war, nor in the theatre of Whitehall.
'We call on the British Government immediately to follow up Sir John's findings to ensure that the political process by which our country decides to go to war is never again twisted and confused with no liability for such actions.'
Prime Minister David Cameron addressed the criticisms raised when he spoke about the Chilcot report in Parliament today.
He said: 'Providing the correct military equipment is an absolute obligation on government and I think huge steps forward have been taken in the last few years to make that happen.'
Geraldine McCool, head of the military injuries team at law firm Irwin Mitchell which is representing the families of some soldiers, said: 'It's absolutely crucial that lessons are learned from this Inquiry in order to protect our soldiers in any current and future conflicts.
'For our troops and their families it is a matter of life and death. Whatever the reasons for going to war, there is simply no excuse for sending our troops into Iraq, or any other warzone, without providing them with the most appropriate equipment and training to help prepare them for battle.'
A soldier patrolling in Basra shortly after the invasion in 2003. Servicemen discussing today's report have said they were not provided with sufficient body armour
Sir John said: Throughout 2004 and 2005 it appears that senior members of the armed forces reached the view that little more could be achieved [in Iraq] and it would make more sense to concentrate on Afghanistan.
From 2006, the UK military was conducting two enduring campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. It did not have sufficient resources to do so decisions on resources for Iraq were affected by the demands of the operation in Afghanistan.
Sir John said it was the can-do attitude of troops meant the top brass and ministers were not made aware of equipment shortages.
He concluded: At times in Iraq the bearers of bad tidings were not heard. The MoD was not fully aware of the situation on the ground during the conflict.
Shocking footage has emerged showing the moment a stranger grabbed a four-year-old girl who was with her mother inside a Los Angeles cell phone store in an attempted abduction.
The scary incident occurred at Macias Cellular & Computers in Victorville last Friday.
Surveillance video taken inside the store shows the mother walking in carrying a baby, with her daughter trailing behind.
However, as the little girl plays with a candy machine by the door, a man on the street suddenly opens the door and grabs her, pulling the child outside.
Attempted abduction: Shocking footage has emerged showing the moment a stranger grabbed the little girl, who was with her mother inside a Victorville cell phone store
The surveillance shows the man dragging the little girl out of the store while her mom (right) and a male customer wait in line at the store
The mother quickly runs off after her daughter as she is pulled out the door. A man in the store also ran to help
The store owner, Stella Moriel, said that the incident happened so quickly she thought it was a domestic dispute.
'I heard screaming,' Moriel told NBC 4 LA.
'I thought they were arguing with each other at first. When I came from behind the counter I asked what was going on.'
Fortunately, the child fell to the ground, causing the would-be kidnapper to stop. He ended up leaving the girl behind and ran down the street.
He was chased by Moriel's husband and a Good Samaritan, who were able to grab him.
'The mom was in here she was very hysterical,' Moriel said.
'Her daughter was very traumatized, just clinging on to her, wouldn't let go. Both babies were crying.'
As the little girl plays with a candy machine by the door, a man on the street suddenly opens the door and grabs her, pulling the child outside
'The mom was very hysterical': Stella Moriel, the owner of the cell phone store, described the incident as terrifying
'He was smiling like it was some kind of joke or something,' Miguel Macias, Moriel's husband, told NBC.
San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies arrived and arrested 24-year-old Terry Lynn Ransom, a Hesperia resident who investigators say may have been high on drugs.
Moriel said that she is glad Ransom is in custody, but that the incident was still terrifying.
'Even though he got caught it just lets me know how dangerous this world can really be,' Moriel said.
Hillary Clinton may have gotten an all-clear from the FBI, but her claims about never emailing classified information have been rated even more false by the Washington Post's fact checker.
The Post added to her number of Pinocchios from two to four in light of the information divulged by FBI Director James Comey in his statement yesterday.
Comey said yesterday that of the 30,000 emails Clinton returned to the State Department, 110 emails in 52 email chains were found 'to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received.'
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Hillary Clinton is now getting four Pinocchios from the Washington Post in light of FBI Director James Comey's remarks yesterday about her private email server
Eight of the chains the FBI investigated contained information that was 'top secret' when sent, while 36 chains held 'secret' information.
Another eight contained 'confidential' information, which is the lowest tier of classification.
After-the-fact, 2,000 emails were 'up-classified,' meaning the information in them is now classified, though didn't have that distinction when they were originally sent.
Clinton initially claimed that 'this process will prove that I never sent nor received any email that was marked classified,' the Democratic candidate said in Iowa in August of 2015.
'Whether it was a personal account or a government account, I did not send classified material and I did not receive any material that was marked or designated classified, which is the way you know whether something is,' she said in Las Vegas the same month, the Washington Post pointed out.
Comey explained that last point during yesterday's presser, saying that 'only a very small number of the emails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information.'
'But even if information is not marked "classified" in an email, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it,' he continued, shaming the likely Democratic nominee.
Initially, the Washington Post's fact checker had rated Clinton's claim at 'two Pinocchios' pointing to the fact that the State Department had redacted some of the information contained in the emails upon their release.
'At The Fact Checker, we judge statements through the perspective of an ordinary citizen,' the news site explained.
'The classification rules are complex but, legal technicalities aside, the question is whether classified information was exchanged over her private e-mail system,' the explanation continued.
'According to the State Department redactions of the released e-mails, the answer is yes,' the Post initially concluded.
Clinton received those 'two Pinocchios' for 'excessively technical wordsmithing.'
Now it's up for 'four Pinocchios' because 'Comey directly contradicted Clintons claim.'
The Clinton campaign responded to Comey by issuing a statement saying that 'the secretary and the campaign always have spoken to the best of our knowledge,' and had not seen the emails in question.
'The bottom line is that career officials handling this case have determined that no further action by the Department is appropriate,' the statement read.
In the shadow of Saddam Husseins battered palace overlooking the Shatt al-Arab waterway in the southern city of Basra, the former Iraqi officer laughed with contempt when asked about his ousted leaders weapons of mass destruction.
Your intelligence was wrong, there was no proof, no proper evidence, there are no such weapons the Americans wanted to go to war and your leader (Tony Blair) wanted to be there, the ex-officer said in excellent English.
This did not need to happen, people died and will go on to die because of your bad intelligence and the desire for war.
The Major spoke to me 13 years ago in the immediate aftermath of the successful British military assault on Iraqs second city. At the time, his views were brushed aside.
Devastation: Thousands of Iraqi refugees leave the southern city of Basra with plumes of thick black smoke from burning oil trenches outside the southern city of Basra
Exodus: Thousands of refugees flee the Southern Iraq city of Basra but Iraqis said at the time that the intelligence was faulty
Apocalyptic: The scenes coming out of Basra were terrifying but at the time Tony Blair insisted that Saddam Hussein presented a more grave threat
Weapons: On the British frontline outside Basra a Challenger Two tank stands ready for the assault
Today, to the relief of the families of the 179 UK personnel killed, those injured, veterans and the millions who opposed the war the officers damning words became official with the withering verdict of the Sir John Chilcott and his inquiry team.
Once the full 2.6-million word dossier is fully considered those families and many Iraqis who have lived in fear and with uncertainty while the bloodshed continues to this day hope there will be a sufficient weight of material to warrant, and support, legal action.
Notably, it highlights how peaceful options for disarmament had not been exhausted, that the vastly experienced international weapons inspectors wanted more time to investigate allegations of WMD which they had found little to support and that intelligence claims relating to this pivotal issue were not justified.
Sir John also said the legal basis for UK military action in Iraq was far from satisfactory and that military action was not last resort.
But while there was widespread praise for the report there was an inevitable feeling among some, including those who had put their lives on the line, that it did not go far enough.
One former Army officer who I first encountered on the outskirts of Basra as thousands fled beneath an acrid black cloud caused by blazing oil said: For the sake of all those who died and I mean Iraqis too I would like to have seen the report say whether this was a legal warwe know it was a wrong war.
Saddam out: British Desert Rats secure a former Agriculture college in the South West outskirts of Basra, where they found the remains of Iraqi soldiers and large amounts of R.P.G. ammunitions
Liberators? Members of the British Army Desert Rats search Iraqi's leaving the southern city of Basra
Refugees: Families fled in their thousands as the British went into Basra. Here, members of the British Army Desert Rats search Iraqi's leaving the southern Iraqi city
Response: A digger team from the Britishy Army's Royal Engineers tackles one of the many burning oil trenches outside the Southern Iraq City of Basra that was lit by Iraqi forces to try and stop allied bombing
The invasion began on 20 March 2003 but not until 13 March did then Attorney General Lord Goldsmith advise there was on balance a secure legal basis for military action.
To the anger of many, the precise grounds on which the decision was made remain unclear and Sir John sheds little light on this but highlights how few in the Cabinet questioned it.
The exhaustive report confirms many of the suspicions and beliefs of Tony Blairs critics in particular providing the evidence that he had told US President George Bush he would be with him whatever eight months before the launch of hostilities.
It provides too for the first time a fascinating insight into the relationship of the two men and Mr Blairs belief in his own powers of influence.
To those reading the declassified letters, the language and message - will appear extraordinary and is bound to further anger many some families have branded him a terrorist.
It is as if the letters are between chums rather than statesmen overseeing an international crisis.
Months after the war and with things going badly wrong inside Iraq, Mr Blair wrote: It may be odd for a Labour Prime Minister and a Republican President to have a common political intent, but we do!
Desperate: In a symbol of the suffering that Iraqis went through, four month old Ali Rahum was found in Basra's Republic Hospital in the aftermath of the invasion suffering from Dysentery with his mother Salima
So ill: Doctors had warned that the civilian population was in more danger now then they ever were during the war because of there is no safe drinking water and the lack of any sanitation
Whats our problem? Iraq on the ground is tough. We lose our people to terrorism attacks. We havent found enough on WMD.'
Ironically, in one letter he appears to be concerned about his own legacy. In 2006 Mr Blair wrote: The political position we both find ourselves in, is rather similar. Bluntly, Iraq pulls us down.
The sheer weight of propaganda against us crushes the perfectly reasonable case we can make, demoralises our supporters and confuses the public.
'It leads to a settled determination on the part of our opponents that we are failing and we should fail. Yet the case is inherently strong. And both of us want a strong finish to our time in office. Funnily enough, I think there is an opportunity here for us to seize
Significantly, the report found Mr Blair overestimated his ability to influence US decisions on Iraq; and the UK's relationship with the US does not require unconditional support.
'Sorry': After heavy criticism in the Chilot report Tony Blair today said he was more sorry and sad than anyone could no, but insisted he acted in good faith
While there appears to be no major surprise in the report, it is the detail that is damning.
What those outside the military will not have realised but is spelt out here is the extent to which the British military was humiliated during its increasingly difficult six years in southern Iraq when equipment failures, shortages and planning failures had such a devastating impact.
Sir John tells how the military was forced to negotiate with the very militias that had been targeting and taunting them, the men with British blood on their hands.
By 2007 militia dominance in Basra, which UK military commanders were unable to challenge, led to the UK exchanging detainee releases for an end to the targeting of its forces.
It was humiliating that the UK reached a position in which an agreement with a militia group which had been actively targeting UK forces was considered the best option available.
'The UK military role in Iraq ended a very long way from success.
In words that will be now examined by the families, Sir John said there was little time to properly prepare three military brigades for deployment in Iraq.
The risks were neither properly identified nor fully exposed to ministers, resulting in equipment shortfalls.
Death toll: The coffin of a British soldier being loaded onto a hearse at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire during a repatriation ceremony to honour the lives of 11 British service personnel killed in Iraq, April 8, 2003
Between 2003 and 2009, UK forces in Iraq faced gaps in some key capability areas - including armoured vehicles, reconnaissance and intelligence assets and helicopter support.
Delays in providing adequate medium weight protected patrol vehicles and the failure to meet the needs of UK forces for reconnaissance and intelligence equipment and helicopters should not have been tolerated, Sir John said.
He concluded that military action in Iraq might have been necessary at some point.
But in March 2003 there was no imminent threat from Saddam, the strategy of containment could have been adapted and continued for some time, the majority of the Security Council supported continuing UN inspections and monitoring.
Those who have seen the summary of Sir Johns findings believe it is a good report and it has addressed the central issues.
As someone who covered both Gulf wars spending months with British and allies troops, seeing the casualties, including the many victims of Saddam, the impact on civilians as they fled or bled as well as the aftermath of these conflicts, it is clear Sir John has addressed the questions many in UK and Iraq have been asking.
Not all have been fully answered but exactly what went on behind-the-scenes and the consequences are now much clearer, so too is what families in both the UK and Iraq term the betrayal of its people the soldiers sent with poor equipment and plans, the Iraqis living more than a decade on with continued bloodshed.
Autopilot system failed to detect the white truck because of a bright sky
Company says its own investigation was not yet complete
about it for nine days
Tesla Motors alerted regulators to a fatality in one of its electric cars in partial self-driving Autopilot mode nine days after it crashed, the company said on Tuesday, defending its decision not to make the accident public before a federal investigation was announced.
Tesla learned about the crash of the Model S sedan in Florida 'shortly' after the May 7 crash which killed 40-year-old Joshua Brown, and on May 16 it disclosed the incident to the government.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on June 30 announced a probe.
On Tuesday, Chief Executive Elon Musk tweeted in response to the article about the timing of the disclosure that the May fatality 'wasn't material' to Tesla.
Tesla raised at least $1.46 billion from investors on May 18-19 with a stock offering, as the Autopilot investigation was unfolding.
Joshua Brown was killed when his Tesla collided with the truck and came to rest in a yard. Tesla alerted regulators to the fatality nine days after it crashed
The company knew of the crash by the time of the capital raising. But its own investigation was not yet complete and it had not yet been informed by the government of its probe, according to a timeline described by a Tesla spokeswoman.
Brown, 40, died after his computer-guided Tesla Model S plowed into a truck trailer on a freeway in Williston, Florida.
A witness has claimed Brown was watching a Harry Potter movie when his Tesla collided with a truck while on autopilot.
On Tuesday video footage emerged of the former Navy SEAL driving on the freeway, before waving his hands and saying: 'Oh jeez, it's doing it all by itself.'
The driver of the truck that Brown crashed into, Frank Baressi, said the Tesla driver was 'playing Harry Potter on the TV screen' at the time of the crash.
Former Navy Seal Mr Brown standing proudly by his Tesla electric car soon after buying it last year
A chilling video filmed in October last year shows Joshua Brown posing for a 'no hands' selfie in his Tesla Model S car
He demonstrated incredulously that he didn't need his hands to drive the electronic Tesla Model S car, saying 'It's doing it all by itself'
'It was still playing when he died and snapped a telephone pole a quarter mile down the road,' Baressi, 62, said.
'He went so fast through my trailer I didn't see him,' he added.
Baressi said he only heard the movie in the aftermath of the crash - and police did not mention the driver being distracted by a film in any of their reports.
Tesla said its autopilot system failed to detect the truck because its white color was similar to that of the bright sky, adding that the driver also made no attempt to hit the brakes.
'This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles,' the company said in a statement.
It said neither the driver nor the car hit the brakes as the trailer passed over the Tesla, with the self-driving vehicle colliding with the bottom of the truck.
The company claimed that had the trailer crashed into the front or the rear of the Model S, the driver would have survived.
The Tesla Model S is shown with the top third of the car sheared off by the impact of the collision with a tractor-trailer truck
Tesla said Brown (pictured) - a former Navy SEAL - failed to hit the brakes before the crash on May 7
The statement added that motorists should keep their hands on the wheel and 'be prepared to take over at any time'.
The NHTSA agency that is investigating the crash has not demanded a recall of the vehicles.
Brown died of injuries caused in the crash on May 7.
He was involved in a similar near-miss on April 5 and posted a video of the close call online.
The video shows the Canton, Ohio, resident taking manual control of the Tesla to swerve out of the way of a white truck as it moved in front of him on the freeway.
He said of the incident: 'Once the roads merged, the truck tried to get to the exit ramp on the right and never saw my Tesla. I actually wasn't watching that direction and Tessy (the name of my car) was on duty with autopilot engaged.
Tesla said the Model S's autopilot system failed to detect the truck because its white color was similar to that of the bright sky
'I became aware of the danger when Tessy alerted me with the 'immediately take over' warning chime and the car swerving to the right to avoid the side collision.
'You can see where I took over when there's a little bit of blip in the steering. Tessy had already moved to the right to avoid the collision.'
Tesla said its cars come with autopilot disabled and that owners have to acknowledge the system is new when they use it.
Tesla officially touts its partial self-driving Autopilot feature as a back-up to human drivers, but some of the car maker's comments - and some high profile videos - have led many drivers to think of it as a replacement.
Tony Blair's former director of communications Alastair Campbell has insisted the Chilcot report clears him of 'sexing up' a dossier on Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction.
Mr Campbell, who ran PR for Blair from 1997 until 2003, accepted today's report uncovered 'many mistakes' in the preparation for war.
But, in a staunch defence of his former boss, he said Chilcot's report showed the former PM did not secretly pledge to join the US in military action at a 2002 meeting with president George Bush in Texas.
Alastair Campbell, pictured speaking on the BBC today, says Chilcot clears him of 'sexing up' an Iraq dossier
Mr Campbell also rejected claims that Mr Blair was 'cavalier' about military action, insisting that he did everything he could to prevent war and agonised ceaselessly about its possible consequences.
In a blog, released shortly after the publication of the Iraq Inquiry report, Mr Campbell said: 'That is four inquiries now which have cleared me of wrongdoing with regard to the WMD dossier presented to Parliament in 2002, and I hope that the allegations we have faced for years - of lying and deceit to persuade a reluctant Parliament and country to go to war, or of having an underhand strategy regarding the respected weapons expert David Kelly - are laid to rest.'
The report had shown 'there was no secret deal, there was no lying, there was no deceit, there was no 'sexing up' of the intelligence', said Mr Campbell. 'What there was was a decision, a set of decisions, which ultimately had to be made by the Prime Minister.'
Mr Campbell said 'conspiracy theorists' continued to claim Mr Blair took Britain to war for oil, or to please Mr Bush or because of a 'Messiah complex'.
But Mr Campbell insisted: 'I was one of the few people who saw the process of his making the decision close up, virtually round the clock, around the world.
'Far from seeing someone hell-bent on war, I saw someone doing all he could to avoid it. Far from seeing someone undermine the UN, I saw him trying his hardest to make it work.
'Far from seeing someone cavalier about the consequences of war, I saw someone who agonised about them, and I know he still does, as do all who were there, part of his team.'
Mr Campbell tweeted a link to a blog post he wrote, insisting he had been shown to have done nothing wrong
Mr Campbell was Tony Blair's spin doctor from 1997 until 2005. His techniques have bcome in for criticism
Mr Campbell said the world was 'a better place' for the removal of Saddam Hussein from power.
He rejected claims that the Iraq war had led to the rise of the Islamic State terror group - also known as Isis or Daesh.
IS had risen in Iraq, Syria and Libya and become a threat to Europe largely because of the 'premature departure' of international troops from Iraq and a failure by European powers to intervene to prevent the emergency of failed states, he said.
Australia's most popular humpback whale has gone missing this season.
Migaloo - the first known all-white whale in the world - is usually found around Cape Byron, the easternmost part of Australia, at this time of year.
However, there have been no sightings of him yet and scientists are beginning to worry.
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Migaloo (pictured in 2009) is the only documented white humpback whale in the world
Migaloo means 'white fella' in the Aboriginal Australian language. He was first spotted in 1991 but has not been seen in Australia this year
Scientists had differing views on what was driving the famed whale away - whether it was crazy weather, to mate with new whales, or something more sinister.
White Whale Research Centre founder Oskar Peterson believes Migaloo may have been pushed away from the coastline due to river run-off from wild weather in NSW.
'He's gone out wide because of the east coast lows,' he told AAP.
Mr Peterson said it was also possible that warmer than normal ocean temperatures were to blame for Migaloo's non-appearance.
He also mentioned it was still possible the whale would turn up.
'There are no alarm bells ringing at the moment,' he said.
Migaloo's Twitter account, run by the White Whale Research Centre, says he's avoiding the wild NSW weather
Murdoch University cetacean research fellow Dr Joshua Smith told the Cairns Post Migaloo could have taken a break and headed to the South Pacific.
'It does seem Migaloo has been spotted in neighbouring populations in the South Pacific over the years,' he said.
He also mentioned it was mating season for the whales, and water temperature was unlikely to be a factor.
The famous humpback whale was spotted outside Australian waters for the first time in July last year, with DNA confirming researchers had in fact seen him in New Zealand's Cook Strait.
MI6 has been ridiculed for relying on a 'key' Iraqi source who described unrealistic scenes from Hollywood Blockbuster The Rock.
The Chilcot inquiry highlighted the ludicrous episode as it slammed flawed intelligence assessments that repeatedly suggested Saddam Hussein had significant WMD capabilities - even though no weapons were found.
It also accused chiefs of failing to stand up to Tony Blair as he drove the country towards war.
The long-awaited report said that in September 2002, six months before the invasion, the intelligence agency believed it was on the edge of a 'significant breakthrough'.
A new source in Iraq was thought to have 'phenomenal access' to information about Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapon programme.
The individual had suggested the regime was accelerating its production of such WMD.
The head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, ensured the material was shown directly to Mr Blair - who subsequently wrote a foreword to the so-called 'dodgy dossier' saying that Hussein's threat was beyond doubt.
A 'key' MI6 source apparently described unrealistic chemical weapons equipment they are thought to have seen in Hollywood blockbuster The Rock
The report highlighted the ludicrous episode as it slammed flawed intelligence assessments that repeatedly suggested Saddam Hussein had significant WMD capabilities
Sir Richard Dearlove is said to have shown the dubious source material directly to Tony Blair
A report in April 2003 included material from the source suggesting that they had seen spherical glass containers filled with chemical weapons agents.
However, the report did not include the caveat from officials who pointed out that 'the sources description of the device and its spherical glass contents was remarkably similar to the fictional chemical weapon portrayed in the film The Rock.'
The chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), John Scarlett, was apparently not told about the potential problems with the source.
In June 2003, when MI6 finally met the agent face to face, it turned out he had been involved in Iraq's chemical weapons programme before 1991.
Officers concluded he was 'a fabricator who had lied from the outset' and the following month the reports were official withdrawn.
'The withdrawal of the reporting was done in a very low key manner compared with the way in which the original intelligence was issued,' the report noted.
The Chilcot report said Sir John Scarlett, who was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) in the run-up to the Iraq war, should have done more to protect its 'integrity'
The Chilcot report also criticised Sir John Scarlett for not doing more to protect the integrity of the JIC.
Delivering a damning verdict, Sir John Chilcot said it was 'clear that policy on Iraq was being made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments'.
'The government's strategy reflected its confidence in the Joint Intelligence Committee's assessments,' the inquiry chairman said.
BLAIR WAS WARNED THAT INVASION WOULD BOOST TERROR THREAT Tony Blair was warned that invading Iraq would increase the terror threat to the UK but went ahead anyway, the Chilcot report said. The former Prime Minister has been blamed by some for causing the rise of Isis by getting rid of Saddam Hussein and sparking chaos in the country. He has argued that the rise of such extremism was inevitable whether or not we had intervened militarily. Launching his long-awaited report today, Sir John Chilcot pointed out that in the House of Commons on March 18, 2003, Mr Blair said the possibility of terrorist groups in possession of WMD was 'a real and present danger to Britain and its national security' But Sir John said: 'Mr Blair had been warned, however, that military action would increase the threat from Al Qaida to the UK and to UK interests. 'He had also been warned that an invasion might lead to Iraqs weapons and capabilities being transferred into the hands of terrorists.' Advertisement
'Those assessments provided the benchmark against which Iraq's conduct and denials, and the reports of the inspectors, were judged.
'As late as March 17 (2003), Mr Blair was being advised by the Chairman of the JIC that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons, the means to deliver them and the capacity to produce them.
'He was also told that the evidence pointed to Saddam Hussein's view that the capability was militarily significant and to his determination - left to his own devices - to build it up further.
'It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments.
'They were not challenged and they should have been.'
The 2.6 million word report, which took around seven years to complete, gives a detailed account of the process by which intelligence assessments were made public.
Downing Street ordered a paper in February 2002 relating to 'countries of concern' such as Iraq, North Korea and Libya.
However, when Foreign Secretary Jack Straw saw the text he suggested it should put more emphasis on Iraq.
'Good, but should not Iraq be first and also have more text? The paper has to show why there is an exceptional threat from Iraq. It does not quite do this yet.'
The publication was later postponed after Mr Straw was advised the evidence would not convince the public.
A 'public dossier' was then ordered with Mr Blair's spin doctor, Alastair Campbell, given the 'lead role on the timing/form of its release'.
Messages which passed between Tony Blair and George W Bush in the build-up to the Iraq war have been published today
A British soldier dives from a burning tank which was set ablaze in the southern Iraqi city of Basra in 2005. Critics have slated Mr Blair for starting a war, pictured, which killed 179 UK soldiers, claiming it contributed to the rise of ISIS
The Chilcot report raised concerns about the tendency of ministers 'to refer in public statements only to Iraq's WMD without addressing their nature', such as what kind of warhead and how they could be deployed.
The statements were 'likely to have created the impression that Iraq posed a greater threat than the detailed JIC assessments would have supported.
THE CHILCOT REPORT IN NUMBERS 7 - Years since the Chilcot Inquiry was launched. 2,579 - Days between June 15, 2009, when the inquiry was announced on by then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and July 6, 2016, when the report is expected to be ready for private inspection and security check. 3 - Foreign secretaries to have been in the post since the inquiry was launched - David Miliband under Mr Brown, and William Hague and Philip Hammond under David Cameron. 2.3 million - Words estimated to be included in the report, making it almost four times longer than Leo Tolstoy's epic War and Peace. 10 million - Estimated cost, in pounds, of the inquiry as of January this year. 179 - UK military personnel that died during the Iraq war. Advertisement
In September Mr Blair announced that an intelligence dossier would be published. The inquiry found the intention was to 'make the case' for disarming Iraq.
Sir John Scarlett was given responsibility for producing the document.
Some senior intelligence figures voiced concerns about the 'certainty' with which some of the judgements were expressed.
But the report stated: 'The JIC accepted ownership of the dossier and agreed its content. There is no evidence that intelligence was improperly included in the dossier or that No10 improperly influenced the text.'
But the inquiry suggested that the way the dossier was finally presented - with a foreword from Mr Blair in which he claimed intelligence had 'established beyond doubt' that Iraq had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons.
In fact, the assessed intelligence had not established beyond doubt that Saddam Hussein had continued to produce such weapons, according to the inquiry.
'The JIC itself should have made that position clear because its ownership of the dossier, which was intended to inform a highly controversial policy debate, carried with it the responsibility to ensure that the JIC's integrity was protected.
'The process of seeking the JIC's views, through (Sir John) Scarlett, on the text of the foreword shows that No10 expected the JIC to raise any concerns it had.'
Chilcot found that the 'capabilities and intent' described in the dossier remained in place until the invasion in March 2003 and were 'not challenged'.
REVEALED: WHAT SECRET MESSAGES BETWEEN BLAIR AND BUSH TELL US ABOUT THE BUILD UP TO WAR IN IRAQ September 12th, 2001 Hours after the 9/11 terror attacks, Blair called for tough action which some will baulk at. There will be many who ask: what is the next stage of this evil? What of (the terrorists') capacity to get hold of WMD? We know there are countries and individuals trading in WMD. We need a range of sanctions and pressures to stop this. Some of this will require action that some will baulk at. But we are better to act now... than let the day be put off until some further, perhaps even worse catastrophe occurs. I believe this is a real possibility. October 11th, 2001 One month after 9/11 and four days after air strikes against Afghanistan have begun, Blair urges Bush to focus on the Taliban and deal with Iraq later. He added: No doubt we need to deal with Saddam. But if we hit Iraq now, we could lose the Arab world, Russia, probably half the EU... I am sure we can devise a strategy for Saddam deliverable at a later date. Bush and Blair in the White House in July 2003. Blair both supported and exerted influence over the US President in the build-up to war, the emails reveal December 3rd, 2001 In a phone conversation Blair on how the next phase might proceed. It would be excellent to get rid of Saddam.' But, he added: There needed to be a clever strategy for doing this... An extremely clever plan would be required. December 4th, 2001 Blair sends Bush a paper setting entitled 'The War on Terrorism: The Second Phase'. Iraq is a threat because it has WMD capability but most countries will be reluctant to back an invasion. Blair wants to soften up public opinion which requires a strategy for regime change that builds over time... until we get to a point where military action could be taken if necessary. We need to be clear that if an uprising occurs, we are willing to act militarily in support, he wrote. July 28th, 2002 Blair tells Bush, 'I will be with you, whatever.' 'The planning on this and the strategy are the toughest yet. This is not Kosovo. This is not Afghanistan. This is not even the Gulf War. The military part of this is hazardous.' 'We would support in any way we can... On timing, we could start building up after the break. A strike date could be Jan/Feb next year. But the crucial issue is not when but how.' The former PM says getting rid of Saddam is 'the right thing to do' because 'his departure would free up the region'. He 'couldn't be sure of support from Parliament, Party, public or even some of the Cabinet'. On Saddam being issued tough deadlines: 'It would be 'take it or leave it'. If he did say yes, we continue the build-up and we send teams over and the moment he obstructs, we say 'he's back to his games. That's it'. 'In any event he probably would screw it up and not meet the deadline. And if he came forward after the deadline we could just refuse to deal.' To win over the public they must 'recapitulate all the WMD evidence, add his attempts to secure nuclear capability and - as seems possible - add on the al-Qaida link.' January 24th, 2003 'In the US/UK view the failure fully to co-operate is enough now (to invade) and technically we are right. But we won't carry other people. However if Blix carries on reporting non co-operation, makes increasing demands, and hardens his findings with each stage, I think we will carry people even without the smoking gun shortly'. On casualties in an invasion 'doing this in the context of international opposition would be very tough'. On the prospect of civil war: 'They are perfectly capable, on previous form, of killing each other in large numbers.' Then Britain and US 'would need the backing of the international community and preferably the UN to handle it' or we would 'get the blame for any fighting'. January 30th, 2003 Letter sets out 'military questions' and 'aftermath questions such as a new Iraqi Government or US-run?' February 19th, 2003 People 'are not against conflict in all circumstances. What they fear is that we are hell bent on war, come what may - that we don't really want the UN to succeed.' 'No-one is suggesting Saddam is co-operating fully. My faith in Blix is somewhat shaken, but he is key.' 'We have to find a way of re-focusing the issue on the absence of full co-operation and do so in a way that pulls public opinion and the UN Security Council waverers with us.' Advertisement
MI5 warned Blair of UK terror risk
MI5 explicitly warned Tony Blair that invading Iraq would put Britons at greater risk of a deadly terrorist attack, but he carried on regardless.
The then Prime Minister insisted Saddam Hussein posed a threat to British interests and had to be stopped.
But the Joint Intelligence Committee, which collates intelligence gathered by MI5 and MI6, had secretly assessed that Iraq was likely to mount a terrorist attack only in response to military action and if the existence of the regime was threatened.
Even this threat was limited and containable, spy chiefs said.
By contrast, a JIC assessment dated February 10 2003 warned that Al Qaeda and associated networks would remain the greatest terrorist threat to the UK, and their activity would increase at the onset of any military action against Iraq.
Mr Blair read the intelligence but, a month later, committed the UK to the invasion. Barely two years later, on July 7 2005, terrorists killed 52 with bombs on Londons transport network.
Baroness ManninghamBuller, the director general of MI5 from 2002 to 2007, was asked by the Chilcot inquiry if a war in Iraq would aggravate the threat from whatever source to the United Kingdom. She said that was the view communicated by the JIC assessments to Mr Blair.
She added that if ministers had read the intelligence assessments, they could have had no doubt about the risk.
MI5 explicitly warned Tony Blair that invading Iraq would put Britons at greater risk of a deadly terrorist attack
Straw told officials to play up threat
By Jason Groves, Deputy Political Editor for The Daily Mail
Jack Straw ordered officials to play up the threat of Iraq in a Government dossier on weapons of mass destruction, the Chilcot report revealed.
The then-foreign secretary has long insisted he had sought a peaceful resolution over alleged stockpiling of chemical weapons.
But yesterdays report showed he had asked why a dossier emphasised risk from Iran, Libya and North Korea, rather than Iraq.
Jack Straw ordered officials to play up the threat of Iraq in a dossier on weapons of mass destruction
In a note on the initial draft, Mr Straw wrote: Good, but should not Iraq be FIRST and also have more text? The paper has to show why there is an EXCEPTIONAL threat from Iraq. It does not quite do this yet.
The dossier planned for release in March 2002 was not published after Mr Straw was advised that the evidence would not convince public opinion that there was an imminent threat from Iraq.
The report also found Mr Straw should have done far more to plan for the aftermath of the war.
However, it shows he argued for a clear UN mandate for military action and urged the US to postpone military action on the basis that sanctions were working.
A man allegedly fired a gun and threw Molotov cocktails at Google's headquarters in Silicon Valley because he was angry about the corporation 'watching him'.
Raul Murillo Diaz, 30, has been charged with arson after three attacks in May and June which left one of Google's self-driving cars on fire.
An affidavit published on NBC's website said Diaz told investigators he was responsible for all three attacks in California and was planning another before he was arrested.
Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California, covers an enormous acreage
'Diaz told officers that his motivation behind the attacks was that he felt Google was watching him and that made him upset,' it said in the affidavit.
A Google employee who was working late at the company's headquarters in Mountain View on May 19 called the police after seeing a man throw a petrol bomb at one of the company's self-drive cars.
Detectives arrived but the culprit fled and they only found fragments from two bottles of Blue Moon beer.
On June 4 two witnesses reported hearing gunshots half a mile away from where the fire broke out and police arrived to find five .22 caliber bullet holes in the windows of Google's office.
A Google driverless car, like the one pictured, was burned out in the last of the attacks
A week later the police were called again around 2am after a Google self-driving car was destroyed by fire.
On that occasion a surveillance video captured a young Hispanic man setting it on fire.
Last week the police pulled over a Volkswagen Touareg, driven by Diaz, as it drove near the massive Google complex.
A 'pipe bomb' was discovered in the car after he was taken into custody.
Diaz made a brief appearance in a federal court in San Jose on Friday, but did not enter a plea.
He remains in custody and will face trial later this year.
Most children of her age would protest an invite to the opera.
But there is very little that is ordinary about 11-year-old Alma Deutscher.
The talented schoolgirl, who first picked up a violin at just three years old, is preparing to travel to Vienna for the premiere of her first full-length opera.
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Music sensation: Alma Deutscher, 11, seen playing during a performance on BBC Radio 4's Today programme
Prodigy: The talented schoolgirl, who first picked up a violin at just three years old, is preparing to travel to Vienna for the premiere of her first full-length opera. Pictured, Alma in 2012, the year she wrote her first opera
It is not the first major composition by the child prodigy. She became a classical sensation after writing her first opera, The Sweeper of Dreams, in 2012 - three years after her first violin concerto, and six after writing her first piano sonata.
And not only is Alma an accomplished composer, she is also a skilled violinist and pianist.
Alma, who lives with her parents Guy and Janie in Dorking, Surrey, said that she finds thinking of her compositions - or 'tunes', as she sweetly calls them - as the easiest part of the process.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, she said: 'I have a skipping rope and actually I don't skip with it, I wave it around and I tell stories in my head and then sometimes a melody just pops into my head so that's how I get my tunes.
'Sometimes when I am just waking up I get them, or when I am just falling asleep, or actually in the middle of the night when I am asleep.
'But getting the tunes for me, actually, that's the easy bit. But having to sit down and develop it into a proper piece and having to combine it with other melodies in a coherent way - polishing it - that's the really difficult bit for me.'
Proud family: Alma in 2012 with younger sister Helen and parents Guy and Janie, who are both musicians
Almas father Guy, an Israeli-born linguist and amateur flautist, said he realised his daughter had a connection with music when she was a baby.
She was given her first violin for her third birthday and in less than a year she was playing Handel sonatas.
Mr Deutscher and his wife, who was an organ scholar at Oxford, moved with Alma and her younger sister Helen from Oxford to Surrey so that they could be closer to the specialist Yehudi Menuhin School in Cobham.
In 2012, she wrote The Sweeper of Dreams a short work which narrowly missed out on a place in the final of an English National Opera contest for adult composers.
Earlier this year, Alma became the youngest British composer signed by an agent after writing her Cinderella opera. She was snapped up by Askonas Holt, where her talent will be nurtured by veteran performers.
She is now preparing for the premiere of her first full-length opera, but said her adult colleagues were initially less than convinced by the pint-sized maestro.
'When I was playing with the orchestra, in the beginning I thought they were a little bit suspicious,' she said. 'They looked like, "Who's this little girl'" you know. But then when I turned to them and I played my cadenza, then I think they changed their minds immediately.'
While her abilities have led to comparisons with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - who by five had mastered the keyboard and violin and started composing - Alma insists she wants to be no one but herself.
'I actually think that if I was again a little Mozart then it would be a bit boring,' she said. 'I would write exactly what Mozart had written before. I think I would prefer to bve a little Alma.'
The Monuments Men of the Second World War risked their lives rescuing stolen Jewish art - only for Bavaria to sell it back to prominent Nazis, a study has claimed.
A team of experts from 13 different countries were tasked with saving as much of the culture of Europe as they could during combat.
But according to new research, some of the art work they put their lives on the line to make safe was simply sold back to Nazi families 'on the cheap'.
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The Monuments Men of the Second World War risked their lives rescuing stolen Jewish art - only for Bavaria to sell it back to prominent Nazis, a study has claimed
Harry Ettlinger, one of the original Monuments Men, stands next to a photograph of him taking a painting by Rembrandt from a salt mine in Germany
Fox News cites The Art Newspaper as saying the group handed 10,600 artworks over to the Bavarian State Paintings Collection after the war under the understanding they were to be given back to Jewish families.
But Anne Webber of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe (CLAE) said some were offered to Germans, including prominent Nazis.
Between 1961 and 1998 at least 500 works which should have been reunited with the families of the original owners were sold on, according to the paper which cited recently documents from the London Commission for Looted Art in Europe.
The claims of Nazi families were studiously dealt with in a far different way than the demands of the dispossessed owners, said the Suddeutsche.
It cited the case of Henriette Hoffmann, daughter of Hitlers personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann and former wife of Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach.
She was allowed to purchase a painting from the Bavarian collections in 1963 which originally belonged to a Jewish family from Vienna.
The painting, by Dutch Baroque artist Jan van der Heyden, was sold on by her and it hangs in the Xanten Cathedral in Germany.
Still missing: Many of the works, hidden across Europe, are still missing
This hoard of art, found in a 12th century castle belonged to Heinrich Himmler, the Nazi propaganda minister
The Monuments Men was the name given to members of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives programme rolled out during the Second World War
Altogether the Hoffmann family got back a total of 28 works of Carl Spitzweg, Carl sheets, Wilhelm Leibl and Franz von Stuck without any problems. Schirach, who was sentenced at the Nuremberg War Crimes trials to a 20 year jail term, was once governor of Vienna and responsible for organizing the deportation of Jews to the concentration camps.
The Times of Israel quotes CLAE as saying: 'It seems that Bavaria thought restitution meant restitution to the Nazis rather than to their victims.'
An investigation run in conjunction with Munich's Suddeutsche Zeitung also claimed state museum's kept art within their collections - and may have tried to 'disguise' the origins.
Art Newspaper says the Bavarian State Paintings Collection rejects claims it hindered restitution.
It said it was committed to securing 'fair and just solutions' with the descendants of those whose art was looted by the Nazis.
The organisation said it would be as 'transparent as possible' in its probe into art stolen by party officials.
Shocking dash cam footage has emerged of an out-of-control car flying and spinning through the air in Taiwan.
The driver failed to slow down when exiting the motorway and sped through the central reservation in Tainan on June 29.
The car spins around six times before landing in the opposite lane crashing right in front of a sedan which managed to break in time. The driver survived with non-life threatening injuries.
Unbelievable: The car can be seen spinning across the motorway before landing on the other side
Narrow escape: The car speeds off the road and spins over narrowly missing the white car
Terrifying: The crash took place when the driver was reportedly speeding when getting onto the slipway
Lucky escape: The driver was injured in the crash but his condition is not life threatening
Footage taken from a car's dash cam shows the SUV travelling on the slip road of the motorway in the opposite direction.
As it twists on the slip road, it careers off the road and into the air, crashing into the grass and across the motorway.
It can be seen spinning 360 degrees, passing right in front of a white sedan which manages to break in time.
Horrifying: According to police, the vehicle was driving too fast as it approached the slipway
Police claim that the car was driving too fast when it careered off the road
As it spins, parts of the SUV starts falling off the vehicle.
Police claim that the car which was being driven by Hsu Wen-cheng who failed to slow down while exiting the freeway, reports Apple Daily.
Despite the force of the crash, the man was found unconscious and was taken to hospital where it was declared that he had four broken fingers and a broken arm.
Police have ruled out drink driving and are investigating further.
The car sped through the central reservation and narrowly missed another car on the road
Shocking: Police claim that the driver failed to slow down on the slip lane causing the crash
President Barack Obama made an about-face today on a commitment to cut troop levels in half in Afghanistan before the end of the year.
Obama said Wednesday that the 'security situation in Afghanistan remains precarious' and he has decided to leave 8,400 troops in the war-torn country through the end of his presidency.
Down from 9,800 forces currently stationed there, troop levels will remain significantly above the 5,500 Obama repeatedly promised.
The president acknowledged this morning that the next Oval Office occupant will be left with the Middle East mess as he stated his belief that keeping a higher than anticipated number of troops in the country 'best positions' his successor 'to make future decisions about Afghanistan.
President Barack Obama made an about-face today on a commitment to cut troop levels in half in Afghanistan before the end of the year in a statement delivered from the Roosevelt Room of the White House, where Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, left, and Joint Chief Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, right, were standing by
Obama said Wednesday that the 'security situation in Afghanistan remains precarious' and he has decided to leave 8,400 troops in the war-torn country through the end of his presidency
The president acknowledged this morning that the next Oval Office occupant will be left with the Middle East mess
'The decision I'm making today ensures that my successor has a solid fountain for continued progress in Afghanistan, as well the flexibility to address the threat of terrorism as it evolves,' Obama said from the White House's Roosevelt Room.
U.S. troops have already remained in Afghanistan at the current level far longer than Obama said they would.
In May of 2014, Obama said the troop presence would be reduced from 32,000 to 9,800 by the end of that year.
More troops were to come home in 2015, and by the end of 2016, Obama said only a residual force would remain in Afghanistan.
Exercising his commander in chief, he adjusted the timetable 16 months ago in response to a request from Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. The U.S. president said at a joint press conference with the foreign leader in March of 2015 that troop levels would stay the same at least through the end of the year.
As Obama prepares to meet with Ghani and members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Poland this weekend, he said Wednesday that he had again changed the withdrawal plan to reflect a reduction of just 1,400 troops.
The outgoing president said a review conducted by the U.S. military determined that the Taliban 'remains a threat' and it is in the interest of United States national security to have an ongoing military presence in the struggling country.
Combat forces' 'narrow missions...will not change,' he assured. 'They remain focused on supporting Afghan forces and going after terrorists.'
'The only way to end this conflict and to achieve a full draw down of foreign forces from Afghanistan is through a lasting political settlement between the Afghan government and the Taliban,' he contended.
Obama asserted that the change in troop posturing reflects the 'enduring commitment' of the United States to the Afghan people and to its allies as they evaluate their own security plans for the country.
'My decision today also sends a message to the Taliban and all those who have opposed Afghanistans progress,' Obama proclaimed. 'You have now been waging war against the Afghan people for many years. Youve been unable to prevail. Afghan security forces continue to grow stronger. And the commitment of the international community, including the United States, to Afghanistan and its people will endure.'
The president's spokesman argued later at a briefing with reporters that the draw down announced by Obama today 'represents a significant reduction' in forces.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision must be viewed in the context of the 14-year fight and the fact that four years ago more than 100,000 U.S. troops were stationed there.
Obama campaigned in 2008 on a pledge to end the war in Iraq and redirect those resources to the deteriorating Afghanistan.
As president, he oversaw a troop 'surge' of 33,000 forces in December of 2009 in addition to the roughly 70,000 soldiers that were already there. In 2011 Obama ordered a reduction of those forces with a goal of ending the surge before the next year's U.S. presidential election.
His second term saw Obama pair down the United States' military presence in Afghanistan even further until only 9,800 combat soldiers were stationed inside the country.
He meanwhile refused steadfastly to send combat groups to Iraq and Syria as a terror spin-off of al Qaeda waged a new war in the Middle East.
Obama praised Afghan security forces today for fighting to keep their country from falling back into the grips of the terrorists.
For the second consecutive year Afghan forces are 'fully responsible for their own security' Obama said.
'To their credit -- and in the face of a continued Taliban insurgency and terrorist networks -- Afghan forces remain in control of all the major population centers, provincial capitals, major transit routes and most district centers.'
'Afghan forces have beaten back attacks and theyve pushed the Taliban out of some areas,' he said. 'Nevertheless, the security situation in Afghanistan remains precarious.'
A policeman searches a passenger at a police checkpoint in Ghazni province, eastern Afghanistan, July 4, 2016. The country's security forces are still not equipped to protect their own people while battling the terrorist threat, however, Obama assessed today
In prepared remarks from the Roosevelt Room, where he was accompanied by Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Joint Chiefs Chairman, Obama said, 'It has been continually my belief that it is up to Afghans to defend their country.
'Because we have emphasized training and their capabilities, weve been able to end our major ground war there and bring 90 percent of our troops back home.'
The country's security forces are still not equipped to protect their own people while battling the terrorist threat, however, Obama assessed.
'Even as we work for peace, we have to deal with the realities of the world as it is. And we can't forget whats at stake in Afghanistan.'
The U.S. president said its his fear that al Qaeda will regroup in Afghanistan and said ISIS also 'continues to try to expand its presence.'
'If these terrorists succeed in regaining areas and camps where they can train and plot, they will attempt more attacks against us. We cannot allow that to happen. I will not allow that to happen,' he declared.
Obama said he would push America's allies to affirm their own contributions to the defense of Afghanistan at the NATO Summit on Friday in Warsaw, Poland.
'I firmly believe the decision Im announcing today is the right thing to do -- for Afghanistan, for the United States, and for the world,' he said in closing.
A 16-year-old British boy has been warned he faces jail after being convicted of sending bomb hoaxes to American Airlines and Delta Air Lines on Twitter.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had previously admitted carrying out cyber attacks around the world, including on Florida's SeaWorld theme park and Devon and Cornwall Police.
He hacked into the websites and sent the threats using a laptop in the bedroom of his home in Plympton, near Plymouth, Devon.
A 16-year-old British boy has been warned he faces jail after he hacked into websites and sent threats to airlines using a laptop in the bedroom of his home in Plympton, near Plymouth, Devon
The boy had admitted three offences under Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act, relating to denial of service attacks but he had denied sending the bomb hoaxes.
However District Judge Diane Baker found the boy had sent tweets to American Airlines, the White House and Delta Air Lines on February 13 last year.
One posted at 6.46pm to American Airlines read: 'One of those lovely Boeing airplanes has a tick, tick, ticking in it. Hurry gentlemen, the clock is ticking.'
Another, sent six minutes earlier to Delta Air Lines, read: 'There's a nice tick, tick in one of those lovely Boeing planes, high quality.'
The judge warned the boy, who has no previous convictions, that he could receive a custodial sentence when he is dealt with later this month.
'You may be a young man but you are a clever young man,' she told the teenager, who sat next to his mother in the court.
'It is the level of detailed planning, the level of sophistication that there was to hide what had happened and the fact that there were two bomb hoaxes.
'I am aware from the denial of service attacks there was quite a lot of disruption for Devon and Cornwall Police's site.
'There was disruption and loss of earnings in relation to the SeaWorld site.
'It clearly passes the custody threshold and that is something I have to look at.'
The boy was charged with the five offences in November and initially admitted the allegations before later insisting he had not tweeted the threats.
He suggested that a remote access trojan (RAT) - in which an attacker controls a computer remotely - could be responsible.
The boy had sent tweets to American Airlines, the White House and Delta Air Lines on February 13 last year
But computer experts found Skype conversations between the boy and an online contact named Whitehat discussing how to carry out the hoaxes.
The judge described Whitehat as 'a relatively sophisticated computer operator' who regularly discussed illegal computer misuse.
'I am sure that it was you personally, on the encouragement of Whitehat, who sent both bomb hoaxes,' she told the boy.
'You did so knowing how serious such actions would be. The planning involved was both detailed and sophisticated.'
Giving evidence during his one-day trial, the boy said: 'A large part of the websites that I had taken down were to do with dolphin-hunting.
'I have always been for animal rights and I am really into computers and things so I thought, in protest, and to see what I could do, I would do it.
'I joined up with other people who were doing it. I was fighting for animal rights. I was 14 and 15 then.'
He denied sending the tweets, telling the judge: 'I feel I could have been stitched up by, I don't know, but I think I could have been disliked by someone in the past and they have done it to me.'
The court heard that the teenager had sent tweets to the Operation Zephyr Regional Cyber Crime Unit and an email to the investigating police officer following his interviews.
One tweet said: 'To be fair, they caught me red-handed', while a second added: 'I still maintain the utmost respect for Zephyr.'
The email read: 'I can't bear this any longer. I would prefer if you didn't discuss this with my Mum please.
'I have messed up, I know that and I won't do anything so stupid ever again.'
He also said he wanted to 'look cool' and boost his Twitter following back hacking the websites.
The teenager had previously admitted carrying out cyber attacks around the world, including on Florida's SeaWorld theme park (pictured)
Prosecuting, Ben Samples said the FBI was notified of the boy's tweets and senior management at the airlines investigated them.
The threats were viewed as 'unspecific' and the matter was referred to the UK authorities, with no further action taken by the airlines.
Investigations from the Operation Zephyr Regional Cyber Crime Unit traced the tweets to a computer used solely by the teenager.
Detective Sergeant Aled Jones, from the South West Regional Cyber Crime Unit, said: 'This result demonstrates that these types of offences are taken seriously and that we do have the capability to identify arrest and prosecute those responsible.
'I hope that this case will serve to dissuade other like-minded people from engaging in similar criminal activity.'
The Chilcot report has raised serious questions about the process that saw Lord Goldsmith repeatedly harden his legal advice in the run-up to the Iraq War.
The Attorney General initially told Tony Blair that a second UN Security Council resolution would be needed to provide a legal basis for invading.
But by March 2003 the peer had come to a 'better view' as the then-Prime Minister assured him that Saddam Hussein had committed further 'material breaches'.
The report unveiled by Sir John Chilcot today delivers an excoriating verdict about the handling and presentation of intelligence, the necessity of taking military action, and the failure to plan for the aftermath.
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Lord Goldsmith, left, initially told Tony Blair a second UN Security Council could be needed to provide a legal basis for invasion
While stressing that they did not have a remit to decide whether the invasion had been legal, the inquiry panel 'concluded that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action were far from satisfactory'.
In mid-January 2003 Lord Goldsmith, the government's chief law officer, told Mr Blair that a further Security Council resolution would be needed to provide a legal basis for action.
The PM and his closest aides stressed that the advice should be 'closely held' and as a result it was not shared with other ministers.
By the end of February the peer had told Mr Blair that although a second resolution would be preferable, a 'reasonable case' could be made under the existing UNSC 1441.
He put that advice in writing in on March 7, saying it relied on a 'narrow textual reading' of the resolution.
However, after the military and civil service asked for more clarity he then stated that the 'better view' was that the legal basis was secure.
On March 14, Lord Goldsmith asked Mr Blair to confirm that Iraq had committed further 'material breaches' of UNSC 1441, saying that was an essential part of his justification.
Mr Blair's office responded that it was the PM's 'unequivocal view' that there had been further breaches of the resolution.
But the report said: 'It is unclear what specific grounds Mr Blair relied upon in reaching this view.'
Sir John said: 'Given the gravity of the situation, Lord Goldsmith should have been asked to provide written advice explaining how, in the absence of a majority in the Security Council, Mr Blair could take that decision.'
Lord Goldsmith insisted today: 'It was my honestly held, professional opinion that there was sufficient authority in UN Security Resolution 1441, together with resolutions 678 and 687, to go to war.
A British soldier dives from a burning tank which was set ablaze in the southern Iraqi city of Basra in 2005. Critics have slated Mr Blair for starting a war, pictured, which killed 179 UK soldiers, claiming it contributed to the rise of ISIS
'This was my conclusion after an in-depth study of all the available information.
'I welcome the fact that there is nothing in today's exhaustive report that challenges either my conclusion or the fact that this was my honestly held view.
'Sir John today expressed concern about the process by which my advice was obtained. I agree that process should be improved for the future.
'As I said in my evidence, I think that there ought to be a Cabinet sub-committee to consider issues relating to the legality of government policy, and that legal advisers should be closely involed in the policy making process.
'In purely technical terms, legal opinions can differ. I provided my advice to the best of my abilities and aware of the seriousness of any decision to go to war.
'In my opinion, that decision was in accordance with international law and it was permissible for those with the responsibility for taking the decision to proceed.
'So I believed then - and I still believe - that military action was lawful.'
This is the dramatic moment a couple in a canoe slam into the side of an oil tanker after the current caused by its running engines drag them towards it.
The footage was captured by the husband and wife who set off from the Port of Los Angeles and headed to Huntington Beach in California.
The husband, who has not been identified, said it was a windy day as the couple spotted the oil tanker in the distance and decided to canoe alongside it.
Adventure: The husband and wife spotted the oil tanker in the distance and decided to canoe alongside it
Danger: Disaster strikes moments later however as the ship's propeller drags their canoe towards it
He revealed that this was something they have done before as the side of the ship creates a wedge - rebound waves that propel their canoe along.
The video shows the duo paddling over to the tanker and speeding up to ride the waves.
They appear to catch one of them and stop paddling for a few seconds to enjoy the sensation of being pushed along by the fast-flowing water.
Disaster strikes moments later however as the ship's propeller, which they did not know was turning, drags their canoe towards it.
The nail-biting footage shows the couple heading towards the oil tanker at speed before their canoe slams into the side of it and capsizes.
The video becomes distorted as the pair try to fight against the current and turn their boat over, but they are initially unable to do so.
Speaking after the incident, the husband recalls: 'We had no idea that an anchored ship would have its engine running with the propeller turning.
'As we were riding along the back of the ship it created a suction toward the boat so our canoe started getting sucked into the side of it.
Scary: The footage shows the couple being dragged towards the tanker before their canoe slams into it
Disaster: The video becomes distorted as the canoe capsizes and the couple and thrown into the cold water
'I was unable to steer it away which ultimately caused us to crash into the ship.'
He added: 'Once in the water we felt our bodies being suck toward the ship's side. We kept pushing off the ship with our feet and trying to swim away.
'I had to swim away from the ship and pull our canoe away at the same time.'
The husband also recalled not being able to flip the canoe back over, something he says is normally easy to do, and suspects the current being created by the propeller was holding it down.
Eventually the pair got away unharmed and learned a 'valuable lesson' to stay away from anchored ships in the future.
Depending on what way a propeller is facing, it will either pull water towards it or push it away.
When the huge propeller turns it creates turbulence due to the pressure differences on either side of the blade.
This generates currents in the water, which could pull a canoe towards the ship.
Worrying: The man said he was unable to swim away from the ship due to the current created by the propeller
Manning has since been released, but is being 'monitored' by officials
The ex-US-soldier tried to hang herself inside a cell at Fort Leavenworth prison in Kansas and was
Chelsea Manning, the ex-US-soldier who is serving a 35-year prison sentence for leaking thousands of secret military documents, attempted suicide in prison.
The imprisoned transgender 28-year-old was hospitalized briefly, a US defense official said Wednesday after reports said she attempted suicide at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.
'She was taken to a local hospital in the Fort Leavenworth area yesterday morning, and she was returned to the disciplinary barracks yesterday morning,' the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The official had no information on Manning's medical condition.
A source told TMZ that Manning tried to hang herself inside a cell at the all-male prison, which she has been confined to despite requesting to be moved to a female prison.
The source added that Manning is now being 'monitored.'
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Chelsea Manning (above), the ex-US-soldier who is serving a 35-year prison sentence for leaking thousands of secret military documents, allegedly attempted suicide in prison
Manning - pictured here after being found guilty, and before beginning the transition into a woman- tried to hang herself at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas on early Tuesday, a source told TMZ
Nancy Hollander, one of Manning's lawyers, released a statement Wednesday saying she had a planned scheduled call with her client for Tuesday, but it never happened.
'I had a privileged call scheduled with Chelsea at 2pm Leavenworth time yesterday, after the Army has now said she was hospitalized, but the Army gave the excuse - which I now believe to be an outright lie - that the call could not be connected although my team was waiting by the phone,' the statement reads.
'We're shocked and outraged that an official at Leavenworth contacted the press with private confidential medical information about Chelsea Manning yet no one at the Army has given a shred of information to her legal team.
'Despite the fact that they have reached out to the media, and that any other prison will connect an emergency call, the Army has told her lawyers that the earliest time that they will accommodate a call between her lawyers and Chelsea is Friday morning.
'We call on the Army to immediately connect Chelsea Manning to her lawyers and friends who care deeply about her well-being and are profoundly distressed by the complete lack of official communication about Chelsea's current situation.'
In 2010, Manning, who was then known as Bradley, leaked classified Army documents to the website WikiLeaks and was convicted on 21 counts of espionage.
She was working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq when she leaked airstrike videos, US diplomatic cables and 482,832 Army reports that went on to become known as the Iraqi War Logs and Afghan War Diary.
In 2013, Manning was sentenced on the charges to 35 years in prison.
She was born Bradley Manning, and in a statement after being sentenced she said she had felt female since childhood and wanted to be known as Chelsea,
She transitioned from male to female in prison and has requested to be moved to an all-female prison.
In May, her lawyers filed an appeal citing that she acted in the interests of the public.
In their argument, they claim she doesn't deserve the 'harsh' sentence in prison.
'For what PFC Manning did, the punishment is grossly unfair and unprecedented,' the appeal, filed Wednesday, said. 'No whistleblower in American history has been sentenced this harshly.'
Her lawyers hope to get the court to either reduce her sentence to ten years or dismiss the charges entirely, Manning said on her blog.
The reasons she gave for the appeal were being placed in solitary confinement before her trial - described as 'deplorable' and 'unconstitutional' by her lawyers - the use of 'vague evidence' for sentencing and a 'lack of evidence on charges of theft of information'.
She was hospitalized in the Fort Leavenworth prison hospital before being released, as she is being 'monitored.' (file photo above)
In 2010, Manning - pictured above before beginning the transition into a woman- leaked classified Army documents to the website WikiLeaks and was convicted on 21 counts of espionage.
She also cites a 'vague definition of 'exceeding authorized access'' in the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and a 'lack of proof' that U.S. interests were harmed by the leak as additional reasons.
'Throughout trial the prosecution portrayed PFC Manning as a traitor and accused her of placing American lives in danger, but nothing could be further from the truth,' the appeal said.
It added that she released the documents because she 'believed the public had a right to know about the toll of the wars... the loss of life, and the extent to which the government sought to hide embarrassing information of its wrongdoing.'
Manning announced the appeal on her Twitter account, saying 'My fight is far from over. I am only just getting started.'
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wrote in defense of Manning, saying that her conviction was 'unconstitutional,' ABC reported.
It said the Espionage Act is 'unconstitutionally vague,' because it gives the U.S. government a tool 'to subject speakers and messages it dislikes to discriminatory prosecution'.
It also said that the act was used unconstitutionally when the judge refused to allow the court to consider whether the leaked documents might have been so valuable to public discussion that they justified the leak.
In 2013, Manning - pictured above before beginning the transition into a woman - was sentenced on the charges to 35 years in prison. Her lawyers filed an appeal in May citing that she acted in the interests of the public
Manning had originally been charged on 22 counts, but was acquitted of 'aiding the enemy,' which carried a potential death sentence.
While in prison, she joined with Amnesty International to sue the government for the right to hormone therapy and won the lawsuit.
She recently wrote an essay for The Guardian about the new US rules allowing transgender people to serve openly in the military.
'Gender presentation should reflect the person that you are,' Manning wrote.
'When you lose control of your gender presentation you lose an important aspect of your identity and existence.
'By setting so many caveats, time lines, standards, and training, the military is making this far, far, more complicated and bureaucratic than it needs to be.
'The simple reality is that we are who we say we are.'
The publication of a damning report into Britain's handling of the Iraq war and Tony Blair's apology have led to a mixed reaction from around the world.
Sir John Chilcot's long-awaited report was finally published today and it concluded then Prime Minister Tony Blair overstated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, sent ill-prepared troops into battle and had 'wholly inadequate' plans for Iraq following Saddam's fall.
The Russian Embassy in London tweeted: 'Keep calm but I told you so' in the immediate aftermath of the publication of the Chilcot Report into Britain's handling of the Iraq war.
Moments after the long-awaited report was published the Russian Embassy tweeted the sarcastic meme, captioned: '#Chilcot inquiry: No real WMD in Baghdad, unjust & highly dangerous war. The entire region on the receiving end.'
The French Ambassador to the United States, Gerard Araud, tweeted: 'May I remind everybody how France was abused and denigrated for opposing the war? France was right!'
He added: 'Not only a geopolitical disaster, not only distortion and manipulation but also a human tragedy.'
Washington-based foreign policy author David Rothkopf tweeted: 'Somehow "sorry" doesn't seem like enough, does it? Ok after a small traffic accident maybe. A catastrophic war, no.'
The Russian Embassy was quick to chip in (left) as soon as the Chilcot Report was published. Tony Blair (right) spent two hours defending his position and maintained that although he was sorry for mistakes which were made he did not believe it was wrong to remove Saddam Hussein despite the lack of WMDs
THE CHILCOT REPORT IN NUMBERS 7 - Years since the Chilcot Inquiry was launched, by then Prime Minister Gordon Brown. 2,578 - Days between the announcement of the inquiry and today 3 - Foreign secretaries to have been in the post since the inquiry was launched - David Miliband under Mr Brown, and William Hague and Philip Hammond under David Cameron. 2 million - Words estimated to be included in the report, making it almost four times longer than Leo Tolstoy's epic War and Peace. 10 million - Estimated cost, in pounds, of the inquiry as of January this year. 179 - UK military personnel that died during the Iraq war. Advertisement
Reaction has been coming in from elsewhere in the world.
In Baghdad, Iraqi political analyst Ahmed Rushdi told Al-Jazeera, 'Blair lied to the British people. He lied to the international community...he lied on every level.'
Mr Rushdi said Blair and former US President George W Bush bore the responsibility for the decision to 'go to Iraq, invade Iraq, destroy the infrastructure, destroy the nationality of all the Iraqis' without a clear plan for how to handle the vacuum after the fall of Saddam.
May I remind everybody how France was abused and denigrated for opposing the war? France was right!
Le Mondes London correspondent, Philippe Bernard, said the report was originally commissioned by Mr Blair's successor, Gordon Brown, and he wrote: Seven years later the investigation had become a bad soap opera and its independence was in doubt as the former prime minister apparently tried ultimately unsuccessfully to prevent the declassification of letters and emails between Blair and Bush.'
France's Ambassador Gerard Araud clearly felt vindicated after the publication of today's report
Germany's most-popular newspaper, Bild, said: 'The investigation report of the Chilcot Commission to the Iraq war finds what many Britons suspected: ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government have made serious mistakes - it was a savage beating for Blair.'
Saddam Hussein was, like Syria's Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Moscow from the Soviet era and Russia strongly opposed the coalition's invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Russia had blocked a UN resolution allowing military intervention and foreign minister Igor Ivanov said at the time: 'Russia deems that there is no evidence that would justify a war in Iraq.'
So the publication of the Chilcot Report today will be seen as vindication in Moscow.
The Russian Embassy tweet would have been given the green light by Russian Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko, and possibly by Vladimir Putin himself.
Washington-based foreign affairs author and expert David Rothkopf summed up the mood quite well
Northern Ireland's First Minister Martin McGuinness praised Blair and damned him in the same tweet
The report was greeted with a mixture of anger and disdain by many on Twitter
Tony Blair stands with British troops in Basra, southern Iraq, May 29, 2003 - a month after the famous statue of Saddam Hussein was dragged to the ground by a US Marine vehicle in Baghdad's Firdos square
Mr Blair today suggested that if they had not removed Saddam Hussein, pictured, in 2003 Iraq could have imploded in sectarian civil war like Syria has since 2011
Shame on you, Tony Blair.
Now we know the truth, and what an ugly, shocking truth it is: Britain waged a hideously unjustified, probably illegal war for no good reason, had zero plan for the aftermath, and sparked so much mayhem and turmoil in the Middle East it's made the world a far more not less dangerous place.
It was the single worst decision by any Prime Minister in modern times and its repercussions will be felt for many decades to come.
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Hideously unjustified: Tony Blair, pictured in Iraq in 2003, set out on an outrageously devious plan to spin the senseless war to the country. The supposed 'intelligence' used to justify it was 'flawed', we now learn
As I pored through all the key details in the long-awaited, shamefully delayed Chilcot report, I grew more and more incensed.
Every single aspect of this grotesque, deadly fiasco has now been exposed as an absolute sham and disgrace.
Britain's Prime Minister personally promised America's President, 'I will be with you, whatever', NINE MONTHS before the war, without informing either the British people or Parliament.
He then set out on an elaborate and outrageously devious plan to spin this senseless war to the country.
The supposed 'intelligence' used to justify it was 'flawed', we now learn. In other words, it was bulls**t.
That bulls**t was then hyped up to make it sound more convincing. Vital caveats were removed lest anyone suspect the grounds for going to war were as pathetically weak as they actually were.
Blair later brazenly told Parliament the intelligence was 'extensive, detailed and authoritative'.
This, as we now know, was nonsense.
Shame on you: Blair has all the blood on his hands of those who died, and no amount of further eloquent spinning now by him and his loyal defenders can deny that fact. Pictured, Blair at his press conference today
He and his Downing Street spinners claim they didn't 'lie'.
Really? If I sell you my car and claim it's perfectly safe, but don't show you existing paperwork suggesting the brakes might be faulty, that's not technically a 'lie' either. But it's a serious, wilful omission of detail which can have catastrophic, lethal consequences.
The war itself was over in just a few weeks, confirming Saddam was never the military threat we had been led to believe.
This was achieved despite our troops being woefully and disgracefully under equipped.
After that came utter chaos.
We removed tyranny and replaced it with anarchy, displacing most of Iraq's military, security and political systems and replacing them with.a disorganised shambles.
Iraq inevitably descended quickly into civil war and was burned, trashed and ultimately wrecked.
Devious plan: The threat from Saddam simply didn't exist in the way Blair and Bush (pictured in 2004) insisted
This led to violent uprisings all over the Middle East, the deaths of thousands, the displacement of millions, and the downfall of other leaders like Mubarak and Gaddafi.
Terror groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS pounced on the hell of this rudderless vacuum in the region like jackals on a rotting carcass and continue to wreak havoc.
All this, Chilcot concludes, was specifically predicted before the invasion.
In other words, Blair and cabinet members like Jack Straw, his hapless goon of a Foreign Secretary, were warned about what might happen but did nothing meaningful to prevent it. An unbelievable dereliction of duty which negates all attempts by the culprits to claim 'hindsight's a wonderful thing'. They had foresight a-plenty but ignored it.
The war was thus a very short-term military success before morphing into a complete disaster, and all for what?
Saddam Hussein, as Blair says, was a bad guy, a tyrant who presided over a vile regime.
Nobody with half a brain would dispute that.
But he had nothing to do with 9/11, the event which acted as a catalyst for the war.
Special relationship: Britain's Prime Minister personally promised America's President, 'I will be with you, whatever', NINE MONTHS before the war, without informing either the British people or Parliament
This, though, was the excuse used to take him out.
Why? Well, for the Americans it was personal.
George W Bush had never forgiven Saddam for trying to take out his mother Barbara Bush during the first Gulf War in the mistaken belief that a convoy carrying her was in fact transporting her husband, then President George H W Bush.
Dubya also needed a big scalp to sate the enraged, vengeful American public left reeling by the worst ever terror attack on their mainland.
Saddam fitted the bill perfectly. He was unfinished family business and someone who few Americans would object to taking out.
After all, Saddam had used chemical weapons before against his own people what was to stop him using them again?
Now we know the answer: he didn't have any. As we would have discovered if Hans Blix and his U.N. weapons inspector team had been allowed more time to check.
The world is full of bad people and nasty dictators.
The only possible reason to depose them or invade their countries is when they pose an imminent threat to our own national security.
What's crystal clear from Chilcot is there was no such imminent threat from Saddam to Britain, America or anywhere else.
Saddam, it transpired, didn't have any Weapons of Mass Destruction, let alone WMD that could reach the UK in 45 minutes.
So the threat from Saddam simply didn't exist in the way Blair and Bush insisted.
That was another falsehood.
The Iraq War was a very personal experience for me.
I was editor of the Daily Mirror during the whole period and the paper led a vociferous campaign to stop it happening.
Single worst decision: Tony Blair, pictured today
(I subsequently ended up losing my job over alleged hoax photos of British troops abusing Iraqis. Chilcot's findings may make interesting reading for those who still think some rogue elements of our forces committed no such inexcusable abuse.)
When 1.7 million people marched through London in the greatest protest ever seen in Britain, many were clutching Mirror placards.
It was a campaign I fervently wish we had won.
But we lost, and when we went to war my own brother Jeremy, an officer in the Royal Welsh regiment, served two tours of Iraq, risking his life like every other serviceman and woman out there.
He was convinced Blair was telling the truth about Saddam's WMD capability and threat and we had many arguments about it.
But he later became seriously disillusioned by the reality he and his fellow soldiers discovered on the ground in Iraq, and the creeping realisation that Saddam hadn't got WMD after all.
They, and we, had been conned.
I felt so angry on behalf of brave men and women like my brother.
They fought a war on an entirely false pretext.
Before, during and after the war, I had numerous private meetings with Tony Blair.
It was clear to me that he decided early on to put all his chips on supporting America in any attack on Iraq, and assumed he would be able to persuade his own people and the international community to come along for the ride as he'd done with conflicts like Kosovo.
When we, and they, didn't, he was trapped in a place where he either told America to go it alone or he effectively betrayed Britain's will and national interest.
Bedazzled by his post-9/11 fame in the United States, he chose to betray Britain's will and national interest, and the war went horribly wrong. This is why he is now so unpopular in this country, and I say that with sadness, as someone who's known him 22 years, likes him on a personal level, and thought he was a very good Prime Minister for much of his tenure.
In the end, we still don't know if Blair and his Downing Street team deliberately lied.
Only they and their consciences know that.
But what we do know now is that they did indeed deliberately over-hype the intelligence to make the case for war as strong as they possibly could.
Paid the price: Dawn Holmes, the heartbroken mother of L Cpl Sarah Holmes, who died in Iraq, cries as she clutches a picture of her child after the Chilcot report was released while Sarah O' Connor, whose brother Sergeant Bob O'Connor also died, kisses his picture. Tony Blair has the blood of brave men on his hands
It's the kind of thing all governments do when they want to sell a contentious policy to a sceptical public.
But it's NOT the kind of thing any government should do when it is sending our armed forces into battle.
Chilcot's report is extremely long and comprehensive.
But here's the bottom line: Tony Blair spun us into a completely unnecessary war which cost the lives of 179 British servicemen and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, many of them innocent civilians.
We blew up scores of women and children in the process.
There can be no more serious 'mistake' for a Prime Minister to make.
There is no greater responsibility for any world leader than the decision to go to war.
You have to be 100% sure that what you're doing is not just the right thing to do but also lawful.
The Iraq War was the wrong thing to do, and probably illegal.
Blair thus has all the blood on his hands of those who died, and no amount of further eloquent spinning now by him and his loyal defenders can deny that fact.
This, as he admitted today, was HIS war, HIS hideous mistake, HIS disaster.
WE, and especially those who died and their families, have had to pay the price.
Her lawyer had kindly offered to pick her up at 5am from the prison gates when she was being released.
But as they drove away Teresa Giudice berated him for not bringing her a Starbucks coffee.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey star told Jim Leonard that the cappuccino was the worst thing I have ever tasted even though no Starbucks was open that early.
Giudice also told him he was late even though he was just a minute past 5am.
Giudice, 44, a mother-of-four, served just under a year in prison at the Federal Correctional Center in Danbury, Connecticut, for conspiracy and bankruptcy fraud charges.
Teresa Giudice admits she wasn't very nice to her lawyer Jim Leonard when he went to pick her up from prison
She and her husband Joe, 43, admitted hiding assets during bankruptcy proceedings and filing false loan applications to get $5 million in mortgages and loans.
Giudice was released in December and detailed the moment she left prison in a new chapter of her memoir Turning the Tables,' Daily Mail Online has learned.
In the book she writes that Leonard had told her he would be there on the dot at 5am but when she finished her discharge papers there was no sign of him.
She writes: I didnt know he was driving around trying to find a Starbucks because I was dying for a real coffee as I had told him.
I was done with instant coffee I had started my morning with every day at the camp.
Real Housewives of New Jersey star Teresa Giudice has added a chapter to her memoir
When he finally pulled up, two female guards escorted me through a series of doors to a gate outside. As soon as I saw him I said: Youre late.
Leonard repled: Youre busting my balls already? Its only 5.01!
Giudice tried to pass off the encounter as a joke - but she was not amused when he handed her what she calls the gas station version of the real coffee I wanted.
Leonard told her: This is all I could find. Its a cappuccino. Starbucks is closed right now.
Giudice writes: I took a sip. This is the worst thing I have ever tasted, I said, laughing.
This is as close to cappuccino as youre gonna get at this hour, he said.
They have better coffee in prison, I said.
Giudice was welcomed home by Joe who brought her a new Lexus SUV, which came with a big red bow on top.
But their joy was short lived as four months later Joe had to begin his 41 month sentence in prison
In the new chapter of her memoir Giudice also reveals the pain of his last days at their home in Montville Township, New Jersey.
The night before Joe went to jail Giudice found him crying in the hallway after saying goodnight to their daughters.
He told her: I wont be able to do this anymore for a long time. I am going to miss them so much.
Giudice writes: That broke my heart. I held him and I thought, this is pure hell.
She describes their final night together as bittersweet. The next morning when they drove the prison she didnt want to let him go.
She writes: I stood there as he approached the prison doors, with tears streaming down my cheeks. He looked back one more time. I know how painful this was for him. It was hard for all of us and would be hard until he was finally back home with us, where he belongs.
Joe however has a cloud hanging over him as he is an Italian citizen - meaning he could be deported after he gets out.
The gun crime toll in Chicago has passed 2,000 after four people were murdered and a further 62 were wounded following a bloody Fourth of July weekend.
The Chicago Police Department deployed some 5,000 officers on the streets - 2,000 more than usual - and conducted a string of anti-gang crime raids in the city.
Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said there were three fewer deaths over the weekend compared with last year.
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Four people were murdered and 62 wounded in gun crimes over the July 4 holiday weekend in Chicago
More than 2,000 people have been victims of gun crime in Chicago since the beginning of the year
Police chief Eddie Johnson flooded the city's streets with more than 5,000 officers - 2,000 more than normal
Supt Johnson noted the holiday fell on a Monday meaning there was an extra day
According to the Chicago Tribune, 2,026 people have been shot and wounded in gun crimes since the beginning of the year, compared with 2,988 in 2015.
More than 320 have died.
The dramatic rise in the number of homicides and shootings in the first half of 2016 compared to the same time last year - with 72 deaths and 447 injuries in June alone - had raised fears in some of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods that the long holiday weekend would be particularly bloody.
Rev Marshall Hatch, a minister in Chicago's West Side said: 'We were on a pace this year that we thought the violence was going to go off the charts. I think it would have been a lot worse out there if it weren't for these (police department) efforts.'
So far more than 320 people have been murdered in Chicago in gun crimes during 2016
Supt Johnson suggested the department's crime fighting measures he implemented over the weekend paid off.
But he hinted that it might be difficult to dispatch the same number of officers to the streets every weekend during the summer, when the number of violent crimes typically climbs.
He said: 'Some parts of it (are) sustainable and some will be a bit of a challenge.'
The weekend did bring into focus a key strategy to try and reduce violence by targeting street gangs.
In two raids last week, the latter ending late Friday, the department reported that more than 110 gang members were arrested on drug and gun charges.
The vast majority of those are on a list of people police have identified as being most likely to be suspects or victims in gun violence. The department hopes that as more of those people are taken into custody, the number of shootings will drop.
Supt Johnson has said there will be more raids in the coming months like the ones the department conducted last week.
Of the people arrested, 55 were convicted felons, and 16 of them were on parole.
However they only managed to recover eight firearms.
A New York man faces child pornography charges after investigators say he tricked his ex-girlfriend into engaging in and recording sex acts with her teenage son.
U.S. Attorney William Hochul says 60-year-old Kevin James Fox of Limestone was arrested and charged with production and receipt of child pornography on Tuesday.
Fox is accused of using different cell phone numbers to make his ex-girlfriend believe she would be physically harmed by organized crime members unless she had sexual contact with her 17-year-old son and shared it via text messages.
Authorities say the contact occurred during two days in June, with the images and videos sent to phone numbers Fox controlled.
Kevin James Fox, 60, faces child pornography charges after investigators say he tricked his ex-girlfriend into engaging in and recording sex acts with her teenage son in New York (file photo)
According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron Mango, Fox created multiple online personas and obtained the phone numbers using publicly available applications.
Fox allegedly told the woman that the only way she could get out of danger was to have sexual contact with her son and photograph the acts.
She complied on June 10 and again on June 21 by sending videos and images to Fox.
Fox made an initial appearance before Judge H. Kenneth Schroeder Jr. in federal court, and was represented by a public defender on Tuesday.
Hes being held pending a detention hearing Wednesday.
Carrollton Town Supervisor James Stoddard told the Olean Times Herald that Fox owned and operated Foxy's Pet Foods and Supplies at 635 Main Street for several years.
Stoddard told the newspaper that FBI agents were at Fox's home, which is on the same property as his business, on Saturday to serve the charges.
The charges carry a mandatory minimum prison term of 15 years and a 50-year maximum. He is also facing a $250,000 fine if convicted.
Iraqis whose lives were destroyed by the 2003 invasion of their country today accused Tony Blair and George Bush of being the architects of their downfall - and called them 'the devil'.
The former Prime Minister's reputation lies in tatters after today's Chilcot's damning report into the Iraq debacal found he toppled tyrant Saddam Hussein with no firm evidence he had weapons of mass destruction.
And today people on the streets of Erbil in northern Iraq celebrated as the report finally tore apart the so-called flawed invasion that killed 179 British troops and their countrymen and women.
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Fury: Iraqis in Erbil said today Tony Blair and George Bush should never have invaded their country. Shop keeper Selman Hussein (centre) said Iraq is now more dangerous than it was under dictator Saddam Hussein
Uncertain future: Selman went told MailOnline: 'They removed Saddam, but didn't think about the consequences. We are now living in a destroyed country, Tony Blair did not make anything good for Iraq'
'They removed Saddam Hussein, but they didn't think about the consequences of doing so,' said shopkeeper Selman Hussein.
The businessman, who briefly fled to Europe and lived in Belgium, said Mr Blair had been irresponsible when he claimed he could not have known how difficult the post-invasion situation would be.
In the report emails from the ex-Labour PM to then US-president George Bush showed unwavering loyalty as he was determined to take military action to topple Saddam.
Under Saddam we were happier, it was much better. Now, it is Sunni-Shiite and Kurds. Everybody is fighting, now there are bombs everyday. Before we had a strong president. His name was Saddam. Selman Hussein, shopkeeper
But the shopkeeper went on: 'They did not plan for the future. We are now living in a destroyed country, Tony Blair did not make anything good for Iraq,' he said.
'Under Saddam we were happier, it was much better. Now, it is Sunni-Shiite and Kurds. Everybody is fighting, now there are bombs everyday. Before we had a strong president. His name was Saddam,' he said.
Selman, also believes Mr Blair twisted intelligence about the threat posed by Saddam to justify the war that led to the deaths of 179 British soldiers and left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead.
'He said Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. What weapons? They lied,' he added.
Other Iraqis hit out at Mr Blair claiming his fawning emails to Bush, where the day after the 9/11 attacks, Blair told Bush they should immediately tackle states and individuals with weapons of mass destruction and justify it later prove he wanted to invade Iraq regardless of the consequences.
Blast: Ayad Ibrahim, a university lecturer, said Iraq today feels less safe with political and religious in-fighting - adding: 'Tony Blair came in 2003 and there was no security afterwards. He thought it was just like a movie'
Anger: People on the streets of Iraq are pleased Sir John Chilcot has finally recognised that invasion of their country in 2003 was not justified and that military action against Saddam was not the last resort
'Tony Blair came in 2003and there was no security afterwards. He thought it was just like a movie,' said Ayad Ibrahim, a university lecturer from Baghdad.
Taking a sip of tea in the local coffee shop in Erbil, in Northern Iraq, he added: 'Look, about two days ago 500 people died and it is not just in one day, it is every day in Iraq.'
The 48-year-old father of three is also not optimistic about the future, saying the country Blair left behind has a bleak future full of bitterness and in-fighting.
He said: 'The security situation is finished. First it was Al-Qaeda and now it is Daesh. After Daesh nobody knows what will happen.'
Iraq's Christian community, who have be persecuted heavily in post Saddam, agree with Chilcott's findings that Blair should have more fully explored alternatives to military action that cost lives.
'They did not plan for the future. They just invaded and then destroyed this country,' Albert, 36, a Christian from Baghdad told MailOnline.
'Tony Blair and George Bush they destroyed this country, they are the devil,' he added.
Special relationship: Iraqis said Blair's fawning emails to Bush show he was determined to invade their country regardless of backing from other European countries
Flawed intelligence: They also believe Blair twisted intelligence about the threat posed by Saddam to justify the war that led to the deaths of 179 British soldiers and left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead
Bombings: Far from making Iraq a safer place to live the people in Erbil say people are killed there every day as the removal of Saddam created a vacuum and now those living there fear for their lives
Albert now works in Erbil because he is unable to go back to Baghdad, added: 'I have only one thing I want to ask those who invaded Iraq: If they can manage to repair this country back to they way it was before, I will forgive them, but until then I will not.'
Those Christians who held high positions under Saddam's ruling Ba'ath Party look back fondly on their country under his dictatorship.
'Before 2003 it was safe, in Saddam's time it was good, now there is no security,' Albert, who was too frightened to give his surname, explained.
'Before I could drive from Basra to Baghdad to Mosul. Now that is impossible,' he added.
They did not plan for the future. They just invaded and then destroyed this country. Albert, 36, a Christian from Baghdad
The father-of-two is most angry that Blair and Bush claimed to be acting in their country's best interests, but now the country is as unsafe as at any point in their lives.
'Now we have zero per cent security in Iraq. In Saddam's time it was much better,' he said.
But Iraq is not entirely hostile to the humbled PM, who today said he expressed more sorrow, regret, and apology than we may ever know or can believe in a grovelling apology to the report's findings.
For those in the Kurdish community said life without the tyrant Saddam, who is believed to have murdered up to 280,000 of their people during the repression of the 1991 rebellion, is better.
'At the beginning we were happy. The American and the British came to liberate us from Saddam, and we thought the new situation would be much better,' Doctor, Mathum Falluh stated.
But Mathum, 68, a university lecturer, from Sulaymaniyah, still said his country was better before the 2003 invasion.
'It has become a 100 per cent worse than before Saddam was gone, because of the killing, slaughtering [and] murdering now,' he said.
The father-of-four said the invasion has led to the political breakup of Iraq, which has created a violent vacuum in fighting for power.
'People like me thought Britain and the US came to save us. But, they supported a bad leader in Nouri Kamil Mohammed Hasan al-Maliki when they supported him a Prime Minister,' he said.
Close: Iraqis said Bush and Blair's plan to wipe out tyrant Saddam created more bloodshed and insecurity than when he was alive
Happier: Salem told MailOnline: 'Under Saddam it was much better. Now, it is Sunni-Shiite and Kurds. Everybody is fighting, there are bombs everyday. Before we had a strong president. His name was Saddam'
University lecturer Mathum, 68, said: 'It has become a 100 per cent worse than before Saddam was gone, because of the killing, slaughtering [and] murdering now'
False hope: Mathum added: 'People like me thought Britain and the US came to save us. But, they supported a bad leader in Nouri Kamil Mohammed Hasan al-Maliki when they supported him a Prime Minister'
He added their continued support of Maliki, and his 'corrupt' government was the biggest problems after the invasion.
'Even Shiite people saw that Maliki and his government were stealing many millions of dollars. But the Americans and the British they did nothing,' he stated.
He, though, does not think the findings of this report as changing anything on the ground in Iraq.
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This is the heart-stopping moment where one thrillseeker was shot out of an Angry Birds-style catapult - reaching a speed of 125mph in just one second.
And the footage has become an online sensation after being shared on social media.
The breathtaking performance saw skydiver Chris McDougall shot 300ft into the sky above Dubai so fast his body was under 6Gs of pressure, three times more than an astronaut on take-off.
One thrillseeker was shot out of an Angry Birds-style catapult - reaching a speed of 125mph in just one second
To avoid passing out from G Force pressure, the daredevil was flung up lying flat so the blood did not flow out of his head
Bird's eye view: This was the view from a GoPro the stuntman took with him on the incredible fly out of a human catapult
Officials say the human catapults flew from zero to 125mph in just one second.
Jimmy Pouchert joined McDougall in taking on the incredible challenge, with both men reaching the peak of their climb and triggering parachutes to float float back to earth safely.
Organisers revealed a complex series of safety measures had kept the men safe.
To avoid passing out from G Force pressure, both men were flung up lying flat so the blood did not flow out of their heads.
Would you? Organisers revealed a complex series of safety measures had kept the men safe, but it is still heart-in-the-mouth stuff
At first viewing, you might gasp as the stuntman is catapulted into the air - but thankfully the parachute was soon deployed
One official told local media: 'Because of their horizontal position, the blood rushed to the back of their head instead of out their head, lowering their chances of passing out.'
Two men have been charged with raping a 10-month-old baby girl after they were extradited to NSW.
Police allege the men, both aged 50, sexually assault the infant at her home in Bathurst in April 2015 and filmed the abuse.
One of the men is charged with two counts of sexual intercourse with a person under 10 years as well as producing, possessing and sharing child abuse material.
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Two 50-year-old men (pictured) have been extradited from Victoria to NSW charged with raping a 10-month-old baby girl
The men, pictured here with police, allegedly assaulted the girl in April, 2015 at her home in Bathurst
The second man is charged with seven offences, including sexual intercourse with a person under 10 years.
Other charges include using the 10-month old baby to make child abuse material, using carriage service to access child pornography, to solicit child pornography, to transmit child pornography and to publish and promote child pornography.
The pair were arrested on Tuesday by police in Ivanhoe, in Melbourne north-east, before appearing at court in Victoria where their extradition to NSW was ordered.
They were taken to Mascot Police Station when they arrived in Sydney and were due to front Waverley Court in Sydney on Thursday.
However the pair did not appear when their case was briefly brought up.
Victoria Police alerted NSW Police to their possible involvement in a child sex offence when they were looking into child exploitation material
Them men are due to face court on Thursday and are being held at Mascot Police Station
The men did not apply for bail on Thursday and it was formally refused, meaning they will remain behind bars until the case returns to Central Local Court on Tuesday July 12.
The court heard one or both men may make a bail application at that time.
The arrests came after Victoria Police alerted NSW Police Force to suspected child sex offences following an investigation into alleged child exploitation material earlier this year.
The men were filmed as they arrived in Sydney flanked by police officers.
One of the men is charged with seven different offences while the other is charged with two counts of sexual intercourse and one count of making child exploitation material
Angry: Green MP Caroline Lucas (pictured today) said everything in the Chilcot Report implies that Iraq 'was an illegal war' and said the former prime minister must now be held to account
Tony Blair is a 'war criminal' and laws should be changed so he can be punished because he too the UK into an illegal conflict, Britain's only Green MP claimed today
Caroline Lucas said everything in the Chilcot Report implies that Iraq 'was an illegal war' and said the former prime minister must now be held to account.
Today Mr Blair was apologising for the mistakes in the planning and process of the war, but he stood by the key decision to invade.
Mr Blair insisted he had never lied, stating: 'Please stop saying I was lying, or I had some kind of dishonest or underhand motive.'
Addressing protesters in Westminster after the findings were published online, the former Green Party leader Caroline Lucas said: 'It confirms that Tony Blair lied when he took this country to war on a false prospectus.
'It lays bare for us to see that he made commitments to George Bush six months before he stood up in Parliament saying Saddam Hussein could still avoid war.
'That was not true and we will hold him to account.
'He lied by setting standards for the weapons inspectors which he knew would be impossible for those weapons inspectors to meet.
'He lied by pulling those weapons inspectors out of Iraq before he knew they had been able to finish the job that had been set for them.
'He lied when he said the threat from Weapons of Mass Destruction was growing when he knew they was no evidence to make that case.
'We have been right to be holding Blair to account.
'We are right to say that he should be held to account at the highest possible level.'
She added: 'I believe that Mr Blair is a war criminal.
'The first thing we need to do is to ratify the amendment to ensure that crimes of aggression can be punished.
'Everything that I have seen in that Chilcot Report implies that that was an illegal war.'
Tony Blair (pictured) made a grovelling apology for his decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and its bloody aftermath today after his reputation was savaged by the Chilcot report
Rose Gentle, whose son Gordon, 19, was killed in Iraq holds the hand of Sarah O'Connor, whose brother Bob also died in the conflict
Shadow Commons leader Paul Flynn said the Chilcot Report amounted to an 'utter condemnation' of Mr Blair's 'terrible' decision to commit British troops to the US-led invasion.
But he said the whole of Parliament was 'on trial', because it voted in favour of military action on the eve of the 2003 invasion.
Mr Flynn, who was one of 139 Labour MPs to vote against war in the crucial division, said Mr Blair had only 'slight and sporadic' evidence of the threat Saddam Hussein posed and indulged in 'definite deception' to win Parliament's support.
FURY AS 'DAMNING' CHILCOT AS BLAIR WENT UNCHALLENGED Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted that the report was 'damning', adding: 'War not last resort, based on flawed, unchallenged intel and unsatisfactory legal decisions.' Sir John's report revealed that eight months before the UK Parliament approved military action in Iraq, Mr Blair had committed himself in writing to backing then US president George Bush over Iraq, telling him: 'I will be with you whatever.' Ms Sturgeon said that comment 'suggests pre-determination and lack of proper decision making'. She added that the 'lack of preparation for aftermath and failure to properly equip/support troops for scale of challenge also appalling'. Her predecessor Alex Salmond said: 'It is now clear from the report that military action was not the last resort as Blair stood in Parliament on March 18 2003 to ask MPs to support his case for war.' Mr Salmond, now the SNP's foreign affairs spokesman at Westminster, added: 'In the days, weeks and months ahead, the intimate detail of this report will only implicate further a former prime minister who recklessly committed the country to war without collective judgement, and personally failed to ensure there was a plan for delivering a future for the people of Iraq. 'After such carnage, people will ask inevitable questions of was conflict inevitable and worthwhile? The answer from Chilcot is undoubtedly no. And who is responsible? The answer is undoubtedly Tony Blair. There must now be a consideration of what political or legal consequences are appropriate for those responsible.' Advertisement
He told BBC2's Daily Politics: 'I'm afraid this is an utter condemnation of that terrible decision to go to war that resulted in immediate deaths and injuries to our troops and the 150,000 deaths of Iraqis and the chaos that country is in.
'I think there should be serious consideration of him being prosecuted for this.'
The sister of one of the soldiers killed in the demanded that Tony Blair 'look me in the eye' as families revealed they plan to take legal action against the former prime minister, following today's long-awaited report into the conflict.
Relatives said they had not had enough time to fully take in the report by Sir John Chilcot, having had just '180 minutes, one for every death' to read it, but would be undertaking a forensic analysis of the findings, and reserved the right to take any further action necessary.
And at an emotional press conference following the report's release held by some of the relatives of the 179 Britons killed and their lawyers, Sarah O'Connor, whose brother, Sergeant Bob O'Connor died in the conflict, said Blair should 'look us in the eye', as she described him as 'the world's worst terrorist'.
Their intervention led to a humbling apology by Mr Blair, but he insisted he would still take the same decision to invade Iraq.
Mr Blair told them: 'I can look those families and the country in the eye and tell them I did not mislead them. What I cannot do, and will not do, is say that the decision was wrong. I think the world is a safer and better place because of it'.
He added: 'I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe.'
Campaign groups have also slammed Mr Blair.
Martha Spurrier, Director of Liberty, said: 'The impartial findings of the Chilcot inquiry panel are comprehensively damning - of the then Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues and our intelligence agencies.
'Basic adherence to the rule of law, evidence-based policy making and the protection of human rights came second to egos, ideology and political grandstanding.
'The resulting failure to plan for the aftermath of war led to the deaths of more than a million of people and grave human rights violations on a massive scale that continue to the present day.
'The Chilcot report must mark a turning point - an end to UK Government ministers' systematic and cynical demotion of human rights.
'Sir John's recommendations must be implemented and respect for due process, evidence and human rights values must be restored to public policy making.
Speaking ahead of the Chilcot inquiry, he said he wished dictator was back
More than a dozen of his family were executed by the ex-Iraqi president
He had worked for Saddam Hussein as a mechanic fixing his motorbikes
An Iraqi who took a sledgehammer to the statue of Saddam Hussein has said he wished the dictator still ruled his country.
Kadhim Sharif al-Jabouri was captured smashing the statue 13 years ago in an iconic photograph having worked for the former President of Iraq as a mechanic fixing his motorbikes.
Now, despite seeing the dictator's regime execute more than a dozen members of his family, he wishes he could re-build the effigy and have Iraq return to Saddam's dictatorship.
Kadhim Sharif al-Jabouri was captured smashing the statue 13 years ago in an iconic photograph having worked for the former President of Iraq as a mechanic fixing his motorbikes
US troops had rolled into Firdos Square in central Baghdad and toppled the statue as one of the first acts in the invasion of Iraq
When Mr Jabouri raced down to take chunks out of Saddam Hussein's statue back in 2003, he was hopeful for a new dawn
When Mr Jabouri raced down to take chunks out of Saddam Hussein's statue back in 2003, he was hopeful for a new dawn.
US troops had rolled into Firdos Square in central Baghdad and toppled the statue as one of the first acts in the invasion of Iraq.
Speaking hours before Tony Blair faced a two-hour grilling from journalists on Wednesday after the Chilcot inquiry document was released, Mr Jabouri said he was glad to see American and British soldiers on his home soil, but said things progressively got worse, in a BBC interview.
'There was corruption, infighting, killing, looting. Saddam killed people, but it was nothing like this current government,' he said.
'Saddam is gone, but in his place there are 1,000 Saddams.'
Having witnessed the fall first-hand, Mr Jabouri thought things would get better, but in an interview with the BBC this week before the release of the 2.6million-word findings into the Iraq invasion, he said he wished he'd never touched the statue.
'Now, when I go by that statue, I feel pain and shame,' he said.
'I ask myself, why did I topple that statue?
'I'd like to put it back up. To rebuild it. But I'm afraid I'd be killed.'
The former prime minister put on a bullish performance Wednesday afternoon as he responded to the long-awaited report and although he made a grovelling apology for the bloody consequences of the Iraq War, he attempted to shift responsibility by saying the intelligence was not his responsibility.
In a remarkable performance of self-defence at a special press conference that lasted for nearly two hours, the visibly humbled former prime minister described the decision to take military action to remove Saddam Hussein in 2003 as the 'hardest, most momentous, most agonising' of his 10 years in office.
He accepted the 'serious criticisms' made of him and his government in the run up and aftermath of the Iraq War and said he accepted 'full responsibility, without exception, without excuse'.
Responding to the publication of the Iraq War report, his voice cracked as he said: 'For all of this I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe.'
But he claimed the Iraq Inquiry proved 'there were no lies' from him over the justification for invading Iraq in March 2003 and showed neither Parliament nor Cabinet were misled.
And he insisted he was absolved of allegations he had secretly committed Britain to joining US troops in private messages to George W Bush, despite memos published today revealing he had told the US president eight months before the invasion: 'I will be with you, whatever'.
She faces deportation if she does not fly home to Antigua before July 15
Father and stepmother were forced to wait in arrivals without any contact
Border Force officers were not sure she was 'genuinely visiting' her family
Young Sierra was in Britain to see her father for the first time in six months
A young girl was put through 12 hours of interviews with immigration officers after flying to the UK from Antigua on her own - because officials thought she may have been trafficked into the country.
Sierra Simon, eight, who lives with her grandmother in Antigua had flown accompanied by a Virgin airlines 'nanny' to spend the summer with her father, Rawl Simon, on the Isle of Sheppey.
But her summer was put on hold when she was held in interview rooms at Gatwick Airport for 12 hours because immigration officers could not be 'certain she was genuinely visiting the UK'.
Sierra Simon, aged 8, was detained at Gatwick Airport for 12 hours by immigration officials because she lives with her grandmother. Pictured: Krystal, Sierra and Rawl Simon in Brighton
Sierra lives with her 55-year-old grandmother in Antigua, West Indies.
Mr Simon, 38, planned to spend 11 weeks with his daughter, at his home on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, after last seeing her six months ago. He arranged for her to be chaperoned on the flight by a 'nanny' - a service for unaccompanied minors travelling abroad which most airlines offer for an extra fee.
Mr Simon's wife Krystal, 31, who lives in Minster, Kent said: 'We were desperately worried about Sierra.
'She had spent eight hours alone on a plane with no one but a Virgin nanny to look after her.
'And then she was interviewed for a further 12 hours while we were kept waiting in arrivals and unable to speak to her.'
The youngster was eventually granted two weeks in the UK on June 17, but that included a family holiday in Cyprus.
Mr Simon had hoped to spend 11 weeks with his daughter, but she was granted just two weeks stay when she arrived in Gatwick
Immigration officials have told the family that Sierra must go home to Antigua on July 15, cutting short their plans for a summer together
When the family returned to the UK, the little girl was given two further weeks in Britain, but will be deported back to Antigua on Friday next week.
Mrs Simon, a travel agent who met her warehouse worker husband three-and-a-half years ago, said: 'Officials say she must go back to Antigua on July 15.
'Her dad wants to keep her in Britain for the whole 11-weeks of her school summer holiday.'
Mrs Simon added: 'Sierra hadn't seen her daddy for six months.
'It seems very wrong that immigration officials are not allowing her to spend the summer with us.'
Sierra was questioned by immigration officers for 12 hours, despite being just eight years old, because Border Force officers were 'not satisfied she was genuinely seeking entry as a visitor'.
A Home Office spokesman said: 'To ensure the correct decisions are reached, it is sometimes necessary for Border Force to detain passengers while checks are carried out to ensure they qualify for entry to the UK.
This whole experience has been horrific. The process is inhuman. Krystal Simon, stepmother
'This is particularly the case with regards to minors where officers have safeguarding obligations.'
A spokesman added they have given her temporary admission into the UK and she will be forced to return home in the coming weeks.
But as Sierra's grandmother is due to have an eye operation, her father and stepmother are concerned for her welfare.
Mrs Simon said: 'We are naturally concerned for Sierra's well-being if she is sent back to Antigua when her grandmother will be out of action having an eye operation.
'As her parents, we can offer her the care, love and time here for her summer holidays.'
The couple made an application for Sierra to live in Britain permanently, but have been turned down twice. They are currently appealing against the latest refusal.
Mrs Simon said: 'We are doing this officially and above board and have hired an immigration lawyer to help us.
'We knew there might be difficulties when Sierra landed, but we were there to explain our plans.
'However, we weren't allowed any face-to-face contact. All the discussions were handled over the phone.'
Gordon Henderson, MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey, has taken on the couple's case personally.
Sierra had not seen her father for six months before she flew to the UK on her own for her summer holiday
Mr Henderson said: 'I believe Sierra should be allowed to stay with her father for the summer, so I contacted the Immigration Minister James Brokenshire on Monday night about this.
'He has promised to look into it as a matter of urgency.'
Mrs Simon said: 'We just hope the right people can look at our case and see the poor and unjustified decisions which are being made for us.
'This whole experience has been horrific. This recent event is just adding to the nightmare we are living in. The process is inhuman.'
Mr Simon also has a 17-year-old son who wants to stay in Antigua.
WHAT THE MESSAGES BETWEEN BLAIR AND BUSH TELL US ABOUT THE BUILD UP TO AND THE AFTERMATH OF WAR IN IRAQ
September 12th, 2001
Blair urged Bush to act on weapons of mass destruction in the hours after the 9/11 attacks. He told Bush in a note on September 12 that while some might 'baulk' at the necessary actions, they should be carried out and then justified
Hours after the 9/11 terror attacks, Blair called for tough action which 'some will baulk at'.
'There will be many who ask: what is the next stage of this evil?'
'What of (the terrorists') capacity to get hold of WMD? We know there are countries and individuals trading in WMD. We need a range of sanctions and pressures to stop this.
'Some of this will require action that some will baulk at.
'But we are better to act now... than let the day be put off until some further, perhaps even worse catastrophe occurs. I believe this is a real possibility.'
October 11th, 2001
On October 11, 2011, Blair wrote again to Bush to warn against trying to expand the war in Afghanistan to take out Saddam in Iraq at the same time. He said he would help 'devise a strategy for Saddam deliverable at a later date'
One month after 9/11 and four days after air strikes against Afghanistan have begun, Blair urges Bush to focus on the Taliban and 'deal with' Iraq later. He added: 'No doubt we need to deal with Saddam'.
'But if we hit Iraq now, we could lose the Arab world, Russia, probably half the EU... I am sure we can devise a strategy for Saddam deliverable at a later date.'
December 3rd, 2001
The Iraq Inquiry reported a phone call between Blair and Bush from December 3, 2001, where the PM told the President 'it would be excellent to get rid of Saddam' with the use of a 'clever strategy'
In a phone conversation Blair on 'how the next phase might proceed'. 'It would be excellent to get rid of Saddam.'
But, he added: 'There needed to be a clever strategy for doing this... An extremely clever plan would be required.'
December 4th, 2001
By December 4, 2001, Blair was advising Bush on how to build momentum to the point 'military action could be taken if necessary' via renewed weapon inspections and the UN route. The Inquiry concluded at this point Blair had not set his course on an Iraq war
Blair sends Bush a paper setting entitled 'The War on Terrorism: The Second Phase'.
Iraq is a threat because 'it has WMD capability' but most countries will be 'reluctant' to back an invasion.
Blair wants to 'soften up' public opinion which requires a 'strategy for regime change that builds over time... until we get to a point where military action could be taken if necessary.'
'We need to be clear that if an uprising occurs, we are willing to act militarily in support,' he wrote.
July 28th, 2002
Blair tells Bush, 'I will be with you, whatever.'
'The planning on this and the strategy are the toughest yet. This is not Kosovo. This is not Afghanistan. This is not even the Gulf War. The military part of this is hazardous.'
'We would support in any way we can... On timing, we could start building up after the break. A strike date could be Jan/Feb next year. But the crucial issue is not when but how.'
The former PM says getting rid of Saddam is 'the right thing to do' because 'his departure would free up the region'.
He 'couldn't be sure of support from Parliament, Party, public or even some of the Cabinet'.
On Saddam being issued tough deadlines: 'It would be 'take it or leave it'. If he did say yes, we continue the build-up and we send teams over and the moment he obstructs, we say 'he's back to his games. That's it'.
'In any event he probably would screw it up and not meet the deadline. And if he came forward after the deadline we could just refuse to deal.'
To win over the public they must 'recapitulate all the WMD evidence, add his attempts to secure nuclear capability and - as seems possible - add on the al-Qaida link.'
January 24th, 2003
On January 24, 2003, Blair - in an extract printed in the Iraq Inquiry report - wrote to Bush about the problems of delay and the risk of Saddam dragging the coalition backed 'into a game of hide and seek' but warned at the time there was not support for a second UN resolution
'In the US/UK view the failure fully to co-operate is enough now (to invade) and technically we are right. But we won't carry other people. However if Blix carries on reporting non co-operation, makes increasing demands, and hardens his findings with each stage, I think we will carry people even without the smoking gun shortly'.
On casualties in an invasion 'doing this in the context of international opposition would be very tough'.
On the prospect of civil war: 'They are perfectly capable, on previous form, of killing each other in large numbers.'
Then Britain and US 'would need the backing of the international community and preferably the UN to handle it' or we would 'get the blame for any fighting'.
January 30th, 2003
Blair outlined a 'Countdown' to war in a memo sent to Bush on January 30, 2003. His proposal was predicated on a succession of reports from weapon's inspectors to illustrate the refusal of Saddam to co-operate with a view to securing a second UN resolution before invading. Blair's timetable was accurate to within days as the invasion eventually began on March 20
A letter entitled 'countdown' Blair sets out 'military questions' and 'aftermath questions such as a new Iraqi Government or US-run?'
It said the timetable could be 'shortened if either dramatic find by Blix or 14 February report sufficiently hard; lengthened but not beyond end March if resolution takes more time'.
At a meeting the following day, Mr Blair assured Mr Bush he was 'solidly with the President and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam' after Mr Bush agreed to support a second resolution.
February 19th, 2003
In another letter quoted by the inquiry, dated February 19, 2003, Blair blasted an 'absurd' fear of countries opposed to the invasion that the US was 'hell bent' war. He urged Bush to help him make the case Saddam was failing to 'fully cooperate' with the UN inspectors
People 'are not against conflict in all circumstances. What they fear is that we are hell bent on war, come what may - that we don't really want the UN to succeed.'
'No-one is suggesting Saddam is co-operating fully. My faith in Blix is somewhat shaken, but he is key.'
'We have to find a way of re-focusing the issue on the absence of full co-operation and do so in a way that pulls public opinion and the UN Security Council waverers with us.'
March 26th, 2003
In a major memo on the 'fundamental goal' of the US-UK alliance on March 26, 2003, Blair told Bush he agreed with his 'big' ambition to assert a new world order based on freedom and security but warned there was a communications problem which meant there was a 'ludicrous view of US ambitions
Blair says the 'fundamental goal' of the war is to create a new 'world order'. He writes: 'This is the moment when you can define international priorities for the next generation the true post-Cold War world order.'
'Our ambition is big to construct a global agenda around which we can unite the world.'
The war will 'spread our values of freedom, democracy, tolerance and the rule of law' across the globe, he says, adding: 'That's why, though Iraq's WMD is the immediate justification for action, ridding Iraq of Saddam is the real prize.'
June 2nd, 2003
On June 2, 2003, shortly after the fall of Baghdad, Blair wrote to Bush that the task of rebuilding in Iraq was 'absolutely awesome' and warned him it was 'worse than re-building a country from scratch'. He said the coalition was starting from a 'really backward position' and warned while it could be sorted out 'we're going to get there but not quickly enough'
'The task is absolutely awesome and I'm not at all sure we're geared for it.'
'This is worse than re-building a country from scratch.'
'We start from a really backward position. In time, it can be sorted. But time counts against us.'
'My sense is we're going to get there but not quickly enough. And if it falls apart, everything falls apart in the region.'
October 5th, 2003
Blair warned on October 5, 2003, the coalition had to make the occupation work because 'if we lose this battle the world will be less safe' and said those who would have left Saddam in power would have appeared 'morally superior' to those who removed him
Blair urges Bush to keep making the case that 'Iraq is better without Saddam'.
He said Iraq on the ground was 'tough' and warned the public was questioning 'whether it was all worth it'.
'By this time next year it better be going right, not wrong. For us and for the world!'
But he said: 'Let us be very clear: If we lose this battle the world will be less safe.'
Blair added: 'My worry now is that the world thinks: well Iraq was a tough deal, so they won't try that again.
'I think we have to be absolutely unapologetic. This is the security threat. We must deal with it.'
February 1, 2004
In a memo written for the sight of Bush in February 2004, alarm was clearly growing at the failure to unearth weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Blair said he was 'surprised' at the failure to find them - but insisted it was genuine surprise and warned there were lessons to be learned about the 'difficulties of gathering intelligence in these situations'
By February 2004, alarm was growing at the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
In a memo written to be seen by Bush, Blair said: 'We know Saddam had WMD. We know the ISG has not yet found weapons, though it has found evidence of programmes.
'The truth is that we anticipated finding the weapons during or shortly after the conflict. So to say we are surprised at the ISG's findings is no less than the truth. 'The issue of US/UK good faith can be laid to rest. We received the intelligence. We honestly believed it.'
Blair said there was clearly a 'legitimate issue about the accuracy of the intelligence' but insisted: 'I don't concede there are no weapons'.
April 26, 2004
In April 2004, Blair sent a new memo to Bush warning him of the collapse happening in Iraq. He warned the country was 'awash with weapons' and the culture was violent. He pleaded with the American President to ensure 'literally everything possible is being done to succeed'
In April of 2004, Blair admitted Iraq was 'awash with weapons' but insisted there was a 'reassuring truth' that 'Iraqis ultimately want what we want'.
In a memo to Bush, the Prime Minister said there was an urgent need to get the civil defence and police forces into shape, while providing security for domestic journalists to ensure messages could be transmitted to the Iraqi public.
Blair warned of a gap between spending that had been pledged and money that was actually being spent.
In a pleas to the president to help do more, Blair said: 'There is no doubt we can get there. But I just think in some of these areas... we need to satisfy ourselves that literally everything possible is being done to succeed.
'This is a race against time.'
May 18, 2004
The note of alarm in Blair's memos was growing by the spring of 2004. In May, he insisted he remained 'optimistic' but warned Bush about the risks of only 'sort of' fixing the country. He made an 11-point plea for greater assistance, including on rebuilding the police and warning off Iran and Syria from 'causing trouble;
Blair is issuing memos to president which are becoming more blunt.
The Prime Minister sent Bush an 11 point update on the aftermath, urging more action on the handover of power, protection of oil and power supplies and the creation of an intelligence network inside the broken Iraq.
Blair said it was 'more and more clear' to him was a complete lack of indigenous Iraqi leadership in the absence of Saddam.
He said the coalition needed its own figure on civilian casualties to rebut the 'gross over estimate' circulating via the NGO known as Iraq Body Count.
And Blair urged Syria and Iran were 'both up for causing trouble and need to be warned off'.
He said: 'We have an opportunity to pull this back round. I remain, in the end, optimistic.
'But we need to turn it round quickly and the danger is we ''sort of'' fix things, not really fix them properly.
June 16, 2004
By June 16, 2004, Blair wrote to Bush to say he was 'deeply concerned' by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction because it would a 'real trust/truth' issue would linger
Worry about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction grew further and Blair wrote to Bush to say he was 'deeply concerned'.
He told the President: 'The public need an explanation and there will linger a real trust/truth issue
'At present the public debate lurches between the two extremes: pro-war people insist the intelligence was right, but the plain fact is no WMD has been found; antiwar people claim it was all a fraud, as if Saddam never really had any WMD, which is plainly fatuous.'
Blair said the US and UK should argue 'some of the intelligence upon which we acted was wrong; but nonetheless the threat was there as was the breach of UN resolutions.'
January 10, 2005
In January 2005, Blair wrote another note for Bush warning that 'all the problems go back to security' and pressed him to support four actions
Blair wrote another note for Bush warning that 'all the problems go back to security' and pressed him to support four actions - the Iraqiisation of security forces, spending money more quickly on reconstruction, ensuring elections went ahead and signalling withdrawal of coalition troops - 'but only when we can point to real indigenous Iraqi strength'.
Blair said he had authorised another $78million of Ministry of Defence cash, admitting: 'Can I be sure it is essential? No. But I'll take the risk rather than find out six months later it was.
In a video conference the following day, Blair told Bush everything possible had to be done on the election security but added: 'But we also had to be very clear that where turnout was low, this was because of intimidation and terrorist violence, and did not undermine the legitimacy of the elections.'
June 6, 2005
In June 2005, Blair struck a tired note on Iraq in a further note to Bush. He admitted 'we all now know' the cost of military action and complained the international community was not urging on the coalition forces
In June 2005, Blair struck a tired note on Iraq in a further note to Bush.
He admitted 'we all now know' the cost of military action and complained the international community was not urging on the coalition forces.
By mid-2005, Iraq was in flames and at a White House meeting the following day, Blair again pressed the case to improve security in a bid to rescue the situation.
June 27, 2005
Blair urged Bush to take a personal interest in the human rights of detainees after his human rights envoy reported the new Iraqi government was struggling badly. In a note sent on June 27, 2005, Blair said the numbers had to be reduced dramatically
Blair struck an urgent tone about the human rights of prisoners after a report from Ann Clwyd, his human rights envoys, following a fact finding trip.
The PM told Bush they both needed to personally 'keep a close eye' on the situation because the issues would need 'careful handling over the coming months'.
Blair told him: 'Ann is concerns the Iraqis are in no shape to take responsibility for large numbers of detainees. So we need to get numbers down to a level they can cope with as soon as possible and certainly by the end of the year.
'A carefully managed process of releases could help our Sunni outreach efforts.'
The memo on the human rights of detainees makes no reference to the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.
August 2, 2005
In his most forward-looking note to the president in several months, Blair in August 2005 wrote to Bush about how the Islamic world was stirring and the West faced a 'battle of ideas' with radical Islam
Blair sent an extensive note to Bush about projects requiring 'urgent' attention from the coalition - particularly in reference to the election.
But in contrast to earlier memos released by the inquiry, Blair also looks to the future, noting the 'Islamic world is stirring'.
After talks with the King of Jordan, he told Bush: 'It is now very plain that without Islam confronting its own demons and without better co-operation between Islam and the West, we are going to fight an uphill battle, however good our security measures.
'I have spoken at length to King Abdullah... it did clearly lay down a series of principles for legitimate Islam which if established would be very helpful, ie, it seems to establish a clear and unified religious authority for Islam.'
Blair said he and the King had discussed a 'gameplan' which included linking mainstream Arab Islam to mainstream Western Islam.
Blair concluded: 'This battle increasingly reminds me of righting revolutionary communism. Ultimately victory lies in the triumph of ideas.'
December 23, 2005
In December 2005, Blair told Bush it was 'make or break' time and the pair of them had to be the 'guides' in creating a hands-on unity government to try and rescue Iraq from its bitter civil war
Blair tells Bush it is 'make or break' time, warning the President the coalition had to be 'hands on' in the effort to create a unity government.
Mr Blair said: 'Part of the whole business is about communication.' He considered that in Iraq there was still a 'massive level of misunderstanding' of coalition motives.
Blair proposed that as soon as possible after a new government had been formed 'we publish a roadmap or forward vision' as the joint work of the Iraqis and the coalition, endorsed by the UN.
April 1, 2006
Perhaps acknowledging his own political mortality, Blair admits to Bush he would like to visit Washington to discuss Iraq but says he is unable to do so because of the 'political context'. In the April 2006 note, he tells Bush it is 'time we started to take risks' to reverse the collapse of the country
Four months after elections for a new unity government, Blair complained to Bush about a weight of 'propaganda' that had pulled down an 'inherently strong case'.
Blair admitted he would have liked to discuss the issues face to face but facing growing trouble with his premiership acknowledged: 'I don't think the political context quite right just now, to come to the US and make the speech I wanted to give'.
Blair insisted people considered the coalition 'right in theory' but said sectarian violence meant 'the facts on the ground beat the argument'.
He told Bush: 'We can't afford for this to continue. I think it is time we started to take risks. We need to put Iraq in a different place and then build out from there. I want to suggest a strategy.'
May 22, 2006
Extraordinarily, in May 2006 Blair appeals to Bush for a 'clear plan' that can be 'properly executed'. Writing to the President after visiting Iraq for himself, Blair said he was 'more optimistic' and said all sides wanted the coalition to stay and finish the job
After visiting Iraq for himself, Blair writes to Bush that is 'more optimistic, not less'.
He told Bush: 'If we have clear plan, properly executed and communicated to Iraqi people, we will succeed.'
But he said: 'Now for the challenge: the nature of the insurgency is changing; we do not, on our own, have the force capability to defeat it; as the Sunni become convinced we are non-sectarian, they welcome it and conversely as the more extreme Shia come to the same conclusion, they don't.
'Hence Basra becoming a problem. In addition, very simply put: the security is so bad in and around Baghdad for ordinary folk, that it stops improvement in services, we get blamed (in part) and people start looking to militias to protect them.
'Al Qaida kill Shia. Shia kill Sunni, and sectarian violence increases.'
INovember 9, 2006
In Novemner 2006, shortly after mid-term elections in the United States, Blair admits to Bush their 'foreign policy is so joined' defeat for one is defeat for the other. He vows to never 'cave in' to political pressure
Blair vows to Bush he will never 'cave in' to political pressure because the pair's 'foreign policy is so joined' that a defeat for Bush to the Democrats is seen also as a defeat for Blair.
In a new note, he said: 'We should lead the consensus not simply follow it.
'Our danger is either being seen for political reasons, to 'cave in', which we will never do; or have to be told the answer because we can't think of it.
'Actually our strategy is already evolving.'
December 20, 2006
Blair visited Iraq again in December 2006 to see British troops in Basra. He reported to Bush that British soldiers had 'surprisingly high morale' - and believed Iran was responsible for stirring up trouble
Following another visit to Iraq, Blair appeals to Bush more troops may be needed in Baghdad, advising him it would be would a 'sensible short term measure' with a view boosting Iraqi capability.
But he added: 'My point is simply: whatever you do, the only ultimate solution is Iraqi.'
Blair reported Prime Minister Maliki is 'doing what he can' and said British forces in the south had 'surprisingly high morale'.
He said: 'They are convinced that ordinary Iraqis don't buy into the extremism. Each time they get reconstruction going, there is an inevitable shift in Iraqi buy-in to us.
'The militias have to be taken on. They are in no doubt Iran is the major player behind the violence.'
May 3, 2007
In a final note to President Bush weeks before he left Downing Street, Blair warned the coalition was 'not losing' but was 'not really able to move forward at the moment'. Blair told Bush: 'Iraq has to be bigger than just Iraq. It has to be part of a more profound and wider picture. People have to see it as a frontier in a battle across the region and the world. That is a battle, as you always rightly say, between freedom and extremism, democracy and terror.'
Around six weeks before he left office, Blair wrote one last time to Bush to warn: 'Everywhere in the region at present, we are pinned back. We remain strong. We are not losing. But we are not really able to move forward.'
Returning to his theme of a 'battle of ideas', Blair told him: 'People start to think this is a fight we cant win; when in reality it is a fight we have to win.'
Blair added: 'For example, in Iraq, we fight on three fronts: the Sunni insurgency; Al Qaida; Iranianbased Shia militia.
'I asked our top people the other day: if you took Al Qaida and Iran out of the situation, ie the external extremists, would Iraq be manageable?
Undoubtedly, they said But whilst we fight on all three fronts, the Sunni insurgents provide a justification for Shia death squads, and reinforce the Iraqi Governments fears of a Baathist return; Al Qaida can claim to be counterattacking the Shia; and everyone, of course, can blame it on us.'
He urged Bush to 'get back on the front foot politically' and said: 'Iraq has to be bigger than just Iraq.
'It has to be part of a more profound and wider picture. People have to see it as a frontier in a battle across the region and the world.
A woman sprayed gasoline on a driver who criticized her for smoking a cigarette while pumping fuel at a Pennsylvania service station, police said.
Kimberly Brinton, 51, of Meshoppen has been jailed on charges including aggravated assault and terroristic threats stemming from the encounter on Thursday at the Mehoopany Dandy Mini Mart.
Police said the driver, Tami Donovan, told Brinton to extinguish her cigarette but Brinton refused and an argument ensued.
Kimberly Brinton, 51, of Meshoppen (pictured) has been jailed on charges including aggravated assault and terroristic threats stemming from the encounter on Thursday
She has been accused of spraying gasoline on driver Tami Donovan who criticized her for smoking a cigarette while pumping fuel at a Pennsylvania service station, the Dandy Mart in Mehoopany (pictured)
Donovan then threw windshield cleaner onto Brinton in hopes of putting out the cigarette, according to police.
When Donovan tried to drive away, Brinton screamed she was going to cover her in gas and 'light her a** on fire,' according to the criminal complaint, The Citizens' Voice reported.
While Donavan sat in her car, Brinton allegedly sprayed her two separate times with gasoline from the pump.
As Donovan got out of her car to tell convenience store employees to call 911, she told officers she slipped on the gasoline and broke her arm, according to the complaint.
Brinton (pictured left and right) was arraigned on Monday and also faces charges of recklessly endangering another person and simple assault
During the ordeal after the driver threw windshield cleaner to put out the cigarette, Brinton allegedly screamed she was going to cover Donovan in gas and 'light her a** on fire'
When officers arrived at the scene, they said Brinton was no longer there but she was identified from video camera footage that was made available to him.
Brinton was arraigned on Monday and also faces charges of recklessly endangering another person and simple assault.
House Speaker Paul Ryan is calling on the nation's spy chief to strip Hillary Clinton of her access to classified government information because of the way she mishandled classified information laid out by FBI director James Comey.
Ryan, who receives top level information as speaker and who got classified briefings as Mitt Romney's vice presidential running mate in 2012, said Clinton should have her access to classified information stripped because of her actions.
'Comey said short of prosecution some kind of administration action should occur bringing consequences. I think the DNI, the director of national intelligence, should block her access to classified information given how recklessly she handled this during the presidential campaign,' Ryan said.
'She becomes president that's one thing. But I don't think she should get classified information and I think the DNI should block it given how recklessly she handled this,' Ryan told Fox News' Megyn Kelly.
' What bothers me about this is that the Clintons really are living above the law,' Ryan said. 'This is one of the reasons why people are so dissatisfied, so upset about government. They think that people live by a different set of rules, and the Clintons, they take the candle on this one.'
Paul Ryan wants hearings to answer 'unanswered questions' about how Clinton got off
Ryan also called for hearings into the matter, speaking before the House Oversight committee announced Comey would testify Thursday.
'There are a lot of unanswered questions here ... that need to get answers,' Ryan said. 'He shredded the case she had been making all year long. I think we need to know more, quite frankly.'
Comey said Tuesday when he rocked the presidential campaign with his announcement that the 'security culture' at the State Department was found to be 'lacking,' as he chided Clinton for 'extremely careless' behavior that nevertheless likely wouldn't get prosecuted.
TESTIFY: FBI director James Comey will appear before the House Oversight committee Thursday
Cotton said that in 'plain English' this means 'they would lose their job and lose their security clearance.'
Republican senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who supports Donald Trump, said told 'CBS This Morning' that 'The system is rigged if Hillary Clinton faces no consequences whatsoever.' He noted that normally, a person who engaged in mishandling of classified material would be subject to 'security or administrative sanctions.'
Comey said Tuesday when he rocked the presidential campaign with his announcement that the 'security culture' at the State Department was found to be 'lacking,' as he chided Clinton for 'extremely careless' behavior that nevertheless likely wouldn't get prosecuted.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said refused to answer Tuesday whether Clinton or aides with whom she transmitted classified information over a private server retained their security clearances. He said State doesn't comment on individual security clearances.
'The department will determine the appropriate next steps following a decision by the Department of Justice,' he said.
House Speaker Paul Ryan says the director of national intelligence should block Clinton's access to classified information
Comey, in his announcement, said that although the bureau didn't determine that Clinton got hacked, some of the people she communicated with who had private accounts had been hacked.
The loss of a security clearance is sometimes a sanction in serious cases of mishandling of government information.
Ryan issued an angry statement Tuesday saying FBI Director James Comey's announcement that the bureau won't recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton for her email scandal 'defies explanation.'
Ryan, the highest ranking Republican, blasted the decision not just for letting off Clinton who Comey said engaged in 'extremely careless' practices but for setting a bad precedent for future conduct by government officials.
'While I respect the law enforcement professionals at the FBI, this announcement defies explanation,' Ryan said in a statement.
'No one should be above the law. But based upon the director's own statement, it appears damage is being done to the rule of law.'
'Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent,' Ryan continued.
Clinton used a private server run out of her home, using it exclusively for her email while running the state department, despite government rules on preserving and archiving material generated by government work.
Ryan issued an angry statement Tuesday saying FBI Director James Comey's announcement that the bureau won't recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton for her email scandal 'defies explanation.'
Ryan, the highest ranking Republican, blasted the decision not just for letting off Clinton who Comey said engaged in 'extremely careless' practices but for setting a bad precedent for future conduct by government officials.
'While I respect the law enforcement professionals at the FBI, this announcement defies explanation,' Ryan said in a statement.
'No one should be above the law. But based upon the director's own statement, it appears damage is being done to the rule of law.'
'Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent,' Ryan continued.
Ryan has clashed at times with Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump, but is nevertheless supporting him as he says he has an obligation to as party leader.
GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump blasted the move as part of a 'rigged system'
Ryan also said 'more information' was needed about how the FBI reached its decision an indication that the issue is far from over that raises the possibility of a congressional role into the matter and even possible hearings.
'The findings of this investigation also make clear that Secretary Clinton misled the American people when she was confronted with her criminal actions,' Ryan continued.
'While we need more information about how the Bureau came to this recommendation, the American people will reject this troubling pattern of dishonesty and poor judgment,' he concluded.
Comey stunned the political world when he delivered a surprise statement at FBI headquarters Tuesday and announced he would not recommend charges be brought.
Comey also catalogued a series of missteps by Clinton, noting that there was no 24-hour security on her unusual private server, that she used the account when overseas and at risk of intrusion, and that people she communicated with got hacked.
'Although we did not find clear evidence that secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws,' Comey said, 'there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.'
Comey said the FBI determined that before Clinton deleted tens of thousands of her 'personal' emails, her attorneys deleted several work-related messages. The lawyers didn't read them all but searched keywords to determine which of them might qualify as government records.
Talkin' bout a resolution: Clinton's camp called the matter 'resolved'
Clinton has yet to comment on the email scandal since Comey made his stunning announcement. But campaign spokesman Brian Fallon declared it 'resolved' Tuesday.
'As the Secretary has long said, it was a mistake to use her personal email and she would not do it again. We are glad that this matter is now resolved,' Fallon said.
Although Comey didn't recommend prosecution, he noted that under ordinary circumstances, there would be 'consequences' for similar behavior.
'To be clear this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions, but that's now what we're deciding now,' he said.
Poll of Tory councillors reveal three in five are due to back Home Secretary
Final vote is tomorrow afternoon but Theresa May doesn't want coronation
May, Leadsom and Gove battling to reach vote of 150,000 party members
Theresa May (pictured in Parliament today) insisted there would be no deals or tactical voting in the Tory leadership contest amid claims her backers were trying to exclude Andrea Leadsom
Theresa May insisted there would be no deals or tactical voting in the Tory leadership contest amid claims her backers were trying to exclude Andrea Leadsom.
Supporters of Mrs Leadsom, the Eurosceptic energy minister, have accused the Home Secretarys team of a plot to keep her out of the final two.
This would mean she would not go forward to a vote of 150,000 party members, who may be more attuned to her pro-Brexit views than Mrs May, who campaigned for Remain.
The final vote of MPs will take place tomorrow afternoon, with the third-placed candidate eliminated.
Today a poll of Conservative councillors revealed that three in five were due to back Mrs May with only a quarter backing Mrs Leadsom.
Despite the huge lead, the Home Secretary said she wanted an open debate for the leadership and again rejected calls for a coronation without a vote of party members.
She released a statement, saying: I have been clear from the start: the party and the country deserve an open, honest, robust debate - and the next leader needs to have won a mandate to lead.
So there should be no deals, no tactical voting, and no coronation.
On Tuesdays first ballot of MPs she received 165 votes, far ahead of the only other two candidates Mrs Leadsom, who received 66 votes, and Michael Gove, the Justice Secretary, who got 48.
Given that Mrs May is so far ahead, some have suggested that it would be in her interest to encourage some of her supporters to back Mr Gove, denying Mrs Leadsom a place in the final two.
Mr Gove is now unpopular among party members as a result of his decision to knife Boris Johnson last week.
Bernard Jenkin, a supporter of Mrs Leadsom, said: There are very few colleagues who will be manipulated in this way, and most people will vote as a matter of integrity for the outcome that they want.
The Justice Secretary was also hit by claims that his campaign manager, Nick Boles, was texting MPs to describe Mrs Leadsom as a frightening prospect.
The text, which also pointed out that Mrs May was the clear leader in the race, was being seen as an attempt to persuade pro-Brexit MPs that only Mr Gove was a viable alternative to the Home Secretary.
The Gove camp was also accused of spreading rumours that Mrs May had fallen asleep during David Camerons statement on Chilcot yesterday.
Some allies of Mrs May have said they feared a much dirtier and effective campaign from Mr Gove than from Mr Leadsom raising questions over claims they were trying to force the energy minister out.
Former defence secretary Liam Fox was eliminated from the contest on Tuesday after polling lowest among the five contenders, and offered his backing to Mrs May, saying: Experience matters.
Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb, who quit the race after coming fourth, said Mrs May was the only candidate who could unite our party and form a cohesive and strong government.
Supporters of Andrea Leadsom (pictured in Parliament today), the Eurosceptic energy minister, have accused the Home Secretarys team of a plot to keep her out of the final two.
Today a poll of Conservative councillors revealed that three in five were due to back Theresa May (pictured in Downing Street yesterday) with only a quarter backing Mrs Leadsom
There are fears among Andrea Leadsom's camp that Justice Secretary Michael Gove (pictured in Parliament today and right, speaking to the DUP's Ian Paisley Junior outside the Palace of Westminster) will go through to the final round of the Tory leadership race - the ballot of party members - by gaining tactical votes from Theresa May
In a move that will put pressure on her rival the Home Secretary published her tax return, meaning that Mrs Leadsom is the only remaining candidate yet to do so.
Her campaign manager, Tim Loughton, said it was not an issue and told the BBC she would publish a summary as soon as she gets time away from speaking to colleagues and fighting this campaign.
Mr Gove has vowed to fight on, with his backers suggesting he will try to attract Mr Crabb's social reformers and Dr Fox's Eurosceptics to build on the 48 MPs he won over in the first round.
Given the margin of Mrs May's lead, she is almost certain to feature on the two-person ballot to be put to the around 150,000 Conservative members, with the eventual outcome due on 9 September.
Yesterday, former Conservative chairman Grant Shapps called for the process to be accelerated, saying it should be finished by the end of July.
Mr Shapps a supporter of MRs May has written to MPs seeking their backing, saying it was a matter of concern for the country, and also plans a petition.
A Survation poll for BBC2s Daily Politics found that, excluding those who were undecided and refused to give an answer, 60 per cent of Tory councillors backed Mrs May.
This is compared to just 28 per cent who backed her closest rival, Mrs Leadsom.
The poll of 1,062 councillors found that Mrs May would enjoy a larger lead if she faced Mr Gove in the final run-off, rather than Mrs Leadsom.
Last night Labour attempted to exploit Tory divisions on the right of EU citizens to stay in Britain by forcing a vote on the issue.
A mother-to-be has revealed heartbreaking photos cradling her stillborn baby as she claims a hospital medical bungle caused the tragedy.
Stacey Lebond, 26 has slammed hospital bosses for ignoring a 'mother's instincts' after repeatedly visiting the hospital over concern's about the health of her child, Tobias, during her pregnancy only to be told his condition was fine.
In the tragic photos, Ms Lebond cradles her tiny baby, which is dressed in a cute pyjama jumpsuit after he was delivered weighing weighing 7lbs 5oz.
'Tobias would be 16 months old now,' she said.
Ms Lebond, with her deceased child Tobias, said parents placed trust in doctors when attending with children. She added: 'Not every worry is simply new-mum nerves, as I learned with Tobias'
'I should be taking him to play group not visiting his grave.
Ms Lebond, who had already suffered a stillborn death during an earlier pregnancy, was put on a high risk pregnancy care plan after already suffering four miscarriages before she fell pregnant with Tobias in May 2014.
She was admitted to Bassetlaw District General Hospital in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, five times during her pregnancy between January 27 and February 8 last year.
On each occasion, midwives reassured her the baby was healthy.
Two days after her last visit, Stacey noticed her baby had stopped moving.
Medics used a portable scanner to try and find a heartbeat, but there was no-one in the hospital who could interpret the results.
After an agonising wait overnight, Tobias was pronounced dead the next day and was delivered stillborn on February 12, weighing 7lbs 5oz.
Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has apologised for 'missed opportunities' to induce labour, which could have saved Tobias.
Health chiefs have also launched an investigation to calculate an out-of-court settlement as well as hold an audit of the hospital's record keeping.
Tobias weighed 7lbs 5oz when he was born in February last year at Bassetlaw District General Hospital in Worksop, Nottinghamshire
Bassetlaw District General Hospital in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, where mother Stacey Lebond sought care during the pregnancy of Tobias last year
Ms Lebond, an accountant, yesterday said an apology 'won't mend a broken heart or bring my little boy back'.
'But by recognising and acknowledging their mistakes and taking steps to improve maternity care the hospital will hopefully ensure no other parent loses a baby the same way I did,' she said.
'As an expectant mother you take your doctor's word as gospel as they are the professionals.
'So when my doctor said she didn't understand why I should have an induced labour at 39 weeks, I didn't argue.
'I explained my history and expected she would know what to do.
'Tobias paid the ultimate price for that and both my mum and I have blamed ourselves over his death because we didn't argue with the doctor or midwives. They had our trust.'
She said parents needed to feel confident speaking frankly about their concerns with doctors and midwives - and the medical professionals needed to listen.
'Not every worry is simply new-mum nerves, as I learned with Tobias,' she added.
Ms Lebond said: 'Tobias paid the ultimate price for that and both my mum and I have blamed ourselves over his death because we didn't argue with the doctor or midwives. They had our trust'
Ms Lebond buried Tobias next to his brother Ayrton, who was stillborn in April 2012.
She had suffered three other miscarriages and so medics at her local hospital in Essex put her on a pregnancy care plan.
But after the breakdown of her relationship in late 2014, Stacey moved to be near her family in Nottinghamshire.
Despite her five trips to hospital, staff at Bassetlaw District General Hospital failed to follow the care plan - even when Tobias was barely moving.
On each occasion, midwives just checked the child's heartbeat and reassured Stacey he was fine before sending her home.
Stacey Lebond, 26, with her stillborn baby Tobias
The hospital's trust launched a Serious Untoward Incident investigation following the death.
It found there was 'a missed opportunity to induce Ms Lebond's labour when she presented with reduced foetal movements on February 8.'
The report also identified an opportunity to intervene earlier in the pregnancy when Stacey presented with reduced foetal movements on January 27.
It said: 'Intervention at that time would have led to further scans and dopplers and had a problem been identified, it would be reasonable to say that her labour would have been induced at an earlier stage.'
The report gave five recommendations, including raising awareness of the importance of obtaining medical records when women transfer from a different hospital trust during their pregnancy.
Stacey has instructed medical negligence lawyers Irwin Mitchell to investigate her care and to see if anything could be done to prevent Tobias' death.
Helen Jones, who represented the family, said: 'Having suffered the heartbreak of four miscarriages - one ending in a distressing stillbirth, Stacey felt confident that she was coming under the care of Bassetlaw District General Hospital already armed with a high risk pregnancy care plan.
'So to lose Tobias and then learn that following that there were missed opportunities to save him was a bitter blow from which she is still trying to recover.
'What was particularly concerning was the disregard to Stacey's concerns when she presented at the hospital with reduced movement from her baby.
Tobias was stillborn. His mother Stacey said he should be 16 months old now. 'I should be taking him to play group not visiting his grave,' she said
'On these occasions Stacey's case should have been escalated to an obstetrician - a decision which could have saved Tobias' life.
'Stacey hopes that by admitting liability and apologising for its mistakes, the Trust will have learned from this tragic case and avoid causing further suffering to other expectant parents.'
The Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said it would also develop in-house training packages to highlight the importance of escalating to obstetricians any high-risk patients or patients presenting with multiple episodes of reduced foetal movements.
The individual midwives who failed to escalate Stacey's case would be referred to the supervisor of midwives and ward manager for individual management around policies and procedures.
A string of military top brass have been singled out for stinging criticism in the landmark inquiry into the Iraq war.
Sir Jock Stirrup, Air Chief Marshall at the time, was said to have stressed 'managing public opinion' rather than preventing 'strategic failure'.
The Chief of the Defence staff Sir Michael Walker also failed to heed signs that the situation in Basra was spiralling out of control, while his predecessor did not issue troops instructions for dealing with looting that soon became rife.
The devastating report was finally published today seven years after it was commissioned, slamming Tony Blair's premiership, shoddy intelligence, bad planning and inadequate equipment for troops.
Former chiefs of the defence staff Sir Jock Stirrup, left, and Sir Michael Walker, were both singled out in the Iraq Inquiry report
Sir John Chilcot said Whitehall and minister bore responsibility for failing to 'put their collective weight behind the task' of ensuring security in Iraq after the invasion.
He suggested a major factor had been Britain's growing commitment in Afghanistan, which was drawing away manpower and kit.
'In practice, the UKs most consistent strategic objective in relation to Iraq was to reduce the level of its deployed forces,' Sir John said.
'The security situation in both Baghdad and the South East began to deteriorate soon after the invasion.
'We have found that the Ministry of Defence was slow in responding to the threat from Improvised Explosive Devices and that delays in providing adequate medium weight protected patrol vehicles should not have been tolerated.
'It was not clear which person or department within the Ministry of Defence was responsible for identifying and articulating such capability gaps. But it should have been.
'From 2006, the UK military was conducting two enduring campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. It did not have sufficient resources to do so.
'Decisions on resources for Iraq were affected by the demands of the operation in Afghanistan.
'For example, the deployment to Afghanistan had a material impact on the availability of essential equipment in Iraq, particularly helicopters and equipment for surveillance and intelligence collection.
'By 2007 militia dominance in Basra, which UK military commanders were unable to challenge, led to the UK exchanging detainee releases for an end to the targeting of its forces.'
The 2.6 million word report included details of how the operations in Iraq went wrong from the start.
A British soldier dives from a burning tank which was set ablaze in the southern Iraqi city of Basra in 2005. Critics have slated Mr Blair for starting a war, pictured, which killed 179 UK soldiers, claiming it contributed to the rise of ISIS
'Before the invasion, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) and the Defence Intelligence Staff had each identified that there was a risk of lawlessness breaking out in Iraq, and that it would be important to deal with it swiftly,' it said.
'However, the formal authorisation for action in Iraq issued by Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, Chief of the Defence Staff, on March 18 (2003) contained no instruction on how to establish a safe and secure environment if lawlessness broke out as anticipated.'
By the Autumn of 2003, violence was escalating in Baghdad and the JIC assessed that the 'security environment would probably worsen over the year ahead'.
THE CHILCOT REPORT IN NUMBERS 7 - Years since the Chilcot Inquiry was launched. 2,579 - Days between June 15, 2009, when the inquiry was announced on by then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and July 6, 2016, when the report is expected to be ready for private inspection and security check. 3 - Foreign secretaries to have been in the post since the inquiry was launched - David Miliband under Mr Brown, and William Hague and Philip Hammond under David Cameron. 2.3 million - Words estimated to be included in the report, making it almost four times longer than Leo Tolstoy's epic War and Peace. 10 million - Estimated cost, in pounds, of the inquiry as of January this year. 179 - UK military personnel that died during the Iraq war. Advertisement
'Despite that evidence, military planning under the leadership of General Sir Michael Walker, Chief of the Defence Staff, proceeded on the basis that the situation in Basra would remain relatively benign,' the report said.
Lieutenant General Sir John Reith, the joint commander, had suggested that UK forces could be reduced to a 'medium scale effort' by the autumn.
The report said: 'The Inquiry considers that a deterioration in security could and should have been identified by Lt Gen Reith by the end of August 2003 and that the cumulative evidence of a deteriorating security situation should have led him to conclude that the underlying assumptions on which the UKs Iraq campaign was based were over-optimistic, and to instigate a review of the scale of the UKs military effort in Iraq.'
Sir Jock Stirrup - who later became Chief of the Defence Staff - argued that the UK should press ahead with drawdown despite the security challenges in Basra even though that was 'not consistent with Government policy that withdrawal should be conditions-based'.
Although the inquiry panel accepted that Sir Jock's point that a 'law of diminishing returns' had been in play, it said: 'The established policy was that UK forces would withdraw as the capabilities of the ISF increased until responsibility could be handed over to the Iraqi Government.
'Air Chief Marshall Stirrups proposed remedy of continued drawdown and managing public opinion did not mitigate the risk of strategic failure he described.'
A businessman had taken cocaine and was three times the drink-drive limit when he fell 40ft to his death from a mansion block, an inquest heard.
Patrick Burns, 28, fell from the fourth floor fire escape balcony at his home in the early hours after a night out drinking and taking drugs with a friend.
Originally from Oxford, Mr Burns - known as 'Paddy' to friends and family - ran his own heating and ventilation company ACRM Services.
Businessman Patrick Burns (pictured), 28, fell to his death from his fourth floor flat which he shared with friends
He was found by a neighbour in a small courtyard behind the block of flats in Clapham, south London, on Saturday, June 6 last year after having fallen from his 600,000 flat where he lived with friends.
Southwark coroner Dr Julian Morris concluded the incident was 'accidental death' - but said drinking alcohol and taking cocaine contributed to his fall.
The inquest heard a statement read out from his father, Dominic Burns, who paid tribute to his son.
He said: 'He was warm and kind and had worked hard to set up his own business. I am so proud of him.
'He was very fit and healthy person and enjoyed life to the full.'
In another statement read out in court former partner Kate Richards said: 'He was outgoing and warm and enjoyed going out with his friends.
'He was extremely ambitious and hard working.'
In his report read to the inquest, police inspector Miles Lawrie said Mr Burns and his friends had consumed a 'large amount' of alcohol and cocaine throughout the night.
He said: 'At the end of the night they shared a taxi back to the Balham area where his friend planned to purchase some food. As his friend bought a kebab, Mr Burns wandered off.
'His friend was visiting Mr Burns from Oxford. He returned to his address, but was unable to get in and used the buzzer and was let in by Mr Burns' housemate.'
The inquest heard the two men searched the block of flats and the wider area for Mr Burns, but could not find him.
Mr Lawrie added: 'They returned to the flat and went to sleep.
'One reported hearing a loud bang and other residents report hearing a load bang at about 4am.
'His flatmate got up to see what had made he noise and found the rear door to the fire escape was open.'
Mr Burns' body was found the following afternoon by a neighbour lying face down in the courtyard at the rear of the flats.
Mr Burns fell to his death from a mansion block (pictured) in Clapham, south London, after a night out with his friends
Ambulance crews attended - but Mr Burns was pronounced dead at the scene.
Mr Lawrie said it was possible Mr Burns had gone out to get some fresh air and slipped while sitting on a railing.
He said: 'I believe he died as a result of an accidental fall from the fire escape.'
He ruled out any third party involvement or foul play, adding: 'This incident appears to be a tragic accident.'
A post mortem gave the medical cause of death as severe head injuries.
A toxicology report found he had cocaine in is system and his blood alcohol level was three times he drink drive limit.
Dr Morris said: 'My conclusion is this was an accidental death, contributed to by the intake of alcohol and cocaine.'
Mr Burns, a former student at the College of North West London, had run ACRM Services for 17 months.
One of his employees wrote on Facebook at the time of his death: 'Having to lose the one person who only ever wanted the best for me and turned me from a boy to a man whilst being under his wing for five years is unbearable.
Several celebrities have joined the masses of people expressing their outrage in the wake of the police-related shooting of Alton Sterling.
Sterling, 37, was killed early Tuesday morning in a confrontation with two cops in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after police received a complaint about a man threatening others with a gun while selling CDs.
In the wake of his death, the two officers - identified as Blane Slamonie and Howie Lake II - have been put on leave and the Department of Justice has been called in to investigate whether any civil rights were violated.
Sterling's death has quickly become a hot topic online - especially among celebrities frustrated by the reoccurring deaths of black men at the hands of white officers across the country.
Grey's Anatomy star Jesse Williams, who just last month gave a speech about the issue while accepting an award at the BET awards, was one of the many famous faces to speak out on Sterling's death online.
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Grey's Anatomy Jesse Williams wrote these series of tweets in response to Alton Sterling's death at the hands of two police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana this week
Just last month, Williams spoke on the issue of police-involved shootings while accepting an award at the BET awards
In his post, Williams sarcastically asked his followers to provide a list of infractions that are 'punishable by spontaneous public execution?'
'Upon receipt of this list, we'll return to our quarters and study up, eager to enjoy freedoms of white mass murders. #lifehack
'You chumps will NEVER provide this list... We see through you,' he added.
Williams came into some hot water during his BET speech last month, with some Grey's viewers calling for him to be sacked over his statements which they considered offensive to white people.
But Grey's creator Shonda Rhimes and co-star Ellen Pompeo jumped to his defense and said he had nothing to apologize for.
Among some of the other celebrities that have weighed in on Sterlings death are actresses Rashia Jones and Olivia Wilde, popstar Lady Gaga and Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kandi Burruss.
Donald Trump said Wednesday that the Republican veepstakes are nowhere near as simple as they've seemed, with nearly a dozen people on the short list to be his running mate including two retired generals.
He also said he's been fielding phone calls from high-profile politicians who want to make sure they're under consideration.
'I'm actually looking at ten people,' Trump said in a Fox News Channel interview, 'and three or four called me up very big names, Senate and governors and all and they want to be considered.'
Wednesday was the first time Trump has talked openly about choosing a military flag officer as his vice presidential nominee to burnish his foreign policy and terrorism credentials.
COUNTING TO TEN: Donald Trump said Wednesday that his short list for the vice presidential nomination still has nearly a dozen names on it
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, who will appear with Trump Wednesday night in Ohio, is under consideration
'I like the generals. I like the concept of the generals. We're thinking about actually there are two of them that are under consideration,' he said.
One, according to a Trump campaign source, is retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn, a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Flynn could deliver a one-two punch of military credibility and the intelligence bona fides to credibly dissect Hillary Clinton's classified email scandal.
But the real estate billionaire said he was leaning toward picking a legislative fixer, someone who could iron out legislative projects on Capitol Hill so a President Trump could abandon President Barack Obama's preference for signing executive orders in the Oval Office.
'We're looking to go more the political route,' he said, 'in terms of getting legislation passed, which is what they do.'
'We don't want to do the executive orders like Obama's been doing. He just sits down, signs executive orders all day long. That's not the way it's supposed to work.'
Two names came and went on Wednesday: Iowa Sen. Jonin Ernst and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker. Both took thir names out of consideration in media interviews.
'I met with Joni. Shes terrific [and] supportive. And I as you know, Bob was with me yesterday and he told me everything that he really would like to do and Bob is a terrific guy,' Trump said on Fox.
ANOTHER EISENHOWER? Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has real-world combat experience and is a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is 'a great guy,' Trump said, fanning interest in him as a potential running mate
Still in the mix are former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
"I'll be seeing Newt later on,' Trump said, referring to Wednesday night's rally in Cincinnati, Ohio.
'Newt is Newt. You know, great guy. Tough and smart,' he said.
And Pence, Trump pronounced, 'is a great guy.'
Ernst's withdrawal from contention, after a Monday meeting with Trump in New Jersey, came as a surprise to political pundits and election watchers.
'I made that very clear to him that Im focused on Iowa. I feel that I have a lot more to do in the United States Senate. And Iowa is where my heart is,' said Ernst, who is in the middle of her first term in office.
Im just getting started here ... And I think that President Trump will need some great assistance in the United States Senate and I can provide that,' she told Politico.
News of Ernst's preference to represent the Hawkeye state rather than run alongside Trump came is it was revealed that senator Bob Corker was taking himself out of consideration.
NBC news had confirmed Tuesday that Corker was being formally vetted for the position.
Ernst, 46, was elected in 2014. She gained prominence for a TV ad called 'Squeal' where she said she 'grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm' and suffered hardship.
Senator Joni Ernst said Iowa is 'where my heart is' and Senator Bob Corker insisted he wasn't the right attack dog for Trump's number-two slot. Both withdrew from contention on Wednesday
CNN reported that Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort were both in on the meeting with Ernst Monday. A source told the outlet the meeting was to discuss whether Ernst wanted to be vetted for the job.
Corker explained his decision to take himself out of consideration to the Washington Post by saying it wasn't the right fit. 'It's a highly political job, and thats not who I am,' he said.
Corker, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations committee, explained, ''There are people far more suited for being a candidate for vice president, and I think Im far more suited for other types of things.'
He told CNN: "His best running mate by the way would be Ivanka. Shes most impressive.'
Ernst is expected to get a prime time speaking spot at the GOP convention, the New York Times reported. The platform will give her a chance to expand her own profile while helping Trump make a play for female voters who have been going for Hillary Clinton.
Trump has repeatedly accused Clinton of playing the 'woman card.'
Ernst said she will continue to do what she can to support Trump. 'I would love to assist him out on the trail,' she said.
Ernst told Politico she was a 'Mike Pence fan,' a reference to the Indiana governor with whom Trump also met.
He is so well rounded, served as a governor and I think hes a great conservative. So I dont think he could go wrong,' Ernst said.
Judge Robin Camp will face an inquiry for making several controversial insensitive remarks during a 2014 sexual assault trial he presided over
A Canadian federal judge who sparked outrage after he asked an alleged rape victim in 2014 why she 'couldn't just keep her knees together?', will face an inquiry for making several controversial insensitive remarks.
Judge Robin Camp is facing six allegations for his rape culture-reinforcing behavior during the trial of Scott Wagner, who was charged with sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman at a party over a bathroom sink.
During the trial, Camp called the victim 'the accused' and asked her, 'Why didn't you just sink your bottom down into the basin so he couldn't penetrate you?'
Camp, who was then a Calgary provincial court judge, had acquitted Wagner, however, the Alberta's Court of Appeal overturned his decision in 2015 and ordered a new trial that led to Wagner being re-arrested.
The inquiry is scheduled for September 6 and will take place over a period of seven days with three professionals, a judge, psychologist and expert on sexual assault law.
The expert counseled Camp on the 'social context of sexual violence and the psychological impact of sexual assault' and is expected to testify as to whether he should keep his place on the bench, according to the Independent.
Camp is expected to apologize formally, as he will likely fight to keep his position as a judge. He is currently suspended from hearing further cases.
'He now understands that some of his prior thinking was infected with stereotypical beliefs and discredited myths,' Camp's notice of response said, according to CBC.
Camp, then a provincial court judge in Calgary (pictured), acquitted Alexander Scott of sexual assault in September 2014 - a decision which was later overturned by Alberta Court of Appeal
The Canadian Judicial Council, chaired by the chief justice Beverley McLachlin (pictured) launched a review into the conduct of Camp as a judge
A five-person panel will decide Camp's fate.
Back in January, the review into his conduct was launched after four four law professors at Dalhousie University and the University of Calgary accused him of being 'sexist and disrespectful' towards the teenage complainant in the 2014 trial.
The complaint received by the Canadian Judicial Council, chaired by the chief justice Beverley McLachli, alleged that he had a 'dismissive, if not contemptuous' disregard for sexual assault law.
The 19-year-old sex assault complainant had claimed she had been at a house party when Scott entered the bathroom, locked the door behind him, and bent her over the sink before sexually assaulted her.
But Camp - who is now a federal judge - had demanded to know 'why she allowed the sex to happen if she didn't want it?'
He had also noted that the alleged victim had asked Scott if he had a condom - a question which he perceived to have 'an inescapable conclusion [that] if you have one I'm happy to have sex with you'.
The law professors who submitted the 11-page letter suggested that Camp had an old-fashioned attitude towards rape and sexual assault which placed blame on the victim, reported CBC.
At one point he said that the young woman should have been more careful as she was drinking.
The review that was launched into Camp's conduct during the case came about after four law professors at Dalhousie University and the University of Calgary accused him of 'sexist and disrespectful treatment of the complainant' (pictured are professors Alice Woolley (left) and Jennifer Koshan)
'She knew she was drunkIs not an onus on her to be more careful?'
He also questioned why she did not make more of an effort to escape when her alleged attacker locked her in the bathroom with him.
'If you werefrightened you could have screamed,' he told her.
'She certainly had the ability, perhaps learnt from her experience on the streets, to tell [him] to f*** off,' he added.
Why didn't you just sink your bottom down into the basin so he couldn't penetrate you?
The complaint said that the judge's own stereotypical generalizations of gender were apparent throughout the trial, such as when he made a comment about men 'reacting' to 'challenges' that women gave them.
'Sex is very often a challenge' he had said.
'The legal rules that Justice Camp took issue with were those aimed at removing from the law outdated and discredited stereotypes about women and sexual violence,' the academics complained.
'Indeed, the entire proceeding is threaded through with statements and questions by Justice Camp based on harmful stereotypes about women and sexual assault.'
The judge also made derisory comments about the complainant, who he repeatedly referred to as 'the accused' during the trial - even after being corrected by the Crown.
He stated that 'certainly the complainant and the accused are amoral people' and that 'the complainant and the accused's morality, their sense of values, leaves a lot to be desired.'
The law professors (left is Jocelyn Downie, right is Elaine Craig) suggested that Camp had an old-fashioned attitude towards rape and sexual assault which placed blame on the victim
Law professors Elaine Craig, Jocelyn Downie, Jennifer Koshan and Alice Woolley, warned in the complaint that his conduct 'undermines public confidence in the fair administration of justice.'
Camp apologized last year for causing 'deep and significant pain' to the complainant.
He also said he was 'truly sorry' to women that he may have dissuaded from reporting sexual abuse.
'I am speaking particularly to those who hesitate to come forward to report abuse of any kind and who are reluctant to give evidence about abuse, sexual or otherwise,' he said in a statement released through the courts last year.
'To the extent that what I have said discourages any person from reporting abuse, or from testifying about it, I am truly sorry. I will do all in my power to learn from this and to never repeat these mistakes.'
The counting and the post-election recriminations are continuing as the Coalition edges towards retaining government by a slim majority.
The Coalition is likely to hold 76 seats in the 150-seat lower house, as postal votes and recounts of existing votes have favoured Liberal and Nationals candidates over Labor.
It comes amid reports from the ABC that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will meet with Queensland MP Bob Katter to try and convince him to support the Coalition.
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Prayers answered? Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is likely to continue to lead the country as the election cliffhanger continues
Mr Turnbull is expected to meet with Queensland MP Bob Katter (pictured) on Thursday to try and convince him to support the Coalition
The Coalition currently hold 73 seats, Labor has secured 66, while the Greens have one. Four seats are with Independents and six are still in doubt.
Meantime the prime minister is expected to fly to Queensland on Thursday to meet with Mr Katter, as negotiations with MPs continue while the Coalition tries to form a government.
The ABC reported that the Katter Australia Party leader has already put together a list of demands for the major parties.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's only comment on Wednesday came via Twitter where he wrote: 'We need to listen very carefully to the concerns the Australian people have expressed at this election.'
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten visited Launceston to congratulate Labor's 'three amigos' - Ross Hart in Bass, Justine Keay in Braddon and Brian Mitchell in Lyons - who ousted three sitting Liberal members.
Mr Shorten didn't concede defeat but said Mr Turnbull would face many problems should he scrape back into office, not least being 'white hot anger' within Liberal ranks.
The latest results from the Australian Electoral Commission estimate the Coalition have secured 73 seats, to Labor's 66
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is yet to concede defeat saying the PM will struggle even if he does form a majority government
On Wednesday afternoon the coalition appeared to have 70 seats to Labor's 67, with one Green and four independents.
Of the eight seats in doubt, the coalition leads in Chisholm, Dunkley, Gilmore and Forde and had clawed back Labor's lead in Hindmarsh to just 151 votes.
Coalition MPs pointed to a 'disconnect' between the issues on which the government campaigned and the concerns of average families.
Fines for parents taking children away on holiday during term time soared 267per cent to 5.6million in just two years, it is claimed.
The figure rose from an estimated 1.5m in the 2012/13 school year to just under 5.6m in 2014/15.
At the same time, the number of fines issued rose by almost 70,000 to 92,784.
Fines are soaring for parents who take their children away on holidays during term time
The increase came as the result of a new hard line approach from the government amid claims childrens education was being harmed.
The entire punishment regime has been thrown into the air by a recent High Court case which threw out fines imposed on a family from the Isle of Wight.
However, despite the rulings, education ministers have told head teachers that they must continue issuing fixed penalty fines of 60 per child.
The figures on fines and penalties were compiled by the Santander bank which made Freedom of Information Act requests to 174 local councils in England and Wales. The data was based on usable responses from 129 of the councils.
It appears that most fines were issued by schools run by Lancashire County Council at 4,279, ahead of Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council at 3,559 and Bradford Metropolitan Council at 3,445.
Official figures from the Department for Education show more than 240,000 children were taken out of school in England alone for unauthorised holidays in 2014/15. It is not clear what proportion of the parents were fined.
Most parents do not like the idea of being fined and accused of harming their childrens chances of getting good results.
However, Santander points out that taking a holiday in term time offers huge savings that would outweigh any fine.
A spokesman said: Its perhaps unsurprising as parents planning an overseas break during the school summer holidays face premiums of up to 68 per cent in some instances, equivalent to an extra 1,771.
On average, trips to some of the most popular overseas holiday destinations such as Spain, France and the USA are 21 per cent more expensive for a family of four during the school holidays.
Santander said there are ways to cut holiday costs without taking youngsters out of the classroom.
Its research found many people book flights for an anti-social time, such as early morning or late night, and take their own food on board.
Many people pack groceries from home, essentials such as tea, coffee and washing powder.
And as many as one in five stock up on croissants, fruit and other delicacies from the hotel breakfast buffet to see them through the day.
Worryingly, one in 10 people admit to not taking out insurance as a way to save cash, despite the fact this could be disastrous if they have an accident or are targeted by thieves.
TV travel expert Amanda Lamb said: While summer holiday premiums can add an unnecessary expense to a familys budget, there are other ways parents can look to reduce costs rather than taking a child out of school.'
Flying in the middle of the week rather than at the weekend can be cheaper as can waiting until the end of August or early September when prices are often lower as most people like to get away at the start of the summer holidays.
The head of savings at Santander, Helen Bierton, (correct) said: Another tip to reduce holiday costs is to shop around for your insurance and travel money before you go away; see if your bank offers any special deals and make sure you re getting the best value.
So Husky, so palpably rehearsed, Tony Blair presented himself as some sort of restless penitent, likely for the rest of his mortal days to be self-tormented about Iraq.
Our former prime minister called a press conference to give his reaction to the Chilcot Report. Dressed as though for mourning, he stepped towards a lectern in a drawing room of Admiralty House, Whitehall.
A check of the voice. A shuttering gaze as his brow furrowed. 'I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe,' said Blair the victim.
Verily, a desert boulder, so skilfully wrung, might bleed. Oh, the theatrics, the dry-mouthed pauses, those Derek Jacobi eyes with their squint at some distant destiny. Say what you like about Blair but he is a world-class tragedian, as silken an emoter as ever trod boards on Drury Lane.
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So Husky, so palpably rehearsed: Tony Blair called a press conference to give his reaction to Chilcot Report
Oh, the theatrics, the dry-mouthed pauses, those Derek Jacobi eyes with their squint at some distant destiny
And yet he claimed that, as one of life's 'decision-makers', it had been his 'profound obligation' back in March 2003 when he drove us to war 'not to hide behind politics, expediency or even emotion'.
Was that an echo of Kipling's poem 'If' when Mr Blair talked of the heavy duties demanded of prime ministers? A leader, he said, had 'to lead and not to shy away, to decide and not avoid decision, to discharge responsibility and not to duck it'. What would Kipling have made of Blair?
His performance yesterday made for a remarkable but unredeeming spectacle, fascinating if only on a psychological level. Here was a once bellicose peacock stripped of its feathers. He still, even in this moment of political nakedness, managed to find notes of indignation, a persistent tenor tone of self-justification.
He pleaded to be believed, begged his countrymen to accept he had not lied. With a swipe at cynicism, he said 'neither history nor the fierce and raucous conduct of modern politics, with all its love of conspiracy theory and its addiction to believing the worst of everyone, should falsify my motive'. At this point the voice went warbly. But a few seconds later it flared as he declared that he had thought the war to be 'right'.
His hands started whirling and he raised those two index fingers in his admonishing way.
Say what you like Blair is a world-class tragedian, as silken an emoter as ever trod boards on Drury Lane
Here was Blair the seer, Blair the superior being, Blair the 'decision-maker' who told president Bush 'I will be with you, whatever' a whole year before the false brinkmanship of the parliamentary vote on war. 'I did not mislead this country,' he said. His gestures as he spoke those words were eerily similar to those of Bill Clinton when he said 'I did not have sex with that woman'.
An hour before Mr Blair's extraordinary performance, the Commons had gathered for a David Cameron statement on the Chilcot Report. Mr Cameron ran through his contribution with unexpected briskness. Perhaps the Establishment man in him (he was once heir to Blair, recall) disliked dwelling on the way Mr Blair had been found to have bypassed proper procedures.
His performance yesterday made for a remarkable but unredeeming spectacle, fascinating if only on a psychological level
Parts of the House gasped with dismay when Mr Cameron noted that Chilcot upbraided Mr Blair for slipshod consultations with the Cabinet. Mr Cameron's speech brought occasional mutterings of dissent from the Scots Nationalist benches the odd shout of 'nonsense' from Angus MacNeil (Western Isles) after Mr Cameron reported that there had been 'no intention to mislead'.
There were elaborate shows of ennui from Alex Salmond (Gordon), who spent much of the time trimming his cuticles and casting sardonic looks to the Chamber's ceiling.
There was even more heckling when Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke but the dissent now came from the Labour benches. It was acid. A smartly suited Mr Corbyn called the Iraq war 'an act of military aggression launched on a false pretext'. It had been 'a catastrophe'.
He still, even in this moment of political nakedness, managed to find notes of indignation
Here was Blair the seer, Blair the superior being, Blair the 'decision-maker' who told president Bush 'I will be with you, whatever'
An hour before Mr Blair's extraordinary performance, the Commons had gathered for a David Cameron statement on the Chilcot (pictured) Report
Mr Cameron ran through Blair's contribution with unexpected briskness. He reported that there had been 'no intention to mislead'
Mr Corbyn paid tribute to the families, said it was a pity Chilcot had taken so long to report and argued that 'the tragedy is that while the governing class got it so horrifically wrong, many of our people actually got it right'.
'You're a disgrace,' shouted Ian Austin (Dudley N). 'Shut up! Not true!' Mr Austin was not the only Labour man to hurl abuse at his party leader. So did Mike Gapes (Ilford S) and Steve McCabe (Selly Oak), among others. Speaker Bercow eventually told them to desist. This allowed Mr Corbyn a powerful moment.
A smartly suited Mr Corbyn called the Iraq war 'an act of military aggression launched on a false pretext'
He used the sullen silence of the Labour benches to lower his tone and say that 'we have to be saddened at what has been revealed and we must now reflect upon it'. He also invoked the memory of the late Robin Cook.
The Blairites had no retort to that. Corbyn had silenced them. This was a powerful speech by the Labour leader. Back in 2003 he called Iraq correctly but he did not crow about that yesterday. He finished the day a great deal more secure in his post.
Democrats planning to provide counter-programming to the Republican convention in Cleveland are relying heavily on snark and gimmicks, according to a hacked document purporting to reveal the party operatives' cheeky plans.
At the top of the list is a 'live-staged event' hosted by talk host Jerry Springer that would mock Trump's realty-show persona.
'Jerry Springer 'Live' fake show between Trump/Cruz/Kasich delegates Jerry said that he wanted to be involved' is the simple description of the event, according to the hacked document, which was published by The Smoking Gun.
The document dates from when presumed nominee Donald Trump was battling senator Ted Cruz and Ohio governor John Kasich in the primaries.
A document purported to be hacked from the Democratic National Committee reveals plans to mock Donald Trump with a Jerry Springer sketch
The hacker Guccifer 2.0 claims to have obtained the document from within Democratic National Committee systems. It's the same hacker claimed responsibility in June for hacking the DNC and posted a volume of opposition research on Donald Trump.
Springer served as Democratic mayor of Cincinnati and considered a run for the Senate on various occasions.
Experts have raised the possibility that the Russian government was behind the hack.
The document lists a series of 'gimmicks' clearly designed to get under Trump's skin and feed the media, with thousands of members prowling around the convention area hunting for scraps of information, real or manufactured.
One gag would be a handout of a 'Trump Successful Businessman Starter Kit.'
Included would be a 'Check from 'your Dad' for $40 million and a 'Diploma from Trump University.'
'Need more ideas here,' the gag concludes.
'National Democrats can spend all the money they want trying to distract away from Crooked Hillary's record of lying to the American people and compromising sensitive national secrets, but it's not going to work,' said Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller when asked about the apparent plan.
A planned 'Trumpocalypse Survival kit' would include Advil, among other things
Also included would be a barf bag. A breakfast featuring cereal with Baileys references a quote by RNC chair Reince Priebus
Clothes pins are meant to needle nose-holding Republicans who vote for Trump
Also apparently contemplated is a 'Trumpocalypse Survival kit (tote bag).'
This would include a 'Barf bag,' 'Tylenol/Advil, and a 'Clothespin (to hold nose while voting for Trump).'
Also included would be 'Alka Seltzer/Pepto Bismol (because your'e going to be sick to your stomach after voting for Trump).'
The document is heavy on gimmicks to try to ridicule the GOP convention and keep the focus on vulnerabilities of the presumed nominee
WHO'S GOING TO PAY FOR IT? Mexican and Chinese food play a role in the plans
IT'S PERSONAL: Gags will focus on Trump's hair and hands
The document also outlines more traditional counter-programming, such as a full page ad in newspapers, running ads in battleground states, and deploying 16 staff members in an $800,000 campaign.
Another plan is to 'infiltrate friendly union hotels and properties around the convention that Republicans will be patronizing to distribute 'care' packages' for people who might be sickened by Trump's proposals.
Reporters are in a position to benefit from Trump's controversial statements about Mexico and other countries. The document calls for providing lunch for reporters.
'Offer food from countries Trump has offended: Tacos, Hummus + Pita, Chinese food, Fish & Chips.'
It also mentions a 'Celebrity chef Jose Andres?' in reference to the Spanish cooking star who pulled his planned restaurant out of a Trump hotel being renovated in D.C.
A girl was born on a rescue ship in the Mediterranean after her mother was one of more than 4,500 migrants picked up in a single day.
The numbers reaching southern Europe by sea has soared by more than 60 per cent in the first six months of this year, compared to the same time last year.
The Italian coastguard yesterday revealed that improving weather conditions had led to thousands being rescued between North Africa and Italy on Tuesday alone.
Migrants, such as these at the port of Messina in July last year, have been reaching southern Mediterranean countries in greater numbers
A Cameroonian woman gave birth on naval vessel Bettica after she was saved from a dinghy in distress.
The newborn was named Manuela after the midwife who delivered her on the ship.
More than 1,100 people were saved by a single Italian coastguard patrol vessel, which took on board the passengers of a stricken wooden boat and five dinghies.
The wooden craft had 435 migrants aboard, including 124 women and 18 children, according to a spokesman for the coastguard.
Four Italian naval vessels saved more than 900 others, while boats belonging to charities and aid groups, the EU border patrol agency Frontex and the EUs anti-people smuggling mission rescued the remaining migrants.
An estimated 227,316 migrants have arrived in Europe from Africa and the Middle East over the course of the first six months of 2016.
This is an increase of around 85,000 or 60 per cent on the 141,969 who made the trip during the same period last year.
More than 158,000 of the migrants had crossed to Greece, however, that route has become much less popular since March, when the EU signed a 5billion deal with Turkey to return all new arrivals.
In the first six months of 2015, 1,838 migrants died attempting the journey to Europe by boat, according to the figures from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). This year, the death toll so far is 2,920.
The EUs border agency boss last month admitted the search and rescue operation in the Mediterranean has encouraged thousands to attempt to get to Europe.
Frontex director Klaus Roesler said the naval mission that picks up migrants off the North African coast and ferries them to Italy had triggered departures.
He forecast that 10,000 would make the crossing every week for the rest of this year a total of around 300,000.
Critics have claimed the operation has descended into a ferry service that has turned the route into a magnet for migrants. Smugglers are setting off from the North African coast in boats with only enough fuel to get them into international waters.
They then telephone rescuers asking for help knowing they will be picked up by EU ships that take them the rest of the journey to Italy.
A House of Lords report in May warned that the search-and-rescue operation acts as a magnet to migrants and eases the task of smugglers but does not ... in any meaningful way deter the flow of migrants, disrupt the smugglers networks, or impede the business of people-smuggling on the central Mediterranean route.
And last month the Libyan coastguard claimed the EU had been enticing migrants to their deaths off its shores.
Education Secretary Nicky Morgan suffered a humiliating blow yesterday after MPs rejected her candidate for the new head of Ofsted, who they said lacked vision and passion.
The Commons education committee said they were unconvinced and deeply troubled by Amanda Spielmans nomination to head up the schools regulator, and urged the government to make a U-turn.
The highly unusual move follows criticism from teachers that Ms Spielman, a former accountant, has no hands-on teaching experience and may not have what it takes to stand up to ministers.
Education Secretary Nicky Morgan suffered a setback when MPS rejected her new candidate, Amanda Spielman, to be the new head of Ofsted, claiming they lacked vision and passion
It effectively acts as a vote of no confidence from the governments official scrutinising panel, and is highly embarrassing for the Department for Education.
However, the education secretary is understood to be intent on pressing ahead with the controversial appointment without the blessing of the committee.
Following the report, Mrs Morgan wrote to the committee re-iterating her support for Ms Spielman and urged them to reconsider their decision.
Amanda Spielman, whose nomination to run Ofsted has attracted controversy at Westminster
Yesterday, teaching leaders seized on the committees warnings to label the governments education policy a shambles.
Kevin Courtney, acting general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: The fact that the select committee have rejected the governments recommended candidate for the post of Ofsted chief inspector shows how little confidence there is in Nicky Morgans judgement.
Thankfully the committee, like teachers, believe that the next chief inspector needs teaching experience and knowledge of all education sectors.
It is telling that Nicky Morgan does not share this view.
The announcement today reflects the total shambles this Governments education policy is in.
Ms Spielman was named earlier this year as the selected candidate to take over from Sir Michael Wilshaw as chief inspector of schools when he steps down in December.
She would be in charge of official inspections of all schools, childcare and childrens services, which ensure the correct standards are being met.
Sir Michael is a former head teacher with a track record of turning around troubled schools, but his outspoken views have not always been in line with those of the government.
In February, it was reported senior Conservatives had grown exasperated with Sir Michaels pontificating on policy and were looking to appoint a new chief inspector more aligned to the governments approach.
Ms Spielman, who is currently chair of exam regulator Ofqual, was previously policy director at Ark academy chain after spending many years in corporate finance and consultancy.
The committee, which is chaired by Conservative MP Neil Carmichael and includes five other Tories, rejected Ms Spielmans appointment as Her Majestys Chief Inspector (HMCI) after questioning her last week.
In a letter to Mrs Morgan published today, they said she did not appear to have a clear understanding of nurseries, primary schools and childrens services although she does have experience of secondary education in her current role.
Mr Carmichael said: Amanda Spielman has a broad range of experience but failed to demonstrate to us the vision and passion we would expect from a prospective HMCI.
Mrs Morgan vows to push ahead with the nomination without the committee's support
The new HMCI will face the task of leading Ofsted to raise standards and improve the lives of children and young people, and we were unconvinced that Ms Spielman would do this effectively.
Ms Spielmans responses on child protection were particularly troubling and did not inspire confidence that she grasped the importance of Ofsteds inspections in preventing children being held at risk through service failure.
As a Committee, we did not leave the session with the view that Amanda Spielman was prepared for the vast scope and complexity of this important role.
It is unusual for a select committee to find itself unable to support the Governments preferred candidate for a public appointment.
However, it is our responsibility to hold Government to account and the seriousness of our concerns regarding this appointment has led us to produce this report.
It comes just days after Conservative MP and former teacher Caroline Ansell warned the appointment risked eroding the standard of the teaching profession, teachers esteem and morale.
Hillary Clinton's campaign says two emails that were categorized as confidential when they were sent to the secretary of state did not contain classified information and were marked that way in incorrectly.
The emails mere marked "C" for confidential, the least sensitive classification level, but the information inside was not classified.
'It appears that those markings were a human error. They didn't need to be there,' State Department spokesman John Kirby said today.
The former secretary of state's presidential campaign held up Kirby's statement on Wednesday afternoon as evidence that Clinton did not violate the law.
Hillary Clinton's campaign says two emails that were categorized as confidential when they were sent to the secretary of state did not contain classified information and were marked that way in error
Clinton's traveling press secretary Nick Merrill said the two messages detailed 'condolence calls' and they were 'simply marked wrong.'
Even so, the FBI listed other instances in which Clinton was 'extremely careless' with her handling of sensitive information that the Democratic presidential candidate and her campaign are yet to rebut.
And Kirby said Wednesday that he could not be sure that the call sheets, identified first by the New York Times and later by the Clinton campaign, were the only instances in which the former secretary of state knowingly sent or received information that was marked as classified.
'We are not aware of any others,' Kirby told reporters today during a briefing.
However, the State Department spokesman said his department does not have 'full viability of the documents the FBI looked at' and there could be other emails that were marked as classified when they were sent to Clinton.
'I can't tell you that's the sum total,' Kirby said.
Assessing Clinton's email set up, FBI Director James Comey said Tuesday at a news conference, 'Only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information.'
The FBI chief did not say how many emails his bureau found that fit into that category, but the Times reported today that he was referring to two from Clinton aide Monica R. Hanley.
One, from April of 2012, was to the new president of Malawi, Joyce Banda. Clinton was calling to offer condolences on the passing of President Bingu wa Mutharika.
The second was to former U.N. Secretary General and Joint Special Envoy Kofi Annan in August of 2012. Annan's mandate from the U.N. was about to expire, and he had decided to retire.
Clinton was to tell him the U.S. 'greatly appreciates your tireless efforts these past months to find a peaceful solution to the worsening crisis in Syria' and thank him for maintaining near 'constant contact' with her.
'Your creativity, your selfless devotion and your statesmanship have been invaluable to the cause of peace,' the call sheet said.
Those emails were part of a release of the 30,000 emails Clinton provided the State Department in December of 2014, more than a year after exiting public service. The emails were and are highly redacted, including in areas that have an 'SBU' designation - sensitive but unclassified.'
'It appears that those markings were a human error. They didn't need to be there,' State Department spokesman John Kirby said today. But Kirby said he could not be sure that the call sheets in question were the only instances in which the former secretary of state sent or received classified information
Scolding Clinton on Tuesday for her 'careless' behavior, Comey said, 'Even if information is not marked classified in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.'
The FBI chief said 110 e-mails of the emails provided to the bureau by the State Department that were handed over to the government by Clinton and her lawyers 'have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received.'
Eight email chains contained information that was Top Secret, Comey said, and 36 chains involved information that was considered Secret at the time. Another eight contained Confidential information and 2,000 additional e-mails had to be up-classified because the information was deemed classified after the fact.
Furthermore, Comey said it is 'possible' that foreign actors accessed the cabinet official's communications.
The FBI chief recommended that the Justice Department not bring charges against Clinton - that 'is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences,' he said.
'To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.'
Clinton has not spoken out on the matter personally.
At three public events since the FBI rendered its decision it was business as usual for the White House hopeful.
Her national spokesman, Brian Fallon, said Tuesday afternoon she was 'pleased' with the outcome of the probe, however, and he declared the situation 'resolved.'
The case against Clinton was formally closed this evening on the 'unanimous recommendation' that charges not be brought, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement.
Comey said Tuesday that no 'reasonable prosecutor' would indict Clinton for her behavior given that the FBI could find no 'clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws.'
The failure to plan for post-war Iraq ended with a 'humiliating' secret deal with Iraqi insurgents who had been killing British troops, the Chilcot report found.
Sir John insisted no hindsight was required to foresee the difficulties that would be encountered in Iraq after the invasion.
The risks of external strife, regional instability and the threat of Al Qaeda were 'explicitly identified' before the war, he said.
But the planning and preparations for Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein were 'wholly inadequate'.
Ill-equipped: A British soldier escapes from a burning armoured vehicle in September 2005 after angry crowds hit it with petrol bombs in Basra
'The scale of the UK effort in post-conflict Iraq never matched the scale of the challenge', Sir John said.
The most consistent strategic objective was apparently to reduce troop numbers even as the security situation deteriorated.
Attention was turned to Afghanistan, where Britain was fighting another war.
Military chiefs failed to recognise the need for more soldiers, refused to acknowledge equipment shortfalls and ignored advice on a growing insurgency in central Iraq, the report found.
It said General Lord Michael Walker, Chief of the Defence Staff from 2003 to 2006, repeatedly failed to revise troop numbers during the campaign. Despite the failing security situation in south-east Iraq in spring 2004, he was 'explicit' that no additional soldiers were required.
Air Chief Marshal Graham Stirrup head of the RAF from 2003 to 2006, then head of the Armed Forces until 2010 advised there should be no change to plans to reduce troop numbers, saying there were 'compelling reasons' why the UK should 'press on' with handing over security to Iraq while building up forces in Afghanistan.
The inquiry also concluded that senior officers should have ensured soldiers were aware of the Rules of Engagement and knew how to deal with lawlessness.
Military chiefs failed to recognise the need for more soldiers, refused to acknowledge equipment shortfalls and ignored advice on a growing insurgency in central Iraq, the report found
The planning and preparations for Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein were 'wholly inadequate'
Admiral Lord Michael Boyce, Chief of the Defence Staff between 2001 and 2003, failed to set out plans on how troops would be able to establish a safe and secure environment if lawlessness broke out, the report found. He also advised Tony Blair that the military plan would work.
Faced with widespread looting after the invasion, and without instructions, UK commanders had to make their own judgments.
Brigadier Graham Binns, commanding 7 Armoured Brigade which had taken Basra City, told the inquiry he had concluded that 'the best way to stop looting was just to get to a point where there was nothing left to loot'.
By the summer of 2007, Basra Palace centre of UK operations in southern Iraq was the 'most heavily mortared and rocketed place' in the country.
In August that year, the Government which was then led by Gordon Brown concluded that troops had no choice but to withdraw to the relative safety of the air base outside the city.
Risks has been identified
The Chilcot report disclosed that, behind the scenes, British officials had to negotiate with Iraqi militias to allow troops safe passage to withdraw from the base.
Ministers agreed to the release of detainees suspected of involvement in the killing of British personnel, in return for a reduction in attacks.
This was despite the 'scepticism' of many in both the British and US military, with one US colonel saying Shia militia leaders 'outlasted the British will to continue the fight'.
Sir John said: 'By 2007, militia dominance in Basra which UK military commanders were unable to challenge led to the UK exchanging detainee releases for an end to the targeting of its forces.
'It was humiliating that the UK reached the position in which an agreement with a militia group which had been actively targeting UK forces was considered the best option available.'
He added: 'The UK military role in Iraq ended a very long way from success. It is an account of an intervention which went badly wrong, with consequences to this day.'
Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated, the report found. Sir John said Mr Blair had been warned that military action would increase the threat from Al Qaeda to the UK. He was also told an invasion might lead to Iraq's weapons and capabilities being transferred into the hands of terrorists.
The report said General Lord Michael Walker, Chief of the Defence Staff from 2003 to 2006, repeatedly failed to revise troop numbers during the campaign
Mr Blair did not ensure there was a flexible, realistic and fully resourced plan that integrated the military and civilians, as well as addressing the risks, the report found. Sir John said: 'The failures in the planning and preparations continued to have an effect after the invasion.'
More than 200 Britons were killed as a result of the conflict in Iraq, and by July 2009, at least 150,000 Iraqis had died.
Summing up the situation in Iraq today, Bashar Maki, whose brother was killed in 2003 as British troops went in, said: 'Up until today we pay for this wrong decision. Thanks to this policy, we have sectarian divisions, bombings, displacement, a lack of security and safety, and a long list of damages.'
Consequences to this day
Speaking from Iraq, Saad Al Shamary, an ex-officer in the army, told the Mail: 'Blair and Bush lied to us. They came for their own interests, they destroyed our country and killed every beautiful thing. They founded extremism and jihadists we had never heard about.
'It is too late for the report, they should have discovered this mistake at the beginning, not after 13 years of destruction and violence.'
The Government also failed to take account of the magnitude of the task of stabilising and reconstructing the country.
The security situation in Baghdad and south-east Iraq began to deteriorate soon after the invasion.
From 2006, the UK military was conducting two campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan without the 'sufficient resources to do so'.
Decisions on resources were affected by the demands of the operation in Afghanistan, with equipment being shipped to the latter at the expense of troops on the ground in Basra.
l.brown@dailymail.co.uk
Faced with widespread looting, and without instructions, UK Commanders had to make their own judgments
Poor kit 'should not have been tolerated'
Soldiers were desperately ill-equipped in battle because of the headlong rush to war and inadequate response to problems in Iraq, said Sir John.
Defence chiefs were too slow to react to the threat of roadside bombs, and delays in replacing vulnerable Snatch Land Rovers 'should not have been tolerated'.
Confirming the fears of grieving families, the report found the Ministry of Defence planned the invasion in a hurry, leaving soldiers with the Land Rovers known as 'mobile coffins' and a lack of basic kit.
The inquiry chief said the military failed to identify those risks with ministers and equipment could have saved British soldiers' lives.
Instead of concentrating on Iraq, the MoD began to focus on Afghanistan. But it had 'insufficient resources' to do so, which meant helicopters and spying assets were taken away from soldiers in Basra.
The risks of running parallel operations from 2006 had not been properly thought through, Sir John found. The 'serious shortfalls' in kit, protection against chemical and biological attacks, and ammunition had grave consequences for soldiers.
The report cited the death of Sergeant Steven Roberts, who was killed in March 2003 after a lack of protective vests prompted him to lend his to a colleague.
'It was judged that his death could have been prevented if he had still had his body armour', it said.
Trade Minister Lord Price has predicted a second Elizabethan Golden Age following the Brexit referendum vote as the new playing field provides an opportunity to shape the nation's future
Brexit could herald a second Elizabethan Golden Age, Britains trade minister declared yesterday.
Lord Price said it offered a unique opportunity to shape a bright future for the UK as a global trading nation.
The former Waitrose boss said leaving the EU gave Britain the chance to emulate the great 16th century explorers and strike trade deals both inside the EU and further afield.
In a defiant speech in Hong Kong, he predicted a fresh start and the opportunity for the country to become a super-connected trading hub.
As Brexit uncertainty caused the pound to fall below $1.30 for the first time in 31 years, the Tory peer said it would provide a helping hand to exporters by making British goods cheaper abroad. The upbeat comments came as the head of Indias business group said a bilateral trade agreement with the UK would be a deal made in heaven and pave the way for increased trade.
Lord Price, 55, was hired by David Cameron in April to boost exports and forge stronger commercial links globally.
The peer, who will play an instrumental role in trade talks, said: Im optimistic about the future, particularly in helping create a second Elizabethan Golden Age. The first Golden Age was based on peace, prosperity, new trading markets and a flourishing of the arts.
The exciting prospect of continuing trading with Europe and enhancing trading relationships in the East and West provides the UK with the opportunity to be a super-connected trading hub.
During Elizabeth Is reign of 1558 to 1603, English merchants adopted an enormously successful strategy boosting trade outside Europe, opening up links across the world, including with India, Indonesia and America.
Lord Prices bullish comments were described as refreshing by Leave campaigners.
John Longworth, the former boss of the British Chambers of Commerce, who was ousted earlier this year after publicly backing Brexit, said: Lord Price is to be applauded for embracing the new and seeing the huge opportunities available to us.
This is very refreshing to hear. And its worth reflecting on the fact that he has actually done a real job in business unlike many of the naysayers in the political arena and the media.
Pro-Brussels businesses and media outlets led by the Financial Times have continued to issue shrill warnings about the impact of Brexit since the vote on June 23.
John Longworth, the former boss of the British Chambers of Commerce, described the minister's comments as refreshing, saying he was to be applauded for embracing the new reality and seeing huge opportunities
But during his speech at the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, Lord Price called for a calm and collaborative approach to carry out the decision of the British people.
Leave campaigners have been encouraged by reports that countries including Australia, New Zealand and South Korea are lining up to enter trade talks with Britain.
Lord Price urged people to be realistic, and said trade deals will not be reached overnight with some deals building on existing frameworks and others negotiated from scratch.
But he added: Freed from Brussels more bureaucratic tendencies we will be able to tackle any excessive red tape that can choke small businesses. We will also be able to make our tax system even more competitive, helping local businesses to grow and attracting investment from overseas.
Chancellor George Osborne has pledged to cut corporation tax to 15 per cent in an effort to woo big business.
A series of business heavyweights including vacuum cleaner entrepreneur Sir James Dyson and JCB boss Lord Bamford have said EU members will be desperate to continue trading with the UK, which is a major market for German cars, French wine and Italian olive oil.
They have pointed to the declining influence of struggling EU economies, arguing that Brexit will enable the UK to forge stronger trade links with faster growing markets further afield as it will be free to negotiate its own deals.
Nobody can dismiss this vast document as a whitewash.
In temperate language, without calling for war crimes trials or public executions of guilty men, the Chilcot Report describes how almost every arm of the British body politic abjectly failed in its duty before, during and after the Iraq conflict.
If the authors sometimes decline to pass explicit judgments, they provide devastating evidence to enable us to do so.
In the minds of the inquirys members, among the foremost of their responsibilities was compilation of an exhaustive documentary record, which goes far to explain why the report took so long.
Of course, Tony Blairs role will attract most public attention, and so it should.
Tony Blairs role will attract most public attention, but the Westminster and Whitehall also made failings
The exhaustive inquiry chaired by Sir John Chilcot delivered a damning verdict on the Iraq conflict
Families of soldiers that died in the Iraq war gathered in London to hear the evidence against the establishment
What took place was only possible because in 2002-3 Blair was an immensely popular Prime Minister with a personal dominance that enabled him to persuade or conscript the rest of Westminster and Whitehall to support an Iraqi adventure overwhelmingly driven by his own hubris and moral fervour.
From an early stage in 2002, Blair gave private assurances to President Bush that he was eager to back an invasion of Iraq.
In this he fell victim to that eternal curse upon British Prime Ministers a desire to play partners with the United States, in the utterly mistaken belief that this will buy Britain leverage on other issues.
Here is a critical sub-text of Chilcot, who writes acidly that the UK-U.S. relationship does not require Britain to give unconditional support to the Americans.
Yet Blair made the fatal error of acquiescing unconditionally in the Bush White Houses timetable for military action early in 2003.
Throughout, Bush played Blair like a hooked fish. The result, as Chilcot says, is that the UK chose to join the invasion before the peaceful options had been exhausted.
Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith refused to rule on legality of the war. The report says only a court of law could pronounce on this
Joint Intelligence Committee chairman John Scarlett was rewarded with the directorship of the Secret Service
Did Blair, then, lie to Parliament and to the British people about the threat posed by WMD, to justify a deal he had already made? The report is inconclusive on this critical point, because the authors believe they could not convict the Prime Minister of deliberate untruth, because there is no evidence that he knew WMD did not exist.
What they do show, however, in devastating detail, is that Downing Street became enthralled by fantasies about WMD, to which no reasonable person could have succumbed unless he was a British Prime Minister already privately committed to supporting an American President.
The Secret Intelligence Service and the Joint Intelligence Committee come out of the story as deplorably as they deserve. Both utterly failed in their responsibilities.
Sir Richard Dearlove then director of the Secret Intelligence Service (pictured)
The charges are grievous indeed against Sir Richard Dearlove, then director of the Secret Intelligence Service who, grotesquely, went on to become master of a Cambridge college dedicated to truth and learning and Joint Intelligence Committee chairman John Scarlett.
Scarletts rightful role was to serve as a cool, impartial and sceptical arbitrator of the pre-war intelligence story. Instead, he allowed himself to be co-opted onto the Downing Street team making the case for the war.
Blair afterwards rewarded him with the directorship of the Secret Service, a role for which his credentials compared unfavourably with those of Pinocchio.
Scarlett is today a familiar jolly presence on the London party scene and an independent director of The Times, when he should rightfully be running a whelk stall on St Helena.
Chilcot, nuanced as ever, does not find Dearlove and Scarlett guilty of deliberately fabricating evidence to justify Blairs war, but instead of something as grave, and more cowardly. They stood by in silence, while Blair made statements to Parliament and the British people about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein which both of them knew to be wholly unjustified by the facts.
One egregious example of this was when Blair told NBC News on April 10, 2002: We know that [Saddam Hussein] has stockpiles of major amounts of chemical and biological weapons.
Blair throughout presented WMD evidence, in Chilcots words, with a certainty that was not justified.
The proper function of the intelligence services is not to serve as operational tools of the Prime Minister of the day: it is to provide impartial reporting.
The only spooks to emerge with credit are those of MI5, whose chief Eliza Manningham-Buller warned repeatedly that, far from an invasion of Iraq making Britain a safer place, it would instead render it a more dangerous one, a prime target for Muslim extremism, as indeed it has proved.
Next among the guilty men is Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General. Chilcot will incur criticism, if not scorn, for his refusal to pronounce on the critical issue of whether the war was, or was not, legal. The report says doggedly that only a court of law could pronounce on this.
What is plain from the evidence given here, however, is that the Attorney-General at first advised the Prime Minister that the legal basis for war was extremely doubtful, if not non-existent, and that later he changed his mind.
From an early stage in 2002, Blair gave private assurances to President Bush that he was eager to back an invasion of Iraq
On July 28, 2002, Blair wrote to Bush: I will be with you, whatever, an assertion from the head of the British government that Chilcot notes had been subject to no discussion whatever with colleagues
The governments law officers are little-known figures, whose function often seems marginal. But there are moments in history, of which 2003 was certainly one, when their role becomes pivotal.
There can be no conclusive answer to the question of why Lord Goldsmith changed his mind, but the most plausible explanation is that he wished to support his chief, the Prime Minister.
This is a deplorable motive for such treatment of an issue of such gravity. Lord Goldsmith emerges from this story with his reputation in tatters. Here was perhaps the only moment of his life at which he was involved with anything really important, and he flunked his responsibility.
I suggest even if the report does not say so that on the basis of the evidence provided here, the decision for Britain to go to war in 2003 was illegal.
The next grim failure is that of Cabinet government. Where, amid the fevered diplomacy and dramatic preparations for war, was collective responsibility, Cabinet participation in policy-making?
It may be argued that this is more honoured in the breach than in the observance, even in good times, and especially under powerful Prime Ministers such as Churchill, Thatcher and yes Blair.
On the Iraq issue, however, the silence or acquiescence of the Cabinet, the lack of a dedicated Cabinet committee, and especially the complicity and slavish loyalty of Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in Blairs decision-making, invites disgust.
On July 28, 2002, Blair wrote to Bush: I will be with you, whatever, an assertion from the head of the British government that Chilcot notes had been subject to no discussion whatever with colleagues.
Members of the Cabinet served as the Prime Ministers poodles, without even his excuse that they believed in the rightness of what they were doing.
And now we come to what, to me, is the most distressing feature of the Chilcot Report: its damning judgments on the leadership of the Armed Forces and especially that of the British Army.
The Chilcot Report made damning judgments on the leadership of the Armed Forces and especially that of the British Army
The Armed Forces allowed themselves to enthuse about a project for which they were woefully, shamefully ill-prepared and under-resourced as they were later for going into Afghanistans Helmand province in 2006
Remember these are not the views of laymen with no knowledge of military reality. One member, Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, is a distinguished historian with long and close connections to the Army.
At the heart of the report is the finding that Iraq cannot properly be considered Blairs war, of which the Armed Forces became victims though 179 of its humbler members perished there.
It was, instead, a struggle that the senior soldiers, especially, were panting to wage. They were gagging for it, in the words of one of those closely involved.
Admiral Lord Boyce, then Chief of Defence Staff, has recently sought to suggest that he was a sceptic. I am reliably told, however, that no document can be found, in which he records doubts about Britains commitment.
In one pre-war submission from the chiefs of staff to Downing Street which now seems fantastic they argue that if Britains Armed Forces take an active combat role in the invasion, the Americans will be sympathetic if they then accept only subsidiary responsibilities in the Iraq occupation.
At the heart of the report is the finding that Iraq cannot properly be considered Blairs war, of which the Armed Forces became victims though 179 of its humbler members perished there (pictured)
General Sir Michael Walker, head of the Army until just before the invasion and later Chief of Defence Staff, comes out of the story very badly. The Armed Forces allowed themselves to enthuse about a project for which they were woefully, shamefully ill-prepared and under-resourced as they were later for going into Afghanistans Helmand province in 2006.
The lack of British planning for the occupation was criminally negligent. The only soldier to emerge with some credit is General Sir Mike Jackson, who succeeded Walker as Army chief and articulated frankly and before anybody else his conviction that the occupation was going horribly wrong.
The Armed Forces can-do spirit, eagerness to earn their pay, to justify their existence or as cynics would say play with their toys, can be admirable. In recent times, however, it has produced some hideous embarrassments and disasters.
The best service that an Armed Forces chief can perform is to state honestly to the government what soldiers, sailors and airmen can and cannot deliver. This did not happen in 2002-3, and all the defence chiefs of the time share a heavy burden of blame.
The Armys management of its operational share in the Iraq occupation, and especially its abdication of responsibility for Basra, seem shameful.
In the light of the current foreign policy crisis facing Britain in the Middle East, it is tempting to view Chilcot as a mere expensive exercise in archaeology.
That will certainly be the view of those who seek a public execution of Tony Blair, rather than his mere execration.
Critics will lambast the reports sometimes elephantine circumlocutions, and the huge resources expended on producing it.
Yet I believe it establishes a record, a damning record, which should be critical not only to historians, but also to those who want Britain to be an effectively and honourably governed country.
Sir John Chilcot said yesterday, unveiling his report: The main expectation I have is that it will not be possible in future to engage in a military or indeed a diplomatic endeavour on such a scale and of such gravity without really careful, challenging analysis and assessment, and collective political judgment applied to it.
The best thing about Chilcot is not its findings, but the mountain of evidence it casts in stone
The events of 2011 when the Etonian boy scout troop responsible for making foreign policy in Downing Street led our shambolic intervention in Libya to topple President Gaddafi suggest that less has been learned from 2003 than we might hope.
At least over Libya and later Syria, the then Chief of Defence Staff General David Richards showed the courage to warn the Prime Minister, as Admiral Boyce did not warn Blair in 2003, that he was setting course for disaster.
As for those in Downing Street who were foolish enough to suppose that our participation in Bushs Iraq tragedy would win us U.S. gratitude or even attention, we should realise that most Americans are scarcely aware of our presence on the set during their melodramas.
In the 603 pages of the most authoritative American account of the war, Bernard Trainor and Michael Gordons book Cobra II, Britain receives eight glancing mentions and Blair four.
It is not that the U.S. government dislikes us. It is that we rank extraordinarily small in its thinking. The most pathetic, awful thing about British participation in the Iraq war is that this country staked so much, and received in return absolutely nothing, not even a few breaks from Washington on other bilateral issues.
The best thing about Chilcot is not its findings, but the mountain of evidence it casts in stone.
This should form the basis for a primer for all those entering our government, either as politicians or state servants.
We shall again perhaps often find ourselves led by a Prime Minister who allows poor judgement, megalomania or moral fervour to lead him or her towards reckless courses.
The machinery of British governance exists to provide checks and balances to prevent such leaders from precipitating disasters.
It is not the duty, or even the right, of fellow-ministers, civil servants, intelligence chiefs, admirals and generals and law officers merely to allow themselves to become the obedient instruments of the government of the day in this case, to become eager members of Team Tony.
Escaped: Mr Campbell escaped sanction in yesterday's Chilcot report
Alastair Campbell last night claimed that the Chilcot report had again cleared him of 'sexing up' the so-called dodgy dossier which made the case for war in Iraq.
Tony Blair's former chief spin doctor even accused the BBC of having blood on its hands over the death of weapons inspector Dr David Kelly, rather than him and the former prime minister.
But Mr Campbell escaped sanction in yesterday's report despite several witnesses giving evidence to the inquiry that criticised his involvement in Downing Street's march to war.
He issued his own lengthy response to the Chilcot report yesterday, boasting that he had been vindicated for the fourth time after three previous inquiries.
In a blog on his website, Mr Campbell wrote that since Sir John did not send him a letter warning he was to be reprimanded in the report, he assumed there was no criticism anywhere in the massive document.
He said: 'That is four inquiries now which have cleared me of wrongdoing with regard to the WMD dossier presented to Parliament in 2002, and I hope that the allegations we have faced for years of lying and deceit to persuade a reluctant Parliament and country to go to war, or of having an underhand strategy regarding the respected weapons expert David Kelly are laid to rest.
'The truth was and remains, confirmed today that the so-called sexing up of intelligence never happened.' He said that if the BBC had responded to Downing Street complaints about a report about the 'sexed-up' dossier, then Mr Kelly 'would almost certainly be alive today'.
Mr Campbell is referred to hundreds of times in the 2.6million word report, but he is not singled out for criticism and it attributes no direct blame to him.
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The notorious dossier published in September 2002 claimed that Saddam Hussein had accumulated weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It also falsely asserted that the Iraqi dictator could launch attacks within 45 minutes, potentially threatening British troops in Cyprus.
In reality, no WMD were found, and Iraq's overrated military had no capability to launch any long-range missiles of any sort within such a short timeframe.
Tony Blair's former chief spin doctor accused the BBC of having blood on its hands over the death of weapons inspector Dr David Kelly
A second dossier Mr Campbell helped produce in March 2003, on the eve of the war, included passages taken directly from an article written by a PhD student.
Critics linked the spin doctor's actions to the death of government weapons expert Dr Kelly, who was found with his wrists slashed near his home in July 2003 after speaking to the BBC about how the first dossier was 'sexed-up'.
And former Ministry of Defence general intelligence director Major General Michael Laurie disputed his claim that the September dossier did not make the case for invading Iraq. He told Sir John Chilcot and his team: 'Alastair Campbell said to the inquiry that the purpose of the dossier was not 'to make a case for war'. I had no doubt at that time this was exactly its purpose and these very words were used ... we were under pressure to find intelligence that could reinforce the case.'
Mr Campbell also said protesters' chants of 'Tony Blair, war criminal' in response to the findings showed that many people tended 'to find the facts that fit the argument they already believe'
A senior MI6 officer also told the inquiry that Mr Campbell was 'somewhat of an unguided missile' who tended to have 'rushes of blood to the head' and brief journalists without checking with the intelligence services.
The witness, identified only as 'SIS2', admitted that the 'very febrile' pre-war atmosphere led to mistakes, with unreliable intelligence used while the agency was 'probably too eager to please' No10.
Mr Campbell also said protesters' chants of 'Tony Blair, war criminal' in response to the findings showed that many people tended 'to find the facts that fit the argument they already believe'.
The former Daily Mirror reporter, who was in No10 from 1997 until 2005, acknowledged that the report pointed out 'many mistakes' in both the build-up and preparations for war in Iraq.
But he suggested 'conspiracy theorists' were behind claims that Mr Blair was to blame for a wrongful war waged on the grounds of blind loyalty to then-US president George W Bush, lust for oil, or simply because he had a 'Messiah complex'.
Criticised him for failing to plan for aftermath and for secret promises given to George W Bush committing to the invasion months before MPs voted
After seven years of waiting report savaged the former PM for his conduct at every stage of the process that dragged Britain into the catastrophic war
Came despite the fact he was torn apart by the Chilcot
Tony Blair made an astonishing defence of the invasion of Iraq yesterday despite being torn apart by the Chilcot inquiry.
After seven years of waiting, the report savaged the former prime minister for his conduct at every stage of the process that dragged Britain into the catastrophic war.
Sir John Chilcot lambasted Mr Blair for his handling of flawed intelligence, for failing to plan for the aftermath and for secret promises given to George W Bush committing to the invasion eight months before MPs voted.
After seven years of waiting, the report savaged former prime minister Tony Blair for his conduct at every stage of the process that dragged Britain into the catastrophic war in Iraq
The inquiry chief even raised the prospect the war could be illegal with relatives of some of the 179 dead British troops threatening to haul Mr Blair before the courts.
Sir John said the UK intervention in Iraq went badly wrong, with consequences to this day. But, in an extraordinary two-hour press conference, a defiant Mr Blair shrugged off the verdict of history and said he would take the same decision to invade again.
He said: People want me to apologise for the decision I cannot do that.
He began by saying the decision to topple Saddam Hussein had been the hardest, most momentous, most agonising of his time in office and that he accepted Sir Johns serious criticisms. The multimillionaire claimed he took full responsibility for the planning failures without exception, without excuse.
Appearing to be fighting back tears, Mr Blair added: For all of this I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe.
Yet, within minutes, he was on the offensive attacking Sir Johns excoriating conclusions and insisting that he had made the world a safer place.
Mr Blair said: If I was back in the same place with the same information, I would take the same decision because obviously that was the decision I believe was right.
Sir John did not say Britain went to war on a lie in 2003, but accused ministers of playing up the threat of weapons of mass destruction.
His words, while carefully chosen, were devastating in their message detailing forensically how war broke out within 15 months of Mr Blair telling Mr Bush that Saddam Hussein had to go. He was particularly critical of the sofa government style that meant Cabinet was routinely bypassed.
On the day the Chilcot report finally delivered the ex-PMs comeuppance:
Military families called him a terrorist and said he should be prosecuted;
Jeremy Corbyn apologised on behalf of Labour for Mr Blairs decision to go to war;
David Cameron did not apologise for the Government but said lessons must be learned.
A tearful Sarah OConnor, whose brother Bob died near Baghdad in 2005, said: There is one terrorist in this world that the world needs to be aware of, and his name is Tony Blair the worlds worst terrorist.
Campaigner Reg Keys, whose son Tom was killed in Iraq four days before his 21st birthday, said the report showed his son had died in vain. He said Mr Blair was a consummate actor, but dismissed his statement as the ramblings of a madman.
Chilcot lambasted Mr Blair for his handling of flawed intelligence, for failing to plan for the aftermath and for secret promises given to George W Bush committing to the invasion months before a vote
Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, whose party opposed the war, said Mr Blair owed the British people an apology. Mr Corbyn, who met families of the dead yesterday, said the invasion decision has been a stain on our party and our country. Shadow leader of the Commons Paul Flynn added: I think there should be serious consideration of [Mr Blair] being prosecuted for this.
Of the ex-PMs September 2002 statement warning the Iraqi leader had weapons that could be launched in 45 minutes, the report says: The judgments about Iraqs capabilities in that statement, and in the dossier published on the same day, were presented with a certainty that was not justified.
On the eve of war, Mr Blair told MPs he judged the possibility of terrorists in possession of weapons of mass destruction a real and present danger.
Sir John said: Mr Blair had been warned, however, that military action would increase the threat from Al Qaeda to the UK [and] an invasion might lead to Iraqs weapons and capabilities being transferred into the hands of terrorists.
Leading lawyer Philippe Sands said the Cabinet had been misled about the legal advice provided by then Attorney General Lord Goldsmith.
Appearing to be fighting back tears, Mr Blair added: For all of this I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe. Yet, within minutes, he was on the offensive attacking Sir Johns excoriating conclusions and insisting that he had made the world a safer place
But Mr Blairs ex-communications director Alastair Campbell said the report lays to rest allegations of lying and deceit.
Sir John praised the great courage of service personnel and civilians during and after the invasion, which led to the deaths of more than 200 UK nationals and 150,000 Iraqis.
But the report adds that Britains military role ended a very long way from success.
Mr Cameron, who voted for war in 2003, told MPs it was important to really learn the lessons for the future, but stopped short of apologising for the war on behalf of the Governmen, as he did for Hillsborough and Bloody Sunday.
The PM added: Sending our brave troops on to the battlefield without the right equipment was unacceptable we must all pledge this will never happen again. Last night Jack Straw told BBC News he felt a great burden about the impact of the war on military personnel who lost their lives or were maimed.
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Workers battled for hours to try and save thousands of pigs at a flooded farm in China only for some of them to be sent to the slaughter house on the same day.
The farm in Lu'an, east China's Anhui province, made headlines yesterday after its manager was pictured sobbing and giving his beloved livestock a final farewell.
Rescue workers scrambled for nearly a day to pull some of the pigs from harm's way including workers from agricultural company Xishang Group and nearby volunteers, reports the People's Daily Online. However, over 1,000 of them are due to be slaughtered this evening.
Now that's better: The man's tears turn to a grin as thousands of pigs are rescued by thoughtful volunteers
Freeing the animals! Workers carry the pigs and load them onto a truck after freeing them from flood waters
Rescuing the animals: Workers pull the pigs to safety after flooding caused them to be submerged for hours
On the move: The pigs walk through the flood waters after being freed from their flooded enclosures
Emotional pictures emerged yesterday of the farm's manager, named Li Xiaobo, sobbing over his pigs after they had become submerged in flood waters for 20 hours.
Original reports said there were a total of 6,000 pigs trapped, but an official from the local Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau said the actual number was around 3,000.
Volunteers and farm workers worked together to help bring as many to safety as possible.
It's thought that they managed to rescue the majority of the pigs.
Huang Yong, President of the Xishang Group, told reporters that his employees turned up at 6am today to help the man try and rescue the animals.
According to Huang, the rain was still falling and the water levels were continuing to rise.
He said: 'The depth of the water has reached one meter (three feet). We can only save the pigs one by one.'
Zhou Jun, vice general manager of Xishang Group, said over 1,000 of the pigs rescued were mature enough to be butchered.
Mr Zhou said the company planned to transport those animals to the slaughter house today using four vehicles.
They are due to be butchered this evening.
Mr Li, the manager, previously made a desperate plea to the public to help winch the pigs to safety after some of the animals drowned.
Bailin recorded 285 millimeters in from Thursday to Monday, one of the hardest hit regions by severe floods which lashed large parts of the country over the weekend.
A pig farm worker bids farewell to pigs in the floodwater at a farm in entral Chinas Shucheng county
Torrential rains battered central Chinas Shucheng county over the weekend, trapping the animals and blocking rescue efforts at the farm in Bailn city
Mr Li previously made a desperate plea to the public to help transfer the pigs after some of the animals drowned
Images of Mr Li spread bidding the pigs farewell spread like like wildfire on Tuesday, with thousand calling for the animals to be rescued
The stricken animals had been trapped for more than 20 hours before a rescue team of about 60 people leaped to their rescue
After the images of Mr Li sobbing spread on social media, thousands of internet users called for the animals to be rescued.
Severe floods killed 93 people in central and southern China over the weekend and left at least 19 others missing.
Millions were forced to evacuate their homes as the floods consumed entire villages, triggering direct economic losses of more than 20 billion yuan (2.3 billion).
Known as 'plum rains,' China's wet season typically lasts for around two months between late May and July.
Drum towers of Dong ethnic minority stand in flood waters caused by heavy rain at a riverside park in Rongjiang county
A house is almost submerged in flood waters caused by heavy rain in Xuancheng city
Severe floods killed 93 people in central and southern China over the weekend and left 19 others missing.
A Chinese pensioner has successfully given birth to a boy at the age of 61.
The baby, weighing 2,930 grams (103 ounces), was born at 39 weeks during a C-section in eastern China's Zhejiang Province on June 27, reported People's Daily Online.
The mother, surnamed Zhang, decided to try for another baby after her only child died of illness, leaving her heart-broken.
Miracle: A Chinese woman, surnamed Zhang, has given birth to a boy at the age of 61 in Zhejiang Province
The news emerged two months after an Indian pensioner, Daljinder Kaur, gave birth to her first baby at the age of 70 in the state of Haryana, northern India.
Zhang was devastated after her daughter passed away aged 30, according to Chinese media.
The pensioner longed for a new family and her 66-year-old husband supported her idea of having another baby.
After seeking doctor's advice from different hospitals, the 61-year-old was successfully conceived last November through IVF treatment.
Upon hearing the good news, Zhang went to the Women's Hospital of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou to prepare for her labour.
When Zhang showed up for her antenatal appointment for the first time, the doctors and nurses thought she was accompanying her daughter or daughter-in-law.
They were later stunned to discover Zhang was the mother.
Doctor He Jing, a supervisor at the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, said: 'She is the oldest expectant mother our hospital has received since its founding.
'I've performed many C-sections over the years, and she is the first patient who is older than me.'
Emotional: The pensioner, pictured in her hospital ward, was devastated by the death of her only child and wanted to have a new family
Due to Zhang's age, pregnancy was a challenge.
The mother was hospitalised twice due to bleeding, the first time at 28 weeks and the second time at 33 weeks.
She also experienced complications in the heart, lungs and kidneys as the organs were weakening at her age.
On June 23, five departments at the hospital joined forces to plan the C-section operation.
Four days later, Zhang successfully gave birth to a healthy boy with the help of doctors from the departments of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Anaesthesia, Intensive Care Unit, General Medicine and Neonatal.
Zhang is currently recovering in the hospital and is in a stable condition.
She told a reporter emotionally: 'Doctor He is the savior of me and my son.'
Thank you, doctor: She expressed her gratitude towards her doctor, He Jing (pictured), who performed a C-section to deliver her baby
China operated a mandatory one-child policy for more than 30 years between 1980 and 2016.
It's becoming a social issue for aging parents in the country to cope with life when their only child passes away.
This is because Chinese pensioners rely heavily on their children to support them both mentally and financially. Many think raising a child is the only way for them to have a stable retirement.
Currently, there are about 660,000 such families in China, with 41 per cent of them living in rural areas, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
These families receive a monthly subsidiary of up to 340 Yuan (39) from the government.
A village in China has hit the spotlight after it was revealed that a high number of its residents are twins.
Qingyuan, a rural village in mountainous Chongqing, has only 367 households but 39 pairs of twins reports the People's Daily Online.
Over time, Qingyuan has become known as twin village with the local primary school containing a set of twins in almost every class.
That's a lot! Qingyuan village is home to 367 households and has 39 pairs of twins
Runs in the family: Qingyuan village has many twins with the oldest pair aged 89
Twins: Two sisters stand with their mother wearing identical clothing in Qingyuan village
Locals have asked researchers to come to the village in order to understand why there are so many twins
The oldest set of twins in the village are 89 years old.
Twins are such a phenomenon that even the village's chickens are reportedly laying double yolk eggs.
However, the locals remain baffled as to why so many of their families have twins, according to a previous report on People's Daily Online in May.
One villager Cheng Xianming married his wife ten years ago.
In 2011, he and his wife worked outside of the village however they later returned to take care of their elderly parents.
Two months later, Cheng Xiaming discovered his wife was pregnant and she eventually gave birth to twins. He says that in the local elementary school, twins can be found in almost every class.
68-year-old Zhang Yuanqing has a pair of twin sons, one called Pan Wen Zhi and another son called Pan Wen Shuang.
Pan Wen Zhu worked in the decoration business and Pan Wen Shuang moved to Chongqing.
Zhang Yuanqing said the brothers work very hard but he wishes they would return to the village, find wives and have twins.
Twins are such a phenomenon that even the village's chickens are laying double yolk eggs
Double trouble: Two twins stand in their village which is located high up in the mountains in Chongqing
Fellow villager Huang Haiqing is well known in the village.
In his family, three generations are twins. Huang has a twin brother who also had twin sons and his grandsons are a pair of twins. His niece also gave birth to twin sons.
Many people find it hard to believe how the village has so many twins.
Some people have moved to the village in the hope that they will give birth to twins.
Qingyuan village is high up at an altitude of 1100 metres with an annual sunshine of around 867 hours and average annual temperature of 13.7 degrees Celsius.
Locals have organised for a large number of local experts to conduct research on the village.
This isn't an isolated case. In 2009 it was reported that Kodinhi, a village in India was going through a similar situation.
In a village of 2,000 people, it was reported that there were over 200 sets of twins.
Two's a crowd: The local primary school has a set of twins in almost every class
This is the moment a shameless beggar gets beaten up by a furious group after he stopped a wedding car demanding for money.
Kneeling in front of the black vehicle, the man from central China refused to budge unless he was given a satisfactory amount of cash, reports the People's Daily Online.
Pictures emerged from Chinese media show the beggar was surrounded and beaten up by furious wedding guests after he allegedly asked for more and more money.
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Unreasonable demand: A man has been beaten up after stopping a wedding car demanding for money in China
No more tolerance: Family members of the bride and groom became enraged and dragged the man away
According to the report, the incident recently occurred in Puyang, Henan Province.
Chinese social media posts suggested the beggar had been making a living by stopping wedding motorcades for the past year in the region.
Video footage from the past (below) show the man stopped wedding cars by kneeling in front of them while shouting '100 Yuan' (11.5).
Members of the families of the bride and groom usually try to handing him red envelopes containing cash in hope of driving him away without getting angry.
However, the man's luck ran out in his latest try.
A set of pictures emerged from Chinese media yesterday showing the beggar being dragged away from the car and beaten up by a group of enraged wedding guests after he kept asking for more.
According to Chinese media, the man was punched and kicked before being left crawling by the roadside alone.
He learned a painful lesson: He ended up being beaten up by the roadside by the group of fed-up guests
The story attracted much attention on Chinese social media, with many users condemning the beggar's shameless behavior.
On Weibo, China's Twitter-style platform, a user named 'wang te wo te', commented: 'I only want to say, they beat him lightly.'
Another user, named 'qi cun guang nian qian xiang si', said: 'This is day-light robbing. Not putting him in jail is defying the law.'
'Meng ge xu kui' wrote: 'This is blackmail, blocking traffic and anti-social behavior. Why hasn't anyone called the police? Why didn't the police intervene?'
While user 'lan de yao sib u xiang qi' added: 'Although it's not right to beat someone up, I have to say sometimes it's convenient to use violence to deal with violence.'
It is unclear whether or not the attackers received any punishment by the police.
The Dark Energy Survey is a Southern Hemisphere observation project designed to probe the acceleration of the universe, by looking at the most distant galaxies.
But since it started peering into to the sky three years ago, the project has proved surprisingly useful for answering mysteries much closer to home.
The evidence for a ninth planet in our solar system might be hiding in data gathered as part of the survey, and if so it could be found by the end of summer, an expert told MailOnline.
Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, the home of the Dark Energy Camera
HOW THEY 'FOUND' PLANET NINE Researchers inferred Planet Nine's presence from the peculiar clustering of six previously known objects that orbit beyond Neptune. They say there's only a 0.007% chance, or about one in 15,000, that the clustering could be a coincidence. Instead, they say, a planet with the mass of 10 Earths has shepherded the six objects into their strange elliptical orbits, tilted out of the plane of the solar system. Advertisement
In January, Caltech astronomers Professor Konstantin Batygin and Professor Mike Brown predicted the existence of what they, somewhat controversially, termed Planet Nine.
They used mathematical modelling and computer simulations to find the planet would exactly explain a strange clumping behaviour of a group of dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt, a field of icy objects and debris beyond Neptune.
The unknown world, dubbed Planet X by others, is thought to be 10 times more massive than Earth and the furthest planet from the sun - but its exact location is unknown.
Since the prediction, researchers over the world have been using different instruments to hone in on the planet.
And the results pointed to an unexpected part of the sky, the part DES has been inspecting for the last two and a half years.
I fell into the search for Planet Nine almost by accident, member of DES Professor David Gerdes, from the University of Michigan, told MailOnline.
Professor Gerdes said he was looking for a project to give his students when Planet Nine was brought to his attention.
In January, Caltech astronomers Professor Konstantin Batygin and Professor Mike Brown predicted the existence of what they, somewhat controversially, termed Planet Nine. Since the prediction, researchers over the world have been using different instruments to hone in on the planet. Artist's impression pictured
THE CONTROVERSIAL PLANET NINE Even the mysterious planet's name causes controversy. Mike Brown is Professor of Planetary Astronomy at Caltech. He is best known for his discovery of Eris, the most massive object found in the solar system in 150 years, and the object which led to the debate and eventual demotion of Pluto from a real planet to a dwarf planet. Alan Stern is an engineer and planetary scientist. He is the principal investigator of Nasa's New Horizons mission to Pluto. He is famously a defender of Pluto's planet title, which was stripped from it in 2006. The two scientists are 'at loggerheads' with each other over the classification of Pluto, according to some astronomers. The mysterious planet has always been termed 'Planet X', X being the roman numeral for ten, suggesting a tenth planet. But when Professor Brown and his team published the paper in January, they controversially named the planet 'Planet Nine' instead of Planet X, as a nod to Professor Brown's work towards declassifying Pluto. 'Calling it Planet Nine is very mischievous,' Professor Monica Grady told MailOnline. Advertisement
A team of French researchers used data from Nasas Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn, looking at the distance between Saturn and Earth, to narrow down where the planet could be in a paper published in March.
The predictions in this, and the original paper published in January, mean DES might have been looking in exactly the right place to spot the mysterious world.
If it was, the planet could be found as soon as by the end of this summer, Professor Gerdes told MailOnline.
At the moment Professor Gerdes and his team are going through a process of cataloging the objects that have been spotted so far.
Most of the area of the sky that will be looked at has been surveyed so far, so if the planet is there and in the right part of its orbit, it should be hiding in the data.
But not finding it does not mean Planet Nine does not exist.
If we see it, its a great result and a fun paper to write, he said. If we dont see it, the challenge is working out exactly what that means.
Not spotting the world would mean a lot more constraints could be placed on the model, helping other searches potentially track the planet down.
But spotting it directly is not the only way to tell if it is there.
The paper published in January made a series of predictions, with consequences that can themselves be observed.
For example, the paper predicted six objects in the solar system that would be perfectly aligned, and one of these has already been found using DES data.
A population of minor planets that cross the orbit of the giant planets in our solar system, which might be found independent of the search for Planet Nine.
The orbit of any of these objects could be used to place more constraints on the place on the location of the planet.
Great Nebula in Orion as taken by the Dark Energy Camera, pictured. The five year survey is helping astronomers find out exactly what dark energy is made of. They are doing this by analysing very distant galaxies over long periods of time, to watch for objects moving very slowly which is why the project takes such a long time
WHAT IS DARK ENERGY? Dark energy is a phrase used by physicists to describe a mysterious something that is causing unusual things to happen in the universe. The universe is not only expanding, but it is expanding faster and faster as time goes by, Dr Kathy Romer, scientist at the Dark Energy Survey told MailOnline. What we'd expect is that the expansion would get slower and slower as time goes by, because it has been nearly 14 billion years since the Big Bang. Coming up with an equation of state would give the researchers clues about what is making up this mysterious force. At the moment the favourite candidate is called the cosmological constant which has a relatively boring equation of state. But, despite its simplicity, the cosmological constant is not the "something" that scientists are hoping for, Dr Romer said, a cosmological constant then messes up other parts of physics. Its like a table plan at a wedding: you think you've got it all sorted out and then you notice that, because the caterers gave you a round table instead of a long one, your Dad is now going to be sitting next to your Mum's new boyfriend.' Advertisement
The six most distant known objects in the solar system with orbits exclusively beyond Neptune (magenta) all mysteriously line up in a single direction. Such an orbital alignment can only be maintained by some outside force, according to the Caltech researchers who predicted Planet Nine in January
The use of the Dark Energy Survey was by chance, but was not necessarily surprising.
The five year survey is helping astronomers find out exactly what dark energy is made of. They are doing this by analysing very distant galaxies over long periods of time, to watch for objects moving very slowly which is why the project takes such a long time.
HOW THE SUN STOLE A PLANET It has been one of the biggest mysteries in astronomy - does planet nine exist, and what is it? Now, astronomers at Lund University in Sweden show that it is highly likely that the so-called Planet nine is, in fact, an exoplanet. They believe it was 'stolen' by our sun as it moved past in early in the universe's evolution, and has been a part of our solar system completely undetected ever since. The theory is that our sun, in its youth some 4.5 billion years ago, stole Planet 9 from its original star. According to astronomers in Lund, there is a lot to indicate that Planet 9 was captured by the young sun and has been a part of our solar system completely undetected ever since. Stars are born in clusters and often pass by one another. It is during these encounters that a star can 'steal' one or more planets in orbit around another star. This is probably what happened when our own sun captured Planet 9. Advertisement
This is why the survey is the perfect opportunity for lots of other science to be done at the same time.
The data from survey has led to the discovery of companion galaxies to our Milky Way. Famous companion galaxies like the Large Magellanic Cloud can be seen easily from Earth and are well known because of it, but many more have been spotted by the DES camera.
DES doesn't just tell us about cosmology. It also tells us about the origins and contents of our own solar system, Dr Kathy Romer, member of the Dark Energy Survey from the University of Sussex told MailOnline.
By chance, rather than by design, DES has turned out to be a great way to find new examples of dwarf planets orbiting the sun.
After starting in 2013, the scientists are now over half way into the five years they set out for the project.
The main aim of the experiment, which involves hundreds of scientists, is to come up with an equation that describes the behaviour of the mysterious force known as dark energy.
Dark energy is a phrase used by physicists to describe a mysterious something that is causing unusual things to happen in the universe.
The universe is not only expanding, but it is expanding faster and faster as time goes by, Dr Romer said.
A paper published in March suggests the distance between Earth and Saturn measured by Cassini (artist's impression pictured) could be used to narrow down an area of space where the planet could be
What we'd expect is that the expansion would get slower and slower as time goes by, because it has been nearly 14 billion years since the Big Bang.
Coming up with an equation of state would give the researchers clues about what is making up this mysterious force.
At the moment the favourite candidate is called the cosmological constant which has a relatively boring equation of state.
But, despite its simplicity, the cosmological constant is not the "something" that scientists are hoping for, Dr Romer said, a cosmological constant then messes up other parts of physics.
Its like a table plan at a wedding: you think you've got it all sorted out and then you notice that, because the caterers gave you a round table instead of a long one, your Dad is now going to be sitting next to your Mum's new boyfriend.
Its an age old debate about whether size really matters.
But when it comes to male beetles, which possess a penis thats sometimes several times longer than their body length, the real mystery is how they use it.
Experts have discovered male beetles keep their penis tip soft for faster sex, so they can shoot their hyper-elongated member into the females duct.
Male beetles possess a penis thats sometimes several times longer than their body length. Experts have discovered male beetles keep their penis tip soft for faster sex, so they can shoot their hyper-elongated member into the females duct. Photograph of tortoise beetles during mating
HOW DID SCIENTISTS CAPTURE THE ACTION? Dr Matsumura's team captured the motion of the penis with an indirect method. They observed many beetle pairs from the beginning of copulation and fixed them instantly at increasing time points after initiation of copulation. They visualised their genital coupling using microcomputer tomography and also measured the length inserted using a microscope. Advertisement
Male and female beetles have co-evolved in an evolutionary size contest to determine which males can successfully breed with the females.
While males may have impressive members, the female duct may be very long to ensure only the longest penises are able to fertilise her eggs, Dr Yoko Matsumura, a research fellow at Kiel University in Germany explained.
Another benefit of having a long penis found in some other insects is that a male is able to efficiently scrape the female's duct free of other males' sperm, which would compete with his own, she said.
The team captured the motion of the penis by observing many beetle pairs from the beginning of copulation and fixing them at increasing time points after initiation of the amorous act.
They visualised their genital coupling using microcomputer tomography and also measured the length inserted using a microscope.
The team, which included a computer simulation expert from the National Academy of Sciences in Donetsk, Ukraine, discovered that in order for a male beetle to propel his long penis into the female duct, he has special muscles surrounding his penis that provide the force to carry out the rapid and precise penetration
The team, which included a computer simulation expert from the National Academy of Sciences in Donetsk, Ukraine, discovered that in order for a male beetle to propel his long penis into the female duct, he has special muscles surrounding his penis that provide the force to carry out the rapid and precise penetration.
The penis is relatively stiff and progressively gets softer towards the tip.
Dr Matsumura said: The long ducts in females slow down penetration, so the time-pressured males have co-evolved to counteract this obstacle.
After running computer simulations, we think that this composition is the fastest at penetrating the female duct, so it appears softer tips are better.
While the ins and outs of beetle sex may be fascinating, the mechanism could lead to new medical inventions.
We haven't tried applying it to any other fields yet, Dr Matsumura said.
However, I think that knowing how to precisely control a narrow tube in a duct could help develop harmless catheters or injections in the medical world.
Dr Matsumura will present the research at the annual meeting of the Society for Experimental Biology (SEB) in Brighton today.
It was sent 360 miles from the Earth in February to peer across space to search for some of the most powerful objects in the universe - black holes and supernova.
Within just one month of being launched, however, Japan's Hitomi X-ray telescope vanished after ground crews lost contact with it and it was feared to have broken apart.
But before its demise, the satellite was able to send back data to Earth that revealed a surprisingly calm gas cloud in a cluster of galaxies in the Perseus constellation.
The doomed Hitomi astronomy satellite was able to send back data after just one observation of the Perseus galaxy cluster (pictured) taken over three days. Scientists have found that the gas at the heart of the cluster is surprisingly calm and it may cause them to rethink the role it has in galaxy formation
THE HITOMI SPACE MISSION The X-ray astronomy satellite (Astro-H), which the agency named 'Hitomi', is a joint collaboration between Jaxa, Nasa, and other groups, including the European Space Agency. It was set to enter Earth's orbit at an estimated altitude 360 miles (580 km) - far above the International Space Station's orbit of around 250 miles (400 km). Over the course of the satellite's expected three-year mission, it was hoped it would capture data on black holes and other 'high energy' bodies, including supernovas, by detecting the radiation they churn out into the cosmos. Black holes have never been directly observed, but scientists believe they are huge collapsed stars whose enormous gravitational pull is so strong that nothing can escape. Advertisement
The data beamed back by Hitomi indicates that the swirls of hot gas between the Perseus galaxies is not as turbulent as might be expected.
The researchers said the superheated gas or plasma - is actually moving at speeds of just 366,858 miles per hour (164km/s) fast but relatively slow compared to what they had expected.
Their findings suggest the gas between galaxies in these dense clusters is not stirred up as much as had originally been thought and could have implications for understanding how new galaxies in these regions form.
It also provides new insights into the tug-of-war that takes place between the supermassive black holes lurking at the centre of galaxies and the role they play in galaxy formation.
According to researchers, the data sent back by Hitomi suggests the intergalactic gas in clusters of galaxies may actually be debris blasted out by supermassive black holes as they regulate how galaxies grow.
Hitomi managed to obtain just three days worth of observations and scientists say this constitutes the bulk of the usable data from the spacecraft.
Professor Andrew Fabian, an astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge who was another of those involved in the consortium that studied the data, told MailOnline: 'The intracluster medium is composed of gas, in composition much like the Sun but very, very much more dilute.
The galaxy NGC 1275 is the central, dominant member of the large and relatively nearby Perseus galaxy cluster. The composite image above highlights the galactic debris and filaments of glowing gas around it
'The gas is mostly hydrogen and helium with traces of other elements such as iron, which is highly ionized and gives the emission lines we have analysed.
'Most of the gas in the universe lies between galaxies and not in the stars and galaxies.
'The galaxies in the Perseus cluster orbit at typical speeds of 1,200 km/s (2.7 million mph) and there's a massive black hole pumping out powerful jets into the gas at the centre of the cluster so our measurement of just 164 +/- 10 km/s is relatively quiet.'
Scientists had previously thought that supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies may churn up the gas surrounding their galaxies to create bubbles of hot plasma.
Using X-ray spectrometry, the Hitomi satellite was able to beam back detailed images of the superheated gas cloud, or hot plastma, that envelops the Perseus galaxy cluster (pictured)
Japan's space agency JAXA lost contact with its X-ray 'Hitomi' satellite (artist's impression) on 26 March. It is thought to have broken into pieces after a pre-planned manoeuvre went wrong
These bubbles were thought to churn up the gas surrounding galaxy clusters, preventing it from cooling down enough to condense and form new stars and galaxies.
The Hitomi satelite cost 187 million and was designed to study X-rays emitted by black holes and other objects in space
But the data from Hitomi shows that for the Persius galaxy cluster at least, this does not appear to be the case.
Instead the gas seems relatively calm and is not being churned up. This suggests it is merely too diffuse to form new stars after being blasted outwards by the black hole.
The findings are causing astronomers to now rethink the role that plasma plays in galaxy formation.
Professor Brian McNamara, an astrophysicist at the University of Waterloo who was one of those involved in the research, said: 'The plasma can be thought of forming an enormous atmosphere that envelopes whole clusters of galaxies,' he said.
'These hot atmospheres represent the failure of the past - the failure of the universe to create bigger galaxies.
'But it's also the hope for the future. This is the raw material for the future growth of galaxies.
'It's the raw material that in the next several billion years is going to make the next generation of suns and solar systems. And how rapidly that happens is governed by the black hole.'
Hitomi obtained the data using an X-ray spectrometer to look for high energy radiation being given off by the plasma, which is invisible to optical telescopes.
The ultra-high-tech 'Hitomi' - or eye - satellite, cost 31 billion yen ($273 million, or 187 million) to build and launch for its three year mission.
It was much larger than previous Japanese scientific satellites, measuring 46ft (14 metres) in length and weighing 2.7 tonnes.
It was designed to study X-rays emitted by black holes and other objects in space.
Space scientists are desperately scouring the skies after losing track of the quarter-of-a-billion-dollar Japanese satellite that was sent to study black holes. The ultra-high-tech 'Hitomi' satellite (pictured in January) was supposed to have been communicating from orbit by now, but no-one can say where it is
But on 26 March the satellite began a preprogammed manoeuvre to face the galaxy Markarian 205.
During this the JAXA, the Japanese space agency, lost touch with the satellite.
It is thought that the onboard star tracker system may have malfunctioned, causing it to become disorientated, perhaps due to faulty gyroscopes.
Its control system commanded a thruster to fire in the wrong direction, in a bid to stop the satellite spinning, but this accelerated the problem, speeding up the spinning rather than slowing it down.
This action may have caused at least 10 pieces to break off from the satellite's main body, including both its solar array boards.
JAXA later thought it had received signals from the lost satellite on three occasions, but concluded the frequencies of the communications indicated they were not from Hitomi.
The 'Hitomi', or Astro-H satellite, was launched aboard the H-IIA rocket (pictured) along with three smaller satellites - Horyu-4 and ChubuSat 2 and 3 in February. It was set to enter Earth's orbit at an estimated altitude 360 miles (580 km) - far above the International Space Station's orbit of around 250 miles (400 km)
The deepest part of the ocean is inhabited by unusual creatures adapted to survive in the most extreme conditions.
And half a billion years ago, it was now different.
Scientists searching for secrets in the sea bed have uncovered a 500-million-year-old fossil of a worm that looked like a penis and built 'houses'.
The ancient sea creature called an Oesia lived a solitary existence, building tube-like homes of up to 50cm in height in the Canadian Rockies.
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Detail of Oesia inside a Margaretia fossil, shown. From the first look of the fossilised tubes, it had been thought they were a type of seaweed
AN OEASIA LIFE The average Oesia was about 2.08 inches (53mm) long, and rarely more than 0.39 inches (10mm) wide. The worms had U-shaped gills running down most the length of their bodies to enable filter feeding. Gill slits seem to be a characteristic common to all deuterostomes. Even humans have slits in their necks at an early stage in their embryonic development, and this is seen as evidence that all deuterostomes are related to a distant, common ancestor. Advertisement
According to researchers, the long, perforated tubes may have looked like narrow chimneys reaching up from the sea bed.
They were previously believed to have belonged to a type of seaweed.
Instead, they found that these were the vestiges of tubular structures, rarely more than 10mm wide, which protected the prehistoric worms.
The research, carried out by academics from the Universities of Cambridge, Toronto and Montreal, offers some important clues about the characteristics of an early ancestor of modern-day vertebrates, including humans.
It supports the increasingly common view that this ancestor was probably a 'filter feeder', which ate by sucking in water and straining out nutrients.
The Oesia was one such filter feeder, with gills down most of its body to expel water afterwards, and holes in the walls of its tubular home to let the water in and out.
Gill slits are a characteristic common to all deuterostomes, even humans have slits in their necks at an early stage in their embryonic development, and this is seen as evidence that all deuterostomes are related to a distant, common ancestor.
Half a billion years ago strange long tubes could be found rising up from the ocean floor. From the look of their fossils, scientists thought these tubes were a type of seaweed. But new research shows they were in fact made by ocean-dwelling worms, who built them to see out their solitary existences in
Professor Simon Conway Morris, from St John's College, University of Cambridge and a co-author, said: 'Oesia fossils are pretty enigmatic - they are very rare and until now we could not prove which group they belonged to.
'Now we know that they were primitive hemichordates - perhaps the most primitive of all.
'In its own depressing way this is a story of Darwinian competition. The levels of competition and predation increased, life sped up and got harder, and animals had to protect themselves more.
'One way of doing this was to abandon life filter feeding in a tube, and instead to dig into the sediment and eat mud.
'Once there, they found a new niche and were able to make a perfectly good life for themselves.'
At some point, the fossil record suggests that acorn worms underwent a transition, leaving their tubes and instead opting for a life under the sea bed.
The study argues that as evolution gathered pace and more predators appeared on the scene, digging into the sea floor may simply have been a safer option.
'Oesia fossils are pretty enigmatic they are very rare and until now we could not prove which group they belonged to,' said Professor Simon Conway Morris, from St John's College, University of Cambridge and a co-author.
The study was based on the discovery of a rich source of fossilised remains near Marble Canyon, in the Canadian Rockies, shown on map
Modern-day acorn worms have adopted this lifestyle; rather than filter feeding they live in the sediment and eat nutrients within it.
The study was possible thanks to the discovery of a rich source of fossilised remains near Marble Canyon, in the Canadian Rockies, which is run by Parks Canada.
Karma Nanglu, from the University of Toronto and the study's lead author, said the study suggested that in some cases these structures exceeded 50cm in height and that they were typically at least twice the width of the worm, giving it plenty of room.
The ends were sealed off, making life inside a rather lonely experience.
'Only single worms are found within tubes, suggesting a solitary mode of life.
Among the Marble Canyon finds there were dozens of examples where the fossil remains of the worm were found within those of Margaretia, the perforated tubes
'Hemichordates are central to our understanding of how deuterostomes evolved.
'Through them, we can get clues about the anatomy and lifestyle of the last common ancestor that we all share, and this adds further evidence to the hypothesis that the ancestor was a filter-feeder like Oesia.'
The research found that Oesia was a rather phallic-shaped creature, similar to modern acorn worms with a proboscis, a collar, and a long trunk.
Co-author Christopher Cameron, Associate Professor at the Universite de Montreal said: 'Acorn worms are notoriously sparse in the fossil record.
'Only a handful of fossil species have been described, making the recognition of such an ancient representative of the group particularly noteworthy.'
The study, Cambrian suspension-feeding tubicolous hemichordates, has been published in the journal BMC Biology
Google on Wednesday announced a deal to buy Moodstocks, a French startup behind technology that helps smartphones recognize whatever they are aimed at.
Moodstocks caught the US technology giant's eye for its work in computer vision and machine learning, as well for accomplishments in enabling smartphones or other mobile devices to recognize images and objects.
Google is among Silicon Valley titans investing in ways to get computers to see and understand the world around them the way people do.
French startup Moodstocks has developed technology that helps smartphones recognize whatever they are aimed at
GOOGLE'S HOME ASSISTANT Google and its parent Alphabet are expected to integrate the image search team in artificial intelligence efforts. At its annual developers conference in May, Google unveiled a virtual home assistant device that will challenge Amazon Echo. Google Home, about the size of a stout vase, will hit the market later this year and will incorporate new virtual assistant software. When Home hits, it will challenge Amazon Echo voice-controlled assistants that have proven to be a hit since the Seattle-based online retail colossus unveiled them two years ago. Advertisement
Machine learning has been woven into an array of Google offerings, such as its free language translation and photo services.
'Ever since we started Moodstocks, our dream has been to give eyes to machines by turning cameras into smart sensors able to make sense of their surroundings,' the French firm said
'After introducing on-device image recognition in 2012, we've been working on extending our reach to object recognition for the past 2.5 years, using deep learning based approaches.
'Today, we're thrilled to announce that weve reached an agreement to join forces with Google in order to deploy our work at scale.
'We expect the acquisition to be completed in the next few weeks.
The Moodstocks team, described as a small group of researchers and engineers, will join a Google research and development center in Paris, according to Google France tech site lead Vincent Simonet.
'There's a lot more to be done to improve machine vision,' he said
'That's where Moodstocks comes in.'
Moodstocks' API and SDK will be discontinued 'soon', according to an announcement on the company's homepage.
'Our focus will be to build great image recognition tools within Google, but rest assured that current paying Moodstocks customers will be able to use it until the end of their subscription,' the company noted.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Google and its parent Alphabet are expected to integrate the image search team in artificial intelligence efforts.
Mario Queiroz showed off the new Google speaker, called Google Home, that will be released later this year.
TWITTER'S MAGIC PONY Twitter has added another machine learning startup to its flock. London-based Magic Pony Technology was purchased by the social media network for a reported $150 million. This move will enhance Twitters's strength in video, as the startup's technology improves the quality of videos captured with low-resolution cameras by recognizing patterns and textures. Advertisement
At its annual developers conference in May, Google unveiled a virtual home assistant device that will challenge Amazon Echo.
Google Home, about the size of a stout vase, will hit the market later this year and will incorporate new virtual assistant software.
When Home hits, it will challenge Amazon Echo voice-controlled assistants that have proven to be a hit since the Seattle-based online retail colossus unveiled them two years ago.
Many Internet companies are exploring the promise of artificial intelligence -- for example, smartphone applications that can learn a user's habits and anticipate searches and requests.
Microsoft, Apple, and Google have each created their own virtual assistants for users.
Google boss Sundar Pichai took to the stage at a giant outdoor amphitheatre holding 7,000 next to Google's Silicon Valley HQ to unveil the Google Assistant and Google Home speaker earlier this year, alongside a new version of Android and a virtual reality headsets for mobile phones.
The firm is aiming squarely at Amazon's Echo with the home speaker, which has Amazon's Alexa assistant built in.
Facebook is also developing AI bots that will run inside its Messenger app, Mark Zuckerberg revealed at its developed conference last week.
However, Google believes its search engine and AI experience will give it a huge advantage.
The Amazon Tap (left) is a portable version of the 9.25-inch Echo that sells for $130, while the $90 Echo Dot (right) can be plugged into any speaker. at are designed to amplify the role that its voice-controlled assistant Alexa plays in people's homes and lives. They will now complete
'We want to be there for users, asking them 'Hi, how can I help',' said Pichai, who took over as Google boss when the firm reorganised as Alphabet earlier this year.
'We want users to have an ongoing 2 way dialogue with Google.'
Pichai showed the system using its smart assistant to book cinema tickets, downloading them automatically.
Mario Queiroz showed off the new Google speaker, called Google Home, that will be released later this year.
'I should be able to interact without a phone,' he said.
Users will be able to simply talk to the speaker, telling it what to do or asking it questions in normal English.
The gadget is also a high quality speaker, Google claims, allowing users to play back music from online services of a phone.
The robot uses 'silicon retina' and AI to teach itself how to aim
Scientists have taught a robot how to hunt and destroy prey in a chilling new experiment.
The test comes as experts warm AI could wipe out a tenth of the global population in five years.
The ability to identify and zone in on a specific target will be crucial for any useful robotic technology like driverless cars, the researchers at the University of Zurich in Switzerland believe.
And despite the chilling prospect of allowing a robot to mark up a target, they believe their research will prove more useful than deadly.
Scientists have taught a robot how to hunt and destroy prey in a chilling new experiment. Pictured is an example of raw recorded data taken by the robot. The field view is divided into three regions and the target labelled. A silicon retina processes pixels sending a live stream of what is in the robot's environment
HOW DOES IT WORK? The predator robot is inspired by animals in the wild. Its most sophisticated piece of tech is a 'silicon retina' which mimics how an eye works and processes visual data faster than a normal camera. A typical slow-frame camera would allow the robot to take pictures to hone in on its target but the path of movement would appear disjointed. But a silicon retina processes pixels continuously sending a live stream of what is in the robot's environment. The data is processed by the robot's AI function - a deep learning neural network that will learn from its experience in a similar way to a toddler. It uses laser beams to detect another robot or person. If it cannot spot anything it knows to walk around and search for its prey. This means the killer bot will get better at tracking its prey the more it is in the wild. Currently, the robot travels at around 6mph, but that speed could increase to 37mph if it was built to be the size of a car, researchers said. Advertisement
The small, truck-shaped machine is capable of identifying and chasing a target in the same way as a tiger in the wild.
They say the experiment will help them design software that allows a robot to look around its surroundings and find a target to focus on.
These are the characteristics necessary to navigate a driverless car or a intelligent robot butler, for example.
'Following [in large groups of self-driving cars or drones] is the obvious application, but one could imagine future luggage or shopping carts that follow you,' Tobi Delbruck, a professor at the Institute of Neuroinformatics, told Motherboard.
Its most sophisticated piece of tech is a 'silicon retina' which mimics how an eye works and processes visual data faster than a normal camera.
A typical slow-frame camera would allow the robot to take pictures to hone in on its target but the path of movement would appear disjointed.
But a silicon retina processes pixels continuously sending a live stream of what is in the robot's environment.
The data is processed by the robot's AI function - a deep learning neural network that will learn from its experience in a similar way to a toddler.
It uses laser beams to detect another robot or person. If it cannot spot anything it knows to walk around and search for its prey.
This means the killer bot will get better at tracking its prey the more it is in the wild.
Currently, the robot travels at around 6mph, but that speed could increase to 37mph if it was built to be the size of a car, researchers said.
'This way, the problem is less like a predator and its prey and more like herding, or a parent and child,' added Delbruck.
'Robots guided by neural networks can perform extremely well in situations they have learned from through massive training,' Diederik Moeys, a PhD student involved in the research said.
The small, truck-shaped machine is capable of identifying and chasing a target in the same way as a tiger in the wild. Currently, the robot travels at around 6mph, but that speed could increase to 37mph if it was built to be the size of a car, researchers said
Aim and fire: A robot has been trained how to target its prey just months after researchers warned that Artificial Intelligence was posed to wipe out one tenth of the world's population in chilling warnings echoing science fiction (Terminator pictured)
'But any unknown or new situation can produce the most unexpected and sometimes hilarious results.'
And while it has been used in this instance purely for hunting robots, it is easy to see how it could be used to hunt human prey in warfare, for example.
It comes just months after a chilling report revealed that the threat of AI is among the most likely global catastrophic threats along with antibiotic resistance and nuclear war.
The inaugural report highlights the global catastrophic risks (GCRs) that could wipe out 10 per cent of the global population, which at last count would be a staggering 740 million people.
It's robots are not the first to mimic animals in the wild, either.
The research follows the hatching of a fully-fledged 'Robird' technology that mimics falcons and eagles to scare off pests from farms and airports.
Netherlands firm Clear Flight Solutions 3D-print the remote controlled birds in glass-fibre and nylon composite, which is light enough to allow them to fly.
The manufacturers claim they can reduce the amount of birds in an area by 50 per cent.
Factory workers are about to get super-human strength thanks to Nasa's 'Robo-Glove'.
The glove helped scientists control Robonaut 2, a humanoid that provided engineering and technical assistance on space mission just like Star Wars' R2-D2.
But now it has been given power-boosting technologies thanks to a partnership between General Motors and medical technology company Bioservo, who hope that it will help workers on factory floors.
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Marty Linn, General Motors (GM) robotics lead, shakes hands with Robonaut 2, a humanoid developed by GM and Nasa during a nine-year collaboration that also led to development of the RoboGlove
HOW DOES IT WORK? The Robo-Glove wraps around a worker's hand essentially, takes on the hard work for them. An assembly operator in a factory may use 15- to 20 pounds of force to hold a tool during an operation. But with the robotic glove, the factory operator might need to apply only five to 10 pounds of force. Using five sensors and a supportive palm insert it mimics how the hand and fingers move. Forming an exo-skeleton it takes the weight out of the tool and stops the worker getting aches and pains as quickly. The hand is powered by a lightweight battery back that ties around the worker's waist to keep it juiced up. Advertisement
Using a combination of sensors that function like human nerves, muscles and tendons the new Power Glove has the same dexterity of the human hand - but with mammoth strength.
The ground-breaking muscle-mimicking technologies could help employees in health care and manufacturing industries where a strong grip is necessary to get the job done.
The glove helps stops tired hands from aching after a long day's work and will make it easier for workers to, quite literally, get a grip.
It could slash the amount of force an assembly operator needs to hold a tool during an operation in half.
An assembly operator in a factory may use 15- to 20 pounds of force to hold a tool during an operation, for example.
But with the robotic glove, the factory operator might need to apply only five to 10 pounds of force.
General Motors will integrate Bioservo's strength-boosting Soft Extra Muscles (SEM) glove into the Nasa Super-Glove, creating a mitt of almighty power similar to the exoskeleton worn by Matt Damon's Max in Dystopian flick Elysium.
Matt Damon's character Max wears an exo-skeleton in 2013 thriller Elysium. Exo-skeletons like the one pictured and the Power Glove could prove useful for therapy following loss or fracture of a limb
Wearing the exo-skeleton glove will mean tools no longer need to be moulded to fit a worker's hand, cutting company costs too.
Forming an exo-skeleton it takes the weight out of the tool and stops the worker getting aches and pains as quickly.
The hand is powered by a lightweight battery back that ties around the worker's waist to keep it juiced up.
Potential uses in the medical industry are promising with the increase of robotic surgery too.
Providing a comfortable glove for surgeons to manoeuvre miniscule robots over a patient's body during long operations could save lives.
'Combining the best of three worlds space technology from Nasa, engineering from GM and medtech from Bioservo in a new industrial glove could lead to industrial scale use of the technology,' said Tomas Ward, CEO of Bioservo Technologies.
General Motors said it will begin rolling out the glove to its workers immediately.
'The successor to RoboGlove can reduce the amount of force that a worker needs to exert when operating a tool for an extended time or with repetitive motions,' said Kurt Wiese, vice president of GM Global Manufacturing Engineering.
If all goes well it could be sold for rehabilitation purposes in the medical industry too.
Studying micro-organisms usually requires a petri dish, but a group of researchers in Norway decided to make things a little more exciting, in a three dimensional throwback to the 1980s.
The team recreated the maze from the Japanese arcade classic Pac-Man, on a tiny scale, and set two kinds of microorganisms loose.
They then monitored the creatures' behaviour, to learn more about the dynamics between predator and prey microorganisms.
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The researchers recreated the legendary labyrinth from the game Pac-Man (shown left) on a tiny scale less than 0.04 inches (one millimetre) in diameter, shown right
HOW THEY DID IT The three dimensional labyrinth was filled with microscopic prey and predators swimming around in a fluid filled with nutrients. Single celled organisms, the prey, along with multi-cellular 'rotifers', the predators, were released into the nutrient-laden fluid maze. The team used neon lighting to recreate the staging and capture it on film. Advertisement
The scientists recreated the legendary labyrinth on a tiny scale less than 0.04 inches (one millimetre) in diameter.
The three dimensional labyrinth was filled with microscopic prey and predators swimming around in a fluid filled with nutrients.
Single celled organisms, the prey, along with multi-cellular 'rotifers', the predators, were released into the nutrient-laden fluid maze.
The team, from the University College of Southeast Norway, used neon lighting to recreate the staging and capture it on film.
But it was not all fun and games. The researchers said the added structure of the labyrinth means the organisms were forced to interact with their surroundings, compared to when they are studied in a traditional petri dish.
This is because, in a petri dish, there are no constraints placed on how they can move.
'Its clear: we had had fun carrying out this project, and the purpose has been partially to raise awareness and draw attention to the research field,' Professor Johannessen said.
Studying micro-organisms in their natural habitat usually takes places on a petri dish, which creates an artificial two-dimensional environment. But a group of researchers in Norway decided to make things a little more exciting, in a three dimensional throwback to the 1980s
Single-cell organisms were introduced to the maze, along with multi-celled organisms that prey on them. Their movements were then recorded. The researchers kept track of the paths taken by the three species of single-celled organisms: flagellate, euglena, and ciliates, along with the multicellular rotifers
'However, the main purpose was to demonstrate how micro and nano systems technology can create a three dimensional environment, which can trigger more natural behavior in single and multicellular organisms when studying them under the microscope.'
The researchers kept track of the paths taken by the three species of single-celled organisms: flagellate, euglena, and ciliates, along with the multicellular rotifers.
The single-cell organisms, some of the world's simplest lifeforms, appeared to move around randomly, but researchers discovered an eye-catching behaviour in the multi-cellular rotifers.
When the rotifers were first introduced into the labyrinth, they were very cautious and proceeded slowly.
But this changed after a lag of about a day, when the rotifers dashed forward in a more focused way.
Professor Johannessen said this may be due to chemical traces they leave behind, making it easier for them to find their way forward.
Stone Age man has long been though to have rapidly developed tools as our ancestors tried to adapt to prehistoric climate change, more than 60,000 year ago.
But new research suggests the flurry of technological development that occurred in the Middle Stone age may have had nothing to do with the changes in global temperatures.
Environmental records obtained from archaeological sites in southern Africa from the Middle Stone Age, suggest the development of tools may have occurred for more complex reasons.
Environmental records obtained from archaeological sites in southern Africa (Klipdrift cave pictured) from the Middle Stone Age, suggest the development of tools may have occurred for more complex reasons
THE CLIMATE CHANGE DEBATE A 2014 study claimed surges in innovation in early modern human populations in what is now South Africa coincided with periods of heavy rainfall. It said people used symbols to communicate, which have been linked to the development of complex language. Scientists from Cardiff University's School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, the Natural History Museum in London and the University of Barcelona, said these symbols, as well as personal adornments made of seashells, coincided with increased rainfall and receded in dry periods. They studied a marine sediment core off the coast of South Africa and reconstructed terrestrial climate variability over the last 100,000 years to come up with their findings, which were published in the journal Nature Communications. Dr Martin Ziegler, of Cardiff University, said: We found that South Africa experienced rapid climate transitions toward wetter conditions at times when the Northern Hemisphere experienced extremely cold conditions. Professor Ian Hall, also of Cardiff University said: When the timing of these rapidly occurring wet pulses was compared with the archaeological datasets, we found remarkable coincidences.' Advertisement
The researchers suggest population movements, long-distance interactions and environmental drivers could all play a role.
'For example, high population densities of Homo sapiens encouraged increased social interaction,' lead author Patrick Roberts told MailOnline.
The Middle Stone Age marked a period of dramatic change among early humans in southern Africa as our ancient ancestors began to use bone tools, paint with ochre and wear jewellery.
While some researchers suggest climate instability may have directly inspired this technological and cultural revolution, others believe stable environments may have allowed ancient man to experiment and come up with ways of making life easier and more interesting.
It is hard to prove either theory, because of the disconnection of palaeoenvironmental records from archaeological sites, according to experts.
In a bid to shed light on innovation at the time, scientists from the University of Oxford analysed animal and shellfish remains, as well as taking stable carbon and oxygen isotope measurements in ostrich eggshell from two archaeological sites.
The sites - Blombos Cave and Klipdrift Shelter span 98,000 to 73,000 years ago and 72,000 to 59,000 years ago respectively and so provide a snap-shot of innovations made at the time.
The data the scientists collected gave them an idea of palaeoenvironmental conditions in what is now South Africa, thousands of years ago.
For instance, ostrich eggshell carbon and oxygen stable isotope levels reflect vegetation and water consumption, which allowed the experts to estimate the amount of rain that fell in the region, season by season.
Using shellfish remains, ostrich eggshell isotopes and animal remains from the period, they were able to reconstruct the environmental changes that took place.
While the researchers found there was significant change in the vegetation, aridity, rainfall seasonality, and sea temperature in the vicinity during periods of human occupation, they did not appear to coincide with technological and cultural innovations.
The Middle Stone Age marked a period of dramatic change among early humans in southern Africa as our ancient ancestors began to use bone tools, paint with ochre and wear jewellery. Artist's impression of Stone Age man, pictured
The sites - Blombos Cave and Klipdrift Shelter span 98,000 to 73,000 years ago and 72,000 to 59,000 years ago respectively and so provide a snap-shot of innovations made at the time
This contradicts a previous study published in 2014, in which experts from Cardiff University, the Natural History Museum in London and the University of Barcelona, said written symbols, as well as personal adornments made of seashells, coincided with increased rainfall and receded in dry periods.
The new results, published in the journal Public Library of Science One, suggest that while climate change and other environmental shifts may have influenced human's ability to find food, it did not appear to be a driving factor in creating tools.
Patrick Roberts, a PhD student at the University of Oxford who conducted the research, said: 'Our results suggest that although climate and environmental changes occurred, they were not coincident with cultural innovations, including personal ornamentation, or the appearance of complex tool-types.
'This suggests that we have to consider that other factors drove human innovation at this stage in our species' evolution.'
'The important thing to note is that the Still Bay and Howiesons Poort technologies, and the cultural innovations associated with them, actually come from very different environments,' Patrick Roberts told MailOnline.
'So while people have suggested universal climatic theories, it is unlikely that all environments, and hence human populations, will be impacted uniformly.
'At our sites human subsistence appears linked with environmental change, but not cultural or technological developments.
'However, just because it isn't climate at our site doesn't mean that climate did not drive cultural or technology at another site.'
The AI will scan these records to try and improve the detection process
Across the world there is an estimated 285 million visually impaired people, and 39 million of these are blind.
Conditions like age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy can be picked up is using digital screenings, which are highly complex and take a lot of time to analyse.
Now Google's DeepMind Health is teaming up with a London eye hospital to investigate how machine learning could help analyse these scans efficiently and effectively.
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Moorfields Eue Hospital in London has announced a new medical research partnership with Google's DeepMind Health that could revolutionise the way professionals carry out eye tests and lead to earlier detection of common eye diseases
THE LEADING CAUSES OF BLINDNESS Diabetes is on the rise. Its estimated that 1 in 11 of the worlds adult population are affected. Its also the leading cause of blindness in the working age population - if youre diabetic you are 25 times more likely to suffer some kind of sight loss. Early detection and treatment can prevent 98 per cent of severe visual loss resulting from diabetes - but that doesnt always happen. Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is one of the commonest cause of blindness. By allowing earlier detection and treatment of AMD, machine learning has the potential to help save the sight of many of these people. Advertisement
At the moment, eye health professionals rely on digital scans of the eye to diagnose and determine the correct treatment for common eye conditions such as age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy.
The scans are highly complex and traditional analysis tools have been unable to explore them fully.
It also takes eye health professionals a long time to analyse eye scans, which can have an impact on how quickly they can meet patients to discuss diagnosis and treatment.
Google DeepMind Health hopes to use its AI to analyse the results from these scans effectively and quickly.
The collaboration hopes this will lead to earlier detection of common eye diseases.
Moorfields will be sharing records of one million past eye scans, along with some related information, with Google.
Google's DeepMind Health will use the anonymous scan results to search through and discover ways it could speed up the analysis process.
The huge number of scans involved means it will not be possible to pick out individuals from the records, the companies have stressed.
'Our research with DeepMind has the potential to revolutionise the way professionals carry out eye tests and could lead to earlier detection and treatment of common eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration,' Professor Sir Peng Tee Khaw, Director of the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre in Ophthalmology at Moorfields Eye Hospital and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, said.
At operator at Moorfields looking at an eye scan.
'With sight loss predicted to double by the year 2050 it is vital we explore the use of cutting-edge technology to prevent eye disease.'
'We set up DeepMind because we wanted to use AI to help solve some of society's biggest challenges, and diabetic retinopathy is the fastest growing cause of blindness worldwide,' said Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind.
GOOGLE'S CONTROVERSIAL NHS DATA SHARING CONTRACT The Royal Free NHS Trust in London came under fire earlier this year when it drew up an information-sharing agreement contract with Google, allowing patients data to be handed over. This is completely separate to the eye scan records from Moorfields. It covers patients who went to A&E, intensive care or stayed in hospital within the past five years, and those who do this between now and September 2017. The terms of the agreement state that the records can be shared as long as they are encrypted and cannot be read by Google employees. The Royal Free NHS Trust in London came under fire earlier this year when it drew up an information-sharing agreement contract with Google, allowing patients data to be handed over. Patients were not asked beforehand as NHS rules state their consent is needed only if the information being passed on will identify them. The data contained their names and medical histories, but it is encoded, so theoretically identities are protected. Patients can choose to opt out of such schemes, but otherwise they are automatically included. Advertisement
'There are more than 350 million sufferers across the planet. I'm really excited to announce this collaboration with leading researchers at Moorfields.
'Detecting eye diseases as early as possible gives patients the best possible chance of getting the right treatments.
'I really believe that one day this work will be a great benefit to patients across the NHS.
'We are proud of our NHS, and this is one of the ways I think we can help nurses and doctors continue to provide world-class care.
As is standard practice in such projects, Google never owns the data, it belongs to the NHS.
Ancient bones discovered in Belgium have revealed the gruesome butcheries carried out by Neanderthals more than 40,000 years ago.
Researchers say the skeletal remains are the first known evidence of cannibalism among groups north of the Alps, and bodies were likely skinned and cut up, with bone marrow extracted.
The Goyet caves have so far produced the greatest amount of Neanderthal remains north of the Alps, providing new insight on the practices of these early peoples; four of the bones found at this site indicate Neanderthals even used the remains of their deceased relatives as tools.
Ancient bones discovered in Belgium have revealed the gruesome butcheries carried out by Neanderthals more than 40,000 years ago. The skeletal remains are the first known evidence of cannibalism among groups north of the Alps, and bodies were likely skinned and cut up
EVIDENCE OF CANNIBALISM Cut marks, puts, and notches in some of the remains found in the Goyet caves indicate they were once worked by human hands. The bodies were likely skinned, cut up, and bone marrow extracted. While it isnt clear whether this was done as a part of a symbolic act, or simply for food, researchers say similar treatment has been seen in remains of horses and reindeer. The bones also revealed that Neanderthals used the remains of their kin as tools. Researchers found one thigh bone and three shin bones that were once used to shape stone tools. Advertisement
Researchers from Tubingens Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment and the University of Tubingen investigated bones discovered in an excavation at Troisieme cavern nearly 150 years ago.
Current methods have allowed the researchers to double the existing data on the species, extracting vast information in the process of digital measurement and categorization, examination of the preservation conditions, and isotopic and genetic analysis.
Radiocarbon-dating determined the remains are aged around 40,500 to 45,500 years, and the analysis identified 99 previously uncertain bone fragments as of Neanderthal origin.
This new information confirms the findings of earlier studies, revealing very little genetic variation in the late European Neanderthals, who died out roughly 30,000 years ago.
Cut marks, puts, and notches in some of the remains found in the Goyet caves indicate they were once worked by 'human' hands.
The researchers say this means the bodies they came from were likely butchered by other Neanderthals in a thorough process that included skinning, cutting up, and extraction of bone marrow.
These indications allow us to assume that Neanderthals practised cannibalism, says Herve Bocherens of the Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment.
Current methods have allowed the researchers to double the existing data on the species. The bones pictured left show evidence of butchering and use as tools.
While it isnt clear whether this was done as a part of a symbolic act, or simply for food, Bocherens says, the many remains of horses and reindeer found in Goyet were processed the same way.
This is the first time researchers have discovered evidence of cannibalistic practices in Neanderthals in the northern parts of Europe.
The entrance to Troisieme cavern is shown
Researchers discovered in an excavation at Troisieme cavern, at the Goyet caves in Belgium, nearly 150 years ago. The Goyet caves have so far produced the greatest amount of Neanderthal remains north of the Alps, providing new insight on the practices of these early peoples
Earlier debates have focused on findings at El Sidron and Zafarraya in Spain and Moula-Guercy and Les Pradelles, in France.
The bones also revealed that Neanderthals used the remains of their kin as tools.
Researchers found one thigh bone and three shin bones that were once used to shape stone tools, similar to whats been seen in animal remains.
That Neanderthal bones were used for this purpose thats something we had seen at very few sites, and nowhere as frequently as in Goyet, Bocherens said.
THE NEANDERTHALS' LEGACY Genetic analysis has revealed that mutations built up in Neanderthal DNA over time, due to inbreeding. The accumulation of genetic errors meant their ability to have children was reduced by up to 40 per cent. This is the first time researchers have discovered evidence of cannibalistic practices in Neanderthals in the northn parts of Europe. Earlier debates have focused on findings at El Sidron and Zafarraya in Spain and Moula-Guercy and Les Pradelles, in France. Neanderthal reconstructions are shown above Interbreeding with humans passed on some of the genes, with some people today still carrying a small proportion of the mutations This may reduce reproductive fitness of non-African people today by 1 per cent. Indigenous sub-Saharan Africans have been found to have no Neanderthal DNA, as their ancestors did not follow the same migration route. Advertisement
The new analyses reveal major differences in the way the Neanderthals of Goyet dealt with their dead.
In many other areas, groups were found to perform burials.
The researchers say the northern European Neanderthals also appear to have a greater variety of stone tools.
Using a tri-colour camera, his pictures bring to life in (nearly) full-pigment the summer of 1906 in Sussex
Pfenninger shot Brighton beach at the turn of the century, right before the Edwardian world disappeared forever
Swiss photographer Otto Pfenninger was a pioneer - he invented and used one of the first colour cameras
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Step back 100 years and see what life was like just after the turn of the century.
Swiss photographer Otto Pfenninger's images of England's Brighton beach in 1906 capture a perfect moment in time.
Born in 1855 when the dawn of his industry had already gripped the world, Pfenninger moved to Britain in the 1880s, right before the birth of colour photography.
A pioneer in his field, he designed and built one of the first colour cameras in 1905, one year before these pictures were taken.
The invention used three separate plates that would record a full-pigment image in a single exposure.
Come summer, he headed down to the famously busy Brighton beach to capture candid scenes of locals and visitors relaxing in vivid, if sometimes blue-tinted, colour.
Photographer Otto Pfenninger (1855 1929) captured the beach at his adopted hometown of Brighton in 1906 on one of the first colour cameras
Though Pfenninger was a founding member of the Swiss Photographers Association he moved to England in the 1880s
In 1905 the photographer began to experiment with inventing a colour camera, just one year later he shot these fascinating pictures
The formalities and rigour of Edwardian life was captured as it stood on the brink of disappearing in these telling photographs from 1906
Sun, sea and pebbles: Not much changes, as Brighton still has a very popular beach - depending on the weather
Pfenninger's homemade camera used three separated colour plates from which full-colour photographic images could be shot in an instant
Using his so-called tri-colour single exposure, Pfenninger recorded candid shots of Edwardian scenes in parks and beaches around Brighton
His camera was inspired by J.W. Bennetto's one-shot camera of 1897, which used three separate negatives to create one exposure
The ban comes into place on July 15 and is said to speed up embarkation
A major cruise operator appears to have put a damper on its holidays with an announcement that passengers are banned from bringing beverages on board, including bottled water.
From July 15 Norwegian Cruise Line guests will no longer be allowed to pack 'any beverages' in carry-on or checked luggage.
The firm claims this new ruling will speed up the embarkation process, but one customer described the policy as a 'disgraceful' money-grabbing move.
From July 15 Norwegian Cruise Line will be banning customers from bringing bottled water and other drinks on board
In a statement sent to MailOnline Travel, the cruiseliner company said: 'Guests are prohibited from bringing any beverages - including liquor, beer and non-alcoholic drinks such as water, soda and juices - on board the company's ships either as carry-on or checked luggage.'
It added that the new rule 'brings the company in line with other best-practice travel security protocols and reduces the need for individual time-consuming screening and package inspection of large volumes of beverages'.
Not only can guests not pack banned beverages, but they can't purchase and then bring on board any from port calls. All locally purchased liquids that are listed on the no-go list will be disposed of.
Said to speed up embarkation, the ban stretches to liquor, beer and non-alcoholic drinks such as water, soda and juices
If a passenger purchases alcohol while travelling around a stopover destination they will be allowed to store it on the liner until their final night before their debarkation.
However, there are exceptions to the rule.
Norwegian said that purified or distilled water in factory-sealed containers for use with medical devices or for baby formula will be permitted, as will wine in sealed bottles brought on by customers who meet minimum age requirements, though a corkage fee will be applied.
The company stated that wine was allowed because 'not many people take it on board' so it's quicker to screen.
Cruise-goers, however, are already up in arms with one commentator, Thomas Mackin, writing on CruiseCritic.co.uk: 'Really can't believe this. People going on cruises spend a lot of money whilst sailing around the world on your ships.
'To stop passengers bringing water back on board ship after being in port is disgraceful and something I feel is more about making more money from loyal customers. I really believe you seriously need to re think this policy as its a step to far!'
To stop passengers bringing water back on board ship after being in port is disgraceful and something I feel is more about making more money from loyal customers
Lori Knisley commented: 'It's a money grab just like everything NCL does. I will never cruise with them again. Last cruise they nickel and dimed us all seven days.'
Janet Chaisson Ledda said: 'I'm disappointed but not surprised. I've cruised on three other cruise lines and none of them allowed passengers to bring bottled water or soda on the ship. Last NCL cruise I took was four years ago and I thought it was a wonderful perk to be able to bring on a case of bottled water. I was hoping to do the same for our Boston/Bermuda cruise next June... too bad.'
Vladimir Mihus bought a new perspective, writing: 'Bottled water is also an environmental issue. Plastic pollution is huge.'
Adam Coulter, UK editor of CruiseCritic.co.uk, told MailOnline Travel: 'While Norwegian Cruise Line isn't the first line to announce a ban of this sort - Carnival announced a similar restriction back in 2015 - based on comments from Cruise Critic members, Norwegian's latest announcement to ban carry-on water and soda may cause frustration for some cruisers, particularly those who are used to bringing beverages on board.
'While it may be disappointing to some travellers, at a time of increasingly heightened security, the advantage is that it may speed up the embarkation process for cruisers, helping to ensure a more convenient holiday experience from the start.'
Norwegian isn't the first cruise company to ban bottled beverages.
In July 2015 Carnival Cruise Line banned bottled water, bottled soda and other non-alcoholic drinks.
Though, unlike Norwegian Cruise Line, Carnival suggested their move was made to prevent guests smuggling on alcohol disguised as soft drinks.
At the time, a spokesperson for Carnival Cruise Lines told MailOnline Travel: 'Guests bringing bottled beverages on board are proving to be a source of multiple issues. The first issue is the impact on the boarding process.
'Bottled beverages are the most common means by which guests attempt to smuggle alcohol on board which necessitates bottles be individually examined by security personnel. This delays the embarkation process and requires security resources dedicated to checking bottled beverages.
'Most importantly, when behavioural issues occur on board and are ultimately investigated, smuggled alcohol often appears to be a factor.
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With its fiery rocky landscape stretching as far as the eye can see, you'd be forgiven for thinking you are gazing at the mesmerising Grand Canyon.
But these pictures show a spellbinding natural wonder not in Arizona, but halfway across the world in Asia.
The beautiful Sharyn Canyon stretches 56 miles across Kazakhstan and, with its distinctive red sandstone rock formations and large river, has been nicknamed the Grand Canyon's little brother.
With its fiery rocky landscape stretching as far as the eye can see, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were gazing at the mesmerising Grand Canyon when looking at this image
Instead of Arizona this spellbinding wonder is located halfway across the world in Asia - and it looks like an exact replica of the famous hotspot
Nicknamed Kazakhstan's Grand Canyon, the beautiful Sharyn Canyon even features a large river like its iconic counterpart
Sharyn or Charyn Canyon is located 120 miles east of Almaty, on the Chinese border, and features a multitude of colourful rocky formations - often crumbly to the touch - that are resplendent in pink and orange hues.
Visitors are able to get right into the heart of the vast canyon, which was declared a protected reserve in 1964 and is now part of Charyn National Park, and explore using a gravel road that winds its way through the base of the rocks.
Smaller walkways allow tourists to travel up and around many of the more intricate columns and rocky passages, sculpted by erosion over millions of years.
Visitors are able to get right into the heart of the vast canyon via a gravel road that winds its way between the rocks
Tourists can swim, white-water raft, kayak and fish on the canyon's river, with anglers taking advantage of the Naked Osman fish that dwell in it
Sharyn or Charyn Canyon is located 120 miles east of Almaty, on the Chinese border, and features a multitude of colourful rocky formations that are resplendent in pink and orange hues
In the depths of summer, Sharyn Canyon can reach scorching temperatures, but thankfully a cool relief can be found in its river. Tourists can swim, white-water raft or kayak or fish on its waters, with anglers taking advantage of the Naked Osman fish that dwell in it.
Distinctly less commercialised than the Grand Canyon, tourists are advised to bring their own food and water to the area, as there is little in the way of shops or food outlets.
According to Atlas Obscura, 'if you find yourself hungry or thirsty, kind Kazakh tourists will likely offer to share their food with you - an interaction that might just turn out to be the best part of your visit.'
A picturesque Urta nomadic house with colourful decoration in Kazakhstan's Grand Canyon replica
Distinctly less commercialised than the Grand Canyon, tourists are advised to bring their own food and water to the area, as there are few shops or food outlets
Charyn Canyon (also known as Sharyn) is the perfect spot for a day trip and is situated an hour's drive from Almaty
In the height of summer, Sharyn Canyon can reach scorching temperatures, but thankfully cool relief can be found in its river
The impressive canyon is located within the Sharyn River valley. It was declared a protected reserve in 1964 and is now part of Charyn National Park
There is a distinct of lack of food-shopping options in the Canyon - but some locals do sell fresh produce (pictured)
The Asian canyon may be less well-known than the Grand Canyon, but some argue that its beauty may match or even rival it
Despite the Canyon experiencing intense heat in summer, some small plants have adapted to survive in the conditions. Pictured is a shrub called haloxylon
Even during the cold winter months, the Kazakhstan natural wonder looks breathtaking, particularly when dusted with a layer of snow
She was seen breaking down in tears in a pre-taped interview that aired on Good Morning America on Tuesday, as she discussed husband Joe Giudice's 41-month sentence.
But Teresa Giudice looked to be in better spirits as she hit the beach with her daughters that same day.
The 44-year-old showed off a smile as she posed for photographs during the beach outing at the Jersey Shore.
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There's a smile! Teresa Giudice looked to be in better spirits as she hit the beach with her daughters on Tuesday, after she was seen getting choked up on Good Morning America speaking about husband Joe in prison
Teresa wore a sleeveless, floor-length, black maxi dress, accessorizing with a collection of colorful bracelets.
She hid her eyes behind a pair of over-sized sunglasses, and sported an eye-catching pair of statement earrings.
Her long, raven tresses were worn in a center part, and styled straight, and she curiously carried a tote bag decorated with the image of the British flag, despite Fourth of July festivities.
The mother-of-four had her hands full as she made her way onto the beach, also toting a blue beach chair.
Confused? Despite all of the Fourth of July festivities, Teresa was spotted carrying a flag bearing the Union Jack as she hit the beach
Grabbing a snack: The RHONJ star was spotted munching on a snack beside two of her daughters as they enjoyed their beach day
She was spotted kneeling in the sand as she acted as the photographer for a beach photo shoot for daughter Gabriella.
Then Gabriella took the camera as Teresa was spotted cuddling up to daughter Audriana.
She accessorized with a white floral crown as she smiled up at her older sister, while mom Teresa flashed a big grin while giving her a hug.
Smile! The doting mom knelt in the sand for an impromptu photo shoot for daughter Gabriella
Her turn! Then Teresa was seen cuddling up to daughter Audriana as Gabriella took the camera
Teresa seemed to be enjoying a laid-back day at the beach as she got in some bonding time with her daughters, after being away from them for almost a year.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey star had been released from prison in December after serving time for nearly a year.
Her husband Joe is now incarcerated for a 41-month sentence, which began in March, after he pleaded guilty to fraud charges.
And speaking of the situation on Good Morning America, Teresa had admitted that Joe being away is 'hard,' at one point sharing: 'Sorry, I'm getting emotional,' before taking a break to compose herself off camera.
She is reprising her role as Nicky in the upcoming Jason Bourne movie.
But Julia Stiles was most certainly not going undercover as she put her toned legs on display at the AOL Build Speaker Series for her upcoming movie on Tuesday.
The 35-year-old actress stepped out in a classic navy sheath for the event in New York City.
Looking lean: Julia Stiles put her toned legs on display as she attended an AOL Build Speaker Series for her upcoming movie Jason Bourne on Tuesday in NYC
The fit-in-flare silhouette showed off Julia's lean pins as well as her slender waistline.
The slightly conservative frock featured loose cap sleeves and a hemline which fell right above her knees.
Julia looked beautiful in the blue frock which she teamed with a pair of olive green suede pointy-toed pumps.
The actress opted for a minimalist approach when it came to accessories, as Julia appeared to forego all jewelry besides her engagement ring.
Beautiful in blue! The fit-in-flare silhouette showed off Julia's lean pins as well as her slender waistline. The slightly conservative navy frock featured loose cap sleeves and a hemline which fell right above her knees
Minimalist: The 35-year-old actress teamed the classic look with a pair of olive green suede pointy-toed pumps, and only accessorized with her engagement ring
The New York native wore her lengthy blonde tresses in beach style waves which were parted down the middle and cascaded past her shoulders.
Julia played up her brown eyes with a smoky eye and kept her pout neutral with a nude gloss.
As the actress arrived to the AOL studios she shielded her eyes with a dark pair of shades and toted a black bag in hand.
She appeared to be in high spirits as she autographed the graffiti wall and talked about her upcoming role.
Happy day: Julia appeared to be in high spirits as she autographed the graffiti wall and talked about her upcoming role in the film, Jason Bourne, which will mark the first time Matt Damon and Julia have co-starred in a Bourne movie since 2007's The Bourne Ultimatum
The film, Jason Bourne, will mark the first time Matt Damon has starred in a Bourne movie since 2007's The Bourne Ultimatum.
It comes after the lightly regarded spin-off picture The Bourne Legacy, which starred Jeremy Renner, as a relatively generic super-agent.
In the new Bourne film, which is directed by Paul Greengrass, Julia and Matt will star alongside Alicia Vikander, Vincent Cassel and Tommy Lee Jones.
Meanwhile, Julia got engaged in 2015 to camera assistant Preston J. Cook, who worked on Leonardo DiCaprio's The Revenant.
Gabi Grecko has taken a liking to singing and dancing in next to nothing in videos that she posts online.
And on Wednesday, the 27-year-old was back to her old tricks as she writhed around in a bizarre clip to Miley Cyrus' BB Talk.
The estranged wife of Australian businessman Geoffrey Edelsten, 73, gave her Instagram followers an eyeful, going braless and showing off some serious underboob in a crop top and leather jacket.
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'F**k me so you stop baby talking': Gabi Grecko writhed around in a bizarre clip to Miley Cyrus' BB Talk, the latest sexy video she posted on Instagram on Tuesday
Wearing what appeared to be her pink Moschino leather jacket, she teamed the look with a navy top and bright pink lace lingerie.
In the clip, she has her bright red locks pulled back with a pink headband and has a pink belt around her waist.
In the short clip, she sings along to racy lyrics such as: 'F**k me so you stop baby talking.'
Leaving little to the imagination! The estranged wife of Australian businessman Geoffrey Edelsten, 73, gave her Instagram followers an eyeful, going braless and showing off some serious underboob in a crop top and leather jacket
Like a Barbie! Wearing what appeared to be her pink Moschino leather jacket and she teamed the look with a navy top and bright pink lace lingerie
She can also be seen holding pom poms and shaking her hips with her arms in the air.
It comes after she posted an earlier clip where she is seen smoking a suspicious-looking cigarette while writhing around to R N' B music while wearing overalls and a Moschino bra.
Another clip shows her dancing and singing Kelis' hit Milkshake.
Enjoying herself: She can be seen holding pom poms and shaking her hips with her arms in the air
What's that? It comes after she posted an earlier clip where she is seen smoking a suspicious-looking cigarette while writhing around to R N' B music while wearing overalls and a Moschino bra
Last month Gabi made headlines when she spoke of how she was hired to engage in a mile-high sex romp with two New York police officers in 2013.
Gabi was quoted in the New York Post as having been paid to perform sex acts on now-disgraced NYPD Deputy Inspector James Grant, since-fired Detective Michael Millici and three other men during a private flight to Las Vegas in 2013.
'They all seemed really comfortable to take their pants off in front of each other and laugh about it. It's like they'd done this before', she told the publication.
She also revealed that Grant and Millici jokingly wielded a pair of handcuffs during the in-flight orgy.
'I didn't think it would be as extreme as it was, but then because I obviously couldn't get off the plane, I had to do what they were telling me,' she later admitted.
Controversy: Last month Gabi made headlines when she spoke of how she was hired to engage in a mile-high sex romp with two New York police officers in 2013
She was recently announced as one of 22 women vying for the heart of Richie Strahan on the new series of The Bachelor.
But it seems Megan Harris is no stranger to being in front of the camera if her racy social media profile is anything to go by.
Several images have emerged of the Perth beauty displaying her flawless beach body in skimpy bikinis and plunging tops.
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Bikini body: Newly-announced Bachelor contestant Megan Harris (pictured) is no stranger to being in front of the camera as she enjoys flaunting her curves on social media
Meanwhile, Megan's Facebook profile portrays her as a fun-loving family girl with interests in scuba diving and travel.
One photo shows her playfully posing in a blue two-piece while reclining on a pink inflatable flamingo.
In another, she displays her ample cleavage in a low-cut blue singlet against the backdrop of a rocky beach.
Busty: Megan's Facebook profile portrays her as a fun-loving girl with interests in scuba diving and travel
The health promotions officer also has some experience in modelling, as her photos have been used to promote Victorian swimwear brand KISSMAX.
The 27-year-old was first identified by local website Everything Geraldton after a friend recognised her in OK! magazine.
The statuesque blonde has also been photographed enjoying both a single date and a group date with Richie, 31, in April.
Life's a beach! Further details about the Bachelor hopeful have surfaced, including the fact she uses the name 'Megan Marx' on social media. She has also gone by the name Megan Upchurch as recently as 2015
An active lifestyle: In one social media photo, Megan flaunts her incredibly toned figure in a skimpy black bikini while performing a cartwheel
Further details about the Bachelor hopeful have surfaced, including the fact she uses the name Megan Marx on social media.
She has also gone by the name Megan Upchurch, according to a rotary club newsletter published in March last year.
Megan confirmed on social media that she has spent time living in the UK, stating: 'England: where I made my home for a while'.
Despite hailing from Geraldton, WA, she stated on Facebook that she now lives in Perth.
'England: where I made my home for a while': Megan also confirmed on social media that she has spent time living in the UK
She openly admitted to feeling 'broken' by the relentless bullying from online trolls in a searingly honest tweet earlier this week.
And taking a look back through her time in the spotlight, Sam Frost has been plagued by bullies and hurtful rumours throughout the two years since she first stepped into the limelight on The Bachelor.
From stories about possible pregnancies to nasty jibes about her weight, the former Bachelorette has been the target of a slew of online abuse.
Twitter trolls: In March this year, Sam became the target of online abuse after she lost a few kilos and posted a bikini snap on her Instagram page
Sam said it was the comments about her weight following her heartbreaking time on The Bachelor which prompted her to get in shape and look for love again as Australia's first Bachelorette.
She was upfront about how gaining a few kilos whilst filming alongside Blake Garvey left her feeling 'embarrassed and self-conscious' about her figure.
And she admitted that it was the jibes from online trolls that prompted her transformation.
Changing shape: Sam said it was the comments about her weight following her heartbreaking time on The Bachelor which prompted her to get in shape and look for love again as Australia's first Bachelorette. Sam is pictured (left) at this year's Logie Awards and (right) on The Bachelor in 2014
Heartbreaking: Sam openly admitted to feeling 'broken' by the relentless bullying from online trolls in a searingly honest tweet, earlier this week
'That's when I knew I needed the old me back,' she said in October 2015.
The gutsy blonde, 26, took a stand against the bullies by filming a powerful video for Mamamia where she read out examples of disturbing comments she has personally received.
Sam, who found love with Sasha Mielczarek on The Bachelorette, read out three Tweets which ranged from the bizarre to the offensive.
'Poor bogan Sam is as useless as a one legged cat trying to bury a turd on a frozenlake,' one read.
Another stated: 'I think its great Sam could take some time off from the Oompa Loopa factory to find love...'
Body confidence: The TV star and radio host has posted a number of make-up free selfies in a bid to promote positive body images
Cute couple: Sam is dating Sasha Mielczarek after finding love on The Bachelorette
Hitting back: Sam was forced to delete one Instagram user's comment on her bikini picture
Her courageous behaviour prompted an 11-year-old victim of bullying to get in touch with her.
Sam, who is a passionate advocate for body confidence, also shared a makeup free selfie while the The Bachelorette was still captivating the country in October, last year.
Alongside the closeup selfie, she said it involved 'no filter, no edits, dark circles, messy hair, break outs and uneven skin tone'.
'I feel very flattered when young girls comment on my photos or send me DM's about how much they look up to me & they want to be as pretty as me.
'And I wouldn't change anything about myself! What you see in magazines & on TV is the result of hours in the makeup chair with very talented H&MU Artist - I've said it before, but it's what I live by... love yourself, be yourself, exactly the way you are xo,' she added.
Finding love: She has been inseparable with Sasha since meeting him on the show and she has been forced to defend a number of pregnancy rumours
Despite her positive outlook, Sam was still forced to defend rumours she was pregnant with the winner of the show, the identity of whom was not yet publicly known.
Pouring cold water on gossip magazine claims, the Melbourne model turned reality queen said: 'I can confirm, I'm not pregnant, confused or had a change of heart.
'It's been 4 months, my man and I are still going strong and very happy together.'
She was forced to dispel pregnancy rumours once again in June this year after NW magazine reported she was expecting her first child with Sasha.
In March this year, Sam became the target of online abuse after she lost a few kilos and posted a bikini snap on her Instagram page.
Speaking on her 2DayFM breakfast radio show with Rove McManus, the 26-year-old said she had been brought close to tears by the comments left beneath a photograph of her in a bikini.
Online abuse: Sam said she was targeted by trolls when she appeared on the Bachelorette
'The comments that I received were absolutely appalling,' Frost said.
'People were saying I looked disgusting and gross and that I was a bad role model because I'm so thin ...(and) that I've clearly got an eating disorder.'
'It immediately changed my mood, I was having a great time, I was playing with my niece and trying not to cry because I'm thinking 'how are people so horrible'.
She deleted one fan's comment on Instagram after identifying the post as 'negative' and 'body shaming'.
After the fan said deleting the comment was unacceptable, Sam replied, saying: 'My PR rep tells me to block and delete negative people & comments.
'Talking negatively about my body is rude & unacceptable. It's my personal page, and I don't tolerate body shaming.'
Following the incident, Sam penned an open letter to bullies on her breakfast radio show.
'I don't think people really understand the impact of it. Young kids and people, including myself get bullied on a daily basis,' she began.
'For just one moment, think about what it would be like if a bully never left you alone.
'This bully came into your home, this bully was relentless, on your Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. This bully was with you 24 hours a day.'
Sam went on to add: 'Those empty words you write behind you keyboard have an eternal effect on the person they're directed at.
'You have no idea what battles people are facing behind closed doors.
'Just because you are invisible and silent behind your computer, doesn't mean those words don't have an impact.
Struggling: She recently returned from a romantic holiday in Bali with Sasha to find out her radio show had poor ratings compared to Kyle and Jackie O
Dark area: It is unknown exactly what the accounts were posting to the radio presenter
'You could ruin their day, their week and even their life,' she concluded.
This open letter was a heartbreaking prelude to Sam's tweet on Monday.
She posted on Twitter: 'To the fake accounts heavily trolling me online & into my personal life. If you wanted to break me...Congratulations you have won.'
The gut-wrenching tweet by the radio host also included the hashtag broken.
It came after she returned from a romantic holiday in Bali with Sasha to find out her radio show had poor ratings.
Calvin Harris worked on his physique on Tuesday as he was spotted leaving a gym in Los Angeles.
The 32-year-old Scottish songwriter and DJ showed his bulging biceps in a tight black T-shirt and also wore grey sweatpants and black trainers.
Calvin and Taylor Swift, 26, broke up earlier this month after dating for 15 months.
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Working out: Calvin Harris kept up his fitness routine on Tuesday during a visit to a Los Angeles gym
Taylor moved on quickly and went public with her romance with British actor Tom Hiddleston, 35, two weeks after splitting with Calvin.
Calvin hit the gym after recently returning from a get-away to Mexico.
Taylor meanwhile hosted a star-studded Fourth of July party at her beachfront Rhode Island home.
Guests at the bash included Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Cara Delevingne, Karlie Kloss, Gigi Hadid, Ruby Rose and Este Haim.
Moving on: The Scottish DJ split recently from pop star Taylor Swift
Calvin's new song This Is What You Came For featuring Rihanna was released in April and continues thrive.
It was the fifth-most streamed track in the US on Spotify for the week starting on June 24 and ending on June 30 and ranked third in the UK.
Calvin after his split with Taylor took to social media and insisted there was no 'drama' or hard feelings between them.
The ex: Taylor Swift and new beau Tom Hiddleston cuddled up in an Instagram snap shared on Sunday that also showed Blake Lively with husband Ryan Reynolds and Taylor's close childhood best friend Britany Maack and her husband Benjamin LaManna
After Taylor took up with Tom, however, Calvin deleted all images of them together on his social media accounts.
Taylor and Tom meanwhile have been globe trotting on her private jet meeting the parens and enjoying time in Rome together.
Calvin is one of the highest-paid DJs in the world with an estimated net worth of $110 million.
He is known for his ageless dress sense but this time he decided to really push the envelope when it came to show stopping ensemble.
Jeff Goldblum declared his independence from traditional style guidelines as he and wife Emilie Livingston indulged in some retail therapy.
The 63-year-old and his much younger spouse were spotted shopping up at storm at Fred Segal in West Hollywood, California, on Tuesday.
Bold ensemble: Jeff Goldblum declared his independence from traditional style guidelines as he and wife Emilie Livingston indulged in some retail therapy in West Hollywood, California, on Wednesday
For their day out, the Independence Day: Resurgence star ditched his usual skinny jeans with designer leather jacket look for something a little more out there.
The actor instead stepped out in a pair of tailored skinny-leg suit pants with an on-trend Hawaiian shirt.
But really pushing the limits of taste, the actor then added a silver snakeskin suit jacket which did not exactly match with his shirt.
Making the look into even more of a statement, Jeff wore it with a pork pie hat and vintage-style black and white loafers.
Changing it up: For their day out, the Independence Day: Resurgence star ditched his usual skinny jeans with designer leather jacket look for something a little more out there
Fashion forward: The actor instead stepped out in a pair of tailored skinny-leg suit pants with an on-trend Hawaiian shirt
SSSnappy: But really pushing the limits of taste, the actor then added a silver snakeskin suit jacket which did not exactly match with his shirt
His 33-year-old wife also embrace pattern but played it safe by wearing just one patterned piece.
The Canadian beauty wore floral loose-fit pants with a white V-neck T-shirt and a pair of white Birkenstock sandals.
It had been a big weekend for the couple as while the rest of the country celebrated America's birthday on July Fourth, they celebrated a year since they welcomed little Charlie Ocean into the world.
Topping it off: Making the look into even more of a statement, Jeff wore it with a pork pie hat
More controlled: The Canadian beauty wore floral loose-fit pants with a white V-neck T-shirt and a pair of white Birkenstock sandals
To ensure all their friends and family could join them in marking Charlie's first year, the pair threw the one-year-old a day before the July Fourth holiday.
Posting a picture on Instagram, Emilie wrote: 'Tomorrow is officially your birthday but we celebrated today with our friends! What a beautiful celebration, we are so grateful and happy!!!'
In the adorable snap, Charlie's mom and dad - who is rocking another Hawaiian shirt this time one by Saint Laurent - help the little boy blow out the candle on his first ever birthday cake.
After months spent bulking up to perfection, Chris Hemsworth has stepped onto the Australian set of the next Thor film.
The superhero arrived at the Gold Coast Warner Bros. studios for the first day of filming Thor 3: Ragnarok, wearing slippers, shorts and a hoodie.
The 32-year-old Hollywood star gave his five million followers a quick look around the lot in a short video posted to Instagram on Wednesday, cheekily captioned: 'Where's my hammer?'
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Showing fans around! Chris Hemsworth took to Instagram on Wednesday to share a short video of the lot where Thor 3: Ragnarok is being filmed as he arrived on set for the first time after a training session
Having arrived straight after a training session, the muscular star held a protein shake in hand and announced: 'Here we are at the beginning of shooting for Thor 3 at the studios.'
'Got my shake, got my shoes... and as requested, got the roller coaster - it's just some of the perks that come with being Thor,' Chris said with a grin.
Filming began on Sunday but Chris joined the group a few days in.
Director Taika Waititi posted a photo to Twitter after Day One wrapped, showing empty directors chairs and telling fans: 'Pretty sweet 1st day. Look at all these people who turned up to work.'
Meanwhile, Mark Ruffalo who will reprise his role as Bruce Banner/the Hulk was also spotted around Broadbeach on the Gold Coast on Saturday, stopping for selfies with cafe owners and Uber drivers alike.
'Perks of being Thor': The 32-year-old actor joked with his five million plus fans on social media that he organised a roller coaster for the set, however the Warner Bros. studios is beside the themepark
'Where's my hammer?' The superhero star joked about searching for his character's iconic weapon as he made his way around the set
Hollywood on the Gold Coast: Fans got their first look at Asgard as the sets were being built on the back lot
The American actor posted of his arrival with a selfie from the set on Friday, which appeared to be taken in the make-up room.
'Hey brothers and sisters, I'm finally on Snapchat taking you on the set of @marvel Thor3 Follow along,' he promoted in the caption.
Fans got their first look at Askgard on the Gold Coast with pictures of the sets being built were seen late last month.
'Pretty sweet 1st day': Director Taika Waititi posted a photo to Twitter after Day One wrapped on Sunday, showing empty directors chairs telling fans things had gone well
Ready to roll! Mark Ruffalo shared a selfie from the make-up room on set at the end of last week and is understood to have begun filming earlier this week
Spotted! The actor, who will reprise his role as Bruce Banner/the Hulk was also spotted around Broadbeach on the Gold Coast on Saturday and happily posed for a photo with his Uber driver
Yet to be seen on-set is Tom Hiddleston, who will reprise his role as Thor's evil adopted brother, Loki.
The 35-year-old English actor was spotted on Sunday in America partying with new girlfriend Taylor Swift at her Fourth Of July celebrations and it's not known when he is set to board his flight Down Under.
Australian actress Cate Blanchett will also make her way back home after her recent family move to Hollywood, with the Oscar winner set to play villain Hela.
Heading Down Under: Tom Hiddleston will reprise his role as Thor's evil adopted brother, Loki (left) but it's not known when he will make his way to Australia to film his scenes
Still in America: While filming of the blockbuster began on July 4, Tom was celebrating American Independence Day with new girlfriend Taylor Swift (left) and her famous friends Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively (right)
Jeff Goldblum, fresh from starring with Chris's brother Liam Hemsworth on Independence Day 2: Resurgence, will play eccentric character, Grandmaster.
Selma star Tessa Thompson joins the cast as Valkyrie, while Star Trek's Karl Urban will appear as Skurge.
Anthony Hopkins will also arrive in Australia to reprise his role as Thor's father, Odin, ruler of Asgard.
Still to come: Cate Blanchett will also make her way back home after her recent family move to Hollywood, with the Oscar winner set to play villain Hela
Another Hemsworth brother: Jeff Goldblum, fresh from starring with Chris's brother Liam Hemsworth on Independence Day 2: Resurgence, will play eccentric character, Grandmaster
Idris Elba will also fly in to reprise his role as Asgardian sentry, Heimdall.
While there isn't too much known about the plot for the film, it's understood Thor is banned from Asgard by Hela and turns to his fellow Avenger, Hulk, for help on his journey through the cosmos.
Thor: Ragnarok is set for a release date of November 2017.
Hulk lends a helping hand! While there isn't too much known about the plot for the film, it's understood Thor is banned from Asgard by Hela and turns to his fellow Avenger, Hulk, for help on his journey through the cosmos
Carlton skipper Marc Murphy is preparing to marry his stunning fashion blogger fiancee Jessie Habermann later this year after the pair got engaged in September.
And on Wednesday, Jessie shared to Instagram and her more than 126,000 followers, her wedding 'inspiration' as she plans the couple's nuptials.
She shared a stunning snap of a lavish floral entrance, writing: 'Entrance to my wedding please #weddinginspo.'
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Wedding bells: Carlton skipper Marc Murphy is preparing to marry his stunning fashion blogger fiancee Jessie Habermann later this year (pictured in September)
Stunning: On Wednesday, Jessie shared some of her wedding inspiration
In the image - which has since gained thousands of likes - an entrance to an alter is created using greenery and white hydrangeas.
Some hydrangeas hang from the ceiling,while lights illuminate the archway.
The floor remains bare and petals are skipped to focus on the flowers.
Off the market: The happy couple are set to wed on December 29
Stylish: Jessie has previously shared snaps of a marquee filled with ornate furnishings, including plush french-style chairs and chandeliers
Jessie has previously shared snaps of a marquee filled with ornate furnishings, including plush french-style chairs and chandeliers.
At the time, she wrote in part of her caption online: 'Wedding planning has started! Venue chosen and now on to the design - can we have ours like this?'
The loved-up couple are set to wed on December 29, with Jessie sharing a save the date card to her followers.
The nuptials will be held at the Luminare hotel in South Melbourne, with the couple being based in Victoria.
Almost there: The nuptials will be held at the Luminare hotel in South Melbourne, with the couple being based in Victoria
Keepsake: When she asked her friends to be bridesmaids, she gifted them a box full of goodies, including Moet & Chandon champagne, a candle and a monogrammed clutch from The Daily Edited
Her save the date card was white and embossed with black and gold writing.
When she asked her friends to be bridesmaids, she gifted them with a box full of goodies, including Moet & Chandon champagne, a candle and a monogrammed clutch from The Daily Edited.
Earlier this week, she also shared an adorable picture of a leopard, telling her fans she was deciding where the pair should spend their honeymoon.
Where to? Earlier this week, she also shared an adorable picture of a leopard, telling her fans she was deciding where the pair should spend their honeymoon
'Honeymoon in Africa or Maldives?! #cantdecide #honeymoon #safari #maldives,' she wrote.
The happy couple got engaged last September, with Marc presenting the blonde beauty with a square cut pave framed engagement ring from Anton Jewellery.
She announced her engagement on Instagram at the time, writing: 'Dinner last night escalated to this... engaged to the man of my dreams @marcmurphy3 I'm still in so much shock!!'
Countdown: Jessie and Marc got engaged last September, with Marc presenting her with a square cut pave framed engagement ring from Anton Jewellery
She plays damsel in distress Jane in Legend Of Tarzan.
But it seems life imitated art on Tuesday at the movie's European premiere in London with Margot Robbie needing a little rescuing from Tarzan.
After the actress suffered a minor wardrobe malfunction, Alexander Skarsgard dutifully assisted his leading lady on the red carpet, fixing the back of her dress.
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Damsel in distress: Margot Robbie plays Jane in Legend Of Tarzan and on Tuesday the actress needed to be rescued by Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgard) at the movie's Europeans premiere in London
The dapper looking actor also stood in front of the 26-year-old starlet as she adjusted her designer gown, which appeared to be blowing about in the breeze.
Looking a little embarrassed by the situation, Margot then gave her co-star a thank you kiss on the cheek as he held the small of her back.
The 39-year-old actor was also seen wrapping his arm around his co-star as they posed for photos.
Wardrobe malfunction: After the actress suffered a minor wardrobe malfunction, Alexander dutifully assisted his leading lady on the red carpet, fixing the back of her dress
Fixing up the front: The dapper looking actor also stood in front of the starlet as she adjusted her gown
Careful: The 39-year-old was careful to not step on the 26-year-old's designer dress, which appeared to be blowing about in the breeze
The blonde beauty was seen giggling and looking adoringly at the hunky actor, whom she admitted to sharing sizzling on-set chemistry with.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph while in Sydney last month to promote the film, Alexander said the pair's on-screen chemistry was undeniable, revealing: 'Margot and I had just a really deep connection from day one, we really found each other.'
He also added that the blonde beauty was exactly what they were looking for in their Jane - strong, tough and independent.
Hands on: The duo showed their close friendship on the red carpet
Thank you! Margot gave her co-star a friendly kiss on the cheek
However, he was quick to add that it's not just Margot's physical beauty that is attractive.
'What makes Margot so beautiful is not only that shes a stunningly gorgeous woman, but that she is not vain, Margot is so down to earth and fun and that makes it even more attractive,' he said.
While in Australia to promote the film the actor told the Today show's Richard Wilkins, Margot 'is ridiculously beautiful and what makes her even more attractive is that she is so down to earth.'
'Margot and I had just a really deep connection from day one': The handsome hunk boasted about their instant chemistry on-set
'She is ridiculously beautiful': Alexander gushed about his co-star while in Australia promoting the movie last month
'She's got a great sense of humour, self-deprecating, she's a good Aussie girl,' the True Blood star added.
And the former Neighbours actress returned the favour, also gushing about her co-star in interviews, revealing to Buro247: 'My mind went blank as I soon as I saw him shirtless.
'Every girl on set was swooning, I think, when they saw him. He worked so hard to get in that kind of shape,' she added.
Legend Of Tarzan hits cinemas across Australia July 7.
She's the unforgettable funnywoman who shot to fame starring in the iconic TV series Kath & Kim.
And Magda Szubanski looked to be in good spirits as she ran errands in Melbourne on Monday, while cracking a smile at onlookers.
The 55-year-old comedian was spotted carrying her groceries, including a pack of toilet paper rolls, down a city street before crossing the road.
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Iconic comedian: Magda Szubanski looked to be in good spirits as she ran errands in Melbourne on Monday, while cracking a smile at onlookers
Makeup free Magda wore plaid shirt and a pair of black leather trousers, while completing her winter-appropriate ensemble with a leather biker jacket.
Her feet were encased in a pair of brown leather lace-up shoes, while her eyes were obscured behind a pair of thick-rimmed spectacles.
It comes after Magda recently delighted fans by releasing a book titled Reckoning: A Memoir, in which she details her battle coming to terms with her sexuality.
Laid-back Magda wore plaid shirt and a pair of black leather trousers, while completing her winter-appropriate ensemble with a leather biker jacket
Appearing on The Project, she spoke about how she has mixed feelings toward the overwhelmingly positive response to her book.
'It feels amazing, it does puff up your ego and then you feel terribly hollow,'
'But, really, the awards, the only thing about them is if you can use them to put them to some good use.'
Casual: Her feet were encased in a pair of brown leather lace-up shoes, while her eyes were obscured behind a pair of thick-rimmed spectacles
Magda then went on to add that she intends to use her platform to defend other writers who will be affected by proposed changes to copyright laws.
She also recently opened up to A Current Affair host Tracey Grimshaw about her struggle with depression, which she has faced for most of her adult life.
She said coming to terms with her sexuality was a major contributing factor to her depression, something that both her parents also suffered from.
'Mine was also the sexuality thing definitely, that was terrifying to me, absolutely terrifying,' Magda told the program.
Shes slowly becoming one of Hollywoods most sought-after actresses.
And Ruby Rose has once again cemented her A-star status, gracing the front cover of Marie Claire Australias Rising Stars special.
The Australian beauty, 30, covered her slender figure in a beautifully-cut androgynous ensemble for the August issue of the monthly glossy.
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Hollywood sensation! Ruby Rose once again cements her A-star status as she graces the front cover of Marie Claire Australias Rising Stars special
She looks sensational in a fitted red jacket that is flawless in its tailoring, complete with sharp shoulders and ruffled detail on the sleeves.
Cinched in at her slim waistline with a thick black belt, Ruby also wears a pair of slim-fitting red trousers and a crisp white shirt with an open-wide neckline.
Her short brunette tresses are slicked away from her face, while her striking complexion is accentuated with smoky eye makeup, crimson lips and subtly-tinted cheeks.
Red hot! The Australian beauty, 30, covers her slender figure in a beautifully-cut androgynous ensemble for the August issue of the monthly glossy
In the accompanying interview, the Orange Is The New Black star opened up about her friendship with best friend Taylor Swift, who recently presented her with the GLAAD award.
I was unbelievably in awe of the fact that I was even considered for the award, she confessed.
And to have Taylor - one of my best friends - surprise me, saying what she thinks Ive done to inspire young people, it meant everything. It was surreal.
The model and TV personality added that the pop star is one of the most amazing and kind people I know.
'It meant everything': In the accompanying interview, the Orange Is The New Black star opened up about her friendship with best friend Taylor Swift, who recently presented her with the GLAAD award.
Rising star! Ruby propelled into global limelight after she joined the cast of Orange Is The New Black to play sassy Litchfield inmate Stella Carlin in season three, earning sex symbol status from the role
Meanwhile, Ruby propelled into global limelight after she joined the cast of Orange Is The New Black to play sassy Litchfield inmate Stella Carlin in season three, earning sex symbol status from the role.
After garnering a legion of fans from the American comedy-drama, the former MTV presenter has managed to secure various modelling gigs and roles in new movies.
She has recently been busy filming John Wick: Chapter Two and xXx: The Return of Xander Cage and also wrapped up filming for Resident Evil: The Final Chapter.
To read the full interview with Ruby Rose, buy the latest copy of Marie Claire Australia from Thursday 7th July, 2016
Beautiful in blue: Shanina Shaik dazzles in a strapless gown as she graces one of the three covers of the Rising Star issues with Marie Claire
They have both been fasting for the past 30 days to mark Ramadan.
And Susan Carland decided to celebrate the end of Islams holiest month by sharing an amusing photo of her pretending to bite Waleed Aly's cheek.
The respected academic posted the image on Instagram, saying: 'Here's to daytime eating! #EidMubarak #GoodbyeRamadan.'
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Playful: Susan Carland decided to celebrate the end of Islams holiest month by sharing an amusing photo of her pretending to bite her husband Waleed Aly's cheek
Waleed feigned a look of shock in the picture, opening his mouth wide in a fake scream.
The Project presenter was wearing a black coat and shirt in the picture, which has attracted more than 600 likes.
Susan, who has two children with Waleed, had her teeth bared as though she was clamping her jaws down on her husband's face.
Cute couple: The mother-of-two also shared a sweet snap of the married couple hugging to mark the end of the month of fasting
Speaking out: Meanwhile, in a recent interview with Harper's Bazaar, Susan said she is not concerned about what people think of her
The mother-of-two also shared a sweet snap of them hugging to mark the end of the month of fasting.
She captioned the image 'Eid Mubarak', a traditional Muslim greeting used on the Eid ul-Fitr festival, which marks the end of Ramadan.
The lecturer at Melbourne's Monash University, who is a practising Muslim, has been keeping her social media followers up to date with her fasting progress.
She appeared to see the humour in the common practice and earlier this month posted a meme on Instagram that featured a series of greedy seagulls attempting to down large food objects.
Taking a stand: She has spoken openly about being targeted by trolls on social media because she wears a hijab and campaigns for the rights of Muslims in Australia
It read: 'When it's time for Iftar,' which refers to the feast eaten by Muslims after sunset.
'Day 18 of Ramadan and I relate to this seagull on a profound, spiritual level. Pic via a man who always makes me laugh @arabicmadeinchina,' she captioned.
Two weeks ago she uploaded a picture of two full plates of food that she ordered to break her fast.
'Dreaming of food all day, so ordered two fish salads for iftar (fast-breaking meal). After three mouthfuls, I was full,' she captioned the picture.
Carefree: The academic said: 'The older I get the less I'm concerned with what other people think of me'
'This pic is my food when I couldn't eat any more! Anyone else find they can't eat much in Ramadan? #RamadanStomachShrinkage #YesITookHomeTheLeftovers.'
Meanwhile, in a recent interview with Harper's Bazaar, Susan said she was not concerned about what people think of her.
'The older I get the less I'm concerned with what other people think of me,' she said.
'I've learnt that the idea that you are only acceptable if everyone likes or agrees with you is not just a pointless errand, it's also misplaced.
'Why did universal approval become a goal?'
She's previously spoken openly about being targeted by trolls on social media because she wears a hijab and campaigns for the rights of Muslims in Australia.
Susan revealed that she donates $1 to charity for every unpleasant tweet she receives.
She has donated a total of $4,410 since October last year.
She's the Perth beauty with a passion for nature and the outdoor lifestyle.
So it's hardly surprising Megan Harris left a good impression on Richie Strahan in their first meeting on The Bachelor Australia.
In a promo for the new series, the 27-year-old health promotions officer frustrated her jealous rivals after Richie confessed: 'I really felt that we hit it off'.
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Love at first sight? Perth beauty Megan Harris (pictured) left a good impression on Richie Strahan in their first meeting on the new series of The Bachelor, in a promo clip released on Tuesday
The blonde beauty, who hails from Geraldton, WA, clearly impressed her date in a sparkly blue gown with a plunging neckline.
At the start of the video, she is shown stepping out of a black limousine to reveal her elegant dress and statement earrings.
In a voice-over, she reveals: 'I think that when you first meet someone you know whether there's potential to fall in love with that person.'
He's smitten! After their introduction, Richie told Megan, 'I've been waiting to have a chat with you all night'
As she strolls up to Richie, Megan cheerfully says 'Hi!' before the camera cuts to the 31-year-old hunk's delighted reaction.
In their conversation, Megan describes herself as 'very active', adding: 'I love the water, I love the ocean, I love nature.'
Richie replies, rather excitedly: 'Me too, me too!'
Busty display: The blonde beauty, who hails from Geraldton, WA, clearly impressed her date in a sparkly blue gown with a plunging neckline
'I love the ocean, I love nature': The 27-year-old clearly hit all the right notes during her first meeting with Richie
Meanwhile, Megan is shown flaunting her hourglass figure at the beach in a mismatched bikini before diving into the ocean.
Later in the promo, which was released by Network Ten on Tuesday, Richie makes clear that Megan is one of his early favourites.
'I've actually been waiting to have a chat with you all night,' he confessed. 'I really felt that we hit it off'.
Active lifestyle: In a montage, Megan is shown flaunting her hourglass figure at the beach in a mismatched bikini before diving into the ocean
'I really felt that we hit it off': The chemistry between Megan and Richie is perhaps not surprising as they are both WA natives who share a passion for the outdoors
Jealousy: Their flirty conversation did not go unnoticed by Megan's female rivals, who were less than pleased
Their chemistry is perhaps not surprising as they are both WA natives and outdoor enthusiasts.
But the flirty conversation did not go unnoticed by Megan's female rivals, who were less than pleased.
'That girl is freakin' hot!' said Rachael, clearly holding back her frustration.
Meanwhile, Keira Maguire said: 'Look at them flirting too much! This is, like, awkward.'
The Bachelor Australia airs later this year on Network Ten
Flirty: Megan, who hails from Geraldton, WA, enjoys flaunting her curves in racy bikinis on social media
She's currently at loggerheads with her mother Nuala, as they're locked in a bitter battle over the $7million luxury home that they co-own in California.
But on Tuesday night, Mischa Barton appeared not to have a worry in the world as she stepped out at the Bulgari Celebration of Magnificent Inspirations jewellery bash for Paris' Haute Couture week.
The British-born beauty, 30, arrived at the city's Italian Embassy in a stunning silk colour block dress, which gave a demure look, thanks to its high neckline and full billowing sleeves.
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A jewel: Mischa Barton attended the Bulgari Celebration of Magnificent Inspirations, The New High Jewellery Collection during Paris Haute Couture at the Italian Embassy on Tuesday night
Given the theme of the bash, she teamed her multi-coloured frock with a glittering jewelled statement necklace with matching pendant earrings.
The former O.C. star kept the glittery theme going, adding a pair of dazzling silver strappy heels to her ensemble, which also included a gold clutch bag.
She oozed Hollywood glamour with her shoulder-length honey golden tresses styled into soft waves, while she enhanced her alabaster complexion with a light brush of natural-toned makeup.
Dressed to impress: She arrived at the upscale gathering in a stunning silk colour block dress
Demure: Her frock of choice afforded her a demure look, thanks to its high neckline and full sleeves
All that glitters...: She accessorized with an eye-catching statement necklace and matching earrings
Natural beauty: Mischa let her alabaster complexion shine through, by keeping her makeup natural and light
Her outing came as it was revealed she is battling it out with her estranged mother in court once again - with both women accusing the other of holding up the sale of their Beverly Hills mansion.
In explosive legal documents obtained by Daily Mail Online, the actress claims her one-time 'momager' Nuala Barton has stonewalled attempts to sell the home for years - even locking her out of the property and refusing access to potential buyers.
She also accuses her mother of refusing to work with Josh Altman, the famed LA realtor appointed to sell the seven-bedroom, 10 bathroom property, and refusing to sign off on strong offers from potential buyers.
Socialite: Inside the bash, she mingled with (l-r) Jean Christophe Babin, Xenia Tchoumi, guest and Lottie Moss
Shining bright: Mischa kept the sparkling theme going throughout, with silver strappy heels and a golden clutch
Carefree: The actress seemed carefree as she left her legal battles with her mother back in the US
Passion for fashion: The star has been a fixture at a number of high-profile fashion bashes over the years
Nuala has blasted her daughter's claims as 'heinous' and 'false' and says that the pair are 'estranged as a result'.
British-born Mischa, who recently appeared on Dancing With The Stars, famously sued her mother in 2015 accusing her of defrauding her by stealing her money.
The 7,600 sq. ft. Tuscan-style villa, which boasts views of Catalina Island, was one of the focal points of the suit - with the actress claiming her mom gave herself co-ownership of the property without her knowledge or permission.
Battle: Mischa is battling it out with her estranged mother in court, each accusing the other of holding up the sale of the $7million Beverly Hills mansion they own jointly
She accused Nuala of taking out massive loans against the house behind her back - and turning the home into her 'personal ATM'.
Mischa even claimed she was then kicked out of the home by her parents who wouldnt let her back on the property.
That case was dismissed back in February with the terms of the agreement stating Nuala would sell the home with Altman as the listing agent.
Momager: Mischa and mother Nuala were on good terms in 2012 when they attended the Mischa Barton Boutique flagship store launch party in London. Now Mischa claims her mother has locked her out of the property and has refused access to potential buyers
Mischa and her mother agreed the asking price would be $7 million and they both said they would accept any reasonable offers - in order to pay off their many creditors.
But new court papers filed by Mischa last month state that Nuala - the 'Debtor' - did not abide by those terms and has, 'actively impeded any sale by locking Mischa out of the Property to prevent her and prospective buyers from accessing the house or providing copies of plans when requested.
'Mischa attempted to get another real estate agent to work with Debtors agent, but Debtor refused to have her agent work with Mischas agent or to provide Mischas agent with information he needed to sell the property.
Palatial: Property records indicate the actress paid $6,400,064 for her Mediterranean style house in 2005. The 7,607 sq ft mansion has six bedrooms and 10 bathrooms and was built in 2003
'Other attempts with a different agent also failed due to Debtors unrealistic expectation as to the value of the Property, with Debtors agent listing the Property for sale at as much as almost $9 million, obviously without success.'
Mischa and Altman claim that Nuala refused to sign off on a $7 million offer they have secured for the property - which would pay off all their creditors in full.
In the papers, filed on May 26, she asks for the sale to be turned over to a trustee who will sell the property promptly and ensure all creditors are paid in full.
Documents: In explosive legal documents obtained by Daily Mail Online, the former O.C. star claims her one-time 'momager' Nuala has stonewalled attempts to sell the home for years - even locking her out of the property and refusing access to potential buyers
However Nuala has hit back, filing papers on June 22 stating that her daughter's 'heinous claims' are false and she has done everything in her power to sell the home.
The court documents state that Nuala has: 'Done everything in her power, both pre-petition and post-petition to obtain the highest possible sale price of the Bowmont Property.'
She says she became 'wary' of the buyer who made the $7 million offer as he 'stated that he would rather let the Bowmont Property go into foreclosure so he could purchase it for a lower price.'
Last month, according to the papers, Nuala secured a $7.35 million offer on the home - but Mischa 'was adamant on accepting the $7 million offer'.
The pair finally agreed to accept the $7.35 million offer - which has now been reduced to $7,050,000, in court on June 13th - and the sale should close before next month.
Nuala has argued that her daughter's motion to have the sale turned over to a trustee should be thrown out as it is an 'extraordinary and drastic measure'.
For sale: Mischa the listed her Los Angeles villa for $7.495 million as the property has become too much of a 'burden' for the star. But she says her mother - the co-owner - has thwarted the sale
She claims that through her 'conduct and adamant persistence', she secured the current buyer for $7,050,000 - meaning that she and her daughter now have an extra $50,000 to share between them.
The filing states: 'As such, the Debtor's conduct throughout this case has always been in the best interest of the creditors, the estate and Mischa.
'Mischa's Motion is moot and no grounds exist to appoint a ... trustee.'
Nuala had been her daughter's manager for years until the actress accused her mom of being a 'greedy stage mother posing as a talent manager'.
Gated: The villa is inside a gated community in Coldwater Canyon, which is just behind the Beverly Hills Hotel
Mischa's previous lawsuit included claims that Nuala had lied about her salary for a film and didnt pay her the full amount.
She also accused her mom of opening up a Mischa Barton fashion boutique in London and used the Sixth Sense actresss name to hawk a handbag line - yet Mischa claimed she never saw a cent.
Nuala called her daughter's allegations 'nonsense' and the case was dismissed in February this year.
Both mother and daughter have had financial problems for years - so the impending sale of the home should bring much-needed relief to them both.
Lap of luxury: The master bedroom has dual bathrooms, a fireplace and dressing room
In her bankruptcy papers, filed in February, Nuala said her assets totaled $3,747,500 but her liabilities totaled $5,583,412.
She said her average monthly income totaled only $1,600 but her expenses were $27,618 - leaving her in the red over $26k every month
The biggest asset listed in her bankruptcy petition was the Bowmont Drive property.
She said the current value of her portion was $3,747,500 with the total value being $7,495,000.
Expansive: The home also boasts an expansive kitchen, with all of the fixtures and fittings
The petition stated her liabilities as $4,264,567 on the mansion, including an unknown amount owed to Mischa.
Nuala spends $10,500 a month on the Beverly Hills home along with $12,200 in additional mortgage payments, $3,635 in real estate taxes and $600 in food & housekeeping supplies, according to the papers.
Earlier this year, the actress who has been trying to sell off the home for 6 years - listed it for sale at the price of $7.495 million.
Mischa also listed it back in 2010 for $8.6 million and even tried to rent it out for $35k a month but nobody bit.
Landscaped: The landscaped grounds include a pool, spa, grassy yard and vine-covered patio. In the papers, filed on May 26, she asks for the sale to be turned over to a trustee who will sell the property promptly and ensure all creditors are paid in full.
London-born Mischa moved to the States when she was five and began acting at age eight, appearing in hit movies Sixth Sense and Notting Hill before rocketing to fame in teen drama The O.C.
However her glittering career came crashing down as her partying began to get out of control.
She was arrested for DUI in 2007, then two years later - following an intervention by her parents - she had a nervous breakdown and was held in psychiatric care after threatening to kill herself.
In 2009 her house went into foreclosure after it was revealed she had failed to pay her mortgage for five months.
Arrest: She was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and possessing marijuana in 2007
The same month she was sued by producers of the movie Promoted, who claimed they paid her an advance but she never turned up for work.
Mischa was then sued by her landlord over unpaid rent on her $7,000 a month NYC apartment in 2010 before suing her own mother five years later for 'theft' and 'breach of contract'.
Her legal troubles are believed to have left her homeless and broke.
She attempted a comeback this year - appearing on Dancing With The Stars - but was booted off after just three episodes.
Beginnings: Mischa was a huge hit in The O.C., here with actors Michael Cassidy and Rachel Bilson in 2004
She was one of many famous guests at what looked like the party of the year.
And Cara Delevingne made sure to show off just how much fun she was having at Taylor Swift's never-ending Independence Day party at her $18 million mansion in Rhode Island.
The British model-turned-actress, 23, posed in a series of snaps posted on Instagram, showing off her amazing figure in her patriotic swimwear, co-coordinating with hostess Taylor and their other close pal Gigi Hadid, before getting her perky derriere painted with flags.
Red, white and a who's who of the showbiz scene! Cara Delevingne (centre) joined Gigi Hadid (left) and Taylor Swift (right) at the singer's lavish Independence Day party at her Rhode Island mansion
Flaunting her enviably taut tum, Cara donned a red, white and blue striped bikini, the fabric eye-wateringly tiny and just covering her chest.
The sporty two-piece was a flattering fit for the leggy star, who stood barefoot on the ground with her arm in the air and her hand sassily on her hip.
Pouting into the camera, she was flanked by Taylor, 26, to her left and Gigi, 21, in one-piece versions of Cara's sexy little bikini.
Taylor was seen leaning forward and planting a kiss on her pal's cheek, showing off her slim and shapely legs and pert posterior.
The CHEEK of it! Cara revealed her pert derriere in another snap as Gigi painted a Union flag and US flag on either cheek
She IS a supermodel: Flaunting her enviably taut tum, 23-year-old Cara donned a red, white and blue striped bikini, the fabric eyewateringly tiny and just covering her chest
Wheee! One of the snaps shared by Paper Towns star Cara saw her join her pals - and hunky British actor Tom Hiddleston - scooting down a gigantic inflatable water slide
'Summer bobsleigh': Cara, Gigi and Taylor were pictured at the bottom of the slide in a heap of long legs and arms
And drop-dead gorgeous supermodel Gigi revealed her willowy curves in her striped swimming costume, her legs well and truly stealing the show.
Another snap shared by the Brit beauty saw her revealing her enviably pert, smooth derriere in a minuscule pair of black bikini briefs, her oversized sports shirt pulled up to reveal her svelte hips.
Gigi was seen leaning down and painting a Union flag and a US flag on her left and right cheeks, in a strange bid to unite the two countries over the Fourth of July weekend.
Other pictures shared by Cara, Taylor and Gigi showed the girls having the most fun at the Rhode Island-based party, which also saw the likes of Karlie Kloss, Ruby Rose, Uzo Aduba, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds and Taylor's new squeeze Tom Hiddleston in attendance.
One of the snaps shared by Paper Towns star Cara saw her join her pals - and hunky British actor Tom - scooting down a gigantic inflatable water slide.
Going topless, the 35-year-old Night Manager star revealed his rippling abs as the ladies held on tight behind him.
Babes in black and white: Gigi posted her own version of their saucy photoshoot in front of the ocean backdrop, but Cara certainly commanded attention
What a view: The singer and her gang spent the holiday at her luxury Rhode Island home, and one shot saw her putting an arm around her long-time pal Cara
Seemingly after crash-landing at the bottom of the slide - which was also decked out in the patriotic colours of the American flag in honour of the Fourth of July weekend - Cara, Gigi and Taylor were pictured at the bottom in a heap of long legs and arms.
'Summer bobsleigh,' Cara - who wore her blonde mane scraped back into a high ponytail - added with her fun photo.
Gigi and Taylor each posted similar versions of the girls' three-way photoshoot on the grass in front of the ocean backdrop, with their British pal Cara easily stealing the show in her skimpy two-piece.
And Gigi made sure to share a group shot of all the female guests posing in the sea after celebrating on Sunday, Cara this time wearing a very scant black bikini with a slashed front over her chest.
Altogether now! A group shot showed Cara (fifth from left) sporting a skimpy black two piece - also in the group were Taylor, Ruby Rose, Blake Lively, Gigi and Karlie Kloss
Cara was also seen covered up in a white T-shirt, with her long locks cascading down her back as she walked away from the camera in another snap shared by Taylor.
The Blank Space hitmaker and the model - who have been firm friends for years - had their arms around each other, as they walked along the grass in coordinating white sneakers.
A view of Taylor's stunning Rhode Island mansion could be seen in the back as the two shared what looked to be a bonding moment.
On Sunday, the group kicked off their celebrations by spending some time at the beach beside her home, and the hostess and her actor beau put on their most loved-up display yet.
At one point the two were spotted cuddling together, with Taylor sitting in Tom's lap in a rocking chair, as the two gazed lovingly at each other while sitting on the porch besides friends.
They made it! Taylor and Karlie looked giddy as they took a dramatic plunge down the slide at the party, held at Taylor's lavish $18 million mansion
She's been enjoying some of the Mediterranean's party hotspots while filming season 13 of Geordie Shore.
And Chloe Ferry, 21, dressed as a sexy bunny for her latest wild night out in Ayia Napa, Cyprus, on Tuesday.
The reality star teamed a black bralet with a pair of high-waisted bottoms and fishnet tights for the evening of fancy dress.
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Cheeky! Chloe Ferry, 21, dressed as a sexy bunny for her latest wild night out in Ayia Napa, Cyprus, on Tuesday
She walked tall in a teetering pair of black heels and finished the look off with a playful pair of bunny ears.
The raven-haired beauty decorated her talons with a pale pink finish and ensured she was looking her best with flawlessly applied make up.
Chloe's piercing blue peepers were enhanced with lashings of mascara and a smoky bronze eyeshadow. Her famously plump pout was given a healthy slick of matte lipstick.
Partytime! She walked tall in a teetering pair of black heels and finished the look off with a playful pair of bunny ears
Gal pals: The raven-haired beauty decorated her talons with a pale pink finish and ensured she was looking her best with flawlessly applied make up
The party girl led the way as she climbed out of the taxi ahead of castmates Holly Hagan, Marnie Simpson and Nathan Henry.
She flashed a glimpse of her tum in the racy outfit and proudly showed off her curvaceous pins for the cameras.
Never one to shy away from the limelight, Chloe posed up a storm against the taxi, flashing a sultry look over her shoulder.
Night on the town: Chloe's piercing blue peepers were enhanced with lashings of mascara and a smoky bronze eyeshadow
Geordie Shore on tour: The party girl led the way as she climbed out of the taxi ahead of castmates Holly Hagan, Marnie Simpson and Nathan Henry
Three of a kind: The girls were clearly in the mood to party, giggling and appearing in a hyper mood as they prepared to hit the strip
Standing tall: Never one to shy away from the limelight, Chloe posed up a storm against the taxi, flashing a sultry look over her shoulder
The girls were clearly in the mood to party, giggling and appearing in a hyper mood as they prepared to hit the strip.
The cast were out in random fancy dress and went to the party town's CarWash Disco.
While it was smiles all around on the night, the Geordie Shore gang are no doubt missing original family member Charlotte Crosby, who sensationally quit the MTV series in a bid to move on from her on/off love interest Gaz.
Charlotte, who recently suffered an ectopic pregnancy, found out longtime love interest Gary Beadle slept with fellow Ex On The Beach contestant Jemma Lucy on day one of the show, before he found out about the pregnancy, leading to a huge argument.
Stepping out: Chloe and Holly Hagan showed off their wild sides in form-fitting outfits
Body confident: The girls were more than happy to show off their slender curves in skimpy attire
Ready for battle: Marnie put on a sexy display in a military themed ensemble
Here come the girls: Chloe and Holly gave Marnie a helping hand out of the taxi
Yet another model is set to enter the fray in a bid to win Richie Strahan's heart on the upcoming season of The Bachelor.
Sasha Zhuravlyova, a Victoria-based model signed with Wink Models has been identified as one of the bevy of beauties set to appear on the show.
The 31-year-old brunette, who is described only as an 'executive assistant' in The Bachelor promos, also appears to work for the brand LadyJenski Active Wear, as indicated by her numerous appearances on the label's Instagram page.
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Richie's a lucky guy! Sasha Zhuravlyova, a Victoria-based model signed with Wink Models has been identified as one of the bevy of beauties set to appear on the show
Sasha also appears to have struck up a friendship with fellow Bachelor contestant Tolyna Baan, who also happens to be represented by Wink models.
The fitness-loving duo appeared together in a workout selfie taken at the Goodlife Health Club in Melbourne's Armadale three weeks ago.
The image, which was shared to the Instagram page of apparel brand Lady Jenski Activewear, was captioned with: 'When my PT is whipping my a** Both wearing @ladyjenskiactivewear @tolynabaan @sashazhuravlyova @winkmodels @goodlifehc #activewear #gym #weekendvibes #pt #personaltrainer'.
Fit and fabulous! The 31-year-old brunette, who is described only as an 'executive assistant' in The Bachelor promos, also appears to work for the brand LadyJenski Active Wear, as indicated by her numerous appearances on the label's Instagram page
Gal pals! Fitness-loving duo and fellow Wink agency models Sasha and Tolyna appeared together in a workout selfie taken at the Goodlife Health Club in Melbourne's Armadale three weeks ago
The caption seems to have been written by Sasha, as Tolyna was introduced as being a personal trainer in official promotional images for The Bachelor
The caption seems to have been written by Sasha, as Tolyna was introduced as being a personal trainer in official promotional images for The Bachelor.
In another image shared on the same day, Tolyna's bulging muscles are put on full display as she performed arm exercises on a gym machine.
'Long weekend doesn't mean we should be skip a workout!', the caption read.
'Long weekend doesn't mean we should be skip a workout!' In another image shared on the same day, Tolyna's bulging muscles are put on full display as she performed arm exercises on a gym machine
No hard feelings! While the competition will be undoubtedly fierce during The Bachelor, it appears the pair have maintained their friendship in the weeks following filming, which wrapped earlier this year
While the competition will be undoubtedly fierce during The Bachelor, it appears the pair have maintained their friendship in the weeks following filming, which wrapped earlier this year.
Meanwhile, other ladies who will be pulling out all the stops in a bid to catch Richie's affections are Playboy model Kirralee Morris and Lara Bingle-lookalike Keira Maguire.
Richie's return to TV comes after he failed to woo Sam Frost on The Bachelorette last year.
In good company! Sasha (far left) appeared in this promotional image for The Bachelor 2016 alongside Tolyna (third from the left)
Second chance at love: Richie's return to TV comes after he failed to woo Sam Frost on The Bachelorette last year
Meet the ladies! The list of 22 women vying for the attention of Richie Strahan on the upcoming fourth season of The Bachelor Australia has been unveiled
She announced her pregnancy in June by showing off her baby bump in a bikini snap.
And Kaya Scodelario has done it again, proudly revealing her burgeoning tum as she took a glorious 'babymoon' getaway in Santorini, Greece with husband Benjamin Walker, 34, this week.
The 24-year-old former Skins actress proudly showed off her gorgeous maternity figure as she posed in a bikini against the idyllic ocean backdrop in one of the snaps shared on her Instagram page.
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Bump in a bikini! Kaya Scodelario glowed while showing off her gorgeous baby bump during her idyllic holiday with husband Benjamin Walker in Santorini this week
Looking stunning and visibly glowing while sitting on the edge of a pool, Kaya commanded attention against the azure blue ocean behind her.
The Maze Runner star donned a skimpy strapless bikini top and matching purple printed briefs, showcasing her blossoming figure and smiling broadly, her raven tresses slicked back away from her face.
Throughout the idyllic Greek island getaway, Kaya and her man Benjamin - to whom she tied the knot in December - made sure to keep their fans involved with their antics.
Mwah: Kaya, 24, and her handsome spouse Benjamin, 34, puckered up for a sweet snap as she gushed over their 'perfect Babymoon'
The happiest of couples: Throughout the idyllic Greek island getaway, Kaya and her man Benjamin - to whom she tied the knot in December - made sure to keep their fans involved with their antics
One of the twosome's adorable shots saw them sharing a passionate kiss in front of yet another impressive vista.
Wearing a pretty little orange lace dress, Kaya's bump just visible, the duo appeared happier than ever as they enjoyed their vacations months before becoming first-time parents.
Along with the sweet snap, Kaya wrote: 'The perfect Babymoon.'
There were plenty more shots on her page, too, including a typical tourist-like shot of the married couple, arms wrapped around each other while standing in front of one of the iconic white tumbling mountainside towns of Santorini.
Kaya couldn't take the smile off her face as she stood with her husband of just over six months, also revealing a glimpse at her ample chest, her growing bump obscured under a her printed swimsuit and shorts combination.
Stealing the show: The former Skins actress looked gorgeous in a flowing dress while taking in the stunning sights of the Greek island, her bump partly obscured by the garment
Taking it in: The Maze Runner actress bared her back while looking over the sea, her husband no doubt behind the camera
She joked, hinting that they had been walking rather far in the soaring heat: 'Just a pair of sweaty Betty's!'
Kaya - who rose to fame playing Effy Stonem in E4's gritty teen drama Skins in 2007 - made her pregnancy announcement in early June by sharing a picture of herself and Benjamin walking along the beach with their pet dog, as they clutched her growing tummy.
With a love heart drawn in the sand, the married couple made their revelation in the caption of the Instagram post.
Hunk: Benjamin - an actor and comedian - revealed his hunky frame as he went shirtless to catch the sun's rays
Hotdog legs! The former Effy actress made sure to brown her body and bump during a sunbathing session
She captioned the picture with the words: 'I love you @findthewalker I love our little family,' alongside some baby emojis.
The couple married in a 2015 winter wedding after handsome actor Benjamin popped the question within six months of dating.
Kaya announced in low-key fashion in January 2016 that she was now a married woman when she shared an image of bride and a groom wedding cake toppers.
'Happy New Year everyone,' she captioned the Instagram snap. 'Here's to 2016 being filled with love, laughter and cake for everyone!'
'I love our little family': Kaya announced she is pregnant with her first child with husband Benjamin with this cute Instagram post in June
The pair originally met in April 2014 when they were cast in The Moon And The Sun, but within two months had become an item.
The actress, who appears opposite Johnny Depp in the forthcoming Pirates Of The Caribbean film, has proved her devotion to Ben by getting his name tattooed on her engagement finger.
Kaya originally found fame as Tony Stonem's younger rebellious younger sister Effy in E4's British teen series Skins.
She went on to find fame in Hollywood, being cast The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials on the big screen.
Prior to dating Ben, Kaya was in a long-term romance with Shameless actor Eliott Tittensor, before splitting in late 2013.
Meanwhile, Ben's two year marriage to Mamie Gummer - daughter of Meryl Streep - ended in early 2013.
Loved-up: The pair originally met in April 2014 when they were cast in The Moon And The Sun, but within two months had become an item
Last Spring he sizzled on screen with his shirtless scything.
But Poldark fans will be disappointed to see Aidan Turner with decidedly more clothes on in the first look at series two of the BBC's smash hit drama.
The leading man may not be shirtless, but he looks as brooding as ever in the newly-released official shot.
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Brooding: Poldark fans will be disappointed to see Aidan Turner with decidedly more clothes on in the first look at series two of the BBC's smash hit drama
Aidan, 33, is seen on the back of his beloved horse Seamus, posing against the majestic Cornish landscape.
Series two of the drama picks up where the first series ended with Cornish mine owner Ross Poldark caught between his love for his wife Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson) and his lust for ex-fiancee Elizabeth (Heida Reed).
Series one of the Sunday night drama saw British Army officer Poldark return from fighting in the American War of Independence to his native Cornwall.
TV highlight: Last Spring the 33-year-old Irish hunk sizzled on screen with his shirtless scything in series one of the Sunday night BBC drama
But on his return he found his ex-fiancee Elizabeth Chynoweth about to marry his cousin while his estate lay in ruins following the death of his father.
The cast and crew have remained tight-lipped about the events of series two, but speaking at the MCM London Comic-Con recently, Aidan teased:
'Ross and Demelza have just lost their child, his company is down the pan, they're broke and he's been arrested. It looks like he's going to prison. It's a cheery beginning.'
Drama: Series two picks up where the first series ended with Ross Poldark caught between his love for his wife Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson, pictured) and his lust for ex-fiancee Elizabeth (Heida Reed)
Fans have two extra episodes to look forward to when the series, based on the novels of Winston Graham, returns in the Autumn, with ten installments in comparison to last year's eight.
It has also been confirmed that the BBC have commissioned a third series, before the second run even hits screens.
With more than nine million tuning into the first season last year and Aidan's now global popularity, the BBC know they're guaranteed a hit with series two.
BBC executives said Tuesday that the third run would begin filming in the autumn.
Lost love: In series one Poldark returned from fighting in the American War of Independence to find his ex-fiancee Elizabeth about to marry his cousin
The cast and crew who have featured in the eight episodes of series one and the soon-to-be aired series two will stay on for the third, which will cover the fifth and sixth novels in the Poldark series, adapted for the screen by Debbie Horsfield.
Executive Producer Elizabeth Kilgarriff told the Daily Mirror: 'Series two promises to take the audience on another fantastic rollercoaster ride and we're thrilled to know that the story won't end there'.
The news puts rumours of Aidan's Bond ambitions in doubt though, with the Irish hunk one of the favourites to take over the big screen 007 role from Daniel Craig.
But with his time taken up filming Poldark, there's speculation that Happy Valley star James Norton could be taking on the role of the suave spy.
She split from her fiancee Phoebe Dahl in December.
And more than six months later, Australian actress Ruby Rose has moved on with American model and entrepreneur Harley Gusman.
The pair made their romance official at Taylor Swift's Fourth of July bash in Rhode Island on Monday after they were spotted packing on the PDA.
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Who is Harley Gusman? Meet Ruby Rose's new flame who dabbles in modelling, runs an organics hair and skincare business and has a university degree in psychology and creative writing
It is unknown when the two beauties met but People magazine first reported the rumoured relationship after they were spotted on a 'date night' at celebrity-favoured haunt, Katsuya, one month earlier.
Over the past four weeks, Ruby and Harley have also taken to their respective social media accounts to post loved-up pictures of themselves on various outings.
And it's easy to see why Ruby has fallen head over heels for the nature loving adventurer.
Harley, who is based in Miami, is the head of marketing at Truly Organic a business which sells naturally derived hair and body care products.
New flames: Harley and Ruby made their romance official at Taylor Swift's Fourth of July bash in Rhode Island on Monday after they were spotted packing on the PDA
Over a month ago: It is unknown when the two beauties met, but People magazine first reported the rumoured relationship after they were spotted on a 'date night' at celebrity-favoured haunt, Katsuya, one month earlier
Not just a beauty: Harley, who is based in Miami, is the head of marketing at Truly Organic a business which sells naturally derived hair and body care products
According to her Linkedin account, the 24-year-old has a bachelor degree from the University of Miami with a major in creative writing and a minor in psychology.
She also has five-years of experience in the hospitality industry, as well as expertise in advertising and marketing.
To add to her gleaming credentials, the beauty who is of Irish and Russian decent also has a modelling portfolio which spans from fashion shoots to fronting swimwear and lingerie campaigns.
In an interview with The Hundreds, Harley said she enjoyed having her picture taken.
Beauty with brains: According to her Linkedin account, the 24-year-old has a bachelor degree from the University of Miami with major in creative writing and a minor in psychology
Model credentials: To add to her gleaming resume, the beauty who is of Irish and Russian descent also has a modelling portfolio which spans from fashion shoots to fronting swimwear and lingerie campaigns
She's got tats appeal: It also appears the blonde stunner likes tattoos like Ruby
'Well, I've always admired women and their shape and their beauty,' she told the publication.
'I think I've learned to love having my picture taken because it's like I gain a new sense of confidence and pride.
'I so support women taking pictures of themselves when they want to feel sexy whether it's a selfie, a candid, or a posed shot.'
Meanwhile, Harley has taken to Instagram to gush about her new flame.
Professional poser: Harley showed off her curves in a Lappis Beachwear bikini which boasted a peek-a-boo cut along the front
'Look at this Aussie babe': Australian actress Ruby Rose and her businesswoman girlfriend Harley Gusman flaunted their toned figures in swimsuits on Wednesday in a loved-up snap
Sharing a snap of the pair flaunting their enviable figures in swimsuits at Taylor Swift's star studded party, Harley wrote: 'Look at this Aussie babe!
'Look at this little pastel cupcake princess retro dolphin Aussie babe,' she added.
In the image, the lovebirds pose with their arms around one another, with Harley resting her head on Ruby's shoulder.
Orange Is The New Black star stands out in a bright blue bathing suit that features cut out detailing on the bust and a print featuring dolphins and a pool.
Harley, meanwhile stuns in a red cut out swimsuit with plunging neckline and high cut briefs. She also has a red bandana around her neck, tied to look like a choker.
It's social media official: Ruby and Harley have also taken to their respective social media accounts to post loved-up pictures of themselves on various outings
Ruby and Harley both appear to be make-up free.
The loved-up post comes after the women confirmed their relationship while at the party, with Harley sharing to Instagram a snap of them kissing.
She simply captioned it: 'Magic.'
Later in the day Ruby also shared a picture of her and Harley cuddling as they soaked up the views of the fireworks at the party.
She captioned it: 'With <3 from us'.
As unconfirmed rumours that she's reunited with James Middleton still circulate, Donna Air is continuing to hit the London party scene with full gusto.
The 36-year-old blonde beauty turned heads as she stepped out in a green semi-sheer lacy green dress at a launch party for new social app VieLoco, held at exclusive club Loulou's.
TV personality Donna looked elegant in the short-sleeved gown, which was cinched at the waist with a black sash belt-like feature and laid over a plunging black form-fitting dress to protect her modesty.
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We like to party: Donna Air attended the VieLoco launch party, held at at Loulou's in London on Tuesday night
The Geordie lass opted to forgo the towering heels often seen at such social gatherings, instead going for intricately-designed low rise black shoes, which featured a lacy design and jeweled clasps.
She enhanced her natural beauty with the application of subtle makeup, while her shiny golden tresses rested about her shoulders in gentle waves.
With a stylish black handbag resting on her shoulder, Donna posed for a shot with Baroness Fiona De vos Van Steenwijk, while such stars as Professor Green and Oliver Proudlock partied nearby.
Stunning: She wowed in a green semi-sheer dress as she partied with Baroness Fiona De vos Van Steenwijk
The event was held for the launch of VieLoco, a new social app, which matches people based on their passions.
Donna's arrival at the event, came weeks after pictures were taken of her leaving an intimate dinner with her assumed ex James, younger brother of the Duchess of Cambridge.
The pair, who were first romantically linked in 2013, joined friends and family - including Donna's daughter Freya, 12 - at trendy 34 Restaurant in Mayfair.
Special guest: Professor Green was also among the attendees at the bash for the social app launch
Stepping out in style: The rapper looked dapper in a fitted grey blazer over a black button-down shirt
Like a boss: He posed for a shot with VieLoco CEO Nora Lee Notzon, who turned heads in her red dress
In September, the couple hit back at reports suggesting their relationship was over by releasing a defiant statement, which read: Happily, we can report that our relationship is not over we are still very much a couple.
But earlier this year, it was reported that the couple were taking a 'relationship sabbatical' so that James, 29, could concentrate on his sweet firm, Boomf, 6,000 miles away in Hong Kong.
A source close to the couple told The Mail on Sunday: For now they are being forced to have time apart so they are treating it as a sort of relationship sabbatical.
On the list: Reality star Oliver Proudlock was also among the well-heeled guests at the exclusive bash
Hat's the way to do it! He wore a wide-brimmed hat and a large collection of rings to the gathering
Dressed to impress: He was seen chatting with designer Joshua Kane, who arrived in typically snazzy style
'They will stay in touch as often as possible. They are seeing if they can work it all out.
However James' travel plans appear to have been put on hold, with the businessman remaining firmly in London.
Freya's father is Donna's ex, conservationist Damian Aspinall, who is the step-grandson of Sir George Osborne.
Golden girl: TV personality Pips Taylor looked chic in a rose gold skirt as she posed with Tom Hamilton
Black to basics: Model Craig McGinlay looked fetching in a fitted black suit with red accents
Beloved BBC sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart is returning to screens.
The show, starring actor Nicholas Lyndhurst, told the story of a time-travelling TV repairman with a second life in 1940s London, with relationships in the past and present.
After hitting screens in 1993, the popular series will return as a one-off special as part of an anniversary special to mark 60 years since the launch of Hancock's Half Hour.
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Going back in time: Beloved BBC sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart is returning to screens
The anniversary celebrations for the BBC radio comedy, and later television series, which broadcast from 1954 to 1961, will see the return of a host of TV favourites.
Nicholas played Gary Sparrow in the show - an accidental time traveller leading a double life after he discovered a time portal, bringing him away from his unhappy marriage to ambitious wife Yvonne.
The magical device allowed him to travel between Nineties London and the same area during the Second World War, where he begins a relationship with Phoebe, who he eventually marries.
The programme, which ran for six seasons with 58 episodes before wrapping up in 1999, followed Gary's struggles to maintain his double life in both the past and the present.
Double life: After hitting screens in 1993, the popular series will return as a one-off special as part of an anniversary special to mark 60 years since the launch of Hancock's Half Hour
Other cast members included included Michelle Holmes as Yvonne, Dervla Kirwan as Phoebe and Victor McGuire as his best friend Ron Wheatcroft.
In a touching sentiments, the show's writers, Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran said Gary had been 'trying for the last 17 years to find a way back to the present'.
BBC Comedy Commissioning controller Shane Allen revealed the anniversary series 'geared towards giving comedy royalty their due recognition'
Back to the present: In a touching sentiments, the show's writers, Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran said Gary had been 'tying for the last 17 years to find a way back to the present'
He said: 'In Goodnight Sweetheart, we have heavyweight writing and performing talents reunited in this hugely popular and fondly remembered show.
'The conceptual update is sublime and it was heart-skipping stuff to read - it's an absolute belter.'
Other classic shows set to return include Are You Being Served?, Steptoe and Son, Till Death Us Do Part, Porridge, Keeping Up Appearances and Up Pompeii!.
She's one of the most in-demand rising stars in the fashion industry.
But model and Chanel muse Lily-Rose Depp showed she is just a regular teenage girl as she enjoyed a casual lunch with a pal in Hollywood on Tuesday.
The striking 17-year-old daughter of Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis looked effortlessly cool and charming as she and her companion waited on the street for their car.
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Easy breezy! Lily-Rose Depp looked the picture of happiness and cool, effortless style as she stepped out in Hollywood for lunch on Tuesday
Off-duty model beauty: Luminous Lily-Rose, 17, bore an infectious smile on her face while chatting away, her visage clear to see with her blonde locks tied back as she wore a simple black outfit
Luminous Lily-Rose bore an infectious smile on her face while chatting away, her visage clear to see with her blonde locks tied back.
Going for a typical model off-duty ensemble, the superstar offspring kept it coolly simple in just a black tank top and dark skinny jeans.
She later covered her slender frame with a fun nude star-printed jumper, and finished off her easy outfit with a pair of chunky white trainers and oversized red-tinted shades.
And, unsurprisingly as the face of the fashion house's Number 5 L'Eau perfume, the young star also toted a chic red Chanel bucket bag.
Style touches: She later covered her slender frame with a fun nude star-printed jumper, and finished off her easy outfit with a pair of chunky white trainers and oversized red-tinted shades
Chic: Lily-Rose balanced a red quilted Chanel bag in between her legs as she adjusted her outfit
Happy: She had a big smile on her face as she adjusted her cardigan over her shoulders
Low-key look: Shunning heels, she wore a very comfortable looking pair of basketball trainers
Side step: The star was so excitable that she looked like she was throwing out some dance moves
Let's do the timewarp again... She couldn't stop laughing as she continued pulling out some funny moves
Such a sweetie: The blonde beauty talked to an equally fashion forward friend as she fiddled with her hair
After enjoying her midday meal, Lily-Rose was also seen dancing in the street while waiting for the valet to bring her car around, clearly in a giddy mood.
She looked far happier than she has in recent weeks, following her famous father's current divorce battle with his estranged wife Amber Heard.
Last week, Lily-Rose and her brother Jack, 14, were spotted dining with dad Johnny, 53, in Los Angeles, a rare sighting of them all together.
In May, actress Amber, 30, released photographs of herself covered in bruises, and she alleges her husband caused the injuries after throwing a phone at her two days before she filed for divorce citing 'irreconcilable differences'.
Family time: Last week Lily-Rose joined her famous father Johnny Depp, and her brother Jack, for dinner in Los Angeles amid the actor's divorce drama
In court papers filed in Los Angeles, the actress said her husband had a 'history of drug and alcohol abuse' and been 'verbally and physically abusive' for the entirety of their four-year-relationship.
Los Angeles Superior Court judge Carl Moor granted a temporary restraining order and ruled that Johnny must stay at least 100 yards away from his wife.
Following the claims and the media focus around Johnny and Amber's marriage crisis, Lily-Rose spoke out in support of her Hollywood star father.
Supporting dad: Lily-Rose has actively showed her support for Johnny on social media following his estranged wife Amber Heard's domestic abuse allegations
Lily-Rose posted comments from an LAPD sergeant, who said that police had found 'no evidence of any crime' at the scene of the alleged assault.
'LAPD Sgt. Marlon Marrache told PEOPLE that: 'A crime did not occur so the officers left the scene and left a business card.'
'With no visible injuries and Heard choosing not to file an official complaint, they left. But if there had been any signs of abuse, police would still have conducted an investigation - even if Heard had not wanted to press charges, he added.'
She had posted another message of support prior to this, saying: 'My dad is the sweetest most loving person I know, he's been nothing but a wonderful father to my little brother and I, and everyone who knows him would say the same.'
She hit headlines after her sordid romp with Marco Pierre White Jnr.
And Big Brother housemate Laura Carter was getting steamy once more after she enjoyed further kisses, this time with her ex-flame Bernardo Belmar - although she was forced to say farewell to the hunk in scenes which will air on Wednesday night's episode.
Earlier this week, the 30-year-old was seen growing increasingly emotional as she discovered the arrival of the hunky former flame although she is now undoubtedly bereft at his departure.
Kiss, kiss: Big Brother housemate Laura Carter is getting steamy once more after she enjoyed further kisses with her ex-flame Bernardo Belmar - although this time she will say farewell in scenes which will air on Wednesday night's episode
Bernardo was brought into the house as part of this week's shopping task, where housemates were tested on their loyalty for each other.
The contestants were teased with the idea of being able to see loved ones, as they hid behind revolving turnstiles.
However, if they pressed the button to accept their visitor, they could risk losing the task for the rest of the group yet that did not phase Laura who didn't even question her decision to welcome Bernardo back into her life.
In Wednesday night's show, a devastated Laura is seen saying goodbye to the dashing hunk as he is made to leave the house - just days after he initially entered.
Sad scenes: The 30-year-old was seen earlier this week growing increasingly emotional as she discovered the arrival of the hunky former flame although she is now undoubtedly bereft at his departure
Goodbye! In Wednesday night's show, a devastated Laura is seen saying goodbye to the dashing hunk as he is made to leave the house - just days after he initially entered
Earlier in the week, when welcoming him into the house, the duo officially sealed the deal when they locked lips in a passionate kiss, in which Laura stroked his chest during the steamy embrace.
In emotional scenes, Laura told Bernardo his appearance in the house was 'overwhelming', he responded with: 'Im not leaving here without a kiss'
Following the steamy embrace, loved-up Laura then said: 'God you are making me shake' before she begged him not to leave.
After the initial arrival of the Mexican hunky, Laura headed to the diary room and said: 'I want to thank you so much. This guy, I met in Miami two years ago, I was still engaged.
Kisses all over: Earlier in the week, when welcoming him into the house, the duo officially sealed the deal when they locked lips in a passionate kiss, in which Laura stroked his chest during the steamy embrace
Up close and personal: After the initial arrival of the Mexican hunk, Laura headed to the diary room and said: 'I want to thank you so much. This guy, I met in Miami two years ago, I was still engaged
And the rest... After his steamy embrace with Laura he then said goodbye to the entire house
'We met in a club and it was pretty much love at first sight. He walked towards me - it was the strongest connection I've ever felt in my whole life.
'I went home and told all my friends and family, if I ever see that guy again I'm going to get married to him and have babies. He's the one!'
But despite her strong emotions, Laura admitted that she had only met Bernardo once before.
She said: 'We've met each other once, never kissed or slept together. Now he's here with me on Big Brother, this experience has to top everything that's ever happened in my whole life! He's absolutely gorgeous.'
Lost love: But despite her strong emotions, Laura admitted that she had only met Bernardo once before
They're used to spending lots of time apart due to their busy filming and philanthropy commitments.
However, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt made sure they were together to celebrate America's Independence Day with their family.
The Hollywood couple stocked up on supplies for their Independence Day at a grocery store in LA on Monday with some help from Shiloh, 10, and seven-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.
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Grabbing supplies: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt took daughter Shilo, 10, and twins Vivienne and Knox, seven, to the grocery store on July 4 to pick up food for their Independence Day celebration
Mommy's little helpers: Shiloh helped out by pushing the loaded shopping cart as Knox and Vivienne walked alongside their famous mother at Gelson's in Los Angeles
The youngsters were clearly eager to help their famous parents with the errand.
Shiloh took charge of the loaded shopping cart pushing it through the parking lot to their car.
And Knox and Vivienne joined in by helping to unload the groceries into the trunk of their upscale black Tesla.
Daddy's girl: Shiloh, the eldest of the celebrity couple's three biological children, showed she's growing up to be the spitting image of her father with her blonde hair and winning smile
Tomboy: Shiloh wore baggy board shorts and a t-shirt with leather flip flops and was spotted getting into the back seat of the car as her siblings helped load groceries into the trunk of the black Tesla
Adorable: Blonde-haired twins Knox and Vivienne both wore khaki shorts and t-shirts with Knox rocking a pair of Nike trainers and his sister wearing socks and slip-on canvas shoes
Casual: Angie was dressed for summer in a long billowing white cotton dress which she paired with a long gray cardigan. Brad paired light jeans and a white tee with a white fedora and sported a salt and pepper goatee
The family were all dressed casually for their low-key outing.
The kids wore t-shirts and shorts while Brad, 52, paired a white t-shirt with pale jeans.
He covered up his shirt hair with a white fedora and sported a salt and pepper goatee.
Angelina, 41, was summer cool in a flowing white Ermanno Scervino maxi dress kaftan and sandals.
The brunette beauty added a long gray cardigan and left her hair loose as she carried a taupe designer purse.
Dressed for comfort: The actress turned director looked gorgeous in a long flowing white cotton dress with tassles on the hem
Stylish ensemble: She paired the simple frock with a long gray knitted shawl-style cardigan and a pair of brown leather flip flops
Looked rested: Angie's dress billowed out around her as she walked and she seemed happy and contented as she spent precious time with her loved ones
The famous couple, who wed in 2014 after 10 years together, put on a united front after being apart for sometime.
Brad has been filming back to back movies overseas, first the satirical War Machine which filmed in England and Germany, and then World War Two drama Allied in the UK, Spain and France.
Angie, meantime, has been based in London working on her philanthropy and political interests, and traveling in support of her advocacy for refugees. She's also teaching at the London School of Economics.
Gone green: The two stars, who wed in 2014 after 10 years together, ran their errands in an upscale black electric Tesla
In the driver's seat: Patriarch Brad seemed to be calling the shots as the car was loaded up with shopping and kids
The couple, who've been plagued by break-up rumors recently seemed as close as ever
Behind the wheel: Brad took the driver's seat as he chauffeured his family around in LA
Heading home: Angie hopped into the front passenger seat after making sure her three precious children were secured in the back seat of the luxury sedan
The display of family unity comes as the A-list couple are once again being plagued by rumors of discord.
InTouch claimed Wednesday that the Unbroken director had 'gone nuclear' after learning her husband had reconnected with his ex-wife Jennifer Aniston when her mother died.
And USWeekly had claimed back in June that Angelina wanted to sell their sprawling Chateau Miraval property in France and focus on furthering her political career in London.
But Brad is refusing to part with the gorgeous estate that he has renovated and that produces their brand of rose wine.
The famous couple also are parents to three adopted children: Maddox, 14, Pax, 12, and Zahara, 11.
Blended in: The Jolie-Pitts looked just like any other LA family as they ran their errands on July 4
Her baby girl: Little Vivienne held onto her mom's hand and leaned into her affectionately as they walked
She's stepping out of the shadow of her famous sister and forging a career of her own.
And Lottie Moss, 18, certainly looked to have star quality as she stepped out with gal pals in Spain, on Monday, for a relaxing boat trip.
The model showcased her svelte frame in a pretty patterned pink bikini set with a bold red cover-up.
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Model material: Lottie Moss, 18, certainly looked to have star quality as she stepped out with gal pals in Spain, on Monday, for a relaxing boat trip
Lottie ensured she had all her essentials in a large cream handbag which she casually draped over her arm, and she covered her eyes with some mirrored aviators.
The teen tied her blonde locks back in a messy updo as she casually made her way to the vessel in the Spanish sunshine.
Her bold manicure matched her vibrant swimwear, and she continued the comfortable theme with a pair of fluffy pink flip flops.
Vibrant: The model showcased her svelte frame in a pretty patterned pink bikini set with a bold red cover-up
Lady in red: Lottie ensured she had all her essentials in a large cream handbag which she casually draped over her arm, and she covered her eyes with some mirrored aviators
Fun in the sun: The teen tied her blonde locks back in a messy updo as she casually made her way to the vessel in the Spanish sunshine
Strutting her stuff: The younger Moss sister showed she has what it takes to step out of her famous sister's shadow
While Kate may have ruled the runway for almost three decades, Lottie proved she's following closely in her fashionable footsteps as she attended a Paris Haute Coture week event on Tuesday.
The petite blonde led the fashion pack who turned out in force for the Bulgari Celebration of Magnificent Inspirations, The New High Jewellery Collection at the city's Italian Embassy.
And as she was at the centre of Haute Couture week, Lottie ensured that she made a daring statement when it came to her outfit choice.
Standing out from the crowd: Lottie certainly appeared to be in a holiday mood with her colourful choice of attire
Here come the girls: Lottie walked beside a gal pal who held a lack cover up over her bikini
Setting sail: The boat trip came the day before Lottie headed to Paris for Haute Couture Fashion Week
Staying connected: She may have gone for a relaxing trip but Lottie ensured her phone didn't leave her hands
Slipping into a very plunging dress, the model showed off her slim frame in the sheer-pannelled gown which featured embroidered flowers which protected her modesty.
The dress featured a long train, also made of the same sheer fabric.
She added a navy bag and, of course, a statement silver necklace, no doubt from Bulgari's new line.
Star in the making: Kate Moss' younger sibling Lottie proved she's following closely in her fashionable footsteps as she attended a Paris Haute Coture week event on Tuesday
Moss be the genes: The petite blonde, 18, led the fashion pack who turned out in force for the Bulgari Celebration of Magnificent Inspirations, The New High Jewellery Collection at the city's Italian Embassy
Fashionable friends: Slipping into a very plunging dress, the model showed off her slim frame in the sheer-pannelled gown which featured embroidered flowers which protected her modesty
In style: Lottie enjoyed a chat with Russian model Xenia Tchoumi, who stunned in a scarlet split dress
Smize for the camera: The Russian beauty sizzled in a plum velvet split dress, accessorised with Bulgari jewellery and a statement silver bag
Girls, girls, girls: Lottie and Xenia were joined by actress Mischa Barton at the bash
She was joined at the lavish bash by a host of European socialties and international stars.
Lottie enjoyed a chat with Russian model Xenia Tchoumi, who stunned in a scarlet split dress.
Former The OC star Mischa Barton was also among the guests.
The actress looked sensational in a cinched-waist dress made up of blocks of different coloured fabric.
Seriously stylish: The actress looked sensational in a cinched-waist dress made up of blocks of different coloured fabric
Beauty: The star added some coloured gems to her look and kept her hair in natural sun-kissed waves
Monochrome: A reveller stunned in a split white dress with belt detail while Princess Lilly zu Sayn Wittgenstein Berleburg brought some elegance in a black suit with a camisole underneath
Social queens: Princess Lilly zu Sayn Wittgenstein Berleburg and Nati Abascal certainly knew how to work their black ensembles
Adding a wild vibe to the bash was architect Peter Marino, who was dressed in his trademark leather gear.
It seemed to be having a ball with fellow reveller, Princess Camilla of Bourbon-two Sicilies.
The pair playfully embraced for the cameras as they enjoyed a laugh together.
She has thrilled Game of Thrones fans thanks to her character Sansa Stark seriously toughening up her act.
And Sophie Turner proves she's just as tenacious in real life when it comes to her workout regime.
The actress, 20, is enjoying a break from filming after her hectic schedule of shooting the small screen phenomenon and the latest X Men movie.
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Game of Toned! Sophie Turner proves she's just as tenacious as her Game of Thrones character when it comes to her workout regime
But the flame-haired beauty has kept up her work outs and was seen pounding the streets in London this week.
After rocking a black T-shirt and shorts as she worked up a sweat, Sophie changed into a daringly low-cut vest and brightly patterned tracksuit bottoms.
She picked up a cool drink as she chatted on the phone on her way home.
Her return to the UK comes after she wowed the crowds at a GOT event in Madrid last week.
Jazzy number: The actress, 20, enjoyed a cooling drink as she changed into a revealing vest top and ecclectic tracksuit bottoms after her run
Work it, girl! The flame-haired beauty pounded the streets earlier in the day in a black T-shirt and Adidas shorts
The star had opted for an eye-catching, but highly idiosyncratic, outfit comprising of a white ruffled shorts and top combo.
Completing the bizarre outfit was a pair of chunky black boots with contrasting white laces and Sophie accessorised with a pair of simple gold hoop earrings.
In a nod to Sansa, her long auburn tresses were worn in a relaxed tousled style falling over one shoulder.
The star was on top form and posed for the mass of photographers at the event and seemed to be enjoying her time in the spotlight.
After the photocall the actress spoke with hundreds of ecstatic fans, took selfies and signed autographs.
In one emotional scene Sophie hugged a fan who appeared to break down in tears due to the encounter.
Looking good: It's been a busy few months for the star as she promoted the sixth season of her hit show, including last week's visit to Madrid
Unique style: Completing the bizarre outfit was a pair of chunky black boots with contrasting white laces and Sophie accessorised with a pair of simple gold hoop earrings
Emotional: Sophie hugged a fan who appeared to break down in tears due to the encounter with the star
Stunning: In a nod to Sansa, her long auburn tresses were worn in a relaxed tousled style falling over one shoulder
Earlier in the day Sophie had opted for a more polished all-black look as she worked the carpet in the Spanish capital.
She kept things simple in a black leather wraparound skirt and and a matching long sleeved V-neck top.
While her hair was pulled back in a smart straight style - highlighting her earrings and flawless complexion.
Ecstatic: After the photocall the actress spent time with hundreds of fans taking selfies and signing autographs
Having fun! The star was on top form and enjoyed posing for the mass of photographers at the event and appeared to be enjoying her time in the limelight
Cheeky! Something seemed to catch the attention of the star as she pulled a mischievous grin
Polished: Sophie cut an elegant figure on the carpet ahead of a major event for Spanish fans
Sophie recently admitted that finding fame on a television phenomenon as big as the HBO show hasn't always been plain-sailing, admitting that it wasn't easy to grow up in the limelight.
The actress told the July issue of British InStyle that she went through 'hard years' between the ages of 16 and 19 as she struggled with her body transforming in the full glare of the public eye.
'At first,' she said. 'It was the character; people hating on her because she was a 13-year-old girl, and she should have a smart head on her shoulders and make good decisions.
Not all plain-sailing: Sophie recently admitted that finding fame on a television phenomenon as big the HBO show hasn't always been easy
Hard times: The actress told the July issue of British InStyle that she went through 'hard years' between the ages of 16 and 19 as she struggled with her body transforming in the full glare of the public eye
Glamorous: Sophie - who was raised in the English town of Northampton - has also hit the big screen, taking on the role of Jean Grey/Phoenix in the recently released X-Men: Apocalypse
Close up: Sophie's piercing blue eyes contrasted her auburn tresses at the publicity event
'When people started to know my name, as well as the character's name, that was kind of difficult. From 16 to when I turned 19, they were quite hard years.'
Sophie continued: 'You're in the prime of puberty; your body is changing, your face is changing, and people still saw me as that 13-year-old girl, with no body, and thought that's how I should look forever.
The actress - who was raised in the English town of Northampton - has also hit the big screen, taking on the role of Jean Grey/Phoenix in the recently released X-Men: Apocalypse.
Refined: Earlier in the day Sophie had opted for a more polished all-black look as she worked the carpet in the Spanish capital
Excited: She kept things simple in a black leather wraparound skirt and and a matching long sleeved V-neck top
Curtis Stone just expanded his restaurant empire with a new meat-focused eatery in Hollywood called Gwen.
And on Wednesday, the famed chef's wife, Lindsay Price, took to social media to commemorate the opening of the restaurant by sharing a sweet family photo with Curtis and son Hudson.
'Celebrating all of daddy's hard work. So proud of you,' wrote the stunning 39-year-old.
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'So proud of you:' Lindsay shared a selfie with son Hudson and husband Curtis Stone to celebrate the opening of Stone's new restaurant
Recurring MasterChef and My Kitchen Rules guest judge Curtis teamed up with brothers Luke Stone and Chad Colby on his new food venture.
The 40-year-old said Luke, who leaves behind a florist in their native Melbourne, was perfectly suited to the new restaurant.
'His first job was in a butcher's job once upon a time,' he told the Herald Sun.
Growing portfolio: Australian celebrity chef Curtis Stone has added another notch to his restaurant empire with a new meat-focused eatery opening in Hollywood called Gwen
'We decided to do this together, (but) it did make me very unpopular with mum, taking her grand kids away from her. But it will be all good.'
Gwen is named after their maternal grandmother who fed them hand-cut lamb chops from the family livestock during their rural childhood.
The meat focus is a contrast to the more vegetable-leaning Maude in Beverley Hills, named after Stone's paternal grandmother, who taught him to cook.
Local work: Stone is a recurring guest judge on MasterChef
In demand: He also used to appear on My Kitchen Rules (pictured with MRK judges)
Gwen is housed in a 1920s building on Sunset Boulevard and serves a seasonal menu focused on making the best use of the whole animal to a vaulted 80-seat dining room.
'The menu is centric food, but it will be a multi cross degustation menu, which will be a lot of fun,' Stone said.
It also includes a European-style butcher shop in its entryway, selling prime and rare-breed cuts which Stone said was something LA was missing.
Top location: Gwen will be housed in a 1920s building on Sunset Boulevard and will serve a seasonal menu focused on making the best use of the whole animal to a vaulted 80-seat dining room
'We have beautiful produce, but we struggle a little to find excellent meat,' he told the Wall Street Journal.
He said the expansive space which was formerly home to two other restaurants, would have a small bar offering 'cozy little places to sit and have a cocktail' or a bite to eat.
The restaurant is now hiring chefs, with mandatory Michelin experience, along with butchers and bar and dining staff.
His co-host Michael 'Wippa' Wipfli has been enjoying some quality family time after the birth of his second son, Jack, last month.
But last week, it was Ryan 'Fitzy' Fitzgerald's turn to play family man as he took his brood out for a day at the Splash Water Park in Bali.
The muscular 39-year-old was with his bikini-clad wife, Belinda Irons, and two young sons, Hewston and Lennox.
Family fun: Ryan 'Fitzy' Fitzgerald and his family went to a water park in Bali last week
The radio star flaunted his toned physique in a pair of board shorts, showing that he has yet to fall victim to the dreaded 'dadbod'.
Wife Belinda looked just as svelte as she showcased her enviable bikini body in a red two-piece.
The family appeared to be having the time of their lives as they splashed around the popular water park.
Doting dad: The 39-year-old doted over this three-year-old son Lennox
Helping hand: Fitzy's son, Hewston, and some other random kid helped out with directions
Bikini babe: The radio personality was joined by his wife, Belinda Irons, who wore a red bikini
At one point, the foursome were seen zipping down a water slide.
They later took to the pool to relax on a yellow inflatable, with each parent taking responsibility of one child each.
The couple's first son, Hewston, is six years old, while Lennox is much younger at just three.
Smiling: Belinda smiled as she stood by the pool in her swimwear
Mama bear: The brunette beauty stayed close to her youngest son
Floating: The foursome floated on an inflatable device in the pool
Fitzy took to social media to gush about his beautiful wife after they arrived in Bali last week.
Sharing an image of the two of them together, the former Big Brother star wrote: 'It's good to be home with my Balinese princess.'
He continued: 'We met back in 1998 on a footy trip with the Cockledivers.'
Tarzan? Both Belinda and Fitzy decided to swing on a rope into the cool water
King of the jungle: Fitzy showed off his athleticism as he swung on the rope like Tarzan
Fitzy finished: 'She's magnificent at braiding my hair, whipping out a sick henna tattoo but most of all she bartered down my heart at a bloody good price, along with a Santa Cruz muscle top.'
This wasn't the only adoring social media update that Fitzy shared, with the Nova personality quickly following it up with another selfie of the two of them.
'I my Balinese princess,' the smitten star gushed again.
He's still got it! The former AFL player caught a ball that his son threw
Daddy duties: Fitzy played with his two songs in the pool
Splashing: Water splashed everywhere after one of the kids went down the slide
Looking: Fitzy looked at Lennox who was waist deep in the water
Father of the year: The doting dad leaned in to give his youngest son a kiss and a hug
He continued: 'I was adopting razor dogs off the street she adopted my heart. She built a beautiful relationship, I made her a fendi leather handbag from a guy called Kampung in Canggu.'
Fitzy and his radio co-host Wippa recently had a small reason to celebrate after their radio show saw a minimal lift of 0.3, leaving them a 7.7 per cent share of the market.
The Kyle and Jackie O show, which airs on KIIS 106.5, boasted a half point increase to a 10.4 share, leaving Rove and Sam lagging behind, according to Radio Today.
Having fun: Everybody had fun on the equipment at the water park
Water slide: The water slides come in various colours, such as red and green and yellow
Enjoying himself: Fitzy slid down the slide and appeared to be enjoying himself
Feeling blue? Fitzy slid down the slide on a blue mat which helped him go faster
They've been partying up a storm in Mallorca as they film the TOWIE summer special.
And Megan McKenna and Pete Wicks looked more loved-up than ever as they hit the town in Palma to film new scenes with their co-stars on Wednesday afternoon.
Putting on a leggy display as they strolled along hand-in-hand, Megan, 23, looked incredible in a backless lemon yellow halterneck minidress.
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Going strong: Megan Mckenna and Peter Wicks looked more loved-up than ever as they stepped out hand-in-hand in Mallorca on Wednesday
Showing off her deep Mediterranean tan, the reality star emphasised her toned legs with a pair of towering gold wedge heels.
Wearing her brunette tresses in a sleek high bun piled high on top of her head, the former Celebrity Big Brother star looked every inch the glamour puss for her day of filming.
Megan accentuated her pretty features with heavy make-up, and toted her belongings in a multi-coloured
Posing up a storm: Tanned Megan put on a racy display in a short flirty halterneck dress which showed off her long toned legs
Accentuating her deep tan, she added a touch of bronzer to highlight her cheekbones, and went for dark sultry eye make-up and glossy lips.
Dressing up her frilly outfit, Megan opted for killer-heeled gold wedges and a pretty embroidered clutch.
The former Ex On The Beach star looked thrilled with her ensemble, beaming as she posed for pictures with her beau.
Loved up: Megan, 23, and her 27-year-old beau looked summer-chic as they enjoyed the Mediterranean sunshine in between filming scenes for hit reality series TOWIE
Mancandy: Pete looked dapper in ripped jeans, leaving his crisp white shirt open to reveal his heavily tattoed chest
Pete looked dapper in ripped jeans, leaving his crisp white shirt open to reveal his heavily tattoed chest.
Accessorising with a gold chain, sunglasses and beige loafers he looked every inch the perfect eye candy material for Megan.
The attractive couple have been dating since the beginning of the year, after she joined the Essex cast following her stint on Ex on The Beach and then Celebrity Big Brother.
Hot stuff: The attractive couple have been dating since the beginning of the year, after she joined the Essex cast following her stint on Ex on The Beach
Dressed to impress: The brunette beauty was perfectly put together, looking good from head to toe
Stylish touches: The fiery-tempered brunette was carrying a quirky, embroidered clutch bag
They are joining the rest of the TOWIE cast in Majorca, to film their annual Spanish pilgrimage in which they bring their dramas to shores away from their native Essex.
Feisty Megan has taken a number of attempts at fame through the reality television circuit and will undoubtedly be overjoyed to be at the forefront of the reality world.
She has enjoyed two stints on Ex On The Beach, a turn in CBB, failed audition attempts on Britain's Got Talent and The X Factor and a brief role in Jessica Wright's now-defunct girl group Lola.
She rose to fame after playing Naomi Lapaglia in 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street, alongside onscreen husband Leonardo DiCaprio.
And speaking with Vanity Fair, August cover star Margot Robbie revealed that her R-rated scenes were the first 'proper' sex scenes she had ever filmed.
Reflecting on the experience, the 26-year-old admitted that there is 'no way to prepare,' adding: 'It's so awkward.'
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Uncomfortable: Margot Robbie dished about filming her first sex scene for 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street as she chatted with Vanity Fair as their August cover girl
'Get on with it' She admitted that there's no way to prepare, saying you just have to do what you need to do, and the 'sooner you do it, the sooner you can stop doing it' (pictured with co-star Leonardo DiCaprio)
Margot had thought back on her previous roles, noting that she had had a shower scene in a low-budget film she had done in Australia.
'I was practically naked there as well but it wasn't anywhere near as much as Wolf,' she had started, before clarifying: 'Actually, I hadnt done a proper sex scene before.'
'Id done scenes where its leading into sex or sex has just finished, but I hadnt done a start-to-finish sex scene like I did in Wolf. That was my first,' she shared.
And she shared that while they can be difficult to tackle, as 'tons of people are watching you,' you just have to get the job done.
Center of attention: Margot called the process 'so embarrassing' as you have to film the intimate scenes with 'tons of people watching you'
When asked if she was worried she wouldn't be able to do it, she gushed: 'There isnt an option. Its just like, This is what you need to do - get on with it. The sooner you do it, the sooner you can stop doing it.'
And while filming the scenes was uncomfortable, Margot had just shared with Sunday Night that viewing them wasn't much better.
She revealed that she had had a screening of the movie for family members, noting: 'I didn't really think it through.'
'And after the screening, It was cool with most family members, but afterwards [my older brother Lachlan] and I had the most awkward conversation ever.'
She worked for it! On landing her role on famous Aussie soap Neighbours (pictured with co-star Jackie Woodburne in 2009), Margot revealed that she had hunted down the information for the production company and called every day until she was able to set up a meeting
'He tried to say congratulations, and we tried to hug it out, and it was just so weird that I said, 'OK, we don't have to talk for a couple of days now' ... And then we never spoke of it again!'
Margot also discussed how she had landed her first big role prior to the 2013 Oscar nominee, admitting her agent wanted her to audition for famous Aussie soap Neighbours as she couch-surfed around Melbourne while looking for work.
The determined actress then took it upon herself to make it happen, hunting down the number for the production company.
Keeping busy: The Australian actress currently stars alongside Alexander Skarsgard in The Legend of Tarzan, and will soon appear as Harley Quinn in the highly anticipated Suicide Squad, which hits theaters August 5
'I called every day, and, eventually, one day, they put me through to Jan Russ, a producer for Neighbors,' Margot shared.
She added that she 'got her on the phone just as I was about to leave Melbourne,' securing a meeting at just the right time.
Turns out the show was casting for a 17-year-old, which was perfect for the then 17-year-old Margot, who made her debut just weeks later on the series as Donna Freedman.
She was quickly famous in Australia for the role, starring on a series that also boasts successful alumni such as Russell Crowe, Naomi Watts, Heath Ledger, and Chris Hemsworth.
Margot currently appears alongside Alexander Skarsgard, Christoph Waltz, and Samuel L. Jackson in David Yates's The Legend of Tarzan.
As the star of Million Dollar Listing, he has impeccable style and a taste of the high-life.
So, Frederik Ekland knows there're nothing better than a luscious Italian lunch eaten al fresco, with a stunning view.
He shared a snap of his sumptuous rose wine-fueled feast in Portofino, Italy, on Wednesday, captioned: 'One last lunch.'
Luxury break: Frederik Ekland is on vacation in Italy with his husband Derek Kaplan
The 39-year-old has been enjoying a vacation in the European country with his husband Derek Kaplan for the past week.
He shared a number of enviable images from the sunny break, including a topless shot in the pool where he showcased his muscular torso.
Wearing a pair of orange board shorts, the property guru relaxed pool side with Derek - who he married in February 2013 in the Florida Keys.
Yummy lunch: He shared a snap of his sumptuous rose wine-fueled feast in Portofino, Italy, on Wednesday, captioned: 'One last lunch'
The Bravo TV star started the luxury trip as he wished to continue - in business class.
He captioned a snap cosied up en route from NYC to his destination: 'Good night and love you guys. When we wake up we'll be in beautiful ITALY! So sleep tight zzzzz.'
They appear to have been staying at the exclusive Hotel Splendido, where a suite at this time of year costs around $4800 per night.
Cute couple: The property guru cosied up to Derek - who he married in February 2013 in the Florida Keys
Good times: He was with his family too
Lavish: They appear to have been staying at the exclusive Hotel Splendido, where a suite at this time of year costs around $4800 per night
Best friends: He paid tribute to his partner of six years in a gushing Instagram post
Luxury lifestyle: As the host of Million Dollar Listing, he has impeccable style and a taste of the high-life
Sealed with a kiss: The couple were caught up with the romance of their setting
Diving in: He shared a number of enviable images from the sunny break, including a topless shot in the pool where he showcased his muscular torso
The Swedish-born star shared an affectionate tribute to his Zimbabwe-born artist partner of six years as they were sight-seeing around the fishing village.
Posting an image of a picturesque cove, he wrote: 'Derek and I left the group, walked alone beyond the tourists and found this cove. Colorful Italian stone mansions and cypress trees. Fields of hydrangeas and little birds. I can't even believe it's real but real it sure is.
'I'm here with him, my husband. My brother. My sister-in-law. My best friend. All together. I've been looking forward to this forever, yet when I'm here I know it can't be any other way. The rose wine from lunch helps. I'm completely obsessed with the local grilled deboned white fish sprinkled with sea salt, so simple yet so complex in its taste. And the olive oil is so smooth (I finally - after 6 years - figured out the color of Big D's eyes = olive oil!).
'I think of all the hard work getting here. To this very moment. I think of the years in New York. The Swedish winters. And then I look out over the turquoise ocean. It was all meant to be. All of it, every single step. Even writing this and sharing it with you. Thank you... Now I'm going to turn my phone off before Derek throws it in the ocean.'
Exploring: The handsome couple looked sartorially in tune as they went sightseeing
Vacay joy: Wearing a pair of orange board shorts and a green T-short, Fredrik declared his love for Portofino
Way to wake up: He knows there're nothing better than a luscious Italian meal eaten al fresco, with a stunning view
Full hearts and tummies: Yet another delicious looking meal from their trip
Kicks off: He sounded very happy to be on vacation
Time out: The couple also explored in the evenings
Nice way to start! The Bravo TV star began the luxury trip as he wished to continue - in business class
The couple seem to be closer than ever after the heartbreak of a miscarriage by their surrogate, ten months ago.
The 6ft5in Swede shared the struggle of recovering from losing their twin daughters (one of which was called 'Milla') via the unnamed surrogate.
'I've been a total sad mess inside,' Fredrik - who boasts 1.3M followers - wrote online September 15.
Sad loss: The couple seem to be closer than ever after the heartbreak of a miscarriage by their surrogate, ten months ago
She welcomed her first child in December of last year.
And now it looks like Michelle Bridges is getting back to her pre-pregnancy social life after having her hands full with baby Axel.
On Wednesday, the 45-year-old took a walk on the wild side after partner, Steve 'Commando' Willis, took her to see screamo metal band Parkway Drive in Melbourne.
A walk on the wild side! Michelle Bridges broadened her musical horizons by attending a metal concert on Wednesday with partner Steve 'Commando' Willis
'Ok, well I went with @commandosteve to my very first @parkwaydriveofficial concert!!!' wrote the fitness fanatic on Instagram.
She added: 'Too much FUN!!!'
The Biggest Loser bombshell also shared a video of the occasion, which showed Steve headbanging and shouting along to the lyrics.
Enjoying himself: Commando banged his head and shouted along to the music and lyrics
'Ok, well I went with @commandosteve to my very first @parkwaydriveofficial concert!!! Too much fun!!!' wrote Michelle on Instagram
Earlier this week, the happy couple shared a sweet photo of baby Axel to Instagram.
And in the image, it's clear that their son takes after his father.
In the snap, their cherubic boy smiles into the camera, his piercing blue eyes and features are clearly those of his father's.
Apple doesn't fall far from the tree! Michelle Bridges and partner Steve 'Commando' Willis' tiny tot Axel smiles into the camera and looks just like his daddy
He keeps his little head warm beneath a grey knitted beanie with small animal ears and he is swaddled against the cold in a colourful scarf.
But it is his facial features that immediately spark images of his Biggest Loser trainer father.
Days earlier, Michelle shared another snap of her and Axel returning home from an outing, and she dons an all-black ensemble, showing off her trim and toned pins.
Happy days: Michelle and Steve welcomed baby Axel in December 2015. Pictured in May this year
She wearing a similar beanie to that of her son's, however, her hat is black to match her outfit.
She captioned this snap: 'Me and my boy done and dusted with our park work out! Whilst wearing my special beanie!!!'
In a nod to Carrie Bickmore's Beanies For Brain Cancer initiative, she added the hashtags: #beanies4braincancer and #brainbeats2015, as well as tagging The Project co-host.
Legs eleven! Michelle shared a snap of her and Axel returning home from an outing, and she is donning an all-black ensemble, showing off her trim and toned pins
Speaking with Daily Mail Australia in February, the new mother said she's learning a lot from her beau, whom she describes as a 'completely hands-on' parent.
'He's well practised in this area,' she said.
'It's his fourth child... He's showing me the ropes!' she laughed.
A team: The new mother said she's learning a lot from her beau, who she describes as a 'completely hands-on' parent
She added they work well together as a parenting team, saying they're 'enjoying the ride' with their tiny tot.
Commando, 39, has two children with Froso - Ella, six, and Jack, three - with the former military man leaving his partner- when Jack was just a baby - for his 44-year-old co-star Michelle.
The Biggest Loser trainer also has a 17-year-old daughter, Brianna, from a previous relationship.
On Tuesday, she treated her eight-year-old daughter Ever Garbo to a stylish day out when they attended Chanel's presentation during Paris's Haute Couture Fashion Week.
But on Wednesday, it was a strictly grown-up affair for 40-year-old Milla Jovovich, when she arrived at Elie Saab's Autumn/Winter runway show in a bra-flashing semi-sheer black top.
While the Ukrainian-born beauty's top of choice only featured a sheer panel down the centre, the brunette beauty opted to turn up the heat a little more by leaving it largely unbuttoned.
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Passion for fashion: Milla Jovovich, left, and Petra Nemcova, right, were among the guests at Elie Saab's Autumn/Winter runway show during Paris's Haute Couture Fashion Week on Wednesday
She teamed the eye-catching top with a pair of high-waisted blue jeans, which showed off her long lean legs, lengthened slightly with the help of open-toed strappy heels.
Her wavy brown tresses fell just above her striking green eyes as she made her way into the hot ticket fashion event with a smart cream handbag resting on her shoulder.
At the event, she was joined by 37-year-old Czech beauty Petra Nemcova, who went for a completely different look in a red minidress.
Taking plunge: Milla turned heads with her choice of semi-sheer black top, which showed off her black bra
She's got it in the jeans! The Ukrainian-born beauty teamed her top with a pair of high-waisted blue jeans
While the frock's high neckline and long bell sleeves gave her a particularly demure look, the thigh-skimming length allowed her to show off her endless shapely legs.
The blonde beauty's healthy golden hair cascaded beyond her shoulders in bombshell curls, while her bright red lipstick served as the perfect complement for her dress.
Carrying a patterned clutch bag, the star strode her way into the event in strappy black suede heels, which featured ankle-length tassels.
Milla and her husband Paul W. S. Anderson, 50, have been married since 2009 and share two daughters, Ever Gabo and Dashiel Edan, one.
Ravishing: Czech beauty Petra wowed as she arrived at the runway show in a thigh-skimming red minidress
Demure: The dress featured a high neckline and bell sleeves, giving her something of a demure look
Strike a pose! As she waited for the show to kick off, pretty Petra struck her best poses for photographers
Blonde ambition: Her healthy blonde tresses cascaded beyond her shoulders in bombshell curls
She was briefly married to French director Luc Besson in 1997, after starring in her breakout role alongside Bruce Willis as orange haired Supreme Being Leeloo in sci-fi flick The Fifth Element.
The actress also wed her Dazed and Confused co-star Shawn Andrews in 1992, aged just 16, but her mother annulled their marriage just two months later.
Earlier this year, Milla wrapped filming for Resident Evil: The Final Chapter in South Africa.
The sci-fi horror film - which has a US release date of January 27, 2017 - is the latest in the series and follows Alice, played by Jovovich, as she deals with a recent betrayal while striving to save humanity from the undead hordes.
Hanging loose: Milla turned up the heat in her attire of choice by leaving her daring top unbuttoned
Pretty green: The actress's chestnut brown locks rested just about her stunning green eyes
He is set to launch a You Tube show based on his life.
But before that series debuts, he made sure to get in some vacation time by boarding a Disney cruise to the Bahamas and the Caribbean.
The 42-year old TV personality shared the fun on Wednesday by posting an Instagram snap showcasing the happy foursome before they take off for Castaway Cay, Disney's private island in the Bahamas.
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Ready for some fun? Mario Lopez took some well deserved time off by bringing his family on a Disney cruise line to the Bahamas and the Caribbean
He added the caption: 'Off to Mickey's private island... #CastawayCay #FamiliaLopez #DisneyCruise.'
The 'Familia Lopez' is comprised by his wife, actress and producer Courtney Mazza, 33, their daughter, Gia Francesca, aged six, and their son, Dominic, aged three.
Gia and Dominic are pictured in his two most recent Instagram snaps.
One, simply captioned 'Lopez boys', showcases Lopez standing with his son by Castaway Cay's shore as the two face away from the camera and gaze at the Disney boat anchored in the distant horizon.
The second one, captioned 'Mija' sees little Gia posing for the camera while trying out the pristine Bahamian waters.
Sweet childs of mine: Gia and Dominic are pictured in two most recent Instagram snaps
Viva la Familia Lopez: The Extra host, his wife Courtney, 33, and their children, Gia Francesca, aged six, and their son, Dominic, aged three, are all pictured at the Bahamas in another Instagram he shared on Tuesday
The Lopez family is pictured again in another Instagram that The Extra host shared on Tuesday, which sees the happy family enjoying the balmy tropical weather on the Bahamian oasis.
The New York Times bestselling author and his wife hare halfway immersed in the clear turquoise waters of the pristine island while holding on tight to their cocktails on one hand, and their children on the other.
He added the sweet caption: 'Caribbean queen & kiddos... #Bahamas #FamiliaLopez #DisneyCruise.'
And again on Tuesday the former sitcom star shared another family snap as they all go for a ride on Disney's Millennium Falcon, with the caption: 'Lopez Fam Bam took over the Millennium Falcon... #Cruise #NextStopBahamas.'
Fancy a Star Wars ride? The former Sitcom star shared another family snap as they all go for a ride on Disney's Millennium Falcon
Moms love him: At the end of June Lopez has reportedly signed with AwesomenessTVs family friendly Awestruck network to create programming aimed at millennial moms. He is pictured here at an event in Las Vegas in May
At the end of June Lopez has reportedly signed with AwesomenessTVs family friendly Awestruck network to create programming aimed at millennial moms.
The former Saved By The Bell star will create content focused on what he calls his 'four Fs:' family, food, fitness and faith and will see him star along with his wife and their children.
The deal will see him launch a personal YouTube channel at the end July under the Awestruck banner.
When asked about his promising new venture he said: 'Im so excited to launch my personal YouTube channel with Awestruck. Their focus on family and fun made them the perfect partner. And the fact that I get to include my family makes it that much better.'
The Emmy winner has been married to Mazza since December 2012. The two started dating in the fall of 2008.
Rachel McAdams and her new screenwriter boyfriend Jamie Linden appear to be getting serious.
The new couple attended a friend's wedding in Virginia last month, shortly after they were spotted embracing during a vacation to Paris in May.
Rachel wore a red frilly dress as she posed with her beau in a pal's wedding photos, which surfaced on Instagram last month.
Getting serious? Actor Rachel McAdams and screenwriter Jamie Liden, second back right, were all smiles as they attended a friend's wedding in Virginia last month
The actress beamed as she stood beside her date, who looked sharp in a dark suit.
And in May, Rachel, 37,and the writer-director, 36, spent time together on a romantic trip to Paris.
The couple cosied up as they waited in line for the famous Louvre art museum.
PDA alert: The Notebook star wrapped her arms around the 37-year-old writer's neck as they waited in line for the Louvre museum while in Paris in May
For their low-key trip, the Morning Glory star wore a dark windbreaker and cap, while Jamie wore a LA Dodgers cap.
They stood close as they waited to enter the famous museum. At one point, Rachel reached up to put an arm around the We Are Marshall Writer and pulled him close.
The Canadian actress also took time to pose for a selfie with fans while in Paris, wearing a dark cap, sunglasses and a pink scarf.
Romantic getaway: The couple appeared to be going strong as they cosied up while on vacation in Paris
Quick photo op: The actress also stopped to pose for a selfie with fans while in Paris
Their trip to Paris in May came around the time that Jamie was at the Cannes Film Festival to promote his new film Money Monster.
He wrote the script for the film, which was directed by Jodie Foster and starred George Clooney and Julia Roberts.
The Hollywood screenwriter also wrote the Amanda Seyfried and Channing Tatum film Dear John.
Yes he Cannes: Jamie attended the Cannes Film Festival to promote his latest movie Money Monster on May 12. Above, Jamie, left, at a photo call with George Clooney, director Jodie Foster and Julia Roberts
He made his directorial debut with 2011's 10 Years, which featured an all-star cast including Channing, Rosario Dawson, Chris Pratt, Aubrey Plaza and Anthony Mackie.
Before his relationship with Rachel, Jamie dated New Girl star Zooey Deschanel. They split in 2014 after two years.
Rachel has been linked to a number of her costars, most recently her True Detective costar Taylor Kitsch.
Outdoorsy: The Hollywood screenwriter penned Channing Tatum film Dear John and Matthew McConaughey's We Are Marshall, and previously dated actress Zooey Deschanel
Hollywood writer: The Money Monster writer shared a photo of a helicopter trip on his Instagram
She famously dated The Notebook costar Ryan Gosling, and also dated her Before Midnight costar Michael Sheen for two years.
They split in 2013, after meeting on the set of the Woody Allen film.
She was also previously linked to Canadian music manager Patrick Sambrook in 2014.
She celebrated her birthday in typically lavish style, flying out to Mykonos with her beau and family.
And Lindsay Lohan looked to be making the most of her time in the Grecian sun, as she hit one of the island's many beaches in a flesh-flashing swimsuit along with her fiance, Egor Tarabasov .
After celebrating her 30th birthday with a big meal on Monday, the Mean Girls star decided to top-up her tan in a perilously plunging red one-piece.
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Siren on the sands: Lindsay Lohan looked to be making the most of her time in the Grecian sun, as she hit one of the island's many beaches in a flesh-flashing swimsuit
Opting for a flesh-flashing bandage number, the actress made sure she cut a sizzling sight on the beach.
Slipping into the skintight one-piece, Lindsay flashed more than a hint of her cleavage, thanks to the swimsuit's deeply plunging neckline.
Featuring sheer striped detailing, to five a bandage effect, the flame-haired beauty ensured that all eyes (including Egor's) were firmly on her.
Padding along the shores barefoot, the Canyons star showed off her lithe and gym-honed legs.
Loved-up: After celebrating her 30th birthday with a big meal on Monday, the Mean Girls star decided to top-up her tan, and made her way onto the sands with fiance, Egor Tarabasov
And, in-keeping with her beachy look, Lindsay left her look devoid of accessories, save for a couple of coulourful bangles on each wrist and a pair of shades.
Wearing her long red hair loose and brushed over to one side, the Hollywood star let her tress tumble down over one shoulder.
Going make-up free on the beach, the actress showed off her flawless alabaster complexion and pretty features.
Taking the plunge: Slipping into the skintight one-piece, Lindsay flashed more than a hint of her cleavage, thanks to the swimsuit's deeply plunging neckline
Showing some skin: Featuring sheer striped detailing, to five a bandage effect, the flame-haired beauty ensured that all eyes (including Egor's) were firmly on her
Lithe and leggy: Padding along the shores barefoot, the Canyons star showed off her lithe and gym-honed legs
Sunny siren: And, in-keeping with her beachy look, Lindsay left her look devoid of accessories, save for a couple of coulourful bangles on each wrist and a pair of shades
And it seemed that Lindsay and her rumoured fiance, Egor, 22, are still thoroughly in the throws of their honeymoon period, as they packed on the PDA.
The son of Russian millionaire Dmitry Tarabasov kept things casual in a pair of blue patterned swimming shorts.
Cuddling up to her beau on the sands, the Hollywood star and her property tycoon beau looked the picture of love; with the couple unable to keep their hands off of each other.
Love birds abroad: And it seemed that Lindsay and her rumoured fiance, Egor, 22, are still thoroughly in the throws of their honeymoon period, as they packed on the PDA
Sweet nothings: Nuzzling into Lindsay's head, Egor lavished affection on his fiancee
Beau on the beach: Egor, the son of Russian millionaire Dmitry Tarabasov, kept things casual in a pair of blue patterned swimming shorts
Packing on the PDA: Lindsay and Egor could barely keep their hands off of each other
Their outing to the beach came shortly after they were spotted shopping for rings after a family lunch.
The couple are rumoured to have got engaged earlier this year, so Lindsay's latest shopping spree may have been for wedding bands.
The Russian business heir reportedly proposed to the actress at a Duran Duran concert in front of her parents Michael and Dina Lohan in April.
News of the engagement was sparked when she began to wear rings on her fourth finger, although a representative for the star later shot down the claims.
The loved-up pair have been an item since meeting at a party in 2015 and have now been dating for seven months.
Shopping for something special? Their outing to the beach came shortly after they were spotted shopping for rings after a family lunch
Bethenny Frankel revealed earlier this week that she reached out to her estranged mum after her daughter Bryn asked about her. They had not spoken in 12 years.
But her mom, Bernadette Birk, countered to Radar Online that the 45-year-old didn't make an effort of her own accord, but just did what Bryn asked, and said she didn't have any emotion about it.
On Wednesday the RHONY star put on a brave face as she took to Snapchat to show off her toned figure.
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Abs-fab! Bethenny Frankel revealed her impressively sculpted midsection as she posed in a tint blue triangle bikini on Wednesday
If her mother's cold comments was hurtful for the reality star, she was sure not to show it, as she showcased the figure she has built her brand on.
The small screen firecracker revealed her impressively sculpted midsection as she posed in a tiny blue triangle bikini.
She shared the Snapchat video, which left little to the imagination, of her reflection in a bathroom mirror.
She's a SkinnyGirl: She's built her brand on her taut and toned figure
The SkinnyGirl founder showed off the fruits of her healthy living as she revealed her slim waist and ripped physique.
Her chestnut tresses were worn loose and she appeared to be make-up free as she got set for a well-earned beach day.
She spent the Independence Day holiday weekend in the Hamptons, after recently revealed she had reached out to her mother following a 12 year feud.
During her Sirius XM radio show, B Real with Bethenny, the Real Housewives Of New York City star said it was her daughter Bryn, aged six, who asked her to call a truce.
'My daughter said, "Mommy, are your parents alive?" I said, "My daddy's not alive and my mommy is alive." She said, "I want to meet your mommy."'
This was a shock to the Bravo star who has not been close to her mother since fame hit.
Slim: She spent the Independence Day holiday weekend in the Hamptons, getting a beach break from the buzz of NYC
Their relationship got nasty with bitter barbs traded on both sides after Frankel relayed some of the details of her tough upbringing in one of her books.
As recently as March, Bernadette told InTouch Weekly: 'Shes a miserable daughter, and if we never speak again, itll be too soon.'
Bethenny sounded understandably nervous about calling her mother.
'I thought, "Oh God, I've got to reach out to her,"' said the TV icon
But when she did, she got a nice reception, which surprised her.
Mind the heat! She got involved in some bikini-clad grilling action over the weekend
'I think that sheand maybe my stepfatherhave been hurt because some of the truths of my childhood have been in some of my books as it pertains to how I got here success-wise and how I got here sucking at relationships-wise,' Frankel said.
'So, I said to her, "This is my truth, and I've only told about 10 percent of my truth. And your life is your truth and what got you here.
'And the mistakes that you madeyou had me at 20I'm not angry. I'm just telling you that my daughter has asked for you. She's 6 years old."'
She added: 'It was actually not an excruciating conversation.'
Recently, Bethenny revealed she had reached out to her estranged mother Bernadette Birk, following a 12 year feud
However, it now seems that she and her mom haven't exactly kissed and made up.
Bernadette Birk told Radar Online her version of events,
'I dont think she really reached out, her daughter asked about me,' she explained. 'She didnt reach out; the daughter did.'
Birk said that she has never met Bryn, but had a chat with her and barely interacted with Bethenny during the phone call.
'Well, I just said hello,' she recalled. 'I dont know the child. Ive never seen her, so it was very short little conversation. I asked her about her school and her age and just simple little questions. I didnt really speak to the mother that much.'
They eloped in April and planned to honeymoon in the UK this week.
But Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Chelsea Peretti and husband Jordan Peele's romantic vacation plans were brought to a stunning halt by a TSA employee at Los Angeles International Airport, she tweeted Wednesday.
'Big shout out to the LAX employee who barred my husband from getting on out flight (our honeymoon) bc his passport page was a little worn,' she wrote on Twitter.
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Apart: Chelsea Peretti and Jordan Peele started their honeymoon thousands of miles apart after the Comedy Central star was barred by a TSA agent at LAX from boarding a flight to London over a worn passport page
Chelsea, 38, married the Comedy Central star Jordan, 37, after dating for three years.
And while she flew to London, he remained stuck in Los Angeles.
The comedienne and actress tried to put her best stiff upper lip forward in a follow-up tweet, which read: Solo honeymoon should be cool too!'
Not amused: The comedienne and Brooklyn Nine-Nine actress, who did board the flight, went on a Twitter rant about what happened on Wednesday after landing in the British capital
But then she revealed in more tweets that as she started to cry, the male employee told her: ' 'Believe me, things happen for a reason' So beautiful!!'
'He was also like (encouraging voice) 'There's an 80% chance he'll make it,' she tweeted.
Jordan hasn't tweeted anything on his official Twitter about his ordeal.
Handled it with grace: The stand-up star managed to keep hold of her sense of humor telling one Twitter follower she was in London 'investigating Brexit' and inviting fans to join her for a jacket potato and a chat
Needed company: She put out a Twitter invitation to her London fans as she began her solo honeymoon
But Chelsea seems to be making the best of the situation, telling one fan she'd be taking some time 'investigating Brexit.'
She also gave a shout out to her British Twitter followers: 'Who's in London? Wanna grab a jacket potato and talk for five hours? or cud talk about jam or something. The TSA...etc.'
She's the co-founder of popular blog titled A Bikini A Day.
So it was no surprise to see Natasha Oakley in yet another sultry swim ensemble on Wednesday.
Taking to Instagram, the 25-year-old shared a photo of herself in a red hot two-piece, featuring an off-shoulder top and matching high-waisted bottoms.
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Red hot: On Wednesday Natasha Oakley shared a sultry snap of herself in a striking scarlet bikini while holidaying in Greece
'When your bestie is your personal photographer Swimwear details in the link in my bio X (sic),' the blonde beauty captioned the snap, no doubt referring to her as best friend Devin Brugman as the snapper in this case.
The pair are enjoying a holiday in Greece at the moment, and the picturesque backdrop of Kalafati beach was phenomenal.
However it's clear Natasha's bombshell look stole the show, with her slender arms, trin pins and taut stomach on show for all to see.
Her gorgeous golden locks were worn out in tousled waves, while she completed her look with a pair of sassy shades.
Bottoms up! Earlier on she shared a steamy snap of herself posing in a tangerine bikini
The curvaceous blonde has been enjoying a seemingly endless holiday in the Greek Islands with her fellow A Bikini A Day blogger bestie Devin Brugman, fashion designer Anna Rosa Vitiello and friend Lexi Abrams.
Natasha has been dutifully documenting her adventures in paradise, sharing an image of herself clad in a red-and-white striped play-suit posing in front of Kalafati beach Mykonos on Tuesday.
Life's a beach! Natasha has been dutifully documenting her adventures in paradise, sharing an image of herself clad in a red-and-white striped play-suit posing in front of Kalafati beach Mykonos on Tuesday
Back in black! Natasha also wore this black netted bikini in a photo taken in Mykonos
Devin made a foray into Natasha's Instagram feed in a subsequent image shared on Wednesday, in which the pair are pictured wandering between the white-washed buildings of a cobble-stoned Mykonos street.
Natasha also shared an image of herself modelling a white sun-dress in broderie anglaise, which featured a plunging neckline that revealed her ample decolletage.
She completed her look with a broad straw sun-hat and a matching straw clutch bag.
Exploring paradise: Devin made a foray into Natasha's Instagram feed in a subsequent image shared on Wednesday, in which the pair are pictured wandering between the white-washed buildings of a cobble-stoned Mykonos street
Breezy: Natasha also shared an image of herself modelling a white sun-dress in broderie angais, which featured a plunging neckline that revealed her ample decolletage
Meanwhile, Devin shared an image of herself posing in front of a cliff-side beach in Mykonos on Tuesday as she modelled a pale blue and red play-suit.
Posing with her arms lazily reaching toward her hair, the bronzed brunette looked as relaxed as ever as she luxuriated in the sun.
Tash and her busty pal Devin launched the blog A Bikini A day back in 2012 and have since released their own bikini collection, Monday Swimwear and more recently an activewear line, Monday Active.
Flaunting her figure: Meanwhile, Devin shared an image of herself posing in front of a cliff-side beach in Mykonos on Tuesday as she modelled a pale blue and red play-suit
Their blog follows their bikini-clad travels around the world and the pair now boast a combined 3,000,000 plus followers on social media.
Earlier this year, they unveiled their six-week fitness programme, Body Love, which includes a total of ten workouts with strength and cardio training.
The mantra for the workout program is 'loving your body, and then giving your body love', with a message of embracing one's imperfections.
Wish you were here: Natasha Oakley showed off her incredible figure in a bikini during her trip to Mykonos
While she's enjoyed several years of success as an actress and chart-topping singer, Jennifer Lopez's shapely derriere has also been embraced by countless fans as a much-admired asset.
And the star - who celebrates her 47th birthday later this month - shared a glimpse of her beloved booty as she made her way onto the set of her cop drama Shades of Blue on Wednesday.
The stunning mother-of-two was seen wearing form-fitting grey sweatpants, which she teamed with a deeply plunging sleeveless black top and combat boots as she hit the Bronx, New York, set.
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Booty! Jennifer Lopez showed off her shapely derriere in tight grey sweatpants as she arrived on the Bronx, New York, set of her cop drama Shades Of Blue on Wednesday
With her brunette tresses styled in a simple topknot, Jennifer added a touch of Hollywood glamorous to her flattering ensemble with a pair of stylish oversized sunglasses.
The star was shooting scenes for her NBC show - which sees her playing a crime-fighting single mother - on location at the Supreme Court in her native Bronx.
And as she made it a family affair on Wednesday when she brought her mother, Guadalupe Rodriguez, to the set on the sweltering summer day.
Family affair: The star brought her mother Guadalupe Rodriguez with her to the set of the NBC series
Working mom: The actress, who plays an undercover cop and single mother in the show, was shooting scenes outside the Supreme Court in The Bronx
After slipping out her casual ensemble, Jennifer got into character, wearing a black short-sleeved peplum shirt teamed with loose-fitting pleated trousers.
Her honey brown locks were shoulder length and styled into curls with a side parting.
The location shoot took place just four miles from the Castle Hill district where Puerto Rican Guadalupe and David Lopez raised Jennifer and her two sisters.
Stylish: The glamorous singer and actress showed off her slim waist in a black short-sleeved peplum shirt with matching black pants and heels
Back to The Bronx: The shoot took place less than four miles from where the stunning superstar grew up
And the Jenny From The Block singer looked relaxed as she happily took time out from filming to snap selfies with fans and chill out in her trailer.
In the drama, she stars opposite Ray Liotta as an undercover cop who struggles to balance her work and family lives.
Her character, NYPD detective Harlee Santos, is forced to work in the FBI's anti-corruption task force while dealing with her own financial and personal problems.
Fan favourite: A relaxed Jennifer took time out to snap selfies with fans during breaks in filming
Quick fix: The mother-of-two was seen getting her makeup retouched between takes on the sweltering set
Jennifer knows what it's like to juggle career with family, as she is mother to eight-year-old twins Emme and Max, from her marriage to ex-husband Marc Anthony.
She is currently dating back-up dancer Casper Smart, 29.
And on Monday, the star revealed via Twitter that she has teamed with Hamilton star Lin-Manuel Miranda to record a benefit song for the Orlando nightclub shooting victims.
The pair shared some behind-the-scenes footage of them recording Love Make The World Go Round on their Twitter pages to promote the track.
Talking to me? The star appeared to be shooting an intense scene as she walked down the courthouse steps
Media personality Carrie Bickmore has recalled losing her husband Greg Lange to brain cancer, six years ago as she continues her campaign to raise $1 million for research into the disease.
Greg, who is the father of Carrie's first child Oliver, was first diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour in 2000. and the couple went on to wed in 2005 despite his fatal disease.
While she has found new love with her partner Chris Walker, with whom she shares a 16-month-old daiughter Evie, the 35-year-old Adelaide native remains committed to honouring Greg's legacy.
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Standing strong: Carrie Bickmore recently recalled losing her husband Greg Lange in 2010. She is pictured here with their nine-year-old son, Oliver, and her 16-month-old daughter Evie from a new relationship
'Greg will forever be in my current life. Every time I look at my son, I'm seeing Greg - he looks so much like him,' she told Australia Women's Weekly.
The Project host was a strong source of support for her dying husband Greg and his painful struggles would later inspire her to launch a foundation in his honour.
'Over ten years, I watched him suffer multiple seizures a day, lose feeling down one side of his body, saw his three-year-old push him in his wheelchair because he couldn't walk anymore,' she said during her speech at Melbourne's Crown Entertainment Complex.
Honouring his legacy: Greg was first diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour in 2000 and Carrie launched her Carrie's Beanies 4 Brain Cancer foundation in his honour following his 2010 death
New love: The Project host later found love with Chris Walker
Since losing Greg, Carrie has campaigned to raise money for research and to date, her Carrie's Beanies 4 Brain Cancer organization has raised $500,000, more than half of her $1 million goal.
Last year, while accepting a Gold Logie for Most popular TV personality, Carrie dedicated her speech to her late husband while donning one of her now famous beanies.
'I never would have thought saying something just so close to my heart as then going to throw people into action,' she said.
Expanding family: The couple welcomed a daughter Evie in March 2015
For Greg: Last year, while accepting a Gold Logie for Most popular TV personality, Carrie dedicated her speech to her late husband while donning one of her now famous beanies
'I'm really trying to leave an incredible legacy for my husband.'
Her idea to incorporate beanies into her charity came after witnessing Greg struggle with his surgical scars.
'He [Greg] used to wear a lot of beanies because he felt embarrassed about his scars,' she said.
'Beanies are really cool ... I want to get the nation talking about brain cancer.'
Happy: Carrie and Chris are said to be very much in love
She is one of the nations most loved stars, thanks to her incredible sense of humour and lovable personality.
But away from the limelight, Magda Szubanski has faced an internal battle for many years, dealing with depression for most of her adult life.
And in a new interview with The Australian Women's Weekly the 55-year-old has given a candid insight into her life as she opens about her sexuality and reveals she is finally being comfortable in her own skin.Scroll down for video
'I don't feel shy to talk about it anymore': Magda Szubanski has given a candid insight into her life as she opens about her sexuality and reveals she is finally being comfortable in her own skin
That sense of belonging and having a right to be in the world, I never had that, she confessed. I always felt I was here on other peoples good graces and I dont feel that now at all.
I dont feel shy about talking about my sexuality. Especially since coming out, it just gets easier and easier.
Despite knowing her sexuality from a young age, the star grew up in fear of anyone finding out but now she works as an avid campaigner for marriage equality.
Her words: The 55-year-old recently delighted fans by releasing a book titled Reckoning: A Memoir, in which she details her battle coming to terms with her sexuality
Magda - who is currently single - has revealed her despair for not having the right to get married in Australia, saying : It constantly sends the message that my love and my relationships are inferior and somehow pose a threat to humanity, to the wellbeing of the family.
I was never, ever the girl who was interested in marriage, which is why its interesting that Im this big advocate for marriage equality, she added.
The comedienne, who is a god-mother to David Campbells 18-month old daughter Betty, also admitted that there are days she is not sure whether she wants children or not.
'It sends the message that my relationships are inferior': The star - who is currently single - has revealed her despair for not having the right to get married in Australia
Magda recently delighted fans by releasing a book titled Reckoning: A Memoir, in which she details her battle coming to terms with her sexuality.
Appearing on The Project, she spoke about how she has mixed feelings toward the overwhelmingly positive response to her book.
'It feels amazing, it does puff up your ego and then you feel terribly hollow. But, really, the awards, the only thing about them is if you can use them to put them to some good use.'
Doting: The comedienne, who is a god-mother to David Campbells 18-month old daughter Betty, also admitted that there are days she is not sure whether she wants children or not
She's currently vying for her own happily ever after on ABC's The Bachelorette.
But JoJo Fletcher took some time away from passing out roses on Tuesday to catch up with her BFF and fellow reality television star Becca Tilley during a shopping trip in Beverly Hills.
The 25-year-old proved she's just as gorgeous without a stitch of makeup across her face, opting to leave her glam squad on set as she stepped looking fresh and flawless.
Bachelorette on the move: JoJo Fletcher took some time away from passing out roses on Tuesday to catch up with her BFF and fellow reality television star Becca Tilley during a shopping trip in Beverly Hills
Fletcher dressed for the scorching heat in a pair of high-waisted, white denim shorts that put her gym-honed legs on full display.
She tucked an olive green camisole into her svelte waistband, teaming the casually chic ensemble with a pair of snakeskin gladiator sandals.
JoJo wore her light brown locks in loose waves down and around her shoulders and polished off the look with a leather choker tied in a bow around her neck.
Selfie! Fletcher dressed for the scorching heat in a pair of high-waisted, white denim shorts that put her gym-toned legs on full display
Onlookers reported Fletcher looking rather stressed as she left the local craft store intently talking on the phone during multiple calls.
But her downcast mood made a sudden shift to cheery as she posed for a selfie with 27-year-old Tilley, who she met when they both starred on Ben Higgins' season of The Bachelor earlier this year.
The blonde beauty carried a large bouquet of faux flowers, looking fit for the summer season in purple Daisy Dukes and simple brown sandals.
From competitors to BFFs: Her downcast mood made a sudden shift to cheery as she posed for a selfie with 27-year-old Tilley, who she met when they both starred on Ben Higgins' season of The Bachelor earlier this year
Let's take a selfie: Though neither woman were offered an engagement ring during the twentieth season of the popular series, both JoJo and Becca have clearly found an unbreakable friendship within each other
Though neither woman were offered an engagement ring during the twentieth season of the popular series, both JoJo and Becca have clearly found an unbreakable friendship within each other.
Filming for JoJo's season of The Bachelorette wrapped back in May, but it's only now that fans have begun to witness her could-be love story unfold on television.
Starting with 26 hopefuls, the bombshell has since narrowed her search down to six lucky men. They've jet set around the world together, traveling to posh locations like Buenos Aires and Uruguay.
Season 12: Filming for JoJo's season of The Bachelorette wrapped back in May, but it's only now that fans have begun to witness her could-be love story unfold on television
Blair defends Iraq war after damning inquiry report
Former British prime minister Tony Blair defended his case for going to war in Iraq, after a long-awaited report found the 2003 invasion was based on flawed evidence and woefully executed.
The hugely anticipated Chilcot report offered a damning verdict on Britain's role in the US-led war, detailing the flawed intelligence, questionable legal basis and inadequate preparation for the occupation.
Britain deployed troops before diplomatic options had been exhausted and at a time when "there was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein", the Iraqi leader, the report found.
Former prime minister Tony Blair said he had "more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe" for mistakes in the planning of the Iraq war Stefan Rousseau (POOL/AFP)
It also highlighted how Blair wrote to US president George W. Bush in July 2002, the year before the invasion, saying: "I will be with you, whatever."
Blair mounted a passionate defence of his decisions in a two-hour press conference, telling reporters: "I believe we made the right decision and the world is better and safer".
His voice cracking with emotion, Blair said he had "more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe" for mistakes in the planning of a war that deeply divided Britain.
Anti-war protesters rallied in London as the report was released, shouting: "Blair lied, thousands died" and "war criminal Tony Blair".
Newspaper front pages were scathing, with The Times describing it as "Blair's private war" and the Daily Mail calling the former prime minister: "A monster of delusion".
Some 150,000 Iraqi people were killed in the six years after British and American troops invaded, plunging the country into chaos and creating fertile ground for jihadist groups like the Islamic State.
- 'Empty talk' -
In Iraq, still wracked by violence and reeling from a suicide bomb that killed at least 250 people in Baghdad this week, the findings counted for little.
"The report... will not change anything -- all this is empty talk," said Zainab Hassan, aged 60.
Former Australian leader John Howard Thursday defended his decision to go to war with Iraq alongside the US and Britain, saying it was justified at the time and there was "no lie."
"I believed that the decision to go into Iraq was justified at the time and I don't resile from that because I thought it was the right decision," he told a press conference in Sydney.
The war was justified at the time by claims that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, but they were never found and the intelligence was later withdrawn.
Inquiry chairman John Chilcot laid the blame for this firmly on spy chiefs, clearing Blair's officials of "improperly" influencing a key intelligence paper published in September 2002.
"There were no lies, parliament and cabinet were not misled, there was no secret commitment to war. The intelligence was not falsified and the decision was made in good faith," said Blair, who was prime minister for Labour from 1997 to 2007.
Bush also defended the invasion in a statement given through his spokesman, saying: "The whole world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power."
Relatives of some of the 179 British soldiers who died in Iraq said they would scrutinise the findings for possible grounds for legal action against Blair and other officials.
"The inquiry has confirmed all our fears that these young men and women were deployed on the back of a falsehood," said Roger Bacon, whose son Matthew, 34, died in 2005.
A cross-party group of MPs is also looking into the possibility of taking legal action against Blair, including in the International Criminal Court.
- 'A catastrophe' -
Judging the legality of the invasion was not in Chilcot's remit, but he said the process of deciding the legal basis for war was "far from satisfactory".
"We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort," he said.
Shortly after Blair spoke, current Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn -- a top figure in the anti-war campaign -- directly contradicted his predecessor Blair.
"The invasion and occupation of Iraq was a catastrophe," Corbyn told families of British soldiers who died.
"I now apologise sincerely on behalf of my party for the disastrous decision to go to war in Iraq."
The war, which at one point saw 46,000 British troops deployed, still looms large over British politics.
Britain's scarring experience in Iraq has made it deeply wary of committing ground troops to international military interventions in countries like Syria and Libya.
Retired civil servant Chilcot said his report was "an account of an intervention which went badly wrong, with consequences to this day".
In a statement to the House of Commons, Prime Minister David Cameron said: "We cannot turn the clock back but can ensure that lessons are learned and acted on".
Demonstrators wear masks depicting former British prime minister Tony Blair (L) and former US president George W. Bush, during a protest in London as they wait to hear the outcome of the Iraq Inquiry Daniel Leal-Olivas (AFP)
Iraq Inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot said his report was "an account of an intervention which went badly wrong, with consequences to this day" Jeff J Mitchell (POOL/AFP)
Rose Gentle and Sarah O'Connor attend a news conference held by relatives of military personnel killed during the Iraq War, after listening to John Chilcot present the findinggs of the report at the QEII Centre in London, on July 6, 2016 Dan Kitwood (Pool/AFP)
Bereaved relatives of the 179 troops who died in Iraq between between 2003 and 2009 have pressed for an inquiry into Britain's role in the conflict David Jones (Pool/AFP/File)
Iraq war casts long shadow over UK foreign policy
Britain's war in Iraq, to be examined in a major report due out Wednesday, instilled a deep sense of distrust towards military intervention that still casts a shadow over foreign policy, analysts say.
The decision to join the US-led invasion in 2003 on the basis of flawed intelligence, the occupation and Iraq's bloody descent into sectarian violence, have been examined in detail by the Chilcot inquiry.
But the experience, including the deaths of 179 British soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis, has already left its scars -- on both sides of the Atlantic.
The decision to join the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 on the basis of flawed intelligence, the occupation and Iraq's bloody descent into sectarian violence, have been examined in detail by the Chilcot inquiry Ahmad Al-Rubaye (AFP/File)
"It has defined Britain's security policy," said Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director general of the RUSI think tank.
"You can trace directly the reluctance of the British government to have boots on the ground in Libya or Syria to the experience in Iraq."
With France, Britain initiated efforts for a NATO-led no-fly zone during the uprising against Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi in 2011 -- but the mission was limited.
It is also conducting air strikes against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, but only after the House of Commons first voted against the mission in Syria in 2013.
"The debate that took place in the UK parliament was utterly dominated by Iraq," noted Jane Kinninmont, deputy head of the Middle East and North Africa programme at the Chatham House think tank.
"Even before that, back around 2005 when you had the severe ethnic cleansing in Darfur, it had become much harder even by then to argue for humanitarian intervention."
The initial justification for war was that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. But when these were not found, the attention switched to the benefits of having removed a brutal dictator.
"It has had a profound impact on public scepticism about the efficacy of military intervention and in particular, of interventions that are styled as humanitarian," Kinninmont said.
"In the US you have seen some parallels -- it became a major feature of Obama's election campaign that he would get the US out of military engagements in the Middle East."
- 'Policy vacuum' -
Kinninmont noted that Britain had moved towards working with military forces in the region, such as Jordan and the Gulf states, rather than taking action itself.
"The problem is that these forces are still not very strong," she said.
But John Bew, reader in history and foreign policy at King's College London, said Iraq had had a paralysing effect, accusing Britain of having a "non-policy" in Syria for many years.
"We stopped thinking seriously about how to manage down violence, how to stabilise the neighbourhood, how to do things like potentially humanitarian corridors, how to put more diplomatic pressure on the Assad regime," he said.
"There is a vacuum in Western foreign policy," he told AFP.
"We haven't addressed Syria and Libya on their merits so much as having a re-run about debates over Iraq. And at some point that has to stop."
The neo-conservative think tank the Henry Jackson Society also warned against retreating further following the publication of the Chilcot report.
"There are many significant failings and lessons to be learned from the Iraq war, as with any conflict," said its executive director Alan Mendoza.
"But one lesson that must not follow is that intervention is wrong, or that we are somehow responsible for the totality of the turmoil in the Middle East today."
His comments echo those made by former Labour prime minister Tony Blair, the man who took Britain into the war and recently called for Western countries to send in ground troops to defeat the IS group.
Escobar's brother asks to review new season of 'Narcos'
The brother of the late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar has asked Netflix to review the second season of the hit series "Narcos" before its release.
Roberto Escobar said in a statement released on Tuesday by Escobar Inc. that he had sent Netflix a "friendly request" to review the material "solely on an informational basis."
"It is depicting me, my life, my family and my brother," the statement said. "I think nobody else in the world is alive to determine the validity of the materials, but me."
(From L) Wagner Moura, Jose Padilla, Eric Newman and Boyd Holbrook attend the Q&A Screening of Neflix's 'Narcos', at Paramount Pictures Studios in Los Angeles, California, in May 2016 Valerie Macon (AFP/File)
Although Netflix has kept details of the second season of "Narcos" under wraps, it is understood that the shows will be available for the streaming service's 81 million subscribers in August, with the death of the feared Medellin Cartel's "Don Pablo" recreated in the finale.
The Colombian farmer's son who became the world's seventh-richest man with his ruthless dominance of the global cocaine trade was hunted for years before police killed him in his hometown of Medellin in 1993.
His brother Roberto was the cartel's chief accountant and served a lengthy spell in prison. He wrote about the group's exploits in a book entitled "The Accountant's Story: Inside the Violent World of the Medellin Cartel."
During the height of its operations, the cartel brought in more than $60 million a day, providing 80 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States.
Olof Gustafsson, the CEO of Escobar Inc., said he had tried to reach Netflix about the new season but had gotten no response.
"I think it is important that they recognize Roberto Escobar's wishes to review the show they are putting out, ensuring the family and viewers of an accurate portrayal of Pablo and Roberto," he said in the statement.
Netflix could not be immediately reached for comment.
Tony Blair: leader who could never get past Iraq
Tony Blair rode a wave of "Cool Britannia" optimism in his first heady years in office but is now reviled by many Britons who accuse him of leading the country into an unnecessary war in Iraq that shattered his legacy.
Published 13 years after the 2003 US-led invasion, Wednesday's Iraq War Inquiry report pointed the finger squarely at the former prime minister for catastrophic planning failures.
"I will be with you, whatever," Blair wrote in a note to then US president George W. Bush in July 2002, eight months before the invasion was launched.
Former British premier Tony Blair defended himself from the findings of the Chilcot Inquiry saying he acted in Britain's "best interests" Daniel Leal-Olivas (AFP)
Hundreds of people wearing Blair masks and carrying placards reading "Bliar" gathered outside the London conference centre where the report was unveiled, highlighting how divisive a figure Blair remains.
The contrast could not be greater with 1997 -- the year the youthful centre-left reformer Blair was elected in a surge of enthusiasm comparable to the historic 2009 election of US President Barack Obama.
Blair's achievements in office -- from securing peace in Northern Ireland to economic prosperity, devolving power to home nations and winning a record three general elections -- are now often overlooked.
Since leaving office, many in Britain have also viewed his moneymaking activities -- including advising countries with questionable human rights records such as Kazakhstan -- with distaste.
"The pity of Blair's position is that if it weren't for Iraq, more of the astonishing social transformation of Britain and the change in its structures of government would be recognised," commentator Bronwen Maddox wrote in Prospect magazine last month.
"As it is, he is all but disqualified from British and European politics."
The leadership of the Labour party which Blair led from 1994 until his resignation as premier in 2007 has now totally rejected his centrist policies, embracing a left-wing programme.
Its current leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a leading opponent of the Iraq war, is hoping to use the report to bolster his own position in the face of a massive rebellion by MPs against his leadership.
- Three straight election wins -
As Labour leader from 1994, Blair rebranded the historically socialist party as "New Labour" and hauled it to the centre ground to try and end a long spell in opposition.
In 1997 he was elected prime minister, at 43 becoming Britain's youngest premier since 1812, and ushering in a new era of hope and confidence for many after 18 years of Conservative governments.
The following year brought a peace deal in Northern Ireland, the British province devastated by three decades of violence between Protestant and Catholic communities.
With the economy booming, increases in spending on health and education helped secure another election win in 2001.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Blair was quick to ally Britain closely with Bush.
London sent troops to Afghanistan and agreed to join the US-led mission to remove Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003.
But one million people protested on the streets of London against the Iraq invasion, and when the evidence for the war proved flawed, wider dissatisfaction set in.
Blair won the election in 2005, a record third term for a Labour premier, but with a reduced majority.
On July 7, 2005, the day after London won the right to host the 2012 Olympic Games, four British suicide bombers attacked the capital's public transport system, killing 52 people.
Two years later Blair stood down after a long and increasingly bitter power play with finance minister Gordon Brown, who replaced him.
- 'Hard to apologise' -
Blair has spent much of the last decade abroad, including eight years as the unpaid envoy for the diplomatic Middle East Quartet but he stepped down last year after failing to produce a meaningful breakthrough.
He made a rare foray back into British politics to warn of the dangers of leaving the European Union in the June 23 referendum -- an intervention that fell on deaf ears.
A committed Christian who converted to Roman Catholicism after leaving office, Blair set up a foundation to support inter-faith dialogue and counter extremism, and has also worked with governments in developing nations in Africa.
In his defence following the publication of the Iraq War Inquiry on Wednesday, Blair said he had acted in "good faith" and in Britain's "best interests".
"I will take full responsibility for any mistakes without exception or excuse," he said.
Tony Blair was elected by a landslide in 1997, at 43 becoming Britain's youngest premier since 1812, and ushering in a new era of hope and confidence for the nation Michel Gangne (AFP/File)
Tony Blair wrote to George W. Bush "I will be with you, whatever" in the run-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq Paul J. Richards (AFP/File)
S. Korea to ramp up border propaganda broadcasts to North: report
The South Korean military is planning to ramp up its propaganda broadcasts targeting North Korean troops by doubling the number of loudspeakers along the heavily-fortified border, a report said Wednesday.
Since the North's widely-condemned nuclear test in January, the South has blasted a mix of news, propaganda messages and Korean pop music across the border using giant banks of about 17 loudspeakers.
Yonhap news agency said the number of the loudspeakers would be doubled by the end of the year, and some ageing equipment replaced by new devices capable of broadcasting more than 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) away.
Since North Korea's widely condemned nuclear test, the South has blasted a mix of news, propaganda messages and Korean pop music across the border using giant banks of about 17 loudspeakers Jung Yeon-Je (AFP/File)
It quoted a Seoul military official who declined to be named. Seoul's defence ministry declined to confirm the report.
"We will make more efforts to erode the morale of the North's troops at the frontline and deliver information (about the outside world) to civilians there," said the official quoted by Yonhap.
North Korean civilians live within range of the loudspeakers.
The move is aimed at punishing Pyongyang for its recent series of provocations, including last month's launch of the new medium-range missile, said the official quoted by Yonhap.
The widely-condemned launch of Musudan missile, which theoretically could reach US military bases in the Pacific including Guam, raised alarm over Pyongyang's capability to deliver a nuclear warhead.
The border propaganda broadcast would carry more criticisms of the North's leader Kim Jong-Un and his "hopeless" policies of pursuing simultaneous development of nuclear arsenal and the economy, according to the official quoted by Yonhap.
The propaganda broadcasts targeting North Korean troops, intensely hated by Pyongyang, have been switched on and off in line with the swings of volatile inter-Korea ties.
Seoul last August resumed them for the first time in 11 years after two of its border patrol soldiers were maimed by mines it said was planted by the North's soldiers.
The broadcasts infuriated Pyongyang, which at one point threatened artillery strikes against the loudspeaker units unless they were switched off.
India's Modi heads to Africa with an eye on China
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads to Africa on Thursday, seeking to boost his country's economic influence in a region long dominated by rival Asian power China.
India has been working to improve ties with African nations as it vies for a greater share of the continent's natural resources. Last year, it hosted a major summit of the Africa's heads of state in New Delhi.
Modi will head first to Mozambique, marking the first visit by an Indian prime minister in 34 years, before travelling on to South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.
India's Modi will head first to Mozambique, marking the first visit by an Indian prime minister in 34 years, before travelling on to South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya Punit Paranjpe (AFP/File)
"The visit marks an unprecedented diplomatic outreach to the African continent and underlines the importance that India places on forging a multi-layered relationship with a rising continent," political analyst Manish Chand told AFP.
"The visit is not going to be just about the optics. It is underpinned by a substantive agenda encompassing all areas of interest -- economic as well as strategic," said Chand, the editor of Africa Quarterly.
India's economic presence in Africa is dwarfed by that of China, whose trade with the continent topped $200 billion last year -- more than the GDP of the 30 smallest African economies combined.
But it is gaining ground, dominated by the energy sector and led by private entrepreneurs.
India is now South Africa's sixth largest trade partner, with two-way trade reaching $5.3 billion in 2015-16.
South Africa has also been vocal on the need to reform the UN Security Council, making it a natural ally in India's long-running campaign to be made a permanent member.
India and Africa are together home to a third of the world's population, but neither India nor any African country has a permanent seat on the council, which is made up of China, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom and France.
"South Africa is seen as a representative of the continent," said Chand.
"It's a part of the BRICS grouping and has been shaping the global discourse."
With 1.3 million people of Indian origin it also has the largest diaspora population in Africa, a major element of Modi's diplomatic push across the world since taking office two years ago.
On Friday he will address a thousands-strong audience at a stadium in Johannesburg, having hosted similar rallies for the diaspora in cities from New York to London.
India's foreign ministry sought to downplay any rivalry with China and denied New Delhi had neglected the continent in the past.
"(Relations between India and Africa) are like the two banks of the river which are apart but never separate. We are trying to bridge that," said Amar Sinha, secretary for economic relations in the foreign ministry.
"Africa is a huge continent, it has tremendous requirement for development assistance and infrastructure building. Everybody can chip in."
Yemen repels assault on base claimed by Qaeda
Yemeni troops backed by a Saudi-led coalition Wednesday repelled an assault on a base where the army said 16 died, as Al-Qaeda claimed to have blasted its way into the facility.
Between 15 and 20 militants seized the headquarters building at Aden airport in the early hours, and the fate of the officers who had been inside remained unclear several hours later.
The jihadists penetrated the base after detonating two car bombs, the military said, in the latest attack on security forces to hit the southern port city where Yemen's government took refuge after Shiite rebels seized the capital.
A Yemeni fighter loyal to the country's exiled president salutes at a checkpoint in the southwestern city of Taez Ahmad al-Basha (AFP/File)
Dressed in military uniforms, the assailants set off one car bomb at the base's entrance then rammed through a second and detonated it inside, killing at least 10 soldiers, a military source said.
"Troops and special forces have regained control of the base after pushing back the jihadists, several of whom were killed in the fighting," base commander General Nasser Sarie told AFP.
A security source said six jihadists were killed but others escaped.
Al-Qaeda claimed the attack, saying dozens of soldiers were killed or wounded, in a message posted on its Telegram channel, according to SITE Intelligence Group.
"Dozens killed and wounded among officers and soldiers of (President Abedrabbo Mansour) Hadi is the initial toll following the detonation of an explosives-laden vehicle followed by ... storming the Solban camp in the city of Aden," said Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
AQAP, quoted by the US-based monitoring group, said the operation was in retaliation for "crimes of bombing in Lahj and Abyan" provinces of southern Yemen.
The military said the recapture of the headquarters building came after troops exchanged rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire with the militants throughout the morning.
Apache attack helicopters of a Saudi-led military coalition that intervened in support of the government in March last year were in the skies above the base, witnesses said.
The base commander said coalition forces had assisted in the recapture of the headquarters building.
- Repeated jihadist attacks -
The attack came as Muslims celebrated the feast of Eid al-Fitr which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
Prime Minister Ahmed bin Dagher, who was in Aden at the time of the attack, said he would "not allow saboteurs to harm the security of residents and block the policies of the government."
But the security forces are still struggling to secure Aden more than a year after it was taken back from Shiite Huthi rebels who have seized control of large parts of the country.
They have come under repeated attack from both the Islamic State (IS) group and its jihadist rivals in Al-Qaeda.
Both groups have exploited the power vacuum created by the conflict between the government and the rebels to expand their presence in the south and southeast.
Last month, CIA director John Brennan told the Senate Intelligence Committee that AQAP had several thousand "adherents and fighters" in Yemen while there are also "several hundred" fighters loyal to IS.
In May, twin suicide bombings in Aden claimed by IS killed at least 41 people.
A spate of shootings in April and May claimed the lives of the city's traffic police chief and the governor of its main prison, while the chief of police escaped two assassination attempts in the space of a week.
Washington considers the Yemen-based AQAP to be the network's deadliest franchise and has vowed no let-up in its longstanding air war against the jihadists.
A US drone attack killed three suspected Al-Qaeda militants in Shabwa province east of Aden on Monday, a security official said.
On Friday, a similar drone attack in Shabwa killed four suspected jihadists.
In March this year, the Saudi-led coalition too turned its sights on the jihadists after a year of focusing its firepower on the Huthis and their allies.
Emirati and Saudi special forces helped government forces to recapture the southeastern city of Mukalla from Al-Qaeda in April ending a year of jihadist rule.
But in Mukalla too, the government has struggled to secure the city and there have been repeated deadly reprisal bombings by the jihadists.
The port city of Aden AFP (AFP)
Aden's international airport Saleh al-Obeidi (AFP/File)
HK offers protection to bookseller after China warning
Hong Kong police offered protection on Wednesday to a bookseller who was detained in China for eight months without access to a lawyer, as Beijing warned that he was violating his bail terms.
Lam Wing-kee was seized after crossing the border into China and taken away blindfolded for allegedly bringing banned books into the mainland, he said last month.
The 61-year-old is part of a group of staff from a Hong Kong firm that published salacious titles about leading Chinese politicians.
Lam Wing-kee is one of five Hong Kong booksellers known for selling gossipy titles about Beijing politicians who have disappeared and later resurfaced in China Anthony Wallace (AFP/File)
The five mysteriously went missing late last year and later emerged in mainland China, intensifying concerns in Hong Kong about China's increasingly tight grasp on the city.
Since returning to Hong Kong, Lam has said he fears for his personal safety while other activists have alleged that Chinese agents abducted one of the other booksellers on Hong Kong soil.
Although the city has the status of a special administrative region of China, the two have separate legal systems, distinct police jurisdictions and maintain strict border controls.
The city was returned by Britain to China in 1997 under a deal guaranteeing freedoms that would be unimaginable in the mainland, and the case has fanned anxieties that the semi-autonomous city's fiercely guarded liberties are being eroded.
Lam is the only one of the five booksellers to speak openly about the case and has suggested the other four feel too much pressure from China to do the same.
He was supposed to return to the mainland after being released to Hong Kong on bail last month but has refused to do so.
The case has put the city's China-friendly Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying in a very awkward position, trapped between his political masters in Beijing and Hongkongers angry about the city's direction.
- Forced confession -
"The government and I are paying close attention to the issue of Lam Wing-kee's concerns for his personal safety," Leung told reporters Wednesday.
Hong Kong and China have no extradition treaty, meaning there is no obligation for city authorities to hand Lam back to China even if he is violating the terms of his bail.
Police deputy commissioner Tony Wong said officers were willing to offer Lam protection "if he wishes it".
Activists have alleged that Chinese security agents are operating in the city, which would be illegal under the city's mini-constitution.
Lam had been due to lead a pro-democracy march last week on the anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China, but pulled out at the last minute, saying that he had been followed prior to the rally.
The police comments came after a new video released by Chinese authorities featured him in detention saying: "I am very regretful because I have broken Chinese laws".
Lam has previously said he was forced into making the confession.
Chinese authorities have warned Lam he was violating his bail terms and that he could face tougher action as a result, media reports said.
Leung said a team of senior officials who visited Beijing Tuesday discussed Lam's case and reviewed the mechanism whereby authorities on the mainland are required to give details about arrests of Hong Kong citizens over the border.
Leung said the visit was productive, with both sides agreeing that mainland authorities should notify their Hong Kong counterparts of arrests and detentions within 14 days.
Since returning to Hong Kong, Lam Wing-kee has said he fears for his personal safety Anthony Wallace (AFP/File)
Press under pressure from Algeria's 'draconian drift'
The director of a television station is arrested... a court blocks the sale of an opposition media group... parliament passes a law to stop retired army officers commenting on politics.
Despite a new constitution in Algeria guaranteeing freedom of the press, criticising the government is becoming increasingly risky.
Producers at KBC TV, a privately owned channel which airs a talk show that regularly criticises the government, know that only too well.
Algerian artists and journalists hold placards during a demonstration in Algiers calling for the release of private TV channel KBC executives Mahdi Benaissa and Riyadh Hartouf Farouk Batiche (AFP/File)
In late June, a court placed two of the channel's executives in pre-trial detention.
The order came five days after security forces shut down a studio producing talk shows for KBC.
The channel's director, Mehdi Benaissa, and producer Ryad Hartouf were accused of making "false declarations" to obtain filming permits for the programme, Ki Hna Ki Ness (Just Like Everybody Else).
Mounia Nedjai, a culture ministry official who had issued the permits, was also detained.
On Friday evening, around 300 artists and journalists gathered outside the National Theatre in the capital to demand their release.
"I'm not a sycophant or an agitator, I just love my country," they chanted.
International NGOs criticised the arrests.
"Jailing TV executives on the pretext of film-permit irregularities is disproportionate, to say the least," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch.
"The clear intent is to muzzle private media."
- Repeated attacks -
It was not the first time KBC has found itself in the government's crosshairs.
In June, the government won a court case to freeze a bid by billionaire Issad Rebrab to buy KBC and one of Algeria's top newspapers, El Khabar (The News).
The $45-million (40-million-euro) sale is expected to be definitively blocked by mid-July.
Rebrab is Algeria's richest entrepreneur but has a tense relationship with the authorities.
Like KBC and El Khabar, Rebrab's French-language daily Liberte strongly opposed Abdelaziz Bouteflika's decision to stand for a fourth term as president in 2014, an election he won.
The ailing 79-year-old suffered a stroke in 2013 that has impeded his mobility and speech. Speculation has been growing in the Algerian press about who will succeed him.
Opposition leaders have spoken of a power vacuum.
Former prime minister Ali Benflis, who stood against Bouteflika in 2014, condemned the latest arrests and denounced the government for "repeated attacks on independent media".
He said the government was "a regime that doesn't hold back from any excess" and "persists in placing itself above the constitution and the law".
Amnesty International said the charges against the KBC TV executives and Nedjai were "politically motivated".
It called on the Algerian authorities to "respect, protect and promote freedom of the media following the growing restrictions against independent outlets and journalists in the past few months".
The government cited a law preventing a single legal entity owning more than one Algerian daily newspaper.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called the court ruling "extremely worrying".
It said it was "outraged" at the "new attack on the independence of KBC", and demanded the trio's release.
Algeria's constitution, adopted in February, explicitly guarantees freedoms of assembly and the press, dictating that "press offences may not be punished by a custodial sentence".
Communications Minister Hamid Grine has denied that Algeria jails journalists who offend the government.
"A journalist would never go to prison" for a press offence, he said in May.
- Draconian drift -
Mehdi Benaissa's father Slimane, a well-known dramatist, wrote an open letter to Bouteflika on Sunday.
"I am a worried and angry father. Worried because my son is in prison, and angry because I don't know exactly why," he wrote in the letter, published by the opposition newspaper Le Soir d'Algerie.
Louisa Hanoune, a Trotskyist member of parliament and former presidential candidate, condemned the government's "totalitarian intentions" and said it was promoting "draconian laws contrary to the constitution".
Parliament, which is dominated by Bouteflika supporters, last week passed a law limiting the right of retired senior military officers to comment on politics.
The new law demands that former soldiers abstain from "every act, remark or behaviour likely to harm the institutions of the state and public authorities".
Some retired military figures regularly comment on political issues. One retired general, Hocine Benhadid, has been in custody for more than a year after criticising the government.
Ahead of last week's vote, former defence minister Khaled Nezzar, the country's strongman during its civil war in the 1990s, urged parliamentarians to reject the text.
He said it represented a "grave draconian drift".
Placard reads in French "Free our comrades" during a demonstration in Algiers calling for the release of private TV channel KBC executives Mahdi Benaissa and Riyadh Hartouf, and cultural ministry official Mounia Nedjai Farouk Batiche (AFP/File)
In June, the government won a court case to freeze a bid by billionaire Issad Rebrab to buy KBC and one of Algeria's top newspapers, El Khabar (The News) Farouk Batiche (AFP/File)
Syria's Assad makes rare appearance outside capital for Eid
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad joined Eid al-Fitr prayers at a mosque in third city Homs on Wednesday in a rare public appearance outside the capital for the end-of-Ramadan holiday.
Large parts of Homs were once under the control of rebels fighting to overthrow Assad's regime but since May 2014 they have been confined to a single besieged neighbourhood in the city's outskirts.
The Al-Safa mosque, where Assad joined worshippers, is in Akrama, a loyalist neighbourhood which has been hit by repeated attacks by the Islamic State group and its jihadist rival Al-Qaeda.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attends Eid al-Fitr prayer at Al-Safa mosque in Homs to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, on July 6, 2016 HO (Syrian Presidency Facebook page/AFP)
State television broadcast footage of the president in the congregation alongside Islamic Endowments Minister Mohammad Abdel-Sattar Sayyed and Syria's top Muslim cleric Ahmad Badredine Hassoun.
Six killed, 28 hurt in Taiwan nursing home fire
A fire that tore through a nursing home killed six people and injured another 28 in Taiwan on Wednesday.
Television footage showed elderly people being evacuated from the facility, some in clothes blackened by smoke.
Bodies were found in the private nursing facility on the eighth floor of a ten-storey building in Xindian, New Taipei City, while rescuers rushed 31 people to hospital.
Taiwan fire kills six AFP, Gal ROMA (AFP)
"Three bodies were found in a room where the deadly fire likely started," an official at the city government's fire department told AFP.
"As they were all charred, they could not be immediately identified," she said.
A further three people were later pronounced dead, while 17 were found to be suffering from serious injuries, the fire department said.
All of the identified dead were female, aged 79, 87 and 95 separately, it said.
The fire broke out around 7:00 am (2300 GMT Tuesday) and was extinguished in around 30 minutes, but the evacuation process was made more difficult by the fact that most elderly residents were bedridden or wheelchair-bound, the department added.
Authorities are still investigating the cause of the blaze.
They are also looking into claims that insufficient staffing at the home had further complicated the rescue effort.
"The facility has passed inspections but we are investigating if its response (to the fire) and the staffing on the day met regulations," New Taipei City deputy mayor Hou You-yi told reporters.
The facility has seven members of staff, according to the authorities. Local media reported that there were only two or three workers looking after some 40 residents at the time of the fire.
A relative of the deceased told Apple Daily that the staff had seemed overloaded, but still decided to let her mother stay because it was closer to their home and convenient to visit.
It was not immediately clear how many residents were present when the blaze broke out and how many managed to escape.
The owner of the nursing home, named Ching Pao-ling, was being questioned by police and prosecutors.
In 2012, 13 people were killed and 60 others injured in a nursing home fire in southern Taiwan started by a 67-year-old man.
Trump praises Saddam Hussein for killing 'terrorists,' again
Donald Trump has praised late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for killing off "terrorists," reprising previous comments in support of dictators in the Middle East and earning a swift rebuke from White House rival Hillary Clinton.
The United States "shouldn't have destabilized" Iraq, now a hotbed for the Islamic State group 13 years after the US-led invasion, said Trump, who showed lukewarm support for the war before it took place and later opposed it.
"He was a bad guy -- really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good," Trump told supporters on Tuesday in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was a "really bad guy" but praised the leader for killing terrorists Jason Connolly (AFP/File)
"They didn't read them the rights. They didn't talk. They were terrorists. It was over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism," the Republican firebrand added, referring to the prestigious US university.
Shortly after the remarks, Clinton's campaign pounced on Trump's apparent support of a strongman who was hanged in Iraq in 2006 for ordering the sectarian killings of nearly 150 Shiites two decades earlier.
Saddam has been accused of committing numerous other mass atrocities, killing an estimated hundreds of thousands of people, including by using poisonous gas on Iraq's Kurds.
"Tonight, Trump yet again lauded Saddam Hussein as a great killer of terrorists, noting with approval that he never bothered to read anyone their rights. In reality, Hussein's regime was a sponsor of terrorism," Clinton senior policy advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement.
"Trump's cavalier compliments for brutal dictators, and the twisted lessons he seems to have learned from their history, again demonstrate how dangerous he would be as commander-in-chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks."
Paul Ryan, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, did not back Trump when asked about the comments.
Saddam "was one of the 20th century's most evil people. He was up there, and he committed mass genocide against his own people using chemical weapons. Saddam Hussein was a bad guy," Ryan said on Fox News.
Last year, Trump said the world would be "100 percent" better off if Saddam and slain Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi were still in power, adding that human rights abuses are "worse than they ever were" in Iraq and Libya.
"I mean, look at Libya. Look at Iraq. Iraq used to be no terrorists. He (Saddam) would kill the terrorists immediately, which is like now it's the Harvard of terrorism," Trump said at the time.
"If you look at Iraq from years ago, I'm not saying he was a nice guy, he was a horrible guy, but it was a lot better than it is right now."
Israel's Netanyahu visits Rwanda genocide memorial
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Rwanda on Wednesday for a symbolic stop on his "historic" African tour, boosting ties between two countries with a history marked by genocide.
Welcomed on arrival by Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Netanyahu visited the Kigali Memorial Centre where more than 250,000 of the at least 800,000 victims of the 1994 genocide are buried in mass graves.
"My people know the pain of genocide as well, and this is the unique bond that neither one of our people would prefer to have," Netanyahu said at a press conference after visiting the memorial, alongside Kagame.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on a four-nation Africa trade and security tour aimed at boosting ties
"Yet we both persevere despite the pain and despite the horror. We survived, we never lost hope - and you never lost hope."
Netanyahu said it had also provided the nations with a bitter lesson.
"In difficult times, we must be able to defend ourselves by ourselves," he said.
Kagame spoke of how the history of genocide had also influenced the two small nations to rely on their citizens.
"We have been formed and shaped to see, to do things in a certain way - but based mainly on the major resource we have," Kagame said. "And that is our people, the other resources come after."
From a pragmatic point of view, Israel is seen by Rwanda as an alternative partner amid increasingly strained relations with traditional allies such as the United States or Britain.
In 2014, when Rwanda sat on the UN Security Council, Kigali abstained from a resolution -- ultimately rejected -- advocating the end of the occupation of Palestinian territories.
- Four-nation Africa tour -
Netanyahu's visit to Rwanda is part of a four-nation Africa trade and security tour aimed at boosting ties.
"The Rwandan government felt a real affinity with Israel for obvious historic reasons," said Phil Clark, a Rwanda specialist at London's SOAS university.
"Israel was seen as a small country in a very hostile neighbourhood; a country with very few resources but which had recovered from its genocide very quickly and very impressively," Clark said. "So Israel was an obvious place for Rwanda to look to for inspiration."
On the eve of Netanyahu's tour Israel announced a relatively modest $13 million (12 million euro) aid package to strengthen economic ties and cooperation with African countries.
Israel's business with Africa constitutes only two percent of its foreign trade, leaving plenty of room for growth while demand for its defence expertise and products is rising.
It also sees African countries as potential allies, particularly at the United Nations and other international bodies, where it is regularly condemned over its occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza Strip.
On Monday, Netanyahu visited Uganda to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Israeli raid on Entebbe airport in which his brother Yonatan was killed rescuing hostages held by German and Palestinian hijackers.
On Tuesday he visited Kenya, and will end his tour on Thursday in Ethiopia.
More than 800,000 people were killed during the 1994 Rwanda genocide Simon Maina (AFP/File)
The Rwanda genocide was sparked by the death of President Juvenal Habyarimana and lasted 100 days
Rwandan mayors to hear verdict in Paris genocide trial
A Paris court will rule Wednesday in the trial of two former Rwandan mayors accused of orchestrating the massacre of hundreds of Tutsis during the country's 1994 genocide.
Octavien Ngenzi, 58, and his predecessor Tito Barahira, 64, are accused of playing a direct role in the slaughter in their village of Kabarondo, where some 2,000 people seeking refuge in a church were bludgeoned and hacked to death.
The eight-week trial has heard chilling testimony depicting the two men as "supervisors" and "executioners" in the massacre at the height of the genocide in which 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were killed by Hutu extremists.
At least 800,000 people died during the Rwandan genocide in 1994 Simon Maina (AFP/File)
"Ngenzi was the leader," said prosecutor Philippe Courroye, who requested life sentences for the two men. Barahira was the "dreaded machete officer".
Ngenzi and Barahira deny the charges.
Their lawyers have pointed to contradictory testimony 22 years after the killings to argue that reasonable doubt exists over the defendants' role, portraying them as having been helpless to stop the chaos unfolding around them.
One of their lawyers, Francoise Mathe, gave an emotional six-hour closing speech on Tuesday in which she said Ngenzi had done the best he could with "six police officers for 35,000 residents."
However a lawyer for civil parties to the case, Gilles Paruelle, told the jury: "To kill one man, hatred is sufficient. To kill 1,000, you need organisation."
- 'Don't waste the bullets' -
The violence broke out in Kabarondo a week after the shooting down of a plane carrying Rwanda's president Juvenal Habyarimana, which inflamed ethnic tensions and sparked the genocide.
Among those seeking shelter at the church on April 13, 1994, when the genocidal Hutu "Interahamwe" militia attacked, was Marie Mukamunana, who told the court how her seven children and husband were killed by grenades and machetes.
"Someone said 'don't waste the bullets' and they continued with machetes," she said.
She recalled seeing former mayor Barahira "armed with a gun, among the Interahamwe" and testified that Ngenzi was "supervising the massacre."
Jean-Damascene Rutagungira -- who lost 21 members of his family including his wife and children -- told the court he saw the pair encouraging the killers, shouting "cut them down."
The bloodshed in Kabarondo, a town near the border with Tanzania, was over by the end of April, when Tutsi rebels in the armed wing of what is now the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR) took control of the area.
Elsewhere in the former Belgian colony, the slaughter continued until the FPR fighters finally prevailed in July.
- Rwandans tried around the globe -
Ngenzi and Barahira were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by Rwandan people's courts, known as gacaca, in 2009.
Ngenzi has been in custody since 2010 when he was captured in the French overseas department of Mayotte off the east coast of Africa, where he had been living under a false name.
Barahira was arrested in 2013 in the southwestern French city of Toulouse where he was living.
Their trial in France comes two years after Pascal Simbikangwa, a former Rwandan army captain, was tried in Paris and jailed for 25 years for his role in the genocide -- the first such conviction in a country that had previously dragged its heels on prosecuting Rwandan genocide cases.
The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which ended its mandate in 2015, sentenced 61 people for their role in the genocide.
Alleged genocidaires have also been captured and tried in Belgium, France, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and the United States.
Memories of the genocide continue to strain relations between France and Rwanda, which accuses Paris of complicity -- and even direct involvement -- in the violence because of its support for the Hutu nationalist government of the day.
Kigali broke off ties with Paris in 2006 after a French judge issued arrest warrants against nine Rwandan officials over Habyarimana's assassination.
The diplomatic freeze lasted for three years.
The 1994 genocide in Rwanda Paz PIZARRO, Alain BOMMENEL (AFP)
Protests in Louisiana after police fatally shoot black man
Louisiana police have shot and killed a black man selling CDs outside a convenience store, triggering protests over the latest in a string of cases of alleged police brutality against black suspects.
A video shot by a witness and circulated online showed two officers ordering a tall black man to the ground early Tuesday.
As he remained standing, the officers wrestled him onto the roof of a car and then to the ground. While he was pinned down by the officers, one pulled a gun and shot him four times at close range.
Police in the US state of Louisiana have shot and killed a black man selling CDs outside a convenience store, triggering protests Stacy Revere (Getty/AFP/File)
"They shot him? a witness can be heard as exclaiming in the background of the video.
At least one woman can be heard wailing and repeating "Oh my God!"
Police in the state's capital Baton Rouge identified the man as Alton Sterling, 37, saying two officers "made contact" with him in the parking lot of the convenience store.
The shooting took place at 12:35 am (0435 GMT) Tuesday after police received a tip from an anonymous caller who said they had been threatened by a man with a gun, according to a police statement.
"An altercation between Sterling and the officers ensued. Sterling was shot during the altercation and died at the scene," police said on Facebook.
They said that in accordance with "standard procedure," the two officers involved in the shooting had been placed on administrative leave during the ongoing investigation.
The East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner's Office said Sterling was killed by multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, WAFB television reported.
News reports said the officers were wearing body cameras, which police said fell off during the confrontation.
However, in addition to the witness video, the shooting was captured by the store's surveillance camera and at least one patrol car dashboard camera, state representative C. Denise Marcelle told news media after being briefed by the police chief.
About 100 people, including friends and relatives of Sterling, protested outside the convenience store after shooting, some blocking roads, The Advocate newspaper reported.
Holding up handmade signs, they chanted: "Black lives matter" and "Hands up, don't shoot."
"Justice for Alton" and "Justice 4 CD Man" read some of the signs.
"What I said to the (police) chief is he has to have transparency in this matter because as you can see, this is getting out of hand. People are clearly upset and they want transparency," Marcelle said.
Edmond Jordan, an attorney representing Sterling's family, said the shooting was completely unjustified.
"That police officer fired two shots and he seemed to pause for a while and shot him two more times. I don't think any of those shots were justified, but I'm curious as to why he paused for such a long time and then fired two more times," he told CNN.
Jordan, who is also a state legislator, added that Sterling was selling CDs with the permission of the convenience store owner.
Triple S store owner Abdullah Muflahi told The Advocate that he witnessed police retrieving a gun from Sterling's pocket after the shooting, although Sterling did not hold a weapon during the altercation.
"They were really aggressive with him from the start," Muflahi said about the police officers, adding that they were "freaking out" after the incident.
Muflahi said he heard one of the officers say: "Just leave him."
Civil rights group Black Lives Matter, which was referenced by many protesters in Louisiana, tweeted: "Enough is enough. #AltonSterling."
African American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson also expressed outrage over the shooting on Wednesday.
Protest strike hits Zimbabwe as pressure on Mugabe grows
Riot police patrolled through Zimbabwe's capital Harare on Wednesday as a call for a national strike against President Robert Mugabe's economic policies closed businesses and crippled the public transport system.
The strike follows days of unrest over the government's failure to pay civil servants' salaries, a currency shortage, import restrictions and multiple police road blocks reportedly extorting cash from motorists.
Mugabe's government has delayed pay dates for civil servants as treasury funds run short after years of economic decline, worsened by a severe drought which has hit agriculture.
A vehicle is blocked by burning tyres and barricades set by protestors during a demonstration in Harare, on July 6, 2016
Zimbabwe spends at least 80 percent of its revenue on state workers' wages, according to officials, while about 90 percent of the population is out of formal employment.
There were few people on the streets of the usually bustling capital after civil society organisations called the strike to pressure Mugabe to tackle the economic crisis.
"I can't go to work when the rest of the country is not going to work," said Sybert Marumo, who works for an electrical shop.
"Life is tough and we need to show the government that we have been stretched to the limit."
Children were seen streaming home from school after teachers failed to turn up.
In the south-eastern town of Masvingo, police dispersed protesters who blocked streets with burning tyres.
Telecommunications, including internet and WhatApp services were erratic, but the authorities denied jamming the services to cripple strike plans.
The strike is the latest in a series of protests against Mugabes government as calls mount for the 92-year-old leader, who has been in power since 1980, to step down.
On Monday, police arrested 113 public transport drivers and their supporters protesting against corrupt police roadblocks, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said.
Some of those arrested were injured after police set dogs on them, the lawyers said.
Last Friday around 70 people were arrested in Beitbridge town at the border with southern neighbour South Africa during protests over a ban on imports of basic commodities.
"This is a sign of economic collapse which has left people with nothing more to sacrifice and nothing to lose," said Dumisani Nkomo, spokesman for the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition.
"We are heading towards a tipping point as a country, where citizens will express their pain by any means."
At least 250 killed in Baghdad blast: officials
A Baghdad bombing claimed by the Islamic State group killed at least 250 people, officials said, raising the toll of what was already one of the deadliest attacks in Iraq.
A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle in Baghdad's Karrada district early on Sunday as it teemed with shoppers ahead of the holiday marking the end of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, sparking infernos in nearby buildings.
Health Minister Adila Hamoud told AFP that the bombing killed 250 people and wounded 200.
Iraqis inspect the damage at the site of a suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State group on July 3, 2016 in Baghdad's central Karrada district Sabah Arar (AFP)
A police colonel and an interior ministry official both gave even higher death tolls for the attack.
Hamoud said that DNA testing would be required to identify more than half of the bodies and that the process was expected to take from 15 to 45 days, meaning that relatives of the missing may have to wait weeks to learn the fates of their loved ones.
The blast sparked widespread anger among Iraqis, some of whom have accused the government of not doing enough to protect them.
And it has overshadowed what would normally be a joyful holiday, instead turning it into a time of mourning and sadness.
IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces have since regained significant territory from the jihadists.
US envoy Kerry hails Syria ceasefire, says not enough
US Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday welcomed the Syrian army's declaration of a 72-hour ceasefire but said he was working with Russia and others to try to transform it into a lasting truce.
"We very much welcome the Syrian army's declaration of a period of quiet in honour and celebration of Eid," Kerry told reporters during an official visit to Georgia in the runup to the annual NATO summit.
"And we very much hope it will be honored by all parties and it will hold," he said, adding that the truce had been a "matter of discussion" within the International Syria Support Group, which Washington co-chairs with Moscow.
US Secretary of State John Kerry welcomes the Syrian army's declaration of a 72-hour ceasefire David Mdzinarishvili (POOL/AFP)
Earlier, the Syrian army had said it would observe a 72-hour pause in fighting between July 6 and midnight on July 8, to coincide with the festival marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Syria has been in the grip of a bloody civil war for more than five years, but the 22-nation ISSG is pushing both government and rebel forces to honour a notional ceasefire and prepare for negotiations on a political settlement.
"We are engaged right now in ongoing discussions with various parties including Russia regarding the possibility of extending this," Kerry said, expressing the hope that the truce would be a "harbinger" of opportunities to come.
Israel relaunches bids for West Bank settler homes after stabbing
Israel on Wednesday relaunched the bidding process to build 42 new homes in a settlement in the occupied West Bank where a Palestinian stabbed to death a 13-year-old Israeli last week, an NGO said.
Israeli media have previously reported that the government had approved relaunching the tender for the homes in Kiryat Arba in the wake of the attack, though the move has not been officially confirmed.
Settlement watchdog Peace Now said the housing ministry reissued the tender on Wednesday, after a previous attempt in 2013 for 84 units had failed to draw bidders.
Kiryat Arba is located on the outskirts of the flashpoint Palestinian city of Hebron Hazem Bader (AFP/File)
The ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Some Israelis have called for a harsh response to a series of Palestinian attacks in recent days, including in Kiryat Arba last Thursday when 13-year-old Israeli-American Hallel Yaffa Ariel was fatally stabbed in her bedroom.
At the same time, Israel has been strongly criticised internationally over settlement expansion, with a key report from the diplomatic Quartet last week saying it was among the factors eroding the possibility of a two-state solution.
"Construction in settlements is not an answer to terrorism; it is not going to save the life of any Israeli, but rather strengthen the extremists on both sides," Peace Now said in a statement.
"The real answer to terrorism is ending the occupation and reaching a negotiated peace agreement. Unfortunately, Israeli citizens continue to pay the price of the extreme right-wing government's policies."
Israel's current government is considered the most right-wing in the country's history.
Kiryat Arba is located on the outskirts of the flashpoint Palestinian city of Hebron.
In addition to the tender there, Israel also this week allowed planning to move forward for 560 new settler homes in Maale Adumim, east of Jerusalem, on the West Bank.
The government also reportedly did the same for 240 new homes in settlement neighbourhoods in annexed east Jerusalem.
Abbas urges UN Security Council to reject Quartet report
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas called on the UN Security Council on Wednesday to reject a key report by the diplomatic Quartet that condemned both Israeli settlement building and Palestinian incitement to violence.
The report published last Friday by the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States was criticised by both Israel and the Palestinians as being unfair.
The report is due to be presented for discussion at the UN Security Council in the coming weeks, though a date has not yet been set.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, pictured on April 11, 2016, criticised a UN report that condemned Palestinian incitement to violence as unfair Thomas Coex (AFP/File)
Abbas said in a statement on Wednesday the report "does not further the cause for peace."
"We hope that the Security Council does not support this report," he added.
Palestine Liberation Organisation secretary general Saeb Erekat has condemned what he called an "attempt to equalise the responsibilities between people under occupation and the foreign military occupier."
The report's findings and recommendations are supposed to serve as the basis for reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process that has been comatose since a US initiative collapsed in April 2014.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also rejected the report, calling it a "myth" that settlement building in the occupied West Bank is an obstacle to peace.
There was no formal response from the Quartet but a source involved with the report said Wednesday there were positives to be drawn from the responses.
"If both president Abbas and Prime Minister Netanyahu find the report disturbing, then the report must contain some truths that both are uncomfortable with," he said.
A Palestinian official said they would no longer deal with the Quartet as a body, but would continue to work with its four members individually.
"It's not only about the report, it's more than that -- but the report confirms how useless (the Quartet) is," the official said.
There has been growing alarm that ongoing violence and the construction of Jewish settlements on land earmarked to be part of a future Palestinian state are killing off prospects for a deal.
There are currently at least 570,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make the capital of their future state. The United Nations has said settlements are illegal.
Iran will not intervene in Bahrain despite tensions: Khamenei
Iran will not intervene in Bahrain despite a growing risk of internal conflict caused by the kingdom's treatment of its Shiite majority population, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran will not intervene in any way in the affairs of Bahrain," Khamenei told a gathering of top officials to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan, in remarks carried on his official website.
"But if political wisdom exists in this country (Bahrain), they should not allow the political conflict to transform into a civil war," he added.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Bahrain and its ally Saudi Arabia frequently accuse Iran, the region's predominant Shiite power, of fomenting unrest in the tiny kingdom, which Tehran firmly denies.
But Iran has strongly criticised the repressive actions of the Sunni monarchy in Bahrain, which rules over a 70-percent Shiite population.
There was particular concern over Bahrain's decision to strip the country's leading Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Isa Qassim, of his nationality last month.
"Surely they know that the aggression against Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim is a red line... that will leave no option for the people but to resort to armed resistance," Qassem Suleimani, head of the elite Revolutionary Guards' overseas operations arm, the Quds Force, told state media at the time.
There has been mounting international criticism of Bahrain, which stepped up moves to dissolve the main Shiite opposition bloc last month.
Obama slows Afghanistan pullout, 8,400 troops to stay
President Barack Obama on Wednesday put the brakes on the US pullout from Afghanistan, saying 8,400 troops will remain in the war-ravaged country into next year to tackle the threat from a resurgent Taliban.
Obama, who was elected in 2008 on a promise to end America's longest war, had previously vowed to slash the US troop presence from its current level of 9,800 to 5,500 by 2017.
But he said a still "precarious" security situation, with Afghan security forces struggling to contain the Taliban, made such a move untenable.
A US soldier and Afghan security forces arrive at the site of a suicide car bomb attack in Kabul, on January 4, 2016 Wakil Kohsar (AFP/File)
"Instead of going down to 5,500 troops by the end of this year, the United States will maintain approximately 8,400 troops in Afghanistan into next year through the end of my administration," Obama said.
"It is in our national security interest, especially after all the blood and treasure we've invested in Afghanistan over the years, that we give our Afghan partners the very best opportunity to succeed," he added.
With only a few months left in office, Obama said additional troops would enable his successor to have "a solid foundation for continued progress" in Afghanistan.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid mocked his announcement.
"The more American invaders in Afghanistan, the more casualties they will suffer," he said on Twitter.
"They will certainly be defeated," he added. "We have good experience in fighting the idiots. We have high morale."
- NATO mission -
Most of the US troops, operating under the NATO banner, work as trainers or advisers to Afghan forces. Around 40 NATO members and partner countries currently contribute to the overall force of nearly 13,000.
It was not immediately clear whether Obama's decision would influence other countries' troop levels, expected to be a central issue at this week's NATO summit in Poland.
"I welcome @BarackObama's announcement on troop levels in Afghanistan. A strong signal of our continued commitment," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Twitter.
Obama's announcement effectively acknowledges that Afghan forces, which took charge of the country's security in 2015, still face massive institutional shortcomings.
They have suffered devastating setbacks at the hands of the Taliban, including the temporary loss of the northern city of Kunduz, and more than 5,000 Afghan troops killed last year alone.
Other organizations, including the Islamic State group, have meanwhile stepped up activity.
"The security situation in Afghanistan remains precarious," said Obama, who last month unveiled looser rules making it easier for US forces to strike Taliban targets.
"Afghan security forces are still not as strong as they need to be," he added. "With our help, they're still working to improve critical capabilities, such as intelligence, logistics, aviation and command and control."
- Optics and politics -
Stephen Biddle, an Afghanistan expert and professor at George Washington University, said adjustments to the comparatively small US troop presence -- the Afghans have about 320,000 police and troops -- would make little difference to local security capabilities until Afghanistan tackles issues such as deeply entrenched corruption.
"The ability of the Afghans to hold the line is not primarily being shaped by whether there are 9,800 or 8,400 or 5,500 US soldiers," Biddle told AFP, noting that the troop count is "more about the optics and the politics of this than it is about military capability."
In particular, the Pentagon needs to maintain a steady troop level to ensure continued Congressional funding for the Afghan cause, Biddle said.
Obama himself acknowledged the solution to the conflict, which has dragged on for 15 years, would not be military alone.
"The only way to end this conflict and to achieve a full drawdown of foreign forces from Afghanistan is through a lasting political settlement between the Afghan government and the Taliban," he said.
"That is why the United States will continue to strongly support an Afghan-led reconciliation process, and why we call on all countries in the region to end safe havens for militants and terrorists."
But diplomatic efforts to engage with the Taliban are in disarray. The United States in May killed the group's leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, in a drone strike in Pakistan.
Obama's decision follows a review of the security situation by General John Nicholson, the new commander of the US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan.
Republican Senator John McCain, a longtime critic of Obama's military policies, welcomed the move, but said the president should have kept the entire 9,800 US troops in the country.
Still, he said, "the decision to retain 8,400 US troops in Afghanistan into next year is certainly preferable to cutting those forces by nearly half."
US forces have been in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion to oust the Taliban in late 2001.
The United States has spent around $1 trillion in total since, and some 2,200 American lives have been lost in the longest war in US history.
Taliban in Afghanistan Adrian Leung, Gal Roma (AFP)
US President Barack Obama delivers a statement on Afghanistan with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter (L) and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford at the White House on July 6, 2016 Nicholas Kamm (AFP)
Afghan National Army soldiers search a passenger at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Jalalabad on July 4, 2016 Noorullah Shirzada (AFP/File)
Hezbollah accounts crackdown raises tensions in Lebanon
A bank crackdown on hundreds of accounts linked with Hezbollah is raising tensions in Lebanon, where the powerful Shiite movement enjoys fierce support and provides a range of social services.
The move follows the adoption late last year of a US law imposing sanctions on financial institutions that facilitate significant transactions associated with Hezbollah, a heavily armed, Iran-backed movement which Washington classifies as a "terrorist group".
Lebanese banks -- keen to maintain the country's role as a regional financial hub -- have been working to comply with the law since May.
Lebanon's Shiite movement Hezbollah acts as a parallel government in parts of the country, providing a range of social services Mahmoud Zayyat (AFP/File)
But Hezbollah, which acts in many ways as a parallel government in parts of Lebanon, has warned that it considers the account closures an "attack" on its supporters.
On June 12, an explosion hit the Beirut headquarters of one of the country's largest banks, leaving one person with minor injuries.
Hezbollah was not linked directly to the blast, but several Lebanese newspapers said the attack was intended as a message to the banking industry.
"Hezbollah is angry because the pressure is hitting its popular base and the responsibility will fall on the group's own shoulders," said Lebanese economics expert Ghazi Wazni.
Under the US Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act passed in December, sanctions can be avoided if a bank "has taken and is continuing to take significant verifiable steps" towards ending the financial activities.
- Hundreds of accounts shut -
Hezbollah runs an extensive social services network in Lebanon -- complete with schools, hospitals and a wide range of charity organisations.
Pro-Hezbollah daily newspaper Al-Akhbar reported in early June that in response to the law "hundreds, if not thousands" of accounts held by several major charities and hospitals "directly affiliated with Hezbollah" had been shut.
Wazni said if the banks pursue their "hardline" approach towards Hezbollah-linked accounts, some 10,000 accounts could be shut down.
Following the June bombing, the Association of Lebanese Banks held an emergency meeting and warned that the blast threatened to "rattle economic stability".
Contacted by AFP, the association's secretary general Makram Sader would not elaborate on how accounts were being shut, saying only that banks "follow decrees issued by the Central Bank and the implementation mechanisms decided by monitoring bodies."
- 'War economy' -
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah railed against the account closures in a speech last month, saying he considered them an "attack... against our people, our constituency, and our families."
He also downplayed the potential consequences, saying: "As long as Iran has money, we have money."
"Just as we receive the rockets that we use to threaten Israel, we are receiving our money. No law will prevent us from receiving it," Nasrallah said.
Steps have been taken to ease tensions.
Hassan Moukalled, the editor-in-chief of Construction & Economy magazine, said he had acted as an intermediary in indirect negotiations between the Central Bank and Hezbollah.
The Central Bank has now requested that some accounts belonging to Hezbollah-affiliated parliamentarians be reopened, Moukalled said, on the basis that they receive regular government salaries.
"If there is regular account activity within a certain margin, where between $5,000 and $10,000 is deposited on a regular basis, there is no problem. But if all of a sudden $50,000 enters that account, it will be investigated," he said.
Moukalled said the moves by the banks were likely to have more effect on those loosely affiliated with the Hezbollah than on the movement itself.
Hezbollah's "budget doesn't run through the formal banking mechanism -- it's like a war economy," he said.
But Wazni said the account closures would still put pressure on Hezbollah.
"It will have to bear responsibility for the closing of accounts of people who may be just the sons or brothers of Hezbollah officials, as well as accounts held by charities, and the effect this will have on employees," he said.
One employee at a Hezbollah-owned institution, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that staff "began receiving their salaries in cash about four months ago, while before we used to get paid in cheques that we could cash at the bank."
Though not linked directly to Hezbollah, an explosion near a major bank in Beirut in June 2016 was seen as a message from the group to the banking industry Anwar Amro (AFP/File)
Hassan Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah described account closures as an "attack...against our people, our constituency, and our families" Anwar Amro (AFP/File)
Civil rights investigators to probe Louisiana police shooting
Federal civil rights investigators will probe the fatal police shooting of a black father of five in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, officials said Wednesday, as the US city's mayor and police chief faced down calls to resign.
The death of 37-year-old Alton Sterling outside a convenience store was captured on cell phone video, triggering protests in the city and outrage nationwide over the latest case of alleged police brutality against black suspects.
The shooting came on the eve of a closely watched trial in Baltimore for an officer charged in the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who suffered a broken spine in the back of a police van.
The United States Department of Justice civil rights division will investigate the police shooting of a black man in Baton Rouge, Louisiana Ramin Talaie (Getty/AFP/File)
Sterling was fatally shot in the early hours of Tuesday after an anonymous caller told police they had been threatened by a man with a gun, according to the police.
His family's lawyer said Sterling was merely selling CDs outside a convenience store, with the permission of the shop's owner.
Officials appealed for calm and promised a transparent investigation.
Calling the video "disturbing," Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said federal authorities will take over the investigation, led by the Department of Justice civil rights division.
"I have very serious concerns," Edwards told a news conference in Baton Rouge. "The video is disturbing to say the least."
Edwards said he spoke to the White House and planned to meet with faith-based community leaders to appeal for calm.
Baton Rouge officials identified the officers involved as Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II. Both were placed on administrative leave, according to procedure, pending the results of the investigation.
- 'No cover-up' -
David Harris, a University of Pittsburgh law professor who studies police behavior and regulation, said it was "unusual for the Department of Justice to step in so quickly."
But he said the opening of a civil rights probe does not necessarily mean the Department will bring a case.
Federal law "requires not only showing of use of force that is excessive, but also that it was a willfull violation of the Constitution," Harris said. "That is the highest standard that any prosecutor has to take on in this country."
In Baton Rouge, emotions were running high. At an emotional press conference with relatives of the victim, the head of the city's chapter of the civil rights group NAACP, Michael McClanahan, called for the resignations of the police chief and mayor.
"What we are going to do today is rule out the one percent of bad police officers that go around becoming the judge, the jury, the executioner of people period but more specifically, innocent black lives," he said.
Both city officials responded with promises of transparency.
"We're an inclusive city," said Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden. "We have a wound right now. But we'll be healing and making the city and parish whole again."
Police chief Carl Dabadie said he is "demanding answers."
"There is a lot that we do not understand," Dabadie said, "It is our goal and our mission to make sure that a thorough, just, transparent and independent investigation be conducted into this incident."
- Video -
A graphic video shot by a witness and circulated online showed the altercation between the two officers and Sterling at 12:35 am (0535 GMT) Tuesday.
In the video, the officers ordered the tall and heavy-set Sterling to the ground but he remained standing.
The officers wrestled him to the floor, and while he was pinned down one officer pulled a gun and shot Sterling several times at close range.
ABC News published a second witness video late Wednesday, taken from a different angle, but which did not provide further clarity on the incident.
Police Chief Dabadie said Sterling had been armed.
- Body cameras -
Suspicion over police actions grew after reports emerged that the officers' body cameras fell off during the confrontation.
Authorities seized the convenience store's video surveillance system, which apparently captured the shooting, but have yet to release any footage.
Protesters, including friends and relatives of Sterling, gathered outside the store after the shooting, some blocking roads.
Holding up handmade signs, they chanted: "Black lives matter" and "Hands up, don't shoot."
- 'Legal lynching' -
Online reactions to the shooting grew Wednesday.
Actor Jesse Williams, whose televised BET Awards speech about police killings of black people was an internet sensation, responded on Twitter by asking for "a list of infractions punishable by spontaneous public execution."
African American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson called the shooting "a legal lynching."
On Instagram, Colin Kaepernick -- the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers football team -- said it was a murder "at the hands of the people who they say will protect us."
Video footage of the incident can be viewed at: https://twitter.com/AyYoDex27/status/750499359339343872
Sacked Fox News host files sexual harassment suit
Fox News host and former Miss America Gretchen Carlson filed suit Wednesday against the company's chief executive, saying she was fired for rejecting his sexual advances.
The sexual harassment suit filed in New Jersey state court said Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of Fox News, terminated Carlson as a retaliatory act.
Fox said that it saw the allegations in the suit and had launched an internal review.
Gretchen Carlson, pictured during the filming of "Fox & Friends" in 2013, is suing chairman and CEO of Fox News Roger Ailes, saying he fired her as a retalitory act Slaven Vlasic (Getty/AFP/File)
"We take these matters seriously," Fox said in a released statement.
The media giant went on to said that it had "full confidence" in Ailes.
US media reports said that Ailes stepped up to his own defense, releasing a statement saying the accusations were false and that the suit was retaliation for not renewing Carlson's contract due to low ratings.
He called the suit "offensive" and vowed a vigorous legal defense.
Carlson, a top Fox personality, had been with the network for more than a decade.
Ailes "unlawfully retaliated against Carlson and sabotaged her career because she refused his sexual advances and complained about severe and pervasive sexual harassment," the lawsuit alleges.
According to the lawsuit, Ailes fired Carlson on June 23 after "ostracizing, marginalizing and shunning her" and making it clear that "these 'problems' would not have existed, and could be solved if she had a sexual relationship with him."
Fox News parent company Twentyfirst Century Fox did not immediately reply to an AFP request for comment.
Carlson, who won the Miss America pageant in 1989, joined Fox in 2005 after working at CBS News, and during her career interviewed numerous world leaders including President Barack Obama, former president George W. Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair.
For over seven years she hosted the highly rated "Fox & Friends" morning news show.
The complaint, posted on the website of Carlson's attorneys, said Carlson complained about a hostile work environment at Fox as far back as 2009.
It said that when she complained to Ailes, the executive called her a "man hater" and said she needed "to get along with the boys."
Ailes, the lawsuit said, responded by assigning Carlson to less important news and interviews and "directing that she not be showcased at all."
The lawsuit alleges that when Carlson met with Ailes last September, he suggested a sexual relationship as a way of resolving her problems.
The complaint seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
US sanctions North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un for rights abuses
The United States placed North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un on its sanctions blacklist for the first time Wednesday, calling him directly responsible for a long list of serious human rights abuses.
US officials said Kim and 10 other top officials also blacklisted were behind widespread abuses including extrajudicial killings, forced labor and torture in the country's system of prison camps for political detainees that has made North Korea "among the world's most repressive countries."
They also were responsible for harsh censorship of media, academic and cultural activities, including imprisoning people accused of viewing foreign films.
The US has frozen American-based assets belonging to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, pictured
"Under Kim Jong-Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor, and torture," said Adam Szubin, Acting Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
Treasury said that Kim, North Korea's "Supreme Leader," was responsible for abuses in his roles as head of the country's Ministry of State Security and Ministry of People's Security.
According to officials in Washington, the Ministry of State Security holds 80,000 to 120,000 prisoners in political prison camps where torture, execution, sexual assault, starvation, and slave labor are common.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of People's Security overseen by Kim runs a network of police stations, detention centers and labor camps where suspects under interrogation "are systematically degraded, intimidated, and tortured," the United States said.
Kim is "rather plainly ultimately responsible for the actions of his regime including its repressive policies," a senior US official said, speaking anonymously.
But authorities in Washington for the first time identified other top officials directly involved in rights abuses, including Choe Pu Il, the Minister of People's Security, Ri Song Chol, a senior official in the Ministry of People's Security, and Kang Song Nam, a Bureau Director with the Ministry of State Security.
Another on the new sanctions list, Cho Yon Jun of the powerful Organization and Guidance Department, is in charge of enforcing loyalty to Kim, including executing those who defy his will, the senior US official said.
The sanctions were announced in parallel with the State Department's release of a new report which documents the abuses throughout the North Korean security apparatus and political prison camp system.
It is not the first time the United States has placed a head of state on a sanctions list. Previously sanctioned leaders include Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Charles Taylor of Liberia, and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
- Sanctions 'send a message' -
US officials said they do not expect immediate consequences from the sanctions, which freeze the US-based assets of those named, and forbids Americans from doing business with them.
But senior officials said that naming those directly involved could make them think twice about what they are doing.
"With these efforts, we aim to send a signal to all government officials who might be responsible for human rights abuses, including prison camp managers and guards, interrogators, and defector chasers, with the goal of changing their behavior," said State Department spokesman John Kirby.
The senior official said there was evidence that an increasing number of people inside North Korea, including inside Kim's regime, are conscious that Kim's strongman rule might have its limits.
"What this report does is send a message to people within the North Korean regime, particularly at those lower to mid levels, that if you become involved in abuses like running concentration camps or hunting down defectors, we will know who you are and you will end up on a blacklist that leaves you at a significant disadvantage in the future."
Who might Trump pick as running mate?
Donald Trump's pick for vice president could make or break his hopes of defeating Hillary Clinton in the US election. But who's being vetted and who actually wants the job is another question.
The New York businessman has spoken of his desire to find a seasoned politician who can help force legislation through Congress and offset his lack of political experience.
A sensible choice might help overcome the shortcomings of a 70-year-old who has never held elected office and lags an average of nearly five percentage points behind Clinton in national polls.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump campagns with Senator Bob Corker on July 5, 2016 in Raleigh, North Carolina Sara D. Davis (Getty/AFP/File)
Yet the wrong pick could restrict his support base or alienate moderate and independent voters.
Trump sent the rumor mill into overdrive this week by meeting Indiana Governor Mike Pence and Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, campaigning with Tennessee Senator Bob Corker and dishing out praise for Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton.
Here is a look at the chief candidates considered in the running with Trump expected to decide before the Republican National Convention begins on July 18.
Chris Christie, 53
Often described as a political bruiser, the New Jersey governor was the first Republican heavyweight to endorse Trump way back in February after abandoning his own bid for the White House.
His chief asset was winning two elections in a largely Democratic state -- a cross-party appeal that could come in handy in a deeply divided Congress.
The former federal prosecutor is already in charge of Trump's transition team, should he win in November, and he is a staunch defender of the man he calls a "friend," including against allegations that Trump is racist.
But Christie's popularity plummeted in the "bridgegate" traffic scandal. An investigation officially cleared the governor of wrongdoing, but his aides shut down lanes on a busy route into New York, allegedly to punish a Democrat mayor for failing to support their boss's re-election.
The New York Times also says relations are strained between Christie and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, because Christie was on the prosecution team that jailed Kushner's father for corruption in 2005.
Newt Gingrich, 73
Trump-Gingrich would be the oldest ticket in US politics: two septuagenarians competing for the millennial vote in 21st century America.
Gingrich packs the political punch that Trump lacks. He was in Congress for 20 years and speaker of the House of Representatives from 1995-99 during Bill Clinton's presidency.
A failed presidential candidate in 2012, he is now a political consultant who has advised Trump for months. Crucially, he says he is willing to serve as vice president, but he is also not afraid to criticize Trump.
But for all his name recognition, he is a polarizing figure and as an aging white male brings nothing new to the support base. Like Trump, he has also been married three times to the displeasure of conservatives.
Mike Pence, 57
The Indiana governor and former radio host served six terms representing his home state in Congress. A fiscal conservative and lawyer by training, he was House Republican Conference chairman from 2009-11.
Trump spent time with Pence and his family -- the governor is married with three adult children -- over the Independence Day weekend.
"Very impressed, great people!" he tweeted with customary gusto.
His staunch defense of family values and core Republican beliefs could appeal to conservatives put off by the billionaire's tabloid divorces and more socially liberal views. On the downside, he may not attract swing voters.
Tom Cotton, 39
An outside choice as currently the youngest US senator, he was only elected in November 2014 and lacks the political weight that Trump is likely to favor.
Nonetheless he is a rising Republican star. Educated at Harvard, he joined the Army after the September 11, 2001 attacks serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Joni Ernst, 46
Trump lavished praise on Ernst after meeting her on Independence Day, saying she had done "a fantastic job" for Iowa and America.
A veteran who served as a company commander in Kuwait and Iraq in 2003, she became the first woman elected to the Senate from the key swing state of Iowa in November 2014.
The senator says she had a "good conversation" with Trump but appeared to rule herself out in an interview with Politico published Wednesday. "I feel that I have a lot more to do in the United States Senate," she said.
Bob Corker, 63
The chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee ruled himself in an interview with The Washington Post.
"I think I'm far more suited for other types of things," he told the newspaper. A relative unknown on the national stage, his foreign policy credentials and bipartisan experience had earmarked him as a possible contender.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (L) and New Jersey governor Chris Christie greet the crowd as they attend a fundraising event in Lawrenceville, New Jersey on May 19, 2016 Eduardo Munoz Alvarez (AFP/File)
Newt Gingrich, pictured in 2012, packs the political punch that Donald Trump lacks Win McNamee (Getty/AFP/File)
Indiana Governor Mike Pence, pictured on April 25, 2015, is a staunch defender of family values and core Republican beliefs Ethan Miller (Getty/AFP/File)
'Give Nigeria a chance', Buhari tells militants
President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday pleaded with militants to "give Nigeria a chance", vowing to keep the country intact despite widespread ethnic and religious divisions that threaten unity.
Nigeria is facing security threats on multiple fronts: Boko Haram Islamists in the northeast, Biafran separatists in the southeast, oil rebels in the south and nomadic herdsmen in the central states.
There have long been tensions between the Muslim majority north and largely Christian south, which were joined as one entity by former colonial ruler Britain in 1914 for political and economic expediency.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, pictured on May 12, 2016, says there has been "a lot of improvement" against Boko Haram, whose seven-year insurgency has killed at least 20,000 people and displaced more than 2.6 million others Dan Kitwood (Pool/AFP/File)
Buhari said there had been "a lot of improvement" against Boko Haram, whose seven-year insurgency has killed at least 20,000 people and displaced more than 2.6 million others.
Work was now ongoing to tackle the new threat to OPEC-member Nigeria's oil production from rebel groups in the southern delta region, he told senior ministers at a meeting to mark the end of Ramadan.
"We are now concentrating on the militants to know how many of them (there are) in terms of groupings, leadership and plead with them to try to give Nigeria a chance," he said.
Most of the attacks on oil installations since February have been claimed by the Niger Delta Avengers, which wants international oil companies out of the region and fairer revenue sharing of profits.
Several other groups have emerged with similar aims but the NDA has also said it wants self-determination for the delta, allying itself with Igbo people in the southeast, who want an independent Biafran republic.
Buhari, a former army general who led a military government in the 1980s, referred to his time under General Yakubu Gowon, who was in charge during the Nigerian civil war from 1967-70.
That conflict was sparked by a previous unilateral declaration of independence by the Igbo of the southeast.
"I assure them (the militants) that when we were very junior officers, we were told by our leaders, by the head of state which was General Gowon, that to keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done," he added.
"We never thought of oil," he said, responding to militant claims that the redistribution of oil revenue across the federation was unfair.
For Iraqis, British war inquiry changes little
For Iraqis, a British war inquiry criticising former premier Tony Blair means little as, whoever is to blame, they are still suffering the devastating consequences of the 2003 US-led invasion.
The Chilcot report was released just days after one of the deadliest bombings ever to hit the country tore through a crowded shopping area in Baghdad, killing at least 250 people.
The attack was claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group, which includes members of Saddam Hussein's toppled regime and has its roots in the insurgency that began after the dictator's overthrow in 2003.
An Iraqi man, whose sons have been killed in a suicide bombing that ripped through Baghdad's busy shopping district of Karrada, reacts at the site of the attack on July 6, 2016 Ahmad al-Rubaye (AFP)
The 2.6 million-word report resulting from an inquiry chaired by John Chilcot, which was seven years in the making, criticised Blair as having taken his country into a badly planned, woefully executed and legally questionable war.
While the report was hotly anticipated in London and has sparked widespread commentary and media attention, the reaction in Baghdad has been somewhat more muted.
"What report?" Iraqi foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Jamal responded when asked for comment.
For Iraqis, the inquiry is little more than a distant academic exercise.
"The report... will not change anything -- all this is empty talk," said Zainab Hassan, aged 60.
- Thirteen years of bloodshed -
Abbas Salman Mahdi, 56, said the report's conclusion was somewhat less than surprising.
"Of course Britain and America made a mistake in taking part in the war," Mahdi said.
But "this report will not change anything for Iraq," he said.
Ali al-Alaq, a lawmaker from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's Dawa party, said whether or not the decision to topple Saddam was correct, it was made and cannot be undone.
"After all this time, I don't believe that this report will have an impact," Alaq said.
"They carried out their mission and toppled Saddam's regime, whether this decision was correct or not, and it had major effects on Iraq," he said.
The invasion that overthrew Saddam -- and a series of disastrous decisions by Washington and its allies that followed -- set the stage for 13 years of bloodshed that plagues the country to this day.
Chief among these were the decisions to disband the Iraqi military and launch a "de-Baathification" programme targeting members of Saddam's party, both of which contributed to the rise of a bloody insurgency.
But the countries that toppled Saddam are not solely responsible for the current disastrous state of affairs.
- Return to Iraq -
Politicians bent on power, self-enrichment and revenge instead of building a viable state, as well as neighbouring countries that backed various armed groups, also played key parts in creating the hellish circumstances in which Iraqis now live.
More than a decade after the fall of Saddam, the Islamic State group overran large areas north and west of Baghdad, sweeping government forces aside and carrying out a slew of atrocities.
The offensive drew the US and Britain, among other countries, back into Iraq to carry out air strikes and provide training and other assistance to help Baghdad regain lost ground.
Despite all that has since transpired, Blair asserted following the release of the report that he "made the right decision and the world is better and safer" because of it.
It is a claim that the huge number of Iraqis who have lost relatives and friends, who have made daily trips to the morgue searching for the missing, who have faced bombings and death squads and kidnappings, would likely dispute.
Ghaith al-Ghaffari, 26, said he too does not believe the report will change anything, and that he would rather see concrete action on the part of those responsible.
"I would like them to truly contribute to the reconstruction of Iraq after they made this mistake," Ghaffari said.
"At the least, it is their duty to truly rebuild the country," he said.
Members of the media inspect the volumes that comprise Iraq Inquiry report, during its presentation by Report Chairman Sir John Chilcot, at the QEII Centre in London on July 6, 2016 Jeff J Mitchell (POOL/AFP)
Two killed as explosion hits refugees near Turkey-Syria border
An explosion on Wednesday that rocked a house used by refugees in a Turkish town near the Syrian border killed two people, the private Dogan news agency reported.
Two Syrians caught in the blast died in hospital after the powerful explosion in the town of Reyhanli in southern Turkey, Dogan said. The cause of the explosion is not yet known.
A Turkish official told journalists: "At this point I can only confirm that an explosion took place in Reyhanli."
Turkish soldiers stand guard by the border with Syria on June 25, 2015 Ilyas Akengin (AFP/File)
In 2013, twin car bombs in Reyhanli killed 46 people in attacks that were blamed on pro-Damascus forces. The Syrian government denied involvement.
French court jails two Rwandan mayors for life over genocide
In a landmark ruling, a Paris court jailed for life Wednesday two former Rwandan mayors accused of orchestrating the massacre of hundreds of Tutsis during the country's 1994 genocide.
The court said Octavien Ngenzi, 58, and his predecessor Tito Barahira, 64, were guilty of "crimes against humanity", "massive and systematic summary executions" and "genocide" in their village of Kabarondo, where some 2,000 people seeking refuge in a church were bludgeoned and hacked to death.
Ngenzi and Barahira have consistently denied the charges. Both appeared impassive as the judge read out their sentences.
Tito Barahira (back, L) and Octavien Ngenzi (back, R), two former Rwandan mayors accused of orchestrating "massive and systematic summary executions", stand trial at the Paris courthouse Benoit Peyrucq (AFP/File)
It was the stiffest genocide sentence ever handed out by a French court. In 2014, former Rwandan army captain Pascal Simbikangwa got 25 years in solitary confinement for genocide and crimes against humanity.
The eight-week trial has heard chilling testimony depicting the two men as "supervisors" and "executioners" in the massacre at the height of the genocide in which 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were killed by Hutu extremists.
"Ngenzi was the leader," said prosecutor Philippe Courroye, who requested life sentences for the two men. Barahira was the "dreaded machete officer," he added.
Ngenzi and Barahira's lawyers had pointed to contradictory testimony delivered 22 years after the killings to argue that reasonable doubt exists over their role, portraying them as having been helpless to stop the chaos unfolding around them.
"I am extremely disappointed but not really surprised," said Philippe Meilhac, Barahira's lawyer, after the ruling adding that his client may appeal the verdict.
- 'They continued with machetes' -
A lawyer for the civil parties to the case, Gilles Paruelle, told the jury: "To kill one man, hatred is sufficient. To kill 1,000, you need organisation."
Alain Gauthier, whose organisation is one of the civil parties in the case, was jubilant.
"The jury has understood the distress of the victims," he said. "We hope that this sentencing signifies that one cannot live with impunity in France."
His wife Dafroza, whose family was wiped out in the genocide, said she was "comforted" but would be "taking up the fight" again to bring other genocide offenders to justice.
The violence broke out in Kabarondo a week after the shooting down of a plane carrying Rwanda's president Juvenal Habyarimana, which inflamed ethnic tensions and sparked the genocide.
Among those seeking shelter at the church on April 13, 1994, when the genocidal Hutu "Interahamwe" militia attacked, was Marie Mukamunana, who told the court how her seven children and husband were killed by grenades and machetes.
"Someone said 'don't waste the bullets' and they continued with machetes," she said.
She recalled seeing former mayor Barahira "armed with a gun, among the Interahamwe" and testified that Ngenzi was "supervising the massacre."
Jean-Damascene Rutagungira -- who lost 21 members of his family including his wife and children -- told the court he saw the pair encouraging the killers, shouting "cut them down."
- Rwandans tried around the globe -
The bloodshed in Kabarondo, a town near the border with Tanzania, was over by the end of April, when Tutsi rebels in the armed wing of what is now the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR) took control of the area.
Elsewhere in the former Belgian colony, the slaughter continued until the FPR fighters finally prevailed in July.
Ngenzi and Barahira were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by Rwandan people's courts, known as "gacaca", in 2009.
Ngenzi has been in custody since 2010 when he was captured in the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte off the east coast of Africa, where he had been living under a false name.
Barahira was arrested in 2013 in the southwestern French city of Toulouse where he was living.
The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which ended its mandate in 2015, sentenced 61 people for their role in the genocide.
Alleged perpetrators of the genocide have also been captured and tried in Belgium, France, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and the United States.
A visitor looks at a large picture of children victims of the 1994 Rwandan genocide at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre Simon Maina (AFP/File)
Clinton slams Trump in city of casino bankruptcies
Hillary Clinton came out swinging Wednesday after the FBI's damning indictment of her email scandal by lacerating Donald Trump's business record in the city where four of his companies went bankrupt.
"The people of Atlantic City know better than anyone Donald Trump cannot do the job for American workers and businesses," the presumptive Democratic nominee told supporters outside one of Trump's boarded up former businesses.
Her Republican rival often brags about the money he made in the 1980s in the now depressed gambling resort in the largely Democrat state of New Jersey, but Clinton attacked his record as "shameful."
US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton arrives to speak at an event in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on July 6, 2016 Kena Betancur (AFP)
"Every single voter in America needs to know about it so we don't let him do to our country what he did to his businesses," the former secretary of state said to chants of "Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!"
"In America, we don't begrudge people from being successful, but we do if they get rich by destroying other people," she said.
"So, let's just make sure we don't put a person like this with his empty promises and his lifetime of selfishness in a position to destroy our lives."
Clinton said Trump ripped off small business owners and investors, waiters and plumbers went unpaid. Contractors took heavy loses and went bust, but "Donald Trump walked away with millions."
Clinton, whose combined wealth with husband Bill is estimated at $45 million by Forbes, aligned herself with the ordinary worker and said her father had been a small businessman of the type that Trump had conned.
"He wants to make America great again? Maybe he should actually start making things in America again," she said, charging that Trump furniture was made in Turkey, suits in Mexico and Trump lamps in China.
She also bashed Republican Governor Chris Christie, who has endorsed Trump, saying that if he were doing his job "instead of following Donald Trump around holding his coat, maybe we could really get New Jersey's economy moving again."
On Tuesday, the FBI said it would not seek charges against Clinton in an email scandal from her time as secretary of state, but rebuked her as "extremely careless" and contradicted her claim that no classified emails were involved.
On Wednesday, Trump hit back with a statement defending his record and turned the tables on Clinton, saying nobody would do more for the economy than him.
The New York billionaire declared bankruptcy four times in connection with Atlantic City properties and pulled out of the city in 2009.
Bangladesh coal plant threatens World Heritage mangrove: petition
The world's largest mangrove forest, a World Heritage Site, should be listed as endangered due to a coal-fired power plant under construction in Bangladesh, urged a petition signed by 50,000 people and submitted to the UN Wednesday.
Classified by the UN's culture and science organ, UNESCO, in 1997 as a natural treasure, the Sunderbans which straddles the border of India and Bangladesh, provides a defence against storm surges and cyclones to some four million people in the region.
At the same time, its 10,000 sq km (3,800 sq miles) expanse is home to some of the planet's most iconic threatened species, including a population of about 100 tigers and the Ganges river dolphin.
Indian villagers cross a river on a country boat in the Sunderbans, some 125 kms south east of Kolkata on February 10, 2008 Deshakalyan Chowdhury (AFP/File)
The planned 1,320 Megawatt Rampal plant, a joint project by India and Bangladesh, would be powered each year by nearly five million tons of coal transported by boat along the ecosystem's fragile waterways, boosting the risk of oil and coal spills.
Scheduled to open in 2018, the plant would also discharge, every day, nearly 125,000 cubic metres of chemically-tainted water used to cool generators, according to design specifications.
The site is located four kilometres (2.5 miles) upstream from a designated, inland "buffer zone" around the Sunderbans.
"Sacrificing the safety and livelihoods of millions of people who fish and farm in this region for decades to come is unacceptable," said Payal Parekh of environmental group 350.org, which helped organise the petition and presented it to UNESCO officials in Paris.
Mangrove forests grow in tropical and subtropical zones between ocean and river.
- Decision pending -
The UN body's World Heritage Committee -- which selects sites and has the power to classify existing ones as "in danger" -- will meet next week in Istanbul.
A UNESCO mission visited the Sunderbans last March to assess potential threats, including from the coal plant, but has not announced any decision.
Of the more than 1,000 World Heritage Sites in the world, fewer than 50 are officially listed endangered.
The status serves to alert the international community to the potential loss of a precious asset, and allows the committee to tap into a World Heritage Fund.
In April, thousands of locals demonstrated against the power plant, fearing its impact on the environment and their livelihoods.
In 2014, a boat spilt thousands of gallons of oil into a neighbouring forest. Inhabitants were forced to use spoons, pots and sponges to clean up the sludge.
"My 65-acre (26-hectare) land in Rampal, where the coal plant is being built, was forcefully acquired in 2011 when the project work began," Sushanta Ghosh from the Krishi Jami Rakha Committee, a farmers' association, said in a statement.
When he and other farmers resisted, "we were slapped with false charges," including arson and damaging public property, Ghosh claimed.
India and Bangladesh signed a deal in 2010 to jointly develop the $1.7-billion (1.5 billion-euro) power plant.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) and Sheikh Hasina Wajid (R) hold an image of 1320 MW Rampal Power Plant, in Dhaka on June 6, 2015 Munirt Uz Zaman (AFP/File)
Putin, Obama to 'intensify' coordination in Syria: Kremlin
Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama agreed during a telephone call Wednesday to "intensify" military coordination between their two countries in Syria, the Kremlin said.
"The two parties have confirmed their desire to intensify coordination between the Russian and American militaries in Syria," the Kremlin said in a statement.
Putin also called on Obama to help aid the separation of moderate opposition groups from "terrorist groups like the Al-Nusra front", it said.
Syrians return to their homes after attending prayers at a mosque in the rebel-held town of Douma on July 6, 2016 Sameer Al-Doumy (AFP)
In a separate statement, the White House reported that the leaders had "confirmed their commitment to defeating ISIL (the IS group) and the Al-Nusra Front."
Obama also stressed "the necessity for progress on a genuine political transition to end the conflict in Syria, as well as sustained humanitarian access."
Both leaders stressed the importance of restarting UN-sponsored Syria peace talks after two rounds of negotiations held in Geneva since the start of the year ended without progress, the Kremlin said.
Russia and the United States have already been cooperating in Syria with Moscow calling for "decisive joint action against Al-Nusra" in June.
Russia proposed joint air strikes with the US against jihadist targets in Syria in May, a proposal that was rejected immediately by Washington.
During a visit to Georgia ahead of a NATO summit, US Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed Wednesday the 72-hour ceasefire announced by the Syrian army to coincide with Eid al-Fitr which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
He added that he hoped a more long-term cessation of hostilities will follow.
Obama additionally expressed "concerns over the failure of the Syrian regime to comply with the cessation," stressing calls for Russia to press the regime on the matter.
The last truce in the country was declared on February 27 between regime and non-jihadist rebel groups after being brokered by Russia and the United States.
Though it did not apply to the battle against jihadist factions, it sharply reduced violence in the conflict that has so far claimed more than 280,000 lives and displaced millions of people.
Two Dutch UN troops killed in Mali training accident
Two Dutch UN peacekeepers were accidently killed and one seriously wounded Wednesday in an explosion in northwest Mali during a training exercise, the Dutch defence ministry said.
"During the accident, two of our men lost their lives," said The Netherlands' Vice Chief of Defence, Vice Admiral Rob Bauer.
"Another 23-year-old soldier was seriously wounded," Bauer told reporters in The Hague at a hastily-convened press conference after the incident in the Malian town of Kidal.
Officials with the UN mission in Mali said in a statement that "an accidental explosion of a shell caused the deaths of two MINUSMA peacekeepers during a training exercise" Alou Sissoko (AFP/File)
The injured man was operated on in a field hospital and then taken to a military hospital in northern Gao.
The defence ministry named the two men as Corporal Kevin Roggeveld, 24, and Sergeant Henry Hoving.
Officials with the UN mission in Mali said in a statement that "an accidental explosion of a shell caused the deaths of two MINUSMA peacekeepers during a training exercise" in Kidal.
MINUSMA has launched an internal investigation, while Bauer said "we do not know exactly what happened and we don't want to speculate."
The Netherlands has been taking part in the UN stabilisation mission in the west African nation since April 2014, and has deployed some 400 troops, four Apache helicopters and three Chinooks, the Dutch news agency ANP said.
The UN mission was deployed in Mali in July 2013 as part of an international effort against jihadist groups which overran the country's northern territory.
The north continues to be beset by violence having fallen under the control of Tuareg-led rebels and jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in 2012.
The Islamists sidelined the rebels to take sole control, and although they were largely ousted by a French-led military operation in January 2013, extremist groups still pose a threat.
Trump campaign says it raised $50 million in June
Stung by revelations last month that he trailed Hillary Clinton's fundraising efforts by more than $40 million, Donald Trump's campaign announced Wednesday it had raised more than $50 million in June.
The tycoon's team said more than $26 million had been raised from more than 400,000 supporters through a newly set up online and small contribution network.
Twenty-two fundraising events raked in another $25 million since the last week of May and Trump had personally contributed $3.8 million, it said.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, pictured on July 5, 2016, said more than $26 million had been raised from more than 400,000 supporters through a newly set up online and small contribution network Sara D. Davis (Getty/AFP/File)
"We just started our fundraising efforts in the last week of May and we are extremely pleased with the broad-based support," said Steven Mnuchin, the campaign's finance chairman.
The fundraising push comes after filings to the Federal Election Commission showed that Clinton had $42 million cash on hand compared to $1.3 million for Trump, sounding alarm about his readiness for a gruelling election battle.
Trump, who denounced Clinton's war chest last month as "blood money", has repeatedly knocked political rivals for being beholden to mega-donors.
Former US president Bush praises Britain's role in Iraq War
Former US president George W. Bush reiterated his belief Wednesday that the world is "better off" without Saddam Hussein, as a damning inquiry blasted Britain's part in the rush for war with Iraq in 2003.
"Despite the intelligence failures and other mistakes he has acknowledged previously, President Bush continues to believe the whole world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power," Bush's spokesman Freddy Ford said in a statement.
"He is deeply grateful for the service and sacrifice of American and coalition forces in the war on terror. And there was no stronger ally than the United Kingdom under the leadership of Prime Minister Tony Blair."
US President George W. Bush (R) smiles alongside former British Prime Minister Tony Blair (L) at the White House on January 13, 2009 Saul Loeb (AFP/File)
Britain's former prime minister was at the center of a detailed inquiry that probed Britain's role in the US-led war, examining the flawed intelligence, questionable legal basis and "woefully inadequate" preparation for the occupation.
Ford noted that Bush had not yet had the chance to read the lengthy enquiry report.
Britain deployed troops before diplomatic options had been exhausted, the report said.
Broader reaction to the lengthy inquiry by John Chilcot was muted in the United States, with officials unwilling to weigh in on historical decisions.
President Barack Obama's "longstanding opposition to the invasion of Iraq is well known and has been extensively litigated," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
Obama "has been dealing with the consequences of that fateful decision for the entirety of his presidency. Future presidents will likely have to do the same," he added. "It is important that the United States... learn the lessons of those past mistakes."
John Kirby, a spokesman for Secretary of State John Kerry, said the current administration is focused on the current crises in Iraq and Syria.
"Our focus is on trying to get a political transition in Syria, trying to defeat Daesh (the Islamic State group) in Iraq and Syria; trying to help Prime Minister (Haider al-)Abadi make the necessary political and economic reforms he knows he needs to make in his country," he said.
"That's where Secretary Kerry's head is, and we're not interested in re-litigating the decisions that led to the Iraq war in 2003."
No charges in Clinton email probe, Trump cries foul
No charges will be brought against Hillary Clinton for using a private email server while secretary of state, the Justice Department announced, prompting Donald Trump to accuse his presidential rival of "crooked" dealings.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch made the widely expected announcement following a meeting with FBI Director James Comey as well as prosecutors and agents who led a high-profile investigation that has weighed heavily on Clinton's Democratic White House campaign.
"I received and accepted their unanimous recommendation that the thorough, year-long investigation be closed and that no charges be brought against any individuals within the scope of the investigation," Lynch said in a statement.
The FBI's assessment found Hillary Clinton was "extremely careless" in sending classified information via her personal email account, but did not support a criminal prosecution Kena Betancur (AFP)
The attorney general had previously pledged to respect FBI and prosecutors' decisions about whether to bring charges after it emerged that she met briefly with Clinton's husband, Bill, last week -- prompting Republicans to cry foul over possible government interference.
Comey recommended on Tuesday that no charges be brought over Clinton's email use, saying its investigation does not support a criminal prosecution.
"Our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case," he said.
But the FBI's assessment found that Clinton was "extremely careless" in sending classified information via her personal email account.
- Republicans attack -
While the former first lady can breathe a sigh of relief over avoiding criminal charges that could have ended her campaign, the damning FBI assessment could still complicate an increasingly tight race against Trump.
He and fellow Republicans immediately seized on the findings to brand Clinton a liar and charge that the system was rigged.
"She made so many false statements," Trump said during a campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio on Wednesday evening. "Is she going to be brought before Congress or something? Is something going to happen? It's a disgrace."
"She's crooked Hillary. That's all you have to know," the Republican White House hopeful said.
He went on to accuse Bill Clinton of bribing Lynch during his meeting with her, alluding to reports that Clinton is considering retaining the attorney general if she wins the election in November.
"She said she's going to reappoint the attorney general and the attorney general is waiting to make a determination as to whether or not she's guilty and boy, was that a fast determination. Wow!" Trump said.
Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus called the attorney general's a decision a "slap in the face" to many Americans.
"Those who have mishandled classified information have had their security clearances revoked, lost their jobs, faced fines, and even been sent to prison, yet Hillary Clinton is being allowed to play by a different set of rules," he said in a statement.
- Comey to testify -
Of some 30,000 emails Clinton turned over to the FBI, Comey said 110 contained classified information -- Clinton had said none was classified at the time they were sent -- adding that her emails could have been hacked.
Another 2,000 emails were later "up-classified" to confidential.
Investigators also recovered thousands more emails that were not provided by Clinton's attorneys. Still, they found "no evidence" that Clinton's camp intentionally deleted messages in an effort to conceal them, Comey said.
He is set to testify before Congress Thursday about the email investigation and his recommendation not to prosecute Clinton.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said lawmakers would ask the FBI director to explain how he could censure Clinton over her private email account without finding that she broke the law.
"We're going to have hearings," he told Fox News on Tuesday. "There are a lot of unanswered questions here."
He also recommended that Clinton's access to classified information be blocked as punishment.
Seeking to move past the controversy, Clinton on Wednesday appeared in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where Trump developed casinos that went out of business.
Standing by a faded "Trump" sign in front of the empty Trump Plaza Casino, she accused the billionaire tycoon of "multiple bankruptcies, stiffing contractors and spurring hundreds of job losses."
"Isn't he supposed to be some sort of amazing businessman?" she said. "What in the world happened here?"
Emily Blunt, John Krasinski welcome baby girl, Violet
Emily Blunt and John Krasinski have welcomed a second daughter.
Krasinski, who's best known for his role as Jim Halpert on NBC's "The Office," posted the news on Twitter Monday , writing "2 weeks ago we met our beautiful daughter Violet."
Blunt and Krasinski's first child, Hazel, was born in 2014.
FILE - In this Aug. 13, 2015, file photo, John Krasinski, left, and Emily Blunt arrive at The Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Annual Grants Banquet at the Beverly Wilshire hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. Krasinski announce on Twitter Monday, July 4, 2016, that the couple welcomed their second child, a girl named Violet, two weeks ago. (Photo by John Salangsang/Invision/AP, File)
Noel Neill, first actress to play Lois Lane, dies at 95
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) The actress who was the first to play Superman's love interest, Lois Lane, on screen has died. Noel Neill was 95.
Neill's biographer Larry Ward tells The Associated Press that she died Sunday at her home in Tucson, Arizona, following a long illness.
Neill first took on the role as the Daily Planet reporter in the 1948 Columbia movie serial, "Superman." She would reprise the part alongside George Reeves as the Man of Steel in the 1950's TV series, "The Adventures of Superman."
FILE - In this June 11, 2010, file photo, Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane, jokes with Josh Boultinghouse, the official superman of the Superman Celebration, during an unveiling of the Lois Lane/ Noel Neill statue in Metropolis, Ill. The actress who was the first to play Superman's love interest, Lois Lane, on screen has died. Neill was 95. Neill's biographer Larry Ward tells The Associated Press that she died Sunday, July 3, 2016, at her home in Tucson, Ariz., following a long illness. (Stephen Rickerl/The Southern Illinoisan via AP, File) MANDATORY CREDIT
Neill's involvement with the series continued through the years. She played Lois Lane's mother in 1978's "Superman" and had a bit part in "Superman Returns" in 2006.
In 2010, the city of Metropolis, Illinois, unveiled a statue of Lois Lane modeled after Neill.
FILE - In this June 21, 2006, file photo, Actors Jack Larson, left, and Noel Neil, who originated the roles of Jimmy Olson and Lois Lane in the 1950s "Superman" television series, pose at Patrick's Roadhouse in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. The actress who was the first to play Superman's love interest, Lois Lane, on screen has died. Neill was 95. Neill's biographer Larry Ward tells The Associated Press that she died Sunday, July 3, 2016, at her home in Tucson, Ariz., following a long illness. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)
Militaries gather in Hawaii for massive maritime exercises
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Scott Swift said Tuesday he wants all 26 nations participating in military exercises in Hawaii to leave better prepared to respond to humanitarian crises.
Swift said he also wants participants to better understand what the best practices are for using maritime power to increase security and stability.
The admiral spoke during a news conference at the beginning of the Rim of the Pacific military drills that will last through early August. The exercises will include 45 ships, 200 aircraft and more than 25,000 people.
U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Scott Swift speaks at a news conference, Tuesday, July 5, 2016 in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, at the start of the Rim of the Pacific military exercises. Swift says he wants all 26 nations participating in the drills to leave better prepared to respond to humanitarian crises and better understanding best practices for using maritime power. (AP Photo/Audrey McAvoy)
The exercises are the world's largest maritime drills. They date to 1971 and are held every other year. Some of this year's drills are being held in Southern California.
Troops will practice responding to disasters as well as clearing mines, hunting for submarines and delivering amphibious forces ashore.
Japan and South Korea each brought ground forces and two destroyers. Australia brought two frigates, an amphibious assault ship, multiple helicopters and ground troops.
Responding to a question about his expectations for China, Swift replied he didn't have specific expectations for China alone, and instead shared his expectations for all participants.
"These are common goals of all the countries that come to RIMPAC," he said.
China is participating for the second time. It has brought several vessels, including a hospital ship. U.S. law limits the scope of U.S. military drills with China to areas such as search and rescue and humanitarian and disaster relief.
Swift acknowledged some critics wanted the U.S. to exclude China, including U.S. Rep. Mark Takai of Hawaii. Takai in March called on the military to bar China from the exercises, citing Beijing's land reclamation projects in the South China Sea and its militarization of reefs and atolls there.
Swift said the U.S. is a democracy and enjoys a rich debate about military decisions.
The admiral said his biggest challenge now is accommodating everyone who wants to come.
"I just not sure how we can cram more ships into Pearl Harbor," he said. Some countries may have to send fewer ships in the future to allow more countries to join, he said.
Marijuana can be sold at Uruguay pharmacies, but few want to
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) Rossana Rilla could sell marijuana under Uruguay's pioneering law that lets pharmacies distribute pot. But she says there is no way she will.
In her 28 years as a pharmacist, she has been beaten, dragged across the floor and threatened by thieves at gunpoint and with a grenade. She fears that selling marijuana would only make her store a bigger target for robbers and burglars.
"You see their faces and you can tell right away that they are not consumers who are here just to buy" marijuana, Rilla said about the "suspicious people" who have recently been coming into her Montevideo pharmacy asking if she sells pot.
In this June 28, 2016 photo, an employee of the Erosa pharmacy shows a flyer that announces that in their pharmacy there is no marijuana for sale but they have alternate native herbs known for their medical effects, in downtown Montevideo, Uruguay. The government wants to start selling marijuana at pharmacies in the coming weeks, but so far only 50 out of 1,200 pharmacies are registered, stoking a debate over how the drug should be distributed. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)
She isn't alone in avoiding the government's marijuana program. Most of the country's pharmacists haven't signed on, citing security concerns and complaining of paperwork, cost increases or opposition from customers to selling legalized pot.
Uruguay legalized the cultivation and sale of marijuana in 2013 in a bid to create the world's first government-regulated national marketplace for pot. The goal was to fight rising homicide and crime rates associated with drug trafficking in the South American country.
But while the government wants to start selling marijuana at pharmacies in the coming weeks, so far only 50 out of 1,200 pharmacies are registered, stoking a debate over how the drug should be distributed.
"I don't see the need to get into a conflict with people who are already selling weed in the neighborhoods," said Marcelo Trujillo, who owns three pharmacies in Montevideo's Cerro neighborhood.
"I just don't want to expose myself or my employees," he said. Next to him, a worker repaired a glass that was shattered during a recent robbery attempt.
The law allows for the growing of pot by licensed individuals, the formation of growers and users clubs, and the sale by pharmacies of 40 grams of marijuana a month to registered users. While the plan has been widely applauded globally and seen as going beyond marijuana legislation in the U.S. states of Colorado and Washington, most Uruguayans oppose it.
"My customers generally don't agree with the plan," said Isabel Regent, head of the Association of Interior Pharmacies, which represents businesses outside the capital, Montevideo. "Besides the fear of robberies, enrolling in the system means a hike in costs and having to be up to date with all the paperwork demanded by the health ministry, and not all pharmacies are in a condition to do this."
Regent owns a pharmacy in Punta del Este, an exclusive seaside resort where tens of thousands of tourists from neighboring Argentina come to vacation each year. But she decided not to enroll in the government plan. She wouldn't be able to sell pot to foreign tourists because the law only allows sales to Uruguayan citizens and legal residents over age 18.
Pharmacies in three of the four Uruguayan states bordering Brazil have also declined to enroll in the plan.
No studies have been conducted to see if pharmacists would face extra risks from selling pot, but most feel it's just not worth the risk.
"I don't have the security conditions to sell marijuana," said Mariana Etchessarry, from a pharmacy in Montevideo's Cerro neighborhood. "I don't understand why they can't sell it at police stations. They're located in every neighborhood and have 24-hour security."
During a recent meeting with government officials, a union leader claimed that some pharmacists have been threatened by drug dealers, said Gonzalo Miranda, a spokesman for the Uruguayan Chamber of Pharmacies, an umbrella group for large pharmacy chains.
Fernando Gil of the Interior Ministry's communications office said that no pharmacists had reported any threats to police.
Some pharmacists say their lack of interest in participating goes beyond security concerns.
"I oppose as a matter of principles," said Julio Gadea. "I've been a pharmacist for 40 years. Pharmacies were created to sell medicines, not drugs."
Experts say delays in the marijuana initiative stem from the fact that no other country has attempted such an ambitious endeavor and that authorities still lack detailed plans and rules for regulating the market.
"We sell all legal drugs and if marijuana is now legal, there's no reason not to sell it," said a pharmacist who has enrolled in the government's marijuana plan. He insisted on not being quoted by name because he did not want to upset his clients, who mostly oppose legalizing pot.
"I signed up but I still don't know if I'll sell it," the pharmacist said. "I'm missing a lot of information. They haven't explained anything to us about the information program that will be used or how the drug will be sold or how profitable it will be."
Several of the pharmacists interviewed said they hadn't ruled out signing on later if the program is successful.
The planting of cannabis in Uruguay has begun and it's expected to be ready by late July, two government officials told The Associated Press. They also asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized by the government to comment. The officials said that having only 50 pharmacies enrolled might work in the government's favor because it will be easier to control.
"We're not ruling out using other networks or even vending machines in the future," one official said, adding that marijuana will be sold by mid to late July.
In this June 23, 2016 photo, pharmacist Rossana Rilla works at her own drugstore in downtown Montevideo, Uruguay. In her 28 years as a pharmacist, she has been beaten, dragged across the floor and threatened by thieves at gunpoint and with a grenade. She fears that selling marijuana will only make her store a bigger target for thieves and burglaries by drug dealers. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)
In this June 24, 2016 photo, pharmacist Mariana Etchessarry poses for a photo in her drugstore at El cerro neighborhood in Montevideo, Uruguay. I don't have the security conditions to sell marijuana, said Etchessarry. I don't understand why they can't sell it at police stations. They're located in every neighborhood and have 24-hour security. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)
In this June 30, 2016 photo, a person smokes marijuana at the Asociacion de Estudios del Cannabis del Uruguay, in Montevideo, Uruguay. Uruguay legalized the cultivation and sale of marijuana in 2013, in a bid to create the world's first national, government-regulated marketplace for legal pot. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)
In this June 30, 2016 photo, a pharmacy attends a client at Capurro neighborhood in Montevideo, Uruguay. Uruguay's government is planning to sell marijuana at 50 pharmacies throughout the country. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)
In this June 28, 2016 photo, the Erosa pharmacy displays a sign at the front door telling clients that they do not have marijuana for sale, but they sell other herbs known for their medical effects, in downtown Montevideo, Uruguay. The Uruguayan government is planning to sell marijuana at 50 pharmacies throughout the country, but so far only 50 out of 1,200 pharmacies are registered, stoking a debate over how the drug should be distributed. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)
In this July 1, 2016 photo, marijuana flowers hang from a rope as they are cut and prepared at the Club Canabico Sativa in Montevideo, Uruguay. Uruguay's Congress regulated the cannabis market in 2013. Since that time, more than 20 clubs have opened and now the government is planning to sell marijuana at 50 pharmacies throughout the country. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)
Trial set for man accused in fire that killed 2 firefighters
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) A man accused of setting a fire that killed two Ohio firefighters is set to go on trial next February.
Ray Abou-Arab already has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and other charges accusing him of starting the 2014 fire in a building he owned in Toledo.
A judge on Tuesday set his trial date for Feb. 6. Attorneys expect two or three weeks of testimony.
Authorities say he used a flammable liquid to start the fast-moving fire that killed a veteran firefighter and a rookie inside the apartment building.
Until the summer of 1916, many scientists believed sharks would never harm humans.
That myth was shattered when the first recorded multiple fatal shark attacks left four people dead at the New Jersey shore over a period of 12 days, sparking fears that endure today.
Some thought a sea turtle was to blame when a Philadelphia man died after his thigh was stripped of flesh while he swam in the Atlantic Ocean off Beach Haven on July 1, 1916.
Five days later, a bellman at the Essex & Sussex Hotel in Spring Lake died after he was bitten and his legs severed.
Worse was to come.
The front page of The Philladelphia Inquirer showed victims Lester Stillwell (bottom left) and W Stanley Fisher (bottom right) and declared 'Jersey Shark Hunters Out for Big Man-Eaters on Jersey Coast'
In 1916 a shark attack killed 11-year-old Stillwell, who was swimming off the dock, in the Matawan Creek, and Fisher, who tried to recover the boy's body
Matawan is conducting tours and seminars as it examines the first recorded multiple fatal shark attacks which left four people dead over 12 days and spurred fear of the predators that endures 100 years later
Talk of the attacks was far from the minds of Matawan residents on a hot and humid July 12.
The town was inland from Raritan Bay, which helped feed the tidal Matawan Creek.
Boys like 11-year-old Lester Stillwell liked to skinny dip off the Old Wyckoff Dock, about a mile and a half from the bay, Matawan historian Al Savolaine said.
'Look at me, boys, I'm floating,' Lester said, just as his playmates saw what they thought was a log.
Then, they saw a fin lift him out of the water, revealing a bloody mess 'as the shark does a number on him and takes him down,' Savolaine said.
Running naked toward the center of town, the boys shouted, 'A shark got Lester!'
W. Stanley Fisher, 24, heard the screams and headed to the creek with friends to recover the body. After nearly an hour, Fisher decided to make one last dive.
'He breaks the surface and shouts he has the body when the shark attacks,' Savolaine said.
About 100 bystanders watched Fisher fight the shark.
A friend beat it with an oar before the fish finally released Fisher, having severed an artery near his hip.
Toys have been placed around the grave of Lester Stillwell in Matawan, New Jersey
W. Stanley Fisher's grave, also in Matawan, New Jersey, is pictured
The July 13, 1916 front page of The Matawan Journal describes a fatal shark attack on the man and the boy
Rose Hill cemetery, the burial site of Lester Stillwell and Stanley Fisher is seen in Matawan
A tourniquet was applied, and Fisher was placed on a train to a hospital. He was dead in little more than two hours.
A half-mile downstream, the shark latched onto Joseph Dunn's leg. A tug of war ensued before Dunn was freed, his artery intact.
The next day, as dynamite was dropped into the creek in hopes of raising Lester's body, Matawan's acting mayor offered a $100 reward for anyone who 'kills the man-eater'.
On July 14, a circus lion tamer who also was a taxidermist caught a shark in a net in Raritan Bay.
The shark was opened up, and human flesh and bones were reportedly found inside.
The shark was put on display with no firm proof it was the killer, and the reward went to another man who had caught a blue shark.
'From a purely scientific standpoint, a single shark involved in multiple attacks would be a rogue killer. While it does happen on occasion, it was never proven,' said George Burgess, curator of the International Shark Attack File in Florida.
The first recorded multiple fatal shark attacks left four people dead at the New Jersey shore over a period of 12 days, sparking fears that endure today
Burgess believes a single great white shark was responsible for the Matawan attacks.
Memories of the attacks faded as the nation entered World War I, he said, but people were reminded in 1975 when a character in the movie Jaws mentioned the 1916 attacks.
From July 9 through July 17, Matawan's Historical Society will hold events commemorating the attacks and understanding the role sharks play in the sea.
A memorial service will take place at the cemetery where Stillwell and Fisher are buried, and a monument will be unveiled in memory of the victims.
John S. Nichols, 70, of State College, Pennsylvania, will be there to remember Fisher, his great uncle.
'We're proud and interested in exactly the role Stanley played,' he said. 'It's a matter of debate whether he was hero or a victim of circumstance.'
North Korea, a smokers' paradise, now urging people to quit
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) North Korea, one of the last bastions of free, unhindered smoking, a country where just about every adult male can and does light up almost anywhere he pleases and where leader Kim Jong Un is hardly ever seen without a lit cigarette in his hand, is now officially trying to get its people to kick the habit.
It's a battle Pyongyang has tried before and won't easily win, especially since, beyond some stepped-up propaganda, it doesn't appear to have a lot of funding. But this time around, the effort does have one big thing going for it: the increasingly vocal support of North Korean women, virtually none of whom smoke.
Ri Yong Ok, a 57-year-old pharmacist whose heavy-smoking husband nearly died of lung cancer, is leading the charge.
In this Oct. 25, 2014, file photo, a North Korean man smokes a cigarette on the sidewalk in downtown Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea, one of the last bastions of free, unhindered smoking, a country where just about every adult male can and does light up almost anywhere he pleases, is now officially trying to get its people to kick the habit. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File)
"I've been on TV, my whole family has been on TV, so everyone knows who I am," Ri, flanked by no-smoking posters, told The Associated Press during an interview at the small anti-smoking center she manages in Pyongyang. The center, one of only 11 in all of North Korea, has something you almost never see in the North a no-smoking sign placed prominently above its entrance.
"I'm optimistic that we can get people to stop," she said. "Our goal is education."
The potential health benefit to the nation could be tremendous.
Ri estimated about 54 percent of adult male North Koreans smoke a higher figure than the 43.9 percent given by a World Health Organization report released at the end of 2014. Smoking is a social taboo for women and it's illegal for anyone under the age of 17.
North Korea has toyed with the idea of pushing harder to get smokers to kick the habit before Ri's humble anti-smoking center has been around since 2007. But it has stepped up its effort to at least provide more education of smoking's health risks since an anti-smoking decree was made by Kim in April.
The start of the new drive prompted speculation in the foreign media that Kim himself had quit, since cigarettes were conspicuously missing from his hands in photos carried by the state media of his "on-the-spot guidance" visits around the country from around that time.
The buzz didn't last long. He was pictured smoking on a visit to a children's camp in June.
North Korea joined the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2005 and dutifully holds events on World No Tobacco Day every year. The infomercial on Ri and her family was broadcast by state-run TV on that day this year and a big anti-smoking poster for no smoking day hangs in her offices.
According to recent government reports, the country has reduced the amount of land devoted to growing tobacco. In May, state media quoted a Health Ministry official saying the ratio of male smokers in 2013 was down 8 percent when compared with 2009 and "the number of nonsmokers is remarkably increasing with each passing day."
"I would guess about 300 people visit smoking cessations centers a day, nationwide," in a country with a population of about 24 million, Ri told AP.
Cigarettes are a big business in North Korea.
Unlike many other consumer products, the array of domestically produced brands that are available to the public is amazing from the status-symbol 727s (which take their name from the anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War) to brands like Pyol (Star), Craven and Tazo (which means ostrich and features the bird on every pack).
Menthol cigarettes are essentially non-existent but, because of the heavy competition among makers, gimmicks abound one kind of Pyongyang-brand cigarette has filters tipped with smiley faces. Another brand is now putting flavored balls in its filters that when popped give the smoke a vaguely fruity taste.
Prices range from around $5 for the 727s and $7 or so for the popular Japanese Seven Star brand despite international sanctions on luxury good exports, it's easy to obtain imported cigarettes in Pyongyang while Ostrich and other typical domestic smokes go for $1 or less a pack.
Some smokers roll their own blends, a practice that is more common in the countryside. Though the possibility can't be ruled out, the sight of people puffing away on paper-rolled, odd-smelling mixtures of tobacco and whatever else they can stuff in with it may contribute to persistent but unsubstantiated reports by visitors and foreign media outlets of widespread marijuana use.
Health warnings are now required on cigarette packs, but remain inconspicuously placed in small lettering on the side of most and only state that smoking can be harmful to the health. A similar warning is posted in the smoking area at Pyongyang's new international airport, though most smokers probably don't see it they just go outside.
Even so, the media campaign and pressure from wives, daughters, mothers and girlfriends does appear to be paying off, at least a little.
Yun Jin, a 27-year-old IT worker, said he made the decision to kick the habit after he saw Ri on television.
"I started smoking when I was a university student and smoke about 10 cigarettes a day," he said before a consultation at Ri's cessation center. "My mother wants me to quit, but it's my decision."
Consultations at the centers are free, in keeping with North Korea's policy of providing free health care to its citizens. Medicines intended to help them quit are not covered, however.
Ri, being a pharmacist, has developed one such medicine. Brightly colored boxes of it a 10-day supply of 21 lozenges goes for $10 a pop cover one of the walls of her center. She boasts that, being entirely made of traditional Korean mountain herbs and medicinal plants, "it's the best in the world."
"There are many anti-smoking medicines around the world, but they contain nicotine, so ours is better for quitting," she said. "But in the end, the most important thing is to really make the decision to quit."
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Talmadge is the AP's Pyongyang bureau chief. Follow him on Instagram at www.instagram.com/erictalmadge
In this June 26, 2016, photo, North Korean men smoke outside a restaurant in downtown Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea, one of the last bastions of free, unhindered smoking, a country where just about every adult male can and does light up almost anywhere he pleases, is now officially trying to get its people to kick the habit. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
In this Oct. 14, 2015 photo, smiley faces are seen on the filtered ends of a packet of Pyongyang-brand cigarettes. North Korea, one of the last bastions of free, unhindered smoking, a country where just about every adult male can and does light up almost anywhere he pleases, is now officially trying to get its people to kick the habit. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
In this June 25, 2016 photo, Ri Yong Ok, a 57-year-old pharmacist whose heavy-smoking husband nearly died of lung cancer, poses with a box of anti-smoking medicine she developed at a small anti-smoking center she manages in Pyongyang, North Korea. She boasts that, being entirely made of traditional Korean mountain herbs and medicinal plants, it's the best in the world. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
In this Feb. 19, 2016 photo, North Koreans who were traveling in a bus, stop at the side of a highway for a smoke break in Koksan county in North Hwanghae province, North Korea. North Korea, one of the last bastions of free, unhindered smoking, a country where just about every adult male can and does light up almost anywhere he pleases, is now officially trying to get its people to kick the habit. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
Trump: Saddam killed terrorists 'so good'
RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) Donald Trump, who frequently criticizes U.S. foreign policy under President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is praising Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's ruthlessness.
"Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? ... But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good," Trump told supporters at a campaign rally Tuesday night in Raleigh, North Carolina. "They didn't read 'em the rights, they didn't talk. They were a terrorist, it was over."
Trump has previously said the world would be "100 percent better" if dictators like Saddam and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi were still in power.
FILE - In this Dec. 6, 2006 file photo, former Iraq leader Saddam Hussein sits in court in Baghdad, Iraq, during the "Anfal" trial against him. Republican Donald Trump is again praising the former Iraqi President Hussein's ruthlessness, saying he killed terrorists "so good." Trump was speaking at a rally Tuesday, July 5, 2016, in North Carolina when he turned to the former Iraqi leader. (AP Photo/Chris Hondros, Pool, File)
Saddam in fact has no record of killing terrorists and was not a force against al-Qaida. Then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in 2003 that Saddam was offering financial rewards of up to $25,000 to families of suicide bombers. Although the U.S. supported Saddam against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war, Iraq was listed by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terrorism. Saddam suppressed dissent in his country and used poison gas against 5,000 Iraqi Kurdish men, women and children.
Jake Sullivan, a Clinton senior policy adviser, said Trump's "praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds."
Sullivan said such comments "demonstrate how dangerous he would be as commander-in-chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks."
Trump's foreign policy pronouncements have proved controversial, even within the Republican Party that is poised to nominate him for president in a few weeks. He has said the United States is too fully engaged around the world and has questioned the role of NATO and said the United States has been taken advantage of by nations benefiting from its security cooperation and troop presence. Some critics within the GOP have said his policies suggest an isolationist stance in an increasingly dangerous world.
Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, partners among Republican congressional critics of Obama administration foreign policy, carried out a fact-check on Trump's national security statements earlier this year at a Capitol Hill hearing.
On April 19, when the Army general selected to lead U.S. forces in South Korea testified before the committee, McCain seized the opportunity to undermine Trump's suggestion that the U.S. withdraw its forces from the South because Seoul isn't paying enough to cover the cost of the American military presence.
"Isn't it the fact that it costs us less to have troops stationed in Korea than in the United States, given the contribution the Republic of Korea makes?" McCain asked Gen. Vincent Brooks.
Yes, Brooks said, telling McCain the South Koreans pay half, or $808 million annually, of the U.S. presence there.
Two days later, Trump's claim that NATO is irrelevant and ill-suited to fight terrorism came under the microscope. As president, Trump has said he would force member nations to increase their contributions, even if that risked breaking up the 28-country alliance.
In early March, more than 70 conservative national experts, including former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, wrote in an open letter that they have disagreed with one another on a variety of issues but are united in their opposition to a Trump presidency. Chertoff served in President George W. Bush's administration.
Associated Press National Security Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report.
Takata settles with Japan woman injured by air bag
TOKYO (AP) A woman injured by a faulty Takata Corp. air bag has settled her case and withdrawn her complaint, Japanese media reported Wednesday.
The case was filed May and was the first in Japan related to the unfolding massive global recall due to air bag problems. The woman was in the front seat passenger of a 2006 Nissan X-Trail sport-utility vehicle when the vehicle crashed on a freeway in October and the air bag burst improperly, although the one for the driver's seat worked properly, according to Nissan Motor Co.
Kyodo news agency reported Wednesday that the woman settled with Takata. NHK TV said the settlement totaled 12 million yen ($119,000).
FILE - In this May 4, 2016, file photo, visitors walk by a Takata Corp. desk at an automaker's showroom in Tokyo. Japanese media said Wednesday, July 6, 2016, a woman injured by a Takata Corp. air bag has settled her case and withdrawn her complaint. The case was filed May and was the first in Japan related to the unfolding massive global recall due to air bag problems. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi, File)
Takata declined to give specifics, giving as the reason that another party, the woman, was involved. Nissan declined to comment.
The woman was injured in the face, the left arm and right hand, Nissan said.
The car model involved in the crash was part of a recall announced in May last year. The vehicle had been brought in, but no parts were replaced after a check to see if the bag's inflator was airtight, which at the time Nissan thought meant it was safe.
After the accident, Nissan decided to replace all inflators, regardless of whether they are airtight. If a replacement part isn't ready, the passenger side air bag will be turned off, Nissan has said.
Takata has expanded its recalls because of possible defective inflators that can explode with too much force, sending shrapnel flying into passengers.
The number of recalled vehicles now likely tallies more than 100 million. Faulty air bags have been responsible for 11 deaths and more than 100 injuries worldwide. Three more deaths are under investigation in Malaysia.
The recalls involve almost every major automaker, including Honda Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp., Ford Motor Co. and BMW. It has developed into the biggest recall in U.S. history, with 69 million vehicles being recalled there.
Takata uses the chemical ammonium nitrate to create a small explosion that inflates air bags in a crash. But the chemical can deteriorate over time when exposed to high heat and humidity and burn faster than it is designed to.
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Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama
UN panel says China is arbitrarily detaining US citizen
BEIJING (AP) A U.N. panel says China has arbitrarily detained an American woman in violation of international human rights norms, bringing her case back into public attention ahead of a visit to Beijing by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week.
International business consultant Phan "Sandy" Phan-Gillis, 56, has been in detention in China for more than a year, accused of stealing state secrets.
The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention says she hasn't been brought before judicial authorities or given access to legal assistance, in an opinion released last week.
This undated photo provided by Jeff Gillis shows his wife, Phan "Sandy" Phan-Gillis. A U.N. panel says China has arbitrarily detained the American woman in violation of international human rights norms, bringing her case back into public attention ahead of a visit to Beijing by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon during the week of July 3, 2016. International business consultant Phan-Gillis, 56, has been in detention in China for more than a year, accused of stealing state secrets. (Courtesy of Jeff Gillis via AP)
The San Francisco-based human rights group The Dui Hua Foundation said Tuesday that it was the first time that the working group in its 25-year history had deemed an American citizen to have been arbitrarily detained by China. A detention is deemed arbitrary if it has no legal basis or legal rights are ignored.
Ban is scheduled to meet President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday and Premier Li Keqiang on Friday, though it isn't clear if Ban plans to raise Phan-Gillis' case in talks with the leaders.
The U.N. working group says that the Chinese government told it that Phan-Gillis is charged with "assisting external parties to steal national intelligence." The U.N. group called for her to be released or given proper assistance by a legal counsel.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei, in a faxed response to questions, said: "All of Sandy Phan-Gillis' rights have been fully guaranteed, and she has been treated well." He urged the U.N. working group to "perform its duties impartially, respect China's judicial sovereignty and stop groundless accusations against the relevant Chinese authorities' lawful handling of the case."
Ashley Garrigus, a spokeswoman for consular affairs at the U.S. State Department, said in an emailed response to questions that the U.S. encouraged China to "review and consider" the opinion issued by the U.N. working group on Phan-Gillis' case. She said senior U.S. government officials have raised Phan-Gillis' case with senior Chinese officials and would continue to do so. U.S. officials have made monthly consular visits to Phan-Gillis since she was detained, she said.
"We are concerned about Ms. Phan-Gillis' welfare and her lengthy detention without trial," Garrigus said. "We urge China to resolve this case expeditiously and to ensure that Ms. Phan-Gillis continues to have full access to an attorney."
Phan-Gillis, a Vietnamese-American of Chinese descent, often worked as an intermediary in ventures between Chinese and U.S. business interests.
She was detained in March 2015 during a visit to China as part of an American trade delegation that was promoting business opportunities in her hometown of Houston, Texas. She disappeared from the rest of her group in the southern city of Zhuhai at the international border crossing into Macau.
For the first six months she was held under residential surveillance a coercive measure that allows for people suspected of endangering state security to be held at an undisclosed location. Then she was formally arrested and moved to a detention center in the southern city of Nanning.
The U.N. report included submissions from an unnamed source, who alleged that Chinese authorities flouted the country's own laws, including failing to notify Phan-Gillis' family that she had been detained.
UK report slams Iraq war; Blair says he acted in good faith
LONDON (AP) Prime Minister Tony Blair led Britain into an unsuccessful war in Iraq through a mix of flawed intelligence, "wholly inadequate" planning and an exaggerated sense of the U.K.'s ability to influence the United States, according to a damning official report on the conflict that was published Wednesday.
The government-commissioned inquiry fell short of delivering what many bereaved families sought a declaration that the 2003 war was illegal. But its 2.6 million words give the most comprehensive verdict to date on the mistakes of a conflict whose violent aftershocks still rattle the world.
Blair, however, stood by his decision to join U.S. President George W. Bush in toppling Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
British former Prime Minister Tony Blair holds a press conference at Admiralty House, London, after retired civil servant John Chilcot presented The Iraq Inquiry Report on Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Blair said he takes full responsibility for the decision and that the British military and civil service are not to blame for the problems that developed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool via AP)
"I believe I made the right decision and that the world is better and safer as a result of it," he said.
The decision to go to war was the most contentions act of Blair's decade as prime minister between 1997 and 2007. By the time British combat forces left Iraq in 2009, the conflict had killed 179 U.K. troops, almost 4,500 U.S. personnel and more than 100,000 Iraqis.
Iraq descended into sectarian strife after the occupiers dismantled Saddam's government and military, unleashing chaos that helped give rise to the Islamic State group.
The inquiry, which was seven years in the making and headed by retired civil servant John Chilcot, concluded that Britain joined the U.S.-led invasion "before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted."
"Military action at that time was not a last resort," Chilcot said as he published the report.
The war overshadows the legacy of Blair, whose government has been accused of exaggerating prewar intelligence about Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction. As Chilcot introduced his report at a London conference center, dozens of anti-war protesters with placards reading "Bliar" rallied outside.
An emotional but defiant Blair told a news conference that going to war in Iraq was "the hardest, most momentous, most agonizing decision I took" as prime minister.
He said that "I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know, or can believe," for all the things that went wrong.
But, he added: "I did not mislead this country. I made the decision in good faith." And he said the world was a safer place without Saddam, whom he labeled "a wellspring of terror."
Bush spokesman Freddy Ford said the former president was cycling with wounded veterans on his Texas ranch and had not had the chance to read the report.
"Despite the intelligence failures and other mistakes he has acknowledged previously, President Bush continues to believe the whole world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power," he said.
For families of British troops who died in the conflict, the report's forensic analysis provides some vindication of their struggle to hold the war's planners to account.
But it did not declare the conflict illegal, which might have opened the way for Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes.
Chilcot refrained from saying whether the 2003 invasion was legal and didn't accuse Blair of deliberately misleading the public or Parliament. But he said that "the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for U.K. military action were far from satisfactory."
Peter Goldsmith, Britain's attorney general at the time, initially advised the invasion would be illegal without a U.N. Security Council resolution, but changed his mind shortly before war began. Chilcot said Goldsmith's reasoning was not properly examined at the time by the government.
Relatives of soldiers killed in the conflict said they hadn't ruled out legal action, although it's unclear what form that could take. The International Criminal Court can look into alleged war crimes by British troops in Iraq but says the legality of the decision to go to war falls outside its jurisdiction.
"All options are open," said Matthew Jury, a lawyer for some of the families.
Family members who were shown the report three hours before it was published, said "we must use this report to make sure all parts of the Iraq fiasco are never repeated again."
"Never again must so many mistakes be allowed to sacrifice British lives and lead to the destruction of a country for no positive end," a group of families said in a statement.
Sarah O'Connor, whose airman brother died in a plane crash in Iraq in 2005, branded Blair "the world's worst terrorist."
The inquiry was set up in 2009 by then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was under pressure for a public accounting of the conflict. Chilcot and his panel heard from 150 witnesses and analyzed 150,000 documents, but the report has been repeatedly delayed, in part by wrangling over the inclusion of classified material.
In measured but devastating language, Chilcot said "the people of Iraq have suffered greatly" because of a military intervention "which went badly wrong."
A U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee investigation a decade ago found prewar intelligence failings and concluded that politicians had overstated the evidence for weapons of mass destruction and ignored warnings about the violence that could follow an invasion.
Chilcot's report found similar failings. It said Blair's government presented an assessment of the threat posed by Saddam's weapons with "certainty that was not justified."
The military mission was undermined by a failure to plan for Iraq's reconstruction and by a surge in chaos and violence that the invaders should have seen coming, the report said.
Blair conceded that prewar intelligence turned out to be wrong, and the conflict's aftermath was "more hostile, protracted and bloody than ever we imagined."
But Chilcot said Blair should have been able to imagine it.
"The risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability and al-Qaida activity in Iraq were each explicitly identified before the invasion," he said.
The report also provides a sobering assessment of the power imbalance in the trans-Atlantic "special relationship."
It includes a note from Blair to Bush written eight months before the invasion. Blair promised without consulting government colleagues "I will be with you whatever."
The report said Blair went to war to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Britain's main ally, only to find the U.K. excluded from most important decisions about the military campaign and its aftermath.
"Mr. Blair, who recognized the significance of the post-conflict phase, did not press President Bush for definite assurances about U.S. plans," the report concluded.
And it said that after the invasion, Britain had only "limited" ability to influence U.S. decisions.
The report found failings by British military chiefs who did not provide adequate equipment to U.K. forces. It concluded that Britain's combat mission "ended a long way from success" and saw British forces make a "humiliating" deal with militias in southern Iraq to avoid attacks.
Chilcot also criticized spy chiefs who failed to ensure their partial intelligence about Saddam's weapons was not hardened into certainty by government spin. He said they also neglected to consider "that Iraq might no longer have chemical, biological or nuclear weapons" which turned out to be the case.
The report also faulted Blair for making key decisions with only a few aides rather than through collective Cabinet consultation.
While the report may help Britain draw a line under a difficult national episode, it offers little comfort for Iraq. The country continues to live with violence, including a massive weekend bombing in Baghdad claimed by the Islamic State group that killed at least 175 people.
"Since 2003 until now, our country has been a scene of destruction, killing, massacres, explosions and sectarianism," Baghdad resident Ali al-Saraji said.
He said Blair "destroyed our country."
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Associated Press writers Danica Kirka and Adela Suliman in London, Mohammed Kaftan in Baghdad, Dominique Soguel in Istanbul, Jim Heinz in Moscow, Pablo Gorondi in Budapest and Jovana Gec in Belgrade contributed.
John Chilcot presents the Iraq Inquiry Report at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The long awaited British inquiry into the 2003 invasion of Iraq has been published. Led by former senior civil servant John Chilcot, the report took over seven years to prepare and runs over two million words. The report did not analyze the legality of the invasion and instead focused on the British decision-making process in the run up to the war in 2003. (Jeff J Mitchell/Pool via AP)
British former Prime Minister Tony Blair holds a press conference at Admiralty House, London, after retired civil servant John Chilcot presented The Iraq Inquiry Report on Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Blair said he takes full responsibility for the decision and that the British military and civil service are not to blame for the problems that developed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool via AP)
Protesters wearing a former British Prime Minister Tony Blair mask, left, and former U.S. President George W. Bush mask pose for the media outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, shortly before the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The long awaited British inquiry into the 2003 invasion of Iraq has been published. Led by former senior civil servant John Chilcot, the report took over seven years to prepare and runs over two million words. The report did not analyze the legality of the invasion and instead focused on the British decision-making process in the run up to the war in 2003. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
A protester holds up a placard during a demonstration outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, before the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The Iraq war was mounted on flawed intelligence, was executed with "wholly inadequate" planning, and ended "a long way from success," according to a damning report released Wednesday by the head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
Protesters hold placards outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, shortly before the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Thirteen years after British troops marched into Iraq and seven years after they left a country that's still mired in violence, a mammoth official report is about to address the lingering question: What went wrong? On Wednesday, retired civil servant John Chilcot will publish his long-delayed, 2.6 million-word report on the divisive war and its chaotic aftermath. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
FILE- In this Thursday Dec. 22, 2005 file photo, the then Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair meets soldiers at Shaibah logistics base, Basra, Iraq. Thirteen years after British troops marched into Iraq and seven years after they left a country that's still mired in violence, a mammoth official report, which will be published Wednesday July 6, 2016, is about to address the lingering question: What went wrong? (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
Protesters hold placards outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, shortly before the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Thirteen years after British troops marched into Iraq and seven years after they left a country that's still mired in violence, a mammoth official report is about to address the lingering question: What went wrong? On Wednesday, retired civil servant John Chilcot will publish his long-delayed, 2.6 million-word report on the divisive war and its chaotic aftermath. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
Muslims worldwide struggle to comprehend a violent Ramadan
BEIRUT (AP) As Muslims celebrate the end of Ramadan, many are struggling to comprehend a wave of attacks that killed 350 people across several countries during the holy month and raised the question of what drives the militants to ever more spectacular violence.
The high-profile attacks underline the warnings by many experts that the Islamic State group, especially when on the defensive, will metastasize far beyond its theater of operations.
The extremist group has always sought attention and recruits through terrorism, which has proven to be a winning strategy among its disenfranchised and angry followers.
FILE -- In this Sunday, July 3, 2016, file photo, Iraqi firefighters try to extinguish a fire as civilians gather after a truck bomb at a commercial area in Karada neighborhood, Baghdad, Iraq. As millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the end of Ramadan, many are struggling to come to grips with what has been a particularly bloody month of attacks that killed more than 350 people and spread terror across continents. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, File)
The loss of its key city of Fallujah capped a series of recent setbacks in Iraq, and the group is pushing to project its strength while also diverting attention from its battlefield humiliations.
"ISIS is waging an existential fight," said Fawaz Gerges, a London-based scholar of jihadi groups, using another acronym for the militant group. "The future of the Islamic State is on the line, and it is trying to maximize the cost for its adversaries and also to inspire this particular segment of young men and women who subscribe to its ideology."
If the militants needed to send a message, Ramadan provided a convenient context.
Most Muslims regard the month as a time for introspection, peace and piety, but militants and hard-line clerics have been touting it as an opportunity for jihad, or holy war.
Weeks before Ramadan, IS urged its supporters to strike wherever possible, and those calls appear to have found resonance.
Omar Mateen, who pledged allegiance to IS, killed 49 people at a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on June 12. Militants killed 44 people at Istanbul's main airport on June 28. Young men killed 20 hostages at a Bangladesh restaurant on July 1.
Such violence highlights how attacks can be instantly attached to IS, even when the group does not claim responsibility. It also underscored the increasingly blurred lines in which attacks can be assigned to IS and transformed into a global cause.
The bloodshed also demonstrated the difficulty in neutralizing a threat that often is inspired by the group and not necessarily directed from within it.
Still, many of the attacks appeared to have been careful planned, with targets clearly meant to induce fear and shock.
In Yemen on June 27, there were seven simultaneous attacks in the southern port of Mukalla against security targets, killing 43 people. In one of them, a bomb was hidden in a box of food brought to soldiers at a checkpoint to break their Ramadan fast.
In the Bangladesh violence, witnesses said the attackers tortured some of the victims before killing them for their failure to recite from the Quran.
Baghdad residents hardened by years of war said a July 3 bombing that killed 175 people was like no other in recent memory. They said shoppers were trapped in an inferno of fire that was one of the deadliest single attacks since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The wave of violence culminated Monday with triple suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia, including one that killed four security troops near the Prophet's Mosque in the city of Medina, one of Islam's holiest sites. The apparently coordinated attacks suggested the Islamic State group was to blame, although no one claimed responsibility.
The IS group is increasingly on the defensive in Syria and Iraq. Its hold on territory has shrunk after losing key strongholds, including Fallujah.
Beirut-based analyst Ibrahim Bayram said the group's goal is to dispel the notion that it is going to vanish or shrink.
"With such attacks, it is proving that it is still capable of crossing borders and conducting attacks" everywhere, including in the holy sites in Saudi Arabia, he said. That is a key for the group, which seeks to boost its credentials and recruitment.
But the attack in Medina outside the sprawling mosque grounds where the Prophet Muhammad is buried sparked particular disgust. Millions visit the mosque every year as part of their pilgrimage to Mecca. Across social media and on channels used by the Islamic State group, supporters appeared to be grappling to explain the violence, quickly labeled by opponents as an attack on Islam itself.
This could be why there has been no claim of responsibility.
Mohammad Ballout, writing Tuesday in Lebanon's daily As-Safir newspaper, said the attacks aim to be a direct warning to Sunni-led nations that an undeclared IS truce with them may collapse if they don't halt their support for the war on the group.
Gerges said the Medina attack was not surprising because "there are no red lines anymore."
It is also possible the radicals want to goad the U.S.-led coalition arrayed against them to take them on in their strongholds of Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.
Those two cities offer the prospect of a bloody, house-to-house fight that many jihadis calculate would be worth losing, because it would cost their enemy so dearly.
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Associated Press writer Ali Abdul-Hassan in Baghdad contributed.
FILE -- In this Sunday July 3, 2016, file photo, Iraqi firefighters and civilians carry bodies of victims killed in a truck bomb at a commercial area in Karada neighborhood, Baghdad, Iraq. As millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the end of Ramadan, many are struggling to come to grips with what has been a particularly bloody month of attacks that killed more than 350 people and spread terror across continents. . (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed, File)
FILE -- In this Sunday July 3, 2016, file photo, an Iraqi woman grieves at the scene after a truck bomb attack in Karada, a busy shopping district in the center of Baghdad, Iraq. As millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the end of Ramadan, many are struggling to come to grips with what has been a particularly bloody month of attacks that killed more than 350 people and spread terror across continents. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, File)
FILE -- In this Sunday July 3, 2016, file photo, Iraqi security forces and civilians gather at the site after a truck bomb hit Karada, a busy shopping district in the center of Baghdad, Iraq. As millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the end of Ramadan, many are struggling to come to grips with what has been a particularly bloody month of attacks that killed more than 350 people and spread terror across continents. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, File)
FILE -- In this Sunday July 3, 2016, file photo, Iraqis hug family members who went missing after a truck bomb hit Karada, a busy shopping district in the center of Baghdad, Iraq. As millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the end of Ramadan, many are struggling to come to grips with what has been a particularly bloody month of attacks that killed more than 350 people and spread terror across continents. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, File)
FILE -- In this Sunday July 3, 2016, file photo, an Iraqi man looks for victims at the site of a deadly truck bomb attack in a commercial area of the Karada neighborhood, Baghdad, Iraq. As millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the end of Ramadan, many are struggling to come to grips with what has been a particularly bloody month of attacks that killed more than 350 people and spread terror across continents. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, File)
FILE -- In this Monday, July 4, 2016, file photo, provided by Noor Punasiya, people stand by an explosion site in Medina, Saudi Arabia. As millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the end of Ramadan, many are struggling to come to grips with what has been a particularly bloody month of attacks that killed more than 350 people and spread terror across continents. (Courtesy of Noor Punasiya via AP, File)
FILE -- In this July 5, 2013 file photo, worshippers visit the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, Saudi Arabia. State-linked Saudi news websites reported an explosion has gone off outside the Prophet's Mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites in the city of Medina on Monday, July 4, 2016, the same day that two suicide bombers struck different cities in Saudi Arabia. As millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the end of Ramadan, many are struggling to come to grips with what has been a particularly bloody month of attacks that killed more than 350 people and spread terror across continents. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban, File)
FILE -- In this Monday, July 4, 2016, file photo released by Saudi Press Agency, SPA, Sheikh al-Faleh, deputy director of the Prophet's Mosque, kisses the forehead of a man who was injured when a suicide bomber attacked a mosque Monday, at a hospital in Medina, Saudi Arabia. As millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the end of Ramadan, many are struggling to come to grips with what has been a particularly bloody month of attacks that killed more than 350 people and spread terror across continents. (Saudi Press Agency via AP, File)
FILE -- In this Thursday, June 30, 2016, file photo, family members, colleagues and friends of the victims of Tuesday blasts gather for a memorial ceremony at the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul. As millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the end of Ramadan, many are struggling to come to grips with what has been a particularly bloody month of attacks that killed more than 350 people and spread terror across continents. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel, File)
FILE -- In this Thursday, June 30, 2016, file photo, An imam offers prayers in front of the coffins of four members of the Amiri family, killed Tuesday at the blasts in Istanbul's Ataturk airport, during the funeral in Istanbul, Turkey. As millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the end of Ramadan, many are struggling to come to grips with what has been a particularly bloody month of attacks that killed more than 350 people and spread terror across continents. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)
FILE -- In this Wednesday, June 29, 2016, file photo, passengers embrace each other following their evacuation after a blast, as they wait outside Istanbul's Ataturk airport, Turkey. As millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the end of Ramadan, many are struggling to come to grips with what has been a particularly bloody month of attacks that killed more than 350 people and spread terror across continents. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel, File)
FILE -- In this Sunday, June 26, 2016, file image made from Associated Press video shows, Iraqi troops turn the Islamic State flag upside down in Fallujah, Iraq. As millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the end of Ramadan, many are struggling to come to grips with what has been a particularly bloody month of attacks that killed more than 350 people and spread terror across continents. (AP Video via AP, File)
China paper warns US of 'price' to pay in South China Sea
BEIJING (AP) The flagship newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party on Wednesday warned Washington that there would be a "price" to pay if it crosses China's "bottom line" by meddling in disputes over the South China Sea.
The People's Daily editorial comes as Beijing ramps up efforts to assert its stance ahead of a ruling by an international tribunal in a case filed by the Philippines challenging China's claims to most of the South China Sea. China is boycotting the case before The Hague-based court and says it will not accept the verdict.
The paper said that bilateral ties and regional stability were at stake and that the U.S. should recognize that "there is a bottom line with every issue, and a price will be paid if that line is crossed."
"If the United States, regardless of the cost, chooses the path of 'brinkmanship' that pressures and intimidates others, there will be only one result, that is, that the U.S. bears all the responsibility for possibly further heightening tensions in the South China Sea," the editorial said.
"China has a solid-rock position over safeguarding China's national sovereignty and territorial integrity. It will not want anything that does not belong to it, but it will ensure that every inch of land it owns is safe and sound," the paper wrote.
The newspaper has previously accused Washington of seeking to turn the South China Sea "into a powder keg" and warned it not to underestimate China's determination to defend its territorial claims.
Islamic State pressured after Turkey tightens jihadi highway
GAZIANTEP, Turkey (AP) Along the border near the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep, a wall of giant concrete blocks is going up as Turkey tries to seal off a region that for years was a jihadi highway through which thousands of extremist fighters flowed to join the Islamic State group in neighboring Syria.
Turkey has always denied permitting the movement of IS militants into Syria and insists it has been doing its best to stop the transit, even before construction on the massive wall began late last year.
Documents obtained by The Associated Press, however, tell a different story, showing a pattern of porousness along Turkey's 566-mile- (911-kilometer-) long border with Syria that has been vital for the extremist group's expansion as it built its self-declared "caliphate."
In this Tuesday, June 28, 2016, a smuggler who declined to be named, working along the Turkish-Syrian border smuggling goods and people, talks to the Associated Press in Gaziantep, southeastern Turkey. He says that until November, the area he worked in, including the Jarablus crossing, was heavily trafficked by Islamic State fighters. He says the group would bring in 30 to 40 people daily at the border at his village. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
The AP analyzed 4,037 "entry documents" logged by the Islamic State group for its fighters entering from Turkey into Syria between September 2013 and December 2014. Around three-quarters of them entered through three particular crossing areas.
Those fighters alone would make up between 25 to 40 percent of the estimated total of IS's foreign recruits, and they likely do not represent all fighters that entered through Turkey during that period. According to CIA estimates, IS had 20,000-31,500 fighters by the end of 2014, around half of them foreigners. The documents were leaked to a Syrian opposition news site, Zaman al-Wasl, which provided them to the AP.
A deadly bombing of Istanbul's international airport on June 28 that killed 44 people raised fears that Turkey is paying a price for IS's free movement through its territory. Some analysts believe IS struck in revenge for Turkey's support for the U.S-led coalition against IS, its tighter border controls and its backing for rebels working to recapture the last stretch of the border that the extremist group still holds on the Syrian side.
The ease with which militants crossed into Syria from Turkey has long brought accusations that Ankara's determination to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad by backing Syrian rebels trumped any concerns over fueling the jihadi movement. The relatively open border was crucial for rebels, including ones backed by the United States, and the fighters used Turkish territory as a crucial rear base and supply route. It was also a life-saving escape route for some 2.75 million refugees who fled into Turkey and an avenue for humanitarian aid to opposition-held areas of Syria.
"Until the rise of ISIS in 2014, Turkey was basically turning a blind eye to radical foreign fighters who were crossing into Syria," said Turkish analyst Soner Cagaptay, an expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, referring to the group by its former acronym. "Not because Turkey was in favor of radicals or supported radicals ... but because they thought they were war-hardened fighters who could accelerate the demise of the Assad regime, helping Turkey toward its final objective."
A Turkish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government protocol, rejected the claim Ankara ever knowingly allowed jihadi fighters to cross into Syria. He pointed out that Turkey arrested thousands of foreign fighters and sent them back to their home countries.
He argued that source countries that allowed such dangerous elements to head to Turkey should be the ones under scrutiny. He said Ankara's requests to other governments, including in the European Union, for intelligence sharing about these suspects were not taken seriously until late 2014.
Turkey deported about 3,250 foreign fighters from 2011 to March 2016, according to the Foreign Ministry. This year, Turkey has detained 1,654 IS suspects, Interior Minister Efkan Ala said recently. Of those, 663 remain in custody, more than half of them foreigners.
IS has not claimed responsibility in the triple suicide attack at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport, but Turkish officials suspect it is behind it. The group has boasted in the past about having cells in Turkey. Security forces have been busy rounding up IS suspects in the wake of the bombing.
"Turkey has the power, determination and capacity to continue the fight against terrorism until the end," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after the attack.
Partly under U.S. and EU pressure, Turkey tightened its border controls, starting late last year. Government authorities began overseeing construction of the wall, which will cover more than a third of the border when complete and include watchtowers and infrared thermal cameras. Turkish guards began to push back Syrians too, trapping tens of thousands fleeing the conflict.
The documents obtained by the AP were compiled by the IS "border authority" for fighters entering from Turkey. Of the 4,037 entry documents, around 3,900 list the entry points. They show 19 different areas used as crossings. But the majority of fighters, some 2,930, entered through three Syrian areas of Tal Abyad, Jarablus or Azaz. Those crossings correspond with Akcakale, Karkamis and Oncupinar on the Turkish side.
The documents, which also list the nationalities of the entering fighters, show they come from all over the world, including Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus region and South Asia. German intelligence authorities have said that similar IS registration documents they have seen appear to be genuine.
The documents don't specify if the fighters used the official crossings or smuggling routes nearby but witnesses told the AP they used both.
A Syrian smuggler who works in the Syrian border area of al-Rai says that until November, the area, including the Jarablus crossing, was heavily trafficked by IS fighters. He says the group would bring in 30 to 40 people daily at the border at his village.
The IS entry documents list 190 fighters who crossed through al-Rai in 2014.
"Until eight months ago we could see how IS would approach the border with their cars and then cross over by foot or motorcycle," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss his illicit business.
"Sometimes the (Turkish) soldiers would tell the villagers and smugglers to just make sure people don't have weapons if they were going from Syria into Turkey, but from Turkey to Syria you could bring as much as you can."
Further east, the divided town of Tal Abyad, known on the Turkish side as Akcakale, was another important entry point for IS, opening to a road leading directly south to the "caliphate's" de facto capital, Raqqa.
"IS would go in and out of Turkey with greater ease than the civilians," recalls a former Syrian rebel who helped man the border gate on the Syrian side when IS was in control of Tal Abyad. He said Turkish authorities photographed everyone going through the crossing. "The foreign fighters were obvious from their look and from the language," he said.
When the crossing was closed on weekends, foreign fighters used known smuggling routes. "The Turks knew. They went right past them," he said.
That route, however, was shut down when Kurdish led-forces took Tal Abyad in June 2015.
One the most notorious IS fighters to cross from Turkey into Syria is Mohammed Emwazi, the British militant shown beheading Western hostages in IS videos. In summer 2013, he and a friend used the Bab al-Hawa crossing into northwestern Syria, according to a posthumous account he supposedly wrote, published in April in IS's French-language publication, Dar al-Islam.
The account of his journey details the difficulties the pair encountered at each international crossing, from hiding in the back of a truck from England to France to the $2,000 he claimed was stolen by a Turkish guard on the crossing from Greece. But at Bab al-Hawa, "we entered Sham (Syria) with no problems," reads the account.
Cagaptay says Ankara's relationship with the IS group gradually soured, starting in June 2014 when the extremists took 49 Turkish diplomats and their families hostage after overrunning the Iraqi city of Mosul. It wasn't until September of that year that Ankara was able to secure their release.
Since the spring, Turkey has been backing Syrian rebels pressing to take back the last 45-mile stretch of the border still controlled by the Islamic State group, including Jarablus and the al-Rai area. At the same time, U.S.-backed fighters from the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces have been waging their own offensive from the east trying to take the border area.
"The corridor is crucial to ISIS' survival," Cagaptay said. "It's the main conduit of what was once a large smuggling area for ISIS to get fighters in and out, weapons in, funding in, oil and antiquities out. If ISIS loses that corridor it will basically be stifled."
"I think this is the tactical reason, in my view, why ISIS decided to respond in Istanbul."
Still, some Turks blame Ankara's policies for the airport attack. About 200 protesters shouted against the ruling Justice and Development Party last week, accusing it of supporting the IS group.
"The government supports IS, and innocent people are killed," said protester Berivan Tanriverdi.
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Online:
Zaman al-Wasl: https://en.zamanalwsl.net/
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Batrawy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Lori Hinnant in Paris, Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Zeina Karam in Beirut and Lee Keath in Cairo contributed to this report.
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Follow Dominique Soguel and Aya Batrawy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DSoguel/ and https://twitter.com/ayaelb/
FILE - In this June 14, 2015 file photo taken from the Turkish side of the border between Turkey and Syria, in Akcakale, Sanliurfa province, southeastern Turkey, thousands of Syrian refugees walk in order to cross into Turkey. Turkey has been building a concrete wall along parts of border with Syria, trying to shut down what has long been a jihadi highway for Islamic State group fighters crossing from Turkey into Syria. According to exclusive Islamic State documents leaked to the Syrian opposition news site Zaman al-Wasl and analyzed by The Associated Press, at least 4,000 foreign IS recruits traveled through Turkey into Syria between late 2013 and most of 2014. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)
This undated picture released on Tuesday, June. 28, 2016, by a militant website, which has been verified and is consistent with other AP reporting, shows fighters from the Islamic State group moving forward to fight against Syrian troops and pro-government gunmen, at al-Tharda mountain in Deir el-Zour province, Syria. The Arabic caption on the photo reads, "The Mujahdeens heading toward al-Tharda mountain to engage enemies of Allah." Turkey has been building a concrete wall along parts of border with Syria, trying to shut down what has long been a jihadi highway for Islamic State group fighters crossing from Turkey into Syria. According to exclusive Islamic State documents leaked to the Syrian opposition news site Zaman al-Wasl and analyzed by The Associated Press, at least 4,000 foreign IS recruits traveled through Turkey into Syria between late 2013 and most of 2014. (Militant photo via AP)
FILE - In this Saturday, June 13, 2015 file photo taken from the Turkish side of the border between Turkey and Syria, in Akcakale, Sanliurfa province, southeastern Turkey, a masked gunman, believed to be an Islamic State militant runs, as he gives orders to Syrian refugees waiting on the Syrian side of the border in order to cross, to return back to the city of Tal Abyad, Syria. Several militants pushed the refugees back towards the city but later the refugees massed again near the border fence in hope to flee intense fighting between Syrian Kurds and militants from the Islamic State group in nearby towns and villages. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)
FILE - In this Sunday, June 14, 2015 file photo taken from the Turkish side of the border between Turkey and Syria, in Akcakale, Sanliurfa province, southeastern Turkey, Syrian refugees burst into Turkey after breaking the border fence and crossing from Syria cross into Turkey. Turkey has been building a concrete wall along parts of border with Syria, trying to shut down what has long been a jihadi highway for Islamic State group fighters crossing from Turkey into Syria. According to exclusive Islamic State documents leaked to the Syrian opposition news site Zaman al-Wasl and analyzed by The Associated Press, at least 4,000 foreign IS recruits traveled through Turkey into Syria between late 2013 and most of 2014. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)
FILE - In this June 14, 2015 file photo, a Syrian refugee lifts a baby over the border fence into Turkey from Syria in Akcakale, Sanliurfa province, southeastern Turkey. Turkey has been building a concrete wall along parts of border with Syria, trying to shut down what has long been a jihadi highway for Islamic State group fighters crossing from Turkey into Syria. According to exclusive Islamic State documents leaked to the Syrian opposition news site Zaman al-Wasl and analyzed by The Associated Press, at least 4,000 foreign IS recruits traveled through Turkey into Syria between late 2013 and most of 2014. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)
Analysis: For Clinton, character questions likely to persist
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) The FBI may have spared Hillary Clinton the worst in wrapping up its investigation into her use of email as secretary of state. But the way in which Director James Comey did so makes it unlikely criticism of her judgment and character will fade before Election Day.
Giving little indication he was about to clear Clinton of wrongdoing, Comey on Tuesday delivered a blistering assessment of the Democratic nominee's missteps in using a personal email account run on private servers.
The FBI determined Clinton sent and received classified information on her private email set-up, he said, contradicting her months of public assurances she had not. He added that agents found "several thousand work-related emails" that Clinton's attorneys failed to turn over, and went on to raise the prospect that people hostile to the U.S. had snooped on her account.
FILE -In this file photo combo, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, left, and FBI Director James. Comey. (AP Photo/File)
"Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of the classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," Comey said Tuesday in a rare public airing of a months-long investigation.
When the moment came that Democrats have been waiting on for months Comey concluding his remarks by saying "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring a case against Clinton it almost seemed to be afterthought.
It was a moment made all the more extraordinary by the political calendar just three weeks before Clinton is scheduled to formally accept the Democratic nomination for president and four months before the November election. Not to mention only a few hours before President Barack Obama made his debut in the 2016 campaign, appearing at an event in the battleground state of North Carolina with his preferred successor.
For the millions of Americans who distrust Clinton and still cringe at the scandals that plagued her husband's presidency, there were unmistakably familiar echoes of a classic Clinton controversy.
Through Whitewater and Travelgate, Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky, opponents have cast the Clintons as politicians who do just enough to stay within the law and use powerful connections to help them do so. Public polls show Clinton struggles mightily when Americans are asked about her honesty, even though she's viewed as experienced and competent.
That Comey's announcement came one week after former President Bill Clinton held a widely criticized impromptu meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch and just a few days after the FBI conducted its only interview with Hillary Clinton will likely do little to help the presumptive Democratic nominee change those perceptions.
While Clinton allies have long predicted she would avoid an indictment, campaign aides were visibly relieved Tuesday during the event with Obama in Charlotte. They sanguinely accepted the fact that Comey had upstaged the president's first foray onto the campaign trail, saying it was worth it to have the investigation complete.
Yet even amid their relief, Clinton aides conceded they fully expect Comey's sharp criticism to wind up in television ads. Democrats acknowledged the end of the investigation won't wipe away long-standing questions about Clinton's character, but said they didn't expect Comey's scathing critique to dramatically reshape the public's opinion of a woman who has been in the political spotlight for three decades.
"People have very set opinions already about both of those candidates. I don't think the event today will change any minds," said Evan Bayh, the former Indiana senator and Clinton backer.
On Comey's criticism of Clinton's email practices, Bayh said "you'd prefer that he hadn't used that language." But he said Republicans would try to paint Clinton as untrustworthy either way.
"Does it really change anything? They were going to run those ads anyway," he said.
The onus is now on Donald Trump to turn the investigation's conclusions into a winning argument. The same Clinton aides fretting about seeing Comey in TV ads this fall also noted the presumptive Republican nominee has yet to run his first spot in a battleground state.
Trump has struggled with consistency since clearing the Republican field, often getting consumed by controversies of his own making. Instead of spending the July 4 weekend focused on his opponent's meeting with the FBI, he was batting back accusations of anti-Semitism after sending a tweet that appeared to depict the Star of David, Clinton and a pile of cash.
At a Tuesday evening event, also in North Carolina, Trump repeatedly referenced the FBI's recommendation and mocked Obama and Clinton for acting "like a carnival act" on the trail. But he also meandered through a myriad of other topics in a speech that stretched on for more than an hour.
If Trump can use the email issue to refocus his campaign, it would be a welcome development for those Republicans still struggling to support a nominee whose policies and personality they find offensive.
They are instead united in their opposition to Clinton, and most are motivated by a desire to keep her out of the White House more than anything else. Comey's critique wasn't the indictment they had hoped for, but once their disappointment passes, they may end up finding comfort in his words all the same.
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Associated Press writers Kathleen Hennessey in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Catherine Lucey in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.
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Julie Pace has covered the White House and politics for The Associated Press since 2007. Follow her on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
Feds open civil rights investigation in Louisiana shooting
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) In a swift move by authorities to keep tensions from boiling over, the U.S. Justice Department launched a civil rights investigation Wednesday into the video-recorded killing of a black man who was shot as he scuffled with two white police officers on the pavement outside a convenience store.
A law enforcement official said a gun was taken from 37-year-old Alton Sterling after he was killed early Tuesday in the parking lot where he regularly sold homemade music CDs from a folding table. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
It was not clear from the murky cellphone footage whether Sterling had the gun in his hand or was reaching for it when he was shot. A witness said he saw police pull a gun from Sterling's pocket after the shooting.
In this Tuesday, July 5, 2016 photo made from video, Alton Sterling is held by two Baton Rouge police officers, with one holding a hand gun, outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, La. Moments later, one of the officers shot and killed Sterling, a black man who had been selling CDs outside the store, while he was on the ground. (Arthur Reed via AP)
The shooting in the Louisiana capital and shocking videos that found their way all over the internet set off angry protests in the city's black community and brought calls for an outside investigation. It came at a time when law enforcement officers across the country are under close scrutiny over what some see as indiscriminate use of deadly force against blacks.
Moving quickly just one day after the shooting, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards asked the Justice Department to take the lead in the investigation.
"I have very serious concerns. The video is disturbing, to say the least," the governor said at a news conference.
Edwards also met with black community leaders to reassure them about the investigation and to ask their help in keeping protests peaceful. He expressed hope that once the community sees that the shooting is "going to be investigated impartially, professionally and thoroughly" by the Justice Department, "the tensions will ease."
In a statement, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called the shooting a tragedy and said trust between police and the communities they serve needs to be rebuilt.
"Something is profoundly wrong when so many Americans have reason to believe that our country doesn't consider them as precious as others because of the color of their skin," Clinton said.
Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. said that Sterling was armed Dabadie didn't specify the type of weapon but that there are still questions about what happened.
"Like you, there is a lot that we do not understand. And at this point, like you, I am demanding answers," Dabadie said, calling the shooting a "horrible tragedy."
Sterling was confronted by police after an anonymous caller reported being threatened by someone with gun outside the store, authorities said.
In the cellphone video taken by a community activist and posted online, one of the officers tackled Sterling, and the two officers pinned him to the pavement.
Someone yelled, "He's got a gun! Gun!" and one officer pulled his weapon from his holster. After some shouting, what sounded like a gunshot could be heard. The camera pulled away before more shots were heard.
The officers, identified by the chief as Blane Salamoni, a four-year member of the department, and Howie Lake II, who has been on the force for three years, were placed on administrative leave, standard department procedure.
Lake was involved in another police shooting in December 2014. He told detectives investigating that shooting that he fired six or seven times when a suspect refused to drop his gun, threatened to kill himself and pointed his revolver at officers. The man was wounded by police.
In the shooting Tuesday, authorities would not say whether one or both officers fired their weapons or how many times.
The store owner, Abdullah Muflahi, released a video that he said he shot from a slightly different angle. He said Sterling was not holding a gun during the shooting but that he saw officers remove one from his pocket afterward. His video shows an officer reaching into Sterling's pocket to grab an object.
Muflahi said an officer fired four to six shots into Sterling's chest.
Hundreds protested Tuesday night, and demonstrators gathered again Wednesday. A vigil Wednesday evening drew hundreds of mourners singing, praying and calling for justice.
Quinyetta McMillon, the mother of Sterling's teenage son, trembled as she read a statement outside City Hall, where a few dozen protesters and community leaders had assembled. Her son, Cameron, 15, broke down in tears and was led away sobbing as his mother spoke.
She described Sterling as "a man who simply tried to earn a living to take care of his children.
"The individuals involved in his murder took away a man with children who depended upon their daddy on a daily basis," she said.
A cousin of Sterling's, Sharida Sterling, said he had been selling music there for about six years, often lugging his box of CDs, table and folding chair on two buses to get to the store.
Sharida Sterling said that the store management never had any problems with him but that he was often harassed by police she suspected because he was black and a "big guy."
"I don't want them to get away with a slap on the wrist because it could happen to somebody else's brother," she said.
In announcing the Justice Department investigation, the governor was accompanied by black Democrats from Baton Rouge who praised him and others for quickly asking the federal government to get involved.
"We know there's going to be an external investigation. I think it makes all the difference in the world," said state Sen. Regina Barrow.
Baton Rouge, a city of about 229,000, is 54 percent black, according to census data, and more than 25 percent of its people live in poverty.
Police said they have dash-cam video, bodycam video and store surveillance footage of the shooting that will be turned over to the Justice Department.
But Lt. Jonny Dunnam said the bodycam footage may not be as good as investigators hoped for because the cameras became dislodged during the scuffle.
That raises serious questions, said Marjorie Esman, executive director of the Louisiana ACLU. "Right when they're needed most is when two of them malfunction in the same way," she said.
The Justice Department will look into whether the officers willfully violated Sterling's civil rights through the use of unreasonable or excessive force.
Similar investigations, which often take many months, were opened after Michael Brown's shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, and following Eric Garner's chokehold death in New York City.
Federal investigators must meet a high legal burden to bring a civil rights prosecution, establishing that an officer knowingly used unreasonable force under the circumstances and did not simply make a mistake or use poor judgment.
The man who claimed to have shot the first cellphone footage to circulate, Arthur Reed, said his company, Stop the Killing Inc., makes documentary-style videos about killings in Baton Rouge.
"We look at ourselves as being a service to the community," Reed said.
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Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana and Kevin McGill in New Orleans contributed to this story.
In this Tuesday, July 5, 2016 photo made from video, Alton Sterling is detained by two Baton Rouge police officers outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, La. Moments later, one of the officers shot and killed Sterling, a black man who had been selling CDs outside the store, while he was on the ground. (Arthur Reed via AP)
Tawandra Carr, who said she was best friends with Alton Sterling, is comforted as people gather outside the Triple S convenience store in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Sterling, 37, was shot and killed outside the store by Baton Rouge police, where he was selling CDs. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Cameron Sterling, son of Alton Sterling, is comforted by hands from the crowd at a vigil outside the Triple S convenience store in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Alton Sterling, 37, was shot and killed by Baton Rouge police outside the store where he was selling CDs. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Sandra Sterling, aunt of Alton Sterling, is comforted at a vigil outside the Triple S convenience store in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Sterling, 37, was shot and killed outside the store by Baton Rouge police, where he was selling CDs. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
People march outside the Triple S convenience store in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Alton Sterling was shot and killed outside the store where he was selling CDs Tuesday by Baton Rouge police. The U.S. Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation Wednesday into the videotaped police killing of Sterling. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Regina Adams, who said she knew Alton Sterling since he was a baby, speaks out as people gather outside the Triple S convenience store in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Sterling, 37, was shot and killed by Baton Rouge police Tuesday outside the store where he was selling CDs. The U.S. Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation Wednesday into the videotaped police killing of Sterling. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Children hold signs reading "Black Lives Matter" outside the Triple S convenience store in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Alton Sterling was shot and killed outside the store Tuesday by Baton Rouge police, where he was selling CDs. The U.S. Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation Wednesday into the videotaped police killing of Sterling. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
People march outside the Triple S convenience store in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Alton Sterling was shot and killed outside the store where he was selling CDs Tuesday by Baton Rouge police. The U.S. Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation Wednesday into the videotaped police killing of Sterling. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Stephanie McDee, who said she is a local blues singer, sings a song and protests at a makeshift memorial for Alton Sterling, outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Sterling was shot and killed by Baton Rouge police outside the store where he was selling CDs. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Demonstrators encourage passing motorists to honk outside the Triple S convenience store in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Alton Sterling, 37, was shot and killed outside the store by Baton Rouge police, where he was selling CDs. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Flowers and messages are left at a makeshift memorial outside the Triple S convenience store in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Alton Sterling, 37, was shot and killed by a Baton Rouge police officer Tuesday outside the store where he was selling CDs. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Protestors gather at the intersection of N. Foster and Fairfields, near the Triple S Food Mart after Alton Sterling was shot and killed by Baton Rouge Police in the early hours of Tuesday morning, July 5, 2016, in Baton Rouge, La. An autopsy shows Sterling, 37, of Baton Rouge, died Tuesday of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, said East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Dr. William Clark. Officers responded to the store about 12:35 a.m. Tuesday after an anonymous caller indicated a man selling music CDs and wearing a red shirt threatened him with a gun, said Cpl. L'Jean McKneely. (Hilary Scheinuk/The Advocate via AP)
People follow a brass band through the street after a vigil for Alton Sterling, who was shot and killed during a scuffle with police officers, outside the Triple S convenience store in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. In a swift move by authorities to keep tensions from boiling over, the U.S. Justice Department launched a civil rights investigation Wednesday into the video-recorded killing of Sterling, who was shot as he scuffled with two white police officers on the pavement outside the convenience store. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
A person holds up a bible at a vigil outside the Triple S convenience store in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Alton Sterling, 37, was shot and killed outside the store by Baton Rouge police, where he was selling CDs. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
People hold up their fists at a vigil outside the Triple S convenience store in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Alton Sterling, 37, was shot and killed outside the store by Baton Rouge police, where he was selling CDs. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
AP News Analysis: Brexit raises new opportunities for Putin
MOSCOW (AP) President Vladimir Putin has remained poker-faced as Britain voted to exit the European Union, but the Russian leader stands to gain significantly from the British departure, which would weaken the EU and create new tensions in the bloc.
With Britain facing a long and messy divorce with the EU, both London's role and, consequently, U.S. influence over EU foreign policy will wither, helping Russia-friendly bloc members in their efforts to mend a rift with Moscow over the Ukrainian crisis.
In the long term, Putin can expect new opportunities for Russia to raise its clout on the continent. The outcome of the British referendum has emboldened euroskeptic parties across the EU, and the rising economic and political uncertainty will only strengthen their positions further.
WITH STORY Russia-Britain-Analysis FILE - In this file photo taken on Wednesday, June 29, 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he addresses students during his visit to German Embassy school in Moscow, Russia. According to some analysts, Putin can expect new opportunities for Russia to raise its clout on the European stage following Britain's EU referendum vote to exit the EU. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, FILE)
And even though the financial storm caused by the British departure could raise economic risks for Russia by affecting oil prices and battering Russian stocks, potential political dividends for Moscow from the EU's crumbling would far outweigh the mid-term economic damage.
"From Russia's viewpoint, Britain's exit makes Europe healthier, more continental and easier for Russia to deal with," wrote Alexander Baunov of the Moscow Carnegie Center think tank.
The EU has followed the U.S. lead in punishing Russia's action in Ukraine with an array of sanctions, which have cut its access to global financial markets and blocked the transfer of key energy and military technologies. Russia has retaliated by blocking imports of most Western food, a ban that hurt many EU nations.
The EU has just extended its sanctions until February 2017, but as the Ukrainian crisis has dragged on EU members including Italy, Greece, Hungary and Slovakia have shown signs of impatience with the sanctions. They have met stiff resistance from the Baltic nations, Poland and Britain, which have argued that the penalties should stay in place. Britain's departure could weaken the camp of the sanctions' supporters.
"The UK has been a strong supporter of tough sanctions and that resolve may now weaken as London becomes distracted by the unwinding process," wrote Chris Weafer, a senior adviser at the Moscow-based consultancy Macro-Advisory Ltd. He added that the next British government may also have different priorities and look for new export markets to develop.
Both Washington and Brussels have made easing the sanctions contingent on the progress of the 2015 Minsk agreement, which has largely stalled.
The deal, which was brokered by France and Germany, obliged Ukraine to offer a broad degree of autonomy to the rebellious east and amnesty to the insurgents, provisions strongly opposed by nationalists. Ukraine, in turn, has accused Russia of failing to fulfill its obligations by not withdrawing its troops from the east. The Kremlin denies that.
Putin says Moscow shouldn't be held responsible for the Minsk deadlock, and some EU members have become increasingly receptive to that idea. On a trip to Russia's top economic forum last month, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi publicly backed Putin's arguments, saying that Ukraine must meet its side of the bargain.
Renzi's visit reflected both Putin's efforts to cultivate ties with individual EU nations and Italy's strong desire to see the EU sanctions lifted.
Weafer predicted that German Chancellor Angela Merkel also will face increasing pressure to unwind the sanctions from within her government, from industry and from other EU countries.
Even though Putin has refrained from gloating over the British exit, his remarks on a trip to Finland last week signaled his hope that it could play into Russia's hands. Asked what Finland could do to improve trade with Russia amid the sanctions, he responded: "You turn to London, they will tell you what to do."
Long before the Ukrainian crisis, Putin repeatedly vented his frustration with the EU's decision-making process and tried to focus on individual negotiations with the bloc's members. He could redouble such efforts now as the EU is reeling from the British shock.
"It has been the Russian diplomacy's longtime dream to develop separate relations with every big European state," Carnegie's Baunov said. "And Britain has made a step toward that dream."
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Isachenkov has covered Russia for the AP since 1992.
WITH STORY Russia Britain Analysis FILE - In this file photo taken on Wednesday, June 29, 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he addresses students during his visit to German Embassy school in Moscow, Russia. According to some analysts, Putin can expect new opportunities for Russia to raise its clout on the European stage following Britain's EU referendum vote to exit the EU. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, FILE)
WITH STORY Russia Britain Analysis FILE - In this file photo taken on Wednesday, June 29, 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he addresses students during his visit to German Embassy school in Moscow, Russia. According to some analysts, Putin can expect new opportunities for Russia to raise its clout on the European stage following Britain's EU referendum vote to exit the EU. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, FILE)
State Dep't defends handling of classified, sensitive info
WASHINGTON (AP) The State Department is defending its handling of classified and sensitive information against statements by the FBI director that the department doesn't handle such information as well as other government agencies.
"What I can tell you is, we don't share the broad assessment that there's a lax culture here at the State Department when it comes to dealing with classified information," department spokesman John Kirby said. "Quite the contrary. We take it very seriously."
FBI Director James Comey said Tuesday the State Department is "generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information that is found elsewhere in the U.S. government," echoing findings of multiple previous reviews of cybersecurity at the State Department under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
FILE - In this Oct. 18, 2011, file photo, then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton checks her Blackberry from a desk inside a C-17 military plane upon her departure from Malta, in the Mediterranean Sea, bound for Tripoli, Libya. The State Department is under fire in courtrooms over its delays turning over government files related to Hillary Clintons tenure as secretary of state. In one case, the department warned it needed a 27-month delay, until October 2018, to turn over emails from Clintons former aides. (AP Photo/Kevin Lamarque, Pool, File)
Comey condemned the State Department's security culture as he announced that the FBI was recommending against criminal charges for Clinton's use of a homebrew email system.
He said Clinton and her aides were "extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information."
Comey's criticism of Clinton renewed long-simmering questions about the security of State Department information under Clinton's watch.
The State Department's compliance with federal cybersecurity standards was below average when Clinton became secretary of state in 2009 and got worse in each year of her tenure, according to an annual report card compiled by the White House, based on audits by agency watchdogs last year. And previous reviews found that the department's unclassified email system was breached by hackers linked to Russia in 2014 who stole an unspecified number of emails.
In each year from 2011 to 2014, the State Department's poor cybersecurity was identified by the agency's inspector general as a "significant deficiency" that put the department's information at risk.
Two successive inspectors general found serious problems with the department's cybersecurity efforts, including in December 2013 when Inspector General Steve Linick issued a "management alert" warning top department officials that repeated failures to correct cybersecurity holes put the department's data at risk.
The hack from Russia was so deep that State's email system had to be cut off from the Internet last year while experts worked to eliminate the infestation.
Clinton did approve significant increases in the State Department' information technology budgets while she was secretary, but senior State Department officials have said she did not spend much time on the department's cyber vulnerabilities. Her emails show she was aware of State's technological shortcomings, but was focused more on diplomacy.
And it's clear from her own emails that Clinton regarded government information technology systems as substandard and worked to avoid them.
"State's technology is so antiquated that NO ONE uses a State-issued laptop and even high officials routinely end up using their home email accounts to be able to get their work done quickly and effectively," top Clinton aide Ann-Marie Slaughter wrote in an email to Clinton on June 3, 2011.
Clinton has apologized for her use of a private email server for official business and her campaign reiterated that again after Comey's announcement. Clinton has said her server had "numerous safeguards," but she hasn't detailed if it received appropriate software security updates or if it was monitored routinely for unauthorized access. In October, the AP discovered it was connected to the internet in ways that made it vulnerable to attack.
Comey said there's no "direct evidence" that Clinton's server was successfully hacked, but he said the FBI "would be unlikely to see such direct evidence" because of the nature of the services and the "actors potentially involved." But the FBI did find that hackers were able to get into the email accounts of people she regularly corresponded with.
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Associated Press writer Jack Gillum and Ken Dilanian contributed to this report.
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Follow Alicia A. Caldwell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/acaldwellap
Dhaka attacks casts long shadow over business in Bangladesh
NEW DELHI (AP) The bloody weekend attack by Bangladeshi militants that left more than two dozen dead was also an attack on the country's vital garment industry.
Clothing manufacturing, the Southeast Asian nation's top export industry, had been recovering after a disastrous factory collapse three years ago shook up the industry, forcing workshops producing for foreign brands to improve working conditions.
Now, the industry, which is reliant on foreign investment, is in turmoil again after Friday's attack, in which armed extremists besieged an upscale restaurant, taking dozens of diners hostage and later killing 20 in an attack that targeted foreigners. Among the dead were a group of Italian designers and buyers for European stores.
FILE - In this April 20, 2015, file photo, Bangladeshi garment workers, who worked at the Rana Plaza garment factory that collapsed two years ago, work at a factory meant to rehabilitate survivors of the accident, the worst in the history of the garment industry, in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. The bloody weekend attack by Bangladeshi militants that left more than two dozen dead has also dealt a deadly blow to the country's vital garment industry. Clothing manufacturing, the Southeast Asian nation's top export industry, had been recovering after a disastrous factory collapse three years ago shook up the industry, forcing workshops producing for foreign brands to improve working conditions. (AP Photo, File)
The fallout has been almost immediate. On Monday, as people returned to work, companies were rethinking travel plans to the garment manufacturing hub.
Japanese "fast-fashion" clothing brand Uniqlo halted all non-essential travel to Bangladesh through the end of July and would continue to monitor the situation, said Aldo Liguori, a spokesman for corporate parent Fast Retailing, which has about 10 Japanese employees in Bangladesh who oversee manufacturing by local factories and supervise its four shops.
"The attacks could have significant economic impact which may well have been in part, the intention," said Gareth Price, a South Asia specialist at the London-based Chatham House think tank.
"The decision by Uniqlo to suspend travel to Bangladesh would, if replicated by other companies, have a devastating effect on the economy," Price wrote in an op-ed piece in the Indian Express newspaper on Wednesday.
Bangladeshi factory owners are bracing for the worst.
"It is a disaster for us. For the trade, it will be very tough to overcome this situation," said Mobasher Ali Mir, CEO of the Horizon Group, which makes clothes for British chain Next and Italian retailer Terranova.
Mir, who spoke by phone from Dhaka, said garment manufacturers in Bangladesh were already under pressure from Western buyers over concerns about worker safety after several fatal accidents in makeshift buildings.
Bangladesh, long one of Asia's poorest countries, earns about $26 billion annually from garment exports mainly to the United States and Europe. The garment industry employs about 4 million workers, mostly women from rural areas, who earn about $72 a month among the lowest minimum wages in the world.
With low labor and infrastructure costs to keep it globally competitive, Bangladesh has become one of the world's biggest workshops after China for clothing, churning out everything from cheap T-shirts to high-end designer wear.
However, the high death toll in the April 2013 collapse of Rana Plaza, a multistoried building outside Dhaka housing five garment factories, raised ethical questions about global brands outsourcing manufacturing to Bangladesh with its appalling work conditions.
Over the last two years, the Bangladeshi government and garment factory owners, under pressure from those global brands, stepped up safety and work conditions, and business was once again on an upswing.
Bangladesh's economy has maintained a robust 6 percent growth on average over the past two decades, making the country an attractive investment destination.
But that confidence was tempered by growing concerns about the resurgence of Islamic militancy in the country, with the past two years seeing a sharp rise in fatal violence by Islamic fundamentalists against secular bloggers, foreign aid workers and religious minorities in the traditionally moderate Muslim-majority nation.
The weekend's attack on the restaurant "marked a significant escalation in the scale of atrocities against foreigners, with previous atrocities having singled out individual foreigners," said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at IHS Global Insight.
The militant attacks in Bangladesh have also set off alarms in Japan, with more than 240 Japanese companies operating in the country.
Japan is also one of Bangladesh's biggest aid donors, having contributed billions of dollars assistance last year to build roads, railways and bridges, and improve water and sanitation.
But the deaths of seven Japanese aid workers in the attack will force the Japanese government and companies to reevaluate their roles in Bangladesh at a time when many Japanese companies are considering setting up production facilities in Bangladesh as labor costs rise in China.
Japanese nationals in Bangladesh have already been warned to avoid places that attract foreigners because such places may become targets, said Hiromitsu Sho, spokesman for the Japan External Trade Organization.
It was too early to see if any companies will decide to leave Bangladesh but Japanese have been instructed to stay indoors either at home or in the office, Sho said. "We are looking into risk management measures that may be needed," he said. "It is possible that companies may become cautious about investment in the future."
Other Japanese companies are also voicing caution.
Toshiba spokeswoman Midori Hara said it is suspending business travel to Bangladesh until July 10. The electronics giant, which opened an office in Dhaka last year to study the country's infrastructure needs, said it would then reassess the situation.
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Associated Press writers Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo and Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong contributed to this report.
FILE - This Feb. 12, 2014 file photo shows a Bangladeshi garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The bloody weekend attack by Bangladeshi militants that left more than two dozen dead has also dealt a deadly blow to the country's vital garment industry. Clothing manufacturing, the Southeast Asian nation's top export industry, had been recovering after a disastrous factory collapse three years ago shook up the industry, forcing workshops producing for foreign brands to improve working conditions. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - In this April 25, 2013, file photo, Bangladeshi people gather as rescuers look for survivors and victims at the site of a building that collapsed a day earlier, in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. The bloody weekend attack by Bangladeshi militants that left more than two dozen dead has also dealt a deadly blow to the country's vital garment industry. Clothing manufacturing, the Southeast Asian nation's top export industry, had been recovering after a disastrous factory collapse three years ago shook up the industry, forcing workshops producing for foreign brands to improve working conditions. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - In this June 15, 2013, file photo Bangladesh's garment factory workers come out from a building during their lunch time in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The bloody weekend attack by Bangladeshi militants that left more than two dozen dead has also dealt a deadly blow to the country's vital garment industry. Clothing manufacturing, the Southeast Asian nation's top export industry, had been recovering after a disastrous factory collapse three years ago shook up the industry, forcing workshops producing for foreign brands to improve working conditions. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - In this June 7, 2016, file photo, a Uniqlo staff walks among clothing stored at the press room of the corporate headquarters in Tokyo. The bloody weekend attack by Bangladeshi militants that left more than two dozen dead has also dealt a deadly blow to the countrys vital garment industry. The Japanese fast-fashion clothing brand Uniqlo halted all non-essential travel to Bangladesh through the end of July 2016 and would continue to monitor the situation, said Aldo Liguori, a spokesman for corporate parent Fast Retailing, which has about 10 Japanese employees in Bangladesh who oversee manufacturing by local factories and supervise its four shops. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
Conservative opposition endangers House Republican gun bill
WASHINGTON (AP) Conservative opposition put a House Republican gun and anti-terrorism bill in jeopardy Wednesday, delivering an embarrassing slap to Speaker Paul Ryan and his effort to mount a legislative response to last month's Orlando mass shooting.
Even as Democrats castigated the election-year GOP measure as ineffective and demanded votes on their own gun curb plans, the often defiant House Freedom Caucus said it opposed the Republican package. The group has around 40 members, and with solid Democratic opposition, GOP leaders would lack the votes to move the bill forward.
Despite the National Rifle Association's endorsement of similar GOP legislation in the Senate, the Freedom Caucus complained that the House bill, which Ryan has been pushing, did not adequately protect gun owners' rights. They also said its anti-terror provisions, chiefly creating a new federal office focused on "radical Islamist terrorism" within the U.S., did not go far enough.
FILE - In this June22, 2016 file photo, House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. The House won't vote on proposed Democratic gun curbs, Ryan suggested Tuesday, July 5, 2016, as the rekindled election-year clash over firearms showed no sign of resolution. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
One dissident conservative, Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., said the group objected most strongly to the measure's anti-terror provisions and said fixing them would be "a heavy lift." He and others said talks were ongoing, and it seemed possible the bill would be broken into two pieces.
Ryan, R-Wis., told reporters, "We're going to get it right, and we're going to do it when we're ready."
Conservative upheaval against Ryan has been less frequent and vitriolic than it was against his predecessor as speaker, John Boehner, R-Ohio, whose retirement was hastened by the conservatives. Notably, conservative opposition to higher spending forced congressional Republicans to abandon their effort to complete a budget this year.
Even so, their opposition comes on an issue that's been propelled back into prominence by last month's carnage at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, when 49 victims died, the worst mass-shooting in modern American history. Ryan would like to demonstrate that the GOP can act.
Underscoring the pressure on GOP leaders, a mere vote on the Republican measure would be a departure: Since the 2012 slaying of school children in Newtown, Connecticut, Republicans have not brought any legislation broadly restricting guns to the House floor.
The internal GOP turmoil endangered a measure that has become a partisan battlefield over gun control and terrorism. Two weeks after staging a House floor sit-in to dramatize their demands, Democrats are pressing for votes on two amendments: One to broaden background checks for gun buyers, the other to ban many firearms sales to suspected terrorists.
Ryan has so far turned aside the Democrats' demands for votes.
At a rally on the Capitol steps, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said Democrats want "real action, not a bill written by the gun lobby." She added: "The Republican House still refuses to disarm hate."
"We don't know what form it's going to take, but stay tuned," Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a leader of last month's House sit-in, said at the rally about future Democratic actions.
For now, Democrats are letting the House conduct regular legislative business without disruptions. A bipartisan bill by Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., aimed at beefing up mental health programs was approved 422-2.
Republicans, backed by the NRA, seem intent on preventing any limitations on the constitutional right to bear arms, which they say the Democratic measures would impose. They also said they were investigating Democrats' behavior during the overnight sit-in, including whether they intimidated House aides and damaged furniture.
The GOP bill would bar many gun sales to suspected terrorists, but only if federal prosecutors could prove within three days that a terrorist act was afoot. The government would have to cover legal costs for people for whom it unsuccessfully tried to deny firearms.
Republicans say their measure protects peoples' constitutional right to legal protections. Democrats say it sets an unreasonably difficult hurdle that makes the whole proposal unworkable.
Their bill would establish an office within the Department of Homeland Security to focus on what the measure calls "radical Islamist terrorism" within the U.S., and set up modest grants for communities trying to counter such threats.
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AP Congressional Correspondent Erica Werner contributed to this report.
Afghan official: Suicide bomber kills 4 people in the north
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) An Afghan official says two sons and two nephews of a tribal leader were killed when a suicide bomber struck the family's car after prayers for a major Muslim holiday in northern Sari Pul province.
Zabi Amani, spokesman for the provincial governor, says the tribal leader, Rahim Khan, was not in the car at the time of the attack in Sangcharak district.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attack, which came as Muslims worldwide celebrate Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
Amani says the presumed target of the attack was Khan himself. He says another civilian was wounded in the bombing.
German factory orders stagnant in May, short of forecast
BERLIN (AP) German factory orders were stagnant in May as a fall in demand at home and overseas balanced out increasing demand from other eurozone countries.
Economists had forecast a 1 percent rise compared with the previous month. But the Economy Ministry said Wednesday that orders were flat overall following a 1.9 percent decline in April.
Orders from inside Germany dropped 1.9 percent and those from outside the eurozone slipped 0.3 percent. Demand from other countries in the 19-nation eurozone was up 4 percent.
German Vice Chancellor, Economy Minister and chairman of the Social Democratic Party, SPD, Sigmar Gabriel arrives for the cabinet meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The cabinet will decide about the German budget 2017 and the finance planning until 2020. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
US, Georgia boost security cooperation as Kerry visits
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) The United States and Georgia agreed Wednesday to boost their military cooperation in a signal of America's commitment to Georgia's defense and a not-so-subtle message to Russia ahead of this week's NATO summit.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, on the first leg a two-day visit to the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine before joining President Barack Obama at the NATO meeting in Poland, signed the new security cooperation agreement with Georgian Prime Minister Georgy Kvirikashvili. The signing came after talks in Tbilisi that also covered economic, education and judicial and electoral reform issues ahead of parliamentary elections set for October.
"The United States remains steadfast in our support of Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Russia's occupation and militarization of parts of Georgia's territory are unacceptable," Kerry said, demanding that Russia abide by the terms of a 2008 truce that ended a brief war over Georgia's separatist region of South Ossetia.
The new agreement will expand U.S.-Georgian security cooperation, giving Georgia access to additional American equipment, training and intelligence with an eye to protecting its borders from future potential encroachment. It will also modernize Georgia's security forces and allow it to more fully integrate with NATO missions.
Kerry will head to Kiev on Thursday for similar talks with Ukrainian officials before meeting Obama in Warsaw.
Georgia and Ukraine are both deeply worried about Russian activities on their territory and have sought closer ties with the West, including association with the European Union and the prospect of NATO membership.
Over deep Russian objections, NATO agreed in 2008 that Georgia would eventually become an alliance member but eight years later has still not joined to the impatience of many in Georgia who have watched warily as Russia has remained in South Ossetia and another enclave of Abkhazia and also moved on parts of eastern Ukraine, annexing Crimea and backing pro-Russian separatists.
Kerry vowed that NATO would renew its membership promise to Georgia but could not offer a definitive timetable for its entry. U.S. officials said it was their hope that the new cooperation agreement would reassure Georgians of American commitment to their security.
"Obviously we have great respect for your desires as a country to be able to look to the West and engage with the West without punishment, without retribution," Kerry said.
'CHiPs' actor Estrada becomes reserve officer in Idaho
ST. ANTHONY, Idaho (AP) The man famous for his many years as a motorcycle cop on the hit '80s TV series "CHiPs" is now a reserve police officer in a small town in southern Idaho.
St. Anthony Mayor Neils Thueson swore Erik Estrada into office on Saturday at City Hall in this town of 3,500 people. Estrada plans to work with the police department in protecting children from internet predators.
Estrada arrived on Saturday where he spent the afternoon with police officers and their families at the city park. After Thueson swore Estrada in as a reserve police officer, Estrada spent the rest of the afternoon at the high school at a meet and greet where he had his picture taken with residents of all ages.
In this Saturday, July 2, 2016, photo famed "CHiPs" police officer Erik Estrada mets St. Anthony residents to discuss his efforts with the St. Anthony Police Department to stop internet enticement of children at St. Anthony City Hall. Estrada has spent the past decade working with various law enforcement departments to keep kids safe online. Following his induction Estrada as a now a St. Anthony Police Department reserve officer, he told how important it is to teach children what not to do while on the web. (Lisa Dayley-Smith/Rexburg Standard Journal via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT
Estrada has spent the past decade working with various law enforcement departments in keeping kids safe online. Following his induction, Estrada said how important it is to teach children what not to do while on the web.
"Education is the best protection especially on the internet. Children should be educated in how to handle a chat room. Don't give out personal information. Certainly don't give out your mother's or father's name or what school you go to. Don't ever accept gifts," Estrada said. "Certainly don't ever go meet someone you've been chatting with. They're not who they are. If they send a picture, that isn't them."
Even in conservative and generally safe St. Anthony, there are still threats to children, Police Chief Terry Harris said.
"I think that this brings to the surface that (internet crime) happens in smaller communities. Everything that happens in the big cities, happens here," he said.
Estrada's team is developing various programs such as software that will record children's pictures at various angles. It will also provide other information such as a child's medical needs. The information will be readily available for police should a child come up missing.
"The first 72 hours is a very crucial time to recover a child," Estrada said.
Estrada chose St. Anthony as small rural communities prove more willing to quickly join forces with his organization. In larger cities, there is too much red tape and too many bureaucrats involved in trying to reach the mayor and police officials, he said.
"What happens in a big city there is a tremendous amount of politics involved," he said.
In St. Anthony, after just a few emails and telephone calls, city officials quickly and eagerly welcomed Estrada into the police reserves.
"We got everybody on board immediately, so we don't waste his time. In a larger city, it could take weeks," Harris said.
Estrada and his organization made contact with Harris about six weeks ago via email. As Estrada has continually warned, you can't trust everybody on the web. Harris, having worked as a police officer for many years, thought the email was one big hoax. Before responding, he did some detective work and learned that the email was legitimate. He later got in touch with Estrada and told the city council about Estrada's plans.
Harris later met with the city council where he announced Estrada's visit. Of course, not everyone in town believed Harris. Social media lit up with many saying it was indeed a joke. More than once, Harris heard that he "was full of beans." In the meantime, he sallied forth making plans for Estrada's visit.
Estrada's addition to the city will prove beneficial to the city's police department, he said.
"We're talking a long-term partnership. I expect it will run for the next two or three years. He's a great guy. He's going to be a great part of the team," Harris said.
Estrada grew up wanting to become a police officer thanks to his mother's friendship with an exceptionally good police officer. Yet, during high school, he got the acting bug after he signed up for drama when he became interested in dating a young woman.
After Estrada told his mother of his change in plans, he promised her that, if acting didn't work out by the time he was 30, he would return to New York and become a police officer. The cutoff to do so was 32 years of age.
By the time Estrada was 27, he landed the role of California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer Frank "Ponch" Poncherello. He continued in that role from 1977 to 1983, making it possible to support his mother, who hasn't worked since that time.
"I've been taking care of her for 35 years," he said.
Following "CHiPs," Estrada continued acting, but later became a reserve officer in Muncie, Indiana. To avoid attention, he worked nights as an officer. He later came in contact with law enforcement officers who spent the day working against internet predators. What Estrada witnessed sickened him so much that he decided to form a foundation to help educate and protect children from internet enticement.
Estrada says that all his dreams from crime fighting to acting have all come true.
Argument over lawmaker exposes German nationalist divisions
BERLIN (AP) An argument over a regional lawmaker accused of anti-Semitism has exposed divisions in the leadership of a German nationalist party that has been boosted by Europe's migrant crisis.
Alternative for Germany, or AfD, performed well in three state elections in March among them in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, where it won 23 seats in the regional legislature. On Tuesday, 13 lawmakers left the party's regional caucus there, though not the party, after failing to get the rest to throw out legislator Wolfgang Gedeon.
The lawmaker has drawn criticism for describing Holocaust deniers in the past as "dissidents" and for saying that "Talmud Judaism is the inner enemy of the Christian West."
Joerg Meuthen, co-leader of the party Alternative for Germany or AfD passes waiting journalists in Stuttgart, Germany, wednesday, July 6, 2016. An argument over a regional lawmaker accused of anti-Semitism has laid bare divisions in the leadership of AfD. Thirteen out of 23 lawmakers left the caucus of AfD, in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg on Tuesday, July 5, including Meuthen. (Bernd Weissbrod/dpa via AP)
Events following the walkout highlighted the personal animosity between the national party's co-leaders, Joerg Meuthen and Frauke Petry, who have led AfD together since a split last year that saw its founding leader depart.
Petry is AfD's best-known figure. Meuthen, the caucus leader in Baden-Wuerttemberg, was among the 13 lawmakers who walked out of the parliamentary group there.
Petry, who had traveled to Baden-Wuerttemberg apparently without consulting Meuthen, appeared with Gedeon a few hours later to say he had agreed to leave and that a split was averted.
However, Meuthen said Wednesday he had set up a new caucus called Alternative for Baden-Wuertemberg.
Deputy AfD leader Alexander Gauland told ZDF television it hadn't been "productive for (Petry) to intervene in the caucus without Joerg Meuthen's knowledge."
He said the party had been damaged by Gedeon's behavior.
Gauland said Gedeon's statements were "clearly anti-Semitic" and that AfD should have acted earlier. In a statement Tuesday, Petry's team said that Gedeon rejects all allegations of anti-Semitism.
Animosity between Petry and other leaders has been evident for months. Petry and the rest of the leadership now have separate press teams.
AfD, which started out three years ago as an anti-euro party but recently has focused on opposing migration and Islam, hopes to win seats in Germany's national parliament next year. Recent polls have put its support at between 9 percent and 15 percent.
Asked whether Meuthen and Petry will remain co-leaders until then, Gauland replied: "I think so today, but I am no longer prepared to make long-term predictions in the party."
The Latest: Bush hasn't read UK Iraq report yet
LONDON (AP) The Latest on Britain's inquiry into its role in the Iraq war (all times local):
5:50 p.m.
Former President George W. Bush hasn't had the chance to read a damning official report on the Iraq war released by a British government-commissioned inquiry.
This photo provided by the George W. Bush Presidential Center shows former President George W. Bush leading a bike ride at his ranch on his 70th birthday near Crawford, Texas, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. (Grant Miller/George W. Bush Presidential Center via AP)
The report says that then Prime Minister Tony Blair led Britain into an unsuccessful war in Iraq through a mix of flawed intelligence, "wholly inadequate" planning and an exaggerated sense of the U.K.'s ability to influence the U.S.
Bush spokesman Freddy Ford says the former president, who turned 70 on Wednesday, is hosting wounded veterans at his Texas ranch and hasn't read the report yet.
Ford said that "despite the intelligence failures and other mistakes he has acknowledged previously, President Bush continues to believe the whole world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power."
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5 p.m.
Former U.S. President George W. Bush is bicycling with wounded veterans on the same day a British inquiry has been released in London on the faulty intelligence and planning leading up to the Iraq war.
Bush spokesman Freddy Ford says Bush planned to spend Wednesday, his 70th birthday, at his Texas ranch riding his mountain bike with "wounded warriors."
The British report includes former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair's letters to Bush assuring him of his support before the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. In one letter, Blair urges Bush to go to the U.N. Security Council to build greater support for the war; in another he asks what provisions have been made for "avoiding civilian casualties." Only Blair's letters to Bush, not Bush's replies, were published.
The war in Iraq killed nearly 4,500 American personnel, 179 British troops and more than 100,000 Iraqis.
Ford didn't return messages seeking comment on the British report.
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2:45 p.m.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is denying that there was a "rush to war" in the months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The former leader is facing pointed criticism from the U.K.'s Iraq War Inquiry over his conduct regarding the war.
Blair on Wednesday denied giving early support for a military invasion of Iraq, stating that he had persuaded a "reluctant" American administration to seek U.N. Security Council backing for the use of military force. Blair says he did this to give Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein a "final opportunity" to comply.
However, a 2002 letter released by the Iraq War Inquiry shows that Blair told U.S. President George W. Bush eight months before the invasion that he would do "whatever" to promote regime change in Iraq.
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2:25 p.m.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says the world is a better place because of the removal of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Facing harsh criticism from a damning report released Wednesday by the Iraq War Inquiry, Blair says going to war had been the most "agonizing decision" he has ever made.
Blair said he takes full responsibility for the decision and that the British military and civil service are not to blame for the problems that developed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The former leader said Britain had prepared for one set of facts on the ground after the invasion but found another as security in Iraq degenerated into sectarian violence.
He conceded that intelligence assessments about Iraq had been incorrect.
Overthrowing Saddam's regime unleashed instability in Iraq that persists to this day and has left more than 100,000 Iraqis dead, tens of thousands wounded and millions displaced.
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2:05 p.m.
Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says the British government was blindsided by the actions of some U.S. officials in handling the aftermath of the war in Iraq.
In his response to the Iraq war inquiry report on Wednesday, Straw acknowledges there were serious failures planning and implementation in post-conflict Iraq. But he says the actions of some U.S. officials, in particular the decision by Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority to disband the Iraqi Army, were exceptionally problematic.
Straw says "This decision, whose consequences Iraq is still living with, not only blindsided the British government; it blindsided key members of the U.S. administration, including then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and the then Secretary of State Colin Powell
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1:10 p.m.
Iraqis say they're not satisfied that the head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry has not recommended prosecuting former British Prime Minister Tony Blair for war crimes.
Many Iraqis are still mourning the loss of more than 175 people killed in a massive weekend bombing in Baghdad claimed by the Islamic State group.
Ali al-Saraji, a Baghdad resident, says Blair, "destroyed our country," and should be prosecuted as a war criminal for his involvement in bringing about the Iraq war. The instability that the 2003 U.S.-led invasion unleashed in Iraq persists to this day and has left more than 100,000 Iraqis dead, tens of thousands wounded and millions displaced.
Al-Saraji says "since 2003 until now, our country has been a scene of destruction, killing, massacres, explosions and sectarianism."
The rise of al-Qaeda in Iraq following the 2003 invasion later morphed into the militants who call themselves the Islamic State group.
Juma al-Quraishi, an Iraqi journalist, says "everyone who took part in the war against Iraq should be condemned, either Britain or others."
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1 p.m.
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron says lessons must be learned following the publication of the long-awaited Chilcot report into the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Cameron offered a summary of the report to the Parliament on Wednesday, arguing that some of the mistakes outlined in the report had already been addressed in the years since the invasion and occupation.
The Conservative leader said, for example, there are now separate mechanisms for assessing intelligence information and its use.
Cameron says "we cannot turn the clock back, but we can ensure that lessons are learned and acted on."
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12:35 p.m.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says he will take full responsibility for any mistakes amid the publication of the Chilcot report on British involvement in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion in Iraq.
Blair nonetheless underscored that the report released Wednesday supported positions that he has long held, including that he made no secret commitment to go to war at a meeting with former U.S. President George Bush in April 2002 in Texas.
Blair highlights there was no "falsification of intelligence," though the inquiry found the threat posed by Iraq's weapons "were presented with a certainty that was not justified."
Blair repeated his contention that it was "better to remove Saddam Hussein" than allow the Iraqi leader to stay in power. He says "I do not believe this (Saddam's removal) is the cause of the terrorism we see today whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world."
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12:10 p.m.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says he hopes the Chilcot report looking into British involvement in the Iraq War lays to rest allegations that he used lies or deceit as a pretense to invade Iraq.
Blair issued a statement Wednesday right after the report was released, saying that he tried to do the right thing by joining the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The country was wracked by violence and chaos for years after that.
Blair says "whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein, I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country."
Blair says while the Chilcot inquiry does not make a finding on the legal basis for British military action in Iraq, it found that the attorney general concluded there was a lawful basis by March 13, 2003.
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12:05 p.m.
The families of U.K. troops slain in the Iraq conflict say Britain should use the Chilcot report to make sure the country never makes such grave mistakes again.
In a statement Wednesday, a group of families who had access to the report's executive summary say that "never again must so many mistakes be allowed to sacrifice British lives and lead to the destruction of a country for no positive end."
The sister of one slain serviceman, Sarah O'Connor, says the report confirms there is one "terrorist" that the world needs to know about "and that is (ex-Prime Minister) Tony Blair."
The military families have long pushed for the inquiry and for those responsible for British involvement in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq to be held to account.
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11:55 a.m.
The head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry says former Prime Minister Tony Blair overestimated his ability to influence decisions made by the Americans.
Retired civil servant John Chilcot says Blair put too much faith in being able to shape U.S. policy in the months before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that overthrew Saddam Hussein's government.
Blair had a good relationship with U.S. President George W. Bush and they worked together closely during the run-up to the military intervention in Iraq.
The Chilcot inquiry, which took seven years to produce, is publishing detailed notes from Blair to Bush describing strategic plans for the invasion.
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11:40 a.m.
The head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry says Britain's 2003-2009 deployment to Iraq ended "a long way from success."
Retired civil servant John Chilcot, in a report that took seven years to produce, says Britain had to make a "humiliating" deal with militias in Iraq that had been targeting British forces as a best possible way to lessen the violence that erupted in the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
He said Wednesday that the simultaneous war effort in Afghanistan had a material effect on British forces in Iraq, citing as an example a shortage of helicopters and surveillance equipment.
Chilcot said decisions made were not fully implemented and that the Ministry of Defense had been slow to respond to the threat posed by improvised explosive devices in Iraq.
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11:30 a.m.
The head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry says the risks of intervening in Iraq should have been known in advance.
Retired civil servant John Chilcot says British officials should have known the risks of internal strife in Iraq, the danger of increased al-Qaida activity and the possibility of general instability inside the country.
Chilcot said the known risks should have been addressed further by British political and military elites and that the failures continued to have an effect after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. He said hindsight was not needed and that careful planning would have taken these factors into account.
He also noted that Britain's deployment in Iraq ended "a long way from success."
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11:25 a.m.
The head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry has said his inquiry will not make a finding on whether the invasion of Iraq was legally justified.
Retired civil servant John Chilcot says there were serious shortcomings in the planning and execution of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and poor preparation for the aftermath, which saw Saddam Hussein's government overthrown and the country descend into chaos.
Chilcot said, however, that "the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for U.K. military action were far from satisfactory."
His report is broadly damning of British political, military and intelligence planning. He did not find that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government had knowingly misled the public and Parliament about the situation in Iraq.
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11:10 a.m.
The head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry has released a damning verdict on a conflict he says was mounted on flawed intelligence, executed with "wholly inadequate" planning.
Retired civil servant John Chilcot says "the U.K. chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort."
He says then-Prime Minister Tony Blair's government presented an assessment of the threat posed by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's weapons with "certainty that was not justified," and military planning for the war and its aftermath were not up to the task.
Chilcot oversaw an inquiry that has taken seven years to complete, heard from 150 witnesses and analyzed 150,000 documents.
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8 a.m.
Anti-war activists and relatives of some dead British troops hope the Chilcot report will find the Iraq war illegal, opening the way for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes.
Sarah O'Connor, whose brother, Sgt. Bob O'Connor, died in a plane crash in Iraq in 2005, says "that man has been the puppet master, and it's about time that we came along and we cut his strings."
John Chilcot, a retired civil servant, has stressed that his inquiry is not a court of law, and the International Criminal Court has said that the "decision by the U.K. to go to war in Iraq falls outside the court's jurisdiction."
Chilcot said he wanted the report to be "a really reliable account of all that happened that really matters" over Iraq, with lessons for the future.
Peter Brierley, whose son Lance Cpl. Shaun Brierley was killed in 2003, said he hoped the report "comes somewhere close to what I expect, which is to say that Tony Blair did go to war illegally."
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6:30 a.m.
The official inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq War is releasing its findings Wednesday, more than seven years after hearings began and 13 years on from the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Retired civil servant John Chilcot is due to publish his 2.6-million-word report on a divisive conflict that by the time British combat forces left in 2009 had killed 179 British troops, almost 4,500 American personnel and more than 100,000 Iraqis.
Iraq descended into sectarian strife after the occupiers dismantled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's government and military apparatus, unleashing chaos that helped give rise to the Islamic State group.
The war has overshadowed the legacy of Britain's then-leader, Prime Minister Tony Blair. His government has been accused of exaggerating intelligence about Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction in order to build support for invasion.
Blair who declined to comment on the report before publication has always said his government did not invent or distort intelligence.
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Associated Press Writer Jonathan Shenfield contributed to this story.
British former Prime Minister Tony Blair holds a press conference at Admiralty House, London, after retired civil servant John Chilcot presented The Iraq Inquiry Report on Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Blair said he takes full responsibility for the decision and that the British military and civil service are not to blame for the problems that developed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool via AP)
Protesters hold placards outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, shortly before the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Thirteen years after British troops marched into Iraq and seven years after they left a country that's still mired in violence, a mammoth official report is about to address the lingering question: What went wrong? On Wednesday, retired civil servant John Chilcot will publish his long-delayed, 2.6 million-word report on the divisive war and its chaotic aftermath. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
FILE- In this Thursday Dec. 22, 2005 file photo, the then Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair meets soldiers at Shaibah logistics base, Basra, Iraq. Thirteen years after British troops marched into Iraq and seven years after they left a country that's still mired in violence, a mammoth official report, which will be published Wednesday July 6, 2016, is about to address the lingering question: What went wrong? (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
Protesters hold placards outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, shortly before the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Thirteen years after British troops marched into Iraq and seven years after they left a country that's still mired in violence, a mammoth official report is about to address the lingering question: What went wrong? On Wednesday, retired civil servant John Chilcot will publish his long-delayed, 2.6 million-word report on the divisive war and its chaotic aftermath. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
Protesters wearing a former British Prime Minister Tony Blair mask, centre, and former U.S. President George W. Bush mask pose for photographers outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, shortly before the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Thirteen years after British troops marched into Iraq and seven years after they left a country that's still mired in violence, a mammoth official report is about to address the lingering question: What went wrong? On Wednesday, retired civil servant John Chilcot will publish his long-delayed, 2.6 million-word report on the divisive war and its chaotic aftermath. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
A protester wearing a former British Prime Minister Tony Blair mask holds a banner with his surname spelt "Bliar" outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, shortly before the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Thirteen years after British troops marched into Iraq and seven years after they left a country that's still mired in violence, a mammoth official report is about to address the lingering question: What went wrong? On Wednesday, retired civil servant John Chilcot will publish his long-delayed, 2.6 million-word report on the divisive war and its chaotic aftermath. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
A protester wearing a former British Prime Minister Tony Blair mask holds a banner with his surname spelt "Bliar" outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, shortly before the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Thirteen years after British troops marched into Iraq and seven years after they left a country that's still mired in violence, a mammoth official report is about to address the lingering question: What went wrong? On Wednesday, retired civil servant John Chilcot will publish his long-delayed, 2.6 million-word report on the divisive war and its chaotic aftermath. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
Protesters wearing a former British Prime Minister Tony Blair mask, left, and former U.S. President George W. Bush mask pose for photographers outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, shortly before the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Thirteen years after British troops marched into Iraq and seven years after they left a country that's still mired in violence, a mammoth official report is about to address the lingering question: What went wrong? On Wednesday, retired civil servant John Chilcot will publish his long-delayed, 2.6 million-word report on the divisive war and its chaotic aftermath. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
The hands of protesters wearing a former British Prime Minister Tony Blair mask, left, and former U.S. President George W. Bush mask are posed by photographers outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, shortly before the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Thirteen years after British troops marched into Iraq and seven years after they left a country that's still mired in violence, a mammoth official report is about to address the lingering question: What went wrong? On Wednesday, retired civil servant John Chilcot will publish his long-delayed, 2.6 million-word report on the divisive war and its chaotic aftermath. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
Protesters hold placards outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, shortly before the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Thirteen years after British troops marched into Iraq and seven years after they left a country that's still mired in violence, a mammoth official report is about to address the lingering question: What went wrong? On Wednesday, retired civil servant John Chilcot will publish his long-delayed, 2.6 million-word report on the divisive war and its chaotic aftermath. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
Protesters wearing a former British Prime Minister Tony Blair mask, left, and former U.S. President George W. Bush mask pose for the media outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, shortly before the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The long awaited British inquiry into the 2003 invasion of Iraq has been published. Led by former senior civil servant John Chilcot, the report took over seven years to prepare and runs over two million words. The report did not analyze the legality of the invasion and instead focused on the British decision-making process in the run up to the war in 2003. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
Protester Michael Culver, 78, stands outside the London home of former Prime Minister Tony Blair ahead of the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday July 6, 2016. (PA via AP)
People protest outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London, where the publication of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War is taking place, Wednesday July 6, 2016. (Gareth Fuller/PA via AP)
People protest outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London, where the publication of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War is taking place, Wednesday July 6, 2016. (Gareth Fuller/PA via AP)
Protesters hold a banner outside home of former Prime Minister Tony Blair ahead of the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war in London, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Thirteen years after British troops marched into Iraq and seven years after they left a country that's still mired in violence, a mammoth official report is about to address the lingering question: What went wrong? On Wednesday, retired civil servant John Chilcot will publish his long-delayed, 2.6 million-word report on the divisive war and its chaotic aftermath. (Jonathan Brady/PA Wire via AP)
Protesters hold a banner outside the London home of former Prime Minister Tony Blair ahead of the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war in London, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Thirteen years after British troops marched into Iraq and seven years after they left a country that's still mired in violence, a mammoth official report is about to address the lingering question: What went wrong? On Wednesday, retired civil servant John Chilcot will publish his long-delayed, 2.6 million-word report on the divisive war and its chaotic aftermath. (Jonathan Brady/PA Wire via AP)
British former Prime Minister tony Blair holds a press conference at Admiralty House, London, after retired civil servant John Chilcot presented The Iraq Inquiry Report on Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Blair said he takes full responsibility for the decision and that the British military and civil service are not to blame for the problems that developed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool via AP)
British former Prime Minister tony Blair holds a press conference at Admiralty House, London, after retired civil servant John Chilcot presented The Iraq Inquiry Report on Wednesday, July 6, 2016. An emotional Blair told at a news conference that going to war in Iraq was "the hardest, most momentous, most agonizing decision I took in my 10 years as British prime minister." (Stefan Rousseau/Pool via AP)
British former Prime Minister Tony Blair holds a press conference at Admiralty House, London, after retired civil servant John Chilcot presented The Iraq Inquiry Report on Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Blair said he takes full responsibility for the decision and that the British military and civil service are not to blame for the problems that developed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool via AP)
British former Prime Minister Tony Blair arrives for a press conference at Admiralty House, London, after retired civil servant John Chilcot presented The Iraq Inquiry Report on Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Blair said he takes full responsibility for the decision and that the British military and civil service are not to blame for the problems that developed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool via AP)
10 Things to Know for Today - 6 July 2016
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:
1. HEAD OF BRITAIN'S IRAQ WAR INQUIRY RELEASES DAMNING REPORT
Retired civil servant John Chilcot says the 2003 U.S.-led invasion was mounted on flawed U.K. intelligence, executed with "wholly inadequate" planning and ended "a long way from success."
Sir John Chilcot presents the Iraq Inquiry Report at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry has released a damning verdict on a conflict he says was mounted on flawed intelligence, executed with "wholly inadequate" planning. (Dan Kitwood/Pool via AP)
2. 'BLADE RUNNER' GETS SIX YEARS FOR MURDER
Oscar Pistorius' new sentence for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp is far less than the 15-year jail term he could have faced.
3. CHARACTER QUESTIONS LIKELY TO PERSIST FOR HILLARY CLINTON
The FBI may have spared the presidential candidate the worst in its investigation into her email use as secretary of state, but criticism of her judgment and trustworthiness will likely vex her up to Election Day.
4. ISLAMIC STATE GROUP PRESSURED AFTER ANKARA TIGHTENS JIHADI HIGHWAY
Documents obtained by The AP show at least 4,000 foreign recruits for IS traveled through Turkey into Syria between late 2013 and the end of 2014.
5. ONE OF THE BLOODIEST RAMADANS IN MEMORY HANGS OVER EID
The diverse, high profile targets appear to confirm what many experts have long feared: The Islamic State group will metastasize far beyond its shrinking caliphate.
6. WHY CONGRESS IS ON COLLISION COURSE
Lawmakers seem just as destined for an election-season clash over guns as they did before a Democratic sit-in on the chamber's floor two weeks ago.
7. WHERE PUFFING IS UNDER THREAT
North Korea, one of the last bastions of free, unhindered smoking, is now officially trying to get its people to kick the habit.
8. WHO HAILS SADDAM HUSSEIN
Donald Trump praises the former Iraqi president's ruthlessness when it came to rooting out extremists.
9. LIONEL MESSI GIVEN 21 MONTHS FOR TAX FRAUD
A court finds both the Barcelona star and his father guilty of three counts of defrauding the tax department to the tune of 4.1 million euros ($4.6 million).
10. CALL IT A COMEBACK
Brock Lesnar is firing up the Brocktagon one more time in Las Vegas in the comeback of the UFC season.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton listens as President Barack Obama talks about her during a campaign event at the Charlotte Convention Center in Charlotte, N.C., Tuesday, July 5, 2016. Obama is spending the afternoon campaigning for Clinton. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Walgreens fiscal 3rd-quarter performance mixed
DEERFIELD, Ill. (AP) Walgreens' fiscal third-quarter results were mixed as a stronger dollar pressured its international division.
The largest U.S. drugstore chain earned $1.1 billion, or $1.01 per share, for the period ended May 31. A year earlier the Deerfield, Illinois-based company earned $1.3 billion, or $1.18 per share.
Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were $1.18 per share. This topped the $1.14 per share that analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research predicted.
This Tuesday, July 5, 2016, photo shows a Walgreens drugstore in North Andover, Mass. Walgreens reports financial results Wednesday, July 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
Revenue rose to $29.5 billion from $28.8 billion, but fell short of the $29.93 billion that analysts polled by Zacks were looking for.
Total sales at retail pharmacy locations in the U.S. climbed 3.7 percent. For the international unit, total sales fell 2.3 percent but increased 3.4 percent on a constant currency basis.
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. said Wednesday that it now expects full-year adjusted earnings in a range of $4.45 to $4.55 per share. Its prior outlook was for $4.35 to $4.55 per share. Analysts surveyed by FactSet are calling for earnings of $4.49 per share.
Walgreens said that its proposed acquisition of Rite Aid Corp. is progressing as planned. It still expects the deal to close in the second half of the year.
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. shares fell $1.67, or 2 percent, to $81.85 in morning trading. Its shares have fallen 4.5 percent over that past year.
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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on WBA at http://www.zacks.com/ap/WBA
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US Justice Department asks judge to block transgender law
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) The U. S. Justice Department has asked a federal judge to halt implementation of a North Carolina law requiring people to use the bathroom of the gender on their birth certificate.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in May the department would try to block the provision of the law.
A filing Tuesday in U.S. District Court in North Carolina says the Justice Department is likely to be successful in getting the law overturned based on a recent ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals involving a transgender student's bathroom access in Virginia.
Key findings of UK's inquiry into Iraq war
LONDON (AP) The long awaited British inquiry into the 2003 invasion of Iraq has been published. Led by former senior civil servant John Chilcot, the report took over seven years to prepare and runs over two million words. The report did not analyze the legality of the invasion and instead focused on the British decision-making process in the run up to the war in 2003.
Here are some of Chilcot's findings:
The UK planning and preparation for the Iraq war were "wholly inadequate."
FILE -- In this March 21, 2003 file photo, a British Royal Marine from 42 Commando fires a Milan wire-guided missile at an Iraqi position on the Al Faw peninsula, southern Iraq. The head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry, retired civil servant John Chilcot, released a damning report Wednesday, July 6, 2016, on a conflict he said was mounted on flawed intelligence and executed with "wholly inadequate" planning. The 2.6-million-word report is an exhaustive verdict on a divisive conflict that by the time British combat forces left in 2009 had killed 179 British troops, almost 4,500 American personnel and more than 100,000 Iraqis. (AP Photo/Jon Mills, Pool, File)
Iraq posed no imminent threat to the UK. Chilcot says "the UK chose to engage in the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort."
The legal basis for war with Iraq was "far from satisfactory."
The threat from Iraq was "presented with a certainty that was not justified" by then-Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Blair overestimated his ability to influence U.S. decision-making on Iraq.
The British government failed to achieve its post-conflict objectives in Iraq. Chilcot says "the scale of UK efforts in post-conflict Iraq never matched the scale of the challenge."
Blair had been warned that military action would increase the threat from al-Qaida and that Iraq's weapons could be transferred into the hands of terrorists developments that continue to have consequences today.
The report underscored the importance of collective ministerial decision-making and frank discussion and debate. Chilcot says "it is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessment. They were not challenged as they should have been."
The 2003 invasion and subsequent instability in Iraq have resulted in the deaths of 150,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, with over 1 million people displaced. Chilcot says "the people of Iraq have suffered greatly."
The Latest: Aunt calls for peaceful protest at vigil
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) The Latest on the police shooting of a Baton Rouge man (all times local):
9 p.m.
An aunt of the Louisiana man killed by police has pleaded with protesters to remain peaceful as hundreds gathered for a vigil.
Tawandra Carr, who said she was best friends with Alton Sterling, cries while people gather outside the Triple S convenience store in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Sterling, 37, was shot and killed outside the store by Baton Rouge police, where he was selling CDs. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Many carried signs Wednesday night to express their anger and demand for justice, blocking streets near the Baton Rouge convenience store where Alton Sterling was killed.
Sandra Augustus, an aunt who helped raise Sterling after his mother died, spoke to the crowds with a broken voice, tearful.
She said a second video that emerged Wednesday showing the moments before her nephew was shot had left her angry.
Still, she pleaded for protesters and those gathered not to allow the vigil to be marred by violence.
Shortly after speaking, Augustus and another aunt of Sterling's fainted in the heat and commotion. They were carried away by family members.
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9 p.m. (EDT)
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is calling the shooting death of a Louisiana man a tragedy and decrying the deaths of black Americans in incidents involving police.
Authorities in Baton Rouge say 37-year-old Alton Sterling was killed early Tuesday during a scuffle with two police officers outside a convenience store. Sterling was black and the police officers were white. The U.S. Justice Department has launched a civil rights investigation into the shooting, which was recorded in video.
In a statement Wednesday, Clinton says something is profoundly wrong when so many Americans have reason to believe that their country doesn't consider them as precious as others because of the color of their skin. Clinton says incidents such as the Sterling shooting have undermined the trust between police departments and the communities they serve.
In saying that trust needs to be rebuilt and justice served, Clinton cites what she calls "commonsense reforms" like ending racial profiling and providing better training on de-escalation and implicit bias.
Clinton says that all over America, there are police officers demonstrating how to protect the public without resorting to unnecessary force and that everyone needs to learn from and build on those examples.
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7:30 p.m.
Hundreds of protesters, mourners, friends and family of a Louisiana man shot and killed by Baton Rouge police have gathered in front of the convenience store where the shooting occurred.
A vigil for Alton Sterling, who was killed early Tuesday, met outside the store Wednesday. There were prayers, songs, a balloon release in Sterling's memory and calls for justice. Many of those gathered held signs demanding action as participants chanted "Black Lives Matter."
Some of the protesters' signs read "No Justice, No Peace," ''Black Out Downtown!" and "Who is supposed to protect us?"
At one point during the vigil, protesters marched down a busy street near the site of the shooting, blocking traffic. Little to no police presence was seen near the peaceful gathering but police were nearby if needed.
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8:30 p.m. (EDT)
A protest in Philadelphia over the shooting death of a black man during a scuffle with two white police officers in Louisiana has blocked a highway on-ramp. Police have arrested about a dozen people.
Wednesday's protest took place at an on-ramp for Interstate 676, a major thoroughfare through the downtown Philadelphia area.
About 75 people took part. Many chanted "This is what democracy looks like" and "No justice, no peace, no racist police."
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6:15 p.m.
A second bystander's video has emerged showing two white police officers involved in the shooting death of a black man outside of a convenience store.
The store owner, Abdullah Muflahi, says he shot the cellphone video and released it to the media Wednesday night. It shows the shooting of Alton Sterling from a slightly different angle than another video that was taken by a community activist and widely circulated on the internet.
Muflahi's video shows the officers on top of Sterling and the shots being fired. The camera moves away at one point and when it returns, Sterling can be seen lying on the ground with what appears to be blood on his chest.
One officer is lying on the ground on his side with his weapon pointed toward Sterling, who appears to still be alive as his arm moves up to his chest. A voice can be heard saying "Shots fired! Shots fired!" The video then shows a second officer reaching into Sterling's pocket and pulling out an object.
It's not clear from the murky video what it is, but the store owner says it was Sterling's gun.
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5:45 p.m.
The owner of a convenience store where a black Louisiana man was shot and killed by police said the man seemed "confused" and was trying to figure out why authorities were trying to arrest him before he was shot.
Abdullah Muflahi, the 28-year-old owner of the Triple S 24-hour convenience store where the shooting took place, said Wednesday that he went outside after the police arrived.
Alton Sterling was shot and killed early Tuesday by police in Baton Rouge.
Muflahi said he saw Sterling being thrown on top of a car hood. He said Sterling appeared confused and kept asking, "What did I do wrong?"
He said he never saw Sterling with a gun but saw a police officer pull a gun out of Sterling's pocket after the shooting.
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5:20 p.m.
Court documents say one of the two white officers in the fatal shooting of a black man outside a convenience store was previously involved in a shooting with an armed man.
The documents say Officer Howie Lake was among the police officers who exchanged fire with a man who fled police on Dec. 13, 2014.
Lake told detectives he fired six or seven shots when Kevin Knight refused to drop his gun, threatened to kill himself and pointed his revolver at officers.
Knight, who is black, was wounded. His trial is scheduled for next month.
Knight's attorney said he didn't have access to the court documents and couldn't immediately comment on Lake's role in the shooting.
Lake was placed on administrative leave. It wasn't clear from a summary of his statement to detectives whether he was disciplined.
Lake has been with the department for three years. He has been placed on administrative leave again as authorities investigate the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling early Tuesday.
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2:15 p.m.
A cousin of the black man killed by police during an altercation in Louisiana says police had harassed him before.
Sharida Sterling said Wednesday that her cousin, Alton Sterling, had been selling CDs in front of the convenience store for about six years.
She said when she couldn't drive him there, he would take the bus with his box of music, table and folding chair.
She said the store management never had any problems with him working there but that he was often harassed by police. She said she suspected it was because he was black and a "big guy."
She said her cousin had told her that he was going to be at the convenience store late Monday because it was a holiday and likely would be more customers.
Sterling was killed early Tuesday during an altercation with police. The Justice Department is investigating.
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1:30 p.m.
The head of the ACLU Louisiana says serious questions need to be asked whether body cameras were working properly when two white officers fatally shot a black man outside a convenience store.
Baton Rouge police said earlier Wednesday that the bodycam footage became dislodged during an altercation with 37-year-old Alton Sterling. The Justice Department is investigating the shooting.
Louisiana ACLU executive director Marjorie Esman wants to know if the officers were trained in how to properly fasten the cameras. She says right when they were needed the most is when two of them malfunctioned in the same way.
She also says authorities also should investigate whether police could have used some other means of subduing Sterling and "if it was necessary to subdue him at all."
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11:50 a.m.
Baton Rouge police say they have dash-cam video, body-cam video and store surveillance video of the police shooting death of a black man outside a convenience store.
Police said Wednesday that the audio and video will be turned over to the U.S. Justice Department, which is investigating the shooting of Alton Sterling.
Police Lt. Jonny Dunnam says the body-cam footage may not be as good as investigators hoped for because the cameras became dislodged during the altercation.
In a cellphone video taken by a community activist and posted online, two officers had Sterling pinned to the ground, and gunfire erupted moments after someone yelled, "He's got a gun! Gun!"
Dunnam noted that even though federal investigators are taking the lead, there will be an internal investigation and the officers will be entitled to hearings before any disciplinary actions are taken.
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11:25 a.m.
The Baton Rouge police chief has identified the two white officers involved in the fatal shooting of a black man.
Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. said Wednesday that the officers are Blane Salamoni, a four-year member of the department and Howie Lake II, who has been on the force for three years.
Both officers have been placed on administrative leave while the U.S. Justice Department investigates the shooting of 37-year-old Alton Sterling.
Baton Rouge Police Lt. Jonny Dunnam confirmed the races of the officers.
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11:10 a.m.
The Baton Rouge police chief says the black man who was fatally shot by police was armed but there are still questions about what happened.
Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. called the shooting a tragedy during a news conference and said: "Like you, there is a lot that we do not understand. And at this point, like you, I am demanding answers."
The police chief made his comments just an hour after the U.S. Justice Department said it had opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting death of 37-year-old Alton Sterling. The chief says the probe will be transparent and independent.
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10:50 a.m.
The man who says he shot video of police fatally shooting a black man in Baton Rouge says he has been distributing the footage on social media as a service to the community.
Arthur Reed told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday that he and a team from his company, Stop the Killing Inc., made the video early Tuesday of 37-year-old Alton Sterling's death. Reed says his company shoots documentary-style videos about killings in Baton Rouge.
Reed says that on the day of Sterling's death, two teams of people drove to the scene, outside a convenience store, after hearing about the incident on police radio.
Reed described the scene: "They were already messing with him, and it escalated. After the shots, we left."
The shooting and video have fueled anger and protests.
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10:35 a.m.
The Justice Department says it will open a civil rights investigation into the videotaped police shooting of a black man outside a Baton Rouge convenience store.
Agency spokesman David Jacobs said Wednesday that the FBI's New Orleans Division and the U.S. attorney's office will participate in the investigation of the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alton Sterling.
Police say they went to the store Tuesday after an anonymous caller said Sterling had threatened someone with a gun.
The Justice Department's investigation will look into whether the officers willfully violated Sterling's civil rights through the use of unreasonable or excessive force.
Similar investigations, which often take many months to resolve, were opened following the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York.
Federal investigators must meet a high legal burden to bring a civil rights prosecution, establishing that an officer knowingly used unreasonable force under the circumstances and did not simply make a mistake or use poor judgment. Many federal probes conclude without criminal charges.
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10:25 a.m.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards says the cellphone video of the fatal police shooting of a black man in Baton Rouge is "disturbing to say the least."
Edwards said during a news conference on Wednesday that the U.S. Justice Department would investigate the shooting of 37-year-old Alton Sterling. He was killed early Tuesday outside a convenience store where he was selling CDs.
Police say they were called to the store Tuesday after an anonymous caller said Sterling had threatened someone with a gun.
The governor said he understood that protesters were angry over the shooting and called for calm.
Authorities have not released the race of the two officers, who have been placed on administrative leave.
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9:35 a.m.
In the wake of the fatal shooting of a black man by police at a Baton Rouge convenience store, a protester says people in the community need answers and justice.
Forty-five-year-old Sharon Alexander made the comments Wednesday, a day after 37-year-old Alton Sterling's death.
A pastor told the small crowd gathered that the protest would be peaceful. That's when Alexander chimed in, telling the pastor as her voice cracked: "We don't need peace. We need answers; we need justice."
Alexander was there with her daughter and three other relatives. She later said: "Our kids are not hearing our story. We sound like a broken record. It's time for a change."
A video that purported to show the killing of 37-year-old Alton Sterling further fueled public anger about the shooting early Tuesday, prompting hundreds to protest.
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8:45 a.m.
The head of the Baton Rouge NAACP in Louisiana has called for the police chief to be fired or resign in the wake of the fatal shooting of a black man during a confrontation at a convenience store.
Michael McClanahan said during a Wednesday morning news conference that Baton Rouge can't have a leader who "allows this type of action to take place."
A video that purported to show the killing of 37-year-old Alton Sterling further fueled public anger about the shooting early Tuesday, prompting hundreds to protest.
A vigil for Sterling is planned for Wednesday night.
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7:30 a.m.
Outside a Louisiana convenience store where a black Baton Rouge man was shot and killed by police, people have been paying their respects.
Authorities said 37-year-old Alton Sterling died Tuesday of multiple gunshot wounds after an altercation with police. His death and a subsequent video that purported to show the shooting sparked protests.
By dawn Wednesday, protesters and friends had created a makeshift memorial to Sterling on the white folding tables and fold out chair he had used to sell homemade music compilations on CD's.
Arthur Baines came by to pay his respects. He said Sterling didn't bother people and that he was just trying to make a living.
Mufleh Alatiyat, a 25-year old employee of the store, described Sterling as generous and said he often gave away CDs or petty cash or bought food or drink for people.
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2:30 a.m.
A Louisiana police officer shot and killed a man during a confrontation outside a Baton Rouge convenience store, authorities say, in a death that prompted a protest later in the day.
East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Dr. William Clark says an autopsy shows 37-year-ol Alton Sterling died Tuesday of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back.
Cpl. L'Jean McKneely said officers responded to the store about 12:35 a.m. Tuesday after an anonymous caller indicated a man selling music CDs and wearing a red shirt threatened him with a gun.
McKneely says two officers responded and had some type of altercation with the man and one officer fatally shot the suspect. He says both officers have been placed on administrative leave, which is standard department policy.
Artist Jo Hines spray paints a mural of Alton Sterling outside the Triple S convenience store in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Sterling, 37, was shot and killed outside the store by Baton Rouge police, where he was selling CDs. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Sandra Sterling, aunt of Alton Sterling, is comforted at a vigil outside the Triple S convenience store in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Sterling, 37, was shot and killed outside the store by Baton Rouge police, where he was selling CDs. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
People demonstrate in the street as police cars pass outside the Triple S convenience store during a rally after Alton Sterling, a black man, was shot and killed Tuesday, in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The U.S. Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation Wednesday into the video-recorded police killing of Sterling, who authorities say had a gun as he wrestled with two white officers on the pavement outside a convenience store. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
A person holds up a bible at a vigil outside the Triple S convenience store in Baton Rouge, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Alton Sterling, 37, was shot and killed outside the store by Baton Rouge police, where he was selling CDs. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Protestors gather at the intersection of N. Foster and Fairfields, near the Triple S Food Mart after Alton Sterling was shot and killed by Baton Rouge Police in the early hours of Tuesday morning, July 5, 2016, in Baton Rouge, La. An autopsy shows Sterling, 37, of Baton Rouge, died Tuesday of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, said East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Dr. William Clark. Officers responded to the store about 12:35 a.m. Tuesday after an anonymous caller indicated a man selling music CDs and wearing a red shirt threatened him with a gun, said Cpl. L'Jean McKneely. (Hilary Scheinuk/The Advocate via AP)
Protestors gather near the Triple S Food Mart after Alton Sterling was shot and killed by Baton Rouge Police in the early hours of Tuesday morning, July 5, 2016, in Baton Rouge, La. An autopsy shows Sterling, 37, of Baton Rouge, died Tuesday of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, said East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Dr. William Clark. Officers responded to the store about 12:35 a.m. Tuesday after an anonymous caller indicated a man selling music CDs and wearing a red shirt threatened him with a gun, said Cpl. L'Jean McKneely. (Hilary Scheinuk/The Advocate via AP)
Family and friends of Alton Sterling protest on the corner of Fairfields Ave. and North Foster Drive Tuesday afternoon, July 5, 2016, after was fatally shot in an altercation with Baton Rouge Police just after midnight, in the parking lot of the Triple S Food Store, in Baton Rouge, La. They chanted things including "Hands up, don't shoot!" Officers responded to the store about 12:35 a.m. Tuesday after an anonymous caller indicated a man selling music CDs and wearing a red shirt threatened him with a gun, said Cpl. L'Jean McKneely. (Travis Spradling/The Advocate via AP)
Protestors gather near the Triple S Food Mart, the area where Alton Sterling was shot and killed by Baton Rouge Police in the early hours of Tuesday morning, July 5, 2016, in Baton Rouge, La. An autopsy shows Sterling, 37, of Baton Rouge, died Tuesday of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, said East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Dr. William Clark. Officers responded to the store about 12:35 a.m. Tuesday after an anonymous caller indicated a man selling music CDs and wearing a red shirt threatened him with a gun, said Cpl. L'Jean McKneely. (Hilary Scheinuk/The Advocate via AP)
In this Tuesday, July 5, 2016 photo made from video, Alton Sterling is held by two Baton Rouge police officers, with one holding a hand gun, outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, La. Moments later, one of the officers shot and killed Sterling, a black man who had been selling CDs outside the store, while he was on the ground. (Arthur Reed via AP)
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, surrounded by law enforcement representatives and legislators, addresses the media Wednesday, July 6, 2016, concerning the Alton Sterling shooting by a police officer Tuesday. Edwards said, while the video released Tuesday was disturbing, the investigation into the shooting will be conducted in a fair and professional manner. Sterling was shot and killed by a Baton Rouge police officer Tuesday outside a store where he was selling CDs. (Patrick Dennis/The Advocate via AP)
Baton Rouge resident Raymond Gregory holds aloft some of the yellow tape used to mark the scene where Alton Sterling, 37, was fatally shot by Baton Rouge Police, as protests continue Wednesday, July 6, 2016 outside the Triple S Food Store, in Baton Rouge, La. In a swift move by authorities to keep tensions from boiling over, the U.S. Justice Department launched a civil rights investigation Wednesday into the video-recorded killing of a black man who was shot as he scuffled with two white police officers on the pavement outside a convenience store. (Travis Spradling/The Advocate via AP)
Letters: Blair made early Iraq invasion commitment to Bush
LONDON (AP) Letters published by the U.K.'s Iraq War Inquiry show that then-Prime Minister Tony Blair assured U.S. President George W. Bush of his support for regime change in Iraq eight months before the U.S.-led invasion began in March 2003.
The report by retired civil servant John Chilcot offered a sweeping condemnation of Britain's preparations for the war and its aftermath. The newly published documents offer one side of the vital relationship between Bush and Blair Blair's letters to Bush are published, but Bush's responses are not.
In a six-page "Secret Personal" memo to Bush written July 28, 2002, Blair says he would do "whatever" with regards to removing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain from power. Blair says toppling Saddam is "the right thing to do" adding that the important question is "not when, but how."
British former Prime Minister tony Blair holds a press conference at Admiralty House, London, after retired civil servant John Chilcot presented The Iraq Inquiry Report on Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Blair said he takes full responsibility for the decision and that the British military and civil service are not to blame for the problems that developed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool via AP)
At the time, Blair was telling the British public and Parliament that no decision to go to war against Iraq had been made.
"I will be with you whatever," Blair wrote to his U.S. counterpart. "But this is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties. The planning on this and the strategy are the toughest yet. This is not Kosovo. This is not Afghanistan. It is not even the Gulf War."
Blair was criticized during his Labour Party administration for aligning himself too closely with his American allies. He provided Bush with important political support in the months before the 2003 invasion and his decision to commit British forces provided vital military backing to the U.S.-led effort.
In his letters, many of which are undated, Blair was frequently blunt about the lack of public and political support in Britain and elsewhere for an invasion of Iraq.
"Opinion in the U.S. is quite simply on a different planet from opinion here in Europe or in the Arab world," he said in the July 28, 2002, missive. "In Britain right now I couldn't be sure of support from Parliament, party, public or even some of the Cabinet. And this is Britain. In Europe generally, people just don't have the same sense of urgency post 9/11 as people in the U.S."
Blair tries to convince a reluctant Bush that the best way to build support would be to take the issue to the U.N. Security Council. He suggests that by going to the U.N., they could give Saddam a deadline to let U.N. weapons inspectors in without any conditions.
"He would probably screw it up and not meet the deadline, and if he came forward after the deadline, we would just refuse to deal," Blair wrote.
Blair, however, seemed confident he could eventually win public backing by emphasizing the threat posed by Saddam.
"If we recapitulate all the WMD (weapons of mass destruction) evidence; add his attempts to secure nuclear capability; and, as seems possible, add on al-Qaida link, it will be hugely persuasive over here," he wrote.
No weapons of mass destruction were found inside Iraq.
Blair also offers Bush advice on communications strategy, suggesting that a "media and communications War Room" be set up in both countries. He suggests a unified messaging strategy, a policy discouraging interviews, and "continually" focusing on Saddam's nature.
The message should be this, Blair says: "He's bad; we're good; he's going to lose; we're going to win."
In another pre-invasion note, the British prime minister asks Bush about "military questions:" if there is sound planning for how to react if Saddam uses weapons of mass destruction against the United States or the Iraqi people; if he attacks Israel; if he destroys Iraq's oil wells; or how to keep rival groups inside Iraq apart.
As a handwritten addendum to this list, Blair asks if there has been planning for "avoiding civilian casualties."
Blair also asks Bush about post-invasion plans: "What happens immediately: a new Iraqi government or U.S. run?" and "What type of Iraqi government are we aiming for medium term?"
In later undated notes and letters released in the report, as the reconstruction of Iraq proves far more difficult than had been anticipated, Blair warns Bush that Islamic extremists have a coherent political strategy linked to their military objectives, allowing them to capitalize on anti-Western sentiments throughout the Islamic world.
He warns in a declassified note that "the bad news is still the massive level of misunderstanding about us, our motives, and the fact that we want the same as them: a free Iraq."
By the time British combat forces finally left Iraq in 2009, the conflict had killed 179 British troops, almost 4,500 American personnel and more than 100,000 Iraqis.
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Adela Suliman in London contributed to this report.
FILE -- In this May 29, 2003 file photo, British Prime Minister Tony Blair addresses troops in Basra, Iraq. The head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry, retired civil servant John Chilcot, released a damning report Wednesday, July 6, 2016, on a conflict he said was mounted on flawed intelligence and executed with "wholly inadequate" planning. The 2.6-million-word report is an exhaustive verdict on a divisive conflict that by the time British combat forces left in 2009 had killed 179 British troops, almost 4,500 American personnel and more than 100,000 Iraqis. (AP Photo/Stefan Rousseau/WPA pool)
FILE- In this Thursday Dec. 22, 2005 file photo, the then Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair meets soldiers at Shaibah logistics base, Basra, Iraq. Thirteen years after British troops marched into Iraq and seven years after they left a country that's still mired in violence, a mammoth official report, which will be published Wednesday July 6, 2016, is about to address the lingering question: What went wrong? (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
A detail of a declassified handwritten letter sent by the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair, to former U.S President George W. Bush, is seen as part of the Iraq Inquiry Report presented by Sir John Chilcot at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry has released a damning verdict on a conflict he says was mounted on flawed intelligence, executed with "wholly inadequate" planning. (Jeff J Mitchell/Pool via AP)
A detail of a declassified handwritten letter sent by the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair, to former U.S President George W. Bush, is seen as part of the Iraq Inquiry Report presented by Sir John Chilcot at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry has released a damning verdict on a conflict he says was mounted on flawed intelligence, executed with "wholly inadequate" planning. (Jeff J Mitchell/Pool via AP)
John Chilcot presents the Iraq Inquiry Report at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The long awaited British inquiry into the 2003 invasion of Iraq has been published. Led by former senior civil servant John Chilcot, the report took over seven years to prepare and runs over two million words. The report did not analyze the legality of the invasion and instead focused on the British decision-making process in the run up to the war in 2003. (Jeff J Mitchell/Pool via AP)
Protesters wearing a former British Prime Minister Tony Blair mask, left, and former U.S. President George W. Bush mask pose for the media outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, shortly before the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The long awaited British inquiry into the 2003 invasion of Iraq has been published. Led by former senior civil servant John Chilcot, the report took over seven years to prepare and runs over two million words. The report did not analyze the legality of the invasion and instead focused on the British decision-making process in the run up to the war in 2003. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
Roger Bacon, a relative of military personnel killed during the Iraq War, speaks during a joint news conference after Sir John Chilcot presented The Iraq Inquiry Report at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry has released a damning verdict on a conflict he says was mounted on flawed intelligence, executed with "wholly inadequate" planning. (Dan Kitwood/Pool via AP)
A British Iraqi protester holds up an Iraqi flag, during a protest, outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, after the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The Iraq war was mounted on flawed intelligence, was executed with "wholly inadequate" planning, and ended "a long way from success," according to a damning report released Wednesday by the head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
A British Iraqi protester holds up an Iraqi flag outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, after the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The Iraq war was mounted on flawed intelligence, was executed with "wholly inadequate" planning, and ended "a long way from success," according to a damning report released Wednesday by the head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
A British Iraqi protester holds up an Iraqi flag outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, after the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The Iraq war was mounted on flawed intelligence, was executed with "wholly inadequate" planning, and ended "a long way from success," according to a damning report released Wednesday by the head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
Members of the media film and photograph volumes of the Iraq Inquiry stacked up outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, after the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The Iraq war was mounted on flawed intelligence, was executed with "wholly inadequate" planning, and ended "a long way from success," according to a damning report released Wednesday by the head of Britain's Iraq War inquiry. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
British former Prime Minister tony Blair holds a press conference at Admiralty House, London, after retired civil servant John Chilcot presented The Iraq Inquiry Report on Wednesday, July 6, 2016. An emotional Blair told at a news conference that going to war in Iraq was "the hardest, most momentous, most agonizing decision I took in my 10 years as British prime minister." (Stefan Rousseau/Pool via AP)
British former Prime Minister Tony Blair holds a press conference at Admiralty House, London, after retired civil servant John Chilcot presented The Iraq Inquiry Report on Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Blair said he takes full responsibility for the decision and that the British military and civil service are not to blame for the problems that developed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool via AP)
British former Prime Minister Tony Blair holds a press conference at Admiralty House, London, after retired civil servant John Chilcot presented The Iraq Inquiry Report on Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Blair said he takes full responsibility for the decision and that the British military and civil service are not to blame for the problems that developed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool via AP)
British former Prime Minister Tony Blair arrives for a press conference at Admiralty House, London, after retired civil servant John Chilcot presented The Iraq Inquiry Report on Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Blair said he takes full responsibility for the decision and that the British military and civil service are not to blame for the problems that developed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool via AP)
Newspaper: System forgives sexual abuse by doctors across US
ATLANTA (AP) Sexual abuse by doctors against patients is surprisingly widespread, yet the fragmented medical oversight system shrouds offenders' actions in secrecy and allows many to continue to treat patients, an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has found.
The AJC obtained and analyzed more than 100,000 disciplinary orders against doctors since 1999. Among those, the newspaper identified more than 3,100 doctors sanctioned after being accused of sexual misconduct; more than 2,400 of the doctors had violations involving patients. Of those, half still have active medical licenses today, the newspaper found.
These cases represent only a fraction of the incidents in which doctors have been accused of sexually abusing patients. Many remain obscured, the newspaper said, because state regulators and hospitals sometimes handle sexual misconduct cases in secret, and because some public orders are so vaguely worded that patients would not know that a sexual offense occurred.
The profession and its national lobby, the American Medical Association, condemn physician sexual misconduct and say consent is no defense. But they have remained relatively silent on the issue, helping to ensure that it stays out of the public eye.
The newspaper's analysis of up to 16 years of public records showed accusations of sexual improprieties and misconduct involving doctors of all types: psychiatrists seducing the emotionally fragile; family practitioners fondling minors; anesthesiologists molesting sedated patients; obstetricians raping women who had come to them for care.
The scale and scope of misdeeds varied tremendously, ranging from lewd comments to patients during intimate exams, to rapes of mentally and physically disabled patients. But some doctors have been among the nation's alleged worst sexual predators, with hundreds of victims over decades.
While the vast majority of the nation's 900,000 doctors do not sexually abuse patients, the AJC found the phenomenon happens far more often than anyone has acknowledged.
"It would be one thing if it was only one incident, but to find out how prevalent it is, is frightening and angering," said Erin Vance, an Oregon woman who was sexually assaulted by a physician while she was under anesthesia. The Associated Press typically does not identify victims of sex crimes, but Vance agreed to have her name published.
According to the newspaper, sexual misconduct is tolerated to one degree or another in every state in the nation, as physician-dominated medical boards give their peers second chances, hospitals fail to report patient complaints, and prosecutors dismiss or reduce charges so doctors can stay off sex-offender registries.
Sometimes, doctors who molest patients or subject them to bizarre exams for sexual gratification are seen as sympathetic figures in need of therapy, not as predators who must answer to police, the newspaper reported. Many are cleared to practice after going to recovery centers.
In Georgia, the AJC found, two-thirds of the doctors publicly disciplined after allegations of sexual misconduct were permitted to practice again. The same held true for Kansas. In Alabama, the figure was nearly three out of every four; in Minnesota, four of every five.
Larry Dixon, the longtime executive director of the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners, said it's wrong to believe all physicians who engage in sexual misconduct should automatically be barred from practicing.
"If you graduate a class of more than 100 people out of the University of Alabama medical school, the resources that have been poured into that education almost demand that you try to salvage that physician if it's possible," he said.
That view is shared by other regulators. "Let me say that it takes a lot of money to educate a physician," Vann Craig, the former executive director of the Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure, told the AJC last year. "If they can be safely monitored and rehabilitated, I don't see why they can't come back from drugs, alcohol or sexual misconduct."
Robert Jeffery, executive director of the Georgia Composite Medical Board, acknowledged that his board issues private consent orders and private agreements in some sexual misconduct cases. He noted that public orders can inhibit doctors from reporting themselves or their peers.
"If the response every single time is going to be public suspension, public this, public that, then I think what you would end up with the unintended consequence of fewer reports," he said.
David Clohessy, the executive director of SNAP, an advocacy organization for people sexually abused by priests, doctors and others, said that when doctors "cross the boundary and their hands veer into the wrong places, we are in shock, we are paralyzed, we're confused, we're scared. We just do not want to believe, first of all, that a doctor is capable of this, and secondly that their colleagues and supervisors will not address this immediately and effectively when we report it."
The newspaper also found that only 11 states require medical authorities to tell law enforcement when doctors have sexually violated adult patients.
Because of all these factors, nobody really knows how many cases of sexual misconduct have been discovered by hospitals, medical schools, disciplinary boards and police.
"There just isn't accurate data," said Dr. Gene Abel, an Atlanta physician who is a nationally recognized expert in evaluating sexual misconduct by professionals.
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Rebel Wilson sees her size as an advantage in comedy
LONDON (AP) Bigger is funnier for Rebel Wilson.
The 36-year-old Australian actress says in a recent interview with Britain's Telegraph newspaper that gaining weight has helped her career in comedy. She says she sees her size as an advantage, "whereas so many women see it as a disadvantage."
Wilson's career took off following a bit part in the 2011 comedy "Bridesmaids." She's also known as Fat Amy in the "Pitch Perfect" films.
FILE - In this Feb. 3, 2016, file photo, actress Rebel Wilson attends the world premiere of "How To Be Single" in New York. Wilson told Britain's Telegraph newspaper in an interview published July 2, 2016, that gaining weight has helped her career in comedy. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
Kidnapped Sierra Leone diplomat freed, Nigeria police say
BAUCHI, Nigeria (AP) A diplomat from Sierra Leone who was abducted last week has been freed, but it is not clear whether any ransom was paid to secure his release, Nigerian police said Wednesday.
Police spokesman Don Awunah told reporters that Sierra Leone's deputy high commissioner to Nigeria, Maj. Gen. Alfred Nelson Williams, was found in sound health Tuesday afternoon and has been reunited with his embassy in Abuja and his family.
Neither the police nor the Nigerian government gave details of how the diplomat was freed.
Nigerian workers at the embassy had said the abductors were demanding $40 million for his release.
An officer at Nigeria's ministry of foreign affairs said the abductors had been speaking with top government officials from Sierra Leone. The officer insisted on speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
Williams was abducted on Friday while traveling to Kaduna, a northwestern state of Nigeria, to attend a military parade. He was abducted along a major highway well known for armed robbery and abductions.
The Latest: Trump insists Clinton tweet isn't anti-Semitic
WASHINGTON (AP) The Latest on Campaign 2016 ahead of the Republican and Democratic National Conventions (all times EDT):
7:35 p.m.
Donald Trump is again insisting that his negative tweet about Hillary Clinton did not feature a Star of David atop a pile of cash.
FILE - In this July 1, 2016, file photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during the opening session of the Western Conservative Summit in Denver. Trump is again praising former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's ruthlessness, saying he killed terrorists "so good." Trump was speaking at a rally Tuesday, July 5, 2016, in North Carolina when he turned to the former Iraqi leader. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
Trump said Wednesday at a rally in Cincinnati that it was just "a regular star or maybe a sheriff's star" and that he wished his campaign had not deleted the image.
Trump received criticism for the image of the star, which some had deemed anti-Semitic. He insists that the media "was racist" for assuming that the image had Jewish connotations.
He also says that he is not anti-Semitic, noting that his daughter Ivanka had converted to Judaism for marriage and is raising her children Jewish.
The rant about the tweet came amid a long list of Trump complaints about the media's coverage of several recent controversies, including his apparent praise of Saddam Hussein and the size of his crowds.
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7:08 p.m.
A Democrat familiar with the plans says the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are discussing a potential event next week in New Hampshire, during which Sanders would endorse Clinton.
The Democrat says if the two sides continue to make progress in the talks they would hold the joint event Tuesday in New Hampshire.
The Democrat was not authorized to discuss the plans and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Sanders praised Clinton's announcement of a proposal earlier Wednesday to tackle the rising cost of college tuition and the burden of student loan debt.
Asked when he might endorse Clinton, Sanders told reporters he was working with Clinton on some initiatives and he was hopeful they could reach an agreement "sooner rather than later."
Sanders is pushing for changes to the Democratic platform at a meeting in Florida this weekend.
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7 p.m.
Donald Trump is trying to clarify his apparent compliments of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
The presumptive Republican nominee stressed Wednesday in Cincinnati that Saddam "was a bad man" and that "I hate Saddam Hussein."
He then repeated the dubious assertion that Saddam "was good at one thing: killing terrorists." In the West, Saddam was seen not as an opponent of terrorism, but as a state sponsor of it.
When Trump made his remarks about Saddam on Tuesday night in North Carolina, he sparked headlines and drew criticism from fellow Republicans like House Speaker Paul Ryan and his likely general election opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Trump blamed the news media for taking his Saddam comments out of context, using his familiar riff that the press "are the most dishonest people in the world."
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6:55 p.m.
Donald Trump is criticizing the outcome of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server.
The presumptive Republican nominee opened his rally in Cincinnati on Wednesday reciting several of the criticisms that FBI Director James Comey delivered in his briefing about Clinton's server the day before.
Trump then contrasted what Comey said to Clinton's previous claims about the servers, saying his likely general election opponent was "a dirty rotten liar."
Trump's methodical recitation of the criticism stood in stark contrast to his scattershot criticisms of Clinton the night before at a rally in North Carolina.
Comey recommended against any prosecution and Attorney General Loretta Lynch has said she will follow that recommendation.
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6:40 p.m.
A spokeswoman for Sen. Marco Rubio says the Florida Republican is skipping the GOP Convention in Cleveland. That makes Rubio the latest high-profile Republican to decide not to attend the convention that is preparing to nominate Donald Trump for president.
Rubio spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas says Rubio wants to spend his time campaigning for re-election to his Senate seat. She says Rubio had planned to go to the convention when he wasn't seeking re-election but now that he's decided to seek another term he's focusing on that.
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6:35 p.m.
Newt Gingrich, on the shortlist to be Donald Trump's vice president, is introducing the presumptive Republican nominee at a campaign rally in Ohio.
The former House speaker condemned Attorney General Loretta Lynch's decision to not bring charges in the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
Lynch's decision came one day after FBI Director James Comey recommended against any prosecution. Gingrich says Clinton should "be facing a grand jury and not an election."
Gingrich is urging the crowd to support Trump and pushing Ohio's governor, John Kasich, to do the same. Kasich has yet to endorse the celebrity businessman after ending his own presidential campaign.
Gingrich deems Trump "the next president" of the United States and says that carrying Ohio would be central to the candidate's hopes.
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6 p.m.
Hillary Clinton's campaign says House Republicans are pursuing a "taxpayer-funded sham" by convening a formal hearing with FBI Director James Comey on the agency's investigation of her email use as s secretary of state.
Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon says House Republicans are trying to hurt Clinton politically. He says GOP leaders are now second-guessing Comey's judgment "because his findings do not align with their conspiracy theories."
Fallon says career officials who handled the case determined no further action was appropriate. He is accusing Republicans of trying to politicize the situation.
Comey will testify Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The hearing will come two days after Comey said that while Clinton and State Department officials were "extremely careless" in their handling of classified material, no charges were appropriate. Attorney General Loretta Lynch accepted that recommendation Wednesday.
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4:10 p.m.
Donald Trump wants the political world to know his short list isn't so short.
The presumptive Republican nominee said Wednesday that his campaign's pool of potential running mates stands at 10 people, and more "very big names" want to be considered.
He tells the Fox News Channel: "A lot of people are calling me that you wouldn't even think about. They want to have their names thrown into the hat."
Trump made the comments shortly after two prospective vice presidential picks, Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker and Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, seemed to bow out in media interviews. Trump met with both in recent days.
Trump says he's "looking at 10 people" for possible vice presidential picks. He's scheduled to campaign with one of them, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Wednesday night in Ohio.
The New York businessman says he's leaning toward picking an experienced politician, but he's also considering two generals.
Trump is expected to unveil his running mate before his party's national convention later in the month.
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4 p.m.
The State Department says human error was responsible for a pair of Hillary Clinton emails the FBI identified as marked classified when they were sent.
Describing a somewhat opaque internal process, spokesman John Kirby says officials often mark "call sheets" at the confidential level when the secretary of state is considering whom he or she will call. Once the secretary decides to make the call, the call sheets would be no longer classified.
Kirby says the markings on the Clinton emails mentioned by FBI Director James Comey "were no longer necessary or appropriate" as Clinton already had decided to make the calls.
The call sheets prepare officials for diplomatic discussions. Kirby said Wednesday that the classification is designed to protect "the idea of the call itself."
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1:53 p.m.
Donald Trump says he raised $51 million for his campaign and allied Republicans in the month of June.
That's a dramatic uptick from his May numbers but sharply less than likely presidential opponent Hillary Clinton's June haul.
Clinton raised almost $70 million in June for her campaign and Democratic allies, her campaign announced last week.
Clinton has spent tens of millions of dollars more than Trump to build up voter contact operations and advertisements ahead of the November election.
Trump previewed his June numbers on Twitter Tuesday night by writing, "Raised a lot of money for the Republican Party. There will be a big gasp when the figures are announced in the morning. Lots of support! Win."
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1:15 p.m.
A spokesman for Republican Sen. Bob Corker says he has withdrawn his name as a possible running mate for Donald Trump.
Micah Johnson confirmed the comments that the Tennessee senator made in an interview with The Washington Post published Wednesday in which the senator said, "There are people far more suited for being a candidate for vice president, and I think I'm far more suited for other types of things."
Corker is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He appeared with Trump at a campaign event in North Carolina on Tuesday.
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1:14 p.m.
Donald Trump is defending his record in Atlantic City following a blistering speech from likely rival Hillary Clinton.
Trump says in a lengthy statement that he "created thousands of jobs and made a lot of money in Atlantic City, which was what, as a businessman, I am supposed to do."
Trump was once a major force in the New Jersey city, but no longer owns any hotels there.
Clinton went after Trump in her speech on a litany of issues, including three bankruptcies involving Trump's old casinos.
Trump says the use of "the chapter laws of our country" is a standard practice employed by the "country's elite business people" and helped to save jobs.
He adds: "Nobody understands the economy like I do and no one, especially not Crooked Hillary Clinton, will do more for the economy than I will."
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1:05 p.m.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is ready to endorse Donald Trump.
The Republican governor made his intentions known Wednesday on Twitter. Walker says, "Last August, I said I'd support the GOP nominee. It's now clear who the RNC delegates will vote to nominate."
He didn't cite Trump by name, but added, "He is better than she is."
Walker said last month he was withholding an endorsement until Trump renounced his comments about a Hispanic judge. Trump has not done that.
The Wisconsin governor said Tuesday that he plans to speak at the upcoming Republican National Convention. Walker, who's been the subject of Trump attacks, says he'll put aside their differences for the good of the country.
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12:51 p.m.
Hillary Clinton is lashing out at Donald Trump's business practices, saying that his background in Atlantic City shows what he might do to the American economy.
Clinton says Trump once called his Trump Taj Mahal the "8th wonder of the world" but it filed for bankruptcy in 2009 and the new management canceled workers' health insurance and pensions.
She says Trump stiffed many contractors for millions of dollars of work and never paid them. And she says he defaulted on bank loans and bankrupted the companies.
Clinton says of Trump, "what he did here in Atlantic City is exactly what he will do if he wins in November."
She was introduced in Atlantic City by a retired vice president of a glass company who says Trump owed his company nearly $500,000 for work that they did on one of his hotels.
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11:41 a.m.
House Democrats frustrated with Bernie Sanders' slow-moving support for Hillary Clinton shouted "timeline, timeline" at the presidential candidate during a closed-door meeting.
A dozen Democrats wanted to know the Vermont senator's timeline for endorsing Clinton, the presumptive nominee, with just three weeks to the start of the Democratic convention in Philadelphia.
Sanders never answered, though at one point he said, "our goal is not to win elections," then paused. During that pause, Sanders was booed, until he completed his thought by saying, "but to transform America" in order to win elections.
The exchange is according to a Democrat who attended the session and spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the meeting.
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10:47 a.m.
Bernie Sanders is applauding Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for a "very bold initiative" to make higher education more affordable and says he hopes to find agreement with her on more issues before the Democratic National Convention.
Sanders has not yet endorsed Clinton's presidential campaign with only a few weeks before she is expected to become the Democratic nominee. Earlier Wednesday, he met with House Democrats, who are pressuring him to endorse Clinton.
The Vermont senator says he was pleased by her announcement of a proposal that allows families with annual incomes of up to $125,000 to pay no tuition at in-state public colleges and universities. The Clinton plan also calls for a three-month moratorium on loan payments for all federal borrowers. She did not say how she would pay for those proposals or how much they would cost.
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10:41 a.m.
House Speaker Paul Ryan says it looks like Hillary Clinton got preferential treatment from the FBI in its investigation of the former secretary of state's use of a private email server for government business.
Ryan made the comments to reporters Wednesday. Asked if she got special treatment, Ryan said: "Looks like it to me."
He said there are a number of outstanding questions about the FBI inquiry. Director James Comey will be testifying Thursday before the House Oversight committee, and the House Judiciary panel has scheduled a hearing next week with Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Ryan has questioned whether Clinton should receive classified briefings as a presidential candidate in light of Comey's rebuke of her handling of sensitive material.
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10:28 a.m.
House Democrats are "anxious to know" when Sen. Bernie Sanders will formally withdraw from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
That's according to Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark, one of the Democrats who met with Sanders for nearly an hour Wednesday. She said the lawmakers "are anxious to know when he's going to endorse our nominee" for president, Hillary Clinton.
Clark said Sanders is focused on the party's convention platform and "was vague on his timing" about endorsing Clinton.
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10:00 a.m.
Hillary Clinton is announcing new steps aimed at tackling the rising cost of college tuition and the burden of student loan debt, including a three-month moratorium on loan payments for all federal loan borrowers.
Clinton is also calling for a plan that ensures families with annual incomes up to $125,000 pay no tuition at in-state public colleges and universities.
Wednesday's policy rollout is a direct overture to Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator who posed a serious threat to Clinton in the Democratic primary and is yet to endorse her in the general election. A Clinton campaign fact sheet announcing the new proposals was laced with multiple references to Sanders and his calls for addressing college affordability.
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9:45 a.m.
Donald Trump is tweeting back at Hillary Clinton ahead of her press conference about his turbulent business record in Atlantic City.
The Republican presidential candidate writes: "I made a lot of money in Atlantic City and left 7 years ago, great timing (as all know). Pols made big mistakes, now many bankruptcies."
Clinton his expected to highlight Trump's bankruptcies near the Trump Taj Mahal, which he used to own and where workers have been striking since Friday.
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9:30 a.m.
Hillary Clinton is campaigning on the famous boards of Atlantic City.
From the seaside city's boardwalk, the Democratic presidential candidate is set to cast Republican rival Donald Trump's turbulent business record there as a prime example of why he shouldn't become president.
Clinton officials say she will highlight Trump's record of "stiffing contractors" all while "pocketing cash for himself." She's also expected to highlight the multiple bankruptcies under his management of Atlantic City casinos in the 1980s and 1990s.
Clinton will campaign near the Trump Taj Mahal casino, which still bears the Republican's name but now belongs to his friend Carl Icahn. Casino workers at the hotel have been striking since Friday.
The Taj opened in 1990, but collapsed into bankruptcy a year later. At the time, Trump paid only a fraction to contractors he owned money for work.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, N.J., Wednesday, July 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
FILE - In this June22, 2016 file photo, House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. The House won't vote on proposed Democratic gun curbs, Ryan suggested Tuesday, July 5, 2016, as the rekindled election-year clash over firearms showed no sign of resolution. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
In this photo taken June 24, 2016, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. speaks in Albany, N.Y. House Democrats are anxious to know when Sen. Bernie Sanders will formally withdraw from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a campaign rally in Charlotte, N.C., Tuesday, July 5, 2016 with President Barack Obama. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
Mike and Dave did NOT bring crazy wedding dates
NEW YORK (AP) Adventure. Suspense. True Love. Royalties!
Those are just a few of the things Mike and Dave Stangle promised in a Craigslist ad they posted in search of dates for a cousin's wedding in 2013. The royalties part assuring prospects they would refuse Ashton Kutcher for either of their characters was just in case "our night's story is developed into a romantic comedy."
Fast forward to "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates," which opens Friday, July's boozy, degenerate Hollywood take on what transpired after the ad went viral and the two parlayed a slew of crazy dates into book and movie deals.
In this June 29, 2016, photo, Mike Stangle, right, and his brother Dave appear during an interview in Los Angeles. The brothers posted an ad on Craigslist in search of dates for a cousin's wedding back in 2013. The ad went viral and the two parlayed a slew of crazy dates into book and a movie deal for, "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates." (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
Oh, and forget Kutcher. Zac Efron and Adam Devine got the parts, along with Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza as a couple of skanks masquerading as classy for the big wedding of a sister in the film rather than a cousin.
"People don't believe that it's completely ironic we put a line about it becoming a movie in there, but it really is," Dave said in a recent interview. "We didn't even know how to get something to go viral. It was sort of before either of us really knew what viral was."
A lot has stayed the same for the two, who grew up near Albany but went on their dating rampage in New York City, where they were living that crazy summer. They've still got regular jobs, for instance. Dave, at 31 the older bro, pushes pet-themed products for a box delivery service and Mike, 27, is a bartender in Brooklyn because, health insurance.
But some things have indelibly changed. For starters, when they visited the movie set in Hawaii to hang out and shoot cameo roles, Kendrick yelled at them to whip out their you-know-whats.
"She did. I think she pantomimed," said Mike.
Dave deadpanned: "I was like, do we have to? I'll do it if I have to. I didn't."
Mike: "She was going full method into her character."
Dave: "I was, like, you don't want to see this. It's not good."
And so it goes as the brothers help promote the film and try to figure out their next move, which they say hopefully will involve more writing.
"We've really just held on for the ride and enjoyed every part of it from the same seats we were in before it happened," Mike said of their viral-turned-Hollywood riches. He added: "We have to kind of remind ourselves that it's a dumb-luck crazy thing."
Crazy, indeed, as they so chronicled in their wry but oddly touching book that takes on details of their dating escapades and other adventures, offering their parents props for putting up with them.
The movie takes license, they said, but gets some key stuff right.
"The family dynamics and the characters are very true and representative of us, and that's really all we wanted," Dave said. "They've included enough of our stuff that we kind of deferred to them on what's going to make the movie great, and they did it."
So how many dates did they actually go on in those heady weeks after the internet took hold? Reports at the time estimated up to 800, mostly as doubles. The brothers counted about 20 in the first 21 days or so as they went from seeking out merely crazy companions to the truly insane. Once word spread, the women were well aware of their prospective place in viral history.
"Neither of us were big daters before this," Dave said. "And now we were, like, well we have this opportunity to go on a lot of dates. We probably should."
Mike: "And double dates with your brother is a different story. ... Everyone you got was crazy at that point."
Dave: "It was much different than like dating, dating. ... I love feeling used. It was cool."
There was the girl who jumped off a second-story balcony. Another was a biter.
"I feel like there were a lot of injuries, physical injuries," Mike said.
Dave: "Yeah, mostly to us."
So how did the actual wedding go? They decided against bringing the crazy, unlike their movie selves.
"A lot of them thought it was a competition and so they would just do like really over-the-top things to try to convince us," Dave recalled. "And we were, like, this isn't really a competition, it's just something that turned into something crazy, and that in the end was a little bit what spooked us about bringing really crazy girls to the wedding."
The bride, they said, was grateful.
"She deserves a lot of credit," Dave said. "She was very patient about it all."
Mike: "We didn't really bring any of it with us to the actual wedding. We were very cognizant of that, you know. You don't want to ruin your cousin's wedding and turn it into a circus."
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Associated Press writer Ryan Pearson contributed to this report.
In this June 29, 2016, photo, Mike Stangle, right, blows a kiss to his brother Dave during an interview in Los Angeles. The brothers posted an ad on Craigslist in search of dates for a cousin's wedding back in 2013. The ad went viral and the two parlayed a slew of crazy dates into book and a movie deal for, "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates." (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
No end to Afghan war: Obama slows US withdrawal
WASHINGTON (AP) President Barack Obama scrapped plans Wednesday to cut American forces in Afghanistan by half before leaving office, a dispiriting blow to his hopes of extricating the U.S. after 15 years of fighting. He said he'll leave 8,400 troops to address the country's "precarious" security situation.
Obama's new drawdown plan, announced alongside top military leaders, reinforced the likelihood that the U.S. will remain entangled in Afghanistan for years to come as America works to suppress a resurgent Taliban and train a still-struggling Afghan military. Indeed, Obama said his goal was to ensure the next president has the foundation and flexibility to fight terrorism there "as it evolves."
Obama acknowledged that few Americans might have expected U.S. troops would still be in Afghanistan this long after the 2001 invasion following the 9/11 attacks. But he said perseverance was needed to prevent al-Qaida from regrouping and the Islamic State group from spreading. He said if terrorists regain control of territory, they'll try to attack the U.S. again.
President Barack Obama, flanked by Defense Secretary Ash Carter, left, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, makes a statement on Afghanistan from the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The president said the U.S. will leave 8,400 troops in Afghanistan when he completes his term, down slightly from the current number but well up from the 5,500 he announced previously, arguing America's interests depend on helping Afghanistan's struggling government fight continuing threats from the Taliban and others. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
"We cannot allow that to happen. I will not allow that to happen," he declared.
Obama, who had revised the exit plan several times before, had most recently expected to leave 5,500 troops when his term ends in January, down from roughly 9,800 there currently. His move to slow that withdrawal reflected the Afghan military's continuing inability to secure the nation independently, demonstrated by escalating Taliban attacks that have killed scores in recent weeks.
The new plan, announced the day before Obama attends a NATO summit in Poland, marked the culmination of a delicate debate within his administration about how many troops to pull out if any.
Though U.S. officials said Obama had accepted the Pentagon's formal recommendation of 8,400 troops, top military leaders had urged the White House to stay closer to the current 9,800. In an unusually public lobbying campaign, last month more than a dozen former ambassadors and commanders urged him to "freeze" the current level for the rest of his term
In the end, Obama appeared to settle on a number that would show continued progress toward drawing down without jeopardizing the mission.
Elected after vowing to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama has struggled to deliver a legacy of leaving the U.S. less encumbered by foreign conflicts than he found it. Although he's declared U.S. combat operations over in both countries, the U.S. is still deep in conflict in both, plus major new fighting that has emerged in Syria and Libya since he took office.
In Congress, Republican leaders who favor a larger force said Obama's new plan was preferable to the old one, but they criticized him for not keeping the full 9,800. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the partial drawdown would increase the dangers for remaining troops, calling it "more a political decision by President Obama than a military one."
Yet some Democrats, frustrated by the inability to fully end the war, said they were disappointed for the opposite reason.
"Today, the longest war in American history just got longer," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.
Ultimately, it will be up to the next president to decide the level of U.S. involvement. Democrat Hillary Clinton has aligned herself with Obama's handling of Afghanistan, while Republican Donald Trump has remained vague and has criticized Obama for revealing too much publicly about deployment decisions.
In Kabul, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani applauded Obama's decision. A brief statement from his spokesman called it "a sign of continued partnership between our nations to fight our common enemy and strengthen regional stability."
But the Taliban said the U.S. action would only prolong the war.
"What Obama could not do with 149,000 troops, he will not be able to do with 8,400 troops," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said on Twitter.
At the peak, in 2010, U.S. troop levels surged to 100,000, fighting alongside forces from U.S.-allied countries.
The president said the U.S. is "no longer engaged in a major ground war," and insisted the mission remains narrowly focused on "training and advising" Afghan forces and counterterrorism operations against the remnants of al-Qaida. Yet just last month, the White House gave the military expanded authority to conduct airstrikes against the Taliban in support of Afghan troops.
Though Obama touted progress in Afghanistan, including better-trained security forces, the situation remains perilous, with Afghan battlefield deaths rising and civilian casualties hitting a record high. Last month the Pentagon told Congress that Afghans were feeling less secure than at any other recent time. Obama also pointed out that 38 Americans had died in the past 18 months.
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Associated Press writers Kathy Gannon, Rahim Faiez, Kathleen Hennessey, Lolita C. Baldor, Robert Burns, Deb Riechmann, Sagar Meghani, Ken Thomas and Jill Colvin contributed to this report.
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Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP
President Barack Obama pauses while making a statement on Afghanistan from the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The president said the U.S. will leave 8,400 troops in Afghanistan when he completes his term, down slightly from the current number but well up from the 5,500 he announced previously, arguing America's interests depend on helping Afghanistan's struggling government fight continuing threats from the Taliban and others. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
The Latest: GOP leaders welcome Afghanistan troop decision
WASHINGTON (AP) The Latest on developments regarding U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan (all times local):
11:30 a.m.
Republican leaders in Congress are welcoming President Barack Obama's decision to keep a larger number of forces in Afghanistan. But they're criticizing him for not keeping even more.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter listens at left as President Barack Obama makes a statement on Afghanistan from the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The president said the U.S. will leave 8,400 troops in Afghanistan when he completes his term, down slightly from the current number but well up from the 5,500 he announced previously, arguing America's interests depend on helping Afghanistan's struggling government fight continuing threats from the Taliban and others. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Obama says he'll leave 8,400 troops in Afghanistan. Military leaders had recommended that the number be 9,800. Previously, Obama had said he would cut U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan to 5,500.
Sen. John McCain is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Arizona Republican says Obama's announcement is preferable to cutting the troop level by nearly half.
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10:38 a.m.
President Barack Obama is slowing the drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, leaving 8,400 troops there into next year.
Originally he had planned to drop troop levels to 5,500 by the end of the year.
The numbers reflect a compromise between Obama's original plan and what many military commanders had recommended.
Obama says the security situation in Afghanistan remains precarious. And he says Afghan security forces are not as strong as they need to be.
His decision fixes the number of troops who will remain in Afghanistan through the end of his presidency.
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10:20 a.m.
President Barack Obama plans to keep about 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan when he leaves office.
That's according to individuals briefed on Obama's plan. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to disclose the numbers before the president's announcement later Wednesday
The numbers reflect a compromise between Obama's original plan and what many military commanders had recommended.
Obama had planned to drop troop levels from 9,800 to 5,500 troops by the end of 2016. But Taliban resurgence has forced Washington to rethink its exit strategy.
Obama plans to announce the numbers during a statement from the Roosevelt Room. He'll appear with Defense Secretary Ash Carter and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Joseph Dunford.
Appeals court upholds dismissal of Spirit AeroSystems case
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) Shareholders failed to show that Spirit AeroSystems and four of its executives lied about three manufacturing contracts that resulted in $434.6 million in losses, a federal appeals court panel ruled Tuesday.
Upholding a lower court decision, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the investors behind a class-action lawsuit failed to show the aircraft parts maker or its executives made any material misrepresentations or omissions.
The lawsuit followed an October 2012 announcement that the Wichita-based company recorded $434.6 million forward losses on the three contracts at issue in the appeal. U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren threw out the lawsuit last year before it got to trial.
In addition to the Spirit, the executives named as defendants in the lawsuit are Jeffrey Turner, Spirit's former chief executive officer; Philip Anderson, the company's chief financial officer; Alexander Kummant, senior vice president of Oklahoma operations; and Terry George, vice president overseeing the Boeing 787 project.
The class-action lawsuit was brought by stockholder Wayne Anderson as the lead plaintiff, along with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, among others.
Spirit AeroSystems agreed to supply parts for three types of aircraft manufactured by Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. and The Boeing Co., specifically the Gulfstream G280 and G60, and the Boeing 787. Each project had production delays and cost overruns, which Spirit periodically publicly reported. Spirit acknowledged the risks in these reports, but expressed confidence in its ability to meet production deadlines and ultimately break even on the projects.
But on Oct. 25, 2012, Spirit announced it expected to lose hundreds of millions of dollars, and its stock price dropped 30 percent.
"The size of the loss does not suggest that the four executives knew or recklessly disregarded the risks that Spirit was eventually going to lose money on the three projects," the appeals court panel concluded.
Kenyans burn police camp, protesting officer-linked murders
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) Kenyans burned a police camp Wednesday as thousands across the country protested against extra-judicial killings linked to police, days after the bodies of a human rights lawyer, his client and another man were pulled from a river and several officers were detained.
Anger over the killings has simmered in this East African country where human rights groups say police-linked killings are pervasive.
As details of the torture of the three men emerged, hundreds of lawyers from the Law Society of Kenya marched to police headquarters in the capital, Nairobi, to demand action. Lawyers across Kenya are on a week-long work slowdown in protest.
Human rights lawyer Willie Kimani, his client and motorcycle taxi driver Josephat Mwenda and taxi driver Joseph Muiruri went missing on June 23. Their bodies were pulled from a river on Friday.
Mwenda's testicles had been crushed, pathologist Dr. Andrew Gachii said in a post-mortem report presented to the court, and his skull was fractured. The bodies of the others also bore wounds from a blunt object.
"My Lordship, having worked in the area of torture, sometimes we do say that some deaths can be extremely painful. Whoever was inflicting these injuries seemed to have had an affinity on the testicles and they crushed them," Gachii said.
Despite threats, Mwenda had been pursuing charges against an officer at the Syokimau police station who shot him in an unprovoked incident in 2015.
Four officers from the station are being held for the murders. Rights groups say witnesses claim the three men were held there after being abducted.
Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet condemned the station's burning. He also pledged that those responsible for the murders will be held accountable.
Germany to up funding for Holocaust survivors' home care
BERLIN (AP) A fund for Jewish victims of Nazi crimes says it has secured an agreement with the German government to provide extra funding for home care for poor Holocaust survivors worldwide.
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany said the deal provides some $500 million in additional money over the next two years. It raises the agreed funding for next year to 315 million euros ($350 million) from the 215 million euros set under a previous agreement in 2013, and provides for 350 million euros in 2018.
The conference said it provides home care to 67,000 elderly survivors.
Italian authorities arrest 11 in Milan Expo corruption probe
ROME (AP) Police have arrested 11 people in a probe of corruption and money-laundering with links to the Sicilian Mafia and to construction contracts for Milan's Expo 15 fair, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Milan Judge Maria Cristina Mannocci wrote that company administrators, consultants and accountants closed their eyes to corruption and mob links involving construction contracts for the fair that was a point of pride for Premier Matteo Renzi.
Prosecutors told a Milan news conference that authorities had seized 5 million euros ($5.6 million) in assets, including 400,000 euros in cash found in a truck near Naples en route from Milan to Sicily. Anti-Mafia investigators allege the cash was being laundered.
FILE - in this Thursday, April 2, 2015 file photo, a general view of Qatar pavilion under construction at the Expo site in Rho, in the outskirts of Milan, Italy. Prosecutors in Milan, Wednesday, July 6, 2016, say 11 people have been arrested in probe of Milan Expo construction contracts with links to the Sicilian Mafia. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni, File)
Among the alleged crimes are tax evasion, money-laundering, embezzlement and, for two of the suspects, helping Cosa Nostra.
According to prosecutors, false expense receipts were issued to cover illicitly gained cash in need of laundering. Prosecutor Francesco Greco said much of the money was laundered abroad, and an investigation of that angle was still ongoing. Authorities suspect corruption tainted the awarding of some sub-contracts for the construction of some Expo pavilions.
Prosecutors have warned for years that mobsters from the Calabria-based 'ndrangheta syndicate are infiltrating businesses in northern Italy, the country's industrial and financial heartland. Milan Prosecutor Ilda Boccassini said this probe also revealed that the Sicilian Mafia, known as Cosa Nostra, was active in the north. Suspects' intercepted phone conversations were cited by investigators.
Boccassini stressed that investigators found no wrongdoing by top administrators of Expo's or Milan's industrial fair organization.
In an unrelated scandal in Rome, opposition party leaders in Parliament demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, whose centrist party belongs to Renzi's governing coalition. Alfano's father is reportedly involved in a probe of alleged kickbacks, embezzlement and favoritism in hiring for Italy's postal agency.
FILE - In this Thursday, April 2, 2015 file photo, a general view of the France pavilion under construction at the Expo site in Rho, in the outskirts of Milan, Italy. Prosecutors in Milan, Wednesday, July 6, 2016, say 11 people have been arrested in probe of Milan Expo construction contracts with links to the Sicilian Mafia. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni, File)
PICTURED: Muslims celebrate Eid, marking Ramadan's end
BEIRUT (AP) Muslims around the world are celebrating the Eid al-Fitr holiday, a time for family and feasting, to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan and its daytime fasting.
Businesses closed across the Muslim world, as people dressed up and visited relatives, enjoying their first daytime meals in a lunar month. Mosques hold special prayers at sunrise, and children are often given gifts or a special allowance.
The holiday lasts one to three days, and is eagerly anticipated after the month of fasting. During Ramadan, the faithful refrain from eating, drinking, smoking or sexual activity from dawn to dusk, with even a small sip of water enough to invalidate the fast, which is one of the five pillars of Islam.
Sri Lankan Muslims offer Eid al-Fitr prayers at the Galle Face Green in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, during which devout Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)
For the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, Eid al-Fitr is second only to Eid al-Adha, which comes around two months later.
Ordinarily a festive occasion, this year' Eid comes after a month of attacks by Islamic extremists that killed more than 350 people in several countries, including a suicide truck bomb in Iraq that claimed at least 175 lives and a suicide bombing outside the Prophet Muhammad's mosque in Saudi Arabia, one of Islam's holiest sites.
Wars are raging in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen, as tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran exacerbate political conflicts throughout the Middle East. The two powers have cast their rivalry in corrosive sectarian terms, with Saudi Arabia positioning itself as the champion of Islam's more numerous Sunnis and Iran claiming to lead the faith's minority Shiites.
In the disputed Kashmir region on Wednesday, Muslim protesters hurled stones at Indian police, who fired tear gas and pellets to disperse them.
Here is a selection of Eid al-Fitr photos from around the world.
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Follow AP photographers and photo editors on Twitter: http://apne.ws/15Oo6jo
Iranian women attend the Eid al-Fitr prayers in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Egyptians try to catch balloons distributed for free after Eid al-Fitr prayers, marking the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan outside al-Seddik mosque in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
A Muslim girl looks out after morning prayer for Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, at National Mosque in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
A girl sits between Yemeni worshippers attending Eid al-Fitr prayers that mark the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, in Sanaa, Yemen, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)
Muslims march during Eid al-Fitr prayers along the Mekong river of Tanong, northeast of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The Eid al-Fitr celebrations mark the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
Kashmiri Muslim protesters throw stones on Indian policemen during a protest near an open area where they performed Eid prayers in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Indian forces used tear gas and pellet guns to disperse hundreds of stone-throwing protesters who took to the streets after Eid al-Fitr prayers on Wednesday in the Indian portion of Kashmir. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Muslim men wait for Eid al-Fitr prayers to begin at the oldest and largest Niujie mosque in Beijing, China, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The Eid al-Fitr celebrations mark the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A Yemen girl displays her hands painted with henna as she attends Eid al-Fitr prayers that mark the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, in Sanaa, Yemen, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)
Muslim residents attend Eid al-Fitr prayers at the Niujie mosque, the oldest and largest mosque in Beijing, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The Eid al-Fitr celebrations mark the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Iranian women leave after the Eid al-Fitr prayers in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Pakistani Muslims offer Eid al-Fitr prayers at a ground in Karachi, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, during which Muslims all over the world fast from sunrise to sunset. (AP Photo/Shakil Adil)
Afghans hug each other after offering Eid al-Fitr prayers outside of Shah-e-Dushamshera mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The three-day holiday marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
Pakistani Muslims offer Eid al-Fitr prayers at the historical Badshahi mosque in Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, during which Muslims all over the world fast from sunrise to sunset. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
Sunni Muslims living in Greece pray on the first day of Eid al-Fitr prayers in Piraeus near Athens, Wednesday, July. 6, 2016. Muslims worldwide are celebrating Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
Indonesian Muslim men perform an Eid al-Fitr prayer to mark the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan at Sunda Kelapa port in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)
A Kashmiri Muslim youth throws exploded tear smoke shell on Indian policemen during a protest near an open area where they performed Eid prayers in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Indian forces used tear gas and pellet guns to disperse hundreds of stone-throwing protesters who took to the streets after Eid al-Fitr prayers on Wednesday in the Indian portion of Kashmir. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Muslims pray in a public park to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan, known as Eid al Fitr, Wednesday, July 6, 2016 in Manila, Philippines. The Eid, one of the most important holidays in the Muslim world, is celebrated with prayers, picnics and family reunions. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)
A Pakistani woman prays during Eid al-Fitr prayers at the historical Badshahi mosque in Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan during which Muslims all over the world fast from sunrise to sunset. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
A timeline of US troops in Afghanistan since 2001
During the nearly 15 years since the United States went to war in Afghanistan, the number of American troops there spiraled to 100,000, then dropped slightly below 10,000. President Barack Obama had planned to drop the number to 5,500 by the end of this year. Now he has decided to leave about 8,400 through the end of his presidency.
A timeline of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan:
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President Barack Obama, flanked by Defense Secretary Ash Carter, left, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, makes a statement on Afghanistan from the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The president said the U.S. will leave 8,400 troops in Afghanistan when he completes his term, down slightly from the current number but well up from the 5,500 he announced previously, arguing America's interests depend on helping Afghanistan's struggling government fight continuing threats from the Taliban and others. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Oct. 7, 2001: President George W. Bush announces that U.S. and British troops have begun striking Afghanistan for harboring the al-Qaida terrorists blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks. The massive air campaign initially targets Taliban troops, training camps and air defenses.
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November 2001: 1,300 American troops are in the country as commandos and ground troops, mostly Marines, begin to arrive.
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December 2001: The U.S. force grows to 2,500 as troops scour the mountainous Tora Bora region looking for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. The Taliban is ousted and an interim Afghan government is established.
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March 2002: 7,200 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan as Americans lead allied Afghan forces in the largest ground assault of the war to date.
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December 2002: The U.S. ends the year with about 9,700 troops deployed, mostly going after Taliban insurgents.
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December 2003: The year ends with about 13,100 troops in Afghanistan.
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April 2004: The number swells to 20,300 as the U.S. builds up forces along the Afghan-Pakistani border and provides security for fledgling reconstruction projects.
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December 2006: Attention has shifted to the escalating war in Iraq; the force in Afghanistan remains just over 20,000.
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December 2007: The force in Afghanistan rises to 25,000. Still, Iraq is the priority.
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May 2009: As fighting in Afghanistan becomes more intense, the number of U.S. troops surpasses 50,000.
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December 2009: Troops now number more than 67,000, and the situation is deteriorating, with escalating violence and more service members killed. Obama orders in another 33,000 troops to battle al-Qaida militants and a resurgent Taliban.
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August 2010: The U.S. force reaches 100,000.
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May 2011: Bin Laden is found hiding in neighboring Pakistan and killed in a U.S. special operations raid. There are still about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan.
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June 2011: Saying the U.S. is meeting its goals in Afghanistan, Obama announces his withdrawal plan: Bring home 10,000 troops by the end of 2011, and continue at a steady pace until handing over security responsibilities to the Afghans by 2014.
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September 2012: Troop levels down to 77,000.
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December 2013: Down to 46,000 troops, the slow withdrawal continues.
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March 2014: With nearly 34,000 troops in Afghanistan, Obama orders the Pentagon to develop options for a complete military withdrawal, because Afghan President Hamid Karzai refuses to sign a security agreement with the United States.
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May 2014: Obama announces his plan to pull virtually all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2016, when his second term in office will be drawing to a close.
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December 2014: Troop levels have been cut in half since Obama's announcement in May, down to 16,100. Obama declares their combat mission over, but troops will continue training and advising Afghan forces.
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March 2015: Troops decline to their current number about 9,800 on track for a nearly total withdrawal in 2016.
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Oct. 15, 2015: In a reversal, Obama says the situation is too fragile for the American military to leave. He announces plans to keep the current force of about 9,800 in place through most of 2016 to continue counterterrorism missions and advise Afghans battling a resurgent Taliban. The plan is for the number to decrease to about 5,500 troops by December 2016.
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In lawsuit, Gretchen Carlson alleges sex harassment at Fox
NEW YORK (AP) Former Fox News Channel anchor Gretchen Carlson sued network chief executive Roger Ailes on Wednesday, claiming she was cut loose after she refused his sexual advances and complained about harassment in the workplace.
Ailes, in a statement, denied the allegations and accused Carlson of filing the lawsuit in retaliation for her contract not being renewed.
Carlson, the former host of a daytime show at Fox who had worked at the network for 11 years, was abruptly let go on June 23. Nine months earlier, during a meeting with Ailes she called to address her feelings that she had been discriminated against, she alleged he told her that "you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago."
FILE - In this May 18, 2010 file photo, TV personality Gretchen Carlson appears on the set of "Fox & friends" in New York. Carlson, the former Fox News Channel anchor, is suing network chief executive Roger Ailes, claiming she was fired after refusing his sexual advances. Carlson, 50, spent 11 years at Fox. She was Miss America in 1989. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
Carlson is publicly taking on one of the most powerful men in the media business. Ailes built Fox News Channel from scratch in the 1990s, turning it into the top-rated television news network with a profound influence on politics. Fox is highly profitable for parent company 21st Century Fox.
The 50-year-old Carlson, who was Miss America in 1989, alleged in her lawsuit that Ailes, who is 76, ogled her, repeatedly commented about her legs, urged her to wear clothes that enhanced her figure and told her she was sexy but "too much hard work."
Carlson said she was fired as a host of the morning show "Fox & Friends" in 2013, and her pay reduced with the transfer to a daytime slot, because she had complained about sexual harassment.
She said that one of her "Fox & Friends" co-hosts, Steve Doocy, "had created a hostile work environment by regularly treating her in a sexist and condescending way." She said that when Ailes heard of her complaints, he called her a "man hater" who needed to learn to "get along with the boys."
21st Century Fox said that while it has full confidence in Ailes and Doocy, it has begun an internal investigation into the case.
Ailes said that Carlson began to "conveniently" pursue a lawsuit when she became aware that Fox was not renewing her contract, citing poor ratings. Ratings for her program, "The Real Story," were lower than for any other show on the network in June, the Nielsen company said.
"Ironically, Fox News provided her with more on-air opportunities over her 11-year tenure than any other employer in the industry, for which she thanked me in her recent book," Ailes said. "This defamatory lawsuit is not only offensive, it is wholly without merit and will be defended vigorously."
There was no immediate comment from Doocy, the company said.
Carlson said that Ailes punished her by cutting back on political interviews that she conducted and ending a regular appearance she made on Bill O'Reilly's prime-time program, generally Fox's highest-rated show.
"I have strived to empower women and girls throughout my entire career," Carlson said in a statement. "Although this was a difficult step to take, I had to stand up for myself and speak out for all women and the next generation of women in the workplace."
In the lawsuit, Carlson alleges that Ailes did not provide her with anywhere near the network support and promotion provided to other Fox hosts "who did not complain about harassment and rebuff his sexual advances." Carlson's lawyer, Nancy Erika Smith, said she'd heard from other women at Fox who experienced similar behavior, but she would not identify them.
Smith said she had "very strong evidence" against Ailes that she looked forward to presenting in court.
"I'm sure he feels untouchable," she said. "I'm sure he feels that he's gotten away with it all these years and he will continue to. What he's going to find is that in America at least, and maybe around the world, the tide is turning on this kind of treatment of women."
In her 2015 memoir, "Getting Real," Carlson talks about Ailes, calling him brilliant for the way he put opinion shows on prime-time TV. He noted that he gave her the chance to do a national morning show, which was her dream, when she couldn't get that at her previous employer CBS.
She said that Ailes was "razor sharp and inscrutable and we seemed to have a real connection. He saw something in me that he liked, what he called my 'killer instinct.' He once noted that I would stop at nothing to do the job. He got me."
Carlson wrote a story for the Huffington Post in June 2015, where she said that while she had always considered herself strong, she had stayed silent on the issue of sexual harassment. She detailed three episodes where she had been harassed: by a television executive and public relations executive when she was trying to break into the business, and by a news photographer on her first day of work as a reporter in Virginia. The piece did not discuss experiences at Fox.
Two days after the June 12 mass shooting at an Orlando, Florida, nightclub, Carlson told viewers that she supported reinstating a ban on assault weapons. The next day, she revealed Fox viewers had profanely attacked her, and she read some of the cleaner responses on the air.
The lawsuit asks for an unspecified amount of payment for damages. The lawsuit was filed in New Jersey's Bergen County, where Ailes owns a home.
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AP Television Writer Frazier Moore contributed to this report.
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This story has been corrected to show that the parent company is 21st Century Fox, not News Corp.
Bernie Sanders could endorse Hillary Clinton as soon as next week, at an event in New Hampshire.
Sanders has not dropped out of the running for the Democratic nomination despite fresh evidence that Clinton will be the party's nominee.
The FBI and Justice Department each cleared the former secretary of state of wrongdoing in its investigation of her emails this week, paving the way for Clinton to easily win her party's support in Philadelphia later this month.
ABC News is reporting that Sanders may be close to making a concession, citing sources close to his campaign.
Bernie Sanders could endorse Hillary Clinton as soon as next week, at an event in New Hampshire. He faced intense pressure from House Democrats this morning at a meeting on Capitol Hill endorse Clinton, as rank-and-file lawmakers confronted him behind closed doors
Sanders committed on the campaign trail to staying in the race until the Democratic National Convention, which begins July 25, and the progressive senator has applied for a permit to hold a rally the day before the gathering begins in Pennsylvania.
Clinton unveiled a college affordability plan today that Sanders complimented, but they remain at odds over other key pillars of his campaign such as the release of the transcripts of her speeches to Wall Street.
He faced intense pressure from House Democrats this morning at a meeting on Capitol Hill to endorse Clinton's presidential campaign, as rank-and-file lawmakers confronted him behind closed doors with shouts of 'Timeline! Timeline!' and even scattered boos, according to numerous reports.
Sanders, arriving with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, was pressed directly by Democrats irritated by his slow-moving support for their presumptive presidential nominee.
Yet to the frustration of his listeners, the Vermont senator never answered their question, refusing to give a timeline for when he would get behind Clinton.
At one point he said, 'Our goal is not to win elections,' and then paused. Democrats booed until Sanders completed his thought by saying, 'but to transform America' in order to win elections.
The heated exchange happened during House Democrats' regular weekly caucus meeting, to which Sanders had been invited some time ago.
He appeared at a moment when many Democrats have run out of patience with Sanders, who is holding out for various items in the party platform, including a rebuke of the president's trade policies.
A Democrat who attended the session provided details to the Associated Press, demanding anonymity in order to speak freely.
'He was pressed. There was friendly heat,' said Rep. Gerald Connolly of Virginia.
Sanders has said he will vote for Clinton but has not yet offered a full-throated endorsement, even as Democratic leaders like President Barack Obama and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren have swung firmly behind the former secretary of state and appeared by her side at high-profile rallies
Rep. Sander Levin, a Democrat from Michigan, said there was a 'general feeling that it is important that he endorse right away,' adding that it was expressed directly to Sanders. 'In terms of the timing of endorsement it wasn't clear.'
Sanders has said he will vote for Clinton but has not yet offered a full-throated endorsement, even as Democratic leaders like President Barack Obama and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren have swung firmly behind the former secretary of state and appeared by her side at high-profile rallies.
He's meanwhile been pushing for changes to the party platform that would specify the need for a $15 an hour federal minimum wage, opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and more.
Most of the House Democrats have supported Clinton's campaign throughout.
Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio told Sanders at the meeting that she felt 'like a hostage' given his multiple demands for the party's platform that will be considered at the convention, according to the Democrat who demanded anonymity.
Sanders instead pointed to progress with Clinton, telling reporters after the meeting that he applauded a 'very bold initiative' by the former secretary of state to make college more affordable.
Yet he declined to say when he might endorse Clinton.
'We are working with Secretary Clinton on some initiatives. I hope we can reach agreement on them sooner rather than later,' he said.
In a gesture to her former Democratic primary rival, Clinton announced new steps today that are aimed at tackling the rising cost of college tuition and the burden of student loan debt, including a three-month moratorium on loan payments for all federal borrowers.
Clinton is also calling for a plan that ensures families with annual incomes up to $125,000 pay no tuition at in-state public colleges and universities.
In a gesture to her former Democratic primary rival, Clinton announced new steps today that are aimed at tackling the rising cost of college tuition and the burden of student loan debt. She's seen here at her rally in Atlantic City
Wednesday's policy rollout was a direct overture to Sanders. A Clinton campaign fact sheet announcing the new proposals was laced with multiple references to the Vermont senator and his calls for addressing college affordability.
Sanders was wildly popular with young voters during the Democratic primary, with many drawn to his calls for free tuition at all public colleges and universities.
Clinton cast her opponent's proposals as unrealistic, saying that while she shared his concerns about rising debt, she didn't want wealthier families to be able to take advantage of opportunities aimed at the middle and lower class.
A centerpiece of Clinton's plan is an executive order that would give federal student loan borrowers a three-month break from making payments.
During that window they would be able to consolidate their loans or sign up for other programs aimed at reducing their monthly payments. Those who are delinquent or in default would get 'additional rehabilitation options,' the campaign said, though aides provided no details on those options to AP.
Clinton is also seeking to eliminate college tuition at public, in-state institutions for families making $125,000 or less per year. The campaign said the policy would roll out gradually, first for families making $85,000 or less and increasingly the threshold by $10,000 annually through 2021.
The campaign did not provide details about how much the plan would cost or how Clinton proposes paying for it. It was unclear whether she would implement it using executive actions or need congressional approval.
Cuyahoga Valley, a national park in Cleveland's backyard
SAGAMORE HILLS, Ohio (AP) It's America's 11th most-visited national park, but it's also a place many people have never heard of: Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio.
Nearly 2.3 million people visited Cuyahoga in 2015, putting it right behind better-known parks like Glacier National Park in Montana and Acadia National Park in Maine. But if you're not from Ohio or nearby, you'd be forgiven for knowing a lot less about Cuyahoga than you do about Grand Canyon or Yellowstone.
And while Cuyahoga doesn't have the dramatic features that typically draw visitors to national parks no volcanoes, glaciers or geysers here it does offer something that can be hard to find: an opportunity to immerse yourself in nature just minutes from densely populated cities.
FILE - In this March 30, 2001 file photo, a great blue heron fishes in the Cuyahoga River in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Brecksville, Ohio. There are several rookeries on the river, which is also home this year to an eagle's nest. The park offers an opportunity to immerse yourself in nature just minutes from Cleveland and Akron, Ohio. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta, File)
"We've got this amazing, peaceful, beautiful area carved out and protected between these large urban areas, Cleveland and Akron," said Deb Yandala, CEO of the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which raises several million dollars a year for the park.
"I think when people hear 'national parks,' they think of the big Western parks," she added. "But not everyone is going to get out to Yellowstone or Glacier or Zion. For us to have a national park right in our backyard is amazing. We are part of a new breed of parks, bringing national parks to urban populations."
In general the park is both also extremely safe and heavily used, despite an incident in which a shooting victim was found in the park over the July Fourth weekend. Police described that as an isolated incident.
Cuyahoga Valley became a national recreation area in 1974 and a national park in 2000, so it's one of the National Park Service's newer parks. The park has 100 miles of trails across 33,000 acres, including 20 miles of a restored towpath, perfect for biking, that follows the Ohio & Erie Canal. (The towpath was originally laid as a pathway for horses or mules towing barges.)
The park is also home to restored historic farms and a large farmers market, both connected to the Cuyahoga Valley's history as an agricultural region supplying food to Cleveland and Akron. Other activities and attractions include concerts, a historic railroad that offers scenic tours and a variety of other programs. The park is often mentioned as a top spot for fall foliage, and one of its loveliest spots is Brandywine Falls, a 65-foot-tall waterfall easily reached from a parking lot via a wooden walkway.
But Cuyahoga has not always been associated with outdoor recreation and scenic beauty: The river was so polluted in the 20th century that it repeatedly caught fire, including two major fires in 1952 and 1969. News coverage of the 1969 blaze helped spur cleanup efforts.
"We're now doing kayaking on the Cuyahoga River, which would have been unheard of years ago," said Yandala.
Only about 20 percent of Cuyahoga's visitors are from outside Ohio, but that could change this summer when Cleveland hosts the Republican National Convention.
"The world will be looking at Cleveland during the convention," Yandala said. "It's a terrific comeback story of an industrial city that has a really great vibe these days" a vibe that includes a national park in the city's backyard.
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If You Go...
CUYAHOGA VALLEY NATIONAL PARK: https://www.nps.gov/cuva/ . Free admission. The Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park lists 100 things to do at https://www.conservancyforcvnp.org/ . Depending on route and destination, you can reach the park in 20-30 minutes from downtown Cleveland.
BRANDYWINE FALLS: 8176 Brandywine Road, Sagamore Hills Township, Ohio, near exit 147 from I-77 South.
FILE - This April 24, 2016 file photo shows visitors on a walkway overlooking Brandywine Falls at Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Sagamore Hills, Ohio. The overlook is a short walk from the parking lot and offers a quick and scenic respite from nearby Cleveland. (AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz, File)
Kremlin denies that Putin has canceled trips
MOSCOW (AP) The Kremlin has denied Russian media reports claiming President Vladimir Putin has abruptly canceled several trips set for this week.
Online news portal RBC cited local officials as saying Putin had been expected to visit the Altai region in southern Siberia Tuesday, travel to the Yakutia region Wednesday and then to the northwestern Novgorod region the next day.
According to Interfax, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that while many trips are in the planning stage none had been confirmed for this week.
Putin was last time seen in public on Friday's trip to Finland. This week, Russian state television broadcast Putin's meetings with several officials, including Sevastopol Gov. Sergei Menyailo Wednesday.
Call for grand jury to probe police shooting in Mississippi
COLUMBUS, Miss. (AP) A prosecutor said Wednesday that he wants Mississippi's attorney general to present a shooting case last year in the Mississippi city of Columbus to grand jurors.
Lowndes County District Attorney Scott Colom said he has asked Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood's office to take over the case involving the October 2015 death of Ricky Ball.
Former Columbus police officer Canyon Boykin has said he shot Ball after the 26-year-old appeared to point a gun at Boykin during a foot chase.
Lowndes County District Attorney Scott Colom announces Wednesday, July 6, 2016, that he has handed off prosecution of a 2015 shooting of Ricky Ball to Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood. He is asking Hood to present a Columbus police shooting to grand jurors. Former Columbus police officer Canyon Boykin, who is white, has said he was justified in shooting Ball, a 26-year-old black man. The shooting has sparked community protests. (Associated Press/Jeff Amy)
Ball's family has disputed whether Boykin had cause to shoot Ball, one of many shootings under heightened scrutiny after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2015.
Boykin is white. Ball was black.
Jim Waide, Boykin's lawyer, said his client's actions were justified.
"There's absolutely no basis for a criminal indictment," Waide said Tuesday.
The city fired Boykin as he was trying to resign within weeks of the shooting, saying he had broken department policy by not turning on his body camera, by inviting his then-fiancee to ride along with the patrol without permission, and by making social media posts that were derogatory toward African-Americans, women and disabled people.
Boykin sued the city in February, claiming officials violated his First Amendment rights by firing him over social media posts, violating his due process rights by not giving him an unbiased hearing, and knuckling under to "uninformed public pressure." He's seeking money damages and reinstatement. City officials have denied wrongdoing.
In the lawsuit, Boykin said he shocked Ball with a stun gun, and then saw while Ball was lying on the ground that he had a handgun. Boykin said that Ball recovered from the shock and began to run again, turning as if to shoot the officer. Boykin said that's when he shot Ball. Hit twice by bullets, Ball was taken to a hospital where he died.
A pistol that had been reported stolen from a Columbus police officer's home was found near Ball's body, as was a substance believed to be marijuana, authorities said.
Investigators have released no findings on Boykin's claims.
Colom refused to discuss the findings of Mississippi Bureau of Investigation report that he received last month, saying it would prejudice grand jurors.
Colom said Hood's office has agreed they will present the case to a grand jury, and not discard the evidence. Colom said that because he deals so closely with local police and is the former Columbus city prosecutor, people could question his impartiality.
"I think the best policy decision is not to have a local district attorney present officer-involved shootings to grand jurors, so you don't have the appearance of bias," Colom told reporters.
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Poland rushes work on top court law ahead of Obama's visit
WARSAW, Poland (AP) Poland's ruling party has hastened legislative work aimed at ending the crisis surrounding the country's Constitutional Tribunal.
The move appears intended to ease concerns about the state of Poland's democracy ahead of a visit later this week by U.S. President Barack Obama.
Obama is expected to raise the issue of the tribunal in his talks Friday with Poland's President Andrzej Duda and observers said Duda wanted to be able to show some progress is being made.
The months-long crisis surrounding the tribunal, where the ruling party wants to gain influence, has led the European Union to officially scrutinize Poland's rule of law. Some U.S. officials have also criticized steps by the conservative Law and Justice party that have paralyzed the court. Such steps include refusing to accept some judges appointed by the previous ruling team and pushing new regulations that critics say are against the constitution.
A parliamentary committee debated late into the night before it approved the ruling party's draft for new legislation on Wednesday.
A European human rights body, the Venice Commission of law experts, has said the power to solve the crisis rests with Poland's Parliament, which is dominated by the Law and Justice party.
Prime Minister Beata Szydlo argued Wednesday the provisions are in line with what the Venice Commission had suggested, but the opposition criticized the proposals as protecting the ruling party's interests.
Critics said that Law and Justice is rushing to have the law approved by Parliament, in session late Wednesday, before Obama arrives for a NATO summit starting Friday.
Austrian court convicts man of murder during Bosnian war
VIENNA (AP) An Austrian court has found a Bosnian-born Austrian citizen guilty of multiple murders and attempted murder during the Bosnian war and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
The 48-year old man was not identified in line with Austrian confidentiality rules. The court in the city of Linz convicted him of 16 cases of murder, three attempted murders and arson.
The man denied involvement.
He was convicted for participating in an attack by about 20 Bosniaks Bosnian Muslims on the Bosnian Serb village of Serdari in 1992 that led to the killings of a total of 20 people, including six children, and the torching of six houses
The Latest: Mosque members say community is still on edge
RAEFORD, N.C. (AP) The Latest on the Army Reserve officer charged for threatening Muslims worshippers at a North Carolina mosque (all times local):
4:12 p.m.
Members of a North Carolina mosque say the community has been on edge since an Army Reserve officer was arrested and accused of making death threats last month against its worshippers.
Muslim community member Uzma Khan said there have not been any other incidents since at the mosque in Raeford, but police have been present almost every day as a security measure. Khan says she's encouraged by support from law enforcement but saddened by its necessity.
Khan's is the daughter of a retired military chaplain, Mohammed Khan, who told authorities he was threatened at gunpoint during the incident.
Police arrested Russell Thomas Langford of Fayetteville on charges of ethnic intimidation, assault with a deadly weapon and others. Langford's attorney says the defense is still investigating and asks the state to proceed with a presumption of Langford's innocence.
Khan said the court should hold Langford to a strict standard because he committed to protecting American citizens when he joined the military.
1:20 p.m.
The lawyer for an Army Reserve officer who authorities say left bacon outside a North Carolina mosque and threatened to kill its members is asking the state to remember more than a decade of distinguished military service from his client.
Attorney Kelly Dawkins told media Wednesday that bronze star recipient Russell Thomas Langford of Fayetteville deserves "all the due process we can give him."
Langford appeared in Hoke County Court on Wednesday for the first time since posting bail last month.
Dawkins says the court modified the conditions of Langford's release to prohibit him from contacting any potential witnesses, possessing any firearms and going on the property of the mosque in Raeford.
Langford has been charged with ethnic intimidation, assault with a deadly weapon, going armed to the terror of the public, communicating threats, stalking and disorderly conduct.
His case has been continued to Aug. 17.
Raeford is about 20 miles southwest of Fayetteville.
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2:58 a.m.
A decorated Army Reserve officer who authorities say left bacon at a North Carolina mosque and threatened to kill its members is expected to appear in court for the first time since he posted bail last month.
Hoke County Court scheduled a hearing for Russell Thomas Langford of Fayetteville for Wednesday morning.
Witnesses say on that on June 9, Langford made death threats to members of the mosque about 20 miles southwest of Fayetteville and later attempted to run over one of its members in his vehicle.
Langford has been charged with ethnic intimidation, assault with a deadly weapon, going armed to the terror of the public, communicating threats, stalking and disorderly conduct.
New digs for dogs on Queen Mary 2 cruise ship
NEW YORK (AP) Dogs that sail on the Queen Mary 2 are getting the royal treatment.
The ship has just undergone $132 million in renovations that include new accommodations for two-legged as well as four-legged passengers.
The QM2, part of the Cunard fleet, is the only long-distance passenger vessel to carry dogs and cats. The ship now has 24 onboard kennels twice what it had before the upgrades in addition to room for 2,961 human guests.
Kennel Master Oliver Cruz tends to celebrity dogs Wally, from left, Ella and Chloe outside the kennel aboard the ocean liner Queen Mary 2, docked at her homeport at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in New York, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The Cunard ship underwent $132-million of renovations that includes, for its four-legged passengers, additional kennels, more play space and an owner's lounge. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Helping to cut the ribbon on the new kennels and pet area Wednesday were some of New York's top Instagram dogs, known to fans as Chloe the Mini Frenchie (133,000 followers), Wally the Welsh Corgi (92,000 followers) and Ella Bean the Dog (40,000 followers).
The event took place in Brooklyn, New York, where the ship homeports, before a seven-day trans-Atlantic crossing to Southampton, England.
Besides the ship's additional kennels, the new canine quarters include expanded space for dogs to play and walk, an owner's lounge and two items essential for any dog on a walk, even at sea: an authentic New York City fire hydrant and a British lamppost.
Kennel master Oliver Cruz cares for the pets, walking, feeding and playing with them. Owners can visit, but cannot take them to their cabins.
"This is my passion," said Cruz, who has a background as an animal handler and zoo guide in his native Philippines, along with several years of experience working with pets on the QM2. He said the first day at sea is the most challenging as he memorizes the names of the dogs and their owners, while saying goodbye on "the last day is the saddest part, because we've bonded."
Renovations during the ship's 25 days in dry dock also included new carpets, new paint, new dining venues and public spaces, and redesigned cabins for the human passengers including the QM2's first staterooms for solo travelers.
The original Queen Mary ocean liner, now a floating hotel moored in Long Beach, debuted in New York 80 years ago. The QM2 was launched in 2004.
Cunard ships have a history of accommodating pets on its ships going back decades, including dogs belonging to Elizabeth Taylor and the Duke of Windsor. Wally, the corgi that helped unveil the improvements Wednesday, is the same breed favored by Queen Elizabeth.
Animal waste is removed with a poop-scoop and disposed of in a special flush toilet. Dogs rarely become seasick, but the area is deep-cleaned after each voyage.
The kennels are among the ship's best-selling accommodations: They are booked months in advance and passengers pay $800-$1,000 per kennel.
Hilary Sloan, owner of Ella Bean, a Yorkie mix rescue known for what Sloan calls her "fashion influence," said the canine accommodations are "adorable."
"I grew up going on cruises with my grandparents and taking a dog on a cruise would be the most fun ever," Sloan said. "Traveling with pets is becoming more and more the norm. This is a fun and unique way to bring them on trips."
Celebrity dog Wally hops out of one of the kennels aboard the ocean liner Queen Mary 2, docked at her homeport at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in New York, Wednesday, July 6, 2016. The Cunard ship underwent $132-million worth of renovations that include, for its four-legged passengers, additional kennels, more play space and an owner's lounge. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Family calls for detained Toronto man's release in Dhaka
TORONTO (AP) A Toronto university student who survived a militant attack in Bangladesh has been detained by authorities in the country's capital since the weekend siege, his family said Wednesday as they called for the young man's release.
Police have not explained why they've held Tahmid Hasib Khan, 22, for the past four days and concerns are mounting for his well-being, his family said.
"We are concerned that they might put a case against him," his cousin Rasheek Irtisam said from Dhaka. "If they put a case against him, it will take years in Bangladesh."
Khan, a permanent resident of Canada, is an undergraduate student studying global health at the University of Toronto. His family said Khan arrived in Dhaka on July 1 to celebrate Eid with his family, and planned to travel to Nepal to begin an internship next week.
They said Khan was meeting friends at a Dhaka cafe when he and others were taken hostage for 10 hours on July 1.
Two police officers and 20 hostages nine Italians, seven Japanese, an Indian and three students from American universities were killed in the siege at the upscale restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic zone. Six of the attackers also died.
Authorities held five former hostages for questioning but have released three.
Khan's father was able to speak with his son twice since the siege ended, with the last phone call taking place two days ago.
"He said he was alive, he was doing fine," said Irtisam, adding that his cousin had epilepsy and sometimes suffers seizures when under extreme stress. "We are right now worried about that. We are trying to get some doctors over there."
On Trump: Some GOP say yes, some say never
WASHINGTON (AP) There are the enthusiastic supporters, and there's the Never Trump crew. But most congressional Republicans fall somewhere in between when it comes to Donald Trump, offering a lukewarm endorsement or a "yes, but" embrace.
So when the presumptive presidential nominee visits Capitol Hill on Thursday to meet, for the first time, with rank-and-file House Republicans and then GOP senators, he will encounter many Republicans eager to get behind anyone who can beat Democrat Hillary Clinton, and open to hearing what he has to say.
A look at the divisions among congressional Republicans over Trump:
House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis., left, followed by House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and Rep. Lee Zeldin R-N.Y., leaves a news conference at the Republican National Committee Headquarters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, July 6, 2016, after telling reporters that, to him, it looks like Hillary Clinton got preferential treatment from the FBI in its investigation of the former secretary of state's use of a private email server for government business. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
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NEVER TRUMP
A few GOP lawmakers have ruled out voting for Trump, now or ever, and have little or no intention of changing their minds. They include Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a former presidential candidate whom Trump ridiculed on the campaign trail, and Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who has openly searched for an alternative to Trump and has criticized him repeatedly.
"Which is scarier: If Trump doesn't know he's urging something illegal; OR if he knows, but urges it at rallies anyway?" Sasse asked over Twitter earlier this month, apparently referring to Trump's embrace of waterboarding and other torture techniques.
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BRING IT ON, TRUMP
Trump does have enthusiastic backers on the Hill, including a core group of more than a dozen House Republicans who meet weekly with Trump's campaign staff to stay up to date on what's being planned and how they can help.
Leaders of this group include Rep. Chris Collins of New York, Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania and Duncan D. Hunter of California.
In the Senate, Jeff Sessions of Alabama has been strongly behind Trump from early on, introducing him at rallies, advising his campaign and sending his own aides to help Trump's campaign.
"I think it ought to be self-evident to every American we cannot continue down the road we've been on these last eight years," another supporter, Rep. Tom McClintock of California, said Wednesday. "I am enthusiastically behind him."
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FOR HIM BEFORE THEY WERE AGAINST HIM
Trump has been unendorsed by at least one lawmaker, GOP Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, the Republican most at-risk of losing his Senate seat this election cycle. Kirk has now recorded a campaign ad citing his opposition to Trump as a measure of his independence.
Another vulnerable senator, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, also backed off plans to support the eventual GOP nominee once it became clear that person was Trump, and has since hedged on whether he might ultimately be able to back him.
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THANKS BUT NO THANKS
Trump has been eyeing a couple of Republican senators as potential vice presidential prospects, but two of these lawmakers politely turned him down on Wednesday, or came close.
Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee told reporters that the job was too political for him, while Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa suggested in an interview with Politico that Trump should pick Indiana Gov. Mike Pence instead.
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MAYBE LATER
A number of GOP lawmakers have not yet backed Trump but say they hope to, perhaps, one day, depending on how the campaign plays out or in some cases whether Trump meets criteria they've laid out.
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida said he's not "hell no, or hell yes" but has set out some fundamental GOP principles he would like to see Trump adhere to, including supporting U.S. allies and providing an economic platform for growth.
"I'm a Reagan Republican. It's OK to have disagreements but there are some very basic things I expect our nominee to adhere to, and we'll see," said Diaz-Balart.
Diaz-Balart said he'd have to check his schedule to determine whether he'd be able to attend Thursday's meeting with Trump.
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YES, BUT ...
Most Republicans in Congress fall into the "yes, but" camp, having offered their endorsement or at least lukewarm support for Trump, along with caveats and occasional criticism.
They include House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who hesitated more than a month before backing Trump; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky; House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, and other congressional leaders and members of the rank and file.
In one of the more intricate maneuvers, Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, locked in a tough re-election race, said she would be supporting Trump but not endorsing him.
McConnell and others have called on Trump to get more disciplined; Ryan criticized him for recent use of an anti-Semitic image in a retweet.
Whether Trump takes any such advice is less clear. "I always look for constant improvement," McCarthy said.
Vatican court told: Since when is asking questions a crime?
VATICAN CITY (AP) A lawyer for an Italian journalist on trial in the Vatican for publishing classified Holy See information insisted Wednesday on the right of the press to report the news, saying: "Since when is asking questions a crime?"
Attorney Roberto Palombi made his closing arguments in the case that has drawn scorn from media watchdog groups. Two journalists, as well as three people affiliated with a papal reform commission, are accused of conspiring to publish confidential information.
A verdict is expected Thursday. The defendants face up to eight years in prison though Vatican prosecutors asked for a maximum of three years and nine months for one of the commission members.
Italian journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi, right, and Emiliano Fittipaldi, left, arrive for a hearing of their trial, at the Vatican, Monday, July 4, 2016. Two Italian journalists who wrote books detailing Vatican mismanagement face trial in a Vatican courtroom along with three people accused of leaking them the information in a case that has drawn scorn from media watchdogs. (Maurizio Brambatti/ANSA via AP Photo)
Journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi wrote books last year based in part on confidential Vatican documents exposing greed, mismanagement and corruption in the Holy See.
Palombi, Nuzzi's attorney, challenged the Vatican tribunal's jurisdiction to even hear the case since the alleged crime occurred in Italy, not on Vatican territory.
Citing papal documents throughout history about the duty of journalists to inform, Palombi said Nuzzi had an obligation to publish the news and that if he hadn't done so, another journalist would have.
"Since when is asking questions a crime?" he asked.
Palombi also noted that prosecutors appeared to have changed their line of accusation over the course of the trial, initially indicting the journalists on a conspiracy charge even though they had never met before the trial began and were in fact competitors.
After the key defendant denied that the journalists pressured him into turning over the documents, prosecutors in their closing statements accused the journalists instead of being part of a "moral conspiracy based on psychologically reinforcing the will of those who passed them documents."
Palombi noted that that revised accusation is essentially instigation which wasn't part of the original indictment.
"We risk having a verdict that is different from the original accusation," he said.
Prosecutor Roberto Zannotti insisted in his final response that the freedom of the press wasn't on trial. The Vatican in 2013 criminalized the publishing of "reserved" information after Nuzzi published a book of confidential papal documents.
"The accusation is conspiracy, and on this the tribunal will decide," he said.
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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield
Putin calls Obama to discuss Syria, Ukraine, Karabakh
MOSCOW (AP) Russia's President Vladimir Putin discussed Syria, Ukraine and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with U.S. President Barack Obama Wednesday.
Putin called Obama to inform him about the results of his talks with Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents, which were intended to help stabilize the situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, the Kremlin said. The White House said Obama expressed his readiness to intensify efforts together with Russia and with France, as co-chairs of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Minsk Group, to achieve a comprehensive settlement to the conflict.
Talking about Syria, Putin called for encouraging moderate Syrian opposition to disengage quickly from the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, which has been excluded from the U.S.- and Russia-brokered truce in Syria along with the Islamic State group. The Kremlin said the two leaders also reaffirmed their readiness to "build up coordination of Russian and U.S. actions in Syria in the military sphere," and noted the importance of resuming peace talks.
WITH STORY Russia-Britain-Analysis FILE - In this file photo taken on Wednesday, June 29, 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he addresses students during his visit to German Embassy school in Moscow, Russia. According to some analysts, Putin can expect new opportunities for Russia to raise its clout on the European stage following Britain's EU referendum vote to exit the EU. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, FILE)
The White House didn't mention stronger military coordination in its readout of the conversation. However, using an alternative acronym for IS, it said that "the presidents confirmed their commitment to defeating ISIL and the Nusrah Front."
It also noted that Obama emphasized his concerns over the failure of the Syrian regime to comply with the cessation of hostilities.
"President Obama stressed the importance of Russia pressing the Syrian regime for a lasting halt to offensive attacks against civilians and parties to the Cessation, noting the importance of fully recommitting to the original terms of the Cessation," the White House said.
It added that Obama "stressed the necessity for progress on a genuine political transition to end the conflict in Syria, as well as sustained humanitarian access."
Regarding Ukraine, Putin argued that its government needs to follow the 2015 Minsk peace deal by launching a dialogue with rebels, granting a special status to rebel regions and preparing local elections there.
US agents in Puerto Rico seize $1.2M in counterfeit goods
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) Federal authorities in Puerto Rico say they have seized $1.2 million worth of counterfeit and pirated merchandise from more than a dozen retailers.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the goods were seized Wednesday in the historic district of Puerto Rico's capital known as Old San Juan. Officials said the goods infringed on trademarks including Gucci, Nike, Prada, Chanel and Dolce & Gabbana, among others.
Brazil's Rousseff tells Senate that impeachment is a farce
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) Suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Wednesday told the Senate commission considering whether to permanently remove her from office that the case against her is a farce.
In a letter to the commission read by her top attorney, Rousseff also said she is honest and promised to fight to carry out her mandate until the end of 2018.
After the introduction of Rousseff's defense, the impeachment proceedings are expected to resume Aug. 2, three days before the opening ceremony at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. A final decision on whether she will keep the presidential post is expected after the games.
FILE - In this Oct. 6, 2014 file photo, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff listens to a question during a re-election campaign news conference at the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia, Brazil. In a letter to a Senate commission read by her top attorney on Wednesday, July 6, 2016, Rousseff told the commission considering whether to permanently remove her from office that the case against her is a farce. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)
The unpopular leader was impeached and suspended from office in May for allegedly breaking fiscal rules in managing the federal budget. She was replaced at least temporarily by ally-turned-enemy Michel Temer, who was her vice president and also is unpopular with Brazilians.
As she has before, Rousseff noted in her letter that previous Brazilian presidents used similar accounting measures and said she did not commit any crime.
"Never, in any democratic country, a legitimate mandate of a president was interrupted because of routine budget management acts," the letter said. "I don't deny I made mistakes, and for those I surely am and will be held responsible, but I am being persecuted for what I did right."
Rousseff's allies advised her not to appear in person before the commission. They said her presence would legitimize what they call a coup. Supporters of Temer say the impeachment proceedings are constitutional and insist Rousseff signed three decrees without the consent of Congress, which violates the country's fiscal laws.
Later Wednesday, in an interview with O Povo radio, Rousseff said she believes she will avoid the two-thirds vote of the Senate in her impeachment trial needed to permanently remove her as president. That would be 54 of the 81 senators, and 55 voted to suspend the left-leaning leader from office.
In the interview, Rousseff promised to publish a letter in the next few weeks to show Brazilians that she deserves the job back.
She also said she is disappointed she won't be able to attend the start of the Olympics on Aug. 5 as president.
Brazil is struggling with its worst recession in decades, and Rio de Janeiro state's government is under heavy financial constraints, which have raised question marks about the city's security during the Olympics.
Temer, who is expected to open the games, published a letter Wednesday saying Brazil awaits tourists "with open arms" for the event.
AP FACT CHECK: Trump trips on Saddam's record
WASHINGTON (AP) Donald Trump gives credit where credit isn't due when he brands Saddam Hussein a potent foil of terrorists.
Iraq's dictator was responsible for gassing thousands of Kurdish civilians, using chemical weapons against Iran, invading Kuwait, crushing political dissent and giving money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers who terrorized Israelis.
But killing terrorists? Not in the eyes of the West. The U.S. listed Iraq during the Saddam years not as an opponent of terrorism, but as a state sponsor of it.
FILE - In this Dec. 7, 2006 file photo, men stand at a graveyard where the dead of 1988 gas attack on Halabja, Iraq, by Saddam Hussein's regime were laid to rest. Donald Trump gives credit where credit isnt due when he brands Saddam Hussein a potent foil of terrorists. Iraqs dictator was responsible for gassing thousands of Kurdish civilians, using chemical weapons against Iran, invading Kuwait, crushing political dissent and giving money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers who terrorized Israelis. (AP Photo/Yahya Ahmed, File)
And now, the late dictator's Baath party makes up the organizational backbone of the Islamic State, the principal Islamic extremist threat.
Trump has maintained for a decade that the otherwise bad Iraqi leader was good in taking on terrorists. "You know what he did well?" he asked a campaign crowd in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday night. "He killed terrorists. He did that so good."
He went on: "They didn't read 'em the rights, they didn't talk. They were a terrorist, it was over." It was a view he repeated Wednesday at a rally in Cincinnati, but with the caveat that he wasn't praising Saddam as some critics had suggested. The Iraqi leader "was a bad man," he insisted, adding that "I hate Saddam Hussein."
Yet, in October, Trump asserted the world would be "100 percent" better off if Saddam and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi had been allowed to stay in power. This, despite the fact Trump initially if unenthusiastically supported the invasion of Iraq ("I guess so") and called strongly for the West to step in and help oust Gadhafi, which it did.
On this subject, Trump has seemed to lament the constitutional protections of the U.S. justice system even while overstating their use when it comes to terrorists. No one read Osama bin Laden his rights when U.S. forces burst into his compound and killed him.
Trump's broader point that dictators can bring stability has indeed guided U.S. foreign policy at times, when repressive regimes have had a pro-U.S. slant or were otherwise useful in Cold War-era rivalry with the Soviet Union. Saddam was at one time a U.S. ally for that reason.
In the late 1980s, Saddam's forces unleashed poisonous gas on Kurdish villages, aiming to counter a rebellion and killing mostly civilians. The ghastly results underscored Saddam's willingness to use any means to put down perceived opponents of any stripe, not just those he might have considered terrorists.
In Shiite and Kurdish uprisings in the 1990s, groups carried out attacks that could fall under a broad definition of terrorism, and Saddam had many of the opponents killed. Some were linked to groups supported by the U.S., others to groups that Washington considered terrorist organizations.
Before the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Saddam had little to do with al-Qaida, then the main terrorist danger to Americans.
As part of its justification for the invasion, the Bush administration asserted that Saddam was in league with al-Qaida, sponsor of the 9/11 attacks. That was wrong. But Saddam was not killing al-Qaida fighters, either, as might be construed from Trump's remarks. The organization was scarcely a presence in Iraq at the time.
For many years Saddam sheltered and supported one terrorist in particular, the notorious Palestinian assassin Abu Nidal, whose Iraqi-armed group carried out deadly attacks against Israelis, rival Palestinians and Syrians opposed by Saddam.
Abu Nidal died in Iraq in murky circumstances in 2002. He had apparently crossed Saddam.
It's possible this terrorist died in a manner cited by Trump.
If so, it was not because Saddam wanted to make the world safer against terrorism.
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Associated Press writers Susannah George in Baghdad and Jill Colvin in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.
Bill to boost airport security, ease lines gets green light
WASHINGTON (AP) House and Senate lawmakers announced an agreement Wednesday on an aviation bill to boost airport security, reduce screening lines and require airlines to refund fees to passengers whose bags are lost or delayed.
The bill would also extend the Federal Aviation Administration's programs and policies through Sept. 30, 2017. The FAA's current operating authority is set to expire July 15.
The bipartisan agreement was announced by senior members of the House and Senate transportation committees. Approval by both chambers is expected to swiftly follow. Congress has only nine days to act in order to prevent a partial shutdown of the agency.
In this photo taken June 30, 2016, Miami-Dade Police officer William Cook, Jr., and his police dog Ringo patrol Miami International Airport in Miami. House and Senate lawmakers announced an agreement on an aviation bill to boost airport security, reduce screening lines and require airlines to refund fees to passengers whose bags are lost or delayed. The bill would also extend the Federal Aviation Administrations programs and policies through Oct. 1, 2017. The FAAs current operating authority is due to expire on July 15. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)
The bill would require airlines to refund checked bag fees to passengers whose luggage is lost or is delayed 12 hours or more for domestic flights or 15 hours or more for overseas flights. It also requires airlines to generally ensure that children 13 years of age or under are seated adjacent to an adult or older child traveling with them.
A bill that passed the Senate in April by a vote of 95 to 3 would also have extended other consumer protections to passengers, including a requirement that airlines refund fees for other services when not delivered, such as advance seat assignments or early boarding. But those provisions, which were opposed by airlines, were dumped during negotiations with the House.
To address long airport screening lines, the bill requires the Transportation Security Administration to hire a marketing firm to generate greater public participation in the agency's PreCheck expedited screening program for passengers who have been vetted and determined to be low security risks.
The bill also requires TSA to ensure PreCheck screening lanes are open during high-volume travel times. And the measure authorizes a pilot program to develop and test more efficient passenger and luggage screening systems.
Responding to airport attacks in Brussels and Istanbul this year, the bill also authorizes a doubling of TSA teams that stop and search suspicious passengers in airport public areas that are outside the security perimeter, often using bomb-sniffing dogs.
The bill would toughen the vetting of airport employees who have access to secure areas, expand random employee inspections and require reviews of perimeter security. That is a response in part to the "insider threat" problem raised by the destruction last year of a Russian Metrojet airliner over Egypt. Investigators suspect a bomb was smuggled aboard.
"In this age of terrorism, we have a responsibility to thoroughly scrutinize anyone who has access to airport secure areas," said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. "We can't afford to make any mistakes."
The bill also authorizes TSA to donate unneeded security equipment to foreign airports with direct flights to the United States. It directs TSA to establish a pilot program at three to six airports to reconfigure and install security systems that increase efficiency and reduce vulnerabilities in airport terminals.
Congress is "on the verge of passing the most comprehensive aviation security reforms in over a decade," said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
Among several drone-related provisions is one sought by the chemical industry that allows the FAA to designate critical infrastructure, chemical facilities or amusement parks as no-fly zones for drones.
The bill also prohibits drone users from interfering with emergency response activities like fighting wildfires and raises civil penalties for violators to up to $20,000. Authorities recorded 20 incidents in which drones flew too close to wildfires last year, with more than half hindering firefighting efforts. It has happened again at least nine times so far this year.
The bill is also notable for what it doesn't include: any plan to remove air traffic control operations from the FAA and spin them off into a nonprofit corporation.
The privatization plan was the top legislative priority of Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., chairman of the House transportation committee, and the airline industry. But the plan ran into opposition from other powerful committee chairmen opposed to ceding Congress' authority over aviation matters to a corporation and segments of the aviation industry that feared a corporate board would be dominated by large airlines also opposed the plan.
Airlines say privatization is needed because the FAA's culture is too slow and inflexible to finish the air traffic system's transition from old radar technology to satellites. The modernization has dragged on for more than a decade and fallen short of promised financial benefits and reduced congestion.
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Court orders release of detained immigrant kids, not parents
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Homeland Security officials must quickly release immigrant children but not their parents from family detention centers after being picked up crossing the border without documentation.
The San Francisco-based 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said that lengthy detentions of migrant children violated a 19-year-old legal settlement ordering their quick release after processing. Government lawyers had argued that the settlement covered only immigrant children who crossed the border unaccompanied by adult relatives. But the three-judge panel ruled that immigration officials aren't required to release the parents detained along with the children, reversing U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee's ruling last year.
Advocates seeking stricter immigration controls said they hoped the ruling would discourage adults crossing the border illegally from exploiting children as a way to stay out of custody in the United States.
Mark Krikorian, Center for Immigration Studies executive director and an advocate for stricter border controls, said allowing the parents to be released may have encouraged illegal immigration of adults traveling with children.
"It makes using children way less attractive," he said of the most recent ruling.
The Department of Homeland reported that more than 23,000 families have been apprehended in the first five months of the year compared to about 13,400 in 2015 and around 30,600 in 2014. Most are from Honduras, El Salvador or Guatemala.
Melissa Crow, legal director of the American Immigration Council, said she was "somewhat disappointed" with the ruling because the goal of the litigation was to shield the children from unfair and inhumane treatment. Separating children and parents still treats the children unfairly.
"The court misses the point," Crow said.
Since Gee's ruling, immigration officials have released hundreds of families and have been holding newly arriving families for only short durations. Following that earlier ruling, the number of immigrant families has again been on the rise.
At issue are two detention centers in Texas that were built after a flood of immigrants in summer 2014 overwhelmed border authorities. The government poured millions of dollars into the two large detention centers after tens of thousands of immigrant families, mostly mothers with children from Central America, crossed the Rio Grande into the U.S. that year. Many have petitioned for asylum after fleeing gang and domestic violence back home.
A Homeland Security official told a group of immigration advocates in September 2014 that the jails were opened in part because roughly 70 percent of immigrant families released after being caught at the border didn't report to immigration authorities as ordered.
Critics of the jails complained that they were not suited for children and later went to federal court to argue that the government was violating a decades old agreement about how immigrant children would be treated.
The Department of Homeland Security didn't return phone and email inquiries over how it planned to proceed.
If the government decides to start detaining parents after releasing their children, the children would be treated as unaccompanied minors. That means they would be turned over to the Department of Health and Human Services and placed either with relatives or possibly a foster family in the United States while they wait for DHS or a judge to decide if they will be allowed to stay in the United States.
Career law enforcement officials within DHS have long recommended detaining parents if their children must be released to ensure that the adults can be quickly deported, according to a U.S. official briefed on those recommendations.
The official said that detaining parents would also likely serve as deterrent to other people considering crossing the border illegally with their children.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to disclose internal government discussions.
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US soldier pleads guilty to scheme to send guns to Indonesia
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) A U.S. Army soldier who participated in a scheme to buy guns and send them to a security detail for the president and vice president of Indonesia plead guilty Wednesday to several charges in federal court.
Audi Sumilat pleaded guilty Tuesday and will be sentenced in October, the U.S. attorney's office in New Hampshire said. The 36-year-old faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
One of Sumilat's co-conspirators also has been charged and is scheduled to be tried on July 19.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Morse said there have been cases in New Hampshire and other states involving international firearms trafficking to countries including Ghana, Canada and Mexico.
"But this is the first case that I'm aware of in which the intended beneficiaries of the trafficking were representatives of a foreign government," Morse said.
Authorities said Sumilat joined a conspiracy to buy guns in Texas and New Hampshire for members of the Indonesian Presidential Guard, who are tasked with providing security to the president and vice president but could not lawfully buy the weapons themselves.
Sumilat admitted he and three guard members came up with a plan in 2014, when they were stationed together for training in Fort Benning, Georgia.
Sumilat said he bought guns in Texas and shipped them to a co-conspirator in New Hampshire, who delivered them to guard members on visits to Washington, D.C., and to the U.N. General Assembly in New York. The guns were to be smuggled out of the United States.
Sumilat pleaded guilty to making false statements in records required to be kept by federal firearms dealers for telling gun dealers the weapons were for him and for smuggling firearms from the U.S.
To have legally exported the guns, Sumilat was required to get an exporter's license and a license covering the specific guns exported. No licenses were issued.
New Hampshire U.S. Attorney Emily Gray Rice said the consequences of international gun trafficking can be grave.
Nortek and Harmony Gold rise; Netflix and United skid
NEW YORK (AP) Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily Wednesday:
AbbVie Inc. (ABBV), up $1.45 to $63.37.
AbbVie and Biogen said European Union regulators approved their once-a-month multiple sclerosis drug Zinbryta.
Nortek Inc. (NTK), up $24.01 to $86.50.
The heating and ventilation systems company agreed to be bought by Melrose Industries for $86 per share, or $1.4 billion.
Harmony Gold Mining Co. (HMY), up 22 cents to $4.32.
The price of gold continued to rise as investors looked for safe options.
United Continental Holdings Inc. (UAL), down 98 cents to $39.31.
A Credit Suisse analyst downgraded the airline and said she expects disappointing earnings and revenue.
Valero Energy Corp. (VLO), down $1.18 to $48.66.
The price of gas fell after the U.S. government said stockpiles grew last week.
Netflix Inc. (NFLX), down $3.31 to $94.60.
A Jefferies & Co. analyst downgraded the streaming video company, expecting slower U.S. subscriber growth and growing competition.
Frontier Communications Corp. (FTR), down 10 cents to $4.88.
Phone company stocks, which have climbed in recent weeks, took hefty losses on Wednesday.
Supervalu Inc. (SVU), up 40 cents to $5.00.
Judge pushes for speedier release of Clinton-era documents
WASHINGTON (AP) A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the State Department to speed up the release of documents related to a decision made under former Secretary Hillary Clinton to allow a foreign defense contractor that admitted criminal wrongdoing to continue doing business with the Pentagon.
The Associated Press filed a Freedom of Information Act request in 2013 for emails and internal memos involving a U.S. subsidiary of the British aerospace giant BAE Systems. AP sued after the State Department failed to provide those and other requested public records, including Clinton's official calendars and emails transmitted through her private server.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon told the government at a court hearing in Washington that the documents must be provided to AP well before the November election. Clinton, who served as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
"Tell your colleagues at the State Department ... weekend trips to Nantucket should be off the table," Leon told one of the government lawyers. "They should be rolling up their sleeves to get this done."
BAE pleaded guilty in March 2010 to one criminal count of conspiring to making false statements about its compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and paid a $400 million fine. The Justice Department said that BAE had conducted a 20-year practice of illegal payments to Saudi Arabian officials related to arms deals.
The conviction could have resulted in the American subsidiary losing billions in U.S. military contracts. But an assistant secretary working for Clinton signed off on BAE keeping its lucrative U.S. business. Documents show Clinton was briefed on the issue before the decision was made.
In a court hearing last week, AP lawyer Jay Brown told Leon the documents likely contain information of public interest, including the reasoning behind allowing BAE to keep its U.S. weapons contracts.
"Many of those elements relate directly to decisions that American voters are going to have to make in this election," Brown said. "At least they potentially relate to that. We don't have the documents."
The department estimates it will have to sort through at least 10,000 pages. Only a small fraction of them have been provided to AP so far, most heavily censored.
In previous affidavits to the judge, State Department lawyers said they expected to show some internal documents to attorneys for BAE to allow the firm to ask for redactions of any proprietary trade secrets.
A lawyer for the State Department said last week that BAE's attorneys were reviewing the materials "pretty quickly." The government lawyer added, however, that in some cases the agency and BAE's law firms have differed sentence by sentence over how much material should be blacked out before release to the AP.
Among the items redacted as "trade secrets" so far include the entirety of a published news article about the BAE case. In another instance, the number of potential criminal violations the Justice Department figured the military contractor had committed was also obscured as a "trade secret."
Justice Department lawyer Carol Federighi, representing the State Department, told Leon Wednesday she had personally reviewed all the redactions and stood by them. "He's already got a lot more than we normally release," she said, gesturing toward the AP's lawyer.
Leon, who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush in 2002, warned Federighi he would hold the government accountable for any unnecessary redactions, even if it meant hauling U.S. officials into court and holding a closed-door hearing on the purportedly secret information.
"As many claims as you are asserting, you are probably going to be in this courtroom every day for a month," the judge told the government lawyer. "It'll be painful for all involved including me."
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Photos and video of two litters of mountain lion kittens discovered in the Santa Susana Mountains north of Los Angeles have been released by The National Park Service.
The Park Service said on Wednesday the five kittens - three females and two males - were eartagged and returned to their dens earlier this month.
The first litter of kittens include two females, named P-48 and P-49, who are the offspring of a mother dubbed P-35. The kittens were tagged on June 8, the service said in a release.
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Two newly discovered mountain lion kittens, one of two separate litters, is pictured above. They were discovered in the eastern Santa Susana Mountains near Los Angeles, California
The Park Service said on Wednesday the five kittens - three females and two males - were eartagged and returned to their dens earlier this month
Their mother, who is approximately six years old, has been tracked by the National Park Service since April 2014.
Biologists suspect that her previous kitten, P-44, did not survive into adulthood based on remote camera images.
The second litter includes two males, P-50 and P-52, and a female, P-51, born to mother P-39, who is approximately five years old and has been tracked since April 2015.
The den with P-39's litter was discovered on June 22 when it was located in a cave-like area hidden beneath large boulders.
Both of the recently discovered litters likely have the same father, P-38, based on GPS locations of him traveling and spending multiple days with P-35 and P-39 months prior to the kittens being born.
The National Park Service said samples from the kittens were taken for genetic testing in order to confirm paternity.
Kitten siblings P-50, P-51, and P-52 Litter are pictured above. The two male kittens have been dubbed P-50 and P-52, while their sister has been dubbed, P-51. All three were born to mother P-39
Both of the recently discovered litters likely have the same father, P-38, based on GPS locations of him traveling and spending multiple days with P-35 and P-39 months prior to the kittens being born
One of the kittens from litter P-50, P-51, and P-52 is pictured above in its den
The two litters of kittens are the 10th and 11th litters of kittens marked by the service's biologists at a den site
The two litters of kittens are the 10th and 11th litters of kittens marked by the service's biologists at a den site.
Two additional litters were discovered when the kittens were already at least six months old, according to the service.
The National Park Service studies how mountain lions survive in fragmented and urbanized habitat around Los Angeles.
Biologist Jeff Sikich said mountain lions appear to be reproducing successfully.
But he says the real challenge is when the kittens grow older, disperse and have to deal with threats from other mountain lions, busy roads and poisons.
The other litter of kittens include two females, named P-48 and P-49, pictured above
P-48 and P-49 are the offspring of a mother dubbed P-35. Both the kittens were tagged on June 8
The National Park Service said samples from the kittens were taken for genetic testing in order to confirm paternity
Editorial Roundup: Excerpts from recent editorials
Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:
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July 6
The New York Times on the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails:
James Comey, the director of the F.B.I., may have relieved Hillary Clinton of a legal burden on Tuesday, but he left her with a substantial political one. While announcing that the bureau would not recommend criminal charges against Mrs. Clinton for her handling of classified material on nonsecure personal email servers, Mr. Comey issued a strong rebuke of her practices, which he called "extremely careless" and for which she has never given the public a full explanation. He was right on both points.
Mr. Comey explained that there was no clear evidence Mrs. Clinton or her colleagues had intentionally broken any federal laws on classified information, and he said that "no reasonable prosecutor" would pursue an indictment in the case.
This legal decision is undoubtedly correct. The F.B.I. investigation, which began a year ago, examined tens of thousands of emails sent to and from Mrs. Clinton during her leadership of the State Department. It found that eight email threads contained information that was classified "top secret" at the time, the highest classification level. Several dozen more contained information that was either "secret" or "confidential," the lowest level.
For at least two reasons, Mr. Comey said, this did not amount to criminal wrongdoing. First was the lack of evidence that Mrs. Clinton or her colleagues had intended to break any laws. Second, prosecutions of similar cases in the past have relied on some combination of elements that were missing in this case: the intentional mishandling of classified information, indications of disloyalty to the United States, and efforts to obstruct justice.
But Mr. Comey was clear that while these email habits weren't criminal, Mrs. Clinton and her staff were "extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information." He added that "any reasonable person" in Mrs. Clinton's position should have known that she was playing with fire.
Mr. Comey's remarks also contradicted Mrs. Clinton's repeated assertion that she didn't send or receive material that was "marked classified" at the time. She did.
He went on to say, "None of these emails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these emails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff."
Perhaps more troubling was the F.B.I.'s finding that Mrs. Clinton "also used her personal email extensively while abroad, including sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries," adding that "it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account."
Mr. Comey's conclusions legal recommendation aside can be seen as nothing less than a censure of Mrs. Clinton's judgment. Of course, his recommendation was met with howls from the right, and particularly from Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, who wasted no time trying to delegitimize the F.B.I.'s work by claiming it was only more proof that "the system is rigged." But to assume that the F.B.I. somehow worked on Mrs. Clinton's behalf betrays a basic misunderstanding of the way the agency functions, and views its own mission. Led by Mr. Comey, who also served as deputy attorney general under President George W. Bush, the F.B.I. appears to have worked as comprehensively and expediently as it could to investigate a problem that is entirely of Mrs. Clinton's making.
Mrs. Clinton's desire to shield her private communications from public scrutiny may be understandable to supporters of her presidential campaign. But in leading one of the most sensitive departments in the federal government, she did little to improve what Mr. Comey called "the security culture of the State Department in general, and with respect to use of unclassified email systems in particular," that "was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government."
As Mrs. Clinton said in the past, and her campaign reiterated on Tuesday, her decision to use private email was a mistake. She remains, far and away, the most experienced and knowledgeable candidate for the presidency, particularly when compared with Mr. Trump. But she has done damage to her reputation by failing to conform to the established security policies of the department she ran and by giving evasive or misleading answers about her actions and motivations. If there was ever a time that Mrs. Clinton needed to demonstrate that she understands the forthrightness demanded of those who hold the nation's highest office, this is that moment.
Online:
http://www.nytimes.com/
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July 6
The Boston Herald on the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails:
"I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material. So I'm certainly well-aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material." Hillary Clinton, March 20, 2015.
"From the group of 30,000 emails returned to the State Department, 110 emails in 52 email chains have been determined ... to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent." FBI Director James Comey July 5, 2016.
So yesterday the FBI director announced to the nation that the former secretary of state and her team were "extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," and that such carelessness, including while she was outside the United States "in the territory of sophisticated adversaries" made it "possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account."
Comey was, of course, forced by last week's "chance" meeting between former President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch to begin his statement yesterday by emphasizing that his remarks had not been cleared or reviewed in any way by the Justice Department. But even as the director was announcing his recommendation to Justice not to prosecute Hillary Clinton, President Obama was sharing a ride on Air Force One with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee as they headed for the campaign trail.
There is an unseemliness about all of this the unblemished character of James Comey notwithstanding. Just further evidence that the Clintons manage to tarnish all that they touch.
Now it's not as if Mrs. Clinton has gotten off scot-free in all this, even if she has avoided prosecution.
"Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case," Comey said.
The standard for prosecution is gross negligence and frankly it's problematic where "extreme carelessness" ends and gross negligence begins. And we'll concede that Mrs. Clinton's intention was not to expose government secrets including the seven email chains that were classified under the top secret Special Access Program to foreign adversaries.
She did it because she wanted to, because she has spent a lifetime playing by her own set of rules. And then she lied to the American people about it. That's not a crime. In fact for the Clintons it seems to be standard procedure.
Online:
http://www.bostonherald.com/
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July 6
The Telegraph on British Prime Minister David Cameron and the Brexit vote:
One reason for the sense of unease that has settled over the country since the Brexit vote is the absence of any obvious plan for what comes next. The resignation of the Prime Minister, albeit delayed until September, and the political tumult among Conservatives who wish to succeed him, have contributed to the uncertainty.
The aftershocks have seen a sterling devaluation greater than anything for 30 years, which has its advantages for exporters. Initial falls in the stock markets have to some extent been reversed. The financial Armageddon that many feared has not materialised. However, that does not mean there is not trouble ahead unless the right decisions are taken. Surveys indicate that political uncertainty is already hurting business confidence. Investment managers have suspended trading in some funds that buy property.
Fortunately, those whose job is to ensure that the country can withstand turbulence are now taking responsibility for doing so. Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, who warned during the campaign of severe repercussions of a Brexit vote, is doing his utmost to calm things down, having stoked them up in the first place. In the spirit of offering reassurance, the Bank has relaxed the capital requirements for commercial banks in order to let them lend more freely.
George Osborne, the Chancellor, has also tried to water down "Project Fear" without resiling from his view that withdrawing from the EU will be difficult. His proposed cut in corporation tax to under 15 per cent to make the UK a magnet for overseas investment is welcome. Why stop there? More bold steps would demonstrate that Britain is not retreating into a shell but is open for business. It is also crucial that infrastructure projects go ahead and stamp duty is reformed to encourage house building and shore up the market.
One person we have not heard from is David Cameron. He has carried out his parliamentary duties but seems reluctant to join Mr. Carney and Mr. Osborne in refining the rhetoric he used during the campaign. It is hard for the Prime Minister to address a subject that cost him his job. But he did call the referendum where there was always the prospect of a Leave vote even if he did not want it. A speech from Mr. Cameron, extolling Britain's ability to overcome any difficulties would help to reassure a jittery nation.
Online:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
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July 5
The Los Angeles Times on boycotts against Israel:
In recent months, a number of states have passed laws or taken other official actions to punish companies that participate in boycotts against Israel. California soon may do the same. But if it does, it will be making a mistake.
You don't have to support the so-called Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to be troubled when state governments in this country penalize American citizens for their political speech. As the Supreme Court has recognized, boycotts are a form of speech, protected under the Constitution.
The BDS movement has been the subject of much heated debate in recent years. It calls on people and companies to boycott Israel until that country ends its occupation of "all Arab lands," ensures equal legal rights for its Arab citizens and accepts the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the former homes of their families in Israel. Some supporters of BDS accept the "two-state solution" in which Israel and an independent Palestine would exist side by side; others don't.
Although BDS hasn't inflicted significant economic damage on Israel, the movement's increasing visibility especially on some American college campuses has alarmed Israelis and their supporters in the United States. Many supporters of Israel have sought to portray the BDS movement as anti-Semitic.
One result has been a flurry of actions in state capitals, from a law in Illinois divesting state pension funds from companies refusing to do business in Israel or the Palestinian territories to an executive order by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo providing for the disinvestment by state agencies under his control from companies engaged in "boycott, divestment, or sanctions activity targeting Israel." Most recently, the New Jersey Legislature passed a bill barring the investment of state pension and annuity funds in companies that boycott Israel or Israeli businesses.
Do such laws violate the 1st Amendment? Although the Supreme Court has held that government may engage in its own "speech" and express its own opinions, it also has held that government may not deny a benefit to a person (or a company) because he holds the "wrong" opinion. In our view, denying state business to an otherwise qualified contractor simply based on its views about Israel and its participation in a legal boycott goes beyond "government speech" and raises serious constitutional concerns.
In California, the situation has grown even more complicated. Opponents of BDS in the Legislature previously proposed a bill that would have forbidden state contracts with companies engaged in a boycott of Israel. But after legal objections, the legislation was radically reconfigured.
The latest version, approved by a state Senate committee last week, no longer seeks to penalize boycotts directly. Rather, it targets violations of existing anti-discrimination laws that take place under the pretext of a boycott or other "policy" aimed at "any sovereign nation or people recognized by the government of the United States, including, but not limited to, the nation and people of Israel." The bill would require any person who seeks to contract with the state to certify, under penalty of perjury, that it hasn't engaged in discrimination as part of such a policy.
This shift to an emphasis on individual rights may solve some of the 1st Amendment problems in earlier versions, but it also raises the question of why this proposed law is necessary at all. The state's Public Contract Code already says that contractors may not discriminate "on the basis of age, sex, pregnancy, maternity leave status, marital status, race, nationality, country of origin, ethnic origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, or political opinion." Why is it necessary to reiterate what already is the law and to throw in a specific mention of boycotts and Israel?
Also, it's difficult to imagine a scenario in which a company boycott aimed at a "sovereign nation" would result in discrimination against an individual employee or customer. And if it were to happen, there already are laws on the books to address racial and religious harassment. One theory is that the law, if passed, might lead to a lawsuit claiming that a boycott created a "hostile workplace environment" for a Jewish employee. But that strikes us as a far-fetched claim.
The proponents of this bill are desperately eager to single out and punish companies that engage in boycotts against Israel. Realizing that their initial proposal ran contrary to the free speech protections guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, they have now come back with a convoluted, redundant and most likely ineffectual bill that allows them to say they've passed an anti-BDS bill.
In California, as elsewhere in this country, support for Israel is strong which is why laws aimed at boycotts of the Jewish state are a solution in search of a problem.
Politicians are free to denounce BDS if they choose. But they must do so without infringing on the rights of their constituents.
Online:
http://www.latimes.com
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July 6
The Charleston Daily Mail on the late Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel:
It was a harrowing tragedy that words can't even begin to describe.
Yet through Elie Wiesel's writing and advocacy, generations of readers and historians have a better though still incomplete understanding of the Holocaust.
Wiesel, who recounted the horrors of the Holocaust in his acclaimed memoir "Night" and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize, died Saturday at age 87.
"In the aftermath of the Germans' systematic massacre of Jews, no voice had emerged to drive home the enormity of what had happened and how it had changed mankind's conception of itself and of God," reads his New York Times obituary. "For almost two decades, the traumatized survivors and American Jews, guilt-ridden that they had not done more to rescue their brethren seemed frozen in silence.
"But by the sheer force of his personality and his gift for the haunting phrase, Mr. Wiesel, who had been liberated from Buchenwald as a 16-year-old with the indelible tattoo A-7713 on his arm, gradually exhumed the Holocaust from the burial ground of the history books."
At age 15, in 1944, Wiesel and his family were sent to Auschwitz in Poland. He was ultimately freed a year later from Buchenwald.
"If I survived, it must be for some reason," Wiesel said in 1981. "I must do something with my life. It is too serious to play games with anymore, because in my place, someone else could have been saved. And so I speak for that person. On the other hand, I know I cannot."
His advocacy wasn't limited to just the Jewish people. Wiesel also stood up for Soviet Jews, Nicaragua's Miskito Indians, Ethiopian-born Israeli youth, Argentina's "Disappeared," Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, and victims of famine and genocide in Africa, apartheid in South Africa and war in the former Yugoslavia, according to CNN.
Wiesel was a journalist and a professor. He used those platforms to educate his audiences about the horrors of the Holocaust and the importance of speaking out.
"Wiesel is a messenger to mankind," the Nobel citation said. "His message is one of peace, atonement and human dignity. His belief that the forces fighting evil in the world can be victorious is a hard-won belief."
Wiesel may have departed this Earth, but he still has much to teach us. The message and legacy he left behind must carry on.
Online:
http://www.wvgazettemail.com
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July 3
The Khaleej Times on Syrian refugees in Europe:
Turkey's plan to grant citizenship to Syrian refugees could hurt ties with the European Union that is struggling to keep its flock together after Britain's exit from the bloc last week. Ankara and Brussels had earlier reached a deal to stem the flow of refugees to the continent, for a steep fee. This development will complicate the terms of the agreement but could pay rich political dividends for President Recep Tayip Erdogan's party, the AKP, during elections in 2019. One million Syrians are expected to be granted citizenship if the president's words are put into action. Noble gesture or vote-bank politics? Turkey already hosts 2.7 million refugees from the war-wracked country next door. Under the strained deal with the EU, Turks can travel sans visas to Schengen countries. It is an agreement fraught with risks, and this development only complicates an already fragile relationship between Europe and Turkey.
Ankara has always been keen to join the EU; it is part of Nato, but has encountered opposition from the EU on its human rights record, terror laws and what the continent views are an increasing shift to despotism under Erdogan. Europe has troubles of its own with the rise of far-right parties that are making political capital over immigration and open borders. It hasn't helped that Daesh attacks in Paris and Brussels had a Syrian link. Terrorists in the guise of refugees may be fanning fears across the continent. Sleeper cells are giving security officials sleepless nights. The rise of Daesh is cause for concern and divisions among communities are out in the open. The simmering anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe coupled with the Turkish President's statement will only add to suspicions about Ankara's true intentions. The EU fears the wave could turn into a flood if the Syrian citizenship plan goes through. Turkey itself is a victim of terror. Five attacks this year have put the government on the defensive. European politicians blame Syrian migrants in a bid to grab power, Erdogan views them as a boon to remain in charge. These are political pawns in the great geopolitical game being played out by Brussels and Ankara. Whither value for human life?
Online:
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/
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July 1
The Chicago Tribune on violence in Chicago:
Americans were appalled when a man with a military-style rifle entered an Orlando gay nightclub on June 12 and began firing. By the time police killed him, he had murdered 49 people and wounded 53. It was one of the worst mass shootings the country has ever seen a spectacular attack from a killer who said he was driven by Islamist militancy.
In the days afterward, Americans asked how such slaughter can happen and what it says about the nation's character. Massacres carried out by lone gunmen, an increasingly common event, have become a signature horror of our time.
But in Chicago, another type of bloodshed occurred that weekend, without much notice except to those directly affected by it or living on streets where it occurred. By the time the weekend was over, 30 people had been shot one every 96 minutes and four of them were dead.
That wasn't an especially violent weekend here. It was more or less the norm for this time of year, when warm temperatures pull people outdoors, increasing the chances of vicious encounters.
Thus far in 2016, more than 1,950 people have been hit by bullets in Chicago, including most of the 315 homicide victims. "We have an Orlando every month in Chicago, and no one seems to raise an eyebrow," Dean Angelo, president of Chicago's Fraternal Order of Police, said the other day.
Those are sobering numbers. But they're just numbers. The reality behind them is terror, agony and soul-shredding grief. The deaths erase the lives of some Chicagoans and leave others with pain, fear and regret that will never go away.
Most of those struck down are young men in poor neighborhoods plagued by gangs, where minor disputes can turn deadly in an instant and bystanders can be hit at random. The dead and wounded are the victims of a volatile mix of social and economic toxins, inflamed by the easy availability of firearms.
It's hard to come up with measures that can prevent a determined person who has not committed a previous crime from obtaining guns and targeting a public venue to kill as many people as he can. It's easier to devise policies that stand a reasonable chance of reducing violence by making it harder for criminals to get the deadly weapons they want.
Omar Mateen, the Orlando killer, passed a federal background check to buy his guns. But felons may evade such requirements by purchasing from private sellers, who unlike licensed dealers aren't required to do background checks. They may work with straw purchasers, who buy firearms legally and then sell them illegally. Requiring background checks for all gun sales and stiffening penalties for straw purchasers could curb this sort of activity, raising the risks and costs for those doing business with criminals.
Need proof? A 2013 federal gun trafficking case found one man who bought 43 guns from gun shows and stores in Indiana, which has looser gun laws than Illinois, before bringing them to Chicago and selling them to an undercover agent. One defendant, a prosecutor said in court, "would go travel to Indiana, to these gun shows where he would load up literally a duffel bag, go from table to table paying in cash, large amounts of cash . before returning right into the worst neighborhoods of Chicago."
No one expects such changes in gun laws to make a big difference or a rapid one. But they are likely to do some good with minimal inconvenience to law-abiding gun buyers.
Illinois lawmakers also could make a difference by tightening this state's notoriously light sentences for several categories of repeat felony gun offenders. A move in Springfield to do that flopped in late 2013 because African-American lawmakers were concerned that increased incarceration would ill-serve their communities.
As if the rising tide of young lives snuffed by gunfire doesn't ill-serve their communities.
In this especially violent year, the Fourth of July weekend opens with the dread of even more bloodshed. In both 2014 and 2015, it was the deadliest weekend of the year. Last year, 70 people were shot in Chicago over the three-day Fourth weekend, including nine who died. And shootings have been up every month this year compared with the same month in 2015.
The nation won't forget the shock of what happened in Orlando last month. But the carnage that goes on all the time here is tragically susceptible to being ignored.
We have an Orlando every month in Chicago, and no one seems to raise an eyebrow.
Online:
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Chad C. Camp, 26, is charged with abusive sexual conduct after allegedly groping a 13-year-old girl
A 13-year-old girl who claims she was groped on a flight to Portland, Oregon, is seeking $10million in a federal lawsuit against American Airlines and the passenger accused of the crime.
Attorney Brent Goodfellow filed the suit Tuesday in Portland, alleging the June incident caused his client extreme fear and psychological trauma.
The suspect, 26-year-old Chad C. Camp, remains in a Portland jail after pleading not guilty to abusive sexual contact.
When he boarded the plane, Camp - who had already consumed four drinks - was mumbling to himself and swearing near the girl, the lawsuit seen by Daily Mail Online claims.
He 'began to rub up against [victim], lean close to her and fondle her body with his hand,' court documents say.
'This groping eventually progressed to Camp touching her upper and lower leg and finally to her crotch,' Goodfellow wrote in his lawsuit.
American Airlines says it is reviewing the lawsuit while continuing to cooperate with an FBI investigation
'This horrendous set of events lasted approximately 30 minutes without American's intervention.'
Authorities have said an attendant on the Dallas-to-Portland flight was delivering snacks when she noticed Camp's hand in the victim's crotch area.
She saw the girl shed a single tear and quickly separated the two.
But the girl's family says the airline was negligent in supervising the 13-year-old - especially after they had to pay a $150 fee for her to travel as an unaccompanied minor.
Video courtesy KOIN
The teen was allowed to leave the plane before Camp after it landed and was met by her stepfather at the gate.
Camp was taken into custody but the girl saw him one more time as she tried to make her way to the nearest bathroom at the airport.
The teen returned to her stepfather in tears.
'She is already saying she doesn't want to be on an airplane ever again,' Goodfellow told KOIN 6.
'I sat with the family for about three hours... she didn't want to be touched by her mom, every time she went to give her a kind of loving touch she would jump.'
The girl was interviewed by an FBI agent and Portland police officer. Camp was taken into custody and charged with abusive sexual contact, a felony.
Camp, 26, is charged with abusive sexual contact and remains at Multnomah County Jail
Camp, who has no prior criminal convictions, has pleaded not guilty and remains behind bars at Multnomah County Jail.
'They didn't make him move, they let him sit there until she was abused for 30 minutes,' Goodfellow told KOIN 6.
'From what I understand she was the only child on the airplane that evening, so it would have been pretty easy to take a few small steps.'
American Airlines charges a $150 unaccompanied minor service fee for children aged five to 14.
It is meant to ensure children are 'boarded onto the aircraft, introduced to the flight attendant, chaperoned during connections and released to the appropriate person at their destination', the website's policy reads.
American Airlines spokeswoman Brianna Jackson says the company is reviewing the lawsuit while continuing to cooperate with an FBI investigation.
VP Biden to travel to Latvia over the summer
WASHINGTON (AP) Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Latvia over the summer in what is likely one of his last foreign trips as vice president.
Biden spoke on Wednesday to Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis. The White House says Biden accepted an invitation from Vejonis to visit the country during the conversation.
Feds: Terrorism suspect tried to arrange killing of US judge
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) Federal prosecutors say a jailed terrorism suspect in Ohio tried to arrange the murder of a federal judge overseeing his case.
Authorities on Wednesday said the man from the United Arab Emirates told another inmate in Toledo last April that he wanted to have the judge kidnapped and killed.
Prosecutors say Yahya Farooq Mohammad then arranged for the delivery of money to an undercover FBI employee to carry out the plan.
Mohammad was indicted Wednesday on charges including attempted first degree murder of a federal officer. His attorney said they will vigorously contest what he called highly orchestrated charges.
Texas governor's pre-K plan rebuffed by alma mater
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) In Texas, where pre-K is scorned by some conservative activists as "godless," Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's major education initiative is giving classrooms far less money than many once thought, causing even the district of the governor's high school alma mater to now rebuff his plan.
Texas handed out $116 million in pre-K grants to nearly half the state's school districts this week, delivering on one of Abbott's biggest pledges when he took office last year that classrooms willing to implement tougher pre-K standards would be rewarded with as much as $1,500 extra per student.
But in reality, those schools are getting less way less.
FILE - In this May 28, 2015, file photo, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott poses for a photo after signing into law a pre-K boost that was among his top campaign promises but has underwhelmed educators in Austin, Texas. Abbott's cornerstone education plan that tea party activists rebuked as "ungodly" and Democrats bemoaned as meager finally doled out $116 million this week, but schools are getting only half as much money as what was teased. (Ralph Barrera/Austin American-Statesman via AP, File)
Districts will instead receive $734 per student, state education officials confirm. That's less than half of the potential maximum dangled in front of financially struggling school administrators and reluctant lawmakers in 2015, when the typically bipartisan idea of improving pre-K confronted pushback from influential tea party activists who called preschool something "historically promoted in socialistic countries."
So diminished was the ultimate amount of funding offered that even the Duncanville school district that claims Abbott as one of its most famous alumni he lent the governor's mansion in April to host his high school's 40th class reunion was among more than 20 districts that applied for but ultimately passed on the money.
"It kind of became diminishing returns," Duncanville school district spokeswoman Lari Barager said Wednesday of the decision to reject the funds.
Abbott spokesman John Wittman declined comment on how the funding turned out.
The chief reason schools received less is because so many districts sought funding which early education advocates say speaks to the demand for more pre-K dollars, but also how much underfunded Abbott's idea was from the start.
Texas currently offers half-day pre-K to children from low-income households, military families and those learning English. The state's program is given generally low marks by the National Institute for Early Education Research, which heaps praise across the border on Oklahoma, which has offered universal access to pre-K since 1998.
Five weeks after being sworn into office, Abbott declared early education the first emergency item of his new administration, enticing schools with more money if classrooms adopt more rigorous pre-K benchmarks such as enhanced teacher training. "Our children and their future have no time for delay," he said then.
Texas gutted classrooms of $5.4 billion in 2011, and schools cheered a new governor putting more education dollars on the table. Yet the $130 million that Abbott proposed still wouldn't restore what the Republican-controlled Legislature cut from preschools four years earlier, nor would the money let districts enroll more pre-K students.
The plan also fell short of what education groups say are truly meaningful pre-K reforms such as low teacher-to-student ratios.
Meanwhile, conservative activists close to Texas' powerful lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, tried derailing the legislation with a letter scolding incentives to remove children from "half-day religious preschools" to a "Godless environment" that didn't produce results.
Nearly 600 school districts took the money in the end. At Duncanville, Barager said the district of 13,000 students near Dallas declined after being offered only one-fifth of about $1 million requested. She also said the money wouldn't have arrived until late August, which would be "too late for us to do anything with it."
The money will likely only be noticed by sharp-eyed parents in their children's preschools, said Stephanie Rubin, CEO of Texans Care for Children, an Austin children's policy group. She believes most districts "thought they would get" the $1,500 maximum.
"It's a good step forward, but the funding isn't enough," Rubin said. "It's not high enough, or promised for future years, to make big improvements."
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Eds: This story has been updated to correct Ruben's first name to Stephanie, not Jennifer.
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A British citizen has pleaded not guilty to trying to grab a cop's gun in an effort to assassinate presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in June.
Michael Steven Sandford, 20, is alleged to have attempted to seize an officer's weapon so that he could shoot Trump at a Las Vegas campaign rally in the Treasure Island hotel-casino on June 18.
Although he reportedly told police that he traveled to Nevada to kill Trump and had practiced on a gun range the day before, Sandford - whose mom says he is mentally unwell - denied the claims in court Wednesday.
Scroll down for video
Charged: Michael Sandford (center), 20, was arrested June 18 after allegedly trying to take a cop's gun to shoot Donald Trump at a rally in Las Vegas. Sandford pleaded not guilty to all counts Wednesday
'Admission': Although he pleaded not guilty, cops say the British citizen already admitted to driving to Nevada from California with the intention of killing the presumptive presidential candidate
Sandford, who has been in custody since his arrest, appeared in court wearing a yellow jail jump suit with his federal public defense attorneys during his brief arraignment.
He responded, 'Yes, I do,' when US magistrate judge Cam Ferenbach asked whether he understood the nature of the charges against him.
He then denied charges of disrupting an official function and two firearm possession counts. If convicted, he could face up to 30 years in prison.
His attorneys, Brenda Weksler and Ryan Norwood, declined to comment outside court.
Speaking on the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire Show earlier this week, Sandford's mom, Lynne, said: 'I would like him to be deported so he can be back in the country and can get psychiatric help.'
She continued: 'Jail is no place for him. He needs help, but not prison.'
Mrs Sandford said her son had been diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome when he was 13 and he had previously tried to kill himself. He had to be committed to a mental health facility when he was just 14 after suffering from anorexia, she added.
In Sandford's first court appearance on June 20, a difference magistrate judge acknowledged that his mental health may be an issue.
A federal public defender representing him at that time said Sandford, who is from the English county of Surrey, had previously attempted suicide and once ran away from a hospital in England, but that he was competent for court proceedings.
Friends and family members in England have said Sandford was treated in the past for obsessive compulsive disorder and anorexia.
They also said that he was intelligent, and that signs of his Asperger's syndrome had become more obvious as he got older.
Unwell: Sandford's mom, Lynne (left) appeared on the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire Show to say that her son is mentally unwell and that he needs psychiatric help in the UK, not incarceration in the US
His father reported that Sandford moved to New Jersey a year and a half ago.
US federal agents say Sandford told them he drove from San Bernardino, California, to Las Vegas where he practiced shooting at a gun range the day before Trump's appearance.
The Secret Service says Sandford grabbed at the Las Vegas police officer's gun before he was handcuffed.
Trump, on stage, thanked the uniformed police officers walking Sandford in custody out of the 1,500-seat theater.
Sandford also is accused of overstaying his US entry visa by about nine months. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities said they've lodged a detainer against him to take action on the immigration violation if he's released from jail.
Sandford's court case will begin August 22.
US urges aerial spraying amid jump in Puerto Rico Zika cases
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) As many as 50 pregnant women in Puerto Rico are becoming infected with Zika every day, top U.S. health officials said Wednesday as they urged the U.S. territory to strongly consider aerial spraying to prevent further spread of the mosquito-borne virus.
The warning came as Puerto Rico debates whether to fumigate with the insecticide Naled, a proposal that has sparked protests in the U.S. territory over concerns about its impact on human health and wildlife.
Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The Associated Press that aerial spraying is the island's best defense to fight a virus that can cause microcephaly, a rare defect in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and brain damage.
FILE - In this Feb. 11, 2016, file photo of aedes aegypti mosquitoes are seen in a mosquito cage at a laboratory in Cucuta, Colombia. Top U.S. officials are urging Puerto Rico on Wednesday, July 6, to strongly consider aerial spraying to prevent further spread of mosquito-borne Zika, saying as many as 50 pregnant women on the island are infected every day and warns it's only a matter of time before Puerto Rico sees babies born with microcephaly, a rare birth defect linked to Zika infections. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan, File)
He said the island lacks an integrated mosquito control program.
"If any part of the continental U.S. had the kind of spread of Zika that Puerto Rico has now, they would have sprayed months ago," he said. "This is more a question of neglect than anything else. ... If we wait until children with microcephaly are born, it will be too late. That's the problem."
Puerto Rico government officials are still debating the issue, with legislators holding public hearings amid a growing number of protests. Some health officials have warned of the dangers of Naled, with Puerto Rico's health secretary saying pregnant women and asthmatics should remain indoors if it is sprayed. Puerto Rico has one of the highest asthma rates in the world.
Ultimately, it is up to Puerto Rico's governor to decide whether to implement aerial spraying, which would be run and paid for by the U.S. government.
In May, Puerto Rico reported the first microcephaly case acquired on U.S. soil. It involved a fetus that a woman turned over to U.S. health officials who found it tested positive for Zika.
A total of 339 pregnant women in Puerto Rico have been diagnosed with Zika, and Frieden said it is only a matter of time before one of them gives birth to a child with microcephaly.
Overall, Puerto Rico has reported nearly 2,400 Zika cases, 44 hospitalizations and one death. In addition, 16 people have been diagnosed with a temporary paralysis condition known as Guillain-Barre that has been linked to Zika infections.
The CDC estimates more than 20 percent of Puerto Rico's 3.5 million people could be infected with Zika in an outbreak expected to peak by this summer. Local health officials have dismissed that number as being exaggerated.
Frieden said the spread of Zika is not that apparent because eight of 10 people infected show no symptoms and many others have only mild symptoms.
"It's really something of a silent epidemic now," he said. "The data is extremely clear that it's spreading rapidly in many parts of Puerto Rico. ...This is in line with what we feared would happen."
Gina McCarthy, administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, told the AP that Puerto Rico needs to seriously consider aerial spraying.
"It can be done safely and effectively and is perhaps the most important tool we can use right now to change the trajectory," she said.
The EPA notes on its website that people sensitive to chemicals could experience skin, eye and nose irritation. In addition, it says Naled poses some risk to aquatic invertebrates and wildlife, noting that applications made between dusk and dawn can reduce exposure to honey bees.
Frieden said less than two tablespoons of Naled would be used per acre. He said the product was used last year on 6 million acres in Florida, including Miami. He also said it was used in New York and there was no increase in the number of asthma cases there.
U.S. officials said aerial spraying would be done several times a week and then weekly, depending on its effect on mosquitoes.
"We know how to do this," McCarthy said. "We are more than willing and anxious to do this."
___
British man pleads not guilty in Donald Trump shooting plot case
A British man has pleaded not guilty to attempting to grab a police officer's gun in a bid to kill Donald Trump.
Michael Sandford, 20, allegedly tried to snatch the weapon during a rally at Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas on June 18.
He is said to have told police he had travelled to the Nevada city to kill Mr Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the US presidential election, according to court documents.
Michael Sandford pictured at a Donald Trump rally in June - he has pleaded not guilty to attempting to grab a police officer's gun in a bid to kill the US presidential candidate
Sandford, dressed in a yellow prison uniform and wearing leg irons, appeared at a federal court in Las Vegas.
He pleaded not guilty to a charge of disrupting government business and official functions and two charges of being an illegal alien in possession of a gun.
Jos Buttler ready to prove his 'conviction' if handed England Test recall
Jos Buttler is ready to carry his new-found white-ball "conviction" into the Test arena if handed a recall for England's four-match series against Pakistan.
Buttler fired an unbeaten 73 as England swept past Sri Lanka by eight wickets in Tuesday's one-off Twenty20 clash in Southampton.
The 25-year-old's best T20 score guided England home with 15 balls to spare and pushed his case for a return to England's five-day ranks.
Jos Buttler shone in his first go as an opener
England will name their squad on Thursday with Buttler hoping to slot into the batting berth vacated by Nick Compton, with the Middlesex man having taken an extended break from cricket after his poor series against Sri Lanka.
"The word probably is conviction," said Buttler of why he was dropped from Test duty after England's series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates in October.
"I didn't probably have the same conviction that I have against the white ball."
Jonny Bairstow replaced Buttler as wicketkeeper for the series wins over South Africa and Sri Lanka, but both could feature in England's line-up to face Pakistan.
England coach Trevor Bayliss has already hinted at a recall for Buttler, admitting he hopes the Lancashire star can translate his white-ball form to the Test match forum.
Ben Stokes is another in the picture to replace Compton, having not featured for his country since the first Test against Sri Lanka due to a knee injury.
The all-rounder has returned for Durham only as a batsman, though, so England may well opt for caution on this occasion.
That could leave Nottinghamshire paceman Jake Ball in line to finally make his Test debut should James Anderson not recover in time from a stress fracture in his right shoulder blade.
Either Joe Root or James Vince is likely to move up the batting order to number three, with n either Buttler nor Stokes a natural replacement in Compton's spot .
Buttler believes his Indian Premier League stint not only helped him get over his Test exclusion, but also boosted his confidence no end.
When quizzed on Bayliss' hopes that he could transfer his short-format confidence to the five-day game, Buttler said: "If that's what the coach is telling you to do, that's a good start.
"It probably comes down to making peace with what (the press) are going to write, what the public are going to think, and accepting that if you get caught second slip having a big whoosh, so be it.
"I think I'd rather do that than leave one and get bowled.
"It doesn't change that the game's about scoring runs. From what I've learned, whatever colour the ball is, me trying to hit the ball is the way I'm going to get the best out of myself.
"I've had some time away to think, put cricket into perspective and I've had some fantastic experiences in the last six months and I've learned a lot. That's now translating into my cricket.
"The IPL was a fantastic experience, you come back so much more confident from that, rubbing shoulders with those kind of guys."
As far as Pakistan's team is concerned, the return of Mohammad Amir is the obvious point of interest.
The left-arm paceman served a five-year ban after pleading guilty to bowling deliberate no-balls as part of a spot-fixing plot during the Lord's Test against England in 2010.
Azhar Ali tendered his resignation as Pakistan's one-day captain upon Amir's return, only to stay on after the Pakistan Cricket Board rejected his request.
But Azhar told Cricinfo after a warm-up game against Somerset: "He's played a lot of cricket since his comeback, so things have settled down a lot.
"Everyone has their own opinion but we are very gelled together. Playing for Pakistan, there's nothing better than that so we're really focused for the series. Everyone should look forward."
Amir's three first-innings wickets at Taunton demonstrated that his prodigious skill remains intact and h e was warmly applauded when he came on to bowl, though Test crowds may prove less accommodating.
West Brom make QPR winger Matt Phillips first signing of summer
West Brom have made their first signing of the summer with the acquisition of winger Matt Phillips from QPR for an undisclosed fee.
Phillips has been a target for Tony Pulis since he became Baggies boss in January 2015 and he has moved to The Hawthorns on a four-year contract, after passing a medical and agreeing personal terms at West Brom's training ground on Tuesday.
The 25-year-old's transfer has gone through in time for him to fly out to Austria on Thursday with his new team-mates for a pre-season training camp - a trip which includes a high-profile friendly against French treble-winners Paris St Germain on July 13.
Matt Phillips has been on West Brom's radar for some time
West Brom technical director Nick Hammond told the club's official website, wba.co.uk: "I think it's fair to say Matt has been on the radar for a period of time and we're very pleased to have finally got his signature.
"He's a great acquisition because he adds to the versatility within the group. He gives us both wide positions and is also able to play as a central striker. We're absolutely delighted to welcome Matt to the club."
Phillips began his career with Wycombe, making his debut in 2008. After 79 appearances for the Chairboys he joined Blackpool in the summer after they were promoted to the Barclays Premier League. He scored on his Premier League debut for the Seasiders in September 2010.
Phillips moved to QPR in August 2013 and scored 13 goals in 82 appearances for the Hoops.
Anti-war supporters gather to demand 'truth and justice'
Anti-war supporters staged a demonstration in Westminster as Sir John Chilcot presented his long-awaited report on the UK's role in the Iraq war.
Organisers estimated around 150 protesters gathered opposite the building in which families of some of the British soldiers who lost their lives during the conflict were reading the report for the first time.
Ex-soldiers who served in Iraq joined leaders of the Stop the War Coalition, CND and other groups to demand "truth and justice" and called for Tony Blair and others to face the full force of the law.
Protesters outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London
One protester wore a mask of the former prime minister with fake blood on his hands.
Former soldier Ben Griffin who served in Iraq in 2005 called for Mr Blair and former foreign secretary Jack Straw to face criminal trials.
He said: "I was involved in attacking civilians in their homes, taking men who were then tortured by American soldiers in prisons.
"We were responsible for an occupation during which many of the Geneva conventions were broken."
Mr Griffin, a member of the Veterans for Peace group, added: "I'm sure the establishment would like to hold a lowly soldier to account for those crimes.
"But, however, it should be the people at the top. Tony Blair, Jack Straw, General Jackson, the head of MI5, the head of MI6. Those people should have criminal proceedings brought against them."
Another ex-serviceman John, who is an anti-war poet, said: "It took the Hillsborough families 27 years to get justice so if we have to wait that long we are prepared to for Tony Blair to face justice."
Among the demonstrators were a group calling for support for embattled Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
They directed a "shame on you" chant towards members of Mr Corbyn's shadow cabinet who resigned last month in a protest against his leadership.
Chris Nineham, of Stop the War Coalition, said he thought around 150 protesters were at the demonstration.
He said: "What the majority of people want from the next few days is an open admission that the war on Iraq was disastrous, illegal and wrong in itself, and that those who took us into it, led by Tony Blair, did so knowingly and by lying to people and parliament.
"Anything short of this will surely confirm people's suspicions that the Chilcot circus has been yet another convoluted attempt at a cover-up."
Protesters outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London, where the publication of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War is taking place
Protester Michael Culver, 78, stands outside the London home of former prime minister Tony Blair ahead of the publication of the Chilcot report
Protesters outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London
Protesters outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre
Protesters hold a banner outside the London home of former prime minister Tony Blair
Anti-Blair protesters outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre
Peace activist Bruce Kent addresses protesters outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre
Lionel Messi and his father to appeal sentences for tax fraud
Barcelona striker Lionel Messi and his father Jorge will appeal against the 21-month prison sentences for tax fraud imposed on them by a Catalan court.
Messi's management company said on Wednesday night that the pair would take appeals to the supreme court, even though neither man is likely to serve any time in prison.
Under Spanish law, sentences under two years are usually suspended.
Lionel Messi has appealed against a 21-month prison sentence
A statement from lawyers representing the pair described the sentences as "incorrect."
The long-running case relates to a scheme to avoid paying 3.4m of tax on Lionel Messi's image rights.
The disputed tax payments date back to a period from 2007 to 2009, a time when Argentinian player Messi, now 29, helped to transform Barca into the world's best team.
He has now, however, been fined 1.7m for three counts of tax fraud while his father has been given a 1.3m fine.
Lionel Messi has always denied any knowledge of his tax affairs, saying he concentrated on football, while his father has claimed he left it all up to financial advisers.
In Wednesday's statement, lawyers Enrique Bacigalupo and Javier Sanchez-Vera added: "The large majority of the arguments on which the ruling focuses the debate are precisely the ones which we are convinced must lead to absolution, as such, the appeal has a good chance of being successful."
The four-day hearing actually concluded in Barcelona on June 3, shortly before Lionel Messi left to join Argentina's squad for the Copa America.
The 29-year-old forward joined the club's academy in 2000, aged 13, and his family joined him in Spain soon after.
He made his competitive debut in 2004, at 17, and has now scored 453 goals in 531 appearances, winning five Ballon d'Or trophies for the world's best player along the way.
With Barcelona, he has won eight league titles and four Champions League winner's medals.
The Nou Camp club said in a statement on their official website that they considered Messi to be "no way criminally responsible with regards to the facts underlined in this case."
They added: "Barcelona continue to be at the disposal of Leo Messi and his family to support him in whatever action he decides to take in defence of his honesty and his legal interests."
He is also Argentina's leading goalscorer but has found success on the world stage harder to come by, losing in four major finals, including last month's Copa America.
Immediately after that defeat, he announced his retirement from international football.
Messi is not the only Barcelona star to come under scrutiny for tax affairs, as team-mate Neymar was recently fined almost 40m by a Brazilian court for allegedly evading tax on his sponsorship deals.
Gove campaign manager apologises after urging May backers to block Leadsom
Michael Gove's campaign manager has been forced to apologise after being caught trying to get Theresa May supporters to switch sides in order to block Andrea Leadsom from the final run-off in the Tory leadership battle.
Nick Boles insisted the Justice Secretary was unaware of the plot to persuade backers of the Home Secretary to vote tactically in Thursday's crunch ballot by MPs which chooses the two contenders grassroots members will decide between.
Mr Boles took to Twitter to announce he had apologised to Mr Gove, stating: "He did not know about it let alone authorise it. And it does not reflect his views."
Michael Gove is bidding to become Tory leader
The storm erupted after the Justice Secretary was confronted at election hustings over the texts sent by Mr Boles to scores of MPs.
The text said Mr Boles thought it was "overwhelmingly likely" Mrs May would triumph, but he was "seriously frightened" that if Ms Leadsom made the final two she could connect with members in the way Iain Duncan Smith had previously.
The text said: " I respect the fact that you want Theresa May to be the Prime Minister. It is overwhelmingly likely that she will be, and if she does I will sleep easily at night.
"But I am seriously frightened about the risk of allowing Andrea Leadsom onto the membership ballot.
"What if Theresa stumbles? Are we really confident that the membership won't vote for a fresh face who shares their attitudes about much of modern life, like they did with IDS?
"Michael doesn't mind spending two months taking a good thrashing from Theresa if that is what it takes to put the party's interest and the national interest, surely we must all work together to stop AL?"
When Mr Gove was challenged about the text at the hustings, a pro-May MP said he met the question with "a sort of giggle, and then he sat down. He didn't disown it, because so many MPs have received it, it is quite difficult to disown it."
Former leader Mr Duncan Smith moved to brush off the anti-Leadsom text, saying: "People with knives will end up stabbing themselves. I do think emails or texts like that are failing to smell the coffee, wake up and recognise we want to come back together, and govern as a Conservative Party, that we can get on with each other and do not want to spend the whole time stabbing each other in the back."
The row came as Ms Leadsom published her CV in a bid to clear up controversy over her past business roles after it was claimed by opponents that she had exaggerated her experience.
The hustings also saw Ms Leadsom say that she would not be releasing her tax returns, as other candidates have, unless she made the run-off.
The minister told MPs that they could come to see a summary of her tax affairs personally if they wanted to.
Mr Gove was also challenged for the first time at hustings about what some MPs see as his "betrayal" of Boris Johnson, but the Justice Secretary said he had decided to run himself because he thought the ex-London mayor was not suited for the job.
Referring to unguarded comments recorded by Sky News by Tory former chancellor Ken Clarke in which he referred to Mrs May as "a bloody difficult woman", the Home Secretary joked that the next person to take that view of her would be Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president.
The hustings came as Conservative MPs who support all three remaining leadership candidates are urging the party to speed up the contest so a new prime minister is chosen by the end of the month.
A growing group of around 30 MPs have signed a letter written by former Tory chairman Grant Shapps, which calls on the party to give members three weeks to pick a leader after the third place candidate is eliminated on Thursday.
The Home Secretary is expected to be confirmed on Thursday as one of the two contenders chosen by MPs to go forward in a vote of around 150,000 Conservative members to elect a new leader - and prime minister - on September 9.
Greg Van Avermaet wins fifth stage as Chris Froome gains time over rivals
Greg Van Avermaet soloed to victory and the yellow jersey on stage five of the Tour de France in Le Lioran as Chris Froome saw rivals lose more time in the general classification battle proper.
Froome may have seen his deficit to yellow balloon from 14 seconds to five minutes 17 seconds after BMC's Van Avermaet attacked from the breakway to win his second career Tour stage, but the GC picture was still looking good for the Team Sky man after Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali suffered on the 216km run from Limoges.
Movistar's Nairo Quintana attacked on the last of the six categorised climbs as the race moved into the Massif Central, but Froome responded and it was the Team Sky man who was first home among the GC hopefuls, finishing in ninth place on the day.
Greg Van Avermaet claimed the second Tour stage victory of his career on Wednesday (AP)
"For us it was just about staying up front (in the peloton)," Froome said. "Those descents were pretty tricky, pretty dangerous. It was about not losing any major time to any GC guys.
"We knew the breakaway was going to stay away today and the jersey has gone to Van Avermaet, he did a pretty impressive ride.
"From our side we're happy to stay out of trouble and it's one more day down. The big GC days are still to come."
Two-time Tour winner Contador has been struggling since suffering two crashes on the first two stages, and he gave up another 33 seconds to Froome here to fall 81 seconds behind in the overall standings.
"It was a very difficult day," the 33-year-old Tinkoff rider said. "I thought I had regained some forces but I paid the toll in the end."
Things were far worse for Giro d'Italia winner Nibali, who cracked on the category two Puy Mary and finished almost 14 minutes behind Van Avermaet, conclusively ending the debate over whether he would challenge fellow Italian Fabio Aru for supremacy within Astana.
"I was surprised by Vincenzo," Froome said. "I expected him to come here with his 'A' game. But with Alberto that's normal after a couple of big crashes that he's had. No one wants to see that, including ourselves. I'd rather gain time on him in the mountains than because he's suffering."
Quintana and Aru are on the same time as Froome overall, as are fellow GC hopefuls Warren Barguil (Giant-Alpecin), Tejay van Garderen (BMC), and Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale).
It took time for the day's nine-man breakaway to establish itself and once they had pulled around seven minutes clear, Van Avermaet, Lotto-Soudal's Thomas De Gendt and Andriy Grivko of Astana kicked again.
The peloton were happy to let them scrap amongst themselves for the stage win - and the yellow jersey - as the lead ballooned to 15 minutes before starting to fall once the front three reached the final 40km, which contained four categorised climbs.
Van Avermaet then left De Gendt behind on the penultimate climb of the day, the Col du Perthus, still 17km from home and was on his way.
The Classics specialist is not seen as a general classification contender, but barring a disaster on Thursday he will lead the race into the Pyrenees on Friday.
" I think it is a once in a lifetime for me," the 31-year-old said. " I am going to enjoy it as much as possible tomorrow."
Tinkoff's Peter Sagan had started the day in yellow but like Nibali he cracked on the Puy Mary and finished some 23:37 behind Van Avermaet, saying goodbye to yellow for this Tour at least, although the Slovakian still leads the points classification.
"I'm not disappointed to lose the yellow jersey, c'est la vie," the 26-year-old Slovakian said.
"The yellow jersey is nice but one day it has to end. It's the race. Every year it's my goal to have the green jersey but it's still long way to Paris."
Two children aged two and three die after car plunges into loch
Two children aged two and three have died after the car they were travelling in crashed into a loch near Oban, Police Scotland said.
A 36-year-old woman was also taken to hospital after the incident but released after treatment.
Emergency services were called to the Loch nan Druimnean off the A816 north of Kilmelford, at around 4pm on Wednesday.
Police Scotland said the emergency services were called to the Loch nan Druimnean off the A816 north of Kilmelford
Inspector Darren Faulds said: "Two young children have lost their lives and our thoughts and condolences go out to the family of those involved in this tragic incident."
A force spokesman said: " Around 4pm police and emergency services responded to a report of a car going into a loch, north of Kilmelford on the A816 near Oban.
"Emergency services attended and a 36-year-old woman was taken to Oban Hospital as a precaution and released after treatment.
"The bodies of two children, aged two and three were recovered from the water. Relatives are aware.
"Work is still ongoing to recover the vehicle from the water."
A coastguard helicopter and police dive teams scoured Loch nan Druimnean as part of the search.
Italy's government bond yields rise on bank concerns
By John Geddie
LONDON, July 5 (Reuters) - Italian government borrowing costs rose on Tuesday as investors worried that the country could be heading towards a new banking crisis.
Rising yields on Italy's government bonds hauled equivalents in Southern Europe higher while safe havens around the world were in demand. Ten-year U.S. yields were at a record low and Swiss yields on 50-year maturities fell below zero for the first time.
The ECB on Monday opened the door to state aid for euro zone banks, with Italy in talks with the European Commission over a plan to recapitalise Italian lenders with public money.
Italy's third-largest lender, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, has been at the centre of concerns after the ECB asked the bank to slash its bad debts by 40 percent over three years.
Italy's banks are saddled with 360 billion euros of bad loans, a third of the euro zone total.
"Of late, we have been seeing profit-taking on periphery bonds. One reason might be that Italian banks battered after ECB warns Banco Monte dei Paschi about bad loans," wrote DZ Bank's Birgit Figge in a note titled 'new banking crisis in Italy?'
Italy's 10-year government bond rose 3 basis points to 1.19 percent, away from one-year lows hit on Friday as the economic shockwaves from Britain's vote to leave the EU raised expectations for more central bank easing in Europe.
Spanish and Portuguese equivalents also rose 3 bps to hit 1.18 percent and 3.02 percent.
German equivalents -- the euro zone benchmark -- fell 2 bps to minus 0.16 percent, near a 0.169 percent low hit just after the Brexit vote last month, while U.S. equivalents struck a new record low of 1.378 percent.
The Italian banking index was broadly unchanged, having fallen nearly 4 percent on Monday.
For Reuters new Live Markets blog on European and UK stock markets see reuters://realtime/verb=Open/url=http://emea1.apps.cp.extranet.thomsonreuters.biz/cms/?pageId=livemarkets
Italy is also facing possible political uncertainty in the near future.
New haze fears as palm oil firms ditch Indonesia pact
By Beh Lih Yi
JAKARTA, July 5 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - E nvironmentalists have warned of greater risks of haze and forest fires in Southeast Asia after major palm oil firms ditched a landmark "zero deforestation" pact in Indonesia.
Top producers and traders said last week that the Indonesian Palm Oil Pledge (IPOP) will be disbanded, arguing Indonesia's recent efforts to strengthen its own certification standards were sufficient.
Indonesia, the world's top palm oil producer, has been criticised by green activists for failing to stop the region's annual haze outbreaks - mainly caused by fires started in the country to cheaply clear forests and land for plantations.
IPOP, signed in 2014, was hailed as a historic effort by palm oil firms to agree to new limitations on what land could be cleared for plantations to grow the edible vegetable oil, used in everyday goods from biscuits to shampoo.
Jakarta, which saw the pact as competition to the government's own standards, argued the agreement was too difficult for smallholders to comply with. Smallholders account for about 40 percent of its palm output.
But green groups said disbanding IPOP was a blow to Indonesia's efforts to cut deforestation and fight the annual forest fires, which last year were among the worst on record and cloaked the region in haze for weeks.
"Haze fighting is a joint effort, it is more effective when companies come together," said Bustar Maitar, Southeast Asia forest director at the Center for International Policy, a Washington-based think tank.
"This shows Indonesia, as a main palm oil producer, is losing the momentum to produce sustainable palm oil," he told Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Maitar said the government's own standards, known as the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil system, were less strict as they only ban land clearing in so-called primary forests, which have been untouched, and peatland.
IPOP, meanwhile, also prohibits land clearing in forests that have regrown after being cut down or cleared, and bushland that has high carbon content.
"If the palm oil, paper, and rubber industries want to avoid a repeat of the haze disaster, they will need to team up ... to ensure that only suppliers free of deforestation and human rights abuse obtain access to markets," Glenn Hurowitz, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, added.
Signatories of IPOP included Wilmar, Cargill, Golden Agri-Resources, Asian Agri, Astra Agro Lestari and Musim Mas.
The decision to disband IPOP appears to run counter to recent efforts by the Indonesian government to stop deforestation and halt the annual forest fires. In April, the government announced a moratorium on new palm oil concessions.
A recent study showed forest fires that blanketed Southeast Asia last year released the greatest amount of climate-changing carbon since record blazes in 1997, producing emissions higher than the whole European Union.
New Greek asylum panel to begin work next week, minister says
ATHENS, July 5 (Reuters) - A revamped Greek asylum appeal board will begin work next week in a government effort to speed up the return of migrants and refugees to Turkey under a European Union deal with Ankara, the Greek migration minister said on Tuesday.
Greece has said it wants to dramatically escalate returns of migrants amid criticism by the EU it has been too slow to process them.
Parliament voted in June to replace two members of the three-member appeal board with judges. It was previously made up of one civil servant, one member appointed by the national human rights committee, and a representative of the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR.
"The appeal committees, with their new composition, will begin work next week. In this way, the number of final rulings (on asylum) will increase," a statement from migration minister Yannis Mouzalas's office quoted him as saying after he met Germany's interior minister in Berlin earlier on Tuesday.
The EU-Turkey deal, which has drawn fire from rights groups and aid agencies, was designed to close off the main route into Europe, used by around a million refugees and migrants last year. It obliges Greece to return those who either do not apply for asylum or have their claims rejected.
Brazil's Temer plans BRICS trip after impeachment vote -source
By Alonso Soto
BRASILIA, July 5 (Reuters) - Brazil's interim President Michel Temer would attend the BRICS summit in India if President Dilma Rousseff is impeached by the Senate, a senior presidential aide told Reuters.
Temer, Rousseff's vice president whom she accuses of conspiring to oust her, plans to keep strong ties with the other BRICS members India, China, Russia and South Africa, said the official who asked for anonymity to speak freely. India will host the BRICS summit in mid October.
A slowdown in China and crippling recessions in both Russia and Brazil are limiting the emerging group's clout in a global economic stage long dominated by major Western economies.
In power since 2003, Rousseff's leftist Workers' Party was a key supporter of the group that first met in the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2009.
Rousseff, suspended over charges of breaking fiscal rules during her first term in office, is expected to be impeached by the Senate in late August.
After the Senate vote, right-leaning Temer plans to visit China in September as part of an Asian tour that could also take him to Japan and Vietnam, said the official. Temer aims to increase trade of industrial goods with China and attract investment to infrastructure projects
Gambia sacks 27 government officials accused of corruption
BANJUL, July 5 (Reuters) - Authorities in Gambia have sacked 27 government officials including 10 permanent secretaries on suspicion of having fraudulently acquired official cars and other items, state television said on Tuesday.
The officials are being investigated by the National Intelligence Agency, a government source said.
President Yahya Jammeh has ruled Gambia, a small country almost encircled by Senegal, for two decades since seizing power in a bloodless coup.
New Zealand government evaluating court order on China extradition
WELLINGTON, July 6 (Reuters) - New Zealand's justice minister said on Wednesday she was looking into a High Court ruling that has ordered the government to reconsider the extradition of a man accused of murder to China because of concerns he may not be treated fairly.
New Zealand agreed in December to extradite a South Korean-born resident, Kyung Yup Kim, to Shanghai but in a ruling released on Tuesday Judge Jillian Mallon ordered the government to review the extradition.
"I'm considering the judgement in detail," Justice Minister Amy Adams said in an emailed statement, adding there were unspecified "additional matters" to be evaluated. The government can either review the extradition as ordered, or can appeal against the High Court's ruling.
The extradition request is the first New Zealand has received from China and comes at a time when China is seeking to drum up international cooperation in a campaign to track down corruption suspects who have fled overseas.
The judge had raised concerns over whether Kim, who is not facing any corruption charges, would be protected from ill-treatment and given the right to silence before the trial. Mallon also questioned whether New Zealand would be able to tell third parties such as the United Nations if they found any evidence of Kim's mistreatment in Chinese custody.
China said on Tuesday that the man was "hyping up" his right to a fair trial to evade justice and that China would continue to work with New Zealand authorities on the case, to "crack down on lawbreaking".
Hong Kong security chief says no legal way to return bookseller to China
HONG KONG, July 6 (Reuters) - Hong Kong's security chief said on Wednesday that there was no legal way a Hong Kong bookseller who returned to the city after being detained on the mainland could be sent back to China.
Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok's comments came after a one-day trip to Beijing to meet with officials, after five Hong Kong booksellers who went missing last year later surfaced in mainland Chinese custody.
One of the booksellers, Lam Wing-kee, returned to Hong Kong last month and held a press conference detailing his months of captivity and repeated interrogations by mainland agents.
A mainland Chinese law enforcement body on Tuesday said that Lam had violated his bail terms and criminal enforcement measures would be triggered by his failure to return. It did not specify what those measures might entail.
Lai said a formal request for Lam's return to China had not been discussed at the meeting in Beijing.
"There is no legal arrangement for the transfer of a person to the mainland authorities and the Hong Kong government will handle all cases in accordance with the law of Hong Kong," Lai told reporters on Wednesday.
Hong Kong officials pledged to provide any necessary police protection for Lam, who said he had been followed by strangers and feared for his safety. The officials said the vehicle that was reportedly following Lam was rented by the media.
Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China, governed by separate laws under a 1997 agreement with the British that returned it to Chinese rule.
The controversy surrounding the Hong Kong booksellers erupted last year when the five men associated with the Causeway Bay Books store disappeared. The store had specialized in gossipy books about China's leaders, including President Xi Jinping. Such books are banned on the mainland but legal in Hong Kong.
Two of the men, Gui Minhai and Lee Bo, held Swedish and British passports and went missing in Thailand and Hong Kong, respectively.
Thousands have taken to the streets in Hong Kong following the men's disappearance, saying that Beijing has not abided by the "one country, two systems" arrangement by which it agreed to rule Hong Kong for 50 years.
Hong Kong officials said they would hold another meeting with their mainland Chinese counterparts at the end of the month to discuss the notification process for when Hong Kong residents are detained in the mainland.
At least six soldiers killed in double suicide bombing in Yemen's Aden
ADEN, July 6 (Reuters) - At least six Yemeni troops were killed and dozens were wounded on Wednesday when two suicide bombers blew up their cars at a military base in the southern city of Aden, security sources said.
About two dozen militants launched an attack on the soldiers inside the base after the explosions. Gun battles at the base, in the Khor Maksar district, were going on and military reinforcements were arriving, the sources said.
Al Qaeda claims attack on south Yemen army base near Aden
By Mohammed Mukhashaf
ADEN, July 6 (Reuters) - Eight Yemeni troops and six militants were killed on Wednesday in an assault claimed by Al Qaeda on a military base near the international airport of Yemen's southern city of Aden, the military said.
Two suicide bombers blew up their cars, then militants stormed the Solaban base and fought with troops backed by Apache helicopters for several hours, a special forces statement said.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the attack on the messaging app Telegram, according to the militant monitoring SITE Intelligence group, calling the attack revenge for government attacks elsewhere in southern Yemen.
Islamist militants in Yemen have gained territory in the past year as a civil war, pitting government forces against Iran-allied Houthi rebels, has created a security vacuum. The Houthis control the capital, Sanaa.
Both Al Qaeda and Islamic State operate in Yemen and consider government forces and the Houthis as enemies. They are also ideologically opposed to each other and compete for recruits.
Al Qaeda has seized swathes of southern and eastern Yemen but in recent months has seldom claimed attacks on security forces. However, Islamic State has launched several major attacks on government troops.
Three coordinated Islamic State bomb attacks on government forces killed 38 people in the coastal city of Mukalla in southern Yemen on June 27 as they were preparing to break their Ramadan fast.
In a separate incident on Tuesday night, a Katyusha rocket barrage launched by Houthi forces on the outskirts of the central city of Marib killed seven children between the ages of five and nine, local officials said.
A shaky ceasefire between government forces and the Houthis that began nearly three months ago has brought some respite from the war which started when the Houthis pushed the government into exile in March 2015. But clashes regularly flare on various battlefronts throughout Yemen.
Romania - Factors to watch on July 6
Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Wednesday.
GOVERNMENT RESHUFFLE
Romania's Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos said on Tuesday he had replaced the ministers of education, transport, communications and diaspora affairs, in a bid to speed up reform implementation. The new ministers will not face a vote of confidence in parliament and President Klaus Iohannis is expected to endorse the nominees later in the day.
GOVERNMENT STRATEGY
Romania's cabinet of technocrats launched a wide debate on Tuesday to establish a competitiveness strategy for the European Union state, seeking to gain political agreement on measures that could lead to annual economic growth of 3-5 percent and to GDP per capita rising to roughly 70 percent of the EU average by 2020. Discussions will last until September.
CEE MARKETS
The zloty weakened on Tuesday, while other Central European currencies were mixed, as Poland's pension reform plan fuels worries over state interference in the region's largest economy.
For the long-term Romanian diary, click on
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For an index of all diaries, click on
Brexit a double-edged sword for France's National Front
By Ingrid Melander
PARIS, July 6 (Reuters) - Britain's vote to leave the European Union looks like a boost for France's eurosceptic National Front, but that could turn to trouble for the party if voters see instability across the Channel when they elect a new president in 10 months' time.
National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen looked ecstatic as the Brexit result was announced, calling it a "victory for freedom" that would soon be repeated in France, an EU-founding member whose voters are increasingly eurosceptic.
As the only major party in France that backed Brexit and is calling for a similar in-or-out referendum on EU membership, the FN has at first glance much to gain from a vote that thrust Europe to the centre of France's 2017 election debate.
"It's excellent news for the FN," the party's vice-president Florian Philippot told Reuters. "Up until now we were told that leaving the EU would be apocalyptic, that we'd be isolated. Britain will show it's exactly the opposite."
Like many of the Brexit campaigners, the FN banks on grassroot anger with elites, and is faring well in small towns and rural areas that feel forgotten by globalisation, giving it hopes the Brexit vote will push even more working-class voters to vote for it next year.
Opinion polls already show that the anti-immigration FN, whose ratings benefited from Europe's refugee crisis, is likely to top the first round of the presidential election.
"The headlines are doing the FN's job for it, yet again," said sociologist Sylvain Crepon, an expert on the FN at the university of Tours.
But where the Brexit legacy stands as the French vote for a president on April 23 and May 7 next year will be key.
The Brexit vote has plunged Britain into political chaos. Prime Minister David Cameron announced he is standing down, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn faces an open revolt by parliamentary colleagues and UKIP leader Nigel Farage, one of the most effective Brexit campaigners, said he is resigning.
There has been a sharp drop in the pound and in British consumer confidence since the vote, while pro-EU Scotland is threatening to quit the United Kingdom.
"If things go well (at the time of the French elections), the FN will benefit from it. If it's trench warfare, if banks are moving their headquarters away from Britain, if the British economy has taken a hit, the FN argument will be caught out," Ifop pollsters' analyst Jerome Fourquet said.
The FN's Philippot says much of the talk about negative consequences of Brexit "is a refusal by the elite, especially in France, to accept reality."
But for Fourquet, "if the political situation in Britain unravels, if Scotland wants to leave ... the FN's opponents will be able to say: 'See, we've been telling you for years that the EU exit backed by Marine Le Pen, of which Brexit is a test case, is a failure."
JUMP OFF A MOVING TRAIN?
There is early evidence in some other European countries that the Brexit vote and the political uncertainty it triggered in Britain may be denting parties that want to leave the bloc.
Surveys conducted since the referendum have shown support for EU membership rising sharply in both Finland and Denmark.
"If the chaos we are witnessing in the UK at the moment makes others think twice about leaving, that is not a bad thing," an aide to German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Reuters.
It is unsure at this stage how clear the consequences of Brexit will be in 10 months' time, or whether the divorce talks will have started.
How Donald Trump's populist, anti-Washington message fares in U.S. election in November and whether the far-right wins in the October re-run of Austria's presidential election - which could itself be influenced by the Brexit vote - could also affect the FN's appeal.
Le Pen has said that, if elected, she would launch negotiations to leave the euro, restore borders, ensure the primacy of French law over EU law, and scrap EU checks on French public finances.
After six months, voters would decide in a referendum whether to stay in the bloc or leave.
Even within the FN, there has been criticism of this policy, which has put off the elderly - who tend to vote more than younger voters - for fear their pension could be affected.
However, opinion polls since the Brexit vote show a change among FN voters, with a huge majority now backing an EU exit. According to an OpinionWay survey on June 27, some 69 percent would vote for a "Frexit."
But those same polls also showed that only about one in three voters overall want a Frexit, making the FN's anti-EU stance an obstacle to voting for the otherwise increasingly popular party.
The head of the FN in Paris' Ile-de-France region, Wallerand de Saint Just, attributes this to a divide between richer and poorer voters.
"In the bourgeois neighbourhoods, that's where it's a problem. They go crazy over these (EU) issues. That's what's stopping them from voting for us," Saint Just, who is also the FN's treasurer, told Reuters. "But in the working class areas they don't really care."
Analysts, who still see Le Pen losing the presidential election run-off, say it goes beyond this divide.
PRESS DIGEST - Bulgaria - July 6
SOFIA, July 6 (Reuters) - These are some of the main stories in Bulgarian newspapers on Wednesday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
-- Bulgaria's government will vote on Wednesday a new anti-terrorism legislation, which, if approved, will give police and the armed forces sweeping powers in case of a terror emergency. Under the proposed bill, security and law-enforcement officers will be authorized to access private properties and use citizens' cars if necessary during anti-terror operations (Standart, 24 Chasa, Sega)
-- Sofia City Court sentenced nationalist Attack party leader Volen Siderov to two years of probation and a fine of 25 percent from his monthly salary as a lawmaker following five instances of hooliganism that Siderov pleaded guilty to earlier this year. The sentence can be appealed at the Sofia Appellate Court (Standart, Monitor)
Bad weather holds up Indian Ocean search for missing Malaysia MH370 aircraft
SYDNEY, July 6 (Reuters) - Adverse weather has caused a delay of up to eight weeks in the Indian Ocean search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, search officials said on Wednesday, pushing the hunt well beyond an expected conclusion date of mid-2016.
The jet carrying 239 passengers and crew disappeared enroute from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, in one of aviation's great mysteries. A wing part, known as a flaperon, washed up on the French island of Reunion in July 2015.
Crash investigators have otherwise confirmed no other trace of the plane. An undersea search of the southern Indian Ocean, history's costliest such effort, has turned up nothing.
"Poor weather conditions have severely impacted search operations," the Joint Agency Coordination Centre in charge of the search said in a statement.
"Progress has slowed, with only a minimal area searched" since the start of the southern hemisphere winter, it added.
The search has covered 110,000 sq km (42,000 sq miles) of ocean floor, leaving just 10,000 sq km (3,800 sq miles) unchecked, said the agency, which represents the Australian, Malaysian and Chinese authorities spearheading the effort.
The poor weather will permit some use of deep tow equipment, but an autonomous underwater vehicle that surveys the most difficult stretches can only be launched in the calmer conditions of spring and summer, the agency added.
If the weather remains hostile or equipment fails, the search "may continue well beyond the winter months," it said.
PRESS DIGEST - RUSSIA - July 6
MOSCOW, July 6 (Reuters) - The following are some stories in Russia's newspapers on Wednesday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
VEDOMOSTI
www.vedomosti.ru
- The Agriculture Ministry is asking the cabinet to increase import taxes on wine raw materials, suggesting that they be banned in five or seven years. The share of this imported material on Russia's market varies from 33 to 90 percent, the daily writes.
KOMMERSANT
www.kommersant.ru
- Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev is urging the government to increase financing of the agrarian sector to at least 237 billion roubles ($3.67 billion) against 215 billion roubles planned for 2016.
- By June, more than one million Russians had transferred their pension savings from the state-run pension fund to private ones, which is twice as much compared to the previous year.
- Almost all political parties running in the election race for seats in Russia's next parliament have opted for similar topics of their campaign programmes: "an ordinary person with his everyday problems" and "Russia's place in the quickly changing world".
ROSSIISKAYA GAZETA
www.rg.ru
- The daily publishes the text of a law which will regulate the activity of the National Guard to be directly subordinate to President Vladimir Putin. The Guard will combine powers of police and interior troops, the security service and special security forces, the daily writes.
IZVESTIA
www.izvestia.ru
- The government is looking for at least 160 billion roubles to turn the North Caucasus region known for its mineral waters into an innovative medical cluster similar to resorts in Germany's Baden Baden and Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic.
- Activists of the pro-Kremlin All-Russian Peoples' Front will urge the president to support the extension of a state programme encouraging doctors to work in the regions and in rural areas as Russia is short of some 40,000 doctors in such areas.
VECHERNYA MOSKVA
www.vm.ru
Pope consoles parents of American student killed in Rome
VATICAN CITY, July 6 (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Wednesday consoled the parents of a 19-year-old American university student whose body was found in the Tiber River, who police suspect was murdered.
The Vatican said Francis had met the parents of Beau Solomon privately and expressed his deepest sympathy and "closeness in praying to God for the young man who died so tragically".
Solomon, from Wisconsin, was found tangled in vegetation in the river on Monday, three days after going missing in the middle of the night.
He had been due to start a programme at the American John Cabot University in Trastevere, a vibrant district in central Rome that is particularly popular with young Americans.
Kremlin: Istanbul attack could be result of Turkey, EU ignoring Moscow's 'signals'
MOSCOW, July 6 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Wednesday it believed that the recent attack on Istanbul airport could be a result of Turkish and European security services ignoring Moscow's signals about suspected "terrorists" hiding in Turkey and Europe.
"Over the past many years, the Russian side ... has informed our Turkish and European colleagues that persons suspected of being linked to terrorism ... find shelter both in Turkey and in a number of other European countries," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with journalists.
NATO set to approve further support for Afghanistan
KABUL, July 4 (Reuters) - After 15 years of conflict in Afghanistan and no sign of peace, NATO members meeting in Warsaw this week are expected to confirm their support for the Kabul government, aware that they have little alternative if the country is to hold together.
Foreign ministers agreed in May to extend assistance past 2016 and at the summit in the Polish capital on Friday and Saturday, alliance partners are also expected to continue their non-combat training and assistance mission.
Total financial support is expected to be about $5 billion a year to 2020, with the United States, the largest donor, contributing about $3 billion of that.
"These decisions are very much about demonstrating NATO's enduring and steadfast commitment to Afghanistan," Ismail Aramaz, NATO's senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, told a media briefing in Kabul this week.
"Afghanistan will not stand alone."
The summit comes as President Barack Obama considers whether to go ahead with plans that would see U.S. forces in Afghanistan nearly halved from their current level of 9,800 to 5,500 by the beginning of next year.
The Taliban have made major gains since a NATO-led international force ended combat operations at the end of 2014 and now control more territory than at any time since they were driven from power in 2001.
They briefly seized the northern city of Kunduz last year and control much of the southern province of Helmand, the largest source of opium.
However, NATO officials point to signs of progress by Afghan forces. They say a better trained, better equipped force is at least holding its own against the Taliban and is building up air power while steadily improving in key areas from logistics and recruitment to operational planning.
They also say a stable Afghanistan is the best guarantee that militant networks such as al Qaeda or Islamic State cannot re-establish bases to threaten the West and that the uncontrolled flow of migrants to Europe can be slowed.
However, they are also aware that public support cannot be taken for granted and there is pressure to ensure that President Ashraf Ghani's government uses aid effectively, bringing costs down while continuing reforms the West wants to see.
"This is a two-way street," said Aramaz.
NATO will be looking for "demonstrable signs of continued political stability" and "tangible signs of progress" in areas like women's rights, counter-corruption, electoral reform, and other human rights, he said.
Syrian army, rebels agree 72-hour Eid truce, but fighting continues
BEIRUT, July 6 (Reuters) - A Syrian rebel alliance agreed to a three-day nationwide ceasefire announced by the Syrian army on Wednesday and the United States voiced hope a more significant truce could be achieved, though fighting and air attacks continued.
The truce was the first to be declared across the whole country since one brokered by foreign powers in February to facilitate talks to end the five-year-old civil war. That truce has mostly unravelled, and the escalating violence caused talks to break down.
Wednesday's ceasefire covers the three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday celebrated by Muslims to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. But opposition groups and a monitoring organisation said little had actually changed on the ground.
"The regime announced the ceasefire, but they did not commit to it. There has been a lot of shelling and bombing on Douma and Daraya (rebel-held towns near Damascus)," a spokeswoman for the Syrian opposition delegation to Geneva peace talks said.
Syria's military high command said in a statement that "a regime of calm will be implemented across all territory of the Syrian Arab Republic for a period of 72 hours from 1 a.m. on July 6 until 2400 on July 8, 2016".
The Syrian government uses the term "regime of calm" to denote a temporary ceasefire.
The Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel alliance later said it would respect the Eid holiday ceasefire, but only if government forces also abided by it.
"We, the armed revolutionary groups in Syria, welcome any effort towards a ceasefire for the happy Eid al-Fitr period. We declare we will abide by it so long as the other side does the same," an FSA statement said.
"Until now, (the government) has not abided by what it has announced, in that it has launched a number of attacks in various areas today," the statement added.
It said the rebel bloc welcomed international efforts that had yielded the announcement from the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but attacks had not ceased as a result.
Islam Alloush, spokesman for the powerful Jaish al Islam rebel faction, said in a telegram message to journalists: "The regime has made this announcement purely to escape international pressure. On the ground, I don't think anything has changed."
Jaish al Islam is represented on the official Syrian opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC).
Jaish al Islam said in a separate statement that, despite the announced truce, government and allied forces had attacked the town of Maydaa, in the Eastern Ghouta area east of Damascus. Maydaa has been held by Jaish al Islam.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday that government and allied forces had taken almost complete control of Maydaa and that fighting continued. Syrian state media said the army and its allies had taken ground from "terrorists" in the area. The Syrian government describes all groups fighting against it as terrorists.
The Britain-based Observatory, which monitors the Syrian conflict, also said there had been rebel and government shelling in areas around the northern city of Aleppo, and air strikes had hit towns in the northern Aleppo countryside on Wednesday.
The Observatory said five air strikes hit the town of Jisr al-Shughour in rebel-held Idlib province, killing two children who were brothers, and injuring a number of others.
Syrian state media also reported army operations against Islamic State militants across the country on Wednesday.
PEACE EFFORT
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed the Syrian army's announcement, adding that discussions were under way to try to extend the truce.
"We are trying very hard to grow these current discussions into a longer-lasting ... enforceable, accountable cessation of hostilities that could change the dynamics on the ground," Kerry told a news conference in Tbilisi, Georgia.
The open-ended February "cessation of hostilities" truce, which was intended to smooth talks to end the war, was agreed with many opposition militias, but did not include the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front or Islamic State.
The truce has mostly collapsed and the Syrian army and the Russian military, which backs Assad, have periodically announced a number of temporary local truces in areas of intense fighting, for example in the city of Aleppo or near the capital Damascus.
But air strikes and fighting have often continued in spite of the declarations.
Farah al Atassi, the opposition spokeswoman, said the HNC, which welcomed the ceasefire initiative, would meet in Riyadh after the Eid holiday ahead of an expected resumption of peace negotiations by U.N. special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.
The opposition has consistently said it wants to see full humanitarian aid access across Syria to lay the ground for talks.
Sierra Leone diplomat freed after kidnapping in northern Nigeria
By Camillus Eboh
ABUJA, July 6 (Reuters) - Sierra Leone's deputy high commissioner in Nigeria has been released four days after being kidnapped in the northern state of Kaduna, officials of the two West African countries said.
Major-General Alfred Nelson-Williams, who was abducted on Friday while travelling from Nigeria's capital, Abuja, to Kaduna state, was freed on Tuesday at around 4 p.m. (1500 GMT).
The diplomat has been reunited with his family after having "regained his freedom", Nigerian police spokesman Don Awunah said in a statement, adding Williams was "in good condition". Further details about the release were not disclosed.
The kidnappers had demanded a ransom of 40 million naira ($141,985). Sierra Leone's minister of information, Mohamed Bangura, confirmed that the diplomat was freed on Tuesday but did not say whether or not a ransom was paid.
ECB threatens legal action against Slovenia after police raid
By Marja Novak and Balazs Koranyi
LJUBLJANA/FRANKFURT, July 7 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank threatened to take legal action against Slovenia after police seized documents from the country's central bank in a rare conflict between authorities and one of the euro zone's most respected institutions.
ECB President Mario Draghi said late on Wednesday that he deplored the seizure, which infringes on the ECB's legal privileges and immunities, and called on European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to intervene.
The Slovenian police said on Thurday the Bank of Slovenia and its employees did not enjoy privileges which would exempt it from investigation in pre-criminal procedures.
It added that the people who are being investigated did not act in the name of the European Union but as officials of a Slovenian institution.
Slovenian police conducted an investigation in four locations in Ljubljana on Wednesday, including at the central bank, collecting evidence in a pre-criminal investigation related to possible irregularities during a bank overhaul in 2013.
"Seized equipment contains ECB information and such information is protected under directly applicable primary EU law," Draghi said in a letter to the Slovenian State Prosecutor General. "The ECB will also explore possible appropriate legal remedies under Slovenian law."
The ECB said police seized information on the computers of Bank of Slovenia Governor Bostjan Jazbec, who sits on the ECB's rate-setting Governing Council, as well as a former deputy governor and some staff members.
Slovenian police said the investigation related to an assessment of one of the banks rescued by the state in 2013, which meant the bank could scrap its obligations towards holders of subordinated bonds and subordinated debt to the value of 257 million euros.
In 2013 the previous government had to pour more than 3 billion euros ($3.33 billion) into local banks to prevent them collapsing under a large amount of bad loans. The move helped the country narrowly avoid an international bailout.
As part of the bank overhaul about 600 million euros of subordinated bonds were scrapped in five banks.
In 2014, the Slovenian Association of Small Shareholders filed several court cases against the Bank of Slovenia and local banks, claiming the subordinated bonds and shareholders' capital in rescued banks should not have been erased. None of the cases have yet been finished.
Children working in India's coal mines came as "complete shock", filmmaker says
By Rina Chandran
MUMBAI, July 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When Chandrasekhar Reddy travelled to northeastern India in 2011, the director was looking for material for a film on forests in the region famed for its misty hills and waterfalls.
Instead, he found children as young as five working in coal mines.
Horrified yet fascinated, Reddy stayed in Meghalaya state for several months, befriending the children and their families, and slowly gaining access to the mines, many of which are illegal.
Reddy eventually gathered enough material for his first feature-length documentary, 'Fireflies in the Abyss', which was released in India last week after winning the award for Best Film in the Mumbai International Film Festival in February.
Set in the Jaintia Hills, the documentary shows young boys descending steep chutes - little more than "rat holes" - with makeshift ladders to dig coal from hard rock with just a pick axe and a flashlight.
"The fact that children were working in the mines came as a complete shock to me," Reddy told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"So many of my preconceived notions of what is right and wrong, the state, the law, the police, families and relationships - they were all turned on their head, as it is a very different world there," he said.
The film tells the story of Suraj, an 11-year-old boy, who was born in India of Nepali parents.
He lives with his sister and father, a miner who is drunk most of the time. His mother is dead.
Suraj desperately wants to go to school, but is expected to work to help feed the family.
Despite a law that bans child labour, India has 5.7 million child workers aged between five and 17, according to the International Labour Organization which estimates there are 168 million child workers globally.
Activists estimate that about a fifth of all mine workers in India are children. Many work for more than 10 hours a day in filthy conditions, exposed to coal dust, silica dust, noxious fumes and the risk of injury or death from collapsing mines.
"Fear won't get any work done; you need to give up worrying for your life," one of the young boys with Suraj says.
"But if you die here, it's a dog's death."
In Meghalaya, which means "abode of clouds" in Sanskrit, many workers are from the neighbouring countries of Nepal and Bangladesh. They are often trafficked with the promise of good jobs, or are in debt bondage to powerful mine owners.
In a 2012 report, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, an umbrella group of charities, said children working in the mines in Jaintia Hills faced "hazardous conditions" with no safety or social welfare measures.
While state officials have downplayed the prevalence of child labour, the report said the presence of rat holes indicated child workers since it was "humanly not possible for an adult to enter those holes to extract coal".
In the end, Suraj gets his chance at receiving an education - with the help of some friends, who also worked in the mines.
"The mine workers live in such uncertainty, such desperation, yet there is so much camaraderie and solidarity," said Reddy.
Norway PM: no trade deal with Britain before Brexit dealt with
By Joachim Dagenborg
KONGSBERG, Norway, July 6 (Reuters) - Norway will not negotiate any separate trade deals with Britain until London has agreed the terms of how it will leave the European Union with Brussels, the Norwegian Prime Minister told Reuters on Wednesday.
The Nordic country is not an EU member but pays hundreds of millions of euros to access the European internal market. It has often been touted by referendum campaigners as a potential model for Britain to follow.
The comments also underline the possible difficulties Britain may have in negotiating bilateral trade agreements when it leaves the EU.
"There won't be any bilateral agreements between Norway and Britain before a solution is in place with the EU," Prime Minister Erna Solberg said in an interview on the margins of a conference.
"The deal they (the British) get will go a long way to clarify what kind of relationship they will have with EEA countries," she said, referring to the members of the European Economic Area - the EU countries plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
Britain is Norway's third-biggest destination for goods produced by its mainland economy, which excludes the volatile oil and shipping sector, with an eight-percent share.
Mainland exports are primarily seafood, including salmon, but the country of 5.2 million is also a major gas supplier to Britain and its $860-billion wealth fund, the world's largest, is a major foreign investor.
Since the result of the referendum in Britain, the Norwegian government has been weighing its options to see what is best for the Nordic country's national interests, the prime minister said.
"I don't think it would be difficult to reach a deal to sell our fish," she said, adding that nor did she anticipate problems in negotiating contracts for Norwegian gas.
But there could be difficulties if Britain wanted to join the European Free Trade Association, which includes Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein, she said. The EFTA countries count 14 million inhabitants while Britain counts 65 million.
"It would change the balance of power in EFTA," said Solberg. "Britain has other vital interests than Norway when it comes to negotiating free trade deals with other countries. And this is what we use EFTA for."
Kerry says U.S. hopes Syria truce a positive sign of things to come
TBILISI, July 6 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday he hoped a 72-hour truce in Syria was "a harbinger" that more ambitious and long-lasting similar deals could be struck.
"We very much welcome the Syrian army declaration of 72-hours of quiet," Kerry told a news conference in Tbilisi, adding that discussions were underway to try to extend the truce.
"We are trying very hard to grow these current discussions into a longer lasting ... enforceable, accountable cessation of hostilities that could change the dynamics on the ground," he said.
John Kerry commits more U.S. military aid for ex-Soviet Georgia
By Lesley Wroughton and Margarita Antidze
TBILISI, July 6 (Reuters) - Secretary of State John Kerry told ex-Soviet Georgia that the United States would help it bolster its army as he reassured a close U.S. ally days before a NATO summit expected to focus on the threat a resurgent Russia poses.
Kerry, on his first visit to Georgia as Secretary of State, made the commitment ahead of a NATO summit in Warsaw on Friday at which members of the Western military alliance plan to announce action to deter possible Russian military aggression.
Georgia and former Soviet states such as Moldova and Ukraine have become increasingly concerned by Russia's intentions after the Kremlin annexed Ukraine's Crimea in 2014 and launched air strikes in Syria last year.
Moscow says such fears are unfounded and based on what it calls anti-Russian hysteria.
In a memorandum of understanding signed on Wednesday by Kerry and Georgian Prime Minister Georgy Kvirikashvili, the United States promised to bolster Georgia's ability to defend itself against potential threats.
That meant greater military and security cooperation, enhanced information sharing, and help building up defence capacity, such as improving combat readiness and supporting defence procurement, the document said.
Until now, U.S. security support has focused on training Georgian troops for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"The United States stands firm in its commitment to Georgia's sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders," Kerry told reporters.
Georgia, which is crisscrossed by strategically important oil and gas pipelines, fought and lost a short war with Russia in 2008. Moscow then recognised two breakaway pro-Kremlin Georgian regions - South Ossetia and Abkhazia - as independent countries, though most other countries have not.
"Russia's occupation and militarisation of parts of Georgia's territory are unacceptable," said Kerry. "We continue to call on Russia to fulfil its obligations under the 2008 ceasefire agreement, including a withdrawal of its forces to pre-conflict positions."
Moscow for its part has accused the West, notably Washington, of stirring anti-Russian feelings in former Soviet states it deems part of its own sphere of influence.
Kerry visits Ukraine next, on Thursday, before heading to Warsaw to join U.S. President Barack Obama for the NATO summit.
Portugal's Caixa Geral 3 bln euros short of business targets
LISBON, July 6 (Reuters) - Caixa Geral de Depositos, Portugal's largest bank by assets, has missed a target in its restructuring plan by 3 billion euros($3.32 billion), Finance Minister Mario Centeno said.
Portugal has been negotiating with Brussels on a recapitalisation of the state-owned bank, which needs to bolster its capital because of bad loans on its books.
Speaking to a parliament committee, Centeno said it was too early to say how big a recapitalisation CGD would require, but for the first time identified a shortfall versus CGD's targets set by the country's previous centre-right administration.
"There is a huge deviation from the business plan and restructuring plan that the previous government managed with CGD, that reaches over 3 billion euros... It is necessary to alter this path because we need to reinforce CGD."
He did not elaborate on the nature of the shortfall.
Portugal is still reeling from two bank rescues by the state in as many years that pushed the country's 2015 and 2014 budget deficits above the targets promised to Brussels and hit the country's credibility in the eyes of bond and stock investors.
The current government, which took office last November, has said it wants to recapitalise CGD using market instruments and is negotiating a waiver with Brussels so that any capital injection is not considered state aid and does not count towards Portugal's budget deficit.
The government last month ordered an independent audit of CGD, after allegations of irregularities in granting loans.
Pope accepts resignation of Brazilian bishop in sex abuse case
By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY, July 6 (Reuters) - Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of a Brazilian bishop who was accused of turning a blind eye to suspected paedophile priests in his diocese, the Vatican said on Wednesday.
The Vatican said Francis had accepted the resignation of Bishop Aldo di Cillo Pagotto of Paraiba, 66, citing a section of Church law under which bishops are obliged to tender their resignation if they are ill or if there is "grave cause".
Under normal circumstances, he would have remained bishop until he turned 75.
Last year, the Church stripped Pagotto of his power to ordain priests while the accusations against him were being investigated.
Pagatto had been accused of allowing men into seminaries in his diocese to become priests even though they had been rejected from other places in Brazil because they were suspected child abusers.
In a letter posted on the diocese's website, Pagotto said:
"I welcomed priests and seminarians with the intention of offering them new opportunities in life. Some were later suspected of committing serious wrongdoings ... I made mistakes by trusting too much, with naive mercy."
Last month, Francis issued a new decree saying bishops found to have been negligent when dealing with cases of sexual abuse could be investigated and removed from office if they did not offer to resign..
The decree requires the Vatican to launch an investigation if "serious evidence" of negligence is found. The bishop is given the opportunity to defend himself. Ultimately, the Vatican can issue a decree to remove him or ask him to resign within 15 days.
A Vatican spokesman said Pagatto's case was handled under the previous, existing, procedures.
The Catholic Church has been rocked over the past 15 years by scandals over priests who sexually abused children and were transferred by bishops from parish to parish instead of being turned over to authorities and defrocked.
Victims of gang violence in Central America flee homes to "save their lives" - U.N.
By Anastasia Moloney
BOGOTA, July 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Children and women whose husbands were killed in front of them are among the growing numbers of people fleeing gang violence in Central America, the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said, as it urged governments to do more to identify and protect refugees.
Every year, gang violence drives tens of thousands of people from their homes in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala - countries with the world's highest murder rates.
Most head to the United States in the hope of refuge and a better life.
UNHCR said the number of refugees and asylum seekers from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras reached 109,800 in 2015 - a more than five-fold increase over the past three years.
"People who saw husbands shot in front of their eyes. People who don't want their children to be drawn into gangs. It's a very strong system of repression and exploitation imposed by organized criminal groups that makes violence a key reason why people flee," said Volker Turk, UNHCR's assistant high commissioner for protection.
"They flee extremely precarious situations. The only way for people to save their lives is to flee," Turk told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at the start of a conference in Costa Rica on Central America's forced displacement problem.
UNHCR said more than 14,600 Hondurans applied for refugee status worldwide in 2015, nearly double the figure in 2014.
The Honduran capital Tegucigalpa and the country's industrial city of San Pedro Sula have the highest murder rates outside a war zone, UNHCR said last month.
"Some see it as only a migration problem, others see it is a refugee problem. It is both. We increasingly need to see this as a forced displacement issue," Turk said by telephone on Wednesday.
"It's growing in numbers, in scope and complexity."
"UTTER DESPAIR"
Rights groups says governments in Central America have either downplayed or been slow to recognise that violence is the main reason why people are fleeing their homes.
Instead governments tend to list people seeking to be reunited with relatives already living in the United States, poverty and the lack of jobs as the key drivers of migration.
The flow of Central American migrants heading to the United States came under the spotlight in 2014 when nearly 70,000 children travelling alone were caught crossing the U.S. border with Mexico, more than double the number apprehended in 2012.
The children were mostly from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.
"One of the features of this particular situation is the fact that there are many more children on the move, unaccompanied minors, which is usually an indication of a survival mechanism, of utter despair," Turk said.
He said the problem was being neglected as the world's attention focused on hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees from North Africa, and war-torn countries like Syria and Iraq, who have been crossing the Mediterranean into Europe.
Turk called on Mexico and other Latin American countries through which migrants and asylum seekers are likely to pass, to strengthen their asylum services.
Mexico's telco regulator probing 'probable' dominant actor
MEXICO CITY, July 6 (Reuters) - Mexico's telecommunications regulator has opened an investigation into the "probable existence" of a dominant actor in the sector, according to a statement posted in the government's official gazette on Wednesday.
The statement did not specify which company or companies are the target of the inquiry by the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT), only alleging that an unspecified dominant actor may be wielding "substantial power" over voice, data or video services.
Previous IFT investigations of monopoly power in Mexico's telecommunications sector have focused in large part on companies controlled by billionaire Carlos Slim, especially America Movil and its fixed-line unit Telmex.
Free Syrian Army agrees to Eid holiday ceasefire - online statement
BEIRUT, July 6 (Reuters) - The Free Syrian Army rebel alliance said on Wednesday it would abide by a ceasefire announced by the Syrian government earlier in the day for the Eid holiday period.
"We, the armed revolutionary groups in Syria, welcome any effort towards a ceasefire for the happy Eid al-Fitr period. We declare we will abide by it so long as the other side does the same," said the statement, posted on the Twitter account of a prominent Syrian rebel figure.
Italy arrests 11 over mafia-related fraud linked to Milan Expo
MILAN, July 6 (Reuters) - Italy has arrested 11 people accused of crimes linked to public events, including last year's Milan Expo, and channelling money they collected to the Sicilian mafia, police said in a statement on Wednesday.
Seven people were placed in custody and four others put under house arrest on suspicion of money laundering, tax fraud and conspiring to aid a mafia criminal group.
A corruption investigation led to the arrest of several top Expo officials in 2014, blighting preparations for the world fair. Milan prosecutor Ilda Bocassini said in the current case neither event manager Fiera Milano nor the Expo itself were accused of any crime.
Mafia investigations in northern Italy show how criminal groups have spread from their traditional southern fiefdoms and infiltrated legitimate businesses in the wealthier north.
Police accuse the gang arrested on Wednesday of issuing fake receipts for work that was never carried out, avoiding taxes and laundering money, partly through accounts based abroad.
The prime suspect is the de facto boss of several companies that set up fairs and trade shows, including one that worked on the Expo site, police said.
He had close links with a member of the Pietraperzia crime family in western Sicily, who was also arrested on suspicion of facilitating money laundering.
The gang collected cash in undeclared "black funds", and police caught one of the suspects, a lawyer for the Pietraperzia family, trying to take 700,000 euros ($775,460) to Sicily.
Around 5 million euros worth of assets and two real estate properties in Sicily and the Lombardy region around Milan were seized in the investigation.
The arrests on Wednesday are the latest high-profile episode of graft in Italy. On Monday 24 people were arrested in Rome in an investigation of tax fraud and other financial crimes that involved a lawmaker from Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's ruling coalition.
On the highway without a map: building a tech startup in Putin's Russia
By Jason Bush
MOSCOW, July 6 (Reuters) - WayRay has everything you might expect from a Silicon Valley start-up: a high tech product it says can change the world and a business plan that foresees growing from zero to a billion dollars, roughly by its founder's 30th birthday.
Its invention sounds so ingenious you'd wish you thought it up: a sleek-looking holographic projector that sits on a car dashboard and beams what look to the driver like 3D arrows glowing over the tarmac, pointing the way to go.
In one room of the 19th Century Moscow town house where it has its research centre, a laser beam is refracted through lenses, creating the holograms car drivers will see.
"In three years we will be for sure a billion-dollar company," 28-year-old founder Vitaly Ponomarev says with an effortless cockiness that sounds more at home in Northern California than the Russian capital.
President Vladimir Putin says cultivating high technology is a central goal for Russia, to diversify the economy away from commodity exports and create world beating companies from the talented workforce that once put the first man in space.
But as Ponomarev has discovered, in a country where most billionaires earned their fortunes by privatising companies rather than building them, there is no navigation system pointing the road to start-up glory.
The Kremlin has created various state-funded schemes designed to promote tech start-ups, but meagre results so far mean officials are now at odds over the next steps to reform the stalled economy.
Ponomarev said he never applied for government funds, deterred by the bureaucracy. It typically takes at least nine months and requires reams of paperwork to get a grant from Skolkovo, a flagship high tech office park outside Moscow that acts as a hub for government support.
"This doesn't work with high tech - you don't have this amount of time and this amount of resources," he said.
His chief technology officer, Mikhail Svarichevsky, said the
bureaucracy involved in getting government finance reflected a more fundamental problem holding back new companies: "In Russia it's habitual not to trust people who ask for money."
Instead, WayRay set about raising money privately. But the first investors Ponomarev found tried to steal his idea, he says.
"I chose the wrong people to try to start the company," he said. "They tried to sell (the intellectual property) to another company... It was a big scandal and I told them we were finished."
He has now incorporated the company in Switzerland, with a stronger reputation than Russia for upholding the rule of law and protecting intellectual property.
"It helps a lot with selling goods and with fund-raising and everything," Ponamarev said.
MEAGRE RESULTS
Russia's technological prowess has produced a degree of success in software -- exports reached $7 billion last year, doubling over five years, though this is still a fraction of the $216 billion Russia earned from energy exports.
But when it comes to manufactured high tech consumer products, Russia has little to show. Since there are so few examples, that makes it hard to present a case to investors.
"The whole venture capital industry in Russia is based on investing into copycats - something proved in the West - and it's mostly IT, not hardware and not high-tech," Ponomarev said.
"Actually there is no secret recipe on how to raise money for hardware projects in Russia. I think this is almost impossible," he said.
Svarichevsky said too many of Russia's wealthy were content to spend their money on extravagant lifestyles, rather than look for new products to back or companies to build.
"There are people who have money in Russia, but they don't want to be involved in anything complicated," he said. "In the U.S. there aren't that many people who just want to spend money on women and holiday resorts. They want to build something."
Ponomarev said he had around 500 investor meetings before finally finding backers, which now include Sistema, a Russian conglomerate, and U.S. and Chinese investors whose names he cannot yet disclose.
So far, WayRay has invested $10.6 million in development and signed deals for $15 million more. The amount would be small by Silicon Valley standards at this point in a company's development, but Ponomarev says the cash goes further in Russia.
In America, "we'd need to spend $50 million to get the same results. Here we have much less expensive labour, we have access to materials, easier than in the U.S. and so on. But still for Russian investors that's a huge amount of money."
Criticized for sloppy Iraq reporting, U.K. spy agencies pursue reform
By Mark Hosenball
LONDON, July 6 (Reuters) - Britain's foreign spy agency concluded within months of the invasion of Iraq that two key intelligence reports it had received about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were fabricated, a British inquiry disclosed on Wednesday.
In September 2002, the Secret Intelligence Service, known as SIS or MI6, distributed to senior British officials the reports it had received from its sources, alleging that Iraq had "accelerated the production of chemical and biological agents".
The reports said Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was determined to maintain a chemical and biological weapon capability, according to the inquiry led by Sir John Chilcot.
The reports were issued as top U.S. officials, including President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, were publicly claiming that Saddam had acquired aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons - a claim later discredited by post-war U.S. investigations.
In early April 2003, only days after the U.S. military, supported by British and other allied forces, invaded Iraq to oust Saddam, details from the SIS reports from September were included in a larger spy report circulated widely around the British government.
This report did contain a caveat that since a key "sub source" had not been directly contacted by SIS, it would not be possible to "verify fully" all the details of his claims.
By June 2003, however, SIS finally met the source of the September reports, who "denied that he had provided any of the material attributed to him", Chilcot's report said. SIS concluded that its original source for the material therefore "was a fabricator who had lied from the outset."
By the end of July 2003, SIS had decided to withdraw the alarming reports from the previous September. Even then, however, the Chilcot report quotes an internal spy document in which an SIS officer says: "Without denying these reports are no longer valid, we need to ensure their withdrawal does not provide wide-spread scepticism about our CW (chemical weapons) reporting, particularly in the absence of a CW find."
No weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq. By September 2004, SIS withdrew additional key intelligence reports used by British and American leaders to justify the invasion.
These included a source's claim, touted by Blair's government, that Saddam could deploy WMD within 45 minutes, and a claim from a source known as Curveball, leaked to U.S. media and then publicly touted by Bush, that Saddam had mobile biological and chemical weapons labs.
LESSONS LEARNED
In the wake of the Iraq war and subsequent post-mortems, UK agencies have implemented reforms designed to ensure that such dubious intelligence in the future is properly flagged, and that policy officials are made aware of possible flaws in spy reports, a source familiar with the reforms said.
One key reform involved separating personnel and offices whose task is to collect human and electronic intelligence from those responsible for analysing and evaluating it, the source said. U.K. agencies were placing "greater emphasis on the validation of intelligence".
This meant that analysts were supposed to question the details of raw intelligence reporting and the bona fides of sources more vigorously before presenting such information to politicians and other policymakers.
Procedures had also been instituted to more clearly flag the degree of credibility that spy agencies attach to intelligence material, the source said.
In the United States, agencies routinely tell policymakers whether they have "low", "medium" or "high" confidence about the reliability of new intelligence reporting. The source said that British agencies have adopted similar labeling procedures.
Free Syrian Army agrees to Eid ceasefire, but alleges government violations
BEIRUT, July 6 (Reuters) - The Free Syrian Army rebel alliance said on Wednesday it would respect an Eid holiday ceasefire, but only if government forces also abided by it, accusing the government of having already violated the truce.
"We, the armed revolutionary groups in Syria, welcome any effort towards a ceasefire for the happy Eid al-Fitr period. We declare we will abide by it so long as the other side does the same," said the statement, posted on the Twitter account of Mohammed Alloush, the former chief peace negotiator for Syria's mainstream opposition.
"Until now, (the government) has not abided by what it has announced, in that it has launched a number of attacks in various areas today," the statement said.
Alloush is also the representative of the powerful Jaish al Islam rebel faction in the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC).
The Syrian government earlier declared a three-day ceasefire across the whole of the country, although fighting continued and until now there had been no indication that it had been agreed with any of the myriad groups opposing the government.
The truce is the first to be declared country-wide since one was brokered by foreign powers in February to facilitate talks to end the five-year-old civil war. This has mostly unravelled.
The statement said the rebel alliance welcomed international efforts that had led to the announcement from the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but that attacks had not ceased as a result.
U.S. sanctions North Korea leader, others, over rights abuses
WASHINGTON, July 6 (Reuters) - The United States sanctioned top North Korean officials on Wednesday, including leader Kim Jong Un, for what it said were "notorious abuses of human rights."
The sanctions, which target property and other assets within U.S. jurisdiction, extend to 10 other individuals and five entities, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.
"Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor, and torture," Acting Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Adam J. Szubin said in the statement.
Dutch prosecutors seek 300 mln euros in Uzbek corruption case
AMSTERDAM, July 6 (Reuters) - Dutch prosecutors on Wednesday asked judges to seize more than 300 million euros in assets belonging to a Netherlands-based front company they say was used to bribe Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Uzbekistan's president.
Prosecutors asked the Amsterdam court to confiscate 300 million euros and impose a fine of nearly 5 million euros. They also called on the court to seize a 6 percent stake held by the front company, Takilant, in Ucell, the Uzbek subsidiary of Nordic telecoms operator Telia Company AB.
"The bribes were paid in exchange for entry into the Uzbek telecommunications market," prosecutors said in a statement. "The beneficiary of the money was the daughter of the Uzbek president." Takilant was owned by Karimova, they said.
They said bribes were paid by telecommunications companies VimpelCom, which settled corruption charges with Dutch and U.S. prosecutors in February, and Telia , which remains under investigation.
Dutch prosecutors targeted Takilant, not Karimova personally, because of jurisdiction limits, a spokeswoman said. VimpelCom and TeliaSonera have headquarters in the Netherlands and could therefore be prosecuted under anti-corruption laws.
Dutch prosecutors allege that Karimova received more than $385 million in bribes between 2007 and 2015 to secure mobile 3G licences for Unitel, a subsidiary of the Norwegian-Russian owned VimpelCom and Coscom LLC, the Uzbek subsidiary of Telia.
Swiss, Swedish and U.S. authorities had already named Karimova as a suspect in graft investigations as early as 2012. The Swiss and Swedish investigations are continuing.
Karimova and Takilant were not represented in court on Wednesday. She was not available for comment and is not known to have ever commented on the allegations.
The case in the Netherlands focuses on what the indictment says were payments to Karimova made through Takilant via accounts or entities in Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Uzbekistan, Sweden, the British Virgin Islands, Russia and Latvia between 2007 and 2015.
In February, Vimpelcom agreed to pay $795 million to settle U.S. and Dutch investigations into the bribery scheme in Uzbekistan, among the largest foreign bribery settlements ever.
The Vimpelcom arrangement was behind only Siemens AG's $1.6 billion settlement in 2008 that resolved wide-ranging bribery investigations in the United States and Germany.
Under the deal with VimpelCom, whose biggest shareholders are Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman's LetterOne and Norway's Telenor, the firm accepted a deferred prosecution agreement in which U.S. criminal charges will be dropped in three years.
In November, U.S. authorities said they were prepared to extend their investigation into Telia's dealings in Uzbekistan to include other countries in the Eurasian region.
Chef at Bangladesh cafe probably working with attackers -police
By Ruma Paul and Aditya Kalra
DHAKA, July 6 (Reuters) - A pizza chef killed during a militant attack on a cafe where he worked in Bangladesh's capital city last week was probably in league with the assailants, police said on Wednesday.
Saiful Islam Chowkidar carried no arms but was seen "moving and running" with the five gunmen during the 12-hour stand-off, Monirul Islam, the chief of counter-terrorism police, said.
On Friday, at least five Bangladeshi men had stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery, a cafe popular with foreigners, businessmen and diplomats and killed 20 customers, including Italians, Japanese, Indians and Americans.
On Tuesday, police said Chowkidar was shot dead by mistake but Islam revised that, saying his death was "not accidental", although police were unsure how he died and the role he played.
"At one point they (militants) tried to escape. They came out running and started firing, the chef was with them," Islam told reporters. "He is a suspect member of this group."
Two other suspects being treated in hospital were also employees of the cafe, police said. One worked as a delivery man and the other in the kitchen.
"Before the final operations, their movement was suspicious," Islam said.
The attack was one of the deadliest ever in Bangladesh, where the Islamic State and al Qaeda have made competing claims for a series of killings of liberals and members of religious minorities in the past year. The government has dismissed those claims and insists that the violence is homegrown.
The gunmen were mostly from well-to-do families and police gave their names as: Nibras Islam, 20; Rohan Imtiaz, 20; Meer Saameh Mubasheer, 19; Khairul Islam, 22; Shafiqul Islam, 26.
Their attack marked a major escalation in violence aimed at forcing strict Islamic rule onto predominantly Muslim Bangladesh's 160 million people.
Foreign security experts say the scale and sophistication of the attack pointed to some level of guidance from international militant groups.
But the police believe Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), an outlawed domestic group that has pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was to blame.
"We have confirmed these attacks were by JMB," Islam said.
Meanwhile, Islamic State warned that attacks would continue until Islamic law was established worldwide, saying in a video that the Dhaka assault was just a hint of what is to come.
"What you witnessed in Bangladesh ... was a glimpse. This will repeat, repeat and repeat until you lose and we win and the sharia is established throughout the world," said a man identified as Bangladeshi fighter Abu Issa al-Bengali, in the video monitored by SITE intelligence site.
The video began with pictures of recent attacks in Paris, Brussels and Orlando in the United States that the Middle East-based militants have claimed.
Bengali said Bangladesh must know that it was now part of a bigger battlefield to establish the cross-border "caliphate" the group proclaimed in 2014.
NATO-Russia Council to meet in possible move to ease tensions
BRUSSELS, July 6 (Reuters) - NATO envoys will hold a further formal meeting with Russia on July 13, days after the alliance's summit in Warsaw, in a sign Washington and Moscow want to defuse tensions in Europe.
The forum bringing together Russia and its former Cold War adversary NATO last met in April after an almost two-year hiatus as relations sank to their lowest level in decades over Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula.
The NATO-Russia Council will meet again at ambassadorial level in Brussels next week following the NATO summit in Warsaw in which Western leaders will cement a new deterrent against what they say is Russian aggression in Ukraine.
The West and Russia remain at odds over Ukraine, but the Russia-NATO Council session hints at a willingness to patch up diplomatic ties and avoid any accidental clashes in the region.
"Our discussions will focus on the crisis in and around Ukraine and the need to fully implement the Minsk Agreements," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.
He was referring to the peace deal signed in Belarus last year that aims to end the conflict involving pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
How Trump might be erased from (GOP) history
July 6 (Reuters) - Partisanship is the thing that may save us from Donald Trump.
Many staunch Republicans are refusing to support Trump because of his contempt for their conservative values. Many working-class Democrats share his populist views on trade and foreign policy - but they will never support his crude bigotry and xenophobia.
This is the stage of the campaign where partisans are expected to fall in line. That seems to be happening with Democrats. Senator Bernie Sanders supporters are beginning to accept presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Sanders has not formally endorsed Clinton, but he said he will do everything he can to keep Trump from winning. There's only one way to do that: Vote for Clinton.
Partisanship is supposed to be working in Trump's favor, too. And it is, to some extent.
Party loyalists like House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin are slowly and reluctantly indicating their support for Trump. But a lot of establishment Republicans are horrified by Trump's crude populism and refusing to fall in line.
That was particularly apparent when Trump laid down his marker in favor of economic populism last week in Pennsylvania. He promised to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, crack down on Chinese currency manipulation, kill the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal and rebuild domestic infrastructure. (He is a builder, after all.)
That kind of "big government" populism and protectionism are anathema to conservatives. "Donald Trump is running as an anti-Republican Republican," an official at the National Retail Federation told the "Washington Post."
Marc Racicot, a former Republican Party chairman, wrote, "I cannot support or endorse Trump for President" because he has not "offered any substantive or serious conservative policy proposals consistent with historical Republican Party platform positions."
We're about to see a showdown at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, later this month between the Trump movement and the Tea Party. Remember the Tea Party? They were hard-line, anti-government conservatives who took on the Republican Party establishment in 2010.
They won.
"What used to be the Tea Party is now the GOP," says Theda Skocpol, who co-wrote a book about the Tea Party.
The Tea Party's favorite candidate this year was Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, not Trump. Some conservatives are determined to resist Trump's nomination at the convention. In last month's NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, a majority of conservative Republican voters said they would prefer that the party nominate someone other than Trump. That won't happen. But conservatives are trying to change party rules so that they can regain control of the party in the future. Presumably after Trump loses in November.
Trump's dream is to put together a populist coalition of working-class Democrats and Republicans against the political establishment. He even fantasizes about attracting Sanders supporters.
But the values that divide those voters left and right are more powerful than the anti-establishment resentment they share.
Trump has touted the "Brexit" vote in Britain last month as the model for what he is trying to do. He issued a statement saying British voters "have declared their independence from the European Union and have voted to reassert control over their own politics, border and economy. Come November, the American people will have the chance to re-declare their independence. . . . They will have the chance to reject today's rule by the global elite."
There is one big difference between the Brexit vote in Britain and a U.S. presidential election. The two major parties in the United Kingdom did not take a clear position on Brexit. The governing Conservative Party was divided, and the Labour Party's opposition to Brexit was half-hearted. Party loyalty didn't matter.
But it will matter in the United States. Especially because Clinton, an intensely partisan figure, will be the Democratic candidate.
There has been some speculation that Trump could "realign" American politics. Instead of liberals versus conservatives, we could have populists (like Trump) versus anti-Trump elitists (like Barack Obama and Mitt Romney).
That's not likely. If Trump loses, Republicans will simply obliterate Trump from history. Tea Party conservatives will retake control of the Republican Party.
But what if Trump wins? When the populist Andrew Jackson became president in 1829, voters divided between Jacksonians and anti-Jacksonians. The Jacksonians became the Democratic Party and the anti-Jacksonians turned into the Whig Party. It's not hard to imagine a Trump party and an anti-Trump party emerging in the wake of a Trump presidency.
But what would they stand for? Who knows? No one knows what Trump would do as president. Not even Trump, who said in January, "When I'm president, I'm a different person. I can be the most politically correct person you've ever seen."
Two Dutch peacekeepers killed in Mali - public television
AMSTERDAM, July 6 (Reuters) - Two Dutch soldiers have been killed participating in a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali, public television reported on Wednesday, citing official sources.
Some 450 Dutch soldiers are participating in the mission to the West African country, which has been wracked by violence despite a peace deal signed last year between Mali's government and separatist groups, which failed to prevent periodic violence in northern Mali by Islamist militants.
Angola battling worst yellow fever outbreak in decades needs help, says Red Cross
By Sebastien Malo
NEW YORK, July 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Angola is suffering its worst outbreak of yellow fever in 30 years with 350 deaths since last December, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on Wednesday as it launched an emergency appeal for funds.
With a yellow fever epidemic underway in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, public health authorities have been scrambling to keep the disease from gaining a foothold in Angola.
Yellow fever, a mosquito-borne haemorrhagic virus, results in death rates as high as 75 percent in serious cases but its transmission can be prevented with a vaccine.
Yellow fever has killed 356 people in Angola and infected more than 3,400 infected since late last year, according to World Health Organization (WHO) and Angolan government figures that IFRC cited.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which shares a frontier to the northeast of Angola, suspected cases numbered about 1,307 and deaths 75 as of late June, according to the WHO. Congolese authorities declared a yellow fever epidemic in the capital and two provinces last month.
The WHO said in late June it was scaling up its efforts to combat the outbreak with the launch of an emergency vaccination campaign in July along the border between Angola and DRC, as well as in the Congolese capital Kinshasa.
But efforts to vaccinate the two countries' populations have been hampered by logistical challenges, including a shortage of yellow fever vaccines.
In Angola, suspicion about the effectiveness of vaccines over traditional medicines was another hurdle, IFRC spokeswoman Camelia Marinescu told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from the country's capital city Luanda.
"People take traditional plant-based medication which, when it comes to yellow fever, do more harm than good," Marinescu said. "Consequences ... can be lethal."
In an effort to dispel myths, IFRC staff and volunteers have been helping the Angola Red Cross with door-to-door visits and targeting the southern African country's media to raise awareness about the disease, the IFRC said.
"The message of our community mobilizers (is to) quickly go to the closest health centre or hospital," Marinescu said.
More than 11 million yellow fever vaccines have been administered in Angola between Dec. 5, 2015 and July 5, 2016, she said.
Two Dutch soldiers killed in Mali peacekeeping accident
AMSTERDAM, July 6 (Reuters) - Two Dutch soldiers were killed and another seriously injured during a training exercise in Mali on Wednesday afternoon, the latest casualties in a mission that has become the most deadly place for United Nations peacekeepers to serve.
More than 11,000 soldiers are serving in the Mali mission, which aims to support the Bamako government in its fight against Islamist militants in northern Mali, who have staged assaults in the capital, as well as in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.
Corporal Kevin Roggeveld, 29, and sergeant Henry Hoving, 24, were killed by an exploding mortar shortly after 1130 GMT, the acting head of the Dutch armed forces told a news conference. At least 103 peaeckeepers have died since the start of the mission in April 2013.
"A terrible accident took place in Mali where our soldiers are participating in the U.N. peacekeeping mission," vice-admiral Rob Bauer told reporters. A 23-year-old soldier was operated on in a field hospital before being evacuated.
Some 450 Dutch soldiers are participating in the mission to the West African country, which is meant to help implement a peace deal signed last year between Mali's government and separatist groups.
Last month, the Security Council voted to increase by 2,500 the number of peacekeepers deployed to the country, with European countries promising to send special forces and intelligence experts to support the operation.
French forces intervened in 2013 to drive back Islamist fighters who had hijacked the Tuareg uprising to seize Mali's desert north in 2012. But it has since proved difficult to prevent Islamists staging deadly attacks.
Italian victims tortured in Bangladesh attack, autopsies show
ROME, July 6 (Reuters) - Islamist militants tortured a group of Italians before killing them during an attack on a restaurant in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka last week, a legal source said on Wednesday.
The bodies of the nine Italians, most of whom worked in the clothing industry, were flown back to Rome on Tuesday. Autopsies showed that many of them had been slashed with knives and had suffered slow deaths. Some had been mutilated, the source said.
In all, 20 people died in the Dhaka assault, which started late on Friday night. The victims, mostly foreigners, included Japanese, Indians and Americans as well as the Italians .
Islamic State said it was responsible for one of the most brazen attacks in Bangladesh's history, posting pictures of the five men they said took part in the onslaught.
Officials said most of the militants had attended prestigious schools or universities in Dhaka and Malaysia. One was the son of a politician.
Risk of war returns to Europe
By Peter Apps
July 6 (Reuters) - A century ago this weekend, my great-grandfather - a corporal in the Liverpool-recruited King's Regiment - was waiting to go "over-the-top" at the Somme.
Sent to pick up the company rum ration before the assault, he wound up drinking it and woke up after the action - or at least, that's the story he told the family after World War One was over.
Perhaps his superiors were in an unusually forgiving mood. Or perhaps, like many others, he was just looking for a way to avoid retelling his experiences. By the end of the first day, the Allies had suffered almost 60,000 casualties for precious little ground. By the time the offensive was canceled later in the year, there were more than 800,000, over half of them fatalities.
With the two world wars increasingly passing from living memory, it's becoming easier to forget just how much they dominated the lives of almost every family on the continent.
Quietly, though, that is changing. When NATO states meet in Warsaw at the end of the week for the annual heads of government meeting of the alliance, they will be doing so amid the most serious tensions with Moscow since 1989.
Virtually no one, it must be said, thinks that either side is anything other than very keen to avoid a devastating conflict. Europe remains home to more than half the world's nuclear weapons. No one doubts that should a third major war overwhelm the continent, it would almost certainly be worse than any of those that preceded it.
And yet, a growing number believe, the risk is quietly increasing. In May, retired British General Sir Richard Shirreff - who served as NATO's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander at the time of the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 - wrote a book explicitly suggesting all-out war with Russia could happen as soon as next year.
On the surface, the book is a novel - but Shirreff has underlined in multiple interviews, including with this reporter, that he views it a highly plausible scenario. His former NATO boss, U.S. Admiral James Stavridis, underlines the point in a hard-hitting introduction.
In Shirreff's book, all sides are essentially operating from a position of weakness. His unnamed Russian president - clearly modeled on Vladimir Putin - initiates hostilities with both Ukraine and the NATO member Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia to distract from economic woes at home, particularly a falling oil price.
Western leaders, meanwhile, overplay their limited military hand. Politicians on both sides have their eyes as much on their domestic politics as anything else. The result is a chain of errors with potentially devastating consequences.
These real-world tensions have been a long time coming. Even in the 1990s, Russian opinion - both within the military and political elite and wider country - was incensed at what felt like growing Western disdain and encroachment into what Moscow had long seen as its exclusive sphere of influence. Restoring what Russia sees as its self-respect has been at the heart of Vladimir Putin's rule.
In Crimea in particular, Moscow showed itself adept at what military thinkers increasingly call "hybrid warfare", using political manipulation and deniable forces - particularly troops without insignia - to achieve effects without resorting to conventional force. It is an area, some Western officials say, where Russia has developed a considerable lead over the West.
The lesson of the last decade, however, has also been that when it does choose to escalate to all-out military action - as it did in Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014 and Syria last year - it tends to do so with much greater force and speed than Western analysts anticipated.
The problem, of course, is that no one really knows what the best way of avoiding conflict is. For Shirreff and many others, particularly in NATO's more exposed eastern states, the answer is assertive deterrence, putting enough military forces in the region to make any conventional Russian assault difficult.
Much of that is already happening, at least up to a point. The United States has dramatically ramped up its military activity in Europe since 2014, sending tanks, special forces and other personnel to frontline states as well as making high profile deployments of heavy military equipment. That includes the return of U.S. Army tanks to Europe as well as visits by state-of-the-art F-22 Raptor stealth fighters and aging Cold War-era workhorses such as B-52 heavy bombers and A-10 "tank busters".
Baltic, Nordic and Eastern European nations are ramping up defense spending - albeit several steps behind Moscow, which has poured oil revenue into its military over the last decade with the specific aim of being able to deliver overwhelming force in its very immediate neighborhood. Already, some estimates suggest, Russia has more than enough firepower to swiftly overwhelm local and NATO forces in its immediate neighborhood.
As in Ukraine and Georgia, the most likely flashpoints look to be regions with large ethnic Russian populations - essentially, the border districts of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The governments of those countries have already stepped up development and political efforts in those regions to reduce the risks - but some analysts worry NATO's activities may end up overly militarizing the situation.
As non-NATO members, neither Ukraine nor Georgia could count on Western military support when they wound up fighting Russia in 2008 and 2014. The Baltic states are a different matter - under NATO's founding charter, an attack on one is an attack on all.
During the Cold War, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe - always the senior U.S. officer who also commands all U.S. forces on the continent - had operational control of European NATO forces facing Russia. That is no longer the case, however, meaning many decisions now also require political authorization from member states. It's the sort of messy situation that would make handling of confrontation much more difficult.
Russia has placed its nuclear arsenal at the center of its strategic approach to this kind of confrontation. According to Western experts, its recent military exercises have relied heavily on what it calls a single "de-escalatory nuclear strike".
It's a very simple - but possibly phenomenally dangerous - concept. The theory is that if Russian forces are engaged with an enemy like NATO, once they have won the conventional battle they would launch a single nuclear strike with the aim of intimidating the West into standing down and accepting the results.
In major exercises in 2013 that simulated an invasion of one or more of the Baltic states, the scenario appeared to end with a nuclear strike on Warsaw, NATO officials say. More recently - perhaps worrying that such an approach might make a NATO nuclear response inevitable - Russian exercises have tended to target a single purely military target, for example a NATO flotilla of warships.
A strike like that could kill thousands if not more - and what would happen next is almost impossible to predict. Putin might well hope such an action might fraction NATO, leaving countries hopelessly divided on how to respond. Already, opinion polls suggest German voters in particular would be reluctant to fight to defend NATO allies, while U.S. presidential contender Donald Trump has explicitly questioned the long-term survival and purpose of the alliance.
In the era of social media and 24-hour news, however, it's equally easy to imagine a furious U.S. electorate demanding a savage retaliation. In the post-Cold War world, after all, the United States has become used to doing what it wishes. Nor, as the UK's referendum has shown, is European politics currently particularly predictable.
Miscalculation is not inevitable. But it is arguably becoming more likely.
Just over a century ago, shortly before the Somme, future Prime Minister Winston Churchill was a battalion commander on the Western Front. He found himself in a briefing on the perceived lessons of the Battle of Loos, a bloody and unsuccessful earlier engagement that used the same tactics.
For Chile's lawyers, country's new labor laws a mystery
By Gram Slattery
SANTIAGO, July 6 (Reuters) - Two weeks after Chile's government completed work on a landmark labor reform, leading lawyers in the world's top copper exporter say the bill is filled with gaping regulatory voids that have replaced many laws with question marks.
The reform, aimed at strengthening organized labor in the South American country, was initially passed by Chile's Senate in March after a bruising battle that opened up divisions within the governing coalition.
However, key parts of the bill, touted as a central element of leftist President Michelle Bachelet's broad reform program, were later struck down by a constitutional court.
The government, whose fractured coalition could not produce the votes needed to replace the removed parts, responded by excising the reform's unconstitutional sections in June, thus letting the unchallenged provisions become law.
The removed parts, however, contained a huge chunk of the laws that define the nation's collective bargaining framework. Lawyers now say bargaining outside established unions has been left essentially unregulated, meaning the nation's courts, not its legislators, will establish many of the new rules.
Some see deja vu with the country's recent tax reform, which had to be simplified last year due to its complexity. All see an uptick in court cases, at least in the short term.
"When morning comes and a company goes to negotiate with a group (of workers outside a union), they're going to ask, 'Well, how is it regulated?'" said Juan Vergara, a labor advisor and member of pro-labor group ProSindical.
"What rights do they have? These are the questions that exist, and this is where the uncertainty is."
Unions worry that the laws could encourage less-formal bargaining units that weaken established organized labor in the long-term.
Business-affiliated lawyers fear that small bargaining units will proliferate as there is no longer an enforceable floor for the amount of workers that can band together to bargain collectively. Questions have also arisen about the enforceability of some contracts, and several pro-labor parts of the original bill, such as restrictions on replacing striking workers, will still go into effect as they were never challenged in court.
Still, while many executives and business lawyers are apprehensive, others see opportunity in the new laws.
ECB threatens legal action against Slovenia after police raid
FRANKFURT, July 6 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank threatened to take legal action against Slovenian authorities after they raided the central bank in Ljubljana and seized ECB information, ECB President Mario Draghi said in a letter on Wednesday.
"Seizure of information owned or held by the ECB, irrespective of where the information is located and whether it is classified or not, infringes the Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Union," Draghi said in a letter to the Slovenian State Prosecutor General.
Nigerian militant group denies NNPC attack, says suspends social network accounts
July 6 (Reuters) - Nigerian militant group the Niger Delta Avengers denied responsibility for blowing up the NNPC pipeline in Eleme on Tuesday, adding it was closing all its social network accounts.
The group issued a statement on its website on Wednesday saying that a fraudulent social media account had claimed the attack on its behalf, adding that it would use its website to circulate its messages in the future. (http://bit.ly/29oEShH)
The Avengers said "any group that wants to do anything should go about their activities without tagging us", adding, "Instead do your activities and claim responsibility."
The insurgents, whose attacks on energy facilities in Nigeria's southern Niger Delta in recent months have pushed the country's oil production to 30-year lows, are splintered into factions which each have their own list of demands.
The Avengers, who have claimed responsibility for the majority of attacks, are the best known group.
It was reported on Tuesday that the Avengers had blown up a pipeline operated by the state oil company NNPC.
U.S. lawmakers to debate measures to block Boeing aircraft sale to Iran
By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON, July 6 (Reuters) - A U.S. House of Representatives panel will debate legislation on Thursday intended to block Boeing Co's planned sale of dozens of commercial aircraft to Iran, which could also affect other planemakers, including Airbus if they became law.
A Financial Services subcommittee will debate three measures, including one that would prohibit the U.S. Treasury from licensing the sale announced last month. Another would bar the Treasury secretary for authorizing transactions by U.S. financial institutions connected to the export of aircraft.
A third measure would bar the Export-Import Bank from financing involving any entity that does business with Iran or provides financing to another entity to facilitate transactions with Iran.
"I am extremely concerned that by relaxing the rules, the Obama administration has allowed U.S. companies to be complicit in weaponizing the Iranian regime," Representative Bill Huizenga, chairman of the Monetary Policy and Trade Subcommittee, said in a statement on Wednesday.
If the bills became law, they would affect other firms' sales to Iran because virtually all modern jets have more than 10 percent U.S. content, the threshold for requiring export licenses.
A House committee aide said the full financial services committee was likely to approve the bills, but a vote had not yet been scheduled. However, the measures showed the extent of concern by Republicans, who control majorities in both the House and Senate, about the Iran deal and the potential Boeing sale.
Democrats, including President Barack Obama, are expected to oppose the legislation.
While most congressional Democrats backed the Iran deal announced a year ago, every Republican U.S. lawmaker opposed the pact in which the United States and international partners agreed to ease crippling economic sanctions in exchange for Tehran curtailing its nuclear program.
When news of the Boeing deal emerged, several Republicans in Congress worried that it could threaten U.S. national security. Asked about those concerns last month, a Boeing executive noted last month that the Obama administration considered implementation of the nuclear pact "critical" to national security.
A "memorandum of agreement" (MOA) calls for IranAir to buy a total of 80 aircraft from Boeing and lease a further 29 with Boeing's support. Deliveries of the purchased jets are scheduled to start in 2017 and run through 2025.
A total of 19 new ministers were inducted into the newly expanded and hotly reshuffled Union cabinet in the Narendra Modi government, major ministries saw change of guard, while five ministers were unceremoniously dropped.
Yet, the attention which Smriti Irani got was more than the entire cabinet put together.
Now more than 20 hours later, market is still abuzz with the question, which doesnt seem to have been satisfactorily answered.
Why was Smriti Zubin Irani "demoted"?
Was it the controversies, not implementing the Sangh agenda by the book, lack of performance, too much of negative limelight? Or, was it her increasingly souring relationship with Amit Shah and her run-ins with the PMO?
Or, was it a grand volatile mix of all of these unseemly and grossly ill-timed factors?
According to a senior BJP leader, when the party is looking at the crucial Assembly elections in UP and other states, Smriti Irani was fast emerging as the symbol of confrontation with two sections the BJP had been trying assiduously to woo: the youth and the Dalits.
The Rohit Vemula suicide controversy saw a complete mishandling of the situation by the HRD ministry (read Smriti Irani). The matter escalated and went completely out of control with the student agitation spreading from Hyderabad to JNU to eventually Jadavpur universities.
The Rohit Vemula suicide controversy saw a complete mishandling of the situation by the HRD ministry.
Even during the JNU controversy, people felt that the opposition was almost successful in creating an "anti-student" and therefore "anti-youth" image of the party. A section of the ruling party felt that had a degree of political dexterity been shown by her, the whole situation could have been easily resolved.
Instead, further hardening of position was adopted and irrespective of the outcome, the party came out, bruised and battered of the rather abrasive situation.
This, naturally, didnt go down well with the senior leadership of the party.
This was not the only controversy Smriti found itself in. There was a sizeable section within the party, which was not only envious of her meteoric rise but also her ability to hog the spotlight - positive or negative.
When the National Executive of the BJP was held at Bangalore last year, the whole executive was overshadowed by controversy around Smriti Irani, when she alleged that during her stint at a Fabindia outlet, a hidden camera was fixed at the trial room she was at. This created enough media frenzy to divert attention from the National Executive meet of the BJP itself.
There were several controversies surrounding her and an impression was gaining ground at the top that she is more in news due to her stormy and tempestuous nature and not because of her work.
Moreover, another idea which took hold within the party was that she could get away with murder due to her "proximity with the prime minister".
Thus, the reallocation of Smriti Iranis ministry is being seen as an attempt to send a clear message to everybody within the government that one cannot just keep dropping the PMs name to further personal agenda.
However, what added fuel to the fire and acted as a strong catalyst was her frosty relationship with the party president Amit Shah.
A senior leader pointed at the fact that her relationship with Amit Shah has seen rapid deterioration in the last year and a half, to a level where they almost didnt see eye to eye on almost everything.
Electoral debacles in Delhi and Bihar might have seen the fortunes of Shah dwindle a bit, but all this impression was completely erased at the kind of boundless power wielded by him during the cabinet expansion.
This was not all.
There were tussles with the PMO over the degree of autonomy that the government proposed "world class universities" should enjoy. There were major disagreements between the PMO and the HRD ministry and this didnt go down well with the PMO.
This was the biggest budget announcement on education this year.
In lieu of these controversies and run-ins, PM Narendra Modi dropped the bombshell by replacing her with Prakash Javadekar as the new HRD minister.
And the impact was so stupefying that it almost swallowed the rest of the cabinet reshuffle.
It took Smriti around 17-18 hours to break her silence on Twitter when she tweeted a series of lines thanking the prime minister for "giving her an opportunity to serve the nation".
After that she went and took charge as the new textile minister at 3pm on Wednesday, July 6.
Eloquent as usual, when asked by reporters over her share of controversies, she said: "Kuch to log kahenge, logon ka kaam hai kehna."
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The Justice Department swiftly prosecuted six federal government officials between 2009 and 2012 under the Espionage Act, Bloomberg News first reported noting the administrations number of record-high prosecutions under the law. By 2014, nine people were prosecuted under the spy law. Four others were prosecuted under Nixon, Reagan, and George W. Bush. One of those four, under Nixon, was dismissed two years later.
One of the five who were convicted was Stephen Kim, a former State Department contractor who served a 13-month prison sentence for violating the spy act. The case lasted for five years until he pleaded guilty to leaking information about North Koreas nuclear program to Fox News reporter James Rosen.
coke said: For starters, can you please explain to me what equal rights Women do not have in western civilization? Secondly do you understand what third wave feminism is about and its significance in respect to the regressive left? Click to expand...
That is what I am saying,woman in western civization are equal to men in all respects except there pay packet.They are doing jobs that were typically a mans job not to long ago.Next door to my house is a house been built.The framers are a 4 person gang.2 male,2 female.To see the females dancing across the roof like an acrobat with a tool belt and nail gun in one hand is amazing to see,and at the same time there building up there muscles.MMM,i like muscles.I don't understand what the third wave of feminism is about.Is it a platform computer game?
Construction projects on more than 32,000 acres of land in Linn County could be significantly restricted unless the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Marine Fisheries Services can come to terms with issues surrounding implementation of the Endangered Species Act.
At this point, communities are being advised to stop all development in areas that are at risk of flooding once every 100 years, beginning in 2018. In Linn County, that could affect more than 5,300 tax lots.
This could be a $3 billion problem, Linn County Commissioner Roger Nyquist said. In coming years, buildable property could be worth $100,000 per acre. If we put 32,000 acres off limits to construction, thats more than $3 billion.
In 2009, FEMA was sued in U.S. District Court for failing to ensure that the National Flood Insurance Program on which more than 271 Oregon communities rely complies with the Endangered Species Act.
In a settlement agreement, FEMA is required to consult with the National Marine Fisheries Services and propose changes to the program through Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives (RPA).
Nyquist said the proposal is so new, federal agencies are making stuff up as they go along.
At this time, FEMA is saying that the non-buildable area is 170 feet from the normal high water line if the property lies within the 100-year floodplain.
And to our knowledge, there isnt anything being done in terms of mitigation for harm caused by this ruling, Nyquist said.
Linn County and FEMA have had a contentious relationship for several years, in part because the Board of Commissioners believe FEMA does not use the most accurate methods to determine flood plains.
Linn County uses an advanced laser-based system that can calculate elevations within inches and believes that is the standard by which FEMA should work.
To say the least, we are very concerned about the financial consequences to many Linn County residents, Nyquist said.
Last week, Oregons congressional delegation sent a letter to FEMA administrator Craig Fugate, urging him to implement changes to the National Flood Insurance Program.
Drafted by Rep. Peter DeFazio, it was signed by Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and Representatives Earl Blumenauer, Kurt Schrader and Suzanne Bonamici.
The letter states, In Oregon, 271 communities depend on the National Flood Insurance Program to provide flood insurance. The many waterways that contribute to Oregons natural beauty and robust economy also make our state prone to flooding.
Given the reach and importance of the NFIP in Oregon, it is essential that it is administered with the utmost transparency and clarity. With some of the strongest land use laws in the country, Oregonians deserve a collaborative process with FEMA on National Flood Insurance Program Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives implementation one that addresses protection of salmon and steelhead habitat, but is also economically and socially feasible.
The letter also points out that the Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives would force FEMA to regulate land use, which is beyond FEMAs legal authority related to floodplain management.
According to the letter, communities are to be given two options: Voluntarily impose a temporary moratorium on all floodplain development that adversely impacts Endangered Species Act listed species or their habitat; or voluntarily implement the interim measures found in RPA element.
Communities cannot be expected to implement these or any other measures without thorough guidance and consultation with FEMA, the letter continued.
Oregon is not the only state affected by the court ruling. Other lawsuits have been filed in regions throughout the country.
The Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development has notified communities that it will hold a series of workshops and presentations that focus on the issue.
It also will offer guidance, model local ordinances, grants and technical assistance.
CORVALLIS A fire gutted the main building at B&R Auto Wrecking in south Corvallis on Tuesday, but company officials said they expected to be open for business as usual today.
The company plans to set up a temporary sales office in the body shop of its Corvallis location at 3065 S.E. Third St. while it assesses the damage to the main building and decides what to do next, according to Brian Perlenfein, B&Rs senior business adviser.
Well be here for our customers, he said. Were still open for them.
B&R Auto Wrecking has 385 employees at 15 locations in Oregon, Washington and Nevada. The Corvallis wrecking yard, which has 40 employees, was the companys first location and served as headquarters for the overall operation.
No one was injured in the fire, which broke out shortly before 10 a.m. in the long, corrugated-metal main building.
Jim Patton, fire prevention officer with the Corvallis Fire Department, said the blaze apparently started when gasoline ignited while a B&R employee was draining fluids from a salvaged vehicle. Investigators planned to take a closer look at the scene this morning.
We havent pinpointed all the details, Patton said. (But) its not suspicious. Its not a problem with the building. It was an operational issue.
Crews from the Corvallis, Philomath, Adair Village and Monroe fire departments responded to the call from emergency dispatchers, which went out at 9:49 a.m. Two ladder trucks, at least three fire engines, three water tenders and two ambulances were dispatched to the scene.
The blaze was contained by about noon, although firefighters were still on the scene mopping up hotspots into the early evening hours.
Damage was limited to the main structure. The body shop and a storage building on the 12-acre lot were unharmed, and firefighters kept the flames from spreading to the rows of wrecked vehicles stored on the 12-acre lot.
The Tangent Fire Department provided coverage in Corvallis while Corvallis Fire Department personnel were working on the B&R fire.
South Third Street was closed between Goodnight and Rivergreen avenues for several hours on Tuesday to allow firefighters to access water supplies from two hydrants on the west side of the four-lane road, which continues as Oregon Highway 99W north and south of the city limits. Crews ran a pair of 5-inch fire hoses from the hydrants across the pavement to pump water onto the flames.
Officers from the Corvallis Police Department and crews from the Oregon Department of Transportation and Corvallis Public Works Department diverted traffic around the area for several hours. Southbound motorists were rerouted to Interstate 5, while northbound drivers were diverted through nearby surface streets.
Both southbound lanes and one northbound lane reopened a little after 4 p.m., with the other northbound lane opening shortly after that.
Although many B&R employees remained at the scene as the building burned, most declined to be interviewed.
Joe Napier, a lead driver for the company who was not at the building when the fire started, said the location has at least two dozen employees. B&R has 15 stores in three states and more than 400 employees overall.
He added that he was happy everyone was safe.
This is a great company that really takes care of people, but the most important part is (the employees') kids still have their moms and dads.
Company managers who toured the scene to assess the damage later in the day made similar comments.
Were thankful that we have good, safe people trained to know what to do in an emergency situation. They got out quickly and safely, Perlenfein said.
Perlenfein said he wasnt worried about damage to the structure, which was insured.
Its a building, he said. It can be replaced.
Another fire 16 years ago destroyed two businesses on an adjoining lot. A 5,500-square-foot building at 3045 S.E. Third St. that housed John's Saab Service and an auto body shop burned to the ground in October 2000.
The Jefferson Planning Commission will continue a public hearing and deliberations on a proposed 15-acre annexation at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday at City Hall.
During the previous meeting, on June 2, commissioners wanted more information about how an estimated 60 new houses would impact public safety, infrastructure and local schools.
Opponents said that the annexation would negatively impact Jeffersons small-town feel, stress the Marion County Sheriffs Office and result in more overcrowding in local schools.
Proponents said the annexation would provide additional homes in Jefferson, which in turn would increase the tax base and draw more businesses to the city.
The 14.76-acre annexation request comes from the Hamby Family Limited Trust, led by Nancy Hamby, and the property is at the south end of town, north of Jefferson-Scio Road and east of Fifth Street.
The property, owned by Joan and Ellis Hamby, was viewed as land for future residential development when the citys comprehensive plan was created in 1979.
The city and Planning Commission have, at least for the time being, largely sidestepped the matter of the recently-approved Senate Bill 1573 when discussing the Hamby annexation request. Senate Bill 1573 allows cities to annex land without a public vote, provided certain conditions are met. The bill affected the 35 cities in Oregon, including Jefferson, whose charters require public votes on annexation.
City Recorder Sarah Cook said that the City Council has given no indication on whether it will actively fight or not resist the bill, but members likely will discuss the matter when the annexation comes on the councils meeting agenda in late July.
Unlike cities such as Corvallis, which has filed a lawsuit over the matter, Jefferson is trying to stay thrifty and relying on the League of Oregon Cities, a lobbying group planning to pester politicians on the issue, Cook said.
They have a louder voice representing many cities, rather than little old Jefferson, she added.
Aug. 23, 1939 July 3, 2016
Georgia Fulton, 76, of Albany died Sunday at Samaritan Albany General Hospital.
Born in The Dalles to Jack and Helen (Thomsen) Huffman, Georgia lived in several Eastern Oregon towns before living in The Dalles from 1945 to 1965 and graduated from The Dalles High School in 1957 before attending Northwestern School of Business where she earned her executive secretarial degree. She married John Fulton in 1958 in The Dalles. Georgia lived in Grants Pass for a time before coming to Albany in 1967.
Georgia was very active and held many offices and committee positions in civic and professional organizations throughout her life including Albany Jaycee Wives, 4-H, Timber Carnival Wives, Home Extension, Albany Realtors Association (earned GRI designation), Beta Sigma Phi (for over 30 years), Oregon Assn. of Realtors, and Oregon Realtors CID and Exchangers.
Georgia was a member and longtime receptionist at the Albany First Assembly of God Church. After retiring from the church, she found her new career as the receptionist at Fisher Funeral Home.
She is survived by sons Douglas and his wife Brenda of Alta Loma, California, and Donald of Albany; and four grandchildren.
A viewing will be from 4 to 6 p.m. Friday, July 8, at Fisher Funeral Home. A funeral service will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at Albany First Assembly of God Church. A graveside service will be at 11 a.m. Monday at The Dalles IOOF Cemetery.
Contributions may be made to Albany First Assembly, RE: Oregon Youth Alive Ministry Academy, 2817 Santiam Highway S.E., Albany OR 97322.
Online condolences for the family may be posted at www.fisherfuneralhome.com.
Mumbai: Even as efforts to clean up the balance sheets of banks initiated by the RBI is under way, Indian banks have a $90- billion challenge before them. Indian banks will require around $90 billion of capital to meet the new Basel III capital standards that will be fully implemented by March 2019, according to Fitch Ratings. The situation is more precarious as the banks have to make a high 70 per cent provision to cover problem loans when their core capital buffers have been weakened by the sharp rise in their non-performing loans (NPLS).
More than 50 per cent of this $90 billion must be met via core equity and the rest largely via additional tier 1 debt capital instruments and here lies the challenge as their assets are qualitatively weak and they will not be able to generate internal capital apart from the fact that they are in no position to assess the capital markets. Fitch estimates that the capital needs of public sector banks form about 80 per cent of the system total. It expects banks stressed asset ratio to peak around FY17, although the recovery will depend on NPL resolution and credit growth.
There will be fewer additional bad loans as banking reforms kick in, but resolving problem loans will be a difficult process for the state banks, which have average stressed asset ratio of 14.5 per cent compared with 4.5 per cent for the private banks. Reforms measures, however, are expected to be positive for the sector over the long term, says Fitch.
New Delhi: The country's digital advertising market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 35 per cent to reach Rs 7,044 crore by the end of this year, an IAMAI-IMRB report said today.
The digital advertising market was pegged at Rs 5,200 crore at the end of December 2015, accounting for about 12 per cent of the total advertisement spends in the country, the report titled 'Digital Advertising in India' said.
It has grown steadily from Rs 1,140 crore in 2010-11 fiscal to Rs 2,260 crore in 2012-2013 and further Rs 5,200 crore in 2014-15, it added. In terms of volume, e-commerce led the digital advertisement spends with Rs 1,040 crore followed by telecom (Rs 780 crore), banking, financial services and insurance (Rs 728 crore) and FMCG (Rs 676 crore), the report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International said.
In 2015, the education sector spent Rs 312 crore, while travel and auto verticals spent Rs 572 crore and Rs 540 crore, respectively, on digital advertising.
However, banking, financial services and insurance sector spent a higher share of its advertisement expenditure on digital compared with other verticals with 40 per cent of its overall advertising spends going towards digital.
This was followed by e-commerce (26 per cent), telecom (25 per cent) and travel (25 per cent). Companies spent about Rs 1,488 crore on search, while close to Rs 940 crore was spent on social media in 2015.
Expenditure on video ads such as on YouTube also showed huge gains in 2015, accounting for 17 per cent of the overall advertisement spends in the digital space, the report added.
This has been driven by higher internet speeds available to the consumers coupled with an increase in mobile advertisements. "As these trends continue, video advertisement is expected to gain further in 2016," the report added.
Goenka said the company's plans is to focus on the Mojo motorcycle and the scooter model such as Gusto 125 which is doing reasonably well.
New Delhi: Homegrown auto major Mahindra & Mahindra is restructuring its two-wheeler business after the division failed to meet its expectations and has given voluntary retirement scheme to 250 workers as part of the process.
"It is one vertical which has not met expectations last year. We are currently in the process of deciding the way forward for our two-wheeler business," Mahindra & Mahindra Executive Director Pawan Goenka told reporters here.
While he did not share details, Goenka further said: "A formal announcement will be made in the next couple of months." Explaining the rationale behind taking such a step, he said: "Volumes were not as we planned."
On the implications of the restructuring, Goenka said: "We have right sized...We have given VRS to 250 people." When asked if Mahindra will exit the two-wheeler business, which it had entered in 2008 after acquiring assets of then Kinetic Motorc Co, he said "It is unlikely that we will exit."
In 2015-16, Mahindra Two Wheeler saw sales declined by 12.7 per cent at 1,33,355 units. So far this fiscal, it has sold a total of 13,549 units in the April-May period, down 38.21 per cent from 21,930 units in the year-ago period.
The company's scooter sales were at 9,609 units in the April-May period, down 19.24 per cent from 11,899 units in the same period last fiscal. Its motorcycle sales also declined by 60.72 per cent to 3,940 units from 10,031 units in the same period last fiscal.
The company's scooters business has fared better with its models such as Gusto, Rodeo and Duro than the motorcycles segment, where it currently sell the Mojo and Centuro models. Goenka said the company's plans is to focus on the Mojo motorcycle and the scooter model such as Gusto 125 which is doing reasonably well.
Commenting on M&M' other plans, he said currently the company is working with Italian design Pininfarina, which it had acquired last year to develop a new vehicle, without sharing details.
Pininfarina is also helping M&M's other products, including the compact SUV, TUV300. On the preparations for the upgradation to BS VI emission norms from BS IV, Goenka said a total of 30 models, including variants of the company has to be upgraded and homologated with the per unit cost of it Rs 95,000.
He also said the company is working on development of petrol engines and by 2020 all the company's mainstream models will have petrol options. On tractor, he said sales have grown owing to a good monsoon and the industry is likely to clock around 5.5 lakh units in the year.
Mumbai: Twenty years ago, streets, radio speakers and clubs were blazing with Spice Girls Wannabe, celebrating girl power and their independence all around the world. Now the chartbuster has been remade to encourage and empower a whole new generation yet again.
The video tells what girls really, really want and if you think they just wanna zigazig ah, then youve got it all wrong. Wannabe remake video by Global Goals campaign highlights gender inequality issues faced by women across the world.
Featuring Jacqueline Fernandez and London R&B trio M.O. alongside artists from different parts of the world, the video demands to end violence against women and child marriage, equal pay for equal work and quality education for girls.
Giving us some serious 90s nostalgia, the video delivers a strong message which shouldn't go unheard. After all, this is what girls and women of 2016 really, really want and absolutely deserve it.
Watch the video below:
Spice Girls member, Vicoria Beckham also applauded the good cause on Twitter.
Salman Khan had earlier stoked a controversy as he compared himself with a raped woman when quizzed about the gruelling shoot for the movie 'Sultan'.
Mumbai: The Maharashtra State Commission for Women (MSCW), which has asked Salman Khan to appear before it tomorrow over his rape remarks, today said it would not issue a fresh date in the matter.
The MSCW had on June 29 issued summons to Salman asking him to appear before it on July 7, which happens to be Eid, to explain his position over the issue after the Bollywood star failed to turn up earlier.
"We are working as a normal day tomorrow and our team would be discharging its routine duty. Therefore, we are not going to issue a fresh date to Salman Khan and our commission would wait for his response," MSCW Chairperson Vijaya Rahatkar told PTI.
"Personally, he (Salman) may or may not appear for hearing, that our body can understand easily. But he can definitely respond to our summons by sending his representative at least. It's upto him. But he ought to react in some way or other," she said.
A day before the MSCW issued summons to Salman last week, the actor had sent a letter to the panel through his lawyer stating that the case was already being heard by the National Commission for Women (NCW) and the matter cannot be heard simultaneously at two places.
After considering his response, the panel had expressed dissatisfaction over the actor's argument and summoned him to appear before it on July 7. Rahatkar said, "On June 29, when our commission issued notice to the actor, we did not anticipate that the date of July 7 hearing would clash with Eid. But since our commission is working tomorrow, we are not going to issue some fresh date."
The 50-year-old actor had earlier stoked a controversy as he compared himself with a raped woman when quizzed about the gruelling shoot for the movie 'Sultan'.
The National Commission for Women has summoned Salman to appear before it on July 8.
Those oh-so-sweet declarations of dosti between the two desi divas Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone seem to be things of the past. The cold vibes between the two were quite apparent in Madrid where they attended an awards function recently. According to eyewitnesses, the two gal pals who hit it off big time-time during the shooting of Bajirao Mastani barely exchanged a hello in Madrid.
An actor who saw the mutual snub first-hand says, It was very obvious to that Priyanka and Deepika were avoiding one another. I had heard they were thick as thieves on Bhansalis set. So what happened?
Some probing reveals that the growing chasm between the two was induced by Deepikas decision to go West. Priyank thought shed be the Bollywood female face in Hollywood after Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. But Deepika sneaked into the American Dream. Now their films, Priyankas Baywatch and Deepikas XXX, are expected to be out at around the same time. Since there is only so much space in Hollywood for a Bollywood beauty to fit in, the two are vying for similar parts, says a source.
According to insiders, Deepika, who comes across as less of a go-getter than Priyanka, will give her international career all shes got. Both the ladies are cutting down on their work in Mumbai to spend more time in LA. Both have a team in the US to get them the roles they want.
In the coming months, the Priyanka-Deepika race to conquer the West will only intensify. May the better woman win.
Trade remedies applied on stainless steel products are actually harming consumers and domestic enterprises.
Increased duties to protect domestic steel enterprises in Vietnam have been effective for more than one month but they seem to have caused more problems for the market, especially consumers and construction projects, Vietnam News Agency reported today.
Vietnam deployed anti-dumping measures on stainless steel products from China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan in September 2014 and revised the duties on May 14, 2016. It was meant to protect domestic steel production but it is also hard for enterprises to reduce steel prices, passing the cost on to consumers.
The decision in May lowered duties for imported steel products from Malaysia, but taxes remain for Taiwan (13 to 37 percent), and duties for China and Indonesia nearly quadrupled to 17.47-25.35 percent and 13.03 percent, respectively.
On Cat Linh Street, known as the furniture center of Hanoi, the prices of household appliances and equipment have not escalated significantly, but shop owners anticipate that they could rise by 10 to 15 percent.
Vietnam offers trade remedies on stainless steel but it seems to have had several counterproductive impacts on customers and domestic customers. Photo by Reuters/Fabian Bimmer
Tran Anh Tu, a salesperson at a furniture shop on Cat Linh Street, that after the new anti-dumping measures, prices will likely rise 10 percent due to increased input costs.
In March and April, the price of steel and imported global steel products grew sharply as domestic construction demand rose with new real estate projects. Prices are also projected to continue to rise this year.
Due to the inflated prices of construction materials like steel and chrome steel, Nguyen Tuan Vinh, a Hanoi resident, said he was worried about his plan to build a house at the end of this year..
The initial estimated cost was about VND500 million ($22,457), but rising steel prices could add an extra VND100 million ($4,491) onto the bill, Vinh said.
For steel enterprises, the new anti-dumping measures could even have negative impacts on domestic firms if they are forced to cut shipments of imported stainless steel.
Deputy General Director of Daiduong International JSC Pham Quoc Vu said that the significantly high level of duties applied on stainless steel products seriously affects local firms. Customers will suffer the most when prices of steel products like tubes, pipes, pans, basins, trays, tables and chairs rise from 10 to 15 percent.
A representative from a steel fabrication firm said higher duties will take a chunk out of existing orders.
Deputy General Director of Son Ha Group Dam Quang Hung underlined that the opportunity for enterprises to import steel will dwindle. This could lead to a monopoly in the domestic market and have a direct impact on high-end customers.
Chairman of the Vietnam Steel Association Ho Nghia Dung said the decision to apply anti-dumping measures has protected domestic production but it has caused difficulties for several enterprises that import stainless steel. The association will discuss this issue with state authorities.
The function of the association is to safeguard domestic production and if trade remedies protect certain enterprise groups interests, other groups could be at a disadvantage. Besides improving quality, price, competitiveness and corporate governance, enterprises need to adjust and cooperate with each other in domestic distribution chain to share the benefits, Dung said.
Related news:
> Trade remedies offer Vietnamese firms little protection in international playground
> Global steel prices surge - Vietnam follows suit
> U.S. finishes first round of Vietnamese steel anti-dumping investigation
Remember how Amitabh Bachchan made us gasp in awe as he slurped tea from a saucer in the iconic scene in Ram Gopal Varmas Sarkar? At that time there was heavy buzz about Sarkar being loosely based on Balasaheb Thackerays life.
While the film put those rumours to rest, now we hear that Smita Thackeray is actually set on producing a biography, which will be helmed by her son Rahul Thackeray. Apparently, they even held an unofficial poll asking who would be the ideal actor to play Balasaheb Thackeray. Turns out Amitabh Bachchan got the highest votes among other contenders that included Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar and Manoj Bajpayee.
Since the time the title of Rahuls film was announced Saheb speculation has been rife as to who will essay the title role of the late Sena supremo. A close source reveals, The makers have approached Amitabh Bachchan for the role but the actor hasnt given his nod yet. Right now, his schedule is choc-a-bloc.
Bachchan has just wrapped up Shoojit Sircars next project, Pink, that also stars Tapsee Pannu.
In school cafeterias with vinyl banners depicting vegetable superhero characters, more young children take vegetables from the salad bar, according to a new study.
The finding that marketing works of course isnt new or earth shattering. What is innovative here is the way in which we implement it, putting it right in the school lunch line, said lead author Andrew S. Hanks of The Ohio State University in Columbus.
Hanks and colleagues tested the marketing program in 10 elementary schools, each randomly assigned to follow one of four approaches for six weeks. Schools either continued lunchroom service as normal, added a vinyl banner with vegetable characters around the base of the salad bar, added TVs playing health education segments featuring the same characters, or added both banners and TV spots.
As reported in Pediatrics, before and during the study period, 6 to 8 percent of kids at schools without the marketing programs took vegetables from the salad bar. In schools with the TV segments, the proportion of kids who took veggies from the salad bar rose from 14 percent to 19 percent. With the banners, veggie selection increased from 13 percent to 24 percent.
At schools were both TV and banners were used, the proportion of kids taking vegetables went from 10 percent to 35 percent. Girls responded positively to both TV spots and banners, but boys only increased their veggie selection when there were banners in place, the researchers found.
Something like this may not be effective for middle or high school students who might consider vegetable characters with superhuman strength as childish, but we can use marketing to influence their behavior, and adults as well, Hanks told Reuters Health by phone.
There was no measure of actual vegetable intake, he noted. Implementing TV spots was more challenging as it was hard to find a consistent place to put the TVs in each lunchroom, but banners around the base of a salad bar were easy to install, and were more effective since they were placed right at the point of selection, he said.
If youre thinking about doing something, think about what you can do at the point of selection, Hanks said. A lot of times school lunch programs are run as a small business, he said. Parents who want to initiate this kind of program might bring it up to district supervisors or the health and wellness district committee.
This really shows that if you raise awareness and bring attention to the healthier foods that kids will actually take them, said Jennifer L. Harris, director of marketing initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut, who was not part of the new study. Characters made the food seem novel and appealing.
But its not clear the effect would last, Harris told Reuters Health by phone. I know a lot of schools are trying ways to make vegetables more attractive to get kids to try them more, Harris said. This is a fun way to do it.
Washington: A period of controversy over the risks and benefits of statins, covered widely in the UK media, was followed by a temporary increase in the number of people stopping their statin treatment, finds a recent study.
The increase in stopping was seen among patients taking statins for existing heart disease (known as secondary prevention) as well as patients at high risk of developing disease in the next 10 years (known as primary prevention).
The researchers found no evidence that widespread media coverage was linked to changes in the proportion of newly eligible patients starting statins.
The results are observational, so no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect. Nevertheless, the authors say they highlight "the potential for widely covered health stories in the lay media to impact on healthcare related behaviour."
But a linked editorial argues that uncertainty over the benefits and harms of statins still exists and journalism that exposes the public to ongoing controversies in science should be nurtured.
Statins are widely recommended for the prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD). In October 2013, two articles were published in The BMJ that questioned the value of extending the use of statins to healthy people at low risk of heart disease, and these were heavily criticised by some statins researchers, prompting widespread media debate about their potential risks and benefits.
Anthony Matthews at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and colleagues decided to measure how this period of intense public debate (from October 2013 to March 2014) affected the likelihood of patients starting and stopping statins for both primary and secondary prevention of CVD.
Using prescribing data from UK primary care records, they calculated the number of people aged 40 and over starting and stopping statins each month from January 2011 to March 2015.
Patients already taking statins were more likely to stop taking them for both primary and secondary prevention after the high media coverage period, particularly older patients and those with a longer continuous prescription.
The authors estimate that more than 200,000 patients across the UK may have stopped statin therapy in the six months after the media coverage - and that this could lead to over 2,000 extra cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks and strokes, if continued over the next 10 years. But they stress that these calculations are based on several assumptions and should be interpreted with caution.
Study author Professor Liam Smeeth from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said: "Our findings suggest that widespread coverage of health stories in the mainstream media can have an important, real world impact on the behaviour of patients and doctors. This may have significant consequences for people's health.
"It's undoubtedly important that these debates are reflected in the media, who play a key role in communicating public health advice, but there is a concern that in the case of statins, widespread reporting of the debate may have given disproportionate weight to a minority view about possible side effects, denting public confidence in a drug which most scientists and health professionals believe to be a safe and effective option against heart disease for the vast majority of patients."
In a linked editorial Gary Schwitzer, Publisher of HealthNewsReview.org, says "we should not rush to judgement on the media's role in this episode."
Dr Fiona Godlee, Editor in chief, The BMJ said: "It seems to me absolutely right that there is public debate about the benefits and harms of treatments. Patients may now be better aware of several things. First that we have far less good information on the side effects of statins than on their benefits. Secondly, that for some people, especially those at lower risk of heart disease, the survival benefit from statins may not outweigh the negatives of taking a drug every day with all that this entails. And finally that the complete trial data on statins are not available for independent scrutiny. This should shock people. It continues to shock me."
The study is published in The BMJ.
Back in 2000, two research teams estimated that fewer than 1 million Americans were living with these heart defects. (Photo: Pixabay)
The number of Americans living with congenital heart defects rose dramatically between 2000 and 2010, researchers estimate.
Over the last 30 to 40 years, children born with heart defects have been living longer, which means the population of adults with congenital heart defects has gotten larger, said Dr. Suzanne M. Gilboa from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.
But the fact that the adult population is approximately 40 percent larger than the child population - 1.4 million vs 1 million was somewhat surprising, she told Reuters Health by email. Back in 2000, two research teams estimated that fewer than 1 million Americans were living with these heart defects.
The U.S. has no way of tracking congenital heart defect statistics, so Gilboa's team joined forces with Canadian colleagues and used the Quebec Congenital Heart Disease Database to estimate the rates of these conditions in the U.S. in 2010.
They assumed rates in Quebec would be similar to that among whites in the U.S., and they adjusted their calculations to estimate rates for non-Hispanic black and Hispanic populations.
Using these methods, they determined that approximately 2.4 million people were living with congenital heart defects in the U.S. in 2010. One of every eight of these individuals (about 290,000) had severe heart defects.
The rate was higher in children (13 per 1000 children) than in adults (six per 1000 adults), but there were more adults (approximately 1.4 million) than children (approximately 1 million) living with congenital heart defects.
Estimated rates were higher in whites and Hispanics than in blacks, and slightly higher in females than males, according to a report in the journal Circulation.
Compared with population estimates generated for the year 2000, the current estimates for the year 2010 represent a 40 percent increase in the total number of individuals living with congenital heart defects in the U.S. and over a 60 percent increase in the size of the adult population alone, the researchers note.
Gilboa said the key message is that people with congenital heart disease need appropriate care across the lifespan, not just during childhood.
Parents should have the right to refuse vaccination, alternative medicine practitioners contend. (Photo: AP)
More children are falling victim to contagious diseases in Muslim-majority Malaysia, worrying health authorities as parents reject immunisation programmes for fear the vaccines used infringe strict religious rules.
The deaths of five children in June from diphtheria, a disease that can be prevented by vaccines, provoked an outcry among doctors and spurred calls for an edict by religious authorities to compel Muslim families to immunise children.
"Our concern is, if it's left uncontrolled, in the long-term we might see a significant effect on the nation as a whole," Health Minister S. Subramaniam told Reuters in an interview.
Although Muslim religious authorities have waived the stringent halal requirement if suitable vaccines are not available, concerns have redoubled recently that some may contain substances such as pig DNA, forbidden by Islam. Paediatrician Musa Mohamad Nordin said there was a lot of misinformation in Malaysia's Muslim community, mostly ethnic Malays who form 61 percent of a population of about 30 million that includes substantial ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities.
"I'm upset, and also saddened, that some religious teachers are spreading rumours that vaccines contain a composition that is not permissible by Islamic jurisprudence," added Musa, a member of Malaysia's Federation of Islamic Medical Associations.
Only a few families have rejected vaccinations, but the number has more than doubled in the past three years to reach 1,541 in 2015, Subramaniam said, which is reflected in a rise in vaccine-preventable diseases, from diphtheria to measles.
As with anti-vaccination movements elsewhere, many Malaysians who refuse vaccinations worry about potential side effects or efficacy, Subramaniam said. It is not clear what provoked the suspicions over pig DNA.
But three-quarters of the parents who rejected immunisation last year in the northern state of Kedah, which has the highest rates of vaccine refusal in Malaysia, cited doubts over their halal status, a survey showed.
Malaysia's highest Islamic body, the National Fatwa Council, has ruled vaccination permissible under Islamic law, even allowing vaccines with non-halal components, in the absence of halal alternatives.
The council has not yet decided on an edict of mandatory vaccinations for Muslims, Federal Territory Mufti Zulkifli Mohamad Al-Bakri said in an interview.
"On the whole, we find that vaccines have been very beneficial to society," Zulkifli added.
PARENTS' RIGHTS
Last Sunday, parents at a vaccination forum on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, the capital, recounted the side effects their children suffered.
Parents should have the right to refuse vaccination, said alternative medicine practitioner Arif Faizal, 36. "There is no law compelling mandatory vaccines, and even on the global level, very few countries support such a move," he told Reuters.
Others felt vaccinations were essential, however. "As Muslim parents, we have a responsibility to protect our children," said Wan Normaniza Wan Hasan, a teacher and mother of six.
Dr Gupta said, When we opened the bandage the next day we found the infection. We found that the saline bottles were contaminated with Klebsiella bacteria. (Representational image)
Hyderabad: Thirteen patients who underwent cataract operations in Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital recently developed severe infections. Five of them will lose their eyesight, say sources.
The patients have been undergoing treatment since the last three days. But the doctors are not willing to talk as people will raise a hue and cry, hence they are pacifying the relatives, a relative of one of the patients who had registered a complaint with the director of health and medical education said on condition of anonymity.
However, the relatives realised that the infection was severe and demanded explanations from the doctors. Mr Mahesh R. a relative of Mr Nukulla Talli, said, The doctors are not even apologetic. They say so many people die in road mishaps. This was just an infection.
Ms Laxmi, whose father Mr Satyanarayana is undergoing treatment, added, They didnt tell us that it was an infection.
But Dr Gupta said, When we opened the bandage the next day we found the infection. We found that the saline bottles were contaminated with Klebsiella bacteria.
But senior ophthalmologist Dr Manoj Chandra Mathur said, Klebsilla bacteria grows within the eye but is transferred from a non-sterilised instrument to the eye.
Doctors said that in 2009 it was found that a ward boy was not sterilising the equipment and microscopes properly, and three cases of contamination were found. (Representational image)
Hyderabad: More than 50 cataract surgeries are performed at the Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital every day and experts say that when right protocols of sterilisation are not followed then cases of infections arise. Doctors said that in 2009 it was found that a ward boy was not sterilising the equipment and microscopes properly, and three cases of contamination were found.
Dr P.V. Nandkumar Reddy, former superintendent of Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital, said, Each case requires separate instruments and after using, they have to be sterilised properly. The floor, trolleys, microscopes and other instruments which are used must be cleaned on a daily basis. But we had an instance and three cases were detected. Later the inquiry report showed that the ward boy would not sterilise the microscopes and other instruments properly, which resulted in blindness of the patients.
Dr Reddy explained that it was later found that the ward boy suffered from tuberculosis and he would be present in the operation theatre and also in the microbiology laboratory. His continuous coughing also drew suspicion and he was suspended for six months from service. He didnt recover and later died.
Patients suffer neglect
Health minister C. Laxma Reddy visited Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital on Wednesday and said that the infection was due to contamination of saline bottles. Two committees have been formed to review the situation.
While compensation for patients is not being talked about yet, Dr Reddy has assured proper treatment.
The five patients will be provided best care and if required specialists from private hospitals will also be called in, said the minister.
26 In 2014, 26 patients had gone blind after cataract operations in a government hospital in Nellore. The inquiry committee had then found that the saline bottles were contaminated.
Similar cases are seen at eye-camps. Ophthalmologists have to ensure the equipment are properly handled.
The Telangana Ophthalmology Society said that there were strict protocols for sterilisation and the drill has to be very strictly followed by hospitals.
The internal committee set up by deputy superintendent of the hospital Dr Rajender Gupta, found that the saline bottles were contaminated with Klebsiella bacteria.
Twenty-one patients were operated on in Operation Theatre No. 2 of the hospital, but saline bottles used for 13 patients led to the infection.
Ophthalmologists state that infections occur when instruments are not sterilised properly. One saline bottle is used for two to three patients in government hospitals.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Hungary's Foreign and Trade Minister Peter Szijjarto deliberated on bilateral ties and agreed that there was scope to widen cooperation in areas of trade, information technology and education. (Photo: Twitter)
New Delhi: India thanked Hungary for supporting its bid to get membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and helping it get entry at the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) even as the two countries held talks on stepping up engagement in diverse sectors.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Hungary's Foreign and Trade Minister Peter Szijjarto deliberated on bilateral ties and agreed that there was scope to widen cooperation in areas of trade, information technology and education.
Official sources said Swaraj thanked Hungary for its support to India's membership of MTCR and NSG.
The two ministers also discussed the prospects of free trade agreement between India and European Union in the wake of Britain's decision to exit the EU.
The talks for the FTA have been held up since May 2013 as both the sides are yet to bridge substantial gaps on crucial issues.
The two ministers also discussed multilateral issues including reform of the UNSC and the election of the new Secretary General of the UN. Hungary supports India as a permanent member in a reformed UNSC.
Swaraj and Szijjarto also exchanged views on the recent spate of terror attacks and the need for adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT).
India has been pushing for adoption of the CCIT by the UN to effectively combat terrorism.
On the economic side, both sides expressed satisfaction at the increasing trade which had touched USD 600 million, annually.
Szijjarto talked about Indian investment in Hungary which had reached USD 2 billion that helped providing employment to more than 10,000 people.
Currently around 15 companies from India including Apollo Tyres, TCS, WIPRO, Mahindra Satyam, SMR Group and Sun Pharma were active in Hungary.
In the meeting, Szijjarto said Hungary's automotive and construction companies were keen to enter the Indian market. He said his country was eager to participate in Clean India Mission.
Szijjarto also mentioned the 60th Anniversary of Celebrations of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and said that Hungary planned to recognise the positive role played by India at that time.
Ahmedabad: The Gujarat Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Tuesday arrested former Gujarat IPS officer DG Vanzara's son Arjun Vanzara for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs. 75, 000.
According to reports, Arjun Vanzara is an official in the land records office and had demanded a bribe from a farmer for making an entry in his land records.
The farmer lodged a complaint with the ACB against the official, which led the ACB team to catch him red-handed.
Arjun is the son of prime accused in the Ishrat Jahan and Sohrabuddin encounter cases former DIG DG Vanzara.
DG Vanzara returned to Ahmedabad after nine years in April after a court modified his bail conditions, which had banned him from entering Gujarat.
The plots of land that Bhardwaj showed the victims would have billboards of his fake companies, most of which began with the name Arun Dev. (Photo: Representational Image)
New Delhi: Director of several fake real estate companies was arrested last week for duping over 455 home buyers in Delhi and NCR over many years of more than Rs 200 crore, the police said on Tuesday.
The developer, Manoj Bhardwaj, had invested funds he had procured from the buyers in building 35 temples in the city. Every month, he gets around Rs 3.5 lakh in donations from these temples and that money is tax free.
The accuseds plan appears to be inspired by Bollywood film Khosla Ka Ghosla as he would take prospective buyers to see plots of land that did not belong to him, said Ishwar Singh, DCP (South). He used to erect advertisement boards at the site and make potential buyers believe that the land belonged to him.
Investigators revealed that Bhardwaj did not even own a single plot of land, but had cheated people of over Rs 200 crore. The police has received a total of 455 complaints against the accused and believes that many others are yet to seek legal remedy against the cheat.
The plots of land that Bhardwaj showed the victims would have billboards of his fake companies, most of which began with the name Arun Dev.
Initially, Bhardwaj started a company in the name of Arun Dev Builders Pvt. Ltd. Later, he started many other sister companies in the names of his relatives, said the DCP on Tuesday.
The economic offences wings of the police forces in Delhi, Gurgaon and Faridabad had been receiving complaints from his victims for a long time. Many complaints were also being received in South Delhis Neb Sarai police station as the address mentioned in the money receipts given to the victims fell in the area.
A team was subsequently constituted by the South district police to nab the accused. A tip-off that he would visit Devli village in South Delhi led to his arrest last week.
Bhardwajs modus operandi was simple. He would lure prospective plot buyers through advertisements in newspapers. When a buyer approached him, he would show them plots of land claiming that new colonies would come up there.
To come across as convincing, Bhardwaj would have at least half-a-dozen men flank him during trips to these plots. The job of convincing the buyers would then be left to these men. While accepting money from his victims, Bhardwaj would also give them the sale agreement.
(This story originally appeared in the Asian Age)
Chennai: Two medicos of a private medical college who were arrested for flinging a dog off a terrace in Kundrathur were enlarged on bail by a judicial magistrate court in Sriperumpudur, in neighbouring Kancheepuram district, on Wednesday.
A Kundrathur police team led by Inspector Frank picked up the duo on Tuesday night in a southern part of the state. The two were brought to the city and were produced before a court in Sriperumpudur on Wednesday morning. The judicial magistrate who heard the case enlarged them on bail on personal surety bond of Rs 10,000.
The medicos were identified as Gowtham Sudarshan and Ashish Paul, both pursuing final year M.B.B.S in a college in Kundrathur. Their act of dropping the dog from a height caught the attention of the lovers of pets and animals who were outraged by this cynical acto of cruelty. Kundrathur police who had registered the case against the duo summoned them through their parents, but the summons was ignored. The duo was then booked under section 428 and 429 of Indian Penal Code (IPC). The two medicos vanished after the video featuring a man clad in a white shirt, believed to be Gautam Sudarshan, holding the pup by its neck and back. Ashish Paul purportedly captured the dog's fall on his video camera in slow motion. The incident purportedly took place in a residential compound in which Ashish was staying, where Gowtham used to visit him.
Chennai/Tirupur: The Tamil Nadu police took family members of a suspected member of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen of Bangladesh and ISIS sympathiser operating from West Bengal and arrested in Kolkata on Tuesday, into custody for questioning in Tirupur on Wednesday.
Police said his wife, two kids and brother were staying in Tirupur. Police identified the arrested as Mosiruddin alias Mosi alias Majnu, a resident of Labhpur in West Bengal's Birbhum district.
After initial rounds of enquiries, the police here said his wife and brother, running a grocery shop, have nothing to do with the terror outfit. However, police had seized SIM cards and voter ID cards from the family, which was staying at Tirupur for the last six years. We are still questioning them, police said on Wednesday.
Mosi was arrested from Viswabharati fast passenger train at Burdwan station on Tuesday. While Tamil Nadu police said he was a member of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), West Bengal police indicated that the suspect had links also with ISIS. When interrogated by West Bengal police and NIA sleuths, Mosi had admitted to his connection to Amjad Sheikh, an alleged key member of JMB arrested in 2014. NIA sleuths had been keeping an eye on Mosi for quite some time.
He was residing in Tripur district for quite some time now. He was not active in Tamil Nadu about his ideology but used the rented premise as a place to hide himself. He stayed in Tirupur with his wife and two children and brother. He used to regularly travel to Kolkata and sleuths nabbed him on Tuesday as soon as he landed there, police sources said.
Sleuths were going through Mosiruddin's mobile phone call list, his e-mails and documents seized from him to confirm his involvement with ISIS and JMB. Burdwan district entered the terror map in October, 2014 when two suspected JMB terrorists were killed while making improvised explosive devices (IEDs) at a rented house in Khagragarh locality of Burdwan.
The boy was alone at home on Madath street when he set himself on fire after dousing himself with kerosene when parents had gone out to attend a wedding. (Representational image)
Chennai: A class VIII student of a private school, threatened with the serving of a transfer certificate on him by his teacher because of his alleged 'unacceptable' behaviour in school and his irregular attendance, attempted to commit suicide by setting himself on fire on Tuesday evening at home in Tiruporur, Kancheepuram district near Chennai.
Dilli Babu (13), son of Jayaraman who is an employee of a private firm, suffered 42 per cent burn injuries and is undergoing treatment in Kilpauk Medical College, said Kancheepuram police. The boy was alone at home on Madath street when he set himself on fire after dousing himself with kerosene when parents had gone out to attend a wedding.
Neighbours noticed smoke coming out the house and they rushed on hearing the boy shouting to break open the door. He was running here and there with flames on his body. By the time they doused the fire, his parents too arrived and took him to hospital, the police said.
After an initial inquiry, police said that because the boy was irregular to school, his teacher had asked him to bring his parents to school on Wednesday besides telling him that the school was ready to issue him a TC and asked him to look for another school. The boy on Tuesday evening had reportedly told his parents that he did not want to go to school anymore, which was just before they went to the wedding. Later he set himself on fire.
New Delhi: With the surprise shifting of Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha to Civil Aviation in the same rank, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will have two ministers to assist him.
Santosh Gangwar, who was MoS (Independent charge) in Ministry of Textiles, was shifted as MoS for Finance.
Arjun Ram Meghwal, who was among the 19 new Ministers of State to be sworn in on Tuesday morning, will also assist Mr Jaitley.
Mr Meghwal has also got Corporate affairs. Jaitley was earlier assisted only by Mr Sinha.
Lawyers' bodies are also not in favour of shifting of the court near the lake as currently it is centrally-located at the M G road and is near the Madhya Pradesh High Court. (Photo: Representational Image)
Indore: BJP and Congress have come together to save century-old Pipliyahana lake of the city near which construction of new building of the district court is going on.
BJP has formed a committee to save the lake. Local MLA Sudarshan Gupta, Indore Development Authority Chairman Shankar Lalwani and former mayor Krishnmurari Moghe are part of the committee, a party spokesperson said.
The committee in a meeting on Tuesday decided to demand stopping of construction work going on near the lake for the court building. It will also approach state government and authorities concerned to protect this heritage, the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, Congress has already demanded to stop the construction near the lake. Local party MLA Jitu Patwari said party members are daily protesting at the construction to get the work stopped.
He questioned, "When public representatives to common man all are against the construction near the lake then why it has not been stopped yet?"
Lawyers' bodies are also not in favour of shifting of the court near the lake as currently it is centrally-located at the M G road and is near the Madhya Pradesh High Court.
New Delhi: Several ministers including Smriti Irani, who was shunted out from HRD to Textiles ministry, on Wednesday took charge of their new ministries and promised to work for development, streamlining justice delivery system, early passage of GST bill and ensuring speedy implementation of projects.
Apart from Smriti, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Ananth Kumar took over as Law and Parliamentary Affairs ministers respectively.
Prakash Javedekar, the lone promotee who was given HRD ministry in the reshuffle of the Council of Ministers by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, is scheduled to take up his new position tomorrow. Talking to reporters in Delhi, he asserted that dialogue is the key to avoid agitations and that education is not a subject for party politics.
Read: Former HRD minister Smriti Irani wants to make India strong in textiles
"I am a product of student agitation, so we will always talk with everybody. So with dialogues in place, there will be no necessity of agitation," Javadekar said.
Putting up a brave face, Irani, whose shifting is being seen as demotion, played down her portfolio change with a popular line of a Hindi movie song, "Kuch toh log kahenge, logon ka kaam hai kehna."
WATCH: Kuchh toh log kahenge,logon ka kaam hai kehna: Smriti Irani to questions on being shifted out of Edu Ministryhttps://t.co/rwkKWy5Ucl ANI (@ANI_news) July 6, 2016
"I am happy that I have been given an opportunity especially when a special package (of Rs 6,000 crore for the apparel segment) has been announced for the sector. This signifies that my party and especially the Prime Minister has faith that I have the capacity to implement the roadmap that was projected through the Cabinet for the rest of the country," Irani said.
Taking up his new assignment, Prasad emphasised that he will strive to find a "common ground" between the government and the judiciary on the issue of appointment of judges to the Supreme Court and high courts.
The remarks assume significance in the backdrop of government making efforts to iron out differences with the Supreme Court collegium on the memorandum of procedure (MoP) -- a document which guides the appointment of judges to the higher judiciary.
"We will be consulting, we will be meeting in an effort to find a common ground on the issue of judicial appointments... There is need to work in harmony...We respect the independence of the judiciary," he told reporters here.
Dave was inducted as a Minister of State and given the independent charge of Environment Ministry.
New Delhi: Development and environment go together and are "not against" each other, newly appointed Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave said on Wednesday as he took over from Prakash Javadekar during whose tenure activists had raised apprehensions about dilution of green norms.
Speaking in the presence of Javadekar, who now has the Human Resource Development portfolio, Dave said all projects undertaken by his predecessor will continue although he would take a week's time to understand the functioning of the department.
On how he would maintain a balance between environment and development, he said, "Development and environment go together. They are not against each other. We need to look at the issue in this manner."
With the Environment and Water Resources Ministries at loggerheads over the construction of hydel projects in the upper reaches of Ganga, Dave, who has been actively involved in Narmada conservation said, "Every river should flow".
On the odd-even scheme of Delhi government to curb air pollution, Dave, who took charge of the Ministry on his birthday on Wednesday, said, "Although there is a need to learn from experiments, politics and experiments should be kept separate."
"First, I will try to understand the department and its priorities and challenges. It will take me one week's time. After that we will decide with regard to environment, forest and climate change, in what direction should we move forward.
"Prakash Javadekar has done a great job and most of his projects will continue. Allegations and praise will always be there. In the last two and half years, the government has done a splendid job and I will try to move in that direction," he said.
Asked if he had any special plans for cleaning and rejuvenation of rivers since he has worked on Narmada, Dave said while earlier he was doing the work as a hobby, now he would try to do the same work under the framework of the Constitution.
In a major expansion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet on Tuesday, Dave was inducted as a Minister of State and given the independent charge of Environment Ministry.
Javadekar, during his two years in the Environment Ministry, had approved over 2,000 projects involving an investment of Rs 10 lakh crore that were pending for years.
With the Environment Ministry being criticised by green activists, Dave said that praise and criticism "will continue as they have been there for thousands of years".
"One should always (move ahead) with the right intention, right action and in the right direction. This should be kept (in mind) without thinking of criticism."
Asked about the tussle with the Water Resources Ministry and its Minister's letter, Dave said he would only be able to comment once he understands the issue.
On the odd-even scheme, he said, "There is no harm in experimenting. It should be in done correctly in the right direction. We have to learn from experimenting. All experiments are welcome. Experiment and politics should be kept separate," when asked about the odd-even scheme.
On his plans following Congress' threat to launch an agitation after reports that the Environment Ministry was diluting forest rights of tribals, he said such policies are
part of a continuous process undertaken by successive governments.
"Whether it is a Congress or UPA government or NDA or BJP government, it is a continuous process. One should not see it in a compartment. If some commitment is done by ex-minister or government, the government of India is bound by it. It is a continuous process and in this process, one should think of going in the right direction," he said.
Dave, who was one of the MPs to cycle to Parliament, said he did not do so to get praise or a photograph in a newspaper.
"I have done it by choice. When I was a nobody, I was using it and in future also I will do it," he said.
Earlier, in an event organised by the Environment Ministry to welcome him and bid farewell to Javadekar, Dave described himself as a "soft and accessible person" and said starting from a guard to a secretary, anybody can contact him.
On the changes in the government, Dave said it is a regular process.
"If someone sees it as promotion or demotion, it is not right. This is no promotion or demotion. If somebody cooks food at home, it is small work and somebody goes to office, it is big work? It is not like that. House is run by all. All work is equally important. Prakash Javadekar is going to a major department and he has big challenges," he said.
Naik, in his lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly "urged all Muslims to be terrorists". (Photo: File)
New Delhi: The government on Wednesday indicated taking action against a controversial Indian Islamic preacher, who was followed by one of the five Bangladeshi militants, who killed 22 people at a restaurant in Dhaka.
"Zakir Naik's speech is a matter of concern for us. Our agencies are working on this. But as a minister, I will not comment what action will be taken," Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju told reporters in Delhi.
Rijiju said India has good relations and mutual understanding with Bangladesh, especially in the matter of co-operation on fighting terrorism.
"Terror can be defeated only through close coordination and by fighting together (against it)," he said.
Read: Preacher Zakir Naik, followed by Dhaka attackers, calls ISIS 'un-Islamic'
Bangladeshi newspaper 'Daily Star' had reported that militant Rohan Imtiaz, son of an Awami League leader, ran a propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Naik.
Naik, in his lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly "urged all Muslims to be terrorists".
Naik, a popular but controversial Islamic orator and founder of Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation, is banned in the UK and Canada for his hate speech aimed against other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia.
He is hugely popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, although his preachings often demean other religions and even other Muslim sects, the report said.
Another Dhaka attacker Nibras Islam used to follow two alleged recruiters of Islamic State Anjem Choudary and Shami Witness -- on Twitter in 2014.
Shami Witness is the Twitter account of 24-year-old Mehdi Biswas, who is facing trial in India for running propaganda for terror group Islamic State (ISIS). He was arrested in December 2014 following an investigation into his Twitter account, which was last active in August 2014.
Biswas was charged with operating the "single most influential pro-ISIS Twitter account".
Choudary, a Pakistan-origin British citizen, is now facing a trial in England for breaking the British anti-terrorism law. His Twitter account turned inactive since August 2015 after terror charges were brought against him.
Ganga Cleaning Minister Uma Bharti said the government will also launch an application to monitor level of pollution in the river. (Photo: PTI)
New Delhi: The Modi Government will commence execution of its ambitious 'Namami Gange' programme on Thursday with the launch of 300 projects including those of STP installations aiming to clean the holy river and ensuring its unfettered flow.
The projects on entry-level activities such as ghat and crematoria construction/repair, river front beautification, installation and repair of sewage treatment plants (STPs) and others work will be launched simultaneously from over 104 locations initially in all five basin states of Ganga.
Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari, Uma Bharti, Narendra Tomar and Mahesh Sharma will launch the works in Haridwar during an event, which will also be attended by Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat.
Read: Ganga will become one of the cleanest river by 2018: Uma Bharti
"It is a historic moment... for the first time the river is being cleaned with wholesomeness. We will show phase I of Ganga cleaning in October 2016, while the second phase will be completed two years later," Bharti told reporters in Delhi.
She said on Thursday the government will also launch an application to monitor level of pollution in the river. Gadkari and newly-appointed Ministers of State for Water Resources, Vijay Goel and Sanjeev Balyan, were also present during the briefing.
Transport Minister Gadkari said it is "satisfactory" that the government is going to begin the work on Thursday. He asserted the projects are being launched after conducting detailed scientific study and will involve use of "best of the world" technologies to ensure river pollution is averted.
Referring to 'Moksha Dham' works, which relate to construction/repair of crematoria located along the river, Gadkari said the projects will be implemented without hurting public sentiments attached to the holy river even as air and water pollution is kept under check.
He also rejected claims that the programme works are taking off late, saying he was "rather surprised" the projects are being launched "within such a short span" notwithstanding complexity involved in it.
Meanwhile, on asked about Balyan and Goel joining the Water Resources Ministry following expansion of Union Ministerial Council on Tuesday, Bharti said she was "waiting for the appointments to happen for many days".
She hoped their joining the ministry will "increase pace of work" in the Ministry which handles crucial subjects of river-linking and Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sichayee Yojana (PMKYS) besides the Namami Gange programme and "alleviate the burden".
Fire-brigade try to douse the fire at the Taj Hotel after completion of combing operation during the 26/11 terror strike in Mumbai. (Photo: PTI)
Bengaluru: Concerned at the negligible intelligence apparatus in the city police, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Home Minister G. Parameshwar are reportedly mulling on re-installing the Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) in the police commissionerate as a much-needed capacity building exercise to map the extremist and anti-national elements in the city; gather credible intelligence to prevent terror attacks and communal riots, liaise with the Internal Security Division (ISD) of the state police, the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB) and other intelligence and enforcement agencies for actionable intelligence.
The ISD was created after the 26/11 Mumbai carnage as an umbrella counter-terrorism outfit for the state, including Bengaluru.
According to sources, Mr Parameshwara was miffed at the lack of intelligence and counter-terrorist mechanisms in the city after a senior police officer admitted to him that the counter-terrorism infrastructure with the city police was negligible.
Though there is periodic sharing of intelligence among various agencies, the city police needs to have its own ATS with arrest powers. The key posts, of joint commissioner and deputy commissioner of police (intelligence) have also been lying vacant for quite some time now, said an official source.
The city and state police were reportedly caught unawares earlier this year after the Delhi police (special wing) on January 6 arrested Maulana Anzar Shah Qasmi from Ilyasnagar in the city with the logistic help from the local police for alleged links with Al Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and the subsequent arrests made by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), of the 2014 Church Street blast accused Alemzeb Afridi alias Mohammed Rafiq alias Jaweed, who was residing in the city and had alleged links with the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and Mohammed Afzal, who was also arrested by the NIA from the city for alleged links with the banned Islamic State of Iraq & Syria (ISIS).
The U.S. was the first country to respond to Vietnam's plea for international support.
U.S. Ambassador Ted Osius announced on July 5 that the U.S. Government has provided an additional $500,000 to help locals affected by the worst drought and saltwater intrusion in Vietnam for nearly a century, the government portal reported yesterday.
This additional aid will support vital programs to ensure that tens of thousands of people in need can harvest rainwater and have access to safe drinking water, said Ambassador Osius.
The U.S. has already donated $350,000 in support.
It further demonstrates Americas steadfast commitment to helping Vietnamese people recover from the repercussions of this devastating drought and other impacts of climate change.
It is estimated that climate change has cost Vietnam about $287 million so far this year. Twenty-two of Vietnams 63 provinces have been hit by the recent drought and subsequent intrusion of saltwater. More than 1.5 million people are without clean water, and more than 400,000 hectares of crops have been ruined.
With this new funding, the U.S. Agency for International Development is working with the Vietnam Red Cross to provide water containers, saltwater filtration systems and water purification tablets, as well as sanitation and hygiene practices to prevent the spread of disease in affected areas.
The U.S. announced the initial disaster relief grant, the first assistance from an international partner, to help Vietnam respond to the drought and saltwater intrusion in April. Since then, the country has provided Vietnam with $850,000 to counter effects of climate change.
Its estimated that since 2000, the U.S, has provided approximately $12 million to Vietnam through assistance programs.
Related news:
> Vietnam calls for $48.5 million to respond to worst drought in 100 years
> Japan offers $2.5 mln in emergency aid to help Vietnam combat drought
> Historic drought costs Vietnam $670 million
The Akhilesh government has been on the defensive on the Mathura and then the Kairana migration issue but the video clip showing the RSS leader in Jawahar Bagh has given the much needed respite to the ruling party. (Photo: PTI)
Lucknow: The Akhilesh government is waiting with bated breath to nab RSS leader Rajvir Singh who apparently trained the inmates in Jawahar Bagh in Mathura.
A senior minister said that Rajvirs arrest will blow the lid off the RSS involvement in the so-called cult that had developed in Jawahar Bagh, leading to violent clashes with the police last month.
The BJP has been smashing allegations on us, accusing our leaders of patronising the cult. The truth, however, is that the RSS was actively involved in nurturing the cult. The police has got videos of the RSS leader in Jawahar Bagh and we are waiting for him to be arrested before we mount an offensive on the BJP, the minister said.
The Akhilesh government has been on the defensive on the Mathura and then the Kairana migration issue but the video clip showing the RSS leader in Jawahar Bagh has given the much needed respite to the ruling party.
The Mathura police has got a video in which the RSS leader is shown teaching yoga asanas and also how to wield lathis to the cult members.
Rajvir Singh, who belongs to Agra, was known as Guruji by the cult members and he regularly took classes which were compulsory for all, Viresh, the security officer of slain cult leader Ram Vraksh told the police after his arrest two days ago.
SSP Mathura Babloo Kumar said on Tuesday that though the video was about six months old, it firmly confirms that presence of the RSS leader in the makeshift township in Jawahar Bagh. He said that the police has intensified their search for the missing leader and hope to arrest him soon.
(This story originally appeared in the Asian Age)
Narendra Modi will be the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Mozambique in 34 years. (Photo: PTI)
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on a four-nation tour to Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya on Wednesday in a visit, which is aimed at shoring up economic ties, firm up maritime security and counter-balance China's growing influence in the resource-rich continent.
On the first leg of his visit, the Prime Minister will reach Maputo, the capital Mozambique on Thursday morning. He will be the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Mozambique in 34 years. Modi is scheduled to meet Mozambique president Filipe Nyusi, and will also visit the parliament.
In the later part of the day, he will interact with local students who studied in India and before leaving Maputo, the Prime Minister will attend a reception organized by Indian Diaspora.
Indian High Commissioner to Mozambique Rudra Gaurav Shresth told the media that the successful India Africa Forum summit, which was hosted by India in October, was the event which signalled Africa is really important for Indian foreign policy. and the present visits are continuation of the interest that New Delhi expressed during the summit.
Shresth also mentioned that, the signing of Memorandum of Undertakings (MOU's) on Government to Government Purchase of Pulses and on Civil Aviation Co-operation will be taking place during the official meeting.
He further stated that the MoU on purchase of pulses will help Mozambique boost its agriculture production and India will be able to meet shortage of pulses in the country.
Apart from the agriculture and food, deepening cooperation in areas of hydrocarbons, maritime security, trade and investment will also be major focus areas of the Prime Minister visit.
Mozambique is the third-largest exporter of natural gas, after Qatar and Australia, and a number of Indian companies, including ONGC, have invested heavily in the hydrocarbons sector in this country. One fourth of Indian Investment in East Africa is in Mozambique.
The Trade with Mozambique has gone up 5 fold in last 5 years and presently stands around 2 billion dollars per year, and India till now has extended around 640 million dollars as line of credit (LOC) to this country alone out of its total LOC of 2 Billion dollars to Africa.
Culturally also India shares historic relationship with Mozambique, as the Portuguese, the colonial masters of Mozambique ruled it for more than 200 years from Goa.
Nayek, a popular but controversial Islamic orator and founder of Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation, is banned in UK and Canada. (Photo: Facebook)
Mumbai: Indian Islamic preacher Dr Zakir Naik who courted controversy after reports emerged that two of the Dhaka attackers were inspired by him, has spoken out and called Islamic State un-Islamic.
According to a report in The Indian Express, the fifty-year-old scholar said the very term Islamic State was un-Islamic and called the terror group enemies of the Muslim faith.
By using the name Islamic State, we are condemning Islam They are the anti-Islamic state of Iraq and Syria that has killed innocent foreigners. The name is given by enemies of Islam, he said.
Read: Dhaka attackers followed Indian Islamic preacher Zakir Naik
Nayek, a popular but controversial Islamic orator and founder of Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation, is banned in UK and Canada for his hate speech aimed against other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia.
Two of the five Bangladeshi militants who hacked to death 20 people at a restaurant in Dhakas diplomatic zone used to follow Nayak.
Militant Rohan Imtiaz, son of an Awami League leader, propagated on Facebook last year quoting Peace TVs controversial preacher Nayek urging all Muslims to be terrorists, the Daily Star had reported.
Naik said he was not shocked to know that two of the attackers knew him but asserted that it does not mean that he approves of their ideology. According to him, he has over 14 million followers on Facebook and millions of viewers who watch his speeches on Peace TV, which is telecasted in multiple languages, including Urdu, Bengali and Chinese.
The largest percentage of my Facebook followers are from Bangladesh. Ninety per cent of Bangladeshis would know me, including senior politicians, philanthropists, common men, students and more. Fifty per cent would be my fans. Am I shocked that the attackers knew me? No.
Naik argues that such militants would also be ardent followers of Prophet Muhammad but that cannot mean that Islam preaches violence.
Such a person would be a hardcore fan of Prophet Muhammad. Does that mean Prophet Muhammad told him to kill people? Naik asked.
She has not been 'removed', but has been strategically replaced keeping UP polls in mind, said Kanhaiya Kumar. (Photo: PTI)
New Delhi : Asserting that the recent Cabinet shuffling was done keeping the upcoming Uttar Pradesh polls in mind and not to fix the errors of the Centre, JNU Student Union President Kanhaiya Kumar on Wednesday called on the newly appointed Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar not to follow in the steps of his predecessor- Smriti Irani.
Continuing his long-drawn attack on Irani, who was appointed as the new Union Textile Minister, Kanhaiya stated that simply shifting her to another Ministry, does not absolve her from her crimes.
"Our simple question is this: How can you ensure justice by simply transferring one minister to another ministry? By making her the textile minister, her role as the education minister, especially in the Rohith Vemula case, does not lessen her crime. Those who suffered because of her influence be it in the FTII case, Hyderabad University or JNU, have not received justice yet," he said.
However, the JNUSU President admitted that this development was seen as an improvement in the system but added that it was worrying that Javadekar had said he will consult Irani and continue her works.
"What work is he exactly talking about that he is going to continue? Are you talking about more suicides by Dalit students? Or appointing unqualified people to high posts in universities? Or attack students? He has not clarified in this regard," Kanhaiya said.
Emphasizing that he has no animosity with the government but only with the system, he added that Irani's transfer was simply a move to pacify the student body of the nation who were still furious with her and to shift focus from the Rohith Vemula case.
"She has not been 'removed', but has been strategically replaced keeping UP polls in mind. Since the Dalit community and the student body are still enraged with her, she has been shifted to the Textile Ministry. Changing ministries doesn't change the situation," he said.
Posing questions for Javadekar, who will assume his role as the HRD Minister tomorrow, Kanhaiya asked if he will resolve the issues that Irani failed to solve, which included the removal of FTII Chairman Gajendra Chauhan and the increase in the budget of the New Education Policy.
Earlier on Wednesday, shaking off suggestions that she had been demoted in the union council of ministers, Smriti Irani said she is looking forward to her ministerial stint in the textile ministry and is determined to strengthen India 's presence in this sector.
"Extended best wishes to @PrakashJavdekar ji who assured that he will build upon the initiatives undertaken by @HRDMinistry in last 2 years," she said in a series of tweets.
Meanwhile, asserting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a vision for education, Javadekar said he will consult with everybody as this was everybody's subject.
"It touches everybody's hearts. I will discuss with Smriti ji also, who has taken very good initiatives in two-year tenure. We will have a roadmap clearly," he told the media in Delhi.
In Tuesday's cabinet reshuffle, the third since Narendra Modi assumed office on May 26, 2014, 19 new cabinet ministers were sworn in. Javadekar was elevated to cabinet rank and given the HRD Ministry, while Irani was moved out to textiles as it was reportedly perceived that her HRD stint was laced with controversies.
The RSS is said to have had a role in the removal of the HRD Minister from her post. (Photo: PTI)
New Delhi: On Tuesday, Smriti Irani was relieved of her charge as HRD Minister and moved to the relatively low profile textiles ministry. In her place, Prakash Javadekar took charge of the HRD ministry.
This is being seen as a major snub to Irani, who was appointed to the post of HRD Minister despite reservations of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 2014. Irani, who is said to be close to Modi, enjoyed the Prime Ministers confidence in 2014.
But the controversies that followed seem to have eroded Modis faith in Irani.
Read: #ByeByeSmriti trends: Twitter trolls Irani after Modi drops her from HRD ministry
From the Jawaharlal Nehru University fiasco and the mishandling of the University of Hyderabad issue, Rohith Vemulas death to Iranis fierce exchanges with the Opposition in Parliament, the ministers tenor does not seem to have found favour with the RSS.
The RSS is said to have had a role in the removal of the HRD Minister from her post. Before the Cabinet portfolios were allocated on Tuesday, Modi had repeated meetings with Amit Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. BJP President Shah had reportedly reached out to the RSS for their inputs.
As for Javadekar, the now-former Environment Minister has created a positive impression on both Modi and RSS. He is credited with making industry-friendly moves, carrying out the Swachh Bharat campaign in a mission mode and pursuing environment diplomacy on climate change at the international level.
Javadekar is also credited with bringing in the National and state Compensatory Afforestation Fund, and paving the way to unlocking nearly Rs 41,000 crore earmarked for forest land.
On the other hand, Irani was seen as hard to deal with not just by the Opposition, but even by RSS and affiliated groups both during formal and informal discussions.
On Tuesday, 19 new ministers were inducted into the Narendra Modi cabinet, and some major portfolios were reallocated.
Narendra Modi will be the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Mozambique in 34 years. (Photo: PTI)
New Delhi: Ahead of his departure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said his four-nation tour of African countries is aimed at enhancing ties with that continent, particularly in the economic sphere and people-to-people contacts.
Modi will begin his five-day tour with Mozambique and then travel to South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.
Focus of the visit will be on deepening cooperation in areas of hydrocarbons, maritime security, trade and investment, agriculture and food.
"My Africa tour, aimed at enhancing ties between India & Africa will begin from Mozambique in a brief but key visit," he tweeted.
"My programmes in South Africa will span across Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban & Pietermaritzburg," he added.
"In Tanzania I will hold talks with President Dr. John Magufuli, meet Solar Mamas & interact with Indian community," Modi added.
With regard to his visit to Kenya in the last leg of his visit, he tweeted, "Talks with President @UKenyatta, deliberations on economic & people-to-people ties will be focus of my Kenya visit."
Giving details in Facebook posts, the Prime Minister said the aim of his visit to Mozambique is to increase cooperation and boost cultural linkages.
"I will meet President Filipe Nyusi and hold extensive talks with him," he said.
Other programmes include a meeting with Veronica Macamo, the President of the National Assembly and a visit to the S&T Park, Maluana, where he will interact with students. He will also interact with the Indian community briefly.
Tomorrow evening, Modi will travel to Pretoria in South Africa, a country he described as an "important strategic partner, with whom our ties are historical and deep-rooted."
He said, "History is witness to how Mahatma Gandhis stay in South Africa impacted him and the history of the world. He went to South Africa as a lawyer seeking work and returned to India as a strong voice for humanitarian values, who would go on to shape the history of humankind," Modi said.
"I will have the honour to visit Phoenix Settlement and Pietermaritzburg Station, two places very closely associated with Mahatma Gandhis stay in South Africa.
"A visit to South Africa is incomplete without remembering the beloved Madiba (Nelson Mandela). I will also be honoured to visit the Constitutional Hill and Nelson Mandela Foundation where I would pay my tributes to an icon of human history, who made his country and the world a much better place," he said.
During his South Africa visit, he will meet President Jacob Zuma as also Cyril Ramaphosa, the Deputy President.
"In an effort to boost our economic ties, I will speak at the India-South Africa business meet," he said.
Other programmes of the Prime Minister in Durban include a meeting with the Alumni Network and a reception hosted by the Mayor.
"South Africa is home to a vibrant Indian community, that has made South Africa their home for years. I will interact with the Indian community a programme in Johannesburg on 8th July," the Prime Minister said and invited ideas and inputs for his speech through the Narendra Modi Mobile App.
On July 10, he will be in Tanzania for a "brief but crucial visit" to give an impetus to ties with Tanzania, a valued friend in Africa, Modi said.
"There will be extensive talks with President Dr. John Magufuli where we will chalk out the road ahead for bettering India-Tanzania relations in a wide range of areas," he said.
He said he will also be meeting Solar Mamas, a group of rural women solar engineers from Africa who have been trained under GOI-supported programmes to fabricate, install, use, repair and maintain solar lanterns and household solar lighting systems in their villages.
He will interact with the Indian community as well.
Modi will then visit Kenya on the evening of July 10.
"India-Kenya ties have stood the test of time. Both our nations have had very strong people-to-people ties and both nations have successfully fought colonialism in the previous century," the Prime Minister said.
"My deliberations with President Uhuru Kenyatta will revolve around how India and Kenya can grow their bilateral cooperation. I envision better trade, commercial and cultural exchanges between India and Kenya. The potential is immense and together we seek to harness it," he said.
In Nairobi, Modi will offer floral tributes to Mahatma Gandhi, who is widely revered in Kenya. He will also pay tributes to Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya and a towering political figure of Africa.
"The meeting of the India-Kenya business forum will be an important forum to elaborate more on the economic aspect of our relationship with Kenya," he said.
"A programme that I am keenly looking forward to join is an interaction with students at the Nairobi University," he said.
"In order to deepen ties with the diaspora, I will address a community programme on 10th July. There is also a meeting with Bharatwallah Alumni Association during the visit.
Another programme is the handing over of ambulances and a model of Bhabhatron," he said.
New Delhi: Newly appointed Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, who has replaced Smriti Irani after her controversial two-year tenure, on Wednesday said education is not a subject for "party politics" and he was open to suggestions from everyone.
Asserting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a vision to improve the quality of education and make it more meaningful, Javadekar said education should be seen as an "emancipator" and "agent of change" and he would come out with a roadmap after consultations with the Prime Minister and others including Irani.
"I will build upon the several good initiatives taken up by Smriti Irani," he said.
"I accept this (new) responsibility humbly and I will talk to our earlier minister Murli Manohar Joshi," he said.
Joshi, a former BJP president who is now part of Margdarshak Mandal, has been critical of the Modi government.
Pranab Mukherjee greets Prakash Javadekar, who was elevated from Junior Environment Minister to full Cabinet rank, after administering the oath of office to him at the Presidential Palace. (Photo: PTI)
Javadekar, who was in charge of Environment and Forest Ministry and was the lone minister to be promoted to the Cabinet rank while 19 new inductees took oath as Ministers of State yesterday, said under Prime Minister Modi there is a lot of focus on education.
"I will take charge tomorrow and after getting a brief from the Prime Minister, we will decide the road map ahead."
Irani's stint as Human Resources Development (HRD) Ministry was marked by controversies with the minister drawing flak over dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide in Hyderabad, JNU row and allegations of saffronisation of education.
Javadekar said education "is not a subject for party poltics" but it is an important issue and "we will have discussion on it with everyone."
Calling himself a product of student politics during the JP movement, the Minister said education was an "emancipator and agent of change" and it will play a big role in bringing changes in the India in the 21st century.
"Education gives meaning to life, it gives values to life. Therefore, to make education meaningful is the real challenge. Poor parents do a lot of hard work to educate their wards. So, to provide quality education is our aim and we will be able to do it," he told reporters here, adding he will formally take charge tomorrow.
The minister said the new education policy of India has to be "student-centric".
"I want to assure all the teachers across the country that we all will chalk out the road map of India's new eductation policy and education has to be student-centric."
"I value everyone's opinion and at the same time we will have a larger discussion on it. My doors will be open for any suggestion," he said.
Javadekar said his 92-year-old mother who stays with him was a primary school teacher herself and he "values" teachers' contribution to the society.
Javadekar said media too has a "huge role" in this area.
Irani has been appointed as the new Textiles Minister.
New Delhi: You have a few hours to celebrate, then get down to work. This was the message Prime Minister Narendra Modi had for the 19 new ministers who joined his government on Tuesday.
Soon after a meeting of the Union Cabinet, Prime Minister Modi interacted with the newly sworn-in ministers and asked them to work hard with honesty and dedication.
He said the ministers should dedicate themselves to the development of the country. PM Modi also said the projects initiated by the government should be visible at the grass-roots level and the last man in queue should get the benefit.
Read: Narendra Modi orders a big Cabinet, 17 new faces, 2 old hands sworn in
In the meeting that lasted a little over 30 minutes, the prime minister told the ministers that they were free to celebrate their entry into the Union Council of Ministers for a few hours. But after that they should get down to work. PM Modi holds a meeting of the Council of Ministers every month and the work done by various ministries is reviewed.
Read: New ministers will do their best for country: Amit Shah
Five ministers of state were dropped in the second exercise undertaken by Modi in a little more than two years since he took over in May, 2014 which saw a number of dalit and OBC leaders being given ministerial positions apparently with an eye on assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand next year and Gujarat later.
Read: No idea why I was dropped from Union ministry: Mansukhbhai Vasava
After the dropping of five ministers, Tuesdays expansion took the total strength of the Council of Ministers to 78, just keeping it under the constitutionally allowed maximum.
Though the employees have been representing their case to both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments, to absorb them, neither came forward to do so. (Representational image)
Hyderabad: Over a year after being relieved by the Telangana government, a majority of the 1,250-odd power sector employees are willing to go to Andhra Pradesh. They said there are vacancies in AP power sector and requirement of staff as new capital city Amaravati is being built.
The 1250-odd power sector employees were relieved by the Telangana government on the basis of nativity in June 2015. Though the employees have been representing their case to both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments, to absorb them, neither came forward to do so. The total salary component of the 1,250-odd relieved employees is about Rs 250 crores per annum.
Currently the Telangana state government is paying their salaries following directions from the Supreme Court (with effect from April) with the final judgement pending in the High Court. Prior to the SC order, both Telangana and AP were sharing the salary burden on a 50:50-basis.
Nearly 1,000 of the 1,250-odd relieved employees are willing to go to AP as there are vacancies and there is need for power sector staff in view of new capital city being built.
A large number of the 1,250-odd relieved employees are ready to shift to AP. There are vacancies too and there is requirement because new capital city Amaravati is being developed. We met Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and urged him to solve our problem. He responded positively, said Mr N. Giridhar, convener of the TS Power Utilities Relieved Employees Joint Action Committee.
The Relieved Employees JAC said two of the employees had died and half-a- dozen had retired. Our juniors have been given promotion and we have not been given even postings since being relieved by Telangana government on June 10, 2015. We are not being allowed to sign the attendance register in some of the offices of Telangana power utilities. We want the government to settle the issue and save us from this humiliation and harassment, Mr Giridhar said and added that if the option is given, a majority of them would opt for AP except those who are ill and whose spouses are working here.
A senior government doctor said on condition of anonymity that the authorities were hushing up the matter. (Representational image)
Hyderabad: Thirteen patients who underwent cataract operations in Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital recently developed severe infections. Five of them will lose their eyesight, say sources.
The operations were conducted on June 30 in the hospitals Operation Theatre No. 2. While there are 10 OTs, only the 13 who were operated in OP No. 2 developed the infection.
Doctors at the hospital say that the infection was due to fungus in the saline bottles that were used during the operations. In the government hospital, one bottle is used for two to three patients. Dr Rajender Gupta, in-charge deputy superintendent at the hospital, said, We have stopped all operations in the hospital. The saline bottles have been sent for testing. Five patients continue to be critical and the other eight have been discharged.
A relative of one of the patients who is critical, a postgraduate medical student, complained to the director of health and medical education Dr M. Ramani. A senior government doctor said on condition of anonymity that the authorities were hushing up the matter.
Patients kin files police complaint
A police complaint has been registered against doctors of the Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital by a relative of a patient who may lose his eyesight in the botched surgery case.
The complaint was filed by Mr Jitender Reddy, relative of Mr Anji Reddy who is in a critical condition, Mr Jitender Reddy, a resident of AS Rao Nagar here, said that the doctors were negligent and botched the surgery due to which Mr Anju Reddy could lose his eyesight.
Humayunnagar inspector Ravinder said the complaint was registered under Section 338 of IPC, due to the rash and negligent behaviour of doctors.
The central city has had enough of Chinese migrants masquerading as guides.
Chairman of Da Nangs People Committee Huynh Duc Tho has signed a decision to fine six illegal Chinese tour guides VND120 million.
After investigating a tourist agency in Son Tra District, police found six tour guides who had entered Vietnam and worked without permission from authorities.
Each individual has been fined VND20 million, with an additional VND1 million for two of them for failing to inform police about their temporary residence.
The six Chinese tour guides have 10 days to pay the fines. However, under the current law in Vietnam, they are entitled to complain or file an administrative lawsuit against the decision.
Previously, Da Nang's Tourism Department received information about illegal Chinese tour guides working in the city. Some of them even used yuan rather than Vietnamese dong to purchase goods while others have lied about Vietnams history and culture to visitors.
Da Nang authorities are cooperating to find a feasible solution for the problem.
Related news:
> Loopholes in management enable Chinese to distort Vietnam's history
> Illegal Chinese tour guides spread lies about Vietnamese history
> Illegal Chinese tour guides take advantage of Khanh Hoa tourism boom
Additional Commissioner of Police (South) K. Shankar welcomed the volunteerism in Besant Nagar and said he had often told the citizen groups and residents' associations during their interactions that they should install CCTV cameras to improve their security environment. (Representational image)
Chennai: Senior citizens in Besant Nagar are installing CCTV cameras on their own to improve the security environment in this densely populated middle and upper middle class beachside neighbourhood in south Chennai. 'Project CCTV' would be dedicated to the young techie Swathi who was hacked to death on the Nungambakkam train platform. Police could not immediately identity the killer, though the gruesome murder happened during crowded morning, because there were no CCTV cameras on the platform and they had to depend on the footage obtained from some neighbours' cameras.
The Senior Citizens Group of Besant Nagar' (SCGOBN), a voluntary organisation of socially conscious elders, held a meeting to mourn Swathi's death and decided to raise funds for setting up CCTV cameras in the beach in her memory. The stretch in front of the beach is a long one. It is not safe for visitors, particularly the elders, who go for strolls on the beach. We are hopeful of getting help from the corporates for this unique project, said the SCGOBN president Prof V. Chandrasekhar (phone: 9884224480).
Welcoming the elders' group initiative, Mrs Grace Gnanadas, 86, of Besant Nagar said, "Such volunteerism by citizens must be heartily encouraged. We should not be expecting the government to help us all the time and must take of ourselves whenever possible. CCTV cameras in lonely streets and crowded shopping areas will instill a sense of confidence. It is disturbing to see news reports on violent crimes almost every day".
This is a nice initiative. Local bodies and the government should fund at least 50 per cent of the costs as this project helps all. Government wastes a lot of money in many ways; why can't they install CCTV cameras in public places such as post offices, road crossings and flyovers to improve public security?" asked V Santhanam, a Chromepet senior citizen.
Additional Commissioner of Police (South) K. Shankar welcomed the volunteerism in Besant Nagar and said he had often told the citizen groups and residents' associations during their interactions that they should install CCTV cameras to improve their security environment. "This helps in detection of crime but more important, it helps in prevention of crime as well as the presence of these cameras could act as a deterrent for criminals and mischief-makers", he told DC.
Hyderabad: Not only farmers and land owners, even youths from families displaced on account of irrigation projects, will lose compensation as per the Telangana state Land Acquisition Policy (GO 123).
The previous Congress government had agreed to pay up to Rs 2.30 lakh per head as one-time settlement for youths above 18 years of age in displaced families on account of the Mid Manair and Yellampally projects in 2010. But the TS government scrapped this rule anticipating that it will invite similar demands for forthcoming projects and increase expenditure.
Around 6,000 youths beneficiaries were identified earlier for payment of compensation. As per the Resettlement and Rehabilitation notification issued by the Congress government in 2010 for the Mid Manair and Yellampally projects, those who hadnt attained the age of 18 years when notification was issued in August 10 and would attain 18 years of age as on January 1, 2015, were entitled for compensation of Rs 2 lakh.
The TS government announced last year that it would offer a higher compensation. SC/ST youth would be paid Rs 2.30 lakh and those from OCs, OBCs Rs 2 lakh.
The government conducted a survey and identified 4,231 beneficiaries under Mid Manair and 1,447 under the Yellampally project. It calculated the compensation at Rs 113.56 crore. It later decided to pay uniform compensation of Rs 2.30 lakh to all.
The government, however, reversed its decision and stopped payment of compensation anticipating that it would invite similar demands elsewhere.
The state government requires 3.94 lakh acres for Kaleshwaram, Palamuru-Ranga Reddy, Dindi irrigation projects among others, and is wary of the cost of paying special compensation to the affected youths in these areas, sources said.
The government is struggling to mobilise Rs 1.25 lakh crore for irrigation projects.
Mumbai: Smriti Irani had been controversys favourite child ever since she was inducted in Prime Ministers Narendra Modis cabinet as the Human Resources and Development Minister (HRD) in 2014. But very few expected the BJP-led government to drop her from the post on Tuesdays big cabinet reshuffle.
As soon as news came out that Prakash Javadekar would be replacing her as the HRD minister, twitter exploded with users trolling Irani over her exit. She soon became the top trending topic on the social media and #ByeByeSmriti continued to be the top trend on Wednesday too.
Here is how twitter reacted to the news:
Preview of Future of textile in country Since now we have @smritiirani at helms of Textile Ministry #ByeByeSmritipic.twitter.com/2L0i31mp5A Jayrajsinh Mori (@jayrajmori) July 6, 2016
The biggest reform in Education System of India since 2014.#ByeByeSmriti@smritiirani Er Azhar Quraishi (@iamazharq) July 6, 2016
#ByeByeSmriti
Aunty's new policy: Every female to wear saree ;) pic.twitter.com/IfBSC02HSA Sachin Chahal IYC (@Sachin_IYC) July 6, 2016
New TV serial starring Smriti Irani soon. pic.twitter.com/7L875b7Zlo Bhavneet Singh (@BhavneetUncut) July 5, 2016
Mam Now that You have to Officially 'Spin Yarns'.....Your Next Degree Will Come from University of 'Bale" ? #smritiirani Nisheeth Bhatt (@WarEagleNB) July 5, 2016
Pic1: Smriti Irani before cabinet reshuffle
Pic2: Smriti Irani after cabinet reshuffle#ModiCabinet
. pic.twitter.com/elOyLZusXN MumBaekar.. (@katamulgi) July 5, 2016
In Hindsight, Smriti Irani shouldn't have said 'Judge me by my Work'. Her boss just did Joy (@Joydas) July 5, 2016
While many just mocked the Minister who will now be heading the Textiles ministry, some speculated if the BJP has bigger plans for the leader for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh election.
#ByeByeSmriti Smriti Irani going fr gud, she will play bigger role in UP election, so enjoy guys, its momentary! Proud of u SMriti ji RAHUL SINGH (@rahulsingh0804) July 6, 2016
Mumbai: A day after the expansion and reshuffle of the Narendra Modi Cabinet, ally Shiv Sena on Wednesday took potshots at the BJP saying that it is difficult these days to find people of the same calibre as those who had served in the ministries of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.
Miffed at being ignored in the ministry expansion, Sena had on Tuesday said it was 'hurt' at the way the exercise was carried out and questioned the Prime Minister's "selection criterion".
"(Narendra) Modi is the lone face of this government. Compared to this, the ministries of Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru had some excellent members like Babasaheb Ambedkar, Babu Jagjivan Ram, Yashwantrao Chavan and Shankarrao Chavan," Sena said in an editorial in its mouthpiece 'Saamana'.
"The HRD ministry got its name only because of P V Narasimha Rao. The world got to know that India has a Finance Minister who works, only because of Manmohan Singh. People of the calibre in the cabinets of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi cannot be found today. In such a scenario, Modi has no option but to take complete responsibility of his Cabinet," it said.
Apparently drawing cold comfort from the fact that it was mostly the BJP members who had been inducted in the ministry, it said the exercise was about the leading partner alone and so NDA partners like Shiv Sena, Akali Dal and TDP should not feel bad for not being given additional berths.
"Today, the BJP has a majority and thus they can do what they wish," it added.
Sena, however, took a jibe at RPI(A) chief Ramdas Athawale, who has been made a Minister of State.
"Athawale had earlier said that he would not accept a Cabinet berth till his party got a place in the Maharashtra government. What has caused him to change that stance now?," it sought to know.
Mr Shah wants the party leaders to take Prime Minister Narendra Modis developmental initiatives to the people.
Hyderabad: BJP president Amit Shah has called a meeting of the Telangana BJP core committee in New Delhi on July 8. The meeting assumes significance in view of Mr Shahs focus on capturing power in 2019.
Mr Shah had addressed two meetings in the state in recent months and had asked party leaders and cadre to aim for a win in 2019.
Its more a review of the existing strength of the party, the membership drive, public response to the BJP government at the Centre, strategy to be adopted to win over people, feedback of people on BJP among others, a senior BJP leader told this newspaper.
Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya, Telangana BJP president Dr K. Laxman, legislature party leader G. Kishan Reddy, party MLAs, MLCs and senior leaders will attend the meeting.
The party set a target of about 20 lakh members. So far about 17 lakh members have been enrolled. Mr Shah wants the party leaders to take Prime Minister Narendra Modis developmental initiatives to the people, he added.
The BJP has been active on the irrigation projects displaced persons and bifurcation of the High Court after the TRS slammed the Centre, and on other issues.
As the holy month of Ramzan drew to a close, Saudi Arabia got the worst possible gifts from its arch-enemy, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) three attacks directed at targets having considerable historical and political significance. Besides the suicide attack near the US consulate in Jeddah, representing the movements hated global foe, the ISIS hit a Shia mosque in Qatif, the stronghold of the countrys minority sect, and, significantly, a bomb blast near the Prophets Mosque in Medina, recalling the 1803 attack on the Prophets grave in that city by Wahhabi zealots, who saw reverence
for the mausoleum as idolatry.
ISIS recent depredations are taking place two years after the proclamation of the Caliphate by its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, at the mosque in Mosul; they are also occurring in the holy last week of Ramzan when the Quran was revealed to Prophet Muhammad. For most Muslims, this is the period of fasting, prayer and self-denial. But ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani has urged his followers to make (Ramzan) a month of calamity everywhere for non-believers.
The response of ISIS warriors has been swift and merciless, with targets carefully chosen for their political value. On June 29, gun and bomb attacks killed nearly 45 people at Istanbuls Ataturk airport, condemning the Turkish governments recent pro-West policies and the stern crackdown on jihadi cells in the country. Later, on July 1, seven gunmen, identifying themselves as ISIS fighters, attacked an upmarket restaurant in Dhaka, affirming that ISIS, already present in Pakistan, now has credible bases from which India could be targeted.
The most lethal attack has been in Baghdad: on July 3, suicide bombers killed nearly 200 people in the busy shopping area of Karrada, the deadliest single attack in Iraq in nine years. Since the beginning of the year, Iraqi cities have experienced several attacks in which Shias have been the principal targets, thus aggravating the sectarian divide in this ravaged country.
Before these lethal assaults in the month of Ramzan, the past year saw some spectacular acts of violence across a wide geographical space. These included an attack on tourists in Tunis, the shooting down of a Russian civilian aircraft over the Sinai, attacks in Paris in November and the bomb attacks in Brussels in March. Experts have noted the calm and professional approach of the terrorists, their weapons skills, their battle discipline, and the considerable backup support available to them in different locales. Besides attacks organised by its own cadre, ISIS has also shown the capacity to inspire lone wolf attacks, like the shootings by the Malik couple in California in December and killings in Orlando at a gay nightclub in June.
These attacks took place after ISIS lost considerable territory, personnel and revenues. In Iraq, it has vacated a number of towns, the most important being Fallujah, that fell in June.
At its peak, ISIS controlled a third of Iraq and Syria; now it seems to have lost 45 per cent of its land in Iraq, while in Syria, after losing Palmyra, it is under siege by the opposition coalition at Manjib, at the Syria-Turkey border. The fall of this town will give Syrian Kurds a contiguous enclave along this border. Both opposition and government forces are also mobilising to capture the ISIS capital of Raqqa, but progress is slow due to sharp ISIS attacks through bombings and rocket fire.
ISIS revenues from oil sales have risen from $45 million a month to $16 million, so its main income is now from taxation and criminal activity, like ransom from kidnappings. Again, at its peak last year, ISIS had nearly 100,000 fighters; opposition sources believe 25,000 have been killed, while new recruitment has become difficult due to tough border controls on the Turkish side, a change from when it was the jihadi highway into Syria.
It is clear that, as ISIS loses control of its heartland, it is expanding into its neighbourhood and beyond, and is going back to its original character as a jihadi body by carrying out lethal and dramatic acts of violence in the territory and against targets of its choosing. In the face of sustained military attacks on its positions and assets in Iraq and Syria, it may seek to maintain a core doctrinal leadership in a remote hideout, as Al Qaeda did after the US attacks in Afghanistan after 9/11, and decentralise its operational presence into areas where state order has broken down or where central authority is weak and its writ doesnt run into large parts of the national territory. These spaces will become the bases to plan and carry out new attacks against vulnerable targets.
The main source of ISIS resilience is that it already has bases outside its heartland in the Levant, such as those in Yemen and Libya, and also enjoys the allegiance of many jihadi outfits in West and South Asia and Africa, which pay doctrinal obeisance to the ISIS leadership, while carrying out local operations on their own.
These include Boko Haram in Nigeria, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis in Sinai, Al-Shabaab in Somalia and splinter groups of the Afghan Taliban, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and, recently, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh.
Again, its mastery over the social media will ensure that its doctrinal messages continue to motivate lone wolf attacks, referred to by terrorism expert David Kilcullen as remote radicalisation. In recent messages intercepted in Amman, ISIS leaders were heard exhorting supporters not to come to Syria, but to fight their enemies at home. Thus, military setbacks in Syria and Iraq will do little to diminish the appeal of ISIS among disenfranchised and indoctrinated Muslim youth in Asia, Africa and Europe, nor will they reduce its capacity and enthusiasm to carry out its horrendous acts of violence and hate.
People help an unidentified injured person after a group of gunmen attacked a restaurant popular with foreigners in a diplomatic zone of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, Bangladesh. (Photo: AP)
The trend will spill over to other countries
A.K. Verma
There is no denying the fact that the recent terror incident in Dhaka clearly indicates that local- or home-grown terrorists will not hesitate from carrying out major terror strikes to grab the attention of the world. According to intelligence estimates, as many as three per cent of the youth from a particular community are getting radicalised by terror outfits like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which uses the Internet and social networking websites to great effect to influence the youth.
While the terror attack in Dhaka was carried out by a local group called the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), the members of the group were largely influenced by ISIS. If not controlled, this trend will continue not just in Bangladesh but spill over to other countries in the region as well. If this trend is to be checked, the governments of South Asian countries must take a major policy initiative to carry out de-radicalisation programmes for the youth who are extremely vulnerable to getting influenced by terrorist organisations like ISIS.
This work cannot be done only by the security and intelligence agencies; they can only help prevent or investigate such incidents. But if you look at the big picture then it is the governments in the region that need to take action at a policy level to ensure that ISIS or Al Qaeda are unable to make inroads into their respective country, specially by using the Internet.
It is suspected that the group of young men who carried out the dastardly attack at a cafe in Dhaka also came in contact with the ISIS through the Internet.
As far as India is concerned, our agencies are aware of this problem and are taking steps to control the menace. This was seen in the busting of an ISIS terror module in Hyderabad recently. However, I strongly feel that the role of such agencies is very limited in controlling radicalisation and a major initiative needs to be taken at the level of the government.
One can imagine if three per cent of youth from a particular community are getting radicalised by groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS what impact it will have on the security scenario of the entire region. Also, these terror groups are very keen to expand their operations not just in the subcontinent but elsewhere in Asia that will eventually lead to incidents of home-grown terror.
Countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India are already witnessing this trend, whereas in the Maldives, the ISIS is beginning to spread its network as there are reports in section of the media that some of their youth have joined the outfit in Syria and Iraq. It is time for these countries to unite and take action against terrorism.
A.K. Verma is a former chief of R&AW
Laws have to change, dont ignore the attacks
Joginder Singh
The despicable terror attack that occurred in Dhakas diplomatic zone and ended on the morning of July 2 left at least 28 dead. The ISIS has claimed responsibility. As usual, the Bangladesh government denied the presence of an extremist group in its territory. The suicide bombing outside the sprawling mosque grounds where the Prophet Muhammad is buried in the western city of Medina killed four Saudi security troops and wounded five.
The Dhaka attack is not a wake-up call for home-grown terror in South Asia. Terror has no language and it affects each and every country. India has also been a victim of terrorists trained in like Pakistan. The attack on the Pathankot airbase is a case in point.
We do not create terrorism by fighting terrorists. We invite terrorism by ignoring them. Terrorism is the tactic of demanding the impossible, at gunpoint. To win the war on terror, we must know who our friends are and where our enemies are hiding.
The crucial point is that we cannot continue our fight against terrorism with out-of-date laws and tools. Fighting terrorism is similar to fighting cancer. It cannot be treated just where it is visible every diseased cell in the body must be destroyed.
The Indian government, irrespective of the party in power, has only been reacting, and not acting. With the change in government in 2004, anti-terrorism laws were deleted on the ground that these laws affected only one community. A terrorist is a terrorist, and religion or community should not weigh with any government.
All governments have been pretending to tackle terrorism. There is no fear of punishment for the terrorists for the simple reason that the laws framed by the British in 1861 have outlived their utility and cannot deal with the problem. In fact, the same laws apply to terrorists as to Indian citizens. The outmoded laws say that a man is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and no confession made before the police is accepted as evidence.
To my mind, it does not make sense that we have to discover witnesses against the person who indulges in killing. In other words, it means that a witness, not one but at least two, who would be hiding either behind a tree or some other place, should depose in a court of law, at the trial, which may take years.
There has been a lot of talk, but only talk, of a Witness Protection Act, which remains a chimera. Since 1996, only three persons have been hanged, two terrorists and one murderer, though hundreds of thousands have been sentenced to the death penalty.
Will the government wake up? I dont think incidents like Dhaka could serve as a wake-up call. The day that Indian laws are changed to tackle terrorism effectively, that will be the day when our country will wake up.
Joginder Singh is a former director of the CBI
BlackBerry launched the Classic less than two years ago.
BlackBerry said on Tuesday it will stop making its Classic model, raising further doubts about the future of the smartphone pioneer's money-losing handset business as the company shifts its focus to software.
BlackBerry's stock fell more than 4 per cent after an executive confirmed the move in a blog post. BlackBerry launched the Classic less than two years ago, hoping it would resonate with customers yearning for a physical keyboard in a world of touchscreens.
Clearly the Classic was not sufficiently retro-cool to attract new users, said John Jackson, a technology analyst at International Data Corp. This marks the end of an era that actually ended several years ago for all but a very small number of devotees.
The Classic, similar in design to its Bold predecessor, is powered by the overhauled BlackBerry 10 operating system, which failed to regain market share that was lost to Apples iPhone and others.
BlackBerry has since launched a phone powered by Alphabet dominant Android software and plans several more.
BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen last month expressed confidence the company's trimmed-down handset business can turn a profit by a self-imposed September deadline, even as some analysts urge the company to ditch the unit.
The decision to end production of the Classic adds pressure on BlackBerry to exit handsets, said Morningstar analyst Brian Colello. Without a hit mid-range, BlackBerry likely will not be able to keep its handsets business going or sell it to another company, he said.
Separately, an internal U.S. Senate memo sent by IT staff and seen by Reuters on Tuesday said BlackBerry had told major U.S. carriers Verizon Communications and AT&T that all BlackBerry devices running BlackBerry 10 had been discontinued.
The memo said the Senate's mobile communications services department had just over 600 BlackBerry devices in stock at the end of June, including 320 Classic devices.
The other models referenced as discontinued include the Passport, with a physical keyboard, and the Z10 and Z30 touchscreen models.
Asked specifically about the memo, a BlackBerry spokeswoman said the company's device strategy is cross-platform and it will continue to support BlackBerry 10 phones.
Verizon and AT&T did not respond to requests for comment.
President Barack Obama, the most celebrated US political BlackBerry user, told late-night television host Jimmy Fallon last month he had finally given up his BlackBerry, replacing it with an unnamed smartphone.
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According to media reports, the company with a weird name Ringing Bells is confident that they will be able to deliver the phones, despite the marginal loss they will face with each device.
Freedom 251, the cheapest smartphone in the world, will be sold for a mere Rs 251 ($4). The company behind the cheapest smartphone is Ringing Bells, which has now started their website and are selling smartphones from Rs 699 onwards and will also be selling power banks and LED TVs.
Just in: Ringing Bells launches Freedom 251, 32-inch LED TV for Rs 9,990
As for now, the Freedom 251, the cheapest smartphone, will start selling from July 7, and will be followed by shipping on July 8, 2016. According to media reports, the company with a weird name Ringing Bells is confident that they will be able to deliver the phones, despite the marginal loss they will face with each device.
Also read: FAKE IN INDIA: Top memes and jokes from the Freedom 251 scam
As for now, Ringing Bells seems to be accepting the fact that they will be running into loses amounting to crores of rupees by selling the Freedom 251 smartphone for Rs 251 each. However, they have a strategy with them which will enable them to make sufficient profits in the long run. They also intend selling power banks and an LED TV for cheap is also in the pipeline.
Also read: Freedom 251, Ringing Bells is already making free cash from you
The cheapest Rs 251 smartphone Freedom 251 was announced in February. The company stated that they will launch the smartphone in order to help every Indian have a device and be connected to the internet. However, the deal was too good to be truethe company held an event in Delhi, which caused a major outrage on the internet. The smartphone industry were worried about how can a company be able to out a smartphone for mere Rs 251, which is comparatively the cost of a charger or a case itself. Ringing Bells was pronounced as a fraud company after they opened registrations and started accepting pre-bookings online. Within hours of opening the registrations, the Freedom 251 website crashed and no more registrations were accepted.
Also read: Freedom 251: Ringing Bells now announces cash on delivery
Also read: 'Freedom 251' smartphone scheme a fraud: Congress MP Pramod Tiwari
Also read: Ringing Bells defers Freedom 251 delivery date to July 6
Later, after a media outburst about the issue, the company decided to return the amount to those who registered online for a handset and stated that they will now accept cash on delivery. There were also cases registered against Ringing Bells for fraudulently selling a product that did not exist.
Also read: Freedom 251: Ringing Bells claims handsets ready for delivery, smartphone shown
The media event that took place in New Delhi marked Ringing Bells showing off a smartphone that was not the actual product on sale. The product shown during the event was a smartphone from another company, which was shabbily rebranded to make it look like a Freedom 251 smartphone.
In February 2016, Ringing Bells, a company unheard of, unveiled a smartphone brand Freedom 251, in India. They claimed that the worlds cheapest and most affordable smartphone will cost the consumer no more than Rs 251. People registered online for a smartphone and the deliveries, claimed the company, will start June 30, 2016 onwards.
Also read: Freedom 251, a smartphone copy of Rs 251, is nothing but fraud: BJP MP
The company soon announced that the product shown was a dummy and the actual product was still in the making. Last month, Ringing Bells showed the media the actual product that will be launched in July.
Also read: Freedom 251 gets tough competition, Rs 651 phone to launch soon
Also read: After Freedom 251, another smartphone launched for just Rs 888!
As for the smartphone, they claim that it will sport a 4-inch display, 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage (up to 32GB support) and with a dual SIM 3G support. The camera on the device will have an 8MP rear sensor and a 3.2MP front sensor, and the Freedom 251 phone will be fueled by a 1800mAh battery with Android 5.1 Lollipop. The phone will be available in two colours white and black. Goel also mentioned to the media that for now they will see a loss of almost Rs 140 Rs 150 on each handset, but is positive that he will make profits with volume sales. He further added saying that he is happy that that the dream of connecting rural and poor Indians as part of the Digital India campaign and Make in India campaign will be fulfilled by Freedom 251. He claims that the devices will be manufactured in India at a Haridwar-based manufacturing plant and they plan to sell almost 2 lakh devices each month.
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Mumbai: With phenomenal growth engulfing the mobile space, it has become an imperative for handset manufacturers to offer exceptional hardware to uphold their devices. Today, Mobile devices in the market are expected to offer proficient hardware, capable of executing every task with utmost perfection.
One significant aspect of smartphones, as deemed by most users, is camera competence. It has now become a quintessential requisite that cannot be ignored by device manufacturers, and this has forced them to step up their camera promotion events drastically.
That said, some smartphone companies have started using fake DSLR images, claiming that it has been clicked by a smartphone they manufactured!
The latest to follow the drift is Chinese manufacturer Huawei who tried to act neat and posted a DSLR-quality picture on Google+, suggesting the image had been clicked by a P9 handset.
However, the company ran out of luck as they were caught red handed by Android Police. A company social media official posted the picture on social media without erasing the EXIF data, spilling the beans.
Photo: Android Police
Surprisingly, the image had been clicked by a Canon EOS 5D Mark III camera which is priced at Rs 1,75,000 on Amazons website. And thats not all, only the cost of the cameras body is mentioned above; the lens costs an additional Rs 1,42,995. The Huawei P9 retails at a price almost ten times lower than the total kit.
The image itself is quite striking; leave alone the additional camera flare which further enhances the image. Honestly, the image and the excellent detailing looked too good to be shot by a smartphone. The image looks a little too excellent as pointed out by David Ruddock of Android Police.
After coming to grips with the fact that the lie had been exposed, Huawei had issues a statement explaining that the error was with the caption and it was shot to inspire its community. So much for a cover up!
Though the company has apologised, the urge to be the best amid hefty competition is making life really tough for these companies which has forced them to employ unfair means. Other companies have also uploaded suspicious images in the past and users should be careful to not fall for these tricks.
While fake images being used for smartphone camera promotions are on the rise, there are some phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the iPhone 6s which have the capability to loosely match DSLR images. However, contrary to claims of smartphone companies, its impossible for a mobile device to emulate a DSLR.
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Phan Huy, a real estate agent, said people have little interest in buying these villas. Depending on the size, each villa has a different value, the cheapest ones are around $200,000, but the top-end properties should go for around $450,000 - $700,000. To be honest, at those prices, no one would want to move there, Huy said.
Beijing ramps up efforts to assert its stance ahead of a ruling by an international tribunal in a case filed by the Philippines challenging China's claims to most of the South China Sea. (Photo: Representational Image)
Beijing: The flagship newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party has warned Washington that there will be a "price" to pay if it crosses China's "bottom line" by meddling in disputes over the South China Sea.
The People's Daily editorial Wednesday comes as Beijing ramps up efforts to assert its stance ahead of a ruling by an international tribunal in a case filed by the Philippines challenging China's claims to most of the South China Sea. China is boycotting the case before The Hague-based court and says it will not accept the verdict.
The paper said that bilateral ties and regional stability were at stake and that the U.S. should recognize that "there is a bottom line with every issue, and a price will be paid if that line is crossed."
The university held a vigil for Tarishi Jain, a student who was among the 20 hostages killed by militants in an attack on a restaurant in Bangladesh.
Berkely, United States: A University of California, Berkeley sophomore who was among the 20 hostages killed over the weekend by militants in Bangladesh is being remembered as a kind and smart young woman.
Hundreds of friends, professors and students held a vigil Tuesday on UC Berkeley's Sproul Plaza in memory of Tarishi Jain, a sophomore who was in the capital of Dhaka for a summer internship.
A flower memorial is seen on the steps of Sproul Plaza at University of California Berkeley. (Photo: AP)
UC Berkeley Chancellor Nick Dirks and several of Ms Jain's friends and dorm mates spoke next to an enlarged photograph of the smiling 18-year-old, a large bouquet of white flowers and American, Indian and Bangladeshi flags.
Dirks says "we have lost a precious member of our community, and we are so much the poorer because of it."
Ms Jain graduated from the American International School in Dhaka and transferred to Berkeley in 2015. She planned to major in economics.
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter very much enjoyed his ongoing work with Minister Parrikar and looks forward to having that relationship grow even further, says Pentagon. (Photo: PTI)
Washington: Lauding the progress made in bilateral military cooperation with India, the Pentagon has said the US is looking forward to seeing the relationship grow even further.
"The (US Defence) Secretary is very pleased with the progress that we've made with regard to the military-to-military relationship with India, and he's very much enjoyed his ongoing work with Minister Parrikar and looks forward to having that relationship grow even further," Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook yesterday said.
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter visited India earlier this year during which he described the defence relationship between the two countries as strategic handshake.
"I think the Secretary's reference highlights his own view about how so much of what India is working towards in terms of both its economic policies and its security policies mesh so well with US policies in the same vein. I think that's what the secretary was referring to with that handshake," Cook said in response to a question.
"It's very consistent with our re-balance to the Asia Pacific. I think he was trying to make that point in a very illustrative way," he said.
Washington: The presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday described as "very very unfair," the FBI's recommendation to not to prosecute Hillary Clinton in the email gate scandal.
"The system is rigged. General Petraeus got in trouble for far less. Very very unfair! As usual, bad judgement," Trump said in a tweet, a few hours after the FBI Director James Comey announced that the investigating agency has concluded its investigation into the Ms Clinton's email scandal.
The system is rigged. General Petraeus got in trouble for far less. Very very unfair! As usual, bad judgment. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2016
Comey said the FBI would not recommend to the Department of Justice on charging former Secretary of State, who is now the presidential candidate of the Democratic party.
"FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges," Trump said in another tweet.
FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow! #RiggedSystem Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2016
The Speaker of the US House of Representatives Paul Ryan said the FBI announcement defies explanation.
"No one should be above the law. But based upon the director's own statement, it appears damage is being done to the rule of law. Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent," Ryan said.
"The findings of this investigation also make clear that Secretary Clinton misled the American people when she was confronted with her criminal actions. While we need more information about how the Bureau came to this recommendation, the American people will reject this troubling pattern of dishonesty and poor judgement," he said in a statement.
Senator Marco Rubio, a former Republican presidential candidate, said there is "simply no excuse" for Clinton's decision to set up a home-cooked email system which left sensitive and classified national security information vulnerable to theft and exploitation by America's enemies.
"Her actions were grossly negligent, damaged national security and put lives at risk," he alleged.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus said the FBI's findings are a glaring indictment of Clinton's complete lack of judgement.
"We now know Clinton failed to turn over thousands of work-related records she certified were in the possession of the State Department, that more than one hundred emails contained material that was classified at the time they were sent or received, and that her server was less secure than Gmail and was likely hacked by hostile actors," he said.
"Between the Attorney General's private meeting with Bill Clinton last week, to President Obama's active support for Hillary Clinton's candidacy, the American people will rightly be left second guessing whether justice was really served," Mr Priebus said.
Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign welcomed FBI's decision. In a statement, Clinton's campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said: "We are pleased that the career officials handling this case have determined that no further action by the (Justice) Department is appropriate. We are glad that this matter is now resolved."
The police asked the man if he knew possession of cannabis was illegal. (Representational Image)
Sydney: An "enraged" Australian man phoned police to complain that his father had burned his prized cannabis plants, authorities said Wednesday.
Northern Territory police said the man called them on Tuesday evening from Humpty Doo, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Darwin, to report he had a fight with his father.
"As retribution his father burnt the son's prized cannabis plants in a bonfire on the property," duty superintendent Louise Jorgensen said in a Facebook post.
"The son felt this was wrong and reported the matter to police. Officers attended and confirmed that was indeed the case."
Police did not give the ages of the men involved, but said the son had been in conflict with his father ever since he moved back to the Northern Territory a short while ago.
"Things came to a head yesterday evening and that's when the contraband was destroyed," Jorgensen said.
"The son was indignant and enraged. It was questioned whether he was aware that possession of cannabis was unlawful and he could be liable to prosecution for the same.
"He seemed to believe that the destruction of the same was far worse than the possession in the first instance."
Police said no charges had been laid.
"The evidence has been destroyed," admitted Jorgensen, confirming that the son was now living elsewhere.
The post sparked lively comments on Facebook, with one person suggesting the police should have brought beers and munchies to the bonfire.
"What a twit!" said another user. "He should be arrested for stupidity."
Sydney: Australian leader Malcolm Turnbull took full responsibility on Tuesday for a disastrous election campaign which has left his government in doubt, but said he would not resign.
The final result from Saturday polls is still unclear, but Turnbulls conservative coalition has lost its comfortable majority in Canberras 150-seat House of Representatives.
The government and the opposition Labor Party are currently each short of the 76 seats needed to govern, and with the vote count ongoing, there is the prospect of a hung parliament.
I want to make it quite clear that as prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party, I take full responsibility for our campaign, Turnbull told reporters in Sydney. The Australian people have voted, and we respect the result.
In sharp contrast to an angry speech in the hours after the vote, he acknowledged there was a swing against his Liberal/National coalition, but said general voter dissatisfaction also played a part. Millions of Australians cast their votes for independents and minor parties, resulting in them likely winning at least five seats in the lower house.
It is a similar story in the upper house Senate, with anti-immigration firebrand Pauline Hanson set to make a return to Canberra after an absence of nearly 20 years.
There is no doubt that there is a level of disillusionment with politics, with government, and with the major parties. Our own included. We note that. We respect it, Turnbull said.
But the millionaire former banker and barrister also attacked his Labor opponents, accusing them of a dishonest scare campaign targeting the nation's universal healthcare system which he said amounted to a shocking lie.
On Monday, Labor leader Bill Shorten urged the prime minister to resign. But Turnbull said he was confident of forming a majority government.
The immigrant who is around 20-years-old and over 6 feet tall, was found curled up inside the suitcase after other passengers in the Swiss bound train alerted the authorities on hearing moaning noises from inside. (Photo: Videograb)
Bern: Swiss authorities on Monday arrested an Eritrean immigrant from a train near the countrys border with Italy after he was caught red handed in his attempt to sneak into Britain curled up in a suitcase.
The immigrant who is around 20 years old and over 6 feet tall, was found curled up inside the suitcase after other passengers in the Swiss bound train alerted the authorities on hearing moaning noises from inside.
According to reports, the immigrant was wheeled into the train in Milan and was accompanied by another immigrant. 45 minutes into the journey, the man, unable to bear the discomfort any longer, let out loud moans, which forced the other panicked passengers to alert the police.
The guards at Chiasso were shocked to see a hand emerge out of the suitcase when they opened the zipper.
Neither the man nor his companion had any travel papers, and were sent back to Italy. A video of the incidence shows the guards taking hold of the man immediately after he emerges out of the suitcase.
Swiss authorities claimed that they were informed by their Italian counterparts regarding two Eritrean immigrants who were trying to gain entry into the UK, and added that they would have stopped the train even if the passengers had not alerted them.
We received a call from Italian colleagues that two Eritreans were attempting to get into the country and travel northwards across Europe to Britain. The information was that one man was hidden in a suitcase and another man was travelling with him. The suitcase was pointed out to us and the man found inside. He was in his 20s and we found his friend hiding in a toilet on the train, Sun reported a police source as saying.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella cut short a visit to Latin America after the attack and returned to Rome, where he waited for the arrival of the plane with Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni. (Photo: AP)
Rome: The bodies of nine Italians killed by Islamist militants who stormed an upmarket restaurant in the Bangladeshi capital last week were brought to Rome in a military plane on Tuesday.
Most of the 20 victims of the attack, which started late on Friday night, were foreigners, from Japan, India and the United States as well as Italy.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella cut short a visit to Latin America after the attack and returned to Rome, where he waited for the arrival of the plane with Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni.
Nine coffins, draped in the Italian flag, were lowered from the plane and white-robed priests sprinkled them with Catholic holy water as the victims' families looked on.
The Holey Artisan restaurant in Dhaka where the attack took place is popular with foreigners, and investigators in Rome are looking into whether Italians were specifically targeted, a judicial source said. Autopsies will be carried out on the Italian victims.
Foued Mohamed Aggad, was one of the three men who killed 90 people in the Bataclan rock concert hall (Photo: Facebook)
Paris: The brother of one of the Islamist attackers who killed 130 people in Paris was sentenced to nine years' jail on Wednesday for travelling to Syria to train as a terrorist.
Karim Mohammed-Aggad was one of a group tried over a trip to Syria in December 2013. His brother Foued was one of the three men who killed 90 people in the Bataclan rock concert hall as part of a broader assault in and around Paris that killed 130 people in November 2015.
Karim and six others, aged 24 to 27, were tried on charges of taking part in an Islamist recruitment network and receiving training from the ISIS or Islamic State, whose strongholds in Iraq and Syria are being bombed by French fighter jets.
A public prosecutor had requested that Karim Mohammed-Aggad be sentenced to 10 years in jail.
Citing evidence gathered from wiretaps and from "jihad" documents found in the computers and mobile phones of the suspects, public prosecutor Nicolas Le Bris said during the trial each of the seven involved was determined to join a jihadi group and once in Syria "fitted in perfectly".
Karim Mohamed-Aggad sought to distance his case from that of his brother during the trial, saying at one point: "You choose your friends, not your family."
Some of defendants told investigators they had believed they were going to Syria on a humanitarian mission. Others said they left to fight Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces but not to become Islamist militants.
London, United Kingdom: Theresa May emerged on top after the first round of voting for Britain's next leader as MPs cast their initial ballots in the contest to replace David Cameron on Tuesday.
The home secretary received 165 votes from her fellow Conservative lawmakers, followed by previously untipped junior energy minister Andrea Leadsom in second place on 66 votes.
Right-winger Liam Fox became the first candidate to be eliminated from the race after coming last in the contest with 16 votes.
Conservative lawmakers are scheduled to hold further ballots on Thursday and next Tuesday, eliminating the least popular candidate each time, for as long as it takes to whittle down the race to two contenders.
This pair will then be put to a vote of around 150,000 Conservative party members throughout the country.
The final result will be announced on September 9.
Whoever wins will become both the next leader of the ruling Conservative party and the prime minister, after Cameron announced hours after the results emerged of last month's referendum vote to leave the European Union.
The prime minister himself did not take part in the vote to choose his successor and is not expected to express a preference for any of the candidates.
May was in favour of remaining in the EU during the referendum, while Leadsom campaigned to leave.
Pro-Brexit Justice Secretary Michael Gove -- who has lost popularity among MPs after effectively ending former London mayor Boris Johnson's leadership run -- came in third in Tuesday's vote with 48 votes.
Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb was fourth with 34 votes.
The results of Tuesday's vote were announced in the House of Commons by senior Conservative MP Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of Conservative MPs which is running the contest.
Passenger strangled to death for just $11.
Police in the central province of Ha Tinh have arrested a Mai Linh Group taxi driver for allegedly killing a passenger to steal her bag.
On July 3, 26-year-old Nguyen Van Tien drove Pham Thi Oanh, 23, from Ha Tinh Town to a pagoda in Thach Ha Commune, and waited to give her a lift back to her hotel.
On the way to the hotel, Tien stopped in a deserted area, locked the car doors and strangled Oanh to death. He then took her bag, which contained a mobile phone and just VND250,000 ($11), and dumped her body in a river about five kilometers from the scene.
The site where the victim's body was found. Photo by VnExpress/Duc Hung
The woman's body was found by local people on July 5.
Tien was arrested and confessed his crime to the police. He said that he owed his friends some money, so he came up with the robbery to pay back the debt.
The victim was a fourth-year student at the Hue University of Education. She had been assigned to be an invigilator for the national high school graduation exams in the commune.
The case is pending further investigation.
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Kabul: NATO must do more to protect civilians in Afghanistan's worsening conflict, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday, ahead of a summit in Poland set to renew international support for the Afghan army.
The HRW statement came as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani issued a stern warning to the Taliban to join peace negotiations "or face the consequences".
With civilian casualties soaring past 11,000 in 2015, according to the UN, governments in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have "a crucial opportunity" to help halt the spiralling violence, said HRW's Asia director Brad Adams.
"NATO should deliver on its pledges and produce concrete measures to help protect Afghan civilians from armed conflict," he said ahead of the summit in Poland on Friday and Saturday.
The international rights organisation denounced the use of children in conflict by both the Taliban and the Afghan government.
In particular, it slammed the occupation of schools by Afghan forces, saying it had recently identified "extensive" use of school buildings as military bases in northern Baghlan province.
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) also reported 20 schools occupied by the army or the insurgents last year.
"Too often, the schools become battlegrounds," said HRW.
The "devastating" impact on education has a disproportionate effect on girls, who are unlikely to be allowed to attend schools occupied by male soldiers, the statement noted.
And it sharply criticised the use of child soldiers by both the Taliban and government-backed forces.
An exclusive AFP report recently documented how the Taliban are exploiting children being kept as sex slaves by police commanders in Uruzgan province, recruiting them for insider attacks against security forces.
The UN has said cases of child recruitment more than doubled in 2015 compared to the previous year.
Asked what "concrete measures" NATO could take to slow child recruitment, the organisation's top civilian representative in Kabul Ismail Aramaz said it has "insisted" that its Afghan partners bring those responsible to justice.
"But it is up to Afghans to decide how such acts can be penalised," he added.
In a statement marking Eid al-Fitr Wednesday, Ghani called on the Taliban to take part in peace negotiations.
The insurgents have stepped up their nearly 15-year war since NATO pulled most of its forces out of the country at the end of 2014, while a nascent peace process has stalled.
"The door is open... we do not want bloodshed," Ghani said.
But, he added, if the Taliban reject his call they must "face the consequences".
Cairo, Egypt: Experts investigating the EgyptAir plane crash in May need more time to analyse and match the information gathered before they can reach "very basic conclusions," the Egyptian-led investigative committee said Tuesday.
Experts will compare information downloaded from the flight data recorder and "establish time correlation" with the information gleaned from the cabin voice recorder, the Egyptian Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee said in a statement.
The committee had said on Saturday that the memory chips of EgyptAir 804's black box voice recorder are intact and investigators should be able to access them.
The Airbus A320 plunged into the sea on May 19 while heading to Cairo from Paris, killing all 66 people on board.
Investigators said last week that the plane's wreckage showed signs of fire while the data recorder confirmed smoke alarms had been activated.
The plane was carrying 40 Egyptians, 15 French, two Iraqis, two Canadians and one passenger each from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.
There have been similar cases of other killings of close relatives by ISIS members, including a widely reported incident in January in which a suspected militant killed his mother in public in the Syrian city of Raqqa because she had encouraged him to leave the group. (Photo: Twitter)
Dubai: Driven by radical beliefs, twin brothers allegedly killed their mother in Saudi Arabia after she tried to stop them from joining ISIS in Syria in a case that outraged Saudi Arabians worried about rising Islamic terrorism.
The June 24 killing, in a country where respect for elders is seen as a bedrock of society, whipped up a storm of debate over the possible influence of a mediaeval Islamic scholar revered as a forerunner of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam.
Saudi interior ministry spokesman General Mansour al-Turki said the pair were suspects in the killing.
"The only thing (we have established) is that they (the twins) follow Takfiri ideology," Turki told Reuters, using a phrase which Saudi authorities use to refer to Islamist militancy. "The case is still under investigation," said the spokesman, who declined to give further details.
Reuters was unable to contact the 20-year-old twins, or their lawyers or family members, and could not independently confirm if the alleged killing was influenced by ISIS or religious ideology - or what the mother actually said.
In a statement after the attack, the interior ministry said that the twins, Khaled and Saleh al-Oraini, were arrested on suspicion of stabbing their 67-year-old mother Haila, their 73-year-old father and their 22-year-old brother at the family home in the capital Riyadh.
The mother, who died of her wounds, had objected to her sons joining ISIS terrorists in Syria, Saudi media reported.
The father and brother were in hospital in a serious condition, while the alleged attackers were arrested trying to flee across the border to Yemen, media said. Reuters was unable to confirm the status of family members or the whereabouts of the suspects.
"Had this come from drug addicts or ignorant youth, it would not have been unusual," Saudi writer Mohammad Ali al-Mahmoud told Reuters. "The shock is that it came from a pair of religious children acting in the name of Islam."
This is the fifth killing of family members by suspected terrorists in Saudi Arabia since July last year, the online Saudi news website akhbaar24 reported on June 26.
There have been similar cases of other killings of close relatives by ISIS members, including a widely reported incident in January in which a suspected militant killed his mother in public in the Syrian city of Raqqa because she had encouraged him to leave the group.
The killings compounded fears of radicalistion in the kingdom. On Monday, suicide bombers struck three cities in an apparently coordinated campaign of attacks as Saudis prepared to break their daily fast observed during the holy month of Ramadan, killing at least four security personnel and themselves.
-Impassioned debate-
The case has caused impassioned debate because Islam teaches that devotion to caring for elders is a pathway to heaven.
Some scholars and media commentators have asked if it was the teachings of Ibn Taymiyya, a 13th century Islamic scholar from Damascus known for his fatwas (religious opinion) about takfir that were behind young terrorists killing family members they regarded as apostates.
ISIS embraces the concept of takfir, often quoting Ibn Taymiyya to exhort its followers to kill other Muslims seen as apostates, including relatives. The word takfir is derived from the Arabic word kafer, which means unbeliever.
It was Ibn Taymiyya who inspired the founder of Wahhabism, the 18th century Sheikh Mohammed Ibn Abdul-Wahhab.
Wahhabism, the religious movement espoused by rulers of Saudi Arabia, demands rigid adherence to what it sees as Islam's original practices and a rejection of more modern ideas.
These links, as well as shared practices such as the use of beheading as a means of execution, led some Western commentators to accuse Riyadh of sympathy with groups like ISIS which holds territory in Iraq and Syria.
However, Western-allied Riyadh says Ibn Abdul-Wahhab was a reformer. The Saudi government rejects any talk of links between his message and that of modern terrorists, denouncing ISIS and al Qaeda as terrorists and religious heretics.
But Riyadh's official stance has not prevented scholars and commentators from seizing on the latest killing to dissect the degree to which Ibn Taymiyya is responsible for motivating today's jihadists.
-Legacy of Ibn Taymiyya-
"Some are angry at me for pointing out the legacy of Ibn Taymiyya in the religious violence that is sweeping us," prominent scholar, Abdul-Salam al-Wail, professor of sociology at King Saud University, wrote on his Twitter account.
"To the Shaikh al-Islam (Ibn Taymiyya), human life is cheap and his legacy clarifies this," he added, using the honorific of the renowned scholar, who spent time in jail for his beliefs and who resisted Mongol invaders.
Wail said that while Ibn Taymiyya was a prolific scholar for his time, he pointed to his fatwas that permit a son to kill an apostate father, saying they contradict the essence of Islam.
The case drew a rare intervention from the Saudi Islamic affairs minister, Saleh bin Abdul-Aziz Al al-Sheikh, who was quoted as saying that Ibn Taymiyya's fatwa allowing a son to kill his father had been taken out of context.
"The statement by the Shaikh al-Islam, may God have mercy on him ... is intended for if they meet at war in which the son is on the side of the faithful and the father is on the side of apostates," he was quoted by Rashed bin Othman al-Zahrani, deputy chairman of the Electronic Islam Academy, as saying.
"This means that only in this case and it does not contradict the verse which states: be kind to thy parents," the minister added in comments published in al-Hayat, al-Jazirah and other Saudi media outlets.
Reuters was unable to contact the minister to confirm his comments.
Joining debate over the case, several writers and scholars said it was time to remove the sanctity from traditional theology that permits such actions, saying ancient teachings are not always appropriate in the modern age.
Writing on Twitter after the killing, columnist Mohammed al-Sheikh called for reviewing "our readings of the theological heritage of Ibn Taymiyya" to clarify it belonged "to a different time and different circumstances. Otherwise, terrorism will not end."
Al-Mahmoud said the first step in fighting militant ideology would be by opening up Ibn Taymiyya's teachings for debate.
"What is needed now is to drain this swamp, by opening the door to criticising our heritage," the writer, al-Mahmoud, told Reuters. "What is needed is to shake the confidence in these teachings that are being imported from our distant past."
Syrian President Bashar Assad, front row fourth from left, prays on the first day of Eid al-Fitr, that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, at the Safa Mosque, in Homs
Damascus: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad joined Eid al-Fitr prayers at a mosque in third city Homs on Wednesday in a rare public appearance outside the capital for the end-of-Ramadan holiday.
Large parts of Homs were once under the control of rebels fighting to overthrow Assads regime but since May 2014 they have been confined to a single besieged neighbourhood in the citys outskirts.
The Al-Safa mosque, where Assad joined worshippers, is in Akrama, a loyalist neighbourhood which has been hit by repeated attacks by the Islamic State group and its jihadist rival Al-Qaeda.
State television broadcast footage of the president in the congregation alongside Islamic Endowments Minister Mohammad Abdel-Sattar Sayyed and Syrias top Muslim cleric Ahmad Badredine Hassoun.
Since the civil war erupted in 2011, Assad has made only rare public appearances and nearly all of those have been in Damascus.
Photo, provided by the Hossain Family shows Faraaz Hossain, left, mother, Simeen, center, and brother, Zaraif, right, in Moscow, Russia. (Photo: AP)
Bangkok: When Faraaz Hossain's family received his body after the deadly siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka, Bangladesh, they noticed the palm of his right hand had been sliced clean through.
The wound suggested the 20-year-old Faraaz, the family's beloved youngest child, had grabbed the attacker's sword and tried to fight back.
"There were a lot of visible signs on his body that he fought hard," Zaraif Hossain, Faraaz's brother, told The Associated Press.
Faraaz, a student at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, was visiting family back home in Bangladesh when he was caught up in the 10-hour hostage crisis on the evening of July 1.
By the time the attack was over, Faraaz was among 20 hostages and two police officers who had been slaughtered. Six attackers also were killed, according to authorities.
Faraaz was home to visit family before leaving for an Eid holiday to mark the end of Ramadan, his brother said. A recent photo shows the two brothers and their mother in the middle looking relaxed during a family trip to Moscow.
When his family learned about the hostage-taking, they called Faraaz repeatedly, but he didn't pick up the phone. Zaraif also sent Facebook messages, which were marked as "seen" until about 12:30 or 1 a.m.
But then Faraaz either stopped receiving or seeing the messages. Zaraif believes that must have been around when his brother was killed.
"He was our baby," Zaraif said, remembering a boy who was so gentle as a child that he didn't want to wrestle with him.
"I couldn't even play fight with my brother because he was so fragile," Zaraif said. "But I guess he was far from fragile and the strongest of us all."
Lahore: JuD chief and Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed on Wednesday led Eid-ul-Fitr prayers in the city where he sought to whip up hysteria, saying the US and India are signing agreements against Pakistan and there are preparations for a "big war".
Addressing a large gathering at the Gaddafi Stadium, the Lashkar-e-Taiba founder called for unity among Muslim community "to fail the design of infidels".
He said international players are conspiring against Pakistan's nuclear programme.
"The United States and India are signing agreements against Pakistan and there has been a preparation of a big war", he said, alleging "drones are parked at Indian airports and our rulers are engaged in a fight with opposition."
Saeed, on whose head the US has put a bounty of USD 10 million, termed Pakistan and Saudi Arabia's growing distance with the US as a "blessing in disguise".
"It is a blessing in disguise that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are getting distanced from America. This will lay foundation of the Islamic Union which is the need of the hour for the Islamic world," he said.
He condemned the terror attack in Saudi Arabia and alleged the involvement of "foreign hands" in destabilising the Muslim world.
A large number of people offered their prayer behind Saeed amid tight security with police personnel and JuD security wing members deployed in and outside the stadium. Saeed has been leading the Eid prayers at Gaddafi Stadium for the last many years.
India has repeatedly asked Pakistan to bring Saeed to justice for masterminding the 2008 Mumbai attacks. He has often been seen addressing anti-India rallies in Pakistan. Islamabad says it has no proof against the Jamat-ud-Dawa chief. A total of 166 people were killed in the attack orchestrated by the LeT in November 2008.
Nearly 9,000 people lost their lives when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake ripped through the Himalayan nation in April 2015. (Photo: AFP)
Kathmandu: Nepal is selling thousands of tonnes of rice donated by China and Bangladesh to help earthquake victims, an official said Wednesday, despite aid agencies warning that survivors remain at risk of food shortages.
Nearly 9,000 people lost their lives when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake ripped through the Himalayan nation in April 2015, destroying more than half a million homes and leaving thousands without food or shelter.
Initial estimates by the World Food Programme (WFP) said that around 1.4 million people were in urgent need of emergency food supplies, prompting governments to spring into action to help the desperately poor country.
According to the state-run Nepal Food Corporation (NFC), Dhaka and Beijing donated around 11,200 metric tonnes (11,020 tons) of rice, only 20 percent of which was distributed by the government to quake victims.
"The remaining rice has been sitting in our godown (warehouse) for 10 months and now that Bangladesh has donated even more rice to us, we don't have enough space to store it all," said Pawan Kumar Karki, NFC spokesman.
"So we started selling the rice last month and will deposit the proceeds in a fund operated by the government," Karki told AFP.
No further details about the fund were available.
Kathmandu stopped distributing rice across quake-hit districts last June, just weeks after the disaster, according to Karki.
Yet more than a year later, disaster victims continue to be at risk of food shortages, aid officials told AFP.
"We were distributing rice, lentils and other supplies right until February... while there have been improvements, there are still pockets of food insecurity among households headed by single mothers or belonging to marginalised communities," said a WFP spokeswoman.
The NFC's Karki said that authorities also plan to dispatch 3,400 metric tonnes of donated rice to the remote Karnali region following last year's poor monsoons and a prolonged winter drought, but no supplies had been sent yet.
With an estimated four million people still living in temporary shelters, Nepal has asked for $8.4 billion in aid to help rebuild the country.
But delays in formulating a reconstruction plan mean Kathmandu has received just $1.6 billion so far, around 40 percent of the $4.1 billion pledged by international donors.
Stung by criticism, the government has vowed to kickstart the rebuilding of schools and hospitals and speed up the distribution of a $2,000 payout to homeless households.
So far, some 24,000 families have received the first $500 instalment of the promised payout, fewer than five percent of those left homeless by the disaster.
After a five-year journey, Nasas Juno spacecraft slung itself into Jupiters orbit on Monday with a do-or-die engine burn.
The event sets the stage for a 20-month dance around the biggest planet in the solar system to learn how and where it formed.
Were there. Were in orbit. We conquered Jupiter, lead mission scientist Scott Bolton, with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, told reporters on Tuesday. Now the fun begins.
Studying the giant
Juno will spend the next three months getting into position to begin studying what lies beneath Jupiters thick clouds and mapping the planets gargantuan magnetic fields.
Flying in egg-shaped orbits, each one lasting 14 days, Juno also will look for evidence that Jupiter has a dense inner core and measure how much water is in the atmosphere, a key yardstick for figuring out how far away from the sun the gas giant formed. Jupiters origins, in turn, affected the development and position of the rest of the planets, including Earth and its fortuitous location conducive to the evolution of life.
The question Ive had my whole life that Im hoping we get an answer to is Howd we get here? Thats really pretty fundamental to me, Bolton said.
Jupiter orbits five times farther from the sun than Earth, but it may have started out elsewhere and migrated, jostling its smaller sibling planets as it moved.
Jupiters immense gravity also diverts many asteroids and comets from potentially catastrophic collisions with Earth and the rest of the inner solar system. Juno was launched from Florida nearly five years ago.
The FBI today ruled out charging Hillary Clinton after it found no evidence of "intentional misconduct" by the former US Secretary of State in her use of a private email server, a big relief to the Democratic presidential candidate, who said she was "pleased" with the development.
The FBI recommended not to press criminal charges against Clinton, however, the 68-year-old presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party was termed as "extremely careless" by the FBI for sending classified information from her personal email account.
Commenting on the development, Clinton's campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said: "We are pleased that the career officials handling this case have determined that no further action by the (Justice) Department is appropriate... We are glad that this matter is now resolved."
Earlier today, FBI Director James Comey told reporters at a crowded news conference that after an exhaustive apolitical probe, investigators found no evidence of "intentional misconduct" by Clinton.
"Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgement is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before deciding whether to bring charges," Comey said.
Seen as a big relief to the former Secretary of State, the announcement came hours before President Barack Obama was scheduled to join Clinton at an election rally in North Carolina.
Before making his announcement, Comey told reporters that he has not coordinated his statement with the Justice Department or any other government agency.
"They do not know what I'm about to say," he said.
"Although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we are expressing to the justices our view that no further charges are appropriate in this case," Comey said.
Acknowledging that there will be intense public debate in the wake of this recommendation as there was through this investigation, he assured that the investigation was done honestly, confidently, and independently.
"No outside influences of any kind was brought to bear," he said. In looking back at our investigations, into the mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts," he said.
"All the cases prosecuted involve some combination of clearly intentional or wilful mishandling of classified information or vast quantities of information exposed in such a way to support an inference of intentional misconduct or indications of disloyalty to the US or an obstruction of justice. But we do not see those things here," Comey said.
Although the FBI did not find clear evidence that Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of the classified information, there is evidence that they were "extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information", Comey said.
"None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system. But their presence is especially concerning because all of the emails were housed on unclassified personal servers, not even supported by full-time security staff like those found at agencies and departments of the United States government or even with a commercial email service like Gmail," he added.
"But even if information is not marked classified in an email participants who know, or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.
"While not the focus of our investigation, we also developed evidence that the security culture of the State Department, in general and with respect to the use of unclassified systems in particular, was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information that is found elsewhere in the US government," Comey said.
With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, the FBI did not find direct evidence that Clinton's personal email domain in its various configurations since 2009 was hacked successfully.
But at the same time, the FBI Director assessed that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial email accounts of people with whom Clinton was in regular contact with from her personal account.
"She also used her personal email extensively while outside of the US including sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries,"he said.
The FBI, he said, looked at whether there is evidence that classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system in violation of a federal statute that makes it a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way.
The 139th rath yatra of Lord Jagannath today commenced on it's 15 km journey in the walled city here amid tight security arrangements even as lakhs of devotees queued up to have a glimpse of the deity.
The chariots of the Lord Jagannath, his brother Balbhadra and sister Subhadra, commenced their journey from the 400-year-old Jagannath temple in Jamalpur after Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel performed 'Pahind Vidhi'- a symbolic ritual of cleaning way for the 'raths' (chariots).
BJP chief Amit Shah visited the temple at around 4 AM and took part in the 'Mangla Aarti'.
The procession of rath yatra comprise 18 decorated elephants, 101 trucks, around 30 religious congregations and around 20 singing troupes. It will move through some communally sensitive areas like Jamalpur, Kalupur, Shahpur and Dariyapur.
The total length of rath yatra procession stretches up to 1.5 km. It will return to the temple after almost 11 hours of journey. Elaborate security arrangements have been made by police department to avoid any unwarranted situation.
Gujarat Minister of State for Home Rajni Patel was present at the temple to supervise the arrangements. "Though we have not received any specific terror input, such large events are always on the target of anti-social elements. Thus, we have deployed large number of police and para-military personnel to ensure safety and security of citizens," Patel said.
According to Joint Commissioner of Police, city crime branch, J K Bhatt 18,000 security personnel, including of police, state reserve police and central para-military forces, have been deployed at various locations along the route.
The entire route is being monitored by police through a network of CCTV cameras, connected with two control rooms, one in the city and another in Gandhinagar.
"As many as 700 CCTV cameras, including night vision cameras, have been installed at various locations along route by the police to keep a close watch on each and every movement. We are also using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for surveillance," Bhatt said.
Personnel manning the yatra include 9 IG and DIG level officers, 33 Superintendents of Police (SPs), 81 Deputy SPs, 250 Police Inspectors, 900 Police Sub Inspectors, 8,000 constables, 5,600 Homeguards and 1,500 recruits undergoing training.
Traffic drives Ho Chi Minh City to invest nearly $400mln on second monorail line
The densely populated city has decided that the sky is no longer the limit when it comes to relieving traffic congestion.
Vietnams southern business hub Ho Chi Minh City plans to invest VND 8.4 trillion ($377 million) into building a second monorail connecting Go Vap District with District 12, the Vietnam News Agency reported on Tuesday.
The citys authorities said building a monorail system would preempt traffic congestion spurred by rapid growth in automobile ownership.
Automobile ownership is growing at 20 percent annually, more than twice the rate of motorcycle ownership, said the Asian Development Bank.
Ho Chi Minh City is headed towards a population of 10 million people by 2020, according to the World Bank.
The monorail lines, or elevated single-rail tracks, can be built on road dividers and are especially cost-effective because they cost one-sixth of the price of an underground railway system and are cheaper to maintain, according to industry experts.
With the number of vehicles growing at an average annual rate of 10 percent in major cities and road space at only 2 percent, Vietnams urban areas, including Ho Chi Minh City, are on course for crippling gridlock if they dont adopt light transit.
Ho Chi Minh City now has 7.43 million motorcycles, which have put mounting pressure on its weakly developed transport infrastructure.
The project is subject to the Ministry of Planning and Investments approval.
The construction work, starting in 2019, is expected to take five years, reported the Vietnam News Agency.
The city will choose investors through an international tender.
Under Ho Chi Minh City's revised master plan for transport to 2020 approved by the Vietnamese government, the city will have eight metro lines, six bus rapid transit routes and three monorail lines.
Related News:
> HCMC considers banning private vehicles from city center
> Traffic jams cost Ho Chi Minh City $820 million each year
> Over six thousand traffic accidents recorded in first quarter
A 17-year-old girl, trafficked by a placement agency and beaten and abused by her employer for five years, was finally restored with her family on Tuesday after seven long years.
The girl is a native of Chhattisgarh and was trafficked from Sarguja district seven years ago by agents of a placement firm which promised her a job in the national capital.
Her employers were identified on Monday and asked to pay a compensation of Rs 5.50 lakh.
Upon reaching Delhi, she worked for two years near AIIMS and was later employed at a house in east Delhi's Patparganj area.
She ran away from the house three months ago after years of abuse. The Delhi Police found her near Anand Vihar railway station and sent her to a home run by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC).
The girl told the CWC members that she escaped from the house because she was beaten and abused regularly by her employers, a married couple, who didn't even pay her salary and instead paid the placement agency.
While the wife is a government school teacher, the husband works abroad. The woman used to threaten the girl that if she dares to leave the house, her parents will either be killed or jailed, a CWC member said.
The CWC, with the help of an NGO, on Monday took the girl to the area where she located the employers house. They were then asked to pay Rs 5.50 lakh.
We contacted the family, which said that they were clueless about her whereabouts and were trying to find her for seven years. Her sister arrived on Tuesday to take her back, the CWC member said.
The family belongs from a tribal area and hadn't filed any missing person complaint with the police. The CWC has also directed the police to take appropriate action against the employers and see if there is a provision for imprisonment since atrocities were committed by them.
A large number of unregulated placement agencies in the capital are acting as hubs for trafficking in Delhi, NGOs complain.
A bill to regulate private placement agencies and to improve the working conditions of domestic workers has been drafted by the Labour Department, but not introduced in the Assembly.
The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) had last year informed that out of total 1,250 registered private agencies, not a single one has taken the necessary licence and nobody had authenticated the details provided by them.
The Centre has transferred eight honest Delhi government officials to Andaman in an autocratic manner bypassing the city government with an aim to create hurdles in the development work in the capital, said Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Tuesday.
In all, nine Delhi government officials were transferred by the Ministry of Home Affairs on Monday. Of them, eight officials will be sent to Andaman. When asked about the transfers, the Centre said that it was its right. But shouldnt the elected government of the state be consulted? Sisodia asked.
The Union government has not even discussed the transfers with the chief secretary of the Delhi government, said the deputy CM.
The officers who have been transferred were doing fabulous work for development in unauthorised colonies, building classrooms in schools and installation of CCTVs across the city, he said.
Sisodia said the city has shortages of officers in the city. In all, there are 24 posts in Andaman and Nicobar and the Centre is planning to depute 31 officials. While Delhi should have 309 posts for DANICS officers but currently only 165 officials have been deputed. Of these 165, eight have been transferred to Andaman. Is this your right to destroy the Delhi government? said Sisodia.
On Monday, the CBI arrested Rajendra Kumar, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal over graft charges.
Sisodia questioned the timing of the arrest of Kumar by CBI accusing the Centre of paralysing the government's machinery to carry out development work in the capital.
The corruption allegations on Kumar dates back to 2006 but none of the minister of the then Congress government has been questioned, he had said.
On December 16, the CBI had raided the office of Principal Secretary to Chief Minister on the allegations of corruption. Sisodia said that Kumar was a mere scapegoat whereas CM Kejriwal is the real target.
Sisodia had said the Centre was attacking the AAP government as it was shaken by the response AAP was receiving in Punjab and Goa.
Modi-led Union government is conspiring against the AAP government to paralyse its machinery and hinder in the development work in Delhi.
The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) will soon open the doors of its new old age home Aashirwaad at Kali Bari Marg.
The council has planned recreational activities for the elderly inmates at the new old age home. The home will have a capacity to accommodate till 60 men and women inmates.
The air-conditioned home will have different recreational facilities for the elderly. Besides a full-fledged library and indoor games, the council is also planning to conduct regular classes on yoga, music and hold group discussions and lectures for the inmates. There will also be wi-fi facilities for the elderly people.
The new old age home will have better infrastructure and recreational facilities as compared to the existing ones. It is fully air-conditioned. There will be several activities at the home which the elderly inmates can participate in.
We are planning to involve other elderly people in the locality in the classes on yoga, meditation, music and the different indoor games so that the inmates get the opportunity to mingle with more people. The activities will also help the home be run like a day care centre for other elderly locals, said A K Singh, Director, Welfare Department, NDMC.
There will also be round-the-clock nurses with doctors visiting the inmates once every day.
The council has now invited applications. The application process is open from July 1 - July 15. The council has planned to open the home to the inmates on August 1. There are facilities for dormitories and double rooms. We will try to maintain an equal ratio of men and women inmates. Couples can also apply, said Singh.
The charges would be around Rs 5,000 for dormitory services and Rs 7,500 for double room per month. Applicants will be given accommodation an a first-cum first-serve basis.
The NDMC currently runs two old age homes in the city Sandhya and Aradhana in Bhagwan Das Road , which houses only female inmates.
The Islamic State terror group today issued a new chilling video warning the Bangladesh government of more attacks in the country and across the world until Shariah law is established globally, saying last week's gruesome attack on a cafe here was just "a glimpse".
The video message believed to be issued from Raqqa, the stronghold of the terror group in strife-torn Syria in Bangla language was first found in an IS-affiliate website and then released on YouTube early today.
The video comes days after Islamist gunmen stormed a popular restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave late on Friday and killed 22 people, most of them foreigners from Italy, Japan, India and the US in an attack claimed by the Islamic State.
The ISIS video released in a SITE Intelligence site yesterday. The message containing threats has gone viral on social media among Bangladeshis still recovering from the shock from the slaughter of 20 hostages and two police officers in Dhaka.
"It was a glimpse...will repeat," tweeted Rita Katz, director of SITE intelligence, quoting the men from the video. One had his face covered, while two others were bearded.
The video begins with Islamic State propaganda messages, with captions in Bangla, and boasts of death tolls from numerous terror attacks claimed by IS.
"The jihad in Bangladesh, the one you are witnessing now, is nothing like anything you have seen before," said one of them, in his 'message' for the Bangladesh government, bdnews24 reported.
In the video, three of the speakers are of Bangladesh origin, but they could not be identified immediately. One of them said they would not stop until establishing Shariah law all over the world.
"We will not stop killing the crusaders till then; we will win or die for our religion as martyrs and achieve Sahadaat (martyrdom)... we don't have anything to lose," he said.
He termed the current form of democracy in Bangladesh a 'Shirk' or unforgivable crime.
One of them said they would not stop until establishing Shariah law all over the world. "The Jihad that has come to Bangladesh now has been promised by Prophet Mohammed," he claimed, Dhaka Tribune reported.
The second speaker labelled the government as 'kafir' (a person who is not a Muslim).
"Since the govt has changed Allah's law and has implied man-made law they are all 'Kafirs' now. It is our religious duty to fight against it. Crusaders are killing innocents Muslims globally with planes and bomb attacks.
"So the Holey Artisan (cafe) incident is our revenge to the lost blood of the hundreds and hundreds of Muslims who were killed," he said.
Bangladesh government has claimed that the militants were members of the banned Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
Three of the attackers are from well-off families and studied in Dhaka's top schools while two others came from poor families in Bogra.
Since September last year, IS has claimed responsibility for at least 25 attacks killing foreigners, Hindus priests, Christians, and non-Sunni preachers and police besides secular activists and bloggers. They have also launched bomb and gun attacks on Shia and Ahmadiyya mosques.
Controversial Indian Islamic preacher Zakir Nayek, whose 'hate speech' is reported to have inspired one of the five Bangladeshi militants involved in the Dhaka carnage, may face action even as Shiv Sena today demanded a ban on his organisation.
"Zakir Nayek's speech is a matter of concern for us. Our agencies are working on this. But as a minister, I will not comment what action will be taken," Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju told reporters in Delhi.
The new Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu when asked about Naik's speeches said, "We have time to study all these aspects".
Rijiju said India has good relations and mutual understanding with Bangladesh, especially in the matter of co-operation on fighting terrorism.
"Terror can be defeated only through close coordination and by fighting together (against it)," he said.
Bangladeshi newspaper 'Daily Star' had reported that militant Rohan Imtiaz, son of an Awami League leader, ran a propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Nayek.
Nayek, in his lecture aired on Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, had reportedly "urged all Muslims to be terrorists".
Nayek, a popular but controversial Islamic orator and founder of Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation, is banned in the UK and Canada for his 'hate speech' aimed at other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia.
He is hugely popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, although his preachings often demean other religions and even other Muslim sects, the report said.
Sena MP Arvind Sawant said he had written to the Union Home Minister, demanding a ban on Naik and Islamic Research Foundation, in the country's interest.
"People whose language propagates violence against nation's unity should be banned," Sawant said in the letter.
"Islam teaches love and peace. But everyday is a day of high alert now. I appeal to the Home Minister that action needs to be taken," he said.
"How do young children in our country join the ISIS? So maybe we are failing somewhere....we should know the seriousness of this situation. Radicalised minds can now take any step. In the name of Islam, they are slaughtering people who cannot recite verses," Sawant added.
Mansoor Shaikh, the manager of Islamic Research Foundation, denied that Nayek had endorsed terrorism in his speeches.
Islamist gunmen stormed a popular restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave late on Friday and killed 22 people, most of them foreigners.
In an attempt to encourage manufacturing of coal-based urea and second-generation ethanol, the Centre will come out with draft policies soon.
The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and Chemicals Fertilisers will prepare draft policies in three months, which will have details of incentives to industries to promote investment in fertiliser production as clean energy sector.
The decision on this was taken in the inter-ministerial meeting attended by Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, Coal Minister Piyush Goyal, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, Chemical and Fertiliser Minister Ananth Kumar, and Science and Technology Minster Harsh Vardhan, among others.
Though earlier, the country faced shortage of coal, now there is surplus coal and urea, so plants based on gas from coal could easily be set up. At present, coal-based urea production technology for producing urea is common in South Africa, China and USA, among other countries.
Currently, the government spends around Rs 45,000 crore as subsidy on urea per year. If the coal-based urea plant is set up in India, the cost of the urea prices may come down, said Nitin Gadkari.
Ethanol
In the proposed draft policy on second-generation ethanol manufacturing, the government dwelt on financial subsidy to industries to set up plants to generate advanced fuels.
Second-generation biofuels, also known as advanced biofuels, can be produced by using biomass consisting of the residual non-food parts of crops such as stems, leaves and husks.
First-generation biofuels are made from sugar and vegetable oils found in arable crops, which can be easily extracted using conventional technology.
The government is planning ethanol blending in petrol to 22.5% and in diesel to 15%.
Gadkari said boost to ethanol production could cut Indias huge crude oil imports bill, which is pegged at Rs 7 lakh crore per annum.
Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan recently said public sector oil marketing firms will procure 120 crore litres of ethanol to reach the target of 5% blending for petrol by September 2016.
University of Hyderabad's Joint Action Committee (JAC) has alleged the bust of dalit icon B R Ambedkar was "removed" from the shopping complex area in the varsity at the behest of Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao Podile, a claim denied by the administration today.
Yesterday, a group of students and teachers of the varsity, also known as Hyderabad Central University (HCU), held a protest on the campus over the issue and decided to lodge a police complaint in this regard.
"The Deans Committee recommended removal of tents and structures, named 'Velivada' besides the bust of Ambedkar from the shopping complex on the campus. These structures reflected the struggle for self respect...removal of bust of B R Ambedkar is insult to Dalits," said D Prashant who has been leading the JAC's protest over the suicide of dalit Ph.D scholar Rohith Vemula in January.
He alleged the bust was removed "at the behest of" UoH Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao Podile "in nexus with other accused against whom a police case was registered in the wake of Vemula's death".
Categorically denying any role in the matter by administration, UoH Pro Vice-Chancellor Vipin Srivastava today said, "the University has not issued any orders written or oral for the removal of Dr B R Ambedkar's bust from the shopping complex area in the University campus.
"While the students told media, and also the security officer (on Monday afternoon) that the bust in question was removed, allegedly at the behest of the varsity administration, on the intervening night of Sunday and Monday, (i.e. July 3 and July 4) they did not even mention this, let alone protest about it, in their meeting with the newly-joined Registrar on July 4," Srivastava stated in a release.
The Pro VC stated that as soon as the students reported the matter to Security Officer on July 4, he checked with two security guards, who were on duty in shopping complex on the night of July 3, and was informed that the bust was there for sure around 6 AM of July 4 when their shift got over.
Srivastava further said, "if the university receives any complaint, efforts will be made to get the complete details in this incident through an appropriate inquiry".
Vemula's suicide on January 17 had sparked massive protests in the varsity as well as outside resulting in a fierce political slugfest, with a string of political parties and dalit organisations siding with students and accusing the BJP and varsity administration of being anti-dalit.
After Vemula's death, students had set up tents and installed a 'Rohith Smaraka Stupa' at the shopping complex.
UoH has been witnessing sporadic protests since the dalit scholar's death demanding Podile's dismissal.
Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan said that Indias new-age tech companies will have to go through a cyclical journey and face the challenges of scale too.
Every 3-5 years, well go through ups and downs. No doubt about that.
If you look at Flipkart, Snapdeal, Myntra and the like, definitely I believe some will be there five years or 10 years from now. And then well look back at this time and say this is when the men were separated from the boys, he said at the fifth Tech in Asia Bangalore 2016 on Wednesday.
He advised entrepreneurs to be careful with their cash and advised them to cement that ethos into the company culture. You have to build with certain qualities. Frugality is certainly one of them. Look at every rupee that is spent. Infosys definitely has that philosophy, he said.
Commenting on the slide in funding for startups in India, Kris said that other factors are also putting new pressures on startups and major economies around the world. The issue with the anti-globalisation trend is that it can slow down global growth, which will impact everyone, he said.
He said there are booming opportunities in the tech startup space. I am very optimistic about healthcare. Its a huge market in India. Preventative and predictive medicine using new technologies find a huge opportunity in India, he said.
Kris said that when companies reach a certain level, they will have to keep their core culture intact.
Leadership of the company walk the talk and proactively reach out to their employees to inculcate values of the companys culture. There should be a certain system and process in place to implement as the organisation reaches certain size, he said.
He said entrepreneurs should set their expectations right with their investors which will deliver a cordial atmosphere in the relationship. Companies should appraise the investor when the company will slide and how they are planning to recover its fortune later, he said.
Kris also reminded that in ones entrepreneurial journey is survival of the fittest. There is only meritocracy in enterprise journey. They only will succeed in the long run, he said.
A 31-year-old man, who was apparently annoyed over not getting married, allegedly tormented around 1,500 women and girls in Delhi-NCR by sending them vulgar messages and obscene video clips through WhatsApp and was arrested, police said today.
Examining the mobile phones used by the accused, police stumbled upon contacts of more than 1,500 women and girls who were put through "perpetual trauma" and "mental agony" by him. Altogether, the accused had phone numbers of 2,000 women and girls living in the Delhi national capital region (NCR), they said.
A police team investigating a case registered on May 30 by a woman at Ashok Vihar police station in north west Delhi, arrested accused Mohammad Khalid from his father's bag shop in Sadar Bazar area, said Vijay Singh, DCP (north west).
Police found all the obscene messages and video clips sent by the accused to his victims, stored in the mobile phones. It also included his messages to the complainant from Ashok Vihar, he said.
During interrogation, Khalid said he used to make random calls on Delhi NCR mobile numbers. If the call was received by a woman or a girl, he used to save it and then through WhatsApp viewed their profile picture. If he liked the woman or girl, he would start sending vulgar messages and obscene video clips through WhatsApp, said the officer.
Investigating the FIR registered at Ashok Vihar, a police team found that the complainant received the vulgar, abusive messages from two mobile numbers. The names and addresses were found to be fake.
Searching for a clue, the police team reached Sadar Bazar area from where the SIM cards were purchased and he often got his phone recharged.
Further enquiries and investigation led the cops to Khalid, who at first tried to bluff the police but admitted to his offence when confronted with facts, the DCP said.
Most of his victims avoided approaching police perhaps due to his threat to malign their image and out of fear of disclosing their identity, he said.
Khalid used the SIM cards obtained through the fake IDs, exclusively for sending messages and video clips to his victims.
He told police that he was unmarried and was frustrated as his friends had got married and were having children.
Cases were registered against him in Gurgaon (Haryana) and Uttam Nagar, Ashok Vihar and Usmanpur (all in Delhi). Complaints were also found lodged at women helpline numbers at different police stations in and around Delhi, they added.
A sailor from the South Korean fishing vessel said a bad relationship and the language barrier were the reasons for the bloody mutiny.
Two Vietnamese fishermen killed the captain and chief engineer of a South Korean fishing vessel named Kwang Hyun 803 over a dispute on June 20, 2016 about 1,300km east of Somalia.
A 50-year-old South Korean sailor, identified by his surname Lee, said in an interview with Yonhap that there had been an argument between Captain Yang and the two Vietnamese fishermen on the night of June 19. The sailor said the relationship between the two suspects and Yang had been strained due to the captain's frequent outbursts and the language barrier.
After drinking some liquor, the two Vietnamese suspects (both aged 32 years) stabbed Yang to death with a knife while he was alone in the cockpit. They then reportedly went to the bedroom below and murdered chief engineer Kang while he was at the wheel.
Lee almost became the next target but martial arts skills helped him to subdue the suspects.
"After subdueing the two Vietnamese crewmen, I asked them why they killed the captain and the chief engineer, those two only replied: no good'," he said. "The relationship between them was not good; I think they lost control because of the liquor.
According to Lee, the two Vietnamese suspects were hard workers and the tragedy might not have happened if Yang had been more reasonable. He said the culture on offshore fishing vessels needs to change to prevent such unfortunate incidents from recurring.
"Foreign and South Korean crew members should learn simple phrases and respect each other's cultures and personalities," he said. "If things had remained friendly, this tragedy would not have happened."
Autopsy results showed that Yang and Kang were stabbed 23 times in total. The two are believed to have died from internal injuries and blood loss, the Korea Times quoted the South Korean coast guard as saying.
At the hearing on July 1, the two Vietnamese suspects said they were angry at the abuse the two victims had given them. One suspect has a previous conviction for a violent offense in Vietnam. He has confessed to the murder charges while the remaining suspect denies the accusation.
The Korea Coast Guard is continuing to clarify the motive for the murder while looking for possible accomplices.
Related news:
> South Korea arrests Vietnamese fishermen over double homicide at sea
> Vietnamese crewmen held over killing of S.Korea ship captain, engineer
The killing of dozens of people by te-rrorists at Dhaka is not an aberration, but the product of a committed mind that has been brainwashed by fanaticism. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is quite right when she says that this is not Islam. Yet, Muslims all over must introspect why their co-religionists are striking all over and at regular intervals.
Bangladesh Information Minister Hasanul Haq has blamed Pakistan for the attack. This may well be true, but there has to be evidence. Otherwise, the criticism will be considered a part of inimical attitude by Dhaka towards Islamabad.
First in Paris, then Brussels and now Dhaka, the message is always the same. Non-believers have no space if they do not accept Islam as the one religion nearest to God. True, this mocks at ideologies like secularism and democracy. But if the discipline of Islam is to be accepted, there is no place for dissent. The madrasas all over the world teach the tenets of Islam and make you remember the Koran by heart. But there is little place for science or technology.
India is probably the only country which has compulsorily introduced science in madrasas. But the mullahs and maulvis are not happy with this and wherever they canin remote parts of the countrythey do away with teaching in science. Of course, there are exceptions like former president Abdul Kalam and Pakistans A Q Khan. They represent the brilliant mind behind the finished product they brought before the wider world. But the weapon they are able to anvil can be lethal and destructive.
I recall when I interviewed the Bihar-born A Q Khan, he warned me that if you ever drive us to the wall, as was the case when East Pakistan seceded, we will use the bomb straight away. In fact, I have heard some people saying in Pakistan that they would use the bomb first and destroy India. But I argued with Khan that you might destroy northern India but that would also be the end of Pakistan. India would still be able to rebuild the country with the resources available in the south.
It is strange that Khan remains a hero in Pakistan, although he has sold the nuclear know how at an exorbitant price to countries from North Korea to Iran. It is a frightening scenario, but thanks to Khan, a dirty nuclear bomb is a possibility anywhere in the Islamic world. Imagine also some terrorists getting hold of the bomb. They can hold the world to ransom.
What happened at Dhaka was indiscriminate killing at a posh restaurant in an exclusive part of the city earmarked for diplomats. Suppose those same terrorists had at their disposal a dirty bomb? What could have been the consequences? Instead of a few dozen casualties, the number of those killed would have been in hundreds of thousands and stretching across the border.
This should make the governments in South Asia conscious of the fact that terrorism is not just confined to distant places in Syria and Yemen. The Islamic State is already present and it claims to have local support. To build a dirty bomb, it is not necessary to hijack finished nuclear weapons. All that is required is access to any civil nuclear facilities either power reactors like Kanupp in Karachi or research centres at Trombay near Mumbai. There cannot be any foolproof ban on the procurement of key strategic materials needed for the bomb.
Medias role
Countries in South Asia have to come together on this specific issue and devise suitable steps so that this region doesnt become a hunting ground for nuclear adventure. This will also involve a concerted drive against the fundamentalists.
For example, persons like Hyderabad-based Asaduddin Owaisi who are trying to win headlines by taking a stand, which is palpably wrong but probably acceptable in the eyes of fanatics. I wish the media wouldnt give him the publicity he is getting because his eyes are fixed on the space he gets in the media. But then, it is also understandable that the media cannot ignore the provocative statements he makes.
I recall that the feeling of being different came to be cultivated at Law College, Lahore, where l was studying. The common kitchen eventually was divided into Hindu kitchen and Muslim kitchen, just like they started selling Hindu paani and Muslim paani at the railway station. Fortunately, most students were not affected by this. At the Law College dining room, Muslim students would get food from their kitchen, Hindu students would in turn get food from their kitchen. But we all sat and ate together.
I feel that even though we did not bother about the separation of the kitchen, it gave birth to the idea of division and this ultimately led to partition of the subcontinent. But we never imagined that there would be forced migration of populations. We who decided to stay in Sialkot city, now part of Pakistan, thought that we would be in a minority, just as Muslims would be in India. But both will be living peacefully. This did not happen because the bureaucracy on both sides was also divided on the basis of religion.
We in Sialkot experienced how the Muslim police connived at the looting and killing of non-Muslims because similar was the case in East Punjab. In the process we, killed one million people of each others communities.
Till today, there is no accountability and non-Muslims in India should offer an apology to the Muslims on the other side, just as they should do the same to us. This may not make amends for the horrors, but at least it might begin a new chapter of healing.
The terrorists who are the product of those terrible times may then be conde-mned by the people themselves and they would not be able to get the backing they need. Then the happening in Dhaka will be recalled with horror and humiliation.
Britains vote to exit the European Union (EU) could compound the damage to West Asia caused by former British Prime Minister Tony Blairs disastrous 2003 decision to go to war against Iraq alongside US president George Bush. This war created a politico-military vacuum in Iraq that was filled by al-Qaeda which gave birth to Islamic State, the extremist cult threatening not only West Asia but the entire international community.
Britains exit Brexit from the EU coincides with the escalating instability and violence in the region and elsewhere. Brexit has already created uncertainty in Europe and is preoccupying world leaders at a time they should focus on crushing the IS and ending deadly and destructive wars in West Asia.
This extremist cult has been transformed into an international franchise with branches in Yemen, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt and adherents in Lebanon, Jordan, the Indian sub-continent, Europe and the US.
Disagreements between the US and Russia and among regional powers have already prolonged the five-year old war in Syria which has spilled over into Iraq and Lebanon. UN mediator Staffan de Mistura has been pressing the US, Russia and Europe to bring the Syrian government and opposition together in Geneva this month with the aim of reaching a deal before the departure of US President Barack Obama next January.
De Mistura is well aware that if a solution is not achieved by the end of the year, Obamas successor might opt for war rather than peacemaking. Washingtons West Asian military adventures have been disastrous.
Iraq and Syria are not the only countries demanding serious peacemaking efforts. Saudi Arabia is waging failing campaigns in Yemen against Shia rebels, al-Qaeda and IS. Egypt is battling IS in the Sinai Peninsula; Libya throughout its territory.
The Quartet, comprised of the US, UN, EU and Russia, has warned that the international communitys failure to resolve the Palestine-Israel dispute could be a source of prolonged instability in West Asia.
On the political front, for many months to come, the saga of Britains exit from the EU is certain to grip political elites who might be diverted for a week or two next fall when the US presidential election contest is at its height.
Until Brexit won the day in the British referendum on June 23, the world had been preoccupied with West Asias wars and the impact of IS strikes in France and Belgium and attacks attributed to the cult in the US. The attention of the world's media, politicians, humanitarian activists and concerned citizens were on issues of life and death rather than on the economic, social, and political complications of Brexit.
On the social front, Brexit could be bad news for refugees fleeing escalating West Asian conflicts because many Britons who voted for their country to leave the EU did so out of ultra-nationalist and racist motives. Racial abuse has risen in Britain since the Brexit vote.
Some of this abuse has been directed at Eastern Europeans who travelled to Britain to find employment but Arabs and Britons of Indian and Pakistani origin have also been targeted. Hate crimes rose by 57% in the four days after the Brexit vote.
If the exiting Britain renounces the European Convention on Human Rights, immigrants and refugees could suffer discrimination, abuse and deportation without recourse to the European Court for Human Rights.
Brexit has already encouraged other ultranationalists and racists to oppose the settlement in the EU of refugees from West Asias wars, leaving tens of thousands trapped in Greece, Italy and Turkey. Alienated and angry young men could be prom-pted to join the ranks of IS.
Armed response
On the military front, Brexit could bring about an end to cooperation between European armies and the British armed forces, the largest in Europe, weakening the EUs ability to respond to threats in West Asia, considered by Europe to be its backyard.
While the military, political and social impacts of Brexit are likely to be more important than the economic impact, Britains trade relationships with West Asia, valued at $18 billion in 2014, will have to be renegotiated, creating financial uncertainty for West Asian, British and global markets.
The sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states could suffer from the depreciation of the British pound and falling prices of bonds, stocks and real estate in Britain.
The EU economy, which had begun to recover from the Great Recession of 2007-08, could lap-se into recession unless Britains exit is quickly and well managed. Unfortunately, this is unlikely. Instead of formally proclaiming Britains exit, ruling Conservative party politicians are squabbling among themselves over who should succeed Prime Minister David Cameron, who resigned after the Brexit vote. Delay will have negative conseq-
uences for the global economy.
Brexit is a disaster not only for Europe but also for the US, Asia, Africa, and West Asia. It is a disaster because in addition to predictable negative impacts, Britains exit will have damaging unexpected consequences for West Asia and the world.
The renovation of the Almatti reservoir taken up with World Bank assistance is in full swing. The work on the dam, which can impound 123 tmc ft of water, was completed in 2000.
The objective of the renovation is to increase storage capacity of the reservoir and to ensure zero water seepage, according to C Anantharam, the Chief Engineer of the dam. He said state-of-the-art technology, special cement and chemicals were being utilised for the renovation. The work is being executed in four packages, at a total cost of Rs 72 crore. With the onset of monsoons, the inflow into the reservoir is set to increase and hence, renovation work is being executed day and night.
Giving details of the work, Executive Engineer M G Sajjanara and Assistant Engineer H C Narendra said that in the first package, grouting of the reservoir surface, closing of cracks, re-drilling of foundation holes and other maintenance works have been taken up at a cost of Rs 22 crore. A grout mixture containing special cement will be spread over the reservoir surface at a fixed pressure to seal cracks and pores. This would help prevent water seepage.
A huge quantity of water is released into the river from 26 crest gates of the dam.
The spillway will be strengthened using a special cement and modern technology.
Chemicals imported from Germany, chlorine-resistants are being used for the concrete surface of the spillway. The estimated cost of the second package is Rs 15 crore. The rejoining of the mud embankment of the dam is being executed in the third package, at a cost of Rs 15 core. The work has been taken up in view of security concerns. The floor area on which reservoir water spills into the river is being modernised under the fourth package, at a cost of Rs 21 crore.
The Central Water Commission has formulated Drip-Dam Rehabilitation and Improvement Project (DRIP) for modernisation of reservoirs in the country. The World Bank is financing the project and the work is being executed in conformity with the international standards laid down by the World Bank. Sajjanar said that World Bank experts, who inspected the renovation work, had expressed their satisfaction with the quality.
Sub-urban police arrested a person and recovered nearly Rs 1 crore from him at Tadapatrigalli here on Tuesday night.
Mahantesh Gondhi of Sirsi was arrested while carrying the cash of Rs 99.79 lakh in a bag, without the required documents, police said.
While patrolling, South Traffic Police Station constables Shekhappa Bijali and B S Patil found him with a bag. Upon suspicion, they checked the bag and found the huge amount of cash in the bag.
Police said that one Vimal from Belagavi and Bharat from Hubballi gave money to Mahantesh and asked him to give it to arecanut trader Vivekanand Pai in Sirsi.
Sub-urban police and Income Tax Department officials are collecting more details.
Former Deputy Director of Pre-University Education H M Rudraswamy, on Wednesday, lamented that Dalit leaders in various political parties have turned into adopted sons of their respective parties that are based on caste system and so, Dalits are yet to get freedom.
He was delivering a lecture on Dalit Politics in Modern India and Leadership, organised by University of Mysore (UoM) Babu Jagjivan Ram Studies, Research and Extension Centre, at Manasagangothri, to mark Jagjivan Rams 30th death anniversary.
Rudraswamy said, though there are more than 125 MPs and nearly 1,000 legislators belonging to the Dalit communities in the country, the deprived classes are still striving for their constitutional rights. Though Dalits have the right to education and employment and participate in politics, they are not working for the welfare of the deprived communities. Even today, Dalits are not in a position to decide their political leaders. Every political partys high command decides Dalit leaders. Though Dalits enjoy powers, they are yet to get independence, he opined.
Speaking about Jagjivan Ram, Rudraswamy said, Ram grew up as a national leader by fighting for freedom along with Mahatma Gandhi. There was no difference between B R Ambedkar and Ram pertaining to social thinking and political stand. It is far from the truth that Gandhi tried to suppress Ambedkar using Jagjivan Ram, said Rudraswamy.
Member of Central Advisory Committee, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Deepak Doddaiah said, Babuji pioneered the Green Revolution and he was the man behind the Employees State Insurance Scheme (ESI) for labourers.
BJP district (rural) president M Shivanna, centre Director K Sadashiva and guest lecturer G S Bhatt were present.
Dignitaries pay homage
A host of dignitaries, including peoples representatives and top officials, paid homage to the former deputy prime minister on his 30th death anniversary by offering floral tributes to his statue in front of the Railway Station, in the City.
MP Pratap Simha, MLAs M K Somashekar, Vasu, and G T Devegowda, Mayor B L Bhyrappa, Zilla Panchayat President Nayeema Sultana, former Mayor Purushotam, Deputy Commissioner C Shikha, Police Commissioner B Dayananda, City Corporation Commissioner C G Betsurmath, ZP CEO Shiva Shankar paid their respects.
JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda on Wednesday said that his political detractors could never finish him off politically.
Gowda said that both he and his party are relevant today. He was speaking at an interaction programme on the importance of regional parties organised by the legal cell of JD(S) in Bengaluru.
Making an indirect reference to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and the eight rebel MLAs of the JD(S), he said that these leaders were making concerted efforts to finish him off politically.
My political detractors are trying to finish me off, but they will never succeed. I will not listen to astrology and sit back. Nor will I cower thinking that this is my fate. I have struggled a lot, but my patience is wearing thin. I will build the party office, name it J P Bhavan and strive to bring back the party to power, he said.The former prime minister said that the JD(S) was stuck with the reputation of being a father-son party and that he has blind love for his sons.
But the fact is that I was not the one who introduced my sons to politics.
Kumaraswamy was busy producing films, when he was brought into politics by other leaders in the party. Likewise, I never groomed Revanna. Instead of my son, I gave the ticket to somebody else to contest the MLA elections from Holenarsipur. he added.
He said that the eight rebels were going tom tomming that it was impossible to survive in the father-son party.
Indirectly, attacking Chamarajpet MLA B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan who is now in Mecca, Gowda said: When I hosted the Iftar party recently, several people received messages from the Mecca, not to attend the event. Despite this, there was a massive turnout.
Asked if the Congress and the JD(S) were joining hands to unseat Legislative Council chairman D H Shankarmurthy and bring in senior JD(S) MLC Basavaraj Horatti in his place, Gowda said that he would welcome it if all the three parties unanimously elected Horatti.
Floods in Assam has affected about 1.20 lakh people across seven districts even as incessant rain continues to lash the state.
While the Brahmaputra is flowing above danger level in Neematighat, Tezpur and Dhubri, the Jia Bharali river is also flowing above the red danger mark in Sonitpur and the Dhansiri was flowing above danger mark in Numaligarh.
Seven districts in Assam Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, Nagaon, Jorhat, Morigain, Biswanath and Golaghat are facing flash floods, official sources told DH.
According to Assam State Disaster Management Authority, 293 villages have been inundated, while 84 villages in Majuli River Island, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowals constituency, are marooned.
In Lakhimpur, 76 villages have been flooded. About 50 relief camps have also been set up across the state. As of now, there are no reports of loss of life, official sources said.
Meanwhile, the Indian Army is closely monitoring the current situation and the levels of rising water in River Brahamaputra amid reports of the increasing flood threat in the area. The Regional Meteorological Centre at Guwahati has issued a warning on Tuesday predicting heavy rain at isolated places in the Northeast India, particularly in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
Lightning kills 11 in Bihar
At least 11 people were killed in lightning in Bihar in the last 24 hours, DHNS reports from Patna. While three persons died in Nalanda on Wednesday, eight others were killed when lightning struck a tree at Chakand in Gaya on Tuesday evening.
This is the second major tragedy in the state in the last fortnight. On June 22, 57 people were killed and 32 injured in the rain and thunderstorm which lashed the state. The maximum number of deaths was reported from Bihta, about 40 km from here, where lightening killed five persons.However, in the last 24 hours, Gaya has been the worst sufferer. Eight people, all villagers under Chakand police outpost, were returning home from fields in the evening when heavy rain lashed the area. They all took shelter under a tree near a temple when lightning struck, killing all eight on the spot.
An Indian Information Technology professional has been released three months after he was kidnapped in Libya, the government said in New Delhi on Wednesday.
The Indian Embassy in Libya has secured the release of Regi Joseph an Indian national from Kerala. He was abducted in March this year, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj posted on Twitter. She added that Josephs release from captivity was possible due to efforts by Indian ambassador in Libya Azar A H Khan.
A native of Koorachundu in Kozhikode district, Regi has been missing since March 31 after he left his home in Tripoli for work. His wife Shinuja, a nurse in Tripoli, had informed Regis family about the incident. Regi was employed in a government-run civilian registration authority project and was living in Tripoli with Shinuja and their three daughters.
Though suspected anti-government insurgents were reported to have abducted Regi, members of his family had maintained that there was no authentic information about the group. Regi started working in Libya in 2005. He returned home after clashes broke out in the North African country. After a three-year break in Kerala, he returned to Libya along with his family in 2014.
Last May, the government had banned travel to Libya in view of the deteriorating security situation in the strife-torn country.
A five-member delegation from Netherlands on Wednesday called on Bengaluru Development Minister K J George to explore possibilities of having knowledge partnerships related to municipal water supply and other areas.
The main objective of the meeting, which lasted for nearly 30 minutes, was to discuss the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Karnataka and the City of the Hague on issues such as elderly care, start-ups, cyber security and urban cycle planning, besides municipal water supply.
A spokesman for the delegation said they felt that the challenges of the state and the City of the Hague were similar in nature and it provided a solid base for a peer and knowledge partnership related to municipal water supply.
An MoU will be prepared on topics which were discussed in the meeting and it is likely to be formally signed during the visit of Vice Mayor of the City of The Hague, Karsten Klein, and the CEO of Dutch water organisation Dunea, WimDrossaert, in November this year.
There are frequent regional conflicts between fishing groups in the southern province of Kien Giang. Photo by VnExpress/Cuu Long
The bizarre case was supposedly triggered by ongoing disputes over fishing territory between local fishermen.
Kien Giang police on July 6 pressed criminal charges against local fishermen who were responsible for the illegal "arrest" of enforcement officials four days ago.
"We are focusing on finding out who was behind the illegal arrests of officials to continue with our prosecution," said the head of the investigation team.
The fishermen reportedly said the inspection carried out by police and border guard forces was "unusal" so they held the officials because they wanted clarification from Kien Giang authorities.
Other fishermen said that inspections are regualarly carried out by fisheries authorities, but not police or military officers. In addition, the police and border guard forces confisticated their registration documents, but did not make a written report at the scene.
The incident happened on July 2 in Van Khanh Tay Commune where border guard forces and local police detected four boats illegally fishing in the area. During an inspection, one boat refused to cooperate with authorities and left. Two other boats did not have licenses.The patrol force then ordered them to follow them back to the station.
Shortly after, 27 fishing boats from a nearby area encircled the inspection team's boats, attacking them with bricks and stones. Some of them boarded the vessels and beat people with sticks and took away their badges, mobile phones and other equipment.
A total of 11 members of the inspection team, including border guard officers and policemen, were captured and taken to Ha Tien Ward about 40km to the northwest of An Minh Ward.
After receiving information about the situation, Kien Giang's Border Guard Force mobilized other units and coordinated with relevant agencies to chase after the fishermen.
On the evening of July 3, the fishermen agreed to release their captives. Two fishermen and a border guard officer suffered minor injuries.
"The incident was mayhem caused by crazed fishermen. Provincial authorities have ordered an investigation and will strictly punish those responsible." said Mai Anh Nhin, vice chairman of Kien Giang People's Committee.
Nguyen Van Tam, director of Kien Giangs Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, told VnExpress that disputes have recently risen between local fishermen and those from Ha Tien over fishing rights in the waters of Van Khanh Tay.
"The incident was mayhem caused by crazed fishermen. Provincial authorities have ordered an investigation and will strictly punish those responsible." said Mai Anh Nhin, vice chairman of Kien Giang People's Committee.
Nguyen Van Tam, director of Kien Giangs Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, told VnExpress that disputes have recently risen between local fishermen and those from Ha Tien over fishing rights in the waters of Van Khanh Tay.
Some locals are selling the rights for different fishing grounds to boats from Ha Tien, which complicates the security in these waters, Tam said, adding that local authorities are working to stabilize the situation.
He said agencies are working together to resolve the situation to ensure order and security in the area.
Related news:
> Vietnamese police, military officials 'arrested' by fishermen
Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Chinese Public Security Minister Guo Shengkun are likely to meet in New Delhi to discuss ways to step up counter-terrorism cooperation.
New Delhi and Beijing are in touch to schedule the meeting as soon as possible. Both sides are keen to take counter-terrorism cooperation to a new level, moving on from the fiasco over Chinas opposition to Indias bid to get United Nations sanctions on Pakistan-based terrorist leader Masood Azhar.
The meeting between Singh and Guo is among several engagements between New Delhi and Beijing lined up for the coming months to add new momentum to bilateral relation, which came under stress after China blocked Indias entry to the Nuclear Suppliers Group last month.
Sources in New Delhi said Singhs meeting with the minister would mark the launch of the India-China high-level mechanism for cooperation on internal security.
The new mechanism is intended to focus on stepping up cooperation in combating international terrorism through sharing of intelligence inputs on terrorist activities, terrorist groups and links between terror networks, apart from exchange of experiences in responding to hijacking, hostage situations and other related attacks, sources told DH.
New Delhi and Beijing are likely to use the meeting to coordinate positions on anti-terrorism endeavours and support each other at regional and multilateral levels. They will also discuss ways to cut flow of fund to terror networks.
Singh is likely to nudge Guo to change Beijings policy of opposing New Delhis move to designate Azhar, who heads terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi of Lashkar-e-Toiba and other terrorists based in Pakistan as associates of al Qaeda, Taliban and Islamic State, and impose UN sanctions on them. He will also convey New Delhis concerns over reports of some insurgent leaders of north eastern states taking refuge in China, said sources.
Guo is likely to convey to Singh the concerns of Beijing over extremist elements among Tibetan exiles in India.
Apart from the situation in Afghanistan and Bangladesh, the common concerns of India and China include the menace of Islamic State and its influence among youths in both the countries as well as in their neighbourhood.
Beijing is understood to be concerned over reports about youths from Chinas Xinxiang Uyghur Autonomous Region joining the Islamic State. New Delhi also has similar concerns. The shared concerns of both the governments underlined the need for setting up a mechanism for sharing of intelligence, particularly on the terror organisations recruits from the region and its footprints in the neighbourhood, sources said in New Delhi.
Singh and Guo are also expected to discuss ways to address the root causes of terrorism like poverty, un- employment and underdevelopment, apart from sharing experiences on de-radicalisation.
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) is the single greatest scheme India has instituted to alleviate poverty, said Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz.
Stiglitz was in Bengaluru for a public discussion on Global Inequality: Causes and Consequences, organised by the Azim Premji University on Wednesday.
I think the National Rural Employment Act is a great example to undo inequality and help the poor. It is an example to the world from India, said Stiglitz. On the NDA government, Stiglitz said incidents like the JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) row are bad precedents for attracting foreign investors.
Cracking down on university students puts India in the small group of countries like Turkey. These countries are usually very authoritarian in nature, he said. Its got a very drastic effect on the foreign investor and the international community has taken a strong view on this issue, he said.
Commenting on the performance of the Modi government in the past two years, he said cracking the whip on NGOs was a bad example. These NGOs have contributed a lot towards Indias development and creating harsh conditions for them is not appreciated, Stiglitz added.
He said the United States had failed in implementing the market economy. Just because we have failed doesnt mean the market economy doesnt work. We could have done well. The Norway model is quite successful, he said in response to a question. He said there was no need to weaken the labour market in the US.
Kothanur police arrested another person on Wednesday in connection with the case where a Ugandan woman claimed she was pushed from a building.
Police arrested Christie Ahiah, 31, a Nigerian from his friends house in Byrathi near Kothanur.
Ahiah was working in the hotel owned by one Farida. He had come to Mumbai in 2010 on a business visa and moved to Bengaluru four months ago.
During interrogation, it was learnt that Farida and the victim Fouzia Nantume were friends. On Saturday night, Nantume visited Farida at her hotel. They all decided to go to Farida's house for dinner. After dinner, Farida tried to force Nantume to spend the night with Ahiah. When Nantume refused, Ahiah and Farida thrashed her.
Nantume who suffered minor injuries, ran up to the third floor from where she jumped and sustained injuries, said a senior police officer.
The Centre on Wednesday indicated that it may take action against Zakir Naik after it emerged that one of the Bangladeshi terrorists involved in the recent Dhaka attack was inspired by the Mumbai-based Islamic preacher.
Amid reports that the Bangladesh government has sought a probe into his possible links with terror, Naik is again under the scanner of security agencies like Mumbai Police, the Maharashtra ATS and the National Investigation Agency.
The renewed focus on Naik comes in the wake of Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Star reporting that Rohan Imtiaz, son of an Awami League leader who was among the five terrorists who targeted a Dhaka restaurant, ran a propaganda on Facebook last year quoting the preacher.
In his lecture aired on Peace TV, Naik had reportedly urged all Muslims to be terrorists. Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju told reporters in New Delhi on Wednesday, Zakir Naiks speech is a matter of concern for us. Our agencies are working on this. But as a minister, I will not comment on what action will be taken.
Talking to CNN-IBN News 18, Naik rubbished reports that his speeches promoted terrorism, saying he welcomed any investigation.
It is totally illogical to say that I promote terrorism. Not a single investigation agency says Dr Zakir Naik promotes terrorism. The Home Ministry is most welcome to go through my speeches, Naik said.
I inspire many people because I have a large following. These people might have been inspired by me but I dont know them personally. I fear media and politicians because they might malign my image, he said.
There are people who are using my photographs and misquoting me to defame me. I welcome any investigation against me," Naik added.
An official in Mumbai said, We have scanned his speeches at length, seen his videos at length. That was around five years ago. However, we could not find anything at that point in time with the material that was available or what we scanned.After a row erupted over reports of the Bangladesh terrorist following him, the tele-evangelist was quoted as saying that the Islamic State is un-Islamic.
Earlier, too, terror suspects had counted Naik as an inspiration. Najibulla Zazi, who was arrested in 2009 for conspiring to bomb the New York subway, Kafeel Ahmed who stormed the Glasgow airport in an explosives-laden car in 2007, and Mumbais Rahil Sheikh who was arrested for 7/11 serial train blasts, had earlier claimed they had followed Naik.
The 50-year-old Naik is trained as a doctor but he became an evangelist and founded Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) in 1991. Naiks wife Farhat Naik works for the womens section of IRF. He is among 16 preachers who are banned in Malaysia. He is also banned in the United Kingdom and Canada for his hate speeches. Naik is known for making controversial statements such as that he would not consider Osama bin Laden as a terrorist. He also created a sensation by declaring that even a fool will know that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job orchestrated by (the then) US President George Bush.
Spotlight on Zakir Naik
In the past 20 years, Naik has delivered over 2,000 public speeches in several countries across the world, including the US, the UK and India.
In one of his lectures aired on Peace TV, Naik had reportedly urged all Muslims to be terrorists. A Bangladeshi terrorist involved in the recent attack in Dhaka claimed Naiks preaching inspired him.
Minister Kiren Rijiju says the tele-evangelists speech is a matter of concern for India.
The preacher is now under the scanner of the Mumbai police, the Maharashtra ATS and the NIA.
The proposal by the traffic police to ease traffic congestion in the city by curtailing the inter-state and intra-state bus permits to outskirts of Bengaluru has drawn a flak from the traffic experts and private bus operators.
The Transport department officials say they have no such powers to curtail the routes while experts opined that the move would not ease the traffic in the city.
Instead it might further escalate the problems. There will be no guarantee that the passengers will catch a BMTC bus to reach their destination, said traffic expert M N Sreehari.
What is the point in making the passengers to get down from the bus on the outskirts and make them catch another vehicle to reach their homes. How would this ease the traffic, Sreehari questioned.
The traffic could be eased only when people stop their personal vehicles on the outskirts and choose public transport. A study suggested that a bus is equivalent to 30 cars. If people choose bus as a mode of transport then traffic could be eased, he said.
The proposal sought to curtail the routes of both private and state-owned buses including buses from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
As many as 184 private buses have taken inter-state permits from the state transport authority and 220 buses from the regional transport authority for intra-state movement.
Recently, the Transport department had convened a meeting of private bus operators, who expressed their unwillingness to adhere to the proposal as it will not help either public or them.
K T Rajashekhar, president, Karnataka State Tourist Transport Operators Federation and managing director, SRS Travels, said what is the point in restricting buses on the outskirts as it will cause inconvenience to passengers to take another vehicle with their luggage.
H G Kumar, Additional Commissioner for Transport and Secretary, State Transport Authority said the police has the power to restrict the vehicles by using Karnataka Motor Vehicles rules in the manner they did recently for the global investors meet in the city.
Even the KSRTC too partially opposed the idea on a few routes because it has no bus terminals on the outskirts expect one on Mysuru road and another near Peenya on Tumakuru road.
Besides, no alternative space has been suggested for private and public operators on the outskirts.
End pointsThe traffic police have proposed to curtail the buses at the following points on the city outskirts: Peenya (Tumakuru Road), Attibele (Hosur Road), Summanahalli (Magadi Road), Bhattarahalli (K R Puram Road) and Kengeri (Mysuru Road).
Chennapatna taluk tahsildars mother was brutally murdered by unidentified assailants in broad daylight at the tahsildars official residence on Wednesday.
Thayamma, alias Puttathayamma, 60, the mother of K Ramesh, Chennapatna taluk tahsildar, was cooking when she was hacked to death for gain. The police recovered lethal weapons, including machetes, police said.
Thayamma was alone after Ramesh left for his office around 9.30 am. Thayammas sister would meet Thayamma at the residence every day, but she did not turn up on Wednesday.
A tahsildar office employee went to the residence, collected a file from Thayamma around 1 pm and went back to the office. She was hacked to death after some time, said the police.
The assailants entered from the rear and hit her on the head with lethal weapons and made away with the valuables. The pressure cooker exploded due to overheating, police said.
There was no response from inside when Ramesh came home for lunch and knocked on the door. Rameshs driver entered the house from the rear and found her body lying on the floor. She was immediately taken to a nearby hospital where she was declared dead on arrival, said the police.
Initially, the police suspected that the pressure cooker explosion resulted in her death as the grains were scattered all over kitchen. However, police spotted blood stains in an adjoining room and a few weapons, said the police.
FSL experts concluded that she died due to severe head injuries after being repeatedly hit on the head, added the police. A special team has been formed to arrest the assailants.
25 workers of Vietnams FPT Information System Services Co. Ltd (FPT IS) will continue with their works in Bangladesh after the deadly attack on July 1.
FPT IS, a subsidiary of leading conglomerate FPT, has decided to establish a hotline to help its staff in Bangladesh keep contact with their families in Vietnam following a terror attack that killed several foreigners in Dhaka Capital, Vietnamplus reported Tuesday.
Islamist militants caused deaths to 20 people, including at least nine Italians, seven Japanese and an American, inside an upmarket restaurant in Dhaka, before security forces stormed the building and ended a 12-hour standoff on Saturday, according to Reuters.
Bangladesh police. Photo by AFP
FPT IS has exchanged information with their staff in Dhaka and their families in Vietnam and asked the workers not to gather in crowded places in the evening. They were also advised to go by car.
We have prepared solutions to ensure safety for our workers in Bangladesh in case of emergency, a company representative said.
FPT IS won a $33.6-million contract to deploy and maintain an integrated value added tax system (IVAS) for Bangladeshi tax agency in September last year. It is the biggest contract FPT IS has secured in a foreign market as of 2015. The company will implement the IVAS project at more than 320 tax agencies in Bangladesh within one year and provide maintenance service for five years.
Related news:
> Vietnam's FPT expands services in Japanese market
> Vietnamese tech firm FPT reports rising revenue of over $500 million
On 5-22-21 at 6:10 A.M., Medics responded to the report of a person that is down. Patient was assessed and transported to the hospital.
On 5-24-21 at 2:31 A.M., Medics responded to the report of a person that is intoxicated. Patient assessed and transported to the hospital.
On 5-26-21 at 4:42 P.M., Medics responded to the report of a person down. Patient was assessed and transported to the hospital.
On 5-27-21 at 7:22 P.M., Medics responded to the report of a person that is down. Patient was assessed and transported to the hospital.
On 5-29-21 at 3:11 A.M., Medics responded to the report of a person having an anxiety attack. Patient was assessed and transported to the hospital.
On 5-29-21 at 7:11 P.M., Firefighters responded to the report of a fire on the deck of a house. Minor smoke and smoldering wood on arrival. Fire extinguished with booster line.
On 5-29-21 at 7:58 P.M., Firefighters responded to the report of a boat that is unattended. Firefighters used Fire boat to drag boat back to shore.
On 5-30-21 at 7:40 p.m. Medics responded to the report of a client with nausea and vomiting. The patient was assessed and transported to the hospital.
On 6-25-21 at 3:51 P.M., Medics responded to the report of an overdose. Patient went to ER with personal vehicle.
On 6-25-21 at 4:38 P.M., Medics responded to the report of a person that is intoxicated, patient was assessed and transported to the hospital.
On 6-25-21 at 8:14 P.M., Medics responded to the report of a person with a laceration. Patient was assessed and transported to the hospital.
On 6-25-21 at 22:17 P.M., Medics responded to the report of a person with a broken foot. Patient was assessed and transported to the hospital.
6-29-21 at 1:30 a.m. Medics responded to the report an intoxicated person. The patient was assessed and transported to the hospital.
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The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is inviting Alaskans interested in owning a piece of the Last Frontier to participate in the Fall 2020 Alaska State Land Auction, Offering #491, which includes 110 road-accessible and remote parcels throughout the state.
Alaska residents may submit sealed bids in person, by mail, or online between Oct. 7 at 10 a.m. and Dec. 2 at 4:30 p.m. Apparent high bids will be announced Dec. 16. Bidders may purchase up to two parcels. Free auction brochures can be downloaded from the DNR Land Sales website at: https://dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/landsales/brochure/.
Alaskans are blessed to live in a wonderful land, and the opportunity to own a piece of land in the state is an important part of the Alaska dream, said Governor Mike Dunleavy. I am proud of DNRs regular state land auctions, and encourage all residents to consider taking advantage of this opportunity.
Parcels not sold at auction will be available through Over-the-Counter (OTC) sales to Alaska residents, non-residents or businesses, starting on Dec. 30 at 10 a.m. OTC parcels currently available for purchase are posted on the Land Sales websites Over-the-Counter section. DNR offers competitive in-house financing for land purchases. For more information about OTC sales, see Auction Brochure #491, page 23.
For details on financing and associated costs and Land Sales news and updates, follow Alaska State Land Sales at:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/alaskaland/
Twitter: @alaskaland4sale
Instagram: @alaska_land4sale
Email subscription: https://dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/landsales/email/
For direct assistance, email [email protected] or call 907-269-8594 weekdays from 8 a.m. 4:30 p.m. (TYY available at 711 or 800-770-8973).
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Concerning the legislature in Juneau needing to understand the position of the Governor and the permanent fund amount. It is common sense to realize the true need for the majority of the residents in Alaska; the amount that the Governor is standing by can and will boost the economy of Alaska.
The legislature has few residents that do not need the amount of the Governors proposal. These few residents or constituents are pushing their elected officials for the reduced PFD because they dont need it.
There are so many families in Alaska with children who are in the real need for the amount of three thousand dollars. This amount is truly understood by our Governor and its potential to benefit. Those elected officials who are standing behind the reduced amount do not understand the benefit to the economy for our state.
If the legislature is worried about the PFD being too large they should be more stringent in giving monies the state is able to provide.
Secondary education is one that can be looked at; loans to potential students should have more conditions to receiving funds. It is widely known throughout the country that three fourths of those that enter secondary education will not complete their schooling, so why be generous to these groups of people? The conditions should include higher GPAs as a qualification to receive loans instead.
The Governor is standing alone on his proposal to provide the needed financial help, he needs your support. His veto for the reduced PFD is his best move for the people of Alaska rather than allowing the legislature to decide on the monies that belong to the people of Alaska.
Billy Lincoln Jr., Toksook Bay, AK
Endorsement for Guy and Evan
The census of our region has always been considered delicate, and the right to vote at annual shareholder elections. The democracy we practice is one man, one vote and the majority rules. As indigenous aboriginal natives, we practice the right to vote and ensure its validity by unanimous consensus. My own decision is unanimous.
My name is Martin Billy Moore Sr. an elder of our region. I encourage the shareholders of Calista Corporation to join me, in the endorsement of Paul George Guy and Johnny Evan.
As a former Calista Board Member, I join the Calista Board Members the endorsement of Paul George Guy and Johnny Evan. Vote for Option 1 to keep them on the board.
Martin Billy Moore Sr., Emmonak, AK
Walrus & Our Way of Life
Ayveq Nangaghneghput
Kawerak Inc. with generous support from the Rasmuson Foundation, Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation, Bering Straits Native Corporation, and Arctic Slope Regional Corporation is hosting a roundtable on June 10 at 4 p.m. (E.T.), 12p.m. (AKST) in 188 Russell of the Senate Office Building in Washington D.C. featuring Inuit leaders and artists. The goal is to educate about our Native way of life in the Arctic and our relationship with walrus and ivory carving. The event will also be live streamed on https://Kawerak.org/live-stream/ for those who cannot be there in person.
The roundtable will convene agencies and lawmakers with Inuit leaders and cultural bearers to share the Inuit perspective of our way of life and walrus. Inherent to our way of life is the sustainable harvest of walrus. The Bering Strait region is wellknown for the diversity in Inuit culture: St. Lawrence Island Yupik, Central Yupik and Inupiaq communities. Our communities are home to Inuit hunters and ivory carvers, our cultural bearers and living Inuit artists. Ivory carving is a tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation and reflects the customary and traditional use of walrus ivory. Inuit Art provides the economic means for a basic living, and is often the sole source of cash income for many families in and from our region.
Following the roundtable, there will be a reception from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. (E.T.) in room 485 Russell to allow for further questions, conversation and cross-cultural dialogue.
The purpose of the roundtable is to shed light on the cultural and economic importance of Pacific walrus, of carving walrus ivory through understanding the Inuit way of life and the sustainability; and management of walrus in a vastly changing Arctic. In 2016, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service issued a ban on the commercial trade of African elephant ivory. Six states (New York, New Jersey, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington) enacted broad bans on commercial ivory impacting the market for our Inuit artists who utilize walrus ivory. Inuit leaders will share efforts to maintain their way of life and support Inuit ivory carvers.
Kawerak, Inc., Nome, AK
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Twenty-nine years after he was a freshman living in the dorms at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Steven H. Downs was sentenced to 75 years in prison for sexually assaulting and murdering 20-year-old Sophie Sergie in 1993.
In sentencing Downs on Monday in the Rabinowitz Courthouse in Fairbanks, Superior Court Judge Thomas Temple noted that there was nothing the Court could do to restore the harm caused by Downs actions. In his sentencing remarks, Judge Temple commented that Sergies life was taken by Mr. Downs senseless act and noted Downs gave zero regard to her autonomy as a person, to her value of life, and pointed out that she is forever gone because of Downs callous choice.
Judge Temple commented that in addition to taking Sophie from the world, Downs robbed her family of their ability to love her, experience life with her, to continue time on earth with her.
For nearly three decades after Sergies murder, there were no suspects in the cold case. A DNA sample taken from Sergies body was put into a national DNA database, but did not match another profile in the database. But in 2017, a new investigative method linking DNA technology and genetic research was used to solve a murder case in California. Alaska State Troopers first used this same methodology in 2018, when they submitted the unknown sample from Sergies body for genetic genealogy analysis.
This analysis identified Downs as a possible suspect based on a connection to an aunt who had uploaded her profile to an open-source genealogy website. Investigation confirmed that at the time of the murder, Downs was attending UAF and living in the dorm where Sergie was murdered.
When interviewed in 2019, Downs denied having ever met or come into contact with Sergie. Downs was arrested in February 2019, when his DNA was definitively linked by traditional DNA comparison to the DNA sample collected decades ago on Sergies body. Downs was extradited from Maine where he worked as a nurse.
Sergie was from the Native village of Pitkas Point in western Alaska. Sergie was a UAF student who had taken the semester off. She returned to Fairbanks for an orthodontics appointment and was staying at a friends dorm room on a girls-only floor of Bartlett Hall. In the early hours of April 26, 1993, Sergie left her friends second floor room for a late-night smoke; the next afternoon, she was found dead in a bathtub in the womens bathroom on the second floor.
Evidence showed that Sergie had been sexually assaulted, stabbed multiple times on her face and shot in the back of the head at close range.
Jenna Gruenstein with the State Office of Special Prosecutions argued for a 99-year sentence, with 20 years suspended, for the murder in the first-degree charge and eight years for the sexual assault in the first-degree charge, or 87 years to serve.
Gruenstein argued to the judge that Downs brazenness in committing the crime in a public bathroom should be considered when sentencing him.
First it was unprovoked and a wholly unexplained crime, she said. He committed it against someone Downs never met and committed it for no discernible reason. Second, Sergie is a woman who Downs overpowered in every way, height, weight, and weapons The way he committed the crime, its pretty shocking it wasnt caught earlier because this crime is really one that shouldve been easily detected. It was in a public place with a bathroom stall separating murder from washing and brushing teeth, as students came and went, fairly busy with activity.
Downs defense attorney, Jim Howaniec, described the younger Downs in court as a boy 4,000 miles away from home for the first time. Howaniec said he would not downplay the offense, but told the court that Downs continues to assert his innocence. Howaniec described 18-year-old Downs as both well-adjusted and well-liked with a girlfriend, but he also described him as very immature, drinking and partying a lot, as much as a 1/5 of whiskey every night, somehow maintaining his grades, doing a lot of weed, alienated like a lot of young 18-year-olds.
The defense asked for 50 years of incarceration with 30 years suspended or 20 years to serve, for murder, and eight years for the sexual assault, to run concurrently.
Judge Temple said Downs three decades of not committing a crime could not reduce the magnitude of his conduct. Applying the sentencing laws that were in effect for sentencing when the crime occurred in April 1993, Judge Temple sentenced Downs to 67 years for the murder conviction and eight years for the sexual assault conviction, to run consecutively for a total of 75 years. Under the law, Downs is eligible to ask for discretionary parole after he has served 25 years, at which point he will be 73 years old. Judge Temple also ordered Downs to register as a sex offender for life.
Gruenstein said she was hopeful that the sentencing would help bring healing to Sophies family and friends and to the community.
For both Chris (Chris Darnell, Assistant Attorney General) and myself, it was a real honor to work on this case, given how long it had gone unsolved, how long the communityFairbanks, UAF, Sophies familyhad suffered knowing that somebody had apparently gotten away with this murder and rape. I think that being able to provide some closure to the community is one of the best things that came out of this. Its another example of how helpful genetic genealogy can be. This is the first case that has gone to court in Alaska using this technology.
The Alaska State Troopers investigated this case with the help of the Maine State Police and the Auburn Police Department. The Alaska State Crime Detection Laboratory and the Maine State Laboratory both conducted DNA testing.
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by Representative Bryce Edgmon
Dear Friends & Neighbors,
For many years I have been grateful to work for House District 37 as your representative, and for the past two years it has been my honor to serve as the first ever Alaska Native Speaker of the House. During this time, the bipartisan Alaska House Majority Coalition I lead has worked steadfastly on behalf of rural and urban Alaskans alike.
I am proud of our success this legislative session to ensure that state services and programs received the right level of funding to be of real value to you. We spearheaded the increase of your PFD to $1600 for 2018, $500 more than last years. Fighting crime and drug abuse and making our communities safer were also among our highest priorities, and we added more than $34 million to these efforts. Plus, we successfully increased K-12 Education funding by $20 million for the coming school year and by $30 million for 2020.
Larger PFDs, Safer Communities, Better Funded Schools
Passing budgets on time requires finding middle ground. No lawmaker enjoys compromising on the goals they have for the state and for the district they serve, but Im proud that the House raised the dividend to $1600, and that we increased funding for our schools, for safer towns and villages, for fish & game management, and more.
Also, Im pleased that a tone of integrity, trust, and cooperation this session helped lead to its successful conclusion well within our Constitutional deadline.
Some Operating Budget and Capital Budget highlights:
As I mentioned above, the FY19 Operating Budget guarantees a $1600 PFD for this year, increased by the Alaska House Majority Coalition to $500 more than what the Senate put forward.
We also strengthened the sustainability of the dividend program by passing SB 26, which puts a cap on how much we can spend from the funds earnings for essential services like crime fighting, roads and airports, and good schools for our children.
In passing SB 26 we also reduced the annual deficit from almost $2.5 billion down to $700 million. This is a big step toward getting Alaska back in the black and revitalizing our economy.
To make communities safer and healthier, we increased spending for public safety priorities by $34 million. There will be more state trooper travel to rural towns and villages and more prosecutorsincluding a statewide drug prosecutorto bring criminals to justice.
We added nearly $1 million to restore important commercial fisheries management projects in ADF&G. All are aimed at increasing fishing opportunitiesand boat earningsin several regions. In District 37, this increase funded projects in the Chignik and Bristol Bay salmon fisheries and the Togiak herring fishery.
K-12 Education funding includes an additional $20 million for FY19 and $30 million for FY20. Also, to help schools better plan their annual budgets and avoid the chaos of spring lay-off notices for teachers, we early-funded the coming school year and forward funded the year after that.
The University also saw the first increase in funding in years, with an addition of $10 million for FY19.
We did right by our elders by appropriating $19 million to continue the Senior Benefits program, which helps more than 12,000 low-income seniors across Alaska.
We put $20 million into the Alaska Marine Highway System Fund, giving the ferry system a stable funding outlook through 2020.
More than $8 million to the Bristol Bay School District for major maintenance & upgrades.
$1 million for Senior Citizen Housing
$3 million for the Supplemental Housing Development program
$2.25 million for Teacher, Health Worker, and Public Safety Employee Housing
$6 million for the Home Weatherization Grant program
$19,600 for the Adak hydro power generator.
$12 million for a multi-year effort to increase substance abuse treatment.
$4 million for additional Village Safe Water and Wastewater Infrastructure projects.
Endowment Fund Finances PCE Program, Community Assistance, and More
In 2016 a bill sponsored by Sen. Hoffman passed that allows money from the Power Coast Equalization Endowment Fund to be put toward additional uses when the annual earnings surpass those needed fully fund the PCE program
This past year the fund did very well, providing not just all the funding needed for PCE but also enough to appropriate $30 million for Community Assistance payments across the state. The legislature put an additional $4 million into the budget to bring Community Assistance to a total of $34 million for FY19.
Additional surplus earnings of $11 million were put toward the Alaska Energy Authoritys Rural Power System Upgrades program, and another $11 million was appropriated to AEA Renewable Energy Project grants.
These are great examples of how the PCE Fund can be fully utilized in years when its earnings are strong.
Edgmon Bills Focus on Local Government Wellbeing and Safer Schools
HB 267Helping Local Governments with their Revenues
I drafted this bill to give our municipalities that levy taxes on fish and game guiding activities access to records that guides submit to state agencies. This gives local governments, such as the Lake & Peninsula Borough, a tool to help confirm that such activities subject to taxes within their jurisdictions are being accurately reported to them. All information released to municipalities would remain confidential, with strict criminal consequences for any unlawful disclosure.
Lake & Pen estimates that its losing between $50,000 to $100,000 each year in unpaid guiding taxes, so HB 267 has the potential to make a solid positive impact on borough finances.
HR 7Resolution for Safer Schools
This session I worked with the House Education Committee to introduce this resolution, which supports both statewide and local efforts to make our schools safer for our kids.
HR 7 supports the Dept. of Educations plans for a statewide school safety convention. It encourages all 54 school districts in Alaska to participate in this and other coordinated efforts to implement culturally appropriate measures that prioritize student safety and school environments where students have the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive. It also endorses enhanced mental health and support services, including nurses, counselors, school psychologists, and public safety officers, to help create the positive and nurturing social and emotional school environment.
Other Notable Bills Passed During the 30th Legislature
HB 56Commercial Fishing Revolving Loan Fund. This bill increases the borrowing limit from $100K to $200K for vessel purchases, existing vessel upgrades, gear upgrades, and the purchase of new engines for improved fuel efficiency through the states resident-only low-interest loan program. The total loan limit for these loan categories is also increased from $300K to $400K. (The overall cap on loans from the Commercial Fishing Revolving Loan Fund remains at $400K.)
HB 135School Construction Grant Program. This extends the time given to school districts to raise matching funds for state school construction grants from three years to five years. Given that it is often challenging for school districts to gather the necessary matching funding, this bill will be very helpful in rural communities.
HB 111Ending Oil Tax Credits. This bill revised our tax regime and successfully eliminated expensive, unsustainable tax credits for oil companies. A bill passed this year (HB 331) to pay off the remaining cashable credits through bonding, at no interest cost to the state, will stimulate job creation and exploration for oil while putting this issue behind us once and for all.
SB 202ANCSA Contaminated Lands, by Sen. Hoffman. Sen. Hoffmans Senate companion to HB 367, which I co-sponsored in the House, amends state law so that an Alaska Native corporation is not liable for containment, removal, or remediation actions if the contamination occurred on the land before it was transferred under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. This legislation provides important legal protection to Native corporations while efforts are on-going to persuade the federal government to clean up those lands that were contaminated before they were conveyed under ANCSA.
HB 106Alaska Civil Legal Services Fund. HB 106 provides a consistent funding mechanism for Alaska Legal Services by allowing the Legislature to appropriate 10 percent of court filing fees to the non-profit annually. This will amount to about $300K per year. Legal Services provides attorneys to Alaskans who otherwise could not afford them. The work it does is fundamental to the principle that every American should have access to the justice system, not just those who can afford a lawyer.
HB 212 REAA and Small Municipal School District Fund. This bill adds school major maintenance to the purposes for which money from the fund can be used. This should allow the state to more quickly address the backlog of school maintenance needs in some rural regions while still also making appropriations available for new school construction.
HB 236Extends the Senior Benefits program until the year 2024. This program provides modest monthly payments to low income elders throughout the state. For many of our seniors, it is essential income to help them pay for groceries, heating, and prescription medications.
SB 92Derelict Vessels Bill. This bill will help coastal communities and communities on navigable rivers avoid huge liabilities that come with vessels that are abandoned in or nearby their harbors. It puts in place measures that better document ownership and responsibility while also raising funds that can be put toward dealing with abandoned vessels.
HB 78Indigenous Peoples Day. HB 78 establishes the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples Day. Coinciding with Columbus Day, the October Monday now also recognizes, honors, and celebrates the first people of Alaska and the Americas.
HCR 13Establishing the Al Adams Committee Room. HCR 13 names the House Finance Committee room in honor of former representative and senator Al Adams, who passed away just a few years ago. Al Adams was a champion for the people of rural Alaska and one of the most influential lawmakers in our states history. He was the driving force behind creation of the Power Cost Equalization Program and always fought for balanced funding between rural and urban Alaska. Al was chairman of the Finance Committee in the House, and he understood Alaskas finances better than any lawmaker I have ever met, which makes it fitting that our future budgets will be developed in a room that bears his name.
HB 410Reinstatement of Native Corporations. Unfortunately, it has not been rare for small ANCSA village corporations to miss filing biennial reports to the state and subsequently become involuntarily dissolved. HB 410 would allow any currently dissolved village corporations an opportunity to become reinstated with all the important advantages that come with incorporation under ANCSA.
As always, never hesitate to contact my office with any concerns you might have or if you have a problem I can help solve.
Wishing everyone in House District 37 a safe and productive summer.
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Thirty communities, Coastal Villages Region Fund (CVRF), and Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation (BBEDC) today (Jan. 7th, 2021) announced significant crab industry acquisitions to bring new revenues to Western Alaskan communities.
The buy-out of the Mariner Companies, a Seattle-based fishing enterprise majority-owned by Kevin Kaldestad and Gordon Kristjanson, provides participating communities with opilio and red king crab quota, equaling 3% of the total crab fishery; while CVRF and BBEDC will acquire full ownership of seven crabbing vessels. The deal enables communities to increase their revenues from the fisheries to deliver more programs and benefits to their residents and provides additional revenue for CVRF and BBEDC programs that serve those communities.
Through the agreement, the Mariner Companies will sell crab quota valued at $35 million to 30 Western Alaskan communities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and Bristol Bay regions. CVRF and BBEDC have provided and facilitated structural support to the communities to purchase the quota, and will support the harvest through their fishing operations. The opilio crab season is currently open and participating communities can expect a return as soon as April 2021.
We welcome this opportunity as a step to becoming self-sustaining, said Hattie Albecker of Ugashik.
BBEDC has been a long-time partner in the Mariner Companies and will increase its ownership in crab vessels through the buy-out, becoming a 100% owner of four crab vessels: the Aleutian Mariner, Bristol Mariner, Nordic Mariner and Pacific Mariner. CVRF will purchase three crab vessels from the Mariner Companies: the Arctic Mariner, Cascade Mariner and Western Mariner.
Were happy to be passing the future of these companies to local communities, our long-time partner BBEDC, and CVRF. We know they will all be excellent stewards of this resource and hope that the enterprise weve built will serve their residents for many years to come, said Kevin Kaldestad of the Mariner Companies.
The growth process in this transaction has been a great opportunity to collaborate with CVRF in a unique way that benefits the communities we serve, said Norman Van Vactor, CEO of BBEDC. After 30 years, this is a prime example of how to successfully evolve the CDQ program, providing significant economic growth opportunities for rural Alaska communities. Kevin, Gordon, and our crews have been amazing partners over the years and while we are sad to see them exit, their next chapters are well deserved. We look forward to continuing their examples of stewardship of this resource for generations to come.
We are excited to support the communities direct ownership of the fishery and the funding it can contribute towards the critical needs they have, said Eric Deakin, CEO of CVRF. Rural Alaska continues to face high poverty rates and lack of access to resources, and there is a growing need for services in the YK Delta and Bristol Bay regions, which this deal will help address. We welcome a new generation of Alaskan owners and operators fishing the Bering Sea and improving livelihoods here.
Levelock is part of a wonderful affiliation and dependence on resources in natural foods and wildlife. This deal for crab quota brings us together for success with a positive resource for our community. We welcome 2021 with prosperity all around, said Alexander Tallekpalek of Levelock.
This is the first step in investing into other fisheries. Investing is still new to most tribes like ours, but this process is educational and can ultimately benefit our tribes economic capacity, said John Christensen of Port Heiden.
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Four Vietnamese criminals involved, who managed the prostitution ring in Dubai, have been arrested by local police.
Police in Dubai, UAE, have detained 11 people, including four Vietnamese, after they deceived, detained, beat and forced a Vietnamese female tourist to become a prostitute in Dubai, UAE, Nguyen Thanh Quang, first secretary of the Vietnamese Embassy in UAE told VnExpress Tuesday.
The four Vietnamese arrested included Vu Dinh Dat, Ho Van Thanh, Luu Dinh Quang and Ho Xuan Thuong.
The arrest was made based on information provided by officials of the Embassy of Vietnam in UAE, who had been briefed about the criminal case from the representative body of the Vietnamese community in UAE on June 26.
Nguyen, the victim, said she paid Linh, a woman she knows, VND33 million ($1,460) for a one-week tour to Dubai. When she arrived, the people took her passport and forced her to into prostitution.
The embassy is working with local police on the case and to help send Nguyen back to Vietnam.
Emirates Airlines aircrafts are seen at Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates May 10, 2016. Photo by Reuters/Ashraf Mohammad
Crime in the Vietnamese community in Dubai has become increasingly complex. Last April, the embassy directly rescued two girls from Vietnams Dong Nai southern province. They were told to go to Dubai and work for a spa owned by a Chinese but finally were forced to become prostitutes to pay off debts.
The embassy said it will continue to cooperate with local authorities as well as government agencies in Vietnam to ensure security for Vietnamese people living in Dubai in the time to come.
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> Stranded in France, migrant children forced into crime, prostitution every day
> Singaporean and his Vietnamese wife jailed for living on prostitution earnings
The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the July 3 terrorist attacks carried out by Da'esh in shopping districts in Baghdad. They were among the deadliest attacks in Iraqs capital in years, killing at least 215 people, many of them women and children as they broke fast for the holy month of Ramadan.
These acts of mass murder are yet another example of Daeshs contempt for human life.
Da'esh terrorists murder the innocent to attract attention and recruits. They will not succeed, said State Department Spokesperson John Kirby.We will continue to unite the world against this evil, remove their safe havens in Syria and Iraq, and uproot their global networks. Our partnership with Iraq and its people, who serve on the front-lines of this global fight, remains steadfast and unwavering.
This flurry of attacks during Ramadan comes as Daesh is losing territory in Syria and Iraq. Indeed, Iraqi troops announced last week they had liberated the city of Falluja, 40 miles west of Baghdad, from Daesh. This is a significant blow to the extremist group, which has already lost nearly 50 percent of the populated territory it had once controlled in Iraq. Retaking the city required a month-long offensive by Iraqs military forces, as well as robust support from the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL.
The United States is in close contact with Iraqi authorities, and stands committed to supporting Iraqi Security forces as they take the fight to Daesh strongholds, and bring all responsible for these terrible crimes to justice.
NEW YORK (AP) A two-day auction of the contents of Ronald and Nancy Reagan's ranch-style home in California will include everything from personal mementos from heads of state and friends to objects the couple took with them to the White House.
Christie's on Thursday announced the highlights of the Sept. 21-22 sale in New York City.
The more than 800 items include Billy Haines-designed furniture, decorative artwork, paintings, books, accessories and jewelry. The pre-sale estimates range from $1,000 to $50,000.
"These are all items the Reagans lived with, beginning from their years in Hollywood and through to their post-presidential years in Bel Air," an affluent section of Los Angeles, said Gemma Sudlow, Christie's vice president of decorative arts. The Reagans brought some of the objects with them to the White House to decorate the family's private quarters.
The couple moved into the sprawling 7,000-square-foot, three-bedroom hilltop home designed by Ted Graber after leaving the White House in 1989.
What makes the collection so interesting, Sudlow said, is "how overwhelmingly personal it is."
It includes a Tiffany Marine clock given to the two-term president by Frank Sinatra and his wife, Barbara, for his first inauguration. It has a pre-sale estimate of $5,000 to $10,000.
"The collection is very much a reflection of the simple and elegant life the Reagans enjoyed together," said Richard Nelson, Christie's senior specialist of decorative arts. "The furniture and accessories reflect the classic 'Hollywood Regency' style that Mrs. Reagan chose for the house ... (and) incorporated many of the same colors and fabrics in the Bel Air house that she loved in the White House."
The collection also contains whimsical objects like a menagerie of small jade, glass and porcelain elephants a traditional symbol for the GOP that once adorned a tabletop in the house. They are being sold as a group for an estimated $1,000 to $2,000.
The elephant theme continues with a pair of English cowhide leather elephant-shaped ottomans with an estimated value of $2,000 to $3,000.
Among personal mementos from a head of state is a pair of Elizabeth II silver beakers from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with a pre-sale estimate of $1,000 to $2,000.
A pair of Van Cleef & Arpels diamond and gold lion ear clips that Nancy Reagan wore on a state visit to England in 1988 is estimated at $15,000 to $20,000.
And for the centenary celebration of the Statue of Liberty on July 4, 1986, when she and the president boarded the USS Iowa, the first lady wore a Bulgari diamond, sapphire and ruby ring set in an American flag motif. It could bring $5,000 to $8,000.
Proceeds of the sales, expected to fetch more than $2 million, are designated to go to The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute in Simi Valley, California per the Reagan's wishes.
"After the sales are completed, the family trust will determine how best to distribute the proceeds to support the foundation's ongoing mission and the principles in which it was established," said Melissa Giller, chief marketing officer of the foundation that houses more than 55 million pages of gubernatorial, presidential and personal papers.
Reagan, a Republican who served two terms from 1981 to 1989, died of Alzheimer's at his Bel Air home in 2004. His wife died there last March. They are buried on the grounds of the presidential library.
Highlights of the collection will first be previewed at Christie's in London from Friday through July 14.
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Indias impending spectrum auction is expected to bring in around INR1 trillion ($14.8 billion) from the countrys operators.
Between 55-60% of this total is expected to come from the countrys largest three operators, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular. Between them, these three account for around 75% of Indias market revenue.
Indias cabinet last month backed a record spectrum auction proposal put forward by the countrys regulators. As Indias largest ever auction, initial estimates of the projected revenue were around INR5.6 trillion, significantly higher than the countrys previous auction which raised INR1.1 trillion. However, the newer estimates from research firm Crisil are more grounded, with the firms director Ajay Srinivasan noting that unlike previous auctions, operators this time do not face business continuity issues.
With market newcomer Reliance Jio debuting its highly anticipated LTE services for public use although it has not yet implemented a full launch - Srinivasan added that we expect reasonably healthy participation [in the auction]because incumbents will ramp up their 3G and 4G spectrum holdings ahead of Reliance Jios entry.
Crisil observed that the aggression of individual operators in bidding will be influenced by their 3G/4G spectrum holdings in key circles and quantum of contiguous spectrum held, adding that the total spend on airwaves in this fiscal year would be around INR370 billion falling short of budgetary estimates of INR560 billion, but still a significant outgo for an industry reeling under INR4 trillion of debt as of March 2016.
While spectrum in the highly desirable 700MHz is available for bidding, Crisil expects operators to be selective about this frequency, with many more likely to bid on the less pricey 1800MHz. The firms reported noted that around half of the available 1800MHz and 2100MHz and almost all of the available 800MHz and 900MHz blocks would be lapped up. The firm cautioned that interest in 2300MHz and 2500MHz is expected to be limited.
The key issue faced by operators is network congestion in service areas where data consumption is high. Operators will be keen to acquire further spectrum and boost their capacity in order to compete effectively.
Digit Rating: 78/100
Pros: Excellent stabilisation, Accurate and smooth focussing, Excellent electronic viewfinder, Good colour accuracy and white balance, Great battery life
Cons: No touch input, LCD tilt not smooth, Menu settings take some time to get used to.
The Sony A68 DSLR was launched in India in April this year. A follow up to the A58, the SLT A-mount DSLR is up against the Nikon D5500 and Canons EOS 750D DSLR cameras in India. Incidentally, DSLRs priced at around Rs. 50,000 happen to be one of the most sought-after camera categories, fuelled by the rise of very good DSLRs and a versatile range of available lenses.
The Sony A68 is an interesting camera, pairing a 24.2-megapixel Exmor CMOS APS-C sensor with Sony's BIONZ X image processor and a fixed, translucent mirror instead of the usual, non-translucent moving mirror that most DSLRs include. It borrows the acclaimed 4D FOCUS system from the Sony A77 II, featuring 79-point autofocus with 15 cross points. The camera features an XGA OLED electronic viewfinder in place of an optical one, a 2.7-inch tilting LCD display with no touch input, and can shoot burst photos at up to 8fps. With the camera being so well-equipped, we naturally had high expectations of it. Heres what we found, in over two weeks of shooting for our Sony A68 DSLR review.
Build and Design
The Sony A68's camera body, with battery, memory card and lens cap, weighs about 690 grams. This makes it one of the lighter DSLR bodies along with the Nikon D5500, which weighs about 515 grams. The body is standard weather-sealed plastic, and although it is not the smallest body around, it does not feel dated or unwieldy in any manner. The grip is firm and comfortable, although individuals with larger palms will find it easier to use. The front toggle is placed perfectly to be within reach of the right index finger. It has a quick-view backlit LCD panel, a novelty for a DSLR priced at about Rs. 55,000.
There is a 2.7-inch tiltable LCD display which covers 100% frame area, although the tilt mechanism of the display is not the most convenient. Sure, you can adjust it by 90 degrees or draw it outwards to get the best viewing angle, but the lack of swivel and smoothness in the mechanism makes it a slightly inconvenient affair. It also misses on a touchscreen input method, something that newer DSLRs at around this price point is adopting readily. The A68 has in-camera stabilisation and AF motor, a stereo mic, flash module and a second dial beside the display that also acts as a four-way button. There is one memory card slot to the right, and the battery resides at the bottom. Unfortunately, the Sony A68 does not include integrated WiFi and GPS modules. Ports include a DC-in, multi-out, mini HDMI-out and a 3.5mm TRS jack for attaching an external microphone.
The Sony A68 packs in all the essentials, along with an excellent electronic viewfinder. You also get a switch to lock on to either the eyepiece or the LCD viewfinder by disabling the proximity sensor, doing which also saves on battery life. Couple this with the presence of the backlit monochrome LCD for quick settings, and the Sony A68 presents a very convenient layout for photographers shooting in full manual controls. The presence of touchscreen and tilt on the LCD viewfinder would have made this a near-perfect deal, and you do wish these features were available, but these do not present a major obstacle in terms of the cameras prowess.
Imaging Performance
It is here that the Sony A68 really excels. The translucent mirror mechanism, alongside keeping the camera light and compact, essentially splits the incident pathway of light between direct incidence on the sensor and reflecting it on to a phase detection pixel array. While this leads to the camera compromising marginally on the speed of focussing, it renders excellent clarity of subjects, particularly in dimly lit conditions. The sensor is versatile, faring very well with colours, sharpness of photographs, dynamic range and colour depth, although the BIONZ X processor is not the fastest, taking a split second longer than what Canon and Nikons latest generation DIGIC and EXPEED processors do. For instance, while shooting in RAW, the camera takes nearly two seconds to save a photograph. The delay is not too noticeable when you shoot in JPEG, and is only very marginally more than its compatriots.
The Sony A68 is a very easy and convenient camera to use. Even in Auto and Priority modes, the A68 does very well with White Balance and ISO, rendering close-to-real colours while keeping the ambience intact across frames. Switching to Manual settings, there is no noticeable banding at ISO 100, which happens to be a common problem that many entry segment DSLRs encounter. Shadows of subjects shot under daylight successfully retain depth and detail, and colour accuracy is good, thanks to good dynamic range. This helps in making the camera a versatile performer, and there are no notable problems that I have encountered with clarity, banding, colour details and sharpness of photographs.
The in-camera stabilisation and autofocus motor are two essential, impressive inclusions in this camera. I have easily maneuvered the A68 at nearly 1/25 shutter speed on the move, and retained sharp, stable photographs. The autofocus motor, coupled with the SAM 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 lens, helps in fast and accurate focussing. This is also where the 79-point autofocus unit comes into play. Covering about 40 percent of the frame and presenting 15 cross points, the Sony A68 is incredibly accurate in focussing across various lighting conditions, be it dusk, bright daylight, dim tungsten or any tricky lighting conditions that you decide to shoot in. The 4D FOCUS system succeeds in covering the width of the frame, and tracking and locking on to subjects is easy, fast and accurate. The focussing system particularly helps in low light, with the large array of AF points. The AF motor is slightly noisier than other compatriots, but is undoubtedly effective. The phase detection array works faster, thanks to the translucent mirror mechanism, and in turn contributes to accurate focussing. You will get the focus right with AF mode in at least nine out of 10 times, which is impressive. The Sony A68 also presents manual focus assist that guides you when you hit the sweet spot of focus, practically eliminating blurry, out-of-focus photographs once and for all. The camera also has an f/2.8 centre point that allows fast lenses to shoot even faster.
The 24.2-megapixel image sensor shows slight signs of stress at around ISO 800. Colour accuracy remains very sharp under sufficient lighting, but pixel noise is noticeable. The A68 renders slight traces of noise from ISO 800, although it fares better than expectations at ISO 1600. Ideally, though, you should stick to max ISO limit of 1250, beyond which the noise level in photographs become significant and affect colour accuracy. Under low light, ISO 800 is the absolute threshold, beyond which the colours start deviating from source. The Sony A68 fares surprisingly well in low light, and you will find ISO 800 highly usable in very low light situations. In situations with a singular source, you can easily set ISO at 800 and drag the shutter speed down to about 1/20, if you have been used to DSLRs for a while and have steady hands. For shaky hands, though, 1/30 remains the optimum threshold for obtaining steady photographs.
Under extreme requirements, ISO 3200 remains usable, although it is recommended that you do not use it in low light situations, where the colours begin getting affected. The overall stability of the camera and the smooth, nearly flawless focussing contributes more to the overall usability of the camera, and forms essential components of a very, very convenient, easy to use imaging experience. The Sony A68 enables 8fps continuous shooting with centre crop, at constant exposure for all frames. These produce 6-megapixel shots in Fine JPEG image quality. Shooting in RAW will require you to use the Continuous Advance mode and render 5fps in preset static exposure, which is also very impressive. To tweak exposure in between burst shots, you will be required to shoot at 2.5fps. The BIONZ X processor takes a tad too long in rendering the shots and saving them, but not long enough to disrupt your experience.
Sony A68 colour accuracy samples with native ISO performance (f/5.6 exposure, 100% crop, resized to scale):
(L-R) ISO 100, 200, 400
(L-R) ISO 800, 1600, 3200
(L-R) ISO 6400, 12800, 25600
Sony A68 native ISO performance samples (f/4 exposure, 100% crop, Resized to scale):
(L-R) ISO 100, 200, 400
(L-R) ISO 800, 1600, 3200
(L-R) ISO 6400, 12800, 25600
Battery Life
Yet another aspect where the Sony A68 impresses is battery life. In one charge cycle, I managed to shoot 504 stills, which, on frequent usage in trips, should see you through more than two days with ease. The Sony A68 does not discharge significantly if you happen to not use the camera for a while and keep it lying around, which seems in order. The live viewfinder includes a battery percentage display - a neat, functional addition to add to ease of usage.
Bottomline
The Sony A68 is a fine camera. It is incredibly easy to use, has intuitive auto modes, and presents a stable, fast, smooth and sound imaging experience. It has a light body, excellent image stabilisation, accurate focussing, retains excellent detail of colour and sharpness of subjects. Add the good dynamic range to it, and you have an excellent DSLR for you to consider at around the Rs. 50,000 mark. The Sony A68 has all the requisites that you would expect from your first DSLR, or for the second camera kit if you happen to use a full frame DSLR for professional purposes. The addition of WiFi and touchscreen input would have made it one of the most complete DSLR cameras to buy in the market today, but even without the added peripheral features, happens to be one of the best DSLR cameras in the category. Sonys A-mount range of lenses may not be as diverse as Nikons AF-mount or Canons EF-mount lenses, but have enough variety to serve most of your photography requirements.
To sum up in one line, the Sony A68 is a smooth, able camera that does exactly what you would expect an entry-segment DSLR to do.
Heightened political sensibilities following UK's non-binding vote to quit the EU should not be used to scupper the London Stock Exchange-Deutsche Boerse merger, says a key stakeholder.
Earlier this week, LSE shareholders voted overwhelming in favour of the tie-up, but some question whether it could be completed under existing terms after the Brexit vote.
But a fund manager at Jupiter Asset Management has said the deal should not be torpedoed over "political sensibilities" linked to the UK quitting EU.
Jupiter is one of Deutsche Boerse's largest shareholders.
Alexander Darwall, a fund manager at Jupiter Asset Management, one of DB's largest investors, told the Wall St Journal the deal delivered efficiency and scale benefitting customers.
He said the tie-up gave Europe "a really good opportunity" to compete on a global scale and that it was "more important as much of the European banking system is under strain."
Nonetheless, German regulators remain concerned on the location of the combined group's holding company, which the two exchanges have previously said would be in London.
BaFin, the German financial regulator, is opposed a London hadquarters, its president, Felix Hufeld, expressed disbelief that the "most important exchange venue in the eurozone would be steered from a headquarters outside the EU."
However, Darwall told the Wall St Journal he held a different view: "I do not care, from an emotional point of view, where the [holding company] of the company is headquartered.
"I do not want the deal to be changed and risk losing it altogether," he told the publication.
"This deal should not be about political sensibilities. It should be first and foremost about meeting customers needs."
BaFin is among the 20 regulators need to approve the merger.
The journal reported that one potential solution was to set up two holding companies, one in London and the other in Frankfurt, that would control the joint-operating businesses.
Inquiry into Britain's participation in Iraq War expected to criticise individuals and bodies
The long-awaited Chilcot report investigating Britain's participation in the Iraq War is set to be published on Wednesday , with former prime minister Tony Blair expected to be absolved of any serious wrongdoing during the conflict.
179 British troops were killed during the bloody war, as well as over 170,000 Iraqi civilians, although that number is as high as 600,000 according to some sources.
The report was initiated in 2009 by Gordon Brown after increasing pressure for justice to be served following the failure to locate the Weapons of Mass Destruction, which were the focal point of the war.
The report was initiated in 2009 by Gordon Brown
Iraq is still feeling the after-effects of the conflict, on Sunday as many as 250 people were reported dead after a bomb in a Baghdad shopping district.
The former senior civil servant leading the inquiry, Sir John Chilcot, confirmed in a television interview that certain individuals are heavily criticised in the report.
"The essence of this Inquiry is that the committee is impartial we're independent of government, none of us are politicians, and we haven't set out to criticise individuals or institutions," he said.
"However, I made very clear right at the start of the inquiry that if we came across decisions or behaviour which deserved criticism then we wouldn't shy away from making it. And indeed, there have been more than a few instances where we are bound to do that."
Chilcot made it clear that it had been a thorough investigation, having been completed over a period of 7 years, and that any comments were well backed up with evidence.
Chilcot made it clear that it had been a thorough investigation, having been completed over a period of 7 years
"We shall do it on a base of a rigorous analysis of the evidence that supports that finding. We are not a court not a judge or jury at work but we've tried to apply the highest possible standards of rigorous analysis to the evidence where we make a criticism."
Speaking to BBC News, the head of the investigation said that regardless of the outcome of the inquiry, lessons should be learned in how to conduct diplomatic and military affairs from this point onwards.
It should no longer be possible ""to engage in a military or indeed a diplomatic endeavour on such a scale and of such gravity without really careful challenge analysis and assessment and collective political judgement being applied to it," Chilcot affirmed.
Campaigners and victims' families may well be dissatisfied with the findings provided by Chilcot, which are likely to fall short of a full culpability on the part of Blair.
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ELKO The Bureau of Land Management, Elko District, as part of the Northeastern Nevada Fire Prevention Group and in partnership with The University of Nevada Cooperative Extensions Living With Fire program and the Silver State Stampede Rodeo Board, will host a Wildfire Awarness Night during the Silver State Stampede Rodeo, on Friday at the Elko County Fairgrounds.
Gates open at 4:30 p.m.
Visitors attending the rodeo will have an opportunity to visit with wildland firefighters and their equipment as they enter the grandstand area. In addition, the Living with Fire booth will be promoting defensible space and why it is important to protect your property.
Smokey Bear will also be on hand to greet and pose for pictures and literature will be available to assist visitors in implementing defensible space areas around buildings and land.
This is a tremendous opportunity to reach out to members from the rural and ranching communities, who are often the ones most affected by wildfire, said Clint Mothershead, Elko Distirct mitigation andeducation specialist. There will be a lot of information available for people to take home and use to make their properties as fire-safe as possible.
For more information on defensible space visit: www.nevadafireinfo.blogspot.com.
Ohio's 6-week abortion ban was a fringe idea. Heres how it became law
Ohio led a slow, determined push to steadily weaken and then nearly eliminate abortion rights. It's indicative of what has happened around the U.S.
NORTH LAS VEGAS Crystal Nunes spent a decade as a government air quality inspector with decent pay, but she said she often looked back most fondly on a job she had before that as a substitute teacher.
It wasnt until this summer that she finally took the leap, quitting her job and joining a fast-track teacher training program with help from the states Teach Nevada scholarship. That gamble is expected to pay off her five-week program isnt even over and schools are already interviewing her for some of the approximately 525 positions the Clark County School District still needs to fill by fall.
I wanted to do something where I felt I was making a bigger impact, Nunes said Wednesday, on a break from teaching a math class in a summer enrichment program for junior high students. Im a lot happier. I look forward to this more than my past job.
Nevada is struggling with a chronic teacher shortage that mirrors problems in other parts of the country as fewer students enroll in teacher training programs. At the Washoe County School District, the states second largest behind Clark County, administrators are trying to fill 156 teacher jobs.
Experts point to a variety of causes for the waning interest in teaching, including relatively low pay, less teacher autonomy as schools try to meet rising government standards and a lower public opinion of the profession.
Clark County School District started last year with nearly 900 teacher vacancies after they were unable to find enough qualified candidates. Many of those vacancies remained throughout the school year, filled by long-term substitutes, including retired teachers brought back into service.
Michael Gentry, the districts chief recruitment officer, said a new contract with the teachers union has raised the starting salary from about $35,000 last year to nearly $41,000 this year. Hes using that to try to lure teachers away from their jobs in lower-paying states, especially in areas with a high cost of living relative to Las Vegas.
I think teachers care about salary just as much as everyone else, Gentry said.
State leaders also created more incentives for prospective teachers, fearing that the shortage could undermine other new financial investments the Legislature made in English language learners, children in poverty and other at-risk groups. They authorized bonuses worth up to $5,000 for teachers starting in needy schools and created the Teach Nevada scholarship program, which funded 146 awards this year for people studying education.
That scholarship money is targeting Alternative Routes to Licensure programs, which enroll people who have already completed a bachelors degree and may have work experience in another field but dont have all the credits they need for a teachers license. Clark County School District expects 200-250 candidates from the various ARL programs in Nevada.
One of them is Rebel Academy, a project spearheaded by UNLVs College of Education to give prospective teachers hands-on experience during the summer. About 160 junior high students are enrolled in the five-week, non-credit enrichment program hosted on the campus of the Somerset Academy charter school in North Las Vegas.
They take lessons in English, social studies, science and math from 13 teacher candidates who are pursuing their licenses, and get free breakfast and lunch provided by the Three Square food bank. Mentor-teachers watch the candidates and offer tips and critiques.
In its inaugural run last year, the program had 20 teacher candidates, two-thirds of whom successfully completed the coursework, certification exams and their first year in the classroom. Some decided after they started teaching full-time that the profession wasnt a good fit.
But one of this years prospective teachers is confident hes making the right decision. Thats Israel Alvarado, who recognizes the states teacher shortage improves his chances of landing a job once the program is over.
He researched illnesses affecting honeybees before getting his Ph.D. in life sciences, but tired of the long-lecture style of teaching at the college level. Hes now pursuing a career as a science teacher after moving on from his most recent job tasting and testing Klondike bars and Ben and Jerrys ice cream for Unilever.
I definitely couldnt see myself doing that for the rest of my life, he said.
ELKO The Elko County Sheriffs Office is supporting the Nevada Special Olympics by hosting the annual Cops and Burgers event Thursday.
The cookout will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the sheriffs office parking lot, where hamburgers, hot dogs or chorizos with chips and a drink will be served for $6.
There will be raffle tickets sold at the event for $1 each or six for $5.
Call 397-0040 for food delivery information, or orders can be emailed to amarin@elkocountynv.net today.
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PRINEVILLE, Ore. (AP) Apple Inc. plans to build a third data center in the central Oregon town of Prineville.
Apple's proposed expansion comes as crews are currently building the company's second data center in this city located 35 miles from Bend. The California company also plans a warehouse and logistics center.
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An excerpt from the English translation of Uchalya-The Branded
Gaikwad's mother, Dhondabai also rejects the Uchalyas' traditional ways of earning livelihood. Beaten by the police for thefts committed by her sons, and by her husband, Dhondabai supports her family by selling milk. The earnings help her get iron sheets for their hut. She sells her sheep for the release of her arrested son but never steals even in adverse conditions. Her poor health brings an abrupt end to the milk selling business. Dhondabai's resistance to the traditional ways of earning suggests other ways that the Uchalyas could adopt to earn their livelihood with dignity.
Despite thefts, beatings, arrests poverty and starvation back home Laxman attends school regularly. He shares one coverlet in winters with a "cluster of fleas"(Laxman's brothers) in which even the dogs snuggle to ward off the chill. Their senses are dead to the strong odour of the lambs pissing on the coverlet. This coverlet teems with lice and is never washed except once a year on Dusserah day. The open space near their hut is used as shitting spot by women. It is also used for killing pigs. Laxman wears ill-fitting clothes and shoes (which have been stolen) and lives in filthy conditions without taking a bath and washing his clothes. Laxman remains chronically underfed because of poverty.
When the gruel is prepared, the particles of grain pop out of the earthen pot. Laxman eats these particles. He also eats from the shares of his brothers as well as the food that comes from Chamle's house for his father. Laxman skips school on Tuesdays and Fridays hoping to get some good food at the temple. Starvation forces. Laxman to even eat the coconuts and food offered to propitiate the spirits in the cremation yards on full moon and new moon days. The fear of being haunted by the spirits makes him leave a little portion of the food for the spirit. He also roasts dried mango stones and tamarind seeds which he collects from heaps of rubbish.
During acute shortage of food, Laxman spreads salt on the grindstone in order to lick the flour sticking on it. Sometimes he has to walk eight or nine miles through mud and over thorns with his brothers to collect food from wedding and funeral feasts. They take bowls and containers with them so that they can carry more food. This act of theirs makes them suffer not only humiliation and curses but also the beatings of the people. Laxman also begs jogva offerings in the name of God with Shevanta (of their fraternity). While in school, he works in the house of a student (Gyanaba Kuthwad) for food.
When Laxman skips school to search beehives for honey, pigeon nests for eggs and the roots of tekali to satisfy his hunger, he is beaten by Guruji. Though his caste, his unhygienic habits and his poverty bring embarrassment and humiliation to him, he does his school work regularly. As he can make excellent speeches, he wins prizes also. It is education that gives this Pathrut boy the confidence to write to the then Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi: When is Gandhi Ji's [Mahatma] dream going to be fulfilled? Please take steps to see that the poor get one square meal a day at least. The use of the spatial practices of speaking and writing, as explained by Certeau help Laxman to carve a space for himself as well as his tribe.
Education initiates the process of transformation in Laxman's life. His "dirty and slovenly ''habits undergo a sea change after he learns the importance of cleanliness. The fear of punishment by the teacher makes him brush his teeth and take bath daily. He also washes his clothes (with sticky mud). He advises his sisters-in-law to sweep the floor daily. Every Sunday he washes the earthen jar of water which contains fleas, small frogs and loam stick.
Laxman declines to consume liquor which is usually taken as an antidote for fever and cold by the Uchalyas, following the advice of his Guruji. Laxman who could earlier eat coconuts and food offered to propitiate the spirits in the cremation yards during Ashadha-Shravana (July-August) now observes a fast on Fridays and Saturdays. He also gives up eating crabs, fish and pigs. It is because of this change in his habits that Mahadeo Bembade agrees to teach Laxman the singing of abhangas (devotional songs).
As soon as this outcaste starts singing devotional songs in religious functions, he gains entry into the houses of the higher caste people. Even a Maratha, Govind Patil, would now take him to his house for special snacks during the fasts. Laxman further upsets the caste hierarchies when he reads Ramayana, Shivaleemrit (condensed edition of Bhagvadgita) and the pothi (sacred book). Now that he is no longer a "pig and cat eater"he seeks Bembade's help to convince Patil to allow him the reading of scriptures.
This act of Laxman brings a change in perception of the higher castes because no orthodox Maratha would earlier allow an untouchable to read the sacred book. So those who would otherwise take a bath and drink cow's urine if touched by an untouchable permit Laxman to read scriptures and sing abhangs. Thus the spatial practices of reading and singing helped Laxman to win some dignity and respect in the unjust hierarchical order of society.
(See interview: Journey from darkness to the spotlight )
The 39th Ballyshannon Folk and Traditional Music Festival is an enduring, wonderful asset to the town of Ballyshannon and its environs, Donegal Person of the Year, Deirdre McGlone said when she officially launched the event last week.
Speaking in the Abbey Arts Centre last Thursday night Ms McGlone, recently returned from promotional work in the USA for Harveys Point Hotel and the Donegal Association, said the festival was known worldwide and had a fantastic reputation for wonderful music and song but, she added, was also a much loved event because of the wonderful welcome offered to all.
Ms McGlone, who received her secondary education in Ballyshannon, said she was delighted to be back home and was honoured to be asked to launch the festival.
The festival runs in the Abbey Arts Centre, from July 28th to July 31st. The launch night on July 28th will also see local group Erdini launch their much awaited EP and based only on the evidence of their live set last Thursday night where they performed, the Thursday opening night will be a must attend event also.
On that night, Barry Britton, who has yet again produced a masterpiece for the festival poster will, as usual, launch an exhibition of his work.
Other speakers last Thursday night at the launch included the new mayor of the Donegal County Council Municipal District, Cllr Niamh Kennedy, making her maiden speech in that role, who noted how the Ballyshannon Folk & Traditional Music Festival, the longest running Folk & Traditional Music Festival in Ireland has, since 1978, hosted all of the great names from the Irish folk and trad scene since the heady days of the late 1970's and continues today to offer itself as a vital platform for emerging folk and traditional music talent.
Through the years the festival has worked as a ticker tape of huge names in the Irish music scene, a veritable who's who with Planxty, Altan, Matt Molloy, Paul Brady, 4 Men and a Dog, Maura O'Connell, Sean and Dolores Keane, The Black sisters, Mary and Frances (who returns this year with Ciaran Goss on the Sunday night), Finbar Furey, 'The Eleanors' - Shanley and McEvoy (Eleanor also returns on Friday night as part of the homage to Leitrim music and musicians) - all stepping up to microphone in the famous Market Yard Marquee, or in more recent years in the Abbey Centre 'at the top of the town', she said.
MC for the launch evening John Meehan, linked up via Skype with Ciaran Goss who, along with Frances Black, makes a welcome return to the festival. Goss spoke of happy days playing in Ballyshannon and wittily name checked Sean Ogs as a venue and its then owner Sean Og Kane for special mention.
Martina Bromley from Failte Ireland spoke of the importance the festival has as an immediately recognised brand and pledged support from Failte Ireland to what she said was one of the highlights of the summer calendar in the north west.
Chairman of the festival Eunan Doyle thanked all those who attended the launch and in particular Erdini and the Bel Canto choir group who enthralled the audience with brilliant performances.
The headline act for this years festival is Ralph McTell.
For more information on the festival see www.ballyshannonfolkfestival.com
Petronet moves abroad to set up LNG terminal
Petronet LNG, the importer and marketer of natural gas is mulling to set up a LNG import terminal in Bangladesh at Rs 5000 crores. The terminal will be set at Kutubdia Islands seeing the rising demand from neighbouring countries for power generation.
Kutubdia Islands have a natural harbour with good draft and natural breakwater, which is fertile for LNG. It is besides Bangladeshs current set up at Matar Bari in Moheshkhali Island of Cox's Bazar district or Anwara, Chittagong.
Petroleum Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan in a visit to Dhaka had proposed to set up 5 million tonnes capacity terminal at regulatory levels to reach the unmet demand from nearby areas. Bangladesh is under energy fulfilment crisis. It had one Sangu-11 offshore gas well, which got shut down.
Petronet LNG has been chosen as one of the firms to set up a terminal of 3.5MT at Bangladesh. Others include Anglo-Dutch super-major Shell, China's Huanqiu Contracting & Engineering, Tractebel Engineering of Belgium and Japan's Mitsui.
It is going to be easier for this biggest exporter to buy from the international markets and supply it to buyers around the Kutubdia. The company will seek some guarantors to cover their huge investment at this terminal.
Apart from Bangladesh terminal, Petronet has also proposed to set up 1 MT LNG terminal in Sri Lanka to meet the domestic demand.
ELKO The Elko County Board of Health will compose a letter requesting the corporation that owns Northeastern Nevada Regional Hospital evaluate its pricing structure.
Board members said they would like to encourage LifePoint Health, headquartered in Tennessee, to be competitive with the surrounding markets.
I dont want to be negative and cast any aspersions, but Ive heard a number of complaints about the hospital. Primarily, that what we need is more competition, that the prices are way too high, said Commissioner Demar Dahl, explaining he has had personal experience with the hospitals prices.
He said he was at NNRH and two days later he was in western Nevada where he suffered from a relapse and was hospitalized again.
The cost here compared to there, for relatively the same things, were say different, as much as four times different, said Dahl, possibly attributing that difference to competition.
CEO of NNRH Rick Palagi said this is not the first time he has heard this complaint and the comments do not fall on deaf ears.
He praised the diverse marvel of competition, but said it is not marvelous, in my opinion, in a rural community like ours or any other rural community, because we only have so much volume and it can only get spread in so many ways before that begins to have a detrimental impact on areas such as 24-hour access.
Dahl said he could see that point of view if NNRH wasnt a member of a health care system.
Palagi said he views the hospital as doing everything it can to be a community health partner; thats his mission.
Always my soapbox anytime any of you hear a complaint or problem if you can just find out if I can speak to them, Im willing to do that because we dont know unless were told that we might have screwed up if we dont know about it, we cant fix it, he said.
Commissioner Cliff Eklund also said he has done comparison pricing in his family between Elko and Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, noticing dramatic differences.
People have the opinion that you guys are here, in a rural area, and you can charge whatever you want, said Eklund, stating the local hospital is in competition with those in larger surrounding cities such as Twin Falls, Salt Lake City and Reno.
I am listening. Well take it back, said Palagi, thanking Eklund for his transparency.
Even though he discussed the public feeling it is being taken advantage of, Eklund did commend NNRHs staff and quality of care.
Commissioner Delmo Andreozzi, who serves on the Governing Board for NNRH, discussed how pricing is a continuous conversation.
I think the things that the local administration has been able to fix and amend, like we were talking about this billing, patient satisfaction and some of those other things that are managed here locally, we see a little bit more success, he said.
Sending a message encompassing the issue of pricing and its competitive comparison to other markets is of the utmost importance to Andreozzi. If the local hospital is not competitive, the local health care infrastructure begins to be undermined and staff, such as physicians and nurses, is lost to the community, he said.
Another area of destabilization includes local employers who provide vouchers to seek medical treatment outside of Elko.
This can also create an economic impact, said Sheriff Jim Pitts, as the employee must take time from work and there isnt always a replacement.
Dahl said he would like to be consulted during the creation of the letter.
It was unanimously voted upon for Andreozzi and Commissioner Rex Steninger to write the letter and bring it to the next meeting on Oct. 4 to be possibly be signed by the seven-member board, which meets quarterly.
During public comment Rebecca Byrns said there is a broader financial cost to the public and business community when people go out of town for medical care, including going on a larger shopping trip. This takes money away from the local community.
Gerald Ackerman of the University of Nevada School of Medicine proposed addressing the letter so it is focused toward public access and safety, because there are safety concerns when traveling.
Fr Damien Quigley celebrated his First Mass of Thanksgiving in Holy Redeemeer Church, Dundalk on Monday evening last.
The new priest was ordained in the same Church the previous day by Archbishop Eamon Martin.
Fr Damien is the son of Thomas and Pacella Qugley from Holy Redeemer Parish, Dundalk and he is the youngest of a family of four. Hes a past pupil of Redeemer Boys Primary School and Colaiste Ris Secondary School in Dundalk.
After leaving school, he studied at Dundalk Regional College and later in Queens University, Belfast.
In 1998, he joined Tesco Ireland and he worked there until entering St Patricks College, Maynooth in 2010.
He was ordained deacon for the Archdiocese of Armagh last year and he has ministered as a deacon for the past year in the parish of Magherafelt, Co Derry.
Many priests from across the Archdiocese of Armagh were present at the Ordination ceremony last Sunday as well as many of the new priests classmates from his years in St Patricks College, Maynooth.
Cardinal Sean Brady was also in attendance for the special celebration.
The parish wish Fr Damien many long and fruitful years in his priestly ministry.
There is a reason the courts routinely expedite cases involving children. If the cases were handled in the usual manana fashion the children would have children of their own by the time the case is resolved.
The state Supreme Court has rightly refused an effort by the American Civil Liberties Union to further delay the hearing of its suit to block enactment of the education savings account (ESA) law passed by the 2015 Legislature, which would allow parents to keep a portion of their taxes about $5,100 a year in most cases in a savings account to pay for private schooling or homeschooling.
Thus far about 6,000 students have applied for funding under the law but their applications are on hold, pending a ruling from the justices of the state Supreme Court.
The court has scheduled hearings for the morning of July 29 for both the ACLU case Duncan v. State, which challenges the law as a violation of a constitutional prohibition against using state funds for sectarian purposes and another case Schwartz v. Lopez, which claims the law impermissibly diverts funds from the Distributive School Account (DSA).
The ESA is under the auspices of state Treasurer Dan Schwartz, who had hoped to make funding available by January 2016, but now the suits make it impossible for funding to start by the beginning of the new school year in the fall. Another delaying wrinkle is that the law requires eligible students to have been enrolled in public school for 100 consecutive days prior to receiving the funds. Who knows how many more parents could step forward in the future if and when the law is upheld?
The Schwartz v. Lopez case will be heard at 10 a.m. on July 29. In that case a Carson City judge blocked the state from carrying out the provisions of the law, saying it is unconstitutional under that Article 11, Section 6.2 of the state Constitution. He determined that appropriation means to set apart for or assign to a particular purpose or use in exclusion of all others and therefore using part of that appropriation for ESAs violates the state Constitution.
Attorney General Adam Laxalt, representing the state, has countered that the DSA is not, as the plaintiffs allege, a lock box from which no funds may be diverted, but rather funds public schools on a per pupil basis. If a student moves out of a district or transfers to a private school or homeschooling, the per pupil funding is affected in the same manner.
The case of Duncan v. State will be heard at 11:30 a.m., after Schwartz. This case raises the question of whether ESAs violate the Constitutions prohibition against sectarian funding by noting that ESAs could be used to send children to religion-based schools.
Clark County Judge Eric Johnson, writing on the religious separation argument, said, The United States Supreme Courts decisions have drawn a consistent distinction between government programs that provide aid directly to religious schools, and programs of true private choice, in which government aid reaches religious schools only as a result of the genuine and independent choices of private individuals. Where a school aid program, such as the ESA program, is neutral with respect to religion, and provides assistance available directly to a wide spectrum of citizens, or as in this case, essentially all parents of Nevada school children, who, in turn, direct the financial assistance to religion affiliated schools wholly as a result of their own genuine and independent private choice, the program is not readily subject to challenge
Judge Johnson also dismissed speculative claims that some private schools might discriminate by writing, Whether illegal discrimination occurs and a school may participate under the program can be dealt with in the specific context of the facts of an actual controversy rather than in the hypothetical.
The sooner this is resolved, the sooner parents and children can get on with education plans. May the court come down on the side of freedom to choose.
A new twist on skillet grilled catfish
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Just recently, I went bag shopping with a friend. While she was able to grab two bags from the store I did not get anything. I held a couple of nice looking ones, but none of them screamed my name. Then the thought, how many people have the same bag? So, I let them go.
Incidentally, the Timbuk2 Custom Studio Bag in Manila launch I attended was about designing your own bag yourself. A bag that is completely unique and personalized because you created it from the silhouette, fabric, color, texture, size and everything else, the bag will scream you!
As we entered the venue, we were handed out mock-up carton of a Timbuk2 messenger bags and was told to design it however way we want it. The best design will get to win his own life size for real bag!
Heres what I come up to:
The camouflaged design bag won the contest, the designer worked hard for it since he arrived he even ignored the delicious food just to finish it. But of course lucky strike, I won a Golden Ticket, which means I can design my own bag too and have it done for real and for free!
Immediately, I sat on the first ever Timbuk 2 Custom Bag Studio in Manila (15th studio worldwide) located at Bratpack in Greenbelt 5 and started browsing for silhouettes, size, color, shape, texture, and all other elements to complete my bag. Its overwhelming as the studio offers 9 different styles/bag silhouettes , 13 different sizes, 106 different colors, 30 different panels, and 43 different accessories, resulting in over 7 trillion permutations possible and available!
Let me show you what to expect when making your own bag design in this video:
The Timbuk2 Custom Bag Studio, came all the way from San Francisco U.S.A., allows customers to be their own bag designer and have it made just for them. Since you are the one to choose how the bag will be made from the fabric, to colors, to size and bag style, your bag is absolutely unique and one-of-a-kind!
Anyone who is interested in having a custom Timbuk2 bag made may simply head over to the Bratpack Greenbelt 5 store where the Custom Bag Studio is located. Upon finalizing elements and components of the customized design , the bag will be made in San Francisco and shipped out for pick up in 3 to 4 weeks!
The clincher, the Timbuk2 Custom Bag Studio in Manila will only be open from July to August 2016 ! I suggest grab hold of this rare opportunity to head on to the store now!
But no worries, they also have ready made and beautifully designed bags you can buy from the store. Timbuk2 has a cult following with travelers especially backpackers!
Heres some of the available designs:
Timbuk2 is founded in a San Francisco in 1989 by bike messenger Rob Honeycutt. To this day, all Timbuk2 products remain to be manufactured where it started for authenticity and commitment to drive progress in the city.
In the Philippines Timbuk2 is available at all Bratpack, ROX and The Travel Club stores in the country and exclusively distributed by Primer Group of Companies.
What I wore:
Top: HOLLOW OUT V-NECK LACE TANK TOP by ZAFUL Premium Collection
Jacket and Shorts: UNIQLO
Shoes: SM PARISIAN
Stay gorgeous everyone!
1.8 million travelling Brits put insurance at risk by not declaring medical conditions
One in 10 (12 per cent) Brits with a pre-existing medical condition are running the risk of invalidating their travel insurance policy by not declaring it, according to new insight from MoneySuperMarket.
Analysis found nearly half (45%) of holidaymakers have a pre-existing medical condition they are required to declare to their travel insurance provider, but only 85 per cent of these actually comply. This means the 12 per cent that have a condition but do not declare - equating to 1.8 million Brits - risk invalidating their policies and could typically face minimum bills of 3,500 in the event they need to make a claim while abroad. This is 70 times the original cost of an average premium for travellers with a pre-existing medical condition and means in total the UKs under-insured travellers run the risk of having to fork out 6.4 billion.
For those who didnt inform their insurer of any pre-existing medical conditions, a third (33 per cent) didnt declare in order to get a cheaper policy. A fifth (20 per cent) blamed the fact their insurer didnt ask them and almost half (45 per cent) claimed their condition hadnt caused them any issues lately. A further third (29 per cent) didnt know they needed to tell their insurer.
Kevin Pratt, consumer affairs expert at MoneySuperMarket, said: You should never head abroad without the right travel insurance policy in place and its important to make sure youve declared everything, including any medical conditions - even if your insurer hasnt asked you specifically whether you have one. The danger is that, if you dont tell your insurer, your policy will be invalid and you wont be covered if you have an accident or fall ill while abroad.
For example, if you suffered a heart attack but hadnt declared a pre-existing condition and the fact youre on medication, you might have to pay your own medical bills and repatriation costs, which could potentially run into tens of thousands of pounds for those travelling to Europe, or hundreds of thousands for longer-haul trips.
Insurance is based on risk and the simple truth is customers with medical conditions are a higher risk than those without. So, naturally, premiums are higher for travellers with pre-existing conditions, even those that havent caused you any issues recently. However, the costs associated with finding yourself underinsured and in need of help abroad are much higher than the cost of the policy, so its always worth ensuring you are adequately protected.
A bull-run at the Sanfermines in Pamplona. Jesus Diges (Efe)
The running of the bulls at the fiesta of San Fermin is madness. The gates are opened at 8am and six bulls weighing at least 600kg each are released with six steers from their corral to charge through fenced streets of the old quarters of Pamplona.
The bulls have been selected from some of the most famous fincas in Spain and their job is to chase a crowd of around 2,000 runners who might press their backs to the wall and let them past, or try to touch them, or simply run for their lives, trying to make sure they have space in the crush and are not pushed down by a fellow runner.
It is not hard to be gored by a bulls horn or stamped on by a hoof, so reaching the bullring in one piece is synonymous with victory a Spanish tradition that fascinated Ernest Hemingway, inspiring his novel The Sun Also Rises, and which defies all logical explanation.
Those hoping to play it safe can watch it on TV or from a balcony
The running of the bulls is madness. Sixteen runners have lost their lives and hundreds have sustained injuries at an event that would have no meaning if it did not entail the risk and danger inherent in the tremendous strength of a scared bull longing for the peace of his meadow and trying to rid himself of a bunch of runners who are harassing him for no good reason.
The bull-run is, however, at the heart of the fiesta. Far from being childs play, the running of the bulls is an aspect of the fiesta that flirts with tragedy, encouraging runners to expose themselves to death in order to feel more alive. Without it, Sanfermines would be nothing more than an orgy of food and drink.
The bull-run is like a primal test, the mystery of which many locals carry deep within them and which others who come from afar hope to experience through the proximity of the bull. It is a tradition that unites thousands of people for eight days that feel like an eternity.
The festivities begin on July 7, the day of Saint Fermin, patron saint of Navarre, when three minutes before 8am, young men holding newspapers pray aloud to a small statue of the saint, placed in a raised niche in the Cuesta de Santo Domingo. We ask Saint Fermin, our patron Saint, to guide us in the bull-run and give us his blessing, they chant. Moments later, the bulls are upon them.
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The most famous of all Spains festivals, the Sanfermines date back to the 14th century, when bulls were herded into the city by cattle merchants, who completed the last stretch in the early hours to avoid inconveniencing local residents.
Until the middle of the 19th century, the running of the bulls ended in Plaza de Castillo, which was used temporarily as a bullring; later, there would be four different routes leading to four different plazas. Finally, in 1992, the current bullring was inaugurated and runners and bulls now take just a few minutes to run the 825 meters, a ritual that turns the streets into a mad dash of fear and excitement every morning for eight days.
The participating bulls have been selected from various fincas; from Fuente Ymbro for the 12th time, Cebada Gago, for the 28th, Escolar, for the second time; Pedraza de Yeltes, for the first; Jandilla for the 16th, Victoriano del Rio and Nunez del Cuvillo for the sixth, and the veteran Miura for the 36th.
The bulls from these various fincas have left countless scars over the years, particularly on the most inexperienced and fearful runners. But this year, there will be more than 100 people on hand to mop up the blood and tend to the wounded. Besides 16 fully equipped ambulances, there will be nine doctors, nine nurses, 21 ambulance crew, 47 rescue workers, nine operators and eight coordinators. In total, there will be nine clinics and another eight backups, which means one for every 53 meters of the bull-run.
Those hoping to play it safe can watch it on TV or from a balcony for 85, you can rent a third-floor balcony with coffee and cake to sweeten the experience. Or you can wait for the runners and bulls to arrive in the bullring where a musical jamboree is laid on for 6 while you wait.
However you look at it, the running of the bulls is madness. In fact, for 54% of the runners, it is a one-off; perhaps they know that the risk of death is 0.017%. Not much, but its there.
English version by Heather Galloway.
Eighth ECB Statistics Conference
Welcome address by Mario Draghi, President of the ECB, at the Eighth ECB Statistics Conference, Central Bank Statistics: moving beyond the aggregates,Frankfurt am Main, 6 July 2016
Ladies and gentlemen,
On behalf of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB), allow me to warmly welcome you to the Eighth ECB Statistics Conference. These biennial conferences are by now a well-established tradition and always give new and valuable impetus to our work in the field of statistics.
The title of todays conference is Central bank statistics: moving beyond the aggregates. Disaggregated data are indeed necessary to identify and analyse the heterogeneity that characterises the real world. For central banks this is particularly important: to implement policy in the most effective way, we need to know how our policy actions affect all sectors of the economy. Both the challenges posed by the current economic climate for monetary and macroprudential policy, and the information required to carry out microprudential supervision by the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) increase our need for granular data.
But this need for a greater level of disaggregation of data comes with its own challenges. The first one is to ensure that data are collected in a way that permits multiple uses. This requires greater harmonisation, and an ability to share data between institutions in a way that still respects confidentiality. The second challenge is to engage with the financial sector to ensure that the increase in data collection does not become burdensome.
Why the need for granular data?
Improving the collection of disaggregated data will support the ECBs main policy functions in several ways.
On the monetary policy side, greater understanding of the functioning of money markets and of the impact of the monetary transmission mechanism on individual sub-sectors of the economy helps to underpin our analysis of unconventional monetary policy tools and to effectively target future measures. Indeed, this week saw the official go-live of the reporting of data on up to 35,000 daily transactions in the money market, complete with information on quantities, prices and counterparties. This is a very rich information set, crucial for our liquidity management and for understanding the first step of the monetary transmission mechanism.
Collecting more granular data also helps us to better understand the transmission process through the economy more broadly. We need more information on the linkages between individual sectors of the economy and, even more so, between large financial institutions. There are some important areas of the financial sector where we lack complete statistical coverage, especially relating to what we call the shadow banking system. These areas include some complex market products and instruments.
Similarly, our new responsibilities in European banking supervision call for new data concepts and definitions, greatly extending the need for granular data. A successful start has been made, with a new set of legal acts. The collection of loan-by-loan data is already being implemented, but further improvements are possible. In particular, we need to make sure that the data we collect are of a high quality and comparable.
Effective data integration and cooperation
But todays conference is about more than just collecting additional data. The sharing of data by authorities is also critical. Doing this effectively and efficiently, while maintaining data confidentiality, is a priority for policymakers. It requires action from policy institutions and lawmakers. Putting in place the right architecture will permit a faster and more efficient response to requests across all our policy areas, greatly enhancing the usefulness of granular data.
We have made some progress on the legal foundations for sharing granular data. Council Regulation 2533/98 has been amended to permit the ECB to (re)use confidential statistical information to perform its supervisory tasks. The information can also be shared with Union institutions, including supervisory and resolution authorities, the European Systemic Risk Board and the European Stability Mechanism for the purposes of prudential supervision and ensuring financial stability. This is a major achievement.
The European System of Central Banks (ESCB) has also taken important steps to improve the harmonisation and standardisation of data. The current work on the Banks Integrated Reporting Dictionary, a joint project involving seven national central banks and 26 commercial banks under the leadership of the ECB, is the best example. This process could and should ultimately enable us to organise the various reporting requirements into a single, comprehensive and harmonised European Reporting Framework.
But the need for harmonisation and standardisation also extends beyond Europe. Finance is a global business, and both the regulation and the underlying data requirements for global institutions would benefit from more harmonisation worldwide. Concrete steps towards standardisation include the establishment of mandatory requirements regarding the use of the International Securities Identification Number and the global Legal Entity Identifier. Europe should retain its prominent role in the implementation of the second phase of the G20 Data Gaps Initiative.
Engagement with industry
As the banking industry has pointed out, lack of standardisation pushes up costs for the private sector and heightens the risk of mistakes or misinterpretation. And there is some truth to this view.
Policymakers and the industry clearly have a shared interest in focusing on and discussing data collection. It would allow banks to contain their reporting burden and remain competitive at the global level. And it would allow policymakers to improve the quality and relevance of the data they receive. The two groups have quite different roles, but they also share common goals.
As such, data collection should be a joint exercise carried out by the authorities and the banking industry. They can support each other and jointly benefit from the results. After all, there is likely to be a large overlap between the data the authorities need and the data managers of a financial institution require for their own purposes.
Standardising the identifiers of counterparties, transactions, products and reporting requirements in general falls within our mandate and is probably our best course of action. I know that this is easier said than done. The establishment of European banking supervision under the auspices of the ECB, and of the three European Supervisory Authorities,[1] gives us a unique opportunity to make progress in this area in Europe.
Conclusion
Let me finish by saying that the well-established ESCB statistics will continue to provide the big picture of economic developments. But we should also offer a magnifying glass. Looking at the details beyond the aggregates enriches our understanding of economic phenomena and at the same time increases our flexibility to respond to unexpected policy needs, contributing to even better statistics.
So, once again, I welcome you to this conference and also take this opportunity to thank all the organisers for their efforts in making it happen. I wish all of you an interesting and successful day. I hope you find some answers to the challenges I have mentioned, and I look forward to hearing the results of your discussions.
An appellate court on Tuesday handed a major victory to the Federal Communications Commission by upholding the agencys watershed Open Internet Order, which ensures equal access to the Internet.
By a 2-1 vote, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the FCCs right to impose Net neutrality rules that essentially prevent big telecom and broadband companies from slowing down, speeding up, or blocking service based on content providers market power or willingness to pay.
Todays ruling is a victory for consumers and innovators who deserve unfettered access to the entire web, and it ensures the Internet remains a platform for unparallelled innovation, free expression and economic growth, said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.
The plaintiffs almost certainly will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to FCC Commissioner Mike ORielly, who criticized the ruling.
We all will rue the day the commission was confirmed to have nearly unmitigated power over the Internet and all based on unsubstantiated, imaginary harms,' he wrote.
Gearing Up for a Challenge
U.S. Telecom, which led the suit against the FCC, will leave all legal options on the table for a possible challenge, said President Walter McCormick, who expressed disappointment in the decision.
Two judges on the court have unfortunately failed to recognize the significant legal failings of the Federal Communication Commissions decision to regulate the Internet as a public utility, he maintained, leaving in place regulation that we believe will replace a consumer-driven Internet with a government-run Internet, threatening investment and innovation to come.
Other telecom and broadband firms have indicated they intend to pursue a reversal.
We have always expected this issue to be decided by the Supreme Court, and we look forward to participating in that appeal, said David McAtee, senior executive vice president at AT&T, which claims to be the worlds largest communications firm.
Its high-speed mobile Internet network covers 365 million people in North America and 25 million video subscribers in the U.S., including DirecTV customers.
The major broadband companies have complained of being at a disadvantage because they have to lay out billions of dollars to develop high-speed networks, which smaller, outside competitors then get to share, noted telecom analyst Jeff Kagan.
Many of those companies want to ride that investment at no cost, he told the E-Commerce Times. If carriers decided to slow down their investment because it wasnt worth their while any longer, that would be a real problem.
The fight is likely to drag on for years, Kagan predicted. Stay tuned for the next decade of legal battles.
Equal Access
In the eyes of Net neutrality proponents, the FCCs latest victory is critical to maintaining an open and fair system that allows communities of different incomes and content providers of different sizes to get access to high-speed Internet. The fear has been that big telecom providers would be able to bias their data speeds or content quality toward the most powerful players as one way to recoup the costs of laying down cables to different communities of various economic status.
The rules will keep providers from blocking or slowing traffic and stifling innovation by speeding up traffic for those who pay, said Corynne McSherry, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of a number of open technology advocates that urged the FCC to defend an open Internet.
The industry is likely not only to appeal the decision, but also to attempt to persuade Congress to upend the FCCs rules through legislative means, McSherry added.
The ruling will ensure that all parties will be protected both in terms of underserved communities having access to service and smaller firms competing against large broadband providers, according to the Open Technology Institute, another group that intervened in the case last year.
The courts decision recognizes the value of an open platform over which all voices have a space and ideas can flourish where even the smallest startups can grow, all users access the content of their choosing, and communities can organize without interference from their ISPs, said Sarah J. Morris, senior policy counsel at OTI.
FCCs Bold Move
This decision provides a major victory for advocates of net neutrality, said William K. Norton, an associate at Baker Donelson.
In 2002, the FCC decided not to make Internet providers subject to common carrier requirements under its Brand X decision. It took public interest groups to petition the FCC to stop Comcast from discriminating and degrading Internet traffic in 2008 to get the FCC to consider Net neutrality regulations, he told the E-Commerce Times.
When the Open Internet rules were struck down in 2014, it was seen as a major blow to the Net neutrality movement. The FCCs response in 2015 to cover broadband under Title II was a bold move that actually gave it more authority to regulate the Internet than the Open Internet rules that were struck down the year before, he pointed out. So I think many were concerned that that decision would be struck down, as well.
This summer has started out to be anything but a somnolent day at the beach. The Brexit vote for the UK to leave the EU is enough to disturb your slumber, and thats not the only thing on the plate.
To be frank, it appears we are at one of those major historical transition points that might happen a few times in any of our lives. Without being overly dramatic and without stirring up a hornets nest of political debate, I would still like to discuss CRM in all of this.
You might think that CRM is the furthest thing from the central issue confronting the unhappy European divorce and you might be right but please bear with me. As one who studies the intricacies of the interactions of two species of humans vendors and customers I have to say that the incipient breakup looks an awful lot like dissatisfied customers taking agency and leaving the established structures that those in authority have set up. Ive written two books on this theme and will not try to recount them here, but following are some parallels:
A customer attrition rate that makes the going concern unable to function properly;
Bad word of mouth by customers about the vendor leading to rumors and half-truths ricocheting around the installed base and amplifying the problem; and
A vendor community surprised by the outcome. No one ever thought things were so bad. (This is pretty much what Marie Antoinette was thinking.)
If any of this sounds like the kind of thing you work assiduously to avoid in your job, thats good. It also signals whats so CRM-ish about the Brexit vote.
A World Without CRM
The Brexit vote is both a vivid reminder of what life could be like if CRM never happened, and a reflection of how much better things between vendors and their customers are now.
Note, I didnt say things are perfect between vendors and customers at least, not yet but I doubt there are very many people who think things are much worse because of CRM. Lets just say that at least through making the attempt to reach out to customers through many channels and to understand whats important to them, the vendor community at large has dodged the bullet that struck Europe in its body politic.
If the British were the only people on Earth unhappy with the EU arrangement, then there would be reason to dismiss them as a bunch of cranks. However, the Brexit vote exposed fault lines in other members of the trading sphere as well. France and the Netherlands are talking openly about their own referenda on leaving the EU for instance.
If CRM had never happened, things might have been marginally better in the UK; at least no one would have been conditioned to think that leaving a vendor could be as simple as voting out and moving on. We see this all the time these days in the subscription business model. Those vendors work like dogs to prevent the revenue losses associated with customer attrition. Thats at a microeconomic level, though, and Brexit is at the macro level, so the fallout is much more severe.
Theres no government outreach to citizens that is similar to CRM. Thats in part because where are citizens going to go? They can vote politicians out of office but how often do they vote a government out?
Now that Brexit has happened, theres a new possibility for citizen behavior, and customers or citizens have to be listened to in whole new ways. In my humble opinion, this is when CRM becomes an indispensable tool for government. All of the advanced social, mobile, and analytic tools accessible by vendors need to be tailored to governments and citizens. CRM for government changes any democracy from a representative one to a participatory one without even a word change in any constitution. How?
CRM Bonanza
The Brexit referendum was supposed to be nonbinding and frankly, it would be best if someone remembered that, but its now beside the point. If Brexit is nonbinding but politicians are beginning to implement it, then it says quite frankly that any such future vote could be as disruptive. This means that politicians and others involved in government never can get so far out of sync with constituents again.
For CRM vendors, this could be a bonanza, of course. It comes at an especially good time. If the same need for CRM had developed at the turn of the century, implementing services for billions of people would have proven impossible. However, with todays good, fast cloud computing and a plethora of supporting technologies like analytics, social media and mobile delivery systems, the stage is set for the blooming of very different approaches to living together. Phrases like What would Watson do? must be just around the corner.
I was never a fan of Brexit, and the news seems to be full of reports that the winners (the somewhat loyal opposition) had padded their case for leaving with a few stories that were not exactly factual, which is disappointing.
However, I doubt that cigarette can be unsmoked at this point. Had CRM been in place before the vote, the government might have had a chance to steer public opinion. Thats water under the bridge at this point, and the learning from this debacle is that we need to apply the same CRM strategies in government that weve honed in business these last 20 years or so.
Hackers late Sunday broke into CEO Sundar Pichais Quora account and through it accessed his Twitter followers, according to reports.
The group taking credit for the breach, OurMine Security, previously hit other prominent high-tech figures, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Spotify CEO Daniel Elk, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels and former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo.
OurMines goal is to improve the security of social media accounts around the world, the group has claimed.
As well intentioned as they may be, OurMine is not making friends with their efforts, while theyre gaining a lot of publicity, noted Craig Kensek, a security expert at Lastline.
Still, the damage done so far has been more of an embarrassment, he told TechNewsWorld. A deep-pocketed celebrity may ultimately go after OurMine or other hackers for invasion of privacy.
OurMines Agenda
OurMine reportedly is a group of three people, believed to be teenagers. They initially removed private data and stored information from the sites they hacked, but lately have attempted to rebrand themselves as a security group, hacking into accounts as a way of advertising their services.
OurMine has claimed that it exploits vulnerabilities in the services its victims use.
For example, OurMine hacked the Bitly accounts of Channing Tatum and journalist Matthew Yglesias.
However, Bitly has denied the groups claim, and said the hacks were possible because the victims used their passwords on multiple sites.
OurMine also asserted the presence of a vulnerability in Quora, which Quora subsequently denied.
OurMine claimed to have launched exploits that let it access passwords victims had saved in their browsers apparently the method used to hack Channing Tatums YouTube and Twitter accounts.
Sowing Dragons Teeth
OurMines actions have drawn widespread rebuke.
A Change.Org petition calls for shutting OurMine down and urges Twitter and YouTube to take action. The petition had more than 5,400 supporters at press time.
Twitter has suspended OurMines account.
Hacker AlexPro earlier this year published information that supposedly outed the group on Dramaalert.com. He listed the groups IP and Skype addresses, and suggested they were Arab as they were using the SaudiNet ISP, and geolocation information placed them in Saudi Arabias Makkah province, close to the city of Jeddah. Keep in mind these guys had a (sic) Arabic twitter, AlexPro wrote.
However, AlexPros conclusions are questionable.
This group has Polish roots, maintained Andrew Komarov, chief intelligence officer at InfoArmor.
They actively use XSS (cross-site scripting) attacks against social media account owners, he told TechNewsWorld.
The Silver Lining
Still, its not all bad, because anything that causes no real harm, which can serve as a reminder to everyday folks that security matters for everyone, is likely a positive, suggested Jonathan Sander, vice president of product strategy at Lieberman Software.
OurMine isnt telling us anything that hasnt already been said, he told TechNewsWorld. Of course theres a problem with the security of social media. Passwords are fundamentally flawed; people reusing passwords is even worse.
It will be interesting to see what, if any, legal ramifications this interesting marketing campaign may have for the group in the short term, Sander mused, though it seems like most of the people being targeted would rather have the incidents forgotten.
Protect Yourself
Weve seen time and time again with breaches that many users avoid password changes and fail to use unique passwords across services, noted Craig Young, a security researcher at Tripwire.
This will probably never change, he told TechNewsWorld, which is why its so critical that services continue to push users onto multifactor authentication systems and eliminate this single point of failure.
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AMSTERDAM - G-Star Raw, O'Neill Europe and C&A Netherlands are among the 57 textile brands and retailers which have now signed the Dutch Agreement on a Sustainable Garment and Textile Sector. The agreement, which as we reported this week now has the endorsement of the Foreign Trade Association, has also been signed by the The Sustainable Trade Initiative, the Fair Wear Foundation and the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC). Dutch Minister Ploumen this week met with Tamar Hoek of Solidaridad Europe and other supporters of the agreement.
On Tuesday, the European Commission concluded that Spain, just like Portugal, did not take effective measures to reduce the deficit, which stood at 5.1% of GDP in 2015 compared with the target of 4.2%. But this does not necessarily mean that there will be sanctions against them in the end.
Germany has been pressuring Brussels to slap both countries with heavy fines that will serve as an example to other member states. The rules must be respected, said a spokesman for Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble on Monday. Berlin wants Brussels to send a clear message to governments that might be tempted to get loose with their own budgets.
If the Commissions proposal had come earlier, the agenda would have been clear by now
Spokeswoman for Slovak presidency of EU
But France and Italy favor a more lenient response. This is partly because the Brexit has left Italian banks in a delicate situation that could ultimately require public aid, while France is just months away from elections of its own and could be a future candidate for sanctions.
And the Commission so far seems reticent to penalize two countries that have made demonstrable efforts to contain their deficits at times of crisis. This, in fact, has been Spain and Portugals main argument against such a move.
In any case, the EUs decision will not be formal until Thursday. In the meantime, Spain would rather stretch out the sanction proceedings until the fall, to make sure that the issue does not adversely affect the formation of a government in the wake of the repeat elections of June 26.
An example for others L.D. "Spain and Portugal have failed to comply with their budget obligations. If the Commission wants to maintain its credibility, we have to adopt sanctions now. Anything else would be inexplicable," said European commissioner Gunther Oettinger in statements to Bild. Oettinger, the German national who wields the greatest power in Brussels, would rather keep a low profile these days so he cannot be accused of pressuring the Commission. But the message is clear: neither Spain nor Portugal must be allowed to get away scot-free.
It would not be the first time that proceedings have been delayed. In the spring, Brussels decided to hold off its decision until early June because of Spains political instability it has been under a caretaker administration since late December, when the original election yielded a hung parliament. The Commission did not want to appear to be meddling in domestic affairs.
But July is here, Spain is still without an official government, and in the meantime the Brexit vote has created a worst-case scenario that European leaders had hoped would never come to pass.
Proceedings against Spain were formally activated on Tuesday, but the schedule ahead is so complex that it is unclear when a final decision will be made, or what it will be.
In the worst of cases, Brussels may fine Spain as much as 2.1 billion and put a freeze on structural funds. In the best scenario, the proceedings may be cancelled or the fine left at zero euros. In any case, the damage to Spains fiscal credibility is already done.
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Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos will travel to Strasbourg on Wednesday to meet with finance commissioner Pierre Moscovici and discuss Spains political and economic situation. His position is that Spain and Portugal have made enormous efforts to contain the deficit in difficult times in the middle of a recession and that sanctions would be counterproductive.
The Slovak presidency of the Council of the EU must now decide whether to include the matter on the agenda of the Ecofin meeting scheduled for next Tuesday. If it does not, the entire proceedings will be pushed to the fall. But if the finance ministers do debate it, and confirm the lack of effective action observed by Brussels, Spain will have 10 days to lodge claims and the Commission will have to come up with a sanction proposal within a 20-day period. This proposal must also include recommendations most likely new budget cuts.
If the Commissions proposal had come earlier, the agenda would have been clear by now, said a spokeswoman for the Slovak presidency, alluding to next weeks Ecofin gathering. Now, it is up to the finance ministers.
English version by Susana Urra.
(Photo: REUTERS / Olivia Harris)Muslims wait to break their fast on the last day of Ramadan, at Masjid Jamek (Jamek Mosque) in Kuala Lumpur July 27, 2014.
The holy month of Ramadan was ending around July 6, when more than 1.6 billion Muslims around the world celebrate the end of the fasting month with the festival of Eid-el-Fitri.
Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam and during the month, Muslims fast during daylight hours, when they are not allowed to eat or drink at all.
A single sip of water is considered enough to annul the fast
This year Ramadan was marked by violence in a series of terrorist attacks, some of which were carried out in the name of Islam, at several areas dominated by Muslims.
Ramadan falls during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and it is an especially sacred time for Muslims who believe that during the month the Quran was revealed to mankind through the Prophet Muhammad.
On July 5, however, a suicide attack outside the Saudi city of Medina - the resting place of Muhammad and the second-most holy site in Islam in which four security officers were killed and five others injured, Quartz reported.
The Medina bombing stands out, even among the wave of terrorist attacks in recent days, but not for the death toll.
It did not produce the scenes of carnage like the bombing two day before in Baghdad that killed nearly 200 people or last week's attack on the airport in Istanbul that left 44 dead, NPR said.
It was the chosen target - Medina, the site of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad's tomb and his house.
"It's not like a Shiite shrine or a Sunni shrine," says Jonathan A.C. Brown, the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization at Georgetown University. "This is literally the burial place of the prophet of God. This is his mosque, this is his house."
MEDINA SECOND ONLY TO MECCA
Medina is second only to Mecca in its sacredness in Islam, Brown explains. It's the place where Muhammad lived, where he started the Muslim community and where he was laid to rest.
The Baghdad atrocity in turn was preceded on July 1, when at least 20 people were killed by gunmen in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka after a 10-hour-long hostage situation at an upmarket cafe in the city.
According to reports, the gunmen asked hostages to recite verses from the Quran and those who failed to do so were killed.
The terrorist group callings itself ISIS, IS or known as Daesh ISIS had promised Ramadan would be a "month of pain for infidels," the Daily Mail reported.
On June 28 terrorists claiming to be from ISIS carried out a brutal attack on the Istanbul international airport which resulted in the deaths of at least 45 people.
With the number of people murdered by the extremists in the last four weeks now close to 1,000, spanning from a gun attack in Orlando to executions in the Philippines and mass murders in Iraq, it appears they have delivered.
But it is "fellow Muslims who have suffered the most at the hands of ISIS's warped followers" the newspaper commented.
"Using sacred Islam's name, exploiting it, this terrorist group which spills Muslim blood has gone as far as attacking the town where the mosque and blessed remains of our Prophet are located," President Recep Erdogan said in a speech on July 5, the day before Ramadan came to an end.
"Daesh is a dagger plunged into the chest of Muslims. Whoever gives support to this group, whether out of sectarian fanaticism or another motive, commits the same sin"' he noted, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
Muslims still tried to go about celebrating the end of the Ramadan period of fasting in the normal manner with special feast and gift sharing.
The Nigerian government said it was extending the Eid-el-Fitri holiday, the timing of which is dependent on the moon, by one day due to the non-sighting of the moon.
In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, thousands of people attended prayers at the grand mosque of Dian al-Mahri in West Java province, Reuters news agency reported.
In Karachi, Pakistan, the festival was observed under tight security, with police as well as soldiers deployed around special Eid prayer grounds.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani called for peace in his war-torn country at an official gathering at the presidential palace in Kabul.
Muslims in Kashmir and in India's southern state of Kerala ushered in festivities a day ahead of nationwide celebrations July 7. Muslims traditionally shop on the eve of Eid for new clothes and food.
Muslims in Columbus, Ohio celebrated Eid al-Fitr by helping needy families.
Queensland's education department will take over schooling in the beleaguered Indigenous town of Aurukun following a string of violent incidents that saw teachers evacuated, an attempted home invasion and a principal assaulted and car-jacked.On Tuesday, the Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, announced her government would implement all 27 recommendations from a recent 67-page review into the school.Some of the key recommendations include the government to take the lead in education delivery, Years 7 and 8 to be introduced and an independent financial audit of the schools current financial arrangements.Palaszczuk also took aim at the schools US-based direct instruction, which the review found had mostly taught students about American culture, with very little reference to Australian or Indigenous culture.Palaszczuk announced that the previously stand-alone model would now be taught alongside national curriculum.However, the communitys Indigenous leader, Noel Pearson , said direct instruction helped students with low cognitive function achieve better results than they otherwise might have, he said.It's like a disabled child who's won a bronze medal at the Special Olympics. Is that a legitimate achievement ... or are you going to say to that child 'well that's all very well, but you can't keep up with the people in the real Olympics'? he said.That is the whole problem in the way in which this school has been assessed.Palaszczuk said having the direct instruction model taught alongside the national curriculum was an acknowledgment that direct instruction does work in some remote locations.What we found with this report into Aurukun, is there needs to be a bit more focus on the national curriculum, but also on culture, she said.She added that Aurukun elders wanted students to learn more about Wik culture, which would be included in the school improvement action plan to be overseen by the education department.
Cuban citizens on their way to the United States stranded in Quito stand in line for food and drink. EFE
Around 500 Cuban migrants have spent the last month camping out in Quito, as they wait for the governments of Ecuador and Mexico to allow them safe passage to the United States. At first, a few dozen people set up a demonstration near the Mexican embassy to ask for humanitarian visas that would allow them to enter Mexico on their way to the United States, where they expect to receive asylum like the 8,000 Cuban migrants who were stranded in Costa Rica at the beginning of the year. But Mexico has rejected the groups request, and on June 26, they were removed from the site. It was terrible, they beat us, there were psychological threats and they created a panic, says Efrain Sanchez, a young man who is acting as the groups leader.
Without that visa they will kill us, they will swindle us and make us disappear Group leader Efrain Sanchez
The group took shelter in La Carolina Park in downtown Quito and soon more and more Cuban migrants joined them. Without that visa they will kill us, they will swindle us and make us disappear; we are victims of human trafficking, Sanchez says. Quito Mayor Mauricio Rodas intervened to relocate the group to another park where they would be allowed to stay for eight days and where they could receive medical attention. Then the mayors office will evaluate whether it must continue to help the migrants for humanitarian reasons, says Juan Zapata, the citys security chief.
The migrants want to remain on site until they receive confirmation that the Ecuadorian government will help them reach their destination. For now more than 500 people are sharing 136 tents. Meanwhile, they are also at odds with their countrys Foreign Office. Cuba has said that the migrants are not political exiles because they left the island legally and they are not being persecuted. In response to that statement, the group wrote and delivered a letter to the Cuban embassy in Quito on Monday saying: For Cubans there is only one way to emigrate: throwing themselves into the sea in search of freedom or using legal departure to third-party countries from which they can continue their journey to the United States. A fact that does not detract from their status as political migrants.
Mexico and Ecuador remain adamant in their rejection of the migrants petition for passage to the US
Meanwhile Mexico and Ecuador remain adamant in their rejection of the migrants petition. In the wake of the humanitarian crisis that took place in Central America last year as a large influx of Cubans sought entry into the United States, the Ecuadorian government now requires a tourist visa that the average Cuban citizen cannot afford. Still, the measure has only succeeded in diverting the flow of Cuban migrants to other routes. They fly to Suriname or Guyana then to Brazil, Peru, Colombia or Ecuador. Migrants pay $4,000 each to cross the Amazon where they sometimes fall prey to swindlers.
In Brazil they give you asylum, but the goal is the United States. Thats why everyone is walking, says Liliet Sampel, a 25-year-old Cuban woman who traveled for months to get to Quito where she is camping out with the rest of the group. The police are corrupt everywhere: they take everything from you and if you dont have money they tell you to pay with something else. They told me, Your body or your money. And I thought that, as long as I had something of value, no one was going to rape me.
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The Human Rights Committee of Orellana (CDHO), an Ecuadorian province located in the Amazon, has alerted authorities of this new migratory route. Eighty percent of the 130 people who have traveled that path this year were Cubans. In June, 31 individuals were freed after spending eight days in jail. They were transferred to Quito but the migrant shelter in the capital did not have enough space for them. The group was taken back to the Amazon where they were given 72 hours to leave the country voluntarily. CDHO attorney Xavier Solis says the problem is that, if the police arrests them again, they may be charged with failure to comply.
English version by Dyane Jean Francois.
In the leafy suburbs of Philadelphia, the affluent Downingtown, Pa., school system has high test scores, plenty of digital resources, and features one of the best high schools in the country.
Even so, Superintendent Lawrence J. Mussoline decided to shake things up. The 13,000-student district already offered students online courses from a vendor, but Mussoline wanted a blended-learning program taught entirely by Downingtown teachers with Downingtown-created courses.
He hired a coordinator of blended and cyber learning to oversee the new Ivy Academy. She spent a year training teachers on blended instruction for classes that only meet face to face half the time, while students work independently the other half, but cover the same ground as traditional courses. Ivy Academy is now finishing its second academic year.
The model captured the interest of John Jong-Hyun Kim , a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School. Kim used Ivy Academy as a case study in his Entrepreneurship and Technology Innovations in Education class at Harvard, in part because of the districts efforts to measure effectiveness and initiate a change in district culture. Education Week spoke to both of them.
Why disrupt things in Downingtown when 95 percent of students already go to college?
Mussoline: If were investing a lot of money in 1-to-1 technology, we better be using the technology in productive ways. Were trying to get to the golden egg, which is individualized instruction.
Some teachers havent been enthusiastic about the blended-learning courses. How have you handled that?
Mussoline: Where theres a lot of the pushback is from teachers who say its not for every student. I still have a math department that has not bought into this. We have teachers who will tell students, You wont learn it unless Im in front of you every day. Its going to take a while to break that. But were breaking it.
Do blended courses work for all students?
Mussoline: We have common midterms, common finals, and were comparing those in blended classes and traditional classes. Were seeing gains in the blended classes. Not everywhere, but even when there arent gains, theyre about the same. This year, from the midterm data collected, its more like two-thirds in the blended classes are doing better and a third are doing equal or not as well as traditional classes.
Whats the feedback from the students?
Mussoline: The first year we had about 300 students taking blended courses, this year we have about 750, and next year well have over 1,100 students taking these courses in just about every subject area. The students are telling us the teachers are more productivetheyre more on point, theyre not wasting any time.
Where will you take this in the future?
Mussoline: We started in high school; now, we want to move the blended program to the middle level. Then we want to take it to full cyber at the high school. My vision is to have Mrs. Smith teach a traditional class Period 1, Period 3 she teaches a blended class, and Period 4 is a full cyber class.
What was interesting about this program to you?
Kim: I was seeking an example of a district that had implemented a new approach coupled with real results. There are a lot of districts investing in technology, but many fewer districts are actually looking at results and trying to learn from that.
What was significant about the approach in Downingtown for your business school students?
Kim: We often think about change in districts that are very urban, or where theres a performance gap. When you think about incorporating technology in a place like Downingtown, some of the resistance youll get is from people who are actually very good in the current system.
What measurements would signal success for Ivy Academy?
Kim: The true test will be whether this prepares students better for the way college is set up, which is one of the motivations behind it. We have traditional high schools with a pretty strict period-and-days rotation, and then you go into the world of college, and its very different. I hope to follow these students and see how well they do over time.
What are your business school students going to do with the knowledge they get from your class?
Kim: Of my class, about a third will go directly into some education-related enterprise, whether its a charter school, an ed-tech startup, or a traditional school district. They care deeply about improving public education and education overall, but theyre looking for entrepreneurial opportunities to do so. Another third will end up doing it at some point in their careers, but it might be later. The third group will probably never work directly in the sector but may end up sitting on boards or volunteering their time or donating money. I want to make sure they know how to support the organization that has the greatest impact.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. ~Gandhi
I cant imagine a world without leaders like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malala Yousafzai who engaged others in difficult conversations, took action, and led others to act as well. Each of these leaders exemplifies courage, leadership, and grit. They all recognized that they didnt have to wait for change to happen, they could make it happenand their actions have inspired countless others around the world. As an educator, I want my students to see themselves as agents of change and understand how their decisions or actions affect others globally. This learning must begin early in a childs life and is just the beginning of the journey to a global education.
In order to encourage this kind of learning, I must be aware of my own biases and perceptions of global issues, but also see the world from the perspectives my students bring to the classroom. I must create an environment that allows them to feel it is safe to share those perceptions and then challenge them in a meaningful way. While I grew up in a homogeneous area in West Virginia, I teach in a very diverse school system with students from all over the world. I had little understanding, beyond what I had read in books, of what life was like outside my small community. My students look, sound, and act differently, which can present challenges when I dont understand their culture or heritage. As a community of learners, we all need to understand our differences and commonalities.
In a TURN video, author and Harvard professor Ron Ferguson explains that children live their lives in a variety of settings. Each setting has a different set of rules and expectations. Their home lives and school lives are just two places where students encounter conflicting expectations. Ferguson also explains that as early as kindergarten, children begin to judge and teach one another about their identity based on such attributes as where they are from and the color of their skin. This is where the importance of global education begins.
Family Stories
Even though our school system has a diverse population, I find that students have limited opportunities to embrace their heritage and share their stories. Students still experience racism and intolerance in their school lives. The lack of ability to identify and understand anothers perspective is partly a result of insufficient global education in our schools. Change begins with us. As educators, we must immerse ourselves in learning about and experiencing different cultures as much as possible. We must understand global issues from different points of views and try to learn as much as possible about our students and their families to get a better picture of their perceptions. Then we must provide students opportunities to embrace their identities while understanding their place in the world.
Recently, I had a great conversation with a 5th grade student I have been privileged to work with for many years. Her mother volunteered in my classroom as well. I thought I knew her family well. However, I really knew very little about their story. That day, I learned a great deal about her, beyond what any standard assessment could provide. First, she is proud to be a first-generation immigrant to the United States. Her mother is from Chile and her father is from El Salvador. Each of her parents came to America for a better life but journeyed at different times and different ways. Her father came illegally on the back of a truck. Her mother entered legally to finish her education to be a nurse. Both parents went through the proper procedures to become citizens. While her mom works as a nurse, her dad started his own plumbing company to support their family and relatives who still live in El Salvador. Some of her mothers relatives have since made the journey to America and are citizens who contribute to our country as well.
After this student shared her familys story, I learned something very important about the peers and adults in her life outside of her immediate family. She said it was amazing to share her family story with me because her peers and most adults have never asked her about her familys history. When she started school, she did not know what English even was, and now she feels it is special to be bilingual. So the few minutes we spent together while she shared her story meant more to her than any standard I could teach her. Instead, she learned that I care about her as an individual and can understand the unique perspective that she brings to my classroom.
Making Connections
In my class we discuss and learn about culture and global issues. We challenge ideas about what is right and wrong. Our discussions are not always easy, but the students begin to understand one another at a deeper level. Next year my 6th grade students will have the opportunity to share their cultural heritage with their peers. We will learn about the artist, Marc Chagall, who used symbols and images to narrate his story. Then students will create an artwork that narrates their cultural heritage.
Global education has many facets, and what I have described here is only the beginning to what is needed for global understanding. It is our job as educators to tap into the worlds of our students to help them make connections in the global world. Children who have the opportunity to explore the world beyond their personal windows are able to recognize others perceptions as well as their own. Students need to communicate their ideas and take action to improve the lives of others. This will create citizens who have a strong sense of responsibility for tomorrows world. Global education helps children see themselves through the eyes of others and how their footprint impacts the world.
Early warning signs of Turkeys troubles with Trump - Harut Sassounian
By Harut Sassounian Publisher, The California Courier www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com The Republican and Democratic Parties will be holding their conventions later this month to select Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton respectively as their presidential nominees. For loyal party members, the choice is very clear: vote for your partys candidate. Yet, millions of other voters have a more difficult task in making up their minds. Unhappy with both major parties, some are contemplating to vote for an independent candidate, while others are considering to sit out the election altogether. Armenian-American voters are also uncertain about their choice. In Mrs. Clintons case, many are highly disappointed at her failure to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide when she was Secretary of State, calling it a matter of historical debate, despite her multiple promises to recognize the Genocide as U.S. Senator and presidential candidate eight years ago. Trump is also a puzzle for most Armenian-Americans. Those who are willing to ignore his controversial positions and base their vote purely on Armenian issues are not sure whether he is, in his own words, friend or foe, since Trump, a businessman, does not have a public record on most political issues, including Armenian ones. It would be ideal to have a face to face meeting with the Republican candidate to find out first hand where he stands on issues of interest to Armenians. However, in the absence of such an opportunity, voters have to rely on few brief remarks he recently made on Turkey. Last December, Trump criticized Turkeys support for Islamist terrorists. He told Breitbart News Daily: Turkey looks like theyre on the side of ISIS, more or less based on the oil. He went on to say that he had a conflict of interest when talking about Turkey because of the Trump Towers in Istanbul. Although he does not own the building, he lends his name to the Turkish owners of the hotel and receives a lucrative branding fee. He has a similar arrangement with Trump International Hotel & Tower in Baku, Azerbaijan. Not to damage his business relationship, Trump quickly asserted in his interview: Ive gotten to know Turkey very well; theyre amazing people, theyre incredible people, they have a strong leader. Despite Trumps kind words about Erdogan, the Turkish President attacked him two weeks ago, accusing him of being anti-Muslim and calling for the immediate removal of Trumps name from the Istanbul Tower! Erdogan told a large group of Turkish businessmen that Trump has no tolerance for Muslims living in the United States; and on top of that, they used a brand in Istanbul with his name. The ones who put that brand on their building should immediately remove it. Erdogan also stated that he regretted attending the inauguration of Trump Towers in 2012 when he was Prime Minister: I also made a mistake and opened the [Trump Towers]. The Turkish owner of the hotel announced that he was evaluating his business ties with Trump. Bulent Kural, manager of the Trump Shopping Mall in Istanbul, was also critical of Trump: We regret and condemn Trumps discriminatory remarks. Such statements bear no value and are products of a mind that does not understand Islam, a peace religion. Our reaction has been directly expressed to the Trump family. We are reviewing the legal dimension of our relation with the Trump brand. The Republican candidate made another unscripted comment about Turkey during a speech in Denver on July 1. As he was naming several countries that are militarily defended at U.S. expense, someone from the audience shouted, Turkey! Trump interrupted his remarks and asked that man if he was a friend or foe. The Republican candidate then added: And Turkey, by the way, should be fighting ISIS. I hope to see Turkey go out and fight ISIS, because ISIS has in a certain sense taken very serious advantages of Turkey. And they could wipe ISIS out by themselves. I would love to see that. It remains to be seen if Pres. Erdogan would escalate his budding feud with Donald Trump by insisting on the removal of the latters name from the Istanbul Towers. Not surprisingly, Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev has so far ignored Trumps negative comments on Islam, preferring to protect his own business interests in the Baku Trump Tower!
Hopewell Community Park remains a 'labor of love' for local community
The lush green park is a product of the combined efforts of the Hopewell Township community and a symbol of decades of conservation efforts in Beaver County.
Netherlands could be next to vote on leaving EU (video)
After Britain voted to leave the European Union, Brussels fears other members could leave the bloc. In the Netherlands, just as in Britain, there are big concerns over immigration and sovereignty and growing demands for Dutch voters to have their own referendum on EU membership, Voice of America reports. In the town of Maastricht deep in the south of the Netherlands, the barge and the bicycle are the best ways to get around. Aside from a small plaque next to the River Maas, there are few signs of the historic role the town played in the history of the European Union. In 1992, leaders of 12 European states gathered in Maastricht to sign the treaty that bears the towns name - creating the modern European Union and setting it on the path of ever-closer political and monetary union. But Maastricht now finds itself in the heart of the Netherlands most Eurosceptic region. Recent polls show half of Dutch voters want a referendum on EU membership with support strongest in the conservative south. Laurence Stassen lives in the nearby village of Echt. She is a former member of the European Parliament and recently joined the newly formed For The Netherlands party, which is campaigning for a Dutch exit from the EU. As a nation state, we should have our own borders, our own courts, and to make our own laws and not the people in Brussels or the European Union. Stassen used to be a member of the far-right Freedom Party, led by Geert Wilders, which currently tops opinion polls. Wilders has campaigned against what he calls the Islamization of Europe and has demanded that the Dutch, like the British, have a vote on EU membership. Stassen says the links are unhelpful. I think its a separate issue, because Brexit is all about getting the sovereignty back. But, however, there are a lot of concerns about immigration. Follow the barges from Maastricht down river and you reach Rotterdam, Europes biggest port. It handles 465 million tons of cargo every year, connecting the powerhouse economies of northern Europe with the rest of the world. Much of the prosperity both in the Netherlands and in Europe as a whole that weve gained over the last decades depends on the free trade and movement of goods and of people, says Port of Rotterdam spokesman Sjaak Poppe. In this global hub where oil tankers and container ships arrive from every corner of the globe - an EU exit is seen as an economic disaster. With Europe, we are 500 million people, the largest trading zone, the largest market by itself. And the Netherlands as a country is only 16 million people, says Poppe. Among EU supporters there has been dismay over Britains vote to leave, according to Professor of European Law Fabian Amtenbrink, of Erasmus University in Rotterdam. The United Kingdom is a major, major trading partner for the Netherlands. There are big historic ties. Amtenbrink acknowledges there are common concerns about the EU across Europe. The basic sentiment being, Brussels is regulating too much. And the other side of the story being that Brussels, that the European Union, that European decision-making processes are far too removed from the citizens. Dutch law makes a referendum on EU membership unlikely for now. But with elections due by March next year, contagion from so-called Brexit could be felt first in the Netherlands one of the unions founding members.
Ely, Cambridgeshire is best known for its majestic cathedral dubbed the 'Ship of the Fens' because it dominates the flat landscape. The city, which is the second smallest in England, is about 14 miles north-northeast of Cambridge and about 80 miles by road from London.
13:33, 25 OCT 2022
Will Anaklia ever become 2nd Batumi? (video)
Anaklia, a seaside resort in western Georgia located on the southeast coast of the Black Sea, aspires to become a second Batumi, as Georgians like to say. It is as active and busy as other resort towns in Georgia. When it happens, can you tell me? I shall be old enough, says Nanuli Pipa, a 79-yer-old citizen of Anaklia. When Nanuli settled in the town after her marriage her mother-in-law used to say the same thing. She always said we would soon have a port and live very well. She grew old and died without seeing her dream realized. I am old and I shall die soon, but tell me when it happens," she told A1+. The streets of the town are half-empty, with no traffic in the streets and people walking down the middle of the streets. One can see random police cars mostly on the beach. Nanuli Pipa says life activates in Anaklia for several days in August during the start of GEM fest which brings tohether well-known musicians and DJs from around the world. All hotels and even private houses are packed in that season. Like other residents of the town, Nanuli Pipa also rents her lodgings for 10-15 laris per day. She works as a guard in other seasons of the year. The resort town is crowded from the very beginning of the summer. Young people like to walk along the beach and collect seashells, which they later sell to tourists. People here have to do different work to keep their families. For example, an elderly man spending 2-3 hours on the seashore a day catches 2-3 kg pot. You cannot find factories or plants in the town. There are many unfinished houses here. The locals miss the years when Mikheil Saakashvili was President of the country. Everything ended with the end of his presidency, Nanuli Pipa says. Many young residents of the town do seasonal work in Turkey as they do not have permanent occupation in Anaklia.
Lawmaker predicts more disagreements between Armenia and Russia (video)
I cannot remember exactly what words I used but I said the following: there are cases when there is a conflict of interests between Armenia and Russia. Russia is carrying out a carrot and stick policy. But when you take a few words out of context, it can be understood in a different way. Maybe the war was advantageous for Russia, but it is not right to present it out of context, Armenian lawmaker Lernik Alexanyan said today explaining what he meant when he spoke about Putins involvement in the Karabakh war. The Republican MP says he has always supported Armenian-Russian friendship. Anyway, he is sure that there will be disagreements between the two countries in the future. We must always rely on ourselves, he said. Azat Arshakyan, an ex-member of Armenia's Supreme Council, calls attention to the Russian-Turkish reconciliation. They are allies but we are enchained by the CSTO. Our interests do not coincide with those of Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan, he said. Mr. Arshakyan also predicts what might happen to these two countries. Russia will either become a democratic country or stay in a Tatar-Mongol alliance. As for Turkey, I want to say that it has completed its mission and will be destroyed soon, because there are many problems inside the country. " Speaking about the Karabakh conflict, Lernik Alexanyan said, Our task is to prove that territorial integrity must be subordinated to self-determination. Karabakh may join Armenia or become a self-declared independent country, like Kosovo, he said.
Just 10%-12% of researchers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics are women, according to UNESCO. Today the number of women enrolling in universities is growing, but many decide not to pursue a research career later on. With the aim of encouraging women to work in science, the EPSRC-funded beamline XMaS at the ESRF, supported by the Universities of Warwick and Liverpool, in partnership with the ESRF run every year a project taking female Physics students, aged 1617 years, to Grenoble to visit the facilities. This week, 16 British girls visited the ESRF and participated in the Synchrotron@school programme during two days.
Computing science, medicine, engineering or physics and philosophy are some examples of the careers these girls want to pursue once they are out of school. They all enjoy science and participated in (and won) a national competition in the UK where they needed to write an essay on the legacy of the Nobel-prize winning, X-ray crystallographer Dorothy Hodgkin, both on the study of structure on an atomic scale and for women in Science". Their prize was a stay at the ESRF for two days. Laurence Bouchenoire, scientist on the XMaS beamline, explains it is very important to show girls of this age that fulfilling scientific careers are possible for women as equally as for men.
In the experimental hutch of XMas.
At the facility, they participated in the Synchrotron@School programme, including hands-on experiments as well as presenting their results. The aim was to experience the work of a scientist: from the experiment to communicating the outcome. They also visited the Experimental hall of the ESRF and interacted with XMaS and other ESRF researchers. It was also an opportunity to discover the wide array of research fields covered at the same facility. Emmeline Poole was impressed by the familiar environment at the facility: I thought it would be bigger and less accessible and instead weve had the opportunity to discuss with scientists and weve been very close to the instruments too.
The students taking part in the Synchrotron@school programme.
Another aspect the girls appreciated was life as a scientist. For Tayma Ferriera, you think scientists will always be working alone and instead it is the opposite as their work takes them to travel around the world sharing their results with other scientists, and that aspect surprised me.
I feel very inspired by this trip and it has shown me how interesting a science career can be. I now feel I should revise more for my exams so that I could get to a good university next year to study science", said Eilidh Campbell.
Imagine an agriculture field. Most are planted with row upon row of tidy cash crops. Now imagine that same field with rows of trees between the rows of crops. This forested field concept is called alley cropping. Alley cropping helps farmers diversify by growing long-term tree crops alongside short-term cash crops like wheat.
"For so long farmers have been taking trees off farmland," said Josh Gamble, agroforestry researcher at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, "So the idea of putting trees back on is a little bit of a barrier."
Alley cropping is a type of agroforestry, which is the practice of combining crops and trees into one farming system. The dual income from the land can bring greater economic security to farmers.
"The idea is that it's potentially a multi-use system, with more diversity and more function," said Gamble.
Alley cropping is not only useful for diversifying a farm's income. Fields with trees capture more carbon than fields without trees. Trees protect the crops planted alongside them by providing shade and wind protection.
In addition, trees can provide a buffer between the field and nearby waterways. When a field floods, the water runs off with nutrients and soil, leaving the field less productive and the river more polluted. Trees can filter the nutrients and stabilize the soil on farm land.
Tree crops are used for a variety of products. Some, like pine, are grown for timber. Others, like hickory and walnut, can be used for nut production. Josh Gamble is interested in growing biomass, or trees and crops that are grown for heat and power production. Gamble and his team chose two fast-growing, hardy trees--willows and poplars-- and planted them alongside a variety of native grasses.
The willows, poplars, and grasses absorb excess nutrients, preventing them from leaching into waterways. The grasses are especially productive and absorb nutrients quickly. Because the grass is cut and removed from the land at harvest time, fewer nutrients are released back into the ecosystem. Additionally, the roots that remain after harvest help stabilize the soil and prevent erosion.
Gamble and his team wanted to find out which pairings of trees and grasses were most compatible. "Some species pairings work, and some compete against each other," said Gamble.
Poplar and prairie cordgrass were among the best-performing pairs, but Gamble said that might change. "These are only the first four years, so we'll see what happens," said Gamble. "We're trying to think about long-term productivity and diversity."
The trees and the grasses have to strike a truce for alley cropping to work well. "There's a fine balance between competition and sharing resources," said Gamble. Part of ensuring that balance is done by planting species that benefit each other. Warm- and cool-season species can benefit from the shade protection of trees to survive heat stress. It's also important to plant species that match the condition of the landscape. If a field is prone to flooding, farmers should plant species that can survive wet conditions.
Alley cropping adds a certain amount of complexity to the day-to-day management of farms, which can make it unappealing to some farmers. However, Gamble said that alley cropping is one technique in a broad suite of agroforestry tools that improve ecosystem function and boost productivity.
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Read more about Gamble's research in Agronomy Journal. The research was supported by the North Central Regional Sun Grant Center through a grant provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Minnesota Pollution Control, and the North Central Region SARE program. Gregg Johnson, Dean Current, Donald Wyse, and Craig Sheaffer were also part of the research team.
Standard methods for estimating obesity may grossly underestimate the burden of overweight worldwide -- on the scale of hundreds of millions -- according to a paper published in Obesity Reviews. Associate professors Daniel Hruschka of Arizona State University's School of Human Evolution and Social Change and Craig Hadley of Emory University's Department of Anthropology are developing more accurate tools by taking a closer look at the different ways that people's bodies are built in different places around the world.
Body Mass Index (BMI) -- a simple ratio of weight to height -- is a standard front-line tool for assessing body fat and for identifying people who are at greater risk of fat-linked diseases, like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But, since BMI relies only on height and weight, it can mistake people who are naturally stocky and muscular as overweight. On the flip side, naturally slender individuals may be able to pack on a great deal of body fat before standard BMI cutoffs identify these slender individuals as overweight or obese.
Organizations in some countries, such as Japan and China, have begun to propose modified cutoffs for assessing obesity and obesity-linked risk that are more appropriate for more slender body builds often found in East Asia. However, there is still no clear consensus how to adjust BMI cutoffs to deal with these population differences worldwide. Hruschka and Hadley present evidence from a number of studies that these variations in human form are widespread and can be quite dramatic -- and that, by ignoring them, researchers underestimate adult obesity levels (by over 400-500 million). Given that these differences appear to arise early in childhood, they may also misprioritize high-risk areas for child undernutrition.
The researchers' proposed solution to these biases relies on the idea of "basal slenderness." This is the expected BMI in a population before it begins to add excess fat due to urbanization, increasing opportunities for consumption of high-calorie foods and other changes due to modernization. Adjusting BMI for a population's basal slenderness gives each population a cutoff that reflects the amount of a person's BMI that is due to body fat versus other body tissues.
The benefits of using basal measurements are numerous: health researchers could better estimate the number of people who are overweight and underweight, thus allowing them to focus their efforts and resources on the regions most in need; physicians could more reliably evaluate their patients' current and future health needs; and subsequent studies could yield more effective solutions for preventing obesity and undernutrition.
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Rhode Island's scientists can deliver the benefits of discoveries more quickly to health care providers and those clinicians can pose more pertinent questions to scientists when they work together closely with broad, deep and cohesive services and support from their academic medical institutions. That's the vision the Rhode Island Center for Clinical Translational Science (RI-CCTS) will implement with a new $19.5 million, five-year grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
The grant will allow RI-CCTS to create the educational and technical infrastructure needed to spur Rhode Island researchers to design, conduct and analyze more medical studies, including treatment trials, that build on basic research. The center -- based at Brown University in full partnership with the University of Rhode Island and the Care New England, Lifespan and Veterans Affairs hospitals -- will also expand the access that medical and public health researchers have to population health data by working with the Rhode Island Quality Institute.
"This $19.5 million grant promises to accelerate the pace at which biomedical discovery can provide medical applications that improve the lives of people in Rhode Island and around the world," said Brown University President Christina Paxson. "Brown looks forward to working with our academic and medical partners in RI-CCTS to realize the fullest potential of our research, scholarship and service in the community."
In biomedicine, "translational" means moving an idea along the continuum of basic science, medicine and patient health. When a biologist discovers how one protein interacts with another to cause disease and a biochemist synthesizes a compound to block it, those advances still need to be translated into a safe and effective drug therapy to help patients with the disease. But similarly, if an epidemiologist analyzing statewide health records notices that many people who have one disease also seem to have another health problem, the question of how those might be related can be translated back to scientists who can study the molecular biology at play.
Dr. Jack A. Elias, dean of medicine and biologic sciences at Brown University, said that RI-CCTS will therefore impact health in Rhode Island in many ways.
"Through RI-CCTS we will be better positioned to bring discoveries from the lab to the clinic, we'll have new tools to analyze and improve patient care, and we'll endow young scientists and clinicians with the skills to ask the most pertinent questions and to find the answers," said Elias, the Frank L. Day Professor of Biology and Medicine.
U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee who strongly supported RI-CCTS's competitive grant application, predicted the grant will bring improved health care to patients more quickly.
"This is an exciting award for Brown University and their partners and great news for the state," Reed said. "It will help researchers here in Rhode Island advance scientific breakthroughs in patient care and further enhance economic development by bringing new healthcare innovations to market. These federal funds should provide a real shot in the arm for clinical research and accelerate the process of moving effective discoveries out of the lab and into the community where patients can benefit."
Supporting translational research
To achieve those aims, RI-CTTS will create a robust foundation of services and supports and fund dozens of pilot projects and training grants to catalyze new clinical research, said Dr. James Padbury, principal investigator and program director of the new center.
"This is an infrastructure grant," said Padbury, the William and Mary Oh - William and Elsa Zopfi Professor of Pediatrics for Perinatal Research at Brown's Alpert Medical School and pediatrician-in-chief at Care New England's Women & Infants Hospital. "We aren't being awarded resources to target a specific disease but to build the infrastructure to target a wide range of opportunities.
"Nonetheless, with these resources we will be able to support the kinds of advances that have already been taking place in our own research community -- for example, new therapies for asthma and muscular dystrophy; technology for cardiac regenerative medicine; methods for pain management;, national trials on hormone therapy for menopause; the development of vaccines for malaria; the measurement of the effect of home-delivered meals on loneliness in the elderly; and the identification of the link between the mechanisms underlying preeclampsia and Alzheimer's disease."
The funding comes from the Institutional Development Award program at the National Institutes of Health, which has supported many local Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grants dedicated to conducting research in areas ranging from behavioral neuroscience to perinatal medicine, cancer and skeletal health. As those centers around the state have emerged over the last decade, local professors and physicians also began to lay the groundwork to earn a grant that would amplify the ability to pursue clinical research.
"There has been a group of faculty across our various institutions who have worked together on this for quite a while," said RI-CTTS program coordinator Ed Hawrot, Brown's Alva O. Way University Professor of Medical Science and associate dean of biology. "This has been a great collaboration."
The structure of RI-CCTS will be built upon seven cores and programs and will create at least 10 jobs, said Helen Leffers, administrative director of the new center: For example, the administrative core will hire four new staff members for functions including communications and finance. As researchers earn funding for pilot projects, they may create additional jobs for the 1-2 year duration of their projects.
*Administrative Core: Led by Padbury, Hawrot and Leffers, the center's administrative core will be housed at 233 Richmond St. and will manage, coordinate and supervise RI-CTTS operations.
*Pilot Projects Program: Led by medical professors and Providence VA Medical Center physicians Dr. Sharon Rounds and Dr. Michelle Lally, the core will provide 20 seed grants to multidisciplinary teams of junior researchers and mentors to do new clinical research. At least one project each year will be a clinical trial.
*Biomedical Informatics Core: Led by Brown medical professors Neil Sarkar and Elizabeth Chen, this core will provide expertise, training and technological resources to allow for "big data" analyses of medical and genomic data. Sarkar said the grant will accelerate the ability of the Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics to establish a multi-institutional framework for using electronic health data from Lifespan, Care New England and RIQI to enable novel biomedical research opportunities and to support enhanced patient care. This would be among the first such statewide integrations of biomedical, clinical and health data spanning research laboratory, healthcare system and state government sources in the U.S., Sarkar said.
*Clinical Research Design, Epidemiology and Biostatistics Core: Led by Brown School of Public Health biostatistics professor Chris Schmid and Lifespan Biostatistics Core Director Jason Machan, this core will create a central "storefront" of statewide resources and services, mentoring and training, and tools and methods development for conducting well-designed clinical research.
*Professional Development Core: Led by Ira Wilson, chair of health services, policy and practices in the Brown University School of Public Health, the core will provide Mentored Research Awards to three scholars each year. It will also create training programs and develop a statewide mentoring network for clinical and translational research.
*Clinical Research Resources and Facilities: Led by Rhode Island Hospital Clinical Research Center Medical Director Dr. Bharat Ramratnam, this core will unify the many successful clinical research enterprises among partner institutions (encompassing 700 researchers) into a general Clinical Research Center to share best project management and other practices and to gain cost efficiency in setting up and conducting clinical research.
*Tracking and Evaluation Core: Led by University of Rhode Island pharmacy professor Cynthia Willey and Hasbro Children's Hospital pediatric immunologist Dr. Anthony Hayward, this core will ensure that the center's work is aligned with program goals and community needs and uses resources wisely. The core will also track the center's output and monitor progress and practices to achieve continuous process improvement in the center's work.
"After years of preparation and team building across the state, it is now time for implementation of a highly coordinated statewide effort to advance biomedical research in the full spectrum of translational areas that are most likely to have a positive impact on improving health and diminishing health disparities in Rhode Island," Hawrot said.
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Serzh Sargsyan must be held accountable - Zaruhi Postanjyan (video)
Armenian lawmaker Zaruhi Postanjyan knows why Jirayr Sefilyan is in custody. we can say that by arresting Sefilyan they enchained the future liberation of our homeland as Jirayr Sefilyans statement and his initiative to recruit volunteers for the liberation of our country posed a threat to Serzh Sargsyan who had agreed to surrender territories to Azerbaijan, Postanjyan said today. She says the authorities are afraid of citizens who stand up to defend their homeland. We are liberating our homeland not only from the external enemy but also from the internal enemy who has been usurping the power for 25 years, the lawmaker told journalists. Zaruhi Postanjyan is convinced that the authorities in Armenia were aware of the pending war in Krabakh. We sustained most victims on the first day of the clashes; they had not received the corresponding command to protect the positions in Mataghis, she said. Talish became deserted and we lost territories as a result. The statements, that we lost some 800 hectares of land in the April 2-5 hostilities in Karabakh while the total security zone held by Karabakh forces is 800,000 hectares, are statements made by a traitor. Serzh Sargsyan must be held accountable, she said. Heritage party demands that the Armenian side refuse to participate in all talks over Karabakh that imply surrender of territories and presence of foreign forces in Artsakh.
Pasadena, CA-- The Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) has announced that the Carnegie Observatories' postdoctoral associate Rachael Beaton will receive the 2016 Robert J. Trumpler Award. In addition, the Observatories' Carnegie-Princeton Fellow Eduardo Banados received the Otto Hahn Medal from Germany's Max Planck Society. Beaton's Trumpler Ward is for a recent Ph.D. thesis "considered unusually important to astronomy." The Otto Hahn Medal honors young researchers for outstanding scientific achievements.
Beaton studies the structure of galaxies to probe their evolution and formation. In particular she investigates the outer halos of galaxies because they are billions of years old and the stars can retain a "memory" of how they arrived there via merging events with other galaxies. She is interested in identifying the chemical building blocks in the halos to piece together the evolutionary puzzle. She primarily explores the nearby galaxy M31 using techniques that other astronomers use to study the Milky Way. Beaton's dissertation, honored by the ASP, was entitled Life in the Outer Limits: Insights on Hierarchical Assembly from Stellar Halos in the Local Universe. She received her B.A., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Virginia. She was a Jefferson Graduate Fellow there before joining Carnegie.
Banados' work explores how and when the first stars, galaxies, black holes, and structure of the universe evolved. He received the Otto Hahn Medal "for groundbreaking studies regarding the characterization of quasars in the very early universe." Quasars are supermassive black holes accreting material in the center of massive galaxies. They are the most luminous objects in the universe and the most distant objects that can currently be studied in detail, providing a snapshot of our infant universe. Banados uses data from various large sky surveys and conducts follow-up programs using data from numerous 6- to 10-meter-class telescopes. He did his undergraduate work at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, then his Ph.D. in astronomy at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany.
Observatories Director John Mulchaey remarked, "We pride ourselves in having one of the best postdoc programs in all of astronomy and astrophysics. The awards given to Rachael and Eduardo for their research demonstrate that we are attracting some of the best and brightest young astronomers to work at The Observatories.
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The Carnegie Institution for Science (carnegiescience.edu) is a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with six research departments throughout the U.S. Since its founding in 1902, the Carnegie Institution has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research. Carnegie scientists are leaders in plant biology, developmental biology, astronomy, materials science, global ecology, and Earth and planetary science.
PITTSBURGH -- Chalk up one more task a smartphone app may do better than you: figuring out your privacy settings.
A field study suggests a personalized privacy assistant app being developed at Carnegie Mellon University can simplify the chore of setting permissions for your smartphone apps. That's a task that requires well over a hundred decisions, an unmanageable number for the typical user.
The privacy assistant can learn the user's preferences and quickly recommend the most appropriate settings, such as with which app to share the user's location, or contact list.
In the study, people accepted almost 80 percent of the recommendations made by the privacy assistant and, at the end of the study, these people indicated they were more comfortable with their privacy settings than users who did not have a privacy assistant.
"It's clear that people just can't cope with the complexities of privacy settings associated with the apps they have on their smartphones," said Norman Sadeh, professor of computer science. "And its not just smartphone apps. The growing number of sensors and other smart devices that make up the so-called internet of things will impact privacy and make it even more challenging for users to retain control over their data and how it is being used."
In the study, which was presented at the Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS) in Denver, the app recommended settings for the users, which they could accept or reject. But eventually a privacy assistant may prove trustworthy enough to automatically make many of those decisions.
"Previous studies have shown that most people are unaware of many of the privacy settings for their apps, or aren't comfortable with the permissions they consented to at some earlier point," Sadeh said.
Sadeh's research has shown people's preferences can generally be organized in a small number of categories or "profiles" that differ based on people's willingness to grant different types of applications access to their information.
The privacy assistant can determine to which of these categories a person belongs. Machine learning techniques enable the assistant to analyze a user's response to a small number of questions focusing on the particular apps they have on their phones, said Bin Liu, a Ph.D. student in the Societal Computing Program in the School of Computer Science's Institute for Software Research.
In the study, 49 people used the privacy assistant and 23 did not. Those using the privacy assistant adopted almost 80 percent of its privacy recommendations.
Both groups were then sent daily "privacy nudges," messages alerting them to what may be surprising behavior by apps. Such a nudge might note that a certain app or set of apps had shared their location with a third party multiple times. Previous work has shown that these nudges can help a person better determine the privacy settings they prefer. Over the course of the study, participants changed only 5 percent of the settings that had originally been recommended to them by the personal privacy assistant.
"Our findings suggest that the personal privacy assistant does a good job of properly profiling each user and that its recommendations based on those profiles were useful," Sadeh said.
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The personal privacy assistant is being developed with support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Science Foundation. The Air Force Research Laboratory also sponsored this study. The study received the 2016 SOUPS Privacy Award sponsored by the International Association of Privacy Professionals.
About Carnegie Mellon University: Carnegie Mellon is a private, internationally ranked research university with programs in areas ranging from science, technology and business, to public policy, the humanities and the arts. More than 13,000 students in the university's seven schools and colleges benefit from a small student-to-faculty ratio and an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation.
LOS ALAMOS, N.M., JULY 6, 2016--In a step that could bring perovskite crystals closer to use in the burgeoning solar power industry, researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Northwestern University and Rice University have tweaked their crystal production method and developed a new type of two-dimensional layered perovskite with outstanding stability and more than triple the material's previous power conversion efficiency.
"Crystal orientation has been a puzzle for more than two decades, and this is the first time we've been able to flip the crystal in the actual casting process," said Hsinhan Tsai, a Rice graduate student at Los Alamos working with senior researcher Aditya Mohite and lead coauthor of a study due out this week in the journal Nature. "This is our breakthrough, using our spin-casting technique to create layered crystals whose electrons flow vertically down the material without being blocked, midlayer, by organic cations."
This research is part of Los Alamos' mission, which includes conducting multidisciplinary research to strengthen the security of energy for the nation. That work includes exploring alternative energy sources.
The two-dimensional material itself was initially created at Northwestern, where Mercouri G. Kanatzidis, the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry, and Dr. Costas Stoumpos had begun exploring an interesting 2-D material that orients its layers perpendicular to the substrate. "The 2-D perovskite opens up a new dimension in perovskite research," said Kanatzidis. "It opens new horizons for next-generation stable solar cell devices and new opto-electronic devices such as light-emitting diodes, lasers and sensors."
"This is a synergy, a very strong synergy between our institutions, the materials design team at Northwestern that designed and prepared high-quality samples of the materials and showed that they are promising, and the Los Alamos team's excellent skills in making solar cells and optimizing them to high performance," said Kanatzidis. A Los Alamos co-author on the paper, Wanyi Nie, noted that "the new 2-D perovskite is both more efficient and more stable, both under constant lighting and in exposure to the air, than the existing 3-D organic-inorganic crystals."
The challenge has been to find something that works better than 3-D perovskites, which have remarkable photophysical properties and power conversion efficiencies better than 20 percent, but are still plagued by poor performance in stress tests of light, humidity and heat.
Previous work by the Los Alamos team had provided insights into 3-D perovskite efficiency recovery, given a little timeout in a dark space, but by shifting to the more resilient 2-D approach, the team has had even better results.
The 2-D crystals previously studied by the Northwestern team lost power when the organic cations hit the sandwiched gap between the layers, knocking the cells down to a 4.73 percent conversion efficiency due to the out-of-plane alignment of the crystals. But applying the hot casting technique to create the more streamlined, vertically aligned 2-D material seems to have eliminated that gap. Currently the 2-D material has achieved 12 percent efficiency.
"We seek to produce single-crystalline thin-films that will not only be relevant for photovoltaics but also for high efficiency light emitting applications, allowing us to compete with current technologies," said Mohite, principal investigator on the project.
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Nature paper: "High-efficiency two-dimensional Ruddlesden-Popper perovskite solar cells," Hsinhan Tsai1,2, Wanyi Nie1, Jean-Christophe Blancon1, Constantinos C. Stoumpos3, Reza Asadpour5, Boris Harutyunyan4, Rafael Verduzco2, Jared Crochet1, Sergei Tretiak1, Laurent Pedesseau6, Jacky Even6, Muhammad A. Alam5, Gautam Gupta1, Jun Lou2, Pulickel M Ajayan2, Michael J Bedzyk4, Mercouri G. Kanatzidis3 and Aditya D. Mohite1*
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKshpvG1Lqo&feature=youtu.be
Affiliations:
1Los Alamos National Laboratory
2Department of Materials Science and Nanoengineering, Rice University
3Department of Chemistry Northwestern University
4Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Argonne-Northwestern Solar Energy Research (ANSER) Center, Northwestern University
5School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University
6Fonctions Optiques pour les Technologies de l'Information, France.
Funding: The work was funded by the Los Alamos Laboratory-Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program.
About Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, BWXT Government Group, and URS, an AECOM company, for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health and global security concerns.
For decades nuclear physicists have tried to learn more about which elements, or their various isotopes, are "magic."
This is not to say that they display supernatural powers. Magic atomic nuclei are composed of "magic" numbers of protons and neutrons--collectively called nucleons--such as 2, 8, 20, and 28. These specific numbers of nucleons define shells inside the nucleus, which, when closed, make it far more strongly bound, and stable, than other nuclei.
If both protons and neutrons have a magic number, the atomic nucleus is said to be doubly magic, making it particularly strongly bound and simple in its structure. For instance, calcium-48, with 20 protons and 28 neutrons, is doubly magic.
Atomic nuclei make up the vast majority of visible matter in the universe, and understanding the interactions between the neutrons and protons that comprise nuclei has an impact on research spanning from the subatomic realm to astrophysical objects such as neutron stars.
For a nucleus to be considered magic, it must exhibit several properties. Researchers look at its excitation energy, the energy needed to move the nucleus to a higher energy state. In addition, researchers measure its separation energy, the energy needed to remove a nucleon from the nucleus. Finally, measuring the charge radius, or the distribution of protons in the nucleus, allows scientists to track trends that would indicate whether a nucleus is magic.
Recently a multi-institution team led by Gaute Hagen at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory computed the size of the atomic nucleus calcium-48--a magic isotope--and found it had a significantly thinner neutron skin than was previously thought. The results challenge researchers' understanding of the basic properties of atomic nuclei, such as the evolution of shell structure in neutron-rich nuclei and its connection to the distribution of charge and stability. The team's research was published in Nature Physics.
After the work on calcium-48, the team continued by moving to a larger, heavier, and more complex isotope--calcium-52--and the results surprised the researchers once again.
"What had been previously known for calcium-52 was that it has a relatively high excitation energy for the 2+ state and a large neutron separation energy," Hagen said. "These quantities tell us something about how strongly a nucleus is bound and therefore led researchers to believe that calcium-52, much like calcium-48, was magic."
"Those are two observables that only give us partial information on whether a nucleus is magic, though," Hagen continued. "There are more observables we need to look at before we can conclusively claim to have a magic nucleus. In this work a more detailed analysis of the properties of calcium-52 challenged this claim."
Charging Toward Answers
Experimentalists from the Collinear Laser Spectroscopy (COLLAPS) collaboration at the European Organization for Nuclear Research--known as CERN--discovered that calcium-52's charge radius was much larger than those for all lighter isotopes of calcium. The research was performed using CERN's ISOLDE facility (On-Line Isotope Mass Separator).
The electric charge radius determines the size of an atomic nucleus. When looking at the variation of known charge radii in various isotope chains, researchers would normally see a picture that looks like rolling hills as neutrons are added to a nucleus. These hills represent how the charge radii evolve, getting smaller for magic nuclei and larger for the non-magic ones. The very large charge radius measured for calcium-52 called its status as a magic nucleus into question.
To help experimentalists interpret whether calcium-52 had any tricks up its sleeve, Hagen and his collaborators turned to the Titan supercomputer at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, a DOE Office of Science User Facility located at ORNL.
Theoretical researchers from ORNL, the University of Tennessee, Michigan State University, Technische Universitat Darmstadt in Germany, and TRIUMF in Canada computed the charge radii of calcium isotopes and found the same trend as in the experiment.
"If calcium-52 was magic, you would expect there to be a dip or kink in the graph showing the charge radii of calcium isotopes at calcium-52," Hagen said. "Our theory collaborators agreed with the experimental trend, and there were no signs of this kink."
Unlike the team's prior work with calcium-48, though, even the best-performing nuclear models were unable to perfectly match experimental data, although the overall trend was reproduced. OLCF scientific computing liaison Gustav Jansen, who also played a significant role in developing the team's NUCCOR code and has served as the bridge between nuclear theory and computational science on the project, noted that this outcome resulted from the extremely complex nature of the calculation.
Jansen spearheaded the efforts to optimize the team's code for Titan and organized the workflow in such a way that the team could get the most precise simulations at the lowest computational cost.
Hagen and Jansen agreed that without access to leadership computing, nuclear physics research would not be where it is today.
"There is a revolution in our field, where we can take computing power with improved computational methods to really go to a mass-50 nucleus, which is our current limit," Hagen said. "Without access to supercomputing, I think work like this would be impossible."
As computational power increases, the team looks forward to adding more detail into its simulations and expanding out to increasingly larger nuclei. To help in that effort, the team's NUCCOR code was selected as one of 13 projects for the OLCF's Center for Accelerated Application Readiness (CAAR) project.
In anticipation of the OLCF's next-generation supercomputer, Summit--set to start delivering science in 2018--staff members developed the CAAR project to invite researchers to apply for early access to Summit's test beds and developmental systems. CAAR allows researchers to prepare their codes to run as efficiently as possible on Summit from the very beginning.
Both Jansen and Hagen agree that Summit will help them continue to refine and improve their research, ultimately helping to create more accurate simulations of increasingly larger, more complex nuclei.
"Our results for this simulation really point us back to the fundamental interaction that we're studying," Jansen said. "It's saying that we need to do a better job of approximating this interaction, but also we need to narrow down the associated uncertainties. With our methods right now, the precision in the results is far better than what we have from the inputs, and until we have these two on equal footing, we won't be able to get the most precise answer."
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Oak Ridge National Laboratory is supported by the US Department of Energy's Office of Science. The single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, the Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.
SEATTLE - July 6, 2016 - Inherited mutations in genes that function to repair DNA may contribute to metastatic prostate cancer more than previously recognized, according to a study out today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Though infrequent in the general population, inherited mutations in specific types of DNA repair genes, such as BRCA1 and BRCA2, are known to predispose to prostate cancer. However, the rate of such mutations in men with metastatic prostate cancer previously was unknown.
This groundbreaking study revealed that more than 10 percent of men with aggressive prostate cancer that has spread outside of the prostate have inherited mutations in DNA repair genes -- more than four times the rate of the general population and more than twice the rate of men with localized prostate cancer. Men with such mutations could benefit from targeted treatment already approved for ovarian cancer patients with these mutations, such as PARP inhibitors or platinum drugs.
Dr. Peter Nelson, a Member of the Human Biology, Clinical Research and Public Health Sciences divisions at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and senior and corresponding author of the study commented: "The result is surprising and important for men with prostate cancer as this information may prioritize certain therapies. It is also important for family members as they may have inherited a gene that predisposes them to developing one of several types of cancer and heightened awareness could enhance early detection and treatment. These findings present a compelling argument for updating prostate cancer screening guidelines to include germline DNA testing as a part of standard care for men with metastatic prostate cancer." Dr. Nelson is also a professor of medical oncology at the University of Washington School of Medicine and an oncologist specializing in therapies for early- and late-stage prostate cancer, pathology and genome sciences at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.
Key results of the study found that 11.8 percent of men with metastatic prostate cancer, regardless of age or family history of prostate cancer, have deleterious germline mutations in one of 20 DNA repair genes surveyed. Men with metastatic prostate cancer were five times as likely to have these inherited mutations in DNA repair genes as the general population. In particular, men with advanced prostate cancer had an 18 times higher risk of carrying a BRCA2 mutation than men without prostate cancer.
Dr. Colin C. Pritchard, Associate Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine, and Associate Director of the Genetics and Solid Tumors Laboratory at the University of Washington School of Medicine is the first author of the study. "We were excited to learn how high the percentage of inherited DNA repair gene mutations is in men with metastatic prostate cancer because of the potential benefits of genetic testing. We already know a lot about some DNA repair genes such as BRCA2, but for others we are just beginning to understand how germline mutations contribute to prostate cancer risk and selection of optimal therapy. As these men consider getting tested it is important to note that not all DNA repair genes are the same, and clinical genetic testing requires specialists to ensure appropriate counseling, accurate mutation detection, and results that are correctly interpreted and communicated."
The project pooled results from 692 men with metastatic prostate cancer included in seven case series across several institutions, including the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington through support from StandUp2Cancer and the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Each site conducted independent screening of mutations in 20 DNA repair genes using next-generation sequencing assays.
As mutations in some DNA repair genes predispose to other types of cancer, including breast, ovarian and pancreatic, family members of metastatic prostate cancer patients with inherited mutations may be offered genetic testing, counseling and enrollment in research studies, if appropriate.
Dr. Heather H. Cheng, Assistant Professor of Medical Oncology at University of Washington and Assistant Member in the Clinical Research Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center is also a coauthor on the study, and is leading a new Prostate Cancer Genetics Clinic at the SCCA to advise men with prostate cancer about genetic testing and how results may help tailor their treatment options.
An important strength of these findings is that men included in the study were not chosen due to family history of prostate cancer or age, and different genetic screening assays produced the same percentage of men with inherited mutations.
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ABOUT FRED HUTCH
At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, home to three Nobel laureates, interdisciplinary teams of world-renowned scientists seek new and innovative ways to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer, HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening diseases. Fred Hutch's pioneering work in bone marrow transplantation led to the development of immunotherapy, which harnesses the power of the immune system to treat cancer with minimal side effects. An independent, nonprofit research institute based in Seattle, Fred Hutch houses the nation's first and largest cancer prevention research program, as well as the clinical coordinating center of the Women's Health Initiative and the international headquarters of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network. Private contributions are essential for enabling Fred Hutch scientists to explore novel research opportunities that lead to important medical breakthroughs. For more information visit fredhutch.org or follow Fred Hutch on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.
ABOUT SEATTLE CANCER CARE ALLIANCE
Seattle Cancer Care Alliance brings together the leading research teams and cancer specialists from Fred Hutch, Seattle Children's and UW Medicine. One extraordinary group whose sole purpose is the pursuit of better, longer, richer lives of our patients. Based in Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood, SCCA has six clinical care sites, including a medical oncology clinic at EvergreenHealth in Kirkland, Washington; medical and radiation oncology clinics at UW Medicine/Northwest Hospital & Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, as well as Network affiliations with hospitals in five states. For more information about SCCA, visit seattlecca.org.
Leipzig/Bonn. The German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig has successfully applied for further funding through the German Research Foundation (DFG). On Tuesday the DFG decided that the research centre iDiv shall be financed over the next four years. The decision followed a positive review from an international panel that evaluated iDiv in April. According to the Saxon State Ministry for Science and Art, the amount of funding is increasing by 32 per cent with respect to the first funding period and now stands at EUR 36.4 million over a period of four years.
The German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig was established in 2012. It now has over 250 employees and members at its sites in Halle, Jena and Leipzig. "We grew quickly in the first phase, developed numerous field and laboratory research platforms and integrated them with each other. We became internationally visible. That also convinced the reviewers", says Christian Wirth, Professor at Leipzig University and Managing Director of iDiv. "Now we need to answer the question: Can we understand the dramatic changes in biological diversity quickly enough to recognize the consequences in time?"
To this end, iDiv scientists investigate the complex field of biodiversity using a large range of methods, from laboratory analyses to networks of field experiments to the interpretation of large datasets originating from satellite observations. Using the additional funds, these activities will be increased during the next funding period.
All iDiv partners are clearly pleased with the decision of the DFG. "iDiv is a success story with many more chapters to be written. I am glad that the DFG has obviously taken the same positive view", says Beate Schucking, Rector of Leipzig University. "Together with our partners of the Central German University Alliance and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research we have already achieved a lot and I am thankful to all who contributed. We won't stop our joint efforts for iDiv, that is for sure."
iDiv is run by the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Leipzig University as well as in cooperation with the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ. Additionally, four non-university research institutes are involved in iDiv.
In the four years since its establishment iDiv has grown to become a leading research centre in its field. iDiv scientists have already published 700 scientific articles. More than 50 of these appeared in renowned journals such as Science, Nature or PNAS. Many of these publications emerged from iDiv's think tank sDiv. Here, biodiversity scientists from all over the world cooperate in one- to two-week workshops at the Leipzig site. "944 scientists from 36 countries have already travelled to Leipzig to attend sDiv working group meetings.", says Helge Bruelheide, Professor for Geobotany at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and Co-Director of iDiv. "The scientific exchange with leading scientists from all over the world has strengthened our research tremendously." The international visibility of iDiv has been especially commended by the DFG reviewers. iDiv's graduate school yDiv also received positive reviews. Here, doctoral researchers from different nations are trained in the emerging field of integrative biodiversity research.
DFG Research Centres are financed by the German Research Foundation over a maximum of three research periods lasting four years each. By the expiry of this time period - in iDiv's case, by the year 2024 - the institutions running iDiv must develop a new financing model.
These institutions are already contributing significantly to iDiv's funding. The Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research provides financial resources for two professorships including staff and half of a Humboldt professorship. Also the federal states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia support iDiv supplying staff and infrastructure. This allows iDiv scientists to concentrate on their work: Understanding biodiversity and its meaning for human well-being.
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In health research, most preliminary studies in animals only examine effects of drug treatment in one sex, assuming that males and females will have few differences in how a drug works. But when it comes to diseases closely related to the role of hormones, such as diabetes, should these studies continue to be tied to only one sex?
IRCM researcher Jennifer Estall, PhD, and her student Aurele Besse-Patin aim to answer this question.
Seeing the other side of the coin
Historically, preclinical research has mainly used males when considering the effectiveness of a treatment for metabolic diseases, such as diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular diseases.
"Studying both male and female populations was seen as doubling a study's costs and duration," explains Dr. Jennifer Estall, Director of the IRCM's Molecular Mechanisms of Diabetes research unit. "In most cases, males have been preferred to avoid the potential influence of female hormonal fluctuations on the data."
Young female animals can also be quite resistant to the usual triggers that influence diabetes and obesity, such as food with a high content in sugar and fat, making it more difficult to create the disease model.
"However, this mindset is changing," adds Aurele Besse-Patin, PhD student in Dr. Estall's research team. "The research community is realizing that perhaps some of these studies provide us with only one side of the coin."
In fact, medical research meanwhile established that men and women develop metabolic disease in different ways. For example, women are more protected from metabolic diseases until menopause. Logically, this sex-related difference could also have an impact on the treatment of these diseases.
Under the radar
"In the past, drugs tested only in males might have been abandoned because they did not work as well as we wanted them to. However, females could have responded better or, conversely, may respond less or in a different way, and this was not regularly evaluated for newly emerging treatments," explains Dr. Estall. "Our team wants to provide a more comprehensive picture of the effect of sex on how drugs work before they are tested in people. By doing so, we hope to draw attention to treatments that could otherwise fall under the radar."
In order to do so, Jennifer Estall and Aurele Besse-Patin will be studying how female mice respond to FGF21, a hormone that has impressive benefits on cardiovascular, liver and fat metabolism. FGF21 administration improves metabolism and the effectiveness of insulin, reduces triglycerides in the blood and increases the amount of so-called "good" fat, all of which could potentially increase patients' lifespan and makes it a promising treatment for metabolic diseases. However, while FGF21 was tested on male animals, there is very limited data in females. And even in studies in human subjects, which include both sexes, comparisons are not made between men and women's results, therefore potential differences remain lost in the data.
"Our results will share insightful information about how male and female respectively respond to FGF21," says Aurele Besse-Patin. "For example, we could see whether it works more significantly in female populations, or if it shows distinctive beneficial effects in one sex over another."
"All in all, by characterizing FGF21 action in females, we will provide a better framework as to whether it is an effective drug to treat metabolic disease in both men and women," says Jennifer Estall. "We hope to shed light on an approach still emergent in our field, and that our results will encourage our research community to do the same," she concludes.
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About the study
Jennifer Estall and Aurele Besse-Patin received financial support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) through a Catalyst Grant dedicated to sex as a variable in biomedical or translational research. The study is being conducted in collaboration with Dr. Andrew Adams, of Eli Lilly and Company, as well as Dr. ffolliott M Fisher and Dr. Terry Maratos-Flier, of Harvard Medical School.
About Jennifer Estall
Jennifer Estall obtained her PhD in molecular biology from the University of Toronto. She is the Director of the IRCM's Molecular Mechanisms of Diabetes research unit and Assistant IRCM Research Professor. Dr. Estall is also Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Universite de Montreal and Adjunct Professor in Experimental Medicine and Anatomy and Cell Biology at McGill University. She holds a research scholarship from the Fonds de recherche du Quebec - Sante and a CIHR New Investigator Award. For more information, visit http://www.ircm.qc.ca/estall.
About the IRCM
The IRCM (Institut de recherches cliniques de Montreal) is a renowned biomedical research institute located in the heart of Montreal's university district. Founded in 1967, it is currently comprised of 35 research units and four research specialized clinics: nutrition, metabolism and atherosclerosis; hypertension; diabetes and obesity as well as rare diseases such as cystic fibrosis and familial hyperlipidemia. The IRCM employs nearly 425 people. It is affiliated with the Universite de Montreal, and the IRCM Clinic is associated to the Centre hospitalier de l'Universite de Montreal (CHUM). It also maintains a long-standing association with McGill University. The IRCM is funded by the Quebec Ministry of Economy, Science and Innovation (Ministere de l'Economie, de la Science et de l'Innovation). For more information, visit http://www.ircm.qc.ca.
BATON ROUGE - Almost 90 years ago, the Mississippi River showed the world its power for destruction with the Great Flood of 1927. Now the river's power is once again on display, this time as a stabilizing force to maintain Louisiana's disappearing coastline.
Historically as the Mississippi River wandered across the Louisiana landscape, it forged different paths, abandoning previous ones. The resulting basins were supplied with fresh sediment and nutrients during flood events, a source that has dried up as the river became increasingly managed with locks and levees. However, one part of Louisiana's delta system with restored access to riverine sediment has withstood the rising waters: the Atchafalaya Basin.
A recent collaborative research effort published in Sustainability Science seeks to highlight this enclave of stability against the stark reality of Louisiana's predominantly sediment-starved, sinking deltaic systems.
"The Atchafalaya Basin is one of the few coastal deltaic basins where land has emerged above mean sea level in the last four decades," said lead author Robert Twilley, LSU Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences professor and executive director of the Louisiana Sea Grant College Program.
The study allowed the team of authors to contrast these positive findings with work that began decades earlier by Sherwood "Woody" Gagliano, who was a geologist at LSU. Gagliano combined historic data with then-present day research to forecast coastal land loss for the Terrebonne Basin and surrounding areas, places where ties with the river had been severed. With the benefit of time, Twilley's team has compared Gagliano's predictions for the Terrebonne Basin with actual changes to the coast.
Unsurprisingly, the researchers found that Gagliano's predictions fell short, especially in the Terrebonne Basin. There, the Gulf of Mexico is six miles farther inland than Gagliano projected. Since 1932, the Terrebonne Basin has migrated on average 10 miles northward. And not only is the Gulf of Mexico migrating landward, but the rate at which it does is increasing - from 75 meters per year in 1973 to over 200 meters per year in 2010.
By comparison, the Gulf of Mexico has inched upward only 72 feet into the Atchafalaya Basin, where the Mississippi River is fortifying the shoreline.
"The Atchafalaya region will not see as fast an impact of relative sea-level rise as other basins because it still has the power of the river," Twilley said.
The Atchafalaya Basin is also more protected during storm surges, as there is more land in the basin. Over the past 60 years, vegetative cover expanded in the Atchafalaya Basin with forested wetlands increasing by 82 percent. Conversely, Terrebonne has lost 59 percent of these forests as saltwater has intruded. These vast stretches of open water allow greater wave formation and resulting erosion, which puts Terrebonne at an increased risk of further coastal flooding.
Louisiana struggles with the consequences of hurricanes, sea level rise, subsidence, river management, dredging and will face many more challenges in the years to come. Despite the myriad of threats, the Atchafalaya Basin still stands strong, however, which is something that needs to be considered as the 2017 Master Plan is being crafted, say the study authors.
"We need to celebrate the power of the Mississippi River to maintain a delta coast with subsidence and sea level rise," Twilley said. "That power is significant."
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Additional Link:
Co-evolution of wetland landscapes, flooding, and human settlement in the Mississippi River Delta Plain, Sustainability Science: http://www.laseagrant.org/wp-content/uploads/Coevolution-Twilley-et-al-2016.pdf.
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Researchers at MIT's research center in Singapore have developed a new microfluidic device that tests the effects of electric fields on cancer cells. They observed that a range of low-intensity, middle-frequency electric fields effectively stopped breast and lung cancer cells from growing and spreading, while having no adverse effect on neighboring healthy cells.
The device, about the size of a U.S. dollar coin, is designed to help scientists narrow in on safe ranges of electric fields to noninvasively treat breast, lung, and other forms of cancer. The results are published online in Scientific Reports.
The paper's co-authors include Roger Kamm, the Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Mechanical and Biological Engineering at MIT, as well as research scientists Andrea Pavesi and Giulia Adriani, postdoc Majid Ebrahimi Warkiani, and student Andy Tay of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). Senior research officer Wei Hseun Yeap and associate professor Siew Cheng Wong of the Singapore Immunology Network also contributed to the report.
"We hope this device will increase interest by researchers who are exploring the effect of electric fields on different types of cancer," Adriani says. "In our study, we noticed the effect was limited to the cancer cell at the tested frequencies and intensities, but we really need to explore other cells and parameters."
An electric recipe
For the past decade, scientists have been experimenting with the use of electric fields to treat malignant cells, in an alternative cancer treatment called tumor treating field, or TTF. The therapy stems from the interaction between key cellular structures in tumors, and an external electric field.
In general, an electric field is a field of forces that act on objects that have an electric charge. An electric field can also influence the alignment of polar molecules in tumor cells, such as microtubules. Normally, these molecules are crucial for cell division, which, when it goes into overdrive, leads to tumor growth. When microtubules line up end to end to form a mitotic spindle, the cell's genetic material attaches to the spindle fibers, pulling and splitting the cell into two cells.
In the past, scientists have observed that these charged molecules respond to a low-frequency electric field, between 100 and 300 kilohertz and with an intensity as strong as the field strength of a mixer or toaster. Instead of forming mitotic spindles, the microtubule alignment is disrupted in such a way that it prevents cell division and tumor growth.
"Scientists have been trying to figure out a lot of different recipes to try to stimulate the cell with an electric field," Pavesi says. "By tweaking the intensity and frequency, you can have an effect only on the cancer cells, leaving the other type of cells unaltered, without destroying them. That's the key concept."
A company, Novocure, has since been founded to develop TTF therapies for people with brain and lung cancer. Pavesi, who has been helping to design microfluidic devices with Kamm, came up with the idea for a device to test TTF after watching a TED talk by Novocure's founder.
"Immediately, I was thinking to myself, 'This is an easy thing I can replicate in one of my devices,'" Pavesi recalls.
Gaining time
The researchers fabricated the device from PDMS, a widely used, gel-like polymer, and patterned small channels across the device. They then developed a conductive mixture made from micron-sized silver flakes and PDMS, which they cured, then injected into two channels in the device to form two tiny, separate electrodes. In the region between the electrodes, they injected hydrogels with breast or lung cancer cells as well as small tumor masses. The researchers also injected healthy human endothelial cells. The hydrogels created a three-dimensional matrix to mimic the extracellular environment.
The team subjected each cell type in the 3-D matrix to alternating electric fields at frequencies of 150 or 200 kilohertz, continuously, at an intensity of 1.1 volts per centimeter.
In the absence of an electric field, Pavesi says the cancer cells begin to proliferate and spread within two days. However, he and Adriani observed a significant slowdown in tumor progression after three days of continuous electric field stimulation: Proliferation was markedly reduced, while small masses of lung cancer cells did not disperse indicating an inhibition of their metastatic potential. What's more, healthy endothelial cells in the same device were left unaffected. The researchers hypothesize that healthy cells may require different frequencies to be influenced by an electric field, as their size and electrical properties are far different from that of cancer cells.
Adriani hopes the microfluidic device can help scientists test a wide range of electric field intensities and frequencies on other cancer cell types. While TTF therapy has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treating brain tumors, that approval process took years to test electric fields, first in vitro, then in animals and in humans. Pavesi says a microfluidic device could speed up that process.
"Maybe by screening TTF to optimize frequency and intensity, you can at least reduce the time it takes for in vivo studies," Pavesi says. "There may be thousands of variables, but you could first try them in this device. If you find 10 that work, you can go ahead and try those 10 in the animal model."
"For personalized medicine, you can test if a recipe works for a specific person," Adriani says. "In three days, you can have an answer. And for many cancer patients who are dying of metastasis, time is everything."
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This research was supported, in part, by the National Research Foundation of Singapore through the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology BioSystems and Micromechanics interdisciplinary research group.
El Nino exerted powerful effects around the globe in the last year, eroding California beaches; driving drought in northern South America, Africa and Asia; and bringing record rain to the U.S. Pacific Northwest and southern South America. In the Pacific Ocean off the West Coast, however, the California Current Ecosystem was already unsettled by an unusual pattern of warming popularly known as "The Blob."
New research based on ocean models and near real-time data from autonomous gliders indicates that the "The Blob" and El Nino together strongly depressed productivity off the West Coast, with The Blob driving most of the impact.
The research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters by scientists from NOAA Fisheries, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and University of California, Santa Cruz is among the first to assess the marine effects of the 2015-2016 El Nino off the West Coast of the United States.
"Last year there was a lot of speculation about the consequences of 'The Blob' and El Nino battling it out off the U.S. West Coast," said lead author Michael Jacox, of UC Santa Cruz and NOAA Fisheries' Southwest Fisheries Science Center. "We found that off California El Nino turned out to be much weaker than expected, The Blob continued to be a dominant force, and the two of them together had strongly negative impacts on marine productivity."
"Now, both The Blob and El Nino are on their way out, but in their wake lies a heavily disrupted ecosystem," Jacox said.
Unusually warm ocean temperatures that took on the name, The Blob, began affecting waters off the West Coast in late 2013. Warm conditions - whether driven by the Blob or El Nino - slow the flow of nutrients from the deep ocean, reducing the productivity of coastal ecosystems. Temperatures close to 3 degrees C (5 degrees F) above average also led to sightings of warm-water species far to the north of their typical range and likely contributed to the largest harmful algal bloom ever recorded on the West Coast last year.
"These past years have been extremely unusual off the California coast, with humpback whales closer to shore, pelagic red crabs washing up on the beaches of central California, and sportfish in higher numbers in southern California," said Elliott Hazen of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, a coauthor of the paper. "This paper reveals how broad scale warming influences the biology directly off our shores."
The research paper describes real-time monitoring of the California Current Ecosystem with the latest technology, including autonomous gliders that track undersea conditions along the West Coast. "This work reflects technological advances that now let us rapidly assess the effects of major climate disruptions and project their impacts on the ecosystem," Jacox said.
Separate but related research recently published in Scientific Reports identifies the optimal conditions for productivity in the California Current off the West Coast, which will help assess the future effects of climate change or climate variability such as El Nino. The research was authored by the same scientists at UC Santa Cruz and NOAA Fisheries.
"Wind has a 'goldilocks effect' on productivity in the California Current," Hazen said. "If wind is too weak, nutrients limit productivity, and if wind is too strong, productivity is moved offshore or lost to the deep ocean. Understanding how wind and nutrients drive productivity provides context for events like the Blob and El Nino, so we can better understand how the ecosystem is likely to respond."
Both papers emphasize the importance of closely monitoring West Coast marine ecosystems for the impacts of a changing climate. Although the tropical signals of El Nino were strong, the drivers - called "teleconnections" - that usually carry the El Nino pattern from the tropics to the West Coast were not as effective as in previous strong El Ninos.
"Not all El Ninos evolve in the same way in the tropics, nor are their impacts the same off our coast," said Steven Bograd, a research scientist at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center and coauthor of both papers. "Local conditions, in this case from the Blob, can modulate the way our ecosystem responds to these large scale climate events."
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Environmental records obtained from archaeological sites suggest climate may not have been directly linked to cultural and technological innovations of Middle Stone Age humans in southern Africa, according to a study published July 6, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Patrick Roberts from the University of Oxford, UK, and colleagues.
The Middle Stone Age marked a period of dramatic change amongst early humans in southern Africa, and climate change has been postulated as a primary driver for the appearance of technological and cultural innovations such as bone tools, ochre production, and personal ornamentation. While some researchers suggest that climate instability may have directly inspired technological advances, others postulate that environmental stability may have provided a stable setting that allowed for experimentation. However, the disconnection of palaeoenvironmental records from archaeological sites makes it difficult to test these alternatives.
The authors of this study carried out analyses of animal remains, shellfish taxa and the stable carbon and oxygen isotope measurements in ostrich eggshell, from two archaeological sites, Blombos Cave and Klipdrift Shelter, spanning 98,000 to 73,000 years ago and 72,000 to 59,000 years ago, respectively, to acquire data regarding possible palaeoenvironmental conditions in southern Africa at the time. For instance, ostrich eggshell carbon and oxygen stable isotope levels may reflect vegetation and water consumption, which in turn vary with rainfall seasonality and amount in this region.
The researchers found that climatic and environmental variation, reflected in ostrich eggshell stable isotope measurements, faunal records, and shellfish indicators, may not have occurred in phase with Middle Stone Age human technological and cultural innovation at these two sites. While acknowledging that climate and environmental shifts may have influenced human subsistence strategies, the researchers suggest climate change may not have been the driving factor behind cultural and technological innovations in these localities and encourage context-specific evaluation of the role of climate change in driving early human experimentation.
Patrick Roberts notes: "Our results suggest that although climate and environmental changes occurred, they were not coincident with cultural innovations, including personal ornamentation, or the appearance of complex tool-types. This suggests that we have to consider that other factors drove human innovation at this stage in our species' evolution."
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In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper: http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0157408
Citation: Roberts P, Henshilwood CS, van Niekerk KL, Keene P, Gledhill A, Reynard J, et al. (2016) Climate, Environment and Early Human Innovation: Stable Isotope and Faunal Proxy Evidence from Archaeological Sites (98-59ka) in the Southern Cape, South Africa. PLoS ONE 11(7): e0157408. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0157408
Funding: This research would not have been possible without financial support from the Clarendon Fund, University of Oxford, and a Natural Environmental Research Council studentship to PR. Financial support for the KDS and BBC projects was provided to CSH by a National Research Foundation/Department of Science and Technology funded Chair at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, and by the University of Bergen, Norway.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
While biodiversity loss is an undisputable issue concerning everyone on a global scale, data about species distribution and numbers through the centuries is crucial for adopting adequate and timely measures.
However, as abundant as this information currently is, large parts of the actual data are locked-up as scanned documents, or not digitized at all. Far from the machine-readable knowledge, this information is left effectively inaccessible. In particular, this is the case for data from marine systems.
This is how data managers who implement data archaeology and rescue activities, as well as external experts in data mobilization and data publication, were all brought together in Crete for the European Marine Observation and Data network (EMODnet) Workshop, which is now reported in the open access journal Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO).
"In a time of global change and biodiversity loss, information on species occurrences over time is crucial for the calculation of ecological models and future predictions", explain the authors. "But while data coverage is sufficient for many terrestrial areas and areas with high scientific activity, large gaps exist for other regions, especially concerning the marine systems."
Aiming to fill both spatial and temporal gaps in European marine species occurrence data availability by implementing data archaeology and rescue activities, the workshop took place on 8th and 9th June in 2015 at the Hellenic Center for Marine Research Crete (HCMR), Heraklion Crete, Greece. There, the participants joined forces to assess possible mechanisms and guidelines to mobilize legacy biodiversity data.
Together, the attendees reviewed the current issues associated with manual extraction of occurrence data. They also used the occasion to test tools and mechanisms that could potentially support a semi-automated process of data extraction. Long-disputed in the scholarly communities matters surrounding data re-publication, such as openly accessible data and author attribution were also discussed. As a result, at the end of the event, a list of recommendations and conclusions was compiled, also openly available in the Workshop Report publication.
Ahead of the workshop, curators extracted legacy data to compile a list of old faunistic reports, based on certain criteria. While performing the task, they noted the time and the problems they encountered along the way. Thus, they set the starting point for the workshop, where participants would get the chance to practice data extraction themselves at the organised hands-on sessions.
"Legacy biodiversity literature contains a tremendous amount of data that are of high value for many contemporary research directions. This has been recognized by projects and institutions such as the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), which have initiated mass digitization of century-old books, journals and other publications and are making them available in a digital format over the internet," note the authors.
"However, the information remains locked up even in these scanned files, as they are available only as free text, not in a structured, machine-readable format".
In conclusion, the participants at the European Marine Observation and Data network Workshop listed practical tips regarding in-house document scanning; suggested a reward scheme for data curators, pointing out that credit needs to be given to the people "who made these valuable data accessible again"; encouraged Data papers publication, for aligning with the "emerging success of open data"; and proposed the establishment of a data encoding schema. They also highlighted the need for academic institutions to increase their number of professional data manager permanent positions, while also providing quality training to long-term data experts.
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Original source:
Faulwetter S, Pafilis E, Fanini L, Bailly N, Agosti D, Arvanitidis C, Boicenco L, Capatano T, Claus S, Dekeyzer S, Georgiev T, Legaki A, Mavraki D, Oulas A, Papastefanou G, Penev L, Sautter G, Schigel D, Senderov V, Teaca A, Tsompanou M (2016) EMODnet Workshop on mechanisms and guidelines to mobilise historical data into biogeographic databases. Research Ideas and Outcomes 2: e9774. doi: 10.3897/rio.2.e9774
Additional information:
This paper was supported by the European Marine Observation and Data network (EMODnet) Biology project, funded by the European Commission's Directorate - General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE). Additional financial support was provided by the LifeWatchGreece infrastructure (MIS 384676), funded by the Greek Government under the General Secretariat of Research and Technology (GSRT), National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF).
The European Marine Observation and Data network (EMODnet) is a long-term marine data initiative of the European Union. It comprises seven broad disciplinary themes: bathymetry, geology, physics, chemistry, biology, seafloor habitats and human activities. The aim of the initiative is to assemble, harmonize, standardize and quality control marine data, data products and metadata within these thematic areas and to integrate the fragmented information into a central portal, through which the information is freely available.
Many male insects, especially beetles, possess a penis sometimes several times longer than their entire body length, but how do they have sex with it? A recent study has found that male beetles keep their penis tip soft for faster sex, when they 'shoot' their hyper-elongated penises into the female beetle's duct.
Male and female beetles have co-evolved in an evolutionary contest to determine which males successfully breed with the females: "The female 'duct' may be very long and so ensures that only the longest penises get to fertilise her eggs," explains Dr Yoko Matsumura, a research fellow currently carrying out her experiments at Kiel University, Germany. "Another benefit of having a long penis found in some other insects is that a male is able to efficiently 'scrape' the female's duct free of other males' sperm, which would compete with his own."
In order to propel his long penis into the female duct, the male has special muscles surrounding his penis that provide the force to carry out the rapid and precise penetration. The penis is relatively stiff and progressively gets softer towards the tip. Dr Matsumura explains: "The long ducts in females slow down penetration, so the time-pressured males have co-evolved to counteract this obstacle. After running computer simulations, we think that this composition is the fastest at penetrating the female duct, so it appears softer tips are better."
How could this research be applied for medical uses? "We haven't tried applying it to any other fields yet," Dr Matsumura says. "However, I think that knowing how to precisely control a narrow tube in a duct could help develop harmless catheters or injections in the medical world."
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All work was carried out in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Stanislav Gorbs research group (Kiel University, Germany) and Prof. Dr. Alexander Filippov (National Academy of Sciences, Donetsk, Ukraine).
Sleeping king penguins react differently to the sounds of predators than to non-predators and other sounds, when they are sleeping on the beach. Research carried out at the University of Roehampton, UK, has revealed that even asleep, these penguins can distinguish between dangerous and benign sounds.
Both adult and juvenile king penguins are prey to large predators like orcas and giant petrels. Even huge non-predator elephant seals can crush penguins to death with their bulky passage. In an environment like this, king penguins who are exhausted after long diving sessions must constantly keep an ear out for incoming threats.
PhD student Tessa Abigail van Walsum explains: "When we played single tones to sleeping penguins, they woke up with little reaction. However, playing them the calls of orcas or skuas caused them to wake up and flee."
Penguins also had strong reactions to some non-predator sounds, reports Ms van Walsum: "The sounds of approaching elephant seals rang big alarm bells for the penguins. Interestingly too, a recording of simple white noise had an unexpectedly strong effect, likely because it sounds much like an incoming wave on the beach." Notably, playing them the sound of unfamiliar predators, such as a dog's growl, got little reaction when they awoke.
The ability of these birds to respond differently upon waking up suggests that they might sleep with just one half of their brain, while keeping close watch with the other half similar to some migratory birds - essentially 'keeping an eye open'.
This research helps us to understand the survival strategies of king penguins in their natural habitats. In line with this, the research group would also like to test the sleeping behaviours of these birds at sea, as Ms van Walsum explains: "Presumably, king penguins sleep at sea when they are on long diving expeditions, so it will be fascinating to discover how they stay alert in that environment."
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Blackgrass is a problem weed in UK agriculture, but a new technique may help farmers to combat its resistance to herbicides. Application of a smoke particle solution called 'smokewater' has been found to cause blackgrass seeds to germinate early, becoming vulnerable to certain herbicides which they would normally evade.
Ten per cent of crops are lost due to weed growth - a statistic that is set to increase with climate change. Blackgrass is one especially severe weed in the UK that can evade traditional herbicide treatments by producing huge amounts of seeds which can stay dormant for long periods of time and germinate at the same time as useful crops.
By applying 'smokewater' to weed seeds, a research group at Royal Holloway University, London, working in collaboration with Syngenta, recently found that dormancy in blackgrass seeds is disrupted, effectively 'flushing' them out of hiding. Professor Gerhard Leubner, who leads the research group, explains: "Forcing dormant blackgrass seeds to germinate using smokewater may allow us to hit them with conventional herbicides or non-chemical methods for a more effective weed control."
PhD student, Thomas Holloway, who will be presenting his latest findings at the Society for Experimental Biology Meeting in Brighton on Wednesday July 6, 2016, also measured the temperatures at which blackgrass is most likely to germinate: "Blackgrass is a seasonal weed that germinates around spring and sometimes in summer," says Prof Leubner. "With a better understanding of the role of temperature involved in blackgrass dormancy break and germination, we can go on to assess the biological mechanisms involved in this process and possibly design more targeted control strategies."
Smokewater is not yet widely used in the UK, though Prof Leubner believes it will be more common in future. "Along with climate change, we have other obstacles to weed control, such as herbicide resistance. Chemically manipulating weeds like blackgrass could help to overcome some of these obstacles in the coming years."
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LA JOLLA--A small stretch of ribonucleic acid called microRNA could make the difference between a healthy adult brain and one that's prone to disorders including schizophrenia.
Scientists at the Salk Institute discovered that miR-19 guides the placement of new neurons in the adult brain, and the molecule is disrupted in cells from patients with schizophrenia. The findings, published in the journal Neuron on July 6, 2016, pave the way toward a better understanding of how the adult brain controls the growth of new neurons and how it can go wrong.
"This is one of the first links between an individual microRNA and a specific process in the brain or a brain disorder," says senior author Rusty Gage, professor in Salk's Laboratory of Genetics and holder of the Vi and John Adler Chair for Research on Age-Related Neurodegenerative Disease.
While most RNA molecules contain the instructions for making proteins--the physical workhorses of cells--microRNAs don't encode proteins. Instead, they're active themselves, binding to other strands of RNA to block them from creating proteins. Previously, scientists have shown that levels of microRNA molecules are altered in brain disorders but not which microRNAs are responsible.
"People have broadly studied microRNAs in the brain quite a bit," says Jinju Han, a senior research associate at Salk and first author of the new paper. "But there are more than 2,000 microRNAs and only a few have been looked at in any depth."
In a few discrete areas of the human brain, new cells can emerge during adulthood. Gage, Han and their colleagues found that levels of miR-19 changed more than levels of any other microRNA when precursors to new brain cells in these areas (called neural progenitor cells) were coaxed to become neurons in the adult brain.
"The microRNA miR-19 has been implicated in cancer and people never thought it was related to the brain," says Han. "But we saw that its levels changed quite dramatically when stem cells differentiated into neurons."
The researchers went on to show that when miR-19 was blocked in neural progenitor cells, levels of RNA corresponding to a gene called Rapgef2 were altered. Moreover, new neurons did not migrate to the correct areas of the brain.
Because the incorrect migration of new brain cells has been implicated in neuropsychiatric disorders like schizophrenia, Gage's group next analyzed the levels of miR-19 and Rapgef2 in neural progenitor cells that had been created by reprogramming skin cells from schizophrenic patients. Although the patients had no mutations in the gene for Rapgef2, they had high levels of miR-19 that corresponded with low levels of both the RNA and protein for Rapgef2. The team is now studying the role of miR-19 in mouse models of schizophrenia, as well as looking at cells from broader cohorts of human patients.
Because miR-19 has been linked to cancers--including breast cancer, prostate cancer and B cell lymphoma--researchers have already been working to develop drugs that block the molecule. But the new results, Han says, suggest that such drugs could have an effect on the brain. "This means that if miR-19 is being targeted in cancer, effects on the brain need to be carefully considered," she says. "But it also means that people might use these therapies to treat neuropsychiatric disorders." More work is needed, though, to see whether the results hold true in humans.
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Other researchers on the study were Hyung Joon Kim, Simon T. Schafer, Apua Paquola, Gregory D. Clemenson, Tomohisa Toda, Jinseo Oh, Aimee R. Pankonin, Bo Suk Lee, Stephen T. Johnston, Anindita Sarkar, and Ahmet M. Denli, all of the Salk Institute.
The work and the researchers involved were supported by grants from the Life Science Research Foundation, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the James S. McDonnell Foundation, The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, The JPB Foundation, the Robert and Mary Jane Engman Foundation and The G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Charitable Foundation.
About the Salk Institute for Biological Studies:
Every cure has a starting point. The Salk Institute embodies Jonas Salk's mission to dare to make dreams into reality. Its internationally renowned and award-winning scientists explore the very foundations of life, seeking new understandings in neuroscience, genetics, immunology and more. The Institute is an independent nonprofit organization and architectural landmark: small by choice, intimate by nature and fearless in the face of any challenge. Be it cancer or Alzheimer's, aging or diabetes, Salk is where cures begin. Learn more at: salk.edu.
Understanding obstacles to change key to timely adoption of technologies needed to address global problems; How the history of margarine and tractors can inform policy making
Cambridge, MA - Disruptive, transformative technologies are being introduced at an accelerating pace, fuelling opposition that impedes forms of innovation needed to meet profound challenges such as climate change, poverty and world hunger, says a new study from Harvard University.
Innovation and Its Enemies: Why People Resist New Technology, by Prof. Calestous Juma of the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, chronicles the history of opposition to change -- from tractors and certain uses of the printing press to coffee and margarine -- and its underlying reasons.
Such understanding is critical, he argues, to the successful introduction and adoption of technological innovations needed to cope with humanity's most serious economic and environmental challenges.
Published as a book by Oxford University Press, the 16-year study says fear and perceptions of lost employment, identity, and power drive impediment to innovation, and describes the widening gap between the pace of technological advancement and slow rate at which society adjusts.
Says Dr. Juma:"To meet the needs of a growing world population on a warming planet, humanity's hopes are pinned on the introduction of transformative technologies but progress can be impeded by unreasonable obstruction to change."
The study acknowledges the need to address legitimate health and environmental concerns related to new products and technologies and underlines that transparency, inclusiveness and caution in the handling of scientific uncertainty as critical elements of public trust.
The study chronicles the extraordinary measures taken by opponents to change, and the tenacity of entrepreneurs and technologists who overcame it.
Drawing on nearly 600 years of controversies, the study presents in-depth case studies of opposition to innovation, including printing of the Koran by the Ottomans, alternating current, refrigeration, recorded music, and, more recently, robotics, artificial intelligence and agricultural biotechnology.
Both coffee and tractors, for instance, were the targets of smear campaigns. Other tactics included demonization, rumours, slander, efforts to restrict use through legislation, and outright bans.
Parallels through history are striking. Transgenic crops have been dubbed "Frankenfoods." In 17th century Italy, coffee was called "Satan's Drink" and "Junior Alcohol" in 20th century southern India. In England, France, and Germany, coffee was said to cause sterility.
Calling refrigerated products "Embalmed Foods" had a chilling effect on consumers. Swedes dubbed the early telephone the "Devil's Instrument." Margarine was derided as "Bull Butter" in America and accused of causing sterility, male baldness, and stunting.
"Common to all these cases is fear and opponents excluded from the benefits of new technology," says Dr. Juma.
Launch of the study takes place Wednesday July 6 at the 16th International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society Conference in Montreal. Dr. Schumpeter, an early 20th Century Austrian economist introduced the idea of "creative destruction" and was equally concerned about resistance to change.
The study says that in many cases objections and social responses to innovation fall into in one or more of four categories: intuition, vested interests, intellectual arguments, and psychological factors.
Intuitive responses, often expressed as disgust, reflect patterns of behaviour that rely on deeper evolutionary roots of our fears and phobias. New foods, for example, may be seen as a threat to human health.
Vested interests are illustrated with a well-known example of Luddites, early 19th century British textile workers, popularly portrayed as machine breakers who were simply opposed to change. But the reality was a clash of competing economic world views and moral values.
Intellectual challenges to new technologies include philosophical objections to the manipulation of nature or the use of robotics in manufacturing, considered by some as "dehumanizing" and changing how we see ourselves as humans.
Finally, business models that aim to alter the psychology of health and nutrition choices face strong opposition.
Innovation and Its Enemies advocates more timely scientific assessments of the benefits and risks of new technologies, swift adjustment of social institutions to keep pace with technological advancement, and greater public awareness and citizen engagement.
Inclusive innovation is critical for acceptance of new controversial technologies, Dr. Juma says.
This entails greater involvement of public institutions to provide training in the emerging fields, creation of joint ventures, equitable management of intellectual property rights, segmentation of markets to enable a technology to be used for noncompetitive products, and improvement of the policy environment to support long-term technology partnerships.
Building local capabilities and fostering public engagement in technology development are critical. The absence of inclusive strategies leads to intense debates over questions of justice, equity, corporate control and challenges to intellectual property system.
Also needed: strong, entrepreneurial decision-makers and leaders who can use available knowledge to assess a situation, take informed executive action in a timely manner, and monitor technological advances and their impacts. Leaders must be able to rely on advice from both scientific academies as well as complementary advisory institutions in executive offices.
Finally, says Dr. Juma, public education is critical in determining the pace and patterns of technological adoption. Many programs alienate the public by assuming that the root cause of social concern over new technology is ignorance. To the contrary, concerns commonly come from well-informed sections of the population. Public education should aim to enhance the legitimacy and quality of risk assessment processes. Ultimately, the goal is to manage risk perception and foster trust.
"People are more likely to accept the risks of new technologies if they have been part of the process of deciding on their use," says Dr. Juma.
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Calestous Juma is Professor of the Practice of International Development at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He directs the School's Science, Technology, and Globalization Project. He is author of The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa (Oxford University Press, 2011, 2015). His next book is tentatively entitled How Economies Succeed: Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship. Twitter @Calestous
Comments on the study
"It takes one of the leading lights on innovation -- Calestous Juma -- to truly understand the forces that oppose it. Just as technologic change is reaching peak velocity, this extraordinary work provides a systematic, scholarly, and surgical dissection of what can hold us back."
Professor Eric Topol, MD, Director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, La Jolla, California, and author of The Patient Will See You Now
"Innovation and its Enemies is a wonderful read. The style is lucid. The tone is lively. Professor Juma examines why people resist innovation, and argues that controversies result from the tension between the need to innovate and the pressure to maintain order. Although he discusses a profound socio-historical issue, his titles are very creative and eye-catching, and his use of case studies from history brings the information closer to the general reader. This is truly a great book and a fascinating read!"
Professor. Ismail Serageldin, Librarian of Alexandria, Director of the New Library of Alexandria, Egypt
"A must read to anyone holding public office. Having overcome obstacles as president of the Dominican Republic in building the metro system of Santo Domingo, I found in Professor Calestous Juma's book useful theoretical insights into the understanding of why resistance occurs when introducing innovation in the public sphere."
Dr. Leonel Fernandez, Former President of the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo
"An insightful book that addresses one of the paradoxes of our time, namely why generations that have benefited so much from innovation are so resistant to it. Drawing on a fascinating diversity of historical examples--coffee, electricity, refrigeration, farm mechanization, genetic modification--Professor Juma discusses how innovation occurs, the role of experts and why skepticism and confusion are often inevitable. A must-read for everyone involved in technology development and policy."
Professor Louise O. Fresco, President of Wageningen University and Research Centre, The Netherlands
"An outstanding treatise on how new technologies are created and why they are so often not initially accepted by society. Innovation and Its Enemies is filled with wonderful stories that go through innovations ranging from cell phones to coffee to the light bulb. I loved reading it."
Professor Robert Langer, David H. Koch Institute Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
"Calestous Juma's book provides a very enjoyable insight into the attitudes of society and individuals to innovation over the centuries. It's highly accessible style provides the reader with great historical nuggets arising from the introduction of coffee and printing through to reactions invoked when margarine and transgenic crops were launched. The conclusions are supported by amazing facts and details."
Sir Christopher Snowden, President and Vice-Chancellor, University of Southampton, UK
"We all know how difficult it can be to accept truly revolutionary innovations. Professor Juma illustrates the difficulties faced by the innovators with a few case histories and provides some guidelines for avoiding many of the difficulties. One strong lesson is that engaging with the consumers, usually the general public, at an early stage is a very good idea. Another clear lesson is that different stakeholders react very differently to innovation, especially when it seems it might seriously disrupt existing businesses or traditional social structures. A must read for anyone who wishes to engage in such disruption themselves."
Dr. Richard J. Roberts, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and Chief Scientific Officer, New England Biolabs, Massachusetts, USA
"This is a good read and an invaluable reference work for those working on new technologies, especially those needed to meet the grand challenges of the 21st century. Calestous Juma's detailed analysis of how innovations have been accepted or resisted is complete and fascinating. Many view resistance to advances such as GM foods and mobile phones as a modern phenomenon related to recent advances in science. Calestous explains that innovations have in fact been resisted for centuries but goes on to explain how this resistance can, and has been, overcome."
Lord Alec Broers, British House of Lords, Former Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University, and Former President of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering
"Calestous Juma's Innovations and Its Enemies is a great read that uniquely outlines the history of society resisting new technologies and innovative ideas that caused social and economic distribution. We have dwindling resources on our planet and continue to do irrevocable harm to our climate. Add the ever growing population demanding the benefits of wealth including health and food excess and it is clear we are heading for disaster. Rapidly evolving scientific advances are labeled as disruptive because they might radically alter the production of food, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, fuel, into much more sustainable processes which will clearly require social change. Appling new genomic science can shift medicine to a preventative life and cost saving enterprise and computer-based knowledge can lead to democratization but not without social disruptions. Juma discusses how laws, business and social institutions and scientific communication need to adapt as 'the risk of doing nothing may outweigh the risks of innovating.'"
Dr. J. Craig Venter, President, J. Craig Venter Institute, La Jolla, California
SILVER SPRING, Md. - The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) announces a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement for the development of a Zika vaccine candidate with Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of Sanofi.
WRAIR scientists and collaborators are moving rapidly to develop and test the Zika Purified Inactivated Virus (ZPIV) vaccine candidate because it builds on "a flavivirus vaccine platform WRAIR previously developed which has been proven to be safe, effective, and able to meet regulatory requirements of the U.S. FDA," said Col. Stephen Thomas, an Army infectious diseases physician, vaccinologist, and the WRAIR Zika program lead.
With this agreement, WRAIR will transfer ZPIV technology to Sanofi to explore advanced and larger scale manufacturing and production. WRAIR and collaborators will share data related to assays designed to measure antibody responses following vaccination with ZPIV, biologic samples generated during the performance of animal studies, and biologic samples generated during the performance of early human trials assessing the safety and immunogenicity of ZPIV.
Preclinical work on the vaccine is being conducted with long-term HIV vaccine collaborators at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School. A preclinical study in mice, published earlier this week in Nature, showed that a single dose of ZPIV generated an immune response, which protected the mice against subsequent Zika challenge with a Brazilian strain of the virus. Col. Nelson Michael, the WRAIR Zika program co-lead, said, "The preclinical work gives us early confidence that development of a protective Zika virus vaccine for humans is feasible."
Initial ZPIV supplies are being manufactured by the WRAIR's Pilot Bioproduction Facility located on the Silver Spring, MD campus. In addition to conducting the IND-enabling toxicology studies, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) will provide regulatory sponsorship for the initial human trials. WRAIR researchers plan to start human testing at their Clinical Trials Center before the end of the year. NIAID will simultaneously begin additional studies through their Vaccine Trials and Evaluation Units.
Infectious diseases have long been a threat to U.S. Service Members, and the military has extensive expertise and capabilities to develop countermeasures. Col. Thomas reminds us, "The WRAIR has been studying flaviviruses for over 100 years, since Walter Reed and his team discovered that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes."
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About the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
Headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) dates back to 1893 and is the largest, most diverse biomedical research laboratory in the Department of Defense. WRAIR provides unique research capabilities and innovative solutions to a range of Force Health and Readiness challenges currently facing U.S. Service Members, along with threats anticipated during future operations. With comprehensive research units in Africa, Asia, and the Caucasus region, WRAIR is comprised of two Centers of Excellence, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and the Center for Military Psychiatry and Neuroscience.
Ancient inhabitants of the southern Brazilian highlands were no strangers to the types of home improvements we enjoy today, academics from the University of Exeter have found.
New research has shown for the first time how oversized pit houses in the southern Brazilian highlands were used for centuries thanks to careful repairs by generations of owners.
This is the first evidence that these oversized pit houses in region were continuously occupied.
Academics have demonstrated one house was occupied for more than two centuries.
People had assumed the proto-Je pit house villages of the southern Brazilian highlands had been abandoned and then occupied again throughout history. But this was based on an insufficient amount of data provided by radiocarbon dating.
Academics have now carried out further tests using comprehensive AMS radiocarbon dating and Bayesian modelling of an oversized pit house used between 1395 and 1650 in Campo Belo do Sul, Santa Catarina state, Brazil.
They found twelve well preserved floors, five of which were covered by completely burnt collapsed roofs. The research shows the house was occupied for over two centuries, and that communities built big pit houses, but the smaller homes continued to be inhabited.
The homes was never abandoned, but constantly extended. The occupants built new floors on top of the old ones, showing a single family or group lived there for centuries. As time went on they used different types of ceramics and techniques to renovate and update their home.
Lead researcher Jonas Gregorio de Souza said: "Our research shows the disparity in domestic architecture in the southern Brazilian highlands. We have highlighted that it is important to use radiocarbon dating on individual structures to understand how and for how long homes were occupied.
This research shows experts more about how the southern proto-Je groups lived, and suggests there was a moderate degree of social inequality and the land was used more intensively than previously thought. Experts have found the land was used to bury people, and the mortuary rites were different for a few individuals.
Some inhabitants of those houses grew a range of plants, contradicting previous assumptions that they didn't stay in one place long enough to cultivate horticulture for the whole year.
Mr Gregorio de Souza said: "We now know more about the way these groups lived, and are able to challenge the view, dominant until relatively recently, that these were marginal cultures in the context of lowland South America.
The research was carried out in collaboration with academics from the Universidade de Sao Paulo in Brazil, University of Reading, Reading, Unisul and Centro Universitario Univates in Brazil.
Understanding the chronology and occupation dynamics of oversized pit houses in the southern Brazilian highlands is published in PLOS ONE.
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A long-term plan for managing noise in shallow parts of the ocean such as Falmouth Bay is needed to protect the environment, scientists have said.
Manmade noise in the marine environment can increase stress in animals, alter their behaviour, and displace them from habitats important to their daily lives.
There has so far been limited scientific research on methods to assess long-term trends in marine noise in coastal regions, but engineers and biologists from the Universities of Exeter and Bath, have been investigating how best to monitor this increasing human influence in our seas.
They used underwater sound recorders in Falmouth Bay for 14 months at a marine renewable energy test site and have found managing noise in shallow coastal environments will likely require a very different strategy to other, deeper ocean environments.
Lead author of the research, Dr Joanne Garrett, from the University of Exeter, said: "We found considerable variation in noise throughout the year. As well as anthropogenic noise sources such as shipping, we found that natural environmental conditions, such as waves and tide, also affect the sound levels.
"Both of these factors highlight the need for tailored and long-term monitoring to develop a robust understanding of our effects on the marine environment".
Dr Matthew Witt, from the University of Exeter's Environment and Sustainability Institute, said: "This work underlines the need for continued and focused research in the area of human noise, both on techniques to collect, analyse and interpret data, and on the biological implications of noise on marine species and consequences for marine ecosystems upon which we are so very much dependent."
Dr Philippe Blondel, from the University of Bath's Centre for Space, Atmosphere and Oceanic Science, said: "This work provides much-needed data to inform the debate about the impacts of human activities on marine environments, by providing measurements over several years in a sensitive and important area of the British Isles.
"This data will be extremely useful to both European regulators, who lead the way in terms of environmental monitoring, and standardisation bodies like British Standards and the International Standards Organization."
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This work was funded by the European Social Fund (Garrett), the Peninsula Research Institute for Marine Renewable Energy (PRIMaRE; funded by the South West Regional Development Agency), MERiFIC (funded by the European Regional Development Fund) and Innovate UK (Fred.Olsen Renewables at FaBTest).
Long term underwater sound measurements in the shipping noise indicator bands 63 Hz and 125 Hz from the port of Falmouth Bay by Garrett, J., Blondel, Ph., Godley, B., Pikesley, S., Witt, M. J and Johanning, L. is published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin.
AMHERST, Mass. - Forty years of unrest in Afghanistan left wildlife ecologists uncertain whether one of the region's rare sub-species of red deer, the Bactrian deer (Cervus elaphus bactrianus), had survived in the country. But recently, for the first time since the 1970s, a survey team led by Wildlife Conservation Society ecologist Zulmai Moheb, with colleagues in Afghanistan, confirm that a small population exists. They say the animals urgently need conservation.
Moheb, a Ph.D. student in environmental conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who is currently in Afghanistan studying snow leopards, says that in the 1970s the Panj River in northern Afghanistan was known to have a population of Bactrian deer, and a protected area was proposed. But fighting and disruption intervened, and more than 40 years later almost nothing was known about the area and its wildlife.
As Moheb and colleagues explain in a recent article in the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Deer Specialist Group newsletter, the Bactrian deer prefers a rare habitat known as Tugai forest, shrubby thickets of tamarisk, willows, grasses and tall reeds growing along river valleys and flood plains of the Central Asian region. The deer's global population has fluctuated since 1950, with animals disappearing from a number of areas, the authors note. They faced pressure from hunting, habitat loss from gold panning and the pet trade. By the 1960s, Bactrian deer were believed to number only about 350 to 400, with populations limited to wildlife sanctuaries.
In November and December 2013, Moheb and colleagues conducted a field survey and confirmed that Bactrian deer are still present in Afghanistan by direct observation of a single live animal, indirect field evidence of others and reports by local people. For the latter, they used photos of large mammals known or suspected to have been historically present in each area. The researchers interviewed 77 men in 38 villages in the Darqad district of Takhar province in the northeast Afghanistan, and visited forests, rangeland and riverside habitat throughout the area.
They say the global population of Bactrian deer is believed to have increased from 350-400 in the 1960s to about 1,900 free-ranging animals in 2011, "thanks to conservation efforts in the former Soviet Union territory in Central Asia," but the animals in Afghanistan are in critical need of conservation efforts.
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This work was supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development and would not have been possible without support of territorial administrators in Afghanistan, the authors note.
Malaria is one of the world's deadliest diseases: it infects hundreds of millions of people every year, and kills about half a million, most of them under five years of age.
There is no vaccine. Experts agree that an effective vaccine could transform how we deal with the disease, potentially saving millions of lives. Now, researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM) are testing a malaria vaccine that has shown success in early tests.
They recently started a Phase 1 trial of the vaccine to test its safety and efficacy, in a place where malaria is common.
The trial, which will test the PfSPZ Vaccine, began last month in Burkina Faso, West Africa. The study is a joint project of the country's National Center for Malaria Research and Training and the UM SOM Institute for Global Health (IGH).
The trial is a follow-up to successful clinical trials conducted at the UM SOM Center for Vaccine Development in Baltimore. A study by the same group of researchers, completed earlier this year, found that the vaccine protected against malaria infection up to a year after vaccination.
The vaccine was originally developed by Sanaria, a biotech company based in Rockville, Maryland. The current trial is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). (Grant number: NIH U01AI112367)
"This trial will tell us a lot about how the vaccine works on the ground, in a place where malaria is a real problem," said Matthew B. Laurens, associate professor of pediatrics at the UM SOM and IGH, who is co-leading the study. "If the vaccine can work here, it has the potential to help reduce the terrible harm malaria does around the world." Dr. Laurens is director of the International Clinical Trials Unit in the IGH Division of Malaria Research.
Christopher Plowe, director of IGH, is also co-leading the trial. The study will be the first to test the highest dose of the vaccine given so far, and will be one of the first to evaluate how it works against naturally-transmitted malaria in Africa. The higher dose is needed to overcome pre-existing immunity to malaria in regions where the disease is common. Preliminary testing suggests that it will be very effective at this dose.
Development of a malaria vaccine is crucial for malaria control and elimination. A vaccine would complement existing tools against malaria, such as insecticide-treated bed nets, post-infection medical treatment, and preventive therapy in pregnant women. "By itself, a vaccine won't end malaria," said Dr. Plowe. "But an effective vaccine could get us there a lot faster."
The trial will enroll 112 adults, and will continue through 2018. It will examine four different doses of the vaccine to see if they are safe. If no safety concerns are identified, an additional 80 adults will receive the highest dose to examine both its safety and efficacy against naturally-transmitted malaria over two years.
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Curza Global, LLC (Curza), a company based on technology developed at the University of Utah, has been awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant of $598,770 entitled "Natural product-inspired antibacterials with unique ribosomal binding" that will provide two years of support. Curza is a pharmaceutical startup company focused on small-molecule therapeutics. Curza's technology originates from the laboratories of Ryan Looper and Dustin Williams, both professors at the University of Utah.
Antibiotic-resistant superbugs represent a global health crisis, with Gram-negative infections recognized as one of the most serious threats. The grant will help support research and development toward a new class of broad spectrum antibiotics, with a primary focus on Gram-negative bacteria. With ever increasing reports of resistance to frontline therapies addressing Gram-negative pathogens there is a critical need for new antibiotic therapies. Despite this need, very few new therapies exist in the development pipeline of the pharmaceutical industry. Curza's efforts will therefore address a very important unmet medical need.
Curza's discovery and development efforts combine structure-based drug design, medicinal chemistry and biological characterization to contribute to advancing therapeutic candidates that are potent antimicrobials with high selectivity for bacterial ribosomes as compared to human and other mammalian targets. Curza CEO Ryan Davies said, "We are excited to receive this grant to help fund the development of our Gram-negative antibiotic program. Gram-negative antibiotic resistant infections pose a significant threat to global healthcare and Curza is committed to developing novel therapeutics to combat this problem."
This two-year Phase I SBIR project will demonstrate proof-of-concept for Curza's new class of antibiotics in models of infection. The grant funding will be used to optimize compounds through medicinal chemistry efforts in conjunction with structural biology, rigorous biological and biochemical characterization to ensure safety in humans.
Chad Testa, a research associate in the U's Department of Chemistry, will serve as Principal Investigator.
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Before the end of 2009, France and Germany will take strong initiatives to open "new Horizons" needed by Europe and the World, going well beyond the current Crisis' management, anounced French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angie Merkel, reassuring that both a judgement on Lisbon Treaty by nearby Karlsruhe German Federal Court, and the forthcoming National Elections in Germany would confirm their capacity to act.
They were replying to Press questions in Berlin, after key-regional elections on Sunday, where Merkel's ChristianDemocratic party kept everywhere a strong 1st and won the possibility to forge a New Majority with Liberals at the largest of 3 Landers : Saxony (4 millions inhabitants), while its main competitor, the Socialdemocrat party fell to unprecedented lows : Tackled by the small "Linke" (left) party in Saarland (1 million inhabitants), it became even smaller than it in Saxony and Thuringen (3 million inhabitants), where SPD arrived only third. While its usual partners, the "Greens" also fell down, contrary to CDU's new partners, the FDP Liberals, who go up.
- "At any case, at the end of the year (2009), if things go as scheduled, we shall take strong initiatives, showing that Europe needs a Franco-German axis, as well as the World, even if it never excludes other" countries to join, replied Sarkozy to a question if France and Germany will revive the "European dream", by "relauncing the EU motor" for the Future, with actions going further than the mere management of the global crisis, (as it was done fex. in the Past with the creation of the "Euro" Monetary zone, etc).
- "I am convinced that the Franco-German friendship must be constantly nourished by New Projects", he added."There are many areas of cooperation where we intend to take, very soon, some Franco-German initiatives, which will allow to open more Horizons" to the EU, Sarkozy stressed.
But if "we don't speak about that now, it's only in order to avoid interfering in important elections coming in Germany", he observed. However, "we have already started to consider the Future with the (German) Chancellor, and what we can do in order to honour our predecessors". "We are already speaking about that, and we are preparing things". "I am working very well together with Mrs Merkel, and I wish that it goes on", Sarkozy concluded.
- "It's important for EU's credibility that France and Germany advance forward together", stressed Merkel from the outset. "Don't worry about Germany's capacity to undertake initiatives" with France, she added. "France and Germany will be perfectly able to make proposals" for the EU.
- "After-crisis" plans must be prepared, meanwhile, with measures "advancing progressively", Merkel anounced. And, for the short term, we must deal also with EU Citizens' dismay since they feel that it's a Scandal for some in the Financial Markets to be paid with excessive "Bonuses", etc, she agreed with Sarkozy.
- "Abuses in financial markets must stop", stressed also Sarkozy. Backing Merkel's announcement that France and Germany call for an EU meeting to forge "a crystal-clear European position" in view of the G-14 Summit at Pittsburg, he warned that "everyone will have to undertake his responsibilities, in front of World's Public Opinion. particularly those who don't want to make the same effort of regulation as France and Germany".
Moreover, "Global Trade cannot be correctly dealt, without taking into account also Environmental and Social rules", Sarkozy added, referring to recently expressed positions against Unfair Competition via Environmental and/or Social Dumping, (See earlier "EuroFora"'s publications).
Such moves are obviously linked to the need to ensure at least an elementary respect for Human Rights by Third Countries, (f.ex. exploitation of Children's work, etc) in order to avoid, precisely, any such Social Dumping.
- "EU has Values, protecting Human Rights and Human Dignity", and "it cannot close its eyes" in front of grave violations, particularly "Torture and/or killings", added, indeed, Sarkozy.
Thus, "the time comes, where decisions must be taken". But, in case of "Sanctions", "all International opinion should be convinced of the need to take action", he observed.
Expressed on the occasion of recent developments in Iran, the same principles should logically apply also to other similar cases, including fex. that of Hundreds of ECHR judgements' condemning f;ex. Turkey for grave crimes, (as Torture, brutal Killings, Enforced "Disappearances", Destruction of Family Homes, harassments and oppressive violations of Freedom of Speech, etc).
Meanwhile, questioned on (EU Commission's chair) Barroso's bid to succeed himself for a second mandate, they both expressed a "wish" or a "feeling" that "EU Parliament"'s various political Groups might fix a date for decisions "during September". However, is he is endorsed before the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, it will be legally necessary to re-vote anew for a full term of office afterwards, according to EU Legal Experts, revealed recently in Strasbourg the experienced former President of EU Parliament's Constitutional Committee, German Socialist MEP Jo Leinen. And Germany will not vote for Lisbon Treaty's ratification but only "on September 8 and 18", revealed Merkel, ( i.e. after EU Parliament's plenary session in Strasbourg).
- Therefore, "for EU Commissioners' appointment, it's too early yet, because we must wait for the ratification of Lisbon Treaty" by all 27 EU Member countries, including naturally Ireland's Referendum on early October, said to "EuroFora" the influential President of EU Parliament's largest group of MEPs, Joseph Daul, expressing, however, the hope that a controversial deal with the head of the Socialist Group of MEPs, Martin Schultz of Germany, might hold for Barroso alone, at a forthcoming vote due to fix the Strasbourg plenary's Agenda.
But MEPs reportedly just "postponed" for 1 week all their previously scheduled group meetings (See : http://www.euractiv.com/en/future-eu/barroso-unveil-summer-homework-week/article-184825 );
However, while the choice of a new EU Commission's President by EU Parliament is supposed, according to many MEPs' wish, take place according to EU policy issues, paradoxically, this would mean that Barroso's bid would pass before even the anouncement of France and Germany's "initiatives" for EU's "new Horizons"...
Written by ACM
*Strasbourg/Angelo Marcopolo/- While Chilcot Iraq War Inquiry, mainly on Controversial former PM Blair's role back on 2003, is due to Publish its Long-Awaited Results later this Week, EU Parliament paid Today Hommage to the Victims of a Series of Bloody Attacks by ISIL's Terrorists which Killed Many Civilian People in Iraq, Yemen, Turkey and Bangladesh last week, apparently abused as a Morbid "Publicity" Tool by those Brutal and Inhuman Extremist Islamist Gangs who are reportedly Losing Ground recently both in the Iraq and in Syrian fronts on the ground.
The President of EU Parliament, Martin Schulz from Germany, (an experienced SocialDemocrat MEP since 1994 : Comp. f.ex. his 1st INTW to "Eurofora"s Co-Founder already as Early as since 1995, published then at "TCWeekly", etc), observed that "More than 300 People were Killed, and more than 500 Wounded", including even "Civilians, Women and Children", during those latest Terrorist Attacks, and Expressed MEPs' Strong "Condemnation" of such a "Monstrous Violence" and "Murderous Ideology", by a "Terrorism without Borders", which "can only be Combatted with a Global Cooperation", as he stressed.
President Schulz also expressed the European Parliament's wish to "Stand By those Other Regions of the World", as well as MEPs' "Condoleances" for the Victims (from "Different Origins, Religions and Nationalities", as he observed), of this Series of Deadly Terrorist Attacks, which were All Revendicated by ISIL's Terrorists, with the Only Exception of that latest strike in Turkey, which Targetted Foreign Tourists at the International Section of Istanbul's Airport, as also at the Diplomatic Quarter of Bangladesh's Capital Dacca.
At the Deadliest Terrorist Attack in Iraq since 2003, more than 210 Civilian People were reportedly Killed at a Market in Bagdad, including 20 Women and 25 Children. In Yemen, about 80 People, more than Half of them Civilians, were also Killed during a Series of Bombings and varViolent Clashes. In Turkey, a Majority of Foreign Tourists, from Many Countries around the World, as well as Security a.o. Staff, and about 9 Turkish Civilians were among the 45 Victims of 3 Suicide Bombers from Foreign Countries, attributed by Ankara to ISIL. But a Few Days Earflier, as many as 8 Other ISIL's Suicide Bombers had reportedly Attacked a Christian Village in Lebanon, near the Syrian Borders. As for Bangladesh, among the almost 30 Victims in a Hostage-Taking Attack at a Restaurant, were also, at least 7 European Civilian People, (including Women), mainly from Italy, (as ChristianDemocrat MEP Mrs Gardini pointed out at EU Parliament's Plenary).
Mainstream German Newspaper "Die Welt" Published Today an Article with Visual Documents and Factual Data revealing that ISIL's Deadly Terrorists and Atrocious BeHeaders even of Innocent and Defenseless Civilian People, are currently Exploiting a Long Series of Recent Attacks, from the USA (Orlando Massacre) up to Iraq and Bangladesh, etc., during a so-called "Ramadan Offensive" (sic !), also in order to make more Publicity for their "2nd Anniversary" since the "proclamation of the Khalifat" in the Territories of Iraq and Syria that their Armed Gangs had Occupied since 2014, by Claiming an International Terrorist Network including "Covert Armies" in Many Countries, even in Europe (France), as they boasted.
However, an Initial Intention by the Biggest Group of MEPs, that of ChristianDemocrats/EPP, to lodge a Demand for a Debate and the Vote of a Resolution on these latest Tragedies, was, Finaly, droped, at least for the Time being, for reasons which were Not Discussed in Public Now.
The above-mentioned, EU Parliament's brief Introductory Event, Right at the Beginning of the July 2016 Weekly Plenary Session in Strasbourg, Coincided, as Schulz noted from the outset, also with the apparently Natural Death, in the Age of 85 y.o., of former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, a long-time Socialist, but who had also assumed a Mission on Hig-Tech Investments entrusted to hium by former President Nicolas Sarkozy, (currently Head of the main Opposition New "Republican" Party), who had just Published, just a Few Days Earlier this Month, an Exclusive, Frontpage INTW at a mainstream Review Magazine, Accusing "the French Left" to be "The Most Retrograde in the World", as well as with the Natural Death also of World Famous Writer Elie Wiesel, one of the Last Witnesses of the 2nd World War and NAZI/Fascist regimes' Inhuman Atrocities.
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Editors note: William Dembski and Jonathan Wells, leading figures in the intelligent design movement, are co-authors of The Design of Life: Discovering Signs of Intelligence in Biological Systems. Originally published by the Foundation for Thought and Ethics, this path-breaking work explores some of the most important arguments for intelligent design in biology. To celebrate the launch of Foundation for Thought & Ethics Books as an imprint of Discovery Institute Press, we have been publishing excerpts from the book here at Evolution News. Through this Friday, July 8, we will be making The Design of Life available for only $10 more than a 70 percent discount. That includes both the full-color hardcover and an accompanying CD with additional materials. If you havent read this classic book, now is your chance! Order now, because this special discount concludes at the end of this week.
The transition from reptiles into mammals via mammal-like reptiles is regarded by many evolutionary theorists as the best example of an evolutionary lineage in the fossil record. There are, however, three fundamental problems with this and all other examples of inferring Darwinian evolution on the basis of fossil evidence. The first is that any specific hypothesis must use the fossil data selectively; the second is that similarities in fossil or living organisms may not be due to common ancestry; and the third is that fossils cannot, in principle, establish biological relationships.
(1) Using the fossil evidence selectively. As in the case of therapsids, fossils more mammal-like can occur earlier in the fossil record than fossils that are less mammal-like. Yet to trace an evolutionary lineage on the basis of the fossil record requires that therapsids structurally more similar to mammals enter the history of life later than those that are structurally less similar. Evolution, after all, needs to follow times arrow and cannot have offspring giving birth to parents.
A similar problem arises with geographical mismatches, in which fossil organisms that are supposedly next to each other in a structural progression are widely separated geographically. If the geographical separation is too great, how can one organism be ancestral to the other? Reproduction, after all, requires proximity parents do not give birth to offspring at the other side of the globe.
The problem of temporal and geographical mismatches is widespread. The Darwinists way around this problem is to assume that organisms that appear to enter the fossil record too late or too far away actually entered earlier or closer together. But such assumptions are entirely ad hoc and ignore the actual fossil evidence.
This illustrates a larger problem what scientists call cherry-picking. Given a sufficiently large data set, its possible to find salient patterns simply by trying out enough different ways of combining items of data. Many structural progressions found in the fossil record are nothing more than cherries in other words, they are statistical artifacts that result from trying out enough different ways of combining fossil data. The sheer quantity of fossil data is immense. Simply by combining and recombining these data in enough different ways and by attending to sufficiently many distinct features of structural similarity, it is possible to generate reasonably long fossil progressions arranged by structural similarity.
Two well-known results from statistics give rise to the cherry-picking fallacy. One is the birthday paradox. Although there are 365 days in the year, it only takes 23 people, chosen at random, for there to be a better than even chance that at least two of them share a birthday.1 Thats because in calculating the probability of a shared birthday, we must factor in all possible ways of pairing these 23 people. As it turns out, there are 253 pairings and thus 253 ways that any two of them might share a birthday (its not coincidental that 253 is over half of 365; thats why 23 people are more likely than not to share a birthday). Because of the birthday paradox, the fossil record readily yields fossils that match up on a given feature of similarity quite apart from any underlying cause.
The other result from statistics that gives rise to the cherry-picking fallacy is the file-drawer effect. Suppose you claim that a coin you are flipping is biased because you just now flipped it ten times and each time it came up heads. The degree to which you are justified in claiming that the coin is biased will depend on the unreported number of times you flipped the coin before actually reporting ten heads in a row. The file-drawer effect refers to the unsuccessful studies that go unreported and languish in a researchers file-drawer.2 The bigger the file-drawer, the greater the number of unsuccessful studies that went unreported and, consequently, the less compelling is any eventual report of success. Even with a fair coin, after a few thousand coin flips, one is virtually assured of flipping ten heads in a row. Thus, if your file-drawer contains thousands of unreported coin flips, the ten heads in a row you report cant confirm that the coin is biased.
Likewise, for every successful structural progression in the fossil record (like the reptile-to-mammal progression), there are all too many unsuccessful ones, conveniently unreported and languishing in evolutionary biologys file-drawer. Evolutionary biologys file-drawer of failed attempts at finding such fossil progressions is huge. For instance, where are the progressions based on structural similarity that connect the different animal phyla progressions that should be there if evolutionary theory is correct? Despite a massive search of the fossil record by paleontologists and evolutionary biologists, no such progressions are known. In consequence, there is every reason to be suspicious of using successful fossil progressions to infer evolutionary lineages.
(2) Similarity may not be due to common ancestry. In evolutionary theory, convergence refers to the origination of identical or highly similar structures through independent evolutionary pathways rather than inheritance from a common ancestor. Darwinian theory attributes convergence to similar environments that apply similar selection pressures and thereby produce similar structures.
This explanation is on its face implausible because there is no reason to think that Darwins opportunistic mechanism has the fine discrimination to produce virtually identical complex structures in causally disconnected environments. Yet organisms possess many similar features not thought to arise from a common ancestor. Convergence is a widespread fact. As a result, even if Darwinian theory were true, one could never be sure whether similar features shared by two fossils resulted from convergence or from common ancestry. If similar structures can evolve and re-evolve repeatedly, then fossils cannot distinguish convergence from common ancestry, and tracing evolutionary lineages in the fossil record becomes impossible.
In fact, similarities may not be due to Darwinian evolution at all. In a 1990 book intended to refute critics of Darwinian evolution, biologist Tim Berra used pictures of various models of Corvette automobiles to illustrate how the fossil record provides evidence for descent with modification. If you compare a 1953 and a 1954 Corvette, side by side, he wrote, then a 1954 and a 1955 model, and so on, the descent with modification is overwhelmingly obvious.3 But automobiles are designed, not descended from other automobiles. Berra actually proved the opposite of what he intended, namely, that a series of similarities could be a product of intelligent design rather than Darwinian evolution.
The case for Darwinian evolution would be greatly strengthened if scientists could demonstrate (rather than merely gesture at) a plausible mechanism for producing macroevolution. But they have been unable to do so. Even if we assume that a structural progression such as the therapsid-to-mammal sequence is an evolutionary lineage, the fact remains that we know of no material mechanism capable of producing it. To be sure, one can tell a story about how a Darwinian mechanism might have caused the progression, but thats all it would be a fanciful story.
Take the evolution of the mammalian ear from the reptilian jaw. How exactly did those two bones from the reptilian jaw migrate to the mammalian ear? The word migrate in this context is empty of scientific content. What genetic changes and selection pressures were in fact operating, and how, specifically, did they bring about the evolutionary pathway in question? No such details are known. Yet, without such details, there is no way to assess whether the Darwinian mechanism was even capable of, much less responsible for, evolving the mammalian ear.
Perhaps a sufficiently adept designing intelligence could change the reptilian jaw into the mammalian ear. But an intelligently guided process would not be Darwinian.
(3) Fossils cannot, in principle, establish biological relationships. Imagine finding two human skeletons in the same location, one apparently about thirty years older than the other. Was the older individual the parent of the younger? Simply by looking at the skeletons, one cant say. Without independent evidence (e.g., genealogical, dental, or molecular), it is impossible to answer the question. Yet in this case were dealing with two skeletons from the same species that are only a generation apart. It follows that even if we had a fossil representing every generation and every imaginable intermediate between, say, reptiles and mammals if there were no missing links whatsoever it would still be impossible, in principle, to establish ancestor-descendant relationships.
In 1978, fossil expert Gareth Nelson, of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, wrote: The idea that one can go to the fossil record and expect to empirically recover an ancestor-descendant sequence, be it of species, genera, families, or whatever, has been, and continues to be, a pernicious illusion.4
Henry Gee, a science writer for Nature, doesnt doubt Darwinian evolution, but he likewise admits that we cant infer descent with modification from fossils. No fossil is buried with its birth certificate, he wrote in 1999. That, and the scarcity of fossils, means that it is effectively impossible to link fossils into chains of cause and effect in any valid way. According to Gee, we call new fossil discoveries missing links as if the chain of ancestry and descent were a real object for our contemplation, and not what it really is: a completely human invention created after the fact, shaped to accord with human prejudices. He concluded: To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.5
In short, fossils cannot demonstrate Darwinian evolution.
References:
(1) William Feller, An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications, 3rd ed., vol. 1 (New York: Wiley, 1968), 33.
(2) S. Iyengar and J. Greenhouse, Selection Models and the File Drawer Problem (with Discussion), Statistical Science 3 (1988): 109-135.
(3) Tim Berra, Evolution and the Myth of Creationism (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990), 117-119.
(4) From a presentation by Gareth Nelson in 1969 to the American Museum of Natural History, quoted in David M. Williams and Malte C. Ebach, The Reform of Palaeontology and the Rise of Biogeography 25 Years after Ontogeny, Phylogeny, Palaeontology and the Biogenetic Law (Nelson, 1978), Journal of Biogeography 31 (2004): 709.
(5) Henry Gee, In Search of Deep Time (New York: Free Press, 1999), 23, 32, 116-117.
Photo: Royal Ontario Museum, by Daderot [CC0 or CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.
An uncertain outcome for the Aussie General Election sees the Australian dollar exchange rates plunge versus its currency exchange peers.
Today's Australian dollar exchange rates have extended yesterday's significant slide against its peers today, due to the limbo status of the election and signs of strength in the US.
The afternoons ADP employment change for June rose from 168k to 172k.
The New Zealand dollar saw a sharp spike in demand following comments from RBNZ Deputy Governor Grant Spencer, who indicated that the bank could introduce further measures to combat the overheating housing market before the end of the year.
As this was seen to indicate lower the odds of an imminent interest rate cut the NZD exchange rate complex strengthened markedly, extending gains over its commodity-correlated rival.
The Australian dollar exchange rates has been a safe bet recently, with gains stemming from falling confidence in the US Dollar.
Across the entire board of its peers, the Australian Dollar has made major gains, thanks to US investor concerns about incoming Fed minutes.
While the minutes could show hawkish statements, the more likely outcome is that as they came before the EU Referendum, dovish comments are the far more likely option.
Volatility should be expected for both the Australian and New Zealand Dollars on Wednesday evening, with the release of the June meeting minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).
If the Fed is found to have moved further away from the prospect of tightening monetary policy in the near future then the appeal of higher-yielding assets is likely to improve, a result which should benefit the AUD/NZD exchange rate.
With increased signs that the ruling Liberal-National coalition will inch towards victory in Australias federal election, demand for the Aussie (AUD) increased significantly.
Even damp market sentiment in response to weak global equity markets and falling commodity prices wasnt enough to offset AUD exchange rate gains.
Meanwhile, the New Zealand Dollar registered losses versus nearly all of its major peers after the latest GlobalDairyAuction showed whole milk powder prices declined by 1.6%.
For your reference, here are the latest AUD FX rates:
On Thursday the Pound to British Pound exchange rate (GBP/GBP) converts at 1
The GBP to GBP exchange rate converts at 1 today.
FX markets see the pound vs us dollar exchange rate converting at 1.157.
Today finds the pound to new zealand dollar spot exchange rate priced at 1.99.
Please note: the FX rates above, updated 27th Oct 2022, will have a commission applied by your typical high street bank. Currency brokers specialise in these type of foreign currency transactions and can save you up to 5% on international payments compared to the banks.
Damp Market Sentiment Not Enough to Offset Aussie (AUD) Exchange Rate Gains
With Brexit uncertainty continuing to limit trader confidence, global equity markets sliding and commodity prices falling; market sentiment dampened considerably during Wednesdays European session.
Despite this, however, the risk-correlated Australian Dollar advanced versus most of its closest currency rivals.
This was thanks to signs that the ruling Liberal-National coalition will retain office once all the votes from the federal election have been counted.
Aussie gains are predicted to be short-lived, however, amid heightened speculation that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) will be forced to combat overvaluation by cutting the overnight cash rate.
The RBA has opened the door a little towards a rate cut, toned down its comment on recent credit growth and on the expected pace of employment growth and indicated a willingness to cut the cash rate again, subject to coming data. Said Sydney-based strategist Andrew Ticehurst.
New Zealand Dollar (NZD) Exchange Rates Struggle as Dairy Prices Decline
The combination of damp market sentiment and falling global dairy prices caused the New Zealand Dollar to soften versus most of its major peers.
Of particular detriment was a 1.6% drop in Whole Milk Powder which is New Zealands most exported commodity.
Global demand for milk powder remains subdued as most buyers have sufficient stocks on hand to meet their immediate requirements, therefore have little urgency to buy right now, said AgriHQ dairy analyst Susan Kilsby.
Given the lack of influential domestic data to provoke volatility, market sentiment is likely to continue to be the driving force behind Kiwi (NZD) exchange rate movement.
Its pretty clear - the pages says you go to the locations listed in the PDF and pay there and do exactly what the process on the left hand side of the screen says to do.
Whats so difficult about following the instructions - did you think you could apply online and do everything on a website ?You clearly misheard incorrectly.
This is the UAE - original documents and attestations are normal for this kind of process and they wont accept online promises of authenticity. As far as processes go, its unusual to have one of such clarity and simplicity spelled out in such detail.
Hello All,
Me and my partner are moving to Canada early next year, She is Canadian and I'm Australian, I am an electrician by trade and was wondering what i have to do to be recognise as one over there? I am also about to do my Instrument and controls Certificate which will make me a Dual trader does this help? And is there much work for electricians there? I have oil and gas experience if that makes any difference.
Cheers
Aaron
I'd say that you'd likely require a minimum of CAD $50k p.a. or more AFTER taxes for a family of 2 to have the lifestyle that you seek.
I barely made it on CAD $45k BEFORE taxes as a singleton living in the suburbs of Vancouver (~32km from downtown Vancouver driving distance)... this was back in '12. I had a car and rented from my parents...I didn't go skiing (not a very competent skier and it was too expensive an endeavour for someone of my marginal talent... think slightly better than Bridget Jones in "...the Edge of Reason") but did try to go travelling every 12-18 months (or when the budget allowed),
People in the South American country of Peru will shortly be able to access a greater range of visa services and more flexible arrangements with the opening of a new UK visa centre.The new centre opens on 07 July in Lima and will offer customers an expanded range of services including longer opening hours and more daily appointments. There will also be an option for digital assistance to help customers complete the online application form for UK visas and document checking services to ensure an application is complete before it is submitted.From August there will be further new services, including walk-in appointments, out of hours appointments and large group appointments and from the end of September the option for applicants to retain their passport while their visa is being processed.The online visa application process will not change and the visa price and processing speed will remain the same. There will be a fee for some additional services, for example document checking service, said British Consul General Dominic Williams.We are delighted to be opening a new Visa Application Centre. We hope that the new services offered will make the visa process simpler and encourage even more Peruvian nationals to visit the UK, he added.All visa customers will have to submit their supporting documents and biometric data at the UK Visa Application Centre from 07 July which is co-located with the Canadian and Irish Visa Application Centres at Pasaje Martir Olaya, Miraflores, Lima.Peruvian nationals wishing to travel to the UK can apply for a visa up to three months before they travel.The UK government aims to process 100% of non-settlement applications within 15 working days and 100% of settlement applications within 60 working days. In 2015 some 95.4% of applications received from Peruvian nationals were approved, according to the most up to date data.
From: Ad Council For Immediate Release: Dateline: New York , NY Wednesday, July 6, 2016
We look forward to The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity every year at Ad Council, but this was an especially exciting year for us; we took home 8 Cannes Lions including the gold in the Cyber: Social Purpose category for our I Am A Witness Campaign! With these awards, as well as the many others given to social good causes, it is clear that social good campaigns are a needed voice in the communications industry. Here is a quick round-up of some of the amazing creatives that were honored this year!
Under Armour I WILL WHAT I WANT; Silver in Creative Effectiveness x
Check It Before Its Removed: Naked Breasts on Facebook Against Breast Cancer; Gold in Cyber x
I AM A WITNESS; Gold in Cyber x
REI #OPTOUTSIDE; Gold in Direct x
PREDIABETES; Bronze in PR x
The post
We look forward to The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity every year at Ad Council, but this was an especially exciting year for us; we took home 8 Cannes Lions including the gold in the Cyber: Social Purpose category for our I Am A Witness Campaign! With these awards, as well as the many others given to social good causes, it is clear that social good campaigns are a needed voice in the communications industry. Here is a quick round-up of some of the amazing creatives that were honored this year!I WILL WHAT I WANT speaks to women who do not need permission, advice, or affirmation from others in order to achieve their dreams. Droga5 developed an extensive campaign that kicked off with a film featuring ballerina Misty Copeland who proves that inner strength and sheer will can trump adversity.To increase breast cancer awareness, Pink Ribbon Germany created an informative how-to video of a woman performing a self-exam. The empowering campaign pushes back against the media for censoring womens breasts so that women can learn how to be conscious of the signs of cancer that can be detected early on.Ad Councils I Am A Witness campaign, created pro bono by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, aims to stop bullying by activating the silent majority of kids who witness it each day, transforming them from passive bystanders into an active collective. At the heart of the campaign is the Witness Emoji a tool that enables teens to take a stand when they see bullying happening online.REI did something unthinkable in the retail worldon Black Friday, once deemed the holiest day in all of shopping, the retailer closed its doors and payed its employees to #OptOutside. Their actions inspired a movement, with other businesses closing their doors on Black Friday and over a million people joining REI outdoors.Over 86 million people are at risk for diabetes but have no idea. In an effort to raise awareness, the Ad Council developed non-scary, real-time tests for TV, online, and social to help Americans determine in real time if they could have prediabetes.The post 5 Social Good Campaigns that Won Big at Cannes appeared first on AdLibbing.org
July 6, 2016, Los Angeles, CA - A limited number exhibit or sponsorship opportunities will be available at the Ninth National Medicare Supplement Summit according to an announcement today by the American Association for Medicare Supplement Insurance (AAMSI).
According to AAMSI, the Medigap insurance industry conference will take place April 11-13, 2017 at the Sheraton in Dallas, Texas. "This is the only national event that exclusively focuses on this growing industry," explains Jesse Slome, director of the Association that produces the conference. "Any company that markets senior-focused insurance products should consider having a presence."
A limited number of sponsorships and exhibit opportunities are available at the three-day event. "We have historically sold out of exhibit space in prior years," Slome notes. "Dallas offers the potential for a larger number of attendees and we are holding a one-day free access pass for agents who want to come and learn and meet with companies exhibiting at the event."
Over 525 insurance company executives, heads of marketing organizations and insurance agents attended the 2016 Medicare Supplement Summit which was held in Kansas City. "Another 100-plus insurance agents attended the free day but we expect anywhere from 300 to 600 will attend the free day in Dallas," Slome predicts.
To learn more about the conference including exhibit and sponsorship opportunities, call the Association offices at 818-597-3205 or visit the organization's website at www.medicaresupp.org.
From: Lillian Too -- Feng Shui Expert For Immediate Release: Dateline: Los Angeles , CA Wednesday, July 6, 2016
We were so lucky to have Khenpo Delek Rinpoche here with us to perform the Bum Tsog puja to Guru Rinpoche. The word bum is Tibetan for 100,000 and tsog means offering- so it translates to mean feast offering. This is a very precious practice that brings enormous spiritual and worldly benefits for everyone and their families for the coming year. As Rinpoche saidthis is for all sentient beings because we are all connected. For many attendees it was their first time to experience a puja like this and several came to talk to me personally about how much it meant to them.
It wont be too much longer before the 2017 Horoscope books will be published and ready for you. Thankfully the coming Year of the Rooster looks to be a good year with the number 1 Victory Star ruling the center of the chart! Make your plans now to attend our 2017 Extravaganza and note that they will be held earlier this year the 20th of November in Singapore and the 11th of December in KL.
Sending love,
Lillian
Your Monthly Feng Shui Updates
Sixth Month on the Bing Shen Fire Monkey Year
July 7 August 7, 2016
Heres your monthly flying star chart the sixth month of the Fire Monkey Year and I urge you to review this and pay attention to these recommendations. This covers the period July 7 August 7, 2016.
In each of the nine grids youll see two numbers. The larger number is the annual star, and the smaller number in the lower right corner is the monthly star that you must also take into account.
The first thing to do is determine where the most important rooms in your house are located. By important I mean rooms that you use frequentlylike your bedroom, the kids rooms, dining room etc. You may already know this, but if not use a reliable compass and stand in the center of your home to take your directions. Its always good to do a recheck of your directions. Once you know where each sector is, you can refer to the flying star chart below and take appropriate action. So if your front door, the one everyone uses is located in the north sector then refer to the relevant grid below for the kind of luck that will affect everyone in the household this month. Some people like to make this more complicated than necessary its not really difficult so please take the time to review this monthly.
Which sector will bring you luck?
The WEST is the luckiest sector this month with the prosperity 8 star bringing financial success and wealth luck to the female of the family. Display a water fountain in the west to enhance money luck. If you are a writer or academic you will have a smooth and successful time. Display
The 1 star visits the SOUTH so there is good financial and career luck for residents of this sector. Enhance the luck here with a water wave symbol and statue of Kwan Kung. If your office is located here, display a Chinese calligraphy set on your desk to enhance creativity and ideas and display a golden arrowana to give your career a boost!
Unlucky sectors?
You must be alert and extremely careful in the NORTHWEST this month as there are high chances of robbery and burglary. This applies to all households as the burglary star has flown into the NW of the house. Keep this sector very quiet and no arguments. Use a still water feature here and carry the
The NORTHEAST is visited by the 9 multiplying star making stress levels soar and you may find that children and females in the home are more short-tempered than usual. Try not to spend too much time in this area and place a
Its important to fine-tune your feng shui every month and take care of the monthly flying stars. Note that the sectors mentioned above are only a few of the sectors. You need to read about all of the sectors to properly update your monthly feng shui. Youll find these monthly charts in Feng Shui World Magazine, so if youre not already a subscriber I suggest you sign on! Its quick and easy and always available when you choose the online versionbut printed copies are of course available as well!
Have just finished my Spiritual Extravaganza here in KL with a wonderful crowd and saw many old friends and students. I am deeply honored that so many came from around the world for this important spiritual eventfrom the Ukraine, Russia, India, Sri Lanka, AmericaI just cannot name them all.We were so lucky to have Khenpo Delek Rinpoche here with us to perform the Bum Tsog puja to Guru Rinpoche. The word bum is Tibetan for 100,000 and tsog means offering- so it translates to mean feast offering. This is a very precious practice that brings enormous spiritual and worldly benefits for everyone and their families for the coming year. As Rinpoche saidthis is for all sentient beings because we are all connected. For many attendees it was their first time to experience a puja like this and several came to talk to me personally about how much it meant to them.It wont be too much longer before the 2017 Horoscope books will be published and ready for you. Thankfully the coming Year of the Rooster looks to be a good year with the number 1 Victory Star ruling the center of the chart! Make your plans now to attend our 2017 Extravaganza and note that they will be held earlier this year the 20th of November in Singapore and the 11th of December in KL.Sending love,LillianHeres your monthly flying star chart the sixth month of the Fire Monkey Year and I urge you to review this and pay attention to these recommendations. This covers the period July 7 August 7, 2016.In each of the nine grids youll see two numbers. The larger number is the annual star, and the smaller number in the lower right corner is the monthly star that you must also take into account.The first thing to do is determine where the most important rooms in your house are located. By important I mean rooms that you use frequentlylike your bedroom, the kids rooms, dining room etc. You may already know this, but if not use a reliable compass and stand in the center of your home to take your directions. Its always good to do a recheck of your directions. Once you know where each sector is, you can refer to the flying star chart below and take appropriate action. So if your front door, the one everyone uses is located in the north sector then refer to the relevant grid below for the kind of luck that will affect everyone in the household this month. Some people like to make this more complicated than necessary its not really difficult so please take the time to review this monthly.The WEST is the luckiest sector this month with the prosperity 8 star bringing financial success and wealth luck to the female of the family. Display a water fountain in the west to enhance money luck. If you are a writer or academic you will have a smooth and successful time. Display peonies and mandarin ducks in the west of your bedroom to improve your love luck.The 1 star visits the SOUTH so there is good financial and career luck for residents of this sector. Enhance the luck here with a water wave symbol and statue of Kwan Kung. If your office is located here, display a Chinese calligraphy set on your desk to enhance creativity and ideas and display a golden arrowana to give your career a boost!Unlucky sectors?You must be alert and extremely careful in the NORTHWEST this month as there are high chances of robbery and burglary. This applies to all households as the burglary star has flown into the NW of the house. Keep this sector very quiet and no arguments. Use a still water feature here and carry the anti-burglary protection with you. Display the red robe laughing Buddha to turn bad energy into good energy.The NORTHEAST is visited by the 9 multiplying star making stress levels soar and you may find that children and females in the home are more short-tempered than usual. Try not to spend too much time in this area and place a golden Mantra Pillar or 9 Spoke Dorje in this area to control the bad chi. Do not leave candles or stoves unattended here due to fire danger. Display a laughing Buddha with ingots for prosperity luck!Its important to fine-tune your feng shui every month and take care of the monthly flying stars. Note that the sectors mentioned above are only a few of the sectors. You need to read about all of the sectors to properly update your monthly feng shui. Youll find these monthly charts in Feng Shui World Magazine, so if youre not already a subscriber I suggest you sign on! Its quick and easy and always available when you choose the online versionbut printed copies are of course available as well! Click here to order your Feng Shui World Magazine TODAY!
Good luck!
Lillian
Spiritual Feng Shui
Significant Spiritual Days in July 2016
This comprehensive spiritual calendar marks all the significant and powerful days to chant mantras, perform pujas and conduct powerful rituals that will increase your wealth, success, love and happiness.
This is the double fourth month of the Monkey Year and it is the turning point of the year. Since this is also the Year of Guru Rinpoche, use these days to chant as many Guru Rinpoche mantras as possible. We recommend reciting the 7 Line Prayer to Guru Rinpoche 108 times (page 39 Chant A Mantra 4th Edition) and read the Sampha Lhundrupma if you have this prayer. Make as many tsog offerings to Guru Rinpoche as possible and take note of all activities to be avoided ( funerals, weddings etc.) indicated on particular calendar days shown.
Youll also find a chart showing the Vitality Points of Your Body (which are different for men and women) for each day of the month. Performing surgical operations on the joints or organs located at or near these points weakens your life span and vitality considerably so be sure to refer to this table when setting up dates for your medical operations.
Grand Master Lillian Too is undoubtedly the worlds most prolific and popular writer and advocate on living with good feng shui! She has written over 100 books that have been translated into 31 different languages, and over 10 million copies of her books have been sold worldwide.
After graduating with an MBA from Harvard Business School, Lillian went on to pursue a highly successful business career in banking and finance in the 1980s in Hong Kong. Her business acumen, drive and abundant energy soon led her from the finance world to the world of luxury department stores and boutiques where, through a leveraged buy out, she became Chairman and shareholder of The Dragon Seed Group.
All the while she was guided and taught by her feng shui masters in Hong Kong and China and she attributes much of her monumental and quick rise to success in Hong Kong directly to them.
Lillian soon decided to retire from active corporate life and return to Malaysia to raise her beautiful daughter, Jennifer, and spend more time with her family. It was at this time she began to devote her energy to writing and furthering her study of feng shui.
She published her first book in Malaysia in 1995 that quickly became a best seller and the rest is history. Today she is Chairman of Wofs.Com, a feng shui franchise and merchandising company run by her daughter, Jennifer Too.
She trains feng shui students and future consultants at her Certified Consulting Institute in Malaysia and is much loved by her readers, associates and students for the way she teaches practical feng shui in a user-friendly way, using ordinary situations and circumstances that interest people and affect their everyday lives.
In November 2009, at the International Feng Shui Convention in Singapore, the well-deserved title of GRAND MASTER OF FENG SHUI was conferred upon Lillian Too. Immediately following this accolade, in early January 2010, she received the prestigious Brand Laureate Personality of The Year Award presented by the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia! There seems to be no stopping her popularity these days!
Lillian believes everyone should know her secrets and learn how to adapt feng shui to modern life and she warmly welcomes you into her Mandala.
You can learn more about Lillian by visiting her website at www.lillian-too.com.
Lillian Too Mandala North American Office
3840 Blackhawk Rd,
Danville, CA 94506
Toll Free Info and Customer Servce : 1 866 508 8806
Email: info@lilliantoomandala.com Fax: +1 925 736 6177
A Winding Pathway
Any lane or path leading to your main door should be curved and preferably winding. A straight path that leads directly into your home sends arrows of killing energy or shar chi. Such a path should also not narrow out or in. It is best when the width of the path is constant. Placing lights on the pathway is also auspicious
Decree abundance for yourself and it shall be established for you. Live your life with an open mind and a gentle heart and a determination to enrich your own life and the lives of others. This combined with feng shui practices will astonish you and bring truly amazing results.
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Roscoe C. Brown Jr., a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen known for shooting down a German jet fighter and later helping bring the all-black units exploits to light, died last weekend in New York. He was 94.
Brown was among 992 African-American pilot training graduates and one of 355 who dueled with the Nazis over the skies of Europe. There are fewer than two dozen of them still alive.
The idea of blacks serving as pilots in Americas military seemed far-fetched when a young Granville Coggs, now 90 and a San Antonio resident, saw West Point of the Air, a 1935 MGM movie dramatizing pilot training at one of the Armys newest bases, Randolph Field. The film was shot in San Antonio the year before.
I am indebted to him, Coggs said of Browns role as a path-breaker. I was 10 years old and I saw this movie in a segregated (theater) in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and I never thought that I could have been an Army Air Corps pilot, because all those pilots were white males.
Coggs later would graduate from Harvard Medical School, years after earning his wings as a Tuskegee Airman.
The war brought dramatic changes. Some 16,000 men and women some white are considered original Tuskegee Airmen, members of the 99th, 100th, 301st and 302nd fighter squadrons brought together to form a mostly black unit in a still-segregated military. They made 15,533 sorties, scored 112 aerial kills, earned three Presidential Unit Citations Browns squadron got one of them.
Brown was one of 96 Tuskegee Airmen awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. He also received the Air Medal with eight oak leaf clusters.
There were hints hed do well early on.
Browns father was a public health specialist and his mother was a teacher. The younger of two children born in Washington, D.C., he graduated in 1943 as the valedictorian of Springfield College in Massachusetts. He volunteered to fight and graduated from flight training in mid-March 1944.
Brown flew 68 combat missions in a P-51 Mustang, downing an Me-262 the Luftwaffes pioneering jet fighter and an FW-190 fighter. He left the service as a captain and went home to earn a masters and a Ph.D. at New York University, taking on a number of jobs after the war.
He worked as a social investigator with the New York City Department of Welfare and as a physical education instructor at West Virginia State College until 1948. Earning his doctorate in 1950, he became the director of the Institute of Afro-American Affairs and a professor of education at New York University.
He was there for 27 years before becoming president of Bronx Community College, which is part of the City University of New York, a post he held until 1993. He also was director of the Center for Urban Education Policy at CUNYs Graduate School and University Center.
In 2007, Brown attended a ceremony in the U.S. Capitol rotunda where he and other Tuskegee Airmen were collectively awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
Rick Sinkfield, a spokesman for the Tuskegee Airmens national group and president of its San Antonio chapter, said Brown helped found the group in 1972, and publicized the role the pilots and ground crews played in the war and serving as an adviser on the 2012 movie Red Tails, starring Cuba Gooding Jr.
When I saw him, he was managing one of the committees for the national organization and man, he was very detail-oriented, Sinkfield said. I mean, he didnt miss a thing, you didnt have anything to argue with him about because he had covered all the bases. He was quite a leader, and very organized and meticulous about what he did.
sigc@express-news.net
The Prairie Doc: We need to be more intentional with antibiotics
Almost a third more biogas energy is being produced in the UK compared to this time last year, according to new figures from industry trade body Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association (ADBA).
The AD Market Report, published at UK AD & Biogas 2016, shows that the UK now has 617 MWe of biogas capacity, enough to power the equivalent of 800,000 homes.
However, the report also warns that growth in the industry has slowed, and will slow further in each of the coming four years due to government policy decisions and investment uncertainty.
Recent government decisions have reduced the new anaerobic digestion energy generation capacity that ADBA expects to be installed by winter 2018 by 250 MW, which is 10% of the winter 2018 capacity margin.
In particular, small scale farm AD is being reduced to handful of plants being constructed per year, despite the Committee on Climate Change recommending that it should be used to meet carbon budgets.
The government is on course to close renewable electricity incentives to new AD applications in 2018.
Small scale farm AD is being reduced to handful of plants being constructed per year, despite the Committee on Climate Change recommending that it should be used to meet carbon budgets.
The government is on course to close renewable electricity incentives to new AD applications in 2018.
Renewable Heat Incentive
Subject to final decisions from government this autumn, the Renewable Heat Incentive is expected to fund deployment of 10-20 new biomethane to grid plants from 2017, slightly down on 2015 and 2016.
The ADBA Market Report shows that there are still over 400 plants with planning permission granted or applied for, illustrating the strength of the pipeline which could be delivered with the right support.
Charlotte Morton, Chief Executive of the Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association, launched the report.
In her speech to delegates at UK AD & Biogas 2016, Charlotte said: "The latest ADBA Market Report shows just what has been achieved by the AD sector.
"Almost a third more capacity in the past year; double the number of biomethane to grid plants; enough capacity to recycle over 2m tonnes of food waste; and the equivalent capacity to power around 800,000 homes.
"However, our report also shows an opportunity at risk. Using existing technology and feedstocks, the AD industry could be four times bigger than it is today.
"However, government decisions to scale back electricity support, and uncertainty over heat and waste policies, mean that we could lose as much as 250MW of potential capacity over the next two years.
"Thats enough to increase our tight winter electricity capacity margin by 10%.
"The Committee on Climate Change have said that getting biodegradable waste out of landfill and using AD to cut farming emissions is crucial to meet the carbon budgets set under the Climate Change Act.
"Its now time for the government to set policies which will deliver those goals."
The British Wool Marketing Board (BWMB) will be thrusting British wool and the Boards activities in to the spotlight at this years NSA Sheep Event, Malvern of which BWMB is a mainline sponsor.
As part of the BWMB activities at the event the Boards stand will showcase the work being done on behalf of wool producers to increase returns and BWMB staff will be on hand to answer producers questions, said BWMB chairman Ian Buchanan.
"Despite the current pressures in the wool market BWMB is extremely active in its marketing and promotion of British wool and this, combined with the work of the Campaign for Wool, is helping maintain demand for our fibre.
"Producers marketing their wool through the Board can be confident they are supporting a collaborative organisation which is doing its best to maximise the value of their wool."
Naturally producers will have questions theyd like answering and BWMB representatives will be on hand throughout the event to talk to producers and answer any queries, added Mr Buchanan.
Supporting the next generation
Gareth Jones, BWMB Producer Communications Manager said: "For the first time this year the National Federation of Young Farmers Clubs will be joining the Board on its stand to highlight the work the two organisations are doing together.
"BWMB has for many years supported the next generation through its shearing training and other activities.
"Recent work with NFYFC has helped its members understand the Boards role in more detail and focussed on explaining the wool supply chain to young farmers."
Sarah Palmer, agriculture officer for NFYFC said the organisations relationship with BWMB was an important one and had provided a unique insight in to wool marketing.
"With BWMB being the last remaining central marketing board it provides a great contrast to how other agricultural products are marketed and this is experience invaluable for our members as they pursue careers in agriculture."
The joint BWMB and CfW iconic three metre high installation will again form the stunning centrepiece of the BWMB's stand.
'Perfect reflection' of the British wool industry
Gareth Jones said: "The 'WOOL' installation is a dramatic statement piece covered in different wool applications which has drawn enormous attention wherever it has been shown before.
"The nature of the piece means it is very much a touch and feel piece as well as a stunning visual display
"The piece is a perfect reflection of the British wool industry, showcasing a wide variety of uses for wool from the massive range of breeds and types farmed across the world."
Also featuring on the stand will be an identify the breed competition with visitors challenged to identify different breeds from various wool types.
BWMBs South Molton depot manager, Mike Berry will take on the task of judging the events fleece competition with the champion fleece automatically qualifying for the recently launched BWMB National Golden Fleece competition.
Useful advice, information and displays on fleece presentation will also be a feature throughout the day.
Away from the BWMB stand Mr Buchanan will be one of the speakers in an event seminar entitled Adding Value by Maximising the Marketplace.
He said the events theme of Adding Value fitted perfectly alongside BWMBs own aims which were always to deliver maximum value back to producers.
Importantly BWMB operates wool depots across the UK, collecting wool from every sheep farmer no matter the type of sheep or the size of flock, added Mr Buchanan.
"As such, and as the only agricultural commodity board still operating in the UK, BWMB should be highly valued by all wool producers.
"It doesnt cherry pick producers or wool types, but finds a buyer for every fleece delivered to it, always aiming to achieve the best possible returns for the producer," he said.
A rural business conference which aims to unlock investment and potential for the rural economy has been announced by the CLA.
Rural Business 2030: Unlocking Investment, Unlocking Potential will bring rural businesses and policy makers together to discuss practical ways to achieve a robust, productive and sustainable rural economy in 2030.
The challenges and opportunities around the UKs exit from the European Union, securing the digital connectivity, investing in energy infrastructure and providing vital environmental services are set to be explored with a panel of speakers including Defra Secretary of State Liz Truss, author and journalist Matt Ridley and journalist Cathy Newman.
Internet use for rural customers
CLA President Ross Murray said: "I am delighted that the CLAs first ever rural business conference has attracted the interest of Barclays, BT and EE, Strutt & Parker, CLA Insurance and CLA Utilities.
"The rural economy is so vital to the wealth and health of the whole nation so securing support from such influential partners will help to boost the importance of the countryside into 2030 and beyond."
Mark Suthern, Head of Agriculture at Barclays said: "Barclays is delighted to support the CLAs inaugural rural business conference."
Sean Williams, BT Group Chief Strategy Officer said: "The UK is a digital leader today and it is vital that it remains one in the future.
"At BT, we know how important fixed and mobile broadband is for rural customers, and thats why were investing more than any other company to connect people with fibre and EE's 4G mobile network, even in the UKs hardest to reach areas.
"Working closely with rural communities is key to delivering our ambitions, so were delighted to be sponsoring the CLAs inaugural conference on the rural economy."
James Farrell, Head of Estate & Land Management at Strutt & Parker said: "Strutt & Parker is delighted to be part of the Rural Business 2030 initiative as the CLAs exclusive estate and land management partner.
"Unlocking Potential, Unlocking Investment is an extremely exciting initiative that aims to help rural businesses fulfil their potential through investment in a robust, productive and sustainable rural economy.
"It will also provide excellent evidence to help shape the future of the countryside and it could not come at a more important time for the rural economy as we embark on a new period of opportunity outside the EU."
Farm minister George Eustice will urge farmers to consider vaccinating livestock against bluetongue as he opens the Livestock Event in Birmingham today.
Mr Eustice said Defra was working closely with farmers and vets to make sure they were 'well prepared' for a possible outbreak.
The warning comes as animal health companies MSD and Zoetis announced they will be making a bluetongue vaccine available to cattle and sheep farmers this month.
The National Farmers' Union echoed the advice of the Defra minister and said farmers should speak to their vets as a 'matter of urgency.'
MSD Health have signed an agreement with CZ Veterinaria S.A. to distribute its Bluevac BTV8 vaccine throughout Great Britain.
'Clear on vaccine pricing and availability'
NFU livestock chairman Charles Sercombe said: "This is really welcome news for the industry and we strongly urge farmers to discuss vaccination with their vet in order to fully understand the risk to their business considering their system and geography.
"These conversations should be ongoing because as the situation in France and mainland Europe changes the risk will change in the UK.
"We are calling on manufacturers and vets to be clear on the vaccine pricing and availability.
"Farmers will base decisions on whether to vaccinate on a number of factors, with price and availability featuring highly."
Livestock Event director, Matt Knight said: "Were fully aware that times are tough for livestock farmers.
"Thats why were upping the events offer to more than previously, providing the opportunity to share more information, ideas and practical advice, and show casing relevant products and concepts that will save money.
"Whats more attending Livestock Event is free of charge open doors for all visitors this year."
The success of a vaccination programme is reliant on 80% of farmers engaging in vaccination to their stock before the incursion of disease across central and southern England and Wales.
A small area of vaccination (150km) will have only a small impact on the rate of the spread of disease. If disease is already present, vaccination is less effective.
The publication of the Digital Economy Bill today by the government has given rural businesses and farmers hope in which should secure the future of broadband in rural areas.
This Bill is intended to "modernise our climate for enterprise, making sure Britain remains at the forefront of the global 21st century economy so that our businesses continue to create jobs and our families remain financially secure."
The Countryside Alliance has long recognised that high-speed broadband and mobile connectivity are essential services alongside water, electricity and gas; but are nowhere near as available in rural areas as is in urban areas.
Nearly half of all premises (1.5 million premises) in rural areas across the UK still receive speeds of less than 10Mbit/s and one in five rural premises are unable to receive speeds higher than 5Mbit/s.
The Bill promises to give every household a legal right to a fast broadband connection, help telecommunications providers build the infrastructure needed for faster broadband and better mobile networks and allow consumers to be automatically compensated for poor service.
Countryside Alliance head of policy Sarah Lee said: "We hope that the commitment in the Digital Economy Bill to deliver a Universal Service Obligation (USO) of 10Mbit/s will ensure that much needed digital connectivity is achieved in rural areas.
"Continued poor connectivity in the countryside represents a huge missed opportunity for economic development and must be addressed as a priority.
"We now look forward to working with the government to ensure this much promised connectivity is delivered."
The Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs has been urged to make an immediate apology following comments made in a plenary debate where she said that farmers are 'not the best people to run a business.'
The comments, made by Labour AM Lesley Griffiths on the 22nd of June, are likely to cause a great deal of offense to Wales farming community which has 14,000 registered businesses in Wales and generates a 5.7bn annual turnover.
They were made in response to a question about the Welsh Governments Rural Development Plan, which now two years into being has produced limited results, despite promises from the previous Minister for Farming and Food that the plan would have a transformational effect on the rural economy.
Speaking inside the Senedd Chamber, Lesley Griffiths AM said: "We do need to see much more of a transformational change, and we need to do that in partnership with the farmers.
"I also think we need to look at how we can help them with the sustainability and the resilience of their businesses, and to look at the business side of it, because I think farmers, certainly in my very early discussions with them, are perhaps not the best people to run a business. They havent that kind of business perspective."
Speaking today outside the Senedd Chamber, leader of the Welsh Conservatives Andrew RT Davies said: "I call on the Cabinet Secretary to make an immediate apology to the farming community of Wales, who will no doubt be taken aback by her comments.
"Farmers in Wales contribute billions to the Welsh economy they directly employ 48,000 people and are among the most industrious and entrepreneurial members of our business community.
"To say that farmers are not the best people to run a business is not only highly offensive but calls into question whether she is in fact the right person to take this brief forward. It simply betrays her ignorance of this vital artery of the Welsh economy.
"I would suggest that the Cabinet Secretary takes some time to reflect on her ill-considered comments and would invite her to meet with a number of my friends who run highly successful farming businesses."
The NFU officeholder team is kicking off the biggest farming consultation on what farming must look like outside the EU, grasping the earliest opportunity to engage with members at an industry event.
Over both days of Livestock 2016 event, the NFU President, Deputy and Vice have committed to speaking and answering questions on the NFU stand, discussing the impact of Brexit and what this means for the future of farming.
The consultation on this - the biggest farming consultation in a lifetime - will continue over the summer.
NFU President Meurig Raymond said: "Weve seen a seismic change in the political system in this country.
"Were left in uncharted waters, but were also left with an opportunity for the NFU and its members to engage with Government and shape a profitable and productive future for farming.
"I am confident that the dairy and livestock farmer members at the Livestock event will have thoughts on how post-Brexit farming in this country should be and the NFU, as always, is committed to listening to its members and making these thoughts count."
'Critical policy areas'
NFU Deputy President Minette Batters said: "The NFU has set out its principles - the bare bones of a domestic agricultural policy - we need farmers to help us shape critical policy areas. Brexit means food security in this country must now be a political priority.
"I know that farmers in this country have excelled at producing food to exceptionally high standards, they are proud to lead the world on traceability and animal welfare. So unsurprisingly there is huge global demand for Red Tractor food.
"When the UK leaves the EU we are going to need the Government to be ambitious and innovative in ensuring farmers have access to the best possible trade agreements."
'Future is unclear'
NFU Vice President Guy Smith said: "The future of trade agreements, access to labour, regulation and farm support is unclear.
"But, in no uncertain terms, the NFU is committed to providing the vision of farming outside of the EU for Government to deliver, strengthened by the membership.
"Farmers of all ages, of all sectors, must be part of this debate.
"We have a unique opportunity to develop a domestic agricultural policy, a chance to shape this to fit our needs and ensure a positive future for our industry.
"Im very much looking forward to the contributions from Livestock event."
Last Friday, the NFU Council launched farmings 'most significant consultation' over the impact of Brexit on agriculture and what a domestic farming policy should look like in the future outside the EU.
The agreed principles from NFU Council are:
Farmers must get the best possible access to markets in the rest of Europe. Although the UK will not be a member of the EU, it will still be a major trading partner for the foreseeable future.
Currently the UK benefit from more than 50 trade agreements with countries in the
rest of the world. Farmers will continue to need these kind of arrangements in future, whether this means negotiating new deals or not.
A key question we had to the Leave camp, and on which we never received a clear answer, was what kind of access would an independent UK give to imports from the rest of the world? Our requirement is that we are not open to imports which are produced to lower standards.
During the referendum the NFU has repeatedly drawn attention to the sectors need for access to migrant labour, both seasonal and full-time. Outside the EU farmers will need some kind of student agricultural workers scheme, which is open to students from around the world.
Leaving the EU gives farmers the opportunity to build a new domestic agricultural policy which is adapted to British people's needs, easy to understand and simple to administer. The NFU will be looking for guarantees that the support given to British farmers is on a par with that given to farmers in the EU, who will still be the UK's principal competitors.
The NFU says it wants to see a rural development policy which focuses on enhancing competitiveness. Britain has been a pioneer in agri-environmental schemes, but these are currently running out of steam - in part because of over prescriptive EU rules. "We must take this opportunity to devise better schemes," the NFU said.
If there was one message which came over loud and clear in farmer meetings it was frustration with European regulation and its handling of product approvals, due to an over-politicised approach and excessive use of the precautionary principle. British farmers now have a golden opportunity to ensure arrangements are in future proportionate and based on sound science.
The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall were in Wales on Tuesday to tour and officially open a new cheese production unit in the South Caernarfon Creameries' plant.
They met with staff and members of the dairy co-operative, which is owned by 127 farmers who farm in North Wales and Mid Wales.
The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall also had an opportunity to taste some of South Caernarfon Creameries award-winning cheese.
Alan Wyn Jones, Managing Director at South Caernarfon Creameries said "We are very honoured that The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall officially opened our new cheese facility, which is the first major cheese production investment in the UK for 40 years.
"We welcomed the opportunity to show Their Royal Highnesses our new facilities and to provide an insight into our co-operative business, how our member farmers supply high quality Welsh milk which is processed into quality, award-winning Welsh cheese and Welsh butter which we sell to UK retailers and to international markets."
Moss Jones, President of South Caernarfon Creameries said: "We are so thankful to The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall for finding time in their busy schedule to come to South Caernarfon Creameries.
'Positive thing for the Creamery'
"We would like to thank both The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall for their steadfast and long-standing support for traditional Welsh family farms, which have formed the backbone of the creamery since it was established in 1938."
Malcolm Hughes of Yoke House Pwlhelli who said: "The new cheese production unit is a very positive thing for the Creamery and we are pleased that The Prince of Wales & Duchess of Cornwall took time out of their day to officially open it."
Eleanor Jones of Denbighshire has been a member farmer for 2 years since diversifying into dairy farming: "Both the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall were very knowledgeable about farming and they were both very interested in our background and our farm."
The Prince of Wales has a longstanding commitment to supporting Britain's agriculture and ensuring its sustainable future.
In 2010, HRH founded The Prince's Countryside Fund, which aims to create a brighter future for the British countryside.
The new Cheese Production Unit will enable Couth Caernarfon Creameries to increase capacity from 9,500 tonnes to 12,000 tonnes of cheese per annum.
A Scotlands Rural College (SRUC) PhD student aims to make it far easier for females to get pregnant on the first attempt, female cows that is.
Bridgit Muasa, whose research has been funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will assess the easiest way for east African dairy farmers to tell whether their animals are on heat and so improve rates of conception in the African dairy industry.
While in the UK dairy cows often conceive on the first attempt, in Kenya where Bridgets PhD is partly based, conception can take three or four attempts, and this can be a significant cost with semen bought in for the job.
Bridgit says: "Basically without access to modern equipment the only way to tell whether a cow is ready to conceive is to watch her, noticing subtle changes in behaviour that indicate she is fertile.
"However, that just isnt practical, African smallholders often have crops and other animals to tend to; they just dont have the time to constantly watch their cows."
Cows tend to move around more when they are fertile and they are also mounted more often by other cows in the herd, however observing these behaviours isnt as accurate as using the types of modern tools UK farmers have access too.
Those tools involve monitoring behaviour, or the production of oestrogen (the hormone which peaks when the animal is at its most fertile or on heat), and alerting the farmer as to when their cows are ready to conceive.
Bridget aims to assess a variety of these tools to work out which ones might benefit African dairy farmers.
Three tools
Bridgit will study three tools; an activity monitor, a mount detector and a milk profile test. The activity monitor records how active a cow is through a device attached to the hind leg.
A mount detector basically a scratch card type device located on the cows behind can record how often a cow is mounted by other cows.
The final tool measures the progesterone hormone levels in the milk produced. Farmers can check fertility simply by dipping a test strip in a recent sample of milk, a strip that, like human pregnancy tests, will reveal two lines when a cow is ready to conceive.
The products will be tested first at SRUCs Dairy Research and Innovation Centre in Dumfries, before being tested again at a university farm based in Kenya.
This will ensure not only the general success of the products in measuring oestrogen, but also how that translates over to the African environment, and indeed to the African dairy cow, which is of course a rather different beast.
"Im really interested to find out both how well the products work generally, and what differences we might see between the UK and African dairy sectors."
Bridgit says: "I hope that this research will identify practical tools the dairy farmers in Kenya can use, and that those tools will save them money result in a rise in conception rates."
A 19 year old school leaver from Lincoln has become one of the latest apprentices to join the world's first bee-farming apprenticeship scheme.
The Bee-a-Beefarmer project is aiming to boost the British bee count in order to safeguard the future of the industry, recruiting a total of 30 new apprentices over three years.
Industry experts warn that the UK is home to just 30% of the bee hives it needs in order to future-proof Britains bee count and boost honey production.
Its estimated that the country needs to increase its bee farmer count by a minimum of 33% - to a total of 848 farmers - over the next decade or face lower availability of produce and potentially higher food prices.
The scheme is designed to bring some much needed young blood into the bee farming industry. In 2015 the average age of a bee farmer in Britain was 66 years old.
However, the launch of the campaign last year resulted in the recruitment of 10 new bee farmer apprentices with an average age of 19.
Ollie Point is busy as bee looking after hives in his new job
Between them, the apprentices have already added an additional 60 million honey bees to the UK bee farming industry and between them care for over 1,000 hives, which combined have resulted in the production of over 44,000 jars of honey (11 tonnes) in the past 12 months.
Rising awareness of the 'ground-breaking scheme'
Coming from all different walks of life, the three new Rowse Honey Bee a Beefarmer apprentices include Griff Tomos, 21 a part-time fireman from Wales; Stuart Weekes, 24 an ex-shop assistant from Chichester and Oli Port, 19 a school leaver from Lincoln.
The successful apprentices descended upon the UKs capital city to raise awareness of the ground-breaking scheme and call for more young people to get involved.
The new recruits were joined by Hannah Reeves and Phoebe Lamb who joined the first year of the scheme in 2015.
Last years apprenticeship scheme was a buzzing success and from hundreds of applicants across the UK, the three new apprentices have already started their training to help stem the decline of bee hives in the UK.
Its intended a further six apprentices will join the scheme during 2016, followed by another 10 in 2017 who have yet to be appointed.
Interested candidates can apply for the scheme via the Bee-a-Beefarmer section on the Rowse Honey website.
Stuart Weekes, 2016 Rowse Honey apprentice, comments: "Since joining the scheme Ive learnt so much.
"As well as on-the-job training, were able to do practical courses which are extremely beneficial when running your own bee farm, which is something I hope to do in the future. If you enjoy being outdoors and like bees, I cant recommend this scheme enough."
Ian Ainsworth, MD for Rowse Honey says: "Having officially launched the Bee a Beefarmer apprenticeship scheme last year, we received a fantastic response from the British public and hundreds of applications for our next wave of new recruits.
"Were delighted to now unveil our latest apprentices as we continue to boost UK honey bee numbers and future-proof bee farming in the UK.
"To date, the Rowse Honey Bee a Bee farmer scheme has added an extra 60 million honey bees to the British population, and by the end of the three year scheme were hoping this figure will be closer to a staggering 180 million.
"There continues to be a skills shortage and an aging profile in the bee farming industry. The number of commercial bee hives in the UK has declined by 73% over the last century, falling from one million hives in 1900 to less than 274,000 in 2015."
Eighth state in a 12-state tour
By Andrea Gal
Managing Editor, Integrated Media
Farms.com
The Farms.com Risk Management team visited North Dakota on day nine of the fifth annual U.S. Corn Belt Crop Tour.
Moe Agostino, Farms.com Risk Management chief commodity strategist, highlighted 90 per cent of North Dakotas land is occupied by farms.
The tour stopped to look at some canola fields as they approached Rugby, North Dakota. Agostino said about 60% of the crop is blooming, which places the crops progress ahead of last year.
A challenge for a number of farmers this year, according to Agostino, is weed pressure - particularly in beans, not so much in the corn. Farmers have identified the weed marestail (also known as horseweed), in particular, as troublesome.
Mark Rohrich of Ashley, North Dakota discussed another issue that seems common this year a lack of recent rainfall. There has been a 30 to 40 per cent chance (of rain) for days, said Rohrich, but the rain has passed us more than a few times. He stressed rains in July and early August, especially, will make or break our corn and soybeans.
In terms of staging, the corn was about knee high, which is typical for North Dakota this time of year.
As with South Dakota, Agostino ranked the North Dakota crop as average, with a score of 6 or 6.5 out of 10.
Be sure to check back daily as more videos from the tour are posted. The next stop on the tour is Minnesota.
Use the hashtag #cornbelt16 to follow the tour on social media.
Guatemalan will be deported when prison term ends
By Bill Brown
Farms.com Media
A man who smuggled Guatemalan teenagers into the U.S. and forced them to work on an Ohio egg farm was sentenced in Toledo last week to 15 years in prison.
Aroldo Castillo-Serrano and associate Conrado Salgado Soto had previously pleaded guilty to labor-trafficking and immigration offences, according to a report in The Marion Star. Ana Angelica Pedro-Juan, who ran the operation for Castillo-Serrano, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Another individual, Pablo Duran Jr., pleaded guilty to immigration offenses.
Back in December 2014 federal agents and local police took down the operation based in a trailer park near New Bloomington, rescuing some 35 young captives at the time.
According to court documents most of the trafficking occurred in 2013 and 2014.
Workers were forced to work 12-hour shifts, six or seven days a week, vaccinating and debeaking chickens, and cleaning coops.
They received little pay and in some cases were threatened that family members would be murdered if they did not cooperate.
Investigators said Castillo-Serrano and associates lured the workers with promises of education and employment in the U.S.
Eggs were sold to Trillium Farms have explained they were unaware of the legal infractions. The company markets over two billion eggs a year at various locations around Ohio.
PRESTAGE FOODS OF IOWA ANNOUNCES SITE FOR PORK PROCESSING PLANT
From Prestage Farms.
Eagle Grove, IA, July 5, 2016 Prestage Foods of Iowa, LLC today named Wright County for its new, state-of-the-art pork processing facility.
We are investing in Iowa and specifically Wright County because we believe this plant is good for Iowa, good for agriculture and a good step forward for our family-owned and run business, says Ron Prestage, DVM, on behalf of the Prestage family. Iowa is the nations leading pork producing state and currently produces more pigs than it can process. This plant will keep the value from processing pigs in this state.
Prestage Foods of Iowa, LLC
The plant will be a $43 million boost to the payroll in Wright County, and will have economic benefits to the surrounding counties as well. More than 900 new full-time jobs will be created with the lowest paid workers beginning at more than $37,000 per year plus full benefits. Average wages at the plant are expected to be more than $47,000.
We are excited to have Prestage Foods of Iowa construct their first pork processing plant in Wright County, says Bryce Davis, Wright County Economic Development Director. Agriculture is important to this county and to our state and we welcome the more than 900 new jobs and $240 million investment in this area. After discussions with the Iowa Economic Development Authority, the Wright County Board of Supervisors, local business owners, community organizations, regional partners, schools, and healthcare providers, we believe the plant will be an extremely positive addition to our community.
Prestage Farms has been raising pigs in Iowa for more than a decade and today is located in 30 Iowa counties. The company plans to buy 40 percent of the hogs for the plant from independent farmers, creating a new market option for those farmers.
Prestage fits well with Iowa because, like so many Iowans, our roots are in agriculture and we value our families and communities. Our commitment to local communities and our care for the environment and being good neighbors will continue, says Scott Prestage.
The new plant will use state-of-the-art systems to clean the air, reduce water and energy needs, and provide a safe work environment. For example, the plant will use the most modern air scrubbing technology and incorporate a water reuse program, which reduces the overall needs for water and wastewater treatment. The plant will utilize the latest innovations in processing and automation technology to help ensure that it is a world leader in food, employee and environmental safety.
We value our culture of care and concern for individuals. In our turkey processing plant that started in 2004, we have many employees that have been with us for more than a decade, says John Prestage. Our family and managers are in the plants, and employees are cross trained within departments and rotate through departments, which has been key to providing a positive work environment and we plan to do the same in the new pork processing plant.
Construction is set to begin in the fall of 2016, pending finalization of county and state approvals, with completion and first shift operations beginning in mid-2018. Initially operating one shift, the plant will employ more than 900 people with a total capital investment of more than $240 million.
For more information, visit www.prestagefoodsofiowa.com.
Prestage Farms, Inc. is a multi-generational family-owned and operated business started by Bill and Marsha Prestage in 1983. Mr. and Mrs. Prestage, along with their three sons, still own and actively operate this multifaceted business. Today, Prestage Farms, along with its affiliates, is a Top 5 producer of quality pork and turkey that employs more than 2,000 people company-wide, contracts with more than 450 farm families in seven states, and produces more than 1 billion pounds of meat annually. Prestage Farms, Inc. is headquartered in Clinton, NC, and has operations in Iowa, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Oklahoma.
"One of the arguments from pro-GM groups is that it is about having a choice to grow what they want. I would say it is the same argument for organic farmers that they also want the choice to grow without contamination," she said.
As reported in Farm Weekly in early June, current Brownes managing director Tony Girgis has told the four their contracts would not be renewed when they expire on September 30 and their milk would not be collected after that date.
"This will unlock a 20 per cent yield advantage in hybrid ryegrass varieties and also make it easier for plant breeders to use genomic selection and add novel endophytes (fungi which extend pasture life by up to a year or 15pc) in new pasture varieties."
"What this decision last week means is that we have decided that no one in WA is capable of making the decision on growing GM crops in our State and we are referring the decision to a bureaucrat in Canberra," Mr West said.
The Kennedy MP has also indicated he and the NXT would seek stronger protections for Australian manufacturing industries but said he would "spit upon" any offer to be the speaker in the House of Representatives.
Ms Copeland said if more regulation had been put in place for those growing GM crops when the permit order was signed in 2010 then cases such as Baxter vs Marsh may not have happened and co-existence between organic and GM growing farming practices could have been less acrimonious.
Fort Bragg to be known as Fort Liberty. Here's what to know.
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The Lead
The directors behind Netflixs hit series Making a Murderer have announced a new project tackling pharma corruption. The story will be based on Steven Brills Huffington Post contributions relating to Johnson & Johnson and Risperidal.
The Big Picture
Intermediaries are the target of a new TI report on the international arms trade, a la Fat Leonard. 53 percent of United States export markets of arms have a high to critical risk of corruption.
Deutsche Bank paid $6 million in fines for failing to provide complete and accurate trade data to FINRA and the SEC. This is the largest-ever SEC fine for blue sheet violations.
Macau billionaire and real estate developer Ng Lap Seng is standing trial for allegedly bribing deceased UNs General Assembly John Ashe, but is facing new charges related to a paperless event where his company provided 64GB iPads to UN Development Program officials.
In 2015, over 22 percent of Bulgarians took part in corrupt practices. Experts are concerned because back in 2011, it was 9.3 percent.
Brazilian police arrested five in connection with the giant Petrobras corruption scandal. Operation Car Wash revealed rigged public auctions held by the state-run oil company where police allege contractors paid at least $12 million to secure bids.
The Blogs
Three ex-Barclays traders were convicted in the London LIBOR trial, including American citizen Alex Julian Pabon. The FCPA Blog reviews the history and status of the SFO and DOJ investigations.
Its more than just tone at the top, corporate compliance means setting realistic goals, according to Tom Fox.
Michael Volkov hates to pick on lawyers, but sometimes they get in the way of compliance.
FCPA Today and the FCPA Blog are published by Recathlon LLC, a leading business publisher serving over 2.3 million readers annually.
Frances Bean Cobain has accused her estranged husband of stealing her late father Kurt Cobain's $1 million guitar.
Frances Bean Cobain and Isaiah Silva in 2015
The 23-year-old visual artist has demanded her former lover Isaiah Silva, whom she married in 2014, give back the Nirvana frontman's instrument following their split in March.
Isaiah has claimed in legal documents, obtained by TMZ, that Frances gifted him the guitar, which Kurt used during the band's MTV Unplugged gig in 1993, as a wedding present but she has denied this allegation and now wants the iconic instrument back in her care.
However, the estranged pair aren't just rowing over the guitar as they're also squabbling over the money they think they're entitled to following the demise of their 21-month marriage.
Frances gained access to a trust fund in August 2010 when she turned 18 which is said to have included 37 per cent of her late father's estate, following his suicide in 1994 aged 27, and she's adamant the musician won't get his hands on any of the cash, although she will pay spousal support.
Frances married the Eeries rocker in a secret ceremony in June 2014 but things came crashing down shortly afterwards and the raven-haired beauty filed for divorce four months ago.
The pair, who don't have any children together, had been dating five years, four if which they were engaged for, before they got hitched away from the limelight.
Meanwhile, it's believes Frances is probably leaning on her mother Courtney Love for support throughout her divorce after they recently reconciled following a number of years of estrangement.
A source said at the time: "Courtney and Frances have had a strained relationship over the years, but after tons of fallouts they actually get on quite well now.
"Courtney is sad she wasn't there [when Frances married Isaiah] but she totally understands that Frances is her own person and she's happy to let her do her own thing."
Victoria Beckham has given her support to a campaign film which aims to empower women.
Victoria Beckham
The 42-year-old fashion designer - who has Brooklyn, 17, Romeo, 13, Cruz, 11, and Harper, four, with her husband David Beckham - has urged her fans to share the goals they "really really want" to be achieved to improve their lives across the world.
She said: "I think this film is a wonderful idea. How fabulous it is that after 20 years, the legacy of the Spice Girls - 'Girl Power' - is being used to encourage and empower a whole new generation."
The mother-of-four is encouraging all young people to share their ideals by using the hashtag #WhatIReallyReallyWant, inspired by The Spice Girls hit song 'Wannabe', which was released 20 years ago.
Fellow Spice Girl Mel C wrote on Twitter: "Flattered and honoured that our crazy song is being used so beautifully @theglobalgoals #WhatIReallyReallyWant (sic)"
Whilst celebrity chef Jamie Oliver added: "#WhatIReallyReallyWant is total equality for girls and women @theglobalgoals (sic)"
Emma Watson - who is a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador - wrote: "#WhatIReallyReallyWant is to see Goal 5 - Gender Equality achieved @TheGlobalGoals (sic)"
To watch Global Goals campaign's full video, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZQ2RUFd54o&feature=youtu.be
Zoe Saldana thinks Idris Elba is "one of the sexiest men alive".
Zoe Saldana
The 38-year-old actress believes the 'Jungle Book' actor is the perfect person to take over from Daniel Craig as iconic British spy James Bond and admits even her husband Marco Perego - the father of her twin sons Bowie and Cy, 19 months - agrees with her assessment of the hunky star.
She said: "I think Idris should have been Bond a long time ago...why wouldn't [he] be Bond?
"I love him and adore him and honestly believe that he is one of the sexiest men alive - and my husband won't mind me saying that because, trust me, he agrees with me."
Zoe returns as Uhura in 'Star Trek Beyond' and thinks the time is right for the franchise to start including more raunchy scenes.
She told the forthcoming August issue of Britain's Glamour magazine: "Yeah! I would love that. I mean, it's logical to assume that people have sex in space, right?"
Elsewhere in the interview, the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' star spoke of her hopes that her sons can grow up in a world without gender or cultural restrictions.
She said: "I want my boys to grow up in a world where there are no gender differences to speak of.
"Not everything should come down to the fact that you're a man or a woman, or this colour or from this culture."
Zoe recently revealed she used to think it was "cool" being the only women on a film set but has now realised it is boring.
She said: "Part of growing up for me has been realizing that being the only female in a cast is no longer the coolest thing. It's lonely.
"I used to love it because I thought, Ooh, I got in! I'm a cool girl! But while all the guys were flexing and talking about their motorcycles, I was sitting there wishing I had women around."
Sir John Chilcot has today finally given his report into the Iraq War which started in March, 2003, concluding that there was no need for the United Kingdom to go to war at the time.
Tony Blair
In his statement he said: "Military action in Iraq might have been necessary at some point. But in March 2003; There was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein; The strategy of containment could have been adapted and continued for some time; The majority of the Security Council supported continuing UN inspections and monitoring.
He added: "Military intervention elsewhere may be required in the future. A vital purpose of the Inquiry is to identify what lessons should be learned from experience in Iraq."
Noting that lessons can be learnt from the mistakes made, he said: "Above all, the lesson is that all aspects of any intervention need to be calculated, debated and challenged with the utmost rigour.
"And, when decisions have been made, they need to be implemented fully. Sadly, neither was the case in relation to the UK Government's actions in Iraq."
Speaking about casualties caused by the war, he explained: "The invasion and subsequent instability in Iraq had, by July 2009, also resulted in the deaths of at least one hundred and fifty thousand Iraqis - and probably many more - most of them civilians. More than a million people were displaced. The people of Iraq have suffered greatly."
He also said how more than 200 British citizens had died as a result of the conflict, with many more injured: "This has meant deep anguish for many families".
"Service personnel, civilians who deployed to Iraq and Iraqis who worked for the UK, showed great courage in the face of considerable risks. They deserve our gratitude and respect."
Sir Chilcot also paid tribute to Sir Martin Gilbert who passed away last year, who he said "brought a unique perspective to our work until he became ill in April 2012".
by Daniel Falconer for www.femalefirst.co.uk
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Oscar Pistorius has today (June 6) been sentenced to six years in prison for the murder of Reeva Steenkamp, in a sentencing handed down by Judge Thokozile Masipa - the same woman who handled his original trial.
Oscar Pistorius
Summing up the case, Judge Masipa admitted no sentence she passed would be able to please all parties, before recapping the evidence handed over by the defence.
Though the minimum sentence in South Africa for murder is 15 years imprisonment, Judge Masipa had the authority to reduce or suspend part of the sentence if there were reasons deemed "substantial and compelling".
The six year sentence comes after his initial manslaughter conviction was changed to murder in December 2015 following an appeal by the prosecution.
Dr Jonathan Scholtz, a witness for the defence had argued during proceedings that Pistorius should not return to jail as he's suffering from "major depression".
State prosecutor Gerrie Nel argued against this, noting that Pistorius had fitness of mind enough to give a television interview which was broadcast on ITV earlier this year.
Pistorius shot Reeva Steenkamp four times through a locked bathroom door in February, 2013, and has always maintained that he did not know it was his former girlfriend who stood on the opposite side.
by Daniel Falconer for www.femalefirst.co.uk
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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have been invited to visit Canada with their children.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with Prince George and Prince Charlotte
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent a letter to the royals, asking them to consider an official trip to Canada with their young children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte.
Andree-Lyne Halle, a press secretary for the Prime Minister's Office said: "A letter of invitation was sent to their royal highnesses.
"The PM has invited them to come to Canada whenever their schedule permits it [but] there are no confirmed dates for the moment."
Prince William and Duchess Catherine previously enjoyed a nine-day tour of Canada in 2011, not long after their wedding.
They visited seven cities and five provinces and included a stop in Ottawa to mark Canada Day on Parliament Hill.
However, the couple have not made a trip to Canada since becoming parents to George, two and Charlotte, 14 months.
The couple enjoyed an official excursion to India and Bhutan in April and before their visit it was revealed that they had planned to use Skype to keep in touch with their kids, who remained at home with their nanny Maria Turrion Borrallo.
Sarah Dixon, a maternity nurse who has worked with friends of the couple, said at the time: "They will keep in touch with Skype, and I'm sure Maria will do a diary for them while they are away with pictures and photos, any moments they might have missed. She will know that while they are away, the parents need extra reassurance."
Sweden's Princess Sofia says motherhood has changed her "whole life".
Princess Sofia and Prince Carl Philip
The royal welcomed son Prince Alexander with husband Prince Carl Philip on April 19 and while the pair have admitted that parenthood is "an adjustment", they could not be happier.
Sofia told Sweden's Svenskdam magazine: "Being a mother is amazing. It changes your whole life."
And Carl added: "The first time does take some adjustment. But it's still absolutely amazing and wonderful."
Meanwhile, Sofia revealed Alexander is "very sweet and well-behaved" and sleeps "pretty well" at night.
She said that he changes every day and is a "mixture of us both!"
Alexander will be christened on September 9 at Stockholm's Royal Chapel and last month the couple celebrated their first wedding anniversary.
The 36-year-old prince married the former reality star, 31, in Stockholm last June, and after a lavish honeymoon in Fiji, the brunette beauty fell pregnant with the couple's first child.
During his wedding speech, the prince recalled to guests how he had driven to see Sofia's father, who works in a job centre, to ask permission to propose and thanked her family for their support.
He also hailed the former model as his "role model" and praised the citizens of Sweden for accepting their union.
He said: "We never chose the tough way - it chose us.
"You fill my life with love and happiness. Today we prove that love conquers all.
"Sofia - you've enriched our family. Your family has received me with equally open arms. I've got another family."
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According to a BSE regulatory filing, the Indian business of Forever 21, a US fashion brand, has been acquired by Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited (ABFRL) for more than Rs 175 crore.ABFRL has also been appointed as the exclusive franchisee for the Forever 21 brand in India and will operate Forever 21 retail outlets and also carry out online retailing in the country
According to a BSE regulatory filing, the Indian business of Forever 21, a US fashion brand, has been acquired by Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited (ABFRL) for more than Rs 175 crore. ABFRL has also been appointed as the exclusive franchisee for the Forever 21 brand in India and will operate Forever 21 retail outlets and also carry out #
For its Indian operations, Forever 21 earlier had a franchisee agreement with Diana Retail, promoted by DLF Brands and operates 12 brick and mortar stores in the country.Diana Retail reported a turnover of Rs 213 crore in fiscal 2014-15, double over fiscal 2013-14 and Rs 262 crore in fiscal 2015-16.In the filing, ABFRL said that Forever 21 will be a part of the Madura Fashion and Lifestyle Division of the company.Forever 21, is a fashion brand targeted at teens and young adults and mainly deals in fashion clothing and garment accessories. (AR)
Fibre2fashion News Desk - India
Chinese investment company Fosun International has added another fashion label to its portfolio with the acquisition of French apparel brand Iro. According to media reports, the founders of Iro brothers Laurent and Arik Bitton will retain a 40 per cent stake. Fosun International has acquired the 25 per cent stake owned by the Marciano family, founder of Guess Group, along with the remaining shares, making the Chinese company a major shareholder of Iro.The deal is valued at about 130 million euros.
Chinese investment company Fosun International has added another fashion label to its portfolio with the acquisition of French apparel brand Iro. According to media reports, the founders of Iro brothers Laurent and Arik Bitton will retain a 40 per cent stake. Fosun International has acquired the 25 per cent stake owned by the Marciano #
Iro was founded by the Bitton brothers in Paris in 2004 and the brand added a men's clothing series in 2011. Iro has many loyal fans, including super models and fashion bloggers like Kate Moss, Rosie Huntington, Gigi Hadid, and Aimee Song.With annual sales of about 60 million euros, Iro's stores have reached several capital cities, including Paris, New York, London, and Rome. At present, the company has seven stores in France and 25 stores outside France, including four owned stores in the US which is reportedly its largest market with sales ratio up to 50 per cent. In addition, Iro has over 40 counters in high-end department stores.Fosun is a Chinese company with diversified operations, including fashion and retailing. It is also the owner of the well-known French resort group Club Med. The company and its management funds have invested in many overseas consumer brands, including Greek fashion brand group Folli Follie, American high-end women's clothing brand St. John, Italian high-end custom men's clothing Caruso, and German fashion lifestyle major Tom Tailor. (SH)
Fibre2Fashion News Desk India
Moody's Investors Service says that India's (Baa3 positive) GDP growth over the next two years will be challenged by lackluster global demand and high leverage in some corporate sectors."Growth will be adversely affected by high leverage of some large corporates also weighs on credit demand, while impaired assets in the banking system negatively affect credit supply," says Marie Diron, a Moody's Senior Vice President and Manager.By contrast, India's medium-term potential will be supported by the gradual implementation of further targeted policy reforms, thereby improving the business environment, state of infrastructure and productivity growth.As for whether or not Brexit will affect India's financial markets, Moody's says that any effects will be limited because exports to the UK and the rest of the European Union account for 0.4 per cent and 1.7 per cent of India's GDP respectively. In addition, India is not significantly exposed to a potential sharp fall in capital flows to emerging markets.Moody's analysis is contained in its latest edition of Inside India, a quarterly publication that looks at major credit trends in India. The publication also notes that India has acquired energy assets in Russia (Ba1 negative) to enhance the country's energy security.
Specifically, India's national oil companies (NOCs)Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. (ONGC, FC:Baa2 stable, LC: Baa1 stable), Oil India Limited (OIL, Baa2 stable), Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOC, Baa3 positive), and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL, Baa3 positive)signed agreements with OJSC Oil Company Rosneft (Rosneft, Ba1 negative) to acquire upstream oil and gas assets in Russia.
The Indian NOCs have announced four deals, which together will result in the NOCs owning a 49.9 per cent stake in Rosneft's Vankor field, and a 29.9 per cent stake in Rosneft's Tass-Yuryakh field. Moody's estimates that the combined value of the deals will total about $5.5 billion, based on recently concluded transactions for the same fields.
The assets can potentially provide the NOCs with an additional crude oil production of 225-250 thousand barrels per day (kbpd), which would be equivalent to about 34-38 per cent of India's total domestic oil production of 664 kbpd for the fiscal year ended March 2016 (fiscal 2016). The acquisitions will more than double India's overseas oil & gas production of 194 kbpd reported in fiscal 2016.
According to the report, India's relaxation of foreign investment rules is credit positive. It also says that consolidation of public sector banks will face challenges under current conditions.
The analysis says that when it comes to securitization, new regulations will pave the way for the market's transformation and improve creditor rights while the new bankruptcy code will boost bargaining power of creditors. (SH)
Fibre2Fashion News Desk India
As Vietnam's textile sector looks to upgrade its technology, Germany's VDMA Textile Machinery Association showcased its latest textile and apparel machineries at an event in Hanoi, attended by more than 600 business representatives and experts from Vietnam's textile and support industries.The event, held by the VDMA, with support from the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS), provided an opportunity for companies to make contact, exchange information and establish a mutually beneficial co-operation, said Truong Van C?m, VITAS deputy
As Vietnam's textile sector looks to upgrade its technology, Germany's VDMA Textile Machinery Association showcased its latest textile and apparel machineries at an event in Hanoi, attended by more than 600 business representatives and experts from Vietnam's textile and support industries.The event, held by the VDMA, with support from the #
chairman, the Vietnam News has reported.Although its cost is high, German machinery is of top quality, said C?m.However, if Vietnamese textile enterprises want to develop modern technology, they should co-operate with high-technology providers to catch up with global quality and labour productivity," he added.The deputy chairman also said that a large scale of technology in Vietnam's textile and apparel industry needed to be replaced to improve quality, especially those supplying clothing for garment exports.Due to the recently signed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Vietnam is increasingly becoming a much preferred textile manufacturing location by companies worldwide, said Thomas Waldmann, managing director of the VDMA Textile Machinery Association.TPP will reduce 18,000 tariffs. Vietnam is almost a sole supplier of textiles among the TPP member countries and an important supplier of textiles and garment to big consumer markets like the US. The country is seeking to leverage that opportunity and a technology upgrade could help achieve its targets.Textile and garment exports from Vietnam to TPP markets are expected to grow by more than 10 per cent this year.Vietam is a very important market in the area of textile, there is a need for Vietnamese textile industry to invest to modernise the technology and machinery. German companies and VMAD member companies are leading in this area, and that is the reason we are here, said Boris Abadjieff, director of Exhibition and Export Marketing under the VDMA.Phi Ng?c Tr?nh, deputy director of the H? Guom Garment JSC, said the forum was a good opportunity for Vietnamese businesses as the country was integrating further and deeper into global markets with many trade agreements, including TPP, as well as the Vietnam-EU free trade agreement. (SH)
Fibre2Fashion News Desk India
Textile bodies like the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) and Tirupur Exporters' Association (TEA) have congratulated Smriti Irani on her appointment as the Union textiles minister.
Textile bodies like the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) and Tirupur Exporters' Association (TEA) have congratulated Smriti Irani on her appointment as the Union textiles minister. CITI, the apex industry chamber of textiles in India representing the entire value chain, congratulates Smriti Irani on her appointment as Union textiles minister#
CITI, the apex industry chamber of textiles in India representing the entire value chain, congratulates Smriti Irani on her appointment as Union textiles minister. CITI welcomes Irani and assures all support and co-operation to her efforts to create maximum jobs and enhance the growth of the textile industry, CITI secretary general Binoy Job said.
Textile bodies like the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) and Tirupur Exporters' Association (TEA) have congratulated Smriti Irani on her appointment as the Union textiles minister. CITI, the apex industry chamber of textiles in India representing the entire value chain, congratulates Smriti Irani on her appointment as Union textiles minister#
CITI chairman Naishadh Parikh and other office bearers, Mukund Choudhary and J Thulasidharan too welcomed the appointment of Irani.
Textile bodies like the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) and Tirupur Exporters' Association (TEA) have congratulated Smriti Irani on her appointment as the Union textiles minister. CITI, the apex industry chamber of textiles in India representing the entire value chain, congratulates Smriti Irani on her appointment as Union textiles minister#
In a letter sent to Irani, TEA president A Sakthivel said, We would like to congratulate yourselves for assuming office as Union minister of textiles and with your latent talent coupled with grasping the issues expediently will be certainly helpful to address the issues and to come out with new strategies for the growth of textile industry which provides more employment next to agriculture in our country .
Textile bodies like the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) and Tirupur Exporters' Association (TEA) have congratulated Smriti Irani on her appointment as the Union textiles minister. CITI, the apex industry chamber of textiles in India representing the entire value chain, congratulates Smriti Irani on her appointment as Union textiles minister#
The letter also requested Irani to help in announcement of the guidelines and procedures to follow and avail the required benefit from the recently announced special package for the garment sector.
Textile bodies like the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) and Tirupur Exporters' Association (TEA) have congratulated Smriti Irani on her appointment as the Union textiles minister. CITI, the apex industry chamber of textiles in India representing the entire value chain, congratulates Smriti Irani on her appointment as Union textiles minister#
With your invaluable support, positive approach and guidance, we are confident that we could fulfill the aim of prime minister, to reach the envisaged export target (garment) of $30 billion from $17 billion in next three years and also provide the employment to one crore people, mainly to women workers, the letter read.
Textile bodies like the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) and Tirupur Exporters' Association (TEA) have congratulated Smriti Irani on her appointment as the Union textiles minister. CITI, the apex industry chamber of textiles in India representing the entire value chain, congratulates Smriti Irani on her appointment as Union textiles minister#
TEA has also sent a congratulatory letter to Ajay Tamta on his appointment as Union minister of state for textiles. Smriti Irani, a member of Rajya Sabha and former president of BJP Mahila Morcha, headed the ministry of HRD since Narendra Modi led government took office in May, 2014. She has been given the charge of textiles ministry at a time when the prime minister has set his focus on the textiles sector for creating few crore jobs in the next three years. (RKS)
Textile bodies like the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) and Tirupur Exporters' Association (TEA) have congratulated Smriti Irani on her appointment as the Union textiles minister. CITI, the apex industry chamber of textiles in India representing the entire value chain, congratulates Smriti Irani on her appointment as Union textiles minister#
Fibre2Fashion News Desk India
The Turkish textiles and apparel sectors are hopeful that normalisation of ties with Russia will increase trade with Moscow. Bilateral relations between the two countries had practically frozen after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter aircraft in November 2015.Laleli Industrialists and Businessmen Association (LASIAD) President Giyasettin Eyyupkoca told Turkey's Anadolu Agency that Turkey was a really good producer, and Russia a very good consumer. He stressed that the two countries have been partners for nearly 25 years.
The Turkish textiles and apparel sectors are hopeful that normalisation of ties with Russia will increase trade with Moscow. Bilateral relations between the two countries had practically frozen after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter aircraft in November 2015. Laleli Industrialists and Businessmen Association (LASIAD) President Gyasettin #
Indicating Turkey's shared interests with Russia, Eyyupkoca said: "We knew that the problem with Russia would not last too long. The steps taken towards the normalisation of the relations are quite healthy and positive. The greatest love sees fighting. Our relations with Russia sit on a firm basis, and I can say that relations between us will be healthier, and commerce will be along international norms."Stating that steps towards normalisation would directly contribute to the textile and apparel trade among other sectors, Eyyupkoca foresees an increase in apparel sales of 15-20 per cent over the short term.Istanbul Apparel Exporters' Association (IHKIB) President Hikmet Tanriverdi said the apparel sales played an important part in economic relations between Turkey and Russia, and was among the sectors most affected by the cooling in relations. "We aim to rapidly move up to our former position in relation to the recoveries in economy along with the new period. Starting from 2017, we expect exports of between $400 million to $500 million."Recalling that during the 2009 global crisis, Turkey exported $182 million worth of apparel to Russia, a number that reached $412 million in 2013, Tanriverdi said Russia was one of Turkey's top ten markets, but the problems emerging in the Russian economy and problems in bilateral relations had caused export to slide back to where it was six to seven years ago, dropping to $204 million for 2015. Tanriverdi said apparel exports to Russia during the first five months of 2016 hit $45 million, marking 49.5 per cent of Turkey's apparel exports.Russian Federation National Security Academy Foreign Economic Relations Vice President Talat Enver Cetin said he believed the relations between Turkey and Russia would continue and strengthen in the coming period. (SH)
Fibre2Fashion News Desk India
Nargis Fakhri and Uday chopra, have separated a few months ago and it looks like Nargis is finding it really hard to forget the past and move on. It is reported that Nargis Fakhri is not able to cope up with the reality and is finding it extremely difficult to come to terms with it.
All this has added pressure on the film-makers of Banjo, as Nargis Fakhri, refused to co-operate for a particular shoot, and has left the producers in a tight spot.
As per a report from SpotboyE, Banjo's director Ravi Jadhav had contacted Nargis Fakhri for a song sequence to be shot in Mumbai, and Nargis, refused to fly down. After a lot of pleading from the director, the actress still didn't budge and Rajiv, had no other option but to fly to New York to shoot the song sequence there.
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However, Rajiv Jadhav denied these claims and was quoted as saying, "Well, I have completed Nargis' portions in NY and I think I am done with her part. But, the shoot was never scheduled to happen in Mumbai. It was originally scheduled for NY, and NY it was."
The director further commented, "I am pretty sure that Nargis will come down to Mumbai to dub for her scenes."
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Well, going by the comments from Rajiv Jadhav, it clearly shows that there was no tiff between the two in the first place, but the reports state otherwise. Whatever it might be, we hope Nargis Fakhri will complete the shoot of Banjo successfully, and we're all eagerly waiting for the movie to be released.
Banjo, stars Nargis Fakhri and Riteish Deshmukh and is slated to hit the theatres on September 23, 2016.
Sultan Special! 20 Rare & Unseen Pictures Of Salman Khan That Would Make Your Jaws Drop
Just a few weeks ago, Udta Punjab was leaked online by pirates with the 'censor copy' printed on it and now it looks like Salman Khan starrer Sultan has been leaked online by miscreants with the same 'censor copy' printed on it.
Accordng to Cyber Crime experts, it is reported that Sultan has been leaked online in Darknet and has not reached the torrents websites yet.
The Daily Mail, has quoted two Cyber Crime officials, "The leak is confirmed. The copy of the movie is available on Darknet and soon it will be available on torrent," says Deep Shankar, a cyber crime expert.
Sultan Special! 20 Rare & Unseen Pictures Of Salman Khan That Would Make Your Jaws Drop
The Daily Mail, also quoted another cyber crime investigator Kislay Choudary as, "Many websites have been blocked since Tuesday evening and links are removed immediately after uploads."
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However, some Cyber Crime investigators claim that the film was not leaked online, and only the trailer has been morphed and is being circulated online. It is also reported that another crime sleuth has shared screenshots of Sultan, just so that the media can be aware of the illegal leak of the film.
20 Pictures Of Riya Sen That Would Make You 'Sit & Stare' At Her!
Also Yash Raj Films, have denied all information regarding the film Sultan being leaked online, and have not come out in public crying foul about the issue.
We really hope Sultan would not end up being available for free on torrent websites, and we advise people to walk in to the theatres and watch the movie. Piracy is a crime and it kills the artists and the people who were involved into making this film.
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Sultan, starring Salman Khan and Anushka Sharma is out now and released on July 6, 2016.
Director Majid Abu, whose film Pudhusa Naan Porandhen (PNP), which releases in cinemas this Friday (July 8), has said his film is late actor Kalabhavan Mani's last in Tamil.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle about the actor's awe-inspiring commitment, he has said:
"Mani sir's portions were shot in Kodaikanal. While shooting for a crucial sequence where Mani sir was to come out of a water tank and fight the baddies, he was suffering from high fever. I wanted the shoot to be called off and rescheduled. For his stature, he could have easily taken a break.
However, being the dedicated actor that he was, he did not want to put the unit in trouble and completed the day's shoot. We were touched by his gesture. This was his last acting role in Tamil. It is painful that he is no more when 'PNP' is hitting the cinema halls on July 8th."
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The Kawach actor, Vivek Dahiya, will soon leave to Chandigarh from where the baraat will go to Bhopal on July 8. The actor has started attending guests.
Apparently, Vivek studied in the US and a lot of friends from the States are likely to attend the wedding. He shared a picture snapped with his friend and wrote, "Cardiff se aaya mera dost, dost ko salaam karo! @iamrayhill #FriendsForLifeAndBeyond."
Pankaj Bhatia, who plays the role of Bala on Yeh Hai Mohabbatein, posted a video clipping of him dancing and wrote, "Hehehehehe..... coming to u bro... @vivekdahiya08 @divyankatripathi."
Apparently, Yeh Hai Mohabbatein's actor Karan Patel and his actress-wife Ankita Bhargava will be attending the wedding reception.
Sweety Walia shared a picture snapped with Divyanka and wrote, "#mehndihairachnewali #bride#wedding #princess All d very best @divyankatripathi for your beautiful life ahead . May God bless you with all u desire love u so much ." Although, we are not sure if this picture is taken fresh from her mehndi ceremony, we assume, the actress will be glowing the same way as in picture on her special day!
Nilesh, who designed the bride's outfit, was quoted by Dailybhaskar as saying, "Divyanka was looking for a lehenga which looks elegant and traditional. She was very clear about what she wanted for her wedding. So, when she entered our store - Kalki; within 10 minutes she had her lehenga in her hand. The design and color which she was looking for; she got it in our store. We just had to work little bit on her blouse design as she wanted to keep it simple. The lady will be wearing a maroon colored velvet lehenga with a pink colored dupatta."
LATEST UPDATE: You Can't Get Over These PICS: Divyanka Tripathi Looks Pretty In Pink Dress At The Mehndi Ceremony!
He further added, "Divyanka has chosen a purple colored gown for her reception in Chandigardh. She wanted to have a western look for her reception. And I am pretty sure that her fans will be surprised to see her in this western outfit. During her trial, she was looking like a doll."
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JZ Capital Partners Ltd
JZCP ACQUIRES PRIME DEVELOPMENT SITE IN WYNWOOD, MIAMI
20 September 2016
JZ Capital Partners Limited (LSE:JZCP.L or "JZCP"), the London listed fund that invests in US and European micro-cap companies and US real estate, alongside its long-term real estate partner, RedSky Capital, LLC ("RedSky"), has acquired 2700 NW 2nd Avenue, a new property in the Wynwood neighbourhood of Miami, Florida.
The purchase price was $30.8 million, of which JZCP provided $12.9 million.
JZCP and RedSky plan to develop two Class-A buildings with ground floor retail, several floors of office space and below grade parking.
This property adds to JZCP's previous investments in Miami's Wynwood neighbourhood: 2407 NW 2nd Avenue and 2621 NW 2nd Avenue (which closed in the first quarter of 2015); 2501 NW 5th Avenue (which closed in the second quarter of 2015); 222-234 NW 24th Street (which closed in the fourth quarter of 2015); and 2200 NW 1st Avenue (which closed in the first quarter of 2016).
David Zalaznick, JZCP's Founder and Investment Adviser, commented: "This asset is a unique opportunity to purchase one of the last premier development sites in prime Wynwood, and we are delighted to add this property to our growing real estate portfolio in South Florida."
Ends
For further information:
Ed Berry / Kit Dunford +44 (0) 20 3727 1143 FTI Consulting David Zalaznick +1 212 485 9410 Jordan/Zalaznick Advisers, Inc. Paul Le Ray +44 (0) 1481 745815 JZ Capital Partners
About JZCP
JZCP is a London listed fund which invests in US and European micro-cap companies and US real estate. Its objective is to achieve an overall return comprised of a current yield and capital appreciation. JZCP receives investment advice from Jordan/Zalaznick Advisers, Inc. ("JZAI") which is led by David Zalaznick and Jay Jordan. They have worked together for 30 years and are supported by teams of investment professionals in New York, Chicago, London and Madrid. JZAI's experts work with the existing management of micro-cap companies to help build better businesses, create value and deliver strong returns for investors. JZCP also invests in mezzanine loans, first and second lien investments and other publicly traded securities. For more information please visit www.jzcp.com
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Ventas Inc. (VTR) announced the pricing of an underwritten public offering of 9.00 million shares of its common stock for total estimated gross proceeds of approximately $649 million. The underwriter has a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,350,000 shares from the Company. Settlement is expected to occur on July 11, 2016. All of the shares will be issued under the Company's existing shelf registration statement. The company noted that it intends to use the net proceeds from the offering to fund a portion of the $1.5 billion purchase price of its pending acquisition of the real estate portfolio of Wexford Science & Technology, LLC. If the pending acquisition is not completed, the Company intends to use the net proceeds for working capital and other general corporate purposes, including to fund pending or future acquisitions and investments and to repay indebtedness. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
PALO ALTO, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Symphony EYC, a global leader in delivering ROI for retailers and manufacturers using customer insights to drive execution, has announced the acquisition of Metiri Mensus, a merchandising and category management services and solutions provider with offices in Sydney, Australia and Auckland, New Zealand. With the integration of Metiri Mensus business and staff into its APAC operations, Symphony GOLD extends its ability to support existing business while positioning itself for continued growth in the region.
Established in 1994, Metiri Mensus Pty Limited is recognized throughout Australia and New Zealand as experts in merchandising and retail space planning. As the exclusive regional distributors of the Symphony GOLD Merchandising and Category Management solutions, Metiri Mensus helps customers including Super Retail Group, Fonterra Brands, The Warehouse and Lion - Beer, Spirits, Wines, Australia optimize assortments and category space to improve business performance.
"The Metiri Mensus team is very excited by today's announcement," said Alan Pengelly, the owner and CEO of Metiri Mensus who will remain as a Director of the regional business. "As the sole distributor in the region we have enjoyed a very successful close working relationship with the Symphony GOLD team for many years. Our customers will now benefit from the combined resources, expertise and broader solution offering this acquisition provides, helping them achieve greater business results."
The acquisition follows the opening of operations in Shanghai and Singapore that together with Symphony GOLD's Bangkok office support more than 100 customers across the APAC region, including Big C in Thailand, The BodyShop in Indonesia and CityMart in Myanmar.
In addition, Symphony GOLD announced that European Sales Executive Nicolas Cron has been appointed Asia Pacific Strategic Sales Director and relocated to Bangkok. In this new role, Cron will bring additional retail knowledge and expertise to the regional organization and further support the introduction of Symphony GOLD's broad suite of Customer Engagement, Merchandising & Category Management, Supply Chain and Retail Operations solutions to the large base of Symphony GOLD clients and partners.
"The team at Metiri Mensus is known locally as experts and leaders in merchandising and retail space planning. With a wealth of knowledge and experience in selling and implementing the Symphony GOLD Merchandising and Category Management solutions they will be a great addition to our team," said Graeme Cooksley, President and CEO, Symphony GOLD. "Along with the opening of new operations and Nicolas' relocation, this acquisition accelerates our growth in Asia Pacific, providing the opportunity to broaden the footprint of Symphony GOLD solutions and services offered in this important region."
About Symphony EYC
Symphony EYC is a strategic partner to more than 1000 retailers, manufacturers and wholesalers worldwide, offering sophisticated customer analysis services and the industry-leading GOLD unified retail platform. The breadth of Symphony EYC solutions and services optimize profitability by delivering highly targeted product assortments across all channels supported by reliable and responsive retail operations and supply chain execution. Symphony EYC customers include 15 of the world's 30 largest retailers, thousands of retail brands, and hundreds of national and regional chains. More at www.eyc.com.
Symphony EYC Press contact:
Joan Geoghegan
Email Contact
978-371-3921
AIM: MARL Suite 102, 3 Eden Street 6 July 2016 North Sydney, NSW 2060 Australia
THIS NEWS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO THE UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES.
Appointment of New Directors and Update on Issued Share Capital
Mariana Resources Ltd ('Mariana' or 'the Company'), the AIM listed exploration and development company with projects in Turkey and South America, announces that it is strengthening its relationships with Lidya Mining ('Lidya') and Sandstorm Gold by appointing Mustafa Aksoy from Lidya and Ron Ho from Sandstorm Gold as non-executive directors to the Mariana Board, effective 5 July 2016.
These appointments come at a time when Mariana is evolving from a pure junior exploration company, listed on AIM, to a dynamic entrepreneurial precious metals company with a focused strategy of progressing economically exciting projects up the development curve.
Chief Executive Officer, Glen Parsons, today commented:
'Mariana is moving into exciting times as it effectively transitions from being a penny stock to one of substance. As Mariana grows we strongly believe in maintaining robust and open relationships with our partners and, with this in mind, we have strengthened our Board through the appointment of Mustafa Aksoy the Managing Director of Lidya. Lidya is the current 70% owner and operator of the high grade Hot Maden gold-copper project in north eastern Turkey.
'We also welcome Ron Ho, Vice-President Finance at Sandstorm Gold. Sandstorm recently participated in the Company's private placing and now has a 7.5% interest in Mariana.
'My Board and I are delighted to have both Mustafa and Ron join the Mariana team at such an exciting growth phase. We believe they will bring siginifcant experience and knowledge to the table and warmly welcome them to Mariana.'
New Director Biographies:
Mustafa Aksoy (Age 39) MBA Mustafa Aksoy has close to 20 years working experience in Banking, Corporate Finance, M&A, Business Development and Management. Having worked in two Turkish banks as an auditor, Mustafa joined A?alik Holding in 2004 and worked in various business lines of the Group. Since 2010 he has been a Board Member and the Managing Director of Lidya Mining. Under his watch, the Company emerged as one of the best performing development teams in Turkey with multiple significant discoveries. He has overseen the transition of Lidya from being an investor to becoming an operator of multiple mines. Mustafa studied Public Administration in Turkey and holds a MBA from Antwerp University in Belgium.
Ron Ho (Age 38) CPA, CA, CFA Ron Ho has been with Sandstorm Gold for the past seven years, focused on structuring mine financing transactions and corporate development. Prior to Sandstorm, he served as the Chief Financial Officer for SNS Silver Corporation, where he contributed to equity capital raises and project evaluation and development and was an Equity Analyst at Raymond James Ltd. where he was responsible for sector institutional research. Mr Ho began his career at Deloitte & Touche, focusing on public company financial reporting in both the U.S. and Canada. Mr Ho is a Chartered Accountant, holds the designation of Chartered Financial Analyst charter holder and received a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of British Columbia.
Total Share Capital following Share Consolidation Following the ordinary share consolidation reported on 1 July 2016 Mariana confirmed the total issued share capital for the Company was 119,931,820 ordinary shares. However taking into account the fractional share calculations to conclude the share consolidation a further 7 shares were issued. Application has been made to the London Stock Exchange for these 7 ordinary shares to be admitted to trading on AIM. Dealings are expected to commence on or about 11 July 2016. ('Admission').
Following Admission, there will be a total of 119,931,827 ordinary shares on issue
**ENDS**
For further information please visit website at www.marianaresources.com or contact the following.
In Australia:
Glen Parsons (CEO) Mariana Resources Ltd +61 2 9437 4588
Eric Roth (COO) Mariana Resources Ltd +56 9 8818 1243
Rob Adamson RFC Ambrian Limited (Nomad) +61 2 9250 0041
Will Souter RFC Ambrian Limited (Nomad) +61 2 9250 0050
In U.K.
Oliver Stansfield Brandon Hill Capital (UK Broker) +44 20 3463 5061
Jonathan Evans Brandon Hill Capital (UK Broker) +44 20 3463 5016
Camilla Horsfall Blytheweigh (Financial PR) +44 20 7138 3224
Megan Ray Blytheweigh (Financial PR) +44 20 7138 3203
About Mariana Resources Mariana Resources Ltd is an AIM quoted exploration and development company with an extensive portfolio of gold, silver and copper projects in South America and Turkey.
Mariana's most advanced asset is the Hot Maden gold-copper project in north east Turkey, which is a joint venture with its Turkish JV partner Lidya (30% Mariana and 70% Lidya) rapidly advancing to development. A maiden mineral resource estimate of 2.03 Moz gold Equivalent (Indicated Category) and 0.97 Moz gold Equivalent (Inferred Category) (100% basis) was reported for Hot Maden on August 18, 2015. Elsewhere in Turkey, Mariana holds a 100% interest in the Ergama gold- copper project.
In southern Argentina, the Company's core gold-silver projects are Las Calandrias (100%), Sierra Blanca (100%), Los Cisnes (100%), Bozal (100%). These projects are part of a 160,000+ Ha land package in the Deseado Massif epithermal gold-silver district in mining-friendly Santa Cruz Province.
Mariana acquired 100% interests in the Dona Ines gold-silver and Exploradora East copper prospects in northern Chile through the Aegean Metals Group transaction which closed in January, 2015, with Mariana exploration now being funded by Asset Chile through the provision of $1.65m for a total 50% interest.
In Suriname, Mariana has a direct holding of 10.2% of the Nassau Gold project. The Nassau Gold Project is a 28,000 Ha exploration concession located approximately 125 km south east of the capital Paramaribo and immediately adjacent to Newmont Mining's 4.2Moz gold Merian project.
In Peru, Mariana is focusing on acquiring new opportunities which complement its current portfolio.
Safe Harbour This press release contains certain statements which may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as at the date of this press release and include, without limitation, statements regarding discussions of future plans, the realization, cost, timing and extent of mineral resource estimates, estimated future exploration expenditures, costs and timing of the development of new deposits, success of exploration activities, permitting time lines, and requirements for additional capital. The words 'plans', 'expects', 'budget', 'scheduled', 'estimate', 'forecasts', 'intend', 'anticipate', 'believe', 'may', 'will', or similar expressions or variations of such words are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause actual results to vary materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to: the effects of general economic conditions; the price of gold, silver and copper; misjudgements in the course of preparing forward-looking statements; risks associated with international operations; the need for additional financing; risks inherent in exploration results; conclusions of economic evaluations; changes in project parameters; currency and commodity price fluctuations; title matters; environmental liability claims; unanticipated operational risks; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals or in the completion of development or construction activities; political risk; and other risks and uncertainties described in the Company's annual financial statements for the most recently completed financial year which is available on the Company's website at www.marianaresources.com . Although we believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions and have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward- looking statements. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.
This announcement is distributed by GlobeNewswire on behalf of GlobeNewswire clients. The owner of this announcement warrants that: (i) the releases contained herein are protected by copyright and other applicable laws; and (ii) they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.
Source: Mariana Resources Ltd via GlobeNewswire [HUG#2026201]
B12GJ72R24
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
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MUNICH, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- China's leading robot producer HIT Robot Group (HRG) drew rave reviews at Automatica 2016, an international exhibition for automation and robotics in Munich, Germany, successfully displaying its role as a "golden partner" for overseas companies keen on exploring the huge potential of the Chinese market.
As China's pioneering robotics industry player, HRG took full advantage of the show in Munich, attended by over 800 companies, including the world's top technology companies, ABB, KUKA, IBG and YASKAWA, to exhibit its cutting-edge technologies and valuable know-how about the domestic market.
"We have received positive reactions from visitors and international counterparts at the exhibition, which will inspire HRG to upgrade our products and technologies," said Zhu Lei, Vice-president of HRG. "We believe that a consolidated tie-up with the world's leading players in the robotics industry will be of far-reaching significance to China's robotics industry."
More than 100 companies showed their interest in HRG's service robots during the four-day exhibition, with HRG's robots for food delivery, greeting robots and educational robots grabbing the most attention. Other products displayed included healthcare robot parts and industrial robot software. Automated guided vehicles (AGV) also attracted much cooperation intention. In addition, HRG's industrial robot business unit made a rosy debut at the show with at least 20 companies expressing their desire for partnering or co-operating with the Chinese company.
HRG can offer a wide range of tailor-made services to its partners and clients, ranging from consultancy and consultation technical support to products and integrated solutions. To date, HRG's overseas partners include ABB, KUKA and HOCOMA on robot products and education services.
The Chinese company is aiming high through tie-ups with big-name global companies that can help it enhance research and development capabilities, hone the skills of its staff and explore new areas for further growth on the domestic market.
Foreign companies that have plans to enter China's robot market can also reap huge benefits from partnering with HRG, as combined efforts to spur technology development and the vast network operated by the Chinese company can accelerate their expansions into the world's largest robot market.
Zhu said he is highly confident that HRG will become a "golden partner" with a clutch of international companies after it impressed counterparts and visitors on the exhibition.
"HRG is now taking a global view in bolstering its future growth," said Zhu. "Our strategy of becoming a global partner for international companies results from our resolution to internationalize the businesses to eventually boost the intelligent manufacturing of China."
Furthermore, by attending the upcoming China-Russia Expo on July 11, HRG also hopes to make the most of its geographic location to strengthen cooperation with Russian companies to tap both markets.
About HIT Robot Group
HIT Robot Group (HRG), founded in 2014, is one of China's high-tech giants in robotics with a joint investment from the Heilongjiang provincial government, the Harbin municipal government and the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT). The Group's major businesses include manufacturing of a range of robots and robotic equipment for different industries; it is also a solution and service provider for technology companies. HRG has presence in 13 major Chinese cities while it has offices in Maryland, California, Frankfurt, Seoul and Tokyo.
TOKYO and REDWOOD SHORES, CA, July 6, 2016 - (JCN Newswire) - Fujitsu Limited, Oracle Corporation, and Oracle Corporation Japan today announced that they have agreed to form a new strategic alliance to deliver enterprise-grade, world-class cloud services to customers in Japan and their subsidiaries around the world.In order to take advantage of cloud computing to speed innovation, reduce costs and drive business growth, organizations need IT partners that can deliver the performance, security and management capabilities that are demanded by enterprise workloads. To help organizations in Japan capitalize on this opportunity and confidently move enterprise workloads to the cloud, Oracle Cloud Application and Platform services - such as Oracle Database Cloud Service and Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud - will be powered by Fujitsu's datacenters in Japan. Under the new strategic alliance, Fujitsu will work to drive sales of robust cloud offerings to companies in Japan and their subsidiaries around the world.By bringing Oracle Cloud Application and Platform services to FUJITSU Cloud Service K5, Fujitsu and Oracle will provide a high-performance cloud environment to meet the IT and business needs of customers. Specifically, Fujitsu will install the Oracle Cloud services in its datacenters in Japan and connect them to its K5 service in order to deliver enterprise-grade cloud services. The first Oracle Cloud Application that will be offered to Fujitsu customers under the joint offering is Oracle HCM Cloud. As part of the agreement, Fujitsu will implement Oracle HCM Cloud to gain unprecedented insight into its workforce throughout the company's worldwide network of offices."We at Fujitsu support the digital transformation of our customers, and aim to contribute to optimized customer systems and business growth with the roll out of our Digital Business Platform MetaArc," said Shingo Kagawa, SEVP, Head of Digital Services Business & CTO, Fujitsu Limited. "In particular, we offer the core cloud service on MetaArc, K5, which addresses systems of engagement (SoE)(1) and systems of record (SoR)(2). Oracle is a leader in Japan's database market segment and possesses strong capabilities in the SoR domain. Now, as we look to strengthen MetaArc and K5, taking part in this strategic alliance with Oracle will work to meet the cloud needs of our customers.""In order to realize the full business potential of cloud computing, organizations need secure, reliable and high-performing cloud solutions," said Edward Screven, Chief Corporate Architect, Oracle. "For over three decades, Oracle and Fujitsu have worked together using our combined R&D, product depth and global reach to create innovative solutions enabling customers to scale their organizations and achieve a competitive advantage. Oracle's new strategic alliance with Fujitsu will allow companies in Japan to take advantage of an integrated cloud offering to support their transition to the cloud.""We strongly believe this cloud alliance will support Japanese companies to drive digital transformation," said Hiroshige Sugihara, President and CEO, Oracle Corporation Japan. This will be a gateway for customers to achieve standardization, modernization, and globalization. This initiative will differentiate us from other cloud providers by emphasizing real enterprise cloud solutions, while offering Japanese companies access to best of breed technology in the new Cloud era."The combination of these innovative solutions including Oracle Database Cloud Service, Oracle HCM Cloud, and K5, will enable Fujitsu and Oracle to deliver mission critical systems over a cloud environment within Fujitsu's datacenters while maintaining the high levels of performance and reliability that had previously been achieved in on-premise environments. Furthermore, with the Oracle Cloud provided from Fujitsu's state-of-the-art datacenters, which boast a high level of capabilities in Japan, customers using K5 or Fujitsu's hosting services will have access to use invaluable cloud services.Fujitsu and Oracle Alliance HistorySince entering into a database OEM contract in 1989, the two companies have been providing customers with optimal solutions. Currently, as an Oracle Partner Network (OPN) Diamond level partner, Fujitsu is providing system integration services worldwide. In addition, in the SPARC/Solaris server business, Fujitsu entered into a sales contract with Sun Microsystems in 1983 and a development agreement for SPARC chips in 1988, and further strengthened the relationship with Sun Microsystems through a Solaris OEM contract in 1993. Since Oracle's subsequent acquisition of Sun Microsystems, the two companies have maintained a close, collaborative relationship to the present day.(1) Systems-of-Record (SoR): Existing systems that record company data and perform business processes.(2) Systems-of-Engagement (SoE): Systems that implement digital transformations, including business-process transformation and new-business development.About FujitsuFujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company, offering a full range of technology products, solutions, and services. Approximately 156,000 Fujitsu people support customers in more than 100 countries. We use our experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with our customers. Fujitsu Limited (TSE: 6702) reported consolidated revenues of 4.7 trillion yen (US$41 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016. For more information, please see www.fujitsu.com.About OracleOracle offers a comprehensive and fully integrated stack of cloud applications and cloud platforms. For more information about Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), visit www.oracle.com.About Oracle JapanOracle Corporation Japan was established in 1985 as Oracle Corporation's subsidiary in Japan. With the goal of becoming the number one cloud company, it provides a comprehensive and fully integrated stack of cloud applications and cloud platforms, a suite of products to generate valuable information from big data, and a wide variety of services to support the use of these products. It was listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2000 (TSE: 4716). Visit www.oracle.com/jp.Press Contacts:Fujitsu LimitedPublic and Investor RelationsTel: +81-3-3215-5259URL: www.fujitsu.com/global/news/contacts/Candice van der LaanOracle CorporationPhone: +1-650-464-3186E-mail: candice.van.der.laan@oracle.comJunko Ishikawa, Norihito YachitaOracle JapanCorporate CommunicationsE-mail: pr-room_jp@oracle.comSource: Fujitsu LtdCopyright 2016 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Construction company Carillion Plc. (CLLN.L) Wednesday said is continues to expect first-half performance to be led by revenue and margin growth in support services. Overall, the company remains on track to make further progress in 2016.
In its trading update, the company noted that the support services segment is moving towards two thirds of the Group's total underlying operating profit.
The total first-half revenue is expected to increase and offset the effect on first-half profit of a slight reduction in underlying operating margin. As previously indicated, the quantum of equity sales in Public Private Partnership projects was lower than in the first half of 2015 and the one-off contribution to profit from the reorganisation of Middle East labour facilities in the first half of 2015 was not repeated in 2016.
Looking ahead, the company continues to expect full-year performance to be led by revenue and margin growth in support services, with Public Private Partnership projects, Middle East construction services and construction services excluding the Middle East also performing in line with expectations.
Therefore, with revenue visibility for the full year of 97 percent and a strong pipeline of further contract opportunities, the Group remains on track to make further progress in 2016.
Regarding the UK referendum, Carillion said it has no significant operations in Mainland Europe and prior to the referendum it undertook extensive work to assess the possible impact on business of a vote to leave and we have put in place robust plans to manage this outcome.
Separately, Carillion said it was awarded support services contracts worth up to 600 million pounds. Total new first-half orders and probable orders are now worth 2.5 billion pounds.
Carillion said its market leading business in Oman, Carillion Alawi, has signed a 4.5-year contract extension for Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) to continue the provision of integrated facilities management services at twelve locations across Oman, worth 240 million pounds.
Carillion has also been awarded two contracts by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive to deliver maintenance services for its housing stock, worth up to 366 million pounds over a period of up to 10 years.
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Transaction to expand SSB's bioprocessing product portfolio with innovative single-use centrifuges
Regulatory News:
Sartorius Stedim Biotech (SSB), a leading international supplier for the biopharmaceutical industry, today has signed a contract to acquire U.S. centrifuge specialist kSep Holdings, Inc. (kSep). The privately owned company based in Morrisville, North Carolina, has been operating on the market since 2011, and is expected to achieve significant double-digit growth and to generate around $7 million sales revenues and a strong double-digit EBITDA margin in 2016. The transaction values kSep at around $28 million and will be closed by the end of July 2016.
kSep has developed and markets single-use, fully automated centrifugation systems used for manufacturing biopharmaceuticals, such as vaccines, cell-based therapeutics and monoclonal antibodies. Reinhard Vogt, member of SSB's Board, commented, "kSep's centrifuges are a very innovative, single-use cell separation technology that perfectly complements our offering for downstream bioprocessing. Our clients will greatly benefit from the unique ability to collect, wash and concentrate cells quickly and reduce both the time and cost of downstream purification steps." SSB will retain kSep's current leadership and staff.
"Sartorius Stedim Biotech's strong relationships with its customers will significantly speed up our internationalization and business growth. SSB will provide access to considerably more customers, especially in Asia, a market we haven't developed yet," said Sunil Mehta, President and CEO of kSep.
This press release contains statements about the future development of the Sartorius Stedim Biotech Group. We cannot guarantee that the content of these statements will actually apply because these statements are based upon assumptions and estimates that harbor certain risks and uncertainties.
A profile of Sartorius Stedim Biotech
Sartorius Stedim Biotech is a leading international supplier of products and services that enable the biopharmaceutical industry to develop and manufacture drugs safely and efficiently. As a total solutions provider, Sartorius Stedim Biotech offers a portfolio covering nearly all steps of biopharmaceutical manufacture. The company focuses on single-use technologies and value-added services to meet the rapidly changing technology requirements of the industry it serves. Headquartered in Aubagne, France, Sartorius Stedim Biotech is quoted on the Eurolist of Euronext Paris. With its own manufacturing and R&D sites in Europe, North America and Asia and a global network of sales companies, Sartorius Stedim Biotech has a global reach. The company employs approx. 4,200 people, and in 2015 earned sales revenue of 884.3 million euros.
A profile of kSep
kSep Systems leverages its innovation, engineering, and cGMP manufacturing expertise to provide robust and automated single-use centrifugation solutions for the manufacturing of recombinant therapeutics, cell therapy products, and vaccines. kSep products solve the problems of traditional centrifugation-based systems by providing a gentle processing environment for the concentration, washing, and separation of cells while maintaining high recoveries. kSep Systems, a spinoff from KBI Biopharma, Inc., was established in 2011 and is based in Morrisville, NC.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005490/en/
Contacts:
Sartorius Stedim Biotech
Petra Kirchhoff, Vice President of Corporate Communications
+49(0)551.308.1686
petra.kirchhoff@sartorius.com
LONDON, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --
MindLink, provider of highly secure Chat Enabled Collaboration (CEC) tools for global businesses, has been crowned 'Collaboration Product of the Year 2016' by the reputable Computing Vendor Excellence Awards.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160413/354760LOGO )
(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160413/354761 )
MindLink's messaging and collaboration platform gained the award recognition ahead of strong competition from the likes of Box.com, Jive and Symphony.
"It's rewarding to see our enterprise chat application receive such a high level of recognition across the industry. This comes to prove our ongoing commitment and focus on delivering innovative enterprise messaging solutions that meet even the highest standards of security and compliance," comments Annekathrin Hase, CMO at MindLink.
Using Messaging & Chat tools for improved collaboration is a hot topic. A recentBI Intelligence reportstated that the top 5 messaging apps have a combined 3 billion users. Whilst this is a consumer chat figure, the business market is adopting messaging tools at an impressive speed to boost productivity, and the interest in enterprise-ready messaging alternatives is rising sharply.
MindLink, founded in 2011, offers a fully rounded enterprise-ready messaging platform for corporates - focusing on stringent data security, regulatory compliance, system integration and usability. As a Microsoft Gold partner it also connects with UC platforms such as Microsoft Lync & Skype for Business elevating the messaging capabilities within the Microsoft platforms.
"Being selected as best Collaboration Product continues the exciting developments since the start of the year for the team here at MindLink," says Hase. "With several new blue chip clients, partnerships with the likes of AirWatch, CWSI and Isec7,new officesand a US$1 million funding roundthat will help us accelerate growth in 2016."
MindLink's chat tools have become popular amongst a range of clients, notably financial services firms, governments, pharmaceuticals/healthcare and law firms, who all share a common need for secure & compliant messaging tools.
The annual Vendor Excellence awards celebrate the achievements of technology providers who are leading the field of enterprise IT innovation and underpin the success in both private and public sector organisations.
About MindLink
MindLink is a highly secure Chat Enabled Collaboration (CEC) platform for global enterprises. Think of MindLink as a secure alternative to WhatsApp' designed for corporate use. Its messaging and collaboration app encourages employees to stay actively connected, reducing unnecessary email usage. MindLink integrates and elevates Unified Communication platforms such as Microsoft Lync and Skype for Business.
Contact:
Annekathrin Hase, CMO
+44 (0) 203 582 1487
Annekathrin.hase@mindlinksoft.com
MEXICO CITY (dpa-AFX) - Mexican fast food chain Chipotle's Chief marketing officer Mark Crumpacker was arrested on cocaine possession charges in a major New York City drug sting. Crumpacker, 53, appeared in court on Tuesday and was released on $4,500 cash bail. His next court date is said to be September 8. The marketing executive, who is leading the chain's rebound effort after recent E. coli outbreak, has been charged with seven counts of possession of a controlled substance. According to the district attorney, Crumpacker asked for cocaine to be delivered 13 times to his apartment on West 13th Street near Union Square, and spent $3,000. Last week, Chipotle had said that it had placed Crumpacker on administrative leave. The move was after a report that he was among 18 customers of a cocaine ring named in an indictment by the Manhattan district attorney's office. Crumpacker, who was named Chipotle's first Chief Marketing Officer in January 2009, oversees all of the company's marketing functions including advertising, design, events, public relations, social media, and research. Prior to joining Chipotle, he was the founder, CEO and Creative Director at branding and interactive agency Sequence. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
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-- The total return for the first half of the year 2016 was -4 % for the Class A shares and -3 % for the Class C shares, compared with -4 % for the total return index (SIXRX).-- Net asset value on June 30, 2016, was SEK 69.3 billion, or SEK 160/share, which is unchanged since the end of 2015 and an increase of 3 % including reinvested dividend.-- Earnings per share during the first half of the year 2016 were SEK 6.77 per share.-- The debt-equities ratio as per June 30, 2016, was 14 %, a decrease since the year-end 2015 of 1 %-point.-- SSAB's rights issue, where Industrivarden has subscribed its share of SEK 0.6 billion, strengthens the company's long-term value potential.-- During the first half of the year 2016, stocks were sold net for SEK 0.9 billion.CEO's messageGreat uncertainty after Brexit referendumThe day after Britain's referendum we woke up to a new reality, with the British people voting in favor of an exit from the European Union. The result of this referendum has sent a shock wave of turbulence through the financial markets. On the first day of trading after the referendum, the Stockholm Stock Exchange lost 8%, but has since recovered.The uncertainty surrounding the consequences of the referendum's outcome in political circles and on the real economy will likely remain for a long time. The UK is an important market for several of our portfolio companies, which will now have to work with somewhat changed conditions going forward.Personally I feel that a cohesive and well-working EU is important for building competitiveness in Europe and thereby for creating favorable conditions for European companies in the ever-growing global competition. Hopefully the situation that has now arisen will compel the EU to focus on the most central issues facing its citizens.Net asset value growth better than the stock market during the first halfOn June 30, 2016, net asset value amounted to SEK 69.3 billion, or SEK 160 per share, which is unchanged since the end of 2015 and an increase of 3% including reinvested dividend. During the same period, we sold stocks for a net value of SEK 0.9 billion. At the end of the period, the portfolio value was SEK 80.5 billion, and net debt was SEK 11.2 billion, corresponding to a debt-equities ratio of 14%. This represents a decrease in the debt-equities ratio by 1 percentage point during the first half of the year. The total return for Industrivarden's Class A and C shares was -4% and -3%, respectively, compared with -4% for the return index.During the first half year our investments in Sandvik, SSAB and Volvo - companies that are in the midst of major change processes - performed better than the stock market. The same applies for SCA and Skanska. Handelsbanken and ICA Gruppen was in line with the market. Ericsson, however, performed below the market.Varied performance for the portfolio companiesThe Swedish economy remains strong, which is having a positive effect above all on the portfolio companies with a large share of local business. In many cases the more internationally active portfolio companies are encountering weak demand. The tough market situation is especially tangible for companies that manufacture and sell investment goods. Low capacity utilization and uncertain future growth prospects are damping the willingness to invest inseveral sectors. Companies are dealing with this situation through cost-cutting, continued automation, innovation and an increased service/aftermarket content. As a long-term active owner we attach great importance to ensuring that our portfolio companies have a keen ability to adapt, that they capitalize on future opportunities, and that they have a favorable financial position and flexibility.Several of Industrivarden's portfolio companies are showing stable development, which is illustrated by the fact that they have altogether generated a favorable dividend yield for their shareholders. At mid-year the dividend yield for the portfolio companies was 3.8%.SSAB's rights issue strengthens long-term value potentialAs a long-term active owner in SSAB we subscribed for our portion of the rights issue of in total approximately SEK 5 billion that was carried out at the end of June 2016. The rights issue, together with refinancing activities and internal measures, creates the financial stability needed to further develop the company in a tough steel market. We have a positive view of SSAB's strategic plan, which takes aim at greater specialization and attaining leading positions in selected niches.Intensive work with portfolio companiesThe very core of active ownership involves participating in board work and monitoring and evaluating our portfolio companies and their business environments from a long-term ownership perspective. Based on our conclusions we are engaged in an ongoing dialog with our portfolio companies in an effort to enhance value creation over time. Parallel with this, we are also analyzing a number of potential new investments in stock market companies. We are not in any hurry, however, and will act when the conditions are right.The board composition in our portfolio companies is of vital importance. With the annual meeting season now behind us, I can affirm that a number of constructive changes have been made in the boards of our portfolio companies. Evaluating and adapting these boards to the situations that the companies find themselves in is a continuous process that we are focusing on with utmost importance.Helena StjernholmAttachment:https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=577870
LONDON, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --
Founder & CEO, Glenn Elliott, and recently named E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year, moves London Team to Accommodate Extraordinary Growth
Reward Gateway, the leading employee engagement platform that delivers employee benefits, recognition, and communications solutions to over 1,200 clients across the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, today announced it has opened its new London hub at 265 Tottenham Court Rd, London W1T 7RQ.
The new office is a collaboration between the company, commercial design specialist Area Sq, and workspace strategy consultants Brightspot. Eighteen months in the making, the facility is designed to embody what the company strives to help its customers achieve every day: attract, engage, and retain employees. The project is a showcase of the company's culture and a case study in employee collaboration and consultation.
News Facts:
The opening of the new office brings the Reward Gateway mission - let's make the world a happier place to work - to life for its London -based employees. The office was designed to reflect its core values: work hard, own it, think global, speak up, push the boundaries, love your job, delight your customers, and be human.
-based employees. The office was designed to reflect its core values: work hard, own it, think global, speak up, push the boundaries, love your job, delight your customers, and be human. The office pushes the boundaries of modern workplace design. The agile workspace features areas for collaboration, teamwork and quiet, private thinking in recognition of the different activities all staff do during the day. Rather than assigning staff to fixed desks, they are free to choose where to sit depending on what they are doing. Quiet reflection rooms are available for focus and thought. A state-of-the-art video studio supports the production of transparent and human communications for its employees and customers. Meeting rooms are equipped with the latest cable and controller-free video conferencing from Silicon Valley startup Highfive, helping the 85 London-based employees to more easily collaborate with the 350 person global workforce located across the United Kingdom , Bulgaria , Australia , Macedonia , and the United States .
, , , , and . Reward Gateway believe that a workforce built from the most diverse set of people will make the company most successful. With this belief as a guide to create an inclusive and welcoming workplace, the office offers hotel-standard gender-neutral bathroom facilities accessorized by Danish company Vipp with products from Aesop and ghd. As a beacon employer offering cutting edge benefits, and helping its clients to do the same, employees can take advantage of a year's paid parental leave for any primary caregiver, male or female. To learn more about diversity at Reward Gateway visit rg.co/diversity.
The full staffed HR Hero Cafe puts clients in the heart of the company's new London hub, with clients encouraged to drop in and pick up coffee, WiFi and even free HR books whenever they are passing by. Meeting and conference facilities are available for free use by HR professionals and even client board meetings.
hub, with clients encouraged to drop in and pick up coffee, WiFi and even free HR books whenever they are passing by. Meeting and conference facilities are available for free use by HR professionals and even client board meetings. A Tracey Emin installation "Be Brave" frames the HR Hero Cafe. It was purchased at auction with all proceeds going to charity supporting the Terrence Higgins Trust. In addition to other sustainable features, the donation highlights why Reward Gateway recently won the BVCA award for best management team focused on corporate and social responsibility for their work supporting voluntary organizations and charities.
installation "Be Brave" frames the HR Hero Cafe. It was purchased at auction with all proceeds going to charity supporting the Terrence Higgins Trust. In addition to other sustainable features, the donation highlights why Reward Gateway recently won the BVCA award for best management team focused on corporate and social responsibility for their work supporting voluntary organizations and charities. In addition to using the company mission and values for design direction, Reward Gateway adhered to Dieter Rams' ten principles for good design. These are the same principles that the company uses to design its products, which state that good design is: innovative, makes a product useful, aesthetic, understandable, unobtrusive, honest, long lasting, thorough down to the last detail, environmentally friendly, and uses as little design as possible. Some of Europe's leading furniture designers are represented in the space and 5 separate pieces are in the permanent collection at MoMA in New York .
ten principles for good design. These are the same principles that the company uses to design its products, which state that good design is: innovative, makes a product useful, aesthetic, understandable, unobtrusive, honest, long lasting, thorough down to the last detail, environmentally friendly, and uses as little design as possible. Some of leading furniture designers are represented in the space and 5 separate pieces are in the permanent collection at MoMA in . By putting people first, the 10-year-old company continues to outperform. Glenn Elliott , recently named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year with 99% CEO approval rating on Glassdoor, has led his company to a $220M investment from Boston -based Great Hill Partners, and a 45% increase in company profits.
Supporting Quotes:
"We've had an amazing 10 first years at Reward Gateway and have built a global business helping so many employers to engage with their people. This new London hub is an incredible home for RG people and their clients, and we're so excited about how we'll improve collaboration and the connections between everyone in our new home."
Glenn Elliott, Founder & CEO, Reward Gateway
"We knew from the very start of this project that we owed our staff the right office design. It wasn't just filling the blank space between four walls, our office is our home! We knew that with the right design, furniture, and layout we could help our people be the best that they could be, free them from the chains of designated desks, give them the tools that would make them more productive, more connected, and most of all happier at work."
Sevil Rahimova, Creative Director, Reward Gateway
"It's been a privilege to work with such a fun and forward-thinking organization. The project has really allowed us to tap into our creativity and unleash our imaginations - it's a joy when our clients tell us to push the boundaries of traditional workplace design. What's more, Reward Gateway specialize in employee engagement and, like us, they believe that a workspace plays a vital role. As such, it's an honor to have been trusted with such a project and it demonstrates our commitment to creating workspaces that empower employees, as well as our shared value system when it comes to health and wellbeing at work."
Sion Davies, London MD, Area Sq
To watch the video documentary that explains the vision behind the new Reward Gateway home visit rg.co/projectmeadow.
About Reward Gateway
Reward Gateway provides employee engagement technology to the world's leading companies. Over 1,200 clients including American Express, Groupon, Yahoo!, IBM and McDonald's use the company's products to attract, engage and retain the best employees. The company's products power employee communications, employee recognition, and employee benefits through a single employer-branded hub called SmartHub.
Media Contact:
Charlie Lofthouse, PR Manager
charlie.lofthouse@rewardgateway.com
Sosei Group Corporation ("Sosei"; TOKYO Mothers Index: 4565) today announces Heptares Therapeutics ("Heptares"), the wholly-owned subsidiary of Sosei Group Corporation, reported that it has been notified today by its partner AstraZeneca that the first subject has been dosed with immuno-oncology candidate HTL1071 (AZD4635) in a Phase 1 clinical study, triggering a US$10 million payment from AstraZeneca.
The first-in-human study is being conducted by AstraZeneca in approximately 50 patients with advanced solid malignancies and with non-small cell lung cancer. The primary objective is to determine the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) of HTL1071 alone and in combination with durvalumab (MEDI4736), an investigational human monoclonal antibody directed against PDL1. Pending the determination of the MTD, a Phase 2 trial is planned to investigate further the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and anti-tumour activity of the selected doses.
HTL1071 is an orally available, small molecule adenosine A2A receptor antagonist, and the lead candidate in a portfolio of A2A antagonists discovered by Heptares using its proprietary structure-based drug design platform. This portfolio was licensed to AstraZeneca in August 2015 for development and commercialisation across a range of cancers, with an associated R&D collaboration designed to discover further A2A antagonists for development in cancer immunotherapy.
Tim Tasker, Heptares' Chief Medical Officer, said: "The production of adenosine is a recently identified mechanism employed by tumour cells to suppress T cell activity and evade destruction. The initiation of this first clinical study in the A2A antagonist immuno-oncology programme with AstraZeneca is an important milestone for Heptares and we are excited to see how the results from preclinical studies translate into potential new medicines for cancer patients. This is the second programme in our partnered pipeline to progress into the clinic, the first being the M1 agonist programme, licensed to Allergan, in which two novel compounds are undergoing clinical studies as potential new medicines for cognitive impairment in Alzheimer's disease and other neurological indications."
Susan Galbraith, Vice President, Head of Oncology in AstraZeneca's Innovative Medicines and Early Development Unit, said "Immuno-oncology is one of four key oncology platforms for AstraZeneca. In building our immuno-oncology portfolio, we believe that blocking adenosine A2A receptor could enhance the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibition via PDL1, CTLA4 and enhance the activity of CD73 inhibition. This innovative approach could help drive an immune attack on cancers, creating novel treatments with the potential to transform the lives of patients."
About Heptares Therapeutics
Heptares is a clinical-stage company creating transformative medicines targeting G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), a superfamily of 375 receptors linked to a wide range of human diseases. Heptares' proprietary StaR technology and structure-based drug design (SBDD) capabilities enable us to engineer and develop drugs for highly validated, yet historically undruggable or challenging GPCRs. Using this approach, we are building an exciting pipeline of new medicines (small molecules and biologics) with the potential to transform the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, cancer immuno-oncology, migraine, addiction, metabolic disease and other indications. We have partnerships for our novel candidates and technologies with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including Allergan, AstraZeneca, Kymab, MedImmune, MorphoSys, Pfizer and Teva.
Heptares is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sosei Group Corporation. For more information, please visit www.heptares.com and www.sosei.com/en.
About Sosei
Sosei is a biopharmaceutical company originating from Japan but with global presence. Sosei's primary business model is based on identifying novel and/or differentiated product assets or technology platforms and, through supporting these in preclinical and clinical development and establishing commercial partnerships, advancing new medicines to patients worldwide.
For further information about Sosei, please visit www.sosei.com/en.
Forward-looking statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements about the discovery, development and commercialisation of products. Various risks may cause Sosei's actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including: adverse results in clinical development programmes; failure to obtain patent protection for inventions; commercial limitations imposed by patents owned or controlled by third parties; dependence upon strategic alliance partners to develop and commercialise products and services; difficulties or delays in obtaining regulatory approvals to market products and services resulting from development efforts; the requirement for substantial funding to conduct research and development and to expand commercialisation activities; and product initiatives by competitors. As a result of these factors, prospective investors are cautioned not to rely on any forward-looking statements. We disclaim any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005527/en/
Contacts:
Enquiries:
Sosei Group Corporation
Tokyo Office
Harumi BANSE, +81-(0)3-5210-3399
Investor Relations
hbanse@sosei.com
or
London Office
Kathryn LYDON, +44-(0)20-7691-0983
Corporate Communication
klydon@sosei.com
WASHINGTON, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Over 50 leading experts from China and U.S. think tanks participated in the seminar, co-organized by Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China (RUCCY) and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), sponsored by National Institute for South China Sea Studies (NISCSS) and Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Ideas such as "The disputes over the South China Sea should not define China-U.S. relations." and "Averting a deepening U.S.-China rift over the South China Sea issue should be a priority while coordination and cooperation between the two countries must be encouraged." were discussed by a group of International Leading Experts who concluded China-U.S. Dialogue on the South China Sea, at a closed-door seminar in Washington DC on July 5, 2016.
"The final decision of the arbitration, which will come out in the next few days, amounts to nothing more than a piece of paper," said Dai Bingguo, former State Councilor of China, spoke in the opening ceremony, "China's sovereignty over the South China Sea islands, as part of the post-war international order, is under protection by the UN Charter and other International Laws."
"China sees the peace and stability of the South China Sea as having a bearing on its vital interests. That is why China will never resort to force unless challenged with armed provocation," added Dai Bingguo.
"The stability in the South China Sea is in accordance with all parties concerned," said Huang Renwei, Vice President of Shanghai Academy of Social Science, "We should reduce strategic mistrust while enhancing crisis management."
The tension in the South China Sea must be cooled down," said Michael Swaine, Senior Associate of CEIP." "The U.S. and China must get beyond the heated rhetoric and build the basis for de-escalating tensions in this region."
"We need to carefully consider the implications for U.S. operations in the South China Sea," said Brendan Mulvaney, Associate Chair for Language and Culture Dept. in the United States Naval Academy.
"It serves as 'Think Tank Diplomacy' at this subtle moment," said Wang Wen, Executive Dean of RUCCY.
This seminar seeks exchanges of views among think tanks and cooperation between China and the United States. Experts here agreed that the two countries should not get into a confrontation regarding the South China Sea issue.
DURHAM, England, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --
Two female entrepreneurs brand new to the fashion industry have set up a women's online clothing store from home.
Owners of North East based online fashion company Love Your Beautiful, Michelle Hayton and Rosie Malley, left their safe middle income jobs at a large North East software company and bravely set out on their own.
The two friends, who got to know each other in their previous jobs where Rosie was a Senior Sales Manager and Michelle a Product Marketing Manager, have worked together for 12 years. When the opportunity for a career change came up due to a recent restructure at their previous firm, the offer of a redundancy settlement was too good to turn down.
With no firm plans for the future, the pair left their old jobs behind in December last year. Following this they started meeting up with other friends affected by the re-organisation to support each other in looking for jobs and the idea for their online clothing business http://www.loveyourbeautiful.co.uk was born.
The idea to run a fashion business came about by brainstorming some ideas together and researching information about the industry on the internet. "The UK fashion market was worth 10 billion in 2015 and predictions see it as being worth 19 billion by 2020," says Michelle. "It's a very busy marketplace but we knew we only needed a small part of it to be successful."
"We identified a gap in the market for trendy, affordable fashion for women of all shapes and sizes," adds Rosie. "Although our primary target market is 18-24 year olds, we're finding that our customers' ages can range far beyond this."
The business has been trading for only 8 weeks, having launched on 5th May, and customer feedback so far has been 100% positive with comments such as: 'I can't believe the quality of the shoes and dresses LYB are selling! I'm delighted with my outfit!' Mandy T from Heddon on the Wall and "Your skinny jeans are amazing, will be back to order more." Sam N from Dunfermline.
"We're delighted with the feedback we've had so far," says Michelle. "Rosie and I have worked together for 12 years on many sales and service projects and we know how important customer satisfaction and a great customer experience is for any business so we'll be ensuring that we continue to provide this."
Rosie adds: "Love Your Beautiful is about how you feel on the inside as well as looking great on the outside and we recognise that we can only do this by creating value in the eyes of our customers. So far, people have been delighted with the quality of the clothes we sell, particularly in relation to the price."
Currently the business is run from Rosie's home in Chester-le-Street, Durham and both women say they have absolutely no regrets about their start-up decision. "It's early days but working for yourself is so rewarding," says Michelle. "Having worked for large corporates all my life, the job satisfaction of having control over the decisions you make, the freedom to be more creative, and to learn and try new things while making our dream become reality is amazing! I know we're taking a risk, especially as we're new to the industry but we've been very careful with our costs and cash flow and being a digital business has helped keep our overheads down. We have also been buying fashion for most of our lives and believe that a love for what you're doing combined with great business sense and dogged determination is a recipe for success, and I would rather regret taking the risk than spend the rest of my life wondering what might have been."
About Love Your Beautiful
Love Your Beautiful is an online fashion retailer based in Durham selling fun, affordable fashion for women primarily aged between 18 and 24 years old. Love Your Beautiful's philosophy is dress to be yourself meaning you can feel confident, happy and beautiful being just who you are. They provide good quality, affordable fashion that fits well so you feel good on the inside as well as looking great on the outside.
For further information, please contact: Michelle Hayton or Rosie Malley at info@loveyourbeautiful.co.uk
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NORTH CAROLINA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Fennec Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (TSX: FRX) (OTCQB: FENCF), today announced that the Company will present at the Cantor Fitzgerald 2nd Annual Healthcare Conference in New York City at 10:45 AM EDT on Wednesday, July 13, 2016. The conference is being held at the Le Parker Meridian in New York City.
The Fennec presentation will be webcast live and can be accessed at http://wsw.com/webcast/cantor4/frx.to or by visiting the investor section of the Company's website at www.fennecpharma.com. A replay of the presentation will also be available and archived on the site for one hundred and twenty days.
About Fennec Pharmaceuticals
Fennec Pharmaceuticals, Inc., is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development of Sodium Thiosulfate (STS) for the prevention of platinum-induced ototoxicity in pediatric patients. STS has received Orphan Drug Designation in the US in this setting. For more information, please visit www.fennecpharma.com.
Forward looking statements
Except for historical information described in this press release, all other statements are forward-looking. Forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties inherent in the Company's business that could cause actual results to vary, including such risks that regulatory and guideline developments may change, scientific data may not be sufficient to meet regulatory standards or receipt of required regulatory clearances or approvals, clinical results may not be replicated in actual patient settings, protection offered by the Company's patents and patent applications may be challenged, invalidated or circumvented by its competitors, the available market for the Company's products will not be as large as expected, the Company's products will not be able to penetrate one or more targeted markets, revenues will not be sufficient to fund further development and clinical studies, the Company may not meet its future capital requirements in different countries and municipalities, and other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015. Fennec Pharmaceuticals, Inc. disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements except as required by law.
For a more detailed discussion of related risk factors, please refer to our public filings available at www.sec.gov and www.sedar.com.
Contacts:
Rosty Raykov
Chief Executive Officer
Fennec Pharmaceuticals Inc.
(919) 636-5144
TRALEE, Ireland, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --
TRADEIT, the food producer support network, is inviting food entrepreneurs to join more than 1,100 small and medium sized food producers and technology providers across 20 countries in the TRADEIT Marketplace marketplace.tradeitnetwork.eu. The TRADEIT Marketplace is an online hub created to facilitate collaboration and communication among small and medium sized food producers addressing the need for access to new developments, technologies and markets for a core group in the food sector.
The TRADEIT Marketplace has to date facilitated real progress and innovation. Success stories include traditional bakeries in Portugal and Germany sourcing equipment and linking with researchers to develop new food products, Irish meat producers sourcing best practice from Spain on technologies for raw-cured meat processing and in Poland, shepherds are making huge advances implementing new generation technology components in the production of Oscypek cheese, traditionally manufactured in huts in the Polish Tatra Mountains.
Although the food sector is the largest manufacturing sector and employer in Europe, it is also highly fragmented. More than 70 per cent of 400,000 plus food producing SMEs in Europe have less than 10 employees, responsible for 49.6 per cent of total turnover and 63.3 per cent of employment in the food and drinks industry. TRADEIT identified the need among SME food producers for a network providing access to innovations, technologies and markets.
Dr. Helena McMahon, TRADEIT Co-ordinator comments, "TRADEIT has created an online food business innovation community that provides access to technologies, processes, partnerships and new markets across Europe, generating up to 500 live business opportunities every week. The geographical spread is a huge benefit as it removes the inhibitor of competition to create an open marketplace enabling businesses to grow."
The TRADEIT Marketplace is an initiative of the EU funded TRADEIT Network led by the Institute of Technology Tralee via 9 European hubs. For further information email: info@tradeitnetwork.eu or tweet @TRADEITFoodNet
About TRADEIT
TRADEIT is a multidisciplinary, multi-sectorial collaborative project supporting a network of stakeholders in Small and Medium Sized (SME) and Traditional Food Production in the areas of Collaboration, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Knowledge and Technology with the aim to increase the competiveness and inter-regional advantage of participating Traditional and Artisan Food Producing SMEs.
GRAND JUNCTION, CO -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Bullfrog Gold Corp (OTCQB: BFGC) ("Bullfrog" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has settled all debts and obligations with respect to a December 12, 2012 Facility Agreement (Agreement) with RMB Australia Holdings Limited (RMB). The principal and interest due RMB under the Agreement as of March 31, 2016 was $2,789,996. Components of the payout were $250,000 of cash, which was raised from recent private placements and issuance of one million shares of BFGC common stock, subject to restrictions under SEC rule 144. With its substantially improved balance sheet, the Company is now well-positioned to obtain funding and advance its flagship Bullfrog Gold Project located 120 miles NW of Las Vegas, Nevada.
For reference, key results from the Company's press release of April 11, 2016 are summarized below:
Current Mineral Inventory Estimates Tonnes Gold Gold Pit Areas Millions G/T Ounces ------------ ------------ ------------ M-S Shallow 1.1 1.06 38,612 M-S Deeper 0.9 0.93 26,813 Bullfrog North 13.3 0.88 375,051 BF NE Mystery Hill 0.9 0.80 26,813 ------------ ------------ ------------ Total/Average 16.4 0.89 469,961
These estimates are supported by close-spaced drill holes upon which Barrick Bullfrog Inc. produced 2.3 million ounces of gold from their proven and probable ore reserves during 1989 to 1999. The Project also has strong exploration and economic potential beyond the estimates in the pit areas.
Metallurgy
Column leach tests yielded gold recoveries of 75+% on samples crushed to -3/8 inch in 41 days and 54% in 90 days for samples sized at -12 inches, which simulates a coarse run-of-mine size.
Additional Company and Project information may be obtained from www.BullfrogGold.com, calling (970) 628 - 1670 or emailing info@BullfrogGold.com.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements
This press release may contain certain "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including those with respect to the objectives, plans and strategies of the Company and those preceded by or that include the words "believes," "expects," "given," "targets," "intends," "anticipates," "plans," "projects," "forecasts" or similar expressions, are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties. The Company is presently an exploration stage company. Exploration is highly speculative in nature, involves many risks, requires substantial expenditures and may not result in the discovery of sufficient mineral deposits that can be mined profitably. Furthermore, the Company currently has no resources or reserves on any of its properties. As a result, there can be no assurance that such forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Additional information regarding important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations is disclosed in the Company's documents filed from time to time with the United States Securities & Exchange Commission.
Contact:
David Beling, PE
President, CEO & Director
(970) 628-1670
SALT LAKE CITY, UT--(Marketwired - July 06, 2016) - Davinci Virtual Office Solutions announced that it has established an affiliate partnership program with Bookly.co, a cloud-based accounting solution that provides bookkeeping, tax preparation and payroll services for small business. The new affiliate partnership allows Bookly customers nationwide to take advantage of special discounts on Davinci Virtual Office Solutions and Davinci Meeting Space reservations and vice versa.
"We are excited to introduce Bookly.co to our customer base," said Martin Senn, CEO of Davinci Virtual. "Their accounting and tax offerings address a big need for our customers at a great value," Senn added.
"Davinci Virtual Office Solutions is the leading provider of virtual office addresses, live receptionist services and on-demand work space," commented Zach Olson, CEO for Bookly.co. "As a SMB solutions provider, it makes great sense to present Davinci Virtual Office Solutions to our clients."
Davinci Virtual Office Solutions was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. For the past decade, the company provided live receptionist services and virtual office solutions to over 40,000 companies and entrepreneurs throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Central America, Africa, Asia and Australia. Clients can obtain virtual business addresses, temporary office space and meeting rooms for rent -- instantly -- with the click of a button. Davinci also provides business support services including live web chat, mail forwarding services and call answering services.
For more information please visit www.davincivirtual.com or www.davincimeetingrooms.com contact 888-VOFFICE (888-863-3423).
About Davinci Virtual:
Davinci Virtual is the leading provider of turnkey virtual communications and virtual office solutions. Davinci's virtual offices and services include local or toll-free telephone and fax numbers, digital voicemail, electronic fax, email, online command center, unified messaging, voice and video conferencing, voicemail to email, fax to email, professional live receptionist services, virtual assistants, live call answering, live web chat, screening and forwarding, find me, follow me, surveys, outbound calling, customer service, appointment scheduling, order taking, and much more.
Davinci offers virtual office locations and virtual office services worldwide. With professional business addresses in over 1,100 prime locations, mail forwarding, lobby and directory listings, access to conference rooms and day offices, catering, administrative services, virtual assistants, business support centers, resident agent services, license hanging and more, Davinci Virtual helps businesses maintain a global presence on a local budget.
DavinciMeetingRooms.com is a comprehensive online reservation platform for business, providing access to over 4,000 conference rooms, day offices, meeting spaces and business support services around the globe. Users can book professionally equipped meeting spaces, as well as critical add-on services such as LCD projectors, video conferencing, wireless Internet access, catering services and secretarial support.
About Bookly.co:
Bookly is an online bookkeeping service designed for small business owners. The cloud-based service pairs you with a dedicated bookkeeper and customized software so that you can spend more time focusing on your business, and less time worrying about financials. Simply sync your business accounts and let a team of in-house (US-based) accountants seamlessly categorize your transactions. Business owners are also given access to a CPA who can assist businesses with tax consulting at no additional cost. Moving forward, Bookly ensures your financials are up to date, payroll is delivered, and taxes are filed allowing you to do more of what you love. To learn more, please visit https://www.bookly.co
Media Contact:
Mary Castleton
Davinci Virtual
801-990-9200
"Adform's timing is perfect given the pent-up demand for truly independent ad tech vendors and for unparalleled consulting service," said Singh. "I'm thrilled to be working with the Adform team to build a compelling and customizable offer for customers in the region. As the complexity of digital advertising increases, ad-tech providers need to work as partners with their clients, and that is precisely Adform's approach. With a team of more than 700, Adform has shown a clear commitment to not only supporting clients, but driving support for the latest media."
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
A dialogue between Tencent and cloud strategist
SHENZHEN, China, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Steven Chang, Corporate Vice President of Tencent, met with cloud computing strategist Joe Weinman at a Tencent MIND workshop about the cloud today. Centering around subjects such as big data of the internet media and algorithmic marketing, they engaged in an inspiring dialogue on how the cloud impacts marketing in the era of the mobile internet. It was particularly revealing on how advertisers and media platforms can best enhance their competitiveness by cloud technologies.
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160706/386464
Joe Weinman presented the dramatic impact of the cloud on current business models, marketing and consumer relations, as described in his latest book Digital Disciplines: Attaining Market Leadership via the Cloud, Big Data, Mobility, Social Media, and the Internet of Everything. In particular, he shared four digital disciplines, which were information excellence, solution leadership, collective intimacy and accelerated innovation. It was highlighted that in the digital era, these digital disciplines were key to success in production and marketing.
Afterwards, Weinman was joined by Steven Chang to discuss the relevance between "Cloudonomics" and marketing, the different usage of cloud computing in China and other countries, and new marketing opportunities for the future presented by this technology.
Chang pointed out that we have entered the era of Web 3.0, an era of fiber optic broadband, mobile internet, post-PC, cloud computing and big data. As our daily lives are being transformed through digitalization, interactions between brands and users have shifted from a physical environment to a virtual one that contains various digital platforms.
In the future of marketing, though user interaction remains imperative, a valuable asset to the competitive edge of a brand will be its ability to communicate with users' mobile devices. Eventually, the competitive advantage between brand marketers will no longer be about creativity alone. The main battlefield will shift to the field of data management and the ability to adapt to digitalization.
By utilizing technologies such as big data, cloud computing, cross-device synchronization, and GPS tracking, Tencent is capable of offering ad placement that targets all scenarios both online and offline. It takes into account information such as the location of the user, time of the day and the purpose of their journey before sending any relevant ads to the user. This allows the ad to reach its target audience without compromising user experience, while increasing the competitiveness of the campaign from a number of dimensions.
Discussing the application of cloud computing to marketing, both experts agreed that many brands have been very successful in adopting cloud technologies. In particular, Chang pointed to a groundbreaking digital campaign between Tencent and Burberry.
As a long-term partner of Tencent, Burberry is often recognized as one of the most innovative brands that incorporates a digitalized user experience in its strategy. For the grand opening of its biggest flagship store in the Asia Pacific region, Burberry and Tencent together created a digital campaign that successfully maximized its audience reach. The campaign developed a "parallel" experience by leveraging the influence of Tencent Video, WeChat, Weishi (an app for sharing short videos), and the QQ.com Fashion channel. This produced a real-time immersive experience for those unable to attend the ceremony in person.
Cloud computing is widely applied in a number of Tencent products. For example, user accounts of Tencent Video and Penguin TV are interconnected, which allows synchronization and interaction across various screens. Tencent will continue to help advertisers and marketing partners win in the burgeoning China market in the era of the cloud.
LANCING, England, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --
Karex Berhad has acquired one of the largest independent condom manufacturing companies in the UK, Pasante Healthcare Limited, for 6 million. Last Friday, Karex's wholly-own subsidiary, Karex Holdings Sdn Bhd, acquired the entire stake in the West Sussex based company.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160706/386517LOGO )
In business for more than 14 years, Pasante offers a wide range of sexual wellness products including condoms, lubricants, HIV test kits, pregnancy test kits and others. The acquisition is a strategic fit for both companies allowing for growth and investment across the Pasante and subsidiary brands including the UK, Europe and Middle East Markets.
"Pasante is a strategic fit with Karex's growing platform, complementing Karex group's existing global market covering more than 120 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe and America, and established clientele of commercial global brand owners as well as government and non-government agencies," Goh Miah Kiat, Chief Executive officer of Karex said.
Dave Strutt, Managing Director at Pasante Healthcare Ltd said "This is an exciting opportunity for Pasante Healthcare Ltd to grow across the UK and internationally whilst complementing Karex's current OBM brand's such as "Carex", "ONE", "ESP" and the recently acquired "They Fit" brand."
Notes to Editor
About Pasante Healthcare Ltd
Pasante Healthcare is an established British company who specialise in delivering a wide range of sexual health products, resources, services and trainings in the UK Market and over 60 countries across the globe. http://www.pasante.com
About Karex Bhd
The Karex Group is principally engaged in the manufacturing and sale of condoms, sterile catheters, latex probe covers, lubricating jelly and other rubber products.""
The Group's products are principally sold in the commercial, tender and own brand manufacturers markets. The commercial market is where the Group manufactures condoms for other brand owners (original equipment manufacturer). The tender market is where the Group tenders to institutional buyers to manufacture condoms for them. Besides that, the Group also manufactures condoms under its own brands, namely "Atlas", "Carex", "INNO" and "ONE" which are mainly exported to Africa and Asia countries. http://www.karex.com.my/
Contact:
Louise Ball
+44-(0)-1903-753844
louise.ball@pasante.com
TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - July 06, 2016) - Primero Mining Corp. ("Primero" or the "Company") (TSX: P) (NYSE: PPP) announces the resignation of Mr. Eduardo Luna from its Board of Directors. Mr. Luna has served as a Director of the Company since 2008 and also as President and Chief Operating Officer until June 2010.
"We would like to sincerely thank Eduardo for his years of dedicated service to Primero," stated Wade Nesmith, Chairman of Primero. "Eduardo has been an important contributor to the Board, bringing a wealth of precious metals operational experience and a strategic focus. We thank him for his invaluable service and his friendship. We wish him continued success."
About Primero
Primero Mining Corp. is a Canadian-based precious metals producer that owns 100% of the San Dimas gold-silver mine and the Cerro del Gallo gold-silver-copper development project in Mexico and 100% of the Black Fox mine and adjoining properties in the Township of Black River"Matheson near Timmins, Ontario, Canada. Primero offers immediate exposure to un-hedged, below average cash cost gold production with a substantial resource base in politically stable jurisdictions. The Company is focused on becoming a leading intermediate gold producer by building a portfolio of high quality, low cost precious metals assets in the Americas.
Primero's website is www.primeromining.com.
Attachment Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/7/5/11G105391/PR18-16_Eduardo_Luna_Resignation_Final-04bc007c4ea1bc5f9ce4bb984d050b88.pdf
For further information, please contact:
Evan Young
Manager, Investor Relations
Tel: (416) 814-2694
eyoung@primeromining.com
MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Sama Resources Inc./Ressources Sama Inc. (TSX VENTURE: SME) ( "Sama") and Section Rouge Media Inc. (TSX VENTURE: SRO) ("Section") are pleased to announce that they have entered into an arm's length letter of intent dated June 23, 2016 (the "LOI") to acquire 100% of the shares of Sama Resources Guinea SARL ("SRG"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sama resulting in a reverse take-over of Section as described below (the "Reverse Take-over" or the "Transaction"). SRG's principal asset is exploration permit N degrees 2013/4543/MMG/DNM, known as the Lola Graphite Project, located near the town of Lola in eastern Republic of Guinea (the "Property"). Upon closing, Mr. Audet will be appointed CEO of the new Section (the "Resulting Issuer").
"Sama is very pleased to team up with Section in advancing the Lola Graphite Project," stated Dr. Marc-Antoine Audet, P.Geo, President and Chief Executive Officer, Sama Resources. "This transaction leverages the rapidly-growing graphite market. Graphite is an essential commodity in the renewal energy sector," added Dr. Audet.
In connection with the Reverse Take-over, Section will acquire 100% of the shares of SRG in consideration of 20,000,000 common shares (the "Payment Shares") of Section. The deemed value per Share is CDN$0.10, for a total purchase price of CDN$2,000,000. The Payment Shares may be subject to escrow restrictions under the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV"). It is anticipated that the Resulting Issuer will change its name to Sama Graphite Inc. upon completion of the Reverse Take-over or as rapidly as possible thereafter.
Capital Structure of Section
Section has an authorized share capital consisting of an unlimited number of common shares, of which 6,946,452 Shares are issued and outstanding. There are 620,000 options at an average exercise price of $0.05 currently outstanding. The Shares and those options are the only issued and outstanding securities of Section.
Concurrent Financing
In connection with the Reverse Take-over, Section intends to conduct a concurrent private placement offering of common shares of Section at a price of $0.10 for aggregate gross proceeds of not less than $500,000 up to a maximum of $1,000,000 (the "Concurrent Financing"). The Company may pay finders' fees in cash and issue finder's warrants in connection with the Concurrent Financing. Net proceeds from the Concurrent Financing will be used for the advancement of the Property and for general working capital purposes related thereto.
Resulting Issuer Capital Structure
Assuming that no currently-outstanding convertible securities of Section are exercised prior to the closing of the Reverse Take-over, the issued capital of the Resulting Issuer will consist of approximately 32,946,452 common shares, of which approximately 60.7% will be held by Sama and approximately 21.1% by existing shareholders of Section, assuming completion of the minimum amount of the Concurrent Financing.
Closing Conditions:
Under the LOI, the completion of the Reverse Take-over is conditional upon a number of conditions precedent, which include without limitation the following:
-- Completion of customary due diligence reviews by both SRG and Section; -- Receipt of all necessary consents and approvals (including the approval of the Guinean Minister of Mines and Geology, Section's shareholders and the TSXV); -- The completion of the Concurrent Financing; -- Section obtaining from Sama a title opinion on the Property; -- Section having a minimum of CDN$600,000 in net tangible assets, including CDN$300,000 in cash; and -- The signature of definitive agreements no later than July 29, 2016.
Completion of the Reverse Take-over is expected to occur no later than the end of October 2016
Lola Graphite Property
The Property is located near the town of Lola in eastern Guinea, 1,000 km from Conakry, the capital of the Republic of Guinea. The Property is within 50 km from the border with Guinea and located 3.5km west of the town of Lola.
The Property was originally discovered by the BUMIFOM (Bureau Minier de la France Outremer) during the construction of the Conakry-Lola road in 1951. Following Guinean independence in 1959, the Property was abandoned and subsequently forgotten until Sama "re-discovered" it in 2012.
The graphite-rich paragneiss is present at surface over 8.7 kilometers with an average width of 300m and up to 1,000m wide. The first 20m or so of the deposit is well weathered (lateralized) freeing graphite flakes from the silicate gangue and allowing for an easy grinding with an optimal recovery of large and jumbo flakes. Graphite mineralisation continues at depth within the non-weathered paragneiss.
A NI 43-101 technical report supporting the foregoing technical disclosure is expected to be filed and available on SEDAR within 45 days.
Sama Resources Guinea
For the audited fifteen-month period ended December 31, 2015, SRG (which is incorporated under Guinean law) had assets of CDN$381,082, liabilities of $1,327,158, shareholder equity of CDN$946,076, no revenues and a net loss of CDN$667,503 (all amounts were prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards and are approximate and were converted from Guinean francs as at and for the fifteen-month period ended December 31, 2015). SRG's liabilities include an amount of CDN$1,291,751 owing to Sama; the parties intend for Section to acquire that receivable from Sama upon the closing of the Transaction.
For the unaudited, three-month period ended March 31, 2016, SRG had assets of CDN$413,994, liabilities of $1,364,569, shareholder equity of CDN$950,575, no revenues and a net loss of CDN$4,499 (all amounts were prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards and are approximate and were converted from Guinean francs as at and for the three-month period ended March 31, 2016). SRG's liabilities include an amount of CDN$1,322,060 owing to Sama; the parties intend for Section to acquire that receivable from Sama upon the closing of the Transaction.
Proposed Officers and Directors of the Resulting Issuer
Marc-Antoine Audet, BSc, MSc and PhD (Geology), P.Geo., Chief Executive Officer and Director
Dr. Audet has over 27 years of geological experience in international nickel laterite exploration and development with major mining companies such as Xstrata Nickel and Falconbridge. His project experience includes the Falcondo laterite nickel operation, the newly discovered Serra do Tapas and Vale dos Sonhos deposits in Brazil and New Caledonia's Koniambo nickel cobalt laterite project.
Benoit La Salle, FCPA, MBA, Chairman and Director
Mr. La Salle is a Fellow Chartered Professional Accountant, a member of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada and holds a Commerce Degree and a Masters of Business Administration. In 1980, Mr. La Salle founded Grou, La Salle & Associates, Chartered Accountants. In 1995, Mr. La Salle founded SEMAFO Inc. and held the position of President and Chief Executive Officer of the organization until August 2012.
Marc Filion, Ph.D, MBA, Eng., Asc, Director
Marc Filion is a certified board director and company executive. He currently sits on a number of boards as chairman of the board or as an active audit and compensation, nominating and corporate governance committee member. A geological engineer by training, Dr. Filion exercised his technical skills in Canada and abroad while at the employ of SOQUEM, SNC-Lavalin and CHIM International for over 40 years.
The Resulting Issuer's remaining directors and officers will be determined by the closing date of the Transaction.
Finder's Fee and Other
The Resulting Issuer will pay an aggregate finder's fee of $100,000 payable by the issuance of 500,000 common shares of Section to each of Hamsa Capital Inc. and 9216-3815 Quebec Inc. Hamsa Capital Inc. and 9216-3815 Quebec Inc. are arm's length parties with Section and Sama.
There will be no loan or deposit payable by Section in connection with the Transaction. Section's common shares will remain halted until the completion of the Transaction.
The parties intend to request a waiver of the sponsorship requirement set forth under TSXV Policy 2.2. There can be no guarantee that such a waiver will be granted.
Completion of the Reverse Take-over is subject to a number of conditions, including TSXV acceptance and disinterested approval from Section's shareholders. The Reverse Take-over cannot close until the required shareholder approval is obtained. There can be no assurance that the Reverse Take-over will be completed as proposed or at all.
Investors are cautioned that, except as disclosed in the management information circular or filing statement to be prepared in connection with the Reverse Take-over, any information released or received with respect to the Reverse Take-over may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon. Trading in the securities of Section should be considered highly speculative.
The TSXV has in no way passed upon the merits of the proposed transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.
About Sama Resources Inc./Resources Sama Inc.
Sama is a Canadian-based mineral exploration and development company with projects in West Africa. For more information about Sama, please visit Sama's website at www.samaresources.com.
About Section Rouge Media Inc.
Section Rouge is specialized in producing publications related to agricultural machineries
Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release discusses items that may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of securities laws and that involve risks and uncertainties. Such statements include those with respect to the completion of the Transaction, the composition of Section's board following the Transaction, the business plans and operations of Section following the Transaction and the Concurrent Financing. Although Sama and Section believe in light of the experience of its officers and directors, current conditions and expected future developments and other factors that have been considered appropriate that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, they can give no assurances that those expectations will be achieved and actual results may differ materially from those contemplated in the forward-looking statements and information. Such assumptions, which may prove incorrect, include the following:
(i) the Transaction will obtain all required regulatory approvals and any applicable shareholder approvals in a timely fashion, (ii) Sama and Section will agree on final documentation to complete the Transaction, (iii) Section's management will not identify and pursue other business objectives following the Transaction, (iv) Section will succeed in obtaining any necessary financing to fund its ongoing operations and work plans, including the Concurrent Financing, (v) no material obstacles, technical or otherwise, will hinder the operations of Section following the Transaction and (vi) the price of graphite will remain sufficiently high and the costs of advancing the Property sufficiently low so as to permit Section to implement its business plans in a profitable manner. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations include (i) the failure of Section to make effective use of their available funds following the Transaction, (ii) the failure of the drilling projects of Section for technical, logistical, labour-relations or other reasons, (iii) the inability of Sama or Section to obtain the necessary approvals for the Transaction, (iv) a decrease in the price of graphite below what is necessary to sustain the operations of Section, (v) an increase in the operating costs of Section above what is necessary to sustain its operations, (vi) accidents, labour disputes or the materialization of similar risks, (vii) a deterioration in capital market conditions that prevents Section from raising the funds that it requires Section on a timely basis (including by preventing it from completing the Concurrent Financing), (viii) an inability or unwillingness of Sama or Section to complete the Transaction for whatever reason, (ix) an inability or unwillingness of the individuals named above to serve as directors or officers of Section following the Transaction and (x) generally, an inability of Sama or Section to develop and implement a successful business plan for any reason. These factors and others are more fully discussed in Sama and Section's filings with Canadian securities regulatory authorities available at www.sedar.com. Actual results may vary from the forward-looking information and neither Sama nor Section assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statement except as required by applicable law.
Contacts:
Sama Resources Inc.
Dr. Marc-Antoine Audet
President and CEO
(514) 726-4158
ceo@samaresources.com
Section Rouge Media Inc.
Mtre. Jean-Pierre Rancourt
President and CEO
(450) 677-2556 x222
jprancourt@rancourtavocats.com
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Eurocontrol Technics Group Inc. (TSX VENTURE: EUO) ("Eurocontrol" or the "Company"), a Canadian public company specializing in the acquisition, development and commercialization of innovative authentication, verification and certification technologies, is pleased to announce that its subsidiary, XwinSys Technology Development Ltd. ("XwinSys"), is publishing an article describing its novel in-line and non-destructive hybrid metrology system, uniquely integrating advanced X-ray and optical technologies, designed to meet the current and future metrological challenges of the semiconductor industry.
The abstract will be published in the July 2016 edition of Solid State Technology, associated with SEMICON West 2016 exhibition, also available at www.electroiq.com.
XwinSys's unique and patented multi-mode technology system meets both fast in-line and in-depth metrology challenges, without interrupting the process flow.
Doron Reinis, Chief Operating Officer stated, "This is a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts - the integrated sensors create an innovative wholistic approach to problem solving and product monitoring - a disruptive technology that replaces the need for off-line analytical tasks."
Bruce Rowlands, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, added, "XwinSys is ideally positioned to supply a revolutionary solution to a critical need in the newly emerging field of 3D interconnects in 3D integrated circuit stacks."
XwinSys will be presenting the hybrid technology and its portfolio of solutions at SEMICON West 2016, the world's marketplace for microelectronics innovation and largest conference and exhibition for the semiconductor industry. The Conference and Exhibition is being held at the Moscone Center, San Francisco from July 12(th) through July 14(th), 2016. XwinSys will be exhibiting in the South Hall, booth # 2245.
About XwinSys Technology Development Ltd.
XwinSys was founded at 2012 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Eurocontrol. The company is located in the hi-tech industrial park at Migdal Haemek in Israel. XwinSys is led by an outstanding team of senior managers, board members and global advisers with vast accumulated experience in high technology industries and is dedicated to the design, manufacture and marketing of novel solutions based on improved x-ray technology combined with automated optical 2D and 3D microscopes, for the semiconductor and related industries.
The XwinSys technology was designed to offer an innovative cost effective technological solution to the rapid-growing semiconductor industry. It offers a new approach that meets the challenge of roadmap requirements for inspection and metrology of 3D structures in the semiconductor industry. 3D-IC is the fastest growing segment of the semiconductor industry and leads the way to vertical stacking that is evolving as the disruptive force of the industry. For more information on XwinSys, visit www.xwinsys.com.
About Eurocontrol Technics Group Inc.
Eurocontrol is a TSX Venture listed company that specializes in the acquisition, development and commercialization of innovative authentication, verification and certification technologies. Eurocontrol has two wholly owned subsidiaries, Xenemetrix Ltd. and XwinSys Technology Development Ltd. Xenemetrix is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of ED-XRF systems, a technology that is the most accurate and economic method for determining the chemical composition of many types of materials, including the analysis of petroleum oils and fuel. Xenemetrix has an exclusive long-term supply, maintenance and support agreement with SICPA/GFI to supply SICPA/GFI with Xenemetrix products and services related to the oil and gas marking and monitoring field. XwinSys is in the final stage of developing a fully automated metrology system for the semiconductor industry that combines 2D and 3D image processing technology with Xenemetrix's ED-XRF technology.
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.
Contacts:
Eurocontrol Technics Group Inc.
Bruce Rowlands
Chairman and CEO
(416) 361-2809
browlands@eurocontrol.ca
www.eurocontrol.ca
MANCHESTER, England, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --
EDM, a leading global provider of training simulators to the civil aviation and defence sectors, announced today that it has collaborated with Martin-Baker to make its F-35 ejection seat exhibit as realistic as possible at the forthcoming Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT).
Martin-Baker, the world's leading manufacturer of ejection seats and related equipment, commissioned EDM to provide a bespoke audio-visual interactive system for the F-35 US16E ejection seat being demonstrated at the airshow. This will give visitors the experience of being ejected from the seat of a fighter jet during normal flight. EDM has also designed and manufactured a custom-made structure to accommodate the ejection seat and produced graphical representations of the instruments and switch panels in the cockpit to the left and right of the seat to create a highly realistic flying experience for the general public to enjoy.
Visitors to RIAT can find the Martin-Baker exhibition booth in the Techno Zone Marquee. Running from 8th to 10th July at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, RIAT is the world's largest military airshow. Organised in support of the Royal Air Force Charitable Trust, this year's show is expected to attract over 150,000 spectators.
For more information about Martin Baker visit: http://www.martin-baker.com
For more information about EDM visit: http://www.edm.ltd.uk
About EDM
EDM is a leading global provider of training simulators to the civil aviation, defence, rail and other industries. Combining the highest engineering standards with leading-edge technologies, EDM provides airlines with Door Trainers, Cabin Service Trainers, Cabin Emergency Evacuation Trainers and Full Size Mockups and defence organsiations with Procedure Trainers, Maintenance Trainers, Ejection Seats, Simulators and Full Size Replicas. Serving organisations worldwide from its UK headquarters, EDM is committed to delivering exceptional quality and value to its clients to help them enhance safety and operational efficiency.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Aben Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: ABN) (OTCBB: ABNAF) (FRANKFURT: E2L2) (the "Company") is pleased to announce the Company has finalized staking activity and completed individual agreements with third-parties whereby the Company will acquire a 100% interest in a large, road-accessible area within B.C.'s "Golden Triangle" region north of Stewart, B.C. The Golden Triangle is host to significant mineral deposits including Galore Creek, Copper Canyon, Schaft Creek, Valley of the Kings, Snowfield, KSM, Snip, Granduc, Red-Chris and numerous others.
Individual agreements were executed between Aben and Equity Exploration Consultants, Kiska Metals and CVE, a private third-party, whereby Aben will acquire a 100% interest (less underlying NSRs) by issuing a total of 7.0 million shares and completing $3,000,000 in exploration expenditures by June, 2020. Aben has also completed staking in the project area resulting in 100% unencumbered ownership of certain claims totalling approximately 6,300 ha. This agreement is subject to TSXV Exchange acceptance.
See Forrest Kerr project, Golden Triangle area map:
http://www.abenresources.com/i/maps/ABN_Forrest_Kerr_Project_map_small.jpg
Aben's Forrest Kerr land package consists of over 23,000 ha located along the Forrest Kerr Fault, immediately north of the Iskut River and southward of More Creek, with recent road access afforded to the northern and southern limits of the property. The claims consist of a 40km-long north-south belt overlying rocks of the Hazelton and Stuhini Groups, a complex assemblage of volcanic accumulations with intervening sedimentary sequences which are host to significant gold deposits in the Golden Triangle area.
Drilling throughout the project area is relatively limited, with analytical results ranging from trace amounts to multi-gram gold concentrations. Drilling highlights on the RDN (Kiska) package include drill-hole RG91-16 at the Boundary Zone, which returned 10.2 g/t gold over 17m (including 359.7 g/t gold over 0.45m) and RG91-21, which returned 101.0 g/t Au over 1.95 m and 137.8 g/t Au over 0.85 m (true widths unknown). Many of these intercepts, interpreted to be possible feeders zones to a precious-metal VMS system, have yet to see follow-up work. On the Forgold package, holes FG91-2 returned 3.87 g/t Au over 1.58m and FG91-3 returned 19.2 g/t Au over 0.82m (true widths unknown). Drilling at the Triple Creek Zone on the Forrest claims in 1990 returned up to 39.7m grading 1.78 g/t Au (including 2.0m grading 5.9 g/t Au, 190.0 g/t Ag and 12.4% Cu).
The project area is host to numerous high-grade gold, silver and base-metal mineral showings. Assay results range from trace amounts to multi-gram gold concentrations. Notable occurrences include Jungle (25.5 g/t Au-float); For (15.85% Cu in very narrow veins); Forgold (30.5 g/t Au and 15.85% Cu in narrow veins); Glimmer (17.0% Cu, 124 g/t Ag-grab); End (17.1 g/t Au-grab); Azurite (20.9 g/t Au over 3 m-trench); Tarn (12.1 g/t Au and 118.3 g/t Ag-grab); Klinker (27% Cu and 63 g/t Ag-grab sample taken adjacent to a glacier in 1990); Falls (22.11 g/t Au, .32% Cu-grab); Midway (15.0 g/t Au, 1.7% Cu-grab), Crooked Creek (36.33 g/t Au-chip sample over 0.10m) Marmot Heights (45.57 g/t Au-grab) and Moose Creek (32.16 g/t Au-grab). Aben has not been able to independently verify the methodology and results from historical work programs within the property boundaries. However, management believes that the historical work programs have been conducted in a professional manner and the quality of data and information produced from them are relevant.
Forrest Kerr Area History
Interest in the Golden Triangle region of British Columbia dates back to 1861, when placer gold was discovered at the confluence of the of the Stikine and Anuk rivers, sparking the Stikine Gold Rush. Large-scale lode mining first took place at the Premier Mine located north of Stewart in 1918. In 1964, Cominco discovered the Snip deposit, which commenced operation in 1991; ultimately producing over 1.1 million ounces at an average grade of 27.5 g/t. Eskay Creek was discovered in 1988 and ultimately produced in excess of 3 million ounces of gold and 160 million ounces of silver, in addition to appreciable lead and zinc. Pretivm Resources in June, 2014 announced updated Proven and Probable Mineral Reserves at Valley of the Kings containing 6.9 million ounces of gold from 13.5 Mt ore grading 15.7 g/t gold, with commercial production scheduled for 2017. Management cautions that past results or discoveries on proximate land are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be achieved on the subject properties.
Systematic exploration within regions of the Forrest Kerr project area commenced in the mid-1980s and saw continuous exploration programs from 1988 to 2005. Little work has been completed from 2005-2016. Early work in the project area was focussed on exploration for Eskay-type (VMS) deposits, though the more recent discovery of structurally-related high-grade gold mineralization at Valley of the Kings underscores the variety of exploration targets available to Aben.
Since the completion of significant exploration activity in the early 2000s, the area has seen major infrastructure improvements including roads associated with the construction of the Forrest Kerr and McLymont Creek hydro-electric facilities near the southern boundary of the property and the construction of the 287KV Northwest Transmission Line. Development of the Galore Creek Project has also provided road access to the northern reaches of the Forrest Kerr Project, which provide greatly improved access in addition to new exposures made by road-cuts.
2016 Exploration Activity
Aben intends to immediately initiate a comprehensive data compilation, bringing all historical work into a single GIS database. This work will be followed by fieldwork aimed at determining drill targets for a possible fall, 2016 drilling campaign. Permitting for the drilling activity is currently underway.
Tim J. Termuende, Director of Aben Resources, has reviewed and approved the technical aspects of this news release and is the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.
About Aben Resources:
Aben Resources is a Canadian gold exploration company developing projects in British Columbia, the Yukon and North West Territories.
For further information on Aben Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: ABN), visit our Company's web site at www.abenresources.com.
ABEN RESOURCES LTD.
JAMES G. PETTIT, President
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
This release includes certain statements that may be deemed to be "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that management of the Company expects, are forward-looking statements. Although management believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements, include market prices, exploration and development successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Please see the public filings of the Company at www.sedar.com for further information.
Contacts:
Aben Resources Ltd.
James G. Pettit
President
604-687-3376 OR Toll Free: 800-567-8181
604-687-3119 (FAX)
Aben Resources Ltd.
Don Myers
Corporate Communications
604-687-3376 OR Toll Free: 800-567-8181
604-687-3119 (FAX)
info@abenresources.com
The report forecasts the global music synthesizers market to grow at a CAGR of 2.6% during the period 2016-2020. Commenting on the report, an analyst from the research team said: A trend which is helping boost market growth is the transition from developed to emerging markets. Major synthesizer brands are shifting their focus to emerging markets as developed markets are nearing saturation. The expansion will help vendors increase their customer base and geographical reach. Developing APAC countries such as India, China, and South Korea are contributing to keep the market afloat. According to the report, a key growth driver is the increased demand for concerts and live performances. The passion for music among the population has led to an increase in the number of concerts and live performances, globally. In 2014, the live performance segment published music worth $2.74 billion, and it is likely to increase during the forecast period. The rise in number of concerts and live performances is because people want to watch their favourite artists perform. Growing interest in music among the younger generation supports the growth of the market. Questions Answered:
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Release no. 19/2016Today, Columbus A/S has concluded a conditional agreement about acquisition of CSG (Client Strategy Group), an ERP consultancy in the US.The acquisition of CSG strengthens Columbus' position in the US market, and is in line with Columbus' goal of being recognized as a strategic business partner that helps customers increase the value of their ERP investment and leads them in the digital transformation of their business.CSG is recognized for their specialized competencies and solutions within ERP. The acquisition of CSG thereby gives Columbus the opportunity to help the company's US customers optimize and develop their ERP solution to an even greater extent."We are excited to welcome CSG. Columbus has a clear goal of creating a unique customer experience and thereby achieving the highest customer satisfaction in the market, and with CSG's skills and experience we will be able to serve our customers even better", says Thomas Honore, CEO, Columbus.CSG, which was founded in 2003, has 19 employees at their office in Cleveland. In 2015, CSG had a revenue of DKK 33.5m and an EBITDA of DKK 5m.The agreed acquisition price is DKK 42.9m Enterprise Value +/- regulation of normalized working capital.The acquisition is conditional on a few employee related conditions, which must be confirmed before closing (date of takeover and control) on 15 July 2016. The conditions for the takeover are expected to be met, and afterwards the final announcement will be released to the market. The amount to be paid at closing of the agreement on 15 July 2016 is DKK 34.3m. The remaining amount of DKK 8.6m is dependent on the agreed earnings targets, and is expected to be paid over the next two years.The acquisition is financed by Columbus' own available funds.Columbus expects to take over net assets of DKK 3.3m adjusted to fair value at the acquisition. Hereafter DKK 39.6m is expected to be capitalized as intangible assets.The acquisition is expected to contribute with a revenue in the level of DKK 14.3m and EBITDA in the level of DKK 3.5m in the period from 15 July 2016 (closing), when management control is taken over by Columbus, to 31 December 2016.Columbus maintains the previously announced expctations to revenue in 2016 in the level of DKK 1.2bn and increases the expectations to EBITDA* in 2016 from the level of DKK 120m to the level of DKK 124m.* EBITDA before share based paymentIb Kune Thomas Honore Chairman CEO & President Columbus A/S Columbus A/S For further information, please contact Koncernchef Thomas Honore, T: +45 70 20 50 00.Translation: In the event of any inconsistency between this document and the Danish language version, the Danish language version shall be the governing version.Attachment:https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=577910
NEW YORK, NY -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- BNP Paribas today announced that its Cross-Asset Structured Products Distribution team received six prominent awards from leading industry publications. The awards showcase the Bank's unique sustainable investment offerings, innovative technology through its SMART derivatives platform and new opportunities for clients in Latin America.
BNP Paribas was honored with the following 2016 awards:
Structured Products Americas Awards
Latin America House of the Year
Technology Vendor of the Year - Bank (for SMART derivatives)
SRP Awards - Americas Structured Products & Derivatives Awards
Deal of the Year (for Equity-Linked Green Growth Bonds issued by the World Bank)
Best Single-Dealer Platform (for SMART derivatives)
mtn-i Awards
Latin America Investor Solutions
Deal of the Year (for Equity-Linked Green Growth Bonds issued by the World Bank)
"The success of our team is centered around three core pillars. The strength of our dedicated employees who are passionate about growing the business, our solid, unwavering commitment to our diverse client base, and our desire to provide innovative offerings to the market," said Franck Bertoneche, Head of Cross-Asset Structured Products Distribution Sales for the Americas. "These awards demonstrate our commitment to providing leading products and technology to clients, and our aggressive expansion in the Structured Products space. We plan to continue this momentum as we strengthen and develop our core platform."
The Americas Structured Products team has grown significantly in the last several years and continues to be a competitive player within the industry. The platform has performed well with some specific projects paving the way for these award wins.
The Structured Products Magazine Awards, the Americas Structured Products & Derivatives Awards, and mtn-i Awards recognize the best buy-side and sell-side firms, as well as identify service providers active in the structured products and derivatives market. They award the top institutions and deals which provided the most compelling investor solutions in the structured products space.
About BNP Paribas:
BNP Paribas is a leading bank in Europe with an international reach. It has a presence in 75 countries, with more than 189,000 employees, including more than 146,000 in Europe. The Group has key positions in its three main activities: Domestic Markets and International Financial Services (whose retail-banking networks and financial services are covered by Retail Banking & Services) and Corporate & Institutional Banking, which serves two client franchises: corporate clients and institutional investors. The Group helps all its clients (individuals, community associations, entrepreneurs, SMEs, corporates and institutional clients) to realise their projects through solutions spanning financing, investment, savings and protection insurance. In Europe, the Group has four domestic markets (Belgium, France, Italy and Luxembourg) and BNP Paribas Personal Finance is the leader in consumer lending. BNP Paribas is rolling out its integrated retail-banking model in Mediterranean countries, in Turkey, in Eastern Europe and a large network in the western part of the United States. In its Corporate & Institutional Banking and International Financial Services activities, BNP Paribas also enjoys top positions in Europe, a strong presence in the Americas as well as a solid and fast-growing business in Asia-Pacific.
Mylene Benmoussa
Tel: +1 (212) 841-2351
mylene.benmoussa@us.bnpparibas.com
DENVER, CO -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- American Cannabis Company, Inc. (OTCQB: AMMJ) (the "Company"), a full-service business-to-business consulting solutions provider, and seller of ancillary products to the cannabis industry, today announced it has secured a consulting contract in State of California. This marks the company's first client in the state of California, bringing their current market reach to 17 states as well as Canada and Guam.
The contract focuses on ACC's business planning and application services to support their client's effort to secure a license under California's Medical Marijuana Safety and Regulation Act. ACC expects to leverage this contract to secure additional revenues through long-term consulting agreements, potential sales of ancillary products and services to aid cultivation as well as dispensary operations.
Corey Hollister, president and CEO, American Cannabis Company, commented: "We are excited to bring the deep experience we have gained in establishing and operating in fully regulated markets to California, the birthplace of modern medical cannabis in America. California remains the largest cannabis market and presents significant opportunities for operators looking to participate in the next phase of its development."
About American Cannabis Company, Inc.:
American Cannabis Company, Inc. offers end-to-end solutions to existing and aspiring participants in the cannabis industry. We utilize our industry expertise to provide business planning and market assessment services, assist state licensing procurement, create business infrastructure and operational best practices. Through our two vertically integrated businesses, American Cannabis Consulting and American Cultivator Company, a group purchasing organization, we support our clients from concept to creation to commercialization to on-going operations.
For more information, please visit: www.americancannabiscompanyinc.com.
Forward Looking Statements
This news release contains "forward-looking statements" which are not purely historical and may include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Such forward-looking statements include, among other things, the development, costs and results of new business opportunities and words such as "anticipate", "seek", intend", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "project", "plan", or similar phrases may be deemed "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, the inherent uncertainties associated with new projects, the future U.S. and global economies, the impact of competition, and the Company's reliance on existing regulations regarding the use and development of cannabis-based drugs. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Although we believe that any beliefs, plans, expectations and intentions contained in this press release are reasonable, there can be no assurance that any such beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions will prove to be accurate. Investors should consult all of the information set forth herein and should also refer to the risk factors disclosure outlined in our annual report on Form 10-K for the most recent fiscal year, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and other periodic reports filed from time-to-time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. For more information, please visit www.sec.gov.
Contact:
Terry Buffalo
Chief Operating Officer
IR@americancannabisconsulting.com
303-974-4771
BOSTON, MA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- The LearnLaunch Institute today announced the expansion of its board of directors, adding leaders in education innovation to its governing board. As of July 1, 2016, four new corporate board members will join the LearnLaunch Institute:
Dr. Paul Dakin -- Paul Dakin has served for 42 years as a teacher and educator, with the last 15 years as Superintendent of the Revere, Massachusetts Public Schools.
Michael Horn -- Michael Horn is the author and co-author of multiple books, white papers, and articles on education, including Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns and Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools. Horn is principal consultant at Entangled Solutions, an executive editor at Education Next, and co-founder and distinguished fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
Dr. Paul J. LeBlanc -- Dr. Paul J. LeBlanc is President of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), the largest provider of online higher education in New England, one of the five largest in the country, and the first to have a full competency-based degree program (untethered to the credit hour or classes) approved by a regional accreditor and the U.S. Department of Education.
Dr. Vijay Kumar -- Vijay Kumar provides leadership for sustainable technology-enabled educational innovation at MIT. He currently leads Strategic Educational Initiatives as Associate Dean in MIT's Office of Digital Learning.
"We are thrilled to have great leaders in education innovation join the board of LearnLaunch Institute," said Eileen Rudden, Board Chair. We look forward to their guidance as we continue to focus on creating the possibility for personalized learning for all students."
LearnLaunch Institute is known for building community: It's fifth annual Across Boundaries conference will be held Feb 2-3 2017, at the Hynes Auditorium, and is expected to attract more than 1,000 educators, entrepreneurs, investors and edtech strategic players. LearnLaunch Institute hosts over 40 events annually on the topic of education technology, which attract over 4,000 people.
LearnLaunch Institute is also building knowledge. The recipient of a grant from the Gates Foundation, LearnLaunch Institute's MassNET project worked with 6 Boston Public Schools, 40 teachers and 1,100 students during the past school year, supporting teachers' expressed desires to move to more personalized learning for their students.
About LearnLaunch Institute
LearnLaunch Institute catalyzes a community that drives innovation to transform learning and increase achievement. Our education innovation ecosystem mobilizes educators, entrepreneurs, learners, investors, and industry affiliates. As a nonprofit, the Institute offers learning opportunities, supports services, and a school pilot network. We believe in expanding access to learning that is engaging, personalized, and effective. Edtech is a critical component of achieving this vision at scale. For more information, visit www.learnlaunch.org. LearnLaunch Institute is a part of LearnLaunch.
About LearnLaunch
LearnLaunch is dedicated to connecting, supporting, and growing the education technology ecosystem to drive innovation and transform learning. We are a vibrant community, delivering educational events, a selective accelerator program, and a collaborative co-working space. We are based in Boston, a world education hub. For more information, visit www.learnlaunch.com and follow LearnLaunch on Twitter at @learnlaunch.
Media Contact:
Josef Blumenfeld
EdTech180
Email Contact
CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwired - July 06, 2016) - Leading direct response advertising agency, Northern Lights Direct, has hired Jennifer Smits in the position of Associate Media Director, U.S.
With nearly 20 years of diverse DRTV industry experience developing and managing both brand-based and direct-response media campaigns, Smits is a highly respected DR strategist joining Northern Lights from A. Eicoff & Company.
In her new position at Northern Lights, Smits will work closely with the U.S. DRTV Media team, headed by Rebecca Barr, Vice President, U.S. Media, to optimize its ever-evolving core media services and strategies, while fostering strengthened client and business relationships.
A major driver in Northern Light's expansion has been the agency's focus on helping its clients achieve competitive advantage and improved sales, through results focused advertising. Smits' appointment is part of a long-term plan to complement this ongoing growth in the U.S. and Canada.
"I'm thrilled to join Northern Lights. Direct response advertising continues to be a cornerstone of our clients' marketing success," says Smits. "Companies seek to champion their brand and achieve positive returns on their media investment -- DR does both extremely effectively."
Sandy French, CEO, Northern Lights Direct, expressed his support: "DR media buying is more sophisticated now than ever before, and having someone of Jennifer's caliber puts us in a great position to deliver the insightful solutions and measurable results that our clients have come to expect." According to French, "Her hybrid direct marketing expertise and knowledge of brand-based advertising are an ideal fit for Northern Lights, as our business continues to grow."
About Northern Lights Direct
Northern Lights Direct provides brand-based direct response television (DRTV) and digital advertising services for corporate and nonprofit organizations in the U.S. and Canada. With offices in Chicago and Toronto, Northern Lights Direct seamlessly helps clients advertise in the American and Canadian markets and is fully turnkey, providing direct response (DR) campaign strategy, media, search, analytics, creative and production services. The Art & Science of the Sell.
For more information, please visit: www.northernlightsdirect.com
Related links: https://northernlightsdirect.com/pr/northern-lights-direct-hires-associate-media-director
Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/7/5/11G105330/Images/Jen_S_headshot-68aa714270c68a57b3d914ab4a285207.jpg
Contact:
Sandy French
CEO
Northern Lights Direct
E. sfrench@northernlightsdirect.com
T. 416.593.6104 (x2220)
With an efficiency increase of 3% in 2009 to up to 22% today, perovskite semiconductors have attracted the attention of PV researchers around the globe. A team from Molecular Foundry and the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at Berkeley Lab have deployed atomic force microscopy to reveal the "bumpy surface" of a perovskite solar cell, indicating that efficiencies vary widely within the cell dependent on the nature of its surface. Investigating perovskite solar cells at the nanoscale, the researchers discovered that the cell surface is composed of grains around 200 nanometers. At the nanoscale, the research also revealed that each grain itself has multi-angled facets - like the faces of a gemstone, Berkeley Lab explains in a press release. The photocurrent generation, and therefore conversion efficiency, of the different facets varies wildly, approaching 31% at the highest end, down to very low efficiency on others. The facets behave like "billions of tiny solar cells, all connected in parallel," the Berkeley press release elaborates. With current flowing from to the good to the bad cell, the overall efficiency ...
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Critical Elements Corporation ("Critical Elements" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: CRE) (OTCQX: CRECF) (FRANKFURT: F12) and Natan Resources Ltd ("Natan") (TSX VENTURE: NRL) are pleased to announce that Critical Elements and Natan have entered into an option agreement ("Agreement") that gives Natan the right to acquire up to a 70% interest in the Duval project, located south-west of and contiguous to the Nemaska Lithium Whabouchi Deposit.
"The Duval project represents a great opportunity for Natan Resources, Critical Elements and the shareholders of both entities. The hard work of companies such as Critical Elements and Nemaska Lithium have unveiled the potential of the Lac des Montagnes volcano-sedimentary belt as one of the most important spodumene lithium hard rock deposit in the world, both in volume and grade.", stated Michael Blady, CEO of Natan. "This acquisition has given Natan a great address, adjacent to Nemaska's Whabouchi property, which is considered by many the premier spodumene lithium deposit in North America. We are excited to confirm the great potential of this property and will be working swiftly and diligently to plan and execute a program this summer."
"This option agreement with Natan will allow the Duval property to be explored in detail for a Lithium Pegmatite discovery. Critical Elements is currently focused on the development of its Rose lithium-tantalum project. With Natan farming into the Duval project, shareholders of both companies will be able to benefit from successful exploration of a highly prospective project," stated Jean-Sebastien Lavallee, President and CEO, Critical Elements.
The Duval property is comprised of two blocks totaling 46 claims, with a total area of 2,458.92 hectares covering a distance of approximately 7 kilometres along a SW-NE axis. It lies two kilometres south of the Route du Nord and is served by a Hydro Quebec power line and a gravel road, which cross the southern half of the block in a southeasterly direction. The Duval main block can be accessed by the road leading to Lac des Montagnes and then by boat. An old winter road along the SE shore of Lac des Montagnes has been refurbished and can be used for winter drilling on the main block.
The property covers a large part of the regional volcano-metasedimentary unit, known to be the host for Nemaska Lithium's Wabouchi deposit and the Lemarre showings. The presence of this favorable lithology within the Company's claims and being along strike from Nemaska's successful exploration, increases the potential for the discovery of similar significant mineralization.
To view Figure 1. Location of known lithium deposits and showings and location of Duval claims in the James Bay area of Quebec: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Figure%201%20CEC.pdf
Terms of the transaction
Under the Agreement, Natan will earn its interest in Duval by way of a farm-in arrangement. The key terms of the Agreement are detailed below:
Grant of first option
Critical Elements hereby grants to Natan the exclusive right and option to acquire, on or before December 31, 2017 an initial 50% Earned Interest in the Property (the "First Option") by issuing to Critical an aggregate of 19.9% of the common shares of Natan, by paying $15,000 cash and by incurring or funding Exploration Expenditures for a total amount of $750,000 on the Property, as follows:
a. paying to Critical $15,000 cash within a delay of five (5) days following the execution of this Agreement (non-refundable); b. issuing to Critical 19.9% common shares of Natan Resources Ltd immediately following the receipt of the required approvals from the Exchange; and c. incurring or funding Exploration Expenditures aggregating not less than $750,000 on the Property, of which an amount of $350,000 must be incurred or funded before December 31, 2016 and an amount of $400,000 before December 31, 2017.
Grant of second option
Subject to Natan having exercised the First Option in accordance with the Agreement, Critical hereby also grants to Natan the exclusive right and option to increase its undivided interest in and to the Property from 50% to 70% by paying to Critical an additional amount of $350,000, incurring or funding additional Exploration Expenditures of $1,250,000 and by delivering a NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate on the Property prepared by a Qualified Person independent of Natan and Critical, for the period commencing on the delivery of notice of the exercise of the First Option by Natan (the "First Option Exercise Notice") and ending December 31, 2018, as follows:
a. on the date of delivery of the First Option Exercise Notice, paying to Critical an amount of $350,000, in cash or in common shares of Natan at the sole discretion of Natan; b. on or before December 31, 2018, incurring or funding additional Exploration Expenditures for an amount of $1,250,000; and c. on or before December 31, 2018, delivering the Resource Estimate to Critical.
Milestone payments
Subject to Natan's right to withdraw from and terminate the First Option, Natan agrees to make the following milestone payments to Critical, payable at any time following the exercise of the First Option:
a. On the estimation of a drilled defined resource (NI 43-101 compliant) of 5,000,000 tonnes at a cut-off grade of 0.6% Li2O (all categories) a payment of CAD $500,000, payable in cash or in common shares of Natan at the sole discretion of Natan;
b. On the estimation of a drilled defined resource (NI 43-101 compliant) of 10,000,000 tonnes at a cut-off grade of 0.6% Li2O (all categories) a payment of CAD $750,000, payable in cash or in common shares of Natan at the sole discretion of Natan; c. On the estimation of a drilled defined resource (Ni 43-101 compliant) of 15,000,000 tonnes at a cut-off grade of 0.6% Li2O (all categories) a payment of CAD $1,000,000, payable in cash or in common shares of Natan at the sole discretion of Natan; and d. On the estimation of a drilled defined resource (NI 43-101 compliant) of 20,000,000 tonnes at a cut-off grade of 0.6% Li2O (all categories) a payment of CAD $1,500,000, payable in cash or in common shares of Natan at the sole discretion of Natan.
Royalty
Following the exercise of the First Option by Natan and in addition to the amounts paid, common shares issued and Exploration Expenditures incurred or funded by Natan under the First Option and thereafter under the Second Option, as applicable, Critical shall receive a royalty equal to 2% net smelter returns resulting from the extraction and production of any Minerals on the Property.
The Royalty, including the right of Natan to purchase a portion thereof (1%).
JAMES BAY LITHIUM RESOURCES
Table 1. Lithium resources of the James Bay area
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Measured & Company Project Indicated Inferred Sources ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- NI 43-101 Technical Report - Feasibility 13.0Mt Study on the Whabouchi measured Lithium Deposit and @ 1.60% Li2O Hydromet Plant (Revised), and 15.0Mt prepared by Met-Chem Nemaska indicated 4.7Mt @ Canada inc., revision Lithium Whabouchi @ 1.54% Li2O 1.51% Li2O date January 22nd, 2016 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technical Report and Preliminary economic assessment on the Rose 26.5Mt Tantalum- Lithium Rose indicated 10.7Mt @ Project, prepared by Critical Lithium- @ 1.30% Li2O 1.14% Li2O Genivar, December 10th Elements Tantalum equivalent equivalent 2011 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Duval Property
The Duval property is located within the Opinaca Sub-province in Quebec, characterized by metagraywacke, migmatite, and granite. Polydeformed schists occur at the belt margins, whereas the interior portions are metamorphosed to amphibolite and granulite facies. Mineral occurrences within the Opinaca sub-province include rare metals within the peraluminous granites and associated pegmatites.
The property area is underlain by two dominant rock types: biotitic paragneisses belonging to the North-East-trending Lac des Montagnes metasedimentary belt, and granitoids/orthogneisses of the Champion Lake and Opatica North-East domains. The Lac des Montagnes belt is up to 8 kilometres wide and its northern boundary passes diagonally through the approximate centre of the property. Granitic and pegmatitic bodies of variable sizes and irregular shapes have been reported to intrude the metasedimentary belt and may account for up to 20% of the area by volume.
A 2012 Technical Report on the Valiquette Property, which includes the Duval claims, was completed by InnovExplo for Monarques Resources according to Regulation 43- 101 and Form 43-101F1.
Jean-Sebastien Lavallee (OGQ #773), geologist, shareholder and President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company and a Qualified Person under NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical content of this release.
About Critical Elements Corporation
A recent financial analysis (Technical Report and Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) on the Rose lithium-tantalum Project, Genivar, December 2011) of the Rose project based on price forecasts of US$260/kg ($118/lb) for Ta2O5 contained in a tantalite concentrate and US$6,000/t for lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) showed an estimated after-tax Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 25% for the Rose project, with an estimated Net Present Value (NPV) of CA$279 million at an 8% discount rate. The payback period is estimated at 4.1 years. The pre-tax IRR is estimated at 33% and the NPV at $488 million at a discount rate of 8%. (Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability). (The preliminary economic assessment is preliminary in nature). (See press release dated November 21, 2011.)
The conclusions of the PEA indicate the operation would support a production rate of 26,606 tons of high purity (99.9% battery grade) Li2CO3 and 206,670 pounds of Ta2O5 per year over a 17-year mine life.
The project hosts a current Indicated resource of 26.5 million tonnes of 1.30% Li2O Eq. or 0.98% Li2O and 163 ppm Ta2O5 and an Inferred resource of 10.7 million tonnes of 1.14% Li2O Eq. or 0.86% Li2O and 145 ppm Ta2O5.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider
(as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange)
accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Contacts:
Jean-Sebastien Lavallee, P.Geo.
President and Chief Executive Officer
819-354-5146
president@cecorp.ca
www.cecorp.ca
Investor Relations:
Paradox Public Relations
514-341-0408
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - July 6, 2016) - Gunpowder Capital Corp., (CSE: GPC), (FSE: YS6N) (the "Corporation") announced today that it has created GP Self Storage Inc., to complement its newly formed GP Reality division. Furthermore, the Corporation has also entered into two separate agreements to acquire two Ontario based storage unit facilities. The closing for both facilities is anticipated to occur within the next 30 to 45 days.
At the time of dissemination of this press release, the Corporation has a made a refundable deposit of Thirty Thousand Dollars ("$30,000.00") CDN to secure the two facilities. The Corporation is also currently negotiating the mortgage terms for the two facilities with its lender. Before finalizing the acquisitions, all required property inspections and accounting due diligence, will have to be completed on both facilities which the Corporation is currently working on completing.
Mr. Paul Haber stated: "We are very pleased to have entered into the agreements to acquire these facilities. As I've previously stated, the Corporation strongly believes that real estate provides an excellent long term investment to its shareholders. Unaudited net income for both facilities is currently Fifty-Nine Thousand Dollars ('$59,000.00') CDN per annum, and the combined Return on Investment ("ROI") is 8.4% which we feel in these market conditions is a very strong ROI. Furthermore, we also believe that we can increase the revenue streams of the two facilities by making improvements, and by finding efficiencies in the way they're managed."
Mr. Frank Kordy stated: "Should both of these acquisitions get completed, the Corporation's newly formed real estate divisions, in their current form, will generate slightly under One Hundred and Ten Thousand Dollars ('$110,000.00') CDN per year in gross revenue which amounts to close to Nine Thousand Dollars ('$9,000.00') CDN in gross revenue, per month. I'm very pleased with the current properties Paul Haber, and the rest of the business development team have sourced for the Corporation and its shareholders. The business development team continues to be 'sector agnostic' and continues to source business acquisition opportunities that will generate immediate revenue and ROI."
The Board of Directors of Gunpowder Capital Corp., have also today declared a dividend of $0.20 per outstanding "Series A" Preferred Share of its capital payable on, or after, Aug 6th, 2016 to "Series A" Preferred Shareholders of record at the close of business on June 30th, 2016.
For further information please contact:
Mr. Frank Kordy
Interim CEO & Director
Gunpowder Capital Corp.
T: (647) 466-4037
E: frank.kordy@gunpowdercapitalcorp.com
Mr. Paul Haber
CFO
Gunpowder Capital Corp.
T: (416) 363-3833
E: paul.haber@gunpowdercapitalcorp.com
Forward-Looking Statements
Information set forth in this news release may involve forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. The forward-looking statements contained herein are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements included in this document are made as of the date of this document and the Corporation disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable securities legislation. Although Management believes that the expectations represented in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described herein and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such. Neither CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
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VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Taku Gold Corp. (CSE: TAK) ("Taku" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has signed an option agreement (the "Agreement") with Independence Gold Corp. ("Independence") whereby Independence may earn a 100% interest in the Rosebute Property (the "Property") located in the White Gold District of Yukon.
The Rosebute Property comprises 694 contiguous claims (14,387 hectares) and contains two significant new gold discoveries known as the Norwest and Hudbay zones. The Property is located approximately 58 kilometres south of Dawson City, Yukon and approximately 29 kilometres north of the Golden Saddle Deposit owned by Kinross Gold Corporation. The Property is contiguous to the west of Independence's Henderson Property, and is situated in close proximity to the northern access road proposed by Kaminak Gold Corporation that will provide access to the multi- million-ounce Coffee gold deposit.
Pursuant to the agreement, Independence may acquire a 75% interest in the Property by making staged cash payments totaling $295,000 ($60,000 upon closing), the issuance of an aggregate of 1,000,000 million shares (200,000 upon closing) and work commitments of $2,000,000 ($300,000 in the first year) over a three year period. Upon completion of the 75% earn-in, Taku may elect to participate as a 25% interest joint venture partner, or sell the remaining 25% to Independence for an additional cash payment of $500,000 and a share issuance of 1,000,000 shares. If Taku sells the remaining 25% interest, it will retain a 1.0% net smelter returns royalty ("NSR") on the Property, with Independence retaining the right to buyback 0.5% of the NSR for $500,000. In addition, the Property is subject to a 2.0% underlying royalty, with a retained right to buyback 1.0% of the underlying royalty for $2,000,000.
On Behalf of the Board of Taku Gold Corp.,
Zachery Dingsdale, CEO and President
About Taku Gold Corp.:
Taku Gold Corp. (http://www.takugold.com) is a mineral resource company focused on the exploration and development of precious metal properties in Canada with a particular emphasis on the White Gold District of the Yukon Territory and the Tagish Lake region of Northern British Columbia.
Follow Taku Gold On:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/takugold
Twitter: http://twitter.com/takugoldcorp
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TakuGold
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/takugold/
Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Contacts:
Taku Gold Corp.
Zachery Dingsdale
President and CEO
604 642-0115
604 642-0116 (FAX)
zak@takugold.com
www.takugold.com
MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- NOVACAP, one of Canada's leading private equity firms, today announced that it has made a strategic investment in Syntax, a Montreal-based company that provides comprehensive technology solutions to businesses throughout North America. This investment will further accelerate the growth in Syntax's cloud offerings, including their best in class Enterprise Cloud for ERP, a unique offering that safely hosts and manages critical business applications.
The transaction is being financed through the NOVACAP TMT IV Fund, which specializes in partnering with exceptional companies that have high growth potential in the technology, media and telecommunications sectors. Syntax was advised by MVP Capital (MVP), an investment banking firm serving companies in the technology, media, telecom and renewable energy sectors. Syntax CEOs and Co-Presidents Ryan and Kenny Etinson and Founder and Principal Michael Etinson will continue to operate the business and keep a significant stake in the company.
Since 1972 thousands of customers have trusted Syntax with their IT services and ERP needs. From their multiple offices in Canada and across the U.S., Syntax has been developing and implementing ERP solutions for use across North America. Since 1997, Syntax has focused on JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and JD Edwards World while supporting and enhancing its SDM product line. Today, as an Oracle Platinum Partner and IBM Premier Partner, Syntax is a leader in providing cloud and implementation services for JD Edwards.
"After having successfully achieved the transfer from the previous generation, we felt that it was now time to take the company to the next level, said Ryan Etinson, Syntax Co-President and CEO. NOVACAP's support and capitalization will allow the company to grow into a major player within the North American market."
"Our clients face ever increasing demands to provide the highest service levels, often with constrained in-house resources, said Kenny Etinson, Ryan's brother and also Co-President and CEO. Our business model is based on offering products and services that enable organizations to modernize their back-office operations, empower their people, and maximize their value. We appeal to them because we are taking care of their IT environment in a cost-effective manner, so that they can focus on their business."
"We were impressed with Syntax's unique ERP integration model, said Ted Mocarski, Senior Partner at NOVACAP. The company already ranks at the industry forefront and is a clear leader in providing the in-depth knowledge and experience demanded for the JD Edwards solution set. We strongly feel that the outsourcing possibilities offered through their products and services offer a major growth potential with companies looking to improve their ERP hosting solutions."
ABOUT NOVACAP
With assets under management of over $1.6 billion, NOVACAP has consistently been recognized as one of the leading private equity firms in Canada since 1981. Its unique collaborative approach with entrepreneurs, based on deep operational expertise and active management of its investment, has helped accelerate growth and maximize value of more than 85 companies across North America. NOVACAP's culture is based on creating long-term value through an investment philosophy focused on discipline and growth. With an experienced management team and substantial financial resources, NOVACAP is well positioned to continue building world-class companies. For more information, please visit www.novacap.ca.
ABOUT SYNTAX
Since 1972, Syntax has been providing comprehensive technology solutions to businesses of all sizes throughout North America. Syntax delivers the best combination of software, infrastructure, and cloud solutions to meet the needs of its diverse range of customers. Syntax partners include Oracle, IBM and other world-class technology leaders. Learn more about Syntax by visiting www.syntax.com.
ABOUT MVP CAPITAL
Providing strategic counsel and financial services, mergers and acquisitions advisory services, private equity and debt raises, valuations and appraisals, MVP Capital has completed over $18 billion in transactions and focuses on clients in the technology, telecom, towers, datacenter, hosting, media and renewable energy industries. Founded in 1987, MVP has offices in San Francisco, Boulder, Kansas City, New York and Boston. Securities and Advisory Services are offered through Financial Telesis Inc., member SIPC/FINRA. For further information, visit www.mvpcapital.com.
Contacts:
NOVACAP
Ms. Valerie Gonzalo
AGO communications
514-626-6976
514-923-1549
valerie@agocom.ca
Syntax
Ms. Elan Etinson
514-733-7777 x 7222
EEtinson@syntax.com
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: CEM) ("Constantine" or the "Company") is pleased to announce start of the 2016 drill program at the Palmer copper-zinc-silver-gold Project ("Palmer" or "Project") in Southeast Alaska. The work is part of a US$3.7 million budget for 2016 that is funded by partner Dowa Metals & Mining Co., Ltd. ("Dowa").
This year's exploration program is starting by drilling several high quality VMS targets outboard of the known mineral deposit. Principal targets for the 1700 meter first phase drill program include:
-- An untested zone of intense VMS footwall style alteration exposed in a creek drainage approximately 1000 meters on strike and east of the mineral resource -- Depth and strike extensions of silver-rich massive barite sulphide mineralization at the Cap prospect where limited historic drilling has intersected 134 g/t silver over 23.2 meters and 31 g/t silver over 90.6 meters; Cap is one of several stratigraphically linked prospects that define a hydrothermal system of comparable scale to the RW-South Wall resource area that is located 2500 meters to the northeast -- A strong conductor anomaly identified by geophysical surveys in 2015 that is supported by the presence of mineralized boulders grading up to 16.1% zinc and 13.2 g/t silver, located 1000 meters to the north of the mineral resource
Garfield MacVeigh, President and CEO, states, "We are excited to be stepping out beyond the immediate resource and begin testing other high-quality prospects that surround the known deposit. The new exploration drilling will occur in parallel with important advanced exploration work that is focused on evaluating the high-grade RW and South Wall resources that are open to expansion in multiple directions."
The 2016 field program includes environmental, hydrogeology and engineering studies in support of the ongoing evaluation of the inferred mineral resource required for the next steps to advance the project. Work in 2016 will also include road construction and the completion of several geotechnical drill holes.
About the Palmer Project
Palmer is a resource expansion stage, high-grade volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) project, with an Inferred Mineral Resource of 8.1 million tonnes grading 1.41% copper, 5.25% zinc, 0.32 g/t gold and 31.7 g/t silver(i). The Project is being advanced in partnership with Dowa, who can earn 49% in the project by making aggregate expenditures of US $22 million by December 31, 2016. The project is located in a very accessible part of coastal Southeast Alaska, with road access to the edge of the property and within 60 kilometers of the year-round deep sea port of Haines. Mineralization at Palmer occurs within the same belt of rocks that is host to the Greens Creek mine, one of the world's richest VMS deposits. There are at least 25 separate base metal and/or barite occurrences and prospects on the Palmer property, indicating the potential for discovery of multiple deposits a few of which will be tested this exploration year.
About the Company
Constantine is a mineral exploration company led by a proven technical team with a focus on premier North American mining environments. The company's principal asset is the Palmer copper-zinc-silver-gold VMS Project located in Alaska that is being advanced in partnership with Dowa Metals & Mining Co., Ltd. Constantine also controls a pipeline of quality gold projects in the Timmins camp Ontario and Yukon. Management is committed to meaningful community engagement, environmental stewardship, and responsible mineral exploration activities that support local jobs and businesses. Please visit the Company's website (www.constantinemetals.com) for more detailed company and project information.
On Behalf of Constantine Metal Resources Ltd.
Garfield MacVeigh, President
(i) 8.125 million tonne inferred resource grading 1.41% copper, 5.25% zinc, 0.32 g/t gold and 31.7 g/t silver. See the Company's news release dated May 11, 2015 and the Company's technical report entitled "NI 43-101 Technical Report and Updated Resource Estimate Palmer Exploration Project" dated June 24, 2015 available on www.sedar.com. Resource estimate utilizes an NSR cut-off of US$75/t with assumed metal prices of US$1200/oz for gold, US$18/oz for silver, US$2.75/lb for copper, and US$1.00/lb for zinc. Estimated metal recoveries are 89.6% for copper, 84.9% for zinc, 75% for gold (61.5% to the Cu concentrate and 13.5% to the Zn concentrate) and 89.7% for silver (73.7% to the Cu concentrate and 16% to the Zn concentrate) as determined from metallurgical locked cycle flotation tests. An "Inferred Mineral Resource is that part of a Mineral Resource for which quantity and grade or quality can be estimated on the basis of geological evidence and limited sampling and reasonably assumed, but not verified, geological and grade continuity. Confidence in the estimate is insufficient to allow the meaningful application of technical and economic parameters or to enable an evaluation of economic viability worthy of public disclosure.
Darwin Green, VP Exploration for Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. and a qualified person as defined by Canadian National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this release.
Notes:
Forward looking statements: This news release includes certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (collectively "forward looking statements")." Forward-looking statements include predictions, projections and forecasts and are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "forecast", "expect", "potential", "project", "target", "schedule", budget" and "intend" and statements that an event or result "may", "will", "should", "could" or "might" occur or be achieved and other similar expressions and includes the negatives thereof. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding the expected. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forward-looking statements are based on a number of material factors and assumptions. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Company's expectations include actual exploration results, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, results of future resource estimates, future metal prices, availability of capital and financing on acceptable terms, general economic, market or business conditions, uninsured risks, regulatory changes, defects in title, availability of personnel, materials and equipment on a timely basis, accidents or equipment breakdowns, delays in receiving government approvals, unanticipated environmental impacts on operations and costs to remedy same, and other exploration or other risks detailed herein and from time to time in the filings made by the Company with securities regulators. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause such actions, events or results to differ materially from those anticipated. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate and accordingly readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Contacts:
Constantine Metal Resources Ltd.
Garfield MacVeigh
President
604-629-2348
info@constantinemetals.com
Constantine Metal Resources Ltd.
Darwin Green
VP Exploration
604-629-2348
info@constantinemetals.com
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Southern Arc Minerals (TSX VENTURE: SA) ("Southern Arc" or "the Company") is pleased to announce that the Company has signed a letter of intent effective July 4, 2016 pursuant to which the Company has agreed to sell its wholly-owned subsidiary, Southern Arc Minerals Japan KK ("SAMJ"), to Sky Ridge Resources Ltd. ("Sky Ridge") (the "Acquisition"). SAMJ has filed 80 mineral prospecting rights license applications in Japan (the "Japan Licenses").
Highlights:
-- Launch of Japan Gold Corp., the first foreign mineral exploration company to focus solely on Japan -- 80 mineral prospecting license applications across eight distinct projects prospective for gold and porphyry mineralization, including several historical high-grade gold mines -- Experienced management team and Board of Directors -- Proposed $5 million financing at $0.20 to undertake exploration and advance the properties
In exchange for its ownership in SAMJ, Southern Arc will receive 50,000,000 pre-Consolidation (as defined below) common shares of Sky Ridge. In connection with the proposed Acquisition, Sky Ridge intends to complete a private placement financing involving the issuance of 25,000,000 pre-Consolidation common shares at a price of $0.20 per share, for gross proceeds of $5,000,000 (the "Concurrent Financing").
Sky Ridge intends to change its name to "Japan Gold Corp." upon completion of the Acquisition.
Sky Ridge is an arm's length company listed on the NEX Board of the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSX-V") under the symbol "SYR.H". Sky Ridge's current capital structure consists of 17,128,107 common shares, 1,639,663 common share purchase stock options and 7,600,000 common share purchase warrants. Following completion of the Acquisition and the Concurrent Financing, Sky Ridge intends to consolidate its share capital on a one-for-two basis (the "Consolidation").
Southern Arc will hold approximately 49% of Sky Ridge on a fully diluted basis and be the largest shareholder following completion of the Acquisition and the Concurrent Financing.
"Japan Gold Corp. will be the first foreign (international) mineral exploration company to be solely focused on advancing gold opportunities in Japan," said John Proust, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Southern Arc. "This Acquisition assembles the Board experience and capital required to undertake a substantial exploration program to rapidly advance the Japan Licenses. This is a unique and exciting opportunity for Southern Arc as the largest shareholder of this promising new venture."
Following completion of the Acquisition, it is contemplated that Sky Ridge's Board of Directors will be reconstituted such that it then consists of the following seven members: John Proust, Dr. Michael Andrews, Robert Gallagher, John Carlile, Tao Feng, and two more appointees that are acceptable to both Southern Arc and Sky Ridge. A short biography for each named Director is provided at the end of this news release. In addition, it is contemplated that John Proust, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Southern Arc, will become the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sky Ridge, and that Dr. Michael Andrews, President, Chief Operating Officer and a Director of Southern Arc, will become the Chief Operating Officer of Sky Ridge.
"Southern Arc, as a project generator, continues to identify undervalued or underexplored assets, acquires large prospective land positions, and then seeks out funding partners to advance the properties while minimizing Southern Arc's risk," continued Mr. Proust. "As the largest shareholder of Japan Gold Corp., and with active participation on the Executive Team and the Board of Directors, Southern Arc will continue to leverage its expertise in Japan by leading the exploration program and growing Japan Gold Corp. for the benefit of shareholders."
Closing of the Acquisition is subject to a number of conditions including entering into definitive agreements, consolidation of Sky Ridge's share capital on a one-for-two, completion of the Concurrent Financing, receipt of all required shareholder, regulatory and third party consents, including TSX-V approval, and the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions. The Acquisition cannot close until the required approvals are obtained. There can be no assurance that the Acquisition will be completed as proposed or at all.
Under the policies of the NEX Board and the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSX-V"), the Acquisition will constitute a reverse takeover of Sky Ridge by Southern Arc. Trading in the common shares of Sky Ridge will remain halted pending further filings with the TSX-V.
About the Japan Licenses
The Tertiary volcanic arc terrains of Japan host 76 known past-producing gold mines and five one-million-plus-ounce gold deposits.(1) These include one of the world's highest-grade gold mines, the Hishikari Mine on Kyushu Island, which has been in production since 1985. The Hishikari Mine had produced 210.2 tons (more than 6 million ounces) of gold as of March 2014 and continues to produce more than 200,000 ounces of gold per year at a grade averaging 40 g/t gold.(2) Management considers Japan to be largely underexplored, despite a history of significant gold production and known mineral occurrences.
Southern Arc's leadership team has long recognized Japan's prospectivity for gold, silver and copper. When Japan's mining laws were changed in 2012 to re-activate the mining industry, Southern Arc moved quickly to review historical data and identify key exploration targets and was the first foreign exploration company to apply for prospecting licenses.
Based on a desktop review of historical gold production and Japan's extensive geoscientific database, Southern Arc pinpointed areas that are very compelling from a geological perspective. Southern Arc initially lodged 38 contiguous exploration applications in northern Hokkaido targeting high-grade epithermal gold deposits. Subsequently, Southern Arc lodged another 42 prospecting rights license applications throughout Hokkaido and northern Honshu targeting three other prospective epithermal gold areas and four areas of gold-bearing advanced argillic alteration lithocaps, which could indicate the presence of a porphyry mineral environment. The combined area under application by SAMJ currently comprises 27,153 hectares over the eight project areas (Figure 1: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/SA76.jpg).
All 80 of the prospecting rights license applications have been accepted for further government review, reserving the land for SAMJ and allowing low impact forms of exploration to immediately commence, such as mapping, surface sampling and geophysics. SAMJ has completed an extensive review of the Metal Mining Agency of Japan database, which includes detailed and relevant information about historical drilling results and mine production. Field work to date has comprised mostly confirmatory checking of historical mine works and MMAJ alteration mapping, with a focus on the lithocap/porphyry targets.
Ikutawara is SAMJ's most advanced project (Figure 1), with some mapping/sampling and orientation ground magnetics completed in 2015. The Ikutawara applications host numerous historical gold workings including the Kitano-o mine, which has recorded production of 96,450 ounces of gold between 1924 and 1943 from sinterous and sub-sinter quartz veins.(3) SAMJ has located several high-priority exploration targets which require varying levels of work to focus drilling. Upon receipt of the prospecting licenses, SAMJ intends to commence with trenching and drilling at the Ikutawara targets while continuing with preliminary exploration on the other projects.
Japan is considered one of the most stable and corruption-free jurisdictions in the world. The mining regulatory framework is well established and transparent, with easy access to government officials and a comprehensive support program to facilitate stakeholder consultation. SAMJ deliberately chose applications in sparsely populated areas with a history of mining, and has received strong local support to date.
The technical information in this news release has been reviewed by Southern Arc's President & Chief Operating Officer, Dr. Mike Andrews, PhD, FAusIMM, who is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.
(1) Konomai Mine: 2.1 Moz, Sado Mine: 2.2 Moz, Kushikino Mine: 1.6 Moz, Taio Mine: 1.0 Moz, Hishikari Mine: 7.6 Moz. Data collected from the Metal Mining Agency of Japan database.
(2) Metal Mining Agency of Japan database and Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Ltd. website.
(3) Metal Mining Agency of Japan database.
Proposed Japan Gold Board of Directors and Executive Team
The proposed Japan Gold Board of Directors will bring decades of technical and business experience to the company, with a proven track record of growing resource companies from grassroots exploration through to production.
John Proust, CDir
Chairman & CEO, Director
John Proust has successfully managed, directed and advised public and private companies regarding debt and equity financing, mergers and acquisitions and corporate restructuring since 1986, and has served on the boards and held senior operating positions with numerous private and TSX Venture Exchange listed companies. Mr. Proust is currently Chairman and CEO of Southern Arc Minerals, Chairman and a Director of Canada Energy Partners, Chairman and CEO of CarbonOne Technologies, and Interim President & CEO and a Director of Outrider Energy. Mr. Proust has extensive experience in corporate governance, is a graduate of The Directors College, Michael G. De Groote School of Business at McMaster University and holds the designation of Chartered Director.
Dr. Michael Andrews, PhD, FAusIMM
President and COO, Director
Mike Andrews is a geologist with nearly 40 years of research and mining industry experience in gold, copper, coal and iron exploration. He holds an honours degree in Geology from the University of Reading, and a doctorate in exploration geochemistry from the University of Wales. Dr. Andrews is currently President and Chief Operating Officer of Southern Arc Minerals. He was a founding director of Kingsrose Mining and played an instrumental role in the discovery, exploration, feasibility and development of its Way Linggo Gold Mine in Indonesia. Dr. Andrews also held the positions of executive director and chief geologist of AuIron Energy Ltd., Director of Gold Operations for Meekatharra Minerals Ltd., and managed the Teck-MM Gold Indonesian Joint Venture, an exploration portfolio of thirteen gold and copper projects in Indonesia. He also held senior exploration positions with Ashton Mining Ltd, Aurora Gold Ltd and Muswellbrook Energy and Minerals Ltd.
Robert Gallagher, BApSc
Director
Bob Gallagher has worked in the mining industry for over 32 years. Mostly recently, he was President, CEO and a Director of New Gold Inc., an intermediate gold producer with projects on three continents, from 2008 until retiring in June 2016. Prior to the merger of Peak Gold, Mettalica, and New Gold, Mr. Gallagher was the President and CEO of Peak Gold. Previously, he spent 15 years with Placer Dome Inc. and seven years with Newmont Mining Corporation, most recently as Vice President Operations, Newmont Asia Pacific. During his time at Newmont, Mr. Gallagher oversaw the development of the Batu Hijau Mine, the billion-ton, world-class copper-gold mine located in Indonesia. Mr. Gallagher has extensive knowledge of the development and operation of large-scale mining projects, coupled with his experience in all aspects of the Indonesian mining industry.
John Carlile, BSc, MSc, FAusIMM
Director
John Carlile is a geologist with more than 35 years of experience in the resource industry. Mr. Carlile has held senior executive and director positions with both major and junior resource companies, including as President of Indonesian and Philippines subsidiaries of Newcrest Mining Limited. As a geologist, Mr. Carlile has a proven track record of mineral discovery and business building in Asia, most notably as Exploration Manager, Asia for Newcrest Mining Limited when it discovered its Gosowong mine. Mr. Carlile has served on the boards of several resource companies, and currently holds the position of director for Southern Arc Minerals, Equator Gold and Arc Exploration Limited. He holds a BSc in Geology from University of Reading, England, and an MSc in Mineral Exploration from the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, University of London. Mr. Carlile is a Fellow of the AusIMM and a Fellow of the Geological Society of London.
Tao Feng, MSc, PhD (Statistics)
Director
Tao Feng is a founding partner of NewMargin Ventures, a Chinese investment fund with approximately US$3 billion under management. Founded in 1999, NewMargin Ventures was the first venture capital management company in China to manage and advise both domestic and offshore funds. To date NewMargin Ventures has invested more than US$1.7 billion in approximately 160 companies, and has invested in more than 30 IPO companies. Mr. Feng received his Masters and Doctorate in Statistics from the University of Alberta and the University of Victoria, respectively. Mr. Feng has been frequently acknowledged as one of China's top investment managers, with inclusion in Fortune Magazine's "Top 25 Next Generation Global Leaders" in 2001, ranking as one of Time Magazine's "Top 5 Rainmakers in China's Investment Community" in 2005, and ranking in the top five of Forbes' "Top 50 Venture Capital Investors in China" from 2009 to 2015.
Dr. Kotaro Ohga, PhD
Chief Engineer, Japan
Kotaro Ohga held the position of Associate Professor at Hokkaido University in the Graduate School of Engineering. With a PhD in Mining Engineering, Dr. Ohga has extensive experience with permitting and drill programs in Japan, with a particular focus in coal bed methane. As Southern Arc's Chief Engineer for its Japanese projects, Dr. Ohga is the main point of contact between Southern Arc and the Japanese Government, offering invaluable insight and expertise as Southern Arc advances its properties.
Andrew Rowe, BSc, MAusIMM
Japan Country Manager
Andrew Rowe joined Southern Arc in 2006 as a Senior Geological Consultant and was soon promoted to Chief Geologist and then Executive Vice President, leading Southern Arc's exploration programs from grassroots exploration through to completion of the first resource estimate at the Company's West Lombok Project. Mr. Rowe planned and implemented large-scale exploration programs, managing both the technical and administrative aspects of the projects. Mr. Rowe briefly left Southern Arc in December 2014, and then rejoined the Company as a consultant in August 2015 to continue with Southern Arc's exploration projects in Japan. Mr. Rowe graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Geology from the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. He is a Member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and a Fellow of the Society of Economic Geologists. Mr. Rowe has experience in mineral exploration and project management in Australia and various countries in Southeast Asia including Thailand, Indonesia, Mongolia, China and Laos. During this time he held exploration positions with Renison Goldfields, Normandy Anglo Asia, Phelps Dodge, Aurora Gold and Ivanhoe Mines. Immediately prior to joining Southern Arc he was the principal geologist for Pan Australian Resources Ltd (Laos) and part of the team responsible for successfully bringing the Phu Kham Cu-Au porphyry deposit through to bankable feasibility.
On behalf of the Board of Southern Arc Minerals Inc.,
John Proust
Chairman & CEO, Director
About Southern Arc
Southern Arc Minerals Inc. is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on gold and copper-gold exploration. The Company holds an interest in the West Lombok project in Indonesia, a resource-stage property with several gold-rich copper porphyry and epithermal gold vein prospects. Southern Arc also holds an investment in Osisko Mining Inc., which is advancing a number of gold projects in Canada's Abitibi Gold Belt, including the high-grade Windfall Lake Gold Project in Quebec, Canada. In addition, Southern Arc has applied for 80 prospecting rights licenses in Japan in an area with known gold occurrences and a history of mining. More information is available at www.southernarcminerals.com.
Cautionary Note
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as such term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to expected or anticipated future events and anticipated results that are forward-looking in nature and, as a result, are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, such as general economic, market and business conditions, the regulatory process and actions, technical issues, new legislation, the uncertainties resulting from potential delays or changes in plans, the uncertainties resulting from working in a new political jurisdiction, the occurrence of unexpected events, the Company's ability to complete the Acquisition, and the Company's capability to execute and implement future plans. Actual results achieved may vary from the information provided herein as a result of numerous known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors.
Contacts:
Southern Arc Contact
Rhylin Bailie
Vice President, Communications & Investor Relations
604-609-6147
info@southernarcminerals.com
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Avrupa Minerals Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: AVU)(FRANKFURT: 8AM) is pleased to announce that the $1 million financing first announced on June 7, 2016, and increased to $1.3 million on June 22, 2016, has been closed at $1,354,700.
"We are very pleased with the participation in this financing and the great support from existing significant shareholders and strategic European investors," commented Paul Kuhn, President and CEO of Avrupa. "We look forward to continue building a successful prospect generator."
Avrupa issued 13,547,000 units (a "Unit") at $0.10 per Unit, for gross proceeds of $1,354,700. Each Unit is comprised of one common share and one non-transferable common share purchase warrant. Each warrant entitles the holder to purchase one additional common share for a 36-month period, expiring July 4, 2019, at a price of $0.15 per common share.
As part of the financing, Avrupa paid $16,125 Finder's fee in cash and issued Finder's warrants, entitling the holder to purchase up to 411,250 Units for a period of 36 months at $0.10 per Finder's warrant. The securities issued are subject to a four-month hold period, expiring on November 5, 2016.
Avrupa now has 69,306,797 common shares outstanding.
Avrupa Minerals Ltd. is a growth-oriented junior exploration and development company focused on discovery, using a prospect generator model, of valuable mineral deposits in politically stable and prospective regions of Europe, including Portugal, Kosovo, and Germany.
The Company currently holds nine exploration licenses in three European countries, including six in Portugal covering 3,821 km2, two in Kosovo covering 47 km2, and one in Germany covering 307 km2. Avrupa has three joint ventures, two in Portugal and one in Kosovo, including:
-- The Alvalade JV, with Colt Resources, covering one license in the Iberian Pyrite Belt of southern Portugal, for Zn/Cu-rich massive sulfide deposits; -- The Covas JV, with Blackheath Resources, covering one license in northern Portugal, for intrusion-related W deposits; and -- Avrupa's partner at the Slivovo Gold Project in Kosovo is presently advancing the Project by funding and operating a pre-feasibility study.
Avrupa is currently upgrading precious and base metal targets to JV-ready status in a variety of districts on their other licenses, with the idea of attracting potential partners to project-specific and/or regional exploration programs.
On behalf of the Board,
Paul W. Kuhn, President & Director
This news release was prepared by Company management, who take full responsibility for its content. Paul W. Kuhn, President and CEO of Avrupa Minerals, a Licensed Professional Geologist and a Registered Member of the Society of Mining Engineers, is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 of the Canadian Securities Administrators. He has reviewed the technical disclosure in this release. Mr. Kuhn, the QP, has not only reviewed, but prepared and supervised the preparation or approval the scientific and technical content in the news release.
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Contacts:
Avrupa Minerals Ltd.
1-604-687-3520
www.avrupaminerals.com
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Cap-Ex Iron Ore Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: CEV) ("Cap-Ex" or the "Company") is pleased to announce it has entered into an agreement (the "Agreement") to acquire a 90% interest (the "Interest") in the Aspen Gold Property in central British Columbia. The 12 mineral claims comprising the Aspen Gold Property cover an area of 5,537 hectares and are located 25 kilometres northeast of New Gold Inc's 9.5 million ounce Blackwater gold deposit in the Nechako Plateau. The purchase price for the Interest is $100,000 with the Vendor retaining a 10% interest in the Aspen Gold Property ("Aspen"). The 10% interest is carried to the point at which a bankable feasibility study, if any, is completed. Upon completion of a bankable feasibility study, the Company and the Vendor have agreed to enter into a joint venture agreement. There are no royalties on the Aspen Gold Property. The Agreement is subject to its approval by the TSX-Venture Exchange.
The Aspen Gold Property is strategically located within the "Nechako Uplift" block identified by New Gold Inc. Recent airborne magnetic geophysical surveys completed by Geoscience BC (2014) have identified distinct ovoid magnetic response halos (approx. 5km in diameter) representing granitic porphyry stocks proximal to both the Blackwater deposit and Aspen. Given the proximity of these stocks to the Blackwater, Capoose, and Chu deposits in the region, they are interpreted to have a first order control on the mineralization within the district. Aspen is ideally located on the margin of one of these two distinct halos, where the Blackwater deposit sits on the margin of the other. The property has high potential to host significant Au-Ag mineralization in a similar structural and geological setting as Blackwater.
Changes in Management and Directors
The Company announces that Mr. Adrian Smith, P.Geo., B.Sc., has been appointed as President. Mr. Smith has been a board member since 2015, is a Professional Geologist and the Company's qualified person pursuant to NI 43-101. He has worked with mining and exploration companies since 2007, and worked as an underground mine geologist in the Shasta Gold-Silver Mine in Northern BC from 2008 until 2010. He then began work for North American Tungsten Corp. at the Cantung Mine where he was involved in successfully identifying, modelling, and producing ore in addition to known reserves. Since then Mr. Smith has taken his mining and exploration experience from underground and applied it to exploration projects across Canada. Mr. Smith graduated from Simon Fraser University with a Bachelor of Science degree specializing in Geology, and has been a member of APEG BC since 2008.
The Company announces the resignation of Mr. Brett Matich as President and Director of the Company effective today, to pursue other professional interests. The Company wishes to thank Mr. Matich for his contributions to the Company and wishes him all the best in his future endeavors.
Andrew Bowering, Chairman comments, "We welcome Mr. Smith as President of Cap-Ex. We are pleased to see him taking a more active role in the management team at this time, and note in particular that we are confident that Mr. Smith's professional experience, expertise and knowledge will prove to be valuable as the Company moves to acquire and advance new mineral properties. I also wish to thank Mr. Brett Matich for his contributions to Cap-Ex and wish him the best in his next projects."
The proposed acquisition of a 90% interest in the Aspen Gold Property is a non-arm's length or related party transaction as the issued and outstanding shares of the Vendor are controlled by two directors of the Company. The transaction is exempt from the valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of Ml 61-101 by virtue of the fact that the Company is listed only on the TSX Venture Exchange and by virtue of the small fair market value of the acquisition relative to the Company's market capitalization. The acquisition is not a business combination as that term is defined in Ml 61-101. The Company's Board of Directors, when considering a non-arm's length or related party transaction, requires the interested parties to fully disclose their interest and to abstain from voting on any such transaction.
ABOUT CAP-EX IRON ORE LTD.
Cap-Ex Iron Ore Ltd. is a Canadian listed company, focused on creating shareholder value through discoveries and strategic development of mineral properties in Canada.
CAP-EX IRON ORE LTD.
Andrew Bowering, Chairman
NEITHER TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.
"This news release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements."
Contacts:
Cap-Ex Iron Ore Ltd.
Investor Relations
(604) 669-2279
info@cap-ex.ca
www.cap-ex.ca
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Primarily reflecting a jump in the value of imports, the Commerce Department released a report on Wednesday showing that the U.S. trade deficit widened by more than expected in the month of May.
The report said the trade deficit widened to $41.1 billion in May from $37.4 billion in April. Economists had expected the deficit to widen to $40.0 billion.
The wider than expected deficit was partly due to the jump in the value of imports, which surged up by 1.6 percent to $223.5 billion in May from $220.1 billion in April.
Imports of non-monetary gold, crude oil, and consumer goods showed notable increases, more than offsetting a decrease in imports of civilian aircraft.
On the other hand, the Commerce Department said the value of exports edged down by 0.2 percent to $182.4 billion in May from $182.7 billion in April.
The modest drop in the value of exports was partly due to reduced exports of civilian aircraft, computer accessories, and automotive vehicles and parts.
Despite the wider deficit in May, Andrew Hunter, Assistant Economist at Capital Economics, said, 'Net trade may still have provided a small boost to second-quarter GDP growth.'
'Either way, with consumer spending on course for a gain of at least 4% annualized, GDP growth should have been close to 3%,' he added.
The Commerce Department also said the goods deficit widened to $62.2 billion in May from $58.6 billion in April, while the services surplus dipped to $21.1 billion from $21.2 billion.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
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CALGARY, AB--(Marketwired - July 06, 2016) - Agrium Inc. (TSX: AGU) (NYSE: AGU) announced today a binding purchase agreement between its Crop Production Services ("CPS") and Cargill AgHorizons (U.S.) ("Cargill") for the acquisition of 18 Ag-retail locations with annual revenues of over $150-million. The outlets are located across the northern U.S. Corn-Belt region, in the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana.
"This acquisition demonstrates our continued focus on growing our North American Ag-retail business, particularly in the highly desirable U.S. Corn Belt. The locations are in regions where we currently have a limited presence. This acquisition will allow us to capitalize on synergies related to the introduction of our proprietary products and services, and leveraging our extensive distribution network," commented Agrium's President and CEO, Chuck Magro. "We welcome the Cargill Ag-retail employees to the Agrium family and are excited to bring our agronomic expertise and quality products and services to growers in this important agricultural region," added Mr. Magro.
Roger Watchorn, group leader of Cargill's North American agricultural supply chain, said: "Cargill will focus on being the world's leading merchant of grain and oilseeds. We remain steadfast in our commitment to help farmers succeed by ensuring they remain competitive in the global market and being as efficient as possible in getting products from origins to destinations."
The sale does not involve Cargill's Canadian crop input retail business.
The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, and regulatory clearances. The transaction is expected to close by the end of third quarter of 2016.
About Agrium
Agrium Inc. is a major producer and distributor of agricultural products and services in North America, South America, Australia and Egypt through its agricultural retail-distribution and wholesale nutrient businesses. Agrium supplies growers with key products and services such as crop nutrients, crop protection, seed, and agronomic and application services, thereby helping to meet the ever growing global demand for food and fiber. Agrium produces nitrogen, potash and phosphate fertilizers, with a combined wholesale nutrient capacity of over nine million tonnes and with competitive advantages across all product lines. Agrium retail-distribution has an unmatched network of over 1,400 facilities and approximately 3,800 crop consultants. We partner with over half a million grower customers globally to help them increase their yields and returns on more than 50 different crops. With a focus on sustainability, the company strives to improve the communities in which it operates through safety, education, environmental improvement and new technologies such as the development of precision agriculture and controlled release nutrient products. Agrium is focused on driving operational excellence across our businesses, pursuing value-enhancing growth opportunities and returning capital to shareholders.
About Cargill
Cargill provides food, agriculture, financial and industrial products and services to the world. Together with farmers, customers, governments and communities, we help people thrive by applying our insights and 150 years of experience. We have 149,000 employees in 70 countries who are committed to feeding the world in a responsible way, reducing environmental impact and improving the communities where we live and work. For more information, visit Cargill.com and our News Center.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release constitute forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties as well as various assumptions and business sensitivities, including those referred to in the MD&A section of the Corporation's most recent Annual Report to Shareholders as well as those risk factors described in the Corporation's most recent Annual Information Form, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Corporation to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, estimates, forecasts and statements as to management's expectations with respect to, among other things, business and financial prospects, financial multiples and accretion estimates, future trends, plans, strategies, objectives and expectations ,completion of the retail transaction as contemplated and the ability to successfully integrate the new assets into our existing retail business in an effective manner, general economic, market and business conditions, weather conditions, crop prices, the supply and demand and price levels for our major products, governmental and regulatory requirements and actions by governmental authorities, including changes in government policy, changes in environmental, tax and other laws or regulations and the interpretation thereof. Agrium disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information as a result of new information or future events, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
Investor/Media Relations:
Richard Downey
Vice President, Investor & Corporate Relations
(403) 225-7357
Todd Coakwell
Director, Investor Relations
(403) 225-7437
Louis Brown
Analyst, Investor Relations
(403) 225-7761
Contact us at: www.agrium.com
GHO Capital, the European specialist investor in healthcare, in collaboration with Ardian, the independent private investment company, has partnered with the Envision Pharma Group's ("Envision") leadership team to acquire Envision, a leading Medical Affairs-focused scientific communications and technology solutions provider, from the Halifax Group.
The management team and employees, led by Brian Hepburn (CEO and founder), Greg Caswill (Chairman and founder), John Gillie (CFO), and Joseph Brown (President Envision Technology Solutions; ETS), will be reinvesting and continuing to lead the business in the next evolution of its growth.
Operating globally, Envision is a recognised partner for Medical Affairs organisations, providing scientific data communication services and industry-leading technology solutions to biopharmaceutical and medical devices companies on a global basis. Envision helps its clients commercialise new compounds via strategic data-communication planning, medical writing, medical communications services, and providing best-in-class technology across the key operational functions of Medical Affairs.
Since inception in 2001, Envision has enjoyed strong year-on-year organic growth of c.20%. In addition to this organic growth, the company recently made two strategic acquisitions, which extended its global reach into the Asia-Pacific region and expanded its range of communication services for the healthcare industry. Envision's service and solution offering has grown from publication planning and delivery, to encompass medical strategy consultancy, Market Access communications, medical communications Medical Science Liaison support, digital and creative services, and policy and operational excellence consultancy.
With the support of GHO Capital and Ardian, Envision will launch its new iEnvision Medical Affairs platform to provide a suite of purpose-built solutions to facilitate and support industry best practice within medical affairs organisations.
Brian Hepburn, CEO of Envision, said: "This partnership with GHO Capital and Ardian provides the resources, expertise, and market knowledge for Envision to realise the next stage of its development and become the leading solution provider to the Medical Affairs departments within the biopharmaceutical industry. We are uniquely positioned to support our clients via our in-depth, strategically focused, scientific communication capabilities and expanding range of technology solutions. With the support of GHO Capital and Ardian, we will continue to invest in these core competencies and further extend the market reach of our enterprise technology platform, iEnvision."
Mark Braganza, Partner at GHO Capital, added: "Envision is a high growth company operating in the attractive healthcare outsourced services sub-sector with a strong platform and an international, blue-chip customer base. The opportunity to partner with Ardian and the management team, allowing us to pool our significant expertise in consulting and healthcare IT, was therefore extremely compelling for our fund. We look forward to our partnership in supporting the next phase of Envision's continued growth."
Simon Cottle, Managing Director of Ardian Mid Cap Buyout in London, said: "After analysing the outsourced Medical Affairs services and software market, we identified Envision as having the highest potential for further growth. Their management team has done a great job in creating a market-leading proposition and we look forward to working with them in the next stage of the business' development."Bruno Ladriere, Managing Director of Ardian Mid Cap Buyout in London, added: "We believe that Ardian's transparent management-centric culture, coupled with our global ability to support development through organic and external growth, were the key elements in winning the support of Envision's management and executing this acquisition."
Ends
About GHO Capital
Global Healthcare Opportunities, or GHO Capital Partners LLP, was founded in 2014 as a specialist healthcare investment adviser based in London. Our vision is to apply global capabilities and perspectives to build a world-class healthcare specialist private equity firm by recognising and seizing the highly attractive and underpenetrated European market opportunity. We have a powerful combination of transaction, investment and industry skills which sets us apart from traditional private equity firms. For further information, please visit www.ghocapital.com.
About Envision
Founded in 2001, Envision Pharma is an international, innovative global technology and scientific communication company serving pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies. Initially focusing on re-inventing the way biopharma companies managed their global data communications programs through the use of smart technology and best-in-class publication planning; Envision has evolved to become a leading provider of evidence communication services and Medical Affairs solutions, encompassing all aspects of scientifically driven data dissemination activities required to support a successful access to market strategy for new biopharma compounds.
This capability of the organization is further enhanced with industry-leading, complementary technology solutions across the Medical Affairs responsibilities. Envision has grown steadily under consistent leadership across its three core business areas in support of the Medical Affairs team that include (i) Evidence Communication including strategic publication planning, data dissemination services, medical education, and Market Access communications; (ii) Technology Solutions design, development, implementation, and support of innovative and strategic management software, purpose-built for life-science clients, including, publication planning and management (Datavision), clearance approval (Clear), activity request management (Visiontracker), workflow management for HEOR activities (Visiontracker HEOR), searchable repository for the sharing of appropriate educational and training materials (Library), and next generation solution for managing medical information enquiries (Medinfo); (iii) Consulting Solutions policy, process, compliance, and guideline consultancy to life-science companies.
Envision currently has ten offices, three in the United Kingdom Horsham, Wilmslow, and London; five in the United States Philadelphia, PA, Southport, CT, Madison, NJ, Stirling, NJ, Glastonbury, CT; and two in Asia Pacific Tokyo and Sydney. The company employs approximately 450 team members, including over 185 highly qualified and experienced in-house medical writers and a more than 80-strong technology solutions team providing platform development and customer support. Envision currently provides service and product solutions to more than 75 client companies, including 18 of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies.
About Ardian
Ardian, founded in 1996 and led by Dominique Senequier, is an independent private investment company with assets of US$55bn managed or advised in Europe, North America, or Asia. The company, which is majority-owned by its employees, keeps entrepreneurship at its heart and delivers investment performance to its global investors while fuelling growth in economies across the world. Ardian's investment process embodies three values: excellence, loyalty, and entrepreneurship.
Ardian maintains a truly global network, with more than 410 employees working through twelve offices in Paris, London, Frankfurt, Milan, Madrid, Zurich, New York, San Francisco, Beijing, Singapore, Jersey, and Luxembourg. The company offers its 470 investors a diversified choice of funds covering the full range of asset classes through Ardian Direct Funds (comprising Ardian Mid Cap Buyout, Ardian Expansion, Ardian Growth, and Ardian Co-Investment), Ardian Infrastructure, Ardian Funds of Funds (comprising primary, early secondary, and secondary activities), Ardian Private Debt, Ardian Real Estate, and customized mandate investment solutions with Ardian Mandates.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005894/en/
Contacts:
GHO Capital Partners LLP
Lara Mott
T +44 20 3700 7440
E IR@ghocapital.com
or
Instinctif Partners Media Relations, GHO Capital
Mike Davies Giles Stewart Melanie Toyne-Sewell
T +44 207 457 2020
NEW YORK, NY -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- DigitalOcean, provider of the cloud computing platform designed for developers, today announced that its co-founders Ben Uretsky, CEO, and Moisey Uretsky, CPO, have received the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2016 New York Award in the Technology Infrastructure category: http://www.ey.com/US/en/About-us/Entrepreneurship/Entrepreneur-Of-The-Year/MET-NY_Article_Regional_Winners.
The EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Award program, now in its 30th year, honors entrepreneurs whose ingenuity, spirit of innovation, and discipline have propelled their companies' success, invigorated their industries, and benefited their communities.
Founded in 2011, DigitalOcean has become one of the fastest growing cloud computing platforms and New York City startups under the leadership of Ben and Moisey Uretsky. The simple, on-demand platform currently supports more than 700,000 registered customers worldwide, and the company continues to innovate its platform for developers and businesses.
"Our primary goal with DigitalOcean from the beginning has been to simplify the complexities of infrastructure by offering one simple and robust platform for developers to easily launch and scale their businesses and apps," said Ben Uretsky, co-founder and CEO of DigitalOcean. "It's an honor to be recognized with this prestigious award, one that wouldn't be possible without a hard-working and dedicated team of DigitalOcean employees who support and drive our vision."
"DigitalOcean was founded with a core focus of delivering love to the developer community and it's amazing to see how that focus has resonated with our customers worldwide," said Moisey Uretsky, co-founder and CPO of DigitalOcean.
About DigitalOcean
Founded in 2011, DigitalOcean is a cloud infrastructure provider focused on simplifying web infrastructure for software developers. DigitalOcean has become the second largest and fastest growing cloud computing platform in the total number of public facing apps and websites, according to Netcraft.com. The company has raised $123 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Access Industries, IA Ventures, CrunchFund, and Techstars. The company is headquartered in New York City with data centers regions throughout the world. For more information, simply visit https://www.digitalocean.com or follow @digitalocean.
About EY Entrepreneur Of The Year
EY Entrepreneur Of The Year is the world's most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs. The unique award makes a difference through the way it encourages entrepreneurial activity among those with potential and recognizes the contribution of people who inspire others with their vision, leadership and achievement. As the first and only truly global award of its kind, Entrepreneur Of The Year celebrates those who are building and leading successful, growing and dynamic businesses, recognizing them through regional, national and global awards programs in more than 145 cities in more than 60 countries.
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Media and Analyst Contact:
Amber Rowland
press@digitalocean.com
+1-650-814-4560
The report forecasts the global business process-as-a-service market to grow at a CAGR of 11.81% during the period 2016-2020. Commenting on the report, an analyst from the research team said: A key trend which is boosting market growth is the emergence of cloud brokerage services. Cloud service brokers act as intermediaries between cloud service providers and businesses that integrate their infrastructures with cloud-computing platforms. Cloud computing and cloud-based services are gaining popularity quickly when compared to other enterprises. Greater flexibility of application and service customization is attracting customers to adopt these services on a larger scale. Cloud computing also allows easy scaling of applications and services as and when required based on changing business needs. According to the report, a key growth driver is the growing demand for cloud services and standard operating processes. It is necessary to ensure that business processes comply with standard operating procedures. The ability of the business process solutions to document procedures and identify discrepancies is driving its adoption. BPaaS solution generates process documentation that helps organizations adhere to stringent standards. Further, the report states that data security and privacy concerns, including unauthorized access or loss of sensitive enterprise information, are the key challenges affecting the ability of BPaaS service providers in gaining the confidence of business enterprises. Enterprises store confidential and business-critical data in the cloud infrastructure. Data stored in the cloud under an organization's control are prone to risks such as unauthorized access. Questions Answered:
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Donald Trump has once again made the type of controversial remarks that have come to characterize his presidential campaign, offering praise for former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during a speech Tuesday evening. Speaking at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, Trump acknowledged that Hussein was a 'bad guy' but touted the dictator's efficiency at killing terrorists. 'He was a bad guy, really bad guy,' Trump said of Hussein. 'But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn't read them the rights. They didn't talk. They were a terrorist, it was over.' 'Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism,' he added. 'You want to be a terrorist, you go to Iraq. It's like Harvard, okay? So sad.' Trump's remarks came in a speech attacking President Barack Obama's foreign policy, which he argued would be continued by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. The Clinton campaign was highly critical of Trump's comments, with Senior Policy Adviser Jake Sullivan saying the real estate tycoon's praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds. 'In reality, Hussein's regime was a sponsor of terrorism -- one that paid families of suicide bombers who attacked Israelis, among other crimes,' Sullivan said. He added, 'Trump's cavalier compliments for brutal dictators, and the twisted lessons he seems to have learned from their history, again demonstrate how dangerous he would be as commander-in-chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks.' Sullivan claimed Trump has applauded the strength China showed in the Tiananmen Square massacre, offered admiration for Kim Jong Un's murderous consolidation of power in North Korea and consistently lavished praised on Russian President Vladimir Putin. CNN noted that the presumptive Republican nominee has previously said that Iraq and Libya would be better off if Hussein and Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi were still in power in their respective countries. (Photo: Michael Vadon) Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
PUNE, India, July 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --
The report 'Carotenoids Marketby Type (Astaxanthin, Beta-Carotene, Canthaxanthin, Lutein, Lycopene, & Zeaxanthin), Source (Synthetic and Natural), Application (Supplements, Food, Feed, and Cosmetics), & by Region - Global Trends & Forecasts to 2021', The global carotenoids market is estimated to be valued at USD 1.24 Billion in 2016 and projected to reach USD 1.53 Billion by 2021, at a CAGR of 3.78% from 2016 to 2021.
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Browse 75 market data Tables and 55 Figures spread through 193 Pages and in-depth TOC on"Carotenoids Market"
http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/carotenoid-market-158421566.html
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Large numbers of end-use applications, usage in preventive healthcare and nutraceuticals, and the growing importance of food quality and appearance have been of importance to the growth of the global carotenoids market. Carotenoids have high nutritious properties which help prevent fatal diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cataract, and tumor. Along with this, carotenoids contain a coloration pigment named carotene which is responsible for imparting red, yellow, and orange color in plants and animals thus increasing the need and usage of carotenoids especially for meat, meat products, and fish. The coloration of all animal products play a significant role in deciding their commercial value and thus the use of carotenoids for enhancing the appearance of the meat and fish products adds to the profitability of their suppliers. Hence, carotenoids will be viewed as a business opportunity in the next five years. As a result, many multinational players have entered into the production of varied types of carotenoids which can be used in different applications.
Significant growth expected in the supplements segment
Carotenoids find a wide range of end use applications. It can be used in feed, food, supplements, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. Due to rising health consciousness of consumers and changing lifestyles, the consumers demand high quality health supplements comprising health benefits such as immunity boosters, and richness in proteins and vitamins. Carotenoids are major additives used in health supplements due to their various medicinal properties. Thus, the use of carotenoids in supplements is expected to rise in the next few years.
Speak to Analyst: http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/speaktoanalyst.asp
Beta-carotene is expected to be the fastest-growing segment during the forecast period
The major types of carotenoids are astaxanthin, beta-carotene, lutein, canthaxanthin, lycopene, and zeaxanthin. The beta-carotene segment is projected to be the fastest-growing market from 2016 to 2021. Rising demand for natural beta-carotene due to its high effectiveness and medicinal properties is triggering the market for beta-carotene.
Increasing health consciousness, high investment in R&D, and cost-effective solutions key to success in the European region
Europe is one of the largest contributors to the global carotenoids due to the increase in usage of carotenoids through health supplements and in animal feed. Germany and France constituted the largest country-level markets in the European region in 2015. The well-established economies allowing investments in research & development, government involvement towards the healthcare facilities and promotion of preventive measures, and the well-established cosmetics industry demanding natural coloration are the major factors influencing the growth of the carotenoids market in Europe.
This report includes a study of marketing and development strategies, along with the product portfolio of leading companies. It includes the profiles of leading companies such as BASF SE (Germany), Royal DSM N.V. (The Netherlands), Chr. Hansen A/S (Denmark), FMC Corporation (U.S.), Kemin Industries, Inc. (U.S.), and Cyanotech Corporation (U.S.).
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Feed Phytogenics Market by Type (Essential Oils, Herbs & Spices, Oleoresins, and Others), Livestock (Swine, Ruminants, Aquatics, Equine, Poultry, and Others), Function, & by Region - Global Trends & Forecast to 2021 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/feed-phytogenic-market-162036047.html
Feed Pigment Market by Type (Carotenoids, Curcumin, Caramel, Spirulina & Others), Carotenoids Source (Natural & Synthetic), Livestock (Swine, Cattle, Poultry, Aquatic Animals & Others), & by Region - Global Trends & Forecasts to 2020 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/feed-pigment-market-206152828.html
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Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
TORONTO, CANADA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Soricimed Biopharma Inc. ("Soricimed"), a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company developing first-in-class peptide-based cancer therapeutics, is pleased to announce the members of its newly formed Clinical Advisory Board ("CAB"). The CAB, comprising key thought leaders in the treatment of cancer and novel anti-cancer targets, will provide Soricimed with ongoing expert strategic guidance on the continued clinical development of its lead anti-cancer drug candidate, SOR-C13, and its preclinical oncology pipeline.
The members of Soricimed's CAB are:
--Robert L. Coleman, M.D., FACOG, FACS, MD Anderson Cancer Center, key opinion leader in cancers of the female genital tract, including Ovarian Cancer
--Siqing Fu, M.D., Ph.D., MD Anderson Cancer Center, Principle Investigator, SOR-C13 Phase I
--Manuel Hidalgo, M.D., Ph.D., BIDMC (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre) & Harvard Medical School. Clinical Director of BIDMC Cancer Centre & Chief of Hematology-Oncology. A world leader in the testing and development of new agents for pancreatic and other solid tumor cancers
--Natacha Prevarskaya, Professor, USTL (Universite des Sciences et Technologies de Lille). Expert in calcium ion channels, including TRPV6.
--Stephen Welch, M.D., Medical Oncologist, London Health Sciences Centre, Principle Investigator, SOR-C13 Phase I
"We are honored to have these key opinion leaders join our Clinical Advisory Board," stated Paul Gunn, President & CEO, Soricimed Biopharma, Inc. "Together, they bring a wealth of experience and expertise in our targeted cancer areas, such as pancreatic and ovarian cancer, as well as in clinical trial design and drug development. We look forward to their input as we take the next step in the clinical development of our anti-cancer peptide, SOR-C13."
"It has been exciting to be a part of Soricimed's phase 1 trial of its lead anti-cancer drug candidate, SOR-C13," commented Dr. Siqing Fu, M.D., Ph.D., MD Anderson Cancer Center & Principal Investigator, SOR C-13 Phase 1 trial. "The findings are encouraging and I look forward to working with their impressive team to conduct further study."
In February, Soricimed announced positive results of their Phase 1 multi-center, open-label, dose escalation study of first-in-class peptide SOR-C13 in subjects with advanced solid tumor cancers. SOR-C13 was found to be safe and well tolerated by subjects with advanced carcinomas commonly known to express the TRPV6 channel (such as pancreatic and ovarian cancer) and who had failed all previous anti-cancer treatments. Additionally, SOR-C13 demonstrated potential activity with 54% of subjects achieving stable disease as defined by the clinical protocol while on treatment.
About SOR-C13: SOR-C13 is a first-in-class peptide in development for the treatment of cancer. SOR-C13 binds with high selectivity and affinity to TRPV6, a calcium channel that is highly elevated in prostate, breast, lung and ovarian cancer and is correlated with poor outcomes. TRPV6-mediated Ca2+ entry is responsible for maintaining a high tumour proliferation rate, as well as increasing tumour cell survival and fortifying mechanisms that withstand cell destruction. By binding to this channel, SOR-C13 starves cancer cells of calcium that is needed for cell growth and division. Due to the high specificity of SOR-C13 for its target and its unique mechanism of action this drug candidate has resulted in fewer and less severe side effects compared to standard cancer chemotherapy. SOR-C13 is the first drug candidate targeting TRPV6 to have entered clinical development anywhere in the world.
At the recent American Association of Cancer Researchers annual meeting, Soricimed released positive results indicating safety, tolerability and potential activity in a Phase I trial of SOR-C13 in subjects with advanced solid tumour cancers. Subjects were enrolled at Juravinski Cancer Centre, London Health Sciences Centre and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The FDA granted SOR-C13 orphan drug status for the treatment of ovarian cancers.
About Soricimed Biopharma: Soricimed Biopharma Inc. is a private Canadian clinical-stage company developing novel cancer therapeutics and diagnostics. Using focused, innovative strategies in collaboration with major world-class cancer research institutions, Soricimed's drug candidates have demonstrated a capability to reduce cancer cell viability, induce apoptosis and to reduce human tumour volume while minimizing side-effects in various classic animal and in vitro tumour models. Soricimed recently announced positive results indicating safety, tolerability and potential activity in a Phase I trial of SOR-C13 in subjects with advanced solid tumour cancers. Additionally, Soricimed obtained orphan drug status for the treatment of ovarian cancers with SOR-C13. Privately held, Soricimed is funded through private investors and various programs from the Governments of Canada and New Brunswick. For more information please visit, www.soricimed.com.
Contacts:
Julie Fotheringham
Partner, Hageman Communications
416-951-7988
Julie.fotheringham@hageman.ca
Following the agreement to divest TDC Sverige AB (subject to merger control approval from the EU-Commission), TDC Sverige AB is classified as 'Discontinued operations' in TDC's consolidated financial statements, effective from the Interim Financial Report for January-June 2016. Comparative figures in the income statements and cash flow statements are restated accordingly. A restated Fact Sheet with the comparative figures for Q1 2014 to Q1 2016 is therefore now available on TDC's website and attached to this release. For more details about the changes, please refer to 'Changes in excel model' in the Fact Sheet. The restatement does not give rise to any changes to TDC's updated guidance for 2016, which was announced on 21 June 2016. TDC A/S Teglholmsgade 1 0900 Copenhagen C DK-Denmark tdc.com Attachment: https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=577923
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
NEW YORK CITY (dpa-AFX) - Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) is preparing to announce a broad overhaul of its data plans that will offer more data for higher prices, CNET has reported.
According to the CNET report, the overhaul of Verizon's plans will include a rollover data program called 'Carryover Data' that will enable customers to save unused data to be used in the next month, a new way to avoid overage fees, and better access to neighboring countries like Canada and Mexico.
The moves are part of Verizon's attempt to better compete with smaller rivals like Sprint and T-Mobile that have been luring data-hungry customers away with aggressive offers.
According to the CNET report, the low-end 'S' plan will now offer 2 gigabytes of data for $35 a month, up from $30 for 1GB earlier.
The medium 'M' plan will reportedly go up by $5 to $50 a month, while its data will rise from 3 GB to 4 GB. The 'L' plan will now offer 8 GB for $70, up from 6 GB for $60 previously.
The larger 'XL' plan is set to increase by $10 to $90 a month, but will now offer 16 GB compared to 12 GB before. Lastly, the 'XXL' plan will cost $10 more at $110 a month, but will offer 24 GB instead of 18 GB earlier.
Existing customers will reportedly have the option to change to the new plan and rates, but will not be forced to change into them.
CNET also reported that Verizon will introduce a new 'My Verizon' app that will enable a customer to turn on 'Safety Mode,' which is the company's way of preventing the user from paying overage fees.
In addition, Verizon will reportedly offer a throttling option for customers who hit their data limit. This feature will slow down data speeds for the remainder of the billing cycle once a user reaches his monthly data limit, instead of charging him extra.
Safety Mode is said to be available for free to customers with an XL or XXL plan. Customers on the smaller S, M and L plans will have to pay $5 a month to access the feature.
Meanwhile, Verizon said in a statement on Wednesday that it is transforming the wireless experience and will host an online news conference on Wednesday, July 6 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time to discuss how it is giving customers 'complete control over their wireless plans.'
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
NEWPORT BEACH, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- PIMCO, a leading global investment management firm, has hired Gene Frieda as Executive Vice President and Global Strategist for the firm's emerging markets and global strategies and Yacov Arnopolin as Executive Vice President and Emerging Markets Portfolio Manager. They will both be based in PIMCO's London office.
Mr. Frieda, who will work primarily with the emerging markets team but will also contribute to other global, country and sector strategies, will report to Andrew Balls, Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer - Global Fixed Income. Mr. Arnopolin, who will focus primarily on emerging markets external debt strategies, will report to Michael Gomez, Managing Director and Head of the Emerging Markets Portfolio Management team.
"Gene and Yacov are two tremendous additions to our global macroeconomic and emerging markets portfolio management expertise, as their deep experience will bolster PIMCO's investment process and tap the investment opportunities we see for clients in emerging markets," said Dan Ivascyn, Managing Director and PIMCO's Group Chief Investment Officer.
He added: "PIMCO will continue to use its considerable resources to hire the best industry talent globally. Already this year, we have hired more than 130 new employees, including 14 portfolio managers and 20 more investment professionals across many areas including alternatives, client analytics, mortgages, real estate and macroeconomics."
Mr. Frieda joins PIMCO from Moore Capital Management where he was a Partner and Senior Global Strategist. Prior to that, he was the Global Head of Emerging Markets Research and Strategy at the Royal Bank of Scotland. Prior to joining PIMCO, Mr. Arnopolin was a Managing Director and Portfolio Manager at Goldman Sachs Asset Management in New York where he helped oversee emerging market portfolios for institutional clients such as pension funds, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds.
"Gene and Yacov bring nearly 40 years of combined investment experience and complement other specialized resources we have added in recent years, including in emerging markets corporates and local markets," said Mr. Gomez.
"As the adverse global backdrop of lower commodity prices and a stronger dollar give way to a more constructive picture for emerging markets, now is an exciting time to be adding two such talented investment professionals as Gene and Yacov to the PIMCO team," said Mr. Balls.
Professional Biographies
Gene Frieda
Mr. Frieda joins PIMCO as an Executive Vice President and Global Strategist. Previously, he was a Partner and Senior Global Strategist for Moore Capital Management in London where he was the primary macro strategist for the firm's founder and chief investment officer. Prior to that, he ran emerging markets research and strategy for the Royal Bank of Scotland in London and for 4Cast in London and Singapore. Mr. Frieda holds a Master's degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and Bachelor's degrees in economics and political science from The University of Oklahoma. He serves as a member of the World Economic Forum's Committee on the Future of the Global Financial System; the Political Economy of Financial Markets Program at St. Antony's College, Oxford; and the United Nation's Expert Panel on Financing Global Education.
Yacov Arnopolin
Mr. Arnopolin joins PIMCO as an Executive Vice President and Emerging Markets Portfolio Manager. Prior to joining the firm, he served as Managing Director overseeing emerging market fixed income portfolios at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Previously, Yacov worked as portfolio manager at Fortress Investment Group. Mr. Arnopolin started his career on the sell-side, at Citigroup and Deutsche Bank Fixed Income departments, trading mortgages and emerging markets products. He has 17 years of financial markets experience, divided between New York and London. Yacov earned a BS in Economics from Carnegie Mellon University, and serves on the Board of Trustees of the Cancer Research Institute.
About PIMCO
PIMCO is a leading global investment management firm, with 13 offices in 12 countries throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Founded in 1971, PIMCO offers a wide range of innovative solutions to help millions of investors worldwide meet their needs. Our goal is to provide attractive returns while maintaining a strong culture of risk management and long-term discipline. PIMCO is owned by Allianz S.E., a leading global diversified financial services provider.
Except for the historical information and discussions contained herein, statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements may involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, including the performance of financial markets, the investment performance of PIMCO's sponsored investment products and separately managed accounts, general economic conditions, future acquisitions, competitive conditions and government regulations, including changes in tax laws. Readers should carefully consider such factors. Further, such forward-looking statements speak only on the date at which such statements are made. PIMCO undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statement.
Contact:
Agnes Crane
PIMCO - Media Relations
Ph. 212-739-4212
HOUSTON, TX -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Louis Flory, Founder and CEO of Effex Management Solutions, a national large volume contingent workforce management solutions firm, has been named as a finalist in the second annual Houston Business Journal C-Suite Awards. Flory is a finalist in the Best CEO of a Mid-Sized Company category which includes companies with 100 to 299 employees.
Houston Business Journal's C-Suite Awards recognize top executives in both nonprofit and for-profit companies in the city. A panel of independent experts judge the nominations and score them based off of contribution to company success, civic involvement, career achievement, and more. The judging panel includes individuals from multiple industries to provide fair and accurate judging criteria.
"To be named as a top CEO by the Houston Business Journal is a significant milestone for me as Houston is such a vast city with hundreds of remarkable business leaders," said Louis Flory, CEO of Effex Management Solutions. "I look forward to celebrating this success with my management team without whom, Effex would not be where it stands today."
Houston Business Journal will host the C-Suite Awards Gala on August 11th at 6:00 pm in the Royal Sonesta Hotel. During this event all finalists will be recognized in their category and receive a finalist award. The winners of each category will also be announced along with a grand winner determined by which nominee has the highest overall score.
Single tickets will be available to the public for purchase on July 21st. For more information about the C-Suite Awards and Gala, visit www.bizjournals.com/houston.
About Effex Management Solutions
Effex Management Solutions is a national on-site staffing and contingent workforce management solutions firm headquartered in Kingwood, Texas. They specialize in human capital solutions for clients in manufacturing, warehouse and distribution markets. By implementing customized programs, including their Strategic Alliance and Flex Force programs, Effex dramatically improves productivity, lowers overhead cost and guarantees 100% staffing for every shift, every day.
Press Contact:
Karen Franco
832-350-4161
Email Contact
REGINA, SASKATCHEWAN -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- On behalf of the Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage, Randy Boissonnault, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, will lead the round table in Regina as part of the Cross-Canada Official Languages Consultations on Thursday.
Media representatives will have an opportunity to take photographs at the beginning of the round table and ask Mr. Boissonnault questions during a press scrum afterwards. Media representatives who wish to attend the consultations may do so as observers.
Note: All details are subject to change without notice. All times are local.
The details are as follows:
DATE: Thursday, July 7, 2016 TIME: The photo session begins at 8:45 a.m. The round table begins at 9:00 a.m. The round table ends and the press scrum begins at 11:00 a.m. PLACE: Carrefour Horizons Conference room #1 1440 9th Avenue North Regina, Saskatchewan
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Contacts:
Pierre-Olivier Herbert
Press Secretary
Office of the Minister of Canadian Heritage
819-997-7788
Media Relations
Canadian Heritage
819-994-9101
1-866-569-6155
PCH.media-media.PCH@Canada.ca
Technavio has announced the top seven leading vendors for the cardiac rhythm management devices market in Chinain their latest research report. To identify the top vendors, Technavio's market research analysts have considered the top contributors to the overall revenue of this market. To calculate the market size, Technavio researchers have considered the revenue generated from the sales of:
Pacemakers
Implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs)
CRT devices: Cardiac resynchronization therapy-defibrillator (CRT-D) and cardiac resynchronization therapy-pacemaker (CRT-P)
Request sample report: http://bit.ly/290l2dJ
"Cardiac disorders such as atrioventricular blocks, ventricular fibrillation, cardiac arrest, bradycardia, sick sinus syndrome, and tachycardia are becoming prevalent in China with each year. In 2014, the Chinese Society of Cardiology estimated that cardiovascular diseases accounted for 40% of the overall mortality rate in the country," said Barath Palada, one of Technavio's lead analysts for cardiovascular devices
"A rise in the population of this age group will increase the prevalence of cardiac diseases. To cater to the rising prevalence of cardiac diseases, vendors are developing advanced cardiac rhythm management devices such as CRT-Ps, CRT-Ds, and ICDs," added Barath.
Top seven leading vendors in the cardiac rhythm management devices market in China:
BIOTRONIK (Beijing) Medical Devices
BIOTRONIK (Beijing) Medical Devices is a subsidiary of BIOTRONIK that engages in the manufacturing and marketing of a wide range of cardiac medical devices in China. The company is headquartered in Beijing, China. In August 2015, the company enrolled its first patient BIOFLOW-VI clinical study in China. The study demonstrates safety and efficacy of Orsiro hybrid drug eluting stent that support CFDA. BIOFLOW-VI is a randomized controlled clinical trial that enrolled around 440 patients at 15 study sites in China.
BSC Medical Device Technology (Shanghai)
BSC Medical Device Technology (Shanghai) was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Shanghai, China. The company develops, manufactures, and markets high-quality medical devices used for treating a wide range of medical conditions. It provides an extensive range of innovative products through its subsidiaries and divisions in China. It has subsidiaries in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou in China. The company engages in the R&D, manufacturing, and marketing of a wide range of cardiac medical devices. The company offers its cardiac medical devices such as ICDs, CRTs, and pacemakers through its cardiac rhythm management sub-segment and offers heart valve systems through its interventional cardiology sub-segment.
Cardiac Science
Cardiac Science was founded in 1913 and is headquartered in Waukesha, Wisconsin, US. The company manufactures and markets a wide range of medical devices including automated external defibrillators. It operates as a subsidiary of Aurora Capital Group. The company offers a wide range of cardiac rhythm management devices. Some of the key products are Powerheart G5 Trainer AED, Powerheart G3 Plus AED, Powerheart G3 Pro AED, Powerheart G5 AED, and Powerheart G3 Trainer AED. The company also provides rescue-ready services accessories.
Koninklijke Philips
Koninklijke Philips was incorporated in 1891 and is headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It is a global leader in healthcare, lighting, consumer lifestyle, innovation, and services. The company has a strong brand value and enjoys a good market presence worldwide. As of May 2014, the company has an overall ranking of 296 in the Forbes 2000 list and is ranked 300th in sales, 71st in the world's most valuable brands, 431st in profit, and 331st in market value. The company offers its cardiac rhythm management products through its subsidiaries Philips Healthcare (Suzhou) and Philips Patient Monitoring Systems China.
LivaNova
LivaNova was established in 1987 and is headquartered in London, UK. It is a medical technology company that engages in the R&D, manufacturing, and marketing of a wide range of cardiac surgery, cardiac rhythm management, and neuromodulation products worldwide. In October 2015, LivaNova's subsidiary Cyberonics completed a merger with Sorin Group for USD 2.7 billion. The company after the merger of Sorin Group acquired tissue heart valves portfolio of Sorin.
Medtronic
Medtronic is founded in 1949 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. It engages in the R&D, manufacturing, and marketing of a wide range of medical devices in more than 155 countries worldwide. In FY2015, it reported a revenue of USD 20.26 billion. As of June 2015, the company had more than 55,000 employees in 460 locations worldwide. The company engages in the R&D, manufacturing, and marketing of a wide range of cardiac medical devices such as pacemakers, ICDs, CRT-D, and CRT-P through its cardiac rhythm and heart failure disease management sub-segment and transcatheter heart valves through its coronary and structural heart disease management sub- segment of cardiac and vascular group segment.
St. Jude Medical
St. Jude Medical was incorporated in 1976 and is headquartered in Minnesota, US. The company engages in the R&D, manufacturing, and marketing of medical devices in the US and also internationally. In FY2015, the company generated USD 5.54 billion revenues. The company manufactures a wide range of cardiac rhythm management products in China through its subsidiary St. Jude Medical (Shanghai) and its subsidiary is headquartered in Shanghai, China.
Browse related reports:
Cardiac Medical Devices Market in the US 2016-2020
Cardiac Rhythm Management Devices Market in China 2016-2020
Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy Devices Market in Europe 2015-2019
Global Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT) Devices Market 2015-2019
Do you need a report on a market in a specific geographical cluster or country but can't find what you're looking for? Don't worry, Technavio also takes client requests. Please contact enquiry@technavio.com with your requirements and our analysts will be happy to create a customized report just for you.
About Technavio
Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies.
Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users.
If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005120/en/
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Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - July 6, 2016) - Stakeholder Gold Corp. (TSXV: SRC) ("Stakeholder" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Phase I exploration program on the Company's Ballarat property, located in the Dawson Range, Yukon, has been completed. The Program was planned, executed and managed by GroundTruth Exploration Inc.
Induced polarization/resistivity and GT probe surveys were conducted on the Northwest Zone over a strike length of 1,800 metres. In-fill soil samples were collected where the terrain was not accessible with the GT probe.
The Eastern Zone, located about 7 km from the Northwest Zone, has been gridded and soil sampled; approximately 500 samples have been collected from that location. A follow-up program of geophysics and GT probe testing is planned once the results of the soil sampling have been received and reviewed, likely to be sometime after mid-July.
The Ballarat Project was recently visited by Company management. It has been determined that the previous drilling (5 holes) did not adequately test the Northwest Zone. Evidence from the trenches (2010) and the preliminary geophysical survey and GT probe analyses (XRF) indicate that the target zone(s) lie north and northwest of the holes drilled in 2012.
When results from the Phase I program have been compiled and reviewed, a rotary air blast (RAB) drilling program is planned to commence in early August.
The target at Ballarat, like many of the gold deposits in the Yukon Range, is a structurally-controlled (orogenic) type, hosted by moderate to high grade metamorphic rocks that have undergone subsequent large scale faulting and localized intrusion with accompanying hydrothermal alteration and mineralization.
On May 12, 2016, Kaminak Gold Corporation announced that Goldcorp Inc. had agreed to acquire the Coffee Gold Project by purchasing all of the outstanding Kaminak shares, a transaction value of CDN $520 million (Kaminak press release, May 12, 2016.)
The Coffee Deposit is located about 17 km southwest of the Northwest Zone on Ballarat.
John Nebocat, P.Eng is a Qualified Person under NI 43-101, and has reviewed and approved the technical portions of this news release.
About Stakeholder Gold Corporation
Stakeholder Gold Corp. is a Canadian mineral exploration company headquartered in Toronto, Canada. The primary focus of Stakeholder is to explore and develop the Ballarat Gold Property in the White Gold District of the Yukon Territory.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This press release was reviewed and approved by Mr. Nebocat, (P.Eng), a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101.
For more Stakeholder Gold Corp. information, please contact
Christopher J. Berlet, CFA
President & CEO
416 525-6869
cberlet@stakeholdergold.com
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of this release.
Forward-Looking Statements: This news release contains forward-looking statements that include risks and uncertainties. When used in this news release, the words "estimate", "project", "anticipate", "expect", "intend", "believe", "hope", "may" and similar expressions, as well as "will", "shall" and other indications of future tense, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and apply only as of the date on which they were made. The factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in such forward-looking statements include changes in the prevailing price of gold, the prevailing price of natural gas, the Canadian-United States exchange rate, amount of gas produced that could affect revenues and production costs. Other factors such as uncertainties regarding government regulations could also affect the results. Other risks may be set out in the Company's annual financial statements and MD&A.
BOSTON, MA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- The national litigation firm Manion Gaynor & Manning LLP ("MG+M") has added seven attorneys and the 12-person legal support staff from the former Law Offices of Glaspy & Glaspy, Inc. ("Glaspy & Glaspy"), a prominent litigation firm based in Walnut Creek, California.
The addition of the multi-talented and battle-tested attorneys of the former Glaspy & Glaspy -- including David Glaspy, Mary Kay Glaspy, Paul Glaspy, Carlos Poza, Brian O'Malley, Kevin Clarke and David Poll -- enhances MG+M's elite national trial capabilities and the firm's growing California practice. It also results in MG+M opening its third office in California and ninth office nationwide, and increases MG+M's attorney roster to nearly 80.
"Glaspy & Glaspy's intense focus on achieving optimal results for their clients is harmonious with our approach at MG+M. We are excited to welcome their experienced team to our firm," said Amaryah Bocchino, Managing Partner of MG+M's Products Liability and Complex Tort Litigation Practice Group.
The former Glaspy & Glaspy attorneys have served as national, regional and trial counsel, with particular focus in the areas of products liability, complex tort, commercial and construction defect litigation. They have tried over 50 asbestos cases to verdict in more than 20 states. Their experienced group of construction attorneys represent developers, builders, specialty contractors, architects and engineers throughout California on issues ranging from contracting to project planning to entitlement, to litigating and successfully defending clients through trial and, when necessary, through appeal, on defect, loss of use, and habitability claims.
"As part of MG+M, we look forward to joining a true team of likeminded professionals who share our dedication to achieving optimal resolutions for each case while providing a thoughtfully structured approach for every client," said David Glaspy, Partner in MG+M's new Walnut Creek office.
About Manion Gaynor & Manning LLP
Manion Gaynor & Manning LLP provides innovative, aggressive representation for clients facing high-stakes litigation anywhere in the country. It is the law firm of choice for numerous Fortune 500 Companies and some of the most iconic brands in American business. The firm serves as National Coordinating Counsel, National Trial Counsel, Regional Counsel and Local Counsel for manufacturers, contractors, service providers, suppliers, professionals, premises owners, food services companies and retailers. With the requisite infrastructure to handle the most complex of cases, the firm is a recognized leader in products liability, complex tort and commercial litigation. Find us at mgmlaw.com.
CONTACT:
NATE WEST
DVL Seigenthaler, A Finn Partners Company
1 615 610 0311
nate.west@dvlseigenthaler.com
SES Government Solutions (SES GS) has been awarded the Thule Tracking Station Digital Signal 3 (DS3) Service Contract to continue to provide the U.S. Government with critical communications capabilities.
This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005507/en/
SES Government Solutions Secures Contract for Thule Tracking Station DS3 Service (Photo: Business Wire)
The service supports a global network that enables national-level missile warning, space surveillance, space control, and satellite command and control. The service consists of a one-year base period, with four one-year option periods for a total contract value of over USD 10 million. The solution connects key sensors to operations centers for missile defense missions and serves Air Force Space Command (AFSPC), United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). SES GS has been the sole provider of commercial satellite communications to Thule Air Base for over thirty years.
"This program continues to serve as a great example of the importance of our capability to deliver the critical intelligence data to military decision makers," said Pete Hoene, President and CEO of SES GS.
The contract provides Air Force Space Command with dedicated communications between Thule Air Base in Greenland and Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The solution includes commercial satellite bandwidth, contractor-provided hub equipment, teleport service and antennas. Thule's arctic environment, unpredictable weather patterns, and near-horizon location provide unique technical and logistical challenges. SES GS continues to provide a robust communications solution to overcome these challenging conditions.
About SES Government Solutions
SES Government Solutions, a subsidiary of global satellite operator SES, is exclusively focused on meeting the satellite communications needs of the U.S. Government. Leveraging more than four decades of experience in the government SATCOM market, SES Government Solutions offers robust and secure satellite-based communications solutions. Supported by SES's fleet of over 50 satellites offering comprehensive global coverage, SES Government Solutions provides highly reliable fixed and on-the-move capacity. Further information can be found at www.ses-gs.com
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005507/en/
Contacts:
SES Government Solutions
Natalia Kossobokova
Marketing Communications Director
natalia.kossobokova@ses-gs.com
703 646 7231
OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Cornerstone Capital Resources Inc. ("Cornerstone" or "the Company") (TSX VENTURE: CGP)(FRANKFURT: GWN)(BERLIN: GWN)(OTCBB: CTNXF) announces the following project update for the Cascabel copper-gold porphyry joint venture exploration project in northern Ecuador, in which the Company has a 15% interest financed through to completion of a feasibility study. SolGold Plc is funding 100% of the exploration at Cascabel and is the operator of the project.
Figures, table and photographs referred to in this news release can be seen in PDF format by accessing the version of this release on the Company's website (www.cornerstoneresources.com) or by clicking on the link below:
http://www.cornerstoneresources.com/i/pdf/NR16-16Figures.pdf.
HIGHLIGHTS:
-- 14 porphyry targets generated within the Cascabel concession, 7 of which have been elevated to close to drill ready status -- Proximity to the growing high-grade Alpala porphyry copper-gold deposit and genetic similarity suggests prospectivity of these satellite targets -- Magnetic modelling on the greater Moran-Alpala trend reveals similarities to the Hugo Dummet deposit of Oyu Tolgoi, Mongolia
FURTHER INFORMATION:
Recent geological and geochemical field work in conjunction with updated three dimensional MVI magnetic modelling has defined fourteen copper-gold porphyry targets within the Cascabel concession. Proximity to and geologic similarity with the growing Alpala porphyry copper-gold deposit suggests that these satellite targets within the Cascabel project area in Northern Ecuador (Figure 1, Location) could yield similar deposits to Alpala. Recently, modelling has identified coincident magnetic and molybdenum anomalism which is considered to be diagnostic of new targets at Moran, Carmen and Parambas. SolGold has recently reported on its initial investigations at Moran, and is currently commissioning mapping and sampling programs at Carmen and Parambas. As with Moran, the Company aims to define significant areas of surface mineralization at Carmen and Parambas.
The Cascabel Project is located on the gold rich northern section of the prolific Andean Copper belt (Figure 2, Regional Setting).
Seven high priority porphyry centres are now within the Cascabel project, from a total of fourteen porphyry targets inferred to date, including the newly discovered Moran, Carmen and Parambas target areas (Figures 3 and 5, Cascabel Targets).
Revised magnetic modelling, reconciled to downhole magnetic susceptibility readings from drill core, has refined MVI magnetic models so that the models represent a proxy for magnetite-chalcopyrite style porphyry mineralization that exists at Cascabel. Soil geochemistry, molybdenum anomalies and detailed 1:500 scale "Anaconda" style surface geological and structural mapping has resulted in increased confidence in targeting other rich parts of the wider porphyry systems within the Cascabel concession.
The northwesterly trend of the Moran-Alpala MVI magnetic anomaly reveals a geometry which is similar to the porphyry system at Hugo Dummet, in Oyu Tolgoi, Mongolia (Figure 4, Long-section of the Moran-Alpala Wider Target Zone).
The quality of this corridor as a high priority target is supported by contiguous datasets, including MVI magnetics, soil geochemistry, induced polarization resistivity, and spectrometry to assess the diagnostic clays mineralogy in soils which are typically consistent with sulphide bearing disseminated and/or stockwork style mineralization peripheral to, and above, a mineralized porphyry stock (Figures 5, 6 and 7).
About Cascabel:
SolGold Plc owns 85% of the equity of Exploraciones Novomining S.A. ("ENSA"), an Ecuadorean company that holds 100% of the Cascabel concession in northern Ecuador. Cornerstone owns the remaining 15% of ENSA, which also holds the rights to the La Encrucijada gold-silver project. SolGold is funding 100% of the exploration at Cascabel and is the operator of the project. Cornerstone's 15% interest is financed through completion of a feasibility study.
Cascabel is located in northwestern Ecuador in an under-explored northern section of the Andean Copper Belt, 60 km northeast of the undeveloped inferred resource of 982 million tons at 0.89% Cu Llurimaga (formerly Junin) copper project (0.4% Cu cut-off grade; Micon International Co. Ltd. Technical Report for Ascendant Exploration SA, August 20, 2004, pages 28 & 29). Mineralization identified at the Llurimaga copper project is not necessarily indicative of the mineralization on the Cascabel Property.
Qualified Person:
Yvan Crepeau, MBA, P.Geo., Cornerstone's Vice President, Exploration and a qualified person in accordance with National Instrument 43-101, is responsible for supervising the exploration program at the Cascabel project for Cornerstone and has reviewed and approved the information contained in this news release.
Logging, sampling and assaying
Holes referred to in this release were or are being drilled using HTW, NTW, NQ and BQ core sizes (respectively 7.1, 5.6, 4.8 and 3.7 cm diameter). Geotechnical measurements such as core recovery, fracturing, rock quality designations (RQD's), specific density and photographic logging are performed systematically prior to assaying. The core is logged, magnetic susceptibility measured and key alteration minerals identified using an on-site portable spectrometer. Core is then sawed in half at the ENSA core logging facility, and half of the core is delivered by ENSA employees for preparation at LAC y Asociados ISO 9001-2008 certified sample preparation facility in Cuenca. Core samples are prepared crushing to 70% passing 2 mm (10 mesh), splitting 250 g and pulverizing to 85% passing 75 microns (200 mesh) (MSA code PRP-910). Prepared samples are then shipped to MS Analytical Services (MSA), an ISO 9001-2008 laboratory in Langley, BC, Canada where samples are assayed for a multi-element suite (MSA code IMS-230, 0.2g split, 4-acid digestion, ICP-AES/MS finish). Over limit results for Cu (greater than 1%) are systematically re-assayed (MSA code ICF-6Cu, 0.2 g, 4-acid digestion, ICP-AES finish). Gold is assayed using a 30 g split, Fire Assay (FA) and AAS finish (MSA code FAS 111). Over limit results for Au (greater than 10 g/t) are systematically re-assayed (MSA code FAS-415, FA, 30g., gravimetric finish).
Drill hole intercepts from the Cascabel Property are calculated using a data aggregation method, defined by copper equivalent cut-off grades and reported with up to 10m internal dilution, excluding bridging to a single sample. Copper equivalent grades are calculated using a gold conversion factor of 0.89, determined using copper price of US$2.20/pound and gold price of US$1350/ounce.
All reported drill core intervals from the Cascabel Property are core lengths, unless otherwise indicated. At present the true thicknesses of all of the holes has not been calculated by SolGold. Low-grade intersections, where applicable, are expressed as average true widths (utilizing the "B-vein greater than 0.5%" shell orientations). High-grade intersections are better constrained for holes 1, 5, 8 and 9, and these intersections are also expressed as average true widths (utilizing the "B-veins greater than 20%" shell orientations).
Quality assurance / Quality control (QA/QC)
The MSA Analytical Laboratory is a qualified assayer that performs and makes available internal assaying controls. Duplicates, certified blanks and standards are systematically used (1 control sample every 15-20 samples) as part of Cornerstone's QA/QC program. Rejects, a 100 g pulp for each core sample and the remaining half-core are stored for future use and controls.
Plans:
SolGold has announced it is planning a resource statement at Alpala, the most advanced target at Cascabel, during 2016, in addition to drill testing the other key targets at Aguinaga, Trivino, Alpala NW, Hematite Hill, Alpala SE, Cristal, Tandayama America, Moran, and Chinambicito within the Cascabel concession. By the end of 2016 SolGold has reported it is planning further metallurgical testing, and completion of early stage mine and plant design and a scoping study (which may or may not be the approximate equivalent of a preliminary economic assessment as defined under National Instrument 43-101) for an economic development at Cascabel. SolGold has reported it is investigating both high tonnage / low grade open cut and high grade / low tonnage underground developments as a block caving operation.
About Cornerstone:
Cornerstone Capital Resources Inc. is a well funded mineral exploration company with a diversified portfolio of projects in Ecuador and Chile, and a proven ability to identify, acquire and advance properties of merit. The company's business model is based on generating exploration projects whose subsequent development is funded primarily through partnerships.
Further information is available on Cornerstone's website: www.cornerstoneresources.com and on Twitter.
Cautionary Notice:
This news release may contain 'Forward-Looking Statements' that involve risks and uncertainties, such as statements of Cornerstone's plans, objectives, strategies, intentions and expectations. The words "potential," "anticipate," "forecast," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "may," "project," "plan," and similar expressions are intended to be among the statements that identify 'Forward-Looking Statements.' Although Cornerstone believes that its expectations reflected in these 'Forward-Looking Statements' are reasonable, such statements may involve unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors disclosed in our regulatory filings, viewed on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com. For us, uncertainties arise from the behaviour of financial and metals markets, predicting natural geological phenomena and from numerous other matters of national, regional, and global scale, including those of an environmental, climatic, natural, political, economic, business, competitive, or regulatory nature. These uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in our Forward-Looking Statements. Although Cornerstone believes the facts and information contained in this news release to be as correct and current as possible, Cornerstone does not warrant or make any representation as to the accuracy, validity or completeness of any facts or information contained herein and these statements should not be relied upon as representing its views subsequent to the date of this news release. While Cornerstone anticipates that subsequent events may cause its views to change, it expressly disclaims any obligation to update the Forward-Looking Statements contained herein except where outcomes have varied materially from the original statements.
On Behalf of the Board,
Brooke Macdonald, President and CEO
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Contacts:
For investor, corporate or media inquiries, please contact:
Cornerstone Capital Resources Inc.
Investor Relations
(613) 421-6923
ir@cornerstoneresources.ca
ID Finance, an international digital finance company, has been selected as a finalist for Red Herring's Top 100 Europe award, a prestigious list honoring the year's most promising private technology ventures from the European business region.
The editorial board of the business and innovation magazine Red Herring, included in the same media group, has released annual ranking of hundreds of the best European start-ups. More than 1,200 companies in the fintech, telecommunications, security, cloud, software, hardware, biotech, mobile and other industries were evaluated on 20 major quantitative and qualitative criteria. They include disruptive impact, market footprint, proof of concept, financial performance, technology innovation, social value, quality of management, execution of strategy, and integration into their respective industries.
Evaluation of company's potential was complemented by overview of the project's reputation, as well as the team professionalism research.
Boris Batin, ID Finance CEO, stated:
"MoneyMan online lending service, which belongs to ID Finance, has been included into Top 100 European start-ups ranking in the past 2015. In 2016, it was decided to nominate a head organization, as ID Finance launched an online-POS-lending service AmmoPay in August 2015. This allowed to nominate at once two projects on Red Herring Top 100 Europe Award."
"This year was rewarding, beyond all expectations," said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. "There are many great companies producing really innovative and amazing products in Europe. We had a very difficult time narrowing the pool and selecting the finalists. We were faced with the difficult task of selecting the Top 100 winners of Red Herring Europe. The 2016 crop grown into some amazing companies that are sure to make an impact."
The finalists were invited to present their winning strategies at the Red Herring Europe Forum in Amsterdam. Details of the Red Herring 2016 Top 100 Europe Award Winners are available on the award website.
ID Finance is a fast-growing financial technology company specialising in online lending in emerging and well-developed markets. The company currently has offices in Spain, Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Poland. The company designed its original IT stack and uses proprietary high-performance scoring models to evaluate the credit worthiness of a potential borrower in real time. The most well-known and largest assets of the ID Finance group are the companies MoneyMan and AmmoPay.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005143/en/
Contacts:
ID Finance
Dmitry Gorokh
pr@idfinance.com
WHITEHORSE, YUKON -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Yukon Premier Darrell Pasloski will host Canada's 13 provincial and territorial premiers and the leaders of the five National Aboriginal Organizations in Haines Junction, Yukon on July 20. The meeting will take place on the Traditional Territory of Yukon's Champagne and Aishihik First Nations.
Media accreditation
All media attending the meeting must be accredited. Media accreditation for the 2016 Summer Meeting of Canada's Premiers will be honoured for the meeting of premiers and National Aboriginal Organization (NAO) leaders. A photo-ID badge will be provided to all accredited media.
Media who wish to cover the meeting of premiers and NAO leaders only, i.e., media who will not be covering the 2016 Summer Meeting of Canada's Premiers, must contact Kate Durand (contact information below) for accreditation. Media must present photo identification upon arrival at the media centre in Haines Junction. Media must register by July 19.
Media centre
A media centre will be located in the Grand Hall of the St. Elias Convention Centre. A unimic will also be set up in this area. The centre will be equipped with Internet access (both WiFi and a limited number of hardwired connections), a printer and power outlets. Internet speeds per device will be approximately (not guaranteed) 10 Mbps download and 1.5 Mbps upload.
Satellite truck parking
Parking for large trucks is available at the St. Elias Convention Centre. To arrange for parking, please contact Kate Durand (contact information below).
Media transportation
A shuttle will be provided to make the round-trip from Whitehorse to Haines Junction. A one-way trip from Whitehorse to Haines Junction takes approximately one and a half to two hours. Media can opt to be invoiced for travel. Please see media programme below for departure muster points.
Media programme
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, July 20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 a.m. Shuttle departs Yukon Inn Muster point: Lobby/reception area, Yukon Inn, Whitehorse ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6:15 a.m. Shuttle departs Days Inn for Haines Junction Muster point: Lobby/reception area, Days Inn, Whitehorse ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7:45 a.m. Media centre opens Grand Hall, St. Elias Convention Centre, Haines Junction ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8:45 a.m. Photo opportunity with premiers and NAO leaders Outside pavilion, St. Elias Convention Centre, Haines Junction ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Tour and cultural demonstration led by the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations (transportation from convention centre to cultural centre will be provided) Da Ku Cultural Centre, Haines Junction ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11:30 a.m. - 12:45 p.m. Lunch Grand Hall, St. Elias Convention Centre, Haines Junction ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 p.m. Media availability session with Premier Darrell Pasloski and NAO leaders Grand Hall, St. Elias Convention Centre, Haines Junction ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2:30 p.m. Shuttle departs for Yukon Inn and Days Inn, Whitehorse ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 p.m. Media centre closed ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unimic
A unimic will be located in the Grand Hall of the St. Elias Convention Centre and will be available during the following hours:
8:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
1:30 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.
Additional Information
The five National Aboriginal Organizations comprise Assembly of First Nations (AFN), Indigenous Peoples' Assembly of Canada (IPAC) formerly Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP), Metis National Council (MNC), Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) and Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC).
Cellular reception may be limited in Haines Junction. If travelling to Haines Junction by shuttle or car, please note that there is no cellular reception between Whitehorse and Haines Junction.
Contacts:
Kate Durand
Communications, Executive Council Office
Government of Yukon
867-667-8968
kate.durand@gov.yk.ca
BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The Swiss stock market ended Wednesday's session in the red, extending its losing streak to three sessions. Concerns about the consequences from the U.K. vote to exit the European Union and the health of the global economy weighed on investor sentiment. The losses in Switzerland were less severe than the rest of the European markets, due to its defensive weighting. Amidst all of the concerns over the proposed 'Brexit' investors flocked to safe haven investments. Government bonds saw strong demand from traders, which drove bond yields even lower. Gold stocks were also in demand as gold prices climbed to over a 2-year high. The Swiss Market Index decreased 0.55 percent Wednesday and finished at 7,898.21. The Swiss Leader Index dropped 0.99 percent and the Swiss Performance Index lost 0.66 percent. The financial stocks remained under heavy pressure. The consequences of the Brexit, coupled with concerns over the Italian banks drove the banks stocks lower. Credit Suisse dropped 1.7 percent and UBS weakened by 1.9 percent. Swiss Life decreased 2.6 percent, Swiss Re fell 2.5 percent and Zurich Insurance lost 2.2 percent. Dufry surrendered 2.6 percent and building materials group LafargeHolcim closed lower by 2.2 percent. Ratings agency Moody's confirmed its credit rating of Baa2 for LafargeHolcim. Geberit fell 0.5 percent after it announced a reorganization of management responsibilities and the appointment of a new marketing executive. Schindler dipped 0.3 percent. The lift and escalator manufacturer announced a strategic alliance with U.S. company General Electric in the field of industrial Internet. Among the index heavyweights, Roche decreased 0.4 percent and Novartis dipped 0.1 percent. Meanwhile, shares of food giant Nestle gained 0.2 percent. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Technavio has announced the top six leading vendors for the global advanced extremely high frequency systems marketin their latest research report. To identify the top vendors, Technavio's market research analysts have considered the top contributors to the overall revenue of this market. The report provides a comprehensive overview, market shares, and growth opportunities by type (ISR, navigation, and SATCOM), and growth prospects by country (Canada, Netherlands, UK, and the US).
Request sample report: http://bit.ly/293wFjb
"Military satellites are gaining popularity as it offers ease of communication and meets the needs of present and future operations. SATCOM acts as a communication bridge between various forces and national command authorities irrespective of the distances. For example, in 2011, the Libyan operation, which included small contributors such as Norway and Denmark, deployed their communication links at well-established bases such as the US Naval Air Station Sigonella," said Arushi Thakur, one of Technavio industry managers for defense
Top five leading vendors in the global advanced extremely high frequency systems market:
Boeing
In 2012, Boeing had successfully demonstrated end-to-end communication using a terminal from the AEHF satellite and the Family of Advanced Beyond Line-of-Sight Terminals (FAB-T) system. This first on-orbit test with the AEHF-1 satellite accomplished both extended-data-rate (XDR) and low-data-rate (LDR) communications using the FAB-T system.
Also, in 2013, the AEHF-3 satellite system was launched by Atlas V. The Atlas V active expendable launch system is being operated by the Lockheed Martin-Boeing joint venture United Launch Alliance.
Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the AEHF satellite program. The vendor signed a contract worth USD 1.93 billion with the US Air Force to develop and build the fifth and sixth satellites for highly secure military communications.
Under the contract with US Air Force, Lockheed Martin would deliver six AEHF satellites, with the AEHF-1 and AEHF-2 already on orbit. AEHF-3 was launched in September 2013, and AEHF-4 satellite is under development. The fifth and sixth satellites are expected to be launched by 2018 and 2019 respectively.
Northrop Grumman
The company develops AEHF satellite payloads, as well as integrates mission-enabling systems and associated services. Its space systems are used in Earth observation, satellite communications, space science, and space exploration applications.
Under the contract with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman delivered three communications payloads for the AEHF satellite systems such as processors, antennas, radio frequency subsystems, and crosslinks.
Raytheon
Raytheon provides AEHF satellite communication solutions that are operated by the US Air Force Space Command Division. They are used for secure communication between the US military and its allied forces.
Its AEHF terminals provide an advanced and protected satellite communication solution, linking the President of the US and senior military advisor across the globe.
Thales Group
The company designs and manufactures the systems and sub-systems of AEHF satellites. It integrates and deploys various space systems that are used for the defense, security, and commercial applications.
The company stands as one of the major contractors for the military communication satellites of the armed forces of France. The company also provides secure satellite communication services to various countries, including NATO members, through its SYSTEM 21 solutions. It provides ground station and mobile transmission solutions for air, land, and naval platforms such as UAVs, armored vehicles, helicopters, surface ships, and submarines.
establishments, and the marine infrastructure, home security, and transportation industries.
Browse related reports:
Global Military Satellite Market 2016-2020
Global Military Satellite Market 2016-2020 Global Remote Sensing Satellite Market 2016-2020
Global Military Satellite Market 2016-2020 Global Remote Sensing Satellite Market 2016-2020Global Satellite Transponder Market 2016-2020
Global Military Satellite Market 2016-2020 Global Remote Sensing Satellite Market 2016-2020Global Satellite Transponder Market 2016-2020Global Mobile Satellite Services Market 2015-2019
Global Military Communication Market: Forecast and Research Analysis 2015-2019
Do you need a report on a market in a specific geographical cluster or country but can't find what you're looking for? Don't worry, Technavio also takes client requests. Please contact enquiry@technavio.com with your requirements and our analysts will be happy to create a customized report just for you.
About Technavio
Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies.
Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users.
If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160706005072/en/
Contacts:
Technavio Research
Jesse Maida
Media Marketing Executive
US: +1 630 333 9501
UK: +44 208 123 1770
www.technavio.com
media@technavio.com
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., revealed Tuesday evening that FBI Director James Comey will be called to testify before Congress following his decision to recommend no criminal charges be filed against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server while Secretary of State.
In an interview with Megyn Kelly of Fox News, Ryan questioned the conclusion reached by Comey in light of the case the FBI Director laid out regarding Clinton's mishandling of classified information.
'What really just mystifies me is the case he makes and then the conclusion he draws, and what bothers me about this is the Clintons really are living above the law,' Ryan said. 'They're being held by a different set of standards-that is clearly what this looks like.'
He added, 'This is why we're going to have hearings, and this is why I think Comey should give us all the publicly available information to see how and why they reached these conclusions.'
Ryan indicated Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Calif., chairman of the House Government and Oversight Committee, will call Comey to testify and noted the House Judiciary Committee has also sent the FBI chief a number of questions.
The House Speaker also suggested that the Director of National Intelligence should block Clinton's access to classified information.
In a statement on Tuesday, Comey described Clinton as careless in her use of a private email server but said he is not recommending criminal charges against the likely Democratic presidential nominee.
Comey noted that the Justice Department will make the final decision but said the FBI determined no charges are appropriate.
'In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts,' Comey said.
'To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences,' he added. 'To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.'
Comey said the investigation determined that 110 e-mails sent or received on Clinton's server contained classified information.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
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WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that the U.S. military will keep a higher number of troops in Afghanistan than previously planned.
In remarks from the White House, Obama revealed that the U.S. will maintain approximately 8,400 troops in Afghanistan through the end of his administration.
Obama had previously called for the number of troops in the country to be drawn down from 9,800 to 5,500 by the end of this year.
The president said the decision was based on a recommendation from U.S. General John Nicholson, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford.
Obama stressed that U.S. troops will remain focused on two narrow missions to train and advise Afghan forces and to support counterterrorist operations against the remnants of al-Qaida and other terrorists.
'The narrow missions assigned to our forces will not change-they'll remain focused on supporting Afghan forces and going after terrorists,' Obama said. 'But maintaining our forces at this specific level-based on our assessment of the security conditions and the strength of Afghan forces-will allow us to continue to provide tailored support to help Afghan forces continue to improve.'
'From coalition bases in Jalalabad and Kandahar, we'll be able to continue supporting Afghan forces on the ground and in the air,' he added. 'And we continue supporting critical counterterrorism operations.'
Obama said the decision will also send a message to the Taliban that the only way to end the conflict and achieve a full drawdown of foreign forces is through a lasting political settlement.
The president highlighted recent successes by Afghan forces against the Taliban but acknowledged that the security situation in the country remains precarious.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., said he welcomes Obama's decision to reverse his previous plan to drawdown U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
'While I believe conditions on the ground warranted retaining the current force level, the decision to retain 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan into next year is certainly preferable to cutting those forces by nearly half,' McCain said.
He added, 'That said, when the President himself describes the security situation in Afghanistan as 'precarious,' it is difficult to discern any strategic rationale for withdrawing 1,400 U.S. troops by the end of the year.'
The White House noted that Obama has brought home approximately 90 percent of U.S. troops from Afghanistan since taking office in 2009.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
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CENTRALIA, WA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Acrow Bridge, a leading international bridge engineering and supply company, has opened a new storage facility in Centralia, WA to better serve the growing market for rental bridges in Washington, Oregon, Northern California, Montana, Idaho and Utah. The new location is larger than previous regional facilities and offers both indoor and outdoor storage along with rail shipment and easy port access for shipment to Pacific Rim customers.
A leading provider of rental bridges in the U.S. and Canada, Acrow maintains a substantial stock of modular steel bridging components that can be quickly shipped and assembled into any size bridge up to four lanes wide. Many state transportation agencies and contractors already keep their own inventory of Acrow modular steel bridges to provide a safer, faster and more economical alternative for bridge construction than the traditional "phased" approach where lanes are frequently moved to direct traffic around construction sites.
"Every day all over the country, bridges are being replaced or renovated, creating a continual need for bridges," said Bill Killeen, President and CEO of Acrow Bridge. "Prefabricated modular detour bridges are a logical choice for state DOTs and contractors who need to stay on or ahead of schedule. Acrow bridges not only allow traffic to be safely maintained at full capacity during construction, they have also proven to be a significant cost savings opportunity for contractors."
Acrow's rental bridge services include quick delivery to most points in the U.S. and Canada, engineering drawings in compliance with customer specifications, on-site engineers to oversee bridge installation and return delivery upon project completion. The new Centralia, WA facility is located at 3707 Galvin Road, Centralia, WA 98531.
About Acrow Bridge
Acrow Bridge has been serving the transportation and construction industries for more than 60 years with a full line of modular steel bridging solutions for vehicle, rail, vessel, military and pedestrian use. Acrow's extensive international presence includes its leadership in the development and implementation of bridge infrastructure projects in over 80 countries, covering Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East. For more information, please visit www.acrow.com.
Contact:
Tracy Van Buskirk
Marketcom PR
Main: (212) 537-5177, ext. 8
Mobile: (203) 246-6165
tvanbuskirk@marketcompr.com
OREM, UT--(Marketwired - July 06, 2016) - Blue Castle Holdings is beginning the contractor selection process for its construction joint venture for the Blue Castle Project, a two-unit nuclear power plant in Green River, Utah. Blue Castle Holdings is hosting a project overview webinar on July 21, 2016 at 1:00 PM MDT. This webinar is exclusively for qualified contractors with the capability to execute large contracts in heavy civil, mechanical, electrical, structural building, engineering, industrial procurement, modular fabrication and project management.
Contractors qualified under Appendix B, ASME Nuclear Quality Assurance (NQA-1) programs are required for about 70% of the scope of work. About 30% of work scope will be conducted under other typical industrial construction standards. All contractors must be able to perform in a very rigorous quality assurance program compliance environment, meeting the requirements of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. These requirements include varying levels of quality assurance performance, inspection, and documentation based upon the specific work scope performed.
Information regarding the construction joint venture for qualified firms will be presented. The webinar is intended for high level executives from companies capable of performing in a highly integrated project delivery system environment. The combined estimated contract work available to construction joint venture participants is approximately $8 billion in nuclear safety and non-safety related, balance of plant and infrastructure work, over a seven year time frame with an approximate start year of 2020 for non-safety related work and 2022 for nuclear safety related work, as permitted by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
An overview of the Blue Castle Project structure, technology selection, construction contractor selection, planning and timeline will be presented. Included in the presentation will be the status and trends of other new nuclear construction projects in the U.S.A. and how those developments are influencing the Blue Castle Project.
**NOT a Public Meeting - By Approval Only** Every individual attending the webinar will need to fill out the registration form via the link below for approval at least 48 hours in advance of the actual webinar for approval. After approval of company attendance, a unique link (needed to log in to the webinar) will be emailed to each individual attendee. Therefore, each attendee MUST register with an individual email address associated with its company email domain name. For approval go to: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/802388777325534722
About Blue Castle Holdings
Blue Castle Holdings Inc. (BCH or the Company) is an energy infrastructure development company based in Utah. It is presently developing the leading new nuclear plant project site in the Western U.S.
The proposed multi-unit Blue Castle Nuclear Project could increase the electricity generated in Utah by approximately 30% by adding 2,200 Megawatts of installed electrical capacity. It is expected that about 1,000 permanent full-time employees will work at the plant for 60 years, and that more than 2,500 workers will work during the projected six year construction of the multi-unit plant.
More information about Blue Castle Holdings can be found at: www.bluecastleproject.com
For Media Inquiries: (801) 877-0712
info@bluecastleproject.com
Blue Castle Holdings Inc.
1145 South 800 East, Suite 117
Orem Utah, 84097
During the morning session of the 12th Party Central Committees third meeting, which opened in Hanoi the same day under the chair of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, the delegates heard several reports.
They included the Politburos reports on building working regulations for the Inspection Commission, and those concerning the Partys inspection, supervision and discipline work presented by Politburo member and Secretary of the Party Central Committee Tran Quoc Vuong, who is also head of the Inspection Commission.
Politburo member and Secretary of the Party Central Committee Pham Minh Chinh, who is also head of the CPVCC's Organisation Commission, delivered another report on draft regulations on the enforcement of the Party Statute.
The third plenum will run till July 8th./.
MONACO--(Marketwired - July 06, 2016) - Scorpio Tankers Inc. (NYSE: STNG) (the "Company") announced today that the Company has received a commitment for a loan facility up to $300 million from ABN AMRO Bank N.V., Nordea Bank Finland plc, acting through its New York branch, and Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB. The loan facility will be used to refinance the existing indebtedness on 16 MR product tankers, has a final maturity of five years from the first drawdown date and bears interest at LIBOR plus a margin of 2.50% per annum. The loan facility will be comprised of a term loan up to $200 million and a revolver up to $100 million, and the availability can be used to finance up to 60% of the fair market value of the respective vessels. The loan facility is subject to customary conditions precedent and the execution of definitive documentation.
About Scorpio Tankers Inc.
Scorpio Tankers Inc. is a provider of marine transportation of petroleum products worldwide. Scorpio Tankers Inc. currently owns 77 product tankers (21 LR2, 14 Handymax, and 42 MR tankers) with an average age of 1.7 years and time charters-in 12 product tankers (two LR2, one LR1, four MR and five Handymax tankers). The Company has contracted for 10 newbuilding product tankers (eight MR and two LR2 tankers). The two LR2s are expected to be delivered in the second half of 2016 (one per quarter) and the eight MRs are expected to be delivered throughout 2017. Additional information about the Company is available at the Company's website www.scorpiotankers.com, which is not a part of this press release.
Forward-Looking Statements
Matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides safe harbor protections for forward-looking statements in order to encourage companies to provide prospective information about their business. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements, which are other than statements of historical facts. The Company desires to take advantage of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and is including this cautionary statement in connection with this safe harbor legislation. The words "believe," "anticipate," "intends," "estimate," "forecast," "project," "plan," "potential," "may," "should," "expect," "pending" and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements.
The forward-looking statements in this press release are based upon various assumptions, many of which are based, in turn, upon further assumptions, including without limitation, our management's examination of historical operating trends, data contained in our records and other data available from third parties. Although we believe that these assumptions were reasonable when made, because these assumptions are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies which are difficult or impossible to predict and are beyond our control, we cannot assure you that we will achieve or accomplish these expectations, beliefs or projections. We undertake no obligation, and specifically decline any obligation, except as required by law, to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
In addition to these important factors, other important factors that, in our view, could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements include the failure of counterparties to fully perform their contracts with us, the strength of world economies and currencies, general market conditions, including fluctuations in charter rates and vessel values, changes in demand for tanker vessel capacity, changes in our operating expenses, including bunker prices, drydocking and insurance costs, the market for our vessels, availability of financing and refinancing, charter counterparty performance, ability to obtain financing and comply with covenants in such financing arrangements, changes in governmental rules and regulations or actions taken by regulatory authorities, potential liability from pending or future litigation, general domestic and international political conditions, potential disruption of shipping routes due to accidents or political events, vessels breakdowns and instances of off-hires and other factors. Please see our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a more complete discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties.
Scorpio Tankers Inc.
212-542-1616
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Killam Apartment REIT (TSX: KMP.UN) will be releasing its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2016, on Wednesday, August 3, 2016, after the market closes. A conference call to discuss the results will be held on Thursday, August 4, 2016, at 11:00 AM ET.
The dial-in numbers for the conference call are:
In Toronto: 416-340-2217, passcode 7178655
Outside Toronto (toll free, within North America): 866-696-5910, passcode 7178655
A live audio webcast of the conference call will be accessible on Killam's website at http://www.killamproperties.com/investor-relations/events-and-presentations. A replay will be available on Killam's website for 90 days after the conference call.
About Killam Apartment REIT
Killam Apartment REIT, based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is one of Canada's largest residential landlords, owning, operating and developing multi-family apartments and manufactured home communities. Killam's current portfolio includes $1.9 billion in real estate assets. Killam's strategy to maximize its value and long-term profitability includes concentrating on three key areas of growth: 1) increasing the earnings from its existing portfolio, 2) expanding its portfolio and diversifying geographically through accretive acquisitions, with an emphasis on newer properties, and 3) developing high-quality properties in its core markets.
Contacts:
Killam Apartment REIT
Dale Noseworthy, CPA, CA, CFA
Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Planning
(902) 442-0388
dnoseworthy@killamreit.com
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Eloro Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: ELO) (FRANKFURT: P2Q) ("Eloro" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has retained Profinnotiv AG ("Profinnotiv") to provide Eloro with investor and public relations services in the European market. Eloro has a significant shareholder base in Europe and a listing of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and it is anticipated that Profinnotiv will leverage their extensive relationships within the professional investment community to expand the Company's profile and communicate with Eloro's current and future shareholders.
Profinnotiv and the Company entered into a 12 month contracting agreement that provides for Profinnotiv to be the Company's point of contact in Europe. Profinnotiv and its affiliates are at arm's length to the Company. The Company will pay Profinnotiv a fee of EUR2,500 for the 12 month period and grant Profinnotiv 100,000 stock options, each exerciseable at $0.30 for a five year term.
About Eloro Resources Ltd.
Eloro is an exploration and mine development company with a portfolio of gold and base-metal properties in northern Peru and western Quebec. Eloro recently announced its proposed acquisition of a 100% undivided interest in the La Victoria property, located in the prolific North-Central Mineral Belt of Peru. The La Victoria Property consists of two adjacent, but not contiguous, properties totalling eight mining concessions encompassing approximately 35 square kilometres. The Property is within 50 kilometres of several producing gold mines, with three producers visible from the property. Infrastructure in the area is good with access to road, water and electricity and is located at an altitude that ranges from 3,100 m to 4,200 m above sea level.
Information in this news release may contain forward-looking information. Statements containing forward-looking information express, as at the date of this news release, the Corporation's plans, estimates, forecasts, projections, expectations, or beliefs as to future events or results and are believed to be reasonable based on information currently available to the Corporation. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate. Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.
Neither the TSXV, nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Contacts:
Thomas Larsen
President and C.E.O.
Eloro Resources Ltd.
(416) 868-9168
Jorge Estepa
Vice-President
Eloro Resources Ltd.
(416) 868-9168
Weekly net asset value ("NAV") is calculated as of the close of business on each Tuesday and posted on the following business day. In the event that Tuesday is not a business day, the Company will calculate the close-of-business NAV as of the business day immediately preceding that Tuesday. The end-of-month NAV is calculated as of the close of business on the last day of the month and posted on the following business day. For weeks that include a month-end NAV report, PSH will provide only the month-end NAV and not report the Tuesday NAV. Monthly NAVs are published in accordance with the Decree on Conduct of Business Supervision of Financial Undertakings under the Wft (Besluit Gedragstoezicht financiele ondernemingen Wft).
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
MONACO -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Costamare Inc. (the "Company") (NYSE: CMRE) announced today that its Board of Directors has voted to implement a dividend reinvestment plan (the "plan"). The plan offers holders of Company common stock the opportunity to purchase additional shares by having their cash dividends automatically reinvested in Company common stock. Participation in the plan is optional, and shareholders who decide not to participate in the plan will continue to receive cash dividends, as declared and paid in the usual manner. All dividends with respect to Company common stock are payable only when and as declared by the Company's board of directors.
The following is a summary of the key attributes of the plan. The terms and conditions of the plan are set forth under the heading "Description of Plan" in the prospectus available as part of the registration statement filed by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on the SEC's website, EDGAR (http://www.sec.gov). Shareholders should read the plan prospectus carefully before electing to participate in the plan or invest in Company common stock.
The plan will be administrated by American Stock Transfer & Trust, LLC (the "Administrator"), the Company's transfer agent. At the Company's discretion, the Administrator will make such purchases directly from the Company, on the open market, through privately negotiated transactions or by a combination of the foregoing. Purchases directly from the Company may be eligible for a discount of up to 5% from the otherwise applicable purchase price, but any such discount is to be determined by the Company's board of directors, in its sole discretion, and may be changed or discontinued at any time without notice to plan participants. The Company has instructed the Administrator that, until further notice, all purchases under the plan shall be made directly from the Company at a discount of 3% to the Market Price (as defined in the plan).
Plan enrollment materials and information will be distributed to the Company's shareholders of record. Dividend reinvestments under the plan are expected to begin with the dividend declared by the Company's board of directors in respect of the quarter ended June 30, 2016. Record owners of Company common stock may participate in the plan by submitting a properly completed plan enrollment form to the Administrator. Beneficial owners of Company common stock may participate in the plan either by becoming a record owner in respect of the shares they would like to enroll in the plan and then submitting a properly completed enrollment form to the Administrator or by arranging for the broker, bank or other nominee that is the record owner in respect of such shares to participate in the plan on their behalf. If a plan enrollment form is received by the Administrator on or prior to the record date established for a particular dividend, reinvestment will commence with that dividend. Enrollment forms of shareholders who wish to participate in the plan for the dividend declared in respect of the quarter ended June 30, 2016 must be received by the Administrator no later than August 3, 2016. For more information on how to enroll or any other inquiries, contact the Administrator by phone at (800) 279-4353 or via the Internet at www.amstock.com.
This release does not constitute an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. The offering is being made only by means of a prospectus. The Company has filed a registration statement (including a prospectus) relating to the plan with the SEC. A copy of the registration statement (including the prospectus) is available electronically from EDGAR (http://www.sec.gov) and may also be obtained from the Administrator by phone at (800) 279-4353 or via the Internet at www.amstock.com
About Costamare Inc.
Costamare Inc. is one of the world's leading owners and providers of containerships for charter. The Company has 42 years of history in the international shipping industry and a fleet of 72 containerships, with a total capacity in excess of 467,000 TEU, including 10 newbuild containerships on order. The Company's common stock, Series B Preferred Stock, Series C Preferred Stock and Series D Preferred Stock trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbols "CMRE", "CMRE PR B", "CMRE PR C" and "CMRE PR D", respectively.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking statements". In some cases, you can identify these statements by forward-looking words such as "believe", "intend", "anticipate", "estimate", "project", "forecast", "plan", "potential", "may", "should", "could" and "expect" and similar expressions. These statements are not historical facts but instead represent only the Company's belief regarding future results, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of the Company's control. It is possible that actual results may differ, possibly materially, from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect future results, see the discussion in the Company's Annual Report on Form 20-F (File No. 001-34934) under the caption "Risk Factors".
Company Contacts:
Gregory Zikos
Chief Financial Officer
Konstantinos Tsakalidis
Business Development, Investor Relations
Costamare Inc., Monaco
Tel: (+377) 93 25 09 40
Email: ir@costamare.com
Plan Administrator:
American Stock Transfer & Trust Company, LLC
6201 Fifteenth Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11219
Tel: (800) 279-4353
CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- ATCO Ltd. (TSX: ACO.X)(TSX: ACO.Y) will release its financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2016 on Wednesday, July 27, 2016. The news release will be distributed via www.marketwired.com and the results, including Financial Statements and Management's Discussion & Analysis, will be posted on www.atco.com.
With nearly 8,000 employees and assets of approximately $19 billion, ATCO is a diversified global corporation delivering service excellence and innovative business solutions in Structures & Logistics (workforce housing, innovative modular facilities, construction, site support services, and logistics and operations management); Electricity (electricity generation, transmission, and distribution); Pipelines & Liquids (natural gas transmission, distribution and infrastructure development, energy storage, and industrial water solutions); and Retail Energy (electricity and natural gas retail sales). More information can be found at www.ATCO.com.
Forward-Looking Information: Certain statements contained in this news release may constitute forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "anticipate", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "may", "will", "intend", "should", and similar expressions.
Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information.
The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in this forward-looking information as a result of regulatory decisions, competitive factors in the industries in which the Company operates, prevailing economic conditions, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company.
The Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking information should not be unduly relied upon.
Any forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the Company's expectations as of the date hereof, and is subject to change after such date. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities legislation.
Contacts:
Media & Investor Inquiries:
B.R. (Brian) Bale
Senior Vice President &
Chief Financial Officer
403-292-7502
CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 -- Canadian Utilities Limited (TSX: CU) (TSX: CU.X)
Canadian Utilities Limited will release its financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2016 on Wednesday, July 27, 2016. The news release will be distributed via www.marketwired.com and the results, including Financial Statements and Management's Discussion & Analysis, will be posted on www.canadianutilities.com.
With nearly 5,500 employees and assets of approximately $18 billion, Canadian Utilities Limited is an ATCO company. ATCO is a diversified global corporation delivering service excellence and innovative business solutions in Structures & Logistics (workforce housing, innovative modular facilities, construction, site support services, and logistics and operations management); Electricity (electricity generation, transmission, and distribution); Pipelines & Liquids (natural gas transmission, distribution and infrastructure development, energy storage, and industrial water solutions); and Retail Energy (electricity and natural gas retail sales). More information can be found at www.canadianutilities.com.
Forward-Looking Information:
Certain statements contained in this news release may constitute forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "anticipate", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "may", "will", "intend", "should", and similar expressions.
Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information.
The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in this forward-looking information as a result of regulatory decisions, competitive factors in the industries in which the Company operates, prevailing economic conditions, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company.
The Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking information should not be unduly relied upon.
Any forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the Company's expectations as of the date hereof, and is subject to change after such date. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities legislation.
Contacts:
Media & Investor Inquiries:
B.R. (Brian) Bale
Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
403-292-7502
www.canadianutilities.com
BELFIELD, ND -- (Marketwired) -- 07/06/16 --Meridian Energy Group, Inc. announced today that it received unanimous approval from the Billings County Board of County Commissioners on the Zoning Certificate and Conditional Use Permit for its proposed Davis Refinery. This decision came after a public hearing before the Billings County Planning and Zoning board, which unanimously approved the Davis project to move before the Commissioners, and a thorough multi-faceted evaluation conducted by the Commissioners for further information on the complex Refinery. This decision marks a major step forward, as it confirms the site for the 55,000 bpd Davis Refinery.
Meridian CEO William Prentice had this to say, "We appreciate the efforts of the staff of Billings County, the Billings County Planning and Zoning Board, as well as the Board of County Commissioners, and we're grateful that they came to this decision. Given the level of complexity associated with this type of project, we are thankful that the County chose to investigate the project thoroughly and to undertake a careful and diligent review. Their approval of this project reflects their forward-thinking vision for the long-term health and stability of the local community, and of the Bakken in general," Prentice said.
The response from the community during the public hearing was largely favorable, as citizens were encouraged to learn about the long-term employment opportunities that the Davis Refinery will bring to the region. The total number of jobs that will be created by the Refinery is estimated at 1,500 to 2,500, including indirect and induced. Citizens who opposed the project expressed concern about the air quality surrounding nearby Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Meridian executives held an open forum in the Park this week to meet with any and all members of the community to personally address their concerns.
"We look forward to a fully-transparent, ongoing dialogue with the community regarding the Davis Refinery," Prentice said. "We are confident that we will meet and/or exceed the justifiably strict environmental requirements put forth. Doing so will establish Davis as the new design standard for a modern oil refinery. It will be the cleanest refinery ever built because it's required to be, given its proximity to natural monuments like the Park."
Executives at Meridian partner firms -- multinational engineering arm Vepica, and Houston-based construction and logistics firm, BASIC Equipment -- were also excited by the decision.
Franklin Espiga, VP of International Business Development at Vepica, added, "This decision is a clear testament to the energy sector in North Dakota and the hard work already put forth on this project, and it's only the beginning. Securing the Davis location will now enable us to move forward with definitive, site-specific engineering plans for the Refinery."
Tommy Balke, the CEO and President of BASIC Equipment, also commented, "The Davis plant will commercially demonstrate new emissions control innovations through new forms of Best Available Control Technology, which will significantly raise clean construction standards for all refinery projects that follow."
The next step for Meridian will be filing the Refinery's Permit To Construct (PTC) application with the State of North Dakota Department of Health - Air Quality Division.
William Prentice is available today for interviews -- please coordinate a time with our media contact: Mark Hanes, (917) 359-0697; mark.hanes@tallgrasspr.com
About Meridian
The Mission of Meridian Energy Group, Inc. is to provide long-term shareholder value through the development and operation of the cleanest, most efficient and environmentally compliant crude oil refineries in the world, benefiting the community and its investors. Established in 2013, Meridian is led by energy industry experts with a combined 50 years of world-class expertise in energy & hydrocarbon processing, project development, finance, and large capital project management. Meridian Energy Group, Inc. headquarters is located in Irvine, CA.
For more information, visit: http://www.meridianenergygroupinc.com
Media Contact:
Mark Hanes
TallGrass Public Relations
Email: Email Contact
Mobile: (917) 359-0697
As previously disclosed in prior reports, GN Netcom filed a lawsuit in 2012 against Plantronics challenging the "Plantronics Only Dealer" program for violating federal anti-trust law and unfairly limiting competition by preventing independent dealers from marketing competing products. During discovery in the case, GN uncovered what it believed to be serious discovery misconduct and filed a motion for sanctions against Plantronics. Today, the United States District Court in Wilmington, Delaware, issued its order on this motion for sanctions. The order imposed the following sanctions: -- punitive sanctions against Plantronics in the amount of USD 3 million; -- additional monetary sanctions reimbursing GN for the reasonable fees and costs incurred in connection with the discovery disputes leading to the motion for sanctions; -- possible evidentiary sanctions, if requested by GN Netcom and found by the Court to be warranted as this case progresses toward trial; and -- instructions to the jury that it may draw an adverse inference that emails destroyed by Plantronics would have been favorable to GN's case and/or unfavorable to Plantronics' defense On or after July 15, 2016, the Court will set a schedule for further proceedings in the case. The order does not impact GN's financial guidance for 2016 as various costs related to the broader legal proceedings are offsetting the awards. For further information please contact: Peter Justesen VP - Investor Relations & Treasury GN Store Nord A/S Tel: +45 45 75 87 16 Attachment: https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=577932
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
President Tran Dai Quang praised the development of bilateral ties and their coordination at international forums, particularly the United Nations.
He expressed hope that the two sides will continue to implement the Vietnam-Eurasian Economic Union FTA toward increasing two-way trade and expanding investment cooperation.
President Tran Dai Quang and Belarusian ambassador Valery Sadokho
Ambassador Sadokho told his guest that the simplification of visa procedures for citizens from both nations has helped raise the number of Belarusian tourists to Vietnam by 1.5 times.
Belarus will set up two businesses assembling automobiles and specialised vehicles in Vietnam aiming to meet the demands of the Vietnamese market and regional countries, he said.
The Belarusian said he hopes President Quang will pay a visit to his nation as a contribution to further deepen bilateral cooperation in the coming time./.
CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - Japan will on Thursday see preliminary May numbers for its leading and coincident indexes, highlighting a light day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. The leading index is expected to show a score of 100.0, unchanged from the April reading - while the coincident is tipped to slide to 110.2 from 112.0. Australia will see June results for the Performance of Construction Index from AiG; in May, the index score was 46.7. Finally, the markets in Malaysia and Indonesia remain closed on Thursday for Eid-ul-Fitr; Malaysia is back on Friday, while Indonesia is off for the week. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Lithium Australia Ltdsays it has has been granted three exploration licences around the the town of Greenbushes in Westeran Australia, which will double the area it controls.The company says Greenbushes hosts the worlds largest lithium mine, and currently produces 40% of the global lithium supply. Lithium Australia holds an 80% equity in the Greenbushes project.The company says the initial phases of exploration have already started, and will employ non-invasive technologies.Lithium Australia reported a net loss of $1.76 million at 31 December 2015.
Darktrace, a Cambridge, UK and San Francisco, CA-based enterprise cybersecurity software provider, raised $65m in equity funding.
The round was led by KKR, with participation from existing investor Summit Partners, and new investors TenEleven Ventures and SoftBank-affiliated SB ISAT Fund.
The company intends to use the funds to further accelerate the global roll-out of its Enterprise Immune System technology.
Founded in 2013 and led by Nicole Eagan, CEO, Darktrace provides an enterprise immune system technology that detects and responds to threats, powered by machine learning and mathematics developed by specialists from the University of Cambridge. Without using rules or signatures, Darktrace is capable of understanding the pattern of life of every device, user and network within an organization, and defends against evolving threats that bypass all other systems.
Some of the worlds largest corporations use the technology in sectors including energy and utilities, financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, manufacturing, retail and transportation.
Darktrace currently has 300 employees at global offices in New York, Auckland, London, Milan, Mumbai, Paris, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto and Washington D.C.
FinSMEs
06/07/2016
Tevosol, an Edmonton, AB-based medical device company, secured $2m in funding.
The backers were not disclosed.
The company intends to use the funds to further develop the device prototype for clinical use, and to begin a lung transplant trial at the University of Alberta.
Led by Kevin Ens, CEO, Tevosol has designed a medical device that keeps critical organs such as hearts and lungs viable for transplant longer.
The companys product keeps the organ warm and supplied with oxygen, and extends its out of body life. The system consists of a common hardware platform with organ-specific single-use disposable cassettes for lungs, hearts, livers and kidneys.
Tevosol is a University of Alberta spinoff company.
FinSMEs
06/07/2016
Twistlock, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of security solutions for virtual containers, completed a $10m round of funding.
The round was led by TenEleven Ventures with participation from Rally Ventures, YL Ventures and a strategic venture firm. In conjunction with the funding, Alex Doll, founder of TenEleven Ventures, joined Twistlocks board of directors.
The company will use the funds to expand operations.
Led by Ben Bernstein, CEO, and Dima Stopel, head of R&D, Twistlock provides an enterprise suite for container security, including:
Twistlock Trust, a set of capabilities that manages container vulnerabilities and enforces compliance practices, and
Twistlock Runtime, a collection of runtime functions that delivers behavior analytics of containerized applications and defends against zero-day threats in the production environment.
FinSMEs
06/07/2016
Audi will expand its Q SUV portfolio by launching the 4.1-metre long Q2 later this year. Touted at the companys smallest SUV, the Q2 was first unveiled at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show earlier this year. The German luxury brand has now officially started production of its youngest SUV at its Ingolstadt plant in Germany. While the Audi Q2 arrives in UK by end of this year, we expect it to arrive in India by early next year.
The Audi Q2 is...
New Delhi: Assessing the near-term impact of Brexit on Indian business and the country's economy, a survey has observed that it may lead to moderation in investments flows from India to the UK.
The poll by Ficci, however, noted that India is expected to get continued attention from the investors including investments from the UK, which is the third largest investor in India and accounts for about 8 per cent of the total FDI inflows in the country.
The respondents stated that given the strengths of the economy it may be worthwhile to look at a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) with the UK and this should focus on goods, services as well as investments.
About 63 per cent of the participants indicated that signing a comprehensive FTA with the UK (on goods, services and investments) may help to mitigate any negative impact of Brexit on India.
"The companies participating in the survey did indicate some concern regarding a dip in export realisations, additional compliance to competition regulations, rise in operating costs of doing business and possible curbs on immigration leading to brain drain from the UK over the near term," Ficci said.
Around 43 per cent of the survey participants anticipated a decrease in intra company transfers/movement of professionals to the UK from India over the medium term (next 3-5 years) whereas 43 per cent respondents cited a decrease in Indian migration to the UK over the medium term (next 3-5 years).
For Indian students studying in the UK, Brexit might result in a more level playing field compared with other EU students who hitherto had an informal edge over the rest of the world in the job market.
Further, the IT companies are expected to face the heat in light of the Brexit. It was pointed out that given the risk of further moderation in growth in the UK and EU, there is an increased probability that the companies lower their IT budgets. This would have an impact on the domestic software companies.
Yet, the participants remain sanguine that the UK will make renewed efforts to strengthen ties with countries of the Commonwealth group and India stands to gain given its own growth performance and a much better regulatory and business environment.
Some of the companies surveyed share deep trade and investment linkages with the UK. Responses were received from about 45 companies covering sectors such as education, information technology, tyres, pharmaceuticals, steel and steel products, automotive, textiles, apparel, financial services etc.
Members of the education fraternity felt that education in UK is expected to become more affordable and we might see UK wooing candidates with more incentives. The respondents felt that the overall economic situation would remain difficult for the next two to three years.
United Kingdom has been the gateway to Europe and the survey participants felt that UK's position as a major investment hub will get impacted over the near term. The increase in uncertainty post Brexit will impact the confidence level of potential investors wanting to invest in the UK.
About half of the respondents reported that they do not intend to set up separate operations in any other EU country over the near term following Brexit.
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New Delhi: The Union government on Wednesday approved four Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) proposals entailing a total investment of Rs 643.25 crore.
"On the recommendations of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), the government has approved three FDI proposals of Rs 223.25 crore, and one proposal involving FDI of Rs 420 crore," a statement said.
One proposal each from Corona Remedies Private Limited and Ordain Health Care Global Pvt. Ltd. in the pharmaceutical sector were approved, proposing investment of Rs 118 crore and Rs 77.05 crore, respectively.
Another proposal from Macmillan Publishers International Ltd, UK, involves investment of Rs 28.20 crore.
The proposal of Advanced Enzyme Technologies Ltd. entails Rs 420 crore overseas investment.
Eight proposals in sectors like non-banking financial company, pharmaceuticals, defence, telecom, wholesale trading and investment company have, meanwhile, been deferred, it said.
The government rejected two proposals, one each from Flag Telecom Singapore Pte Limited, Singapore, and Star Den Media Services Private Limited.
On the day, Cambodian forces raided several hired houses in Niroth ward, Chbar Ampov district, Phnom Penh, arresting 84 Vietnamese people for illegal residence. They were then brought to the Cambodian General Department of Immigrations Detention Centre for Foreigners.
After being informed of the case, the Foreign Ministry directed the Embassy to work with local offices to carry out necessary citizen protection measures.
The eEmbassy requested the General Department to free the arrestees as most of them are Vietnamese Cambodians residing legally in the country. As of July 3rd, all of them were set free./.
Dhaka: The Islamic State terror group on Wednesday issued a new chilling video warning the Bangladesh government of more attacks in the country and across the world until Shariah law is established globally, saying last week's gruesome attack on a cafe here was just "a glimpse".
The video message believed to be issued from Raqqa, the stronghold of the terror group in strife-torn Syria in Bangla language was first found in an Islamic State-affiliate website and then released on YouTube early on Wednesday.
The video comes days after Islamist gunmen stormed a popular restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave late on Friday and killed 22 people, most of them foreigners from Italy, Japan, India and the US in an attack claimed by the Islamic State.
The Islamic State video released in a SITE Intelligence site on Wednesday. The message containing threats has gone viral on social media among Bangladeshis still recovering from the shock from the slaughter of 20 hostages and two police officers in Dhaka.
"It was a glimpse...will repeat," tweeted Rita Katz, director of SITE intelligence, quoting the men from the video. One had his face covered, while two others were bearded. The video begins with Islamic State propaganda messages, with captions in Bangla, and boasts of death tolls from numerous terror attacks claimed by Islamic State.
"The jihad in Bangladesh, the one you are witnessing now, is nothing like anything you have seen before," said one of them, in his 'message' for the Bangladesh government, bdnews24 reported.
In the video, three of the speakers are of Bangladesh origin, but they could not be identified immediately.
One of them said they would not stop until establishing Shariah law all over the world.
"We will not stop killing the crusaders till then; we will win or die for our religion as martyrs and achieve Sahadaat (martyrdom)... we don't have anything to lose," he said.
He termed the current form of democracy in Bangladesh a 'Shirk' or unforgivable crime.
One of them said they would not stop until establishing Shariah law all over the world. "The Jihad that has come to Bangladesh now has been promised by Prophet Mohammed," he claimed, Dhaka Tribune reported.
LYON, France Cristiano Ronaldo scored one goal and inadvertently set up the other as Portugal ground out a 2-0 win over Wales on Wednesday to march into the Euro 2016 final.
The Portuguese superstar, who has had to soak up a lot of criticism for a lacklustre tournament by his high standards, majestically powered in a 50th-minute header to put his side in front.
Ronaldo then saw his shot turned in by Nani for a second goal three minutes later, ending Wales' remarkable run at their first major finals since 1958.
The Portuguese, who had not won a single game in the tournament over 90 minutes, next meet hosts France or Germany who play their semi-final on Thursday.
Wales kept their opponents quiet in the first half but could not recover the two-goal deficit, ending a scintillating run that has captivated millions back home and turned their players into heroes.
The Welsh, with midfielder Aaron Ramsey suspended and replaced by Leicester City's Premier League winner Andy King, had an early spell of possession but a tight Portugal defence kept them at bay.
Portugal, bidding for their first Euro final since losing on home soil to Greece in 2004, had their first chance in the 16th minute, a low drive by Joao Mario after a clever flick from Ronaldo.
Wales responded as Joe Ledley found Gareth Bale with a low corner and the forward fired over the bar.
The Welsh, playing their first major tournament semi-final, did not suffer from stage fright with their back line, supported by midfielders Ledley and Joe Allen, remaining disciplined and compact.
In a cagey first half Portugal struggled to find Ronaldo, opting for long crosses into the box that were easy pickings for central defender James Collins.
Portugal injected some urgency after the break, pressing high up the field.
It paid off instantly with a corner in the 50th minute that Raphael Guerreiro floated in towards the far post where Ronaldo climbed high above two defenders to power his third goal of the competition.
They doubled their lead with Nani sliding into the box to connect with Ronaldo's mishit shot and claim his third goal of the tournament.
Wales were then lucky not to concede more goals as Portugal, now unbeaten in 13 competitive matches, continued to dream of a maiden international trophy.
(Editing by Tony Jimenez)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
The Delhi government on Wednesday suspended Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar, according to a tweet posted by ANI.
Delhi Govt suspends Delhi principal Secy. According to rules, an officer is deemed suspended if he is under custody for more than 48 hours. ANI (@ANI_news) July 6, 2016
The suspension follows after Kumar along with four others were sent to five-days custody by a special CBI court on Tuesday, in connection with an alleged corruption case. The tweet added that an officer is considered to be suspended if he/she is under custody for more than 48 hours.
However, the CBI had sought a ten-day custody of Kumar to complete investigations. Rajendra Kumar was arrested on Monday by the CBI in connection with an alleged corruption scandal. The agency had conducted a raid on Kumars office on 15 December, 2015 at the Delhi secretariat and seized documents and alleged that they prima facie reflected a criminal conspiracy and abuse of official position.
The Delhi BJP on Tuesday reacted to Rajendra Kumar's arrest by attacking the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government, and accusing it of protecting "corrupt" officials, legislators and ministers of the ruling party.
"Delhi government is sheltering such officers and employees who are corrupt and whose track record is poor, legislators who are involved in corruption and ministers who have FIRs against them," Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay said.
Rajendra Kumar, who is the principal secretary of Arvind Kejriwal, was arrested on Monday by CBI for allegedly favouring a private firm in award of Delhi government contracts.
The case against Rajendra Kumar is not new, writes Debobrat Ghose for Firstpost. It began way back in 2015, when for the first time another bureaucrat in the Delhi government Ashish Joshi acted as a whistleblower and demanded a probe against Kumar for the first time by moving Delhis Anti Corruption Branch (ACB). Joshi alleged that Rajendra Kumar had misused his power and position in granting favours to a private company.
With inputs from PTI
Bihar Health Minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav's elder son Tej Pratap Yadav on Tuesday publicly threatened an English news channel reporter at the celebration of the 20th Foundation Day of RJD, reported Zee News.
According to the report, the health minister asked a journalist to hand over his camera. Tej Pratap Yadav then started clicking pictures.
As the Bihar minister was clicking pictures, a reporter from the audience apparently took a cellphone video of that, reported NDTV.
This enraged Tej Pratap Yadav.
The minister threatened to file a defamation case if the reporter did not delete the video, Hindustan Times reported. However, the reporter did not budge.
#WATCH: Bihar Health Min Tej Pratap Yadav threatened to sue a journalist during an altercation with him yesterdayhttps://t.co/4JBoz4sWwS ANI (@ANI_news) July 6, 2016
Tej Prataps behaviour infuriated the members of the media who stood up to leave the function in protest, prompting party leaders to intervene and pacify the agitated journalists.
According to the Hindustan Times report, Lalu Prasad Yadav intervened and asked the reporter to delete the video after the situation deteriorated. However, the reporter refused and walked down from the stage.
At the end of the event Lalu Prasad Yadav called the journalist on the stage and asked him to shake hands with his son and end the issue.
VK Singh is credited with showering lovely encomiums on journalists. Guess what? He now has a former editor for company in the Ministry of External Affairs. And that too an Akbar.
The delicious post-reshuffle ironies that have visited Singh, who got labeled polstitute by columnist Ruchir Joshi in return for coining the salutation presstitutes, have largely gone unnoticed because of the drama around Smriti Iranis demotion.
Singh, like Irani and Jayant Sinha, has got the rough end of the rejig deal. His burden has been lightened by the prime minister by taking away independent charge of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
And, as a junior minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he now has Akbar for company and competition. It is said of Singhs new colleague that some years ago, on being awarded the Haldighati award by the royal family of Udaipur, quipped in their presence that Akbar had won Haldighati yet again.
Singh had recently expressed his desire to get roads named after Mughal Emperor Akbar renamed. Lets hope, Akbars erudite company gives him the right perspective of history.
Singhs demotion he was earlier commanding his own team, now he has a boss is a good example of the message prime minister is trying to convey.
With just about three years left for the next election, he wants his ministers to concentrate on work, deliver results, not to speak out of turn and stay away from controversies, especially needless scraps with the media and academicians.
While HRD Minister Smriti Iranis transfer has been held up as an example for all to see, Singh too is a specimen of the PMs work-more-talk-less strategy.
Unlike Bhakts and Hindutva warriors, who either troll rivals or sing raag darbari from their cosy rooms and assume that jumlebaazi is a substitute for hard work, the PM has realized that the next election will not be a cakewalk for his party.
In 2014, there was a high degree of resentment among people against the UPA government. Voters were angry that Manmohan Singh and his team had deprived India of its deserved progress, recognition and pride. Modi successfully channelized that anger and resentment into an electoral victory.
In 2019, the scanner would be on Modi and his performance. The anger, if any, would be directed against the incumbent and his rivals would be in a position to benefit from it. Modi and Amit Shah have realized this and are getting ready for a phase where they want ministers to talk through their work, not Twitter or TV studios.
As Firstpost has pointed out, ministers who ignore the demotion and delude themselves by thinking they have been freed up for the UP campaign, will do so at their peril. If they do not perform, in the next round of reshuffle, they shall perish.
So, people who claim proximity to the PM but shirk work have been demoted or transferred, loudmouths have been gagged and ignored (remember Subramanian Swamy?) and silent performers have been given high-profile assignments.
Singh had entered politics on the back of a formidable reputation in the Army. He was known to be honest, competent and a capable leader of men. People who served under him say that he was among the best Generals to have led the Indian Army.
But, as a politician, Singh has been a bit of a let-down. Apart from successfully coordinating a rescue operation for Indians stuck in Yemen, he has had very little to showcase in his CV. Compared to him, his junior colleague from the Army, Colonel (retd) Rajyavardhan Singh has been talked of as a better, and non-controversial, performer.
The demotion should be a timely warning for Singh. And the company of former journalist Akbar a deserved reminder of the Generals verbal excesses in the past.
Even as Prakash Javadekar was being elevated to a Cabinet minister, and handed over the department of Human Resource Development, a two-member bench of the High Court in Mumbai was issuing some stern obiters: that schools have become money-spinning rackets, education resembled hospitals, and in some cases, they amounted to extortion.
It was in the context of a school charging Rs 52,000 for stationery and uniform for a 11-year-old Mumbai student and failure to pay, led to a transfer certificate. But the general tone of what the judges said is something the new HRD minister should take seriously. Education in India doesn't have the student at its Centre anymore, but profits are.
It is not a contention with regard to only schools, but across the spectrum of institutions, right up to universities. It will be not incorrect to describe universities as factories, with the VC as the managing director, the heads of departments as heads of verticals, the principals as shop floor supervisors, and the students, who are the products as good as the cheap items smuggled from China.
There could be exceptions, and there could be institutions of academic excellence and eminence such as the IITs and IIMs, but only that. Rest, including in the frighteningly growing private sector in education, sponsor nightly news programmes on TV to garner an image, and some say they are research and innovation driven. But universities are supposed to be just that, and isnt it tragic that one has to advertise it as its USP?
His predecessor is seen more as a controversy-courting, aggressive minister, who had an agenda certainly not her own but the promotion of an ideology which the right wing swears by and as a successor, Javadekar may well do the country a service by making education worth its description, and those who get it, useful. Towards that end, he needs to hunker down in his office, think, and diligently work.
For starters, Javadekar may as well sit with S Ramadorai, former head of TCS who had said that there were a dearth of engineers, but there certainly is a dearth of employable engineers. He belonged to a sector that has been growing IT. He may as well spend time with Infosys founder Narayana Murthy, who pointed out five years back that even IITs were getting poor quality entrants.
If Infosys has to retrain those hires, because the "the quality of education that they have received is not what we would like them to have. Therefore, we have to train them to make them relevant to the firm." This is a social and economic burden on a sector that does not seek sops from the government to innovate and grow. And, as in Maharashtra, a third of engineering seats are going to be vacant.
It is as if the country has lost its way in this sphere, and just keeps squeezing the half-filled balloon in the name of reforms and corrections, and with regard to even the initial schooling, has allowed the private sector to bloom. This has led to an adverse situation where those who can pay are better-off in the gains they make at a price, than the ones who have to settle for the neighbouring government school where teachers get paid more, per the pay commission, but deliver less.
Javadekars own state, Maharashtra, where his own party is at the helm, has seen teachers employed in private but unaided schools for a pittance and make-do with second jobs even driving auto rickshaws or taking to working on farms, not exactly a profile that adds the gravitas a teacher has to bring to his/her work, apart from, of course, skill. And despite such private, though poor investment, and the governments own, where are we?
The government needs to start a skill programme because there are others too who had to escape education not only due to disinclination for it but also due to the inability to attend even a free school. The out-of-pocket expenses must have been daunting enough for their parents to keep them out of school long enough to have learnt something useful. But there are surveys showing that a Class 7 student cannot read or write or do sums he or she should have learnt to do in Class 3.
This does appear as an alarmist scenario but it is alarming for our reforms such as they are, and if they are of no
significant dimension that have not taken us anywhere. Access to university education is of no purpose if those who get there are poor like Narayana Murthys lament cited earlier in standards of basic education. It is like the neo-literates oh yes, when did you last hear of a literacy campaign? who, just by being a whisker away from a thumb impression think they have done some schooling.
What Javadekar should strive for, and secure rapidly, are these: One, make syllabus the same across the country breaking down the differences between the IBs, ICSC, CBSC, SSC, the last distinct to each state, regulate school fees and eliminate extortion once it was called capitation fee and ensure a decent level of proficiency among teachers. In his own state, not even five percent of those with degrees or diplomas in education manage to pass eligibility tests, and they remain teachers.
Once that is done, crack the whip enough to make sure that a churan (digestive) seller does not have the gumption to set up a university as in Aligarh, or a politician does not become a chancellor of a private university because he set it up. Avoiding the areas that Smrti Irani waded into, Javadekar, a former journalist who is also a good generalist, can reinvent the system and truly skill the country. This is tough because vested interests are many, with their toes visible. That would be human resource development. Otherwise, it's a pure swank.
Ask the common man, he would agree this should be the agenda.
The Madras High Courts repudiation of all criminal charges against the author Perumal Murugan is yet another watershed moment in Indias struggle for free speech. In his novel Mathorubhagan (titled One Part Woman in the English translation), Murugan wrote about a childless couple in rural Tamil Nadu, who is pushed by their family to visit an ancient chariot festival at a temple that permits sex between any man and woman for one night without the act amounting to sin.
Although the narrative of the book focuses on the prejudices against women, tyranny of caste, and how the autocracy of a rural community destroys the couples marriage by tearing them apart, protests over the book singularly focussed on the portrayal of historical traditions at the Ardhanarishvara Temple at Tiruchengode.
Hindu outfits found the book obscene and protested at how it cast aspersions on the parentage of many generations of the local community. Murugan, a resident of Tiruchengode himself, was forced to apologise and withdraw all copies of his book in a peace meet organised by the Namakkal district administration. Subsequently, in a Facebook post reminiscent of a suicide letter, Murugan announced that he would stop writing because, Author Perumal Murugan is dead. He is no God. Hence, he will not resurrect. Hereafter, only P Murugan, a teacher, will live.
The bench comprising Chief Justice SK Kaul and Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana concluded that the settlements agreed upon at the peace meet were not binding on the author, and dismissed all criminal proceedings. With a nod of understanding to Murugans earlier public prostration, the bench observed that, Let the author be resurrected to what he is best at. Write.
By empathising with Perumal Murugans cause, the Madras High Court has upheld his constitutional right to free speech and given writers across the country much to rejoice over. The judgement was remarkably well-informed and evoked everything from The Mahabharata to Lady Chatterleys Lover in order to illustrate the need to protect free speech.
The court stated that, Whether the society is ready to read a particular book and absorb what it says without being offended, is a debate which has been raging for years together. Times have changed. What was not acceptable earlier became acceptable later. Lady Chatterleys Lover is a classical example of it. The choice to read is always with the reader. If you do not like a book, throw it away. There is no compulsion to read a book. Literary tastes may vary what is right and acceptable to one may not be so to others. Yet, the right to write is unhindered.
Lady Chatterleys Lover caused an uproar in 1960 when its uncensored edition was published in Britain. The book was banned across the world due to its explicit language and racy plot, which dealt with an extramarital affair between the eponymous Lady Chatterley, an upper class married woman, and her working class gamekeeper. The books publication by Penguin led to an obscenity trial which became a litmus test of the Obscene Publications Act of 1959. The trial was a major event that captured international attention. The jurys ruling in favour of Penguin was celebrated as helping usher in Britains permissive society and a liberalisation in publishing. The poet Philip Larkin immortalised the trial in his poem Annus Mirablis:
Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me)
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles first LP.
The bench also asked Indians to look within their own history before taking offense at the drop of a hat. As a society, we seem to be more bogged down by this Victorian philosophy rather than draw inspiration from our own literature and scriptures. Or perhaps may be it is only a small sect of people who believe so, but are vociferous enough to create such a pandemonium. Sex, per se, was not treated as undesirable, but was an integral part right from the existence of civilisation. The Indian scriptures, including The Mahabharata, are said to be replete with obvious examples of sex outside marriage... Can we say The Mahabharata or the various other literatures, which we have quoted herein above, are part of our history, yet they say something that is unusually lascivious and therefore should be banned?
The Victorian philosophy that the court was alluding to is the Section 295 (A) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that was enacted by the Colonial British Government in 1927, which states that, Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of [citizens of India], [by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise], insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to [three years], or with fine, or with both.
For far too long, under draconian laws such as Section 295 (A), the Indian judicial system has had to entertain the interests of the majority by erasing the interests of the individual. India was the second country (after Singapore) to ban Salman Rushdies controversial book The Satanic Verses. The ban, which was strangely never on the books literary matter but only on its import, still stands. Rushdie has always maintained a gentle suggestion on dealing with offense, it is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. All you have to do it shut it.
Mirroring Salman Rushdie, the Madras bench argued that Art is often provocative and is meant not for everyone, nor does it compel the whole society to see it. The choice is left with the viewer. Merely because a group of people feel agitated about it cannot give them a license to vent their views in a hostile manner, and the State cannot plead its inability to handle the problem of a hostile audience... A vague construction therefore, of a possible deplorable impact on a certain section is not reason enough to deprive an artist of his expression. Even more so in a democratic country like ours.
Less than a month ago, the Bombay High Court allowed the release of the film Udta Punjab with minimal cuts because it wanted the Censor Board to live with the times now and treat Indian audiences as adults. In light of the Madras High Courts ruling in favour of Perumal Murugan, it would be fair to say that the Indian judicial system is slowly attempting to give power back to the individual.
Before killing himself on Facebook last year, Perumal Murugan had said in an interview that, the law provides for us to write and speak our mind this is our right. But often religious and casteist forces tend to subvert this. We, at present, are in a situation to fight these forces at various levels.
For now, it appears that Perumal Murugan has won the fight. However, this victory is not his alone. With the breaking of the levee that held him back, perhaps Indian literature can be flooded with expressions and ideas that were hitherto unexplored to usher in our own permissive society.
Kolkata: A West Bengal court on Wednesday remanded Mohammad Masiuddin, arrested on suspicion of having links with the Islamic State (IS), in 14-day police custody.
Masiuddin alias Musa, 25, was detained at Burdwan railway station on Monday and subsequently arrested on Tuesday by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) after his interrogation allegedly revealed links with "foreign extremists", including the IS.
He was presented before a court in Howrah which remanded him in CID custody for 14 days.
He was picked up by the sleuths off a train while he was on his way to his home in Labhpur in Birbhum district.
According to CID Deputy Inspector General Dilip Kumar Adak, Musa is a native of Labhpur but used to live in Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu along with his wife and two children and worked in a grocery shop.
Police seized a 13-inch machete and an improvised firearm from his possession.
State and central intelligence agencies, including the National Investigation Agency (NIA), have been questioning the man.
The investigators are also studying the data recovered from his mobile phone which have revealed "his terror links", according to officials.
Musa is the second person to be arrested from West Bengal for suspected links with the IS.
The NIA in March arrested Ashik Ahammed alias Raja, a resident of Dhaniakhali in Hooghly district, for being an "IS facilitator".
The arrest comes in the wake of the deadly terror attack in Dhaka in which 20 people were killed. The state has been on high alert with the Border Security Force intensifying vigil across the India-Bangladesh border.
The police has also not ruled out Musa's involvement with the Bangladeshi militant outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
An accidental blast at a house in Khagragarh in Burdwan district in October 2014 led to the NIA busting a JMB terror module in the state.
New Delhi: Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday said he will strive to find a "common ground" between the government and the judiciary on the issue of appointment of judges to the Supreme Court and high courts.
His remarks assume importance as the government is trying to iron out differences with the Supreme Court collegium on the memorandum of procedure (MoP) a document which guides the appointment of judges to the higher judiciary.
"We will be consulting, we will be meeting in an effort to find a common ground on the issue of judicial appointments...There is need to work in harmony...We respect the independence of the judiciary," he told reporters in New Delhi.
Prasad was the Law Minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and in the initial days of the Narendra Modi dispensation. He replaces DV Sadananda Gowda, who had succeeded him in November 2014.
Responding to a question, Prasad said he will make efforts to get the MoP finalised soon.
Asked if he will be meeting Chief Justice of India TS Thakur, he said the Law Minister should surely meet the CJI and he will be doing that.
He said one of his priorities, along with Minister of State for Law and Justice PP Choudhury, will be ensuring faster delivery of justice.
For that, he said, the focus will be on appointing the right people as judges and making the process of appointments transparent.
Prasad said that concerted efforts will be made to improve the infrastructure of courts which is essential for speedy justice.
Parliament had enacted the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act to overturn the over two decades old collegium system of judges appointing judges. But the law was struck down by the Supreme Court in October last year.
An apex court bench had asked the government to redraft the MoP after consulting the states.
The MoP, sent to the SC collegium, was returned to the government with certain objections. Former Law Minister Gowda had recently met the CJI to iron out differences on the issue.
The Punjab police has registered an FIR against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader, Ashish Khetan on Tuesday for hurting religious sentiments of Sikhs in the state. Khaitan, while campaigning for the upcoming assembly elections in Punjab, had reportedly compared Guru Granth Sahib with AAP manifesto, upsetting the religious sentiments of Sikhs.
An FIR was registered under Section 295-A for hurting religious sentiments at the Civil Lines police station in Amritsar. The case was registered on the complaint filed by Karnail Singh Peer Mohammad, President of All India Sikh Students Federation (AISSF) late on Tuesday nigh, Commissioner of Police (Amritsar) Amar Singh Chahal said on Wednesday.
Police said they were investigating the matter.
The party courted controversy by publishing an image of Golden Temple, the holy Sikh shrine in Amritsar, on the cover page of it's youth wing's manifesto, according to a Hindi news website Jansatta. Apparently, the election symbol of AAP, a broom, was also embossed atop the image which created controversy.
Earlier, Khetan had said the manifesto was "the Bible, Gita and Guru Granth Sahib" for him.
The arrest came even after Khetan had issued an apology in the matter, stating his invention was not to hurt anyone's sentiment. "undermine any section of the society. Khetan also promised to change the controversial cover page, according to Hindustan Times.
The controversial manifesto was released by the party convener and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal on 3 June in Amritsar, according to to another report by Hindustan Times,
Meanwhile, the incidence has already taken a political colour. BJP and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) workers have protested against the AAP manifesto and submitted memorandums with the police commissioner of Punjab. In a scathing attack at AAP convenor Kejriwal, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal has said, the act amounted to "desecration" of the holy book. According to a report in The Times of India Badal has called him "mentally sick" and asked for an apology from Kejriwal.
Speaking to Times Now, BJP leader RP Singh has said that AAP is intent on winning the elections in any which way that is why it is trying to flare up communal tensions for electoral gains. He also said that the people of Punjab are sentimental about their religion and they will not let AAP indulge in petty politics.
Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu also lashed out at AAP. He told Times Now that it could have passed off as an innocent mistake had this been a lone incident. Referring to the Naresh Yadav controversy, Bittu said unlike the previous incident, where AAP had cried foul, this case can't be a BJP conspiracy because everything is in front of the people. Bittu also said that he can smell a larger conspiracy hatched to disturb peace in the state.
AAP wants to instigate riots in the state, its tactics smell of larger conspiracy:Ravneet Bittu,Congress MP pic.twitter.com/grEl9gWkMK ANI (@ANI_news) July 6, 2016
Meanwhile, replying to the criticism, AAP has said the matter is being exaggarated needlessly, even after khetan has tendered an apology.
'Ashish Khetan apologised publicly, no reason to exaggerate': AAP on FIR agnst Khetan for comparing party's manifesto with Guru Granth Sahib ANI (@ANI_news) July 6, 2016
AAP is being seen as a strong contender against the SAD-BJP alliance in the state as the party's campaigns in the state gain momentum. This is the second such case of police action taken against an AAP leader in Punjab.
The AAP and the ruling SAD had also locked horns earlier in a similar incident, when another AAP leader Naresh Yadav was booked in the case of Quran sacrilege in Malerkotla in Sangrur district. The event had flared up political mud-slinging between the two parties in the holy month of Ramadan, with Kejriwal saying BJP was afraid of the election results which is why it was raking up controversies against his party.
With PTI inputs
Eyebrows were raised when Smriti Irani was made the Minister for Human Resource Development (HRD) two years ago; just as they are now, that she has been divested of the plum post and shifted to the much less hallowed Textile Ministry. For Irani, who was acknowledged as being among those Prime Minister Narendra Modi favoured, the demotion appears to send a signal of disapproval from the highest and perhaps only centre of power that matters in the present government.
Iranis loss of HRD ministry has set off a buzz of speculation, throwing up multiple questions about the ministers fall from grace. Was it her arrogance, her inflexibility in accommodating diverse opinions that put her in the dock? Did Iranis spats with the Niti Ayog and the Prime Ministers Office cross a line? Did her arrogant handling of Rohith Vemulas suicide threaten the BJPs political outreach among Dalits? That Irani had the ear of the RSS the organisation which has ambitious plans for saffronising the education sector further complicates the picture.
It is quite possible that all of these irritants contributed to the Prime Ministers decision to move Irani out of a ministry that is currently entering a phase of experimentation. The government wants to push through the Foreign Educational Institutions Bill, and expedite the establishment of up to 20 educational institutions that meet global standards. Irani had major differences with the PMO over some of these plans. Even a new education policy that is yet to be announced by the HRD ministry was a source of tension.
Former cabinet secretary TSR Subramanian, who headed the committee which drafted the report on the policy, recently expressed his unhappiness over the delay in the HRD ministry making the report public. Iranis aggressive and adversarial attitude was, clearly, a cause for concern to the government.
However, beyond speculations on why Irani was removed, the crucial question is will the reshuffle make any difference to the state of primary and higher education? India is currently facing major challenges in the sector, none of which unfortunately, have found a worthwhile place in the national conversation. The abysmal quality of primary education, flawed government policies on the fate of public universities, and a host of other issues require immediate redressal.
The jury is still out on whether the new HRD minister Prakash Javadekar will be able to rise to the occasion. The only Minister of State to be rewarded with Cabinet rank in this reshuffle, Javadekars personality is understood to be very different from Iranis. His general conciliatory approach sets him apart from his confrontationist predecessor and doubtless made him a favourite for the post.
From the very beginning, there were valid questions raised about Iranis capability in heading the HRD ministry. It wasnt just her lack of educational qualifications that created controversy, but also her supercilious temperament. Iranis stormy tenure, it seems, might end up as a vindication of her critics.
The former HRD Minister stoked one controversy after another, aggressively taking on students and teachers alike in universities around the country. The furore over the death of Dalit PhD scholar Rohith Vemula at Hyderabad Central University (HCU) was followed by one of the biggest conflicts of the Modi governments regime so far in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). If universities were and continue to be on a boil, Iranis decision to replace German with Sanskrit as the third language in Kendriya Vidyalays touched off another heated debate, triggering speculation that she was taking her policy cues from the RSS.
As the storm in HCU and JNU took a political dimension, Irani put herself in the direct line of fire by unnecessarily meddling in the running of academic institutions. For instance, nuclear scientist Anil Kakodkar quit as IIT Bombay Chairperson in 2015, following a difference of opinion over the choice of director for IIT Ropar. In an interview to NDTV, the now former HRD minister accused Kakodkar of breaking the law by interviewing a candidate who had not applied for the post. Irani said that eminence does not give you the right to break the law.
On cue from the RSS, Irani also pushed to both saffronise and Indianise education, reducing the academic and administrative autonomy of educational institutions and centralising powers in the HRD ministry. That agenda is not going to disappear with the arrival of a new HRD minister. How Javadekar negotiates the contrary pulls and tensions among the different stakeholders is something to be watched in the coming days and months.
As Irani departs from the HRD ministry, she leaves behind among these other flashpoints the uncomfortable legacy of her speech in Parliament at the end of the debate over the battles in JNU and HCU a speech that conjured the image of her dramatic, tear jerking performance in Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi.
At the end of that speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted a link to it, with the words Satyamev Jayate. Now, with Iranis departure from the ministry and Javadekars arrival, it is entirely likely that histrionics will be substituted by a quieter enforcement of the same ideological and political agendas.
As an aspirant for the Prime Minister's post in 2014, Narendra Modi had promised 'minimum government, maximum governance', an idea that added to his appeal as an efficient administrator and evidently caught the imagination of voters.
There could be many reasons behind Tuesday's Cabinet reshuffle gender inclusiveness, delicate balance of caste equations, social, regional, electoral considerations or even a genuine hunt for talent. Be that as it may, the latest expansion proves beyond a shadow of doubt that halfway through Modi's tenure as PM, the slogan of 'minimum government' has been given a quiet burial.
On Tuesday, Modi elevated minister of state for environment and forests Prakash Javadekar to Cabinet rank and appointed 19 new ministers of state who took the oath in Rashtrapati Bhavan, bringing to an end his biggest expansion exercise since assuming office. The final list, vetted by BJP's ideological mentor RSS, was prepared after several days of hectic parleys between the PM, his senior Cabinet colleagues, BJP president Amit Shah and other senior party functionaries.
When he took oath as PM in May 2014, Modi had a Cabinet strength of just 45 the smallest in 16 years. Part of a promised overhaul of the nations top decision-making body, it was seen as an urgent move to usher in greater accountability, cut the ballooning bureaucracy and streamline decision-making. A jumbo Cabinet invariably results in multiple authorities and intra-departmental clashes.
The first expansion in the council of ministers, undertaken in November 2014, saw the addition of four Cabinet ministers, three ministers of state (independent charge) and 14 MoS, increasing the total size from 45 to 66.
With Tuesday's expansion taking into account the resignations of five BJP ministers in the form of Nihal Chand, Ram Shankar Katheria, Sanwar Lal Jat, Manuskhbhai D Vasva and M K Kundariya Modi's council now has a strength of 78, matching the number of ministers in the Cabinet headed by his predecessor Manmohan Singh. According to the Indian Constitution, the total number of ministers in the council cannot exceed 82, that is 15 per cent of the total number of members of the Lok Sabha.
Former PM Singh was the butt of frequent ridicule for leading a bloated Cabinet of 78 ministers (after the final rejig in October 2012). Much of the girth was attributed to the compulsions of coalition politics. The incumbent PM leads a party which won 282 seats in the 2014 general elections and along with NDA partners, commands 336 seats in the lower house of the Parliament. This is the highest number of seats won by any party on its own since Rajiv Gandhi's landslide victory in the 1984 Lok Sabha polls.
Among the new ministers who took the oath of office on Tuesday, Faggan Singh Kulaste, SS Ahluwalia, Ramesh Chandappa Jigajinagi, Vijay Goel, Rajen Gohain, Anil Madhav Dave, Parshottam Rupala, MJ Akbar, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Jasvantsinh Bhabhor, Mahendra Nath Pandey, Ajay Tamta, Krishna Raj, Mansukh Mandaviya, CR Chaudhary, PP Chaudhary and Subhash Bhamre are from BJP. Anupriya Singh Patel is from BJP's Uttar Pradesh ally Apna Dal, and Ramdas Athawale comes from RPI.
Amid criticism that complex caste calculations have got precedence over the promise of a lean government focused on delivery, the government has been at pains to insist that merit has been given priority over political considerations and that the candidates have been rigorously screened for their ability to deliver "effective governance".
The expansion comes after an exhaustive vetting and selection process to find the best talent, one official told Financial Times. People were assessed on the value they would bring to the union council of ministers.
Looking at the appointees, howeverfive are Dalits, two are from the OBC communities and three from the Scheduled Tribes category. It is hard to avoid the impression that the appointments have a lot to do with the upcoming Assembly polls in seven states including the bellweather state of UP. Drawn from 10 states, there are three ministers each from UP and Gujarat, and one from Uttarakhand places where elections will be held next year.
It is a carefully researched, exhaustive list but it misses Modi's 'government with a difference' mantra by a mile by placing faith in the political machinery rather than on performance.
The government is headed by a man who, after coming to power, dismantled the UPA's cumbersome bureaucratic ecosystem, merged several ministries, abolished standing committees, did away with a plethora of Groups of Ministers and Empowered Groups of Ministers. These were mechanisms that served to hold up decisions rather than speeding them, and contributed to the UPA's much-reviled policy paralysis. However, the latest expansion of the NDA government's Cabinet indicates a submission to the compulsions of electoral politics.
This is not to say that Modi has not delivered on his promise of 'maximum governance'. That would be blatantly incorrect. The Parliament, for instance, struck down 1,053 outdated laws in May this year. Modi's single-minded stress on deliverance has resulted in a leaner and more efficient bureaucracy. But a crucial realisation is missingthat India no longer remains the welfare state of the Indira Gandhi days and the government's role, therefore, needs to be curbed to a minimum.
Until that happens, 'minimum government' will sadly continue to remain a poll jumla.
Tuesday's Union Cabinet reshuffle or 'expansion' as Prime Minister Narendra Modi likes to call it threw up many clues for the poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. Election analysts and poll pundits have already called the latest change in Modi's Council of Ministers an act of balancing caste and regional equations. Tuesday's expansion of the Union Cabinet is being touted as Modi's biggest political moves since he acquired the top office since May 2014.
While there have been Cabinet rejigs on four occasions since May 2014, the reshuffle is arguably the first-of-its-kind and that it comes ahead of major electoral tests for the ruling party at the Centre, is significant. Tuesday's cabinet expansion and reshuffle bore the stamp of social engineering to accommodate disparate social groups like the Dalits, Kurmis etc particularly in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, states that are poll-bound in 2017.
Prakash Javadekar was promoted to a Cabinet rank and given, what many argue, the high-profile Human Resource Development ministry. Seventeen of the new ministers are from the BJP: SS Ahluwalia, Faggan Singh Kulaste, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Vijay Goel, Ramesh Chandappa Jigajinagi, Rajen Gohain, Anil Madhav Dave, Parshottam Rupala, M J Akbar, Jasvantsinh Bhabhor, Mahendra Nath Pandey, Ajay Tamta, Krishna Raj, Mansukh Mandaviya, CR Chaudhary, PP Chaudhary and Subhash Bhamre. The other two are from other NDA allies Anupriya Singh Patel of Apna Dal and Ramdas Athawale, an RPI leader.
The choices for the new Cabinet are a clear indicator of what the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo are trying to achieve in the upcoming elections. PM Modi has inducted five leaders Athawale (Rajya Sabha MP from Maharashtra), Raj (Shajahanpur, UP), Meghwal (Bikaner, Rajasthan), Jigajinagi (Bijapur, Karnataka) and Tamta (Almora, Uttarakhand) who belong to the Scheduled Caste community, three from Scheduled Tribes and two from OBC community. It is evident that BJP leadership is trying to tap on the non-Jatav Dalits and non-Yadav OBCs in the state to extend its support base. Interestingly, BJP chief Amit Shah had earlier declared that ruling Samajwadi Party is BJP's main political rival in Uttar Pradesh.
The Dalit scenario
According to the Union census 2011,Uttar Pradesh stands first with 20.5 percent of the total scheduled caste (SC) population, followed by West Bengal with 10.7 percent. It is Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) which usually banks on this 20 percent Dalit vote but it will not be able to form a government unless it draws support from other groups, including the OBCs, Muslims and the upper castes. Any gains among Scheduled Castes will help the BJP inch closer to its target of winning 265 of the 403 Assembly seats in the state.
This is where the newly-inducted Anupriya Patel comes in. A first-time MP from Mirzapur constituency, eloquent and a pro-Modi voice within and outside the Lok Sabha, whose OBC roots have positioned her as an important BJP ally in Uttar Pradesh, Anupriya could turn the tables for BJP in Uttar Pradesh. The support of BJP, Patel's associates say, can help her claim the legacy of her father who built Apna Dal's base among OBCs, primarily his fellow castemen Kurmis. Her inclusion in the Union Council of Ministers is apparently aimed at consolidating backward votes in poll bound UP, especially eastern parts of the state where another tall Kurmi leader and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been trying to make a foray ahead of the 2017 Assembly polls. Nitish Kumar has addressed a number of rallies in Uttar Pradesh recently.
Anupriya was earlier an MLA from Rohaniya constituency in Varanasi. BJP's plans to project Anupriya as a prominent backward face had become clear with its national President Amit Shah attending the 67th birth anniversary of Sonelal Patel which was observed recently as 'jan swabhiman rally' in Varanasi.
At the same time, Anupriya's induction is also intended to balance the caste equation, following the induction of another powerful Kurmi leader, Beni Prasad Verma, into the Samajwadi Party. Compared to "an old and irrelevant Verma," a young and articulate Anupriya would come across as a strong woman OBC leader, with a modern outlook.
The induction of two other leaders RPI's Athawale and Raj of Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh is symbolic. Given the fact that Mayawati commands an unwavering loyalty of the Dalit population in the state, the BJP has been making desperate overtures to reach out to marginal communities through this symbolism. Athawale can be used to burnish the pro-Dalit credentials of the BJP, which is largely considered as a party representing the interests of dominant castes, particularly the upper castes, argues executive editor of Firstpost, Ajay Singh in this piece.
The only high-profile shift in Tuesday's reshuffle was probably former Union HRD minister Smriti Irani's move to the lesser-known textile ministry. The BJP is in the midst of a massive outreach towards the Dalits ahead of the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. The party has lined up Modi and Amit Shah to address a series of rallies apart from a sequence of other Dalit-centric events.
In the scheme of things, the controversies over Hyderabad University scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide and Irani's handling of the incident was always going to be held against her. The controversies around Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) would have caught up in no time too. As long she was at the helm of a politically sensitive HRD ministry, the BJP would find it difficult to win the perception game. The prime minister would have to be really daft not to recognise the problem. Far from it being a surprise, shifting her was perhaps the most obvious move.
It is a political masterstroke by Narendra Modi. While Modi and Amit Shah will lead the charge in Uttar Pradesh and other poll-bound states in 2017, this cavalry of selected talent, who were included after an exhaustive vetting and selection process, will follow to prove all the detractors right - that the Tuesday's Cabinet expansion/reshuffle/rejig was aimed at poll benefits.
But what if all this vetting and selection goes waste?
Uttar Pradesh Assembly Election in 2017 is the next big thing for BJP. Party spirits are definitely buyont with their outstanding performance in Assembly elections in five states Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry but the stinging loss that the party faced in Bihar is also still fresh in the memory of the party leadership.
A win in Uttar Pradesh will probably immortalise Modi and Shah in the political history of the country. It will demonstrate that instead of resting on their laurels, the party is learning from its Bihar debacle. Post-election analysis showed that the Grand Alliance of Nitish Kumar, Lalu Yadav and the Congress mapped social and caste factors more effectively in their selection of candidates for the 243 Assembly seats in Bihar. The BJP tied up with regional players with backward caste support like Jitan Ram Manjhi to supplement its traditional upper caste vote-base, but polled 10 lakh fewer votes than in 2010.
While the Grand Alliance, as expected, consolidated the Yadav, Muslim and Kurmi votes with the coming together of Lalu and Nitish, the BJP was surprised that its regional partners Hindustani Awam Morcha, Lok Janshakti Party and Rashtriya Lok Samta Party could not manage to hold their respective traditional vote bases among the backward castes, who had voted for the NDA en mass only last year in the national election.
However, BJP is a national party and it remains to be seen how far it goes if the party continues to drop and pick ministers apparently for political gains.
The Vijayawada version of 'Temple Run has been an eye opener for Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu. With officials demolishing close to 30 Hindu temples, five of them fairly big temples in Vijayawada in the last one week, Naidu is facing the combined wrath of his alliance partner, the BJP, organizations such as the VHP and the seers. It is a crisis that was Telugu Desam-made and is manifesting itself at different levels political, religious and civic.
Keen to ensure smooth conduct of the Krishna Pushkarams to be held in mid-August in Vijayawada, in which 2 crore pilgrims are expected to visit the city, the Telugu Desam administration embarked on a road widening exercise around the famous Kanaka Durga temple. The government having learnt a bitter lesson from the Godavari Pushkaram tragedy in Rajahmundry in July 2015, where 29 pilgrims lost their life in a stampede, wanted to ensure enough road space around the ghats leading to River Krishna. In the process, the demolition squad flattened 30 places of worship, upsetting the Hindu community.
Among the 30 temples, the Seethammavari Padalu, Saneeswara Swamy and Dakshina Mukha Anjaneya Swamy temples are prominent places of worship in Vijayawada. The manner in which these temples were razed to the ground hurt the sentiments of the devout and drew a very sharp reaction from the seers.
"Chandrababu Naidu is behaving like Aurangzeb, fumed Sri Sri Sri Swaroopanandendra Saraswathi Maha Swamy of the Visakha Sri Sarada Peetham, speaking to Firstpost from Rishikesh. "He is trying to woo the minority votes by insulting Hindus. God will teach such arrogance a lesson.
That the religious heads are making this into a Hindus versus a minorities-appeasing Naidu government is obvious. The seers have threatened not to cooperate during the religious part of Pushkaram unless Naidu apologises. Mahant Yamunadas Digambar of the Hanuman temple said, "They have no respect for Hindus and their sentiments. Elected representatives are behaving in an inappropriate manner."
Ironically, the BJP which is the Telugu Desams alliance partner in Andhra Pradesh, holds the endowments portfolio. Endowments Minister Manikyala Rao has however, washed his hands off any responsibility saying, "The proposed demolition of temples should have been duly notified and discussed with the temple trusts. But officials acted in haste."
Privately, BJP leaders say Rao is a powerless minister, whose word is not taken seriously in the government by the TDP. Though Rao has now been made the head of a five-member ministerial committee that will oversee the reconstruction of the 30 demolished temples, it is seen as an attempt to soothe ruffled feathers. The astute politician that he is, Naidu has realized that BJP which is not very strong politically in Andhra Pradesh, perhaps for the first time, has managed to push the TDP on the back foot by playing the Hindu card.
"Hindu sentiments have been badly affected by so many temples being demolished in one go," says senior BJP leader Kanna Laxminarayana. "It is difficult to believe that the CM was not aware of this. After all, he passes by that route everyday."
But the seers are not amused by this offer to reconstruct the temples. Swaroopanandendra Saraswathi says, "First of all, I am surprised that this has happened when a BJP-RSS man is in charge of Hindu temples in Andhra Pradesh. Secondly, temples are built after elaborate rituals and pujas. This is not a shopping complex that you can demolish and rebuild.
TDP leaders in Vijaywada are annoyed at this muscle flexing by the BJP. Vijayawada MP K Nani angered the BJP even more when he equated the Vijayawada demolitions with bringing down of temples in Gujarat when Narendra Modi was CM there. That angered the saffron party even more, leading to a dharna in Vijayawada.
The war of words did not end there. TDP party leaders accused, "a few politically unemployed" of trying to create problems for their political survival. "We are not an anti-Hindu party, says Narayana Prasad, Vijayawada TDP leader. "We are only trying to ensure Vijayawada is ready for the Pushkaram."
But as the TDP beats a retreat, promising not to touch any temple in Vijayawada by even an inch, the BJP is crowing. Relations between the two alliance partners have not been the best in recent times, with the Narendra Modi government being tight-fisted when it comes to releasing funds to Naidu to build the state's capital in Amaravati. The Vijayawada episode has shown the BJPs ability to scale up a local civic issue and mobilize public opinion against the TDP government. And the comments on Modi by the MP, considered close to Naidu, show everyone is willing to punch above his weight.
Andhra, clearly is in political combat mode. The outcome will be Bhagwaan bharose.
Ranchi: The Bharatiya Janata Party in Jharkhand is facing an embarrassing situation because of state unit president Tala Marandi's alleged role in the marriage of his son with a minor girl.
While the opposition, Congress, JVM-P and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha are gunning for the Marandis, the ruling party in the state is finding it tough to defend the indefensible. Several BJP leaders have now started distancing the party from the controversy.
Tala, a tribal who hails from Santhal Pargana, was appointed as BJP state unit president in June with an aim to counter the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in the region. But things have got messy with Tala's son Munna allegedly marrying a minor girl last month.
Union minister Sudarshan Bhagat said marrying a minor girl is a serious issue. The matter is being looked by the BJP leadership, he said, adding that the party's image has been hit due to this issue.
The matter is likely to rock the monsoon session of the Jharkhand Assembly scheduled to commence on 22 July.
According to another senior BJP leader, the party's central leadership is keeping a close watch on the developments. The top leaders are "not happy with Tala for getting his son married to a minor," he said.
"Tala committed a blunder and has put the party in an embarrassing situation," BJP MLA Ashoke Kumar told IANS. "Tribal tradition of marrying a minor has now given way to the law of the land. Tala should have known that," he said.
Suryamani Singh, the former convener of BJP state disciplinary committee, said Tala Marandi should not remain in his post until the probe in the matter is complete. BJP is known for its clean image and discipline, Singh said. However, it is for the central leadership to take the final decision, he added.
BJP MP from Ranchi Ramtahal Chowdhary said the party would take a final decision on the issue. He said only a medical board can determine the correct age of the girl in question as it would be difficult to determine her age simply from the photographs.
It all started when Munna was accused of sexually exploiting a minor girl whom he had promised to marry. The girl filed a complaint with Godda court against Munna. The 16-year-old also appeared before the State Commission for Women (SCW) alleging that she was exploited with false promise of marriage.
The Godda district court directed that an FIR be lodged against Munna in connection with the case.By that time Munna was scheduled to marry one Mamata Hansda, but she refused to marry him over the complaint of sexual exploitation.It was then Tala allegedly got Munna married to one Ritu Baski on 27 June. As per school records, Ritu is just 11 years old.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das was scheduled to attend the marriage reception on 28 June but in the face of brewing controversy he did not go there.
As per the law, the minimum age for marriage in India is 18. Marrying a minor is a criminal offence and both Tala and Munna are looking at criminal charges.
The State Commission for Protection of Child Rights sought a report from Godda district administration and directed that an FIR be lodged if Munna indeed married the minor girl. Later the Godda district administration filed a civil suit against Tala and Munna in connection with the issue. The lawsuit accuses the girl's father too.
Meanwhile, Jharkhand Pradesh Women Congress Committee President Abha Sinha demanded the arrest of Munna Marandi alleging that three girls have accused him of sexual exploitation. She said while the state government is making claims over protecting rights of women, in reality it is failing to take action against its own people.
Tala is now trying to justify his actions, saying that in rural areas, the age of girls is not verified for the purpose of marriage. He also said the Opposition is fabricating the story of the girl being a minor.
Oh dear, what a yarn!
Diehard supporters of the Queen of Controversies still cant accept that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ordained off with her head.
Dear fans of Smriti Irani, stop living in La-La Land. The now-former HRD minister has not been parked in the textile ministry so that one day she may invade the wonderland called Uttar Pradesh.
Forget the UP spin. The fact is, her 'Spinderella'-like rise, as The Telegraph sums up with a brilliant headline, has been arrested. With her demotion, the prime minister has sent out a clear message: Put your head down, perform, stay within your limits, control your ambition and behave. Period.
The oh-shes-getting-UP band of cheerleaders doesnt get a simple fact: In politics, when you are grooming someone for a bigger role, you give a clear message by raising the presumptive candidates profile (case in point, Anupriya Patel). Just before the flight, you do not clip her wings.
UP is not a ripe Malihabadi mango waiting to fall into the BJPs basket. At the moment, the BJP is not even the clear frontrunner BSP is neck-and-neck in the polls. Making an outsider with zero experience of winning an election, someone who doesnt fit into the caste equations, the face of the partys campaign just because she can give fiery speeches short on facts or wage Twitter wars would have been tantamount to exaggerating Iranis skills and Amit Shahs intelligence.
So, get used to the idea that Irani will now oversee the ministry of textiles, where apart from controlling a Rs 6,000-crore budget, she could perhaps devote some time to designing the Tricolours she had made mandatory for all Central varsities.
In many ways, Irani had it coming. Like many of Shakespeares characters, she is blessed with a fatal flaw that had destined her downfall.
Iranis problem was, and still is, that she has just one response for every situation: Fight. A savvy politician, as Kautilya pointed out, needs to be adept in saam, daam, danda (punishment) and bheda to succeed. Irani, unfortunately, knew only how to use her Twitter danda (handle). Such was her Quixotic readiness for battle that Irani considered no fight beneath her stature.
As Firstpost had pointed out earlier, picking up fights in public, getting into ego clashes and rushing headlong into battles where even angels fear to tread has been a hallmark of her politics. Flared nostrils, furrowed brow, flaming eyes and frequent calls to arms have become trademarks of her public persona. Fight, even when flight is the better option, has become her mechanical response to every crisis, making her India's Joan of Farce meets Don Corleone.
The explosion of glee on the social media after her transfer from the HRD ministry must be a reminder to her of the old axiom: Those who live by Twitter, die by Twitter.
In any other government, the HRD minister would have been quickly shown the exit after adding fire to two of the biggest student agitations of her time: The unrest in Hyderabad after that child Rohith Vemulas suicide and the countrywide outrage after the incidents in JNU.
Those two incidents underlined her inability to act as the minister of the department, the head of a family everyone respects or listens to, a peacemaker when tempers are flaring all around. By positioning herself as an adversary, Irani came across as an instigator, cantankerous leader of a faction. She could have got away with all these controversies, her dodgy degrees, catfights, Twitter tantrums and poke-me-and-I-shall-bite attitude if only she had brought about dramatic changes in an education system that is crying for reforms.
Indias education system suffers from an unfortunate dichotomy: While schooling is in the grip of the private sector government schools are terribly understaffed and of poor quality that treats students like consumers, higher education is dominated by government colleges that dole out obsolete degrees. Instead of addressing the flaws in the education system that is churning out unemployable youths, Irani allowed herself to get distracted with petty fights, campus chaos and the Hindutva agenda.
Her cavalier attitude towards education was manifest in one of her Marie Antoinette-type decisions: If you cant give them proper education, give them patriotism and Sanskrit, a desire reflected in her decision to make flying of the Indian flag and teaching of the Indian language mandatory.
And, as Wednesday's edition of The Times of India points out, she resisted and resented advice, treating it as undue interference on her turf. This overzealous guarding of her silo brought her into conflict with almost everyone who suggested reforms. From vice-chancellors to teachers, from Niti Aayog to the PMO, every establishment and office got a taste of her temper and obduracy.
A few days ago, Irani exhorted her critics to judge her by her work. The prime minister seems to have done just that.
As the news of the much-awaited Cabinet expansion started coming in on Tuesday forenoon, one was truly missing the excitement and wondering if the event had not lost its sheen. While the media got into the motion of pretending that it was dealing with a real big event, the names of the new entrants into the Cabinet failed to arouse much enthusiasm. With a few exceptions, most were little known faces with hardly much to show by way of accomplishments.
There was a time when a Cabinet reshuffle or remoulding of the council of ministers used to be the biggest news of the day and would make banner headlines on the front pages of newspapers. Those were the days when, despite a few distortions creeping into the system of governance, the government was still being run on the basis of a cabinet system that functioned within the parameters of a parliamentary system and the prime minister was just a little more than the first among the equals.
Ministers were established leaders in their own right and enjoyed political stature as well as mass following. There could be honest differences of opinion within the cabinet remember the serious differences between former prime minister Indira Gandhi and her finance minister Morarji Desai? and issues could be freely discussed and debated. However, things have come a long way since then and the cabinet system itself is under severe strain.
The unpalatable fact is that the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) has been for a long time functioning as a super-cabinet. Its position of primacy has been further strengthened and crystallised under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who seems to believe that India has a presidential form of government.
People have forgotten that until Jawaharlal Nehrus death, the prime ministers secretariat used to be very small and the PMO came into being under super bureaucrat LK Jha, when Lal Bahadur Shastri became the countrys prime minister. It took large strides towards becoming a kind of super-cabinet under Indira Gandhi.
However, even Indira Gandhi had ministers in her government who could express their opinions and who ran their ministries themselves, something that is sorely missing in the Modi government. It is an open secret that even those cabinet ministers who have had a long political career and who have served as chief ministers of important states do not count for much and are often kept in the dark about the doings of their own ministries.
To some extent, this process had started under Manmohan Singh, when the corridors of power in Lutyens Delhi were abuzz with the talk that a lot of files used to go to Planning Commission vice-chairman and well-known Singh protege Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
PN Dhar, who headed Indira Gandhis PMO for five years, frankly admits: A prime minister is certainly the most powerful person in a parliamentary democracy. However, he goes on to caution: He is at the apex, but the apex, it must be remembered, is only a small part of the pyramid. Regardless of constitutional and other restraints, the personal power of the prime minister is limited by the constraint of time and the sheer size of government. A day cannot be stretched beyond a few hours,"
"No one, howsoever capable, can master the complexities of international affairs, economic policies, defence and security problems, and the complex host of thorny questions which daily land on his desk. The quality of a prime ministers leadership depends on how and when he realizes the limits of power and, having done so, is clear about the uses to which he puts the power at his command. How he relates the apex to the rest of the structure determines the reach of his influence and sets the tone and temper of his government and administration, Dhar said.
Has Narendra Modi been able to realise the limits of his power and has he been able to relate the apex to the rest of the structure? The question can be answered in full measure only after he completes five years in office. However, one can certainly hazard a guess on the basis of the last two years experience.
All indications so far tell us that all power has been centralised in his PMO and it has become the place where most decisions are taken. This has taken a toll on the collective functioning of the government and the cabinet system under which the cabinet, that is answerable to Parliament, deliberates and takes decisions.
As Dhar points out, no single person can be the repository of all knowledge and there is a limit to overstretching. Modis penchant for going solo is not ideally suited to govern a vast country with intractable problems.
It does not require great intelligence to see that the cabinet expansion has been effected keeping in view the forthcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat next year. This explains the induction of Dalit and OBC ministers in such numbers.
It is also ironical that a prime minister who often criticised his predecessor for having a large ministry and whose poll slogan was Minimum government, maximum governance has within two years been forced to match the size of the previous government. If Manmohan Singhs government had 78 ministers, so does Narendra Modis.
Panaji: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Tuesday tore into Aam Aadmi Party which is trying to make inroads into Goa ahead of Assembly polls, saying "some people are eyeing Goa after looting Delhi" even as he virtually compared the Arvind Kejriwal-led party with "monsoon grass".
"Some people in Delhi are upset with my frequent visits to Goa because they fear that I will upset their ambitions to win elections in this state. After looting Delhi, they are now eyeing Goa," Parrikar said without naming AAP during a civic reception function to mark 60th birthday of Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar.
The ex-CM further added that most of the major developments which took on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's political career graph have a Goa connection. "The announcement to make Modi the PM was also made in Goa. I remember it was in this very hall. We were sitting here when Home Minister Rajnath Singh made the announcement and everyone accepted it with tremendous enthusiasm," Parrikar said.
The coastal state has always been a good luck charm for BJP--Modi's chief ministerial candidature was announced in Goa. Again, ahead of the 1999 election, the national executive was held in Goa and BJP was able to form a coalition government in the Center.
In May, Delhi Chief Minister and AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal had targeted Parrikar, saying the latter was concentrating less on his ministry and more on Goa.
Without taking name of Kejriwal's Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar who was arrested on Tuesday by CBI in a graft case, Parrikar said, "Not that they take money personally, but their private secretaries do that. I heard that one of them is in jail."
Seeking to downplay AAP's electoral ambitions in his home state, the former Goa chief minister said, "During the election year, so many parties crop up like grass that comes up during rains. After rains the grass disappears. You will find such grass at roadside in monsoon."
Continuing his diatribe, Parrikar said, "There are many who are eyeing Goa. However, I know people are wise enough to identify them and shun them during the election."
Parrikar and his cabinet colleague AYUSH Minister Shripad Naik arrived for the function in a defence aircraft.
Clarifying on this, the minister said he availed the facility of defence aircraft to attend the event as he remained stuck in Delhi due to cabinet expansion till late afternoon.
"I usually don't avail this facility (of defence aircraft) but I had to take it because I wanted to be here. And I always find the reason to come to Goa," he said.
Responding to criticism over his week-end trips to Goa, Parrikar said, "Whosoever may try (to criticise me), but I will continue visiting Goa. This state is a energy source for me. I will work in Delhi government but politically I will be Goan."
In fact the Defence Minister had tried to dodging Prime Minister Narendra Modi's offer to elevate him to the union cabinet. ""On October 26, I had gone to meet Modi to discuss the Goa mining issue and provide some financial help for the state. He said we will do all that, but he also asked me 'why don't you join the central cabinet?'. It was like a bomb dropped on me," Parrikar said late on Tuesday.
He further added, "I said I will think about it and slipped away. I had decided that I will not come back (to Delhi) for another two to three months. A reminder was sent to me again in four-five days. And finally it was decided on November 6 and on November 8 I submitted my resignation'"
He said usually he remains confined to his official residence and office in Delhi, but doesn't miss any opportunity to visit Goa.
Hinting that next year's Assembly polls would be fought under Parsekar, Parrikar said, "it is now the responsibility of Parsekar to win the next elections".
With inputs from agencies.
In spite of arresting and producing Rajendra Kumar, Principal Secretary to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, before the special court with much fanfare on Tuesday getting his custody for five days a pertinent question remains, will the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) be able to prove Kumar and his other four associates guilty?
Going by the lack of experience shown by CBI in Kumars case since December 2015, and the way the court questioned the arrest made by the country's premier investigative agency, it seems that it would be a tough nut for the CBI to crack.
The court, while ordering a five-day CBI custody remand for Kumar on Tuesday, also asked the agency why it had not arrested Kumar earlier in 2015, and why it had done so now.
Earlier too, the CBI had to eat a humble pie in Rajendra Kumars case, as the court, on a few occasions, had rapped the agency for the latters failure and conspicuously ambiguous (approach) in its probe.
A Flashback:
- 15 December 2015: CBI had conducted a series of 14 raids, including the office of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. The agency had said back then, the raid wasn't conducted on Arvind Kejriwal's office but it was in the office of Principal Secretary to the CM, Rajendra Kumar, to investigate corruption charges against the latter. The raid has nothing to do with the CM.
- 20 January 2016: A Special CBI court directed the CBI to return the original documents seized by it during the raid at Rajendra Kumars office and said, CBI cant be clothed with divine powers.
- 29 January 2016: Special CBI Judge Ajay Kumar said, CBI has utterly failed to comply with the mandatory CrPC provision in its probeCBI is unable to show even prima facie that the frozen bank accounts of the firm have any direct links with the commission of alleged crime."
- 4 March 2016: Supreme Court bench of Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Prafulla C Pant issue notice on the Delhi governments plea to CBI, to hand over the documents to the Delhi government that it had seized during its December raid from Kumars office.
- 7 April 2016: Special CBI court Judge Ajay Kumar castigated the CBI for "flouting procedures with impunity and being "conspicuously ambiguous in its probe in the graft case against Rajendra Kumar and others. CBI being premier investigating agency is expected to follow the mandate of law. There is explicit requirement of section 102(3) CrPC that after seizure, CBI has to forthwith report the magistrate concerned regarding the seizure. However in present case CBI flouted this requirement with impunity.
- 7 April 2016: The court on the same day ordered the defreezing of two bank accounts of a company, M/s Endeavour Systems Pvt Ltd, which was alleged to have received contracts from Kumar, who had purportedly favoured it by abusing his official position. It is not appropriate that the accounts of the company remain frozen till the conclusion of investigation, particularly when more than three months have already elapsed and there is nothing on record by CBI that by what time they will conclude the investigation.
- 2 May 2016: Special CBI court Judge Ajay Kumar allowed Rajendra Kumar to take back the cash seized by the agency, but simultaneously rejected the latters plea for the return of his laptop and iPad (for forensic lab analysis).
According to a legal expert handling CBI cases, establishing the money trail involved in a corruption case is quite difficult and tricky.
In majority of the cases of corruption and financial irregularities probed by the CBI, the accused goes unpunished. In such cases, the agency often fails to establish the money trail involved in the corruption. Its difficult to probe it and unless its proved, one cant be prosecuted and sent behind bars. And, thats why many government babus, despite doing corruption, get away with it. Thats the irony, the expert said on conditions of anonymity.
Even in many of the defence procurement related scams though the cases did make news headlines the agency failed to nail any of the culprits.
In the infamous 1987 Bofors scam, after 23 years of investigation that started in 1990, the court allowed closure of the case with no conviction.
Similarly, in the 1999 Kargil scam, 1999 Coffingate, 2006 Barak Missile scam or 2012 Tatra Trucks scam to name just a few the cases dragged on for years in the courts, with no convictions in the end.
However, in Rajendra Kumars case, the CBI is optimistic about its probe. CBI has prima facie evidences against Rajendra Kumar and itll proceed accordingly. Further probe is underway, a source said.
Meanwhile, as a rule, the Delhi government has suspended Kumar after the court ordered the latter to CBI custody for five days.
Seven months after he took his life, Hyderabad University Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula's ghost has returned to haunt Smriti Irani. His suicide had been provoked by months of harassment, including suspension on charges of being anti-national by the university authorities acting under pressure from the Human Resources Development (HRD) ministry under Irani. Later, even after his death, she had engaged in an ugly battle of words with Vemula's family, describing the outrage at the Dalit scholars suicide as a political stunt and even contested that he was a Dalit.
Today, her dramatic ouster from the HRD ministry in Tuesdays cabinet reshuffle is believed to be largely triggered by the deep-rooted alienation caused among the Dalit community at the needless grandstanding of Irani while dealing with the Rohith Vemula controversy. Indeed in the run up to next year's crucial Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, her continuance in the ministry had become bit of a political liability impeding the vigorous Dalit outreach by the BJP in the state. Although Hyderabad is far away from Uttar Pradesh, many Dalits, particularly the younger generation even in rural areas of the state, were traumatised by Rohith Vemula's suicide, identifying with the research scholar as a tragic but heroic victim of upper caste prejudice by ministers such as Smriti Irani, thereby tarnishing the BJP.
Significantly, it is the all-powerful party president Amit Shah who is believed to have insisted that the HRD minister be shunted out in the face of strong resistance from the RSS, and to a lesser extent, from even the Prime Minister. Till recently, she had the unflinching support of 'Gopalji', veteran RSS leader general secretary in charge of BJP affairs. Modi too has been favourably inclined towards Irani and not so long ago, it would have been inconceivable that a minister with so much clout could be shifted without much ado.
However, such is Shah's clout nowadays. He appears to have succeeded in convincing both the RSS and the Prime Minister about the importance of sending a message to the Dalits through the removal of the controversial minister from the ministry that had hounded Rohith Vemula. Interestingly, the RSS seems to have made another major concession in agreeing to the simultaneous removal from the HRD Ministry of Ram Shankar Katheria, who used to be an RSS pracharak and known to be close to the Sangh, in fact, going to the extent of recently advocating the saffronisation of education. It is ironic that Katheria is a Dalit from Agra, one of the few BJP leaders from that community in Uttar Pradesh.
While there is some speculation in the media about Irani being removed from her high profile HRD perch in order to push her into the Uttar Pradesh poll campaign as the BJP's chief ministerial face, this seems unlikely. The fact that she may be a bug bear to the Dalits of Uttar Pradesh because of her perceived role in the Rohith Vemula would make it quite illogical to use her as a major campaign prop except in a few select places, let alone promote her as a chief minister. Besides, a series of opinion polls in Uttar Pradesh on who would be the best leader for the BJP to project as chief minister in the state have recently given her very low scores rating her as a poor last among other party leaders in the race such as Varun Gandhi, Rajnath Singh and Yogi Adityanath.
Political observers believe that had the plan been to shift Irani to electoral battlefield in Uttar Pradesh, the Prime Minister and the party president would have directly moved Irani to the party. Considering the importance of the textiles to both the Prime Ministers home state of Gujarat and also the weaving looms in his Varanasi constituency, it would be unlikely that the ministry would be used for stop gap appointments.
This is by no means the end of the road for Smriti Irani who is seen by people who matter in the ruling party establishment as a temporary liability rather than a permanent threat. Despite the widespread perception that the lady has lost out big time, the party is desperately trying to put a good spin on the ministerial reallocation, pointing out textiles was a key department expected to create vitally needed jobs. The real reason, of course, is that textiles ministry, by its very nature, is a far less high profile department than HRD quite unconnected to academics or Dalits which should allow Irani to stay out of the public limelight for the moment.
Possibly related to Smriti Iranis ouster by the party president Amit Shah bypassing support to her from the RSS veteran Gopalji is the clipping of wings of another controversial minister Mahesh Sharma, who has been stripped of the additional portfolio of minister of state for Civil Aviation and left with only Culture and Tourism. Sharma, who is elected from Gautam Buddha Nagar in Western Uttar Pradesh, is also known to be close to Gopalji, which may well signify the waning influence of this key RSS functionary on the BJP. It also goes to underline the enormous clout that the party president Amit Shah has started wielding not just in the party but also in the government on the eve of the Uttar Pradesh polls.
What appeared to be a tepid attempt at a Cabinet reshuffle by Narendra Modi in the morning of Tuesday turned out to be a significant shake-up with political and performance overtones by the late evening. The sting of the shuffle was in portfolio allotment, not in the numbers inducted or sent packing.
While the Big Four Ministers Home, Finance, Defence and External Affairs seemed untouched, at least two of them were indirectly impacted by the major changes or inductions at the Minister of State (MoS) level. The big bang impact areas included HRD, Telecom, Rural Development, Law, Parliamentary Affairs, Civil Aviation and Textiles.
It would have been easy to dismiss the exercise as being done with the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in mind, but this would be an overstatement. With 13 ministers from the state even after the fresh inductions this time, UP is just about adequately represented in the Modi Cabinet, given its sixth share in the population of India and the BJP's overwhelming number of MPs from this state.
So, despite some ritual obeisance to political compulsions, the broad focus of this exercise has been towards performance. Just as well, for Modi has less than three years in which he has to deliver a performance which can be "felt" by the people. What people know is he is earnest; what they are not sure about is whether they will benefit directly.
The NDA under Atal Bihari Vajpayee had many achievements to his credit, but growth revived too late for it to be felt by voters. In contrast, UPA-1 took advantage of NDA-1's growth surge to coast along for five more years and claim the credit for it. Modi's challenge is to ensure that people feel the change at least two years before 2019 for them to believe he has delivered. This is why this Cabinet reshuffle is important, being the last major effort before the electorate makes up its mind.
The problem areas for the Modi government have been growth, rural distress, tepid improvement in jobs, and an uncorrected mess in education. The last mess was created by the UPA's deeply flawed Right to Education Act, its poorly thought-out decision to ban detentions of students till the eighth standard, and failure to get more foreign investment and expertise in higher education. Smriti Irani, despite being a feisty and aggressive minister, was not up to speed on this. She also had a tendency to wade into needless controversies, something that was distracting, given the nature of the challenges at hand. Her replacement with Prakash Javadekar, a low-profile and hard-working minister, will ensure that HRD focuses on essentials and not on the thrills.
Given her seeming proximity to the PM, Irani's shift from HRD sends a very powerful signal that proximity is not a substitute for delivery. She was shifted sideways to Textiles, another portfolio close to Modi's heart, given its scope for employment generation and its importance to Gujarat itself. This is not a demotion, but a move to make Irani less controversial and more useful.
The same message got sent in Finance, where Arun Jaitley, one of the two people said to be close to the PM apart from Amit Shah, lost his I&B portfolio to Venkaiah Naidu. Moreover, Jaitley's articulate and suave MoS Jayant Sinha has been shifted to Civil Aviation, and got two new Ministers of State in exchange. The message seems to be: focus on finance without distractions.
The elevation of Javadekar is a subtle hint on what kind of ministers Modi likes: the diligent worker who understands what Modi wants and then goes about the job without making waves. Javadekar deserves credit for achieving a fine balance between being business-friendly and yet not sacrificing green objectives, as India's aggressive global commitments on clean energy show. None of Modi's job-creating ministries Roads, Railways, Infrastructure, and Energy would have been productive without Javadekar's constructive support.
The next big changes relate to Telecom and Law. The pleasant, but ineffective Sadananda Gowda gets shunted out once again, from Law to Statistics. If there is one change that had politics written all over it, it is Gowda's retention in a Cabinet just for being a Gowda. His presence is important for the Karnataka elections in 2018. Other retentions indirectly related to politics are Najma Heptullah and Kalraj Mishra, both of whom could have been dispensed with after breaching the age barrier of 75 set by Modi. The UP election is the reason for not rocking their boats. The other political signal is the induction of Ramdas Athavale, a Dalit face. Athavale is a concession to Modi's need to woo Dalits and also a message to the Shiv Sena, which has been fuming about being reduced to a bit role in Maharashtra. With the Mumbai municipal elections due in 2017, the BJP and Sena are getting ready to part ways at the municipal level.
The shifting of Ravi Shankar Prasad to Law and divesting him of Telecom sends two signals: one positive, and one negative. The positive one is that Modi wants a heavyweight in the Law Ministry, given the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation the executive is involved in with the judiciary over senior judicial appointments. Modi wants someone who can both bare his fangs and shake hands with the senior judiciary and get the latter to accept some role for the executive in judge selection and rejection. Prasad gets to keep Electronics and IT as consolation for losing Telecom.
The negative message to Prasad is that Modi doesn't want the Telecom Ministry to be at daggers drawn with the industry, which is a major revenue generator at spectrum auctions. Prasad's regular beating of the drum over call drops, which ended up in a judicial defeat, did not help. Modi wants an effective minister who will listen to industry and help pluck the spectrum revenue feathers gently without hurting the golden goose.
Manoj Sinha, who now gets Telecom, also retains his old MoS position at Railways. This is a vote of confidence in his work, and an invitation from Modi to do even better.
Jayant Sinha's transfer from Finance to Civil Aviation was a surprise, since he was seen to be on top of his job, but this lateral movement may have its own positive implications. Civil Aviation is now again in expansion mode, with the new policy allowing 100 percent FDI and foreign investments in brownfield airports, Modi probably sees airports as the new sunrise infrastructure sector over and above roads, shipping and railways. But Civil Aviation has a Telugu Desam man heading it, and shifting Sinha to the same ministry may mean Modi wants his agenda to be part of the ministry's growth focus.
The other noteworthy features include Venkaiah Naidu swapping Parliamentary Affairs for I&B, and Ananth Kumar getting Parliamentary Affairs as an extra portfolio.
The induction of MJ Akbar as MoS in External Affairs indicates the importance Modi attaches to diplomacy. With Modi himself leading from the front and Sushma Swaraj doing a low-profile but excellent job in the ministry, the addition of Akbar will add heft to diplomacy at a time when India is planning to play a larger role on the global stage. India has its work cut out both in the Arab world, now roiled by terrorism, and in Asia, where the China-Pakistan alliance is a threat to India's rise.
Modi clearly wants performance to be the guiding factor in his ministry. Despite an alleged premium on loyalty, he has not shied away from making changes even in ministries headed by people seen as close to him. The big miss was in Agriculture, a sector that needs very good stewardship given its myriad problems and poor past attempts at effective policy-making. This is a gap that Modi has to plug, for half of India is still dependent on agriculture. He should not leave all the problems to the rain gods to solve.
Kabul: The Afghan Taliban on Wednesday condemned a deadly suicide bombing at Islam's second holiest site in the Saudi city of Medina, describing it as "an act of enmity and hatred".
Four people were killed in the bombing outside the Prophet's Mosque on Tuesday, the same day as an attack outside a minority shiite mosque in eastern Saudi Arabia, and another near the US consulate in the western city of Jeddah.
"The Islamic Emirate (Taliban) - which has been shocked by this gruesome act - condemns this incident in the strongest of terms and considers it an act of enmity and hatred towards Islamic rituals," the militant group said in an emailed statement.
There were no claims of responsibility for the bombings, but the Islamic State group had urged its supporters to carry out attacks during Ramadan.
The Taliban, who were ousted from power by a US-led invasion in late 2001, have themselves been repeatedly blamed by the UN for deliberately targeting civilians in the war-torn country.
As many as 600 civilians were killed and 1,343 were injured in the first three months of 2016, according to a UN report in April, with the Taliban responsible for six out of every 10 casualties.
Yesterday's suicide bombing received wide condemnation from across the Muslim world, with Shiite power Iran calling for Muslim unity following the attacks in its Sunni-dominated regional rival.
Afghanistan's Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah also condemned the attacks in Saudi Arabia in a tweet today, expressing his sympathies to the people and government of Saudi Arabia.
BRASILIA Brazil's interim President Michel Temer would attend the BRICS summit in India if President Dilma Rousseff is impeached by the Senate, a senior presidential aide told Reuters.
Temer, Rousseff's vice president whom she accuses of conspiring to oust her, plans to keep strong ties with the other BRICS members India, China, Russia and South Africa, said the official who asked for anonymity to speak freely. India will host the BRICS summit in mid October.
A slowdown in China and crippling recessions in both Russia and Brazil are limiting the emerging group's clout in a global economic stage long dominated by major Western economies.
In power since 2003, Rousseff's leftist Workers' Party was a key supporter of the group that first met in the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2009.
Rousseff, suspended over charges of breaking fiscal rules during her first term in office, is expected to be impeached by the Senate in late August.
After the Senate vote, right-leaning Temer plans to visit China in September as part of an Asian tour that could also take him to Japan and Vietnam, said the official. Temer aims to increase trade of industrial goods with China and attract investment to infrastructure projects
China is Brazil's largest trade partner and a key buyer of iron ore, soy and corn, among other products.
(Reporting by Alonso Soto; Editing by Sandra Maler)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
LONDON Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's justification, planning and handling of the Iraq War involved a catalogue of failures, a seven-year inquiry concluded on Wednesday in a scathing verdict on Britain's role in the conflict.
Eight months before the 2003 invasion, Blair told U.S. President George W. Bush "I will be with you, whatever", eventually sending 45,000 British troops into battle when peace options had not been exhausted, the long-awaited British public inquiry said.
More than 13 years since the invasion, Iraq remains in chaos, with large areas under the control of Islamic State militants who have claimed responsibility for attacks on Western cities.
Many Britons want Blair to face criminal action over his decision to take military action that led to the deaths of 179 British soldiers and more than 150,000 Iraqi civilians over the following six years.
Critics also say it fuelled a deep distrust in politicians and the ruling establishment. The report was issued 13 days after Britons delivered a stunning blow to their political leaders by voting to leave the European Union.
The inquiry, which was given unprecedented access to confidential government documents and took longer to complete than British military involvement in the conflict itself, said Blair had relied on flawed intelligence and determined the way the war was legally authorised was unsatisfactory.
The threat posed by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction - the original justification for war - had been over-hyped and the planning for the aftermath of war had been inadequate, it found.
"It is an account of an intervention which went badly wrong, with consequences to this day," said the inquiry chairman, former civil servant John Chilcot.
In a lengthy and passionate defence lasting almost two hours, Blair explained his decision to back Bush and go to war alongside the United States in March 2003, at a time when the inquiry said Saddam posed no imminent threat.
"I did not mislead this country. There were no lies, there was no deceit, there was no deception," the former prime minister told reporters, looking gaunt and strained but growing animated as he responded to questions.
"But there was a decision, and it was a controversial decision ... to remove Saddam and to be with America. I believe I made the right decision and the world is better and safer as a result of it."
The only Labour prime minister to win three general elections, Blair was in office for 10 years until 2007 and was hugely popular in his heyday, but Iraq has severely tarnished his reputation and legacy.
A statement issued by Bush's spokesman Freddy Ford said the former president had not had a chance to read the report but defended the war's goal of ousting Saddam.
"Despite the intelligence failures and other mistakes he has acknowledged previously, President Bush continues to believe the whole world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power," the statement said.
"I WILL BE WITH YOU"
The inquiry report, running to 2.6 million words, or more than four times the length of "War and Peace", shed light on the interaction between Blair and Bush in the months leading up to the invasion, which has long been the subject of speculation about secret deals and pledges.
In a memo dated July 28, 2002, eight months before the invasion, Blair told Bush: "I will be with you, whatever. But this is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties."
Outside the building where Chilcot delivered his findings, protesters chanted "Tony Blair, war criminal". But the report itself stopped short of saying the war was illegal.
"We have, however, concluded that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for military action were far from satisfactory," Chilcot said.
Reg Keys, whose son, 20-year-old Lance Corporal Thomas Keys, was killed in Iraq, said: "We all know who the key players are ... who took part in this most shambolic episode in British politics. We would like to see all those key players face some form of accountability."
He added: "If that's through the legal channels, then we will look at that and see what's viable and appropriate. It has been passed over to lawyers."
BLAIR'S SORROW
Blair said he would take the same decisions again, and that he did not see the action as the cause of terrorism today, blaming outside forces for continuing sectarian violence in Iraq and the legacy of the Arab Spring for the emergence of Islamic State militants.
However, he acknowledged mistakes had been made.
"The intelligence assessments made at the time of going to war turned out to be wrong. The aftermath turned out to be more hostile, protracted and bloody than ever we imagined," he said.
"For all of this, I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you will ever know."
Chilcot said there was no imminent threat from Saddam at the time of the invasion and the chaos in Iraq and the region which followed should have been foreseen.
Britain had joined the invasion without exhausting peaceful options, and thereby undermined the authority of the United Nations Security Council.
"It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged and they should have been," Chilcot said.
He also said that Blair's government's judgements about the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were "presented with unjustified certainty".
No such weapons were discovered after the war.
Throughout its report, the inquiry, which cost 10 million pounds ($13 million), criticised Blair's leadership, saying he over-estimated his ability to influence U.S. decisions on Iraq and took major decisions without consulting his cabinet.
NO STRATEGIC SUCCESS
The report listed a catalogue of mistakes, saying the war was poorly-resourced, badly-planned and in the turmoil that followed the invasion, there was a total failure to conduct a reappraisal of policies with the only strategic objective to cut troop deployment numbers.
"It fell far short of strategic success," the report said.
Chilcot said Britain did not have the capacity to engage in campaigns in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and said it was humiliating that the military in 2007 had had to make a deal with a militia that had become dominant in the southern Iraqi city of Basra which Britain was supposed to control.
Iraq is still struggling with the widespread violence unleashed by the war. On Saturday, 250 people were killed in Baghdad's worst car bombing since the U.S.-led invasion.
"I wish Saddam would return; he executed many of my family but he is still better than these politicians and clerics who got Iraq to the way it is," said Kadhim Hassan al-Jabouri, an Iraqi who was filmed attacking Saddam's statue with a sledgehammer after the invasion.
Others said they were grateful to Washington and London for ending his dictatorship.
The purpose of the inquiry was not to point fingers but for the British government to learn lessons from the invasion and occupation that followed.
"We cannot turn the clock back but we can ensure that lessons are learned and acted on," Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament.
"It is crucial to good decision-making that a prime minister establishes a climate in which it's safe for officials and other experts to challenge existing policy and question the views of ministers and the prime minister without fear or favour."
Jeremy Corbyn, the current leader of Blair's Labour Party and a fervent pacifist, told parliament that the war was an act of aggression based on a false pretext that had fuelled and spread terrorism across the Middle East.
"I now apologise sincerely on behalf of my party for the disastrous decision to go to war," he said in a later speech.
(Additional reporting by Kate Holton, Alistair Smout and Stephen Addison, and Steve Holland in Washington; Writing by Estelle Shirbon and Michael Holden; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Mark Trevelyan, Philippa Fletcher, Toni Reinhold)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
London: Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair took his country into a badly planned, woefully executed and legally questionable war in Iraq in 2003, according to the findings of a long-delayed inquiry into Britain's role in the conflict.
The Chilcot report found the decision to join the US-led invasion was taken before all other options had been exhausted and on the basis of false intelligence.
Tony Blair faced particular criticism after pledging to support US president George W Bush the year before the invasion "whatever" happened and failing to ensure "there was a flexible, realistic and fully resourced plan".
More than 1,50,000 Iraqis had died by the time most British troops withdrew in 2009, while 179 British soldiers also lost their lives. The country remains plagued by sectarian violence.
Responding to the report in a short statement Tony Blair insisted he had acted in Britain's "best interests".
"Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein, I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country."
Britain's scarring experience in Iraq has made it deeply wary of committing ground troops to international military interventions in countries such as Syria and Libya.
Unveiling the 2.6 million-word report, which took seven years to complete, inquiry chairman John Chilcot said it was "an account of an intervention which went badly wrong, with consequences to this day".
More than 100 anti-war protesters gathered outside the conference centre where the report was published, with many shouting: "Blair lied, thousands died" and "war criminal Tony Blair".
'I will be with you, whatever'
Although the legality of the invasion was not in his remit, retired civil servant Chilcot said the process of deciding the legal basis for war was "far from satisfactory".
"We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort," Chilcot said.
The war was justified on the basis that the Iraq leader had weapons of mass destruction, although no such weapons were never found.
The report laid the blame for this failure firmly on the intelligence community, but said the government had "overstated the firmness of the evidence" about Iraq's capabilities and intentions.
It confirmed long-held suspicions that Tony Blair put Britain on a path to war as early as July 2002, when he wrote a letter to Bush, saying: "I will be with you, whatever."
Tony Blair was also criticised for failing to challenge Bush on the lack of planning for the aftermath of the invasion and called British plans for managing the occupation post-invasion "wholly inadequate".
The report also said Tony Blair had "overestimated his ability to influence US decisions on Iraq".
The inquiry dismissed Blair's assertion that it was not possible to predict the strength of local opposition, the rise of Al-Qaeda and the involvement of Iran, which fuelled the violence, saying these were "explicitly identified before the invasion".
Relatives of some of the dead soldiers attended the report's publication.
Tony Blair apologised last year for the fact the intelligence was wrong, and for mistakes in the planning, but said he did not regret removing Saddam.
He is expected to address reporters later Wednesday on the report, but his reputation is already in tatters over a conflict that most now believe was a mistake, and some believe was a war crime.
'People should be accountable'
"Tony Blair and those who supported the war should be brought to a court of law and be prosecuted," said John Loyd, a 70-year-old protester outside the venue where Chilcot spoke.
"If we call us a civilised country then people should be accountable for the results of what they did," he added, holding up a sign saying: Justice for Iraq. The Hague for Blair.
"They prosecuted an illegal war and the result was the destruction of a country," he added.
The International Criminal Court in The Hague has said it will consider the report but has no investigation open. The legality of the war is outside its jurisdiction.
The war, which at one point saw 46,000 British troops deployed, mostly in southern Iraq around the strategic oil hub of Basra, still looms large over British politics.
Jeremy Corbyn, current leader of the party Tony Blair once headed, Britain's Labour party, is hoping to use the Chilcot report to see off a rebellion by his own MPs over what they see as his lacklustre campaigning against Britain leaving the EU.
The veteran socialist, who was only picked as leader last year, strongly opposed the war in Iraq, while many of his critics had supported it.
PARIS France on Wednesday sentenced two former Rwandan mayors to life in prison for genocide and crimes against humanity committed in the African country in 1994.
Tito Barahira, 65, and Octavien Ngenzi, 58, were tried over attacks against ethnic Tutsis in the town of Kabarondo, where they both have been mayor. They denied any wrongdoing.
Ethnic Hutu extremists killed more than 800,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus in a three-month rampage in 1994 while the world largely stood by.
A number of Rwandan genocide-related crimes have been tried in recent years in Rwanda and other countries. This was the second such trial in France, which can rule on such cases since parliament adopted a law that gives it universal jurisdiction over cases of crimes against humanity.
In May, a Swedish court sentenced a 61-year-old man to life in prison for the same 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
France was an ally of the Rwandan government that ruled before the genocide.
(Reporting by Chine Labbe; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Larry King)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Los Angeles: Hundreds of people on Tuesday held a vigil at UC Berkeley campus in California to remember Indian student Tarishi Jain who was killed along with 22 others in the gruesome Dhaka terror attack.
18-year-old Jain's friends from her dorm, classes and campus groups of UC Berkeley remembered her as a sweet, generous, altruistic and intelligent girl.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Nick Dirks and several of Jain's friends spoke at the memorial.
"We have lost a precious member of our community, and we are so much the poorer because of it," Dirk said.
Her friends and teachers appealed to the crowd to remember her for all her accomplishments and friendships, not for her brutal death.
"She was one of the sweetest and most sincere people I had ever met," Jain's friend Mackenzie Monroe was quoted as
saying by the Berkeley side.
Jain graduated from the American International School in Dhaka and had joined University of California, Berkeley in 2015.
Daughter of a garments manufacturer with business interests in Bangladesh, she was in Dhaka on a vacation when the attack took place.
Islamist gunmen stormed a popular restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave late on Friday and killed 22 people, most of them foreigners from Italy, Japan, India and the US in an attack claimed by the Islamic State terror group.
LONDON Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's justification, planning and handling of the Iraq War involved a catalogue of failures, a seven-year inquiry concluded on Wednesday in a scathing verdict on Britain's role in the conflict.
Eight months before the 2003 invasion, Blair told U.S. President George W. Bush "I will be with you, whatever", eventually sending 45,000 British troops into battle when peace options had not been exhausted, the long-awaited British public inquiry said.
More than 13 years since the invasion, Iraq remains in chaos, with large areas under the control of Islamic State militants who have claimed responsibility for attacks on Western cities.
Many Britons want Blair to face criminal action over his decision to take military action that led to the deaths of 179 British soldiers and more than 150,000 Iraqi civilians over the following six years.
Critics also say it fuelled a deep distrust in politicians and the ruling establishment. The report was issued 13 days after Britons delivered a stunning blow to their political leaders by voting to leave the European Union.
The inquiry, which was given unprecedented access to confidential government documents and took longer to complete than British military involvement in the conflict itself, said Blair had relied on flawed intelligence and determined the way the war was legally authorised was unsatisfactory.
The threat posed by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction - the original justification for war - had been over-hyped and the planning for the aftermath of war had been inadequate, it found.
"It is an account of an intervention which went badly wrong, with consequences to this day," said the inquiry chairman, former civil servant John Chilcot.
In a lengthy and passionate defence lasting almost two hours, Blair explained his decision to back Bush and go to war alongside the United States in March 2003, at a time when the inquiry said Saddam posed no imminent threat.
"I did not mislead this country. There were no lies, there was no deceit, there was no deception," the former prime minister told reporters, looking gaunt and strained but growing animated as he responded to questions.
"But there was a decision, and it was a controversial decision ... to remove Saddam and to be with America. I believe I made the right decision and the world is better and safer as a result of it."
The only Labour prime minister to win three general elections, Blair was in office for 10 years until 2007 and was hugely popular in his heyday, but Iraq has severely tarnished his reputation and legacy.
"I WILL BE WITH YOU"
The inquiry report, running to 2.6 million words, or more than four times the length of "War and Peace", shed light on the interaction between Blair and Bush in the months leading up to the invasion, which has long been the subject of speculation about secret deals and pledges.
In a memo dated July 28, 2002, eight months before the invasion, Blair told Bush: "I will be with you, whatever. But this is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties."
Outside the building where Chilcot delivered his findings, protesters chanted "Tony Blair, war criminal". But the report itself stopped short of saying the war was illegal.
"We have, however, concluded that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for military action were far from satisfactory," Chilcot said.
Reg Keys, whose son, 20-year-old Lance Corporal Thomas Keys, was killed in Iraq, said: "We all know who the key players are ... who took part in this most shambolic episode in British politics. We would like to see all those key players face some form of accountability."
He added: "If that's through the legal channels, then we will look at that and see what's viable and appropriate. It has been passed over to lawyers."
BLAIR'S SORROW
Blair said he would take the same decisions again, and that he did not see the action as the cause of terrorism today, blaming outside forces for continuing sectarian violence in Iraq and the legacy of the Arab Spring for the emergence of Islamic State militants.
However, he acknowledged mistakes had been made.
"The intelligence assessments made at the time of going to war turned out to be wrong. The aftermath turned out to be more hostile, protracted and bloody than ever we imagined," he said.
"For all of this, I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you will ever know."
Chilcot said there was no imminent threat from Saddam at the time of the invasion and the chaos in Iraq and the region which followed should have been foreseen.
Britain had joined the invasion without exhausting peaceful options, and thereby undermined the authority of the United Nations Security Council.
"It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged and they should have been," Chilcot said.
He also said that Blair's government's judgements about the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were "presented with unjustified certainty".
No such weapons were discovered after the war.
Throughout its report, the inquiry, which cost 10 million pounds ($13 million), criticised Blair's leadership, saying he over-estimated his ability to influence U.S. decisions on Iraq and took major decisions without consulting his cabinet.
NO STRATEGIC SUCCESS
The report listed a catalogue of mistakes, saying the war was poorly-resourced, badly-planned and in the turmoil that followed the invasion, there was a total failure to conduct a reappraisal of policies with the only strategic objective to cut troop deployment numbers.
"It fell far short of strategic success," the report said.
Chilcot said Britain did not have the capacity to engage in campaigns in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and said it was humiliating that the military in 2007 had had to make a deal with a militia that had become dominant in the southern Iraqi city of Basra which Britain was supposed to control.
Iraq is still struggling with the widespread violence unleashed by the war. On Saturday, 250 people were killed in Baghdad's worst car bombing since the U.S.-led invasion.
"I wish Saddam would return; he executed many of my family but he is still better than these politicians and clerics who got Iraq to the way it is," said Kadhim Hassan al-Jabouri, an Iraqi who was filmed attacking Saddam's statue with a sledgehammer after the invasion.
Others said they were grateful to Washington and London for ending his dictatorship.
The purpose of the inquiry was not to point fingers but for the British government to learn lessons from the invasion and occupation that followed.
"We cannot turn the clock back but we can ensure that lessons are learned and acted on," Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament.
"It is crucial to good decision-making that a prime minister establishes a climate in which it's safe for officials and other experts to challenge existing policy and question the views of ministers and the prime minister without fear or favour."
Jeremy Corbyn, the current leader of Blair's Labour Party and a fervent pacifist, told parliament that the war was an act of aggression based on a false pretext that had fuelled and spread terrorism across the Middle East.
"I now apologise sincerely on behalf of my party for the disastrous decision to go to war," he said in a later speech.
($1 = 0.7723 pounds)
(Additional reporting by Kate Holton, Alistair Smout and Stephen Addison; Writing by Estelle Shirbon and Michael Holden; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Mark Trevelyan and Philippa Fletcher)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. After months on the sidelines, President Barack Obama joined Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail at a rally in North Carolina on Tuesday, telling voters he was ready to "pass the baton" to his former secretary of state.
Obama took the microphone in Charlotte, chanting "Hillary!" and told the crowd there had never been a candidate as prepared to be president as Clinton, his rival in 2008 for the Democratic nomination.
"I've run my last campaign, and I couldn't be prouder of the things we've done together, but I'm ready to pass the baton," Obama said, in what was likely to be the first of many trips this year on Clinton's behalf.
"I know Hillary Clinton is going to take it, and I know she can run that race," he said.
Obama was returning the favour after Clinton backed him in 2008's general election. This year, he waited while she battled U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination before endorsing Clinton last month once she became the party's presumptive nominee.
In Charlotte, Clinton preceded Obama, saying, "We're going to build on the vision for America that President Obama has always championed, a vision for a future where we do great things together."
The North Carolina trip came the same day that Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey said the agency would not recommend that Clinton face criminal charges over her use of a personal email system while secretary of state.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama did not get advance notice of Comey's announcement and said the president would not discuss the FBI's investigation with Clinton.
Clinton's campaign welcomed the end of a probe that had cast a cloud over her campaign, but Republicans seized on Comey's criticism of what he termed Clinton's "extremely careless" handling of emails.
Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, who was due to campaign in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday, criticized FBI recommendation, tweeting, "As usual, bad judgment."
JOINT APPEARANCE DELAYED
The first joint campaign appearance by Obama and Clinton was initially planned for soon after she clinched the Democratic nomination. But it was postponed following the mass shooting on June 12 at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
On Tuesday, Obama appeared at ease back on the campaign trail. He mocked Trump's promise to "Make America Great Again," saying, "America is really great."
And he sought to contrast Clinton's preparedness for the White House and passion for helping working families with Trump, a political neophyte he referred to at times as "the other guy."
"Everybody can tweet, but nobody actually knows what it takes to do the job until you've sat behind the desk," he said, an apparent reference to the wealthy New York businessman's fondness for Twitter.
Clinton hopes to reclaim North Carolina for the Democrats in the Nov. 8 election. Obama won the state in the 2008 general election but lost it narrowly in his 2012 re-election.
Obama's appearance with the former first lady closes a circle on a relationship that began cordially when the two were U.S. Senate colleagues, grew tense when they were presidential rivals in 2008, and became close when Clinton served in Obama's Cabinet during his first term.
Clinton and her family have played a role in Obama's elections. Clinton and Obama appeared together in Unity, New Hampshire, following their divisive primary fight in 2008, and Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, gave a well-received speech at the 2012 Democratic convention.
Obama has focussed on what he touts as Clinton's strength of character, in hopes of shoring up support among voters who find her untrustworthy, a weakness Trump has sought to exploit.
Clinton needs Obama to woo young and left-leaning voters who backed Sanders and who made up part of the president's voting coalition in 2008 and 2012. Clinton has also campaigned with high-profile liberal U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, and she will appear later this week with Vice President Joe Biden.
Clinton and Obama travelled to North Carolina on the presidential plane Air Force One, which Trump characterized as a burden on taxpayers. A Clinton spokesman said the campaign would cover its portion of the travel costs.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson and Ayesha Rascoe in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler and Jonathan Oatis)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Washington: Louisiana police have shot and killed a black man selling CDs outside a convenience store, triggering protests over the latest in a string of cases of alleged police brutality against black suspects.
A video shot by a witness and circulated online, showed two officers ordering a tall black man to the ground early Tuesday.
As he remained standing, the officers wrestled him onto the roof of a car and then to the ground. While he was pinned down by the officers, one pulled a gun and shot him four times at close range.
"They shot him? Oh my fucking goodness!" a witness can be heard as exclaiming in the background of the video.
At least one woman can be heard wailing and repeating "Oh my God!"
Police in the state's capital Baton Rouge identified the man as Alton Sterling, 37, saying two officers "made contact" with him in the parking lot of the convenience store.
The shooting took place at 12.35 am (0435 GMT) Tuesday after police received a tip from an anonymous caller who said they had been threatened by a man with a gun, according to a police statement.
"An altercation between Sterling and the officers ensued. Sterling was shot during the altercation and died at the scene," police said on Facebook.
They said that in accordance with "standard procedure," the two officers involved in the shooting had been placed on administrative leave during the ongoing investigation.
The East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner's Office said Sterling was killed by multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, WAFB television reported.
News reports said the officers were wearing body cameras, which police said fell off during the confrontation.
However, in addition to the witness video, the shooting was captured by the store's surveillance camera and at least one patrol car dashboard camera, state representative C. Denise Marcelle told news media after being briefed by the police chief.
About 100 people, including friends and relatives of Sterling, protested outside the convenience store after shooting, some blocking roads, The Advocate reported.
Holding up handmade signs, they chanted: "Black lives matter" and "Hands up, don't shoot."
"Justice for Alton" and "Justice 4 CD Man" read some of the signs.
"What I said to the (police) chief is he has to have transparency in this matter because as you can see, this is getting out of hand. People are clearly upset and they want transparency," Marcelle said.
Edmond Jordan, an attorney representing Sterling's family, said the shooting was completely unjustified.
"That police officer fired two shots and he seemed to pause for a while and shot him two more times. I don't think any of those shots were justified, but I'm curious as to why he paused for such a long time and then fired two more times," he told CNN.
Jordan, who is also a state legislator, added that Sterling was selling CDs with the permission of the convenience store owner.
Triple S store owner Abdullah Muflahi told The Advocate that he witnessed police retrieving a gun from Sterling's pocket after the shooting, although Sterling did not hold a weapon during the altercation.
"They were really aggressive with him from the start," Muflahi said about the police officers, adding that they were "freaking out" after the incident.
Muflahi said he heard one of the officers say: "Just leave him."
Civil rights group Black Lives Matter, which was referenced by many protesters in Louisiana, tweeted: "Enough is enough. #AltonSterling."
African American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson also expressed outrage over the shooting on Wednesday.
"The shooting of #AltonSterling in #BatonRouge is a legal lynching. Justice must prevail. #Outraged," Jackson wrote on Twitter.
WASHINGTON The United States on Wednesday sanctioned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the first time, citing "notorious abuses of human rights," in a move that diplomats say will incense the nuclear-armed country.
The sanctions, the first to target any North Koreans for rights abuses, affect property and other assets within U.S. jurisdiction and extend to 10 other individuals and five government ministries and departments, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.
"Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labour, and torture," Acting Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Adam J. Szubin said in the statement.
In North Korea, the leader is the subject of state-mandated adulation and considered infallible.
In a report by the U.S. State Department to Congress, Kim Jong Un topped a list of those responsible for serious human rights abuses and censorship in North Korea. Many of the abuses happen in North Korea's political prisoner camps, which hold between 80,000 and 120,000 prisoners including children, the report said.
The Treasury statement said he had "engaged in, facilitated, or been responsible for an abuse or violation of human rights by the Government of North Korea or the Workers Party of Korea."
The sanctions also named lower-level officials such as Choe Pu Il, the minister of Peoples Security, as directly responsible for abuses.
Senior U.S administration officials said the new sanctions demonstrated the administration's greater focus on human rights in North Korea, an area that had long been secondary to Washington's efforts to halt Pyongyang's nuclear programme.
The report was the most comprehensive to date of individual North Korean officials' roles in forced labour and repression.
They said the findings were based on an earlier United Nations report and accounts from civil society groups and the South Korean government.
They said the sanctions would be partly "symbolic" but hope that naming mid-level officials may make functionaries think twice before engaging in abuses.
It lifts the anonymity," a senior administration official told reporters.
The North Korea mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
MORE SANCTIONS TO COME
Republican Congressman Ed Royce welcomed the sanctions and said they must be "aggressively enforced".
Using sanctions against a head of state is not unprecedented. In 2011, the United States sanctioned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and six other senior Syrian officials for their role in Syrias violence.
But blacklisting North Korea's leader himself is a significant, if symbolic, escalation, experts say.
Policymakers often worry that targeting a country's leader will destroy any lingering chance of rapprochement, say former diplomats. It is a sign that "there probably isnt much of a hope for a diplomatic resolution," said Zachary Goldman, a former policy adviser in the U.S. Treasury's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
Peter Harrell, a former State Department sanctions official, said the sanctions would signal to companies in China as well as others doing business with North Korea that the U.S. would continue escalating sanctions.
In March, U.S. President Barack Obama imposed new sanctions on North Korea after it conducted its fourth nuclear test and a rocket launch the United States and its allies said employed banned ballistic missile technology.
Those steps froze any property of the North Korean government in the United States and essentially prohibited exports of goods from the United States to North Korea.
In March, the U.N. Security Council imposed harsh new sanctions on the country in response to its nuclear and missile tests.
The U.N. General Assembly urged the U.N. Security Council to consider referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court after a 2014 U.N. Commission of Inquiry detailed wide-ranging rights violations in the country. However diplomats say China, North Korea's neighbour, is likely to veto any such move.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, David Brunnstrom, Joel Schectman and Yeganeh Torbati in Washington and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Editing by Yara Bayoumy, Lisa Von Ahn and Chizu Nomiyama)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Gesticulating wildly and engaging with fellow refugees from the roof of a blue minivan at a refugee camp near Lebanon's eastern border, young Syrian actors perform in "The Caravan," a collection of stories about the challenges of daily life as a Syrian in Lebanon. At the heart of the narrative: the treatment of Syrian refugees by their new host country.
More than one million Syrians have sought refuge in Lebanon from the conflict devastating their homeland that has killed more than 280,000 people. But once in Lebanon, they face a whole new set of challenges including finding adequate shelter, paying for residency papers, and feeling discriminated against. The young actors will use the van to take their show on tour to refugee camps in Lebanese cities and towns, and across its countryside.
Brown pelicans, woodpeckers, owls, opossums... The Pelican Harbor Seabird Station in Miami welcomes all kinds of injured and orphaned wildlife. Caretakers say they're seeing a record number of patients, mainly because more locals are becoming aware of the rescue facility, but also because of Florida's exotic pet trade.
It began in the 1980 as a place for injured wild pelicans, pet birds are increasingly common, like one of the newest arrivals. Workers see a positive side to the rise in patient numbers: it means more people are turning to their 36-year-old facility when they find a wounded animal.
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Google has acquired Paris based Moodstocks that makes image recognition technology for smartphones. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Moodstock is developing new algorithms for visual recognition and machine learning, and an image recognition technology and objects on mobile devices. The Moodstock team will join Google at its R&D center in Paris. Google is expected to integrate the image search team in artificial intelligence efforts.
According to Moodstocks website it had introduced on-device image recognition in 2012 and has been working on extending its reach to object recognition for the past 2.5 years using deep learning based approaches. Moodstock said that it will soon discontinue its image recognition service but current paying customers will be able to use it until the end of their subscription.
Google said in a blog (in French) post,
We have made great strides in terms of visual recognition: now you can search in Google Pictures such as party or beach and the application will offer you good pictures without you n have never needed to categorize them manually. But there is still much to do in this area.
Googles acquisition comes only two weeks after Twitter acquired Magic Pony.
This week in industry news, Coke Florida revealed that 75% of its manufacturing facilities are GreenCircle certified and the vegan KitKat test success has led to a... Read More
What: Shares of Spectra Energy (SE) surged in June, closing the month up 14.3%.
So what: An improving energy market was one of the primary catalysts fueling Spectra Energy last month. While crude oil prices did not move all that much, the oil market itself is closer to getting back into balance, which is lifting a weight off the entire energy market. Furthermore, the improving market conditions are making it easier for energy companies to raise capital. That capital is not only easing balance sheet fears, but it gives companies the cash they need to fund growth as market conditions improve.
Aside from that rising tide lifting all boats, Spectra Energy did have a noteworthy announcement last month. In mid-June, it was awarded a contract to invest $1.5 billion in building a 168-mile intrastate natural gas project in Mexico. The Nueces-to-Brownsville pipeline project will supply natural gas to Mexico's state-owned utility starting in 2018. This award adds to the company's expansion pipeline and brings it another step closer to its goal of securing $35 billion in development projects by the end of the decade.
That project is being developed to support the Sur de Texas-Tuxpan pipeline, which was awarded to TransCanada (TRP 1.68%) and Sempra Energy (SRE 0.90%) last month. TransCanada and Sempra Energy will build the $2.1 billion Sur de Texas-Tuxpan natural gas pipeline in Mexico, which is a 497-mile pipeline that will connect natural gas supplies from Spectra's Nueces-to-Brownsville project to a pipeline system in Mexico. For TransCanada, the award brought its total development projects in Mexico up to $5 billion, which is becoming a critical growth market for natural gas.
Now what: With the energy market showing signs of improvement, it will make it much easier for Spectra Energy to hit its ambitious growth target. Also, Mexico's increasing demand for natural gas is opening new opportunities for expansion, with Spectra Energy playing a pivotal role to supply gas to the border where TransCanada and Sempra Energy are moving it farther south. These trends bode well for Spectra Energy's future, which is looking brighter by the day.
The United Kingdom voted last week to separate from the European Union. The decision has already had significant implications for the U.K. economy, and things could get worse from here.
In this clip from the Industry Focus: Financials podcast, The Motley Fool's Gaby Lapera and John Maxfield dig into what these implications are likely to be, focusing in particular on the potential impact on the country's GDP.
A full transcript follows the video.
This podcast was recorded on June 27, 2016.
John Maxfield: This is something we've talked about in the past, Gaby. If you look at how you grow an economy, it's actually a really simple equation. Economic growth comes from changes in capital, changes in labor, and changes in productivity. Those three things. If you increase one, you hold the other two equal, you're going to increase your economic growth. If you decrease one holding the other equal, you're going to decrease economic growth. Let's just break that down and look at what a Brexit, if they go through on this, what a Brexit will do to those components.
Let's first start with capital. To your point, what is Britain's economy predicated on? Is it predicated on manufacturing and exports? No, right? If you've ever been to the United Kingdom, you know how ridiculously expensive it is there. That means that labor there must be really expensive, which means that on a global manufacturing basis, it's not going to be able to compete against your Chinas, your Vietnams, your Philippines, right? What is its economy predicated on? It's predicated on its financial sector.
London is one of the financial centers in the entire world. In fact, if you look there's an index that traces what are the biggest financial centers in the world, and London and New York are tied. You say, why is London such an important financial center? One of the reasons is that the pound is a reserve currency for all of these different countries in the world. You have your central banks, your sovereign wealth funds holding pounds, dollars, euros, and Japanese yen in order to help them smooth out the fluctuations in their own currencies. The reason they hold those four currencies, in particular, in reserve, is because they have the deepest financial markets and because those currencies are the most stable in the entire world.
If you look at what's happened since the Brexit vote last Thursday, the pound has dropped something like 11% or 12%, which it is now at its lowest point in 30 years. We are just at the beginning of this. It's impossible to say if it will go up or down from here, but it very realistically could do both and it very realistically could go down. Right?
Gaby Lapera: Yeah. Right now, right at this very instant, the British pound equals $1.32, which is insane.
Maxfield: Right.
Lapera: I can't remember the last time it was that low, probably because the last time it was that low was before I was born, which is insane. This is part of the reason that the Brexit coverage has been so obsessed with what was going on with the pound.
Maxfield: Right. Then you think, how does this factor into that equation for growing your GDP, which just to be clear, there is no doubt that growing your economy is a very important thing. That's a very important thing.
What happens when if its currency were to go into this period where it loses a ton of value and fluctuates a lot more, there is going to be less incentive to hold it as a reserve currency. If other countries do not hold it as a reserve currency, they're going to pull their money out of that economy and that leads to a loss of capital. Again, GDP is a function of capital, labor, and productivity. If you decrease capital, you're going to decrease economic growth. Okay?
The other piece that we have going on here is your labor. One of the big reasons that Brexit was supported was because there's this fear about too many immigrants flooding into the country. Immigrants flooding into a country as a general rule will actually increase your economic output because you're boosting labor. If they were to kick out all these immigrants that have come from all these different European countries and all over the world into the United Kingdom under these open border policies, you are going to decrease your labor, which will necessarily decrease your GDP. On top of that, if you institute more stringent immigration standards, it will slow the flood of immigrants into a trickle, that will then further throttle your GDP growth.
The big thing for the United Kingdom is that, yes, we all understand that everybody's having issues right now in the world as a result of the layover from the financial crisis. By voting to separate yourself from the European Union, you are almost necessarily condemning your country to a decrease in economic output.
The United Kingdom voted last week in favor of a Brexit -- that is, to separate from the European Union. The financial and economic implications of the decision are substantial, not only for the U.K. but also for the global economy.
In this clip from the Industry Focus: Financials podcast, The Motley Fool's Gaby Lapera and John Maxfield discuss what could happen given that the U.K. might have to renegotiate its trade deals with countries on the European continent, as well as the impact on its economy from a policy that restricts immigration.
A full transcript follows the video.
This podcast was recorded on June 27, 2016.
Gaby Lapera: Like I was saying earlier, part of being in the European Union, it comes with a lot of economic benefits. Attached to that labor is that we don't really know what's going to happen. Great Britain is going to have to renegotiate all these things with the E.U. Who knows? Do they still have free passage between the European Union and the U.K.? Can people who are from the U.K. work anywhere else in Europe and vice versa? We don't know. We don't know what's going to happen.
John Maxfield: Yeah. Here's what's interesting. If you look at the coverage since the Brexit vote came through, one of the things that we have noticed is that all of the main supporters are now backing off of all of the promises that they made in order to convince their constituents to vote in favor of it.
Let me give you some examples. Boris Johnson. He was the former London mayor who's really been the front man for the whole Brexit movement. He has now come out, and he's basically been like totally off the scene since the vote came out. This is the leader of the movement who's basically receded behind the curtain since all this happened. He has basically come out and said, OK wait, wait, wait. The one thing he has said is that there's really no hurry to invoke the articles that would then start the process of the United Kingdom leaving.
You think about that for a second. The biggest advocate for this push is now saying maybe we should slow down on this. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. That's the implications that maybe he's thinking it wasn't actually such a good idea.
The other thing to keep in mind is that ... Another claim that they've backed off from is that they're saying "No, no, no, we're actually not going to stop immigration coming into the country. It may just slow it a little bit." Now they're backing off on that.
Lapera: What's really interesting about that is I looked it up before we came on the show. The total fertility rate in the U.K. in 2014 was 1.83. That means the population isn't replacing itself. For the population to replace itself, your total fertility rate has to be two. You have two kids and when the two parents die they take their place in the population. Their population isn't replacing itself and you have to remember that this includes births to women who have immigrated to the U.K. and this also includes women who are U.K. citizens but gave birth to children outside the country, which was around 27% of those births. Immigration is really propping up the U.K. population.
Maxfield: Yeah. Which props up its economy, right? You brought this point up earlier. Being a part of a free trade zone is really important. Let's say ... British tea. You have British tea it's going to earn really low margins as you export that. The European countries are major trading partners for the United Kingdom. Your margins on tea are going to be extremely slim, because that's such a competitive market and because it's a commodity. As soon as you start entering frictions into that trade process, those frictions insert costs into that. In a commoditized market where your margins are already really slim, you're going to impact some of those exporters.
Presumably if trade barriers were to come up as a result of all of this, you are going to also hurt whatever exports Britain is exporting to the European continent.
There's just one more thing I want to point out now, that we're really learning that a lot of these rationales weren't really grounded. In fact, one of the most picturesque pieces of the whole Brexit movement was this bus, that traveled all over the United Kingdom.
Lapera: The Boris Johnson bus.
Maxfield: Right. The Boris Johnson bus. On the side of the bus, it claimed that the United Kingdom was sending 350 million pounds a week to the European Union, basically subsidizing the European Union. It turns out that the European Union was actually kicking back about 200 million pounds a week in rebates back to the United Kingdom. The net difference is only 150 million pounds on a weekly basis. Then you have to factor in the value of being a part of the European Union, which among other things, you have the reduction in trade friction, which helps the British economy. On top of that because all these countries are now basically coexisting, nobody has to spend all this money on their militaries because they're all together.
Lapera: Right.
Maxfield: It saves all this money for them. Once you just really dig into the rationales for leaving, you can start to understand why the voters are having buyer's remorse.
Total (TTE 1.88%) has been a beacon of light in what has been a rather dark oil and gas market over the past couple of years. Even though oil prices have been well below the $100-a-barrel mark that we saw back in 2014, the company has been able to churn out much better earnings results than the rest of its big oil peers. This hasn't been complete luck, though. Total's management has been able to get there through some large cuts to its operational budget and bringing a quiver of large projects online.
These five quotes from CFO Patrick de la Chevardiere help paint a pretty good picture as to how the company has been able to outperform its peers and what the company needs to focus on in the coming quarters and beyond if it wants to keep up this momentum.
Cutting production costs
Just about every oil and gas company out there is saying that they are cutting costs and getting ready for that lower-oil-prices-for-longer scenario that so many have feared. Based on some of the results de la Chevardiere highlighted during the most recent conference call, Total is indeed making those deep cost cuts to its operations:
We are continuing to cut costs in line with our target for a further reduction of $900 million for the group on top of the $1.5 billion we got last year. Using first-quarter numbers, OpEx is below $7 per BOE, in line with our objective to reduce OpEx from $7.40 per BOE last year to $6.50 per BOE on average for this year.
All of that cost-cutting is a primary reason why Total's net income result declined only 18% from 2014 to 2015 while its integrated oil and gas peers saw net income declines of 40% or more.
Cleaning up the cash balance
Despite Total's strong results lately, the company is still spending more money than what's coming in the door. De la Chevardiere points out that the company is close, but there is one caveat:
As an industry, we are back to volatility, and Total's response is to continue to execute and deliver on the strategy that makes us more competitive in any environment, so the key here is to reduce the cash breakeven. Looking at the first quarter with Brent at $34 per barrel, we came close to balancing the cash from operations with a cash outlay for net investment. This was $3.7 billion and $3.9 billion, respectively. The results show that we are rapidly reducing the cash breakeven, mainly as a result of managing down the CapEx as we exit an intensive investment period and at the same time, maximizing the cash generated from operation by increasing production.
Net investment is the key word here, because that includes asset sales the company used to gain a little more cash. Selling diminishing assets or those that don't necessarily fit into the company's long-term vision is pretty common in this business, but it shouldn't be relied upon as a steady source of cash. The bigger focus needs to be on cutting its costs such that it can generate cash profits without needing to sell assets.
Breaking even thanks to flexibility
Another way that the company can get closer to that cash breakeven is to cut spending. According to de la Chevardiere, there is plenty of room in the 2017 budet to do that if necessary:
In February, we indicated the cash breakeven for 2016 should be around $45 per barrel Brent, but in the first quarter, the breakeven was around $40 per barrel Brent...about 40% of our 2017 CapEx was uncommitted. So we have a lot of flexibility in our investment and cash breakeven.
Keep in mind though, that breakeven here is for its capital expenditures only and does not include its dividend payments. Sill, this is pretty good progress. Just last year the company's breakeven price projection was $60 a barrel, but that was also based on $19 billion in capital spending. With only 60% of that budget committed, there is a chance that breakeven for 2017 could come down significantly depending on where oil prices are and how aggressively the company wants to pursue some of its larger investments over the next couple of years.
More production gains coming
Last year, Total blew away its integrated oil and gas competitors by posting a production gain of 9%. It appears that Total could be in line for another big bump this year as well:
In the first quarter, we started up two new projects, Laggan and Vega Pleyade, plus a ramp-up on nine start-ups for the last year. So we are in line with our target to increase production by 4% this year.
We should also keep in mind that this production increase projection was before the company announced that it had won a concession contract with Qatar for the Al-Shaheen offshore field. The 25-year concession project will result in a production boost of just under 100,000 barrels per day for Total in a place where oil production is cheap in relation to other projects.
Planning for the future
Even beyond these current catalysts, Total's management is also cognizant that it needs to keep spending to grow and replace any declining production. So de la Chevardiere made a point to highlight the progress on one of its largest future projects, the Yamal LNG facility in Russia:
I can tell you that for Yamal, project financing of $4 billion equivalent is being finalized with Russian banks as we speak, and significant progress has been made recently with Chinese banks for another $12 billion equivalent.
Clearly Yamal is going to take a lot of spending to get off the ground, but the size of Russia's gas fields and the total cacpacity of this project should make it worth it long-term as long as Total and its partners can keep the facility's construction on time and on budget. Keep an eye out over the next several quarters for more updates on this project.
What: Shares of utility Duke Energy Corp (DUK 0.63%) jumped 10% in June, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence, as the company moves closer and closer to acquiring Piedmont Natural Gas' business for $4.9 billion.
So what: The North Carolina Public Staff reached an agreement in June to approve Duke's acquisition of Piedmont. Among the stipulations were a reduction in Piedmont's North Carolina customers' bills of $10 million, spread over two years, to account for synergies between the two companies. Duke Energy will also make annual charitable contributions of $17.5 million in North Carolina in the first four years after the deal.
These are small prices to pay for the acquisition of natural gas infrastructure that serves 655,000 customers in the state.
Now what: Duke Energy's biggest goal in acquiring Piedmont is to diversify its business away from the electric utility business, which has become higher risk in recent years. Customer demand isn't growing, and new energy sources like rooftop solar are encroaching on the monopoly electric business. So, buying natural gas assets gives the company the diversification it needs, along with strong cash flow in a growing business and a bigger presence on the East Coast.
Historically, healthcare stocks such as GlaxoSmithKline (GSK 1.40%) and AstraZeneca (AZN 3.69%) have been considered safe havens in tough economic times because they don't tend to move as violently on economic pops and drops. However, global healthcare companies were sent into retreat by the U.K.'s decision to exit the EU last week. Can the healthcare sector survive the Brexit? Or will the challenges facing the sector be too big?
In this clip of The Motley Fool's Industry Focus: Healthcare podcast, analyst Kristine Harjes is joined by contributor Todd Campbell to discuss the Brexit vote and what its impact may be on this important sector.
A transcript follows the video.
This podcast was recorded on June 29, 2016.
Kristine Harjes: You could see, looking across the broader market, that all of the major indices were down on this news. How, specifically, did healthcare fare?
Todd Campbell: What's interesting to me, and I think that investors need to remember, that typically in times of trouble, investors seek out defensive areas of the market. One of the most defensive areas of the market is healthcare. If you need healthcare, you're probably not going to focus too, too much about how much money is in your wallet. You're still going to get that.
There's an inelastic relationship to the economy that provides a little bit of insulation to healthcare stocks. That's especially true in European markets where you have a single-payer system. Theoretically, the impact on each individual patient's wallet is even smaller.
Healthcare stocks, however, didn't climb in the wake of Brexit. They declined. There are a number of different reasons for that. If you look at companies specifically, you had GlaxoSmithKline trade down about 2.9% since the vote. You got AstraZeneca down 1%. You've got biotech stocks overall down much more than that, down 4%. You've got pharmaceutical companies down much more than that, down 2.9%. Healthcare stocks, which are typically viewed as defensive, they still fell.
Harjes: You mentioned GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca. These are U.K.-based companies. Both of their leaders had come out previously saying that they don't think that this is a good idea for Britain to leave. Glaxo's CEO, Sir Andrew Witty, said earlier this year that, and this is a quote, "Europe has gone from 27 fragmented, independent, not-talking-to-each-other regulatory authorities in the healthcare space to one. That's a big deal!"
AstraZeneca, meanwhile, their CEO said, and another quote, "Britain would be better off staying within the EU than outside of it." These guys make their points pretty clear. They're not going to be happy now.
Campbell: As CEOs in publicly traded companies, what they're really saying is when they say that Britain would be better off, they're saying: "Our company would be better off, too."
I think that, broadly speaking, if you look at the people who wanted to remain in the EU -- the scientific community, including people who are involved in healthcare research and development, overwhelmingly wanted to remain in the EU both for the advantages ... in free trade, but also because there's been a big push over the last decade to turn London into a healthcare powerhouse of innovation on par with, say, Boston in the United States.
Harjes: Yeah, London has absolutely been a hub for a couple of reasons. There's enormous research presence there. That's something that we'll talk about a little bit later in the episode. Another really interesting part of this story is that the EMA, the European Medicines Agency, is based in London.
Campbell: To talk a little bit about this, because there are some implications of the Brexit that are going to impact patient care, or potentially could impact patient care. One of them is the fact that the United Kingdom relies upon the EMA to vet drugs that could be used in U.K. patients. The EMA is charged with either approving or rejecting drug approvals. That's one of the reasons GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca want to remain. It's one single regulatory body. They don't want to have to--
Harjes: For the whole EU.
Campbell: --go ahead and pitch this to three different bodies.
Harjes: They cover the entire EU. in one single marketing authorization application. Now they're going to have to leave. They can't continue to be based in London if they're not part of the EU any more.
Campbell: The EMA is probably going to end up somewhere in France, or in Germany. Sweden would like to have it. Everybody is trying to figure how they can have it. There's a big infrastructure in London, in science, and in healthcare regulation. Hundreds of scientists from all around Europe, including areas that could theoretically -- it could be harder for them to travel to and from.
There's all sorts of implications that could come because of this. Obviously, the U.K. has some infrastructure on its own. It's got a body that negotiates prices directly with drugmakers. It's got another body that's responsible for making sure that manufacturing that occurs in their country is done appropriately.
Theoretically, they could choose to set up a system similar to the FDA here in the United States, or they could just do what Norway does and say, "OK, we're independent. We're not in the EU, but we're still going to cut a deal with you to be able to rely on the EMA to vet the drugs."
Harjes: Yep, those are the two options that they're faced with now. They could go the Norway route. That would be letting it stay largely the way it is now. The other option here, that you mentioned, is if you had an agency like the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency take over, that would probably make drug approval a heck of a lot more costly and time-consuming.
Of course, this regulatory body also does a lot of work underlying many of the EMA reviews, particularly when it comes to patient safety. If you look at it from the perspective of the EMA, they probably don't want to lose the work that the U.K. does, either.
Campbell: It's going to be very interesting to see how the negotiations play out on this. One of the key tenets of the European Union is the freedom of movement of both goods and people. Brexit was about the restriction of the movement of goods and people. I'm very curious to see how this shakes out. We don't know.
You hinted, or you said actually, that one of the concerns that CEO Witty and these other companies have is that if I have to go out now and I have to apply for approval in multiple countries, independent, no longer using the EMA, that's going to increase my costs, make my drugs less profitable. I also now have to consider if I'm manufacturing drugs in the U.K. and I want to distribute them throughout the EU, what things change now in regard to that? Am I going to have delays in getting product from, say, the U.K. to Germany? Am I going to have to worry about additional border regulatory restrictions on the movement of goods that could also impede my profitability?
Of course, then there's a currency component to this. If the currency in the U.K., or the euro falls, versus other areas of the world, then that could take a short-term toll on revenue and profitability as well.
Image source: Motley Fool.
Investors in Apple are going through considerable pain. Shares of the tech juggernaut are down by over 20% in the past year because of fears over declining revenues. On the other hand, the stock looks quite undervalued at current prices, and there are reasons to believe that financial performance could improve over the middle term. If that happens, the recent decline could turn out to be a buying opportunity. Let's take a closer look.
Apple stock is spectacularly cheap
Apple is currently trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.6 times earnings over the past year, a massive discount versus an average P/E of around 19.4 for companies in the S&P 500 index. Companies in the hardware sector typically trade at below-average valuations because financial performance is usually unstable and hard to predict in the business. However, Apple is also notoriously cheap by historical standards.
The following chart shows different valuation ratios for Apple over the past several years, including price to earnings, enterprise value to EBITDA, and price to sales. A picture is worth a thousand words, and the chart is telling a clear story: Apple stock hasn't been this cheap since the depths of the Great Recession in 2009.
AAPL PE Ratio (TTM) data by YCharts.
A dirt-cheap valuation reflects that expectations are quite dismal for Apple going forward, and this has important implications for investors in the company. If Apple can do better than what the market is expecting, then the stock could offer considerable upside potential from currently depressed valuation levels.
The reasons behind the decline
The main reason for all the negativity surrounding Apple is falling revenue on the back of declining iPhone sales. Total revenue during the quarter ended in March -- meaning the second quarter of fiscal year 2016 for Apple -- was $50.56 billion, a 13% decline versus the same quarter in 2015. Adding to the concerns, management guidance for the June quarter implies a 15% decline in total revenue at the midpoint of the guidance range.
The iPhone brings in nearly 65% of total revenue for Apple, so this segment is crucial for the business. Overall smartphone industry growth is slowing down because of increasing market penetration over the past several years. Moreover, the iPhone 6 was an explosive success for Apple in 2015, making year-over-year comparisons particularly tough in 2016.
The company sold 51.2 million iPhones last quarter, a 16% decline versus the same period in 2015. While management doesn't provide specific sales guidance for the iPhone, chances are that the modest revenue guidance for the June quarter is based on weak sales expectations for the device.
Buying opportunity?
The main question to consider is whether Apple is facing a permanent decline or if current problems are mostly temporary. The future can never be predicted with certainty, especially in the dynamic and ever-changing tech industry. Nevertheless, even if the high-growth era for Apple is already in the past, the most likely scenario is that growth will improve going forward.
It's important to consider the numbers in perspective, not missing the forest for the trees. Because of avid demand for the iPhone 6, Apple sold 61.2 million devices during the quarter ended in March 2015, a huge 40% increase versus the same quarter in 2014. Unit sales during the quarter ended in March 2016 are down 16% from the same quarter in 2015, but they're also still up by 17% versus 2014 levels.
Data source: SEC fillings.
This is important, because it indicates that the decline in iPhone sales this year could be mostly due to tough comparisons against 2015 levels. In addition, Apple customers are remarkably loyal to the brand, and a gargantuan installed base should produce accelerating growth once those customers start upgrading their models over the middle term.
iPhone SE sales weren't included in financial reports for the March quarter, but CEO Tim Cook said in the conference call that demand for the revamped 4-inch device is exceeding supply. The iPhone SE is priced at a comparatively low starting at $499, and the product seems to be specially designed to gain market share in emerging markets, where income levels are lower and Apple products are too expensive for many consumers.
If the iPhone SE turns out to be a success, it will allow Apple to gain ground versus the competition in emerging markets, which could have a major positive impact in terms of overall revenue growth.
The market tends to overreact to negative news in the short term, and this seems to be the case when it comes to Apple. The stock is ridiculously cheap, and sales trends could improve going forward. If anything, the recent decline in Apple stock looks more like a buying opportunity than a reason to sell.
The article Look at This Chart Before Selling Apple Stock originally appeared on Fool.com.
Andrs Cardenal owns shares of Apple. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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Making money from stocks is not difficult. If you have at least 10 years to invest, you can stack the odds significantly in your favor by buying shares of leading brands that have demonstrated a consistent record of growth and profitability.
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI), and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) are three stocks that fit the bill. They have each delivered market-beating returns for investors over the years, and are still pursuing new growth opportunities that should see them continue to outperform the market over the long term.
A top consumer brand
If you've checked out Apple's stock lately, you've probably noticed it has a very modest P/E. It trades for under 14 times trailing earnings, which is much lower than the trailing P/E of 19 for the average stock in the S&P 500 Index.
One reason for Apple's relatively low P/E is the concern that investors have about slowing sales of the iPhone. Unit sales were flat in the last quarter, but that doesn't reflect anything negative about Apple's brand -- one of the most valuable in the world. It reflects slowing growth across the smartphone market, which has been flattening out in recent years.
Still, Apple has been able to exert its brand power by getting customers to pay higher prices for recent iPhones. Strong sales of the iPhone X allowed Apple to grow iPhone revenue 29% year over year in the last quarter. That trend will likely continue given that the new iPhone XS and iPad Pro are priced even higher than the year-ago models.
Analysts expect Apple to grow earnings 13% per year over the next five years. Part of that growth will come from its fast-growing services business, including Apple Pay, Apple Music, and iCloud subscription plans. One analyst estimated that by 2020, its services business could be worth between $111 to $177 per share, which is about two-thirds of the current stock price on the low end of that range.
Apple is also working on self-driving cars, a new streaming service for Apple TV, and who knows what else. The company has plenty of cash to reinvest in opportunities, and with the stock trading at just 10.7 times next year's earnings estimates, it looks like a good investment for the next decade.
A gaming empire
There are many trends favoring continued growth in Activision's business. Video games are a booming industry expected to reach $180 billion by 2021, according to industry researcher Newzoo. More people are playing games every year across PC, console, and mobile devices, which provides a strong tailwind for Activision shareholders.
Activision has a Disney-like library of games and content, which has attracted tens of millions of fans, and those players spend a lot of money. Gaming has become more like a service in recent years, in which a company releases a game and then sells gamers a stream of content that they can purchase while playing. Activision generates the majority of its annual revenue -- more than $4 billion -- from this in-game spending. It's a lucrative business model that has allowed the company to generate $1.8 billion in free cash flow over the last year.
The game maker distributes a small amount of that cash back to shareholders in dividends. Currently, the yield is 0.71%. The company is using the rest of its cash to invest in promising new growth avenues, such as esports, in-game advertising, consumer products, as well as a movie based on the best-selling Call of Duty franchise. At a price-to-free-cash-flow ratio of 21, the stock should deliver good returns from here.
Looking like a growth stock once again
Microsoft has been dominant for a long time with its Windows and Office software. The familiarity that consumers and businesses have with these products means the company should continue printing money for shareholders for a long time. Microsoft generated $32 billion in free cash flow over the last year.
The network-effect advantage Microsoft has with software would be enough of a reason to buy and hold the stock, but the growth story has recently gotten much better. The company has emerged as a major cloud and services provider under CEO Satya Nadella. The software giant has surpassed industry stalwarts like IBM and Oracle to reach second place in cloud market share behind Amazon Web Services.
Additionally, the company has turned its Office software suite into a subscription service with Office 365, which is suggestive of a Microsoft that is no longer tied to the PC, but able to connect with users no matter what device or platform they use.
The results have been impressive. Its Productivity and Business Processes division (which includes Office 365) grew 20% in fiscal 2018 (which ended in June). LinkedIn -- the social network for working professionals -- continues to grow strongly, too, up 33% in the first quarter.
Revenue from the Intelligent Cloud division continues to impress, surging 24% in the first quarter. Most notable is growth from Microsoft Azure, up 76% in the first quarter.
Those were the big drivers that fueled total revenue growth of 21% in fiscal 2018. That level of growth has investors excited about the future of Microsoft. The stock trades for a forward P/E of 20, which is not much at all given that earnings are expected to grow nearly 14% per year over the next five years.
While nothing is guaranteed in investing, I fully expect Apple, Activision Blizzard, and Microsoft to still be leaders in their respective industries in 10 years. That should translate to good returns for shareholders over the next decade.
Find out why Apple is one of the 10 best stocks to buy now
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John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Teresa Kersten, an employee of LinkedIn, a Microsoft subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. John Ballard owns shares of Activision Blizzard. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Activision Blizzard, Amazon, Apple, and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool owns shares of Microsoft and Oracle and has the following options: long January 2020 $150 calls on Apple, short January 2020 $155 calls on Apple, short December 2018 $52 calls on Oracle, and long January 2020 $30 calls on Oracle. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton will journey on Wednesday to the gambling center of Atlantic City, site of some of Donald Trump's biggest corporate projects, to attack the business record of her Republican rival for the White House.
Clinton is putting a spotlight on Trump's casino bankruptcies and complaints against him by contractors to argue that the New York businessman cannot be trusted to set economic policy from the White House.
Her attack on Trump's business dealings comes as the Republican presidential nominee has blasted her integrity following an FBI report that criticized her use of private email during her tenure as secretary of state.
On Tuesday, FBI Director James Comey said the agency would recommend no criminal charges be filed against Clinton for her use of private email servers. But Comey rebuked Clinton for what he said was "extremely careless" handling of classified material on her email servers, and contradicted her claims that she never transmitted or received classified material on that email system.
A Clinton campaign official said that in Atlantic City, the Democratic presidential candidate would highlight Trump's history of bankruptcies, his dealings with contractors and job losses related to his business activities.
The official said Clinton would emphasize Trump's promise to "do for the country what I did for my business" to warn that he is unfit to manage economic policy.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Clinton has used criticism of Trump's business dealings as a way to illustrate one of her principle campaign themes - that the wealthy real estate developer is only interested in boosting his financial bottom line, and is not concerned about the economic struggles of working Americans.
"He's written a lot of books about business, they all seem to end at Chapter 11. Go figure," Clinton said at a rally in Ohio last month, a reference to Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
Trump has defended his bankruptcy filings on casinos and other projects as legitimate legal avenues designed to help businesses manage their debts. He tweeted recently that he was "the king of debt."
It was unclear if Clinton would address the FBI's announcement regarding its year-long probe into her email practices.
The FBI has been investigating whether Clinton broke the law as result of personal email servers kept in her Chappaqua, New York, home while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, including whether she mishandled classified information on the servers.
Clinton's campaign welcomed the end of the FBI probe, which had cast a cloud over her run for the White House, but Comey's criticisms were likely to reinforce what polls show are public concerns about her honesty and trustworthiness.
(Additional reporting by Amanda Becker; Editing by Caren Bohan and Ralph Boulton)
A new full scale replica of Noahs Ark is set to open in Williamstown, Kentucky, Thursday. The biblically accurate tourist attraction named The Ark Encounter, built by the group Answers in Genesis, cost more than $100 million to build and is believed to be the largest timber-framed structure in the world.
Answers in Genesis President and CEO, Ken Ham, told the FOX Business Networks Maria Bartiromo, he expects the structure, built by 100 Amish craftsmen with 3.3 million board feet of timber over six years, to be an economic boost to the Kentucky economy.
We actually had outside consultants, Gerry Henry and Associates, who actually did an economic study--and they said based on minimum attendance of just 1.4 million [people] a year, and we think there will be a lot more than that, in fact, our researchers indicate at least 2 million a year, but the research indicates over ten years an economic impact on the state of Kentucky of $4 billion, creating up to 20,000 jobs, he said.
Ham also said the privately funded project which drew 8,000 supporters and donors to preview the ark, will provide a boom to the tourism industry in Northern Kentucky.
The whole area was slammed in regard to restaurants and hotels. Hotels are saying they are booked out around the area, he said.
Image source: Getty Images.
It's been nearly two weeks since Britain's historic "Brexit" vote that saw residents of the EU giant decide to leave the European Union, and it doesn't look as if the turbulence the vote created is going to calm anytime soon.
There are a number of concerns surrounding the Brexit, but prime on the list is that Article 50 has never been invoked. Since no country has ever chosen to leave the EU before, no one exactly knows what the blueprint looks like. Will it be a quick process, or could it take more than two years? Will EU nations work with Britain, or could trade negotiations be somewhat retaliatory? Can Britain avoid a recession, or is the European Union at greater risk without the support of the U.K.? These are just some of the many questions left to be answered in the weeks and months ahead.
As you might have rightly surmised, negative views on the British economy have been streaming in from financial pundits. Some analysts have called for a mild recession in the U.K. by 2017, while others see more protracted downside from this decision.
However, one path being completely overlooked is that British multinational companies could thrive because of the Brexit. In other words, the Brexit could prove to be bad news for the EU, but for the FTSE in the U.K. it could send stocks to new heights. How? Look no further than the plunging British pound.
Image source: Getty Images.
British corporate profits could soar because of the Brexit
On the day the Brexit was announced, the British pound had its biggest single-day move in history. In just hours we witnessed a pound that had equated to $1.50 fall to as low as $1.32. In the two weeks since, the pound has marked even lower lows against the U.S. dollar.
On one hand, a falling pound would imply uncertainty with the U.K. economy, which could be construed as bad. But a weaker pound should mean a big boost in exports for U.K. multinational companies that operate overseas. Since U.K. companies report revenue in pounds, when translating from U.S. dollars and other foreign currencies back into a now-devalued pound they're liable to see a double-digit improvement in sales and profits. This is what could power the FTSE higher in light of weakness and uncertainty created throughout the EU.
What multinational U.K. companies might benefit?
Image source: Getty Images.
Multinational drug developer GlaxoSmithKline could see a big benefit, with a good portion of its business based in the developed world, where the pound has been punished against other currencies. The boost in sales and profits realized from currency translation couldn't come at a better time for GlaxoSmithKline, either, with the company having completed a business transformation in 2015 that saw it acquire Novartis' vaccine operations and jettison its oncology segment in return. Following years of declining sales caused by Advair losing its patent protection, GSK's earnings could really surprise Wall Street to the upside.
Another U.K. company that could see its profits buoyed is telecom giant Vodafone . Vodafone has found its wireless subscriber growth slowed in Europe and has turned to the faster growth regions of Africa, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region to improve its top-line. Unfortunately, these regions still account for only about a third of Vodafone's revenue. The falling pound should help Vodafone realize improved sales and profits, which could help it reverse its recent weakness.
Keep this important point in mind
Although U.K. multinationals and the FTSE could be primed for surprising success, it's also important that investors keep in mind that currency translation is something businesses can't control. Currencies will fluctuate on a regular basis, meaning the pound could just as easily move higher from here on out and reverse what benefits U.K. multinationals could experience from exports.
What's far more important than currency translation is what these businesses are actually doing on an operating basis. Investors need to be able to cut through the gravy, which is what a falling pound really is for U.K. multinationals, and focus on the meat and potatoes that lie underneath.
In the case of GlaxoSmithKline, its underlying operations have been improving, with or without Brexit. Sales of the company's next-generation, long-lasting COPD and asthma products, Breo Ellipta, Anoro Ellipta, Incruse Ellipta, and Arnuity Ellipta, are finally beginning to ramp up (especially in the case of Breo), and Glaxo's majority ownership in ViiV Healthcare is paying dividends as ViiV's HIV products, which include Triumeq and Tivicay, have been growing by leaps and bounds. In the case of GlaxoSmithKline, the pound's plunge is just icing on the cake to what looks to be a healthy business model.
Image source: Flickr user Marjan Lazaarevski.
For Vodafone, things have been more mixed if we look beyond the effects of currency translation. More recently, Vodafone reported its first fiscal year of service revenue and core earnings growth since 2008, but many challenges lie ahead. Vodafone has invested heavily in its network in an effort to draw in more data-hungry consumers, but it's had difficulty in assuaging those consumers to upgrade to higher-margin, but pricier, data plans. With Brexit now a reality, it could be even tougher for Vodafone to encourage consumers to make the switch.
Things could be far better than pundits realize for Britain, but make sure you're digging below the surface and examining the actual operating performance of British multinationals; otherwise, you could be disappointed over the long run.
The article Corporate Profits in Britain Could Soar, and Brexit Is to Thank originally appeared on Fool.com.
Sean Williamshas no material interest in any companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen nameTMFUltraLong, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle@TMFUltraLong.The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Shares of Square have declined nearly 30% since the beginning of the year, and currently hover just above its IPO price of $9. The online payments processor has been battered by lackluster sales growth, non-existent profitability, and a lockup expiration in mid-May. CEO Jack Dorsey's ability to simultaneously lead Square and Twitter has also been repeatedly questioned. Should investors consider Square a contrarian buy, or could it fall far below its IPO price like Twitter?
Square Register. Image source: Square.
What's wrong with Square?
Square is basically David to PayPal's Goliath in the payments processing market. Square has a presence in just four markets -- the United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia. PayPal is accepted in over 200 markets. Square's total payment volume (TPV) rose45% annually to $10.3 billion last quarter, while PayPal's TPV grew 31% to $81 billion (in constant currency terms) last quarter.
Much of Square's past growth was fueled by a partnership with Starbucks , which granted the coffee giant an undisclosed discount on payment fees. Square won't renew that partnership when it expires later this year, because it actually lost $56 million on that lopsided deal over the past three years. Square's total revenue rose 51% to $379.3 million last quarter, but its adjusted revenue (which excludes Starbucks) rose 64% to $146 million.
Square's core business runs on paper thin margins. It charges 2.75% per card swipe or paid invoice, 2.9% plus $0.30 for online store transactions, and 3.5% plus $0.15 per manually entered transaction. But after subtracting other expenses, Square only retains about 1% of each payment. That's why Square broke up with Starbucks, and why it's never posted a GAAP-adjusted profit.
Getting lost in the shuffle
Back when Square was founded in 2009, its card-swiping dongle for smartphones and low-cost point-of-sale stations for tablets seemingly streamlined payments for small businesses. About 84% of its revenue comes from transaction fees, and the rest comes from lending, cash advances, and digital services like receipts and accounting.
But over the past few years, PayPal duplicated many of its POS features, and the mobile payments market has become crowded with big new players like Apple and Facebook . Apple Pay pivoted the whole market toward NFC payments, whichprompted Square to launch an NFC Reader. Square partnered with Snapchat to add social-based peer-to-peer payments in 2014, but PayPal's Venmo and Facebook Messenger now sport similar features.
Apple Pay. Image source: Apple.
Being the underdog in this crowded market could be rough on Square, which doesn't have much room to raise sales and marketing expenses. PayPal can use economies of scale to lower its expenses, while Facebook, Apple, and other tech giants could intentionally take losses on their mobile payments efforts to expand their ecosystems.
But don't overlook the catalysts
Square might look like it's stuck between a rock and hard place, but investors shouldn't overlook the catalysts that could cause the stock to rebound. If Jack Dorsey resigns from Twitter to become Square's full time leader, the stock would likely rally.
Plenty of companies could also benefit from buying Square, which has an enterprise value of just $2.7 billion. Back in 2014, Apple and Alphabet's Google were reportedly interested inbuying the company. The launch of Apple Pay makes that acquisition now seem unlikely, but Google could still make a bid to fix its fragmented mobile payments ecosystem on Android. Microsoft , which lacks a meaningful presence in mobile payments, could also buy Square to enter the market without a dominant mobile OS.
Lastly, Square stock isn't terribly expensive. It trades at just 2.2 times trailing sales, which is much lower than PayPal's P/S ratio of 4.5. That should limit its downside potential and cause the stock to rise on any positive headlines.
So is it safe to buy Square?
I personally wouldn't buy Square as a long-term investment, since it's stuck in a highly competitive market which is increasingly dominated by big ecosystem players. Its lack of profits, its 4% decline after its lockup expiration in May, and its lack of open market insider purchases over the past year raise additional red flags. Therefore, I'd avoid Square until it can improve its profitability and widen its moat against formidable giants like PayPal, Apple, and Facebook.
The article How Much Lower Can Square Inc. Shares Go? originally appeared on Fool.com.
Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Leo Sun has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Apple, Facebook, PayPal Holdings, Starbucks, and Twitter. The Motley Fool owns shares of Microsoft and has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image source: Apache Corporation.
This year got off to a brutal start for the oil sector after crude prices slumped into the $20s in January and February. That decline forcedApache to take several actions to reconfigure itself for a lower oil price environment. And now that oil is moving higher, those adjustments are paying off.
APA data by YCharts
Rebounding crude prices, however, were not the only catalysts fueling Apache's first-half rebound. The company also benefited from another M&A rumor. Given their impacts on its stock price so far, both situations represent important variables to keep an eye on.
Focused on flexibility
While oil was still in the midst of that deep slump, Apache decided to cut its capex budget from the $4.7 billion it spent in 2015 all the way down to a range of $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion for 2016. Though that decision was expected to cause the company's production to decline by between 7% and 11%, it would also enable Apache to remain cash flow neutral at $35 oil.Further, it would allow the company to maintain its dividend without increasing its debt level.
That decision to hold debt steady andmaintain its balance sheet strength was significant for severalreasons. First, it was enough to convince one of Apache's credit rating agencies that the company still warranted an investment-grade credit rating. Meanwhile, it won it praise from analysts at Wells Fargo, which upgraded the stock from market perform to outperform. Wells believes that Apache's strong balance sheet could help it outperform if commodity prices remain weak. And it not only gave Apache the flexibility to withstand another year of low oil prices, it put it in position to resume growth when conditions improved.
That improvement is just what happened; crude prices have rallied sharply since mid-February, settling down since mid-May in the neighborhood of $50 a barrel. Those higher prices should enable Apache to generate excess cash flow this year, some which could even be used to boost the company's capex budget, fueling higher production.
Apache is also benefiting from improving operations, as evidenced by its better-than-anticipated well performance during the first quarter. As a result, the company increased its full-year production guidance; if those numbers hold, its production decline will not be as steep as initially projected.
The rumor mill gets going again
As mentioned earlier, the other big catalyst for Apache's rally in 2016 was another report that the company was an M&A target. Last fall, the company received an unsolicited takeover bid from Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC), which was quickly rebuffed. Anadarko may have dropped its pursuit, but not more than six months later, another report surfaced that Apache was the subject of a takeover bid, this time by Occidental Petroleum .
According to the report, Apache had called a town hall meeting of its staff to discuss the offer. It turned out that meeting had been called to discuss layoffs, not takeover bids. However, the market is nonetheless pricing an M&A premium into Apache's stock because it believes the company remains a compelling takeover candidate for a larger oil company due to its strong balance sheet and solid North American shale position.
Investor takeaway
Apache spent the better part of this year positioning itself to operate profitably with oil at $35 a barrel. With oil now well above that price, it's poised to cash in. That said, the company could also choose to quickly cash in its chips if a suitor steps forward and makes it an offer it can't refuse.
The article Midyear Review: Apache Corp. Rises on Oil Prices and M&A Rumors originally appeared on Fool.com.
Matt DiLallo owns shares of Wells Fargo and has the following options: long January 2018 $45 calls on Wells Fargo. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Wells Fargo. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image source: NVIDIA.
Graphics specialist NVIDIA began the rollout of graphics cards based on its new Pascal architecture back in May, beginning with the high-end GeForce GTX 1080. A cut-down variant of the 1080, known as the GTX 1070, arrived in early June, and a leak from reliable site BenchLife suggests that the mid-range GTX 1060 is coming on July 14.
Between the 1060, 1070, and 1080, NVIDIA can service a large portion of the desktop graphics card market, but not all of it. The company will still need credible products in the $150-$200 range, particularly as many gamers are on tight budgets.
It would seem that the company's answer to that market segment may be a product known as the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti.
What do we know about it so far?
Website LaptopMedia recently leaked a couple of details about the upcoming GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. It will come with four gigabytes of GDDR5 (a high-bandwidth RAM designed for usein graphics cards)hooked up to a 128-bit memory bus. The leak itself actually shows that both the GTX 1060 and the GTX 1050 Ti will be suitable for laptops, likely in unaltered form compared to the variants suitable for desktops.
Beyond that, assuming the leak is legitimate, not much else is known. However, we can make some intelligent speculation about some aspects of the product.
Likely aimed at the $199 mark; 1050 coming later?
The suffix "Ti," which was historically short for "Titanium," in NVIDIA's product stack tends to indicate a higher-performance variant of a product. For example, the GeForce GTX 980 Ti was much faster than the GeForce GTX 980.
If NVIDIA is releasing a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, this could mean that from a price/performance perspective, it's not going to be a direct successor to the $159 GeForce GTX 950 that launched back in August of 2015. Given that the GTX 1060 is rumored to come priced at around $299 for the model with six gigabytes of memory and $249 for the one with three gigabytes of memory, a GTX 1050 Ti could slot in nicely at the $199 mark.
The only problem with such a product stack is that the faster 1060 with a lesser amount of memory would sell for more than the slower 1050 Ti with a greater amount of memory. This could potentially cause customer confusion, and (unintentionally) push customers to buy the cheaper 1050 Ti in place of the pricier 1060 with three gigabytes of memory.
If NVIDIA attacks the $199 price point with a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, then the company might release a GeForce GTX 1050 at $159 later on down the line.
When will we see it?
Current rumors point to NVIDIA launching the GeForce GTX 1060 for desktops on July 14, while there seems to be virtually nothing about when this supposed GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is expected to launch.
The GeForce GTX 960, based on the fully enabled GM206 chip, launched in January of 2015, but the cut-down variant, known as the GeForce GTX 950, didn't arrive until August of that year.
Though I doubt that it'll be seven months following the GTX 1060 launch before we'll see the GTX 1050 Ti launch, particularly as we are seeing leaks mentioning both the 1060 and 1050 Ti in the same place, I wouldn't be surprised if the 1050 Ti arrives a fair bit after the 1060 does.
The article NVIDIA Corporation May Be Prepping GeForce GTX 1050 Ti originally appeared on Fool.com.
Ashraf Eassa has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Nvidia. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image source: Total investor presentation.
Total has been a beacon of light in what has been a rather dark oil and gas market over the past couple of years. Even though oil prices have been well below the $100-a-barrel mark that we saw back in 2014, the company has been able to churn out much better earnings results than the rest of its big oil peers. This hasn't been complete luck, though. Total's management has been able to get there through some large cuts to its operational budget and bringing a quiver of large projects online.
These five quotes from CFO Patrick de la Chevardiere help paint a pretty good picture as to how the company has been able to outperform its peers and what the company needs to focus on in the coming quarters and beyond if it wants to keep up this momentum.
Cutting production costs
Just about every oil and gas company out there is saying that they are cutting costs and getting ready for that lower-oil-prices-for-longer scenario that so many have feared. Based on some of the results de la Chevardiere highlighted during the most recent conference call, Total is indeed making those deep cost cuts to its operations:
All of that cost-cutting is a primary reason why Total's net income result declined only 18% from 2014 to 2015 while its integrated oil and gas peers saw net income declines of 40% or more.
Cleaning up the cash balance
Despite Total's strong results lately, the company is still spending more money than what's coming in the door. De la Chevardiere points out that the company is close, but there is one caveat:
Net investment is the key word here, because that includes asset sales the company used to gain a little more cash. Selling diminishing assets or those that don't necessarily fit into the company's long-term vision is pretty common in thisbusiness, but it shouldn't be relied upon as a steady source of cash. The bigger focus needs to be on cutting its costs such that it can generate cash profits withoutneeding to sell assets.
Breaking even thanks to flexibility
Another way that the company can get closer to that cash breakeven is to cut spending. According to de la Chevardiere, there is plenty of room in the 2017 budet to do that if necessary:
Keep in mind though, that breakeven here is for its capital expenditures only and does not include its dividend payments. Sill, this is pretty good progress. Just last year the company's breakeven price projection was $60 a barrel, but that was also based on $19 billion in capital spending. With only 60% of that budget committed, there is a chance that breakeven for 2017 could come down significantly depending on where oil prices are and how aggressively the company wants to pursue some of its larger investments over the next couple of years.
More production gains coming
Last year, Total blew away its integrated oil and gas competitors by posting a production gain of 9%. It appears that Total could be in line for another big bump this year as well:
We should also keep in mind that this production increase projection was before the company announced that it had won a concession contract with Qatar for the Al-Shaheen offshore field. The 25-year concession project will result in a production boost of just under 100,000 barrels per day for Total in a place where oil production is cheap in relation to other projects.
Planning for the future
Even beyond these current catalysts, Total's management is also cognizant that it needs to keep spending to grow and replace any declining production. So de la Chevardiere made a point to highlight the progress on one of its largest future projects, the Yamal LNG facility in Russia:
Clearly Yamal is going to take a lot of spending to get off the ground, but the size of Russia's gas fields and the total cacpacity of this project should make it worth it long-term as long as Total and its partners can keep the facility's construction on time and on budget. Keep an eye out over the next several quarters for more updates on this project.
The article These 5 Quotes From Total's Management Show Why It's One of the Best in Big Oil originally appeared on Fool.com.
Tyler Crowe has no position in any stocks mentioned.You can follow him at Fool.comor on Twitter@TylerCroweFool.The Motley Fool recommends Total. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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A milestone payment is a pre-determined fee smaller biotechnology companies receive from larger partners, after their collaboration project passes a specific goal. The goals, and milestone payments, typically begin small at the early clinical stages of a new drug candidate's development. Milestone payments tend to increase substantially if a candidate earns regulatory approval, and end with some percent of future sales to be paid in the form of royalties.
While that all seems fairly straightforward, milestone payments can provide several important insights for savvy biotech investors.
Milestone payments vs. upfront cash
The probability of a new drug candidate earning an FDA approval is a dismal 9.6%, after success in a phase 1 clinical trial. This is why industry slang for potential milestone payments, "biobucks" is a fairly derisive term.
When a deep-pocketed drugmaker is willing to pay upfront for rights to co-develop early stage drugs, it speaks volumes about the larger company's confidence in its partner's candidate, management, or both. For example, Celgene's upfront payment of $150 million and an equity stake inJuno Therapeuticsfor an initial payment of roughly $1 billion screamed confidence in Juno's ability to succeed.
Discover or develop?
Sometimes bigger drugmakers enter "discovery deals" that generally entail paying another company to discover potential candidates for clinical testing. It's easy for these types of deals to catch your eye with billions in biobucks, but the devil's in the details.
For example, last summer AstraZeneca gave Ionis Pharmaceuticals$65 million upfront to discover and develop an unspecified number oftherapies for treating cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Although there isn't a specific drug in clinical development, the number of potential candidates leaves Ioniseligible to receive milestone payments, and other fees, of more than $4 billion from AstraZeneca.
Before you lose your head, it's important to understand Astra must accept each candidate. It might select just one, or two, or possibly none. To collect all $4 billion would require Astra to select and develop multiple candidates and advance them all from phase 1 through commercial success.
Collecting all $4 billion in potential milestone payments from Astra under the terms of the deal isn't impossible for Ionis.Considering the overall failure rates associated with new drug development, it's pretty close.
This article is part of The Motley Fool's Knowledge Center, which was created based on the collected wisdom of a fantastic community of investors. We'd love to hear your questions, thoughts, and opinions on the Knowledge Center in general or this page in particular. Your input will help us help the world invest, better! Email us at knowledgecenter@fool.com. Thanks -- and Fool on!
The article What Is a Biotech Milestone Payment? originally appeared on Fool.com.
The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Celgene and Ionis Pharmaceuticals. The Motley Fool has the following options: short October 2016 $95 puts on Celgene. The Motley Fool recommends Juno Therapeutics. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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What:Shares of cosmetics specialistElizabeth Arden, Inc. popped 50% last month after it agreed to be acquired by rivalRevlon, Inc.. As you can see from the chart below, virtually all of Elizabeth Arden's gains came on June 17, the day of the announcement.
RDEN data by YCharts.
So what:According to the terms of the deal, Revlon will pay $14 a share for Elizabeth Arden, valuing the company at $870 million in an all-cash transaction. Revlon shares increased 7% on the news, indicating approval from both sides of the negotiating table.
The two companies called the acquisition "highly complementary," saying the new business would benefit from greater scale, expanded global footprint, and diversified presence across all major beauty categories and channels." The press release also said the two companies expect to realize cost savings of $140 million from the combination.
Now what:With Elizabeth Arden stock trading near $14 today, investors seem to be confident that the deal will go through as planned. While Arden shares had traded higher as recently as last year, the stock had plummeted since a peak in 2013 near $50 as the company's put up quarterly losses and seen sales slide. As the industry consolidates and competition intensifies, selling to Revlon looks like the best move for Elizabeth Arden. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.
The article Why Elizabeth Arden, Inc. Shares Jumped 50% in June originally appeared on Fool.com.
Jeremy Bowman has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image source: Getty Images.
What: Shares of building product company Nortek Inc. popped 40% in morning trading on Wednesday after management agreed to a buyout offer.
So what: Melrose Industries PLC has agreed to buy Nortek for $2.8 billion, including debt, or $86 per share in cash to shareholders. Melrose has created a subsidiary called Nevada Corp. that will technically merge with Nortek and then become a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.K.-based company.
The premium is big for today, but it's also an 80.4% premium based on the volume weighted average price over the past six months. Melrose is a turnaround company that has already identified supply chain and IT improvements it can make at Nortek, which is why it's willing to pay the premium.
Now what: Interestingly, shares have already zoomed higher than the offer price, trading at $87.33 per share as of 11:40 a.m. EDT. That implies that investors think a better offer from Melrose is coming.
While a higher offer could be in the works, I would take some profits today given the big premium Melrose is offering. It could back out of a deal or it could close at the current offer; both options present downsides for investors. Continuing to hold shares is risky, as a higher offer may not be in the cards with 68.7% of shareholders already planning to tender shares in the current offer.
The article Why Nortek Inc.'s Shares Jumped 40% Today originally appeared on Fool.com.
Travis Hoium has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image source: Wynn Resorts.
What: Shares of gaming operator Wynn Resorts, Limited have jumped 33% so far in 2016, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence, as investors anticipate its biggest growth project in years.
So what: Wynn Palace, the company's newest property in Macau within the Cotai region, will be a $4.1 billion expansion in the world's largest gaming market. It could also be Wynn's biggest cash generator from the day it opens in August.
Generally, there's also been more optimism about Macau's gaming market so far this year. Gaming revenue has appeared to stabilize and is down just 11.4% this year, which compares to a 37% decline at this time last year.
Now what: Cotai resorts have been the most profitable in Macau, with some generating over $1 billion in EBITDA -- a proxy for cash flow -- annually. If the past is any indication, Wynn will likely move to the top of that chart when Wynn Palace opens and that's what has investors so excited. I don't think shares look as undervalued today as they did when the year began, but if Wynn Palace performs as expected the stock still has lots of upside and a nice 2.2% dividend yield.
The article Why Wynn Resorts, Limited's Shares Are Up 33% in 2016 originally appeared on Fool.com.
Travis Hoium owns shares of Wynn Resorts. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
While presumptive Republican and Democratic presidential nominees Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton continue to engage in a war of words, Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson says hes right down the middle, of his opponents. He joined the FOX Business Networks Maria Bartiromo on Wednesday to discuss his plan for America.
The former New Mexico governor said he supports a smaller government and fewer military interventions.
Count on me to sign legislation that will simplify our tax system, that will lower taxes, he said. If I could wave a magic wand, I would abolish income tax, corporate tax, the IRS and I would replace all of it with one federal consumption tax. If that doesnt create tens of millions of jobs in this country I dont know what will.
While fiscally conservative, Johnson said he believes socially, we should be able to make choices in our own lives that only affect our own lives as long as those choices dont adversely affect others.
To fix the $19 trillion U.S. debt crisis, Johnson said he would raise the retirement age and embrace immigration in addition to reforming the tax system.
Were headed to a fiscal cliff here that when it comes to the major party candidates all theyre talking about is Trump and his business practice, Hillary and her time in government, as opposed to the issues, he said. Immigration is really a good thing. Were going to need tens of millions of immigrants to fill the jobs that will exist if we have a zero corporate tax rate.
Johnson hovers around 8% in the polls, and while he acknowledged his name is currently just an afterthought, he said he thinks hes pulling voters away from both the Trump and Clinton campaigns.
I think people right now really are looking for another alternative, he said. A two-party system is really just not representative at all of the electorate when 50% of new voters right now are saying that theyre independent.
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee raised nearly $51 million for his White House campaign in June, after he launched his first aggressive effort at raising cash, Trump's organization reported on Wednesday.
The most recent haul dwarfs the $3.1 million the Trump campaign raised in May. That low number prompted widespread concern among Republicans that the New York businessman, a newcomer to politics, would be unable to compete with Democrat Hillary Clinton's massive fundraising operation.
For this month's total, fundraising emails circulated by the campaign brought in $26 million, in addition to more than $25 million raised in conjunction with the Republican National Committee through joint fundraising events in June and the last week of May.
Trump largely self-funded his primary campaign that made him the presumptive Republican nominee for the Nov. 8 election. He personally contributed $3.8 million this month, the campaign said, which was not included in the fundraising total reported on Wednesday.
"We just started our fundraising efforts in the last week of May and we are extremely pleased with the broad-based support in the last five weeks for the Trump Campaign and Trump Victory," the campaign said in a statement.
(Reporting by Alana Wise; Editing by Frances Kerry)
FBI Director James Comey decided to not recommend legal charges against Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server not just because he believed the facts didnt warrant a case, but also because he feared any action would have a direct impact on the 2016 presidential election.
Thats the conclusion of several attorneys, many of them experts in so-called white collar criminal defenses, who have reviewed Comeys convoluted remarks made Tuesday in which he both provided a rationale for not charging Clinton and stated that the FBI uncovered evidence the former Secretary of State under President Obama may have violated laws by sending and receiving classified information through a private email account and server.
These lawyers have dealt directly with Comey and his staff in his capacities both as FBI Chief and Manhattan U.S. Attorney under former president George W. Bush.
A host of laws strictly forbid government officials from using private e-mail and servers rather than more secured government accountsand violations of these rules could result in charges up to a felony.
The paradox in Comeys decision these lawyers say can be found by parsing his language during yesterdays press conference. Comey said he chose not to charge Clinton because she showed no intent to violate the law, but the legal experts pointed to other cases where such a high bar of knowingly violating such laws did not come into play and resulted in charges against government employees, including former CIA Chief David Petraeus.
With that these attorneys say they believe Comeys decision not to charge Clinton came down to the political implications of such a move: Clinton would likely have to drop from the race, and her GOP challenger Donald Trump would gain a huge advantage in the 2016 presidential race.
They absolutely had enough to charge her, said Randy Zelin, a FOX Business Network contributor and founder of the law firm Randy Scott Zelin PC. The reason they didnt charge her is because it would be a disaster for the office and Comey knew this.
A spokesman for the FBI had no immediate comment. Comey will provide testimony on the e-mail probe on Thursday when he is scheduled to appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) said in a statement that the FBIs announcement was surprising and confusing and agreed that the evidence that Comey laid out clearly shows that Secretary Clinton violated the law.
To be sure, not all attorneys were convinced that Comeys decision was politically motivated. Veteran white-collar lawyer Stanley Arkin, who served as lead counsel during the first criminal prosecution for insider trading in 1980, said he believes the FBI Director weighed the facts including a lack of evidence such as emails or other documentsshowing Clinton intended to violate the law, which is a necessary condition for any prosecution.
The last guy to get involved with something like that would be James Comey. Hes been in law enforcement for 30 years. He heads the FBI. Hes a professional law enforcement guy with exceptional integrity,said Arkin.
But other attorneys say its unnecessary to have to prove overt intent to violate the law, as Comey suggested during his press conference on Tuesday.
They point to the legal concept of willful blindness, in which targets of investigations purposely avoid weighing the consequences of their actions, as enough to have indicted Clinton.
Ryan Blanch, founder and lead attorney at The Blanch Law Firm, said given the mountain of evidence that Clinton violated laws for receiving confidential information including her use of numerous mobile devices to view and send e-mailsa case could be made to indict unless the prosecutor is worried about the political impact.
If you move to prosecute you may end up with Donald Trump as president, Blanch said. With cases like that, sometimes it comes down to political favoritism.
Indeed, lawyers interviewed by the FOX Business Network say the entire e-mail investigation which began as an outgrowth of the House of Representatives investigation into the Benghazi terrorist attack-was political from the outset. It was being conducted not by a special prosecutor, but by President Obamas Justice Department on his partys presumptive presidential nominee.
Meanwhile, Comeys decision became even more politicized when, only a week earlier, former President Bill Clinton had an impromptu meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch. After news of the meeting broke, Lynch said she would defer the decision on the e-mail probe to Comey. Today, she accepted Comeys recommendation and will not bring charges against Hillary Clinton.
But Zelin believes the meeting had an impact on Comeys decision. While the FBI Chief is appointed by the president, he also reports to Lynch in her role as head of the Justice Department.
I think that Bill Clinton did exactly what he did for a very specific reason, Zelin said. It was no accident he went on that plane. He knew full well that if Loretta gave him an audience, his wife wouldnt be convicted. The second she sat down with him and they talked, it was over.
Weeks after the Orlando shooting, Matt Damon is speaking out on gun control.
The 45-year-old actor opened up to The Sydney Morning Herald while promoting his new film, "Jason Bourne," where he stated that he wishes the U.S. would follow Australia's lead in implementing strict gun control legislation.
WATCH: Matt Damon Gets Political in Passionate MIT Commencement Speech
"You guys did it here in one fell swoop and I wish that could happen in my country, but it's such a personal issue for people that we cannot talk about it sensibly. We just can't," Damon told the newspaper.
"People get so emotional that even when you make a suggestion about not selling AK-47s to people on terror watch lists, that's a non-starter," he explained. "I don't know what needs to happen. Obviously mass shootings aren't going to do it. There have been so many of them at this point. Sandy Hook, when those children were murdered, if that didn't do it, you know, I just don't know. Maybe we just need to evolve further before we can have that conversation, I don't know."
"It's wonderful what Australia did because you guys haven't had a mass shooting since you went, 'No, we're going to be sensible about this.' And nobody's rights have been infringed, you guys are all fine," "The Martian" star said, before adding that he sadly doesn't believe gun reform will happen in his lifetime.
WATCH: Late Night Hosts Respond to Orlando Shooting with Anger, Love and Cries for Gun Control
Damon isn't the only actor in Hollywood taking up the cause of gun control.
Danny DeVito opened up to ET's Ashley Crossan just two days after the Orlando massacre, and revealed how heartbroken he was about the shooting, and outraged that the gunman used a weapon originally designed for U.S. Special Operations forces.
"I can't get over itIt's a gun that we shouldn't have in our country. It's one thing to have a hunting rifle or a target pistol, but this gun is just made to butcher people. It's an awful, awful thing, and we just let it go. You and I and everybody out there, we have to figure out a way to stop them," the 71-year-old actor pleaded.
"The only people who can get rid of the guns are people. We can go march in the streets and say, 'This can't be.' We can't let this continue," he said.
MORE: President Barack Obama Breaks Down in Tears While Announcing Plan for Gun Control
A pair of Russian twins who were born joined at the midriff and sharing a single liver have been successfully separated after a 10-hour surgery that involved 20 surgeons. Alisa and Alina were born weighing a combined 12 lbs., 8 oz., in May in Novosibirsk in Russias south-central Novosibirsk Oblast region, Central European News (CEN) reported.
The surgery to separate the girls took place at the Moscow Filatov Hospital, which has successfully separate two other pairs of conjoined twins, CEN reported. Chief surgeon Alexander Razumovsky told the news agency the girls are doing well and suffered no complications during the procedure.
The doctors were afraid that they might harm the girls liver. It could have been fatal for them, Irina Vladimirovna, a hospital spokeswoman, told CEN.
However, Razumovsky said the only difficulty anaesthetists faced was that the girls shared a cardiovascular system.
It is not yet known when the girls will be released from the hospital.
Drug company giant Pfizer is expected to announce Wednesday that it has agreed to a written code of conduct for the marketing of opioids that will disclose the risks of addiction and long-term use. Officials are optimistic that the move will help set standards for other manufacturers of narcotics and help curb the use of addictive painkillers, The Washington Post reported.
As part of an agreement with the city of Chicago, Pfizer will also acknowledge there is no solid research on opioids effectiveness past 12 weeks of use, and has promised not to promote the use of painkillers for off-label use, The Washington Post reported. Two years ago, Chicago sued five other opioid manufacturers over alleged misleading marketing of opioids. Embeda is currently the only opioid Pfizer actively promotes.
According to the report, the Pfizer said in a statement that it was pleased to work with the city of Chicago to help address the serious problem of prescription opioid abuse. We support efforts that encourage the safe use and appropriate prescribing of opioids, the companys statement said, according to The Washington Post.
Chicagos corporation counsel Stephen R. Patton said it hopes the agreement is trailblazing, and will set the bar for others in this industry. Patton told The Washington Post that Chicago filed the lawsuit because it believes drug manufacturers have continued to use deceptive tactics since Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to misleading physicians, regulators and the public about Oxycontin in 3007, but has adapted more subtle methods through third parties or front groups.
According for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), opioids, including painkillers and heroin, killed more than 28,000 people in 2014, with more than half of all overdose deaths involving a prescription opioid.
An investigation into sexual abuse by U.S. doctors has found that since 1999, more than 3,100 physicians have been disciplined for sexual misconduct, and, of those, 2,400 sexually abused their patients and half of those doctors still are licensed to practice medicine.
That reality, unveiled in a scathing report by The Atlanta-Journal Constitution (AJC), leaves countless people at risk and stems from what experts view as a broken system that values doctors worth over patients well-being.
The AJC reviewed more than 100,000 disciplinary documents and other records from across the United States. Staff identified documented cases in every state. Sexual assault cases ranged from doctors molesting patients while under anesthesia and masturbation of the doctor in front of the patient, to exchanging drugs for sex and even rape. Doctors still allowed to practice included those who were reprimanded for public indecency and child pornography.
In every case, doctors either admitted their wrongdoing to state medical boards, or authorities believed patients accusations after investigating, the AJC reported.
A culture of secrecy distinct from that of schools and childrens groups has generally compelled authorities to look the other way when patients accuse doctors of such crimes, the AJC reported, and trust of doctors and value of patient privacy has made it challenging for the public and medical community to know the potential extent of physician sexual abuse.
There just isnt accurate data, Dr. Gene Abel, an Atlanta physician, an expert in evaluating sexual misconduct by professionals, told the AJC.
In part, the problem lies in states desire for return on investment, Larry Dixon, the executive director of the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners, suggested to the newspaper.
If you graduate a class of more than 100 people out of the University of Alabama medical school, the resources that have been poured into that education almost demand that you try to salvage that physician if its possible, Dixon, who has led the Alabama board for 35 years, told the AJC.
In some states, like Kentucky, doctors whose licenses are revoked by the state medical board can legally petition for reinstatement two years later.
The newspaper likened the U.S. doctor sexual abuse scandal to that of the Catholic priest scandal: While the majority of the nations doctors dont sexually abuse patients, it may happen more often than people suspect.
We are so reliant on them, we are so helpless and vulnerable and literally in pain often times when we go in there. We just have to trust them, David Clohessy, executive director of SNAP, a group that supports and advocates for people sexually abused by priests, doctors and other professionals, told the AJC. So when they cross the boundary and their hands go into the wrong places, we are in shock, we are paralyzed, were confused, were scared. We just do not want to believe, first of all, that a doctor is capable of this.
Since the beginning of this year, the Armed Forces of Ukraine has received international aid worth about $60 million, chief of the military cooperation and peacekeeping operations department of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Leonid Holopatiuk has said.
"This amount includes technical assistance from the United States worth more than $53 million, humanitarian aid (medical and logistical assets) account for some $7 million," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday.
He noted that in 2014-2015 Ukraine received international technical assistance totaling $57 million.
"In 2014-2015, the Ukrainian Armed Forces received aid from 20 countries, in particular technical assistance in the amount of around $57 million. These include night vision devices and communications equipment, demining equipment, automotive equipment, and counter-battery radars," he said.
Holopatiuk also said that the Ukrainian army received humanitarian assistance worth about $46 million.
The representative of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said that most of the assistance came from the United States, Canada, the UK and Lithuania.
Why arent both parties jumping at the chance to offer the new jobs and economic growth that a common-sense infrastructure proposal would bring? With economic activity weak, confidence ebbing and monetary policy all but exhausted, a voter cant be faulted for asking this question. Upgrading our countrys crumbling infrastructure is tangible and forward-thinking fiscal policy.
House Speaker Paul Ryan is rolling out a six-point GOP legislative agenda that unfortunately omits any mention of such infrastructure investment. In my view, without such investment both parties put in jeopardy achieving many other elements of their platforms.
Both presumptive nominees still have an opportunity to shape the next Congress legislative agenda. By taking on the cause of infrastructure repair and upgrade, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump could demonstrate their clear understanding of some of our countrys economic problems and the common-sense, economic solution that has material bipartisan support. Each could signal willingness to fight on all Americans behalf against the wrongheaded thinking that considers such investment wasteful.
Some object to such funding because they equate it with stimulus spending that offers no sustainable benefit and increases the federal deficit. In truth, infrastructure investment increases economic activity, leads to higher incomes and generates a decades-long rise in tax revenues sufficient not only to satisfy, with interest, the debt initially incurred, but also to generate profit. Once begun, long-lived projects could also bolster confidence and spur private investment and consumption.
Commendably, Clinton has offered a comprehensive infrastructure plan and has committed to submitting it to Congress within her first hundred days in office. In addition, the Democratic Party has just released a draft of its 2016 platform, which includes infrastructure investment https://demconvention.com/platform/. With this infrastructure plank in place, voters could realistically expect a Clinton administration and Democrats in Congress to get behind a major and economically critical initiative. However, the Democrats do not currently hold either the House or the Senate, which could put a damper on or even derail a Clinton proposal. Republican opposition in Congress could still prevent passage of such an initiative.
Trump, on the other hand, could have Republican majorities in both chambers and, as president, might secure the necessary votes (across party lines) to get such legislation passed. The sticking point: He has not yet offered a comprehensive plan or consistently advocated for such a plan.
If Republicans make him their standard-bearer and if he were to develop such a proposal, I, a registered independent in New York, would take note, as I suspect would many other voters. Trump has a track record of completing major projects, taking into account cost and timeliness. Were he also to fight hard for his plan during the general election, he could widen his electoral appeal.
Clinton and Trump are currently in a statistical dead heat in many swing states, including Ohio and Pennsylvania. A credible, major new infrastructure policy proposal, promising jobs, could further expand their support in these important battleground states. Which one will successfully campaign to make infrastructure investment a cornerstone of U.S. domestic policy initiatives?
Every week, Fox News contributor Karl Rove wraps up the last week in politics and offers an inside look at the week ahead.
This is not over: Hillary Clinton may think the issue of her email server is over because no one was indicted, but its not.
In a lengthy 2,314-word statement, FBI Director James Comey found Clinton guilty of lying in every major claim she made to the American people, but then he inexplicably failed to indict her.
Clinton has said what she did was permitted or allowed, but Comey offered no support for her claim. He castigated her and her close aides for being extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.
Clinton said she never sent or received classified information, but Comey found 110 emails contained information that was classified at the time they were sent through Clintons private server. Clinton should have known that an unclassified system was no place for those kind of messages, he said.
As to the 2,000 emails that contained information that was subsequently classified, Comey said even if sensitive information is not marked classified in an email, Clinton and her staff should know better and were still obligated to protect it.
Clinton said her private server was not hacked, but Comey said we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clintons personal email account.
Hostile actors gained access to the private commercial email accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account, Comey said. Secretary Clintons use of a personal email domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent, and Clinton used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries.
Clinton said she turned over all her official emails after a careful review of all of them, but Comey said the FBI discovered several thousand work-related emails by searching the computers of State Department employees and others who corresponded with Clinton and her aides. Comey explained that Clintons lawyers relied on header information and used search terms and did not review each message, missing potentially thousands of official emails.
In short, Hillary Clinton has lied about this from the beginning.
Most voters see Clinton as untrustworthy and dishonest. She and her husband appear to think the rules (or in this case, the laws) dont apply to them. Both these problems got worse last week. It didnt help that Bill Clinton barged onto Attorney General Loretta Lynchs plane Monday while it was parked at a Phoenix airport and stayed 30 minutes. Like that didnt look fishy!
And it wasnt smart for Team Clinton to leak to the New York Times that Hillary is considering keeping Lynch on as AG if she wins the White House. Like that doesnt seem like a payoff.
Stay on this channel or change? The question is whether these issues will occupy more of the public dialogue in the final week before the Republican National Convention. The answer to that lies in the hands of Team Trump.
On Saturday The Donald tweeted, it is impossible for the FBI not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton. What she did was wrong. Twitter has lots of commendable features, but its 140-character brevity is a problem in this instance.
Team Trump is better off prosecuting this issue in detail, rather than jumping to the end of the argument. That is to say, Trump would be better off warming up the teleprompter and systematically working his way through what Clinton did and why it was wrong, and excoriating her for her recklessness with the nations secrets.
The Trump campaign (and the candidate) act like everyone knows as much as they do about this issue and theres no need to methodically explore Clintons misrepresentations, evasions and lies. But many swing voters would welcome hearing the case litigated in depth.
Nor is this the only issue worth pursuing: Last weeks report by the House Select Committee on Benghazi reminded Americans that Secretary Clinton and a top deputy refused numerous requests from Ambassador Chris Stevens to increase security for the Libyan mission and that the Obama administration did not deploy any military assets during the 13-hour terrorist attack that cost four Americans their lives.
The report was another reminder to voters that Clinton lied, first to the nation and then to the parents of the four dead Americans, by claiming the attack was spontaneous, inspired by an anti-Muslim web video. She knew this was untrue, but with the U.S. presidential election less than two months away, she didnt want to admit it was a terrorist attack.
Again, more detail is better than a sound bite, and staging matters. Just as Clinton was wise to go to Atlantic City this week to continue her attacks on Trumps business record, Team Trump must be concerned about staging, backdrops and supportive voices.
Does he need the money or not? This week will also see whether the Trump campaigns new expanded finance operation and the campaigns belated use of internet fundraising solicitations increase the campaigns fundraising. In May, Trump raised just over $3 million, while Clinton raised $26 million. At the start of June, her campaign had $42 million cash on hand; his had $1.3 million. The Trump campaign says money has been pouring in during the last week, much of it from email appeals signed by the candidate and his son, Eric.
Trump doesnt help his fundraising requests by saying, as he did last Wednesday, I dont even know why I need so much money, and explaining, I go around. I make speeches. I dont even need commercials. The presumptive Republican nominee is betting that weeks of unanswered television ads in battleground states will either have no impact or can be offset by campaign speeches alone. He may be right, but he would be the first presidential candidate to win that dangerous bet.
Hed be better off admitting that while he may not need as much money as Clinton, he needs to have sufficient funds to mount a strong campaign, and that hes willing to put in a significant amount of his own money and hopes people will match his largesse with their personal contributions.
VEEP! Unless he plans to unveil his running mate at the convention itself, as George H.W. Bush did in 1992 with Sen. Dan Quayle, this is the week for Trump to announce his vice presidential pick. Then again, Hillary might steal The Donalds spotlight by naming her pick late this week, too. Either way, both campaigns will spend a considerable amount of their time this week coming to their conclusions on this important decision.
Discoveries in biblical archaeology occur almost daily. Along with many other archaeological findings in 2015 validating the Bibles truth, a burnt ancient scroll excavated from the Torah ark of a Bzyantine-era synagogue in Israel has been deciphered to contain verses from the book of Leviticus making this the oldest Hebrew Bible scroll since the Dead Sea Scrolls.
As an apologetics (i.e., Bible-defending) ministry, we have been sadly observing that, although there are many more examples of biblical texts found in archaeological excavations than any other book, society continues to deny the Bibles historicity for what it is the most comprehensive primary source historical document chronicling the ancient world.
What was formerly a staple in American classrooms, the Bible is now one of the most commonly challenged books, often facing fierce scrutiny and being opposed by many parents, teachers, and secularists.
A 2014 study by Gallup found that 75 percent of Americans believe the Bible is in some way connected to God, only a startling 28 percent of Americans believe the Bible is the actual word of God and that is to be taken literally. What is even more frightening is that 21 percent of Americans view the Bible as ancient fables, legends, history, and precepts written by man, up from 13 percent in the 1970s.
While these statistics are disturbing, they should not come as a surprise for those of us who have read the book. The anti-intellectual sentiment toward the Bible and its divine nature is not new. The Apostle Paul faced the same adversity in the New Testament with the Greeks that we face today with secularists.
We should be moved to counter this trend of trying to debunk the Bible as the true Word of God and historical account of His people, starting with its very first book, Genesis. This is one reason were building the Ark Encounter in Northern Kentucky. It will be a life-size reminder, with a 510-foot-long Ark as its centerpiece, to the truth of Gods Word and His involvement in the affairs of humanity.
We will powerfully show that, just as the account of Noahs flood did actually happen, so did the rest of what we read in the scriptures especially the gospel message preached by Christ in the New Testament. We hope to inspire a return to and a respect for the Bible as relevant for our culture today.
Author's note: The Ark Encounter opens on July 7, 2016. You can order your tickets at ArkEncounter.com to be among the first to visit the full-size ark.
A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that work-related emails from a private account used by the White House's top science adviser are subject to disclosure under federal open records laws.
The ruling from the three-judge panel is a win for government watchdog groups and media organizations concerned that public officials may be skirting public disclosure requirements by relying on private email.
The court sided with a conservative think tank that had filed a lawsuit seeking emails from John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The decision overturns a lower court judge that said Holdren's office did not have to comply with the Freedom of Information Act request from the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected the Obama administration's argument that emails on a private server were outside the government's control. The court said the agency does not necessarily have to disclose the emails, but must search through them and determine whether any are subject to public disclosure requirements. It sent the case back to the lower court to make that determination.
Media organizations including The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post and the American Society of News Editors have backed the lawsuit.
The ruling came on the same day that the FBI announced it would not seek criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server while she served as secretary of state. While it does not mention Clinton's case, the decision could help conservative groups that have filed a separate civil lawsuit against the State Department over the agency's failure to turn over files from Clinton's private server under the Freedom of Information Act.
The dispute over Holdren involved emails he sent and received on an account run by the Woods Hole Research Center, a nonprofit climate change think tank based in Falmouth, Mass.
Writing for the court, Judge David Sentelle said there was no evidence that the private center had any control of the content of Holdren's emails just because he used the center's email system.
Sentelle said the ruling serves the purpose of federal open records laws, which help the public keep track of what the government is doing.
"If a department head can deprive the citizens of their right to know what his department is up to by the simple expedient of maintaining his departmental emails on an account in another domain, that purpose is hardly served," he said.
In the space of 15 minutes, James Comeys decision on Hillary Clinton produced an outpouring of fierce partisanship, not just on cable news but on Twitter.
For one side, Comey, a Republican, was a sellout who was part of a rigged system and caved to pressure to give Hillary Clinton the jail term she so richly deserves. For the other side, Comey decimated the trumped-up charges but went beyond the bounds of an FBI directors job by blasting her bad judgment in front of the cameras.
Its true that prosecutors dont usually do that, but as Comey said, this is an extraordinary case that demands transparency.
And anyone (say, journalists) who didnt paint the FBI chief as a villain or an angel was trashed along with him.
Heres a quick look at some of the insta-punditry.
On the right, National Reviews David Frenchthe guy who seriously contemplated a third-party bid to stop Donald Trumpsaid this:
Rarely have 30 minutes of television so perfectly encapsulated the decline and fall of the rule of law and the extraordinary privileges enjoyed by Americas liberal elite. After listing abuse after abuse and detailing lie after lie Comey declared that no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute Hillary for her obvious and manifest crimes. Its good to be a Clinton.
Andrew McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney who also writes for National Review, challenged Comeys judgment:
In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence.
Another conservative, John Ziegler, who was once aligned with Sarah Palin, offered a dissenting view:
As a conservative, I know that I am supposed to believe that Hillary Clinton is the most corrupt human of all time and that she clearly committed crimes with regard to her private email server and classified information (after all, the conservative media has told me so and they are never wrong). However, I found FBI Director James Comeys dramatic statement and decision on this matter, explaining why no charges will be recommended, to be worthy of praise.
Comey explained his position very clearly and without any obvious bias. He seemed to be extremely well-informed of the issues of the case. He made numerous statements condemning Hillary Clinton that could not have made his boss happy and which made it apparent, contrary to prior statements from Donald Trump, that the fix was not in. His decision to not recommend an indictment seems based on facts, logic and precedent, just as any conservative should hope it would be, regardless of the subject.
The mainstream media verdict, furnished here by the Washington Posts Chris Cillizza, is that this wasnt a great day for the Democratic nominee:
Here's the good news for Hillary Clinton: The FBI has recommended no charges be brought following its investigation of the former secretary of state's private email server.
Here's the bad news: Just about everything else
It's hard to read Comey's statement as anything other than a wholesale rebuke of the story Clinton and her campaign team have been telling ever since the existence of her private email server came to light in spring 2015.
And a prominent New York Times piece is headlined, "FBI's Critique of Hillary Clinton Is a Ready-Made Attack Ad."
From the left, the New Republics Brian Beutler scolds Comey while recognizing the damage to Clinton:
By all outward appearances, Comeys statement was inspired less by a deep commitment to the publics right-to-know than by a territorial instinct for bureaucratic turf protection: giving voice, perhaps, to FBI officials who feel the State Department ran roughshod over them; insulating the bureau from inevitable allegations that its investigation and attendant recommendation were fixed.
The result is a public relations disaster for Clinton: Republicans will air footage of Barack Obamas FBI director (a Republican, but an Obama appointee nonetheless) calling Clinton reckless on camera thousands and thousands of times between now and November.
In the end, James Comey issued a non-legal indictment against Hillary Clinton, accusing her of recklessness in mishandling classified information while concluding that no criminal charges should be brought.
I am going to approach the subject as a former Justice Department reporter who has covered every special prosecutors investigation in recent decadesnot as a partisan who either believes that Clinton did nothing wrong or that she should already be behind bars.
The key sentence in Comeys announcement yesterday is that despite the evidence uncovered by the bureau, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.
I dont agree with that. The former federal prosecutor laid out layers of facts that could have supported an indictment. The gross negligence in using her private email to send classified informationin direct contradiction of what the candidate has claimedcould have amounted to one or more criminal charges.
I also believe there was a higher bar with Clinton as the target. Thats not to say that Comey succumbed to political pressure, as he insists he did not. But a decision to indict Clinton would have knocked her out of the presidential race. In that kind of circumstance, a close call goes to the high-profile target.
Much of the reaction turns on whether Comeys reputation as a straight shooterhe was deputy attorney general in the Bush administration before President Obama tapped him for the FBIcarries sufficient weight. None of us has seen the voluminous evidence compiled by the bureau, culminating in Saturdays interview of Clintondays after that spectacularly wrong-headed meeting between her husband and Loretta Lynch.
Donald Trump wasted little time in tweeting: The system is rigged. General Petraeus got in trouble for far less. Very very unfair! As usual, bad judgment. Of course, Trump anticipated the outcome by declaring the system rigged last week, and has said that her offenses are such that she shouldnt even be allowed to run.
Its no accident that Comey front-loaded his remarks with paragraph after paragraph of criticism before announcing that Clinton would not be charged.
Among other things, Comey blew away Clintons repeated insistence that she never sent nor received classified information. To wit:
Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is information that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. And: Even if information is not marked classified in an email, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.
In fact, the FBI found 110 emails in 52 separate chains that were classified when they were sent or received. And intent does not matter when it comes to bringing charges.
Comey did say he found no deliberate effort to destroy emails, beyond routine maintenance, but that some of those that were deleted will never be recovered.
And while the bureau uncovered no hard evidence that foreign entities had hacked Clintons private server, Comey said it was quite possible, and that the hackers could have covered their tracks.
Clintons campaign said it was pleased with the outcome and reiterated that using the private server was a mistakethough she spent months denying that after the New York Times broke the story last year.
By branding Clinton extremely careless, Comey has handed Trump, the Republicans and other Hillary detractors ample ammunition. Indeed, the RNC called the bureaus findings a glaring indictment of Hillary Clintons complete lack of judgment, honesty and preparedness to be our next commander-in-chief.
It is, as I said, an indictment in all but the criminal sense.
As for any punishment, Hillary Clinton will not have to go to court. But she will be tried this fall in the court of public opinion.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said late Tuesday that the Director of National Intelligence should "block" Hillary Clinton from receiving classified briefings after the Democratic National Convention.
In an interview with Fox News' Megyn Kelly, Ryan recalled receiving weekly CIA briefings as Mitt Romney's running mate in 2012 and said Clinton should not be given such information "given how recklessly she handled this."
"She grossly was negligent, she mishandled classified information and now she wants to be commander-in-chief," Ryan said.
Ryan said FBI Director James Comey's decision not to pursue charges against Clinton for mishandling classified information while secretary of state was "one of the reasons why people are dissatisified about government" and "certainly does underscore the belief that the Clintons live above the law," Ryan said.
The Speaker added that Comey's statement on Tuesday morning "shredded the things [Clinton] had been saying all year long in her defense" and called on the FBI to release its full findings in the case.
Referring to Comey's announcement, Ryan said the FBI director "spent a number of minutes walking through how she mishandled classified information, only then he recommended against prosecution."
"People have been convicted for far less."
Donald Trump on Wednesday defended himself against Democratic rival Hillary Clintons focused attack on his business record, saying shes merely trying to avoid explaining her lies during the FBI investigation into her private email-server system.
She just wants to get off the subject of all the lies she told, Trump said on Fox News The Real Story.
Trump, speaking by phone from Atlantic City, N.J., responded shortly after Clinton stood outside a shuttered Trump hotel on the Atlantic City boardwalk and accused the presumptive Republican presidential nominee of making millions in the resort town then leaving its residents and small businesses for broke.
He bankrupted his companies four times, Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said in a roughly 15-minutes speech that focused solely on Trumps business record. When this casino collapsed, hundreds of people lost their jobs. Contractors, small businesses took heavy losses. But Trump, he walked away with millions.
Trump, as he has previously argued, said he was part of Atlantic Citys revival in the 1990s and that local Democratic lawmakers killed it with bad decisions, including one to build an airport roughly 10 miles from the casino resort.
I created thousands and thousands of jobs, Trump told Fox News. I left seven years ago. Its sad what happened to Atlantic City.
In response to Clintons argument that Trump businesses have relied on other countries to make his goods, he said China and other countries have devalued their currencies so much that U.S. companies have to rely on overseas manufacturers.
They make it impossible for countries to compete, Trump said.
On Tuesday, FBI Director James Comey said Clinton was extremely careless in her use of the private server system while secretary of state but that the agency would not recommend criminal charges in the case.
Trump on Wednesday again said the Comey recommendation proves the system is totally rigged.
She certainly is not trustworthy, Trump said of Clinton. She lies. I cannot see how you give her confidential information.
In Atlantic City, Clinton also said, Businesses did bad here because Donald Trump acted irresponsibly. What he did is exactly whats he would do after November.
Within minutes of Clintons speech, Trump issued a statement defending his record in the resort-casino town.
Nobody understands the economy like I do, Trump said. And no one, especially not Crooked Hillary Clinton, will do more for the economy than I will. I want to bring jobs back to America, while Hillary Clinton wants to get elected to enrich herself with power at the expense of the people.
The exchanges between Clinton and Trump have intensified since the Comey announcement.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch is expected to accept Comey's recommendations. Comey, meanwhile, has agreed to testify Thursday before a House committee convening to look at his decision.
Comey let Clinton off the hook, Trump said after the directors announcement. The fix was final. The Obama administration's anointed successor has had an indictment removed from her path and will now be able to glide to the rigged Democrat nomination.
Clinton said Wednesday that Trumps actions are personal to me, considering her father put her through college as a small-business man.
Before Clintons appearance in Atlantic City, her campaign released a new web video titled: Who got hurt? in which Clinton claims Trumps record in Atlantic City was marred by bankruptcies, job losses and small businesses and contractors not being paid in full, "all while Trump made millions.
Clinton campaigned Wednesday near the Trump Taj Mahal casino, which now belongs to Trumps friend, business magnate Carl Icahn -- who took control of the casino in March after rescuing it from bankruptcy court. Workers have been on strike since Friday over health care benefits, but several striking workers told The Associated Press their grievance was with Icahn, not Trump who has no involvement with the casinos operations.
A Wall Street Journal report in January found that Trump made a net profit of $160 million in the area between 1990 and 1996 through feeds and other payouts from casinos, even as they went through bankruptcy-court proceedings. He also took out profits from Atlantic City in the 1980s, late '90s and early 2000s.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
FBI Director James Comey will explain Thursday to House lawmakers his bombshell decision not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton over her handling of sensitive emails.
Comey, who took no questions after announcing his decision Tuesday, agreed to go before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee after several lawmakers sought an explanation. In saying he would not press the Justice Department to pursue an indictment against the likely Democrat nominee for president, Comey nonetheless laid out a strong case that she had violated laws regulating government employees' safeguarding of sensitive emails.
The FBI's recommendation is surprising and confusing," Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said. "The fact pattern presented by Director Comey makes clear Secretary Clinton violated the law. Individuals who intentionally skirt the law must be held accountable. Congress and the American people have a right to understand the depth and breadth of the FBI's investigation."
Comey said 110 emails in 52 email chains discovered on Clintons unauthorized server were classified at the time they were sent or received, including some that were top secret. He also said that while the probe did not prove Clinton's server was hacked, it may have been - and he pointedly noted that she used unsecure devices while visiting countries hostile to the U.S.
In addition to Chaffetz, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., wrote the FBI director demanding to know how he justified his decision.
House and Senate judiciary committees could also seek testimony from Comey and his boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Lynch was already slated to testify next Tuesday at a House Oversight Committee hearing where Fox News has learned she will be questioned about the email investigation, and possibly her secret meeting with former President Bill Clinton just days before her department dropped the email case against the former first lady.
Comey's decision was seen in many quarters as a punt. By branding Clinton's use of unauthorized servers to send and receive sensitive -- and in some cases top secret -- information as "extremely careless," Comey gave Clinton's critics plenty of ammunition.
By stopping short of referring the results of his bureau's year-long probe to the Attorney General to pursue an indictment, Comey may have removed the biggest obstacle in Clinton's path to the White House.
Our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case, Comey said.
The development leaves it to the voters -- especially those who remain undecided -- to decide whether they believe Clinton did nothing criminal in her handling of emails while secretary of state or whether it just becomes another questionable chapter in the Clinton political saga that has spanned a quarter century that both she and her husband seem able to survive.
Johnson, who chairs the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, fired off a letter to Comey hours after the 13-minute news conference demanding answers to a series of questions. Among them, Johnson asked how many agents worked on the case, how much taxpayer money was spent on it and, perhaps more significantly, how Comey arrived at his conclusion.
If the evidence that the FBI collected about Secretary Clintons use of a private email account and server did not constitute gross negligence, what set of facts would cause the FBI to recommend criminal charges under the gross negligence standard? Johnson wrote.
Johnson recounted the statement, in which the FBI director detailed what he called extremely careless handling of sensitive government emails, and said the bureau could not be sure Clintons server was not hacked and even added that government employees who behaved similarly could expect to be sanctioned.
Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, also wrote Comey and detailed several other cases in which lower-ranking government employees have been prosecuted for mishandling sensitive information.
"I find the timing and manner of your announcement uniquely troubling in light of last week's secret meeting between Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton," Goodlatte wrote.
Goodlatte and Johnson both noted that one of the statutes Clinton was suspected of violating does not require criminal intent. The law is written to impose an obligation on government employees to safeguard sensitive documents, and thus requires a finding of gross negiligence.
Trump is already using Comey's words to blast Clinton, even as he faults the FBI director for not pursuing the case.
Comey let Clinton off the hook, Trump said in a statement.
Fox News' Malia Zimmerman and Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
President Obama announced Wednesday that he will keep roughly 3,000 more U.S. troops in Afghanistan than previously announced prolonging Americas role in a war that already has lasted more than a decade.
Obama said he will leave around 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan when he leaves office in January.
"The Taliban remains a threat," Obama said from the Roosevelt Room with Defense Secretary Ash Carter and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Joseph Dunford.
Obama had planned to drop troop levels to 5,500 troops, from 9,800, by the end of 2016. But Taliban resurgence has forced a reconsideration of his administration's exit strategy.
Obama said he made the decision after receiving recommendations from top military leaders who urged him to revise his earlier plan. He said boosting the planned troops levels would help U.S. allies prepare their own contribution to the fight in Afghanistan and would help the next president make good decisions about the future of U.S. involvement in the country where America has been fighting since 2001.
"The decision I'm making today ensures that my successor has a solid foundation for progress in Afghanistan, as well as the flexibility to address the threat of terrorism as it evolves," Obama said.
He added, "l firmly believe the decision I'm announcing is the right thing to do."
Obama said the U.S. mission would remain narrowly focused on "training and advising" Afghan forces and supporting counterterrorism operations against the remnants of al-Qaida, the group that attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11.
"We are no longer engaged in a major ground war in Afghanistan," he said. Still, he said, Americans serving in their more limited missions there still face serious dangers.
Last month a group of more than a dozen former U.S. ambassadors and former commanders of U.S. forces in Afghanistan wrote to Obama urging that he sustain the current level of U.S. troops through the remainder of his term in office. They included Gen. John F. Campbell, who had been the top U.S. commander in Kabul until four months ago, and retired Gen. David Petraeus.
"Unless emergency conditions require consideration of a modest increase, we would strongly favor a freeze at the level of roughly 10,000 U.S. troops through January 30," they wrote in a June 1 letter. "This approach would allow your successor to assess for herself or himself and make further adjustments accordingly."
Obama's announcement will help shape his legacy. A president who came into office promising to end the wars he inherited, has instead found himself wrestling with continued conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan and new conflicts in Syria and Libya.
Obama's announcement comes a day before he heads to a NATO summit in Poland, where Afghanistan is high on the agenda.
Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A Louisiana congressman called on the Justice Department Wednesday to open up an investigation into an officer-involved shooting death of a man outside a Baton Rouge convenience store.
An autopsy showed Tuesday that 37-year-old Alton Sterling, of Baton Rouge, died after suffering multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back during an altercation with police, East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Dr. William Clark said.
Rep. Cedric Richmond, a Democrat, called the shooting deeply troubling and has understandably evoked strong emotion and anger in our community.
There are a number of unanswered questions surrounding Mr. Sterling's death. Including questions about the initial calls for police presence, the level of force used by officers, the verbal and physical altercation, and the response of the officers after he was shot, he added. I call on the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct a full and transparent investigation into this incident. The cause of justice requires state and local law enforcement to join in this request as soon as possible.
Richmond continued, asking the residents of the Baton Rouge community to demonstrate our anger with dignity and demanding proper focus on our cause with perseverance.
Officers responded to a convenience store at about 12:35 a.m. Tuesday after an anonymous call indicated a man selling music CDs and wearing a red shirt threatened him with a gun, Cpl. LJean McKneely said.
Two officers responded and had some type of altercation with the man and one officer shot and killed the suspect, McKneely said. Both officers have been placed on administrative leave, which is standard department policy, he said.
The store's owner, Abdul Muflahi, told WAFB-TV that the first officer used a Taser on Sterling and the second officer tackled the man. Muflahi said as Sterling fought to get the officer off of him, the first officer shot him "four to six times."
The owner said Sterling did not have a gun in his hand at the time but he saw officers remove a gun from Sterling's pocket after the shooting.
McKneely said late Tuesday that he could not confirm Muflahi's description of the alleged event or any other details of the investigation.
The Advocate reported a crowd of people protesting the shooting gathered late Tuesday afternoon at the store where it took place. The group grew to over 200 people, who chanted and waved signs late into the night, according to the newspaper.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ukraine has incorporated new adverse limitations on transit shipments, which have been introduced by Russia as of the second half of 2016, onto the agenda of a second meeting of the association committee under the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement.
"[We've] called on the EU to increase pressure on the Russian Federation for the immediate cancellation of the limitations on the transit shipments," Deputy Minister for Economic Development and Trade and Trade Representative Nataliya Mykolska tweeted amid the meeting on Wednesday.
Prior to the meeting, First Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv and his deputy, trade representative Nataliya Mykolska, met with Kazakhstan's Ambassador to Ukraine Samat Ordabayev in Kyiv on Tuesday to find the way out of the critical situation around Ukrainian transit shipments after Russia had set new trade barriers.
Russia's groundless economic measures translated into a 47.9% reduction in Ukrainian exports to Kazakhstan in January-April 2016 year-over-year, the ministry said.
The Republican-controlled Senate failed Wednesday to advance efforts to change federal immigration law -- including one to cut funding to so-called sanctuary cities.
The vote was 53-44, failing to get the minimum 60 votes to begin debate on the issue.
The measure attempted to block congressional funding for sanctuary cities -- municipalities that ban police from cooperating with immigration officials to potentially deport illegal immigrants.
Senate Republicans also failed to get enough votes to advance their proposed Kates Law named after Kate Steinle, who was fatally shot in July 2015, allegedly by an illegal immigrant who had multiple felony convictions and was deported several times prior to the incident.
How many times does this have to happen? Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Pat Toomey asked just before the 55-42 vote that failed along party lines. At some point, a person needs to go to jail. Thats what Kates Law does.
However, Democrats strongly opposed the measures.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said they put presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trumps ant-immigration rhetoric into action.
These bills follow Trumps lead in demonizing, criminalizing immigrant, Latino families, the Nevada Democrat said before the votes.
In addition, the White House issued a statement after the vote on Kates Law, in part saying: The bill fails to offer the comprehensive reforms needed to fix the Nation's broken immigration laws and would impose severe and unprecedented mandatory minimum sentences that would undermine the discretion of federal judges to make sure the punishment fits the crime in each case.
Steinle was walking with her father on a San Francisco pier when Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez allegedly fatally shot her. Steinle was 32.
Months earlier, Sanchez was in the custody of San Francisco police and slated to be picked up by federal agents. However, the police declined to cooperate and instead released him.
An entire year later, the problem that prompted Kates tragic, untimely death still exists, Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, who was sponsoring the Kate's Law bill, said on July 1, the one-year anniversary of Steinles killing.
Sanctuary cities and the criminal aliens they harbor are a threat to the safety of the American people, Cruz continued. Yet, San Francisco and jurisdictions around the country still shelter illegal aliens, actively thwarting enforcement of our nations immigration laws.
Despite two more potential vice presidential picks removing their names from consideration, Donald Trump told Fox News on Wednesday that there are 10 more waiting in the wings.
Im looking at 10 people, Trump said. Three or four called me up, all want to be considered.
It was rumored that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee had been eying Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee and freshman Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa.
Both declined.
Corker confirmed to Fox News he was taking himself out of the running because the job was too political for him.
Its a highly political job, and thats not who I am. We had a very open conversation about that, and actually, we have been very candid about it from the very beginning of our meetings, Corker told The Washington Post in a separate interview.
I left there feeling very good about him as a person but also realized that at age 63, I know the things Im good at doing and knowing what a candidate for vice president has to do, he said. Its just not the right thing for me, and I dont think its the right thing for them.
Ernst, who spent part of her July 4th holiday with Trump, told Fox News they had a good conversation and said she would continue to share my insights with Donald about the need to strengthen our economy, keep our nation safe, and ensure America is always a strong, stabilizing force around the globe."
However, in an interview with Politico on Wednesday, she said her main focus would be Iowa and the Senate.
I feel that I have a lot more to do in the United States Senate. And Iowa is where my heart is, Ernst said. Im just getting started here. I have a great partner with Chuck Grassley, weve been able to accomplish a lot. And I think that President Trump will need some great assistance in the United States Senate and I can provide that.
Trump is expected to announce his choice ahead of the Republican Convention in Cleveland later this month.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence are among the short list of candidates, according to campaign sources.
Fox News Kara Rowland, Christopher Snyder and Liz Torrey contributed to this report.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump referenced deceased dictator Saddam Hussein on Tuesday, saying the former Iraqi president was so good at killing terrorists.
Speaking at a rally in North Carolina, Trump mentioned the Clinton controversy only briefly before veering to the top of the war in Iraq.
Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right?...But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good, Trump said. They didnt read em the rights, they didnt talk. They were a terrorist -- it was over.
The comments on Hussein were not unlike remarks Trump had made several times before, but it caught the attention of the Hillary Clinton camp anew Tuesday and drew almost immediate rebukes from both sides of the aisle.
Donald Trump's praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds, Clinton aide Jake Sullivan said in a statement. He has applauded the strength China showed in the Tiananmen Square massacre, offered admiration for Kim Jong Un's murderous consolidation of power in North Korea, and consistently lavished praise on Vladimir Putin.
Sullivan said Trumps comments showed how unworthy he is of the office he seeks.
Speaking to Megyn Kelly on Fox News Tuesday night, House Speaker Paul Ryan also sought to distance himself from his partys standard bearer, a position hes had to take numerous times after endorsing Trump last month.
He was one of the 20th centurys most-evil people, Ryan said. He was up there. He committed mass genocide against his own people using chemical weapons. Saddam Hussein was a bad guy.
Archaeologists have discovered what may be a skull bone from the revered Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama. The bone was hidden inside a model of a stupa, or a Buddhist shrine used for meditation.
The research team found the 1,000-year-old model within a stone chest in a crypt beneath a Buddhist temple in Nanjing, China. Inside the stupa model archaeologists found the remains of Buddhist saints, including a parietal (skull) bone that inscriptions say belonged to the Buddha himself.
The model is made of sandalwood, silver and gold, and is covered with gemstones made of crystal, glass, agate and lapis lazuli, a team of archaeologists reported in an article published in the journal Chinese Cultural Relics.
Inscriptions engraved on the stone chest that the model was found in say that it was constructed during the reign of Emperor Zhenzong (A.D. 997-1022), during the Song Dynasty. Also inscribed on the stupa are the names of people who donated money and material to build the model, as well as some of the people who constructed the model.
While the inscriptions say that the skull bone belongs to the Buddha, it is unknown whether it really does come from him. In the journal article, archaeologists didn't speculate on how likely it is. The bone is being treated with great respect and has been interred in the modern-day Qixia Temple by Buddhist monks.
Stone chest inscription
Discovered beneath the Grand Bao'en Temple, the stupa model which is 117 centimeters tall and 45 cm wide (nearly 4 feet by 1.5 feet) was stored within an iron box, which, in turn, was stored within a stone chest.
An inscription found within the stone chest was written by a man named Deming about 1,000 years ago, saying that he is "the Master of Perfect Enlightenment, Abbot of Chengtian Monastery [and] the Holder of the Purple Robe" (as translated by researchers in the journal article). He tells the story of how the Buddha's parietal bone came to China.
Deming wrote that after the Buddha "entered parinirvana" (a final death that breaks the cycle of death and rebirth), that his body "was cremated near the Hirannavati River" in India. The man who ruled India at the time, King Ashoka (reign 268-232 B.C.), decided to preserve the Buddha's remains, which he "divided into a total of 84,000 shares," Deming wrote. "Our land of China received 19 of them," including the parietal bone, he added.
The parietal bone was kept in a temple that was destroyed about 1,400 years ago during a series of wars, Deming wrote. "The foundation ruins were scattered in the weeds," Deming wrote. "In this time of turbulence, did no one care for Buddhist affairs?"
Emperor Zhenzong agreed to rebuild the temple and have the Buddha's parietal bone, and the remains of other Buddhist saints, buried in an underground crypt at the temple, according to Deming's inscriptions. They were interred on July 21, 1011 A.D., in "a most solemn and elaborate burial ceremony," Deming wrote.
Deming praised the emperor for rebuilding the temple and burying the Buddha's remains, wishing the emperor a long life, loyal ministers and numerous grandchildren: "May the Heir Apparent and the imperial princes be blessed and prosperous with 10,000 offspring; may Civil and Military Ministers of the Court be loyal and patriotic; may the three armed forces and citizens enjoy a happy and peaceful time "
Buddha burial
The parietal bone of the Buddha was buried within an inner casket made of gold, which, in turn, was placed in an outer casket made of silver, according to the archaeologists. The silver casket was then placed inside the model of the stupa.
The gold and silver caskets were decorated with images of lotus patterns, phoenix birds and gods guarding the caskets with swords. The outer casket also has images of spirits called apsaras that are shown playing musical instruments.
The parietal bone of the Buddha was placed within the gold inner casket along with three crystal bottles and a silver box, all of which contain the remains of other Buddhist saints.
Engraved on the outside of the model are several images of the Buddha, along with scenes depicting stories from the Buddha's life, from his birth to the point when he reached "parinirvana," a death from which the Buddha wasn't reborn something that freed him from a cycle of death and rebirth, according to the Buddhist religion.
Impact in China
A large team of archaeologists from the Nanjing Municipal Institute of Archaeology excavated the crypt between 2007 and 2010; they were supported by experts from other institutions in China.
Although the excavations received little coverage by Western media outlets, they were covered extensively in China. Chinese media outlets say that, after the parietal bone of the Buddha was removed, Buddhist monks interred the bone and the remains of the other Buddhist saints in Qixia Temple, a Buddhist temple used today. The Buddha's parietal bone and other artifacts from the excavation were later displayed in Hong Kong and Macao.
When the bone traveled to Macao in 2012, the media outlet Xinhua reported that "tens of thousands of Buddhist devotees will pay homage to the sacred relic," and that "more than 140,000 tickets have been sold out by now, according to the [event organizer]."
An article detailing the discoveries was published in Chinese in 2015 in the journal Wenwu, before being translated and published in Chinese Cultural Relics.
Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A bizarre Amazonian butterfly is the ultimate freeloader, researchers say.
The butterfly species steals and eats gooey bamboo secretions from its ant neighbors, in a relationship known as kleptoparasitism, new research has found.
"They're kind of jerks at the adult stage," said study co-author Aaron Pomerantz, a field biologist at thenextgenscientist.com. "They're just stealing a resource, and they're getting away with it for now."
Pomerantz and his colleagues have now captured images of the odd behavior the first time that kleptoparasitism has been documented between adult butterflies and ants. [See Gorgeous Images of Butterflies Stealing Ant Goo]
Long-standing relationship
The goo-stealing butterflies, Adelotypa annulifera, are a wide-ranging species thatlives in a swath of South America from Bolivia to Guyana.
In 2013, Pomerantz's colleague Phil Torres was taking photos in the Amazon forest near the Tambopata Research Center in Peru when he noticed the butterflies feeding on bamboo sap where ants were congregating.
Torres told Pomerantz about it, and the two soon realized that although the species had been identified a century earlier, almost nothing was known about the life cycle of this butterfly.
"We had no idea what the caterpillars looked like; no one had ever seen them before," Pomerantz said.
So, upon returning to the site, Pomerantz went on a hunt to find the caterpillars of the species. He spent many weeks looking through the bamboo forest where Torres had originally found the creatures.
"Finally, I peeled back this little leaf, and that's when we saw the larvae," Pomerantz said.
As they returned over and over again to study the butterflies and ants, they noticed that the two species stuck together through all of the butterflies' life stages, from larvae to adults, the researchers reported in the June issue of the Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society.
Still freeloading as adults
When the relationship starts out, it seems to be more of a two-way street. Multiple ant species even those known as bullet ants, which deliver the world's most painful sting offer bodyguard duty while the caterpillars give the ants a nutritious "protein shake" of amino acids and sugars through a specialized body part called the tentacle nectary organ.
Caterpillars from the same family, called Riodinidae, even lure ants by singing to them with a special vibratory organ. (The caterpillar songs are too quiet for humans to hear them without specialized equipment.)
But as adults, the butterflies become freeloaders. The butterflies sport bright-red dots on their wings a pattern that mimics stinging ants allowing them to disguise themselves as ants and avoid predators, Pomerantz said.
"The butterflies aren't all that skittish; they just hang out in the open, and that's uncommon for a lot of butterflies," Pomerantz said.
Even worse, the butterflies physically block the ants from feeding on the bamboo sap, hoarding all the goo for themselves. Meanwhile, researchers are unsure whether the ants get anything out of the relationship.
It's not clear why the adult ants tolerate this thievery, but one possibility is that the ants simply can't figure out what's going on. Ants have poor eyesight and typically communicate with each other via chemicals such as pheromones.
"Over evolutionary time, a lot of critters have figured out how to hack their chemistry so they can hang out with them," Pomerantz said, referring to ants.
Therefore, it's possible that the caterpillars continue to release "come hither" friendly pheromones even as they mature into adults, tricking the ants into tolerance, the researchers speculated.
Original article on Live Science.
Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Verizon is giving you more for more. The nation's No. 1 wireless carrier's new set of plans greatly pumps up its data limits in exchange for a little more money, adding a bunch of features that its competitors have been touting for a while: Canada and Mexico roaming, "carryover" data, and a management app with the ability to switch your plan at any time.
"Listening to [users] and looking at their behavior and getting the feedback, they wanted more value out of the plan, they wanted more data, they wanted the carryover," said Jeff Cha, Verizon's VP of experience design. With the average Verizon user now consuming 2.7GB of data per line, it was time to increase data bucket sizes, he said.
Like the previous set of plans, the new Verizon Plan comes in five sizes: 2GB for $35, 4GB for $50, 8GB for $70, 16GB for $90 and 24GB for $110. Add $20 for each phone or $10 for each tablet or hotspot used on the plan. In general, these prices are $5-10 more than they were previously, but you get 30-50 pecent more data.
Nobody will be forced to switch plans, Cha said. "Our philosophy has always been to let customers stay in the plans they're in," he said.
Along with the bigger data allotments, Verizon is adding features that we've seen Sprint and T-Mobile promoting over the past year. You can roll over a full month's worth of data into the next month, but it expires after a month. Canada and Mexico LTE roaming as part of your data bucket come along for the ride, but they cost $2/day unless you're on a $90 or higher plan. Both of those features match the limits AT&T has put on them, but Sprint and T-Mobile give you more liberty.
A new "safety mode," for $5 on the lower plans and included in the two higher ones, prevents overages and instead throttles you to 128kbps, much like Sprint's and T-Mobile's systems do.
Verizon is also extremely proud of its new account-management app, which lets you monitor your data usage in near-real time and change your plan size at will, including pro-rating the price if you switch mid-month.
Still Reliable, Still Limited
Verizon still has the nation's best network, according to our Fastest Mobile Networks tests, and the nation's most faithful users. Its "porting ratio" to T-Mobile, the rate at which customers flee to the cheaper carrier, is lower than any of its competitors. So it doesn't feel pushed to make huge changes.
Comparing these plans to T-Mobile's and Sprint's becomes a false comparison, then. Both of the smaller carriers offer lower rates, free international roaming, and truly unlimited LTE options. But nobody goes to Verizon because it offers the best list of features per dollar. They go because of network quality and, especially, reach. In our Fastest Mobile Networks driving, we've found for the past two years that T-Mobile can nearly match Verizon in its number of city wins, but Verizon triumphs inside buildings and in outlying areas.
For techies and phone geeks, Verizon is also still hobbled by its old CDMA radio infrastructure. Because of its CDMA base, it can't use many international phones and can't activate non-Verizon, non-Apple branded devices through its app. The company has said it'll accept "LTE-only" devices at some point in the future, which would let it activate the many phones in the world that don't have CDMA, but it keeps pushing the date forward.
This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.
The 47-year-old captain of a small cruise ship under way in southeast Alaska was found dead in his state room early Monday morning.
According to Alaska State Troopers, crew members found the body of Kenneth Adams in his cabin as Alaskan Dream Cruises Admiralty Dream was underway in the Chatham Strait headed for Pavlof Harbor for a day excursion. Efforts to revive him were unsuccessful, and medics were immediately called to the ship. Authorities say Adams death is not considered suspicious and foul play is not suspected.
The 143-foot ship, which can carry up to 58 people and 20 crewmembers, met troopers in Angoon, nearly 60 miles south of Juneau. A second Allen Marine boat arrived from Juneau to take the 57 cruise guests originally aboard the vessel to Hidden Falls to allow troopers time to investigate the scene.
Jamey Cagle, the vice president of Allen Marine, which owns Alaskan Dream Cruises, says Adams, a California native, worked for the company for four years.
He had a passion for his career and was a well-respected captain, Cagle told the Juneau Empire.
Cagle said the company immediately provided a grief counselor for the 20 crew members aboard the cruise ship in the wake of their co-workers passing.
An autopsy is planned by State Medical Examiners Office in Anchorage.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Greece has more than 6,000 islands and islets and a coastline of nearly 8,500 miles, making choices for the countrys best beaches a competitive one.
And while travelers no doubt have personal preferences as to what makes a Greek beach actually swoon-worthy, the following have been vetted for their sand, surf, history, and hidden locations. Happy beaching.
1. Navagio Beach, Zakynthos
Why we love it: Sheltered by cliffs, Navagio is only accessible by boat, and draws its name (Shipwreck) from a freighter that ran aground, was abandoned, and still rests in the beachs white sands today.
2. Sarakiniko, Milos
Why we love it: Large, sun-bleached rocks eroded by saltwater stretch out over the sea, and give the impression that you're standing on the moon.
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3. Porto Katsiki, Lefkada
Why we love it: Though visitors can now park atop the cliff and walk down 80 steps to the sand below, this beach translates to Goat Port, since previously, goats were the only ones able to reach the area.
4. Lalaria, Skiathos
Why we love it: Lalaria is the Greek word for pebbles, which line the beach and give it its name. Just don't dream of taking a white pebble home for a souvenir: Authorities on Skiathos have threatened fines of up to $1,100.
Book a trip to more of Greece's most stunning beaches.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has met with representatives of the trade unions that have been holding a rally outside the Cabinet building in Kyiv, PM Press Secretary Dmytro Stoliarchuk has said.
"Volodymyr Groysman has been meeting with the trade unions that have come up to the Cabinet. The government is open to dialogue," he tweeted on Wednesday.
An hour later, he wrote: "It was a productive meeting between Volodymyr Groysman and the heads of the Federations of Trade Unions of Ukraine. Common language has been found."
The rally is being staged outside the Cabinet building in Kyiv on Wednesday in protest against housing and utilities tariff hikes. The event gathered at least 5,000 protesters.
Its no secret that digital marketing conferences often bring a mix of new ideas, outside-the-box thinking and wild marketing strategies that come to life after listeners have a few drinks along with their networking. For entrepreneurs, these new ideas can be monumental for proactively driving your business forward.
That was my experience at Digital Summit Denver. Below are three marketing takeaways shared by Gary Vaynerchuk, Ann Handley and comedian Al Madrigal, ideas echoed by other speakers throughout the two day summit .
Gary Vaynerchuk: You Have the Power to Change -- But You Dont.
In his typically boisterous style, Gary Vaynerchuk imposed his opinions on todays marketing landscape -- and entrepreneurs should pay close attention.
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The summits first keynote speaker suggested that marketers ruin everything, email marketing is waning, banner ads stink and mobile is still the future because desktop activity continues to subside. (He also called social media a buzzword for the current state of digital marketing.)
Vaynerchuk challenged digital marketers to change their stubborn behavior by adapting to trends sooner. As an example, he described a time when many marketers were hesitant to adopt Facebook as an example. By show of hands, how many of you are using Facebook that said you never would? he asked.
Hundreds in the audience reluctantly raised their hands. The industry will evolve whether you want it to or not," Vaynerchuk continued, "and nobody is going to remember the marketer who plays by the rules and fails to adapt to the latest trends. You all see the industry changing, but you dont do anything about it. Banner ads and tv commercials suck, billboards are increasingly ineffective; peoples eyeballs arent there; eyes are on the mobile phone (even while driving).
"Why are you still forcing old marketing tactics on people who arent paying attention?
Vaynerchuk continued to berate marketers who stick to more traditional marketing efforts or the safer path during their careers.
Takeaway: Evolve or die. As entrepreneurs, you're likely in a strong position to experiment with more innovative strategies and influence the marketing industry. So, take full advantage of your agile state and begin breaking the bounds of traditional digital marketing strategies and trends.
Ann Handley: Your Story Needs to Set You Apart (and Focus on Empathy).
While marketing can sometimes be a painful, self-promotional and spammy experience, for those with genuine intentions and empathy for their audience, marketing can bring rewarding relationships and even influence customer action.
Day two keynote speaker Ann Handley shared examples of how organizations can create content wins. And, she said, they can do that even without massive marketing budgets. This was an important point for startups and entrepreneurs alike. Here, Handley used an example of an emotional short film from Mutual Rescue, Eric and Peety:
The Humane Society of Silicon Valley created this film to share the story of how pet adoption not only saves the animal, but the human as well -- an element seldom shared but deeply felt by those passionate about rescuing pets. These animal-loving individials also happen to be the Humane Society's target market, making its short documentary a clever marketing tactic.
While the goal was to create buzz around local shelters and inspire funding, the organization, rather than directly ask for donations, focused its marketing efforts on telling Eric and Peetys story -- and it executed beautifully.
Handley explained that the key to creating powerful, inspirational and ultimately influential content is having emotional empathy for your audience. Good content is not about promoting your brand, imposing your will, creating a high abundance of drabble or spending the most money on advertising and outreach campaigns; its much simpler.
Takeaway: Content should focus on empathetic storytelling. Entrepreneurs should not feel limited based on budget restrictions. These challenges are hidden opportunities to create really special marketing wins and showcase your unique talents. Your brains can overcome your budget -- and that starts by having empathy for your audience.
Al Madrigal: Nobody Cares About Your Social Oversharing (Brands, Take Notice)
In a much-needed respite from the all the networking, buzzwords and monotonous business chatter, Comedian Al Madrigal took the center stage to mock digital marketers and social oversharers.
Madrigal propelled hundreds of marketers into bellowing laughter with a comedic bit that once again proved that there is often a painful truth in satire. His opener? Great, Ive always wanted to do a gig where the entire audience was face-down in their phones.
As marketers who are constantly monitoring social notifications, emails, bleeps, bloops and ring-a-dings, we may be the most susceptible to oversharing, and to an unhealthy addiction to our mobile phones and now watches -- oh, really?
Madrigal continued: Look, nobody cares about your social oversharing, your lengthy three-star Yelp reviews or any other bulls**t that you are posting about yourself online. When did you become the restaurant review expert -- and why should I care about your incessant insight? No . . .seriously, nobody fing cares!
While my writing cannot do Madrigals comedic timing and tone justice, believe me, his words offered harsh lessons to our addiction on both the social and mobile front; however, entrepreneurs and small businesses may have an advantage here.
That is that smaller organizations often struggle with social media. They spread themselves too thin trying to reach as many people on as many channels as possible, thus diluting their overall social marketing effectiveness. This problem may come from following the marketing tactics of larger brands -- but you are small; you're not a larger brand. While you can glean insight from big business, remember that you should scale your social efforts only as you begin finding success and revenue from it.
If you are a small business owner or even a solo-preneur, at what point does all of your social media effort become too much?
Are you trying to be too tapped-into your digital world? Are you failing to listen your audience around you? Are you quick to respond to customers in a brand-approved manner, almost in a robotic, buzzword-filled or automated voice?
Think about the content that you are publishing and promoting. Does it serve purpose other than views, retweets and awareness. Or does it provide real meaning to the people around you? Are you uniquely engaging with, and helping build, a community, or are you copying what other larger brands or marketers are doing because it works?
Takeaway: You shouldn't share for the sake of sharing; you should share to reinforce your purpose. Entrepreneurs and small businesses should not over-concern themselves with how big oganizations manage their digital marketing or social media. Rather, they should focus on telling their story, engaging customers one-on-one and finding clever ways to scale their efforts with their business needs.
Conclusion
As an entrepreneur, my observation at Digital Summit Denver was that that experience was positive, both for myself and my fellow colleagues. I found the many inspired speakers refreshing and would recommend the event to other entrepreneurs and entry-to-mid-level marketing managers interested in learning deeper insights about the quickly evolving digital marketing industry.
Attorneys for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein touted his close friendship with Bill Clinton and even claimed the billionaire helped start Clinton's controversial family foundation in a 2007 letter aimed at boosting his image during plea negotiations, FoxNews.com has learned.
The 23-page letter, written by high-powered lawyers Alan Dershowitz and Gerald Lefcourt, was apparently part of an ultimately successful bid to negotiate a plea deal before Epstein could be tried for using underage girls in a sex ring based in Palm Beach, Fla., and his private island estate on the 72-acre Virgin Islands home dubbed Orgy Island. Epstein spent 13 months in prison and home detention after agreeing to a plea deal in which he admitted to soliciting an underage girl for prostitution.
"Mr. Epstein was part of the original group that conceived the Clinton Global Initiative, which is described as a project 'bringing together a community of global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the worlds most pressing challenges, read the July 2007 letter to the U.S. Attorneys office in the Southern District of Florida. Focuses of this initiative include poverty, climate change, global health, and religious and ethnic conflicts.
The hedge fund magnates true role in creating the foundation could not be confirmed. Whether Epstein was an actual founder of the foundation or exaggerated his role in a phony effort to appear altruistic is not clear.
Epstein is not cited in official paperwork filed by the Clinton Global Initiative as a founder or director. Neither The Clinton Foundation nor Dershowitz responded to FoxNews.coms inquiry as to the extent of Epsteins involvement. FoxNews.com first reported that flight logs show the former president flew on Epsteins private plane dozens of times. But Clinton has publicly credited longtime assistant Doug Band, now counselor and director of the foundation, as conceiving of the idea.
The foundation has raised hundreds of millions of dollars, ostensibly for charitable works in places such as Haiti and Africa. But questions have arisen about how much of the donations actually went to aiding the poor, and critics have accused the Clintons of using it as a slush fund.
Attorneys describe the foundation, which has undergone name changes since its formation in 2005, as designed to convene world leaders, forward-looking CEOs, and philanthropists to commit to take action on pressing global challenges.
In an effort to emphasize Epsteins close ties to Clinton before he was sentenced, his lawyers also credited Epstein with "hosting" a trip to Africa in 2002 on his private Boeing 727 for the Clinton Global Initiative, which Clinton himself attended, along with actor Kevin Spacey and comedian Chris Tucker, and other celebrities, purportedly for an anti-AIDS and economic-development mission.
"In a feature article about Mr. Epstein in New Yorker magazine, former President Clinton aptly described Mr. Epstein as a 'committed philanthropist with a keen sense of global markets and an in-depth knowledge of 21st century science,' Epsteins lawyers wrote. President Clinton reached this conclusion during a monthlong trip to Africa with Mr. Epstein, which Mr. Epstein hosted. The purpose of that trip was to increase AIDS awareness; to work toward a solution to the AIDS crisis; and to provide funding to reduce the costs of delivering medications to those inflicted with the disease."
Epstein also has supported the Clinton Foundation financially, but that was not made public until two years ago when a whistle-blower released the names of the super-rich, including Epstein, who held Swiss accounts at the HSBC bank.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which obtained the data from the whistle-blower, documented $81 million being routed from HSBC Swiss accounts to The Clinton Foundation, including money from Epstein.
Epstein had various accounts totaling $3.5 million, the investigative journalists group revealed and, in 2006, directed $25,000 to The Clinton Foundation.
The close association between Epstein and Clinton is just one example of their personal and professional ties running much deeper than previously made public.
A FoxNews.com investigation in May showed the former president was a frequent flier on Epsteins infamous jet, dubbed the Lolita Express, which earned its Nabakov-inspired nickname because it was reportedly outfitted with a bed where passengers had group sex with young girls.
Flight logs obtained exclusively by FoxNews.com show the former president taking at least 26 trips around the world aboard the Lolita Express -- even apparently ditching his Secret Service detail for at least five of the flights.
Epstein and his attorneys have said in multiple court filings that he has been the subject of the most outlandish and offensive attacks, allegations, and plain inventions.
However, hundreds of pages of court records, including reports from law enforcement, reviewed by FoxNews.com, show Epstein was under close scrutiny by the Palm Beach police and FBI for more than a year.
The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida prepared charging documents that accused Epstein of child sex abuse, witness tampering and money laundering, but Epstein took a plea deal before an indictment could be handed up.
On Sept. 24, 2007, in a deal shrouded in secrecy that left alleged victims shocked at its leniency, Epstein agreed to a 30-month sentence, including 18 months of jail time and 12 months of house arrest and the agreement to pay dozens of young girls under a federal statute providing for compensation to victims of child sexual abuse. In exchange, the U.S. Attorneys Office promised not to pursue any federal charges against Epstein or his co-conspirators.
In a highly unusual civil lawsuit, Florida attorney Brad Edwards, and Paul Cassell, a former federal judge who represented some of Epsteins alleged victims, are suing the federal government over the secret non-prosecution agreement in hopes of having it overturned, so that Epstein could potentially face additional criminal charges.
The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday opened a civil rights investigation into the death of a black man who was shot by a white police officer outside a Baton Rouge convenience store on Tuesday.
A cellphone video purporting to show the events leading up to and including the death of Alton Sterling led some Louisiana residents to protest on Tuesday, and Gov. John Bel Edwards acknowledged Wednesday the video was "disturbing to say the least."
Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. refused calls to resign but vowed to find out exactly what happened between Sterling and the two officers seen wrestling with him in the video.
"Like you, there is a lot that we do not understand. And at this point, like you, I am demanding answers," he said.
Dabadie Jr. called the shooting a "horrible tragedy" and confirmed that Sterling was armed when officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II approached him. However, it has not been established whether Sterling had a gun in his hand at any point during the altercation he had with officers that ultimately led to his death. Salamoni is a four-year veteran of the force and Lake has been with the department for three years. It is unclear if one of the officers or both fired the fatal shots.
"The Justice Department will collect all available facts and evidence and conduct a fair, thorough and impartial investigation," a department statement said.
Footage from dashboard cameras, body cameras and surveillance cameras that were inside the convenience store Sterling was standing in front of were in the process of being turned over to DOJ investigators, officials said.
The news came hours after it was revealed by a state lawmaker that body cameras worn by the two police officers involved in the incident did not capture the critical moment when one of the officers shot and killed Sterling.
State Rep. C. Denise Marcelle, D-Baton Rouge, said Dabadie Jr. told her on Tuesday that the body cameras on both officers involved in the incident fell off as they tussled with Sterling. But a police spokesperson said later both cameras continued recording after they were dislodged, retaining audio and perhaps some video that could prove valuable to authorities.
A cellphone video, shot by a bystander, fueled public anger, prompting protests on Tuesday night.
The Associated Press has not been able to authenticate the video, but the appearance of the store in the video matches the front of convenience store where the shooting occurred. The man being subdued by police was wearing a red shirt, matching the description given earlier by police.
In the video, which appears to be shot from inside a nearby parked car, one of two police officers outside the store can be seen tackling the man in the red shirt and wrestling him to the ground. Then the other officer helps him hold the man down.
At one point someone can be heard saying, "He's got a gun! Gun!" and then one officer on top of the man can be seen pulling his weapon from his holster. After some shouting, what sounds like a gunshot can be heard and the camera pulls away. Then another four shots can be heard. At one point, a person in the vehicle asks "They shot him?" as a woman can be heard crying.
Officers responded to the store about 12:35 a.m. Tuesday after an anonymous caller indicated a man selling music CDs and wearing a red shirt threatened him with a gun, Cpl. L'Jean McKneely said.
Two officers responded and had some type of altercation with the man and one officer fatally shot the suspect, McKneely said. Both officers were placed on administrative leave, which is standard department policy, he said.
The store's owner, Abdul Muflahi, told WAFB-TV that the first officer used a stun gun on Sterling and the second officer tackled the man. Muflahi said as Sterling fought to get the officer off of him, the first officer shot him "four to six times."
The owner said Sterling did not have a gun in his hand at the time but he saw officers remove a gun from Sterling's pocket after the shooting.
The Advocate reported a crowd that gathered late Tuesday afternoon at the store where Sterling died grew to more than 200 people. They chanted "black lives matter" and "hands up don't shoot" and waved signs late into the night, according to the newspaper.
A vigil was also planned for 6 p.m. on Wednesday at the same location.
By dawn Wednesday, protesters and friends had created a makeshift memorial to Sterling on the white folding tables and fold out chair he had used to sell homemade music compilations on CD's.
Arthur Baines came by to pay his respects. He said Sterling had stayed with his sister at some point.
"He never bothered nobody. He was just trying to make an honest dollar," Baines said. He said he thought Sterling was out late on July 4th because more people were out on the holiday: "That's really how he made all of his money."
Mufleh Alatiyat, a 25-year old employee of the store described Sterling as generous and said he often gave away CDs or petty cash or bought food or drink for some people.
"He was a very nice guy," he said. "He helped a lot of people."
An autopsy shows Sterling died of multiple gunshot, East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Dr. William Clark said.
Kimberly Lang said she purchased CDs from Sterling on occasion and said he did not have a reputation for violence, according to a report by NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune. If Sterling did have a gun on him, Lang said, it was probably because he feared being robbed while peddling his CDs late at night, not because he wanted to threaten anyone.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Chelsea Manning, who has been serving a 35-year prison sentence for her role in leaking U.S. government secrets, was treated and released from a prison hospital Wednesday after she tried to hang herself, according to media reports.
The transgender soldier, formerly known as Bradley Manning, was convicted in 2013 of espionage and other offenses for sending WikiLeaks more than 700,000 digital files including battlefield logs, diplomatic cables and video clips.
Both CNN and TMZ reported that the incident occurred at Fort Leavenworth, an all-male facility in Kansas. Few other details about the incident were immediately known. TMZ, citing prison officials, reported that she has been released from the hospital and is being monitored.
Manning recently wrote a column from prison for The Guardian about the new U.S. rules allowing transgender people to openly serve in the military.
Gender presentation should reflect the person that you are, Manning wrote. When you lose control of your gender presentation you lose an important aspect of your identity and existence. By setting so many caveats, time lines, standards, and training, the military is making this far, far, more complicated and bureaucratic than it needs to be. The simple reality is that we are who we say we are.
A former National Guard soldier has been charged with plotting to help the Islamic State group and contemplating a Fort Hood-style attack against the U.S. military.
Mohamed Jalloh, 26, of Sterling, made a brief initial appearance Tuesday afternoon in federal court in Alexandria. A judge ordered Jalloh held without bond pending a detention hearing next week.
His lawyer, Ashraf Nubani, declined comment.
Jalloh told a government informant he quit the Army National Guard after hearing lectures from radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, according to an FBI affidavit. Cotton Puryear, a spokesman for the Virginia Army National Guard, said Jalloh served as a specialist from 2009 until 2015, when he was honorably discharged.
A court affidavit spells out a three-month sting operation in which Jalloh said he was thinking about carrying out an attack similar to the 2009 shootings at Fort Hood, which left 13 people dead. Authorities say the sting operation began after Jalloh made contact on his own with Islamic State members in Africa earlier this year.
Jalloh's case is the most recent of several in which men from the northern Virginia area just outside Washington have been charged with attempting to support the Islamic State group.
Court records indicate the FBI saw Jalloh buying an assault rifle Saturday at a gun shop in Chantilly. The affidavit does not say if authorities believe Jalloh planned to use the rifle himself or bought it on behalf of an informant. He was arrested Sunday.
Jalloh's sister, Fatmatu Jalloh, said in a brief telephone interview that she is serving as one of her brother's attorneys. She said she had not yet seen the unsealed charges but denied he would be helping the Islamic State group.
Jalloh is identified in the affidavit as a naturalized U.S. citizen from Sierra Leone.
The affidavit says the investigation began in late March, when an unidentified member of the Islamic State group introduced Jalloh and a government informant. According to the affidavit, Jalloh had been communicating with the Islamic State member, who is now dead, before he interacted with the informant. The FBI agent says in the affidavit that he believes Jalloh met the Islamic State member on a trip to Africa early this year.
In April, Jalloh told the informant he had been thinking about carrying out a Fort Hood-style attack. Asked to explain, Jalloh said, "Nidal Hasan type of things. That's the kind of stuff I started thinking," according to the affidavit. Hasan, the Army officer convicted of the Fort Hood shootings, was also inspired by al-Awlaki.
Later in April, Jalloh told the informant that the Islamic State group had asked if he wanted to participate in an attack. According to the affidavit, Jalloh told the Islamic State representative, "I really want to but I don't want to give my word and not fulfill it."
In May, according to the affidavit, Jalloh tried to donate $500 to the Islamic State, but the money actually went to an account controlled by the FBI.
Last month, the affidavit says, Jalloh drove to the Charlotte, North Carolina, area with another person looking for weapons to buy.
On Friday, Jalloh tried to buy an AR-15 assault rifle from a Chantilly gun store but was turned away because he lacked the proper paperwork. The affidavit says he returned the next day and bought a different assault rifle. Prosecutors said the rifle was rendered inoperable before Jalloh left the store, unbeknownst to Jalloh.
Jalloh's arrest comes on the heels of several other cases in the area. Mohamad Khweis of Alexandria was charged after traveling to join the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, then surrendering himself to Kurdish forces after becoming disillusioned with the group. Two Woodbridge men, Mahmoud A.M. Elhassan and Joseph Farrokh, were charged with trying to join the Islamic State. Farrokh has pleaded guilty, while Elhassan awaits trial.
Prosecutor John Gibbs said at Tuesday's hearing that Jalloh faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Nothing catches the attention of onlookers more than when leaders or prominent team members in our workplace make errors or who engage in egregious acts that impact others. No one desires to find themselves in such a predicament.
Taking a wrong turn, vocationally, can bring a halt to ones forward progress on all fronts -- namely ones ability to lead others, complete key projects, manage relationships, validate the companys brand, as well as ones ability to further develop ones career overall. If any one of these circumstances describes you, fear not.
Although this is not your finest hour, you can and will survive the day if you know how to decisively rebound and self-correct your trajectory. Heres how.
1. Acknowledge ownership of the mistake(s).
Do not delay in reaching this first point of atonement. What you do from this point onward is equally important, but taking ownership of the errors made will be your first step in recovery. Depending on the type of misstep that you are responsible for, share the news with people who are closest to your fault (that is, anyone who was notably impacted by it), including leadership personnel to whom you report.
Related: If the Brontosaurus Can Make a Comeback, So Can You
2. Make a (proper) apology.
Yes, there are several wrong ways to go about this. To the degree that is appropriate consider sharing with team members what went wrong. Why did the customer leave? Why it was that monies were not spent and tracked properly? Why is the companys brand having to dig out of the recent media storm? For many people an honest explanation of what happened and why, can help them sympathize and forgive. Do not attempt a yeah, but type of an apology -- people do not want to hear excuses, a pity party, nor a disingenuous or cloaked non-apology. Publicly own your error and account for it.
3. Explain how things will be different moving forward.
So, whats your plan for making things better (and/or preventing tragedy in the future)? Although co-workers and customers want to have faith that things will be better in the future, a repeated failure will solidify feelings of mistrust and may seal ones vocational doom. Share that you are looking forward to future opportunities and that youre growing professionally in part because of lessons learned as of late. An action plan that is sensible, sincere and relatively simple will assist you in winning over your original fan base.
4. Restructure how feedback is solicited and received.
Especially if it was not the case previous to your down-turn, make certain that you are creating forums for feedback, solicited and unsolicited alike. This step is critical. The adage of none of us is as smart as all of us rings true here. Create a trusted group of people to bounce ideas off of. This step will not only make your decision-making paradigm stronger and more dynamic, but it will build trust for the rest of the team who see you consulting other trusted parties regularly.
Related: Learn to Survive Setbacks
5. Do not be mysterious.
Moving forward, transparency is essential in removing any degree of opacity. Do not leave people guessing, let team members know what you are up to and how you are getting things done (particularly if the continued duties and tasks reside within the area(s) in question).
6. Do not continue apologizing.
For many, the difficulty is not knowing when to apologize or take ownership of a mistake, it is when to stop bringing it up. Some people, due to guilt, embarrassment, shame, etc., will feel compelled to apologize again and again -- or to every single person who was conceivably impacted by the mistake. Once you have adequately apologized drop it and move on. The healing process (i.e., time) needs to begin and each time it is brought up or another apology is issued the clock of forgive and forget, more or less begins again. Once you put the mistake in your rear view, others will try to as well.
Related: Don't Let Adversity Keep You Down. Here's What Every 'Comeback Kid' Knows
7. Learn to again trust your instincts, strengths and life experience.
This is where the tough work begins. Asking others to forgive and forget is one thing, asking this of ones self is entirely another. Show yourself grace, and embrace the reality that mistakes will be made in the future. Having said that, youre unique in what you offer your team and organization, dive into that area of confidence to get momentum moving again in your favor.
Taking to heart the importance of looking forward and not back is half of the battle. If others see you blaze forward with confidence, a positive nature and knowledgeable contributions then, over time, people will fall in line and will desire to partner with you once again.
A judge in Connecticut Wednesday said he planned to rule within a week in a father and son's case against the Federal Aviation Administration over YouTube videos of gun-toting, flame-throwing drones.
Austin Haughwout, 19, of Clinton, and his father, Bret Haughwout, produced the videos. They've refused to comply with subpoenas issued by the U.S. attorney's office on behalf of the FAA, saying the subpoenas violate their constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures and questioning the agency's authority to regulate recreational drones.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Meyer gave both sides a deadline of Monday, July 11 to file any additional documents.
One of the Haughwouts' videos, viewed more than 3.7 million times, shows a flying drone equipped with a handgun firing rounds. Another video, viewed nearly 600,000 times, shows a flying drone with a flamethrower lighting up a spit-roasting Thanksgiving turkey. Both videos were recorded in the family's yard.
In arguments that lasted about an hour, attorneys debated the FAA's authority to enforce rather than simply investigate. The judge questioned whether or not the FAA had the authority to regulate everything airborne, even objects mere inches off the ground.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John Larson argued that yes, the agency should have the right to regulate anything designed or intended to fly or leave the ground.
In this case, FAA officials have claimed they just want to conduct an investigation because all they know about the drones is what they can see in the videos.
They would like to know how the drones in question were used in other instances. They say the record in this case is "non-existent."
Defense attorneys argued whether drones are correctly defined as aircraft and therefore fall under the juristiction of the FAA. They told the court the FAA doesn't disguish between a paper airplane and their client's drone.
"This is a kid playing in his backyard," defense attorney Mario Cerame said in court documents.
Austin Haughwout claims in a state lawsuit that he was expelled from Central Connecticut State University on bogus threatening allegations by school officials who were really concerned about the drone videos. The lawsuit seeks his reinstatement to the school.
School officials deny the allegations and say Haughwout was expelled for making threatening statements and gestures toward other people on campus.
Austin Haughwout has been in and out of the news over the past two years. On Thursday, Clinton police announced they charged him with enticing a minor with a computer, attempted sexual assault and possession of child pornography after police say they found child porn on his cellphone.
Last year, Clinton police charged him with assaulting officers. The case remains pending.
In 2014, a woman was charged with assaulting Haughwout because she was upset he was using a drone to film above a state beach in Madison. Haughwout posted a video of the confrontation on YouTube that has been viewed more than 500,000 times.
Fox News' Lissa Kaplan and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Kim Davis, the county clerk who went to jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, violated the states Open Records Act, the Kentucky attorney generals office said Tuesday.
The Rowan County clerk violated the act by refusing to produce documents related to the gay marriage battle, the attorney generals office said in an opinion.
The Lexington Herald-Leader reported Campaign for Accountability, a nonprofit group, requested records between Davis and her attorneys, the religious advocacy group Liberty Counsel, on March 1.
Liberty Counsel refused to provide the documents, saying they are preliminary and private. Liberty Counsel represented Davis after she was sued for refusing to issue marriage licenses.
The Open Records Act provides for costs and attorney's fees to be awarded in some cases as well as up to $25 per day for each day the person is denied access to the record. Liberty Counsel can appeal the attorney general's opinion.
Liberty Counsel has not decided whether to challenge the attorney generals ruling, the groups founder and chairman Mat Staver said. Liberty Counsel has provided its services for free, charging nothing to Davis or Rowan County, Staver said.
"There's nothing to reveal here," Staver said.
The attorney general's office asked to privately review the documents so it could decide whether the exemptions cited are relevant but said Liberty Counsel refused to produce most of the documents even for a private review.
"An agency cannot benefit from intentionally frustrating the attorney general's review of an open records request. Such result would subvert the General Assembly's intent behind providing review by the attorney general," Assistant Attorney General Matt Jones wrote in the office's opinion.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Latest on the Army Reserve officer charged for threatening Muslims worshippers at a North Carolina mosque (all times local):
4:12 p.m.
Members of a North Carolina mosque say the community has been on edge since an Army Reserve officer was arrested and accused of making death threats last month against its worshippers.
Muslim community member Uzma Khan said there have not been any other incidents since at the mosque in Raeford, but police have been present almost every day as a security measure. Khan says she's encouraged by support from law enforcement but saddened by its necessity.
Khan's is the daughter of a retired military chaplain, Mohammed Khan, who told authorities he was threatened at gunpoint during the incident.
Police arrested Russell Thomas Langford of Fayetteville on charges of ethnic intimidation, assault with a deadly weapon and others. Langford's attorney says the defense is still investigating and asks the state to proceed with a presumption of Langford's innocence.
Khan said the court should hold Langford to a strict standard because he committed to protecting American citizens when he joined the military.
1:20 p.m.
The lawyer for an Army Reserve officer who authorities say left bacon outside a North Carolina mosque and threatened to kill its members is asking the state to remember more than a decade of distinguished military service from his client.
Attorney Kelly Dawkins told media Wednesday that bronze star recipient Russell Thomas Langford of Fayetteville deserves "all the due process we can give him."
Langford appeared in Hoke County Court on Wednesday for the first time since posting bail last month.
Dawkins says the court modified the conditions of Langford's release to prohibit him from contacting any potential witnesses, possessing any firearms and going on the property of the mosque in Raeford.
Langford has been charged with ethnic intimidation, assault with a deadly weapon, going armed to the terror of the public, communicating threats, stalking and disorderly conduct.
His case has been continued to Aug. 17.
Raeford is about 20 miles southwest of Fayetteville.
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2:58 a.m.
A decorated Army Reserve officer who authorities say left bacon at a North Carolina mosque and threatened to kill its members is expected to appear in court for the first time since he posted bail last month.
Hoke County Court scheduled a hearing for Russell Thomas Langford of Fayetteville for Wednesday morning.
Witnesses say on that on June 9, Langford made death threats to members of the mosque about 20 miles southwest of Fayetteville and later attempted to run over one of its members in his vehicle.
Langford has been charged with ethnic intimidation, assault with a deadly weapon, going armed to the terror of the public, communicating threats, stalking and disorderly conduct.
Langford posted a $60,000 secured bond for his release the day following the incident and was placed under the control of his commander at Fort Bragg.
A lawsuit has been filed against a man accused of killing a couple near Oso, burying their remains in a remote forest clearing and then fleeing to Mexico.
The Daily Herald reported the lawsuit, filed late last month, alleges John Reed "wrongfully took the life of Patrick Shunn." It seeks unspecified damages for Shunn's estate.
Shunn, 45, and his wife, 46-year-old Monique Patenaude, were killed in April. John Reed's brother, Tony Reed, has pleaded guilty to two counts of felony rendering criminal assistance. Tony Reed surrendered to authorities in May near the U.S.-Mexico border.
Investigators believe John Reed fatally shot the couple over a long-standing property dispute in Oso, a rural community northeast of Seattle.
The lawsuit against John Reed was filed by Shunn's father to "make sure John Reed has no access to financial assets to further his escape."
John Reed is charged with two counts of first-degree murder. He is wanted on a $5 million warrant. The U.S. Marshals Service is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to his capture and arrest.
Three days after Shunn and Patenaude disappeared John and Tony Reed tried to cash a $96,000 cashier's check at a bank in Ellensburg.
The bank refused to hand over the money in a lump-sum. It provided four checks for $14,000 written to relatives and a $40,000 check to Reed. Detectives worked with the bank to stop payment on the checks and all other bank transactions were frozen.
Attorney Steven Robinson says the slain couple's families want to see Reed apprehended.
"They are absolutely devastated by the loss of their son and daughter in-law, who were wonderful people, well-liked and productive members of the community," Robinson said.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman has said it is necessary to check the basis for calculations of all tariffs used by communal services and prices for natural gas from 2005 to the present.
"Let's quickly create a group and collect the necessary documents to learn what the actual situation is. I also think that it's possible to conduct a thorough check of tariffs and natural gas prices, but I would want this to take into account prices since 2005, to figure out what happened in 2005, 2006, 2007, [2008], 2009, 2010 up to the present day. This will be the right thing to do," the prime minister said during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Groysman said that the government would ready by the end of Wednesday to provide all necessary documents on this matter to those interested.
A Mississippi man has been indicted for manslaughter several weeks after his 8-month-old daughter died in his hot car while he worked.
Joshua Blunt's attorney, Carlos Moore, said Blunt was notified of the indictment Tuesday and appeared before a judge in Grenada County to plead not guilty.
Circuit Judge George Mitchell set a $15,000 bond for the 25-year-old Blunt, and Blunt was sent to the Grenada County jail Tuesday evening. Moore said people close to Blunt were trying to raise money to post his bail.
"I'm shocked," Moore told The Associated Press. "I am glad it's not a murder indictment. I still intend to vigorously defend him on these charges."
Blunt's baby, Shania Rihanna Caradine, died May 19, eight days after another young child died in a hot car in another Mississippi county. The mother in the other case was not arrested and has not been charged. The two counties have different district attorneys, but Moore questions the difference in how the cases are being handled.
"It's unfortunate that there seems to be two systems of justice in Mississippi and across America," Moore said.
Moore said he doesn't know whether the disparity is because of race or because of economic status. His client is black and not wealthy, Moore said. The family in the other case is white, and the child had attended a day care center in a relatively affluent suburb of Jackson.
Blunt went to work at a Grenada restaurant on the morning of May 19, then took a break to pick up his girlfriend and their baby, Moore said in a May 23 interview. Blunt took his girlfriend to her work at a fast-food restaurant and was supposed to drop off the baby at his girlfriend's mother's house. Moore said Blunt "intended to take the child to the grandmother's house, but somehow he forgot."
Blunt went back to work for about four hours, and when he and a colleague went to his car, the colleague discovered the unresponsive baby in the back seat, Moore said. They took Shania inside the restaurant and put cool towels on her to await an ambulance that took her to the University of Mississippi Medical Center Grenada. Grenada County Deputy Coroner Jo Morman said physicians at the hospital tried unsuccessfully for hours to revive the baby.
Blunt was arrested after his daughter died and was initially charged with second-degree murder.
His bond originally was set at $250,000, but a municipal judge allowed him to leave jail on his own recognizance in time for his daughter's funeral. He had remained out until Tuesday. Moore said in May that a city prosecutor had pledge to reduce Blunt's charge to misdemeanor culpable negligence, which would carry a maximum of one year in the county jail, if convicted. Instead, the district attorney a higher-ranking prosecutor brought the felony charge with a conviction punishable by two to 20 years in prison.
Janette Fennell, founder and president of the Kansas-based KidsAndCars.Org, said that between 1990 and 2015, charges were brought in 45.5 percent of cases involving the deaths of children in hot cars in the U.S., and no charges were brought in 44.5 percent of cases. It was unknown if charges were brought in the remaining 10 percent of cases, she said.
The group's figures show there were 706 cases of children dying in hot cars for those 25 years, although some cases involved multiple deaths.
Using a slightly shorter set of years, from 1990 to 2014, Fennell said there were 726 deaths of children in hot cars in the U.S.
A man accused of attempting to provide financial support to Al Qaeda was indicted Tuesday for allegedly trying to hire someone to kill the presiding judge in his case.
According to the Justice Department, Yahya Farooq Mohammad, of the United Arab Emirates, was charged with attempted first degree murder of a federal officer, solicitation to commit a crime of violence and use of interstate commerce facilities in commission of murder for hire.
Mohammad, 37, was one of four men indicted last year. The men were accused of planning to travel to Yemen and give thousands of dollars to late Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki.
This past April, Mohammad allegedly told a fellow inmate at the Lucas County Corrections Center in Toledo that he wanted U.S. District Judge Jack Zouhary kidnapped and murdered and was willing to pay $15,000 for a hitman.
The Justice Department says the inmate put Mohammad in contact with an undercover FBI agent. That agent was given a $1,000 payment by Mohammad's wife at a suburban Chicago post office on May 5. Six days later, Mohammad told the agent that the rest of the money would be wired to his wife from Dubai via Texas.
On May 16, the undercover agent met Mohammad's wife again, showed her what he said was a photograph of Zouhary's dead body and told her he needed the remainder of the money.
"Conspiring to have a judge killed is not the way to avoid being prosecuted," FBI Special Agent Stephen Anthony said in a statement, "now Mohammad will be held accountable for additional serious federal charges."
There was no immediate comment from Mohammad's attorney.
If convicted, Mohammad faces up to 20 years in prison on each of the the attempted murder and soliciation charges, as well as up to 10 years in prison on the use of interstate commerce facilities charge.
Mohammad has already pleaded not guilty to the earlier terrorism charges.
An Ohio police search for a woman with a history of mental illness and drug abuse who disappeared late last week with her 6-year-old son concluded Wednesday afternoon when the Gratis Police Department said in a statement the two had been found safe.
Gratis Police "confirmed the safety" of Jamie Fields, 36, and her son, Alex. No other information was provided.
The two were last seen going to a grocery store on July 1.
Mom has a past. We don't have any contact with her as of now, so we are trying to work and get all the info we can, Cpl. Jeanifer Riley told Fox 45 earlier. We are contacting all of her cell phones trying to get her to answer for us.
David Fields, Jamies husband and Alexs father, reported the pair missing on July 4.
Family members told WRGT that Jamie had previously vanished for brief periods.
Click for more from Fox 45.
Police said Wednesday they were far from solving a mystery involving two burned bodies found in the Rochester, N.Y. area just this week.
This is the second body found burned since Monday in the Rochester region. https://t.co/SYzRDiTAOr #ROC pic.twitter.com/Svv1yAWQrm Rochester D and C (@DandC) July 6, 2016
A witness spotted one body burned beyond recognition in a wooded part of La Grange Park in Rochester just before 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, less than two days after a body was found on the side of an isolated dirt road in Caledonia.
The first body was discovered late Monday night. Caledonia is 20 miles southwest of Rochester.
Autopsies were planned to determine the genders and causes of death for both bodies, as Rochester and New York State Police looked for a possible link in the crimes. Part of a road near the park was closed off.
Rochester authorities say they're in the early stages of the investigation. It's a "slow, methodical process," Police Investigator Frank Camp told the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.
Officers asked anybody with details to step forward.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Rescue crews in Texas searched Tuesday for an off-duty Southern Methodist University police officer who is presumed drowned after he was swept away in floodwaters.
According to the Dallas Morning News, the unidentified officer was working security at a nearby construction site when a thunderstorm swept through the area. The officer called a dispatcher to report that his care was being submerged by the water. The paper reported he lost contact with officials at about 1:30 a.m.
Dallas Fire-Rescue crews stopped the search for the officer at about 7 p.m. and are expected to continue scouring the area near Turtle Creek Wednesday morning. Officials said they were treating the search as a recovery mission.
About 40 people and a K-9 team joined the search. Crews searched a 2-mile area near the Trinity River, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Search crews discovered the officers white Dodge Charger in the water Tuesday afternoon. A tow truck pulled it out of the water at around 3:45 p.m. Its windows were smashed in and concrete and mud had filled the vehicle.
Fox 4 News reported that surveillance footage may have showed the officer leave his car before his car was completely washed away.
Authorities said the officer wasnt inside.
SMU is located about two miles north of where the officer vanished. Campus officers and a spokeswoman search the area for hours.
SMU Police Chief Richard Shafer was said in a statement that he was saddened by the news.
"Our prayers and thoughts are with the officer's family members and other loved ones as the search continues," Shafer added. "Respecting the sensitivity of family members, first, we will share more information as it becomes available."
Click for more from the Dallas Morning News.
Click for more from Fox 4 News.
A Toronto university student who survived a militant attack in Bangladesh has been detained by authorities in the country's capital since the weekend siege, his family said Wednesday as they called for the young man's release.
Police have not explained why they've held Tahmid Hasib Khan, 22, for the past four days and concerns are mounting for his well-being, his family said.
"We are concerned that they might put a case against him," his cousin Rasheek Irtisam said from Dhaka. "If they put a case against him, it will take years in Bangladesh."
Khan, a permanent resident of Canada, is an undergraduate student studying global health at the University of Toronto. His family said Khan arrived in Dhaka on July 1 to celebrate Eid with his family, and planned to travel to Nepal to begin an internship next week.
They said Khan was meeting friends at a Dhaka cafe when he and others were taken hostage for 10 hours on July 1.
Two police officers and 20 hostages -- nine Italians, seven Japanese, an Indian and three students from American universities -- were killed in the siege at the upscale restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic zone. Six of the attackers also died.
Authorities held five former hostages for questioning but have released three.
Khan's father was able to speak with his son twice since the siege ended, with the last phone call taking place two days ago.
"He said he was alive, he was doing fine," said Irtisam, adding that his cousin had epilepsy and sometimes suffers seizures when under extreme stress. "We are right now worried about that. We are trying to get some doctors over there."
The family have also reached out to Bangladesh's Home Minister in an attempt to secure their son's release and have a lawyer stationed outside the building where Khan is being held, Irtisam said.
The Islamic State terror group boiled seven of its own soldiers alive after they apparently fled the battlefield in Fallujah, Iraq, local reports revealed on Tuesday.
Iraq declared late last month that ISIS had completely escaped Fallujah after its faceoff with Iraqi forces aided by coalition airstrikes. The Fars News Agency reported that the terror group punished seven militants who tried to escape by tying their hands and legs before throwing them into a large pot of boiling water.
ISIS also shot and killed an additional 19 soldiers who tried to flee during a firefight in al-Shuhada and al-Nassaf in the central part of the city, according to reports.
Iraqi forces declared Fallujah fully liberated after government troops routed remaining ISIS fighters from the city's north and west under the close cover of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes. The battle, which began May 22, was the latest in a string of territorial defeats for ISIS in Iraq over the past year.
At the height of the group's power, in 2014, ISIS rendered nearly a third of the country out of government control, having blitzed across large swaths of the north and west and capturing Iraq's second-largest city of Mosul. Since then, it was estimated to control only 14 percent of Iraqi territory, according to the office of Iraq's prime minister.
More than 500 ISIS fighters managed to escape Fallujah throughout the five-week offensive, an Iraqi officer told The Associated Press on Thursday. Earlier this year, more than 1,000 ISIS fighters were estimated to have fled the operation that retook Ramadi, the Anbar provincial capital.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Uganda: Museveni Refers to Israel as 'Palestine' during Netanyahu Visit
By Lizabeth Paulat
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Uganda on Monday, kicking off a four-country tour of East Africa. The trip is seen as a significant event for the region, which no Israeli leader had visited in 30 years.
However, the day was marred by controversy when Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's repeatedly referred to Israel as Palestine during a speech. The president was talking about Operation Entebbe, in which Israeli commandos rescued hostages from Uganda's Entebbe International Airport after an Air France flight was hijacked by Palestinian militants.
"The sad event, 40 years ago, turned into another bond linking Palestine to Africa," Museveni said. "I said this is yet another bond between Africa and Palestine because there were earlier bonding events."
Many Ugandans openly wondered on Twitter who could have written his speech, predicting that heads would roll for the mistake. Others called the mix-up "gafffetastic," while some wondered about Museveni's state of mind.
Israelis on Twitter also lashed out at the mix-up, calling the president's speech rambling and bizarre, and reporting that the Israeli radio broadcaster cut off the speech before it finished. So far there has been no response from Netanyahu.
Ofwono Opondo, a spokesperson with the Ugandan government, quickly tweeted out a defense of the Israel/Palestine mix-up, saying, "The whole of that land was originally known as Palestine so Museveni's reference isn't wrong." Palestinians claim the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip as land for a prospective future state.
Opposition to commemoration
During the June 1976 hijacking, the airplane was flown to Entebbe. Then-president of Uganda, Idi Amin, threw his support behind the hijackers. However the standoff came to an end on the night of July 4th, when Israeli commandos stormed the airport and rescued 102 hostages.
The operation ended with 45 Ugandan casualties and one Israeli casualty, the older brother of Prime Minister Netanyahu. The 40-year anniversary of the event was marked with reflections on the budding relationship between Israel and Uganda.
However, some Ugandans are appalled that the Ugandan government would commemorate the Entebbe raid. One Ugandan man, who did not wish to be identified, says he lost his uncle during the raid, and he doesn't understand why the breaching of sovereign borders is being remembered in a positive light.
"Today goes down as a sad day to these brave men who abandoned everything to serve their country. Netanyahu thinks his brother who died here is the only life that matters," he said. "It's betrayal. Ugandan soldiers stood up to defend the country's sovereignty from a foreign attack it doesn't matter why they attacked they breached our borders, our soldiers died in the line of duty. You can come here to celebrate the invasion and remember Netanyahu's brother? It's utter betrayal."
The Israeli prime minister will also be heading to Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia during his tour, in which he is expected to discuss issues of regional investment and security.
FOCUS Brands Names Rick Altizer as President of McAlister's Deli
ATLANTA - July 6, 2016 // PRNewswire // - FOCUS Brands names Rick Altizer as President of McAlister's Deli, a leading fast-casual restaurant chain best known for its Famous Sweet Tea and world class hospitality which was recently ranked as one of consumers' favorite chains by Restaurant Business.
"Rick is an accomplished executive who has a strong track record for leading high-performance teams and transforming businesses into high-growth franchises," said FOCUS Brands President, North America,Paul Damico. "He will draw on his extensive experience in the franchise business to continue to drive McAlister's innovation and success."
Rick joins McAlister's from Rightwell Growth, a business consultancy group which helps early-stage growth companies establish strategy, capital, and resources necessary to achieve growth.
"I am very pleased to have this opportunity to lead McAlister's to its next stage of growth and success," said Rick Altizer, President of McAlister's Deli.
With more than 30 years of leadership experience in retail marketing and operations. Rick began his food service career with McDonald's Corporation in 1989. He demonstrated his expertise through a number of positions with the company, including roles in accounting, operations, and store management, rounding out his tenure as VP and General Manager of 500 store locations across Kansas and Missouri.
Following McDonald's, Rick served for four years as VP of Operations and Training for Midas International and then as the President of Jiffy Lube International before moving to the role of Fuel Marketing VP with Shell Oil in Houston, TX. In that role, Rick served the wholesalers and sites for two years by leading the team that creates marketing and loyalty programs for over 14,000 Shell branded fueling and convenience sites across North America. After Shell, Rick became CEO at Elevation Burger, the world's first and largest grass-fed organic hamburger chain. During his term as CEO, Rick helped transform the company from a small, family-owned business to a high-growth restaurant franchise, revitalizing comp sales trajectories and achieving double-digit growth in total sales.
About McAlister's
Founded in 1989, McAlister's Deli is a fast casual restaurant chain known for its sandwiches, spuds, soups, salads, desserts and McAlister's Famous Sweet Tea. In addition to dine-in and take-out service, McAlister's also offers catering with a selection of sandwich trays, box lunches, desserts, a hot spud bar and more. With numerous industry accolades, the McAlister's brand has more than 361 restaurants in 28 states. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, Ga. For more information, visit www.mcalistersdeli.com.
About FOCUS Brands Inc.
Atlanta-based FOCUS Brands Inc., through its affiliate brands, is the franchisor and operator of more than 5,000 ice cream shoppes, bakeries, restaurants, and cafes in the United States, the District of Columbia,Puerto Rico and 60 foreign countries under the brand names Carvel, Cinnabon, Schlotzsky's, Moe's Southwest Grill, Auntie Anne's and McAlister's Deli, as well as Seattle's Best Coffee on certain military bases and in certain international markets. Please visit www.focusbrands.com to learn more.
SOURCE McAlister's Deli
Media Contact:
Melissa Smith
McAlister's Deli
(404) 705-4449
melissasmith@focusbrands.com
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Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has asked the Verkhovna Rada to get back to work and pass a decision to appoint the members of the Council of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) within the parliament's quota.
"I'd like to ask all the lawmakers and particularly [those from] two [parliamentary] factions to do us a favor to unblock the Ukrainian parliament's work and pass at least two decisions. The first one is to endorse a decision on the NBU's supervisory council within the Verkhovna Rada's quota," he said at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The transfer of UAH 38 billion from the NBU depends on this, he said.
"If the parliament fails, this may threaten social welfare payments, unfortunately," he added.
What is more, the parliament also needs to pass legislation to secure the return of the $1.5 billion to the national budget. The funds were stolen from Ukrainian taxpayers and later seized back.
As was reported earlier, leader of the Radical Party Oleh Liashko said on July 5 that his faction would block the parliament's rostrum and presidium together with the Batkivschyna Party, demanding the formation of a parliamentary commission of inquiry into utilities tariffs. They also insist on the adoption of a bill ensuring the use of all domestically produced gas for the needs of Ukraine's housing and utilities sector. Their other demands include an investigation into corrupt deeds by senior Ukrainian officials.
Ukraine and the United States are preparing the resumption of launches of Antares modernized launch vehicle from Wallops Flight Facility (Virginia, U.S.) that delivers cargos to the International Space Station (ISS) under the NASA order, Head of the State Space Agency of Ukraine (SSAU) Liubomyr Sabadosh has said.
"According to the information from our U.S. partners, the launch of the Cygnus cargo spacecraft using Antares launch vehicle scheduled for July 6, 2016 has been postponed for August due to technical reasons: partners are finishing the tuning of new RD-181 rocket engines successfully tested in June," he said.
He recalled that Ukraine is one of the key participants of the Antares program: Pivdenne Design Bureau designed the first stage of the launch vehicle and Pivdenmash made it (both are based in Dnipro).
Early this year Pivdenmash and U.S. Orbital ATK signed a new contract to produce and supply six first stages of Antares launch vehicle for commercial missions of NASA with the option for six more stages. Pivdenmash said that at least two sections of first stages would be delivered in autumn under the contract. Since 2013, eight first stages have been shipped to the U.S. customer under the project, and three of them have not yet been used.
Ukraine and the United States have been cooperating under the Antares program since 2008. Orbital ATK designed the Antares launch vehicle under a contract with NASA worth $1.9 billion.
The Ukrainian Grain Association (UGA) has asked Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman to postpone the decision to inspect value added tax (VAT) refunds to exporters of agricultural products.
The association's press service reported that according to information announced at a government meeting this could concern the list of 20 largest grain exporters.
"We believe that the decision is ill-timed. The largest exporters of Ukrainian grain are companies from the United States, China, France, Germany, Austria, Japan, South Korea and some famous Ukrainian companies. Do we inspect them again? Is this the method to support Ukrainian exporters? Are these efforts to create investment climate in Ukraine? We think that it is not," the press service said, citing the association's address to the prime minister.
UGA said that the start of inspections actually blocks VAT refunding for months and in some cases for years.
"This would result in the decline of grain prices, which are not high at all. Harvesting has only started," the association said.
The association pointed out unequal conditions for VAT refunds due to keeping two registers. The State Fiscal Service's website contains information about sums companies claimed for refunding, but there is no information about actual refunding under the claims. This system makes impossible to control VAT refunds to exporters by the public and business and it affects the investment climate in the country.
"According to our opinion, the provision of equal approaches to inspections of exporters and VAT refunding is very important in settling the issue raised by the government, irrespective of the size of the declared budget refunding and the type of exported goods," UGA said.
Look on the bright side: What with global warming sending our poor, precious planet into a hellbound death spiral, and summers newly blistering temperatures turning your kitchen into Satans sauna, this is the perfect opportunity for you to spend a little more time outside at the grill. So grab your tongs, Prep Schoodents, and lets grill us some vegetables.
WHY YOU NEED
TO LEARN THIS
Unless youre a werewolf, you cant just be grilling meat all the time. And even if you are a werewolf, you must have at least a couple human friends who you might want to have for dinner. (Or rather, have over for dinner.) Or, lycanthropy aside, perhaps you eschew the bloody victuals altogether, opting instead for what our vegan friends at Mercy For Animals (Look them up!) refer to as a plant-based diet. If any of these holds close enough to true, I suggest hieing down to your local farmers market, picking up an armload of beautiful, fresh vegetables, and then firing up the grill.
THE STEPS TO TAKE
Remember that the grilling of vegetables is not an impenetrable mystery like the true identity of Jack the Ripper or the whereabouts of D.B. Cooper. All were doing is applying heat, just like in the kitchen. The principles are the same. Once you come to terms with that, the main thing to think aboutand youve got to think about this with meat, toois whether your vegetables will work better with direct heat or indirect heat.
Grills, particularly charcoal grills, tend to be very, very hot. Thats why theyre perfect for relatively thin items like steaks, because the interior cooks quickly, before the surface gets overly charred. If an item is very thick, on the other hand, when the outside is perfect, the inside will still be raw. Likewise, by the time the inside is properly cooked, the outside will look like the side of Mrs. OLearys barn.
For those larger pieces of meat or vegetables, indirect heat in a covered grill works just like your oven.
A couple more general things: First, grill marks. If your vegetables are cut into long, thin, oblong planks (as opposed to rounds), lay them on the grill at a 45-degree angle to the grate. After grill marks develop (gently lift an edge to peek), rotate 90 degrees to create a great-looking cross-hatched pattern. After you flip the vegetables, no need to rotate because thats the side that will be down.
Second, make sure to oil your grate or your vegetables to keep them from sticking. If you use an oil-based marinade, thatll probably be enough.
Now, lets take a look at a few vegetables:
Eggplant. One of my faves for grilling. Peel them or not, then cut into circular cross sections or lengthwise planks. Then, you could just brush the slices with oil or drop them into a tasty marinade for just a bit. Eggplant is pretty much a vegetative sponge and will soak up whatever marinade youre using. If it soaks up too much, itll get soggy and nasty, two of my least favorite qualities in grilled vegetables. Just go for a couple of minutes, and itll be lovely.
Summer squash. Zucchini, yellow squash, golden zucchini. Cut half-inch slices on the bias or lengthwise, marinate for up to 20 minutes, then grill two to three minutes per side. You could also toss them with a little marinade or spice rub before or after you grill to make them even yummier.
Long, skinny green things. Asparagus. Green beans. Scallions. All of these work well on the grill. Marinate them if you want, or, if youre in a hurry, just throw them directly onto the grill, directly over the heat. And, just to pre-empt any of you crazies who write in to say that you burned all your veggies because they fell onto the coals: Make sure those long skinny green things are at a 90-degree angle to the grate so they dont slip through.
Sheesh.
Cauliflower. Cut half-inch steaks lengthwise through the coreyou can get two or three per headthen marinate and grill over medium heat 10 to 12 minutes per side. Or, break the head into florets (or use the extra florets from cutting out the steaks), toss with a marinade and wrap in aluminum foil. Grill until done, anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. Or, and this is my favorite, trim the core but leave the head intact, paint with melted butter and Parmesan or your favorite marinade, and wrap in aluminum foil. Grill, covered, using indirect heat, for 45 minutes to an hour. When you unwrap it, and its sitting there, slightly charred and steaming, you can tell your kids that its a barbecued human brain.
Corn on the cob. Pull husk most of the way down the ear and remove the silk. Return the husk and soak in cold water for 15 to 20 minutes. Place ears directly on the grate. Grill, covered, for about 15 minutes, turning every 3 to 5 minutes as the husk starts to blacken. Let it cool a bit before removing the husk to avoid getting burned by the steam.
Onions, tomatoes and bell peppers. Cut in half and lay directly over the flame. Flip after a couple of minutes to get some char on the other side. Marinate or not, as you see fit.
Smallish vegetables. Mushrooms, cherry tomatoes or cut pieces of any of the above. Thread them onto soaked wooden skewers (to prevent burning), season or marinate, then grill until you get a little color, turning often.
SAUCES FOR YOUR
GRILLED VEGGIES
The first three can be used as marinades, too.
Nuoc cham. This ubiquitous Vietnamese condiment is easy to make and delicious. Combine equal amounts of fish sauce, water and fresh lime juice. Sweeten lightly with sugar and give it a kick with sliced jalapenos or crushed red pepper.
Chimichurri. Pulse fresh herbs in a blender with red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar, garlic, red pepper flakes and a touch of olive oil.
Korean-style dipping sauce. Combine a quarter cup each of water and soy sauce with an ounce of sugar, a couple tablespoons each of minced garlic and ginger and a tablespoon of sesame oil.
Aioli. Stir some crushed garlic into some mayo. How much garlic? How bad is the vampire problem in your neighborhood? You can also make it Asian style by mixing in wasabi or miso for a Japanese flavor, or gochujang, ssamjang or doenjang for a Korean accent or sesame oil for Chinese flavors. Or whisk in some pesto. Or harissa for a North African flavor.
SEATTLE July 6, 2016 Inherited mutations in genes that function to repair DNA may contribute to metastatic prostate cancer more than previously recognized, according to a study out today in The New England Journal of Medicine. Though infrequent in the general population, inherited mutations in specific types of DNA-repair genes, such as BRCA1 and BRCA2, are known to predispose to prostate cancer. However, the rate of such mutations in men with metastatic prostate cancer previously was unknown.
This groundbreaking study revealed that more than 10 percent of men with aggressive prostate cancer that has spread outside of the prostate have inherited mutations in DNA-repair genes more than four times the rate of the general population and more than twice the rate of men with localized prostate cancer. Men with such mutations could benefit from targeted treatment already approved for ovarian cancer patients with these mutations, such as PARP inhibitors or platinum drugs.
Dr. Peter Nelson, a member of the Human Biology, Clinical Research, and Public Health Sciences divisions at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and senior and corresponding author of the study commented: The result is surprising and important for men with prostate cancer as this information may prioritize certain therapies. It is also important for family members as they may have inherited a gene that predisposes them to developing one of several types of cancer, and heightened awareness could enhance early detection and treatment. These findings present a compelling argument for updating prostate cancer guidelines to include germline DNA testing as a part of standard care for men with metastatic prostate cancer. Nelson is also a professor of medical oncology at the University of Washington School of Medicine and an oncologist specializing in therapies for early- and late-stage prostate cancer, pathology, and genome sciences at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.
JustAirTicket Travel Website Offers Advanced Technology Search Engines
New travel booking search engines tailor traveler's booking experience to well rounded results and fares.
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JustAirTicket is an online travel agency that helps thousands of people find deals on flights, hotels, rental cars, and package trips. The agency has grown tremendously over the last several years and has added thousands of flight options with over 400 airlines worldwide. The agency offers deals by time frame, destinations such as Europe or overseas, cheapest hotel rates and best current deals among others.
JustAirTicket also states that they utilize "state of the art technology to supply travel inventory at competitive pricing," which satisfied customers have agreed with and can be seen in the reviews left on the website. The travel search engines provided allow customers to tailor their trip by dates, one-way or roundtrip, adults and children and class. They offer online support as well as a 24/7 call number should travelers have questions or need assistance.
The travel agency also states that it provides "new, travel-search related told for a smooth trip planning process." They offer assistance either online or via phone to help customers use the new tools for a smooth trip planning process. The tools assist in a tailor-made search that travelers can utilize to maximize their results. The upgraded tool system and website help JustAirTicket continue as leading travel agency and in more satisfied customers as the summer vacation season continues.
About JustAirTicket
JustAirTicket is assisting travelers and vacationers not only with their booking and itineraries, but also providing them information that is useful such as baggage fees for a multitude of airlines and current discounted airfares. Professional customer service agents are ready and waiting to assist in any way they can.
JustAirTicket is currently assisting customers with their summer vacation plans. For the best fares, as well as deals on hotels and rental cars please visit http://www.justairticket.com/ for more information. Customer service agents can assist customers with details and booking at 1-800-940-9345 and are available 24/7.
For more information, please visit http://www.justairticket.com/
For more information, please visit http://www.justairticket.com/
Contact Info:
Name: Ashish Rathour
Email: info@justairticket.com
Organization: JustAirTicket
Address: 2500 Plaza 5, 25th Floor, Harborside Financial Center, Jersey City, NJ 07311
Phone: 1-800-940-9345
Source: http://marketersmedia.com/justairticket-travel-website-offers-advanced-technology-search-engines/122053
Release ID: 122053
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CCHR Helps Hundreds of People Fight Unjust Involuntary Commitment
While efforts have been made to protect the rights of Floridians, the fact remains that the number of people being Baker Acted yearly is continuing to climb resulting in people being sent against their will for involuntary examination and held for up to 72 hours.
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The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a non-profit mental health watchdog organization dedicated to the eradication of abuses committed under the guise of mental health, have helped secure the safe release of almost 200 people who were being unjustly held under the Baker Act.
The mental health law in Florida, commonly known as the Baker Act, allows for individuals to be sent against their will for involuntary examination and held for up to 72 hours. While efforts have been made to protect the rights of Floridians over the years, the fact remains that the number of people being Baker Acted each year is continuing to climb.
"We average about 50 calls a month on the Psychiatric Abuse Hotline from people calling about a friend or loved one that has been Baker Acted and unfortunately all too often the victim in question did not meet the criteria under the law and should not have been arrested and sent to a psychiatric facility," said Diane Stein, President of CCHR Florida.
According to the Annual Report of Baker Act Data summary for 2014, the number of involuntary exam initiations increased 81.89% from 2002 to 2014. This increase in involuntary exam initiations is greater than Florida's population increase during this same time period.
Since 2012 law enforcement, schools and the media have been reporting the overuse of the Baker Act and while legislative amendments have been enacted to protect individuals, the changes that have been made are not adequate.
In order to help address violations of human and civil rights under the mental health law, CCHR mans a Psychiatric Abuse Hotline 7 days a week from 10am until 10pm so that individuals who need help have someone they can call.
CCHR does not stop there as they also file complaints on behalf of those who have suffered abuse with the applicable agencies and officials working with the victims and their families to ensure that these abuses are investigated and those responsible are held accountable.
Since February of 2015, CCHR has filed almost 300 complaints concerning abuse within the Florida mental health system that have resulted in multiple investigations and sanctions against offending psychiatrists and facilities.
"Too often people who seek help from psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health workers, are falsely diagnosed and involuntary committed. CCHR is here to expose this abuse, help those who have been unjustly incarcerated and in the end hope to change the involuntary commitment process," said Diane Stein.
About CCHR: Initially established by the Church of Scientology and renowned psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz in 1969, CCHR's mission is to eradicate abuses committed under the guise of mental health and enact patient and consumer protections.
It was L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, who brought the terror of psychiatric imprisonment to the notice of the world. In March 1969, he said, "Thousands and thousands are seized without process of law, every week, over the 'free world' tortured, castrated, killed. All in the name of 'mental health.'"
After discovering that 55 percent of foster children in Florida had been prescribed powerful mind-altering psychotropic drugs, CCHR documented the abuse to the health department, which initiated changes that led to a 75 percent reduction in prescriptions for children under six. Considered a potentially abusive, marketing tool for psychiatrists, CCHR Florida led the charge that got "Teen Screen", mental health screening of school children, banned from Pinellas County schools in 2005. For more information visit, www.cchrflorida.org
SOURCES: http://bakeract.fmhi.usf.edu/document/BA_Annual_20... http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/education/... http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/editori... http://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article1940... http://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article1940... http://jacksonville.com/opinion/editorials/2015-11...
For more information, please visit http://www.cchrflorida.org/
Contact Info:
Name: Diane Stein
Email: publicaffairs@cchrflorida.org
Organization: Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Florida
Address: 109 N. Fort Harrison Ave.
Phone: 727-442-8820
Release ID: 122184
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Industrial Enzymes Market Will Grow Swiftly Owing To Extensive Usage In Food & Beverage Sector And As Cleaning Agent
According to report published by Grand View Research, global industrial enzymes market revenue will reach $9.63 billion by 2024, technological advancements leading to diverse applications to drive the market
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The global industrial enzymes market is expected to reach USD 9.63 billion by 2024, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. The market is expected to witness significant growth owing to increasing substitution of chemicals with industrial enzymes particularly in food & beverage and nutraceutical applications.
Growing applications of industrial enzymes for use in detergents and as ingredients in food processing industry is expected to fuel the demand. Proteases are extensively used in the detergent industry owing to its superior stain removal properties. However, the demand in the detergent application is expected to witness sluggish growth owing to market saturation.
Growing use of protease in bakery products is expected to drive market growth. Furthermore, increasing application scope of the product in nutraceutical industry as a digestive enzyme is expected to drive demand.
Technological advancements in the field of industrial enzymes have led to the use of the product as cleaning agents. The increasing use of enzymes for waste water treatment is also expected to drive the demand over the forecast period.
Neozymes, DSM, and Danisco dominated the global industrial enzymes market in 2015 with the industry being characterized by forward integration by manufacturers to distribution and end-use. Manufacturers such as DuPont and DSM manufacture industrial enzymes for specialized applications. The global industrial enzymes market is dominated by North America due to the presence of a large number of manufacturers in the U.S. and Canada.
Access full research report with charts and figures: http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/industrial-enzymes-market
Further key findings from the report suggest:
o Industrial enzymes demand for lipases is expected to witness substantial growth, growing at over 8.0% from 2016 to 2024. Increasing demand for the product in food & beverage and textile industry is expected to augment growth over the forecast period.
o The feed additive enzymes are expected to be the fastest growing product segment, growing at over CAGR 9.0% from 2016 to 2024. The increasing use of enzymes as a protein source in animal feed is to improve performance in livestock which in turn is anticipated to drive demand over the projected period.
o Asia Pacific is expected to witness substantial growth, growing at a CAGR of over 10.0% from 2016 to 2024. Robust expansion in food processing industries particularly in Asia Pacific is expected to augment growth. Furthermore, the supportive regulations promoting the expansion of manufacturing industries is expected to have a positive impact on market growth.
o Europe accounted for over 29.0% of the market share in 2015 and is expected to witness significant growth owing to rising demand in pharmaceutical and textile industry. Stringent regulations prohibiting the use of toxic chemicals and catalysts in various applications is expected to positively impact market over the next eight years.
o Key players in the industry include BASF SE, Koninklijke DSM N.V, Novozymes A/S., Associated British Foods PLC E. I. Du Pont De Nemours and Company Adisseo France SaS, Dyadic International Incorporated CHR, Codexis Incorporated. Hansen Holding A/S, and Amano Enzyme Incorporated.
Request for free sample of this research report: http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/industrial-enzymes-market/request
Grand View Research has segmented the industrial enzymes market on the basis of product, application, end-use and region:
Industrial Enzymes Market Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024)
o Carbohydrase
o Proteases
o Lipases
o Polymerases & nucleases
o Others
Industrial Enzymes Market Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024)
o Technical
o Feed additive
o Food processing
Industrial Enzymes Market End-use Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024)
o Food & beverage
o Detergents
o Animal feed
o Textile
o Paper & pulp
o Nutraceutical
o Personal care & cosmetics
o Wastewater
Industrial Enzymes Market Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024)
o North America
o U.S.
o Canada
o Mexico
o Europe
o Germany
o UK
o France
o Asia Pacific
o China
o India
o Japan
o Latin America
o Brazil
o Middle East & Africa
o South Africa
Access news release of this research report: http://www.grandviewresearch.com/press-release/global-industrial-enzymes-market
About Grand View Research
Grand View Research, Inc. is a U.S. based market research and consulting company, registered in the State of California and headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services.
For more information, please visit http://www.grandviewresearch.com
Contact Info:
Name: Sherry James
Email: sales@grandviewresearch.com
Organization: Grand View Research, Inc.
Address: 28 2nd Street, Suite 3036, San Francisco, California, 94105
Phone: 1-415-349-0058
Source: http://marketersmedia.com/industrial-enzymes-market-will-grow-swiftly-owing-to-extensive-usage-in-food-beverage-sector-and-as-cleaning-agent/122249
Release ID: 122249
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BCHFirm.com Reports on More than 190,000 Vehicular Accidents in Florida in 2016
Individuals need to seek representation when they are injured in any type of accident involving a vehicle to ensure they get fair compensation, the Harrington Law Group Announces
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FIRES (Florida's Integrated Report Exchange System) reports there have been 191,935 total crashes in the state through July 4, 2016. Of these crashes, 80,603 involved injuries, and 1,443 individuals lost their life. Individuals who have been injured in any type of vehicular accident need to ensure they obtain fair compensation for their injuries, and a Personal Injury Attorney in St. Petersburg, FL will work to ensure this is the case.
"Never try to take on the insurance companies alone. They retain a team of attorneys who work diligently to make certain the insurance company never pays a dime more than they must. For this reason, any automobile accident victim needs to ensure they have an Auto Accident Attorney in St. Petersburg, FL fighting to get them the maximum compensation possible," Raymond Gonzalez, spokesperson for Harrington Law Group, declares.
Individuals often make mistakes when speaking to an insurance company. For example, when someone asks how they are doing, they respond with fine. This is true even when they are not, as they typically don't feel the need to share their problems with strangers. The insurance company then uses this statement to prove the injured party wasn't seriously harmed in the accident.
"People often don't stop to think how a simple statement may be construed in this way, only learning their error when the case goes to be settled. An experienced personal injury attorney works with the client to prevent mistakes of this type, as they can prohibit the injured party from getting fair compensation for the harm that has been done to them," Gonzalez continues.
Furthermore, individuals frequently fail to realize the far reaching consequences of their injuries and what they may receive compensation for. In the event special help must be called in to handle routine tasks, such as cleaning the home or mowing the lawn, these expenses may be included in the claim. The same is true of any other help that is needed during this difficult time, and this will be the case for those injured in any type of vehicular accident, including those on motorcycles, in cars or on a bike.
"Whether you are in need of a Motorcycle Accident Attorney in St. Petersburg, FL or need someone who is experienced in car or bicycle accidents, we can be of help. We work directly with clients, as opposed to passing them off to junior associates, so you feel confident knowing what is going on with your case at all times. Contact us today, and we'll be happy to discuss your case with you," Gonzalez states
About Harrington Law Group:
The attorneys at the Harrington Law Group possess more than 40 years of experience helping people injured in a vehicular accident. They work diligently to ensure clients obtain the compensation they deserve for their injuries.
For more information, please visit http://www.bchfirm.com
Contact Info:
Name: Raymond Gonzalez
Organization: Harrington Law Group
Phone: (305) 542-2431
Source: http://marketersmedia.com/bchfirm-com-reports-on-more-than-190000-vehicular-accidents-in-florida-in-2016/122352
Release ID: 122352
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International Poster Gallery Prepares to Open Its 22nd Annual Summer Poster Show
Set to run from July 5 through Sept. 4 at 205 Newbury St. Boston gallery, travel- and leisure-themed vintage poster show will be free and open to the public, International Poster Gallery reports
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Want To get Away? Wanderlust, adventure and relaxation are the spirit of IPG's 22nd Annual Summer Poster Show, "Summer Getaway!" The show spotlights more than 50 original vintage travel and leisure posters from near and far, plus a new discovery of 30 rarely-seen airline posters. The exhibition opens July 5, 2016 and runs through September 5, 2016. The show is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday 10 am to 6 pm and Sunday noon to 6 pm. The Gallery is located at 205 Newbury Street in Boston. Call (617) 375-0076 or visit www.internationalposter.com for information.
Our show is paced by a fine collection of airline posters. The headliner, Bermuda - 5 Hours by Air PAA by Adolph Treidler c. 1937, pictures a handsome young couple heading out on their bicycles under a star-filled sky. Overhead, a Pan Am flying boat is silhouetted by the full moon as a sailboat glides by in the harbor. Inspiring honeymooners to the island for decades, this romantic poster is one of the earliest to advertise Pan Am's New York to Bermuda route, which became the initial stop on the world's first transatlantic route.
After World War II, fast and long-distance turbo-props made air travel more affordable for vacationers. An explosion of delightful new ad campaigns to "Everyman" locations created powerful consumer airline brands. A series in the show by Joseph Feher for United Airlines revealed the beauty of the West, including Yosemite, Colorado and the Pacific Northwest, along with Southern California and San Francisco.
The most iconic posters of the era however were the kaleidoscopic, friendly and often whimsical posters of David Klein for TWA. The best of this series are on display in the exhibition, including his kinetic views of the Hollywood Bowl, Times Square and San Francisco Bay in the rare early printings featuring the era's most beautiful plane, the Lockheed Constellation turboprop. In 1957, the debut of the Boeing 707 jet made airline travel even more affordable and fast, and classics from other airlines are included.
Ocean, train and rail travel are also well represented. A.M. Cassandre's 1929 poster for the launch of the Statendam is the perfect expression of the Art Deco style. Power and speed are the message of the streamlined, geometric design by the father of the Machine Age style.
The railway section features several fine designs by Alo for the French railways in the 1920s, and Swiss Rail works by Emil Cardinaux and Daniele Buzzi. From the US is Edward Eggleston's stunning Depression-era Atlantic City from the Pennsylvania Railroad. With its fabulous architectural setting and glamorous bather, it promised an escape to an idyllic world not unlike a Hollywood film.
Summer sport posters echo the theme of adventure, particularly sailing, auto racing and beach themes. Included are Otto von Hanno's charming 1930s Summer in Norway poster of sail boats playing cat and mouse amongst the fjords and the 1936 Art Deco Australia Surf Club by Gert Sellheim. The show concludes with psychedelic Rock & Roll posters from the Fillmore Auditorium and beautiful post-war jazz festival posters from Willisau.
"As always, our 22nd Summer Show is full of fun combined with great design. This year, the energy of Mid-Century Modernism is front and center," states Gallery owner Jim Lapides, a nationally recognized authority on vintage posters and poster collecting. "Many of these are avidly sought by museums today and are still very affordable to beginning collectors."
Since opening in 1994 on Newbury Street, International Poster Gallery has hosted more than 50 thematic exhibitions of original vintage posters. Many of these have been specialized, in-depth surveys, including exhibitions on posters of the Russian Revolution, Art Deco, Swiss Object Posters from 1919-1959, and the first exhibitions dedicated to Italian vintage posters in this country.
The gallery's website, www.internationalposter.com, features more than 4,500 posters with thumbnails and offers helpful information about poster collecting. The powerful search engine allows viewers to search the inventory thoroughly and easily by subject, country, style, poster artist, or any key word.
About International Poster Gallery:
With a huge collection of original vintage posters from around the world, International Poster Gallery is a top source for striking, memorable art and more.
For more information, please visit http://www.internationalposter.com
Contact Info:
Name: Jim Lapides
Organization: International Poster Gallery
Address: 205 Newbury St. Boston, MA 02116
Phone: 617-375-0076
Source: http://marketersmedia.com/international-poster-gallery-prepares-to-open-its-22nd-annual-summer-poster-show/122336
Release ID: 122336
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Marici Launch New Solar and Renewable Energy Consultancy Website
Property owners are all looking to reduce energy costs in a cost effective manner. Marici is an independent Australian owned and operated consultancy firm dedicated to researching and sourcing renewable energy solutions and installers for their clients.
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Amber Ferguson, Founder and Principal of MARICI said, "We keep up to date with the ever changing face of technology it the renewable energy industry. We help clients select a suitable solar energy system from the myriad of options available and provide the full unbiased facts to give them informed confidence in the system they select. We help them understand what they are getting, what optional choices they have and even explaining how their selection works."
Marici's staff have over 12 years experience in solar power and understand just how volatile and quickly things can change in the industry. Because of the rapidly changing face of this technology, ill-informed advice is rife and can cause great confusion for property owners. Marici take the confusion and guess work out of the decision making process and give all the information needed to make an informed decision.
Amber Ferguson said,"we pride ourselves on providing the very best consultancy advice to clients wanting to select a solar power or water system for their property. When selected, they can purchase the system via our e-commerce portal on the website. We are very pleased with the feedback on the website and its functionality since it recently went live."
To reduce business or home energy costs, visit the Marici website to get more information on this and other related topics here: http://www.marici.com.au
About Marici The team at Marici is lead by Amber Ferguson, with a long term history in the Solar Power. Amber was the Renewable Industry winner of the Smart 50 Business Awards in 2010, and reached Australia's Top 30 Female Entrepreneurs in 2010, 2011 & 2012. Amber has a keen interest in business and environmental issues. She volunteered for the UNAA and convened the UNAA World Environment Day in 2015 with Australia's leading scientists prior to the 2015 UNFCCC COP21 in Paris. Marici is claimed to be Australia's No1 independent national leader in solar quote comparisons.
For more information, please visit http://www.marici.com.au/
Contact Info:
Name: Amber Ferguson
Email: info@marici.com.au
Organization: Marici
Address: PO Box 4429, Winmalee, NSW Australia 2777
Phone: +61 02 8231 6417
Release ID: 122363
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The Finance Ministry of Ukraine will be ready to report on the work of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the nearest future, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said, opening a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers in Kyiv on Wednesday.
"I estimate the work as very optimistic. We practically settled all the questions at the level of the Ukrainian government and IMF." I believe that the work is quite constructive now," the head of the government said, without specifying firm dates.
As reported, the four-year EFF program for Ukraine totaling SDR 12.348 billion (about $17 billion at a current exchange rates), opened by the IMF in March 2015, originally foresaw quarterly revisions of the program, as well as the issue of four tranches to Kyiv in 2015, with another four in 2016. However, at present the country has received only the first tranche of funds for $5 billion and the second one worth $1.7 billion. The IMF supposed the allocation of funds in 2015 of another three tranches per SDR 1.18 billion each (about $ 1.63 billion) and a decrease in quarterly tranches to SDR 0.44 billion ($ 0,61 billion) in 2016-2018.
At the same time, Ukraine was able to get only the first two tranches and then there was a time gap due to the political crisis and the government change. Negotiations on renewal of funding were resumed after the appearance of a new Cabinet headed by Volodymyr Groysman in April. Initially it was assumed that the third tranche would amount to about $ 1.7 billion, and the IMF Board of Directors will be able to take their decision in June. But due to non-fulfillment by Ukraine of a number of conditions, the terms are constantly postponed, that is why the amount of the tranche loan was reduced to $ 1 billion.
The Ministry of Finance expects a positive decision of the IMF in mid-July, although the agenda of the Board of Directors of the Fund is scheduled until July 13, there is no the Ukrainian issue. The government has to approve the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies until this time and submit it to the Fund.
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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the leaders of successful Ukrainian startups have discussed prospects of development of the market of information technologies and innovation and interaction between the IT sector and the state.
The presidential press service said Poroshenko positively assessed the development of startups in Ukraine, adding that now 3% of Ukrainian GDP is provided by the IT industry, while 15,000 jobs with an average wage of at least $2,000 have been recently created in the field.
"Mass media reports related to searches, "raids" on IT companies benefit neither the state nor the image of Ukraine in the world, nor the achievement of justice. Maybe there are problems with the fact that someone uses benefits and support the state provides for the IT industry for purposes other than intended, but it's not worth fighting this through searches of well-known IT companies," the president said.
The head of state noted the significant prospects of the Ukrainian IT industry. Poroshenko said the government is working to improve the investment climate. He said changes to the Constitution in part of the justice reform are aimed at this. The government is developing and the parliament is passing measures to change how the tax system is administered, and to protect fair and transparent businesses dealings from any harassment by law enforcement agencies.
M&G has become the third firm in just over 24 hours to suspend dealing on its open-ended UK property fund as negative investor sentiment and redemptions spread across the sector.
The Prudential subsidiary confirmed that a trading suspension on its 4.4bn Property Portfolio and feeder funds took place today (July 5).
This follows similar moves by Standard Life Investments (SLI) and Aviva Investors . All three firms said market conditions and unsustainable redemptions meant trading had to be suspended to protect remaining investors.
Redemptions have increased since the UK voted to leave the EU on June 23 with the outlook for UK commercial property dwindling as economic concerns rise.
An M&G spokesperson said: Redemptions have now reached a point where M&G believes it can best protect the interests of the funds shareholders by seeking a temporary suspension in trading.
The suspension will be reviewed in 28 days.
M&Gs decision to suspend trading comes after three price adjustments in the build-up to the June 23 referendum and a fair value adjustment made last week.
Eyes will now turn to the UKs other open-ended physical property funds following the trios moves.
Aberdeen, Kames and Legal & General have all also made fair value adjustments to their funds, thereby reducing the value of their portfolios, since the referendum on June 23. All portfolios currently remain open for dealing.
UK property had already come under pressure in the run-up to the vote. The IA UK Property sector endured a net 500m in outflows in April and May, according to Investment Association statistics.
Those redemptions had seen a spate of funds switching from offer to bid pricing in the run-up to the vote - moves which effectively wiped 5 per cent off returns for investors wishing to redeem.
M&Gs news rounds out a day (July 5) when listed asset managers with open-ended UK property vehicles struggled in stockmarkets. Property trusts and housebuilders have also been hit by negative investor sentiment.
Man GLG has decided to close its American Growth fund after a failed attempt to merge it into Henry Dixons 105m UK Income vehicle.
The proposed merger, which was taken to unitholders despite the mismatch in geography and investment style, was rejected last month.
The firm was thought to be considering its next steps and has decided to close the vehicle on July 22.
The proposal to merge the 24m American Growth vehicle into Mr Dixons UK fund was first made in April. At the time fund had around 128m in assets under management, but Morningstar figures show it suffered net outflows of 103m during May, suggesting a single large redemption.
In its original proposal for the merger, Man GLG said the company had been reviewing the position of the American Growth fund and concluded its assets under management were such that the fund is now uneconomical to run.
Manager John Gisondi runs other mandates at the firm and will focus on his other responsibilities after the closure.
Man GLG declined to comment.
Industrial Milk Company (IMC) has received $20 million of financing from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to replenish working capital.
The loan would secure the company's needs in pre- and post-harvest financing.
Head of EBRD operations in Ukraine Sevki Acuner said that this is a first company to undergo the Resource Efficiency and Climate Change Adaptation Assessment commissioned by the EBRD.
IMC Director General Alex Lissitsa said that the project will be implemented in two years and it first concerns agrarian technologies.
He added that teachers from four agrarian educational institutions (Poltava, Sumy, Kyiv and Vinnytsia) will be trained as part of the project. IMC has signed contracts with the institutions.
He said that IMC seeks to double its land bank with soybeans in coming years, to 15,000 ha.
"We believe that this crop suits planting in the northern part of the country," he said at the loan agreement signing ceremony.
IMC focuses on cultivation of grains, oilseeds and potatoes. It is one of the largest milk producers in Ukraine. It owns facilities with a storage capacity of 554,000 tonnes of grains and oilseeds.
Advisers have said their clients should keep calm and carry on rather than panic about their commercial property holdings.
Paul Holiday, director of Norwich-based GreenSky Wealth, said: Others will follow suit now I would have thought but I dont think there is any reason to panic.
We had a discussion about it this morning and we dont invest in those funds but if you are considering any income you might need you need to think about your asset allocation because you would be withdrawing funds from other holdings.
But the yield will stay, nothing will change. It is just driven by sentiment and feelings about what will happen.
M&G, Aberdeen, Kames and Legal & General have all made fair value adjustments to their Property funds, thereby reducing the value of their portfolios, since the referendum on 23 June.
All portfolios currently remain open for trading.
Martin Bamford, managing director of Surrey-based Informed Choice Independent Financial Planners, said: We have some clients with assets in that Standard Life fund but not more than 8m in total; our main exposure is to L&G UK Property.
We are telling clients not to do anything. We limit our exposure to property funds because of their liquidity. Our maximum exposure is 8 per cent and our clients are in it for the long-term. We are telling clients not to do anything. We limit our exposure to property funds because of their liquidity. Martin Bamford
The main reason we use property is for diversification and it does help with risk reduction. If you are going in short-term to chase the yield you deserve to get your fingers burnt.
Kevin Morgan, managing director of Hertfordshire-based Consilium Financial Planning, said: Property has been seen as a fail-safe and of course it is not because there are comparatively low levels of liquidity.
I have been talking to fund managers about liquidity levels for some time but you have to have an appropriate balance because if there is too much it becomes a cash fund, not a property fund.
This will level itself out eventually. Now is the time for considered measures and not knee-jerk reactions, and that is what we should be telling our clients.
Meanwhile some advisers could be forgiven for feeling smug.
Radostina Dencheva, investment analyst at Norfolk-based Chadwicks, said she recommended her clients reduce their commercial property exposure in January.
She said: Our view of the market was that commercial property was overpriced. We dont think it is completely negligible but we reduced it to a small amount so we are not worried.
BlackRock UK Smaller Companies fund manager Lucy Marmion has left the firm, handing over her responsibilites to co-manager Roland Arnold.
Ms Marmion joined BlackRocks UK equities team in 2008 as a graduate before running instiutitonal smaller companies mandates from 2012 onwards.
She became co-manager of the 368m UK Smaller Companies fund in March 2015. Mr Arnold will now take sole responsibility for the vehicle along with some of Ms Marmions institutional funds. He joined BlackRock in 2001 and has been managing small and mid-cap equities since 2006.
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One in five people between the ages of 18 and 30 believe there will be no state pension by the time they retire, new research by auto-enrolment provider Now: Pensions has found.
The research, which surveyed 1,000 young adults, found only 12 per cent knew exactly how much the flat rate pension would provide - 155.65 a week - while more than half (58 per cent) had no idea at all.
Overall, the report uncovered significant levels of ignorance about pensions, combined with unrealistically high expectations about what they would need to live comfortably.
When told how much the flat rate pension would pay them, 41 per cent said it wouldnt be enough, compared with only 17 per cent who said it would be.
Only 34 per cent said they were paying into a workplace pension, with just 8 per cent able to cite the exact percentage and monetary figure.
Morten Nilsson, chief executive of Now Pensions, said: Younger generations are pessimistic about the future prospects for the state pension but despite this many are taking a relaxed approach to their personal pension saving.
Auto-enrolment will bring a much larger proportion of the younger generation into workplace pensions allowing many more to take control of their retirement saving helping to protect themselves against an uncertain future.
Alan Solomons, director of Alpha Investments & Financial Planning, said young people were right to have no faith in the state pension.
He said: If I was in my 30s, I wouldnt want to rely on the state. Forty years is a long time.
Mr Solomons said he was often shocked by his clients poor levels of financial literacy, adding the subject must be better taught in schools.
james.fernyhough@ft.com
Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Release Date, Specs & Features: More Leaks Suggest Type-C USB Port, More Powerful S-Pen
More leaks revealing some of the amazing features of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 spread over the Internet less than a month ahead of its official unveiling in August.
The images which were first revealed by the iGyaan Network on Tuesday imply that the new Samsung Galaxy Note 7 will be boasting a similar design to that of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. Quite interestingly, the renders also show an S-Pen stylus which the outlet said is totally different from its predecessors.
Apparently, the S-Pen for the Samsung Galaxy Note S7 has improved capabilities thanks to its new Bluetooth LE version that provides more usage time and accuracy in terms of proximity warnings. Its version of the Air View window also has a new Dictionary as well as a voice command feature.
This is probably Samsung's way of making the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 stand out. It may also be the Korean company's way of removing the previous flaw in the S-Pen where the stylus jammed in backwards due to its push to eject mechanism in the Samsung Galaxy Note 5, per GSM Arena.
Aside from that, consistent leaker Evan Leaks posted a complete rendering of the device over his Twitter account which Mashable says leaves nothing to imagination. Check it out.
Samsung Galaxy Note7 in (from l to r) Black Onyx, Silver Titanium, and Blue Coral pic.twitter.com/QiePUEG9GP Evan Blass (@evleaks) July 1, 2016
According to Mashable, the renders from Evan Leaks are not only "official-looking" but also considered fairly accurate considering the tech enthusiast's history in revealing factual information. In fact, Evan Leaks had previously predicted that Samsung will be skipping the Galaxy Note 6 altogether in favor of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7.
Under the hood, the new Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is said to run by a Snapdragon 823 SoC chipset for United States. Meanwhile, the global version of the device is expected to carry an Exynos chipset.
Other Samsung Galaxy Note 7 specs include an iris scanner, a USB Type-C port, a massive 4,000 mAh battery, and an IP68-certified water-resistant body.
Final Fantasy XV Latest News, Release Date & Update: Square Enix To Feature Gameplay Demo At Japan Expo 2016, Characters To Fly Anywhere?
After almost a decade since it was announced, Square Enix's flagship game is ready to be launched soon. To show a preview for its fans, "Final Fantasy XV" will be one of the playable titles this week at the Japan Expo 2016.
'Final Fantasy XV' At Japan Expo 2016
Christian Times reported that a whole new bunch of titles can be played this week at Japan Expo 2016, which will start on July 7. Included in the available titles for play is the most-awaited "Final Fantasy XV," including other titles like "World of Final Fantasy" and "Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age."
Aside from this, other game titles like "Deus Ex Mankind Divided," "Dragon Quest Builders" and "Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue" will also feature their game demo at the Japan Expo 2016.
Aside from getting a feel of "Final Fantasy XV," fans are also expecting some announcements about "Final Fantasy XV" at the Japan Expo 2016.
Recently, Square Enix released new details about "Final Fantasy XV" new DLC's and gameplay mechanics in their latest Active Time Report.
Gematsu detailed the different bonuses and extra contents when fans pre-order "Final Fantasy XV." In fact, pre-ordering from Square Enix will give fans the "Final Fantasy IX Model Mage masher" weapon for free.
Brotherhood episode 3 is coming soon!
Make sure you're up to date by watching ep2 here!
--> https://t.co/UyChnZuT1uhttps://t.co/MdSzcSZvUC Final Fantasy XV (@FFXVEN) July 5, 2016
New Feature In The Game: Fly Anywhere
Aside from these exciting details, reports are now saying that Square Enix added another cool feature in "Final Fantasy XV": the ability to fly anywhere.
"Final Fantasy XV" director Hajime Tabata revealed that flying is made possible through an airship. However, he advised that players need to find a road to land on.
"It's not 100% land anywhere, take off anywhere, fly everywhere, but we really wanted within the system we've created to give the player the freedom to fly as freely as possible, anywhere they could," director Hajime was quoted saying.
Fans may head out to the Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Center between July 7-10 to try out the "Final Fantasy XV" at the Japan Expo 2016.
"Final Fantasy XV" will be released on Sept. 30 on Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
Ukrainian government again proposes to ratify changes to tax convention with Cyprus
Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers has again proposed to the Verkhovna Rada to ratify amendments to the convention with Cyprus on avoiding double taxation and preventing tax evasion.
The draft resolution was approved at a government meeting on Wednesday.
Presenting the document, Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk said that it is proposed to increase tax rates from 2% to 5%.
He said that the requirement for taxation of income from the sale of immovable property is changed: relevant taxation in Ukraine is introduced, not at the place where investors are located (Cyprus).
The minister also said that the agreement envisages a compromise in dividend taxation.
"The decreased rate applied to 99% of all payments the conditions to apply it have become tougher," he said.
He said that dividends can be taxed at 5% if the real owner of dividends is a company that directly holds at least 20% of the share capital of the company that pays dividends and that invested at least EUR 100,000 in the purchase of shares. Dividends are taxed at 10% in the rest of cases (earlier 15%).
Deadpool 2 Release Date, Cast, News & Update: Blake Lively Joins Ryan Reynolds In Movie Sequel? Simon Kinberg Hints Production Starts In January 2017
Millions of fans are now excited for the imminent "Deadpool 2" movie. Now, new reports are saying that Ryan Reynolds might be working with Blake Lively in the upcoming "Deadpool" sequel.
Ryan Reynolds to be joined by wife Blake Lively in 'Deadpool 2'
Rumors are rife that Blake Lively is the newest addition to the cast of "Deadpool 2," which is led by Ryan Reynolds. According to reports, Blake Lively might become the new love interest of Ryan Reynolds in the "Deadpool" sequel.
Though nothing is confirmed as of yet, fans are convinced that Blake Lively will be joining Ryan Reynolds in "Deadpool 2" especially after the former girlfriend of Leonardo DiCaprio has revealed that she is not comfortable seeing her husband doing a love scene for everyone to see, Celeb Dirty Laundry reported.
Now, fans cannot help but speculate that Blake Lively would get involved in "Deadpool 2" so she could monitor her husband, Ryan Reynolds. Aside from that, most viewers have also expressed their desire of seeing Blake Lively together with Ryan Reynolds in one movie as the actress can match up the sweetness and playfulness of her husband on screen.
Though this could be true, it is important note that these "Deadpool 2" reports remain unconfirmed as of this writing. Hence, fans should take everything with a grain of salt until proven true.
'Deadpool 2' production may start next year; script now finished
Meanwhile, Inquistr has reported that everything is going well in the pre-production stage of the "Deadpool 2" movie. Reports have it that the script for the much-awaited "Deadpool" sequel is now complete and filming could start anytime soon.
"Deadpool 2" producer Simon Kinberg has even expressed that the movie production will kick off in January 2017. However, he divulged that the setting for the "Deadpool" sequel has not been finalized until now. Hence, it remains to be seen if the team would go back to Vancouver to shoot.
Aside from Blake Lively, another character who is said to be joining the "Deadpool 2" is Mel Gibson. According to reports, the actor-director has offered to portray the role of Cable, who is Deadpool's sidekick.
Aside from the "Passion of Christ" actor, Jon Hamm, Dolph Lundgren and Stephen Lang have also expressed their interest in playing as Ryan Reynolds' sidekick in "Deadpool 2" movie. However, the proposals are not earnestly deliberated until now.
"Deadpool 2" is expected to hit theatres in 2018. Stay tuned in GamenGuide for more "Deadpool 2" spoilers, news and updates!
Can Microsoft and Sony Collaborate To Produce Much Demanded Cross-Platform Game Play?
Microsoft and Sony are rivals in the gaming industry, each having their own share of games for the masses. They do share some game titles on their respective game consoles which could be one massive entity if they find a way to jive together.
With that said, cross-platform gaming comes to mind. Can Microsoft and Sony bring down their barriers and work together which will benefit both and the humongous gaming sector?
Microsoft has shown openness to the idea though Sony is the one seen as holding out. Ed Fries, the co-creator of X-Box, said that the company is willing to the scheme but noted that it still depends on whether Sony would agree to the cross-platform game play.
Fried is aware that by making the cross-platform happen will be beneficial to gamers and both companies. Additionally, making it happen will open doors for better cooperation and respect between the two corporate rivals.
Sony mum on the matter
While Fries has come out and answered on the part of Microsoft, the same cannot be said for Sony. The company behind the PlayStation game console series, has yet to come out with an official statement on the proposal despite the fact that there are more Xbox One console owners than the PlayStation 4s according to Neurogadget.
Despite that claim, Sony is unlikely to come out with an answer for now though they stand to benefit from the whole ordeal. The partnership could offer them an indirect tactic where they could figure out why people prefer the Xbox One game console over the PS4.
All this is on the business side of things which Microsoft seems to be unfazed about. This is why agreeing to a cross-platform niche is seen as beneficial though Sony may stubbornly snub it due to business-related concerns.
The book on cross-platform gaming is not totally closed for now. It remains up in the air until Sony officially comes out with their decision on the proposal.
BlackBerry Latest News & Update: Tech Giant Bids Goodbye to Its Classic Smartphone? Company Quits Smartphone Battle?
It's an end of an era for BlackBerry, as the Canadian company is finally closing shop on production of the Classic smartphone just two years after its release. Launched in December 2014, the BlackBerry Classic brought back a fan favorite: the raised keyboard that is distinctly BlackBerry. The Classic was the rage at the time, up until Apple and Samsung released their touchscreen smartphones, which altered the course of BlackBerry's success.
The company was said to be focusing more on software rather than hardware, but Chief Executive John Chen is adamant about staying in the hardware game. He said that by licensing BlackBerry's mobile software to other companies, they can focus on making the mobile business profitable by the end of the fiscal year next February. Moreover, COO and General Manager for Devices Ralph Pini wrote in the BlackBerry blog that they are committed to innovation, creating new products in their portfolio that are state of the art.
"We are ready for this change so we can give our customers something better--entrenched in our legacy in security and pedigree in making the most productive smartphones," Pini wrote.
Meanwhile, USA Today reports that the U.S. Senate is also making a big switch from BlackBerry to Android or iPhone. A memo delivered to the Senate Sergeant at Arms indicated the switch, which is most likely a result of the company ceasing to produce the BlackBerry Classic. In addition, BlackBerry has informed both Verizon and AT&T that they are no longer producing BlackBerry OS 10 devices, including the Q10, Z10, Z30, and Passport. Nonetheless, BlackBerry users will continue to receive warranty and technical support in the event they need it, for the "foreseeable future."
The company suffered a loss of $671 million and more than 30% decrease in revenue earlier this year, selling only 500,000 units during that time. In contrast, Apple was able to sell 51 million iPhones in its last quarter.
CSULB alum wins gold at the 38th Long Beach Marathon which was his first
Plans by a developer to rezone property in South Corvallis for residential use will have to wait two more weeks for a decision.
The Corvallis City Council was scheduled to hold deliberations in the Willamette Business Park application Monday night, but because of a request to hold the record open, the case will be concluded at the councils July 18 meeting.
Developers received the backing of the Planning Commission on May 18 for their plan to rezone approximately 51 acres of property on Highway 99W south of downtown from industrial to residential use. But because the application included a comprehensive plan change, the City Council is required to review the recommendation.
Councilors held a one-hour, 37-minute public hearing on the case Monday night at the downtown fire station.
Eric Adams, representing the property owners, Corvallis Industrial Property LLC., said that the plan represented an opportunity for the council to take a meaningful step toward its housing goal.
The City Council has been working for past two election terms on analyzing housing issues in town and working on policy changes that would increase the supply of housing, particularly affordable or workforce housing.
Not everyone in town agrees with the goal. Missy Parker, who lives at nearby Willamette Landing, was the lone person who testified at Mondays public hearing.
Although not expressing outright opposition to the land being used for housing, Parker noted concerns about getting a lot of entry-level housing. We already have a reputation in SouthTown for having too many poor people.
In his rebuttal, Adams noted that the zoning intended for the property, RS-9, or medium-density residential, is the same as that which exists at Willamette Landing and that that development is a good example of what kind of development that could occur.
Issues raised by councilors during questions posed for city staff and the applicant included pedestrian amenities and compatibility with surrounding industrial land and transportation infrastructure. Staff and the developers also disagreed on how much RS-9 is currently available for easy development.
In other actions councilors:
Extended the citys interim parking development agreement with Oregon State University to the end of 2017. The original agreement, which was negotiated by the two parties in an effort to resolve city concerns about OSU development eliminating parking spots, was set to expire at the end of December.
The addendum passed on an 8-1 vote, with Ward 3 Councilor Zach Baker the lone dissenter.
Im not sure why we need to extend at this moment, Baker said, while adding that more negotiations could produce next steps in the process given the joint neighborhood parking study underway.
Penny York (Ward 1) and Hal Brauner (Ward 9) both countered that failing to extend now would put OSU in the drivers seat.
Approved a health care advisory question for the November ballot. The measure, initiated by Mid-Valley Health Care Advocates, calls for an affordable universal health care system. Councilors noted some slight edits to the earlier drafts before passing along the advisory question to the voters on a 9-0 vote.
Authorized City Manager Mark Shepard on a 9-0 vote to execute an intergovernmental agreement with Benton County on funding of services for the homeless as part of the city and county joint effort to work on the problem. A total of $40,000 was set aside in the 2016-17 fiscal year budget for the program, but lower cost estimates and the addition of Samaritan Health Services as a partner reduced the city involvement to slightly more than $20,000. Councilors will discuss how to use the funds along with other funds dedicated to targeting homelessness at a future meeting.
Ukraine to ship aircraft weapon for MiG-21 fighter jets to Polish Air Force
Ukraine will ship aircraft weapons for Mikoyan MiG-21 fighter jets of the Polish Air Force.
The military equipment inspectorate of Poland's National Defense Ministry reported on its website that the consortium formed by Ukraine's Spectechnoexport and Poland's WB Electronics won a tender to supply R-27P1 medium-range air-to-air missiles for MiG-21 fighter jets of the Polish Air Force.
The inspectorate said that the Ukrainian-Polish consortium offered the best options meeting all the technical qualification conditions.
The tender was announced in October 2015. The winner is to supply 40 R-27P1 radar-directed missiles.
Ukraine's Artem produces R-27 missiles, a leading defense enterprise in the country and the only manufacturer of medium-range air-to-air missiles of various modifications used to arm all types of MiG-29, Su-27 and Su-30 fighter jets on the territory of former Soviet Union.
We noted last week in an editorial that Oregon's fire season had burst into the life on the east side of the Cascade Mountains and that it was only a matter of time until wildfire crept over to the west side.
However, we did not expect that wildfire would strike so close to home as it did over the weekend.
By the standards of some of Oregon's biggest recent fires, the weekend blaze at Oregon State University's McDonald Forest wasn't particularly large, at about 3.1 acres.
But the fire could have been much worse and the stakes on a research forest such as McDonald are particularly high.
The most distressing thing about this fire was that, as is the case with 70 percent of all wildfires, it was likely human-caused. The Oregon State Police and the Oregon Department of Forestry are investigating the cause of the fire, which started along the side of the Powder House Trail west of Peavy Arboretum. The fire burned mostly grass and young conifers, said Stephen Fitzgerald, the director of OSU's research forests.
The timing of the fire was somewhat fortunate: If the fire had started a week or so later, the grass might have been dry enough that the fire could have quickly moved into timbered areas, where it could have wiped out research projects that have been labored over for decades. Fitzgerald put it well: "For us on the research forest, we have a lot to lose in the projects out there. It's not like research in agriculture where you can get results in a year. ... It takes decades."
OSU keeps its research forests open for recreation, and one of the great things about living in Corvallis is being able to hike and bike through forests that are at our back door. But that's an invitation that comes with responsibility. The recreational user who called in the fire Saturday night lived up to that responsibility. If, in fact, the fire turns out to be human-caused, the responsible parties not only did a stupid thing but put the forest at risk for the rest of us, students, faculty and recreational users alike. (By the way, anyone with information about the fire can call Fitzgerald at 541-419-3850.)
In the meantime, as the summer heats up and as our forests dry out, keep Fitzgerald's wise words in mind: "People need to be vigilant out in the forest."
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine in response to Russia's prolonging food embargo until the end of 2017, has extended the reciprocal measures for the same period of time.
The government approved a relevant proposal by the Economic Development Ministry at its meeting on Wednesday, so accepting the Economic Development and Trade Ministry's relevant proposal, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported.
"Draft resolution that proposes to extend the ban on imports of goods from Russia to the customs territory of Ukraine approved by cabinet resolution No. 1147 of December 30, 2015 until December 31, 2017 is presented," Ukrainian Economic Development and Trade Minister Stepan Kubiv said, presenting the resolution.
He said that the draft resolution was drawn up by the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) in response to the introduction of food embargo by Russia.
It was reported earlier that President Vladimir Putin on June 29 had extended a food embargo against the countries that had introduced sanctions against Russia until the end of 2017.
Russia has imposed an embargo on Ukrainian goods since January 1, 2016. The Ukrainian government endorsed retaliatory trade countermeasures and banned imports of Russian food and other products the aggregate value of which is equivalent to the value of Ukrainian imports banned by Russia.
Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
July 6 Round up : News briefs from Bonn and the region
Bonn/region Pantheon Theater, making Bad Godesberg attractive, and B9 roadworks are part of your news briefs for today.
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Plans to move the Pantheon Theater to a Hall in Beuel have fallen through. Pantheon Director Rainer Pause and Artistic Director Martina Steimer notified the city of the cancellation in an e-mail they sent to Mayor Ashok Sridharan. Pause had already cancelled a contract signing that was suppose to take place on Monday. Local politicians reacted with surprise and dismay, thinking it was a done deal. The Pantheon Directors complain of unending delays and the city acting incorrectly.
In Bad Godesberg, administrators are working on a concept for a workshop that will focus on making the inner city area more attractive. The meeting is to take place at the end of September or beginning of October. Participating will be around 60 representatives from city marketing, banks, retail stores, real estate holders and others. A decision was made in April to form a working group for this purpose. The goal is to establish a permanent organization to help improve the performance of the Bad Godesberg inner city. First up on the discussion board is where to begin: Koblenzer Strae, Theaterplatz or Alte Bahnhofstrae.
Godesberg Allee (the B9) will be partially closed at the start of the German school summer holidays. Roadworks crews will be repairing damages to the road surface. Work begins on Monday, July 11 and will finish on Friday, July 15. The parts of the B9 affected include the stretch between Germanenstrae and Kennedyallee in the direction towards Bonn, and between Ollenhauerstrae and Olaf-Palme-Allee in the direction of Bad Godesberg. Traffic will be funneled into one lane during this period.
A 17-year-old youth was attacked early Saturday morning at 1 a.m. on the Maria-Montessori-Allee in Vilich. Two men asked him for tobacco and then attacked him, causing facial injuries. The youth reported the assault to police on Saturday. Police ask for the publics help in finding the assailants. One is described as: 18-19 years-old, around 1.85 meters and heavy set. He had short hair, wore a dark cap from Adidas or Nike, a white pullover and dark jeans. He also had a shoulder bag. The second is described as the same age, around 1.8 meters and thin build. He also had short hair and wore a cap from Adidas or Nike, and wore a dark hooded sweatshirt and dark jeans. Anyone having information is asked to call police at (0228) 1 50.
A window left partially open helped burglars break into a home on Adolf-Quad-Strae in Vilich-Muldorf on Sunday night. An iPhone, a Tablet and jewelry were taken. It is thought that the break-in occurred between 11 p.m. Sunday night and 6:20 a.m. Monday morning. In Beuel, residents became aware of a man dressed in black, trying to get in through an open window at around 3 a.m. and the attempt was thwarted. Police ask for anyone having information or who was in the area at the time to call (0228) 1 50 / criminal commission 34.
Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers has rejected the appointment of Yuriy Solonchuk, head of state-run enterprise Ukraine, to the post of director general of Boryspil International Airport (Kyiv) selected at a tender.
The decision was made at a meeting on Wednesday.
First Deputy Prime Minister Stepan Kubiv said that despite the fact that Solonchuk won the tender, independent members of the tender panel opposed his appointment.
He said that the rejection of the candidate opens a way for holding a repeat tender to select the head of the airport.
The tender panel of the Cabinet of Ministers in November 2015 selected Solonchuk for the post of director general of Boryspil International Airport, but he has not yet been appointed to the post. Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said that the tender could be held again.
Today acting head of Boryspil International Airport is Yevhen Dykhne appointed to the post on September 19, 2014. He took part in the tender to select the new head of the airport, but he was not selected to the final stage of the tender and tried to challenge the results of the tender in court.
In June 2016, the independent trade union of aviation safety workers asked Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman to suspend Dykhne from the post. The trade union said that recently the airport head and his deputies were doing their best to destroy the production potential of the airport. The trade union said that the policy aimed at making airport's clients in ground servicing to go to the rival companies is being conducted.
Colonel Ivan Bezyazykov, a Ukrainian army officer, has been released from captivity in Donbas, Ukraine's representative in the Trilateral Contact Group humanitarian subgroup Iryna Gerashchenko said.
Bezyazykov was in militant captivity since August 2014. And "following some very hard fieldwork and prompt actions, he is finally released. The president was the first to learn that the operation that he gave the green light to a few days ago was successful. That was a true secret operation," Gerashchenko wrote on her Facebook page.
Georgian Foreign Ministry expects explanations from ambassador to U.S. on statements on pro-Russian forces among leadership
Georgian Ambassador to the United States Archil Gegeshidze is expected to explain his remarks to the media alleging that there are pro-Russian forces in the Georgian ruling establishment and his premature announcement of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to Tbilisi scheduled for July 6.
Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani told journalists on Tuesday that Gegeshidze had been summoned to the Foreign Ministry to provide such explanations.
Gegeshidze, who arrived in Tbilisi in the early hours of Wednesday, told journalists he would offer comment on the situation only following his conversation at the Foreign Ministry.
The United States will hand over a new batch of counter-battery radars, drones and means of secure communication to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Valeriy Chaly said on the air of Radio Liberty on Tuesday.
"The next batches [of counter-battery radars], we also expect (I won't say when) unmanned aerial vehicles, means of secure communications, modern defense equipment that will enable us combined with the capabilities of our lethal weapons to truly enhance the combat capability of the Armed Forces," he said.
Chaly also said the U.S. budget this year envisages the largest amount of aid for Ukraine in the country's history.
"It's more than $600 million, of which $330 million will go for security and defense, $50 million [may go] for lethal weapons though there is no decision to that effect of the White House, but it is possible," the Ukrainian diplomat said.
As reported, on July 2, the U.S. handed over to Ukraine four AN/TPQ-36 counter-battery radar systems and ten AN/TPQ-49 systems. The ceremony took place at Boryspil International Airport and was attended by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and U.S. Ambassador to Kyiv Geoffrey Pyatt.
A total of 111 people, both civilians and servicemen, are currently being held captive in the territory of certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Ukraine's representative in the Trilateral Contact Group humanitarian subgroup and Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada's First Deputy Speaker, Iryna Gerashchenko, said.
"After the release of Ivan Bezyazykov, according to the information provided by the Ukrainian Security Service, to which we refer, there are 111 Ukrainian citizens remaining in the occupied territories. Among them are civilians and servicemen," she told reporters on the sidelines of Verkhovna Rada proceedings on Wednesday.
On July 5, Gerashchenko said that a Ukrainian army officer, Col. Bezyazykov, had been released from captivity in Donbas, after being held captive since August 2014.
Article
Protecting the worlds oceans an important goal of Germanys climate diplomacy
The worlds oceans are vital to our survival. They regulate the global climate and are a source of food and income for billions of people. Only a very small part of the seas enjoys legal protection, however. Our diplomats are working in New York right now to change this state of affairs.
Kyiv expects the participants in an upcoming NATO summit in Warsaw to endorse specific projects and decisions to fill trust funds for reforming Ukraine's security sector, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said.
"As soon as this package is agreed upon, you will see all of its components. A number of components are concrete projects, and others are trust funds that will continue to be filled," Klimkin said at a joint press conference with Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende in Kyiv on Wednesday.
The minister did not specify the amounts of money to be supposedly involved in the projects, saying only that the matter concerns inter alia assistance in the form of technical equipment and the training of Ukrainian servicemen at ranges.
"We are talking about priorities to be agreed upon, trust funds, and concrete projects and objectives," Klimkin said.
Some projects will be financed by NATO as an organization, and others by individual NATO member-states on a bilateral basis, he said.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will visit Norway in October 2016, Norway's Foreign Minister Borge Brende has said.
"We've discussed further development of [our bilateral] partnership, in particular in light of the president's visit to Norway and his meeting with the PM during the middle of October," Brende said at a joint press conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Palvo Klimkin on Wednesday in Kyiv.
Brende says Norway assists Ukraine in these complicated times by helping Ukraine conduct key reforms, as well as allocating finances for helping internally displaced persons (IDPs).
"We wholeheartedly welcome the efforts of Ukraine in talks about implementing the Minsk agreements, however we realize Russian troops must be withdrawn from eastern Ukraine, where they continue to destabilize the situation," he said.
Klimkin said many issues had been discussed during talks with his counterpart.
"We agreed to create a bilateral commission. Its inaugural sitting will take place early this autumn, before Poroshenko's visit to Norway," Klimkin said.
He added that the sides had also discussed the upcoming NATO summit in Warsaw, as well as the top-level Ukraine-NATO commission meeting scheduled for July 9.
French Intelligence Needs Overhaul After Deadly Paris Attacks
Sputnik News
11:26 05.07.2016(updated 11:40 05.07.2016)
One of the reasons for Paris November 2015 attacks was the intelligence services malpractice, which is why is needs to be reformed.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) France needs reforms in the sphere of intelligence as the country was not ready for the attacks in Paris in November 2015, which left 130 people dead, the French parliamentary commission of inquiry said Tuesday.
On Tuesday, almost eight months after the deadliest terrorist attacks in Paris, the parliamentary commission presented main findings of its inquiry into the attacks.
"The challenge of international terrorism requires much higher ambitions than the Interior Ministry maintains today in terms of intelligence and we need to create a national counterterrorism agency," the inquiry's head Georges Fenech said, as quoted by the Journal du Jura magazine.
According to the inquiry, the attack at the Bataclan Concert Hall could not have been avoided, though the French intelligence had received threats from terrorists regarding the targets in previous years.
Talking to journalists, Fenech noted that the state of emergency had a very limited effect on the security situation in the country.
On November 13, Islamic terrorists conducted a series of coordinated attacks in the French capital, killing 130 people and injuring over 360, many critically. The Daesh terrorist group, outlawed in Russia and many other countries, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Sputnik
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Paris Attacks Inquiry Calls for New Umbrella Intel Agency
by Lisa Bryant July 05, 2016
A U.S.-style national terrorism center? That is one of the recommendations coming from a French parliamentary inquiry into last year's Paris attacks. It also cites intelligence shortfalls leading up to the attacks and limits to the current state of emergency.
The conclusions are part of 39 recommendations in a new report by a parliamentary commission probing the attacks, and are aimed at preventing a repeat.
The report describes communication failures among France's different intelligence agencies leading up to the two attacks that together killed 147 people.
That includes dropping surveillance against jihadist Said Kouachi who attacked the Charlie Hebdo newspaper with his brother Cherif in January 2015, and failing to track another January assailant, Amedy Coulibaly, after he became radicalized in prison.
It also faults Belgium for slowness in tracking down surviving November 2015 attacks suspect, Salah Abdeslam.
The commission proposes overhauling intelligence services to create a single counter-terror hub similar to the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center set up after the September 2001 attacks.
It also concludes that France's controversial state of emergency has had a limited impact on security.
Commission member and Socialist lawmaker Sebastien Petrasanta told reporters France should recruit more police to replace soldiers now deployed with the state of emergency, and equip forces with special training and handguns.
But he claims it was impossible to avoid the most horrific attack, November's killings at the Bataclan nightclub.
Victims association head Georges Salines, who lost a daughter at the Bataclan, disagrees.
Salines says without intelligence failures and shortcomings, the Bataclan attack might have been avoided. He says he needs time to study the report, but he supports many of its conclusions.
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Chile - Evolved Seasparrow Missiles (ESSMs)
Media/Public Contact: pm-cpa@state.gov
Transmittal No: 16-39
WASHINGTON, Jul 5, 2016 -- The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to Chile for Evolved Seasparrow Missiles (ESSMs), equipment, training, and support. The estimated cost is $140.1 million. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale on July 1, 2016.
The Government of Chile has requested a possible sale of:
Major Defense Equipment (MDE):
Thirty-thirty (33) Evolved Seasparrow Missiles (ESSMs)
Six (6) Evolved Seasparrow Telemetry Missiles
Three (3) MK 41 Vertical Launching Systems (VLS), tactical version, baseline VII
Non-MDE:
This request also includes the following Non-MDE: Ten (10) MK25 Quad Pack Canisters; Five (5) ESSM Shipping Containers; Five (5)MK-73 Continuous Wave Illumination Transmitters, One (1) Inertial Missile Initializer Power Supply (IMIPS); spare and repair parts, support and test equipment, publications and technical documentation, personnel training, U.S. Government and contractor engineering, technical and logistics support services, technical assistance, installation and integration oversight support, logistics, program management, packaging and transportation.
The total estimated value of MDE is $73.2 million. The total overall estimated value is $140.1 million.
This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by increasing Chile's ability to contribute to regional security and promoting interoperability with the U.S. forces. The sale will provide upgraded air defense capabilities on Chile's type 23 frigates. The proposed sale improves Chile's capability to deter regional threats and strengthen its homeland defense. Chile will have no difficulty absorbing this equipment into its armed forces.
The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not alter the basic military balance in the region.
The prime contractors will be Raytheon Missile Systems, Tucson, Arizona, BAE Systems, Aberdeen, South Dakota, and Lockheed Martin, Bethesda, MD. There are no known offset agreements proposed in connection with this potential sale.
Implementation of this proposed sale will not require the assignment of any additional U.S. Government or contractor representatives to Chile.
There will be no adverse impact on U.S. defense readiness as a result of this proposed sale.
This notice of a potential sale is required by law and does not mean the sale has been concluded.
All questions regarding this proposed Foreign Military Sale should be directed to the State Department's Bureau of Political Military Affairs, Office of Congressional and Public Affairs, pm-cpa@state.gov.
-30-
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U.S., Portugal join forces for Exercise Orion 16
US Marine Corps News
By Staff Sgt. Tia Nagle | July 5, 2016
U.S. Marines partnered with Portuguese forces to extract people in danger during a non-combatant evacuation exercise, June 21-24, 2016.
"Our role was to support the 1st Paratrooper Battalion in extracting designated personnel from various evacuation collection points dispersed around our forward operating base," said 2nd Lt. Kevin Ryan, a platoon commander with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response-Africa.
The Marines shared their small unit leadership approach with the Portuguese throughout Exercise Orion 16, demonstrating the importance of leadership at the squad and fire team levels.
"A chaotic and uncertain environment, such as the [counter-insurgency] environment the Marines conducted this exercise in, requires decentralized command. This allows for rapid reaction and fluid functioning on the ever-changing battlefield," said Ryan.
Exercise Orion is an annual crisis response training event hosted by the Portuguese military, bringing together forces from Portugal, Spain and the U.S. to enhance interoperability among NATO forces. This year marks the first time the U.S. was able to participate in the large-scale exercise.
"Exercises like Orion allow Marines the opportunity to work with foreign militaries, providing invaluable experience for real life scenarios in which Marines will be cooperating and interacting with foreign security forces," said Ryan.
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2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment Marines Disembark USS Ashland After Participation in CARAT
Navy News Service
Story Number: NNS160705-04
Release Date: 7/5/2016 10:33:00 AM
By Lance Cpl. Carl King, Amphibious Force 7th Fleet Public Affairs
OKINAWA, Japan (NNS) -- U.S. Sailors and Marines with Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment disembarked the forward-deployed Whidbey Island-class dock landing ship USS Ashland (LSD 48) in Okinawa, Japan, after several training engagements in the region, July 4.
The Marines returned to Okinawa after participating in exercise Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) with Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand.
CARAT is a nine-country, bilateral exercise series between the United States and Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand and Timor-Leste. The CARAT series remains ongoing in the region.
"CARAT was [a] very new experience for a vast majority of the landing force and there was a lot of enthusiasm because of what we were able to accomplish out there with our Pacific partners," said U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Andrew Hornfeck, company commander of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment.
CARAT allowed U.S. service members to show partner nations the amphibious capabilities the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps possess when working together, while also building relationships in the Pacific.
The Marines, being ambassadors of the United States in the places they visited, took joy in teaching and learning from their Pacific counterparts.
"It was a good experience," said U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Zachary Wiggins, an automatic rifleman with Easy Company. "I would definitely come back on the next deployment if I get the opportunity."
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Commentary: Ling Jihua sentenced to life; All are equal before the law
People's Daily Online
(People's Daily) 08:39, July 05, 2016
Former Director of General Office of the CPC Central Committee Lin Jihua on Monday was sentenced to life for bribery, illegally obtaining state secrets, and abuse of power. Ling accepted bribes totaling over 77.08 million yuan (11.6 million U.S. dollars) personally and through his family, according to the first-instance ruling by the First Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin.
The former top politician said in court that he pled guilty and not to appeal. Ling was also deprived of his political rights for life and had all his personal assets confiscated.
In fact, since the case involved state secrets, a closed-door pre-trial has already been held on June 7.
Upon the court's ruling, People's Daily timely published a commentary titled "Corruption must be firmly punished in accordance with the law". The article highlighted that Ling's case from initial investigation to prosecution, from prosecution to court trial has been proceeded strictly in accordance with the law. China's anti-graft campaign is evidently being run within the rule of law. Now that Ling is sentenced to life for his corruption, the court's ruling underlined the equality of all before the law, and that the rule of law is based on facts, evidence, and principle.
The commentary also warned all Party members that the rule of law is the basic way of governing the country. And the entire Party is bind to the Party discipline, as well as the rule of law. No one enjoys any privilege, nor anyone may take advantages of their position and status. All, regardless what position they are in and whom they are, will face punishment in accordance with the law upon Party violations.
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China should be ready for military confrontation in South China Sea: Daily
Iran Press TV
Tue Jul 5, 2016 6:55AM
A prominent Chinese daily run by the state says Beijing should be ready for potential "military confrontation" in the South China Sea.
Regional tensions are slightly rising as an arbitration court in The Hague is due to announce a ruling on July 12 in a dispute between Beijing and Manila over territory in the South China Sea.
The state-run Chinese newspaper Global Times said in joint editorials in its Chinese and English editions on Tuesday that the situation faces further escalation due to the potential threat posed by the ruling to China's sovereignty.
The paper, published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, said that the dispute has already been aggravated by US meddling.
"Washington has deployed two carrier battle groups around the South China Sea, and it wants to send a signal by flexing its muscles: As the biggest powerhouse in the region, it awaits China's obedience," the Global Times said.
China has long-standing disputes over maritime territory in the energy-rich, strategic waters of South China Sea with other regional states such as Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan.
Washington has sided with China's rivals in the territorial dispute, with Beijing accusing the US of meddling in the regional issues and deliberately stirring up tensions in the South China Sea.
The Chinese newspaper also stressed that Beijing should accelerate developing its military deterrence capabilities.
"Even though China cannot keep up with the US militarily in the short-term, it should be able to let the US pay a cost it cannot stand if it intervenes in the South China Sea dispute by force," it added.
"China hopes disputes can be resolved by talks, but it must be prepared for any military confrontation. This is common sense in international relations."
China has already said it will not be bound by the court ruling. However, Beijing seemed to move to compromise over the dispute with the Philippines on Monday, when the official China Daily said Beijing is ready to negotiate "issues such as joint development and cooperation in scientific research if the new government (in Manila) puts the tribunal's ruling aside."
The Chinese military is set to begin drills near disputed islands in the South China Sea on Tuesday and will continue them until July 11.
The official China Daily has quoted China's Defense Ministry as saying that the exercises are routine.
US officials have voiced concern that the international court ruling could prompt China to declare an air defense identification zone (ADIZ).
The Chinese response will "fully depend" on the Philippines, the daily quoted sources as saying but did not name them.
"There will be no incident at all if all related parties put aside the arbitration results," one of the sources told the English-language daily newspaper.
Another source said, "China has never taken a lead in stirring up regional tensions."
Meanwhile, the Philippines has sought to reduce tensions with China ahead of the verdict but resisted pressure to ignore the ruling.
"The reality is that nobody wants a conflict, nobody wants to resolve our conflict in a violent manner, nobody wants war," the Philippines' Foreign Minister Perfecto Yasay told ANC television on Tuesday.
He said a "special envoy" may be necessary to help resolve the dispute with China.
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Iraqi Army Launches Offensive Against Daesh in North of Anbar Province
Sputnik News
16:37 05.07.2016(updated 17:46 05.07.2016)
The Iraqi army has started an offensive against fighters from the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group in the north of the country's Anbar province, the head of the local operation command was quoted as saying in the media on Tuesday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) The Iraqi army was backed by airstrikes by the US-led coalition.
"The units of the 16th division, Anbar police tactic regiment and anti-terror forces started a large-scale operation this morning to free the Zankoureh region to the north of Ramadi from Daesh fighters," Maj. Gen. Ismail Mahalawi, the head of Anbar Operations Command, was cited by the Alsumaria broadcaster as saying.
Daesh is a terrorist group active in Syria and Iraq, which is outlawed in many countries, including Russia. In the summer of 2015, the Iraqi army and Shiite militias, backed by US airstrikes, launched a large-scale offensive to liberate the Anbar province from the terrorists.
In June 2016, Baghdad announced the liberation of Fallujah, one of the largest cities in the Anbar province, which had been a Daesh stronghold since 2014, as government forces gained control of the city center.
Sputnik
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Two servicemen of the Ukrainian army were killed and another ten suffered injuries in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) zone in the past 24 hours.
"Two soldiers of ours were killed and another ten were injured in the hostilities over the past day," Ukrainian Presidential Administration spokesman for military issues Andriy Lysenko said at a press briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday.
The Ukrainian army has been suffering substantial casualties in Donbas for the second day in a row.
Lysenko reported the death of three Ukrainian servicemen and injuries of another 13 in the hostilities on Tuesday.
U.K.'s Chilcot Inquiry Issues Damning Findings On Iraq War
July 06, 2016
by RFE/RL
A seven-year public inquiry ordered by the British government into the circumstances and "lessons" of the 2003 invasion of Iraq has concluded that the country's leadership went to war "before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted" and based on flawed intelligence and "wholly inadequate" planning.
The move also undermined the UN Security Council's authority because it failed to get council majority support for military action, the so-called Chilcot Inquiry found.
The 2.6 million-word "report for publication" casts a harsh light on former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, who joined the U.S.-led invasion to unseat Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein warning of a "real and present danger" of "terrorist groups [coming] in possession of WMD," a reference to weapons of mass destruction.
The inquiry, named after former civil servant John Chilcot, who led the probe, heard from 150 witnesses and analyzed 150,000 documents.
Presenting the conclusions in London on July 6, Chilcot said "the U.K. chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort." He added that the Blair government's evaluation of the threat from Hussein's weapons projected "certainty that was not justified."
It is an unwelcome spotlight for Blair, who left power in 2007 and last year publicly apologized "for some of the mistakes in planning and, certainly, our mistake in our understanding of what would happen once you removed the regime." But the 63-year-old former face of "New Labour" in Britain added that he "find[s] it hard to apologize for removing Saddam" Hussein.
Chilcot said that the legal basis for British military action in Iraq was "far from satisfactory."
The Iraqi war remains a divisive political topic in the United Kingdom and in many of the dozens of other countries that participated -- overtly or covertly -- in the U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq in March 2003.
The dissemination of the report on July 6 attracted antiwar demonstrators -- some of whom are clamoring for Blair to be tried for alleged war crimes -- to the London convention center near Parliament where Chilcot was presenting the findings.
Relatives of some of the 179 U.K. service personnel who died in the 2003 Iraq war also gathered in London to hear the committee's conclusions.
The UN's unanimously approved Resolution 1441 in 2002 gave the Iraqi leader "a final opportunity" to declare all weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and disarm or possibly face "serious consequences," a phrase that many interpreted as a green light for military action.
Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, AFP, and BBC
Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/uk-chilcot-inquiry-issues- damning-findings-on-iraq-war/27841448.html
Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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Syrian Army Repels Attacks by Extremists in Aleppo
Sputnik News
14:12 05.07.2016(updated 14:22 05.07.2016)
According to a source in the militia, an attack by extremists in Syria's Aleppo city was repelled by the Syrian army with the support of armed militia.
BEIRUT (Sputnik) An attack by extremists in Syria's Aleppo city was repelled by the Syrian army with the support of armed militia, a source in the militia told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.
"In Layramoun (a district in the northwest of Aleppo) the Syrian army managed to blow up a vehicle laden with explosives and a suicide bomber on time that was headed for the army's position In Maysaloun, extremist snipers have been firing at our positions and the positions of the army for several hours. Militia has suffered casualties," the source said.
The source added that after repelling the attack overnight, the army and militia launched an assault against the extremists, capturing a tank and combat vehicles.
As the Syrian army and militia liberated the northern suburbs of the city and cut off supplies to terrorists from Turkey, clashes resumed in the central districts.
Over 40 percent of the city is estimated to be controlled by terror groups, including Jaish al-Islam, Ahrar ash-Sham and the Nusra Front, outlawed in many countries around the world, including in Russia.
Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, with numerous opposition factions and Islamic extremist groups fighting government forces in an effort to topple the government of President Bashar Assad.
Sputnik
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Initial probe finds missile was not fired on purpose: prosecutors
ROC Central News Agency
2016/07/05 18:19:36
Kaohsiung, July 5 (CNA) An initial investigation into the launch of an anti-ship missile that killed a Taiwanese fisherman last Friday has found no evidence that it was fired intentionally, Kaohsiung prosecutors said Tuesday.
So far, prosecutors have not uncovered anything suspicious about Kao Chia-chun (), the petty officer who fired the missile, or his supervisor Chen Ming-hsiu (), according to the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors Office.
Investigators have collected samples from the two men for drug testing, searched their homes, and combed through their mobile phones and social networks, prosecutors said.
Kao lived a simple life and mostly stayed at home when he returned to Taipei during holidays, prosecutors said.
They also said there was no truth to the rumors that Kao was addicted to mobile and online video games.
The initial findings of the investigation do not indicate that Kao had "radical thoughts" that would lead him to fire the missile on purpose, prosecutors said.
The locally developed Hsiung Feng III anti-ship missile was launched by mistake from a Chinchiang-class corvette at Zuoying Military Harbor in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, at 8:12 a.m. Friday, during a simulated test of the missile system, the Navy said.
The defense ministry said Kao was performing the tests without any supervision at the time and he mistakenly launched the missile. He accidentally selected the wrong mode for the missile drill simulation, setting it on combat mode instead of training mode, the ministry said.
The missile hit the fishing boat "Hsiang Li Sheng," which was sailing some 40 nautical miles northwest of the harbor, killing the skipper Huang Wen-chung () and injuring the three other crewmen -- two migrant fishermen and the skipper's son.
(By Cheng Chi-feng and Christie Chen)
ENDITEM/pc
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3 Ukrainian soldiers killed in fresh clashes in east
Iran Press TV
Tue Jul 5, 2016 12:59PM
Renewed clashes between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russia forces in eastern Ukraine have left three soldiers dead.
Officials in Kiev said Tuesday that the three were killed as government forces suffered losses across various parts of the frontline separating areas under the control of pro-Russians in the east from the rest of the country.
Ukraine's military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said fierce clashes occurred in Donetsk, controlled by pro-Russians, while fighting raged in the southeastern government-held port city of Mariupol.
"We observe an escalation in these areas," Lysenko said, adding that pro-Russians shelled some areas for several hours.
The pro-Russia forces rejected the statement as an accusation, saying Ukrainian troops shelled residential buildings in Donetsk. A news agency run by the pro-Russians said two civilians were injured in attacks by Ukrainian troops.
On September 20, 2014, the government in Kiev and the pro-Russians signed a ceasefire agreement in Minsk, Belarus, in a bid to halt the clashes in Ukraine's eastern regions. The deal required all sides to pull heavy weaponry back from the front lines of the conflict.
On February 12 the next year, Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine agreed to another ceasefire deal in the same city under the name Minsk II. In addition to the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line, that agreement called for a ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russians and constitutional reform to give eastern Ukraine more autonomy.
Sporadic clashes have continued, however, with the two sides blaming each other for renewed hostilities. Kiev and its Western allies also accuse Russia of having a hand in the conflict. Moscow denies the allegation.
More than 9,500 people have been killed since April 2014, when Kiev launched its formal military action against pro-Russians following a referendum in March that year in Crimea, where the ethnic Russian-speaking people voted for rejoining the Russian Federation.
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AIM: MARL
6 July 2016
Suite 102, 3 Eden Street
North Sydney, NSW 2060
Australia
THIS NEWS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO THE UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES.
Appointment of New Directors and Update on Issued Share Capital
GUERNSEY, UK, July 6, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mariana Resources Ltd ('Mariana' or 'the Company'), the AIM listed exploration and development company with projects in Turkey and South America, announces that it is strengthening its relationships with Lidya Mining ("Lidya") and Sandstorm Gold by appointing Mustafa Aksoy from Lidya and Ron Ho from Sandstorm Gold as non-executive directors to the Mariana Board, effective 5 July 2016.
These appointments come at a time when Mariana is evolving from a pure junior exploration company, listed on AIM, to a dynamic entrepreneurial precious metals company with a focused strategy of progressing economically exciting projects up the development curve.
Chief Executive Officer, Glen Parsons, today commented:
"Mariana is moving into exciting times as it effectively transitions from being a penny stock to one of substance. As Mariana grows we strongly believe in maintaining robust and open relationships with our partners and, with this in mind, we have strengthened our Board through the appointment of Mustafa Aksoy the Managing Director of Lidya. Lidya is the current 70% owner and operator of the high grade Hot Maden gold-copper project in north eastern Turkey.
"We also welcome Ron Ho, Vice-President Finance at Sandstorm Gold. Sandstorm recently participated in the Company's private placing and now has a 7.5% interest in Mariana.
"My Board and I are delighted to have both Mustafa and Ron join the Mariana team at such an exciting growth phase. We believe they will bring siginifcant experience and knowledge to the table and warmly welcome them to Mariana."
New Director Biographies:
Mustafa Aksoy (Age 39) MBA
Mustafa Aksoy has close to 20 years working experience in Banking, Corporate Finance, M&A, Business Development and Management. Having worked in two Turkish banks as an auditor, Mustafa joined Calik Holding in 2004 and worked in various business lines of the Group. Since 2010 he has been a Board Member and the Managing Director of Lidya Mining. Under his watch, the Company emerged as one of the best performing development teams in Turkey with multiple significant discoveries. He has overseen the transition of Lidya from being an investor to becoming an operator of multiple mines. Mustafa studied Public Administration in Turkey and holds a MBA from Antwerp University in Belgium.
Ron Ho (Age 38) CPA, CA, CFA
Ron Ho has been with Sandstorm Gold for the past seven years, focused on structuring mine financing transactions and corporate development. Prior to Sandstorm, he served as the Chief Financial Officer for SNS Silver Corporation, where he contributed to equity capital raises and project evaluation and development and was an Equity Analyst at Raymond James Ltd. where he was responsible for sector institutional research. Mr Ho began his career at Deloitte & Touche, focusing on public company financial reporting in both the U.S. and Canada. Mr Ho is a Chartered Accountant, holds the designation of Chartered Financial Analyst charter holder and received a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of British Columbia.
Total Share Capital following Share Consolidation
Following the ordinary share consolidation reported on 1 July 2016 Mariana confirmed the total issued share capital for the Company was 119,931,820 ordinary shares. However taking into account the fractional share calculations to conclude the share consolidation a further 7 shares were issued. Application has been made to the London Stock Exchange for these 7 ordinary shares to be admitted to trading on AIM. Dealings are expected to commence on or about 11 July 2016. ("Admission").
Following Admission, there will be a total of 119,931,827 ordinary shares on issue
**ENDS**
For further information please visit website at www.marianaresources.com or contact the following.
In Australia: Glen Parsons (CEO) Mariana Resources Ltd +61 2 9437 4588 Eric Roth (COO) Mariana Resources Ltd +56 9 8818 1243 Rob Adamson RFC Ambrian Limited (Nomad) +61 2 9250 0041 Will Souter RFC Ambrian Limited (Nomad) +61 2 9250 0050 In U.K. Oliver Stansfield Brandon Hill Capital (UK Broker) +44 20 3463 5061 Jonathan Evans Brandon Hill Capital (UK Broker) +44 20 3463 5016 Camilla Horsfall Blytheweigh (Financial PR) +44 20 7138 3224 Megan Ray Blytheweigh (Financial PR) +44 20 7138 3203
About Mariana Resources
Mariana Resources Ltd is an AIM quoted exploration and development company with an extensive portfolio of gold, silver and copper projects in South America and Turkey.
Mariana's most advanced asset is the Hot Maden gold-copper project in north east Turkey, which is a joint venture with its Turkish JV partner Lidya (30% Mariana and 70% Lidya) rapidly advancing to development. A maiden mineral resource estimate of 2.03 Moz gold Equivalent (Indicated Category) and 0.97 Moz gold Equivalent (Inferred Category) (100% basis) was reported for Hot Maden on August 18, 2015. Elsewhere in Turkey, Mariana holds a 100% interest in the Ergama gold-copper project.
In southern Argentina, the Company's core gold-silver projects are Las Calandrias (100%), Sierra Blanca (100%), Los Cisnes (100%), Bozal (100%). These projects are part of a 160,000+ Ha land package in the Deseado Massif epithermal gold-silver district in mining-friendly Santa Cruz Province.
Mariana acquired 100% interests in the Dona Ines gold-silver and Exploradora East copper prospects in northern Chile through the Aegean Metals Group transaction which closed in January, 2015, with Mariana exploration now being funded by Asset Chile through the provision of $1.65m for a total 50% interest.
In Suriname, Mariana has a direct holding of 10.2% of the Nassau Gold project. The Nassau Gold Project is a 28,000 Ha exploration concession located approximately 125 km south east of the capital Paramaribo and immediately adjacent to Newmont Mining's 4.2Moz gold Merian project.
In Peru, Mariana is focusing on acquiring new opportunities which complement its current portfolio.
Safe Harbour
This press release contains certain statements which may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as at the date of this press release and include, without limitation, statements regarding discussions of future plans, the realization, cost, timing and extent of mineral resource estimates, estimated future exploration expenditures, costs and timing of the development of new deposits, success of exploration activities, permitting time lines, and requirements for additional capital. The words "plans", "expects", "budget", "scheduled", "estimate", "forecasts", "intend", "anticipate", "believe", "may", "will", or similar expressions or variations of such words are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause actual results to vary materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to: the effects of general economic conditions; the price of gold, silver and copper; misjudgements in the course of preparing forward-looking statements; risks associated with international operations; the need for additional financing; risks inherent in exploration results; conclusions of economic evaluations; changes in project parameters; currency and commodity price fluctuations; title matters; environmental liability claims; unanticipated operational risks; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals or in the completion of development or construction activities; political risk; and other risks and uncertainties described in the Company's annual financial statements for the most recently completed financial year which is available on the Company's website at www.marianaresources.com . Although we believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions and have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.
HUG#2026201
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The man accused of travelling to Gloucester with weapons before stabbing 21-year-old Dolton Powell to death as he tried to protect a friend has been jailed for life.
Dolton bled to death within seconds after his jugular vein was severed when he was stabbed in the neck by Jordan Barclay outside the All Nations Club in Gloucester, Bristol Crown Court was told.
The trial of the teenager accused of landing the fatal blow and several others, all from Bristol, started in May.
The Honourable Mr Justice Openshaw jailed Barclay for life with a minimum 20 years before he is considered eligible for release by the parole board.
Barclay was also found guilty of causing GBH to Elijah Sutherland, who Dolton tried to protect.
He told Barclay: "Dolton Powell was only 21. He had his whole life before him.
"I have read victim personal statements and their grief and loss will be with them for the rest of their lives."
Moving statements read out in court included one from Dolton's mother Angela Nugent.
She wrote: "Dolton was absolutely everyone's favourite.
"I keep asking myself why, why did he have to die?
"It is so unfair. All he was doing was trying to protect others from injury or worse.
"Why did they kill my son?
"I really need answers to this question."
A statement from Dolton sister, Janet Powell, said: "That night my heart was shattered into a million pieces.
"Brother, one day we will meet again. Big love always X."
The accused, who denied all allegations, were:
Jordan Barclay, 18, of Campbell Street, St Paul's, was charged with murder and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
Marzel Bolton, 20, Tunbridge, Bristol, was charged with murder and wounding with intent.
Nico Daley, 18, of Dermot Street, St Paul's, was charged with murder and wounding with intent.
Tyler Finch-Vassell, 19, of Lichfield Road, St Anne's Park, was charged with murder and wounding with intent.
Martell Hartford, 18, of Bristol, was charged with murder and wounding with intent.
Josphat Mbugua, 19, of Elmore Road, Horfield, was charged with murder and wounding with intent.
Everton Spence, 19, of Morris Road, Lockleaze, was charged with murder and wounding with intent.
Cartel Williams, 19, of Campbell Street, St Paul's, was charged with murder and wounding with intent.
Prosecutors said a gang from Bristol had driven to a birthday party at the All Nations Club in two cars before the tragedy unfolded in August last year.
The jury heard Barclay was accused of "lunging and thrusting a large knife" at Mr Powell, severing his jugular vein.
Ninth defendant Carlton James, 52, from Howard Street, Gloucester, was charged with assisting some of the accused.
After a trial of nine weeks, the jury convicted Barclay of murder and wounding with intent, and Daley of wounding with intent.
Daley was sentenced to eight years' youth custody for the GBH of Elijah Sutherland.
The others were found not guilty.
A spokesman from Dolton's family said: "No family should have to go through this ordeal. Dolton was taken from us too soon and in the cruellest possible way.
"We were so proud of everything Dolton achieved in his short life and his final act to try and stop those who hurt his friend from getting away, shows who he really was. He was an inspiration to us all.
"As a family we now need to come to terms with our loss and we ask for privacy at this difficult time."
Adam Vaitlingam QC, prosecuting, said: "Jordan Barclay was the leader of the attack."
The murder happened around 3.20am on Sunday, August 23.
The jury heard Dolton's friend Elijah Sutherland had got involved in a fight with Barclay and hit him in the head, shortly after 3am when people were leaving the party.
Witnesses said they saw Barclay and other defendants that night.
Mr Vaitilingam said part of the group of eight attacked Mr Sutherland "from all sides" with knives and bottles, resulting in several stab wounds to Mr Sutherland's back, arms and hands.
A witness said Dolton saw the fight and attempted to stop it, before challenging the group.
Mr Vaitilingam said the neck wound Dolton received killed him within seconds and he had "no chance of survival".
"He was undoubtedly very annoyed, very upset and very concerned about what this man had done to his friend," said Mr Vaitilingam.
"His decision to challenge them cost him his life.".
The packed court was told the attack on Dolton happened after he had blocked the Vauxhall Corsa from leaving and then smashed the passenger window with his hands.
After being stabbed he attempted to run after the defendants but collapsed in nearby Chase Lane, where he died, jurors were told.
Forensic investigators found a broken knife handle and blade in the adjacent car park in separate places.
Elections in Donbas can be carried out only after all the clauses of the Minsk agreements are fulfilled, Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende has said.
"We must not give in to the influence of arguments that the Minsk-1 and Minsk-2 agreements apply only to the elections in Donbas and the increase of level of powers of local authorities in Donbas," Brende said at a joint press conference with Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin in Kyiv on Wednesday.
According to him, these agreements say that Russia should withdraw its troops and weapons from Donbas and stop funding the militants.
"There are still Russian troops and Russian weapons in Donbas, the funding of Russian mercenaries continues. Does the OSCE currently has full access to all locations in Donbas? Has Ukraine restored the full control over its border in Donbas? I think we know the answers to these questions," he said.
Thus, according to the Norwegian minister, the elections in Donbas should be held after all the conditions stated in the Minsk agreement are fulfilled. Then more powers can be given to local self-government agencies, he said.
"I expect the Verkhovna Rada to adopt the necessary laws when all the rest of conditions are met. I fully agree with those who believe that the idea of holding the elections in Ukraine in the part of the country where there are still foreign troops is untimely," Brende said.
At 17, Gabby Ayers had already dedicated her life to helping people, her father said Tuesday.
The teenager from Clemmons, North Carolina, regularly volunteered for mission trips, traveling to countries in the Middle East and to Barbados, as well as to states across the U.S. She was at home in any task, whether it was cleaning up litter in a neighborhood or sharing her skills as a second-degree black belt.
Now, after her death, Gabby Ayers is continuing to give back, Mark Ayers said. The family decided to donate the teen's organs after she was killed Sunday when the Polaris personal watercraft she was riding collided with a 21-foot Key West Boat on Smith Mountain Lake.
A donor has already been matched with her eyes. Her lung, heart and brain are expected to be donated for autism research, Mark Ayers said.
"She gave selflessly all the time," he said. "She didn't do it for the pats on the back. As a father, the hardest thing to do was to do that, to donate her organs. But that's what she would have wanted."
Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries spokesman Lee Walker said that both the boat and the Polaris were operating near Anthony Ford Boat Ramp in Pittsylvania County at about 7:45 p.m. when the collision happened. Ayers was riding the personal watercraft with 19-year-old William Rentz Brandt, a friend of hers from Danville whose grandparents own a house on Smith Mountain Lake, Mark Ayers said.
Brandt was taken to Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening, Walker said Monday. The 20-year-old driving the boat, Drewry Woodson Hall, and his passenger, 22-year-old Capers Penn Zentmeyer, both of Martinsville, were not injured. They helped pull Ayers and Brandt to shore after the wreck, Walker said.
No charges had been filed in the collision as of Tuesday. Walker said that the Pittsylvania County commonwealth attorney's office will decide whether charges are warranted after the investigation is completed.
Mark Ayers said his daughter became an avid lake surfer and personal watercraft enthusiast while growing up at her family's lake house in Belews Creek, North Carolina, near Winston-Salem.
"She was a water baby," he said. "She could do some amazing stuff. When she surfed, she looked like an angel."
Gabby Ayers had already completed her high school education at home, as well as a nine-month training program at Leon's Beauty School in Greensboro, North Carolina. Ayers said she had been working at his salon, Cheveux Salon and Day Spa, for two weeks before the wreck happened. She had a knack for both hair dressing and makeup artistry, her father said.
Though Mark Ayers said he takes comfort knowing she died doing what she loved.
"That girl was sitting in water and one second later she was in glory," Ayers said. "She was taken in the sweetest place she could be taken."
He hopes her death can lead to reform of boating requirements. He says he plans to meet with Virginia officials to discuss whether boat operators should be issued a license before entering the water, among other potential guidelines. Currently, motorboat operators of all ages, and personal watercraft operators age 14 and over, must complete a boating safety course.
"I don't think stricter punishment is as important as more education," Ayers said. "There should be stricter guidelines. If you have to have a license for a car, why not a boat?"
New U.K. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt has reversed most of an economic package announced by the government just weeks ago, including a planned cut in income taxes. Hunt said Monday he was scrapping almost all the tax cuts announced last month by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Liz Truss, and also signaled that public spending cuts are on the way. It was a bid to soothe turbulent financial markets spooked by fears of excessive government borrowing. The move raises questions about how long the beleaguered prime minister can stay in office, though Truss insisted she has no plans to quit. She vowed to lead the Conservatives into the next general election, but many in the party want her gone.
the Shareholders approving the COB at the Meeting; and
the TSXV granting Rodinia final approval of the COB.
TORONTO, July 5, 2016 - Rodinia Lithium Inc. (TSX VENTURE:RM) ("Rodinia" or the "Company") has purchased 3,250,000 subscription receipts of Kombat Copper Inc. (TSX VENTURE:KBT) ("Subscription Receipts") at a price of $0.08 per Subscription Receipt for a gross investment of $260,000 (the "Financing").Rodinia is also pleased to announce that it has received conditional approval from the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") for its proposed change of business from a junior resource issuer to an investment issuer (the "COB"). Final approval of the COB by the TSXV is conditional, among other things, on the common shareholders of Rodinia (the "Shareholders") approving the COB at the upcoming annual and special meeting of common shareholders of Rodinia (the "Meeting").Each Subscription Receipt will entitle Rodinia to acquire one common share of Kombat Copper (a "Share") and one common share purchase warrant (a "Warrant") automatically without any additional payment upon the completion of the following conditions:Each Warrant will entitle Rodinia to acquire one Share (a "Warrant Share") at a price of $0.13 per Warrant Share at any time for before the date that is three years from the date of issue of the Warrants, subject to an acceleration provision whereby if after the expiry of the statutory hold period, the Shares trade at $0.30 or higher on the TSXV, on a volume weighted average basis for a period of 30 consecutive days, Kombat Copper shall have the right to accelerate the expiry date of the Warrants to the date that is 30 days after Kombat Copper issues a news release announcing that it has elected to exercise the acceleration right.The gross proceeds from the Financing will be held in escrow pending satisfaction of the conditions precedent. If the conversion of the Subscription Receipts does not occur on or before 10 business days after the Meeting is held, Rodinia will be entitled to a return of its full subscription price.The Subscription Receipts and the underlying securities will all be subject to a four month statutory hold period. Closing of the Financing remains subject to a number of conditions, including without limitation, receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals, including the approval of the TSXV.As previously disclosed, the Meeting has been called for August 11, 2016. At the Meeting, the Shareholders will also be asked to: (i) approve the consolidation of the common shares in the capital of Rodinia (the "Common Shares") on the basis of one post-consolidation Common Share for up to ten pre-consolidation Common Shares (the "Consolidation"); (ii) approve the change of name of the Company to "Routemaster Capital Inc." (the "Name Change"); (iii) elect the directors of the Company for the ensuing year; (iv) re-approve the stock option plan of the Company; and (v) appoint the auditors of the Company.The COB, the Consolidation and the Name Change are subject to acceptance of the TSXV. The COB requires the approval of the Shareholders by way of an ordinary resolution of the majority of the disinterested Shareholders present in person or represented by proxy at the Meeting. The Consolidation and the Name Change require the approval of the Shareholders of Rodinia by way of a special resolution of two-thirds of the Shareholders present in person or represented by proxy at the Meeting.Currently, a total of 166,674,784 Common Shares are issued and outstanding. Accordingly, if the Consolidation is put into effect, a total of approximately 16,667,478 post-Consolidation Common Shares would be issued and outstanding, assuming there are no other changes in the issued capital of the Company. The board of directors of Rodinia believe that the proposed Consolidation is in the best interests of the Company and will better position the Company to access the capital markets should further funds be required in the future.A management information circular (the "Circular") will be mailed to Shareholders in connection with the Meeting and will provide additional information with respect to the matters to be considered at the Meeting.Completion of the COB is subject to a number of conditions, including TSXV acceptance and Shareholder approval. The COB cannot close until the required Shareholder approval is obtained. There can be no assurance that the COB will be completed as proposed or at all.Investors are cautioned that, except as disclosed in the Circular to be prepared in connection with the COB, any information released or received with respect to the COB may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon. Trading in the securities of the Company should be considered highly speculative.
The TSXV has in no way passed upon the merits of the COB and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.
About Rodinia Lithium Inc.:
Rodinia Lithium Inc. is a Canadian mineral exploration and development company.
FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS:
This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the COB, the Meeting, the Financing, the Consolidation, the Name Change, the conversion of the Subscription Receipts, the need for and ability to finance the Company in the future and the TSXV granting approval of the COB. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from results contemplated by the forward-looking statements. When relying on forward-looking statements to make decisions, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake to update any forward looking statements, oral or written, made by itself or on its behalf, except as required by applicable law.
The securities referred to in this news release have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any applicable securities laws of any state of the United States, and may not be offered or sold within the United States unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and any other applicable securities laws of the United States or an exemption from such registration requirements is available. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of these securities within any jurisdiction, including the United States.
NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.
NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR THROUGH U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES
Contact
Rodinia Lithium Inc.
Fred Leigh, President and Chief Executive Officer
+1 (416) 861-5933
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Jul 5, 2016) - Eastern Platinum Ltd. ("Eastplats" or the "Company") (TSX:ELR)(JSE:EPS) is pleased to announce the election of a new board of directors following its annual general meeting (the "Meeting") held earlier today. The new board, comprised of Peter M. Clausi, Michael Cosic, George G. Dorin, Douglas G. Perkins, George Pirie and Sam Wang (the "Board"), consists entirely of directors nominated by Ka An Development Co. Limited, which holds 12,777,994 common shares of the Company, representing approximately 13.79% of the outstanding common shares. For further information in respect of the results of voting at the Meeting, please refer to the Company's Report of Voting Results, which can be accessed at www.sedar.com.
Immediately following the Meeting, the Board held its first meeting of directors, at which, among other things:
George Dorin was appointed Chair of the Board
The Audit Committee was reconstituted to include Michael Cosic (Chair), George Dorin and Sam Wang;
The Compensation and Corporate Governance Committee was reconstituted to include Sam Wang (Chair), George Dorin and George Pirie
The Safety, Health and Environment Risk Committee was reconstituted to include Douglas Perkins (Chair), George Pirie and Michael Cosic
The Executive Committee was disbanded
Peter M. Clausi was appointed interim Chief Executive Officer of the Company
Andrea Zhang was appointed interim Chief Operating Officer of the Company, with authority to assume operations and supervision of the Company's South African operations
Anton Lubbe was appointed Vice President, South African Operations, reporting directly to Mr. Zhang. Mr. Lubbe is a Qualified Person for the purposes of NI 43-101.
"We are pleased with the results of the Meeting and with the manner in which the Board, its committees and senior management have been reshaped", stated Mr. Dorin, the newly appointed Chair. "We believe strongly that this Board, with the able assistance of the new senior management team, has the experience, knowledge and commitment to lead EastPlats forward at this crucial, turning point in its history."
In the short term, the Board intends to conduct a detailed review of EastPlats and its subsidiaries to determine what changes, if any, would be desirable in light of such review and existing circumstances. Among other things, the Board will be carefully reviewing the Company's current care and maintenance program and its potential strategic alternatives, including the recently announced proposed transaction involving the sale of the Company's South African subsidiary, Barplats Mines Limited, which holds the Crocodile River Mine.
The Board expects to report a number of material changes and developments in the coming weeks and months, as its review of EastPlats progresses.
In the meantime, the Board wishes to express its gratitude to shareholders of EastPlats for their votes at the Meeting and its appreciation for their ongoing support during the transitional period ahead.
The Company also announces the grant of six hundred thousand stock options under the Company's stock option plan to officers and directors.
No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information
This press release contains 'forward looking information' within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. Forward looking information in this press release includes information about the Board's short-term plans for the Company and its expectation that it will report material changes and developments in the coming weeks and months. These forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated. Readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking information contained in this news release. Eastplats does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except as required by applicable securities laws.
Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has appointed ex-deputy prosecutor general Roman Hovda head of the Kyiv prosecutor's office.
"By order of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Roman Hovda is appointed to the position of head of the Kyiv city prosecutor's office," the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) has said.
While formally introducing Hovda to Kyiv prosecutors on Wednesday, Lutsenko focused attention on the critical criminality level in the capital and emphasized the need to coordinate the work of all law enforcement agencies and structures to fight crime.
Lutsenko said priorities for Kyiv city prosecutors included the review of all current and past criminal cases relating to the activities of former city officials.
"There is a big fish swimming in the Kyiv reservoir, where so many cases were buried, and not just during the term of "spaceman" team headed up by former Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky.
Lutsenko also assigned the task of checking the activities of communal production enterprises in the capital.
"Those individuals who ripped off billions of hryvnias should be punished, no matter where they live," Lutsenko said.
Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCwire) - Dolly Varden Silver Corp. (TSX.V: DV | U.S.: DOLLF) (the Company or Dolly Varden) is pleased to announce that it intends to undertake a private placement financing (the Offering) to raise gross proceeds of up to $6 million from the sale of up to: (a) 7,258,064 common shares in the capital of the Company (Common Share) at a price of $0.62 per share; and (b) up to 2,142,857 Common Shares that qualify as flow-through shares as defined in Canadas Income Tax Act (Flow-Through Share), at a price of $0.70 per Flow-Through Share.
The net proceeds of the Offering will be used to repay the $2,500,000 loan from Sprott and K2 (see Company news releases dated June 13, 2016 and July 4, 2016), accomplishing the goal of eliminating all Company debt. The majority of the remaining proceeds are planned to be used for exploration of the Dolly Varden silver property in northwestern BC, where a number of prospective mineral exploration and resource expansion targets were identified during the 2015 field season. Thereafter, proceeds will be used for working capital purposes.
Upon completing the Offering Dolly Vardens year-long corporate transformation will be complete, yielding a debt free company with a lean share structure, cash in the bank, and low overhead costs. Cleaning up the corporate entity allows focus to shift to the highly prospective Dolly Varden silver project, where both Eskay- and Brucejack-like styles of mineralization are known to occur. Our 2015 maiden NI 43-101 mineral resource estimate defined robust high-grade mineralization adjacent to historic deposits. This mineral resource estimate has expansion potential but, more importantly, serves as a template for discovery of other similar deposits on the under-explored remainder of the large project where the same lithologies, structure, alteration and indicator elements have been defined in previous field programs and have yielded encouraging early results. With our debt repaid and capital on hand, Dolly Varden will be well positioned in this new silver commodity market to grow the potential of the project through methodical and well targeted field programs, said Rosie Moore, Director and Interim President and CEO of Dolly Varden. Hecla, a shareholder, announced its intention to make a takeover bid for Dolly Varden in a news release on June 27, 2016. The Company is unaware of any formal Hecla offer to Dolly Vardens shareholders but is prepared to evaluate an offer, if one is put forward. Completion of this financing gives us the ability to move forward as a going concern without the burden of debt and will allow us to focus on the evaluation of our project, regardless, she added.
In connection with the Offering, the Company has agreed to pay a finders fee in respect of those purchasers introduced to the Company by Eventus Capital Corp. (the Finder). For the share purchased by these investors, the Finder will receive: (a) Common Shares with a value equal to 6% of the gross proceeds raised from Common Shares and Flow-Through Shares, based on a price per Common Share of $0.62; and (b) Common Share purchase warrants equal to 6% of number of Common Shares and Flow-Through Shares. Each warrant will entitle the Finder to purchase one Common Share at a price of $0.70 per Common Share for a period of 24 months from the date of the closing of the Offering.
The issuance of the Common Shares, Flow-Through Shares, and the payment of the Finders fee are subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange, receipt of any other required regulatory approvals and other customary conditions. Closing of the Offering is anticipated to occur on or about July 15, 2016. Securities issued under the Offering will be subject to a four-month hold period.
Pursuant to the ancillary rights agreement between Hecla Canada Ltd (Hecla) and the Company dated September 4, 2012 (the ARA), the Company will provide notice to Hecla of the Offering. Hecla will be entitled to acquire Common Shares, Flow-Through Shares and warrants to maintain its pro rata equity interest in the Company. If Hecla exercises its rights under the ARA, any securities acquired by Hecla will be in addition to those detailed above.
About Dolly Varden - Dolly Varden Silver Corp. is a mineral exploration company focused on the exploration of the Dolly Varden silver property located in northwestern British Columbia, Canada. The entire Dolly Varden property is considered to be highly prospective for hosting high-grade precious metal deposits, since it comprises the same structural and stratigraphic setting that host numerous other, on-trend, high-grade deposits (Eskay Creek, Brucejack). The Companys common shares are listed and traded on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol DV and on the OTCBB system under the symbol DOLLF. The Dolly Varden deposit contains an estimated 3.1 million tonnes of Indicated Mineral Resources at an average grade of 321.6 grams of silver per tonne and 0.9 million tonnes of Inferred Mineral Resources at an average grade of 373.3 grams of silver per tonne.
Technical Information
Ron F. Nichols, P. Eng. and Vice President of Exploration for Dolly Varden, who serves as a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101, supervised the preparation of the scientific and technical information concerning this news release. Further information regarding the Dolly Varden silver property, including that relating to historical production and resource estimates, can be found in the Companys Technical Report dated September 30, 2015 which includes the Mineral Resource Section, which is filed on SEDAR and available on the Companys website.
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:
This release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of Dolly Varden to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Forward looking statements or information relates to, among other things, the completion of the private placement, size of the Offering and the Companys receipt of proceeds of the Offering, the payment of the Finders fee, the receipt of regulatory approvals, the use of the proceeds of the Offering, results of previous field work and programs, belief in the nature of the mineralization at the project, belief that the mineralization on the project is similar to Eskay and Brucejack, results of mineral resource estimate on the project, the potential to grow the project, the prospects of the Dolly Varden silver project ability to move forward as a going concern and matters relating to the proposed takeover bid by Hecla. These forward-looking statements are based on managements current expectations and beliefs but given the uncertainties, assumptions and risks, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements or information. The Company disclaims any obligation to update, or to publicly announce, any such statements, events or developments except as required by law.
For additional information on risks and uncertainties, see the Companys most recently filed annual management discussion & analysis (MD&A), which is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the Companys website at www.dollyvardensilver.com. The risk factors identified in the MD&A are not intended to represent a complete list of factors that could affect the Company.
Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.
This release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy of any securities in the United States. The securities described herein have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold within the United States except in compliance with the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or pursuant to available exemptions therefrom.
Contact Information:
Dolly Varden Silver Corp.
Rosie Moore, Interim CEO and President
1-604-925-5881
www.dollyvardensilver.com
To view this press release as a PDF file, click onto the following link:public://news_release_pdf/dollyverd07052016.pdfSource: Dolly Varden Silver Corp. (TSX Venture:DV, OTC Pink:DOLLF) http://www.dollyvardensilver.com/
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Copyright 2016 Filing Services Canada Inc.
Vancouver, BC (FSCwire) - Equitas Resources Corp. (Equitas or the Company) (TSXV: EQT) (US: EQTRF) (Frankfurt: T6UN) is pleased to announce the discovery of near-surface, high grade gold mineralization at the Baldo Zone (Baldo) of its 100%-owned Cajueiro Gold Project (Cajueiro) in Central Brazil.
Major highlights include:
Initial assay results identify eight intersections of 1.16 g/t Au or greater;
Two high-grade intervals of 24.26 g/t Au over 2m, and 18.86 g/t Au over 2m;
A broader separate near-surface interval of 12m @ 1.42 g/t Au;
The exploration program is being extended with diamond drilling, auger drilling and trenching to further delineate and expand on the intersections achieved to date;
To date 733 of 757 trench assays have been received, and all drill core results are still outstanding.
Chris Harris, President and CEO of Equitas, said We are very encouraged by the strong trenching results from the Baldo area, with results ranging from 1.16 g/t Au up to 24.26 g/t Au. This provides good support for the Companys focus on fast track gold production and potential for further upgrading of the resource. The team has completed the initial exploration programme on time, and on budget, and with these exciting results we have decided to extend our drilling programme. We are well positioned for further news with all of our drilling results yet to come in.
Exploration Update
To view the graphic in its original size, please click here
Figure 1: Baldo Target at the Cajueiro Project
The exploration program announced on May 26th has been completed on time and within budget. Work completed includes 31 HQ diamond drill holes totaling 1585m, and 1680m of trenching in nine trenches, conducted over the current area of focus within the Baldo Zone of the Cajueiro Project. To date 733 gold assays have been received out of a total of 757 trench samples, standards, blanks and duplicates currently submitted. As well all assays from the diamond drilling are pending. The program has significantly changed the interpretation of prospective altered and mineralized structures in the target area, as shown in Figure 2 below:
To view the graphic in its original size, please click here
Figure 2: Plan view of Baldo target area with new geological interpretation, trenches, drill hole traces and current intersections of interest
The trenching program targeted gold mineralization in near-surface saprolite, the oxidized equivalent of hydrothermally altered bedrock structures hosting gold mineralization with associated pyrite and quartz veining. Assays received to date, for trenches TCBL_0001 to 0005 inclusive, a portion of TCBL_0006, and TCBL_0008, have identified eight discrete intervals of interest, as listed in the table below:
Trench From (m) To (m) Interval (m) Au g/t TCBL_0001 47.0 49.0 2.0 1.16 TCBL_0001 60.0 72.0 12.0 1.40 TCBL_0003 23.0 28.0 5.0 1.26 TCBL_0003 167.0 171.0 4.0 2.12 TCBL_0003 197.0 199.0 2.0 24.26 TCBL_0004 146.0 148.0 2.0 5.54 TCBL_0004 173.0 175.0 2.0 18.86 TCBL_0006 31.0 38.0 7.0 1.57
Table 1: > 1 g/t Au intervals achieved to date in saprolite, Baldo Zone Cajueiro
Observations of the high grade areas in trenches TCBL_0003 and TCBL_0004 indicate that this mineralization and associated alteration may have been focused by a combination of NE and EW deformation events. Further delineation of the high-grade intervals is in progress with diamond drilling, auger drilling and trench sampling. Final results and an updated structural interpretation will be announced when completed. It is anticipated that a follow-up program of resource definition and further exploration will commence once all results have been received and incorporated into the model.
Commenting on the program results to date, VP Exploration Everett Makela states Results so far have confirmed our expectation that the oxidized saprolite component of the bedrock mineralization at Baldo is host to significant gold concentrations. All eight of the intersections achieved to date are worthy of follow-up, as the saprolite can be directly excavated on surface and trucked to a processing plant, without the need for drilling and blasting. The high grade intervals in trenches TCBL_0003 and TCBL_0004 appear to represent a corresponding increase in structural complexity that adds an exciting new element to the Baldo environment. I would also emphasize that a majority of the assay results have yet to be received, so there is considerable new information still to come from this exploration program.
Additional Targets at Baldo
Previous mapping and surface sampling has revealed the Baldo area as host to widespread gold mineralization in the saprolite. To date three additional target signatures similar to the current focus area have been identified. Targets will be reviewed in detail and ranked in preparation for upcoming exploration programs.
Quality AssuranceQuality Control (QAQC) and Analytical Method
All sample batches include 5% QAQC samples consisting of blanks, standards and field duplicates or twins, submitted to SGS GEOSOL in Vespasiano, Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Analysis is performed by fire assay with 50g fusion and Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy.
Metallurgical Testing
A 100kg composite sample of gold-mineralized saprolite identified by the program to date has been sent to Testwork Desenvolvimento de Processo Ltda in Nova Lima, Minas Gerais State, Brazil for bench-scale metallurgical testing, including comminution, gravity separation and cyanide leach via bottle roll tests.
Cajueiro Project
The Cajueiro Project is located in Central Brazil within Mato Grosso and Para states. The project encompasses 39,053 hectares and is located 95 kilometers north of the city of Alta Floresta.
The NI 43-101 Technical Report on Resources (Gustavson, 2016) for Cajueiro documents an Indicated Mineral Resource of 8.636 million tonnes containing 214,100 ounces of gold at 0.771 g/t (sulphide bedrock domain); an Inferred Mineral Resource of 9.526 million tonnes containing 203,500 ounces of gold at 0.664 g/t (sulphide bedrock domain), and an Inferred Mineral Resource of 1.374 million tonnes containing 78,400 ounces of gold at 1.775 g/t (oxide saprolite domain).
NI 43-101 Disclosure
Everett Makela, P. Geo., VP Exploration for Equitas Resources Corp., a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, supervised the preparation of the technical information in this news release.
For more information on Equitas Resources Corp., please contact Sean Kingsley, Corporate Communications at 604-681-1568 or skingsley@equitasresources.com.
On Behalf of the Board of Directors,
EQUITAS RESOURCES CORP.
Chris Harris Chris Harris
President & CEO
Tel: 604-681-1568
info@equitasresources.com
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to the future operations of the Company and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as will, may, should, anticipate, expects and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding future planned exploration expenditures; implication that further exploration will delineate and expand on the intersections achieved to date; potential to further upgrading of the resource and the costs for the programs and the expectation of adding additional resources in the Baldo target area are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.
The reader is cautioned that references to mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability and assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company will update or revise publicly any of the included forward-looking statements as expressly required by Canadian securities law.
To view this press release as a PDF file, click onto the following link:public://news_release_pdf/equitas07062016.pdfSource: Equitas Resources Corp. (TSX Venture:EQT) http://www.equitasresources.com/
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Copyright 2016 Filing Services Canada Inc.
VANCOUVER, CANADA--(Marketwired - Jul 6, 2016) - Medgold Resources Corp. (TSX VENTURE:MED) (the "Company" or "Medgold") is pleased to announce that it has received formal approval for the proposed diamond drilling program at the Limarinho Zone at the Boticas Gold Project.
Medgold is planning a 2,500m diamond drilling program, expected to commence in mid-July, targeting a gold-bearing sheeted orogenic vein system. Energold Drilling Corp. have been selected as drill contractors to complete the initial drilling program using man-portable drill rigs.
Dan James, President of Medgold, said: "We are very pleased to have received formal approval of the Centerra-funded drill program at the Limarinho Zone. With the permit in hand, we can now start a detailed evaluation of the main prospect, Limarinho. Our aims are to confirm the historical drill intercepts and to define a mineral resource over the area. In February last year, the Portuguese government classified Boticas as a Project of Strategic National Interest, which highlights the importance of the project to Portugal."
The exploration work at the Boticas Gold Project is fully-funded by our joint venture partner, Centerra Gold Inc. The JV with Centerra started in December 2015, and since that time, Medgold has undertaken grid-soil sampling over Limarinho and the wider region, and has completed a number of phases of channel-chip sampling.
The Boticas-Chaves Gold Project
The Boticas-Chaves Gold Project is comprised of two exploration licences covering a total area of approximately 600 sq km located in the north of Portugal close to the Spanish border. The principal prospect at Boticas is the Limarinho zone.
In the 1980s and 2000s COGEMA and then Kernow Resources, respectively, completed over 3,000m of diamond drilling at Limarinho. The drilling cut broad zones of low-grade gold mineralization (approx. 1 g/t Au), and also multiple mineralized corridors of higher grade (2-3 g/t Au) that are continuous over significant strike lengths.
Medgold recently completed a re-evaluation of the historical drilling data, applying strict compositing criteria of a 0.2 g/t Au cut-off and a maximum of 3m internal dilution. The re-calculated drill intersections are summarized below 1:
PFR17: 15.60m @ 3.25 g/t Au from 70.95m
KL04: 38.40m @ 1.96 g/t Au from 19.30m
KL04: 9.00m @ 3.59 g/t Au from 143.30m
KL03: 15.80m @ 2.14 g/t Au from 9.85m
PFR3: 29.60m @ 1.88 g/t Au from 28.20m
PFR10: 56.60m @ 1.33 g/t Au from 72.80m
PFR11: 25.50m @ 1.62 g/t Au from 51.10m
1These are historical data provided for information purposes, and a Qualified Person has not completed the work necessary to verify these results.
The mineralized corridors trend east-northeast, while the veins within them trend northeast. The mineralization is structurally controlled and developed within a large deformational zone which coincides with the surface soil geochemistry, outlining a northeast-elongate area of approximately 4km by 2km. This anomaly covers both Limarinho and Limarinho South, both of which are located in the centre of the deformation zone
About Centerra Gold and the Joint Venture
Centerra is a Canadian-based gold mining company focused on operating, developing, exploring and acquiring gold properties primarily in Asia, North America and other markets worldwide. Centerra is the largest Western-based gold producer in Central Asia. Centerra's shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) under the symbol CG. The Company is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Centerra has the exclusive right to earn a 51% interest in the Valongo Belt properties (namely: Lagares, Castelo de Paiva and Valongo licences) and the Boticas-Chaves Project by incurring expenditures on the properties totaling US$3.0 million over three years. Once Centerra has acquired the initial 51% interest in the properties, it may acquire a further 19% (for a total 70% interest) by incurring an additional US$3.0 million on exploration within two years.
Qualified Person
David Clark, PGeo, consulting geologist to the Company, is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 -- Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Mr. Clark has reviewed and approved the disclosure of technical information contained in this news release.
About Medgold
Medgold is a European-focused, TSX-V listed exploration and development company targeting gold properties in northwest Iberia and the under-explored gold provinces of southern Europe. Run by a highly experienced management team with a successful track record of building value in resource companies, Medgold is aiming to become a leading European gold company.
Additional information on Medgold can be found on the Company's website at www.medgoldresources.com and by reviewing the Company's page on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD
Daniel P. James, President & Director
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Forward-looking statements
Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. All statements included herein, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and include, without limitation, statements about the proposed drill program on the Boticas Gold Project. Often, but not always, these forward looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "estimate", "estimates", "estimated", "potential", "open", "future", "assumed", "projected", "used", "detailed", "has been", "gain", "upgraded", "offset", "limited", "contained", "reflecting", "containing", "remaining", "to be", "periodically", or statements that events, "could" or "should" occur or be achieved and similar expressions, including negative variations.
Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Such uncertainties and factors include, among others, whether the proposed drill program on the Boticas Gold Project will proceed as planned; changes in general economic conditions and financial markets; the Company or any joint venture partner not having the financial ability to meet its exploration and development goals; risks associated with the results of exploration and development activities, estimation of mineral resources and the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits; unanticipated costs and expenses; and such other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's quarterly and annual filings with securities regulators and available under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended.
Forward-looking statements contained herein are based on the assumptions, beliefs, expectations and opinions of management, including but not limited to: that the proposed drill program on the Boticas Gold Project will proceed as planned; that the Company's stated goals and planned exploration and development activities will be achieved; that there will be no material adverse change affecting the Company or its properties; and such other assumptions as set out herein. Forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, except as required by law. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.
CALGARY, AB--(Marketwired - July 06, 2016) - Agrium Inc. (TSX: AGU) (NYSE: AGU) announced today a binding purchase agreement between its Crop Production Services ("CPS") and Cargill AgHorizons (U.S.) ("Cargill") for the acquisition of 18 Ag-retail locations with annual revenues of over $150-million. The outlets are located across the northern U.S. Corn-Belt region, in the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana.
"This acquisition demonstrates our continued focus on growing our North American Ag-retail business, particularly in the highly desirable U.S. Corn Belt. The locations are in regions where we currently have a limited presence. This acquisition will allow us to capitalize on synergies related to the introduction of our proprietary products and services, and leveraging our extensive distribution network," commented Agrium's President and CEO, Chuck Magro. "We welcome the Cargill Ag-retail employees to the Agrium family and are excited to bring our agronomic expertise and quality products and services to growers in this important agricultural region," added Mr. Magro.
Roger Watchorn, group leader of Cargill's North American agricultural supply chain, said: "Cargill will focus on being the world's leading merchant of grain and oilseeds. We remain steadfast in our commitment to help farmers succeed by ensuring they remain competitive in the global market and being as efficient as possible in getting products from origins to destinations."
The sale does not involve Cargill's Canadian crop input retail business.
The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, and regulatory clearances. The transaction is expected to close by the end of third quarter of 2016.
About Agrium
Agrium Inc. is a major producer and distributor of agricultural products and services in North America, South America, Australia and Egypt through its agricultural retail-distribution and wholesale nutrient businesses. Agrium supplies growers with key products and services such as crop nutrients, crop protection, seed, and agronomic and application services, thereby helping to meet the ever growing global demand for food and fiber. Agrium produces nitrogen, potash and phosphate fertilizers, with a combined wholesale nutrient capacity of over nine million tonnes and with competitive advantages across all product lines. Agrium retail-distribution has an unmatched network of over 1,400 facilities and approximately 3,800 crop consultants. We partner with over half a million grower customers globally to help them increase their yields and returns on more than 50 different crops. With a focus on sustainability, the company strives to improve the communities in which it operates through safety, education, environmental improvement and new technologies such as the development of precision agriculture and controlled release nutrient products. Agrium is focused on driving operational excellence across our businesses, pursuing value-enhancing growth opportunities and returning capital to shareholders.
About Cargill
Cargill provides food, agriculture, financial and industrial products and services to the world. Together with farmers, customers, governments and communities, we help people thrive by applying our insights and 150 years of experience. We have 149,000 employees in 70 countries who are committed to feeding the world in a responsible way, reducing environmental impact and improving the communities where we live and work. For more information, visit Cargill.com and our News Center.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release constitute forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties as well as various assumptions and business sensitivities, including those referred to in the MD&A section of the Corporation's most recent Annual Report to Shareholders as well as those risk factors described in the Corporation's most recent Annual Information Form, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Corporation to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, estimates, forecasts and statements as to management's expectations with respect to, among other things, business and financial prospects, financial multiples and accretion estimates, future trends, plans, strategies, objectives and expectations ,completion of the retail transaction as contemplated and the ability to successfully integrate the new assets into our existing retail business in an effective manner, general economic, market and business conditions, weather conditions, crop prices, the supply and demand and price levels for our major products, governmental and regulatory requirements and actions by governmental authorities, including changes in government policy, changes in environmental, tax and other laws or regulations and the interpretation thereof. Agrium disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information as a result of new information or future events, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.
The bar line is becoming blurred. Not the line at the bar, mind. We're talking about the line that separates bar and restaurant, boozer and brunch spot, dive and diner. These difficult-to-define venues are opening at a rapid rate, with punters keen to explore the expanding worlds of Australian spirits, small-batch brewing and artisan wines and perhaps grab a coffee or brunch at the same time. The bar scene in Brisbane has never been better.
The Brisbane Times 2017 Good Food Guide Bar of the Year award is for the best all-round boozer that nails service, drinks, vibe and decor. These are your five finalists from the Guide, with the winner to be announced on July 18 at the Good Food Guide awards night. Cin cin!
Canvas
16B Logan Road, Woolloongabba, 07 3891 2111, canvasclub.com.au
The Canvas team pictured in their natural habitat. Photo: Supplied
Mixing interesting flavours and twisting classics is the stock and trade of this small bar with a penchant for street art and upcycled wood. Tristan Green, Nick Royds, Aiden Beiers, Kyla Phillpotts and Frankie Allman all make a mean cocktail and if you're the kind of person who likes breakfast for dinner (and who doesn't?), then give the Good Mornin' America a try with George Dickel whiskey, Frangelico, cream, vanilla and notes of maple bacon. Canvas is open for weekend brunch if you want that drink with a side of actual bacon.
Cobbler
7 Browning Street, West End, cobblerbar.com
There's no shortage of Scotch at Cobbler. Photo: Nat Hoo
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There are more than 400 whiskies from around the world stashed behind the handsome, square-jawed bar here. The staff seem to have tried every single one of them and can guide you towards something from the new world or old Scottish favourites from heathery Highlanders to big, peaty wallopers. Cameron Pirret, Elliot Pascoe, John Highton and owner-manager Martin Lange all know how to mix a whisky drink with panache if you prefer your golden nectar in a Rob Roy or rusty nail, and the tequila selection is worth exploring too. (Seriously, though, 400 whiskies.)
The Gresham, Brisbane
308 Queen Street, Brisbane, thegresham.com.au
Kal Moore on the pour at The Gresham. Photo: Jared Vethaak
The Gresh is a place where flanno-wearing skaters sink XXXX tins next to suits knocking back Pappy Van Winkle whisky and it's a beautiful, natural thing to behold. Almost as beautiful as the high-ceilinged heritage room and Brisbane history framed on its walls. Shout outs to general manager Ryan Lane and the gun bar team (Dan Gregory, Brendon Osmers, Kal Moore, Peter Hollands, Ella Rhodes, Ash McGregor and Magnus Moore, phew) for pouring top-notch drinks until 3am. A national treasure.
Lefty's Old Time Music Hall
15 Caxton Street, Milton, leftysoldtimemusichall.com
The Mermaid Lounge at Lefty's Old Time Music Hall, Brisbane.
This honky-tonk on steroids and former gentleman's club offers one heck of a night out. There's whisky with apple juice squeezed in front of your face, delicious tinnies, roast beef po' boys and bras on antlers. The boot-scooting live music is sensational with loads of room to cut the rug, and a visit isn't complete without paying respects to Captain Rhumnatious in the Mermaid Lounge. Possibly the only joint in Queensland selling press-stud cowboy shirts behind the bar.
Maker
Fish Lane, South Brisbane
Black-on-bronze at Maker. Photo: Toby Scott
While many new bars are decked out with so many elements from the blonde-on-white school of Scando design you feel like you're sitting in a Sigur Ros song, Maker owner Jerome Batten (Gauge, Sourced Grocer) went full blown bronze-on-black, Swedish death metal with the interiors of this (very) small bar. It's bloody lovely and the young-gun bar team lead by Ed Quatermass has the skills the room deserves. There's a focus on local beers, wines and spirits and a menu of Noma-style snacks including veal tendon with sour cream and fermented chili, and kangaroo tartare kicked up a notch with cured egg yolk, kohlrabi and saltbush. Arrive early, stay late.
The Brisbane Times Good Food Guide awards night, presented by Citi and Vittoria, is Monday July 18. The Guide will be on sale in newsagents and bookstores from July 19, with all book purchases receiving free access to the new Good Food app.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., second from left, accompanied by, from left, Sen. Jeff Merkley D-Ore., Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., speaks during a news conference about gun control legislation, Thursday, June 23, 2016, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
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By Rema Rahman, CQ-Roll Call (TNS)
WASHINGTON House members return to Washington this week with battle lines drawn: Democrats vow to continue disrupting order until they get a vote on a gun control bill they support. Speaker Paul D. Ryan promises to crack down on disorderly conduct.
A Republican counter-terrorism bill that includes a conservative version of a "no fly, no buy" provision clearly did little to mollify Democratic leaders. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called it "toothless," and a spokeswoman for Whip Steny Hoyer said it was "deeply disappointing."
What happens next is less clear.
Democrats, buoyed by public support for their nearly 26-hour siege on the House floor in late June, say they will approach Ryan about amendments they believe will do a better job of keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists.
If that doesn't work, said Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., the party has "lots of tools in the toolbox."
"If Speaker Ryan insists on not giving the American people a vote on 'no-fly, no-buy,' then we will reach into that toolbox," Israel said after leading a short protest last week. "And we will continue to avail ourselves of the tools. Some will be blunt. Some will be sharp. Some will be blunt and sharp."
Ryan, who told fellow Republicans last week he would restore order to the chamber, also has some tools as his disposal. That could include closing down the House session to turn off the chamber's cameras, which are broadcast on C-SPAN, as he did during the sit-in that began June 22. He could also call on Capitol Police to physically remove members who are violating House rules.
Analysts say the speaker, still in his first year running the House, has to be careful about how he exercises power.
"The last thing you want to do as the majority is to enforce the narrative that you are shutting down or silencing the other party," said Matthew Green, a politics professor at the Catholic University. "That looks terrible."
On the other hand, Green said, the speaker can't completely back off. "If the House chooses to not to enforce its rules more stringently it encourages future protests like this by both parties."
Democrats remain unapologetic about breaking House rules during their impromptu protest inside the chamber. Around noon on June 22, they followed civil rights icon and Georgia Rep. John Lewis into the well of the House floor and sat down. They began chanting "No Bill, No Break," essentially urging the GOP majority to vote on a gun control bill before leaving town for a 10-day recess.
Republicans quickly adjourned the first session of the day, which meant the cameras taping the floor activities were turned off. But Democrats, in direct violation of House rules, used mobile phones to photograph and keep airing their protest.
House rules state that that no one is allowed to use a cell phone or cameras inside the chamber unless they are designated staff. Democrats took a symbolic voice vote to allow themselves to break the rule. Facebook live streams from 19 Democrats were viewed more than 3 million times and that in a single day, 1 million people saw tweets broadcasting Periscope feeds, Pelosi's office said.
As the night wore on, people in public galleries responded to lawmakers shouting up to them with a standing ovation another House no-no.
Ryan eventually brought the House back into session late that evening and, amid shouting from Democrats, pushed through a key vote on an appropriations bill. Then Republicans voted to start the July 4 recess, two days ahead of schedule.
Democrats continued to occupy the House floor and tape their proceedings until about 1 p.m. June 23. They proclaimed the sit-in an act of "civil disobedience."
Unlike the Senate in which any member whether in the majority or the minority can hold a filibuster for an unlimited amount of time to talk about any given issue, the House has limited time for debate.
That doesn't mean the minority party does not have opportunities to get a message across while keeping decorum, said Robert S. Walker, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania in the 1980s and early 1990s when the GOP was in the minority. He later became chief deputy whip
Walker said he often used television to go on the offensive against Democrats, especially during the hour of debate time during "special order" following a session. He recalled a time in the 1980s when former Democratic Speaker Tip O'Neill had the House cameras pan out during one of Walker's evening speeches to show that the Republican was speaking to an empty chamber.
Walker noted, however, that the chamber's cameras kept rolling allowing for C-SPAN coverage.
"Yeah, there's nobody in the chamber," Walker said, recalling his reaction. "But the fact is, there are hundreds of thousands of you out across the country that are paying attention."
Walker never went as far as Democrats did last month. He called the sit-in "disrespectful" and said it was a disservice to the House as an institution.
Democrats still can, and have, used one-minute speeches at the start of a legislative day to talk about gun violence. But that hasn't been enough to muster a vote.
Ryan's announcement last week that he would offer a counter-terrorism bill with a gun control provision raised some hopes for a resolution. But when Democrats saw the bill's language the next day they said it reflected a proposal backed by the National Rifle Association that would do little to keep terrorists from buying guns.
Two Democrats, Lewis and Rep. John B. Larson of Connecticut, have asked to talk to Ryan about adding amendments that allow a ban on gun sales to people on terror watch lists and tougher background checks.
His response could well determine whether protests continue.
While Ryan did little to break up the June sit-in, his office said he's evaluating options for action and consulting with the sergeant-at-arms for dealing with future episodes.
Beyond the sit in, Democrats protested loudly on the floor in late May when the House voted down a gay rights protections measure and again last week when the House held a brief housekeeping session.
Under House rules, the speaker has the power to issue a directive allowing Capitol Police to enter the chamber and remove members for breaking from decorum.
It wouldn't be the first time Capitol Police were recalled to calm unruly members.
In 2012, Rep. Bobby Rush was thrown off the House floor after wearing a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses in protest of the Trayvon Martin shooting.
Capitol Police were called to a House committee meeting in 2003 after Democrats demanded to see a line-by-line breakdown of a bill that resulted in accusations of name-calling, vulgarity and physical threats. Police told the members to work it out among themselves.
In 1994, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., interrupted proceedings on the floor the day after a Banking Committee hearing where she told Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., to "shut up" after he accused then-first lady Hillary Clinton's chief of staff of lying during a hearing on the Whitewater scandal.
In last month's sit in, Ryan chose not to remove members, even when he was shouted down by the minority party. Instead he adjourned the House.
Ryan ultimately allowed Democrats to protest without taking action but was sure to call the act a "publicity stunt."
Ryan told Republicans in a call last week that he was willing to take "any action we deem necessary" to restore order, according to a source on the call.
Democrats may find out just what that means this week.
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Terrorism is generally defined as the use of violence against random innocents with the intent to generate fear and emotions that further the terrorists' political goals. In America, where the actual risk of terrorism is low, our fear and emotions also are shaped and distorted by how the news media covers terrorism and how politicians talk about it.
Last week our attention, as measured by cable TV airtime and political rhetoric, was focused on two incidents the mass murder in Orlando and the attacks at Istanbul's airport.
But was the mass murder at the Pulse nightclub really an act of terrorism? By the usual definitions, it was not. It was not part of an organized movement or plot and had no stated political goal. The murderer may have been motivated by crazy impulses about homosexuality or just plain crazy.
The only thing we know for sure is that what happened in Orlando was an atrocity. But because Omar Mateen uttered particular phrases, politicians declared him a terrorist and the media followed suit. Our judgments about what we call terrorism are subjective, usually political and usually irrational.
On the other hand, the attacks at the Istanbul airport were classic acts of terror. The American media has covered the incident wall-to-wall, perhaps appropriately. But there is also a randomness and subjectivity about which acts of genuine terrorism get attention from our media and politicians.
An excellent investigation by the Los Angeles Times shows just how random that process is. Acts of terrorism are extremely rare in the United States. In other parts of the world, however, they are depressingly common. They are so common that Americans never hear about most of them.
The Times piece set out to take a comprehensive toll of the number of deaths and injuries worldwide in a single month, April 2016. The article begins with an account of a Pakistani family on their way to work in the fields when they are blown up by a land mine. A group called Baloch Liberation Army claimed responsibility.
But that wasn't the end of the killings that day, April 12:
The same day, 590 miles to the northeast, the deputy police superintendent in the city of Mingora was shot to death as he stopped to buy fruit, an attack for which the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility.
Nearly 1,900 miles away, in Sidon, Lebanon, a car bomb killed a senior Palestinian official and four others. In the Kidal region of Mali, three French soldiers died when their car hit a mine planted by militants. In Yemen, a suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt in a crowd of young army recruits, killing four. Suspected Islamic State militants beheaded two sawmill workers in the Philippines. A soldier was killed and four others wounded when a bomb went off near Turkey's border with Iran.
One day, six countries, 19 deaths. And it wasn't the deadliest day in April. That was a week later, on April 19, when terrorist attacks in five countries killed 71 people and wounded 391 others.
The Times reporters documented 858 deaths and 1,385 injuries in 27 countries that month. Most of the casualties were Muslims killed by Muslims. "Five victims in April were known to be Westerners: a Canadian beheaded in the Philippines, the three French soldiers killed in Mali and a taxi driver slain in Northern Ireland," according to the report.
To put these numbers in some perspective: Since 1970, apart from 9/11, 397 Americans have been killed by terrorism.
But what would that number be if every mass shooting and every hate crime attack were included? Thousands. What if we included the terrorism perpetrated by Mexican drug cartels or urban gangs?
In 2010, four Americans died from acts of terrorism. That same year 32,999 people died in car accidents, 38,369 from suicide and 2,791 from malnutrition. The government spent somewhere around $90 billion preventing terrorist fatalities.
Creating fear irrational fear is the goal of terrorists. It is a pity that so often our own politics and culture help do their work.
Dick Meyer is chief Washington Correspondent for the Scripps Washington Bureau and DecodeDC. Contact him at dick.meyer@scripps.com
Michael Gerson is a Washington Post columnist. Contact him at michaelgerson@washpost.com.
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In this odd political season so shallow in rhetoric, so fundamental in consequence Americans are not only celebrating their nation's independence, they also are considering its meaning. Of a sudden, the most basic questions in our democracy are on the table: What is a real or good American? How do we define what is unique and great about our country?
At least a portion of the current populist wave is a nationalist backlash against cosmopolitan elites. In this view, Americans do not merely love a set of philosophic abstractions; they love a concrete nation, with an identity that is under siege. An Anglo-Protestant heritage of law, religion and culture is threatened by a variety of forces, within and without: multiculturalism, illegal immigration and politically correct leaders who refuse to even name our enemies.
It is a paradox that those who want to emphasize the uniqueness and particularity of American culture rooted in a specific ethnic and religious background are actually adopting the most typical form of nationalism.
Historically speaking, nations defined by ethnicity, motivated by grievances and looking backward to a golden age are commonplace. What has been different about America is its remarkable ability to make a nation out of nations. This is a tribute to national ideals that emerged from within one culture, but now appeal and inspire far beyond it.
No nation, of course, is disembodied. It is legitimate to love the rocks and roots of a definite plot of ground, and our plot is particularly grand and lovely. It is not a coincidence that one of America's first symbols was a rattlesnake in a defensive coil.
But another symbol was the rising sun on George Washington's chair at the Constitutional Convention, as hopeful as the break of day. America's founders thought their work was somehow the culmination of age-old longings and a new order for the ages. This is the reason that the term "American creed" is rich in meaning, and "American race" sounds like a profanity.
The hypocrisies of our history are startling. A nation dedicated to freedom was a prison for millions of slaves. In the founding era, many towns celebrated Pope Day, in which effigies of the Bishop of Rome were cheerfully burned. While Chinese laborers worked on the massive foundation of the Statue of Liberty, Congress tightened the Chinese Exclusion Act, which set immigration rules by race. Even now, some would have those rules set by religion.
But how do we even know these are hypocrisies? It is because they are revealed by the light of the Declaration of Independence. America's founders set a principle in place that has judged and changed cultural practices for over two centuries. It is primary to our national identity.
Keeping the balance between a real community with the right, like any other people, to define its boundaries and traditions and the liberal principles of justice and equality has not been easy. It has led to a troubled and bloody history, which is also a shining achievement in the conscience of humankind.
The American who understood both of those aspects best was Abraham Lincoln. In July 1858, he spoke of the strength that Americans draw from pride in their forefathers who founded the nation. Then he said words worth recalling in full as we celebrate our independence:
"We have besides these men descended by blood from our ancestors among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe German, Irish, French and Scandinavian men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things.
"If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us.
"But when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,' and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration. And so they are."
Michael Gerson is a Washington Post columnist. Contact him at michaelgerson@washpost.com.
Kyiv not yet considering documents on Russians' pardon in exchange for Ukrainians convicted in Russia
The Ukrainian side is not currently considering any documents on pardoning Russian citizens with their further exchange for Ukrainians convicted in Russia, the Ukrainian presidential administration has said.
"We are currently not considering any requests. They may appear, when there is some agreement directly; currently we are not aware of such agreements," the Ukrainian Presidential Administration's Chief of the Department for Pardon Affairs Oleksandr Bukalov said at a briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday.
"Currently no procedure, in which any candidate would be considered for pardon and further exchange, is being conducted," he said.
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Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) Oleksandr Turchynov during a meeting with Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende has discussed support for Ukraine from NATO member states and the situation in Donbas.
According to the press service of the NSDC, during the meeting in Kyiv on July 6 the sides discussed the current situation in the east of Ukraine, the Russian Federation's attempts to aggravate the situation and deploy a new offensive in Donbas, the prospects of reforming the security and defense sector of Ukraine and support of these efforts on the part of Norway, as well as the development of cooperation between the two countries.
"We are grateful to the government of Norway for its consistent support for Ukraine," Turchynov said, adding that today it is important to prevent the lifting of sanctions against Russia.
"It is important to continue and strengthen the sanctions since this is the only peaceful mechanism that can stop the further militarization of the Russian Federation," he said.
When asked about his favorite energy-efficiency innovation, Binghamton, N.Y., Mayor Richard David answered, LED lighting. The mayor, who was speaking on a panel last month at the annual Energy Efficiency Forum in Washington, D.C., had recently wrapped up a $4 million project that replaced the city's roughly 7,000 streetlights with energy-efficient LED fixtures.David is far from alone in admiring LEDs. Their remarkable efficiency has made them extremely popular among eco-advocates as well as cash-strapped municipalities looking to save on long-term costs. Its estimated that about 10 percent of the countrys streetlights are now outfitted with light-emitting diodes. In the case of Binghamton, the new streetlights will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 3 million pounds a year -- the equivalent of getting 301 cars off the road -- and will save the city $5.2 million in electricity and $1 million in maintenance costs over 15 years.But by working to prevent one kind of pollution, cities have inadvertently exacerbated another: light pollution.Binghamtons new LED fixtures shine six to seven times brighter than traditional streetlights. According to the American Medical Association (AMA), the bright, white light cast off is bad for a persons health and for the environment. In June, the AMA declared LED streetlights a public health risk. According to the group, the strong bluish tint, which appears white to the naked eye, interferes with the production of the hormone melatonin, causing sleep disorders in humans. Studies further suggest that excessive exposure to LED light at night increases the risk for obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. LEDs also confuse nocturnal species, disrupt migratory birds and, according to scientists in the United Kingdom, could cause spring to come earlier -- or, at least, trick plants into thinking that spring is coming earlier.But all LEDs arent a problem. Rather, its the type thats the issue. Because they're less expensive, cities have generally opted to install white LEDs. That's the kind, says the AMA, that impacts sleeping patterns and makes it harder to see clearly because of glare. Instead, the AMA recommends adopting LEDs with a yellow tint.The AMAs statement last month already has one city reconsidering LEDs. Officials in Eugene, Ore., which just finished converting nearly 5,000 streetlights to LEDs, said theyll review their program. Public Works spokesman Brian Richard told the local newspaper that while its still too new for us to be able to make any decisions, we will evaluate the guidance statement and determine the best direction to proceed.Even before the AMA released its warning, cities were already running into protests from residents who felt LEDs were too bright. In 2014, only a month after installing white LED streetlights, Davis, Calif., spent hundreds of thousands of dollars switching to a warmer LED fixture after a loud outcry from residents.Similarly, Phoenix is in the middle of outfitting all 90,000 of its streetlights with LEDs. But complaints from residents about the harsh, white lights led the city to conduct a survey that wrapped up last month. Phoenix now says itll consider installing yellow LEDs instead.The AMA also recommends ensuring streetlights are directed downward and shielded. Right now, a lot of [lighting] is unshielded, which means that its allowed to go in all directions, including up into the sky where it doesnt do anybody any good, said Paul Bogard , author ofSeveral cities and states have laws that mandate how brightly a place should be lit and how it should be lit. Measures like those, as well as best practices and other resources on combating light pollution, are catalogued by the International Dark-Sky Association, which Bogard recommends as a valuable clearinghouse for any government interested in more information. Light isnt the problem," says Bogard. "Its how were using it."
It is officially swelter season in Texas, and for most of the 150,000 inmates in the state's sprawling prison system, it means another summer of seemingly endless months in cells where temperatures can climb north of 100 degrees.How many more summers prisoners live without air conditioning will depend on how and when the courts rule in a years-long fight between prisoner advocates and Texas corrections officials.The two sides are locked in a battle over whether super-heated conditions in Texas prisons are unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment and jeopardize inmates' lives.Advocates argue the extreme heat is particularly harmful for the thousands of inmates who are elderly or suffer from medical or mental health conditions. They want the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to provide air conditioning to regulate the temperatures.Department officials contend that they already take adequate measures to ensure the safety of inmates and staff at state prisons, and that adding air conditioning to already aging buildings would be prohibitively expensive. State officials haven't estimated the exact cost to add it or run it annually, the suit contends."The well-being of staff and offenders is a top priority for the agency, and we remain committed to making sure that both are safe during the extreme heat," department spokesman Jason Clark said in an emailed statement.Only 30 of Texas' 109 prison units are fully air-conditioned. Particular areas of other units are air-conditioned, as are medical, geriatric and psychiatric facilities. Since 1998, prisoner advocates say, at least 20 inmates have died from heat-related causes.To provide relief, Clark said, Texas prisons offer inmates ice and water and allow them to take additional showers and wear shorts,among other measures. Officers also are trained to recognize signs of heat-related illness.Those measures are inadequate, though, inmates' lawyers say. They don't argue that their clients should be comfortable but that temperatures remain at a safe level to prevent health complications. County jails in Texas are required to keep temperatures between 65 and 85 degrees, and even the cells at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that house terrorism suspects are air-conditioned, the lawyers contend.Both inmates and prison officials had been looking for guidance from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a Louisiana case that challenged the lack of air conditioning on death row at the infamous Angola prison. Last year, though, the judges sent that case back to a lower court with mixed findings. The court said the super-heated conditions were unconstitutional, but it stopped short of prescribing air conditioning, telling the lower court to find a different solution that would provide relief for inmates.With that case pending, two heat-related lawsuits are winding their way slowly through Texas courts.Last week, a Texas district court judge ruled in one case that the prison system must provide safe drinking water to inmates at the Wallace Pack Unit in Navasota. In a lawsuit over that unit's super-heated conditions, inmates alleged that the water officials gave them to cool off with was contaminated with hazardous levels of arsenic. The inmates are demanding cooler conditions and safe water.More than half of Pack Unit's 1,478 inmates are older than 50, and at times, temperatures in the cells there have climbed to 110 degrees."No accommodations are made relating to the extreme heat for prisoners based on age, even though it is known to be associated with increased risk of heat-related illness, injury and death," wrote lawyer Jeff Edwards, one of the attorneys representing the inmates, in court filings.The judge in that case has yet to decide on the question of heat in the Wallace Pack Unit, but he agreed to allow other inmates at the prison to join the lawsuit as a class action.A ruling in that case would only directly affect the Wallace Pack Unit, but Scott Medlock, another attorney for the inmates, said he hoped a decision favoring the prisoners would send a message to the corrections agency."The ultimate goal is to make sure TDCJ gets the message that this is unacceptable," Medlock said. "These temperatures are dangerous, and they're playing games with people's lives."Clark, the criminal justice department spokesman, declined to comment on pending litigation.The other Texas case is a wrongful-death lawsuit in which the families of Larry Gene McCollum and seven other inmates who died from heat-related conditions have sued the prison system. The families are seeking compensation for their relatives' deaths."If the state gets found liable in these cases, and the state continues to operate prisons where the temperatures get really high in the summer, the state would be really foolish to continue to roll the dice," said Medlock.It's not only the inmates who want cooler conditions, though. Corrections officers have joined the call for relief. The Texas correction officers union filed an amicus brief with the 5th Circuit supporting demands for air conditioning in Louisiana, hoping the outcome would affect Texas, too.Lance Lowry, president of the Texas correction officers' union, said mental health crises among inmates skyrocket during the summer months, making unpleasant working conditions even worse. And often, he said, the officers also succumb to heat stroke and other heat-related illnesses."We're already short on officers, and you're going to end up taking officers from a prison unit that is not adequately staffed anyway," Lowry said. "These prison administrators need to wake up and realize, yes, prison air conditioning does cost, but there's another cost that they're not figuring into the equation."Advocates expect it will take court action to force the criminal justice agency to reduce temperatures in Texas prisons. And that could be years away.
Uber Goes to Court
Sexual assaults -- Two women who allege they were sexually assaulted by their Uber drivers say the company's driver background check policies fail to protect riders. Uber tried unsuccessfully to get the case thrown out by arguing it's not liable for the attacks because its drivers are independent contractors, not employees.
-- Two women who allege they were sexually assaulted by their Uber drivers say the company's driver background check policies fail to protect riders. Uber tried unsuccessfully to get the case thrown out by arguing it's not liable for the attacks because its drivers are independent contractors, not employees. Antitrust -- An antitrust suit filed in New York federal court claims Uber illegally fixes the prices its drivers charge, instead of letting them compete against each other as independent contractors typically do.
-- An antitrust suit filed in New York federal court claims Uber illegally fixes the prices its drivers charge, instead of letting them compete against each other as independent contractors typically do. Taxi drivers take a stand -- Southern California-based cab company A Taxi accuses Uber of engaging in unfair business practices by flouting traditional taxi regulations.
-- Southern California-based cab company A Taxi accuses Uber of engaging in unfair business practices by flouting traditional taxi regulations. Data breach -- Uber drivers who had their personal information stolen in a 2014 data breach say the company didn't do enough to protect them.
-- Uber drivers who had their personal information stolen in a 2014 data breach say the company didn't do enough to protect them. Stolen intellectual property -- Entrepreneur Kevin Halpern claims he's the one who came up with the idea for a mobile-phone based car service, and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick stole it.
-- Entrepreneur Kevin Halpern claims he's the one who came up with the idea for a mobile-phone based car service, and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick stole it. Uber driver stabbed -- San Francisco Uber driver Abdo Ghazi, who says the company refused to reimburse him for medical expenses after he was stabbed and punched in the face by a passenger, demands that Uber reclassify its drivers as employees.
(TNS) -- The past few months have been good to Uber -- the world's most valuable startup raised a record-breaking $3.5 billion in June and in April escaped a high-profile trial that threatened to upend its entire business model.But as Uber celebrates those milestones, it faces an army of attackers. The ride-booking giant is spending millions fighting dozens of lawsuits over everything from the way it vets its drivers to how it advertises. Industry experts say Uber's deep pockets -- the company is worth more than $60 billion and has $11 billion in cash -- and its disruptive habit of flouting traditional industry rules as it expands around the globe make it an attractive legal target.Uber's ultracompetitive company culture doesn't help, said New York University professor Arun Sundararajan, author of "The Sharing Economy.""It's the personality of the early team," he said, "which is very much 'we're going to dominate the world, and we're going to ask for forgiveness rather than asking for permission.' "And as the company puts out one fire after another in court, it's also battling unfriendly regulations in places like Austin and struggling with criminal charges overseas.Uber declined to comment on its legal and regulatory battles.The company is fighting more than 70 federal lawsuits in courts across the country and has resolved at least another 60, according to a search of a national database of federal court cases. And that doesn't include actions in state courts. Uber was sued 46 times in federal court this year alone. Airbnb, the next most valuable U.S. startup, racked up six lawsuits during that time. Lyft, Uber's chief competitor, faced seven and Facebook had 27.Uber has been hit disproportionately hard in court, but that's hardly surprising, Sundararajan said. Part of the problem is Uber's lukewarm relationship with its drivers -- which the company is trying to change with perks like its recently launched quasi union in New York City.But the courtroom showdowns could become an issue for 6-year-old Uber as it continues fundraising, said Paul Boyd, managing partner at ClearPath Capital Partners. Even Uber, with its breakneck growth and massive war chest, isn't immune to the power a lawsuit has to taint a company's image."It will make investors question," Boyd said.So far, the company hasn't faced any devastating legal losses. Uber dodged what could have been a major blow in April when it reached a settlement worth up to $100 million to resolve claims that its drivers were entitled to employee benefits such as overtime pay and reimbursement for expenses. The deal, which is awaiting approval from a San Francisco federal judge, allows the company to avoid a high-profile trial and the expense of reclassifying its drivers as employees -- a major win.The ride-booking platform announced public settlements in at least six cases during the past year, agreeing to shell out up to $163 million. Those deals seem to represent a shift for the company, which originally made a show of fighting litigation tooth and nail, said Joshua Davis, associate dean for academic affairs at the University of San Francisco School of Law."One possibility is that you're seeing a kind of maturing of the company in a way," he said. "That it is going from sort of a cowboy mentality, if you will, to more of the attitude of an established company."France in June fined Uber and two executives up to $1.1 million for criminal convictions of violating transportation and privacy laws. The charges targeted the low-cost UberPop service, which the company has had to suspend there and in several other countries throughout Europe. At home, the California Public Utilities Commission fined Uber $7.6 million in January for withholding information about its trips. And Uber has spent another $2.3 million since 2013 lobbying Congress and the state Legislature, according to OpenSecrets.org and the Secretary of State website.That's nothing compared to the more than $8 million Uber and competitor Lyft reportedly spent fighting an Austin rule requiring drivers to undergo fingerprint background checks, only to lose a vote in May and pull their services from the city.Uber also pays a massive in-house legal team. A LinkedIn search turned up nearly 50 members around the world, and the company's website lists 24 openings in its legal department.Some lawsuits are backed by Uber's enemies in the taxi industry, who cry foul because Uber doesn't adhere to their regulations. Others target Uber's driver background checks -- some argue they are too lax; others claim they dig too deeply. The company also has been accused of failing to protect female passengers from being sexually assaulted by drivers, leaving driver information vulnerable to a data breach, and refusing to accommodate blind passengers' service dogs.Despite the pending settlement for up to $100 million, the debate over whether Uber drivers should be employees or independent contractors is far from over. Lawyers have filed a string of follow-on suits, and the issue constantly crops up in seemingly unrelated cases.It's a key factor in many of the dozen lawsuits filed by San Francisco-based lawyer Christopher Dolan -- he argues Uber should be held accountable for the misdeeds of its drivers, while Uber counters it's not to blame because the drivers are independent contractors. In one such case, an Uber driver struck and killed a 6-year-old girl in San Francisco on New Year's Eve, 2013. The fights seem personal for Dolan, whose law office happens to be across the street from Uber's Market Street headquarters."I don't like bullies," he said. "And Uber was a bully."Some of this litigation has the potential to do serious damage. An antitrust suit in New York, which accuses Uber of illegally fixing the prices its drivers charge instead of allowing them to compete with each other, could be worth more than $1 billion and seeks to upend Uber's pricing model, Davis said.Depending on how the court receives the case, "Uber could be anywhere between just fine and in a whole lot of trouble," he said.But Uber may have a secret weapon. In June a panel of federal appellate judges in the Ninth Circuit indicated it was leaning toward upholding the arbitration clause Uber has drivers sign. That could force many pending lawsuits against Uber out of court and into private arbitration, and make it difficult for drivers to bring future class actions.Even if the lawsuits keep coming, Lux Capital partner Bilal Zuberi, who doesn't invest in Uber or its competitors, said they are unlikely to shake Uber's solid foundation."Lawsuits do not indicate anything fundamentally necessarily wrong with the company," he said. "They just indicate that some people are unhappy with the company's existence or with the work that the company is doing."Uber is fighting more than 70 lawsuits in federal courts across the country, plus additional litigation in state courts. Here's a rundown of some of the key cases:
START-UP NY BY THE NUMBERS* 2014, year 1 54 companies statewide
76 jobs created statewide
$1.7 million invested statewide
$56,561 tax savings statewide 2015, year 2 105 companies statewide
332 jobs created statewide
$11.4 million invested statewide
$1.2 million tax savings statewide Source: Empire State Development. *Figures arent cumulative
(TNS) -- Critics of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomos Start-Up NY tax-free zones program said new data show it hasnt created enough jobs, but the programs leader said its on track and needs time to bear fruit.State officials disclosed late Friday that Start-Up NY created just 332 jobs statewide last year, including 34 on Long Island.The announcement missed by three months a self-imposed deadline to issue an annual progress report on the program, now in its third year.Brandon Muir, executive director of Reclaim New York, a nonpartisan advocacy group focused on keeping businesses and people from leaving the state, said the reports release was delayed because the results prove the strategy failed.Ron Deutsch, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a union-backed think tank in Manhattan and Albany, concurred, saying Start-Up NY has spent tens of millions on advertising . . . and has only created an anemic number of jobs. I dont think we can consider this a success by any measure, he said.However, Leslie F. Whatley, a former Morgan Stanley executive who oversaw Start-Up NY until recently announcing her return to the private sector , defended the program: You cant go from zero to thousands in two years.She added that the report was delayed because some Start-Up NY companies needed help completing mandatory filings to the state.In 2014, Start-Up NYs first year, 76 jobs were created in the state, including four in Nassau and Suffolk counties.As of Dec. 31, 159 businesses had enrolled in the program, including 19 locally. The Island had the second-most participants in the state after Buffalo, according to the report.Cuomo devised Start-Up NY to attract technology companies to college campuses and to combat the states reputation for high taxes and lots of government regulations. Businesses in the program dont pay state and local taxes for up to 10 years. Their employees dont pay state income taxes for as long as 10 years.Empire State Development, the programs administrator, spent $45 million on television commercials between October 2013 and October 2014 to promote the program, according to an audit from state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.Start-Up NY companies and their workers saved a total of $1.2 million in taxes in 2015, $122,250 on the Island. Much of the savings was derived from not paying payroll taxes on $32 million in wages paid statewide. (Local wage figures were not disclosed in the report.)Start-Up NY companies invested $11.4 million in equipment and facilities last year, including $475,000 in Nassau and Suffolk.Locally, MitoGenetics LLC had the best performance; it created 10 jobs, invested $316,000 and reaped tax savings of $72,400.The company, with a lab at Farmingdale State College, develops compounds for treating diseases linked to cells that lose their energy source because of genetic or environmental causes.Whatley said Long Islands performance in the program was strong.She predicted Hofstra University and New York Institute of Technology would soon win state approval for tax-free zones, bringing the total number of zones here to eight. Stony Brook University also is seeking a second zone, in Bethpage, she said.This program is a success and its sustainable, said Whatley. We have built public-private partnerships [between colleges and companies]that I believe are how we are going to build the economy of the future.She also said criticism of the number of jobs created was unfair.Expectations need to be based in reality, said Whatley, who is leaving her Start-Up NY post Friday for a job in the private sector. This program is on track; its working.
The Vermont Public Service Board has released the standards that dictate how the state will consume energy over the next decade and a half.In its Renewable Energy Standard document (PDF), the state board has laid out three requirements for utilities, headlined by mandating the procurement of 75 percent of the electricity sold to customers to be from renewable sources by 2032.For 2017, the requirement will be for 55 percent to be taken from renewable methods. Additionally, the state has added on a unique provision requiring that of these amounts, at least 1 percent must come from new, distributed renewable generators, such as net-metering systems. The provision will increase to 10 percent by 2032.This requirement is unique in that it allows utilities more flexibility and creativity in reducing Vermont's reliance on fossil fuels.In a press release (PDF), the board mandated that by 2032, state utility providers must demonstrate fossil fuel savings equivalent to 12 percent of their annual revenue as an energy transformation category.Utilities would be able to meet the requirements through investing in measures like weatherization of homes and businesses, the installation of cold-climate heat pumps, and clean vehicle technologies.According to the Energy Information Administration State Energy Data System , Vermont currently ranks 21st in renewable energy production, at 32.1 percent. The primary energy sources come from hydroelectric and biomass production.The standards will take effect on Jan. 1, 2017.
complete job applications;
write dynamic resumes;
take command of an interview; and
connect workers with resources such as short-term, long-term and online training programs.
helping improve job postings;
arranging interviews;
conducting candidate assessments;
hosting hiring events; and
helping employers take advantage of tax credits and training resources.
Scouring the classifieds for a job has long been a thing of the past, but even the next iteration of job hunting the standard online job listing and search is becoming outdated. As the number of online career search tools grows, so too does the need for a platform that feels unique and innovative.Enter WorkSourceWA.com , the state of Washington's new job match website, announced July 6 by Gov. Jay Inslee.Developed by the state in conjunction with Monster Worldwide Inc., the website hosts more than 157,000 jobs and about 191,000 resumes."It's scalable for a highly mobile workforce, said Dale Peinecke, the states employment security commissioner. It provides a robust job search and resume solutions for job seekers, and it gives employers talent management software to provide real-time, ranked job matches."The new platform replaces the states previous platform, go2worksource.com, which, like many other online job sites, was developed more than a decade ago and used an outdated technology.WorkSourceWA.com offers job seekers a personalized dashboard that stores their preferences and activity in a single location. Instead of continuously re-searching for relative job opportunities and skimming past irrelevant listings the platform alerts job seekers to matching listings as they appear in the system. Users also have access to skills assessments, career path mapping, professional training and tools that let them view specifics about labor markets in specific locations within the state.The website also uses a case management platform that allows WorkSource specialists to support job seekers by accessing past job search activity and current professional skills. Job seekers also receive assistance beyond the keyboard. Employment counselors provide support to:Employers can access Monsters resume database along with its candidate search function. This tool is built to understand context and concepts beyond keywords. Once they identify the most qualified candidates, employers can rank job seekers based on specific preferences, as well as conduct comparisons."Employers no longer need to plow through piles of resumes to find the right person," said Steve Cooker, executive vice president for Monster Worldwides global government solutions. The candidate spotlight quickly shows them the best candidates available. That means the best matches are always at the top of the list. They can also compare and evaluate candidates based on 15 million different job/term context combinations to help make quick, informed decisions."As it does for job seekers, WorkSource centers also provide in-person assistance for employers. This includes:Washingtons WorkSource is a network of more than 60 centers throughout the state that is composed of a partnership of government agencies, community colleges and nonprofit organizations. Together, and supported by the new website, they provide employment and training services to job seekers and businesses. As opposed to a more archaic format where such parties may all work in silos the new website supports collaboration between the technology platform, future employees, workforce stakeholders and recruitment services.We constantly are looking for the very best talent to meet our clinical and business needs, said Gerard Fischer, vice president of ancillary and business services at Group Health Cooperative. We advertise many of our openings on the new WorkSourceWA.com site. The site helps us advertise our jobs to a diverse pool of qualified candidates, which easily helps us cut the time it takes to find the right employees for our jobs.
The New Jersey Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Cell (NJCCIC) announced new leadership on July 6 with the appointment of its first director.Mike Geraghty, a longtime cybersecurity professional, was appointed by the states Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness (NJOHSP) Director Chris Rodriguez. The public safety agency oversees the integrated cybersecurity group, which was created by Gov. Chris Christie in 2015 In tandem with his directorship, Geraghty will also assume the duties of acting state chief information security officer (CISO). Former CISO Dave Weinstein was appointed as chief technology officer in June 2016.According to NJOHSP Deputy Director Steven Gutkin, the appointment signals a very clear message from leadership that the NJCCIC has solidified its place as a valuable resource.Since Gov. Christie's signing of Executive Order 178 in May 2015, the NJCCIC has been quite successful in meeting the demand from the public and private sector for cyberthreat intelligence," he toldvia email. "The NJCCIC's expanding mission scope requires someone who is dedicated to overseeing day-to-day operations, especially as we anticipate exponential growth of membership and new service offerings for the public to increase their awareness of real-time cyberthreats "Plans to expands the cybersecurity groups mission is largely the reason officials are confident in their choice for the agencys leadership.Prior to his appointment, Geraghty served in both the public and private sectors. His experience includes serving as the chief information security officer (CISO) for the Hudson Bay Company, as CIO for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and 12 years with the New Jersey State Police, where he led efforts to create the High Technology Crimes Investigations unit.Mike's experience fits extremely well with our cybersecurity mission, which is to serve governments, businesses, and citizens across New Jersey by promoting better awareness of cyber threats and the adoption of best practices, Gutkin said. His experience as the CISO of a global retail business group, a nationally known nonprofit organization, and 12 years in state government uniquely positions him to bring the public/private-sector perspectives to this critically important mission.As a result of Geraghtys new role, Gutkin said the agency's near-term goals will include broadening the membership of the cybersecurity cell, reaching outside agency partners through the use of memorandums of understanding, and expanding the use of automated intelligence exchange between the public and private sectors.
1. While it's risky to let the companies self-regulate, they have an incentive to behave.
2. It's unclear who offers the safer ride, cabbies or part-time drivers for Uber and Lyft.
#Uber have made it easy to find your rating- (not so) secretly proud of my 4.96 wooop https://t.co/lnTMcg1Ld0 pic.twitter.com/ZwwqETMzlK Hannah Lloyd-Thomas (@HannahLloydThom) April 11, 2016
3. Texas requires Uber and Lyft to have certain levels of insurance.
4. Economists generally favor leveling the playing field for car-for-hire companies.
5. Uber's and Lyft's departure in protest of Austin's rules opened a ride-share black market.
6. Cities' individual stances on background checks might not matter in a year.
(TNS) -- Fort Worth has joined Dallas in loosening the rules for ride-share companies.A week ago, the Fort Worth City Council decided that the city won't screen drivers or inspect cars used by app-based and taxicab companies. Instead, it will make the companies vouch for themselves."Unlike other cities that have gotten so hung up in the 'hot potato' of the politics on this, Fort Worth is going to do it the right way," Mayor Betsy Price said.She means cities like Austin, where a bitter and expensive political fight over whether to require fingerprint-based background checks drove Uber and Lyft out of the city in May.Dallas officials praised Fort Worth's policy, saying it was similar to theirs."The idea was that we would level the playing field and that the ones that would be successful would be the ones that offered the best service at the best price," said Dallas City Council member Sandy Greyson.In Fort Worth, companies will have to pay a $500 fee for an operating license valid for two years and submit a "compliance certification" annually. By signing the document, companies certify that they have conducted national background checks on their drivers, inspected their vehicles and paid for the required insurance.Basically, all the companies have to do to get a license is register with the city.Is this the best approach for consumers? It depends on whom you ask, but here are six things to consider:Companies doing business in Fort Worth will be on the honor system, said city spokeswoman Cindy Vasquez.Taxi operators have criticized Fort Worth's policy, citing safety concerns."Drivers are going to go around that cannot get in with the major company because they are doing background checks," Yellow Cab owner Jack Bewley told the council. "They're just going to pre-empt the system ... and then they can drive because they're certifying for themselves."Since Fort Worth won't be asking for supporting documentation when it accepts companies' compliance certification, it's possible that a person or company that lies about meeting the requirements gets a license. A misrepresentation likely wouldn't be revealed until there's a problem, like a car wreck.But even in the absence of strict rules, companies have their reputations to think about, said economist Russ Roberts, a research fellow for the Hoover Institution public policy think tank at Stanford University and host of the podcast EconTalk."You can get away any one time, but each time you do it, you degrade your name a little bit," Roberts said.Search online for Uber, Lyft or taxi companies and you'll find complaints of rape and other criminal behavior.There appears to be no reliable way of telling whether cab or app-based rides are safer. Police and transportation authorities told The Associated Press that they know of no rigorous comparison of cabbies and Uber drivers.Uber and Lyft point to their apps, which let passengers share their location and give feedback about drivers.Still, the rise of app-based cars for hire has cities wrestling with how to protect customers. Some, like Austin, pushed for fingerprint-based background checks, which are the kind typically used by taxi companies. But Uber and Lyft prefer a faster check that screens drivers using their license and Social Security numbers.Like Fort Worth, Dallas puts the onus on ride-hailing companies to conduct their own background checks.However, Dallas requires that the private background check company meet standards set by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners. The city also asks for audit numbers for the drivers and randomly checks some of them, said Melissa Miles, executive assistant city attorney for Dallas.There's one regulation involving car-for-hire companies in Texas that's not up to cities to decide: insurance.Like Dallas had done earlier, state lawmakers passed legislation in 2015 requiring two tiers of insurance coverage.When Uber and Lyft drivers are accepting passengers but not carrying any, they must have 50/100/25 coverage: $50,000 per injured person, $100,000 per wreck and $25,000 for property damage. That's more than the minimum insurance required of Texas drivers, which is 30/60/25.But when Uber and Lyft drivers are giving a ride, their insurance must provide up to $1 million in liability protection.Research by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute shows that most states in the U.S. now have at least one law on the books regarding car-for-hire businesses like Uber and Lyft.Many of the states are imposing rules about insurance.It's better for consumers when Uber and Lyft compete with cabs "on equal footing" regarding safety and insurance and without fare or route restrictions, according to a poll of 40 economists by the University of Chicago.Yet schedules restricting cab fares remain deeply rooted across the country, while Uber and Lyft can set their own prices.Cab fares are regulated because taxi companies traditionally had a monopoly on private transportation for hire, so there was an attempt by governments to protect the consumer, said Roberts, the Stanford economist.Some cities also limit their cab fleets through a medallion system, driving the cost of a license to figures exceeding $200,000 in places like Chicago.Dallas and Fort Worth don't have a ceiling on the number of cabs that may operate in their borders, but they've kept their cab fare schedules even as they've loosened other rules.Greyson, the Dallas council member, said the city considered getting rid of the fare system when it developed its rules in 2014. But there was push-back from members of the tourism industry, Greyson said.For example, airport officials worried that allowing cabs to set their own fares would create gridlock because passengers would shop around by going from car to car to check prices, Greyson said."They just felt like it would be too confusing and it would really slow things down," she said.With Uber and Lyft gone, people in Austin got inventive to get around.Within days of the companies' departure, some drivers posted their cellphone numbers on social media to offer rides directly, and informal Facebook groups popped up to help passengers find drivers, the Austin American-Statesman reported.One of these is Arcade City, which calls itself an "open marketplace" that lets drivers connect directly with passengers and set their own rates. It's developing an app.Of course, not everyone left Austin. Startups like Get Me and Wingz are vying for a larger share of the market now that their big competitors are gone.A memo by Austin's transportation director suggests the city could be tweaking its rules again later this year to align taxi companies with their app-pased rivals and provide "a truly competitive marketplace."Stay tuned for the 2017 Texas legislative session, when lawmakers may resume a discussion about what to do with Uber, Lyft and their peers.The Senate's chief transportation official prefers statewide rules. The Texas House's top transportation lawmaker wants cities to decide their own regulations.Still, the state at some point might have to regulate app-based companies for minimal standards, said state Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, chairman of the House Committee on Transportation."If the state does anything, I hope it's nothing more than a range of background checks that are sufficient," he said Tuesday.State Rep.Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, applauded his city's new policy."It's the best approach to take," he said.
SINGAPORE, July 6 -- Singapore's Land Transport Authority (LTA) said on Wednesday that the defects found on trains manufactured by Kawasaki Heavy Industries and China Southern Railway (CSR) Sifang are "not safety-critical," after hairline cracks were found on the car-body of 26 trains delivered to SMRT, the major train operator of the city state.
In a statement, LTA said these defects were found during a check of new trains in late 2013, which are not structural cracks and not safety-critical.
"They don't affect the train's systems, performance or passengers' safety." LTA added. As the train are still under the manufacturer's warranty, LTA decided to send them back for rectification.
To further clarity on the safety of the trains, LTA said that it has conducted monthly safety assessments before the trains are put into use. Furthermore, an external third party assessment was also commissioned in 2013, which had confirmed that "the trains are safe to operate."
Previous media reports noted that repair of the defective trains will take seven years to complete. In the statement, LTA also clarified that the rectification work will be wrapped up in 2019.
In 2009, LTA awarded a 368 million Singapore-dollar (273 million U.S. dollars) contract to Kawasaki Heavy Industries and CSR Sifang for 22 trains. Last year, the authority signed for an additional 12 new trains. Most of the trains were to have been delivered between 2011 and 2012.
(Global Times) 08:43, July 06, 2016
Govt steps up efforts to control exports: expert
China hopes to see a stable global steel market and does not want encourage large amount of steel exports, Shen Danyang, spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce(MOFCOM), said Tuesday.
Shen's comments came after recent media reports suggested that China's steel exports are too large and not conducive to the stability of the market across the world.
The latest data from China Customs showed domestic steel exports reached 46.28 million tons in the first five months of the year, up 6.4 percent from the same period last year, while steel exports in May increased 3.7 percent from the previous month to approach 9.42 million tons.
But compared to the same period in 2015, the year-on-year growth in steel exports in the first five months of this year is relatively small, according to Shen.
"In 2015, the country's steel exports increased about 30 percent year-on-year from the previous year, while growth was only 6.4 percent during the same period this year, down around 22 percentage points," Shen told a press conference in Beijing. "Steel exports rose in May, but only up 3.7 percent month-on-month."
"Such trend shows that China has been and is making a contribution to the stability of the global steel market instead of the other way around," the spokesperson said, noting that China's steel production is mainly for domestic demand and the country does not encourage large amounts exports.
China has rolled out a series of measures to further control its steel exports, the MOFCOM said.
"For instance, the government levied duties on certain crude steel products in a bid to reduce export," Wang Guoqing, research director at the Beijing Lange Steel Information Research Center, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
The country also lowered the tax refund rate on steel exports and some steel products receive no tax refund, according to the MOFCOM.
China's steel products are competitive in the world market thanks to its price and quality, and many countries need Chinese steel products for infrastructure construction, Wang said.
"It is not reasonable to blame China all the time, and it is the demand in the market that in fact caused the instability in the global steel industry," Wang noted.
The ministry also said that taking protectionist measures against China will not help solve issues related to the global steel sector, otherwise, it will further hit the world trade order.
Instead, the Chinese government will insist on communication and industry cooperation to resolve trade disputes in the world steel industry, according to the MOFCOM.
Moreover, China also imports steel from the world market each year.
In 2015, China imported about 12.78 million tons of steel, such as steel products for auto parts, according to Wang.
A 14-year-old boy from Queensland made $10,000 in a week and he is planning to buy his first house before he turns 18.
Will Deeth made his fortune by travelling to China with his parents and bringing low-cost goods home to sell at the local markets. Many of Wills friends did not believe his success, until he took them to the bank and had the teller read out his statement.
Will started his business last Christmas on the advice of his parents, who run their own business importing goods from China. He traveled to China with his parents, and they gave him a hand in making contacts and picking out the right products to buy.
During this trip, Will also visited famous attractions in Beijing like the Forbidden City and the Great Wall. Will also had a great experience of having a foot massage.
Will sold toys that many teenagers his age would buy, such as catching mitts and remote control drones are very popular. According to Will's mother, he is a very big user of e-Bay.
Chevron Corporation announced that its 50% owned affiliate, Tengizchevroil (TCO), will proceed with the development of its Future Growth and Wellhead Pressure Management Project (FGP-WPMP), which will increase crude oil production at the Tengiz oil field in Kazakhstan by about 260,000 barrels per day. FGP-WPMP is currently estimated to cost $36.8 billion, which includes $27.1 billion for facilities, $3.5 billion for wells and $6.2 billion for contingency and escalation.
The project will raise TCOs total production to approximately 1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. WPMP maximizes the value of existing TCO facilities by extending the production plateau and keeping existing plants producing at full capacity. FGP will use state-of-the-art sour gas injection technology, successfully developed and proven during TCOs previous expansion in 2008, to enhance oil recovery. First oil is planned for 2022.
A) Location map for Tengiz field in western Kazakhstan; C) Seismic depth map highlighting structure of isolated platform. Bachtel et al. 2012. Click to enlarge.
TCO operates the Tengiz Field, the worlds deepest operating super-giant oil field, with the top of the reservoir at about 12,000 feet (3,657 m) below ground. The Tengiz reservoir is 19 kilometers (12 miles) wide by 21 kilometers (13 miles) long. The oil column measures an incredible one mile thick. The partnership also is developing the nearby Korolev Field.
Net Chevron share daily production from these fields in 2015 averaged 257,000 barrels of crude oil, 348 million cubic feet of natural gas and 21,000 barrels of natural gas liquids.
TCO joint venture participants, in addition to Chevron, are ExxonMobil (25%), KazMunayGas (20%) and LukArco (5%).
Chevron is Kazakhstans largest private oil producer, holding important stakes in the nations two biggest oil-producing projects: the Tengiz and Karachaganak fields. Chevron is also the largest private shareholder in the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which operates a 935-mile (1,505-km) crude oil export pipeline from the Tengiz Field in Kazakhstan to tanker-loading facilities at Novorossiysk on the Russian coast of the Black Sea. The pipeline provides the key export route for crude oil from TCO and Karachaganak.
Resources
RONG YANSONG,Economic and Commercial Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy in South Africa.
This year marks the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). The Johannesburg Summit of FOCAC was just held successfully from December 3 to 5 with the theme China- Africa Progressing Together: Win-Win Cooperation for Common Development. The most prominent characteristics of China-Africa cooperation under the frame of FOCAC is practicability. Since the FOCAC was established in 2000, the economic and trade cooperation between China and African countries has made remarkable achievements. A series of significant economic and trade measures have been formulated and implemented to strengthen and deepen practical cooperation between the two sides at each conference.
From 2000 to the Fifth Ministerial Conference of FOCAC, China has implemented 35 economic and trade initiatives, provided loans amount to $35bn, and supported the construction of more than 400 projects and 20 economic trade and cooperative zones in Africa.
China also has offered Africa more than 55,000 government scholarships. China has also provided financing support for many projects with a view to bridging the funding gaps in Africas development. For instance, China built Africas first modern railroad in Nigeria and Africas first modern urban light rail in Ethiopia. China has also confronted the Ebola epidemic together with African friends and constructed the Kaleta Hydropower Station in Guinea.
These economic and trade measures have played an important role in promoting Sino- African trade and economic cooperation and helping African countries develop faster and making their people live better. China has joined Africas effort in creating jobs, generating tax revenue and improving their own capacity to develop. In the past three years, Chinese enterprises have paid more than $2bn tax to the host nations and hired nearly 600,000 employees in Africa. The Sino-African trade and economic cooperation also had been lifted to another new stage through the active implementation of these measures. In 2013, China-Africa trade exceeded the $200bn mark for the first time. In 2014, it reached $22bn, up by 11.8% from 2012. Over the past three years, Chinas cumulative direct investment flows to Africa hit a record high of nearly $10bn. Meanwhile, the cooperation has been expanding into new areas and adopting new innovations in cooperation models.
In order to push China-Africa economic and trade relationship to a new era, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced 10 new cooperation plans between China and Africa over the next three years. They include Industrialisation Plan, Agriculture Modernisation Plan, Infrastructure Plan, Financial Plan, Green Development Plan, Trade and Investment Facilitation Plan, Poverty Reduction Plan, Public Health Plan, Cultural and People- People Exchange Plan, Peace and Security Plan.
To make the 10 cooperation plans be implemented smoothly, China also announced the financial support of $60bn, which include four parts. Firstly, grant and interest-free loans amounting to $5bn, mainly to help African countries reduce poverty, improve sanitary conditions, develop agriculture and protect the environment. The main purpose is to improve the wellbeing of ordinary people.
Secondly, concessional loan and export credit with an amount of $35bn will focus on supporting major projects to improve the infrastructure in Africa.
Thirdly, $10bn will be added to the China-Africa Development Fund and the Special Loan for the Development of African SMEs with each one increasing by $5bn. It will back up China- Africa cooperation in industrialisation, investment and trade.
Fourthly, the newly established China-Africa Fund for Production Capacity Cooperation has an initial contribution of $10bn.
Compared to the economic and trade supporting plans, the new initiatives have their own characteristics: better matching the development strategic of both sides, covering broader areas and including more content of innovation, such as fighting climate change, protecting wild animals and plants, and sustainable development.
As the largest developing country and the largest developing continent, China and Africa have achieved hard-won fruits in their cooperation. The cooperation between China and Africa is expected to promote their respective economic development and benefit Chinese and African people. We have recognised that currently China-Africa cooperation met some challenges such as weak global demand, slowdown in international trade and plunging commodity prices. Although both of us have felt noticeable external pressure in our economic development and mutual commercial cooperation, in Chinese culture, there are always opportunities linking to headwinds.
The Johannesburg summit has extended valuable opportunities for China-Africa economic and trade cooperation. So long as China and Africa support each other and move forward together, we will undoubtedly overcome any difficulty, further enhance practical cooperation and create a splendid future.
(The story was originally published on Business Day on December 17th, 2015.)
Two 16-year-old Green River boys who admitted to strangling a woman at the Green River Youth Home so they could run away will have to attend boot camp and possibly serve prison time.
Hayden A. Riggs and Charles Paiz, were charged with kidnapping, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, aggravated assault and battery, conspiracy to commit aggravated assault and battery, theft, conspiracy to commit theft, aggravated robbery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery.
Both Riggs and Paiz recently appeared in the Third District Court of Judge Nena James at a sentencing hearing to conspiracy to commit kidnapping and conspiracy to commit theft. All other charges were dismissed.
In exchange for guilty pleas, they were both given a three-to-five year prison sentence on the conspiracy to commit theft charge with a strong recommendation that they attend the boot-camp program offered at the Wyoming State Penitentiary. Paiz was given credit for 204 days served, while Riggs was given credit for 194 days served.
Both were given a 20-to-25 year suspended prison sentence which is to run consecutively with the other charge. Once Riggs and Paiz have completed their boot camp and prison sentence for the conspiracy to commit theft charge, they will both be placed on 10 years supervised probation for the conspiracy to commit kidnapping charge.
During a previous change of plea hearing, Paiz recalled what happened at the GR youth home on Nov. 26, 2015.
He told Judge James he and Riggs had been talking about running away from the youth home that night.
We decided to run away that night because we thought nobody would expect us to run right before a holiday, Paiz said.
On that night, as they were packing to leave, they heard youth-home employee Chandra Mathis coming up the stairs.
When she came upstairs, Hayden hid behind the door and I hid next to the door. When she came in I tried to throw a pillowcase over her head, when she ducked and fell on the floor, Paiz said.
Riggs then came up behind Mathis and grabbed her legs and arms, Paiz recalled. Mathis then told them both to stop what they were doing and Riggs told her to shut up. Mathis then started to yell. Riggs got upset and told Paiz to shut her up.
So I took the pillowcase and put it in her mouth, Paiz said. I grabbed her by her ankles and drug her into a room.
Mathis managed to kick the bed, Paiz recalled.
I went up behind her and I started to choke her and she passed out, Paiz said.
Paiz said he then went downstairs to find the key for the cabinet. He wanted to unlock the cabinet and get all of his stuff out of it. He couldnt find the keys and when Riggs asked him what he was doing he decided to give up the search. He picked up Mathis car keys. They both got into Mathis car and drove over to Rock Springs, where they stopped at a gas station to buy a screwdriver to pry Riggs ankle monitor off.
They then drove to Colorado Springs, Colo.
And later in the day, that day, I called my brother and he told me that somebody was in ICU, Paiz said.
When Paiz and Riggs found that out, they decided to meet with Paiz brother and they turned themselves into the Colorado Springs Police Department.
Well that is a tragic story. It really is. I just cant believe that you did this, Judge James said.
Paiz told the judge he panicked when Mathis came up the stairs and wouldnt be quiet.
Its just a tragedy for the victim in this case, but when you look at this kid -- way to screw up your life is about what has happened here, Judge James said. I guess in one way you are lucky that she didnt die, but on the other hand, what you did was so bad and it has really set you back in terms of your future. There is no doubt about it.
The Green River Visitor Center is a busy place during the summer, receiving tourists from across the nation and international travelers.
When going to the Green River Chamber of Commerce's Visitor Center, there are U.S. and world maps where guests can place a pin on the state or country they are from.
Nearly every state has at least one pin. The McMahan family put the very first pin on Ohio Friday morning. The family is originally from Ohio, but had been living in Utah for several years. They were traveling through Green River as they were moving back to Ohio.
They said they saw the visitor center and decided to stop to take photos of the beautiful views and rock formations. They wanted to make memories while on their road trip.
Karol Wright from Sandy, Utah, and her family wanted to go on a road trip for the Fourth of July weekend, but did not know where they wanted to visit, so they flipped a coin to decide where to go. The coin toss decided which direction they should travel. When the coin pointed them toward the east, she decided they should visit the Flaming Gorge.
"My kids have never been out there and I haven't been there since I was a kid so we thought it would be a fun trip," Wright said.
While at the Visitor Center, the Wright family looked at the displays and touched the different fossils, furs, antlers, rocks and stones on the touch display.
The Schuft family from Oroville, Calif., were headed to Rapid City, S.D., for a family vacation. The family liked the wolf display and decided to walk around to check out the other displays. The kids were sharing their knowledge of the state capitals with their parents while looking at the maps. The kids were figuring out which states they had traveled through so far to make it from California to Wyoming.
A woman from Auburn, Calif., was nearing the end of a road trip to some of the National Parks. She and her two travel partners were on their way to Saratoga where they would spend the Fourth of July weekend.
The National Park Service's 100th Anniversary is bringing a lot of people out to visit the parks.
"We're kind of a stop a long the way to Yellowstone, but we get a mix of people staying and traveling," Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Rebecca Eusek said.
The visitor, had a steady flow of tourists coming and going Friday morning, and several of them were seeking information on attractions in the area.
"A lot of people come to visit the Gorge," Eusek said. "The wild horse loop also brings people here."
The Sweetwater County Historical Museum also attracts visitors' attention during the summer months.
"Summer is our busiest season," Executive Director Brie Blasi said. "We get a lot of inquiries about John Wesley Powell, especially in summer when people are following his route and expedition."
A lot of the visitors of the museum are interested in Green River's railroad history as well.
"Green River was very important railroad town historically, so we get a lot of railroad enthusiasts," Blasi said.
By DAVID MARTIN
Editor
The days of K Streets infamy or Cat Willis Cat House may be long gone, but prostitution never left Sweetwater County.
Prostitutes no longer walk the streets or sit at a bar in search of customer, they utilize the internet and a series of websites frequented by those seeking a sexual encounter.
Its not that prostitution has ever gone away, its just headed down a different avenue, Alison Deters, public information officer for the Rock Springs Police Department, said.
Deters said while technology has changed the nature of many crimes, it has greatly changed how prostitutes and their customers interact.
Charging documents relating to Bradley Fairbourns murder and attempted murder charges in Rock Springs reference Backpage.com, a website that allows users to post free classified ads, but hosts an adult section offering multiple sexually-explicit ad categories.
While the categories include ads for massages and exotic dancers, men and women seeking to sell their time as companions place ads under the escort section. For Wyoming, a daily list of ads from women across the state, most staying in one city for a couple of days before moving on to another city. Advertisements dont explicitly state that sexual encounters are for sale, but utilize carefully constructed phrases and code words to communicate the sellers intent, as well as if they offer to travel to a customer or allow customers into their hotel rooms. Some escort advertisements even list prices and service menus, charging $200 or more an hour for an escorts services.
Deters said the police department has been aware of prostitution occurring in Rock Springs, but has focused on the activity more recently, attempting to curb potential violence against sex workers. The RSPD has dealt with the issue several times in the last year, making arrests of both providers and customers. Most recently, the RSPD, working with the Sweetwater County Sheriffs Office, conducted a sting operation of men soliciting prostitutes May 19, arresting an Arizona resident, two Rock Springs residents and a Green River resident in that operation. On May 13, a prostitution investigation led to the arrest of not only an alleged prostitute, but a man RSPD and sheriffs office investigators claim provided methamphetamine to tenants of an apartment building he managed.
The sheriffs office conducted an operation of their own Nov. 20, 2015, arresting one Rock Springs resident, a Rawlins resident and four men from outside the state.
The first arrests made involving prostitution occurred Nov. 3, 2015, when officers responded to the Rock Springs Motel 6 after receiving complaints about potential prostitution, arresting two Las Vegas residents for prostitution and promoting prostitution. Also arrested were two Rock Springs residents and one Green River resident for soliciting prostitution.
Before that, the last arrest made for prostitution occurred in 2008.
History in Sweetwater County
Like many Western towns, prostitution happened in the early days of mining and railroad towns like Rock Springs and Green River. Brie Blasi, executive director of the Sweetwater County Historical Museum, said the towns would often turn a blind eye to brothels because the towns would tax them higher and their owners would donate money to improve the community. While the brothels always had their critics amongst those interested in prohibition and other progressive agendas, the arguments fell on deaf ears so long as the money was flowing in.
Town officials ignored prostitution because they brought in a lot of money and they paid their taxes, Blasi said.
This higher taxation took place as recently as the mid 1940s in Green River, when the city decided to tax gambling halls and brothels to pay for housing on the south side.
That is how they built these Western towns, whether they like to admit it or not, Blasi said.
Blasi also said officials ignored prostitution in their towns as long as the brothel owners did not attempt to cross into polite society. Green Rivers brothels were located on the south side of the town, where the towns ethnic population lived. The area was separated from the other, white-dominated section of the town.
When that societal barrier was breached, the towns residents would complain. Such is the case with Kitty Hicks, the owner of the White House in Rock Springs during the late 1800s. Hicks initially built a house away from the growing coal town, near where East Side Elementary School is currently located. However, the town grew to encompass Hicks house and resulted in other residents not being happy with a brothel owner living in their neighborhood.
A 18-year-old man from Draper, Utah, is accused of murdering a Utah woman in a knife attack that also injured her friend June 23.
Bradley Ross Fairbourn is being held on a $1 million cash or surety bond at the Sweetwater County Detention Center on charges of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder, which could result in him spending life in prison if convicted.
The charges stem from an incident June 23 at the Quality Inn in Rock Springs. At about 1:23 a.m., officers with the Rock Springs Police Department, along with deputies from the Sweetwater County Sheriff's Office, responded to an emergency call regarding someone being killed at the hotel. An officer spoke with a woman in the hotel's lobby, later identified as Linda Arce, who was bleeding and said her friend was dying after being stabbed by a bearded man in a red shirt.
The body of a woman, later identified as Naisha Story, was found between rooms 119 and 121, with multiple stab wounds inflicted to the torso. Detectives, after securing the area, walked into room 119 and found blood on the walls, furniture and floor and believe a struggle took place in the room. Both Story and Arce were transported to Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County and Story died from her injuries at 3:20 a.m.
Arce said a man in a red shirt knocked on their door and started stabbing both women after opening the door.
The RSPD arrested a man beaten up by Arce's boyfriend, Christopher Crayton, outside of the Wonderful House restaurant matching Arce's description and later identified as Fairbourn.
During a later interview with investigators, Crayton said he was traveling with Story, Arce and Story's boyfriend, Joseph Lovato, stopping in Rock Springs after driving from Salt Lake City. He said their plan was to stay in Rock Springs for a few days, travel to Cheyenne and stay there for a few days and end up in Denver for a few more days. He said the Crayton and Arce rented a room at My Place while Lovato and Story rented a room at the Quality Inn.
After spending the evening drinking, Crayton dropped Story and Arce off at the Quality Inn room while he returned to his room at My Place at about 11:30 p.m. June 22. At about 1:30 a.m., Crayton said he received a call from Arce saying she had been stabbed and was bleeding. Crayton drove to the Quality Inn and found Arce running across Sunset Boulevard, toward his car. She got into the vehicle and Crayton saw a jeep pull into the Quality Inn and a woman leave the vehicle. He yelled for help and told Arce to go to the woman as she would help her and he drove toward room 119, seeing Fairbourn running to the Wonderful House restaurant. Crayton decided to cut him off, parking at the restaurant and Crayton assaulted the man, believing that he was trying to get away.
During a first interview with Fairbourn, he said he had stopped in Rock Springs during a trip from Denver to Utah to get some food and drink. He said he parked at the Quality Inn and walked to the McDonalds across the street to stretch his legs and after finding he didn't have money to buy anything at the restaurant, walked back to his truck. He said a man in a white car pulled up to him and assaulted him.
However, during a second interview at the RSPD, Fairbourn said he was on his way to Draper, Utah and googled Backpage.com to find an escort during his drive. He contacted Story and Arce and negotiated a full-service encounter for $300. When he arrived at the Quality Inn, he said he realized he didn't have the money to pay for the encounter and sought an ATM at McDonalds. After realizing the building was closed, he walked back, where he claimed Crayton assaulted him.
An police interview with Lovato revealed he was aware the Story and Arce were contacting people online through advertisements they placed on Backpage.com. He said he didn't believe they were initiating sexual encounters with people, saying their advertisements were for body rubs. He said Story and Arce would meet customers while he would stay in the hotel room. He also did not specify what Crayton would do during these times.
During police interviews with multiple patrons at the Quality Inn, many reported hearing something that sounded like a woman was being raped, as well as sounds like someone was being thrown against a wall.
Officers also discovered a knife on the roof of Smyth Printing and video footage officers viewed from JFC Engineers and Engineers appeared to show Fairbourn with an unknown object in his hand.
Calvin E. Ragsdale passed away June 15, 2016 at his home after a long illness.
He was born in Lick Creek, Ill., June 29, 1942 to William C. Ragsdale and Jeanette L. (McKenzie) Ragsdale. His family moved to Green River in 1951.
He graduated from Green River High School with the class of 1960, attended the University of Wyoming and Southern Illinois University, graduating with a bachelor of arts degree.
He attended the University of Wyoming College of Law, graduating in 1968 and was admitted to the Wyoming State Bar the same year. He married Donna Day in Carbondale, Ill., in 1964.
He practiced law in Laramie with the firm of Corthell and King and taught at the University of Wyoming Law School.
He returned to Green River and practiced law with the firm of Marty and Ragsdale before retiring due to ill health.
His interests included reading, especially American history, model railroading and music of the big band era. He was a founding member of the Sweetwater Sounds.
He is survived by his wife, Donna Ragsdale, and his mother Jeanette Ragsdale, both of Green River, as well as his children William and Tana Ragsdale of Cadillac, Mich. and Bliss B. Ragsdale of Laramie. He is also survived by his siblings Bliss E. Ragsdale of Big Horn, Charles and Ann Ragsdale of Westminster, Colo., and Karen and Oscar Stapleton of Green River. He is also survived by numerous nieces and nephews as well as great-nieces and great-nephews.
At his request, there will be no services. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the Sweetwater County Library System, the Green River Volunteer Ambulance Service or the charity of your choice.
The governing body passed the recent fiscal year 2016-2017 budget two weeks ago and to get to that approval was just that, a process.
We are always looking at the budget and managing all of its elements, and as a city, we developed our initial internal and external meetings schedule in February. This schedule included department head meetings, Finance Committee meetings, six promoted workshops for the public on elements of the budget such as community service requests, the enterprise funds and their rate study, fee schedules, the general fund, as well as the hearing and adoption of the budget. These are on top of the regular Tuesday meetings each month the council hosts. It is a long and tedious process but one that definitely can be refined and modified going forward and it is an area we have already begun to review this week. We are looking to identify and address areas where we feel we can streamline and shorten the process, get more input, communicate and/or educate, and be more efficient and effective for all involved.
Statutorily, we have to submit a budget to the governing body in April and it has to be passed between the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of June. The workshops and meetings we have are to help share and gather information to help make more informed choices. We advertise these meetings in the Green River Star, our website, on local radio stations, and we broadcast the workshops and council meetings live on cable TV. Sometimes it seems redundant but we understand that there are multiple avenues people access information. Recently, we invested in a new application platform that will allow access to reports and budgets and information tracking on line.
All of this is done at a level to be transparent. Yet, even at these levels it still may seem to some that it should be more because when you are not involved in the process at multiple stages, it is hard to put together the tidbits of information into the complete story.
Everyone is well aware of the current struggles our economy in our city and across the state has and continues to face. Wyomings dependence on natural resources and our dependence on sales tax revenues leave it vulnerable to economic swings that must be managed. While we have not been hit as hard as some areas of the state this is another year of cuts where we have to manage a decrease in revenues that hasnt been seen by the city in over 13 years. We started seeing an indication of declining revenues at the end of last fiscal year and began an early process of expense management and still continue to drive down those costs where we can.
The work the department heads and their staff have done going into this budget year has been commendable. They have had to sit with their departments and strategize how to manage not only decreased sales tax revenues, but also a major decrease in the one-time monies we get from the state. We have shared ideas and gone outside the box to attack the budget challenges that still delivers beyond basic needs to the residents and yet still meets the priorities from the governing body that deal with safety, people, infrastructure and development. Some of the things we are implementing have never been done before and we will be monitoring the results to see how their impact is helping us. As an organization, even at the government level, we have to be able to continue to monitor and work towards delivering our best.
The bottom line is that it all comes down to people, process and efficiencies. The governing body and management understand the importance of people and the jobs they do. All of us will be challenged over the coming months and beyond. It isnt a matter of doing more with less, but more of the scenario of is what we are doing being done for the best of the residents and the city, and is it being done efficiently and to the best of our abilities?
We have made some serious cuts in some areas, we have to continue to educate the citizens about expectations, and we have to continue to monitor where we can still improve. We have, as management and the governing body, been working to plan for possible further reductions if the economy continues to trend in that direction. But we also understand we have to move forward in other areas as well. We have to continue to work towards economic development even in the down turns by finding other revenue sources, grants, or partnerships.
We still have to follow the vision and continue to make headway in those long range plans that deal with infrastructure needs and maintenance so that when we do come out of the downturn we are more prepared. There are areas where budgets will not be able to provide some programs at previous expected levels.
We will have to continue to monitor and be creative in managing our revenues and expenses but it can be done. The sky hasnt fallen and we are still very fortunate at many levels here in Green River. We will continue to support our residents and our employees where we are obligated and where we can.
As a last note, I wanted to discuss the enterprise funds and the rate structure. Rates that were passed for the funds included a 2 percent increase in Solid Waste, an 11 percent increase in our sewer, and a 4 percent increase in water.
The 11 percent increase in Sewer directly deals with the state loan we have for the engineered drawings on the new waste water treatment facility that we need. This project is 4-5 years out and will be at a cost of roughly $30 million. We will be working to get grants and other loan components to limit the cost where we can to the residents. But this facility is long past its life cycle. The major cost to fix the old plant only offers a limited life span and will not be able to meet discharge requirements we will be faced with in the future.
The 4 percent increase in water was due to the 4 percent increase on our wholesale price we pay the Joint Powers Water Board and a need to increase fees towards capital improvement project needs that are funded through this account. This was not solely due to the JPWB increase. The 2 percent in Solid Waste is also for capital improvement and specifically new garbage trucks and replacing the ones that are more than 20 years old. The average consumer is going to see about a $4.60 increase in their bills as a total.
We understand rates are a sensitive issue. For this reason, the governing body and administration approved funds last year to do a complete rate audit of all enterprise funds. This audit is almost complete and will be presented at another workshop in the near future. This audit is helping to build a long term plan on rate structure in all our enterprise funds as well as the philosophy behind it that is similar to other communities and national standards.
There will be a lot of communication and education as we move forward in this area but it is a work in progress that must define our needs and the resident expectations of service.
For those of you who would like to be more involved in the how the city operates, there are many volunteer positions on boards and committees looking for dedicated citizens who want to make a difference.
Mission at Castle Rock Rehabilitation Center employee Tammy Dickinson helps CRRC resident Katie Dominguez paint one of the walls.
The smell of paint was the first thing a person walking into the Mission at Castle Rock Rehabilitation Center Friday afternoon would encounter.
Numerous employees and residents were busy using rollers and paint brushes to paint the entryway and hallway of the facility.
A fresh coat of paint was being used as a way to brighten up the facility's atmosphere. A light tan color was selected to put on the walls.
Bobbi Jo Drozd, CRRC executive director and administrator, said they were preparing one wall for a wood and metal memorial tree. She said the tree's trunk and branches will be made ou...
Don Jones runs some of his test samples through a sluice box in his backyard.
The moment Don Jones saw the gold in his pan he knew he was in trouble.
He caught a bad case of gold fever.
The only way to solve his gold-fever problem was to keep looking for more gold.
"I've been playing around with it since I was 14 years old," Jones said.
Mining just seemed to run in the family and Jones, a Green River resident, said his mother recently gave him his grandfather's gold pan. He said a lot of his family members were coal miners or railroad workers.
Although Jones chose a different path when he worked as a PacifiCorp manager for the Northern Utah and Southern Wyoming regio...
STATE Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), the worlds largest power utility, signed a memorandum of understanding on strategic co-operation with South African electricity parastatal Eskom at a ceremony attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping and SAs President Jacob Zuma, on December 2.
The signing of the agreement during Xis state visit to SA was an indication of the beginning of strategic co-operation between two large state-owned energy companies. SGCC and Eskom are world renowned electricity generating companies that are highly complementary with huge potential for co-operation in the international business, technical, managerial and financial fields.
The memorandum will provide a platform to leverage their expertise and co-operation in the development of business projects, technology sharing and knowledge creation opportunities. It has great significance and will contribute to the enhancement of bilateral economic and trade co-operation between the two countries. It is reported that, under the frame of this memorandum, the two companies will jointly pursue commercial opportunities and exchange technical experience in a variety of areas, including high voltage AC/DC planning and system design, grid construction and engineering, ultra high voltage technology, smart grid technology, large-scale renewable energy and distributed renewable energy grid connection, operating and maintenance strategies, off-grid rural electrification programmes, and international standards compiling.
SGCC is running the highest voltage level AC/DC hybrid power grid in China and it is unique in the world, having had no major blackout in the past 30 years. Leveraging its technical, management, capital and human resources, SGCC gives prominence to implementing internationalised operations and building a world-class enterprise in the fields of overseas investment, engineering, procurement and construction project contracting, equipment export, international organisations participation and global standard establishment.
Its overseas assets are worth more than $25bn including concessions or shares in National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, Portugals Redes Energeticas Nacionais, South Australias ElectraNet, SPIAA and AusNet, HK Electric, Italys CDP Reti and 14 Brazilian transmission concession companies. In the past two years, SGCC has won the two phase bids of Brazils Belo Monte hydropower ultra-high voltage transmission projects, with an investment of close to $4bn.
SGCC owns four electrical equipment manufacturing enterprises, and ranks number one in China in this sector. The electrical equipment business mainly makes primary and secondary devices, transmission line materials, renewable energy and hydropower equipment, industrial automation and rail transport machines. China Electric Power Equipment and Technology Company (CET) is a platform of SGCC to implement overseas infrastructure projects and secure contracts for global transmission projects, while NARI Group is the major equipment manufacturing enterprise of SGCC, whose products cover secondary equipment, smart grid equipment and related primary equipment. The two companies have world leading capabilities in project implementation, equipment manufacturing and technical services.
In recent years, SGCC has established its footprint in Africa. Subsidiary CET has contracted the Ethiopia GDHA transmission project for Renaissance Dam with an investment of $1.46bn, which is now under equipment and subsystems commissioning and will soon be completed on schedule in accordance with contract requirements. SGCC is also a key player in the Mphanda Nkuwa hydropower project in Mozambique and Inga 3 project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The two projects will specifically benefit SA with safe, clean and reliable power supply.
Corporate Profile: SGCC was established as a state owned enterprise on December 29, 2002. The core business of SGCC is the investment, construction and operation of the transmission and distribution power grid. As the largest utility in the world, SGCC ranks seventh on the Fortune Global 500. Besides the core business, SGCC also has financial, manufacturing and international business sectors.
SGCC is the largest power grid constructor and operator in the world. Our mission is to provide safer, cleaner, and more economical and sustainable power supply. As a super-large state owned enterprise crucial to national energy security and economic lifeline, SGCC operates as a group with 200 billion Yuan registered capital and 1.86-million employees. SGCC serves 1.1 billion people in 26 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, covering 88% of the national territory. SGCC also operates overseas assets in the Philippines, Brazil, Portugal, Australia, Italy and others with good performance.
Highlights of technological innovation by SGCC:
Ultra-high-voltage (UHV)
Power grid: Three UHV AC and five UHV DC transmission lines are operational. In the plan of 2020, 11 UHV AC transmission lines and 19 UHV DC transmission lines will be in operation.
Smart grid: As of the end of September, the total installed capacity of renewable energy reached 140GW, including about 100GW wind power and more than 30GW solar generation. The worlds largest demonstration project of the integration of wind power, solar power, energy storage and power transmission was put into operation several years ago; completed the construction and upgrade of 1,556 smart substations, installed 270-million smart meters; built 618 electrical vehicle charging/ swapping stations and 24,000 charging piles; completed an internationally leading electric power control centre and customer service centre.
(The story was originally published on Business Day on December 17th, 2015.)
By the numbers
Seventh-largest company on Fortune Global 500
Serving 88% of the national territory
Power to a population of more than 1.1-billion
More than 1.86-million employees
Length of transmission lines: 1,095,000km
Transformation capacity: 3,430GVA
Electricity sales: 3,469.5TWh
Revenue : 2,096.1-billion yuan
Total assets: 2,900.9-billion yuan
Line loss: 6.81%
Reliability rate of urban power supply: 99.967%
Reliability rate of rural power supply: 99.878%
*110(66)kV and above transmission line
**110(66)kV and above transforming facility
All above-mentioned data excludes overseas assets.
Duke University has awarded Trinity Scholarships, merit scholarships that cover full tuition and many other expenses, to recent high school graduates Alexander Thomas Heap of High Point and Carlo Lindner of Greensboro.
The scholarships, established by Duke alumni to honor the universitys origins as Trinity College in Randolph County, provide funds for tuition, fees, room and board, as well as summer study, work and travel experiences for all four years at Duke. The full value of each scholarship is more than $260,000 over four years.
In your July 1 paper, City Councilwoman Sharon Hightower is concerned that there was only one minority in the graduating class of firefighters. Obviously, the Greensboro Fire Department accepted the applications of seven minority candidates since one graduated and, as she states, a half-dozen quit midway through the training cycle.
A few reasons come to mind as to why they might have quit. Perhaps it wasnt what they thought it would be, perhaps they couldnt keep up physically or academically, or perhaps for personal reasons. Ive been told that firefighting training is tough, both in the class and out on the training field, and not just anybody can do it. Many a recruit has tried and failed. If you cant cut it, you cant be a firefighter because lives depend on your work.
As to her question as to what can be done to help retain the people in these classes, I say do nothing for them you wouldnt do for all recruits. If you as an individual cannot meet the demands of the training, both mentally and physically, you dont need to be a firefighter.
And dont lower the standards for them. That is not the answer. It has been done in other firefighter and police cases with disastrous results.
Want to be a firefighter? Train hard and study hard. Shouldnt be any shortcuts.
Gene Tutterow
Asheboro
China should set its sights on designing an unmanned automatic aerial vehicle battle system to prepare for the threat of air battle between drones, according to a professor with the Air Force Engineering University (AFEU).
Based on a number of flight parameters, the battle system, coded as AlphaEagle, should be able to automatically assess battle situations and calculate threats before responding with offensive or defensive measures--theoretically similar to Google DeepMind's AlphaGo, said the professor, Huang Changqiang, at a forum in Beijing on Wednesday.
The forum is a sub-forum of the 4th China Conference on Command and Control, which is a three-day conference held by the Chinese Institute of Command and Control.
AFEU has been accumulating parameters from air battle training and live ammunition fight tests for three generations of fighter jets since 1998. All this data could be of use in the development of an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), according to Huang. Huang added that the university is already testing a model UCAV.
Drones are currently like kites flying under the control of human beings. If we can learn from AlphaGo and create the artificially intelligence AlphaEagle, our air force will hover high in the sky, he promised.
Calling the system a virtual pilot, Huang said it should be able to learn from the data of human pilots, and in doing so figure out how to calculate its offensive-defensive role so as to maintain an advantage during battle.
He also pointed out that drone battles are a serious imminent threat, as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) can easily overcome human pilots. This is because their only limitation is the weapon itself or the aircrafts performance. Huang added that major powers like the U.S. have already stepped up their efforts toward UCAV development.
A human pilot will spend 50 percent of his or her attention on winning the battle, and the other 50 percent on self-protection. The virtual pilot can keep the ratio around 90 to 10, Huang explained.
Huang also mentioned that drone pilots can suffer mental trauma during and after battle, while an automatic system would not have that potential problem.
GREENWICH - Firefly enthusiasts and casual observers alike can connect at Greenwich Audubon for a presentation of Fireflies - Natures Mini-fireworks at 8:30 p.m. Thursday
Among the details revealed will be the life cycles of fireflies - which are technically beetles - and what exactly makes their way of life possible.
Many people associate childhood in the summertime with the fun and wonder of watching fireflies give their flashing lights into the evening, said Ted Gilman, senior naturalist and environmental education specialist at Greenwich Audubon. We enjoy sharing that spectacle with people each year while also trying to help folks become more knowledgeable about the individual animals.
Something people may not know, Gilman said, is there are actually many different species of fireflies. They use their light mechanisms to communicate with each other, and each species has its own unique code, or language.
At least one species even uses a false code to deceive other fireflies so it can hunt them, Gilman said.
Participants will go outside to observe and capture several different species of fireflies during the second half, Gilman said.
There is a large citizen science effort out of the Museum of Science in Boston to encourage people to record what fireflies they are seeing in their backyards. Gilman said there would be more information on how Greenwichites can participate in that effort at the event.
Those interested in attending should RSVP to Ted Gilman by email at tgilman@audubon.org or by phone at 203-930-1353.
The Audubon Center in Greenwich is at 613 Riversville Road.
pfrissell@hearstmediact.com; @PeregrineFriss
GREENWICH A 19-year-old Greenwich man is facing accusations he stole iPads from his family members and then set a fire at his residence to cover his tracks.
Izaih Perez, of Davis Avenue, was charged late last week with arson, larceny, falsely reporting an incident, interfering with a police investigation and conspiracy to commit larceny.
The arrest stemmed from an incident on Davis Avenue on the afternoon of Oct. 5. Police and fire units were called to the Davis Avenue residence on a report of a fire. Police said Perez had told them he came home, along with a 16-year-old juvenile friend, to find a smoky fire in the kitchen.
A small fire was discovered on the stove area, in which paper and a pot holder were burned. The windows had been opened to release the smoke from the fire, which caused minor damage, according to an affidavit filed by police at Superior Court in Stamford. Police found the home had been ransacked, and personal computer devices and other belongings were missing.
Later in October, Greenwich police were contacted by a detective with the Village of Mamaroneck, N.Y., police department that police in that village had recovered five tablets from a juvenile. The tablets, taken from Greenwich, were to have been re-sold by the 16-year-old friend of Perezs, according to the court documents. The tablets are being held by Mamaroneck police.
After obtaining a warrant, police arrested Perez on Friday. Police have had dealings with Perez in the past.
According to the police account, Perez conspired in the fabrication of the burglary, arson, larceny and subsequent lies of the actual events they reported to police.
The juvenile was also charged, but his name was not released because of his age.
Bail was set at $50,000, and Perez is due back in court Aug. 1.
Greenwich police found that Connecticut State Police also hold an arrest warrant for Perez on a range of driving offenses.
Robert.Marchant@scni.com
Chinese researchers of command and control are most interested in simulation and model studies in the military and transportation fields, whereas they place less emphasis on cyberspace, the nations first report on command and control detailed.
Citing data from China National Knowledge Infrastructure, the report, which was issued on Wednesday by the Chinese Institute of Command and Control, said that simulation and model studies are the most common research topics for essays published between 2010 and 2015. Cyberspace fell out of the top 10 topics completely, while most model studies revolved around military-related fields.
Professor Zhou Xianzhong from Nanjing University said during the Wednesday press conference that the most popular topics for postgraduate and doctorate degree-seekers are information fusion, genetic algorithms and drones.
Zhou, also the deputy head of the panel for the report, said command and control (C2) was first recognized as a national academic subject in 2009.
C2 examines the integration of military and civilian affairs. There are many cutting-edge technologies involved in C2, but they come from the military and are therefore classified, Zhou said. Zhou pointed out that China has a large group of C2 research fellows, many of who come from military academies and research institutes with military backgrounds.
However, compared to other countries, we see a lack of innovation in theory studies, and many theories have not yet been put into practice on actual programs, he said, adding that, although cooperation between institutes and academies has been fruitful so far, that collaboration must be further strengthened.
Moreover, Yao Fuqiang, a research fellow with the Nanjing Telecommunication Technology Research Institute, told Peoples Daily Online that there is still a gap between China and the countries that lead in privacy security technology when it comes to the electromagnetic spectrum.
It is necessary to guarantee security and control of the electromagnetic spectrum, which necessitates dealing with three threats: band occupation, spectrum interruption and information interception and leakage, Yao told Peoples Daily Online. However, Yao added, China is gradually seeking leadership and initiatives in the International Telecommunication Union, which often falls under the Wests domain.
Chen Tao, an associate research fellow with the Department of Engineering Physics at Tsinghua University, said at the conference that C2 systems in emergency rescue have been serving the public at the state-level through the China Meteorological Administration. There are plans to complete a provincial-level early warning system by 2020.
The next step will be to expand the early warning system to media outlets that can more easily reach the public, Chen said.
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For many, summertime in Connecticut means getting out on to the open water. Weather its the Sound or a lake, boating is a favorite past time of many lucky residents.
More for you On the market: Private island in Darien
If you feel left out, there are plenty of homes on the market with private docks.
Among these homes is historic Tavern Island in Norwalk. According to real estate site, Zillow, Tavern Island in Norwalk, Conn. was used as a speakeasy during Prohibition. It was owned by Billy Rose, a lyricist known for the song "Me and my Shadow," and Marylin Monroe is said to have partied there.
"The lore is epic for this particular island: It's said to have been inhabited by European settlers in 1651 and occupied by the British during the American Revolution. Lillian Hellman finished her play 'The Little Foxes' on Tavern Island, and Marilyn Monroe is believed to have attended at least one Billy Rose soiree there," Zillow writes.
Today, the 3.5-acre property located about an hour from Manhattan can be yours for $10.995 million.
Another dream home for boaters is found at 71 Five Mile River Rd. in Darien. Originally a 1700's farmhouse, the home was fully rebuilt in 2008, according to Zillow. The rustic farm kitchen offers a peek into the house's past with wooden ceiling beams; sea foam green cabinets bring the ocean into the kitchen.
The dining room looks like somewhere the Little Mermaid would eat dinner, with under-the-sea inspired painted walls and hanging lantern.
Outside, decks and patios overlook a private dock and offer a serene setting to watch boats go by.
Au revoir, chef. Photo: Brian Ach/Getty Images
Peter Hoffman was a big deal on the New York scene during the height of Savoy, his pioneering farm-to-table restaurant. The chef closed his then two-decade old Soho restaurant in 2011 and shuttered his casual East Village restaurant Back Forty due to lease uncertainty three years later. Now, the last remnant of his grass-fed empire will disappear when the chef closes Back Forty West (which is housed in the former Savoy space) after service on July 16.
Hoffman was an early adopter of the Slow Food ethos, before farm-to-table became a catchall marketing term. A number of influential chefs worked under him, including Salties Caroline Fidanza, who set the culinary tone at Diner as its opening chef, and Frannys co-owners Andy Feinberg and Francine Stephens. There will be one last crab boil on July 15, then Hoffman says hell turn in his chefs whites and leave the restaurant business with a plans for a sabbatical, starting August 1, and a cookbook.
Most parts of southern China have been affected by recent torrential rains. Floods in southern and eastern China have left at least 186 people dead and another 45 missing, according to a report by Xinhua News Agency on July 4.
Soldiers, firefighters and armed police officers were quickly dispatched to flood-affected areas for rescue work, where they set to work saving as many lives as possible from the rubble. Even in the midst of the deadly floods along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, there have been many miraculous tales of rescue and heroism.
Photos of soldiers carrying sand bags through muddy fields in the heavy rain have abounded. Every soldier so far has carried around 300 bags on average, running back and forth over 600 times a day. They have had only water and steamed buns as sustenance. As a result, many people wish to pay tribute to the soldiers who have saved so many lives.
Netizens expressed their respect and gratitude for the soldiers on social media platforms like Weibo and WeChat. Some people have commented in response that citizens must always remember the soldiers--not only in times of natural disaster.
Co-owners Ignacio Mattos and Thomas Carter Photo: Jody Wissner/New York Magazine
Since Cafe Altro Paradiso opened in late February, Grub has maintained that its spacious, bright dining room would be at its most charming during the daytime hours. But, so far, co-owners Thomas Carter and Ignacio Mattos have been slow about rolling out lunch, only serving midday meals on the weekends. As of tomorrow, though, the restaurant will be open for lunch that is, from noon to 3:30 on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. If you can get away from work, you should make a point to stop by, since the menu will feature the same straightforward, relaxed Italian food, and the atmosphere promises to be more laid-back as well. Plus, the room will be lovely.
The Milwaukee restaurant in question. Photo: Google
Chefs and restaurateurs going after Yelpers who post overly negative reviews of their restaurants is quickly becoming a time-honored American tradition. There was that time the owners of Sparks, home of New Yorks top strip steak, sued Yelp to make it identify a malicious reviewer. Then there was the case of the restaurateur who called the mother of a critical reviewer schizophrenic and asked the Yelper to kill herself. Not to mention the scorned restaurateur who fought back against a dramatically negative Yelper by trashing her karaoke skills. Milwaukee bar owner Ari Domnitz hasnt stooped to those kinds of insults, but hes joined the pantheon with an angry response all his own.
After Anthony C. posted a one-star review of Domnitzs Karma Bar & Grill, writing that hes never been a fan and doesnt get why people like it, the owner fought back: He reviewed Anthony C.s reviews.
YELP REVIEW RESPONSE - SHARE Dear Anthony, There really is nothing better than this fantastic open forum of internet... Posted by Ari Domnitz on Thursday, June 30, 2016
The 1,300-word response was both posted to Yelp (where its since been deleted by the company), and to Facebook, where its been shared hundreds of times. Domnitz begins by bashing the premise of Yelp itself, sarcastically describing it as a fantastic open forum of internet based criticism that allows someone to pop on at will and completely bash a small business owners livelihood. The bar owner then picks apart several of Anthony C.s reviews, including one of a 7-11 (three sparklers), knocking him for criticizing the work ethic of minimum wage employees, and the Yelpers review of local restaurant and Milwaukee institution Elsas, writing that the spot has been serving a diverse crowd of Milwaukee clientele for longer than youve been alive and they do it better than nearly anyone in Milwaukee.
YELP REVIEW RESPONSE - SHARE Dear Anthony, There really is nothing better than this fantastic open forum of internet... Posted by Ari Domnitz on Thursday, June 30, 2016
Circling back to the instigating review of Karma Bar & Grill, Domnitz writes that everything they do in the kitchen is clearly not up to Taco Bells 3 star standards and asks, [I]s it possible that you are somehow unable to appreciate food that wasnt microwaved by someone trying to figure out how they turned Doritos into Taco Shells?
After the post went viral, Karma received both supportive and outrageously negative responses on Yelp. User Rome Y. even arrived at the very logical conclusion that this place must be opporated [sic] by anti-american muslims. An Active Cleanup Alert box, which means Yelp is monitoring the page for inappropriate reviews, is now visible on the restaurants page.
The Italian beef with house giardiniera at Hanks Juicy Beef. Photo: Melissa Hom
Hear Chicagoans tell it, and their Italian beef is one of the countrys great, if relatively unsung, sandwiches. Much to the chagrin of its devoted fans, it hasnt caught on outside the Windy City the same as other regional greats like, say, Maine-style lobster rolls, New Orleans poboys, and New Yorks Italian combo. But that could finally change here in New York. The sandwich has recently found a home at Smorgasburg, where 2nd City Beef runs a stand, and at year-old Bushwick restaurant Pizza Party. Now it will also have a home in Manhattan with the arrival of Hanks Juicy Beef, a Tribeca sandwich shop located at 84 Chambers Street, slated to open this week.
The Italian beefs appeal is clear. Its made by slow-roasting simply seasoned beef, which is then sliced paper-thin. The meat gets dunked in the au jus (served dry, where the juice is briefly allowed to drip off the meat, or wet, which is just what it sounds like), and the sandwich is then finished with either sweet peppers or spicy giardiniera. Theres no other sandwich like it. The closest thing is the Philly cheesesteak, and thats not even really like it, says Hanks owner Henry Hank Tibensky.
Hanks previously popped up at festivals and markets like the Long Island City Flea, but hes now a first-time restaurateur who comes from a line of Italian-beef evangelists. His aunts family operated a Chicago beef and pizza place in Chicagos West Side for 35 years, and he brought in his great-aunt and her sister to help him with the menu. Bread will be imported from his family friends bakery in Chicago, and the Italian beef will be offered wet, dry, hot, mild, sweet, and straight-up plain. The short-but-sweet menu will also include an eggplant Parm its just as good as the juicy beef topped with house giardiniera, which Tibensky hopes to eventually jar; an Italian sausage; and, down the line, a Chicago-style hot dog. There will also be beer and wine, including a special Hanks Juicy Brew from Bronx Brewery, for sipping.
Look at that eggplant Parm. Photo: Melissa Hom
Dessert. Photo: Melissa Hom
Digging the look. Photo: Melissa Hom
Hanks Juicy Beef, 84 Chambers St., nr. Broadway; 646-681-2641
Timeline for One UI 5 rollout revealed: Galaxy S and Z models to get it by the end of the year
The Sony Xperia X, which was launched in the US towards June-end, has already received a price cut in the country. A quick looks reveals that third-party retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, and B&H Photo are now selling the device (all four color variants) for $500.
That translates into a discount of $50. What's more, should you choose to purchase the handset from B&H Photo, you'll also get free Samsung Level U Wireless Headphones (color: Black Sapphire) worth around $35.
Source (Amazon | Best Buy | B&H Photo)
Secretary-General of World Peace Forum Yan Xuetong (R) is on a press briefing on July 6, 2016. (Xinhua/Du Baiyu)
China will discuss the South China Sea issue as well as nuclear non-proliferation with domestic and foreign experts and politicians during the upcoming 5th World Peace Forum (WPF), said Secretary-General Yan Xuetong at a press briefing on Wednesday.
Although global military conflicts have become less common and the scale of military conflicts has generally decreased in this day and age, regional security issues have been increasingly serious in the first half of 2016. It is regional security issues that most endanger international security, according to Yan.
Conflicts in the South China Sea will become more complicated after the result of the South China Sea arbitration is released, added Yan in the briefing. Yan also said that the recent Brexit decision brings uncertainty to the cooperation between European countries on the issue of security.
Apart from the South China Sea issue and nuclear non-proliferation, the forum will also touch on hot topics including the Belt and Road Initiative, relationships between leading powers and anti-terrorism, Yan said.
The 5th WPF will be held on July 16 and 17 in Beijing. The theme of this year's forum is "The Order of Common Security: Cooperation, Inclusiveness, and Open-access." The forum will include mass discussions for the first time, in addition to keynote speeches, panel discussions and press conferences.
A Chinese state leader will attend the opening ceremony. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs will unveil more details later.
As of now, five former foreign state leaders have confirmed their attendance, including Dominique de Villepin, former prime minister of France; Yukio Hatoyama, former prime minister of Japan; Javier Solana de Madariaga, former EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy; Shaukat Aziz, former prime minister of Pakistan; and Andrei Kokoshin, former secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.
Haiti - NOTICE : 2nd phase of the Project RESEPAG II in the South
The second phase of the Reinforcement Project of Agricultural Extension Services "RESEPAG II" of the Ministry of Agriculture, funded by the World Bank, began in early 2016 in the South Department.
In this context, an Agricultural Extension Services Fund (FSV) was established to finance up to 70 to 80%, the projects of producer organizationsassociated or not with private entrepreneurs, NGOs or universities / research centers.
Subsidies will be awarded to projects designed in 3 areas: technology transfer, applied agricultural research and storage and processing of agricultural products.
The AGRER Company, which implements the fund started since July 4, a tour in the communes of South (Tiburon, Les Anglais, Chardonnieres, Port-a-Piment, Coteaux) to meet with representatives of rural producers, entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector and NGOs involved in the South.
Tour schedule :
The meeting point is provided at the Parish Hall of each commune
Roche-a-Bateau, July 6 from 2h00 p.m. ;
Port-Salut, July 7 from 9h30 a.m. ;
St-Jean du Sud, July 7 from 2h00 p.m. ;
Ile-a-Vache, July 8 from 10h30 a.m. ;
Aquin, July 11 from 9h30 a.m. ;
Vieux Bourg d'Aquin, July 12 from 9h30 a.m. ;
St-Louis du Sud, July 13 from 9h30 a.m. ;
Cavaillon, July 13 from 2h00 p.m. ;
Cayes, July 14 from 9h30 p.m. ;
Torbeck, July 14 frome 2h00 p.m. ;
Arniquet, July 15 from 9h30 a.m. ;
Chantal, July 15 from 2h00 p.m. ;
Camp-Perin, July 18 from 9h30 a.m. ;
Maniche, July 18 from 2h00 p.m.
For further information, contact the company AGRER to : ofsv.regionsud@gmail.com
HL/ HaitiLibre
QIANDONGNAN, July 2, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Rescuers help evacuate a woman in Pingyong Town of Rongjiang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, July 2, 2016. Due to heavy rainfall, rescuers were sent to Yongping Town to evacuate 21 residents trapped in flood Saturday morning. The National Meteorological Center (NMC) and the Ministry of Water Resources warned of high risks of mountain torrents in parts of Anhui, Hunan, Guizhou and Tibet from Friday evening to Saturday evening, suggesting residents take necessary precautions. (Xinhua/Wang Bingzhen)
Haiti - FLASH : 140,000 Haitians facing deportation because of the inaction of Haiti
Tuesday, Jose Ramon Fadul, the Minister of the Interior and of the Dominican police, recalled that from 17 July starts to expire the 1-year temporary permit, granted to 143,000 foreigners (mostly Haitian) who are registered at the National Regularization Plan for Foreigners (PNRE) without a passport (mandatory document whose temporary absence has been accepted as derogation).
Haitians registered to PNRE , worried and angry, protested Tuesday outside the Embassy of Haiti in Santo Domingo, demanding their documents. These Haitians complain that two years after the start of the Program for Identification and Documentation of Haitian Immigrants (PIDIH) launched in July 2014, about 98,000 applications were filed and have not received any response despite the Haitian Government promises, constantly renewed... These thousands of Haitian paid the thousand pesos claimed by Haiti to obtain their documents and to complete and renew the migratory regularization process.
Haitian Protesters delivered a document to the diplomatic mission to the Haitian Embassy in which they claim to have strong evidence of the deposit of the thousands of applications remained unresolved.
The Minister Fadul informed that currently the Immigration Directorate General was working on a proposal to determine the mechanism that could be used with foreigners whose residence permit expires in the Dominican Republic from this month (near 143,000 between July 17 and December 2016). This proposal must be approved by the Ministry of Interior and the police and it is the President Danilo Medina that will have the last word "Next week, we will give information to the cards that expire and what mechanisms we use. The Director of Immigration will make a comprehensive proposal in this regard."
Recall that to renew their temporary permit https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-17722-haiti-flash-130-000-haitians-in-dr-are-approaching-the-end-of-their-regularization.html Haitian armed with their regularization card, should submit all documents missing in their case (including passports), provide a certificate of no criminal record, undergo a medical examination and make a payment of 14,000 pesos as cost of their temporary stay. According to the status of their cases, the permit will be renewed or this will be the way of the deportation to Haiti.
See also :
https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-17722-haiti-flash-130-000-haitians-in-dr-are-approaching-the-end-of-their-regularization.html
https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-14887-haiti-politic-the-embassy-of-haiti-in-dr-finally-delivered-identification-documents.html
https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-14832-haiti-politic-haiti-has-managed-to-identify-only-1-351-caneros-in-dr.html
https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-14662-haiti-social-demonstration-of-caneros-front-the-embassy-of-haiti-in-dr.html
https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-14523-haiti-social-angry-cane-cutters-asking-4-6-million-gourdes-to-haiti.html
https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-14448-icihaiti-dominican-republic-already-734-haitians-have-obtained-their-permanent-residence.html
https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-14179-haiti-social-the-dominican-authorities-are-assisting-cane-cutters.html
https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-14074-haiti-social-sugarcane-cutters-angry-against-haiti.html
HL/ HaitiLibre
Published on 2016/07/05 | Source
Actors Kim Woo-bin and Bae Suzy's "Uncontrollably Fond" opens its doors on the 6th.
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The KBS drama "Uncontrollably Fond" has been of great issue way before its release. The drama is about a man and a woman who broke up on bad terms, reuniting as a super star and documentary producer.
The following are four points to look out for when watching "Uncontrollably Fond".
- The history of drama is re-written in 2016
"Uncontrollably Fond" is written by Lee Kyeong-hee who also wrote dramas like, "Sorry, I Love You", "Nice Guy", "Thank You", "A Love to Kill" and "Very Good Times". It is directed by Park Hyeon-seok who directed "The Princess' Man" and "Spy - Drama".
- The greatest actor and actress have come together
Kim Woo-bin and Bae Suzy are known as one of the best actor and actress in Korea. Their fantastic chemistry is good enough to draw attention. Kim Woo-bin comes back as Sin Joon-yeong, a super star with a temper like fire and Bae Suzy comes back as No-eul, a timid and weak girl who doesn't stand a chance against Sin Joon-yeong.
- Three-dimensional characters in a different class
"Uncontrollably Fond" has a combination of various actors and actresses. Lim Ju-hwan stars in the drama as a born-rich character named Choi Ji-tae while Lim Ju-eun is Yoon Jeong who is even richer.
Yu Oh-seong is Sin Joon-yeong's father named Choi Hyeon-joon and Jin Kyung is Sin Joon-yeong's mother named Sin Yeong-ok. Jung Sun-kyung takes on the role of Lee Eun-soo, chairwoman of a major company and Choi Hyeon-joon's wife. Choi Moo-sung plays Jang Jeong-sik who has a crush on Sin Yeong-ok.
- The creation of a myth is only possible if the drama is ready
"Uncontrollably Fond" was 100% pre-produced so all four seasons make a round in the drama although it's being released in the summer.
"Uncontrollably Fond" has already been sold to Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam and some parts of the US. The drama will be released on the same date in South Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and North America.
Simhwa Networks explains, ""Uncontrollably Fond" is an all round player. The collaboration of the best actors, actresses, writers and director is going to create a power synergy".
Published on 2016/07/05 | Source
A Chinese smartphone company is being criticized by fans.
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A poster of Song Joong-ki modeling for a cell phone brand has been plastered on the ground.
The netizens demand an apology by the cell phone company and threaten that if the poster isn't removed right away, the company will face consequences.
Vivo invested a lot of money to put up posters in the exits and entrances of the subways but the tables have turned.
The company apologized on its official Instagram.
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Harlow is a former New Town in Essex with a population of 86,000. Located in the upper Stort Valley, it was built in the decades after the Second World War to ease overcrowding and London and provide homes for people bombed out during the Blitz. It includes Britain's first pedestrian precinct and first modern residential tower block, The Lawn. Old Harlow, the historic part of the town, was mentioned in the Domesday Book. David and Victoria Beckham's former home, Rowneybury House, nicknamed 'Beckingham Palace', is nearby.
10:07, 27 OCT 2022
Former State councilor Dai Bingguo delivers a speech at the China-US Dialogue on South China Sea between Chinese and US think tanks in Washington on Tuesday. (Photo source: China Daily/Niu Yue)
WASHINGTON, July 5 -- Dai Bingguo, China's former state councilor in charge of foreign affairs, on Tuesday called on related parties to cool the unreasonably hot South China Sea issue, warning of its potential dangers.
"If such momentum goes unchecked, accidents could happen and the South China Sea might sink into chaos and so might the entire Asia," Dai said in a keynote speech at a forum held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a U.S. think tank, one week before an expected arbitral ruling over the issue.
"Should that happen, countries around the South China Sea, the Asian countries and even the United States itself will suffer," Dai told a group of Chinese and U.S. experts on international law and foreign relations.
He said all countries concerned should make concrete efforts to let off the heat over the issue.
ARBITRATION RESULT NO MORE THAN "A PIECE OF PAPER"
With regard to the expected ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on July 12, Dai said it will be "nothing more than a piece of paper" and warned against any attempt to enforce the ruling in any form.
He stressed that the Philippines, which initiated the arbitration case against China, must be dissuaded from making any further provocation. "Otherwise, China will not sit idle," he said.
China has made its stance clear that it does not accept the arbitration and therefore has stayed away from the proceedings.
China has said that the arbitral tribunal has no jurisdiction over sovereignty issues which should be resolved by the two claimants themselves.
Dai noted that China's territorial claims to the South China Sea are based on abundant historical evidence and documents.
He said the United States recognized and respected China's sovereignty over the islands when China recovered them from Japanese occupation after World War II, and provided military vessels to ferry China's military and government personnel to Xisha and Nansha Islands to hold the restoration ceremony.
The islands' return to China is part of post-WWII international order and relevant territorial arrangements, Dai stressed.
COMMITMENT TO PEACEFUL RESOLUTION
The current U.S. stance of taking no position on the dispute"actually amounts to back-pedalling and defiance of the post-war international order, which the United States participated in building," he noted.
He pointed out that China, in fact, has been "completely at the receiving end of encroachments" in the South China Sea, as the Philippines, Vietnam and other countries have illegally occupied 42 islands and reefs in Nansha Islands by force.
He said that although China has the capability to recover the islands and reefs, it has all along exercised enormous restraint and sought a peaceful settlement through talks.
MORE CONSTRUCTIVE U.S. ROLE CALLED FOR
Dai said differences between China and the United States over the South China Sea issue should not be allowed to define the China-U.S. relations as these two countries have neither territorial disputes nor a fundamental clash of interests in the South China Sea.
Washington should honor its promise not to take sides over the dispute, and stop speculating that China is trying to compete with it for dominance in the region, Asia and the world as a whole, Dai added.
"We have no intention or capability to engage in 'strategic rivalry' with anyone. We have no ambition to rule Asia, still less the Earth," he said.
Dai urged Washington to scale back its "heavy-handed intervention" in the South China Sea issue through reinforcing military alliances, the forward deployment of military assets, and increasing close-in reconnaissance and the so-called "Freedom of Navigation" operations targeted at China.
Otherwise, it might fall into trouble against its own will and pay an unexpectedly heavy price, as certain countries stand to gain from great-power rivalry, he warned.
Dai said that as China and the United States have shared interests in peace and stability in Asia Pacific, they should find ways to manage their differences constructively and maintain communication on maritime issues.
WASHINGTON, July 5 -- China and the United Statesneed to manage their differences over the South China Seaissue, as they are bracing for an arbitral court's ruling, experts said Tuesday.
One week ahead of the July 12 ruling over the South China Sea case initialed by the Philippines, a group of former Chinese and American officials and experts on international law and foreign relations held a dialogue in Washington to discuss the ruling's legality, possible reactions and its implications on the China-U.S. relations.
In a keynote speech at the dialogue held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Dai Bingguo, former Chinese state councilor in charge of foreign affairs, reiterated that China will not accept the ruling because the tribunal under the Permanent Court of Arbitration has no jurisdiction over the case.
Noting the rising tensions in the South China Sea as the United States steps up its pressure on China to abide by the ruling, Dai issued a call for cooling down the issue, warning otherwise it could lead to unexpected accidents and even chaos in the region and Asia.
At the same time, Dai bluntly warned any party against trying to enforce the court ruling or force China into its implementation. Particularly, the Philippines should be dissuaded from making further provocations.
Dai also urged China and the United States to manage their differences constructively, demanding Washington scale back its "heavy-handed intervention" in the South China Sea issue.
He reaffirmed that, despite all the negative factors, China remains committed to peaceful settlement of the South China Sea disputes with concerned parties through negotiations.
COOLING DOWN TEMPERATURE OF SOUTH CHINA SEA
Most experts attending the dialogue praised Dai's speech for clarifying China's position ahead of the court ruling, while echoing Dai's call for cooling down the temperature of the South China Sea for the sake of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.
The speech "certainly reinforces a very clear position that China has taken on the issue for a while, (and) there is a continued offer for cooperation," said Rodger Baker, vice president of strategic analysis at the Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence firm.
Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a U.S. think tank, said it "is the time for diplomats and politicians to exercise cool judgment and try to find ways to keep the issue from exploding into something more dangerous."
Paal told reporters that both China and the United States can do a lot more to cool things down and related parties in the dispute can "find ways to manage the arbitration award, and to keep it from becoming a source of additional tensions and conflicts."
Stapleton Roy, former U.S. Ambassador to China and a senior fellow at the Wilson Center, told reporters that Dai gave a "very detailed and comprehensive statement of China's view on the issues in the South China Sea."
He agreed with Dai's call for cooling down the situation, noting it's important to resolve territorial issues peacefully through negotiations instead of threats or use of force.
"China and the U.S. should work collaboratively on this issue. I think that's very important point also," Roy commented on Dai's remarks.
Brendan Mulvaney, associate chair of the Languages and Cultures Department of the U.S. Naval Academy, told Xinhua that he did not expect the U.S. reaction to the court ruling to be very aggressive because it is not a claimant to the territorial dispute.
At the same time, he expected China and the United States not to take "any super aggressive steps" to worsen the situation.
U.S. HAS TO TAKE LEAD IN REDUCING TENSIONS
On how to cool down the situation, Huang Renwei, vice president of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said the United States should take the lead because it is the most powerful nation in the region.
Then the Philippines should refrain from taking any actions after the court ruling next week, otherwise it will surely trigger off counter moves, Huang told Xinhua.
At the same time, other outside parties such as Japanand Australia should avoid stepping into the troubled waters in the South China Sea, he proposed.
Huang said China will not be the sole party that will endure loss if anyone tries to forcibly enforce the court ruling, as all related parties will have to pay a price.
Zhu Feng, director of the China Center for Collaborative Studies of the South China Sea at Nanjing University, told reporters that one of the major factors behind the rising tensions in the South China Sea is overreaction from the relevant parties, especially from the United States.
Zhu said it is impossible to enforce the upcoming arbitration ruling on the South China Sea case either by the United States or the Philippines.
He added that the core issue in cooling down the tensions is to conduct a serious review of the differences between China and the United States and try to find practical ways to narrow the gap.
Baker believed that the immediate reaction to the court ruling from the United States could be talking immediately with the Philippines on the next step for Manila to take.
He proposed the related parties first change the tone of the discussion right now in order to lower the tensions.
He noted some cooperation between China and the United States despite their differences. For example, China's Navy was invited to this year's multi-national RIMPAC naval exercises, a move that could lower the tensions by creating a set of understandings at the lower level.
SIT DOWN TO MANAGE DIFFERENCES
The experts said the South China Sea issue is only part of the broader relationship, so the two sides should manage their differences through talks to prevent it from leading to strategic rivalry or confrontation.
"I think one of the most important things would be sit down and have discussions about how we're going to manage conflicts, specifically, on intended or unplanned conflicts," Mulvaney said.
He believed that the two powers will not just focus on the single issue of the South China Sea, because "it's not one of our central focus points."
Huang said one of the major mistakes made by the United States is siding with its allies no matter what they do, while criticizing China for whatever it does.
"I often tell the Americans, if you keep taking a biased position, the U.S. leadership will naturally be weakened," Huang said.
Zhu said the two countries should find a way of compromise and cooperation on the South China Sea issue from a long-term perspective, because neither side wants to turn the region into a battlefield.
"A military confrontation will benefit neither side, as it will be a disaster to the regional and global economy," he said.
Huang said despite all the differences, Beijing and Washington do have a consensus, that is, neither wants an all-out confrontation in the West Pacific. This is evident in the progress being made in improving the military-to-military cooperation and crisis management mechanisms.
"The South China Sea issue is only part of the overall China-U.S. relationship, which should never be kidnapped by the dispute," he added.
loyers should beware of writing references for former employees who are applying to the federal government, because those references can be accessed by the person they refer to.
Private sector employers can refuse to disclose the contents of a reference they receive, on the basis that it would have an unreasonable impact on the referrer's privacy. Indeed, employers asked for a reference are covered by the Privacy Act in most circumstances. However, this does not apply to the Commonwealth employer entity, the Australian Public Service (APS).
This means the referrer, if providing a reference for an APS applicant, could be making negative comments about a former employee in the knowledge that the employee can obtain a record of that referral.
While negative comments might create some embarrassment, employers shouldnt worry too much about their legal exposure arising from negative comments. The referrer will not be liable for any loss to the APS (or the employee) provided the comments are accurate and fair.
Unsuccessful job applicants to the Commonwealth can request to see what their referrers said about them and the agency must comply. Where the references were wholly or partly oral, the agency must create an accurate and complete record of the conversation.
If the applicant considers the reference to be inaccurate, they may request that the information be corrected. If the agency, on reasonable grounds, refuses to make the correction, the applicant can add a statement to the part of the reference that is inaccurate, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading.
When the job application process has ended the agency must take reasonable steps to destroy personal information that it no longer needs, which applies to references.
By Mark Abernethy
loyers have been reminded that bullying is not simply a workplace guideline, it is a common law duty of care to employees. Employers should implement bullying risk management policies and ensure they comply with state and federal workplace obligations.
A recent case of workplace bullying in Victoria, which traditionally would have been heard at Fair Work Australia, was instead heard by a Magistrate where the employer was prosecuted under state WHS legislation.
The employer, in the construction industry, was convicted and fined $12,500 for contravening WHS laws by encouraging bullying of a young apprentice.
The apprentice was the subject of systemic and deliberate abuse, including having hot drill pieces held to his skin, sandpaper scraped on his face and a rag which was drenched in methylated spirits was held over his mouth.
The apprentice was subjected to continual verbal abuse and developed anxiety and depression having suffered severe trauma.
The apprentice told the Court he "would rather be burnt, bruised, assaulted, drenched in glue, water, paint, weeks' old coffee and spat on all over again than to relive a week of the psychological torment [he] endured.
The employer was convicted and fined $12,500 for the breach, and was ordered to pay costs of $7,051.
Employers have been reminded that bullying is an issue of occupational health and safety. In Western Australian employers owe employees a statutory duty of care to provide a safe work environment under section 19 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984 (OSH Act). Section 19 has been considered to enshrine the common law duty of care owed by employers to provide a safe work environment which may include a duty or prevent systematic bullying. Under the OSH Act, corporate employers can be convicted and fined between $50,000 and $625,000, depending on the seriousness of the breach and whether there has been a prior conviction.
Employers can be prosecuted under state laws as well as under Fair Work's anti-bullying jurisdiction for encouraging or participating in bullying in the workplace. The employer has a duty to provide a safe workplace for employees.
By Mark Abernethy
Joseph Bathanti to Speak at High Country Writers Meeting July 14
Joseph Bathanti will be speaking to High Country Writers about his new novel, The Life of the World to Come, his recent book of personal essays, Half of What I Say Is Meaningless, and about Appalachian State Universitys newly formed Appalachian Veterans Arts and Humanities Collective, a working group of Appalachian employees and students dedicated to bringing hands-on arts and humanities programs and workshops to campus veterans as well as veterans and their families in the areas surrounding Watauga County and beyond. The meeting, which is open to the public, will take place at Watauga County Public Library in Boone on Thursday, July 14 at 10 am.
Joseph Bathanti is former Poet Laureate of North Carolina (2012-14). He is the author of eight books of poetry, winner of the 2010 Roanoke Chowan Prize, awarded annually by the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association for best book of poetry in a given year; Sonnets of the Cross; and Concertina, winner of the 2014 Roanoke Chowan Prize. His novel, East Liberty, won the 2001 Carolina Novel Award. His novel, Coventry, won the 2006 Novello Literary Award. His book of stories, The High Heart, won the 2006 Spokane Prize. They Changed the State: The Legacy of North Carolinas Visiting Artists, 1971-1995, his book of nonfiction, was published in early 2007. His new book of personal essays, Half of What I Say Is Meaningless, winner of the Will D. Campbell Award for Creative Nonfiction, is from Mercer University Press. A new novel, The Life of the World to Come, was released from University of South Carolina Press in late 2014. His new volume of poems, The 13th Sunday after Pentecost, will be released by LSU Press in 2016. Bathanti is Professor of Creative Writing at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. http://nchumanities.org/joseph-bathanti
High Country Writers has been energizing writers since 1995! Regular meetings are at the Watauga County Public Library on the second and fourth Thursdays of most months from ten until noon and speakers presentations are co-sponsored with the Library. HCW members present writing skills workshops the first Thursday of the month, and have recently partnered with the Watauga County Arts Council in hosting these workshops. For more information and a current calendar, visit the website: http://highcountrywriters.tripod.com/. Guests are welcome.
Authors Cline and Troutman to Speak July 13 at Caldwell Heritage Museum
The Caldwell Heritage Museums monthly Coffee with the Curator will be at the Museum on Wednesday, July 13th at 10:00 am . This months program will be a discussion and book signing regarding the newly released title, Pitch Perfect in the 50s with authors Jeanie M. Cline and Chuck Troutman. The book is a collection of memories about the Lenoir Junior High School Band and Chorus, as well as the Lenoir High School Band and Glee Club. The Museum building, itself, was once used as the Lenoir Junior High School.
Coffee and pastries will be provided. Admission to the Museum and the program is free, however a $5.00 donation is suggested for the maintenance and support of the Museum.
High School Students Explore Local Opportunities Through New Summer Camp
A group of Caldwell County High School students recently participated in a week-long Project TEAM Summer Camp experience through Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute, exploring local career opportunities and training options. The summer camp, the first of its kind in Caldwell County, was created as part of Project TEAM, a partnership initiative with CCC&TI, the Caldwell County School System, the Caldwell County Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Commission, Communities in Schools, local employers and the local NCWorks Center. Funding for the initiative, which provides a structured pathway for individuals to be trained to fill high-demand jobs in the areas of Technology, Engineering, and Advanced Manufacturing (TEAM), is provided by a grant from the Golden Leaf Foundation awarded to CCC&TI in 2015. Students who participated in the program visited several local manufacturing facilities to learn about local job opportunities and also spent time on the CCC&TI campus in Hudson to learn more about training opportunities. Students toured MDI, Bemis Manufacturing, Bernhardt Furniture, Fairfield Chair, Stallergenes Greer Labs and Exela Pharma Sciences. At CCC&TI, students toured the Industrial Maintenance Lab, Truck Driver Training facility, Electronics and Engineering Lab, Electrical Lineman pole yard and other areas on campus. Students also got the opportunity to meet and interact with CCC&TI Technology, Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing instructors who led hands-on activities for the students. Students also heard from Brad Hefner and Jeff Paine from Googles Lenoir Data Center, who talked to students about the skill sets that Google looks for in potential employees. Hefner and Paine also worked with students on a variety of computer science labs using Raspberry Pi, a credit-card sized computer that plugs into a computer monitor or television and uses a standard keyboard and mouse. The device can be used for computing, programming in various languages, and most other tasks that a regular desktop computer can handle. Each student was able to take one of the Raspberry Pi devices home to continue experimenting and sharpening their computer skills. CCC&TI administrators hope that the initiative will help students find viable career options while also helping meet the demand for a skilled labor force. This summer camp experience is a great way for students to learn more or really, discover for the first time, just some of the career options that exist right here in Caldwell County, said Donna Bean, CCC&TI Continuing Education Department Chair. At the same time, were showing them local, affordable training programs through CCC&TI that can help them land these high-paying, rewarding jobs. Helping students train for jobs and providing a skilled workforce for local employers is a win-win for everybody. And when we can demonstrate the strides were making toward both goals, we can attract more businesses to the area. Carlos Hernandez Named Administrator at Avery-Mitchell Correctional SPRUCE PINE The Division of Adult Correction and Juvenile Justice has named Carlos Hernandez as the new superintendent at Avery-Mitchell Correctional Institution in Spruce Pine. He assumed his new duties this week.
Hernandez is 24-year corrections veteran who has served as the assistant superintendent for custody and operations at Mountain View Correctional Institution since 2014. He began his career in 1992 as a correctional officer at the former Western Youth Institution in Morganton and has served in staff and supervisory positions at Marion and Alexander correctional institutions.
The native of Cuba has an associates degree in business administration from American Inter-Continental University, is a graduate of the Department of Public Safetys Correctional Leadership Development Program and is a certified state mediator. Hernandez is a leader of the DPS Mountain Region Drug Interdiction Team and has been a member since the team was established. He has also been a member of the Prisons Emergency Response Team for six years.
Avery-Mitchell Correctional Institution houses approximately 850 adult male inmates in medium custody. It employs a staff of about 315 employees.
Hernandez succeeds Mike Ball, who retired.
Mid July Western Square Dancing at Linville Land Harbor
Western Square Dancing www.mountainmixers.com Linville Land Harbor Recreation Center 20 Linville Harbor Pkwy, Newland, NC 28657 Plus Dancing with announced advanced by National Callers on Sundays. Schedule: 1:30-2:00PM advanced 2:00-4:00PM plus. Dress is square dance attire or dressy casual. July 10th Ron Libby, Land Harbor, NC; and July 17th Jimmy Roberson, Oxford, NC Linville Land Harbor Advanced Dancing from June 1st until late September. Dress is casual. Every Monday starting June 6th 7-9PM Jerry Biggerstaff, Marion, NC Every Weds starting June 1st 7-9PM Ron Libby, Land Harbor
Genealogy Gathering at the Library Saturday
Saturday, July 9 2 pm
Genealogy Gathering
This Saturday at 2 pm, join the Watauga Library Genealogy gathering for a special presentation by Jill Privott of the Daniel Boone Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Jill will be speaking on The Great Wagon Road, and other related patterns of family migration. Free and open to the public. The Watauga County Public Library is located in Downtown Boone at 140 Queen Street. Gospel Bluegrass with Blessed Assurance at the Library Saturday Saturday, July 9 11 am This Saturday at 11 am, visit the Meeting Room at Watauga County Public Library for a special concert featuring bluegrass and gospel music by the group Blessed Assurance, out of Charlotte, N.C.! Free and open to the public. The Watauga County Public Library is located in Downtown Boone at 140 Queen Street.
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The following information is provided by local law enforcement agencies.
All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Compiled by Jessica Isaacs
The following were provided by the Watauga County Sheriffs Office.
June 23
ARREST: A female suspect, 20, of 446 Seven Devils Road in Banner Elk, was charged with failure to pay monies and FTA consume alcoholic beverage less than 21. Secured bond: $235. Trial date: July 28.
June 25
ARREST: A male suspect, 21, of 118 Colvard Street in West Jefferson, was charged with noise ordinance violation, resist public officer and communicating threats. Secured bond: $10,000. Trial date: Aug. 1.
June 26
ARREST: A male suspect, 66, of 378 River Bend Road in Sugar Grove, was charged with assault and communicating threats. Trial date: Aug. 3.
June 27
INCIDENT: PWIMSD schedule I controlled substance and possession of marijuana were reported on Rivers Street in Boone.
INCIDENT: PWIMSD schedule I controlled substance, PWIMSD schedule VI controlled substance and maintain dwelling house were reported at 277-B Rabbit Run Road in Boone.
ARREST: A male suspect, 20, of 277 Rabbit Run Road in Boone, was charged with OFA probation violation, PWISD schedule I controlled substance and possession of a schedule VI controlled substance. Secured bond: $11,000. Trial date: Aug. 1.
June 28
ARREST: A female suspect, 23, of 1212 Rainbow Road in Mountain City, was charged with order for arrest. Secured bond: $7,000. Trial date: June 30.
ARREST: A female suspect, 40, of 210 Howards Creek Road Apt. 2 in Boone, was charged with probation violation, FTA DWI, FTA exceeding safe speed and FTA DWLR. Secured bond: $7,000. Trial date: Aug. 1.
June 29
INCIDENT: Larceny was reported at the new AppalCart Facility, 305 N.C. Highway 105 Bypass B in Boone.
INCIDENT: Breaking and entering was reported at 465 Monroe Herman Road in Banner Elk.
INCIDENT: Fraud obtaining money/property by false pretense was reported at 800 Milton Gragg Road in Boone.
INCIDENT: Burglary forcible entry was reported at 353 Coffey Knob Road in Boone.
INCIDENT: Fraud obtaining money/property by false pretense was reported at 2931 Broadstone Road Unit 1 in Valle Crucis.
June 30
INCIDENT: Fraud obtaining money/property by false pretense was reported at 434 Forestridge Drive in Boone.
INCIDENT: Vandalism was reported at 179 Parkway Village Drive in Boone.
July 1
INCIDENT: Damage to property was reported at 6252 Old U.S. Highway 421 in Zionville.
ARREST: A male suspect, 31, of 426 Walnut Drive in Asheboro, was charged with DWI.
ARREST: A male suspect, 20, of 161 Kimberly Drive Unit 6 in Boone, was charged with FTA. Secured bond: $1,100. Trial date: July 13.
ARREST: A male suspect, 27, of Mountain City, was charged with FTA. Secured bond: $6,000. Trial date: Aug. 11.
ARREST: A female suspect, 23, of 373 B Margo Road in Boone, was charged with felony PWIMSD methamphetamine. Secured bond: $10,000. Trial date: Aug. 3.
ARREST: A male suspect, 32, of 338 Brook Hollow Road in Boone, was charged with FTA. Secured bond: $1,000. Trial date: Aug. 12.
ARREST: A male suspect, 41, of 179 Dovick Drive in Banner Elk, was charged with assault on a female and communicating threats. Trial date: Aug. 1.
July 3
INCIDENT: Simple physical assault was reported at 3451 U.S. Highway 321 S Unit 2 in Blowing Rock.
INCIDENT: Vandalism was reported at 1150 Winklers Creek Road in Boone.
INCIDENT: Vandalism was reported at 1045 Laurel Fork Road in Vilas.
July 4
INCIDENT: Simple physical assault was reported at 124 McNabb Lane in Boone.
INCIDENT: Assault on a female was reported at 199 Marion Cornett Road Unit 2 in Boone.
INCIDENT: Simple physical assault on a female was reported at 204 Oak Grove Road in Boone.
ARREST: A male suspect, 33, of 1150 Catalpa Road in Greeneville, was charged with assault on a female, disorderly conduct and intoxicated and disruptive. Trial date: Aug. 1.
MANILA, July 6 -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is taking a "soft-landing" approach in exploring ways to renew friendly ties with China, which have been strained in the past years over the disputes in the South China Sea, analysts said on Wednesday.
This is a departure from his predecessor Benigno Aquino III, under whom the Philippines unilaterally initiated an arbitration case against China in 2013 over the dispute at the Permannent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
At his first cabinet meeting after he was sworn in on June 30, Duterte, who had said he was open to talking with China about the territorial dispute, stated, "If we can have peace by just talking I'll be really happy."
Richard Heydarian, an associate professor at De la Salle University, said Duterte "is taking a significant different approach, constantly emphasizing necessity for direct engagement and revival of bilateral ties."
"He is signaling that neither the maritime disputes nor the arbitration case should negatively define the texture of overall bilateral relations," Heydarian said.
He said that Duterte was aiming at "a soft-landing" especially after the arbitration verdict is handed down on July 12, "which may mean not aggressively criticizing China."
In exchange, Heyadarian said Duterte will most likely seek for concessions in the South China Sea.
"A lot of horse trading is on the horizon," he said.
NOT EVEN "WAR OF WORDS"
Even before he assumed the presidency, Duterte has made it clear that "I am not ready to go to war," referring to the worst scenario of fighting between China and the Philippines over the disputes in the South China Sea.
Benito Lim, a political science professor, said Duterte wanted to engage China, making his position clear to China that he wanted direct talks and that he did not want to engage China in war, not even "war of words."
"It means that he wants to explore other avenues aside from letting the situation fester in the standoff," Lim said in an interview, adding that Duterte "is trying to look for ways and means by which this long-time standoff can be removed and then agree on things that are mutually beneficial."
Lim said this is a logical step on the part of the Duterte administration, adding that both countries can move on by forging "cooperative and beneficial agreements."
"He is sending a message to China that both countries can agree on mutually beneficial agreements instead of a standoff," Lim said.
"Exploring other avenues by which there can be agreements that are equally beneficial to both is better than saying bad things about each other," he said.
Moreover, he said that Duterte was "addressing" Philippine national interests by making this reconciliatory move with Beijing.
Duterte has said that the Philippines will charter a course of its own, shifting away from Aquino government's overarching dependence on U.S. military support.
"We will chartering a course of our own," Duterte has said.
"It will not be dependent on America, and it will be a line not intended to please anybody but the Filipino interests," said Lim.
Asked what the implication of Duterte's "softening move" will be on the country's relations with the United States, Lim said, "Philippine interests will not be formulated whether the international community would look at it with approval or not. It would be in the interests of the Philippines."
Lim said Duterte's statement that he would wait for the ruling and study its implications meant that even if it were in our favor "he will still examine the consequences of what that decision means."
TO HAVE STRONG TRADE, INVESTMENT RELATIONS
Rommel Banlaoi, director of the Center for Intelligence and National Security Studies, said Duterte wanted to open direct talks with China on many facets of diplomatic relations like economic and trade, and not just about political issues like the South China Sea.
Banlaoi said Duterte was not just exploring ways "to revive the stagnant relations between Beijing and Manila but he also wants a better economic ties with China."
"Duterte does not want the bilateral relationship with China to revolve around the dispute on the South China Sea, meaning that his administration is willing to talk about other, more equally important aspect of the relations," Banlaoi said.
In an editorial on Monday, the Philippine Daily Inquirer said that despite its territorial dispute with China, it is possible for the Philippines to have strong trade and investment relations with China, adding one major avenue for this is the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
"The AIIB has been described as modern and multilateral, or China's 21st-century answer to lenders like the World Bank and the ADB (Asian Development Bank). And the Philippines will be better off borrowing through a more transparent window now," the editorial said.
Banlaoi said Duterte was fostering an independent foreign policy, "a policy that is not pro this and against that" despite what he described as "tremendous pressure" from strategic partners like the United States and its allies in the region.
"It's a difficult and delicate balancing act," Balaoi said, adding that Duterte was determined to have good relations with everybody.
On the forthcoming arbitral ruling, Banlaoi said the administration has already said that it will carefully study the ruling before taking the next step.
"My reading is that the administration will make sure that its next step will support its position to bring back good ties with China," he said.
BEIJING, July 6 -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic exchanged messages on Wednesday, congratulating the 10th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Montenegro.
In his message to Djukanovic, Li said that since the establishment of diplomatic ties 10 years ago, China-Montenegro relations have enjoyed a lasting and steady development, with bilateral cooperation growing vigorously in various fields and scoring significant achievements.
China is willing to join hands with Montenegro to take full advantage of platforms such as the cooperation mechanism between China and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries to further China-Montenegro ties and cooperation in various fields, he said.
Djukanovic said in his message that the foundation of the Montenegro-China relationship is solid, with satisfactory results achieved in bilateral cooperation in various fields, and the China-CEE cooperation mechanism has injected a new vitality into bilateral ties.
Djukanovic said that Montenegro highly appreciates China's contribution to Montenegro's development and construction, adding that the Montenegrin government and he himself will make unremitting efforts to continuously advance the relations between the two countries.
(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged two California men and their investment firm with operating a Ponzi scheme as they purported to specialize in serving middle-class investors and securing exorbitant returns by investing in hot pre-IPO stocks. The agency also obtained a court-ordered asset freeze against them.
The SEC alleges that instead of using the firms purported proprietary trading models and investing in pre-IPO shares of well-known tech companies like Uber, Alibaba, and Airbnb as promised to investors, Jaswant Jason Gill and Javier Rios personally pocketed at least $2.8 million in investor funds, using some of that money to pay for excursions to high-end restaurants and luxury retail stores as well as jaunts to Las Vegas casinos, gentlemens clubs, and professional sporting events. They never actually invested in any pre-IPO shares, and have been using money from new investors to pay supposed returns to earlier investors. They have raised approximately $10 million through their firm, JSG Capital Investments, and related entities, by catering to average retail investors and promising them exclusive investment opportunities previously only available to the one-percenters, with guaranteed annual returns of up to 60 percent.
According to the SECs complaint filed in federal court in San Francisco, Gill in particular has brandished phony credentials, telling investors he founded his firm after serving as a managing director at Morgan Stanley. He also boasted partnerships with several Silicon Valley venture capital firms. Gill, Rios, and JSG Capital Investments are not registered with the SEC or any state regulator. Rioss background is in food service.
Investors can quickly and easily check the credentials of people selling investments and determine whether they are registered by using the SECs investor.gov website.
We allege that Gill and Rios enticed middle-class investors by promising access to highly coveted investment opportunities they claimed were typically reserved for the rich, said Jina L. Choi, Director of the SECs San Francisco Regional Office. Exclusivity, exorbitant returns, and exaggerated credentials are all classic hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme, and investors can protect themselves by heeding these red flags and checking whether the person pitching the investments is properly registered to sell them.
In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of California today announced criminal charges against Gill and Rios.
The SECs complaint seeks permanent injunctions plus disgorgement and monetary penalties from Gill, Rios, JSG Capital Investments and related entities. The SEC has obtained a court order to freeze the assets of Gill, Rios, and the JSG entities and preliminarily enjoin them from violating the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws and raising money from investors.
We can't let this message be buried under the noise made by populists, states Henna Virkkunen (NCP), a Member of the European Parliament.
The European Union is perhaps surprisingly popular among its citizens, suggest the results of the latest Eurobarometer . The public opinion survey found that 74 per cent of Europeans and as many as 85 per cent of Finns consider factors that bring them together more important than those that separate them.
The recent survey shows that citizens want more from the EU. This should also encourage national decision-makers to determinedly defend and develop the European Union, she says.
Although the public debate places an emphasis on the need to make decisions at the national level, citizens hope that the EU takes a bigger role in several areas. This is an important message amid the heated debate surrounding Brexit, adds Virkkunen.
The Eurobarometer also found that the majority of Finns are prepared to maintain or increase common action on all of the policy areas included in the survey, despite generally being slightly more reluctant to do so than their fellow EU citizens. The EU should according to the respondents step up its efforts especially to combat terrorism, reduce unemployment and fight tax fraud.
Virkkunen interprets the results as an indication that the EU has identified the correct policy areas but should either step up or increase the efficiency of its efforts.
It's time to admit that the EU isn't a faceless machine powered by its own motor, but that the efforts of the EU are reliant on every member state's commitment to co-operation. The immigrant crisis is an example of this. Even though decisions were made quickly at the EU level, member states have dragged their feet on implementation, she points out.
Aleksi Teivainen HT
Photo: Petteri Paalasmaa Uusi Suomi
Source: Uusi Suomi
The mechanism, she estimates, would effectively strip the European Union of certain judicial powers.
Heidi Hautala (Greens), a Member of the European Parliament, has expressed her concerns about the dispute settlement mechanism proposed as part of the EUCanada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).
The case has some similarities to the EU Court of Justice's decision to stop the European Union from acceding to the European Convention on Human Rights on grounds that [by doing so] it would move final judicial interpretation authority outside the union to the European Court of Human Rights, she explains.
This should definitely be clarified before proceeding with the ratification, Hautala says in an interview with Uusi Suomi.
The European Commission announced yesterday that is has formally recommended that the Council of the European Union ratify CETA as a bilateral agreement.
Hautala reminds that Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, has previously estimated that CETA should be regarded as a mixed agreement, which also requires the approval of member states.
Didn't [he] announce yesterday that he has approached it as a mixed agreement that should also be ratified by the member states? [Cecilia] Malmstrom, [the European Commissioner for Home Affairs], said unequivocally that this is the political aspect of the issue. I've never seen a case with differing judicial and political interpretations, says Hautala.
Malmstrom has always insisted that it's not a mixed agreement. The outcome is quite a mongrel.
Hautala reveals that she is under the impression that the agreement is scheduled for ratification in a meeting of trade ministers on 28 October. The European Commission, she adds, has announced that the agreement will enter into force on a temporary basis once it has been ratified by the European Parliament.
This is rather dubious, she says.
She reveals that she has looked into the issue together with her assistant.
The commitments that the temporary application would entail can be as long as a few dozen years. My group at least firmly opposes applying the agreement on a temporary basis before the ratification process has been completed, she says.
Hautala is a member of the Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament.
We're concerned that the dispute settlement mechanism proposed as part of CETA is identical to the one pursued by [the European Commission] for the TTIP [Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership]. It's our strong suspicion that the settlement mechanism is not in full compliance with EU law as it would outsource judicial powers to third parties.
The agreement should be presented to a court of justice for consideration, according to Hautala. That way we wouldn't be ratifying something that we might later have to acknowledge isn't in compliance with EU law, she says.
She also estimates that the discussion surrounding yesterday's announcement indicates that the issue has also divided the European Commission.
The dispute settlement mechanism proposed as part of CETA, an economic and trade agreement negotiated between Canada and the EU since 2009, has come under criticism from several Members of the European Parliament because it is based on arbitration courts. Finns have voiced similar concerns about TTIP, a trade and investment agreement negotiated between the EU and the United States.
Aleksi Teivainen HT
Photo: Petteri Paalasmaa Uusi Suomi
Source: Uusi Suomi
Nato will as a guarantee deploy a reinforced battalion to all Baltic countries and Poland in the first half of next year. It will be a rotation-based but regular presence, she writes in a blog published by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs .
Karoliina Honkanen, a defence policy adviser at the Mission of Finland to Nato, expects Nato to declare categorically at its summit in Warsaw on 89 July that an attack against one of its member states will be considered an attack against all member states and will provoke a response from the defence alliance.
Russia's actions in Crimea, Eastern Ukraine and Syria, as well as its increasing and unpredictable actions in the Baltic Sea Region, will according to her serve as the backdrop for the Warsaw Nato Summit.
The deterrence was not really a topic of discussion after the end of the Cold War, but it is back on Nato's agenda following a shift in the security environment. Nato will not revert to the threat scenarios of the Cold War, but its deterrence should cover [] threats from all directions, writes Honkanen.
In addition to presence, reinforcements will be necessary. The establishment of presence will signal the fulfilment of the Baltics' most important objectives for the road to membership. Tailor-made support will also be provided to Bulgaria and Romania.
Nato will continue to change also after the summit and that change will also have its consequences for Finland, points out Honkanen.
Nato's growing presence in the Baltic Sea Region is a stabilising factor from the viewpoint of Finland. Nato's change will also have an effect on our practical co-operation: it will make possible forms of co-operation that encourage the development of our own defence capabilities further.
Aleksi Teivainen HT
Photo: Roni Rekomaa Lehtikuva
Source: Uusi Suomi
Huntington, WV (25701)
Today
Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. High near 60F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph..
Tonight
Clear to partly cloudy. Low around 40F. Winds light and variable.
A drunken nightclubber climbed a wall at Dublin's Clarence Hotel, then pulled at a door as he tried to force his way in, a court heard.
Cillian Hawkes (23) had too much to drink when he went out for a cigarette but was refused re-entry to the club and became "agitated".
Judge Michael Walsh adjourned the case for the production of a probation report.
The accused, with an address at Haven House Hostel, Morning Star Avenue in the north inner city, pleaded guilty to public intoxication and failing to obey garda directions in the incident.
The hotel is owned by Bono and the Edge of U2.
Dublin District Court heard the incident happened at East Essex Street at 1.50am on March 31 last.
Gardai received a report that a man was causing a disturbance. When they arrived at the scene, they saw the accused jumping on the wall of the Clarence Hotel.
"It must have been a low wall," the judge said.
Climbing
A garda witness replied that he believed the accused was climbing the wall at the time.
Hawkes was told to desist from his behaviour and to leave the area and he initially did so, but shortly afterwards gardai saw him back at the scene again.
Hawkes was pulling at the door of the hotel and trying to force his way in, the court was told. Gardai again intervened.
The accused was "quite intoxicated" at the time and was arrested. He was co-operative when taken to a garda station and charged with the offences.
Hawkes had no previous convictions.
The accused accepted he had drunk to excess, his lawyer said. He went outside for a cigarette and could not get back in. He got "quite agitated" at this.
The court heard Hawkes is now attending a community employment scheme. His lawyer asked Judge Walsh to be as lenient as he could in the circumstances, and given the defendant's previous good record.
The judge decided to refer the accused to the Probation Service and adjourned the case to a date in September.
A toilet-shaped building located on the campus of North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power in Zhengzhou, Henan province has recently become an online sensation. The building is composed of two parts. The back part resembles a water tank, while the front part looks like a toilet. The eave of the building looks similar to a toilet lid. The building will serve as a career support center for graduates in Henan province. (Photo/Xinhua)
An apprentice jockey has been given a four-year jail sentence for an attack on a young woman while he was on bail for a similar offence.
The sentencing judge described the assault as a "worst nightmare scenario" for the 18-year-old UCC student, who had become separated from her friends on a night out.
Maurice Fitzgerald (23) of Abbeyview, Buttevant, Co Cork, had followed the student, bringing with him scissors and duct tape, after she had left his house in the middle of the night following a sexual assault.
Judge Thomas E O'Donnell said admissions made by Fitzgerald to gardai that he had fought his urges to hurt the woman after she had rejected his sexual advances were "startling" and contained "sinister undertones".
Fitzgerald told gardai when interviewed that he was "into bondage" and was "sick in the head". An examination of his mobile phone revealed he had googled 'girl', 'tape' and 'gagged' the day before the offences.
At a previous sitting of Tralee Circuit Criminal Court, Fitzgerald had pleaded guilty to five offences including sexual assault, false imprisonment, assault causing harm, and possession of a weapon - scissors and duct tape - on the Dingle Road, Tralee on September 20, 2015.
A four-year suspended sentence for a similar offence was activated on his arrest.
Fitzgerald approached his victim outside a Tralee nightclub at around 2am. The judge said she "genuinely believed" he was concerned for her safety. He invited her back to his house telling her there was a party and she could sleep in his spare room.
The woman went to bed fully clothed but Fitzgerald got into the bed beside her and made sexual advances towards her.
She got up to leave but he apologised and assured her it wouldn't happen again.
When she returned to the bed he became more forceful and pulled down her leggings and underwear, the court heard.
The woman left the house on foot at around 4am but Fitzgerald caught up with her, knocked her to the ground and tried to push her into a ditch. Two men returning from night work in Dingle came upon the scene and called the gardai.
Fitzgerald will be placed on the sex offenders' register for life.
A close associate of shooting victim Christopher Maguire spent almost a week in garda custody being questioned about the feud murder of Gareth Hutch.
The notorious gangland criminal is also suspected of firebombing a car belonging to one of his enemies just days after being released.
The 30-year-old Ballymun thug - who is a senior member of the so-called 'New INLA' - is now believed to be hiding out in Portugal.
Shooting
Gardai called to his home within an hour of yesterday's shooting of Christopher Maguire, but he was not at home.
Another close criminal associate of the Ballymun man - who is from the capital's north inner city - is also wanted for questioning about the Gareth Hutch murder, but he is now believed to be in Wales after spending time hiding out in Scotland.
Last month, it emerged that his family feared that he had been murdered because he had not been in contact with them for weeks, but it has been confirmed that he is alive and well.
His close mate, the 30-year-old thug from Ballymun, skipped Ireland on a ferry shortly after his suspected involvement in the firebomb attack.
He left the country in the company of a 21-year-old convicted heroin dealer from Ballymun who is described as being "extremely loyal" to him.
Searched
It is understood that both men were stopped and searched by customs officers at Holyhead after a tip-off from gardai but neither gangster was arrested and they made their way to Manchester.
The 21-year-old dealer is now back in Ireland but his older associate subsequently flew from England to Portugal.
Last month, the Herald revealed that the Portugal-based gangster's home was searched by detectives investigating the separate murder of Vincent Ryan (25) in February.
Patricia Kelly, wife of former Console boss Paul Kelly, arriving at the Four Courts for the High Court action
Consoles founder Paul Kelly did not appear in court
Untangling the complicated finances of Console will prove "doubly difficult" following the hospitalisation of the suicide charity's founder, the High Court has been told.
Solicitor James MacGuill, who only came on record for Paul Kelly and his wife Patricia minutes before a High Court hearing yesterday, said Mr Kelly was being treated as an inpatient at a psychiatric facility.
The disclosure comes after weeks of controversy surrounding Mr Kelly's stewardship of the charity.
Mr MacGuill's clients have until Monday afternoon to comply with a number of orders for the disclosure of information to interim Console CEO David Hall.
This includes details of asset transfers dating back to January 2012, as well as details of bank accounts and companies, trusts and foundations they may have been involved in.
Log-in details for a Paypal account operated by the charity must also be handed over.
Mr MacGuill had sought two weeks to compile the information.
However, this was strenuously objected to by counsel for Console, Martin Hayden SC, who said Mr and Mrs Kelly had "shown themselves to be untrustworthy" and there had been "no transparency" around what had been done with funds donated to the charity.
"The longer this goes on, the more difficult it will be to get to the bottom of things," said Mr Hayden.
Mr MacGuill told Mr Justice Paul Gilligan he was afraid that he may not be able to provide full information if the timeframe was tight.
Referring to Mr Kelly's hospitalisation, he said: "This would be difficult in the normal course of events. But it is now doubly difficult due to the medical situation."
However, Mr Justice Gilligan observed that even though Mr Kelly was hospitalised, his wife Patricia was available to assist.
Although Mr Kelly was a notable absentee from court, his wife was present, sitting in the public gallery throughout. She made no comment as she left afterwards.
Confidence
At the hearing, Mr Justice Gilligan extended injunctions obtained last week against Mr and Mrs Kelly, freezing their access to the charity accounts.
The judge also made an order freezing their assets after being told that Mr Hall had lost any remaining confidence after a search of a lock-up revealed numerous documents, cheque books and keys.
Mr Hall had previously been told that all relevant material had been handed over to him last Saturday.
Mr Justice Gilligan also ordered that the couple's son, Tim Kelly, be joined as a defendant in the action and placed an interim freezing order over his assets.
Tim Kelly was described in court as "the link" between Console and a similarly-named UK charity.
Another defendant, Mr Kelly's sister Joan McKenna, who denies she had any involvement in running the Console company, did not oppose the continuation of injunctions against her.
Counsel for Console said Patricia Kelly had given an assurance, relayed to Mr Hall last Saturday, that all of the charity's accounts and documents had been surrendered.
Mr Hayden said CCTV footage shown to Mr Hall at a storage unit in Naas, following a tip-off, clearly showed Mr and Mrs Kelly attending the premises last week.
When Mr Hall gained access to the unit with aid of gardai, he discovered 300 hanging folders for filing cabinets, 30 desk folders, 50 ring binders, a Dell laptop, 25 cheque books, a petty cash box, 40 keys, a briefcase and numerous CDs, DVDs and photographs.
The court was told that as so much material was found, a van rather than a car was required to transport it from the lock-up.
Mr Hall has not yet had time to inspect all of the material due to the sheer volume of what was recovered, but it was clear it related to Console.
"It became instantly evident that the documents and articles in the container were the property of Console," he said in an affidavit. The documents are currently secured by information technology forensic experts, Mr Hall said.
Mr Hall accused Mr and Mrs Kelly of being involved in a tactical and considered web of deceit. He said that since taking over as interim boss of the charity, he had found further detail of a prolonged abuse of public trust and public money.
Property
He said staff had informed him the charity had an interest in an eight-bedroom property in Oughterard, Co Galway, yet no documents in relation to this had been made available.
Mr Hall said he was making further inquiries into properties linked to the charity in Dublin, Cork and Tralee.
"I have reason to believe there are numerous properties around the country," he said.
Meanwhile, the court was told that Mr Kelly's sister Joan McKenna, was denying any involvement in the charity.
Her name was listed in accounts as being a director of the charity. But the court heard the only thing that connected her to the governance of Console were the Companies Registration Office records.
Mr Hayden said he understood it was being suggested Ms McKenna's signature had been forged. The case against her was adjourned for two weeks.
The HSE has given 321,498 to Console so far this year - but there is just 53,000 left in the charity's bank account.
The HSE confirmed yesterday that it provides onthly payments to the charity and contributed 622,204 in 2015.
Another Stg100,000 is in a bank account in the UK, having been transferred to the Console office in London.
An audit of the finances of the London office - set up in 2013 as a service to Irish emigrants - has been delayed.
Interim chief executive David Hall told the Herald that he hopes to meet with Health Minister Simon Harris and Minister of State for Mental Health and Older People Helen McEntee with a view to drawing up a plan to secure the future of the charity.
Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy said that she received an email from Ms McEntee to clarify that Console had in fact received 321,498 in HSE funding in 2016.
Wages
The full-time Console staff were paid their wages last Friday and counsellors are due to be paid today.
Three staff tendered their resignations when the revelations of Paul Kelly's financial misconduct first emerged but they have since decided to stay with the organisation which provides an essential counselling service.
Mr Hall said the "elephant in the room" is the legacy payments which are due and have yet to be calculated. The charity has a large list of suppliers to be paid.
Fundraising efforts are also going to be stepped up to counter the expected fall-off in the wake of a loss of public trust.
Meanwhile, a forensic accountant has uncovered further evidence of the extravagant spending by Mr Kelly and members of his family.
Weekly household shopping bills, Netflix subscriptions, flights, Airbnb costs, trips to the dentist and the Local Property Tax were among bills totalling 203k paid using four company credit cards last year.
The spending was outlined in documents submitted to the High Court by Mr Hall.
In papers filed with the court, Mr Hall said the case involved "a tactical and considered web of deceit".
Meanwhile, Health Minister Simon Harris has been asked to consider the introduction of an "amnesty" for charities and organisations that have irregularities regarding their accounts. The request was made in a letter sent to the minister by Cork South West TD Jim Daly.
"I am writing to you to ask you to consider and discuss the introduction of an amnesty of some sort regarding the devolved funding from your department to the Health Service Executive.
"Such an amnesty should, I believe, offer all organisations the opportunity to present accounts outlining the actual position, past and present, for an appropriate number of years."
Three children out walking with their mother came across the blood-soaked and badly wounded victim of the capital's latest gun attack.
Father-of-two Christopher Maguire (38) was clinging to life in Beaumont Hospital last night after being shot five times in the gun attack at the Dun Emer estate in Lusk, north Co Dublin, at 9.50am yesterday.
Sources have revealed that the woman and her young children - including a baby - came across an "appalling scene" when they saw Maguire, covered in blood, lying on a footpath close to his car.
Maguire was hit with bullets in the face, chest, neck, arm and stomach but was able to call '999' himself. He was still conscious when emergency services arrived at the scene.
Gardai removed the blood-stained clothes that Maguire had been wearing when he was targeted by the gunman, who was armed with a handgun with a silencer.
The weapon and silencer were later recovered in a burnt-out getaway car in a field in the Minister's Road area of Lusk.
Bitter
Gardai are investigating if the attempted murder is linked to the bitter Kinahan/Hutch feud which has already claimed seven lives, or whether the shooting may be part of a row in the so-called 'New INLA' faction over extortion cash.
Some of Maguire's closest associates are suspected of being 'guns for hire' for the Kinahan side in the feud and are suspected of active involvement in the murder of Gareth Hutch in May.
Gardai are investigating if this may have made Maguire a target for the Hutch gang but the badly injured man is not suspected of being involved in the feud himself.
Maguire has no previous convictions and sources have revealed that gardai were unaware of any threat against him.
Just over an hour after yesterday's shooting, armed members of the garda Emergency Response Unit (ERU) monitored a meeting involving a number of players in the Hutch gang, which took place in the Portland Row area of the north inner city.
Maguire is a close associate of notorious dissident Republican criminal Declan 'Whacker' Duffy. Originally from Ballymun, he is facing charges before the non-jury Special Criminal Court where he, 'Whacker' Duffy and another man are charged with three counts of false imprisonment at The Towers, Garters Lane in Saggart on June 9, 2015.
During a bail hearing last December in relation to this alleged incident, a senior garda said officers responded to a 999 call at 12.10pm on June 9 last year where they met a man who appeared to have been "viciously assaulted".
He was rushed to Tallaght Hospital suffering a fractured skull and eye socket and a broken arm. The senior garda said another man, whose ear was cut, then approached gardai.
He claimed to gardai he had been taken "against his will" from Rathcoole by seven men and driven to his apartment in Saggart. The businessman then alleged that he, his wife and their son were falsely imprisoned in their home for 40 minutes. He said Maguire was clearly identified on CCTV cameras.
The garda claimed the couple are "afraid" and living at an unknown location.
The court heard that Maguire was still at the scene when gardai arrived, that he remained there for some time afterwards and that he gave his details to gardai when they asked for them.
Violent
In objecting to bail, the garda said his fear was that Maguire "could be instructed to interfere with witnesses", as ringleaders were still at large.
In cross examination at the time, Seamus Clarke BL claimed that Maguire had "a lesser part" in the incident than his co-accused.
The garda said this was "a bit too far", and he had taken "an active part in the false imprisonment" but had not been charged with violent disorder.
Maguire was granted bail by Judge Victor Blake, under strict bail conditions.
He was ordered not to associate with his co-accused, directed to stay away from the alleged victim and surrender his passport.
The new Beijing International Airport is now under construction. According to a report in Jinghua Times, travelers will soon enjoy more convenient channels for arriving at and departing the new airport.
Domestic arrivals and departures, as well as international arrivals and departures, are all planned to be on separate floors of the airport, which will help to ease traffic congestion in front of the terminal.
Each floor will also feature a direct street entrance. At the same time, a high-speed rail will run directly underneath the airport, which will be the first time such a setup has been employed in any airport around the world.
The new airport will be in Daxing district, 46 kilometers south of Tian'anmen Square. It will be 67 kilometers from Beijing Capital International Airport.
The airport will feature a six-pier radial concept that has been designed to increase connectivity and reflect the Chinese landscape and culture.
The new structure will also include four runways, 150 parking aprons for passenger jets, 24 parking aprons for cargo aircraft, 14 maintenance areas and a terminal building with a surface area of 700,000 square meters.
As for the subterranean high-speed rail, a station of the Beijing-Kowloon high-speed railway will be set up in the terminal's underground.
Pigs in flood are under rescue in E China; over a thousand are to be butchered
It was reported Tuesday that the owner of a pig farm in Lu'an, Anhui province was mourning the fate of his 6,000 pigs, who were in neck-deep water for nearly 20 hours due to heavy flooding in the region.
Even as the rain continued, the farm's workers did not give up on rescuing the pigs. According to a report in Southern Metropolis Daily, the number of imperiled pigs was closer to 3,000 than the 6,000 originally reported.
Huang Yong, the president of Xishang Group, told a reporter that he and his employees arrived at the farm at 6 a.m. to work on rescue efforts. The farm was totally under water, and the rain was still falling. "The depth of the water has reached one meter. We can only save the pigs one by one," said Huang.
Zhou Jun, vice general manager of Xishang Group, said that most of pigs looked healthy, though some of them were still piglets. Over 1,000 pigs were mature enough to be butchered, and Zhou said they planned to use four vehicles to transport the mature pigs. The slaughtering was set to begin that evening.
The deputy director of the local Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau, surnamed Guo, was the one who reported the updated statistic of 3,000 pigs rather than 6,000.
He added that they didn't give up on rescuing the pigs in the aftermath of the first round of flooding. However, they gave higher priority to the rescue of trapped personnel.
Eight trapped miners sent a message to the surface through the underground life pipe to the surface from within the Shanxi Qinhe Energy Group Zhongcun Coalmine on July 5 2016.
The letter stated that: Your positive effort to rescue us has solidified our hopes. We will live up to expectations and will make all efforts possible and correspond with the rescue plans of the directing authorities. We will encourage and help one another and overcome this crisis. Let the authorities and our families be calm for we will overcome all these difficulties and we look forward to reuniting with everyone, very much looking forward
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 6
By Elchin Mehdiyev Trend:
If the French parliament recognizes fictitious Armenian genocide, it is hard to believe that the country, as a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, will play a positive role in resolving the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Arzu Naghiyev, political analyst, told Trend.
Naghiyev said that the adoption of an amendment by the lower house of the French Parliament, envisaging punishment for denying fictitious Armenian genocide, had a negative impact on the France-Turkey relations and the settlement of the conflict.
This action of France is intended for people within the country, he added.
"Both presidential and parliamentary elections will be held in France in 2017, he said. Therefore, this action of French President Francois Hollande is intended for gaining the Armenian lobbys votes."
Naghiyev said that the recognition of fictitious Armenian genocide by Germanys Bundestag and Frances actions almost predetermined that the process of Turkey's EU accession has been delayed.
"Moreover, thaw in the Turkey-Russia relations is observed today and Europe is trying to understand why Turkey is establishing close relations exactly with this country," he said.
The French National Assembly (a lower house of the parliament) approved the amendment to the Equality and Citizenship bill, submitted by the government, which is imposing punishment for denying the so-called Armenian genocide.
According to the amendment, those who deny the fact of "Armenian genocide", will be sentenced for one year and will pay a 45,000 euro fine.
Franklin County man guilty of killing man, hiding body
Justin Hockenberry was found guilty of killing Demetrios "Jimmy" Kalathas in November 2019 and faces life in prison without parole.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 6
Trend:
Armenian armed forces have 14 times violated the ceasefire with Azerbaijan on the line of contact over the past 24 hours, said Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry July 6.
Armenian armed forces, stationed in the Barekamavan village of Armenias Noyemberyan district and in the Berkaber village of Ijevan district opened fire at Azerbaijani positions located in the Gaymagli and Gizilhajili villages of the Gazakh district.
Moreover, Azerbaijani positions underwent fire from the positions located near the Chilaburt village of the Terter district, Horadiz and Ashagi Seyidahmadli villages of the Fizuli district and on nameless heights of the Goranboy district.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 6
By Anakhanum Idayatova Trend:
The US, Russia and France as the co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group (MG) are committed to the convening another meeting between the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue as soon as possible, OSCE MG US co-chair James Warlick told Trend July 6.
According to Warlick, there is no date fixed for the next presidential meeting.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
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Follow the author on Twitter: @Anahanum
US President Barack Obama recognized Russias efforts at mediating the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlins press service said Wednesday, Sputnik reports.
Putin briefed Obama as the head of state that co-chairs an international settlement group with Russia and France on the outcome of last month's trilateral talks in St. Petersburg between the sides to the conflict, Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Kremlin said.
Vladimir Putin stressed that, in organizing the negotiations, Russia proceeded from the need to promote the speedy stabilization of the situation in the conflict zone and the creation of conditions to advance the peace process. Barack Obama praised Russias efforts, the Kremlin added.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 7
Trend:
President Obama spoke today by phone with President Vladimir Putin of Russia to discuss President Putins June 20 meeting with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Serzh Sargsian of Armenia regarding the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
"President Obama expressed his readiness to intensify efforts together with Russia and with France, as co-Chairs of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Minsk Group, to achieve a comprehensive settlement to the conflict", according to a White House statement.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 6
By Ilhama Isabalayeva Trend:
Azerbaijans Ministry of Culture and Tourism has urged the hotel managers not to deceive consumers and correctly indicate hotels category according to hotel star system, the ministry told Trend.
The ministry said some hotels operating in the country, without having the official certificate for a particular category, indicate illegal star category in print ads, commercials, on web pages, at hotels and provide consumers with false information.
The certificate of conformity for a particular star category of hotels is issued by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism for three years in accordance with the state standard, said the ministry adding that at the end of this period, hotel management should apply to the ministry to pass the classification.
Thus, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism requires hotel managers to meet legal requirements and to provide full and correct information to consumers and dont indicate an illegal star category.
It was also noted that currently, 106 hotels and hotel-type facilities passed the classification in Azerbaijans territory and obtained the certificate of conformity for a particular star category.
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Baku, Azerbaijan, July 6
By Maksim Tsurkov Trend:
Azerbaijan has offered Montenegro a loan worth 175 million euros to finance the construction of a bridge over the Verige Strait in exchange for the release of the Azerbaijani business from taxes and customs duties in this country, Montenegrin media reported.
The report says that the Azerbaijani government is ready to provide the loan to Montenegro at a rate of three percent with a repayment period of 15 years and a grace period of five years to build a bridge over the Verige Strait in the bay of Kotor.
Montenegros Ministry of Finance said that it supports the strengthening of economic cooperation with Azerbaijan, but the exemption from taxes and customs duties requested by the Azerbaijani side, are not completely acceptable.
The level of exemption should be determined during negotiations, but not to a greater extent than is provided by the agreements with the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank, says the ministry.
Exemption from customs duties, excise duties and taxes carries potential risks for several reasons, explained the ministry adding that this practice could jeopardize the stability of the countrys tax system.
Currently, Azerbaijan is implementing the Portonovi resort project in Montenegro. Portonovi resort is one of the largest projects in the territory of Montenegro. The complex will have a hotel, a spa, a port for super-yachts, residences, villas and houses, shops and restaurants. The resort is expected to be commissioned in 2017-2018. The project cost exceeds $ 500 million.
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Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov
If below-par performance of his colleagues was what prompted the Prime Minister to go for a cabinet revamp on Tuesday, then the expanded Team Modi only exposes a lack of bench strength in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
True, Narendra Modi entrusted some junior ministers with independent charge of portfolios and brought in a river conservationist with strong RSS links, Anil Madhav Dave, as environment minister but the rest of the rejig underlines minimal options.
For instance, Ravi Shankar Prasad has now been given back the law ministry, 19 months after he was shifted out of it. An accomplished lawyer, he had lost the portfolio in November 2014, barely six months after assuming charge. Today, Prasad also holds charge of Electronics & IT.
Choudhury Birendra Singh has been removed as rural development minister ostensibly for his uninspiring performance. He will now take care of steel, a sector which is reeling under a crisis. Narendra Singh Tomar, who had a rather forgettable tenure as steel minister, has been given charge of the crucial rural development ministry.
The biggest surprise, though, was Smriti Iranis removal from the human resource development ministry, which has now been entrusted with Prakash Javadekar. Many conspiracy theories float about as reasons. If her unsatisfactory performance as HRD minister was one, then her shift to the ministry of textiles is curious given the governments thrust on the sector. It recently announced a special Rs 6,000-crore package for the textile and apparel sector, aiming to create one crore jobs in the next three years.
Irani was in a jovial mood on Tuesday forenoon after the swearing-in at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, often bursting into laughter while exchanging pleasantries with reporters. In contrast, some junior ministers found their hopes for promotion dashed, and were huddled in a corner outside the Darbar Hall. One of them even went up to Javadekar to know about the formula of his promotion to cabinet rank.
Read| Kuchh toh log kahenge: Smriti Irani on reports of her role in UP elections
Modis intent was clear: thumbs down to headline-hunters and those with a penchant for controversies. It is another matter that the NDA government had, on the occasion of its second anniversary in May, made tall claims of significant achievements in every sector.
If loud disputes were apparently what triggered Iranis exit from the HRD, then her successor had an equally issues-riddled tenure as environment minister. Questions were raised about Javadekars almost 100 per cent clearance of projects in forest areas.
On Wednesday, the HRD minister spoke of his credentials in the new role, recalling his participation in the 1970s students movement led by socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan.
Evidently, politics, and not governance, was the primary consideration behind the selection of the new ministers. It was BJP president Amit Shah, and not the PM, who called up the 19 lucky MPs on Tuesday. Even during the UPA regime, which was criticised for its dual power centre, it was PM Manmohan Singh who made the telephone call, and not always in the presence of the Congress president.
Among Modis new ministers, five are Dalits and two tribals--a clear indication of the BJPs outreach to these communities. With the addition of three ministers from election-bound Uttar Pradesh, the states representation in the union council of ministers has gone up to 15. Uttarakhand, another state going to polls early next year, also found representation in the ministry with the induction of Dalit leader Ajay Tamta.
On Monday evening, spin doctors of the ruling dispensation circulated educational and professional backgrounds of to-be-inducted ministers to project that doers and performers were being brought in. The claim, however, sounded over-the-top in the backdrop of controversies over the educational qualifications of ministers such as Smriti Irani who was holding HRD.
Besides, despite clear allocation of work to junior ministers in the Modi government, there are very few Cabinet ministers like Arun Jaitley and Suresh Prabhu who involve their deputies in the decision-making process. Minister of state for urban development Babul Supriyo, for instance, is often asked by his boss, Venkaiah Naidu, to sing at official meetings. Little is known about the official work of the Bengali musician of Kaho Na Pyar Hai fame.
The contributions of many other junior ministers have been paltry, at best. But they, too, may wonder about Javadelkars formula.
Read| Everything you need to know about Modis cabinet reshuffle
Read| With cabinet expansion, Modi performs a balancing act in poll-bound UP
BJPs Rajya Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh Anil Madhav Dave could not have expected more from Prime Minister Narendra Modi who handed him the environment, forest and climate change ministry, a subject close to his heart.
Dave, 59, who was born and brought up in Madhya Pradesh, started working for the conservation of environment and Narmada River in his middle years. His inclination to the environment cause might have had some political reasons too, but it came as a blessing in disguise for him. Working as one of the chief strategists of the BJP during the assembly and Lok Sabha elections since 2003, he held many posts in the party and was sent to the Rajya Sabha.
He had natural allegiance to the RSS and has been associated with it right from his childhood. His grandfather, fondly known as Dada Dave, was the first president of Jan Sangh of Madhya Bharat prant. Dave was an RSS pracharak till 2003 when he joined politics and became the political advisor to Uma Bharti, who led the party to a spectacular win in the 2003 assembly elections and became the chief minister to dislodge the then chief minister Digvijaya Singh.
While Dave worked for the conservation of Narmada, he got in touch with environmentalists of not only India but the entire world. He held several international conferences on the bank of Narmada at Hoshangabad which were attended by scholars and environmentalists from across the world. It was in the last such conference when the experts decided to work for all the rivers of the country together.
Its Daves plan that the places along Narmada where fairs are organised have structures where women can change their clothes in privacy. He also mooted the idea of river ambulance to provide medical facilities to villagers along the rivers. He is working on a plan on how to minimise the use of fertilizers in agriculture fields along the rivers and motivate the farmers to adopt organic farming.
His associate and youth leader of the BJP Rajneesh Agrawal says, In the last 10-12 years Anil Dave ji has deeply studied environment not only in India but in the world. He has got great understanding of factors leading to the climate change and how environment can be protected for the mankind without hampering the pace of development. He can strike a fine balance between development and the environment.
More power to the ladies, as the year 2016 has not only seen a rise in the number of women directors in Bollywood, but their films have also been striking a chord with the audience.
Established women filmmakers such as Farah Khan, Zoya Akhtar, Gauri Shinde and Divya Khosla Kumar were joined by the likes of Anu Menon, Ashwini Iyer Tiwari and Sudha Kongara, whose films garnered praise this year, and await Konkona Sen Sharma and Nitya Mehra, among others, to join the club with their upcoming projects.
Everywhere in the world and in every sphere, women are doing more things in male-dominated fields, and films are no different. If the statistics are to be believed, this year can be a significant one for women in films, says Shinde, who directed English Vinglish (2012) and will soon be ready with the release of her upcoming Alia Bhatt and Shah Rukh Khan starrer.
Filmmaker Gauri Shinde will soon be releasing her Alia Bhatt and Shah Rukh Khan starrer.
Filmmaker Anu Menon feels female perspective still needs more push in the mainstream cinema. (Shivam Saxena/HT photo)
Actor Kalki Koechlin, who starred in Menons independent directorial, Waiting, says lady directors bring something different to the table. Its great to see more female directors. It offers new perspectives. Ive worked with Zoya (Akhtar), Shonali (Bose) and Konkona (Sen Sharma) as well. I hope there are many more, she says.
As for Menon, while shes happy with the spotlight on the ladies, she stresses theres still a long way to go. Theres parity in the smaller budgeted films driven by content, but the female representation is lacking in the mainstream cinema. A female point of view needs to reach a larger audience, she says.
Read: More women should turn directors: Divya Khosla Kumar
Divya Khosla Kumar, who has belted out films like Yaariyan (2014) and Sanam Re earlier this year, says women are received well in the industry. My team has all men and I have never felt any kind of gender bias. They treat me as a creative person and creativity cannot be classified on the basis of gender. Filmmaking is a tough job, and women are strong enough to take it up, says Kumar.
Filmmaker Divya Khosla Kumar feels creativity cannot be classified on the basis of gender.
Does it make a difference if a film is helmed by a man or a woman? No, says actor Pulkit Samrat. He played the lead in Kumars Sanam Re, and says: I dont really think there is any difference because art is not gender specific. You need to be good at your art for the world to call it a masterpiece, regardless of being a female or a make. And if there is any difference, I would shamelessly admit that female directors are any day more creative, expressive and artistic than males.
Trade analyst Amod Mehra agrees direction isnt just a mans field anymore. Its nice to see that women are calling the shots not just in front of the camera but also behind it. Time and again women in the industry have proved they are wonderful storytellers, he says.
Scenario in Bollywood vis-a-vis world cinema
While the number of women directors releasing films in 2016 in Hollywood and Korean film industry is more than Indian directors, Bollywood is better than many other film industries including Nollywood (Nigerian cinema).
(Inputs from Michelle Moses)
Follow @htshowbiz for more.
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Actor Amyra Dastur was recently in Singapore for a work trip. However, this didnt stop her from having fun. She took some time off to explore the city and was quite impressed.
Actor Amyra Dastur couldnt wait to explore Singapore, but wanted to honour her professional commitments first.
I loved Singapore and wanted to explore the place the minute I landed there. However, work always comes first for me. But the moment I got a little free time, I went off on a touristy spree, says Amyra, who recently finished shooting for her film Kung Fu Yoga, which also stars Hollywood actor Jackie Chan.
Read:Jackie Chan and Sonu Soods Kung Fu Yoga to release this year
Talking about the places she visited, Amyra says, I went to the Fountain of Wealth as its supposed to be a big tourist attraction and dropped a penny in for luck...I also went shopping to Orchard Road which is where all the high street brands are and then went to Buggi Street which is local street shopping. But my favourite part was when I went to St.Joseph Church. I had never attended a mass and it was amazing to see it, says Amyra.
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Sultan, one of the biggest Bollywood releases this year starring Salman Khan and Anushka Sharma in lead roles was leaked online hours before it hit the theatres today.
After Udta Punjab and Great Grand Masti, Sultan is the third major Hindi film to have been leaked before its release in the last one month.
Read: Is Sultan worth your time and money? Totally, if you are a Salman Khan fan
Though cyber crime experts have confirmed the news, no police complaint has been lodged in connection so far.
If one tries proxy server of other countries Sultan is out online. But if you try it here (in India), it is blocked. If one goes to watch it online, a message flashes on websites that the content is removed as per Copyright Act, cyber crime expert Ritesh Bhatia said.
It is unfortunate that films are getting leaked online before its official release. Proper action and investigation needs to be done. Its the need of the hour, he added.
Producers of Sultan, Yash Raj Films, however, denied that the film has been leaked online.
Read: The rise and fall of Salman Khans films in numbers and graphs
Directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, Salmans annual Eid release saw a bumper opening today with trade analysts predicting a Rs 150 crore opening weekend business.
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Actress Priyanka Chopra, who has made a name for herself in international showbiz, says India is a difficult country and it will take time for things to change as far as the mindset towards women is concerned.
India is a difficult country. It is like one whole world wherein each state has different traits, different culture, different language, different writing, different thought process and different religion. It (change in mindset for women) is not going to be changed tomorrow, Priyanka said here on Tuesday.
The actress shared her views about the stereotypes that women are subjected to when she became a part of an event in New Delhi.
Read: Didnt want to spoil Priyankas performance, says Deepika Padukone
Indian Bollywood actor and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Priyanka Chopra, right, and UNICEF Representative to India Louis Georges Arsenault wave at an audience telecast from a remote location during the launch of a Fair Start campaign in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, July 5, 2016. (AP)
Priyanka, as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, launched a Fair Start campaign on Tuesday. The session touched upon various issues like the gap between rich and poor, stereotypes that women face and how can more opportunities be created so that everyone in the country gets a fair chance to prove their potential.
We have forgotten humanity in this disparity. And we can overcome it by creating opportunity to include them (less privileged) in your life. Slowly you will make a difference. Opportunities should be created by the government, which they are, but government cannot change mindset. Change will come from within us, said the National Award winning actress.
Read: Regional cinema doesnt get the support it deserves, says Priyanka Chopra
The Mary Kom actress shared that the most important thing to do right now is that all the mothers should teach their sons to respect women. (PTI)
When asked to comment on how Indian women are still struggling to get their rights, she said: Since the time I remember, and it is not our countrys fault, the whole world treats women as second fiddle. It will take sometime to change that. And the change can only come when all the girls will stand united and ask for their right.
The Mary Kom actress shared that the most important thing to do right now is that all the mothers should teach their sons to respect women.
The actress even urged the people of the country to give opportunities to girls so they can show their calibre.
She concluded with a message for the youth: Be the best version of yourself -- girl or boy.
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In India, movie stars can do nothing wrong. The aura around them, and the halo are so powerful that they blind their fans to terrible follies. As Salman Khans Sultan opens on Wednesday -- in which he plays a wrestler from a small town in Haryana, who fights his way against odds to fetch fame for India -- we all know that the film will pound the box-office with bountiful bucks. And in all this delirious merriment, when Khans fans will be crowning him with the title of Sultan, the 50-year-old actors several misdemeanours will be brushed below the carpet.
Khan has for a long, long time been Bollywoods bad boy -- since those early days when he was accused of physically brutalising his then girlfriend, Aishwarya Rai, to the most recent time, when he compared himself to a rape victim. He said he felt like one every time he finished a backbreaking schedule of Sultan. Khans words were met with horror by womens groups, and the general public, who wanted him punished.
Read Sultan review: Salmans Eid offering has all the sparkles
But punishment is something that Sultan Salman has been evading with a cunning finesse that goes beyond the realm of the absurd. The actors supposed drunken driving in 2002, when a pavement dweller in Mumbai died and four others were injured, has by now begun to look like a piece of fiction.
Many things happened in that legal case. The police bodyguard, Ravindra Patil, who was on duty with Khan on the fateful night reportedly told the court that the actor was at the wheel and that he was drunk. Patil was under immense pressure to change his statement. It is not actually clear whether he did do so, but he was suspended from the police force and subsequently died of tuberculosis.
Khan has also been accused of poaching a black buck in Rajasthans Bishnoi territory. The animal is part of Indias endangered species -- and is also considered sacred by the community.
If Khan has been successfully playing hide-and-seek with the law, he has also been working hard on the cinema front. Probably to clean up his image, he has been choosing characters who have been simply endearing. In Bajrangi Bhaijaan, he plays a devoutly pious man who restores a small Pakistani girl -- who gets lost in India -- to her parents. In Sultan, he is the wrestler who earns his country honour and respect. Earlier, he had essayed a fearlessly honest cop in Dabangg and Dabangg 2.
Cinema has, since time immemorial, served as a personal platform for the rich and the powerful. While Hitler and Mussolini used pictures to propagate Fascism, Dravidian political parties in Tamil Nadu used the medium to move the masses towards a completely new kind of ideology. In Andhra Pradesh, Chief Minister N T Rama Rao played mythological characters like Krishna and Rama to win over the electorate.
Read In numbers and graphs: The rise and fall of Salman Khans films
Even today, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, makes sure that theatres screen short movies publicising her welfare measures, as does Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Salman Khan may not have any great political clout, but he has an enormous amount of money muscle that he flexes to enhance his image and reputation through big films. Fans swoon over these images.
And in the kind of immense euphoria that Khan creates through his works, all his misdeeds are not just forgotten, but forgiven as well. Or so it seems.
As one blogger, Honey Mehta, quipped: To err is human, but to err and get away with it every time is Salman Khan.
The views expressed are the authors own
A New York-bound Air India (AI) flight was diverted to Iceland after a passenger on board developed a serious medical condition on Tuesday.
Sources said the AI flight 101 (Delhi-JFK VT-ALS) was flying over Europe when the condition of a 42-year-old passenger severely deteriorated. There were 272 passengers and 15 crew members on board the flight.
As the passenger became very sick, a doctor was paged and flights Captain Gautam Verma spoke on the satellite phone with Director Operations Captain Arvind Kathpalia and companys medical doctor in Delhi, said an official.
After judging the symptoms of the passenger as unstable, AIs chairman and managing director, Ashwani Lohani ordered the aircraft to be diverted to the nearest airport, which was the Keflavik International Airport in Iceland.
Permission was sought from local airport authorities who were informed about the medical condition of the passenger on board. An ambulance was ready when the plane, a Boeing 777-300ER, landed and the passenger was rushed to the hospital. Ministry of external affairs officials helped in facilitating quick departure onward to New York, said another official.
Diverting a flight to an alternate airport has serious commercial implications but we did not want to take any chances as the passengers condition was deteriorating rapidly and he needed immediate medical attention. JFK was still about eight hours away so something had to be done immediately. The passenger is reportedly in a stable condition now, he said.
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Baku, Azerbaijan, July 6
By Elena Kosolapova Trend:
In accordance with the presidential decree, a temporary ban has been introduced in Russia since July 1, 2016, on the transit of Ukrainian goods and on the freight traffic from third countries, which are going through the territory of Ukraine to Kazakhstan, said Kazakh National Chamber of Entrepreneurs.
The Chamber informed about the decision after a meeting with representatives of Russias Federal Customs Service in Kazakhstan.
In particular, the ban is applicable to the goods, going from Turkey through the territory of Ukraine and goods of some countries of the European Union, with regard to which Russia collects custom duties above zero, as well as the products from the sanctions list.
Meanwhile, over the appeal of the Kazakh government, the Russian government may allow the transportation of certain goods, with regard to which the ban has been introduced.
It was previously reported that the decree on the special order of the goods import from Ukraines territory through Russia applies to traffic from Ukraine to Kyrgyzstan.
The decree is valid until late 2017.
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NEW DELHI: For the first time in its history, Coal India Limited (CIL) will export coal to other countries, coal secretary, Anil Swarup tweeted on Tuesday.
Consequent to record production of coal by Coal India Limited, it is now exploring avenues to export coal, Swarup wrote on the micro-blogging site.
The exports will be sourced from CILs coal stockpile of 55 million tonne. CIL has never commercially exported coal. We are in talks with Bangladesh to explore the opportunity for a contract said a source in CIL.
The last two years have been turnaround years for CIL. In 2015-16, CIL recorded a production growth of 9% that is higher than the combined incremental growth for the previous five years. Apart from cr editing CI L s top management, Swarup said, Speedy environmental clearances also played apart in this process .
The government has set a production target of 598 million tonnes for CIL for the current fiscal, which accounts for over 80% of the domestic coal output.
But with power generating companies having 22 days of coal stock, the procurement has been slow. So we are exploring the export option, said the source .
Production in June was 10% higher from the same month last year, so to stop stocks are piling up impacting prices.
There is a surplus stock now due to slowing demand which is due to the financial mess of discoms. But the stock position will change as more and more villages of India are electrified while discoms are made financially viable, said Partha Bhattacharya, former chairman of CIL.
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The new governor of Reserve Bank of India is likely to be appointed before the next session of Parliament begins on July 18. The announcement is expected once Prime Minister Narendra Modi returns from his Africa trip on July 11, finance ministry sources told HT.
The preference is for someone who has international acceptance as an economist and has served the Indian government in some capacity, sources said, referring to speculation that bankers would be preferred.
The stress on cleaning up bad loan-hit banks had led to this speculation.
The RBI governor will have to have credence as an economist so a banker is out of the race. The announcement is likely to happen soon to end the speculation, which may dampen the mood, said the source quoted above.
RBI governor Raghuram Rajan recently announced his decision to not seek reappointment when his three-year term ends on September 4.
Candidates being touted to replace him include State Bank of India chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya, RBI deputy governor Urjit Patel, former deputy governors Subir Gokarn and Rakesh Mohan, former economic advisor Kaushik Basu, tax expert Parthasarathi Shome, chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian and economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das.
However, sources said the race may narrow down to Gokarn and Basu, both of whom havestrong international presence. Gokarn is currently the executive director on the board of International Monetary Fund. Basu, who was earlier chief economic adviser to the finance ministry, is the World Banks chief economist.
The government has already clarified that the decision on a successor will be taken by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in consultation with finance minister Arun Jaitley.
The successor has already been decided, it is the announcement that has to be made. And it will be done before Parliament begins the source said.
Mumbai crime branchs Special Investigation Team (SIT) arrested a Gurgaon police sub-inspector in connection with the alleged fake encounter of gangster Sandeep Gadoli.
Pradyuman Yadav, one of five cops booked in the case, was picked up from his official residence in Gurgaons police lines on Tuesday night and taken to Mumbai, where he will be produced before a court on Wednesday, said Sanjay Saxena, joint commissioner of police.
The SIT was formed soon after Gadoli was killed by Gurgaon police at Hotel Airport Metro in Mumbai on February 7. Gadoli was wanted in about 30 cases and had a cash reward of Rs1.2 lakh on his head.
The Mumbai police contend that the encounter was staged, but their Gurgaon counterparts maintained that the gangster was killed in retaliatory fire.
Gadolis girlfriend Divya Pahuja, who was in the room at the time of the encounter, had allegedly tipped off the police about his location. CCTV footage from the hotel showed officers trying to damage a camera facing Gadolis room before he was gunned down.
The officers, Pahuja and local politician Manoj Binder were booked in the case. Binder, brother of Gadolis rival Binder Gujjar, was on the day of the incident in touch with an officer in the encounter team.
In addition to Yadav, constable Vikram Singh, head constables Pramjeet Ahlawat, Deepak and Jitendra are accused in the case.
The accused cops were suspended on May 30, after the investigating team informed the Supreme Court that a case had been registered against them. They approached the Punjab and Haryana high court last month, seeking quashing of their suspension and transferring the investigation of the case to Haryana.
The court, however, disposed the petition and directed Mumbai police not to take coercive measures against the accused cops.
TIMELINE:
February 7, 2016: Five members of the Gurgaon police and three of their associates allegedly shot Gurgaon-based gangster Sandeep Gadoli to death in a hotel room in Andheri
February 8: PSI Pradhuman Yadav of the Gurgaon police, who led the raiding team, lodged a complaint against Gadoli at the MIDC police station on attempt to murder charges, claiming that it was Gadoli who had opened fire and the Gurgaon cops had fired back in self-defence. The Mumbai police then lodged an FIR under sections 307, 353, 332 of the IPC and Arms Act against the slain gangster.
February 15: The Bombay high court directed the Mumbai police to register an FIR against the Gurgaon police team that visited the Andheri hotel and shot Gadoli to death in the alleged encounter.
February 20: An SIT was formed by the Mumbai police to probe the alleged encounter
February 27: The SIT revealed that Gadoli had been shot at in his back, and thus raised questions on the Gurgaon polices version
March 16: Following a Supreme Court order to relook into its February directive and give the Gurgaon cops a fair hearing, the Bombay HC dismissed the writ petition and all related applications filed by Gadolis family who demanded that the Gurgaon cops be booked for murder
April 29: The SIT revealed that CCTV footage from the Andheri hotel had shown that the cops had planted the weapon on Gadolis body after shooting him to death
May 25: The Mumbai police concluded that the encounter was fake and dropped the charges of attempt to murder under section 307 of the IPC against Gadoli from the FIR. It instead booked the five Gurgaon cops on charges of murder under section 302 of the IPC
May 27: The SIT informed the Supreme Court that while five Gurgaon cops had been booked for Gadolis murder, it was still probing the role two senior officials of the Gurgaon police
June 2: A Mumbai metropolitan magistrates court rejected the SITs plea for non-bailable arrest warrants against the Gurgaon cops but held that the Mumbai police had all powers to arrest the accused people
June 6: Gadolis kin have alleged a threat to their lives. The gangster brother Kuldeep Singh was threatened by unidentified people, who allegedly asked him to give up his quest for a probe into the case.
Sheikh Hasinas government has lived in self-delusion over the attacks on secular bloggers, writers and publishers that snowballed into assassinations of Hindu and Buddhist priests and even foreigners like the Italian aid worker Cesare Tavella and Japanese national Kunio Hoshi.
There has been a build-up to that. After the huge Shah bag movement, which reinforced the grip of linguistic secular nationalism on popular imagination, the jihad is and their sponsors BNP-Jamaat coalition faced a crisis of existence. When the Awami League returned to power after the 2014 parliament polls, despite the violence, the feeling of survival at stake dawned on the Islamists in Bangladesh. First the BNP-Jamaat tried to discredit Hasina by serial fire bombing of buses and derailing of trains, killing 86 innocent people in six months. When Hasina crushed that through determined police action, the Islamist politicians turned to the jihadis. New groups emerged and went for soft targets but all carefully chose to drive home a message. While secular bloggers and publishers, writers and artists were killed to demoralise the Spirit of 1971 that created Bangladesh, Hindu priests were killed to complicate India-Bangladesh relations, and foreigners were killed to chase away investors and traders to cripple Bangladeshs economy, which has done well under Hasina. But when the serial killings failed to make an impact, the terror attack was planned, possibly, to shake up Bangladesh and the global opinion about the country.
These are homegrown jihadis who are inspired by the IS and seek to acquire IS trappings, but they do not operate to IS command and control. The IS is happy to upload their pictures and claim them as their own because it needs to project a global terror image to show they can hit anywhere and anytime. The IS is not like al-Qaeda it believes in adopting local groups across the world who believe in their Caliphate and can strike at a signal given over the Interneta very decentralised coalition but one capable of making a global impact. These local Bangladeshi jihad is need an IS tag to internationalise the Bangladesh issue, especially the execution of the Jamaat leaders in the 1971 war crimes trials. Let us get this clear that there were no Arabs or Afghans in the Dhaka attack, they were all radicalised Bengali Muslim boys, but the fact that they can kill as brutally as the IS should give the Has in a government a hard wake-up call.
But since they areas ideologically motivated and as brutal in killing for the cause of Islam as the Jamaat-sponsored Al-Badr or Al-Shams in 1971, they are a big worry for Bangladesh. This also points to the amazing continuity of politics of this brutal Islamist fringe in former East Pakistan and the present Bangladesh.
While the Al-Badr and Al-Shams massacred Bengali intellectuals two days before the fall of Dhaka, their 21st century grand cousins are targeting the thought leaders of Bengali nationalism, whose manifestations are strongly linguistic and cultural.
These jihadis have a political agenda to bring down the Hasina government to its knees, to decimate the secularists, to Talibanise Bangladesh. But they will fail just as their predecessors have. Bangladesh will not surrender its political or cultural sovereignty and identity to any medieval Caliph. Yes, most Bengali Muslims are devout and pray but they do not bring religion into their public life. If one marvels at the motivation and fanaticism of the Dhaka cafe killer sand their courage in the face of a military assault, one also have to marvel at the raw courage of youngster Faraaz Hussain, who refused to abandon his friends, including an Indian girl, Tarishi Jain, though he could have by reciting the Quranic verses. Or the courage of Ishrat Akhond, who told the jihadis that she will never put on hijab, only to get shot. This shows that on both sides of a bitterly polar is ed Bangladesh, there are people with fierce convictions.
Bangladeshis a secular and liberal country, which has undergone phenomena l female empowerment. But there is a dangerous and violent Islamist fringe, which is getting more violent because it is facing a crisis of existence. The global sponsors of this Islamist fringe are putting in resources, financial and otherwise, to boost Islamist schools, mosques and madrassas. Bangladesh is a threat to hardline Salafist Arabised Islam because it reposes its faith in a secular polity based on Bengali linguistic nationalism. So, these petrodollar-driven West Asian foundation sand those based in Pakistan, backed by the ISI, are financing jihadi activities and boosting radicalisation through a host of means. Bangladesh is suffering the distortions caused to its constitution by two military regimes of Zia and Ershad, when the fifth and eighth amendment undid the countrys secular super structure and made Islam a State religion. Hasina has not been able to change that so far for fear of a backlash, but she plans to bring about necessary amendments to restore the 1972 constitution towards the end of her regime.
What should India do? Hasina has complained to New Delhi that many Islamist radicals fleeing from the crackdown of Bangladesh security forces were found in West Bengal and Assam. These states must realise that they are in the line of fire. India needs to tighten its boots and help Hasina fight Islamist radicalism by taking proactive measures in its own border states.
We are aware of the kind of backing all jihadi groups got during Khaledas time. Khaleda has now called for unity to fight terror, but why is she not forsaking the Jam a at as many of her nationalist partymen want? The divisive politics fuelled by the rivalries of the two Begums is actually the fall out of an inevitable polar is at ion that exists in Bangladesh because the two formations (BNP-Jama at and the Awami League and its allies) subscribe to two entirely conflicting visions of Bangladesh. It has hit at the culture of impunity that the military rulers and Khaleda had provided to the jihadis to derail Bangladeshs journey on its chosen path, based on the spirit of 1971. A backlash is inevitable. Look how Pakistan is defending the killers of 1971 and calling them loyal Pakistan is . The IS I is involved in backing jihad is, so two of their staffers were expelled for funding jihad is with fake currency. Hard line Islamists in West Asia are upset with the hangings demanded by a nation after Has in a won the polls in 2009 and 2014 on an explicit promise in the Aw a mi League manifesto that she would go ahead with the war crimes trials. Do you expect Hasina to undermine her secular support base to appease an Islamist fringe which wants to eliminate her?
Subir Bhaumik is a BBC journalist and author and is now senior editor, bdnews24.com. The views expressed are personal.
NEW DELHI: The first day of admissions under the second cutoff list in Delhi University colleges was marked by withdrawals and students shifting to colleges of their choice.
These withdrawals, however, do not mean that the courses whose admissions were closed in the second list will be opened for admission in the third list.
Principals say that by the end of admissions in this list, more courses will be closed.
It will be clear on Wednesday whether popular colleges will come out with a third cutoff list on July 10.
Daulat Ram College had 88 withdrawals as against 123 admissions on Tuesday.
The withdrawals were in courses such as BA Programme, Bio-chemistry and Zoology where there was over admission. So I do not think this is going to affect the already closed courses much, said Savita Roy, principal of the college. The admissions to Biochemistry and Philosophy were closed in the second list
Even at Indraprastha College for Women, there were nearly 40 withdrawals as against 104 admissions. Withdrawals are uniformly taking place across all courses, so at present it looks like we will not have to open admissions for courses closed in the second list. We are hoping that by the end of admissions under the second list, more courses will be closed, said Babli Moitra Saraf, IP principal. Admissions have been closed for Philosophy and History (Hons) in IP College.
Similarly, Maitreyi College had about 80 withdrawals from courses such as BA Programme. The withdrawal for the courses hat has been closed, such as History, Political Science and Sociology, was not very substantial. So there is less possibility of the courses opening now, said Savita Dutta, Maitreyi College principal.
SRCC did not have any withdrawals. Students were shifting to the college after withdrawing admission from colleges like Kirori Mal and Hansraj College.
Across colleges there were long lines at the withdrawal counter as students waited to get their original certificates. This time original documents had to be submitted while taking admissions.
Even though the dip in the cutoffs was minor, I managed to clear the Political Science cutoff for Miranda House. So now, I have withdrawn my admission from Sri V en kat es war a and waiting to finish the application process at Miranda House, said Rashika Kapoor, an aspirant who scored 96.5% in Class 12 board exams. She had missed the college in the first list by 0.5%.
Off-campus colleges too had withdrawals but were lesser compared to on-campus colleges. For instance, there were 2 withdrawals at Aryabhatta College and 7 at Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College.
NEW DELHI: For the second day running, the Delhi government on Tuesday took on the Centre over the arrest of chief minister Arvind Kejriwals principal secretary Rajendra Kumar, saying prime minister Narendra Modi did not like educated and talented people in the Capital.
Kumar was on Tuesday sent to CBI custody for five days.
Rajendra Kumar is a good officer. We have heard only good things about him. He is an IITian and awarded by the prime minister for his work in e-governance but Modi sahab doesnt like talented people. People like Raghuram Rajan and Arvind Subramanian arent allowed to work. A climate is created where talented people dont want to stay and work here, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said.
Similarly, Kumar is not being allowed to work. Talented men and women from good institutes are not welcome. A message is being sent that if they want to do good work in Delhi, they will be sent to jail and defamed. They want officers who scream Modi, Modi. They only want sycophants. Talented people cannot work in Delhi, said Sisodia.
Two officers from the CMs office were arrested by the CBI on Monday and additional secretary to the CM, Gitika Sharma, was transferred.
Sisodia said all of this was done to threaten officers working in Delhi.
DHAKA: Bangladeshi police said on Tuesday they were investigating whether security forces accidentally shot dead a kitchen worker when they stormed a Dhaka cafe where attackers killed 20 hostages in an assault claimed by the Islamic State.
Police named five attackers who stormed Holey Artisan Bakery in the Gulshan diplomatic zone on Friday Nibras Islam, Rohan Imtiaz, Meer Saameh Mubasheer, Khairul Islam and Shafiqul Islam and said they were hunting for six members of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) suspected of organising the attack.
Confusion over the number of attackers involved was partly cleared up when police said among the six people killed by security forces when they stormed the cafe to end a 12-hour siege was pizza maker Saiful Islam Chowkidar.
We killed six people in the restaurant. A case has been registered against five. The sixth man was a restaurant employee, top police official Saiful Islam said.
He may not be involved, he said, adding the investigation was still on.
A cafe employee, shown a photo of a man killed at the eatery and wearing a chefs outfit, identified him as Chowkidar and said he had worked there for 18 months.
However, there has been speculation that the attackers could have been helped by someone inside the restaurant, especially in bringing in bags with firearms and sharp weapons they used to butcher the hostages, including a young Indian woman.
There was also speculation on some Bangladeshi websites that Faraaz Hossain, hailed as a hero because he refused to leave the cafe without his friends Abinta Kabir and Tarishi Jain, could have been working with the attackers.
The speculation began after the websites posted video shot by a person living in a building near the restaurant and claimed a young man seen with a gun in the footage had a haircut similar to that of Hossain.
Hossain was killed along with his two friends and sources said the images of the dead hostages issued by the IS had three people who looked like them.
The government has dismissed the Islamic States claim of responsibility, saying the group does not have a presence in Bangladesh. The JMB, which has pledged allegiance to the IS, has been accused of involvement in many killings over the past year and police were interrogating more than 130 of its members already in custody in the hope of gleaning clues.
Police were also in touch with security agencies in Malaysia, where two of the attackers had attended a private university, but officials said they had not found any links with international militant groups.
Two judges have recused themselves from hearing the AAP government s petition against the Centre on administrative control over Delhi in as many days.
A day after Justice JS Khehar distanced himself from the case; Justice L Nageshwar Rao recused himself on Tuesday. But no one knows why. In recent times, there has been a spike in the number of cases judges refusing to hear.
In March alone, three judges of the Supreme Court opted out of cases without disclosing the reasons for their recusal. In some of these cases, the judges had heard the matters for several months.
On March 10, Justice V Gopala Gowda recused himself from hearing the CBIs challenge to the 2010 Allahabad High Court verdict dropping criminal conspiracy charges against BJP leaders, including LK Advani and others in the Babri Masjid demolition case.
In February, he had himself given this date to hear the matter.
This had happened two days after Justice J Chelameswar opted out of the case pertaining to Bangalore blast accused Abdul Nazir Maudany. In the open court, the judgewho had heard the matter for almost two years--simply adjourned the matter but the written order said it would be listed before another bench.
In recent years, there have been instances from high courts where judges referred the cases to the chief justice for sending them to another bench, without disclosing the reasons for their recusal.
Should judges disclose the reasons for recusal? Do citizens have a right to know why a particular judge has opted out of a case?
WHEN A JUDGE RECUSES 2016 JULY 4: Justice JS Khehar recuses from hearing AAP governments petition against the Centre on administrative control over Delhi.
Justice JS Khehar recuses from hearing AAP governments petition against the Centre on administrative control over Delhi. JULY 5: Yet another judge - Justice L Nagesjwar Rao says he does not want to hear AAP governments petition against the Centre on administrative control over Delhi.
Yet another judge - Justice L Nagesjwar Rao says he does not want to hear AAP governments petition against the Centre on administrative control over Delhi. MARCH 8: Justice J Chelameswar recused from a case pertaining to Bangalore blasts accused Abdul Nazir Maudany.
Justice J Chelameswar recused from a case pertaining to Bangalore blasts accused Abdul Nazir Maudany. MARCH 9: Justice AR Daves bench said it was unable to hear activist Teesta Setalvads anticipatory bail plea and referred it to CJI for listing it before another bench.
Justice AR Daves bench said it was unable to hear activist Teesta Setalvads anticipatory bail plea and referred it to CJI for listing it before another bench. MARCH 10: Justice VG Gowda recused from hearing CBIs plea challenging May 2010 Allahabad HC verdict dropping criminal conspiracy charge against BJP leaders LK Advani and others in the Babri Masjid case.
Justice Kurian Joseph answered it in the affirmative .Being an institution whose hallmark is transparency, it is only proper that the judge discharging high and noble duties, at least broadly indicate the reasons for recusing from the case it is the constitutional duty, as reflected in ones oath, to be transparent and accountable, and hence, a judge is required to indicate reasons for his recusal from a particular case , Justice Joseph said in his verdict on National Judicial Appointments Commission.
Reasons for recusal must be assigned whether they are personal or public, says senior advocate Rajiv Dhavan.
In a large number of cases, judges recuse themselves because either they have dealt with it as a judge or as an advocate. The reasons are often explicit without being put to writing. The conflict is recognised by the judge and the lawyer in the case. But in all other cases they must disclose the reasons, says Dhavan.
People have a right to know why judges recuse themselves from cases. The need for people to know increases when judges one after the other offer recusal, especially in matters of public and constitutional significance.
NEW DELHI: In an executive meeting on Tuesday, the Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) has decided to end the admission process boycott but to continue with the evaluation boycott.
The teachers are protesting the University Grants Commissions third amendment regulation which has made the Academic Performance Indicator (API) stringent. API is a point system which determines the promotion of teachers. The evaluation boycott has been in place since May 24, which has delayed the result declaration.
According to sources, different groups of teachers were divided on whether the evaluation and admission boycott should continue.
We should continue with admission and evaluation boycott. We demand a complete roll back of the third amendment regulation, said CS Rawat, DUTA member.
However, Ram Lal Anand college staff association with drew the admission boycott, while staff at Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma is continuing with the boycott.
NEW DELHI: A special court on Tuesday remanded a senior Delhi official and four others in CBI custody for five days as the investigating agency accused the Arvind Kejriwal government of spreading a pack of lies over the alleged corruption case.
Though the CBI had sought 10-day custody of Kejriwals principal secretary Rajendra Kumar, the court of special CBI judge Arvind Kumar granted five days custody.
Kumar, a 1989 IAS officer, along with deputy secretary Tarun Sharma, Kumars close aide Ashok Kumar and owners of a private firm, Sandeep Kumar and Dinesh Gupta, were arrested on Monday in the graft case.
The CBI has charged Kumar, known to be close to Kejriwal, with abusing his official position to favour the private firm in getting tenders of Delhi government departments.
It is a historical case in Indian democracy A pack of lies is being spread in the media that Rajendra Kumar is holding the government like a Seshnag and if he goes, all the (Delhi) government will go, the CBI told the court.
In Indian mythology, Seshnag is the king of snakes, has numerous hoods and is said to hold all the planets of the universe under these hoods.
Senior advocate Mohit Mathur, appearing for Kumar, opposed the remand application saying there was no allegation that Kumar gave any pecuniary advantage or any wrongful loss to anybody. Meanwhile, the opposition BJP and Congress mounted pressure on Kejriwal to resign for alleged corruption under his watch.
The Delhi unit of the BJP said it would start a signature campaign demanding Kejriwals resignation and alleged that the chief minister was supporting Kumar despite the CBI charges.
Be it in Kejriwals first 49-day stint or the present regime, Rajendra Kumar has manipulated funds worth over Rs 200 crore Kumar seems to be the parrot in whom Kejriwals soul is stuck. And with him in the CBI net, the entire Kejriwal gang now fears the outbreak of its corrupt sagas, Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay said.
Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken also launched an attack on Kejriwal for defending Kumar and accused the chief minister of mastering the art of playing the victim.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), however, dismissed the allegations, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not like educated and talented people in the Capital.
A climate is created where talented people dont want to stay and work here, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 6
By Maksim Tsurkov Trend:
Hungary is ready to increase funding for the projects in Azerbaijan through the state Eximbank in case of necessity, Imre Laslotsky, Hungarian extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador to Azerbaijan, told reporters in Baku July 6.
Eximbanks credit line worth $200 million was opened for these purposes within the framework agreement, Laslotsky said.
"In case of necessity, the amount of funding can be increased, he added. Eximbank is operating under the auspices of the Hungarian foreign ministry.
Eximbank is a state-owned bank, therefore, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto, who visited Baku last week, has a final say, the diplomat said. Everything depends on whether we will find good projects for financing."
The North-South Transport Corridor has a great chance, Laslotsky added. "First, the Azerbaijani and Iranian sides will work on this issue, he added. High-level talks are expected to be held. In general, we hope that our funds will be used in the project implementation as we attach great importance to it."
Laslotsky recalled that Eximbank also plans to open a credit line worth $5 million to Azerbaijani PASHA Bank for lending to small and medium-sized enterprises.
"I do not know the terms of this project, but this is a real project, he said. Although the economy of the region and neighboring countries is experiencing hard times, there is always an opportunity for lending and we begin to use these opportunities."
HYDERABAD: The rape and murder of a minor in Hyderabad on Saturday allegedly by a 30-year-old man who was freed from jail just a day earlier has laid bare all that is rotten about Indias judicial and prison reforms system.
Chintakindi Anil, who was already accused in 25 criminal cases and convicted in 17, embarked on the biggest crime of his sordid life by allegedly picking up a 10- year-old girl from Boll a rum in the outskirts of the city after engaging her parents in small talk at a toddy shop. He offered the child chocolates and took her to a secluded area. He then raped and killed her, before dumping the body on a nearby railway track.
While the crime made headlines, it was the ease with which the perpetrator managed to sidestep the long arm of the law despite his criminal past that seemed more horrifying.
Anil got off lightly after being arrested last year for raping and attempting to bludgeon a woman to death in Narsapur of Medak district. A local court concluded that the woman was a prostitute, and Anil was sentenced to just one year in prison for attempted murder. The judge fixed the jail term after taking various factors into consideration, Hyderabad North Zone deputy commissioner of police B Sumathi told HT.
Local residents, however, say the light sentence allowed Anil to get another shot at his depraved ways costing the minor her life. Anil has been a known depredator since 2005. As many as 25 cases were registered against him at the Alwal police station in Cyberabad and Narsapur police station in Medak district. Though most of them pertained to theft and burglaries, he also engaged in extortion and robbery... besides the attempted murder in Narsapur, Sumathi said.
Whats left unsaid, however, is the fact that the authorities failed to read the danger Anil posed allowing him to slip through their net.
The youngest of five children, Anil parted ways with his parents soon after embarking on a life of crime. He fell into bad company as a child. Initially, we would get him out on bail. Five years ago, he left the house after we scolded him. We dont know what he has been doing since then, and who has been bailing him out, his father, CH Boodaiah, said. Psychiatrists say Anils anti-social tendencies were there for everybody to see. It is evident from the way Anil raped and murdered the 10-year-old girl that he has turned into a psychopath, psychologist G Kavitha said.
And yet, Anil who spent 80 months of the last 10 years behind bars always found a way to slink out of jail. He was able to get out of jail easily only because the prosecution failed to produce proper evidence related to his previous offences. The police should have invoked the Preventive Detention Act against him to ensure that he does not repeat his crimes, said advocate L Ravichander.
However, the authorities now say they will ensure that Anil is locked up for a very long time to come. This time, there is no way he will get bail. He will have to face stringent punishment, DCP Sumathi said.
However, thats little consolation for the grieving parents of the murdered girl.
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NEW DELHI: Four armed robbers barged into a jewellery showroom in Rohini Sector 17 and made way with ornaments worth Rs 3.5 crore around 2 pm on Tuesday.
Police said the shop owner, Harish Shahi, had gone to the local electricity supply office in A-block when the incident took place.
Eyewitnesses told the police that the four men came in a white sedan along with a woman and entered the showroom, armed with country-made pistols.
Three employees, including Shahis son, Nikunj, were inside the showroom.The robbers entered the shop with the woman posing as a customer. As Nikunj stood up to show jewellery to the woman, one of the men took out a pistol and held Nikunj at gunpoint and asked him to open the locker, a senior police officer said.
Nikunj tried to pick up his gun kept near the locker but the robbers snatched it from him. One of them hit Nikunj with the pistol butt. The men reportedly fired two rounds in the air to scare the locals, collected the jewellery and escaped in their car, the officer said.
He said eyewitnesses could not note down the registration number of the car as the plate was damaged. We have registered a case of robbery, the officer said.
Sources said that the CCTV cameras installed in the shop were switched off due to an ongoing construction work. My son managed to escape the bullets fired by the robbers. They smashed the window panes and made way with the jewellery, Shahi said. The shop was targeted by the robbers last year too, following which the shop owner installed high definition CCTV cameras and got a pistol.
The police have made a list of employees, including the ones who were fired off late. The police have also accessed call detail records of the showrooms owner and other employees.
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police in a joint operation with the Bihar Police arrested two persons for allegedly killing a woman who was elected the mukhiya of a gram panchayat on June 3.
Balram Prasad, 42, and Santosh Yadav, 26, who were on the police radar, were arrested from Wazirpur village and Ashok Vihar.
The police said Prasads wife was also contesting the gram panchayat election, but was defeated by Poonam Devi by a margin of 28 votes. This irked him and he hatched a plan to kill her.
He allegedly roped in Yadav, a contract killer for the job, and shot Poonam Devi dead. Yadav, the police said was a proclaimed offender and was also wanted in two other cases of murder in Bihar.
A case of murder was registered in Bihar on June 10 on the statement of one Inderjeet, Devis husband. He alleged his wife defeated her rival by a big margin. This agitated Prasad, who threatened her with dire consequences.
He said on the day of the incident, Devi was going on a motorcycle with one Jai Parkash Gupta. He said he was riding another motorcycle, when three persons -- Pappu Singh, Santosh Yadav and Pintu Yadav -- intercepted them and shot Devi using a countrymade pistol.
Following the complaint, a team of the Bihar Police came to Ashok Vihar after they received information about the men having escaped to Delhi. The team sought assistance from the local police and accordingly a team was formed.
Local intelligence channels were activated to collect information on the accused persons. We also set up technical surveillance. The photographs of the suspects were shared with the sources.
On the basis of available infor mation and technical surveillance, the joint team conducted raids at several places in Wazirpur Village and Ashok Vihar and the men were arrested, DCP Northwest, Vijay Singh, said.
The Aam Aadmi Partys (AAP) student wing, the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS), will not contest student elections in Delhi University this year.
It will, instead, launch a campaign against the muscle and money power that dominate student elections in the university.
Give us a fair mechanism, a body that will genuinely monitor university elections, and we will contest. But that framework does not exist right now. Despite a complete ban, motorcades do rounds in the university before the elections. Everyone sees this, everyone knows this but the university officials dont do anything about it, said CYSS Delhi state secretary Anmol Pawar.
According to AAP leaders, despite the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations, student elections remain a largely corrupt affair, with money flowing like water.
State elections are better monitored. Every step of the candidate, every expense is meticulously logged in. If this can happen in state elections, why cant it happen in student elections, said a senior leader.
AAP and CYSS leaders pointed at how four student members were allegedly roughed up and beaten in the past three years.
The university authorities are not interested in even touching university elections. They want things to go on as they are. We want sweeping changes and a serious implementation of the Lyngdoh Committee guidelines, said Anupam Kumar Yadav, Delhi state president, CYSS.
The student party may however contest college-level elections. While no final decision has been taken, we will try and contest, said Yadav.
Some party leaders said there is another reason the CYSS will not contest DU elections. The organisation is not as strong as we would have liked and we felt it was not the right time to contest, especially when the election process is not fair, a senior CYSS leader said.
The CYSS had contested the students union elections last year but the results werent too enthusing. Out of four positions, the student outfit managed to come in second in one, third in two and fourth in one.
The Delhi governments anti-corruption branch (ACB), which is investigating the purported water meter scam, has summoned former chief minister Sheila Dikshit and senior IAS officer Ramesh Negi in connection with the case.
Negi, at present serving as the principal secretary (urban development) in Delhi government, is believed to be close to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and was tipped to be appointed as the chief secretary last year.
In a notice issued by the ACB on June 30, Dikshit has been asked to convey to the officer a suitable and convenient, time and place to join investigation by August, 2016. The same notice has been issued to Negi and three other senior officers of the Delhi Jal Board.
Negi on Wednesday confirmed having received the summons. He said he has been asked to be present on July 28. It is a process of the law. I have received the summons and will go there on the specified date, he told HT.
Dikshit, on the other hand, termed the ACB summons as a politically motivated move. This is completely politically motivated and if and when the time comes to answer something, I will answer it? Dikshit told ANI.
The ACB had summoned Delhi law minister Kapil Mishra last month as part of its investigation. Mishra had then alleged he was not asked any questions about Dikshit.
Read: Why is ACB trying to shield Sheila Dikshit? asks Kapil Mishra
ACB sources said they are questioning officers almost every day and have collected records from the DJB office.
The ACB has earlier registered an FIR related to the purchase of 2.5 lakh water meters in 2012 without any proper tendering process.
In the FIR, Dikshit and DJB officers have been accused of making the tender conditions stringent to benefit some multinational contractors/companies.
Another allegation was that the financial bid of a particular company was opened without receiving the test result report from the Fluid Control Research Institute of Kerala. The alleged scam pertains to the period during the Congress rule in Delhi when Sheila Dikshit was the chief minister.
Another allegation was that the financial bid of a particular company was opened without receiving the test result report from the Fluid Control Research Institute of Kerala. The alleged scam pertains to the period during the Congress rule in Delhi, when Sheila Dikshit was the chief minister.
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has made it mandatory to obtain environmental clearances for Indian Railway projects before any work begins on the ground.
The NGT bench, headed by the tribunals chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar, delivered the order on Tuesday in response to a petition filed by environmentalist Vikrant Tongad.
In a petition filed on May 3, 2016, Tongad alleged that the Indian Railways project of laying 140km new track from Noida in UP to Rewari in Haryana will affect the ecology of the area because the Hindon Rivers 800-metre stretch in Noida is being averted without obtaining environmental clearance (EC).
Indian Railways argued before the tribunal that its projects are exempted from obtaining EC as they are big infrastructure projects of national importance.
But NGT did not go by Indian Railways counsels argument and made it clear that a railway project should obtain EC, like Delhi Metro projects, Rahul Chaudhary, advocate on behalf of the petitioner, said.
Tongad is all set to file another petition in the NGT demanding a stay order on the work at Hindon River in Noida.
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Less than two months after he was released from jail, 77-year-old Dhani Ram Mittal known as Super Natwarlal and Indian Charles Sobhraj in police records again landed in jail in a vehicle theft case.
Mittal, police said, has been involved in over 130 vehicle theft cases over the years.
The septuagenarian was arrested on Tuesday in west Delhis Paschim Vihar in a Maruti Esteem car he had stolen on Monday from Shalimar Bagh. He was on his way to sell the stolen car to a scrap dealer when he was nabbed.
Mondays theft was Mittals second car theft since his release from jail on May 4. He was last arrested in March.
For nearly six decades, Mittal has been in and out of jail in a number of cases. His areas of operation include Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Chandigarh and Punjab. Mittal has stolen more than thousand vehicles from these states.
A law graduate, the man had first worked as a station master on forged documents between 1968 and 1974.
Read more: Meet the Indian Charles Sobhraj, a 77-year-old fake judge
DCP (west) Pushpender Kumar said that during the same period, he started making forged driving licences and fake registration papers.
Once he impersonated a magistrate in Jhajjar district and worked there for more than two months. During this time, he freed many criminals from jail, said a senior investigating officer.
Police sources said Mittal works as a lawyer and provides legal help to his friends. He has been in an out of jail so many times that he has more friends in jail than outside. He helps them with their cases, the officer said.
During interrogation, Mittal confessed he targeted old cars, which do not have anti-auto theft security systems.
The Delhi Jal Boards ambitious project to augment water supply in Vasant Vihar has come under scanner following the residents allegations that the water utility is diverting the water supply line from the main reservoir to other areas.
Residents blame MLA Promila Tokas for engaging a private contractor and tampering with the main line of Vasant Vihar reservoir to supply water to DDA janta flats and Vasant Gaon. They say the work of laying pipeline is being carried out illegally and the contractor isnt following the correct procedure.
In 2012, the DJB had initiated the pilot project of augmenting the water supply network in selected areas of Delhi and Vasant Vihar was one of them. To undertake the project, the DJB had signed a contract with the MVV Water Utility Pvt Ltd and the areas to be covered under this project include Vasant Vihar, Vasant Enclave, Shanti Niketan, Anand Niketan and Westend. It was expected that after the completion of the project, residents will get water supply for 24 hours.
The project was supposed to be completed by 2014 end, but according to the residents, 20% of the work is still pending. It includes installation of equipment (like boosters) at some places and connecting the internal lines to main supply line, said Garg.
However, before the project was completed, the MLA came up with the proposal to include other areas with main supply line connected to the Vasant Vihar reservoir. These areas were not even mentioned in the pilot project. She is trying to woo voters prior to the municipal election scheduled to take place early next year, said Keshav Garg, RWA president, D block.
Tokas clarified that the ongoing project for laying the water pipeline in Vasant Gaon was started after the permission of the DJB. The village is dependent on the borewell for drinking water. But it is not good for health and thats why we are asking the DJB to connect the area to the main reservoir. We received permission from the CEO of DJB six months back and the work was started after that, she said.
A senior DJB official said that the decision was taken in an internal meeting of the DJB. The laying of the pipeline for the village wont affect the ongoing project, he said.
Residents got to know about the development when the digging work started in Block D and C (at the backside of main reservoir) on June 24, for laying water pipelines from the reservoir to the neighbouring colonies. As a result, the residents protested and alleged that the move will affect the water distribution system of the locality which would lead to severe water shortage in their area. They said that the contractor didnt have any formal permission.
We are not against the supply of water to Vasant Gaon, slum dwellers and other residents, but we are worried about the future of the project aimed at providing round the clock water supply in the area. We just want the project to be completed first and after which the rest of the areas can be covered, said Suresh Goel, president of Vasant Vihar Welfare Association.
Aggrieved residents had immediately filed a complaint with the local police and also written letter to the Lieutenant Governor seeking an appointment to discuss the issue in detail. We filed a complaint with the police because the work was done illegally. Secondly, as per Municipal Corporation norms, no digging work is allowed after June 1, said Goel.
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In a huge setback for the Congress, the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) on Wednesday issued notice to former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, asking her to join the investigation into the water meter scam case.
The notice states: It appears that you (Sheila Dikshit) are acquainted with facts and circumstances of case and is required to join investigation.
We are probing the matter. The concerned officers have been issued notice and Sheila Dikshit ji has also been issued a notice in this regard, ACB chief MK Meena told the media here.
Meena said the case was registered in 2014 in the Anti Corruption Branch, adding that the Delhi Jal Board had bought 2.5 lakh water metres and there are allegations that there was no proper tendering and tender conditions were changed so that the personal companies are benefitted.
He alleged that Delhi water minister Kapil Mishra was not cooperating in the case.
The notice indicates as if order has been given to the ACB to behave politely with Sheila Dikshit. If she feels bad, then she might expose all the scams of the BJP, Mishra told ANI.
He is making a mockery of the investigating agency. He shouldnt be doing this. He should cooperate and not indulge in saying wrong things, he added.
Dikshit is under the scanner for her alleged role in the water tanker scam worth Rs 400 crore.
Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung had earlier forwarded Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi Government`s complaint of water tanker scam against Dikshit to the ACB last month.
The AAP Government had in June last year constituted a fact-finding committee to probe the irregularities in hiring some 385 stainless steel water tankers by the Delhi Jal Board in 2012 during the Congress rule.
It is not often that the level of development of a country indicates the empowerment of its women. Rwanda, by no means developed regardless of the developmental criteria one uses, comes on top of the list of the proportion of women MPs in Parliament. India ranks a poor 141st, according to the data of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. And this is also being reflected in the representation of women in the government. In the second reshuffle done by the NDA government on July 5, of the 19 new ministers sworn in, just two are women. This takes the number of women ministers in the government (Cabinet ministers and ministers of state taken together) to nine among 78, just about equalling the proportion of women MPs in Parliament, which is 11.4%. The situation was not much different in the UPA 2, in which 10 women figured in a ministry of 78. In this respect India is on a par with China, while Indonesia, with a score of nearly 25%, has done much better. Compare this with the US Obama Administration, in which six of the 22 members, including the president and the vice-president, are women.
Read | Mr PM, plan for women
There are two aspects to the problem here. Elite politics in Asian countries has been to a great extent family-based. Bit as one goes downward, societies turn more illiberal and male-dominated. Thus politics at the grassroots does not provide a fertile soil for a woman to contest elections and become leaders in order to stake claim for high offices. Though now we have legislation providing for 33% reservation for women in local bodies, elected women are often found to do the bidding of the so-called male superiors in their families. Even in the middle classes the feeling is strong that politics is chiefly a male domain. When a woman wishes to join politics, political glad-handing has to come from a man. This has been the story of the four powerful women chief ministers in India.
Read | Gender equality a far cry in Kerala politics
The Indian State has great welfare content in policy and execution. Still its baggage of the past is such that womens empowerment has not been as much as had been desired. To ameliorate things, both the State and civil society have a role. While civil activists can play their part in consciousness generation and educate women about their rights, the State must use its iron hand to see to it that women are represented in local organisations on their strength. Political parties, on their part, should give more space for women in contesting elections until full-fledged legislation comes in.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 5
By Umid Niayesh Trend:
Iran has no chance to attract foreign investors to the countrys oil industry via the former models of oil contracts, including the buyback model, Parviz Mina, former member of OPEC Long-Term Strategy Committee, told Trend July 5.
CEO of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Ali Kardor said July 4 that the Islamic Republic plans to develop its oilfields using three kinds of contracts, including buyback, EPCF (engineering, procurement, construction and finance), and the new oil contracts called the Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC).
Only joint oil and gas fields will be offered via the IPC, according to Kardor.
The contract types that were used previously, including EPCF and buyback, are not accepted by foreign companies and no investment will be made by foreigners under those types of contracts, believes Mina.
He said the only contract type that might help Iran to attract foreign investors is the IPC.
The IPC was introduced in late 2015 as a measure to make more out of the Iranian oil business.
However, the projects under the IPC havent been offered so far due to disputes between Iranian administration and hardliners who say the new generation of Irans oil contracts is against the countrys national interests and contradicts the Islamic Republics strategic benefits.
In mid-June, Irans Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh expressed hope that the IPC will be operational in three months.
He said his ministry held various talks with the critics of the new contract model, adding certain revision was made in the IPC.
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Follow the author on Twitter: @UmidNiayesh
Girls, just a few weeks are left for colleges to reopen and you must be worrying about what youre going to wear during this busy time.
Splurging on accessories does not make sense when you are going to reuse and use the stuff for a whole year. Interestingly, Delhi being what it is, the markets here have hundreds of options in visually-appealing neck pieces, trendy watches, colourful hair bands, bracelets, fancy bags, backpacks and comfortable footwear... and that too for just Rs 100.
So start your hunt in the Sarojini Nagar market, Janpath, Lajpat Nagar and Kamla Nagar for beautiful and colourful accessories to be matched with your daily college wear.
While a pair of trendy sandals or chappals will cost you anything close to Rs 100 with a wide range of colours and designs to choose from, a small backpack for a light day in college (top left) can be bought for the same price from Sarojini Nagar.
Wrist watches (top right) are a must have when it comes to accessories. In case you are not brand conscious, you can pick up a trendy watch as long as you find them presentable and attractive.
Neck pieces are a rage among college students. You can go for something which is colourful, chic, inexpensive and yet stylish such as the one seen here (right). So sharpen your bargaining skills and go on a shopping spree.
Watches: Price Rs 100 (Riya Wadhwa)
Footwear: Price Rs 90 (Riya Wadhwa)
Accessories kit: Price Rs 100 (Riya Wadhwa)
Backpack: Price Rs 100 (Riya Wadhwa)
Hair band: Price Rs 30 (Riya Wadhwa)
The governing council of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) has approved key proposals, including the introduction of new syllabus, choice-based credit system and offering additional courses, suggested by its academic council.
Gajendra Chauhan, whose appointment as the chairperson was opposed by students who alleged that the TV actor lacked vision and stature to head the prestigious institute, chaired the governing councils meeting held in Mumbai on Tuesday that accepted the proposal submitted by its academic council in June this year.
Read: FTII chairman Chauhan meets RSS chief Bhagwat in Nagpur
While there was no discussion about the nomenclature of the institute, the proposed changes accepted at the governing councils meeting paved way for the implementation of the vision document.
We are looking at future to make FTII as an institute of higher learning where there will be more subjects as well as short term courses on offer, FTII director Bhupendra Kainthola told Hindustan Times.
When asked if FTII will be renamed once the proposed changes are implemented, Kainthola said, The governing council has not yet decided about the nomenclature, although for the sake of convenience we are calling it University of Cinema, Television & Allied Arts.
Noted filmmaker and television producer BP Singh, who heads the academic council, proposed broad basing the course content. The proposal envisages setting up of nine different schools under the aegis of FTII that will offer 22 courses, including short-term courses, besides core subjects like direction, cinematography, acting, editing and sound design.
Read: After FTII, Pune college receives threat letter and detonator
To introduce the changes which are part of vision document, small committees will be formed. Once the committees submit their report, the changes will come into effect by next year, Kainthola said.
The FTII also decided to move away from the current system of annual assessment and replace it with a choice-based credit system. The institute will introduce new syllabus from August under a semester system.
While the existing batches would continue to be covered under the old system, new batches will have to learn under the new syllabus.
Read: Campus trouble: 10 times colleges turned into war zones
The GC also approved the appointment of a proctor and new rules regarding hostel accommodation to bring discipline on the campus and ensure that students vacate hostel after completion of their course.
Last year, FTII had asked dozens of students - who had completed their course - to vacate their hostel rooms amid an agitation seeking Chauhans removal as the institutes chairperson.
Tom Alter withdraws resignation
Meanwhile, veteran actor Tom Alter, who had resigned as the head of the acting department at the FTII following serious differences with students, has withdrawn his resignation.
Kainthola said the governing council requested Alter to withdraw his resignation.
The governing council was informed about Alters decision and the GC has welcomed his decision to take back the resignation, Kainthola told Hindustan Times.
FTII students refused to attend Alters lectures as he had sought 100% attendance in his classes. They also accused Alter of using dictatorial ways and said that he was failing as an administrator.
For many years now, India has been witnessing incremental changes in its academic policies. However, experts believe the countrys need of the hour isnt minor reforms, but a major overhaul as far as its education system is concerned.
According to educationists, teachers who form the very backbone of the system have not received a lot of attention. Upscaling and updating teacher empowerment, besides capacity building, is the only way forward. Also, teachers must be given the dignity and recognition they deserve in society. Some people still view it as half a days work; we need to make teaching as glamorous as an MBA job. We need to dignify the teacher, said Lata Vaidyanathan, former principal of Modern School, Barakhamba Road.
Vaidyanathan further stated that the high cut-offs in select colleges place a huge burden on students, even good ones. This inadvertently encourages rote-learning, resulting in students not assimilating anything substantial by way of education.
Even schools that think differently in terms of teaching put reforms on the backburner when it comes to Class 11 and 12, and say: You want the marks and we want the marks, so go get it! The race for marks is such that we have lost an understanding of knowledge itself, she said.
Vaidyanathan suggested that an examination on the lines of the US-based SAT test be introduced to bridge grading discrepancies between various state boards.
Teacher training is yet another area that has turned into a mere formality, with educators attending the sessions but learning very little from them. Our teacher training programmes need a major overhaul. We continue to use archaic tools of training, which need to be changed. We should also engage the students, and not encourage rote learning by focusing merely on numbers. Besides this, the dismal teacher-student ratio needs to be addressed a single teacher cant hold the attention of a very big class, said Dinesh Singh, former vice-chancellor of Delhi University.
Other experts believe stern action should be taken against administrators if they are caught promoting unfair practices among students. If someone is caught cheating, throw them (invigilators) out. I think punitive action should be taken against adults, not children. In open schools, I couldnt do much even though there were several cases of mass copying. Punitive action should be taken against teachers who play truant or dont carry out their tasks, said Deepak Pental, former vice-chancellor of Delhi University.
Pental said though he had asked the government to rid transfer policies of their political baggage, the suggestion was not implemented. I once suggested to the government that it transfer teachers on the basis of lottery, not patronage. There is a huge political push in transferring teachers, and it de-motivates others, he said.
Professor Anita Rampal, former dean of the faculty of education, Delhi University, believes examinations are the weakest point of Indias education system today. I feel that the Right To Education (RTE) Act is very progressive in the way it has mandated that there should be no competitive board exams, and the annual exams be conducted with a focus on a more authentic assessment of how students are learning and performing through the year. But I think the system did not actually follow it. The examinations and assessments being conducted are actually quite superficial, she said.
Rampal further pointed out that question papers merely elicit meaningless information, based on the memorisation of information. I would say such exams actually violate the childs rights, and it is the system that fails not the child.
The government should also prioritise putting in place a robust assessment system, she added.
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Dr Praveen Raj always wanted to become a doctor, but it was only during his MBBS days that he developed a love for pharmacology.
His motivations were simple there was a dearth of academia and research in the country and he wanted to do something to fill the gap.
He loved biology since school days and knew that he wanted to be a doctor from a very young age. After school, he realised that getting a seat in a medical college is not easy and put in immense hard work to crack the entrance test in one go.
While studying MBBS at Devraj Urs Medical College, Bengaluru, one of his professors had told him that an ideal doctor should hone three qualities he should be a researcher, a physician and teacher.
Read more: Should you opt for deferred placements, or go it alone?
I realised that while there is no dearth of physicians in India, academia and research are still relatively under-represented. This is why I chose to specialise with an MD in pharmacology, a field of medicine that offers a mix of academics and research, he says.
What do pharmacologists do? Those with a science degree and good technical skills do research on and develop drugs. They have to understand how drugs work and how these can be used safely and effectively on human beings. Research to discover and develop new drugs is also something they need to do.
I get a great sense of fulfillment because of what my work enables and thats why I love it, says Dr Praveen Raj. (Handout Image)
Pharmacologists have to investigate how drugs affect biological systems. These (drugs) are tested on cells and animal tissue and even whole animals to check how they react.
Talking about the most important projects he has been involved with, Raj, who currently working with the pharma company, Abbott, says it was researching heart diseases in women.
Heart disease in women, in India, for different reasons, was not studied or given attention to, as much as heart disease in men. The fact is that women have very much the same triggers stress, lifestyle, genetic factors that influence heart disease. My work involved surveying thousands of doctors across India and creating medical data that highlighted the condition of heart disease in women, says Raj, chief manager, medical services at Abbott.
Read more: Got a business idea? Follow these tips before starting up
Pharmacology is an evolving field because new drug discoveries and regulations are happening at a rapid space. One needs to keep abreast of this knowledge to remain relevant. For those with full-time day jobs, it becomes a bit of a task to keep up.
Smartphone technology is a great help if you want to stay updated mobile apps like Medscape, Knowledge Genie and Heart are great resources for any pharmacologist, Raj adds.
He says his qualifications allow him to work within different disciplines pharmaco-vigilance, clinical research, medical affairs, across pharmaceuticals, nutrition, medical devices and diagnostics.
Hes also happy about the fact that his work enables him to help people lead happy and healthy lives from keeping their hearts healthy to nourishing their bodies at every stage of life by taking medicines to manage their health, Raj says.
I get a great sense of fulfillment because of what my work enables and thats why I love it, he adds.
All you need to know about a career in pharmacology (HT Photo)
In India, the demand for pharmacologists is significant, mainly because of the pharmaceuticals and healthcare industry.
Medical writing, clinical research, back-end support for global clinical trials, research and academia are other areas where pharmacologists can build a career in India.
Read more: Research helps IISc break into top 30 THE Asia University Rankings
There are a few basic skills that a pharmacologist needs to excel analytical ability, sound pharmaceutical and pharmacological knowledge, observational skills and precision in analysis. He or she also needs to study extensively; there is no alternative to committing to study deeply. These are really skills of the trade one must sharpen these in order to be good at this profession.
Pharmacologists can expect to find jobs in the pharmaceutical industry. They can also work for clinical research organisations, in research wings of universities, environmental agencies, governmental laboratories, hospitals or organisations involved in medicinal/drug research.
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The suicide note of Cathriona White, actor Jim Carreys former girlfriend, who took her own life shortly after they broke up in 2015, has emerged.
The Irish make-up artist passed away in her home in Los Angeles last September after overdosing on prescription medication and was found with a suicide note for the actor.
The suicide note details how White felt after she and Carrey ended their relationship, reports tmz.com.
She also apologised to him, saying she had tried to give you my best part, and let him plan her funeral.
Signing off Twitter, I hope I have been a light to my nearest and dearest. to yo all Cathriona white (@littleirishcat) September 24, 2015
I have spent three days now in disbelief that you are not here. I can go on broken-hearted and try to put the pieces back. I could, I just dont have the will this time, she wrote in the letter. Im sorry you felt I wasnt there for you. I tried to give you my best part.
She asked him for forgiveness, writing Im just not for this world.
Read: Jim Carreys girlfriend found dead, suicide suspected
Prior to the split and her death, White and Carey were reported to be dating on and off throughout their three-year relationship.
A toxicology report said that four prescription drugs were found in her system when she died.
Read: Jim Carreys girlfriend was married at the time of her death
Some of the drugs appeared to be Carreys because police found on her phone at the time a text message from the actor, who asked her if she knew where his painkillers went from under his sink.
Love cannot be lost. pic.twitter.com/XxPYOhkdzc Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) October 10, 2015
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Three workers died after inhaling poisonous gas at a catechu factory in Ferozepur Bangar village of Sonepat district on Tuesday night.
The deceased have been identified as Ram Jassu Paswan, Ram Parvesh Paswan and Rahul Kumar. Police said all of them were in their early twenties and were migrant labourers from Bihars Banka district.
Police said a gas leak occurred in the factory at around 11 pm on Tuesday night when the three were on their night duty. They were rushed to hospital where they were declared dead on arrival.
Police said they have booked the factory owner for negligence. The bodies of the three workers have been sent for postmortem. More details can be shared after the reports, SHO Kharkauda said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will leave on a five-day tour of four nations in Africa from July 7 the latest in Indias efforts to plug the absence of high-level visits to the continent of 54 countries.
While these resource-rich countries are crucial for Indias plans to become a permanent member in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), most of them already benefit from huge Chinese financial assistance and investments.
Energy cooperation, food security, air service connectivity, defence manufacturing and diaspora engagements are among the key areas Modi will focus on when he visits Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya. The four-nation trip will conclude on July 11.
Both President Pranab Mukherjee and vice president Hamid Ansari went to Africa this year as part of efforts to address a long-held complaint from these nations the near-total absence of high-level visits from India.
This is the first time in 34 years that an Indian Prime Minister would be visiting Mozambique, the third-biggest source of gas import after Qatar and Australia. The last such visit to Kenya happened 35 years ago, and to South Africa home to 1.2 million people of Indian origin about a decade ago.
Read: PM Modi to visit 4 African nations from July 7 to 11
This is the first (state) visit by the Prime Minister to the African mainland. They are our maritime neighbours, gateways to our land-locked African countries. All these countries have a sizeable Indian diaspora, said Amar Sinha, secretary (economic relations) in the external affairs ministry.
Apart from energy cooperation, the two countries will enter a pact for government-to-government purchase of pulses during Modis 12-hour visit to Mozambique on July 7. Pulses worth $5 billion will be bought from Mozambique under this agreement. The two countries are also applying the final touches to an arrangement that will involve Mozambican farmers being contracted to cultivate pulses with an assurance that India will buy their produce besides helping them procure seeds and new farming technologies.
India, for its part, is keen on getting South African technology in deep mining, coal gasification and defence manufacturing. The two governments are also set to sign an air services agreement during the visit.
Modi will hold diaspora engagements in each of the four countries. The events at Johannesburg in South Africa and Nairobi in Kenya are expected to draw over 10,000 people each.
Matters related to UNSC expansion will also be discussed with all the four countries, Sinha said.
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Tamil writer Perumal Murugan, who was forced to symbolically declare in 2014 that he had died after protests over his novel, said on Wednesday that he will get up after the Madras high court dismissed a criminal case filed against him two years ago and called for the authors resurrection.
My mind wishes to spend a little time in the joy of this moment, he added, indicating his resurrection as an author would take a little longer.
Residents of Tiruchengode and the Kongu Nadu belt--areas where Murugan lived and wrote about in his novels--claimed that Madhorubagan offended their religious sentiments - only after it was translated into English in 2014. The Tamil version was published in 2011.
The book is about a childless couple from rural Tamil Nadu that is forced by their families to participate in an ancient chariot festival in the temple of Ardhanareeshvara, a composite androgynous form of Shiva and Parvati. According to the book, any man was permitted to sleep with any woman and vice-versa during the night of the festival.
The bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana, argued that the charges that Madhorubagan - translated to One Part Woman in English - allegedly offended the religious sentiments of a community were unfounded.
All writings, unpalatable for one section of the society, cannot be labelled as obscene, vulgar, depraving, prurient and immoral, it said.
It was Chief Justice Kaul, who as a member of the Delhi high court, delivered the historic judgement that exonerated legendary painter MF Husain of similar charges in 2008.
Murugans intention to return to the fold and write again is not the only consequence of Tuesdays landmark judgement.
Activists say the court ruling has come as a victory for freedom of expression in a country that has seen a systematic hounding of artists over the last four years - from the murders of rationalists Dr Narendra Dabholkar, MM Kalburgi and Govind Pansare, to the outcry surrounding Gajendra Chauhans appointment as chairman of prestigious FTII and Sahitya Akademi members returning their awards in protest against government apathy.
It was an excellent judgement that has allowed him to come back to writing, Kannan Sundaram, editor of the Tamil arts magazine Kalachuvadu and Murugans publisher, said. But it is also absolutely a milestone in the context of freedom of expression in India - and hopefully, will be used as case law in the future.
Because it is a high court ruling, it can be used to settle issues of freedom of expression across India, Sundaram added.
Of the many points that Tuesdays judgement established in flowing, oft-times verging on the poetic, prose in its 140-page ruling, arguably the most important one was about the reinterpretation of presumption.
What is interesting about mentioning the idea of presumption is that the court has argued that the primary presumption should be in favour of your fundamental rights, Sadanand Menon, an art critic and cultural commentator, said.
The new interpretation holds that one must presume the author has the right to write until proven guilty in a court of law - a statement that helps buttress, according to Menon, the absolute un-negotiability of Article 19As commitment to free speech.
The conclusion to the nearly two-year long battle that Murugan has faced constitutes an important milestone in the battle for freedom of expression in a nation as fractious as India, activists said.
But it should also not be taken lightly, Menon warned.
It cant be as simplistic as celebrating Murugans victory, he said. The time has come for artists and writers to take this forward - for us as a society to acknowledge the importance of this particular reinterpretation of the law.
Sundaram is now planning to try and republish Murugans works, including Madhorubagan and his latest, unfinished novel Pookuzhi (pyre).
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Ahead of his departure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said his four-nation tour of African countries is aimed at enhancing ties with that continent, particularly in the economic sphere and people-to- people contacts.
Modi will begin his five-day tour with Mozambique and then travel to South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.
Focus of the visit will be on deepening cooperation in areas of hydrocarbons, maritime security, trade and investment, agriculture and food.
My Africa tour, aimed at enhancing ties between India & Africa will begin from Mozambique in a brief but key visit, he tweeted.
My programmes in South Africa will span across Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban & Pietermaritzburg, he added.
In Tanzania I will hold talks with President Dr. John Magufuli, meet Solar Mamas & interact with Indian community, Modi added.
With regard to his visit to Kenya in the last leg of his visit, he tweeted, Talks with President @UKenyatta, deliberations on economic & people-to-people ties will be focus of my Kenya visit.
Giving details in Facebook posts, the Prime Minister said the aim of his visit to Mozambique is to increase cooperation and boost cultural linkages.
I will meet President Filipe Nyusi and hold extensive talks with him, he said.
Other programmes include a meeting with Veronica Macamo, the President of the National Assembly and a visit to the S&T Park, Maluana, where he will interact with students. He will also interact with the Indian community briefly.
Tomorrow evening, Modi will travel to Pretoria in South Africa, a country he described as an important strategic partner, with whom our ties are historical and deep-rooted.
He said, History is witness to how Mahatma Gandhis stay in South Africa impacted him and the history of the world. He went to South Africa as a lawyer seeking work and returned to India as a strong voice for humanitarian values, who would go on to shape the history of humankind, Modi said.
I will have the honour to visit Phoenix Settlement and Pietermaritzburg Station, two places very closely associated with Mahatma Gandhis stay in South Africa.
A visit to South Africa is incomplete without remembering the beloved Madiba (Nelson Mandela). I will also be honoured to visit the Constitutional Hill and Nelson Mandela Foundation where I would pay my tributes to an icon of human history, who made his country and the world a much better place, he said.
During his South Africa visit, he will meet President Jacob Zuma as also Cyril Ramaphosa, the Deputy President.
In an effort to boost our economic ties, I will speak at the India-South Africa business meet, he said.
Other programmes of the Prime Minister in Durban include a meeting with the Alumni Network and a reception hosted by the Mayor.
South Africa is home to a vibrant Indian community, that has made South Africa their home for years. I will interact with the Indian community a programme in Johannesburg on 8th July, the Prime Minister said and invited ideas and inputs for his speech through the Narendra Modi Mobile App.
On July 10, he will be in Tanzania for a brief but crucial visit to give an impetus to ties with Tanzania, a valued friend in Africa, Modi said.
There will be extensive talks with President Dr. John Magufuli where we will chalk out the road ahead for bettering India-Tanzania relations in a wide range of areas, he said.
He said he will also be meeting Solar Mamas, a group of rural women solar engineers from Africa who have been trained under GOI-supported programmes to fabricate, install, use, repair and maintain solar lanterns and household solar lighting systems in their villages.
He will interact with the Indian community as well. Modi will then visit Kenya on the evening of July 10.
India-Kenya ties have stood the test of time. Both our nations have had very strong people-to-people ties and both nations have successfully fought colonialism in the previous century, the Prime Minister said.
My deliberations with President Uhuru Kenyatta will revolve around how India and Kenya can grow their bilateral cooperation. I envision better trade, commercial and cultural exchanges between India and Kenya. The potential is immense and together we seek to harness it, he said.
In Nairobi, Modi will offer floral tributes to Mahatma Gandhi, who is widely revered in Kenya. He will also pay tributes to Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya and a towering political figure of Africa.
The meeting of the India-Kenya business forum will be an important forum to elaborate more on the economic aspect of our relationship with Kenya, he said.
A programme that I am keenly looking forward to join is an interaction with students at the Nairobi University, he said.
In order to deepen ties with the diaspora, I will address a community programme on 10th July. There is also a meeting with Bharatwallah Alumni Association during the visit.
Another programme is the handing over of ambulances and a model of Bhabhatron, he said.
The Maharashtra State Commission for Women is awaiting a reply from Bollywood superstar Salman Khan over his recent rape comment, its chairperson said on Wednesday.
He has been called to appear before us tomorrow (Thursday), or through his lawyer, at 4.30 p.m. to submit his affidavit in the matter. We shall await his reply before taking any further step, MSCW Chairperson Vijaya Rahatkar told IANS.
Last week, the panel had rejected the actors reply and summoned him afresh on July 7, which happens to be a holiday for Eid-ul-Fitr.
The holiday was previously scheduled for today (Wednesday) but postponed to Thursday, by when he is required to reply.
Since the MSCW will be working as usual on Thursday, Rahatkar ruled out issuing any fresh date for filing his reply.
The actor has also been issued summons for personal appearance for July 8 by the National Commission for Women (NCW) in New Delhi in the case.
On June 29, Salmans lawyer submitted a letter to the MSCW, urging it not to pursue the matter to avoid duplication since it was already being dealt with by the NCW.
We have concurrent powers just the way the NCW has. This matter can be heard at the state level too. Therefore, his version is invalid, Rahatkar had said, rejecting his plea.
Salman Khan, 50, was issued a notice for his raped woman remark.
During a media interaction on June 18, Salman said he felt like a raped woman after shooting a gruelling wrestling sequence for Sultan.
It is like the most difficult thing... when I used to walk out of that ring, it used to be actually like a raped woman, he was reported as saying.
The movie, in which he plays a wrestler, was released on June 6 to full houses and rave reactions from the viewers.
The BJP tried to achieve many things in a single action by inducting its Dalit face in Uttarakhand into Prime Minister Narendra Modis council of ministers, analysts said on Tuesday, dissecting the importance of young parliamentarian Ajay Tamta.
The move to make Tamta the Union minister of state for textiles may not only help the BJP win the youth and Dalits, but also stop the partys sliding popularity ahead of the 2017 assembly polls. Besides, the 44-year-old leader from Kumaon will help correct the regional imbalance within the BJP, which is skewed in favour of Garhwal.
Read: As it happened: New portfolios after Modis cabinet reshuffle
All these factors will help salvage the BJPs image ahead of the assembly polls, said professor YP Sundriyal of HNB Garhwal University. Its popularity suffered a downslide as it is seen as a party that toppled the elected Congress government, plunging the state into political crisis for more than two months.
The BJP-led Centre has been accused of foisting Presidents rule in the hill state after Congress chief minister Harish Rawat faced a revolt and nine of his lawmakers sided with the Opposition in March. Rawats government was restored last month after he won a Supreme Court-monitored trust vote.
Political observers appeared unsure whether the Almora MPs inclusion will translate into votes for the BJP.
The move will pay the party electoral dividends provided it is able to exploit the Tamta factor to its advantage in the run-up to elections, said MM Semwal, a professor of political science at HNB Garhwal University.
Read: Complete list of portfolios of Modis ministers
It will certainly help the party dilute the ruling Congresss recent move to get its Dalit face elected to the Rajya Sabha, he said referring to the former parliamentarian for Almora, Pradeep Tamta, a known loyalist of chief minister Rawat.
State BJP vice-president Jyoti Prasad Gairola agreed.
Getting Tamta elevated to the Union ministry will send across a positive message that our party cares for Dalits that form 17% of the states total population, he said. While their (Congress) Rajya Sabha members influence will remain confined to his area (Almora), Tamta being a Union minister will work for the whole state.
Analysts dubbed PM Modis move to ignore three former chief ministers and sitting parliamentarians BC Khanduri, BS Koshiyari and Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank as a political masterstroke to quell infighting within the party.
Read: With cabinet expansion, Modi performs a balancing act in poll-bound UP
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A day after the expansion and reshuffle of the Narendra Modi Cabinet, ally Shiv Sena took potshots at the BJP saying that it is difficult these days to find people of the same calibre as those who had served in the ministries of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.
Miffed at being ignored in the ministry expansion, Sena had on Tuesday said it was hurt at the way the exercise was carried out and questioned the Prime Ministers selection criterion.
(Narendra) Modi is the lone face of this government. Compared to this, the ministries of Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru had some excellent members like Babasaheb Ambedkar, Babu Jagjivan Ram, Yashwantrao Chavan and Shankarrao Chavan, Sena said in an editorial in its mouthpiece Saamana.
The HRD ministry got its name only because of P V Narasimha Rao. The world got to know that India has a Finance Minister who works, only because of Manmohan Singh. People of the calibre in the cabinets of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi cannot be found today. In such a scenario, Modi has no option but to take complete responsibility of his Cabinet, it said.
Apparently drawing cold comfort from the fact that it was mostly the BJP members who had been inducted in the ministry, it said the exercise was about the leading partner alone and so NDA partners like Shiv Sena, Akali Dal and TDP should not feel bad for not being given additional berths.
Today, the BJP has a majority and thus they can do what they wish, it added.
Sena, however, took a jibe at RPI(A) chief Ramdas Athawale, who has been made a Minister of State.
Athawale had earlier said that he would not accept a Cabinet berth till his party got a place in the Maharashtra government. What has caused him to change that stance now?, it sought to know.
Smriti Irani, arguably Indias most Twitter savvy minister after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hasnt tweeted in several hours now.
But, #ByeByeSmriti is a top trend on Twitter since Tuesday night.
Read: Smriti bhi kabhi HRD thi: How Twitter reacted to Iranis portfolio change
Though shes changed her Twitter bio to reflect the change from human resource development minister to Union Minister Government of India, her prolonged silence has Lutyens Delhi abuzz with the speculation that she saw it coming. Irani was sounded out on Monday of a possible change, a source in the ruling BJP revealed.
The new Union textile ministers last tweet if you discount the numerous retweets the last of which came 18 hours ago and most of which were original tweets of the Prime Ministers office or the governments official handle came on Monday afternoon.
It was a quick and somewhat muted response to someone thanking her for helping out.
Read: Irani shifted to textiles ministry, Javadekar is new HRD minister
Glad to be of help, she replied to a research scholar at Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad thanking her, the HRD ministry and PM Modi for intervening on a fee hike.
Last known, Irani was not on the best of terms with research scholars. Jawaharlal Nehru University students union president and research scholar Kanhaiya Kumar charged with sedition for a function held on the JNU campus even demanded her resignation for the death of Hyderabad University research scholar Rohith Vemula.
Read: Cabinet reshuffle: Portfolios of Modis ministers
A few hours earlier, Irani had tweeted a tribute to Swami Vivekananda on his Nirvan Diwas.
This is rather unusual for Irani some of whose tweets created just as much controversy if not more as her handling of the HRD ministry and political opponents. Not known to mince words or withhold her jibes, despite her position in the Union cabinet, Iranis spats in the past have yielded several Twitter trends in the past.
Her silence now could have her four million plus followers wondering #WhereIsSmriti?
The Centre withdrew on Wednesday an appeal filed in the Supreme Court by the previous Congress-led government that had sought to retain the minority tag for the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).
The Narendra Modi government also withdrew all letters issued by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) under the UPA regime allowing the AMU to reserve 50% of its seats for Muslims in the faculty of medicine.
This letter along with any other letter issued from the MHRD supporting the minority status of the AMU may be treated as withdrawn, read a government affidavit filed in the top court.
The universitys identity is a contentious political issue in Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP is seeking to project it as an example of Muslim appeasement at the cost of the rights of scheduled castes, tribes and backward classes. The institution doesnt offer quotas to these communities.
A formal abrogation of the minority status for the university by the courts could help the BJP in its outreach to SC/STs and OBCs in the state which goes to polls early next year.
The outcome of the case could also set a judicial precedent for a similar legal battle in the Delhi high court over the status for the Jamia Milia Islamia University, which was declared a minority institution during the UPA government in 2011.
The BJP-led government argues that granting AMU minority status is in violation of the constitution which does not permit a secular India to set up and fund institutions on religious lines.
The BJPs stand on the university is only the latest in a string of controversial moves that many see as polarising, including a campaign that claimed Hindu families were being forced out of Muslim-majority Kairana town in western Uttar Pradesh.
In its affidavit, the BJP government quoted former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who had told Parliament during a debate in 1972 that if this demand (minority status to AMU) is conceded, the government cannot resist similar demands from other minorities, religious as well as linguistics.
In 2006, the UPA government and AMU appealed against an Allahabad high court verdict that struck down a 1981 parliamentary amendment to grant the university minority status. The amendment circumvented a 1967 SC ruling which said the AMU was not a minority institution as it was set up the government and not Muslims.
No judgment of a court can be undone by Parliament and/or any legislature passing a law merely undoing consequences of the said judgment. That would amount to abrogation of judicial power by the legislature and would be contrary to the very structure of the Constitution, the government told the top court.
Once the government takes back its appeal, the top court will be left with AMUs petition to decide. The three-judge SC bench hearing the case has already allowed the varsity to respond to the government stand and permitted fresh interventions in the case.
When the case comes up for hearing later this month, the bench is likely to refer the matter to a constitution bench.
During a hearing of the case in April, CJI TS Thakur had wondered if a central university could be a minority institution. We can understand a college or school being a minority institution, CJI Thakur had said.
In the Supreme Court NDA government tells Supreme Court AMU not a minority institution
Withdraws appeal filed by the previous UPA government against a Allahabad HC verdict that said the university is not a minority institution
AMUs appeal against HC ruling still pending
If declared a non-minority institution, the AMU will have to give reservation to SCs, STs and OBCs
A brief history of AMU 1875: Sir Syed Ahmad Khan sets up Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College
1920: AMU Act turns MAO College into university
1951: Parliament passes AMU (amendment) Act, compulsory instruction in Islamic theology done away with
1965-67: Amendment to the AMU Act challenged before the SC. Court rules AMU not a minority institution as it was established by an act of Parliament and not by Muslims
1981: AMU Act amended again. University gets back minority tag
2004: University reserves 50% seats in PG medical courses for Muslims
2006: Quota is struck down as unconstitutional by Allahabad HC. Order challenged by UPA government and AMU separately
2016: NDA withdraws appeal against Allahabad HC verdict
What Next? Once the government takes back its appeal, the SC will be left with the AMUs petition to decide
Top court has allowed the AMU to respond to NDA governments stand
Matter to come up for hearing later this month
The matter is likely to be referred to a constitution bench
The dog who was thrown from the roof top of a multi-storey building near Chennai has been rescued and is being treated at Tamil Nadu Veterinary University Hospital in Chennai.
After the video went viral, animal welfare activists, including Antony Clement Rubin and Jennifer Jacob, lodged a complaint with police which registered an FIR and launched a search for them.
Luckily the dog was located by animal rights activist Shravan Krishnan.
The dog had suffered some fracture on its two legs and has been given medical attention and its condition is improving.
An animal welfare activist carries the injured dog after being treated at Tamil Nadu Veterinary University Hospital in Chennai. (AFP Photo)
Police in Tamil Nadu have arrested two medical students, an inspector said after video of one flinging a stray dog from the balcony of a two-storey building went viral, sparking outrage. (AFP Photo)
A vet treats the injured dog at Tamil Nadu Veterinary University Hospital in Chennai. (AFP Photo)
The dog has a fracture in one of her legs because of the incident. (AFP Photo)
The dog being fed by the vets after being treated at the Veterinary University Hospital. (AFP)
A boy plays with the injured dog after she has been treated at the hospital in Chennai. (AFP)
I&B minister Venkaiah Naidu took a dig at the earlier Congress government for ruining the economy, even as the principal Opposition party accused the NDA government of systematically attempting to subvert and dismantle the public education system of the country.
Soon after taking charge, Naidu said, For the past two years, we had the daunting task of repairing the economy which was left in a bad condition. He also hinted at the instability and lack of leadership in previous governments, saying, After 30 years, we now have a stable government with an able leader.
The Congress, at an earlier press conference, chose to target the government over the reduction of funds in the education sector.
The greatest indicator of this is budgetary allocation. The UPA government increased the budget of HRD ministry from `11,000 crore to `82,000 crore and the Modi government rolled it back to `69,000 crore when it came to power. Last year, the allocation was marginally increased to `72,394 crore, Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said.
He said the budget of the University Grants Commission was reduced by 55%. Such a huge slash is absolutely unprecedented. What is scarier is the frontal assault by HRD ministry on autonomy of public universities. The UGC has now even taken away from public universities the right to frame their own syllabi.
Tewari also questioned the RSS for its reported move to call the vice-chancellors and review the functioning of education system in different states as happened in Chhattisgarh. This is not saffronisation of education... This is the fascistisation of education, he alleged.
Naidu, meanwhile, spoke about the smooth flow of information. We need to ensure a proper flow of unadulterated news from the government, which is a reservoir of information, he said. Naidu avoided any controversial issue but said as a minister, his challenge will be to perform, reform, transform and inform.
Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) chief Maulana Asim Umars statement urging Indian Muslims to target senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) officers might be an effort to drum up propaganda but it should be taken with all seriousness, security officials and analysts warned.
In his statement, Umar said the state and its departments were equally responsible for the incidents against Muslims in India.
Start Jehad with the strength that Allah has already granted you. Kill senior officers of institutions and administrative departments that get (people to) start these riots. Target IPS and IAS officers. Cause them financial losses, Umar said in a statement put out by SITE, a non-governmental counter-terror group that researches and analyses terror threats.
Umar, whose original name is Sanaul Haq, was declared the chief of AQIS by the groups head Ayman al-Zawahiri in September 2014. Counterterror officials say Umar was a native of Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh before leaving India for Pakistan in 1999.
The possibility of attacks - carried out by lone wolfs who are basically self-radicalised Jehadi without any linkages with groups like al Qaeda or Islamic State or even by a group of jihadis on directions of their handlers sitting outside the country - on senior bureaucrats cannot be ruled out. Maoists have targeted many IPS officers in the past, NR Wasan, who retired as chief of bureau of Police Research and Development, said.
Officials say India has never seen a lone wolf attack and all terror attacks have been carried out by well-coordinated groups with support from their handlers sitting outside the country.
But there might be many closet radicals who might get influenced by what happened in Colorado in the US. At any given time 100 to 150 boys remain under watch for their online activities by the security agencies to discount any possibility in this regard. Online propaganda put out by Asim Umar or the IS is mainly directed at these people only, a counterterror official said.
He spoke on the condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media.
The United States has put AQIS in its foreign terrorist organization list and named Umar as a global terrorist after it claimed responsibilities for killing Bangladeshi bloggers, gay rights activists and US nationals.
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Every fourth BJP parliamentarian from Madhya Pradesh is a Union minister.
The state now has eight members in Prime Minister Narendra Modis council of ministers after it was reshuffled and expanded on Tuesday.
The BJP has 26 Lok Sabha members and eight in the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh.
Lok Sabha representative Faggan Singh Kulaste and Rajya Sabha MPs Anil Madhav Dave and MJ Akbar became new ministers while Prakash Javadekar, another Rajya Sabha member from the state, was promoted to cabinet rank and given the human resource development portfolio.
The 65-year-old Javadekar was environment minister in the rank of minister of state.
Dave was given the environment ministry with independent charge, a subject close to his heart as he is known to passionately work for conservation of the Narmada river through his NGO, Narmada Samagra. A licensed pilot, Dave has flown over the river on a small plane and rafted through its course once.
An RSS worker, bachelor, and postgraduate in commerce from Gujarati College of Commerce, Indore, he turns 60 on July 6 a day after he took oath as a central minister.
Besides, Team Modi has foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, steel and mines minister Narendra Singh Tomar, social justice minister Thaverchand Gehlot and minority affairs minister Najma Heptulla all representing Madhya Pradesh.
The 57-year-old Kulaste, a tribal leader from Mandla, was made a minister of state for health and family welfare. An aspirant for the state BJP presidents post for many years, he was in the news when his name appeared in the MPLAD scam in 2005 and the cash-for-votes scandal in 2008.
Journalist-politician Akbar, 63, will be working with Swaraj in the foreign ministry as a minister of state.
The government seems to be preparing the ground to take action against TV evangelist Zakir Naik, who allegedly influenced a number of terrorists, including two of the six attackers who killed 20 people in an upscale cafe in Bangladesh capital Dhaka.
Minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju said on Wednesday Naiks speeches were a matter of concern and that security agencies are examining them.
As a minister, I cannot comment as to what kind of action will be taken under the law, Rijiju told reporters in the national capital.
On Tuesday, the minister said that India, so far, has not received any reference from Dhaka on Naik.
Nabris Islam and Rohan Imtiaz, who attacked the Holey Artisan Cafe in Dhaka, were reportedly inspired by Naik, who runs Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), which he started in 1991.
Naik was banned in the United Kingdom and Canada in 2010 and from addressing meetings in Allahabad, Kanpur and Lucknow in 2008 owing to his speeches.
Ayaz Sultan, leader of the Islamic State (IS) module in Malwani, who reportedly sneaked out of the country to reach Syria, too, was influenced by Naiks speeches. Sources in the intelligence bureau said Sultan started to garner radical views during his stint with the IRF.
His controversial discourse also inspired Najibullah Zazi, the Afghan-American arrested in 2009 in the US to allegedly plan suicide attacks on New York subway; Kafeel Ahmed, the man from Bengaluru who failed to execute a suicide attack on Glasgow airport in 2007; and Rahul Shaikh, the accused in the 2006 train blasts in Mumbai.
Darul Uloom Deoband, the Islamic seminary in Uttar Pradesh, issued a fatwa against Naik for his speeches.
Senior police officers said counter-terrorism units have prepared a dossier on Naik that has the details of his bank accounts and the funds his organisation receive through zakat or tithe.
Naiks speeches are aired mainly on English TV channel, Peace TV, which he started in 2006. Naik launched Peace TV Urdu in 2009, Peace TV Bangla in April 2011, and plans to have the channel in 10 major languages across the world.
The place: Somewhere in Rajasthan. Time: Last Saturday, late evening.
A BMW sedan was travelling at 100kph. At the wheel was the son of an MLA, allegedly drunk. Too late, he saw looming ahead, an autorickshaw and a police van.
When the air cleared, bystanders saw that the occupants of the BMW had escaped with minor injuries, thanks to the airbags. At the other end, they were not so lucky: Three dead, seven wounded.
A common enough occurrence, you might say. And the takeaway is straightforward the people in the cars escape, and those in less safe vehicles such as autos or two-wheelers die.
But the subtext is equally important. The accident was the direct consequence of driver negligence. In this case, criminal negligence, as the alcohol in his blood was tested at three times over the permissible limit. The victims were not the dangerous drivers. And Indian government data says 70% of road accidents occur due to drivers fault.
According to the World Health Organisations (WHO) Global Health Report on Road Safety 2015, on a scale from 1 to 10, India scores a miserable 3 in enforcement of the speed laws, as against 9 by France, 8 by China, whereas Brazil and Japan score a 7. The ratings for drink-driving laws are almost similar: France and Brazil score an 8, China, Japan take 9 each while India scores a 4.
The report states that only 48 countries rate their enforcement of drinkdriving laws as good. Only 34 countries, representing 2.1 billion people, have drinkdriving laws in line with best practice.
Possibly, this loose enforcement of law in the country empowered a 20-something Anurag to test his Vernas top speed on a Nagpur City road in August 2014. The sedan crashed into a tree and summersaulted thrice. Top speed: 140kph. Deaths: Two, including Anurags.
The government has been forcing automakers to make cars safer, which they are, optionally, by providing airbags only to the driver or sometimes only the dual fronts as standard, leaving it to the customers choice.
Also, the largest chunk of on-road deaths is of those on two- and three-wheelers (34%), on which helmets may be the only life-saving gear. And India scores a 4 in the helmet law enforcement on the same scale where France (98% compliance) and Japan score 9 each, China (20% compliance) and Brazil (81% compliance) take a 6 each. A typical Bengaluru road traffic has around 60% of riders wearing a helmet.
The May 17 report from the Global NCAP car crash tests worried stakeholders in the auto industry. But after that, another car launched without an airbag or with least safety and everyone was back to business.
Major automakers point out how Indian car-buyer has a different attitude while purchasing cars. We can only cars safe up to a point. But Indian customer cares more about mileage.
Maruti Suzukis Puneet Dhawan says, How can you make someone wear a seat belt or drive a car safely?
Will we ever get serious about safety on roads?
Yes. We did, once in 2014 when the government sprang into action to draft the Road Safety Bill 2014 soon after former Union minister Gopinath Munde was killed in a road accident in Delhi. In the rear seat of his car, Munde was not wearing a seat belt. Nor was another former Union minister Rajesh Pilot wearing one in June 2000 or the former president Gyani Zail Singh in November 1994, as they breathed their last in the rear seat of their cars.
Nitin Gadkari, the Union minister of roads, transport and highways, regrets the non-passage of the Road Safety Bill, as he also points out how accidents incur a loss of around 3% to the GDP. He also boasts how the government is making roads at a historic pace of 20km a day, up from 2012s 15km per day and aims to make it at 30km a day by the end of this year.
The Road Safety Bill 2014, which proposes hefty fines of up to Rs 3 lakh and jail terms of minimum 7-years for death in road accidents, still lies unattended amid files across the Houses in New Delhi.
Read | Ministers for strict penalty on minors, parents for traffic violations
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(MoRTH Report)
India is set to be the third largest car market in the world, which sees over three dozen new launches every fiscal. These new vehicles have gotten smarter with every new feature adding to convenience and safety of the people on board, though not at a mandatory level.
According to the Road Accidents in India 2015 report by the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH), from 2005 to 2013, the number of deaths in road accidents in India has gone up from 8.7 per lakh of population to 11.2. The number of accidents per 10,000 vehicles dropped from a 53.9 to 26.8, almost half in the same period. Also, deaths went down from 11.7 to 7.6 every 10,000 vehicles, implying vehicles have become safer than before.
On the other hand, an average 249.3 deaths took place in India every 10,000 km in 2005, which once peaked to 304.7 in 2011, and has increased to 262.9 in 2013. Roughly, 35% of these deaths took place on the national highways, a nearly constant median over the past decade, in about 28% of the total road mishaps in the country, the MoRTH report says.
Airbags are available, though as optional, in most models in the market today; anti-lock braking system (ABS) and electronic brake-force distribution (EBD) system have also been installed in higher car trims at their costs. Carmakers are complying with the international safety norms, gearing themselves for the Bharat New Vehicle Safety Assessment Program (BNVSAP) standards likely to come by next year.
But irrespective of the smarter vehicles or the safer roads, the number of accidents in India has gone up. Agreed that the number of vehicles on road is increasing, the traffic is going up. But how are the roads being made in this dynamic era of smart cities and safe cars?
Safer roads mean standard quality of roads, adequate caution signage and proper enforcement of law, which India misses badly, coupled by a lack of public will.
The most positive changes to road user behaviour occur when road safety legislation is supported by strong and sustained enforcement, and public awareness, the WHO report says.
Globally, only 34 countries have adequate national drink-driving laws, 21 of which are in the Europe, stamping the need to spread the awareness globally.
The focus of government action seems to be only on the faster construction of roads and letting contractors earn handsome tolls from them. Safer roads in India are like a mirage, you can only see them. Do they exist?
Also read | Celerio, Kwid, Scorpio among Indian cars scoring zero in safety test
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Baku, Azerbaijan, July 6
By Khalid Kazimov Trend:
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have discussed expansion of bilateral ties over phone July 6, the Iranian presidential official website reported.
Congratulating President Rouhani on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, Modi said that India is determined to expand its cooperation with Iran in all fields.
He further commented on an agreement between the two countries to develop Irans southeastern port of Chabahar saying India will do its best to speed up the development project of Chabahar Port.
In his turn, President Rouhani said that Iran is ready to promote its relations with India to a strategic level.
President Rouhani further pledged to seriously follow up the project for developing Chabahar port.
Last year, India and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly develop the port once the international sanctions against Iran were lifted, stipulating that India would lease two docks for a period of 10 years, a move expected to cut India's crude oil and carbamide transportation costs by one-third.
The sanctions against Tehran were removed in January as the historic nuclear deal between Tehran and the six world powers came into force.
India is expected to invest $20 billion in the development of the port.
New human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar offered an olive branch to students on Wednesday, saying he will ensure a good dialogue with them to do away with the need to protest in colleges and universities.
To buttress the point, the 65-year-old son of a school teacher-mother underlined his role in student politics in college.
I am a product of students agitation. I was part of the Jai Prakash Narayan movement; we went to jail fighting it out for students rights and other educational problems. I will ensure that we have a good dialogue with students so that everyone becomes a partner in progress, Javadekar said in an interview to Hindustan Times a day after he became HRD minister.
In the last 40 years I have been into education in different capacities, he said.
His conciliatory tone marks a shift from the confrontationist position during predecessor Smriti Iranis two-year stint, which triggered campus unrests over a range of issues, including PhD student Rohith Vemulas suicide at Hyderabad University and arrest of students for sedition at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.
JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, whose arrest in February over an alleged anti-national event on the campus triggered national outrage and student protests, welcomed Iranis exit but kept his fingers crossed about her successor.
We will meet him. We have our demands for bettering the education system. But we are not very hopeful, he said.
Read| Theres a message in Javadekars promotion, Vasavas dismissal
Kumar was upset with Javadekars remarks that he would build on initiatives taken by the ministry in the past two years. The new minister made a very sad statement that he will carry forward the work of Smriti Irani. Does it mean that more Dalit students will be killed in educational institutions? Does it mean that people who are close to a minister would continue to get key posts in the government? the student leader asked.
Irani allegedly pushed for punishment of a group of Hyderabad University Dalit students, including Vemula, by sending five reminders to the vice-chancellor after a complaint from labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya. She was also accused of not reaching out to students during crisis situations, widening the government-student gap.
Javadekar said he will consult all stakeholders. I will consult with everybody because education is not a party subject but everyones subject. Education touches everyones heart. I value all opinion. My doors will be open for new ideas. I respect the academia.
This is a huge responsibility and the PM has given it. We always think in terms of responsibility. And I am always passionate about education.
The minister, who was promoted to cabinet rank and given a new role on Tuesday for his successful stint in the environment ministry, said the challenge before him is to improve the quality of education and ensure it reaches the poor.
Jo gareeb ma baap pet kaat ke bachcho ko padhate hai, unki asha hai ki siksha se uska bhala hoga, parivaar ka bhala hoga aur sabka bhala hoga. We have to see if education is actually fulfilling the aspirations of the poor. Education becomes total when it is not just seen in terms of employment but also for building the character and personality of a student.
Javadekar called education an emancipator, not a political issue.
If we want to build a modern, 21st century India, we need to revolutionise education. Education should become more meaningful should be student-centric, he said.
Read| Modi cabinet reshuffle: After a meteoric rise, Smriti Irani suffers a hard fall
A forewarning from the Prime Minister post the swearing-in on Tuesday forenoon triggered trepidation among his cabinet colleagues, who faced hours of uneasy suspense that ended only late in the night when the new list of portfolios were released.
The first hint at the prospect of big changes that Narendra Modi had made clear at an afternoon meeting of the cabinet came around 8.30pm when the news was out that Smriti Irani was being shunted out of the high-profile human resource development ministry.
That was enough indication to the ramifications of a dramatic statement the Prime Minister had made earlier in the day: Aap logo ko TV aur akhbar se pata chal jayega, lekin main bata do ki bade badlav honge (you will come to know about it through TV and newspaper, but let me tell you that there will be big changes).
Read: Irani shifted to textiles ministry, Javadekar is new HRD minister
Already on the tenterhooks after after the meeting where Modi had cautioned his cabinet colleagues that they he had little time in hand to deliver, most ministers sported anxious faces. Many chose to be silent.
The more restless among them began making enquiries. A minister who was unsure of retaining his portfolio asked a cabinet colleague if he had any inkling of the changes.
Some began checking with the media, which was itself largely clueless about Modis plan. List aa gayi kya? Bada suspense bana hua hai (Has the list come? There is simmering suspense), a senior minister asked when he was asked about developments.
Two other ministers remained closeted with their advisers, discussing possibilities. Some stayed away from the social media, anticipating bad news.
While some journalists did get the news portfolios of ministers released through sources, the Press Information Bureau remained silent late into the night.
Finally, the list was officially released after 11pm. And Modi went for a sea change in his team as he shuffled portfolios of many of his prominent ministers.
The most unexpected was the shifting of Smriti Irani from human resource development (HRD) to the unglamorous textiles ministry. Prakash Javadekar whose elevation to the cabinet rank on Tuesday took many by surprise replaced Irani as the HRD minister.
Read: Modi cabinet reshuffle: After a meteoric rise, Smriti Irani suffers a hard fall
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The Madras high court has dismissed a criminal case against prominent Tamil writer Perumal Murugan for allegedly offending religious sentiments in his book, Madhorubagan.
Residents of Tiruchengode and the Kongu Nadu belt - areas where Murugan lived and wrote about in his novels - claimed that the book offended their religious sentiments - only after it was translated into English in 2014. The Tamil version was published in 2011.
Madhorubagan is about a childless couple from rural Tamil Nadu that is forced by their families to participate in an ancient chariot festival in the temple of Ardhanarishvara - a composite androgynous form of the Shiva and Parvati.
According to the book, any man was permitted to sleep with any woman and vice-versa during the night of the festival.
The writer was hounded out of his village and eventually took to Facebook to symbolically declare that Perumal Murugan the writer was dead following the furore over his book after it was published in English as One Part Woman.
A group of writers challenged the decision of a peace committee at a meeting organised by the district administration in Namakkal after protests. After the meeting, Murugan agreed to issue an unconditional apology, delete the controversial portions from his book, and withdraw unsold copies from the market.
But the high court made it clear in its ruling that those terms are no longer binding.
The choice to read is always with the reader. Literary tastes may vary - what is right and acceptable to one may not be so to others. Yet, the right to write is unhindered, a bench comprised of Chief Justice SK Kaul and justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana said in its ruling on Tuesday.
The court also directed the state to circulate a series of guidelines framed by it to handle such situations among the state police and to form an expert committee to deal with similar cases in the future.
Murugan is a prolific writer, whose works, in the words of prominent historian AR Venkatachalapathy, single-handedly put the Kongu region on the literary map of Tamil Nadu.
But after the peace meet in 2014, his books are difficult to find, with most bookshops only carrying Madhorubagan and his latest, unfinished novel Pookuzhi (Pyre).
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When Prime Minister Narendra Modi revealed his shuffled pack of ministers on Tuesday, he laid to rest some viral rumours. But the biggest surprise wasnt even guessable.
Modi demoted Smriti Irani one of his most high-profile ministers from a position from where she gleefully hogged headlines, too often for the wrong reasons. Theres little doubt that its a steep fall for Irani from the human resources portfolio to the unglamorous textiles ministry.
Irani was widely regarded as one of Modis favourites. Not quite, it turns out. Her controversial but hands-on involvement in the education sector was frequently tom-tommed as a sign of performance. She has often been accused by the Left of Hinduizing Indias school and college curricula.
Read: Irani shifted to textiles ministry, Javadekar is new HRD minister
Irani must have been naive to think she had been impressing Modi with her repeated run-ins with university chairs in implementing the so-called right-wing agenda. The former soap opera star made a phenomenal entry into the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2003, after becoming a household name.
In the TV series Saas bhi kabhi bahu thi, she played the role of a gritty daughter-in-law who upstages her in-laws a role model for young women. To be sure, Irani broke many glass ceilings. When she decided to contest against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the 2014 polls, she wasnt expected to win. But she pulled a heavyweight scion out of the comfort zone of a family pocket borough.
The first controversy struck when detractors accused her of never attending college. She responded by saying she went to Yale. When it turned out she had attended a week-long workshop at Yale, she was widely lampooned.
Union minister Smriti Irani with HRD minister Prakash Javadekar after a Cabinet meeting at South Block in New Delhi on Tuesday. (PTI Photo)
The crisis set off by the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of Jawaharlal Nehru Universitys student union, almost went out of hand. Many believed Irani had shown over the course of two controversial speeches she could be Modi governments destroyer inside Parliament.
Read: Kanhaiya writes open letter to Irani, calls her anti-rational mother
To give her what is due, she can indeed take the fight to the enemy s camp. Her abrasive speeches scuppered the Opposition s plans of punching the Modi government in the face on the issues of Dalit PhD scholar Rohith Vemulas suicide.
Read: This isnt a serial: Vemulas kin accuse Irani of lying in Parliament
Irani has had blistering Twitter spats too. She recently slammed a Bihar minister for addressing her as Dear. Detractors have called her a drama queen for her tantrums.
Her hardline nationalism has earned her the tag of aunty national. Her political career has often had a fairy-tale quality about it, but this is not the happy ending shed have imagined.
Read: Win some, lose some: Who gained, who didnt in Modi ministry reshuffle
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi telephoned his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday to convey Eid greetings.
Modi enquired about Sharifs health and wished him a complete and speedy recovery.
Sharif underwent open heart surgery in London recently and is expected to return home soon.
Sharif thanked Modi for his kind sentiments, a Foreign Office statement said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has undertaken more foreign trips than his predecessors Manmohan Singh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee during the first two years in office.
When Modi leaves for a four-nation trip to Africa on Thursday, it will be his 24th foreign tour since he assumed power in May 2014, travelling to 38 countries.
Vajpayee, during his entire tenure as the prime minister of the first NDA government during 1999 to 2004, had gone on 19 trips to 26 nationsa record which his party colleague Modi has already surpassed.
Singh, who saw more off-shore engagements than Vajpayee, went on 16 foreign trips between May 2004 and July 2006, visiting as many countries. Out of these, Singhs 6 tours were confined to Europe and the United States.
In contrast, Vajpayee went to the US or EU countries only thrice during his first two years as the PM.
Modi, the only PM among the three, who started off his foreign tours from a neighbouring countryBhutanhas gone to the EU and the US nine times, possibly indicating deeper bilateral ties with the western world.
A recent analysis by Hindustan Times also showed that Modi travelled more air miles than US President Barack Obama during the first two years in power. Obama toured only 25 countries between January 2009 to January 2011 and flew only 1,56,336 air miles.
Modi flew 1,64,187 air miles between May 2014 and May 2016.
The Opposition has often criticised PM Modi for his foreign trips. After the BJPs debacle in Bihar polls in 2015, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi advised Modi to cut down on his tours abroad.
Analysts, however, say the Prime Minister of an emerging economy like India has to give more time to foreign engagements, given the countrys standing in the international community.
Eid-ul-Fitr was celebrated in Kashmir on Wednesday even as clashes between anti-India protesters and security personnel rocked the Muslim-majority Valley.
Late on Tuesday night, it was announced that Eid-ul-Fitr will be celebrated in the militancy-hit Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday, a day ahead of other Indian states, barring Kerala. The celebration coincided with that in Pakistan and Arab countries.
In Srinagar, thousands of Muslims gathered at Eidgah prayer ground and Hazratbal shrine to offer prayers, while smaller gatherings were reported from around the town. Chief minister Mehbooba Mufti offered prayers in Hazratbal.
Soon after the prayers, stone-pelting incidents were reported from Eidgah and Hyderpora areas of Srinagar and the south Kashmiri town of Anantnag.
Youngsters had come out shouting anti-India slogans and raising Pakistani flags, while forces retaliated by firing tear-gas shells.
In the clashes across the Valley, reports said a total of six persons -- including a senior police officer, a constable and a video-journalist -- were injured.
Kashmiri top separatist leaders, including Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik, were under house arrest and barred from offering public prayers. Officials said their presence might have led to protests and violence at the large Eid gatherings.
A statement by the Geelani-led faction of the Hurriyat said several top leaders such as Shabir Ahmad Shah, Mohammad Ashraf Sehrai and spokesperson Ayaz Akbar too were under house arrest and barred from offering the Eid prayers.
Geelani, in a press statement on Tuesday, had called for peaceful protest demonstration immediately after the Eid prayers, against the surveillance of clerics, not banning the liquor in Kashmir, not releasing the political prisoners and harassment of the Jammu Muslims.
The Supreme Court has asked the Law Commission to examine all relevant aspects relating to the regulation of the legal profession in India after the Bar Council of India (BCI) and state bar councils failed to act against lawyers committing professional misconduct.
India has close to 1.2 million lawyers whose professional conduct is regulated by the BCI and state bar councils. BCI also regulates legal education in the country being pursued by almost half a million students of which 60,000 to 70,000 graduate every year.
It is also tasked with conducting the All India Bar Examination for fresh law graduates a pre-condition for them to be eligible to practise law.
But of late, the BCI has been embroiled in many controversies with its chairperson Manan Kumar Mishra himself admitting that over 30% of lawyers have fake degrees.
There appears to be urgent need to review the provisions of the Advocates Act dealing with regulatory mechanism for the legal profession and other incidental issues, in consultation with all concerned, a three-judge bench headed by justice AR Dave said.
Legal profession being the most important component of justice delivery system, it must continue to perform its significant role and regulatory mechanism and should not be seen to be wanting in taking prompt action against any malpractice, the SC said on Tuesday.
The top court ruled that an advocate convicted of contempt of court cannot appear before courts.
Upholding an Allahabad high court order convicting advocate Mahipal Singh Rana of contempt of court, the bench debarred him from practice for two years.
As a disciplinary measure for proved misconduct, it ordered: The licence of the appellant (Rana) will stand suspended for a further period of five years. He will also remain debarred from appearing in any court in District Etah even after five years unless he purges himself of contempt.
The HC on December 2, 2005, found Rana guilty of Criminal Contempt for intimidating and threatening a senior civil judge in Uttar Pradeshs Etah on April 16, 2003, and May 13, 2003, and sentenced him to simple imprisonment of two months with a fine of Rs. 2,000.
In default of payment of the fine, he was ordered to remain in jail for another two weeks.
The SC, however, set aside the sentence of imprisonment in view of Ranas advanced age and also because he had been disqualified from appearing before courts.
The fact that Rana refused to tender an apology for his conduct; had no remorse and justified himself, again and again, showed he had no regards for the majesty of the law, the bench noted.
The HC directed the Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh to initiate appropriate proceedings against Rana for professional misconduct. But the bar council did not act on the matter for over 10 years.
The SC said where bar councils failed to take action against advocates committing professional misconduct resulting into contempt of court, courts could exercise their own power for punishing them for such misconduct.
A Class-8 boy in Rewari quit school on Monday after he was allegedly sexualy abused by his senior. The boy, studying in Sainik School in Sector 4, complained to his parents about his harassment, who made him quit the school.
Sources said he was harassed by a Class-12 student of the same school at their hostel premises. The family of the boy, however, did not lodge a police complaint fearing embarrassment, they added.
The school administration said the Class-12 boy who was accused of sodomising the victim was suspended after the complaint of the victims family.
Principal Captain Rajeev Sharma said, Had the boy complained to us earlier, we would have never let it happen.
The principal said he tried persuading the boys family to let him study in the school. However, they insisted on getting him out of the school.
Rewari deputy commissioner Yash Garg, who is also the chairman of the school, said he was not aware of the incident. I have not received any complaint in the matter. It is serious if it has happened and we will conduct an inquiry, he said.
The RSSs imprint got deeper on the Narendra Modi government with as many as six parliamentarians with strong links to the BJPs ideological mentor finding place in the expanded union council of ministers.
While veteran RSS pracharak Anil Madhav Dave got Independent charge of the environment ministry, five others out of the 19 new ministers have roots in the right-wing organisation.
The RSS which played a crucial role in the BJPs victory in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls -- was pleased with the choice of new ministers but maintained it was the prerogative of the government.
They have several compulsions, could be elections or other political decisions, which have to be borne in mind while accommodating people. It is not for us to comment. Yes, Dave was a pracharak. He has worked very closely with the Sangh, a senior RSS functionary told HT.
He, however, added that Dave has been a BJP member for a long time and a Rajya Sabha member as well. It will not be right to call him a Sangh karyakarta anymore.
When the Modi government took oath in May 2014, the RSS influence was evident from the induction of at least nine Cabinet ministers and at least three ministers of state who were RSS pracharaks, those who are given the task of spreading the organisations ideology.
There were at least a dozen others who were not full-time RSS pracharaks but were associated with the Sangh through its students wing, the ABVP.
Read| Poll concerns: How Modi went from minimum govt to jumbo cabinet
On the last count, more than third of the 66 members in the council of ministers -- before the expansion -- had an RSS background. The proportion continued in the latest expansion as well.
With the Prime Minister himself being an RSS pracharak, his ministers have never shied away from projecting their association with the organisation.
Among the newly inducted ministers with RSS background is Mahendra Nath Pandey, the new minister of state for human resource development who was an active participant in the movement for constructing a Ram temple in Ayodhya.
Inducted as the new minister of state for textiles from Uttarakhand, Ajay Tamta, also has a RSS background and participated in the Ram Janmabhoomi temple agitation before plunging into electoral politics.
Rajen Gohain, the new minister of state for railways, was one of the founders of the BJP in Assam.
A die-hard Sangh activist, he was a known RSS face at the organisations training centre in Hojai of Nagaon district. At RSS rallies, he was regularly spotted in the outfits trademark khaki shorts.
Faggan Singh Kulaste, another newly inducted junior minister from Madhya Pradesh, was also an RSS activist.
BJP ally Shiv Sena, however, was critical of Modis choice.
In Nehru and Indira Gandhis cabinets, there used to be stellar ministers with people like Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar to Babu Jagjivan Ram and Yashwantrao Chavan. A portfolio like human resources development (HRD) gained prominence only because of PV Narasimha Rao; similarly, the world learnt of Indias finance ministry only after Manmohan Singh helmed it, the Sena said in its mouthpiece Saamna on Wednesday.
But now, such leaders of such caliber are not to be found. Hence, Modi has to shoulder the burden of his responsibility all by himself.
There were signs of discontent within the BJP, too.
I do not know why I was dropped. I never had any issues or problem with Modi or party president Amit Shah, Mansukhbhai Vasava, who was dropped as minister of state for tribal affairs, told HT.
He said he had some complaints about works not done by the BJP government in the tribal areas of Gujarat.
Read| Modis expanded cabinet exposes BJPs lack of bench strength
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 6
By Khalid Kazimov Trend:
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has criticized unconventionally high salaries paid to some senior managers in the country describing them as being unfair.
Addressing the worshipers in Tehran after Eid al-Fitr prayers on July 6, the leader urged the countrys officials to strictly deal with the issue of illegitimate salaries, IRNA news agency reported.
He praised President Hassan Rouhani, Judiciary Head Ayatollah Sadegh Amoli-Larijani and Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani for taking correct stances against the illegal payments.
Those who violated the law must be punished, he added.
Describing the unconventional salaries as illegal, he said those who abused their authority must be dismissed.
He further added that those officials who have received unconventionally high salaries must return the amount to the system.
Over the past two months, President Hassan Rouhanis government has been harshly criticized as the payslips of several high-ranking government employees were leaked online, revealing that they were receiving unusually high salaries or bonuses.
The payslips showed that several top officials in the countrys financial sector, in particular banking officials, had received salaries easily tens of times greater than average Iranians receive. The published documents also included the ones indicating that the officials had received huge facilities as well.
A couple of heads of leading Iranian banks were dismissed following the
scandal.
A medical student who threw a dog from a five-storey building and his classmate who recorded the act on video were granted bail on Wednesday, hours after they were handed over to police by their parents.
They were produced in a court in Sriperumbudur, police said. A case under a law dealing with cruelty against animals has been registered against the two final-year medical students.
The man in the clip, identified as Gautman Sudarshan, nonchalantly looks into the camera before the video switches to a slow-motion shot of the helpless animal being flung off the roof and falling to the ground with a thud. His friend, Ashish Paul, filmed the act.
It is a black day for animal rights in the country, said animal rights activist Shravan Krishnan after the two got bail.
We will appeal against the order. But, it appears that may not work...so we would like to request the police to speed up investigations and file the chargesheet at the earliest..., Krishnan said.
Many had offered cash rewards to find the students after the video went viral on social media. They went missing from the college in Kundrathur in Kancheepuram district after the video drew sharp criticism.
Two police teams were on Tuesday sent to Tirunelveli and Nagercoil, the native places of the two students. Police spoke to the parents and asked the students to surrender.
Even the college authorities issued an ultimatum to Sudarshan and Paul to either surrender or get debarred from examinations.
The dog has a fracture and is being treated, police said. The incident is believed to have taken place about two weeks ago.
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Members of the Telangana Judges Association who went on a mass leave last month in protest against the suspension of 11 judges called off their agitation and resumed duty on Wednesday.
Around 200 judicial officers, working in various capacities in courts across the state, went on the mass leave on June 28 amid the agitation against the appointment of judges from Andhra Pradesh to Telangana courts.
On June 26, over 100 judges under the banner of Telangana Judges Association had taken out a procession and submitted a representation to the governor, protesting against the allotment of judges from Andhra Pradesh to the subordinate courts in Telangana. The Hyderabad high court, which is shared between AP and Telangana, then suspended 11 judges on disciplinary grounds for taking part in the agitation.
The extraordinary general body meeting of Telangana Judges Association here today decided to call off the mass leave protest in view of appeals made by the Chief Justice of India, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governor and the acting chief justice of the high court of judicature at Hyderabad, a judicial officer told PTI.
Regarding the demand of revocation of suspension of the 11 judges, he said, The acting chief justice (of high court) will take care of it.
The CJI, governor and acting chief justice advised us not to continue with the protest. The acting chief justice is already seized of the issue of provisional list [of allocation of judges] and he assured us to look into the matter...[so] we decided to call off the mass leave protest, he said.
However, Federation of Bar Associations of Telanganas president G Jithender Reddy told PTI the agitation will continue. The federation is going to conduct a meeting at Warangal after Ramzan to discuss future course of action, he said, adding that the judges association did not inform the federation about the Wednesday meeting.
Telangana Advocates Joint Action Committees co-convener T Sri Rangarao said it too would call an extra-ordinary general body meeting in a day or two to chalk out the future course of action.
Congress on Wednesday claimed that under HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, a systematic attempt to hand over everything in public education system to the private sector would gain momentum and appealed to progressive and nationalist forces to come together to counter the trend.
Party spokesman Manish Tewari said apprehensions arose over Javadekars track record of being kind to private institutions during his tenure in the Environment Ministry.
Recalling that the minister had waived a fine of Rs 200 crore on an influential industrialist accused of environmental degradation, he said in this backdrop Javadekar taking charge of the HRD Ministry was all the more ominous and sinister.
Taking a dig at Smriti Irani, whose tenure in the HRD Ministry was marred by several controversies, he wondered what would happen in Textiles Ministry, where she was shifted in yesterdays expansion of the Union Cabinet.
Accusing the government of making a systematic effort to emasculate Indias public education system and handing over everything to the private sector, he said such attempts would be more harmful for the poor.
Tewari also took exception to RSS calling a meeting of Vice Chancellors in Chhattisgarh recently to review functioning of the education system in the state.
Questioning the locus standi of RSS in the matter, he said, This is not saffronisation of education. This is far more sinister. This is fascistisation of education.
Alleging that the government was systematically attempting to subvert and dismantle the public education system of this country, he said, What is scarier is the frontal assault by the HRD Minister on the autonomy of public universities.
Claiming that the University Grants Commission has now even taken away from public universities the right to frame their own syllabi, he said the protests by teachers and professors across the country had no impact on the government.
He said while the UPA had raised the budget of HRD Ministry from Rs 11,000 crore to Rs 82,000 crore the moment the Modi government came to office, it rolled it back to Rs 69,000 crore. Last year, it marginally increased it to Rs 72,394 crore.
He said the UGC had its budget reduced by 55% and such a huge slash is absolutely unprecedented.
It is time that all progressive and all nationalist forces got together to protect the public character of Indias education system, he added.
Smriti Irani, arguably Indias most Twitter-savvy minister after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hadnt tweeted for several hours till Wednesday afternoon but she managed to remain a top trend on the social media site.
#ByeByeSmriti remained a top trend on Twitter on Tuesday night and Wednesday as Lutyens Delhi was abuzz with theories over why PM Modi moved her from the human resource development ministry to textiles.
Though Irani changed her Twitter bio to reflect the change from HRD minister to Union Minister Government of India, she tweeted after a gap of 21 hours to thank Modi for the new portfolio.
I thank PM @narendramodi ji for giving me the opportunity to serve the country earlier in the @HRDMinistry & now in the @TexMinIndia. Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) July 6, 2016
Extended best wishes to @PrakashJavdekar ji who assured that he will build upon the initiatives undertaken by @HRDMinistry in last 2 years. Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) July 6, 2016
Her prolonged silence gave rise to speculations that she had seen it coming. Irani was sounded out on Monday of a possible change, a source in the ruling BJP revealed.
Read: Failing the test: Top 10 Smriti Irani controversies as HRD minister
Conspiracy theories
There are several theories doing the rounds on why she was moved out to the less glamourous textiles ministry.
Chief among them: She upset the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, the BJPs ideological fountainhead, with the slow pace of changes it desired in the education sector.
Though Irani was frequently criticised for saffronising education, the RSS felt she wasnt doing enough.
At the annual meeting of the RSS brass in March this year, a resolution was passed calling for value-based and nationalistic education.
At the same meeting, the RSS also called for the government to curb student politics on campuses a suggestion diluted by the HRD ministry under Irani even after it figured prominently in the TSR Subramanian committees report on formulating the New Education Policy.
Sources say BJP president Amit Shah was not particularly happy with the controversies Irani generated either.
In April 2015, as the party national executive met to celebrate the victory in the 2014 general elections and the assembly polls in Haryana and Maharashtra and mull over the crushing defeat in Delhi, a controversy erupted surrounding Irani.
She was in north Goa and allegedly spotted on a CCTV camera pointing towards a trial room she was changing in.
The news hit the headlines as the BJP national executive jostled for news space.
Read: Smriti thanks PM after being shifted out of HRD, says eager to work with textiles
Party spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi even tweeted blaming the media for giving Irani more space than the ruling partys top leadership: Do I smell a rat to obfuscate the BJP national executive meeting. Attempts being made not to cover NE meeting instead cover some other inane issues.
The controversy never went down well with many in the party, including Shah.
Though many in the party also believe Irani is being freed up for a larger role in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections slated for early 2017.
She has repeatedly taken on Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on his home turf in Amethi and gave him a strong fight there in 2014, drastically bringing down his victory margin to nearly one lakh votes from 3.5 lakhs five years ago.
Others say textiles is by no means a small ministry, only a less glamourous one that will allow Irani to work away from the public gaze and criticism that she so easily attracts.
Read: Modi cabinet reshuffle: After a meteoric rise, Smriti Irani suffers a hard fall
Long Twitter silence
The new Union textile minister in a string of tweets on Wednesday afternoon spoke of her work in the HRD ministry.
Her last tweet before that if you discount the numerous retweets of tweets from the Prime Ministers office or the governments official handles came on Monday afternoon.
It was a quick and somewhat muted response to someone thanking her for helping out.
Glad to be of help, she replied to a research scholar at Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad thanking her, the HRD ministry and PM Modi for intervening on a fee hike.
Last checked, Irani was not on the best of terms with research scholars. Jawaharlal Nehru University students union president and research scholar Kanhaiya Kumar charged with sedition for a function held on the JNU campus even demanded her resignation for the death of Hyderabad University research scholar Rohith Vemula.
A few hours earlier, Irani had tweeted a tribute to Swami Vivekananda on his Nirvan Diwas.
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Will she, wont she? The suspense over Priyanka Vadras role in next years crucial Uttar Pradesh assembly elections continues with Congress spokespersons maintaining no decision has yet been taken.
A section of Congress leaders wants Priyanka to campaign extensively across the politically important state beyond the Gandhi pocket boroughs of Amethi and Rae Bareli that she usually sticks to.
But, party sources said, if and when she decides to take the plunge, her role wont be confined to UP alone. Its true, the high command hasnt made up its mind on Priyankas role, said a party strategist. But if she campaigns beyond Amethi and Rae Bareli, it will be in many other states, including Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Punjab.
However, party strategists said, even if she decides to campaign beyond the constituencies of her mother Sonia Gandhi and brother Rahul Gandhi, she is unlikely to assume a formal role in the party.
The assessment in the Congress is that Priyankas popular appeal might give it an edge in Punjab, Gujarat and Uttarakhand, where the party has a well-oiled machinery in place.
Uttar Pradesh, where the Congress has marginal presence, is a different ballgame. The party might gain some more seats if Priyanka campaigns extensively, but it will still need a miracle of sorts to go up on an equal footing against contenders like the ruling Samajwadi Party, Mayawatis Bahujan Samaj Party and the BJP, according to another Congress strategist.
Read: UP Congress clamours for Priyanka, Sonia to decide on her role in state polls
However, even a marginal gain in UP could turn it into a kingmaker, a role the Congress is eyeing.
The three of them (Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka) together will make the Congress a formidable force once again, the strategist said, adding that together, they would be better placed to challenge the BJPs Congress-mukt Bharat campaign.
On Tuesday, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad rubbished talk of Priyanka heading the partys campaign committee in UP. If she wants to come in during the elections to campaign, that is different, he said.
Prashant Kishor, in charge of the Congress poll strategy in UP and other states, is said to be the biggest advocate of a larger role for Priyanka. The party leadership has given him a patient hearing but no indication either way, the sources said.
The speculation over Priyanka comes amid the Congresss reported plans for a formal role in the UP polls for another one of its heavyweights, Sheila Dikshit. The three-time Delhi chief minister has shown willingness to take up any role the party has in mind for her, saying on Tuesday, I am a daughter-in-law of UP.
The idea behind projecting the 78-year-old Dikshit, a former Lok Sabha MP from Kannauj, is to woo the states influential Brahmin community, whose loyalty to the BJP is perceived as wavering.
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BJP MP from Chandauli Mahendra Pandey, who took oath as Union minister of state on Tuesday, has a strong connection with the Banaras Hindu University (BHU).
Pandey started his political journey from BHU as a student union leader. He earned his post-graduate degree in Hindi and PhD from BHU. In late 70s, he contested BHU students union election for the post of general secretary in which he emerged victorious.
Head of political science department at BHU professor Kaushal Kishore Mishra said that Pandeys association with right wing politics was around 35 years old. Pandey joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) after taking admission to BHU.
He was very popular as a student leader. He has been associated with the BJP since it was known as Jan Sangh. He was elected MLA twice in 1991 and 1996 from Saidpur assembly constituency in Ghazipur, Mishra said.
Pandey also served as minister of state in UP government in 1997. Union minister Kalraj Mishra is his political mentor. Pandey succeeded in getting the BJP ticket for assembly election just because of Mishra. Pandey also served as general secretary in UP BJP and won the general election in 2014, he said.
Professor Mishra said that by inducting Pandey in the cabinet, the BJP was trying to woo the Brahmins. However, Pandeys influence among the Brahmin community is confined to a few assembly constituencies in eastern UP, he claimed.
Dr Pandey is a good parliamentarian and his attendance rate in parliament is also very high. His induction will certainly accelerate development projects in the region, Mishra said.
He said that Union minister of state for railway Manoj Sinha had also served as the president of BHU students union.
It is a matter of pride that two former students of BHU are in the Union cabinet and their political career is spotless, professor Mishra said.
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VARANASI: Parliamentarian Anupriya Patel who was sworn in as the Union minister of state on Tuesday heads a faction-ridden Apna Dal, an ally of the BJP, in Uttar Pradesh
A graduate from Lady Sri Ram College, Anupriya had taken over the reigns of the party after her father Sone Lal Patel, the founder of Apna Dal, passed away in 2009. She successfully steered the party to success in 2014, winning two seats including hers from Mirzapur constituency and forming an alliance with the BJP.
After the 2014 Lok Sabha elections when her mother Krishna Patel appointed sister Pallavi as the partys national vice-president, the relationship between the mother-daughter duo soured and Krishna expelled Anupriya from Apna Dal last year.
Today, both Anupriya and Krishna claim to be the president of the party which has support of Kurmi community in pockets of the state. Speaking to HT on phone, Krishna said, She has become minister today. I threw her out of the party in 2015 for anti-party activities. Who says that Apna Dal is going to merge with the faction headed by Anupriya Patel? I am president of Apna Dal. We have no such plans.
Anupriya, however, held a rally at Jagatpur in Varanasi to showcase her strength to mark the birth anniversary of Apna Dal founder Dr Sone Lal Patel. Around 35,000 supporters attended the rally and she claimed she represented the Apna Dal.
I will fulfil dreams of my father. I will carry forward his mission to serve the poor, downtrodden and farmers, Anupriya said.
The party leader addressed her as the national president of Apna Dal. The convener of the rally, Neelratan Patel said, There was a huge crowd in the rally. It is proof of the fact that Anupriya ji is true successor of the party founder. She is our national president.
Anupriya, who represents Mirzapur parliamentary constituency, enjoys enormous supports among Kurmis across eastern UP and in some parts of Kanpur too. Patel, after taking oath as minister of state in the union cabinet, tweeted, I express my kind gratitude to union leadership and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Twenty two years after claim of a Patiala freedom fighter was rejected by the central government, his widow would now get the pension with orders in this regard from Punjab and Haryana high court.
The freedom fighter, Darshan Singh had approached high court in 2014 but died while the petition was pending. Hence, his wife, Jagdish Kaur was impleaded as petitioner in the matter.
Singh had approached central government in 1993 seeking pension under Swatantarta Sainik Samman Scheme, 1980, enclosing his own affidavit, certificates of the co-prisoners Balwant Singh and Gurmukh Singh as the official record of Lahore jail, where they were put up in 1942-43, relating to the imprisonment was not available. He had relied upon the secondary evidence. The central government rejected the claim in 1994. But Punjab government upon an enquiry through deputy commissioner, Patiala granted pension to him from 1998, the court was told.
In 2014, Singh slapped legal notice on central government but as it did not yield any results, the petition was filed seeking pension with arrears since 1993.
Initially, the central government had argued that it was not bound by the recommendation of state and could independently assess the genuineness of the case of pension and also that in many cases fake certificates were issued. Later, upon his death it was also argued that pension cannot be granted because of a government as per which, if the legal heir/widow of the freedom fighter was getting pension of Rs 20,000/- per month, then she would not be entitled to the pension on account of death of her husband. His wife proved that she was getting a pension of Rs 15, 793 and not of Rs 20,000.
The high court stated that there was no dispute that Darshan Singh was getting freedom fighter pension from the Punjab on the basis of the certificates. Hence, it was held that he was entitled to freedom fighter pension. but it would be from the date of order passed in this case by high court.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is an outfit of outsiders having no idea of Punjabs cultural and historical ethos, said Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president and deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Wednesday.
Speaking on the sidelines of a sangat darshan in his constituency Jalalabad in Fazilka district, Sukhbir said AAP leaders have disrespected Guru Granth Sahib by equating it with their frivolous manifesto.
The AAP has hurt the sentiments of Punjabis and Sikhs by using a picture of their party symbol broom alongside the image of Darbar Sahib on its manifesto, Sukhbir said.
Also read | Manifesto row: SAD rejects Khetans apology, wants Kejriwal to say sorry
The SAD chief said the opposition parties were spearheading misinformation about development in the state whereas the truth was that Punjab had become a model state in terms of progress.
Earlier, the deputy CM announced a grant of `10 lakh for a community hall at Dhani Mangh Singh-Gehlewala village and another Rs 10 lakh for a stadium at Lamochar Khurd village.
Sukhbir laid foundation stones of flooring and 100% water supply at Chak Gariban Sandhar, Dhani Mangh Singh-Gehlewala, Chak Tahliwala and Chak Bajidan villages.
Why is Punjab Police not arresting Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Delhi legislator Naresh Yadav for his alleged involvement in the sacrilege of Quran in Malerkotla? questioned Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday.
Though he has been confronted by cops during investigations into the desecration of the holy book, police have failed to put him behind bars, he added.
He also lashed out at the AAP for its repeated sacrilegious and blasphemous acts hurting religious sentiments of people.
Accusing police of going soft on the AAP MLA, the former chief minister questioned if there was some understanding between the AAP and the ruling Akali-BJP alliance to disturb peace in the state.
There is a pattern in the sacrilege incidents which started with the desecration of Guru Granth Sahib followed by Bhagavad Gita and now with the Quran. There seems to be clear and deliberate design to sabotage the peace in Punjab and it must be curbed with iron fist, he added.
A BLASPHEMOUS ACT
Amarinder also condemned the AAP for using their party symbol broom along with the picture of the Golden Temple on their manifesto cover, which, he said, was blasphemous act. Comparing the election manifesto with holy books also betrayed the AAPs ignorance and insensitivity towards the religious sentiments of people, he said, demanding apology from AAPs top brass.
NOT ACCEPTABLE: BHATTAL
It is disheartening and not acceptable to people of Punjab, said senior Congress leader and former chief minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, reacting to AAPs comparing its manifesto with Guru Granth Sahib.
Though he (Ashish Khetan) has apologised, this will not undo his mistake, she said.
Trashing the AAPs youth manifesto, Bhattal said the party has no base in Punjab. The AAP has a tendency of playing to gallery for cheap political gains rather than doing anything for the common man, she added.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 6
By Farhad Daneshvar Trend:
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has called on for unity among Muslims aimed at tackling extremism.
In a message posted on his Twitter account on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, Zarif congratulated Muslims and highlighted the need for unity among Muslims in order to cleanse the violence and hate promoted by extremists.
Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has also called for cooperation and solidarity among Muslims to restore peace and security among Muslim nations.
Rouhani made the remarks through separate messages addressing the heads of Islamic countries on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, IRNA news agency reported.
Eid-al-Fitr is a fast breaking feast marking the last day of fasting month of Ramadan and the beginning of the new lunar month of Shaval.
The first show of Asha Kumari, the newly appointed Congress in-charge of Punjab affairs, was marred by unruly scenes outside the Congress Bhawan here on Tuesday as a cautious party office tried to prevent unrestricted entry of overzealous workers.
The Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) meeting was held to welcome Kumari and introduce her to office-bearers. It was addressed by Punjab Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh, senior vice-president Lal Singh, campaign committee chief Ambika Soni and others. In her address, Asha said she did not know Punjabi but understands it. You all will soon train me in Punjabi, she added.
Soni hit out at those she said were alleging that the campaign committee was not working. Our job is to support the campaign of Capt Amarinder as he is the face of the party. I cant hold parallel programmes. No campaign decision is being taken without taking me into confidence, she said.
While all speakers exhorted PPCC office-bearers to ensure grassroots connect, outside party workers were denied entry into the Congress Bhawan. After 36 vice-presidents and 96 general secretaries, the party recently appointed around 350 secretaries. However, party insiders say no list was issued but they were called to collect their appointment letters from the office. A woman secretary from Ropar was seen claiming outside the gate that she be allowed entry as she had been appointed a secretary but has not got her appointment letter.
More drama ensued as media too was barred from entering the office and later the car of Congress Legislature Party leader Charanjit Channi was not allowed in and one of the office attendants entered into a scuffle with driver of senior leader Rajinder Kaur Bhattal. Even Banga MLA Tarlochan Singh Soondh raised objection to workers being debarred from entering the Congress Bhawan saying, If the Congress worker cannot enter his own party office, who is it for. The commotion outside ended after the gates were opened for Amarinders convoy.
Internal forces behind Quran sacrilege: Capt
Amarinder denied foreign hand in the sacrilege of Quran at Malerkotla. Internal forces are responsible for sacrilege of Quran. The guilty should be put behind bars, he said.
Farmers are hassled because of a 400-metre embankment raised by the army along the border near Khemkaran as a precautionary strategic measure during the Kargil war in 1999.
Raised with the promise to get it levelled after the war, the mud embankment stays to the day. The embankment is 500 metres from the Zero Line and 300 metre from the barbed fence.
The embankment cuts the common path at the right angle and the alternative path created for the villagers to reach the other side no more exists as a farmer, Mehar Singh, ploughed some portion about a month ago. The farmer levelled the path after getting his land measured and records confirmed that the portion of the path was on his land. Now, the pathway comes to an abrupt end and farmers are finding it difficult to cross the area.
About 200 acres of land and 12 families live ahead of the gap in the pathway. The farmers have to walk through the fields, which at this time of the year are waterlogged for paddy.
The farmers didnt object to the embankment when it was raised near Mianwall and Mehandipur villages as it concerned nations security. They got used to it over the years, especially after an alternative path was created to reach the hundreds of acres of farmland and houses on the other side.
The affected farmers consider the defence embankment as the cause of their miseries. First the army raised the embankment across a pathway and then didnt remove it as promised, said Khemkaran nagar panchayat president Parmjit Singh Sandhu, whose fields also stand cut-off.
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The municipal corporation (MC) has rejected as many as 12,000 applications received under phase 1 of the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (PMAY).
Under the scheme, the Union government is planning to cover all the homeless by 2022. The policy was started in the city in March.
In the first phase of the scheme, the government has planned to provide a grant of Rs 1.5 lakh to those who do not have a cemented house.
Officials at the MC informed HT on Tuesday that out of around 15,000 applications that the office has received in the first phase it has only given a go-head to around 2,994 applications.
Nirmaljeet Kaur, assistant project officer, said that most of the applications didnt meet all the requirements during the verification process.
Around 120 employees of the MC are currently engaged in the verification process under the scheme.
Officials visit various wards and check the authenticity of the applications.
The MC had already sent all the details of verified applications to the Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA), which will implement the scheme.
The last date for submitting applications in the first phase was June 30.
Meanwhile, officials at the Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA), which is looking after the project, said some of the municipal corporations in the state are yet to complete the verification process as per the revised plan.
According to the revised plan, applications of the people living within the red line (settlement area) are also being considered under the scheme, which was not the case earlier.
The government was also considering inviting applications of the people from Pakistan, who were rehabilitated.
NO FUNDS RECEIVED
Earlier mayor Sunil Jyoti had told that the MC might receive funds under the scheme by Juneend, but the civic body has not received not even a single penny under it. Officials at the local bodies department said there is still much time left for them to receive funds under the scheme as they are yet to submit the details of the applications to the Union government.
Its a long process. After making it sure that none of the applications is bogus, we will send the final report to the Union government, said an official.
SECOND PHASE
Under the second phase of the housing scheme, the government will be providing flats at subsidised rates to the people whose annual income is less than Rs 3 lakh and do not own any property; local beneficiaries might get flats in three areas of the city including Ladhewali, Reru Pind and Khurla Kingra within the municipal limits.
However, the local government is yet to finalise the locations.
Rejecting the apology offered by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Ashish Khetan for comparing Guru Granth Sahib and other holy books with his partys youth manifesto, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Wednesday said if anyone needed to apologise for this sacrilege, it was AAP convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.
In a statement here, parliamentarian and SAD secretary general Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa said the blasphemy was committed in front of Kejriwal during a recent function in Amritsar, where the AAPs youth manifesto was released.
Also read: Hang me if not satisfied with my apology: Khetan to SAD govt
Kejriwal did not protest against the blasphemy then or even later, giving a clear indication of the respect he has for the holy book of the Sikh community. Now, it is incumbent on him to seek apology from the Sikh sangat as well as take strictest action against Khetan. This is necessary to assuage the hurt feelings of entire Sikh community, said Dhindsa.
Claiming Khetan had displayed a mentally sick disposition, Dhindsa said: There is no other explanation for the cruel manner in which he insulted Guru Granth Sahib.
The MP said no Sikh or even a Punjabi could remain silent after this attack on the holy book. But the manner in which the AAP leadership of Punjab has remained silent on this issue indicates that it has sold its soul to outsiders... How could we expect AAP leaders of Punjab to speak up against the central leadership if the party ever came to power in Punjab? he questioned.
This (AAP) is a party that does not respect your religion as it has insulted Guru Granth Sahib as well as the holy Gita and Bible. AAP leaders are also being investigated for being party to the desecration of the holy Quran at Malerkotla. Their earlier role in inflaming communal passions is also before the people, alleged Dhindsa.
Actor Nandita Das has clarified that she hasnt signed any new Tamil project, contrary to some reports. She is currently on a summer break spending time with her son. Nandita was rumoured to be signed on for lyricist-turned-filmmaker Kutti Revathis maiden directorial venture.
This was news to me as well, as I have not heard of the people mentioned or the project. I am on a summer break with my son and soon returning to dive into my Manto project.
Read: Directing is a fulfilling experience, says Nandita Das
Read: Subodh and Nandita Dass brainchild creates a buzz among theatre enthusiasts
It has been a while now that I have been declining all other distractions, so not sure what this is all about! Guess these days there is smoke without fire, Nandita wrote on her Facebook page.
The project, reportedly, also stars actor-filmmaker Samuthirakani.
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Get away from it all just like your favourite celebs at these far-flung hot spots.
The monsoon season always sets the mood for a holiday. Actors like Himansh Kohli, Yuvika Chaudhary and Rahul Bhat have shared their favourite monsoon destinations where they love to go.
From Ladakh in north India to Munnar in the south -- heres where the celebs like to travel when it starts pouring.
Pangong Tso, Tibetan for high grassland lake, also referred to as Pangong Lake, is an endorheic lake in the Himalayas situated at a height of about 4,350 m. It is 134 km long and extends from India to China. (Twitter)
Himansh Kohli: My father told me once that if you really want to enjoy monsoon travel to any good hill station nearby and feel the clouds and greenery at its best. So for me, its always up north to travel. Ladakh is an amazing place to visit especially during the monsoon season. This region does not experience rain like anywhere else in India, making it a perfect time to travel here.
Read: Five exotic destinations for an offbeat vacation
Yuvika Chaudhary: I like to explore new places or enjoy Mumbai rains when I am in working mode. But I do want to explore a place called Bishnupur, a town in Bankura district in West Bengal. It is a hub for terracotta architecture, crafts and culture.
Khandala is a hill station in the Western Ghats in the state of Maharashtra, India, about 3 kilometres from Lonavala and 7 kilometres from Karjat. (Twitter)
Rahul Bhat: Whenever monsoon comes and if I am in Mumbai, I automatically think of holidaying at nearby hill stations. One of the twin hill stations of Lonavla and Khandala have a special attraction for monsoons. Beautiful landscapes of Lonavla, tall waterfalls and amazing drive makes a perfect weekend monsoon getaways. Otherwise, Matheran is another popular hill station in Maharashtra.
Read: 7 secret destinations that are perfect for a long-weekend getaway
Madhura Naik: There are different reasons to love this season. For me its the cool climate, the smell of wet mud, hot chocolate and obviously those long magical car journeys to Lonavla. Blessed with abundant greenland and waterfalls, this place is a must visit during the rains. My destination is a place called Machaan (a resort) and I love going there on holidays in monsoons.
Munnar is a town in the Western Ghats mountains in Indias Kerala state. Munnar, a hill station and former resort for the British Raj elite, is set within rolling hills dotted with tea plantations established in the 19th century. (Twitter)
Karanvir Sharma: There are lots of destinations in north, west, east and south India for monsoon holidays. If time permits, I would love to visit the undulating hills of Munnar in Kerala. The low mountain panorama is splendid especially during the monsoons when mist envelopes the mountain tops. Even though many tourists avoid Munnar during the monsoons, this is a great time to visit the hill station if you are looking for a quiet vacation. Covered with lush green foliage, monsoons in Munnar have a charm of their own.
Mahika Sharma: Rains give you the perfect excuse to plan holidays or explore new destinations. For me it will be Cherrapunjee, a town located in the East Khasi Hills district in Meghalaya. Cherrapunjee offers visitors excellent scenic beauty wrapped in pristine tranquility. This hilly region is dotted with beautiful waterfalls and caves making it an ideal nature getaway.
Radical cleric Hafiz Saeed, who is accused in India of plotting the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks, on Wednesday led Eid prayers in Lahore where he alleged the US and India are signing agreements against Pakistan and are preparing for a big war.
Saeed, chief of the banned group Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), told people gathered at the Gaddafi Stadium Muslims must unite to fail the design of infidels.
He said international players are conspiring against Pakistans nuclear programme.
The United States and India are signing agreements against Pakistan and there has been a preparation of a big war, he said, alleging drones are parked at Indian airports and our rulers are engaged in a fight with opposition.
Saeed, who has a $10-million bounty for his capture, termed Pakistan and Saudi Arabias growing distance with the US as a blessing in disguise.
It is a blessing in disguise that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are getting distanced from America. This will lay foundation of the Islamic Union which is the need of the hour for the Islamic world, he said.
He condemned the terror attack in Saudi Arabia and alleged the involvement of foreign hands in destabilising the Muslim world.
A large number of people offered their prayer behind Saeed amid tight security with police personnel and JuD security wing members deployed in and outside the stadium.
Saeed has been leading the Eid prayers at Gaddafi Stadium for the last many years.
India has repeatedly asked Pakistan to bring Saeed to justice for allegedly masterminding the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which were blamed on Lashkar-e-Toiba, a group Saeed founded.
He has often been seen addressing anti-India rallies in Pakistan, but Islamabad says it has no proof against him.
Britains Iraq War inquiry report on Wednesday is being described as a devastating critique of then prime minister Tony Blairs decision to go to war against Iraq in 2003.
Read: Probe slams Blair over Iraq war, UK ex-PM will take full responsibility
Here are some key conclusions from the 2.6-million-word report by retired civil servant John Chilcot:
1. Military action in 2003 was not the last resort and Blair exaggerated the case for war in Iraq. The report said the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. The report said, In the absence of a majority in support of military action, we consider that the UK was, in fact, undermining the Security Councils authority.
2. Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat and Blairs government presented an assessment of the threat posed by Husseins weapons with certainty that was not justified.
3. Blair blindly went along with US war plans. I will be with you, whatever, said Blairs note to then US president George W Bush on July 28, 2002 nearly a year before the March 2003 invasion. At the end of January 2003, Blair accepted the US timetable for military action by mid-March and set the UK on a path leading to diplomatic activity in the UN and the possibility of participation in military action in a way that would make it very difficult for the UK subsequently to withdraw its support for the US.
4. War based on flawed intelligence. The report said, It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged, and they should have been. Judgements about the severity of the threat posed by Iraqs weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) were presented with a certainty that was not justified.
5. Report was more cautious about the dossier on Iraqs WMDs that was released by Blairs office in September 2002 and has become a focal point for criticism of the plan for war. There is no evidence that intelligence was improperly included in the dossier or that Number 10 improperly influenced the text, the report said.
6. The government failed to achieve its objectives and plans for post-war Iraq were wholly inadequate. Referring to ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the report said, Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated. The planning and preparation for Iraq after Saddam were wholly inadequate. Blair did not ensure that there was a flexible, realistic and fully resourced plan that integrated UK military and civilian contributions and addressed the known risks.
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Once South Africas inspirational sports icon, Oscar Pistorius was jailed on Wednesday for six years for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Here are some of the key facts about the South African prison and judicial process after he was taken from court in Pretoria to Kgosi Mampuru II prison to begin his jail term, and his lawyers said they wont appeal the sentence.
Prison routine
After arrival in prison, he is registered by officials and has his fingerprints taken.
Within six hours of arrival, he undergoes a medical examination to determine suitable conditions for imprisonment.
After the initial assessment, a longer-term programme is developed to shape the rest of his incarceration period. It is regularly reviewed.
During his earlier jail term in the same prison, he was kept on the hospital wing.
We have to cater for special categories of offenders, correctional services spokesman Manelisi Wolela told the ENCA channel. Those with disabilities may be abused by other offenders if you mix them in one place.
(AFP)
A state appeal?
The National Prosecuting Authority may well appeal, seeking a longer sentence, though they made no immediate announcement.
It has 14 days to lodge an appeal.
The High Court would hear the application and decide to grant or reject the bid.
Trial Judge Thokozile Masipa or another judge could hear the application.
If granted, the full bench of five Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) judges will review the case.
The prosecutors could also directly petition the SCA without going through the trial court.
Pistorius would remain in prison during the process.
Parole
Pistorius will be eligible for parole after serving between half and two-thirds of his sentence.
Belgian authorities on Wednesday handed over two men to France who allegedly helped the top suspect Salah Abdeslam in the November 13 Paris attacks.
The federal prosecutors office identified the two as Mohammed A and Ali O and said they were transferred to France under a European arrest warrant.
The Paris prosecutors office confirmed that they were Mohammed Amri and Ali Oulkadi.
Amri is accused of going to Paris to pick up top suspect Salah Abdeslam after the attacks that killed 130 people. Oulkadi, a 31-year-old French national, allegedly drove Abdeslam through Brussels the day after the attacks and dropped him off at a safe house used as a workshop for manufacturing explosive belts.
An official at the Paris prosecutors office said the two were questioned after the transfer by an investigating magistrate who was to hand down preliminary charges.
It wasnt immediately clear what charges they face. The official wasnt authorized to speak about the cases and requested anonymity.
Belgium transferred a suspected accomplice of Amri, Hamza Attou, to France last week. Attou was given preliminary charges of helping a terrorist criminal linked to a terrorist act, and was then jailed.
Attou is alleged to have been with Amri when he drove to Paris and brought Abdeslam back. Attou and Amri were arrested shortly afterward and charged in Belgium with participating in terrorist activity.
Attous Belgian lawyer said her client went on the trip just to keep the driver company.
According to internal French police documents, searches involving Amri and Attou netted shells of 5.56 and 7.62 mm caliber, fertilizer, two hard drives and a military-type backpack.
Abdeslam was arrested in Brussels in March after four months on the run and was extradited to France.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 6
By Khalid Kazimov Trend:
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that the Islamic Republic has never interfered in Bahrains issues.
Addressing a group of authorities, ambassadors of Islamic countries on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, Khamenei said that Iran will not interfere in Bahrain's affairs, the official website of the supreme leader reported.
Eid-al-Fitr is a fast breaking feast marking the last day of fasting month of Ramadan and the beginning of the new lunar month of Shaval.
Khamenei then advised Bahraini officials to refrain from turning a political battle into a civil war.
If political wisdom exists in Bahrain, they must not let the political conflict turn into civil war, he said.
Almost every aspect of the Tony Blair governments actions and decisions related to the 2003 Iraq war came in for trenchant criticism from an independent inquiry, whose 2.6-million-word report compiled after seven years of forensic examination was published on Wednesday.
The report said military action in 2003 against Iraqi ruler Saddam Husseins regime was not the last resort and that all peaceful options had not been exhausted. It further said Hussein posed no imminent threat at the time and the consequences of the invasion of Iraq were under-estimated.
It said Blair and his government led Britain into war based on flawed intelligence that should have been challenged, and that London failed to achieve its objectives in Iraq. Blair also overestimated his ability to influence the US, it added.
Blair, who was prime minister from 1997 and 2007, is likely to face impeachment in parliament and possible legal action by relatives of 179 British soldiers who died in the Iraq war. One family member of a slain soldier called Blair the worlds biggest terrorist.
Protesters hold up a large banner outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, shortly before the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war. (AP Photo)
Critics said the report was too late in coming and only confirmed what was already known, but its level of criticism based on the examination of thousands of documents from 2001 to 2009 was noted by those who earlier alleged the inquiry was an establishment stitch-up.
Blair deliberately exaggerated the threat from Hussein, the report said, adding the stated basis for going to war was flawed. It cited instances to justify the conclusion and added there was poor planning to deal with the post-invasion situation.
It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged, and they should have been, John Chilcot, chairman of the inquiry, said in a statement before the reports release.
This file photo shows US president George W Bush looking at British prime minister Tony Blair. (AFP Photo)
In the House of Commons on September 24, 2002, Mr Blair presented Iraqs past, current and future capabilities as evidence of the severity of the potential threat from Iraqs WMD (weapons of mass destruction). He said that, at some point in the future, that threat would become a reality, he said.
Chilcot added: The judgments about Iraqs capabilities in that statement, and in the dossier published the same day, were presented with a certainty that was not justified.
Blair later said he would take full responsibility for any mistakes over British involvement in the 2003 US-led invasion in Iraq. Blair highlighted there was no falsification of intelligence, though the inquiry found the threat posed by Iraqs weapons were presented with a certainty that was not justified.
Blair repeated his contention that it was better to remove Saddam Hussein than allow the Iraqi leader to stay in power. I do not believe this (Saddams removal) is the cause of the terrorism we see today whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world, he said.
Relatives of the 179 British soldiers who died in Iraq went on television, hoping for justice, while hundreds of anti-war activists congregated outside the Queen Elizabeth II Centre where the report was released, and outside Blairs residence.
The five-member inquiry committee included Indian-origin Usha Prashar, a member of the House of Lords.
Blair, who has defended his Iraq-related actions, was scheduled to react to the report later on Wednesday, besides leading lights of the time such as former foreign secretary Jack Straw.
In this file photo, British Prime Minister Tony Blair addresses troops in Basra, Iraq. (AP Photo)
Opponents of Blairs decision to join the war will pore over the report for its judgment on how the Labour leader, who quit in 2007, justified the military action. At the time, he said intelligence showed Hussein had weapons of mass destruction but after the invasion none was found.
I was lied to. The media, the press, the families, parliament, everybody was lied to, Reg Keys, whose son was among the British fatalities and who stood as a candidate for parliament against Blair in the 2005 election, told Reuters TV ahead of the reports publication.
The inquiry looked at the reasons for the invasion, the war itself and the aftermath - and has taken longer to complete than the British military involvement itself.
Public hearings, including two appearances by Blair, ended in 2011 but since then the writing of the report has been dogged by rows over the release of secret government files and the contacts between London and Washington. It includes details of notes from Blair to Bush and quotes from more than 130 records of their conversations.
Critics believe Blair, who sent 45,000 British troops for the invasion, gave Bush an unconditional promise that Britain would join military action and that he then distorted intelligence to back this up and put pressure on government lawyers to give the invasion legal approval.
Keys noted that Chilcot had said the inquiry would not play the blame game. But I certainly hope it points the finger of accountability in the direction of the former prime minister who was the key player with all of this deceit, Keys said.
However, he said he feared the report might be watered down as those facing criticism have been allowed to respond prior to publication.
A protester holds a placard outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London, shortly before the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq war. (AP Photo)
In an interview with CNN last October, Blair apologised that the pre-war intelligence had been wrong and for mistakes in planning, but not for getting rid of Hussein.
He also accepted the war had played a role in the rise of Islamic State but it was far from the only factor.
Ive said many times over these past years, Ill wait for the report and then I will make my views known and express myself fully and properly, Blair told Sky News on Sunday.
British media said lawmakers led by the Scottish National Party were considering invoking an ancient law, last used in 1806, to impeach Blair in parliament.
You cannot have a situation where this country blunders into an illegal war with the appalling consequences and at the end of the day there isnt a reckoning, SNP lawmaker Alex Salmond told Sky News.
(With inputs from agencies)
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A pizza chef killed during a militant attack on a cafe where he worked in Bangladeshs capital city last week was probably in league with the assailants, police said on Wednesday.
Saiful Islam Chowkidar carried no arms but was seen moving and running with the five gunmen during the 12-hour stand-off, Monirul Islam, the chief of counter-terrorism police, said.
On Friday, at least five Bangladeshi men had stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery, a cafe popular with foreigners, businessmen and diplomats and killed 20 customers, including Italians, Japanese, Indians and Americans.
Read: Dhaka cops admit to killing cafe hostage
On Tuesday, police said Chowkidar was shot dead by mistake but Islam revised that, saying his death was not accidental, although police were unsure how he died and the role he played.
At one point they (militants) tried to escape. They came out running and started firing, the chef was with them, Islam told reporters. He is a suspect member of this group.
Two other suspects being treated in hospital were also employees of the cafe, police said. One worked as a delivery man and the other in the kitchen.
Before the final operations, their movement was suspicious, Islam said.
The attack was one of the deadliest ever in Bangladesh, where the Islamic State and al Qaeda have made competing claims for a series of killings of liberals and members of religious minorities in the past year. The government has dismissed those claims and insists that the violence is homegrown.
Read: Dhaka attack is an alarm: The secular code of Bangladesh is under siege
The gunmen were mostly from well-to-do families and police gave their names as: Nibras Islam, 20; Rohan Imtiaz, 20; Meer Saameh Mubasheer, 19; Khairul Islam, 22; Shafiqul Islam, 26.
Their attack marked a major escalation in violence aimed at forcing strict Islamic rule onto predominantly Muslim Bangladeshs 160 million people.
Foreign security experts say the scale and sophistication of the attack pointed to some level of guidance from international militant groups.
But the police believe Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), an outlawed domestic group that has pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was to blame.
We have confirmed these attacks were by JMB, Islam said.
Read: Why Bangladesh claim of ISI role in Dhaka cafe attack could be true
Meanwhile, Islamic State warned that attacks would continue until Islamic law was established worldwide, saying in a video that the Dhaka assault was just a hint of what is to come.
What you witnessed in Bangladesh ... was a glimpse. This will repeat, repeat and repeat until you lose and we win and the sharia is established throughout the world, said a man identified as Bangladeshi fighter Abu Issa al-Bengali, in the video monitored by SITE intelligence site.
The video began with pictures of recent attacks in Paris, Brussels and Orlando in the United States that the Middle East-based militants have claimed.
Bengali said Bangladesh must know that it was now part of a bigger battlefield to establish the cross-border caliphate the group proclaimed in 2014.
Police said they were stepping up security in response to the video threat.
In my heart, the sun-burnt Tibetan said of his plans to observe the Dalai Lamas 81st birthday before quietly fading into a crowd of tourists and believers heading into the Sera monastery outside Lhasa on Wednesday morning.
Elsewhere in the city, the Dharamsala-based spiritual leaders birthday wasnt celebrated with any kind of fervour.
Furtively would probably be a more appropriate word to describe how Tibetans marked the occasion across the Tibet Autonomous Region and especially in the capital Lhasa.
The Communist Party of China (CPC)-led government forbids any public celebration of the birthday of the Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959 following a revolt in the remote region.
At Potala Palace, the Dalai Lamas erstwhile residence, things appeared normal with visitors crowding the 13-storey world heritage structure and military-trained fire-fighters keeping a close watch on them.
The government has branded the internationally revered monk as a splittist and a wolf in monks robes.
Beijing says he incited a large number of self-immolation cases more than 130 in which Tibetans set themselves afire, demanding his return to China and more rights for the community.
The Chinese government is lenient about the Dalai Lamas mention in some Tibetan regions, such as Shangri La, where his photos are often displayed in homes.
But not in the Tibet Autonomous Region.
Nearly all Tibetans Hindustan Times spoke to in Lhasa on Wednesday remained silent or changed the conversation when it came to the birthday.
One put a finger to his lips. Others said no one was celebrating it at least not openly.
Lhasa was instead busy completing preparations for the 2016 Forum on the Development of Tibet, an international seminar with participants from scores of countries and experts on Tibet from across China.
His birthday is not important to the Chinese. It is not an important date. Do you see any abnormal security in the city? The locals are not bothered, said Li Xiaojun, director at the State Council, Chinas cabinet.
Hindustan Times is in Lhasa at the invitation of the State Council to cover the forum as part of a group of international experts and a handful of independent journalists.
During tours of Potala Palace and Sera Monastery, government officials kept the journalists under watch, apparently to prevent them interacting with locals.
The government doesnt interfere in the private lives of Chinese citizens, Li said when asked about whether Tibetans were allowed to celebrate the Dalai Lamas birthday in their homes. Public display is forbidden. How can it be allowed, he is a separatist.
He said there was no connection between the birthday and the forum being held at around the same time.
Our only focus is to lift 590,000 Tibet Autonomous Region citizens under the poverty line out of poverty in the next few years by improving their livelihood, he said.
The Islamic State warned on Wednesday of more attacks in Bangladesh until Shariah law is established, saying in a new video last weeks massacre of 20 hostages in a Dhaka cafe was only a glimpse of what is to come.
The video, posted on IS-affiliated websites, reflected the terror groups focus on Bangladesh in recent months. Besides claiming the killing of several secular bloggers and Hindu priests, the IS chief for the country said he intends to use his fighters to mount guerrilla strikes inside India.
What you witnessed in Bangladesh...was a glimpse. This will repeat, repeat and repeat until you lose and we win and the Shariah is established throughout the world, said a man identified as Bangladeshi fighter Abu Issa al-Bengali in the video monitored by SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadi organisations.
The video, which began with pictures of recent attacks in Paris, Brussels and Orlando in the US claimed by the IS, was shot in the groups de facto capital of Raqqa in Syria.
Three fighters featured in the video are of Bangladeshi origin and they spoke in a mix of Bengali and English. One had his face covered with a keffiyeh and two others were bearded.
The fighters said Bangladesh is part of a bigger battlefield to establish the caliphate proclaimed by the IS in 2014 and the attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery was revenge for the killing of Muslims by crusaders.
They also said they would not stop until Shariah or Islamic law is established across the world. The jihad that has come to Bangladesh now has been promised by Prophet Mohammed, one fighter said.
We will not stop killing the crusaders till then; we will win or die for our religion as martyrs and achieve sahadaat (martyrdom)...we dont have anything to lose.
The fighters described Bangladeshs democracy as shirk or unforgivable crime and the government as kafir.
Crusaders are killing innocents Muslims globally with planes and bomb attacks
So the Holey Artisan incident is our revenge for the lost blood of the hundreds and hundreds of Muslims who were killed, another fighter said.
Read: Why Bangladesh claim of ISI role in Dhaka cafe attack could be true
A group of heavily armed militants stormed the upmarket cafe on Friday and butchered 20 people, most of them foreigners from Italy, Japan, India and the US, before they were gunned down by security forces the next morning.
Three of the attackers were from wealthy, liberal families of Dhaka and two more were from low-income families. The IS issued photos of five attackers and images of the dead hostages inside the cafe.
As with other assaults claimed by the IS, the Bangladesh government rejected the groups claim of responsibility for Fridays attack and blamed it on the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), which has pledged allegiance to the IS.
However, police said they were stepping up security in response to the video threat. We are taking this issue seriously. All our concerned units are working tirelessly, said deputy inspector general of police Shahidur Rahman.
Police have said they are hunting for six JMB members suspected to have helped the attackers.
Foreign security experts say the scale and sophistication of the strike on the Holey Artisan Bakery pointed to some level of guidance from international militant groups. HT Imam, a political adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said security officials had seen online warnings about an impending attack on Friday and ordered major hotels and restaurants near the cafe shut but they missed the actual target.
In an interview with the IS magazine Dabiq in April, Shaykh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif, the amir of the group in Bangladesh, had said IS fighters in Pakistan and Bangladesh will mount guerrilla attacks inside India and create fear and chaos by working with local mujahideen.
Al-Hanif said Bangladesh, referred to by the IS as Bengal, is an important region for the groups so-called caliphate and the global jihad due to its strategic geographic position.
Bengal is located on the eastern side of India, whereas Wilayat Khurasan is located on its western side. Thus, having a strong jihad base in Bengal will facilitate performing guerrilla attacks inside India simultaneously from both sides and facilitate creating a condition of tawahhush (fear and chaos) in India..., he said.
(With inputs from agencies)
Read: Dhaka cafe massacre: As Bangladesh mourns, a fallen hero is hailed
Donald Trump has praised late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for killing off terrorists, reprising previous comments in support of dictators in the Middle East and earning a swift rebuke from White House rival Hillary Clinton.
The United States shouldnt have destabilized Iraq, now a hotbed for the Islamic State group 13 years after the US-led invasion, said Trump, who showed lukewarm support for the war before it took place and later opposed it.
He was a bad guy -- really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good, Trump told supporters.
They didnt read them the rights. They didnt talk. They were terrorists. It was over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism, the Republican firebrand added, referring to the prestigious US university.
Shortly after the remarks, Clintons campaign pounced on Trumps apparent support of a strongman, who was hanged in Iraq in 2006 for ordering the sectarian killings of nearly 150 Shiites two decades earlier.
Tonight, Trump yet again lauded Saddam Hussein as a great killer of terrorists, noting with approval that he never bothered to read anyone their rights. In reality, Husseins regime was a sponsor of terrorism, Clinton senior policy advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement.
Trumps cavalier compliments for brutal dictators, and the twisted lessons he seems to have learned from their history, again demonstrate how dangerous he would be as Commander-in-Chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks.
Paul Ryan, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, did not back Trump when asked about the comments.
Saddam was one of the 20th centurys most evil people. He was up there, and he committed mass genocide against his own people using chemical weapons. Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, Ryan said on Fox News.
Last year, Trump said the world would be 100 percent better off if Saddam and slain Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi were still in power, adding that human rights abuses are worse than they ever were in Iraq and Libya.
I mean, look at Libya. Look at Iraq. Iraq used to be no terrorists. He (Saddam) would kill the terrorists immediately, which is like now its the Harvard of terrorism, Trump said at the time.
If you look at Iraq from years ago, Im not saying he was a nice guy, he was a horrible guy, but it was a lot better than it is right now.
The posting in Arabic is chilling. A girl for sale: Virgin. Beautiful. 12 years old.... Her price has reached $12,500 and she will be sold soon.
The advertisement, along with others for kittens, tactical gear and weapons, appeared on an encrypted Telegram app and was shared with The Associated Press by an activist with Iraqs persecuted Yazidi community, which is trying to free an estimated 3,000 women and girls still held as sex slaves by IS extremists.
As the Islamic State group loses control of one city after another in its self-styled caliphate, it is tightening its grip on its captives, taking the Yazidis deeper into its territory and selling them as chattel on popular encrypted apps such as Telegram and WhatsApp, The Associated Press has found.
Read: Islamic State burns 19 Yazidi girls for refusing to be sex slaves: Report
The extremists are targeting smugglers who rescue captives for assassination and are deploying a slave database with captives photos and owners names to prevent escape through checkpoints.
Thousands of Kurdish-speaking Yazidis were taken prisoner and thousands more were massacred when IS fighters overran their northern Iraqi villages in August 2014. Since then, as the Yazidi captives have been conscripted into sexual slavery, smugglers have managed to free 2,554 women and girls. But by May, an IS crackdown reduced those numbers to just 39 in the last six weeks, according to figures provided by the Kurdistan regional government.
The AP has obtained a batch of 48 head shots of the captives, smuggled out by an escapee. The portraits appear to be the same as those used in a database to prevent the captives from slipping past checkpoints, or for barter and sale on popular apps.
Read: IS executes 250 women who refused to become sex slaves: Report
Mirza Danai, founder of the German-Iraqi aid organization Luftbrucke Irak, said the slave database documents the captives as if they were property.
They register every slave, every person under their owner, and therefore if she escapes, every Daesh control or checkpoint, or security force - they know that this girl ... has escaped from this owner, said Danai, using a common acronym to refer to IS.
One of those girls is Lamiya Aji Bashar, who in March made her fifth attempt at escape, running to the border with IS fighters in pursuit. A land mine exploded, and two Yazidi girls who were accompanying her were killed. The bomb left Lamiya blind in her right eye, her face scarred by melted skin.
Speaking from a bed at her uncles home in the northern Iraqi town of Baadre, the 18-year-told AP that despite being disfigured, she did not regret her perilous escape from her jailers.
Even if I had lost both eyes, it would have been worth it, she said, because I have survived them.
The Yazidis have been targeted by IS because they practice an ancient faith combining elements of Islam, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, and the Sunni extremists view them as infidels. The Yazidis pre-war population in Iraq was estimated at 500,000. Their number today is unknown.
Read: 15 rules from Islamic States fatwa on sex with female slaves
US state department spokesperson John Kirby told the AP that the US continues to be appalled by credible reports that Daesh is trafficking in human beings, and sex slavery in particular.
This depravity not only speaks to the degree to which Daesh cheapens life and repudiates the Islamic faith, it also strengthens our resolve to defeat them, he said.
A series of attacks has killed nearly 350 people in eight countries during the holy month of Ramzan. The attacks, most linked to the Islamic State group, were carried out by organised groups while some were lone wolf attacks. On May 22, an audio message purportedly from the groups spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani called for attacks against American and European targets. A spate of attacks followed.
Heres a rundown of terror strikes in what was one of the bloodiest Ramzan periods in recent memory.
Islamic State
June 27 (al-Qaa, Lebanon): At least five people were killed in two series of suicide bombings on a predominantly Christian village in northeastern Lebanon.
June 28 (Mukalla, Yemen): A series of suicide bombings killed at least 38 Yemeni soldiers in the countrys southeast, just as they were about to break their fast.
July 2 (Baghdad, Iraq): More than 210 people were killed when a refrigerator van packed with explosives exploded in a busy shopping centre in the Iraq capital. It was the deadliest single attack in Baghdad in years.
Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen
July 1 (Dhaka, Bangladesh): Twenty hostages, including an Indian, were killed when six gunmen entered the Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan, a diplomatic zone in the Bangladeshi capital. Five militants were killed and one was arrested alive when commandos stormed the building, ending after a 10-hour siege.
Responsibility yet unclear
June 28 (Ataturk Airport, Istanbul, Turkey): Three gunmen opened fire at the airport while shouting Allahu Akbar! (God is Great!). Shortly afterwards, each of them detonated their suicide belts, killing 45 people, including 13 foreigners, and injuring 238 others
Attackers pledging allegiance to Islamic State
June 8 (Tel Aviv, Israel): Four Israelis were killed in a shooting rampage at a busy market in the Israeli city. Israels Shin Bet security service said the two Palestinian cousins accused of the shootings were inspired by the IS
Lone wolf
June 12 (Orlando, United States): American-born Omar Mateen, 29, gunned down 49 people at a gay nightclub in the city, the deadliest mass shooting in the United States and the nations worst terror attack since 9/11.
Their joint appearance was to be the event of the 2016 White House race, so far. And it was, except President Barack Obama, the campaigner-in-chief, stole the show.
As the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, spoke, Obama, perched on a backless stool behind her, acted out some parts of her speech, specially those about him.
He eagerly joined her supporters in chanting Hillary, Hillary, and even led them a few times. And when it was his turn at the microphone, the president was a quintessential surrogate.
Im ready to pass the baton, Obama, who had his sleeves rolled up, said to applause. And I know that Hillary Clinton is going to take it. And I know she can run that race.
The president and his one-time secretary of state appeared jointly for the first time this election season, just hours after Clinton received a mixed reprieve on her private email use.
The FBI said earlier on Tuesday that though Clinton, as secretary of state, and her aides had been extremely careless using a private server, it was not recommending charges against her.
Neither Obama nor Clinton referred to the FBI announcement and it was noted and plunged headlong into the race, in which they both have as much at stake as the other.
Clinton needs Obamas testimony as a character witness to change a continuing perception of her as dishonest and untrustworthy and her high un-favorability ratings.
Obama was right on cue at the joint appearance, in North Carolina, blaming it on politics. He started by recalling how popular she was when she had just left office.
She was a great secretary of state, he said. Before the whole political machinery got moving. You remember that? It wasnt that long ago. It's funny how that happens.
And he tore into presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, who he constantly referred to as the other guy or just the guy, saying on one instance that tweeting is easy, but sitting behind the Oval Office desk isnt.
Obama needs Clinton to win to ensure his legacy healthcare reforms and other measures endures and is not rolled back by a Republican, as they have so often threatened to do.
Clinton has completely embraced his presidency after initial attempts to distance herself, and critics often remark she is running for a third term for Obama.
Trump and Saddam
Donald Trump has often spoken with some admiration for dictators and strong leaders. Its now the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who, he thinks, was not all so bad.
He was a bad guy -- really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good, Trump said at a rally in North Carolina on Tuesday.
They didn't read them the rights. They didn't talk. They were terrorists. Over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism, he added. He had advocated the use of torture before.
Trump received a quick rebuke from Speaker Paul Ryan, the senior-most elected Republican, who told Fox: He (Saddam) was one of the 20th centurys most evil people.
President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced he will keep US troop presence in Afghanistan at 8,400 until the end of his term early next year, and not 5,500 as planned earlier.
Their mission, however, will remain the same, Obama said in remarks from the White House: to assist and train local Afghan forces and going after terrorists.
But maintaining our forces at this specific level based on our assessment of the security conditions and the strength of Afghan forces will allow us to continue to provide tailored support to help Afghan forces continue to improve, he said.
The US force level, which was once 100,000, has been going down steadily since Obama ended the combat mission in 2014. It is less than 10,000 now, and was to go down further.
But not any longer. Announcing the upward revision, Obama said his message to the Taliban was that the only way to end this conflict and to achieve a full drawdown of foreign forces from Afghanistan is through a lasting political settlement between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
This decision also, he said, ensures that my successor has a solid foundation for continued progress in Afghanistan as well as the flexibility to address the threat of terrorism as it evolves.
He added, l firmly believe the decision Im announcing is the right thing to do.
The numbers reflect a compromise between Obamas original plan and what many military commanders had recommended.
A Taliban resurgence led Washington to rethink its exit strategy.
Obama said the US mission will remain narrowly focused on training and advising Afghan forces and supporting counterterrorism operations against the remnants of al Qaeda, the group that attacked the US on September 11, 2001.
We are no longer engaged in a major ground war in Afghanistan, he said. Still, he said, Americans serving in their more limited missions there still face serious dangers
Obama made the announcement alongside defence secretary Ash Carter and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen Joseph Dunford.
Last month a group of more than a dozen former US ambassadors and former commanders of US forces in Afghanistan wrote to Obama, urging that he sustain the current level of US troops through the remainder of his term in office. They included Gen John F Campbell, who was the top US commander in Kabul until four months ago, and retired Gen David Petraeus.
Unless emergency conditions require consideration of a modest increase, we would strongly favor a freeze at the level of roughly 10,000 U.S. troops through January 30, they wrote in a June 1 letter. This approach would allow your successor to assess for herself or himself and make further adjustments accordingly.
Obamas announcement will help shape his legacy. A president who came into office promising to end the wars he inherited, has instead found himself wrestling with continued conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan and new conflicts in Syria and Libya.
(With inputs from agencies)
Driven by radical beliefs, twin brothers allegedly killed their mother in Saudi Arabia after she tried to stop them from joining Islamic State in Syria in a case that outraged Saudi Arabians worried about rising Islamic militancy.
The June 24 killing, in a country where respect for elders is seen as a bedrock of society, whipped up a storm of debate over the possible influence of a mediaeval Islamic scholar revered as a forerunner of Saudi Arabias Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam.
Saudi interior ministry spokesman General Mansour al-Turki said the pair were suspects in the killing.
The only thing (we have established) is that they (the twins) follow Takfiri ideology, Turki told Reuters, using a phrase which Saudi authorities use to refer to Islamist militancy. The case is still under investigation, said the spokesman, who declined to give further details.
Reuters was unable to contact the 20-year-old twins, or their lawyers or family members, and could not independently confirm if the alleged killing was influenced by Islamic State or religious ideology - or what the mother actually said.
In a statement after the attack, the interior ministry said that the twins, Khaled and Saleh al-Oraini, were arrested on suspicion of stabbing their 67-year-old mother Haila, their 73-year-old father and their 22-year-old brother at the family home in the capital Riyadh.
The mother, who died of her wounds, had objected to her sons joining Islamic State jihadists in Syria, Saudi media reported.
The father and brother were in hospital in a serious condition, while the alleged attackers were arrested trying to flee across the border to Yemen, media said. Reuters was unable to confirm the status of family members or the whereabouts of the suspects.
Had this come from drug addicts or ignorant youth, it would not have been unusual, Saudi writer Mohammad Ali al-Mahmoud told Reuters. The shock is that it came from a pair of religious children acting in the name of Islam.
This is the fifth killing of family members by suspected militants in Saudi Arabia since July last year, the online Saudi news website akhbaar24 reported on June 26.
There have been similar cases of other killings of close relatives by Islamic state members, including a widely reported incident in January in which a suspected militant killed his mother in public in the Syrian city of Raqqa because she had encouraged him to leave the group.
The killings compounded fears of radicalistion in the kingdom. On Monday, suicide bombers struck three cities in an apparently coordinated campaign of attacks as Saudis prepared to break their daily fast observed during the holy month of Ramadan, killing at least four security personnel and themselves.
IMPASSIONED DEBATE
The case has caused impassioned debate because Islam teaches that devotion to caring for elders is a pathway to heaven.
Some scholars and media commentators have asked if it was the teachings of Ibn Taymiyya, a 13th century Islamic scholar from Damascus known for his fatwas (religious opinion) about takfir that were behind young militants killing family members they regarded as apostates.
Islamic State embraces the concept of takfir, often quoting Ibn Taymiyya to exhort its followers to kill other Muslims seen as apostates, including relatives. The word takfir is derived from the Arabic word kafer, which means unbeliever.
It was Ibn Taymiyya who inspired the founder of Wahhabism, the 18th century Sheikh Mohammed Ibn Abdul-Wahhab. Wahhabism, the religious movement espoused by rulers of Saudi Arabia, demands rigid adherence to what it sees as Islams original practices and a rejection of more modern ideas.
These links, as well as shared practices such as the use of beheading as a means of execution, led some Western commentators to accuse Riyadh of sympathy with groups like Islamic State which holds territory in Iraq and Syria.
However, Western-allied Riyadh says Ibn Abdul-Wahhab was a reformer. The Saudi government rejects any talk of links between his message and that of modern jihadists, denouncing Islamic State and al Qaeda as terrorists and religious heretics.
But Riyadhs official stance has not prevented scholars and commentators from seizing on the latest killing to dissect the degree to which Ibn Taymiyya is responsible for motivating todays jihadists.
LEGACY OF IBN TAYMIYYA
Some are angry at me for pointing out the legacy of Ibn Taymiyya in the religious violence that is sweeping us, prominent scholar, Abdul-Salam al-Wail, professor of sociology at King Saud University, wrote on his Twitter account.
To the Shaikh al-Islam (Ibn Taymiyya), human life is cheap and his legacy clarifies this, he added, using the honorific of the renowned scholar, who spent time in jail for his beliefs and who resisted Mongol invaders.
Wail said that while Ibn Taymiyya was a prolific scholar for his time, he pointed to his fatwas that permit a son to kill an apostate father, saying they contradict the essence of Islam.
The case drew a rare intervention from the Saudi Islamic affairs minister, Saleh bin Abdul-Aziz Al al-Sheikh, who was quoted as saying that Ibn Taymiyyas fatwa allowing a son to kill his father had been taken out of context.
The statement by the Shaikh al-Islam, may God have mercy on him ... is intended for if they meet at war in which the son is on the side of the faithful and the father is on the side of apostates, he was quoted by Rashed bin Othman al-Zahrani, deputy chairman of the Electronic Islam Academy, as saying.
This means that only in this case and it does not contradict the verse which states: be kind to thy parents, the minister added in comments published in al-Hayat, al-Jazirah and other Saudi media outlets.
Reuters was unable to contact the minister to confirm his comments.
Joining debate over the case, several writers and scholars said it was time to remove the sanctity from traditional theology that permits such actions, saying ancient teachings are not always appropriate in the modern age.
Writing on Twitter after the killing, columnist Mohammed al-Sheikh called for reviewing our readings of the theological heritage of Ibn Taymiyya to clarify it belonged to a different time and different circumstances. Otherwise, terrorism will not end.
Al-Mahmoud said the first step in fighting militant ideology would be by opening up Ibn Taymiyyas teachings for debate.
What is needed now is to drain this swamp, by opening the door to criticising our heritage, the writer, al-Mahmoud, told Reuters. What is needed is to shake the confidence in these teachings that are being imported from our distant past.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 6
By Khalid Kazimov Trend:
Four Iranian border guards have reportedly been killed in an armed clash with a terrorist group along the countrys eastern boards with Pakistan.
The terrorists attempted to enter Iran. However the border guards stopped them, Young Journalists Club (YJC) reported July 6.
The report says the clashes still continue and forces have been put on high alert in the area.
Border guards Sajad Barian, Reza Irani, Abbas Shahraki and Javad Torki were killed as the result of the clash, according to the report.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad joined Eid al-Fitr prayers at a mosque in third city Homs on Wednesday in a rare public appearance outside the capital for the end-of-Ramadan holiday.
Large parts of Homs were once under the control of rebels fighting to overthrow Assads regime but since May 2014 they have been confined to a single besieged neighbourhood in the citys outskirts.
The Al-Safa mosque, where Assad joined worshippers, is in Akrama, a loyalist neighbourhood which has been hit by repeated attacks by the Islamic State group and its jihadist rival Al-Qaeda.
State television broadcast footage of the president in the congregation alongside Islamic Endowments Minister Mohammad Abdel-Sattar Sayyed and Syrias top Muslim cleric Ahmad Badredine Hassoun.
Since the civil war erupted in 2011, Assad has made only rare public appearances and nearly all of those have been in Damascus.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote to US President George W. Bush eight months before the 2003 Iraq war that he would support him whatever, even as he outlined numerous reservations about a possible military operation.
The contents of the July 28, 2002 note, originally classified SECRET-PERSONAL, were revealed on Wednesday in the findings of a seven-year British inquiry into the conflict.
In the very first sentence, Blair promised Bush: I will be with you, whatever.
The inquiry report quoted a top Blair aide as saying that he and another adviser had tried to get the prime minister to drop the sweeping promise. But the aide told the inquiry Blair ignored their recommendations.
The note is significant in the light of persistent accusations by Blairs critics that he was a poodle of Washington whose subservience caused him to lead Britain into a disastrous conflict.
Blair denies this, and told the inquiry: I could not and did not offer some kind of blank cheque in how we accomplished our shared objectives.
In the note to Bush, the British leader explained his concerns that ousting Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein could prove much harder than previous military interventions since the 1991 Gulf War.
This is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties, Blair said. The planning on this and the strategy are the toughest yet. This is not Kosovo. This is not Afghanistan. It is not even the Gulf War. The military part of this is hazardous.
Blair went on to suggest that the United States, with British support, could oust Saddam on its own, but wondered whether a broader coalition was needed.
The danger is, as ever with these things, unintended consequences. Suppose it got militarily tricky. Suppose Iraq suffered unexpected civilian casualties. Suppose the Arab street finally erupted....
If we win quickly, everyone will be our friend. If we dont...recriminations will start fast. Blair added.
His reservations were prescient: the war plunged Iraq into a sectarian conflict in which, by 2009, at least 150,000 people, mostly civilians, had been killed.
Blair expressed his concern that neither the Germans, French and probably not the Italians or Spanish would support any military coalition to oust Saddam without explicit and specific United Nations authority, adding: At the moment, our best ally might be Russia!
The inquiry report said the note reflected Mr. Blairs own views and that his proposals had not been discussed or agreed with his colleagues.
It said Sir David Manning, a senior policy adviser to Blair, confirmed to the inquiry that he had tried to get Blair to drop the first sentence pledging his loyalty whatever because it seemed to Manning to close off options and that this was not a sensible place to be.
Another Blair aide, Jonathan Powell, agreed that the promise should be dropped, But the Prime Minister decided to leave it, Manning told the inquiry.
The inquiry report published other Blair notes to Bush that chronicled his dawning realisation about the daunting challenges facing them as they tried to stabilise and rebuild Iraq after the invasion.
Within a week of the launch of the war on March 20, 2003, Blair wrote to his ally in the White House: This is the moment when you can define international priorities for the next generation: the true post-cold war world order.
He said the fundamental goal was to spread our values of freedom, democracy, tolerance and the rule of law.
But by June 2, Blairs tone had changed sharply.
The task is absolutely awesome and Im not at all sure were geared for it. This is worse than re-building a country from scratch, he told Bush.
We start from a really backward position. In time, it can be sorted. But time counts against us ... My sense is: were going to get there but not quickly enough. And if it falls apart, everything falls apart in the region.
The United States on Wednesday sanctioned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the first time, citing notorious abuses of human rights, in a move that diplomats say will incense the nuclear-armed country.
The sanctions, the first to target any North Koreans for rights abuses, affect property and other assets within US jurisdiction and extend to 10 other individuals and five government ministries and departments, the US treasury department said in a statement.
Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labour, and torture, acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence Adam J Szubin said in the statement.
In North Korea, the leader is the subject of state-encouraged adulation and considered infallible.
In a report by the US state department to Congress, Kim Jong Un topped a list of those responsible for serious human rights abuses and censorship in North Korea.
The Treasury statement said he had engaged in, facilitated, or been responsible for an abuse or violation of human rights by the Government of North Korea or the Workers Party of Korea.
The sanctions also named lower-level officials such as Choe Pu Il, the minister of peoples security, as directly responsible for abuses.
Senior US administration officials said the report was the most comprehensive to date of individual North Korean officials roles in forced labour and repression. They said the findings were based on an earlier United Nations report and accounts from civil society groups and the South Korean government.
They said the sanctions would be partly symbolic but hope that naming mid-level officials may make functionaries think twice before engaging in abuses.
It lifts the anonymity (but) may not affect their lives today, a senior administration official told reporters.
However if the political situation in North Korea changed, being on a US blacklist would have a serious impact, the official said.
The North Korea mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gives field guidance to the Pyongyang Terrapin Farm in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). (Reuters)
More sanctions to come
In March, US President Barack Obama imposed sweeping new sanctions on North Korea after it conducted its fourth nuclear test and a rocket launch the United States and its allies said employed banned ballistic missile technology.
Those steps froze any property of the North Korean government in the United States and essentially prohibited exports of goods from the United States to North Korea.
In March, the UN Security Council imposed harsh new sanctions on the country in response to its nuclear and missile tests.
The UN General Assembly urged the UN Security Council to consider referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court after a 2014 UN commission of inquiry detailed wide-ranging rights violations in the country. However diplomats say China, North Koreas neighbour, is likely to veto any such move.
US state department spokesperson John Kirby said many abuses were committed in political prison camps, where an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 individuals were detained, including children and other relatives of the accused.
Kirby said the United States would identify more individuals and entities in future reports.
We aim to send a signal to all government officials who might be responsible for human rights abuses, including prison camp managers and guards, interrogators, and defector chasers, with the goal of changing their behaviour, he said.
BEIJING: Beijing must prepare for military confrontation in the South China Sea, state-run media said on Tuesday, as it began naval drills in the area ahead of an international tribunal ruling over the maritime dispute.
China asserts sovereignty over almost all of the resource-rich strategic waterway despite rival claims from Southeast Asian neighbours -- raising tensions with the United States, which has key defence treaties with many allies in the region.
On Tuesday, China began a week of naval exercises in waters around the Paracel Islands.
They come a week before a United Nations-backed tribunal in The Hague rules on a case brought by the Philippines challenging Chinas position.
Beijing has boycotted the hearings and is engaged in a major diplomatic and publicity drive to try to delegitimise the process.
In an editorial, the Global Times -- a newspaper owned by the Peoples Daily group that often takes a nationalistic tone -said China should accelerate the build-up of its defence capabilities and must be prepared for any military confrontation.
Even though China cannot keep up with the US militarily in the short-term, it should be able to let the US pay a cost it cannot stand if it intervenes in the South China Sea dispute by force, the paper added.
WASHINGTON: The FBI said on Tuesday it was not recommending charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server as secretary of state, an issue that has dogged her campaign for the White House.
Though there is evidence that they (Clinton and her aides) were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information, FBI director James Coomey said in prepared remarks, we are expressing to justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case.
The justice department will make the final decision but the FBI recommendation was widely taken to mark the beginning of the end of a controversy that has dogged Clintons campaign for months.
CNN commentator David Gergen said though the FBI decision will likely to create controversy, it basically removes big hurdle from (Hillary Rodham Clintons) path.
Aspokesman for Clinton, who was to appear with President Barack Obama at their first joint campaign appearance later on Tuesday, said her campaign was pleased with the FBI findings, and that it was a mistake for her to use the personal email.
Her Republican rival Donald Trump tweeted: FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow! #RiggedSystem.
The FBI began investigating her use of a private email server on a referral from an intelligence community watchdog to ascertain if classified information was transmitted on that system.
As secretary of state, Clinton used a private email service hosted on a server at her home in New York state, which was neither maintained, supervised nor guarded by the government.
As part of the investigation, Clinton handed over 30,000 work-related emails from this server to the state department, which were investigated by the FBI and others.
Among them, 110 emails in 52 email chains contained classified information at the time they were sent or received; eight of those chains contained information that was top secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained secret information at the time; and eight contained confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. About 2,000 others were classified later.
Coomey said seven email chains concerned matters that were classified at the Top Secret/ Special Access Program level when they were sent and received.He added: There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in secretary Clintons position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.
PARIS: A French inquiry into the terror attacks that rocked Paris in 2015 recommended the fusion of the countrys intelligence services after the global failure of the countrys myriad agencies. The parliamentary inquiry was set up in February to probe possible security failings in the run-up to two major terror attacks in Paris in 2015 that left 147 people dead. The two big intelligence bosses admitted during their hearings that the 2015 attacks represent a global intelligence failure, said Socialist lawmaker Sebastien Pietrasanta. France currently has six different intelligence units answering to the interior, defence and economy ministries. Lawmakers found these agencies had struggled to communicate about known Islamists.
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RIYADH/DUBAI: One of the bombers involved in three separate suicide attacks that left four people dead in Saudi Arabia was a Pakistani national, authorities said on Tuesday.
The Saudi interior ministry said a bombing near the US consulate in Jeddah was carried out by Pakistani national Abdullah GulzarKhan, 34, a private driver who had been living with his wife and her parents in the city for 12 years.
At least three suicide bombers struck across Saudi Arabia on Monday, including a shocking attack at Islams second holiest site, the Prophets Mosque in Medina, where four security guards were killed. Mondays attacks on Islams spiritual home came as Muslims prepared for the feast marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramzan.
There were no claims of responsibility but the Islamic State had urged its supporters to carry out attacks during the holy month and has claimed or been blamed for a wave of Ramzan shootings and bombings, including in Orlando, Istanbul, Dhaka and Baghdad.
Media reports identified the bomber in Medina as 18-year-old Umer Abdul Hadi, who was wanted by the Saudi government on terror charges.
The suicide bombing in Medina came during sunset prayers at the Prophets Mosque where Prophet Mohammed is buried and which attracts millions of pilgrims each year.
The Saudi interior ministry said security forces became suspicious of the bomber when he was heading for the Prophets Mosque through a parking lot. As they tried to stop him, he blew himself up with an explosive belt causing his death and the death of four security personnel, an official statement said, adding five others were injured.
The first attack on Monday took place in the western city of Jeddah, where two security officers were wounded when the suicide bomber blew himself up near the US consulate.
Interior ministry spokesman Gen Mansour al-Turki told state news channel Al-Ekhbaria the bomber was closer to a mosque than to the consulate.
The US embassy in Riyadh reported no casualties among consulate staff.
The attack coincided with the US July 4 Independence Day holiday. At the same time as the Medina attack on Monday evening, another suicide bombing occurred near a Shia mosque in the city of Qatif across the country, residents and the interior ministry said. The interior ministry said it was working to identify the remains of three bodies at the site of the blast, suggesting there may have been three attackers.
DHAKA: Bangladesh on Tuesday sought cooperation from the international community to fight radical Islamists as authorities said they were questioning several persons, including a former university teacher, over a terrorist attack on a Dhaka cafe that left 20 hostages dead.
Foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali and home minister Asaduzzman Khan Kamal made separate statements seeking cooperation as security agencies made desperate attempts to trace those behind Fridays carnage at Holey Artisan Bakery.
Asaduzzman Mia, commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told reporters investigators were questioning several people, including a former university teacher and the son of an industrialist. He said several family members of the hostages and possible suspects were also being questioned but did not give details.We are investigating all aspects. There are some people under our careThey are being questioned, he said.
Earlier reports had said police were questioning Abul Hasnat Reza Karim, a former teacher of the elite North South University, and Tahmid Hasib Khan, a student at the University of Toronto in Canada currently on holiday in Dhaka.
Briefing a group of about 50 diplomats in Dhaka, Ali said he hoped foreign friends would come forward to share intelligence with Bangladesh. Representatives of the US, Britain, European Union, China, India and Pakistan attended the meet.
The home minister told a news briefing all the attackers were Bangladeshis who were backed by domestic radical groups, countering claims they were members of global terrorist organisations such as Islamic State.
The IS claimed the responsibility for the gruesome attack, according to SITE Intelligence group, but the claim could not be independently verified.
The government has repeatedly said the IS group has no presence in Bangladesh.
WAS PANCHO VILLA AT COLUMBUS?
Gary Glynn might have made a major error in Attack on Columbus (December 2000) when he stated that Pancho Villa was nearby when his men attacked the town. Although this is the generally accepted historical point of view, at the time of the raid Pancho Villa was recuperating at the King Ranch in Texas from a gunshot wound sustained weeks earlier.
My information comes from a Frenchman, Mr. Odo B. Stade, now deceased, who at the time was a young naval officer attached to Pancho Villa by the French government. The French secretly supported the revolution in Mexico and opposed Spains influence there. Mr. Stade wrote the book Viva Villa, which MGM made into a movie starring Wallace Beery in 1934. Some time around 1965, Life magazine published a story on the Mexican general and included a photograph that was also used on page 59 of your story. Mr. Stade is the man standing on Villas direct right.
Mr. Stade was a French and Spanish teacher at Brown Military Academy, Glendora, California, from 1962 to 1966 and often told his students how the history books were wrong about this fact.
Glenn Stanford
Palmdale, California
GARY GLYNN REPLIES: Like most other aspects of Pancho Villas life, his whereabouts during the Columbus raid have been shrouded in mystery and obscured by legend. Although Villa himself denied being present at Columbus, most scholars and Villa biographers agree that he personally led the attack on the town. Mrs. Maud Hawk Wright, who was captured by some of Villas men more than a week before the raid, gave a detailed account to the New York Times (March 10, 1916) of Villas actions on the 120-mile ride to Columbus and during the attack itself. She claimed that Villa personally told her she was free to go as the raiders prepared to withdraw from the town. Many Mexicans who saw Villa in the vicinity of Columbus before and after the raid corroborated her account of Villas presence.
CONFUSION OVER JAMES DEAN
The Attack on Columbus article states that one of the Villistas shot down James S. Dean, the towns grocer and owner of the Hoover Hotel, and that the raiders riddled Deans hotel with gunfire and doused his grocery store with kerosene and set it alight.
In fact, James Todd Dean (my great grandfather) owned one of Columbuss grocery stores that was looted but not set on fire. James T. Deans body was found, after the Villistas retreated, at the corner of Main and Broadway Streets, but we dont know where he was actually killed. There was a Hoover Hotel, but it was owned and operated by William Christopher Hoover, wife Iva, and mother Sarah Hoover.
Richard Dean
Columbus, New Mexico
GARY GLYNN REPLIES: Although my account is based on published sources, it appears I may have been in error regarding James Dean and the ownership of the Hoover Hotel. I apologize if I have inadvertently added to the confusion regarding the Columbus raid, and I want to thank Mr. Richard Dean for his clarification.
I SAW THE DISASTER IN THE SKY
Joseph Gustaitiss Fire in the Sky (December 2000) brought back memories for me. On the date of the accident I was working on the 12th floor of the Murray Hill Building on the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 40th Street in Manhattan. I had a desk beside large windows on the Madison Avenue side of the building, with a view to the west and south that normally included the upper stories of the Empire State Building at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street. But July 28, 1945, was quite foggy, and I could not easily see the tall buildings.
Hearing the sound of an airplane, which was unusual in mid-Manhattan, and realizing that the craft was relatively close, I looked out of the window and a few seconds later I saw and heard an explosion as the airplane struck the north side of the Empire State Building. I could see the burning fuel, which seemed to flow down the side of the structure. Then several floors began to burn, and the fire kept the fog at bay so that the top of the building was easily visible.
A hero of the accident was Joseph C. Fountain, one of my neighbors. Unfortunately, he died from severe burns sustained during his rescue efforts.
Allen B. Schroeder
Tucson, Arizona
TOO EARLY FOR THIS INSTRUMENT
The illustration on page 41 of the article Fire in the Sky shows an instrument landing system (ILS) indicator, but the ILS was not developed until after World War II. I am old enough to remember the crash, which was the lead story in the movie newsreels the following week.
Tom Reesor
Conway, South Carolina
AN ULTERIOR MOTIVE
I enjoyed the article Mr. Grant and Mr. Dana (December 2000). It appears from the article that Dana and Grant became very close friends. As Charles watched and monitored Ulysses drinking, he had ulterior motives; he sought out a position in Grants possible future presidential administration. That drive caused Dana to campaign hard for Grant, even though Grant showed poor judgment, because he was under the influence of alcohol. When the situation didnt go the way Dana had wanted, the relationship he had with Grant dissolved. Perhaps when Grant died and Dana showed remorse, he saw their friendship in a different light.
Paul Dale Roberts
Elk Grove, California
SIMILAR PROBLEM, DIFFERENT TIMES
The Izzy & Moe story (February 2001) brings to mind striking parallels with our current great experiment in drug prohibition.
Prohibition in the 1920s gave rise to organized crime, widespread corruption, contempt for authority, and bootleg liquor that killed or blinded thousands of people. For every still seized by Federal agents, at least nine went undiscovered.
Today our war on drugs funds worldwide drug cartels, breeds corruption and contempt for authority, and puts impure drugs on the street that kill thousands each year. Despite unprecedented police search and seizure authority and electronic surveillance Izzy and Moe could not have even imagined, drug seizure estimates continue to range about 10 percent only. Are there some parallels we should be learning?
Steve Wellcome
Bolton, Massachusetts
Dr. Hunter McGuire, Stonewall Jacksons 27-year-old medical director, chronicled the generals last days.
By Joe D. Haines, Jr.
The circumstances surrounding the death of Lieutenant General Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson are well known. Following perhaps his greatest performance, leading a brilliant flanking maneuver against Union Major General Joseph Hooker at Chancellorsville, he was mistakenly shot by his own troops while scouting ahead of their lines after dark. Jackson sustained severe wounds to the left arm and minor wounds to the right hand. The most reliable medical information concerning Jacksons final days can be found in the detailed accounts of Dr. Hunter McGuire, Jacksons medical director.
McGuire was 27 years old at Chancellorsville. He had graduated from Winchester Medical Academy at the age of 20. When McGuire first presented himself to Jackson in 1861, Jackson merely stared back at him and dismissed him from his quarters. Several days passed before McGuire received orders appointing him a surgeon in the Confederate Army. Later, when McGuire and Jackson were better acquainted, the physician asked the general why his appointment had been delayed. Jackson answered, You looked so young, I sent to Richmond to see if there was some mistake.
After Jackson was wounded at Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863, he was supported by two aides for a short distance before being placed on a litter and carried away. One of the litter-bearers was shot and went down, causing the general to be thrown to the ground. Jackson was placed back on the litter and carried a few hundred yards farther, to an ambulance McGuire had located. The doctor knelt down to examine Jackson and said, I hope you are not badly hurt, General.
I am badly injured, Jackson told McGuire. I fear I am dying. I am glad you have come. I think the wound in my shoulder is still bleeding.
McGuire observed that Jacksons clothes were saturated with blood and saw that the wound in his left arm was indeed still bleeding. The doctor applied compression on an artery and readjusted the bandage, which had slipped off the wound. McGuire noted that Jacksons hands were cold, his skin clammy and his face and lips paleall classic signs of hemorrhagic shock. Jackson for his part refused to admit any discomfort; nevertheless, he was given morphine and whiskey before being transported to a nearby field hospital.
Once at the hospital, McGuire determined that amputation of the left arm was necessary. When he informed Jackson, the general replied, Yes, certainly, Dr. McGuire, do for me whatever you think best. McGuire then administered chloroform, and Jackson murmured, What an infinite blessing, as he slipped into unconsciousness.
McGuire first extracted a round ball that had lodged under the skin at the back of Jacksons right hand after entering through the palm and fracturing two bones. The left arm was then amputated, about two inches below the shoulder, very rapidly, and with slight loss of blood, the ordinary circular operation having been made, McGuire reported.
There were two wounds in his arm, the surgeon continued. The first and most serious was about three inches below the shoulder-joint, the ball dividing the main artery and fracturing the bone. The second was several inches in length; a ball having entered the outside of the forearm, an inch below the elbow, came out upon the opposite side just about the wrist. Throughout the whole of the operation, and until all the dressings were applied, he continued insensible.
Jackson tolerated the surgery well despite the hemorrhagic shock, and at about 3:30 a.m., Major Sandy Pendleton arrived to obtain orders for Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, who had succeeded Jackson in command. Jackson greeted Major Pendle-ton warmly, saying: Well, major, I am glad to see you. I thought you were killed. Pendleton briefly explained the situation and asked for instructions, but Jackson could only respond, I dont know, I cant tell; say to General Stuart he must do what he thinks best. Then he slept for several hours.
The next morning, an aide read a note from General Robert E. Lee. I have just received your note, informing me that you were wounded, Lee wrote. Could I have directed events, I should have chosen, for the good of the country, to have been disabled in your stead. I congratulate you upon the victory, which is due to your skill and energy. The pious Jackson responded modestly, General Lee should give the praise to God.
The following day, Lee ordered McGuire to move Jackson to Guineys Station, fearing that nearby Federal troops might capture him. Jackson was not worried, however. If the enemy does come, he told McGuire, I am not afraid of them; I have always been kind to their wounded, and I am sure they will be kind to me. The patient tolerated the transfer well. Later in the day, however, he became nauseated and asked that a wet towel be placed on his abdomen. Upon arriving at the house where he would convalesce, he felt well enough to take bread and tea.
The house already held other wounded Confederates, including several soldiers who were suffering from erysipelas, a highly contagious skin disease. McGuire would not allow Jackson to be exposed to the infected men and instead moved his patient to a small separate building on the grounds that had been used as an office. The general slept well the night of his arrival and, awakening early the next morning, ate heartily and was cheerful.
McGuire dressed Jacksons wounds and found them to be healing well, without any signs of infection. Jackson seemed satisfied with his progress and inquired about how long it would be before he could return to the field. Around 1 oclock the next morning, Jackson again became nauseated and asked a servant to apply a wet compress. He refused to allow the exhausted McGuire (who had not slept for nearly three days) to be disturbed.
When the doctor did awaken, he discovered to his dismay that Jackson was suffering from pleuropneumonia on the right side. McGuire attributed it to the fall Jackson had taken from the litter while he was being carried from the battlefield. Contusion of the lung, with extravasation of blood in his chest, was probably produced by the fall referred to, and shock and loss of blood prevented any ill effects until reaction had been established, and then inflammation ensued, McGuire reported.
That night Jackson rallied somewhat. His wife had arrived earlier in the day. She was a devoted wife and earnest Christian, and endeared us all to her by her great kindness and gentleness, wrote McGuire. The Generals joy at the presence of his wife and child was very great, and for him unusually demonstrative. Noticing the sadness of his wife, he said to her tenderly: I know you would gladly give your life for me, but I am perfectly resigned. Do not be sad. I hope I may yet recover. Pray for me, but always remember in your prayers to use the petition, Thy will be done.'
The next day, McGuire dressed Jacksons wounds again, noting that they were continuing to heal. The pain in Jacksons side had diminished, but he was now breathing with difficulty and complaining of exhaustion. McGuire consulted with several other doctors, and all that human skill could devise was done to stay the hand of death. However, Jackson was growing weaker by the hour.
When his child was brought to him [the next day] he played with it for some time, frequently caressing it and calling it his little comforter,' McGuire observed. At one time he raised his wounded hand above his head and closing his eyes, was for some moments silently engaged in prayer. He said to me: I see from the number of physicians that you think my condition dangerous, but I thank God, if it is His will, that I am ready to go.'
At about daybreak on Sunday, May 10, Mrs. Jackson told her husband that his recovery was very doubtful and that he should prepare for the worst. Jackson was silent for a moment, then said, It will be infinite gain to be translated to Heaven. He advised his wife to return to her fathers home, adding, You have a kind and good father, but there is no one so kind and good as your Heavenly Father. He requested to be buried at Lexington, Va.
Jackson became increasingly exhausted, and at 11 a.m. his wife knelt beside his bed and told him that before the sun went down he would be with his savior. Jackson replied, Oh, no; you are frightened, my child; death is not so near; I may yet get well. Mrs. Jackson collapsed weeping on the bed, telling him that the doctors had said there was no hope. After a moments pause, he asked to see McGuire.
Doctor, Anna informs me that you have told her that I am to die today; is it so? he asked. McGuire admitted the hopelessness of the situation. Jackson turned his eyes toward the ceiling and gazed for a moment or two in deep thought, then replied, Very good, very good, it is all right.
When Pendleton came into the sickroom at 1 oclock that afternoon, Jackson asked who had preached at headquarters that day. Pendleton told him the entire army was praying for his recovery. Jackson replied, Thank God, they are very kind. He added: It is the Lords Day; my wish is fulfilled. I have always desired to die on Sunday.
Jacksons mind began to wander, McGuire observed, and he frequently gave orders as though still on the battlefield. Then the scene shifted and he was at the mess-table, in conversation with members of his staff; now with his wife and child; now at prayers with his military family. McGuire offered him some brandy and water, but Jackson declined, saying, It will only delay my departure, and do no good; I want to preserve my mind, if possible, to the last. Told that he had at most two hours to live, he answered, feebly but firmly, Very good, it is all right.
A few moments before he died, Jackson cried out in delirium: Order A.P. Hill to prepare for action! Pass the infantry to the front rapidly! Tell Major Hawks The sentence was left unfinished. Presently a smile of ineffable sweetness spread itself over his pale face, McGuire noted, and he cried quietly and with an expression as if of relief, Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees; and then, without pain or the least struggle, his spirit passed from earth to the God who gave it.
Editors note: The author, himself a physician, believes that Jackson died of a pulmonary embolism, or blood clot to the lung, not pneumonia as McGuire had diagnosed.
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A Libyan Air Force MiG-23 fighter crashed west of Libyas city of Benghazi due to technical difficulties, a military source told Sputnik.
As a result of the crash, the pilot died, according to the source. The accident reportedly occurred after the plane took off from the Baninah military airport. The source also ruled out the possibility of the crash being caused by an attack on the plane.
Earlier in the day, local media reported that the fighter jet was downed by the Islamic State militants, outlawed in many countries, including Russia.
The incident is the third crash of a Libyan military aircraft caused by technical problems and resulting in pilots death in the past three months.
Six-foot-four-inch Major General George Stoneman, powerfully built, with a face that showed the marks of long and hard service in the field, watched as 6,000 men and horses formed up just outside of Mossy Creek, Tennessee, in late March 1865. These blue-clad troopers of the Cavalry Division of the District of East Tennessee were preparing for a raid into northwest North Carolina and southwest Virginia, their orders to destroy but not to fight battles. The war was winding down, but the punishment of Southern civilians continued apace, its aim to demoralize an already beaten people.
A wagon, 10 ambulances, four guns with their caissons, and two pack mulesone for ammunition and one for the mens messrode along with the advancing Union column. The division, under the immediate command of Brig. Gen. Alvan C. Gillem, was composed of three brigades: Colonel William J. Palmers First Brigade, brevet Brig. Gen. Simeon B. Browns 2nd Brigade, and Colonel John K. Millers 3rd Brigade, as well as a battery of artillery under Lieutenant James M. Regan.
On March 23, the division moved east to Morristown, Tenn., where each man was issued five days rations, one days forage of corn, and four horseshoes with nails, to go along with the 63 rounds of ammunition each already carried. The land and the people, hard pressed though they were, would have to provide most of the Federals supply needs. On March 24, the division moved toward Taylorsville, Tenn., where they took the turnpike leading to Watauga County, N.C. In the land ahead, a tremor of fear passed through the population. Rumors of the approaching raid caused citizens to hide their food and valuables.
As commander of the East Tennessee district, Stoneman was personally accompanying Gillems cavalry division to oversee its mission. Originally, Stoneman had been ordered to raid into South Carolina, but Maj. Gen. William T. Shermans rapidly moving forces had precluded that need. His revised orders from Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas, commander of the Army of the Cumberland, were to dismantle the country to obstruct Lees retreat by destroying parts of the East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad, the North Carolina Railroad, and the Danville-Greensboro line.
Ulysses S. Grant, the overall Union commander, believed that Stonemans raid, in conjunction with a simultaneous raid by Northern cavalry in Alabama, would leave nothing for the rebellion to stand upon. While Stoneman ravaged, Brig. Gen. Davis Tillsons 4th Division of the Department of the Cumberland would follow the cavalry column and occupy key mountain passes in northwest North Carolina to protect Stonemans and Gillems rear.
Very little in the way of Confederate defenses awaited Stonemans men. Confederate home guardsmen were scattered about in various places such as Watauga County, where Major Harvey Bingham had two companies, or Ashe County where a Captain Price commanded a small company. The area had been placed under the direction of General P.G.T. Beauregard, but the regular troops in his command were described as insufficient to stop [Stoneman].
Yet Stoneman would not march unopposed, as the people of Watauga County quickly demonstrated. At 10 a.m. on March 28, as the Federal forces moved on the Taylorsville turnpike toward the village of Boone, N.C., the troopers learned that a meeting of the local home guard would occur in Boone that same day. Stoneman quickly sent his aide-de-camp, with the 2nd Brigades 12th Kentucky Cavalry, to assault Boone and take on the home guard. The Union troopers responded, riding into Boone and down Main Street, firing at anything that moved.
Mrs. James Councill heard the firing and stepped out onto her porch, her child in her arms, to investigate when a volley of balls splintered into the wood all around her. Home guardsmen and citizens grabbed their weapons and tried to fight back. Steel Frazier, a 15-year-old boy, was chased by six Federals to a fence, where Frazier took cover, turned, and took on his pursuers, killing two of them. He then retreated into the woods. Calvin Green tried to surrender, but when the Federals continued to shoot at him, he resumed the fight and shattered the arm of one of the invaders with his musket.
Other citizens, however, werent so lucky. Warren Green was shot to death as he tried to surrender; Jacob Councill, an elderly man over the conscript age, was shot down beside his plow despite his appeals for mercy. When the smoke cleared, the Federals had killed nine, captured 68, plundered several homes and burned the local jail.
With Boone neutralized, Stoneman decided to cross the Blue Ridge Mountains and move to Wilkesboro, about 50 miles away on the Yadkin River, to obtain supplies and fresh horses. He opted to separate his command to accomplish this, sending Gillem with Browns brigade and the artillery, followed by Millers brigade, on a roundabout route to Wilkesboro in order to destroy a factory near Lenoir. Stoneman would take the direct route, through Deep Gap to Wilkesboro.
At 9 p.m. on March 28, Gillem reached Pattersons Factory, a cotton mill at the foot of the Blue Ridge, and took the workers by surprise. Finding a useful supply of corn and bacon, the men spent the night there. The next day the column moved on to Wilkesboro, leaving a rear guard to destroy the factory and any food that remained.
By late afternoon of March 29, Gillems men had caught up with Stoneman just outside Wilkesboro. That evening, Stoneman sent the 12th Ohio Cavalry into Wilkesboro where they came in with a yell and ran completely through the place, frightening a small body of Confederates out of their wits and out of the place. The weather presented a problem that night, however, as the very heavens opened their floodgates, swelling the Yadkin River so much that it became impassable. Stonemans men had been in the process of crossing the river in order to head north when it rose, thus becoming separated by the river. At least one man drowned during the aborted crossing.
The blue cavalry could do no more than inch a few miles east until the Yadkin became passable. Their time was spent carrying off all the horses and mules, and burning the factories, as well as doing a little drinking, for the stuff was warm in the stills. The Federals even seized the horse of the local citizen James Gordon, one of Jeb Stuarts men who had been killed at Spotsylvania, and paraded it in front of the mans house for a couple of hours.
It was not until April 2 that Stoneman was able to ford the Yadkin River and get his men moving once again. The Federals pointed their horses north, toward Virginia and the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad.
The march to the Virginia border took Stonemans men through Dobson to Mount Airy, N.C. While in Mount Airy, the Federals learned that an enemy supply train had passed through the town earlier that afternoon on its way across the Virginia border to Hillsville. Stoneman immediately ordered Palmer to pursue and capture the train. On the morning of April 3, the rest of the division followed Palmers detachment north. By 1 p.m., the Federals had reached Hillsville, where they caught up with Palmers empty-handed detachment. The pursuit was renewed, however, and within a few hours 17 Confederate wagons filled with forage were in the hands of Browns brigade.
Stoneman divided his forces once more in Hillsville in order to cover more of the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad. He ordered Miller to take 500 men from his brigade, move to Wytheville, and destroy the railroad bridges and supplies there. Stoneman took the main body in the direction of Jacksonville, Va.
Shortly after dark, Stonemans advance met some weak resistance. The battle-hardened Federals quickly responded, however, driving the Rebel force several miles. By midnight, the situation had calmed enough for Stoneman to bivouac his men.
The next morning, April 4, Stonemans force moved out early and reached Jacksonville by 10 a.m. The general sent out yet another raiding party from this point, consisting of 250 picked men under the command of the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalrys Major Wagner. Wagners objectives were the railroad bridges in and around Salem, Va. The divisions main body resumed its march that afternoon and occupied Christianburg, Va., by midnight.
The destruction now began in earnest. On April 5, Stoneman ordered Palmer and his 1st Brigade to tear up the railroad tracks east of Christianburg while Browns brigade dealt with the tracks to the west of the town. With the Federal forces divided into four separate detachments, over 150 miles of the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad were ruined.
Millers detachment, however, met with trouble in its raid toward Wytheville. A Confederate force of infantry and cavalry contested his advance, charging them with a yell. Millers men, although they successfully repulsed the Rebels, suffered 35 casualties in the skirmish. Stoneman ordered Miller to retire to Hillsville and then to Taylorsville, Va.
Meanwhile, Wagner and his detachment were playing a significant, if unknowing, part in Robert E. Lees surrender at Appomattox Court House. Reaching Salem by 2 p.m. on April 5, Wagners men set about their work. Although they were delayed by word that Lee had evacuated his Petersburg trenches, the Federals managed to destroy the nearby railroad bridges by April 7. Wagner next moved to within six miles of Lynchburg, but reports of the presence of a strong Confederate force nearby turned them away. His mission completed, Wagner moved to rejoin the main body.
The effects of this small detachment went far beyond its actions. Lee, as he retreated west from Petersburg, had hoped to pivot south and move his army through Danville to join forces with General Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina. Rapid Union moves had closed that option to Lee, leaving the west as his only avenue of escape. Reports of Wagners activities soon reached Lee at Amelia Court House. Lee, in the light of rumors that this was part of a Union army invading Virginia from the west, concluded that he was hemmed in and surrendered his once unconquerable force on April 9.
Stoneman set his forces in motion to return to North Carolina on April 7. The 2nd and 3rd brigades moved uneventfully south through Patrick County, Va., toward the state line. Palmers brigade, however, had somehow misinterpreted the route it had been directed to take and went through Martinsville, Va., by mistake. About 250 Confederate cavalrymen met Palmer in the streets of the town and killed one Union trooper while wounding five others. After a brisk skirmish, the Confederates were chased from the town.
Stonemans command was reunited by April 9 in Danbury, N.C. The war may have been over for Lee, but Stoneman wasnt finished. In fact, Stonemans detour into Virginia had completely confused the people of North Carolina. Thinking that the dreaded raid was over, the state relaxed what little defense it had mustered. If Stoneman had proceeded to Salisbury from Wilkesboro in March, he would have found a large body of Confederates awaiting him. Instead, he feinted into Virginia before returning to North Carolina to reap a large harvest of destruction.
On April 10, Stoneman and his troopers continued their southward trek. By noon, at the village of Germantown, they stopped briefly to provide an escort for a party of ex-slaves who had fallen in behind the column. The escort took the blacks to east Tennessee, where a large number of them volunteered for active duty in the 119th U.S. Colored Troops.
Stoneman, confident that the Rebels would offer little resistance to his forces, once more divided his column. He detached Palmers brigade to destroy the large cloth factories around Salem and the rail lines around Greensboro. The remainder of the division moved at 4 p.m. The next day, April 11, they reached Shallow Ford, on the Yadkin River, and captured 100 muskets after chasing off a small enemy detachment.
Palmers brigade, meanwhile, had been greeted by the white flag. As they approached Winston and the neighboring town of Salem, their respective mayors, accompanied by two other prominent citizens, officially surrendered the two towns. The towns were, as a result, spared excessive harm. One citizen, a member of the local Moravian congregation, wrote that had it not been for the noise of their horses and swordsit would have been hardly noticed that so large a number of troops were passing through our streets.
Palmer immediately sent his men out into the countryside to work. One detachment captured and burned the Dan River Bridge, cutting a vital link in the Piedmont Railroad. A few hours earlier, Confederate President Jefferson Davis had traveled over that same bridge as he fled from Virginia to Greensboro with what remained of his government and treasury. Moving to meet Johnston to discuss future plans, Davis was told of the proximity of Federal cavalry. His narrow escape prompted him to grin, A miss is as good as a mile. It would not be the last time Davis would dodge Palmers men.
Palmers men completed their objectives with speed and efficiency, unaware that the Confederate president was within their grasp. Lieutenant Colonel Charles M. Betts of the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry routed the 3rd South Carolina Cavalry at Buffalo Creek, just two miles from Greensboro, and then burned the bridge there. Other detachments fired bridges and factories at Jamestown, Florence, and throughout the countryside. Seventeen hundred bales of cotton were burned by Federal raiders at High Point, a North Carolina railroad de pot. By April 11, Palmer concluded that his detachment had done enough damage. The brigade turned back, rejoining Stoneman at Shallow Ford, west of Winston.
The reunited division next moved south with their eyes on the grand prize of Salisbury. The town was a major military depot for the Confederacy, containing several military hospitals, an ordnance plant, and the state district headquarters for the Commissary of Subsistence. Supplies recently evacuated from Raleigh and Richmond due to Shermans and Grants advances were also in Salisbury. Most important to the men in the saddles, though, was the six-acre, 10,000-man prison in the town. The prison, in operation since 1861, had a frowning stockade, the dirty enclosure honeycombed with dens and holes in which the shivering captives. . . burrowed like animals. Nearby, about 12,000 graves stood as reminders of the tragedies that had occurred at the prison. The Federals didnt know, however, that the prisoners had recently been evacuated because of the terrible conditions at the prison.
A small body of Rebels challenged the Federal advance near Mocksville, only to be dispersed by a savage Federal charge. By 8 p.m. on April 11, Stoneman bivouacked his troops in the road 12 miles north of Salisbury, within striking distance.
The division would not wait. At 12:30 a.m., with Millers brigade in advance, the Federals moved. The rattle and creak of caissons and the neighing of horses sounded in the night. After covering three miles, they reached the South Yadkin, a deep and rapid stream with few fords. Crossing the river unopposed, the Yankee troopers continued their trek until they reached a fork in the road. Since both roads led to Salisbury, Stoneman sent one battalion of the 12th Kentucky Cavalry by the old road and the main body by the western road. The Kentuckians were to demonstrate at Grants Creek, two miles outside of the town, and cross the upper bridge there if possible. The Federals were to then converge on Salisbury.
At daylight on April 12, the main column reached Grants Creek, chased away some pickets, and approached the bridge. Confederates emplaced across the creek announced that Salisbury would be defended, opening up with small arms and artillery fire and checking the horse soldiers. In the distance, behind the crack of the skirmishing, the chug of moving trains could be heard. The Confederates were trying to evacuate everything they could from Salisbury.
Across the creek was a hodgepodge of about 500 men and two batteries of artillery. Two hundred galvanized Irish who had been recruited from among Federal prisoners, several junior reserves, some local citizens, and even a few artisans in the employ of the Confederate government prepared to defend the town. The regular commander of Salisbury, Brig. Gen. Bradley T. Johnson, was in Greensboro that morning, leaving Brig. Gen. W.M. Gardner in command.
At Gardners side that spring morning was the silver-haired Colonel John C. Pemberton, former commander of all Confederate forces at Vicksburg, Miss. Although he had resigned his generalcy in 1863 in disgrace, Pemberton, in January 1865, had taken a commission as a lieutenant colonel of artillery in defense of Richmond. Upon the evacuation of Richmond, Pemberton had fled to join his old friend Davis, but Stonemans troopers had cut the railroad nearby and compelled him to stop in Salisbury. Now, Gardner had an experienced man to help him hold the Federals long enough to allow Salisburys supplies to be evacuated. The officers had placed their men wisely and removed the flooring of the bridge to hinder a Federal crossing, but their men were quite inexperienced.
The Federal cavalry division, however, was anything but inexperienced. Rather than risk heavy casualties in a forced crossing of the creek, Stoneman ordered Gillem to send out flanking elements to turn the Rebel positions. Gillem assigned the 13th Tennessee Cavalry to cross Grants Creek below the enemy position while another detachment moved across the creek lower than the 13th Tennessee. Meanwhile, a detachment of the 11th Kentucky Cavalry was directed to cross the creek two and a half miles above the bridge and get in the rear of Salisbury and annoy the enemy as much as possible. They were to also keep an eye out for the trains escaping from Salisbury.
Gillem, as soon as the parties sent across the river became engaged and the rattling fire of the 11th Kentucky Cavalrys Spencer rifles announced that the enemys left had been turned, ordered the main body to cross the bridge. The Federals first laid a deadly fire across the creek so that a detachment could repair the bridge. Then Palmers brigade charged in handsome style, followed closely by Millers brigade, and hit the Rebel positions. The ensuing 20-minute fight soon had the Southerners on the run as they dropped arms, knapsacks, and all else that impeded their flight. Browns brigade followed in close support.
The Rebels were falling back all across the line. A Federal flanking element came across some tracks about two miles outside of town, blocked them, and was soon rewarded with the whistle of an approaching train. The Federals fired into the train and captured it, finding among the cargo the sword, uniform, papers and family of slain Confederate Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk. All along the battlefield, the Federals had captured 17 stands of colors, 18 artillery pieces and hundreds of prisoners. Pemberton later said he witnessed the capture of our last piece of artillery and narrowly escaped the same fate myself.
The horse soldiers reassembled on the other side of Grants Creek and continued the pursuit. As they charged into Salisbury, the battle continued in the streets. One galvanized Confederate, although shot through the lungs, continued to fight back until he fell on the porch of Mrs. M.E. Ramsay. Though the balls fell thick about him, Mrs. Ramsay dashed onto her porch and dragged the soldier inside. As she cared for his wounds, the man gasped, I die a brave man; I fought them as long as I could stand. The man would actually survive and return to thank Mrs. Ramsay three weeks later.
Soon, Salisbury was secured. The Federals gladly set about the task of destroying the Rebel supplies, facilities and prison. Until midafternoon of the next day, four entire squares in Salisbury were filled with burning supplies. The conflagration was visible 15 miles away. All told, the Federals destroyed more than 10,000 stands of small arms, 10,000 rounds of artillery shot, 70,000 pounds of powder, 100,000 uniforms, 160,000 pounds of bacon, 20,000 pounds of harness leather, 10,000 pounds of saltpeter, 35,000 bushels of corn, 50,000 bushels of wheat, $100,000 worth of medical supplies, four large cotton factories, and the hated prison itself.
While in Salisbury, Stoneman sent out a detachment to capture the vital railroad bridge over the Yadkin, six miles above town. The 10-year-old bridge, the longest span of the North Carolina Railroad, was considered vital to the collapsing Confederacy. Beauregard had sent one-armed Brig. Gen. Zebulon York, a Louisianian, with about 1,000 men to defend it at all costs. These men provided the Confederacy with one of its last successes of the war.
As the Federal detachment approached the bridge, resistance erupted. The Confederates were entrenched on the high bluffs across the river, laying down heavy fire to prevent a crossing. One boy who was there watched as the Confederate guns mowed down trees and held the Federals at bay. The Union troops brought up captured artillery from Salisbury to shell the Rebels, but to no avail. By nightfall of April 12, the Federals returned to Salisbury with no wild cheers [and] no war whoops of victory.
Regardless of their failure at the Yadkin bridge, Stonemans troops did manage to destroy a considerable amount of railroad track around Salisbury. The damage ensured that the flight of the Rebel government would have to depend not upon trains, but rather upon horses. On the night of April 15, Jefferson Davis rode past Salisbury on his way to Charlottein a carriage.
Moving as quickly as ever, the cavalry division, minus Palmers brigade, left Salisbury at 3 p.m. on April 13, en route to Statesville. (Palmer had been sent to destroy railroad track in the direction of Charlotte.) By nightfall, the advance guard entered the town, firing as they went. Statesville was only occupied for a few hours by the Federals, long enough to destroy some government stores and the railroad depot. The office of the Iredell Express, a paper which was obnoxious from the warmth with which it had advocated the cause of the Confederacy, was also burned.
The Federals soon left, headed west. Statesville, however, had not seen the last of the Union foe. After midnight on April 14, Palmers men arrived, fresh from their successful raid toward Charlotte and the South Carolina border. The brigade remained in Statesville until April 17, skirmishing with local bands of defenders.
Palmer was then ordered to watch the line of the Catawba to help prevent the Confederates from using the ridges and valleys in the area for guerrilla warfare. Moving to the town of Lincolnton, the Federals captured a large trunk of valuables, including $2,000 in gold. Upon discovering that the trunk belonged to Mrs. Zebulon Vance, wife of the governor of North Carolina, Palmer collected every article and every cent and returned the trunk to her with his compliments.
Rumors were flying about the end of the war. On April 19, Palmer was notified by three Confederate soldiers of the armistice between Sherman and Johnston. Stoneman and the main body reached the village of Taylorsville, N.C., on April 14 and were greeted with news of Lees surrender. Regardless, the Federals continued moving west.
On Easter Sunday, Stonemans men reached the town of Lenoir. Gillem had called Lenoir a rebellious little hole, sentencing it to receive its full share of punishment. Stonemans presence, however, prevented the troops from excessive mischief. The flying reports of the wars end prompted Stoneman to judge that his mission was complete. As a result, Stoneman left the division for east Tennessee on April 16, along with a guard detachment and about 900 Confederate prisoners. The prisoners themselvesmostly hungry and exhausted old men and young boyshad a tough trip ahead of them. Stoneman directed Gillem to take the 2nd and 3rd brigades and move toward Asheville, aiming at the mountain passes in the area. Gillem, already known to North Carolinians assupercilious, insulting, and unfeeling because of the destruction he had brought, eagerly complied.
The war dragged on in the North Carolina mountains for the cavalry division, regardless of the cessation of hostilities by the major armies. Gillem had begun his trek to Asheville, only to find a bridge over the Catawba River, a couple of miles east of Morganton, blocked by Rebels. About 50 men under Maj. Gen. John McCown, not the 300 men that the Federals had estimated, were waiting at the crossing with one artillery piece. As the two Union brigades approached the river, they met with a continuous and effective fire which prevented their efforts to cross. To avoid useless casualties, Gillem sent a small detachment to outflank the Confederates and cross about two miles upriver. A battery of artillery was then dismounted and placed in a strategic position to bombard the Confederate gun.
Just as the flanking movement began to unnerve the Rebels, the Union battery opened fire. The first shot missed, but the veteran gunners readjusted. The second shot slammed home, breaking the axle on the Confederate guns caisson. With their enemy now bereft of artillery cover, the dismounted cavalry troops charged their enemy. It was only a few minutes until the Rebels had been ousted from their rifle pits and the road lay open. Morganton and its supplies of corn and bacon were soon in Federal hands.
As Gillem continued to pound away at them, the Confederates kept trying to scrape together what they could to defend their homes. Brigadier General James G. Martin, a Petersburg veteran, was the commander of the District of Western North Carolina. When he learned that Federal cavalry was headed for Asheville, he moved his commandone brigade and one regimentto the land around Swannanoa Gap, placing his regiment in the gap itself to defend Asheville.
Gillem reached Swannanoa Gap on April 20 and found it to be effectually blockaded by about 500 men with four pieces of artillery. Once again, Gillem used the tactic that had successfully carried the command through the Confederate homeland. He ordered Miller to remain at the gap and deceive the enemy by feints while he took a detachment to outflank the Rebel right. The flanking movement, due to the mountainous terrain, had to be an extremely wide one. The Federals rode hard. On April 21, Gillem reached Rutherford, 40 miles south of Swannanoa Gap. By dusk of April 22, the Federals had fought through onlyslight resistance to cross the Blue Ridge at Howards Gap. Gillem now lay squarely in the Confederate rear.
The veteran General Martin had not been deceived. He ordered his lone brigade to meet the Federals at Howards Gap and repulse them. On April 22, however, news of Johnstons surrender to Sherman finally filtered to the Confederates. On the basis of this news, Martins men refused to obey his order to stand and fight. Gillem, therefore, met only slight resistance at Howards Gap, when he could have faced a force equal to his own. Fortune was smiling on the Federal cause.
With Swannanoa Gap in Federal hands, Gillem continued his march on Asheville. At daylight on April 23, Gillems advance entered Hendersonville. There he received information that some Confederate troops and artillery had been waiting for him in the town the day before, but had retired toward Asheville. Gillem detached the 11th Kentucky Cavalry, with the 11th Michigan in support, to pursue, attack, and capture the enemy force at all hazards. By noon the Union detachment had found the Confederates, seizing four artillery pieces and 70 men. The Federals had become the masters of the countryside.
Early in the afternoon, the cavalry division left Hendersonville to cover the remaining distance to Asheville. After three hours of riding, the Union troops halted their horses as a few Confederates presented Gillem a flag of truce. Martin had sent word from his headquarters in Asheville that he had received official notification of the truce. As a result, a meeting between Gillem and Martin was arranged for the morning of April 24 to discuss surrender terms.
The meeting went off quietly and in order. The Confederates agreed to cease resistance, following the terms Sherman had granted to Johnston at Durham Station. Gillem accepted and informed Martin that he would return his division to Tennessee. To prevent the Federals from foraging on their return trip, Martin agreed to give them what supplies he had. On April 25, Browns and Millers brigades began the long ride back. Gillem himself turned to other duties, leaving the column to join the Tennessee legislature, which was then assembling. The war, it seemed, had finally come to an end for the Cavalry Division of the District of East Tennessee.
Mysteriously, though, the Federals returned to Asheville on April 26 and sacked it. Martin said that he had heard of no worse plundering anywhere. General George Thomas, it turned out, had notified Stoneman that Abraham Lincoln had rejected the terms of surrender between Sherman and Johnston. Stonemans cavalry was to do all in its power to bring Johnston to better terms.
The raid, after this last act of destruction, came to a close. Yet fate had something else in store for these veteran Union horse soldiers. The shooting war had ended, but Jefferson Davis and the remains of the Confederate government were still in flightand they were close to Stonemans troopers. On April 23, Palmer was notified of Lincolns assassination and ordered to pursue Jefferson Davis to the ends of the earth. Palmer, breveted to general and placed in command of the division, began moving his brigades south. He sent one by way of Spartanburg and the others from their position near Asheville, planning to join them at the Savannah River in South Carolina.
The grand chase was on. Moving through Anderson, S.C., where the Federals captured and disposed of 300 bottles of wine, the division crossed the Savannah River and entered Georgia. As Palmers men moved through the state, they barely missed capturing the fugitive president on several occasions. In consolation, the division did capture four brigades of Confederate cavalry and General Braxton Bragg and his wife (who were on their way to be paroled at the time). Finally, on May 15, Davis was captured in Irwin, Ga., by another Federal unit, the 4th Michigan Cavalry.
Stoneman and his cavalry division thus passed out of the war and into local legend. The raid had been a powerful one. A force of only 6,000 men had destroyed uncountable tons of supplies and miles of railroad tracks, shocked the local citizens with the reality of war, traveled more than 600 miles through enemy territory, and assisted in the capture of Jefferson Davis. Stoneman, one historian appraised, had utilized the methods of Sherman in asplendidly conceived, ably executed attack upon the war potential and the civilian population of the South. Sherman himself, the author of the concept of total war, admiringly referred to Stonemans raid as fatal to the hostile armies of Lee and Johnston. Stoneman and his men, beyond any doubt, had amply fulfilled their orders to destroy.
This article was written by Chris Hartley and originally appeared in the May 1998 issue of Americas Civil War. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Americas Civil War magazine today!
The release of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is looming on the horizon. Following the success of the Galaxy S7 earlier this year, the South Korean tech giant now gears up for a highly anticipated unveiling of the flagship successor to Galaxy Note 5.
After weeks of leaks, are there any other surprises left? Well, reputable tech leakster Evan Blass has just tweeted images of what appears to be the yet-to-be-announced Galaxy Note 7. The snaps showed the phablet's front and rear sides in three different colors.
The images show off the forthcoming phablet's curved display, camera, and color variations- Black Onyx, Silver Titanium and Blue Coral, IT Pro revealed. The pictures also reveal how the device bears resemblance to its Galaxy S7- a deviation from earlier tech leaks.
The exact date for Galaxy Note 7's official unveiling remains under wraps. But if previous events are of any indication, the official announcement would take place around August or September. Earlier leaks suggest an August 2 release.
Meanwhile, a detailed import data found on import site Zauba reveal several previous test samples of Samsung devices including a test sample for a 6-inch Samsung Galaxy device being forwarded to Bangalore, India where the South Korean tech company has a major Research and Development facility. A number of tablets and smartphones in the Galaxy series were tested in the Bangalore facility before being delivered back to South Korea.
The listings on Zauba fuel speculations that Samsung may be experimenting a 6-inch screen variant of Galaxy Note 7. Earlier reports suggest that Note 7 will either have a 5.7-inch or 5.8-inch screen display as opposed to a larger 6-inch display.
Apart from the large display, Galaxy Note 7 is also expected to come out with a Super AMOLED dual-curved screen powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 or 823 chip-set on 6GB of RAM. Moreover, the upcoming phablet will reportedly be the first mainstream flagship device featuring eye-scanning security technology.
@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair told U.S. President George W. Bush eight months before the 2003 invasion of Iraq "I will be with you, whatever", and relied on flawed intelligence and legal advice to go to war, a seven-year inquiry concluded on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
It strongly criticized Blair on a range of issues, saying the threat posed by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction had been over-hyped and the planning for the aftermath of war had been inadequate.
Blair responded that he had taken the decision to go to war "in good faith", that he still believed it was better to remove Saddam, and that he did not see that action as the cause of terrorism today, in the Middle East or elsewhere.
"The intelligence assessments made at the time of going to war turned out to be wrong. The aftermath turned out to be more hostile, protracted and bloody than ever we imagined," the former prime minister, looking gaunt and strained, told reporters.
"For all of this, I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you will ever know."
The only Labour prime minister to win three general elections, Blair was in office for 10 years until 2007 and was hugely popular in his heyday, but Iraq has severely tarnished his reputation and legacy.
The inquiry report, about three times the length of the Bible, stopped short of saying the war was illegal, a stance that is certain to disappoint Blair's many critics.
"We have, however, concluded that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for military action were far from satisfactory," said John Chilcot, the inquiry's chairman, in a speech presenting his findings.
Blair said the report should exonerate him from accusations of lying, which have been made by relatives of some of the 179 British soldiers who died in the conflict.
"The report should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit," he said in a statement.
"Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein; I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country."
'SHAMBOLIC EPISODE'
Relatives of some of the British soldiers who died in Iraq said they would study the report to examine if there was a legal case to pursue against those responsible.
"We all know who the key players are ... who took part in this most shambolic episode in British politics. We would like to see all those key players face some form of accountability," said Reg Keys, whose son, 20-year-old Lance Corporal Thomas Keys, was one of those killed.
"If that's through the legal channels, then we will look at that and see what's viable and appropriate. It has been passed over to lawyers."
The report shed light on what happened between Blair and Bush in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion, an interaction that has long been the subject of speculation about secret deals and pledges.
In a memo dated July 28, 2002, eight months before the invasion, Blair told Bush: "I will be with you, whatever. But this is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties."
"The planning on this and the strategy are the toughest yet. This is not Kosovo. This is not Afghanistan. It is not even the Gulf War."
Chilcot said Blair had sought to influence Bushs decisions, offering Britain's support while suggesting possible adjustments to the U.S. position.
But the inquiry chairman added that Blair had over-estimated his ability to influence U.S. decisions on Iraq.
His report also said there was no imminent threat from Saddam at the time of the invasion in March 2003, and the chaos in Iraq and the region which followed should have been foreseen.
By 2009 at least 150,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, had died, and more than a million had been displaced.
The report said Britain had joined the invasion without exhausting peaceful options and that it had undermined the authority of the United Nations Security Council by doing so.
FLAWED INTELLIGENCE
"It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged and they should have been," Chilcot said.
He also said that Blair's government's judgments about the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were "presented with unjustified certainty".
No such weapons were discovered after the war.
Chilcot said Blair changed his case for war from focusing on Iraq's alleged "vast stocks" of illegal weapons to Saddam having the intent to obtain such weapons and being in breach of U.N. resolutions.
"That was not, however, the explanation for military action he had given before the conflict," Chilcot said.
Iraq remains in chaos to this day. Islamic State controls large areas of the country and 250 people died on Saturday in Baghdad's worst car bombing since the U.S.-led coalition toppled Saddam.
The inquiry's purpose was for the British government to learn lessons from the invasion and occupation that followed.
"We cannot turn the clock back but we can ensure that lessons are learned and acted on," Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament in a statement on the inquiry.
"It is crucial to good decision-making that a prime minister establishes a climate in which it's safe for officials and other experts to challenge existing policy and question the views of ministers and the prime minister without fear or favor."
Jeremy Corbyn, the current leader of the Labour Party and a fervent pacifist, told parliament that the war was an act of aggression based on a false pretext that had fueled and spread terrorism across the Middle East.
A re you fed up with a punishing daily Tube journey? Buy a home near one of Londons piers or new marinas and you could take a relaxed river boat ride to work.
Constantly improving Thames Clipper and River Bus services give commuters a feel-good alternative and yet are often underused. Other global cities use their rivers for local transport, while London has generally used the Thames as a tourist attraction, says Raul Cimesa of estate agent Knight Frank. But our infrastructure is becoming more diverse and far-reaching.
Battersea
Plantation Wharf Pier in SW11 opened last year creating an extra stop for the River Bus which runs between Putney and Blackfriars.
From Plantation Wharf, Battersea residents can also hop aboard MBNA Thames Clippers high-speed boats Galaxy and Neptune. Forget packed trains, these sleek catamarans take 37 minutes into London Bridge City Pier offering guaranteed seating for 150 passengers.
Take a tour of new riverside developments 1 /16 Take a tour of new riverside developments Battersea Reach Battersea Reach, a big new Thames-side scheme, has a gym, concierge and now shared-ownership flats. Scroll right... stgeorge2.visualbank.co.uk Battersea Reach From 119,375: a quarter share of a one-bedroom apartment at Meridian House, Battersea Reach. Call 0300 2000 116. To see more new homes by the river, scroll right. Lombard Wharf Ready by the end of 2017, this 28-storey tower will offer 135 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments and penthouses with wrap around balconies so you can watch the Clippers arrive. One-bedroom apartments start from 646,500 and 27 apartments will be available through shared ownership - but details have yet to be announced. Lombard Wharf Annual service charges will start from 4,250. Call Barratt London 0844 811 4321 for more information. Chelsea Waterfront Just a short walk from Chelsea Harbour Pier, this scheme incorporates the historic power station and modern style. Workers can catch the river bus to the City and Canary Wharf. Chelsea Waterfront The second phase of the 706 two- to five-bedroom apartments will be ready this year and start from 1.55 million with service charges of 7 per sq ft. Call 020 7352 8852 for more information. Quebec Quarter A ten-minute walk from the Surrey Quays Thames Clipper services, Quebec Quarter is a 20 minute boat ride to London Bridge. Quebec Quarter Ready this autumn, three-bedroom homes start from 775,000 with service charges starting from 274.16. Call 0333 0033663 for more information. Royal Arsenal Riverside Making a great alternative from the tube and DLR, the Thames Clipper departs from Woolwich Arsenal Pier every 20 minutes, from 6am, on weekdays. It takes 29 minutes into Canary Wharf and an hour to Waterloo. Royal Arsenal Riverside One-, two- and three-bedroom apartments at the latest phase Pavilion Square will be ready by spring 2018. One-bedroom apartments start from 445,000, with service charges from 3.59 per sq ft. Call 020 8331 7130 for more information. Riverside Quarter A stroll away from Wandsworth Pier, where 20,000 journeys started or ended last year, these apartments will help commuters take a more picturesque journey into work. Riverside Quarter Two-bedroom flats are ready to move into this autumn, starting from 720,000 with annual service charges of 3,099. Call Savills 020 8877 2000 for more information.
Running between Putney and Canary Wharf, Neptune and Galaxy will each cover 74,052 miles a year, the equivalent of travelling round the world almost three times.
Close to the pier, housing scheme Ivory & Calico Riverside completes this month with 34 one-, two- and three- bedroom apartments starting from 525,000 plus service charges of 3.40 per square foot. Call Hamptons International 020 7354 7049.
Also near Plantation Wharf, the twisting 28-storey Lombard Wharf tower in Lombard Road will be ready by the end of next year, offering 135 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments and penthouses with wraparound balconies so you can watch Thames Clippers approach.
Service charges start from 4,250 a year, with one-bedroom flats from 646,500. Twenty-seven apartments will be available through shared ownership but details have yet to be announced. Call Barratt London on 0844 811 4321.
Chelsea Harbour Pier: designed by Sir Terry Farrell, these new homes are just a short walk from Chelsea Harbour Pier, where workers can catch the River Bus to the City and Canary Wharf
Chelsea Harbour Pier
In Lots Road, SW10, stunning Chelsea Waterfront, an impressive scheme incorporating the historic power station and modern style, masterminded by Londons celebrated architect Sir Terry Farrell, is a short walk from Chelsea Harbour Pier, where workers can catch the River Bus to the City and Canary Wharf.
Developer Hutchison Whampoa says its the last remaining significant riverfront site on the north bank of the Thames between Chelsea and the City. The second phase of 706 two- to five-bedroom flats, ready this year, start from 1.55 million with service charges of 7 per square foot. Call 020 7352 8852.
Wandsworth
Wandsworth Pier is a busy stop for the MBNA Thames Clippers. More than 20,000 journeys started or ended there last year with the 13-strong fleet carrying 3.8 million passengers. Numbers are expected to almost double this year, making off-peak and weekend services more likely.
Morning commuters can pre-order hot drinks from Costa or relax on the way home with a drink a glass of chilled champagne, maybe? A stroll away from Wandsworth Pier, Frasers Property is selling new Thames-side scheme Riverside Quarter.
Its a location that guarantees residents a serene, picturesque journey into London thanks to the Clippers, says Frasers Simon Lear. Two-bedroom flats are ready to move into this autumn starting from 720,000 with annual service charges of 3,099. Call Savills on 020 8877 2000.
Greenwich Peninsula
Chinese developer Knight Dragon is looking at a UK venture based on Hong Kongs Star Ferry service, which carries 70,000 people a day. The aim would be to connect Greenwich Peninsula and Canary Wharf in one quick trip across the Thames.
All-day boats are proposed, with extra crossings during peak hours, serving 15,000 new homes planned for the area surrounding this distinctive loop of the river.
Ready by early 2019, the latest phase, Upper Riverside, has one-bedroom flats from 460,000 with annual service charges of 2,292. Call Greenwich Peninsula (020 3713 6153).
Quebec Quarter: these apartments are a 10-minute walk from Thames Clipper services at Surrey Quays
Surrey quays
New scheme Quebec Quarter is a 10-minute walk from Thames Clipper services at Surrey Quays in SE16, with 20-minute boats to London Bridge City Pier. Developer L&Q says river proximity is a significant draw for buyers, as are plans to upgrade Surrey Quays Shopping Centre over the next five years.
L&Qs Cathy Lloyd says: Within SE16 alone 2,000 new homes are in the pipeline, making it Londons second-largest area of redevelopment south of the river, after Nine Elms.
Ready this autumn, three-bedroom homes start from 775,000 with monthly service charge from 274.16. More homes will be released soon. Call 0333 0033663.
Woolwich Royal Arsenal
Investment is generating more river services and making Londons peripheries more accessible.
Berkeley Homes invested 250,000 in Thames Clippers when they launched in 1999 so that its Royal Arsenal Riverside scheme in Woolwich would attract commuters.
All commuters need to be able to get around the capital as quickly as possible for work and pleasure, says Berkeleys Lyndon Nunn, and the river is certainly a scenic alternative to Woolwich Arsenal Docklands Light Railway or the Tube.
Boats depart Woolwich Arsenal Pier, also called the Royal Arsenal Pier, every 20 minutes from 6am on weekdays, taking 29 minutes to Canary Wharf and an hour to Waterloo. One-, two- and three-bedroom apartments at latest phase Pavilion Square will be ready by spring 2018, when Crossrail will also improve transport. One-bedroom apartments start from 445,000, with service charges from 3.59 per square foot. Call 020 8331 7130.
Within 10 minutes even the slowest of walkers among Drummond House residents could make it to Woolwich Arsenal Pier. Notting Hill Housings new one- and two-bedroom apartments are available through shared ownership, with one-bedroom homes starting from 85,625 for a 25 per cent share of the full market value of 342,500. Ready now, monthly service charges start from 165. Call 020 3815 1234.
HSMAI | Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International would like to invite you to our Digital Marketing Networking Night in Singapore.
Created by Hoteliers, for Hoteliers
Sessions
Topic 1: Travel Micromoments
Soumi has worked with some of the largest OTAs and Hoteliers in the region, helping them with their digital marketing strategies. She will give you an insight into how Google sees travel evolving in the coming years.
Speaker: Soumi Ramesh, Travel Industry Analyst with Google
Topic 2: TripAdvisor's Economic Impact
Priyanka will talk about how TripAdvisor helps hospitality businesses around the world to thrive and the ability to connect to a community of global travellers. Priyanka will cover managing online reputation and generating business through products, tools and resources that TripAdvisor offer to Hotels.
Speaker: Priyanka Gargav, Sr. Regional Manager Hotel Chains, Trip Advisor
Investment:
Members FREE | Non-Members SGD30 | HSMAI 1 Year Membership + this event SGD250
Sri Lanka, one of the top two emerging hotel and resort markets in Asia, is to host the first Asia Hotel and Tourism Investment Conference (AHTIC), a top-level gathering of international investors, business leaders, government ministers and officials.
President of Sri Lanka, H.E. Maithripala Sirisena, is supporting the conference as patron and speaking at the presidential residence in Colombo, the venue for the official launch, he said: "Sri Lanka has everything you need to be a fantastic destination, from awe-inspiring ancient cities, beautiful beaches and colorful coral reefs to mist-shrouded mountains, spectacular sights and wonderful wildlife. With the new measures we are putting in place to attract foreign investment, I am confident that Sri Lanka will become an equally attractive place to make money as it is to take a holiday."
Colombo to Host New Asia Hotel and Tourism Investment Conference Photo by The Bench
The conference is being organised by Bench Events, and managing director, Matthew Weihs, said: "Sri Lanka is a perfect place to launch our Asia conference. The country's tourism development authority has prepared an ambitious strategic plan, inviting private and public stakeholders to tackle both the industry's long-standing needs and the future potential of the country as a tourism destination."
A record two million tourists are expected to arrive in Sri Lanka this year and government ministers are anticipating this figure will double by 2020.
Matthew Weihs said: "The conference will cover every aspect of tourism investment throughout Asia Pacific. This is a fast-growing tourism development region and there will be substantial opportunities to network with other delegates and to exchange thoughts and ideas on the sector. The conference will also stimulate dialogue between business and government."
According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, the direct contribution of the industry to the Asia Pacific region was USD694.1bn (3.0% of total GDP) in 2014, and is forecast to rise by 9% per annum, from 2015-2025, to USD1,177.1bn (3.2% of total GDP) in 2025.
Co-Organizer and Founder Sponsor Dr Prabath Chandima Ukkwatte, Chairman, Sri Lanka Tourism Club, concluded: "Colombo has been the host of several high-profile international conferences but with the establishment of AHTIC as a regular international event, we will, for the first time, become the home of an important international business meeting that will build in stature and influence as it grows from year to year."
The AHTIC conference will take place on November 27-29 at the Hilton Colombo in Sri Lanka. For more information visit www.asia-conference.com.
About The Bench
The Benchhas established a legacy for delivering world-leading investment forums and conferences in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. The key principle behind these platforms has remained "dealmaking'. Transforming the way business connect, Bench has developed a reputation for creating innovative and high-impact meeting spaces for the industry.
For over two decades - government leaders, tourism ministries, global travel & tourism associations, the world's most influential hospitality brands, hotel owners & investors, renowned restaurant groups, airlines & aviation authorities, destination developers, asset managers, financial groups and consultants have been participating in The Bench's events for their respective objectives. These include AHIC, AHIF, GRIF, FHS, AHF, IDEEA, AviaDev and RENEW where industry players showcase their brands, position themselves as thought leaders or innovators, and connect with the right opportunities and knowledge.
Learn more on thebench.com
About MEED
Launched on International Women's Day 1957, the Middle East Economic Digest, MEED, is a well-known and trusted brand used by governments and businesses operating in the region.
Encompassing a business intelligence service, digital media, publications and events MEED provides exclusive daily news, data and analysis. We are responsible for keeping our audiences of subscribers, registered users and event attendees informed, helping to facilitate decision making and connections.
Our marketing solutions team provides clients with access to our audiences. We partner with local and international companies who need to reach our high-value communities. In consultation with our clients we utilise tried and tested methods to target and engage decision makers to announce and explain, lead and grow and to contact and convert business leaders into customers.
MEED is wholly owned by data and intelligence company GlobalData Plc which means that our marketing solutions clients are also able to access a network of over 13m digital users per month across 18 different sectors.
Learn more on meed.com
Future Hospitality Summit (FHS)
Date: 19-21 September 2022
Location: Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai, UAE
Sponsors
Host Sponsor: Jumeirah Hotels & Resorts
Platinum Sponsors: Accor, Dur Hospitality, Hilton, Marjan, Millennium Hotels & Resorts and Radisson Hotel Group
Emerald Sponsors: Emaar Hospitality Group, IHG Hotels & Resorts, Marriott International, NEOM, Rotana, Royal Commission for AlUla, SMIT Morocco and Taiba Investments.
Gold Sponsors: Aleph Hospitality, CBRE, Colliers, Compass Project Consulting, Dentons, ELAF Group, ENVI Lodges, GG&Grace International, Hospitality Management Holding, HVS, The Indian Hotels Company, Insignia, Interior360, Ishraq Hospitality, IT Hospitality Group, Knight Frank, Louvre Hotels Group, LXA, Mapal Group, Minor Hotels, OBMI, PwC Middle East, QUO, SSH, STR, Valor Hospitality Partners and Voltere by egis.
Silver Sponsors: Deutsche Hospitality and Katch.
Supporters: The Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management, Hospitality Asset Managers Association (HAMA), Sustainable Hospitality Challenge, and Women in Hospitality (WiH).
David Tarsh
+44 (0) 20 7602 5262
The Bench
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The United States has imposed sanctions on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and ten more senior officials as well as five entities for their role in human rights abuses, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement on Wednesday.
"The US Department of the Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today designated top officials of the North Korean regime, including North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, ten other officials and five entities for their ties to North Koreas notorious abuses of human rights," the statement said.
The action was the first time Kim had been included in Treasury sanctions. Officials from the North Korean Ministry of Peoples Security and the Ministry of State Security were also included in the sanctions.
The sanctions freeze any property North Korean officials may hold within US jurisdiction and prohibit US persons or entities from engaging in transactions with those officials, the Treasury noted.
All of the individuals named in the sanctions were included in a US Department of State report highlighting human rights abuses in North Korea, according to the Treasury Department.
Rendering of the Holiday Inn Express Mexico Aeropuerto Hotel
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) announces the opening of the new-build 112-room Holiday Inn Express Mexico Aeropuerto hotel. This is the first Holiday Inn Express branded property near Mexico City's Benito Juarez International Airport and is IHG's fifteenth property in the city.
Gerardo Murray, Regional Vice President of Brands & Marketing, Mexico, Latin America and Caribbean, IHG said: "We are excited to welcome the new Holiday Inn Express Mexico Aeropuerto hotel to the IHG family. We are certain that this great location, within minutes of the busiest airport in Mexico, and located near other important venues such as Palacio de los Deportes and the Foro Sol, will be extremely appreciated by guests to the area, who will enjoy the modern comfort and friendly service this property offers."
The Holiday Inn Express Mexico Aeropuerto hotel's guestrooms feature contemporary styling, preferred guest amenities to ensure a pleasant stay, comfortable queen, king-sized or two double beds, a sitting area with a lounge chair, 52" TV flat screen and an in-room coffee machine featuring complimentary coffee. Additionally, the property has a business center, an outdoor patio and a 24-hour fitness center. The complimentary Desayuno Express bar showcases a full range of breakfast items, including a rotation of egg and meat selections, pastries, yogurt, fruit, coffee, juices, and regional dishes such as chicken chilaquiles.
Owned by Promotora de Hoteles Mixhiuca S.A. C.V. and managed by Grupo Hotelero Latinoamerica, the Holiday Inn Express Mexico Aeropuerto hotel is franchised by an affiliate of IHG. Situated at 253 Rio Churubusco Ave., Col. Granjas Mexico, the hotel is only 10 minutes away from Benito Juarez International Airport. For sporting fans, the Holiday Inn Express Mexico Aeropuerto property is conveniently located near the Palacio de los Deportes complex, which hosts sporting events, concerts, fairs and exhibitions, as well as the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez which has been home to Formula One, NASCAR, and Indycar races.
Kempinski Al Othman Hotel Al Khobar
The new premier destination is a testament to Kempinski's landmark properties consisting of 2 towers with 20 floors and 218 rooms in total and the hotel's unique Skybridge lobby lounge providing uninterrupted views over the city.
Kempinski Al Othman Hotel Al Khobar has officially opened its doors to welcome visitors and guests. As Europe's oldest luxury hotel group, Kempinski is synonymous with personal service and hospitality. It is complemented by the exclusivity and individuality of its properties, personified in its new hotel located on at the crossroads of Al Khobar, Dhahran and Dammam on King Saud Road offering spectacular view of the city.
Steven Pieters, Hotel Manager, comments: "The opening of Kempinski Al Othman Hotel Al Khobar is not only an important milestone for us as a luxury hotel brand but also for the city of Al Khobar. This hotel will be the benchmark for personalized service in Al Khobar offering luxuriously appointed rooms, suites and apartments, a selection of the finest restaurants, a world class spa, and modern meetings facilities."
The new premier destination is a testament to Kempinski's landmark properties consisting of 2 towers with 20 floors and 218 rooms in total and the hotel's unique Skybridge lobby lounge providing uninterrupted views over the city.
Kempinski has seven properties in the Gulf with one more hotels in the Middle East scheduled to open in the coming year. With over 75 five-star hotels in 30 countries, every Kempinski hotel is synonymous with luxury. The portfolio comprises of historic landmark properties, award-winning urban lifestyle hotels, outstanding resorts, and prestigious residences. Each one is imbued with the quality guests have come to expect from Kempinski while embracing the cultural traditions of its location.
RondoNumbaNine has been sentenced to 39 years in prison in the 2014 murder of a livery driver, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
Rondo, born Clint Massey, and his accomplice, Courtney Ealy, were convicted of first-degree murder in May. Ealy has already received a sentence of 38 years. Judge Vincent Gaughan handed down Rondos sentence during a Tuesday hearing.
On February 22, 2014, Rondo and Ealy drove to a neighboring apartment complex on the South Side with the intention of retaliating after an earlier shooting. They saw 29-year-old Javan Boyd parked in his car and approached him on foot. They shot Boyd seven times, returned to their car, and drove away. Boyd had been waiting to pick up a customer. Rondos fingerprints were found on Boyds vehicle, and a surveillance camera partially captured footage of the incident.
Rondo was a 17 years old and an emerging rapper on the Chicago scene at the time of the murder. His Hang Wit Me music video has garnered nearly 10 million plays on YouTube.
RondoNumbaNine
Sean Kingston was on the wrong end of a reported jewelry heist last week at LAs Penthouse Nightclub, when two men allegedly assaulted him & jacked his $300K chain. However, it appears Kingston isnt trying to find out the names of those two men, but rather instead hes putting the blame on the actual nightclub.
According to TMZ, Kingston has filed a lawsuit against Penthouse Nightclub, insisting they helped orchestrate the assault and robbery altogether. The lawsuit states that Kingston claims he was in the VIP area of the club when a security guard informed him that another VIP guest wanted to speak to him. Kingston says that when he went over to talk to the guest, he was cornered by two men who punched him, hit him with a champagne bottle, and eventually stole his chain right off his neck.
As a result, Kingston is suing the nightclub for more than $900,000 worth in property & damages. Whether he gets that amount or not remains unknown, but well keep you posted if anymore on this story develops.
[Via]
sean kingston
Says Morning Phase followup draws from The Strokes
Beck's new LP will come out October 21 of this year.
Beck's previous album, Morning Phase, drew from 2002's Sea Change, a bleak fan-favourite in his catalogue. He describes his coming record as drawing from other fan-favourite selections in his backlogue. This time, he draws from his upbeat 90s hits, including 'Where It's At'.
Regarding his return to a more joyous sound, Beck says he was inspired by the celebratory energy he encountered at summer gigs this past year or so. He indicated a desire to draw from the high-energy live acts of bands like The Strokes, with whom he played last summer.
Watch Beck perform 'Where It's At' in Seattle below.
Beyonce fans rejoice - 500 more tickets are now on sale for Bey's upcoming show at Croke Park this weekend.
Fans in Dublin, Ireland have another chance at seeing Beyonce up close and personal this weekend.
The impending show's organisers, MCD, have announced that 500 extra tickets have been added to the Croke Park gig. Beyonce is currently on her Get in Formation tour, and is expected to arrive in Dublin on Friday with her husband and daughter.
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Beyonce is tentatively scheduled to start the show at 8:15 pm. The gig is two hours long, so fans will be sure to get a jam-packed night of Queen Bey in all her glory.
In Inglourious Basterds Christoph Waltz carried out a career defining performance as one of the most malicious on-screen villains in cinematic history but Waltz has now callled out his most despised real-life figure, UKIP former leader,Nigel Farage.
Nigel Farage has announced that he is stepping down as the UKIP leader, following Britain's decision to leave the EU. It is a decision which has left Waltz seething.
Following on from the Brexit result, Waltz was impressively outspoken in his views about Britain's decision to leave the EU. Waltz is currently doing the promotional rounds for his latest film The Legend of Tarzan and was asked in an interview about his feelings on Farage's decision to step down as the UKIP leader. The news which was relatively fresh at the time saw Waltz deliver an impassioned answer. Visibly angry, he denounced Farage as 'the Head Rat'. Usually eloquent and composed, on this occasion Waltz struggled to contain his emotion but his ire was well placed as he railed against the 'abysmal stupidity' of it all.
Waltz stars in The Legend of Tarzan which is out in cinemas this Friday 8.
US Vice President Joe Biden has accepted an invitation by Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis to visit the country in the summer of 2016, the White House announced in a press release on Wednesday after a phone conversation between the two leaders.
Biden and Vejonis vowed to closely cooperate to ensure regional security and prosperity, the White House added.
During the call, the Vice President accepted the invitation of President Vejonis to visit Latvia later this summer, the release said.
Some 200 US soldiers arrived in Latvia last week to join NATO's Operation Atlantic Resolve, according to the defense ministry of the Baltic republic.
Operation Atlantic Resolve is the US military commitment to collective security with NATO and Eastern European countries against Russia.
As part of Rock Against the TPP
Brooklyn rapper Talib Kweli will tour as part of Rock Against the TPP, a free series of concerts protesting the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Rage Against the Machine-guitarist Tom Morello co-organized the tour. Line-ups vary at each stop, but Tom Morello and Anti-Flag are both expected to play select dates.
Rock Against the TPP organizers call the potential trade deal "the biggest corporate power grab in history".
The tour currently includes summer stops in Denver, San Diego, Seattle, and Portland, with more dates to be announced.
Revisit Kweli's Yasiin Bey-collab track 'Definition' below.
The Console controversy has prompted the Western rockers to clarify their stance
The Stunning have issued a statement regarding their future approach to charity fundraisers.
Bands playing at charity events is, of course, nothing new, but the recent controversy surrounding Console, the suicide bereavement charity accused of gross financial mismanagement, the band have posted a statement outlining they will be taking a far more vigorous stance before agreeing to contribute to events in the future.
The full statement is below.
"In the light of the disgraceful events at the charity Console, The Stunning have decided to change our approach to any future charity work. We will need to be furnished with a copy of the accounts, showing the amount raised, a detailed list of AGREED expenses to be deducted and proof of the net payment to the charity involved. Artists are constantly giving their talent and their time to charity shows and rarely receive any further communication after the event outlining exactly where the monies went. This should be a prerequisite and its the right of all parties contributing to the fundraiser to demand it."
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A Houston man faces life in prison as he begins trial on a capital murder charge, accused of killing a man over several pairs of Air Jordans sneakers.
Jurors are expected to hear opening statements Wednesday in the trial of Daron Taylor, who was 16 when he and three others allegedly gunned down 22-year-old Joshua Woods.
Investigators said four people followed Woods and a friend home from Willowbrook Mall on Dec. 21, 2012, after he bought three pairs of Nike Air Jordans, which cost $185 a pair.
RELATED: Houston man guilty in killing over Air Jordans
After Woods got home, armed assailants approached the parked car, demanded the sneakers, then fatally shot him.
Woods' death prompted his mother, Dazie Williams, to create Life Over Fashion, to try to change the way Nike does business. She wants the multimillion-dollar corporation to eliminate the reserved ticket system and either provide enough shoes to meet the demand or sell them online only.
Taylor, 20, is charged with capital murder and would be automatically sentenced to life in prison if convicted. Because he was a juvenile when the crime occurred, he would be eligible for parole after 40 years.
RELATED: Man dies after shooting over Air Jordan shoes
On Wednesday, his mother said Taylor turned down a plea bargain of 55 years, which would have meant parole eligibility after 27 years.
"Fifty-five years is ridiculous," Deborah Ann Perry said outside of a Harris County courtroom just before the proceedings.. "And you always appeal that."
She noted that plea deals are generally not appealable.
Taylor is the second man to go to trial on the allegations.
In February, Neal Bland, 21, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for his role in the shooting.
Anthony Quinn Wade, 23, and Kegan Arrington, 22, remain in the Harris County jail awaiting trial.
Visiting state District Judge Mike Wilkinson is presiding over the trial.
brian.rogers@chorn.com
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It's official: NASA has extended the New Horizons mission. The spacecraft - which served its original purpose beautifully during last year's historic flyby of the Pluto system - has been hurtling toward parts-less-known for months. In October of 2015, scientists had New Horizons fire its thrusters to reposition it for a course to an object known as 2014 MU69. Now, thanks to funding approval, the team knows it will be around to read the data when New Horizons reaches that new target in 2019.
"The New Horizons mission to Pluto exceeded our expectations and even today the data from the spacecraft continue to surprise," NASA's Director of Planetary Science Jim Green said in a statement. "We're excited to continue onward into the dark depths of the outer solar system to a science target that wasn't even discovered when the spacecraft launched."
A dental practice in Cabool thats familiar to many Texas County residents is open again this week after going through an ownership change.
Formerly Cartwright Dental, the office on Spruce Avenue is now Pryor Family Dental, and is run by Dr. Christy Pryor, who also has a practice in Van Buren.
Pryor is a graduate of the University of Nevada Las Vegas, and moved to Missouri (where her husband, Darren, grew up) in 2012. She first practiced dentistry in Salem. Her hobbies include spending time with family, reading and crafts.
The Pryors have a 3-year-old son, Cole.
Pryor is joined by her associate, Dr. Nick Merica, a graduate of Roseman University of Health Sciences College of Dental Medicine in Utah.
Merica grew up surrounded by dentistry, as his grandfather was an oral surgeon and his mother was a hygienist. He and his wife, Cecile, have three children twin 2-year-old daughters and a 10-month-old son.
He is an outdoor enthusiast who enjoys fishing and hiking.
Cartwright Dental was founded in 1926 by Dr. H.R. (Homer) Cartwright. For more information, call 417-962-3150.
A Turkish court jailed 17 suspects pending trial on July 5 in connection with last weeks suicide bomb attack on Istanbuls main airport, which killed 45 people and wounded hundreds.
The arrest of the suspects, 11 of them foreigners, brought the number of those taken into custody over the attack to 30 after 13 were sent to jail on July 3.
The latest 17 to be held are accused of membership of an armed terrorist organisation.
Officials believe the triple suicide bombing at Istanbul Ataturk Airport on June 28, the deadliest in a series of suicide bombings this year in Turkey, was carried out by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Three bombers opened fire to create panic outside the airport before two of them got inside and blew themselves up. The third militant detonated his explosives outside at the entrance to the international arrivals terminal.
Russian nationals have been identified as two of the suspected bombers, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
Turkish officials have not commented on the report, although one official had said the attackers were Russian, Uzbek and Kyrgyz nationals.
Craft brewers in Missouri are bemoaning action by Gov. Jay Nixon after he signed legislation allowing beer companies to lease coolers to retailers.
Jeff Schrag, president of the Missouri Small Brewers Association, said the new law will give big companies like Anheuser-Busch InBev an unfair advantage in dictating what beers could be stocked in coolers, limiting access to smaller, independent brewers.
This is about the slow annihilation of craft beer in America. They are going to do it by a thousand tiny cuts, said Schrag, owner of Mothers Brewing Co. in Springfield. The Legislature and Gov. Nixon voted against Missouri small business. Its just heartbreaking.
The governors action comes against the backdrop of further consolidation in the brewing industry.
The merger of A-B InBev and SABMiller, announced last fall, has already gained antitrust approval from the European Union, Australia and other countries. Approval in the United States is expected soon, according to Reuters.
If finalized, Belgium-based A-B InBev would control about 29 percent of beer sold worldwide.
A-B InBev plans to sell Miller brands in the U.S. that are partly owned by SABMiller to its joint venture partner, Molson Coors, to address antitrust concerns. With the sale, Bud Light would have separate ownership in the U.S. and still compete with Miller Lite domestically.
Craft brewers are worried about the implications of competing against an even larger rival. Schrag called the lobbying for the cooler bill by A-B InBev unseemly and its signing another example of the company slowly strangling independent brewers.
Up until now, the ban on leasing coolers has kept the playing field between Big Beer and the smaller players level, he said.
In addition to the cooler legislation, the new law also allows for the expanded sale of so-called growlers of beer, which are containers between 32-ounces and 128-ounces.
Growlers would now be able to be filled and sold in grocery stores, liquor stores and convenience stores.
The provision for growlers could help offset any losses small brewers see from the coolers, said Rep. Robert Cornejo, R-St. Peters, who sponsored the legislation.
I think the small brewers are blowing this out of proportion, Cornejo said. I think this will help them tremendously.
Marcelo Abud, region vice president for Anheuser-Busch, said the company was pleased with the governors action.
This new law helps enhance the position of beer in an increasingly competitive retail landscape by giving retailers the ability to provide more consumer choice and improve the customer experience with more options to refrigerate product and wider sales of growlers, Abud said in a statement issued Friday.
The changes go into effect Aug. 28.
The legislation is Senate Bill 919.
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An elderly Cabool man was flown to a Springfield hospital with serious injuries from a single-vehicle accident Tuesday morning in Wright County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol said Forrest A. Mason, 76, was traveling northbound on Highway 95 at Dawson when his vehicle crossed the center line, ran off the roadway and struck several objects before coming to a rest. The 1998 Chevrolet was totaled.
Mason was not wearing a seat belt, according to the patrol.
Four correctional officers were injured Monday night in an assault by an inmate at the South Central Correctional Center at Licking.
Three male officers were injured and did not require outside medical attention. The fourth officer was transported for treatment elsewhere. His condition was not released.
David Owen, communications director for the Missouri Department of Corrections, said the incident remains under investigation, and the agency does not comment on matters related to its inquiries.
The safety and security of the public, staff and offenders is the top priority of the department, Owen said. Any incident of violence against staff or offenders is taken seriously and reviewed to make sure all the appropriate actions are taken, as well as criminal charges sought against any perpetrators.
The 1,600-bed maximum security prison is located on West Highway 32. About 400 are employed there.
Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed a proposed law that would have allowed Missouri doctors to charge their low-income patients late fees for missed appointments.
The idea was part of a package of health care-related legislation approved by the Republican-led Legislature this spring. It includes a separate plan requiring participants in the states Medicaid program to pay an $8 copayment fee when they use a hospital emergency room for the treatment of a non-emergency condition.
Supporters said the ideas could save the state money by nudging patients into cheaper treatment alternatives. And, the plan could avoid lost time and revenue caused by missed appointments.
Nixon, a Democrat, however, said the proposals would hurt the poor. Senate Bill 608 would needlessly punish our states most vulnerable citizens without improving access to care or bringing Missourians tax dollars back to Missouri, the governor said in his veto message.
The measure, sponsored by Sen. David Sater, R-Cassville, would have allowed Medicaid providers to impose a missed appointment fee on MO HealthNet patients who miss or fail to cancel 24 hours in advance.
It also would allow providers to refuse to schedule new appointments until the missed appointment fee is paid. The charge for the first missed appointment is $5, the second is $10 and the third is $20.
Democratic lawmakers opposed the measure and healthcare experts said the fee is unlikely to win approval from the federal government.
Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, earlier said the federal government has never approved a policy allowing for financial penalties for missed appointments.
Lawmakers could attempt to override Nixons veto during the September veto session. Missouri is among states that failed to approve a health exchange under the Affordable Care Act of 2010.
China's central government eyes improvement of investment in the private sector. (Photo : Getty Images)
China is sending supervisory teams all over the country to determine why the investments in private sector have significantly slowed.
Teams will be sent to different regions of China on fact-finding missions where they will be assessing each area's private sector in order to help policymakers determine how to bring the Chinese economy to its former glory.
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According to the South China Morning Post, such move is the latest of the government's actions to revive the country's sickly economy.
The central government has set Aug. 15 as the deadline for local officials to submit results of their assessment of the private sector under their jurisdiction.
They have also been ordered to make the market fair and impartial to state-owned enterprises in order to give private business a fair chance at earning. The government vowed to make the market "fair, open, and transparent" to all firms, including those in the private sector.
Such moves come weeks after Reuters reported how some private companies decide to downsize their firms instead of expanding them.
"We plan to downsize our business rather than expand. We cannot feel any improvement in the economy," Ningbo Tengsheng Garments Co. operator Bruno Chen told the outlet in May.
Aside from Chen, Wenzhou Kingsdom Sanitary Ware Co. General Manager Xia Xiaokang also expressed his thoughts about the stability of the Chinese economy.
"We have hardly made any fixed-asset investment since last year and we now plan to rent out part of our factory building because it's too big," he said.
According to Reuters, government officials grow worried by the day after the private-sector fixed-asset investment between January and April slowed in growth with only 5.2 percent, per records of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
"Because the total amount of private investment is relatively large, its continued slowdown could restrain stable growth, and requires a high degree of attention," the NBS explained, referring to the overall assessment of the Chinese economy.
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ay day revolution could be on the way as a growing number of employers experiment with alternative salary systems that let workers access their cash as soon as they earn it.Abandoning the traditional structure of weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly pay days, some employers are now are testing ways to give employees faster access to wages theyve already accumulated.According to a report by The New York Times, Goodwill of Silicon Valley began testing a system eight months ago which lets workers withdraw up to half of the wages that theyve already earned from their next paycheck, to a limit of $500.When you have people living on the edge, very small things can cause a rapid acceleration into very bad conditions, chief executive Michael Fox told the news outlet.If youre just $60 or $90 short, and cant make a rent payment or buy medicine, it spirals, he added. One little thing creates a huge disaster.More than half of Goodwills 300 eligible employees have used the option at least once.While the services that provide on-demand wages do charge fees every time a worker uses them, the cost is nothing compared to payday loans and could save employees from serious financial stress.In a time when financial stress is often cited as the leading worry for employees across multiple industries, the alternative approach could let employers help workers out without actually giving them a costly pay rise.For all the latest HR news and info straight to your inbox, subscribe here
n youre struggling to fill a key position, it can be tempting to hire the best of a bad bunch but one leading HR head has warned against the approach, insisting its better to make do than suffer recruitment remorse.A good vacancy beats a bad hire any day, stresses Fiona Ireland , HR head at Trade Me . We will absolutely not hire somebody in the event that theyre not completely right for Trade Me .In just a few short years, the Kiwi institution has undergone incredible growth from a modest workforce of 150 employees to approximately 500 but despite the added pressure, Fiona says the company refuses to compromise during the recruitment process.When you hire the wrong person it can be damaging for a long period of time and it has a huge impact on the team, she warns. If we bring someone in who cant cope with our environment or isnt able to perform the role, its not good for them and its not good for us.To avoid bad hires, the company puts prospective employees through a rigorous recruitment process which includes a competency test and a meeting with the prospective team.Its really important for us that our teams meet our potential hires and so they have the opportunity of giving feedback on anything that may concern them, she told HRM.We typically take that feedback on and if there is a genuine concern, depending on what it is, we will actually veto somebody, she added.According to Ireland, the ethos of getting employees involved in the recruitment process means theyre more willing to pitch in when roles go unfilled for a period of time.People are really happy to step up and help out because theyre involved, she stressed. Its not like weve got our managers hiding behind recruitment doors making decisions on people the team are typically involved in that recruitment process so they actively know that somebody may not be right for the role.The refusal to compromise on quality, says Fiona, is also a key driver in maintaining the companys award-winning culture.When people come in to Trade Me, because our recruitment process is so thorough, they have a very good insight into the environment theyre going to work in so that means theyre typically prepared to have opinions on what were working on and to give their feedback if they think somethings wrong or if they think theres a better way of doing something, she told HRM.For all the latest HR news and info straight to your inbox, subscribe here
Same-Sex Couple Hold Wedding Ceremony In Seoul (Photo : Getty Images)
Taiwanese legislators want legal recognition of same-sex couples in the country to go beyond eight regions but cover the whole nation. On April 1, Changua became the eighth region to acknowledge gay unions.
CNN reported that some Taiwanese legislators would file a new proposal to legalize same-sex marriage through a parliamentary committee this 2016. The country fast embracing gay relations has a lot to do with the large number of LGBT members supporting the legislation.
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As a result, having sex with the same gender is legal in Taiwan and its yearly gay pride parade is the biggest in Asia. Workplace and school discrimination based on gender preference is prohibited and it is legal to change gender.
With new Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen openly supporting gender equality and LGBT rights, the legislators feel a new bill legalizing gay marriages across Taiwan has better chances under the new government.
But despite the liberal attitude of the president and many citizens, two groups could stand in the way of the proposed bill. They are older generation and Christian Taiwanese.
Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, what lawmakers are fighting for is same-sex partners to have the right to claim the ashes of a loved one. Since Hong Kong does not recognize the legality of gay marriages contracted abroad, to address the issue, Labor Partys Cyd Ho Sau-lan proposed to include a same-sex partner in the definition of a relative.
The Pink Alliance is supporting Cyd Ho Sau-lans proposal. Billy Leung, vice chairman of the alliance, explained, Its important that partners of same-sex couple should have a final say and be involved in the arrangements of picking up the ashes and arranging funerals. Its important to be recognised as part of the family, quoted South China Morning Post.
A 12-year-old in Texas is in big trouble after she led police on a speedy chase in her grandmother's car during rush hour.
A judge in Conroe ruled Tuesday that the girl will remain in juvenile custody for 10 days. Police said they spotted her driving the vehicle with her five-year-old sister in the passenger seat on June 30, according to Click2Houston.
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She didn't stop for police and led them on a lengthy chase through traffic. One of the pursuing cop cars reached a speed of 202 km/h, Montgomery County Attorney J.D. Lambright told the outlet, and still couldn't catch up.
A still from police dash cam video shows the speed of a pursuing police car.
According to ABC13, the girls' grandmother had called 911 after she noticed they and the car were missing, worried they'd been kidnapped.
The vehicle's OnStar system helped officials track it.
The girl hit two other vehicles and ran red lights during the pursuit, according to Fox4. In police dash cam video, the car can be seen on the wrong side of the road, barely managing to squeeze past two cars travelling the opposite way.
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"I am amazed no one was killed or seriously injured."
The chase ended when OnStar took control of the vehicle, slowed it to about 97 km/h and stopped it at a high school.
Click2Houston reports that a police source told them the girl wanted to visit her boyfriend.
But he may not see too much of her for awhile the outlet said she has been charged with theft of property over $30,000, and more charges are coming.
Lambright told ABC13 he was stunned by her recklessness.
"I am amazed no one was killed or seriously injured," he said.
Full Figure Fashion Week 2016 (FFFWeek) and The Curvy Con brought curvy women from all walks of life to New York City for a week of events celebrating our curves. It was an incredible experience that truly highlighted the diversity of the body positive community.
The women walking the runways and attending the events varied in size, race, age, identity and everything in between. They showcased their unique styles at a range of events from the "Golden Confidence" pool party to the "Curves At Sea" all white cruise, the runway presentations and more.
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A photo posted by VERONICA (@veroiam_) on Jun 16, 2016 at 6:24pm PDT
Knowing how amazing each and every one of these women is makes it hard to imagine a world that told them that they are less than, because they may be more than. Fortunately for us, FFFWeek and The Curvy Con exist to celebrate our size and the beauty that makes up our community.
Beyond the women in attendance, the brands and designers also showcased diversity. There were brands carrying sizes 12 and 14 (for the inbetweenies) to size 32, allowing all women the opportunity to shop. There were also collections for every budget, from fast fashion to high-end designer. As women who grew up in a world with limited selections, being in a room filled with so many beautiful choices was a dream come true.
A video posted by Estrella Fashion Report (@estrellafashionreport) on Jun 19, 2016 at 1:08am PDT
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One of the designers I had the honour of meeting during FFFWeek was Malorie Dunn, the incredible woman behind NYC-based brand, SmartGlamour. Dunn strives to create a place for all women by designing beautiful, affordable, ethical and customizable pieces for sizes XXS to 6X. She also uses models of "all shapes, sizes, ages, weights, heights, abilities and identities."
A video posted by SmartGlamour - Mallorie Dunn (@smartglamour) on Jun 27, 2016 at 11:46am PDT
"When I'm on the subway, I look around and see people that are everything, and to me that is beauty," Dunn said. "And that's what I want my ads to look like what you see when you look around the world."
Check out some of the highlights of the beautiful diversity that made up the wonderful FFFWeek events:
A photo posted by Full Figured Fashion Week (@fffweek) on Jun 20, 2016 at 10:28am PDT
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A photo posted by Marcy - Fearlessly Just Me (@marcyc19) on Jun 22, 2016 at 6:20am PDT
A photo posted by Sharon Quinn (@origrunwaydiva) on Jun 19, 2016 at 8:42am PDT
Quinn walked the Legends Runway.
A photo posted by Chastity Garner Valentine (@garnerstyle) on Jun 19, 2016 at 8:08am PDT
A photo posted by Sabrina Servance (@sabrinastyled) on Jun 18, 2016 at 7:01am PDT
Servance was the host of the FFFWeek Plus Size Prom.
A photo posted by La Pecosa Preciosa|Sandra N. (@lapecosapreciosa) on Jun 15, 2016 at 3:03pm PDT
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A photo posted by Shainna Tucker (@thickgrlscloset) on Jun 16, 2016 at 6:05pm PDT
A photo posted by Estrella Fashion Report (@estrellafashionreport) on Jun 14, 2016 at 9:46am PDT
A photo posted by Amber from Style Plus Curves (@stylepluscurves) on Jun 18, 2016 at 4:21pm PDT
A photo posted by N I C O L E S I M O N E (@curvesonabudget13) on Jun 15, 2016 at 7:20pm PDT
A photo posted by SmartGlamour - Mallorie Dunn (@smartglamour) on Jun 22, 2016 at 8:30am PDT
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A photo posted by PHAT|WRiter|Melanated Feminist (@phat_girl_fresh) on Jun 17, 2016 at 6:08am PDT
A photo posted by Valerie Sagun (@biggalyoga) on Jun 18, 2016 at 7:31am PDT
A photo posted by Suzanne Ujaque/PR/Entrepreneur (@sustyletv) on Jun 16, 2016 at 8:17am PDT
Ujaque travelled from Puerto Rico to be with us.
A photo posted by Suits, Heels & Curves (@suitsheelscurves) on Jun 15, 2016 at 3:58pm PDT
A photo posted by Allison Teng (@curvygirlchic) on Jun 18, 2016 at 3:30pm PDT
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Representing Fit For Me as a brand ambassadors.
A photo posted by Sarah Chiwaya aka Curvily (@curvily) on Jun 13, 2016 at 7:23pm PDT
A photo posted by @simplybeusa on Jun 17, 2016 at 2:27pm PDT
Nicolette and Gabi were panelists at The Curvy Con. As part of the LGBT community and with news of Orlando, Nicolette offered to cover the costs of anyone in the LGBT community who could not afford to attend The Curvy Con.
A photo posted by Amanda Allison Valdez (@amanda_allison) on Jun 18, 2016 at 3:43pm PDT
A photo posted by TrendyCurvy (@mskristine) on Jun 16, 2016 at 8:59am PDT
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Kristine killed it in body cons throughout the week as another Fit For Me brand ambassador.
A photo posted by flawsofCouture (@garcia.glam) on Jun 12, 2016 at 10:48am PDT
Repping The 6ix at the Golden Confidence Pool Party.
A photo posted by Crystal Coons (@sometimesglam) on Jun 15, 2016 at 4:46pm PDT
Coons has an amazing video series about her experience at these events in NYC.
A photo posted by Jasmine Okoli (@jasmineokoli) on Jun 17, 2016 at 9:15am PDT
Every woman, with no exceptions, deserves to feel comfortable in her own body, and to believe that the world is made just as much for her as the next person. That's why with "My Curves Have No Bounds," we're going to get real and talk about our bodies, what we put on them, and how we feel about everything in between. We want to break down the barriers and outdated notions that plus-size women encounter everyday. So check back every other week for more from "My Curves Have No Bounds," by Amanda Montgomery of Latest Wrinkle.
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Body Positivity: 16 Inspiring Women Leading The Movement See Gallery
OTTAWA Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef had nice things to say about each one of her colleagues Wednesday when she appeared before a special committee on electoral reform, but she refused to provide clear answers to any of their questions.
"In what was an amazing tour de force, the minister did not say yes and not say no, over and over and over again, despite repeated questions," Conservative democratic reform critic Scott Reid told reporters after the hearing.
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Electoral reform is a complex file and not a simple black-and-white issue, Monsef said, by way of explaining her vague answers
Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef appears as a witness at an electoral reform committee on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday July 6, 2016. (Photo: Sean Kilpatrick/CP)
"It's not as simple as yes or no," Monsef responded to Tory MP Blake Richards when asked whether she would support holding a referendum on electoral reform, if that's what the committee recommends.
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"There are a diverse range of opinions," the minister said. "I'm open to all opinions."
Monsef refused to say, when asked by Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, whether she would champion whatever system the committee recommended.
The minister also declined to say whether she believes in the principle of proportional representation, and that a party should receive 30 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons if it wins 30 per cent of the vote in an election.
She did tell MPs she wasn't prepared to update the Referendum Act legislation that is more than two decades old because that would be putting the "cart before the horse."
The Tories believe, based on comments from Elections Canada, that not updating the Act could rule out holding a referendum due to time concerns.
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Updating the Act after the minister brings forward legislation next spring could take an additional six months, another few months would be needed for a referendum, and then there might not be enough time for the election agency to have the two years it previously said it needs to get ready for possible boundary changes.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised during the 2015 election campaign that it would be the last election under the first-past-the-post system.
While the Tories argue a referendum is required before any changes are made, Monsef laid her best case so far for why she thinks one isn't needed.
Yet, she refused to rule it out categorically.
Sixty-three per cent of Canadians voted in the last election for parties who promised to scrap the current system and replace it with something else, she said. The NDP, the Greens, and the Liberals all promised some form of electoral reform during the campaign.
"In what was an amazing tour de force, the minister did not say yes and not say no, over and over and over again, despite repeated questions." Tory critic Scott Reid
"Referenda do not easily lend themselves to effectively deciding complex issues," she told the committee. "They can and have often led to deep divisions within Canadian and other societies, divisions which have not been easily healed," she added, perhaps alluding to the United Kingdom's recent example with Brexit and its slim majority decision to pull the country out of the European Union that has created economic and political chaos.
In Canada, Monself noted, half of eligible voters had not voted in provincial referenda on electoral reform. She said the federal government needs to ensure that those who previously chose to remain voiceless are included in this new process.
Pointing to a 2011 election study by Statistics Canada, Monself noted how those under 45 years of age, those without high school diplomas, and those who rent instead of own homes tend to vote in lower numbers. Single parents, new immigrants, the unemployed, and those in rural and remote areas also have lower participation rates than their married, Canadian-born or well-established immigrants, employed and urban counterparts.
Changes don't require a referendum
"We can imagine this could be similar in a referendum context," she told the committee. "My apprehension with a referendum is the possibility that it will provide an incomplete picture of what Canadians want."
Parliament, she said, made fundamental changes to the electoral system without seeking approval from the populace in the past. In 1874, Canada had adopted the secret ballot and in 1918, women were given the right to vote, she said.
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"These changes reflect the nature of a representative democracy like Canada and, although some were controversial in their time, in retrospect seem like obvious reforms undertaken by the Parliament of Canada," Monsef said.
Does government need at least one other parties' support?
The minister said she hoped the committee would be able to work collaboratively and not issue five minority reports where members from each political party held to their partisan lines. She stressed the importance of working by consensus.
But she declined to say, when asked after the hearing by The Huffington Post Canada, whether she felt the government needed at least one other political parties' support before moving ahead with electoral changes.
She repeated what she had told the committee, that the government would not move forward without the "broad support of Canadians." She did not say what that meant.
She also suggested by refusing to answer May's questions that the committee's report would be non-binding and would serve to influence her recommendations to cabinet.
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Monsef and her parliamentary secretary, Mark Holland, have a large budget to travel coast to coast to coast across the country to engage in their own separate consultations.
'It doesn't look good for the Liberals'
By refusing to commit herself to any promises, Monsef could be leaving the door open to manipulating the electoral system in a way that serves her party, suggested Reid.
"If it doesn't look good for the Liberals, it's not going forward, that you can be sure of," he said.
Both he and May said they were "disappointed" by the minister's lack of answers.
The all-party committee is charged with studying different electoral systems by taking into account, for example, that votes are fairly translated into seats and that there are fewer distortions that do not reflect the popular vote.
Monsef asked the committee to consider voting systems that foster greater civility and collaboration in politics, increases social cohesion, offers more inclusion to underrepresented groups, and ensures a strong link between MPs and their communities, all while avoiding an unduly complex system.
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The committee is expected to broadly consult with experts and stakeholders and launch a national engagement process with Canadians online. It is urging Canadians to communicate through social media by using the hashtag #ERRE.
Dialogue guide for MPs
Wednesday, Monsef also tabled a "dialogue guide" for the public and MPs if they wish to use it in their consultations with their constituents on how to hold successful conversations on electoral reform.
MPs are expected to hold town halls and provide written reports by Oct. 14. Some, such as Liberal MP Greg Fergus and parliamentary secretary, Karen McCrimmon, have already began their talks.
Fergus held three discussions so far. McCrimmon told HuffPost that more than 150 people showed up at her a town hall meeting in April. The residents of KanataCarleton expressed a desire for an electoral system that cost less money and fostered co-operation and collaboration between MPs, the Ontario MP said.
McCrimmon said she fears the first-past-the-post system will lead to the polarization of Canadian politics, just like what is happening in the United States.
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"It's kind of like a horror story happening down there right now."
The special committee on electoral reform was struck last month after the NDP pressured the Liberal government into giving up its majority and offering all parties voting seats. The group is also examining mandatory voting and online voting.
The committee's final report is due on Dec. 1, 2016. Monsef promised legislation before next summer.
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Mila Kunis is one celeb who proves you don't need a full face of makeup to be a cover star.
The 32-year-old actress posed mostly bare-faced for the back cover of the latest issue of Glamour, rocking a light blue tank top and a minimal gold necklace.
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"I don't wear makeup," the mother of one shared with the publication. "I don't wash my hair every day. It's not something that I associate with myself. I commend women who wake up 30, 40 minutes early to put on eyeliner. I think it's beautiful. I'm just not that person."
She also shared with the glossy that she isn't too fond of being Photoshopped, either.
"I hate it," she said. "There was a company that I did a photo shoot for once that manipulated the photo so much, I was like, 'That's not even me.' Like, what's the point? You wanted my name, and then you wanted the version of me that I'm not. I absolutely hate it."
But like many in Hollywood, the Ukrainian-born beauty did admit a little touch-up here and there is totally necessary, as long as it is not dramatic.
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"Now, do I sometimes want them to depuff my eyes? Help me out with a little bit of lighting," she confessed. "But do I want them to stretch my legs, thin out my waist, curve my hips, elongate my neck, blah, blah, blah? No."
And this isn't the first time the former "That '70s Show" star embraced a more natural look on-camera. Back in 2014, Kunis posed makeup-free for Gemfields, an ethically-sourced gemstone supplier and their "Beauty By Nature" campaign, where she looked effortlessly gorgeous with free-flowing hair.
Kunis also gives readers some insight into her marriage with Ashton Kutcher, who she is expecting a second child with.
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"There's nothing we don't know about each other, because we've known each other for so long," she said about her husband. "The ugly, the bad, the good... I have an amazing, amazing support system in my house, meaning my husband who's incredible!"
A photo posted by Mila Kunis (@kunismilax) on Jul 1, 2016 at 2:18am PDT
Catch the full interview in Glamour's August issue, on newsstands July 12th.
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Steel containers waiting to be transported in Piraeus port in Athens, Greece. (Photo : Reuters)
Chinas assistance is expected to increase the chances of Greece to remain within the European Union (EU) and the Eurozone, following the visit of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to China that began on Saturday, July 2, and the ratification of a deal by Greek Parliament to sell a majority stake in the Piraeus port to COSCO, the Global Times reported.
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The agreement, considered as a landmark deal, was ratified by Greek lawmakers on Thursday, June 30, which enables China's COSCO Shipping to acquire a majority stake in Piraeus Port Authority (PPA).
A report by Xinhua said that under the agreement, which was sealed in April this year, a total of 280.5 million euros ($311.52 million) will be paid by COSCO to the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (HRADF), Greece's privatization fund, for the 51 percent stake in the PPA and the ports management.
"COSCO's investment in the Piraeus port has been one of the most substantial investments of the last decade in Greece and is a model of cooperation between an EU member state and China," Vasilis Trigkas, an Onassis Scholar at Tsinghua University, said.
Trigkas added that Piraeus could become one of the most important ports of EU, as COSCO had already upgraded the port, with additional R&D parks to be built for Chinese tech firms such as Alibaba, Huawei and Tencent.
The Xinhua report said that the port could also serve as a gateway for Chinese products as COSCO's control of the port had extended China's One Belt, One Road initiative further.
Trigkas said that the participation of China could contribute to stability in the Middle East while supporting China's energy security. He added that with a stable Eastern Mediterranean, the flow of refugees will be restricted as well as reduce anti-globalization and anti-EU influence.
The Greek PM's visit, the first in 10 years, was aimed at exploring other possible agreements in the field of culture, transport, tourism and other areas.
David Lees via Getty Images Smiling businessman in modern office
For my male readership, here is a reminder to keep tucked away in your back pocket. Balanced leaders make better leaders. To be more successful you'll stand a better chance if you stop following outdated stereotypes that subscribe to the masculine, tough-guy style of leadership. This does not mean that you must give up your man-card, but it does mean that you should trust your feelings more, maybe even tear up on occasion (and do so without bearing shame). You will find that being "weaker" ultimately means that you'll be stronger and become a better leader. All that you need do is choose to play all of the cards in your hand.
It is unfair that from birth men are fed messages that set them up to have unrealistic expectations of themselves. They are conditioned to believe that if they become the ultimate model of powerful masculinity, they will be rewarded with more sex, salary and status. This programming results in disappointment, confusion and frustration.
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It was during my gender workshops, that I first became aware of just how much masculinity is misunderstood. When I asked for examples of men who possessed masculine energy, the male participants attending would typically answer with Putin or Trump. Both men are extremely out of balance and infamous caricatures of masculinity taken to the extreme. Remember that old saying, "too much of a good thing is a bad thing?"
Men who are out of balance act out by adopting the vices of masculinity rather than its virtues. They present as predators of the weak rather than protectors of the innocent. Mature masculinity doesn't use bullying, aggression or swagger to one up others.
Though personifying this extreme masculinity is not who most young men are or even who they want to be, it is what they believe society expects of them. Sadly, they are programmed to fit into masculine pigeonholes which have not evolved since the 18th century, leaving them vastly unprepared for success in our constantly changing global economy.
Today, women are exhibiting characteristics that used to be held only by purveyors of the masculine persuasion. Consider Katness Everdeen, the Hunger Games protagonist who demonstrates strength, bravery and loyalty along with her archery prowess. This leaves many men feeling lost, angry and uncertain about their positions, even causing some to lash out against women.
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Rather than perpetuating this downward cycle, men should be encouraged to reject the old stereotypes and understand that success over the long term, both personally and in business, is not "winner takes all." Men who demonstrate mature masculinity know how to take care of themselves, and others, without becoming ruthless.
They have confidence without arrogance. They defend their values and acknowledge the opinions of others without becoming zealots. They are able to think rationally without having the need to control. Most importantly, they treasure integrity, and won't greedily sell their own grandmother in order to achieve their goals.
Embracing only masculine traits leaves men not only feeling empty and without purpose, but also unable to access the much wider repertoire of management skills available to them. Great leaders develop. They know that true strength that comes from acceptance of the very thing that they have been taught to fear-- connecting with their feminine attributes.
Research released by Anne Grethe Solberg of Norwegian School of Management demonstrates that many individuals who reach top levels in the corporate world are androgynous and exhibit both feminine and masculine gender role identities. Their dual leadership style creates the best climate for growth and innovation because it fosters good human relationships, which in turn motivates followers to stretch beyond their job descriptions.
To be better leaders, men can play all of their cards by developing their feminine qualities and utilizing the following five tips:
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1. Focus on the Relationship
Rather than isolating a problem to fix it, support the person who is having the problem. Take a moment to reflect on what others may be feeling instead of offering solutions. Practice empathy.
2. Learn Emotional Self-Awareness
Feel your feelings instead of judging or dismissing them. Consider how you feel in various situations and make note of when you are becoming critical or judgmental of others.
3. Let Go of the Need to Win
Give up on your desire to always be right; make a friend instead of making a point. Accept critical feedback from others and examine yourself. Remain open to making changes.
4. Talk to People, not at Them
Be receptive to and engage in dialogue to understand the positions of others. When you must challenge another, ensure that they also know that you care.
5. Become Comfortable with Tears (your own and others')
Welcome tears as the opportunity to acquire an enhanced understanding of a situation. Tears can add clarity; sometimes they can be an indicator that you are overly attached to an outcome. If you do cry, let it go. No one has ever died from crying.
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You alone are playing your hand of cards. Recognize it, let go of any outdated tough guy stereotypes that you still hang on to. Enhance your masculinity by developing your feminine attributes. Not only will it make you more balanced, you'll be better equipped to lead in our ever shifting world.
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It is the official vacation season in Canada. Many Canadians from coast to coast are getting ready to head down south to enjoy some play time in the hot sand and fun time in the water.
Although the fluctuating loonie may be annoying, you better believe there are a variety of ways to enjoy your summer vacation this year whether you are travelling to the U.S., Canada or outside of North America.
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You can save yourself from a lot of financial headache by creating a game plan before you go on vacation. Besides nothing can be more frustrating than having to go to an ATM or bank to withdraw money because you ran out of cash while on vacation. What's worse than that is using your credit card while vacationing because your money is done. This is bothersome as you will be hit with a weak currency exchange and you will be charged an international usage fee as well. So that $20 item you bought will cost you a lot more when you return to Canada.
In order to help you maximize the money you take with you while you are on vacation, here are some tips to consider:
Add more dollars and cents to your budget
There's no other way around it. Travel to the United States this year will cost more. In order to prepare for this, you have to include it in your budget. Start to research the cost of food and excursions and adjust your budget accordingly. You may have to cut back on some expenses however consider this as a good thing to do. It is best to cut back where you can, rather than go into debt for one week or more of temporary pleasure.
If you are still planning your vacation getaway, you can consider the following:
Research travel deal sites for the best deals
Stay at a hotel where you can make your own meal in your room
Plan a trip where you stay in the middle of the week, these kinds of trips cost less
Try to find restaurants where children can eat for free
Some restaurants even offer early bird pricing. If you eat before the dinner rush, you will be able to eat at a discounted rate
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Consider looking for restaurants and hotels that offer pricing at par for Canadians. Some American accommodations provide these discounts typically in cities and towns close to the Canadian / U.S. border.
Watch that exchange rate
It is common to take a little foreign currency with you when you travel outside of Canada, however if you take only a nominal amount, your money will run out. As a consequence, you will have to exchange your money again and at a higher rate outside of Canada. To avoid being charged more than once to exchange your Canadian dollars, carry more money with you. If you think $100 will cover you, think again. The cost of everything has gone up so you have to adjust accordingly.
Consider opening a U.S. bank account
If you are a frequent traveller to the United States or Caribbean, it may be worth your while to open a U.S. bank account. You can add funds to this savings account throughout the year and the best part, you can easily deposit any left over money from your vacation to your bank account. Watch your money grow and forget about paying exchange fees!
Load the RV, road trip time!
If you're still hesitant to travel outside of Canada because of the low Canadian dollar, you can discover the beautiful landscape of Canada. Our home and native land is filled with various natural wonders from coast to coast. You can put your explorers' hat on and plan a road trip in your province or visit another province.
Wherever you decide to take your annual summer vacation, it is possible to plan an affordable trip without going into debt.
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Steve Russell via Getty Images TORONTO, ON - JUNE 29: Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker, the bike-riding, Save the Rouge environmentalist is bringing his urban guerilla warfare tactics to the battle for the Scarborough subway. (Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
When politics trumps engineering, everyone loses.
Toronto's mayor, John Tory, is pushing the Scarborough subway extension despite the opposition by transport engineers and planners, and increasingly, members of the public. Mr. Tory is caught between a rock and a hard place. If he does not support the subway extension, he might appear indifferent, even vindictive, to the voters in Scarborough who overwhelmingly voted against him in the last mayoral election. Some political pundits believe that one has to hitch a ride on the Scarborough subway to victory in the next mayoral election.
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Data Source: City of Toronto. Map drawn by (c) Murtaza Haider, 2014.
The political divide in the last mayoral election already had a transport angle to it. Given the spatially polarized electorate, the support for the three leading candidates was roughly correlated with commute times. For instance, Mr. Tory's vote share was lower in the wards with longer commutes. The reverse was true for other candidates, especially Mr. Doug Ford. Furthermore, Mr. Tory struggled in the wards with larger immigrant cohorts where Mr. Ford's support was much stronger.
Data Source: Statistics Canada and the City of Toronto. Graph drawn by (c) Murtaza Haider, 2014.
In an op-ed in the Toronto Star, Mr. Tory articulated his reasons for supporting the subway plans. He wrote: "The process has been flawed and it's a decision I have struggled with, but the current plan to extend the subway east is in the city's best interest." Mr. Tory is correct about the flawed process, but he is wrong on what transit strategy is in the city's best interest.
From a transport planning perspective, the one-stop Scarborough subway extension is highly unlikely to make Scarborough residents' lives simpler by offering them fast and efficient mobility. Instead, it could make their transit commutes even longer and more cumbersome.
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Mr. Tory refers to the analysis prepared by Jennifer Keesmaat, city's chief planner, who believes "multiple stops along the way" are "unnecessary." This is a profoundly erroneous conclusion that is in conflict with the fundamentals of transportation engineering and is likely a result of bounded rationality. Refusing to acknowledge that the forecasted growth in the transit ridership along the corridor will be insufficient to support high-capacity subway leads to such illogical conclusions.
Given the lack of demand during off-peak hours, Mr. Tory's Scarborough subway will run near empty for most of the operating hours, requiring one of the highest operating subsidy per trip in the TTC system. These subsidy losses will be in perpetuity and in addition to the wasteful $3-billion plus in capital costs.
A one-stop subway that runs in a tunnel for miles and does not allow transit riders to switch from buses is highly unlikely to increase the transit ridership in Scarborough. Networked transit does not equate buried transit with no linkages. Putting mobility needs of a few who could afford to live or work within a walking distance of the Scarborough Town Centre ahead of the commuting needs of the majority of the suburban population is poor transport and political planning.
An LRT operating with multiple stops provides the possibility of densifying development along the corridor, and especially around transit nodes. At the very least, multiple stops will allow commuters to switch to and from buses in a networked transport system. Richard Soberman, former Director of the Metropolitan Toronto Transportation Plan, does warn, however, that improved accessibility by transit "does not always guarantee either land use intensification or increased employment density."
While it is true that 73 percent of those who start their trip at the Scarborough Town Centre are headed downtown, the numbers are minuscule: fewer than 3,000 riders during the morning peak period. The highly optimistic forecasts of 7,300 peak-hour passengers in 2031 rely on equally inflated real estate development projections, which Professor Soberman points out, have not materialized in the past in Toronto's suburbs.
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As the mayor, Mr. Tory should enable public forums for informed debate where members of the community and transport experts can have a dialogue about how best to meet the current and future needs of the city. A sincere, informed, and open public dialogue is necessary to avoid tunnel vision on public transit.
Nayana Bijli
The United Nations created 17 Sustainable Development Goals, or Global Goals, in September 2015 for corporations and countries to guide them toward inclusive and sustainable societies. The goals range from zero poverty and hunger to quality education and health globally by 2030. Undeniably, these global goals appeared optimistic and, for some, bordered on the impossible.
This June, the UN Global Compact, a business network of 8,800 companies and 80 countries, launched a Leaders Summit for advocates and corporations to discuss the achievement of these goals, and the incorporation of human, labour, environmental and anti-corruption rights in their business practices.
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As I sat under a large golden emblem of concentric circles and olive branches, I prepared myself for first day of the summit. I awaited speeches from global leaders, including the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Global Goals advocate Dr. Alaa Murabit, Ambassador Macharia Kamau and the Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs. The range of topics, the idea of eradicating poverty and ensuring equality; I was overcome by the ambition of the project, and the 15-year cap on its achievement. In the wide halls of the United Nations headquarters in New York, as delegates and leaders began to fill empty chairs, I suddenly felt very small.
Lise Kingo, Executive Director of the Global Compact, commemorated the summit by introducing 2016's Sustainable Development Goal Pioneers: 16 new entrepreneurs distinguished by redefining themselves in the new era of technological business, and relating their operations to the achievement of the goals. While the summit focused on the financing of the Global Goals, leaders stressed the importance of altering mindsets, viewing the goals in their entirety, to evade being overwhelmed, as I was gradually becoming.They emphasized the change in markets, the pertinence of corporate introspection, and the realization that businesses -- and governments -- cannot operate as they once did, "there is no plan B, because there is no Planet B" they reiterated.
Is it sustainable for emerging entrepreneurs to think 'sustainably'?
The second day of the summit provided practical examples from companies and CEOs around the world. Peter Lacey, Managing Director of Accenture Strategy, asserted that 87 per cent of companies' CEOs are already there, innovating in responsible fields, believing that the Global Goals are an opportunity to refresh, rather than mere tasks to be completed.
Chang-Gyu Hwang, CEO of KT a Korean Telecom giant, provided examples of its use of GPS data technology to source the spread of infectious diseases in Korea. Suez, a French industrial company, shared its experience of partnering with the government to aid the development of accessible water supplies for emerging countries.Tech and industrial giants dominated examples of segueing into to the tech-welfare market, and developed countries presented entrepreneurs striving for both profits.
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And the summit indirectly highlighted this gap between our current world and the sustainable one envisioned by Global Compact Leaders -- for some countries more so than others. It necessitated the role of the private sector. It underlined the collaboration with the public sector, and weighted the involvement of women and youth. As the MD of Standard Chartered Nigeria, Bola Adesola, took the stage, my mind drifted to small-to-medium sized companies for whom financing the Global Goals may not be so easy.
My mind also floated to further continents, where "innovate" is superseded by "survive." Is it sustainable for emerging entrepreneurs to think 'sustainably'? Will larger corporations provide that financial hand to smaller corporations, striving to innovate for welfare? Regardless of innovation, I thought, without using business networks in a manner that allows actual dependency, achieving the Global Goals is idealistic in the least.
It was at that moment, where Ms. Adesola recalled a Nigerian proverb:
[I]f you think you are too small, you have not yet spent the night with a mosquito.
Naturally, this doesn't entirely displace my concerns and criticisms for the achievement of the Global Goals, but it did inspire me to use my youth to go out and potentially redefine markets, redefine cooperation.
The Global Goals, ambitious though they may be, stir the thought of accomplishing them, and force us to envision the world future generations will grow up in. I am aware that we have not succeeded in these 17 arenas, in fact, we are far from it -- but what if we do?
Photo used with permission
Animal welfare at the Calgary Stampede has attracted attention for years, with considerable public concern expressed about events like the chuckwagon race, calf-roping and steer-wrestling.
But of course there are rodeos in a number of small towns across Canada that don't garner the same media and public attention that a national event like the Stampede does. Yet these rodeos usually have the same events -- and the same animal welfare issues -- as Calgary's so-called Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth.
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The Vancouver Humane Society (VHS) has drawn attention to the treatment of animals at several B.C. rodeos, most recently the Williams Lake Stampede. VHS sent a photographer there on the Canada Day long weekend to record what happens to the animals. The results are shocking, but not surprising.
Photo used with permission
All the photos in this post were taken at the Williams Lake Stampede. They show calves being roped and thrown to the ground, steers having their necks twisted, stressed bulls being ridden - all the usual fun of the rodeo. Williams Lake also includes a Wild Horse Race in its rodeo, whose cruel idiocy is hard to capture in still pictures. This 2011 video gives some idea of the torment inflicted on horses in this event.
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Photo used with permission
The reaction to the photos, which VHS published on its website an on social media, has been predictable. Many people express disgust at the photos (a recent poll found that 63 per cent of Canadians are opposed to rodeos), but rodeo fans in Williams Lake and elsewhere see nothing wrong with the pictures, as this typical comment on the VHS website suggests: "If you don't agree with the stampede, don't go. We'd rather not have you in our quiet town where we enjoy these events that have gone on for years and years..."
But tradition is no excuse for cruelty and VHS -- along with all Canadians -- has the right to speak out against animal cruelty wherever it takes place. And when people do speak out, things change. Within the last two years, two B.C. rodeos (Luxton and Abbotsford) have folded following campaigns by VHS and other animal advocates.
In 2007, following another VHS campaign, the Cloverdale Rodeo in Surrey, B.C., agreed to drop four key events, including calf-roping and steer-wrestling. There are now no sanctioned professional rodeos left on Vancouver Island or in B.C.'s Lower Mainland.
Rodeo remains entrenched in a number of Canadian towns and cities, but the more people who see the photographic evidence of animals being needlessly subjected to fear, pain and stress, the harder it is for rodeo promoters to argue that it is harmless fun.
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For those who retain doubts about rodeo's cruelty, there is a wealth of online evidence. The American animal rights group SHARK (Showing Animals Respect and Kindness) has videoed U.S. rodeos for years. They produced this classic video, which reveals the true culture of North American rodeo
Compassionate Canadians should boycott rodeos and speak out against the treatment of rodeo animals. They are not the willing "athletes" that rodeos claim they are. They are victims of abuse and anyone who believes in kindness to animals should not stand on the sidelines while they suffer.
Photo used with permission
Khalid Al Mousily / Reuters Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims attend prayers during Eid al-Fitr as they mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, at the site of a suicide car bomb attack over the weekend at the shopping area of Karrada, in Baghdad, Iraq July 6, 2016. REUTERS/Khalid al Mousily
Today, Muslims around the world are celebrating Eid and sharing Eid greetings.
But those greetings are not flying too far this time.
They are heavily soaked with the weekend bombing in Iraq that caused more than 250 lives.
IS has taken the responsibility.
Saudi Arabia got struck by three suicide attacks two days before Eid. One of Muslims' holiest mosques in Medina was the target as well. Saudi authorities have identified a suicide bomber a Pakistani national.
Another horrifying terror act happened in Bangladesh that was reportedly led by a Canadian Bengali Jihadist, Tamim Chowdhury, who is also considered IS Chief in Bangladesh.
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Twenty foreign hostages were killed during a siege at a cafe in Dhaka.
Another Islamist related terrorist attack occurred in Istanbul airport in the last week of Ramadan, killing 45 and injuring over 200.
Yemen was rocked with terror attacks on June 28th.
The attacks targeted fasting Yemini soldiers and civilians in Al Mukalla city. ISIL claimed that their eight suicide bombers killed 50 people in those attacks.
On the 27th of June 2016, at least five people in Christian village of Qaa in Lebanon were killed.
On 13 June 2016, a French Muslim Larossi Abballa stabbed a police officer and his wife to death in Magnanville, France, and took their three-year-old son hostage.
On 12 June 2016, an American Muslim, Omar Mateen killed 49 and injured dozens in a gay nightclub in Orlando.
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On 8 June 2016, the second day of Ramadan, two Palestinian men shot and killed four people and injured seven in Tel Aviv, Israel. Hamas praised the attack.
When my niece saw me this Eid morning writing this piece and collecting all those killing numbers scored by Islamists' terrorists, she was very objectionable towards my writing and accused me of falling into traps of western media.
She showed me many video clips and pointed to many articles from Western media that were supporting her argument. For instance, she showed me a famous social media picture spread by Muslim activists.
This caricature illustrates satirically that if a shooter is a Black he will be called a Gangster, and if a shooter is a white he will be known as a troubled loner or mentally ill and if a shooter is a Muslim he will immediately be identified as a terrorist, etc.
My niece, not being a religious Muslim, but rather a kid caught up in an identity crisis and feeling burdened by terrorist acts in the name of Islam, is defensive all the time.
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I tried to convince her that Western media is also showing her point of view over and over.
Also Western leaders including our Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have sent out the message of love and respect to fellow Muslims on this occasion of Eid.
I agreed with her that all Muslims are not terrorists but I told her my opinion that unfortunately many terrorist incidences today are related to us.
I also gave my opinion to her that instead of being defensive, caught up with political correctness or playing with blame cards or conspiracy theories, we Muslims and our Islamic organizations need to take stand against the black sheep among us.
Without cleaning our own dirty laundry, Eid Mubarak greetings won't take us too far.
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The five things you need to know on Wednesday July 6, 2016
Today's Waugh Zone is from Ned Simons. Paul is locked in a room
1) MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
That is that, the end. Seven years after it was commissioned, the Chilcot report will finally be published today. Political reporters are currently locked away studying its 2.6 million words (furiously tapping Ctrl-F and Tony Blair). The Inquiry's conclusions will be released around 11.30am.
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Sir John will not be taking questions when he unveils the 12-volume report. But in an interview ahead of its release, he said the Inquiry wouldnt shy away from criticising the leading players in the war.
Whatever todays outcome, it is likely the report will confirm what people already think. Prepare for Twitter spats. But what happens next? The legacy of Iraq is the thread that runs through British politics and the UKs foreign policy approach to this day. Closure seems unlikely. More than 200 people were killed by an Isis suicide bombing in Baghdad on Sunday.
Andrew Murrison, a former Tory defense minister, tells me he is worried the report will be used against British soldiers while those higher up the food chain to get off criticism which is their due. Murrison, who voted against the war only to then serve in it as a Royal Navy reserve officer, says it seems to me that Tony Blair is in the dock and it would be simply not right, instinctively, if after all this pain and grief the country has gone through, the man who made key decisions at that time was not to come in for some extremely severe criticism.
Some want more than severe criticism. They are prepared to use the report to call for Blair to be tried for war crimes. All eyes will be on Jeremy Corbyn this afternoon when he stands up in the Commons to deliver his verdict on the report, Blair and Labour MPs who voted for the war in 2003.
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Here are some seismic things that have happened since Gordon Brown set up the Inquiry in 2009: a coalition government, the Leveson Inquiry, a Scottish independence referendum, a Tory majority, Brexit, two Labour leadership contests, a Tory leadership contest, the Juno probe travelled 1.8 billion miles from Earth to Jupiter. Snapchat.
2) FOX HUNTED, CRABB CAVES
Ken Clarke sat in front of a giant Sky News TV camera in the broadcasters Westminster studio yesterday and the dastardly thing recorded everything he said. The veteran Tory delivered his verdict on his partys leadership candidates. Theresa May is bloody difficult. Michael Gove would go to war with at least three countries. Andrea Leadsom is not actually in favour of Brexit.
He also had views on Liam Fox and Stephen Crabb. But they dont matter now as both men are out of the race. Fox was eliminated after winning just 16 votes in the first ballot of Tory MPs yesterday evening. Crabb dropped out of the contest shortly afterwards having come in fourth place with 34 votes. Both men have thrown their support behind May. As a committed Brexiteer, Foxs support will come in use to May the Remainer.
Having won 165 votes, the home secretary looks to be walking away with the race. But Leadsom, who was backed by 66 colleagues, just needs to beat Gove (who came third with 48) to second place in the final ballot of MPs to secure her slot as one of the two candidates presented to Tory party members.
It is said May would prefer to face Gove in the head-to-head. And speaking to BBC Newsnight, Leadsoms campaigner manager Tim Loughton said there would be a stewards inquiry into the contest if Gove pipped Leadsom to second. The implication being that MPs supporting May could lend their votes to the justice secretary in order to keep the energy minister off the final ballot. Party members, Loughton said, would feel cheated if they didnt have Theresa and Andrea to choose from. There would be, he added, a neatness, to presenting the Tory membership with two women one Remainer and one Brexiter. This morning on the Today programme, Penny Mordaunt said the "membership wild like a run-off between the two ladies".
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As the two frontrunners, both May and Leadsom have been subject to incoming fire. Leadsom, who has thrust herself into the frontline of politics with her leadership bid, was hit by a wave of stories as journalists got around to re-emerging some of the things she has previously said or written. She once advocated abolishing workers rights, was not too keen on gay couples adopting, linked unmarried couples to the abuse of children and floated the idea that every single website be "rated" before being accessible online. Also, as The Times reports this morning, Leadsom has "no experience" as an investment banker - despite her supporters giving the impression she did. Mordaunt dismissed it as a "totally bogus article" that was an attempt to rubbish Leadsom's "stella career".
May is far from unknown. And has inexplicably survived the Home Office for longer than this - as yet unrated - website has existed. But her decision to not guarantee the future of EU nationals in the UK will be attacked from all sides today.
As my colleague Owen Bennett reports, a cross-party group of politicians have signed a statement published on The Huffington Post UK demanding the government protect the right of EU citizens to live and work in this country. The cause unites Labours Sadiq Khan with Lib Dem Tim Farron, the SNPs Angus Robertson, Tory Peter Bone, Ukips Suzanne Evans, the Greens Caroline Lucas and Momentums James Schneider. Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham will force a vote in Parliament on the issue.
And Gove's bid is far from over. The Sun today says the final vote must be between the home secretary and the justice secretary because Leadsom is "untested at the highest level". The paper adds: "No one else will do." Remember, in the 2005 Tory leadership election David Davis won the first ballot of MPs. In 2001 Michael Portillo won the first round. And in 1997, Ken Clarke topped the first vote of MPs. Nevertheless, the Conservative Party appears to be heading towards electing its second female leader and prime minister. The Labour Party meanwhile...
3) YOU WAIT 81-YEARS FOR A SHADOW CABINET JOB AND TWO COME ALONG AT ONCE
The Huffington Post UK is five years old today. Which means we have been underway only marginally longer than the ongoing Labour coup.
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With Angela Eagle hovering waiting to strike HuffPost can reveal at least 100,000 people applied to join Labour since the EU referendum. It is understood that on one day alone last week, 30,000 people signed up. Tom Watson is due to meet Unite's Len McCluskey today for further talks over Corbyn's future.
Corbyn appointed his new shadow cabinet last night. And there is a lot of double-jobbing going on. Given the collapse in support for Corbyn in the PLP, the Labour leader has handed some members of his frontbench duel roles. Backbench veteran Paul Flynn is Shadow Leader of the Commons and Shadow Welsh Secretary. Dave Anderson is Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary and Shadow Scottish Secretary.
His reshuffle has not been without its, controversies. Corbyns pledge to achieve a 50/50 shadow cabinet gender balance has not been achieved. And as BuzzFeed notes, the reshuffle has also seen the demise of the mental health shadow cabinet position. The role has been rolled into Diane Abbotts shadow health secretary portfiolo.
BECAUSE YOUVE READ THIS FAR John Oliver shows America what it missed out on by not being British.
4) DEATH THREAT TO LABOUR CANDIDATE
We are given a reminder, if one was needed on the day the Chilcot report is published, that politics is a serious business. The much-mocked theory that Portman Communications was behind the plot to oust Corbyn has taken a sinister turn. Kevin McKeever, a Labour candidate in last years general election who works for the PR firm, as been sent a death threat alluding to the killing of Jo Cox.
5) SHOULD HAVE USED WHATSAPP
WASHINGTON FBI Director James Comey announced Tuesday that he was not recommending criminal charges be brought against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server. But the FBI did find that 110 emails in 52 email chains contained classified material. Eight of those chains contained information that was top secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained secret information at the time; and eight contained confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification, Comey said. It is a narrow escape for the Democratic nominee.
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Clinton and President Barack Obama teamed up for the first time during the 2016 presidential campaign to rally against Donald Trump, lauding each others accomplishments and warning voters about the presumptive GOP nominees temperament and lack of qualifications for the White House
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The power of networks and the power of passion are two things that I hold very close to me.
At the end of June, 63 of the world's most promising young people came together in London and I am proud to say that I was one of them.
Image: @QueensLeaders, Twitter
The Queen's Young Leaders, exceptional young people from across the Commonwealth changing the world for others, came together and shared their stories, experience and had an incredible time exploring the UK - from the University of Cambridge through to 10 Downing Street, Twitter and the likes of PWC and Standard Chartered bank, we did it all!
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Let me not forget to mention that we all attended a special reception at Buckingham Palace, which was attended by David Beckham and members of the Royal family including Her Majesty The Queen herself - who presented us all with our Queen's Young Leaders awards.
It is an honour to have shared a week with these amazing young people and to have met Her Majesty The Queen.
Here are just a few my fellow young leaders and friends who inspired me:
Tevin Shepherd, 23, Saint Lucia
Tevin is a co-founder of ProjectCan which engages young people in enterprise, education and leadership. He has also worked with student councils across secondary schools in Saint Lucia introducing students to governance and leadership. Tevin also set up the Mario Michel NYC education fund to help young people access scholarship opportunities. Connect with Tevin here.
Dillon Ollivierre, 27, Bequia
Dillon is a director of Rise Up Bequia, an NGO which helped those affected by the 2013 floods in the region. He is a teacher, poet and youth activist. He wants to inspire young people to become model citizens. He creates his own spoken world pieces which focus on social issues - his latest video focuses on the environment and you can watch it here.
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Ella McKenzie, 19, Cambridge
Ella is a young adult carer, who has been looking after her mother, who has fibromyalgia, since the age of 17. When Ella lost her father at the age of 18 she started attending a local Young Adult Carer group. She now works with the Carers Trust on a range of projects and has addressed MPs about the needs of young carers. Ella has also worked on a London-wide consultation on carers and is a member of the About Time steering group, which make funding decisions on carers projects. She runs the Take the Lead project at Carers Trust Cambridgeshire, a leadership project for Young Adult Carers.
Adeloye Olanrewaju (24), Nigeria
Adeloye was worried as a student of Medical physiology when he noticed pregnant women especially in rural communities weren't getting the childcare and birth support they needed. Nigeria presently loses 260,000 new borns and 40,000 pregnant mothers due to preventable conditions. Therefore he founded SaferMom a mobile service for pregnant and nursing mothers (with baby up to 1 year) to access health information and make informed health decisions via basic phones (2 way SMS, voice call services, help line and mobile app) in any preferred local language. SaferMom's goal is to reach at least 50,000 users by the end of the year through partnership with Government institutions, health institutions, local and international NGOs.
We've recently come out of a worldwide rescission, only to be greeted with Brexit... And now begins the long negotiation procedure that will inadvertently affect each and every one of us. As the nation asks itself, "What's going to happen to the banks, businesses and manufacturers that threatened to move overseas?" Fears over job prospects have become worse than ever. With the majority of university students and graduates supporting the Remain campaign, it seems that they have every right to feel concerned. After all, while degree holders are generally more employable, graduate life has never been easy!
That said, it's a good job we're British. For we are fortunate enough to be native speakers of one of the world's most spoken languages (and the world's most spoken second language.) Coupled with the UK's ever-expanding ties with the East, having a good grasp of our native tongue comes with plenty of benefits - The British Council estimate that there are over one-and-a-half billion people throughout the world that are eager to learn English. Even now, it's not really a question of "Why aren't there any jobs for graduates?", but more of a question of "Where are the jobs for graduates?"
In recent years many university graduates have been turning to TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) as a career path. According to Rhyan O'Sullivan, director of The TEFL Academy, there has been a 30 percent rise in applications during the last 12 months, with over two thirds of them being graduates who are seeking employment. With the pound taking quite a hit in recent weeks -- instilling even more fear into British citizens -- interest in moving overseas has been increasing; therefore, it will be interesting to see how this trend moves in the coming years.
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The Rising East
"Full employment" was once a common political slogan in post-war Britain, and has since been one of the primary aims of government. While the definition will vary between economists, it's generally used to refer to a society that has less than a three percent employment rate, or when the supply (job seekers) is equal to the demand (job openings). The British job market is like a living, breathing organism; one minute it's safe, the next minute it's in danger. Fortunately, teaching English as a foreign language is one of the few genuinely riskless career paths that can almost guarantee employment, regardless of the country's economic situation.
One of the main arguments for Brexit was to expand into the global sector, rather than then stay confined to Europe. If the move is successful there will inevitably be a greater necessity for citizens of foreign countries to learn English (and for British citizens to learn other languages). Boris Johnson, George Osborne and David Cameron have already publicly stated on multiple occasions that schoolchildren should learn Mandarin in favour of French and German in order to seal "tomorrow's business deals." Martin Davidson of the British Council has also stated that "The promotion of Chinese languages in the UK, and the English language in China, are both vital to economic and cultural relations between the two counties." Mandarin has even been given a position as one of the top five most important languages for Britain's future prosperity.
Asia's economic development and global growth has already led to plenty of teaching opportunities in China, South Korea and Japan. With any luck, Brexit will boost ties with the East and provide even more new jobs in the future
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The Future
I was diagnosed with chondrosarcoma - a rare type of sarcoma, which is a cancer of the bone and soft tissue- in my hip and thigh bone when I was 25 years old. I've been asked to blog about how it felt to have this type of cancer - and how it feels now, almost two years since finishing treatment.
To be honest, it's difficult to capture all my emotions during the past two-and-a-bit years of my life. I've learnt that having cancer does not necessarily mean life changes too dramatically - although perhaps I was lucky (a word I've used more since diagnosis) to have caught my sarcoma early.
I spent a lot of the time between diagnosis and treatment - six months in all while my medical team decided what to do with me - trying not to think about the situation I found myself in. It was easier to bury my head in the sand than accept the scale of the surgery I faced.
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However, it was hard to ignore my sarcoma - or 'The Bastard Leg' as I christened it - due to the smothering amount of pain it dealt me. I had a constant dull ache in my hip. But when I stood up or sat down, there was a sudden shooting pain right the way through my bones. It felt like someone was taking an ice pick to my bone marrow, chipping it away in small fragments - sometimes, I'd imagine my bones were turning to this black, putrid sludge.
My nurse told me about Sarcoma UK when I was diagnosed and I found their website really helpful to learn more about my condition and treatment. Through Sarcoma UK, I came across a mailing list and Facebook group of sarcoma patients. It made me feel so much better to hear from other patients about their experiences and to share my own moans and worries.
I didn't receive chemotherapy or radiotherapy for my treatment - chondrosarcoma, which is a cancer of the cartilage, is unresponsive to both. Luckily (that word again - luck) surgeons were able to remove the large tumour in my pelvis and the smaller tumour in my femur. So although I now walk with a limp and am unable to run, I do sometimes feel like a phoney cancer patient because I never had to receive chemotherapy or radiation.
What I did receive was a "massive hemipelvic and proximal femoral replacement" - I call it a "hip replacement on steroids". Essentially I've had most of the left side of my pelvis and the top part of my femur removed and replaced with a metal implant - and yes, I do think I'm The Bionic Man.
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Although I avoided radiotherapy or chemotherapy, I was woefully unprepared for the six-week, horizontal stay in hospital. I hated hospital. Not because I wasn't cared for - the staff were excellent - but because I couldn't face handing over my independence to people who got to go home to see their friends and family at the end of their 12 hour shift.
A turning point came around four weeks after my operation. My new hip had already dislocated twice and it felt like every time I was allowed to try something new, like getting out of bed or standing up, it would dislocate again. I'd be in an ungodly amount of pain and have to go through another procedure.
At this point four weeks after my first operation, I tried to stand for the first time and my hip dislocated again. This time I felt the clunk that anyone who's jointed a chicken will tell you means the drumstick is ready to carve. A deeply unsettling feeling when the 'drumstick' happens to be your own leg.
At this point, I thought I'd never get out of my bed, let alone hospital. I remember when I came back from x-ray, waiting for the confirmation that my hip had dislocated again, the Ward Sister put me out of my waiting misery by simply saying "Hard luck." I knew then that my hip had dislocated again and I melted into tears - I didn't care that the other people on the ward would see me, a young man, cry.
That was the first and only time I cried in hospital. And I remember it being the moment when my outlook at being in hospital switched from being negative to positive. I felt a sudden lift and could see again that I was going to get out of there.
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Cancer isn't all doom and gloom - although there is a fair amount of that thrown in - there are highs (not all of them caused by morphine) as well as lows. And after all was finished, the net result might even be that I'm a better person for going through it. Since my treatment, I've learned to walk without a stick (mostly) and have got back onto my bike again, training to ride long distances - something which I would have never imagined doing two years earlier, as I waited for the surgeon's scalpel.
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Naked photos posted online often become viral, especially in social media sites, like what happened to the pictures of a Chinese woman who walked inside IKEA China without underwear. It was the womans friend who posted the photo which authorities ordered deleted.
Since the friend complied with the order, it appears there would be no problem for the poster of the naked image. However, such was not the case in Singapore involving a Chinese woman, 29-year-old Yeo Hui Qi, a freelance copywriter.
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A Singapore court gave her, also known as Yeo Min Ping, a one-month jail term for publishing 48 naked photos of the former girlfriend of Yeo Hui Qis current boyfriend. The images were taken from her boyfriends laptop which angered her because he kept the photos even if he had separated from the former girlfriend.
The jealous copywriter uploaded a folder of the ex-girlfriends photo in a thumb drive and then published in on an image-storage site after five months. Yeo Min Ping titled the folder Naughtiness, reported Straits Times.
While Yeo Min Ping created a fake profile to hide her identity, she used the former girlfriends real name and published the womans topless and naked images. Not content with that, the jealous copywriter made more fake profiles of the victim on two websites, one of which was a dating website and the other a porn website.
Before she was granted a $10,000 bail by District Judge Lee Poh Choo, Yeo Min Ping pleaded guilty to only one of three charges of transmitting an obscene object by electronic means from her Yishun Street house on Feb. 10, 2014.
The victim and Yeo Min Pings 32-year-old boyfriend met in a university abroad, and she sent him the nude photos beginning in 2011 while they were still on a relationship. Although he graduated in December that year, they kept a long-distance relationship until 2013. Middle of that year, the man and Yeo Min Ping entered into a relationship, and after three months, she discovered the images on his laptop.
In 2012, Singapore passed a Personal Data Protection Act which excludes public authorities, and the purpose of which was not to protect privacy although it could be invoked, according to an address by Lord Neuberger on Sept. 21, 2015, at the Singapore Academy of Law Annual Lecture 2015.
Alastair Grant/AP
Today in Iraq millions of people are marking the end of the holy Month of Ramadan. On what is usually a day of celebration the country is instead in mourning after suffering a deadly terror attack which killed 250 people.
It is widely acknowledged that Britain played a major part in causing Iraq to go from being ruled a by a repressive dictator to becoming a failed state and a fertile breeding ground for terror. At least 160,000 people died as a result of our war: the equivalent of every woman, man and child in a city the size of Cambridge having their lives cut short. The horrific bomb attack in Baghdad last weekend shows the extent to which brutality continues to rule over the country well over a decade after Bush claimed our invasion would 'free its people'.
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This morning Sir John Chilcot released the damning findings of his seven-year long inquiry into the war. His report is clear: British troops were dragged into a war under false pretences by a Prime Minister disregarding many facts and a pliant Parliament which failed the see the evidence in front of their eyes.
Among the most alarming pieces of evidence gathered by Chilcot is Blair's note to the US president, George W. Bush, eight months before the 2003 invasion, promising him: "I will be with you, whatever." The consequences of that moment of clarity in a sea of deception are still being played out to this day.
While much of the blame for Iraq is justifiably being aimed at Tony Blair I believe that to only focus on the ex-Prime Minister is a mistake. 411 other MPs went through the voting lobbies alongside Blair and each has responsibility for what happened since. They were there when Robin Cook made his famous and forensic speech against the war and they were presented with clear evidence from multiple sources which undermined the Government's case for war. Some MPs said today in the House of Commons that they 'acted in good faith'. But our job as MPs is to act with good judgement, not simply 'faith' and that means seriously looking the evidence ourselves.
That's why today, as a step towards restoring public trust in politicians, I demanded that David Cameron - the only current party leader to have supporter the war - to apologize. Sadly he wouldn't do so.
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But apologies, and possible legal action, aren't enough of a response to the revelations in this report. Instead we need to look carefully at the systematic failures in our democracy and constitution which allowed the rush to war to succeed.
For a start that must mean a close look at the legal advice given to Ministers. Chilcot reveals an utterly dysfunctional relationship between Blair and his Attorney General Lord Goldsmith. At present the Attorney General is a political appointee made by the Prime Minister - usually an MP or peer with legal experience. It's my view that such a crucial role should not be played by someone handpicked by the Prime Minister but instead should be carried out by an independent legal expert appointed by Parliament.
We also need to have more oversight over our intelligence services. Moves such as ending the blanket ban on Freedom of Information requests on intelligence and security matters would help, as would reforming the Official Secrets act so that whistle-blowers are able to use a public interest argument as an absolute defence.
We must also look again at the way that we vote on foreign interventions, and in particular at the power of the whips. It's my belief that decisions on whether to commit British troops to military action should be 'free' votes so MPs follow only their conscience and the evidence in front of them, rather than bow to party political pressure.
Since the EU Referendum results, racism has been spreading across the UK at an alarming rate. Welsh Cambridge graduate Karissa Singh was interviewed on BBC News; she discussed how a racist white man hurled abuse at her and her brother in a pub in London. The man in question said, "When we voted to leave the EU we should have voted out to all you lot, you'll never be really British like me. I don't care if you're a doctor or lawyer, you should just go and do it in your own country."
The BBC report went on to say that people who have never experienced any racist abuse in their lives are now being attacked in the street. Karissa started the #PostRefRacism on Twitter, so that people could document what was going on, and so that this disgraceful racist behaviour could not be normalised.
Other incidents of racial hatred have come in the form of Islamaphobic leaflets posted through letterboxes in Aston, Birmingham, as well as signs saying, "No more Polish vermin." Racist graffiti was spotted in bus shelters in London, and an eleven-year-old was racially abused in Sussex. Additionally, Neo-Nazi stickers have been seen in the Clyde and Glasgow Green, and more recently in Cardiff.
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Alex Evans, a Cathays resident, first saw the Neo-Nazi stickers on 2nd July, and more have been cropping up since then on Charles Street in Cathays and around the centre of town. Evans said, "I spotted the stickers attached to lampposts around park place on my way home from work Saturday night, and again on Charles Street on Monday morning. It really profoundly disturbed me to be honest, especially in light of the rightward shift in mainstream politics and widespread reports of open xenophobia and racism post-Brexit. It's really upsetting to see someone attempting to make your home city appear threatening to certain groups of people. I've been trying to take them down wherever I can but some of them are impossible to remove."
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A request has been put forward to Cardiff Council to remove the stickers.
It is unfair and inaccurate to say that everyone who voted to leave the EU is a racist. However, some citizens are certainly using the referendum result as an excuse to openly express their racist views. A vote for Britain to leave the EU is not a vote for immigrants to leave the UK. Immigrants in the UK make a wonderful contribution to the community. Additionally, there are hundreds of Brits who live and work abroad. We live in an incredibly diverse, multicultural society and that should never change.
I, personally, am the descendant of Jewish Polish immigrants who escaped the Nazis in the Second World War. To see Neo-Nazi propaganda in my hometown of Cardiff is devastating.
I've just returned from two weeks working with the Andean Medical Mission in San Borja in El Beni, Bolivia. AMM send medical teams to Bolivia every year to carry out sight-saving eye surgery and set up eye care services in remote parts of the Bolivian Amazon, and the Andes. There are only three ophthalmologists in El Beni, an area almost the size of England and with a population of over 400,000 people. In our town of San Borja, there is only one. He's a busy man. However, without equipment, facilities, supplies or help, our ophthalmologist had patients who were living with treatable blindness. This is where AMM come in, providing equipment such as a microscope for surgery, and working every waking hour to treat as many people as we could, to restore their sight.
If I had a 'comfort zone' in my job it would be theatre nursing in eye surgery. It's what I have done for most of my nursing career, so it's familiar - but it's fair to say that in Bolivia my comfort zone was uncomfortable. Surgery in austere environments is always very challenging, but eye surgery, reliant on its modern techniques and technology, can be particularly difficult to do in a poor setting. In the UK we have very smart machines to help us remove cataracts using sound waves and laser incisions. In Bolivia, all the surgeons have are standard instruments and a lot of skill. In the UK, surgical instruments are increasingly disposable. In the developing world we reuse whatever we can. We can't rely on the sterilising process in the Bolivian hospital, so between cases I frantically scrub the instruments in iodine and alcohol before they're steam sterilised. I am telling myself the entire time that an eye infection in this environment could be catastrophic for the patients, so I am bordering on obsessive about sterility. Meanwhile, the surgeons are going back to basics and using techniques rarely practised in the UK, and whatever supplies we have, to perform impressive surgery. The electrics in the operating theatre are dangerous, so we are running the microscope from a car battery. The theatre becomes stiflingly hot. Next door, women (sometimes, sadly, girls) are giving birth. One of the nurses tells me they have no pain relief, only a drug to intensify contractions and speed up delivery. Whilst our surgeon is concentrating on precision microsurgery, the women's screams fill the theatre. When we encounter problems, we have to improvise. Patients have come from miles away and travelled difficult journeys for treatment, so providing we're safe, we do whatever we can to treat them. This is not easy surgery, but it is essential.
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Blindness is a disease of poverty. Whilst malnutrition continues to be a huge problem in the developing world, blindness can occur as a result. If a child in Latin America is born blind, they have a mortality rate of 60% in their first year. The overwhelming proportion of patients we treated in Bolivia were blind or vision-impaired due to simple neglect or environment. Cataracts as thick as M&M's develop over the years and pterigiums (benign conjunctival growths, common in the tropics) spread over the cornea. With no treatment, these conditions slowly put people in a severely visually distorted world, or a world of darkness. Of course, blindness doesn't just affect the blind, but their families, friends and carers. It can mean the difference between earning a living and not. In an already poor country, this can contribute to a cycle of poverty and leave entire families destitute. 80% of visual impairment is avoidable or preventable. AMM's goal is simple, and that is to restore vision to blind people who either have no access to treatment, or just can't afford it. We got great results on our trip. We treated a lovely, cheerful lady in her 80's who hadn't been able to make out more than light perception for years. When we spoke to her before surgery, she giggled the entire time and her laugh was infectious. Maybe nerves, but I remember thinking that it's true that when you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. That wonderful lady came back the next day with vision that is not much worse than my own. It's difficult when there is a language barrier to understand what this difference makes in patient's individual lives, but we hear snippets of stories of mothers seeing their children for the first time in years, and men able to earn a living for their families again. The patients are often overwhelmed with gratitude. This year, AMM treated a man who had been blind for 20 years, and enabled him to see his 16-year-old granddaughter for the first time. All in, AMM have screened 2000, and operated on 220 patients this year. They know that there is no reason people should accept their fate of blindness if it is avoidable. They will continue to send teams out to Bolivia as long as there is a huge demand, and there is.
A child having treatment this year. Source: Andean Medical Mission
Despite the hard work and challenging conditions, I have no regrets about going to Bolivia. I came home to a divided country with notions of separatism when I didn't feel separate at all. The world is smaller than we think. If nothing else, being part of something that improves the lives of others reminded me that humanity cures despondency.
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Image: DFID CC BY-NC-ND
Who would have thought that one of the most remarkable outcomes of Britain's EU referendum would have been the rise of women in politics--across the board, across the spectrum, and across Europe. At this moment (and we better get this out fast before events take the next unpredictable dramatic turns) Britain is poised to be led by women. This is the culmination of what adversarial sides in the battle of the sexes had prophesized for more than a century, the anti-feminists with dread, generations of feminists with aspiration and hope: the feminisation of politics.
Ironically, this momentous achievement for feminism, precarious as it is in the Shakespearean intrigue that characterises Conservative and Labour politics at this moment, seems to be almost entirely accidental and unintentional.
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Women are, or are poised to become, leaders of almost every mainstream party in the United Kingdom. Angela Eagle for Labour. Theresa May for the Conservatives, with other female aspirants for the leadership nipping at her kitten heels. Nicola Sturgeon is leader of the SNP, Ruth Davidson leader of the Scottish Conservatives, and Kezia Dugdale leads Scottish Labour--and all three passionate Remainers. Leanne Wood is the leader of Plaid Cymru in Wales. Frances O'Grady is general secretary of the TUC, the first woman to reach this position in what is often portrayed as a masculine and macho world of trade union politics. The Green Party is led by Natalie Bennett and its only MP is Caroline Lucas.
Despite the fact that women have been underrepresented in the press coverage leading up to the Referendum, there were still aspects of the debate that were notably feminised. For example, four of the six debaters at Wembley on Tuesday 21 June were women. Tragically, the martyr of this campaign is murdered Labour MP Jo Cox.
And we haven't even mentioned Europe yet: Angela Merkel is the Chancellor of Germany, one of the main interlocutors in forthcoming Brexit negotiations, and firmly mobilised in favour of the refugees. Marine Le Pen, leader of the French Front National, has been a vocal contributor to this debate, exulting over and capitalizing on the Brexit result, while Beata Szydo is Prime Minister in Poland representing the Nationalist Party. What we are seeing is the unmistakable ascendency of women on the Right.
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg warned Britons they 'won't like' life on the margins of the EU, opposing Leave campaigners who take Norway's relationship with the EU as a model. Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, said the European project would carry on. Outside Europe, Hillary Clinton could be the first woman President, and is the first woman to be the presumptive nominee of one of the two major parties in US history.
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In Britain is this the end of patriarchy and the beginning of a new matriarchy? In the aftermath of the First World War and the achievement of women's (partial) suffrage in 1918, that is just what women activists hopefully predicted--a world of women, and a women's peace to bring an end to a man-made war. Are these women today providing a 'safe pair of hands' to clean up the mess left by their male counterparts?
One of the other remarkable things about this group of women is how few are themselves mothers. May, Eagle, Sturgeon, Davidson are childless, as is Merkel despite being the nation's 'Mutti'. These women therefore fit the model of 'social mothers', the description given to so many women activists in political and humanitarian efforts since the late 19th century who were not married or who did not have children by design or due to missed opportunity.
However fulfilling of feminist aspirations the rise of women in politics may be, what are the implications of the rise of these women for working mothers, and for those working mothers out there in search of role models? Theresa May might come to fill Margaret Thatcher's shoes in many respects. Yet it is paradoxical that professional mother-of-two Thatcher should have deemed feminism a poison, while May proudly dons the T-shirt of the Fawcett Society and is on record as a self-identified feminist.
From the turn of the twentieth century and increasingly onwards, the Conservative Party presented itself as the party of domesticity, celebrating the values of "home and hearth". This has been explored in the past by historians and political commentators-- for example, Beatrix Campbell, Jon Lawrence, David Jarvis, David Thackeray, and Sarah Childs& Paul Webb--and this new set of circumstances will no doubt reinvigorate the historically-informed debates.
Conservative women working within the party were seen as building on their expertise as housewives in order to extend their caring role to local, national and international affairs. This did not mean they were all mothers of course. Marjorie Maxse, the first administrator of the Women's Unionist Organisation in 1923, Deputy Principal Agent of the party in 1928, vice-chair of the Conservative Party Organisation in 1944 was unmarried and had no children.
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So too many of the first Conservative women MPs after suffrage were childless and/or unmarried. Marjorie Graves, Florence Horsbrugh, and Irene Ward were single, while Thelma Cazalet-Keir and the Duchess of Atholl never had children. No wonder the reactionaries talked about 'our spinster MPs'. Nonetheless, the political communication of the Conservative Party was based on the equation between domesticity and modernity.
The rhetoric of domesticity was one that Margaret Thatcher mastered particularly well, telling the feminist Jill Tweedie in the late 1960s that: 'I've got a housekeeper but I still do the cooking myself ... rush in, peel the vegetables, put the roast in ... all before I take off my hat.'
On 28 June, The Telegraph noted that Theresa May has been "married to the same man since 1980," and the fact that she does not have "any children" means "she's less likely to be distracted on the job". Did anyone worry about Boris's children? Clearly the Conservative party's strategies of political communication have changed since Thatcher. Also, unlike Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May is seen as helping others of her sex, having co-founded Women2Win in 2005, with Baroness Jenkins, to increase the number of Conservative women in Parliament
Whatever happens, wherever the chips eventually fall in this Russian roulette of post-referendum political unrest, the feminisation of politics has to mean something. Even if this is just a Polaroid snap shot of one day in British political history, it still represents a sea change in our political culture.
To what extent can the rise of women be explained by political disenchantment and disengagement, deep distress about and distrust of the political establishment and its old-boy-old-school-tie politics? These questions are pertinent to both the Conservative and Labour parties, and it is in no way just 'small talk'. However unintended or accidental, this is the new face of feminism and we need to look it straight in the eye.
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On June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU.
France has one of the largest populations of expatriate Britons, with 400,000 British established on its territory and there are 300,000 French, currently living in the UK.
What would be the impact of Brexit for these two populations?
It is very likely that there will be many impacts in different areas of taxation: VAT, customs duties, corporate tax, on dividend distributions, general data protection regulation, distance sales; e-commerce, Intellectual property protection....
It should also not overlook the consequences of the fall in sterling against the euro, particularly for British citizens living their retirement in France and for those who must pay French taxes.
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There could be many issues for British citizens non-resident in France but are having interests, whether they transfer their residence into or out of France or taxation applicable in France for European residents and third countries.
In this context, it seems useful briefly to reassure UK tax resident regarding the ongoing tax litigation with the French tax authorities.
It should be remembered that, among other subjects, many procedures were initiated by non-residents (European and third countries citizens) in order to obtain the refund of social security contributions of 15.5% paid on the land revenue generated in France or on real estate capital gain on the sale of a property situated in France.
The jurisprudential evolution both European and French (including the case-law Ruyter - the ECJ Judgment of 26 February 2015 and the decision of the Conseil d'Etat dated 27 July 2015) followed by the press releases issued by the French Tax Administration, it was possible to obtain reimbursement of the so called "social contributions" up to 13 5% (partial rejection for the remaining 2%) only for European and Swiss non-residents (those decisions apply to persons affiliated to the social security system of a country other than France located in the EU, European Economic Area or Switzerland). For residents of third countries the outcome of the tax litigations on the same subject is still uncertain.
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If the Brexit could have, in the future, consequences on the tax treatment of the UK citizens in France (depending on the agreements and discussions ahead), it remains that the ongoing tax litigations will not be affected by this event. Indeed, for the taxpayers European tax resident during the years concerned by the claim, any other condition for reimbursement is also fulfilled, no impact should be afraid of BREXIT on upcoming repayments under proceedings initiated.
The impact on future tax or other litigations is unclear at this stage.
We know that following the article 50 of the Maastricht Treaty, the Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify its intention to the European Council.
The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the effective date of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification.
Five years ago, almost to the day, I arrived in the great city of New York to take up my post as British Consul General. Very shortly I return to a country that's voted to leave the European Union, something few in the mainstream would have even imagined in 2011. Most of the headlines in the last week have been fire and brimstone, but here, far from the madding crowd, I see a picture distinctly less bleak.
Since 2011, it's been a privilege and an honour to promote the UK in New York City and across the tri-state area. In 2012, I was delighted to see New Yorkers embrace Her Majesty The Queen's Diamond Jubilee at a fun run we organised in Central Park. They shared in our excitement at hosting the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. They welcomed Prince Harry in 2013 and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2014. They've embraced (and given countless awards to) our major cultural exports - from Downton to Bond, Wolf Hall to Sherlock, Adele to Dame Helen Mirren. In these instances and more, I've witnessed first-hand how unshakeable the bonds are between our countries.
The EU referendum has divided the UK. But it's important to remember that we are an inclusive and welcoming country - and that did not change overnight on June 23rd. To be clear, yes, the country voted to leave the European Union. But we are still very much part of Europe. Regardless of the referendum outcome, the deep ties we enjoy with our friends across the continent, forged in the era of unprecedented peace that followed the EU's creation, will remain.
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Over the last few years I have been proud to promote Britain's economy as one of the strongest advanced economies in the world, and that didn't change on June 23rd either. Our financial system is substantially more resilient than it was when I landed in Manhattan five years ago, and we are very well equipped to weather the volatility we now face.
Great Britain is true to its name - it is GREAT - and I am absolutely convinced that we will continue to thrive and prosper on the world stage. We still very much want the UK to be the easiest place in the world to trade with. As I've led the operations of our trade and investment agency, UKTI, across the US, my team have had in Britain's business-friendly policies a real asset. Since 2011 we have supported 1,500 US companies setting up or expanding into the UK as well as 20,000 British companies doing business in this country. That's a phenomenal amount and I'm certain that it will continue to grow in the coming years, providing the outstanding UKTI USA network with even more opportunities to show how valuable their work is.
When I return I am rejoining the private sector as the Chief Operating Officer of Blippar, a visual discovery app that brings the world to life through augmented reality and machine learning. Founded in London, it has a significant presence in the US and is a poster child for the collaboration between the UK and US tech scenes. We need more of these success stories and the right environment for the transatlantic relationship to thrive for many years to come. I am confident that the UK tech story, a source of pride over the last few years, will lead the way in showing the world that the UK is the centre of innovation and entrepreneurship in Europe.
When a vote is as close as it was on June 23rd there are clearly going to be many disappointed people. It is the way we react as a country that will truly define the outcome of this referendum. Now's the time to come together, with an attitude of optimism and confidence. 51.9% of the country voted to leave and 48.1% wanted to stay, and this close result will no doubt be reflected in the negotiations conducted with the EU in the months ahead as we all work towards the best possible outcome for the UK, our European friends, and the entire world. That's what we all need and I know that the UK's outstanding diplomatic service (the FCO), an organisation I have been so proud to be a part of, will rise to the occasion and play a critical role in the coming months.
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Change is coming the UK's way - as indeed it has many times throughout our history. And just as we have done before, we will show great resolve, confidence and pragmatism as we shape our future destiny. Thank you New York for an unforgettable five years.
In his report today, Chilcot said that the purpose of his Inquiry was not to make any judgments on the legality of the war. Much of the debate has focused on the legal impossibility of sending Blair to the Hague for a crime of aggression. In doing so, the debate has conveniently omitted to ask about war crimes that were committed after the invasion.
In a memo by the Attorney General on 26 March 2003, Tony Blair had been warned in no uncertain terms that both 'pillage' of Iraqi resources, and any attempt to significantly reform the economy or the political system would be illegal.
This memo explicitly stated that, according to the Hague and Geneva Conventions, "wide-ranging reforms of governmental and administrative structures would not be lawful' and that the "imposition of major structural economic reforms would not be authorised by international law." Indeed, Lord Goldsmith went as far as to say that in the absence of a UN Security Council resolution, "imposing reform and restructuring of Iraqi and its government" would be a clear breach. There are several references in the report to this advice and to the acknowledgment by minister, such as Jack Straw, that this could trigger a legal problem for the government.
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Yet the UK, as partners in the government of occupation - the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) - effectively ignored this legal advice and did just that: it participated in the introduction of major structural economic reforms, including the removal of product subsidies and protective trade barriers and other tariffs, a flattened tax system in which the richest and the poorest paid the same rate, and economic policies that threw Iraqi industry wide open to foreign investors. It also reformed the political system root-and-branch. UN resolution 1483 recognised the US and the UK as joint occupying powers. With UK key government personnel directing operations in the CPA, the Blair government was therefore jointly responsible for very clear breaches of Article 43 of the 1907 Hague Regulations and article 64 of the Geneva rules. Those breaches alone are enough to trigger a case in the International Criminal Court.
Most critics of the war in 2003 contemplated that the motive for this political and economic transformation was, at least partly, to secure the oil. Indeed, this was a question that was at the forefront of public debates about the war at the time, and certainly featured in popular suspicions about the motivations of both the US and the UK governments.
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Government documents that were available to the inquiry show that privatising the Iraqi oil sector was a key UK priority before the occupation. While Tony Blair has consistently dismissed any suggestion of a UK oil motive as "absurd", internal government documents indicate the opposite. So, for example, in a letter rather revealingly headed 'Why move [to war]?', a senior MI6 official (believed to be Sir Mark Allen, who subsequently went to work at BP) stated in 2001, "The removal of Saddam remains a prize because it could give new security to oil supplies". In the six months before the war began, the UK government held at least five meetings - denied at the time - with BP and Shell about how to structure the post-war Iraqi oil sector. And following the war, the UK and USA installed "advisers" in Iraqi ministries to draft oil privatization policies and laws, many of the advisers coming from BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and other oil companies. Yet, no evidence from the oil companies or their senior officers was called by the Inquiry.
STEFAN ROUSSEAU via Getty Images
While much of the commentary on the Chilcot report is on the decision to go to war, it is important not to miss the lessons of Britain's occupation of Southern Iraq. How it went from a brilliantly successful initial invasion to a rapidly deteriorating security situation and finally what Chilcot described as the 'humiliating' spectacle of doing a deal with violent militia groups to stop attacks on British troops holed up in their bases is an important story.
During the Malaya emergency, in 1951, Field Marshall Montgomery famously sent the following telegram to the Colonial Secretary:
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Dear Lyttelton, Malaya. We must have a plan. Secondly, we must have a man. When we have a plan and a man, we shall succeed: not otherwise.
In Iraq, the British had neither a coherent plan, nor a man (or woman) to take ultimate responsibility.
Planning for the post-war period was ceded to the United States and based on the optimistic assumptions that the occupation would have the support of the UN Security Council, would be UN-led, and would be bolstered by international partners.
When it came to the UK's contribution, Blair failed to set up a clear chain of command and Ministerial oversight of the post conflict aspects of strategy, planning and preparation.
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This lack of leadership was apparent in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, with an absence of guidance on how to deal with looting. Chilcot notes that the commander of the 7th Armoured Brigade which captured Basra city, Brigadier Graham Binns, concluded that without higher instructions 'the best way to stop looting was just to get to a point where there was nothing left to loot'.
The strategic vacuum that followed saw a number of other serious errors being made. The concentration of British troops was reduced rapidly in 2003/4, from 46,000 to around 9,000. This was despite warning signs that the security situation was worsening. As the insurgency grew, troop numbers continued to decrease. In shocking testimony to the inquiry, Lieutenant General Richard Shirreff noted that in Basra, the single battalion commander had less than 200 soldiers on the ground, in a city of 1.3million. Without concentration of forces, the British simply couldn't provide security and the city was left to the control of militias.
Underlying these choices was an implicit sense that senior figures in the armed forces were not committed to the Iraq operation. Privately, a number have indicated their view that once WMD were not found in Iraq, the national strategic interest in occupying Iraq had evaporated.
Drawing down troop numbers was designed to minimise the risk of casualties in preparation for a quick withdrawal and this became the main strategic objective. Attention was moved to Afghanistan and the decision was made to take on Helmand province, perceived to be more directly relevant to Britain's counter-terrorism priorities.
However, Britain still had a responsibility to discharge its duties to the people of Iraq. The decision to cut and run will be a black mark against Britain's reputation for years to come.
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Overall, we can see a number of parties at fault in this saga. Blair failed to establish a clear line of accountability (although his civil servants should also have been calling for this), senior service personnel lacked the will to see the job through, the Ministry of Defence was poor at plugging equipment gaps and adapting to the situation on the ground, and the treasury was reluctant to provide the resources needed. If Britain ever decides to intervene on such a scale again, it needs a plan, and a person, who can deliver it. Otherwise, it will fail.
'I want to send my daughter abroad to work but I'm afraid. There are now many ads for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait asking just for girls between 18 and 38.' She looks at me worriedly, 'they just want girls,' says Olga, the owner of a small BnB in Antananarivo.
Trafficking. Arguably one of the worst human horrors occurring on this planet at this time. Slavery in its modern form. Men, women and children are tricked and coerced into slavery for labor and worse, sexual slavery. It is estimated that there are around 30 million men, women and children currently enslaved across the globe.
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False adds for work lure young women and girls into hidden traps. Told they are going to work in a hairdressers or a bar, they find the reality to be something very different. In the case of Madagascar, a terrible economic crisis in 2008 plunged the country into horrific poverty, pushing many Madagasy's to look for alternative options to survive. Many have opted to go abroad to nearby Mauriticious and Seychelles. Many have also gone to the Gulf countries Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon where they have been made victims of abuse, rape and slavery.
Daniel Silva from the IOM said the increasing poverty has led to more and more people becoming victims of trafficking both inside and outside of Madagascar.
In a study conducted by the IOM in six regions of Madagascar as well as Lebanon and Kuwait, they found most of the trafficking is for forced labor and in the case of women and girls its sexual exploitation.
Soloarivelo Anntsa from the Ministry of Population and Social Protection and Women's protection in Antananarivo told me that the situation was so bad they created the ministry to prevent abuse related to migration.
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'When they are sent overseas they think that they are going to have a job but there are cases where they're not paid. The employers are supposed to give them a return ticket but sometimes they don't do this. They take their passports and because they don't know about the country its really difficult for them to go to the police or to do anything,' she says.
Jeannie Berthina working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Antananarivo says recruitment agencies usually recruit girls from the poorest parts of northern Madagascar and tell them that it's going to be paradise.
'We know that there is physical abuse and sexual abuse,' she says.
Madagasy women who have gone to work in Saudi Arabia have told Berthina that men have threatened to kill them if they don't do what they say.
One of the problems in the Gulf countries is the Kafala System which allows migrants to only have one employer. If the migrant chooses to change employer due to abuse, they have no rights. This then limits the movements of the migrants and makes them more vulnerable to abuse.
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Silva says there have been reports of rape. 'Kuwait seems to be the worst,' he says. 'Maids are seen as the private property of the house and can be disposed as they want.'
In 2015 the Ministry of Employment cancelled all the permits for the recruitment agencies in order to force them to apply for new permits in an attempt to increase regulation. However, there are still recruitment agencies being run illegally as it's not difficult to get a fake permit.
'Corruption is at all levels,' says Silva.
In 2013 the abuse of Madagasy workers occurring in the Gulf States was considered so bad a decree was implemented preventing Madagasy's from going to Kuwait, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.
Now Madagascar is looking at renewing its contract with the Saudi government allowing Madgasy's to travel. I ask Silva why the government would allow this knowing the risk of trafficking and abuse. He replies due to the severity of the economic crisis Madagasy people are going anyway illegally so they are looking for ways in which they can regulate it.
'Its very much an issue,' says Silva, 'and nothing indicates that it's going to stop soon.'
'We need awareness,' he says.
I awoke on a gloomy Friday morning to Brexit. Whilst it wasn't the result I expected, the writing is on the wall - the UK is leaving the EU. This isn't an article to argue for or against the reasons for remaining or leaving. Instead, I'd like to look at how Brexit unexpectedly gave my business a deeper level of importance and meaning to both the local community and myself.
I have to admit that at first I was in a state of flux. I couldn't settle on what had happened, what was happening and what was about to happen. I'm currently based in Cornwall, UK - a county ranked in the top 5 poorest places in Europe and heavily reliant on European funding. I couldn't be sure that our government would be able to match that funding so for me it was a safer bet to Remain.
Regardless, I planted my feet firmly on the ground and thought about the whole situation in an entrepreneurial light with my business partner. We discussed every conceivable outcome and how it might affect us both personally and in a business sense.
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Leaving the EU will shift a lot of responsibility onto us as a country. We will have to act on this decision straight away and co-operate to build a proud kingdom and I believe with confidence that that could very well happen. In fact, I've seen it happen. But on a small scale - a Cornish village of circa 3,000 people.
My business partner and I have spent the last couple of years in the village of Tywardreath. Our commercial work involves running retreats for corporates and profits are ploughed back into our community, helping them to start their own businesses, run a micro-brewery, food growing scheme, bee keeping courses, archaeology projects. You name it; we've helped start it! However a huge part of this has actually been the relationship building with the people in this village. Getting to know people, working alongside them, offering our help with village events, being approachable and just fuelling people with a bit of confidence to believe in what they are doing.
This year we launched an ambitious project to save our village shop and village B&B from being turned into residential accommodation. The village here relies on these businesses and we couldn't stand by and watch them disappear. So we asked the community what they thought about the idea to raise the money under a new property investment company formed by my business partner and I. The reaction was humbling. We raised over 200,000 from the village alone (Did I mention Cornwall was in the top 5 poorest places in Europe?) and the support from our start-ups and pledges of help from the village has been phenomenal. This ground breaking model of business investing in social impact whilst making a profit is causing waves of interest across the world.
So, if you could encapsulate what is happening in Tywardreath and replicate it over and over again, building business, relationships and collaborations across other parts of the UK, then we just might build ourselves a sustainable, independent, economically viable culture from a grassroots level up. It's a vision that I would like to see happen.
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As I finish typing this article, I look up to see that it's raining outside. There's a great big, dark cloud looming overhead, enveloping the whole village. But on closer inspection, there's a silver lining. A huge one. I can see it. The village can see it. Can you?
A man pedals his tricycle in front of a billboard featuring an advertisement for a Chinese official website Jan. 30, 2002 in Beijing, China. (Photo : Getty Images/Kevin Lee)
The Chinese Internet regulator has decided to crackdown on news reporting based on social media. The move is a part of the government's so-called drive against fake news and rumor mongering.
In a statement obtained by Reuters on July 3, Sunday, the Cyberspace Administration of China said that online media cannot report any news collected from social media sites without the authorities' approval. Using hearsay to create news or use "conjecture and imagination" to twist the facts is prohibited, the statement added.
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The regulator further said that every level of the cyberspace administration should essentially realize their management responsibility regarding Internet content. They should also reinforce supervision and investigation, thoroughly probe and deal with fake and fake news.
In fact, the regulator has also listed a number of fake news stories, which it said had recently circulated on the Internet. One of these fake stories is about a bus fire, The Wire reported.
Some time ago, China witnessed headlines such as "'Infant soup' made of babies' bodies has been available in Guangdong province " and "Six criminals escaped from a prison and then murdered 78 women and raped 16 in August." In August 2013, the Chinese government to set up the rumor-monitoring group with a veiw to deal with all such fraudulent news.
The government has been exercising extensive control over the Internet in the country from before. The latest move is, therefore, seen as an attempt to codify that policy in law.
At the same time, the report quoted Chinese officials saying that Internet restrictions such as blocking access to sites like Google and Facebook are necessary to ensure when the country and the world are confronted with increasing threats and spread of damaging rumors.
The international community, however, feels that such moves by the Chinese regulators are a part of the country's policy to keep foreign media and other companies under check. The recent banning of Apple Inc.'s iTune Movies and iBook Store is an evidence of increasing control of the government on foreign companies.
Consequently, the international community has continually raised its worries regarding China's overwhelming control over Internet access in the country. Many foreign governments as well as business groups have seemingly pointed to restrictions on the Internet as a broader trade issue.
Watch China's Internet censorship below:
On the eve of the independence referendum in Scotland in 2014, I wrote that 'it is difficult to see exactly what will be gained by breaking up one of the most successful and powerful countries in the world.' I felt that Scotland had already achieved a significant amount of self-determination, and that more was coming to allow people in Scotland to choose a somewhat different political path while still enjoying the benefits of being in the UK. And in the context of the European Union (EU), sovereignty perhaps means something a bit different than what is frequently asserted - less absolute and more nuanced.
I argued that in the context of a democracy, political differences are not necessarily a reason to break up a country, because sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, and perceived political differences are frequently much more complex than may be portrayed.
I concluded by saying that while I supported staying within the UK, I might change my mind if the UK decides to leave the EU.
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Well, against expectations, the UK has, indeed, voted to leave the EU. Thus, it is time to consider whether it might be better for Scotland to leave the UK and find a new future as a small but valued country within the EU.
A second independence referendum is almost inevitable. Why? 62% of the voting population in Scotland wanted to stay in the EU, compared to 48% across the UK. This is a dramatic rejection of the arguments which led voters to decide that it was desirable to extricate itself from decades of political and economic integration.
Beyond the economic and other damage this decision will do to the UK, it ignores some pretty basic realities about globalisation and economic and political interdependence. Even when it leaves the EU, the UK will still need access to markets and institutions in Europe - and beyond. Although there have been many assertions by the Leave side that the UK will be able to forge new economic links with better terms, there is little evidence to support this.
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Further, this vote laid bare a significant chasm in political vision. The Leave side campaigned on insularity, controlling borders, and 'sovereignty' - independence from 'unelected bureaucrats' in Brussels. A significant majority in Scotland have a different vision of society - one that is open to the world, multicultural, recognises that sovereignty is actually much more complex and nuanced than Brexiters claim, and generally more humane than what the UK is becoming.
An ideal of open borders for people, trade and ideas is not just a neoliberal fantasy of elites and the dreaded 'experts' the Leave campaigners dismissed - although continuous work is required to ensure that it is implemented in a more progressive manner. No, it is how many, many people actually want to live their lives. Young people, especially, who voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU, want to be able to travel and work freely throughout the EU - and also want to benefit from the influx of people and goods and ideas into the UK from Europe. That vision is gone, denied by the generation which helped to create the EU and which is now turning its back on the greatest experiment in supranational political and economic integration and interchange the world has seen. Those who have the least to lose from leaving the EU have denied the opportunities to those who could have most benefitted from EU membership.
Does the EU have problems? Of course. Is there an element of democratic deficit? Of course. This is the nature of political institutions - again, they require constant monitoring and adjustment.
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First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has stated that she will do whatever she can to ensure that Scotland stays within the EU - including potentially leaving the UK. While she has begun talks with the EU to consider what that might look like, there is little prospect that Scotland could remain part of the EU without seceding from the UK and joining (or maintaining its membership in) the EU as an independent country. Thus, there will be a second independence referendum, which Westminster would find very hard to stop. And, this is likely to happen quickly, particularly if Scotland has any hope of staying in - or moving swiftly into - the EU while the rest of the UK leaves.
If the second referendum results in a vote to leave the UK, this will make a complex legal, political, and economic situation even more complex. There are significant questions regarding the legality of joining the EU, for example - could Scotland stay in or would it need to leave with the UK and then apply to rejoin? But these questions are as much political as they are legal. And if the EU wants Scotland to be a part of the EU - which most member countries appear to support - there may be political ways to make the process smooth (whereas it is clear that the process for the UK to leave the EU will be anything but smooth). Indeed, given the circumstances it might be smoother than if Scotland had voted to leave the UK two years ago.
Yet, there are still massive questions to be addressed which, as I noted two years ago, have not yet been dealt with in any substantial way. What will the currency be? Alex Salmond asserted that Scotland would just keep the Pound. This is not nearly as straightforward as was asserted two years ago, and would lead to some loss of control of the economy. It would also be a strange choice for a newly independent country. It is an open question as to whether Scotland would have to take the Euro if it left and then applied to rejoin the EU - using the Euro would have plusses and minuses. Maybe it will be the Groat.
There are other economic issues. In 2014 we were told that Scotland would be OK because of its North Sea oil reserves. There are two issues here. The most obvious is that the price of oil has gone through the floor, which has left many thankful that Scotland averted a potential economic disaster. Further, there will have to be negotiations over the division of assets. It is not clear exactly what Scotland would end up with should it vote to leave.
Similarly, what debt would Scotland be saddled with if it left? Again, there were assertions that Scotland could just leave without taking any of the debt with it. I am not sure this is a realistic proposition, so there could be very serious questions about Scotland's economic position from the outset.
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I am not so naive as to think that, should Scotland vote to leave the UK, it would turn into some progressive paradise. There are economic and political realities to be faced, and practical questions, such as what the border with England would look like. And the political coalition which led to independence would likely fall apart to resemble normal politics (how long would the Scottish National Party (SNP) be the dominant political party once it achieved its main goal and all the divergent ideologies and interests represented in the SNP began to reassert themselves?).
But, the politics in Westminster Is anything but normal. It is nasty and self-destructive. It is inward looking and xenophobic. And the vision represented by the politicians who brought us the Brexit mess is at such significant odds with what I would hope politics would look like - and, I believe, at such odds with the dominant political ethos in Scotland - as to be fundamentally incompatible with Scotland staying in the UK. Self-determination may have reached its logical limits. It may well be time for Scotland to chart its own path within an open and welcoming European Union.
On Friday the 24th June Britain woke up split through the middle, with a 51.9% - 48.1% majority decision to leave the EU. Very few, even the Brexiters, had believed Britain would leave the EU after four decades of economic and political benefit. To many it is now going to be a very tortuous journey for Project Europe which has helped keep the peace for decades after two horrific world wars in the last century.
What swayed the vote in the end was the dispossessed and disenfranchised mainly across middle England. The older generation of working class people voted with their feet and kicked back at our political establishment that had failed to help them from poverty and worry over the last few years. The Leave campaign, supported by the tabloids, managed to channel their anger at the EU and immigration. London, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted overwhelmingly to remain. Many who supported the Remain believe that the Leave campaign was based on lies; they consider EU exit as a disaster. An online petition was signed by more than 3.5 million people calling for a second referendum on whether Britain should leave, although it was started by a Leave campaigner.
A soul searching is taking place in some quarters on this outcome for Britain in living memory in this era of globalisation. Some fingers are being pointed at PM David Cameron who may go down in history as the man who has presided over Brexit from Europe. Boris Johnson's political future is also now shattered by the sudden 'treachery' by his Brexit partner Michael Gove.
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Since the Brexit vote, the consequences of this referendum are being strongly felt not only throughout the country but in the rest of the EU countries and across the world. In the immediate aftermath stock markets reacted negatively which was coupled with a sharp depreciation of the pound. The level of uncertainty in the markets has made it difficult for businesses to continue as normal. With some banks already talking about moving some operations out of Britain, fear has now spread to other industries. The overall economic situation is volatile and there are projections from some quarters of a second recession.
The PM wasted no time and resigned on the morning of the referendum result and as the main bulwark in support for Remain he decided not to "clear the mess" the Brexit has caused. This has triggered a leadership contest in the ruling Conservative party with some senior Tories vying for leadership. The uncertainty will remain until the autumn with the potential for a general election afterwards.
The opposition Labour Party is going through a meltdown after an orchestrated campaign, understood to be from the Blairite camp, resulting in four fifths of Labour MPs passing a no-confidence motion in their leader. Mr Corbyn has dug his heel and decided to fight back the leadership challenge by saying "he would not betray the members who voted for him by resigning".
With Westminster politics in disarray it has been a field week for some racists and Islamophobes to turn on vulnerable and minority communities including children and women. The shocking surge in hate crimes, particularly Islamophobia, has been roundly condemned by the PM and London Mayor who called for an end to racist abuse in our town and cities. How long this chaotic period empowers the worst elements in British political life remains to be seen.
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Using bigoted rhetoric for political gains has sadly become a tradition in some developed countries, including Britain. The irony is some of these bigots are often ahead of others in denouncing bigotry. During the campaign, the tone of both camps was viewed as negative. Some Leave campaigners resorted to shameful tactics with one particular UKIP poster, using a picture of thousands of refugees crossing into Slovenia from Croatia during the height of the migrant crisis, being compared to Nazi propaganda. Nigel Farage's statement calling Brexit an 'Independence Day' was termed as both insensitive and offensive.
Both campaigns were led by the political elite, but the Brexit campaign was supported by popular media that whipped up people's raw feelings towards undeserving targets, namely immigrants. Now that vote Brexit has opened up Pandora's Box in our social and political life, we need a strong political leadership to tackle the ensuing social chaos. Without this leadership, confidence in our politics and politicians, having been tainted by the expenses scandal in 2009, will continue to decline.
Neo-conservative arrogance in the first decade of the 21st century destroyed Iraq, with the eventual rise of terrorist groups causing an unprecedented internal displacement of human beings culminating in mass migrations to Europe. The ascendancy of neoliberalism in developed countries with rising inequality and social fractures has the capacity to strike a hammer blow at the social fabric and pit people against one another. We already see physical walls being built or proposed by politicians across the Atlantic. Although walls are merely bricks and mortars that can be easily dismantled, we should all be concerned about the walls that are being created between people - the haves and have-nots.
It is time our politicians see things beyond their short-term vote gains and election wins. It is time ordinary people wake up and do not give into the divisive politics that can give rise to populist, separatist or xenophobic trends. It is vital citizens organise themselves and strengthen their civil society to build political and economic models that serve people's hopes, aspirations and need.
In the aftermath of World War II Dr John Bowlby created his theory of infant attachment. It was such an innovative approach to child psychology in that era that it went on to underpin the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Bowlby proposed that, in essence, the most important outcome of early childhood was to connect the child socially and emotionally to other people. He created the concept of the Internal Working Model, that is if the child's experiences indicate to her that other people are generally caring and helpful and that she herself is worthy of care, she will grow up to believe in her own worth, to trust other people and to be caring and helpful to them in turn. However if experiences in infancy indicate that other people habitually value their own needs over those of the child, this spawns an enduring feeling of worthlessness and eventually, a simmering anger and resentment towards humanity in general.
Bowlby never proposed that his theory had a sociological application; however the result of the EU Referendum and its aftermath gives abundant evidence that this may indeed be the case. The occupants of the Westminster Bubble have been careless of the feelings of those outside for a very long period, giving rise to a growing feeling of collective worthlessness and rejection that, in the words of two 'leave' voters interviewed on BBC's Panorama: 'has flowed into one big, massive sea of anger' that the referendum brought 'to bursting point'.
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The disaffected British population has in this sense behaved as the collective dysfunctional 'offspring' of a 'parental' ruling class whose lack of care most recently sunk to the depths of risking the nation's future as collateral in a high-stakes game of personal one-upmanship that began in the classrooms and playing fields of Eton; 64 million pawns sacrificed to internal Westminster in-fighting in a high-stakes game without a contingency plan.
And so the whole dysfunctional tableau continues to unfold. Following the referendum, in which slightly over half of the population roundly rejected the admonitions of the occupants of Westminster regardless of party political lines, the politicians in turn have roundly rejected the population in order to continue pursuing their own agendas. In the customary manner of inadequate, self-indulgent parents everywhere these 'leaders' do not have the character to even begin to deal with the mess that they have created; after briefly staring into the abyss created by their folly they have abruptly absolved themselves of all consequences and left the considerable reconstruction required for someone else to deal with.
In the customary manner of insecure relationships, these outcomes have been a long time in the making. In the early days of the Blair government, I worked in community education around the economically devastated mining areas of South Yorkshire in which a confused worthlessness was already evident. However this was given scant public voice beyond dark comedy. Examples include the famous 'Coco the Scab' scene in the film Brassed Off and the more subtle dejection of the dole queue in The Full Monty.
This sector of our community was already becoming, in the terms of John Bowlby's associate Mary Ainsworth 'ambivalently attached'; increasingly unsure that anyone in Westminster knew or cared about their situation, or recognised their feelings of abandonment. Indeed, I was horrified when I realised that those I was working with responded to my South London accent as one that they had heard around their villages only once before- from the Police battalions sent by Margaret Thatcher to engage in pitched battle with striking miners. As I got to know my colleagues and students better, I learned that many had up-close and personal experience of 'London calling, see we ain't got no swing /'Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing'.
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Israeli soldiers take part in a military exercise, which includes infantry, tanks and artillery units, in the northern part of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights near the border with Syria on June 23, 2016. / AFP / MENAHEM KAHANA (Photo credit should read MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images)
BEIRUT -- How does Israel read the Middle East these days? Few details on its national security strategy are explicitly and publicly expressed. But at the annual Herzliya Security Conference in mid-June, it was possible to read between the lines of officials' speeches and form a fairly accurate picture of the way those officials interpret the Middle East.
The gist of the Israeli Defense Forces' analysis came from Major General Herzl Halevi, the chief of the IDF's military intelligence directorate. As with most political speeches, the substance lies with just a few enigmatic words.
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"I'm going to say this with all due caution, but there has never been an army that knows as much about its enemy as we know about Hezbollah," the intelligence chief said. "But still, the next war will not be simple, it will not be easy."
For Israel, Hezbollah must be incapacitated or destroyed; war becomes inexorable by implication.
As the Times of Israel laconically commented, Halevi "wouldn't say the next round of violence with the Iran-backed terror group would result in mass casualties among Israel's civilian population, but came close."
It is pretty clear from the context that "the next war" is under careful Israeli consideration. But why? Shouldn't the 100,000 or so modern missiles and the battle experience Hezbollah's fighters have acquired in Syria be a deterrent to an Israeli attack?